I can’t believe another month has gone by. How am I ever going to catch up when time flashes by like this?!
Here we’ve had some really hot days, in Swedish measurements, and the kids are off school for the summer. This means less time on my own, which means less time for quiet writing sessions or spent curled up on the sofa with my phone in hand reading.
Scrolling back to see what I’ve read this month, we have six titles. I get the feeling I’m forgetting a story, but no matter how much I try to remember, it doesn’t come to me. Ah, well…
Fire Thief
Fire Thief by Jordan Castillo Price. I picked this up at some giveaway of other since I’m a JCP fan. It’s a short story about a guy hooking up with a stranger in a bar – so not my favourite kind of story, and I wasn’t really surprised by the ending. Still, JCP is JCP 😀
Is seeing really believing? Hank would never dream of coming on to the most striking guy at the bar—but it’s his lucky night since Thomas, the burgundy-haired vision in black lipstick and mirrored shades, takes it upon himself to make the first move.
While the encounter itself is mind-blowing, the hot-and-heavy grapple in the janitor’s closet isn’t the only way in which Thomas blows Hank’s mind.
Oh, when I went to search for this story now, I see you get it when you sign up for Jordan Castillo Price’s news letter. Might have been where I got it.
The Immaculate Marlow King
The Immaculate Marlow King by Amanda Meuwissen. It’s been a few years since I read anything by Amanda Meuwissen, but I’ve always enjoyed the stories I’ve read, and this was no exception. I’d say it’s lucky I’m so bad at reading blurbs. If I had, I probably never would read this story. I tend to stay away from virgins LOL But luckily I didn’t read the blurb!
Marlow King is a rare and powerful Storm Mage and an officer of the law, but he has a secret: he has an unfairly intense libido. And he’s a virgin.
After an embarrassing reaction during a sparring match with his rival and fellow Mage Officer, Rembrandt “Remy” Parker, Marlow stumbles upon a thief escaping the scene of her crime. Desperate to escape, she looks in Marlow’s mind to use his deepest secret against him — and curses him to lose his magic until he loses his virginity.
Enter Remy, who is definitely a very bad (very good) idea to fix things.
https://books2read.com/The-Immaculate-Marlow-King
Pretend You Are for Five More Minutes
Pretend You Are for Five More Minutes by K.S. Murphy. This is a short, cute friends to lovers story. No real surprises, but well worth the time 🙂
Henry Kato is in a really bad mood. One of his rude, annoying, and mildly offensive co-workers has been bugging him for weeks about the upcoming office party. To get him off his back, Henry enlists the help of his best friend Luke to go with him as his plus one.
What Henry doesn’t expect is for Luke to blurt out that they’re engaged. Which they’re most decidedly not. Even if Henry wishes it were true.
Do they have what it takes to convince everyone the engagement is real? Or will they burn up in smoke before the night even gets started?
https://books2read.com/Pretend-You-Are-for-Five-More-Minutes
Graveyard Cops
Graveyard Cops by Crystel Greene. Another short story, paranormal this time. We have a cop who’s a vampire but tries to hide it. He also has a crush on his partner but tries to hide it. Then there is a need for blood and the cat is out of the bag. I like these kinds of stories, quick and easy.
Police officer Jesse Hendricks, twenty-one since 1900 and hating being a vampire, is secretly in love with his patrol partner Angelico “Lico” DiMarco. Chronically upbeat Lico doesn’t believe in anything supernatural, thankfully, but he keeps teasing Jesse for his vampire-like reserve, pallor, and beauty in the most annoying of ways.
Then, one fateful night, Jesse is injured with a silver blade and needs to feed to survive, and Lico steps up and saves him—body and soul.
Can’t find any links, sorry.
Once Upon a Haunted Moor
Once Upon a Haunted Moor (Tyack & Frayne 1) by Harper Fox. I don’t know how many years I’ve had this on TBR list – many. Now I read it! I like it, liked the spooky moor in the middle of the night. I suspected who the bad guy was right from the start, but it didn’t matter. Ms Fox has a way with words, and this creepy little tale was just right for a night on the couch with a glass of wine.
Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. It’s not life in the fast lane, but he takes it very seriously, and his first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he’s gutted – he’s a level-headed copper who doesn’t believe in such things, and he can’t help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl.
But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee’s insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon’s heart. Son of a Methodist minister, raised in a tiny Cornish village, Gideon has hidden his sexuality for years. It’s cost him one lover, and he can’t believe it when this green-eyed newcomer stirs up old feelings and starts to exert a powerful force of attraction.
Gideon and Lee begin to work together on the case. But there are malignant forces at work in the sleepy little village of Dark, and not only human ones – Gideon is starting to wonder, against all common sense, if there might be some truth in the terrifying legend of the Bodmin Beast after all. As a misty Halloween night consumes the moor, Gideon must race against time to save not only the lost child but the man who’s begun to restore his faith in his own heart.
https://books2read.com/Once-Upon-a-Haunted-Moor
How to Win Staring Contests and Intimidate People
How to Win Staring Contests and Intimidate People: An LGBT+ Romantic Short by Rachel Stockbridge. Ha! I don’t know when I picked this one up, but I’m glad I did. It’s a shorty, just 20 pages or so, and it’s about a guy who walks into a bar and has a staring competition with the bartender. Every day. Cute and funny!
In the game of love and staring contests, all bets are off.
When Parker walks into his local bar, he’s hoping to finish one beer and be on his way. But when the gruff, handsome bartender focuses his gaze on Parker, Parker’s competitive side takes over.
Someone has to win this staring contest, and Parker’s gonna make sure it’s him.
Ofelia Grand 