5 Star Book Review: Fool of Main Beach (Laguna #5), Tara Lain

Title: Fool of Main Beach (Laguna #5)

Author: Tara Lain

Publisher/GR Link: Dreamspinner Press, GR

Genre: MM Contemporary

Vice: Coming Out, Neurodiversity, actors

Rating: 5 Stars

Lock this book up: 4 keys- Tara Lain kept me locked to my kindle screen, with the fan aimed at me!

Length: Novel

Satisfaction: HEA

Cover Impressions: Gorgeous!  Love the look of the whole series together. 

Synopsis: Merle Justice wants to reach for the stars, but it’s tough to get respect when playing a teeny bopper vampire on TV. Then he meets a famous director anxious to give him all he thinks he wants—and maybe a bit more. Everything’s looking up until a life-threatening encounter with some homophobes on Main Beach puts Merle face-to-face with a Sasquatch-sized hero in a pink puffer coat.

Tom Henry defies description. As unsophisticated and simple as an angel, he walks through life content with who he is and asking for very little except to care for his sister, Lily, and the dogs he loves. Then he meets Merle, the embodiment of dreams he barely knows he has. Merle knows the people who hold his future in their hands might love Tom—but they’ll never understand Merle and Tom together. Tom knows it too. With lives this far apart, who’s really the fool of Main Beach?

Impressions:  I love Lain's Laguna series, and the book that kicked off the series is one of my all time favorites.  Her series made it to my top of 2016.  With this release, Lain rivals the magic of her first release in the series.

Merle is an actor at the top his commercial success who can't find the respect he wants as an artist and an actor.  When he escapes to Laguna where his friends (and our beloved cast of characters from books 1-4) he meets Tom, a handyman working on Merle's new house.

Merle is a great character. He is genuine and likable and he though he yearns for more in his field, he appreciates his fortune and the opportunities that have come his way.  When Tom rescues him on the beach, I fell in love! It is so hard to describe Tom and do him any justice.  Tom is both simple and at the same time he is so much more evolved than the people who typically surround Merle.  Lain does an amazing job with Tom.  He is not a shallow stereotype or a 2D character, he is a complex man who has to realize he deserves everything he wants and more.

I haven't wanted a couple to get their HEA as much as I wanted these guys to in a long time.  I stayed up all night to finish this, and I hope to see more of Merle and Tom, and especially Tom!

Highly recommended!

5 Star Book Review: Phase Shift (Chaos Station #5)

Title: Phase Shift (Chaos Station #5)

Author: Jenn Burke and Kelly Jensen

Publisher/GR Link: Carina Press

Genre: MM Science Fiction

Vice: Spaceships, PTSD, Injury

Rating: 5 Stars- 5+ for this series

Lock this book up: 3 keys…this is a sexy companion to the series

Length: Novel

Satisfaction: HEA+

Cover Impressions: I love it.  I love the look of the whole series.

Best Line: “I’m more than okay.”

Synopsis: Zander and Felix’s relationship has always pushed boundaries—personal and professional alike—but their love and commitment is stronger than ever. So strong that Zander’s ready to ask commitment-shy Felix the question of a lifetime when he’s interrupted. The Chaos is being hacked, and crucial, top secret information about the project that created Zander—and his fellow super soldiers—has been leaked.

Neither man could have expected the enormity of what’s discovered at the end of the data trail: an entire colony of super soldiers run by the very doctor who changed Zander’s life forever. And now she needs them both—Zander to train her new crop of soldiers, and Felix’s new crystalline arm to stabilize their body chemistry.

With help from the unlikeliest of allies, Zander, Felix and the Chaos crew must destroy the project and all its ill-gotten information. But when the team is split up and Felix is MIA after a dangerous run, galactic disaster is a very real possibility…and Zander may have missed his chance to ask for forever.

Impressions: I have not been shy about my unwavering love for this series.  This book is a perfect culmination to an amazing series.  This is definitely one of my favorite science fiction series of all time, and one of my favorite series in general.  I have never read a book where the world building is so thorough and complete that I immediately feel like I am along for every part of the wild ride. 

In this book, sadly the last in the series, Zed and Flick face horrible challenges, and yet their love and connection remains unwavering, and in fact it is essential to their survival and fight.

I was pulled right into the action in the story, and I loved seeing Zed and Flick be able to depend on each other and their connection.  I love the cast of amazing secondary characters, and it was good to revisit them again too.

I am so sad to see this series end, but I know that I will be revisiting it again in the future.  If you haven’t read book 1 yet, grab it now and set aside a few days to power read the whole series.  You won’t want to stop!

Highly recommended!

Review: Prince of the Playhouse (Love in Laguna #3) by Tara Lain

Title: Prince of the Playhouse (Love in Laguna #3)

Author: Tara Lain

Publisher/GR Link: Dreamspinner,  GR

Genre: MM Contemporary

Vice: OFY, theater, secret pasts

Rating: 4 stars

Lock this book up: 3 keys.  This book is hot and the sexy times support the great romance.

Length: Novel

Satisfaction: HEA

Cover Impressions: Adorable.  I love these covers.

Best Line: “You did it.  You decided what you wanted from life.  I just happened to be lucky enough to be hanging around when you did.”

Synopsis: Driven by his desire to become a successful fashion designer and concerned with hiding his questionable past, Ru Maitland lets his obsession with action movie star Gray Anson on the big screen replace his social life. Then obsession and reality collide when Ru is asked to design fashion costumes for a special performance of Hamlet at the Playhouse in Laguna starring none other than Gray Anson. Gray turns out to be a compelling mix of shy and brash and, despite a high profile engagement to a female socialite, the signals Gray sends Ru have his libido doing the salsa.

Gray Anson has what most people only dream of—great wealth, huge fame, a job he loves. For that, he’s given up any semblance of privacy and the right to say no to the thousands of people who depend on him and the millions who love him. He sees everything he’s ever wanted just outside the bubble of his life, but how can he make the compromises needed to embrace it? When Ru’s shady past crashes into Gray’s paparazzi-haunted present, both men have to learn that sometimes the only acceptable compromise is the truth.

Impressions: I love this series and I won’t admit to the volume of my squee when I saw this on the “Coming Soon” pages of Dreamspinner.  This novel is a great addition to one of my favorite series. 

I have to admit, I don’t know that anything can beat out book 1 in this series, but each new book brings me back to the characters that I love and gives me a brand new couple to adore.  I really liked Ru in the past book.  He is sassy and stylish and carries an iron will.  When he got his own story, it was great to see more of what has made him who he is, and to see how he balances his past and his present.  I loved that he was getting the professional respect he deserves, and his story was much more complex than I anticipated.

One of the biggest difference in this book is that Gray is out to himself, but deeply closeted due to his family and career.  As we got to know him and his intricacies, it really made me understand and empathize with him.  Gray was sweet and sensitive, and I enjoyed his evolution.

This was a great book, and despite Ru’s story, it was a little more lighthearted than the first two.  As an English teacher, I loved all of the Shakespeare jokes and comments.

Don’t miss this installment in one of the best series being written right now!