As a long-time subscriber to Jordan Castillo Price’s newsletter I was asked to review her new publication in return for a review copy. A bonus (from a writer’s point of view) is that she is doing her own research into how the number of reviews affects sales in the early days of a book’s life.

Psycops Briefs is a delightful addition to the Psycops series. At first I was dubious and thought it couldn’t stand alone, but am now persuaded it would actually act as a good introduction to the lives of Victor and Jacob, luring the reader into their world and getting them to buy the main novels.

Victor is a medium who works for the police and his lover is also a policeman. The chronicles of their experiences include m/m romance, straightforward policing, supernatural effects, some philosophising, and quite a lot of humour. Their world is like ours except that psychic abilities are recognised and employed. Although the characters live and work in Chicago, they seem, like the characters in all the best books, to be people the reader has actually met and liked. I feel quite sure that if I were ever to cross the Atlantic and visit their city I would expect, confidently, to see them at work and to visit them in their lovely converted home.

The short stories in this collection are not a sequel to the novels but are concurrent – glimpses of the lives of our ‘heroes’ outside the main narrative. There is a lot of variety. The point of view is sometimes Vic’s and sometimes Jacob’s. The stories are in turn sweet, mysterious, gruesome and gripping. Some are very brief and some are chaptered novellas. Few of them are mysteries in the sense that the main novels are, but they explore those other mysteries of character and motivation and give us more insight into the personalities and backgrounds of all the people involved.

I have loved the whole series from the start. The characters, including the minor characters, are so rounded, and the details are engrossing, whether we are reading about the ghosts Vic encounters, the meals the men eat, the trials of home decoration or the things their friend Crash stocks in his ‘magic’ shop. The writing is beautiful – the kind of writing that seems so effortless you absolutely know a great deal of work has gone into it. It is elegant, sophisticated, grammatical, well-structured, and well edited, and the plots draw you in from the first page. Not by any means always the case for the genres these books fall into! This applies to the shorts in Psycops Briefs as well as the longer novellas and novels. Moreover, Price always sets the scene carefully, making sure her readers are not worried or distracted by trying to think about who minor characters might be, or exactly what Vic’s abilities encompass.

There are particular favourites of mine in this collection: Stroke Of Midnight is the perfect New Year’s Eve story, the novella Everyone’s Afraid of Clowns is exciting enough for Halloween reading and also thought provoking at any time, and the final novella, Witness, gives a lot of information about both our heroes in a ‘show-don’t-tell’ fashion that could be used in a writing master class.

In short, I admire the whole series immensely and this is a very worthy addition. I see it is named Psycops Briefs I and I really hope this means there is at least another volume to come. Buy it if you already know Vic and Jacob. Buy it if you don’t, but would like to meet them. Buy it and enjoy!

Highly recommended.

AMAZON: http://amzn.to/2dLNZyv
BARNES&NOBLE: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/psycop-briefs-jordan-castillo-price/1124749167
ITUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1161581878
KOBO: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/psycop-briefs-volume-1
PAPERBACK: http://amzn.to/2e0k6ud

And in other news, yes, I’ve been MIA – internet problems in Portugal caused a total breakdown of even my erratic posting habits. I’m back in UK and will try to do better!

I just finished the third book in Alex Beecroft’s Trowchester trilogy so thought I’d review them all at once. The books are modern m/m romance and are linked by the location, the fictional town of Trowchester which becomes very real to the reader over the course of the stories. The main characters of one book reappear as minor players in the others which is satisfying because we get to know that lives continue after each volume ends. Alex creates very three dimensional characters, with real lives, real problems and real adventures. I found myself caring very much what happened to them all.

In the first book, Trowchester Blues, Michael, who has anger management problems, has left the Metropolitan police in difficult circumstances and comes to his father’s house in Trowchester. He meets Finn, a man with a delightful bookshop and a shady past. Finn’s past catches up with him and his rescue needs Michael’s skills. We meet some of the cast of the later books through the book group Finn runs on a Friday evening and through the restaurant run by another member. This is a delightful story of two people from very different backgrounds meeting  and making it past their differences to find happiness. The bookshop itself is almost a character and is gorgeous.

Blue Eyed Stranger introduces another member of the book group, Billy, who is a Morris dancer and a musician. He also suffers from severe depression, a condition explored in the story. He meets Martin, a half-Sudanese teacher whose passion is Viking re-enactment, when their acts clash at a fair. Martin has his own problems, not least with his job where the head finds a possibly gay black teacher who tends to diverge from the narrow curriculum difficult to accept, and there are obstacles to be overcome before Martin and Billy can get together. Martin eventually moves to Trowchester where the book ends with strong indications of a happy future for both men. Along the way, the reader learns a lot about Morris dancing, Vikings and early music.

Blue Steel Chain brings us the story of James, an archaeologist who is curator of Trowchester Museum and a member of the book group. He is in the process of a difficult separation from his musician partner when he becomes involved with Aidan, who is trying to escape a seriously abusive relationship. Aidan is asexual; he falls in love with James but would prefer to avoid sex. The story explores this aspect of Aidan and affirms people who fall into this category, showing how they can have satisfactory and loving relationships. It is also perhaps the most exciting book of the trilogy because Aidan’s abuser turns out to be worse than anyone thought and James has to rescue Aidan twice. The first time, he does this with the help of Finn and Michael but the second time he is on his own. However, the gentle archaeologist finds himself victorious.

Altogether, the entwined stories of this group of people give us a rich exploration of a number of characters, problems, and hobbies or careers with realistic adventures to draw and maintain the reader’s interest. Plus an in-depth knowledge of Trowchester and a wish that it wasn’t fictional!

The books are published separately and as a collection by Riptide Publishing.

http://riptidepublishing.com//titles/collections/trowchester-blues-collection

Recommended – and they are better read as a trilogy! Alex has just been told that Blue Steel Chain is an All Romance Ebook bestseller – but if you haven’t read the first ones, start at the beginning! You won’t regret it!

I was lucky enough to read the first draft of this book and loved it then. I bought the ‘polished’ and extended version when it came out. The author, who has published with various Indie publishers, couldn’t find a home for this so published it on Lulu. As a result, the print version is quite expensive for a paperback but is worth every penny. I promised a review, and must state straight away that although I know the author online, I have paid full price for the paperback book and the review is completely impartial. However, I would recommend the e-book version for anyone who is either poor or not sure!

Gryphons is a difficult novel to categorise. It has moments of almost unbearable poignancy, a lot of humour, quite a bit of violence and some gripping plot arcs. I found myself skimming ahead to check whether some of the characters to whom I’d given my heart survived to the end. It was no good relying on the first version – the author changed quite a lot and I couldn’t be sure.

Some reviewers have called it a young adult book and some refer to it as a story of coming of age. It has those elements and much of the narrative is seen through the eyes of Dahlia, a teenager. This gives it a freshness that lets the reader look at the world from the perspective of one who is a native but not yet prepared to accept everything she is told.

On the other hand, it’s a story about a rock band, albeit one on another planet, formed in the aftermath of war: a story of love, friendship, prejudice, betrayal, loyalty and, above all, survival.

And on the third hand, it’s pure sci-fi, set on a brilliantly realised world and given the clever ‘frame’ of a visit from people (mostly musicians) from Earth for a festival.

The world of Sferkkaa is still suffering the ravages of invasion and brutal alien occupation. Somehow or other they have picked up radio signals that introduced them to Earth music and the idea of rock bands has taken off like wildfire, giving excitement and the cult of celebrities to a population that needs better housing, more food, and perhaps books but can’t get them any time soon. The focus of the book is on the most famous band, The Mortified Gryphons.

The five band members were all fighters with the resistance. They are typical, perhaps stereotypical celebrities but they are also world-weary ex-military. In the course of the story they meet and befriend teenagers, including a young musician, a visitor from Earth and a schoolgirl. They also experience sickness, worry, terror, love and hope. They compose, practise, play and listen: music fills the story. And despite the fact that they are rich, there is no more food for them to buy than there is for the rest of the population.

One of the parting shots of the defeated invaders was to distribute a poison that killed most of the women from babies to grandmothers. So all families, even non-combatant ones, have known loss. The few women and girls who survived are treated with great respect, unless, like Dahli, they manage to break the law. Once it is realised that children grown in vats suffer all kinds of problems there are scientific efforts to enable men to carry babies. However, carrying a baby to term places huge stresses on the males who choose to do it, and is not something to be undertaken lightly.

There are all kinds of interactions between Earth people and Sferkkaans that call into question our notions of what is alien. There are also other ‘aliens’, imported from yet other planets, giving rise to complex questions of prejudice and what it means to be ‘human’.

This is a long story (700 pages in the paperback version) with unforgettable people and a beautifully detailed world. The tapestry of Sferkkaa is woven slowly and seamlessly until by the end the reader feels they have visited the planet and know its landscapes, its cities, its flora and fauna and its various climates. The philosophical questions that underpin the story are deftly placed in the course of events, with the actions and reactions of the characters speaking louder than any argument. The characters are intensely real and the reader is invited to share their physical and mental suffering, hoping against hope that things will turn out well for at least some of them. Nothing, in this respect, can be taken for granted but the ending is satisfying, and we can leave Sferkkaa with hope for the future.

Altogether, this is science fiction at its best, showing us an alien world with a story line that helps us to set our own behaviour in context, with a focus on fascinating individuals against a backdrop of technical change and another planet. It is beautifully written. In a book this length I would expect some editing flaws and typos, but they are very few and far between; I have seen more in books edited and published by the big publishing houses. The style is assured, the plot structure is excellent and the descriptions of everything from scenery to emotions are amazing, engaging the reader in an intense experience of a year in the life of another world.

Go and buy it. Go and tell your friends about it. You won’t regret it!