Review: Operation Saving Daniel by Nina Croft

Posted on December 9, 2013December 7, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Length: 200 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Date Released: November 25, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

At eighteen, Melissa seduced her best friend Julia’s brother only to run away shortly after. While Daniel was her fairytale prince, Lissa didn’t believe in happy ever afters.

Ten years and a near death experience later, Lissa is ready for a husband and family. But a cry for help from Julia puts that dream on hold. Daniel is acting weird and he’s about to marry his long term girlfriend—AKA The Evil One. Someone needs to save him.

Daniel has never stopped loving Lissa. Ten years ago when he gave her a little freedom, he always intended that one day they would be together. Right up until the moment he was bitten by a werewolf. Now, Daniel has to hide what he is. He won’t risk anyone else, especially the woman he loves.

But Lissa is back. Their attraction is stronger than ever and Lissa is nothing if not tenacious.

My Review:

There’s a long history of siblings believing that the person their brother or sister is about to marry is not good enough for their favorite family member; possibly even to the point of thinking that person is evil.

Daniel’s sister Julia has no idea just how right she is when she dubs Sophia “The Evil One”–the woman actually is a bitch–a werewolf bitch, that is.

Sophia is glued to Daniel’s side to make sure that he obeys the werewolf Alpha who turned him against his will; and to remind him that if he doesn’t keep his mouth shut about even the existence of the supernatural, more members of his family will die at the hands, or claws, of the wolves.

But Julia doesn’t know any of this, so she brings back the one woman guaranteed to penetrate Daniel’s emotional defenses. She calls Lissa back from managing charitable organizations around the world.

Lissa does humanitarian work, but she’s also running away. From her own past, and from Daniel. The only man she’s ever loved. Just once and ten years ago. But she never forgot.

He never did either. But he’s tried to. Because Lissa is another chink in his armor, another vulnerability. Something he can’t afford to have while he fights for his life. Fights for control.

Daniel is a research chemist. A talent that brought him to the attention of the werewolves ten years ago. A talent that may be his salvation–if he’s willing to push all the edges of the envelope in his research, while using himself as his only test subject.

He’s just afraid that after the battle is over, he will have lost the only thing worth fighting for.

Escape Rating B+: This was just too much fun! The relationship between Daniel and Lissa is such a beautifully realized second chance at love story that you are rooting for them to get together from the very beginning. Their relationship gets off the ground very quickly, but it doesn’t feel like insta-love because there’s all that backstory. They have a second chance.

We also have a “beauty and the beast” tale with a very modern twist. Daniel feels like a beast, not just because he’s an unwilling werewolf, but because he’s using genetic engineering to make himself an even bigger, badder werewolf. He needs to be an Alpha in order to survive, so he’s making himself get there ahead of schedule. He’s just sure that no one will love him, not Lissa, not his family, once they know what he’s become. Of course he’s wrong or we wouldn’t have a story.

One of the funnier bits is that the government knows about the werewolves and other paranormal entities. I hope that there are future books planned in this world and this aspect is explored in more depth. The government agency involved (this is set in Britain) is MI13. There is no MI13. Or is there? If there were, and it were gathering intelligence about paranormal entities, wouldn’t it be even more secret than usual?

Something that was almost hilarious at first reading, but makes you stop and think in retrospect, was Lissa’s and Julia’s reactions to discovering that Daniel was a werewolf. Not merely that they both believed him, but that they found it a much more acceptable explanation for his behavior than that he might have ever had feelings for the evil Sophia. Lycanthropism was more acceptable than a human bitch. It felt like a bit of worldbuilding was missing, albeit in a very fun way.

***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.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-8-13

Posted on December 8, 2013December 8, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Book Lovers Inc.> Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

There are three book giveaways, two gift card giveaways, and one, I’m not sure what to call it, let’s say a cornucopia giveaway, going on right now. If you want a shot at the $100 gift card, you need to act fast, it ends on Monday. The other giveaways end at the end of the week. But think of all the holiday gifts you might get out of the way with these!

On a somewhat more somber, or confusing note. Or possibly both. Until this October, I was a contributor to the late and much lamented Book Lovers, Inc. blog. It was oodles of fun being part of the gang, and I miss the folks. (I miss them so much that Cass, otherwise known as Draconismoi, guest reviews here at Reading Reality, and Cass and I are both Guest Reviewers over at The Book Pushers, where one of our fellow BLI’ers, Has, is a regular).

But because the Book Lovers Inc. site is not being updated, it seemed like a good idea to copy all my own reviews from the BLI archive to Reading Reality. Especially since I refer back to my old reviews when I get the next book in a series. I didn’t want to lose track or access to that content. Occasionally there are duplicates. I have a cleanup project in my future. <groan>

Meanwhile, back to the present…Ooh, presents…not yet…darn…back to the blog, I mean.

Current Giveaways:

Poisoned Web by Crista McHugh — $100 Amazon Gift Card ENDS TOMORROW!
Bittersweet Magic by Nina Croft — $25 Amazon Gift Card
Parts & Wreck by Mark Henry — various books by the author, including signed copies
The Blooding of Jack Absolute by C.C. Humphreys (US/Canada)
When It’s Right by Jeanette Grey — winner’s choice of a title from the author’s backlist.
Bewitching Book Tours Hot Holiday Giveaway

Winner Announcement:

The winner of the print copy of Buying In by Laura Hemphill is Anne A.

Blog Recap:

B+ Review: Parts & Wreck by Mark Henry
Guest Post by Author Mark Henry on How Far is Too Far + Giveaway
A- Review: The Blooding of Jack Absolute by C.C. Humphreys
Interview with Author C.C. Humphreys + Giveaway
A- Review: Codex Born by Jim C. Hines
A- Review: When It’s Right by Jeanette Grey
Guest Post by Author Jeanette Grey on New Year’s Resolutions + Giveaway
B- Review: Alien Adoration by Jessica E. Subject
B+ Review: Alien Admirer by Jessica E. Subject
Stacking the Shelves (69)

Coming Next Week:

Operation Saving Daniel by Nina Croft (blog tour review + author guest post + giveaway)
Lace & Lead by M.A. Grant (review)
Clean by Alex Hughes (review)
The Seduction of Miriam Cross by W.A. Tyson (blog tour review + giveaway)
The Spirit Keeper by K.B. Laugheed (blog tour review + giveaway)

Stacking the Shelves (69)

Posted on December 7, 2013December 7, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | moving> Stacking the Shelves

There’s an irony in this post being called “Stacking the Shelves” as we are very much trying to unstack the physical shelves at our apartment. Thankfully the titles listed below don’t add any weight to our actual shelves, as the only print title on the list is the one that belongs the public library.

But we’re moving in EEK two weeks, and we’re downsizing. So the book collection has to be reduced from 20ish Billy bookcases to about 5. If there’s anyone in Seattle who wants to talk about buying some older romance, fantasy or SF, or some used IKEA bookcases…this opportunity will be disappearing fast!

cottage on juniper ridge by sheila roberts

christmas at copper mountain by jane porter

For Review:
The Arnifour Affair (Colin Pendragon #1) by Gregory Harris
The Chance (Thunder Point #4) by Robyn Carr
Christmas at Copper Mountain (Copper Mountain Christmas) by Jane Porter
Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews
Come a Little Bit Closer (Sullivans #7) by Bella Andre
The Cottage on Juniper Ridge (Life in Icicle Falls #4) by Sheila Roberts
Dark Moon (Spirit Wild #2) by Kate Douglas
Known Devil (Occult Crimes Unit Investigation #3) by Justin Gustainis
Master of Crows by Grace Draven
Scarlet Devices (Steam and Seduction #2) by Delphine Dryden
Soul Sucker (Soul Justice #1) by Kate Pearce
The Sweetest Seduction (Kelly Brothers #1) by Crista McHugh

Purchased:
Payoff (Mindspace Investigation #1.5) by Alex Hughes

Borrowed from the Library:
Fables Encyclopedia by Bill Willingham, Jess Nevins and Mark Buckingham

Guest Post by Author Mark Henry on How Far is Too Far + Giveaway

Posted on December 2, 2013November 30, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> Book Giveaway> Giveaways> Guest Posts

Today I’d like to welcome Mark Henry, author of the terrifically snarktastic Parks & Wreck (reviewed here). I’ve had loads of people recommend that I absolutely HAD to read something of his, and they were right!

How Far is Too Far
by Mark Henry

When my acquiring editor approached me with the idea of writing a romance for Entangled’s new Covet line, I fumbled for a response. Romance seemed like the kind of concept a writer like me would need a grappling hook to latch onto. You see, I have a history. I wrote a series of urban fantasy books that were most notable for their vulgarity and an irreverent, blisteringly abrasive humor. My protagonist was a zombie. She ate people! Unapolagetically! Those books were also a satire about the current social state, the growing apathy to homelessness, a throwaway culture.

Our conversation went like this…

Me: You say humorous paranormal romance?
Editor: Absolutely. We absolutely love your humor.
Me: My humor? You’re not mistaking me for someone else?
Editor: Oh no. It’s you.
Me: If we were looking at a continuum, you realize I’m on the side with a snarky mean girls, right?
Editor: Yep.

It was settled. Now, I knew when I pitched Parts & Wreck, a novel about a self-taught surgeon who takes on a (possibly) schizophrenic assistant and falls in love with her amidst a hunt for demon-infected transplant organs, that the premise was pretty out there. Also, I had these “ideas” for scenes that I knew had never been in a romance before, at least not in anything commercial.

I’d tell people that. Other romance writers and they’d roll their eyes and say things like, “I’m sure it’s perfectly fine. Nothing to worry about.” The scene in question did not make it into the final cut of Parts & Wreck. I knew it wouldn’t. I told people it’d be a miracle if it did. And so…I unveil the details of the “Too Far Scene.”

Oddly enough, it’s only peripherally sexual in nature. In fact, it was the big set piece of comedy in the whole book, so losing it was a dagger (not really, I had a back up plan, because I knew. I KNEW). Are you ready?

In this scene, the hero takes the stage of a strip club to perform an awkward strip tease which culminates in an homage to prom scene in the Stephen King classic, Carrie. No big deal, right? Oh wait, replace the pig’s blood with urine.

Now, why-oh-why, you ask, did I bother to try to push that through when, like I said, I KNEW it wasn’t going to make the final cut? Please see paragraph one. My humor and thought process is such that I’m driven to the irreverent, to the “blisteringly abrasive.” I’m lucky to have people who’ll help to reel that in. That hasn’t always been the case.

So what can I tell you about Parts & Wreck that you might not know? It most definitely does not have a bucket of pee in it. No. Not anymore.

About Mark Henry

Mark Henry traded a career as a counselor to scar minds with his fiction. In stories clogged with sentient zombies, impotent sex demons, transsexual werewolves and ghostly goth girls, he irreverently processes traumatic issues brought on by premature exposure to horror movies, an unwholesome fetish for polyester and/or witnessing adult cocktail parties in the swingin’ 70s. A developmental history further muddied by surviving earthquakes, typhoons, and two volcanic eruptions. He somehow continues to live and breathe in the oft maligned, yet not nearly as soggy as you’d think, Pacific Northwest, with his wife and four furry monsters that think they’re children and have a complete disregard for carpet.To learn more about Mark, visit his website and blog or follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, or YouTube or sign up for his newsletter.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Mark is giving away several copies of his books. To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Parts & Wreck by Mark Henry

Posted on December 2, 2013November 30, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Parts Department #1
Length: 200 pages
Publisher: Entangled: Covet
Date Released: November 25, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Wade Crowson, a brutish and brooding playboy and veteran vivisectionist for the Parts Department, runs into more than he bargained for in new partner, Lucid Montgomery, a quirky beauty with a bizarre secret and a string of psychiatric diagnoses she tries hard to keep hidden. Loving Luce will stamp a demonic target on her back and thrust Wade into a frenzied whirlwind of hilarious misunderstandings and, quite possibly, a stripping gig for emptynesters. Can they withstand the savagery of an exorcism (with or without the split pea soup) and come out alive and …in love?

My Review:

If you still talk to your imaginary friend when you’re an adult, are you deranged? What if he isn’t really imaginary? How do you tell? Next question; which is more deranged, a demonic possession or a strip-tease involving bodily fluids, even if those fluids are fake?

Believe it or not, those questions manage to connect in a snarktastic and occasionally scary start to Mark Henry’s Parts Department series in Parts & Wreck.

About those parts…if a victim of demonic possession dies and donates their organs, the possessed organs, well, are not exactly the gift of life that they’re supposed to be. The recipient lives, true enough. But they live possessed by a demon, just like the donor.

It tends to be a short, corrupt and unhappy life. And if the Parts Department catches up to those possessed organs, even shorter. Because the Parts Department surgically removes all those nasty, demon-possessed, well, parts.

Parts the transplant recipients needed fairly badly, after all. That’s why they had those transplants in the first place. But demon removal and exorcism trumps any individual life. The Parts Department operators always call an ambulance before they leave.

It’s a nasty and brutal job, but somebody has to do it to keep the demons in their place.

Wade Crowson is one of those people who do that horrible job. He’s very good at it. The only problem is that he keeps losing his partners to demonic possession. Then they die. What’s worse is that the demon Astaroth seems to be targeting Wade intentionally. That damn demon wants Wade to suffer. The feeling is mutual, but the demon is having way more luck at the problem.

Part of Wade’s suffering is that he keeps attracting, and being attracted to, female partners. And then losing them. His new partner is Lucid Montgomery, and Wade starts out not being sure whether Luce is a candidate for his next partner at the Parts Department, or the next candidate for an exorcism. Her file shows that she’s either slightly loony or slightly possessed, but it’s difficult to tell which.

All Wade is sure of is that she’s totally captivating. And that she doesn’t seem to have a filter on what comes out of her mouth, a fact which makes him smile for the first time in years.

It also makes Luce tremendously fun to follow. right up to the point where she finds out that her imaginary childhood friend was a very real demon. And that he’s still around.

Escape Rating B+: This is the first time I’ve ever read a book where the romance is furthered over a vivisection. Really. And this isn’t a horror story even though the idea of demons colonizing via donor organs is well, kind of, horrifying.

Instead, the crew at the Parts Department thrives on gallows humor. Anyone who worked there and couldn’t snark like there was no tomorrow (because they know there might not be) would probably die of terminal depression long before the demons did them in.

After all, the background set up for this story is damn dark under all the snark. There are demons out there and they are out to get us. Wade’s first demon exposure wasn’t just life-altering, it also robs him of his childhood.

Same is true for Luce, even though she doesn’t realize it. When they find each other, it’s a chance for a bit of light amidst the darkness, if they dare to grab it.

The emphasis in this story is on the build-up. I could see the underpinnings being put in place for a fantastic series about the grim world that makes the Parts Department necessary. I’m up for reading more. There’s also a kind of kinky-sweet love story between Wade and Luce, but I enjoyed Parts & Wreck mostly for setting up the underbelly of how this world works.

It felt like the demons have had it out for Wade for a long time, so I think Wade and Luce will be back. That’s bad for them, but good for the rest of us.

The most frightening concepts in this story are at the strip club, because those don’t seem to be totally demon inspired, but they are awesomely evil.

***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.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-1-13

Posted on December 1, 2013November 30, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> Holidays> Thanksgiving> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

For those of us in the U.S. it is the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. For everyone not in the U.S., you’re probably wondering what the fuss was about. Except that we were in Vancouver, Canada on Thursday and Friday and saw Black Friday Sale signs going up all over the place. It seemed strange to have Black Friday Sales without having had a Thanksgiving Thursday first. And Canada doesn’t. Thanksgiving in Canada was way back on October 14.

We asked people what the deal was, and it turned out that yes, it was becoming a deal. Vancouver, at least, is way too close to the U.S. border for economic comfort. Too many Christmas shoppers were driving to Seattle, or at least the outlet mall along the way, to grab the Black Friday shopping madness in the U.S.

So the Canadian stores were trying to keep those shoppers at home by giving them their very own Black Friday sales. Turkey and stuffing optional.