The Library at Mount Char defies easy labels, something like dark fantasy slash horror with an incredibly black sense of humor, but both more fun and less fun than that sounds.  The opening positively crawls along, and it's not until maybe halfway through that I began to make sense of the incredibly complex world. But once the teeth catch, man, that shit really rolls. Mount Char makes an abattoir of various philosophical and religious questions, often literally. Violence is commonplace and bloody, which alternately hit my macabre sense of humor, or fucking grossed me out. Hawkins also manages to pull one of those long cons with the plotting, where he's doing this thing out in the open, but you're not even paying attention until it comes together with a bang.Very enjoyable. 

If you're looking for something cute, fluffy, sweet, mushy and adorable...carry on because this is probably not for you. However, if you're interested in edgy, dark, intense and gut clenching...well, pull up a chair. I think you've just come home.

 

'Bloodbath' is to say the least an accurate title for what happens in this story. Dom and Seth are embroiled in a world that is harsh, cruel and dangerous on a daily basis. Any day that's good is a day that you survive. But Dom wants more than survival and Seth...Seth wants whatever keeps him at Dom's side. But being with Dom has a price and the real questions are 'is Seth willing to pay that price?' and 'does Dom really want him to?'

 

As always there are really two stories being told here. The first one is the obvious one. It's about Seth, Dom and their struggle to reclaim the life they had to give up. The second one while maybe not quite as obvious I think is still fairly apparent to anyone who follow's this series. It's about Seth and Dom's struggle to retain who they are as individuals and what they have together as  a couple. For me Seth is the light to Dom's dark. These men balance each other. Seth brings a light and promise to Dom and makes him remember that there are good things in this world and that he in spite of all he's had to do is still a good person worthy of being loved. Dom keeps the dark from Seth and protects him from a world that would easily consume him and from having to lose the light inside him that Dom so passionately loves. 

 

The events of 'Bloodbath' tested both of these men as we watched Seth lose himself in a world of violence that seemed to be consuming his soul little by little and left Dom conflicted between what he needed Seth to do and what he could live with Seth doing. 

 

Once again I was all in on this one from start to finish. Dom and Seth share a love that is incredibly intense and ultimately binds them to each other above all else and it was at the point where Dom found himself pushing Seth to become what he was never meant to be that Dom realized the how and why of his love for Seth that things became so clear for him and he pulls Seth back from what would possibly be a point of no return for Seth and their relationship.

 

I love the passion and intensity that the authors have given to these characters and each story allows us to see them grow as both individuals and as a couple. The challenges that they face are not the norm and I certainly wouldn't want all my books to be as intense as Dom and Seth's stories are I find myself enjoying this series more and more with each subsequent release and I'm already anticipating what comes next in Dom & Seth's story. 

 

As with the last couple of books that I've read in this series when I reached the end I found that there was a song rattling around in my brain that for me became the theme song for that particular story and this time the song was another rock classic...

I Would Do Anything For Love by Meatloaf  (take a minute and enjoy)

 

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An ARC of 'Bloodbath' was graciously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

5 Stars.

Domencio could ask for anything,and Seth would give it to him.

More pics of Dom.











I read the first book in this series about 18 months ago and I was immediately hooked.These books are dark,gritty and violent but ultimately it's a story of two men that are just meant to be together.....

I can't put into words how much I love Dom and Seth.These Authors have created two men with such passion.love and commitment to each other.

This book is extremely fast paced and gripping.I couldn't read it fast enough.Dom is still searching for the elusive Mr Tropico and to get closer to him he must get close to his associates.They need to infiltrate the home of Toro,a Cartel Boss.However,things are never straight forward as they have to go under cover and hide their relationship.

With bugs and hidden cameras everywhere the tension rises as the two men can't be together.

Seth has to mould himself into a completely different man to the one that Dom loves.I couldn't have loved Seth more here.Although he comes from a Mafia background he doesn't embrace the lifestyle at all.He struggles with the kind of man he thinks Dom wants him to be, to the man he actually is.I started off loving Dom(and I still do ) but Seth has completely stole my heart here.


The supporting characters play an important role here.I ( like probably every one else ) don't like Dana but I've got a new found respect for here,when it matters she totally steps ups and even though MF isn't my thing I would definitely read her story.is she in love with Dom? ....I think so.



And there's Mark......I've loved him from the very first moment he was introduced and wouldn't it be great to have a book about him?


And finally let's talk about Nero...the villain,or is he? I know it might be wrong but I found him so intriguing and really quite sexy.....


My favourite MM series to date.

Arc from Authors

This review has been posted on Dirty Books Obsession

The best dinner party occurs in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Young Stephen is at the table when a viscous argument about Irish politics breaks out between his father and aunt. Even though I did not understand the context, that dining room table fight absolutely bolted me to the floor. And, really, Joyce is counting on you not precisely to get it, because that disorientation is part of the reader feeling Stephen's growing panic, allowing the politics to stand in for other, more simmering resentments.

 

"Best" is maybe an awkward descriptor for this dinner party. Certainly there are many other dinner parties I would rather attend, like Bilbo and the dwarves at the start of The Hobbit, or even Mrs Dalloway's tragically interrupted party at the end of her eponymous novel. But I don't know. Joyce's domestic battle was so raw, so complicated, packing in all of this subtext in a few nasty lines, and simultaneously casting the reader as Stephen whether you want to be or not. I've been at that table too. I've had those fights. 

 

My first instinct was to pick The Red Wedding from GRRM's Storm of Swords as the best dinner party, just for the lulz. But George Martin's got nothing on Joyce in terms of bloodbath and betrayal. Joyce has less literal bloodbath, but that doesn't mean you're not bleeding. Leaving the table with just a slit throat would be an improvement sometimes. Boo yah. Erin go bragh. 

 

Q: WHAT IS BIBLE CAMP BLOODBATH?

is it a self-published, minor note novella from a notable Canadian talent?

is it a biting satire of splatter films and/or a culture of violence aimed at children and/or Christian hypocrisy?

is it a surprisingly tender and real depiction of tweens at a summer camp, threaded with poignant angst and quick moments of miniature heartbreak, and featuring an endearing and appealingly quirky little protagonist?

is it an exercise in viciously sadean excess - one where all those moments of angst and heartbreak serve to punish the reader when served alongside horrifyingly pornographic descriptions of disgusting, sadistic acts of cruelty?

is it the kind of novella with an ending that kicks you right in the face, and then closes with a sentence full of a yearning, despairing sort of beauty?

is it the kind of sardonic, nonchalantly intelligent novella you can read - rapt - on your cell phone's kindle app on the bus to a party, then during this so-called "party", and then on the way back home again?

is it the kind of novella that made you feel sick at the end, a dead and hollow kind of sick, a sick where you had to immediately rinse your brain out with an ornate classic fantasy, in an only semi-successful effort to quickly move past that feeling of empty sickening sadness?

is it all of those things?

A: YES