esda

This series started of so good, but kept getting worse with every following book. 😐

The Rising (Badlands, #2)

• 21.04.2025 - 22.04.2025

• 22.02.2026 - 23.02.2026

Loose Ends (Badlands #3)

• 31.01.2021 - 02.02.2021
• 21.04.2023 - 22.04.2023
• 22.04.2025 - 23.04.2025
• 23.02.2026 - 24.02.2026

No Surrender (Badlands, #4)

• 22.04.2023 - 23.04.2023
• 23.04.2025 - 25.04.2025
• 24.02.2026 - 25.02.2026

Point Blank (Badlands, #5)

• 25.04.2025 - 26.04.2025
• 25.02.2026 - 27.02.2026

Thunder Road (Badlands, #6)

• 01.03.2026 - 02.03.2026

Hell, no.

Hah. I picked this book hoping for less annoying characters than in the first book of the series. But wouldn't you know it... Annoying, mentally challenged and talking-like-a-toddler Maggie also gets a lot of screentime in this book, since she now WORKS FOR BUD - probably trying to ruin his new store the way she miscalculates prices and behaves towards customers... urk...

Listened to this one in audiobook form and sadly the 2nd main character (Pascal) is French - and the audio narrator doesn't know any French and mispronounces the simplest words... and adds a fake French accent to EVERYTHING written from Pascals POV (which is about half the book!!). Pascal sounds like some cartoon villain, which is really annoying for the love interest in a romance book.

Reading the book would probably have been the better choice. Just can advice everyone to do that instead of listening to the audiobook.

I'm sorry to say this, but the way Mitch's sister Maggie talked and behaved (supposedly she's like 30? but you would think she's max. 10 years old and mentally challenged) kinda ruined it for me. [Plus the audiobook made her probably more annoying, with her stupid baby-talk... urg...]

It was my impression that most of the women in this book were super annoying, which grated on my nerves. I really wished so many MM romances wouldn't make female characters so unlikeable...

30.09.2025
Die Funk-Füchse 3: Die Haschischbande wird entlarvt
[Hörspiel][50:41 min]
⭐⭐⭐

18.10.2025
Die Funk-Füchse 11: Kampf mit dem Roten Blitz
[Hörspiel][42:52 min]
⭐⭐⭐

25.10.2025
Die Funk-Füchse 14: Erpresser leben gefährlich
[Hörspiel][43:55 min]
⭐⭐⭐

So much unnecessary drama, unrealistic situations and awkward writing style.

Josh Lanyons books are usually well written. This is also the case here.
The things that really bugged me with this book are the asshole Love Interest (sadly a phenomenon often found in Lanyons books) and me not understanding how the Main Character can love him (again) and especially here: get back together with that person so soon. How can he ever trust him again and trust him to not betray his trust again like that in the future? A “second chance” story would have worked better, if more time had passed (not just 11 months since the betrayel of trust) and the Love Interest had more time to grow as a person and learn from his mistakes.

Plus: I am sad to see that more and more authors use AI generated “artwork” (like it is the case here) to make their book covers. Please support artists and don't support stolen art!

This was a summary and not a story.
It was “then the did that and that, then that happened”.
This only consisted of “telling” and not “showing”.

Overall liked the book fine, even if Wills “best friend” Becca was the most annoying, cowardly coward that ever cowarded in the history of cowards in books. And annoying and selfrightous to boot. (Why is he friend with someone like that??)
Second worst character of the book was Beccas mum. (With her marriage plot)

The gay love story then happened way too fast (once Will confessed) and the sex scene was rushed and a bit boring. But over all Will and Aiden were likeable characters that fit well together.

Cat Sebastian writes beautiful historical gay romances. This one is no exception. Loved the characters and setting. I haven't read many (or any) stories set in the 1950s. (Especially ones with a happy ending.) It was great to get a glimps into that time period.

At times the story felt “too long” for my (personal) taste. Still a 5 star read. The audiobook is great, too.

Barely made it halfway through. Sadly the writing is terrible. A lot of “telling” and too little “showing”. Lots of information dumping done in the most boring ways. And it's really hard for me to follow what is actually going on. It all seems kind of random.
I will try to finish listening to the audiobook.

- update: Finished the audiobook by listening to the last 40% of the story with tripple speed.
Still no idea what the actual plot was. Liked the idea of the book, just not the execution (aka the writing). Should have been a third of the length it had.

WTF did I just listen to...
Die Folge ist ja wirklich “all over the place” ohne richtigen Anfang und richtiges Ende.
Außerdem ist es die Folge, in der man sich ganz besonders fragt, wie doof und blauäugig T-Rex doch eigentlich ist.

Wie viel unsympathischer kann T-Rex noch werden?

Ich hatte die Serie bis einschließlich Folge 7 vor einigen Jahren schon einmal gehört und sie nun nochmal bis hierhin angehört. Mir ist dann aber wieder eingefallen, warum ich abgebrochen habe. (: Und nein, die Serie ist leider mit der vergangenen Zeit nicht besser in dieser Hinsicht geworden.

Die Geschichten und behandelten Verschwörungstheorien sind interessant (genug). Manches kann man sich gut vorstellen, dass es so passiert sein könnte. (Manches ist aber auch komplett irrwitzig, wie das mit den mit Alu-Folie umwickelten Handy-Komponenten oder dass Ohrringe vor Mind Control schützen sollen.)

Was mich aber immens an dieser Hörspielserie (die ich jetzt “nur” bis einschließlich Folge 7 gehört habe) stört, ist die sexistische Art, wie über Frauen gesprochen wird (sie werden eigentlich nur auf ihr Äußeres und auf ihre Fckbarkeit reduziert; das geht schon in Folge 1 los, wie da von T-Rex und Kumpels über die “heiße” Nolo gesprochen wird). Und dass in der Serie mit den vielen, vielen Charakteren, überhaupt nur 2 Frauen (die “heiße” Nolo als Love Interest für T-Rex (für den sie viel zu gut ist *lol)) und die (natürlich ebenfalls heiße) Femme Fatale “Margot” auftauchen.
(Den Bechdel-Test besteht die Reihe damit auf keinen Fall. Ist ja aber auch schwer mit nur 2 Frauenfiguren.)

Das hat es mir doch recht vermiest. Und ich vermute, es ist den Autoren nicht mal aufgefallen, weil sie “den Mann” als Standardmenschen ansehen und Frauen als irgendwas Nebensächliches, was man eigentlich nicht braucht (außer als Love/S*x Interest) und nicht als Menschen, die 51% unserer Gesellschaft ausmachen. (Und die Hörspielserie ist jetzt nicht so alt, dass man sagen könnte, es hätte dem Zeitgeist der “damaligen Zeit” entsprochen, dass Frauen nicht als gleichwertige Menschen angesehen wurden. Nope.)

Tja, schade.

This was a decent book until the toxic ex wife appeared with a surprise baby, which ruined the last part of the book for me.
I liked the two main characters and the narration (of the audiobook), though.

Hm... this was disappointing, since it started right in the middle, where the last book seems to have ended (I can't really remember and should have reread book 4 first, it seems) and then the story goes on, the main character (Jason) going “undercover” (not really or at least he's really bad at the whole undercover thing) to investigate a “suspicious death” and the mystery just doesn't gets solved.
Instead the book ends with another murder. And then the book just suddenly ends. Or is the ending just missing? [Someone mentioned that the author may have posted the last chapter exclusively on her patreon site? I hope that's not the case and that the story continous and hopefully gets resolved in the next book and that we don't have to wait years for it.]

Then there's Jasons long distance relationship with Sam. The last thing we hear is that Sam will visit Jason the following weekend “to talk”. So it also ends with a cliffhanger in the relationship department...

Appart from that the story was interesting enough and the writing style still good, so three stars for that.

Story-Idee fand ich gut und die Charaktere sympathisch, den Schreibstil leider etwas holprig (gerade auch wenn es um Beschreibungen ging: zu viel Konzentration auf Unwesentliches) und etwas viel Konzentration auf die Sexszenen / Erotik.
Alles in allem aber eine “okaye” Story.
Der Sprecher des Hörbuchs war okay. Bin aus dem englischsprachigen Raum hier aber mehr “Voice Acting” gewöhnt, so dass mir das bloße Vorlesen einer Geschichte zu wenig ist, um es wirklich gut gesprochen zu finden.

I rarely read coming-of-age or YA stories. But I certainly don't regret reading (or listening to) this one.
It's been a long time since I enjoyed a story that much. The writing, characters, character development was just that good.

I liked the idea with the miniature library, but not so much the execution of the story.
The writing was decent, though the book filled with many “boring” patches, that I had to force me to read/listen on.

I nearly DNF, when Simon just adopted a dog for Eliot, without asking him first. He just came over and “dumped” the dog there. “You adopted a dog. LUL” If someone had done that to me, I would have flipped. It is such an intrusive and insensitive thing to do! A dog is such a big responsibility (it's a living being!) and limits you so much in your life and travels (much like a very young child). And when Simon said, he couldn't take the dog himself because of his knee, Eliot had no option but to keep the dog, since he wasn't so heartless to bring it back to the animal shelter.
And don't get me started about the baby of Simon's sister, that they HAVE to adopt.... Why can there never be an abortion in a book? Is this like a no-no with American literature? Always the young teenage mothers that HAVE to have the baby, even though they have to give it away, since they wouldn't be able to finish school otherwise....

Not sure I can finish this one. Indy's family is just soooooo annoying.
“Ahahaha, he's gay, so just randomly pop into his appartement and decorate it with DICKS everywhere. All the time. And just never stop doing that.” - so funny. NOT.

edit: okay, finished it. Still not a fan :/

Okay... So the story started promissing with Gavin trying to stop his friend Beach from jumping into a river from a bridge (and failing) and Jamie saving them.
Then the story took an abrupt turn for the worse, when Jamie (a police officer!) decided to go to some weird sex party (were the people there also consume drugs) with Gavin and gets a blowjob by some random dude. I was like: WTF? How? Why?? Why did Jamie think that was a good idea?
[Gavin and Jamie are supposed to be in their mid thirties(?), but both behaved like teenagers / college boys. I totally can not take man of that age acting like that seriously. LOL]

Then there's just lots of sex ... I just listened to the audiobook on double speed at that point and didn't care about the characters at all anymore, since they were totally unrelatable and unlikeable for me.
Then Beach (who's got to be the most annoying and unlikeable character in written history) wakes up from his coma and pulls Gavin into another stupid stunt of his. Somehow the “motive” of Beach felt really forced and the whole storyline, which could have been some interesting side plot, ended abruptly.
Then Jamie acts stupid and endangers Gavin. And then the story ends.
It somehow felt like the author just wanted to get the story over with. Like he was bored of and/or annoyed by the characters and/or story himself and just wanted it to end.

I expected a story somehow like the psycop / paranormal stories I've been reading from other authors over the last months. Plot-driven stories with creepy ghosts, that really matter for the plot of the story.
What I didn't expect was the insta-lust, that much sex and the flimsy plot (Joachim writing about Ainsley's “madness”, because he claims to see ghosts). Also, as other reviewers already mentioned, the constant description of the two main characters as “the older/younger man”, “the ginger one”, “the Scotsman” etc. was something I haven't encountered in gay fiction for almost 20 years now - and only in online story archives, nothing professionally published.

On the plus side: I was somehow fond of the characters, so I'm sad, that they couldn't really develope any chemistry aside from the one in the bedroom. I sincerely hope that the next book in the series is better and doesn't only consist of sex scenes.

This could have been a great book, if
1.) it was shorter (some parts were really unnecessary for the story and boring to read / listen to, like how the algorythm / AI of “Q*Pid” worked)
2.) without the annoying neighbour “Mrs Schwarzmann”, who talked like Yoda. (She's supposed to be a German immigrant. And that is NOT how Germans talk, not even when talking German. And it was even more annoying to listen to in the audiobook. In the ebook I would just have skipped over all the parts she opened her mouth.)

Well written, like all for JCP's stories, though what really bugged me, was the (probably not well thought through) world building:
There's two groups of people: the privileged “Boomers” (I cringe at the term.. OK, BOOMER!), who are rich and pay basically no taxes and there's a group called “Taxrats”, who the “Boomers” look down on, though the “Taxrats”, which have a much smaller income, pay ALL THE TAXES (and are compared to vermin for doing so??? so the tax evaders look down on the tax payers?), financing the Boomer's livestyle... I mean: DAFUQ?! How can such a society work? Why isn't there an uprising / revolution? O_o; There should, in logic, be much more “Taxrats” than “Boomers”, since the low income of those Taxrats pays for the costly livestyle of the Boomers... I don't get it... But that's often I problem I have with dystopian SciFi world building)