Foster Bridget Cassidy

Klint is an immortal magician of the Alsa Alma. Years in the past, he fell in love with a mortal and ultimately was cursed by his love as he died. Klint has sworn off love and immersed himself potions. A private audience with the head Mage sends Klint and fellow alma, Carishina, off to Terius. Yarling, the kingdom’s young Prince is under a dark spell and has fallen into an enchanted sleep. Klint sets to work to wake up the Prince with potions…but Carishina thinks he might be woken with a kiss! Let the kissing begin!

This was a fun little story. It’s clearly a retelling of Sleeping Beauty with some significant changes! Klint has been burned by love and refuses to believe that a kiss could possibly wake someone who was enchanted .. until he basically falls on Yarling and kisses him by accident. Yarling wakes and then Klint finds himself working towards a love union with Yarling and the Guard he has feelings for. Basically, Yarling tried a spell on himself that failed… so he decided to blackmail Klint into helping him. Thus begins a tangled tale of mistaken feelings, magical mysteries, and a dragon! I’m always on board when there’s a dragon.

This was a short read so there wasn’t much in the way of character development. I enjoyed the unraveling of the mysteries in the book, but I found that the ending came up so quickly that it felt a bit rushed. If you like retold fairy tales with queer characters and a dragon – you’ll probably enjoy this.… (más)

“Scarlet Gaze” by Foster Bridget Cassidy is an interesting read. Let’s start at the beginning! The novel opens up with a flashback. Young Colin is in Colorado skiing with family when he has a strange encounter. He finds a strange coin that is imprinted with his face and the name of a school, “Marke Staple University”. Shortly after he finds the coin, a man with a big scar on his face and neck appears, seemingly out of nowhere, he looks drained and terrified and as he recognizes Colin he begins to cry and says he betrayed him.

As the man disappears, the course of Colin’s life is altered. He sets his sights on attending the school.

Time passes and while he remains obsessed with the idea of the man who appeared, Colin throws himself into his studies and gets accepted to the only school he applied to - Marke Staple University. When Colin meets his roommate Terrance … he’s absolutely shocked to discover his roommate is the man that appeared to him when he was young. Is time travel possible? What is happening?

There are a couple of interesting things in terms of the characters in this book. Colin is demisexual. He reveals early on in the novel that he has thought about the man that appeared to him for so long that he feels an emotional connection to him.

Colin finds out when he arrives at school is that the university has nothing to do with English as he suspected. He has been chosen because of innate magical ability in his blood. It turns out that magic is in peoples’ blood. DNA is tested at birth and the strongest people are sent to magical schools.

It turns out that a magical practitioner's blood can be mixed with alloy and made into a coin.. just like the coin that Colin saw in his youth. The coin enables people to access their magic easier and they are powerful. I’m sure you can see how the novel beings to warp back around to Colin’s original encounter with the stranger in the snow.

Terrance was my favorite character. He has always struggled with not being very magically powerful in comparison to his family. His father is actually the Dean of the University and the two of them are estranged. When Terrance was young he attempted something very foolish to try and improve his magical ability. The event terrified his family and is what left Terrance with the scar on his face.

There is a lot of interesting lore and history in terms of the magic and the author goes into quite a lot of detail in the classes the students take. I really liked some of the ideas. Magic comes in specialties like transforming, teleporting, healing and students figure out their specialty early in life. What about magic in the “real” world? The author even briefly touches on the ethics of magic which is interesting. There’s a reason that people with magical skills don’t just set up shop and perform magic for people. It might begin with a spell to help a garden or fix a car but what would happen is that it would snowball out of control. People would continue to want more. I enjoyed the way the philosophy and ethics of magical powers were explored in the novel.

The other interesting part of the novel is that Colin enters into a relationship with Terrance, knowing that he is going to betray him later. The thing is that Colin is so in love, so emotionally invested in Terrance that he seems to summon up a blind faith that things will work out… even when they seem very bleak. Ultimately, the novel comes down to what we want and need. Terrance wants to be powerful more than he wants anything else. Colin wants Terrance. The trick is who will survive.

The sex scenes in the book are well-written although sometimes seemed a bit superfluous. The plot of this book is really engaging and I’m not sure it needed as much sexual content. That’s entirely a personal preference though!

This was a good read! I enjoyed it – in particular the attention to detail about the magic in the world!… (más)

Klint is an immortal magician of the Alsa Alma. Years in the past, he fell in love with a mortal and ultimately was cursed by his love as he died. Klint has sworn off love and immersed himself potions. A private audience with the head Mage sends Klint and fellow alma, Carishina, off to Terius. Yarling, the kingdom’s young Prince is under a dark spell and has fallen into an enchanted sleep. Klint sets to work to wake up the Prince with potions…but Carishina thinks he might be woken with a kiss! Let the kissing begin!

This was a fun little story. It’s clearly a retelling of Sleeping Beauty with some significant changes! Klint has been burned by love and refuses to believe that a kiss could possibly wake someone who was enchanted .. until he basically falls on Yarling and kisses him by accident. Yarling wakes and then Klint finds himself working towards a love union with Yarling and the Guard he has feelings for. Basically, Yarling tried a spell on himself that failed… so he decided to blackmail Klint into helping him. Thus begins a tangled tale of mistaken feelings, magical mysteries, and a dragon! I’m always on board when there’s a dragon.

This was a short read so there wasn’t much in the way of character development. I enjoyed the unraveling of the mysteries in the book, but I found that the ending came up so quickly that it felt a bit rushed. If you like retold fairy tales with queer characters and a dragon – you’ll probably enjoy this.… (más)

Hawaii and surfing are at the center of this story full of adventure, new discoveries, and interpersonal drama. The plot takes quite a few twists and turns before it becomes clear what is actually going on between the two men whom Palmer meets and what their role in his life will be. Expect lots of surfing, soul searching, and a main character determined to figure out what he wants in life – after his partner of nine years cheats on him and his old dream of spending most of his time surfing seems within reach.

Palmer has had a rough time, and while moving to Hawaii could be seen as “running” from his life as a science teacher, he has dreamed about living there for quite a while. Fulfilling his dreams is not easy, however. He meets Dill, another surfing enthusiast, and they get along well enough to become surfing buddies, even though Dill is an advanced surfer. Then Palmer meets Riku – a well known surfer who seems to hate him on sight – until Palmer comes to his rescue at a gay bar one night.

This opens the door to a more personal exploration, but Riku insists that Dill can’t find out. Between the mystery of why Riku has an issue with Dill, a few close calls when the waves get higher than Palmer is comfortable with, and a threatening tsunami, this story certainly kept my attention. The setting is beautiful and quite a few places that are mentioned reminded me of previous visits to Hawaii and made me want to travel there again.

If you like stories about men redefining their lives, if Hawaii is your thing, and if you’re looking for a read full of personal and natural drama, then you might like this novella.


NOTE: This book was provided by Deamspinner Press for the purpose of a review on Rainbow Book Reviews.… (más)