Review: Lonely Hearts, a Novella Bundle by Posy Roberts

Stoic men, who believe they’re happy alone, find the world turned upside down when their perfect someone stumbles across their path. 

Marc joins the Lonely Hearts chat room where men support men on their way to finding true love. He wants to believe that kind of love is possible for him, but his once-burned heart stops him from going all-in with anyone.

The chat group’s philosophy is, “Figure out how you keep screwing up your happily ever after. Once you know, you’re more likely to find the true thing.”

Skeptical as he is, Marc logs in and meets men in various degrees of getting there. At least he’s not alone. Luther truly loves his single life on the Bakken oil fields. William’s not sure he’ll ever measure up, let alone find someone he can be himself around. And Andrew still pines for a guy he hooked up with on a reenactment battlefield before he got blown up on a real one.

One by one they start dropping like flies. Flies drunk on love. And sooner than he expects, Marc’s luck starts changing thanks to these new friends.

Walk alongside these men as they find the men of their dreams and discover their happily ever afters. 

Lonely Hearts: a novella bundle includes: Bent Arrow, Stroke of Luck, Momo, My Everything, and Love on a Battlefield.

blue-collar, reluctant lovers, rural, bisexual, gay, fated lovers, Halloween, white-collar, opposites attract, multicultural, coming out, second chance, first time, disability, recovery romance, meant to be, military, artist, world traveler, coming of age, long distance, pen pals, gay romance, contemporary, MM romance, lone wolf, alpha male.

Welllll, 3.75 Hearts averaged out, but definitely rounded up for the way the author tied it all together.

The author uses a clever technique to tie four novellas together along with a connection to The North Star Series. It works well and bundles all four stories cohesively via chat room conversations between Hugo (from North Star) and one half of each of the couples in the novellas. I liked it, it allowed me to get to know each of the guys organically and get a taste of their personalities going into their new relationships.

Bent Arrow (Luther and Eric) - 4 Hearts 
I just love Luther. Then I met Eric, and I just love Eric. While Luther comes across, at first, as a man who has convinced himself he never wants to attach himself to another person, it’s easy to see that a connection with another person is exactly what he needs most. Luther uses the excuse of work environment and that he’s not out to his family to stay in his one night stand lifestyle. Eric is a bit of an introvert, mostly out of necessity and concern for his safety in the oilfields. The two of them have chemistry from the very beginning and while the physical is a no brainer between them, the relationship they begin to develop is the real treat to read. The very best part of this story is the communication and honesty. It wasn’t like the relationship was angst free, the two of them had to go through some level of nonsense considering where they were coming from. But, they knew they wanted one another and I loved that they both owned it.

Stroke of Luck (Marc and Cas) - 3 Hearts 
Marc is too pure for this world and I had trouble believing anyone could deserve him. It took me a while to warm up to Cas. I liked him, but there was a lot of “work” that had to go into being with Cas. By the end I did like the two of them together but it was a little too unnecessarily difficult to get there. Cas wasn’t even the real issue, the problem was Maisie. Ugh, that woman. I get that the relationship between Cas and Maisie was the main conflict that fed the story, she really detracted from my Marc and I love Marc. By the end, everything conveniently worked out and Marc and Cas were happy, so, yay! But I could have done with less Maisie and more Marc and Cas together.

Momo, My Everything (William and Nate) - 3.5 Hearts
This story was more than just a romance it was a real character study of William. He was a tough guy to get to know, but the author did a great job of showing who he was and how much we wanted to love and be loved in his own voice. Nate was William’s complete opposite and reading William fall in love was absolutely lovely. I don’t feel like I got to know Nate as deeply as William, which is why this is definitely a William story for me and I very much liked it. William evolved a lot for the novella length of this story. Nate was such a breath of fresh air and life for William and William appreciated everything about Nate. What they gave each other and how thankful they were for one another was the highlight for me, so while the bulk of the story is about William and his evolution, there was plenty of true romance to be had.

Love on a Battlefield (Andrew and Shep) - 4.5 Hearts 
Oh, my heart. The bittersweet arc in Love on a Battlefield broke my heart and put it back together in the best possible way. I absolutely loved how this story was told. The flashbacks, the letters, the current life struggles, all of that combined to make Andrew and Shep fully fleshed out characters that I embraced from page 1. My only complaint was that the story was a novella and not a full novel. You know how the romance world gives us stories with couples who are “meant to be” and we love it and eat it up with a spoon? But then, once in a while a story comes along where two people weren’t just “meant to be” but they “had to be”? Like, they are so meant to be together there is no other option for them, they are “next-level meant to be”. That’s Andrew and Shep. Life and time were in the way for awhile as they worked there way back to one another. They may have had just a few teenage fumblings (happy ending fumblings) back in the day, but they basically ruined each other for anyone else. I do believe they had to grow up though and the distance probably made their appreciation for each other even stronger once they did meet up again as adults. It was like their first time all over again and I loved it. I’ll be rereading this one for sure.

**a copy of this story was provided for an honest review**

Review: Champagne Kisses by Lynda Aicher

The Christmas Eve wedding Evan Cleary pulled together in four weeks is crashing down around him and taking his fledgling event planning business with it. With an empty altar and over a hundred guests arriving soon, he turns to the resistant, gorgeous brother of the runaway groom for help.

When Richard Patterson’s flamboyant brother storms out hours before he’s scheduled to marry his equally dramatic partner, Richard is left dealing with the fallout. The last thing he wants is more drama, yet he can’t deny his attraction to the effeminate event planner trying to salvage the wedding.

Evan thinks his crush on Richard is a lost cause, but one steaming kiss later, he learns different. What starts as a night of hot sex turns into a connection neither expected. But Evan knows their relationship is hopeless unless the ultra-conservative Richard can embrace every part of him—both in private and in public.

Ho, ho, ho hum.

This barely made it to three hearts for me. Barely. It's not kinky. It's vanilla with an extra shot of vanilla bean sprinkled with sweet Christmas jizz and champagne kisses. Nothing wrong with it but I thought I was getting something along the lines of D/s. Not regular slap and tickle. I actually fell asleep during the long sex scene. I'm yawning now just thinking about it.

Let me back up before I get to my gripes. Because technically, the story follows a recipe that is standard in romance. It's tried and true:

Person A and B don't like each other for whatever reason. But secretly (or not as secretly) they lust after one another. Person A is an alpha and is outwardly a jerk but the author gives reason(s) why the reader needs to like them, so Person B can accept Person A's penis inside without much fuss. And the reader can get on with their daily life because penis hugs are the stuff of magic.

Bingo, bango, bajango! You can flip it up or down, spice it, sweeten, whatever, the method has been tested and it sells.

This recipe aka Champagne Kisses is vanilla champagne Christmas spunk flavored.

Evan happens to be Person B in the scenario. He is a flamboyant openly homosexual man who is doing great things for himself with his event planning business. Except the Christmas Eve wedding he planned has gone off the rails, due to a mega cat fight between the grooms.

Duh-dun-dun!! Enter person A, one of the cat fighting groom's brother, Richard. Richard is a conservative businessman who doesn't do "femmes" or public displays. So the cat-fight meltdown is a scene from his personal hell. Richard wasn't much of a character to me. I guess if you're not looking for much depth, he's alright. I didn't see the appeal. Erm...he was nice to his mother and brother. His kisses take forever and he can fuck. *shrug* But remember...I was bored. I'd rate him a 2-2.5 out of 5. Nothing to write home about but Evan seemed into it.

And I'm not familiar with this author's style though it reads reminiscent of MF erotica I've read in the past. (In fact, I think I'd have like this better if it was hetero erotica more because maybe Richard wouldn't make those jerkwad comments to Evan.) But Richard...redeemed himself in the Jizzmas spirit, yadda, yadda, yadda sex in a mirror, he feels alpha protective for the smaller 'weaker' man.

Let's get the other third of the story shall we? Because the story basically covers just the night. The relationship building prior to the fateful night happens off page, the reader gets hints from Evan and Richard's account interspersed between the pretty words. The words were a degree or two below purple. So maybe violet or lilac? Sometimes it dragged the scene down for me, to be honest, and it wasn't like there was much there to start with.

But I thought based on the publisher that maybe the truck might be driven through Pound Town. At least the fuckhot part of town. *shakes head* Or maybe a little kink might be found, something hot? But it was tame for me. And I don't mind vanilla either but it didn't bring anything new, exciting or memorable to the table.

The pretty words came to ruin any semblance of erotic for me when "channel" came to play.

"Channel" to describe ass.

"Channel": still being used in 2015.

Unless we're talking television...why? A dreaded "c" word of mine. I have three of them that make me cringe when reading romance: channel, canal and chute.

I thought maybe it'd get better...but then another dreaded c made an appearance: canal.

In the year two thousand and fifteen...still!

I could hear the slow sinking of the Jizzmas ship once canal came to join channel in anal descriptors. I'm not going to discuss why channel and canal during sex isn't hot because unless it's some part of role play where maybe there's a pantless gondolier or boat driver involved...I just can't.


Maybe you can, but me?

No.

So it ends in a HEA and champagne kisses and a sweet epilogue. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't anything to put on my Jizzmas list. I thought there was going to be something worth a blip maybe during that extended sex scene when the champagne bottle came out in the bedroom but nope, just standard sexy times play.


I liked the epilogue? *tilts head* Yeah, great use of one. So, I bumped up my rating to a three.

Hey, despite being Santa jizz and not being really impressed with the relationship, the recipe worked.(Okay...I'm still leery of Richard. I don't think redeemed himself enough. But that's me.)

Might work best for fans of the recipe and vanilla with a side of vanilla bean Santa semen sugar.

Can my Christmas pussy frown turn upside down?

The hunt continues... (I'm not searching too hard)

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