Ebook Review Central for Dreamspinner Press for December 2011

Welcome back to Ebook Review Central! This is another accidental Christmas issue, because this week we’re featuring the December 2011 titles from Dreamspinner Press. And in December, Dreamspinner’s biggest event was their 2011 Advent Calendar, I’ll Be Home for Christmas, featuring 32 Holiday themed titles. It made for a huge month at Dreamspinner, with a total of 59 titles published.

Regular readers of Dreamspinner titles must have been overwhelmed by the number of books available, or they were overcome by Christmas cheer. One thing they didn’t do was spend a lot of time slaving away at reviews.

Because there wasn’t a lot of action on the new reviewing front, there are only two featured titles this week.

Twelve Days by Isabelle Rowan is a holiday story. It’s also a sequel to her earlier book, A Note in the Margin. This is not just a story about the holidays, this is a story about the first Christmas that a relatively new couple, John and David, get to spend together. And John owns a bookstore, which is cool all by itself.  But this is a story about love and wanting the one you love to be happy, and also about healing past the broken places. It sounds just tailor-made for the holiday season.

Blue Notes by Shira Anthony is not a holiday story. It’s a life-changing story. Jason Green goes home one night in Philadelphia and finds his fiancee in bed with another man. So what does he do? He takes a two-month sabbatical from work and goes to stay at his sister’s apartment in Paris. In Paris he starts a love affair with jazz, a love affair with a jazz player named Jules, and, of course, a love affair with Paris. But what will happen when the two months are over?

Although there isn’t a third featured book, I’d like to give a special shout out to Serena Yates at Queer Magazine Online for reading and reviewing the entire 2011 Advent Calendar. She’s the only reviewer who managed this particular feat, and I salute her. If I’d had to make my way through that much Christmas cheer, no matter how good it read when I started, by the end I’d have shoved a candy cane down somebody’s throat, possibly my own.

While the new titles didn’t get a lot of reviewing attention, two of Dreamspinners’ October titles stood at the top of just about everyone’s “Best of 2011” list. I’m referring, of course, to Rick Reed’s Caregiver and Roux & Urban’s Divide & Conquer. I’m proud to say that both titled were featured on ERC in the October 2011 Dreamspinner post.

Caregiver has appeared on the Best of 2011 lists at Indie Reviews, Reviews at Jessiewave‘s Guest Reviewers top pics and Top 2 Bottom Reviews. It’s also a nominee for Best Book of the Year at LRC Cafe.

Roux & Urban’s fourth book in their Cut & Run series, Divide & Conquer, is even more popular. It’s on both Helyce’s and Mandi’s Best of 2011 lists at Smexy Books, as well as on Wave’s Best of the Year list at Reviews at Jessewave, Red Hot Books, Top 2 Bottom Reviews, and Fiction Vixen.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see more kudos roll in for these two books. They are both winners!

That’s a wrap for this week. We’ll be back next week with the Samhain December 2011 titles. And it will still be Christmas.