Aleksandr Voinov

Joshua and Chris had been best friends growing up. just before they each left for their church missions…going in different directions...Joshua disappears and is presumed dead, Chris is beyond devastated…so much so that he never goes on his mission and leaves the church. When Chris leaves the mission and his church it also meant leaving his family.... or more so his family leaving and forsaking him. At any rate, when Chris lost his faith, he lost everything. So what is a guy to do when the long-lost best friend, the reason for your five years of heartache, just comes waltzing back into your life? Chris is floored, but deliriously happy, but also equally angry that Joshua could just take off without a word, at least without a single, solitary word to him. Weren't they best friends? Weren't they beginning to feel more? I really felt bad for Chris, but I also completely understood Joshua, who is now calling himself Julien. Julien not only took off, but he joined the French Foreign Legion and now has returned as a soldier, and even has a little French accent. That is a lot to wrap your head around, but even though Chris gets his digs in for taking off on him, he is still has a huge attraction…they both do…but now they are no longer inexperienced, scared kids...now they are experienced men…and they are nothing short of hot together. Wish I could say that Julien and Chris put all their issues behind them and rode off into the sunset, but it didn't happen because...you guessed it...the church is back rearing its head again into their lives. This time it has come between Julien and his dying father. They have to deal with an ungodlike totally unlikeable awful Bishop who gets more of a thrill out of causing more pain for the family than actually helping them. I cheered when he gets his in the end. This a typical L.A. Witt novel. It has a great storyline that keeps the reader captivated until the very end. The story may offend a few people, but in reality, it appears to be very well researched, and you know that sometimes the truth is just not necessarily all that pretty.… (meer)

Take It Off is the second book in L. A. Witt and Aleksandr Voinov’s Market Garden series that follows a group of rent boys who work at an exclusive, upscale London club of the same name. It picks up Tristan and Jared’s story just a short time after we left them in the last book, Quid Pro Quo. It’s been perhaps a couple of months since their first encounter together, “performing” for Rolex, the nickname they gave to the wealthy john who set them on this path. Since then, they’ve continued their act for other johns or sometime to tag team the customers. Given how close they’ve become, Tristan has been catching feelings for Jared, but lately he feels like Jared has been pulling away. Tristan wants to take their relationship outside the club and away from the customers, but unsure if Jared feels the same way, he’s been trying to screw up the courage to find out. Then Rolex returns for a repeat performance, giving Tristan what he thinks might be the perfect opportunity to show Jared just how much he’s come to care about him, until Rolex and Jared turn the tables on him so that Jared can get sweet revenge by tormenting Tristan this time around.

The first story of the series was written from Jared’s POV, but this one is from Tristan’s perspective, which was a welcome change of pace. Previously Tristan was the confident, charming, and more dominant one of the pair, while Jared was a little more unsure of himself. We knew from that story that Jared was crushing hard on Tristan, so he was eager to team up with him to give their customer a steamy show. This time around Tristan is the one developing feelings for Jared. He’s starting to want alone time with him so that they can just get to know one another and do what pleases them rather than having to always please the customers. But because they’ve never really discussed it, Tristan isn’t sure if their performances together are just an act for Jared or if there’s something more to it. I liked seeing this more vulnerable side to Tristan, because it showed him as more than the confident, dominant lover. It was also an interesting twist to have Jared be the one teasing and tormenting Tristan, because it not only showed that Jared has gained confidence but also showed Tristan in a more defenseless state, where he just can’t resist Jared’s hotness. As with the first story, Take It Off is mostly about the sex, and whew!, is it ever steamy, totally setting the pages on fire. Also like the first, it has more of an HFN ending, with Tristan and Jared finally agreeing to see each other outside of work. However, I know that there’s one more story to come for these two heroes, the sixth book of the series, Pay Off, where I hope they’ll finally get their HEA. I just adore Tristan and Jared together and look forward to reading more about them and the other boys at Market Garden.

Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, including voyeurism/exhibitionism, sex work, and a little MMM menage action, which could be objectionable to sensitive readers.… (meer)

So I have these two lives, right? The life of me as a pagan, with all my pagan friends – many of whom are queer – and that’s one side of things. Then I have the life of me as a reader of queer fiction, with many queer fiction reading (and writing) friends. And then you get a moment like this, where both of those worlds get to intersect, and you get to see how awesome it would be when a great writer combines realistic paganism with queer fiction.

For many of us pagans, this is exactly what it’s like. Quiet nods to deity. Offerings and getting together with friends and nothing you’d see in a television show, but still having plenty of profound moments that create growth, love, transformation and more. Also seeing a bunch of people with different practices getting together and talking easily about those practices, even though they don’t always sync up, struck me as being very true to real life.

Quite outside of that, I adored Lars as a main character and as the introduction to the Witches universe. He’s sweet and caring, he cooks hearty food and renovates homes. He is constantly drawn to the potential beauty in what others may see as rundown and ramshackle, which is why it’s not surprising that he stays with Rhys despite his severe illness, not only seeing so much beauty in him in the present, but also in the potential of what could be.

Lars and Rhys’ relationship was a fascinating one that explores what it can really be like when two people are dealing with an illness that makes itself part of a relationship by how huge and energy demanding it is. The hurt/comfort factor is wonderful - that's something I love to read in general and this book delivered. I liked that Rhys was realistically ill. He didn’t ‘have the illness’ during one scene, and then not at all during another (as a person with chronic illness, I get very tired of this with any kind of illness, including mental ones). He had a groundedness in how he approached his illness that I think a lot of sick people have and use, even as a defence or as a way to hold people away from them. Watching that play out and create conflict between Lars and Rhys was actually really satisfying for me on a personal level.

The other characters in the ensemble are also really interesting and you can sense a lot of room for development and story in future books. I liked Julian the most out of the group, not in a ‘I’d like to be your friend’ way, but in a ‘you have a really electrifying energy, and tend to charge scenes with a certain kind of dynamism’ way. I don’t think everyone will like him, but that’s what I love about him. Polarising characters are great at getting people invested, and he certainly hooked me in, while I was still getting to know Lars.

As for the magical side of things well, I don’t want to spoil anything, but I will say it all felt very true to real life across the different practices I’ve had over the years. I think anyone living on one of the branches of the huge tree that is paganism will find something familiar here, and to read it in a fictional m/m love story, instead of in a non-fiction tome, strikes me as a very Bardic thing to be doing, and I am so here for this kind of storyweaving, which reaches out to folks regardless of their beliefs. Definitely recommended.
… (meer)