Archive for the 'C Reviews' Category
Dear Ms. Howard:
 I confess that I was at first taken aback by the length of this hardcover. I remember thinking unkind thoughts about this format when Janet Evanovich put out her first Christmas hardcover. Those have sold like crazy so I guess that readers are unfazed by the length of the story and the cost. After all, a story is a story, right?
When I started ICE, I began to get excited. A good category length Howard is worth hardcover pricing. I know that I would have paid quite a bit to read the Diamond Bay trilogy because it was so good. The first and second chapters read like a vintage category Howard romance and if it had kept in that vein, I would have been able to recommend this unreservedly. However, in keeping with your current writing voice, this book is far more focused on the action/suspense than it is on the characters and their relationship with each other.
The story takes place, mostly, over the space of one afternoon. There is an impending icestorm and military policeman, Gabriel, is home on leave. His father, the local …
Dear Ms. Teglia:
 Thank you for sending this novella to me for review. I know, having read erotic romance* for several years, that here is a real skill in delivering believable and sexy consummation scenes. You have that skill and I appreciated the delivery of that content. The overall construct, perhaps because of the length, was problematic.
Maggie Parker and Adam Richards were a couple until Maggie up and left one day, leaving Adam sleeping and a post it note breaking up with him. She moved to Chicago to take a job with a magazine. When Maggie’s sister gives birth to a son alone and abandoned by her husband, Maggie returns to her hometown near Washington, D.C.. Of course, that puts her back into proximity with Adam.
Adam feels like there was unfinished business between them and proposes that Maggie have sex with him until she leaves for Chicago again. Adam wants to sex Maggie out of his system. Maggie is given a remote assignment to come up with a story about Adam, race car driver who leaves it all behind to start a mechanic shop.
I wasn’t sure why Adam and Maggie started …
Dear Ms. Sheridan,
 When Tina submitted a list of new books to Dear Author for possible review, “Falling Through Glass” grabbed my attention. Hmmm, time travel to 19th century Japan in the waning days of samurai warriors. Can’t get much more different than that.
Since I’m feeling lazy this morning. I’m just going to steal the blurb at Liquid Silver.
Los Angeles
Present Day
Japanese-American Emiko Maeda set aside her film school studies following the sudden death of her father. At odds with her mother and burdened with the guilt over her role in the tragic accident, she moves in with her uncle Jake and comes into possession of an antique mirror. While accompanying Jake to Japan on a film shoot, Emmi is caught in a freak storm and plunged through time–into Feudal Japan and the world of samurai.
Kyoto, Japan
1864
The city of Kyoto is ablaze with violence and on the brink of civil war. Nakagawa Kaemon is a young samurai with a secret. He gathers information on those who claim to “Revere the emperor” but harbor their own agenda to control the country. Kae is honor bound to execute anyone who poses a threat to the throne
…
Dear Ms. Lyons:
 This is a witch/witch hunter paranormal and while witch stories are not proliferous within the paranormal sub genre, the underlying tropes are familiar. Â Wing Slayer hunters, men chosen by the Wing Slayer to protect witches, must find their soul mirror or succumb to the rogue state where they live to slaughter witches. This story tries to inject new life into the soul mate saveth trope by placing into question whether love can overcome magical destiny.
Carla is a powerful witch who helps those rescued from cults to overcome brainwashing. She works at a local clinic with her good friend Max, a sociologist (and probably a Wing Slayer to be). Max was a caring, curious sociologist until he was unable to save someone from dying in a cult. Then he became romance hero material: “The curious sociologist in Max died, and this man, full of passion, grief, anger and guilt, was born.” Max is mentioned quite frequently but plays absolutely no role in this book despite having unrequited feelings for Carla. I can only guess that he is to be hero of his own book after suitably suffering …
Dear Ms. Slade:
 I confess to being reluctant to start this book. I’m not sure why. I think because there wasn’t anything about the description of the book or the cover that really stood out. It was a paranormal story about good demons and bad demons. Given that it was a free book, however, it didn’t hurt to at least read the first chapter. I was intrigued enough by the first chapter to continue given that the writing style appealed to me.
Ferris Archer is a former southern gentleman who is now one of the demon possessed. He and others like him have banded together to fight in the war against other demon possessed individuals and malices that populate the earth. Archer views himself not so much as a warrior, but a trash collector . Malices can be drained but they cannot be returned to hell and over time, just regenerate. To say that Archer is weary would be an understatement. He went from fighting in the Civil War to a non stop, centuries long battle against entities simply cannot be defeated. When others warn him that …
Dear Ms. Somers:
 Thank you for sending me your book for review. Â It was recommended as an erotic shapeshifting romance. Â I’ll confess that when I started it, I thought it was a werewolf book, but it is not. Â The Pendragon Gargoyles myth is based on cursed (or blessed) creatures that turn to stone during the daylight.
Kennedy Beaumont is a bartender at a popular club called Pendragon.  She has the hots for one of the owners, Tristan Pendragon, but he’s never signaled a return interest and so Kennedy has just lusted from afar.  One night she is targeted by an unknown danger and Tristan helps to save her.  They are placed in such close proximity (her car) that Tristan’s longing for Kennedy cannot be suppressed.  Much to Kennedy’s surprise, Tristan has lusted in a reciprocal, but silent manner as well.
The length of the book is category and I felt it was too short for the subject matter. Â Primal Hunger is the first book in the series, but it seemed like it was a middle book. There were references to other stories, occurrences and myths, none of which are resolved in this book. Â The myth …
Dear Ms. Ward,
 I don’t even know where to begin. While it’s true I’m a fan of your Black Dagger Brotherhood series, I stopped making any claims about its purported quality many books back. Romance? Unlike most readers who thought the first books were romance, only for later ones to shift into the urban fantasy category, I never believed the series belonged in the romance genre in the first place. So I took it with a very large, very heavy bucket of salt when I heard that your new series, starting with Covet, would be more romantic. Sorry, but it’s true.
Jim Heron is an ex-military assassin, jaded and cynical about life. He drifts from one place to the next, putting down no roots and trying to stay out of trouble. He’s currently employed as a construction worker but when the mansion he’s currently helping to build is completed, he intends to move on. Then on the eve of his fortieth birthday, he hooks up with a woman at the club, Iron Mask.
What he thought would only be a pleasant memory unfortunately leads to more, just not in …
Dear Ms. Lee:
 This is the first book in your Three Rich Husbands series (no need for subtlety here).  Honestly the last memory of a Lee book I had was of a weeping doormat heroine who shed more water than rain falls in Seattle.  I had signed up for the HP subscription service and your book was one I received.  So I tried it out.
Russell McClain vowed vengeance against Alistair Power, a wealthy Australian businessman, when Power Mortgages foreclosed on Russell’s family farm leading Russell’s father to commit suicide. Â Sixteen years later, Russell is successful. Â He has ruined Alistair Power, and, as a coup de grace, has even purchased the Belleview Hill mansion that housed the Powers for years.
Nicole Power is summoned to claim her personal possessions before the family home is turned over to the new buyer. Â Nicole was a spoiled rich girl who, after finding her fiance in the arms of his PA, began shambling about the world, finding new meaning in helping poor children. Â She realizes that the jewels and other effects can be sold to provide for a better environment for the children in a particular …
Dear Ms. Kittredge,
 I have a very hard time explaining why I keep reading this series. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the main character, Luna Wilder, can be really off-putting at times. On the other hand, it’s very nice to see her maturing and evolving over the course of the series. The Luna Wilder we meet in Witch Craft, the fourth installment of your Nocturne City series, is certainly not the same Luna Wilder we met at the beginning in Night Life. Well, in some ways, at any rate. I still question her taste in men.
When Witch Craft opens, Luna is now the head of the Supernatural Crimes Squad (SCS), a new division in Nocturne City’s police force created to look into cases not quite on the mundane side of things. Problem is they want the SCS to start bringing results ASAP. If not, then they’ll be disbanded and Luna and her co-workers will be out of a job.
Luna sees their chance to prove themselves with a new case. Mysterious fires are being set all over the city, killing some unsavory people who deal with Nocturne City’s supernatural side. What’s more, …
Dear Authors:
 I opened THIS anthology because I liked Sindustry I. But this volume is so obviously all the leftover stories from the Sindustry I anthology that didn’t quite make it into the first volume. And most of these stories should NOT have been included. This anthology had very few redeeming stories and some that make me want to puke, which kinda dampens any enthusiasm I might have for the whole. Mostly it’s filled with stories with awful, weak, boring, TSTL characters who couldn’t characterize their way out of a paper bag, and their ridiculously over-protective and unrealistic saviors. I have never really understood what m/m readers are complaining about when they say that that one of the characters doesn’t have to be the woman, but I do now. In this volume, one half of the relationship was invariably the damsel in distress who needed saving, the other the knight in shining armor who knew just how to take care of things, pretty lady…uh, I mean lad. Yech.
As in Sindustry I, the premise is that these are all stories about people in the sex industry, either strippers, prostitutes, or porn actors. This volume does a …
Dear Ms. Roberts:
 I am trying to climb onto the futuristic bandwagon so I was excited when I saw this book released from Samhain this week. While the story had potential and I found it readable, I ultimately came away disappointed.
Blademir, the Crown Heir to the throne of Barian, was sent on a diplomatic mission to Zona, a matriarchal society that had closed itself off to the rest of the planet. Zona grew out of a pleasure slave to Barin (how she grew to have her own culture I never really understood). Zona refused to advance technologically causing people living in its outer sphere to conduct raids into Barian land. Blade has been sent to Zona to convince the Matriarch that a little cooperation and trade could increase the standard of living for all Zonans.
Taryn Penthes is a Zonan Silvergard Commander. The Silvergard are the elite fighting squad charged with defending the Zonan. She is to escort the Bariani diplomatic team to the Lady Palace. The team gets ambushed and two members of the diplomatic team are killed and so is the Crown Prince’s Prime. Taryn …
Dear Authors:
 I only opened this volume when Dreamspinner sent it to us because Madeleine Urban had a co-written story in it. I adore her longer co-written stories with Abigail Roux, and the volume started off with “Reluctant,” so I thought I’d have a great little story and then skim through the rest. Instead, “Reluctant” was truly awful and the rest of the stories saved me from chucking the volume off my computer.
At 332 pages, this is a seriously hefty volume (electronic, of course). And with only 12 stories, that’s between 25-30 pages a story, much longer than the usual short stories crammed into an anthology. This gives enough time to actually flesh out the characters, plots, and themes. Or time for the story to move from blah to boring and awful.
The theme for the volume is sex industry workers: both low- and high-end prostitutes and strippers, mainly. What was fascinating to me more than anything was how each story used the sex industry angle—as a meet-cute, as conflict, as a moral failing, as a perfectly legitimate profession, with or without comment. I’m strangely fascinated by this particular profession and by how …
Dear Mr. Lane:
 As I immediately emailed to you when you sent met his book, “Good God, the fairy godmother of cover images likes YOU, doesn’t she?!” I adore this cover, as I did the cover of the first Amaranth novel. (Anne Cain did the art. One might almost say “Of course, Anne Cain did the cover art.” I’m not sure she’s capable of doing a bad cover.) And while I read the novel in one sitting, unable to put it down, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Dark Heart and, despite its labeling on Loose Id, I wouldn’t call it a BDSM novel as such.
Coryn is a newly trained Master Mage, a healer. On his travels one day, he stops three men from slaughtering a plague-ridden slave. He heals and claims the slave as his own, then goes to the plague-ridden city Elverton to help the people there. Days later, he has healed so many people, he himself is dangerously weak, but he’s not closer to figuring out where the plague came from and how it’s spreading, which is when he calls in more of his Guild, healers …
Dear Ms. Ryan-Davis:
 This is a book in which I loved the voice but didn’t love the execution of the story which means I’ll be on the look out for future books despite this one not working out for me.
John Raincrow has been dispatched by C.C. Carver’s family to bring her home which dovetails nicely with C.C.’s own desire to return home. Â When C.C’s mother had had enough of the West, she left her sons and husband and took C.C. back east. Â She remarried to a wealthy man and both died. Â C.C., alone except for her stepfamily, determines that she’ll take her inheritance and return to her brothers in the West.
C.C. travels west in the company of her stepbrother and two others, all disreputable. Â The story opens with C.C. and her traveling companions in a gambling establishment, working to cheat the house. Â C.C. is dressed tartily and playing some kind of role in the grift. Â John Raincrow finds C.C. here and “buys” her release from her group.
The workings of the plot are sound. C.C falls into the hands of an unscrupulous family and she must negotiate her time with them until she can …
Dear Mrs. Moore,
 After I had read “A Lover’s Kiss,” I fell in love with the secondary character of Lord “Buggy” Bromwell, friend to the hero of that book and the ones that preceded it. So when I checked out the August Harlequin Historical releases and realized that this was Buggy’s book, I pounced.
Justinian “Buggy” Bromwell never expected to meet the love of his life in a mail coach traveling from London to Bath. Just as Nell Springely didn’t expect to find her heart’s delight with a man who adores spiders. Still that’s what happens among other things including impersonation of a noblewoman, standing up to one’s parents, fending off nasty, brutish noblemen and traveling around the world in the name of scientific exploration.
Oh, this book started off so well. Buggy and Nell meet and have instant feelings for each other though neither one intends that these feeling should go any further. Nell plays her role of being Lady Eleanor, daughter of a Duke, though she eventually fesses up to Buggy and his mother instead of letting things continue until the end of the book. Buggy’s father eventually comes around and tells his son …
Dear Ms. Borrill:
 I have to confess that I had gotten used to your “ordinary people” romance and expected this one to be within that oevre. I did not read the blurb, but bought this on author name alone.
Clint Hilton has it all and I do mean all. He is mega rich (from being one of the biggest builders in LA); he is drop dead gorgeous (thanks to his parents); he is smooth (from all the practice he’s had playing the field). The longest he’s gone without sex has been about three weeks. Self sacrifice and failure aren’t in Clint Hilton’s vocabulary. The problem is that Clint’s mother lives with him and refuses to get her own home because she’s just not ready for that since his father died. Clint’s secretary, Carmen, gives him the name of Margot Roth, a relationship counselor and one of the best matchmakers in Hollywood.
Margot isn’t really a matchmaker but she does help individuals search for the cause of their relationship issues and pair them up with other clients. Clint’s mother, Jillian, is totally against matchmakers so Clint offers to pay Margot …
Dear Ms. Mallery,
 That I endeavored to read Lip Service is probably a surprise to anyone who read my Twitter entries about the first book in the Titan sisters series (Under Her Skin), since that book hit quite a few of my hot buttons. But a good experience with the Buchanan series and active curiosity about the suspense subplot in Under Her Skin got me to give the second book a try. And I must say that I liked Lip Service quite a bit better than Under Her Skin, in large part because I found the characters of Skye and Mitch more believable and relatable, and their relationship more interesting than Lexi and Cruz’s. Lip Service still wasn’t a real winner for me, but it did offer promise for the remaining two books in the series (sister Izzy and good friend Dana’s stories).
Mitch Cassidy has been gone for almost nine years, and he is not returning home a whole man – at least not according to his definition of the word. Instead, he is returning embittered and incomplete, having lost part of his leg in Afghanistan and most of his faith in life all along …
Dear Ms. Day
 It’s tough for a reader to jump into the middle of a series.  Atlantis Unmasked is the fourth book in the Warriors of Poseiden series.  Reading the first three was too intimidating in terms of a time commitment. and I fully acknowledge that this book would probably have worked better for me if I had read from the first.
Alexios is a battle scarred Atlantean who fights for Atlantis to be lifted out of the sea. He apparently longs to claim Grace, a leader of rebel forces. Grace was an Olympic caliber swimmer who lost her brother to a vampire attack. She left her training as a swimmer to become a soldier in the human/shifter army.
Grace is no ordinary human, though, she is descendant of the Goddess Diana. (This makes me think that her Olympic status was a little unfair. It would be like allowing the drugged up athletes to compete against the non drugged up athletes).
Alexios is determined not to let Grace know that he wants her until he lets her know that he wants her. Originally I thought he didn’t want to reveal his inner desire for Grace because he …
Dear Ms. Rowland:
 I’ve been stuck in a reading rut for months. Nothing has appealed to me. Even books I was dying to get my hands on 6 months ago have languished away unread on my bookshelves. After I explained my situation to Jane, she recommended your work and I’m glad that she did. I did have some trouble getting into the story and had issues with the characters, but ultimately it proved to be an entertaining book.
Kara Gillian is a Detective in a small town not too far from New Orleans. She’s also a summoner of demons. Perhaps because of this, Kara has been fascinated for years by the unsolved Symbol Man murders and what she believes may be the involvement of the arcane arts in said murders. When a body is found with strikingly similar injuries to the previous victims, Kara is pulled from her detective work in white collar crimes for her first homicide investigation.
While Kara is trying to stay one step ahead, or at least not too many behind, the Symbol Man and his steadily increasing body count, she’s also experiencing some demon trouble. One night while attempting to summon a lower …
Dear Ms. Krentz:
 I’ve read many of your out of print Harlequin Temptations (it was one of my favorite Harlequin lines). Lady’s Choice with featuring a barista who secretly wanted to be selling tea was probably my favorite although I’ve re-read The Wedding Night wherein the heroine, Angie, finds out too late that her husband married her as part of a business deal…or did he? One title I had not read was Uneasy Alliance, Harlequin Temptation No. #11. Harlequin just re-released the book (in paper only) as part of their Famous First celebration.
Uneasy Alliance is a book for die hard Krentz fans only because while I appreciate how Abby and Torr are types of characters Krentz fans grow to love, the two are immature reflections. Abby is somewhat independent but allows Torr to basically control every aspect of her life toward the end. Torr appears quirky and deep but also exhibits caveman like behavior which isn’t as elegantly done in Uneasy Alliance as it does it later books.
Abby Lyndon and Torr Latimer meet in a Japanese flower arranging class. Torr’s designs are perfect models of restraint and harmony. Abby’s …
Dear Ms. Knight:
 The first book I read by you was Red Fire (which I thought I had written a review for but could not find in the archives). I enjoyed Red Fire and didn’t hesitate to pick up Red Kiss. Â The premise of the Gods of Midnight series is that on the last day of the Battle of Thermopylae, King Leonides and his six most faithful warriors, awakened on the banks of the River Styx. Â Ares, the god of war, materializes and offers the seven immortality if they would continue to fight against “every form of evil that threatened humanity.”
All of the warriors agreed except for Kassandros, the servant of Captain Petrakos. Â Kassandros was not given a choice, but instead was dipped in the River Styx by Ares. Â While each of the other warriors can shift into a bird of prey, Kassandros was made into a weapon. Â At the command of his master, Ajax, Kassandro becomes a blade. Â During his last battle he shapeshifted into a dagger and was thrown into a waterway near Little Tybee Island. Â The dagger wants to possess him and the longer that he remains in the dagger …
Note: This is Janine’s entry for Keishon’s To Be Read challenge.
Dear Ms. Frierson,
 It is 1953 in Plumville, Georgia, and seven year old Benjamin Drummond considers four year old Coralee “Ceelee” Simmons his best friend. Little Bennie loves to read to Ceelee and is determined to protect her from the bullying of Tommy Birch. But when Bennie announces that he wants to marry Ceelee when they grow up, his mother insists that Ceelee’s mother stop bringing her to their house.
In Florence Drummond’s eyes, it won’t do for the two children to remain close. Coralee’s mother, Patty, is Florence’s housekeeper, while Florence’s husband is a state judge in whose footsteps Benjamin is expected to follow. But that can’t happen if Benjamin remains so openly friendly toward Ceelee. Benjamin is white; Coralee is black. The two must be separated.
Flash forward fifteen years to 1968. Benjamin and Coralee are both attending the newly integrated Solomon College in Bakersfield, not far from Plumville. Twenty-two year old Benjamin is a senior political science major, football team quarterback, and a member of a “Good ole Omega Kappa Psi” fraternity. …
Dear Ms. Martin,
 I really enjoyed your last book, Power Play, enough that I was looking forward to With a Twist. Unfortunately, this book never really got off the ground for me, owing to shallow characterizations and a heavy (and irritating) reliance on stereotyping over true character-building.
Natalie Bocuse is a Frenchwoman waitressing in her sister Vivi’s bistro in Bensonhurst. Natalie was raised in Paris and has a certain snobbishness about her current less-than-cosmopolitan surroundings. She wants to move to Manhattan and find a job as a restaurant manager – and she aspires high, to a quality restaurant, in spite of the fact that she has no experience.
Quinn O’Brien is a reporter with the New York Sentinel. Quinn lives and breathes his job, He’s having a tough time lately, though, because the Sent has been bought by a Rupert Murdoch-type media mogul, who has installed an Australian, Mason Clement as boss. Mason wants to make changes in the paper, turning it into a tabloid and cutting down on the hard hitting metro news that has been Quinn’s beat in favor of celebrity gossip and silly “local color” stories.
As the book opens, Quinn …
Dear Ms. Aiken,
 When I heard you were expanding beyond the pack books written as Shelly Laurenston to this Dragon Kin series, I was really looking forward to these new books. Not only do I have a soft spot for dragons, but I still love the tough, independent heroines for which you are known. And in that sense, Dragon Actually (comprised of two related stories) does not disappoint: Annwyl and Rhiannon, the two heroines, are at the top of the female alpha scale. But in terms of the overall world-building, character, and relationship development, the book read to me like more of a draft than as finished, polished work.
In Dragon Actually, Annwyl the Bloody (aka Annwyl of Garbhán Isle, Annwyl of the Dark Plains) prepares to faces off against her eeevil brother, Lorcan, the Butcher of Garbhán Isle. The story opens in the midst of a battle scene in which Annwyl is struck through with a sword, convincing her that she will die before she has a chance to take her brother’s head. Her impressive bravery right to the end is impressive, however, especially to the enormous black dragon who inhabits the land on …
You are new to me
And I love a good contemp
(And hockey heroes)
 Sadly, this was not
The read I was looking for.
Almost, but not quite.
Faith is ex-Playboy
Bunny and stripper who wed
A millionaire
Sound familiar?
Yep. It’s a romance spin of
Anna Nicole Smith.
But Faith is ’special’.
Because she loved the geezer
Not just his money.
The geezer bumps off
And leaves Faith his hockey team.
(Sounds like SEP)
Team Captain Hero
You saw this coming a mile
away, didn’t you?
They bicker, smolder
And eventually land
in bed together
Predictable plot.
I’ll spare you all the rehash.
Carebear ending too.
My main problem? Faith.
Kept waiting for her to grow
A spine. Still waiting.
The story conflict?
‘Evil’ son of tycoon who
Bullies heroine.
Faith is also very
Nonchalant about stripping
But in a weird way.
Players would treat her
Like a ho, but she was fine
With it…why? Oh wait.
Her thought? She DESERVES
The lewd comments. She took off
her clothes for money.
She is fine with her
Sexuality…but dresses
Like a dowdy nun.
Her fogey husband
Wanted a lady, you see!
Not a stripper ho.
So to recap Faith:
No spine. Gold digger. Moral
Stripper. Nun Wardrobe.
Don’t get me started
On Layla, Faith’s ‘bad’ stripper
alter-ego. Ugh.
Your writing style? Cute.
Could have been a great story.
But I am unmoved.
C
This book can be purchased in mass market from an independent bookstore or …
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