A- #BookReview: Port in a Storm by Rhys Ford

A- #BookReview: Port in a Storm by Rhys FordPort in a Storm (Sinners #8) by Rhys Ford
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: contemporary romance, M/M romance
Series: Sinners #8
Pages: 192
Published by Dreamspinner Press on January 23, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

San Francisco SWAT Lieutenant Connor Morgan and Crossroads Gin drummer Forest Ackerman make an odd couple. Connor, an Irish-born cop from a tight-knit family, never imagined he’d find his happily-ever-after with a raised-on-the-streets musician, but Forest had the gentlest soul he’d ever met. After a long, hard road of heartbreak, murder, and trouble, they fell hard in love and married.
Then Fate intervenes and throws their lives into a chaos neither one of them is prepared for.
During a brutal SWAT raid, Connor stumbles on Tate, an abused, vulnerable little boy caught in a shoot-out with his father’s drug-running gang. As heavy fire riddles the walls, an injured Connor rescues Tate from the fray… only to be struck numb when a caseworker pries a sobbing Tate from his arms.
Scarred from his own childhood experiences, Forest doubts he can be a good enough father, but Connor assures him they can give Tate what he needs and more. Soon they are on an insane ride where trust and affection are hard-earned, especially when coming from a little boy raised in society’s filthiest gutters. Facing down every challenge thrown their way, they battle to give Tate what Connor treasures and Forest never had—a family to call his own.

My Review:

Port in a Storm, the long-awaited final book in the utterly awesome Sinners series combines coda and confirmation into one beautiful if sometimes heartbreaking package, coming full circle halfway around the world to end where it all began. With a dog named ‘Dude’.

We first met the Morgan Family and the members of Crossroads Gin back in 2012, in Sinner’s Gin – although I personally didn’t discover the series until five years later after falling in love with the author’s characters and work through her Cole McGinnis series.

Either way, it’s been a long road, getting from there to here. But here we are just the same.

As this story opens, it seems as if the current generation of the Irish-American, mostly SFPD cops of the Morgan family have found their various happy ever afters, often by pairing up with one of the members of Miki St. John’s resurrected band, Crossroads Gin.

That’s certainly true for Kane Morgan and Miki himself, whose meeting, facilitated by a dog that neither of them has ever fully admitted is theirs – honestly they are his, anyway – kicked off the entire series back in that first story.

But SFPD SWAT Lieutenant Connor Morgan and the band’s drummer Forest Ackerman, as happy as they are together – and they most definitely are – discover that there’s a child-shaped hole in their lives that they need to fill with Tate Robinson, a seven-year-old boy that Connor rescues in the midst of a drug raid.

A raid that was intended to net the major drug cooker listed as ‘father’ on Tate’s birth certificate.

Connor’s team may have come up empty-handed as far as the drugs or their maker were concerned, but left with a heart full of the need to get one desperate child out of the foster care system that still gives his husband Forest so many nightmares.

The battle in Port in Storm isn’t the Morgan family’s usual fight against criminals and drug dealers nor is it an attempt to break up or break down the band or any of its members. Instead it’s the battle against an overworked – at best – foster care system that seems to be more about ticking off boxes and protecting bureaucrat’s asses than it is about making the right decision for a young child even though that right decision has been handed to them on a silver platter.

Escape Rating A-: Those of us who are fans of the Sinners series were pretty convinced that book six, Sin and Tonic, was the ending – a happy ending that all the characters had earned and deserved – especially Dude.

And that the short story collection, ‘Nother Sip of Gin, was basically lagniappe. A lovely treat, a bit of a filling in of the corners, a chance to visit with old and dear friends one last time.

Until this. Until Port in a Storm and this nearly heartbreaking but ultimately just happily teary story that confirms that happy ending for everyone and ties it up with a really marvelous bow. Even better because we weren’t expecting it so we’re all crying a bit that it’s over but smiling because it happened.

(In other words, treat the above as a huge hint not to start here OR with either ‘Nother Sip of Gin or Sin and Tonic, because these are the endings. Start with Sinner’s Gin and settle in for a fantastic read!)

The actual story in Port in a Storm – is about just that. About a young boy finding his very own port in own storm with a badass cop and a rockstar drummer who also happens to be a foster care survivor himself. It’s about Tate Robinson finding the best home he could ever have found, with two men who have stepped up to be his dads in every single way, backed by friends and families who will help them figure out how to be dads and help Tate himself figure out how to love and trust again in spite of everything he’s been through.

That the social worker and agent of the system who does her damndest to break up their family is an avatar for Dolores Umbridge – complete with pink suits and simpering non-smiles – says all that needs to be said about how wrong the system was in this case and how right Connor, Forest and their whole entire family are for Tate.

And I’ll admit I wish we got just a bit more explanation of why and how she got involved and was so determined to break their family apart. But that was the only tiny niggle in one whole, entire, utterly marvelous wrap to a terrific series. So I’m left being just thrilled that we got to see everyone’s HEA confirmed and with bells on.

And that’s awesome – but maybe it’s time to go back and read the whole saga from the very beginning. Because that would be awesome too!

 

Review: ‘Nother Sip of Gin by Rhys Ford + Guest Post + Giveaway

Review: ‘Nother Sip of Gin by Rhys Ford + Guest Post + Giveaway'Nother Sip of Gin by Rhys Ford
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: ebook
Genres: contemporary romance, M/M romance, short stories
Series: Sinners #7
Pages: 190
Published by Dreamspinner Press on August 18, 2020
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads

For Crossroads Gin rock stars Miki, Damien, Rafe, and Forest, life is a Möbius strip of music, mayhem, and murder. Through it all, the sweet, hot moments between tours with lovers, friends, and family keep them sane, healthy, and happy.
This Sinners collection features short stories spanning the entire series, from before the first note to after the lights go out.
['Nother Sip of Gin features bonus shorts finally together in one volume as well as four new Sinners Gin stories, combining classic foundational pieces with newly written material.]

My Review:

This collection is lagniappe for lovers of the Sinners series. It’s a little gift that we had no reason to expect, but are oh so happy to receive. And it’s absolutely yummy from beginning to end.

Some are even brand new, which makes it an even bigger present. The stories are certainly new to me and I’m thrilled to have them all together. Of course, new and old, they are all great stories.

This is a collection of little slices of life of the members of Crossroads Gin and the men who love them. They are interstices. Places between. Things that take place before, between and after the books in the series, or in one truly memorable case, right alongside.

The stories also contain hints of Rhys’ other series. Not deep dives into their past or present, but just enough to make a regular reader of her work realize that many of her contemporary series take place in the same world. Enough to tease but not enough to torment.

Still, this is definitely a collection for the fans. Because we care about these characters, and have missed them now that their story seems to be over and they have all managed, by hook, by crook and mostly by miracle, to have found their happily ever afters.

For those of us who have followed the series, this is a visit with old friends, sitting around, swapping stories. Except that they have all the best stories and we’re just listening in.

As great as it is – and it is terrific – to glimpse a bit of Miki and Damien before they became famous, or to peek into Miki and Kane’s happy ever after, My favorite story in the book, hands and paws down, is Hair of the Dog. Because Dude, the dog who adopted Miki just before the series opens, tells the entire story of the first book, Sinner’s Gin, from his rather unique perspective. After all, Dude is the one responsible for bringing Miki and Kane together, and he has a lot to say about how it happened. He’s also one smart and savvy dog.

Escape Rating A: Lovers of this series are going to be all in for this collection. We’ll all probably have our own favorites, but the whole of it is just a great time. If you’re not already a fan of the series, this is not the place to start. Start with Sinner’s Gin and get swallowed up by the lost band and the found family that forms the backbone of the series. It’s a marvelous wild ride from beginning to end!

Guest Post from Rhys + Sinner’s Calling

Never thought I’d be back on the road with these guys again but … here we are. And nothing makes me happier than to take to the pages with the Sinner Boys all over again. ’Nother Sip of Gin came from a friend asking me if I’d ever consider pulling together some of the blog spots I’d done into a book they could read on their Kindle. I’ve held that possibility in my head for a while and then I got the time and space to pull not only the foundational stories I’d already shared but a few brand new stories I’ve always wanted to explore, short bits of emotions and life moments I’ve enjoyed pulling together. I’ve included long stories like Hair of the Dog and a few others because well, they were fun to write in the past but also provided a solid base for so much of the Sinners lore.

For this blog tour I wanted to take a bit of time to talk about five lyric snippets and how they connect to the characters as well as the meaning behind a few of them. It was great to go through the anthology and once again visit with the guys. I’ll be writing a novella about Connor and Forest in the near future so this trip down memory lane has been a great revisit with old friends, reacquainting me with their voices, quibbles, and most of all, their lives.

Bled onto my hand,
Shoved his fist into mine
Stood tall against anyone
Who’d break through our line

No matter what they do
No matter what they say
Death’s already tried to part us
And we’ve already made him pay

So lift a glass to the Sinners
Lift a glass of cheap ass gin
Put your lips on the Gates of Heaven
‘Cause we’re taking you to sin.
Sinners’ Calling


I’m actually going to end this blog tour where everything started — Damien and Miki.

When I first envisioned the series, I started with the image in my head of a shattered, broken-down musician who was angry at the world. The prologue to the series came to me before any of the details or other characters in Sinners Gin. I knew what Sinjun lost before Kane ever knocked on his door. I knew somewhere out in the universe was a soul that balanced out my complicated, slightly antisocial warrior-poet. This person would be his equal in musicianship but his opposite in personality. In a lot of ways, it was imperative to take away Miki’s balance, his dependence on one person he held in his heart in order for him to understand there was room there for someone else.

Dude was pretty much training wheels for Miki and his growing trust in letting himself feel. Despite every denial of the dog belonging to him, Dude was an integral part of his life. The terrier became the reason for Miki to get up in the morning, to make sure there was food, and even to make sure there was some play time. His world had become cloaked shadows and he could no longer sense the sand slipping away through the hourglass. Dude became a marker of time as well as a portal back to an engagement in life for Miki.

He also became an important piece of Miki’s heart he was willing to defend when a blue-eyed Irish cop pounded on his front door.

I also imagined Damien to be much more charismatic and kind of the salesman in a way. He is a driving force behind the band, as much of a part of its engine as Miki with a clear vision of where he wants to be. What I’ve never had the chance to explore and really it’s a pretentious luxury to do so, is simply writing about the two of them being together for no purpose other than being together. That brotherhood is really what I wanted to capture because I wanted to show two men who have a deep connection but weren’t blood related. They have fought — and probably will continue to fight — about big things and little things but their love for one another is unwavering. There never should have been a moment when the reader would wonder if one of them would walk away. That was very crucial.

In a lot of ways, Miki’s relationship with Damien and how they communicated helped forge his relationship with Kane. For all of his lack of social skills, Miki is able to love fiercely and understand compromise and open discourse is truly the only way to have a relationship. He knows you don’t purposely hurt the people closest to you and in a world where too many people believe just because someone loves them gives them the freedom to be sarcastic or mean because they believe they’ll be forgiven, Miki’s foundational understanding about taking care of the other person’s emotional health makes it easier for him to deal with all the conflicts he and Kane have to face.

With Damien woven so deeply into Miki’s psyche, I knew I needed to write Sinners Gin in such a way that the reader could feel the pain of Miki’s loss but without the specter of Damien standing between Miki and Kane. I think in some way Miki’s anger waking up alone in a hospital, having lost everything in his life but his body, made it easier to develop his relationship with Kane. In no way did his growing affection minimize his love for Damien who was his brother and Kane, having brothers himself, clearly understood the significance of Damie in Miki’s life. Without Damien, Miki probably would’ve never discovered music and his innate talents to create it. He never would’ve had the subspace of being on stage, unfurling the part of himself he kept very down deep inside of him, that slinky sensual creature who loved to dance in the lights and growl around words he found in his soul. So no matter what Kane thought of Damien, he understood how important he was to Miki.

And of all the scenes that I’ve ever written, I will readily admit the one where Damien and Miki find each other again — in the middle of a noisy Morgan kitchen — was one of the hardest emotion-filled silences I’ve ever had craft. It was a delicate balance of disbelief, hope, and reignited love to capture in words and I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to communicate that caught-on-the-edge-of-the-universe breathlessness they both shared.

You see, for Miki and Damien… they weren’t in that kitchen. They were nowhere near the Morgan household. The men they loved were not nearby. In that moment, it was the early morning hours in a misty Chinatown alleyway, the air carrying the smell of spicy noodles with a metallic hint of iron flakes from an aging fire escape. Between them, the fading notes of an old Janis Joplin song and Damien had just discovered a broken-winged angel waiting for him outside of a failed gig.

That’s what this song is about. Hell, that’s what this whole series is about and no matter where they go, it will always have each other — Miki and Damien are as eternal as the stars just like the love they have for the men they found along the way.

Follow the ‘Nother Sip of Gin Tour for more lyrics and more giveaways!

About Rhys Ford

Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and is a two-time LAMBDA finalist with her Murder and Mayhem novels. She is also a 2017 Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Florida Authors and Publishers President’s Book Awards for her novels Ink and Shadows and Hanging the Stars. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.

She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Harley, a grey tuxedo with a flower on her face, Badger, a disgruntled alley cat who isn’t sure living inside is a step up the social ladder as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep of a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.

Rhys can be found at the following locations:

Blog: www.rhysford.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author
Facebook Group: Coffee, Cats, and Murder: https://www.facebook.com/groups/635660536617002/
Twitter: @Rhys_Ford

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

And as usual, there is a giveaway! Please enter to win a $20 gift certificate to the etailer of your choice and be sure to hit up every blog stop to enter every giveaway! Never say no to books. grins

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Review: Sin and Tonic by Rhys Ford

Review: Sin and Tonic by Rhys FordSin and Tonic (Sinners, #6) by Rhys Ford
Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: M/M romance, romantic suspense
Series: Sinners #6
Pages: 270
Published by Dreamspinner Press on May 15, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads

Miki St. John believed happy endings only existed in fairy tales until his life took a few unexpected turns… and now he’s found his own.

His best friend, Damien, is back from the dead, and their new band, Crossroads Gin, is soaring up the charts. Miki’s got a solid, loving partner named Kane Morgan—an Inspector with SFPD whose enormous Irish family has embraced him as one of their own—and his dog, Dude, at his side.

It’s a pity someone’s trying to kill him.

Old loyalties and even older grudges emerge from Chinatown’s murky, mysterious past, and Miki struggles to deal with his dead mother’s abandonment, her secrets, and her brutal murder while he’s hunted by an enigmatic killer who may have ties to her.

The case lands in Kane’s lap, and he and Miki are caught in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. When Miki is forced to face his personal demons and the horrors of his childhood, only one thing is certain: the rock star and his cop are determined to fight for their future and survive the evils lurking in Miki’s past.

My Review:

If you are a fan of this series, this finale is going to seriously cut you up emotionally. And if you’re not a fan, or at least not yet, I suggest starting with the first book, Sinner’s Gin. Be prepared for one hell of a ride.

This is also a giant hint that Sin and Tonic is not the place to start reading the Sinners series. This is where it ends, and the emotional resonance of that ending will be completely lost if you start here. This one packs a hell of an emotional wallop, along with the solutions to all the mysteries that stand at the heart of Miki St. John, but only if you go back to where it all began in Sinner’s Gin.

You might need one – or more – of the drinks that all the titles are based on before you finish.

In the end, this entire series is the story of one man learning over and over again to become strong in all of his many, many broken places. And that in order for that to happen, he needs to let people (and a dog named Dude) into his life and his heart.

In this series finale, Miki thinks he has everything he needs to step into his future, when his past blasts into his life and tries to end it, once and for all. And nearly succeeds, Again. But with the help of his lover, his new-found family and finally his old-found family, Miki is the one left standing.

After one hell of a lot of tragedy, there’s finally triumph. And a happy ending.

Escape Rating B+: As much as loved Sin and Tonic, and in fact the entire Sinners series, I also have to admit that the first 2/3 of this book wasn’t as absorbing as some of the other books in the series, and I think that has to do with its length and what it took to make it as long as it was.

And it feels long. I have an eARC in my kindle app, and at 5156 kindle locations, this book is considerably longer than the 270 pages that Goodreads and Amazon claim that it is. I’d estimate that it is closer to 400 pages if not more. And as much as I hate to admit this, too much of those extra 130 or so pages is sex. While I enjoy a good sex scene as much as the next romance reader, for me at least there is a limit to how much of other people’s sex lives I find interesting. I was completely invested in solving the riddle of Miki’s origins and all of the truly awful things that have happened to him, and the sheer volume of sex scenes got in my way.

It’s not that each individual scene isn’t well written, because they are. But there were so many that they got in the way of the story. At least for me. Your mileage, and certainly Miki and Kane’s mileage, definitely may vary.

However, and in this case it’s a great big however, once past that ⅔ mark, the story kicks into high gear with a series of gut-wrenching revelations and a hail of bullets. More than one hail.

From the point where Miki finally learns the truth about his own origin story until the end, the story races in high gear from one crisis to the next, and the hits just keep on coming until the hitter is finally taken out.

That last third leaves the reader reeling, as all the secrets that have been powering this book, and in fact the entire series, are revealed and shot away, one after another. And that ending is glorious.

There is a tour for this book, and even though I’m not part of the tour, I loved this series so much that I can’t resist linking to it. I really want to share the love for this awesome series. So if you want to learn more about the book and the series, check out the tour. Rhys Ford’s site has all the details.

Review: Absinthe of Malice by Rhys Ford

Review: Absinthe of Malice by Rhys FordAbsinthe of Malice (Sinners, #5) by Rhys Ford
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Sinners #5
Pages: 200
Published by Dreamspinner Press on June 22nd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads

We’re getting the band back together.
Those five words send a chill down Miki St. John’s spine, especially when they’re spoken with a nearly religious fervor by his brother-in-all-but-blood, Damien Mitchell. However, those words were nothing compared to what Damien says next.
And we’re going on tour.
When Crossroads Gin hits the road, Damien hopes it will draw them closer together. There’s something magical about being on tour, especially when traveling in a van with no roadies, managers, or lovers to act as a buffer. The band is already close, but Damien knows they can be more—brothers of sorts, bound not only by familial ties but by their intense love for music.
As they travel from gig to gig, the band is haunted by past mistakes and personal demons, but they forge on. For Miki, Damie, Forest, and Rafe, the stage is where they all truly come alive, and the music they play is as important to them as the air they breathe.
But those demons and troubles won’t leave them alone, and with every mile under their belts, the band faces its greatest challenge—overcoming their deepest flaws and not killing one another along the way.

My Review:

I want to strangle the author. Except I really don’t. I loved this book. But…while the story is pretty much wrapped up at the end, a bombshell gets dropped on the last page that makes a terrible wait for the next book. Which means I can’t strangle the author, because then I’ll never find out what happened. Damn, a good plot ruined.

And there bloody well better be a next book. After THAT. Which I’m going to leave for readers to discover for themselves. Then we can share the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

sinners gin by rhys fordThe Sinners series so far has been leading up to this. In the beginning, back in Sinner’s Gin, Miki St. John was all alone and drowning in his pain, both physical and emotional. As the story has progressed, Miki has been putting his life back together, along with putting a band back together.

That band, Crossroads Gin, is a mix of the old and the new. Damien, back from the dead and the wreck that killed Sinner’s Gin. Rafe and Forest are new, but have so many demons of their own that they fit right in.

In each book in the series so far, Sinner’s Gin, Whiskey and Wry, Tequila Mockingbird and Sloe Ride, the band has added a new player, the Murphy family has lost one wild child to the lure of loving a broken rock star, and the old Sinner’s Gin has become the new Crossroads Gin.

But in each book in the series, each man has battled his own internal demons, and at least one external demon has arrived on the scene in an attempt to snatch at their newfound happiness.

Now that there is a band, Absinthe of Malice moves the story into a new chapter. To see if they’ve really got what it takes to make great music, and to see if they can bond into something truly special in spite of the heavy baggage they all carry, they decide to carry some real baggage.

Crossroads Gin takes the band on the road, in a rented bus and with no roadies. They play dives and broken down clubs all across the U.S., with no one to rely on except each other, and their men back in San Francisco who drop everything at a moment’s notice whenever help, support or love is required. Or carpentry and electrical work.

And just as in every Sinners book, the band is dogged by a string of near tragedies. Fate does seem to be out to get them, but there is also someone or something who is trailing their every step, willing to stick in both a figurative and literal shiv whenever they think they might be getting it all together.

They start out wondering if they can survive each other on tour. They end up questioning whether they can survive at all.

Escape Rating B+: Compared to some of the other stories in the series, Absinthe of Malice has a few more slow spots. Also, there is no budding romance here to drive up the emotional tension. All the guys have found their true loves in the earlier books. That doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of lovely romantic moments, but there’s no chase. Everyone has already been caught.

This is a book where everyone who has been involved so far gets at least one terrific scene and a real chance to shine. And that includes the Murphy parents, Donal and Bridget, who each get their turn to finally make Miki see that he is every bit as much their son as the ones they gave birth to.

There’s also a fair bit of minutiae of a band traveling together and gelling into a unit,, along with a lot of rubbing each other very much the wrong way. Being cooped up in a single vehicle on boring roads for long stretches of time will do that to anyone.

But danger always dogs this bunch. If it wasn’t for all of them finding the loves of their lives, I would say that if it wasn’t for bad luck, they don’t have any at all.

The beginning of the tour closes with a knife attack. The perpetrator is never caught, but fear of that unknown follows along every mile of the tour. Either it’s Chekhov’s gun, which I doubt, or there is more nastiness to come in future books in the series.

Along with the aftershocks from that exploding bomb at the end.