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Ashitagari Mono Mania – Shinozaki Mai
Higuchi Yuuya has been adopted by the son of the woman who caused an accident that killed his parents, Saeki Tooru. Both agree to live as a ‘family.’ As time flies by, both have developed feelings that can’t be explained.
To Love Passionately: I don’t see what the fuss is about. They’re not even blood relations
Melting Point Secret: Now that’s more like it…
Sentimental Evening Pureness: Makes no sense
(source: http://www.rocaca.com)
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Ashitagari Mono Mania – Shinozaki Mai
Higuchi Yuuya has been adopted by the son of the woman who caused an accident that killed his parents, Saeki Tooru. Both agree to live as a ‘family.’ As time flies by, both have developed feelings that can’t be explained.
To Love Passionately: I don’t see what the fuss is about. They’re not even blood relations
Melting Point Secret: Now that’s more like it…
Sentimental Evening Pureness: Makes no sense
(source: http://www.rocaca.com)
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Hemovore – Jordan Castillo Price
Mark Hansen thought working as artist’s assistant would be glamorous, especially if that artist was a vampire. Black tie events, witty repartee, gracing the pages of the local style section…. Didn’t happen. Not even once.
Jonathan Varga is an enigma. True, he’s quiet, generous, and scrupulously polite. But he has zero social life, refuses to be interviewed or photographed, and insists he can only consume feline blood.
Why supermarket blood won’t suffice, Mark hasn’t asked. He’s rarely at a loss for words—he can dish an insult and follow it with a snap as quick as you can say “Miss Thang.” But one look at Jonathan’s black-as-sin gypsy eyes, and Mark’s objections drain away.
So he endures the perpetual grind of their routine: Jonathan hiding in his studio, swiping black paint onto black canvases. Mark hurling insults while he buffs the office to a shine with antiviral wipes. Each of them avoiding the other in a careful choreography…until a blurb in Art in America unleashes a chain of harrowing events.
As secrets from Jonathan’s past are brought to light, it becomes clear that all his precautions weren’t nearly enough.
When I finished listening to Hemovore, I didn’t know what to make of it. But after thinking about it for a couple of days, I realized there were a lot of things I liked and the ending (Sweet, the novellete at the end the audiobook) was what really made it. It was perfect. My favorite part was that cake tasting scene with Mona. Expect tears.
I’m really digging JCP’s take on vampires. While vampirism as a virus is not new, rather than making it as an convenient excuse for people to turn into bloodsucking monsters, here, it was treated like the deadly virus it is. Every precaution was taken to avoid contamination. Stringent sterilization measures, safety gloves, disinfectant wipes, everything. The world building is also outstanding. The alternate contemporary universe vividly portrayed the dichotomy of the V+ and V- cases.
I also liked Jonathan’s black on black paintings. Some artist should do that in real life and have the images be visible under black light or UV light. That sort of thing would be really cool or then again, it would be really pretentious.
Stories that involved journeys, traveling, quests or running away tend to be a drag for me because it always feels like I would never see the end of it but here, the pacing was just right. I liked how JCP kept the suspense tight.
It helps that there were a lot going on from meeting the V+ help group to the pathetic but creepy rat man and finally that showdown with Lazlo.
I’m a bit on the fence about the romance at the beginning. It seemed to start out as one-sided but gradually won me over especially at the end though it never reached squee-inducing levels. Most times I enjoyed Mark’s sass and oh so gay references but sometimes, just sometimes he could be such a drama queen. Jonathan’s Bela Lugosi accent is, at times, hard to take seriously not because the narrator, Joel Leslie, was bad at it (his delivery was spot on as usual) but because I have heard it used as a bad joke too many times. Nonetheless Mark and Jonathan turned out to be a cute power couple. These two fought so hard to be together they deserve all the happiness they can get
So while it didn’t really blow me away, I’m glad to say my first Jordan Castillo Price novel was a win.
Rating:
3.5 Stars – that place between like and loveSoundtrack: The Blood is Love
Artist: Queens of the Stone Age
Album:Lullabies to Paralyze(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33978361-hemovore)
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Ai ga Love Shite You Nanosa – Jaryuu Dokuro
Oono is unable to properly do his uniform check job because his adoration of Takeuchi distracts him, and Takeuchi mistakes this for Oono hating him and is sad at the idea of being disliked by the model student. Thus, Takeuchi is relieved and willing to reciprocate when he finds out that it isn’t hate but instead love that makes Oono so very awkward around Takeuchi.
Oono and Takeuchi are soo cute! I want to see them still together after 10 years. The ArataxShigexShingo situation is open ended…No!!!
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Ai ga Love Shite You Nanosa – Jaryuu Dokuro
Oono is unable to properly do his uniform check job because his adoration of Takeuchi distracts him, and Takeuchi mistakes this for Oono hating him and is sad at the idea of being disliked by the model student. Thus, Takeuchi is relieved and willing to reciprocate when he finds out that it isn’t hate but instead love that makes Oono so very awkward around Takeuchi.
Oono and Takeuchi are soo cute! I want to see them still together after 10 years. The ArataxShigexShingo situation is open ended…No!!!
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Sins of the Cities: An Unsuitable Heir – K.J. Charles
A private detective finds passion, danger, and the love of a lifetime when he hunts down a lost earl in Victorian London.
On the trail of an aristocrat’s secret son, enquiry agent Mark Braglewicz finds his quarry in a music hall, performing as a trapeze artist with his twin sister. Graceful, beautiful, elusive, and strong, Pen Starling is like nobody Mark’s ever met—and everything he’s ever wanted. But the long-haired acrobat has an earldom and a fortune to claim.
Pen doesn’t want to live as any sort of man, least of all a nobleman. The thought of being wealthy, titled, and always in the public eye is horrifying. He likes his life now—his days on the trapeze, his nights with Mark. And he won’t be pushed into taking a title that would destroy his soul.
But there’s a killer stalking London’s foggy streets, and more lives than just Pen’s are at risk. Mark decides he must force the reluctant heir from music hall to manor house, to save Pen’s neck. Betrayed by the one man he thought he could trust, Pen never wants to see his lover again. But when the killer comes after him, Pen must find a way to forgive—or he might not live long enough for Mark to make amends.
An Unsuitable Heir is the conclusion of the Sins of the Cities series. Following the events of the second book, An Unnatural VIce, Pen and Mark’s story starts with Mark discovering the identity of the Godfrey twins and Pen and Mark hooking up. Pen was soon introduced as the missing earl much to the consternation of the remaining Taillefer family members. Because the killer was still at large, Pen and Greta were sent to live in Crowmarsh for their safety but it seems the killer followed them there.
Pen is what modern people call gender queer at a time when the Western world couldn’t even begin to accept homosexuality. Working as a trapeze artist with Greta lets him be himself. He and Mark just clicked right away. I really like Mark’s open-minded pansexual attitude and how he and Pen fit together quite nicely.
“Serves you right. I roll you cross-eyed and you tell me you’re not fussy?”
“I’m not,” Mark said. “I told you from the start, mate. I like men, I like women, I like whoever, however they want to be—as long as it’s you. That’s the only thing in the world I’m picky about.” He smiled into Pen’s eyes, saw him smile back. “But I’m a bloody stickler for that.”Greta also found her happily ever after with Tim who I mistakenly suspect as the killer. That was really stupid of me. Tim is likable if nondescript and I like his blase attitude towards men kissing men.
I wasn’t really over the moon with the romance. They were OK but what kept me reading were the mystery and the family scandals. K.J. Charles called the trilogy her “total Victorian sensation fiction, channelling my love for Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Dickens in his wilder moods, and the other glorious writers of complicated plots with scandals, secrets and shenanigans up the wazoo“. A Victorian soap opera it is and with superb voice acting from Matthew Lloyd Davis, I felt like I was in on the action. His delivery of old man Desmond was really spot on.
One major conflict in the book is Pen’s dilemma. If he becomes an earl he had to cut his hair, wear a suit and be confined to what society considers to be a man. But then he cannot just throw his inheritance away and ruin his future along with Greta’s. Half of me wanted Pen to be the earl while half of me want him to be a trapeze artist hence the resolution was moderately satisfying but not as clever as Society of Gentlemen. The big reveal didn’t reveal anything too shocking. It was more of a confirmation of things that happened in all the three books. In the end, I think Justin Lazarus stole the show.
Rating:
3.5 Stars – that place between like and loveSoundtrack: Body was Made
Artist: Ezra Furman
Album: Perpetual Motion People(source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33841918-an-unsuitable-heir)
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Pokerface – Lee Ki Ha
A oneshot about unrequited and forbidden love.
Damn!
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Pokerface – Lee Ki Ha
A oneshot about unrequited and forbidden love.
Damn!
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World’s End: Duce – Kai Tyler
One mafia boss.
One rival’s son.
One deadly setup.Parties and orgies… those are the only things Carlos Carmichael wants to do. It’s the only way he knows to deal with his life as the son of a notorious cartel boss. He’ll get whatever he wants by any means necessary.
Until he tangles with a man who plays by totally different rules.
Dante Orsino has been raised in the old ways of honor, loyalty and respect of the business. His role as mafia underboss is more than just a job. It also makes him an heir to one of the biggest families in the Southern Territories.
When Carlos meets Dante and plays a silly game, their weekend tryst sparks a deadly cartel war.
For Dante there’s no other life except—the life. And he wants Carlos in his. But in the New World, a gay man is a dead man. Can he find a way to keep everything he loves and stay alive?
In a new world gone mad, even the good guys are bad. Welcome to the World’s End series.
This is so shallow. A huge disappointment for me because the blurb sounded good and the cover looked OK.
The mafia + dystopian setting has some potential but the author didn’t fully make use of it. There were just some passing nods to technology and dystopian elements but had this been set in the present world it would not make any difference to the story.
The characters themselves lack depth. Carlos and Dante were like caricatures of whatever character types they were suppose to be.
The so called romance was so unconvincing and unnecessary it, again, wouldn’t make any difference if it was removed from the story.
The first person POV for both the main characters sounded off especially when they were describing themselves. Some chapters had third person POV and this would have worked better if it had been from this POV all throughout.
The narration was also flat and most of the voices sound the same. I think the whole thing was a mess.
Anyway, I’d say ditch the romance and just focus on mafia politics.
Rating:
2 Stars – it’s a struggle to finish the damn bookSoundtrack: April Skies
Artist: The Jesus and Mary Chain
Album: Darklands -
Ameiro no Toge – Hayakawa Nojiko
The story of a quiet, sensitive high-school guy who enjoys painting, and his complicated feelings.
Oh no! No no no! Don’t end like that…!
