Cosplay and Confrontation
By Sarah Zane
Gwen has screwed up everything. She is supposed to be one of the headliners at the Portland’s biggest LARP/cosplay convention. However, after breaking up with her boyfriend Artie and running away to San Francisco to live with her new “boyfriend,” none of her former friends will even speak to her. She desperately wants to explain what happened, but that would mean admitting the reason why she broke up with Artie.
Lanie cannot believe she trusted Gwen. The three of them: Lanie, Gwen, and Artie, had been roommates and best friends. When Gwen leaves town with another man, abandoning Artie, Lanie swears vengeance on her. She and Gwen were set to go to the annual ball as the perfect cosplay couple, but now she wants to shove her face in the mud if she so much as breathes near Artie. Artie seems to be okay now, but he has always been the strongest out of their entire friend group.
Gwen goes to the convention, she and Lanie take out their frustration and fears on one another, and there are MANY costumes.
This book was just okay. There were too many side characters and I really couldn’t understand why Lanie was so blind. I mean I understand why, but it got to the point where you wondered how she had survived to adulthood with her head so far up her ass. Gwen is likable but also very flawed. This is a cute and relatively low-angst, low-spice romance set in Portland, Oregon.
Reindeer Games
By N.R. Walker
Russ Quarrington is a wealthy real estate developer. Leif is an industrial design student who lives with his foster mom and works odd jobs while going to school. Leif and his best friend snag tickets to the annual holiday masquerade ball, which is hosted by Russ’s company. Russ is coerced into attending the ball in costume and to try to relax and enjoy the anonymity that the masks provide. When he spots Leif, who is shirtless and wearing massive homemade reindeer horns, mask, collar, and leash, he pushes past his nerves and approaches him. They flirt, kiss, and eventually hook up.
This is a low-angst, low-stakes Christmas romance. The banter is cute and the two best friends who push these two dorks together are more charming than annoying. There is some spice, but most of the book focuses on the two men getting to know one another.
A Doctor’s Touch: An Erotic Queer Novella (Ram Skin Book 1)
By A.A Fairview
This is a hurt/comfort story with a vampire physician and a lumberjack werewolf. When the injured werewolf collapses on his front porch, Levi brings him in and removes the silver bullet lodged in his abdomen.
Both of them were turned against their will, and now try to live “normal” lives in a small town in the Pacific Northwest.
Levi was born a woman over two hundred years ago, and transitioned seventy-five years prior to the current date. Neither Levi nor Camron hunt humans, and they quickly bond over their similar fears and life situations. There is some spice, but it was well-balanced with a little bit of plot about hunting the person who was hunting Camron the night he was shot.
With hurt, comes comfort, and Levi and Camron find comfort in one another. There is no third act breakup and no manufactured angst. Who says vampires and werewolves must be sworn enemies?
I got these books as part of Stuff Your Kindle Day from Romance Bookworms or from Queer Your Bookshelf day in January of this year.