Tag: 2012 Reading Romance Challenge

Banshee Charmer

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

Banshee Charmer by Tiffany Allee is labeled as being “from the files of the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency”. I took that to mean that this might be the first book of a series. This is an excellent thing! Banshees are not usually charmers, but in this case of this particular half-banshee, if you like urban fantasy, you’ll be charmed.

We meet our heroine at a crime scene. Which is only fitting, because Mac is a cop. Not your standard, run-of-the-mill cop, of course, but a member of the paranormal unit. There are generally two kinds of people who get assigned to the paranormal unit–paranormals, and regular-type human cops who have really, really pissed off someone in authority. For a human, being assigned to the “freak squad” is an even worse type of career purgatory than Internal Affairs.

But Keira “Mac” McLoughlin is definitely a freak. She’s half-banshee. Her scream can be a weapon. When she wants it to be.

When Mac’s partner Amanda becomes the victim of a serial killer, her Lieutenant takes her off the case. He thinks she’s too emotionally involved to see things clearly. He’s sure that Mac is out for payback instead of justice.

But Mac can’t stay away from the case, so when she comes back to her place to find an Otherworld Enforcement Agent sitting at her kitchen table claiming to have more evidence about the killer, she lets him into her confidence, and they join forces. And Mac keeps investigating a case she’s supposed to be miles away from.

The more Mac investigates, the stranger things get. Even for an Otherworld Enforcement Agent. This serial killer should never have targeted her partner, because he targets the weak, not bodybuilder cops. But then, this killer seems to be a member of an otherworld species that is supposed to be extinct.

And that OWEA agent, well Aiden Byrne is not exactly what he appears to be, either. And the biggest problem with that is Mac’s feelings for him are anything but professional.

Escape Rating A-/B+: This was one of those books that was just plain fun. Within the first few pages I was absolutely hooked. It hit all the high notes of an excellent urban fantasy, the heroine was not just kick-ass, but she was interesting and slightly different, the hero was conflicted but not too much, and the world-building was gritty and real.

We haven’t seen a banshee (even a half-banshee) as a heroine before. Mac’s conflicts about her background make her perspective new. Aiden also has just the right amount of torment (I like a little bad in my boys, but not to the point of wondering why the heroine gives them the time of day!). And a world built on everyone knowing and dealing with the otherworld is cool.

I want to read the next book. If this is “from the files of” that means there are more files, doesn’t it? Please.

If you want to read more of my thoughts on this story, check this post at Book Lovers Inc.

 

Don’t Bite the Messenger

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

Don’t Bite the Messenger by Regan Summers was every bit as intriguing an idea as it sounded when I read the description. And every bit as much fun to read.

Vampires would love Alaska in the winter. The nights are close to endless. But the summers would have to suck. And not in a good way.

The idea that vampire powers would also fry electronic technology made for an interesting start to this story. There are already people who go to Alaska for a short-term, high-paying job. Just think of the oil fields. But this makes for a whole new twist.

Our heroine, Sydney Kildare, is a human courier for the vampires. Without technology, the vamps are forced to rely on good, old-fashioned methods of communication. Like messenger services. And Sydney Kildare is the best messenger in Anchorage. Why? Because not only has she lived long enough to learn all the tricks of avoiding hijackers and general bad-asshats, but she’s immune to the vampires’ allure. That makes her a trustworthy courier.

At the ripe old age of twenty-six, Sydney is within days of buying her way out. She’s put money down on a house in Hawaii. She’s practically counting the hours until her escape.

Then suddenly Sydney is the target in a vampire turf war, and she doesn’t even know why. All she knows is that every safe haven she thought she had isn’t safe anymore, and every friend or even friendly acquaintance is either compromised or a target.

There’s only one person who is willing to help her. Malcolm Kelly seems to be right there on the scene whenever Sydney is in trouble. But is Mal an ally, or just the only vampire Sydney isn’t immune to?

Escape Rating B: On the one hand, I love these really short teaser books for urban fantasy/paranormal series. I get a quick introduction to the world, and I get to figure out whether I’m going to like it or not. But, but, but, it’s the potato chip problem all over again. One is not enough. If I do like it, and I definitely did like this, there should be more than just a tiny taste!  The whole problem with a teaser is just that, I’m left feeling teased. It’s not a sensation I’m really fond of.

Don’t Bite the Messenger is billed as the introduction to a series. And it reads like one. So let’s have it already.

 

Stellarnet Rebel

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

Stellarnet Rebel by J.L. Hilton is really good science fiction romance. The heroine is a blogger, which made it particularly fun for me! Not many blogger/heroines in science fiction romance. Or anywhere.

Genny O’Riordan is the blogger. She “shifts” in from Earth to Asteria to find a story that will make her blog, that is kick it up into the Stellarnet Top 100. That’s her big dream. The story she wants to break is a universal story of corporate greed, just moved out to the deep-space colony of Asteria.

Asteria sounds like Babylon 5 without the aliens and without the interstellar wars. (Well, almost, but we’ll get to that in a minute) Babylon 5 had “Downbelow”, where all the people who were too broke to buy passage back “home” and not skilled enough to get decent paying jobs mostly lived in the corridors. “Downbelow” was a slum, except with even fewer options. Asteria is a lot like a civilian Babylon 5, and there are too many people on Asteria who have either been forcibly shipped to or conned into shifting to Asteria and living as “overload” — in other words, living in the corridors and overloading the ecological systems. On a space station, that’s even more serious than on a planet, any planet. Humans can’t breathe vacuum.

There are also a lot of obsessive online gamers on Asteria, playing an immersive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) called Mysteria. There’s no lag time if you live on Asteria, the way there is on Earth. That’s a big deal to a truly obsessed gamer.

Asteria has a military commander, Colonel Blaze Villaneuva. Blaze is the one trying to keep the lid on the pot. His U.S. Air and Space Force mostly act as MPs. And they keep Asteria flying. Blaze is a realist more than he is a stickler for the rules. And part of Blaze’s reality is that there isn’t any water in space.

Blaze gets most of Asteria’s water from Duin’s clandestine raids on a nearby planet, his former home.

Duin is a Glin. He’s an alien. He’s the only alien on Asteria. His planet was conquered, and devastated, by another alien race, the Tikati. So Duin spends his days in the Asteria Colony market, making speeches about the oppression of his people to anyone who will listen. Because Duin has read all about the human drive for freedom, and he believes that somewhere, some human will want to help him free his people. He just has to keep believing. And speaking.

The first time Genny walks through the Asteria market, she hears Duin speak. He is passionate about the plight of his people. He is also incredibly articulate, even in a language manifestly not his own. And Genny is utterly captivated by him. At first, she believes it is because she has found a story, and a cause, that will rocket her blog not just into the Stellarnet 100, but maybe into the Stellarnet Top 20.

But the more time she spends with Duin, the more she involved she becomes with him and his cause, the more she realizes that it is the man, the Glin himself, who has captured her heart and soul.

Does love mean the same thing to a Glin that it does to a human? And will the blind prejudice and hatred of other humans conspire to keep them apart?

Escape Rating B: I absolutely adore the idea of the Stellarnet. It seemed like a merger of the blogosphere, Twitter and the constant stream of headline news all rolled into one. As a blogger, Genny is online to her fans almost constantly, to the point where Genny does debate whether or not to blog herself having sex, complete with video. But the concept of the all-invasive, all-intrusive Stellarnet, of fans living vicariously through a blogger/star does not seem far-fetched from here.

Duin was a little bit too good to be true for me. Especially when Belloc, the second Glin, came into the picture. I understand that the author used Belloc to show that the Glin attitude toward sex and relationships was not just different, but, in fact, alien, but that part of the plot didn’t quite work for me.

I liked Genny and Duin together. It felt more realistic in the relationship when he got so caught up in the cause that he lost sight of the person he was involved with. That happens. Belloc’s plot maybe should have been book 2.

Speaking of book 2, Stellarnet Rebel is the start of a series. I’m looking forward to it!

 

A Lady Awakened

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

A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant is a romance that flies in the face of convention, just like  its main characters do. In fact, this debut romance is so unconventional that reviewers have found it impossible to merely “like” the book.  It’s either been really loved, or practically a “wallbanger” (as in “throw against the wall in disgust”) book. I’m glad I followed my curiosity and read it, the differences made it well worth the time.

Martha Russell is a widow after a mere 10 months of marriage. Her late husband was a drunken fool, but his pride kept him from countermanding her orders for improvements on the estate and nearby village. He was unwilling to admit that he couldn’t remember whether he had given the orders for the school, and the new roofs for the tenants’ cottages, and the other things she thought were necessary. Drunken blackouts, you see.

But driving himself and his carriage into a crash had not been in her late husband’s plans. Nor had it been in Martha’s. Russell had expected Martha to provide him with an heir to his estate, it was why he married her. Russell hadn’t wanted his brother to inherit. Thomas Russell was still remembered around the neighborhood for his abuse of the female servants.

But Martha hadn’t had time to give her husband an heir, in spite of his assiduous efforts in that area, distasteful to Martha as they were. Martha had nevertheless done her duty by him, and dreamed of all the improvements she could make to the estate.

When the lawyer reads her late husband’s will, Martha knows she isn’t pregnant. She’s three days past certain. However, she feigns uncertainty in order to buy time. She’s desperate, and knows there must be a way to keep the demon brother at bay.

In Church on Sunday, the Lord does provide in the form of a handsome and feckless neighbor. Theophilus Mirkwood has been forced by his father to rusticate at their family’s country estate until he learns responsibility. Martha Russell offers to pay him 500 pounds for his stud services, for one month.

Yes, that’s right. She wants him to get her pregnant. He thinks she’s also paying for pleasure. She is absolute dead set against enjoying the act. Martha refuses to surrender any part of her essential self, and that includes her pleasure, to a man she sees as a wastrel.

And yet, this is a love story. It really is. It’s amazing how they get there.

Escape Rating B: This is the first romance I’ve ever read where the sex is not any good for either partner for the first half of the book. It’s an amazing place to start the story. Really, truly. There are a lot of stories where sex turns into love, and stories where the heroine’s first time isn’t so great, but this one is a first. The sex isn’t good for either of them, and it isn’t supposed to be.

This courtship is about a lot of other parts of their relationship. When all of the other issues (and are there ever a LOT of other issues) are resolved, then the issues in the bedroom work out. But this is a romance and not erotica. Love is more important than sex, in spite of where (and how) they start.

Do I read romances? Is the sky blue?

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | reading challenges

I can never resist a happy ending. Or even a “happy for now” ending.

As a friend pointed out, I do review a lot of what he called “bodice rippers” on my blog. Even if not a lot of actual bodices get ripped, because some of them are contemporary romances and as many as I can find are science fiction romances. But my friend was close to correct, at least in the “horseshoes and hand grenades” definition of close. I do read a lot of romance novels. I enjoy them.

I am also aware that I am quite fortunate. A lot of romance novels are available for review on NetGalley. This is what we call a win-win. Except when it comes to writing all the reviews. I read a lot of books, I write a lot of reviews.

Reading Romances, the blog, is running a Reading Romances Challenge that has a signup and a Goodreads group. One of the interesting things about this challenge is that instead of the usual levels, there are specific, well, I guess you would call them tasks, except that’s not quite right.

A task implies that it’s something you wouldn’t want to do. These are more like stretch goals. The idea is to get romance readers to try something a bit out of their romance comfort zones. The January stretch is to either read the first book of a series, read a book by a debut author, read a book by an author that’s new to the reader, OR, read a YA romance OR read an erotic romance. All the “challengee” has to do is pick one of the above.

I chose to read a book by an author that’s new to me. Why? Because I read a lot of books by authors who are new to me. It’s part of my reviewing. I love discovering new “voices”.

And on the Goodreads group side of this equation–I committed to reading 50 romances. Like that’s going to be a problem. I think I’ve got 5 down and 45 to go. Make that 44 and 3/4–I started a new book today, and guess what? It’s a romance!

 

Chain Reaction

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

Chain Reaction by Zoë Archer is a combination of space opera and science fiction romance. And it’s a combination that blasts some serious fun, especially for those who enjoy love stories of the hotshot vs. nerd persuasion.

“Stainless” Celene Jur is the hotshot pilot. She’s not just a member of the elite 8th Wing, she’s the stainless steel legend that everyone looks up to. But legends aren’t ever allowed a moment to cut loose and be human, not even while recovering from being captured and nearly sold into slavery.

Nils Calder is not just a geek, he is proud to be the best engineer in the division proudly known as NerdWorks. Nils has reverse engineered the device that disabled Celene’s Black Wraith ship’s previously unhackable controls and caused her capture. The secret of the Black Wraith controls is the only thing keeping the 8th Wing alive in its fight against PRAXIS.

Nils has also discovered who developed that device: a former NerdWorks engineer who went, not just rogue, but crazy and mercenary into the bargain.

The device hasn’t been sold to PRAXIS. Not yet. There’s still time for 8th Wing to track down the designer and remove the threat.

Celene Jur needs to lead this mission. She has to erase that feeling of powerlessness that overcame her when the device was activated. Wiping the designer off the face of the cosmos is the only way she can accomplish that. The threat to 8th Wing must be eliminated. And “Stainless” Jur is the best.

Nils Calder is the only engineer who can track the device. The rogue was damn good, but not quite good enough to beat him. But Nils needs to be on the mission. The rogue’s base signal is constantly changing. And his security will be a very tough engineering puzzle. Jur needs to take an engineer. She needs to take him.

But this is a stealth mission, not a raid. The Phantom ship they are taking only holds a crew of two. Jur wants to take another soldier, not a nerd. But when Nils passes all of her tests, Celene discovers that geeks can be soldiers every bit as much as pilots can. Maybe more.

But can she go back to being “Stainless” Jur after she gets used to being just human?

Escape Rating B+: If science fiction romance blasts your jets, you’ll enjoy this. Chain Reaction is set in the same universe as Archer’s Collision Course, and I would recommend reading that first to get more of the world-building, but the story of Chain Reaction does stand on its own.

Chain Reaction is about the partnership that develops between Celene and Nils. Each of them has to step out of their comfort zone to become true partners to each other, and watching them do that is a terrific rocketship ride.

Celene is afraid that Nils is interested in the legend and not the woman. It’s happened to her too many times before. Nils is worried that if they do manage to have a relationship during the mission, as bad an idea as that is, as soon as the mission is over, she’ll go back to not noticing he exists. Pilots and Nerds do not mix in 8th Wing. Both their fears are realistic, and it takes work, as it should, for them to get past them. I love it when a happy ending is earned. And so richly deserved.

Midnight Reckoning

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

Midnight Reckoning by Kendra Leigh Castle is something to read when you want a paranormal romance that takes all the standard elements and throws them in a blender! The mix that pours out makes for a very enjoyable read, while adding a few interesting twists to the usual recipe.

We met both the hero and heroine of Midnight Reckoning in the first book of Castle’s Dark Dynasties series, Dark Awakening (reviewed here). And when they met, they pissed each other off.

Lyra Black is a member of the Thorn, a werewolf pack. But Lyra is much more than just a member of the pack, she’s the Alpha’s daughter. And she’s an only child. Lyra wants what’s best for the Thorn, and she knows that her cousin Eric isn’t it. But the wolves have always chosen their Alphas through a physical contest, based on who is the strongest, fastest and cleverest. Females may be fast and clever, but they just aren’t as strong as the males. Traditionally, they don’t fight to become Alpha. But Lyra believes that Eric is so tradition-bound that he will lead the Thorn back to the human-enslaving dark ages, and in the 21st century, those days are long gone. Lyra has declared herself as a challenger for the right to become the Alpha’s Second, her father’s named successor. Being her father’s daughter will not help her. Her father wants her to mate with someone strong enough to fight in her place.

Wolves mate for life, and all that is required for the mating bond is sex. It doesn’t even have to be willing sex. Rape will cause the mating bond to lock into place. Lyra is being hunted.

Jaden Harrison threw Lyra Black out of a vampire sanctuary the first time he met her. Not so much because she was a werewolf, although there is that whole vamp/werewolf rivalry thing, but because he wanted her. Bad. And because there was no way he should feel that much desire for a wolf. Any wolf. He wanted her as far away from himself as possible, so he threw her out of the sanctuary. But he never forgot her.

So when he found her in his clan’s territory again, but this time threatened with rape, he helped her kill her would-be rapists. But he didn’t expect Lyra’s gratitude. He expected what he got. She took his head off. But only verbally. And only after stumbling into him and revealing, just for a second, that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Even if it was inappropriate. And impossible.

She left behind a necklace, a talisman, under the body of one of the wolves that Jaden had killed. Since she had been protecting the talisman, Jaden chose to go into Thorn territory to return it.

Why? Because he was delaying decisions about his own future. His newly-formed vampire clan, the Lilim, wanted him to become Chief of Security. He wasn’t sure he was ready to become an officer, when he had so recently been a slave of the Ptolemy clan of highborns.

But when he returned the necklace to Lyra, he was faced with another, and much more tempting offer. Teach Lyra to fight wolves, so she could take her own place in the Alpha challenge.

Why would a werewolf ask a vampire to teach his werewolf daughter to fight other werewolves? And what temptations will Jaden and Lyra face as teacher and student? And what is really going on within the werewolf pack? So many questions, and so little time to find the answers when threats come from all sides.

Escape Rating B: The action in this was even more fast and furious than in Dark Awakening. But I think the story probably works better if you’ve read both books, although that’s far from a hardship. I liked Dark Awakening, and I would recommend for paranormal romance fans. Midnight Reckoning a fun and very fast read.

I am really starting to want some more information about the Shadows. They are clearly moving events and people behind the scenes, and their motivations are murky to say the least. I hope more of that is in the next book. Since the next book is titled Shadow Rising (July 2012) maybe I’m going to get my wish!