Book Review: Under His Everything: Hybrid Heat Book Seven

Under His Everything: Hybrid Heat Book Seven


This is a Her Tangh-i-ness Approved read. I’ve read this book from beginning to end twice. I’d been reading Kiki Burrelli for awhile. I am also a Black FemDom, so Sibelius is the kind of character I felt represented me as an ethical Dom.

Yes, Ken and Karen, there are such things. Anyhoo, this is about the lovestory at the center of a M/M Mpreg Alpha/Omegaverse where I first started reading Kiki’s Wolf’s Mate, then the Den Series, then Hybrid Heat, and fell deeper and deeper into her story worlds.

First off, I appreciate Kiki for writing Sibelius, a Black man as a MC who didn’t make me want to throw a book across a room. Positive Black MC characters are an exception still, not the norm, in too many genres. Sibelius has control issues. What Dom…ahem…human doesn’t?

I appreciate Sibelius’s nonBlack mate, Griffith, for being a reflection of a real struggle that submissive males have. Yes, Ken and Karen, Griffith likes giving it up to Sibelius. He has wanted nothing more than to do so, but the problem is Sibelius thinks he knows what’s best for the both of them.

One can argue this is a classic case of Topping from Below, but I think it’s more a case of how ethical Doms and subs are like magnetic poles that learn to harmonize with each other. These two love each other and for those of us who are kinky and think men should get pregnant on a regular basis, all we really want is some angst, a few action set pieces, plenty of NSFW Perv moments on their way to the knotting that leads to a healthy, happy little offspring.

Her Tangh-i-ness definitely thinks Sibelius and Griffith should return in a series of their own. Hint. Hint. Kiki are you listening?


Note: This Under His Everything: Hybrid Heat Book Seven was a self-purchased digital title. Her Tangh-i-ness usually reviews on a for-the-love basis. No lucre has been involved.

Book Review: Skin Deep Magic by Craig Laurance Gidney

I adore short stories, especially fantastical ones. My acquaintance with Craig Laurence Gidney's work actually begins with the YA novel, Bereft, but that's another book to mention in its own review.

I knew I needed to read Skin Deep Magic when I saw the cover.

There's a dark-skinned Black woman's face with eyes closed framed by gold leaves and blossoms. I'm old enough to remember when it wasn't common to see a Black woman on a cover. Even the great departed Octavia Butler was not safe from a Marketing department that believed no one would buy a book with a picture of a Black person on the cover. I must be an anomaly then, because I am one of those Readers who is often enticed by the cover first to sample what's inside the book. And I wanted to buy books with characters who resembled me.

And sure 'nuf' here is Brotha Gidney writing 'bout some most powerful Sistahs in these stories. (Ebonics totally intentional.) I felt like I wanted to be or had been some of these women. And it IS a magical thing when a male writer hangs up his own gender like a coat and dons another dreaming herself into the Reader's reality. (Pronoun Gender switch is totally intentional.) I believed in these women and the gents who graced these pages. Mighty fine writing if you ask me. The African Descended have long utilized the power of the word.

For those of us who identify as Black, our being ignored or belittled subject matter is in escapable as gravity or the call of mortality. I simply wanted to provide the context of why this short story collection so moved me. At some point, a well-meaning person decided that the trope of the Magical Negro was to be scorned. In the context of the Black character who serves no other purpose than to illuminate a white character that person is absolutely correct, however, magic and Blackness are often inseparable and it is to that truth that the tales in Skin Deep Magic speak to.

*Spoiler Alert*

Her Tangh-i-ness greatly appreciates pithy plot summaries. However, for those who must have a virgin reading experience, read no further, and eyeball elsewhere.

*Spoiler Alert End*

Psychometry, or Gone with the Dust

A mountain of Black memorabilia in a dead woman's home yields some disturbing clues about each piece's origin when touched. As someone who has had real-life experiences with Psychometry, I wouldn't even call this piece fiction. Gidney is simply telling how these things be.

Sapling

Maybe this is the story that inspired the book cover. A young woman learns she is the daughter of a tree spirit and that joining her absent father in the local greenspace is the highpoint of her existence. This story also features a theme that often crops up in Gidney's work: a conflict due the stranglehold Christian belief on the Old ways of knowing/being.

Mauve's Quilt

Two lonely people on either side of a quilt exchange worlds. Eventually, Mauve returns to the known world after a motherless Quentin is drawn into hers. Ahh, the power to be found in stitches.

Lyes

I had to giggle at this story. Graduate Students under pressure. No one expects trademark imagery to take life and start haunting them. Sheri never suspected her strongest ally would be the one person who could have called the country bumpkin. I need one of those Caution: Educated Black Woman T-shirts.

Conjuring Shadowa

This is one of my favorite pieces. Back in the day where men loving men gathered, a guardian stood with them. Even when the boys in blue come to bust up the party, they too find themselves pressed man to man and mouth to mouth in 1926.

Zora's Destiny

Here Gidney pays homage to one of his literary forebears. Zora calls upon an Elder to ease her mother's suffering and by story end learns her own path lies in tale-telling and root-working. This is the second of the Christian Vs. Old World Belief themed stories.

Death and Two Maidens

One dead female house servant meets with a living one and both are pestered by the same top-hatted, skull-faced gent. Only a fellow goddess can bring them any defense. Follow the machinations of the Loa whose territories range far outside not only Africa but also the human heart and head.

Sugardaddy

The highlight of this story is the unflinching look at some of the uglier aspects of Urban Life. The daughter of an abusive addict takes matters into her own hands once she becomes a huntress herself. Who knew toxins and additives could taste so good? One might say the moral of they story is to be kind to those big, fat girls. You never know what they might be capable of.

Inscribed

A deceased, gay, white father and a dead black mother join forces to protect their adult child from an ancient patron of thieves whose modern-day vehicle is a pc game. The question I pondered the longest as I read was did the child even want to be saved?

Coalrose

This is one of my other favorite stories from the collection. Let's deconstruct. What is Negritude? What is a stage performance? What is the performer? What happens when the sensuality of Josephine Baker combines with the rawness and blackness of a Nina Simone? Raise your hand if you thought of Coalrose.


Note: This copy of SkinDeep Magic was a hard copy edition purchased by the reviewer. Her Tangh-i-ness usually reviews on a for-the-love basis. No lucre has been involved.

Book Review: Little Dystopias by Kyle Aisteach

Like your Science Fiction Soft as Well as Hard? Does the Fantastical have to be a bit twisted for you to enjoy it? Has Her Tangh-i-ness got a new read for you. Do you want to have a snippet into the evolution of your stories before you dive into them?

Then you're gonna gobble up the essays in love Little Dystopias. One essay for each short story. If you're curious, like me, then you want to know what incident precipitated a reading experience and Kyle Aisteach lays it all bare for you. Isn't that delightfully wicked of him?

This compilation isn't short of stories. Seventeen tales ranging from the what-ifs of Science Fiction to the Anti-Fantastiscal.



*Spoiler Alert*

Her Tangh-i-ness greatly appreciates pithy plot summaries. However, for those who must have a virgin reading experience, read no further, and eyeball elsewhere.

*Spoiler Alert End*



Too Close for Comfort - Her Tangh-i-ness delighted in the essay that gave the 411 on this tale. Do take us back to the Science Fiction Golden age. A scientist mother, a lawyer, and some imprisoned Neanderthals intersect in a way that might make Clarence Darrow proud.

The Survivors’ Menagerie - Where Readers observe two important premises: Irish lasses disappear in their own time and out of it. One can take a gladiator out of arena, but you can't take the fighter out of him.

Pressure and the Argument Tree - Consider the usefulness of neutral buoyancy. C'mon you do want to know what can go possibly right in a Venus Surface Rover don't you? BTW, does anyone else think heroes should be named after poets?

Final Voices - The title sums it all up.

The Wrong Dog - Animal spies, a veterinarian, and a persecuted religious group that believes that the Earth has a heart. Who said veterinarians couldn't be action heroes?

Eternal Love - Okay Zombiephiles, here ya go. Flash Fiction about a cringeworthy jest. Call the dry cleaners. Stat.

Clockman - One Gwen outlasts them all: mechanical warrior, knights, wizard, and father-king. ROFLMAO.

A Fairy Tale - When the prince is a blond bottom, the princess takes bad puns into her arsenal. And the stable boy puts on a performance worthy of being made into a blue movie.

Nobody’s Ancestor - This what happens when a so-called rational mind cannot embrace the reality of Life After Death.

Eternity Undone - A woman named for two Hindu goddesses meets with a cybernetically preserved man. Erasure follows.

Promised - A young Hope and and an older Stone come together and the afterwards is bleak.

Unforgivable - Justice gone stone cold. Virtual Reality Vs. Criminal Recidivism.

The Folklorist’s Notebook - Stories within a story. Complete with guidelines, the spiral binding and blood.

Another Generation’s Problems - A Chinese woman survives an attack that kills her parents. Later in life, Miss Wu encounters the Black American war criminal on a crippled space station. She decides to leave him there instead of turning him over to the Chinese authorities.

Ward and Protector - A Sentient spaceship suffering from dementia has a Hal 5000 moment with the human who flies with her.

Nobody Watches - Horny sixteen year old gay male looking for attention. He learns he has to give it first.

Man of Water - Her Tangh-i-ness especially likes this story. A former Congressman on the run from men who melt. Gimme another neologism.



Note: This copy of Little Dystopias was an electronic edition acquired from an author upon the reviewer's request. Her Tangh-i-ness usually reviews on a for-the-love basis. No lucre has been involved.

Book Review: Bone Walker Book 2 Free Court of Seattle Series by Angela Korra'ti

Yeah, Peoples, Her Tangh-i-ness has something to say again. Listen up.

*Spoiler Alert*

Her Tangh-i-ness greatly appreciates pithy plot summaries. However, for those who must have a virgin reading experience, read no further, and eyeball elsewhere.

*Spoiler Alert End*

So African American females can play violins, have Faerie blood, enjoy interracial relationships, have a human mage and a Faery Rockstar equivalent's attentions, and save the day? An established Male-Male and a new Female-Female couple figure as the other ongoing romances? Best of all, Japanese Dragons and Kitsune abound? And all of this happens in Seattle? (which happens to be the only city in the US that I happily consider dwelling in as an alternative to my native Boston?)

Efffff-Ya! I wanna read me some o' dat! (Ebonics totally intentional)

Bone Walker is a book that celebrates the power of music and music-makers and subtly reminds us of just why despots have always feared the creatives of this world. Bone Walker is the kind of novel where girl has to play her violin into a fury before she goes out and kicks the baddie's butt. Can I get a witness?

I can say the good news about the novel Bone Walker is that I am this book's target audience. There are readers like me who are People of Color, a Geek/Geekette, LGBTQI/Allied, Creative, and who defy what Mainstream Marketing would have readers like us absorb. I am on Team Anti-Twilight. Keep the 1950's throwback Bella. Kendis Thompson makes up for me the Serious Suck value of watching Rue and Thresh die in The Hunger Games. Bone Walker is for readers like me who squirmed through Lord of the Rings every time the beautiful, blond elves clashed with the dark, ugly orcs, goblins, and trolls. Guess who this reader identified with every time? Just sayin'.

That said, I am also a reader who started with a second book in the series. Let me tell you Bone Walker worked as a standalone. So much so that I wanted to begin reading the first book, Faerie Blood, immediately to see what I'd missed and I will happily follow Kendis to a third book.

Note: This copy of Bone Walker: Book 2 Free Court of Seattle was an electronic edition acquired from an author upon the reviewer's request. Her Tangh-i-ness usually reviews on a for-the-love basis. No lucre has been involved.