R. Cooper (2)Reviews

4.5 stars

Really great characters... love Cal and Ray Ray.

3.5 stars

Thanks Skipper Snowfly Elf

3.75 stars

I enjoyed this one but wanted to like it more.
There were times I was a little bit confused as to what was happening and teh characters intentions but I expect a bit of that with this author and I evidently enjoy it as I read all their work.

I loved Nicodemus. I liked his blend of lack of feeling isolated to the confidence dealing with Bel. Bel gave him the opportunity to understand his power.

I liked Bel too but found his motivations at times really hard to understand and the signals he was putting out I struggled to understand.

Regardless of this I still enjoyed the story and the world created.

4.25 Stars

Its taken me a bit to get going this year as I just couldn't find the motivation to start reading, so to break the slump I took to a book that I was majorly excited about when I heard it was coming out last year. I've held off reading it to savour it. and it didn't disappoint.

Every one of these books I read and I think "this is my favourite couple" and if I had to choose I'd say Chester and Will are but Lucas and Robin I think will definitely fight for the top spot on the reread.

The communication issues worked in this one as Robin was so sick and needed to be able to hear and understand. While he was sick and so tired he didn't have the capacity to even imagine it, so he needs the healing to begin before anything could happen. It's a slow burn as we get to know the guys as they get to know each other again, with the help of a couple of ravens and meddling families both here and from the afterlife.

I enjoyed that the coven is being called out in this one. They definitely let Chester down, and it was nice to see someone actually see that, but they also let down all the Mc's in this series. They are as Robin points out, dependant on these powerful witches but at the same time leave them to their own devices regardless of how much pain they're in and are kind scared of them to a degree. It's good to see someone actually starting to call them on it.

Can't wait to reread this one and pick up the little bits and pieces I've missed on this read.

4 stars

I enjoyed this one. I've been meaning to reread for a while now and was glad I did. It showcases a character with Bi-polar and the struggles that come with loving him, be it a partner or the family that love him. It gave me a better understanding of what it's like on both sides of the equation. The struggle Alex faces with everyday things and how ashamed he is afterwards. His determination to be self sufficient is nice to see. Everett is a great character too, although I don't feel like I know him as well. I'd love to see more from them these guys as it finishes as soon as they get together

4 ⭐️

I thought this one was well written. I liked all the character in this one.
The communication style, while in some books can irritate me, made sense in this one, especially with Alex’s bipolar.

Cute little short story

This one is cute short story.
I love Bertie, he is so much fun. I loved his honesty and open affection for Godric, and also his desire not to embarrass Godric. I also liked Godric and his stoic personality but hidden affection for Bertie

I am not sure what possessed me to read this because the cover is highly suggestive of a BDSM relationship, which I’m not usually interested in reading. The book description hooked me, and the reviews posted used words like “sweet” and “adorable” so I bought it.

I had the strangest experience with this book because about half the time, I didn’t understand what was going on, but I was still totally hooked by the relationship, which is filled with sexual tension and longing.

The story is basically that Fen is the pretty, inexperienced son of an evil Earl (one of many in this world) who runs away into the woods and is rescued by Lan, a Robin Hood–esque character who is taking down the system one Earl at a time. Fen has a huge crush on Lan; Lan wants Fen but is determined not to take advantage of his innocence. There are many conversations about alliances and Lan’s role in reshaping society, and this was where I felt lost; but I sort of felt like I was reading about an unfamiliar culture and could accept their unfamiliar rules (sort of like when you read your first Victorian novel and think, “So they’re alone in the garden. Why is this a big deal?”). Also, Fen is narrating and his inexperience with the world affects the narration.

Technically there is some amount of Fen’s hands being tied up in this book, but it was always done in the most highly consensual way. I kept thinking, “I love how much consent is in this book, and every time it comes up, it seems to add to the sexiness of the scene.”

Also, while there is a background of battles and evil Earls, we don’t actually see any of that in the book, which is why I thought it counted as a cozy romantasy. The story starts with Lan finding Fen and stays with Fen at the rebels’ camp and home base, with the war happening off-page. So, the most stressful it gets is worrying about people making it home safely (which, given that it is a romance novel, I did not find too worrying).

3.5 Stars. Unique characters. Bertie certainly is honest, lol, professing his love to Godric almost like he is apologizing for embarrassing him. Godric is a stoic soldier type, subtle in a way Bertie cannot understand. It's different, lightening up a pretty dark situation (war) with Bertie and Godric's love story. I enjoyed it.

audio fiction, series (~3.5 hrs) - gay witch Halloween romance.
October reading challenge: pumpkin on cover; takes place around Samhain/Halloween; witch protagonist.

Lonely, almost-30 y.o. gay witch Piotr lacks a familiar and crushes on genderqueer fellow witch Bartleby Dorchester, who happens to be a "human familiar" assigned to help him out before Samhain, and who might also be romantically interested in Piotr, but Piotr has multiple hangups (mainly, abandonment issues and a belief that he is unlovable/doomed to live alone) so doesn't realize how perfect they are for each other.

One of those slow-building romances, told over a handful of episodes of the would-be couple spending time together before some final steamy scenes. There's a pumpkin patch, a lot of baking, a meddling but well-meaning ghost, a power outage, and a rainstorm.

Re-read Feb 13.

I was able to get a little more in to the story this time, but the last two chapters just went all vague and abstract painting on me.

3.5 stars

Synopsis: Scotty has moved to a small town to help his sister after she and her ex-husband split up. He is a fire fighter, and works really hard to stay in shape. After one of his runs, he stops to get something for his sister, and learns that a group of women are trying to set up the other single gay guy, Cole, with guys they think would be appropriate for him. Even though Scotty is gay, he isn't even on the list.
Scotty has a problem with this, because about a year ago, he and Cole had an encounter, and have mostly been avoiding each other ever since. Scotty has been observing/slightly stalking Cole since their encounter, and he doesn't think the women know Cole well enough to decide who would be good for him, but Scotty also knows that he isn't right.
Cole lost his husband a few years ago, and is the school librarian. As he and Scotty keep running in to each other, they start to talk, rather than waving across the street, and Scotty becomes more embroiled than ever.

What I liked: the relationship development between Scotty and Cole. I liked that a point was made of Cole going through the grieving process, and his slow emergence in to the world around him. I liked Scotty's sister, and how gentle and understanding he was with people, and I liked that Cole saw through his public persona to the one underneath. Cole didn't suffer fools gladly, and Scotty appreciated that, and was in on the joke because he knew him so well.

What I didn't like: There is just something about this author's writing style that I don't connect with. The writing is solid, the characters are interesting, and I was completely involved in the story, but at the end, it felt as though I wasn't part of their lives, like I was only observing it from a distance. There was a slight disconnect for me, even though I completely related to Scotty, from their relationship together, I guess.

Overall impression: This could have easily been a 5 star read for me: good story, well edited, interesting characters. But because I felt removed from the ending, it definitely mitigated my experience while reading.

A well written story of two childhood friends, now outcasts coming together again on graduation night to tell some difficult truths. This was a sweet, touching story of personal strengths.

This is a fantastic sf romance - not only because Taji is a great character, and because the being he's fallen for is amazing, but because the world Taji's stuck on is complex enough, the culture and subcultures revealed at a pace I could track, and the underpinnings of, to name two, history as important and honor as a baseline social requirement, are compelling and critical. Gender and personal identification, social constructs, personal choices, inclusiveness and racism, power used well and power abused - it's all here, and well done.

I wish I could read it again for the first time. It's that good.

4.5 stars (really want this option, GR) - while this could have used one more line edit to insert missing words and change incorrect ones, if you love Iz, you won't care. I adored all the characters, and only come away with one quibble about the plot, but you shouldn't care. It's only important to love these guys and hope for the best. They are all so very kind, each in his own way, and it's just lovely. It's also lovely to read a story about queer characters in which no one has suffered to get where they are. And for those of you averse to sex scenes, this one is all kissing and afterword-reference.

I am so glad this one exists.

This book was first published in 2011 (same year the US last launched humans to space), and it shows. And yet, the promise pulled me past clumbsy sentences and sometimes confusing paragraphing, and even repetition, which I usually can't stand, to read the whole thing. It cries out for a thorough edit, and yet may not withstand that. But here's the thing. I started reading the kindle sample of book 2, A Boy and His Dragon, and that one shows technical improvement (at least at the beginning). Had I not done that, had I only started this one, I might have given up on the series.

But I did. So I will read the next one, at least.

I wrote this earlier:

...Oh my goodness, the end of Chapter 5. Oh, oh, oh.
If this subgenre's your jam, know this one's good points out-shown the bad for me.

This story is better written than #1 was, but I still see areas of repetition, and somewhat confusing transition sentences meant to cover time gone past. I liked the confusion for the most part, Arthur not understanding Bertie, and how Arthur's perfectionism trips him up, as well. It could use a loving edit, but I enjoyed it.

Wow. I am floored by the sneakily subversive messages laid into this very sweet novella or short novel!

I'll be honest, the silly title put me off a bit. But the title's perfect. Scott is very complex. Cole is very complex. We only see things from Scott's (3rd person) perspective. There is a heartbreaking, beautiful delicacy to how the author reveals things that ... I'm just floored. For all its beauty, there are barbs here too, and oh are they deserved, and how that plays out is subtle and delightfully mean.

There is FAR more here than the romance, and I am HERE FOR IT.

EDIT: just discovered 'For Better or Worse' is in the same town/same characters, so that's next. :)

This needed another loving edit pass for missing words and so on, but nothing glaring, and who cares when we get suuuper-sweet Javi and fearful Jimmy and all the other firehouse people? This is all from demisexual/gray ace Javi's point of view, so boy does that keep Jimmy confusing for awhile. And with all their cooking, now I'm hungry, too. :) This one is a little less complex than Scott's story, and maybe shorter, but just as important. Loved it.

I mostly liked the framing story for this collection, though it didn't make a lot of sense to me. I'm okay with that.

In order to enjoy this collection, you must love fantasy and love. It helps to have read one or more of the Beings in Love series, as well.

"Little Prince" is another chapter in the 'stupid boys, why don't they talk?' trope. Cute, but eh.
"Clematis" is intolerably sweet and made me cry at the end. Big thumbs-up.
"Martin the Wrong" This one is quiet and beautiful, and I loved it.
"A Lord for the Bear-Prince" short, rather direct, very sweet, and beautiful.
"The One That Would Be" Cute.
"Tales Before Bedtime, Retold" is part of the framing story.
"A Charm for Confidence" Loved this one.
"Three Masquerades" enjoyable denial & (re)acceptance
"A Beast and a Beauty" straightforward despite wariness. Sweet.
"A Wolf's Faithfulness" This one is great!
"Tales Before Bedtime" The last of the framing story. Still lost. Still don't care.
"Aphrodite's Favorite"My favorite, too. Excellent. Way to end a collection, author!

OMG the END.

I don't understand anyone who read this and gave it less than five stars.

Jeremy is perfectly portrayed as the hyper, irrepressible, intelligent geek--not an easy character to write--and his love interest is unexpectedly perfect, which shocks them both. The timeline's comfortable, the dialogue is both funny and telling. And the end. Perfection.

I would absolutely read more about these two, but I found this novelette/long short story (?) delightful in and of itself.

How to define this one. It's short, and yet fully packed, single point of view, yet all the characters are terrific. It is shockingly clever in the best ways. This author trusts her readers to pay attention.

Our point of view is with the quiet one, who over the course of the past year has memorized everything about the chatty geek--or he thinks he has. But the chatty one tries upping his game, and there is a revelation--honestly, I am impressed. Great writer. Great story. Read this one.

I would have read this more slowly, but I couldn't. The actual plot is relatively straightforward but the complications are so personal and so terribly sweet that I could not put it down. The author made the typical fantasy wordiness work very well. IMHO the MC ought to have been a bit quicker, but ultimately I can't care. I enjoyed it very much. One of Cooper's best.

I enjoyed this story and would've given more stars, except that the vast majority of the story rests on no one saying the very few words that would clarify what happened between the MCs in the past to mess things up in the present. I didn't believe this was any kind of new problem. First rule of relationship club: communicate clearly. Duh. That said, for once, I really liked all the food parts! A minor miracle.

Because of the central miscommunication, I think this would have benefited from being shorter, less time for the irritation waiting for the realization.

A minor flaw happened frequently in the last few chapters; the author sometimes putting dialogue and thoughts from both characters in one paragraph, that blurred for me which point of view it was in. It was distracting. But it's common for last chapters to be less well-edited than first chapters, and it wasn't plot critical by then.

I already bought the next book, because the pairing is odd and a mystery...

Particularly in the last few chapters, the author's paragraphing blurred whose point of view I was in. It should've been obvious since one's werewolf and the other's human, so that was distracting. I think this one could have been shorter without losing anything important.

What an interesting novel. All told from one skewed to oblivious and very snarky point of view. The book is very long, and yet compelling, and ultimately satisfying in that way only really intense characters can deliver.

The first story's like an antiquated dream, enjoyable for what it is though never my first choice. The second story was my least favorite. The third, Hiacinth the fairy's, was a blend of fun and annoying, hard to distill down to a simple review. I don't regret reading it, but I wouldn't have regretted missing it either, unlike the first story, The Firebird. (These reviews are combined since GR lost my running review and I had to remember what I'd written.)

I am thrilled to have read The Imp and Mr. Sunshine. That was GREAT.

The Wolf in the Garden's MC knows the MC from The Firebird, which took place 80 years ago, very nice touch. We learn of things Rennet did as a child, too. This story is where it pays to have read all these stories.

The Dragon's Egg is about Arthur and Bertie (A Boy and His Dragon) and a surprise. Wonderful. A great ending to this collection. If you have read the Beings in Love series, don't miss this collection.