Ebook Review Central, Multi-publisher, August 2012

Welcome to the Ebook Review Central multi-publisher wrap-up post for the titles published in August 2012. This week’s edition covers the output from Amber Quill Press, Astraea Press, Curiosity Quills, Liquid Silver and Riptide for the month of August. Red Sage didn’t publish anything new this month.

This is also my multi-conundrum post. Out of six possible publishers, not all of whom have output in any given month, there are entirely too many months, like this one, where Riptide publishes three titles and absolutely sweeps the featured titles. No other publisher has titles that received more than four reviews, and there were way too many ones and zeroes, all over.

Why am I bringing this up right now? I’m moving to Seattle in November, and starting a full-time job in early December. Some things will have to re-arranged. I will continue Ebook Review Central, but for publishers where there are regularly no reviews, or very few reviews, to report, I’m going to have to make some decisions about priorities.

Multiple reviews on Goodreads or Amazon, even when they exist, do not count on Ebook Review Central. Why? Because many reviewers cross-post their reviews on Goodreads, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. When we receive review copies from publishers, the publishers generally make that request specifically.

All of this week’s featured titles were from Riptide. While I would have liked to have spread the featured titles out a bit, Riptide absolutely ran so far ahead of the pack, it wasn’t remotely possible. And good on them and their publicity department/review coordinators as well as the authors for getting their books out there.

Featured title number one is Anne Tenino’s Love, Hypothetically. I’ll say up front that the reviews weren’t universally good, but there were simply a ton of them. When this many people are talking (and writing), the book is worth looking at just to get in on the conversation! Love, Hypothetically is the sequel to Frat Boy and Toppy, and is a story of reunited lovers. Paul and Trevor were high school boyfriends who veered way off track. Trevor chose a major league baseball career instead of coming out, but threw Paul pretty much under the bus on his way. Now the big career is over and Trevor is back in town and he wants a second chance with his first love. See Under the Covers for the wow review and Avon Romance for the meh vote.

Almost all of the 16 reviews for the number two feature were raves. I’m talking about Aleksandr Voinov’s look back at two German flyers during World War II, Skybound. Even though this is a time and/or a side that many people avoid like the plague (as my fellow Book Lover Caro put it) every one who read this one fell in love with the characters and saw it as a beautiful story of love and courage, set in dark and desperate times.

Coming in at number three was the book I expected to be number one, which says something about the strength of the competition this week. Anything that could beat out the latest entry in the Cut & Run series has to have been pretty damn good. Because the number three title for this week is Stars & Stripes by Abigail Roux, the 6th book in the Cut & Run series. Everyone who reviewed this one absolutely loved it, but that’s not a surprise. By six books in, everyone reviewing is deeply invested in the series. The series started as a mystery/suspense series about two FBI agents, Ty Grady and Zane Garrett, who have absolutely opposite working styles and one hell of a lot of sexual tension. During a significant part of the series, it’s a question whether they’re going to fall into bed or get each other killed, or both. The series is meant to be read in order, starting with Cut & Run, and highly recommended by pretty much everyone who has ever reviewed it.

We’ll be back! Next week! Carina Press, September 2012. The Frankenstorm will not bring me down.

Ebook Review Central, Amber Quill, Astraea Press, Liquid Silver Books, Riptide Publishing, March 2012

It’s time for the March four-in-one feature at Ebook Review Central. This is the point in the cycle where ERC covers Amber Quill Press, Astraea Press, Liquid Silver Books and Riptide Publishing, and usually wraps up whatever the month is that we’ve been covering.

Well, this is still the four-in-one, but it’s not wrapping the month. Next week ERC will be doing a “leap week” post and adding in some new publishers. It’s both a way of bringing some new titles into this wrap-up, and, pushing out the calendar a bit. I started ERC three weeks after the end of the covered months. Now I’ve caught up to it. I have to push back, and the best way is to add in some fresh material.

All the publishers in ERC are going to stay in.

Meanwhile, back to the March titles for our current four publishing contenders…March was not an all-Riptide month the way February was. Almost, but not quite.

In reverse order this time, just to keep you guessing until the end…

The third place finisher this month was Dark Soul Vol. 5 by Aleksandr Voinov, published, of course, by Riptide. I’ll admit I was expecting this one to make the list, the only question in my mind as I looked at the review sheets for this month was how it would stack up. The built-in audience for this final volume of Voinov’s tale of mafiosi, their enemies and their even more dangerous secret lovers had a lot of pent-up emotion just waiting for this. As one reviewer said, “just beautiful”. These are stories about dark characters who make all their choices in shades of grey, but the ending is very satisfying for those who love watching their heroes struggle with the darkness inside.

From characters who hold their secrets inside, we switch to a character who is forced by circumstance to display at least some of his difficulties where everyone can see them. Permanently Legless by J.L. Merrow (Amber Quill) easily rolled into second place in this week’s tally. Being “legless” usually means drunk, but in this case, it refers to the wounds Chris sustained fighting in Afghanistan. He’s adjusted to the loss of both legs, with his love of life and confidence intact, but when he meets Josh again, the guy he had a one-night stand with just before he left on that last tour of duty, he’s uncertain again. Josh isn’t. Readers loved this story of a wounded warrior finding his HEA with a guy who doesn’t care about his disability.

The number one book this week by an absolute landslide was Frat Boy and Toppy, written by Anne Tenino. From the reviews, it looks like everyone loved it because it made them laugh. The “frat boy” in the title is Brad, and he starts the story as a typical frat boy jock with a lot of frat boy friends. But there’s something different about Brad. In spite of appearances and outward behavior, Brad has a crush on the Teaching Assistant for his History Class. The male Teaching Assistant. Brad’s pretty sure he’s gay. The book is the story of Brad figuring out what to do about it. Especially since that TA doesn’t do relationships. Which is what Brad wants, once he starts figuring out what he wants in general. The one thing the reviews have in common is the phrase “laugh out loud”. Actually, there are two things, the other one seems to be “love Brad”. Romantic comedy fans, take note of this one.

So this week’s features can be summed up as light-hearted (Frat Boy and Toppy), heart-warming (Permanently Legless), and soul-searing (Dark Soul Vol. 5), but not all in the same book!

It’s also notable that, looking back, the last time the featured books in this four-in-one post were not all male/male romances was the December 2011 feature. Will this trend continue? We’ll see in the coming months!

That’s it for this issue. Come back next week to see which publishers will be added to Ebook Review Central in “Leap Week”.