Release Blitz + Giveaway: The Short Stories Collection by Louise Lyons

Celebrate The Short Stories Collection release with Louise Lyons and Signal Boost Promotions! Learn more about the three story bundle today and comment on today's post for a chance to win a paperback copy of The Eye of the Beholder, a fantasy/vampire novel! Open internationally--good luck!

Buy Links: books2read.com/LLShortStories

Length: 45,000 words approx.

Blurb

A collection of three short stories.


In Darkest Peru


When shy and geeky Rhys White is ditched by his boyfriend of five years, and made redundant from his job in the space of one week, he decides to make some changes. Tired of being boring and hiding being his computer, he throws caution to the winds and buys a plane ticket to Peru.


The adventure in Peru starts out well, but then disaster strikes when the bus he is travelling on is held up by thieves. Rhys loses everything, including his passport, wallet, and phone.


Stranded in Cuzco, not too far from the famous Inca city of Machu Picchu, Rhys tries to find someone to help him. Just when he begins to lose hope, sexy Brazilian, Rafael, comes to his rescue, and his desperation situation takes a turn for the better.


One Snowy Night


After yet another failed date, Keith Brambles' luck turns from bad to worse, as he tries to drive home in heavy snow and crashes his car. With no phone signal, no warm clothes, and the weather worsening, he fears freezing to death overnight.


But help is at hand in the form of a knight in a white van. Mike Talbot stops to help Keith, and takes him home to warm up—in more ways than one, when the pair's mutual attraction kicks in.


Mike is everything Keith has ever dreamed of when he thinks of his ideal man. But can Mike really be Keith's dream come true, or is their night together just another bit of fun?


Lost and Found


When author Philip Johnson loses his much-loved dog, Prince, he buries himself in the fantasy world of his latest novel. But as his heartbreak gradually lessens and he focuses more on the happy times he had with Prince, he realises the hole left in his life needs to be filled with a new puppy.


After responding to an advertisement for a young dog, Philip is surprised to find the owner is none other than Edward Manby, the very good-looking vet who took care of Prince in his last hours. Philip is delighted to discover his attraction to Edward is returned and despite the twenty-year age gap between them, their love for their pets brings them together and leads to romance.

Louise Lyons comes from a family of writers. Her mother has a number of poems published in poetry anthologies, her aunt wrote poems for the church, and her grandmother sparked her inspiration with tales of fantasy.


Louise first ventured into writing short stories at the grand old age of eight, mostly about little girls and ponies. She branched into romance in her teens, and MM romance a few years later, but none of her work saw the light of day until she discovered FanFiction in her late twenties. Posting stories based on some of her favourite movies, provoked a surprisingly positive response from readers. This gave Louise the confidence to submit some of her work to publishers, and made her take her writing "hobby" more seriously.


Louise lives in the UK, about an hour north of London, with a mad dog called Casper, and a collection of tropical fish and tarantulas. She works in the insurance industry by day, and spends every spare minute writing. She is a keen horse-rider, and loves to run long-distance. Some of her best writing inspiration comes to her, when her feet are pounding the open road. She often races home afterward, and grabs pen and paper to make notes.


Louise has always been a bit of a tomboy, and one of her other great loves is cars and motorcycles. Her car and bike are her pride and job, and she loves to exhibit the car at shows, and take off for long days out on the bike, with no one for company but herself.


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Email: louiselyons013@gmail.com

Giveaway: Louise is giving away a signed paperback copy of her 2015 fantasy/vampire romance novel, The Eye of the Beholder, which is no longer available for sale. Please comment on any of the Release Blitz posts to enter. Available for worldwide shipping.

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Review: Červenà by Louise Lyons

When Joel Jones finds homeless Russian Sasha outside his gay nightclub in Prague, he cannot find it in his heart to turn him away, so he offers him a home and a job as a dancer and stripper.

Despite a fifteen-year age gap, romance develops between them but is interrupted when Joel has to return to England for many weeks to deal with a death in the family.

Upon Joel’s return, he is horrified to discover his business partner, Karel, has gambled away the club’s money and put them all at risk. Joel buys him out of the club, but when Karel continues to gamble, the people he owes pursue Joel for the debt instead—and they’ll stop at nothing to get paid.

Suddenly Joel and those he cares about—especially Sasha—are in danger, and Joel finds himself with no choice but to seek the help of known criminal, Vincenc Jankovic. Ensuring a happy future for himself and Sasha will mean a struggle and some difficult decisions, but Joel is determined to protect what they’ve built together.

Words I'd hope to describe Červenà (prior to reading): hot, plotty, and a believable romance.

Words to describe after reading: soft, sugary fluff and sweet.

And none of the words I'd hope to see.

A book that has crime, a big age gap, cultural differences, opposites attract...weak, too ambitious and boring. Never thought I'd see the day.

As the blurb states, Joel is a premier gay nightclub owner in Prague. The Brit has a heart of gold and is very sweet to all. He know he's "soft hearted". And has doormat underneath the "boss" facade. He saves a homeless youth who calls himself Sasha. Sasha is twenty, been living on the streets for years due to being kicked out by his homophobic parents. Joel takes one look at Sasha, sneaking food out of the club's yard and offers him a job on the spot. That should have been my first warning sign. Or maybe the nonsensical MANTEARS at Sasha revealing his name is false (under no duress) at 6%.

Thus began a never ending rush into insta-love, script like dialogue and poor development (which the characters remarked on from time to time) in Červenà.

What do you get when the entire plot is not only given in the blurb, but is completed before the halfway mark?

A lot of unnecessary filler and no romance development.

Let's get into my ARC quibbles, shall we?

There were many which I hope are problems of the ARC version and not in the final such as:

- The length & pace - They work hand in hand due to the fact the pace is lopsided - lukewarm start lead to rushed info dumpy middle and dragged out ending. The blurb was promising but when the reader is told every thing and still don't get a sense of the main characters or characters for that matter, it makes for a lackluster read. The length could work as long as the weak spots are formed, trimmed and expanded on when needed. Maybe it's fixed on the published version?

- The characters  - flatter than a pancake flatbread sandwich with flatulence. With the style of telling so heavy in this novel, any sense of with main character is lost anytime there was promise. Joel read older than 35, maybe this was cleaned up in the final version but he was out of character for owning a business like Červenà. He was too polite, any conflict he had was readily explained within the next few sentences and he was more troubled about a headache than dealing with a shady partner from the moment there was a hint of trouble. Just writing he was "soft" didn't cut it. And the way Sasha is readily accepted into his world without giving a sense of the harsh life he left behind...c'mon now. Writing homeless characters who are barely homeless in the story is a pet peeve of mine. Why introduce a homeless character if it'll barely be used?  Both were too cookie cutter and their caricature of their characters didn't fit. At one point, Joel tells Sasha (who said he didn't mind stripping) that Sasha doesn't like stripping, he will need to look into a new job. Too many missteps made for a uneven read.

- The style - info dump central and waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much telling. Nothing is shown. The conflict read too difficult for what the author could offer. If softness and romance was the aim, it should have stuck there. The story suffered from this style.

There were also parts that read underdeveloped and not researched. An example:

- Filipov - I do hope in the final version the mistake with Sasha's sister is corrected. I'm not fluent in Russian but I knew his sister being named, "Elena Filipov" was wrong. It should have been Filipova. Sadly, a quick search would have shown the area the author chose wouldn't have worked for Sasha's hometown. Book says he's from Russia, online that surname is prominent in Bulgaria. This is from less than a minute research. So...

I'm not the type of reader who gets excited just because strippers as a plot point are used in a book. I actually expect some work and research on the author's part to make an interesting read. A land where there are probably 100 (or more) romance books featuring strippers, it should stand out or at least attempt to.

This book is too polite and too ambitious. It'd probably work best if it was kept simple, lost the crime since it was sloppily handled with polite "criminals" and tied up way too easily in sentences when it should have been chapters.

I did not like the main characters, I'm pretty sure once Sasha is exposed to more than just the savior/boss he can do so much better. It came off as gratitude rather than love. It's a little sad actually. Criminals who offer their home for you to recover from injuries. Sales of businesses and contracts to be completed in a matter of hours. Love that is told to happen after the main characters remark they haven't spent any time together (it shows). The entire story could have been a 60pg novella at that rate.

My rating is for the attempt (though it fell short), the sex wasn't anything to write home about but it was decently done.

Probably won't be reading more from this author - the style didn't work for me.

Recommended for readers who prefer telling, not learning much from the characters or story, extremely easy answers to conflict and sugar.

Find more on Dreamspinner Press or Goodreads!