The Flesh Cartel by authors Rachel Haimowitz & Heidi Belleau should not be considered a romance. It is a brilliantly crafted work of dramatic fiction about human sex trafficking, based on real psychology and a fairly plausible chain of events. This story is not for everyone, and readers will react to it in a variety of ways. It is brutally honest in the telling, and the resolution at the end of the story is just as compelling as the complete absence of hope throughout its middle. The Flesh Cartel was originally released in the serial format, in nineteen individual novella-length segments over the course of nearly two years. This delivery in itself is brutal, considering how [...]

GraveTells (GT): Please help me welcome Heidi Belleau, author of Riptide Publishing’s Rear Entrance Video series! Heidi, I just have to know… is there a fun story behind the naming of this series and the adult store it revolves around? Because, seriously, I adore it!

Heidi Belleau (HB): Thanks so much for having me! The story behind the name is that once upon a time I used to work at a seedy porn store myself, and on the front door of that store was a sign that said “second entrance in rear” and I thought it was so funny as a double-entendre that I decided, hey, what if someone used a sign like that to name the whole store? And so it came down to naming the store/series “Rear [...]

*** This review is spoiler-free! Read on with confidence! ***

Like all the books in the Rear Entrance Video series, Straight Shooter deals with real world issues that are far edgier and less popularized than the typical male/male or even Dom/sub stories common in the romance genre. Austin’s story is just as much of a journey of self-discovery as Christian’s and Rob’s, except he’s not strictly gay and continues to identify that way, sort of toe-ing the line, throughout the book. Austin’s kink is humiliation and punishment, and he likes it most when it comes from being sexually dominated by another man.

Liam, [...]