Review: Jack Absolute by C.C. Humphreys

Posted on May 29, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 5 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Jack Absolute by C.C. Humphreys Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Series: Jack Absolute, #1
Genre: Historical Fiction
Release Date: May 7, 2013 (U.S. edition)
Number of pages: 276 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Purchasing Info: Author’s website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

The year is 1777. As the war for American independence rages across the sea, London is swept off its feet by Jack Absolute, the dashing rogue in Richard Sheridan’s comedy The Rivals. That is, until the real Jack Absolute, former captain of the 16th Light Dragoons, returns after years abroad to discover this slander of his reputation.

Before he can even protest, he is embroiled in a duel over an alluring actress of questionable repute, and his only escape is the one he most dreads: to be pressed again into the King’s service—this time, as a spy for the British in the Revolutionary War.

My Thoughts:

Jack Absolute’s character is written in a way intended to make the reader think of an 18th century James Bond. One of the later Bonds, at the point where he’d begun to get a bit tired of the game and developed some self-reflection.

I certainly got some of that. Jack is a member of that very old profession, he is a spy for the English crown during the American Rebellion. He’s been a spy before, and he is pretty much dragooned into doing it again, in spite of his stated views that us Americans do have some justifications for our actions.

If you’ve ever seen Sheridan’s play, The Rivals, you’ve already met Captain Jack Absolute, and it’s quite possible that you have seen the play. It’s famous for the character who gave us the word “malapropism”. That’s right, Mrs. Malaprop supposedly guards the virtue of the heroine in this classic romantic comedy/farce.

Jack Absolute is the romantic hero of the play. In the book, Sheridan the playwright is one of Jack’s friends. He made a hit out of trivializing and romanticizing a real incident in Jack’s life.

Jack’s own life is not a romance, not that he hasn’t played the part of lovesick fool on more than one occasion. As a spy, he’s played whatever role suited the occasion best in order to fulfill his mission.

This mission is in big trouble from the start. General John Burgoyne has been led to believe that there are thousands of Loyalists ready to take up arms against the Rebels as soon as he gives the word. And that equal numbers of Native Allies are eager to march with the British Army for the usual inducements.

As history tells us, those assumptions were wrong. Jack didn’t have the advantage of history, but what he did have was several years of experience living in America, including living with the Mohawk. He knew those beliefs couldn’t be right.

Jack had a secondary mission; find the spy within the British command staff, codenamed Diogenes. He thought he was looking for a military officer, not the woman he loved.

Verdict: I did think of James Bond, but mostly I thought of Jamie Fraser and Lord John Grey.

The incredibly, marvelously immersive work of historical fiction that is Jack Absolute kept me flipping pages long past bedtime. The author does a fantastic job capturing the sights and sounds of Colonial America, and of 18th century life. I felt I was there and didn’t want to leave.

Surrender of General Burgoyne by John Trumbull, 1822

The depth of the portrait of life in the British military at this time period was reminiscent of Diana Gabaldon’s Lord John Grey series. Same period, similar perspective and eventually, place. Also, Jack Absolute and Jamie Fraser (Outlander) both knew, and fought with, General Simon Fraser of Balnain. Jack and Jamie (read Echo in the Bone if you’re curious) were both at the Battle of Saratoga, on opposite sides.

As an American, it is always interesting to read about the Revolution from the perspective of British. The histories written by the victors glorify the Revolution. The British called it a Rebellion. Perspective is everything.

I got swept away by this book, and not just because I found the period details enthralling, although I did. Jack was one of those characters who kept getting more and more fascinating as the book went on, because he was just so complex. He thought about what he was doing, he didn’t just obey orders. He was tired of the spy game and thought about what it meant, but he was good at his job. His relationship with the Mohawk people, and especially his blood brother Até, is not just a true brotherhood, but is also used as a way to explore the British and American relationship with the Native peoples and the devastation that is inevitably coming.

5-Stars-300x60

I give Jack Absolute by C.C. Humphreys 5 arrow-tipped stars!

***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 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: Hold Me Down Hard by Cathryn Fox

Posted on May 22, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 3 1/2 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Hold Me Down Hard by Cathryn Fox Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: May 13, 2013
Number of pages: 48 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Publisher’s Website

When Eden Carver, Iowa farm girl turned NY actress, decides to seduce the sexy cop next door, she begins to wonder if she’s bitten off more than she can chew.

The last thing Officer Jay Bennett wants is to cross a line with the sweet and innocent country girl—no matter how much he’d like to help himself to a nibble. Not only are they in the friendship zone, a naïve girl like Eden doesn’t belong in his dangerous world.

But when she asks him to help her rehearse lines, and things go from simmer to boil, he finds himself doing the one thing he swore he’d never do. He knows he needs to walk away from temptation, but when sweet little Eden bites back, it tilts his world on its axis.
Because biting back changes everything.

My Thoughts:

File this one under “extra short and extra steamy”.

At right around 50 pages, this is a short story. Let’s call it a sexy interlude. What makes the story work as erotic romance, instead of just porn-without-plot, is that the Eden and Jay know each other before the first page.

They’re neighbors, and they’re friends. Unfortunately, they are friends without benefits.

Jay is a cop, and he’s decided that sweet and innocent country girl Eden couldn’t possibly want to do the dark and wicked things he knows he’ll do to her if he lets her out of the “friend zone”.

Of course, he’s never asked Eden what she wants! He has no clue that all of Eden’s dates end up running away, because they decide she’s a pervert when she asks to be tied up.

Did I mention she has a uniform fetish?

Are these two made for each other, or are they made for each other?

Verdict: The story is a quick and very enjoyable read. The problem is that it is too short. We don’t learn anything about how they met, or how their friendship developed. It’s clear they’ve been interested in each other from the beginning, so how have they managed to get so easy with each other? And by easy in this case I mean get together for pizza and a movie every weekend easy, not the other kind.

The problem is that they both want the other kind of easy, with each other, and have managed to become close friends without figuring out clue one about each other. I’d love to have seen how that worked out.

And I’d love to know more about how they manage to get past the whole “he decides what’s good for her” thing in a longer story, and therefore longer relationship, but if you’re looking for something very short and hot with a happy-ever-after, this might be just the ticket.

3-one-half-stars

I give Hold Me Down Hard by Cathryn Fox 3 and 1/2 uniform blue stars!

Review: Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris

Posted on May 13, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 3 1/2 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Series: Sookie Stackhouse, #13
Genre: Urban fantasy
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Number of pages: 352 pages
Publisher: Penguin Publishing
Formats available: ebook, paperback, hardcover, audiobook
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

There are secrets in the town of Bon Temps, ones that threaten those closest to Sookie—and could destroy her heart….

Sookie Stackhouse finds it easy to turn down the request of former barmaid Arlene when she wants her job back at Merlotte’s. After all, Arlene tried to have Sookie killed. But her relationship with Eric Northman is not so clearcut. He and his vampires are keeping their distance…and a cold silence. And when Sookie learns the reason why, she is devastated.

Then a shocking murder rocks Bon Temps, and Sookie is arrested for the crime.

But the evidence against Sookie is weak, and she makes bail. Investigating the killing, she’ll learn that what passes for truth in Bon Temps is only a convenient lie. What passes for justice is more spilled blood. And what passes for love is never enough…

My Thoughts:

“I’m Sookie Stackhouse. I belong here.” THE END.

Except for the capitalized end, Sookie pretty much declaring that there’s no place like home really is the last line of Dead Ever After. We just had to read through 13 books to get there.

What’s hard to believe is that in the Sookieverse, it’s only 2 years of her life, because it’s taken 12 years out of the rest of us. Dead Until Dark was unleashed on the world in 2001. Practically a whole lifetime ago.

Sookie’s lifetime, anyway. (If you’re searching for perspective, Harry Potter had found the Goblet of Fire, but had not yet joined the Order of the Phoenix. No Horcruxes were even on the bloody horizon in 2001. Dumbledore was still alive!)

Back to Sookie. In Dead Ever After, all of the chickens from all of Sookie’s previous outings come home to roost. Pretty much everyone she has ever met gets at least a mention.

Nearly all her old friends who are alive pay her a visit. Most of them come to support her in her hour of need. And does she ever have a need!

Because all her old enemies return to do her one final bad turn. Some of them want her very, very dead. And some of them want to hurt her so bad, she’ll just wish she was dead.

Every loose end that might possibly be left in Sookie’s story gets tied up tight, nearly in the shape of a handman’s noose around her neck.

And while Sookie investigates, not necessarily successfully, to figure out who her enemies are, she also figures out who her friends are. She has a lot more friends than she believed. Sookie has always sold herself short, never thinking that she had made as many friends as she has.

Most important of all, she finally grows a pair and protects her heart, instead of continuing to be Eric’s doormat. Eric has always put himself first, and it’s high time that Sookie did the same.

Verdict: The first books in the Sookie Stackhouse series were magical, because Sookie was on an incredible voyage of discovery. The last few have been kind of a chore, because Sookie let herself become dependent on Eric. She got weak and whiny and bitchy.

The only time I thought Eric really loved Sookie was when he had amnesia (Dead to the World) and forgot to be the manipulative bastard he really is. Otherwise, Eric puts Eric first. He always has and he always does. It’s a survival instinct that has kept him alive for more than a thousand years.

Here’s a question about vampire romances in general: what does someone who is over a thousand years old have in common with a 20-year-old? This isn’t about looks or possibly even brains, but what do they talk about? What are their shared experiences? Why would this relationship possibly work?

How could Sookie ever be anything except a subordinate (and I don’t mean this in a sexual context necessarily)? Even if Eric turned her, which she expressly did not want, it would be centuries before she acquired enough experience to approach a level of equality. And, as was shown in Club Dead, the vampire who sires another vampire has control over that vampire for the rest of their unnatural lives. If Eric had turned Sookie, he would always be in control of her and their relationship.

Sookie started the books as an independent person. The one being in her life for whom she continually made excuses and ceded that independence was Eric. I wish she’d kicked him to the curb sooner.

The double-mystery that sets this story in motion is a little weak. It mostly provided an excuse to “get the band back together” and have everyone that Sookie has ever met parade through her life one last time. I’m almost certain that every living or unliving soul that Sookie has crossed paths with got a mention except Bubba.

But the point was to make sure that Sookie took stock and resolved all her issues with the supe community, and she does that. The mystery is just an excuse to put her in jeopardy, so the troops rally round.

Sookie also had the opportunity to choose between Eric, Bill and Sam. While admittedly she could have chosen to be happily single, that wasn’t likely to be a resolution for the story and it wouldn’t have tied up the romantic loose ends.

Eric wanted her to be his “piece on the side” while he married someone else. Bill wanted her to forgive him for deceiving her, for betraying her, and, let’s not forget, for raping her.

And Sam, a while back he made her half owner of his bar, because she’s been so supportive of him. She didn’t need to put in any money. Sam counted her sweat-equity and her support more than enough of a contribution.

I know who I’d pick. And I know who I wouldn’t choose if he were the last man or vampire on Earth.

I give Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris 3 and 1/2 furry stars!

Dual Review: Take What You Want by Jeanette Grey

Posted on May 8, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 5 Stars> book reviews> Dual Review> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Latin Lover> The Rocket Lover

Format read: ebook copy provided by the author for review
Release Date: 12 March 2013
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Number of pages: 113 pages
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Samhain, B&N, Read an excerpt

Blurb:

She needs an escape…and he’s exactly what she had in mind.

College senior Ellen Price spends every spare minute studying to get into medical school. Until spring break yawns before her, as empty as her wallet.

With no money to hit the beach, she fills her empty to-do list with a plan: for just one week, she will become the kind of take-no-prisoners woman she secretly wishes to be, starting with the hot guy at the bar. It’s a no-risk situation: at the end of break, he’ll head back to his campus, and she’ll go back to hers. No muss, no fuss.

At first, Josh Markley isn’t sure what to think when the quiet, intense beauty from his pre-med classes approaches him for a night of casual sex. Even more mystifying, she doesn’t seem to return his recognition. But if she wants to play “strangers in a bar”, he’s game.

Their passionate night is a welcome respite from life’s stress, but afterward, Josh realizes he wants more—from himself, from life, from Ellen. Except she still thinks he’s a one-off she’ll never see again. Confessing the truth now—before she figures it out on her own—could shatter the fragile beginnings of just what the doctor ordered. A forever love.

Warning: Contains mistaken identities, a sometimes-glasses-wearing hottie, deep questions about figuring out what you want from life, and a red-hot college romance.

Our Thoughts:

Stella: Take What You Want was my first story by Jeanette Grey but definitely not the last! Her storytelling sucked me in and I gobbled it up in no time, closing my ereader with a happy and contented sigh. 🙂

Marlene: Take What You Want is a sex-into-love story. This is a trope that may be more difficult to pull off in real life than it is in fiction. YMMV. Or it’s difficult to pull it off in fiction and make the switch seem reasonable. The characters in this story manage to do that.

But what made this story work for me was the way that Ellen decided not to sit around and mope when her friends took their expensive Spring Break to the Bahamas, but instead that she tried to take a “vacation from herself”. Her inner dialog showed how difficult it was for her to step outside her comfort zone, but she still did it. She tried to become a new person for just a little while.

Then her emotions got engaged, and she wanted something real. And for that, she had to be the real Ellen and not new Ellen.

Stella: I concur, Ellen despite having such an ordinary name was anything but boring. I loved how such a serious and relatable young woman created this alter ego to live out her fantasies and experience things she only read/dreamed of. I found that exactly because she was such a girl next door she was a heroine the reader could identify with and feel as if her story could have happened to anyone. It was also moving to see that besides being a serious, dedicated and ambitious pre-med student there was an insecure, vulnerable side to Ellen.

Marlene: Even though Ellen was the one who was supposedly pretending to be someone else, Josh was also pretending quite a bit too, and not just because he was going along with Ellen. The first night, he was perfectly willing to go along with her just to get laid, and why not? She was the one who picked him up, after all.

But he knew who she was all along, and pretended that he didn’t. Why she didn’t recognize him says something about how much she kept her nose to the grindstone, or how big those lecture classes were. Or both.

The real issue for Josh was that he was pretending in most of the rest of his life. His father had big plans for him, plans that Josh knew he wasn’t going to fulfill. Josh had his own dreams, and hadn’t worked up the courage to disappoint his father.

Stella: Well actually, if I remember correctly, Josh was convinced that Ellen knew/recognized him, but pretended not to know him for some roleplay. But yes, both Ellen and Josh were pretending to be someone else and both had some major things on their minds regarding their future. But it was interesting to see how they were exact opposites to each other in the sense that Josh was more confident and sure in his own feelings for Ellen and their relationship, he had to take decisions regarding his studies and future career; while Ellen was sure about her career and completely clueless and vulnerable about her private life and her relationship with Josh.

I loved Josh. *sighs* He was lovely and wonderful. A guy, who despite being described as sexy and handsome, what you remember about him is how tender and warm-hearted and funny he is. I loved how he was the “girl” in the relationship, that is how he was the one who wanted much more than a meaningless fling right from the start.

And wanting more wasn’t just about wanting her body. He wanted the seductress in the high heels and short skirts, all right, the one that oozed sex and confidence. But he wanted the girl in the plain sweaters with the loose waves that fell over her face, too. The one that hid in the last row of the lecture hall but who always knew the answers. The one that dissected a pig all by herself, looking kissable even in a rubber apron and goggles and gloves. He wanted her to want more than a fuck from him. He wanted her to remember him. To know him.

And I absolutely have to comment about the sexual attraction, chemistry between Ellen and Josh: it was off the charts! Their love scenes were incredibly hot, sexy and tender, emotional at the same time. You’ll need a fan with this story! 😉

Marlene: So, in addition to the smoking hot love story, a love story where the guy is trying not to let the girl know he’s in love with her until she’s ready for it to be love, we also have a story of two people on the verge of adulthood who need to figure out who they really are, and not just who they are pretending to be.

Verdict:

Marlene: I loved this one. The story just plain worked for me. Ellen deciding to try being someone else, screwing up her courage, and thinking that no one would know if she completely embarrassed herself. Josh finally being noticed by the girl of his dreams, waking up in the morning and knowing that one night wasn’t enough. Then trying to figure out how to get her to that same realization, because she’s so not there. At the same time, they both have all those end-of-college decisions weighing on both of them.

And their chemistry practically set my iPad on fire from the very first page.

I give Take What You Want by Jeanette Grey 5 fiery stars!

Stella: I completely agree with Marlene, I LOVED Take What You Want and Jeanette Grey became a must read author for me. Not only was Take What You Want a thought-provoking and emotional journey of self- and love discovery for the characters, it was a sensual, sexy and addictive story I couldn’t put down until the very end. At the beginning I was reluctant to read Take What You Want fearing that due to the characters being in college it would be hard to relate to their problems, but take it from me, that concern was for naught. Thanks to Jeanette Grey’s gripping writing I felt invested in Ellen and Josh’s life and relationship and those two are characters as well as their story is one I will long remember.

And oh boy was their story sizzling! *fans herself* 😉

So yes, I also give Take What You Want by Jeanette Grey 5 scorching stars and urge you all to pick it up! 😀

***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 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 River of No Return by Bee Ridgway

Posted on May 7, 2013July 16, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 4 1/2 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Genre: Science Fiction
Release Date: Apr. 23, 2013
Number of pages: 464 pages
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Formats available: ebook, hardcover
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

“You are now a member of the Guild. There is no return.” Two hundred years after he was about to die on a Napoleonic battlefield, Nick Falcott, soldier and aristocrat, wakes up in a hospital bed in modern London. The Guild, an entity that controls time travel, showers him with life’s advantages. But Nick yearns for home and for one brown-eyed girl, lost now down the centuries. Then the Guild asks him to break its own rule. It needs Nick to go back to 1815 to fight the Guild’s enemies and to find something called the Talisman.

In 1815, Julia Percy mourns the death of her beloved grandfather, an earl who could play with time. On his deathbed he whispers in her ear: “Pretend!” Pretend what? When Nick returns home as if from the dead, older than he should be and battle scarred, Julia begins to suspect that her very life depends upon the secrets Grandfather never told her. Soon enough Julia and Nick are caught up in an adventure that stretches up and down the river of time. As their knowledge of the Guild and their feelings for each other grow, the fate of the future itself is hanging in the balance.

My Thoughts:

Too many reviewers start by saying that The River of No Return reminds them of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife. I may be the last lover of time-travel stories that has not read that book.

Instead, The River of No Return reminded me inexorably of the late, lamented Kage Baker’s awesome novels of The Company. Especially the early ones when it was clear that she was still having fun and before Mendoza became such a tragic figure in her own life.

Why? Because at the heart of both Kage Baker’s series (start with In the Garden of Iden) and The River of No Return there is an organization, at war, oh so definitely at war within itself, that is attempting to control the flow of time. And the knowledge about how to manipulate time. There are operatives, and there are secrets, and inevitably, there are lies.

In both Kage Baker’s stories and The River of No Return, the organizations see a time in the future when their organizations come to an end, and believe their end represents the end of the world, as opposed to merely the end of the world as they know it.

They definitely do not feel fine about what is coming, and they are trying everything, including breaking all their own rules, to prevent that end.

In The River of No Return, we see the story through the eyes of Nick Davenant, a man who starts his life as the Marquess of Blackdown, and should have died in battle during the Napoleonic Wars. Instead, he instinctively jumps time at the moment of his impending death, into the arms of “The Guild”, and into the 21st century. He’s told that he cannot return, and given more than enough money to keep him happy in our brave new century.

Then suddenly The Guild decides they need him to be Blackdown again. So they politely inform him that every rule they taught him was a lie. And they send him back, expecting him to be just as compliant back in his own time as he was here.

In his own time, he was never a compliant man. Especially not when threatened at gunpoint. After all, he has already died once. All they can do is kill him again.

And he has learned, once and for all, that The Guild is not to be trusted. Perhaps their adversaries are.

Verdict: This is a story with multiple layers. The overarching story is the war between The Guild and their opposing force, the Ofan. The Guild believes that time-travelers should be kept in the dark about their gifts, and the Ofan believes that the talent should be trained and exercised.

If anyone else sees this as a Time War a la Doctor Who, raise your hands.

There is also a love story in the 19th century, that has elements of a Regency romance, but that’s not the whole story either. Julia Percy starts out as a slightly unconventional woman of her time, but discovers that she is a key player in the time war. She is not a fixed point in time the way that the heroine is in The Time Traveler’s Wife, if I understand that plot correctly.

Julia starts out the story being acted upon, and ends the book having great agency of her own. She takes control of her own life, and it makes her a much more interesting character than she would be if she stayed in the Regency mold.

Both sets of time travelers are operating in the dark, and the story occasionally gets murky because of it. There are plots within plots within plots, and sometimes the only way to keep things straight is to just follow Nick and Julia.

The author has made Nick and Julia’s story extremely well worth following.

4-one-half-stars

I give The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway 4 and 1/2 shining stars!

Review: The Summer He Came Home by Juliana Stone

Posted on April 22, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 4 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Summer He Came Home by Juliana Stone Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Series: Bad Boys of Crystal Lake, #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: Apr. 2, 2013
Number of pages: 386 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Formats available: ebook, mass market paperback
Purchasing Info: Author’s website | Publisher’s website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

Sometimes the best place to find love is right back where you started…

Falling asleep in a different bed every night has made it easy for Cain Black to forget his past. It’s been ten years since he packed his guitar and left Crystal Lake, Michigan, to chase his dreams. Now tragedy has forced him home again. And though Cain relishes the freedom of the road, one stolen moment with Maggie O’Rourke makes him wonder if he’s missing out on something bigger than fame.

For Maggie—single mother and newly settled in Crystal Lake—love is a luxury she just can’t afford. Sure, she appreciates the tall, dark and handsome looks of prodigal son Cain Black. But how long can she expect the notorious hellion to stay?

The last thing either of them wants is something complicated. But sometimes love has its own plans.

My Thoughts:

The Summer He Came Home is part small-town romance, part second-chance love story and part, maybe mostly, a story about what happens when bad boys grow up and become men.

They were kings, and they didn’t know it, or so says one of the main characters, Raine, Jesse’s widow. The story starts with Cain Black’s arrival at Jesse’s funeral, his first time home after ten years.

Jesse and his twin Jake left Crystal Lake for Afghanistan. Only Jake came back. Mac left his home and his abusive father for a high-flying legal career in in the big city. And Cain left first, because his life was his music, and the only way he could find the fame and fortune he craved was on the road.

Jesse’s death found him on tour in Europe. He dropped everything to come back, burned out and almost completely used up. His marriage to a flashy model over in a bitter divorce, and his songwriting partnership finished with an onstage brawl in the middle of concert.

Cain Black arrives in the middle of Jesse’s funeral to celebrate his friend’s lost life, and finds his own. Cain thinks he’s leaving Crystal Lake in just a couple of weeks. Instead he decides that being with his remaining best friends, the men he knows in his heart are still his brothers, is the soul-deep healing that he really needs.

And he’s met one woman, one real woman, who isn’t interested in him for his music or his money. Maggie O’Rourke doesn’t want a bad-boy rocker in her life at all. And she certainly doesn’t want him in her son’s life. She just wants to keep her head down and scrape by.

Cain is too intrigued to stay away, in spite of his mother’s warnings not to hurt the shy young widow.

But he can’t get Maggie out of his mind, so he begins a cautious and careful courtship, not just of the beautiful Maggie, but of also of her precocious son, Michael. Cain’s deepening involvement brings him back into the life of the town, and back into the lives of the friends who need him.

He just brings Maggie back to life.

Then he discovers the terrible secret that she’s been keeping, and he almost loses everyone that is precious to him, just in the moment of discovery.

Verdict: You would think that starting the story with a funeral would be a real downer, but it actually isn’t. It turns out to be a terrific device for introducing all the characters, and explaining why Cain left Crystal Lake and his hesitation at coming back. It works.

Cain and Maggie start out from very different places. He’s a bit selfish about pursuing Maggie. Maggie has a huge secret that the reader figures out pretty easily. She doesn’t want a relationship and is clear about it. Because Cain doesn’t know what the secret is, he continues a gentle, non-threatening pursuit until she is willing to let a kind of courtship start. While he’s sweet about it on the one hand, there is an element that he isn’t clear until the end what he’s planning to do when the summer ends and he goes back to the band. Maggie has a child to consider who has become attached to him.

It is obvious to the reader what Maggie’s secret is. Her previous relationship was abusive. The only questions are whether the asshat is her husband, ex-husband, or boyfriend, and whether he is in or out of prison. It’s all too easy to see that Maggie is afraid of being found.

The development of the relationship between Cain and Maggie, and between Cain and Michael, her son, was slow and sweet, not that there isn’t a lot of simmering sexual tension between Cain and Maggie. A lot of this story is about healing, and it takes a while for Maggie to heal enough to let herself have a relationship with Cain.

However, the sudden arrival of Maggie’s ex and his capture seemed anti-climactic. There was no suspense, he just knocked on the door and started slapping Maggie around. Then Cain showed up and “boom!” the ex was arrested and locked up.

On the other hand, the friendships between the “bad boys”, Cain and Mac and Jake, make a big part of the book. The loss of Jesse is like the ache of a phantom limb, they all feel it. Painfully. I’m looking forward to Mac and Jake each having their own book, because in spite of the sudden ending, I really enjoyed The Summer He Came Home and want to read the rest of the series.

4-Stars

I give The Summer He Came Home by Juliana Stone 4 stars!

Review: Private Practice by Samanthe Beck

Posted on April 15, 2013January 5, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 3 1/2 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Private Practice by Samanthe Beck Format read: ebook provided by the publisher
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Erotic Romance
Release Date: Feb. 28, 2013
Number of pages: 263 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo

He’ll teach her how to bring a man to his knees…

Dr. Ellie Swan has a plan: open her practice in tiny Bluelick, Kentucky, so she can keep an eye on her diabetic father, and make hometown golden-boy Roger Reynolds fall in love with her. But Ellie has a problem. Roger seeks a skilled, sexually adventurous partner, and bookish Ellie doesn’t qualify.

Tyler Longfoot only cares about three things: shaking his bad boy image, qualifying for the loan his company needs to rehab a piece of Bluelick’s history, and convincing Ellie to keep quiet about the “incident” that lands him on her doorstep at two a.m. with a bullet in his behind.

The adorable Dr. Swan drives a mean bargain, though. If sex-on-a-stick Tyler will teach Ellie how to bring a man to his knees, she’ll forget about the bullet. Armed with The Wild Woman’s Guide to Sex and Tyler’s lessons, Ellie is confident she can become what Roger needs…if she doesn’t fall for Tyler first.

My Thoughts:

Dr. Ellie Swan comes home to her small town of Bluelick, Kentucky to open a private practice, finally reconcile with her neglectful, diabetic and alcoholic father and marry the man of her high-school dreams who just so happens to also be a lawyer.

This should be saccharine-sweet, and possibly also a contemporary Cinderella story–or a grown-up version of one of those “After School Specials” that used to run on TV. Except that Ellie Swan’s rose-colored glasses’ version of why she came home to Bluelick isn’t quite working out the way she planned.

Her high-school dreamboat has been freed from his ten-year engagement, supposedly because he’s interested in much kinkier sexcapades than his high-school sweetheart. That should have been a big clue for the romantically clueless Ellie but book-smart Ellie.

Instead, she tries to turn herself into a sexual adventuress by blackmailing the town bad boy into providing her with “no strings attached” sex lessons after he shows up at her house in the middle of the night with a buckshot wound in his very-nicely sculpted butt.

The ladies of Bluelick don’t call Tyler Longfoot “Tyler Footlong” without good reason. But that’s not all he’s good for. Ellie just turns out to be the first woman Tyler’s ever been with who makes him resent that it’s all that women think he ever might be good for.

Tyler should be thinking that a few weeks of “just great sex” with a beautiful woman is a terrific idea. Instead, the more time he spends with Ellie, the more he realizes that he finally wants more than just a good time.

Verdict:

My first thought was that I’d read this story before. The whole “sex lessons story” plot is very similar to Gina L. Maxwell’s recent Seducing Cinderella (see the BLI dual review for deets), except that in Maxwell’s story, it’s not the heroine who is the doctor, it’s the guy she thinks she wants. But still, there are a LOT of parallels.

I liked both Ellie and Tyler. He’s a genuinely nice guy, which is kind of a surprise considering the reputation he has as the town’s bad boy. He’s even a responsible business owner.

Even the side-characters in this one have some interesting moments, especially Melinda, the ex-fiancee of Ellie’s dream guy. In a fun twist, Melinda becomes Ellie’s office manager and best friend.

What makes this story work is the changing dynamic between Ellie and Tyler. He figures out that he wants more long before she does, but he continues with her bargain that he is giving her “sex lessons” because he knows that’s the only way she’ll let him stay close.

The added element of Ellie’s messed-up relationship with her father, his health crisis at the end and their overdue reconciliation was just too much to throw into a sex-into-lovers romance that didn’t need any more plot threads.

3-one-half-stars

I give Private Practice by Samanthe Beck 3 1/2 stars!

Review: The Spinster’s Secret by Emily Larkin

Posted on April 11, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 3 1/2 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

The Spinster's Secret by Emily Larkin Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Genre: Historical Romance
Release Date: Feb. 17, 2013
Number of pages: 218 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo

Penniless spinster, Matilda Chapple, lives at isolated Creed Hall, dependent on the austere charity of unloving relatives and under pressure to marry a man twice her age. In an attempt to earn enough money to escape this miserable existence, she writes a series of titillating ‘confessions’. Her secret is safe — until battle-scarred Waterloo veteran, Edward Kane, reluctantly accepts the commission to uncover the anonymous author’s identity.

While staying at bleak Creed Hall, Edward finds himself unaccountably drawn to his host’s lonely niece. Can Matilda conceal the secret of her scandalous writings, or will Edward discover that the spinster and the risqué authoress are one and the same person? And when Matilda feels the need to experience sex as her fictional courtesan does–will she lose her heart to Edward, along with her virginity?

My Thoughts:

The concept of this story is so incredibly intriguing that I had to pick it up, but it doesn’t quite live up to its expectations.

Or it does, but the setting is so dreary that the all-too-realistic description of the dreariness depresses the reader along with characters.

Let me explain.

Mattie Chapple is a penniless spinster. She is supposed to be grateful to her stingy, miserly, nasty uncle for the roof over her head, the food on her plate and the clothes on her back. The very cold roof over her head, the stringy and boiled food on her plate, and the always grey clothes on her back.

In other words, her uncle would make Ebenezer Scrooge seem like a generous and giving human being–before his visit from the spirits of Christmas. After all, Bob Cratchit was allowed to do whatever he wanted with his meager salary. Mattie doesn’t even have an allowance, because she’s female.

And she has to read sermons on female “meekness” after dinner. Every night. Even in the years just after Waterloo, Uncle would have been considered a bit much.

Mattie has a plan to escape her bleak life by writing salacious, and entirely fictitious, confessions of a courtesan. Mattie has no sexual experience whatsoever, so she is plagiarising the entire thing from a diary she found in a cupboard and a purloined copy of Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, much more famously known as Fanny Hill.

Mattie’s “confessions” are selling like hotcakes, or the time-appropriate equivalent.

Of course something happens so that she is in danger of discovery before she’s ready. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a story. And Uncle Skinflint (no that’s not his name but really, nothing comes close) can’t stand the thought of a prostitute in his domain.

Conveniently for the story, Edward Kane enters the picture to search for the supposed prostitute. The convenience is okay.

Kane is as fascinating a character as Mattie. He survived Waterloo. That’s not it. His descriptions of exactly what he survived are gut-wrenching. He was ready to die, and you know exactly why. He’s left with pretty horrible scars, and an even worse case of survivor’s guilt. He’s come to Creed Hall to do penance, and it’s a good place for it.

He decides that his penance is to find the courtesan. Instead, he finds a reason for living.

Verdict: I don’t have enough hands to do a proper “on the one hand/on the other hand”. Some things were terrific and others made me want to scream.

On the one hand, I loved that neither the hero NOR the heroine were pretty people. And it’s sad that it’s necessary to applaud this as a welcome development. Kane is physically scarred as well as emotionally. His scars are startling and even frightening. His right ear is mostly missing, as are some of his fingers. Mattie loves him as he is. And Kane worships her as she is. He prefers the fact that Mattie is a big woman, because he is referred to as a goliath. He’s happy to find a woman he doesn’t have to be careful of. He thinks Mattie is the incarnation of Venus!

They are friends first, and their friendship is cautious, as it should be, and it takes time to develop. We see them tentatively reaching toward each other, and how fragile that bond is. This story would break if there were even a hint of insta-love. But there isn’t.

The premise of the story, that a spinster with no experience whatsoever would be writing a salacious novel filled with sexual detail, and writing it by plagiarism at that, was just a bit too unrealistic. On the other hand, it did set up the reason for Mattie to proposition Kane, which in turn sets up the later misunderstandammit.

The story is actually a sweet love story about the power of redemption. I liked the story itself. But the extended descriptions of the utter, mind-numbing, soul-destroying dreariness of Creed Hall and Mattie’s life there sucked most of the joy out of the story. I would be giving this story a higher rating if there had been a couple of dozen pages less detail about the bleakness of living in Creed Hall.
3-one-half-stars

I give The Spinster’s Secret by Emily Larkin 3 and 1/2 slightly depressed stars

Review: Keir by Pippa Jay

Posted on April 8, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 5 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Format read: ebook provided by the author
Genre: Science Fiction Romance
Release Date: July 7, 2012
Number of pages: 266 pages
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

Outcast. Cursed. Dying. Is Keir beyond redemption? For Keirlan de Corizi–the legendary ‘Blue Demon’ of Adalucien–death seems the only escape from a world where his discolored skin marks him as an oddity and condemns him to life as a pariah. But salvation comes in an unexpected guise: Tarquin Secker, a young woman who can travel the stars with a wave of her hand. But Quin has secrets of her own. She’s spent eternity searching through space and time with a strange band of companions at her back. Defying her friends’ counsel, Quin risks her apparent immortality to save Keir. She offers him sanctuary and a new life on her home world, Lyagnius. When Keir mistakenly unleashes his dormant alien powers and earns instant exile from Quin’s home world, will she risk everything to stand by him again? WARNING: Contains sweet romance, some violence and plenty of adventure.

My Thoughts:

Keir is an absolutely stunning work of science fiction romance. when I say stunning I mean that in the best possible sense of the word. When I finished I just sat staring for several minutes, because I couldn’t quite pull myself away from the story’s spell.

Tarquin Secker comes to Adalucien pursuing the legend of the “Blue Demon”. In the bowels of the royal prison, she finds an emaciated young man on the brink of death, with tattoos and rags covering his blue skin.

Keirlan de Corizi is not the demon she came for. But Quin wouldn’t leave any sentient being in those inhumane conditions. So she blows up the prison just like she planned. Except it’s not quite like she planned. The prison very nearly crushes her to death.

Instead of her rescuing Keir, he saves her life. Then she saves his. And then, of course, things get seriously messy.

Keir is not exactly the “Blue Demon” she was looking for. But he’s not exactly not, either. Which isn’t to say that his entire planet doesn’t firmly believe that he IS the legendary Blue Demon. Who really did exist. Who has to have existed, because she’s Keir’s direct ancestor.

She was also the person who destroyed Quin’s homeworld and Quin has been searching for her ever since. Because in the process, she accidentally gave Quin a whole lot of interesting and dangerous powers. And sent her best friend wandering among the many worlds.

Quin is on a quest to find the original Demon, the Sentiac. At first, she saves Keir because he needs saving. Because she feels a kinship. His ancestry gives him a touch of the same power that she has.

But as he heals from all the damage that has been done to him, she discovers that Keir may be what she has been waiting for all the long centuries that she has been on her search. He may be a companion for the long years she has ahead.

If he can heal from everything that has happened to him. If he can learn to control the power that he now knows he has. If, most important of all, they can learn to trust each other with their many (and in Quin’s case, many times many) secrets.

Verdict: Keir was one of the winners of the SFR Galaxy Awards for 2012. (Full disclosure, I was one of the judges) The question among the other judges wasn’t whether Keir was going to get an award, the question was who would get to give it one. This was a favorite, but I hadn’t read it.

Now I know why everyone loved it so much.

The opening absolutely grabs the reader by the throat. Keir is in chains and you can feel the dungeon closing in around him. Quin sudden drop into his grey world is a jolt to him and the reader. Her disappointment that he isn’t who she expected and her complete unwillingness to let him die pull you into her point of view.

Their relationship builds slowly and realistically. Keir has no idea what it’s like to love and be loved. He is literally his world’s pariah. He can’t imagine that anyone could ever love him. Quin has loved and lost profondly in ways that are beyond Keir’s experience. She is three centuries old, and he is barely twenty. Not just May and December, but April and Methuselah, no matter that Quin appears to be in her late twenties.

The book has an element of two stories combined into one. The first part is Keir’s rescue and training, and the first mission to find the original “Blue Demon”. It’s Keir’s discovery of who he really is and where and what he came from. His search for identity.

The second part is Quin’s mission to train Keir to use his power, because he is a danger to everyone around him. This mission takes the form of exile from Quin’s homebase. While visiting one of Quin’s old friends, she runs headlong into one of her old enemies. And it’s there that her relationship with Keir finally flowers.

Be prepared for the ending. It will absolutely blow you away!

I give Keir by Pippa Jay 5 glorious stars!

Review: The Cinderella Makeover by Hope Tarr

Posted on March 27, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 4 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Series: Suddenly Cinderella, #2
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: March 11, 2013
Number of pages: 146 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

Fashionista Francesca St. James has agreed to work as a “fairy godmother” on the reality TV show Project Cinderella, taking contestants from geeky to dreamy. When Francesca’s archrival bets she can’t transform the awkwardly sweet CEO to hot in under eight weeks, Francesca accepts the challenge.
As CEO of a tech company, Greg may have billions, but what’s it worth without a woman to share it with? From day one on the show though, he clashes with his gorgeous fairy godmother—yet off-set, he can’t stop thinking about her. But this sexy woman is so far out of his league…and wants to change every single thing about him. It’s up to him to show her it’s more than clothes that make the man.
May the best man or geek win…

My Thoughts:

Do clothes make the man? Can magic ruby red slippers, (in this case, they’re stilettos) bring good luck and true love?

In The Cinderella Makeover there are a whole lot of tropes and myths that come out to play. Even when they’re turned sideways and set to dance, the way that they play off each other makes for a surprisingly good story.

Francesca St. James and Gregory Knickerbocker have met once, and it was not a “meet cute”. He’s one of those high-tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, young, geeky, fashion-challenged and eccentric. Make that extremely eccentric. He won’t pose for a photograph.

He tanks Francesca’s photojournalism career when he screws over her appointment to photograph him for GQ. Her polished Brit professionalism hit all of his awkward buttons, and he acted like a brat. A very wealthy and influential brat.

18 months later she’s still losing assignments and money. She’s also lost custody of her daughter in pursuit of assignments and her lost prestige. But Greg Knickerbocker is also hurting. He’s passing thirty and has been dumped by his 100th woman. Not a milestone to celebrate.

They both fall into the orbit of “Project Cinderella”, a new reality TV show. Greg becomes a contestant. He hopes that a new look and complete style makeover will give him the personal confidence boost he needs to finally find his soul mate.

Francesca signs on as a fairy god-mentor. The money she’ll earn is enough to let her spend the summer with her estranged daughter…without having to jet around the globe working.

But the moment that Francesca and Greg spot each other, the sparks begin to fly, along with the pasta sauce.

When Francesca makes a foolish bet with her arch-nemesis that Greg will win the contest, she breaks all the rules to turn the geek into prince charming. The more time they spend together, the more they realize that instead of loathing each other, they might be just what the other one needs.

Verdict: Francesca and Greg are both wounded when the story begins. Admittedly, some of that damage is self-inflicted, and a bit of it comes from their initial encounter. But most of what’s wrong with them is a lot deeper than that.

Greg may be rich, but he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He earned his money by being pretty darn obsessive. He loves what he’s doing, but he hasn’t had time for a life. Geekiness pays, but not in social skills. As an adult, he’s continued the pattern because it’s comfortable, and it’s defensive. But it’s also lonely. He knows happy marriages exist (his parents had one) but he’s afraid to come out of his shell.

Francesca is also obsessive about work. She’s so obsessive that she lost custody of her daughter. There was also some stupidity about self-absorbed boyfriends in that mix. But Francesca has the same knowledge that Greg does about loneliness and not taking care of the right things.

They’re good for each other if they can stop pushing each other away.

The story is a visit to troperville. Greg is more of an ugly duckling than cinderella, in spite of the title. Cinderella wasn’t a billionaire, or her kingdom’s equivalent. Or Greg is the Frog Prince. Is it my imagination, or is it common in stories when the “Cinderella” is male, is he usually wealthy?

About the shoes. The Suddenly Cinderella series (BLI review of Operation Cinderella here) is linked by the handing on of a pair of magic red stilettos that help each woman discover true love and happiness. So it’s possible that Francesca is the Cinderella in this story. She’s not wealthy and she does marry a prince who rescues her.

Francesca has her own fairy godfather in this story. You’ll laugh when you figure out who it is.

The Cinderella Makeover is a lot of fun. Setting the story during the filming of a reality TV show was very effective, and I don’t even like reality TV!

4-Stars1

I give The Cinderella Makeover by Hope Tarr 4 glittering stars!

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