Tag: 2012 Ebook Challenge

Review: The Second Seduction of a Lady by Miranda Neville

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read:ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Historical Romance
Length: 100 pages
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Date Released: October 16, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Enter the thrilling, sexy world of Georgian England in this splendid Miranda Neville novella—and catch a glimpse of Caro, the heroine of the upcoming The Importance of Being Wicked, on sale December 2012.

Eleanor Hardwick and Max Quinton shared one night of incredible passion . . . that was shattered the next day, when Eleanor learned of a bet placed by Max’s friends. Now, five years later, Max still can’t get Eleanor out of his head or his heart. He has a single chance to make a second impression—one that will last forever.

Rule #1) Never bet on your own love life. Not if you actually want to have a love life, that is. Rule #2) If you only figure out that the lady is more important than the bet after you’ve made the bet, for pity’s sake, confess all, and quickly!

Of course, if heroes of romance fiction followed the above rules, readers of said fiction would be much the poorer for it. The misunderstanding that occurs before the opening of The Second Seduction of a Lady (and the reason there even needs to be a second seduction) revolves around just such a bet, and the heroine’s natural feeling of betrayal once it is revealed. Of course, she finds out after a night of grand passion, and from someone who is not exactly the hero’s best friend.

But that’s all in the past. A past that Eleanor Hardwick has tried her damnedest to forget, and that Max Quinton can’t help but remember. Particularly since Max is aware that the fault was his and only his.

Five years ago, Eleanor was a blue-stocking, almost but not quite on the shelf, her intelligence, and her unwillingness to pretend to be lacking any, causing her to be a wallflower. Max Quinton took the bet that he would kiss her before the week was out because he was just barely gentry, he really needed the money, and because he admired that intelligence the others derided.

He should have known from the first second that she was the only woman for him. He wanted all of her. And had her, for one night. Then she found out about the bet, and it was over.

Now she’s visiting her young cousin Caro in the country, and who does she see but Max Quinton. In the middle of nowhere, finishing the last days of his guardianship of Robert, the son of a friend.

And Max, not having learned his lesson the last time about deceiving Eleanor in order to get her, encourages Robert’s pursuit of Caro in order to provide him with a chance to seduce Eleanor a second time. This time he doesn’t plan on letting her go. No matter how many misunderstandings lay between them.

Max also doesn’t plan on Robert and Caro really falling in love, either. Just who ends up racing whom to Gretna Green?

Escape Rating B+: If you are looking for some delightfully whipped historical froth, The Second Seduction of a Lady might just be the right recipe to while away an hour or two.

Max and Eleanor are terrific characters, all the more so because neither of them are typical. Max has to work for a living, and Eleanor is not just a bluestocking, but she’s old enough to know her mind, and strong enough to voice her opinions. She also has just enough money to not need to marry. Her independence of the high ton is refreshing.  It’s also a nice change to see a Regency or Georgian romance where both the hero and the heroine are adults.

I would love to have seen a bit more of what happened Max and Eleanor’s first time around. There are just enough hints that the reader gets a good idea, but the story sounds delicious enough to warrant a full chapter or two of its own.

The Second Seduction of a Lady is the prequel for Miranda Neville’s new series. The first book in that series is The Importance of Being Wicked, and it will feature Robert and Caro’s story. It looks so much like more delicious fun that I just downloaded it from Edelweiss.

***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: Run the Risk by Lori Foster

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Format read: print ARC received from the tour company and an ebook from NetGalley
Formats available: Mass Market paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Romantic suspense
Series: Love Undercover #1
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Harlequin HQN
Date Released: September 25, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

When Detective Logan Riske goes undercover to find Pepper Yates, a potential link to his best friend’s unsolved murder, he vows to gain her cooperation by any means necessary. But the elusive beauty is more suspicious—and in far more danger—than he expected. And the last thing Logan needs is to start caring for her…. Pepper has spent years dodging the corrupt club owner who will stop at nothing to keep her silenced. She can trust no one, not even the handsome new “construction worker” who’s moved in next door. The heat between them is undeniable. But will surrendering to passion bring her the safety she so desires—or will her feelings for Logan draw them both into a killer’s crosshairs?

Everyone in this story is hiding something. Or someone. Or themselves. Make that all of the above.

But it’s the assumptions that surround the case that trip everyone, including Detective Logan Riske, up, over and over again. Especially his initial assumption that he can sweet-talk the elusive sister of his material witness without getting involved himself.

Everyone assumes that Pepper’s brother, Rowdy Yates, was the witness to a murder committed by corrupt night club owner Morton Andrews. But brother Rowdy went underground and stayed underground for two long years.

The murder victim had been Riske’s best friend. He wanted payback. He wanted Andrews convicted. Except that Andrews had bought, and paid for, too many cops, too many judges, too many politicians, to make it easy, or safe, to get him the usual way.

Instead, Riske went undercover, moving in next door to Pepper Yates, trying to get close to her, never letting “Sue Meeks” know that her construction worker neighbor was really a cop.

But Pepper had been hiding her real self under “Sue’s” incredibly meek and extremely drab exterior for much too long. Logan was a temptation she just couldn’t ignore. Especially when he pursued so intently.

As Logan expected, getting close to Pepper brought her protective brother Rowdy out of the woodwork. What Logan didn’t expect, was that Rowdy was being protective for a very damn good reason, and that Logan had just blown everything to hell.

Even worse, now that Logan knew why Pepper needed protection, he wasn’t sure exactly who he should be protecting her from. Just which cops are corrupt? His partner is hiding something. So is his Lieutenant.

But the person he really needs to protect Pepper Yates from is himself.

Escape Rating B+: Lori Foster always does a fantastic job of drawing out the romantic and sexual tension between her main leads, and Run the Risk absolutely continues the trend. The attraction between Logan and Pepper steams off the page, and the emotional conflict that makes them hesitant to get involved is gripping. Their relationship starts out with lies. It’s not a good foundation for anything lasting.

Pepper’s relationship with her very protective brother Rowdy was also a highlight. He definitely skates the edge of the law, but at the same time tries to protect her from the worst part of what he does, and from the bad parts of life in general. Possibly unreasonably so, but it’s who he is, and Pepper understands that even when it drives her crazy.

Part of the suspense angle–the part with Logan’s partner Reese and his Lieutenant–wraps up just a little too conveniently, or too simply, at the end. There was a lot of build-up during the story, and then the ending of that sub-plot felt a bit “flat” to this reader.

However, I still stayed up until 2 am to finish Run the Risk, and I’m absolutely looking forward to the next story of Love Undercover. I wonder if it’s either Reese or Rowdy? Both could sure use an HEA of their very own…

***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: Forge by T.K. Anthony

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: science fiction romance, space opera
Series: Thrall Web #1
Length: 377 pages
Publisher: Decadent Publishing
Date Released: July 21, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance

Warned by a Seeing…

The high king of the Scotian Realm expects the arrival of an enemy, a race of psychic predators bent on galactic conquest. The Realm’s one hope is alliance with the neighboring star domains in defense of a shared colony, Forge.

Caught in Fate’s grim weaving…

Mindblind, amnesic, Tazhret lives out his drug-induced visions of servitude on Forge. He wants to believe the beautiful woman with the nut-brown hair who whispers reassurances to his harrowed heart: “You have a name.” But is she even real? Or just one bright thread in his dark dreams?

An unexpected hope…

Tazhret’s destiny leads him to freedom and the woman he yearns for—and to a desperate struggle against the enemy.

Tazhret can save Forge, and the clan of his beloved. But only at the cost of all he has hoped for: his name, his freedom, and his love for the woman with the nut-brown hair.

Forge is the name of a planet in T.K. Anthony’s amazing combination of space opera, science fiction romance, and interplanetary intrigue.

It’s also a metaphor for the transformation of the characters in the story from merely human, into the roles that have been cast for them by destiny. Forges create weapons by fire, hammer and strength. The weapon being forged gets pounded on–a lot.

The analogy holds up all too well for the characters in this story. The mindblind slave Tazhret in the book blurb, needless to say, he was not originally a slave. And how he got into that condition, uncovering that is just the beginning of a vast, galaxy spanning plot.

The woman with the nut-brown hair, she’s real all right. And he shouldn’t have had the ability to find her in any dream state, even before he was mindblinded. But there’s that destiny thing again.

They have, not just one star-empire to save, but three. Three races who will all become slaves if they don’t uncover all of the deeply laid nefarious interlocking plans, before it is too late.

If you’re thinking that the slave is going to turn out to be a prince in disguise, you’d be wrong. He’s not. We’d call him an engineer, but among his people, the Scotians, it’s a bit more complicated.

But complicated in a spell-binding way. Rescuing the slave, restoring him to his true identity, starts a chain reaction. The conspiracy that made him a slave stretches back decades, and across the galaxy to the deadly enemy of the Scotian Realm, the Khevox Dominion. The Khevox once enslaved the entire Scotian people, and stands poised to make history repeat itself.

Unless one slave can defeat them. Again.

Escape Rating B+: I did think Tazhret would turn out to be a “lost prince”, and was surprised (and pleased) to discover that the author had not done anything nearly so obvious.

Instead the tale spins into intergalactic plots involving chillingly evil methods and villains who operate from the shadows.

What enthralled me was the way that the story kept peeling back, layer after layer, from a simple tale of one man’s fall into ruin, to something that encompasses empires. And a love worth any, and every sacrifice.

What drove me absolutely crazy was that the story is not complete in one volume. Forge is book one of the Thrall Web series. Fine and dandy. The series is off to an amazing start. But Forge ends on an absolutely hellish cliffhanger, and there is no projected publishing date for book two in the series.

Not fair. Are they saved? Are they damned? When will readers get to find out?

***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: Skies of Steel by Zoe Archer

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by Edelweiss
Formats available: ebook, Mass Market paperback
Genre: steampunk romance
Series: The Ether Chronicles #3
Length: 100 pages
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Date Released: October 9, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance

In the world of The Ether Chronicles, the Mechanical War rages on, and appearances are almost always deceiving . . . 

The prim professor
Daphne Carlisle may be a scholar, but she’s far more comfortable out in the field than lost in a stack of books. Still, when her parents are kidnapped by a notorious warlord, she knows she’ll need more than quick thinking if she is to reach them in time. Daphne’s only hope for getting across enemy territory is an airship powered and navigated by Mikhail Denisov, a rogue Man O’ War who is as seductive as he is untrustworthy.

The jaded mercenary
Mikhail will do anything for the right price, and he’s certain he has this mission—and Daphne—figured out: a simple job and a beautiful but sheltered Englishwoman. But as they traverse the skies above the Mediterranean and Arabia, Mikhail learns the fight ahead is anything but simple, and his lovely passenger is not entirely what she seems. The only thing Mikhail is certain of is their shared desire—both unexpected and dangerous.

The Mechanical War is a damn big war. If the first “world war” were fought, just a bit earlier, and with “ether” instead of guns and tanks (and still a few horses), would you get something like the war that Archer and Rosso have envisioned in their Ether Chronicles?

In this third glimpse into their fascinating construct of man/machines, airships and ether-powered horses (after Skies of Fire (review) and Night of Fire (review)) we see a totally different place and perspective. Skies of Fire showed the good guys (the Brits) and the perspective of those who serve her. Night of Fire switched to the Western U.S., but again, showed us folks wearing uniforms and/or badges fighting the good fight.

Skies of Steel gives us rebels. Han Solo as a bionic rebel and completely mercenary Man O’War helping a female Indiana Jones to ransom her parents from the desert warlord who kidnapped them.

Let  me explain…in this steampunk universe, the process that makes a man into a Man O’War, a man/machine, infuses his body with the metal telumium, and permanently bonds him to his airship. And absolutely vice-versa. So when Mikhail Mikhailovich Denisov goes rogue from the Russian fleet, his airship goes with him. He’s not the only rogue Man O’War, but governments don’t like to talk about their rogues. (Mikhail is also the man with the mohawk on the cover of the book. He likes the style. Really.)

Daphne Carlisle is an anthropologist who prefers studying cultures in the field to the academy. She may look like a simple academic, but she’s anything but. She’s equally deadly with a gun, or a deception.

Daphne deceives Mikhail over and over. Only one thing remains true. She will say, or do, absolutely anything, even the seemingly impossible, to save her parents. After the first lie is revealed, he should abandon her, take his ship, and leave. There is no profit in this fool’s venture for a mercenary.

But he stays and helps her anyway. With all her deceits, with all her tricks, Daphne has done one true thing. She has kept him from being bored and lonely. Her true quest to rescue her parents challenges him to find his own true heart, if it still exists.

After all, what mercenary would keep going on a job with no profit? Unless he’s pursuing something completely different?

Escape Rating B+: The terrific part of all the books in this series so far have been the two leads, and Mikhail and Daphne are no exceptions. They are fantastic. Mikhail’s increasing ennui, his boredom, his heartbreak at the loss of his family and purpose in life, while still feeling oh so responsible for his ship and crew is intense. He can’t let anyone down, but he’s already let himself down, and he’s not sure what he’s living for.

Daphne is desperate and courageous in her desperation. She doesn’t fit into the academic life, she belongs in the field. She’s so capable! She never needs to be rescued, what she needs is a partner.

The rescue of Daphne’s parents, all the different tasks Daphne and Mikhail had to perform, that was fantastic. (It also would have made an awesome video game!) You could feel them knitting together as a team.

But what did bother me a bit was the insta-connection in the beginning of the story. We never do find out why. They fall into instant rapport with each other. The other stories in this series were “second-chance at love” scenarios, where this one seemed to take the insta-connection as a short cut. (Maybe it’s the Han and Indy thing. He fell in love with himself after all!)

But I still raced through the book and can’t wait for the next one in the series, Nights of Steel. Next month.

***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: Local Custom by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> audio reviews> audiobooks> book reviews
Format read: ebook purchased from Baen Books, audiobook purchased from Audible
Formats available: Mass Market paperback, Trade Paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Space Opera, Science Fiction Romance
Series: Liaden Universe #4
Length: 320 Pages
Publisher: Baen Books
Date Released: February 2001
Purchasing Info: Authors’ Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Master trader Er Thom knows the local custom of Liaden is to be matched with a proper bride, and provide his prominent clan Korval with an heir. Yet his heart is immersed in another universe, influenced by another culture, and lost to a woman not of his world. And to take a Terran wife such as scholar Anne Davis is to risk his honor and reputation. But when he discovers that their brief encounter years before has resulted in the birth of a child, even more is at stake than anyone imagined. Now, an interstellar scandal has erupted, a bitter war between two families–galaxies apart–has begun, and the only hope for Er Thom and Anne is a sacrifice neither is prepared to make…

I have been meaning to re-read the Liaden Universe books for a while now. I loved them when I initially read them (meaning I swallowed them whole) in 2005-2006, but haven’t kept up with the newer ones. That “so many books, so little time” problem rears its ugly little head yet again.

When I heard that Audible was releasing the entire series in audio, I decided that was my opportunity. I could listen to everything! “Foolish Terran!”as the Liadens might say.

Sometimes when we revisit a beloved book we remember fondly, the re-read makes us wonder what we saw in it the first time. Memory does not hold up on close re-inspection. This was absolutely not the case with Liaden.

I started with Local Custom, because that’s where I started the first time. There are multiple possible entry points for the Liaden Universe, but two of the traditional ones are Local Custom or Agent of Change. (Agent of Change was written first but Local Custom occurs first in the internal chronology with most of the same cast of characters.)

The story is every bit as marvelous the second time around as it was the first time. Possibly more so, as I understand the background without remembering every single detail of each individual book.

Local Custom is both space opera and romance. Er Thom yos’Galan knows his duty to his clan is to take a contract wife and provide his clan with an heir. Duty to the clan is everything to a Liaden. But his heart is still fixed on the Terran scholar Anne Davis, a woman he met while overseeing his clan’s far-ranging business as a Master Trader. He should have let the thought of her go long since, but he cannot. So he takes leave of all his obligations, and they are more than Anne Davis ever knew they were, to see her one last time, and say a final “Goodbye”. Only to discover that she has already given him his heir, not knowing that the Master Trader she loved is actually heir to the richest clan on Liaden. And that she and her son are now pawns in a deadly game.

Escape Rating A+: I wish I had more pluses to give. I started to listen to the Audible recording, and became so caught up in the story that I found myself hunting for excuses to do things that would let me listen longer. I wasn’t getting anything else done!

I gave up and bought the entire ebook bundle from Baen, and finished the book that way. I enjoyed the audio, but it was just taking too long. My only regret about the audio is that Audible wasn’t able to get the rights for the original audio recording by Michael Shanks. I would love to hear him read the story as Er Thom.

If you enjoy space opera, and have never read the Liaden Universe books, start now. If you like romance in your science fiction, start with Local Custom. If you prefer more adventure and intrigue in the mix, choose Agent of Change as your starting point. But start now.

(If you do read ebooks, Baen is very reasonable about ebook prices. Everything is either $5 or $6 and they have downloads for every format you can think of: Kindle, EPUB, RTF, HTML, Read Online! Baen also does not use DRM.)

***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: Operation Endgame by Christi Snow

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: military romance, romantic suspense
Series: When the Mission Ends #1
Length: 302 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace
Date Released: June 20, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

It’s been six months.

Six months since Jake Madsen let Chris Robertson die.

Six months since the passion between Jake and Cassie, Chris’ sister, stepped over the line.

But now Cassie’s being stalked and it’s time for Jake to swallow his guilt, grief, and lust so he can save her life, even if it’s a life without him. He owes it to his dead friend and he owes it to Cassie. He’s fallen in love with her, but she doesn’t have to know that for him to keep her safe.

Operation: Endgame is a marvelous friends-into-lovers romance which manages to have both an alpha male military hero and a kick-butt heroine who not only rescues herself in the end, but also rescues the hero of one of the later books in this When the Mission Ends series. Not a bad day’s work, all things considered.

There’s a reason that the friends-into-lovers trope is a tried and true one. When it’s done right, it gives the love story a whole lot more depth than the insta-love connection that’s much too common in romance these days.  Operation: Endgame does a terrific job at filling in the long story of Jake and Cassie’s childhood bonding. Along with Cassie’s twin brother Chris, they were the neighborhood’s Three Musketeers. Those ties still run deep, even though adult responses have put a little distance between Cass and Jake, they are still best friends. They’re both too afraid to let their attraction to each other ruin the most important relationship in their lives.

But Chris’ death behind enemy lines changes all that. Chris and Jake are both in Air Force Special Operations, but Chris’ job was to infiltrate, and Jake’s duties are in the Pararescue Jumpers. Jake gets soldiers out after everything goes pear-shaped. But because bad weather moved in, he wasn’t able to rescue Chris. The Air Force declares Chris dead based on his dog tags, his uniform, and not much else.

One thing this reader has learned after many too many of the right (or wrong) kind of books–if the body is burned beyond all recognition, it’s never the right body. So when Cass starts having “twin dreams” that Chris is being tortured, it was obvious foreshadowing that he was alive and being tortured.

Two things happen in the wake of Chris’ death. Jake and Cass finally spend one glorious night together. Which Jake, being an idiot, believes is the result of him taking advantage of Cass in her grief. He leaves in the middle of the night.

And someone starts stalking Cass, naming himself after the main villain in the military strategy video game that Cass consulted on (Cass is an expert on military strategy). As the stalking escalates, Jake realizes that he has to come back home to protect Cass, no matter how he feels. He thinks she deserves better than the man who wasn’t able to save her brother.

Of course, he never asks her what she wants, or what she thinks she deserves. And that stalker has some pretty fixed ideas of his own on that score. Potentially deadly ideas.

Escape Rating B+: I loved the friends-into-lovers part of the story. Jake and Cass’ relationship, and the twists and turns in how they got from childhood friendship to adult partnership, were very well done. While I referred to Jake as an idiot, his idiocy was completely understandable within the context of the story.

On the other hand, while the suspense was fun, I found it fairly predictable. As soon as it was revealed how Chris’ body was identified, I knew he was still alive. That plot device has been used many too many times, including last week’s NCIS episode.

Likewise, it was blindingly obvious who Cass’ stalker was from the first moment the character was introduced. I will admit that his reason for stalking her turned out to be a surprise. Also a bit “over-the-top”. Someone that completely unbalanced would have had a hard time maintaining the kind of extensive criminal enterprise this guy was running.

But the mix made for a terrifically fun story. I had a fantastic time reading it and I can’t wait for book two in the series, Operation: Endeavor.

 

***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: Paradise 21 by Aubrie Dionne

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: Trade Paperback, ebook
Genre: Science Fiction Romance
Series: A New Dawn #1
Length: 247 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Date Released: August 2, 2011
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Aries has lived her entire life aboard mankind’s last hope, the New Dawn, a spaceship traveling toward a planet where humanity can begin anew–a planet that won’t be reached in Aries’ lifetime. As one of the last genetically desirable women in the universe, she must marry her designated genetic match and produce the next generation for this centuries-long voyage.
But Aries has other plans.

When her desperate escape from the New Dawn strands her on a desert planet, Aries discovers the rumors about pirates–humans who escaped Earth before its demise–are true. Handsome, genetically imperfect Striker possesses the freedom Aries envies, and the two connect on a level she never thought possible. But pursued by her match from above and hunted by the planet’s native inhabitants, Aries quickly learns her freedom will come at a hefty price.

The life of the man she loves.

The classic science fiction line is that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or of the one”. Mr. Spock is, after all, the authority on this sort of thing.

But what happens when you’re that “one” and you absolutely hate your lot in life taking care of the needs of that all-important “many”? And who decides what’s best, anyway?

The New Dawn is a generation ship, centuries out from a destroyed Earth, and centuries away from a new home planet. The crew/colony of the New Dawn have been raised in the belief that they carry the best genetic stock from the old world, and that their only destiny is to marry the mate the computer determines is the best genetic match from the available crew. Love and even psychological compatibility don’t enter into the equation.

The man Aries Ryder has been matched with is Lieutenant Astor Barliss. Astor is a ruthless officer–proud, ambitious, ruthless and manipulative. He’ll do anything to get ahead. It’s amazing that anyone in his ancestry was considered a perfect specimen of anything.

He’s also an abuser. Aries know that marriage to him will be a living hell. Astor has done everything he can, every minute, to kill her spirit, even just as her fiance. When they are married, he will have complete control over her. She would rather be dead.

Aries plans an escape, meticulously, carefully, as the New Dawn passes the desert world of Sahara 354. She finds that all of her education, her programming about uninhabited worlds was incorrect, as was the mis-information she was taught about the so-called inferior humans that the colonists left behind on Earth when they fled.

Because she is rescued by the descendant of one of those supposedly “lesser” humans on Sahara, a pirate named Striker, and finds him not inferior, but far superior to the people she left behind on New Dawn. Because Striker thinks and acts for himself. He wants a friend and a partner, not a mindless drone following some ancient “Code” by rote.

Aries falls in love with freedom, and with the man who represents that freedom, all too quickly. Striker keeps his emotions to himself. He’s been betrayed before. But he will help her get free of the tyrant who pursues her, or die trying.

Because Astor Bayliss refuses to give up what he thinks is his and cuts through half the planet of Sahara to get Aries back, terrorizing a whole company of his fellow colonists in the process.

The New Dawn may be headed for paradise, but Bayliss’ conduct and the rewards he receives for it reveal that its methods of getting there are anything but utopian.

And Striker, well, once he’s lost Aries, he discovers that he felt a lot more for her than he thought. Enough to rescue her from the middle of a whole ship full of hostile colonists–no matter what the cost.

Escape Rating B: Paradise 21 is a very solid beginning to Dionne’s science fiction romance series, A New Dawn. The next books in the series are Tundra 37, A Hero Rising and Haven 6, and I’m definitely looking forward to reading them!

While on the one hand, I did find Striker’s and Aries relationship a bit too close to “insta-love” to be totally believable, I was fascinated by the portrayal of life aboard the generation ship, and how the “Code” was fraying around the edges.

I did wonder how things had evolved so that women were that completely subservient to men. It could happen, I just wondered how and why. In that small and closed a group, every hand and every brain would seem to be needed.

What does a totally closed society do with people who don’t quite conform, like Aries and Barliss? Interesting solutions in each case made for a fascinating story.

***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: Willow Pond by Carol Tibaldi + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> Book Giveaway> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the Author
Formats available: Trade paperback, ebook
Genre: mystery
Length: 324 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace
Date Released: December 12, 2011
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

The Roaring Twenties crumble into the Great Depression, but Virginia Kingsley, New York’s toughest and most successful speakeasy owner, is doing just fine. Now that the world is falling apart, bootlegging is a flourishing business, and she’s queen of that castle.

Then her infant nephew is kidnapped. Her niece, Laura, and Laura’s philandering movie star husband, are devastated. The police have few leads, and speculation and rumors abound in the media circus that follows the celebrity abduction.

Only one reporter, Erich Muller, seems to care enough about the child’s welfare and the parents’ feelings to report the case responsibly. Over the course of the investigation, Erich Muller and Laura fall in love, but their relationship is doomed to failure since he suspects her beloved aunt Virginia is behind the kidnapping. Laura, jaded when it comes to men, sides with Virginia.

But Virginia has figured out the truth, and she can’t tell anyone for fear of losing her niece’s affections and having the police ransack her life. So she pursues her own investigation, shaking down, threatening, and killing one petty crook after another during her search.

Little Todd’s absence shapes everyone’s lives. When he is finally found, the discovery will bring disaster for some and revelation for others.

There’s something about “The Roaring 20’s” that continues to fascinate, even nearly a century later. The styles still look incredible cool, for one thing. The sleekness of Art Deco has become instantly recognizable.

Ms. Tibaldi evoked the era so completely that I half expected Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot to step out of the pages and offer to solve the case. The 20’s were, after all, his time, and this type of upper-class affair would have been just the sort of thing to exercise his “little grey cells”.

But the case it reminded me of most was the Lindbergh baby kidnapping of 1932. The 20-month-old son of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped in May of 1932, and later found murdered. This case resulted in the Federal Kidnapping Act, the law which makes it a federal crime to transport a kidnapping victim across state lines.

When I started the story, I wondered how much the kidnapping in Willow Pond would resemble the historic crime. Thankfully, not at all.

Instead, Willow Pond looks at another memorable historic law of the 1920s–Prohibition. We romanticize the speakeasies and laugh about “bathtub gin”, but Prohibition also brought about the rise of Organized Crime to transport the illegal booze that everyone still drank.

In Willow Pond, four lives intersect. Laura Austin’s life is turned upside down when her son is kidnapped. It seems that this should be her story, and it somewhat is, but only somewhat. In the aftermath of the terrible devastation wrought by the limbo of her missing child, Laura finally grows up. She completes her separation from her self-absorbed actor-husband, Philip Austin.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, Laura turns to Erich Muller, the crime reporter sent to cover the sensational story. Their relationship draws his investigative reporter skills in to pursue leads long after the police have let the trail run cold.

Virginia Kingley is Laura’s aunt, and the woman who raised Laura after her mother died. However, and most important, Virginia is part of the underworld. She runs a speakeasy called the Bacchanal, and she runs booze with the big boys. Her love affair with the Police Commissioner gives her the clout to keep her life from being investigated, but it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be.

Because Laura is caught in the middle between her need to defend the woman who raised her, and her lover’s certainty that someone in Virginia’s shady life had something to do with the kidnapping. All the trails seem to lead back to Virginia Kingsley, where every investigation gets blocked. Laura sides with her aunt. She may have come to love Erich, but her narcissistic bastard of a husband taught her that Virginia is much more trustworthy than any man.

It’s just too bad that Erich is right. Because that fourth life in the intersection…is her child’s kidnapper. She doesn’t want money. She just wants a child of her own.

And Todd just wants his mommy.

Escape Rating A-: I stayed up until 3 am to finish Willow Pond. I was so caught up in it that I couldn’t wait to find out how it ended.

Two things about Willow Pond that I found captivating were the 1920s setting and the kidnapping mystery itself. The author did an excellent, absolutely marvelous job invoking the feel of the 1920s. Poirot or Lord Peter Wimsey would have seemed right at home in this mystery.

The tension of limbo that the “not knowing” had on Laura was intense and very well-done. I felt for her pain and loss. Also the whole suspense of where the kidnapper and Todd were and the chase for them was definitely a thrill-ride.

One part didn’t work for me and that was Erich’s incredibly shabby treatment of his wife at the end of the story. This was not a romance, so I was not expecting that kind of happy ever after. But if Laura and Erich were going to get one, then Erich’s rebound marriage to Jenny seemed an unnecessary bit of pathos to this reader.

All in all, Willow Pond is a fantastic evocation of the 1920s with their glamour, scandals, and crimes.

~*~*Giveaway*~*~

As part of the book tour for Willow Pond, Carol Tibaldi and Pump Up Your Books are giving away one (1) trade paperback copy of Willow Pond to one lucky commenter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

***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: Blood and Whiskey by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: Trade paperback, ebook
Genre: paranormal
Series: Cowboy and Vampire #2
Length: 362 pages
Publisher: Pumpjack Press
Purchasing Info: Authors’ Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Wanted: Lizzie Vaughan, Dead or Alive. Relationships are always hard, but for a broke cowboy and a newly turned Vampire, true love may be lethal. After barely surviving an undead apocalypse in The Cowboy and the Vampire, Tucker and Lizzie hightail it back to quirky LonePine, Wyoming (population 438), to start a family. But she’s got a growing thirst for blood and he’s realizing that mortality ain’t all it’s cracked up to be when your girlfriend may live forever. With a scheming Vampire nation hot on their boot heels and a price on her head, how far will Lizzie and Tucker go to protect their unlikely love? Blending evolution, religion and an overly sensitive cow dog named Rex, Blood and Whiskey drags the Vampire myth into the modern west, delivering double-barreled action, heart-pounding passion and wicked humor.

Blood and Whiskey by Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall is definitely “A Cowboy and Vampire Thriller”, just like it says in the subtitle. Meaning that it involves a cowboy, (actually multiple cowboys, but one in particular), a vampire (again multiples, some good, some definitely not so good) and is it ever a thriller.

Also, it’s the sequel to The Cowboy and the Vampire (reviewed here), and it helps a ton to have read the first book first. These vampires have a whole religion of their very own. (There will be spoilers here for the first book. You have been warned.)

When last we left out heroes, Lizzie was the new queen of the vampires, her nemesis (and father) Julius, was permanently dead, and she was pregnant with Tucker’s baby–with no idea whether said baby was going to be human, vampire or some combination of the two. After all the crazy changes in her life, she just wanted to go home, and that meant Tucker’s home, little ole LonePine, Wyoming.

Where the vampire world descends in droves. With Julius dead, there’s a vacuum of power, and everyone wants to know if Lizzie is even capable of filling it. If she isn’t, or doesn’t, chaos will rule. A chaos that will be very, very bad, not just for Lizzie, and for the “good” vampires, but also for the human race. They’ll just be food, like cattle. On the worst-tended factory farm anyone could possibly imagine…and probably for the shortest time in (unlikely to be) recorded history.

Then night will fall. A night that will make the first Dark Ages look positively bright in comparison.

While Lizzie figures out whether she can “woman up” (maybe that should be “vampire up”) and deal with the politics, Tucker has a mission of his own: helping his best friend, conspiracy theory-happy Lenny rescue his kidnapped niece Rose from a feed lot. It turns out Lenny’s conspiracy theories were right after all, just not quite the way anyone imagined.

It forces Lizzie to accept the consequences of her choices as a vampire, and not take the easy way out. Not as a vampire, not as leader, not as a queen. She can either consciously choose to consume evil, or she can become evil by default. It’s her choice, and her destiny.

The right choices are never the easy ones. Lizzie is lucky that cowboys learn that before they fall in love with vampires.

Escape Rating A-: Blood and Whiskey had less philosophy and more action than the first book, and that made for a much more action-packed, and more absorbing story. I picked this one up and totally lost track of time–always an excellent sign.

Every writer who tackles the “vampire question” puts their own unique spin on it, and Hays and McFall are no exception. Their take on vampire philosophy/metaphysics as “good” vampires being those who consume evil humans, and “bad” ones as those who just eat whatever they darn well please made for an interesting moral conundrum, along with the two different pictures of “love as redemption” painted by Tucker’s steadfast love for Lizzie in spite of her change, and the reptile-descended vampire Eliza’s surprising discovery of love for the beautiful Virote.

The question at the end, whether enlightened self-interest is enough to redeem an entire species, is one that I hope will be answered in later books in the series.

***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 Last Victim by Karen Robards

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Book Lovers Inc.> book reviews> C Reviews
Format read: ebook from NetGalley
Formats available: Hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genre: romantic suspense, paranormal
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Released: August 7, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Dr. Charlotte Stone sees what others do not.

A sought-after expert in criminal pathology, Charlie regularly sits face-to-face with madmen. Obsessed with learning what makes human monsters commit terrible crimes, Charlie desires little else from life—no doubt because when she was sixteen, she herself survived a serial killer’s bloodbath: A man butchered the family of Charlie’s best friend, Holly, then left the girl’s body on a seaside boardwalk one week later.

Because of the information Charlie gave police, the Boardwalk Killer went underground. She kept to herself her eerie postmortem visions of Holly and her mother. And even years later, knowing her contact with ghosts might undermine her credibility as a psychological expert, Charlie tells no one about the visits she gets from the spirit world.

Now all-too-handsome FBI agent Tony Bartoli is telling Charlie that a teenage girl is missing, her family slaughtered. Bartoli suspects that after fifteen years, the Boardwalk Killer—or a sick copycat with his M.O.—is back. Time is running short for an innocent, kidnapped girl, and Bartoli pleads for Charlie’s help.

This is the one case Charlie shouldn’t go near. But she also knows that she may be the one person in the world who can stop this vicious killer. For Charlie—whose good looks disguise a world of hurt, vulnerability, and potent psychic gifts—a frantic hunt for a madman soon becomes a complex test of cunning, passions, and secrets. Aiding Dr. Stone on her quest to catch a madman is a ghostly presence with bad intentions: the fiery spirit of seductive bad boy Michael Garland who refuses to be ignored, though in his cat and mouse game they may both lose their hearts.

Dr. Charlotte Stone sees what others do not. And she sees the Boardwalk Killer coming for her.

The Last Victim is one of those books that didn’t know what it wanted to be when it grew up. Maybe got finished would be the better way of putting that. Even after writing a dual review with Lea over at Book Lovers Inc. I still can’t get this one out of my head (not in a good way) so I’m taking another stab at it. Or stabbing it again.

It starts out as a mystery/suspense/thriller with a paranormal twist. Charlie Stone is the only survivor of a brutal serial killer’s rampage, and grows up to become a criminal psychiatrist who specializes in, you guessed it, serial killers. But to make the story different, or to make Charlie different, the author mixed in a dose of the old “I see dead people.” Charlie’s psychic.

So when the serial killer she’s just finished interviewing gets shanked in the prison hallway, she sees his ghost leave his body, looking and sounding mighty confused.  Charlie tried to save Michael Garland, convicted serial killer of seven women, but he bled out under her hands. His enemy knew just where to stick that shiv.

The big problem is the Michael Garland is sex on a stick, undoubtedly part of how he lured in his victims. Charlie was fascinating to him while he was alive, probably not in a good way.   Now that he’s dead, his ghost is “attached” to her. That’s a problem.

The serial killer that Charlie escaped, back when she was a teenager, seems to be back. Either him or a copycat. This doesn’t fit the general serial killer profile, but someone using the exact same M.O. is at work, and the FBI wants Charlie’s assistance. She’s an expert on the man they dubbed “The Boardwalk Killer” from 15 years ago, and she’s a professional expert in this field.

While the FBI doesn’t care, nor should they, about how many personal nightmares this case awakens for Charlie, they make an absolute metric buttload of mistakes about her safety. They put her directly in the crosshairs of the serial killer she escaped. This seemed insane.

One member of the FBI team hated/resented/snarked out at Charlie just for being a psychiatrist, having zero idea about Charlie’s psychic ability. Skepticism about the woo-woo stuff would be understandable, but police agencies of all types and stripes routinely use psychiatrists and psychologists to profile serial killers. Any agent who acted out in that fashion with professionals that the Bureau needed wouldn’t BE an agent very long.

But still, the suspense/thriller thing, while it’s been done before, wasn’t bad. This whole getting the team together thing kind of worked. What derailed the train for me was Charlie’s relationship with Garland. And yes, I said relationship. What you have here is a criminal psychiatrist falling in love with the ghost of known serial killer. When they got to the point of having sex by astral projection, my eyes started rolling and wouldn’t stop. The number of ways in which Charlie should have known better stagger the imagination, and I have a pretty good imagination.

There is groundwork being laid that Garland is not as bad as his prison record makes him out to be. But until that’s proven, he’s still a convicted serial killer. And he’s dead! Either one of those factors should label him as “Danger, keep away!” in big red letters to any sane woman. Which may mean Charlie is more than a little nuts. Your mileage may vary.

Escape Rating C-: Okay, the train may have derailed, but I couldn’t stop myself from watching the wreck. You know how it is. I had to keep reading, to see what happened next. It’s over-the-top, but it’s over the top in a way that pulls you along for the ride. I did not figure out who the serial killer was. My eyes may have been rolling too hard at the ghost-sex thing.

I think The Last Victim would have been better if the author had resisted the impulse to grab quite so many packages from the troperville trolley. I counted at least five; ghost-romance, “I see dead people”, serial killer stalks his last victim, new FBI team hunts high-profile serial killers, trauma victim uses angst to forge career.  The writing was compelling, but a shorter menu might have meant for less eye-rolling disbelief on the part of many readers.

***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.