Sticks & Stones by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux

Sticks & Stones is the second book in the exciting M/M Romantic Suspense series, Cut & Run. In this installment, given mandatory vacation time to try and rid themselves of the lingering effects of the harrowing serial killer case they’d worked on previously, Ty and Zane head to Ty’s hometown in West Virginia. With his father, brother and Zane, the four men set out on what was supposed to be a recreational hiking trip through the mountains that instead turned out to be a grueling fight for survival. As events unfold we get deeper into Ty’s mind and how his dark years as a Marine Recon still haunt him, but those flashbacks that some might call nightmares very well could be what saves all of their lives. This book also gave us a firsthand glimpse into the Grady family dynamic, and it wasn’t always pleasant. As I was reading I often found myself thinking, “Thank God he has Zane there to help him.” But all that said, as hard as some of it was to read, it’s the whole sum of Ty’s life that has made him the man he is today, and I wouldn’t want him any other way.

The bottom line - Sticks & Stones is another great story and Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux have once again left me with a smile on my face. They’ve somehow managed to create these two incredible characters whose witty banter and, more-often-than-not, pain-in-the-ass mind-sets have me both laughing out loud and wanting to shoot them! They’re so imperfect that they are, in fact, perfect! Together, that is. This is a heartwarming and steamy story, but make no mistake about it, this is a romance in every sense of the word! And as I’m sitting here writing this review, so many thoughts are running through my head, so many things I want to tell you. 

But I won’t.

Instead, I’ll leave it for you to discover for yourselves the amazingly awesome duo that is Ty and Zane.

This book was provided free to me by netgalley.com in behalf of Dreamspinner press, in exchange for an honest review.

5/5 stars 

Tangled Past by Leah Braemel

When I requested this book from netgalley, I knew it would be a hot historical western, and because I’ve read Ms. Braemel’s writing before, I knew I’d enjoy it. Well, Tangled Past turned out to be more than just another erotic read.

This story addresses racial prejudice – two of the characters are “half –breeds”; and sexual intolerance – two of the characters are gay. So as you can imagine, there’s a good, emotional story to go along with the sex.

Nate and Jackson are two cowboys in love, but they keep it under wraps because hey, who wants to ruin a perfectly good day by being hung? But due to a misunderstanding, Jackson is forced to marry Sarah McLeod, and even though he doesn't want to marry her, he vows to do right by his new bride. So where does this leave Nate? Well... pretty lonely for a good deal of the book, and that was a problem for me as a reader because I often found myself wondering about how Nate, the odd-man-out during this part of the story, was handling everything that was taking place. Unfortunately, it had me questioning Jackson’s affection for him beyond anything but the physical and negatively affected my hope for a happily ever after that I could believe in. Which leads me to another point; this book is tagged “ménage” but I have to say, it took a long time to get there, so I’m more inclined to call it a m/m, m/f, m/f/m romance with a ménage scene thrown in.

I enjoyed the epilogue, getting a glimpse into their lives about 20 years down the road, and I’m hoping there will be a story for Nate, Jackson and Sarah’s descendants.

3.5/5 stars

This book was provided for review by netgalley.com and had no influence on my rating.