Serial-Killer

REVIEW:  Slashback by Rob Thurman

REVIEW: Slashback by Rob Thurman

Dear Ms. Thurman, It’s rare that a long-running series can hold my attention. Very few authors have successfully have kept my engagement levels high over extended periods of time. (And one of them I freely admit is done so with no small amount of resentment — George R. R. Martin, I’m looking at you.) Usually(…)

REVIEW:  Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

REVIEW: Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

Dear Brenna Yovanoff: I read your debut novel, The Replacement, a couple years ago and loved it. I put your sophomore effort, The Space Between, on my list of books to check out but it never quite happened. Whoops. There are so many books out there; sometimes I lose track. But when I was offered(…)

REVIEW:  Red by Kate Kinsey

REVIEW: Red by Kate Kinsey

Dear Ms. Kinsey: I confess that my expectations of this book may have played a part in how I ultimately felt and my grade.  If this is a romance, I don’t think it succeeds.  If it is viewed as a police procedure/serial killer story, it’s a bit more successful. Red should be billed as an(…)

REVIEW:  Twisted by Laura Griffin (A Different Perspective)

REVIEW: Twisted by Laura Griffin (A Different Perspective)

Dear Ms. Griffin, I’ve mentioned before that the reason I don’t read much romantic suspense is that usually one aspect or the other gets shortchanged and I end up disappointed. Your books, however, have usually been the exception. A few little things in them might niggle but I’ve come to expect that in order to(…)

REVIEW: Deconstruction by Kit Zheng

REVIEW: Deconstruction by Kit Zheng

Dear Ms. Zheng. Dianne Fox recommended this book on her LiveJournal and since she’s part of my “trust network” and I was intrigued by the description — “seriously fantastic” and “dark and gritty and wrenching” — I went out and bought it. And oh, am I glad I did. Tomas is a stripper and a(…)

REVIEW: The Edge of Night by Jill Sorenson

REVIEW: The Edge of Night by Jill Sorenson

Readers of this review should know that Jill Sorenson contributes f/f and f/f/m reviews to this blog on a once-a-month basis. Dear Ms. Sorenson, Contemporary romantic suspense is a genre I can enjoy a lot when a book is well-executed, but most of the time, I don't find myself drawn to reading books in this(…)

REVIEW: Slave to Love by Nikita Black

REVIEW: Slave to Love by Nikita Black

Dear Ms. Black: It’s very hard to write this review because something happens at the end of the book that shades my entire view of the story so a post mortem is a little difficult because the story, before the ending, was really intriguing despite a few problems with believability. And frankly, while I read(…)

REVIEW: Unspeakable by Laura Griffin

REVIEW: Unspeakable by Laura Griffin

Dear Ms. Griffin, You are my go-to author for thrillers and romantic suspense. “Unspeakable” is taut, hot, had me glued to it for the last 100 pages and is on my rec list for July releases. Elaina McCord doesn’t want to be working in the FBI office in Brownsville, Texas but that’s where she was(…)

REVIEW:  The Search by Nora Roberts

REVIEW: The Search by Nora Roberts

Dear Ms. Roberts: I have to confess that my enjoyment of The Search is based in large part of my personal circumstances and therefore my review could be wildly inaccurate for others. The Search is about a search and rescue dog.   I mean, it is more than that but it is primarily about dogs, the(…)

REVIEW: The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

REVIEW: The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

Dear Ms. Derting, Your debut initially piqued my interest when I read the premise: a teenage girl with the ability to sense death gets tangled up with a serial killer. For all my purported weariness with the urban fantasy genre and its related subsets, I can’t seem to stay away because I love the paranormal(…)

REVIEW: The Elegant Corpse by A.M. Riley

REVIEW: The Elegant Corpse by A.M. Riley

Dear Ms. Riley. DA reader cs recommended your writing to me in one of my previous posts. I bought this and Amor en Retrogrado and devoured both of them in about 36 hours. I adore Roger and Sean in this story, adore your presentation of BDSM, and adore the storyline, huge gaping plot holes or(…)

REVIEW: Black at Heart by Leslie Parrish

Dear Ms. Parrish, Finally book three of the Black Cats series about a special FBI section which deals with crimes committed over the Internet. I wasn’t too sure how it would work for me since the person I assumed would be the heroine hadn’t impressed me much as a secondary character in “Fade to Black”(…)

REVIEW: Beautiful C*cksucker II: Such a Good Boy by Barbara Sheridan

REVIEW: Beautiful C*cksucker II: Such a Good Boy by Barbara Sheridan

Dear Ms. Sheridan. Thank you for sending me your story when I was moaning on Twitter one night about wanting to read a BDSM romance. I hope you don’t regret it. When I agreed to read the book, I had no idea it was #2 of the Beautiful C*cksucker series. I had no idea that(…)

REVIEW: Pitch Black by Leslie Parrish

Dear Ms. Parrish, “Pitch Black,” the second book in your new series has been getting rave reviews at various blog and review sites. After reading it, I can see why. You appear to have taken criticisms of the romantic suspense genre to heart and tried to avoid the ones which cause readers to groan and(…)

REVIEW: Fade to Black by Leslie Parrish

Dear Ms. Parrish, It was the review at AAR that convinced me to try “Fade to Black.” I have the same issues with romantic suspense novels that reviewer Katie Mack lists: convenient TSTL moments, too alpha heroes, suspense plots that aren’t suspenseful and, my personal bugaboo, inappropriately timed sex. I also don’t like my rom-susp(…)