Tag: erotic romance

Review: Rock Hard by Olivia Cunning

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews
Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: Paperback, ebook
Genre: Contemporary romance, Erotic Romance
Series: Sinners on Tour #2
Length: 436 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Date Released: April 5, 2011
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

An ultimatum can break your heart…

Every night lead singer, Sed Lionheart whips thousands of women into a frenzy with his voice alone. But the stage is the only place Sed feels any passion since he lost Jessica…

If you’re not willing to break all the rules…

It shattered her heart, but law student Jessica broke off her engagement to Sed, determined to be successful on her own terms. But no other man can ever hold a candle to Sed…

Then a chance meeting and tortuously close quarters lead to uncontrollable flares of passion and rediscovery of their unique penchant for public encounters. Now, in addition to the risk of mutual heartbreak every time they get together, they’re in danger of truly scandalous public exposure…and sin.

Rock Hard is the second book in Olivia Cunning’s Sinners on Tour series. I really enjoyed the first book, Backstage Pass (see review here), because it was both a love story and it gave me kind of a backstage pass into the lives of a rock band.

Backstage Pass was terrific. That story worked for me because I felt for the two characters in the love story, Brian and Myrna. It was a very steamy sex into love story, but still definitely a love story.

Also a great introduction to all the members of the Sinners.

Rock Hard is supposed to be the story of the next member of the band, Sedric Lionheart, and the woman he lost his heart to, Jessica. It’s supposed to be a second chance story where Sed finds Jessica again.

The problem for me was that Sed acts like an ass through much of the book, and Jessica acts like a doormat. Then they have make-up sex or angry sex and start the cycle all over again.

What they don’t do is communicate, except when Trey has his own serious issues. Trey’s problems were much more sympathetically handled than anything going on between Sed and Jessica.

Sed wants to take care of Jessica, which might be a laudable goal, but he does it by telling her what he’s going to do for her, then getting angry and verbally abusive when she doesn’t agree. Jessica, in turn, yells and runs away, or yells and forgives him. Or yells and pulls some passive-aggressive crap.

Their behavior towards each other comes off as co-dependence a lot of the time. And Jessica needs to be slapped seriously upside the head for not insisting on safe sex. I don’t normally need to have my reality mixed into my fantasy this way, but Sed was so incredibly promiscuous during the years that they were apart, there’s no way he doesn’t need to be tested. Possibly for months. Just as an object lesson. Condoms tear.

The other thing I couldn’t believe was how often they had sex in public places, because they kept getting caught, over and over. Then Sed would say something unfortunate, stupid, or both to a reporter and Jessica would get angry, again. They both needed to take way more responsibility for their joint behavior than either of them was willing to do until the very end.

Escape Rating C-: I’m only going this high because I did enjoy the parts of the story that focussed on the other characters. Trey’s side-story, which probably sets up his book later, was very well done.

I was also happy to check in with Brian and Myrna, although I was surprised that Myrna did not see what was going on with Trey. She’s the psychologist, after all.

And Rock Hard was definitely a page-turner. Sed and Jessica’s relationship was a train-wreck through most of the book, and I couldn’t turn my eyes away. Just like watching a wreck.

***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: Backstage Pass by Olivia Cunning

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: Mass Market Paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Erotic Romance
Series: Sinners on Tour #1
Length: 378 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Date Released: October 1, 2010
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Five stunning guys, one hot woman, and a feverish romance…

For him, life is all music and no play…

When Brian Sinclair, lead songwriter and guitarist of the hottest metal band on the scene, loses his creative spark, it will take nights of downright sinful passion to release his pent-up genius…

She’s the one to call the tune…

When sexy psychologist Myrna Evans goes on tour with the Sinners, every boy in the band tries to seduce her. But Brian is the only one she wants to get her hands on…

Then the two lovers’ wildly shocking behavior sparks the whole band to new heights of glory… and sin…

Sex research clearly isn’t as much fun as actual sex. And boring academics are the same everywhere, no matter what the focus of their research.

In fact, Hell probably consists of sitting in an endless conference, listening to people read their Power Point presentations. (I am NOT kidding about this)

Myrna Evan’s topic is male sexuality, and her examples are rock stars. (Anyone who does not think a guitar is a phallic symbol, just take a look at this picture of Bruce Springsteen)

Her favorite example is Brian “Master” Sinclair, lead singer and guitarist for the hard rock band, The Sinners. When she finds the entire band seemingly slumming in the bar of the same hotel as her terminally boring conference, she takes her courage in both hands and brazenly goes to their table and introduces herself.

The guys are all astonished, respectful, and turned on as hell. Especially Brian, who falls into instant something. Maybe it’s love. It’s certainly lust. However, Brian has a habit of falling hard, and often, for every woman who catches his eye.

Myrna, who has some serious issues about love and commitment thanks to one of the skeeviest ex-husbands ever, gets caught up in Brian’s spell. And definitely vice-versa.

And in spite of suffering a seriously long case of writer’s block, sex with Myrna unblocks Brian’s song-writing talent in a major way. He wants to keep her around as his muse. And more.

Myrna is scared of commitment, but she’s got an idea for a fantastic research project. One that might get her academic contract renewed for another year. She can research the promiscuous behavior of band groupies!

It gives her the perfect excuse to tour with the Sinners all summer. Thinking up the project has nothing to do with how much she wants to be with Brian. Not at all.

Can Brian convince Myrna that they have something real? Or will her commitment-phobia ruin the best thing they’ve both ever had?

And where are the flowers coming from?

Escape Rating B: Backstage Pass is steamy, sexy and absolutely screamingly fun. Brian and Myrna’s love story, and it is definitely a love story, has just enough romance to keep you reading to find out how Brian is going to convince Myrna to give the whole thing a chance, but she is skittish for a good reason.

She is being stalked by her ex. That side-plot was obvious, but seeing him finally get his just desserts was absolutely worth it.

I also liked it that Myrna was a bit older than Brian and the band. She’s going to be taking charge of a lot, so it made sense in the story. It was great how Brian handled it, that he loved her and didn’t care a bit. But Myrna’s taking on a lot with Brian, the band, the groupies, and her own career. It worked for her to have some history.

Read Backstage Pass if you’re looking for something absolutely smoking hot to pass a chilly winter’s night.

***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.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand? 1-6-13

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | cats> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

It’s the first Sunday Post of 2013. And away we go!

During this week’s unpacking, we unearthed the box of stuffed animals. I found my Hedgie. Hedgie is a hedgehog. Isn’t she adorable? I got her on a trip to Vancouver a few years ago. She’s been quietly resting a box, along with a bunch of her friends, for several years. Now she’s back on my desk where she belongs.

But the cats didn’t rest much last night. We bought some new inserts for this type of cat scratcher. Basically they’re corrugated cardboard, but, well, anything that saves the furniture is all good. The humans didn’t open the package. The cats went wild during the night. There was a tiny package of catnip wedged between the two scratcher refills. Score!

If you want a more bookish score, there are still a few brief hours left to get in on the New Year’s Blog Hop. The prize here at Reading Reality is a $10 Amazon Gift Card. It might make a dent in your wish list.

What happened last week on the blog? Funny you should ask…

13 for 2013: A Baker’s Dozen of My Most Anticipated Reads
New Year’s Blog Hop
A- Review: The Second Rule of Ten by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay
B+ Review: Devil in the Making Illustrated Edition by Victoria Vane
B+ Review: Skybound by Aleksandr Voinov, Guest Review by Chryselle
Stacking the Shelves (29)

Now let’s look ahead to this week!

On Tuesday, Jade Kerrion will be here to talk about Double Helix, her science fiction romance series. I’ve already finished book one in the series, Perfection Unleashed, and it’s an absolute thrill ride. So yep, I’ll have a review. And there’s a giveaway as part of the tour.

Rounding out the week I’ll have reviews of Olivia Cunning’s Sinners on Tour series, Angie Fox’s first Monster M*A*S*H, Immortally Yours, and one touch of pure fantasy romance from Kathryne Kennedy’s Enchanting the Lady.

There are two tours on the horizon for the week of January 14: Blair McDowell’s Sonata and Tiffany Allee’s Heels & Heroes. And we’ll end that week with the oh-so-appropriately named Happy Endings Blog Hop.

Stay Tuned!

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 (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: Like Hearts Enchanted by Kathleen Tudor and Cecilia Tan

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | 3 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Format Read:ebook provided by the publisher
Number of Pages:74 pages
Release Date:May 31, 2012
Publisher:Circlet Press
Genre: Fantasy romance
Formats Available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website

Book Blurb:

Love is a universal ideal transcending time and place and occasionally even dimensions. Anyone who has ever been in love knows that there is something magical about it, but what happens when real magic gets involved in matters of the heart? From love spells, to the ability to open the eyes and the mind, to a special little something that can make you downright irresistible, anything is possible when magic and love mingle.

Prepare to be enchanted and aroused as these five original short stories help you answer the important questions, like “What if love is right in front of you, and all you need to do is let it in?”, “What happens when you mix steampunk, love potions, and a sexy strip tease?”, and of course, “What’s the best course of action if you accidentally summon a demon of lust into your living room?”

Sweet love will take you by surprise in “Violets” by Annabeth Leong. In “Summer’s Breath” by Deb Atwood, love, magic, and need intertwine and show you a hidden world. Heart’s desire is not always what it seems in “Knight of Her Dreams” by Kathleen Tudor. “By the Book” by Elizabeth Thorne takes us on a laugh-out-loud journey through lust, and delivers us to Ann Foster’s “The Captain,” a steampunk romance with a twist.

True love, red-hot sex, enlightenment, salvation, or anything in between; when matters of the heart and matters of magic collide, watch out! Love is in the air, and these five tales of love, sex, and enchantment will capture your senses and whisk you away to a world (or worlds) where anything is possible.

My Thoughts:

This was originally posted at Book Lovers Inc.

Although the subtitle of this collection is “Erotic Tales of Love and Magic” the stories didn’t seem like erotica. They were very definitely love stories, I’m just not sure that they all fell into the erotica category. As they say, your mileage may vary.

What they all have in common is that the magic involved in each story is pretty much magic of the witchcraft variety. Magic of the more homely sort. There are no dragons here. Nothing showy happens. There are only two otherworldly creatures in this collection, a fae and an incubus, and even the incubus gets caught up in a simple love spell.

The thread that binds these stories together is that the magic of love, or when someone involves magic spells in dealing with love, surprising things happen.

My favorite story in the collection is Elizabeth Thorne’s “By the Book”. Catherine summons a gorgeous naked man into her living room using a spell from a library book. When he looks bored inside the summoning circle, she unsummons him, really, really fast. He may be gorgeous, but she’s tired of being with men who don’t want to be with her. 20 minutes later, he’s back. Clothed this time, and at the front door. He’s not bored anymore, either. He’s annoyed.

Nobody’s ever turned him down before. He’s intrigued. It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to him. He wants to talk about it. The talk leads to a pillow fight. And an explanation of why love spells don’t work. Except this one that did.

The other really good story in the collection is Annabeth Leong’s “Violets”. Helen desperately wants to keep her best friend Silvia from returning to her boyfriend Jared, who has just given her a black eye. Again. She wants to help Silvia find a good man this time, and not another loser. So she goes to Silvia’s aunt. Why? Because Silvia’s aunt is a bruja, a wisewoman from Puerto Rico, who can provide both a love spell for Silvia, and maybe a curse for the bastard who gave her the shiner.

But there’s a catch. The love spell must be prepared by someone who loves Silvia. Who better than her best friend, Helen? And maybe the preparation and application of this love spell will finally let these two women realize that the best person for them, the one who really loves them, is each other.

Verdict: Like most collections, there are hits and misses. The two stories highlighted above are definitely the hits in this collection, at least as far as I am concerned.

“Knight of her Dreams” by Kathleen Tudor and “The Captain” by Ann Foster were both pretty good stories as well. “Knight” was a bit predictable, but the story was well-told. “The Captain” is the steampunk story in the collection. The steampunk aspects were minor, but the interesting part of the story was the way the tables got turned on the main character.

Unfortunately, one story didn’t work at all for me. That was “Summer’s Breath” by Deb Atwood. A summer fae comes to earth and needs to submit herself to someone before the winter solstice or she will be lost. I got that part. It was the ending. I think this story might have been bigger than the format. It sounded interesting, but there just wasn’t enough to figure out everything that happened. Too bad, too.

I give Like Hearts Enchanted 3 stars.

 

***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.

A Labor of Love: Picking the Best Ebook Romances of 2012

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | best book lists

It looks like an annual tradition. Well, I’ve done it two years in a row, so I’m hopeful.

One of the pleasures of being a book reviewer and a librarian is that I review ebooks for Library Journal, one of the trade publications that serves, well, of course, libraries. For the past not quite year and a half, Library Journal has been doing their damnedest to bridge the gap between the sheer number of ebook romances being published and the desire to get some reviews into libraries’ regular workflow. Ebooks are a hot topic in libraries all the way around, but figuring out how the library should spend limited dollars is still not easy.

I applaud the effort, and I’m very proud to be a part of it. In sort of a reverse of full-disclosure, no, I’m not paid to say this. I’m not paid for my reviews at LJ. It really is a labor of love. Sort of like book blogging.

The Library Journal Best Ebook Romances of 2012 column was published last week. With a much better picture of me and everything. It still looks cool. (Even my mom was impressed). But LJ always has to alphabetize everything. Librarians do that. My original list went this way:

Knox, Ruthie. About Last Night. Loveswept: Random. eISBN: 9780345535160. EPUB $2.99. Contemporary Romance

About Last Night was my starred review in LJ all the way back in April, and I never forgot it. Ruthie Knox’s contemporary romance is funny and charming (also gloriously hot) about a bad girl trying to be good and a good man who needs to let his bad side out to play a little more often than his straight-laced upper crust family can tolerate. Cath, the good-bad girl, also has one of those dream jobs, assistant to a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Knox had me at “hand-knitted straight jacket”. Knox writes a terrific “sex into love” romance that will make readers laugh out loud. And finish in one sitting.

Vane, Victora. The Devil DeVere series: #1 A Wild Night’s Bride, #2 The Virgin Huntress, #3 The Devil You Know, #4 The Devil’s Match. Breathless Press. EPUB $3.49 each Historical Romance

The Devil DeVere series is a variation of the Rake’s Progress, or the Rake’s Reformation, except that is doesn’t start with said Rake as the main character. A device that was amazingly clever on Vane’s part and allowed her to circle in on DeVere without revealing too much initially. In the first two books, he’s the puppetmaster, re-arranging his friends’ lives. But in the background the reader catches hints that there’s more to him than the debauched reprobate we see. By the time we find out his story, we’re invested. The series is erotic and sexy and sometimes the reader wants to shake various characters until their teeth rattle, but it is absolutely marvelous. This one should be read with bonbons. And a fan!

Archer, Zoe and Rosso, Nico. The Ether Chronicles: #1 Skies of Fire (eISBN 9780062109149), #3 Skies of Steel (eISBN 9780062109156) by Zoe Archer, #2 Night of Fire (eISBN 9780062201089); #4 Night of Steel (eISBN 9780062201102)by Nico Rosso. Avon Impulse. EPUB $1.99 each Steampunk Romance

A world war, in the years just before we fought ours, but different. Because this world war uses a metal named telumium, and a fuel made from soya called tetrol. But oddly enough, some of the same players as “our” world war. So typical of steampunk, familiar, yet not. Airships, but also air-bikes, air-trikes, and air-horses. Air-horses! And something that’s unique to this steampunk world, the Man O’War, which is definitely not a horse, but a cyborg controlling an airship, and seemingly vice-versa.  But because we have a world war, we have spies, and secret ops, and all the romantic suspense possibilities that go along with that. Because it’s a “world” war, also all the options for world-spanning action. So far it’s been military operations in Europe, town-killers and ether-powered cowboys in the U.S. West, and rogues bringing “modern” technology to the Middle Eastern tribes. Indiana Jones had nothing on that one.

Pape, Cindy Spencer. Moonlight & Mechanicals. (Gaslight Chronicles, Bk. 4). 176 pages. eISBN 9781426894527. EPUB $4.99. Steampunk Romance

Spencer Pape’s Gaslight Chronicles (Steam & Sorcery, Photographs & Phantoms, Kilts & Kraken) are set in a steampunk world that deviates from ours at two key points; Charles Babbage’s difference engine was built (and worked!) and the Knights of the Round Table were not only real, but their descendants are still defending the monarchy, and by extension the realm, in this alternate Victorian England. In Moonlight & Mechanicals, we have possibility the ultimate steampunk romance, between a werewolf police detective and a female engineer who grew up fighting vampires. The detective, is, of course, a member of the Knights. And the heroine has had a crush on him ever since he saved her life. He just believes that he isn’t capable of being a family man. She’s just planning to tinker with him until she proves different. And they save the Queen!

Heldt, John A. The Mine (Northwest Passage Bk. 1) John A. Heldt Publisher. 290 pages. EPUB $0.99 TIME TRAVEL ROMANCE

The Mine is one of those stories that sneaks up on you and sweeps you off your feet. It reminded me a lot of Jack Finney’s classic Time and Again, in its sense of a man falling in love, not just with a woman, but also with a time, a place, and a way of life. Joel Smith starts the story as a cocky boy/man on a last adventure before college graduation. He bumps his head in an abandoned mine and wakes up in 1941, in America’s last golden summer before Pearl Harbor. He’s afraid to change things, but he has to find a way to survive in a world he only knows from history books and baseball statistics. Thinking he can’t go back, he falls in love and makes a life. Then he discovers that he can go back, and is faced with a terrible dilemma. He can leave behind all that he has come to love, or stay, knowing that if he does he may change history. This one haunts.

As usual, I started out by picking five, and snuck my way into choosing eleven! Way to go! And since you could say that Spencer Pape’s entire Gaslight Chronicles are included, a case could be made for calling this list fourteen. But who’s counting?

The fun part of creating this list is looking back at everything I reviewed for the year, at Reading Reality, at Book Lovers Inc., and at Library Journal. The difficult part was not being able to include anything that wasn’t at least sort of a love story, and that wasn’t an ebook, or primarily an ebook (there are print versions of Archer and Rosso’s Ether Chronicles, but most people will get the ebooks).

I’m just going to have to do a less restrictive “best of the year” list in December.

Review: Reflected in You by Sylvia Day

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews
Format read: Trade paperback provided by the publisher
Formats available: Trade Paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Contemporary romance, Erotic romance
Series: Crossfire #2
Length: 432 pages
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Date Released: October 23, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Gideon Cross. As beautiful and flawless on the outside as he was damaged and tormented on the inside. He was a bright, scorching flame that singed me with the darkest of pleasures. I couldn’t stay away. I didn’t want to. He was my addiction… my every desire… mine.

My past was as violent as his, and I was just as broken. We’d never work. It was too hard, too painful… except when it was perfect. Those moments when the driving hunger and desperate love were the most exquisite insanity.

We were bound by our need. And our passion would take us beyond our limits to the sweetest, sharpest edge of obsession…

Most reviewers are going to talk about the sex. And yes, there’s a lot of it.

The main characters in Reflected in You, (and in the first book in the Crossfire series, Bared to You) are both survivors of sexual abuse. Eva was abused by her stepbrother for four years, from when she was ten until the age of fourteen, when she had a miscarriage. Nathan, shamed her into keeping it a secret from her mother and his father. She was ten, she was a child.

Eva still has nightmares and she’s still recovering. She probably always will be. But she’s healing.

Whatever happened to Gideon, we don’t know. But he was definitely sexually abused by someone in some way. He just won’t talk about it. He certainly has the nightmares to prove it happened. The one thing that is clear is that no one believed him at the time. Not even his parents.

Unlike Eva, Gideon was betrayed by the adults who should have stood by him without question.

This is the crucial difference. Eva does trust some people. She has a damn hard time trusting men in relationships. Those go wrong for her. And she sabotages them because her history confuses sex and trust and pain in a lot of understandable ways.  But she does know how to have other kinds of relationships that involve love and trust.

Gideon doesn’t.

Reflected in You is the angst book. Everything in their relationship seems to be going wrong. These two broken people are addicted to each other. Emotionally and very definitely sexually. They seem to need to be together to be functional.

Except that Gideon has always kept secrets. He can’t or won’t tell Eva much about himself, and certainly nothing about what happened to him. Then he pulls away from her. Almost completely.

And Eva spends a good bit of the book going not so quietly nuts. She learns to function. She does her job and starts healing all over again. But we see a lot in her head and it’s an extremely angsty place.

It’s only at the end of the book that we find out why Gideon pulled away, and what he was taking care of while he was emotionally offstage and driving Eva crazy.

And the story ends in the middle of Gideon just barely beginning to finally tell his story to Eva. Just barely beginning to tell. And then it ends.

Escape Rating B: Reflected In You spent way too much time angsting and not nearly enough time doing things. Most of the book followed Eva dealing with the shock of Gideon pulling away from her. While it was important for her psychological health, it wasn’t as fascinating as what Gideon was actually doing, which we don’t find out until the very end.

What bothers me is that the real action in this story is offstage, and wraps up in relatively few pages. It becomes anti-climactic by the way it’s handled, and it unfortunately needs to be, because of what it is. There is too much that can’t be confessed. Reflected In You would have been a lot more interesting (and suspenseful) to this reader if it had followed what Gideon thought, or particularly did, instead of just Eva.

And if Eva is really going to be the heroine of her own life story, and not the protected princess, she needs to hear about the actual dangers that surround her when they happen, not after the fact.

***Disclaimer: I was compensated for this BlogHer Book Club review but all opinions expressed are my own.

Review: Bared to You by Sylvia Day

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: Trade Paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Erotic Romance
Series: Crossfire #1
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Berkley
Date Released: June 12, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Our journey began in fire…

Gideon Cross came into my life like lightning in the darkness—beautiful and brilliant, jagged and white-hot. I was drawn to him as I’d never been to anything or anyone in my life. I craved his touch like a drug, even knowing it would weaken me. I was flawed and damaged, and he opened those cracks in me so easily…

Gideon knew. He had demons of his own. And we would become the mirrors that reflected each other’s most private wounds… and desires.

The bonds of his love transformed me, even as I prayed that the torment of our pasts didn’t tear us apart…

There’s a temptation to call Bared to You a grown-up version of Fifty Shades of Grey, but that’s not quite the right metaphor.

Yes, I read the Fifty Shades Trilogy, and I enjoyed it. I didn’t think it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, or the greatest romance since Romeo and Juliet (probably a good thing, considering the way that one ended) but it was fun to read. It did read a lot like good fanfiction, but that’s okay. I like good fanfiction. Sometimes quite a lot.

One of my pet-peeves about Fifty Shades revolved around the character of Ana. I couldn’t imagine someone Ana’s age being quite as innocent as she was, and yet, managing to deal with Christian’s demands as well as she does. The opposites don’t quite gel into one person. Either she knows what she’s doing or she doesn’t.

In Bared to You, Eva is no innocent. She’s young, but she’s been battered by life in some of the worst ways possible. Also, even though Gideon Cross, like Christian Grey, is mega-rich, so is Eva. Whatever seductive qualities Cross has, the ability to support her in the style to which she wishes to become accustomed is not one of them. Eva’s already lived that life with her succession of rich stepfathers.

The other way in which Eva and Gideon are equals, and where Ana and Christian were not, is that both of them have demons in their past. The difference is that by the end of Bared to You, we know what Eva’s are, but Gideon is still hiding from his, and hiding them from Eva.

In Bared to You, a lot of the edginess in the relationship comes from both of them knowing that what they are is co-dependent. They are obsessed with and addicted to each other. This is not necessarily a good thing. Or a healthy thing. It has the potential of working for them because it’s the first time either of them has had a relationship where they’ve taken off the masks they wear to the rest of the world.

It’s the first relationship they’ve had where they both admit that they are broken. It’s also the first real relationship that Gideon Cross seems to have had at all. Whatever his successes are in the corporate world, on the inside, he is one very messed-up man. The question that remains at the end of the book is what made him that way?

And can he let Eva in close enough for their relationship to work? Or will his damage derail the healing journey that she has managed so far?

Escape Rating A-: To me, this works better as a story than Fifty Shades, because Eva and Gideon make more sense as characters. There’s still a certain amount of wish-fulfillment, in that both of them are young and gorgeous, but that’s often true of romance in general. (I do wonder about the trend for über-rich and specifically 28-year-old mega-rich entrepreneurs, but that’s a minor quibble.)

While it is less clear at the beginning why Gideon is so instantly attracted to Eva that he will change all of his coping mechanisms for her, she is an adult in this relationship, and reasonably equal. They’re both rich, and they’re both damaged goods. They’re also both controlling, obsessive and scared of real relationships.

The difference is that Eva manages to have real relationships. Maybe not romantic ones, but other kinds. Her best friend Cory, with whom she shares a different kind of co-dependency. Her mother and stepfather. Her dad. She is healing.

Gideon is just covering up what’s wrong with him. And that’s the tension in the relationship. She’s trying to get better. He hasn’t been. Now they’re either going to go down together, or get up together. Two steps forward and sometimes three steps back. Sometimes only one.

***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.