My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Oh, how I wish this were a book rather than a very short story. A writer writes at the coffee shop. Truth being better than fiction? We will never know. Please, Ms. DeLuna, tell us more!
Category: LGBT
A Matter of Faith by Sophia DeLuna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Sorry it has taken me so long to review this. I picked this up so long ago that I can’t even remember when or why. But since I was feeling my addiction to Sophia De Luna’s writing, I thought now was the time.
Okay, this was a short story. Not my favorite kind. It was long enough to care about the characters and for a storyline to develop. But, as is my customary response: I wanted more. This could make a marvelous epic fantasy with LBGTQ flavors. Tell me more about the world, the kingdom, the characters and their families. Why doesn’t the secondary character have faith in herself or life itself? How were the talents of healing discovered and are their other talents?
What happens next?
I loved it so far. I want more!
Taxi – Tactics by Sophia DeLuna
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Ulrike, you did WHAT!! Well, what did you have in mind, Carmen? Yeah, that’s what I thought!
There. I’ve summed it up. Would I have done what Ulrike did? Nope. Wouldn’t have had the nerve or the idea. I’m stuck with whatever Carmen would have come up with. Stuttering my way through to absolutely nothing.
What’s this all about? Gosh, I can’t tell you. You have to read it for yourself. I am curious as to how others would handle this situation. What tactics would you use? Remember jobs and reputations are on the line. But it is a situation that comes up on a daily basis. Like I’ve said before, Sophia DeLuna uses realistic problems and handles them through the characters of Ulrike and Carmen. I have to say I was quite surprised with what was done and I have to admit to what I wouldn’t have known what to do. Real life like this scares me. As advanced as we think we all are on LGBTQ issues, this situation still exists.
As I have said before, I love these episodes by Ms. DeLuna. They challenge my mind. They warm my heart. It is a little like watching a soap opera. And at this point I can’t wait until Sophia finishes the next Taxi event! By the way, thank you, Ms. DeLuna for letting me read these last few for free. When I can, I will buy these stories for friends, thereby passing on the kindness.
Taxi – Tuxedo by Sophia DeLuna
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love visiting with my friends, Carmen and Ulrike. In this episode, Carmen has tickets to the opera and as the title suggests a tuxedo is involved. Some of us just can’t do dresses!
Do you want to know why I love these little book events? The writing is so flawless. The dialogue and situations are quite realistic. The troubles this couple encounter are also lifelike. And the way the author handles these situations are sometimes mature and responsible, sometimes not so much, but, real. What couple handle things beautifully every time? Most of us just muddle through our problems. We learn to talk it out, but some of us are better at that communication thing than others.
Most often I relate to Carmen in her ways of dealing with things. But in this chapter I related more to Ulrike. For me that is a grand feeling as I wish I was more like Ulrike and the ways she deals with the world.
Anyway, I highly recommend this series to those who want to read of lesbian relationships. The erotica is minimal, so if that offends, don’t worry. Some of us would like more, but that kind of book is a dime a dozen. These gems are about how this couple navigate being in a relationship. I was fortunate to have received the last few from the author but, when I get a few dollars ahead, I will buy them for others. After all, you can tell the work Sophia DeLuna puts into each and every story. By the way, you can find them on Smashwords. Most are $.99 or less. Check ’em out!
Wake Up, I’m Fat! by Camryn Manheim
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
‘Camryn Manheim. Isn’t she the beautiful woman with all those earrings on that legal show?’ That’s what I thought a long time ago when I didn’t quite know who she was. She still remains the one I remember. The others were men or skinny minnies. They all look and acted the same. Not much has changed since in Hollywood’s movies and television. For someone that has a hard time differentiating faces of actors and actresses (remember how I told you I had a hard time with Rob and Jon on Game of Thrones?) Give me individuals! Ms. Manheim is a grand individual. I have tried to catch her on every show on the big screen or small. I was sorry to see her leave Ghost Whisperer. But then again I did love Aisha in the friend role. She, too, is unique. Both these two friends were more interesting that the overly sexed main actress.
So when my friend, Michele, offered to let me read this gem I was excited. A couple years later I have taken it off the shelf and actually read it. Sorry it took so long, Michele.
Now to the meat of this book. Fat. I’ve been skinny, I’ve been–well the size I am now. But I always felt fat. In my family were folks of all sizes so I felt accepted no matter what size I was. But go to the store and I often couldn’t find my size or the styles were ugly. The worst was when my daughter wanted to go shopping together. She didn’t inherit my size or anything else. We were at opposite ends of the rack. We rarely could find a store with both our sizes. But she liked the younger looks so I would get relegated looking at jewelry or standing around doing nothing. We stopped shopping together.
Camryn had it worse. Her chosen profession was into the world of men who only love skinny actresses. Her parents didn’t accept her. Well, don’t let me tell her story. See what one of us has gone through. Watch how she handles her life and grows. If you didn’t love her from the beginning like I did, hopefully, you will love her at the end of the book. Even more, this should be required reading for everyone who doesn’t shop Lane Bryants, or the flowered muumuus at the XX end of the rack. You think skinnies are the norm? They’re not. If you think telling the larger person to diet is going to change things, you are wrong. How about love. What happened to kindness and love?
By the way, the reason this book took me so long to read was the font size. I had to take it in bits. But those bits with a bookmark and bright light got me through. Still I would have liked the Kindle version better.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Remember when I read the first four episodes of Taxi? Well, I got a welcome surprise after the review of the fourth one. Ms. Sophia DeLuna, the author of these great stories, sent me a sweet email that included coupons for the next three books in the series. Yay! Thank you so much. With my tight budget, it is often hard to decide if the next dollar is for food or reading. I hate to admit that I don’t look like I would if I chose books more often. Or maybe it is the fact that one can do both eating and reading comfortably at the same time?
At any rate, I got to the reading as soon as I could. And I think that Taxi 5, Talk, is one of my favorites. It is so real and honest. It touched deep emotional threads for me. This book deepens the relationship of Carmen and Ulrike. You see Carmen, still dealing with her bit of PTSD, or maybe there is a deeper issue going on, like social anxiety, depression, or other mental problems. I found I related to Carmen very much, phone phobia, isolation, etc. And Ulrike is fleshed out in how she and Carmen’s cat bond over yogurt, sharing a spoon. Carmen cringed and so did I. But as different as Carmen and Ulrike are, you see them working hard to communicate and deepen their love for each other.
By the way, I just did a review of New Hire: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…, where my complaint was that the characters weren’t deep at all. In comparison, this Taxi series has what I think give fictional characters real life. In this series, I was surprised at how well I had pictured the two characters. It had to be how the author described them. I went to the author’s website: http://www.sophiadeluna.com/ and under the Taxi category I found the author’s rendition of her characters. I would have known who they were had I met them on the street. That is how good Ms. DeLuna is creating her characters. She’s quite the artist, as well! I can’t wait to read #6!
New Hire by Veronica Victorian
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Disclosure: this was a free for review read from Rooster and Pig publishing.
Meh. In the beginning of the book, I felt like I was getting to know a character and a storyline. But then it took off into what I consider a straight guy’s wet dream of lesbian lust. Okay, I am not so much a prude as to not have felt anything. There were hot places. But just about when I might feel an emotional bond or honest need, I read words I have read of straight erotica that always yank me back to reality.
New Hire was so much less than learning the ropes of a new company for the new hire. In fact, once the boss takes over, she takes over! I would have loved more fleshing out of the characters. No pun intended. I think the author tried, but just didn’t quite get there.
Maybe it is just me. Try it and see if it is a book for you.
Relic: The Morelville Mysteries – Book 1 by Anne Hagan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
One of the book clubs I belong to mentioned that this book was free a while back. I went over to Amazon and found it free on Kindle Unlimited. Then a couple days after that the book was really free, so I turned in my ‘borrowed’ copy and got my own.
Look, um, I’m not crazy about mysteries or suspense/thrillers, so I was hesitant to read this. Turns out it wasn’t too anxiety producing. So I could move to my bedtime book. Well, that is, until near the end of the book when I realized I was still awake reading at 4 AM.
I did like the main characters. I liked how the author, Anne Hagan, divided the points of view between both of them. That way she could let us in both women’s thoughts and actions.
For most of the book, I found the writing fair. Towards the end though, sentences were hard to understand and there were words that should have been other words. Like the word ‘man’ should have been ‘main’. Maybe earlier in the book I wouldn’t have noticed but here we are in the thick of trying to solve the crime and the tempo of action has sped up. I often had to reread passages to understand what happened.
In my opinion, using cuss words should be full out, and in this case warranted, or not used at all. I felt spelling a cuss word with asterisks felt like cheating. It was another thing that pulled me out of the book. The other cheat was in how the book ended. We’re in the middle of the shake-down (or whatever that part of the arrest process is called and we don’t get to see what happened until later. Sorry, I nearly threw in a spoiler. Then when it is all explained, it felt anticlimactic. Then the next book has a preview which is that scene duplicated. Truly a letdown. I do understand why the things in that last part of the book got jumbled. When I write a fast scene or erotica I find my grammar and spelling give up the ghost. And my descriptions are horrid. Note the above review. But I hope that part and the beginning of the next book can live up to the rest of the first book.
By the way, this book can be rated “G”. What I mean is the sex scenes are kept to the minimum. For me, this story didn’t call for long erotic scenes. Maybe in the next book or so? Mostly the story kept to the mystery. Relationships are building, but the main characters try to keep it ‘professional’. I won’t say how successful they were, but the author did a good job keeping it real.
I hope I haven’t been too critical. I did like the book and do look forward to reading the rest of the series. Like I said, I liked the story and the characters. Worth the read, folks!
Taxi – Timing by Sophia DeLuna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The trauma that started in book/section three continues. It is so bad that it could be the end of the relationship between Carmen and her lover and even plays a part in her relationships with family and friends. But is time on her side? Is there a point where your trauma can isolate you to a point of starvation. Can she find her inner strength before everyone gives up on her?
This may be the most personal of all. If you haven’t lived with trauma that is that debilitating you might not understand what Carmen is going through. But I felt the author, Sophia Deluna, did a marvelous job getting inside the heads of characters of this section. And something I haven’t written about in my reviews of the previous Taxi installments is her writing. I love it! Her descriptions and ability to tell a story, reeling in this reader, hook, line and sinker. All the relationships seem real. I am looking forward to reading the rest of this story.
As with the other few bits of this story, I am most upset by the price per bit. I am now at the end of my budget for the month so I won’t be able to read part five for a month. It is this that is causing the less than five stars for me. At least with Kindle Unlimited I can still read a book when the money runs out. Oh well. I still have a few of Ms. DeLuna’s other stories downloaded to peruse over the next few weeks.
Taxi – Trauma by Sophia DeLuna
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Except for the $.99 a section, I am loving the story between Ulrike and Carmen. They are two very different women, each with their own set of insecurities and powers. There are even distinct language and culture differences. But that makes for a better story, I think.
This is for section three. It’s call book three, but I don’t think any of these sections can be called a book. Long chapters, maybe.
Trauma is the title and trauma is what it is about. I found this section to be quite truthful in that poor Carmen does have some problems with PTSD/anxiety and depression going on. I think the author did a great job pulling the reader into how that feels from the inside of the person experiencing the mental anguish and what it looks like to those who love her. I don’t think I have seen it all so well done!
So far, what I really like in this series of episodes is how well defined each of the main individuals relationships with others is and how the whole group of people grow through their experiences. Great job, Sophia DeLuna!
Darswords 
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