Grade: B+
I gotta admit that out of Emma Holly’s yama books, this is the first one I’ve been able to finish. For some reason, I could never get into that world. I have no trouble reading her contemporary work, but her Victorian steampunk stuff always kind of bored me. I couldn’t get past the first few chapters of The Demon’s Daughter and the Midnight books just never did it for me. I wasn’t expecting much when I picked up this book, so imagine my surprise when I found myself devouring it from the very first page. I really enjoyed that the two romantic leads had loved each other as babies and how it develops into an adult love that is breathtakingly sensual. I was impressed by how intelligent and resourceful the heroine is, but at the same time, I was touched by the hero’s vulnerabilities and his struggle to deal with them. The world-building is also phenomenal. It had this old world Far Eastern feel to it complete with emperors, concubines, martial arts, court intrigue, cherry blossoms, and Asian eroticism. The rich, sensual descriptions of everything from the physical aspect of the characters to the colors surrounding them as well as the smells in the air, just added to the trippy, erotic atmosphere. I seriously dug it. Until the last fifty pages, that is. At that point, everything just completely fell apart. The deus ex machina ending, the conventional way the hero saves the heroine, previously unknown folks being brought into the fold so late in the game… it just really killed it all for me. It just didn’t jibe with the tone that Emma Holly had established so early in the book. Disappointed? You bet I was.

(more…)

I’m a huge fan of erotic romance. I like my books chockfull of sex and violence, but I’m wacky like that. I have no problem if there were sex scenes on every other page nor do I care who’s actually having sex—girl/boy, boy/girl/boy, boy/boy—as long as they’re not just throw-away sex scenes and actually do something to advance the plot. If I’m reading your book and I hear a bow-chicka-bow-wow when your characters are about to have sex, I’m going to have hard time taking it seriously and will probably end up rolling my eyes and scoffing instead of getting turned on. But what about when the sexin’ is integral to the plot, but you still hear the porn music? Well, my friends, this book totally answers that for me. I believe I can safely that every single sex scene here is integral to the plot, because each one is executed for the purpose of saving the heroes’ lives. No, I’m not kidding. That is not a joke. The sex in this book is for healing purposes only, just like in… dare I say it… Anita Blake’s world! Okay, that was mean. Evangeline Anderson is a better writer than LKH. Anyway, combined with two of the most cardboard male characters I have ever encountered in the world of fiction—I swear to God, they’re straight out of a Starsky and Hutch fanfic—and a heroine who is so damned naïve and clueless that I just wanted push her out of the way lest she get squashed by a truck, I couldn’t read this book without laughing out loud… unintentionally. On the other hand, the sex is really very super-hot and the world-building, or whatever there is of it, is quite impressive. I swear, if this were a straight buddy-cop sci-fi (with the two male detectives occasionally having sex together), it would be… hey, Evangeline Anderson’s The Assignment!

(more…)

Grade: C+

A lot of writers who receive a bad grade from me claim that I just didn’t understand what they were trying to do with their stories, never mind that their books aren’t even worth the used toilet paper that they’re written on. Well, I can say this for L.E. Bryce. If she wants, she can tell people that I didn’t understand her ebook and she’d be telling the truth. I really didn’t get this thing. Sure, I know that it’s about a nineteen year old boy worrying about losing his youthful good looks and that his lover–who’s old enough to be his father–will turn him out as soon as he becomes a “man.” Yeah, I got that. I also understand that that story is just a frame for another story, which is about a beautiful concubine named Sikku, a man extremely fond of pearls, who loses the only man that could probably make him happy because he couldn’t leave the sea, which is where he supposedly came from. I think. The thread that connects the two of them is a string of black pearls, which is gifted to them by their respective protectors. Or something. I don’t know. This little ebook is only 21 pages, but it gets a little too big for its britches. It just has too much going on at the same time, which the author tries to valiantly contain within the word count. Oddly enough, this little 21-paged ebook had a wields a heftier weight about it than any of the 400-paged pieces of crap that I’ve read lately.
(more…)

Grade: B-

I should have hated this book. The heroine is a simpering, delicate-boned, bonafide China doll whom the hero believes to be “brave” and “selfless” because she’s willing to sell her virgin body to feed her starving sisters, then kill herself for the dishonor of prostituting herself. You read that right. The heroine is Asian. She seems to be an amalgamation of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese and is portrayed as tiny-footed, soft-spoken, timid as a mouse wind-up geisha doll who is rescued by a swashbuckling, very masculine, and obviously American starship captain who witnesses the pathetic creature in distress and falls madly in love. Ugh. I’m obviously a fan of Evangeline Anderson if I could actually get past the first five pages of this stuff without getting outraged on behalf of my Asian sisters and choking to death on my self-righteousness… and vomit. But something strange happened. As I was busy working up some good old-fashioned indignation on behalf of my objectified, stereotyped Asian sisters, I found myself… um… well, turned on, actually. Even as I yelled “Stop it with this Raise the Red Lantern shit already!” I was also thinking, “ooh… that shit is hawt.” It seems Ms. Anderson may have secretly read my mind and unearthed my deep, dark, super-secret fantasy. First the hot, hot gay boys, and now this… Damn you, Anderson. Damn you to hell!
(more…)

Grade:B

There’s nothing I like better than a good Last Man Alive story. If it’s well-written and doesn’t take itself seriously, then I’m all for it. Imagine a planet with a bunch of Xena-types ruling the joint with whips and chains and using men as their personal love slaves. Sounds cool, right? Too bad that the heroine is a wide-eyed bimbo only looking to be saved by a big, brash All-American type named Joe Hero (yes, that’s his real name). This story just had this underlying message that all a strong, capable woman in power needs to want to exhibit her softer, more feminine side is a good deep-dickin’. What the hell is that about? Does that mean that a strong, capable woman would set aside her ambitions for the right man and settle for home, hearth, and babies? Fuck that! For once, however, I was glad that there was some lesbian lovin’ among the women. I’ve read Last Man Alive stories before where there wasn’t one lesbian coupling in the whole bunch. What the hell did these writers think that the women would do when it got a little lonely? Come on now!
(more…)