Guest Post by Author Nico Rosso on Rock and Roll + Giveaway

Posted on September 30, 2013September 29, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | ebook giveaway> Giveaways> Guest Posts

Today I’d like to welcome Nico Rosso, who recently published Heavy Metal Heart (reviewed here). He’s also the co-author, or co-conspirator, The Ether Chronicles, which is of one of my favorite steampunk romance series, along with his wife Zoe Archer. So I’m especially pleased to have him as my guest at Reading Reality!

Thanks so much for having me, Marlene! Now let’s tune the guitars and crank up the amps.

Rock and roll moves us. It’s caused revolutions, riots, and revelations. We can dance to it, or bang our heads, or sing along at the top of our lungs at top speed on the freeway. I’m definitely guilty of this, as my wife, Zoë Archer can attest to.

I listen to a lot of music when I’m writing, and this was especially true when I was working on my paranormal romance Heavy Metal Heart (book 1 of my new series, Demon Rock). The hero, Trevor Sand, is a nearly immortal demon rock star, so I needed plenty of musical energy to pump through it. Misty Grant, the heroine, is definitely into his music, but has no idea about the supernatural side of things. Until one night, when she breaks out of her routine and goes to see Trevor do a rare show at a small venue. That one night not only brings her into his wild world, but also shows how she has a very special place there.

Fate and the power of Trevor’s music might’ve been bringing them together for their whole lives, but the action really gets started at that small show. There’s nothing like an intimate venue to concentrate all the beautiful chaos of rock and roll.

I’ve been to some big arena shows, where the band is no closer than some glittering constellations. I guess that’s why the call them rock stars. I think the last of these shows for me was U2’s Pop Mart tour (the one with the giant lemon). It was good to hear the music live, but it lacked the vitality of a small stage. I don’t carry a very strong memory of the show because it seemed too distant to impact me.

When you’re close to the amps and the band, you can literally feel the music thumping through your chest. As if it’s another heartbeat, the same one everyone else is feeling. Not only are you connected to the music, but also the rest of the crowd. Recently I went to an Adam Ant show with Zoë in a relatively small space. I was expecting the old tunes, same as you’ve heard on the radio. Instead, I was blown away by the band and their furious energy. Simple and raw rock and roll. Close enough to feel in your veins. That elation continued after the show, as people left the venue, still bonded by the unique experience.

Do you have any special concert memories in large or small venues? Leave a comment and I’ll pick one person at random to win a PDF copy of Heavy Metal Heart!

Thanks so much for coming by today. I’m looking forward to reading your responses.
And if you want to continue the conversation, I can be found on my website, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

And Heavy Metal Heart can be found here:

GIVEAWAY

For a chance to win a PDF copy of Heavy Metal Heart by Nico Rosso, use the Rafflecopter below.

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Review: Heavy Metal Heart by Nico Rosso

Posted on September 30, 2013October 5, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, audiobook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Demon Rock, #1
Length: 132 pages
Publisher: Carina Press
Date Released: September 30, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Rock Star. Front man. Demon. A descendant of satyrs and the lead singer in a band that feeds on the energy of its audience, Trevor Sand is growing weary of the constant need to perform. He needs the legend of the Muse—a woman destined to be a demon’s eternal companion and only source of sustenance—to be true.

Misty Grant has never been bold, but when Trevor singles her out among hundreds at a concert, she takes him up on his explicit offer. During an erotic night in his hotel room, she learns that his touch is as electric as his lyrics. But when Trevor’s demon is aroused, her desire turns to horror and she runs.

Knowing that he’ll die if he loses her, Trevor must find Misty before his enemies do. But even if he can save her, he knows that regaining the trust of his fated Muse will be his greatest challenge.

My Review:

This is for everyone who has ever been told that rock music is the devil’s music. Or possibly for everyone whose parents ever shouted something like that through the bass beat thumping through the house while they were still teenagers living at home.

Heavy Metal Heart has that spirit of defiance rock and roll defiance blasting through its storyline, and if you love rock, that back beat carries you through the sense that this paranormal romance happens awfully fast.

But then, rock stars burn hot and burn out fast. Unless they really are demons.

Trevor Sand is a rock and roll superstar. This time around. In other times and in other places he’s played every kind of music that there is, from opera to harpsichord to beating skins stretched over wood frames. In this time and place, rock and roll is what brings in enough energy to feed his hunger. Trevor is a demon. He calls himself that. Terminology is slippery. Call him an elemental if it works for you.

Trevor and the boys in his band have walked the Earth for millennia. They were called up by the intense energy of humans first celebrating their ability to survive and conquer the world around them. As long as humans lose themselves in revelry, Trevor and his kind are immortal.

There’s one hitch. Actually two. Rationality hems in the natural order of things. It is natural for humans to let loose now and again. Teenagers are meant to rebel; Friday nights are meant for going out and partying. But there is a group set against Trevor and his fellow demons, the Philosophers. The Philosophers are the gloom and doom party. Complete with real doom.

Then there’s the girl of Trevor’s dreams. Every great artist has a muse. Make that muse with a capital M. Just as Shakespeare wrote poems to his ‘dark lady’, Trevor has been been penning songs to his woman with ‘green eyes’. But for a demon, once he finds his Muse, she becomes the only way he can feed his hunger for energy. Once he’s found her, if she dies, he dies.

She’ll save him, but she’ll also make him vulnerable. Sounds like love.

Misty Grant has been dreaming of Trevor Sands for years, since the first time she heard his music. For one night, she decides to walk on the wild side by going to his impromptu concert and introducing herself, no matter how far out of her comfort zone she has to step.

She has no idea…

Escape Rating B: This is a story of two counter-poised myths. One is that the need of human beings to celebrate, to create, to make joyful noise and song is so powerful that its very nature became embodied in elemental spirits that feed from the energy humans give off when they “live it up”. The Roman god Bacchus loved riotous, drunken festivals, he even gave his name to them; bacchanalia. What if he was based on a something that lived off the energy created by those revels?

Rock and roll isn’t the first time that music has been seen to be a demon’s playground, either. People initially thought the waltz was quite shocking (read almost any Regency romance to get a flavor for this); never mind Mozart’s behavior.

The other myth is the one about every great artist having one perfect Muse who inspires him (or her), combining more than a bit with the fated-mate trope for good effect in this instance. An awful lot of girls dream of being picked out of a crowd by a rock star, in this particular bit of wish fulfillment, the rock star has also been dreaming of this one, particular woman. It makes the concept work this time.

Although Trevor is the demon, the story hinges on Misty’s transformation from ordinary human to extraordinary. It’s not just because she has the most awesome one-night-stand with a rock god, but because she was always meant to be more. She just has to keep deciding, over and over, that she wants everything that that “more” means, the bad as well as the good.

If you’d like to try a story that combines the immortal rock and roll of Jeri Smith-Ready’s WVMP series and the hot sex of Olivia Cunning’s Sinners on Tour series, let Heavy Metal Heart have another little piece of your heart.

***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 9-29-13

Posted on September 29, 2013September 29, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Book Giveaway> ebook giveaway> Giveaways> Something Wicked Returns Blog Hop> Sunset on Summer Fun Blog Hop> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

Tomorrow the sun will set on the Sunset on Summer Sun Blog Hop. If you’re interested in the $10 gift card to either Amazon or B&N that I’m giving away, or the grand prize of a Kindle Fire or Nook HD that the organizers are giving away, or just perusing all the other great prizes, you have 24 hours to enter everything. Give or take.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun.

Seattle is absolutely sopping wet this weekend, and on track to make this September the wettest September EVER. Drip, drip, splish, splash. Waiting for the bus tomorrow is going to be such a joy! NOT.

Rainy season is here with a vengeance!

Current Giveaways:

Sunset on Summer Sun Blog Hop: my prize is a $10 gift card to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble; the blog hop’s grand prize is a Kindle Fire or Nook HD.
Declan’s Cross by Carla Neggers: Hardcover (US/CAN only)
Tourwide Giveaway: 5 signed paperback copies of Forged in Dreams and Magick by Kat Bastion, 5 ebook copies, Pandora sterling silver charm bracelet
Marry Me, Cowboy by Lillian Darcy and Tempt Me, Cowboy by Megan Crane; both ebook only, but INT giveaway

Blog Recap:

B Review: Declan’s Cross by Carla Neggers
Q&A from Author Carla Neggars + Giveaway
B+ Review: The Rare Event by P.D. Singer
B+ Review: Gilded by Karina Cooper
B- Review: Forged in Dreams and Magick by Kat Bastion + Giveaway
B Review: Marry Me, Cowboy by Lillian Darcy + Giveaway
Stacking the Shelves (60)

Coming Next Week:

Heavy Metal Heart by Nico Rosso (review + guest post + giveaway)
The Sheik Retold by Victoria Vane (review + guest post + giveaway)
Spider Woman’s Daughter by Anne Hillerman (review)
Treecat Wars by David Weber and Jane Lindskold (review)
Something Wicked Returns Blog Hop

Stacking the Shelves (60)

Posted on September 28, 2013September 28, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Stacking the Shelves

I borrowed The Cuckoo’s Calling from the library out of sheer curiosity. I wonder how the hell Rowling did at a mystery/suspense thriller. Now that we all know Robert Galbraith is Rowling, it all seems so obvious. Cormoran Strike is so a Hogwarts’ name.

I finally got Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines, and started it immediately. This is my kind of book. Not just because the hero is a librarian (awesome) but the whole concept that there is magic in books that a person with the right kind of talent can release. We all know that there is magic in books, but the idea of bringing into the real world is made of win. (I also love Hines’ work on exposing, sometimes literally, the sexism in sci-fi and fantasy book covers, but there isn’t enough mental bleach in the universe to make me un-see the Flandry re-shoot with Patrick Rothfuss. I love Mary Robinette Kowal’s power-pose, but OMG, Rothfuss in the lower left. Enough said.) If you’ve never looked at the “Cover Posing” section of Hines’ site, take a look. Your eyes will be opened. And your back will spasm in sympathy.

So far, Libriomancer is excellent. But that was to be expected.

For Review:
The Execution (Jeremy Fisk #2) by Dick Wolf
Fiddlehead (Clockwork Century #6) by Cherie Priest
Finding It (Losing It #3) by Cora Carmack
Foreplay (Ivy Chronicles #1) by Sophie Jordan
Forgiving Lies (Forgiving Lies #1) by Molly McAdams
Season of Seduction by Jeffe Kennedy, Christine d’Abo, Elise Logan, Emily Ryan-Davis and Jodie Griffin
Taste of Darkness (Healer #3) by Maria V. Snyder

Purchased:
Romancing Lady Stone (School of Gallantry #3.5) by Delilah Marvelle
Torrent (Rust & Relics #1) by Lindsay Buroker

Borrowed from the Library:
Armed & Dangerous (Cut & Run #5) by Abigail Roux
The Broken Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy #2) by N.K. Jemisin
The Cuckoo’s Calling (Cormoran Strike #1) by Robert Galbraith AKA J.K. Rowling
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy #1) by N.K. Jemisin
Libriomancer (Magic Ex Libris #1) by Jim C. Hines
The Shambling Guide to New York City (Shambling Guides #1) by Mur Lafferty

Review: Forged in Dreams and Magick by Kat Bastion + Giveaway

Posted on September 26, 2013September 25, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Time-travel romance, Paranormal romance
Series: Highland Legends, #1
Length: 323 pages
Publisher: Self-published
Date Released: September 22, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Isobel MacInnes wakes up in present-day California, lunches in medieval Scotland, and by ten days’ end, falls in love with a man and his country, only to lose them in a heart-wrenching twist of fate . . .

Found in the arms of her second soul mate . . .

Forced to balance the delicate strands of time between two millennia . . .

Shocked by revelations rewriting the very foundations of history . . . of everything.

Isobel, a rising-star archaeology student, is dropped into two ancient worlds without warning . . . or her permission. Her fiery spirit resists the dependency thrust upon her. Amid frustration at her lack of control, she helplessly falls in love. Twice.

She struggles to adjust to the unimaginable demands of two leaders of men—a laird in the thirteenth-century Highlands and a Pict chieftain in a more ancient Scotland. Isobel transforms from an academic, hell-bent on obtaining archaeological recognition, to a woman striving to care for those she loves, and ultimately . . . into a fearless warrior risking everything to protect them

My Review:

This was a much wilder ride than I expected…and that’s a good thing.

Isobel MacInnes begins the story as an overachieving graduate student in archaeology, based in California, but inexorably drawn to study the history (and prehistory) surrounding her roots in Scotland.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Isobel is very much still an overachiever at the end of the story. She’s just got, well, bigger fish to fry. Possibly also bake, parboil and grill.

As an archeologist, even a budding archaeologist, she should have known better than to extract the intricately wrought stone she discovered in Scotland when she was tossed from her damaged car in a freak rainstorm. But the stone seemed to be smithed from multiple metals that could not have been worked at the time the stone appeared to have been carved, and, Isobel had just said her last goodbye to her dying grandfather.

Let’s say she wasn’t thinking rationally. Possibly she wasn’t meant to be thinking rationally. That stone was the find of any archaeologist’s lifetime.

And it was magic. Or magick.

Once she gets it back to her advisor’s lab in California (I’m trying to imagine getting that thing past Customs and the TSA and just, oh noes!) she has to share it with someone. Who better than her best friend, someone she met at the Highland Games. Iain Brodie is also an actor, and he’s always flirted with Isobel, pretending he wants more than just friendship. Isobel knows she’s not up to the same standard of beauty as a Hollywood starlet, so she ducks all his passes.

But Iain is a champion at the Highland Games because he has an unfair advantage, and he’s been flirting with Isobel MacInnes because she really is the woman that he wants. Something about the presence of the magical stone pushes them into a confrontation that reveals his true feelings for her.

And the stone transports them from 21st century California to 14th century Scotland. Isobel learns that the rest of her life is going to be nothing like what she planned it would be.

It’s going to be better. But first it’s going to be a whole lot weirder.

Escape Rating B-: The century-spanning scope of the story absolutely does sweep the reader along for the ride.

I’ll confess, at first, I wasn’t sure if Isobel was really in love with Iain, or if she was convincing herself that it was the best thing to do in order to survive in the 14th century. Attaching herself to Iain absolutely was the best thing for her to do for her to survive in the 14th century, but I was having a difficult time deciding whether there was really love on both sides or just Isobel bowing to the inevitable and fooling herself.

It was only after she traveled through time again that she really started living in whatever now she found herself in, however she had to live that now, that it felt like she was owning her own fate, instead of being pushed by the waves.

That part of that fate was to have two warriors as soul mates in two different time periods was icing on the cake. This would be perfectly acceptable if a man were the lead character, I’m fine with the “sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander” idea.

Time travel romance always poses an interesting conundrum. If the traveler goes into the past, as Isobel does, can they change the past and affect the future? Is that what they are meant to do? In which case, have they already done it? If they don’t do it again, what happens?

Isobel’s journey seems to be fated to make her the person, the time traveler, she is meant to become. Which means she has more ahead of her, because the training period literally tore her heart in two. As they say, that which does not kill us, makes us stronger. Isobel becomes much, much stronger.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

To celebrate the release of Forged in Blood and Magick, Kat is giving away a number of prizes:

(5) Signed Paperback Copies of Forged in Blood and Magick
(5) eBook copies of Forged in Blood and Magick
(1) Pandora sterling silver Happily Ever After charm with a Pandora sterling silver bracelet.

To enter, use the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

For more chances to win, visit the other stops on the blog tour.

This post is part of a blog tour by AToMR Tours-- to visit the other stops, click here. — This post is part of a blog tour — to visit the other stops, click here.

To visit the other stops on the blog tour, click here.

***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 9-15-13

Posted on September 15, 2013September 15, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Sunset on Summer Fun Blog Hop> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand

Yesterday turned out to be pretty splendiferous, once the butterflies in my stomach settled down.

I was the Keynote Speaker at the Gay Romance Northwest Meetup yesterday. The conference, and it was very much a writers and readers conference, was held at the Seattle Public Library’s Central Library. The last I heard, the paid attendance was 120, but they were definitely taking at-the-door registration, so there were more people there.

My topic was getting what you want into your local library, or working with your local library to get what you wrote onto the physical or virtual shelves. The Q&A session ran over!!! There’s a very nice summary here, even if I feel funny about being the unnamed librarian.

I stayed for the whole thing. Besides the fact that I got questions and comments at every break and at the happy hour afterwards, this was an awesome event. Also, and one of the interesting things, as far as the writing and breaking into publishing, and questions about diversity and the lack thereof, many of the questions and answers were not dissimilar to things I’d heard at WorldCon a couple of weeks ago.

Becoming a writer and getting published is damn difficult. Period, exclamation point. Diversity is a journey and not a destination. Respectability is something that no genre fiction seems to have achieved, although mystery seems to be closer (for relative definitions of close) than anything else, and LGBTQ romance gets hit with a double-whammy of being both LGBTQ and romance.

One thing struck me, one of the authors (Daisy Harris) said that she wrote m/m romance because it allowed her to write couples who did not follow the alpha male/submissive female paradigm that she had been forced to follow when she wrote traditional m/f romance. Last night I was reading something that I wasn’t planning to review, but it was a couple where the dominant male/submissive female roles should not have occurred, and damn but they did anyway. I’m having a major re-think here.

I hope I get invited back next year.

But back to what else happened this week…

Review: Medium Rare by Meg Benjamin + Giveaway

Posted on September 12, 2013September 10, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: paranormal romance
Series: Ramos Family, #2
Length: 305 pages
Publisher: InterMix
Date Released: August 20, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

Rose Ramos was a reference librarian, until she inherited her grandmother’s house—and the family talent for connecting with the other side…

Moving into the lovely Victorian in San Antonio’s King William District is a dream come true for Rose—and also a nightmare. That’s the only explanation she has for the man hovering above her bed. But Skag is a ghost who’s been part of Rose’s family for generations. And now he’s all hers.

When Evan Delwin, a reporter out to debunk the city’s newest celebrity, posts an ad looking for a research assistant to investigate a famous medium making his home in San Antonio, Skag suggests that Rose apply for the job. Delving into the dark side has its own dangers for Rose—including trying to resist Delwin’s manly charms. But as the investigation draws them closer together, the deadly currents surrounding the medium threaten to destroy them all…

My Review:

Inheriting a Victorian pile in the snooty King William district of San Antonio from her grandmother comes as an unexpected shock to librarian Rose Ramos for any number of reasons.

First of all, she could only remember meeting her Grandmother Caroline Riordan three times at most. Secondly, her mother, meaning Grandmother Caroline’s daughter, was very much still alive, so Rose couldn’t figure out why the house hadn’t gone to her. Third and foremost in her mind, as much as she was enjoying the pleasure of owning the beautiful old monstrosity, grand old houses need a lot more money to maintain than she could imagine squeezing out of a librarian’s paycheck. (A thought to which I can only say “Amen sister!”)

Then the family ghost appears above her bed in the guise of Hannibal Lecter (he switches his appearance when she shrieks in terror, and who wouldn’t), and Rose discovers how Grandmother Caroline, as well as Grandmother Siobhan before her, really kept house and home together. The ghostly Skag coolly informs Rose that she, just like all the women in the Riordan family, is a powerful medium. The family business is talking with the dead.

This should descend into camp, but it doesn’t. Rose does not become the kind of medium who conducts séances, for one thing. Instead, she finds stuff for people. And there’s a money back guarantee. People will pay quite a bit to find out where their dead relatives hid the equivalent of the family silver.

Medium Rare fast forwards two years. The recap of those two years sounded like so much fun I bought a copy of the first book in the series, Medium Well, and reviewed it over at Book Lovers Inc.

Even though Rose makes her living by finding stuff for people, with the family ghost asking the dead for assistance in the finding, there are still plenty of mediums around San Antonio who hold seances. It’s easy for Rose to make her talent look like good old-fashioned library research.

A séance looks like woo-woo. It can look silly, or it can be fraud. There’s a new guy in town who might have tipped over the line from magic tricks to outright fraud, and there’s a psychic debunker in San Antonio who’s out to catch him.

That’s where the fun begins.

Evan Delwin is an investigative journalist who is just positive that all psychic practitioners and mediums must be frauds. Evan knows how all the tricks works. His dad was a famous magician, The Great Dell–until a trick went horribly wrong.

Now Evan works with the police to expose fraudulent so-called psychics, and he has his eye on one William Bradford, who has recently set up a very expensive operation in San Antonio. But everyone knows who he is. He needs an assistant.

Skag wants Rose to work with Evan, because Skag senses that there is more going on than just a worldly fraud.

Skag may be right, but the minute that Evan and Rose meet, they want to do one hell of a lot more than just work together. The problem is that Evan distrusts all psychics, and Rose isn’t telling him that she is one.

Then the hellhounds come to call…

Escape Rating B: A paranormal romance without either vampires or werewolves. And a hearty thank you to the author for not having the ghost be the love interest! I like my romances with a reasonable chance of happy ending. (Stacey Kennedy managed it once and terrifically with Supernaturally Kissed, but let’s not all go there)

Anytime a librarian is the hero or heroine, it’s cool with me.

But speaking of Rosa and Evan, these are two people who shouldn’t get together, but not for any of the usual reasons, which was a very interesting twist. He debunks what she is. Very cool. It’s not just that he doesn’t believe, it’s that he’s sure she’s a fraud. She starts out lying to him, and as the story goes on, we discover that he’s kind of lying to himself.

Two of the most fun characters in the story are Helen and Lenore. Especially Helen. She is an absolutely marvelous piece of invention; an over-protective hellhound who is invisible to everyone but Rosa and Evan, but who is still eating the very real furniture. I adore her, but I’m glad my couch is safe from her.

The third book in this series will be Happy Medium. My mind was going to the steak metaphor; medium well, medium rare, and I had a mental block about what the third state of “doneness” might be. So happy to have that resolved, and I’m looking forward to the book, too!

About Meg Benjamin

Meg Benjamin is writes contemporary romance for Samhain Publishing and paranormal romance for Berkley InterMix. Her books have won an EPIC Award for Contemporary Romance, the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the New England Romance Writers Beanpot Award, and the Holt Medallion among other honors. Meg lives in Colorado.To learn more about Meg, visit her website and blog. You can also follow her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Meg loves to hear from readers–contact her at meg@megbenjamin.com.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Meg will be awarding a $15 Amazon gift certificate to a randomly drawn commenter during the tour, and E-copies of Medium Well (the preceding book in the series) to two randomly drawn commenters during the tour.

For other changes to win, please visit the other stops on the blog tour.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Medium Well by Meg Benjamin

Posted on September 10, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 4 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Series: Ramos Family/Medium Trilogy, #1
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Release Date: Feb. 2nd, 2013
Number of pages: 296 pages
Publisher: Berkley InterMix
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Publisher’s Website

Real estate agent Danny Ramos has always had a knack for selling homes, but when his boss saddles him with a neglected carriage house, Danny discovers that his abilities are more than simple intuition…

On his first visit to the house, Danny is confronted with visions of a violent murder. His assistant, Biddy Gunter, doesn’t seem affected, and Danny starts to think he’s going crazy—until he gets a visit from his mother, who suggests that Danny’s uncanny talent to sell old houses may stem from his family inheritance: psychic empathy.

When Biddy reveals to Danny her own strange dream about the carriage house ghosts, they team up to investigate and discover both the house’s dark history and their own unexpected attraction. But as the hauntings turn from unsettling to downright dangerous, Danny and Biddy need to figure out how to rid the house of its ghostly inhabitants, before their budding romance meets an untimely end…

My Thoughts:

We were just in San Antonio for WorldCon and took a bus tour that went around the King William area where this book (and the series) takes place. The residents of the area are too snooty too allow the tours to drive through. Small world.

But the houses are old, Victorian, and definitely did look like they either needed a lot of money or a lot of maintenance. Or both at once.

Who names their daughters Araceli and Biddy? I’m just saying…

Danny Ramos, on the other hand, not only sounds like, but apparently is, sex on a stick. And it’s a quality he generally exploits in his off-work time. Possibly occasionally in his on-work time, there were a couple of moments when I wondered. But that’s not this story.

You’ve heard of horse whisperers? Danny is a house-whisperer. Old houses tell him their secrets, and he is an expert at spinning those secrets into terrific stories that he uses to sell old houses to new owners. Expensive old houses.

Danny is a real estate agent, which should not be a novel-worthy profession, except when the house is demon-raddled. How does Danny know the house is possessed by a demon? At first, all he knows is that the house freaks him out, really, really badly. Then, he gets introduced to the woo-woo side of his family history, and discovers that his extra-special talent at selling houses is an extra-sensory talent.

Mom forgot to tell him that he comes from a very long line of mediums. The houses really are speaking to him. Or their ghosts are.

When the story opens, the biggest problem in Danny’s life is that his paranoid boss Araceli is out to get him fired. By the end, his biggest problem is that he needs to burn down a historic carriage house to stop a soul eating demon from getting loose and possessing the good citizens of San Antonio.

Verdict: This is way, way more fun than it ought to be based on the description. I was reading the next book in the series, Medium Rare, for a tour, and the recap of previous events sounded so wild that I couldn’t resist getting this one just to see what the heck happened. This is pretty much of a hoot.

One of the bizarre things about the Ramos family is that the family talent for being a medium comes from the Riordan side, from their mother. Even weirder is that not only is Danny not supposed to have inherited the talent, but the Riordan side doesn’t run to boys. He and his brother are the first males in the family in centuries. Mom’s reactions to finding out that he has a demon to get rid of and that she has to own a talent she tried to forget are beyond interesting. Come to think of it, a book of mom’s love story with dad and getting out of the “family business” might be pretty good.

I both liked Biddy and she drove me nuts. She has been letting her older sister Araceli dictate her life for much too long, but I don’t have an exact fix on how old Biddy is. Gratitude, even for an extreme sacrifice, can only go so far. Biddy is a musician, and she’s not just fantastic at it herself but she’s fronting an absolutely awesome group. Biddy needs to devote herself to her music, and Araceli is pressuring her to give it up permanently. There’s something wrong in that dynamic that weakens both characters and turns Araceli into a stereotypical paranoid career-ladder climbing bitch.

Biddy’s family dynamics were not just awful but the resolution was too quick at the end. Danny’s were terrific, even as the big family secret got revealed. And I loved the research into the house.

There is a romance between Biddy and Danny that is a big part of the story. These two people are both figuring out who they really are, as well as figuring out they belong together. They have to do the first before they completely manage the second.

4-Stars

I give Medium Well by Meg Benjamin 4 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.

Review: The Last Kiss Goodbye by Karen Robards

Posted on September 9, 2013December 1, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | 3 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

The Last Kiss Goodbye by Karen Robards Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Series: Dr. Charlotte Stone, #2
Genre: Romantic Suspense, Paranormal Romance
Release Date: August 13, 2013
Number of pages: 333 pages
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback, audiobook
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website | Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK) | Publisher’s Website

Dr. Charlotte “Charlie” Stone has dedicated her career as a psychiatrist to exploring the darkest territory of all: the hearts and minds of serial killers. It’s a job she’s uniquely suited for, thanks to the secret talent that gives her an uncanny edge—Charlie can see dead people, whose tormented spirits cry out to her for the justice only she can provide. This blessing—or curse—gives Charlie the power to hunt down and catch madmen and murderers. It’s also turned her love life upside down by drawing her into a hopelessly passionate relationship with the lingering ghost of charismatic bad boy Michael Garland.

But there’s little time for romance with her supernatural suitor when murder comes pounding at Charlie’s door in the form of a terrified young woman fleeing a homicidal maniac. Saving her life places Charlie squarely in the cross-hairs of a sadistic predator nicknamed “the Gingerbread Man,” notorious for manipulating his victims like pawns in a deadly chess game. And now the queen this psychopath’s bent on capturing is Charlie. Refusal to play will only put more innocent lives in danger. Matching wits with this cunningly twisted opponent will require all of Charlie’s training and expert skills. But even with her devilish “guardian angel”—not to mention her favorite flesh-and-blood Fed, Tony Bartoli—watching her beautiful back, the Gingerbread Man’s horrifying grin might be the last thing Charlie ever sees.

My Thoughts:

I wonder if every book in the Charlotte Stone series is going to have the word “Last” in the title. The only problem is that none of them actually are the last anything. And maybe they ought to be.

You really have to enjoy train-wreck books in order to read this series. I’m serious. The main character is Dr. Charlotte Stone, a criminal psychiatrist who studies serial killers. Charlotte is an utterly classic case of a shrink who really, really needs to see a shrink. Not just because she studies what makes serial killers tick because she is the surviving victim of one, but, because, you guessed it, she’s in love with a convicted serial killer.

Even better, the drop-dead gorgeous serial killer that Charlotte is in love with is quite literally dead. Michael Garland is Charlotte’s very own personal poltergeist. On top of all her other issues, Charlotte sees dead people. Garland is one of the few who can see her–whether or not she’s wearing anything.

And yes, they’ve had sex, but only after he died. The amount of crazysauce involved in just the set up for the series is enough to make your head spin–a complete 360 degree spin! (If you haven’t fallen out of your chair yet, read The Last Victim, or just this review, for more details)

In spite of (or maybe because of) the wacko setup, it is impossible to stop reading this damn thing. Some of that may be sheer disbelief at the situations Charlotte continues to let herself get sucked into.

I mean, really, it’s one thing to get turned on by bad boys, but ghostly bad boys? I can kind of understand undead bad boys, meaning vampires, but the ghost of a serial killer? Especially when there is a flesh-and-blood FBI agent panting after her? In normal circumstances, the FBI agent would totally be the hero, but no, that’s too tame for this girl.

And then there’s the current serial killer. Yes, really. The actual point of this story, besides the woo-woo sex, is the hunt for a live serial killer. Which totally takes second place to Charlotte’s emotional angst about keeping the ghostly one hanging around long after he should have gone into the light. Or even down into the dark.

I will say that Charlotte is damn good at her day job. Just totally illogical when it comes to her personal life.

Verdict: In her personal choices, Charlotte reads as way past Too Stupid Too Live. She even calls herself out as filling that trope. On the other hand, the train-wreck is so ear-screechingly loud and the sparks from the brakes squealing on the tracking so eye-poppingly bright that you can’t turn your eyes away. This story should not work at all, but I couldn’t stand not to finish it.

It also bears an increasingly strong resemblance to Stacey Kennedy’s Supernaturally Kissed, except that her characters were not as stupid and Kennedy’s ghost hero was a hero in life. Also there was a possibility of an HEA there that does not exist here.

The “find the serial killer” plot line, which is ostensibly the main plot, takes a back seat to the ghost romance. Or the angsting over the ghost romance, which is too damn bad. There was a high suspense factor here that didn’t get exploited as well as it could have.

Rating this feels nearly insane. It is either the best 2 star book or the worst 4 star book I’ve ever read. Therefore:

3-stars

I give The Last Kiss Goodbye by Karen Robards 3 very confused stars!

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 9-8-13

Posted on September 8, 2013September 8, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

And we’re back!

I know, it didn’t really look like we left, but that’s the joy of scheduling posts. Except that last Sunday’s Sunday Post almost posted full of XXX, because that’s the way I left it when we left town. I meant to fill it in, and almost forgot. WorldCon was a blast.

Yes, we’re going to London next August, no matter how scraped the pennies have to be. This was so much fun I’m still bouncing up and down with glee, in spite of having been back for almost a week.

The Con experience ended on a mournful note. When we got home Monday night, word was percolating through that the great SF Grand Master Frederik Pohl had passed away in Illinois just as the Con was ending in San Antonio. One of the marvelous things about SF is just how accessible most of the pros are. Pohl used to attend all the Chicago cons every year, so I heard him read and speak two or three times a year for several years. He’ll be missed.

Before I move on to the regular recap and schedule of upcoming events, one last, but probably not final, comment about WorldCon. Galen posted a Worldcon wrap-up on his blog, Meta Interchange. I pretty much second everything he said, but it would have taken me five times as long to say it. 😉

Current Giveaway:

Suzanne Johnson tourwide giveaway: First prize (1) iPad 2; Second prize (5) $20 Gift Cards to Winners’ online retailer of choice; both prizes open internationally ENDS September 10, 2013