THE HEXWORLD SERIES II, four novels & three short stories of M/M paranormal romance

HEXSLAYER
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #3)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: Horse shifter Nick has one rule: never trust a witch.

Nick has devoted his life to making his saloon a safe haven for the feral familiars of New York. So when a brutal killer slaughters a feral under his protection, Nick has no choice but to try and catch the murderer. Even if that means bonding with a handsome Irish witch.

Officer Jamie MacDougal came back from the war in Cuba missing part of a leg and most of his heart. After his former lover becomes one of the killer’s victims, Jamie will do anything to solve the case.

Nick comes to Jamie with a proposal: after making a temporary bond, they will work together to stop the murders. Once the killer is caught, they walk away and never see one another again.

It sounds simple enough. But the passion that flares between the two men won’t be so easily extinguished. And if Nick can’t learn to trust his witch, he stands to lose everything—including his life.

My Review: An entertaining read, befouled by six (6) w-bombs, one extra heinous because it occurs midway through a sexual encounter. I mean! How the hell is one supposed to maintain an erection while some goofball w-verbs? Mr. Softee pretty much guaranteed.

Anyway, the story itself builds out Hexworld more completely. We learn that there are seven popes; we learn the ancience of familiars' existence with a reference to Altamira's cave paintings...an explanation of their odd actions that's just flat genius! We're "treated" to an expanded take on the plight of the familiars. We're shown why so many familiars are same-sex couples. And, in trul Author Hawk fashion, we're also given little cameos from earlier stories:

Detective Tom Halloran crouched beside the hex. His familiar, Cicero, observed closely as Tom laid his hand carefully on the bloody marks.
–and–
“I know better than to disturb a crime scene.” She lowered her voice. “I read the Howl and Roger dime novels, you see.”

And the story itself? Well...I wasn't thrilled. Nick, the angry stallion, got old fast. His witch, Jamie, puts up with being lied to, manipulated, abused physically and emotionally, and absorbs with stunning rapidity the fact that "he didn't mean it."

He started for the door. “Wait,” Nick called.

“You ain’t given me a reason to,” Jamie said, and slammed the door behind him.

Um. Yeah...no. The man's a classic narcissistic abuser. The last-minute conversion/forgiveness isn't thrilling to me. But Nick's conversion to decency at least an admission that he wasn't a great guy to begin with. Rook, his brother, doesn't seem to be anywhere near critical enough of Nick's rage's effects of those around him.

I felt parts of the tale were rushed, eg the smuggled ferals, the quasi-redemption of a duplicitous relative; I suppose this is inevitable when publishing a book in this category where 100,000 words is way past the norm of 70,000. I'm also pleased that so many of the previous couples in the series get the screen time that they do. It's not a lot but it's used to reinforce the interconnectedness of problem-solving activities in this world. No one, nor any couple-unit, is required to rely solely on their own resources...IF they can get their issues out of the way of asking for help. Nick, angry stallion that he is, learns that lesson very late but very effectively.

God. Jamie’s cheeks burned, but he wasn’t going to let Nick walk out like nothing at all had happened. “It was good. You know.”

Nick swallowed, the brown skin of his throat working. “It won’t happen again.” He spoke the words with such finality that Jamie couldn’t think how to answer. Nick ducked his dark head, hunched his shoulders, and vanished back out into the overcast fall day.

It always feels good to me when the abuser gets abused...though in fact that's a terrible way to resolve the actual underlying lack-of-respect issue.

I have nothing but happy feelings about the nature, identity, and fate of the baddies.

“Ingram is crazy if he thinks people are going to stop using magic. Especially the rich. No society lady is going to give up the witch in the laundry, using hexes to make her whites brighter, let alone the rest of it.”
–and–
Pick a group, demonize them, and use the resulting fear to pass whatever laws you like.

It's an evergreen for a reason. So there it is...more to like than to frown at, more to applaud than to censure. Hexworld is a terrific creation. Not every hero is blemish-free, not every villain is a wicked mustachio-twirling caricature. And in the middle of it all are men trying their damnedest to grab and hold some happiness, spread some kindness, and sit in the sunshine with their loved ones, absorbing the world's sweetness.

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WILD WILD HEX
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #3.5)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Can a lawman witch find love with an outlaw familiar?

After weeks spent tracking down the gentleman bandit Rafael, Hexas Ranger Enoch Bright finally has the outlaw in his sights. He doesn’t expect to find out Rafael is his familiar.

When Enoch runs afoul of the murderous Bone Gang, he and Rafael strike a deal to take down the gang together. As lawman and outlaw work together, Enoch soon realizes the next thing the gentleman bandit steals will be his heart.

My Review: Charming short extending Hexworld out to the Wild, Wild West. Rafael the Hawk, Enoch the Black Ranger...how will Author Hawk weave y'all into the main Hexworld story? And, more to the point, WHEN?!

Also: 3 (three) w-bombs, not one of 'em necessary. Three-quarters of a star off.

A lawman's worst nightmare is a miscreant whose nature makes them untrappable.

Banks, debt collectors, and taxmen hated the Gentleman Bandit with a passion, and would be happy to see him hang. Ordinary folks…less so.

Ordinary folks, whether they're bystanders with no dog in the fight or beneficiaries of the Bandit's largesse, more often than not celebrate the deeds of the underdog. And the underdog's almost never the lawman. Not even one of the US Marshals, Magical Law Enforcement Division, usually called the Hexas Rangers.

Rafael, who is a sort-of Robin del Hood the Gentleman Bandit, shifts into a Harris's hawk, the only raptor I know of that hunts in co-operative groups! It's just perfect for this series: A predator, but like a wolf one that is predisposed to co-operation instead of the solitary territoriality of most raptorial birds. It explains why he's got these urges to help the prey of banksters and railroad land-grabbers...he's sociable even in his shifted form, and inclined to help not hurt by his human (murky) past. He and Enoch have each run afoul of the Bone Gang in the past, so what could make more sense than co-operating until they take the bastards down? We know where these "this far and no farther" things lead....

The sex between the men was smokin'; the setting was a lovely surprise; the way that the bonding between witch and familiar functions as a form of love-at-first-sight is played for laughs here, and that worked.

I hope that we'll see more of these men and this setting. There was nowhere near enough time to get into their inner connection. I would adore that to happen in the very near future. Hint, hint.

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HEXHUNTER
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #4)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Detective Bill Quigley fell in love with the familiar Isaac the night they met. But after more than two years, it’s time to admit to himself that Isaac doesn’t return his feelings.

Isaac knows he’s too broken by his experiences for anyone to fall in love with. Especially someone like Bill, who deserves a partner unplagued by Isaac’s nightmares and doubts.

When children go missing from an orphanage, Bill and Isaac must work together to find them. And as years of yearning threaten to ignite into passion, they must decide once and for all whether to take a chance on love.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FROM MY SECRET SANTA! *SMOOCH*

My Review: First, read this:

Nothing seemed odd about the figure itself, other than depicting the Holy Familiar. Which, yes, this was a Belfastian institution, but he still would’ve expected Saint Jerome, patron of orphans.
–and–
“Denying a part of yourself is never a good thing. Familiars who stay too long in animal shape start to forget they were ever human, and those who stay human forget they were ever an animal. They lose half of themselves either way.”
–and–
"It’s significant because it revealed details of a civilization known to us only through the tales of the Greeks, tales recorded long after the Minoans—the ancient inhabitants of Crete, that is—vanished. There are many interesting points irrelevant to tonight’s discussion, but one of the things claimed by the legends—and supported by the excavations—is that the royal family were all familiars.”

If you've followed me long enough, you know that I'm an old fan of Author Hawk's Whyborne & Griffin Lovecraftian-horror series. I'm a sucker for expanding the Cthulhu Mythos in ways that would appall and repulse Lovecraft! And I'm always down for some good, old-fashioned men-shaggin'-men action.

On screen or off. *leer*

So here we are in a different late-Victorian/early-Edwardian/Gilded-Age New York City, another of my personal favorite settings for fiction or non-fiction. In this Manhattan, the world has SEVEN Catholic Churches, an underclass made up of magical familiars who can assume animal shapes, and an overclass of witches whose control of the magic inherent in the familiars renders their powers usable and useful to Humanity at large. Which does not, of course, translate into being valued at their correct level.

What this series does, in its set-up, is interrogate 1) crony-capitalist dystopian society; 2) the role of hatred and prejudice towards all those who make up the QUILTBAG community; and 3) the intense miseries of being trapped in an identity that simply is not yours, bears no resemblance to your true nature, and being reviled for daring to claim your proper place in the world.

“Denying a part of yourself is never a good thing. Familiars who stay too long in animal shape start to forget they were ever human, and those who stay human forget they were ever an animal. They lose half of themselves either way.”
–and–
"Rook said this case has something to do with missing familiar children?”

“Potential familiars, yes.”

Bill felt suddenly sick. “Saint Mary, Holy Familiar of Christ. You don’t think whoever has them is doing this, whatever this is, to them too?”
–and–
“Assumed to be the wrong gender at birth?”

“Exactly. Yet, {the Minoan royal familiars} took the familiar form associated with their proper gender. Nathan, you would have been a bull, not a snake. Which to me suggests human intervention.”

This is some heady, high-level worldbuilding. Think about the mental pathways that this creative leap took: Minoan civilization vanished; we know now it existed but for millennia it was a bad legend of a woman who transgressed her marriage vows and produced a monster; then we see the art of Knossos, men leaping bulls and women handling snakes tranmogrifies into familiars who can assume these forms, mutates through the generations as "normals" try to control/exterminate the weirdos, and even explains why there is such a hatred for Mary Magdalene, her being Witch-Christ's familiar, and seven—seven!—Catholic churches resulting from the chaos of getting on top of the facts behind the legends. (I like the idea of the Pope in Belfast...Celtic Christianity seems to me a less virulent thing than the Roman variety.)

But Author Hawk, a transman, isn't likely to let us off that easily. The worldbuilding is the stage...the story is the people on it. And they are all in for it, poor lambs, because there's a wicked, vindictive worldbuilder at the helm and they will suffer for their bad luck in being summoned into life by him!

I've said above that I like and appreciate the way charcters in Author Hawk's series come back from their abeyance to inform the stories with an enhanced level of reality. You go around your life with the same, or a roughly similar, group of people in it...so do these folk. They have families, they have friends, they have bosses and co-workers...all is the same in these stories as in the stories of our lives. These characters, Isaac and Bill, have shown up briefly in other tales; Malachi, Dominic (ugh!), Nick and Jamie, Rook, Cicero...all make their presences know in here, too. It's so very warming, like seeing an old childhood friend on the streets of your vacation destination.

Family, birth family, comes in for a lot of knocks in this series. I am not the product of a happy family, so I think of this as merely a reflection of reality. Then there are the good birth families that exist here, too, like the Yates siblings. I suppose someone somewhere has one of those. They would be wise not to talk much about it lest they be placed in a zoo for us ordinaries to gawk at.

And of course, the role of the closet...Isaac the mastiff familiar being treated the way he was by Martin, the witch his magic longs to connect with, retreats into wounded silence about his essential nature; Bill, the rejected poor-quality witch-son, runs from even the least hint that he is a witch:

So Isaac had pulled away, before the inevitable rejection. Because he was spoiled, broken, unworthy. Bill surely knew it as well as Isaac did. Now he knew, too, that Isaac wanted him.
–and–
It was time to move on. Time to accept Isaac would never return his affection. Bill’s own da hadn’t wanted him; stupid to have imagined anyone else ever would.

Realizing that your own family rejects who you are ("love the sinner, hate the sin" is the cruelest and most invidious formulation of "I don't like who you are") is not a fast-track way to get your richly deserved portion of love on this Earth. And they've both got this obstacle to overcome, so Bill and Isaac aren't going to get together easily or quickly. As this story takes place two years-plus after the last, that was a given.

Category romance, laddies and gentlewomen. HEA is standard equipment.

I give nothing away when I say that the couple becomes one, then. The circumstances of that are for you to discover; as is Author Hawk's guaranteed twist on expectations. Bill's life isn't one of luxury but he at least had a mother who loved him. Isaac's life wasn't ordinary for many reasons, but his Jewish identity was always going to Other him no matter what. How these broken places mesh is a delight; how they learn to accept and value each other is a pleasure, if one that was slightly rushed by the demands of the adventure plot.

As always, the fight against evil-doers and vile malefactors is pursued on multiple fronts. This time there is a court case for Isaac to assist with, involving the poor trafficked familiars/slaves from earlier stories; there's also a larger conspiracy taking place that ties together the past, the present, and a dreadful authoritarian future that our Scooby-group of witches and familiars are aware of and fighting further back with each battle.

Martin's position in this story, pivotal on two fronts, is not one I want to spoil for you. The links of the larger story-arc are, as in all good series stories, growing more and more restrictive around our dramatis personae. And that explains my overall delight in and eagerness to push these reads at you.

And there is the basic human lovingkindness of the world these men inabit as well. They are there for, supportive of, each other; they accept the bonds of Family and carry them with willing hands and hearty acceptance of responsibility and for support. This is a world where someone says to a belovèd friend, “Sometimes strength means asking for help when you need it," and isn't criticizing or belitting him; reminding him, rather, that this is what he is being offered.

Isn't that a beautiful dream. Even in the midst of the pain and chaos of fighting an uncaring-to-cruel world for your existential survival, these men offer their own strength, their own lives, to help and support others.

Tell me, please, what kind of story could possibly be more 2021 than that.

THE HEXWORLD SERIES I, four novels & three short stories of M/M paranormal romance

THE 13TH HEX
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #0.5)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Romance. Magic. Murder.

Dominic Kopecky dreamed of becoming a member of New York’s Metropolitan Witch Police—a dream dashed when he failed the test for magical aptitude. Now he spends his days drawing the hexes the MWP relies on for their investigations.

But when a murder by patent hex brings crow familiar Rook to his desk, Dominic can’t resist the chance to experience magic. And as the heat grows between Dominic and Rook, so does the danger. Because the case has been declared closed—and someone is willing to kill to keep it that way.

The 13th Hex is the prequel short story to the all-new Hexworld series. If you like shifters, magic, and romance, you’ll love Jordan L. Hawk’s world of witch policemen and the familiars they bond with.

My Review: Three w-bombs in under 40pp means one entire star off.

A perfectly fine story. I like Rook a lot, but am less enamored of Dominic Kopecky.

Dominic pulled Rook closer. “Of course I do. You’re everything I ever dreamed of, Rook.”

He tenderly cupped Rook’s smooth jaw in one hand. “You’re beautiful and clever, and I would have wanted you even if you weren’t a familiar. But you are, and you’ve given me magic.”

It just feels...opportunistic? like an emotional manipulation? I'm putting that aside for now, more data needed, and the books are mostly out.

I just wanted a toe-dip into the world of the series before committing myself to it. This short tale was enough to allow me to get the sense of what Author Hawk was planning...a New York City imbued with magical energy that expresses itself via pseudoscientific means...to see if this could keep my soap-opera lovin' story-slurpin' soul from parching into dust. I mean, Whyborne & Griffin is now complete on my reader radar! I need sudsy sweet seriesness! Now I'll get my Hawk fix here.

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HEXBREAKER
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #1)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available for a limited time!

Rating: 4.75* of five

WINNER OF THE 2016 RAINBOW AWARD: GAY PARANORMAL ROMANCE!

The Publisher Says: Will a dark history doom their future together?

New York copper Tom Halloran is a man with a past. If anyone finds out he once ran with the notorious O’Connell tunnel gang, he’ll spend the rest of his life doing hard time behind bars. But Tom’s secret is threatened when a horrible murder on his beat seems to have been caused by the same ancient magic that killed his gang.

Cat shifter Cicero is determined to investigate the disappearance of one friend and the death of another, even though no one else believes the cases are connected. When the trail of his investigation crosses Tom’s, the very bohemian Cicero instinctively recognizes the uncultured Irish patrolman as his witch. Though they’re completely unsuited to one another, Cicero has no choice but to work alongside Tom…all the while fighting against the passion growing within.

Tom knows that taking Cicero as his familiar would only lead to discovery and disaster. Yet as the heat between them builds, Tom’s need for the other man threatens to overcome every rational argument against becoming involved.

But when their investigation uncovers a conspiracy that threatens all of New York, Tom must make the hardest decision of his life: to live a lie and gain his heart’s desire, or to confess the truth and sacrifice it all.

My Review: Tom the Hexbreaker = Yes. Big, solid, muscular boys are always welcome in my world, fictional or factual.

Cicero the Familiar = ...
...
...he's a C-A-T and I ***HATE*** those creatures. The make me sneeze. They have TOXIC SPIT faGawdsake. Their dander, designed by them in conjunction with their lord and master Satan, is so shaped that it causes acute irritation in human mucus membranes.

Cicero closed the door soundlessly behind him and shifted into cat form. Instantly, the room brightened; he could make out every detail of the worn fabric, the flaking paint on the hobby horse, the silk flowers twined around the swings. The smell of mice tantalized, mingled with the scents of the various people who had traipsed through. Sloane, Kearney, others he didn’t recognize.

And I still gave the book almost 5 stars. (The passage above is one of the main reasons I did...Author Hawk brings me into a cat's world in a way I haven't thought of before.) That, laddies and gentlewomen, is still nothing short of astounding. I have lived in or near Manhattan since the 1980s, and visited the city fairly often after my first taste of it in my long-ago childhood (before they started digging the basement of the long-gone Twin Towers, that's how long ago it was). This is my home, this is the place I want to be. So yes, I'm inclined to give stories set here a big head start into my good graces.

I'm also a history buff. In the post-book note left by Author Hawk, I was pleased but unsurprised to see they acknowledged Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940 as one of their sources. I got this book in the 1990s and have read and re-read it a few times as research and as pleasure reading. The gay male culture of New York has arguably always been the gold standard (pace you San Francisco queers) in this country. I was eager to learn about it then, and happy to see it used so very well in this series of books.

Most of my happy croons are reserved for the alternate history of this New York, part of a world where magic is real and imperfectly understood as well as unscrupulously used thus necessitating an entire branch of law enforcement dedicated to detecting and preventing malefactors from taking unfair advantage of its gifts.

Tom didn’t mean to stare, but he couldn’t help it. Of course, he’d been staring nonstop since he’d entered the Coven and asked to speak to someone about a dead man and a bad hex.
–and–
“I follow the pope in Belfast, if that’s what you mean."
–and–
The one with the shotgun pointed it at Tom. “I said hands up! Revolver on the floor, now!”

The world seemed to sharpen to unnatural clarity. The black bore of the gun trained on him. Cicero’s coat, bright against the washed out clothing of the anarchists. The smell of gunpowder from the barrels. The hum of hexes from the boxes and barrels, so many he could feel them vibrating in his teeth. Meant to keep the gunpowder and dynamite from exploding too early, or catching fire from open flames.

The plight of the unbonded familiar is a strong theme in this first novel of the series. It's clear that the familiars, those whose abilities create the magic channeled by witches, are the downtrodden second-class magical citizens. Cicero the cat-shifter is a survivor of an abusive unbonded past. It informs his every waking moment. It's also obvious that most witch/familiar bonds are same-sex; this makes the gayness quotient of the world quite high, an agreeable development from my PoV. That there is still homophobia out there is depressingly inevitable, human beings being what they are.

It wasn’t Rook’s fault he and Dominic {from The 13th Hex, above} were perfectly suited as lovers as well as friends.

It was the fairytale every familiar wanted to believe in, and the MWP did nothing to dissuade. One day, a familiar would be minding their own business, look up…and there would be their witch. Dashing, charming, strong, funny…whatever the familiar needed them to be.

The events of this book bring the politics of the creation of New York City from the independent cities of Brooklyn, Manhattan, the County of Queens, and the Bronx to bear on the lives of the characters, and in that teaches each of them what it means not to fit into any corner of society. There are competing factions attempting to redress the very real wrongs of the place and time, but in ways that wouldn't lead to a better world only a replacement of those at the top with themselves.

Tom knew how the world worked, knew money flowed mostly in one direction and to hell with the poor bastard who ended up with empty pockets at the end of the day. But there was wrong and then there was wrong, and this seemed terrible in a way he couldn’t articulate.
–and–
"Show the people that the real threat to their safety comes from a corrupt government enslaved to the whims of rich men who would work the rest of us to death for their profits.”

It seems revolutions never do what they are supposed to do.

But Tom and Cicero are there, ably assisted by Dominick and Rook from The 13th Hex and joined by the next book's MC Dr. Yates, to make sure the body count is kept to a minimum and the worst excesses of evil are prevented from making the city a shambles. This is what I like about Author Hawk's books: The stakes are high, the issues are drawn from reality, the resolutions are based in the logic of the world created and include the requisite Happily Ever After for the main characters.

In this series, the magical system is wonderfully presented, the alternate timeline is sketched in with intriguing spaces left to be filled by future events' historical roots, and PoV characters from previous books will appear in supporting roles. I very much like this method of world-building as it lets me feel I am discovering something instead of arriving at a destination in time, conclusions in hand, to watch events unfold.

The sexual reality of the setting is probably going to put hetero readers off their feed. If men sexin' up other men makes you squeamish, seek elsewhere for your entertainment reads. If it doesn't, then here's you a terrific new series to enjoy.

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HEXMAKER
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #2)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A straight-laced policeman. A lighthearted thief. A murdered millionaire.

Fox shifter Malachi steals for one of the biggest crime rings in New York City. But when he witnesses the murder of a millionaire, the only person who can keep him safe is Dr. Owen Yates, forensic hexman for the Metropolitan Witch Police—and Malachi’s witch.

Owen is horrified to discover his familiar is an uneducated thief. Even worse, Malachi threatens to unleash Owen’s deepest desires…desires Owen can’t act upon, as he’s destined for an arranged marriage to secure the Yates family fortune.

Their agreement: Malachi will be Owen’s lover as well as his partner, until the day of the wedding. But as their hunt for the murderer carries them from teeming slums to Fifth Avenue mansions, Owens begins to realize Malachi commands his heart as well as his body.

With dark forces drawing ever closer around them, Owen must decide whether to bow to the demands of duty, or to risk everything for the man he loves.

Hexmaker is the second book in Jordan L. Hawk’s Hexworld series, following the adventures of witch policemen and the familiars they bond with. Download today to enter a world of magic, romance, and intrigue.

My Review: All good things must end. My unbroken streak of adoring Author Hawk's books has ended: I don't grok these characters. And then there's the overuse of the w-bomb: There are seven (7) of them in the book which is eight too many.

I didn't like Owen because he reminds me of Franklin Pangborn from old-timey post-Code movies. When they needed a gay man, they got Franklin Pangborn or someone like him to play a fussy, mousy, icky stereotype.

UGH.

Owen straightened and clasped his hands behind him, as if preparing to deliver a lecture. The sight brought a grin to Mal’s face.

“The device is a remarkable feat of hexology and engineering,” Owen said. “Today, we’ve uncovered one of the lost secrets of the ancient world.”

Athene shot him an impatient look. “Get to the point, Dr. Yates.”
–and–
“Shut up, Owen,” Kirk said. “God, you’re tiresome. I can’t believe Father would so demean Edith as to hand her over to a prissy fussbudget like you.”

I just so completely agree with Kirk...And that meant I couldn't really get a grip on the stakes of the story. Wasn't much on Malachi, either, and their sex scenes...I can't believe I'm typing this...were dull, so I skimmed them. I mean, of course Owen was bottoming, he's such a squishbag I can't believe he could ever do anything else...and that's not Big Daddy's kink.
“All I ever wanted was you,” Mal said. “Just as you are.” And, to quote the late, great Rodney Dangerfield, "you don't want much, do you?"

A sad day for me.

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A CHRISTMAS HEX
JORDAN L. HAWK (Hexworld #2.5)
Widdershins Press LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
99¢ Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A Hexworld Short Story

Roland knows he will never find love. Everyone views wolf familiars like himself as dangerous beasts, unable to rein in their savage impulses. He’s resigned himself to his fate—or so he thinks, until he meets the dashing Augustus Cao. His witch.

Gus is on the trail of a gang of thieves, and Roland holds an important clue. Even though they can never bond, Roland can’t pass up the opportunity to spend a night with his witch.

Can Roland conceal his secret, while helping Gus catch the thieves? Or will the handsome detective be the one to steal his heart?

My Review: Not a lot of room to maneuver in 56pp. A sweet Yuletide story, another facet of the Hexworld, and a half-hour spent quite pleasurably.

We're out in the Metropolitan Witch Police's purlieu this time, which is interesting; and the Hexworld's additions of prejudice to the already awful nineteenth century include ones against wolf shifters. Roland's family chucked him out when they discovered the dangerous animal in their midst.

Roland had known better than to get close to anyone. A decade of hiding had taught him that much. No one would ever see him as anything other than a dangerous beast.

He's made his peace with it, though of course he's very unhappy at Yuletide...who isn't whose people don't want them?...but as a successful writer of adventure stories he's made a good life and wants for little materially.

Now, eating at a Chinese restaurant, he meets his witch: An Irish-Chinese private detective whose present case is finding and stopping a gang of thieves using a dangerous, mesmerizing hex to in order to steal and kill. Roland saves Gus, whose sex appeal he's noticed immediately and whose existence as his witch is fizzing between them, from certain death, and tags along with him on the case. Truth is he's too afraid to share the truth of his animal nature, and of their magical connection, but just can't bring himself to let Gus face the very real danger he's in alone.

A successful resolution to the case, a Happily-Ever-After, and all in a corner of the Hexworld we barely slid into in Hexmaker. The dangerous-animal shifters aren't bad people; they're being true to their inner selves. They're no worse, no better, than anyone else!

The author, a trans person, knows how very deeply this resonates with all sorts of QUILTBAG people. They wrote this perfect summation of the happiness most all of us seek: "For once, the future didn’t matter; just this man and this moment."

Happy Yule, everyone.

DEOSIL, eleventh and final (sob) Whyborne & Griffin tale

DEOSIL
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #11)
Kindle edition
$4.99, available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Whyborne, Griffin, and their friends have faced down cultists, monsters, and sorcerers. But their greatest challenge is now upon them.

On the return voyage from Balefire Manor, Whyborne receives the worst news possible: Widdershins has fallen before the onslaught of the Fideles and their servants. There’s still time to stop the return of the Masters, but that window grows shorter by the hour.

Together with Christine and Iskander, Whyborne and Griffin must reach Widdershins to face the ultimate test—and decide the fate of the world, once and for all.

EVER FEEL LIKE THE WORLD'S ABOUT TO END? READ ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO *DO*SOMETHING*TO*STOP*IT* THEN GO OUT AND VOTE.

My Review: Seriously. These are people, straight and QUILTBAG alike, who know that surrendering agency in the face of overwhelming odds against your success in resisting Evil's conquest of the world is not going succeed. Maybe resisting isn't either. But it's absolutely positive that doing nothing will result in Evil winning. So they rile up every-damn-body they can find:

“I never asked for a cult of book-wielding librarians!” I exclaimed.

Whyborne, our lanky and gauche and lovably goofy savior-figure, can't see what possible use a pack of book-lovers like himself can do when the Apocalypse impends. And you know what? Their part is crucial, their role central, and the way forward wouldn't have been found without them.

Get up off your chair and go vote. Or drive housebound folks to the polls. Or call your lazy friends and go pick them up. Something.

This book will make no sense whatsoever to you if you haven't read the previous ten. If you have, you've probably already read it; if you haven't, start with Widdershins, and if you're hooked you'll keep buying until you get to this one.

I love series reads. I am a fan of the familiar, homely comforts of visiting old friends in their digs, and that's a lot of the appeal of series reads. It's also true that some series continue long past the point they have something new to say. Author Hawk decided that a good series needs an ending commensurate with its prior purpose. This book provides that ending.

And for a few bad minutes, I thought I was gonna have to call on the maelstrom to blight the author's homeplace with super-rust.

Patience and a furious refusal to believe I'd been had led me to finish the book before firing up the Lapidem. I was not disappointed. I was, in fact, quite pleased with the resolution and the ending, which are quite different things. Things end the way they quite simply had to end.

Widdershins, after all, knows its own.

BALEFIRE, tenth Whyborne & Griffin Lovecraftian nightmare-fodder monsterfest! Only fun!

BALEFIRE
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #10)
Kindle edition
$4.99, available now

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Whyborne’s Endicott relatives have returned to collect on the promise he made to help them take back their ancestral manor from an evil cult. In exchange, they’ll give him the key to deciphering the Wisborg Codex, which Whyborne needs to learn how to stop the masters.

To that end, Whyborne, his husband Griffin, and their friends Iskander and Christine travel to a small island off the coast of Cornwall. But when they arrive at Balefire Manor, Whyborne must not only face the evil within the ancient mansion, but the painful truth about his own destiny.

DON'T TAKE THE WORLD BACK TO A TIME WHEN MEN AND WOMEN HAD TO HIDE THEIR LOVE. KEEP THE MONSTERS FICTIONAL FROM NOW ON.

My Review: That, my chick-a-biddies, was a hellacious ride! More after I have knit the ravel'd sleave of care with some z's.

The next-to-last entry in this long-running series. The idea makes me a bit sad, but really when I think about it, this is a great time to go out: The ultimate threat to the humanity of Terra is about to rip its way through the veil of ignorance that traps us cattle in this vale of tears and kick-ass.

Not if Dr. Percival Endicott Whyborne, tall geeky sorcerer, and his dearly belovèd husband the ex-Pinkerton Griffin Flaherty, have a tiny tiny thread of the hope of a chance, they aren't.

This is something I treasure about reading these books: The superhero who's saving the world for the Great Unwashed is a gay goofus with the social skills of a teenager and no reason whatsoever to do the job he's doing. The world of Widdershins, Gilded Age America, hates fags. He's never been anything resembling straight. And *still* he saves the world the ungrateful jackasses infest with their seething rage at his audacity to claim love and happiness with another wounded survivor of straight people's hate.

You can have all those lushly muscled Captain What's-its and bounteously bosomed -womans and -girls. I'll take lanky, cranky, and awkward Whyborne every damn time. It matters to see yourself, the best part of yourself hopefully but yourself, in the tropes that dominate the age you live in. I myownself glory in this:

The creature was a blot on the world, a living darkness spreading corruption to everything it touched. Where {Whyborne} burned with pure, cleansing fire, it smeared a layer of sooty foulness across the very fabric of reality. It was every shape and none, a heaving, churning distortion that gave my shadowsight nothing to rest upon.

When Whyborne is done making the world safe for the people who want to make his world unsafe, he goes to his beloved Griffin (who is speaking in the above quote) for comfort and joy. And yes, that means sex. Usually two or three steamy scenes. I feel like y'all heterosexuals should be made to read some of our sex scenes since yours are flippin' EVERYWHERE and y'all think (often out loud) that we should just belt the eff up and watch/read/encounter them because they're normal.

Common, perhaps; not normal. Normal is an individual calibration to the world.

If this book held a disappointment for me, it was the one-and-only intimate scene between Whyborne and Griffin. I get it; this is a hectic book with multiple battles being fought; but damn. One little bitty round of easy-to-clean spoodging smacks of adolescent exploration, not two men in their 30s expressing their established and ongoing desire for each other.

And then I remember the stakes looming over the men....

Yeah, pretty much the only thing you could squeeze in, eh what, Author Hawk? Book 11 can't come soon enough and I don't ever want to see it because it's the last and how dare you not keep writing these delicious stories and yeah, it's time to let these poor bastards rest.

No, I'm not conflicted at all. Why do you ask?

FALLOW, eighth Whyborne & Griffin tale from Widdershins, Massachusetts (near Innsmouth and Arkham)

FALLOW
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #8)
Kindle edition
$4.99, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: When Griffin’s past collides with his present, will it cost the lives of everyone he loves?

Between the threat of a world-ending invasion from the Outside and unwelcome revelations about his own nature, Percival Endicott Whyborne is under a great deal of strain. His husband, Griffin Flaherty, wants to help—but how can he, when Whyborne won’t tell him what’s wrong?

When a man from Griffin’s past murders a sorcerer, the situation grows even more dire. Once a simple farmer from Griffin’s hometown of Fallow, the assassin now bears a terrifying magical corruption, one whose nature even Whyborne can’t explain.

To keep Griffin’s estranged mother safe, they must travel to a dying town in Kansas. But as drought withers the crops of Fallow, a sinister cult sinks its roots deep into the arid soil. And if the cult’s foul harvest isn’t stopped in time, Fallow will be only the first city to fall.

Fallow is the eighth book in the Whyborne & Griffin series, where magic, mystery, and m/m romance collide with Victorian era America.

SINCE WE'RE AMID THE FORMATION OF A NEW, DOUBLE-LOVECRAFTIAN GILDED AGE...WHY NOT SEE WHAT HAPPENED THEN?

My Review: The half star off is for the slithering jim-jams the Big Baddie in this one has given me. I am not sleeping for the foreseeable future. *convulsive shudder*

***next day***

As predicted, sleep was elusive after reading this frightfest. I haven't had that response to any other book in the series but this one Did Me In. The name, "the rust," gave me all the horror-movie shudders I could ever (not) want.

Excuse me I need to bleach my every body part and scrub my innards with Lysol.

The main thrust of this story is betrayal. The awfulness of experiencing betrayal is, by definition, that it's only one's intimates that can perpetrate it. Author Hawk was so deft in portraying the double-edged sword of betrayal in each leg of the multiple relationships that underwent it that I can only applaud. All of the betrayals were very real, as in understandable and organic to the relationships involved. No overwrought "because I am eeeeeeviiiiiillllll" emotionality; instead the betrayals (very much in the plural) are simply fallible humans failing to reach for love when confronted by conundrums in coping with unmet expectations.

This is a phenomenon that all of us experience at some level, at some time; but gay people are a lot more likely than most US citizens to experience it, and more likely to have it come from within their families of origin; make no mistake, though, the betrayal also comes from Government and the social safety net bureaucracies as enabled by the filth and scum appointed by 45. In Griffin's uniquel awful case, he's experiencing the double betrayal of an adoptive family's rejection. It makes me want to unswallow when I think of the US Administration unleashing this life-defining, spirit-crushing betrayal on innocent children in 2020.

Along with the Big Baddie *wracking shudder* we're treated to Whyborne's meditations on Widdershins' magical vortex and its role in his life. We're given a short burst of Persephone Whyborne. We're teased with an oncoming apocalyptic confrontation. We're left to ponder the role of pragmatism in Whyborne and Griffin's mutual fate as allies become scarce. In short, book 8 is one helluva ride and I had a damn good time ripping through it.

Except for "the rust" *nauseated convulsive shudder* that is.

DRAAKENWOOD, Whyborne & Griffin series doesn't sag at #9

DRAAKENWOOD
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #9)
Kindle edition (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.9* of five

The Publisher Says: Someone is killing members of the old families…and the evidence points to Whyborne.

Widdershins has been unusually quiet for months. But now a mysterious creature from the Outside is on the loose, assassinating members of the town’s old families by draining their blood. Whyborne and Griffin set out to solve the mystery—but as the evidence piles up, the police begin to suspect Whyborne himself is the murderer.

Now Whyborne must both clear his name and stop the horrors the monster threatens to unleash. His only hope: an alliance with his old enemies the Endicotts.

Because something terrible lurks in the Draakenwood, and it will stop at nothing to seize control of the maelstrom itself.

Draakenwood is the ninth book in the Whyborne & Griffin series, where magic, mystery, and m/m romance collide with Victorian era America.

I purchased this book with my very own United States dollars...

... the same year that I realized I was losing out on DRCs because publishers realized I'd review books I bought for myself. Hence never having reviewed it before.

Oh myyy, as Takei would say. There's more than I expected in this ninth entry in the ongoing series. The ongoing plots never plod, but here they go from brisk trot to gallop both on the personal and overarching stakes fronts. Let me assure you that there is nothing series-drooping in this outing. I do most especially love the anachronistic way these men refer to their other halfs as "husbands"!

I was surprised and pleased that Whyborne's sister Persephone met her match. (Knock next time, you oaf!) I was also pleased that Whyborne Senior made such huge strides in his unwilling quest to become a decent human being. Streets to go, mind, but the growth curve is impressive. I like that redemption is still possible for even the worst of people in Author Hawk's world.

Speaking of worlds...Griffin continues to make Whyborne's miserable, first with that infernal rackety Oldsmobile, and this book with the ghastly newfangled telephone. Poor Whyborne, a fuddy-duddy at heart, is yoked by all-conquering love to a gadget-mad technophile. What's a man who is every inch a librarian in his soul to do?

Well, fight more evil, of course; the stakes are still there, the Endicotts have living relatives, Nyarlathotep isn't decisively defeated yet. Those hounds...!! And capable henches continue to abound. Christine, the ever-waspish, always faithful BFF, her husband Iskander (who is never that much limned, of course) and now Whyborne's librarian secretary Miss Parkhurst is in the family in every way. Really, isn't this the reason one reads series books? The stories are like our extended friend groups only easier to keep track of because they're in finished story arcs. Or about-to-be-finished story arcs...thinking of the Ketoi as truly underexplored arc-havers.

But here's the deal: The arcs all end. I wager that, if you start here (don't!), you'll feel the unnerved certainty that you've stumbled into a nest of nutjobs. Go back to #1, Widdershins, to get the place in the Cthuluverse and the dramatis personae straight. (So to speak.) I recommend them all, in order. Apart from my cavils over a certain inevitable monster-of-the-weekness and the double PoV in this story (out of keeping, not smoothly integrated), this story earns my smiling, loving approval.

MAELSTROM, seventh Whyborne & Griffin Lovecraft-tinged adventure

MAELSTROM
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #7)
Kindle edition
$4.99 available now

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Between his father’s sudden—and rather suspicious—generosity, and his own rash promise to help Christine plan her wedding, Percival Endicott Whyborne has quite enough to worry about. But when the donation of a mysterious codex to the Ladysmith Museum draws the attention of a murderous cult, Whyborne finds himself in a race against time to unlock its secrets.

Meanwhile, Griffin has a case of his own: the disappearance of an historic map, which quickly escalates to murder. Someone is sacrificing men in dark rituals—and all the clues lead back to the museum.

With their friends Christine and Iskander, Whyborne and Griffin must discover the cult’s true goal before it’s too late. For dark forces are afoot at the very heart of the museum, and they want more than Whyborne’s codex.

They want his life.

***THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE SEVENTH BOOK IN A SERIES SO DO NOT UTTER A SYLLABLE OF COMPLAINT ABOUT SPOILERS***

My Review: Here's an amazing fact for y'all. I hate the c-a-t in this series because, well, it's a c-a-t. In point of fact the presence of a c-a-t in a book as a suitable companion for a male human is grounds for a one-star deduction from the five total a book can earn. And yet the sharp-eyed habitué of these precincts will note that this book has a five-star rating! Has His Growling Curmudgeonliness softened in his disdain and disgust for Felis catus?!

Don't register for those classes in the aerodynamics of pork just yet, pigs ain't a-flyin'.

While the c-a-t is prominent in this book and is even presented as capable of performing actions not directly beneficial to itself (which is how we know we're reading a novel), the main focus of this book is on a subject near and dear to my heart: Hating your siblings and your parents, while acknowledging their ability to throttle back their intrinsic evil enough to perform actions that, when squinted at from a far enough distance and lit exactly perfectly, can be construed by an unbiased observer as not entirely destructive. Whyborne's selfish and self-centered father has lost his wife, his adored elder son, and both his daughters; it's no surprise that the poor chump realizes he'd best mend fences with his remaining son, faggot or no. Also no surprise is the said son's unwillingness to let go of his grudge against the old bastard.

And here's where that star comes from. This plot arc has developed over the course of the entire series. It's a difficult task to keep a reader involved in an arc over more than one book without making frequently eyerollingly hamfisted attempts to wedge the damn thing into stories better off without it. Author Hawk has magical fingers. This series doesn't suffer from the dreaded hamfistedness. The presence of Whyborne's father is always plausible or he's left out. While he's there, he acts in character. Even when it's obvious to the reader he's doing his level best to make it up to Whyborne, the man is his abrasive and selfish self. No miracles are adduced. Just as we see the attempts as well as the selfishness, Whyborne does not.

Griffin, however, does, and he tries to offer his dearly beloved a perspective not wholly hostile to Whyborne père. The offer is rebuffed with brusqueness, even a scoche of hurt feelings. Whyborne begins to fear that his beloved husband has been bought off by the sudden generosity his father has shown Griffin. It's even enabled Griffin to purchase a motor car! A (period appropriate) Curved Dash Oldsmobile:

Is that not the most amazing thing! It is in Widdershins, Massachusetts, I can promise you. Griffin is almost bursting with eagerness to take Whyborne for a ride!

In the car, you dirty-minded dregs. In the car.

So Whyborne's fears for Griffin's loyalty are not unfounded; plus he now has to ride in a motor car or risk hurting his dearly beloved's feelings. So into the damned thing he climbs (greater love hath no fuddy-duddy), thence to be sped at a blistering pace (almost twenty miles an hour!) hither, thither, and yon. Worse yet, Christine and her intended groom Iskander the half-Egyptian are enraptured by the damn thing as well. Has Whyborne père cast his net so wide as to deprive his son of all support and succor? The rotter! Then, if that isn't enough to frame Whyborne père in the most villainous light imaginable, he has the audacity to all-but-demand his son visit the evildoer of his childhood, formerly fair-haired boy Stanford, in the comfy sanitorium where he's confined in lieu of a prison cell (greatly to Whyborne's disgruntlement) for the crime of murdering various and sundry people including their mutual sister.

In acceding to his father's barely-not-a-demand to visit Stanford, Whyborne acts like a mulish, unforgiving, spiteful brat towards Stanford as the latter brandishes sweet words and requests for reconciliation. How petty, how small-souled of him, no? Even Griffin advocates for peace! Griffin!! The man was nearly sacrificed to the Elder Gods by Whyborne père and then nearly blown away by Stanford's (badly aimed, thank goodness) gun! Whyborne's feelings of isolation make sense.

I am fully aware of his faulty reasoning and his sense of injustice being perpetrated on him and his pettish whining all from the inside. I see it in myself when dealing with my own "family." (I hasten to add that my siblings have never aimed firearms at anyone nor are they, to the best of my knowledge, sharktoothed half-fish.) So Author Hawk was already singin' my song. The way the family drama and the story drama each resolve in step with the other felt natural, inevitable to me. The fact that Whyborne's loving husband and his best friend both support him emotionally as well as nudge him towards a more charitable view of his intimate enemies is a great enrichment of the emotional facet of the series. It's one reason I keep reading the books. By now most series stories are thin, floppy things. Not Whyborne & Griffin. The world the men occupy is different from our own but keeps adding layers and nuances and even, just like life, harks back to remembered events both fun and not so much.

As this installment of the loving, exciting lives of Whyborne & Griffin approaches its end, there is a chapter...57 to be precise...that will profoundly expand your appreciation for Author Hawk's chops, and will most likely move you as well. For that alone I will read the other two books already out in the series. But I do so in the hope that there will be others to come. It's rare that I feel a desire to continue a series to this length. I feel a strong need to finish what's out before I being the tedious process of waiting for more.

Trigger warning to the squeamishly heterosexual. Depictions of loving and consensual but still filthy-pig-dirty sex exist in here, just like they do in life; avoid if that's disagreeable to you. Also start at the beginning or you'll be utterly at sea reading the later books.

NECROPOLIS, fourth Whyborne & Griffin Lovecraftian paranormal suspense novel

NECROPOLIS
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #4)
Kindle edition
$4.99 available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Introverted scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne has spent the last few months watching his lover, Griffin Flaherty, come to terms with the rejection of his adoptive family. So when an urgent telegram from Christine summons them to Egypt, Whyborne is reluctant to risk the fragile peace they’ve established. Until, that is, a man who seems as much animal as human tries to murder Whyborne in the museum.

Amidst the ancient ruins of the pharaohs, they must join Christine and face betrayal, murder, and a legendary sorceress risen from the dead. In the forge of the desert heat, the trio will either face their fears and stand together—or shatter the bonds between them forever.

My Review: Book four in a series is a tricky point. There's a reason most of the fantasy/genre publishing world has been dominated by trilogies: We're mostly sick of the joke by the time we get to book three. Even of characters that are delightful and daisy-fresh and involved in unique endeavors, by the time we've read 300,000 words-plus about them, we're in full fatigue mode. It's the same reason there are danger points in marriages, cliffs that TV shows fall over, serial entrepreneurs.

We get bored.

So in a series of books that's about a pair of lovers becoming a couple, learning about themselves, each other, their families, and oh yeah by the way those monsters under your bed? totally real, how do we do the Bore-Me-Not Rhumba? At about the pace the men involved do it, per Author Hawk. Whyborne's antics in the first three books have led his gawky, scholarly self down some most unusual paths, and Griffin is deeply concerned for the safety and sanity of his mate. Their adventure in this book leads them to follow Christine, the token real girl, to the deserts of Egypt in order to thwart Nyarlathotep coming to Earth. (That's one of Lovecraft's Elder Gods, in case you're wondering.)

But the trip to Egypt is Whyborne's worst nightmare! Griffin, well, traveling is nothing to his former-Pinkerton self. He's quite looking forward to it...except he's worried about his beloved Whyborne, whose studies in sorcerous spells make him much more than a little nervous:

If the man couldn’t make an argument one way, he’d find another.

Welcome to marriage, Whyborne. Griffin is completely invested in you, your health, your survival. His happiness depends on your maintenance of all those things. He's going to argue with you about your behaviors when he sees you acting counter to what he knows is your best interest. That it isn't what you think is your best interest is what keeps marriages alive.

As is also bog-standard normal for long-term love, Party of the first part might as well be looking at a fun-house mirror for all the resemblance their self-image bears to Party of the second part's vision of them:

Griffin had once called me brave, but I couldn’t imagine how he would possibly think it. I feared everything: talking to strangers, leaving Widdershins, humiliating myself in public…the list went on and on. There was nothing for a man such as Griffin, who as a Pinkerton foiled bank robberies and chased down hardened criminals, to admire in me. But he thought otherwise, mad as it sounded, and his belief made me want to be that man, the one he could admire.

The bright face of being in love. How common a feeling, to want the beloved to be pleased with us! And how seldom we see that the beloved is looking squarely at us and seeing the strength that it takes to move in the face of fear. Griffin sees Whyborne's best in seeing his behaviors and knowing the fears and failings behind them:

How you burn, bright enough it almost blinds me. But I can’t look away.

And how often the beloved already is, far more than we ever credit or even believe when we're told as Griffin directly says to Whyborne above, possessed of our secrets and infatuated by our strength in the face of them.

It's a pallid but similar investment that the series reader makes in the series. This danger point, book four, sinks many a series under the weight of its tics and crotchets. Whyborne, our PoV character, is monumentally self-absorbed. The woman-ness of a lady isn't really an excuse for Whyborne's inability to see her, a new character in this book's, interest in him:

Her smile offered me no clues. “Very good indeed,” she affirmed, before turning back to the wall and leaving me to my confusion. ... I opened my mouth to ask what she meant. At the same moment, she leaned forward and kissed me.

And thus is a silly git shocked, shocked I say, by the mere existence of women aware of his desirability! It's played for comedy, and truthfully I've been Whyborne more than once in my life (it shames me to admit), but it's part and parcel of Whyborne's least appealing trait. It's very much at the fore here. It's a crotchet that could sink the series easily, as I found my eyes rolling without conscious volition...except Author Hawk got there ahead of me.

One of Griffin's refrains has been his concern for the effects of Whyborne's researches on his safety. Whyborne's counter is always, "look at how many times it's saved our bacon!" And this point is inarguable, but to one side, of Griffin's concern. Deflecting attention is a survival thing for Whyborne, growing up in a terribly dysfunctional family. It's been working fine until now, but Griffin and Christine are in much more danger than ever from multiple sources. All the sources are magical. All of them demand that Whyborne override Griffin's loving concern for his safety. All of the threats also demand that he de-absorb himself in his own head and notice, really and truly notice *in*the*moment* that his friends are real even when he's not paying attention to them.

About this time, most authors of series fail. They don't let the character that needs to grow make the leap. Author Hawk does, I'm very happy to say, and does so very explicitly. It is the reason I will read books five and up. I've included the quote as a spoiler, so look no farther down unless you're game for a spoiler.

******************************************SPOILER BELOW******************************************

REALLY AND TRULY THERE'S A SPOILER DOWN THERE


******************************************************************************************************************************

LAST CHANCE TO LOOK AWAY

******************************************************************************************************************************

Whyborne, afraid for his loved ones' continued safety after the supernatural enemies they faced down in this book, makes the following vow:

But I wasn’t helpless. And given the dark turns our lives had taken, the horrors we’d faced, it was my responsibility to arm myself as well as I might against any future threats. If we survived tonight, I’d stop pretending to be a dilettante and throw myself fully into the study of the arcane arts. I’d become a true sorcerer.

And now let the shenanigans commence. *gleeful hand-rubbing*

STORMHAVEN, third Whyborne & Griffin paranormal Lovecrafty Massachusetts novel

STORMHAVEN
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #3)
Kindle Original
$4.99 Kindle, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Mysterious happenings are nothing new to reclusive scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne, but finding one of his colleagues screaming for help in the street is rather unusual. Allan Tambling claims he can’t remember any of the last hour—but someone murdered his uncle, and Allan is covered in blood.

Whyborne’s lover, dashing ex-Pinkerton detective Griffin Flaherty, agrees to prove Allan’s innocence. But when Allan is deemed insane and locked away in the Stormhaven Lunatic Asylum, Griffin finds himself reliving the horrifying memories of his own ordeal inside a madhouse.

Along with their friend Christine, the two men become drawn deeper and deeper into a dark web of conspiracy, magic, and murder. Their only clue: a missing artifact depicting an unknown god. Who stole the artifact, and why can’t Allan remember what happened? And what is the truth behind the terrible experiments conducted on Stormhaven’s forbidden fourth floor?

It will take all of Whyborne’s sorcery and Griffin’s derring-do to stop the murderers and save Allan. But first, they must survive an even greater challenge: a visit from Griffin’s family.

My Review: My Young Gentleman Caller buys me these. He does it because 1) it earns him major points against problematic behaviors elsewhere and B) he gets to read them too. All readers of romance do it because it's a way of deriving satisfaction not ordinarily available in the real world.

I’m here because I wish to be. Because I love you as you are, right now, today.

Everyone breathing wants to hear that. How many of you have? Ever? And here it is in black and white, clear and unambiguous. Stated as fact from one lover to another. Fantasy fulfilled.

I brought this up to him as we were discussing this book. It is a simple need, the need to be loved; by simple, I mean instantly recognizable and easily understood by all. Why is it so complicated in real life, so difficult to find another who fulfills it?

Rules.

Party of the first part: Flawed and unable to change. Deal with it. Party of the second part: Godlike in possessing all the abilities of a mindreader, psychologist, alchemist, trillionaire, world-class athlete, martyr, saint, and sex toy. Must possess exactly the fantasy of perfect looks on the day Party of the first part is looking at them. Must be able to change genders/sex roles/needs as Party of the first part changes whims. Must love/hate the same foods/drinks/social attitudes as Party of the first part.

Book-lovers are better than meat-lovers, who have a regrettable tendency to fart, have morning breath, leave their hair in the shower drain, forget to buy (soy/almond/2%) milk, then get annoyed/upset/offended by being taken to task for these hideous, disfiguring failings. Because they are Party of the first part in their contract with you.

Books are so much easier.

So reading, as always, comes to the rescue! Maybe not so much...who hasn't seen the memes around the text "Boys in books are just better"? Of course they are! They're your fantasy, created for you by someone made of meat and with the same fantasy life you have. It's like porn!

It IS porn. Unrealistic expectations of reality fostered...check. Perverting the consumer into expecting fantasy to come alive in reality...check. Deeply obnoxious and unpleasant stereotyping of the object of the reader's fantasy...check. Disdained by the overculture as a "lesser and unworthy" form of entertainment that remains HUGELY popular and profitable...check.

Speaking of "lesser and unworthy" forms of entertainment, in this Platinum Age of episodic entertainment (I am a resolute cord-cutter who ONLY consumes episodes on ad-free streaming, so can't call it TV anymore, while the YGC is not yet so infuriated by the vileness of advertising) we're experiencing, my Young Gentleman Caller and I indulged our fantasy of being filmmakers unafraid to make gay-male Lifetime movies out of this series of romantic paranormal novels (to call them mysteries is to misrepresent their specific strength as stories). It turns out that Boys in our Books blogger Ami asked Author Hawk about that subject several years ago:

A: If the Whyborne and Griffin series was made into TV series, who do you imagine playing the characters?

JLH: I really don’t know! It’s funny, but my characters are so vivid to me it’s difficult to imagine anyone in their places. That said, I’m sure if it did ever happen, I’d be delighted to see an actor’s interpretation.

Our only choice for Whyborne lacks brown eyes, though contacts are perfectly acceptable:

Tall, beautiful, deeply sexy but seemingly unaware of just how stunningly desirable he is. Yay Armie Hammer for being willing to play gay in Call Me By Your Name, although the role didn't require him to, errrmmm, cavort with the toothsome morsel that is Timothée Chalamet. I mean, wow, doesn't that porno play in your head the instant you see those two together on screen!

No? Straight people. How very odd y'all are.

When it came to Griffin, we had similar unanimity. Our only choice for the role was, in fact, indicative of the reason I enjoy our conversations so much. He proposed:

The choice of James Franco was perfect for me, since I'd been thinking the same thing. I was opening my mouth to mention coloring when out the YGC came with, "I think we should just switch the coloring descriptions and leave the actors as they are." This is exactly what I was thinking. I have known very few people in this life who say what I'm thinking before I can get it out, and it's always so much fun to find another one.

Is that why I enjoy the series so much? Because the lad I'm lovin' up gives them to me, reads them with me, plays mental games with me after reading them? No. Not solely that, anyway. I am a fan of the Lovecraft mythos. Author Hawk uses it as a story enhancement. I could do with it being used more, in fact. Also enjoyable to me is the love affair between broken men fighting fears and flaws in themselves while each is surprised that their lover doesn't think they are unworthy and unlovable because of these gigantic, disfiguring flaws. It mirrors my own life experience, flaws so huge the flawed think they're forever undesirable and the loving partner saying, "what's the fuss? I think you're amazing." I am not quite sure where Author Hawk is taking this series in terms of the supernatural elements. I like the Lovecraft mythos because the Elder Gods aren't personal, humanistic gods, they don't even see humans as we are so small and unimportant. We call them gods because their "powers" or abilities are so vastly superior to our own. We even call Cthulhu, explicitly not one of the Elder Gods, a god because his powers are godlike...though he is simply a superior life form in the mythos itself.

Author Hawk isn't creating a quasi-religious fantasy in the series. Whyborne, the sorcerous intellectual, specifically says he doesn't believe in a god in this entry into the series. He doesn't know why his speaking of spells works but he rejects the idea that it's due to some god giving him a gift. That's exactly what I want to hear. That's exactly what I myownself believe. There are things we don't know, questions we can't answer yet, but there's no reason to believe there is A Divine Plan made by A Divine Planner *for*our*benefit*— in fact there's a metric shit-ton of evidence that's absurdly wrongheaded.

So that is the fundamental reason I am Author Hawk's fan. I feel that the stories are aimed at me, designed to fill my specific needs for story-making. And I receive this gift gratefully from the stranger who created the stories for their own reasons, to fulfill their own needs.

Also from a certain lovely blond lad who both wants and knows how to please his old man.

THRESHOLD, second novel in the Lovecraftian paranormal series starring Whyborne & Griffin

THRESHOLD
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #2)
Kindle Original
$4.99, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five, rounded up (actually out of four because there's a cat presented as a suitable companion animal for humans, which costs the perpetrator one star automatically)

The Publisher Says: Introverted scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne wants nothing more than to live quietly with his lover, ex-Pinkerton detective Griffin Flaherty. Unfortunately, Whyborne's railroad tycoon father has other ideas, namely hiring Griffin to investigate mysterious events at a coal mine.

Whyborne, Griffin, and their friend Christine travel to Threshold Mountain, a place of dark legend even before the mine burrowed into its heart. A contingent of Pinkertons—including Griffin's ex-lover Elliot—already guard the mine. But Griffin knows better than anyone just how unprepared the detectives are to face the otherworldly forces threatening them.

Soon, Whyborne and Griffin are on the trail of mysterious disappearances, deadly accidents, and whispered secrets. Is Elliot an ally, or does he only want to rekindle his relationship with Griffin? And if so, how can Whyborne possibly hope to compete with the stunningly handsome Pinkerton—especially when Griffin is hiding secrets about his past?

For in a town where friends become enemies and horror lurks behind a human mask, Whyborne can't afford to trust anything—including his own heart.

My Review: These stories are all in the Lovecraft Mythos. I think I wasn't au fait when I began the series. This makes my feelings about the reads quite different.

Whyborne and Griffin get invited to dinner at the home of Whyborne's much-despised daddy. He hires Griffin, thus also his son, to investigate paranormal doins at a mine that supplies his railroad. They recruit Christine Putnam, Whyborne's Egyptologist/Annie Oakley-level shot colleague at the Ladysmith Museum, as the backup muscle. (Seriously, does it matter why she's along? She has to be, so let's go with it.) They go to some ghastly little horror-movie burg in West Virginia (a state in which I say, from my own experience, there is nothing but horror-movie burgs):

The heights blocked the prevailing west-east breezes, leaving the air stagnant and still. Mosquitoes hummed above pools of water in the unpaved streets, and sweat prickled my neck beneath my collar. I longed for a bit of shade, but the lack of trees anywhere within the town made it a forlorn hope.

And this, laddies and gentlewomen, is Whyborne's first-ever trip away from Massachusetts! I can see the setting, I can feel the depths of utter horror poor, poor Whyborne experiences as he sees this vista of how the other 99.99% live.

The town is insular, cut off from reality, and that makes it vulnerable to alien invasion by creatures from outside our dimension of reality. (Watch that linked video on the Lovecraft Mythos!) In fact, the same thing that the white folk are using the mountain for...coal...is what attracted the aliens to the site. I don't know what spidercrabscorpion aliens would want with coal, but then I wouldn't, would I, what with being human and all. The aliens are called yayhos by the humans they...get to know...and are really, really, really revolting. It's mentioned several times that they smell of ammonia. Not a favorite smell of most humans. And what they say they want, just to be left alone to pillage our planet, makes them deeply analogous to Western colonial powers using Africa in the same late-19th-century timeframe as these books are set. The yayhos have a deep-seated need to learn and explore. Check. They have a callous indifference to whom they hurt in the process. Check. Small groups of them can inflict major damage on us, the natives. Check.

So no one needs to smirk condescendingly about the one-dimensionality of the story. It is making its social commentary and coming (!) to the correct, socially progressive conclusions on many fronts. The conditions for the miners in the town are portrayed accurately and judged harshly; race relations enter into the story and are dealt with accurately and found wanting; the role of the Pinkertons, Griffin's erstwhile employers, as forces of regressive and repressive capital is presented as part of a sub-plot linking Griffin to Elliot, the Threshold Pinkerton manager and Griffin's long-ago savior when he ran away from home to go to the Big City of Chicago.

Also coming out (!) of this entry in the series is the acknowledgment and inclusion in the arc of Griffin and Whyborne's relationship are the two stonking elephants in the room: Whyborne's life of privilege vs Griffin's hardscrabble beginnings; and Griffin's horrible, nightmarish confinement to a madhouse after he first encounters the Lovecraftian side of life. That was lightly touched on in the first book, Widdershins, but here we're faced with the man who found Griffin and made him a Pinkerton in the first place in Elliot. He was also the man who, after Griffin faced the madness-inducing terrors that cost him a partner in service of a Pinkerton case, slung Griffin into a madhouse. And walked away, never looking back. Elliot and Griffin have a lot to say to each other. They say it at an inopportune moment, sadly, leading to Whyborne coming to the hotel where he, Griffin, and Christine are all staying just as Elliot is leaving Griffin's room. A fight, unsurprisingly, ensues, in which some hurtful stuff is said and much, much miscommunication is experienced.

Griffin pleads to Whyborne in defense of his libidinous history with Elliot and with his dead partner Glenn, whose wife and kids were offered up to Whyborne as misdirection when he wanted to know if Griffin freaked out about Glenn's death because they were intime. Finding out that no lie was told makes not one jot of difference, of course, to Whyborne's sense of outrage:

“Believe me when I say I did a great deal more with other men, some of whom, yes, were married. It’s not unusual, you know. Many men like us have a normal family as well.”

It was, and is, ever thus. I speak from long, long experience when I say that this is going on right now and chances are much better than even that you know a couple where one or the other of the partners is in denial about her/is sexual preference. Especially if you live in a red state, or are a member of a religious community with strong opinions about how gawd wants people to eat/dress/fuck. Almost certainly you do if you're over 50.

But the author has much more in store for us than mere social engineering. We're going on a guilt trip! Perfidy abounds; double dealing reaches art-form nicety; the irredeemable are all around us, and their fate is condign. The biggest surprise comes as Griffin and Whyborne come out to each other as lovers:

The fingers of his free hand caught my chin, gently turning my face to his. His green eyes shone, and the smile on his mouth was soft and sweet. “You are my joy, Ival {this is Griffin's hideous nickname for Whyborne, who unsurprisingly hates to be called Percy}, and I love you more than I thought possible.”
Emotion tightened my throat. “As you are mine.”
“Even if I’m just the son of a farmer from Kansas, who happened to have a talent for mimicking his betters?”
I traced the line of his jaw, until my fingers came to rest just beside the curve of his lips. “You’re not just the son of a farmer from Kansas, or even the orphaned son of an Irishman, or anything else.”
“I’m not? Then who am I?”
“A good man. A man who wants to do what is best, by his friends and the world. But more importantly, the man I love.”
His smile was like the breaking of sunshine through clouds. “I think I can live with that,” he said, and kissed me again.

And that right there? That slayed me. What makes me read light romantic fiction, given the years and years of reading...forty-nine years since I got my own library card, fifty-two since I asked for and got my first very-own book...one might wonder. This is what: I want to believe. After almost sixty years on this wide green Earth of ours, I still want to believe that stories tell us truths we're waiting to live, show us goals we can actually achieve, let us love the loves we let go of, lost, failed, never found, just as if they were here and now.

There's not a lot of sex in these...wait...I've recently been told a book that had so little sex in it that I described it as heterosafe was, in fact, not so. I'll say this: The sex in this book is put in places and set at heat levels that match the storytelling. It's not shoved into places it shouldn't go, in other words.

I stared at that phrase for a good while before deciding to leave it there. If that double entendre makes you purse your lips, do not ever, ever buy, borrow, or gawd forbid *read* these books!

WIDDERSHINS, first paranormal mystery novel in a Lovecraftian Massachusetts

WIDDERSHINS
JORDAN L. HAWK (Whyborne & Griffin #1)
Widdershins LLC (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$2.99 eReader platforms, available

CELEBRATE PRIDE MONTH 2022! AUTHOR HAWK HAS MADE WIDDERSHINS FREE AT THAT LINK!

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Some things should stay buried.

Repressed scholar Percival Endicott Whyborne has two skills: reading dead languages and hiding in his office at the Ladysmith Museum. After the tragic death of the friend he secretly loved, he’s ruthlessly suppressed any desire for another man.

So when handsome ex-Pinkerton Griffin Flaherty approaches him to translate a mysterious book, Whyborne wants to finish the job and get rid of the detective as quickly as possible. Griffin left the Pinkertons following the death of his partner, hoping to start a new life. But the powerful cult which murdered Glenn has taken root in Widdershins, and only the spells in the book can stop them. Spells the intellectual Whyborne doesn’t believe are real.

As the investigation draws the two men closer, Griffin’s rakish charm threatens to shatter Whyborne’s iron control. When the cult resurrects an evil sorcerer who commands terrifying monsters, can Whyborne overcome his fear and learn to trust? Will Griffin let go of his past and risk falling in love? Or will Griffin’s secrets cost Whyborne both his heart and his life?

My Review: I finally bought this bagatelle for myself, after literally years sitting on my wishlist, this past birthday. I figure at *mumbletymumble* years old I can finally let go of the fear that They Will Not Approve and read whatever the heck I darned well please. Including paranormal romps with scads of gay sex and significantly smaller helpings of logic.

Uh huh. Like I can publicly admit how old I am in the context of reading *blush*shame* a, um, y'know, a book like this one is.

Y'know.

Fine. No really. FINE.

It's *deep breath* a smexy silly romance with True Luuuv and Evil Monsters and Supernatural Creatures! It has No Redeeming Social Value! I read it because it was A Good Story!

There, are y'all happy now? Whatever tiny scrap of credibility I ever had as a book reviewer is gone.

And that, my chick-a-biddies, is how romantic fiction readers of every stripe are made to feel. It's complete crap and it's indicative of a nasty, judgmental streak in the culture of literacy. *What* are you reading, philistine, tut the superiority addicts, don't call that literature, don't sully our ever-so-pure air blathering about your, your, lesser, baser, frankly uninteresting...books (so called) that do nothing but entertain those of, frankly, limited intellectual capacity. I wonder what these reviewers, these Guardians of the Gates, would do if their precious darlings of Literature were subjected to the eighteenth century's test of worthiness in reading matter: "Novels?! Men do not read novels. The weaker sex read novels because they are not capable of processing True and Fine Thinking such as scholars read! Men who write entertainments such as novels are merely pandering to the feeble and inferior baser instincts of the ladies. Shame! Shame on you, sir, for hastening the decline of Our Noble Culture!"

This is how it always goes through the generations. So let's stop judging what each other read and be happy that some people enjoy reading more than staring at screens. Although to be fair, I did read this on Kindle, so....

Having had my rant about the foolishness of judging others, I continue to the book at hand, first of a series of paranormals set in fictional Widdershins, Massachusetts. This town was settled after its founding father escaped from Salem during the Witch Hunt. He was, unlike the other poor sods tried and judicially murdered for witchcraft, guilty as original sin of the crime. Theron Blackbyrne was a beautiful, hunky blond Sodomite as well as a witch. His reach, sadly, exceeded his grasp, as certain essentials needed for the grand spell he wanted to cast, the one that would buy him immortality, eternal youth, and all the boy booty he could dream of, were simply unavailable in the New World. So he left some explicit instructions with his acolytes on what they needed to procure and when they needed to use it to resurrect him in order that he be able to complete his spell.

Several centuries elapse. The acolytes, surprise!, weren't at all eager to resurrect the master in whose service they'd become rich...poor followers are useless, ask any politician...in order to hand over all their worldly acquisitions. Um, no thanks, I'm good. He molders in the grave, they use the bits and bobs they got from Blackbyrne to acquire more bits and bobs, time passes and the town of Widdershins grows in prosperity as a port city, the local worthies open themselves a museum with an Egyptian antiquities focus...the items needed for Blackbyrne's resurrection accumulate, almost in spite of the great and good...and then a tragedy occurs that properly starts our story.

Percival Endicott Whyborne, wimpy bookish kid turned scholarly shirt-lifting introvert, introduces himself to us as the second son of an overbearing Widdershins magnate. He is also, in his own mind at least, the murderer of his childhood crush object who also happens to be his father's best friend's son. His unnatural lust for this friend is bound up in his survivor's guilt based on his inability to rescue the boy who drowned in a lake.

It is Whyborne's fate to act as the catalyst for Blackbyrne's resurrection. It is his good fortune to have the esoteric knowledge, the robust support systems, and the steely moral center to offer resistance to the terrible forces Blackbyrne would like to harness in his quest for immortality...including Yog-Sothoth, mentioned by name! Luck is on Earth's side, since Whyborne went to Miskatonic University in Arkham and learned all sorts of useful philological tricks.

H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos has long, long, long tentacles.

Whyborne, who detests being called Percy, has the excellent fortune to meet and fall in lust, in love, then into the arms of, strong, capable, experienced Griffin Flaherty. Another lad of the time whose Sodomitical tendencies were the catalyst for his exile from his only home and then his worst nightmare coming true, Griffin likes cats (an entire star off my rating of the book for that horrible lapse in authorial judgment) and goofy, gawky men, which makes him the best possible partner for Whyborne. The worst nightmare part is the bit that's most important. Griffin, you see, has experienced the dark and terrifying reach of the Mythos into ordinary life first hand. Its indelible mark on his soul means he will go to any length to combat the entry of those from Outside into our safe little home. Whyborne is embroiled with the Blackbyrne followers by virtue of birth and constitutionally unable to tolerate their wickedness by nature. He and Griffin must combat the actual demons and face their personal ones simultaneously and together.

The remaining half-star was lost to this book by the sheer improbability of a multi-century evil cabal surviving in Puritanical Massachusetts, the improbably used facets of Lovecraft's Mythos with Egyptian mythology, and assorted anachronistic speech patterns. My standards for entertaining fiction aren't all that high, but Griffin's invented nickname for Whyborne (since he understandably dislikes Percy) flew straight into my craw and stuck there."Ival"? How is that even pronounced?!

The next entry in the series is a short work called Eidolon. I'll be reviewing it soon..