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Shady
Dark and tormented cop Shade will do anything to possess Nick, the caring artist who is a killer’s next target.
Can a dark, tormented cop and a warm, caring hustler fall in love while trying to stop a murderer? Created to be the perfect killer, Shade has done some 'shady' things in his past but when he meets Nick, a sexy and honourable part time painter, Shade is drawn to possess him. And Shade is very good at getting what he wants, using any means necessary...
Jan Irving
Jan Irving has worked in all kinds of creative fields, from painting silk to making porcelain ceramics, to interior design, but writing was always her passion.
She feels you can't fully understand characters until you follow their journey through a story world. Many kinds of worlds interest her, fantasy, historical, science fiction and suspense—but all have one thing in common, people finding a way to live together—in the most emotional and erotic fashion possible, of course!
Can a dark, tormented cop and a warm, caring hustler fall in love while trying to stop a murderer? Created to be the perfect killer, Shade has done some 'shady' things in his past but when he meets Nick, a sexy and honourable part time painter, Shade is drawn to possess him. And Shade is very good at getting what he wants, using any means necessary...
Jan Irving
Jan Irving has worked in all kinds of creative fields, from painting silk to making porcelain ceramics, to interior design, but writing was always her passion.
She feels you can't fully understand characters until you follow their journey through a story world. Many kinds of worlds interest her, fantasy, historical, science fiction and suspense—but all have one thing in common, people finding a way to live together—in the most emotional and erotic fashion possible, of course!
87 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 3, 2014
61 people want to read
About the author
Jan Irving
51 books199 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
romance author
Jan Irving has worked in all kinds of creative fields, from painting silk to making porcelain ceramics, to interior design, but writing was always her passion.
She feels you can’t fully understand characters until you follow their journey through a story world. Many kinds of worlds interest her, fantasy, historical, science fiction and suspense—but all have one thing in common, people finding a way to live together—in the most emotional and erotic fashion possible, of course!
Visit Jan's blog at http://jan-revealed.livejournal.com.
romance author
Jan Irving has worked in all kinds of creative fields, from painting silk to making porcelain ceramics, to interior design, but writing was always her passion.
She feels you can’t fully understand characters until you follow their journey through a story world. Many kinds of worlds interest her, fantasy, historical, science fiction and suspense—but all have one thing in common, people finding a way to live together—in the most emotional and erotic fashion possible, of course!
Visit Jan's blog at http://jan-revealed.livejournal.com.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 3, 2014
I'm giving this book 3 stars, but I actually did not enjoy it. Weird, right? I'll try to explain in a review I will write when I get back from my vacation. For those interested in a quick opinion now, I can only recommend this to hardcore fans of futuristic M/M fiction who like sex without emotion.
July 27, 2016
Have you ever read a book and thought, ‘What am I missing?’ You know when you go back and check to see if maybe it was a series and you missed that tidbit of information, because you can tell you are not seeing the whole picture? That happened to me once…I didn’t like it. I have been extremely careful to start with the first book ever since.
This is NOT a series, but that’s the vibe I got.
I felt like I was dodging holes whilst reading this book.
I felt like I was oblivious to important details.
I felt….lost.
Shade is a bad man. This is very clear. He’s a murder cop, but also a ruthless killing machine with no respect for anyone. He only has one thing on his mind…what Shade wants. This time he wants Nick, a shy rent-boy who also happens to be a possible suspect in a murder he’s investigating. Nick is in a relationship and does his best to deflect Shade’s advances. Shade does not give up easily and concludes he just needs to ‘have Nick one time’. He is certain once his conquest is complete he can move on. To his surprise, this time, once is not enough.
Shade goes macho alpha and decides he wants to keep Nick, and he doesn’t share. Considering how Nick brings home his paycheck and the fact he has a boyfriend, well, things get a little sticky. And this is where I struggled.
Besides the fact that Nick seems to emit some type of addicting pheromones, I didn’t see why Shade had to have Nick. Nick’s attraction to Shade was equally mystifying.
Random things were tossed in….the Union collar, the colored pills, the composites…I wanted more from them. The sci-fi element was glazed over, and I struggled to find the significance in the limited details we were given.
To make matters worse, the BDSM didn’t fit well in my opinion. It felt forced and fake, almost if it was slipped in simply for the ‘wow’ factor.
I missed the ‘wow’. I just didn’t buy it.
Creating a decent and complete story in under a hundred pages is not an easy challenge, but I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing it. World building, character introduction and plot growth all need to come together flawlessly to achieve greatness in such a limited number of pages. Some authors thrive under the pressure and produce the goods, others attempt and fail. Unfortunately, this fell into the latter for me.
I’m sorry to say, I think the potential was there, but for me, it sorely missed the mark.
*2.5 porous-phony-phooey stars*
This is NOT a series, but that’s the vibe I got.
I felt like I was dodging holes whilst reading this book.
I felt like I was oblivious to important details.
I felt….lost.
Shade is a bad man. This is very clear. He’s a murder cop, but also a ruthless killing machine with no respect for anyone. He only has one thing on his mind…what Shade wants. This time he wants Nick, a shy rent-boy who also happens to be a possible suspect in a murder he’s investigating. Nick is in a relationship and does his best to deflect Shade’s advances. Shade does not give up easily and concludes he just needs to ‘have Nick one time’. He is certain once his conquest is complete he can move on. To his surprise, this time, once is not enough.
Shade goes macho alpha and decides he wants to keep Nick, and he doesn’t share. Considering how Nick brings home his paycheck and the fact he has a boyfriend, well, things get a little sticky. And this is where I struggled.
Besides the fact that Nick seems to emit some type of addicting pheromones, I didn’t see why Shade had to have Nick. Nick’s attraction to Shade was equally mystifying.
Random things were tossed in….the Union collar, the colored pills, the composites…I wanted more from them. The sci-fi element was glazed over, and I struggled to find the significance in the limited details we were given.
To make matters worse, the BDSM didn’t fit well in my opinion. It felt forced and fake, almost if it was slipped in simply for the ‘wow’ factor.
I missed the ‘wow’. I just didn’t buy it.
Creating a decent and complete story in under a hundred pages is not an easy challenge, but I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing it. World building, character introduction and plot growth all need to come together flawlessly to achieve greatness in such a limited number of pages. Some authors thrive under the pressure and produce the goods, others attempt and fail. Unfortunately, this fell into the latter for me.
I’m sorry to say, I think the potential was there, but for me, it sorely missed the mark.
*2.5 porous-phony-phooey stars*
January 16, 2014
Set in the future, I liked this short story about Shade, a rough and ready cop who falls for a twinky delicate hustler, Nick.
Shade is a very bad cop. He is so hardened that other cops don't want to work with him. He is rough, obnoxious, blunt, macho, swears like a trooper with f words everywhere and he is not averse to going outside the law in order to solve a crime. He hides his background and his shady occasional work as an assassin. When he meets Nick he realises he wants him, but Nick is already spoken for.
As time goes on Shady realises that a serial killer is out murdering twinky looking hustlers and Nick might be the killers's next target. As he gets to know Nick his roughed exterior changes and bit by bit love emerges, but not before we get to see him in all his rude, foul mouthed, obnoxious glory!!
The story is rather short which is a pity. It would have been great as a longer read. The story also needed some proof reading to weed out the typos and some of the peculiar sentences, but it is what it is and it wasn't bad.
Lots of tropes so nothing really new for m/m readers except a thoroughly enjoyable, extremely rude and macho cop who is used to bull dozing his way through to solve a crime.
I liked Shady. He was just so rough and rude and couldn't care less about his inappropriate behaviour. Even his fellow cops were afraid of him and he played to that fear in order to get his way. Nick is the one person who sees through all that dark edgy behaviour and eventually loves strips away Shady's defences. Defences which hide deep secrets, secrets which both of them have.
The story is a bit like a futuristic beauty and the beast. Nice for when you want to read something short and energising but with a mix of humour and a frisson of darkness.
Shade is a very bad cop. He is so hardened that other cops don't want to work with him. He is rough, obnoxious, blunt, macho, swears like a trooper with f words everywhere and he is not averse to going outside the law in order to solve a crime. He hides his background and his shady occasional work as an assassin. When he meets Nick he realises he wants him, but Nick is already spoken for.
As time goes on Shady realises that a serial killer is out murdering twinky looking hustlers and Nick might be the killers's next target. As he gets to know Nick his roughed exterior changes and bit by bit love emerges, but not before we get to see him in all his rude, foul mouthed, obnoxious glory!!
The story is rather short which is a pity. It would have been great as a longer read. The story also needed some proof reading to weed out the typos and some of the peculiar sentences, but it is what it is and it wasn't bad.
Lots of tropes so nothing really new for m/m readers except a thoroughly enjoyable, extremely rude and macho cop who is used to bull dozing his way through to solve a crime.
I liked Shady. He was just so rough and rude and couldn't care less about his inappropriate behaviour. Even his fellow cops were afraid of him and he played to that fear in order to get his way. Nick is the one person who sees through all that dark edgy behaviour and eventually loves strips away Shady's defences. Defences which hide deep secrets, secrets which both of them have.
The story is a bit like a futuristic beauty and the beast. Nice for when you want to read something short and energising but with a mix of humour and a frisson of darkness.
April 16, 2016
I was reading this and...
I kept finding myself being reminded of the movies Blade Runner and The Fifth Element, both of which I liked a lot. So brownie points already for this book bringing to mind movies that I like.
I liked Shade, which I'm not really sure what that says about me given his personality, but I will admit what I like was the character. He worked well within the world that the author created. Now, I'm not really sure I want to sit and have coffee with him, but still I liked him. I liked that the attraction between him and Nick was not instalove...lust maybe but definitely not love.
What I didn't like was that this was a story with the potential to be so much bigger. It was good...really good. I wanted the author to give me the big, epic story that I could feel within the pages of this book waiting and begging to get out. I admit sometimes when I read a shorter story I wish for it to have been longer because it was good and as much as I wanted to know the ending I want to keep reading. This feeling was different even though the story was, for all intent and purposes complete, I really, really wanted more, I wanted it to be that gritty, hardcore, dystopian fiction the one that makes you squirm and question your moral values and leaves you wondering for days...if this was my world, could I live in it? could I survive in it? would I have the strength to try and make a difference? what kind of person would I be? would I like myself?
Ironically I think this is the first time I've finished a story and been left feeling like I saw more potential in the story than the author...or maybe I just needed for there to be more.
I kept finding myself being reminded of the movies Blade Runner and The Fifth Element, both of which I liked a lot. So brownie points already for this book bringing to mind movies that I like.
I liked Shade, which I'm not really sure what that says about me given his personality, but I will admit what I like was the character. He worked well within the world that the author created. Now, I'm not really sure I want to sit and have coffee with him, but still I liked him. I liked that the attraction between him and Nick was not instalove...lust maybe but definitely not love.
What I didn't like was that this was a story with the potential to be so much bigger. It was good...really good. I wanted the author to give me the big, epic story that I could feel within the pages of this book waiting and begging to get out. I admit sometimes when I read a shorter story I wish for it to have been longer because it was good and as much as I wanted to know the ending I want to keep reading. This feeling was different even though the story was, for all intent and purposes complete, I really, really wanted more, I wanted it to be that gritty, hardcore, dystopian fiction the one that makes you squirm and question your moral values and leaves you wondering for days...if this was my world, could I live in it? could I survive in it? would I have the strength to try and make a difference? what kind of person would I be? would I like myself?
Ironically I think this is the first time I've finished a story and been left feeling like I saw more potential in the story than the author...or maybe I just needed for there to be more.
March 30, 2018
2.5 stars
August 11, 2016
3.5* Interesting story but I needed a little more development of Nick and a little more time spent on the mc's initial meeting and attraction to each other. still, for a short story, I enjoyed it.
March 16, 2014
This book is freaking WEIRD! And not in a good way! It's a futuristic murder mystery set in a world that I am NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO! I mean seriously! I got to 87% but I'm sorry I can't hang in there anymore. To be honest the characters aren't even likeable! I kept waiting for me to like them or like the story or find something that isn't as dark as a freaking saw movie but nooooo there was nothing. I applaud the author for doing something different but umm yea that was nice but let's go back to closeted cowboy shifters. Thank you.
April 4, 2014
3.5 Hearts
Review written for MM Good Book Reviews]
http://networkedblogs.com/VBC87
Here I was thinking I’d be reading yet another cliché of a story when I was shockingly surprised by the creativity and imagination on this one...
Thommie
Review written for MM Good Book Reviews]
http://networkedblogs.com/VBC87
Here I was thinking I’d be reading yet another cliché of a story when I was shockingly surprised by the creativity and imagination on this one...
Thommie
June 26, 2017
3.5 stars
January 9, 2014
3.5 stars. Would of liked more character development, but I actually enjoyed this one. :)
January 19, 2014
It's more like a 2.5*
The story was just too short. Lack the development of the MCs relationship.
Shade was a bastard that was quite refreshing. LOL
The story was just too short. Lack the development of the MCs relationship.
Shade was a bastard that was quite refreshing. LOL
February 4, 2014
1.5 no real story.
July 20, 2016
I kept saying to myself all the time I was reading the book that I didn't like it BUT when I finished it I was surprised to see that in fact I did like it.
March 22, 2015
3.25 stars
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews