"Putting Out Fires" by Marie Sexton

This is book (more like novella) 4.5 in the Coda series and features Matt Richards trying to make the perfect Valentine's Day dinner for his boyfriend of three years, Jared Thomas.  Unfortunately, nothing goes as planned and hilarity ensues.  This was a funny little slice of life from two of my favorite fictional characters.  36 pages (Kindle edition).

"Shotgun" by Marie Sexton

This is book #7 in the Coda Series, and I really liked it for several reasons.  The story itself is an unrequited love story between two men who first meet when they are seventeen and are only together for a few hours.  Fifteen years later, they meet again in the same town, Coda, CO, where Dominic Jacobsen has lived his whole life, and where Lamar Franklin has just moved.  When Lamar's car is vandalized, the garage that Dominic's family owns ends up fixing it.  Lamar is out, and he's just moved to Coda to take a teaching job and to get away from the married man with whom he was having an affair.  He's also depressed.  Dominic lives with his 13-year-old daughter, Naomi, and is still in the closet.  He believes that having a gay father will hurt Naomi, so he sacrifices is love life to protect her.  It has worked fine until he sees Lamar again, and all of the emotions he's kept hidden for 15 years come flooding back.

There was a lot of angst and drama in this story.  Lamar is being stalked by someone who vandalizes his car numerous times and breaks into his house.  Dominic has a big family, some of whom are homophobic, especially his father.  Staying in the closet hasn't been a problem until Lamar arrives, and Dom goes back and forth with coming out, which hurts Lamar.  However, it was worth the read to catch up with the couples from previous books in the series.  Matt and Jared as well as Angelo and Zach all play important roles in helping Lamar and Dominic, especially Matt since he is the police officer working on Lamar's stalking case.  And there was a cute kitty with the silly name of Missy Prissy Pom-Pom Paw!  Another great story from Marie Sexton.  260 pages (Kindle edition).

"Part & Parcel" by Abigail Roux

This latest installment in the "Cut & Run" universe finds Marine Force Recon team Sidewinder reunited again, this time on a quest left by their fallen comrade Elias Sanchez.  Nick O'Flaherty is recovering from injuries sustained in the book "Crash & Burn" with boyfriend Kelly Abbott trying his best to help.  With lots of down time, Nick decides to go through storage boxes and discovers letters from Sanchez addressed to the Sidewinder team, so he gets the guys together for a cross-country adventure that turns out to be more emotional than any of them had anticipated.

I was so glad to see Ty Grady and Zane Garrett again; they are the heart of the "Cut & Run" universe since the actual "C&R" series was about them.  This book focuses on Nick and Kelly's relationship but also gives us more insight to the other two Sidewinder members, Digger and Owen Johns.  Another plus - Ty brings along his two new kittens (which really wasn't plausible but still fun to picture).  This story is another winner for Roux.  Hooray for team Sidewinder!  270 pages (Kindle edition).

"When It's Right" by Aria Grace

This soap opera-esque story centers on Alex and Shane, who meet when Alex takes his injured dog to his vet.  Shane is the technician and he and Alex are drawn to each other, but Shane is deeply closeted because of his bigoted parents.  Luckily, he lives with his aunt (Alex's vet) and uncle in a different state.  Alex is out and befriends Shane, showing him what his life could be like if he came out.  Just as things are going well between them, Shane has to return to his hometown for someone named "Jacob."  He refuses to tell Alex what has happened and who Jacob is, and when Shane doesn't return when he says he will, Alex becomes frantic.  What will he do and who is Jacob?

As with the other stories that I have read by this author, it was enjoyable and well-paced.  I really liked the ending and especially Alex's dog.  152 pages (Kindle edition).

"Where Nerves End" by L.A. Witt

Michael Whitman is an acupuncturist in Tucker Springs, CO, where he's helping his ex-wife raise their asthmatic son, but money is tight due to the high cost of living.  Jason Davis is the owner of a nightclub that's barely scraping by, a house that's too big, and a bum shoulder that keeps him up at night in excruciating pain.  When a mutual friend suggests that he see Michael for treatment, Jason reluctantly goes and finds relief.  He also talks Michael into moving in with him to help with the huge mortgage he was left with when his boyfriend moved out.  As the two become friends, Jason's attraction to the straight Michael puts him in emotional agony.  Can they find a way to continue to be friends and roommates without driving Jason crazy?

This was a pretty good story told from Jason's point of view.  Witt described his unrelenting pain so well that the reader can't help but feel for the guy.  His emotional distress was also difficult to read; how much could this man take?  I won't mention more in order not to give away a major spoiler, but I'll just say that I enjoyed the book and wouldn't mind a sequel.  170 pages.

"Stay" by Riley Hart

This is book two in the Blackcreek series and focuses on Wes Jensen, whose oldest sister died in book one.  He is new in town and is now raising her four-year-old daughter.  He has to find a job and figure out how to be both mother and father to his vivacious niece.  Braden Roth is a firefighter in Blackcreek and wants to be more than friends with Wes.  Unfortunately, Wes won't allow himself to get close to anyone because they always leave - his father, mother, sister, and former boyfriend.  Can Braden convince him to give them a chance?

After reading the first book, "Collide," I picked up this one hoping to see more of Noah and Cooper, that story's main characters.  I did but only in small snippets.  Wes and Braden weren't very interesting to me, maybe because I was so focused on the many problems good editing could have fixed.  Wrong tenses, misspellings, poor grammar, and shifting points of view (even in the same sentence) almost made me give up.  Wes was pretty much a downer through most of the book, and Braden became annoying trying to get him to open up.  Better editing and a tighter narrative would have made this story work much better.  355 pages.

Mountain Mafia: Organized Crime in the Rockies by Betty L. Alt and Sandra K. Wells

(Posted for Paul Mathews)

Brief history of some leaders such as Scotti who was accused of murder because no one saw the bullet leave the gun. The mountain mafia had connections with others from Los Angeles to New York and Detroit to Florida.

Audio:  6 hrs. 25 min.

Print:  240 pages

"The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb

Susan M. lent me this book because I had read "Columbine" earlier this year.  At the beginning, the fictional narrator and his wife are working at Columbine High School when two of its students go on a killing rampage in 1999.  The book deals not only with its aftermath and how they each cope but how their lives unfold once they leave Colorado and move back to the narrator's boyhood home, a former dairy farm down the road from a women's prison founded by and named for his great-grandmother.

Part family saga, part historical fiction, this novel is Forrest Gump-ian in the way some of the characters meet and interact with well known figures, such as Mark Twain and Dorothea Dix, and have their lives influenced by real historical events, like Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq.  Throw in a bit of chaos-complexity theory, family secrets, and unpredictable plot twists, and I was hooked.  I don't usually read fiction written by men, but I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this story.  It took the author about 10 years to write it, and he did a great job.  725 pages (including notes from the author).

"Columbine" by Dave Cullen

The first thing you notice about this book is its cover.  One word in white floating in an overcast sky far above a lonely, modern-looking school.  There is no clue to give the viewer an idea of what happened inside that building nearly 12 years ago, except that one word . . . Columbine.

I remember when the massacre at Columbine High School happened back in 1999.  The mass media was all over the place; unfortunately, they got most of the story wrong.  Writer Dave Cullen was there from the beginning interviewing the survivors, their families, the school staff, the killers' friends, law enforcement, and even journalists covering the story.  All of the myths that grew out of the massacre really were just myths perpetuated by the mass media.  For example, the boys did not target jocks, they did not belong to the Trench Coat Mafia, and they did not ask one of the victims if she believed in God before they killed her.  Cullen tries hard to get the details right with a timeline before the massacre, a large notes section, and even a bibliography naming his sources.  He also has a web site with more information:  http://www.davecullen.com/columbine.htm.  In the end, two very different boys committed mass murder at their school for very different reasons. 

The book jumps back and forth between planning for the massacre, carrying it out, and the repercussions that followed.  The writing is straightforward but captivating.  It's hard to imagine the terror and sorrow that so many people experienced because of these two boys, but a few good things did come out of it.  I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the true story behind this tragedy.  358 pages.