Radclyffe

Ash is back. The hurricane destroyed a lot of Provincetown and Ash's insurance company happens to insure quite a bit of the Cape and so not only do Ash and Allie meet again (they had a horrible break up in a previous book), but Reese pairs them together, making Allie the department liaison to Ash. That goes about as well as one would assume. But, they do start slowly working together.

That is shot all to hell, though, when there's a sudden rash of break-ins and such. Someone in Provincetown show more is being stalked. And honestly I had no earthly idea who the target was for the longest time. And then there was one twist after another and it was most definitely quite the thriller as well as being a nice bunch of romance stories.

I feel like this is a short review for a great book, but, it was a book filled with twists that I didn't see coming (and I've probably read way more thrillers than I should and generally see it all coming).

It was a helluva ride and it's a bummer that to this point there's only one book left in the series. show less

At first I didn't entirely get the title. Most romances in general are crossroads for the characters involved. They can choose to go forward with the relationship or not (although I'm not sure I've ever read one where the main characters didn't get together in the end). But what I didn't get at first and as the novel went on it dawned on me was that this novel also seemed to be a crossroads where more than one of Radclyffe's couples appear.

The main plot is about Hollis and Annie. They meet show more when a pregnant Annie gets brought into Hollis' hospital in dire, dire distress. Things don't go great between them, and when they meet again four plus years later there's a lot of tension between them. From there it's mostly a usual lesbian romance plot.

The other characters in the book. Honor and Quinn, and Lindsay and Robin are very cool as well. And boy oh boy do they have families. Here and there I did get a bit overwhelmed by the number of characters in the book, but, overall they only added to Hollis' and Annie's story. And then there was the character of Callie, Annie's four year old daughter. She was a hilarious character, and just reading about her antics made me tired.

It was a good book. I hadn't read a ton of Radclyffe's books at this point, so I didn't know just how much they were all interconnected, but as a long time fan of DC and Marvel comic books, I really liked shared universes and so there will definitely be more series within series within series reading going on in the future. show less

The gang's all here. Yikes. This may have been entitled Cost of Honor, but, it was a ton of different Radclyffe universe serieses combined. Whew. lair and Cam of course are there, but, also Frye and Sloan too. And I probably missed a couple of the other references too (Ali?) It's always fun to read an author's expanded universe, all interconnected, and in this case also very intense.

The main story in this, though, is of Oakes and Ari. Oakes is a Secret Service agent who is the advance Agent show more in charge of the Blair's Dad's trip to be nominated to be on the next election. Ari is a new campaign manager for Blair's Dad Andrew. And they both (as well) have to deal with a disturbingly real sort of possible terror plot to harm the President.

Some of it was a little close for comfort, considering what goes on every day in the United States of America *sigh*, which made it a little uncomfortable to read. But, the characters, the plot, it was all its usual great self, and was a fun read despite being seriously thrillingly intense at some points.

I received this book via Netgalley thanks to Bold Strokes Books. show less

Received this on NetGalley for review.

The idea of this is so amazing! But I will say upfront that I was extremely disappointed by the use of the word queer in the title because literally all the stories are about persons who seem to identify as gay. There were no bisexuals or pansexuals or asexuals or trans* persons, all of who fall under the category of queer. It's just really annoying when people act like "queer" only refers to gay persons and that's what this book does. Honestly, I don't show more think saying "gay and lesbian" fairy tales would reduce the readership at all.

That aside, most of the stories were really interesting.

There was "Beanstalk," which ended up being a really cute lesbian retelling of "Jack and the Beanstalk". The idea was quite innovative and read well.

"The Princess and the Frog," which comes after the story of the same name, is very funny and light-hearted and adorable (once one gets past the idea that the evil character seems to be East Asian based which has a slightly uncomfortable racist feeling attached.)

"Heartless" was also quite great. Based on "The Snow Queen," it was somehow both sad but also happy? Anyway, it was quite good.

Also entertaining were "The Snow King" and "Sneewitchen."

It's probably not my immediate recommendation for an anthology, but I would recommend it if someone was starved for gay and lesbian fairy tales. show less