Margaret Mayo (February 7, 1935)

Jessica Mayo (born February 7, 1935 in Staffordshire, England) is a popular British writer of over 75 romance novels, 30 fairy tales and 11 picture books as Margaret Mayo.

Jessica Mayo was born in England. She worked as a secretary for many years. She has two children, Adrian and Tina.

She began to publish romantic novels when she was 40 years old. Now, she has a work that she loves.

Margaret Mary Mayo was born in Staffordshire, England, and has remained within the county all of her life. It was never her ambition to become a writer, although she always loved reading, even to the extent of reading comics out loud to her twin brother when she was eight years old. In fact her only writing experience was in letters to various pen pals around the world. She unfortunately lost touch with them now and often wonders whether any of them have ever discovered that her chatty letters were the forerunner to her writing career.

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Margaret Mayo's Books on Amazon: Margaret Mayo

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mayo_(novelist)

( Vintage Covers )

With Abandon (With or Without 4) by J.L. Langley

Truth be told, I was not expecting for the third long book in this series to be about Matt, the part-time assistant of Jake, the PI who is the hero of a previous book. Book 2 ended with a surprise about another young man in this series, and so of course I was expecting his story. But indeed there is another character that was interesting, Keaton’s brother Aubrey, a man who proved to be better than what his own brother gave him credit to.

Aubrey is living in Atlanta, managing the fortune of the Reynolds’s family, the same family, and fortune, that Keaton abandoned. In the first book in this series, the theory was that, even if Keaton was younger than Aubrey, he was the strongest between the two brothers and so the natural heir to the “throne”. But Keaton refused that responsibility, and so Aubrey had to take upon him, not only in the managing of the firm, but also in leading the pack, and above all in providing an heir. Aubrey, like Keaton, is gay, but he has never considered to come out, thinking not possible for him to be both a leader than gay.

Then Keaton asks him to play as chaperon for young Matt, coming in Atlanta to attend college. Matt is young, gay and Aubrey’s mate. Their chemistry is good and natural from the beginning, and even if Matt is a virgin, he has little objection to experiment his sexuality with Aubrey, his mate and friend. Little obstacle are in Matt and Aubrey’s path, not even Aubrey’s parents who inform Matt they think him being a good companion for their son.

That is probably the main thing I noticed of this novel, it was more sedate than the previous books I read by J.L. Langley; Without Reservation was quite funny, With Caution a little more adventurous, With Abandon is “balanced”: there is a little bit of fun, a little bit of adventure, a little more of romance. Maybe it’s not the same fireworks effect of other books, but it’s a proof that J.L. Langley is a sure thing in the M/M romance world.

http://store.samhainpublishing.com/with-abandon-p-6284.html

Amazon: With Abandon (With or Without)
Amazon Kindle: With Abandon: With or Without, Book 3
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: Samhain Publishing (February 7, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1609283198
ISBN-13: 978-1609283193

Series: With or Without
1) Without Reservation
2) With Love: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/35920.html
3) With Caution: http://elisa-rolle.livejournal.com/189906.html
4) With Abandon

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

The Shape of a Heart by Kimberly Gardner

Kimberly Gardner is another of those author who likes to play with stories more centered around the characters than the plot.

In The Shape of a Heart the focus shifts from Zach to Keith letting them have their emotional development. Zach is the mourning owner of a coffee-bookstore (and this gave me a pang in my heart, people who knows me since a bit know why...). Mourning since two years before he lost his lover Jay, and he is still grieving from the loss. Like often in these cases, Zach is basking in his pain and has no intention to let the memories go; who suffered a lost like him, recognizes all the signs, like when you are always expecting for your lover to enter the room, and when you think something, your first reaction is to tell it to him, only for suddenly realizing that he is not there, and to be stabbed again by the pain of the loss. But that pain is almost welcomed, since it's the only sign that you are still alive, that you are not dead like the man you still love.

And since you cling to these feelings like your safe anchor, Zach doesn't welcome well Keith in his life. Keith apparently is younger (apparently since he is really 29 years old to the 38 years old of Zach) and pain-free. He is always smiling, gentle and caring, and for Zach every smile is a stab more. Zach doesn't want to care for Keith, since it would mean to betray his lost lover Jay.

Keith is the new bartender of the coffee-shop. Zach was the librarian and Jay the coffee maker, and so, when Jay passed away, the coffee shop languished away. Now Rhonna, Zach's partner, hires Keith and Zach has no really reason to go against this decision if not that looking at the man is too painful.

As I said, at first the focus is Zach, he seems the only to have a past, and a painful one, but little by little we realize that Keith is not a simple character as he appears. At first it doesn't ring wrong that he is hired to be a bartender, since the reader thinks him to be young, and maybe he is still a student and this is a job to makes the ends meet. But then we realize that he is not so young, and that he is obviously too skilled for the work, and so who is he really?

The story is nice, but as always when the story is nice but not so long, I have a regret: the second part, soon after we are starting to realize that Keith is more complex than expected, it seems a bit rushed. All right, usually I'm not very fond of the fully drama stories, but I really believe that this one would be gain the up-level from nice to very good, with only some pages more. And maybe Keith's character suffers a bit from the lack of those pages more.

But nevertheless, it's for sure above the average of most of the story around, the sex is very good, just that bit of naughty that makes it arousing but not embarrassing, and the characters are also good.

http://www.loose-id.com/The-Shape-of-a-Heart.aspx

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle

The Shape of a Heart by Kimberly Gardner

Kimberly Gardner is another of those author who likes to play with stories more centered around the characters than the plot.

In The Shape of a Heart the focus shifts from Zach to Keith letting them have their emotional development. Zach is the mourning owner of a coffee-bookstore (and this gave me a pang in my heart, people who knows me since a bit know why...). Mourning since two years before he lost his lover Jay, and he is still grieving from the loss. Like often in these cases, Zach is basking in his pain and has no intention to let the memories go; who suffered a lost like him, recognizes all the signs, like when you are always expecting for your lover to enter the room, and when you think something, your first reaction is to tell it to him, only for suddenly realizing that he is not there, and to be stabbed again by the pain of the loss. But that pain is almost welcomed, since it's the only sign that you are still alive, that you are not dead like the man you still love.

And since you cling to these feelings like your safe anchor, Zach doesn't welcome well Keith in his life. Keith apparently is younger (apparently since he is really 29 years old to the 38 years old of Zach) and pain-free. He is always smiling, gentle and caring, and for Zach every smile is a stab more. Zach doesn't want to care for Keith, since it would mean to betray his lost lover Jay.

Keith is the new bartender of the coffee-shop. Zach was the librarian and Jay the coffee maker, and so, when Jay passed away, the coffee shop languished away. Now Rhonna, Zach's partner, hires Keith and Zach has no really reason to go against this decision if not that looking at the man is too painful.

As I said, at first the focus is Zach, he seems the only to have a past, and a painful one, but little by little we realize that Keith is not a simple character as he appears. At first it doesn't ring wrong that he is hired to be a bartender, since the reader thinks him to be young, and maybe he is still a student and this is a job to makes the ends meet. But then we realize that he is not so young, and that he is obviously too skilled for the work, and so who is he really?

The story is nice, but as always when the story is nice but not so long, I have a regret: the second part, soon after we are starting to realize that Keith is more complex than expected, it seems a bit rushed. All right, usually I'm not very fond of the fully drama stories, but I really believe that this one would be gain the up-level from nice to very good, with only some pages more. And maybe Keith's character suffers a bit from the lack of those pages more.

But nevertheless, it's for sure above the average of most of the story around, the sex is very good, just that bit of naughty that makes it arousing but not embarrassing, and the characters are also good.

http://www.loose-id.com/The-Shape-of-a-Heart.aspx

Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bottom.php?tag=reading list&view=elisa.rolle