Harper KingsleyReseñas

Listed it as YA when I put it on Amazon because the main characters for the most part are teenagers, there's not a bunch of bad language (there's a reason I'm nicknamed "Foul-Mouth"), and it's at base just a superhero story.

"Susie Smith" was dug out of the wreckage of a collapsed building and was named by a nurse at the hospital where she was cared for. She is placed with a nice foster family and basically settles in to become a normal girl--never mind some of her weird habits and reactions. "Normal kids" don't cause waves, and waves are bad, so she's going to be normal.

Then she goes to Peoria Mall with her friends and gets caught up in a super battle between the Jester and the Teen Demis. She is separated from her group and finds herself swept up by the Teen Demis and taken to their Demi Lair.

From there she is told she has a loving father, a wonderful life, and a best friend that's been desperately missing her.

But if all that's true... then why did no one come for her while she was at the hospital? Why did no one come to identify her and take her home? Why was she left to think that she was alone and unloved in the world?

This is an action superhero novella with definite gay romance leanings.

Though a large portion of this story focuses on the alien entity, there's also a wedding, and a fairly steamy love scene.

"Heroes & Villains" was largely PG-13. "Heroes & Villains: The Wedding" is filled with superhero action, but also contains a scene not for children.

Here's the landing page for Vedran's Hand.

This is set in the same world as my upcoming "Black Hood" and "Nyxti," though they are not a series.

This story kind of popped into my head fully-formed and was only going to be a short piece--like 5000 words or so. Then, with no warning whatsoever, it just kind of exploded into something a little bigger and with more depth than the semi-PWP I thought it was going to be.

John and Charlie are roommates and best friends that are just hanging out with the girlfriend of their friend Michael, when she decides to ask them the most uncomfortable question ever: "What's it like being in an ersatz homosexual relationship?"

Once an idea like that is in your brain, it doesn't really go away. Which leaves John reeling from a sexual identity crisis he didn't see coming.

I've found a new fondness for bear stories. That's all I'm saying.

Leon is a waiter at Cafe Dela Lune and he's instantly interested when a new man comes in--Rick--a big, bear of a man. So he slips the guy his phone number.

They go out, then go back to Rick's house where things precede to happen.

The stories are short, so be aware.

Three stories set in an unnamed future where people can go to a company called Ego Corp and just kind of have clones made. If you've got the money, you can bring the dead back to life or whatever.

"Narcissus" is kind of creepy, "Orpheus" is freaky, and "Endymion" gives kind of a hopeful feeling. All three feature male-male relationships.

A sweet man with a speech condition called echolalia meets a handsome stranger. A straight-forward story set in the real world--no aliens, werewolves, ghosts, witches, etc. Just two men that meet and fall in love.

Coming soon...

3 short stories, 2 long stories. My personal favorite has to be "Morpheus." I've always had an interest in Kleine-Levin syndrome, and from the first time I heard of it I was fascinated. It's used here in "Morpheus" and will appear again in an upcoming Sleeping Beauty story.

In Pomegranate 01, "Hyacinth" is just the prologue. The story doesn't really start until Pomegranate 02. There's a 5 year gap between the prologue and chapter one, so Beren really changes in the meantime.

I have always had a giant fondness for stories about people with more than human abilities. Telepaths, vampires, fairies, whatever, I love them all. And probably my favorite sub-genre of metahuman fiction is the superhero genre.

For "Heroes & Villains" I pictured a world where superheroes are like the police and supervillains are just criminals. There's a lot of praise for the famous superheroes, but the just everyday ones don't get much attention at all. To that end, my mind spawned Darkstar, this super hot supervillain that's really just enjoying the hell out of being the bad guy. He breaks the law, but he's super charming and people don't even really get mad at what he does.

I came up with this great character, so I had to give him some kind of back story because people don't just pop up fully formed. It's then that I decided he was going to be an ex-hero, because I've always thought that being the good guy all the time must be boring as hell. Sometimes it's good to be able to just let loose, so having to always be a goody-goody would be awful.

I wondered why he didn't become an anti-hero. He didn't even consider it, just jumped straight into being a supervillain. There had to be some reason why he had decided to go that route. I mean, to switch from wanting to save lives, to not caring about anyone but himself, something serious had to be going on.

That's where Blue Ice came in. He's more of an antihero, though that's not how the public sees him. To the world at large, he's the League of Superheroes' golden boy. He was born into a superhero family and was molded by his father into the perfect superhero, and though he rebelled when he was a teenager, after the death of his father he took up the mantle of hero. He may have hated the man, but some part of him wanted to please him too.

He joined the Teen Demis when he was sixteen years old, which is where he met his best friend Caspian Dukes, a half-Atlantean with webbed fingers and toes and more than human strength. And for years Blue Ice was the penultimate hero while he's dying inside a little more each day.

I pictured a love between two men on opposing sides. Darkstar thoroughly enjoying being bad, and Blue Ice getting more and more tired of saving others when he's not even happy in himself.

I like the idea that Blue Ice had both a positive and negative effect on Darkstar. And in the reverse, I like that Darkstar brought back Blue Ice's joy in living and in helping the world around him.

And throughout their story there's other people doing all kinds of things in the background, from murdering superheroes to committing war crimes.

So to that end, I think this is a 135,000 word slice of life story. It's just that the life being sliced happens to belong to two men with awesome power.

Before anyone points out the inconsistencies with the bedding (reference makes sense if you've read the ebook version) it was on purpose and is part of the overall plot.

Differences between free and paid versions: halo, cymplant, bedding, housing.

Faizel is a soulless vampire. "He was a creature of mayhem and destruction, his body a well-manufactured machine of horror movie efficiency. He was the unstoppable baddie at the end of every game, the final boss, who was ready to go at any time and could take killing blow after killing blow with only a tiny drop in health."

Charlemagne is misguidedly romantic. A vampire that has been abused by numerous masters, he sees Faizel and is instantly attracted to the beautiful "human."

They fall under each others' spell.

This story is short, but the next is longer and comes from Ewing's perspective as he watches the horror tale unfold.


EXCERPT--
He was a handsome stranger in painted on pants and Chuck Taylors. His dark brown hair curled around his ears in enticing tousled waves. He had rich olive skin and a straight nose with perfect nostrils. He was built in lean lines and looked like he should be an endearingly dorky guy, completely oblivious to his own good looks.

Except he walked like a predator. He tried not to, but his hips insisted on falling into their natural position when he didn't concentrate. An arrogant, rolling walk that caught and held the eye, luring in his prey.

He'd always been so well-known that he couldn't have pretended to be anyone other than himself. He was more easily recognizable than the Master. The name FAIZEL was synonymous with power and prestige. He was always near the top of every Most Wanted list the Resistance put out.

He'd always enjoyed playing with the Resistance. Hunting them down and spoiling their plans had been endlessly entertaining. It was why he'd never just completely exterminated them all the way the Master wanted.

The Master was talking synthetic blood and genocide. He had wanted a world completely devoid of normal human life. The Phageless would cease to exist and only the New Breed would remain. He wanted a world of rules and restrictions, a totalitarian empire with himself at the top.

Faizel enjoyed being powerful, but he wanted the thrill of the hunt. He was young and virile and he'd been Reborn without a soul. But he still remembered his human days and all that burning hate and rage was still there, bubbling under the surface of his skin.

He'd killed most of the people that had made his living life so miserable in one wild spree of blood and viscera. After that though... he'd spent enough time around the Master to realize that he didn't want to live in that sterile, cruel world with only his own kind for company.

He hadn't been able to stand it.

He had secretly begun to sabotage his own mission plans so there were weaknesses able to be exploited by a clever but desperate human. He'd sifted out the weakest of the Resistance to leave the best behind, separating the wheat from the chaff.

Then he had waited and enjoyed being able to toy with his new playmates. He was going to kill them, but he built them up first before he hunted them down. He loved that sweetest first sip of panicked blood, packed with all of that desperate will to survive. It made his heart sing.


He slid through the crowded club to one of the tables at the front. He sat down with such a charming smile that the women already there giggled and gave him flirty welcomes. He smiled but didn't really interact, just nodding his head here and there when they spoke to him.

Faizel gazed up at the main stage and absorbed the sight of a supernatural cabaret show. It was like Rocky Horror Picture Show with even more garters and lace; there was a bit more skin showing, and both men and women wore short-shorts and a mixture of glitter and glamour.

Dancing and singing men and women, some entirely human while others stretched and bent with supernatural ease. Here and there one of the dancers would flash a mouthful of fangs as they playfully "menaced" their delighted audience. Their faces would twist and turn into a monstrous mask of bulging bone, glaring yellow eyes, and a double row of teeth that were nothing but jagged points.

Money was offered at the end of each set and a pretty girl with flaxen curls and a smattering of glitter on her cheeks went around with a cloth bag to collect the cash. She was wearing a flirty red skirt and a black crop top vest that revealed a toned stomach and a sparkling silver bead dangling at her navel. She wore high-heeled gladiator sandals that crisscrossed up her shins to just below her dimpled knees.

Faizel fumbled in his pocket for a few crumpled bills. He stuck them in the bag quickly so no one could get a good look at them in case money was different here.

Vampires sure were.

He was utterly fascinated by their monstrous faces and the claws he thought he'd spotted amongst them. They were like a mix of human and animal. Even when they weren't trying to be frightening, their mouths easily shaped snarls.

He was utterly captivated, his eyes trailing up and down the beautiful bodies on display, but what he was really drawn to was the feral nature of them. They were apex predators, of that he had no doubt, though he had to wonder why they were so intent on living amongst the humans, working with them. The idea of it intrigued him.

Faizel had been suppressing his Allure from the minute he'd fallen out of the glowing portal and discovered that he was in a world not his own. The air had smelled different and there was the caressing vapor of distant, strange Power.

His first impulse was to ride in under the radar, to look around for himself and see what kind of world this was. And so far he had been very pleased.

There were vampires here, though a much different kind than he was used to. He could practically see the souls binding them to their bodies, and though their faces turned to those of monsters when they let their Hunger show... they were human on the inside. Beautiful, fragile humans.

He had never seen anything so entrancing. He wondered how hard it was to break them, these dancing, singing, oh-so-human vampires.

CHARACTERS:
Nicholas Underwood--the MC. Works as Christian' PA, though it's mostly an excuse for Christian to have him around. Vaguely neurotic with low self-esteem. Blond hair, blue eyes.
Christian DeLongeria--second MC. Nicholas' best friend. Incredibly wealthy head of DeLongeria Enterprises. Julianna is his wife and the mother of his children, but it is well understood that Nicholas has his heart. Black hair, brown eyes.
David Jacobson--Nicholas' love interest. He's just a guy with a job until he meets Nicholas and has his life changed forever. A somewhat stern man, Nicholas makes him feel emotions he's never known before and he refuses to release those feelings.
Francis "Frankie" Beauregard--Nicholas' brother. A world famous singer known as "The Crooner." He's always been Nicholas' hero, though there's a mix of envy in there too. He's always been wild and carefree and he left home without a single look back. Has a car salesman's smile. Nicholas is the only one that calls him Francis; he lost that boy a long time ago.
Emily Dante-Underwood--Nicholas' cousin. There's tragedy there.
Julianna DeLongeria--Christian's wife.
Natasha Swaggart--David's cousin. A beautiful blond bombshell with surprising depths. She's the kind of girl that always has a story to tell about amazing things she couldn't possibly have done, except she has. Involved in all kinds of crazy adventures all of the time, yet still able to offer a snarky comment or a hug when needed. She's a great friend to have and a terrible enemy.
Riley Curtain--Natasha's best friend. People are always surprised that someone like Natasha would be friends with Riley, but he takes it all in stride. He's a genuinely nice guy that works hard and rarely has a moment to relax. Being friends with Natasha has saved his sanity over the years.
Alfred Underwood--Nicholas' father and Imogene's third husband. He understands Imogene more than she knows and he doesn't let her get into trouble. He has never been a very amiable man and it is only now that he's beginning to regret it.
Imogene Underwood--Nicholas and Francis' mother. When she falls in love, she falls in love completely, which usually leads to desperate heartbreak. Blond hair, blue eyes.
Carlton Beauregard--Francis' father and Imogene's second husband. He ran off with Imogene's dressing maid and a good chunk of the family fortune. He is persona non grata. Brown hair, brown eyes.

Summary: Nicholas and Christian are in Seattle for work and they stop off at a party Francis is giving. While there, Nicholas meets David and agrees to go out with him.

2.5-3 stars.