Seductive Musings

Double Review: Taking It All by Maya Banks

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Wed, 06 Aug 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Taking It All *
Author: Maya Banks
Series: Surrender Trilogy #3
Genre: contemporary BDSM erotic romance
Publisher: Penguin
Format: ebook, print, audio
Date/Year: August 5, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele & ElaineReads

*This book was provided to the reviewers by the publisher in exchange for honest reviews.

Summary from the publisher:

In her sensational Breathless Trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maya Banks tested the boundaries of desire. In her new trilogy, there’s only one thing left to do: cross them. And for a married couple taking steps to renew their marriage, the consequences of one single moment of inattention may come at a price the husband never expects…

Chessy and Tate have been married for several years. In the beginning, their relationship was everything she wanted. Passionate. All-consuming. She offered her submission freely and Tate cherished her gift with a tenderness that made her feel safe. Content. Wanted. Loved beyond all measure. But as the years have gone by, Tate has become more immersed in making his business a success, and Chessy has taken a back seat to his business obligations. Growing unhappy with the status of their once blissful marriage, Chessy knows that something has to give, or they stand to lose it all.

Tate loves his wife. Has always loved her. Providing for her has always been his number-one priority. But lately she’s seemed unhappy, and he’s worried. Worried enough that he arranges for a night together that he hopes will reignite the fire that once burned like an inferno between them.

But a business call at the wrong time threatens everything. Chessy’s safety, his concentration, his wife’s faith in him as her husband—a man sworn to love and protect her above all else. Gutted with the realization that he’s going to lose her—has already lost her—he readies for the fight of his life. Whatever it takes, he’ll get her back, show her that nothing is more important than her love. And that if she’ll allow him to prove himself one more time, he’ll take it all. Everything. But he’ll give back far more: Himself. His undying love.

Michele's Musings:

This book contains spoilers for LETTING GO and GIVING IN, the first two books in the Surrender trilogy. You might be able to read TAKING IT ALL as a standalone, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Finally, after all the buildup in the first two Surrender trilogy books, we get Chessy and Tate’s story here in TAKING IT ALL. After Carson Breckenridge died too soon in a tragic car accident, it was more than a year before both his widow Josslyn and his sister Kylie were able to find love and happiness with the two men who were already present in their lives. Now that all their good friends are settled and happy, it’s the already-married Tate and Chessy who are forced to confront their own growing isolation from each other, one that threatens to end their marriage if something isn't done soon.

Tate and Chessy had always been one of the golden couples in their immediate group of friends and family, even as everyone was still in mourning for the loss of Carson. But Tate has been spending too many nights and weekends trying to build up his business and it’s Chessy who has paid the price. She’s put on a brave face for him and everyone else, not wanting to seem ungrateful for all his hard work even as she dies a little more inside each day. It’s only when they make arrangements for a rare night out alone together to celebrate their wedding anniversary that everything comes to a head. When Chessy spells out to Tate exactly why she is so angry with him, he seems to get the message and immediately starts trying to mend the breach before it becomes irreparable. Yet it will still take one more mind-boggling mistake on Tate’s part before he realizes exactly how much he’s failed Chessy, and what he must to do prove himself worthy as both her husband and Dominant once more.

TAKING IT ALL was the perfect mix of nearly everything I love: marriage in trouble, a D/s couple in love, and the steady hand of Maya Banks to make sure it all played out exactly as it should. Add to that another appearance of Damon Roche, my all-time favorite Maya Banks character, and it’s no surprise that I loved this book so much. Chessy suffered silently for much too long, hoping every day that the man to whom she had given her love and submission would come to his senses and return to her. Tate was genuinely clueless about how much he’d been hurting his wife as he believed he was helping them both by devoting every waking hour to running his company. Even when their initial showdown appeared to have set things right, it was clear that their reconciliation was a tenuous one, and I was just as worried as Chessy that Tate could slip up again. When he did so at the absolutely worst possible moment, I knew that a hero screw-up of this magnitude demanded an equally epic hero grovel, and Maya Banks did not disappoint. This realistic portrayal of a loving D/s couple’s painful falling out and hard-won reconciliation was the heart and soul of TAKING IT ALL, and it’s what made this final book in the uniformly excellent Surrender trilogy the very best one of them all.

Michele's Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 4

ElaineReads's Musings:

This was the story I was waiting for since the first book in the Surrender trilogy. I really enjoyed the first book, LETTING GO, with Joss and Dash and it did an excellent job of introducing the characters for the next two books. I wanted book two to be Chessy’s and Tate’s story because their situation was so compelling. It wasn’t obviously, but GIVING IN, Kylie’s and Jensen’s story was excellent and I learned more about Chessy and Tate in it. Finally, with TAKING IT ALL, I get their story.

And I didn’t like it.

Okay, I liked it, but it wasn’t the story I hoped for. I thought some of the dialogue was stilted and didn’t flow like Maya Bank’s normal writing. The scene for the anniversary dinner could almost have been lifted from another book by Banks, STAY WITH ME, which by the way is an excellent book. There were differences of course, but the basis was still the same.

I had a really hard time liking or believing in Tate. Even after he realized he was losing Chessy, he still was too wrapped up in his business. The scene where her life was threatened went too far. I can’t say much without spoilers, but there were other people who would have intervened to help her sooner than they did.

Even after all that, the story was satisfying. Not only did I get to see how things worked out between Chessy and Tate, but I got to see the development of the relationships between Joss and Dash and Kylie and Jensen. I feel like I have read one long book rather than three individual ones. Everything flowed together so well.

Read this book, but only if you have read the first two of the Surrender trilogy. They really do make a great story and you will like how everything works out for the three couples.

ElaineReads's Ratings:

Overall: 3.5 stars
Sensuality level: 5 (BDSM, menage)

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

The Good, the Bad & the Unread (B)
My Book Addiction Reviews (5)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 8/5/2014 = 4.11 stars)

*Seductive Musings is an Amazon affiliate and receives a very small referral fee for purchases made via the links on the blog and through the Seductive Musings Amazon Store. Read the full disclosure here.

Review: Hillbilly Rockstar by Lorelei James

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Hillbilly Rockstar*
Author: Lorelei James
Series: Blacktop Cowboys series
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: Berkley NAL
Format: ebook, print, and audio
Date/Year: August 5, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

She’s protecting his body and guarding her heart....

Country music star Devin McClain understands there’s a downside to life in the public eye, but the laidback Wyoming cowboy has never imagined he’d attract crazed fans who would do anything to garner his attention. When veiled threats become real, he agrees to hire a discreet security detail. But Devin is shocked when that bodyguard is a hard-bodied woman. He’s even more stunned to be attracted to the steely-eyed stunner.

Former soldier Liberty Masterson’s return to civilian life has been fraught with challenges until she lands a job with a prestigious security firm. But when she agrees to provide personal protection during a cross-country tour, she doesn’t realize she has signed up to masquerade as the playboy star’s girlfriend. Though she’s more comfortable in combat boots than high heels, she has no choice but to appear to be the sexy groupie Devin prefers.

Living in close quarters causes the chemistry between them to ignite, and Devin realizes he wants to turn their charade of a romance into reality. Although Liberty surrenders to his every whim behind closed doors, she fears the sexy country star doesn’t see the real her; and Devin can’t help but worry when the tour ends that there might not be enough between them to build something that won’t fade away....

My Musings:

Although I’m a big fan of Lorelei James’s McKay books, my heart will always belong to her Blacktop Cowboys, and HILLBILLY ROCKSTAR, the latest entry in the series, reminds me exactly why they are among my very favorites.

We’ve already met our hero and heroine in previous stories, but even if this is your first visit to the friends and family in Muddy Gap, you’ll have no trouble diving in to this wonderful romance. Both Devin McClain and Liberty Masterson hail from the same small town in Wyoming, but had never crossed paths until the day she was assigned to be his personal bodyguard. Now he’s got to let this frustrating bossy woman in every aspect of his life while continuing to entertain people all over the country one night at a time. Liberty’s still adjusting to civilian life after multiple tours in Afghanistan, and it’s only by keeping men at arm’s length that she’s been able to deal with the loss of the only man she’d let herself care about. Being around the deliciously attractive Devin every waking moment is wearing her down, and the last thing she needs is to let this man distract her from her duty. But when they finally succumb to their mutual attraction, it’s only a matter of time before a moment of weakness could put both their hearts and lives in danger.

One of the things I love the most about Lorelei James’s Blacktop Cowboys series is how people you only meet briefly in previous books can still be memorable enough to rate a story of their own later in the series. Both Devin and Liberty have been in the background here and there, but they come into their own beautifully in HILLBILLY ROCKSTAR. We knew Devin’s success as a rich and famous singer hadn't changed how he behaved around his childhood friends in Muddy Gap, but that it had kept him from letting any woman get close enough to see the true man inside. That duality is all the more poignant here when we see how the loss of his younger sister had affected his relationship with his family and hindered his ability to love anyone else. But Liberty had just as much trouble trusting and loving for similar reasons after she saw how easy it was to lose a loved one in a war zone. So it was no surprise that it took the forced proximity of living on Devin’s tour bus and her task of keeping him safe before she could let herself give in to the irresistible sexual chemistry they shared. Yet what neither of them could know at that moment was that they had just each found the one person who could save them from their self-imposed solitude forever.

The best part of HILLBILLY ROCKSTAR was how we got to see both Devin and Liberty learn to let love back in, and that the choice they’d each made to keep their hearts safe was the last thing the people they’d lost would have ever wanted for them. There were several times where each had their tenuous hold on this new love tested, and each time they came back to try again was another mini-victory that made me cheer. Even the subplot of the possible threats against Devin’s life which had brought them together was kept at just the right level of suspense so that it worked to move the romance forward instead of forcing it into the background. By the time the tour is over and the threat neutralized, we know that Liberty and Devin will have to be together for the rest of their lives, even if it takes them a little more time to figure it out. And that’s when we get yet another perfectly orchestrated happy ending for two people that deserve every bit of it. HILLBILLY ROCKSTAR not only let me visit Muddy Gap for another sensuous and sentimental romance, it reminded me that you should never give up on love, and that’s just one of the many reasons why it’s among the best romances I've read in 2014.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Guilty Pleasures Book Review (5 stars x2)
Smexy Books (B)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 8/4/2014 = 4.39 stars)

Review: Arrest by June Gray

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Arrest*
Author: June Gray
Series: Disarm Trilogy #2
Genre: contemporary New Adult romance
Publisher: Berkley
Format: ebook, print, and audio
Date/Year: June 3, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Life begins at happily ever after…

For Elsie and Henry, getting married and buying a house is only the beginning of their passionate new adventure. Elsie is flourishing in her job while Henry embarks on a new career as a police officer. Everything, it seems, has finally fallen into place.

Just when it’s all smooth sailing, they face life-altering changes that make Elsie question her ability to adapt. With Henry’s job putting him in constant danger, she watches helplessly while he slips back into his old habits. Elsie must find a way—through any means necessary—to prevent the past from repeating.

With the sand constantly shifting underfoot, Elsie and Henry have to figure out how to strengthen their bond—before they end up losing what matters most…

My Musings:

This review may contain spoilers for DISARM, the first book in this series. You should not try to read ARREST as a standalone, as it assumes you are already familiar with events of the previous book that are not always fully explained in this one.

I enjoyed reading June Gray’s DISARM romance novelettes after they were released as a full length book back in 2013, so when that book was acquired by a major publisher, I was happy that there would be two more books in the series.

ARREST picks up where DISARM left off, with Henry and Elsie newly married and embarking on the rest of their Happily Ever After together. But just because they got past all their previous obstacles doesn't mean that there aren't new ones now that they are finally married. The primary source of their problems now is Henry’s new career as a law enforcement officer. It was bad enough when he was still in the US military and being sent into a war zone for months on end. Now Elsie has to worry about him every day and night, forever dreading a future where he doesn't come home safely at the end of his scheduled shift. Their shared adjustment to this new reality, combined with his reaction to Elsie’s independent career as a web designer and the usual dips and bumps that happen in a marriage, constantly threaten their happiness even as they both know that they could never survive away from each other. The story of ARREST is how each crisis in Henry and Elsie’s marriage ultimately makes them stronger together, and better able to deal with whatever life throws at them next. But the journey isn't easy and when Henry begins to rely on his old destructive coping mechanisms, it will take both of them working as hard as they can to get to the true happy ending they’d thought they already had on their wedding day.

As much as I enjoyed the previous book, the way Henry was always retreating from Elsie when he was upset did get to be tiring after a while, so I was worried that I might not be as sympathetic to him when all the new bad things started happening to them both in ARREST. However, I was quite happy to be proven wrong in my concern, as it appeared that Henry has indeed grown emotionally since then. The love he and Elsie have for each other is never questioned, and it never wavers. But as they and we already learned before, love isn't enough to keep them together if they can’t communicate and compromise, and in ARREST, Henry and Elsie must both relearn those painful lessons if they’re going to stay married and happy together.

ARREST also has the advantage of hanging together better as an complete story from the start, as opposed to the previous title. We are shown once again how their past continues to affect their present, but also how they are aware of how easily they could fall back into a vicious cycle of hurting each other, however inadvertently. Being able to see Henry and Elsie take real steps toward a fully reciprocal relationship made reading through all their pain and sadness worth it for the true happy ending awaiting them both. ARREST is an excellent example of how the “marriage in trouble” trope can be realistic without being too depressing. But I’m relieved that the next story in the series will be about someone else, so I can be content in the knowledge that Elsie and Henry have finally earned their HEA and won’t have to suffer any longer.

Ratings:

Overall: 4 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

My Little HEA
Talk Supe
Goodreads (avg rating as of 6/27/2014 = 4.13stars)

Review: Fall From India Place by Samantha Young

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 04:02:00 +0000

Title: Fall From India Place*
Author: Samantha Young
Series: On Dublin Street #4
Genre: contemporary New Adult romance
Publisher: NAL
Format: ebook and print
Date/Year: June 3, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

The New York Times bestselling author of On Dublin Street and Down London Road returns with a story about letting go of the past and learning to trust in the future…

When Hannah Nichols last saw Marco D’Alessandro, five long years ago, he broke her heart. The bad boy with a hidden sweet side was the only guy Hannah ever loved—and the only man she’s ever been with. After one intense night of giving into temptation, Marco took off, leaving Scotland and Hannah behind. Shattered by the consequences of their night together, Hannah has never truly moved on.

Leaving Hannah was the biggest mistake of Marco’s life, something he has deeply regretted for years. So when fate reunites them, he refuses to let her go without a fight. Determined to make her his, Marco pursues Hannah, reminding her of all the reasons they’re meant to be together.…

But just when Marco thinks they’re committed to a future together, Hannah makes a discovery that unearths the secret pain she’s been hiding from him, a secret that could tear them apart before they have a real chance to start over again….

My Musings:

This review may contain spoilers for previous books in the On Dublin Road series. You can probably read FALL FROM INDIA PLACE as a standalone, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

I’ve been a big fan of Samantha Young’s On Dublin Road series from the very beginning, with each book in turn reminding me why New Adult romances have become so popular in the first place. Her characters have genuine roadblocks in their lives that don’t appear just to gin up extra drama, and their coping mechanisms are completely understandable in the context of each story. And although each story is set in the same world with previous couples continuing to appear as recurring characters, each one is also unique in terms of what brings the main couple together and what threatens to keep them apart.

In FALL FROM INDIA PLACE, the timeline has advanced several years past the last book in the series, and many of the previously featured couples are married with young children of their own. Hannah Nichols, the younger sister of Braden and Ellie, is now all grown up at 22, teaching high school English by day and a weekly adult literacy course at night. Her job and extended family appear to be enough to keep Hannah content, but there’s a lingering sadness there, thanks to the only man she’d ever wanted but could never really have.

Marco D’Alessandro was introduced in BEFORE JAMAICA LANE as the busboy at a local Italian restaurant and Hannah’s first school girl crush. We only got a brief glance at them together back then, but it’s clear in this new book that something significant happened between them in the interim when when Hannah finds Marco’s picture in a box of old things that her mother has asked her to clean out. It’s at that moment that FALL FROM INDIA PLACE begins to tell Hannah and Marco’s entire story in both the past and and present, showing exactly how what they shared before could be the one impossible obstacle to finding that happiness again for good.

One of the things I loved about FALL FROM INDIA PLACE was how we got a complete picture of the adult Hannah living in the present day before Marco was ever mentioned. We see that her love life is practically non-existent, even as her friends from school keep trying to fix her up with eligible men. We also see how she channels her kind and loving nature into her job and interactions with family, while never really having much to do for her own happiness. So when Marco suddenly reappears in Hannah’s life after five years missing in action, it’s like a bolt from the blue for both her and the reader: Where has he been? Why did he leave? How can she possibly take him back? And that’s when both we and Hannah start to get a much better picture of who Marco was, why he left, and how that made him the man he is now. When Hannah agrees to give March another chance, it becomes obvious that the time apart has made them both better suited to each other in a way they never were before. But the secrets they both still carry from that time are on a collision course toward an inevitable confrontation that will either help them heal completely or split them apart forever.

What surprised me the most about FALL FROM INDIA PLACE wasn't that I was able to eventually figure out what secret each of them was keeping back and how those two secrets would be in such horrible conflict with each other, but that I was actually happy with that outcome and how it was ultimately handled. It proved that being able to see where the story is going to end up isn't a bad thing when the path there is written so beautifully and the actual events play out in a way you might not have expected. That’s what I've loved about every book in this series, and why FALL FROM INDIA PLACE was such a wonderful read for me. I can only hope that Samantha Young can keep up this consistent level of excellence in all the books to come.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Dear Author (C)
Totally Booked Blog (4.5 star)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 6/27/2014 = 4.09 stars)

Review: Sharp Love by Ava March

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 04:01:00 +0000

Title: Sharp Love*
Author: Ava March
Series: Gambling on Love #2
Genre: MM Historical Romance
Publisher: Carina Press
Format: ebook
Date/Year: June 9, 2014
Reviewed by: Andrea

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

London, 1822

William Drake has lived among thieves, bastards and beggars all his life, doing what's necessary to survive. As a young orphan, that included looking after his best friend, Jack Morgan. But as they grew older, Jack took the honest path, leaving Will behind to fend for himself the only ways he knows how.

When an unsavory errand for his employer brings Jack back to London's underbelly, he needs Will's help. It's there, among the alleys they ran through as children, that the love he's always felt for Will returns. As their nights together grow hotter, Will discovers something new about his old friend—Jack's need to serve extends into the bedchamber.

Will has never fully abandoned his dream of escaping London with Jack. But what could the Duke's driver want with a dishonest cheat like him, beyond a bit of rough sex? It takes the gamble of Will's life to find out if he can win Jack's heart…

Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: D/s theme and elements, and male/male sexual practices.

My Musings:

SHARP LOVE is the second book in the GAMBLING ON LOVE series. It is closely related to the first book, ALL IN WITH THE DUKE, but could easily be read as a stand alone.

This book tells the story of Will and Jack. They are lifelong friends who met in an orphanage when they were very young. They had a tough start in life and over time grew to trust and depend on each other. As boys and adolescents, Will and Jack were an inseparable team, at least that’s what Will thought. Jack apparently had other ideas. While Will perfected his less than savory moneymaking strategies, Jack decided to take a different path and has worked his way into an honorable position. He works as a driver for a duke. As grown men, they’re still best friends but there is some animosity on both sides over the lifestyle the other chose.

One of the more interesting aspects of this book for me was that Jack and Will are both common and poor. I’ve read so many historical romances where one of the main characters is a Duke, a Lord, or at the very least is a self-made man. I rarely get the opportunity to read about two ordinary guys in a historical romance. I understand why, it’s hard enough to give two men a HEA in a historical romance in the first place. It’s even more difficult to come up with a believable HEA ending for guys who aren’t of the gentry class and don’t have enough money to do whatever they want.

Now, getting back on the topic of Will and Jack. I liked them. Even though Will was an unsavory character and an admitted thief and cheat, I still liked him a lot. Jack was a good guy and I did like him, but he was on the verge of being a sanctimonious jackass at times. Jack and Will being together made sense and it worked for me. They didn’t have a quick or easy romance, they definitely had to work for it, and I liked that.

I said before that this book was closely related to the first book, but that it could also be read as a stand alone. I say that because the two books run concurrent to each other. Jack works for the Duke and was repeatedly referenced in ALL IN WITH THE DUKE. In fact, a couple of the scenes from ALL IN WITH THE DUKE were repeated in SHARP LOVE, but they were done from Jack’s viewpoint rather than the Duke’s. It might sound confusing but it brought the two books together brilliantly. I read a lot and have a tendency to forget characters and events between books. I thought it was a great way of bringing the reader back into the world without any long and drawn out backstory being awkwardly thrown into a conversation. The neat thing is that it would also work in reverse. If someone reads SHARP LOVE first, it’s the perfect glimpse into the story of the first book. It will give the reader just enough information about what’s happening with Tristan and the Duke to make them curious without giving away their story.

As always with Ava March, the quality of writing was excellent. The plot was strong, and the story flowed very well. I thought the periodic mingling of this book with the previous book was brilliant. The characters were genuine and believable, and they had a good romance which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. The only letdown for me was that I never got emotionally invested, even though it was a very good book and I enjoyed reading it. I had to mention that, but please don’t let it discourage you from reading SHARP LOVE. It’s a very enjoyable book and I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of MM historical romance.

Ratings:

Overall: 3.5 stars
Sensuality level: 3

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Smexy Books (C)
Fiction Vixen (B)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 6/27/2014= 4.13 stars)

Review: On the Way Home by Skye Warren

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: On The Way Home *
Author: Skye Warren
Series: n/a
Genre: contemporary New Adult erotic romance
Publisher: self-published
Format: ebook
Date/Year: May 20, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Clint

For eight months I’ve been deep undercover as a special operator in the Army. On the plane ride home, all I want is a hot shower and a long sleep. But a Dear John text message leaves me stranded. I need a ride and a place to stay, and the pretty stewardess is more than willing.

Della

It’s supposed to be a simple trade—the passenger in seat 34B for my sister. But the sexy soldier is more than I can handle in all the best ways. He trusts me, but I can’t save him. No one can. Sometimes trouble has a way of following you home.

On the Way Home is a dark new adult romance intended for readers over eighteen.

My Musings:

On the surface, the premise of Skye Warren’s ON THE WAY HOME seems simple. Clint is a soldier returning from a recent tour in Afghanistan, where he’s witnessed the worst of humanity, thanks to the undercover operation he was supporting there. Now all he wants to do is get back to a normal life, although he’s not quite sure if it’s still there for him. Della is the flight attendant on his plane home who has been warned she can only save her captive sister if Clint is handed over as compensation. Fate practically delivers him into her hands without much effort on her part. But how can she give this handsome stranger to someone she knows will kill him? And what will happen if she changes her mind?

There have been so many dark and angsty New Adult romances released in the past few years that I’ve just about sworn off them for good. But the beauty of reading is that there's always at least one writer out there who can make me love something I've vowed to hate forever. And apparently for dark and angsty New Adult romance, that writer is Skye Warren. Della’s tragic history is never played for sympathy or cheap sentiment, only as a necessary backdrop to why she would even consider turning Clint over to a known murderer. Clint is shown as the more sympathetic character whose weariness has caused him to let down his emotional guard, however briefly, and his temporary weakness may well be a fatal misstep. But when Della decides to reach out just once to take what she sees within him, it’s the shock of their unusually compatible souls recognizing each other that forces the reader to cheer for them both to prevail.

The road to their happy ending takes a series of twists and turns that might seem improbable in a less skilled writer’s hands, but it all makes sense by the end, and that feeling of rightness makes the journey there worthwhile and completely satisfying. Their road to love was dark, but not too dark, and it was beautiful to see Della and Clint both find security and happiness in each other. ON THE WAY HOME is yet another extraordinary story from Skye Warren and I loved every moment of it.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Britt's Book & Life Blog (3 star)
The Book Bellas
Goodreads (avg rating as of 6/27/2014= 3.33 stars)

Review: Forgotten Sins by Rebecca Zanetti

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Forgotten Sins*
Author: Rebecca Zanetti
Series: Sin Brothers, Book 1
Genre: Romantic Suspense, contemporary
Publisher: Forever
Format: ebook, paperback, audiobook
Date/Year: January, 2014
Reviewed by: Blue

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

His Secrets Can Destroy Her

From the moment Josie laid eyes on sexy, mysterious Shane Dean, she was in love. Their desire ignited a passionate affair, and within weeks, Shane had slipped a ring on her finger. It seemed her every fantasy was coming true . . . until her new husband disappeared without a trace. Now, two years and one broken heart later, Josie is shocked when the hospital calls: Shane has been found . . . at a crime scene with no memory of how he got there.

Her Love Can Save Him

Shane can't remember the blue-eyed angel at his bedside-or who he even is-but he knows something isn't right. His hearing is razor sharp, his physical strength incredible, and the urge to protect Josie overwhelming. For powerful enemies are hunting him, and Josie is the key to discovering why. As Shane struggles to unravel his past, dangerous new truths come to light. Can he protect the only woman he's ever loved? And can Josie trust a man she thought she knew-one who carries such a deadly secret?

My Musings:

FORGOTTEN SINS opens with a brief, heartbreaking scene of four young boys who are virtual prisoners in a sort of military camp. At risk of great punishment, they sneak off at night to watch television and see what they can of the real world beyond their borders. This is their first exposure to families and mothers. They note that mothers look so “soft” and wonder why there are none in their lives. They also decide that they are a family.

Shane was one of those boys, and it’s now twenty years later. He wakes up injured in a hospital, with no memory of what happened, or even of his life. It appears he was attacked and may have been the one who killed his assailants. The authorities contact his wife, Josie, and she comes to the hospital. Shane doesn’t remember her at all, but he likes what he sees. Josie, however, has not seen her husband for two years since he deserted her and is in the process of filing for divorce.

Josie never stopped loving Shane. She was aware he is in some secret military-like organization, and goes off on missions, but he never gave her any details. Two years ago he told her he would be back, but he never contacted her or returned. Tired of that kind of life, she decided to end the marriage and get on with her life without Shane. Now, because of his injuries, he needs her, and she agrees, though stating it’s only temporary.

Josie had a soft heart, and I liked her very much, although it was annoying when she had her moments of doing stupid things in the face of danger. Shane was to die for. He is pure alpha, and as his memory returns, we learn his reasons for not returning to Josie. He’s bound and determined to protect her now, and is torn between whether she’s safer with him or without him. This whole book was fast paced and riveting. We received some clues and bits and pieces of the story of these four boys, but all the answers will come in the upcoming three books of the Sin series. I can’t wait to read them!

Ratings:

Overall: 4 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Book Binge (2 out of 5)
Avon Romance (4)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 6/25/2014 = 4.02 stars)

Review: Naughty Bits Part II: The Training Session by Joey W. Hill

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Tue, 20 May 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Naughty Bits Part II: The Training Session*
Author: Joey W. Hill
Series: n/a
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: Penguin
Format: ebook
Date/Year: May 20, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Fear is no match for lust in Joey W. Hill’s sexy new novella about a woman who sheds her shame to embrace her pleasure…

Madison may have ditched her well-ordered Boston life to run Naughty Bits, her sister’s North Carolina lingerie shop, but she didn’t expect to throw herself into such chaos—or to become intimate with the sexiest man she’s ever had the pleasure of meeting. After spending a night observing a submissive’s training session, Madison is ready for Logan to teach her how to feed her own deep fantasies—and get rid of all her lingering fears…

Madison’s aching desire to submit is unlike anything Logan’s ever experienced before, and he’s determined to be the man to make her relinquish control. Still, Logan’s unsure if Madison is ready to take that first step to becoming his—until she shows up at his door ready to be commanded. Luckily for them both, Logan’s got more than a few surprises up his sleeve that he knows she’ll enjoy…

My Musings:

Wow. After I finished reading Part 1, I knew when Logan and Madison’s first real scene together was going to be amazing, but THE TRAINING SESSION blew me away. I think it helped Madison to have Troy there as a buffer while she got used to seeing Logan in his true element as a confident and unforgiving Dominant. The first quarter of Part 2 is this training session where Troy learns how to control his reaction to what he receives from both Logan and Madison, although by the end it wasn’t clear where Troy’s training stopped and Madison’s started. When the scene is over, Madison realizes she can’t go back to the person she was before. Not just in terms of her sexual nature, but in the way she approaches life as a whole.

As Madison lets go of all her old rules and expectations, she begins to relax more within herself, starting to feel more liberated even as she grows closer to Logan. This freedom to embrace her true nature without fear immediately improves her interactions with customers who come into the Naughty Bits shop. Not only does her new approach result in better sales, but more importantly, she can now sell customers what they really need, even when they don’t know what that is when they first walk in. Madison’s new open attitude also gives her the courage to walk right into Logan’s hardware store next door to request a second date. Logan assures her there will be no sex, but by the end of their first evening alone, there will be no question about what is yet to come. For the only rule Madison has now is what her sister said in her last letter: Trust Logan.

Every expectation I had for this next installment was more than fulfilled, as I loved seeing Madison finally take the necessary steps to liberate herself from all the bad memories and inhibitions that had held her back her whole life. Not only does she learn to stop fearing what she feels, but in the process, she learns to be the person that her shop customers need to guide them toward their own emotional and sexual liberation. Each scene between Madison and Logan showed exactly how he is slowly leading her to trust both herself and him to always take care of her completely. As for me, I will continue to trust Joey W. Hill that each future installment of NAUGHTY BITS will be just as compelling as the previous ones.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 4.5 (multiple BDSM scenes with 2 and 3 people, including oral sex and anal play)

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

You Gotta Read Reviews (You Need to Read)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/19/2014= 4.27 stars)

Review: Shield of Winter by Nalini Singh

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Fri, 16 May 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Shield of Winter*
Author: Nalini Singh
Series: Psy-Changeling series #13
Genre: paranormal romance
Publisher: Berkley
Format: hardcover & ebook
Date/Year: June 3, 2014
Reviewed by: Andrea

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Assassin. Soldier. Arrow. That is who Vasic is, who he will always be. His soul drenched in blood, his conscience heavy with the weight of all he’s done, he exists in the shadows, far from the hope his people can almost touch—if only they do not first drown in the murderous insanity of a lethal contagion. To stop the wave of death, Vasic must complete the simplest iand most difficult mission of his life.

For if the Psy race is to survive, the empaths must wake…

Having rebuilt her life after medical “treatment” that violated her mind and sought to stifle her abilities, Ivy should have run from the black-clad Arrow with eyes of winter frost. But Ivy Jane has never done what she should. Now, she'll fight for her people, and for this Arrow who stands as her living shield, yet believes he is beyond redemption. But as the world turns to screaming crimson, even Ivy’s fierce will may not be enough to save Vasic from the cold.

My Musings:

This book is part of a series and is best enjoyed when read in sequence. I would strongly advise against trying to read this as a stand alone.

Silence has fallen and the Psy race is in chaos. An uncontrolled disease is slowly taking over sections of the NetMind. Once infected, it can send those affected into a mass psychotic and murderous rage. If it’s not stopped, it will destroy the entire Psy race. Kaleb Krycheck has an idea which may save the Psy, but he desperately needs help. He believes that the long hidden and sidelined Empaths are the key to healing the NetMind. It’s a bold and dangerous move, as a particularly dangerous segment of the Psy are set on eliminating anyone within the E classification. Kaleb cannot ask the vulnerable E-Psy to step up without offering them protection. For that, he turns to the Arrows.

Ivy is one of the E-Psy asked to help. As a child, her Silence was always fractured. As a teenager under the old system, she was rehabilitated. It left her mind fragmented and barely functioning. It has taken years of hard work under the protective shields of her parents for Ivy to mend the damage done to her mind. When a cold and lethal Arrow appears with the proposal from Kaleb, it gives Ivy hope that maybe she isn’t as broken and useless as she was led to believe. What they’re asking of her is an unbelievably dangerous and difficult task, but one she is willing to take on if it will give her the chance to regain everything which was stolen from her as a teen.

Vasic is a familiar character to those of us who follow this series. He is the ultimate Arrow, but lately he has been showing signs of cracking. Those close to him can see that he is dangerously close to the point of self destruction. They decide that Kaleb’s new project is perfect for Vasic. He can lead the mission, protect the vulnerable E-Psy, and will benefit from the emotional stability naturally extended to those in close proximity of them. What nobody counted on was the connection between Ivy and Vasic.

If you’re a fan of the Psy-Changeling series, you’ll know that most of the books have a strong romance which runs alongside whatever crisis is causing strain among the three different races trying to live together in relative harmony. SHIELD OF WINTER is no different. While the romance between Ivy and Vassic is strong, most of the other plotlines struggled to hold my interest. I think my biggest issue was that there was so much going on and too many people involved. The many plotlines also had varying levels of development. Therefore, I was pulled into some and had only a minor interest in others.

I desperately wanted the focus to be on the disease of the NetMind and the actions of those involved to stop it. I hated it when I found myself resenting some of the characters I had formerly loved because they didn’t seem to be doing anything to stop the violence and deaths of so many innocents. For example, I was angry with Sasha Duncan through most of the book. She is a cardinal E and has the most developed E talent within the Psy race, yet it took her until almost the very end to take an active role. Most frustrating of all was that I don’t think my anger at Sasha was the author’s intention. I believe it was simply a result of too many plotlines and characters being packed into the story. Honestly, it would have taken an epic book to fully develop every plotline and give everyone involved their due.

While the romance between Ivy and Vassic was quite good, the rest of it fell short for me. I had a difficult time connecting with a few of the characters and was angry with a couple others. With all of that going on, I wasn’t able to fully get behind the fight to save the Psy race. I was frustrated by the lack of action on the part of the E’s and that made portions of the book feel as though they were dragging. I did enjoy SHIELD OF WINTER, but it was close to being equal parts frustrating and interesting. If you’re a fan of the series, you should definitely read it. Just don’t get your hopes up too high.

Ratings:

Overall: 3.25 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Maritini Times Romance (4)
Grave Tells (9.1)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/12/2014= 4.58 stars)

Review: Ghost Seer by Robin D. Owens

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Thu, 15 May 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Ghost Seer*
Author: Robin D. Owens
Series: Ghost Seer, #1
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Berkley
Format: ebook
Date/Year: April 1, 2014
Reviewed by: ElaineReads

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

There’s just something about Clare. Apart from the ghosts...

When her eccentric aunt passes away, no-nonsense accountant Clare Cermac inherits more than just a small fortune. She receives the gift of communicating with ghosts. While Clare may not believe in spirits, it’s hard to overlook the shadowy talking dog appearing on her bed or spectral cowboys tipping their hats to her in the streets of Denver. And when she locks eyes with sexy—and living—Zach Slade, there’s certainly no ignoring him either.

A former deputy sheriff, Zach is leaving a painful past behind in Montana for a new life in Denver as a private investigator, a job that has him crossing paths with beautiful Clare. Not that she minds. After the restless ghost of a Wild West gunman demands her assistance, Clare finds herself needing Zach more and more—and not just for help.

My Musings:

I am no stranger to the writings of Robin D. Owens. I discovered her Celta series several years ago and absolutely love them. Her “fams” in particular are wonderful. I was delighted to discover she was starting a contemporary series with GHOST SEER.

Clare was thrilled to inherit a fortune, including a beautiful old home, from her weird Aunt Sandra, but was not happy at all when she found out there was a catch. Along with the money came a gift . . . the ability to see and interact with ghosts. Clare is an accountant. She is very practical and rational. She does not believe in ghosts! Unfortunately, this is not a gift that can be returned. If she does not help the ghosts “cross over,” she will either weaken and die or go insane. She is trapped!

Zach is an ex-cop, but only because he was badly injured in a shooting and unfit for active duty. He does not want to be a private cop because he has always served the public. He doesn’t want to only help people who can pay for his help. Oh yeah, he doesn’t believe in ghosts either. So, of course, they meet and are immediately attracted to each other. Clare definitely needs Zach’s help, but he’s not sure he wants to get involved with a crazy woman.

Zach and Clare are obviously the main characters, but my favorite character is Enzo - a ghost dog that used to belong to weird Aunt Sandra. His purpose is to help Clare learn her new job of ghost seer. That’s when he’s not chasing squirrel essence in the park of course.

I loved this book and cannot wait for the sequel, GHOST LAYER to be released in September. My only criticism is I thought the sex scenes (and they were really good sex scenes) went on too long. I was ready for the plot to move on.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Paranormal Haven (2.5)
Harlequin Junkies (4 stars)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/12/2014= 3.73 stars)

Review: Once Upon a Billionaire by Jessica Clare

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Wed, 14 May 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Once Upon A Billionaire*
Author: Jessica Clare
Series: Billionaire Boys Club #4
Genre: hot contemporary romance
Publisher: Penguin (InterMix)
Format: ebook
Date/Year: April 15, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

The Billionaire Boys Club is a secret society of six men who have vowed success—at any cost. Not all of them are old money, but all of them are incredibly wealthy. They’re just not always as successful when it comes to love…

As a member of the royal family in a small European country, Griffin Verdi’s presence is requested at the wedding of the century. The scholarly billionaire feels out of his depth in social situations, so a good assistant is required—especially when dealing with royal etiquette.

Unfortunately for Griffin, he’s stuck with Maylee Meriweather, a pretty, charming, and thoroughly unsuitable woman who doesn’t know a thing about high society—but she sure can kiss. Her lack of polish may sink Griffin, because after all, even his money can’t buy class. But through Maylee’s eyes, he’s starting to appreciate the simple things in life—if simple means the most complicated woman he’s ever met.

Maylee is everything Griffin isn’t—and everything he wants—if he can let down his guard and step outside his sheltered world…

The Billionaire Boys Club is breaking all the rules. Don’t miss other novels in the series from InterMix.

My Musings:

Jessica Clare’s Billionaire Boys Club is a relatively new romance series that I’ve enjoyed from the very beginning, with a 5 star read for me in its second book, BEAUTY AND THE BILLIONAIRE. So it’s with great sadness that I have to say ONCE UPON A BILLIONAIRE was so not of the same quality that if it had been the very first book, I probably wouldn’t have continued with the series. Although the romance ended up in the right place when all was said and done, its ill-conceived hero and heroine affected my enjoyment of their HEA to the point that I almost feel guilty for having liked any of it at all.

Griffin Verdi, aka Viscount Montagne Verdi, younger brother of the Duke of Calcaire in the ruling family of Bellissime, is a member of the Billionaire Boys Club, but that’s all due to his own financial skills, not his royal bloodline. His snooty family all but disowned him after he moved to America, but they’re still happy to spend the money he sends them. All he asks in return is to be left alone with his work and his passion for archaeology, but even that is more than they can manage. Now that he’s required to attend his beloved cousin’s wedding as she becomes the first Bellissime Crown Princess to marry a commoner, it’s just Griffin’s bad luck for his sole personal assistant to be too sick to accompany him there. Desperation forces the proud billionaire to turn to his good friend and fellow club member, Hunter, for help. And payback is what prompts Hunter’s girlfriend, Gretchen, to surprise Griffin with the one woman who could unsettle him to the point of madness.

Maylee Meriweather may hail from a no-account Arkansas trailer park, but that doesn’t mean she can’t handle her boss’s last-minute call to help Griffin on his trip. She doesn’t have the fancy clothes, fancy laptop, or fancy anything to keep up appearances in Griffin’s circle. All she has is a can-do attitude, plenty of gumption, and an otherworldly ability to take away a person’s pain after a burn or other related injury. But when nervous flier Maylee mixes mojitos with her “happy pills” on Griffin’s private plane, her bedraggled appearance and drug-induced behavior threaten to end any chance of them getting along before they even land at their destination. Still, there’s something about Maylee that Griffin can’t seem to resist. If he could just manage not to insult her with every word out of his mouth, they might find something together that goes well beyond their temporary working relationship.

The plot of ONCE UPON A BILLIONAIRE is a fairly standard romance trope: egotistical billionaire is thrown together with a sweet tempered woman totally below his standards, they clash on superficial differences but eventually succumb to their mutual physical attraction, ending up with an HEA only after the prerequisite Big Misunderstanding. It’s light and fluffy and utterly predictable, unlike the last two books in the series, and yet that’s not what bothered me so much. What made me nearly stop reading more than once was how both the hero and heroine were so broadly defined that it bordered on offensive in some spots.

Let’s begin with our billionaire hero, Griffin Verdi. From the first page of ONCE UPON A BILLIONAIRE, he comes across as the worst sort of condescending rich guy, barely civil to the other men he considers friends, and outright rude to Hunter’s girlfriend, Gretchen. It’s true that Gretchen gives as good as she gets, but it’s not like Griffin isn’t capable of basic courtesy to anyone not in his inner circle. Or is he? We’re led to believe that this innate boorishness stems from his royal upbringing, and yet he has a constant inner monologue about how much he hates his own relatives taking advantage of him and others without even so much as a simple thank you. So why wouldn’t he try to behave better than the people he resents? I suspect it was all in support of the conflict between him and his intended heroine. And yet for me, Griffin was nothing more than a faded copy of a Harlequin Presents hero. The arrogance and incivility were there, but any compelling reasons why a woman would find him irresistible in the face of such nonsense were missing in action. Even so, Griffin’s portrayal wasn’t half as problematic as what was in store for Maylee, the woman he supposedly learns to love.

Maylee Meriweather isn’t just from another world, she’s from an entirely different universe. Any woman not born and bred as royalty would be a challenge for Griffin, but a hick from the sticks is beyond the pale. Yet what I objected to wasn’t the extreme contrast per se, but the way Maylee was written as a cartoon character straight out of Dogpatch USA. She’s already a personal assistant to another billionaire, but she dresses like a bag lady and keeps track of her boss’s schedule on Post-It Notes. Every other word out of her mouth is “Lordamercy!” and she loves to tell everyone she meets that she was named for her Nana and PeePaw. Later we learn that her younger sisters are named Alabama and Dixie after their Daddy’s two favorite songs. (What, no brother named Skeeter?) Best of all, Maylee is a self-proclaimed “burn talker” who helps injured people by asking them to give the pain to her as she rubs the location of their burn. (Of course she is.)

This ongoing litany of outrageous personal details prompted a constant side-eye from me as the book went on, especially once it became obvious that Griffin would have been a complete jerk to Maylee without them. It really wasn’t necessary to portray her as an egregious example of nearly every possible stereotype of young women born and raised in the American South. And yet all that was missing by the time we met Maylee’s beloved drooling hound dog in Mama’s trailer back home was a moonshine still in the backyard and a visit to the local Waffle House. But because Maylee is the personification of the sweet but naive girl fresh off the turnip truck, she’s also able to win over every other person she meets with her kind and considerate demeanor, and even manages to help the Crown Princess of Bellissime herself with a curling iron burn on the night before the big wedding. Maylee also secretly hands out cash tips to everyone providing services to Griffin on his behalf, even though we’ve already been told that she’s barely getting by financially due to her need to send most of her salary to her family back in Arkansas. It’s this deep-seated kindness that ostensibly makes Maylee such a great personal assistant in spite of all her shortcomings in appearance and social behavior. It’s also apparently why she continues to take care of Griffin in spite of the cruel way he treats her right up until he decides she’s worthy of his affection after all.

Just because Maylee also gets the good end of the sweet Southern girl stereotype doesn’t make the rest of it even remotely acceptable. And just because Griffin finally pulls his head out of his ass after seeing himself in his mother and brother’s poor treatment of Maylee doesn’t mean his earlier abominable behavior is in any way excusable. There’s a way to depict a romance between a hero and heroine from vastly different worlds without potentially insulting readers, and then there’s what this book did. But I’m not quite ready to give up on the Billionaire Boys Club series, and I’m hoping very hard that the next book, ROMANCING THE BILLIONAIRE, will be a triumphant return to form. I don’t think I could handle this level of disappointment again.

Ratings:

Overall: 3 stars
Sensuality level: 3

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Book Pushers (B/B-)
Love to Read For Fun (DNF)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/12/2014= 3.92 stars)

Review: It Happened One Wedding by Julie James

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Tue, 13 May 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: It Happened One Wedding*
Author: Julie James
Series: FBI / US Attorney #5
Genre: contemporary romance
Publisher: Jove
Format: ebook, print, and audio
Date/Year: May 6, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

SHE KNOWS BETTER THAN TO SAY “I DO”

After a humiliating end to her engagement, investment banker Sidney Sinclair is done with commitment-phobic men. But when her sister winds up engaged after a whirlwind courtship, she’s thrown into close contact with exactly the kind of sexy playboy she wants to avoid—the gorgeous best man. She’s stuck with him, for better or worse, until her sister walks down the aisle, but that doesn’t mean she has to give in to his smooth advances, no matter how tempting they are…

BUT HE MAKES IT HARD TO SAY “I DON’T”

Special Agent Vaughn Roberts always gets his man on the job and his woman in bed. So Sidney’s refusal to fall for his charms only makes him more determined to win over the cool and confident redhead. Only what starts out as a battle of wills ends up as a serious play for her heart. Because the one woman who refuses to be caught may be the only one Vaughn can’t live without…

My Musings:

Julie James’s FBI / US Attorney romance series is yet another one that I’ve been intending to catch up with, even though I’ve only read the first (excellent) book so far. But when a fellow reviewer posted on Twitter about how much she had enjoyed reading IT HAPPENED ONE WEDDING, I knew I wanted to read it immediately. And just as I had anticipated, my impulsive jump into this latest book in the series was rewarded with a delightful romantic confection that will finally get me to make time to read all the books preceding it.

Sidney Sinclair had always taken pride in her ability to determine the best course of action based on all available evidence. But when her self-confidence was shaken by her fiance’s betrayal, Sidney chose to move on from that debacle for a new challenge in her career, the one thing that’s never let her down. So when her latest first date with yet another guy more interested in himself quickly crashes and burns, the last thing she wants is the attentions of an irresistibly handsome man who’d been observing her from the sidelines. She wouldn’t have even remembered their brief encounter if she hadn’t discovered only moments later that they were about to become family. But as she and her soon-to-be brother-in-law are constantly thrown together as the wedding draws near, Sidney slowly starts to let down her guard, at least in the bedroom, though not quite allowing herself to hope that this man might be the one she’s been looking for all along.

Special Agent Vaughn Roberts knows that in his line of work, it’s better to keep romantic relationships short and sweet. Any woman who would make the mistake of thinking he could offer more than a few weeks of hot sex isn’t anyone Vaughn would want to know better. It’s in that spirit that he makes a move on a hot redhead who clearly hadn’t had any luck with the guy she’d just dispatched from the coffee shop. And when the redhead turns him down flat, Vaughn doesn’t let it bother him much, at least not until she’s introduced to him an hour later as the sister of his own brother’s fiancee. Now the challenge of getting past Sidney’s rules for acceptable men is all that Vaughn can think about, not realizing that she’s working her way into his life as much as he is in hers. But how can two stubborn people get past the rules they’ve set up for themselves to embrace a true love that always seems to be just out of reach?

Even though I haven’t read all the books in this series, I never had any problem with IT HAPPENED ONE WEDDING as a standalone story. The character development for Sidney and Vaughn was handled almost seamlessly, as we were shown exactly what motivated their actions, even as they were both confronted with facing why they couldn’t trust each other to be the person they need. As the story progressed, it became obvious that it was good that Sidney had rejected Vaughn’s initial advances. If she’d said yes, they would have had a brief intense affair, only to be faced with seeing each other at every family gathering for years to come. Being forced to interact as friends and allies in the family wedding plans was the best possible way for both Sidney and Vaughn to accept their own needs as something to embrace, rather than hide away from forever. By the time they finally realized that they were meant to be together, each had already proven to the other all the ways they were perfectly matched, making their own HEA so touching and real that I was crying and laughing in equal amounts during the last few chapters of the book.

IT HAPPENED ONE WEDDING is proof that a contemporary romance featuring a high-powered business executive and successful FBI Special Agent doesn’t have to rely on over-the-top suspense or hackneyed battle-of-the-sexes conflict to make it a book you’ll never forget. It also features some of the most effortless dialogue you’re likely to find in a contemporary romance, and scenes that could be funny and sad without ever descending into slapstick or pathos. If this is what I can expect as a reader of Julie James, then I’ll be adding her to my author auto-buy list, for IT HAPPENED ONE WEDDING is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (A-)
Fiction Vixen (B-)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/12/2014= 4.20 stars)

Review & Giveaway: Since I Saw You by Beth Kery

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Fri, 09 May 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Since I Saw You *
Author: Beth Kery
Series: Because You Are Mine #4
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: Berkley
Format: ebook, print & audio
Date/Year: May 6, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

In the “exceptionally hot” (USA Today) Because You Are Mine, Beth Kery redefined what’s possible, what’s desirable, and what’s forbidden between a man and a woman. It’s time to go further...

When enigmatic billionaire Ian Noble sets Lin the task of “taming” his brilliant yet half-savage brother Kam Reardon, she eagerly accepts. She’s more than curious about the solitary genius and everything she’s heard about him. During their electric first meeting, her fascination increases a hundredfold. Kam practically oozes raw sex appeal. Lin is interested...very interested. But does her intense attraction and willingness to go places with him she’s never gone before in the bedroom really have to do with Kam? Or is her carefully hidden desire to blame for wanting a man she knows she can never have?

An elusive outsider, Kam avoids intimacy, yet never shies away from satisfying his erotic appetites. But there’s something different about Lin—a reserve he’s anxious to break. She’s a woman he’s eager to take his time with…and possess completely. A sophisticated beauty like her would never want him anywhere but in bed, but he finds himself unable to resist her.

Immediately Lin’s smooth facade is undone by Kam’s overwhelming masculinity and by his irresistible erotic demands—a lesson in subjugation that leaves Lin confused, reeling, and open to things she never thought possible. Now, as the unpredictable nights between them grow darker, Lin and Kam are certain of only one thing: they’re made for each other.

My Musings:

This review may contain spoilers for previous books in the Because You Are Mine series. You can read this book as a standalone, but I believe you’ll enjoy it more if you’ve read the other books first.

When I found out there would be one more book in Beth Kery’s Because You Are Mine series, I wondered if it could live up to the others, especially now that Ian and Francesca had finally gotten their HEA. But I should have known Ian Noble’s brother Kam would have no problem bringing the same intensity to his romance with Ian’s coolly efficient right-hand woman that I’d come to expect in this series, and not just because he’s practically his half-brother’s double. For despite all the similarities between Ian Noble and Kam Reardon, Kam is most definitely his own man, and that’s what makes him irresistible to Lin and to this reader as SINCE I SAW YOU brings this wonderful series to a satisfying close.

My impression of Kam in the previous book, BECAUSE WE BELONG, was that of a man who didn’t give a damn about what anyone thought of him. After all, he already shared a common blood bond with his two half-brothers, Ian and Lucien, thanks to the criminally insane father. But unlike Ian and Lucien, Kam had been in direct contact for most of his life with the evil man who’d spawned the three half-brothers and many more like them. Only by appearing to reject his own beloved mother could Kam protect her from that man’s retribution, but in the process, Kam began to doubt his own ability to love and protect anyone else in his life. There had been another woman he’d thought loved him for himself, but she’d ultimately let him down. So when Kam first spots Lin Soong walking toward him for a prearranged business meeting in SINCE I SAW YOU, he has remind himself no woman like her would ever want a life with him, even as he knows he must get this woman in his bed as soon as possible. But as Lin becomes an all-too-essential part of his new life in Chicago, can Kam keep himself from crossing the line between business and love?

Unlike Kam, Lin has spent her entire life keeping her own wants and desires locked safely away where they can never derail her successful career and devotion to Ian Noble, the only man she ever thought she wanted. Lin already knew even before Ian had found love with Francesca that he’d never be more to her than her boss and friend. But when she sees Kam Reardon for the first time, his physical resemblance to the man she can never have nearly takes her breath away. There are other similarities in personality and temperament, but it’s Kam, not Ian, who will stop at nothing to make Lin his own. Now Lin has to decide if it’s worth blowing up her carefully constructed life for someone who is either the best or worst thing that has ever happened to her.

Lin had been portrayed throughout the series as an emotionless superhuman, so it was gratifying to see her reactions to Kam as he quickly shook her sense of self down to its foundation. Even as she attempts to “civilize” him, he continues to expose the wildness she’s spent a lifetime keeping locked away. The passionate result of their physical alliance soon terrifies them both. But as they realize just how similar they really are, it’s trust that Lin and Kam need to find with each other, for only then can love survive whatever happens next.

What I loved the most about SINCE I SAW YOU was how the romance between Lin and Kam was the driving factor for the entire story, even as the various external pressures loomed large in the background. After the rollercoaster suspense of the previous book (which I did enjoy immensely), it was a relief to discover that what was most important in this book was learning more about what motivated both Kam and Lin in their lives up to the point when they first saw each other, and how they needed to trust their feelings for each other now over what had hurt them both in the past. Their understandable concerns about a lasting commitment may have led to the Big Misunderstanding that nearly split them apart, but it made sense in what had been slowly revealed during the story. Best of all, both Kam and Lin were able to realize their mistake in time to produce a beautiful scene of mutual apology leading to their own satisfying HEA.

SINCE I SAW YOU is a captivating example of a romance between driven personalities from different worlds who share a common goal of success in both business and love. It was a beautiful conclusion to one of my favorite recent series, and my only regret was that it had to end.

Ratings:

Overall: 4.5 stars
Sensuality level: 4 (multiple D/s scenes with main characters including semi-public sex, anal sex, and bondage)

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Fiction Vixen (B-)
The Good, The Bad, and the Unread (B)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/8/2014= 4.23 stars)

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Review: In Want of a Wife by Jo Goodman

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Thu, 08 May 2014 04:01:00 +0000

Title: In Want of a Wife*
Author: Jo Goodman
Series: Bitter Springs
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Berkley
Format: paperback, ebook, hardcover, audiobook, audio cd
Date/Year: May 6, 2014
Reviewed by: Blue

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

SHE HAS NOWHERE LEFT TO TURN

Jane Middlebourne needs a way out. In 1891, life in New York is unforgiving for a young woman with no prospects, especially when her family wants nothing to do with her. So when Jane discovers an ad for a mail-order bride needed in Bitter Springs, Wyoming, she responds with a hopeful heart.

HE HAS EVERYTHING TO LOSE

Rancher Morgan Longstreet is in want of a wife who will be his partner at Morning Star, someone who will work beside him and stand by him. His first impression of the fair and fragile Jane is that she is not that woman. But when she sets out to prove him wrong, the secrets he cannot share put into jeopardy every happiness they hope to find….

My Musings:

Jane Middlebourne has been living with her reluctant cousin, Frances, since she was orphaned. While treated as a family member in public view, she was treated more like a servant in private. Frances also has a tendency to be less than generous with her own children, and one of them, Alex, concocts a scheme with Jane which they believe will gain them some funds. The scheme doesn’t go as planned, and has serious and tragic consequences for Jane. It’s much later in the book that we find out just how awful this incident was.

Needing to leave her cousin’s household, Jane replies to Morgan Longstreet’s advertisement for a mail order bride in Wyoming, far away from New York. Since Jane is small, and somewhat frail looking, she sends a picture of her sturdier cousin instead of her own. When she gets off the train to meet Morgan, he finds her attractive, but has doubts about her suitability for this rougher life. They decide to take a day to get to know each other a little before they commit to the marriage, and Morgan deposits her in the local hotel.

The author does a great job of conveying the awkwardness of the initial meeting, and showing the uncertainty they both were feeling. Jane is really desperate here, as she has no alternate plan, and not a lot of money if Morgan decides not to marry her. I like very much how Jane maintained her dignity and did her best to convince Morgan that she was strong and ready and willing to take on being a rancher’s wife. Morgan is definitely the strong silent type. He behaves like a gentleman, but at the same time, doesn’t reveal much of himself. They decide to go ahead and marry, and Morgan takes her home to his ranch. Trying to be considerate, Morgan tells Jane that he’ll sleep separately until she gets used to him and knows him better. Jane, of course, feels undesired.

Their journey from strangers to lovers takes a winding path. I liked both of these characters very much. Jane has strength of character, honesty, and she works very hard to make the ranch into a home. It takes longer for Morgan to reveal pieces of his past, and it contains some things not to be proud of, and some horrible things done to him. He is determined to be a better man, and I can only admire him. Of course, when they finally appear to be heading toward their happy ever after, Morgan’s past comes back to put their new life in jeopardy.

Generally, I’m not a fan of westerns, but I am a fan of Jo Goodman. This book did not disappoint. The two main characters were strong and memorable, their romance was slow building and satisfying, and the villains were dealt with in the way they deserved. I recommend this book, and will be picking up “The Last Renegade” and “True to the Law,” the first two books in the Bitter Spring series.

Ratings:

Overall: 4 stars
Sensuality level: 3

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Dear Author (B)
RT Book Reviews (4 stars)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/6/2014= 4.20 stars)

Review: Bite Me by Shelly Laurenston

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Thu, 08 May 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Bite Me*
Author: Shelly Laurenston
Series: Pride series, #9
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Brava
Format: ebook
Date/Year: March 25, 2014
Reviewed by: ElaineReads

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Livy Kowalski has no time for idiots. When you shapeshift into a honey badger, getting through life’s irritants is a finely honed skill. Until she gets stuck housing her nutso cousin and dealing with her dad’s untimely and unexplained demise.

That’s where Vic Barinov comes in—or his house does. Vic can’t step outside without coming back to find Livy devouring his honey stash and getting the TV remote sticky. It gets his animal instincts all riled up. But he’ll have to woo her at high speed: all hell is breaking loose, and Livy is leading the charge…

My Musings:

I’ve never met a Shelly Laurenston book I didn’t like and this book is no exception. As I have said in a previous review, do not read these books out of order. There is so much back story going on that you will miss half the fun if you just start with this one. Believe me! You will not regret reading all of these books from start to finish. As a matter of fact, I recommend you start with PACK CHALLENGE to get the full story.

Anyway, on to the gushing.

Livy and Vic are introduced in the previous book WOLF WITH BENEFITS. They are secondary, but definitely not minor characters . . . especially Livy. We finally find out that Livy is a honey badger shifter which are considered rare by the other shifters. They’re really not. They just like to stay well hidden.

Honey badgers are predators, but with even fewer rules to follow. Even the other shifters are scared of them. Livy is no exception to her species reputation, but because of her longtime friendship with Toni (a jackal from the previous book), Livy is not quite as bad as most of her species. She has directed her passion into her photography and does not feel the same need to steal or maim as the rest of her family. Unless, of course, someone she cares about is threatened.

Vic is a hybrid grizzly/Siberian tiger with all the idiosyncrasies of being a hybrid. In his human form, he is mostly bear, but wait for when the feline comes out. He is a totally different personality. That is when things go out of control . . . Vic’s or anyone else's.

The really bad guy from the last few books, a full human, shows up and Livy and Vic get involved in the hunt for him. The wolves, felines, and bears have been hunting him for years without success. However, now that the honey badgers are involved . . . well, things go differently in this book.

A number of new characters are introduced in BITE ME, but many of our old friends show up as well. I have no idea where she will go with her next book, but I have hopes for the Reed boys. Reese in particular needs his own book.

My only complaint about this series is that she does not write them fast enough. There is generally a new book released each year. Personally, I think one a month would be more acceptable. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5 (Does a tail count as a sex toy?)

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Smexy Books (A)

Fiction Vixen (B)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/6/2014= 4.29 stars)

Review: Naughty Bits Part I: The Lingerie Shop by Joey W. Hill

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Wed, 07 May 2014 03:59:00 +0000

Title: Naughty Bits Part I: The Lingerie Shop*
Author: Joey W. Hill
Series: n/a
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: Penguin
Format: ebook
Date/Year: April 15, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Madison is a control freak with one wish—to lose control. Her hidden submissive cravings have led to a string of disastrous relationships. So when she inherits her sister’s North Carolina lingerie shop, Naughty Bits, she jumps at the opportunity to dump her boring finance career and bad history and try her luck down South.

But before Madison can settle in, she catches the attention of the owner of the neighboring hardware store. Sexually dominant Logan Scott can see the hunger for command in Madison’s eyes and is anxious to help unleash her submissive desires. He presents her with three very tempting gifts—handcuffs, erotic cards, and an open invitation to join him at a submissive’s training session.

Faced with the realization that she can’t sell fantasies to her lingerie customers without embracing her own, Madison accepts Logan’s offer. Now, she’s about to discover just how far her desire can take her…

My Musings:

Serial novels have been a popular trend in romance for a while now, and frankly, it’s one I’ve grown tired of. These days I’m limiting myself to serials written by my favorite authors, and with no more than five parts. NAUGHTY BITS qualifies on both counts, although I’ll admit I would probably waive the five part rule for Joey W. Hill. She’s one of my all-time favorite writers of contemporary BDSM erotic romance, and this first installment, THE LINGERIE SHOP, has already assured me that her talent for plot and character development will lend itself well to this new format.

As you might expect, most of THE LINGERIE SHOP is setting up the premise for why our heroine finds herself running her late sister’s sex boutique in Charlotte instead of being back in Boston at her boring but safe finance job. Madison and her sister Alice had exceptionally close until the day Alice pushed too hard about Madison’s sex life (or lack of one) and Madison responded by moving away and avoiding all contact. It took Alice’s terminal illness and subsequent death to force Madison back to Charlotte and the shop she’d always mocked. Now all Madison has is the store, her memories and her regrets. But Alice’s bequest extends beyond the building and its contents. She’s also made sure that Madison will finally find sexual submission with a man who can make it all happen. It’s now up to Madison to decide if she’s ready to finally accept the gift her sister always wanted her to have.

The man that Alice has found for Madison is Logan Scott: hardware store owner, woodworker, and sexual Dominant. Even before Madison knows who Logan is and what he will mean to her, she’s mesmerized by his looks and demeanor. She knows he represents what she’s always both wanted and feared. Logan knows Madison been too afraid to embrace her submissive desires, but that the decision must be hers, and hers alone. All he can do is point her in the right direction and hope that he can earn her trust along the way.

In THE LINGERIE SHOP, we see how Madison had always been threatened by Alice’s embrace of her own sexuality, even though Alice was right about why the men in Madison’s life had never measured up. We also see how Logan had fit into Alice’s life and why he is the perfect man to help Madison embrace her hidden self. By the time we reach the end of this first part of NAUGHTY BITS, we have a good idea of how our heroine got here and what our hero has to do to make her his by the end of the final installment.

What I loved best about THE LINGERIE SHOP was how it neatly avoided the problems that have made me burned out on serial novels in the first place. So many of the serials I’ve read have consisted of a relatively simple plot, doled out in tiny portions that either end on an insane cliffhanger, or at what appears to be a predetermined page length, regardless of where the story is at that point. But THE LINGERIE SHOP has absolutely none of these problems. First of all, it’s well over a hundred pages, qualifying as a novella in its own right. And it ends at a logical stopping point, after Madison has used Logan’s offering of the erotic cards and handcuffs, and sets the stage for THE TRAINING SESSION, Part 2 of NAUGHTY BITS. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5 (several BDSM-related discussions, brief descriptions of BDSM club activity, heroine’s solo sexual activity and related thoughts/dreams)

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Fiction Vixen (B+)
Books-n-Kisses (4 hearts)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 4/30/2014= 3.84 stars)

Review: Giving In by Maya Banks

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Tue, 06 May 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Giving In*
Author: Maya Banks
Series: Surrender Trilogy #2
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Format: ebook/print/audio
Date/Year: May 6, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Kylie sees the way Jensen looks at her. The dark promise in his eyes. That rough edge of dominance she knows he possesses. But dominance is the one thing that frightens her above all else. She and her brother barely survived a childhood steeped in violence and abuse. She could never give up total control and submit to a man. Especially a man like Jensen. Could she?

Jensen sees the shadows in Kylie’s eyes. Knows he has to tread very carefully or risk losing any chance he has with her. All he wants is the opportunity to show her that dominance doesn’t equal pain, bondage or discipline. That emotional surrender is the most powerful of all, and that to submit—fully to him—will fulfill the aching void in her heart in a way nothing else ever will.

My Musings:

This review may contain spoilers for LETTING GO, book 1 in the Surrender trilogy. You can read GIVING IN as a standalone, but I believe you’ll enjoy it more if you’ve read the previous book first.

GIVING IN continues the story of a group of friends and family devastated by the untimely death of Carson Breckenridge and how their lives have changed since then. In the previous book, we saw Carson’s best friend finally acknowledge his long-suppressed feelings for Carson’s widow after three long years of mourning. Here in GIVING IN, Jensen Tucker, the man who replaced Carson as partner in his successful management consultant firm seeks to rescue Carson’s still-grieving sister from the emotional black hole she’s been in for most of her life. What neither Jensen nor Kylie could have anticipated was that Jensen needed rescuing just as much as Kylie, and that together they would find the path toward real healing and true love.

Kylie Breckenridge and her beloved older brother Carson had already survived a horrific childhood, thanks to his success at planning their escape and unwavering determination to keep them both alive. But Carson is gone, and Kylie feels abandoned all over again. Now there’s no one who can understand what she went through and why she can’t bring herself to live the full and happy life he’d always wanted for her. What Kylie doesn’t realize is that there is someone who senses what she feels and what she really needs, and it’s the one person who makes her angry enough to fight for what she wants, even as she resists him every step of the way. That person is Jensen Tucker.

Jensen may have only recently arrived in Kylie’s world, but he can already see that letting her continue to drift through life would be the same terrible mistake that her late brother and their friends have already made. Now Jensen is determined not only to drag Kylie out from behind her walls of self-protection, but to seek her complete emotional surrender to him as the only man who can protect her from everything she’s been hiding from for much too long.

Although I’m a big fan of how Maya Banks incorporates BDSM into many of her other books, including LETTING GO, it was just as satisfying to see GIVING IN focus more on the non-physical aspects of Dominance and submission, and how one can provide the emotional grounding for the other, even when the roles are switched. Jensen is willing to do just about anything to prove to Kylie that he can be trusted unconditionally, including suppressing his innate desire to dominate her. But Jensen’s need to be Kylie’s protector is tangled up in the damage from his own violent childhood from which he’s never completely recovered. When this unresolved trauma triggers Jensen into doing the one thing he’d promised Kylie would never happen, his heartbreaking decision to keep her safe becomes the catalyst for her to finally give him the surrender they both need for a genuinely happily ever after together.

GIVING IN is a remarkable story of two damaged souls who find their perfect counterpoint in each other. It never flinches from showing the long-term effects of domestic violence and child abuse while always keeping the delicate romance between its hero and heroine front and center. Up next is TAKING IT ALL, and it will finally address all the problems we’ve seen between Chessie and Tate caused by his repeated work-related absences. As sad I as I’ll be to see the Surrender trilogy end, I still can’t wait to read it.

Ratings:

Overall: 4.5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Kindles & Wine (B+)
Caffeinated Book Reviewer (3.5 cups)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 5/5/2014= 4.24 stars)

Review: Hard Time by Cara McKenna

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Hard Time*
Author: Cara McKenna
Series: n/a
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: InterMix
Format: ebook
Date/Year: April 15, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

In this all-new novel from the author of Unbound, a woman with a rocky past finds romance in the last place she’d ever expect...

Annie Goodhouse doesn’t need to be warned about bad boys; good sense and an abusive ex have given her plenty of reasons to play it safe. But when she steps into her new role as outreach librarian for Cousins Correctional Facility, no amount of good sense can keep her mind—or eyes—off inmate Eric Collier.

Eric doesn’t claim to be innocent of the crime that landed him in prison. In fact, he’d do it again if that’s what it took to keep his family safe. Loyalty and force are what he knows. But meeting Annie makes him want to know more.

When Eric begins courting Annie through letters, they embark on a reckless, secret romance—a forbidden fantasy that neither imagines could ever be real…until early parole for Eric changes everything, and forces them both to face a past they can’t forget, and a desire they can’t deny.

My Musings:

In a landscape filled with billionaire Doms and their blushing virgin submissives, HARD TIME is a refreshing alternative, thanks to Cara McKenna’s unerring ability to take any guy in an otherwise completely undesirable situation and transform him into a legitimate romance hero. This time the hero is a convicted felon and his heroine is the town librarian working part-time at the medium security prison where the hero has been locked up for nearly beating another man to death.

Annie Goodhouse had a comfortable middle-class life she took for granted until the day when her worthless boyfriend crossed the line into abuse, puncturing her eardrum with a smack to the head when he was drunk and she was convenient. Her self-recrimination at letting it happen spurred her to get as far away from her ex as possible. And there isn’t a place farther both in distance and existence than the cold and impoverished town of Darren, Michigan.

Now years and miles away from her old life, Annie has given up on men and sex with them, although she feels the loss now and then. The last place she expected to rekindle her desire was at the Cousins Correctional Facility on her first day as its new part-time librarian. But there was something different about Prisoner 802267. In a room of frightening faces, he was an irresistible flame and she was the moth who should have known better. Annie can’t help being drawn to him, not only because of his good looks and polite behavior, but because as a prisoner, he won’t be able to control her in the way a free man could. But this was someone who had not only tried to kill another person, but still insisted that given the same situation, he’d do it again. So why is Annie even considering letting him into her head and her heart?

After nearly five years behind bars, Eric Collier is ready to stop being a number and start being a better man, one who deserves a woman like Annie. His single-minded pursuit of her is clearly ill-advised and incredibly risky for them both. Still, Eric’s ten year prison sentence ensures that they can never exchange more than heartfelt letters and furtive glances. But when Eric receives an early parole, he and Annie must learn how to begin and sustain a real relationship on the outside. As they deal with all the obstacles between them and happiness, they are soon confronted with the same forces which sent to Eric to prison before, now threatening to send him back. It’s up to Annie to convince Eric not to make the same mistake twice, even if it means losing him for good.

What I loved the most about HARD TIME was how Cara McKenna immediately set up my anticipation for what would happen and then made me believe that it could. The opening list of the prison’s rules of behavior became a framing device for Annie’s descent into madness as she violated nearly all of them in pursuit of her passion for Eric. And in this book, Cara McKenna also somehow turned the simple act of selecting clothes to wear into an erotic experience. Eric is no Dom, but his ability to dominate Annie with her full and ongoing consent just by asking her to wear a specific color or item of clothing was more sexually explicit for me than a hardcore BDSM scene. McKenna’s writing here is just that good.

Although I was happy to be back in the same world as McKenna’s previous book, AFTER HOURS, I didn’t mind not having an update on the hero and heroine from that book. I was completely caught up in the illicit nature of Annie and Eric’s secret romance behind bars, and the major adjustments they had to make once they were able to openly acknowledge their love. Cara McKenna books are always a treat for me, but this one was so lyrical, so emotional, so real, that I couldn’t put it down for more than a few minutes at a time.

Books like HARD TIME are why I make a point of not throwing around 5 star reviews for every book I love. Because I want it to mean something when I do. Cara McKenna’s HARD TIME is a five star read in every possible way, and it will be near or at the top of my Best Reads of 2014 by year’s end.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Dear Author (B)
RT Book Reviews (recommended)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 4/29/2014 = 3.98 stars)

Feature & Giveaway: A Promise of More by Bronwen Evans

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 04:59:00 +0000

Click on the banner to follow the tour!

In the second novel in Bronwen Evans’s sexy new Disgraced Lords series, two very independent souls find themselves fighting to resist a deepening passion.

When Beatrice Hennessey sets out to confront Lord Coldhurst, the notorious rogue who killed her brother in a duel, her intent is to save her family from destitution. She’s determined to blackmail the man into a loveless marriage. She’ll make the wealthy Lord Coldhurst pay for the rest of his life. But while greeting his ship, Beatrice takes a tumble into the Thames—only to be fished out by a pair of strong masculine arms that tempt her to stay locked in their heated embrace forever. That is, until she realizes those arms belong to Sebastian Hawkestone, Lord Coldhurst himself.

The little drowned mermaid has an interesting proposition indeed; one that Sebastian is surprised to find quite agreeable. Although he’s had women more beautiful, she is pleasing to the eye, and besides, it’s time he fathered an heir. Beatrice promises to be the ideal wife; a woman who hates him with an all-consuming passion is far too sensible to expect romance. However, it isn’t long before Sebastian’s plan for a marriage of convenience unravels, and he’s caught up in the exhilarating undertow of seduction.

Amazon.com Widgets

Bronwen Evans grew up loving books. She has always indulged her love of storytelling and is constantly gobbling up movies, books, and theater. Is it any wonder she’s a proud romance writer? Evans is a two-time winner of the RomCon Readers’ Crown and has been nominated for an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand.

To celebrate the release of A Promise of More, the second book in her Disgraced Lords series, author Bronwen Evans is giving away a $25 egiftcard and a copy of A KISS OF LIES ebook retailer of choice and 3 First Prize bundles - A KISS OF LIES and A PROMISE OF MORE from your ebook retailer of choice) Woot! Enter to win and read all of the rules and regulations in the Rafflecopter form below:

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Guest Author & Giveaway: Jenn LeBlanc featuring Absolute Surrender

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Today I'm excited to share Jenn LeBlanc's newest illustrated romance, ABSOLUTE SURRENDER. This book, like THE RAKE AND THE RECLUSE: Redux, has gorgeous images to enhance an already delicious romance story.

Meet Jenn: Colorado. Canon. Curls. CJs. Chuck Norris. Born and raised in this beautiful state —very nearly with a camera in hand— I never left. I started my own family, got used to the curls, went to college, built a CJ, started a business, and totally beat the daylights out of Chuck Norris, all with a camera in hand.

Spending my days in parenting chat rooms I got highly adept with one-handed typing and I can still type just about as fast with one hand as I can with two. It’s a great talent to have when engrossed in a scene and in need of a hit of caffeine. Once I finished my first novel I quickly realized: I was born a photographer.

From the realization that someone ELSE would be shooting the cover of MY book my control-freak took over. What started as an easy cover shoot ballooned into this completely new kind of media, designed specifically for digital book readers. The Illustrated Romance.

I live and thrive off chaos and the constant flow of the creative process. I wears shorts and flip-flops year-round —much to the chagrin of my friends and family.

The images from my book started a ruckus, and from there, #StudioSmexy was born, I’ve since shot over 300 romance novel covers, and currently shoot custom images for very special clients.

My first novel THE RAKE AND THE RECLUSE: REDUX is doing its own Chuck Norris impersonation with the time travel charts on Amazon, where it took up residence for over a year. You can find me on Twitter and Facebook sharing eye candy (NSFW) and being a total rock star.

Genre: Victorian Historical Romance

# of Pages: 400 pages

Publisher: Jenn LeBlanc

Publish Date: April 8, 2014

Happiness was always too much for Lady Amelia to hope for.

Now all she expects is to secure her future and marry Charles, Duke of Castleberry, as arranged. But Amelia has a dangerous secret that could not only destroy her in Charles's eyes and the eyes of society, but could also very well condemn her to Bedlam.

Baron Endsleigh, Amelia’s oldest friend, has other ideas. Ender has loved Amelia all his life. He knows her secrets, and they don’t frighten him. He plans to come between Amelia and Charles in any way he can to prevent the marriage and finally claim Amelia for his own. Though her father forbade the match years ago, Ender is determined to have her as his wife and nothing can stop him. Not even a duke as powerful as Castleberry.

That duke has hated Baron Endsleigh and wanted Amelia for, what seems to him, forever. Charles will stop at nothing to make her his, and his alone, even if that means destroying the one thing he knows she loves most in this world—Endsleigh.

Will Amelia be able to choose when one man speaks to her head and the other her heart?

None of them will find happiness until they all three learn to embrace absolute surrender.

Read an excerpt

Images from the book:

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Guest Author & Giveaway: Delilah Marvelle featuring Night of Pleasure

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Fri, 04 Apr 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Today it's my great pleasure to have the delightful Delilah Marvelle as a guest on the blog to celebrate the newest book in her School of Gallantry series, NIGHT OF PLEASURE. Enjoy!

Without a doubt, this is my favorite scene in NIGHT OF PLEASURE. The hero and heroine are both teenagers and still have a lot to learn about handling the concept of the opposite sex. This scene totally reminds me of the interaction I had with my own husband when he and I first met. Mind you, he didn’t use candy to seduce me, lol. But our interaction was enough to send me into a genuine panic. I ended up falling down the stairs in front of him because I was so overwhelmed. Seriously! So this is a nod to that panic, lol.

He stood, dug out his tin of amber mints, and flicked it open. He held it out to her. “Keep it to one. They’re very strong but well worth the unexpected bite.” It was the ultimate test. If she could handle the heat of his candy, she could handle him.

She peered down at the small tin that hosted the remaining amber hard candies. “What are they?”

“If ginger and licorice ever fell madly in love and married, their children would look exactly like this. It’s an acquired taste.” And yes, he was also referring to himself.

She leaned in and lifted her gloved finger above the tin as if to take one, but edged her fingers back and quickly lowered her hand. “I really don’t care for spiced candies. They usually overwhelm me. I prefer simple candies. Plain sweets. Do you have any honey sticks?”

Honey sticks? This one desperately needed some excitement in her life. And he was more than willing to give it. “I’m sorry, love, but I don’t do honey sticks. Plain sweets do nothing for me. In my opinion, being overwhelmed is far better than being underwhelmed.” He edged in closer until their faces were only two hands apart and her skirts brushed his trouser-clad thighs. The fullness of those lips taunted him as he rattled the candies in the tin. “I can assure you, it’s worth trying.” He held her gaze. “I promise you’ll never be the same.”

Her lips parted as she lowered her gaze back to the candies and perused each one as if they were different, even though they were the same. “I suppose I don’t mind trying one. How strong are they?”

“Your very knees will wobble.” He took one out of the tin with his bare fingers and brought it to her mouth, gently tucking it between those already parted lips. “Now imagine me crawling onto your tongue.” He pushed it in, letting her moist lips graze the tip of his finger.

Her eyes widened.

Ah, yes. That was the reaction he was hoping for. He grinned, clicked the tin shut and put it into his pocket. Holding her gaze, he sucked on the finger her lips had touched, trying not to be too obvious about it, and asked, “What do you think?”

She glanced at the finger he had sucked, her cheeks flushing. Her lips remained overly puckered as she winced against watering eyes. “I…sakes alive…it’s very…”

He still grinned. “Intoxicating. I know. If you bite into it, it adds more fire. Do you like fire?”

Her chest rose and fell more steadily. She waved a hand before her flushed face and pushed the candy around in her mouth and winced. “No. I don’t— This is…I can’t believe you actually like this. It’s like piling on…agony. My tongue is burning.”

That wasn’t the only thing burning. Her flushed face was stunning to watch. He could only imagine what she’d look like after a kiss. He angled in very close to the side of her bonnet and whispered so his brother couldn’t hear, “If you can handle the burn, you can handle me. How about we disappear for a small while into the library? I promise we won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

She choked and spit out the candy into her gloved hand.

He leaned back. “Are you all right? Is it coming on too strong?”

She scrambled away, her chest heaving. “I can assure you, Mr. Holbrook, it isn’t the candy that is coming on strong.” She tried to flick the candy off her glove, but it stubbornly clung to the kid leather. She panicked and shook her hand once and twice, but it still clung.

He closed the distance between them again. “You shouldn’t waste it. They cost a shilling a piece. Come here.” Taking her hand, he brought her palm upward.

She stilled and their gazes locked.

Still holding her gaze, he used his lips to fully take up the candy into his mouth, dragging his lips across the expensive leather of her glove so he could taste more than just candy. “You’re beautiful. Do you know that?”

An arranged marriage is daunting, but not as daunting as seducing a spouse whose passions you do not understand...

Derek Charles Holbrook, Viscount Banfield, knew his fate since he was seventeen when his father announced his union to the beautiful but mysterious American girl by the name of Miss Grey.

To protect the troubled estate, Derek submits to his father's wishes, not realizing he's about to entangle himself in a hell of a lot more than marriage.

Miss Clementine Henrietta Grey may be worth millions, but not a single coin has ever bought her a smidge of happiness. When she marries the charasmatic and dashing Viscount Banfield, whose only strife in life appears to be the uneven seams in his coat, she finds that siring the heir he wants requires far more than her heart is prepared to give.

Unable to seduce his overly-serious and reluctant wife, Derek realizes his dreams of creating a loving family has turned into a nightmare. But with the unexpected assistance of a retired courtesan and her outrageous school, Derek and Clementine discover that passion is a language spoken not just from the body, but from the mind, heart and soul.

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Delilah Marvelle is the winner of the Reviewer's Choice for Best Sensual Historical Romance of the Year and had Booklist name her historical romance 'Forever and a Day' one of the TOP 10 Romances of the year. When she isn't writing, she's digging through inappropriate research books that include anything in history having to do with courtesans, brothels, sexual contraptions that were never properly used and other fascinating forms of dirty history that never made it into college textbooks. You can visit her at her website at www.DelilahMarvelle.com, on Facebook, and Twitter. Sign up for her newsletter to receive notice when the next book comes out!

To celebrate the release of NIGHT OF PLEASURE, the fourth book in the School of Gallantry series, Delilah is giving away a $5 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky Musings follower. Enter to win in the Rafflecopter form below.

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Review: Teach Me a Lesson by Jasmine Haynes

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Teach Me A Lesson*
Author: Jasmine Haynes
Series: *Unnamed* #2
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: Berkley
Format: ebook and print
Date/Year: April 1, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Do what you have to do, Principal. I deserve it...

High school guidance counselor by day, sex therapist by night, Charlotte Moore’s passion is people—whether helping students with the realities of life or helping their parents with the fantasies. Enter Principal Lance Hutton, the perfect subject for Charlotte’s method in recharging the sex drive—and it’s going to take some discipline. Considering this hot older man is her boss, it makes sense that he dole out the punishment. Besides, Charlotte’s begging for it.

But when Charlotte’s after-school extracurricular activities are made public, it threatens her job, her reputation, and the career of the man she’s falling head over heels in love with. Now, if this town wants a scandal, Charlotte and Lance are ready to give them one—and a lesson in bad behavior they’ll never forget.

My Musings:

I really loved Jasmine Haynes’s THE NAUGHTY CORNER, and the way she introduced us to Gray and Lola as they discovered a mutual kinky love after being inadvertently brought together by Lola’s bratty nephews. So I was happy to see that TEACH ME A LESSON follows directly from that story, although it could still easily be read as a stand-alone book. I enjoy seeing couples from an earlier book in the context of a new one, especially when they play a key role in the new couple’s romance. And with TEACH ME A LESSON, we also get another great erotic romance set in the deliciously naughty background of an ordinary suburban high school, where consenting adults secretly meet to privately engage in oh-so-inappropriate behavior.

While THE NAUGHTY CORNER featured a successful CEO moonlighting as a part-time high school football coach, our hero in TEACH ME A LESSON is the principal himself. Married and divorced twice, Lance Hutton has become resigned to the fact that he isn’t likely to find a permanent relationship with any woman. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t taken notice of the delectable Miss Moore. She’s only part-time at his school, which limits the moments he has to ogle her from afar. One fateful afternoon, Principal Hutton decides to stop by Miss Moore’s office just as she’s crawling on the floor for a misplaced apple. And that’s when everything changes.

Charlotte Moore doesn’t want to submit to any man ever again, not after the awful one who had her doubting every thought and decision. The only independent decision she was able to make in that relationship was finally choosing to leave it. Since then, Charlotte has focused solely on casual affairs with much younger men, ones that let her take charge so she never has to worry about losing her identity again. So she’s puzzled by her apparent attraction to someone like Principal Lance Hutton. Not only is he at least 10 years older than her, but he’s also clearly someone who likes to be in charge. Of *everything*. But when Principal Hutton’s surprise visit prompts Charlotte to slyly express interest in a certain naughty activity, they seize the moment without realizing just how life-changing that decision will be for them both.

I love Jasmine Haynes books because they are always the perfect blend of kinky sex, adult relationships, and true romance. TEACH ME A LESSON is yet another example of this winning formula. We have a hero and heroine who are older but wiser, never hesitating to express what they want and do not want, and willing to expand their sexual horizons for something that makes any previous couplings pale by comparison. More importantly, Jasmine Haynes also gives us a story that displays the true qualities of both characters, as they prove their innate worthiness through the actions they take to help the vulnerable teenagers in their care. We get to laugh and cry and cheer for the bad guys to lose and the good guys to win, and then discover that maybe the bad guys weren’t really all that bad after all. And throughout it all, there’s that magnetic attraction between Lance and Charlotte, and their mutual discovery of kinky sex that ties it all together so well.

As I’ve found with so many other Jasmine Haynes books, reading TEACH ME A LESSON was like coming home. It may not be everyone’s idea of home, to be sure, but it’s one that I’ll want to return to (and I’m hoping for many more visits in the future).

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3.5 (BDSM-lite scenes including spanking and outdoor sex, discussions of cuckold fetish)

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Goodreads (avg rating as of 4/1/2014 = 3.88 stars)

Review: Dangerously Bound by Eden Bradley

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Dangerously Bound*
Author: Eden Bradley
Series: Dangerous series #1
Genre: contemporary erotic romance
Publisher: Berkley
Format: ebook, print and audio
Date/Year: April 1, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

She can whip up something sweet

Allie LeClair has finally returned to the sultry city of New Orleans. After ten years of studying and working as a pastry chef in San Francisco and all over Europe—and feeding her submissive side at BDSM clubs—Allie is home, and she has something to prove to the man who once fueled her desires. She’s not a child anymore.

But with two in the kitchen

When security specialist Mick Reid hears that Allie is back in town, he knows he won’t be able to stay away for long. Ever since he discovered his darker side, Mick has tried to protect Allie from the aggressive beast within him—but that power and wildness is exactly what she wants.

Can they take the heat?

Allie has made the first move, but now it’s up to Mick. The game has begun, and playing has never been so rough.

My Musings:

Eden Bradley was one of the first authors I read when I was just starting out with BDSM-related erotic romances, and she’s still one of the few I can always count on to provide a story in that specific sub-genre that’s as accurate as it is enjoyable. DANGEROUSLY BOUND is the first entry in her new Dangerous series, and much like all her previous books, it’s one that left me thoroughly entertained and ready for more to come.

In this new series, we are introduced to a related group of characters in New Orleans and the BDSM club where some of them meet to play and fall in love. This first book is the story of a hero and heroine with a long history that they’ve both tried to move past in their separate lives, before coming back together to give it one more try. When Mick’s newly discovered inner Dom emerged during the one night of passion he shared with Allie, her tears made him think he’d damaged her, ruining their chance at true love. His abrupt departure the next morning was followed by her own, resulting in a separation that lasted nearly a decade. But after years of training overseas as a pastry chef by day and experienced submissive by night, Allie is back in New Orleans for good. Mick may not be ready for what she has planned for him, but she is determined to confront him in any way necessary to force him to see her as she is now, not as she was then.

One of the things I love about Eden Bradley’s books is how she so easily sets up a new series without spending excessive time on things that are best revealed as the story unfolds. We know right off that Allie and Mick have a history that has kept them apart despite their obvious love for one another. We also know that there are other traumatic events in Mick’s past that are keeping him from fully committing to Allie, ones that she can’t help him get past if he won’t forgive himself. But all of these details inform our understanding of their push-me-pull-you relationship without intruding on what’s important, namely their rekindled romance here and now.

The best part of DANGEROUSLY BOUND for me were the numerous and lengthy intimate scenes between Mick and Allie, especially when they were in a BDSM scene featuring rope bondage and Mick’s apparent fondness for biting. His struggle to keep a Dom’s control over his emotions as he plays with Allie tests him more than he can bear, and he runs away from her more than once, which did become a bit frustrating for me. But Allie wouldn’t give up on him or their relationship, not until she realized that she had to let him go so he could realize that he needed to return for good. Their hard-won happy ending made me eager for more tales of BDSM romance when Eden Bradley’s new Dangerous series continues with DANGEROUSLY BROKEN.

Ratings:

Overall: 4 stars
Sensuality level: 4 (several intense scenes between H/h with biting and rope bondage, brief descriptions of BDSM club play)

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Other Reviews:

Publisher's Weekly (starred review)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 3/31/2014= 3.33 stars)

Review: Hope Ignites by Jaci Burton

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Hope Ignites*
Author: Jaci Burton
Series: Hope series #2
Genre: contemporary romance
Publisher: Jove
Format: ebook and print
Date/Year: March 25, 2014
Reviewed by: Michele

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Logan McCormack likes his isolated life on the ranch, until a movie crew starts filming there. When actress Desiree Jenkins blows into his life, she wrecks it harder than the Oklahoma winds with her brutal honesty and soft touch. Des knows this is a temporary stay, but she loves the open freedom of the land, and for the first time in her life, Des feels like she might have found a place she can call home, with a man she might be falling in love with. But Logan’s heart is tougher than the soil beneath them—can she convince him that they belong together?

My Musings:

HOPE IGNITES is the second book in Jaci Burton’s new small town romance series, where each book tells the story of how a character living in the town of Hope, Oklahoma, finds his or her true love. The first book, HOPE FLAMES, introduced us to the town and several of the people living there, focusing on the McCormack brothers and their extended friends and family. Officer Luke McCormack’s romance with town veterinarian Emma Burnett was in the first book, and in this book we get to see what happens when his brother Logan falls head over heels for a genuine movie star, in spite of his own damaged feelings about love and marriage.

Because the mother of the McCormack brothers had left both her children and the town of Hope years before, never to return or even remain in contact. Her shocking departure with another man came only days after the tragic death of their father, and that had made her abandonment of them all the more deeply scarring. In HOPE FLAMES, it was Luke who had to move past both his mother’s betrayal and a previous failed marriage to trust another woman with his love. Now it’s Logan’s turn, and his is all the more difficult because he’s now the one running the family ranch, and hatred of life on the ranch was one of the main reasons his mother had wanted to leave. So why would a woman accustomed to the glamor of Hollywood and the thrill of traveling all over the world ever want to give all that up for the likes of him?

But Desiree Jenkins isn’t your stereotypical movie star. She was raised as a military brat, with her father transferred to all different sorts of places, and never got to live in one place for very long. Her life as an actress began when she got to stay at one high school long enough to discover her love of the stage. It was only when Des moved away from her family to Hollywood that hard work and more than a bit of good luck led her to a career in motion pictures. She’s been making movies steadily for almost seven years now, concerned that any sort of break would let audiences forget about her, and the movie she’s making on Logan’s ranch is just another one before the next one begins. But the idea of life on a ranch appeals to Des in a way she hasn’t experienced before, and it makes her wish she had such a peaceful unhurried place where she could settle down and enjoy its quiet beauty.

When Des encounters Logan one morning as she returns from her morning run, it’s his looks which grab her attention, and they both soon discover that the attraction is definitely mutual. But as she and Logan slowly move past their initial inhibitions to embrace an enjoyable, albeit temporary, sexual relationship, it’s going to take more than good looks and good sex to help them both realize that what they have now could last beyond the day when her movie wraps production.

Not everyone enjoys reading small town romances, and I agree that these stories can be annoyingly trite and clichéd if not done well. But in the right hands, a romance set in a small town can be the best sort of comfort read, one where we know what we’re going to get and can’t wait to see exactly how it will play out this time. Both HOPE IGNITES, as well as the previous book, HOPE FLAMES, are this type of satisfying romance where we root for each new couple in a place where everybody knows each other’s past and present, but nobody knows what the future might bring. Both Desiree and Logan have entirely reasonable concerns about their own future together even as their bond grows stronger, and the book never makes light of those issues, or attempts to skim past them. In the end, however, it’s Des who has to lay her cards on the table, leaving Logan to decide which is stronger: his fear of abandonment, or his love for Des.

HOPE IGNITES shows us the best traits of a small town romance, with an ending that’s perfect for its hero and heroine. I can’t wait to see what Jaci Burton has in store the next time we get to visit a place called Hope.

Ratings:

Overall: 4 stars
Sensuality level: 3

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Smexy Books (B)
The Readers Den (4 stars)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 3/26/2014= 3.93 stars)

Review: Fool Me Twice by Meredith Duran

noreply@blogger.com (Booklover1335) — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Title: Fool Me Twice*
Author: Meredith Duran
Series: Rules for the Reckless #2
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Pocket Books
Format: paperback, ebook & audiobook
Date/Year: March 25, 2014
Reviewed by: Blue

*This book was provided to reviewer by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Summary from the publisher:

Running for her life, exhausted and out of options, Olivia Holladay wants nothing more than the chance to make a home for herself. So when she realizes that the infamous Duke of Marwick might hold the key to her freedom, she boldly disguises herself as the newest and bravest in a long line of the duke’s notoriously temperamental housekeepers. Little does she know that the wickedly handsome Alastair de Grey has very different plans for her. . . .

A MAN WITH A PASSION—FOR VENGEANCE

As his new employee, Olivia is a fearless upstart. As a woman, the daring redhead is just what Alastair needs to rouse him from darkness to the siren call of revenge. He has suffered a betrayal so deep that he will use whatever means necessary to destroy his enemies—even his brazen and beautiful domestic. But his vengeful plan fails to account for his single weakness: an irresistible and growing passion for the enigmatic Olivia.

My Musings:

Someone is out to kill Olivia. In a desperate attempt to ensure her own safety, Olivia has scammed her way into the household of the Duke of Marwick, Alastair de Grey, hoping to steal some incriminating documents that she can use to blackmail the would-be-killer. The servants are all afraid of the Duke, the man who once had it all. He was handsome, wealthy, and powerful. He had a beautiful wife, and a political career on track to take him to the top. But then his wife died of a drug overdose, and he learned that she betrayed him continually, not only sexually, but politically to his enemies. This left him so shaken, that he withdrew from public life. He stays in his rooms, drinking, barely eating enough to stay alive, and going half crazy.

Olivia knows that she'll need to search his quarters, so she makes the attempt to get him to leave his rooms. Despite her own agenda, when she sees the unkempt, broken, angry man he has become, she feels sympathy. It takes a little time, but Olivia begins to get Marwick's attention, mostly by annoying him. She chastises him, challenges him, and slowly starts him on the road back to himself. Marwick is basically a good man, so after a few stolen kisses and a steamy encounter that takes things a little further, he knows that he needs to send Olivia away before he truly ruins her. He lets her know this, and although she has begun to fall for him, she accepts that this is the way it has to be. As soon as she finds the information she originally came for, she'll leave. The opportunity presents itself when Marwick is interviewing a candidate for housekeeper. As she is rifling through his papers, of course, Marwick walks in.

He is enraged. The woman that he trusted, who led him back from the darkness is betraying him, just as his wife did. He believes that she intended to use the papers to provide information to his political enemies, one of whom happens to be Olivia's father. Although Olivia attempts to tell her story, he is having none of it. He no longer trust his own judgment, and feels he has been made a fool of twice. Olivia manages to flee, but now Marwick is determined to find her and make her pay, along with the other men who betrayed him.

Now begins a series of incidents and surprises that brings them back together, as unlikely allies. Without giving spoilers, this was very well written. I was taken by surprise by one of the unfolding events, and I love it when that happens.

While I liked and admired Olivia very much, I was totally caught up in the way Marwick was written. Meredith Duran made me feel his despair, his grief, his rage, and then his need for revenge. This book delivers on all levels - a great story, sympathetic and admirable protagonists, and a wonderful romance leading to a well deserved happy ever after. I highly recommend this book, and I'm sure it's going to be another of my favorites for this year.

Ratings:

Overall: 5 stars
Sensuality level: 3

For a complete understanding and definition of the ratings at Seductive Musings, click here

Other Reviews:

Dear Author (B)
Harlequin Junkie (4.5 stars)
Goodreads (avg rating as of 3/25/2014= 4.33 stars)