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The World Outside the Window is a short story anthology that explores the perception of the outside world from a window frame as told by 19 different onlookers. These onlookers are conjured up from the imagination of 19 Amazon.com Shorts writers. Many have other writing accomplishments to their credit but all have chosen to tell a story as perceived by someone looking out the window into a world from which they are distantly connected.

The same building from which this window resides takes the form of an asylum, a hotel, an apartment building and many other structural functions. The idea of these stories is interesting because we never know how our own biases color the interpretation of what we witness. While only a of few of the 19 stories are purposefully told from a different setting, all the stories do what short stories should. They get us into the story quickly and stir emotion good or bad about the main characters. Whether it is a multimillion dollar businessman under close watch due to his poor character judgment or poor black widow with two daughters and a farm to tend suddenly accepting the help of a young white man passing through town, the anthology displays the varied talents of each writer. Even tales of misery after the loss of a child and the demise of a marriage as told by Pamela Kinney in Misery Loves Company or the beauty of second chances and survival as told by Lana M. Ho-Shing in Etude and Smoke Rings which chronicles her experience in New York’s Wall Street on September 11th are shared in the compact short story format and don’t fail to satisfy.

While some stories like The Mailbox by Larry L. Evans and Twilight by Matthew Alan Pierce tells stories of war and family, others like Suspicious Activity by Curtis M. Hendel and House Arrest by Richard Lord, leave readers scratching their head unsure of what they just read. Then Neal’s Noel by Jay Osman, Fallen Star, Rising Star by Mark Terence Chapman and Only There Was No Wind by Jim Wilsky tell the story of strong bonds in boyhood friendships.  None of the stories surprised me more than Anthony Waugh’s Smile, which shows the dark depths of obsession from the vantage point of the obsessed.

The World Outside the Window earns 4 out of 5 Sable Seals for the 19 interesting journeys it offers.

Publisher: R.J. Buckley Publishing

Barbara Karmazin’s Huntress is set mostly in Puerto Rico’s Cabo Rojo circa 2032. Sonia Rodriguez , a web designer, seeks a little recuperation after a big project. During her participation in a renaissance battle, Sonia learns that her loving yet distant father, who used the construction of a security empire to cope with the murder of her mother over 15 years ago, has met his own demise at the hands of a more natural but relentless killer  -  cancer.

As a stipulation to becoming the wealthy heiress of her father’s fortune and retain control of his business, Sonia must remain at his estate in Cabo Rojo for one year. Upset about the arrangement only because she would have rather stayed at her father’s estate while he was alive, Sonia has no idea the task her father has in store for her from beyond the grave. Sonia doesn’t get too far into her daily count-down to freedom before encountering occurrences of blood-thirsty animals called chupacabras and a machete wielding man dressed in black. Despite her father’s high tech security creations and sensing what she witnessed is beyond the reach of the local authorities, Sonia is uneasy in her new home.

The reason for her father’s arrangement becomes all too clear when Sonia comes face to face with the blood-lust animal assassin in her kitchen. Rulagh Lugràànrown a reptile-like man with scales and dark skin from Epsilon Eridani is on a ten-year mission to eradicate Puerto Rico of wayward lost pets with a lust for blood and gore. With spaceships and technology ahead of Sonia’s time plus nosey Navy Seals and the corrupt local police, she joins forces with Rulagh in and out of bed to accomplish his task.

Karmazin does such an excellent job of painting Rulagh’s culture and customs that the reader almost feels this race of aliens could exist. Despite the raw language used to describe genitalia and Rulagh’s sexual emissions, the reader really gets a sense of how Sonia and Rulagh’s relationship develops despite their many differences. Sonia may not be fully ready to embrace all of Rulagh’s customs, but she adopts his language and his way of dress in order to get closer to him and win over his people to assist her in succeeding in their mission. Karmazin creates a strong woman in Sonia, one not afraid of men, beast or great sex. Because I didn’t feel a strong pull into the story until chapter two, this novel earns 4 out of 5 Sable Seals.

Publisher: Liquid Silver Books

Set along a country road called Jericho in south Georgia , author Icy Snow Blackstone tells the story of blooming interracial love between Lindsey Conyers and Dr. Logan Redhawk in the 1970’s against the backdrop of racial and sexual intolerance and the post Vietnam War era.

Dr. Redhawk, who is serving his obstetric residency at the town hospital, finds himself quite taken by Lindsey Conyers when he treats her after a car accident. His infatuation begins a friendship between them yet, he never hides his deeper intentions. Despite warnings from his roommate, a fellow doctor in residence, and the cool hate-filled reception he encounters when he picks up Lindsey for their first date, the couple’s relationship continued to grow out in the open.

Unlike Lindsey and her beau, the rest of the community has plenty to hide and protect. Lindsey’s oldest brother Wade, no longer able to enjoy newly-wedded bliss with his new bride Marcella, begins secret psychiatric sessions to overcome romantic feelings for war buddy who died protecting him during the war. Assuming her new groom is being unfaithful Marcella lures her brother-in-law into a torrid affair all the while the Conyers family patriarch blackmails a naïve employee’s daughter into satisfying the urges to which is his wife will no longer succumb.  Rage, hatred and sexual frustration come to a head when patriarch Hamp Conyers arrives at Dr. Redhawk’s residence to physically persuade him to stay away from his daughter. When lusts and secrets begin to consume all involved, everything comes to light but not before one brother fatally wounds another.

Blackstone’s talent stirs the reader into caring for the Conyers brothers despite their faults and causes you question their struggle between being tempted and doing what’s right. One moment the reader things Wade is too good to be true and just want you think you’ve spotted his true nature, you discover he was being true to himself all along.

While the romance between Lindsey and Logan was sweet, I found myself much more interested in the subplot of Wade, his brother and his wife. Certainly, that storyline was more titillating, but I was anxious to see how the scenario would resolve itself, especially as more players were added to the mix. Blackstone did an excellent job of showing how love, sex, secrets and hate could damage an old-fashioned southern town and its principle citizens.  For that Jericho Road earns five Sable Seals.

Publisher: Lyrical Press

In Sylvia Hubbard’s Stone’s Revenge, the long-standing hatred William Stone has for the Davenport prosecutor, Ramsey McPherson is only equaled by the forbidden love he has for his crippled daughter Abigail. Hubbard weaves a complex story with family secrets, heartache, ongoing deception and pure evil. In fact, the thirst for revenge that both McPherson and Stone share is so strong; it’s hard to believe that Stone could ever truly love the offspring of a man he loathes so much.

Very early on in the novel you quickly root for William as he fights to beat several false accusations of rape and murder hurled at him not only by the town’s people but by his own family members as well. Due to the transgressions of his forefathers, he is the ultimate underdog despite his good looks and an intellect too strong to be denied. However, when his love for Abigail turns to hatred over her failure to remember a childhood promise, you come to feel betrayed by Stone. He becomes the evil, menacing character everyone already assumes he is. Despite his attempts to rape and terrorize the focus of his revenge, his victim falls in love with him and his original feelings for Abigail are rekindled.  It’s hard to accept that seething hatred could turn into a fiery love affair.

All of this was too much for me as a reader to believe and I quickly found myself more interested in the competition between McPherson and Stone’s defense attorney, David Reichard, and less interested in Abigail and her sick love affair with her “misunderstood” raging lover.  It was that competition that kept me reading, however, once it was resolved with forty pages left in the book, I no longer cared who was framing Stone. By the end of the novel, I was expected to believe that the thick hatred Hubbard successfully exhibited between Stone and McPherson could be diluted into a playful hostility between the two men that would just make family-get-togethers at the McPhersons’ an entertaining affair.

I appreciate Hubbard’s ability to make emotions feel so real, however it is that talent for conveying emotion that makes it so hard to believe when these deep emotions quickly shift to the opposite end of the spectrum. I find some of the scenarios she paints too soap-operaesque and unlikely to believe. With that, I give Stone’s Revenge 3 out of 5 Sable Seals.

After the Storm, a Gay, Interracial Erotic short story, is about a rich hotelier’s son, Ethan Conrad, who is make the most of his new life in Indiana after being forced to run the hotel there after his involvement in a same-sex affair his father viewed as a family sex scandal.

Ethan falls head over heels in lust over Marcus, the manly carpenter he hired to construct his art room. Thanks to the wisdom of his Italian housekeeper, Ethan discovers that his desires may not be one-sided, however, there is deep pain holding Marcus back.

While I didn’t care for Ethan’s controlling and relentless pursuit of Marcus, in the short space of 42 pages, Steele shows us how sometimes we need an outside push in order to resume living our lives after a tragedy. Steele also shows how vulnerability can often turn superficial lust into something much more meaningful. Once Marcus acknowledges his desires, the love scenes between Marcus and Ethan are as tender as they are steamy.

I give Jaxx Steele’s After the Storm four out of five Sable Seals.

Publisher: Red Rose Publishing

Genre: Interracial Gay Erotica

Page Length: 42 pages

In By the Moonlight by Jaxx Steele, sexy vampires Jared and Byron have been friends for centuries. When Byron catches up with Jared at his favorite flesh bar, the reader senses right away that the only flesh Bryon wants to see is Jared’s. Jared is a hetero vampire who believes that blood tastes the sweetest after riding the waves of passion. His ritual is to scope out a female, dominate her with his prowess and drink from her phermone enriched blood.

For Bryon, fleshlust and bloodlust go hand and hand as well, but he feels no experience can top that which can be shared between two lovers with the same parts.

Having been friends for so long, Byron and Jared can read eachother’s minds and sense each other’s lust. As the reader continues on Jared’s journey it becomes obvious that despite his dark vampire needs, Jared is very vanilla. It’s time for Byron to add a little chocolate as he invades his mind during one of Jared’s conquests. That one evening, sparks Jared’s curiosity which begins the dabbling into a new world of not only variable sex positions for heteros but voyeurism as well as male on male sex.

In the end, Jaxx has penned a sensual love story of desire and experimentation. I liked the idea of vampires and their telepathic thoughts. By the Moonlight earns three out of five Sable Seals.

Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

A married couple struggling to maintain their connection and start a family recapture the perfection of young love in Veronica Blaque’s short story, Doppelganger. Though the story starts a little rough, but Blaque tells the story of a middle-aged woman tormented by her ticking biological clock, the strain of her marriage and a sexy stranger who keeps crossing her path at work.

The mystery colleague seems unusually familiar and acts as the catalyst that ignites the woman’s desire for her husband. Over the next several days, while the couple re-enacts the early days of their relationship, the woman starts to find her muse in the strangest of places, making the woman recognize the value of her relationship and the future they are struggling to move toward together.

I really enjoyed the symbolism in this story and the love scenes were hot without being crude. Veronica Blaque’s Doppelganger earns four out of five Sable Seals.

Publisher: Wicked Women of Color

The two main female characters in Dorothy Phaire’s Murder and the Masquerade learn that unconditional love first develops from within. Psychologist Reneé Hayes is not only caught in a loveless relationship with her husband, she’s in a loveless relationship with herself. Striving not only to find love, she struggles to find someone to whom she can bestow her love and energy. As a result, she throws herself into helping others while secretly doubting her ability to do so. A break-in at her home brings her in contact with the depths of her problems and a new object of her affection, a younger Detective Degas Hamilton. 

The other main female character, Veda Sims, an office manager for a law firm has lost her dignity and self-respect in her attempts to hold onto the affections of her lover, LaMarr Coleman, a lawyer at her firm and the man whose love she valued more than her marriage, her daughter or even herself. Her obsession with LaMarr brings Veda to the brink of self-destruction and to Dr. Hayes’ couch. The women’s professional connection turns dangerous as Veda fails to see who LaMarr really is and what he’s capable of.

Reneé and Veda’s desire to love and be loved lead them to re-examine their choices and the influences in their lives. While the women’s transformation is nowhere near complete the reader gets the sense that things are now moving in the right direction. For this journey, I give Murder and the Masquerade four out of five Sable Seals.

Publisher: iUniverse

 Price: $18.95

In Congresswomen Linda and Loretta Sánchez’s inspirational book, Dream in Color, the sisters of congressional politics discuss their humble upbringing in El Monte and Anaheim, California. The sisters, parented by Mexican immigrants in a house with five other siblings, tell of the family’s strong work ethic and values. Linda, a JD licensed to practice labor law, and Loretta, an MBA graduate with experience in financial investments, discuss in-turn their experiences with racism, ageism and sexism during their academic and professional pursuits as well as on the road to and within congress.

While the last few chapters appear to resemble a campaign speech, I did enjoy and appreciate the accomplishments made by each of these women in their personal and professional lives. With the media’s focus on the Senate and Executive branch of government, it was interesting to learn about how the House of Representatives works. It was a pleasure to read about these women’s achievements in their own right as well as how their family comes together to assist one another. The authors make many references to Hispanic culture and provide many witticisms for success.

After reading this book, you’ll get a sense of the importance of discipline and tenacity as well as the necessity to make your vote count in every election not just the one that picks your next president. For that, Dream in Color earns four Sable Seals.

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

In Marta Acosta’s contemporary paranormal romance, The Bride of Casa Dracula, blood-lust, jealousy, first class wedding skepticism and thematic hints of chicklit stories past abound. Milagro De Los Santos is a hot Hispanic freelance writer on the fringes of the rich and famous vampire society with only a series of wedding rituals, a loyalty agreement and a vow of pre-marital celibacy standing in the way of her marriage to Oswald Grant—gorgeous son of a prominent, wealthy vampire dynasty and successful plastic surgeon.

When Milagro repeatedly finds herself crossing paths with an ex-lover, the man responsible for her extra-vampire abilities, and his sister—the woman put in charge of making sure Milagro follows the vampire council’s restrictions to the letter, Milagro feels her white plastic-mini wearing style is cramped. Milagro goes from feeling restricted to sensing her matrimonial fairytale has turned into choose-your-own-adventure novel with someone else making the decisions—but who?

While I liked the idea of Milagro’s superpowers, I didn’t find her to be a likeable character. The story in general had only a sprinkling of Hispanic cultural references. The rest of the book’s characters didn’t make any better of an impression.

While some of the twists were interesting, the attempted murder toward the end just seemed a little too extreme to be a natural believable progression in the novel and most of the attempts at humor did not spark.

Knowing that Milagro’s story and her growth spans three novels so far and The Bride of Casa Dracula is the third in the series, it earns three sable seals.