Review: Rogue’s Possession by Jeffe Kennedy

Posted on October 24, 2013October 23, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Covenant of Thorns #2
Length: 280 pages
Publisher: Carina Press
Date Released: October 7, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

A human trapped in the world of Faerie, in possession of magic I could not control, I made a bargain for my life: to let the dangerously sensual fae noble known as Rogue sire my firstborn. And one does not break an oath with a fae. But no matter how greatly I desire him, I will not succumb. Not until I know what will happen to the child.

Though unable—or unwilling—to reveal the fate of human-fae offspring himself, Rogue accompanies me on my quest for answers. Along the way he agrees to teach me to harness my power, in exchange for a single kiss each day and sleeping by my side each night. Just as I am about to yield to temptation, I find myself in a deadly game of cat and mouse with an insane goddess. Now my search for the truth will lead me to the darkest of all Faerie secrets.

My Review:

The world of Jeffe Kennedy’s Covenant of Thorns is absolutely built on the premise that one should be careful what one wishes for, because one will almost certainly get exactly that. However, magic wishes (and the fae who inhabit the world she has built) are incredibly slippery; one gets precisely what one wished, the letter of the wish, and not the spirit.

Magic wishes are dangerous currency, and all too frequently turn on the one wishing them. A lesson that Gwynn believes she has learned at a high price during the first book in this series, Rogue’s Pawn (reviewed here). However, Gwynn has crossed to the fae lands from our own world, and sometimes she is too stubborn to accept that the fae do not operate by the kind of logic that she is used to.

Sometimes the fae are too used to being all-powerful to accept that Gwynn does not operate by the rules that they are used to.

Even though every interchange for every conceivable situation (and some that Gwynn finds inconceivable) is handled through bargaining and negotiation, Gwynn continues to find ways to maintain an increasingly tenuous hold on herself as still mostly-human. A task that gets more difficult every day.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Gwynn must use her power to protect herself and those she has come to care for from the Queen who has ruled uncontested for eternity.

But Gwynn has to maneuver through a landscape where the other players withhold knowledge from her at every turn. She is flying blind by the seat of her pants.

Rogue, the fae who brought her to Faerie, keeps vital knowledge from her in order to protect her, until his protection is taken away. Then Gwynn takes on a quest of discovery to determine what bargains Rogue has made on her behalf, what he has broken, and what he has kept.

Because bargains are the coin of this realm. And he may have committed one or both of them to something that will kill or enslave Gwynn if he cannot be found. And because in spite of all the secrets he has kept, and in spite of all the times he has left her in ignorance, once he disappears Gwynn realizes that he truly was bound by negotiations made with others that he could not control.

And that in spite of her best intentions, she cares more than she expected. She might even love him. But she’ll never know what secrets he is keeping from her if she doesn’t rescue him. Even if it kills her.

Escape Rating B+: What makes this series work for me, at least so far, is following Gwynn’s perspective. Not just because she is an extreme case of the fish-out-of-water type, but because she handles it so intelligently. She not only doesn’t understand but she adapts to each situation. I like being in her head.

However, because the reader’s perspective is so closely tied to Gwynn’s, her darkness is our darkness; we only know what she knows. I think I’m identifying with her a little too much, because the way that everyone around her is keeping her deliberately uninformed is driving me mad. It keeps me turning pages, but I’m astounded that she hasn’t made a lot more things explode. Also that so few of the fae who surround her and supposedly want her best interests at heart do not see her agency. They see her magic potential but not her intelligence, or something.

Rogue’s “courtship” of Gwynn is fascinating, because the reader is never quite sure what his game is, and neither is Gwynn. It is very sensual and extremely hot and sometimes sweet as well, but he always has a purpose and it isn’t true love. Gwynn’s right about that. Which doesn’t preclude them needing each other for something deeply important including and beyond great sex. Eventually.

The fae culture of bargaining, negotiation and oaths has layers within layers. Gwynn is still learning, and watching her navigate is one of the tough but compelling parts of her journey.

Even though I’m certain that Rogue’s Possession is the second book in a trilogy, it absolutely does not suffer from “middle-book syndrome”. It comes to a satisfying conclusion, and ends the story in a reasonably good place. It just has some loose ends that I can’t wait to see tied up. Possibly with green ribbon. (Read and you’ll understand)

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Case of the Cosmological Killer by Stephanie Osborn

Posted on October 23, 2013October 20, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Science fiction; mystery
Series: The Displaced Detective, #3-4
Length: Rendlesham Incident, 252 pages; Endings and Beginnings, 254 pages
Publisher: Twilight Times Books
Date Released: Rendlesham, July 15, 2012; Endings, November 4, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

The Rendlesham Incident
In 1980, RAF Bentwaters and Woodbridge were plagued by UFO sightings that were never solved. Now a resident of Suffolk has died of fright during a new UFO encounter. On holiday in London, Sherlock Holmes and Skye Chadwick-Holmes are called upon by Her Majesty’s Secret Service to investigate the death. What is the UFO? Why does Skye find it familiar? Who – or what – killed McFarlane? And how can the pair do what even Her Majesty’s Secret Service could not?

Endings and Beginnings
After the revelations in The Rendlesham Incident, Holmes and Skye find they have not one, but two, very serious problems facing them. Not only did their “UFO victim” most emphatically NOT die from a close encounter, he was dying twice over – from completely unrelated causes. Holmes must now find the murderers before they find the secret of the McFarlane farm. And to add to their problems, another continuum – containing another Skye and Holmes – has approached Skye for help to stop the collapse of their own spacetime, a collapse that could take Skye with it, should she happen to be in their tesseract core when it occurs.

My Review:

I’m going to combine my reviews of books three and four in Stephanie Osborn’s Displaced Detective series because they read as one “case” even though they were divided into two books. The stop between book 3 in the series; The Rendlesham Incident and book 4; Endings and Beginnings, felt a tad artificial to me. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

And if you haven’t read the first two books in this series, and you enjoy Sherlock Holmes adaptations, start with The Case of the Displaced Detective: The Arrival and At Speed, previously reviewed. (A new omnibus edition including all 4 ebooks has just been released to make this easier) The game is definitely and marvelously afoot!

The case that Holmes and Chadwick have to solve is quite marvelously convoluted; a farmer in Suffolk, England has died of fright during a UFO encounter. The whole thing is of course patently ridiculous, and yet, the man is quite definitely dead.

And the whatever it is, UFO or not, is showing up on radar and all sorts of other high-tech instrumentation, moving at speeds that current aircraft, even top-secret military aircraft, are simply not capable of. Something is going on that is making some alphabet agencies extremely nervous. There are secret intelligence bases under the green fields of Suffolk, and that “UFO” is spooking MI-5 and MI-6. These are not the kind of people who enjoy being nervous. They much prefer making other people nervous.

The Intelligence services do something, well, intelligent. They request that Holmes and Chadwick come to Suffolk to investigate these strange happenings.

So they re-direct their honeymoon trip to London into an investigative trip to Suffolk. And thereby hangs a case. As well as a book or two.

And if you, like me, think that one version of Holmes is fun, just wait until you try it with two!

Escape Rating B: This series is solidly fun. If you enjoy Holmes’ stories, it’s an absolute blast. This one reads like an action-adventure story with romance added to give it flavor, and there were a few points where I expected a version of Indiana Jones to show up just for more fun.

The first half of the Rendlesham Incident is mostly taken up with wedding and honeymoon arrangements and the romantic aspects of the relationship between Holmes and Chadwick. I enjoyed that part, it’s the payoff for having watched them struggle to figure out whether they could manage a relationship. While it takes up a lot of book, I would have felt cheated if these issues hadn’t been resolved.

Also, it was a great setup for introducing the other version of Holmes and Chadwick, the ones who didn’t figure out how to have a romantic partnership, and just how badly they screwed up their lives. The fact that in their continuum, they didn’t avert the sabotage and made their world much messier only adds to their stress, but we get to see different versions of the relationship.

Also the sabotaged continuum resulted in a sabotaged tesseract which is having a ripple effect across spacetime. It’s case number one, so we see the two couples working together to avert one major crises while watching each other to see what might have been in its various permutations. This part is excellent.

Then we have the crazy case of the man who supposedly died of fright. This one turns out to be of very worldly motivations. No, he didn’t die of fright, he died of radiation poisoning. Holmes has to investigate the source of the radiation. What got buried in Suffolk during World War II and what certain idiots think got buried in Suffolk during WWII are quite dangerous worlds apart. This case was the point where I was half expecting Indiana Jones.

What I got was Dr. John H. Watson. His appearance was marvelous and sweet and amazing. But it slightly tripped my willing suspension of disbelief meter. Both Moriarty and Watson were real in this universe but not Holmes. I’m not sure Holmes would take that case.

But I still enjoyed every flick of every page, so I’m thrilled there will be more.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Finding It by Cora Carmack

Posted on October 22, 2013October 20, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, paperback, audiobook
Genre: New Adult romance, Contemporary romance
Series: Losing It #3
Length: 323 pages
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Date Released: October 15, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Sometimes you have to lose yourself to find where you truly belong…

Most girls would kill to spend months traveling around Europe after college graduation with no responsibility, no parents, and no-limit credit cards. Kelsey Summers is no exception. She’s having the time of her life . . . or that’s what she keeps telling herself.

It’s a lonely business trying to find out who you are, especially when you’re afraid you won’t like what you discover. No amount of drinking or dancing can chase away Kelsey’s loneliness, but maybe Jackson Hunt can. After a few chance meetings, he convinces her to take a journey of adventure instead of alcohol. With each new city and experience, Kelsey’s mind becomes a little clearer and her heart a little less hers. Jackson helps her unravel her own dreams and desires. But the more she learns about herself, the more Kelsey realizes how little she knows about Jackson.

My Review:

Finding It felt a bit loosely connected to the first two books in this series, Losing It and Faking It (reviewed here and here).

That seems kind of right, because at the beginning of the story, Kelsey Summers is only loosely connected to pretty much everything; reality, sobriety, safety, her own sense of identity and self-worth.

The ruin bar in Budapest where the story really begins is a metaphor for Kelsey’s life. She feels ruined and she’s working hard towards making the outside match the inside, even if that isn’t what she thinks she’s doing.

She thinks she’s collecting adventures by spending her way across Europe using her Daddy’s platinum American Express card. What she’s really doing is anesthetizing herself so that she doesn’t feel any pain.

Until Jackson Hunt swoops in and helps her stumble away from the Euro-trash flavor-of-the-night, but doesn’t take her anywhere except back to the hostel where she’s deliberately slumming it.

His departure, after taking care of her but not taking care of what they obviously both want, leaves her unsettled enough to want to see him again. Both fortunately and unfortunately for Kelsey, Jackson turns up just when she needs another rescue.

But this time he decides to stick around, since she seems to be making a habit of requiring his services. Except he’s not providing the services she definitely wants, the kind that make her forgot herself in a stranger’s arms and body for a night at a time.

Kelsey feels broken, and Jackson tries to help her pull herself together, without adding the sexual relationship they both want into the mix. It’s better if Kelsey finds a piece of herself before she tries to give any more of herself away to anyone else.

Even the man who might come to love her.

Because Jackson Hunt has already been where Kelsey is, even if he doesn’t know exactly what brought her there. He knows exactly what he’s protecting her from.

Particularly since her father paid him to be her bodyguard. Becoming her lover has totally screwed everything up. Especially Kelsey.

Escape Rating B+: On the one hand, the love story between Jackson and Kelsey is both very moving and very hot. You not only follow their adventure across Europe, you follow the push-pull of their intense attraction and his resistance and you want them to figure out a way to make things work.

On that other hand, Jackson’s secret in particular is screamingly obvious. While it becomes apparent through the story that Kelsey’s parents’ reasons for hiring a bodyguard may not have been totally pure, there’s no question in the reader’s mind that she needed some kind of safety net. She had totally stopped even minimally minding her own safety. She’d stopped caring about her future, any future. Jackson stepped in not just to keep her from drinking herself to death, but to keep her from getting beaten, raped, drugged or a whole lot of other bad things.

Kelsey was deliberately looking for friends in the lowest places she could find.

At first, it does seem like Kelsey is a whiny and bitchy little rich girl, pissing and moaning about the safe country-club lifestyle she doesn’t want to go back to, but also refusing to let go of daddy’s Amex. It’s only as Kelsey starts to reveal herself to Jackson that we figure out just what is going on. Or went on.

It’s not difficult to guess what Kelsey’s trauma is. The only questions are who the perpetrator was and what happened afterwards. Kelsey’s pain resides much more in the aftermath than the original event. And that totally makes sense.

Kelsey, like Bliss in Losing It and Cade in Faking It, trained as an actor. She uses her training to cover up whatever she really feels, to the point where the mask has become the only face she shows the world. Jackson forces her to really feel her own emotions, and then she discovers that everything they had was a lie.

But Kelsey has finally found either her courage, or her true self.

Jackson doesn’t save Kelsey after all. But he helped her build enough tools that she was able to save herself.

This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Hunter’s Moon by Lisa Kessler + Giveaway

Posted on October 21, 2013October 20, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Moon #2
Length: 340 pages
Publisher: Entangled Edge
Date Released: October 21, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, All Romance

Sasha’s future was stolen from her the moment she was bitten. Now she’s on the run from the Nero Organization that transformed her from a human detective into a shape shifting jaguar assassin.

When a rogue bounty hunter threatens her younger sister, she’ll be forced to fight, and with nowhere else to turn, Sasha will need to trust the one man who has every reason to want her dead.

Aren is a werewolf with a secret. While protecting his twin brother and Alpha of the Pack, he found his one mate for life. Sadly she’s also the jaguar assassin who tried to kill them both. Now Aren is struggling between his animal nature to love and protect her, and his loyalty to the Pack.

My Review:

Hunter’s Moon is a more than worthy successor to the first book in Kessler’s Moon series, Moonlight (reviewed at Book Lovers Inc.). In fact, any author who is thinking about using the fated-mate trope should check out this series for an example of using that otherwise tired trope in a way that is definitely NOT a short cut to romance and is still filled with both loads of romantic and suspenseful tension.

The story of Hunter’s Moon picks up a few months after Moonlight, and is a bit dependent on some knowledge of the previous story. It took me a bit to remember “where we left our heroes” but I think there was more depth to the family relationships in the story because I did remember. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

In Moonlight, Sasha tried to kill Adam and Aren and capture Lana in order to get the mysterious Nero Organization to give her a cure for the unfortunate case of jaguar shifter that she had been infected with.

Several problems in that scenario. First, there ain’t no cure. Second, Nero is so damn evil, they wouldn’t give it to her if there was. And third and fourth, well, third and fourth turn out to be the point of the story in Hunter’s Moon.

In the big brawl that ended Moonlight, Sasha head-butted Aren. While this does not sound like the beginnings of even a beautiful friendship, it was skin-on-skin contact, even if it did make Aren see stars. It was enough for wolf-shifter Aren to recognize Sasha as his mate.

Yes, we have fated mate trope again. Aren-the-person doesn’t even have to start out liking the person his wolf wants. He’s still stuck. And for life, at that.

But Sasha doesn’t know, doesn’t care, and even when informed (much, much later), doesn’t have to acknowledge that such a thing exists. She’s a jaguar shifter, and jaguars do NOT mate for life. This is his problem, not her problem.

Aren not only has to win her over in some version of the old-fashioned way, he has to do it in spite of the fact that they have really bad history together, and that his entire Pack has really bad history with her.

In Moonlight, this problem existed but it was impersonal. Wolves didn’t like jaguars in general, not necessarily Lana in particular. With Sasha, it’s very personal. She really did bad acts against the Pack.

Sasha can’t figure out how or why Aren is able to put it behind him. She’s certain that the rest of the Pack never will. But she needs their help, because the Nero Organization has sent a rogue werewolf to hunt her down and kill her.

And he’s planning to use her little sister as bait. Or a snack.

Escape Rating B+: The story in Hunter’s Moon is a bit darker than the one in Moonlight. The stakes seem higher and the dastardly plots seem that much more nefarious, even though the Nero Organization is less obvious in this story than they were in the first book.

There’s an awful lot of sub-plot in this one about family, and family has a way of twisting people up more than almost anything else. The pack is “family you make” and they are a tight knit bunch. Adding Lana and Sasha into the mix, along with the strain of the constant attacks because of them, creates a lot of stress that some members are handling less well than others. There are lots of explosions waiting to happen.

Adam and Aren’s long-lost uncle shows up, and turns out to be working for the other side. Well, one of the other sides. Maybe.

But the whole thing hinges on Adam’s need to protect his wife and children, set against Aren’s desire to protect the woman who is the only chance he’ll ever have at a wife. While Sasha believes that the only way that she can protect herself and her sister is to never depend on anyone but herself.

There’s even more major tension in this story related to family, including revelations about the Nero Organization.

One of the things about evil organizations that never ceases to amaze me, they always go the supersoldier route, and it never ends well. Not for the soldiers and not for the organization, but they keep making the same mistake.

But the different ways they screw it up are what make books about them so compelling.

Lisa Kessler is an award winning author of dark paranormal fiction. Her debut novel, Night Walker, won a San Diego Book Award for Best Published Fantasy-Sci-fi-Horror as well as the Romance Through the Ages Award for Best Paranormal and Best First Book.Her short stories have been published in print anthologies and magazines, and her vampire story, Immortal Beloved, was a finalist for a Bram Stoker award.When she’s not writing, Lisa is a professional vocalist, performing with the San Diego Opera as well as other musical theater companies in San Diego.

To learn more about Lisa, look for her at http://Lisa-Kessler.com

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TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

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***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Entangled Edge Release Day Blast

Posted on October 21, 2013October 18, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> Promo Post

Edge is a digital-first single-title romance line (that’s a keyboard-full) from Entangled Publishing.

Entangled Edge happens to have published several(!) of my recent favorites, or be in the middle of publishing some of my current fave series (including the book I’m reviewing today, Hunter’s Moon by Lisa Kessler) so I’m happy to feature their October new releases.

And they also publish one of my very big loves, science fiction romance. I’m eagerly awaiting one of the December releases. But this is the October list. Well mostly.

Werewolves, rock and roll, vampires, and gothic fairy tales. All definitely stories with an edge. Or all sorts of edges. But all with romance. Sounds like fun.

I couldn’t resist leaving the summary of Nina Croft’s Bittersweet Magic in the post, even though the publication date has been moved to November. It’s one I’ve been waiting for. If you want to find out why, check out this review of the first book of The Order, Bittersweet Blood.

But, as they say, all’s fair in love and war. To find out more about all the Entangled Edge titles, chat with authors, participate in special events, and to find out what books are coming next, visit the Entangled website, follow Edge on Twitter, and like their Facebook page.

Today I’m happy to be featuring Edge’s October releases!!

Dark Angel by TJ Bennett

When young widow Catherine Briton is washed ashore, the sole survivor of a violent shipwreck, all she wants is to go home to London. But injured as she is, she can’t escape when a shadowy stranger rescues her and takes her to his castle—where she’s healed with suspicious, almost magical speed.

The more time Catherine spends in the castle, the more her curiosity rises where her fiercely handsome new “master,” Gerard, is concerned. As she begins to investigate, though, her discoveries only bring more questions. It seems Gerard isn’t the only one on the island keeping secrets…

The small town is full of strange mysteries and townspeople who know more than they should about her. And when a hulking beast that stalks the nearby hills and valleys catches up to her, Catherine must figure out what’s going on before it’s too late.

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Goodreads

Far Too Tempting by Lauren Blakely

Jane Black has written the break-up album of the century, earning her a Grammy, a huge legion of new fans, and the pressure to repeat her success. Sure, the heartbreak from her husband’s unconventional abandonment might have been her inspiration, but it hasn’t done her any favors in the dating department. So when Matthew Harrigan, the toughest music journalist out there, asks for an interview, Jane agrees—as long as her personal life is completely off-limits.

British, gorgeous, and way too tempting, Matthew’s the first guy Jane’s been attracted to since her husband. As she spends more time with him and their relationship heats up, though, so does her writer’s block. How can the queen of the break-up pen the perfect follow-up when she’s seriously in love?

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Goodreads

Bittersweet Magic by Nina CroftThe Order #2

Roz has been indebted to the demon Asmodai for five hundred years, and her freedom is just around the corner. All she has to do is complete one last task for him—obtain a key that had been hidden in a church centuries ago.

Piers, the Head of the Order and an ancient vampire, is intrigued by the woman who comes to him for help. She’s beautiful and seemingly kind, but she’s hiding something. And he’ll find out who she is and what she really wants once he uses his power to get inside her head. But Piers has no idea that Roz is immune to his mind-control…or that he is simply a pawn in her dangerous mission for freedom.

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Goodreads

Hunter’s Moon by Lisa KesslerMoon #2

Sasha’s future was stolen from her the moment she was bitten. Now she’s on the run from the Nero Organization that transformed her from a human detective into a shape shifting jaguar assassin.

When a rogue bounty hunter threatens her younger sister, she’ll be forced to fight, and with nowhere else to turn, Sasha will need to trust the one man who has every reason to want her dead.

Aren is a werewolf with a secret. While protecting his twin brother and Alpha of the Pack, he found his one mate for life. Sadly she’s also the jaguar assassin who tried to kill them both. Now Aren is struggling between his animal nature to love and protect her, and his loyalty to the Pack.

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Goodreads

Undying Embrace by Jessica LeeEnclave #2

Arran MacLain is a vampire on a suicide mission, driven to kill his former partner who betrayed him and the Enclave they served. But two things stand in his way: Gabrielle, the human female who holds his heart, and the past that won’t let him go. If only death was enough to cleanse his soul.

Gabrielle Steven’s sister is missing. Her hunt for clues brings her face to face with the one vampire she can’t forget. Their missions combine and thrust them into the heart of evil. Will their passion be enough to overcome the pain from their past, or will their dark desires destroy them both?

Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Goodreads

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The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 10-20-13

Posted on October 20, 2013October 18, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> Something Wicked Returns Blog Hop> Spooktacular Giveaway Hop> The Sunday Post

We’re in Reno right now, and part of this is funny. It’s the setting for Lisa Kessler’s Hunter’s Moon, which I’m reviewing tomorrow. I can see the mountains from our room, at least during the day. At night there’s just this pink neon glow.

The drawback to staying at a casino hotel? This is the first public place I’ve been to in years that allows smoking. I’d forgotten what that’s like, and it’s not a memory I wanted to revive.

Current Giveaways:

Something Wicked Returns: my prize is a $10 gift card to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble; visit the other stops on the hop to see their fabulous prizes.
Spooktacular Giveaway Hop: Yet another opportunity for you to win a $10 gift card to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Check the post to see the over 300 other stops on this hop!
Promise, Me Cowboy by CJ Carmichael: enter the rafflecopter for a chance to win an ebook copy.

Blog Recap:

B+ Review: The Case of the Displaced Detective: At Speed by Stephanie Osborn
Spooktacular Giveaway Hop
A Review: Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football by Rich Cohen
A- Review: Faking It by Cora Carmack
B Review: Promise Me, Cowboy by CJ Carmichael + Giveaway
Stacking the Shelves (63)

Coming Next Week:

Hunter’s Moon by Lisa Kessler (blog tour review)
Finding It by Cora Carmack (blog tour review)
The Case of the Cosmological Killer by Stephanie Osborn (review)
Rogue’s Possession by Jeffe Kennedy (blog tour review + guest post + giveaway)
Thankless in Death by J.D. Robb (review)

Stacking the Shelves (63)

Posted on October 19, 2013October 16, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

There’s a part of me that is wondering if I will have bought a copy of Codex Born by the time you read this. I’ll be in Reno, Nevada, as Galen’s “plus one” at a a conference, and mostly reading. Codex Born will be sitting at home, because the library copy is not just print, but hardcover, and I didn’t want to carry it around.

But I’ve got a bad case of the “want its”. And buying ebooks is just so easy…

For Review:
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The Grove (Guardians of Destiny #2) by Jean Johnson
Heating Up the Holidays by Lisa Renee Jones, Serena Bell and Mary Ann Rivers
Hired Gun (Culvert City Crime Files #1) by James R. Tuck
Lace & Lead by M.A. Grant
That Way Lies Madness by James R. Tuck

Purchased:
Alien Adoration (Alien Next Door #1) by Jessica E. Subject

Borrowed from the Library:
Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead (Claire DeWitt #1) by Sara Gran
Codex Born by (Magic Ex Libris #2) Jim C. Hines
Thankless in Death (In Death #37) by J.D. Robb

Review: Promise Me, Cowboy by CJ Carmichael + Giveaway

Posted on October 18, 2013October 27, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews> ebook giveaway> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Western romance; contemporary romance
Series: Copper Mountain Rodeo
Length: 120 pages
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group
Date Released: October 11, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Sage Carrigan never meant to be the other woman. Unfortunately, bronco rider Dawson O’Dell neglected to mention he was married the night he invited her to his bed after they’d both placed first in their rodeo events. When his wife walked in on them – Sage was deeply hurt and humiliated. After an accident in the ring the next day, Sage decides she’s quitting the rodeo–and cowboys—to become a chocolatier in her hometown ranching community, Marietta, Montana. She’s doing just fine, but then Dawson shows up —five years later, with a little girl in tow. He’s here for the Copper Mountain Rodeo hoping to win big. But he’s also got plans of settling down with his daughter and buying a house—the very same one that Sage has been dreaming about. He says he’s here for her and he’s making lots of promises. But can he keep them?

My Review:

Chocolate is always a good starting point for a romance, but running a chocolate shop is hard work.

Sage Carrigan has been running her own chocolate shop in Marietta, Montana for five long and pretty exhausting years. But they have also been rewarding years, because being a chocolatier is what she really wants to do.

The barrel-riding accident that tore her ACL may have ended her rodeo career, but it gave her the out she needed to start the career she really wanted, instead of staying with the rodeo because it was the one thing she did that seemed to earn some praise from her taciturn father.

She hasn’t gotten anything from him before or since except questions about when she’s going to give up her store and come back to the ranch, or why she let one little injury turn her into a coward.

Sage is all too aware that four girls were not what her father wanted. It’s too bad that he let them all know just how much of a disappointment they all were.

And into the middle of Sage’s life walks the other man who disappointed her, Dawson O’Dell. Dawson is a rodeo cowboy, and he’s in town for the Copper Mountain Rodeo. But that’s not all he’s there for. He’s finally come back for Sage.

Because the last time he saw her, his wife was standing over both of them with a shotgun. Dawson forgot to tell Sage he was married. And that’s the one lie that she simply can’t get over.

Not even if Dawson has come to Marietta to stay. Not even if Sage is forced to admit to herself that she still wants him. Because the stupid cowboy still isn’t divorced. Not yet.

Escape Rating B: So far (I still have one to go) every single one of the stories in the Copper Mountain Rodeo series has been one sweet ride after another. They use the town and the annual rodeo setting just perfectly to capture the essence of being parts of one event, without repeating each other. Very well done.

Promise Me, Cowboy is a “still waters run deep” kind of story. There’s not just the second-chance at romance story between Sage and Dawson, but the backstory about how the first chance was screwed up so badly and how much effort Dawson has put into redeeming himself.

Also a lot about the secrets that children keep to protect their parents, and parents keep to protect their children. I’ll admit I thought the big secret was worse than it was.

This story packs a delayed wallop. Sage takes a while to come around, and so she should! But there are lots of layers about parents and children, Sage and her father, Dawson and his mother, and how those relationships influence them in both good and bad directions.

And little Savannah steals every scene she’s in!

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***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Faking It by Cora Carmack

Posted on October 17, 2013October 27, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> book reviews

Format read: print book provided by the publisher
Formats available: Paperback, ebook, audiobooks
Genre: New Adult Romance
Series: Losing It #2
Length: 304 pages
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Date Released: June 4, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Mackenzie “Max” Miller has a problem. Her parents have arrived in town for a surprise visit, and if they see her dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings, they just might disown her. Even worse, they’re expecting to meet a nice, wholesome boyfriend, not a guy named Mace who has a neck tattoo and plays in a band. All her lies are about to come crashing down around her, but then she meets Cade.

Cade moved to Philadelphia to act and to leave his problems behind in Texas. So far though, he’s kept the problems and had very little opportunity to take the stage. When Max approaches him in a coffee shop with a crazy request to pretend to be her boyfriend, he agrees to play the part. But when Cade plays the role a little too well, they’re forced to keep the ruse going. And the more they fake the relationship, the more real it begins to feel.

My Review:

This is a marvelous story about how being oh so wrong can turn into being oh so right.

What makes both Cade and Max interesting is that they are both faking it in the beginning of the story. Max is totally faking who she is, and Cade is faking what he feels. so even though they don’t look like they fit, they actually do fit, in a weird way. Because they both really need to learn to stop. Sort of.

Cade Winston is an actor, so he needs to at least learn when he’s faking. After all, faking is his job. He has to be good at it. But he has to stop pretending to himself. All that’s doing is making him depressed.

He has to get past losing Bliss. And is there ever a metaphor in there. Because the Bliss that Cade lost was a person and not a state of being and absolutely not his to lose. (That story is in Losing It, reviewed here) Bliss Edwards has moved on, and Cade has to, too.

Max Miller keeps pretending to her parents that she isn’t a musician in New York City. When she visits home, she covers up her tattoos and her piercings and acts like the pretentious upper-crust society woman they think they know, instead of the musician and songwriter she really is. They think that marriage and membership in the country club is the only proper future. That is the opposite of Max, but they don’t see it.

They can’t see that Max believes that she should have been the one who died in the accident that killed her sister Alex. That Max feels unworthy and that every time they belittle or disregard her choices, they make her feel less worthy.

Only her music makes her feel alive. Until she needs a fake boyfriend who does not look or act like the tattooed drummer currently sponging off her that passes for her real boyfriend.

Cade has just said goodbye to Bliss and her boyfriend, the man who will ask Bliss to marry him. Cade’s dreams are over. Max, finding herself in the middle of a surprise visit by her parents, sucks him into her need for a fake boyfriend, and he acts the part. Cade’s an actor, he does it well.

Her parents love him. And he feels like Max is the sparkliest thing in his universe. For a few minutes, he totally forgets Bliss.

Max has herself a fake boyfriend for as long as she needs one to convince her parents that she has not sold herself to Satan. Because she hasn’t. She isn’t doing anything wrong except choosing music over convention.

Cade needs Max to knock his overly conventional universe off its axis for a while. And Max needs Cade not just to look conventional, but to provide her with just the tiniest bit of stability in her otherwise chaotic life.

And to be her fake boyfriend. Until neither of them is faking anything.

Escape Rating A-: Faking It has more depth than Losing It, and it felt like a more involving story. I also found the characters more believable than in the first story. Unlike Garrett in Losing It, Cade does not have the patience of a saint and gets angry at Max when he should. He also loses heart when things go against him. Garrett was too good to ring true. Cade may look too perfect but thankfully he doesn’t act that way.

It’s the story of Max putting on her “big girl panties” and dealing with a whole lot of awfully bad stuff. She doesn’t want to hurt or disappoint her parents, but at the same time, she’s past the point where she can live with herself if she lets them decide her life for her. It takes a lot of courage to chose an unexpected path.

There are no villains here. Max’s parents aren’t bad parents. They are just scared. They lost one daughter to tragedy, so they try to protect the other by keeping to paths they believe are safe. Their choices are misguided but not evil.

On the other hand, sister-in-law Bethany may just be the spawn of Satan that Max says she is.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football by Rich Cohen

Posted on October 16, 2013October 15, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, hardcover
Genre: Sports history
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date Released: October 29, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

For Rich Cohen and millions of other fans, the 1985 Chicago Bears were more than a football team: they were the greatest football team ever—a gang of colorful nuts, dancing and pounding their way to victory. They won a Super Bowl and saved a city.

It was not just that the Monsters of the Midway won, but how they did it. On offense, there was high-stepping running back Walter Payton and Punky QB Jim McMahon, who had a knack for pissing off Coach Mike Ditka as he made his way to the end zone. On defense, there was the 46: a revolutionary, quarterback-concussing scheme cooked up by Buddy Ryan and ruthlessly implemented by Hall of Famers such as Dan “Danimal” Hampton and “Samurai” Mike Singletary. On the sidelines, in the locker rooms, and in bars, there was the never-ending soap opera: the coach and the quarterback bickering on TV, Ditka and Ryan nearly coming to blows in the Orange Bowl, the players recording the “Super Bowl Shuffle” video the morning after the season’s only loss.

Cohen tracked down the coaches and players from this iconic team and asked them everything he has always wanted to know: What’s it like to win? What’s it like to lose? Do you really hate the guys on the other side? Were you ever scared? What do you think as you lie broken on the field? How do you go on after you have lived your dream but life has not ended?

The result is Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football, a portrait not merely of a team but of a city and a game: its history, its future, its fallen men, its immortal heroes. But mostly it’s about being a fan—about loving too much. This is a book about America at its most nonsensical, delirious, and joyful.

My Review:

That I loved this book probably says as much about me as it does about the book.

These monsters aren’t the kind of monsters I usually read about, and this isn’t the type of book I usually review, but like the author, I, too was young in 1985 in Chicago when the Bears played that iconic, marvelous season. In 1985 I was in my mid-20s, about the same age as most of the players on the team, and early in my own career. When I look back at the Bears’ championship season, I see their youthful exuberance, but after reading Rich Cohen’s book, I know that one of the reasons that the season shines so brightly in my memories is because it reflects a bit of my own bright, shiny dreams.

Chicago loved them because they were us. You could walk into any public place in Chicago in the fall and winter of 1985 and say “How about them Bears?” and start a conversation with a complete stranger, no matter how far apart you were in age, race, class or possibly even language–unless the Bears were actually playing at that moment. If there was a game on, the entire city was watching. Those three hours every Sunday were a great time to go shopping–if you could stand to miss the game. And most of us couldn’t.

About the book…Cohen does deliver a more than readable account of the history of the Chicago Bears from the NFL’s grubby inception in a Hupmobile showroom in Canton Ohio all the way to the 1985 glory season, going from “Papa Bear” Halas to Mike Ditka to Doug Plank to Jim McMahon.

For a fan, it starts out as a story of larger than life personalities, and moves through a familiar history lesson. Then it lays out the marvelous building blocks of just how the Bears became the team that we all knew and loved.

But while it tells that story well, a lot of other books have gone over that field. After the 1985 season, it seemed like nearly every member of the team wrote a book. Sometimes two.

The special gift, and curse, of Monsters is that this book keeps going. Unlike a fairy tale, Cohen tells us what happened after “they lived happily ever after”. Because they didn’t. The 1985 Chicago Bears didn’t just win, they dominated. But after you’ve achieved it all, what do you do next?

Now we know that playing the game takes even more of a toll than anyone suspected at the time. We might as well hang a sign outside the stadium, like the Roman gladiator contests, “those who are about to die salute us”. The cost, CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), appears to be the same, just slower.

We, all of us in Chicago that year, loved watching them play. Seeing the game from a TV screen, listening to, and watching, the Super Bowl Shuffle, it looked like they were having enough fun to last a lifetime, both theirs and ours. Maybe even in spite of the cost. In an interview, the author asked Jim McMahon if it had all been worth it.

“Knowing what we know, about the injuries and the brain and CTE?”
He [McMahon] smiled and said, “I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”

And we’d all watch. The question the author asks is whether or not we should.

Reality Rating A: Monsters isn’t just a football history, although it certainly is that. For those of us who lived through the Bears’ Super Bowl season, it’s a trip down memory lane, but that’s not all it is either. I’ve tried more than once to explain to someone what made the Bears not just awesome that year, but special, and I’ve never been able to capture the essence. That’s part of what Monsters does.

In between the history and strategy lesson, it builds up the Bears team and shows why they were not just great, but why they were so damn much fun to watch. And then tells the story of why it all went smash. They did not live happily ever after.

Every dog, and Bear, had their day, but they did not go gentle into that good night. Unfortunately, they are going just the same, and we do know why. Has anyone else noticed that players from the very early eras of the game live longer and seemingly healthier than the more recent players? Has the game with its heavier, high-tech equipment become even more damaging, or is it just my imagination?

Football, as a sport to watch, has stopped being fun for me in the years since the Bears lost this group of misfits. Rich Cohen reminded me why they were great.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

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