Samuel Alexander

Samuel Alexander is just your regular guy trying to write the stories he enjoys to read. He lives on the Island of Bermuda, sharing space with the voices in his head. Cheesecake is his one true love, and fries. He firmly believes that chocolate makes everything better, coffee is the elixir of life and a good book is the source of pure happiness.

Twitter: @SamAlexAuthor
Facebook: Facebook profile
Blog: https://readingismydrug.com/

abuse    angst    anxiety    betrayal    boy    boys    coming of age    confusion    dark    death    denial    depressioin    depression    drama    erotica    faith    fatherhood    friendship    gay    grey    high school    highschool    humor    humour    interracial    lgbt    lgbt teen    loss    love    loved    multiple personality    music    new adult    poetry    psychological dark    relationship    relationships    romance    romance gay    romance mm    self discover    self discovery    self doubt    self identity    song    suicidal    suspense    teen    teen 13 and up    teen adult    teen drama    teen romance   

• Intoxicated on Jan. 29, 2014
  
  Three angles, none of equal size all adds up to... Intoxicated, otherwise know as a scalene. But Love triangles aside this was a very fun read. I might be a little biased because chick lit is always steamy fun. Erotica is okay, but when steam is funny it's just so much more exciting. As far as chick lit goes this book hits all the good points. The humour is spot on. The sexual tension, oozing through the pages. Shortage of hot men, of course not. Heroine who is woefully unaware of her own beauty and assumes all her friends are infinitely hotter than she... yes. And did i mention the men are tall. Quadruple yes. Anything above six foot two gets mega bonus points as far as I'm concerned. But enough about the steaminess lets get to the plot. The one thing that I love about this triangle is that it extends beyond the triangle. Usually these books are told through the eye of the heroine but this book does an excellent job of making her friends roles much more prevalent in the tale. As in real life sometimes every ones individual story intertwines somehow. Coincidence, maybe, but it does happen. This novel does a very good job of using the situations of the friends to affect the dilemma of the heroine. It's nice that the idiot boyfriend, Eric, is just stupid by way of neglect and there isn't anything majorly glaring about him, and on the reverse side it's also nice that the third, Mathew, isn't some mega player and actually has depth, and serious internal baggage. It's not the old, falling for the ladies man leaving the boyfriend who drastically treats the girl like shit combo which is good. These men are actually a bit more believable and not the over hyped up fantasy novel extremes of what they could be. Most of the humour seems to stem when things get a little bit flirty which is just how I like it in these kinds of novels. Regardless of all the drama chick lits are light, fun, and very feel good and this tale doesn't disappoint on any of these levels. Another great thing is that the lead character Lauren, and her roommate are both starting new phases in their lives so instead of it just being about her journey forward it's about their journey forward. And I have to admit my favourite character is the one who gets the least amount of page time. Lauren's best friend. She is just hilarious. Even though Eric is a complete and total idiot, what I liked about him was that he was tall dark and handsome. As in not blonde and blue eyed, and he was more lean and sexy instead of buffed and sexy. Tall blonde and big slice of man beef isn't the only type of sexy. That being said, Matthew did not spend nearly enough time topless in the hot tub. But I digress. The story had good flow. Moved at an almost steady pace, in some points it seemed like the character was intentionally coming up with reasons to avoid the inevitable instead of the drama just happening. And as an artist I'm super psyched to see an interior designer as a main character. If you're going to have a love triangle it might as well be in a top of the line double oven kitchen. Why settle for anything less. And a character who loves to cook. Food is the way to a mans soul after all. Even in a book. All in all, this was a nice fun, light read that came to a rather heightened end. If your like good humour, which always had perfect timing, a good hefty bit of drama, a loser boyfriend and an infinitely sexy thing on the side, well you'd be a fool not to pick up this novel.
  
• This Changes Everything on Jan. 29, 2014
  
  7/10 -- mostly because even though I didn't finish I had this nagging feeling through the whole read that in this book's particular style it's brilliant. Note to self: must read more books like this during the year. After reading the blurb for this I was more than excited about reading. After the first three pages. Way excited about reading it. After that. Excitement slowly fizzled away into oblivion. I just couldn't get into this book. Every page I read felt like I was cramming for an exam tomorrow and if i didn't pay attention I'd fail. Information overload, brain system: crashed. The main character, Clara Branon, had a rather intriguing intro in chapter one. I laughed, my interest was piqued. Who is she. What are these visions she has, and these strange holograms in her room. Real or unreal. And the sense of wit, for me at least, was genius. Then after all that my brain was muffled down with a certain lack of flow or connective direction. Too many acronyms for my brain to physically hold onto. Groups for this and that and just overwhelming amounts of information. If you're more into information gathering than story reading this book is for you. There's lots of perfectly sectioned and detailed accounts of things that happened over the years long before the protagonist even receives her first visit from the alien beings. Most of this info-giving is in interluded chapters, between the actual chapters. I think they are prefect. There isn't anything in theory I can find wrong with them. Except for one glaring thing. Well two things. They bored me and I had no idea what they had to do with moving along the plot. They felt like research notes for a paper I'm not working on because I'm reading a novel. I kept reading them thinking, what do these have to do with my protagonist and her mission to bring information about the news of the alien organisation to light. Is this stuff that she would need to know. Probably. But do I need to know it. Nope. It was information that, as a reader, just distracted me. I wanted to find a way to connect these things to the storyline and just couldn't. Information just so I could know is what it appeared to be. It got so bad I actually stopped reading the interlude chapters. The more I read the more I felt I was either stupid or just missing something. Every actual chapter, not the interludes, seemed to have some sort of information that just came out of nowhere without any hint or foreshadowing in the previous chapter. For instance, when the main character mentions her son being chosen for something in the grand scheme of things and how she gave people chapters of this book she was writing. I was like huh? As far as I knew she fell asleep thinking of who her earth media contact would be, she had a name and a physical description of said person in her head before hitting sleepy-town, and I was looking forward to her figuring out how she was going to convince this person she wasn't crazy. How she was going to convince the world she wasn't crazy. And most importantly how she was going to accomplish this if the aliens only spoke to her. I was already thinking this was a lost cause which was why I was so intrigued. I wanted to go along the ride of her becoming this new person. Needless to say we jumped into the future to find out she's writing a fiction book. Wait that's not entirely accurate, she's written a fiction book has shown it to people, her son is part of a group supporting the, oh I can't even remember. And she's ever so excited about this plan that is somehow magically already in existence. From first visit to book already being written, and obviously she's chosen the contact for said book which she is masquerading as fiction but is really truth. Still no idea how that's going to work (shoulder shrug) but it is a brilliant idea. And i don't mind reading things in flashback it's fun. It's just nice to know firstly that I'm in the future, secondly what the plan is, and then go back to mention certain pitfalls or rather entertaining dialogue exchanges. And being able to see multiple futures, (this comes up a lot in the book. Simultaneous existence's.) is just fine. But telling me the lead will have to deal with the loss of never meeting her love for life, and then later on, a good twenty years or so in the future she's asking him to write his account of the alien intervention, again no idea how we got this far into the future when some of the chapters are still clearly working on her present day ESP training. How, when, and where did the decision get made that this was the future that would happen, if indeed it is happening as the male character muses himself in the book. Wasn't she moping over their possible nonexistence as a couple only a few chapters back. Where's the part about how she's so happy that, that future wasn't the one that actually happened out of the multitude of possibilities she saw. And probably wrote in this book she is writing. If I could sum this experience up in one sentence it was like playing connect the dots except none of the dots on the page had numbers. So I was kind of ambling through them hoping that I'd lend on them correctly. It actually pains me to write this because the premise of the novel was great. The actual chapters are written well and are rather hilarious. I love good humor. But the lack of connectivity just pretty much defeated me. I think the reality of the situation is I'm clearly not smart enough for this type of writing style. Something to work on in future reading endeavors. This book might very well be brilliant. But as I couldn't finish it I really don't know. I just know I was screaming to enjoy this book but didn't. If I could remove the interlude chapters, take a thread and string all the other ones together in one cohesive plot line I would. Instead I was left with this overwhelming scratching my head feeling. Just didn't get it. Again, I have this odd feeling that I'm just not smart enough for this book. I don't have the intelligence level to make good sense of it. So even though I didn't get the greatest experience ever. If you like very well structured notes, detailed descriptions of almost everything (kind of like how Anne rice can spend five pages describing the veins on a leaf), humor (really good humor I might add), and a slight love interest, this book will not fail to impress you. In fact I guarantee you will love it if these are the types of things you look for in a book.
  
• Shattered on March 09, 2014
  
  This second installment in the intoxicated series doesn't fail to disappoint. It picks up right where the last one left of. Jumps straight into the throes of drama, and takes you for a ride, quite literally, as our protagonist is on the road to begin her new life. She has a decision to make that will shatter this love triangle and ultimately dictate the course of her future. This choice has left all her friends floating in limbo unsure of exactly what it is that she will do. Oh, the anticipation of the drama about to ensue. So lets talk about what I loved. I had a few high hopes for this particular installment. Namely the fact that the Lauren pretty much voiced every irritant I had in the last book proving that even though she acted rash, she was indeed not the stupid woman I left the last book feeling that she was. She did what she should've done all along and then celebrated with her first alcohol. You've got to love friends like Gracie. I'm secretly hoping she influences her again. Sometimes a good hangover is just what the doctor ordered. Starting of on a good note I was ready to go into this novel with good vibes. I read, I don't know what happened to the author inbetween one book but this novel was HILARIOUS. I laughed out loud so many times I lost count. The humor was infinitely better. The timing was impeccable. And everyone got a good joke which made it all the more fun that no one person was comic relief. It gave it a much more organic flow like in real life. You never know when the joke will come and it's always in the form of something that isn't supposed to be funny. As such it is with this book. And the things that seemed intentionally funny, well, they were great as well. I haven't smiled this much reading a book in a long time. The evil idiot who shall not be named (Eric) got what he deserved. Unfortunately Gracie did not take of one of her heels and give him a public beat down. Sigh. She came very close though. All in all this was a rather good novel. It was almost a 10. But, sadly my biggest issue from the first novel is oozing throughout the pages of this one so much that I would've vaulted my computer, had it been a book, at the wall and screamed 'no one is that effin stupid.' The amount of annoying effort that Lauren goes to make herself believe that Matthew doesn't like her is insane. She even still has the christmas card where he professed his love, in ink, permanently so it can never be taken back. Lauren had it in her bag on the way to see that dumbass Eric. She could not stop thinking about him the whole drive down to do what she had to do. And to top that off, she says herself, that it was indeed her fault that Matthew pulled out of the kiss she should've never initiated in the first place. I just can't buy her opening internal monologue and then also be expected to believe that she's smart enough to understand he was right and she was wrong, but not smart enough to know that this decision had nothing to do with how much he wanted her. It gets better though. Gracie, who I love love LOVE, told her the exact same thing she told herself the two hour drive down to Eric. Her dad, Doug, also said very eloquently, I paraphrase, 'she was dating, and then engaged. No real man would swoop in and take you when you are not actually available.' Also the exact same things she had told herself during the drive. Then of course his sister pretty much says the same thing and Chris, Matthew's best friend who at this point I have no real opinion of. He's an idiot. Not in an Eric kind of way, but in the same way I feel that sometimes Blake, is also a bit of an idiot. But even Chris admits the same thoughts she already had. With all this evidence leading to the fact that, Lauren was dating longterm, and engaged, and herself agreeing under said circumstances that any sane person would respect the love she professed at nauseam for Eric the asshole and not swoop in to try and steal her, with all of that, it makes no sense that she would jump to the conclusion that that obviously he doesn't want her. Not when she already admitted he was right to pull away and not sleep with her. And she noted that there was dynamic passion in both kisses. So if the connection was there did it just magically disappear because he did the right thing? As Lauren has more than enough evidence including her own to back up, I still, just like in the last book, can't go along for the ride that she would be that stupid. Then there's all the conversations about being shattered. I get it. This entire novel is about how people are broken. The only problem is it got repetitive. She pretty much reworded the same stuff of why she did what she did in every conversation. Everyone else pretty much gave her the same advice or they rehashed how much she hurt Matthew. Sigh. Every time another serious convo popped up it was like here we go again. The conversation with Gracie, and then the other one with Matthew himself provided more than enough detail. LIttle snippets of how depressed he was through the months would've been enough. The conversation between her and Blake, well it should've been about them. Lauren had already given her stance to both Gracie and Matthew, I really didn't need or desire to hear it again. I was more interested in what she had to say about their relationship, seeing as she already talked about her and Matthew twice in, if I may say so, rather excellent detail. It dragged on, in my opinion, finding new and ever present ways to explain how overly distraught the two of them were. I get it. I got it. Now lets get on to the good stuff. What of Chris and Blake, what of the stalker angle, which was a nice touch in the beginning of the third act of the novel. Who is this new police officer drawn into the mix. There where so much things I knew before getting half way through the book, that were it not for Gracie, bless her heart, and all the other amazingly quirky things about this novel, I would've felt like I read the same thing twice. To much exposition of the same situation. Which, thankfully didn't happen enough to take away entirely from the joy of this novel. I was a little disappointed at the big thanksgiving ending, well, because it wasn't big. It just kind of went, 'oh, okay.' I guess since when the final act played out in the last novel, it lead to the big kiss i keep talking about and then ultimately Lauren driving off after a mild argument. It was a big ending. With a rather, albeit predictable, excellent cliffhanger. In this book, even though it was happy, the happy wasn't big enough for me. I was like yaaaaay when it happened then turned the page and I was in the epilogue. Where was the big meeting up with the friends party, after the surprise to talk about how they had all planned this course of action. Conspired would be a better word, and I like it cause it sounds so much more fun. The characters in this book tend to have fun so it's fitting that they conspired against Lauren. In any event after pouring over details in such clever and witty ways, this particular detail was the only thing in the book, good or bad, I found didn't have enough. Now that that's all out of the way. Did i enjoy this book. Yes. More than the first. Is Matthew a tall blonde blue eyed slice of sexy man beast, Yes! I liked this book. Is Gracie the most hilarious yet perceptive besty a girl could have. Well obviously. I liked this book. This book was just too many slabs of delicious with a side of mystery burnt dinner, if we're talking in Blake terms. But don't worry about all that. Even with indescribable meals in crockpots, there will always be pizza to save the day. Oh and of course steamy sexcapades with tall unnaturally hot Mathews. I have to say, now that I've mentioned him twice, this book just oozes all the right forms of steamy, nature, pic me up and carry me to the bedroom i've never been in, kind of sex. And all of that without being graphic. Now that's enough to make any girl (or guy ashamed to admit he likes chick lit.) Sweat and ruin their laptop. And it's hilarious. I know I've said it before, but it's not good chick lit with out a healthy dose of humor, especially sarcastic and sex humor. Is there any other way to make people laugh. If there is this book doesn't need them. And one more teeny bad thing. Too much crying. In the first novel when someone cried, I cried. I was there, I felt the pain. Felt the joy. It was just brilliant. In this one, unfortunately, after a while I became numb. There was just so much crying going on. The pointedness of such displays that was found in the first book, were drowned out in this one. Which is to bad because some of the moments actually did require a good cry. Laughter and crying go well together but I found the balance slightly off in the crying department. Ups and downs, In's and outs, orgasms and lots more of Gracie, can you tell she's my fave, I really couldn't get enough of this book. I reread so many pages just based on the jokes alone because i laughed through paragraphs and forgot them. And without the parts that dragged for me, the book flew on a pace I like and kept it steady to the end. If you're looking for a nice, light, fun, steamy, hilarious and drama infused piece of fiction, then this book will fit perfectly with you like chocolate and marshmallows inbetween gram crackers. A sinfully delicious read that you can read guilt free because laughter is very efficient at burning of calories. Side note..... This book made me smile lots :)
  
• Alien Abduction for Milkmen on May 16, 2022
  
  This is the full review, but for the video and other reviews go here Reading Is My Drug There isn’t much I can say except that I was underwhelmed by this. Even little things like milkmen plural milkman singular were hard to ignore when reading this book. Basically, the premise of the entire story is hard to get into. A scientist with the capabilities of scanning an entire planet wouldn’t contact another scientist to solve the lactose problem? I have zero problems getting on board with them not bothering to scan for something that doesn’t exist on their planet, but on the flip side if they have been studying them for any length of time it’s hard to believe they would do this. The rate at which humans consume milk in everything from coffee to dessert is hard to miss. And, when you add in animals, it becomes even harder to miss because milk is what mammals do. As nitpicky as this seems if they do classes on how to talk to humans and even have ways to cloak themselves to appear like humans when interaction happens, out of all the things to go wrong lactose seemed an odd choice because it’s just hard to study us and not notice its abundance. I literally had yoghurt for breakfast and buttered toast. A piece of banana bread/cake and more yoghurt for last night’s snack alongside the cheesy bread I got on delivery. I even have pre-shredded cheese in my fridge. I went into this expecting to suspend a lot of belief over this milk thing but the longer I got in the harder it became to get on board with an alien entity with insanely good AI and technology that they would choose a delivery guy who, ultimately, doesn’t actually help. Usually, in these oddball over-the-top stories, you can go along for the ride because the idiot that should’ve never been chosen actually ends up being a big help. In this book, he merely takes the alien to get a sample of cow’s milk, something the AI could’ve told him to do. So my failure to do what I planned to do aside, Kenneth the milkman is just odd. The oddest thing was when the Alien, after getting cow dung all over his pants, strips to remove them and he immediately says he’s exposing himself to him. Really? He had to strip and bending over somehow insinuates he wants to do adult things with you? How else was he supposed to remove his pants without kicking them and shimmying awkwardly and making even more of a mess than simply bending over? Bainne, the alien, is also hard to get into. He abducts a human, who just like I said thinks he should be talking to a scientist or at least his boss because he just delivers the stuff and doesn’t consume it, and expects him to know alien rituals. They have protocols that require they look more human to interact with them so it is hard to think slipped his mind. When Kenneth asked to touch his horns the first thing he should’ve said was on my planet this means we are to be mates so unless that is your intention it’s a hard no. Obviously, he’s never seen an alien and is just curious. They go from alien abduction, to cow dung, then naughty activity so fast it’s hard to take this book seriously even as a comedy, romance or erotic fantasy escapism. The things the jokes come from are just too far out there to believe they could happen in this setting. And then, at the end of the book, after Bainne has broken a fair share of alien protocols, his boss makes a quip about bringing playthings on the ship. Kenneth being the plaything and after this Kenneth is mad for about two paragraphs about why Bainne didn’t say he wasn’t some side piece. Sigh. He’s trying to save earth and fix the scanner, his boss will certainly not approve of the mistake or a human relationship and time is of the essence, of course he’s not going to bother with details, he wants to get back to the lab and fix the problem without her ever knowing. Anyone would’ve noticed this and it felt forced like we can’t have a romance without an impending breakup/fight. This was the book for me, a lot of things that just happened that all seemed off and the above are just a couple of these things. The idea of a relationship coming out of earth’s impending doom with a slice of over the top humour never materialised. Which is sad because I was ready to laugh and enjoy a slice of steam on the side. For a book I went into expecting to suspend bucketloads of belief to get enjoy, this required even more of that which was a lot. The characters didn’t really make sense, the story behind the lactose snafu wasn’t built up enough for me to believe it could actually happen, and the chemistry between the two seemed odd and before it could transform from odd to interesting they were already doing the do and a couple. Even for a short story there just wasn’t enough going on here to connect me to it so I just left underwhelmed with a lot fewer laughs than I went into it hoping to receive and a big healthy dose of underdeveloped romantic and awkward plotline on the side.
  
• First Class Package on Oct. 12, 2022
  
  For the full review go here Reading Is My Drug Okay. If you have read any of my reviews you know I tend to lean towards short story hate. They always seem to try too much to be like their larger counterparts instead of taking the time to deal with what they promised in the blurb. If you say quirky short comedy that’s all you need. Sweet mushy no angst romance that’s all you have time for. Deep introspection, or self-discovery, well dig into that character development and only that because with just 50 or so pages there isn’t enough page time to try to do more. And that is why I loved this book. Like really loved it. The blurb states that a stay-at-home science author has a crush on his hunky postman and has zero idea how to ask him out. Even though it’s obvious the postman finds him attractive as well. Christmas is looming and after which the postman Patrick will be moving on and James called Jim will never see him again. And, that is exactly what you get. No attempts to take a deep dive into the characters. No trying to dig up too much back story and other such things you would for a longer story. The blurb is about a guy afraid to ask another guy out and coming up with ways to keep that guy on his doorstep in hopes he’d get the courage to ask him out. And, pun intended, this story delivers on just that.