Windsong

by Caitlin Ricci

At seventeen, Jamie was cursed to always have his inner thoughts exposed as a tattoo across his neck for all the world to see. He lost his home, his family, and his relationship with his best friend when the tattoo outed him.

More than a decade later, he's a successful porn star who loves his life and never once thought about returning to the horse farm he grew up on. But his boss wants to do a shoot with him where he grew up, and Jamie can't say no.

Genres: Paranormal, M M Romance

39 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 18, 2017

About the author

Caitlin was fortunate growing up to be surrounded by family and teachers that encouraged her love of reading. She has always been a voracious reader and that love of the written word easily morphed into a passion for writing. If she isn't writing, she can usually be found studying as she works toward her counseling degree. She comes from a military family and the men and women of the armed forces are close to her heart. She also enjoys gardening and horseback riding in the Colorado Rockies where she calls home with her wonderful fiance and their dog. Her belief that there is no one true path to happily ever after runs deeply through all of her stories.

Reviews

[☆ Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short story was about coming home again, regaining what you'd lost and reclaiming a life that should have always been lived, in spite of what others thought -- even if those naysayers were your very own parents.



I really liked the premise, that Jamie's tattoo always reveled his innermost thoughts. However, I felt that the story would have been much better if the explanation of how it came to be was more than a couple of quick paragraphs about the slighting of some random fae, especially since the existence of fae didn't even seem to be 'a thing', outside of that very brief info dump.



Also, I would have liked more on-page, in-depth conversations between Jamie and his childhood best friend, Tom, before serious talks as to how Jamie would move forward in his life took place. But those were extremely brief as well, which left me wanting much more than being told vs. shown that dormant long ago feelings still burned as brightly as they once had.

For this to have been a story of a porn star, it felt a bit odd that the only sex in the story happened once, at the very end, when the MC's quickly decided that they wanted more.



Overall, I think the concept behind the story was an amazing idea, which was vastly underutilized by using the short story format. If greatly expanded, I believe this one could've blown a lot of readers away. However, as is, it didn't feel deep enough to cover much new M/M ground. I'd rate this one at just under 3 stars and wish that the author would re-release this one as a full-length novel at some point.

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My ARC copy of the story was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair, unbiased review.

[Steph ☀️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

***2.63 stars (rounded-up)***

Okay, so this story has a bit of a “Beauty and the Beast” type vibe. You know the part where the Enchantress is in disguise as an old woman and asks the prince for shelter and he refuses thus placing a spell on the prince and everyone in the castle for his cruelness. Well, the only one that's cursed in this story is Jamie, and that is after he shuns a fae looking for directions to a homeless shelter. For his unkindness, the fae bestows upon his neck a tattoo that displays his emotions for the world to see.

In fact, the author seems to push this take of the fairytale when Jamie states, “It’s a curse. Makes me a beast.” Now, other than that statement, Jamie is not a beast in any sense of the word. Even when he states he’s a horrible person, he really isn’t. At least, there wasn’t enough supporting evidence in the storyline to back up his statement.

This is a story about a boy whose cursed by a fae, kicked out by his family because of who he loves and forced to find his own way in life. In doing so, and with the help of the tattoo that displays his every emotion, he keeps people at arms-length. Never establishing a real connection with anyone. That's until the day his work in porn brings him back to his hometown.

Here he is basically given a second chance, which he takes a bit reluctantly. In the end, Jamie and Tom get their HEA. However the issues Jamie has with his parents aren’t resolved and the tattoo still remains. The only thing that has changed is that the word that's displayed on this neck hasn’t changed. It is ‘stuck’ on the word “beauty”, which I expect has something to do with Tom.

IMO, the story was too short to properly tell this tale. Maybe if we had more of a background of how Jamie and Tom were before that fateful day when they were younger to get more of a read on Jamie's and Tom's character. First, it would have established the storyline a bit better and secondly it would have set in motion the chemistry between Jamie and Tom. Which to be honest I felt was lacking here.

Due to the shortness of the story is short, Tom seems too quick to change from “no, everything about you is wrong” to “I love you. Please give up everything a be with me.” Actually, it pissed me off a bit. Here Jamie is the one who leaves because his parents are horrible and the one person he loved didn’t acknowledge him. Yeah, IMO Tom needed to grovel a bit more as well.

I am one of many reviewers at Gay Book Reviews and can be found here: http://gaybook.reviews/author/steph/

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[nemo ☠️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

this was a pretty okay story, but it was ultimately lacking in substance and development, and the writing was simplistic and not particularly exciting.

[Sylvia · Rating 2 out of 5]

2☆

I would've liked to have read more about the truth neck tattoo and how and why the Fae would curse him with the tattoo in the first place , also I wasn't feeling the relationship between the Mc's .

[Veridiana Machado · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

This book had promise. I read the synopsis and thought "alright, I think I'll like it", but I didn't. Couldn't finish it for a while, I just couldn't muster the will to go past the 38% of the book (I read it on my kindle, so, no idea which page it was).
It could have been better, but the way the story was built just didn't have any structure, it felt wobbly. I mean, what kind of fiction/fantasy loving person would I be if I didn't like the idea of a guy being cursed with a tattoo that said his innermost thoughts?
So I went head on! And hit the bottom. It was a good story, really liked the idea and the plot, I just couldn't go past the writing. It really bugged me throughout the entire book. If the writing was a bit more evolved, not so - I'm going to say childish, but I just mean that it looks like the Caitlin Ricci skipped some writing classes when in high school.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't get this one, I couldn't connect with the characters at all. Not for me.

[Magnolia · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Magnolia Reviews: Three Petals

This book did show a lot of improvement in Ricci's writing abilities, however the story still felt short. It needed more explanation and more depth to every single aspect. The story would also have been better served without any magic in it. I therefore cannot recommend it.

Read the full review on Maggie's website: http://magnoliareviews.weebly.com/rev...