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Seeker (The Garden: Book One of Four) by Andy Frankham-Allen
It’s not easy to like this paranormal novel, mostly since it’s not your usual happily ever after where the heroes are perfect men and the villains are easily identifiable and targetable as the one to dislike. It’s not easy also since it forces you to “change” your idea in the course of it, changing who you want to be a couple, who you hope will find their soul mates, who will be the ones to kiss in the end and the ones who will walk alone in search of something else, someone else.At the beginning the author put a lot of effort in making you feel for Willem and his best friend since forever Jake. It’s clear that Willem is in love with Jake, but it’s also clear that Jake has a cloth in front of his eyes. Jake is juggling/fighting with his straight relationship with Amy, but at the same time is unconsciously preventing Willem to find a mate; every man Willem met was wrong, and Jake was always there, being the epitome of what Willem wanted, but being also unreachable. And now Willem once again is risking his happiness, choosing to meet face to face with Charlie, a man who he met online. Jake is not happy, but Willem is stubborn… and when he disappears, Jake has the confirmation he was right, but also the epiphany that he is in love with his friend and that he will do everything to find him.
At this point the storyline split in two, following Willem and his nightmare in the paranormal world, and Jake and his mission to find Willem. Probably for the first time since forever, they are far from each other, and while this is heartbreaking, it allows to Jake to comprehend his feelings, not only towards Willem but also on himself and his desires.
I felt a lot for Willem, and as I said, at first I hoped he would be lucky, that he had finally the chance at happiness he was searching since forever. But that is the skill of the author, to move the reader’s expectation, to yes, let you with a bittersweet aftertaste for Willem, but to give you also a glimpse on a better, and happily, future for Jake. And why not, maybe the “new” Willem will have his chance in the following three books of this 4 books series. He is no more the same Willem we knew in the first book, not at all (and I will stop here to not ruin your reading experience) but he is someone else the reader could care for.
More than a paranormal feeling, this novel reminded me a bit of a gothic genre. Maybe it was the setting, Southend and London, rainy England, always with a dark and heavy feeling, given but the clouds, the muted light, the wet cobbled streets where you expect each moment a coach to come out from the next corner. In this setting it seems more “ordinary” for paranormal events to happen.
http://www.untreedreads.com/?p=2560
Amazon: Seeker (The Garden)
Amazon Kindle: Seeker (The Garden)
Publisher: Untreed Reads (March 16, 2011)
Reading List: http://www.librarything.com/catalog_bott
I maybe have already said it, but I think that Tales of the Darkworld is probably the only mixed series (heterosexual and gay) really working out there. And for who like me, is skipping the het stories to read only the gay ones, it’s also a series working just fine, you have not the feeling you are not gripping something due to the lack of connection.
Unlike most of the books I received to review, I actually asked a copy of this one; why? Well since I wanted to understand a little all this talking about Twilight and Co and I didn’t want to read THAT series. Young adult and het romance together were a little too much for me, so when I heard about a gay vampire teenager series, I thought, good, this I can read. I was not at all discouraged by the not-so-positive reviews I read around mostly because my idea was that who was writing them was not a teenager and you have not to forget this is a book that not only it’s classified by the same publisher as “young adult”, it was even released in a special line, K-Teen, that is targeting a young adult reader. So when I read comment like, everything seems too “youngish”, my reaction is “geez, have you or not read the book details? This is a Young Adult book! You should give positive point to the author to have been able to meet the target!”. Also since Michael Griffo is the pen-name of an author of a previous Gay Romance targeting a more adult reader, and having read that romance, I can tell you that he can be very, very adult-like if he wants.
There are two main points coming to mind as soon as I finished this book: that it’s clear the book is written by a man and that this man is young. I don’t know, maybe is the writing style, maybe is the reference to the “male” prettiness of the main characters, or something else, but to me it was like a mark all over the book. I’m not saying the book is too “virile”, on the contrary, there is a lot of emphasis on the love word, something that usually I don’t find with male writers, it’s only that I felt the “masculinity” of the story.
I recently read on an authors’ thread people complaining that Young Adult novels were too crowded of vampires, werewolves and similar creatures; the same authors were swearing they would never write such a story, since, more or less, there would be no chance to make it literary. What a coincidence when, opening this novel by Hayden Thorne, I realized it was about a young teenager vampire! Well, I thought, how could the author manage to write something literary with such abused theme? Since I was sure the output had to be good, Hayden Thorne, writing about superheroes, ghosts, boarding schools and on and on, has always in any case managed to deliver good quality books. 
This was only a short story, and I had the feeling it was almost a drive test, like the author wanted to prove her hand on a possible longer novel and in the meantime she realized a teasing. 
Blood Moon is the second book I read by this author, and where the previous one was a coming of age story about two high school students, this is a “trendy” vampire romance. I use the word “trendy” since I think it follows a bit the today love among teenagers for young vampires and werewolves, see the Twilight saga and related. 
A.J. Ryan, the same author who penned the Fathom’s Five series under the name of Geoffrey Knight, has the ability to mix comedy with adventure and, in this specific case, horror, but in any case, the output is light and bright, even if it’s the bright red of fresh blood! 
Jordan Castillo Price is probably the only author I can read who presents me with needles, syringes and blood, and I find it sexy. I'm quite the squirmy type, I don't think how being punctured and bleeding can be sexy, but if it's done by an alluring pale and long dark haired artist, well maybe I can make an exception. As probably would do Mark, the man who is lucky enough to find that man. 
Kristair is a very ancient vampire who needs to find a human vessel to survive, and since he lives in the United States, who is the perfect candidate? Who is young, strong and handsome more than a college football player? Jacob is the chosen one and from the meeting of an ancient warrior with a modern one, the result is a very balanced couple: where Kris is brooding and too much serious, Jake has all the energy and joy of life of a young college student whose primary purpose is to be a number one athlete and secondary to enjoy as much as possible the frat life. 
I think that, for the first time, instead of speaking of the main characters, I will speak of their enemies… I have the feeling that Mychael Black changed his mind in the middle of writing this novella, or maybe, as often is, the villains were more interesting than the good people. 
As often in a Kim Dare’s story, this is a funny and light intake on the D/s world. Due to the gothic cover, that is a common cover for these vampire novellas by Total-e-Bound, at first I didn’t understand if it was an historical or contemporary setting: Leland has cornered his best friend Keats and collared him; in few words we understand first, that Keats is a brat and second, that Leland is a vampire. Other than being a brat, Keats is also a magnet for trouble, and he managed to volunteer for being a blood donor for a vampire secret society without knowing what he was really signing into. Of course when Leland, one of the vampires, recognizes Keats among the blood donor, his only choice is to claim him as blood slave, some sort of submissive for a vampire Master, but also the only way to avoid for Keats to be common property of all the vampires in the place. 
I should plea forgiveness to Z.A. Maxfield. More or less one year ago she told me she was thinking to write a book with a dashing Italian vampire and asked me if I knew of a place that could be his Italian home. If I remember well she did me some inputs and I told her that San Sepolcro could be the right place. Then some months later she sent me a first draft and I checked the italian words, but really, she did the work all by herself and I didn't find any mistake. So you see my help was little thing and when she sent me a print signed copy I was really glad but it was not necessary. The book arrived more or less at the end of July and obviously I emailed back the author to thank her but since it was a print book, I saved it for a travel in train or plane, when I prefer to read a real book instead of my laptop. So I enjoyed the hand written dedica on the first page, and looked at how pretty the cover was and the book remained on my nightstand table till today (ndr I'm writing this post on a note book on my flight to Philadelphia). 
Weary Memories is a collection of four novella by Elizabeth Jewell following the life of the more than 200 years old vampire Liam and his assistant and lover Alex. All the collection is faithful to the most classic vampire rules, with Liam being a powerful but mourning vampire, and Alex a troubled man who finds in the strenght of the vampire, the force to move on his dramatic past.