Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Self Published

Genre:  Gay Romance

Tags: Paranormal, Humour

Length: 500 Pages  

Reviewer: Kaz

Purchase At: amazon

Blurb:

Once upon a time, a bunch of authors wondered… what would happen if Heart2Heart, the mystical matchmaking app adored across the supernatural world, brought in an absolute legend to help them find true love?

This Valentine’s Day, the sunshiny necromancer, the lonely vampire, and the nonbinary dragon will put their trust in H2H and a certain cheeky cherub of romance. Will Cupid’s arrows strike true?

As always, all proceeds from this anthology will benefit LGBTQ+ charities to ensure that love in all its incarnations will be celebrated and protected every single day of the year!

Stories included in this collection are:

You Can’t Spell Necromancer Without Romance, by Alice Winters
Hot Date, by Eliot Grayson
Sweet Treats, by Grae Bryan
Looking 4 Furever, by Kiki Clark
Locked in Love, by Lark Taylor
Love Me Love My Dogs, by Macy Blake
Not So Cupid, by Mika Nix
Starry Night, by Pandora Pine
The Hidden God of Open Doors, by Tavia Lark
Love Under the Sea, by Taylor Rylan

Review:

This came out for Valentine’s Day but I was on a long hiatus from reading so I only just bought it to read. You could read this anthology at any time and each story gives readers enough to get a feel for what each writers other books could be like. I’ve read and reviewed a lot of romance anthologies over the last 12 years of romance reading and reviewing. I’ve found some authors that have become recurrent reading for me through them. There wasn’t one bad story in here which made me happy because that can happen in more than a few anthologies. Every author has a link to their respective Amazon page next to their story if you’re interested in more about their writing.

1. You Can’t Spell Necromancer Without Romance, Alice Winters

This was a very nice way to kick off a PNR romance anthology. Axton is a witch who finds a dead body on his lawn. Not something that’s likely to make your day a winner. But this is Valentine’s Day and Cupid’s involved.

So, Axton and his kind of embarrassing familiar, Hades the sassy miniature horse, have to go to someone who is probably the obvious culprit for said corpse, Sylvan the necromancer. He who is prophesised will be the killer of 1,000+. Yep. There’s a bit of trepidation going to see Sylvan because necromancer. Because prophesy. But what is said about him and what the truth is, it needs to be read.

The man who is destined to kill thousands. The man coated in darkness who could raise hundreds of dead with a single spell. The man with fluffy white hair, big eyes, and pink clothes… Hold on… what?

This short had two POV. It’s all upbeat. The humour around Johnny and Paul, two of the men raised by Sylvan as his muscle, raised a laugh or two from me. Especially Johnny who likes to get his naked on. I got the general vibe that the author had some fun with YCSNWR. I really liked this one.

 2.  Hot Date, Eliot Grayson

Ha! I would have known this was an Eliot Grayson story even if no name was attached to it. There’s a smokin’ demon who’s not only hot but has the hots for our self-deprecating, sweet and unintentionally humorous lead, David.

David has a migraine, has tried everything to help, all to no avail, and his boyfriend has literally no fucks to give, meaning poor David’s heat pad is not being given back. There will be no comfort or compassion coming his way. So, what’s a migraine-y guy to do? Summon a hunky demon using some pretty basic stand-in ingredients for the summoning books actual ingredients, that’s what you do. He’s tried before but he really needs this migraine gone. He’s desperate.

Well, go big or go home. What follows is a lot of BIG D sex and a menacing (to the right people), caring, hot to trot demon that Cupid himself has declared as David’s perfect match… well, the app does *Applauds that H2H app!

“You’re going to belong to me after this, David,” he said, tone matter-of-fact, and I blinked again, not sure if I was hallucinating the reddish glow in his eyes or not. “I’m finally here, and I’m going to stay inside you. Until you can’t feel anything but me.”

And Xan keeps that promise. ^^ The story’s title doesn’t lie. Hot Date is the one erotic story in the anthology. It has Grayson’s trademark humour, paranormal activity, and cheeky fun thrown around, and as Cupid Stunt liked to say – ‘it’s all done in he best possible taste!’ I thoroughly enjoyed this short.

3. Sweet Treats, Grae Bryan

This story is about a sweet (half) pixie and a sweet (feels he’s boring) human accountant who run into one another around town doing sweet things… or shopping… but neither realise that they both want the same thing – a serious relationship where no one is mean or rude or flighty. Oh, and beauty is important. The Cupid dating app matches them and it’s all sweet, sweet, sweet half pixie-human accountant love.

Sweet Treats is well constructed. Well edited. At its core beats a nice heart, but it’s verrrry sweet, too sweet. Summation: Herein lies too much wholesomeness for predominantly black-hearted moi.

4. Looking 4 Furever, Kiki Clark 

I went in thinking this story might be a bit too cutesy for me with that title. Rance, short for Ransom – god, I kept thinking Rancid when I saw the shortened version. On both counts, Ransom or Rancid, who would do that to their child? Anyway, I digress. Rance is a barista who likes an older guy (a lynx shifter) who comes into the café he works at. But why would the other guy be into twenty-three-year-old him? Come on, Rance, you’re a hot young thang!

Dean, the other or older guy, goes and gets his coffee from Rance when he doesn’t even like coffee. There’s an overabundance of texting between Rance and his… bestie? Whatever, the Cupid app thingy sets everyone straight and, bingo, a perfect match is found. This even had a non-epilogue epilogue. It was a good idea that needed to be titled ‘Epilogue’ and given some more pages. An okay short that wasn’t as ‘cutesy’ as I thought it would be.

5.  Locked in Love, Lark Taylor 

Ash is a vampire who wants someone to listen to him because he likes to rattle things off, especially if he’s excited or nervous. The H2H Cupid app pairs him with Lochlan, a Scottish water mage. Lochlan feels Ash is out of his league and kind of shuts down on their date, but hallelujah, he listens, which gives Ash hope. However, Ash is still down on his chatty self… but he’s horny, so there’s that biological overriding factor.

Both MCs have been around a while, so they have that in common. They fall for each other, seem right for each other, but Ash has an ex boyfriend who puts himself on the scene. The ex boyfriend, plus a not too small degree of inner rumination, was a bit much in such a short story. It could have been dealt with more quickly. An okay short.

6. Love Me Love My Dogs, Macy Blake 

George Duko is a wolf shifter who happens to share his full name with a famous rock star. What George Duko (the wolf shifter) calls ‘the incident’ had the famous George Duko naming his dog rescue sanctuary in his Socials which led to fans donating and setting him up for the next decade and kind of checking the rescue out. Okay. There might have been some people lurking occasionally after ‘the incident’. Still, I was thinking – ‘George, be grateful for small mercies, FFS’.

George’s bestie, Wanda, sets George up unknowingly on the Cupid H2H app, much to George’s chagrin. Anyhow, in spite of his unhappiness about it, George finds his Cupid-y match. Said match is a pretty dragon shifter, Braxton, which also irritated George – the pretty part. George gets a pass from me because anyone who rescues animals, especially dogs, is gold in my books, and George comes good as the story progresses. An okay read.

7.  Not So Cupid, Mika Nix 

The MC Roo, short for Ruairi, is a fairy. He goes (dubiously) to a Love Sucks ball to meet his H2H cupid match. Roo doesn’t believe in love for himself. But Roo has more than the app going on though. There’s family skin in the game for Roo to meet their fated mate. So he goes to the ball to get his brother off his back.

Weston is Roo’s match. He’s a human. Roo’s pretty certain this is a bad match, a human,  but Weston is gorgeous. From here the story dives into a few typical fae things, like they’re at one with nature and the earth, something Weston is thoughtful of as well.  Roo talks to his brother who pops in and out, sometimes in his mind, and pretty much always as Weston comes into the room, so he could be forgiven for thinking Roo is a bit crazy.

“Who are you talking to? And what the heck is a fated mate?”

Roo doesn’t want to tell Weston he’s fae, he definitely doesn’t want to tell him who his brother is, but he knows Weston is the one for him. Not So Cupid is whimsical, quirky, romantic. I enjoyed this story.

8. Starry Night, Pandora Pine

5,031 year-old immortal Greek demigod, Orion Starborn – the surname is for modern bureaucracy’s sake – hates Valentine’s Day but an email from H2H he can’t seem to delete piques his interest. Mostly because he feels Cupid did him wrong thousands of years ago, and Orion holds a grudge.

Kaden Devereaux, the hater of e-readers and apps, lover of paperbacks, Walkmans, rotary dial up phones, you get my drift, is a librarian werewolf who’s allergic to animal dander. Sucks to be werewolf him. His family has rejected him because of his genetic ‘abnormality’, and dates are few and far between as well.

It felt like every god and goddess was mentioned within a few pages of the beginning of Starry Night, even Charon’s ferry gets a guernsey, so it felt… intense. The 4th wall is also broken and I was going to bail. However, it got better. I ended up liking Orion. I liked Kaden. Definitely an interesting read.

9. The Hidden God of Open Doors, Tavia Lark 

Tavia Lark makes you feel connection to her characters. Often there is one who has wit and certainty and one who has looks and self-deprecation/doubt. Add some hurt-comfort and there’s Lark’s style. It works. I very much like Lark as an author.

In The Hidden God of Open Doors, Raider is the charming and sure one. Rune is the cute as hell, very lost one. Raider is immortal after drinking from the ‘real’ Fountain of Youth, who knew?, so he’s literally immortal. Raider used to hunt down antiquities and artefacts but now he’s about to open his own store. He has never had real love because immortality makes that a tad complicated. However, like everyone else in this anthology, H2H comes into Raider’s life, not always seeming like the best time but Raider thinks, ‘sure, why not? It’ll pass some time’.

Warped time is all Rune has in a room with objects but no person/being having been in his space for a long, looong time. His conscious, even subconscious, memory believes he’s a demon and this room is where he belongs. He’s definitely not human because no human could survive this long under lesser circumstances than Rune, under these circumstances – immense solitary – couldn’t happen. Not to worry. Enter good old Cupid. I’ve never been more happy to see Cupid get involved in something in my entire reading life. A mobile phone mysteriously appears, as other objects do, into his prison room with no view, no touch, no conversation. The phone means someone might talk to him. Rune grabs a lifeline and texts – a lot. It’s something the incredulous Rune finds himself able to do, and to his ‘perfect match’ as well.

This is a sweet, romantic hurt-comfort story. I think it was a little longer than some but not long enough because the writing is good, the characters addictive – I mean, I wanted to hug Rune. He needed to be rescued and I needed to see that happen. My favourite story, along with Eliot Grayson’s Hot Date.

10. Love Under the Sea, Taylor Rylan

Silver receives and email thanking him for signing up with H2H and also the name of the person he’s going to meet on his upcoming date – Charlie. It’s a Valentine’s Day meetup with fated mates as – yep – Cupid himself has matched people for this special day. The dinner night will be at the local zoo.

Both guys are like, ‘okay, uh, we didn’t sign up. What the?’ Respective family members have signed them up because they want them to have mates like they do and they love love. Charlie tells his sister, who signed him up, he won’t find someone who accepts him for him. Silver declares he’s happy being single. Maybe his brothers are behind it. But no, it’s his mother, and he loves his mother so he’s going. Besides, “free food.”

Silver is a silverback, a gorilla shifter, who works in cyber security with his brothers and Charlie is a koala shifter,  working in the Aussie marsupial section of the same zoo he’s going to for the H2H meetup.

This was a pleasant little story about the unlikeliest of partners. It’s plenty sweet but I’d been swamped with sweet or cute by the end of this anthology. Once again, I have a preference for darker, hurt-comfort, psychological or grey area books.

Overview:

I think it’s fantastic that these writers took time out of their busy lives and schedules to write these short stories for a charity anthology. Kudos to the other people involved who donated their time and energy as well.

It’s really not easy to write short stories. There is such a limited wordcount to create chemistry. To make readers get invested or interested in characters so quickly is a delicate artform. The authors all ran with the H2H app in their individual stories and this was never meant to be anything but nice for Valentine’s Day. I picked it up because I read everything Eliot Grayson and I also read Tavia Lark’s books, so both Hot Date and The Hidden God of Open Doors stood out, Also, You Can’t Spell Necromancer Without Romance by Alice Winters caught my attention as did Not So Cupid by Mica Nix. There were others stories that grabbed me enough to make me want to check out these individual author’s catalogue of books as well.