Dammit!

by Michele L. Montgomery

Escaping the past isn’t easy, especially when the scars left behind are a constant reminder that trust and love can hurt.

Michael McKnight knows what it means to be on the run from memories. Years ago, after fleeing an abusive relationship, he was brutally stabbed and left for dead. His only savior had been a compassionate stranger he’d only gotten a glimpse of before slipping into the blackness that claimed him.

For Michael, recovery was an arduous and hard fought return to some semblance of normalcy. He rebuilds his life, spending his waking hours buried in work and fighting to forget the past. And his life seems to be going well until he finds out that his cousin Wayne is being held captive in a mental asylum for being gay. So he buys a plane ticket and flies out to rescue his cousin.

But the weather is against Michael, keeping him grounded and talking to a man who claims that he’d once saved his life and is willing to help him rescue his cousin. Can this man be for real or is something more sinister in the works?

Genres: M M Romance, BDSM, Abuse, Contemporary

417 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2012

About the author

I live my life believing. I believe that all of us can do anything we want to do. I believe that each goal we set for ourselves can be met if we strive to meet that goal, no matter what bumps we have to jump over to attain it.

I don't believe in fear I believe in the power of love.

Fear has the power to stop me, to control me and lead me to failure.
Love has the power to guide me over the most difficult of mountains with a smile on my face and a rush of warmth in my heart.

I'm a writer at heart, I love to tell stories and though most of what comes out of my imagination can appear a little off the beaten path, that's because it is.

Though all of my stories contain romance to a point, there's a lot more angst, D/s, sometimes off the wall characters who know love and romance doesn't always happen overnight and it can be a struggle to find the right person for them. So, if angst, drama, a bit of D/s mixed in with romance isn't your thing, then I probably won't be either.

I am bringing something different to the table with my stories and I hope you enjoy them.


If you'd like to get the know the characters from the Lethal Obsession series please visit and join: http://lethalobsession.blogspot.com/?...

You can also find me at: http://top2bottomreviews.wordpress.com/

Reviews

[Simsala · Rating 1 out of 5]

After being told that the author felt publicly disgraced by my one-star rating and review plus following discussion thread I decided to delete the whole "drama".
This was the third time I got attacked for a 1 star review/rating by author,writer-buddies and/or friends.Of course they didn`t do it directly and/or personally....

I`m done!
No more one-star star ratings and trying to explain WHY I gave the low rating!
My fellow readers and friends have to find out for themselves...


Here`s the re-post of the offending review...the comments are gone but basically we talked about the issues we had with this book and - yes! - we were making fun of an utterly ridiculous story!

Apparently the label "mystery" was wrong - my fault,sorry for that but I don`t know the exact definition of the English word "mystery" when labeled to fiction...


Apr 07, 2012
Simsala rated it
Shelves: contemporary, m-m, suspense-crime

DNF 75%

I made it to 75% hoping for improvement but there was none!
One of the disadvantages of reading e-books is,you can`t throw them - and this one in particular - against a wall to blow off steam!
I will refrain from pointing out the flaws of this wannabe mystery with D/s elements - that would reach the word count of a novella!
The short version is...
Overall writing was acceptable but story and characterisation insulted my intelligence...nothing and no one here made sense...point!

[Td · Rating 1 out of 5]

To list everything I disliked about this book would take too much time and space. Let's just say that not even the complete suspension of disbelief or viewing it as an outrageous comedy helped. The story, the twists and turns were unbelievable, full of holes and inconsistencies that left a ton of unanswered questions in their wake. Not very much made sense.

The characters were over the top and not very likeable. Michael, especially, came across as an immature, annoying brat. There was even something along the lines of "So there. Take that." from Michael and I swear I pictured him sticking his tongue out and pouting in my head. I did not get Cash at all, full of contradictions almost all the way through. All the bad guys had filthy mouths and were hell bent on mayhem and raping. There was the evil, homophobic step-mom/aunt. The only character I warmed up to was Brody...barely. The dialogue, the D's, the sex were disturbingly awful and had me cringing more often than not.

[Ryan Field · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I get into anything else, I'd like to state up front this is a hard review to write because I don't want to give out any spoilers. But with "Dammit," Michele Montgomery had me surprised by her characters and the plot almost every time I seemed to think I had them all nailed down. In fact, the title of the book is perfect in more ways than one. Every time something took me by surprise I kept thinking, "dammit she did it again. I didn't see that one coming."

The book opens with an airport scene. This always resonates with me because I absolutely despise air travel because of the horrible complications that go along with it these days. But after reading the scenes in this airport, and some of the things that happen to Michael before he boards the plane, I might rethink how I feel about air travel and take a short trip somewhere. This is where Michele really is a master at fantasy, in my opinion. I read this book late at night this past weekend. And from Friday night until Sunday night, Michele took me away into a world of "what if combined with intrigue" and I loved every minute of it. I've had an intense month. I needed that and loved every minute of the escape. In fact, I've posted many times about how much I love Anne Tyler books. Well, I bought the most recent Tyler book and put that on hold so I could read "Dammit" first. I'm glad I did. It put me in a better mood and helped changed my perspective about a few things that have been irritating me recently. And books that can to that don't come along often.

The story revolves around Michael's adventure, and his good-natured way of being there for others. It talks about his past and how hard he's had to come back from some serious trauma most of us can only imagine in our worst nightmares. I liked him from the first page, and as I read more about him I started to like him even more. Without getting into spoilers (this is where it gets tricky and I don't want to ruin anyone's experience) he's had a rough past with regard to his love life, and he's still not completely over it nor is he ready to trust again. He's also very sexy and not obnoxious about this either. There are more than a few airport scenes that leave the reader on the edge, with teases and erotic references that made me smile more than once.

In the airport, Michael meets another interesting character, Carly. She's a little outrageous, she's funny, and she's not shy about anything. In fact, she's fascinated by the fact that Michael is so shy. When Carly goes to the gift shop, another character is introduced: Cash. He's strong, sexy, and just what Michael needs. But there's more to his story, too. And the connection between Michael and Cash is much stronger than Michael thinks it is in the beginning.

As it turns out, Michael is on his way to Pittsburgh to help out his cousin who has been committed by his step-mother because he's gay. There's another storyline here that's as emotional as Michael's own back story (and another big surprise later), and Cash seems more than interested in listening to everything Michael has to say. When they arrive in Pittsburgh, the sex scenes are as intense and emotional as the story and they add a layer of reality to the book that's done very well. The way each character and sex scene is handled in the book gives an authenticity that's hard to describe. The best way I could describe it is that I've been in situations like that, as a gay man, more than once and everything I read regarding the sex scenes could have happened to any gay man in real life. In other words, I didn't have that "Oh no, she didn't do that," moment during the sex scenes. I had that "Yes, she got that right" moment instead.

And the emotion was there, too. I've written about other books by Michele Montgomery and I've mentioned this before. It's one reason why I look forward to reading her work. The sex isn't just there for the sake of sex and yet the voice is strong. There's always some kind of a bond between her characters. And it's all executed in a way that keeps the story moving forward and the reader waiting to see what's going to happen next.

As I said earlier, there's a lot of intrigue in this book I didn't expect to see. It happens in a way that hits hard at times and to get into detail about this would ruin the book for other people. Let's just say that nothing is as it appears to be when it's first introduced. And as the characters arc and grow in different ways throughout the book the reader is in for more than a few shocks he/she didn't see coming. For this alone, I would recommend this book to anyone.

As a side note, "Dammit" is well written, in Michele's own style that I love. And as far as quality goes, I saw nothing to complain about. This e-book is just as well produced as any e-book from any large publisher I've read in the past year...in some cases it's even better. The book was published by Seventh Window Publications and I don't know much about them. But you can get there from here to check out their web site. And I will be checking out more books by them in the future. This prices look good, the covers look good, and it seems to be a simple site to navigate. I'm also hoping they publish more with Michele. She's an author who loves what she does and it shines through in her work.

[M'rella · Rating 1 out of 5]

This. Was. Bad.

The story got completely out of control and the author was grabbing for straws (and rotten at that) to bring it to the conclusion.

To be fair, I loved most of the first chapter. It was funny and the majority of the events and people still made some kind of sense.

I can't say the same for the rest of the book. At one point I was wondering if I had missed a tag - "AU" or "dystopia" or "all shit on Earth has gone to hell" or something of the nature.

By the end of the book I realized no tag but "WTF" can excuse the events in this story.

Half a star.

PS
Did I mention the Vulcan pinch? It was closer to the end. If you DNF-ed, you missed out! :P

[Leaundra · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars for me closer to 5 though. When reading this book I thought I knew what was going on and what would happen but nope right when you think you do it goes in another direction. Some of the things that happen to the people in the book were a little rough and I think what made the book edge on your seat for me is the reader only finds out things when the characters in the book do. There's too much going on for me to explain I'm sure someone else can do it even better so I would just recommend reading it and finding out what happens. It would be nice if there's a sequel:-)

[Calathea]

DNF

After the brouhaha yesterday I wanted to give "Dammit!" a fair chance and see for myself what this book is about (see, even negative PR works real fine ), it's just that after having read through the first three chapters I still don't have an idea. It might be that the real story is going to begin with the fourth chapter, alas, I will not know. Neither style nor story convinced me to read on.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave it two stars purely because the sample was good enough to lure me in. Unfortunately, that was the best part. The rest of the book had me skimming through pages and pages of dialog until I finally made it to the end.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't want to diss this book because it has a lot of potential, but I just did not care for how it was laid out. If there was a scale of 1-10 for WTF instead of stars, I would give it 9, because....yeah.

[jules0623 · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing in 'Dammit!' is immature, the dialogue purple, cheesy, and just godawful, the plot pulls out every fiction cliche that exists, and the characters are caracatures of every villian/hero ever. It's truly awful.

[Andi · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first started reading the book Dammit by Michele Montgomery, I had a feeling I was in for a real treat. I’ve read several books by Michele and I’ve loved every one of them. She has a way of really getting to the heart and soul of her characters, and she truly understands what makes her characters tick. They’re often humanly flawed people with wounded spirits, who are really just trying to survive in the big bad world in the best way that they can. Her characters are easy to like, even when they don’t always do likeable things, and that’s one of the many reasons why I love her books. This book is hard to review because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I’m going to do my best not to spoil it for those people who haven’t read it yet.

Michael McKnight has been living with the nightmare of being attacked and left for dead. The only thing that saved Michael was that this stranger came to his aide. Although Michael remembers being saved by this man, he doesn’t remember seeing his face. Since his attack, Michael has a tendency to second guess himself and he isn’t as confident as he used to be. He doesn’t trust people like he once did and has had a hard time getting past the attack in general. When he finds out that his cousin, Wayne, is about to be institutionalized by his cousin’s step-mother for being gay, Michael pushes all of his anxiety and fears aside and decides to take the long trip to do what he can to save his cousin. Unfortunately for Michael, his plane is delayed his feeling of anxiety and the claustrophic feeling of being stuck in the airport just about cripples him. When a woman at the airport immediately takes him under her wing, Michael is suspicious. He really wants to be alone so he can focus on saving his cousin, not be distracted by this outgoing, outrageous woman. Before he knows it, there’s a man, Cash, who also seems to be looking out for him and although he’s immediately attracted to him, he’s leery of being around strangers. But there is also something very familiar to Michael about Cash, so he tries to force himself to relax around the handsome stranger. Michael is a little confused, because Cash seems to be protective of him and wants to help Michael in any way he can. Just when Michael starts to relax with Cash, they are swept into a whirlwind of intrigue, mystery and deceit that makes both Michael and Cash question everything they’ve ever known. Will they be able to work through past hurts, loss of trust and work together to save Michael’s cousin and maybe find the true love with one another that they’ve always craved?

To say I loved this book is an understatement. I loved the many twists-and-turns the storyline in this book has, and there is even an element of surprise to it that completely took me off guard. I also experienced many emotions why I read this book. Michael’s sarcasm and quick wit gave me many laugh out loud moments (even though his mouth does get him into trouble) and there were also many tender and bittersweet moments in this story too. (Keep a tissue handy) Also, the personal growth that both Michael and Cash go through as the story progressed was so well-timed and well-written that it almost perfection. I loved these heroes and the story they told. Michael and Cash made such a great couple and the story was so well-told, I really hated to see it come to an end. Plus, the love scenes in this book were HOT! I loved the urgency and heat they felt for one another. It was so steamy, at one point I thought computer screen was going to fog up!

Dammit is one of my favorite books that I’ve read this year. I loved the action, romance, mystery and the all of the amazing characters in this book. I’m anxiously awaiting Michele’s next release and look forward to reading many more amazing books written by her!

[D.H. Starr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have known Michele Montgomery for over a year as a chipper, energetic person and a fantastic reviewer, but reading Dammit! Was my first foray into learning about her as an author. In her book, she introduces us to a wide range of characters from lovable to evil, from the pillar of sincerity to a personality dripping with sarcasm, from dominant to submissive, and so on.

The story Dammit! centers primarily around two characters: Michael and Cash. Michael is a head-strong man who has had his fair share of life’s challenges. He’s got a tongue that is too quick and often lands him in trouble, but he’s also a great person. Cash is big and strong, confidence radiating from him in every possible way. Yet right from the start, there’s a flaw in him that makes the reader not like him even though we really want to. I’ll admit, I emailed Michele and scolded her at this point, but she told me to be patient.

Anyhow, the two characters, brought together through suspect circumstances, embark on a journey to save Michael’s cousin, Wayne, from an institution where is step mother and father have placed him. Along the way, the two encounter many people, some evil to the core, others just trying to live their lives. Cash struggles to gain Michael’s trust and succeeds, but behind it all, Cash has a secret which places Michael in grave danger.

With all that said, I think I’ll move along to the review of the story rather than give away anymore spoilers. This quick-paced story flies by. Don’t be daunted by the page length. The font is slightly larger than most eBooks and you’ll have read 30 pages in the time you normally take to read 10.

The thing about this story which made is such a wonderful read was the transformation of both Michael and Cash from beginning to end. Each character had sworn off finding love and making a connection which could only lead to pain. By the end, these notions had been obliterated leaving each character raw and open to the happiness they had denied themselves. Character’s changing, growing, and learning how to be happy is, in my opinion, the mark of good story telling.

Ms. Montgomery did not stop there, however. Beginning with the initial connection, then the loss of trust, then the regaining of something much more powerful by the end, Dammit! explores the needs and perils of the dom/sub culture. She expertly brings us inside the minds of the two main characters, allowing us to understand the emotionality behind a subs need to be controlled and a dom’s need to have control. Ultimately, neither truly has control unless the other allows them to be truly who they are.

The sex scenes were hot, drawn out to a perfect degree, and emotional. As much as I hate to say it, there were a few scenes where there was near-violent sexual acts but they were prevented before they actually occurred on the page. Still, the lead up was still sexual, it not disturbing.

There were a couple of flaws to the book which I feel compelled to mention just so you know to expect them, but they are so minor that they do not detract from the story at all. The biggest one is that the character POV shifts mid-chapter from paragraph to paragraph where we are in one character’s head and then the other’s within the same page. This tends to create confusion when it happens, but in this book I never found myself unable to follow the action. There were maybe 4 or 5 editorial errors as well. And, as I’ve stated earlier, there were a few scenes which, for readers who are offended by the insinuation of rape or violence in sex, this book may touch a sensitive spot. Other than that, the story was a wonderful, exciting read which I highly recommend.

[Elisa Rolle]

So I’m working my backlog (finally!) and this is another of those novels I had in my reading list for a long time. Coincidences wanted I read this one soon after a completely different plot but with the same tune, cute character meets knight in shining armor. Michael is a little nerd young gay man, completely unaware of how attractive he is to other men probably exactly for that reason, that he is unassuming; other men can react to him in different ways, wanting to own him like he is a pretty object to display or wanting to protect him. In Michael’s past there is the first type, Gregory, his future maybe has in store the second one, Cash. Even if there is hypothetically a mystery/thriller subplot, this is not actually that type of novel, cause the author pushes more on the satiric/cute factor, making all the adventures Michael undertakes more like comic sketches than really dangerous situation. Kudos to the author to have one specific characters turning from best friend to villain in a turn of event that had me quite surprised, it was the first time I was feeling good for a character that in the end was the worst enemy of the main character.

As soon as I finished this one, I remember the polemic it raised when it was released and I think the major mistake of who read this one, and didn’t like it, was the wrong expectation; as I said this is not a mystery/thriller novel, this is a satire of one. Do you want an example (that will not spoil the story)? In which mystery/thriller/romance novel the hero (knight in shining armor) while rescuing his beloved one stumbles on his feet giving time to the villain to almost killing the one to be rescued? That is what happened to Michael, threatened by Gregory, almost rescued by Cash, who isn’t able to prevent Gregory from stabbing Michael. If this was a real mystery/thriller, and I was in Michael’s shoes, I would have been very pissed with Cash.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0984021590/?...

[Bebe Burnside · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Michael McKnight flies to Pittsburgh to help his cousin he has no idea what he is about to jump into. With a little help from his friends and a lot of trouble from his enemies Michael is determined to save his cousin and maybe just maybe prove something to himself. A fun story that keeps you turning the page even when it's past your bed time.