Locks of Love: A Modern Gay Fairy Tale (e-short story) by Jordan Castillo Price

Locks of Love is a m/m retelling of the Rapunzel story. This second edition is published by JCP Books. The author's site lists its word count as 10,200, which came out to 31 pages on my Nook, 37 if you count the author's note at the end. I don't usually buy works that short, but I've read and loved several of Jordan Castillo Price's works. I figured Locks of Love would probably be worth it.

Synopsis:

This story is set in a contemporary-feeling world in which everyone has some sort of "gift." Sometimes it's something useful, sometimes it's not. Hal's gift is the ability to talk to doors. He can convince just about any door to open without a key. Although being a thief would probably have been a more lucrative profession, Hal opted to become a locksmith instead.

After finishing a job in a nasty part of town, Hal is about to leave when he spots a gorgeous guy with auburn hair in a window. The guy, Micha, asks for his help escaping. Hal is skeptical and suspects some kind of scam or trap, but when Micha tells him to come back at midnight, he does. After seeing a scary-looking biker climb up to Micha's window, Hal tries to get to Micha's room by more conventional means, only to discover that his room isn't reachable by any doors. With his gift effectively useless, Hal will have to figure out some other way to save Micha.

Review:

Even knowing this story was written by JCP and was therefore probably good, I still hesitated to buy it. Several reviews stated that it was too short. Since that's a common complaint I have about short stories and novellas, it was a good bet I'd feel the same. Still, when a sale came around, I bought it.

Hemovore (e-book) by Jordan Castillo Price

Hemovore is published by Samhain Publishing and is included in their Vampires and Gay Alternate Worlds categories. For those of you who don't like e-books, you're in luck: this book is also available in paperback format. The paperback version is included in different categories: Urban Fantasy, GLBT, and Vampires.

If you don't count all the excerpts at the end, this e-book was 237 pages on my Nook. According to All Romance Ebooks, it's 82,276 words long.

Synopsis:

Mark has been in love with his boss, Jonathan, for years, but he's never had the guts to say anything because 1) he's not sure whether Jonathan is even attracted to men and 2) Jonathan is V-positive. V-positives can't eat normal food, don't age, need blood in order to survive, are allergic to sunlight, and lose weight so easily that they need to regularly drink pure fat (usually in the form of flavored oil smoothies) just to maintain a healthy weight. Unfortunately, the hemovore virus, which they are infected with, is highly contagious and has a significant chance of killing the newly-infected. V-positive bodily fluids of any sort are dangerous to V-negatives like Mark. And so he keeps his mouth shut about his feelings and does his best to sell Jonathan's paintings and keep him well-supplied with cat blood, the only blood Jonathan is both willing and able to stomach.

Both Mark and Jonathan are excited when someone shows interest in buying all of Jonathan's paintings. Unfortunately, things go badly, and suddenly they're both on the run from a murderous V-positive from Jonathan's past. With no access to their bank accounts, a dwindling supply of cash, and no cat blood, among lots of other problems, it doesn't look like they can stay hidden and safe for long.

Review:

Oh, I loved this book.

Jordan Castillo Price is one of those authors that makes me glad I bought an e-reader, because otherwise I doubt I would ever have read Hemovore or Among the Living, which I also enjoyed. At the same time, however, I found myself wishing that I had been reading Hemovore in paperback form rather than e-book form. There were several times I would have liked to have been able to flip back and forth between parts of the book in order to confirm certain world rules, and that would have been easier to do with a paperback.

Among the Living (e-novella) by Jordan Castillo Price

The first half of this novella is available for free on the author's website.

Among the Living is 29,000 words long, which comes out to approximately 93 pages on my Nook.

Synopsis:

Victor Bayne can see and hear dead people. The only way he stands a chance of shutting them out is with drugs, and, when this novella begins, Vic is well into an Auracel daze, trying to remember how many pills he's taken, and trying not to be too obvious about how many pills he's taken.

Vic is the psychic half of a PsyCop team, and he's at his long-time partner's retirement party, so he doesn't expect to have to go back to work soon. Unfortunately for him, before the party's even over he's assigned a new partner, Lisa Gutierrez, and sent off to talk to any ghosts he can find at the scene of a gruesome murder. The murder victim was almost certainly gay, adding to Vic's discomfort - besides the amount of Auracel he takes, Vic's other secret is that he's gay, and he's paranoid about the possibility of doing or saying something that will give himself away. Vic's discomfort only worsens when he realizes that, for the first time, he's unable to see the spirit of a murder victim.

After Gutierrez is taken off the case, Vic is assigned to work with another Psy Cop team, Detective Jacob Marks (a Stiff - the non-psychic half of a PsyCop team) and Carolyn Brinkman (a psychic who can tell when people are lying). More gay men turn up gruesomely murdered and displayed, and Vic continues to be unable to contact their ghosts - who or what, he wonders, could have killed them so completely? On a personal note, Vic has the hots for Detective Marks, and, to Vic's shock, the feeling appears to be mutual.

Review:

I was iffy about this novella at first. I got it because I had heard lots of good things about Jordan Castillo Price's writing, and because the review of this novella on Dear Author intrigued me. However, Vic did not immediately endear himself to me. I wasn't a fan of his clearly habitual overuse of Auracel, and his quickie sexual encounter with Detective Marks in the bathroom at his partner's retirement party had me wincing.

I'm not quite sure when it happened, but Vic grew on me, and now I really, really want the rest of this series. I absolutely loved Vic's “voice” (the novella is from his perspective). He was so paranoid and frazzled that I had to laugh, at times. The way he went through suits reminded me a little of Stephanie Plum's habit of going through cars. I began to understand his habit of taking a little too much Auracel after reading about a few of his spirit encounters. It's not something Price beats readers over the head with, but it's clear that Vic regularly sees lots of things that would make the average person wonder about his sanity, and much of what he sees is less than pleasant. At one point, he strains hard enough to see the ghost of a dead goldfish, and there's a part where he encounters the ghost of a baby who was left to die in a stairwell in his apartment building.