Changeling

Middlehill #1

by Barbara Geiger (Original pen name), Angela Fiddler

Matt sells sex because he has to take care of his little brother, Sam. While it sucks, it’s not that much different from the abuse he endured when he was a teenager. He’s exhausting himself trying to keep them together and Sam out of the jaws of the foster care system. When he “meets” Kevin, things start looking up a little. Kevin’s not the first john to give Matt the maybe-this-could-work-outside-of-work vibe, but Matt is surprisingly hopeful, for once.

On the other hand, it’s really not a good time for Matt to be meeting someone. He has a new “job” exchanging his services for Sam’s tuition at a fancy boarding school. People who treat him badly either end up murdered or disappear. And when it comes down to it, Kevin’s just a little too perfect. He’s rich, generous, and an all-round-blowjob-genie-in-a-bottle. Something’s got to be wrong with the guy.

As it turns out, Kevin’s a prince of the Fae. And Matt might be Kevin’s king. From there, the questions start piling up. Why is a rich man taking a bus on a snowy December night? Why does Kevin disappear at the same bus stop where a man who had been bothering Matt is found murdered? And most importantly, why does Kevin keep acting like it’s Matt who will leave, when it’s Matt who’s the broken one?

Content notes: This work contains scenes of transactional sex, coerced sex, discussion of past child sexual abuse, attempted assault, and assault, sex within a relationship negotiated with consent, and a happy/hopeful ending.

Words: 119,640

Genres: M M Romance, Fae, Fantasy, M M Supernatural, Paranormal

ebook

First published July 15, 2014

About the author

Barbara didn’t learn that she had lived in three out of the four Northern Alberta towns that had a known or suspected Wendigo attack until well after she’d moved south to Lethbridge. She grew up loving ghost stories and pony books, and spent most of her summers on the British Columbia coast, where she fell in love with the ocean.

As Angela Fiddler, she has written The Master of the Lines series as well as Cy and his sex demon problem books. As Barbara Geiger, she has written The Tempest trilogy, starting with Coral Were his Bones, which exists in the same universe as the Middlehill series, starting with Changeling, as well as various other novellas and short stories.

When she’s not following the exploits of selkies, sex demons and vampires, she writes epic fantasy and makes the occasional foray into science fiction and short stories.

Reviews

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

One word for this story: confusing. Confusing sentences and dialogue, continuity issues, abrupt introductions of new plot points, and unusual things happening without explanation or reaction from the characters. Inconsistencies, contradictions, illogical conclusions...things that didn't make any sense...it was all so confusing. I was lost, wondering if I missed a few pages of world building. Because there wasn't any, and I was missing way too much information.

My interest was caught, though, so I struggled on.

We start to get bits of world building, but Matt's stubborn refusal to find out more, always avoiding the truth, and not being very forthcoming with what he did know, kept me in the dark too much. Add in some melodramatic instalove moments and I seriously considered DNF'ing the story, but I needed to know what happened!

Things got better, or I just got used to the confusion. The story still felt disjointed, with too much missing information, too many hidden motivations, but I was able to piece enough of it together to sort of figure things out. It got even better during the second half of the story, with more world building and information being shared. At 70%, Matt even started sharing more of what he knew! Still, it seemed like every other page, I was asking, "Wait, what? Why?", but I was the only one. The characters rarely asked those questions when something odd happened or was mentioned.

The last 5-10% was really good, though; things came together, and some questions were answered. I just don't know if it was worth all that confusion in the rest of the book.

So, I didn't know how to rate this.
-Fascinating characters who I didn't connect with until the last half of the story,and even then it was more of an empathetic reaction than anything else. I also needed more chemistry showing between the characters.

-Creative, but convoluted, storyline that kept me reading, but without enough information to help me understand what was going on. Too many unanswered questions.

-I don't really consider this a romance, and the mystery of Matt was irritating with all the deliberately vague hints and oblique references, and, again, Matt avoiding the truth as much as possible. It made me crazy!

-Sweet, tender, and humorous moments that made things clear for a short while, until I got lost again.

-And last, but not least? The one scene near the end...
five I loved that so hard stars.

Yeah, I can't decide if this story was brilliant or overly ambitious and messed up. So, why 4 stars? With all my issues, this story dug it's claws into me and didn't let go. I can't explain it, but there it is.

If this review is confusing, I blame it on the story.

ETA: Forgot to add a side note:
I liked Kevin's thing for Matt's stomach. Really like it. Not sure why, but it worked for me :)

[SheReadsALot]

A checklist of guaranteed reading from me:

- abused MC
- rent boy MC
- fae MC

Oh boy...

[Jaimee Ghost · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay so this book was great and deserves more than the three point something stars it receives on Goodreads, but nevertheless, I give it a five.

It had everything I love in it; romance, sex, angst (a LOT of angst), a family aspect, a supernatural aspect, and characters with PERSONALITY! So much personality! I mean Kevin didn't really have a personality, but I have a theory that that IS his personality....bland, sometimes funny, rarely smiling, soft-spoken, quiet, stomach-loving Kevin.

I loved this world, this setup and everything, even though the angst seemed to border on taking over the story......actually, I'm going to say that the angst did take over the story. We learned more about Matt's past than anything else, but since this is the first in a series I'll let it slide. I like everything in my books to be evenly distributed; when one subject starts to overshadow the others, I can tell very quickly and it immediately becomes annoying, but it didn't with this book because I understood. The things Matt experienced and continue to experience aren't exactly things that you can just forget or let go....Matt is growing in this book, trying to become more trusting, less cynical and less freak-outish. He's also trying to figure out who he is when he has to care about someone other than Sam, which may have been the most hearbreaking/heart-warming/interesting part of the story.

There was one thing about this book that caused some irritation. There were plenty of times when I wasn't aware of what was going on. I wasn't always sure about the emotions of the characters (Matt's emotions went up and down on purpose, I believe, but I wasn't always sure what Sam or Kevin were feeling....) The scenes shifted so quickly; one second Matt is lying on the floor or something, the next he's between Kevin's knees or on his lap and we have no idea how he got there. I think the author needs to focus more on details of movement with this book. We also don't have a clear understanding of Matt's abilities; we get snippets of what he can do but it's explained only through confusion actions and not in words....the climax (I guess?) was a bit confusing and the moving rooms and shadows definitely threw me off track. Also, this book is extremely overpriced....when did Kindle ebooks start to drift into the $7 range?

Somehow I managed to push through all of this and read a truly great story. I do expect more from the next book though (whenever we get it!). This was a great start....but hardly any of my questions were answered. Some questions I didn't ask were answered, but I am still thoroughly confused and need to know MORE. ASAP.

Overall, great read. Read it.

[Dvorah Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barbara Geiger, with Changeling, her new novel set in the Middlehill 'verse, is taking erotic fiction to a whole new level. In addition to being smoking hot, her writing goes deep into what it means to heal from the things that could break any of us. In the opening scene, Matt meets Kevin, and the connection is obvious to both of them, but there are mysteries upon mysteries involved, and nothing quite happens to form. Matt can't remember very much about his childhood prior to going to live with his grotesquely abusive "uncle," but he does know that the most important thing in his life is taking care of his younger brother, Sam, even if it means escaping their foster home and living a life of prostitution, all so Sam can live what passes for a "normal" life. Matt's clear about his priorities, though, and has his limits and boundaries even in that world, revealing an inner strength and integrity that shines through even when life gets confusing, like when complete strangers start addressing Matt as "your majesty." Little by little, he's introduced to a level of reality he never guessed existed... or that was taken from his memories long ago for reasons he has yet to discover. The discovery of his past, as well as his future role in Middlehill, comes hand in hand with the growth of trust between him and Kevin. And with trust, comes a deeper love.

Middlehill, which includes her Geiger's previous novel, Coral Were His Bones, is a wide, interconnected, and rich world in which this reader can hope the author will tell many, many tales to come. Come for the smut, stay for the magic. Or, you know, visa versa. :)

[Virginia Carraway-Stark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Barb Geiger made me blush with this sexy magical story, she also made me applaud her range of scope and attention to detail. Her understanding of emotions and character are superlative! I'll definitely be reading the next in this series!

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I also thought it was very confusing and I couldn’t follow the main characters reactions because I didn’t understand them at all. There was also no real knowledge of the law and law enforcement procedures, it was just a series of events that didn’t make sense and there was no real explanation in order show you why it was happening that way. It was like the characters were all in on a secret that we the reader knew nothing about. The story was all over the place and I couldn’t bring myself to finish the book. It’s a great idea for a book though and with better editing, character development and world building I would definitely give it another try.

[Izzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review. The plot idea is an interesting one and the type of characters should allow for a lot of depth in the writing and plot twists. Sadly, I don’t think the author quite succeeds. I really wanted this novel to intrigue and that it did. The writing however, was very muddled. There are long passages where the distinction between flashback and present day are very unclear, which helps to make this story confusing.

At first I thought it deliberate as the childhood abuse of Matt, the twenty year old MC, is horrific and explicit and might cause random confused flashbacks. This muddled confused narrative continues throughout the novel though. If the abuse of children even in a flashback is a negative issue for you in a storyline, this novel might not be for you. There are also graphic descriptions of the murders that happen, none of which are solved.

Matt’s half brother, Eleven year old Sam, is, randomly, far too grown up in attitude even for a child with his background and upbringing. Sometimes his language and comments were so much older than Matt’s I expected to be told he was in fact a 200 year old fae at some point but he is just an eleven year old as far as the reader knows. Kevin, the ‘john’ who turns out to be a prince is meant to be very in love with Matt and Matt likewise falls instantly in love with Kevin. Unfortunately, we are given no reasons as to why they are so in love with each other. They have very little time together for this intense love to develop, and if it is to be love at first sight, which personally I dislike, we are shown very little evidence of when that happens or how, except that Kevin is the only person who ‘got Matt off’ without expecting reciprocation. Kevin seems to be ‘in love’ with Matt before he meets him, which is also never explained.

The secondary characters actually have more development than the ‘heroes’ of this tale. ‘The Headmaster’ is one of them who draws up the weirdest contracts with Matt. One seems to be for sexual services and the other, well we don’t know but it is signed in a unique way. We are never really told why ‘The Headmaster’ will agree to almost anything to eventually get very little in return from Matt. In fact this character starts off being a ‘real bad guy’ but is reduced to an outwitted whimpering fool for very little reason that I could discover.

Some parts of this long novel I really enjoyed but I kept waiting for answers and more information which never came. I know this is the first in a series, but I expected more by way of groundwork for Barbara Geiger’s new ‘verse’ of Middle Hill’. I felt all the way through the novel that I had missed a previous episode or that I had accidentally skipped a chapter, but this wasn’t the case. As for the ending, our MCs finally get it together and then…

Whether it is the normality of the final scene, which is meant to be the HFN ending, or whether there are so many unanswered questions in this novel it is just a fade out scene I do not know but it wasn’t overly satisfying. I would like to know how this storyline pans out, but I’m not sure I care enough about these characters to read the next in the series.

I know this sounds slightly arrogant but I believe Barbara Geiger could have a winning idea for a series of interesting stories, but she needs a good content editor to refine and polish this work. Hence I have given it 3*. I enjoyed the series idea and the idea of this plot, but not its execution.

original review on www.prismbookalliance.com

[The Novel Approach · Rating 2 out of 5]

Changeling: Middle Hill 1 is the first book I’ve read by Barbara Geiger. It follows Matt, an eighteen year old, who has to resort to hustling in order to support his eleven year old brother. We meet him on a bus and right from the start, we can tell the young man has lived a hard life.

Kevin is the other main character in this novel. Matt meets him on a bus ride back from a music competition his brother had competed in. While Matt always views men as income sources, something about Kevin draws him in. There’s another man on the bus who propositions Matt, but Kevin steps in, preventing the other guy from using Matt. When they stop at a truck stop diner, the man who propositioned Matt is killed in the bathroom, and the story takes off from there.

This was a difficult read for me. Formatting was an issue—there were no chapters in the entirety of the book, so its 326 pages streamed as one long story without a break, which made it difficult for me to follow the storyline since there were no natural stop-and-go points.

There was a paranormal element to this story as well. There are hints to it early on, such as when the bus leaves the truck stop, they are followed by a train of cop cars and Matt knows they are following because they are after him, connecting him in some way to the murder of the man in the bathroom. The Fae element carried throughout, but wasn’t fully explained or developed for me to understand the purpose of its inclusion. This story could have worked just as well as a contemporary romance in which an attractive man finds a rent boy attractive and wants to save him from his horrible lifestyle.

There were flashbacks to earlier suffering Matt had endured from his previous caretaker, as well as some rough play in the book, although there were times when Matt seemed to want what he termed impact play, while at other times he seemed afraid and found it dirty.

His younger brother, Sam, is far more mature than a normal eleven year old boy would be, which makes sense as we learn more about him, but then there are times when he’s just a normal, immature kid as well.

All in all, this story just didn’t do it for me, and I’ll admit the formatting issue had a lot to do with it. It was very hard to read a book that didn’t have the normal structure of chapter breaks to give the storyline some ebb and flow.

[Morgan Skye · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is my first (almost ever) DNF. I tried. I really did.

I loved the writing style. You have to really pay attention, Barbara Geiger puts so much into each sentence that I had to really concentrate to see what she was getting at, sometimes reading the same passage multiple times.

I loved the premise. A Fae king lost to the dirty life of a rent boy, who only works as such to help his little brother, after suffering abuse for years at the hands of his step-father. What’s not to love?

I was steady into the book, loving it, until about 30% in. It started to get a little uncomfortable, then sort of confusing, then more uncomfortable, and finally I just had to stop. The story got convoluted. I had trouble following events. Characters kept coming and going in a way I didn’t understand. And then Matt makes this deal with a really, really bad guy to get his brother into a boarding school and … UGH!

I couldn’t read it any more. Some people like it and I get that, but it’s not me. I wasn’t expecting it and I wouldn’t have read it if I had known. To some people the pain thing works for them, I don’t judge, I just don’t like it.

So I am sad to say I can’t really give you a good recommendation because I didn’t finish the book. What I read, at the beginning, was great, and if you like and/or don’t mind some pain with your sex, you will probably really like this book.

The situation is interesting, the paranormal aspect intriguing (but sometimes very, very confusing) and the characters are complex. But be warned, it can get … difficult, about 1/3 into the book.

[Saskie- · Rating 2 out of 5]

If it weren't so confusing and haphazardly it would have been so much better.
I really wanted to like the book but it was just too much. I like when people don' t get everything on the platter and have to make out some info themselves, but in this book...there was just big chaos and mostly nothing to it. I have so many question and it irks me that I don't really care about answers in most cases. Disappointing.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was too long for my taste, I kept getting bored with it. I hope the next book isn't as long.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

8/6-I find myself very confused so far but I'm going to continue and see where this going.