Tag: 2012 Ebook Challenge

A Rogue by Any Other Name

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean is the first book in MacLean’s new pre-Victorian romance series, The First Rule of Scoundrels. It is also a delicious tale about a former tomboy who tells a bald-faced lie that her sudden marriage is a love match between herself and her former childhood sweetheart. There’s a problem with telling whopping lies like that one–fate is so tempted to make them real.

But the story is in why Lady Penelope Marbury and Michael, Marquess of Bourne are in the position to be telling such a whopper in the first place.

You see, there was a bit of a scandal. Actually, there were two. Make that three.

When Michael turned 21, when he reached his age of majority, he lost his entire estate over a hand of cards. Over just one hand. He was maneuvered into it. And the other man cheated. But Michael played, and he bet. And he bet everything that wasn’t tied up in the entail. And he lost it all.

To the man who had been his guardian after his parents’ death, Lord Langford. The man who had taken Falconhurst, an estate that was barely scraping by, and had built it up into something worth having…and who was unwilling to turn it over to a mere boy, even if that boy was the rightful heir. So Langford manipulated, maneuvered, cheated, and won. and gloated over his triumph.

Michael was disgraced. He never placed another bet. But he never lost the taste for it. Gamblers never do. Instead he ran games where other men lost their money, and their livelihoods. And eventually their inheritances. Ten years after Langford broke him, Michael, Marquess of Bourne was one of the four owners of The Fallen Angel, the most exclusive gaming hell in London.

Lady Penelope Marbury was the oldest daughter of the Marquess of Needham and Dolby. Growing up, Michael had been her best friend, along with Tommy Alles, the son of Lord Langford. At least, they’d all been friends until Michael’s scandal. Penelope had written letters to Michael for years, never receiving any in return.

But Penelope had suffered her own scandal. During her first season, she had become engaged. To a Duke, no less. It had all been perfect. Not perfect love, but perfectly arranged. The Duke of Leighton had been slightly boring, but her marriage to him would have made life so much easier for all of her younger sisters.

Instead, the engagement was broken and a week later the Duke married someone else. Infamously, it was an obvious love-match. and Penelope became a laughingtock for not being able to hold on to him. Six years later the ton was still tittering about it. Penelope was secretly relieved. Penelope wanted more than a dull, society marriage to a man she didn’t know or care for.

But her scandal affected all of her sisters’ prospects. Her father won Falconhurst from Langford, fittingly enough in a card game, and attached Bourne’s estate to Penelope’s dowry.

Penelope’s father was nobody’s fool. He knew what Michael thought he wanted–revenge against Langford. The older man wanted his daughter married and settled, and figured that Michael was what she wanted, no matter how he had to maneuver to get it.

Penelope wanted her sisters’ happiness, and was willing to bargain with her own to get it. Everyone in this story is gambling, but the stakes are much higher than your average card game.

Michael has been living for his revenge for ten years, and thanks to Penelope’s father, it is now within his grasp. But revenge, as the saying goes, is a dish best served cold. With Penelope back in his life, the only thing he can think of is the heat they generate together.

Which will win?

Escape Rating A-: I kept reading to see what would happen next! This was a story with a lot of twists and turns, and it also sets up the rest of the series quite nicely.

The glimpse into the past through Penelope’s letters to Michael is terrific! We don’t just see them growing up, we see Penelope changing over the years after Michael left, her transformation from tomboy to the “proper” woman at the beginning of the book. She used to be adventurous, and that’s all still inside her, but it’s been locked away because she has no outlet, and then Michael comes back and it all comes flowing, and sometimes raging, out of her again.

Michael is almost an enigma. He is beset by demons. His revenge has nearly consumed him, but not quite. He doesn’t gamble for money, but he so obviously gambles in so many other ways. He needs the adrenaline.

Penelope’s father is quite the schemer. He sets the whole thing up. Excellently well played!

Reviewers note: I received this egalley from Edelweiss in return for an honest review.

 

Past Tense

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews

Nick Marsh’s Past Tense is almost two books in one. The first half of Past Tense is science fiction/horror, and it’s pretty much of a sequel to Marsh’s first book, Soul Purpose (reviewed here). The main purpose of chapters 1 through 44 (or I through XLIV) is to provide a reason for the rest: the marvelous time travel feast that gives Past Tense its name.

The present day bits about the vet Alan Reece and his friends George and Kate, who saved the world from a Lovecraftian-Cthulhu-monster type takeover in the previous book, serve as introduction. The world is going to hell in a handcart again. Alan is not just seeing monsters, he also keeps slipping sideways into a world where Cthulhu seems to be running the place. And this is NOT GOOD.

He’s also being stalked by a couple of guys in ill-fitting suits and rather poor hygiene. When they finally catch up with him, their explanation floors him. They are like him, except from other “Soul Plains”. They are Conduits, with a capital “C”, and so is Alan.

And they are on Earth to help Alan save it, again. Because that last time Alan saved the Earth, he caught the attention of something nasty, and it wants to spoil things at the Soul Plain level, where only Conduits can fix things. Earth wasn’t even supposed to have a Conduit yet, so Alan is special.

About the poor hygiene thing. The other Conduits are just borrowing the bodies of people from Earth. They don’t quite know how to operate the equipment, so to speak. They get the language and general movement, well mostly, but the nuances of hair combing and tooth brushing are pretty much beyond them.

But they can show Alan how bad the problem is. The creature has no physical existence, except what he borrows. But on the Soul Plain level, he consumes Conduits, kills them, and steals their power. And he wants Alan. But he also want the entire Soul Power of the Earth.

The 21st century didn’t work for him. He was drawn to it because that’s where Alan was, but the 21st century doesn’t believe in much anymore, not on a superstitious level. This being needs to be worshipped to manifest. People need to believe in him. So he’s gone back into Earth’s past.

And that’s where the second “book” comes in. The creature has manifested in Britain, during the late period of the Roman occupation, in a fort on Hadrian’s Wall. In order to stop him, Alan has to go back to that same period to stop him from changing whatever piece in history he changed to trigger the wrong turn in history.

Alan has to occupy someone else’s body, just as the other Conduits do. Alan’s spirit, or soul, or Conduitness, or whatever, travels back and occupies the body of a medicus, a surgeon, on the Roman frontier in Britain at around 177 A.D. This glimpse into the life in Roman Britain is absolutely fascinating.

Even better, although worse for her, one of the creature’s minions mistakenly believes that Kate is the Conduit and sends her back to the same place and time. Kate occupies the body of a slave girl.

Between Alan and Kate, they are able to observe Roman life from top to bottom.

Their mission, which they must accept, is to prevent the assassination of the future emperor Commodus. Bastard that Commodus was, his place in history was necessary in order for the Roman Empire to fall at the appropriate time.

The only way they may be able to accomplish this seemingly impossible task is to convince a loyal and rational Roman Centurion that his commander is already dead and that his best friend is a time traveler. Can they do the impossible in time?

Escape Rating B+: I am of two minds. The set up with the part in the 21st century at the beginning, was necessary, but I wanted more of the part in the past. I adored the story once it moved to Roman Britain. Alan’s perspective on life in the fort really shone. It was so ironic that he found his place in life nearly 2,000 years before his birth. And he knew it couldn’t last.

And Kate, trying so hard to hold up at the absolute bottom of society’s ladder, reminding Alan that his current privilege rested on the backs of people like her, on slavery.

The historic bits reminded me a lot of Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove’s excellent Household Gods. This was a marvelous book about a woman whose spirit travels back to live on the Danube frontier of the Roman Empire at the same time period as Past Tense.

There’s a slight hint of the Star Trek Original Series episode City on the Edge of Forever in Kate’s relationship with Lucius the centurion. She wants to save him, to the point where she writes herself a message the second they get back to the 21st century, which she already knows she will find and read at the beginning of this adventure, but he will still attack first and die. And it’s necessary to save the future. And she grieves.

For more of my thoughts on Past Tense, take a look at Book Lovers Inc.

 

Synthetic Dreams

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

If there are no such things as demons, which is something that the main character states unequivocally in Kim Knox’ new cyberpunk science fiction romance thriller, Synthetic Dreams, then why are the hackers named after the Celtic demons of yore, the Fomorians?

But the real demon is Ouroboros. The worm of legend that eats his own tail. Confused? So was I–for a bit.

Synthetic Dreams paints a fascinating picture of a future world where the rich and powerful are able to harness the mental energy of certain individuals to power artificial reality dreamscapes.

The reader’s entry into this world is Vyn. Vyn is a Fomorian, a hacker using the codename Bran-seven. All the Fomorians use Celtic codenames. Hacking seems like half-tech and half-magic, so the Celtic analogies fit. While Vyn is in the Corporation-owned artificial reality world known as the Mind Tiers, she wears a glamour, yet another magic term. Glamour normally means enhancement, usually just enhanced appearance; better hair, better teeth, better body.

But Vyn’s glamour is illegal. All glamours are supposed to be tagged. If a person falls for someone else’s enhanced looks, at least they know what was enhanced. Vyn’s glamour isn’t just untagged, it’s a complete change of appearance and registry. She doesn’t just look better than her real self, she is able to fool the registry into believing that her real-life body matches the simulated person she appears to be.

Vyn has created the “Holy Grail” of hacking: she’s created a Simulacrum. It will make her rich–if she doesn’t get caught.

Vyn’s been pursuing a simulacrum for years, ever since the owners of the Corporation, the March-Goodmans, experimented on her, scarred her body, and had her transferred from the privileged N-sector to the slum S-sector.

Vyn wants to hide her scars. She also wants to find out why she was a victim of their experiments. And why her best friend Liam disappeared when he asked too many questions about her. But that was all a long time ago.

Now Vyn has a way to find the answers. With a simulacrum, she can be anybody, anywhere in the Mind Tiers. Or she can just sell it and get rich.

The Corporation is suddenly chasing her again. In the real world. And with intent to kill. And there’s a very hot security agent suddenly willing to protect her. The Corporation wants the Simulacrum. The security agent wants her to rescue his brother from the Corporation, and is willing to trade her promises of a future he can’t possibly mean in order to save his brother’s life.

Why can’t he possibly be sincere?  Because that security agent doesn’t need any glamour to look perfect. And Vyn knows that no one could possibly be interested in her scarred body except to use her as a tool.

Not even after she finds out what her scars were intended for. And after she discover that her security agent has been watching her, guarding her instead of following his assignment, for weeks.

And that the scars that ruined her life when she was a child–may be the only thing that can save her future now.

Escape Rating B-: This story had so many possibilities, but it’s too short to take advantage of them! It’s so frustrating. How did the world end up at this point? Why? This is like the current internet on steroids mixed with the Matrix, except everyone, well, almost everyone, is awake and aware, and a slight dash of the Roman Empire under the worst of the emperors. The corporate espionage bits are very, very insane.

Vyn is an extremely cool character, but we don’t see enough inside the security man’s head to figure out how he got into this. It’s his brother getting rescued, but he’s way more disaffected than that. This world has layers we’re not seeing.

About the Ouroboros thing…Vyn’s life turns out to be part of a very long plan by the Corporation, a plan that someone else manages to turn back against them. In the chilling sense of “revenge is a dish best served cold”. That part was icily well done.

The Iron Heart

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

The Iron Heart by Leslie Dicken is a terrific steampunk romance. The story takes place in and around Lundun, and yes, the resemblance to Victorian London is intentional and heightened, because there is a serial killer just like the infamous Ripper on the loose, and the hunt for him brings in the suspense.

Unfortunately, his first victim provides the introduction for our hero and heroine, and also points out the class divide in this quasi-Victorian society.

Lundun is where the common folk live. The Greenlands outside it are where the nobility reside. Except for Ella Wilder. She’s been secretly living above her Uncle James’ clockworks in Lundun ever since her cousin Jenny was the first horrific victim of the killer.

At the time, it seemed like a random murder. Lundun is a big and dangerous city, and sometimes, death happens. Even gruesome death. But when a second young woman, one who looks just like Jenny, turns up, Ella knows that Jenny’s death was the start of something horrific, and she wants to get the word out to other young women to protect themselves.

Ella even has a way to get that word out. Ella publishes a newspaper in Lundun, She also knows how to mobilize the upper crust to act. Ella is a member of the Syndicate of Provinces, the Council that governs Lundun. But Council members are required to live in the Greenlands, which is the reason that her actual residence over her Uncle’s shop must remain a secret.

The District Four representative is Bennett Pierce, Lord Barrington. He is alarmed by the recent death of the second young woman. He does not know about Jenny. But the second woman was his brother’s fiancee, before his brother’s accident.

Bennett wants to investigate the girl’s death himself. He is already investigating the girl’s death–by himself. He has reason to believe that his brother Hugh, who he rescued time and time again from excesses large and small, may have gone over the edge into madness, and that it is Bennett’s fault.

But as much as Bennett wants to quiet the Council, Ella wants to involve them. The only way for him to keep her from publishing her findings in her newspaper is to give her some information, and to keep her close enough to him to prevent her from finding out too much.

The difficulty with that plan is that Bennett Pierce discovers that Ella Wilder is the one and only person who has ever distracted him from his single-minded quest to find and save his brother. The only saving grace is that he tempts her every bit as much.

But with a crazed killer on the loose, will their mutual distraction be their salvation or their doom?

Escape Rating A-: I was up until 3 am trying to finish this. I didn’t quite make it, but I really, really wanted to. I wanted to find out how it ended so badly that I picked it up at breakfast the next morning. I got so caught up in the romance I forgot to figure out who the killer really was. Very well done!

This is very steamy steampunk. A genre description might be steampunk romantic suspense. The story is romantic suspense. There’s a serial killer on the loose and the hero is hunting him for personal reasons. The heroine is personally involved because someone close to her was a victim. There are hints she might be a target. This is romantic suspense.

But the world is so, so steampunk. Dirigibles, clockworks, automata. Not just big airships, but small personal vehicles as well. Clockwork parts for people are an integral part of the story. Even a tiny hint of Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics makes an appearance.

I found this book because Heather Massey recommended it (while fanning herself) on The Galaxy Express. She also mentioned that the description of the book on Amazon and Goodreads doesn’t use the word “Steampunk”. And it doesn’t. The description is really cute, but the keyword isn’t there. This is steampunk, and the book description needs to just plain say it for readers who will love this book to find it.

Because steampunk romance fans will adore it.

 

Celebrity in Death

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

If Eve Dallas were of a more philosophical bent, she would have meditated on the “life imitates art imitates life” nature of her latest case in Celebrity in Death. But the character that J.D. Robb created over 30 books ago is all hard-nosed murder cop, and that’s why we love her adventures. That’s also why her multi-billionaire ex-criminal husband Roarke loves her too.

But Celebrity in Death is a story-within-a-story. And possibly several iterations beyond that.

For Eve, it’s only been a couple of years since she cracked the Icove case. Dr. Wilfred Icove tried to beat death by cloning human beings, and died for his sins, and his secrets (Origin in Death). The case was so high-profile, and so scandalous, that Eve’s friend and go-to reporter, Natalie Furst, was able to make a best-seller out of her book on the inside story. That book, The Icove Agenda, is being filmed in New York, and the producers want to get all the real-life principals to interact with their actor-counterparts.

The resemblances are eerie, at least the physical ones. Especially when the makeup is in place and the camera is running. But off-camera, the differences are glaring. One difference in particular–Detective Delia Peabody is a genuinely nice woman, but the actress portraying her, K.T. Harris, is an absolute bitch.

Eve Dallas always stands for the dead, whether they are likeable or not. So when K.T. is murdered in the middle of a dinner party Eve is attending for all the movie people and all the original participants in the drama, Eve dives into the hunt for her killer. But not until after she shakes off that cold shiver at seeing a dead ringer for her partner dead in a pool.

At first there are too many suspects, and too few. Everyone detested the dead woman, but no one remembers who left the party and when, because the entire group was watching the movie “gag reel” at the time of death.

As events unfold, Eve discovers that K.T. Harris was both victim and victimized in her life. And although Eve sees the similarities to herself, she doesn’t sympathize much. K.T. made her choices, and they were all the wrong ones.

The case takes a surprising twist, and there are more dead for Eve to stand up for than she expected. But that’s what Eve Dallas does, every time.

Escape Rating B+: While I enjoyed this one, it wasn’t as riveting as New York to Dallas (see review), or my personal favorite, Fantasy in Death.

The dynamics of the cop shop are as much fun as ever. The scene where Dallas and Feeney have to watch a recording of a suspect couple’s private moments to determine whether or not it was tampered with is priceless. Their mutual embarrassment is just so perfect for their relationship.

This story didn’t ratchet up the tension the way that the stories normally do. There isn’t a lot of death, and there just doesn’t seem to be a lot at stake for most of the participants. While a lot of people involved are being bribed, few seem to be getting blackmailed. Something is missing.

Only in mystery fiction do we go looking for more death. But for my taste this story needed a couple more fresh corpses to give it body.

 

Death of a Kingfisher

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

I got hooked on M. C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series back when I used to drive a lot. Notice I said hooked. Rather like a trout in Macbeth’s lovely Highland village of Lochdubh, I was caught, and now I can’t escape the net.

The latest entry in the series is Death of a Kingfisher. The Kingfisher in this instance is a beautiful bird, the showpiece of The Fairy Glen, a new tourist attraction at the nearby village of Braikie.

The locals weren’t to happy about The Fairy Glen, not at first, but it’s brought tourist traffic and tourist money to an economically depressed area of Sutherland, and the owner, Mary Leinster, has charmed the pants off of any opposition. In the case of her male opposition, possibly literally. She’s also played successfully on long-held superstitions. Mary doesn’t just claim to have the “second-sight”, her vision of a boy falling in the pond came true, and the boy nearly drowned.

But the death of the beautiful kingfisher was no accident: the bird, his mate and their chicks were poisoned.

The kingfisher is the first to die, but not the last. And the other deaths are human. First a wealthy and elderly woman dies when her motorized wheelchair lift practically skyrockets her up a staircase, and it is discovered that the seatbelt of the chair was tampered with. The woman may have been a cantankerous old baggage, but she didn’t deserve to fly through her own skylight. Then it’s discovered that she was robbed before she was killed.

After that, murders turn up all over the township, as anyone who hints at knowledge of the murder or the robbery is mysteriously eliminated before the police can question them.

And what about the police?

Hamish Macbeth is the local constable in Lochdubh. His tiny station covers most of the small towns and villages in the county of Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands, which is actually very far north.  Hamish wants to be sure he stays in Lochdubh, the place he loves, and does not get sent to the “big city” of Strathbane.

So Hamish usually makes sure that credit for solving the crime goes to someone else, so that he can remain just where he is. However, he continually worries that budget cuts may close all of the local stations, and there won’t be any place for him except Strathbane.

This crime has him stumped. The suspects always seem to have an alibi, and the alibi is usually CCTV. But there are two sets of crimes. The murders, and the robbery. Once Hamish realizes that there may be two sets of perpetrators, and that there are ways to fool CCTV, he’s well on his way to solving this mess, and getting back to his life.

Escape Rating B: Hamish is a likeable character, and this is a police procedural series although sometimes Hamish spends more time trying to figure out a way around the procedures than using them. But once he figures out which way the crime might have gone, it’s easy to get caught up in the chase.

One of the very interesting things about Hamish is that he has found the place he wants to be in life, and is doing everything he can to stay there. At the same time, he needs to make sure justice is done. So he lets others take the credit.

Something I discovered recently: BBC Scotland loosely based a TV series on the Hamish Macbeth series between 1995 and 1997. In the books, Hamish is described as very tall, thin and with bright red hair. The actor who portrayed Hamish in the series is Robert Carlyle, best known in the U.S. as Doctor Nicholas Rush in Stargate Universe, and Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold in Once Upon a Time. Hamish is extremely likable. Rush and Gold are anything but. I keep wondering which one would be considered casting against type?

 

 

The Professor’s Assassin

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

The Professor’s Assassin by Matthew Pearl is a prequel short story to his new novel, The Technologists. 

The main character of The Professor’s Assassin is not the assassin. It’s the man who finds him. Which is an excellent thing, because William Barton Rogers is a much more fascinating character.

Rogers is a professor of the practical sciences. At the still relatively young University of Virginia, he is the professor of practical science.

In 1840, the University of Virginia was plagued by student protests and campus riots. The more hotheaded among the student body were violently petitioning for the right to bear arms on campus.

The violence escalated to frenzies of drunken rock-throwing at faculty housing. Of course, the rioters were always masked and hooded before they started drinking and beating on the walls of the houses with clubs, so no one could be identified in the morning.

One night, Rogers decided he’d had enough. He went out to confront the rioters. He confronted the leader face to face. Or face to mask. The young man threatened Rogers repeatedly, asking him how he dared to challenge the “University Volunteers”. Rogers walked away, daring the man to shoot him in the back, not certain that he wouldn’t, scared that the young man would and knowing, certain that if he wavered in the assuredness of his strike for one instant, the man would bring him down.

The next morning the President of the University was found shot outside of his home. Although President Davis knows who shot him, he refuses to name his assailant. A few days later he dies of his wound.

Rogers is a man of science. He also feels compelled to find justice for his friend and colleague.

As Rogers works through the case he feels he must solve, and the reasons why he must solve it, he finds himself dealing with the differences between his own practical methods, and the more philosophical minds of his peers.

It is as he works through his solution for this case that the germ of the idea for MIT is born.

Escape Rating B: This was a good introduction for The Technologists, and the story holds up on its own merits. The notes in the back are a must-read, because they explain how the author used the documentation of the real case to build the story. The story is closely based on a historic event. Davis was assassinated, and he did refuse to name his killer. A good bit of the rest is storyteller’s license, but Pearl used that license well.

Danger Zone

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Danger Zone by Dee J. Adams has all of the high-octane excitement of a hot Hollywood car chase movie. And so it should. But Adams’ story is much, much better, because Danger Zone is terrific romantic suspense, and more than satisfies on both the romantic and the suspenseful sides.

Quinn Reynolds has flown all the way from London to Hollywood to deliver an ultimatum to his older brother, Mac. Two years ago, Mac dropped the running of their business, Formula One Design, in Quinn’s lap, while Mac returned to the U.S. to lead the pit crew for his wife’s racing team.

Trace Bradshaw, Mac’s wife, is a top racer on the Formula Circuit in the U.S. Mac and Trace are in Hollywood filming her life story, which includes not just a horrific and nearly life-ending accident, but also a crazed and murderous stalker. The movie (and Adams’ first book – Trace’s and Mac’s story) is titled Dangerous Race (reviewed here).

Mac is busy when Quinn shows up on the set. Mac is always busy. It’s the story of their lives. Mac has acted more as Quinn’s father than his brother. While waiting around for Mac and watching the movie sets, Quinn literally bumps into Ellie Morgan, the stuntwoman playing the role of Trace in all the racing (and fighting and nearly dying) scenes of the movie.

Ellie is the first woman Quinn has felt attracted to since his own car accident six months previously. Ellie’s the first person who has made him feel anything good since that accident. Even though Quinn is only going to be in L.A. for two weeks, he pursues Ellie relentlessly, just like the playboy he used to be.

Ellie doesn’t want a playboy. And she doesn’t do casual relationships. Even though she is very attracted to Quinn, she knows she isn’t capable of giving her body to a man without letting him into her heart. And since Quinn will only be around for a couple of weeks, any relationship they might have is doomed from the start.

But Ellie’s roommate Ashley thinks that Ellie should let herself have a good time, just for once. Even more than that, Ashley thinks that Quinn is “the One”. The real one for Ellie, in spite of his playboy manners and his seeming wealth. Quinn has a limo and a driver, while Ellie and Ashley share an apartment. Ellie and Quinn couldn’t be more different.

But Ellie has a secret. Ashley is her lifeline. Ashley allows her to function. Because Ellie is dyslexic.

Quinn’s never made a secret of why he is in L.A. He wants, no he demands that Mac let him sell their company. They each own half, so they have to agree. Mac was a Formula racer before he had an accident. Then he ran the company until he met Trace and dropped it on Quinn. Mac loves cars and racing. Quinn’s made the company a success, but he doesn’t love it and never has. He wants out. But big brother won’t discuss the issue.

Meanwhile, someone is in L.A. stalking Quinn, because he wants to make sure the “right” company buys that company. That stalker starts staging “accidents” in order to take Quinn out of the picture. But he keeps missing Quinn and gets Ellie’s roommate Ashley instead. Without her lifeline, with her best friend in the hospital in a coma, Ellie turns to Quinn.

But can they survive long enough to learn each others secrets?

Escape Rating A: What makes Danger Zone so good are the people and their relationships. Quinn and Ellie are folks you would like to know in real life, you feel for them and the issues they deal with. Their romance is plenty hot and steamy, and it’s fun to watch them court and spark, but the author also made them easy to empathize with.

Dyslexia is a difficult problem for many people. Ellie fear of revealing her secret and the ridicule she will potentially face is made real for the reader. And there’s irony in that. If I suffered from dyslexia, how difficult would it be for me to read Ellie’s story?

I hope the next book in this series (Dangerously Close) is Ashley’s book. I really like that girl, and she so deserves her own happily ever after!

Heat Rises

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> B Reviews> book reviews

Every time we watch a few episodes of Castle, I experience the irresistible urge to read another one of the Nikki Heat books. It’s a compulsion, I can’t help myself. I know there’s another potato chip in that bag, and it’s calling my name.

The third Nikki Heat book is Heat Rises, and so far, they are maintaining the illusion that the books are written by Richard Castle. What can I say? So far, it’s working for me. As a matter of fact, it’s working pretty darn well. The Nikki Heat books may be mind candy, but they are very tasty mind candy.

Heat Rises starts out with Heat and Rook enduring a separation in their slightly undefined relationship. However, the lack of definition in their relationship is more a question of whether their heated fling has turned into an exclusive relationship that involves four-letter words like “love”. All Nikki knows is that she misses Rook pretty badly while he is undercover in South America doing research on one of his dangerous in-depth articles, this time on illegal arms trafficking. He’s out of reach and she’s starting to want to know where they stand.

And it’s the middle of a very cold winter in New York City, and she’s also missing the warm body to sleep with at night. And not just for sleep.

Then the dead body turns up. In a dominatrix’ dungeon, strapped to a piece of bondage equipment. Unfortunately for the victim, where he was found is the last place he should have been seen, dead or alive. The homicide victim turns out to have been a Catholic priest.

The situation goes from bad, to worse, to crazy.

Her captain investigates the victim’s residence, alone. Then Internal Affairs starts breathing down his neck. Captain Montrose hasn’t been himself since his wife died a year previously, but something about this case sends him totally off the rails. He boxes Nikki in, hamstringing her investigation.

Meanwhile, Rook returns, and screws up. He has dinner with his editor, and gets his picture splashed all over the gossip columns, before he comes to see Nikki. The future for their relationship starts looking none too hot.

Last but certainly not least, the results of Nikki’s Lieutenant’s exam come in. Well, the rumors of those results leak out, all over the place. Nikki Heat scored higher than anyone in decades. Suddenly there are administrators from 1PP courting her as a rising star, while her Captain’s star is falling through the floor of his office, along with his entire career.

Suddenly her world collapses. She takes her investigation of the priest’s death out of the box the Captain has imposed. A professional hit squad guns for her. The Captain eats his gun. And Internal Affairs takes her shiny new, almost there promotion and doesn’t just whisk it away, but suspends Nikki Heat from the NYPD.

So who does she turn to? Jamison Rook.

Escape Rating B+/A-: If you’re looking for a few hours of pure escape, it’s all here. There’s a murder to solve, there’s a relationship to figure out, and there’s absolutely wonderful cop shop banter to chuckle over. I couldn’t put this one down.

I knew it had to parallel the third season of Castle, so I was looking for that, but at the same time, there are definitely differences. The case that brings Captain Montrose down, and why, is not the same one that brings Montgomery down. It does have to do with something from his past, but that’s the only similarity. And that’s part of why Heat Rises was so good. It used the story from the show as a jumping-off point, but didn’t slavishly follow events.

The dedication of the book to Montgomery is excellently done. I love the way that the books refuse to break the fourth wall. I’m looking forward to Nikki Heat’s next case, Frozen  Heat, in September.

Merrick’s Destiny

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Merrick’s Destiny (exclusively available at All Romance Ebooks) by Moira Rogers is book 1.5 in her Bloodhounds series. It’s a very short and extremely steamy story that takes place between Wilder’s Mate and Hunter’s Prey. It stands alone well enough to serve as an introduction to this series, but it works even better if you’ve already read Wilder’s Mate!

Merrick Wood returns to consciousness in either the best of all possible worlds, or the worst. There’s a pretty woman straddling him, and he knows she’s his mate. On the other hand, there’s a crashed airship on fire about a hundred yards away.

That blazing inferno will act like a beacon to vampires for miles around. And there are plenty of vamps, since the ship crashed in the middle of the Deadlands. Merrick just has to get himself and his mate to safety before the new moon compulsion drives him out of his mind for three days.

Of course, if the lady is willing, it could be a very enjoyable three days–if the vampires don’t find them first.

Paralee Colton is an airship pilot. She’s always loved her freedom more than anything else in the world. Merrick just might make her rethink a few things if he can convince her that he wants her for herself, and not just a convenient female to spend his moon madness with.

Merrick needs to remember how or when or why she became his mate. Then he needs to convince her that she’s his destiny.

Escape Rating A-: This is a very fun, hot, short read. That being said, for a short story, it really does wrap up all the loose ends. One of the things that usually drives me crazy about short stories is that either the loose ends aren’t all tied up, or that I don’t find out enough backstory to understand how things got the way they are. Rogers ties everything up very well, and because this is book 1.5 in the series, it builds on some material established in Wilder’s Mate.

I picked Merrick’s Destiny initially because the cover absolutely floored me. The model, whoever it is, is dead-ringer for Jonathan Frakes from his days as Commander Riker in Star Trek Next Gen. The picture at the right is from the movie Generations, and the Enterprise-D is about to crash into a planet. But the resemblance to Merrick is startling to say the least.