I Picked Up This Book Because: Someone close to me aspires to be a TV writer so I thought I’d see what she was signing up for.

The Story:

Part memoir, part advice column, part real facts about Hollywood Nell takes us on a recounting of her career from “Who is Nell Scovell” to “Who is Nell Scovell”. This book is well written and pulls not punches about the sexism, racism and other flaws of a career in Hollywood. Nell had a lot to say on the subject. Sometime a bit too much. At the end when she was listing unused jokes I felt like it was more filler than anything useful. All together it was eye opening. I had no idea how short a writer's career could be. It’s definitely not a field for the faint of heart.

The Random Thoughts:



The Score Card:



3.5 Stars

On one hand, this book was less superficial than I expected, considering the blurb. I love the fake boyfriend trope, and I was looking forward to a fun book. While there was lots of humor, the depth within surprised me.

On the other hand, I would have liked to repeatedly smack Isaac over the head, not only for continuing to hide Logan being his boyfriend, but also for not realizing that family isn't always determined by blood, especially when your parents are homophobic racist jerks. 

I think what bothered me the most is that Isaac often sounded much younger than I was told he is, especially when he's around his parents, and that he was too blind to realize that he was hurting Logan, and his friends, with his ridiculous stance. While I could understand his fears, those fears blinded him to what he already has, and he only saw what he stood to lose. He lives a couple of hours away from his parents, and he's out to everyone in his life, except for them. But every time he goes home, it is very clear that not only does he not like his parents, especially his father, but he also mocks and ridicules them. And thus I couldn't for the life of me understand what was stopping him from telling them to shove it and tell them who he truly is. 

The romance is definitely whirlwind, much like the blurb promises, and there is hot sex and cheesy puns, and I believed that both Isaac and Logan had feelings for each other. They have a lot in common, and the growth in their relationship felt realistic to me given the timeframe of this book. 

I guess Isaac still needed to grow up. And I guess he does by book's end; he just leaves a whole lot of hurt in his wake that could have been avoided, had he been more emotionally mature. 

The entire book is written from Isaac's POV, so we don't get a whole lot of true insights to Logan, and Isaac's friends, since his view is somewhat skewered and distorted though his lens. The humor was fun (not cheesy, really), and outside of Isaac's behavior with his parents, I did like him as a person. He's kind and considerate to others - just emotionally stunted. Which is likely a result of his upbringing, but I didn't see the same in his sister, and she grew up in the same emotionally stunted home. 

I liked the writing style, and I'm definitely going to check out more books by this author. 


** I received a free copy of this book from its publisher in exchange for an honest review. **

Isaac meets Logan at Christmas, as his sister's boyfriend.  Talk about your forbidden choices.  He will just have to put what he wants aside.  He does not believe he is worthy of a great relationship.

 

Logan has no problem telling Isaac he wants him.  He is only doing a friend a favor.  Their attraction is obvious to anyone who looks at them together.  

 

The characters had an obvious connection.  The sparks definitely fly around them being together.  Very realistic, with a slower pace than I expected.  I give this a 3/5 Kitty's Paws UP!

 

 

***This ARC copy was given in exchange for an honest review only, by Netgalley and its publishers.

Intrigue, enhanced super solders and rough sex are all rolled up into this futuristic suspense.

Conspiracy theorists will enjoy this m/m story as it covers underhanded dealings, espionage and government assignations. Jones is an orphan picked up when he was young by the government. Over the years, he's been physically changed into a killing machine. As part of an elite force, he and his team are the enforcers who put down dissensions so that the world can be a better and safer place. Yet the world doesn't seem to get any better. It's only become worse.

Ms. Summers creates a world filled with tangled webs. Who is friend and who is foe is hard to discern. For Jones who isn't the brightest bulb, he is constantly in the dark. It doesn't help he is strung out on drugs to keep him sane. In this dysfunctional world, there are plots within plots within plots. The only constants for Jones are his best friend and the stone cold killer Carver.

Jones' fatal attraction to Carver is his undoing. It doesn't help that Carver is the one who slips into Jones' secure room night after night. The sex in this story is hawt. The controlled violence in the sexual acts is arousing for those who enjoy dubious consent. For those who enjoy alpha males wrestling for top dog, this story is one to read. The underlying sexual tension through physical dominance in the dark will cause a submissive reader to whimper in desire. There are several moan-worthy scenes sprinkled throughout the deadly action.

This story reminds me of the Bourne Identity films in the way the government may or may not be the good guys. Ms. Summers does a good job of creating a world of gray where very little is definite. Just when the reader believes they know the facts, new information is revealed to convince the reader otherwise. This book is not predictable, which is a good thing.

A new-to-me author, Ms. Summers is one I will be watching. VICES ends in a rather startling manner and makes me yearn for the next book. Hopefully Ms. Summers will write a bit faster so the next book will be provided soon. This erotic suspense is recommended for m/m lovers who enjoy inhumane machination.

I will say this – Nash Summers, whose first published story I read in April, has slowly become one of my ‘watch-out’ authors of 2014. She has written three shorter stories before and I loved them all. Now she released this cyberpunk romance novel, and boy, she just blew me away. Even days after I finished this … I still had no idea what I wanted to say. So let’s just hope this review makes sense somehow.

“Vices” is the first entry of duo-logy cyberpunk dystopian series, called Cold Hard Truths. Jones is one of the soldiers of ENAD (Enforced Necessary Arms Division), a division of state who does dangerous sometimes dirty mission. They are the state’s rottweilers. Seven years ago, Jones fell for another ENAD member, heartless cold-without-emotion Carver. And now Carver is back into Jones’s life, since he is the Jones’s team leader.

That was all I could practically tell you about the synopsis, because after that, you just had to be ready for a roller-coaster ride. It involved some emotionally fucked-up characters – and of course I just ate that ALL up – betrayal, conspiracy, some techno-nano-bots actions, GUN PLAY (oh, yes, people, there was ONE GUN-PLAY INVOLVED!! Wait, let me REPHRASE that, there was an angry-sex-more-like-dub-con-involving-gun-involved ... AND IT WAS HOT AND CRAZY AND I COULDN’T EVEN BREATHE!!), and oh delicious kind of unsolved-tension!! This was raw, and dark, and gritty … and I didn’t know if I could even call it a romance. But it was the one that just pull my heart out of its socket because I loved it when the characters were flawed.

Reading it wasn’t easy – this definitely wasn’t fluffy story – and I was dying to see how Jones could penetrate Carver’s wall. They were messed-up but beautiful in their imperfection. With the huge betrayal plot that had not resolved and an ending that didn’t even felt like HFN – I would say it was more hopeful for now, rather than HFN – I couldn’t wait for the conclusion.

Please, Ms. Summers, please say that you are writing book #2 now? Because I am definitely ready to go back to this world again...