Jordan L. Hawk

Review of Devil Take Me by Jordan L. Hawk, TA Moore, Ginn Hale, C.S. Poe, Rhys Ford, Jordan Castillo Price #LGBT #Paranormal #Romance #Horror #MM #ReleaseDay

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Moonbeams over Atlanta welcomes 6 incomparable authors: Rhys Ford, C.S. Poe, Jordan Hawk, TA Moore, Ginn Hale, and Jordan Castillo Price with their anthology Devil Take Me. It released today, October 16, 2018, and is published by DSP Publications. It is approximately 450 pages.

The Blurb:

Temptation lurks around every corner in worlds sometimes dark, sometimes lurid. Giving in is both dangerous and satisfying, though never in the ways one expects. While these enticements offer a vast range of benefits and boons, the cost is a soul and the devil expects his due. Sometimes suave and charming or calculating and cruel, these devils have schemes and desires of their own. They can be creatures to run away from… or toward.

Join the most unique and celebrated authors of LGBT urban fantasy and paranormal fiction for a fast-paced and unpredictable ride, from a city on the other side of reality, to a world suspended in dusk, to a twisted version of the 1960s and 70s.

Meet devils in top hats and waistcoats, a defrocked motorcycle-riding priest, and a genderfluid antihero—among many more. Full of humor, romance, horror, action, intrigue, and magic, these stories have one common element….

They’re one hell of a good time.

Full blurbs included with excerpts from each of the stories!

Cover Artist: Reece Notley

The Review:

I won an ARC of this book in Rhys’s Facebook group contest in exchange for an honest review.

5 Stars

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When I read the blurb and noticed the horror portion, I had misgivings. I’m not a horror person: In print or TV/Movies. Along with zombies, they are my number one genre that I don’t really go out and read or watch. Shudder. I will read them–even Zombies–but they have to have a good blurb or story premise. So good that I don’t miss the happy ever after or happy for now. Since I love all the prior works for these authors, I took a chance that I would enjoy them despite that at least one was not going to have my favorite ending.

There’s only one of the six stories that I would label as not having that HEA/HFN ending. Romance is optional but I like to read that most of the time too. It didn’t have romance per se either. But it was still really good. The rest ranged from light-hearted business venture (a hell hound named Fluffpaw) to a race against time (a glowing blue dog-like animal named Blue) to save Wonderland City, and all with the common theme: the Devil bargained for their souls to provide them an opportunity they didn’t have before meeting the stranger with the proposition. The Devil’s ranged from those that MC loved to those you wanted to tear apart. You wanted to tell all of them what were they thinking when they made their bargains. But then, most of them wouldn’t have met their loves or interesting new friends. So, you have to take it that it was meant to be. At least for some of them. 😉

They were all really good. So good that I debated for thirty minutes while I setup this blog post as to whether I wanted to give it a 4.5 or a 5 out of 5 stars. They made you think what would you do if you were dying and wanted to live. Or if you would be tempted to live longer than a lifetime. One thing to note. Read the fine print. 🙂

I would definitely buy it (I might still buy it), and you should as well. It is definitely worth the read. It was definitely “one hell of a good time.”

I give Devil Take Me 5 stars out of 5.

Eloreen Moon

Book Links:

Amazon | Goodreads | DSP Publications

About the Authors:

About Rhys Ford

Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series, including Murder and Mayhem, a 2016 LAMBDA finalist. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.

She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Yoshi, a grumpy tuxedo cat and Tam, a diabetic black pygmy panther, as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.

Rhys’ Blog | Facebook | Twitter | DSP Publications

About Ginn Hale:

Ginn Hale lives with her lovely wife in the far northern reaches of the Pacific Northwest. She spends the many cloudy days observing fungi and she whiles away the rainy evenings tinkering with words.

Her first novel, Wicked Gentlemen, won the Spectrum Award for best novel. She is a Rainbow Award winner as well as a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her most recent publications include the Lord of the White Hell and Champion of the Scarlet Wolf as well as the Rifter trilogy: The Shattered Gates, The Holy Road and His Sacred Bones.

She is also the voice of 12 year-old Lauren in the podcast, Lauren Proves Magic Is Real

About C.S. Poe

C.S. Poe is a Lambda Literary and EPIC award finalist author of gay mystery, romance, and paranormal books.
She is a reluctant mover and has called many places home in her lifetime. C.S. has lived in New York City, Key West, and Ibaraki, Japan, to name a few. She misses the cleanliness, convenience, and limited-edition gachapon of Japan, but she was never very good at riding bikes to get around.
She has an affinity for all things cute and colorful and a major weakness for toys. C.S. is an avid fan of coffee, reading, and cats. She’s rescued two cats—Milo and Kasper do their best on a daily basis to sidetrack her from work.
C.S. is a member of the International Thriller Writers organization.
Her debut novel, The Mystery of Nevermore, was published by DSP Publications, 2016.

DREAMSPINNER PRESS| WEBSITE | TUMBLR | BLOG | NEWSLETTER | DSP PUBLICATIONS

About TA Moore:

TA Moore genuinely believed that she was a Cabbage Patch Kid when she was a small child. This was the start of a lifelong attachment to the weird and fantastic. These days she lives in a market town on the Northern Irish coast and her friends have a rule that she can only send them three weird and disturbing links a month (although she still holds that a DIY penis bifurcation guide is interesting, not disturbing). She believes that adding ‘in space!’ to anything makes it at least 40% cooler, will try to pet pretty much any animal she meets (this includes snakes, excludes bugs), and once lied to her friend that she had climbed all the way up to Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, when actually she’d only gotten to the beach, realized it was really high, and chickened out.

She aspires to being a cynical misanthrope, but is unfortunately held back by a sunny disposition and an inability to be mean to strangers. If TA Moore is mean to you, that means you’re friends now.

Amazon Author Page | DSP Author Page

 

About Jordan L. Hawk:
Jordan L. Hawk is a nonbinary queer author from North Carolina. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave them a lifelong love of things that go bump in the night. When they aren’t writing, they brew their own beer and try to keep the cats from destroying the house. Their best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook at Amazon and other online retailers.

 

About Jordan Castillo Price

Author and artist Jordan Castillo Price writes paranormal thrillers colored by her time in the midwest, from inner city Chicago, to small town Wisconsin, to liberal Madison. Her influences include Ouija boards, Return of the Living Dead, “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” girls with tattoos and boys in eyeliner.

Jordan is best known as the author of the PsyCop series, an unfolding tale of paranormal mystery and suspense starring Victor Bayne, a gay medium who’s plagued by ghostly visitations. Also check out her new series, Mnevermind, where memories are made…one client at a time.

Find out more at www.jordancastilloprice.com | DSP Publications

 

Goodbye #GRL2017 Hello #GRL2018 #musings #amwriting #inspiration #tribe

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A few days later than I wanted. Ok…Fine.  It has been  a week since my last update. Almost sounds like a confessional, doesn’t it?

I confess I had a great time at GRL 2017. *smile*

It was a whirlwind from the get go for this VirGRLin (as they label their newbies).

Friday, Day 2, started bright an early with breakfast around 8 ish and the Storyteller Series: “Liar, Liar Bad Boys on Fire: Trivia and Prizes” with Alexa Land, Charlie Cochet (THIRDS!), and Victoria Sue. It was a lot of fun. I got 16 tickets out of a possible 20! Almost won one of the three big prizes.

Here are the tickets and the black panther from Charlie’s stash that I did win.

 

I then went to a lot of author lounges. A LOT of authors. I met so many, I’m afraid I can’t name them all without help from the handy Guidebook app the retreat had. But that is boring and who wants to see a bunch a names. Needless to say, I did get some pictures with my favorite authors that I asked to have, but like the Cocky Boys the night before, I’m not going to post here.

 

There is this one gem that I’m going to have to find a full set from Chris Owens table. She was handing out random cards from this Tarot deck and I got one that has a space one. I thought I had a picture, but apparently I didn’t take a picture of it. Here is the box for the deck though. Will have to purchase that when I get a chance. I think it’s fabulous.

 

4 pm rolls around and I go another Storyteller Series: Rural Romance — Horse, Cattle, and Haylofts… OH MY!!!!! with Andrew Grey, Sylvia Violet, and Deanna Wadsworth. That was excellent fun and I love listening to their stories and there was a little game of Mad Libs, Dirty Author style. :0

I then meet with Dani, M, and S at 5 for dinner before the Rhys Ford-Jordan L. Hawk Reader meet up at 6 pm. 6:30 pm rolls around and we are finally leaving after paying the check. I did get pictures with Rhys and Jordan and thanked Jordan for the dinner the night before.

Then there was the entertainment portion of the evening with “For the love of Games 2017 Sponsored by the Ecstasy Books.” I had a lot of fun with BINGO but I was done by the time they went to the other games. I went back to the room, chilled for a bit, read some, and fell asleep. No writing but that’s ok.

Saturday, Day 3,  started fairly early but not as early as other days. This time, the last big hurrah for the Featured Authors in the massive open-to-the-public signed happened late morning.  J. Scott Coatsworth put a call out to attending non-authors, or authors not attending as authors, to see if they could help with the QSF/Queeromance Ink table during the featured signing on FB. I said I could but I needed to get the last of my pre-orders and meet a couple more authors before I could. Probably 30 min to an hour. Almost an hour later, I had finished my rounds and I sat down until the signing event finished at 12:30 pm MDT. Then it was off to the QSF Group luncheon at the Pint Brothers restaurant/bar in the hotel.

I had a great time meeting people and chatting with several of like-minded sci fi writers/readers around me. I finished with that and hung out somewhere that I can’t remember… I might have taken another nap. I’m not sure. It kind of started to blur together. I knew I should have written stuff down….

S had lost her car key the night before and hadn’t found it so we took a Lyft to the Hamburger Mary’s dinner Brandon Witt had setup prior to the retreat. That was fun and a few of my photos of that below.

 

I did have some of the crowd but I tend to err on the side of caution when posting pictures of people, even group shots, unless I know they are ok with it. We got a Lyft back to the hotel in time to get ready for the Wild Wild West themed costume party.

There were a lot of great costumes. Joel Leslie’s took the cake as a sexy Woody, and won the best costume prize. I understand he was the Tin Man last year. There were issues with someone who was accosted and almost had something worse happened but it was prevented by a really nice gentleman. I’m not going to say anything about that situation other than something went down as it’s not my business, other than being glad it was stopped before harm happened. It’s in the hands of the police now and they will take care of it.

Again, I stayed up way later than expected but I had a great time and actually danced three songs. I was tuckered out afterwards but it was great fun watching the people and the interesting interpretations of “cowboys” and the “west” people did. There were even horses and cows… even a Cactus…

Sunday, Day 4 and the last official day, started with S finding her car keys tucked into a seldom-used pocket in the strap of her backpack. Yay! It’s also the last hurrah with the GRL Farewell Brunch. Boo!!

Lots of people left today (some even the day before) but M, S, and I stayed until Monday. We had a great lunch with people at Pint Brother’s and then chilled out in the room. I believe I either read or napped until it was time to go to the Melting Pot with Lisa Henry, M, S, and I. We had a great time. Yes, that really is my fortune from a fortune cookie. M kindly held it so I could take a picture. I never had one at the Melting Pot before. I’ve only been to the Atlanta area ones. It says, “You’ll get candy corn stuck in your teeth.” Which is probably going to come true because it is one of my favorite Halloween candies. 😀 The dark and light pot is Yin Yang chocolate with dark and white chocolate. It was yummy. The other pot was  the cheese but apparently I didn’t get a good picture… The last picture is the front of the restaurant. I was a public library at some point.

We went back to the hotel that evening and all of us did our final packing. I got a spare suitcase earlier, from an author who didn’t need it anymore, to have enough room to pack my books and clothing. I did manage to get everything I could take and have both suitcases under 50 lbs each. Did have to pay the 2nd bag fee for Delta, but it was a little cheaper than shipping. I’ll probably take a picture of the horde of books I got once I finish unpacking. (Yes, as of this post, I hadn’t unpacked yet…)

Monday, S met with her daughter that was leaving the country for 4 months so left really early in the morning (like 5 am early). M and I caught a ride from the hotel with Kim Felding. Kim went on Southwest, I went to Delta, and M got dropped off at his airline that I have no idea how to pronounce, let alone spell. Starts with an L and if you are familiar with European airlines, you are doing better than I. M and I got through security and met up for just enough time to have a meal together before my flight was to leave. We took a last picture and I headed home.

The flight was uneventful but I did spend most of the time writing on my story that I had been earlier in the trip. That was great to do. I got home after dinner with my family around 10 PM EDT got the couple of gifts out that I had purchased (and the Divinity that I brought home). I had to go back to work the next day, and it’s been fairly busy ever since. Also, why it took me so long to type up a post on my travels.

We were told one night (I don’t remember which night, Thursday at the opening receptions probably) that next year’s GRL will be in Portsmouth, VA. At least one person in RGR lives not too far away and she is planning on going. Maybe we’ll get a few more of us to go. I figured out Monday night when I got home that the family doesn’t have plans so I’m going to drive there this time. It’s only 9 hours away, so doable. More books for me…

So, maybe I will see you there? If so, come find me. I’ll have a Hug Me button on from this year. Now, off to way too much stuff to do. Who knows, maybe I’ll go as a Supporting Author. Here’s to reaching for your dreams.

For more information on the retreat, visit here: https://www.gayromlit.com/. Right now, it has the 2017 information. Eventually, they’ll change it to the 2018 info once they have everything ready.

Eloreen