I'm not sure where I'm at with this one. As a rule I love B.A. Tortuga's books but this one...well, honestly I just wasn't feeling it and there were a couple of things that just bugged the hell out of me. However, the narrator did a solid job and I enjoyed listening to him...so kudo's to Dorian Bane and as for the rest well as soon as I get my brain sorted out a full review and rating will follow....

So I've been sitting on this one for a couple of days now because B.A. Tortuga is totally one of my favorite authors and I have to admit of all her books that I've read this one has unfortunately turned out to be one of my least favorites. Try as I might it just was not meant to be and I'm pretty sure it's as much me as anything. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time examining things. I'm just going to say that as far as the relationship went I just wasn't feeling it and there was a couple of things that well...quite honestly really annoyed me so for me this one was a bust but not a total loss I very much enjoyed the narrations of Dorian Bane and whatever wasn't working it certainly had nothing to do with the narrator. I'm a fan of gravelly voiced cowboys and truthfully I'm still very much a fan of Ms Tortuga as well...just not this particular story.

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An audio book of 'Cowboy in the Crosshairs' was graciously provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

"THIS ONE TAKES PLACE IN CANADA!!!!!!!" and I didn't even realize this until I got listening to the story...yeah, I know it says 'Toronto' in the blurb but I admit it, I skimmed the blurb and listened to the audible sample and then said 'yes please'  I'm not even sure why because on of the MCs is a rock star...not my favorite. I have one series that I love with rock stars in it...just one...that's it and I read a lot so I think that speaks to how much I like rock stars...usually.

'Infamous' is the second book in Jenny Holiday's 'Famous' series and while I'm pretty sure that one of the MCs from book one is connected to Jess Jamison, I truly did not feel lost or like I was missing something at any time while I was listening to this story. 

When Jess boards the train...yes that's right, the train...hey, don't laugh those train tickets aren't cheap...anyways, Jess's goal is to get on the train and have a quiet ride home...well, it was until he spots the very handsome, young silver fox sitting alone and before his brain can censure his mouth he strikes up a conversation in which he discovers that his seat mate's name is Hunter Wyatt and he's a Pediatrician who works as a hospitalist (in plain speak he's a doctor who works strictly out of the hospital managing patient care for children who are critically ill...that's right children, Wyatt's a doctor at Toronto's Sick Kids Hospital and yes, it's really a place. They do a lot of amazing work there. Meanwhile Wyatt discovers that Jess is an up and coming...hopeful, wanna' be rock star. Plus before their train arrives at Union Station in Toronto they also discover they have one other thing in common they're both getting out of relationships that didn't work...

Wyatt when he realized that his 'roommate' of 10 years was never going to step out of the closet and make him more than a dirty little secret and Jess while they're on the train to Toronto and his current girlfriend sees the picture of Jess playing tonsil hockey with someone who's not only not her but not 'a' her at all. A few hours and several small bottles of wine later. Jess and Wyatt exchange contact information promising to stay in touch and move on...fast forward...

two years and Karma brings Jess and Wyatt back together and a friendship is born.

So that's the gist of things and really it's only the barest of outlines. Now where do I start in explaining how much I enjoyed this story...well first off let's start with how much I loved the interaction between Jess and Hunter...this one's slow folks, I mean seriously these two men are not rushing to dive under the covers...they're friends. Jess has had his wake-up call...remember the train ride? Yeah, his band was riding the rails and the new management flat out told him...NO MEN! Jess is bi so no problem right...no problem except for a certain young silver fox...but, Wyatt's not a problem he's had his fill of straight guys...so as far as he's concerned Jess is friendship material and that's it because there's no way in hell that anyone's putting Wyatt back in the closet again. No matter how much of a sexy, tattooed, bad-ass rocker they are or seem to be just because they're hiding a kind and gentle heart that's willing to visit a kid with a bad heart and teach her how to play guitar and help her and some other sick kids have their own rock band...or MC a charity fundraiser and then donate $200,000 to said charity and if you want to know how this happened you really need to read the story because...'Oh my god!!! So freakin' sweet.' and that's all I'm saying about that. 

Now, just to tease a little more we have the ending...and can I just say the ending on this one was "so freakin' melt my heart good". Yeah, it was a little bit over the top but in all the right ways and don't get me started on the secondary characters...like Jess's band and his sister and his nephew and Avery...the kid in the hospital...seriously they're all so awesome...You know, I really want to go listen to this one, again...oh and I almost forgot this one was narrated by Michael Fell. While Michael Fell isn't exactly a new to me narrator, this is my third audio book narrated by him and he's done a solid job on every one of them...this one had kids in it and if you know me you know how well I do with kids in audio books and folks I have to say Mr. Fell must have done ok because my ears didn't bleed, I wasn't running for the brain bleach, I didn't want to hurl my tablet (yeah, that's right Karen's got a new toy) and nope, no bad experiences so let's chalk up an extra point for this one because kid's voices and me are usually a really bad...like bad as in this book just got tanked and as you can tell by the 4.5 stars that didn't happen here. 

So hopefully there will be more from Jess and his band because truthfully, I'm dying to know if Bobby finally gets those bedbugs that he keeps obsessing about.

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An audio book of 'Infamous' was graciously provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Yeah, let's start with rhubarb because that's where this story really begins. I'm a country girl so needless to say I'm familiar with rhubarb and country life in general. Which was part of the appeal this book held for me.

When Scott Howe inherits a house in the country from his estranged grandmother, he's not really sure what to expect but he takes this as his opportunity for time and chance to allow him to make the changes in himself that he needs to make if he's ever going to be truly happy. Scott's tends to want to make others happen even when it's at the expense of his own personal happiness and his identity and while he recognizes this, he also knows that it's not the road he needs to take it he's ever going to be truly happy and content with himself. So Scott packs up and heads for his new home in the country just outside of Gilead and declares it to be 'the year of no men' or no men until a tightie white, orange rubber boot wearing, rifle carring Phineas Robertson confronts him in...come on you know where it is...take a guess...that's right...in the rhubarb patch.

While Phin and Scott may each like what they see when they first meet and granted Scott definitely gets to see more than Phin, lol!!! This is not a love at first sight story...not even close. Phin and Scott start out as neighbors and from there they progress to friends and then lovers. They take their time getting to know each other and Scott tentatively tries to hang on to his 'year of no men' vow but Phin's kind and gentle nature and his patience are more than Scott can resist not to mention his big, bear of a body...yep, Phin's not a GQ model or straight out off the cover of Sports Illustrated. He's a real man with a few extra pounds and initially he's a bit self conscious about it but as his relationship progresses with Scott he comes to realize that Scott likes what he sees and he's not interested in Phin being any different...which is one of the things that I liked about Scott.

There's a lot going on in this story besides Scott and Phin's growing relationship. Scott's got some definite family dynamics to deal with there's a cousin who's oars aren't in the water and he's 'out to get Scott for stealing his inheritance', there's issues between Scott and his mother that are coming to the forefront of their relationship because of his inheriting his grandmother's farm as well as mom's relationship with her latest 'loser' boyfriend...seriously woman, if you think this joker treats you well than we need to talk...he's so much excess baggage but you know love is blind...deaf and sometimes downright dumb.

So simply put this is a bit of a romance/mystery/thriller type story and Scott's not alone in having things to work out because Phin's got his own baggage from his past to deal with but at least none of his is coming after him or anyone else it all about putting his memories in the past where they belong so he can move on.

My biggest hang-up with this story was the details...I mean the abundance of details. Don't get me wrong I like detail in my story but it's a matter of finding the right balance and in this case I found that the amount of detail tended to be too much, to often. Sorry I re-lived more than I needed to when it came to gardening, canning and country life in general and that could very well be on me because...country girl here, done it, seen it...ate the rhubarb.

I enjoyed the parts where Scott went exploring his new surroundings that worked for me and I liked seeing the little town of Gilead through his eyes as he discovered his new surroundings. I was good with any time that Scott and Phin spent together unfortunately for some reason I just never became a big fan of Scott and Phin together...as a couple. They never quite seemed to work and maybe that was due in part to the fact that while I liked Scott and as a person he really did mature from where he was at the beginning of the book, I just never quite connected with him and to be honest I also had a teeny, tiny issue with Phin as well...

Scott and Phin were supposedly working on a total honesty concept and at one point Phin seemed to be priding himself on his total honesty but it was all while having a loaded handgun in his night table. A gun that he had promised Scott wasn't there...so yeah, I had a tiny issue with this because total honesty...not so much.

I think one of my favorite parts of this story was 'Nancy', Scott's grandmother...yes, I'm talking about the deceased grandmother who left Scott her house. Throughout this story we are painted a picture of one person viewed through the eyes of her grandsons...Scott and Mike, the grandson who felt should have inherited things, Scott's mother, who while I have to admit is probably one of my least favorite mothers...ever had her own less than unbiased view of who Nancy was and we are given a look at her through the eyes of the community she lived in and lastly we are painted yet another picture of 'Nancy' as she was to her best friend and neighbor...Phin.

For me Nancy was representative of almost any of us because I'm betting if you asked 6 people you know to write down their impression of you what you would find would be 6 impressions that differed to varying degrees. This for me made Nancy seem real. I don't think any of us act exactly the same with each person we know and unless it's done intentionally or with malice intended I think subtle changes in a persons behavior happen as part of an instinctual response to a persons environment and even though she was technically dead Nancy seemed to be the driving force behind a lot of what was happening in this story.

Overall 'The Rhubarb Patch' was a sweet, second chance, starting over, finding true love kind of story and while it wasn't as good for me as I had hoped it would be there was still more that I enjoyed than I didn't and I'm looking forward to seeing not only what but who comes next in 'The Men of Gilead'. 

I have to admit I wasn't sure what to expect with this one  but it's K. C. Wells so I felt fairly certain that at the worst I was going to at least like this one. Well I did and I was even more pleasantly surprised to realize that I more than liked it. 

'Out of the Shadows' turned out to be a sweet story about a Christian Hernandez, a man who is left severely scared on the right side of his body...specifically his face and arm and how he comes to see that while the scars he was left with are a part of him they don't have to define him and Josh the sweet man who enters his life due to renovations that are being made in the apartment complex where he lives who sees beyond how Christian looks to the man he is. One of my favorite things about this story is the banter between Josh and Christian. From their first conversation I found them to be totally charming and adorable.

While there's not really any angst in this one neither does Josh's entrance into Christian's life magically fix things. This is a slow burn as Josh and Christian go from strangers to a very tenuous relationship as acquaintances and with time and patience they become friends as Josh slowly and persistently strives to bring Christian out of his shell and help him accept to reclaim his life...a life that can exist outside of the walls of his apartment.

I think for me this was a case of right story right time. I loved the simplicity of this story that was quite honestly filled with a whole lot of people who seemed really nice and had the ability to see beyond the surface and appreciate the person inside. I also liked that this was not a story filled with insta-love, insta-fix...insta-anything nor was it a story of overly complicated and convoluted solutions. Sometimes the solutions in life are straightforward solutions that just need time and effort which is how things felt in this story.

'Out of the Shadows' was narrated by a new to me narrator named Finn Sterling and I have to admit that not all of the voices he created for these characters matched what my mind conjured but I was ok with this because while they didn't match my imaginings they were unique and expressive to each character. 

This book #40 in Dreamspinner's Dreamspun Desires series and can easily be read or listened to on audio as a standalone story.

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An audio book of 'Out of the Shadows' was graciously provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

'Horny' was a cute story that took more than a little poetic license with Greek mythology. When Ryan Caulfield ends up with a group of supernatural law enforcers in his bar hunting for a less than law abiding Zeus the last thing Ryan expects to happen is that he'll be attracted to one of them and even more surprising they're attracted to him. As a paranormal investigator and an eroté, Leander's use to not having to work for his conquest but when it comes to Ryan things just are coming easy to Leander and not everything's as it seems to be.

With a title like 'Horny' the one thing that you could reasonably safely assume is that this is not a serious story and you're right. There were some funny and entertaining moments in this one unfortunately they were interspersed with moments of what felt a little bit like the story was maybe trying too hard. While the first half of this story waffled between 2 and 3 stars the second part made up for it and was a little more consistently on a 3 star level. I found myself far more interested and invested in what was happening and where my mind had wandered a bit at the beginning I found myself paying closer attention to what was happening and enjoying myself a bit more during the last half of the story.

While the story started out feeling very much like insta-love/lust at first things became far more interesting when it got dialed back a notch and Leander had to start working for what he wanted and both men are taking the time to get to know each other along with still having a wayward Zeus to bring to justice.

Nick J. Russo was the narrator for this light and amusing story and his voice added depth and character to the story and making for yet another entertaining listening experience.

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An audio book of 'Horny' was graciously provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.