Tag: Victoria Vane

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 4-7-13

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Blogo-Birthday> Blogoversary> Giveaways> The Sunday Post> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

Sunday Post

This weekend is part of the Reading Reality Blogo-Birthday Celebration. Sunday’s part of the celebration is that I get to tell you, one more time, all the chances that you have to win one of the bookish prizes!

About Last Night by Ruthie KnoxFrom the Blogoversary part, you have a chance to win a copy of either Ruthie Knox’ RITA nominated About Last Night, or her brand new Strangers on a Train story, Big Boy (review on Tuesday) or a $10 Amazon Giftcard.

From the Birthday part, you have a chance to win a copy of the entire (and entirely yummy) Devil DeVere series by Victoria Vane. Or another $10 Amazon Giftcard.

And, just for extras, there is also a chance to win a print copy of the first book in Robyn Carr’s new Thunder Point series, The Wanderer.

You have until April 13 to put your hat into the rings, or your entry into the rafflecopters, for all the prizes.

BTW, Mikki D. won the ebook copy of Temptation by Kathryn Barrett from Kathryn and Entangled Publishing.

Eternally Devoted by Stacey KennedyNow for the complete recap of last week’s posts:

B+ Review: Mystically Bound by Stacey Kennedy
B Review: And Then She Fell by Stephanie Laurens
A- Review: Eternally Devoted by Stacey Kennedy
Blogo-Birthday Celebration and Giveaway Day 1
Blogo-Birthday Celebration and Giveaway Day 2
B+ Review: The Wanderer by Robyn Carr
Guest Post: Q&A with Robyn Carr + Giveaway!

The Blogo-Birthday won’t come around for another year. Boo-hoo. But there are still more good things ahead!

This week I’ll have reviews of Ruthie Knox’ Big Boy and Victoria Vane’s The Trouble with Sin. It’s only fair after dropping hints about both stories last week in the giveaways. They are both definitely worth getting!

What She Wants by Sheila RobertsAnd in the middle, Sheila Roberts will be back to talk about the theme of friendship that runs through her stories, and she’ll be giving away a copy of her latest book, What She Wants. I’ll also have a review of this story of poker buddies turning to romance novels to figure out what women want. Does it work? Come and find out!

Blogo-Birthday Celebration and Giveaway Day 2

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Blogo-Birthday> Blogoversary> Book Giveaway> ebook giveaway> Giveaways

Reading Reality Blogo-Birthday

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me!

Oh that sounds strange, doesn’t it?

Today is the second day of Reading Reality’s Blogo-Birthday celebration. This is, rather obviously, the birthday part.

(For a complete explanation of the Blogo-Birthday phenomenon, and to enter yesterday’s giveaways, click here)

It’s my birthday and I’m sharing the joy by giving away more books that I loved.

Devil Devere

Victoria Vane’s Devil DeVere series (A Wild Night’s Bride, The Virgin Huntress, The Devil You Know, The Devil’s Match) has been absolutely oodles of fun to read. There have been moments when I have wanted to shake some of the characters until their teeth rattled, but that’s definitely been part of what has made this series such a blast! Her characters are ones that you want to talk back to. And sometimes choke. Or slap. That’s what made me list the Devil DeVere series as one of the Best Ebook Romances of 2012 in my annual wrap-up for Library Journal.

Victoria is letting me give a complete (as of now) seven-book set of the currently released titles in the Devil DeVere series to one lucky winner for my birthday. Someone is in for a real treat!

Devere collage2

In addition, I will be giving away another Amazon gift card. Two more chances to win.

Can I throw a party or can I throw a party?

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: A Devil’s Touch by Victoria Vane

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Historical romance, Erotic romance
Series: The Devil DeVere #4.5
Length: 60 pages
Publisher: Victoria Vane
Date Released: February 11, 2013
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

A DEVIL’S TOUCH (The Devil DeVere 4.5) is an erotic romance vignette that can stand alone as a complete story, but also serves to bridge Book #4 THE DEVIL’S MATCH, and Book#5 JEWEL OF THE EAST (forthcoming Salime and Simon’s story)

BLURB:
In her last month of pregnancy, Diana, Viscountess DeVere, has barely settled into her new life and role as “the devil” DeVere’s wife, when her increasingly restlesss husband receives an urgent summons to London. When Diana inadvertently discovers a message he received from a known courtesan with whom he was formerly linked, she fears her marriage is over before it has begun.

My Review:

Just the idea of Ludo “Devil” DeVere attempting to be the perfect husband is enough to constitute the perfect Valentine’s Day present all by itself!

What’s even better is that this delightful Georgian bonbon actually delivers every bit of decadent deliciousness that lovers of The Devil DeVere Series could possibly wish for…and sets us all up for wicked delights yet to come.

On his best day, the Devil couldn’t have maneuvered his puppets any better!

But in this little vignette, Ludo DeVere is definitely not having one of his best days. He has finally found that wedded bliss is actually blissful, provided one is wedded to the right woman. For him, that woman is Diana. Through all of their acquantaince, they have thrown sparks off each other at every turn. Even when they have been at their angriest with each other, the one thing they have never been is bored with each other.

Now Diana is radiantly pregnant with his child. Also about to burst with the child. Ludo is about to burst because the damned doctor says he shouldn’t be bothering Diana for sex. Ludo’s never gone 8 hours without sex, and now it’s been 8 days. And bloody counting.

Diana has no idea what’s wrong with Ludo. She thinks he’s lost interest in her because she’s the size of a small estate. He won’t look at her. He won’t touch her. She’s lonely, bored and afraid.

Not to mention extremely pregnant.

Suddenly Ludo’s best friend Ned arrives and whisks him away to London. Ludo claims it’s an emergency regarding their boyhood friend Simon. Sin has miraculously returned to life after years as an American POW, but Diana fears there are darker motives for Ludo’s sudden disappearance. After he departs, she finds a letter addressed to him from his former paramour Salime, requesting his immediate return to rescue her.

Diana, already afraid for her marriage, and questioning Ludo’s rather recent conversion to marital fidelity after a lifetime of utter debauchery, wonders if he’ll return at all, and whether she’ll be better off (for certain utterly miserable values of “better”) if he doesn’t.

Ned gets a good laugh out of telling Ludo that the doctor was an idiot, which puts Ludo in a tearing hurry to return home, only to find that his wife has lost her rather shaky faith in him.

What lengths will they both have to go to bridge the chasm between them?

Escape Rating A: Reading A Devil’s Touch is like indulging in your favorite decadent dessert. Death by Chocolate perhaps. It is very rich, but perfectly scrumptious, and a small serving is just right!

Unlike Devil in the Making, the first Devilish Vignette, A Devil’s Touch is a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. It takes some shortcuts because we are expected to know all the characters. Even Simon was previously introduced in Devil in the Making.

Part of what makes this fun is that Ludo and Diana are still themselves. Ludo is still trying to stage-manage. He loves Diana, and he wants to do what’s best for her. But rather than discuss it with her, he decides for her, and that’s where the misunderstandammit starts. He gets into a lot of scrapes, and a lot of his scrapes with Diana, that way.

I hope she thinks it’s part of his charm.

The setup for the next book in the series, Jewel of the East, is not-so-subtlely the way that Ludo rescues Salime by arranging for her to care for Simon. He’s stage-managing again. When he does it for other people, it usually works wonders.

We’ll find out in April. But first, it’s time to congratulate Lord and Lady DeVere on the birth of their son. Ludovic Valentine DeVere, born 14 February 1784.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

***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.

Guest Post by Victoria Vane + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

My very special guest today is Victoria Vane. Victoria has just published Treacherous Temptations, her latest revel in the mad, bad and dangerously decadent Georgian Era. I’ve asked Victoria to tell us why she loves the Georgian Era so very, very much. (I will say that it seems to love her back. Her Georgian-Era romances are fabulous!)

Why I Love the Georgians (Redux) by Victoria Vane

As a historical romance author, I am often asked why I swim against the Regency tide. My reasoning has two parts. While I adore Regency romances and cut my first romance teeth on Georgette Heyer (still my all-time favorite author) my best loved stories have always been Heyer’s less popular Georgian works— The Black Moth, These Old Shades, The Masqueraders, Devil’s Club, and Powder and Patch. The Regency just doesn’t hold me in thrall the way the paradoxically naughty, bawdy, glitzy, and glamorous Georgian era does.

From almost as early as I can remember, I’ve had a particular fascination with the 18th century— the clothes, the manners, the art and the music, and the longer I have studied it, and the deeper I have delved, my interest has only magnified. The compulsive gaming, hard drinking, and fast living Georgians did everything to excess! And while it may be surpassed in its hypocritical character by the Victorian era with its puritanical social mores coupled with an underworld swimming in opium dens, in my mind, the smoky, gritty Victorians just can’t hold a literary candle to the gleaming gilt of the Georgians!

I think much of it is that we can’t take the Georgians (at least the aristocrats) at face value, for the face they presented to the world was often (literally) a painted façade. Yet, they were still able to mock themselves for it as evidenced by the satirical nature of the popular art and literature. Moreover, almost nothing was better appreciated in this jaded society than a quick wit, which oftimes alone served to elevate some of the lowliest people to the company of nobles.

In my exploration of this golden epoch, people like William Hogarth and Henry Fielding have been my guides, and in addition to consistently incorporating many real people into my stories as secondary characters, historical figures have also served as models for my fictional heroes and heroines. (Frederick, Baron Baltimore was a very loose model for Ludovic DeVere in the Devil DeVere series. Philip, Duke of Wharton inspired Hadley Blanchard in Treacherous Temptations, and the real Mary Edwardes served as a very close model for my own heiress in the same book.

My second reason for seeking my fame and fortune amongst the Georgians began as simply an endeavor to find my own niche—to stand out as a historical author amongst a flooded pool of genuine talent. I sought to do this by learning everything I possibly could about my chosen period. For four years, I have immersed myself in study of the history, politics and art, reading diaries, memoirs, and stage plays, all while listening endlessly to Baroque music.

I have done this in my endeavor to give my era life and breath, to enrich my stories in the most vivid possible way by bringing to them elements of historical reality. I have recently expanded upon this notion of vivid and elaborate world building by commissioning digitally rendered illustrations for my books that I hope will excited readers and enhance the reading experience. (More scene depictions and character portraits are available on my DeVere fan site.)

In all of this I have come to feel very much at home in Georgian England, as if I truly understand them—as if I actually belong there. And just as Georgette Heyer did with the Regency, it is my dearest desire to call the Georgian era my own.

About Treacherous Temptations

A reluctant heiress resigned to her fate… Mary Elizabeth Edwardes has one of the largest fortune’s in England, but has no desire to leave her quiet country existence… and even less to acquire a husband she cannot choose for herself.

A dissolute nobleman bent on retribution… Trapped in a duplicitous existence since scandal destroyed his fortune and family name, Lord Hadley Blanchard has spent the better part of a decade posing as a disaffected exile while spying and seducing in the service of the English Crown.

A dangerous game of seduction, and intrigue… When summoned from abroad by a former lover, Lord Hadley perceives an opportunity for vengeance at last. By employing the full measure of his seductive charm, he woos the ward of the man who destroyed his life, little knowing that winning Mary’s fortune will mean risking his own treacherous heart.

Purchase at Amazon.

About Victoria Vane:A lover of history and deeply romantic stories, Victoria combines these elements to craft romantic historical novels and novellas for a mature reading audience. Her writing influences are Georgette Heyer for fabulous witty dialogue and over the top characters, Robin Schone , Sylvia Day, and Charlotte Featherstone for beautifully crafted prose in stories with deep sensuality, and Lila DiPasqua for creative vision in melding history with eroticism.

You can find Victoria at:

Website | DeVere Fan Site | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

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

Victoria is kindly giving away a digital copy of any title from her backlist.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Treacherous Temptations by Victoria Vane + Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways
Format read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Historical Romance
Length: 181 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Date Released: January 19, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

A reluctant heiress resigned to her fate… Mary Elizabeth Edwardes has one of the largest fortune’s in England, but has no desire to leave her quiet country existence… and even less to acquire a husband she cannot choose for herself.

A dissolute nobleman bent on retribution… Trapped in a duplicitous existence since scandal destroyed his fortune and family name, Lord Hadley Blanchard has spent the better part of a decade posing as a disaffected exile while spying and seducing in the service of the English Crown.

A dangerous game of seduction, and intrigue… When summoned from abroad by a former lover, Lord Hadley perceives an opportunity for vengeance at last. By employing the full measure of his seductive charm, he woos the ward of the man who destroyed his life, little knowing that winning Mary’s fortune will mean risking his own treacherous heart.

Treason, rebellion, espionage, government-backed Ponzi schemes. Dead scapegoats. Live corrupt officials. Incest.

Some of it even happened.

Victoria Vane is an expert at weaving the soiled threads of actual Georgian-era events into a tapestry that proves yet again that foul deeds can wear a fair face. Behind the glittering masks of the aristocracy lurked the corruption that the later Victorian era’s compulsive prudishness was a reaction against.

The Georgian era was a revel.

Two of the events that lay behind the story of Treacherous Temptations were real, historic events. After the Hanoverian kings, in the person of George I, took the throne of Britain, there were a series of rebellions in favor of James Stuart, and later his son Charles. History calls his son “Bonnie Prince Charlie”. The rebellions are known as the “Jacobite Rebellions” and they cost Scotland dearly. The breaking of the clan system in the Highlands was one of the results. (If you want to read more about the Jacobite Risings, invest some time in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. The first three books cover it in glorious detail.)

The Scots did not want “German Georgie” on the throne. They paid in blood. Spying on them paid in cash.

The government-backed Ponzi scheme was also historic fact. Bernie Madoff was small time compared to the South Sea Bubble, because the South Sea Bubble started off as a government investment. It was supposed to reduce the cost of the national debt by investing in trade with South America. There was just one problem–at that point in history, all South American Trade was controlled by Spain, and Britain was at war with Spain. There was also a pesky problem with insider trading.  (Some things never change)

As our story begins, Hadley Blanchard is summoned home after nearly ten years spying on the Jacobite court in exile. This was a dangerous game for him. If he was caught by the Jacobites, they would have killed him. If he was caught in England delivering messages to either his paymaster or to any of the exiled court’s contacts, he had his choice of being executed for treason or killed on sight.

His paymaster would not have protected him, and he knew it. He was living by his wits, and time was probably running out.

About that summons home, it comes from his stepmother. Funny thing about that, she’s also his lover. Or she was. That both is and isn’t as bad as it sounds. They are about the same age. But, it was the sight of the two of them together that caused his father to kill himself instead of her.

The old man definitely shot the wrong person.

And his father’s death was terribly, terribly convenient for the other officers of the South Sea Company. Dead men make very handy scapegoats. Hadley was all of nineteen at the time. He lost his home, his estate, his title, and his income. The government gave him a small stipend and sent him on his way. Disgraced by proxy.

He wants it back. He wants his home back. He wants his self-respect back. He knows that his father was not the engineer behind the South Sea Company collapse. Hadley knows that the man currently paying him to spy on the Jacobites is responsible. He just can’t prove it.

Until fate throws Mary Edwardes in his lap. Literally. The woman whose father purchased his former estates. quite legally. The woman who is now the ward of his enemy, along with her fortune.

All he has to do is seduce her and marry her. He doesn’t even have to like her. It would be so much easier for him if he didn’t like her. If he didn’t care.

But Mary Edwardes seems to actually like him, not just want him. He’s practiced at making women want him. Having someone like him, that’s different. It’s more than novel. It makes him feel like there might be a future, and not just revenge.

Except that he’s not remotely worthy of a woman like Mary. And he still has to make her see that he’s better than any of the alternatives that her guardian will sell her to, even after she finds out the awful truth about him.

Escape Rating B+: Treacherous Temptations has a number of elements of the “perils of Pauline” type of story. Mary Edwardes does seem beyond innocent, even naive. She is nineteen, not sixteen. It’s not that she doesn’t know about sex, it’s that she doesn’t know about people. Sir Richard, her guardian, is selling her to the highest bidder. Lady Barbara is not her friend. Human nature is the same all over. Even in her village there would have been people who were rotten, and nineteen is well out of the schoolroom.

But it’s Hadley’s journey that fascinates. He grows from being a besotted boy in the prologue to a man who has had enough and needs to find a way out. His redemption is the story that we’re following. He needs to throw off his last tie to Barbara, his dependence on Sir Richard’s money, and finally stand up for himself by saving Mary. Hadley pulling himself out of the gutter is the story.

And it’s a damned good one.

~~~~~~TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money 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? 2-3-13

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Great Steampunk Romance Airship Tour> Stacking the Shelves> Virtual Nightstand> Winner announcement

We will pause this Sunday’s Post for a moment of fangirl squeeing…NCIS has been renewed for an eleventh season. Cue Kermit the Frog flailing  his arms and shouting “Yaaay!” I’m looking forward to another season of Gibbs’ rules and the best five-man band on TV.

And now back to our regularly scheduled recap of the past week at Reading Reality plus previews of upcoming events.

As promised in last Sunday’s Post, the winner announcement for the Happy Endings Blog Hop…drumroll please! The Happy Winner is Kathleen D. Congratulations Kathleen!

This week’s big event was definitely the SFR Galaxy Awards. Please rocket over to the Awards site to get the complete list of award winners. And to add oodles of books to your groaning wishlists and TBR stacks. We picked LOTS of really fantastic (pun only partially intended) stories!

The week’s complete recap:

B+ Review: Real Men Don’t Break Hearts by Coleen Kwan
B+ Review: Binding Vows by Catherine Bybee
B- Review: Savage Angel by Stacy Gail
SFR Galaxy Awards
A- Review: Short Soup by Coleen Kwan
Stacking the Shelves (32)

So what’s coming up this week?

I have three guests this week. Cool! Also hot.

On Tuesday, Reading Reality is part of The Great Steampunk Romance Airship Tour. Since Airships are generally kept aloft by a LOT of hot air, there has got to be plenty of steam involved in that conversation–as if steampunk romance wasn’t steamy enough already! (There are also some lovely steampunk-themed giveaways to go along with the tour)

Moving backwards in time just a bit to Monday, my guest will be Catherine Bybee, the author of the MacCoinnich Time Travel Trilogy. She’ll be talking, of course, about time travel in romance, and giving away one of her books. Even though I’ve already reviewed Binding Vows, the first book in the series, I enjoyed it so much I kept going. I’ll have a review of the second book (Silent Vows) on Monday and a review of book three (Redeeming Vows) on Wednesday.

Thursday, finally moving forward in time, my guest will be that mistress of the Georgian romance, Victoria Vane. In addition to her guest post about her love of flawed heroes, she’ll also have a giveaway of her books. And I couldn’t resist the chance to review her latest flawed hero story, Treacherous Temptations.

Last but not least, on Friday I’ll be going back (or forward) to the thrilling days of yesteryear as they never were in the weird, weird west with the second book in Theresa Meyers’ Legend Chronicles. I’m almost finished with The Slayer, and it’s just as thrilling as The Hunter (see this review to discover just how thrilling.) Catacombs, anyone?

Review: Devil in the Making Illustrated Edition by Victoria Vane

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> Book Lovers Inc.> book reviews
Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Devilish Vignettes #1
Length: 60 pages
Publisher: Victoria Vane
Date Released: December 7, 2012
Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

Every devil has a beginning… 
A rebellious young nobleman’s prank with the king’s lion goes comically awry, leading to a startling chain of events. A riotous Georgian romp in the tradition of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones.

It’s a vignette, that’s a sign that it’s short. However, since this is a vignette about how Ludovic DeVere very definitely earned his sobriquet of “Devil DeVere”, it is anything but sweet.

Nor should it be sweet. DeVere would probably spit on the word sweet. Or run it through. Or, if it was female…well, never mind.

Instead, in this vignette readers get a fascinating glimpse of exactly what made Ludo into the man we meet in A Wild Night’s Bride (reviewed here). Or maybe the one we meet in The Devil You Know (review at Book Lovers Inc.), since that comes first chronologically.

We also meet his best friend Ned, who seems to have always needed Ludo to keep him from being a dull dog. We meet them, and two other boys, and they nearly are boys, as very young men, close to graduating from public school.

Until the incident with the lion. And DeVere’s lion-sized pride. The incident that sends him to Europe instead of finishing sixth-form.

It also gives us a painful insight into the reasons behind DeVere’s complete unwillingness to commit himself to any relationship. Watching him suffer for him parents’ sins and it definitely is both in equal measure. It’s also absolutely heart-rending.

If you liked Victoria Vane’s Devil DeVere series, you must read about the making of the Devil. It’s enlightening, especially in the dark places.

Escape Rating B+: As an illustration (also literally, I read the illustrated version) to how the character grew to be the man he is in the later books, this vignette is fascinating. Also both funny and tragic. I’m not sure it would stand alone for a reader not familiar with the series.

The illustrations were great. The artist’s DeVere did match the picture in my head. And the picture of his father, absolutely gave me a shudder. His mother, I’m not quite sure of. But the illustrator’s DeVere was the epitome of a dissolute young rake with a core of steel. Yum.

***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: The Devil’s Match by Victoria Vane

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | 5 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Format read: e-ARC provided by publisher
Release Date: 24 August 2012
Series: Book #4 in the Devil DeVere series
Number of pages: 132 pages
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Formats available: ebook
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon

Blurb:

Once burned twice shy… but when old flames come together…passion reignites…

When burned once… Arriving in London as her goddaughter’s chaperone, Baroness Diana Palmerston-Wriothesley wants to avoid her erstwhile lover at all costs. Once nearly consumed by passion, four years has reduced the former inferno to bitterness and ashes.

By an old flame… A world-weary master of seduction, Ludovic “The Devil” DeVere is bored with his chosen life of debauchery. When Diana’s charge disappears, she is forced to seek help from the devil’s lair, and their mutual desire reignites with undeniable ferocity.

Fire is best fought with fire… While DeVere is hell-bent to have her back for keeps, Diana is equally determined to bring him to his knees…by acquiring some sensual secrets of her own.

My Thoughts: Everything has been leading up to this. Which might be both good and bad. It’s possible to read A Wild Night’s Bride, The Virgin Huntress and The Devil You Know on their own and enjoy them as much as I did Bride and Devil, or didn’t in the case of Huntress, but The Devil’s Match is the culmination of the story begun in the other three books. You need to have read at least The Devil You Know (or, one could say you need to already know how Diana knows the Devil) in order for The Devil’s Match to have the resonance it should.

The “match” in the title of The Devil’s Match could just as easily mean a matchstick for lighting fires as a mate. And, come to think of it, one brand of matches in the early 1800’s was known as “lucifers”, yet another name for the devil. Entirely too appropriate, because the unfinished business between DeVere and Diana makes them set each other off like, well, tinder and matches.

The Devil’s Match picks up right where The Devil You Know ends. Diana stalks into DeVere’s house in the middle of a orgy, Really, an orgy! Full of righteous indignation because DeVere’s brother Hew has kidnapped her goddaughter Vesta (see The Virgin Huntress). There are half-naked women everywhere, and DeVere himself is in the middle of getting serviced while this conversation is taking place! Diana’s speech, and her maintenance of outward composure, is astonishing.

It’s too bad for Diana that DeVere has all too clear an idea of what’s going through her head, and that’s she wrong about who kidnapped whom between Hew and Vesta, admittedly with DeVere’s connivance.

But just like Diana’s assumptions about Vesta’s supposed kidnapping, very little about that scene is exactly what it appears to be. And that’s what made the resolution of this four book long story so interesting (not that the erotic scenes weren’t steamy!) DeVere starts out as merely a sybarite and a rake. A consummate puppet-master out for his own amusement. As the layers peel back, DeVere turns out to be the prisoner of his own fears, too worried about making the same mistakes his parents did to trust his own heart. Or even to trust that he has one.

Verdict: I dove straight from The Devil You Know to The Devil’s Match. I had to find out exactly how the Devil got his due! Once I finally found out how DeVere and Diana end up in the positions (hah!) they are in at the beginning of the series, I couldn’t wait to find out how they got out of the mess.

The Devil’s Match isn’t as frothy as A Wild Night’s Bride, but it’s even more delightful in some ways. Watching the rake not only admit that love just might be possible, but actually reform, is a far better ending for him than anything the reader might have expected when he first sauntered onto the pages of A Wild Night’s Bride. Bravo!

I gladly give The Devil’s Match 5 fiery 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.

The Devil You Know by Victoria Vane

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | 4 1/2 Stars> book reviews> Originally published at Book Lovers, Inc.> The Rocket Lover

Format Read: ebook provided by the author
Number of Pages: 127 pages
Release Date: July 27, 2012
Publisher: Breathless Press
Series: The Devil DeVere #3
Genre: Historical romance
Formats Available: ebook
Purchasing Info:  Goodreads | Author’s Website | Publisher’s Website | Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Book Depository US | Book Depository (UK)

Book Blurb:

When dealing with the devil it’s easy to be burned… especially when passion ignites the flames.
Who can find a virtuous woman… Beautiful, respectable, and dutiful, Lady Diana Palmerston-Wriothesley has long resigned herself to her decade-long loveless and childless marriage to a feckless husband…until his gambling pushes them to the brink of financial ruin.
Sometimes the devil is in disguise…as a gentleman… Viscount Ludovic, “The Devil DeVere”, is a man accustomed to taking what he wants according to his whim and heedless of the cost…until he encounters a woman who won’t be had at any price.
When dealing with the devil, it’s easy to be burned… When Diana discovers a secret that shatters the carefully built façade concealing her private pain, she seeks aid and comfort from the most unlikely place…the devil’s arms. But will a single night of heavenly passion damn them both forever?

My Thoughts:

This was originally posted at Book Lovers Inc.

By this point in TheDevil DeVere series, we really do know this particular devil, Ludovic DeVere. Or at least we think we do. In the first two books of the series, A Wild Night’s Bride and The Virgin Huntress, we’ve seen DeVere as he is now. (Check out the BLI reviews of Bride and Huntress for more details on DeVere’s exploits.) The Devil You Know is the story of what came before all that.

In the first two books of the series, it’s obvious there is a ton of history between Ludo and Lady Diana, and that it didn’t end well. Or rather that it didn’t end at all. They have unfinished business, and one heck of a lot of unresolved sexual tension. Just about enough of it to invent the internal combustion engine a century or so early.

It is a tad disconcerting when this story opens, and one of the characters in the first scene is someone we know is dead in A Wild Night’s Bride. It doesn’t matter, because this isn’t Ned Chambers’ story.

This is finally, at last, the one story that has been looming over everything. What the hell happened between Ludo and Diana that sent him haring out of England and sinking into unprecedented depths of debauchery and caused Diana to rusticate in the country as if she would never return to Society?

Once upon a time, Caroline Capheaton decided it was better to marry an old duke than a young viscount-to-be. She assumed that by the time the old duke died, the viscount-to-be would actually BE the viscount, and that he would still be hers. And in the meantime, she could play with him all she wanted. Ludo DeVere was tired of her by the time she was available, and besides, he’d already tasted everything she had to offer. He just hadn’t found anyone to take her place when Diana entered his life.

And that was his biggest mistake.

Once upon a time, Diana had married Reginald Wriothesly, a man of her father’s choosing. After a few years, she was more than aware that it had been the worst thing she could have done. Reggie gambled to excess. He drank to excess. And he seemed to have no use whatsoever for a wife except for the dowry she had brought him. A dowry which Reggie had entirely gambled away–along with everything else. They were ruined.

The first man to look at Diana with appreciation (and what appreciation it was!) was Ludovic DeVere. A man Diana knew to be a complete and utter rake of the worst kind.

Diana wants DeVere’s backing to race her horse. Her one piece of property that somehow her husband does not own. Winning this particular race will give her enough money to establish herself separately from her husband. She hopes.

DeVere just wants Diana. She intrigues him. But, it’s a more than good enough horse to make the bet worthwhile too. And their little conspiracy means they have to keep meeting together — giving DeVere more opportunities for seduction.

But Diana is not the only one seduced. There turns out to be more involved in this game than just sex, even for so infamous a rake as the Devil DeVere.

Unfortunately for DeVere, just as he sees a chance at happiness, he’s forgotten that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Verdict: If you’ve been following this series as I have, get this book, and then immediately get Devil’s Match and settle in for a nice long reading binge. Trust me, you won’t want to stop reading at the end of The Devil You Know. The cliff the story hangs off of at that point is nail-biting for DeVere and Diana, even though it is the point where the other two books come in.

The Devil You Know is one of the cases where the misunderstanding between the hero and heroine is intentional and it works. DeVere is not trustworthy, particularly not at this point in his life. He is pretty much every bad thing that Diana thinks he is except financially insolvent (DeVere is the epitome of that old cliché about lucky at cards and unlucky in love).

The tragedy in The Devil You Know is that DeVere is starting to redeem himself, and he has to bring it all tumbling down in order to save Diana. Because he feels something he can’t even identify beyond possessiveness.

 

I gladly give The Devil You Know 4 1/2 quite delicious 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.