Sunday, February 13, 2022

#Sexy #Nerd #Review...Razorblade Tears... #Violence #StrongLanaguage #ActionPacked #Racism #LGBTQIA #AuthorSACosby


A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.

The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.

Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption.

The Sexy Nerd's Review


Wow! This is the first time I’ve read this author and I must say I was pretty darn impressed with all the action I received.

Cosby set this story up where there wasn’t any doubt as to how it was going to go. I knew after the first chapter only one solution was to be had and he didn’t disappoint.

A lawncare black owned entrepreneur, Ike Randolph, just lost his only son. The grief he felt was immeasurable. However, that grief cut deeper than what was on the surface. Isiah, Ike’s son, and his husband, Derek, were murdered brutally. Therein lied part of Ike’s problem. His son was gay and married to the love of his life, Derek. Was Isiah and Derek murdered because of the lifestyle they led? Or, was there something more sinister here at play?

Buddy Lee, the father of Derek, was just as grief stricken as Ike. Like Ike, he, too, had his fair share of guilt and grief he had to own up to. He was a redneck hillbilly ex-con who, despite what others may have thought on the outside, Buddy Lee was torn apart by the death of his only son. He and Ike had so much in common. Now, the two of these men had to help their granddaughter, Arianna, grow up without her two daddies. How were they going to do this? They weren’t the best fathers and treated their sons worse than the scum under one’s shoe, so how could they possibly look this little three-year old in the eye and advise her of anything?

When Ike goes to his son’s grave to have a talk with him, he discovers that someone smashed the beautiful headstones placed above his final resting place. What the heck was going on here? Ike assumed a homophobic person or persons committed the heinous act. Buddy Lee reaches out to Ike and proposes a very simple question to him. Since the police weren’t doing much to find out who murdered their sons, it was up to them to avenge their sons’ murderer(s) and make things right since they didn’t do so well at that when their sons were above ground.

Ike wasn’t about that life anymore. He had killed before and served his time too. Ike had the tats and street cred to prove that. There wasn’t any reason he needed to get involved. That’s what the police were for. He wanted to let the police do their jobs in bringing his son’s murderer to justice, but the fact of the matter was, no one gave a damn. Who cared that Isiah and Derek were college graduates, had damn good jobs and made good money and took care of their daughter? They were reduced to just two dead gay men. One black and one white. Their lives didn’t mean anything? That right there is what Buddy Lee couldn’t live with. It was bad enough he treated his son like crap and gave him the what-for for being who he was and standing in his own truth, but it was another whole ball of wax that others were dismissing his son as if his life didn’t matter. As if his achievements, credibility and being a decent human being meant absolutely nothing. To hell with that was Buddy Lee’s thoughts. Whoever murdered his son in cold blood was going to answer for it come hell or high water!

After convincing Ike to join forces with him, when I tell you Ike and Buddy Lee were two killing machines leaving in their wake a melee of dead bodies, law enforcement couldn’t keep up with the count. Holy cow—these men were like the Terminator! They were on a mission to seek justice for the injustice of their sons’ murders. As you read the story, you’ll soon learn that all isn’t what it would seem and Ike and Buddy Lee learn things about each other’s race and attitude toward the LGBTQIA community.

This was an awesome story and I truly enjoyed it, but I did have a few problems with it. What I couldn’t figure out for the life of me is the amount of violence that Ike and Buddy Lee both endured, how they remained strong and not dead? The human body just isn’t capable of handling that level of assault. It bothered me that some of the side stories taking place I didn’t feel Cosby gave the reader an adequate explanation. It was as if the reader was just left out in limbo and I wanted some sort of closure or explanation. But, what really got to me was how farfetched it was to assume that for as much violence that took place, where was law enforcement throughout it? Where were the neighbors when gunfire was spewed from literally every direction? I felt like that was a bit of a stretch for me. And right along those lines, I felt some of the continuity didn’t add up in parts. There would be a moment when one thing would occur and then the chapter would end and a new one started without wrapping up what happened last. I do appreciate when an author lets the reader do some of the work, but in this case, I felt as though Cosby needed to better follow-up with some of his characters.

The Sexy Nerd gives Razorblade Tears four healing hearts. If you are not the type of reader who enjoys reading violent scenes, you will undoubtedly want to skip this novel. The action comes straight toward you and punches hard in the gut leaving you doubled over. Overall, at the end of the reading day, I still loved this story. It was damn good and kept me on the edge of my seat literally, if I do say so myself, and I do! Razorblade Tears most definitely gets this Sexy Nerd’s approval!

Until next time, Nerds, you know what to do!


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