More the Merrier – Jayne Rylon

Author: Jayne Rylon
Series: Powertools #7
Pages: 99

Everyone’s favorite five-man, one-woman construction crew is back in action. This time they’re celebrating the holidays together, Powertools style.

Though they’re each on the hunt for the perfect presents for their loved ones, they soon realize that the gifts they give each other day in and day out are the most valuable sort. Spending time together and sharing their passions—not only for sexy menages in every variation—has helped them thrive despite life’s ups and downs.

The first book of Powertools was my first story with an orgy. I have always pride myself about being an explorer in a library, so I picked it with an open mind. Seven books later I must admit this is not what I was expecting. Yes, those books are mostly about sex, but the characters have grown up on me quite a lot.

This time we meet the infamous crew while they are preparing for Christmas. After realizing that they haven’t partaken in groupal fun for a long time, the guys decide to get busy while their wifes are shopping. And they keep at it once they come back home… After that encunter, the book focus on the individual couples for a glimpse at their lives and more sex.

And that’s all about it. I do enjoy the sex scenes with these guys, even though sometimes I think there is no room for so many skin in some of the positions the author likes to describe. I especially appreciate the importance of respect everytime they get together. Nothing is done without the explicit consent of everyone involved. That, sadly, is usually a rara avis in the Erotica genre, so kudos for the crew!!

The crazy dynamics with the Powertools crew is what makes these books special. It’s hard to explain. The scenes of all of them together, even though there is a lot of naked time, are also a master piece of human tolerance. They are all such good friends with solid principles. They never judge and let everyone be themselves. Actually, a world with more Powertools would be a better world. Jayne Ryon has spoiled me badly. Now I’m incapable of reading a ménage book if the group doesn’t have the same rulebook as the crew of Powertools.

Even though the book is cramped with sex, there is also time for some cute and emotional moments. My favourite is by far Dave’s tattoo. His accident was a huge surprise on a previous book, because I wasn’t expecting such a crude moment in this saga. Now I’m kind of glad it happened (I’m a monster!!). The description of the tattoo has been heartwarming and that would have never happened without the car accident. The tattoo covering the scars of his leg displays the perfect summarization of what the crew members represent to each other.

No idea if Rylon is going to keep writing Powertools books, but I have already added to my TBR list the spin-off: Hot Rods. It seems they are pretty similar, so I guess I will enjoy them as well.

2018 – Book Gallery

 

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One Man’s Trash – Marie Sexton

Author: Marie Sexton
Series: The Heretic Doms Club #1
Pages: 343

After four tours in Afghanistan, Warren Groves couldn’t settle into civilian life. For the last twelve years, he’s survived by working odd and often illegal jobs for some of Denver’s less fortunate. His personal life is equally unsatisfactory. He can barely remember the last time he had sex, let alone the last time he got to use somebody hard and rough, the way he likes. Fate intervenes when a favor for a friend leads him to a pretty young rentboy named Taylor Reynolds.

Taylor’s spent the last few years on his own, working as a hustler, going home with anybody who’ll give him a warm meal and a place to sleep. He enjoys having a bit of force used against him, and he makes Warren an offer he can’t refuse — all the sex he wants, as rough and dirty as he likes, in exchange for room and board.

At first, Warren thinks he’s struck gold. Taylor’s the perfect roommate — he cooks, he cleans, and he’s dynamite in the sack. But Taylor has some dark demons in his head and some even darker cravings. Falling for somebody as volatile as Taylor is dangerous enough, but when Taylor’s urges turn truly self-destructive, it’ll be up to Warren to decide just how far to let things go.

The book is eveything the blurb promises: rough sex, secrets and dark cravings… I thought I could handle it, but it seems I can’t. I’m not a prude (if I were I wouldn’t touch Romance books), but there are several situations in this book thas have rubbed me the wrong way.

But let’s start from the beginning. We meet Warren, a former soldier that spends his days helping other people in barely legal jobs: bodyguard of escorts (a.k.a. prostitutes), muscle for desperate people and many other things. He is lonely and, if you ask me, a bit tired of his life. Then we meet Taylor (or TJ or BJ…), a much younger guy that ran away from his home and became a rentboy. It’s a sex addict that that never says no… Their fates collided and Taylor ended up living with Warren. Free roof and food in exchange of sex.

At least that is how it started. We barely knew them when they were already tearing up each other clothes. The first encounter was pretty impersonal and I was scared that the whole book would be like that. The author spices it up a little bit adding a BDSM element: soft bondage. Warren likes to tie people up to his bed and Taylor doesn’t mind. As a reader, I don’t mind either. The author doesn’t use this to humillate Taylor. It makes the trust between each other grow considerably.

Eveything was starting to look peachy: Warren has a lot of different layers that make him very interesting, the sex is fun, the side stories are enjoyable, Warren’s friends are a pleasure to read… And then it happens: Taylor’s breakdown. I wasn’t epecting it. I’m a guy that enjoys a good shock when reading, but this one left me with a very sour aftertaste. I felt that his cravings were more of a childish behaviour than something dark and serious. Even worse than that: the author has to twist Warren’s behaviour to counteract the crazy tantrum of his roommate… I have to be honest: that made me dislike Taylor.

But the worst was yet to come… The explanation of Taylor’s “bad days” made me sick. It’s not only the incest with his brother when he was still a minor. If that wasn’t enough, the brother was abusive. I guess I should have been able to feel some kind of pity towards Taylor, but his way of dealing with it destroyed any chance of that. He claims he loves him. That no one understands him. He talks as if nothing was wrong. And Warren is nice enough to accept the explanation… I just wanted to scream: “Take him to an expert!! The guy need helps, not a slap on the back!!”. But Taylor’s quest of making me puke wasn’t finish… Do you know what this messed-up guy takes for love? Being urinated by someone who is still inside him during sex… That’s plain gross. And the author talks about it several times… I couldn’t handle it. I was losing my mind yelling at Taylor. My dislike became hatred.

I think I could have ignored Taylor if the side stories were better. I mean, they are good, but so depressing. Were are the happy endings? Susan, Riley… The book feels pessimistic and so unfair that the only one with the happy ending is Taylor… Writing this review I have realized I’m angry at him. He has ruined a nice book about Warren. I actually feel weird after reading the book. Why an emotional story has such a disgusting residue in my memory?

I’m not sure if I will read the second book. The main characters will be different, so I guess it’s safe to assume that I won’t find another Taylor. But I’m honestly scared of picking it up…

2018 – Book Gallery

Sexy Beast – Ella J.

Author: Ella J.
Pages: 183

Yeah, I did it.
I signed on to be an “intimate companion.”
Desperate times and desperate measures lead to crazy choices.
Really, though, it’s not that crazy. Someone has to pay my brother’s bills after the wreck, and I’m the only someone left.
My first job: snuggle up to a sexy beast of a billionaire at one of his luxury ski resorts.
I can do that.
Except I’m not so sure he wants me to. The Ice King barely looks at me. He rarely speaks to me, and when he does, he says he doesn’t want me in his bed.
Okay then.
I keep my head held high, my shoulders squared, and my bruised ego under wraps—until I stumble onto secrets.
James Harrington is hiding devastating secrets.
I get too close. I get involved. I take a risk, and I give him more than he paid for.
For a moment, it’s too perfect to be true.
But there’s one more secret—and it’s the one I never saw coming.

This one is going to be hard to review. I need to be direct: I didn’t like the book. But I’m in a mood and I’m afraid this review is going to pay the price. I have just watched the tenth chapter of Star Wars: Rebels season 4 and I need to yell at something. Anything!! Maybe that way I will stop crying…

In this short book we meet Darcy, a woman that has to take care of his brother who needs a lot of money to pay for his treatment. Due to that desperation, she has to accept a job as a high-profile escort. Her first client is James, a richer than rich guy that is about to open a mountain resort for people with lots of money to waste… He is going to throw several parties and needs something pretty to decorate the place…

I kind of like the starting point. Darcy’s sacrifice to make his brother’s life better is admirable. And the fact that James is very distant and cold makes things much more interesting. I thought it was going to be the classic billionarie that thinks everyone loves him just because he is rich. I loved those tense first times they meet each other. Too bad that doesn’t last long…

It’s an Erotica book so I shouldn’t be surprised about the amount of sex in it. But it lacks charisma or chemistry or any kind of spark… It’s just sex and after the first naughty scene the rest are just to print more pages… Nothing interesting in that department. Not for good, or bad. Just plain. In this kind of book, that is actually pretty bad… Sex shouldn’t leave you indifferent in the Erotica genre. At least that’s my opinion.

I was dreading a boring reading, but sudenly… BOOOOOOM!!! WOW!! What a twist!! Way to leave me breathless and in shocked. I didn’t expect that punch in the gut and the pain was very welcome. The book was alive again, ladies and gentlemen!!! I was salivating. I love me some drama!! Those hard moments usually end in really good make up situations!! Sadly, my hype was extinguish so fast I dind’t even have time to enjoy it… The author resolves the conflict in such an easy and boring way… One moment seems the Apocalypse and the next, everything is forgotten. The best and worst part of this book happen almost in the same page!!

I didn’t lose my hope, though. It was all so sudden it was obvious the main characters needed to talk about it once their hormones were settle. So, I turn the page waiting for the other shoe to drop when something even more unexpectd happens: THE END!!. Wait, what?? Is that all?? But according to my Kindle there are still more than 50% to read… What the…? Half of this book is just a preview for another one!!! HALF!!! Really??

I know that kind of marketing is pretty common in Romance Books (some authors are very busy wirting…), but more than the 50% is way too much for previews. I don’t like reading previews, so I felt robbed. This book made me so angry for so many reasons in such a short time…

The good part: it’s not the usual story of billionaire meets (buys) girl. The worst part: it ends when it was about to start…

2018 – Book Gallery

The Phoenix Project – Jacquelyn Frank

Author: Jacquelyn Frak
Series: Morphate #1
Pages: 142

Held captive, Amara is subjected to bizarre experiments that test the limits of her sanity. But nothing prepares her for being locked away–naked–with a sexy ex-cop… after they’ve been pumped full of drugs that increase their sexual appetites to animalistic intensity…

Yes, I promise that is the blurb of the book. Honest!! That meager paragraph was enough to make me curious. I wanted to know how the author was going to deal with those animalistic instincts for her characters, I mean, that is a loaded gun. You can make a really hot book that makes you thirsty while reading. Or you can have a sex festival that makes you dizzy in all the wrong ways. This book is not one thing, nor the other. It’s a simple: meh!.

The story is about Amara, a woman with no resources who was kidnapped by mad scientists. They perform experiments on her on a daily basis. And she is not the only one. The baddies have a huge on-going operation that is hard to believe is a well kept secret. Nick is a cop that is investigating weird disappearances and he founds himself kidnapped for the same project as Amara. The doctors change their DNA and put them together to see what happens. They become morphates. Kind of a mix between a vampire and a shifter…

Some of those changes are: enhanced senses, strength and stamina, much greater sexual drive, claws, fangs and even penis enlargement… They become ferals in all the possible meanings. Which is the goal of such a change? No idea. The author never explains it. Do they want a supersolider or a sexual slave? The mix doesn’t make any sense… The mad doctor says they are getting closer to the ideal result, but I’m incapable of seeing how can the morphates be profitable. No one wants a lover so rough that could break your bones by accident… Or a soldier whose sexual appetite could make him mindless at any moment. So, no idea what this Pnoenix Project wants to achieve.

90% of the book is just plain sex. Very boring sex if you ask me. It’s too primitive, too rough and aggressive for my taste. There is not an ounce of eroticism in all the sex scenes of the book. And there are plenty… They weren’t bad per se, except for the last one. The author should have ignored the epilogue. In that last chapter, Nick has sex with Amara against her will. Yes. he rapes her. There is not another way to describe that. She didn’t want to have sex because it was period time and didn’t want any kid. Nick, to show that Amara can trust him, forces himself into her and rape her… I couldn’t believe what I was reading… The worst part is that Amara accepts Nick’s motives and forigves him… The epilogue ruins the book.

Even though it lacks story development everywhere, the book has some interesting foundations that could make the next books bearable. I would love to know more about the Dark Cities. It seems that in the future, a wall-loving politician decides to put walls around several cities of the USA to lock criminals from the rest of the country. Those are called the Dark Cities and the morphates are now the ones in charge to keep them in check. Why do I have the feeling is going to be a free buffet for them?

I know I was going to find something simple and blunt, but I guess I wasn’t prepared for such overwhelming lack of sweetness… I still don’t know if I will read the next books of this saga. I must admit I’m still curious…

 

2018 – Book Gallery

C*cky Neighbor – Fettucine Holliday

Author: Fettucine Holliday
Pages: 16

This super fun book is about a conveniently close male heterosexual and the lady who parts her drapes for him. He shows her what a real man is, and satisfies(MT) her completely.

This is a totally great comedy erotica story that in no way infringes on a certain word, no sirree, not at all.

This is the other book by Fettucine Holliday to support the actions taken to nullify Faleena’s legal claim over the word cocky. If you want to read a recap of that, read my previous review. Could you imagine if all Romance writers did the same? I mean, most of them have series whose titles follow some kind of template. If all those templates became trademarks, no one else would be able to write Romance books!!

Even though I’m totally against Faleena’s actions, I can’t swallow the books that Fettucine has written. If C*cky Author was bad, this one is just pure crap. Once again, this book is unable to deliver any single laugh. But this time, it goes even further. It didn’t make me laugh, but it was VERY close to make me puke!!

Why is Jettt like that? He doesn’t shower, he doesn’t clean, he is gross everywhere… When they have sex and the author describes his dirty penis… I wanted to die. It’s not just gross. I felt insulted as a man.

I know this was some kind of parody, but Fettucine takes it too far. TOO FAR!! Besides, the book was supposed to make fun of the “cocky” issue, but it feels that this time the author makes fun of Faleena’s books. Which I can’t approve, because it would be an infantile attack. This book pissed me off so much, that now I want to read some of Faleena’s books to get to know her style.

You can’t ask almost 4$ for this book. Not even if it is for a good cause. It’s just insulting, sorry.

 

2018 – Book Gallery

C*cky Author – Fettucine Holliday

Author: Fettucine Holliday
Pages: 13

This totally original book is about a cock…sure man who is caulky, cocked up, and above all else, confident. He lays it into a lady real good, and leaves her satisfied(c).

This is a totally great comedy erotica story that in no way infringes on a certain word, no sirree, not at all.

I guess this short story needs a little bit of explaining. Why someone with a totally fake name has written this? Let me tell you the story of the writer Faleena Hopkins. That writer pens the romance series called Cocker Brothers of Atlanta, whose titles all contain the word “cocky”. That author, wrongly worried about the lack of intelligence of her readers, thought that those poor souls were confusing other “cocky” books with her own. So, how could she avoid that? Put a trademark in the “cocky” word, so nobody can use it without paying Faleena first. I would need thousands of hands to count all the times the word “cocky” is used in Romance, so you can imagine that legal barrier wasn’t feeling any good among the romance writers. An indie author that is also a lawyer paid quite a lot of money to nullify Faleena’s actions and liberate the “cocky” word. The hashtag #cockygate will give you all the juicy details.

So, Fettucine has writen a couple of short stories to rise money for the cause. I know these stories are meant to be jokes, but the price for such a short book is no joke at all, so I will give it an honest review.

Everyone is saying this book is like the funniest thing ever… Well, it is not. I didn’t laugh at all. I was promised some good laughs, but not even a smirk was drawn in my face. There are several good winks to the “cocky” debacle, but that’s it. The rest of this short story is just a guy having sex with a lady. And there is nothing remarkable about that scene, either.

Besides, I know this was written in a hurry to ride the peak of the wave; but some revision shoud have been made to avoid some errors that are quite painful even for a guy who doesn’t speak English as his first language. Seriously, I have to point out again the price of the book (almost 4$). Yeah, it’s a clever joke about a serious matter, but the buyers need some respect…

 

2018 – Book Gallery