Tag: contemporary romance

Stacking the Shelves (27)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Stacking the Shelves

Seasons’ Greetings, Happy Holidays, Pleasant Solstice, whether that be cool or warm in your part of the world, etc.

As the marvelous graphic so delightfully illustrates: 

‘Tis the season after all. Peace on Earth and goodwill to all is a sentiment we can all get behind, whatever our personal beliefs.

Speaking of personal beliefs, I believe I’ve seen enough Christmas romances to last me until next November. I’ve got two more Christmas romance reviews to finish, and then I’m done.

About this week’s shelf-stack. Amazon had a local deal, well, there’s this Amazon local deal thing you can subscribe to in email. And by the way, they need to edit the combos a little better. It shouldn’t be possible to see a deal for “Facial/Waxing/Wine tasting” all in one subject. It just looks WRONG. Never mind the day it was “Horseback riding/Chocolate Tour.” My mind went to a horrible, horrible place.

Back to books. There was a local deal, at least here, where $1 bought one kindle book from a list of 50 books. One of those books was Mongoliad 2. I’ve already read and reviewed Mongoliad 1, and Mongoliad 3 popped up on NetGalley. I’m curious enough to give it another shot, at least $1 worth of shot.

 

I reserve the right to give up after 50 pages. After all, it was only $1.

 

Speaking of only $1, or even less. Lyrical Press is having a “Doomsday Sale“. More like a “the Mayans were wrong” sale. Everything in their catalog is 75% off in ebook., adding a couple more ebooks to my stack, at least so far. It IS kind of a steal, so I’ll probably go back.

And I checked a real, honest-to-goodness print book out from my library. Being surrounded by thousands of books is so damn tempting. Otherwise, everything on the list is e.

So what’s on your stack this week? And do you reach a point where you’ve had it up to the proverbial “here” with Christmas books? Or do you like to linger over them into January?

For Review:
The Cat’s Meow (Witch’s Brew #1) by Stacey Kennedy
The Geek Girl and the Scandalous Earl by Gina Lamm
The Mongoliad: Book Three (Foreworld #3) by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Nicole Galland, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, Cooper Moo
The Notorious Lady Anne by Sharon Cullen
The Reluctant Countess by Wendy Vella
Shadow on the Crown by Patricia Bracewell
The Summer He Came Home (Bad Boys of Crystal Lake #1) by Juliana Stone)
The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart (Magic Most Foul #2) by Leanna Renee Hieber

Purchased:
Keir by Pippa Jay
The Mongoliad: Book Two (Foreworld #2) by Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Cooper Moo, Mark Teppo
Whistling Dixie by Serenity Woods

Checked out from the Library:
The Buntline Special (Weird West Tales #1) by Mike Resnick (print)
Explosive Eighteen (Stephanie Plum #18) by Janet Evanovich

Review: That Night by Diane Dooley

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Holiday Romance, Contemporary Romance
Length: 42 pages
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Date Released: December 12, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance

Lindy Hopkins works early, works late, always gets the job done and never, ever has incredible one night stands with handsome coworkers. Until that night. But it’s okay. She’s just going to keep on pretending that it never happened.

Alex Anderson never imagined that buttoned-down workaholic Lindy had the ability to transform into a table-dancing, champagne-guzzling femme fatale. Until that night. And it’s not okay that she’s been giving him the coldest of shoulders ever since.

Neither are prepared to face the other, but they have no choice. They’ve each booked the company Catskill cabin for a few days before Christmas and are both too stubborn to budge. Over mulled wine and under a blanket of snow, it’s starting to look like that night might happen all over again. But this time Alex is playing for keeps, while Lindy is determined that no man will come before her career. Will they find that love is forever or will it be just another night to remember?

A cute, sweet holiday treat. A lot like the reindeer cupcake I had last night. I’m not sure it would work any other time of the year, but for right now, utterly yummy.

Lindy Hopkins books the company cabin in the Catskills for the holidays because she doesn’t want to spend Christmas with her family. They exhaust her. And that’s a telling part of this story. Lindy is from upstate New York, but from a dying small town. And from a family that expected her to stay close to home, marry early, and live a conventional small town life.

Because Lindy didn’t do what her family expects, she does nothing but disappoint them. She is terrific, but because they can’t understand anything about who and what she is, all she feels from them is hurt. She can’t get anything right, so she just keeps trying harder. And harder. She has no life. We all know people like that.

One night, she celebrated a bit too much, and spent a glorious night with Alex Anderson, another rising star at the company. She expected to face a “walk of shame” the next morning, but nothing happened. Alex never told.

Lindy never forgot a single thrilling moment of that night, but she acted like it never happened. Men can have affairs with co-workers and no one thinks a thing of it, but there is still a double-standard. Lindy doesn’t want her work denigrated because she slept with Alex. She needs respect.

Alex wants more from Lindy than a one-night stand. So he arranges to be at that cabin for Christmas. They need to talk about what happened. Whether there is the possibility of more, or whether that was all that there was. But they need to talk about it at least once!

He’s playing for keeps. Lindy is just plain afraid. But until they finally talk it through, neither knows a thing. A little wine, a little snow, and a whole lot of truth might turn Lindy’s lonely Christmas into the best one she ever had.

Who knew that cheesy romance novels like “Kidnapped by the Greek Billionaire” contained a kernel of truth after all?

Escape Rating B: That Night is delicious late night reading pleasure. It’s just a cute, and slightly steamy story about two people who need to be alone together and start communicating to finally figure out that they really are perfect together.

***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: Red Hot Holiday by Anne Calhoun, K.A. Mitchell and Leah Braemel

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genre: Erotic Romance, Holiday Romance
Length: 262 pages
Publisher: Carina Press
Date Released: December 3, 2012
Purchasing Info:Anne Calhoun’s Website, K.A. Mitchell’s Website, Leah Braemel’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance

I’ll be home for Christmas…to fulfill all your dreams.

This holiday, a Mountie is determined to get her man. A widow finds a fireman who ignites her passions again. And two men unsure of their commitment discover a happily ever after—and a blindfold—under their tree. No matter your desires, this collection of three shorts is bound to treat you to all the joys of the season.

Edited by Angela James, this anthology includes:

I Need You for Christmas by Leah Braemel
Breath on Embers by Annie Calhoun
Wish List by K.A. Mitchell

All the stories in this holiday collection contain extra-spicy sex, but that wasn’t necessarily the point. Or at least it wasn’t for this reader.

I found it interesting that all three stories were about established relationships. There was no porn-without-plot here. Yes, there was a little kink, but it was really about love, and what worked for these relationships, these people.

Breath on Embers wasn’t merely my favorite story in this collection, it nearly broke my heart. This is a story about someone using noise, any kind of noise; music, work, sex, exercise, to distance herself from terrible, gnawing grief. Tess lost her husband two years ago this Christmas. For the past nine months, she’s been using FDNY Lieutenant Ronan O’Rourke as the sex part of that noise. He knows where she’s been. He lost a beloved uncle in one of the towers on 9/11. He’s lost comrades on the job. Tess makes him feel alive. He’s tired of her using him to help her deaden the pain. He knows they have more. This Christmas he’s going to prove to her that there is life on the other side of grief, if she’ll only take the first step across the yawning chasm.

This story is awesomely painful. And awesomely beautiful.

Escape Rating for Breath on Embers: A+

I Need You for Christmas is an updated version of O. Henry’s classic Christmas story, The Gift of the Magi, with a slightly kinky twist. In today’s society, what’s the biggest thing you can sacrifice for your lover? Your career? Your dreams. Ryan’s dreams were for his art. He’s a sculptor, and he’s finally starting to sell. Art is always a hit or miss proposition at best, and this is finally his “time”. Megan is a Mountie, and that’s her dream. The problem is that her dream meant 5 years being posted in Nunavut, while the death of Ryan’s parents meant that he had to stay in Toronto as guardian to his young step-siblings.  They’re going to college now. So he can leave Toronto, even if being out of civilization may cause difficulties for his career.

But Megan has had about enough of being away from Ryan. She’s been a Mountie, and she loves it, but she misses him. While she needs to serve and protect, outside of her job, she also needs the freedom of submitting to Ryan in the privacy of their bedroom.

And after the sudden death of Ryan’s parents, Ryan knows that no one’s tomorrows are guaranteed. Mounties get shot at in the Territories.

So they each plan a surprise for the other for Christmas, a surprise that should guarantee they can be together all the time. But there’s this little problem with surprises…

This story was sweet, and hot, and drives the reader crazy with wanting them to just TELL EACH OTHER already! But it’s oh so believable, that they want to be together and would do this. Terrific story.

Escape Rating for I Need You for Christmas: B+

Ryan and Megan in I Need You for Christmas were definitely into the D/s part of BDSM, but only to a certain extent, and they didn’t explicitly refer to it that way.

Jonah and Evan in Wish List by K.A. Mitchell don’t start out the story being part of the BDSM scene either, but when Jonah discovers a pair of wedding rings hidden in his boyfriend Evan’s desk drawer, he starts thinking of all the things he might like to try before he finally takes himself permanantly off the market, and in the “wish list” he makes of things he’d really, really like to experiment with, his imagination conjures up a whole LOT of BDSM ideas, with himself starring in the submissive role.

The only problem is that he can’t imagine his relatively buttoned-down, neat-and-tidy lover Evan presiding over those fantasies as the Dom. No matter how much that concept turns him on. And how much he loves Evan and wants him to be the man in his life forever.

Little does Jonah know that Evan is a dominant who has been suppressing that side of his nature, because the sex no longer interests him without an emotional component. When he finds one of Jonah’s “wish lists” after it falls out of Jonah’s pocket, Evan’s need to dominate Jonah comes roaring back to life. Jonah can have everything he wants, and Evan too, if he can just figure out how to ASK for it.

This story drove me just a little crazy, because of the communication misunderstandammits that were required to keep it going. But it was still fun.

Escape Rating for Wish List: B

***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.

Stacking the Shelves (26)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Stacking the Shelves

The year is winding down fast! For those who celebrate it, the Christmas Holidays are next week. For many of the rest of us, it’s a lovely excuse for a long weekend. For those who have to work next weekend, especially those working retail during the last frenetic shopping days, I salute you.

Especially your no doubt tired aching feet.

I tried to keep the books stacked on top of my virtual shelves to a minimum. Well, a minimum for me, anyway. A few still managed to tiptoe their way onto my iPad. These are all ebooks this time around, including the book I borrowed from my new library. (Haven’t said THAT for a while!)

Just what I need, another source of books to read! Yes!

For Review:
All I Want for Christmas is a Duke by Delilah Marvelle and Maire Claremont
Between Two Thorns (Split Worlds #1) by Emma Newman
Demon’s Curse (Imnada Brotherhood #1) by Alexa Egan
Double Enchantment (Relics of Merlin #2) by Kathryne Kennedy
Entity (Spectra #2) by Joanne Elder
The Fat Man by Ken Harmon
Grave Intentions by Lori Sjoberg
The Importance of Being Wicked (Millworth Manor #2) by Victoria Alexander
Lord Stillwell’s Excellent Engagements (Millworth Manor #1.5) by Victoria Alexander
Real Men Don’t Break Hearts (Real Men #1) by Coleen Kwan
She Returns from War (Cora Oglesby #2) by Lee Collins
The Six-Gun Tarot by R.S. Belcher
Take What You Want by Jeanette Grey
That Night by Diane Dooley
Unnatural Acts (Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. #2) by Kevin J. Anderson

Borrowed from the Library:
Enchanting the Lady (Relics of Merlin #1) by Kathryne Kennedy

Review: Romancing the Holiday by Jaci Burton, HelenKay Dimon and Christi Barth

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Holiday Romance
Length: 257 pages
Publisher: Carina Press
Date Released: December 3, 2012
Purchasing Info:Jaci Burton’s Website, HelenKay Dimon’s Website, Christi Barth’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance

We wish you a merry Christmas…and a happily ever after!

A memorable three-night stand gets rekindled in a cabin in West Virginia. An office romance is sparked by an impulsive holiday kiss. And two best friends scout locations for a marriage proposal and discover that they make a perfect match. ‘Tis the season for laughter, love and a lifetime of happiness.

Edited by Angela James this anthology includes:

We’ll Be Home for Christmas by HelenKay Dimon
The Best Thing by Jaci Burton
Ask Her at Christmas by Christi Barth

When I picked up Carina’s contemporary Christmas anthology last year, I didn’t know that two of the stories in Holiday Kisses were part of ongoing series. It didn’t matter at the time. In my review, I really enjoyed Jaci Burton’s A Rare Gift, and didn’t care much for HelenKay Dimon’s It’s Not Christmas Without You.

But both those families are back! Those were the middle stories. Part one must be in the first Carina Christmas collection, Naughty and Nice. Clearly I must complete the set.

First, there’s this year’s contemporary collection to review. (Future reviews will deal with the erotic collection Red Hot Holiday and the sci-fi romance collection A Galactic Holiday. I can’t resist collecting the set)

This collection was a lot stronger than the Holiday Kisses collection last year, which for me had one home run, two strong base hits, and one pretty big miss. This year, the stories were all very good.

So what does that mean, you might ask?

My favorite story in the collection is Jaci Burton’s The Best Thing. There are multiple layers to this story, because Tori and Brody have so much going on in their relationship. Brody Kent is the last single brother standing of the Kent brothers. They own Kent Construction. They also happen to all be Tori’s bosses. But Brody, well, she’s had a crush on him forever, since she first moved into town when she was 16. The thing is, she didn’t have much of a family, and Brody’s parents adopted her. So if she and Brody mix pleasure with business, and it goes pear-shaped, Tori will lose her heart, her job, and the only family she’s ever known.

No man is worth that, no matter what kind of skills he might have in the bedroom. And rumor has it that Brody has plenty of skills. But since Brody took their mad flirting to a searing kiss at last year’s Christmas party, neither of them has been able to recover. Is it worth losing the safety of a sure thing to find out if they can reach wonderful?

Escape Rating for The Best Thing: A-

I was surprised at how good HelenKay Dimon’s We’ll Be Home for Christmas turned out to be. It’s the same family as It’s Not Christmas Without You, a story where I did not care for the characters at all. But in We’ll Be Home for Christmas, the Thomas brother involved is big brother Spencer, and although he’s also being idiotic, he gets his head handed to him much quicker. Lila Payne gets good and mad and stands up for herself in a way I could respect and empathize with.

Spence goes out of town for a one-night stand to let off some steam, and meets Lila. She’s just gotten divorced, and also wants to forget about her troubles. This is all fine, except Spence tells Lila his name is Austin Thomas. When Lila comes to town to take over her Uncle’s broken-down resort, no one is happy about the name switch, especially embarrassed (and happily married) Austin. The fireworks never stop after that.

Both The Best Thing and We’ll Be Home for Christmas are terrific in the way that their respective groups of brothers tease and joke and kid around with each other. In spite of some tragedies in both backgrounds, these are great families to read about.

Escape Rating for We’ll Be Home for Christmas: B+

My least favorite story in this year’s bunch was Ask Her at Christmas by Christi Barth. It’s a story about a geek hero who has always felt like a disappointment to his hard-charging corporate father. Kyle is planning to finally please dear old dad by marrying a woman he doesn’t love, in order to further the merger between his father’s company, and her father’s company. The only problem is that the woman is a bitch.

And he’s been trying to ignore his feelings for best friend Caitlin for too many years. Feelings that go way beyond friendship. Feelings that poor Kyle has no idea that Caitlin reciprocates.

The story is really cute, but I did wonder how oblivious these too could possibly be, considering how much time they spend together.

Escape Rating for Ask Her at Christmas: B-

***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: Losing It by Cora Carmack

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult Romance
Series: Losing It #1
Length: 204 pages
Publisher: William Morrow
Date Released: December 5, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Virginity.

Bliss Edwards is about to graduate from college and still has hers. Sick of being the only virgin among her friends, she decides the best way to deal with the problem is to lose it as quickly and simply as possible– a one-night stand. But her plan turns out to be anything but simple when she freaks out and leaves a gorgeous guy alone and naked in her bed with an excuse that no one with half-a-brain would ever believe. And as if if that weren’t embarrassing enough, when she arrives for her first class of her last college semester, she recognizes her new theatre professor. She’d left him naked in her bed about 8 hours earlier.

Meet cute turns into awkward morning after, compounded with a dose of “when I kissed the teacher” that manages to be sappy rather than squicky, which is difficult. Add in a dose of long-time friend wishing he could make this a triangle, but that just isn’t happening.

Then add in the heroine’s desire to finally get rid of her virginity, as if it’s an out-of-date pair of shoes. Or something like that. Except every time she screws up her courage (no pun intended), or girds her loins (pun definitely intended) she panics.

Bliss is 22, so she is an adult in this story. Awkward about it, but an adult. Also about to graduate college. It’s time for her to spread her wings. She just hasn’t found any guy she wants to spread them for. She overthinks everything. And she likes to be in control.

Sex is all about losing control, and Bliss doesn’t do that very well. At all.

Until she meets this cute guy with a British accent in a bar, and he’s reading Shakespeare. She finally discovers what all the love songs are about. Or at least the lust songs. She takes him home, intending to finally do the deed.

She can’t go through with it. She can’t stop thinking of all the things she might do wrong. All the ways it might become awkward. She runs away, leaving him naked in her bed. She pretends she has an emergency.

The next morning she finds out he’s her new theatre professor. He’s a temp for the final semester. He also lives in the next building over from her. They can’t escape each other. They also can’t escape how they feel about each other.

Because in spite of the really awkward start (epically awkward), they have pretty amazing chemistry together. Yes, on a physical level, but also in every other way. They like each other, they don’t just lust after each other.

Garrett may be her professor, but his days in college aren’t that far behind him. He just finished his MFA, so he’s probably four or at the most five years older than Bliss. But the gap between student and teacher is huge in other ways. Relationships are often forbidden because the teacher has power over the student. Power to give grades, to give easy, or difficult assignments, etc.

So when Garrett and Bliss can’t keep away from each other, they have to keep it a secret. For a whole semester. Which brings an entire roller coaster full of emotions into play.

And in the meantime, Bliss is still a virgin, and has an incredibly difficult time telling Garrett. I did mention she was a theatre student, right? Dramatics all around. Dramatic misunderstandings abound.

And in the middle of it all, the senior class puts on a play. And they all get mono. The course of true love definitely does not run smooth, but it absolutely does manage to run on.

Escape Rating B: Bliss is an endearing heroine in her awkwardness. The opening scene where she runs out on a naked Garrick is hilarious, but also sad.  You want her to be happy, and you’re not too sure at that point whether she’s going to make it past her own insecurities.

Garrick has the patience of a saint. He’s a little, maybe a lot, too perfect. I’m not sure how many real men would have the patience that he does. Not just to wait through the long sexual drought, but to do it without knowing why Bliss wants to go so slow, and to put up with her jumping to so many wrong conclusions in so many different directions. They don’t talk about where their relationship is going, Bliss always assumes the worst. And Garrick patiently puts up with it.

Then there’s poor Cade, Bliss’ best friend at the beginning of the story. Cade is a stock character in so many stories, the best friend who loves the oblivious main character, only to lose out when the main character finds true love. Cade’s purpose in Losing It is to lose his best friend, so that he can be the main character of a future 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.

Stacking the Shelves (25)

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Stacking the Shelves

This edition of Stacking the Shelves is brought to you by Boxes ‘r Us, which is what our new apartment looks like right now. The picture below is the view behind my chair. Those boxes are looming over me as I type. I studiously ignore them.

This office will probably be the last room to get de-boxed, now that I’m going to work in a real office and Galen is working from home. Funny how these things switch! In the last house, his office still had boxes in it when we left, and mine was box-free within a week. C’est la vie. Or view.

But back to the stacks. Book stacks that is. I still got stacks and stacks of new books. Virtually of course. If there are any real ones in my mail, they’re caught somewhere in mail forwarding at the moment. All of this week’s new books are ebooks.

What about you? What delicious new books did you get this week?

For Review:
Along Came Trouble (Camelot #2) by Ruthie Knox
Back on Track (Strangers on a Train) by Donna Cummings
Big Boy (Strangers on a Train) by Ruthie Knox
Caught in Amber by Cathy Pegau
How to Misbehave (Camelot #1) by Ruthie Knox
The Impetuous Amazon (Alliance of the Amazons #2) by Sandy James
A Little Bit Wicked (Forbidden Love #1) by Robyn DeHart
Nobody’s Angel (Earth Angels #1) by Stacy Gail
The Scoundrel Takes a Bride (Regency Rogues #5) by Stefanie Sloane
Taming Her Forbidden Earl (Lady lancaster Garden Society #1) by Catherine Hemmerling
Thank You for Riding (Strangers on a Train) by Meg Maguire
Ticket Home (Strangers on a Train) by Serena Bell
Tight Quarters (Strangers on a Train) by Samantha Hunter

Purchased:
Pharaoh, Mine (All Mine #3) by Kerry Adrienne
The Virgin and the Best Man (1Night Stand) by Kate Richards (review)
The Virgin and the Playboy (1Night Stand) by Kate Richards (review)
Wallbanger by Alice Clayton (review)

Review: The Virgin and the Playboy and The Virgin and the Best Man by Kate Richards

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Erotic Romance
Series: 1Night Stand
Length: 27 pages
Publisher: Decadent Publishing
Date Released: March 16, 2011
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Julie, accidental virgin, has waited longer than she ever planned to lose her virginity and join everyone else she knows in dating reality. Embarrassed at her plight, she has made arrangements with 1NightStand.com to meet with a handsome stranger for one night of no commitment required sexuality, without having to admit she’d never made love before.

Mark is the one single guy left in his group of friends. As such, he is known for the bevy of lovelies he dates, and his stories of wild exploits between the sheets. His participation in 1NightStand.com is on a dare, and he has no idea that his date is…less experienced than he is used to. And so much more…

When they enter the penthouse suite in Las Vegas, they enter a chamber designed for luxury and booked for a 1NightStand.

Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Erotic romance
Series: 1Night Stand
Length: 75 pages
Publisher: Decadent Publishing
Date Released: November 7, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Mark and Julia from The Virgin and the Playboy have set the date! They are to be married at The Castillo Las Vegas, where they met on their 1Night Stand. All their family and friends are invited and they have planned a special surprise for their maid of honor and best man.

Karin, Julia’s cousin, a small town librarian, chose family obligations over her dreams of the stars. She loves them all, but wonders when it will be her turn to live as she wishes…if it isn’t too late.

Ray, commercial pilot, is every bit as much a playboy as his brother Mark used to be. He isn’t opposed to finding The One, but fears his brother has collected the only perfect jewel.

What more appropriate gift for these two than a 1Night Stand with a date personally selected for them by Madame Evangeline.

Did the heroines have to be virgins? Really? I ask you?

It’s like this. I found a promo email from Decadent Publishing about the latest 1Night Stand titles while I was in the airport last week, and The Virgin the Best Man looked irresistible. Well, my resistance was down. Waking up at 5 am to catch a plane will do that to me.

The 1Night Stand series is a not-so-secret vice, and the heroine is a librarian. (But still, virgin? Never mind.) As the sequel to The Virgin and the Playboy, I let the Best Man and the Playboy twist my arm into buying the first book. Quick download in airport (I love my iPad with 3G).

Hauling my train of thought back onto the track…

In The Virgin and the Playboy, Julia Hooper signs up with Madame Evangelista’s 1Night Stand service to get rid of an “inconvenient accessory,” as she terms her virginity. She’s out of college and has reached the point where not having already “given it up”, the questions she faces from any man she dates about why she hasn’t have reached beyond inconvenient. So she signs herself for a one-night stand with an experienced man who will show her the ropes. She wants a playboy who will know what to do, and who she assumes she won’t like.

Mark turns out to be a sweet guy who has reached the point in his life where an endless line of nipped, tucked and fashionably chic (also model-thin) women, all alike has become boring. Julia is refreshing and natural and above all, real.

Together they discover an old truism, that it is difficult to make love without feeling at least a little love. They both feel a lot. They discover what they’ve both been missing. The story is short and surprisingly sweet for what it is.

One year later, Mark and Julia are ready to get married, and they invite their best friends. Did Julia’s best friend have to be a virgin too? And a librarian? Stereotype much? (I digress.)

Mark and Julia sign their best friends, their best man and maid of honor, up for 1Night Stands. It worked for them, why not pass along the gift? So to speak.

Mark’s best man, Ray, is a pilot who really doesn’t think very much of himself. And Karin, poor Karin, is a small-town librarian who acts as if she signed a morals contract when she took her job. (Real-life librarianship isn’t like this. Honest!)

Where this story takes flight is when these two lost souls start to tell each other their hopes and dreams. Karin wanted to be an astronaut. She studied for it, she had a scholarship, but her parents guilted her into setting her dreams aside to take care of an aging relative. Her spirit has been grounded ever since.

This story is really about Karin finding another way to learn to fly.

Ray needs to take a chance on himself. He needs to believe that he’s good enough for someone to love. Both of these people are wounded, and they need to believe in each other.

The fun thing about this story is that you’re never 100% positive that either of them was the intended 1Night Stand for the other. They take matters into their own hands and make  things work the way they want them to.

And they fly off together into the wild blue yonder.

Escape Rating for The Virgin and the Playboy: B-

Escape Rating for The Virgin and the Best Man: B+

***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: Naughty & Nice by Ruthie Knox, Molly O’Keefe and Stefanie Sloane

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> B Reviews> book reviews> C Reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the publisher through NetGalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Holiday Anthology
Length: 210 pages
Publisher: Loveswept (Random House)
Date Released: November 5, 2012
Purchasing Info: Ruthie Knox’ Website, Molly O’Keefe’s Website, Stefanie Sloane’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, All Romance

’Tis the season for romance with three original holiday-themed novellas! Unwrap this festive eBook bundle and discover why these authors are quickly becoming the biggest names in the genre. Ruthie Knox tells a heartwarming contemporary story of first loves given the gift of a second chance; Molly O’Keefe releases the ghosts of Christmas past with a prequel to her novel Crazy Thing Called Love; and Stefanie Sloane weaves an irresistible Regency tale of fiery passion that burns deep on a cold winter’s night.

ROOM AT THE INN by Ruthie Knox

Carson Vance couldn’t wait to get out of Potter Falls, but now that he’s back to spend Christmas with his ailing father, he must face all the people he left behind . . . like Julie Long, whose heart he broke once upon a time. Now the proprietor of the local inn, Julie is a successful, seductive, independent woman—everything that Carson’s looking for. But despite several steamy encounters under the mistletoe, Julie refuses to believe in happily ever after. Now Carson must prove to Julie that he’s back for good—and that he wants her in his life for all the holidays to come.

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU by Molly O’Keefe

Maddy Baumgarten and Billy Wilkins are spontaneous, in love, and prepared to elope the day after Christmas—that is, if Maddy’s family doesn’t throw a wrench in their plans. After all, Maddy’s barely out of high school and Billy’s a notorious bad boy. Maddy doesn’t care about Billy’s rough past—all she cares about is living in the here and now. But after Maddy’s mother stops speaking to her in protest, and a Christmas Eve heart-to-heart with her father leaves her with butterflies, Maddy starts to get cold feet. She loves Billy, but is she taking this big step too soon?

ONE PERFECT CHRISTMAS by Stefanie Sloane

After being jilted by her fiancé, Jane Merriweather turns to her dear childhood friend, the Honorable Lucas Cavanaugh, for support—and unlocks the smoldering desire simmering in the man’s troubled heart. Frightened by his newfound feelings, Lucas flees to Scotland. But when the Christmas season brings them together again, one glance is all that’s needed to reignite his yearning. If Lucas can convince Jane that his intentions are as pure as the falling snow, they’ll turn a dreary December into a joyous Yuletide affair.

‘Tis also the season for Holiday anthologies, as Loveswept gets into the swing of the holidays with this trio of Christmas themed stories. Unlike the Carina Press holiday bundles, these stories are not available separately, so if you want one, you have to get them all.

I say that because, as with so many story bundles, one person’s cuppa tea is another person’s day-old coffee grounds. But this holiday treat is priced as a virtual stocking stuffer at $1.99, so it’s not a big deal. Or it’s a great deal, take your pick.

Speaking of picks…the pick of this litter is Ruthie Knox’s contemporary story, Room at the Inn. It’s also the longest story, so Ms. Knox has the most time to develop her characters and her background. Inn takes the second-chance at love theme and really works it. Carson and Julie are on more like their tenth chance. Maybe their twentieth. Carson comes back to his small upstate New York home town as seldom as possible, because two things always happen; he fights with his father, who he feels like he always disappoints, and he falls into bed with Julie, who he always leaves. He knows he’s breaking her heart every time, but he can’t resist her. And vice-versa. But he can’t stay in Potter Falls. He has an important job. One that takes him as far away as possible.

Until his father manufactures a breakdown, and forces him back for longer than 10 days, and life wraps him back in the place he left behind. He finally stays still long enough to see that his home, his old friends, his old frenemies, and even Julie, are not quite the same people he thought they were when he was 20, not now that he’s 35. And neither is he.

Escape Rating for Room at the Inn: A-

Molly O’Keefe’s All I Want for Christmas is You is a prequel short story to the third book in her Crooked Creek Ranch series, Crazy Thing Called Love. And it felt very short and slightly incomplete to me. There was too much backstory that I didn’t know about the town and the people, and I didn’t feel for why Maddy wanted to rescue Billy quite so badly that they HAD to get married on her 18th birthday. Too many of the motivations behind the events were missing for me. Especially since I know that this is not a happily ever after, just a set up for a later story.

Escape Rating for All I Want for Christmas is You: C-

The last story in the group is Stefanie Sloane’s One Perfect Christmas. This one is a Regency romance, and also a friends into lovers story. This one drove me crazy! It wasn’t long enough. I could tell that there was oodles of backstory between Jane and Lucas, but we only catch glimpses of it. They were childhood friends, having grown up on adjoining estates. But she’s loved him forever, and he never realized it until recently. Now she needs to marry for money, and would love to marry him. He even has money. It would be perfect. But only if he also loves her, which he does. Misunderstandings abound. There’s even a wandering donkey for comic relief.

This is a case of the story being bigger than the format allowed. I needed more!

Escape Rating for One Perfect Christmas: B

***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: Wallbanger by Alice Clayton

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: Trade paperback, ebook
Genre: Contemporary romance
Length: 314 pages
Publisher: Omnific Publishing
Date Released: November 25, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Caroline Reynolds has a fantastic new apartment in San Francisco, a KitchenAid mixer, and no O (and we’re not talking Oprah here, folks). She has a flourishing design career, an office overlooking the bay, a killer zucchini bread recipe, and no O. She has Clive (the best cat ever), great friends, a great rack, and no O.

Adding insult to O-less, since her move, she has an oversexed neighbor with the loudest late-night wallbanging she’s ever heard. Each moan, spank, and–was that a meow?–punctuates the fact that not only is she losing sleep, she still has, yep, you guessed it, no O.

Enter Simon Parker. (No, really, Simon, please enter.) When the wallbanging threatens to literally bounce her out of bed, Caroline, clad in sexual frustration and a pink baby-doll nightie, confronts her heard-but-never-seen neighbor. Their late-night hallway encounter has, well, mixed results. Ahem. With walls this thin, the tension’s gonna be thick…

In her third novel, Alice Clayton returns to dish her trademark mix of silly and steamy. Banter, barbs, and strutting pussycats, plus the sexiest apple pie ever made, are dunked in a hot tub and set against the gorgeous San Francisco skyline in this hot and hilarious tale of exasperation at first sight.

Caroline has great friends, a fantastic job, a terrific boss, and a truly lousy sex life. Not because she can’t find a guy (or girl, for that matter). Her lack of options isn’t the point.

It’s  her lack of orgasms. Self-love isn’t even doing the job. (Insert joke about not being able to find it with both hands and a map. This is the sort of story where that joke even fits) It may not help that Caroline speaks about her orgasms in the third person. And not just to herself, but to her friends. I’m not sure I’d want to be a party to that conversation with anyone. Ever.

Caroline’s new neighbor is giving plenty of women plenty of orgasms. Caroline is damn sure of it, because she can hear every moan and scream. And meow. His headboard banging exploits keep Caroline awake at night.

Not just with the noise, but with envy, and a side-helping of annoyance. When she can’t stand it anymore, she runs across the hall to bang on his door in the middle of the night. Interrupting his night for a change. One good bang deserves another. The pink nightie she’s wearing doesn’t do much for her dignity. Especially since she can’t keep from staring at the sheet he’s almost wearing.

In spite of the fact that they drive each other crazy, they keep running into each other. Not just because they live in the same building, but because their friends are all tied up with each other. Her boss is married to his best friend. Her BFFs are dating his BFFs. They keep getting “coupled up” together as the only two singles.

And they don’t resist. They are having too much fun becoming friends. Not friends with benefits, just plain friends. Whatever sparks they feel, and there are tons of sparks, they each think friendship is best.

Simon is a photojournalist, and travels for work. He’s away more than he’s home. Experience has taught him it’s death on relationships. Caroline’s missing O has been absent so long that friendship seems safer.

But as they steer their friends toward more, they can’t help but wonder if it might be worth exploring what they might have together. Little do they know that someone has been steering them towards each other all along.

Escape Rating B+: This was lots of fun! It was great to see a romance that took its time with the building of the relationship, with the “chase”. It was cute to watch these two navigate from their rocky and wacky start towards something solid and new.

Caroline’s friends are terrific. Everyone should have friends like hers.

I did find Caroline’s inner dialog with her body parts and her third-person references to her missing orgasms slightly off-putting, but YMMV.

The banter between Simon and Caroline was great fun. These are two smart people trying to out-smart each other and taking the readers along for the ride. The way the relationship goes from cautious friendship to bantering friendship to love reminds me of Kate Beckett and Rick Castle on Castle.

***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.