Title: Half Moon Chambers
Author: Harper Fox
Genre: m/m romance
Print length: 176 pages
Publication date: November 8, 2012
Rating: Five Stars
Blurb: A cop and a recovering addict – no chance for romance there.
Yet Vince, a street-hardened narcotics officer, is having to reassess his life. Six months ago, he hit rock-bottom. A bullet brought him down, and his beloved partner Jack betrayed him. Badly disabled and in constant pain, Vince is flying a desk these days, and it doesn't suit him at all. His world is looking grim when he meets Rowan Clyde, sole surviving witness to a vicious drugs-related killing.
Rowan doesn't want to talk. He's vulnerable, trying to hold his own life together in the wake of a crippling addiction. Vince should have no time for him, and Rowan certainly shouldn't trust a cop with an agenda to get him onto the witness stand at any cost.
Yet despite their differences, there's an instant pull of attraction between these two damaged men. Their new bond is put to the ultimate test on the tough streets of Newcastle during a dark northern winter, as each turns out to hold the keys to the other's survival – and to his destruction.
Review:
It's hard to say what it is about Harper Fox that sets her apart from all the other writers in this genre. Or better said, it's hard to point out only one thing. The characters, the story lines, the places she sets her stage, it's all beautifully written and skillfully arranged. This book, like all the rest she has written, draws you in from the very first page. But the combination of the above stated is a requirement for any good read. What Harper Fox does better than any other writer in this genre, in every book she has published, is something much more. She paints with her words; not only the stage and the characters in the most vivid colors, but the feelings, the scents and the sounds. Her books will leave a sweet taste on your tongue, a tingle under your skin; she lets you feel the rain, the ocean, the cold winter air. It is an experience both beautiful and exotic.
I've read many books in my lifetime, across all genres. Some of the best have stuck with me. Certain sentences, a cleverly turned phrase, those are my weaknesses. I carry them around with me like other women wear diamonds; as an armor or an accessory, whatever the situation calls for.
What Harper Fox has given me to carry are the sounds of a restless surf, the warmth of a gipsy campfire, the dust motes of a kingdom created, and so much more I could not put a price on. Neither accessory nor armor, rather a piece of magic and beauty, a flower that never wilts.
I've read many books in my lifetime, across all genres. Some of the best have stuck with me. Certain sentences, a cleverly turned phrase, those are my weaknesses. I carry them around with me like other women wear diamonds; as an armor or an accessory, whatever the situation calls for.
What Harper Fox has given me to carry are the sounds of a restless surf, the warmth of a gipsy campfire, the dust motes of a kingdom created, and so much more I could not put a price on. Neither accessory nor armor, rather a piece of magic and beauty, a flower that never wilts.
Buy it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Half-Moon-Chambers-ebook/dp/B00A4AOMT6/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1368331237&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=hlaf+moon+chambers
More titles by Harper Fox:
Title: Driftwood
Author: Harper Fox
Genre: m/m romance
Print length: 208 pages
Publication date: August 17, 2010
Overall reviewer rating: Four and a Half Stars
Blurb: What the tide washes in, the past can sweep away.
All Dr. Tom Penrose wants is his old life back. He’s home in Cornwall after a hellish tour of duty in Afghanistan, but while the village is the same, he isn’t. His grip on his control is fragile, and it slips dangerously when Flynn Summers explodes into his life. The vision in tight neoprene nearly wipes them both out in a surfing mishap—and shatters Tom’s lonely peace.Flynn is a crash-and-burn in progress, one of only two survivors of a devastating rescue helicopter crash that killed his crew. His carefree charm is merely a cover for the messed-up soul within. The sparks between him and Tom are the first light he’s seen in a long, dark tunnel of self-recrimination, which includes living in sexual thrall to fellow crash survivor and former co-pilot, Robert.
As their attraction burns through spring and into summer, Tom must confront not only his own shadows, but Flynn’s—before the past rises up to swallow his lover whole.
Review by Sirius ( Amazon Vine Voice ):
I have to apologize first, since to me this novella is not a five star book, but ten star book, this review is mostly squeeing over how much I loved it. I cannot come up with anything that I disliked in this book, not a smallest thing. I devoured it on my first reading and plan to reread it again slowly, savoring every word, so powerful the writing is in my opinion. The sea is definitely a character in this book, and sea descriptions remind of me of Hemingway's works. The guys meet at sea, and all the high points of the story happen either in the sea or near the sea.
And Tom and Flynn both jump at you from the pages and make me want to look them up in the directory and go and meet them for a friendly conversation. They are flawed, they are hurting and they are each other's salvation.
I truly fail to find the words to adequately describe how much I loved this book, but Harper Fox is definitely an autobuy for me now.
Thank you for this book!
Buy it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Driftwood-ebook/dp/B003Y8Z3NE/ref=pd_cp_kstore_1
More titles by Harper Fox:
Title: A Midwinter Prince
Author: Harper Fox
Genre: m/m romance
Print length: 248 pages
Publication date: December 5, 2012
Overall reviewer rating: Four and a Half Stars
Blurb: Laurence Fitzroy is trapped in a golden cage. The only son of a wealthy London baronet, he’s struggling to escape his father’s suffocating world. But Laurie is losing his fight. At nineteen years of age, bright and imaginative, he’s no match for the brutal Sir William. Laurie wants to be an actor – bad enough as far as Sir William is concerned, but, worse than that, he’s gay.
One bitter winter night, he meets a young homeless man huddled in blankets outside the opera house. The two form a bond straight away, and Laurie takes him home, wanting only to offer him food and a warm bed. But Sasha is a passionate Romani immigrant, and his beauty and sweet nature soon overwhelm Laurie’s chaste intentions, leaving him hopelessly in love.
Laurie and Sasha reach out desperately to one another from their different worlds, and against all odds begin an affair, hidden in the attics of Laurie’s sumptuous home and on the bleak moorland of a Romani encampment. For Laurie, it’s a delicious sexual awakening, and Sasha returns his affections, opening up to him a whole new world of freedom.
But Sasha has secrets, and a murky, violent past. When he vanishes, he leaves Laurie bereft and alone in a city he hardly recognises any more. Now Laurie has to stand on his own two feet and find the strength to rescue his lover – and himself.
Review by mintyfish:
Following a recommendation on Josh Lanyon's blog, I read the sample of Midwinter Prince--and then the entire rest of the book in the same night. Then I read it again the next day. I consume a truly appalling number of books from scholarly to pulpy, but this is the best of anything I've read for a very long time.
I suppose most people read this to find out about the plot. Laurie, a university student with a gift for acting but a controlling and abusive father, is busy muddling his way through a miserable winter holiday, studying for his exams (having failed them the first time around), when a chance encounter with Sasha, a homeless boy his age, opens his eyes to the homeless underworld-- and triggers a wee obsession with one of its members. Luckily for Sasha, Laurie's innocently stalkerish crush saves him from hypothermia one cold night, triggering an unpredictable but strangely inevitable chain of events.
Normally I'm not keen on prince and the pauper/Cinderella type novels, because the jaded nobleman and plucky pauper are almost inevitably of a type. But Laurie and Sasha are true, fully developed characters, not class caricatures. Sasha in particular is both surprisingly complex--I couldn't predict his actions at all--and very sweet. I don't think the summary above quite does it justice. I don't want to give anything away, but suffice to say that if I didn't already have a heart condition, I might have developed one over the course of reading this. I was genuinely afraid for the characters. This isn't some throwaway thriller: the foreshadowing is subtle but frightening, and the crises are taut and horrific. I didn't feel that any of the events or backstory were, as is the case so often, merely a cheap excuse for Angst as a setup for some hurt/comfort (although there is plenty of both). It's genuinely gritty and all of the details are necessary and thoughtful.
Fox's prose style is nothing short of elegant. It bears no resemblance to the bare-bones, often clumsy narratives of the other books Amazon seems to be grouping it in with: it actually reminded me very much of Mary Renault in its poetic cleanness and delicately confessional tone. Her writing is by turns lyrical and funny and sad (and yes, sexy). This book is a delight to read if for no other reason (although there are, again, plenty of them) than the sheer aesthetic pleasure of it.
Highly recommended, and an instant favourite for me.
I suppose most people read this to find out about the plot. Laurie, a university student with a gift for acting but a controlling and abusive father, is busy muddling his way through a miserable winter holiday, studying for his exams (having failed them the first time around), when a chance encounter with Sasha, a homeless boy his age, opens his eyes to the homeless underworld-- and triggers a wee obsession with one of its members. Luckily for Sasha, Laurie's innocently stalkerish crush saves him from hypothermia one cold night, triggering an unpredictable but strangely inevitable chain of events.
Normally I'm not keen on prince and the pauper/Cinderella type novels, because the jaded nobleman and plucky pauper are almost inevitably of a type. But Laurie and Sasha are true, fully developed characters, not class caricatures. Sasha in particular is both surprisingly complex--I couldn't predict his actions at all--and very sweet. I don't think the summary above quite does it justice. I don't want to give anything away, but suffice to say that if I didn't already have a heart condition, I might have developed one over the course of reading this. I was genuinely afraid for the characters. This isn't some throwaway thriller: the foreshadowing is subtle but frightening, and the crises are taut and horrific. I didn't feel that any of the events or backstory were, as is the case so often, merely a cheap excuse for Angst as a setup for some hurt/comfort (although there is plenty of both). It's genuinely gritty and all of the details are necessary and thoughtful.
Fox's prose style is nothing short of elegant. It bears no resemblance to the bare-bones, often clumsy narratives of the other books Amazon seems to be grouping it in with: it actually reminded me very much of Mary Renault in its poetic cleanness and delicately confessional tone. Her writing is by turns lyrical and funny and sad (and yes, sexy). This book is a delight to read if for no other reason (although there are, again, plenty of them) than the sheer aesthetic pleasure of it.
Highly recommended, and an instant favourite for me.
Buy it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/A-Midwinter-Prince-ebook/dp/B00AJ9P1WO/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
More titles from Harper Fox:
Title: The Salisbury Key
Author: Harper Fox
Genre: m/m romance
Print length: 272 pages
Publication date: February 22, 2011
Overall reviewer rating: Four and a Half Stars
Blurb: Can love repair a shattered life in time to save the world?
Daniel Logan is on a lonely quest to find out what drove his lover, a wealthy, respected archaeologist, to take his own life. The answer—the elusive “key” for which Jason was desperately searching—lies somewhere on a dangerous and deadly section of Salisbury Plain.The only way to gain access, though, is to allow an army explosives expert to help him navigate the bomb-riddled military zone. A man he met once more than three years ago, who is even more serious and enigmatic than before.
Lieutenant Rayne has better things to do than risk his life protecting a scientist on an apparent suicide mission. Like get back to Iraq and prove he will never again miss another roadside bomb. Yet as he helps Dan uncover the truth, an attraction neither man is in the mood for springs up against their will. And stirs up the nervous attention of powerfully placed people—military and academic alike.
First in conflict, then in passion, Rayne and Dan are drawn together in a relationship as rocky and complicated as the ancient land they search. Where every step leads them closer to a terrible legacy written in death…
Review by Ulysses Dietz:
I just finished The Salisbury Key by Brit m/m romance author Harper Fox. I've already emailed her with embarassing OCD efficiency. I may have gushed a little. But in a manly, intellectual way.
Life After Joe, the other book of Fox's that I read and loved, is similar in that it's about a very intense relationship that develops between two men after one of them suffers a loss--gradually revealing that the other one has also suffered. It's a fairly simple romantic structure, but The Salisbury Key adds onto that a compelling cloak-and-dagger plot that is only allowed to surface little at a time--creating a series of surprises toward the later part of the book that had my heart pounding.
Fox is a really superb writer. Elegant, classy, beautifully descriptive of the geographic region in the title--where Stonehenge sits shrouded in mystery on the Salisbury Plain. Her writing is also beautifully descriptive of the emotional journey of Daniel Logan and Lt. Rayne (I won't even give his first name--because that is one of the several delicious small surprises that pop out of the book, giving the reader added pleasure).
I don't usually focus on the sex in talking about my beloved romances: but I have to point out that I've never read more beautifully written examples than in Fox's books. They're explicit without, somehow, being graphic. What they manage to do is illuminate the passion behind the action. I can't quite describe it, but they are as integral to our understanding the story and the characters as any of the plot twists.
As addicted as I am to m/m romance novels, I have a single regret: that because of their very intentional and specific gay/erotic nature, they are automatically off limits for a great many people who would enjoy Fox's writing. But I guess those people have straight romances to read. Fine for them.
Buy it from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Salisbury-Key-ebook/dp/B004HZXHOA/ref=pd_sim_kstore_4
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