Kim Alan

Advantage Crosse – West Thornhill ★★★✩✩
Alex & Drew – Justin South ★★✩✩✩
Altered States – L.E. Harner - No
American Boy – Dany Sirene
And Then He Said I'm Beautiful – Nallux
An Angel's Soul – S.L. Armstrong & K. Piet
Animal Instincts – Kim Alan
Ars Daemonica – C.C. Williams
At What Cost? – Kathryn Sparrow
Baby, Cuff Me One More Time – Stephani Hecht
Bed of My Chevy – Megan Slayer
Beginnings: Liberation – Alessandra Ebulu
Between You and Me – Alex Mar ★★★★✩
Beyond Duty – S.J.D. Peterson
Blood in the Water – Megan Derr ★★★✩✩… (more)

Kyle, a distraught young man abandoned on the road after a fight with his new (and now most likely ex) boyfriend, stumbles into a rugged tavern whose bar is tended by the even more rugged Beau. Kyle needs to use the phone, and to maybe have a drink to calm his nerves, but ends up getting so much more...

Kim Alan is a new name to me but the quality of her writing and the amazing, witty and just absolutely darling characters made sure that she's got herself a new fan. The D/s aspect in this story especially was so, so emotional and well-crafted that I was in tears by the end.

And after the reveal that Beau was actually the Master who'd set Kyle free "for his own good"? I immediately went back to re-read the story with this new fact in mind, and oh, it hurt so, so good the second time around.… (more)

Well, this is an entirely different kind of bad BDSM etiquette than I'm used to coming across by surprise in romances; I suppose that can count for something?

I am actually quite a fan of applying animal behaviour to human interactions in fiction, but rarely have I seen it done so powerfully badly. Jordan came off as a pretty thoughtless and unwise vet in some of his interactions with animals as well as people, and also rather obsessive - on absolutely no invitation or encouragement from Cal, who seemed to have no particular interest on display for Jordan initially, much less inviting his (continued, persistent) attention, which left me feeling like Jordan was being stalkery and creepy with his insistence - and such phrases as 'wearing him down' did not help.

The casual dropping into conversation of Cal being a sub, from Jordan, again on no particular encouragement other than 'I can see it in you' was jarring and uncomfortable; the later comment from Cal about what Jordan should have done in that conversation was worse.

The promised plot with the matchmaking was . . . weird and didn't quite mesh with the rest, and the calls to Jordan that had him running all over town at any time just to get a dog out of weird spots or to back off of someone felt incredibly strange and unrealistic.… (more)