A Quick & Easy Guide to Asexuality by Molly Muldoon, Will Hernandez

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

It pains me to have to say that this non-fiction 'graphic novel' style of a book will likely not get read by anywhere near as many people as need to read it, and especially not by the ones who have most to learn from it. It's not aimed just at the LGBTQIAP+ community, but also at everyone else. As such, and indeed like that acronym (LGBTQIAP+), it tries to be so inclusive that it risks becoming too nebulous and on one occasion led to a faux pas, but overall, it's a very worthy read for anyone who needs a sort of a baseline introduction into what can be a briar-patch topic.

The problem with this subject, asexuality, as I mentioned in my review of Julia Sondra Decker's book The Invisible Orientation: is that there's a lot of nebulousness inherent in it, and if it isn't handled properly, being vague and fuzzy around the edges can do more harm than good. That's actually why I didn't like the Decker book, a reference to which is included in this book in an all-too-brief section at the end (and in which the author's name is mispelled! It's Decker, not Decke!) My beef with this vague approach is that, in reference to the present work, it risks confirming any possible a priori reader conceptions - such as that asexuality really isn't a thing, or that it's a condition, or that it can be 'cured' with some good therapy.

For me, this book did have a positive approach which made things clear - and it reinforced those things, and typically did not undermine the message by meandering or rambling, or otherwise muddying the water, although my understanding is that the 'A' in LGBTQIAP+ refers to asexual (and including aromantic and agender) and does not refer to 'ally', as important as those are. I think this is a problem with inclusivity: in trying to get as much support as possible and inviting everyone under the banner, the community has sometimes made itself a source of disenchantment and disagreement about who exactly should be in, as it were, and perhaps risking diluting the message, which ultimately and in simple form, is that there's nothing wrong with being different.

This disagreement has been running through the movement for decades and in a variety of forms though. People have asked, 'should the community only by gay and lesbian, and other persuasions, orientations, statuses (or however you want to term them) should be under a different banner?' Others might argue that LGBTQI should be in but the 'A' not included, and so on. In short, it's a bit of a mess. Frankly, for me, there are much bigger battles to fight, and these relatively petty skirmishes are not helpful. This is precisely why these various groups need to work together. Maybe once the big battle is won, those disagreements will not seem so important.

But I liked this book. I like that it keeps it simple and straight forward, to reduce the risk of confusing issues and confusing people. It was short and well-written by Molly Muldoon, and it was decently illustrated and diversly-drawn in grayscale by Will Hernandez, so it's very much an own-voices publication. That doesn't mean everyone will agree with how it was written here, but it does mean it's another source of information. It has a light tone and is very informative. It sends a positive and clear message, and I considered it a worthy read.

Sleepwalking by Cara Malone

Rating: WARTY!

The blurb describes this as a novella, but at only 15,000 words, it's actually a novelette. For me, I'd call it a prologue and had I known that's all it was I would never have embarked upon it. I don't do prologues. It was only some sixty screens on my phone where I do most of my ebook reading, so it's a fast read, but that's usually not a good recommendation for me!

The problem with a story like this is that you know exactly how it's going to end, so what the author has to offer you is an interesting way to get there, and this author seemed like she was dedicatedly pursuing the most predictably plodding route she could map. On top of that, there were multiple grammatical and other problems. If the story had been enthralling, I would have not paid so much attention to them, but in so short a story, it bothered me that there were so many silly errors.

I read, for example, what's turning out to be an increasingly common goof in YA stories. One character had a "geometric deer skull tattooed on her bicep." Nope! It's biceps, unless the vperson seeing this has weird x-ray vision and could see through the skin to an actual bicep, which is one of two attachments that the biceps muscle has to the scapula. Each bicep joins to form the biceps which is the bulge we see when the arm is flexed.

Later I read, "Okay, fine. If that's your criteria." Criteria is a plural. In this case what was needed was the singular: 'criterion'. These two main characters are a senior college student and a college graduate, and both are English majors, so this ineptitude in employing the English language is not only inexcusable, it's laughable. Unfortunately, standards are definitely falling.

In another variety of problem, I read, "Morgan righted the coffee table and set the empty glass down..." This is the same empty glass that Morgan had already placed in the sink a few paragraphs before. Another such issue was when I read, "That's when the term 'bipolar' first came into their lives." Nope! Morgan mentions that term twice before, so it had already been in their lives prior to this!

Right after the bipolar, there was about three paragraphs where Morgan begins by taking out her phone and doing a search for something, and ends by closing her laptop! I want a phone that morphs effortlessly into a laptop! Again, really sloppy writing. This author takes no pride in her craft.

Later, I read, "Leah took her outstretched hand and it was like electricity was firing between their palms" Ri-ght.... Seriously? This sounded far too ridiculous even as a figure of speech. Further on, I read, "What was so special about Leah that it could make Morgan cast aside six years of happiness for an illicit kiss in a coffee shop?" Nope. Morgan had already said it had been some three years of relative bliss before things had begun to go downhill, so there was no such six years, and that certainly applies to their recent history. In fact, it's Morgan's miserable relationship that triggered her interest in Leah. It was like the author had repeated instances where she couldn't remember what she'd written just a short time before - either that or she simply didn't care about what she was writing, and if she doesn't, why the hell should I?

Anyone can make a goof-up or even several, but when there are so many in such a short space in a story that's already dropping below being so-so, it's too many for me. But let's look at the quality of the story itself rather than the actual text it was written in. The first of the two main characters is college senior Leah McAllister, who is apparently pursuing an English degree, but has no clue what she will do with it once she graduates. This doesn't make her look too smart.

I mean, she's had three years of college already, yet not once in those years has she really had any inspiration about what she'll do after her senior year or, given she has no idea, why she's still doggedly pursuing this English major instead of trying something new and of more utility to her. This doesn't make her at all appealing to me as someone I want to read about unless something truly weird and wonderful is going to happen, and I don't include falling in lust in such a list. This is also a problem with this story - as so often happens in these 'romance' tales. The author badly confuses lust with love and it makes the story shallow, stupid, and unappealing.

Further rendering Leah stupid is her ridiculous and persistent denial that she's at least bisexual and more likely, an out-and-not-out lesbian. If she were in high-school, this confusion over her sexual leaning might be understandable, and even as a college freshman you can probably get away with it, but as a senior after three years or more of college? No. I don't buy it this at all, especially when virtually the first thing she does in this story is have a totally random hookup with a female named Christy, who is pretty much a complete stranger, in an alley behind a bar. I mean, seriously?

Leah allows Christy to digitally bring her to an orgasm - apparently the most powerful she's ever had - and afterwards the two part and never see each other again (not in this prolog anyway), and Leah is still having doubts? She's a frigging moron, period! And worse, she exhibits zero capacity to learn and no smarts about delving into a potential partner's sexual history before engaging in sex with them. Christy doesn't even wash her hands before taking her out into the alley and fingering her for fuck's sake!

Morgan, the other main character is in her mid-twenties and has been in a relationship for six years with this girl Ali, with whom she lives. Ali is undiagnosed bipolar sufferer - as far as Morgan can tell from scrolling on her morphing phone. Apparently she's tried to talk Ali into getting medical help but Ali reacts badly to that, yet not once has Morgan thrown down the gauntlet and said let's get help before we break up this relationship for good, nor has she suggested couples therapy so she shares that burden with Ali.

It's like Ali's sole purpose in this story is to be an albatross around Morgan's neck; an artificial impediment to her getting it on with Leah right from the off. Or getting off with Leah right from the on! LOL! Despite Morgan supposedly caring for Ali, she doesn't authentically behave at all like she cares. She never tries to sit and talk with Ali or to discuss this situation to maybe figure out what changed or how - like did something in their environment cause this change? Was it something in her diet?? Is it age related or tied to some past viral infection? She considers none of this. Her entire effort seems to be repeatedly looking up the online definition of bipolar and then closing her laptop that used to be a phone. It's pathetic. She never has even considered going to her own doctor or to a support group to ask her how she can best approach dealing with Ali.

The worst thing about this relationship is that Ali had been (with Morgan's knowledge and cooperation) trying to get pregnant through implants. This despite that the last three years (as far as I can tell - the text is vague) not exactly being a bed of roses, and despite Morgan having this bipolar suspicion - which is especially relevant to any attempt to get pregnant and ought to have been raised with the implant doctor, but evidently wasn't. So Morgan is a moron too.

In short there were far too many issues, too little authenticity and a plethora of poor writing techniques and choices. I cannot commend this at all.

Lust by Hildred Billings

Rating: WARTY!

Errata: "Not is was putrid." Say what? I have no idea what the author meant by this sentence! 'nor was it putrid' maybe? "Not when Lust pushed beneath the sweaty silk of Mercy's breasts and discovered her breasts." Huh? "Lust cried out with a high, wanting peal as Mercy gave in to her latent nymphomania" Wanting or wanton? Latent nymphomania?

Having enjoyed the first novel by this author that I had ever read, I embarked upon reading several more, but not a one of those others was anywhere near up to the same standard as that one. Even that had some issues, but I was willing to let those slide because the rest of the story was a decent effort. This one however, was a sorry excuse for a story and not even a novel - it's really a short story at best designed as a loss-leader to lure readers in to a series. I typically detest series and this effort only served to reinforce that view.

This is nothing more than a sex romp and has no story to tell. Ostensibly it's about this young woman named Mercy who has come to the end of her tether and right as she's about to throw herself off a bridge, this 'goddess' Acedia shows up to save her. In reality, Acedia never was a god. It was one of the original eight deadly sins along with the more familiar seven: Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, Wrath, but it got dropped or lost somehow.

This book has it that Acedia is actually a goddess who has seven incarnations, and this series, which I am not pursuing, the first of these 'avatars' is named Lust of course, and she's unleashed upon Mercy, like all she needs to shed her suicidal thoughts is to get laid good. Barf. I think this was an entirely wrong-headed approach. The series talks like it's performing some sort of a public service in addressing issues, but it's not. You can't 'cure' a suicide by getting them laid. It doesn't work like that, and it's shameful that this author doesn't know better. I cannot commend this; on the contrary, I condemn it. It was more bad writing and I am done with this author now.

Stay Here Tonight by Hildred Billings

Rating: WARTY!

Errata: "not thinking of the bad things that's happened to her." - this employs an incorrect verb person. It should read, "not thinking of the bad things that have happened..." "director Francis Ferrari, bedecked in a floor-length gown and letting her brown curls fly free" This is maybe not an error, but usually the female from of this name is Frances. "The paparazzi was out in full force" Paparazzi is plural. The singular form is paparazzo, named after a character in a Fellini movie. The feminine form is paparazza "She's biting at the chomp to date me." Chomping at the bit....

This novel is essentially a clone of Billings's novel Hold me which I actually liked. This one is really the same story: a high profile, rich, sexually promiscuous woman who 'won't be tamed' falls for a 'commoner'. It's also one of those ludicrous "let's dishonestly pretend we're a couple" stories that inevitably, predictably, tediously, boringly becomes a real romance. Yeah. Right. Okay.

The story again had endless, dangerously risky sexual behavior without consequence. Again it had a cold fish power woman and a magical lower-level woman who falls for her. Again it mistook hot sex for a loving relationship. I grew tired of it quickly. I think I have one more Billings novel to read on my list, but whether I'll get to it after this is another matter! I certainly can't commend a 'write by numbers' novel like this one at all and the lack of attention to the detail of getting her English right was annoying.

January Embers by Hildred Billings

Rating: WARTY!

This book stopped me dead in my tracks at chapter two when I saw that it was going to be a two-person PoV novel. No thanks. It wasn't even first person - it was third person, but still the author evidently experienced this inexplicable need to split the narrative and even be repetitive. Why? I dunno. I wasn't exactly enamored of it from the first chapter, but I was willing to give it a chance until I encountered that tediously pedantic approach. It contributes nothing to the story and it means every chapter has to have a label to identify whose thoughts we're sharing. Barf. No thanks. This is one of several of this authors books I will review, only one of which i actually liked!

Hold Me by Hildred Billings

Rating: WORTHY!

Errata: "In Sapporo she would text a friend or gone to a party to score some sex." should read ‘have gone’ or 'would go’? "She bore her teeth" - No! She bared her teeth! "Jun was always one who treaded it with trepidation." - 'Trod'. "as Jun brought their vulva together" - 'Vulvas' "She chose the softest voice had" - 'she had'

This was, overall, an enjoyable read. I fell in love with the main character Junri - unrequited as it was! It was a chalk and cheese romance between two women who were not only set apart by a decade in age, but who also hail from widely different backgrounds: Junri Isoya being heir to a hotel empire - if she plays her cards right - and Saya Nemoto being an itinerant worker from a relatively backward part of Japan. They meet when Saya rebels against an abusive coworker. Junri intervenes, and the relationship continues on and off as Saya swings back through her 'home base' of Nagoya between jobs.

Junri isn't happy at being sent to manage the Nagoya hotel, but her uncle, the current chairman, tells her she is badly in need of experience before he can consider her as an elligible heir for taking over when he retires. After resolving the harrassment dispute, Junri never expects to see Saya again, and is both unnerved and excited to find her waiting in the corridor by her temporary hotel accommodation that night.

Thus begins their on-again off again relationship as Saya drifts in and out of Junri's life between working trips to different parts of the country, alternately thrilling her and driving her to distraction as Junri falls ever more deeply for the feisty, exciting, enigmatic, and intriguing young woman.

I really enjoyed this for the most part, but I ran into an issue here and there which took some of the pleasure away. I found the acciental encounters between Junri and Saya to stretch credibility too much: that in all of Tokyo, for example, they should both happen to be riding the same train at the same time and encoutner one another. Additionally, it was a bit much to swallow that one night when Junri is out having a few drinks, she just happens to be walking down the precise alley behind the exact bar that Saya exits right as Junri passes the door.

I also didn't like that Junri so readily leapt into bed with complete strangers without a moment's thought about STDs. We live in a world rife with them, and some are becoming more and more resistant to treatments. Some are deadly; some are debilitating. Naturally no one wants a rather explicit and erotic story like this to screech to a halt for a lecture on veneral disases right in the middle of the 'action', but a word of caution carefully embedded in the characters' exchanges here and there would be entirely appropriate.

Reading this, it seemed to me that someone as smart as Junri wouldn't take such risks, not when her career was at stake and she was so proper and cautious in all other aspects of her life, so this lack of concern betrayed her character quite glaringly. There's a big difference between trading partners within a small group of trusted friends, and wantonly stepping outside that group, and thereby betraying everyone in it. It would surely ring alarm bells for someone like Junri, yet it never did; never once were STDs talked about between anyone in the entire story. That, to me, is a big problem with novels of this nature. I think authors have a responsibility and it makes me sad to see so many of them shirk it.

There were some writing issues, such as when I read, for example, "she could still smell Saya’s body in the sheets" - this was two months after Saya had left. Seriously? Yuk! Those sheets wre in dire need of a serious wash! At another point, I read, "who was used to sex in public sometimes" which felt badly-worded. Something like 'used to occasional sex in public' would sound better. Later, I read, "In the countryside, with people who don’t judge others" yet Saya's whole problem had stemmed from her growing up in exactly such a place, so this made no sense to me!

These were relatively minor issues which I see often, especially in novels which are one-person operations without the might and mein of a big publishing conglomerate behind them, complete with book editors and so on. For me, the biggest let-down was the reveal of Saya's 'problem' toward the end of the novel. It would be easier to talk about this were I to publish a spoiler here, but I won't do that.

I'll just confine myself to saying that I felt let-down when this supposedly relationship-crippling issue turned out to be such a mundane and minor one when all was said and done. It felt like a betrayal of Saya's character. This was a woman who had proven herself to be impressively resilient, strong, and independent. It seemed to me like this 'problem' would have been been the least of Saya's worries, and yet it's built-up to be this towering onstacle when it really isn't anything at all, especially given Junri's position of wealth and power. In my opinion, that whole bit ought to have been changed to turn it into something truly critical, or it ought to have been ditched altogether, and Saya's objections left to what were really potential problems, such as Saya's itinerary lfiestyle versus Junri's necessarily static one. I never did consider their age difference to be an issue.

But the author had won me over plenty before this happened, so I wasn't going to let this sour me on the whole story, which for the most part, was well-written, inventive, amusing, absorbing, and heart-warming. I commend it as a worthy read. This (the novel not my review!) was published in 2013, and there's a suggestion at the end of it that there could be a book 2. Whether this materialized or not, I have no idea, but I am not a fan of series, so I doubt I will read any sequels. I do intend to read other novels by this author, however.

Buzz by E Davis

Rating: WARTY!

After I finished an entertaining sci-fi read, it took me a while to find a book I actually wanted to read next, and this turned out to be it. Several I had on my unread list were first person so I decided to save myself some grief and I skipped those. A couple of others I started reading and found that they simply didn't appeal, so I skipped those. When I started this, it seemed like it might be the exception, but in short order, I became convinced it had been a mistake to even start reading this, it was so full of trope and so amateurishly written.

I mean, we're told that the main charcter, is “a guy who did a carpentry apprenticeship” but we're also told that he's been on the ice since he was three with a lifelong crdream to play professional ice hockey, so when and where in hell did he end up doing a carpentry apprenticeship? Akso, what's with the title? Buzz? It plays zero part in the story - at least in the part I could stand to read.

This was about this gay guy, Cameron Riley, who wants to be an ice hockey professional - which is a bit of a cliché I admit - but it turned out he had some sort of problem which the doctors are trying to figure out, so he can't play for a while (and that's the end of ice hockey in this story BTW), Cameron travels to stay with his older brother, who is also gay of course because gods forbid there should be any straight guys or cis women in a LGBTQIA story! Naturally, his sabbatical is where he meets Noah Clark, the love of his life, so there's some telegraphing going on here and once in a while, the author appears to forget she wrote something, so she repeats it or contradicts it a few screens later.

For example, at one point early in the story when Cameron is hospitalized after fainting on the ice, his brother Jackson messages him saying "On my way, should be there tonight." Shortly after this, when Jackson shows up, I read, "The mix of expressions on Cameron's face made Jackson smile: confusion, then surprise and joy." So did Cameron not recall reading the message announcing his brothers intended arrival? Or did the author simply forget she'd written that earlier part?

In another example, early in the novel, Cameron's boyfriend, Nathan, a complete asshole and not in a good way, texts Cameron to dump him saying he's had enough of his drama and he's moving out. The extreme cruelty of this message makes a reader wonder what the hell shit Cameron has been pulling to piss off a guy like that, so it's not a good idea to have your character become free in such a manner. This cliché was no surprise though, since in stories like these, you evidently have to have the wounded gay guy looking for love (yawn). In fact that's the worst time to get into another relationship, but not long after that point, I read of Cameron wondering to himself about Nathan, "Would they become ugly roommates now?" How are they remotely to be roommates of any hue, if Nathan is summarily moving out? Again, the author quite evidently forgot what she'd written.

The misleading book blurb - typically written by some dipshit who never read the book and has no real clue about it (or anything else for that matter, hence my series of Non-Reviews that I post periodically!) - claims that Cameron is the bad boy, but there's nothing to support this in the story at all. In short, and as usual, the blurb lies. I was so relieved this wasn't first person PoV because it would have been a real nightmare. As it was switching unnecessarily between three perspectives when the main character's PoV was more than sufficient was just dumb writing and made for an unpleasant read.

I finally quit reading when three houses came onto the market and all three brohers each liked a different one, and decided there and then to jump up and buy them so they could all hang out together like a frigging bunch of bananas. Barf. I know this is intended as a series, but WTF? I honestly could not stand to read another sentence in this jackass story.

Cyber's Change by Jamie Davis

Rating: WARTY!

This is a sci-fi novel set in 2055 in, of course, the USA, because why else would anyone ever consider reading it?! It was over the top and had some issues, and while I had initially intended to give this a positive rating, the more I wrote of this review, the more I realized how sadly lacking the story was, and despite my having read it all and enjoyed parts of it, I really cannot in good faith rate this positively. Maybe I'd considered doing that because I'm just getting too sentimental. Or maybe I've read so many really bad books that even a middling novel sounds like it's worthy? Or maybe I just like LGBTQIA stories, even if they're less than stellar? I dunno! But to be fair to other reviews, I cannot honestly rate this positively given all the problems it exhibited.

On the good side, this story is made more believable by the inane excesses of intolerance generated over the last four years and the dire consequences those years have scarred the USA with. It shows that there are almost as many assholes in this country as there are decent people and it's a toss-up who will actually make the biggest impression on life here. Much like the nation, in the story, the main two characters are diametrically opposed at least ostensibly in this novel. One of them, Cass, was raised in a cult known as the Sapiens Movement, which believes that any cybernetic enhancement of humans, even for medical reasons, and regardless of how little or much it is invasive, makes a person less than human and not worthy of equal treatment.

Rather than go to a sapiens-approved college, Cass elects to go to a regular school, explaining to her family that if she's to help them in the movement, she must understand what they're up against. For reasons which are left unexplored, much less explained, her parents go along with this. Cass hasn't been honest with her roomie about her extreme beliefs and when she learns of Shelby's enhancements, she's dishonest with her parents about those, too. Cass is also a lesbian, and this is a problem in the sense that, if her parents are so dead set against anything unnatural, how is it they're so accepting of her being queer? Why do they not consider that unnatural? There's no consideration, let alone explanation, offered for this apparent contradiction in their beliefs.

Cass has been video-conferencing with her roommate to be, who she hasn't met in person. When they do meet, Cass discovers that Shelby, on a whim, has had one of her perfectly good arms removed and replaced by a mechanical one which has enhanced features (essentially it's a cybernetic Swiss army knife with a storage compartment). There never was any really compelling reason offered for her to make this choice, and no accounting for the fact that this major surgery was not done in a hospital, but in a cut-rate dive where unqualified or disqualified people do these surgeries and there's no government regulation!

This would be a major point in the favor of the Sapiens's position, yet never once is it used, nor is Cass appalled by how slapdash and dangerous this work is, not to say illegal! Shelby also has brain implants that allow her to access the internet without a terminal. The Internet - for reasons unexplained - is renamed the 'mantle' here. I doubt that will ever happen! It didn't feel organic and felt much more like the author had changed it solely for the purpose to trying to sound cool. Rather than cool, to me a mantle sounds vaguely threatening, like something an octopus traps its prey under before eating it!

The 'romance' between the two main characters was skirted around rather than plunged into. As important as it was, it deserved better than this. The author skips several weeks of their interactions, and after that unexplored period, we're just told they're an item - so all the magic and charm of their falling for each other is lost and this negatively and severely impacts the believability of their relationship. It makes it feel like it happened overnight although technically it did not.

I got the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the author is squeamish (or something) when it comes to depicting lesbian interaction. Why he would be, I don't know, but he offers virtually zero physical contact between the two of them at any point in the story; there's barely any hugging, touching, or kissing, let alone actual sex. Instead, he leaves us to infer it from a line here and a word there. This was less than satisfactory and made their relationship seem truly inauthentic, which in turn spoiled all of their subsequent actions.

On a trip to the Caribbean, Cass has a serious jet ski accident that almost kills her. Here's where another problem arises. Shelby supposedly has strong feelings for Cass, and knows perfectly well how anti-enhancement she is, yet she dishonestly lies to the medical staff about how tight their relationship is, and speaks for Cass as though they're married - or at least engaged. They're not! But Shelby overrides any considerations Cass might have had and while the latter is unconscious, Shelby supports and urges the doctors to save her life with enhancements. This is part of a push this novel exhibited from the start: that Cass's feelings and position are wrong and Shelby is right. No consideration, not even token, is given to Cass's position.

Cass is over eighteen and technically an adult, but she can't speak for herself after her injury, and never once does Shelby contact Cass's parents to let them know her daughter was at death's door. This felt like truly shifty behavior on Shelby's part , but the worst aspect of this is that Cass is pretty much completely accepting of it when she recovers consciousness. Despite her horror of enhancement and her upbringing, she doesn't fly off the handle at Shelby. There is no rift in their relationship! Again it felt completely unnatural. It's almost like Cass is "Oh, now I'm cyber! How awful! But okay, moving right along...." Honestly, it's that bad. Again, it's like the author had this agenda to push and nothing would trip it up. A fight between the roomies over this would have added so much more to the story, but the author evidently never considered it.

One of the biggest problems with this story is that we're in the future. Even now, a generation before this story begins, we're out there in terms of interconnectedness. Everyone has a platform and everyone is taking video and streaming it. How much more is that going to be the case in the future? Yet time and time again in this story, the author forgets how connected his world is. Of Shelby's ultra-cyber-ized brother Eric, I read, "He doesn't know you the way I do and he doesn't understand what I've learned since we've been together." Yet this is her brother who she's constantly sending messages back and forth to, directly from her own brain. It's inconceivable that she wouldn't have given him information about Cass, even if only in snippets in all those weeks they were sharing a room. Eric even mentions that he's heard a lot about Cass when they finally meet, yet Shelby apparently thinks he knows nothing? It made no sense.

Eric tells his sister: "I'll send you the final details on the time and place we're meeting in the morning Saturday as soon as we iron out our permits." Yet they're constantly in touch in the cyber-sphere. This lack of knowledge made no sense. During a protest, Shelby again isn't communicating so we're led to believe: "We have to get up to the front and help my brother. He doesn't know we're surrounded." How could he not know when everyone is connected? She can't text him? Can't send him an image? Can't send him a video? No-one else can? Once again, the author forgets his premise.

Even in 2021, scores upon scores of people shop online and get meals and groceries delivered more routinely than ever, yet I read, "She rode the elevator down to the ground floor and headed out to the street. It was time to get some shopping in." This was to buy food. Apparently a generation from now there's no more delivery? The author hasn't thought it through. With regard to test-taking we learned, "the professor can turn off access locally. The classrooms utilize a sort of virtual Faraday cage to shut down my implant's access during tests and quizzes. That ensures I actually learn the material." Yet they can't shut down local storage. Shelby could have entire textbooks stored in her implant and cheat up the wazoo, yet the author apparently never considers this.

Naturally 'dad of Cass' discovers his daughter's implants despite her efforts to lie to him and despite the fact that never once does she consider trying to ease her dad into her new way of life. Never once does she try to present an opposing view to his. Never once does she offer the argument that, "dad, if you don't want his stuff, that's fine! No-one' forcing you, but neither do you have the right to force others to live their lives like you want them to!"

There were so many ways that Cass could have eased the passage and been the very bridge she claims she wants to be if she'd had even half a spine, but she repeatedly fails. Predictably this results in dad finding out accidentally because he comes back to her dorm room after they think he's left and their door is open. The question is though - since he'd left the building, how did he manage to get into a secure building when he has no pass? This is quietly glossed over.

Psycho father flies off the handle and swears Cass is done with this school, but inexplicably, he doesn't try to drag her out of there! Instead he's talking about her finishing out the semester, so later, Cass tells Shelby, "No, you go and talk to Eric. That's important too." Why does she need to 'go and talk to Eric' about this when she can video-conference him right out of her brain? Again, the author hasn't thought his own world through.

Talking of which - in passing - there are no robots or drones mentioned at all in this world despite the fact that we have them ubiquitously even now. No robots helping the police quell a mob? No news drones filming from above? Again the sparsity of technology and the lack of foresight in this world was sad.

When Eric is injured during a protest rally, he's told, "Eric, we have to do something about what they did to you. We have to tell someone and take them to court or something." And we're apparently expected to believe that with all these cyber-enhanced people, and all the news media, and all the private citizens who have cell phones, not a single one of them recorded or live-streamed any of this?

This is a constant theme in the novel - of how utterly-connected the enhanced people are, but how appallingly sparse is the video coverage, even of activity like this. It made zero sense and constantly betrayed the author's prime position. And on top of this, we're expected to believe every police officer hates the enhanced, despite the fact that there would doubtlessly be enhanced officers and officers with enhanced children or spouses. Given the crime-fighting advantages a connected officer would have, there would more than likely have been an enhanced squad of police, just like there's a bomb squad and a SWAT team. Again, the author hasn't thought his world through, and it suffers for it.

It was for all of these serious writing problems and plot holes that I cannot consider this a worthy read.

When Angels Fall by Sherryl D Hancock

Rating: WARTY!

This started out badly-written, and it got worse. I read this right close to the beginning:

"He's single," the woman said, as if confirming it for Devin. It took Devin a second to realize that the woman obviously thought she was trying to pump her for information on Jams. She laughed nervously, shaking her head. "Oh, no, I wasn't," she began

This is what happens when an author doesn't pay attention to what she's writing. Devin here isn't answering something the other woman said; she's answering something the author wrote as narration, so Devin's answer makes zero sense.

The story started by having the air force pilot (and the initials of the title spell 'WAF' - a World War Two abbreviation for Women's Air Force'), Skyler Boché, speaking perfectly normally and then after a couple of pages she's suddenly off and running in some sort of attempt at Cajun speech, and it's so unintelligible at times that I gave up on it. Yes, by all means a word or two here and there, but pigeon English? No! I might have read a bit more were it not for that, but I really didn't like her anyway for her smoking, and it soon became clear she was going to be the moody, petulant one, so no. Just no. And what's with that name? Skyler originally comes from the Dutch for Scholar, so although it is found in Louisiana, it's hardly a popular name, but Boché? That is French, but it's French for an insulting word for a German. Is this really what the author wanted to convey?

On top of all that, Devin is out there hassling this poor air force pilot who clearly wants time to herself yet Devin is buzzing around her like a fly, and she never gives up. She's annoying as hell. I just wanted to swat her. This book had way too much baggage going on, and that was in just the first few tedious pages.

The Falcon's Heart by Diana Green

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an enjoyable story, albeit with some issues. I decided to read it because it reminded me in some small ways of my own Femarine. This novel is set in a fantasy world of deserts and magic and it's set in some time past where none of our modern mechanical and electrical wonders are yet in existence, but the world building at times refers to things - such as clocks - that appear not to exist in any form in this world. There were things in such times, such as water clocks, candle clocks, and hour glasses, that could tell time, but none of these are mentioned either.

The magic also has issues with consistency in that it seems to morph to fit the author's current needs rather than exist as its own entity. For example, one of the two main characters, Saba, is supposedly an empath, but apart from a mention at the beginning of the story, this power appears never to be used and indeed deserts her when she could really use it. It felt odd, but not a story killer for me although it seemed like a glaring omission at times when she was trying to understand the feelings of her captor.

Her captor is the Falcon - a female bandit and leader of a group of desert-dwelling thieves, eking out their own existence in a land where a selfish and ambitious pasha - Saba's father - is determined to usurp ever more land and power to satisfy his greed. In order to try to free a friend through a trade, the Falcon kidnaps Saba and whisks her away deep into the desert mountains, but Saba's father seems uninterested in making any deal to recover her despite her value as an aliance-builder when he offers her in marriage. He finds himself reliant on a sorcerer to track her down - the very one who wishes to have Saba's hand in marriage.

During their time together, of course, Saba and the Falcon fall for each other and eventually end up together, so the story is quite predictable from the off. It has no real surprises or problems to overcome. It's a light, harmless, decent, if rather fluffy story that I enjoyed despite the minor issues, so on these terms, I commend it as a worthy read, although I still prefer my own Femarine! Call me biased!

When Sparks Fly by Kristen Zimmer

Rating: WORTHY!

Normally I’d avoid a novel with a title like this because it's too much pretention, and there were a couple of times reading this that I wondered about the wisdom of continuing, but there was enough to keep my interest and to keep it fresh, and it told a sweet story of two engaging people. It was first person, too, but that wasn't obnoxious. Some authors can carry it, some stories can too, but to find the sweet intersection between those two is not easy.

This author did it successfully, but my objections to first person still apply even here, because there were two other important characters in this novel who were interesting and truly attractive to a reader, yet we didn't get their PoV because it was all Britton all the time. I think the story lost something because of that. Either of these characters could have told their own story because all three perspectives were equally engaging, but three 1PoVs would have ruined it - which begs the question as to why it wasn't told in third. First gear is far too trudging!

So anyway, Britton Walsh is a foster kid who's had the worst of the system: cruelty, abuse, and misery. She's learned to have a hard shell, to not give, to keep herself to herself and her feelings tightly under wraps. Just turned eighteen, she's aiming to finish high school and get free of all of this to start her own life at last. She's spending these last few months in the care of Tom and Cate Cahill who happen to have a daughter only slightly younger than Britton, but whereas Britton is a soft butch lesbian, their daughter, Avery is, at first glance, your standard queen bee cheerleader. She's popular, fashionable, great-looking, and doing well in school.

The idiot book description, evidently always written by some jackass who never read the book, claims Britton is "beginning her senior year with new foster parents in a new city" but that's not true. She's lived in this area all her life. She just happens to be in a new high school. She has a hard time adjusting because she's never had caring parents like Tom and Cate. She was given up by her bio-parents at birth because she had a heart defect. That's long been fixed, but her parents had no interest in her. Tom and Cate do. This makes it all the more difficult that Britton has a crush on Avery. It’s doubly-bad because Avery is hetero as far as Britton knows, and other than being friendly, has no interest in Britton - who Avery knows is queer.

Britton seems to have found an outlet for her urges though, in the form of Spence - Valerie Spencer - who is an out lesbian attending the same school. She and Britton begin hanging out, but Avery warns her foster sister about her new love interest several times. Now Britton is strung between two groups - the misfit crowd who Spence hangs with, and the elite crowd Avery hangs with, trying to navigate new and sometimes rather hostile waters.

I had some minor issues over a couple of aspects of the story. Why the author insisted upon having both the main love interests be eighteen before anything more than kissing occurred is a mystery since the age of consent in Massachusetts is sixteen, not eighteen! Secondly, in light of this, Cate's 'house rules' toward the end were a bit bizarre given that both girls were eighteen at this point. But I was happy to let that slide. It’s no great big deal. Just odd is all.

That said, this story takes interesting and often unexpected paths to its satisfying conclusion and in the end, I really enjoyed it a lot.

Dating Nashville by Ann Maree Craven, Michelle MacQueen

Rating: WARTY!

Erratum: "Some things were bound to change, but others never did not." What the hell does that mean, exactly?!

Is this Dating Him #1 or Discovering Me #1? Who knows. Maybe it's discovering me dating him? This story, which borrows heavily from MTV's Faking it 'comes out' as one about a huge rarity: a gay country singer, but the truth is that there's a score of gay and lesbian country performers already out, so this isn't exactly a hen's teeth situation.

It was a huge fail for me not because of that though, but because so much is telegraphed all the time that it feels like déjà vu all over again reading it. It's not so much telling instead of showing as broadcasting instead of showing! On top of that, the behaviors described for assorted people in the story were not remotely realistic, and worse, the main relationship was thoroughly inauthentic and the two main characters essentially, were dicks. Which I guess is appropriate!

The story is set in a bewildering world of people. I assume each of these gets their own story that has been or will be told in other novels which the publisher and authors clearly want you to spend your hard-earned money on. Not me. I'm done and I managed only about 25% of this before I tired of the nonsensical story. The idea is that rising country star "Becks" is an older friend of a guy named Nikki who is having a rough time with his bi boyfriend. Well, deal with it Nikki! He's bi and he's young. It's going to be a while before he settles on anyone - assuming he ever does. The thing is that the two of them (B&N, not N & boyfriend) have never had a relationship other than as distant friends and Becks has had virtually no contact in two years since his career began taking off.

So neither one of this pair has even thought about any sort of intimacy with the other, yet one night when playing a concert, Becks sees Nikki in the audience looking upset while confronting his boyfriend who is with a girl. This is the boyfriend that Nikki already has given up on, so we're told, so the upset seems fake at best. Becks's behavior is even more so since he jumps off the stage in the middle of his concert and kisses Nikki, thereby exposing him to publicity, which is the last thing the younger man craves.

Despite Becks not being that big of a star (which was why he was playing that venue rather than a large, packed stadium), we're expected to believe that the media world explodes, that paparazzi are everywhere demanding answers, and his recording company is demanding he run with this gay aspect because it's trending. I'm sorry but this is horseshit. None of it makes any sense. If Becks is such a huge star, his recording company can hardly hold him to ransom over this, and if Becks is such a rebel, why does he so meekly fall into line? He's not even that big of a star, so who cares about his domestic trivia, really? The story is all over the place and it doesn't gel.

For the most part it was written decently in terms of good English, although the story wasn't where it needed to be. One oddball thing I read stuck with me: "And you know as well as I that gay is just a label." Um... I'm not sure what the authors are trying to say here, but I am sure they could have worded it a lot better! So all in all - or all in one quarter anyway, I can't commend this.

When Harry Became Sally by Ryan T Anderson

Rating: WARTY!

Tell me, Mr. Anderson: what good is a book if you're unable to write one?

The book description for this religious diatribe tells you all you need to know about the non-content of this LGBTQIA 'Hate-Moment'.  It begins by asking: "Can a boy be 'trapped' in a girl’s body?"  The short anser is 'yes', and vice-versa.  Gender is not binary,  it never has been.  It's a sliding scale, no matter what in-denial and i;;l-informed wannabe writers like Mr Anderson claim.

Mr Anderson, bigotry and hate speech are a disease; a cancer of this planet. LGBTQIA haters are a plague, and common-sense, science, and tolerance are the cure.

"Can modern medicine 'reassign'sex?" the description asked.  Yes it can. Hundreds of people are living proof.

I'm going to enjoy watching this book die, Mr. Anderson.

"Is our sex 'assigned' to us in the first place?"  No, it isn't.  There are chemical changes necessary in the body and these can start and stop anywhere along the scale.  The penis is nothing more than a repurposed clitoris.  A fetus is not conceived either with a penis or with a vagina.  Those organs grow, cued by genetics and hormones, and they stop when they're done regardless of whether they leave behind a perceived 'binary' female, a perceived 'binary' male, or something anywhere in between the two. if this is wrong, how does Mr Anderson account for true intersexed individuals? That's the 'I' in LGBTQIA for religious bigots.

"What is the most loving response to a person experiencing a conflicted sense of gender?" Mr Anderson may ask, and the correct answer to that is to take them at their true value, not at some arbitrary value religious zealots insist upon imposing.  Anderson fails dismally here.  He, and other religious zealots like him, would never have taken the Samaritan's route across the street.  They would never go the extra mile.  They would never give their shirt.  In short, they reject the entire New Testament and insist on the Old instead.

"What should our law say on matters of 'gender identity'?"  What does the fourth amendment say, Mr Anderson?  Let me help you out: it says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons...shall not be violated."  Why does he want to overturn that by telling people what gender they are despite all evidence to the contrary?

The description claims that the book "provides thoughtful answers to questions arising from our transgender moment."  It doesn't.  It's not a moment. It's a momentum and those who try to hamper it will be pushed aside by it.  The asshole bias in the very book description proves that this work of juvenile fiction isn't balanced.  On the contrary, it's unbalanced, and cherry-picking a scattering of instances where gender reassignment or related situations seem not to have had perfect outcomes ignores the literal thousands of such issues where the outcomes are not regretted and not in question.

"Drawing on the best insights from biology, psychology, and philosophy" it waffles. Who gives a fuck about philosphy?  And what best insights?  This biased, spittle-soaked, apoplectic rant doesn't draw on the best insights, it draws on cherry-picked blinkered claims that support nothing except the author's pre-ordained and bigotted world-view. The best insights from medical experts and from the transgender community itself are completely ingored.

"Ryan Anderson offers a nuanced view of human embodiment"  Nuanced?  Really? That sound you just heard was my ass falling off from my laughing so hard.

"Everyone has something at stake in the controversies over transgender ideology" - yeah - everyone who has a religious stake.  Which part of "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" isn't clear to the author?  He's entitled to practice his beliefs. He is not entitled to force them upon others.

I'm not a fan of Amazon; far from  it, but what these religious assholes don't seem to be able to get through their thick skulls is that Amazon is a private business.  They can choose to publish or not even on a whim, and hate speech is not a whim.

You hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your inconsequence. Goodbye, Mr. Anderson.

Forbidden Friend by R Cayden

Rating: WARTY!

"Leo’s world is turned upside down when his best friend’s identical twin brother moves into their shared condo! Leo is a playboy, River is a hopeless romantic, and a relationship between them is strictly off-limits — but they might not be able to resist temptation…" Why is it off limits? Who made that rule? And we know for a fact that they're not able to resist temptation because otherwise what would the novel be about? Is it the novelist who thinks we readers are morons, or simply the book blurb writer?

They won't resist temptation, but I'll bet they’re able to resist condoms. They always are in these stories and there are never consequences. Safe sex has no place in this kind of a garbage novel because it's yet another cookie-cutter gay novel written by a woman. Talked about owned voices! This is genital warty.

Too Close by R Phoenix

Rating: WARTY!

"After their mother abandons them, Skylar and his sister Evie are taken in by wealthy Tate, who at first seems to be a knight in shining armor. But when Tate's sinister side slowly reveals itself, Skylar seeks refuge in math teacher Dexter - and he's soon forced to decide whether their love is worth the risk." Is this LGBT, or pedophilia? I can't tell! And the author's name is really R Phoenix? Really?

Oh, and look at the artful juxtapositioning of 'sinister' for the bad guy (Latin for left-handed) and 'Dexter' as a name for the good guy - Latin for right-handed. Never trust those left-handers! How did wealthy Tate get to take in the orphans? Was there no background check? He just took them? Where is child services? This story has sucky written all over it. And not in a good way.

Damn Straight by Elizabeth Sims

Rating: WORTHY!

This is one of a series known as the "Lillian Byrd Crime Stories" because of the protagonist, Lillian Byrd. Note that this is book 2 in the LGBTQIA series, and I have not read book 1. Also I traded an email or two with the author, and I do appreciate her kindness, so I'm not exactly unbiased here! But my review is true and honest - you have my word as a gentleman.

I'm not normally a fan of this kind of story, or of series in general, which is what made this one interesting to me, because Lillian is not your normal "sleuth." In fact I flatly refuse to read any amateur detective story that uses the word 'sleuth' in the book description, so this author was lucky in that regard! She also chose an amusing title which I appreciated.

Lillian is a lesbian and also a little older, I believe, than your usual amateur PI. She was happily (maybe not quite so happily) ensconced in Detroit, with her pet rabbit Todd (who was an amusing, endearing, off-beat and unexpected pet), until friend of hers called from California in a complete mess. I got the impression that her friend was a drama queen. Her name is Truby. It ought to have been Trouble, because I had to wonder how much of a friend she was when she virtually demanded, without offering any explanation, that Lillian drop everything and come running across the country.

When Lillian finally arrived after that frantic phone call, it turned out that this crisis was nothing more than Truby thinking she might be a lesbian. Personally I would have been pissed-off if a friend did that to me, but Lillian takes it all in stride and tries to pass on information that she thinks will be helpful in Truby's exploration of her sexuality. The impression I got is that Truby is bi and in denial!

But this was just to get Lillian across the country, because Truby has tickets to a soirée in celebration of the upcoming Dinah Shore women's golf tournament. It's there that Lillian meets the real subject of this story, in the shape of Genie Maychild. I'm a big believer in making the character's name fit the character in the context of the story, and this particular name is very à propos of that tenet. I liked it! It turns out that Genie is an ace golfer and is playing in the tournament, and expected to be up there with the leading contenders.

She also has a rivalry with an upstart prodigy golfer named Coco Nash - another name I liked. In fact I think I liked Coco best of all in this novel. While Lillian seemed to have a habit of alternately annoying and then intriguing me, I never was keen on Genie who was like this needy vacuum, sucking up all Lillian's attention. I didn't like Truby at all, who was seriously high-maintenance and evidently not too smart, but Coco I could have read a novel about, especially if she'd become involved with Lillian (maybe a future installment in the series - hint, hint!)! But I digress. Genie has a secret past and this is where all the mystery lies - along with Genie's current troubles.

The mystery was multi-faceted and kept me guessing. Although some red herrings were easily fished out of the mix and I fixed on the wrong perp, I did guess right that someone's motives were hardly spotless, but I'm not about to reveal who that was! Lillian is a Freelance journalist, so: amateur detective, and she's quite inventive and definitely dedicated. She's also a freaking angel when it comes to handling Genie who really didn't deserve her. But I liked the way Lillian thought and planned her moves, so for me, while I can't say that the story was exactly entrancing, I can say without fear of landing in the rough, that it was eminently readable and a satisfying whack down the fairway.

If I had a complaint, it would be two of them! One was the golf, which was a bit too much for me, who is not a golf fan, but obviously the story centers around golf and a golfer, so I couldn't really make a legitimate complaint about all the golf!

The other complaint is one I've made in many reviews, which in this case is that Lillian and Genie fall into bed far too quickly and without a word about sexual health, which to me is a problem in this day and age of rampant STIs. Naturally no writer wants to bring the story to a screeching halt with a lecture about sexual diseases, but there are ways it can be worked into the story naturally and organically, or at least touched-on in passing. That said, I did enjoy the story overall, and I consider it an eminently worthy read.

Love Under Fire by Ellie Spark

Rating: WARTY!

I guess this is the first and last novel by this author I'll be reading. With a name like the author's, I expected much more, rightly or wrongly, but Ell if it Sparked with me. It just was not authentic, and nothing burns me more than reading highly-improbable stuff in a novel that's not even pretending to be a comedy or a satire. This is unapologetic lesbian chick-lit and while that in itself isn't a disaster, I'm honestly not sure who the audience is for this style of writing. I assume there is one, because I've seen a lot of books like this on offer. The few I've read seem to be poorly done for the most part, though.

The book is mercifully short (129pps), but even then I failed to make it to the halfway point. In this world there are no venereal diseases and no one talks about safe sex - and it's all about sex, not about forming a relationship. At least three couples, two lesbians and one hetero are getting it on without knowing shit about their partner's history. Two of them leap into bed the first night they meet and the main characters are not far behind them. Both main characters are whiny about previously failed relationships, yet they still make the same mistakes all over again in this one, failing utterly to pace themselves, take it slowly vet the potential partner with a few dates before foolishly rushing-in where STI-free people dare not to tread. That tells me they're dumb, and short-sighted.

In one case the lesbian couple are so clueless that they desert the dessert in the middle of a cooking class, and sneak off to make out in an adjoining room in a public building. I can't get with that kind of irresponsible and inauthentic writing. These are not teenagers. They're supposed to be mature professional women and that in itself is one of the problems with this kind of a novel...novella...whatever. Have you noticed these books are never about working class people? It's always about well-off, even spoiled individuals who drink wine and buy clothes even when they really don't need to, and eat out a lot? They're always at restaurants; never in pubs.

About the sex! I get that no one wants to read a romance novel wherein people are filling out questionnaires about sexual health prior to getting it on! The thing is though, that there are ways of writing intelligently about such things - assuming you're not a lousy writer - to make these things a natural part of the progression of the relationship.

It does no good to try and argue that these are lesbians, so there are no problematic diseased penises involved because that's not how STIs work, and in any case, a lesbian could be in a relationship with someone who is bi, or who themselves have had a relationship with someone who's bi! It's not about the current relationship; it's about the history and I sure wouldn't trust someone who'd jump into bed on a first date. It makes one wonder how many other people they've been so casual with and what their sexual histories are. Maybe that's just me, but somehow I doubt that. OTOH, maybe this isn't chick lit, but pure fantasy? Either way it fails.

According to a study on the National Institutes of Health website, "Viral STD rates were significantly higher among bisexual women" (than in the lesbian community itself) and lesbians can transmit STIs just as easily as hetero couples. Like I said, no one wants to a romance to be larded with that, but how romantic is HPV or syphilis pray tell? Tossing in a mention here and there of safe practices isn't going to harm, and it lends verisimilitude to relationships. The author has them ask, "Is this okay" even when simply holding hands and later when kissing, but no questions at all are asked when having sex? That's just plain weird.

The writing in general was pretty much boilerplate, so there was nothing truly bad, but neither was there anything inspiring or engaging. Perfunctory I believe is the word. The only actual error I caught was where I read, “She wondered what Kristin was doing?" There's no question mark required in that sentence, but that's not a story killer. We all goof-up here and there. Writing which doesn't feel real and which in some cases makes the characters look stupid or clueless is, however, a killer, and it killed this story for me.

There's one point where an altercation leads to one of the characters getting in trouble with her employer. One of the other main characters has recorded some of the exchange on her phone, but no one thinks about this until several days later. That just tells me the main characters are stupid. I don't want to read books about stupid women - not unless the story is that she starts out dumb, but quickly wises up. Or maybe where she actually is stupid, but the guys are more stupid and she triumphs! This didn't appear to be such a story hence my abandoning it. Life's too short for stories that don't enthrall. I can't commend this as a worthy read.

Without Hesitation by Talia Jager

Rating: WARTY!

Erratum:
"Empress' face" - this needed an apostrophe S - 'Empress's face' since it's a possessive and empress is not a plural.
"but there were still quite a bit I didn't recognize" This needed to read either 'were still quite a few', or 'was still quite a bit'! It can't be both!

I liked this book to begin with, because it's not a bad story at all, and in some small ways it reminded me of my own Femarine. Set a millennium into the future, when Earth has been rendered uninhabitable (that part is getting here already), this sci-fi adventure tells the story of two women who encounter each other as antagonists out in the reaches of space where human colonies have been taking over habitable planets wherever they are found. Faster-than-light travel (although in reality precluded by the laws of physics!) is the means by which these far-flung societies maintain contact.

Everleigh is the captain of a mercenary outfit which has been tasked with capturing the Empress Akacia, who rules over one of the colonized planets. I'm not at all sure how she got to be an empress. She's not royalty. She rules over a relatively small and homogenous colony on one planet. It's hardly an empire! But there's no information on how this works exactly. Was she appointed? Was she elected? We don't know. It seemed a bit much to me, but I was willing to let that go for the sake of a good story.

After a failed kidnap attempt, Everleigh and Akacia were thrown together by accident, and I have to say I was surprised that Akacia trusted her so readily, but then there is that attraction between them. At times that was a bit much, like when the Empress describes her kidnapper (during the kidnap attempt!) like this: "She was beautiful" The kidnapper is likewise enthralled: "The Empress had a weapon I had never encountered before. She was beautiful." That also was a bit much. His is where the story really began to go downhill for me.

The book description assures us that "Labels and stereotypes are a thing of the past and gender and sexual identity are as fluid as love", but here we have two female characters in a book written by a female author reducing two women to the shallowness of skin depth. It was worse during a scene where one of them was injured and I read: "Did she have a head wound? Was she hurt? And how did she manage to make that look sexy? Oh, God. There I went again with the whole sexy thing." I said to myself, "Seriously?" when I read that! No labels, huh?! This really felt inappropriate to me.

I don't like that kind of writing because it isn't realistic. Maybe when she recalled the incident later she might have added that thought about how sexy she looked, but at the time, when someone is injured, you really don't think like that - not if it's someone you honestly care about. You think about what bad things could happen and what you can do to prevent those things. So to me it was not authentic. Any one or two small items, I would be willing to let go, but this book kept adding to the tally of things I wasn't willing to let go in the end.

What kept me reading for a while, was the story in general and the hope that it would flourish, but it kept failing me. In many ways it was very unsophisticated, even simplistic, like it was written for a younger audience. Part of its initial charm was the plan text, that told the story without trying to fly to any great literary heights, but after a while it seemed too simplistic. Normally I rail against first person voice, and twin first person is twice as irritating. I didn't like that approach, and it only got worse, particularly when the empress falls into the hands of those who would abduct her and she's tortured. This is written in first person voice and it seemed so completely unrealistic that I gave up on the story right there. No one realistically writes about their own torture in such a way. It felt fake and shallow, and constitutes only one of a score of reasons why first person should be avoided like the plague unless it's deemed truly and absolutely necessary to telling a story. The best plan is to not use it.

I'm not a fan of flashbacks either, which bring any story to a shuddering halt and typically make me lose interest. I read the story to find out what's happening now and every time the author defeats that desire by rambling on about some past that's typically irrelevant or contributes little, it just pisses me off, so this was another strike against it. In this case, the Empress starts her story three years earlier, when she was sixteen, but she's older when the main action takes place. I honestly could not see the point of doing that. Any such reminiscences could have been slipped lightly into the text as it flowed, without halting it.

While on the topic of the Empress's age, I have to wonder how she gauges it! We're told early in the story that her planet "had almost no axial tilt, giving it a mild, almost boring climate." No axial tilt means no real seasons. The winter/summer roundabout on Earth is caused because the globe is tipped on its axis by 23.5 degrees, making the northern hemisphere garner less sunlight for half the year, and more sunlight the other half, exactly alternating what the southern hemisphere gets. This is what delivers both hemispheres a winter and a summer every six months.

A planet with no axial tilt would be very much the same climate year round, so there would be no noticeable winter - or other seasons - at all. It would be a little bit like living on the equator for everyone, with the temperature varying only by latitude, not by season). Why then does the Empress open with this clause: "Three years ago, when I had passed my sixteenth winter..."? On a planet where winter isn't a thing, wouldn't there would really be another way of measuring age? Certainly a non-existent winter couldn't be used as any sort of measure of a year's passage! The author evidently didn't think the consequences of her (lack of) axial tilt through very much! Little things like that can matter in story-telling. For me this wasn't in itself a story-killer, but added to all the other issues it became one more thing that turned me off the story.

The same thing applies to the use of 'earthyears' as a measure of time. I don't see how that would work a thousand years from now when Earth is a distant memory for everyone. Who would care about Earth years, really? This tells me the author really didn't think this through properly. Some to the text was a bit weird to read too, such as, "From her long neck to her supple breasts" I'm by no means convinced that supple applies to a woman's breast! How exactly is a breast supple?! 'Supple' is an adjective meaning that something can bend and flex. It would seem right for an arm or a leg, or even a back, but a breast has no real muscle or bone in it. I wonder of the author maybe was looking for something like 'ample'? or maybe soft, or fulsome? I dunno. Supple just wasn't right.

I read a description of Akacia given by Everleigh, which read, "She smelled like honey and...milk" That seemed a bit off to me. Like Akacia was a baby! Another instance was when I read, "I seized her lips and deepened the kiss. When Akacia pulled away the tiniest of moans escaped my mouth. A smile played on her lips that I swear tasted like honey." I'm not sure how you would seize someone's lips when kissing! Carpe labia! But the idea of a smile tasting like honey is just off.

Like I said, I made it to the torture scene and that was just too much. I could make no more excuses to continue reading this and ditched it. I need something better than this - more depth, more realism, even if it's fiction. I can't commend this as a worthy read.

A Quick & Easy Guide to Consent by Isabella Rotman

Rating: WORTHY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I enjoyed this graphic novel aimed at advising people about consent. This would be a great book to have lying around when you bring your date home, assuming we ever get back to normalcy in life after COVID. It's smart, comprehensive, inclusive, and educational, and if I had one complaint it would be the language level. This might well get the message across to avid comic book readers, but the language in use here seemed rather 'hi-falutin' - rather more at intellectual end of the scale than perhaps where it needs to be, and as such, it might well be over the head of many people who are the audience this comic truly needs to reach.

That said, it covered a huge swathe of consent - what consent is, how it can be given, what it means and more importantly, what it doesn't mean, how it's given, what's behind it all, how to approach what might be a difficult conversation, and on and on. It's all done in a friendly chatty manner. It truly is well-written, with the above-mentioned caveat, and the art is wonderful. I commend this as a worthy read. Some millionaire ought to buy the entire print run of this and give them away at appropriate venues! Not that there are any such venues at the moment, but you know what I mean.

Finding Tranquility by Laura Heffernan

Rating: WARTY!

This was an ebook about this married guy, Brett, who is terrified of flying, yet he's supposed to fly to LA on 9/11 to interview for a job so he and his wife Jess can move there, so she in turn can attend med school. He panics and gives his boarding pass to another person who boards the plane which ends up flying into the World Trade Center.

Realizing he's now considered dead, he revaluates his whole life and suddenly realizes he can face the truth about himself which is that he was not happy in his life, in his marriage, or in his body. He feels like his wife can do better, so he 'stays dead' and travels to Canada. How that's accomplished is a bit too convenient in that he finds a passport stuck in a pocket in an old backpack he gets when he sells his clothes and suitcase to get some cash. It's a woman's passport and the owner conveniently looks rather like him and is the same age. It's far too convenient in fact, but he dresses as a woman - something he's always secretly felt he was inside, and she starts a new life as Christa.

Over the next eighteen years, Christa completes her sex-change and then by accident runs into Brett's wife, who despite the physical changes, realizes that this woman is her supposedly-dead husband. Yeah, it was highly improbable at best, how this was set up - the passport and the accidental encounter with the ex, but to begin with, it wasn't as bad as it sounds so I stayed with it.

The thing about this gender change story is that Jess was pregnant on 9/11, but neither of them knew it when Brett disappeared, so now Christa has a son who's almost eighteen. They finally all meet up for Canadian Thanksgiving and everything seems to be going well, but you know there's going to be a fly in the ointment.

Jess rather impulsively consults an attorney - a guy she'd briefly dated, after she fled back from the hotel in Canada to the US after meeting her ex. She was confused, and angry and fearful, and she confided in the attorney about what had happened and asked about the legal implications from her being the recipient of a $250,000 insurance policy payout, plus getting some money from the 9/11 fund - money which all together, put her through med school. This attorney seemed to be highly-biased against transgender people and the meeting did not go well.

I had a brief feeling that this lawyer was dishonestly going to try to spoil this blossoming relationship by outing the husband, but that's not what the blurb says - it talks of complications after the real Christa resurfaces, and that's what happens. The real Christa turns up and starts trying to blackmail the fake Christa, so Jess invites her spouse to move back to Boston with her and her son.

They all seem to be getting along, so they sneak Christa back into the US and then Christa gets into a fight with a guy at the last football game of the season for her son, and gets arrested for no apparent reason. She gets fingerprinted and they discover she's really Brett who supposedly died twenty years ago. People who live next door and across the street sell their houses when word gets out that a resurrected guy, now a woman is living there with his wife. This went beyond improbable, yet there it was, on top of too many other improbable events. A little bit of improbable is fine, but when the whole books seems to be depending on it, it's too much for me!

On top of that, their son Ethan gets into a fight with some of the guys on his basketball team - and this is after he's specifically told Christa when they first met that there are several people at his school who have two moms or two dads. It felt like this writer was just making-up stuff as she went along, trying to lard the story up with drama without considering what she'd already written.

I know that real-life transgender people have problems and can be subject to bullying, and threats, and have even been murdered, but this story felt a bit like it was cheapening those real tragedies by tossing far too much conflict into the story and losing sight of what ought to have been a love story. Instead of that it became a soap opera, and that doesn't appeal to me.

So! There were a lot of really improbable and highly convenient happenstances and coincidences in this story that could probably have been circumvented with a little imagination, and because that wasn't done, and yet more were accumulating the further I read, I quit this story about three-quarters in. It was just too much. A far simpler story would have been better, but his writer obviously didn't know when to stop gilding her lily. I can't commend it as a worthy read.