Rainbow Reviews Scavenger Hunt

For the unaware, Rainbow Reviews is running a electronic scavenger hunt through the end of the month-- with a prize of free books! If you click the link above, it will take you to a page with a list of 42 author links. Each author has an icon of a pink & blue book stack hidden somewhere on his or her site. Fill out Rainbow Review's entry form with at least 25 links to the icons' whereabouts to become eligible.

If you have the time, it's fun to do. I was already familiar with several authors on the list, but several others offer freebies or intro chapters so you can determine whether you'd enjoy their other works. I found a couple of authors to revisit later, too.

One of the free stories I read was by Rhianne Aile and Madeleine Urban. They've written a few books together and a couple of them sounded good, so I had a look at The One That Got Away, which was featured on Rhianne's blog.

In five parts and 112 pages, it's a lengthy sample of what to expect. I may know why it wasn't formally published, though. The story begins with two friends, David and Trace, who work for rival newspapers. David gets hurt and Trace volunteers to help him out for a while. The buildup to an inevitable romance is well-done. However, I kept waiting for story tension and it never came.

[Spoilerish] There were a multitude of things that could have gone wrong or brought tension into the story. In the beginning, they talked about the rival newspaper thing but it was brushed aside without dealing with it. Later, they spent some time on the fact Trace is (was) straight. Apparently, he had no problems whatsoever with a transition to being gay and no family ever entered the picture to bother their wonderland of love. There were possible love-rivals, but they all backed off near-instantaneously. Real-world concerns like jobs and money weren't an impediment to love. There weren't even any internal/personal concerns to bother this happy, well-adjusted couple! So where's the story? [/Spoilerish]

In short, it's just a soft, happy love affair thing with a bit of smut in it. Granted, the smut was descriptive and very well-written, but I felt the piece itself was pointless. In technical terms, the authors loved to write split infinitives, (...to boldly go...) but otherwise their grammar received a passing grade.

Maybe these authors' published books are wildly different from this unpublished piece, but after reading this, I'm not in a hurry to buy. I still appreciated the chance to sample their work, so I urge you to browse the authors on this list and see what strikes your interest.