Connie Parker is in her early twenties and mother of a three-year-old. She had got pregnant without quite planning for it and chooses to be a stay-at-home mom. Her relationship with her boyfriend, Kurt, isn’t all that great. In fact, the author has written a very realistic relationship where both want to try making it better each time they are alone, but the interaction is so broken that together they just cannot get it right. Connie sublimates her romanticism into writing during those little pockets of time that bringing up her baby gives her.

During one of her kiddie-activity she meets Maria, another mom with a three-year-old. Maria is completely put together, seemingly out-of-Connie’s-league rich, warm, funny and openly gay. Maria extends the hand of friendship to Connie and slowly they start spending time together.

As Connie’s relationship with Kurt deteriorates, her relationship with Maria thrives and grows…so much so that the book she is writing began with cynicism about love and is growing into a romance.

Read the full review @https://www.bestlesficreviews.com/2019/01/too-late-i-love-you-by-kiki-archer.html

Late Night Means Love - Declan Rhodes 3.5 Stars

Milo Clearwater is sous chef that has a dream of opening up his own restaurant one day. He works for a reputable restaurant that has a temperamental Head chef/owner. He hopes to also be able to find someone he can become romantically involved with who can handle his schedule. When the prospect comes for him to open his own restaurant he grabs the opportunity by the horns. Everything seems to be looking up for Milo and when he crosses paths with Cole, they seem to get even better.

But with everything looking so good, of course that’s when complications arise. Career-wise Milo is on a good path; romantically Milo isn’t sure what Cole’s relationship is with Milo’s benefactor.

I like stories that have a food theme, it’s interesting seeing the behind the scenes because not all restaurants are the same or have the same atmosphere. Milo was a sweet character and well liked among his friends and fellow cooks. He was humble and likable for the most part.
Readers didn’t get to know Cole as well as Milo and it’s hard to draw a good picture of him without being colored by his profession and how Milo friend’s perceive him. The two barely know each other before they sleep together and Milo does so when he’s having doubts about Cole and Gerard’s acquaintance. I found it odd and I didn’t like what it said about Milo. There were times when I thought Milo was acting like a teenager that had a crush.

I'm glad everything worked out in the end. Although Milo running away from his issues made me want to shake him and just push him to be a bit more fearless.

An ARC was provided to me in exchange for an honest review.

US only because of S&H.

 

One winner, three books.  This will end on August 31st.   I'll use a random number generator, and just comment here. 

 

Come Late to the Love of Birds is one of my favorite poetry collections and is signed by the author.   Chasing the Dragon is one of my favorite ChiZine books - and possibly the first I ever read by them - and is also signed by the author.   Both are just flat signatures since I told them it was for a giveaway.   (Sandra gave me a look and goes 'don't you already own this.'  Yes, yes, I did.   She was more than happy to sell me a copy for this giveaway.   And I bought this and Chasing the Dragon.   They had so many copies of Onward, Drake which were from 2015 and labeled for another convention that I picked up another and am including it - but it is not signed, but it was a freebie that I'm passing along.)

 

Come Late to the Love of Birds: 

 

"Sandra's first collection, The Animal Bridegroom featured an introduction by Neil Gaiman and has sold out. This collection expands on her themes of abject romances, deformed fairytales gone and the astonishing delights of life in glorious 21st century.

Kasturi's latest poetry book fuses nature's continuous emotional offerings, our desire to understand ourselves with our passion to be free, devoid of the burden of modern thought."

 

From the Amazon description here.

 

Chasing the Dragon: 

 

"Centuries ago, St. George fought and killed a dragon—or so the legend goes.

The truth is somewhat different.

George failed in his mission, and the Dragon still walks the Earth, protected by an undead army, hiding in the shadows and slaughtering men, women, and children for its prey. Each of George's descendants through time has been tasked with killing the Dragon, and each has failed.

Twenty-five-year-old Georgia Quincey is the last of the line—the last, best hope for defeating the Dragon once and for all. But Georgia is also an addict, driven to the warm embrace of the needle by the weight of her responsibility and the loss of everything and everyone she has ever loved.

Tracking her nemesis to the small town of Buckshot, New Mexico for their final showdown, Georgia is about to discover the truth about the Dragon, a terrible secret that could put all life on Earth in peril."

 

From the Amazon description here.

 

Onward, Drake:

 

TOP AUTHORS PAY TRIBUTE TO A MASTER. David Drake has left an indelible mark on the science fiction and fantasy genres. He is considered the Grand Master of Military Science Fiction. Now, top authors in the field pay tribute to the man and his work in this all-new collection of stories and essays.

David Drake has left an indelible mark on the science fiction and fantasy genres. Now, top authors in the science fiction and fantasy field pay tribute to the man and his work in this all-new collection of stories and essays.

Best-selling author David Drake has been creating topnotch military science fiction, space opera, and fantasy novels and stories for decades. In this all-original collection that appears as Drake is a Special Guest of the 2015 World Fantasy Convention, a stellar line-up of writers pays tribute to Drake with stories as broad in range as his own fiction. Each one comes with an illuminating afterword explaining the connection of the story to Drake and his work.  

In Eric Flint’s “A Flat Affect” a king is no match for a pair of storytellers

Gene Wolfe takes us to a strange and wondrous future in “Incubator”

Larry Correia examines what it’s like to face Hammer’s Slammers from “The Losing Side”

S.M. Stirling offers an insider’s view of “Working with Dave, or, Inmates in Bellevue”

Mur Lafferty shows what happens when a fairy visitor receives an unexpected welcome in “The Crate Warrior, the Doppelganger, and the Idea Woman”

The book also features two new pieces from Drake himself: “The Great Wizard, Cabbage,” a comic historical fantasy, and “Save What You Can,” the first new Hammer’s Slammers story in nearly a decade!  

With more stories from editor Mark L. Van Name, Cecelia Holland, T.C. McCarthy, Barry N. Malzberg, Sarah Hoyt, Tony Daniel, John Lambshead, Hank Davis, Eric S. Brown, and Sarah Van Name, as well as appreciations from Baen Publisher Toni Weisskopf and Tor founder and Publisher Tom Doherty, Onward, Drake! is a collection that fans of Drake’s fiction—and anyone who enjoys a good story—will not want to miss!

 

From the Amazon description here.

 

 

 Please feel free to reblog!

If any fault is to be found in this book, it's to be found in me as a reader.   While the poems that I felt I fully understood were gorgeous, warm, and at times heartbreaking, the ones I didn't fully understand were simply poetry.   Graceful little moments - or big sweeping ones - boiled down a few pages of language so gorgeously put together I found myself tearing up in rooms full of people while waiting for another panel to start.   I had a hard, hard time wrenching myself away from this. 

 

I don't read much poetry and have wanted to branch out.  I've met Sandra multiple times at the Chizine booth in the dealer room at Readercon.   She's warm, humorous, and simply a lovely woman - so I was more than eager to pick up one of her books of poetry.   What a perfect way to get into this, I thought!   And it was.   The introduction and afterward, while brief, are lovely as well.   And I usually don't read them, but I did, because Sandra.   

 

I went up and gushed about this to her, too.   The fault is with me, for not putting in enough effort earlier on to read or understand poetry.   It's never compelled me as much as novels, and so I sometimes feel somewhat lost and bewildered when trying to piece together the metaphors and symbolism that seems unique to poetry.   

 

Still, I thought, I could maybe understand this.   Maybe I didn't because poetry is awe-inspiring in its own way when done properly; it sweeps over you, it distills so much that it can be painful.   And yes, this reached this point many a times. 

 

Even when I didn't understand, I ached along with the words on the page.   And speaking of the pages: this is a physically gorgeous book.   The pages are high quality with an evoking texture to them, and a lot of time was put into the look of this.   Not just the way the pages framed the words - although that was obviously a lot of work in itself, because this book may be perfect in a purely aesthetic way - but in the way the patterns of those textures on the pages drew you to them. 

 

I'm incredibly happy to have picked this up.   I've wanted to do this justice, to do something as simple and graceful and sweet as this book.  I've wanted to boil down the emotions it brought out in me in a sentence or two and let that speak for itself.   Instead, I've gone on for far too long. 

 

And since I know I've got a couple Gaiman fans, he didn't write the introduction to this book, but he did for her first book of poetry, and he gave a glowing quote for this one.   

 

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes for obvious reasons for anyone who knows me:

 

"Cars are cars, except when they are automobiles

or airplanes or derringers, except when they are sweet

 

hot metal alive on the wriggling road..."

 

This really, truly touched me, and said what I'd been trying to say for a long time without being able to word it quite like this.   

 But, eh, feel too sick and tired to review right now.   And Deadpool is gonna be hella long as I rant a little, and I want to do justice to Come Late to the Love of Birds, and I can't right now.