Review: Stray Home by Edith Scott

Stray Home by Edith Scott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one is a MM gay romance novel featuring hotness and a puppy.

Stray Home starts with a big and buff, tattooed carpenter feeling all alone.

He's out of the military, he's bought and refurbished the family home. But he's feeling unfulfilled. Sad and alone in his big house, he wants a family. He has a sister and a brother and they have kids, but Mike wants his own partner, maybe his own kids. He's got a big house and yet he's all alone in it. Makes you want to sing 'All By Myself'.



Mike is making breakfast and wants someone to share it with him. Just as he gets it all cooked up he hears a sound outside. Is it a prowler? A raccoon? He checks it out and only finds his recycling can knocked over and some holes in the dirt. Going back inside he finds the miscreant--a dirty little Golden Retriever puppy chomping down on his bacon.







Abandoned and alone, the little pup is hungry and scared, and not even a big, bad man like Mike can resist those puppy dog eyes. Mike has never had a dog before, but it seems he's got one now unless he can find the owner. In the meantime, the puppy is dirty and hurt, so they head off to the vet where Mike gets another surprise. The veterinarian is none other than David, his long lost best friend and first love.




Mike and David grew up together and fell in love, but were forced apart by David's father and his homophobic views. Mike joined the military to cope with his sadness while David reluctantly married. Now, years later, David is divorced with twin girls and Mike is home. Can the pair get back together as they bond over the puppy? Or will David's father step in and tear them apart once more?

This book has some of my favorite elements. Big, buff tattooed guy. Sweet puppies. Geeky and awkwardly shy love interest. Friends to lovers. It's everything one could want in a mm romance, but sadly, it fell a bit short.

I liked this book, don't get me wrong. But it had some major issues that will cause a lot of people to not enjoy it. David is really weak-willed. He's so passive he'll do anything if someone tells him to do it strongly enough. One moment he is promising himself to Mike and the next he's reverting back into his shell. And of course his wishy-washy behavior hurts Mike. Some of that is needed for the story, but David never really gets back to that likeable stage for the reader. The redemption arc just sort of falls flat.

For a new author, the book is actually fairly decent. It has flaws and definitely needs some tune-up, but the bones of the story are great. The execution just needs some work. There's some great descriptive language used and it really is refreshing. Everything from hairs on his clothes to crossing the parking lot has evocative descriptions, but at times they seem a bit like someone just went over the book and added them in. They don't quite flow enough. It's almost there. So close. But the sentence structure just pulls you out of the story. I think a few more run-throughs and edits would have helped it become more cohesive.



So, this book was worth reading to me because I can never get enough of hot guys rescuing puppies, but it didn't quite hit the mark. I have high hopes for future books from this author as with experience I think she'll get better.

This is the first in the Amberly book series, so I'm off to read the others. The next one features a hot, tattooed firefighter with a dalmation puppy and a cute dog trainer ;-)

Review: Succumbing to His Fear by River Mitchell

Succumbing to His Fear by River Mitchell

Succumbing to His Fear by River Mitchell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Some people may not like insta-love or gay-for-you, but I think they're cute, and we're reading romance novels, not reality, so I'm fine with things that stretch my beliefs a little like HEAs.

Add some humor and mystery / suspense to that sucker and it makes for a super fun read.

Succumbing to His Fear is the first book in the Living Art series.

Alfie hasn't seen his father since him and his mother split up when he was 5. One day he's contacted and told that his father and new wife are dead, so Alfie has been appointed guardians to their two kids - Griffin, 7 and Lily, 3. Yikes!

A young guy prone to panic attacks, Alfie is a little freaked out about the situation. He also has some anger issues with the man who abandoned him and then got a new family. Now Alfie has to move to America and take custody or the kids will go into foster care. He knows he can't do anything else though, the kids need someone and apparently that's him.

So, Alfie and his crazy / wonderful mother and stepfather take off for America and jump through hoops until finally after months he gets custody of the kids that he falls in love with at first sight.

On Alfie's first day on his own with the kids he is feeling a bit overwhelmed, then very overwhelmed when Griffin bumps into the hugest guys on the planet. The big, angry looking guys.(One of whom is named Fear!)

Fear is like a mile tall and built like a brick shithouse, and he makes Alfie feel funny. Scared, yes, but also a little like butterflies in the tummy. As a straight guy, Alfie is a bit thrown off by this but he's semi-pressured into having lunch with the group of guys and he has a pretty good time for awhile even if he can't help but keep looking at the big guy the entire time. The big guy that doesn't take his eyes off of him. Sparks fly from the beginning.

After a bit of panic Alfie realizes he's attracted to Fear and because he was raised in a sex-positive family he has less trouble coming to terms with finding out his soul mate is male than those people who are taught you are only straight or only gay. Apparently Alfie is not so straight and narrow, maybe he's a Kinsey Scale 1. Cue the cutest couple on the planet.

Everything is going great until Fear's mother is murdered and suddenly there's trouble for the new couple.

I really liked this book. Tatted big guys who are teddy bears at heart is my greatest weakness, and adding a smart-mouthed boyfriend and his equally snarky mummy, makes for a good giggle.

All of the characters, even the supporting ones are pretty awesome and well-thought out. The story flows extremely well, fast-paced, but it fits. We don't have to page over a bunch of junk to get to the actual story, the story doesn't really stop for filler crap like a lot of books.

After the last book series I read, it was a relief to see almost no misspelled words or writing errors. Damn, it felt good. Especially in this day and age when nearly every book has a multitude of errors. And the writer is dyslexic, which means they worked their bottom off and probably had their friends do the same so they could share this awesome book with us. It's so cool when someone doesn't let their disability stop them and produces something better than most without the disability.

I'm really a fan of this book and the sequels.