As someone who has been perhaps a little over-invested in a boy band or two, I have maybe–in the privacy of my own heart–shipped a few of those men. So I was really interested to see where Zarah Detand was going to take us with her most recent release. Would it be all glamour and spotlights or would it be set more intimately? I trusted Zarah to not overdo the Rich Guy vs Regular Guy trope as many MM Romances do, so I was really looking forward reading this. I was lucky enough to get an ARC for it and I’ve had time to read and then re-read it to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I promise you it wasn’t a hardship!

First off, let’s talk about the cast, starting with the supporting characters. One thing that stood out to me is the fact that the seven-year-old niece of one of the MCs is written like an actual child. She’s not too mature nor too babyish. She’s a seven-year-old who acts and speaks like a seven-year-old. Kudos to Zarah for this because so many writers don’t hit the mark here, and she just nails it. In fact, most of the dialogue is vary natural, especially between the (former) band members. There really aren’t many caricatures in this book, either. It makes for some really amusing conversations sprinkled throughout the story.

On to our MCs: Cassian and Levi fell in love as very young men when they were part of a stratospherically successful boy band, but split up due to the pressures of fame and industry-standard homophobia. But that was years ago. Cass is enjoying a brilliant (closeted) solo career while Levi spends his time mentoring young artists and raising his niece, having quietly come out some time ago and mostly content to have put the life of a star behind him. They both seem to have moved on, but no matter how much time has passed or how their lives have changed, Cass and Levi can’t stop thinking—ok let’s be honest, pining—for each other.

Enter Cass with a fake-dating scheme that just might be worlds away from fake, if they could stop mis-communicating long enough for Levi to trust Cass again and give their romance a second chance. 

You can expect some light angst alongside some really likeable characters, a few “not meddling and even if we did, they deserved it” friends, and enough sweet out-of-the spotlight romance to make your heart hurt in a good way. It’s not all sweetness, though–Cass and Levi have serious chemistry that makes even the tamest of love scenes a little heated, and they’re really uninterested in keeping things tame.

I’d love to hear what you think.

The post Guest MM Romance Review – Second to None: It’s not a break-up, it’s a hiatus! appeared first on Fae’s Journal.

I just saw that the first book in the Shadows of London series by Ariana Nash is free today on Kindle! Get it here on Amazon.

While I have not read this series by Ariana Nash, I have read several other of her series and find her writing to be complex, dark, gritty, deeply sensual and sometimes hard to get through.

So I am excited to get into this series by her, the Shadows of London. From the Amazon blurb:

Twisted Pretty Things is the first book in the all-new Shadows of London MM urban fantasy series. Action, mystery, and gay romance combine in this fast-paced adventure from the author who brought you the award-winning Silk & Steel series and the best-selling Prince’s Assassin series.

Nash’s Silk and Steel series and the Prince’s Assassin series are on my favorites shelves on Goodreads and are up there in my personal ranking. While they are both disturbing at times and DARK DARK, they were compelling reads that I could not put down even when the material was difficult to get through.

The Prince’s Assassin’s books rival Captive Prince for themes and I feel they go beyond the darkness in CaPri. I LOVED THOSE BOOKS. The Captive Prince series is probably my favorite book series in a decade so that is saying a lot that I love the Prince’s Assassin almost as much.

I am imagining that this series is more contemporary but will feature themes that seem prevalent in Nash’s books and I cannot wait to read them. The series has been on my to-read list for a while but it’s so hard to get through everything sometimes that I forget to go back and read the backlog.

Once I finish reading it, I will make sure to review the book on my mm romance book reviews page, and perhaps I’ll go back and reread some of her books that I have loved and review them properly. They are among my favorites.

The post Free Book Alert! appeared first on Fae’s Journal.

For the Fans

Woo okay. This book surprised the crap out of me, because it was much deeper than I expected. I tried to get into it several times before I finally did. Boy am I glad I pushed through. The characterizations were incredible and nuanced.

The Odds Were Stacked

First off, the tropes in this book are not my main go-to when it comes to mm romance reading. In general, I avoid reading about younger people, because I’m older myself. The believability of a plot diminishes when 19-20 year old main characters are falling in life-long love at that age. Remembering how I was, and I was not making decisions that were conducive to life-long stability to say the least!

I don’t read a lot of college romances because of that. I like older characters in general who have had more experiences in life, come with more baggage because of that, and have to work through old trauma to get to a place where they can be with their love interests.

Surprisingly, this book has all that even with younger characters! While my heart squeezed with empathy over the lives the young MCs has lived, I enjoyed that these guys had a lot of depth, weren’t shallow caricatures of young people, and had believable reactions to events that transpired.

Dirty Talk

I did find some of the dirty talk going on during the spice to be a bit over the top. That’s fine, it’s a mm romance book. But it didn’t seem totally believable that the uptight in denial MC would be suddenly so free with their language during the smut. In fact, that seemed like a missed opportunity, like the author could have had him work through some of his barriers by becoming more open with the dirty talk. Just me? That’s okay, it just seemed like it could have been a thing.

Length

I did find For the Fans by Nyla K. to be a really long read, like things were drawn out that could have been edited down a bit. It was a bit like oh my god what else can happen here why am I only 75% of the way through? I did power through it but there was a LOT going on that made it seem like a bit of a slog.

View all my reviews on Goodreads. Read more of my MM Romance Reviews here!

The post Review of For the Fans – Nyla K. appeared first on Fae’s Journal.

One of the main reasons I enjoy MM romance more is the way I identify. I am asexual leaning towards majorly demisexual so if I don’t have to picture myself involved in the steamier side of a relationship I really quite like that more. So once I shifted to MM romance the amount of books I read ramped up enormously.

2019 Romance Reading

In 2019 I only read 27 books, but it did mark the first time I subscribed to Kindle Unlimited, a service I have grown to love since so many thousands of books are available on KU and I can read them as I want. Before that I was still buying some books in old school ways but years ago I realized I enjoyed reading books on my phone more than actually holding a physical book so a Kindle Unlimited subscription is really such a good value for me.

In 2019 I read through the Ice Planet Barbarian series that had been published to date, though I bet there are lot more now that I have missed out on. But they are straight and since I shifted to MM Romance it’s very, very hard for me to read straight romance. I have read a few successfully but it’s not easy for me.

2020 and 2021 Are Lies

The graphs on Goodreads would have you believe that from 2020-2021 I didn’t read anything at all. Shock, gasp, what happened, right? Well, that’s not true at all. I wish there was a quantifying tool for ArchiveofOurOwn because I read a ton in 2020, but I didn’t read published books. I read fanfiction voraciously. That’s when I also started writing my own fanfiction under then name faeriebell! I have written over 30 stories within the BTS fandom to varying success. Sope forever! But that’s why my 2020 and my 2021 are pretty empty.

2022 Marked a Shift Toward MM Romance Books

In 2022 I began the shift over from fanfiction. I love fanfiction, really, and my fandom of choice has an almost unending supply of stories. But with all the members going into their compulsory military service I started to distance myself. I did this for emotional reasons. I miss them incredibly much and want to shelter myself from the hurt of reading stories with them doing fun things when I know that they’re possibly doing unpleasant things.

Thus, I started late in the year but I read the whole Captive Prince series including all the short novels by CS Pacat which I love dearly and have reread several times since.

2023 Opened the Floodgates on MM Romance

I read 228 book in 2023, a huge number for me.

Jumping into the MM Romance genre turned out to be great for me. I enjoy romance books, in fact have read them since I was quite young. I was unaware that there was such a prolific world of MM Romance out there for me to enjoy though. After a recommendation to read a few books by Alessandra Hazzard, that’s all it took.

Those books were my true gateway into the mm romance genre. I’d read Captive Prince and a few books by Cat Sebastian but I actually devoured all of the Wrong Alpha series that had been published at the time and then drove straight through the Calluvia’s Royalty series and finally the Straight Guys series.

Then it the floodgates were truly open and I was out of control reading as many mm romance books as I could. I got Covid in early 2023 and during the week or so I was in bed I read nearly 20 MM Romance books. I didn’t really slow down after that.

My friends must have wondered where I went, I stopped writing, disappeared from online places I used to frequent, and sort of went low-contact with a lot of people. But I was just so involved with reading as much mm romance as I could. I also started review MM Romance books on Goodreads and here so I could point out the good and the bad.

How Much MM Romance Am I Reading in 2024?

I’ve posted already that I’m already finished with 120 MM Romance books in 2024. On Goodreads my goal is fairly low goal at 150 books. I already know I’ll surpass that. I’m hoping for something more like 250 but I am a perfectionist and hate to not achieve goals I set for myself so I set my goal pretty low so I would be sure to achieve it.

The post MM Romance Reading Rundown 2019 – 2023 appeared first on Fae’s Journal.

Savage Grace by Spencer Spears My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Entire Series

Savage Grace is the third and last installment of the Murphy Brothers series by Spencer Spears,. This mm romance series is set on a fictional island off the coast of Georgia and has followed three brothers (I mean, obviously) as they navigate their lives and find love.

Spoilers Lie Below

I have loved the whole Murphy Brothers series but Savage Grace did its best to kill it for me. The thing is, I’m a teacher. In the state of Georgia where this book is set. Part of the plot involves the homophobic principal, out to get Julian, giving Julian a bad evaluation. So bad in fact, that he’s going to be what.. fired? Well this becoming such a critical part of the plot has killed immersion for me.

Research Helps

The way the TKES system works and how all educators in public schools in Georgia are evaluated does not work at all how the author portrays it. It’s actually so not how it works!!!!

Savage Grace the book is fiction sure but the fact that this is such a big part of the plot and it’s just so not reality of teaching in a Georgia public school is just driving my neurodivergent mind to madness.

If you’re not going to research how public school in an actual state works and the way that evaluations are state wide the same system and cannot be skewed this way please set your novel in a fictional place. This is killing all immersion for me and I’m scared that I’m not going to finish now.

A few other nitpicks

School in Georgia starts August 1 and goes until right before Memorial Day. State testing is in April and fifth grade is a huge year for Milestones. Please. Research.

I’m going to TRY to skim over the school parts of the plot so I can get the resolution of the rest of the story from the other novels but this has really destroyed how I feel about this series.



View all my reviews on Goodreads. Read more of my MM Romance Reviews.

The post Review of Savage Grace by Spencer Spears appeared first on Fae’s Journal.

How Do People Talk About Living in Atlanta?

People who live in Atlanta would never say “Atlanta” is where they live. Atlanta is an enormous city plagued by urban sprawl, so it now encompasses an area that was once hundreds if not thousands of disparate communities.

People within the broader city of Atlanta will be more likely to say the county they live in, like Cobb or Gwinnett. They might also give the smaller municipality where they actually live, like Chamblee or Decatur.

ITP/OTP

Another big distinction is ITP or OTP, Inside / Outside the Perimeter (I-285). Those who live ITP view going OTP as going into the vast wilderness. While people OTP see going ITP as going into the City like one would travel from Hoboken to Manhattan and say that they are going “to the City.”

The author at one point states something like ‘Dane lives in Atlanta just east of I-85’. Do they have any conception of just how broad a statement that is? The area that vague description encompasses that could still be said to be “in Atlanta” is very large.

Atlanta is Large

From a brief estimate, traveling from Suwannee to Fairburn is around 55 miles and would take over an hour with minimal traffic. Below is a quick Google Map screenshot.

So a statement like “just off 85 in Atlanta” could be talking about 85 South of Atlanta, like Riverdale, or College Park, or it could be within Atlanta, like Decatur, or it could be north of Atlanta, like in Lilburn or Buford. The huge disparity in those neighborhoods, and that’s just a few examples, cannot be overlooked.

In summary, Atlanta is HUGE. And I think that if choosing to write about an actual place, one should talk about that place in a realistic way and the way that people who live in that area actually talk. Maybe that’s being nitpicky. But it sort of broke the spell for me.

Beyond the Nitpicking

Beyond that, I didn’t find the characters themselves to be realistic, mature, or very likeable. I feel like that sort of breakup would be final, too, in the real world. I don’t see any coming back together. And maybe Dane felt that way too, because he all of a sudden couldn’t control his boners and thought about doing it with everyone. But hey, I don’t know… with the way he talked about his appendage in the 3rd person…

Gag.

View all my reviews on Goodreads. Read other mm romance book reviews I’ve written.

The post Review of Fighting the Flames Within by Casey Morales appeared first on Fae’s Journal.

I’ve struggled through several duds and reviews are linked below. I plan to write more here on Fae’s Journal because, full transparency: I am broke and have had a summer of massive expenses, most of them unexpected.

Summer MM Romance Reviews

Book ReviewsReading

Review of Rest Ashored by BJ Irons & Will Freshwater

July 10, 2024 / faebell

Book ReviewsReadingWriting

Review of Fighting the Flames Within by Casey Morales

July 10, 2024 / faebell

Book ReviewsReading

Review of Savage Grace by Spencer Spears

July 11, 2024 / faebell

Affiliate Links

So with that, I plan to blog and shamelessly put affiliate links in the posts when applicable. I don’t know if it will help or if anything at all will come from it but it’s worth a shot, and what’s the worst that could happen?

The links won’t be obtrusive and it’ll always be about something I’m actually interested in. I have enough varied interests that I can link a lot of different types of things and potentially get some clicks.

I’m also designing a blank journal or two to Amazon to try and sell. Things are just hella expensive these days and I need to try and side hustle a bit.

MM Romance Reading

So first things first. I’ve been reading so much and I read exclusively on the Kindle app on my phone, it’s just so much easier for me. I subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. It’s one of the best investments a heavy reader such as myself could make. There are so many books to choose from, especially within the genre I read, MM Romance.

Reading Nicknacks

With Kindle Unlimited, I have nearly unlimited access to reading material. I have been in the market to buy a remote scroller for my phone (and there is the link I talked about before)! It’s annoying when when I think I click to the next page and my phone doesn’t turn the page.

A remote scroller could be the answer to this, and using it might make for a more fluid reading experience. I use one of these neck pillows (don’t judge, it’s awesome) to hold the phone in front of my face while I am lying down to read. The only drawback is constantly having to turn the page. Finding a remote scroller that worked would be a game-changer.

Dud from Target

I say that because I bought one last week at Target from the dollar spot and it didn’t work to scroll in the Kindle App, it took pictures remotely just fine which resulted in some funny candid pictures being taken while I was trying to turn the page on my book. I am not sharing those, lol.

Anyway, I have a few books to review in the coming days: the Murphy Brothers series by Spencer Spears, and an ARC I am reading of Fighting the Flames Within by Casey Morales. I have read so many more I’ll have to go back and post some reviews for.

Happy Reading, friends! I write book reviews!

The post MM Romance Reading Progress appeared first on Fae’s Journal.

Vespertine by Leta Blake My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Not My Usual

I usually stay far away from the second chance romance trope because I don’t care for it, and I distance myself even further from books that have anything to do with religion, so it was surprising that I decided to give this one a go, but the reviews were promising and when I read that a few other reviewers said that they were hesitant for similar reasons but liked this book, I gave it a try.

Worth it!

I am glad I decided to stick with Vespertine, because I ended up loving it. The story was a compelling, second chance romance with characters who were flawed and believable. I really felt the drama. Nicky and Jasper were a perfect pair, they just had to get through some things first to arrive at the place where they could both be the partner they needed to be.

Nicky

The pain I felt for Nicky as he struggled through the addiction that had him in its deadly grip was real, gut wrenching and visceral. I was terribly nervous for him at several moments through the book and was really rooting for him to stay strong and keep himself from relapsing.

Jasper

Jasper’s characterization was so fulfilling, to feel the struggle he was experiencing and the pull from so many different sides. I really felt bad for him because while I wanted him to do what he needed to do to be with Nicky, I got a good idea of how difficult that would be from the writing and the examination of his feelings. While I am not religious at all so for me to be able to empathize was remarkable, but I really did feel for him as he struggled to make difficult decisions.

This book is really worth the read, and I really loved this book.

View all my reviews on Goodreads. I read and review MM Romance books!

Note: Post backdated to when I finished the book.

The post Review of Vespertine by Leta Blake appeared first on Fae’s Journal.