Review: Little Island by Katharine Britton + Giveaway

Posted on May 21, 2014May 20, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: paperback provided by the author
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Women’s fiction
Length: 321 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Date Released: September 3, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Grace
Flowers
By the water
Have fun!

These are Joy’s grandmother’s last words—left behind on a note. A note that Joy’s mother, Grace, has interpreted as instructions for her memorial service. And so, the far-flung clan will gather at their inn on Little Island, Maine, to honor her.

Joy can’t help dreading the weekend. Twenty years ago, a tragedy nearly destroyed the family—and still defines them. Joy, Grace, her father Gar, and twins Roger and Tamar all have their parts to play. And now Joy, facing an empty nest and a nebulous future, feels more vulnerable than ever to the dangerous currents running through her family.

But this time, Joy will discover that there is more than pain and heartbreak that binds them together, when a few simple words lift the fog and reveal what truly matters…

My Review:

Little Island is a story about the corrosiveness of family secrets and the lies that people tell themselves (and each other) in order to hide their truth from the world, or from themselves.

The Little family seems like a happy family, at least on the surface. Grace and Gar have a solid marriage and a good life running a B&B on Little Island in Maine. Both their daughters are married, and have kids of their own. The younger daughter, Tamar, is a successful lawyer. But son Roger has always been the scapegrace of the family. He drinks too much, he does prescription drugs, and 20 years ago he killed a girl while drunk driving.

So maybe not quite an ideal family, but not too bad. They’ve all moved past Roger’s accident; he did his time long ago.

All is not as it seems. Their older daughter, Joy, has just sent her son off to college and can’t see a future for herself or her marriage without her son as the glue. Tamar’s marriage is falling apart, because she’s been too busy working (and micro-judging everyone in her path) to maintain a bond with her husband or have much knowledge of her twin daughters. Gar is starting to forget things. And Grace’s mother just died, and in the wake of that event, her long-lost aunts got in touch with her. Grace didn’t even know her mother had sisters. Or a family.

And Roger is continuing to slide slowly downward, a little bit at a time.

But as the story unfolds, the perspective switches from Joy and Grace in the present to Joy and Tamar 20 years ago, the time of Roger’s terrible accident. As the past unravels, the family discovers that a lot more died on that awful night than one young woman. And the present holds more joy and hope than anyone first thought.

Salmon-picnicking bears are a great way to liven up a memorial service.

Escape Rating B: OK, that last sentence in the review was kind of a spoiler–but you have to read the book to get the joke. And it’s worth it.

Little Island is a story about family dynamics, particularly about the way that one single event, one secret, can echo down through the years and fracture the foundation. It’s not that they are all unhappy, in the sense of the quote about happy and unhappy families, it’s that they are all lost.

The relationship that is the most damaged, and gets the most attention in the story, is the relationship among the siblings, Joy, Roger and Tamar. Roger and Tamar are twins, and shared everything together, until they suddenly didn’t. But neither of them could quite move on from that one secret, and they were so dependent on each other that they couldn’t break away, either.

Joy, the older sister, was always left out of the twins tight little twosome. And Tamar was frequently cruel about making sure that she stayed out.

So it’s Joy’s perspective that we follow most in the story, because she’s always been an observer. She’s even on the outside of her own life, because she’s so conditioned to waiting in the wings.

The story starts out slowly, but picks up speed as more of the past is revealed, and we can see how that past continues to impact the present. There is also a thread about the impact of stories, particular the stories that families tell about themselves and each other, and the way that the expectations those narratives create continue to ripple throughout our lives.

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

GIVEAWAY

Katharine is giving away a paperback copy of Little Island to one lucky U.S. winner.

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 or borrowed from a public library 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: Gossamer Wing by Delphine Dryden

Posted on January 16, 2014January 9, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: Paperback, ebook
Genre: steampunk romance
Series: Steam and Seduction #1
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Date Released: November 5, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

A Spy. An Airship. And a Broken Heart.

After losing her husband to a rogue French agent, Charlotte Moncrieffe wants to make her mark in international espionage. And what could be better for recovering secret long-lost documents from the Palais Garnier than her stealth dirigible, Gossamer Wing? Her spymaster father has one condition: He won’t send her to Paris without an ironclad cover.

Dexter Hardison prefers inventing to politics, but his title as Makesmith Baron and his formidable skills make him an ideal husband-imposter for Charlotte. And the unorthodox undercover arrangement would help him in his own field of discovery.

But from Charlotte and Dexter’s marriage of convenience comes a distraction—a passion that complicates an increasingly dangerous mission. For Charlotte, however, the thought of losing Dexter also opens her heart to a thrilling new future of love and adventure.

My Review:

Gossamer Wing is a mixture of “pretend marriage” with “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” in a steamy (and somewhat angsty) steampunk world.

The alternate history is quite fun, the romance is suitably hard won and the steampunk adds just the right amount of engineered insanity to go along with the derring-do.

We have the engineer and the lady spy, entering into a pretend marriage for the good of jolly old England. Except that the marriage is real, and there will be a real divorce when the mission is over.

Or maybe not.

Lady Charlotte Moncrieffe is three things; daughter of an English secret agent, widow of an English secret agent, and pilot of the only airship light enough to fly over Paris at night. The mission is hers.

Dexter Hardison is also three things; a world-reknowned engineer, a baron, and unmarried. He is the best candidate to play Charlotte’s temporary besotted husband.

He’s already carried out several engineering commissions for her, he just didn’t know that her little dirigible, the Gossamer Wing, was a secret project of the government. He also didn’t know that the lady was beautiful. Or tempting.

Charlotte plans to go to Paris to retrieve the secret plans that her first husband hid on the roof of the opera house, just before the war ended. Their honeymoon and his subsequent death prevented him from retrieving them.

Dexter plans to finish several engineering commissions for the government, help to conceal Charlotte’s true mission, and woo Charlotte.

Charlotte believes that emotion clouds judgement. But then, she’s spent the four years since her first husband’s death pretending that she has none.

She learns differently. But when they arrive in Paris, her husband’s killer lays in wait to see if he can retrieve the secret plans that were his downfall.

Escape Rating B+: The steampunk in Gossamer Wing turns it into deliciously frothy fun, with a whole lot of steam heat in the romantic tension between Dexter and Charlotte.

Charlotte is interesting because she has trained herself to be a perfect agent; she’s always cool and controlled. She’s an actress playing a part because it means her life. She loved her first husband, but he was a part of her life long before their very short marriage. Her mission is about finishing his work. She doesn’t have a life beyond it. But her supposed grief, like so many other things in her life, is just another cover story.

Dexter is the really fascinating character. He is the “makesmith Baron” and doesn’t use his title in his business. He hasn’t disavowed it or anything rash, but he knows it puts his business contacts off, so he’s just Mr. Hardison when it comes to business dealings. Dexter is always genuine, and doesn’t ever pretend. He can’t manage to fake being married, either. His emotions are real, and that’s how the romance begins.

The alternate history is a treat. Britain never lost her colonies, so the “Dominions” are still part of the Empire, but they are a happy part. The other interesting thing is that Napoleon never seems to have arisen, but there was still some kind of French and English war at that period. Also there seems to have been something that wasn’t quite the French Revolution, but wasn’t quite not, either. It provides the opportunity for lots of background skullduggery, including something that reads a lot like a “cold war” between England and France. But then, England and France didn’t really get along until World War I. Of course they’re spying on each other. And spying on the spies.

The steampunk industrial revolution even allows for industrial espionage, which just adds more layers to the plot. The mystery behind the enigma is very nicely convoluted and provides tons of chances for misunderstandings all around. Opportunities that the author makes excellent use of!

I adored the ending. Such a perfectly melodramatic bit of propaganda by both sets of secret agencies. I can’t wait to see where the next book in this series, Scarlet Devices, takes this 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 or borrowed from a public library 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 Tower by Jean Johnson

Posted on June 24, 2013June 23, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: print book borrowed from the Library
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Fantasy romance
Series: Guardians of Destiny, #1
Length: 385 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Date Released: May 7, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

In a fertile valley undisrupted by the aether-shattering death of the old Aian Empire, the Tower and its Guardians have entertained generations of wealthy mirror-scrying mages while adventurers from around the world risk their lives for fortune and fame. But on the one day the Tower stood unguarded, an intruder tried to seize the magic powering the vast structure. Now, locked out of the Tower’s innermost chambers, Kerric Vo Mos must brave the deadly traps keeping trespassers at bay in order to reclaim control.

Unfortunately, Kerric wields a pen far better than a sword, and the way into the Tower’s sanctum is treacherous. Only the help of an experienced player like Myal the Mendhite can get him to where he must go. But mutual respect will not be enough. Passion must also be employed, along with armor and weapons, as they embark on a perilous quest past monsters, riddles, and other dangers that even the Tower’s most dedicated viewers have never seen before.

My Review:

The Tower is set in the same world as Jean Johnson’s very enjoyable fantasy romance series The Sons of Destiny. If you like fantasy romance, start with The Sword. They’re great fun.

And just like The Sons of Destiny series, The Guardians of Destiny series looks like it’s going to be eight books. The waiting game in between tends to be torture.

About The Tower itself…so far, the tie between series seems to be a loose tie. Same world, but not the same characters. There was a handoff at the beginning, and a conversation at the end, but in-depth previous knowledge was not required.

The story of The Tower is that it’s a tower of magic. I know that sounds redundant, but it’s pretty cool. It’s a tower that controls the magic for the surrounding region, and it uses its excess power in a surprising way.

It creates adventure runs, dungeon crawls a la Dungeons & Dragons, complete with treasures and puzzles. Even better, it broadcasts (magically, so they’re called scrycasts) the adventures of people running the dungeons.

Of course, a whole economy has grown up around the running of the Tower and the scrycasting.

But the heart of the Tower is a powerful magic fountain, and that requires a Master. The Master of the Tower is Kerric Vo Mos, and he takes his responsibility very seriously. Of course, where there’s a lot of power at stake, someone always wants to take it, and that’s where the story comes in.

Kerric takes one day a year to leave the Tower, and while he’s away, the security protocols are breached. With him on the outside the Tower has no master. He has to get back in and retake control. The only way to do that, is to run the adventure gauntlet himself. For that, he needs a partner.

And because the easiest, for very elastic definitions of the word “easy”, adventure run to the heart of the tower involves a trip through the passion-trapped Seraglio rooms, Kerric needs to run the gauntlet with a female partner who is not just a top-flight adventurer, but is also someone he might be willing to let into his heart. She also has to be a woman who has the chance of feeling the same way about him.

There’s not exactly time for a courtship to figure it out, either. The clock isn’t just ticking, it’s counting down to potential disaster.

It’s not a long list. The woman Kerric really wants to take with him on this most perilous quest is Myal the Mendhite, the woman the scrycasts call Myal the Magnificent.
Kerric has no idea whether she’s willing to help him. Most important, because his position as Master of the Tower has forced him to remain apart from the adventurers, he has no clue whether or not she might be interested in him.

A fact which doesn’t just matter for the purpose of saving the Tower. He’s always been interested in her. But he’s never believed that the statuesque and gorgeous adventurer could possibly be interested in him just for himself.

He has no clue that Myal has asked herself whether the powerful Master of the Tower could ever be interested in an adventurer who has no magic.

Escape Rating B: Reading The Tower is a bit like reading a D&D game but with more plot and including a love story — but also including the snarky back-chatter that makes D&D so much fun.

The story is about two people becoming a team by working through adversity. Myal and Kerric are acquainted, but their normal roles don’t give them much chance to interact. However, they do find each other attractive.

This is also the classic opposites attract scenario, and not just because Kerric is a mage and Myal is a warrior, although it’s nice to see the woman being the sword swinger for a change. Myal’s people are all tall, and Kerric is a head shorter than she is. Myal is taller than most people in the area around the Tower, but Kerric is a short man who has had to adjust to being shorter than average.

Also, Myal has given up her ability to have children in exchange for magical tattoos that enhance her fighting ability. Her people back home consider her flawed. The decision about being childless is handled within the story as a choice both of them have made and what their reasons are.

They don’t fall instantly in love the minute they start running the gauntlet of the tower. They grow to respect and like each other through working together. Love becomes part of the package as they realize how good they are together over the intense experience.

Waiting for book 2, The Grove, is going to be torture.

***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 Cursed by Alyssa Day

Posted on June 20, 2013June 7, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: print book borrowed from the library
Formats available: ebook, mass market paperback, audiobook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: League of the Black Swan, #1
Length: 305 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Date Released: May 7, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Bordertown private investigator Luke Oliver’s beat is the dimensional fold in Manhattan between the human and supernatural realms. But now a secret from his past—the League of the Black Swan—has surfaced. Because Luke isn’t any ordinary P.I. He’s the Dark Wizard of Bordertown, and he never backs down from a fight.

But this time the fight threatens his life and his heart. Rio Jones, the only woman he loved, needs his help against a deadly menace. Luke pushed her away once before, so she’d never fall prey to the curse that threatens to destroy him. He swore he’d never let her go again.

Luke and Rio, with the help of the newly reformed League, must keep evil forces from taking over Bordertown—all the while battling a passion on the razor’s edge between danger and desire. And going to take everything they have just to stay alive.

My Review:

The idea that there is a supernatural fold of the space-time continuum, or whatever you might want to call it, underneath or beside or behind New York City makes a whole lot of weird sense, at least in paranormal terms.

If London can have two versions, Simon R. Green’s Nightside and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, it seems only fair that New York City has this one. NYC is certainly big and bad enough to support an oblong of goblins or two.

So Bordertown is the supernatural fold of New York City, where the demons and the elves live to look down upon the humans in their midst. Rio Jones believes she’s just one of those humans, even if she does have a little something extra: she’s a telepath. Her ability to tell when someone is too busy to care or if they really want to eat her for dinner has kept her alive as a bike messenger in this town where everyone is bigger and badder than she is.

One man tries to keep what passes for the peace in Bordertown. He goes by the name Luke Oliver, but he hasn’t always. He was born Lucian Olivieri, over 500 years ago, and his long life has been a curse and not a blessing. He’s known as the Dark Wizard of Bordertown, but if he ever really gives in to that dark, he’ll lose his soul.

Rio is the one woman who could tip him over to the dark side. Not because she’s evil, but because his overwhelming desire to protect her has the power to compel him to do seriously bad things. So Luke has kept himself far, far away from her.

Until his former colleagues, the League of the Black Swan, tell him to watch her. And their warning comes just in time. Because out of nowhere, both the Winter Fae and the Demon Rift target one unsuspecting human bike messenger named Rio Jones.

Who has no clue why every badass in Bordertown is out to get her before her 25th birthday. But then, Rio has no clue who she really is. She just needs to find out before that secret gets her killed. Or possessed. Or brings about the end of the world as everyone knows it.

Escape Rating B+: There are two stories in The Cursed; the love story between Luke and Rio, and the story about who Rio is and why is she being targeted.

The love story is a bit rocky. We never do find out why Luke was instantly attracted to Rio a year previously. It’s pretty easy to get what she sees in him, but not the reverse. Insta-love always makes me twitchy, and even though they do build a relationship in the book, it does start from there.

On that other hand, Rio’s origin story, the whole reason why she’s targeted, etc. is very cool and extremely well done. The case that Luke is pursuing at the beginning of the story, every mystery in the book, all the clues, even a couple of quite tasty red herrings, all lead to a fast and furious plot-twist at the end. I guessed some of it but not all of it.

The League of the Black Swan’s motives were very mysterious. They used Rio (and Luke) and Rio used them. I’m terribly curious to see what they do next.

***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: Heart of Obsidian by Nalini Singh

Posted on June 12, 2013June 10, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback, mass market paperback, audiobook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Psy-Changeling, #12
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Date Released: June 4, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

A dangerous, volatile rebel, hands stained bloodred.

A woman whose very existence has been erased.

A love story so dark, it may shatter the world itself.

A deadly price that must be paid.

The day of reckoning is here.

My Review:

As many reviewers have already stated, it is almost impossible to review Nalini Singh’s Heart of Obsidian without giving at least some spoilers about the story. The author has posted the first two chapters of the book on her website, so the identities of the hero and heroine are well-known by this point.

I’m going to try to not to spoil the rest of the story too much, but I’m also waiting a week to post this review. Those of us for whom the Psy-Changeling series is an auto-buy (and yes, I’m waving my hand enthusiastically at this point) have had a chance to devour it by now.

If you enjoy multi-layered paranormal romance, and have not started the Psy-Changeling series yet, go out and get a copy of the first book in the series, Slave to Sensation. What are you waiting for?

About those layers, the Psy-Changeling series has three, at least. Or at least three that keep twining through each book. There is always a love story, and the couple who find their HEA make or break each book.

But, because the overall future setting of the Psy-Changeling series starts out with three variations on the human race that don’t necessarily interact much, one of the underlying threads of the series is the increasing amount of inter-racial harmony, and the level of backlash that some reactionary elements incite as a result.

There is probably something fitting that the story takes place in a future version of the San Francisco area.

When the whole series begins, the three “races,” the shapeshifter changelings, the emotionless but psychically powerful Psy, and the original recipe humans, don’t interact much. To say that there is a circle of misunderstanding, mistrust, and fear is not an exaggeration. Both the Psy and the Changelings believe that they are superior, for totally different reasons. Us poor average humans have the short end of the stick.

But the emotionless Psy are a lot like Spock in Star Trek, it’s not that they don’t have emotions, it’s that they are ruthlessly taught to suppress them, through something called the Silence Protocol. The third leg of this series-long story is that the century-old Silence Protocol is rotting from within.

After all, emotionless beings do not commit mass murder in order to defend the belief that their race should remain emotionless. That level of fanaticism is just another emotion.

Escape Rating A-: This story centers on the love story and the continued rot of the Silence Protocol.

The love story was intense on a number of levels. Because the hero is a telekinetic, he quite literally made the earth move, or at least made all the furniture fly around. It made for one of the neatest expressions of sexual intensity I’ve read in a long time. All the glass breaks…in the entire house. Wow!

The exact nature of the heroine’s psychic talent was kept secret for at least half the story. This was partially because she had forced herself to forget it during torture, but it ended up torturing me as the reader. The hero knew, as it was the cause of her capture and their separation.

The identity of the “The Ghost” is revealed, and it was anti-climactic. I think most readers have guessed by now. We’re pretty much running out of still sane and still living options by this point in the overall story.

There’s a big political story going on. The Silence Protocol has been failing for several books now, so that’s not a secret. The question that is asked over and over in this book is what is going to happen when it finally collapses and who or what (and how much) is going to control the Psy afterwards. That part of the story fascinated me even more than the love 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: Wild Invitation by Nalini Singh

Posted on April 30, 2013April 28, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews> C Reviews

Format read: print book borrowed from the Library
Formats available: ebook, paperback, mass market paperback, audiobook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Psy-Changeling, #0.5, #3.5, #9.5, #10.5
Length: 353 pages
Publisher: Berkley Books
Date Released: March 5, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

A PSY-CHANGELING COLLECTION BY NALINI SINGH
Experience the explosive series hailed by #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan as “a must-read for all my fans.”

In Beat of Temptation, innocent Tamsyn has always had a place in her heart for Nathan, a blooded DarkRiver sentinel. But is she ready for the fierce demands of the mating bond?

In Stroke of Enticement, a wary young teacher, skeptical about love, arouses the man–and the animal–in an aggressive leopard changeling who must prove his affections are true.

Plus NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED
In Declaration of Courtship, Grace, a shy submissive wolf, finds herself pursued by the last man she ever would have imagined: a SnowDancer lieutenant said to be “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.”

Plus NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED
In Texture of Intimacy, SnowDancer healer Lara discovers the searing joys–and unexpected challenges–of being mated to quiet, powerful Walker, a man used to keeping his silence.

My Review:

I read Wild Invitation mostly to tide me over until Heart of Obsidian comes out in June. I’m probably not alone. I will say that for once the US cover doesn’t suck. I think the UK cover is prettier, but there’s a chance that the US cover might have something to do with the plot of the book for once. Mostly I’ve detested the US covers, so this one is definitely a major improvement.

Back to Wild Invitation…or inviting you to step back to Wild Invitation. Bad pun, no cookie. Beat of Temptation, Stroke of Enticement, and Declaration of Courtship all have similar themes. The male is in the dominant position either by age in the case of Beat, by species in the case of Stroke, or by hierarchy in the case of Declaration, and uses that dominance to make decisions for the female, with varying degress of success. Eventually, these couples reach an HEA. They may start down the path because the male in each case realizes that they are mates, but they get there because they find that they love each other, AND because the male gets it drummed into his head that they are equals.

In some cases that takes more thumping than others.

Beat of Temptation Escape Rating B-: The summary is not quite right. The story isn’t about whether Tamsyn is ready, the story is about whether Nate is ready to accept that she’s ready. When the bond snapped in place, Tamsyn was 15, and Nate was 25 or so. That’s a big difference. He kept trying to give her a chance to have a bit of freedom, but didn’t take into account that part of her freedom needed to be asking her what she wanted and needed. He kept on deciding for her instead of with her, until things reached a crisis point.

Stroke of Enticement Escape Rating B: Annie, the human in this story, is skeptical about love for more than one reason. Too many people see her slight physical handicap, and not her hard-won independence, especially since her mother emphasizes Annie’s shortcomings at every turn. And Annie has to live with the example of her parents’ marriage, a relationship where her mother adores her father, but he barely remembers that she exists. So when leopard changeling Zach strides into her life, she can’t believe that this handsome creature could possibly want her for more than a fling, and he doesn’t understand why their mating bond won’t snap into place.

Declaration of Courtship Escape Rating C+: This story reminded me too much of Patricia Briggs Cry Wolf, the first book in her Alpha and Omega series. I just couldn’t get the similarities out of my head.

Texture of Intimacy Escape Rating B+: This story was different from the others, and dropped a few hints about Heart of Obsidian. At least I hope they were hints. The difference was that this story was about Lara and Walker settling in after they were mated. Walker Lauren is Psy, and Lara is a wolf shifter. Walker is discovering what it is like, not just be mated, but to experience real emotions for the first time in his life. They have a long and occasionally rocky road ahead of them. The story of how they begin to navigate it is quite affecting, and made Texture of Intimacy my favorite story in the book.

***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.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

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