Zero at the Bone: Eiskalt bis ins Mark

It was a good story for the most part, I just couldn't seem to get into it. Clearly I'm in the minority here, but I just couldn't connect to the characters so I ultimately didn't care what happened to them.

I think a lot of it had to do with how it was written. The writing wasn't bad, but the dialect in which the MC, "D" spoke was really hard to get past and just kept throwing me out of the book. Reading words like, "hafta git yer" frankly drove me nuts. Mainly because I couldn't ever seem to see D speaking that way. The character in my head and the one on the page never really matched so I just had a hard time reading it.

That said, it's a decent story, it just wasn't really one for me. I'm sure others will continue to enjoy it.

Really enjoyed this book. The characters are believable and the writer's voice seems to have a "pulp fiction" feel to it, making it fun as well. The story itself is riveting, especially when the main characters are on the run. And the love story is incredible. The only "issue" I have is that the end seemed to go on a tad too long. It almost felt like the writer didn't want to end the story, even though the story itself was well concluded. But please don't let that stop you from reading it. Overall, it was a pretty good read. I will be recommending this book to others.

I have to say that Jane Seville's writing was great. The first part of the book I wasnt' sure if I was going to like this story but because of the gb challenge I knew I had to finish it. I am so glad I did. I read all the stories to follow which by the way are free reads on her web page. Then I went and purchased A Very D's Christmas. I can't wait to read more about Jack and D. Excellent book.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the characters and the story but I did have a couple of different issues.

It was a tad longer than it needed to be, there were probably 3 different places where I thought the book was done only to go to the next page (e-book) to find that I had anywhere from quite a few chapters to a couple more left.

Also, D's speaking voice, argh, that made me insane and I actually took to just glancing at what was written & then re-writing it in my head. I'm sorry, but I cannot believe anyone that's gotten past 5th grade would speak that way. Accents are one thing, this was more like he had a disability. Additionally an assassin needs to blend in & be unnoticeable, no one would forget the way he spoke, ever.

Having said that though I did really enjoy reading this and will probably read it again at some point. Definitely worth checking out.

Really enjoyed this book. The characters are believable and the writer's voice seems to have a "pulp fiction" feel to it, making it fun as well. The story itself is riveting, especially when the main characters are on the run. And the love story is incredible. The only "issue" I have is that the end seemed to go on a tad too long. It almost felt like the writer didn't want to end the story, even though the story itself was well concluded. But please don't let that stop you from reading it. Overall, it was a pretty good read. I will be recommending this book to others.

I hate to give a 1 star for this since I seem to be the only person on Earth who didn't like this book, but nothing about this book worked for me.

I could not stand the way D spoke. It drove me nuts trying to read it. I hated how closed off D was. Made him seem like a robot to me, which I get that was the point because of his job, but I was never able to get beyond the robot with him. He seemed to warm up to Jack, but not enough to make me like him or think of him as human or actually having real feelings for Jack.

And Jack drove me nuts too. While I understand why Jack was upset with D about not opening up, did he have to get pissy and storm off or not speak to him every time, which made him come across as an annoying, nagging, drama queen? The guy is a freakin hitman. You thought he'd be sunshine and rainbows and things would be easy?! Please stop acting like a hormonal female, it's not attractive!

The whole mystery part of the story was kinda boring and seemed to make the story drag on forever even though nothing was really going on. It was just too slow to get going, so I was never able to get into it.

This has been on my "To Read" list for a long, long time. I have to admit the title was a bit of a turn off, but I finally decided that it was time and if I didn't like it I could always just close the book or shut off the sound...something I have trouble doing. Well, I did neither. I loved the story and the two characters. It definitely was the most unlikely love story I have ever encountered since D is the hitman that has been sent to kill Jack, a surgeon who was unlucky enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time...which means he's now the key witness against a huge mob boss and everyone is out to get him. D is a hitman with a conscience and a heart. He doesn't kill people who don't deserve it, and he feels that Jack, an innocent surgeon, falls under that umbrella, so D takes Jack under his wing to protect him. Just because D doesn't kill him, doesn't mean that there aren't other hitmen that will. There is so much more to this story line...both from D and Jack's side...and as they run for their lives...they both find a new reason why they really need to live. It's a very long story but I recommend the audio version. I truly enjoyed Alan Smith's rendition. I have several favorites narrators, but it was the first time hearing him. I have added him to my favorite's list.

Dr. Jack Francisco was just minding his own business in the parking garage when he stumbled upon a murder. He managed to hide and escape with his life, but as a witness to a crime connected to a notorious crime family he can't just go home. And he finds himself placed into witness protection with a new identity and a new home.

D is a hit man, but he's a hit man with a bit of a heart. He will only take a contract on someone who he feels deserves to be taken out. No innocent people. No cases where the client just wants someone out of the way for convenience. But he finds himself blackmailed into accepting a job to take out a witness in a murder trial.

When D comes face-to-face with Jack, however, he can't go through with it. Despite the blackmail, there are some rules that he just cannot break. But he knows that by not carrying out the hit, both he and Jack are in danger. And so they set out on the run--from the people who want Jack dead and the people who want D to be the one to make it happen. And when they're on the run with only each other to turn to, who knows what could happen...

I very much appreciate that this didn't go right into a "I'm immediately in love with the man who saved my life" type of story, as that's where I was worried it was headed when I started reading. The relationship develops over some time, and both men also spend some time dealing with how they feel about both themselves and each other. Overall, it probably runs just a tiny bit longer than I would have preferred, but the action-packed scenes around the climax of the story definitely make the build up worth the wait.

While I enjoyed the slow burn of this story, I think the book could benefit from a judicious once-over from an editor. The story's energy flagged a bit in places.

While the initial process of D and Jack getting together had me riveted, some of the sex scenes later in the book seemed obligatory and could have been left out. I look for character progression in stories more than the explicit sex scenes, so I think they should be left out when they don't especially advance the plot.

Speaking of character progression, D's emotional journey is, to me, the center of the book. This was done well. It was a good tie-in towards the end to see D again through other characters' eyes as a real hardass and a scary mofo, after having spent most of the novel watching him crack apart and turn into an emotionally available lover.

The book didn't delve quite as deeply into Jack's turmoil, fear, and identity crisis, but did a fair job.

There is lots of action and intrigue here. The spy/feds/assassins plot was tightly crafted, didn't drag. The secondary characters are well drawn. The climax and denouement were just right.

Overall a great summer read that dives deep enough to be emotionally satisfying, without ripping your heart out.

♩♪♫♬ I don't care who you are, where you're from, don't care what you did as long as you love meee! ♩♪♫♬

Ughhhhh! D and Jack are definitely included in my Top-Couples-Who-Need-HEA-Ending-So-Bad list!

I've been avoiding to read this book because of the cover, honestly. It's more than a decent cover but I just got the idea that this book is kind of YA because of the cartoonish art. I don't know why but I finally decided to read this and I'm glad I did!

I love the story, just the right amount of angst, cheesiness, drama, suspense, and smut. D and Jack made me cry and laugh, somehow they made me love them—with chocolate-covered cherry on top.

Ü

Holy eff this was good. There was lots of action and passion and peril and romance and lust and all the good stuff. The sex was hot, the love was achingly good, it was just so enjoyable.

D is a very interesting character. I liked how consistent Seville was with his manner of speech. His transition from "evil" was a believable one as Jack shows him how to love.

Jack is a little too perfect. But I don't mind that when it includes not being aware of how perfect he is. He's kind and humble and sweet, and he doesn't wallow in self-pity despite the fact that he has absolutely every right to.

One of my favorite characters, though, is Churchill. His reactions all along, especially during the "sad part" (it's in every book, right?) are just wonderful. It made me go all quivery when he got mad at D for not seeing Jack. He told D that it was heartbreaking to see Jack moping around like a kicked puppy because he missed D. The support that he gave, wanting D to go be with Jack was just adorable.

I can't wait to read something else by this author. I highly recommend this book.

I think it's worth noting at the outset that I avoid m/m romance as a rule. Something about slash as a concept rubs me the wrong way. It's as genuine or gay as girl-on-girl porn, though admittedly a bit less exploitative. I feel like it fetishizes the other, and that makes me uncomfortable.

So it takes some hype to get me off my high horse to read a m/m story, and hype is something Zero at the Bone had in spades after its performance in the DABWAHA contest. Thankfully, it truly did live up to the hype for me. I can't say that happens often.

Poor Dr. Jack Francisco just wanted a cookie. But that delay to his departure from work one day put him in the wrong place at the wrong time, leaving him the vulnerable witness to a mob hit. Suddenly his life is turned upside down as he's whisked from his life in Baltimore and hid in Vegas by Witness Protection. It's upended even further when he walks into his apartment and sees the armed hitman waiting to do him in.

But it turns out that the hitman, known only as D, doesn't really want to do it. He's a hired gun, for certain, but he makes a point of only taking the contracts on people who deserve them - child rapists, murderers, swindlers and the like. He's only here because he's been blackmailed into it. Once he gets a look at Jack, sees his strength in the face of death, he not only can't kill him, he becomes determined to make sure no one else does either. So Jack and D end up on the run together, moving from cheap motel to cheap motel before hunkering down in a safe house waiting for the mob trial.

Zero at the Bone's strength is in the two main characters. The book asks the reader to question right and wrong through D's character. Can a killer be moral? Are the crimes D commits justifiable? If not, can he be redeemed? D may not have taken the contracts to kill innocents, but he had still killed for money. His last hit was on an art dealer who dealt in Nazi confiscated art, laundering the works so their Jewish connections can't be traced. Did that man really deserve to die? The suspense plot's action works with these questions in mind. Just when you think you have D figured out, he's tested again and we can judge his reactions and motivations.

The slow-burning romance and intimacy plot works alongside these questions and the suspense. Jack, trying to humanize this killer who's helping him out, keeps asking D questions, questions D has been avoiding for over a decade. The more he tells Jack about himself, the more he learns about himself, and the more he wants to tell Jack all the things he's never told anyone. Since the novel assumes D's fundamentally a good man, the intimacy grows out of Jack trying to figure out how a good man can kill for money and live with himself.

There's none of that "gee we're in danger, but treacherous bodies demand lovin' right here, right now" quality common to romantic suspense. All this soul searching, self-doubt and physical intimacy takes place as they're laying low in a secluded cabin. They're stuck in a home together, forced to rely on each other, and the romance grows organically from that proximity and need. It starts as tentative hand-holding, then grows into a drunken lay, and finally matures into a give-and-take sexual relationship with openly acknowledged feelings. Jack wonders if it's just misplaced gratitude for D not killing him, but Seville makes it plain that this is a mature love that will last.

The novel falters, I think, in its editing. Not copy editing, as the prose is beautiful, but in story fat trimming. As wonderful as Jack and D were, the secondary characters were less so, and some we could have done without entirely. Why did Jack and D's closest friends or colleagues have to be women? What did D's guardian angel X add to the story beyond deus ex machina plot solutions? The concept of a shadowy circuit of contract killers was most believable early in the novel; as she added more characters, interaction and complexity to it, it became much less plausible. Additionally, the novel should have ended at the end of Chapter 29, cutting out Chapter 30 and the 20-page Epilogue. All the additional writing did was ask more questions and dilute the conflict resolution, making the ending less satisfying.

I also had problems with Jack's character. While I liked Jack, thought he was a perfect contrast for D and liked the role he played, I did find him to be playing the heroine's role in many respects. He always needed to be saved, he was the one trying to work through D's psyche with mushy feelings and he had these cute friendships with clear fag hags. I felt like he could have been replaced with a female character and all the book would have lost is the drama of D wrestling briefly with his sexuality. Maybe that's unnecessarily critical of me, but I can't shake the feeling that he was like a tomboy with a dick.

Despite the space I allow them here, these qualms are relatively minor in what was otherwise a great book. Taken as a whole, it's character-driven, evenly paced romantic suspense that asks you to think. I recommend it highly.

This book somehow reminded me extremely about „The Transporter“ just that the main character was gay this time around.

At times the book was dragging a bit but all in all it was very good and I appreciated to read even about the smallest developments in Jack and D’s relationship as authors often like to skimp over these details.

To top it off, the story was very well written, no matter if it were a fighting, action or sex scene. I rarely find action scenes this well written and that made this book a little gem for me.

I liked the chemistry between Jack and D and the slow emotional building of their relationship. Jack certainly had his work cut out for him when it came to D but he rose to the challenge and was rewarded for it. After all the went through together, some might think this was a situational love but I disagree, the situation simply gave Jack the chance to work through D’s seemingly unending with dynamite decorated steel wall.

All in all a great book and if you like M/M, you should give this one a try!

I loved it despite how nutty the premise may be. D becomes a hit man after a huge personal tragedy. Dr. Jack Fransisco is his next hit, but Jack is different. He's innocent and trying to do the right thing after witnessing a mob hit. D finds him in protective custody but finds he cannot kill him and instead decides to protect Jack himself until the trial date.Yes, a lot of it strains credulity, but it is FICTION folks. I loved the slow, tender romance that builds between the two. It is action-packed, fast-paced, with plenty of hit man and FBI action. Yummy sex scenes, including neck snuffling (of great importance in m/m romance).I will pre-order the sequel as soon as it is announced.

I had a bit of trouble suspending my disbelief about the "hit man with a heart of gold" and some of the police/procedural aspects of the story. And, it went on too long. There were a number of good "end points" which could have been used but the ending kind of dribbled on, so the last bit of the book I was wondering "what is it there for?" - it didn't seem to add anything to the story and it didn't seem to be sequel bait either (which would have annoyed me but which I could have at least understood). That said, the other bits were good, particularly Jack's humour. I had a few LOL moments and I did end up caring about these two characters.

After having seen a murder on a parking deck, Jack Francisco is a serious witness who has to be protected. D a killer is forced into taking a new job, to kill this witness. But when D is about to do the job he just can´t do it and both men flee together. Now they have even more people who want them dead but fortunately there is also the mysterious X who seems to help them out. And although both men seem to be more like enemies than anything else, a certain attraction seems to evolve between them. Will Jack make it till the witness stand and will D be able to open up his inner vault to start having emotions again? Of course, all of this sounds rather unbelievable but as the story is so well written (some exceptions though) you really want this story to be true. And ons also wouldn´t mind to have a happy-ending in the end. Well, why not?! It´s fiction, it´s fun and it´s good a lot of male-male sex in it, perhaps some wishful thinking of the female writer??

Loved the story! Loved the interaction between the two main characters!Meet Jack Francisco. A maxillofacial surgeon who happened to be at the wrong place, at a very wrong time where he witnessed a murder before his eyes. Being a man of honor and an upright citizen, he decided to testify and was put on a witness program - leaving all he has known behind. His family, career and friends.Meet our other hero D. An enigmatic hitman with an equally mysterious past. Blackmailed into taking a hit on an innocent man, he meets Jack and realized that he could not put a hole in his head. Left with no other choice, these polar opposites formed an unlikely camaraderie and struggle to evade forces from all sides.Gripping and suspenseful at the same time, I was drawn into the story from the very first page. The pacing was well-done and not once, I felt that the story was dragged on. Not only were the main protagonists nicely portrayed, so were the supporting characters. These characters were driven by their respective motivations and were pertinent to the story. But I won't say more, so do read it for yourself!The ending was beyond my expectation and I couldn't ask for more. Also, if you love these two as much as I do, you're in luck. The author has published three related short stories featuring them. It's more or less, an epilogue. Again, I'd like to say that I highly recommend this if you're looking for a good read.

I remember this being a book frequently recommended and well liked by purveyors of the gay romance genre. These recommendations are a must for me as over the last couple years I've gotten a little more selective about my choices, especially now that my book slush fund has decreased significantly. I've found this particular reading niche fraught with everything from the unbearably bad books I've regretted spending money on to some of my all time favorite stories I've re-read over three or four times.For me this particular book rather falls in the middle ground, although it is one I plan to hold on to. There are certainly pros, I liked the characters and the story line. Jack is such a sweetheart and D is a tortured soul that stands on the brink of being irredeemable for his past actions. The dichotomy between the two characters made it very interesting and I enjoyed the slow blooming romance between the two of them. I'm also a sucker for action and danger themes stuck in with the romance, and this story had plenty of that.On the flip side I found D's rather nebulous solution at the end to be kind of morally questionable although it didn't make me hate the story. Also, I think the author did rather go a little overboard in the bedroom scene department. It got to the point that I skimmed those scenes to get to the more interesting action filled parts. My main complaint was the ending, I found it to be ultimately unsatisfying. It feels like the author just took the story it a little too far for the sake of injecting some reality into it. I think my disappointment was that she ripped the rug out from the "happily ever after" feeling that I had a chapter or so before the final paragraphs. Not that it ended badly...it is just that I read romances for the fantasy of it all and that fantasy unfortunately got a little tore down.Overall I did enjoy the story and would be willing to keep an eye out for any other books (or maybe even a sequel to this one) she may decide to write.

I ordered this expecting it to be an M/M romance with some light mystery thrown in to enhance it. What I got, however, was a suspenseful action thriller with a well thought-out plot, complex characters and a romantic subplot. An exciting story worth savoring - and re-reading.Dr. Jack Francisco is unfortunate enough to witness a mob hit in a parking garage. He's immediately ushered into witness protection, but a hit has already been put out on him. D is a hired killer, only he has rules - no innocents, no children. However, someone doesn't like that and he finds himself blackmailed into killing Jack. Only, he can't. He goes on the run, taking Jack with him to prevent another killer from finishing the job. Not only must D keep Jack alive to testify, he also has to discover who blackmailed him and why. D's not sure if he can trust anyone, even his mysterious guardian angel, X, or Jack's WitSec handler, Churchill. When he starts to feel something more for Jack, he worries that he'll lose his edge. Lot's of M/M romances have angst between the characters, miscommunication, etc that introduces drama to the relationship. Not so here. These two have enough real issues, because the author doesn't gloss over D's past, or the fact that Jack will lose everything to be in witness protection. Jack's life work is to save life, and he has trouble reconciling that D has killed people. He's also troubled by whether his growing feelings for D are real, or induced by the terrifying situation, like Stockholm Syndrome. This story has a multilayered plot: who is D and how did he become what he is? Who is X? Who's after D? Will they survive? All these threads are expertly woven toward an exciting climax. And the suspense was real - despite knowing that a romance will likely have an HEA, I still worried about the characters and no one really escapes unscathed.This is a taught thriller, but the author was not afraid to poke a little fun at her own story by having the protagonist contemplate the irony of being a gay hitman! There is sex in the story, but not gratuitous, and it doesn't occur until it makes sense for the characters. Overall, this was a fantastic novel and I will definitely read more by this author!!

I enjoyed this far more than I expected, it's a genuine engaging love story. D is a hit man with scruples, manipulated into killing an innocent - Jack Francisco, eye witness to a murder. Will he do it? Will he save Jack? Will Jack save him? D is such an empty character and watching him slowly come to life with Jack is a wonderful thing. A keeper.

A gay erotic thriller pager turner with believable situations and characterizations. Author is careful to explain all motivations and odd plot occurences. D's dialect was a bit annoying at first but it grew on me. Could be a terrific movie if they could get any male stars to play the leads.