Series: The Assassins' Guild
Volume: 1/?Publisher: -
Genre/s: MM Thriller Romance MM BDSM Romance
Length: -
Read in: English
Review copy format: epub
Rate:✮✮✮✮✮✰
Yoshi AKA Mr. W is an assassin working for an organization called T.A.G. (The Assassin's Guild), which is led by his "adoptive" father. The young man is given an assignment to quietly kill an English teacher, Jacob Peters, in a way that will look like an accident. While observing his mark, N.B. a very attractive one, Yoshi begins to suspect that the teacher may not be who he claims he is, so he decides to check his assumptions before doing his job. Therefore, he comes up with a plan that will help him get the truth out of the mysterious man.
"T.A.G. You're Seen" is the first volume of "The Assassins' Guild" series written by A.G. Carothers, known to the readers thanks to their shifter series, "Dragon War Chronicles". As the title of the new series indicates, this time we enter the world of assassins, and therefore of ruthless, devoid of all feelings and ready for anything outlaws. But is it really true? Well, it so happens that in "T.A.G. You're Seen" we see a slightly different image of assassins than we might think, as the novel focuses on their private lives, not on their work. And here we have the answer to the above mentioned question, because A.G. Carothers shows their characters as assassins with heart, so they can love, be worried, take care of someone, they are fathers, guardians, brothers, lovers. I admit that I didn't expect it, so I'm pleasantly surprised, because the novel shows them as normal people who just have this kind of job.
Apart from "the heart of the murderer", in the novel I also like the fact that A.G. Carothers raises an interesting and very real problem which concerns young people. Sure, in this book it appears in the context of assassins, so it's a bit "pimped up", but it doesn't change the fact that we can easily find a reference to our everyday world. What I'm talking about in this case is the problem of age and, consequently, of independence of teenagers. In other words, it's about the contrast between being old enough to do something and being too young to do something else, from adults' point of view, and between when and in which situation they can decide for themselves and when they can't. Let's add to all this some adults' various, not always sensible, excuses, and here we have a full picture of the situation. Let's be honest, probably each and every one of us has had to deal with this problem at least once, whether as a teenager or an adult. So it seems to me that "T.A.G. You're Seen" really gives us food for thought.
Another advantage of "T.A.G. You're Seen" is the courage with which A.G. Carothers puts some elements of urophilia into their novel. I will be honest, for years I've hoped that I would finally find a book which raises this topic and treats it as something normal. As it happens, in the case of the first and, until now, the only novel with this thread I've read, the author simply introduced urophilia to the plot, and then literally ran away from it. I want to add that it was an interactive novel, so, by assumption, it's the reader who makes a choice whether they want to "be part of" this fetish or not. Meanwhile, in the book I've mentioned the choice is made by the author, which I naturally criticized when reviewing. In the end, it is quite an interesting theme that can be well-presented and used in a sensible way. That is why I'm very happy that in "T.A.G. You're Seen" A.G. Carothers doesn't run away from the topic they introduce to this story, but they bravely make good use of it and simply handle it as a normal kink.
What I consider to be a minor flaw is the underdeveloped world of the novel, including T.A.G. and the characters' story from before we meet them in this volume. Certain things are explained to us rather quickly, or at the right moment, however, not everything is presented clearly enough so we could say that after reading "T.A.G. You're Seen" we know exactly what we're dealing with. Sure, in the novel we find events that can be properly explained in following volumes, and until then we can think of several theories of our own (e.g. concerning lions!), but there are also those matters about which we would like to know more ASAP (e.g. T.A.G and internal structure this organization). I admit, however, that all this may be related to my impatience and the fact that I'm curious by nature.
In summary, "T.A.G. You're Seen" is a very interesting novel that can appeal to many readers, especially those who have a weakness for BDSM, D/s and less conventional characters. The presented story is engrossing, it stimulates our imagination and encourages us to look forward to the next installments of "The Assassins' Guild" series.
Headcanon: In their bedroom, Dmitry often makes good use of yoga sex positions, because he knows that Yoshi is quite flexible.
Fanfiction idea: Yoshi and Connor bet on which of them can come up with the most twisted date idea. Unfortunately, Yoshi's conception falls into Dmitry's hands. Dmitry worries that his lover gets bored of their sexual life and decides to show Yoshi that he still has plenty of interesting sexual ideas.
AU idea: School!AU, Dmitry is an English teacher, and Yoshi is a school delinquent, who causes lot of trouble. Nobody knows that they both have a crush on each other, but it quickly changes when Dmitry is asked to solve the troublesome student problem.
MOODNOARD IN PROGRESS
Here's some more about:
T.A.G. You better hope you’re not it!
Book Title: T.A.G. You’re Seen (The Assassins’ Guild, Book 1)
Author: A.G. Carothers
Cover Artist: Amai Designs Samantha Santana
Trope/s: criminals and outlaws, first time, forbidden love, hurt/comfort, rescue, thrill of the chase
Heat Rating: 5 flames
Release Date: May 21, 2019
T.A.G. You better hope you’re not it!
Blurb
Attention: This book contains explicit sexual content between consenting assassins and not so innocent professors. There are depictions of masochistic masturbation, male chastity, breath play, watersports, humiliation, and torture by eighties hair bands with ginger sprinkles on top.
Phew! Now, that that's out of the way, Hi. I'm Mr. No your friendly communications agent for The Assassins' Guild AKA T.A.G.
I've been authorized by the head honcho himself, Mr. H, to release approved records from the agent files.
Agent Code Name Mr. W was recovering from a near death debacle by way of an easy assignment in a small mountain town. Red flags sprang up immediately around the seemingly innocent English professor. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery Jacob Peters presented, Mr. W made plans to do what he did best, watch , wait , and then capture and interrogate.
But even the best laid plans can go awry and what Mr. W discovered derailed his plan to kill Jacob.
Find out what brought Mr. W to his knees in this first release from the archives of The Assassins' Guild.
Phew! Now, that that's out of the way, Hi. I'm Mr. No your friendly communications agent for The Assassins' Guild AKA T.A.G.
I've been authorized by the head honcho himself, Mr. H, to release approved records from the agent files.
Agent Code Name Mr. W was recovering from a near death debacle by way of an easy assignment in a small mountain town. Red flags sprang up immediately around the seemingly innocent English professor. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery Jacob Peters presented, Mr. W made plans to do what he did best, watch , wait , and then capture and interrogate.
But even the best laid plans can go awry and what Mr. W discovered derailed his plan to kill Jacob.
Find out what brought Mr. W to his knees in this first release from the archives of The Assassins' Guild.
Excerpt
Shortly, after the cock cage incident, Dad sat me down to have The Talk. I knew by then that I liked dick. At first, I thought maybe it was because I was around men all the time and hardly ever any women, but one day I pulled up cameras from the women’s locker room just to see. Yeah, even the more masculine looking females did nothing for me. I got off my dad’s laptop quickly before he caught me and went back to my room to look at the gay porn I had smuggled from the sex shop. So, my dad sits me down and I’m worried. Even as isolated as we were on the compound, I had access to the outside world. I knew how homosexuality was viewed. Yes, there were changes being made and it was more accepted now, but I still worried.
I was sitting at the kitchen table when Dad came in with a dildo in one hand and a weird looking toy in the other one. It looked scary from afar. He put them down on the table along with a condom and a bottle of lube before he sat down. I was already blushing and ready to make a dash back to my room, but he pinned me with that look he got when he was dead serious and started his explanation. He showed me how to put a condom on, which I rolled my eyes at because duh. That was proceeded with a long talk on all STDs, how you can catch them in non-sexual ways, symptoms, and pictures. He pulled up pictures on his laptop. I was mortified, but damn if I was going to make sure I used condoms no matter what.
He then picked up the item that I had been avoiding looking at. It was multicolored and just weird looking. It turned out to be a big silicon asshole more or less. It was weird. Later, I found out why it looked so weird, but that’s just not something I want to think about. Although, I did end up buying a few dildos from the fantasy dildo company it was from when I got older. But back to my horrifying sex talk with my dad. He opened the lube and briefly went over the best kinds of lube to use and when. At this point, it hadn’t occurred to me how my dad knew all this stuff. He was my dad. He knew everything as far as I was concerned. He then showed me how, if I were to have sex with another man, how to prepare them or myself for it using the silicon asshole of course. He explained things like the prostate and other key erogenous zones of the male genitalia. By the end, I knew I was scarlet and dying of embarrassment. If my dad was embarrassed in anyway, he didn’t show it. He was very clinical about it. He used his instructor voice and could have been going over the parts of a P-90, he was so unphased.
He never once said anything about women. The next day, I went to his office and asked him, “How did you know?”
He quirked an eyebrow at me and said, “Yoshi, do you really think Mr. Th (that was his assistant) got you stuff from the adult store in town without my permission?”
I turned beet red and stuttered, “No, sir.” I thought I was in huge trouble and kept my eyes on my feet.
My dad pulled me into his arms and hugged me tight, surprising me. “I’m not mad. I’m glad that you went to him rather than try to sneak off on your own or do something irresponsible. I figured you weren’t ready to talk to me about those kinds of things and that’s okay. Just know that I’m always here if you need me and I’ll never judge you.” I nodded and hugged him tight, not realizing that I had started crying. I hadn’t really thought how much I was worried about it until I felt the relief his words brought me.
“I love you, Dad.” The words came out more of a whisper than I intended.
He pushed me to arm’s length, so he could see me and wiped my eyes. “I love you too, Son. Now, go out to the range. You have a test tomorrow.” I nodded and headed to the door. I had my hand on the knob when he spoke again. “Just so you know, I’m gay too.”
I turned my head in shock. The surprise evident on my face, my eyes wide. He furrowed his brows at me. “What? Did you not think I had a love life, too?”
I tried to pick my jaw up off the ground to answer. “No, Dad. Honestly, I never thought about you having a relationship much less sex.”
Dad burst out laughing then. “Well, I do.”
I stuck my fingers in my ears and started singing, “Lalalalala. I don’t want to know, Dad.”
My dad sobered then and cleared his throat. “Do you think if I found someone I really liked that you’d be okay if I brought him round?”
I took my fingers out of my ears and went back and threw my arms around him again and squeezed tight and then let go. “Yeah, Dad.” Before things could get any more awkward, I dashed out the door and closed it behind me. I hissed traitor as I passed Mr. Th’s desk and went out to the range.
About the Author
A.G. Carothers is actually a dragon very cleverly disguised as a human. They are a non-binary author of LGBTQIA Romance and Urban Fantasy, who enjoys writing original and entertaining stories. They are very excited to share the worlds they've created with you.
A.G. currently lives in Tennessee with their platonic life partner, who is not a dragon. They yearn to live back in Europe and will some day. In their spare time they are addicted to losing themselves in the lovely worlds created by other authors
A.G. is committed to writing the stories they see in their head without restrictions. Love is blind and doesn't see gender, race, or sexuality.
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