Last Wish Blues, by Lubrican

Lubrican has a talent for heartwarming smut. When you read one of his books, you know that sex is in the offing, but your emotions are nearly always engaged before the act occurs. His characters are subject to lust, but they go through a gamut first—guilt, compassion, fear, protectiveness, jealousy. And, almost as inevitably, the conclusion leaves more than the senses satisfied: his heroes end up making someone else happy.

The Last Wish Blues has more emotions than most before any kind of fulfillment. The protagonist, Bob, is suffering from an almost crippling emotional loss, when he encounters a girl in more dire circumstance still. Brenda came to his dude ranch as part of her last wish. The two young people go through a trip full of emotional growth before even a hint of lust shows up. The first part is a tear-jerker; but Lubrican succeeds in limiting the angst. A gradual romance develops, through glimpses of humor, discovery of nature, and compassion. The tragedy is at last averted, and wish-fulfillment-style happy ending sets in, but so smoothly that it does not cheapen the suffering before.

And impressively for a relatively short work, even the secondary characters add color.  Brenda's parents' fear and desperate hope; and Bob's friends' compassion make the story even more engaging.

The author crafted engaging characters, and deftly steered a narrow path between melodrama and callousness. The end result is more of a Romance than Erotica, but no less exciting for all that.  The Last Wish Blues can be found on here on Amazon.com.

A Chaotic Trilogy

The "State of Chaos" trilogy by Ezzy Black—Rebecca Danced, Anita's Rescue and State of Chaos—describes the lives of a group of teenagers. It's centered around Tony Smith, a wealthy, accomplished high school student, and his friends and family.

I seem to be reading a lot of books with the main character called Tony, full of remarkable talents. This Tony, unlike the narrator of Mural, is a confident, socially adept teenager, despite being a few years younger. He has inherited wealth, a musical talent, and is a licensed captain of a yacht. Despite all that, he is modest, kind, and to top it off skilled with the opposite sex.

To compensate for all that luck, Tony has some demons in his past. When he encounters Rebecca, a new student dealing with crippling medical problems, he jumps in to help. The plot evolves predictably from there, with romance as well as music.

Most of the major characters in these books are highly talented in one or more ways, as well as being just plain nice, too nice, really, for a bunch of high schoolers. That would remove much of the suspense, except the characters are so nicely portrayed that one really wants to see what happens to them. The author also drops in some plot twists and challenges. Even though we know things will go well, it's interesting to see how the highly fortunate, but inexperienced characters handle it. The later books have some darker elements, but the overall tone remains fairly light.

The secondary characters are interesting as well. Tony's love interest, Rebecca, and especially his younger sister, enliven most scenes they touch. Tina, the sister, is a musical prodigy of uncommon proportions; it's good that she is not the viewpoint character, since such talent is better observed from a more "normal" prospective of Tony, who is no mean musician himself.

As might be expected, music is a major part of Tony's and the crew's lives. Their progress in the books is remarkable, and the third book implies a great future for the friends.

All in all, the trilogy has a number of too-good-to-be-true elements, but the characters are colorful and at times vulnerable enough to intrigue the reader. The plot, while generally light, has good pacing and a nice number of twists and surprises despite lack of overall suspense. The next book in the series would be welcome.

The "State of Chaos" books can be found on here on Amazon.com.

A Pleasant Mural

Mural: Model Student Book 1 by Devon Layne is a pleasant read.  Available from Amazon.com, it's an electronic book describing a freshman at an art college. Tony Ames is not unlike many others college freshmen, out on their own for the first time.  He is desperately homesick, and his limited social development makes it hard to make new friends.  He doesn't enjoy several of the courses, has doubts about his own abilities, and definitely lacks discipline and study skills.  In fact, he's seriously considering quitting...

Tony is a sympathetic character with a talent, and a drive to paint.  In fact, that talent is a major part of his character, distinguishing him from the average lonely freshman, but also, stereotypically, providing him with plenty of angst.

Tony learns better study skills, and acquires friends, and romantic relationships, almost despite himself.  His progress is tremendous, almost unrealistic at times.  There is more than a bit of wish fulfillment there.  Still, the author keeps limitations and insecurities around, and even the new and improved Tony has enough vulnerabilities to engage the reader's interest.

Tony's love interests are almost uniformly beautiful, passionate, kind.  Luckily for us, the author manages to keep them distinct, and to give them their own insecurities, which allows Tony to shine, while keeping the pretty girls interesting.  There is sex in the novel -- the wish fulfillment aspects show there as well; but the characters and the scenes are diverse and sensitive enough to avoid becoming porn.

All in all, the engaging characters make this story work.  If one is willing to allow some artistic drama, and somewhat Mary-Sue-like characteristics, Mural can provide plenty of light reading pleasure.  One hopes that we will see more of Tony and his friends.