Review: Beauty and the Bull Rider by Victoria Vane + Giveaway

Posted on March 21, 2016March 18, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Beauty and the Bull Rider by Victoria Vane
Formats available: ebook
Series: Hotel Rodeo #3
Pages: 144
Published by Lyrical Shine on March 15th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

When Beauty Wants A Baby
Championship bull breeder and former Texas beauty queen Delaney McCall was having a heck of a time finding a daddy for the baby she craved. A failed marriage left her with no desire for another husband, but finding the right stud to satisfy her needs presents a bigger problem that she could have imagined.
And The Bullrider Wants Beauty
After hanging up his spurs, bull rider Zac McDaniel wants nothing more than to fulfill Delaney's dream of having a family. After all, his best friend's ex has been his fantasy for years. Zac, however, has no desire to be seen as just a means to an end. And when Zac insists on doing things the "old fashioned" way, their passion explodes like a bull out of the chute…
Some Bucking Is Bound To Happen
While insisting it's all just a passing fancy, the more Delaney sees the softer side of the rough and tumble cowboy, the harder it is to keep her emotions corraled. Zac, meanwhile, is more determined than ever to prove he's what she really needs, and will do whatever it takes to tear down the mile high fence around her heart…
Praise for Victoria Vane
"Erotic and sexy." --Library Journal on the Devil DeVere series
"For erotic passion and one-liners, the first book in Vane's new series will satisfy...Vane's latest gets a big yee-haw." --RT Book Reviews on Slow Hand

My Review:

Delaney McCall has been an important secondary character in the first two Hotel Rodeo books, because she’s an important person in Ty Morgan’s life. But her introduction in Hell on Heels may not dispose readers any too kindly towards Ty’s ex-wife.

It’s pretty obvious in Hell on Heels that Delaney is the source of all too many of Ty’s trust issues when it comes to women, and the breakup of their marriage has definitely made him gun shy of commitments, an issue that Monica spends most of both Hell on Heels and Two to Wrangle dealing with. Or that Ty spends most of those two books working through.

It’s not that Ty ever held a torch. It’s that they never should have gotten married in the first place. It’s much more that Ty was so glad to be out of the marriage that he let Delaney get half his family’s ranch in the divorce – and that she decided to keep it.

It’s a big surprise to Ty when Delaney offers Ty all sorts of inducements, mostly monetary, to give her a baby. He never does let her get into the details, because he is so uninterested as to be pretty close to revolted. He’s certainly doesn’t trust Delaney enough to give her another hold on him, and he would never abandon his own child. And then there’s his relationship with Monica.

But his own reaction doesn’t stop him from telling his best friend Zac McDaniel about Delaney’s offer. Zac is retiring from the bull riding circuit and takes a job managing the ranch that Ty just inherited. Ty thinks that he’s making a joke, but Zac’s been interested in Delaney from the minute that she, Ty and Zac met, seven years ago.

He’s willing to give Delaney the baby she wants, but what he wants is Delaney, any way that he can have her. It’s up to Delaney to figure out whether what she wants is a baby…or a life.

Escape Rating B: I liked this one a whole lot more than I expected. Plots that revolve around babies are just not my cup of tea.

But in spite of the way that Zac gets back into Delaney’s life, this isn’t his story, and it isn’t really a story about the baby. This is Delaney’s story, and that’s what made it work for me.

From Ty’s perspective, Delaney seemed originally immature, and later just plain vindictive. Of course that’s not the whole story. (And not that Ty wasn’t just as immature at the time, only in a different way.)

When we get to know Delaney from her own point of view, we see something completely different. Her marriage to Ty was a mistake from day one. They were both too immature, and Ty wasn’t ready to settle down. But Beauty Queen Delaney wasn’t so much looking for a man as for a way out of the scripted and controlled life her rich parents shoehorned her into. Marrying Ty got her out from under their overbearing thumbs, so when the marriage inevitably failed she took and kept half his family ranch. While there was some desire for payback, it was mostly out of a need to have her own space and her own life, one where Delaney and only Delaney made the decisions and had the control.

Running the ranch and starting a bucking bull breeding program keeps Delaney intellectually and physically challenged in a way that her old life as a debutante did not and could not. She is fulfilled on those fronts, but she’s lonely. She’s a woman in what is still a man’s world, and she has no friends and no one she can rely on.

It seems like she decides to have a baby not because her biological clock is ticking all that loud, but because she wants someone to love. And from the way she approaches the process of getting that baby, it seems as if she is also a bit interested in someone she can control. Not in any terrible sense, just that the baby will be dependent on her, where the man she makes it with will certainly have a mind of his own.

There’s almost a feeling that she is approaching the creation of her own baby with all the same scientific know-how, and using much of the same process, that she is using in the breeding program for her stock. She has a plan, and she intends to stick to it. And it originally involves turkey-basters all the way around.

Zac throws all of her plans out the window. He’s willing to help her with her baby-making project, but he wants to do it the old-fashioned way. Delaney has learned not to rely on anyone, but Zac is being helpful when needed without impinging too much on Delaney’s independence. He respects her, and he also cares for her. He’s all in, but she’s reluctant every step of the way.

This is Delaney’s story because she’s the one who changes. She doesn’t give up her independence, but she does let Zac in to share the load…and to bring a much needed dose of spontaneity and fun into her life.

It makes for a fun story. And what looks like a fitting conclusion to this fun and sexy contemporary western romance series.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Victoria is giving away a Texas West handbag and wallet set to one lucky commenter on this tour:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

TLC — This post is part of a Tasty Book Tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-20-16

Posted on March 20, 2016March 18, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

It seems to be giveaway time again. The Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop is still going on. Just as it ends, the Hoppy Easter Giveaway Hop will begin, followed fairly soon by the Fool for Books Giveaway Hop and my very own annual Blogo-Birthday celebration and giveaways. Spring is definitely sprung.

The SEAL’s Secret Lover and The SEAL’s Rebel Librarian were good fun. I just picked up the eARC of the next book, The SEAL’s Second Chance because I think I’m hooked…and it isn’t as though I don’t have plenty of other things to read, in spite of yesterday’s rather short Stacking the Shelves.

Coming Next Week:

Beauty and the Bull Rider by Victoria Vane (blog tour review)
Dirty Heart by Rhys Ford (review)
The Total Package by Stephanie Evanovich (blog tour review)
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials by Ovidia Yu (review)
Hoppy Easter Giveaway Hop

Stacking the Shelves (176)

Posted on March 19, 2016March 17, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

I can’t remember the last time I only got five books in a week. I’m sure it’s happened before, but not often. Better luck next week? Or at least luck earlier in the week? I thought this post was done, and suddenly got two more books and had to edit. But it’s a good thing.

For Review:
Devil and the Deep (Deep Six #2) by Julie Ann Walker
Final Flight (Clockwork Dagger) by Beth Cato
Saddle Up (Hot Cowboy Nights #4) by Victoria Vane
The SEAL’s Second Chance (Alpha Ops #3) by Anne Calhoun
Smoke by Dan Vyleta

Review: An Improper Arrangement by Kasey Michaels

Posted on March 18, 2016March 17, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

An Improper Arrangement (The Little Season, #1) by Kasey Michaels
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Little Season #1
Pages: 380
Published by Harlequin HQN on December 29th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Experience the drama of the Little Season in the first of a new series by USA Today bestselling author Kasey Michaels, in which three dashing war heroes have finally met their matches…
Gabriel Sinclair has returned from battle as reluctant heir to a dukedom. As if his new responsibilities weren't enough, Gabriel's aunt enlists him to sponsor a young heiress through London's Little Season. Yet Miss Thea Neville is hardly the tedious obligation he expected. She's exotic and enchanting—and utterly unaware of the secret poised to destroy her family's reputation.
After ten years in America, Thea is ready to do her duty and marry well. Deportment lessons, modistes, balls—the ton is a minefield she could scarcely navigate without Gabriel's help. By rights, she should accept the first bachelor who offers for her. Instead, she's succumbing to a dangerous attraction to her wickedly handsome chaperone—one that could unhinge her plans in the most delicious way.

My Review:

This story is for the birds. Not in the slightly pejorative sense that the phrase is usually used, but literally. This historical romance pretty much gets its story stolen by a flock of birds. That the ton gets its collective pocketbook emptied by those same birds, and the nobleman who is, ahem, hawking them, just adds to the fun.

An Improper Arrangement also rides, or flies, on the strength of the witty banter between its two protagonists, Lord Gabriel Sinclair and Miss Dorothea Neville. For a historical romance in the Regency period, the relationship between Gabe and Thea is surprisingly equal. They seem to have both thrown off the expectations of their class and positions and become openly and honestly friends, which inevitably leads them to romance as it leaves them unsuited to the kind of spouse that they would normally find.

Thea may be English, but she was raised in America. She is also, as she often says, “two and twenty”. She is not a simpering miss fresh from the schoolroom, and she is used to saying what she means and doing a good bit of what she likes. She’s also a skilled fisherman (fisherwoman) and excellent with a bow. She competes with Gabe, and she often wins.

In the battle of wits that ensues, they are equally matched.

But what seems to be the central plot here is an actual plot. Gabe and his friends want their bit of revenge against Henry Neville. Why? Because his very wet-behind-the-ears son left them in Napoleon’s clutches instead of carrying a warning to the British and Russian armies. And after the war, while Gabe and his friends languished in a French military prison, the aforementioned Henry Neville arranged for his cowardly little boy to get a medal, for bravery of all things.

Thea wants her own bit of revenge against Henry Neville. He’s her father. The father that she thought was dead, while he deposited herself and her mother in America and returned to England to remarry (without benefit of divorce) and father the aforementioned “wet behind the ears” son. In other words, Henry Neville is a bigamist and his be-medalled son Myles is a bastard and not heir to Henry’s earldom.

A lot of the story is about Gabe and Thea each planning their separate revenge while they draw closer and closer together with a huge secret wedged in between them. Except that the secret isn’t really that secret. The secret is that they know each other’s secret. Yes, there is sometimes an element of farce to this story, but the banter usually carries it off.

Can they each give up their desire for revenge in favor of a future together?

Escape Rating B: While the story of Gabe and Thea’s secrets and counter-secrets is fun, it is also a bit predictable. What makes this story is the game that Gabe pulls on the entire ton. That’s where the birds come in.

When Gabe’s great-uncle Basil was merely the fifth son of the previous duke, Basil and his wife travelled the world on his generous allowance and brought back exotic birds from every place they visited. There are now over 100 exotic birds in Basil’s makeshift aviary at one of his estates. Basil seems to be roosting there too, right along with the birds.

Basil became Duke by accident. Actually, by four accidents, and he doesn’t want the title or the job. He’s confined himself to his rooms, waiting for death to overtake him just before his 60th birthday. Thea convinces him to get out again by having Gabe threaten the birds.

So all the while that Gabe and Thea are driving each other crazy, the birds are a constant source of tension and humor. Gabe takes all the birds to London and runs a giant con on the ton, making the birds the most fashionable thing ever, so that he can get rid of them and make a profit. And then skip town as the bird dropping pile up.

All the while, he keeps his best friend, a cockatoo named Caspar who imitates the sounds that Gabe made as a boy, crying all alone. Gabe’s scenes with Caspar, and Thea’s reaction to them, are quite touching.

But while the birds often steal the show in this slight tale, the story as a whole is just a lark.

Review: The Skeleton Garden by Marty Wingate

Posted on March 17, 2016March 16, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B+ Reviews> book reviews

The Skeleton Garden (Potting Shed Mystery #4) by Marty Wingate
Formats available: ebook
Series: Potting Shed #4
Pages: 233
Published by Alibi on March 15th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

USA Today bestselling author Marty Wingate’s Potting Shed series continues as expert gardener Pru Parke digs up a Nazi warplane—and a fresh murder.
Texas transplant Pru Parke has put down roots in England, but she never dreamed she’d live in a grand place such as Greenoak. When her former employers offer Pru and her new husband, former Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Pearse, the use of their nineteenth-century estate while they’re away for a year, she jumps at the chance. Sweetening the deal is the prospect of further bonding with her long-lost brother, Simon, who happens to be Greenoak’s head gardener. But the majestic manor has at least one skeleton in its closet—or, rather, its garden.
Working on renovations to the extensive grounds, siblings Pru and Simon squabble about everything from boxwood to bay hedges. But when the removal of a half-dead tree turns up the wreckage of a World War II–era German fighter plane and a pile of bones, the arguments stop. That is, until a rival from Simon’s past pays a surprise visit and creates even more upheaval. It’s suddenly clear someone is unhappy their secrets have been unearthed. Still, Pru’s not about to sit back and let Simon take the fall for the dirty deed without a fight.

My Review:

The Potting Shed series has been fun from its beginning in The Garden Plot to its latest outing in The Skeleton Garden. And if you enjoy cozy mysteries with a little bit of a twist, or if you are a fan of the Rosemary & Thyme TV series, The Potting Shed is a terrific place to dig up a little gardening and a little murder.

In this book, series’ protagonists have turned a new leaf on their lives. Gardener Pru Parke, transplanted to England from Texas, has come to Greenoak to work with her long-lost brother Simon on the estate’s extensive gardens. Pru’s new husband, Christopher Pearse, has taken a step back from his very stressful job as a Detective Chief Inspector for the London Police and has become a hopefully much less stressed Special Constable near Greenoak.

Pru and Christopher are also house-sitting for friends, so they think they have a year to de-stress, get comfortable and put down roots in the community. Instead, Pru and her brother Simon are constantly at loggerheads, and, as seems to be unfortunately usual, Pru digs up a dead body.

In this case, it’s literal. When she and Simon investigate why one dying tree is not thriving, they discover that the poor thing’s shallow roots are right over, not just a body, but also a crashed World War II German plane. It only takes a little bit of forensics, and some historical archives, to discover that whoever the deceased was, he wasn’t the pilot. There was plenty of newspaper coverage of the pilot’s capture a mile or two from the plane way back when.

What’s difficult is that no one seems to be able to identify the body. But when Pru starts digging into missing persons cases from the war years, she stirs up a whole lot memories, including some that would have been better off remaining buried.

Someone wants that body, or at least its identity, to remain buried, and is willing to go to any lengths to keep it that way. And whoever it is seems to be way too active to be the original perpetrator. As Pru keeps digging, as she can never resist, she discovers that just because a secret is 70+ years old, that doesn’t mean it can’t still be worth killing for.

Escape Rating B+: As with all of The Potting Shed mysteries, this book really hit the spot. And also like the earlier books, I think it would be possible for a reader who was interested in this series to just start here. Pru and Christopher move around so much, and change their circumstances so often, that the things that do carry over from book to book are easily explained within the story.

One of those things is the strained history between Pru and her brother Simon. When Pru first comes to England in The Garden Plot, she has no idea that she has a brother in England. And Simon was told that his parents were dead. When they discover each other, it is a revelation for both of them. Now that Pru is in England for good, she has taken the opportunity presented to work with Simon, so that they can get to know each other.

The secondary plot in The Skeleton Garden is all about Simon and Pru navigating the skeletons in their own closet. They both have a whole wagonload of unresolved resentments at their parents. Simon is angry that Pru got to have them, Pru is angry that they lied about Simon, and Simon is angry that the aunt who raised him also lied to him. And as Simon’s wife puts it so well, since Simon and Pru did not get the chance to negotiate all their sibling rivalry and sibling in-fighting as children, they are going through all those stages now, and all at once.

But their issues with each other also link back to the mystery that they get caught in the middle of. It all goes back to the War. The reasons why Simon’s parents left him behind in England have direct parallels in the case they unravel.

The circumstances of the long-ago murder will be familiar to anyone who watched Foyle’s War. It’s all about the things that went wrong, sometimes criminally wrong, on the homefront while the war was going on. And that includes the problems of rationing and the black market. Also, there’s a parallel between Simon’s story and that of the young woman left behind and pregnant by the young soldier that old corpse used to be.

One of the lovely things in this particular story was the way that the past impacts upon the present, both because the war is still much closer to people’s memories in England than is in America, but also because everyone involved, or their descendants, are all still in the area. The past, as they say, isn’t even past.

This isn’t a flashback story, at least not after the opening scene. Instead, it’s all about the impacts. The events of the war are still affecting the lives of the people in the village today. Not just Simon and Pru and their unresolved issues regarding their parents’ actions during and after the war, but every single person and their descendants is still living with, or living out, their actions at that crucial time.

And that’s what made this story so much fun to read.

I’ve just discovered that there will be another book in this series! I am looking forward to seeing just what Pru and Christopher dig up in The Bluebonnet Betrayal this summer.

Review: Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War by Heather Webb, Hazel Gaynor, Beatriz Williams, Jennifer Robson, Jessica Brockmole, Kate Kerrigan, Evangeline Holland, Lauren Willig, Marci Jefferson

Posted on March 16, 2016March 15, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War by Heather Webb, Hazel Gaynor, Beatriz Williams, Jennifer Robson, Jessica Brockmole, Kate Kerrigan, Evangeline Holland, Lauren Willig, Marci Jefferson
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Pages: 368
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on March 1st 2016
Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month . . .
November 11, 1918. After four long, dark years of fighting, the Great War ends at last, and the world is forever changed. For soldiers, loved ones, and survivors, the years ahead stretch with new promise, even as their hearts are marked by all those who have been lost.
As families come back together, lovers reunite, and strangers take solace in each other, everyone has a story to tell.
In this moving, unforgettable collection, nine top historical fiction authors share stories of love, strength, and renewal as hope takes root in a fall of poppies.
Featuring:
Jessica Brockmole
Hazel Gaynor
Evangeline Holland
Marci Jefferson
Kate Kerrigan
Jennifer Robson
Heather Webb
Beatriz Williams
Lauren Willig

My Review:

There’s something about World War I that seems unbearably sad, even more so than World War II. I think it’s the sense that even though the war itself isn’t as simple or as clear-cut as the next war, there is so much more that died in that fall of poppies. So many different hopes, dreams and expectations. World War I changed the world in so many ways, where World War II seems like a continuation of a process that had already started with that first “World War”.

The stories in this anthology all center around World War I, and particularly around November 11, 1918, that singular moment when the war ended and everyone was left to look at the wreckage left behind and figure out how to pick up the pieces. Or even what pieces to pick up.

All of the stories in this collection are excellent, but there were four that particularly spoke to me, each in a different way.

Something Worth Landing For by Jessica Brockmole is a sweet love story. A young American airman comes to the rescue of a weeping Frenchwoman outside a doctor’s office. He has just been cleared to fly, and she has just discovered that she is pregnant. When the doctor begins berating the young woman about the baby, Wes decides to help her. At first, all his thinking is about getting her away from the doctor’s slightly slimy clutches. But as Wes and Victoire talk, he offers to marry her. He expects to die, a not unreasonable expectation for WWI flyers, and their marriage will leave her with his name and his widow’s pension. He gets someone on the ground who will send him letters, and she gets respectability. But as they write to each other, they discover they have a surprising chance at much more than either of them ever hoped for.

All for the Love of You by Jennifer Robson is also a sweet love story, but it is a story about the enduring power of love, and its ability to overcome all obstacles, even time, distance and injury. It is guaranteed to give you an earworm for the song.

The Record Set Right by Lauren Willig will remind readers of Out of Africa and Circling the Sun, even as its story deals with two wounded survivors looking back at their war, and the lives that followed, 60 years after the Armistice that both brought them together and tore them apart. It’s a story that asks questions about how responsible we are for the lies we tell, and for the lies we believe. Now that the truth is revealed, it is much too late to change the past. But in spite of the betrayal that led them to the lives they had, are they better off dreaming of what might have been? Or were they robbed of the life they should have had together by a lie told by a selfish man who loved them both? They’ll never know and neither will we.

And last but not least for this reader, The Photograph by Kate Kerrigan. The armistice in this book is the same as all the others, November 11, 1918, but the war is not World War I. Instead it is set in Ireland, where the Easter Rising of 1916 has led to outright rebellion. So while Irish troops are fighting as part of the British Army in the trenches, back home in Ireland the British Army is attempting to keep down the Irish Republican Army. This story takes place both in the present day and in 1918, as one family confronts its past and its future. This story is lovely and sad, but ends with hope for the future.

Escape Rating A-: All of the stories in this collection have their moments, and they all serve their theme well, sometimes in surprisingly different ways. As with all collections, not all of them spoke to this reader, but the ones that did echo in my thoughts like the sound of artillery over the trenches.

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

Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop

Posted on March 15, 2016March 13, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Blog Hops> Book Giveaway> Gift Card Giveaway> Giveaways> Holidays> Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop> St. Patrick's Day

lucky-leprechaun hop 2016

Welcome to the 2016 incarnation of the Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop, hosted by Bookhounds.

I took a look at last year’s Lucky Leprechaun post, and I like this year’s logo much better. Take a look and see what I mean!

I am still not a Leprechaun, and still not Irish. I also have not found my own pot of gold, in spite of another year of looking, so I won’t be giving away a pot of gold as part of this St. Patrick’s Day hop. But I still want to share a little luck with one commenter, so I’m giving away the winner’s choice of a $10 Gift Card from Amazon or B&N, or a $10 Book from the Book Depository. This is an international giveaway, you just need to live someplace that the Book Depository ships to.

Do you feel lucky?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more chances to try your luck, be sure to visit the other stops on the hop:

Review: The SEAL’s Secret Lover and The SEAL’s Rebel Librarian by Anne Calhoun

Posted on March 14, 2016March 12, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: eARC from Netgalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance, military romance
Series: Alpha Ops #1
Length: 118 pages
Publisher: Swerve
Date Released: February 2nd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

The first in the Alpha Ops novella series that features an alpha Navy SEAL who meets his match in a buttoned-up firecracker who is hiding a passionate side.

Logistics director Rose Powell agreed to chaperone her grandmother on a guided tour of Roman ruins on one condition: her brother Jack would come with her. But when Jack backs out, his best friend and fellow SEAL Keenan Parker takes his place. Without a working cell phone, Rose’s orderly world drifts into dreamy days and hot, secret nights in Keenan’s bed. Keenan left the Navy but never made it any farther than Istanbul, much less to a viable future. Until he does, he’ll show Rose things she didn’t know about herself. Can he give his heart and his future to the woman he promised his best friend he’d never touch?

Format read: eARC from Netgalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance, military romance
Series: Alpha Ops #2
Length: 124 pages
Publisher: Swerve
Date Released: March 1st 2016
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

The second in the Alpha Ops novella series that features an alpha Navy SEAL and the librarian who brings him to his knees.

Jack Powell never planned on leaving the Navy, but his final mission as a SEAL left him with a tremor and a bad case of nerves. He’s home, taking some college classes and trying to figure out what comes next when he meets Erin Kent, a divorced college librarian with an adventurous bucket list and a mission to get her ex-husband’s voice out of her head. Jack guides Erin through skydiving and buying the motorcycle of her dreams, blithely accepting Erin’s promise that their relationship is purely temporary. But when Jack gets the chance to go back into the shadowy world of security contracting, can he convince Erin to break her word and join him on the adventure of a lifetime?

My Review:

I’m reviewing these two books together because I read them back to back. And as they are part of the same series, in the overarching story they end up bookending each other, and I mean that in a good way.

Also, honestly, I read The SEAL’s Secret Lover because I really, really wanted to read The SEAL’s Rebel Librarian, being a librarian myself. I wanted to see if the author went to stereotype city, or if she created a realistic character I might either want to know or want to have been. Being a completist, I just couldn’t read book 2 in the series without reading book 1 first, and I’m glad I did.

The two books together are the story of two ex-SEAL’s who are trying to figure out what’s next in their lives. On their last mission, the third member of their team was killed, and although we never learn the details, it’s clear that his death created a breaking point for both Keenan and Jack. Keenan musters out and goes into private security work in Istanbul, while Jack is so shaken up that he is literally shaking – his nerves are shot and his hands tremble. He goes home to heal, to recover, and to figure out what his next step might be now that the one he had planned on – going into the private security business with Keenan – is out of the picture.

These two stories together are also the story of a brother and sister, Jack and Rose, who survived their childhood with an alcoholic mother and an absent father, but still take care of each other and the Grandmother who provided the stability in their lives. But while Jack managed to have a childhood in the midst of chaos, Rose sacrificed hers in order to raise Jack and provide a steady home life for her much younger brother. Now in her early 30s, Rose’s life is proscribed by duty as she is still trying to care for Jack and their Grannie.

The two stories are also both sex-into-love stories. In both of the relationships that begin in this series, Keenan and Rose, and then Jack and Erin, fall into bed first, thinking that what is happening between them, can only be a fling. Until it isn’t.

As I said at the beginning, the stories are mirror images. In Secret Lover, Rose is shepherding her Grannie and Grannie’s two best friends on a whirlwind tour of Turkey. Grannie is a big fan of Rumi’s poetry, and she wants to visit his birthplace and shrine, while seeing all the other sites. Grannie and her friends are working through their “bucket lists”, and Turkey seems to have been at the top.

Jack was supposed to have come with them, to be tour guide. But he begged off and convinced his buddy Keenan to take his place on the tour. Keenan is charmed by the old ladies, and falls head over heels for Rose, even though he can’t admit it at first, even to himself. Rose falls just as hard for Keenan, but her life is back in Lancaster, while Keenan is based in Istanbul. For them to have a chance, Keenan needs to decide that it’s time to come home, and that Rose is who and where he wants to come home to.

On the flip side, when Keenan comes to Lancaster to take a job as head of security for the energy company that Rose works for, he leaves his job in Istanbul, and his apartment, vacant.

Jack meets Erin, a librarian at the local college who is freshly divorced and has a list of her own. She wants to do all the things that her ex-husband smothered out of her, like buy a motorcycle, jump out of an airplane, and travel to Europe. It’s not that she wants to take a walk on the wild side, it’s that Erin has a wild side that she wants to let out, but isn’t quite sure how. The suffocating voice of her ex in her head second guesses her every move. So when Jack, taking a few classes and researching a term paper, sees her hunting for a motorcycle on the internet, he can’t resist offering the sexy librarian some advice about makes and models.

In helping to foster Erin’s first forays into adrenaline junkie-hood, Jack finds himself again. When he’s seeing Erin’s thrill at riding a motorcycle for the first time, or skydiving for the first time, her adrenaline and her sheer joy brings him all the way back to life. In re-experiencing her thrills and chills, he finds the balance he needs and the steadiness in his hands and head to go back to the work he loves. He’s ready to pick up that job and apartment in Istanbul that Keenan left behind.

The only question left for Jack is whether he can convince Erin to take her wild self with him.

Escape Rating (for both books) B: As sex-into-love stories, the sizzle in both books is turned way, way up. These are couples who both have immediate chemistry, and decide that acting on it in a way that supposedly won’t affect their regular lives is the best thing they could do in their circumstances.

Rose thinks what she has with Keenan is just a vacation fling. Erin promised Jack that their relationship would be “no strings attached” and she has vowed that she won’t break any more promises, not to anyone else, and not to herself, because that’s what her ex accused her of. (She really needs to stop listening to that bastard’s voice in her head!)

Rose knows that when she leaves Istanbul, she wants a future with Keenan. But until he decides to come home for his own reasons, he isn’t ready. When Erin figures out that she has fallen for Jack, she won’t break her promise to him, not until he asks her to.

Another way in which these stories are parallel is that in both cases the heroine is slightly older than the hero. It’s a complete non-issue in Rose and Keenan’s relationship, because their relationship begins in circumstances that are outside of both of their “normal” lives. For Erin and Jack, it does matter, because the question is whether Jack is just part of Erin’s post-divorce freedom, or whether they are building something real.

I liked that Rose doesn’t turn her life over to be with Keenan, because that’s not the best thing for either of them. And that Erin, on the other hand, does turn her life upside down, but it’s with Jack and not for Jack. He just gives her the opportunity to do what she’s wanted all along.

Both of these stories are fun, and a great way to while away an afternoon or evening. The titles are cute, and the stories both come to terrific HEAs. And yes, that Rebel Librarian feels like a real librarian who must have some great stories to tell.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 3-13-16

Posted on March 13, 2016March 12, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

After spending a chunk of Thursday participating in a joint review of Marked in Flesh over at The Book Pushers, I decided to do a calendar flail and post Cass’ and my joint review of the same book on Friday. Even though there isn’t much difference between Friday and Monday, after all I did want to get the review in on release week. I did finish both of Anne Calhoun’s SEALs books, because I just couldn’t resist even the concept of The SEAL’s Rebel Librarian. I absolutely had to find out what that was about, so I did. You’ll see tomorrow.

And as one giveaway door closes, another one opens. The Leap Into Books Giveaway Hop is over, but the Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop starts on St. Patrick’s Day. Of course it does!

Current Giveaways:

The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie

Winner Announcements:

The winner of a $10 gift card in the Leap Into Books Giveaway Hop is Alisha S.

Blog Recap:

B- Review: The Sisters of Versailles by Sally Christie + Giveaway
A Review: Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop
A- Review: America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
A- Review: Hell Squad: Holmes by Anna Hackett
B+/C- Joint Review: Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop
Stacking the Shelves (175)

Coming Next Week:

The SEAL’s Secret Lover by Anne Calhoun (review)
The SEAL’s Rebel Librarian by Anne Calhoun (review)
Lucky Leprechaun Giveaway Hop
Fall of Poppies by Heather Webb, Hazel Gaynor, Beatriz Williams, Jennifer Robson, Jessica Brockmole, Kate Kerrigan, Evangeline Holland, Lauren Willig, Marci Jefferson (blog tour review)
The Skeleton Garden by Marty Wingate (blog tour review)
An Improper Arrangement by Kasey Michaels (review)

Stacking the Shelves (175)

Posted on March 12, 2016March 11, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

I was talking with some book reviewing pals the other day, and one of the topics of conversation was that we were all having a dry spell with NetGalley and Edelweiss. There just hasn’t been nearly as much that screamed “READ ME” as there used to be. Hopefully this trend will not continue!