PRE-RELEASE ARC REVIEW: Bliss by Lisa Henry, Heidi Belleau

Expected publication: August 18th 2014 by Riptide Publishing

Buy The Book:

AMAZON / BARNES & NOBLE / RIPTIDE PUBLISHING

Author's Page:

L. Henry on GR / Blog / Twitter

H. Belleau on GR / Blog / Twitter

Genre:

Science-Fiction- Dystopia/ MM Romance

Summary on Goodreads:

They're always happy.

Rory James has worked hard all his life to become a citizen of the idyllic city-state of Beulah. Like every other kid born in the neighboring country of Tophet, he’s heard the stories: No crime or pollution. A house and food for everyone. It’s perfect, and Rory is finally getting a piece of it.

So is Tate Patterson. He’s from Tophet, too, but he’s not a legal immigrant; he snuck in as a thief. A city without crime seems like an easy score, until he crashes into Rory during a getaway and is arrested for assaulting a citizen. Instead of jail, Tate is enrolled in Beulah’s Rehabilitation through Restitution program. By living with and serving his victim for seven years, Tate will learn the human face of his crimes.

If it seems too good to be true, that’s because it is. Tate is fitted with a behavior-modifying chip that leaves him unable to disobey orders—any orders, no matter how dehumanizing. Worse, the chip prevents him from telling Rory, the one man in all of Beulah who might care about him, the truth: in a country without prisons, Tate is locked inside his own mind.

RATING:

***MY REVIEW***

Arc provided via Netgalley in exchange for honest review

"They are always happy."

Psst, psst, where can I get me some of those chips, huh??? Kidding ;). 

This was again one of those reads I picked because of the pretty & "innocent" cover and because it is a mm read and I was in need of one of those after a couple of truly disappointing m/f reads in a row. So, imagine my surprise when I started reading and discovered that the story is faaar from innocent.

As one of my friends pointed out :)- I should have been more focused on that part from the blurb which clearly states "any orders, no matter how dehumanizing", to get some idea what the story will be like, but she should know by now that my brain usually doesn't think so deep when it comes to books, lol. Sad, but true. Either way, even if I had some idea about the plot of the story it probably wouldn't have stopped me from reading it, because it's well known that I do enjoy a good dark read, and this turned out to be pretty good & pretty dark too.

Imagine a world where criminals don't get sentenced to prison or other regular punishments, but they get a behavior-modifying chip installed in their neck and become servants to the people they offended. The chip makes them obey any type of order and their sole goal is to serve and please their "masters". Only then can they be truly happy and the side-effect  in case they fail to do that is that they endure severe pain. That type of society is the society of Beulah where the MCs Rory & Tate meet for the first time.

Beulah  seems as an idyllic place for them both to start their life, better from the one they had before, but...What if that type of chip ever came to the wrong hands? Considering the corruption of laws and its society, is it really possible to create a perfect society with no criminal?  Lies, secrets, corruption, a big fraud. Nothing and no one is as it seems, but they are always happy, or are they really? Think something in style of that creepy movie Stepford Wives (2004), that type of behavior, only much, much worse. That's all I'm going to say.

Interesting, dark, twisted, gripping & way-too-hot. 

I was hooked from the very beginning, but you should have in mind that this book is not for everyone, only for my fellow fans of dark reads who like mm romance too. I liked the story and its characters very much. It was refreshing and unpredictable. The only thing I would preferred is as far as the romance is concerned that we saw Rory &  Tate spending more quality time together and the ending also left me wanting for more. Another big plus, at least for me was that it is a GFY type of mm romance.

This is my first read by these two authors, but it won't be the last. Good job!

"Is it really this easy to be happy?"

XOXO

Strain by Amelia C. Gormley

Buy The Book:

RIPTIDE PUBLISHING / AMAZON / BARNES & NOBLE / KOBO

Author's Page:

Goodreads / Blog / Twitter

Genre:

Science Fiction-Dystopia/ MM Erotica

Summary on Goodreads:

In a world with little hope and no rules, the only thing they have to lose is themselves.

Rhys Cooper is a dead man. Cut off from the world since childhood, he’s finally exposed to the lethal virus that wiped out most of the human race. Now his only hope for survival is infection by another strain that might confer immunity. But it’s sexually transmitted, and the degradation he feels at submitting to the entire squad of soldiers that rescued him eclipses any potential for pleasure—except with Darius, the squadron’s respected, capable leader.

Sergeant Darius Murrell has seen too much death and too little humanity. He’s spent a decade putting plague victims out of their misery and escorting survivors to a safe haven he can never enjoy. He’d rather help Rhys live than put him down, so when Rhys can’t reconcile himself to doing what’s necessary to survive, Darius is forced to save Rhys in spite of himself.

But with each passing day, it looks less and less likely that Rhys can be saved. Which means that soon Darius might have to put a bullet in the head of the one person in years who reminds him of what it means to be human.

RATING:

***REVIEW***

ATTENTION! All fans of dark, edgy, kinky & mm reads come and meet Strain!

Boy, did this book turn out to be anything I did not expect. Sure, I had my share of dark & kinky reads and enjoyed quite a lot of them, but then I stumble on a book like this and feel like a beginner again . I probably wouldn't be so surprised if I didn't skim through the synopsis before reading, but it was already late when I realized that the book definitely won't be so tame as the pretty cover suggested.

Imagine a lethal virus which turns people into savaged zombies and world into chaos and because of the lack of modern technology the only cure possible can be transferred only by having sex, the more- the better? What if you were a 19 year old gay virgin who has been manipulated your whole life by a psycho-priest and his crazy "religious theories"...and you need the cure? What if your only chance are a group of super-soldiers who have the cure, but you have to sleep with them in order to get it? When I started reading this, my only hope was: let this book not be about another "poor", lip-biting virgin getting his cherry popped... and it wasn't. (Even if I had my share of fantasies about Joe-Magnliano-alike soldiers attempting to "cure" me ;D.)

It was way much kinkier than that! THIS IS NOT FOR EVERYONE!  Non-con sex, dub-con sex, exhibitionism, voyeurism, BDSM, multiple partners, a lot of grey areas...If I carefully read the synopsis of the book I would have thought probably that it wasn't for me, but I guess, sometimes I even surprise (read: scare) myself by the things I end up comfortable reading. Yup, there was sex and there was a lot of it, but still the book didn't feel as if it was only about it. 

"So vulnerable. So fragile. He could break Rhys easily, and that savage thing inside in him yearned to carry Rhy to the very brick of destruction. Rhys was his now, truly his, a fact that could still ruin them both."

The story was more complex than that and there were bigger issues explored like the corruption of the religion and economics, the freedom of sexuality, how far  are people willing to go if their lives are at stakes etc. There's romance in the story, but it's not your usual type of "and they lived happily ever after" romance. It's a more of a dark romance which did sometimes question my sanity, but the story was interesting and well-written, that's why it didn't present a bigger issue for me while reading. I definitely wasn't expected something like this and I liked it. I hope the author won't stop with this book and the way things ended I have a feeling this will be a series, because there are a lot of interesting characters worth writing about.

If you're not a hardcore mm fan, then stay away from this book. If you are, then come & get it, because you know you want it ;)!

"It was never about love. It was about self-respect.

I fought it for a long time because I didn't want the only sex I ever had before I died to not mean anything, especially when it was already something I didn't have a choice in. Then it didn't feel meaningless anymore, and it was okay. Better than okay."

XOXO