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• ***** "The Bride Wore a .44" by Maggie Shayne.
  This is the story I'd missed half of before. A woman with amnesia is preparing to get married to a man who she's assured is her loving fiance--but she finds herself falling for her wedding planner, and remembering a completely different life than the one she's been told she had.
  
  A lot of reviews compared this story to "Alias" or "La Femme Nikita," presumably because *gasp* it has a female secret agent. Good grief. That's like saying Getting Rid of Bradley is like Old Yeller because they both have dogs in them. It's much more like The Long Kiss Goodnight, which is one of my very favorite movies.
  
  Amnesia stories are one of my guilty pleasures anyway, and I love spy stories, so this novella could have been written just for me.
  
  
• ****½ "The Incredible Misadventures of Boo and the Boy Blunder" by MaryJanice Davidson.
  This story is set in the Betsy universe. Boo is a vampire hunter. She saves "the boy blunder" from a vampire, whereupon she gains a geeky, overenthusiastic, admiring sidekick.
  
  And just to twist her world around further, she finds herself falling for a vampire ex-cop turned comedian.
  
  People tend to either love or hate MJD's voice. I'm in the love-it camp, and this story is just fun and LOL-funny.
  
  
• ***** "Warfem" by Angela Knight.
  This is in the same series as Jane's Warlord, which I loved. It has the bioengineered warriors--very cool; it also has reunited lovers, another of my favorite themes. And of course it has Angela Knight's great writing--original and sexy.
  
  After twenty years apart, Baird and Alina have a lot of catching up to do--and a few secrets as well. Their conflict was well done and convincing, especially for novella-length.
  
  And for the reviewer who complained that such a long separation put Baird and Alina in their 40s, making the sex scenes just too icky.... I suspect your opinion will change once you're out of your teens.
  
  
  
• ***** "Painkillers" by Jacey Ford.
  The first time I read this, I only liked it--this time, I loved it. I think it's because I was prepared for what turns out to be a very unusual story.
  
  Lauren is undercover on a tropical island as a supermodel. Well, she is a supermodel, but she's also a spy.... or at least she thinks she is. The CIA is using her by giving her a "Secret Agent Handbook" and fake accelerated training.
  
  When she and her contact Jake, who's a real secret agent, end up in more danger than they'd expected, she discovers the subterfuge. Lauren's initially demoralized, then she finds she has more strength than she--or the CIA--knew.
  
  It's that last that pushed the story into 5-star category for me--how she took the disappointment and insult and rose above it.
  

Labels: 4.5 stars, 5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance, RomanticSuspense

// posted by Darla @ 6/03/2009 02:14:00 AM