When Jamie Roma and Derek Lee find their blossoming love affair interrupted by dual invitations to a house party from a mysterious unnamed host, they think, Sounds like fun. The next thing they know they are caught up in a game of cat and mouse that quickly starts racking up a lot of dead mice. Yikes, they think. Not so fun.Trapped inside a spooky old house in the middle of nowhere, with the body count rising among their fellow guests, they begin to wonder if they’ll escape with their lives. As a cataclysmic storm swoops in to batter the survivors, the horror mounts.
Oddly enough, even in the midst of murder and mayhem, Jamie and Derek’s love continues to thrive.
While the guest list thins, so does the list of suspects. Soon it’s only them and the killer.
And then the battle really begins.
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Cat gives this one 4 Meows with a 4 Purr heat index...
A party to murder is good mystery suspense. Jamie and Derek are going to a mystery party. Each was given an invitation in their separate apartments and the invitation is vague, just a party with free booze and heartstopping door prizes. When they arrive there are 5 other people, that includes the housekeep and her husband. The bridge has gone out, it's storming like crazy with no sign of letting up and there appears to be no way to leave. Then the bodies start mounting beginning with two strangers in the basement. Noone there knows each other and that is a mystery in itself. Why are these 7 people brought together and who is murdering them one by one?
I liked this story. it's like two stories in one. the mystery and the romance. Jamie and Derek have been friends since school. But recently began being sex buddies too. They are here in the boonies away from friends and relatives to see what their relationship really is. There is a lot of sex. That is one thing I had an issue with. They seemed to be able to tune out some gruesome stuff and just start having sex like bunnies. The other thing predictability. I figured out the murderer early on but not his connections to anyone or his motives.
If you like a murder mystery, suspense, romance and just an intriguing story you will like this.
Excerpt...
Chapter One
FROM THE passenger seat, Jamie Roma slipped a hand under the shirttail of the man driving the car. He chuckled to himself when the car swerved off the road, then lurched back onto the asphalt in a spray of gravel and mud.
Derek Lee growled through what Jamie considered to be the sexiest pair of lips he had ever seen in his life. “Jesus, if that hand had gone into my pants, we’d be dead now.”
“Dead but happy,” Jamie whispered back.
Derek made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a chuckle. Mostly, Jamie figured, it was a groan. Jamie didn’t mind not getting a laugh at his feeble joke, because at the same time as he was groaning, Derek was also tucking his own hand under his shirt and stroking Jamie’s fingers.
They were motoring across the high desert thirty miles outside San Diego. Even had there been daylight, there would have been nothing to see but rolling hills, a bunch of boulders scattered around like spilled Legos, and about a gazillion clumps of sagebrush. As it was, they couldn’t even see that because darkness had fallen with a resounding thud about three hours back. And now not only was it night, it was a moonless and starless night, thanks to the rain clouds that had been forming overhead all day. If not for the Toyota’s headlights and the gleam of the GPS system on the dashboard, they would have been floundering through a sea of bottomless black shadow—blind, directionless, lost.
It was also lonely. They hadn’t seen another car for ages.
Jamie jumped, pointing through the windshield at a sudden twitch of movement up ahead on the side of the road. “Lookie! A coyote!”
No sooner had he cried out than the animal froze, every ounce of its attention trained on the approaching car. The coyote’s eyes were like teeny tiny flashlights, beaming straight back at them. The beast didn’t run; it didn’t cower; it simply stood there with its front feet on the road and its rear end in the bushes, waiting patiently for the car to speed past so it could go on about its business.
“It’s not afraid of us,” Jamie said.
“Why should it be?” Derek snorted. “It’s not the one that’s lost. And don’t say ‘Lookie.’ You sound like a three-year-old.”
Jamie slapped Derek’s arm at the exact moment he spun around in his seat to look behind them as the car zoomed past the coyote. For the briefest of moments, he spotted the creature flashing to life in the red glow of the car’s taillights. Then the animal melted into the receding darkness as if it had never been there at all. Jamie swung back around and replaced his hand on Derek’s bare belly.
He sighed.
“What’s with the sigh?” Derek asked.
“Nothing. Just happy.”
“You’re not getting romantic, are you?”
It was Jamie’s turn to snort. “I don’t get romantic. I’m just a guy who’s having fun driving along with his oldest friend in the world who happens to be an occasional trick.”
“Occasional as in every single night for the last two months.”
“Well, yeah.”
“After all these years of friendly abstinence together, we suddenly jump into bed and pork like bunny rabbits for eight solid weeks.”
“Pork like bunny rabbits. What a lovely expression. Rates right up there with fuck your balls off.”
“Oh hush. I wonder how it happened.”
“How what happened?”
John Inman is a Lambda Literary Award finalist and the author of over thirty novels, everything from outrageous comedies to tales of ghosts and monsters and heart stopping romances. John Inman has been writing fiction since he was old enough to hold a pencil. He and his partner live in beautiful San Diego, California. Together, they share a passion for theater, books, hiking and biking along the trails and canyons of San Diego or, if the mood strikes, simply kicking back with a beer and a movie.
John's advice for anyone who wishes to be a writer? "Set time aside to write every day and do it. Don't be afraid to share what you've written. Feedback is important. When a rejection slip comes in, just tear it up and try again. Keep mailing stuff out. Keep writing and rewriting and then rewrite one more time. Every minute of the struggle is worth it in the end, so don't give up. Ever. Remember that publishers are a lot like lovers. Sometimes you have to look a long time to find the one that's right for you."
Thank you for the review! I have it on my wish list!
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