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1. I'm with you, what happens to Abigail makes me so angry. Every time I read it, I'm willing Claudine to come back in time, but she never does.

3. I also liked the way the ghost references were introduced. It really made me understand how it felt to Declan, just having these incongruous thoughts pop into his head as if it was something he'd already known, seeing things that aren't there but when he's seeing them it feels natural. Somehow that gives it a whole different feeling than if he'd been immediately startled by them.

4. LOL on the "women in packs" reference. I've learned quite a bit about men from Nora's books---she definitely has a handle on what makes them tick.

7. Declan's genuine affection for Odette is one of his best traits, IMO.

8. Wow, good eye, Jill! I was completely thrown by the idea that Declan was Abigail, much later in the book. But you're right, there are hints.

10. Yes, a little misdirection there, and I fell for it.

12. I think you're right. I know I picked up more the second time around, and probably if I'd reread it immediately, I'd have picked up even more.

16. Well, probably authors do that to add conflict, but I think it made a lot of sense that Lena would pick fights with Declan. She's trying to protect herself, and to keep a little distance between them.

20. Jill, you were definitely more on the ball than I was.

His memories of giving birth were priceless. Too bad we don't have a way to induce memories like that in more fathers.

I always appreciate your notes, Jill! I knew you'd have good ones for this book.

One thing that's different about this book is that the focus is much more on the hero than on the heroine. I find myself identifying with Declan instead of Lena. Not that she's not a complete, well-drawn character, but Declan's even more so, at least for me. I liked his manners, that were so deeply ingrained that they were a part of him. And I liked his courage in leaving a career that wasn't right for him.

Labels: books, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 12/18/2009 03:08:00 AM 2 comments

I'm so glad that paranormal romance has become popular lately! I've always read fantasy and science fiction, and am only a recent fan of romance, so it's nice to combine the two. If I'd known of stories like this one years ago, I'd have been reading romance longer than 6 or 7 years.

Harn, Hartley, Cornelius, whatever name he goes by, he's an interesting character. He has the Fane outlook---superior, selfish, powerful, and he believes himself incapable of and above the emotion of love. It's interesting to watch him slowly get caught up in emotion. He keeps telling himself that it's practicality or his own whims that drive him, when really, he's falling in love. Always fun watching romance heroes delude themselves, and The Forest Lord is better at it than most.

Eden began as a naive girl, turned into a rather jaded young woman, then matured almost overnight when her husband died. It was understandable that she believed her father responsible for taking her son away---after all, he'd disappeared himself. Finding her son, providing a good future for him, and restoring Hartsmere gave her a purpose she'd been lacking before. She was deluding herself as much as Hartley was, thinking that she'd make a better life for Donal by marrying Rushborough and getting Donal accepted in society. It became clearer every day that the sort of life she envisioned wouldn't be good at all for Donal, but it was the life she knew.

I kept trying to see Aunt Claudia as someone who just wanted the best for Eden, someone who truly believed that Eden was happier with her previous social life in the city, and only wanted to help her return to that life with Lord Rushborough, but she made me so mad! I didn't suspect that she was responsible for sending Donal away, but I did feel vindicated when I found out! Very interesting ending to that part of the story, I thought. I wonder if her husband was the fox who'd been hunted earlier in the story.

I loved that Donal had inherited his father's magic. The scene with Hartley teaching him in the woods was very sweet.

It was perfect that Hartley did take Donal to Tir-Na-Nog. I always worry when characters just end up changing their minds, that they'll have second thoughts later, after the book ends. I think it was important that he did follow through with what he planned, and thought it was so appropriate that he couldn't enter because of the love in his heart. It made me laugh when the fairy offered to get rid of it for him!

And what a nice little jolt at the end, finding out that Mrs. Byrne, who I'd thought was just a nice housekeeper, turned out to be Nuala---I'm imagining Mother Nature.

All in all, a wonderful, entertaining story. Definitely a keeper!

Labels: books, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 12/04/2009 02:57:00 AM 0 comments

This is a trade paperback reprint of After Dark and the novella "Bridal Jitters", but since I hadn't read either of them before, it was new to me.

I read a lot of science fiction, so I didn't have any trouble with the different world scenario. I did drive myself a little crazy trying to figure out when the books take place, since the inhabitants of Harmony were cut off from Earth 200 years before the story starts---is it 200 or more years in the future, or did they lose contact with Earth 200 years ago? I finally had to just ignore that. (OCD much? me? )

In both stories, the hero is a ghost-hunter, and the heroine is a tangler. Tanglers apparently have a deep distrust of ghost hunters, who are kind of like Harmony's version of the maverick cowboy, or a fighter jet pilot---sexy, arrogant, not reliable. I really liked that the strength these men had was mental strength, rather than just physical strength, although they did have nice bodies, of course. And what was really nice is that tanglers & hunters have complementary skills---they have to work together, which crosses over nicely into their personal lives.

Also interesting in "Bridal Jitters" were the two forms of marriage---the MC, or marriage of convenience, and the covenant marriage. Nice idea. The MC was for a limited period of time, renewable---basically conferring legal benefits to an affair, while a covenant marriage was considered permanent. I was thinking it would be a good solution to the high divorce rate, but then I realized that everyone thinks it'll be forever when they get married. Maybe in 200 years....

Anyway, these were fun, entertaining stories. I'm glad I read them.

Labels: books, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 10/02/2009 03:48:00 AM 0 comments

• **** "Winter Born" by Sherrilyn Kenyon.
  I have to laugh at the negative reviews on Amazon for this first story--those who have read Kenyon's Dark Hunters series complain that it introduces were-panthers to the series; and those who haven't read the series complain that it's too much a part of the series to stand alone.
  
  Basically, male were-panthers are bound for life when they meet their mate, but female were-panthers aren't. So when Dante meets Pandora, that's it for him, but not for her. And she's in heat, and they're at a convention where there are other possible mates around.
  
  Adding to the problem is that the pack Pandora escaped from (something to do with her being born in winter--hence the title) is trying to recapture her.
  
  This story was about par for my experiences with Kenyon's work--I enjoyed it, but didn't love it.
  
  
• ***½ "Born of the Night" by Amanda Ashley.
  This is a medieval werewolf revenge story. Lady Shanara and Lord Reyes's families are bitter enemies: Shanara's father killed Reyes's father and wears his pelt (he was a werewolf, as is his son). So Lord Reyes takes lady Shanara hostage, and to further punish his enemy, he's going to marry her.
  
  I'm not a big fan of revenge marriage stories--seems like you'd be hurting yourself a lot more than your enemy. And I'm not a big fan of stories about paranormal creatures who bemoan their fate--in this case, they're cursed with being werewolves. I don't think it's simply because I'm used to vamps and wolves who like being what they are (Spike!), though that probably has a little to do with it. Mostly, I think it's because I'm definitely a make-the-best-of-what-you've-got kind of person.
  
  So taking that into account, this was a nice, well-written story, just not my cup of tea.
  
  
• ***** "Make it Last Forever" by L. A. Banks.
  Wow. I loved this one, but a surprising number of reviewers on Amazon absolutely loathed it, most of them citing the fact that it started out in 1979. Um. Yeah. I loathe several books because the hero wears a blue shirt. It makes as much sense. What was wrong with 1979? I admit I have a soft spot for the year--it's when I graduated high school. Anyway. The story.
  
  What surprises me is that it's part of a series, but I haven't read the series. In fact, I've only read one other story by L. A. Banks, and I didn't really like it.
  
  
• ****½ "Red Moon Rising" by Lori Handeland.
  The last story is about a writer, Maya, living in an isolated cabin while she's battling writer's block. She has bigger problems, though--she's being stalked by a skinwalker.
  
  Enter Clay, a Jager-Sucher--that is, a werewolf hunter, who's there to protect her, but (of course--this is a romance, after all) their attraction to each other gets in the way.
  
  I'm guessing this is part of a series as well, and one I think I'd like to read more of. The touches of humor in this story set it apart for me.
  
  

Labels: 3.5 stars, 4 stars, 4.5 stars, 5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 9/06/2009 12:13:00 PM 0 comments

I just have to mention that I look forward to this anthology with great pleasure every year. They're fairy tales for grown-ups, and don't we all need a little more magic? I know I do.

• "A World Apart" by Nora Roberts
  Dara Joy, Annie? Hmmm. That didn't occur to me, but I will say this is one of the few stories that I wouldn't have identified as Nora's if it didn't have her name on it.
  
  This one took me by surprise. It's different in tone from Nora's other Once Upon A... stories. I've been waiting quite a while for another hilarious story like Art of Deception, and I finally got it. I laughed at least once a page, & interrupted whatever my husband was watching on tv at the time to repeat "this is just a perfect story!" over & over again.
  
  Kadra was a great heroine---strong and confident, even when faced with a world so different from the one she knew. I loved her fascination with the gun.
  
  Harper was a good match for her. He was strong and confident as well, and because of that, not intimidated or put off by Kadra's strength. His disadvantage in not knowing what was going on was balanced by Kadra's disadvantage in not knowing his world, and they both were intelligent enough to accept the other's help where it was needed.
  
  While I'd of course love to read more about these two, and about Kadra's world, I didn't feel that the story was unfinished. It worked very well in the novella format.
  
  Still, I think if J. D. Robb needs any more projects, more about this world, or even just about Kadra & Harper, would be a good place to start. Well, that & the comic book series about Nemesis.



• "Impossible" by Jill Gregory.
  Annie, you're sounding like cover blurbs again! I'm in awe.
  
  A story within a story---pretty good trick in novella-length! I always like the chain-of-events stories, where you change one thing and the end result seems completely unrelated. Butterfly flaps its wings resulting in a thunderstorm on the other side of the world. In this case, a spell on the castle resulting in Erinn and Tynon falling in love and ending the feud between their clans.
  
  More humor here---Erinn being a bumbling, frustrated witch. I liked her right away. She knew she was inept, but she kept trying. That, and her compassion, made her a heroine worthy of the name.
  
  The spell on the castle was very interesting. The real castle could only be seen in glimpses at sunset, and life went on as usual for the people still in the castle, except that they couldn't leave it. I'd initially thought the woman Erinn saw in the mirror meant they could see into the real castle through the mirror, but it was the spirit of Olivia.
  
  Even when the castle was restored, their impossible tasks weren't over---they had to convince Erinn's family to end the feud and accept Tynon into the family. I was surprised when Erinn's magic seemingly worked properly for once when the swords all flew away, but laughed aloud when they came back, not surprising Tynon.



• "Sealed With a Kiss" by Ruth Ryan Langan.
  This one starts out sad , with Arianna, as the oldest daughter, bartered off for her family's safety. It's especially tragic, because there's no bad guy. She's resistant, of course---what 17-year-old would want to be married to an elderly man? But her father's only trying to protect his family and his people, and while the old man could have asked for something else in trade, he is promising to defend them.
  
  It stays sad when Arianna's plan to get out of the marriage could end up with Lachlan being beaten or worse. I cringed when she apologized to him, then screamed. She was so desperate. And then to find that it was for nothing anyway.
  
  When they finally made love, it was bittersweet, with the knowledge that it would be the only time they'd have together.
  
  The man she thought was Lachlan saving Arianna at the cost of his own life, and her vow to fulfill her duty, brought tears to my eyes.
  
  But of course all was well in the end, and Arianna was able to follow both her duty and her heart. Ahhhh.... Very satisfying in the fairy tale tradition.



• "Kiss Me, Kate" by Marianne Willman.
  I need to preface this by saying I've been a fan since I read Court of Three Sisters back in.... 1994?? Was it that long ago? Anyway, I was thrilled when the first Once Upon A... book came out and included stories by two authors I already liked. (I learned about Jill & Ruth's wonderful stories from these anthologies---better late than never, right?)
  
  And we're back to funny again.
  
  Good eye, Annie, catching all the clues Kate should have caught that something out of the ordinary was going on.
  
  The frog's ongoing efforts to get Kate to kiss him just cracked me up. As did Miss Golunka (!!) trying to get Kate to fall in love with Michael so that she could have the prince for herself, and the flies disappearing in the store.
  
  I kept being surprised by Michael. I first thought he was supposed to be a distraction, and Kate was meant to fall in love with the frog prince (hey, it happened in The Frog Prince!). Then I thought he just wanted Miss Culpepper's land to restore his family's estate. When it turned out that he was the new Guardian, all the pieces fell into place.
  
  Poor Sophie! She must have been so frustrated when after the double spells on Kate & Michael, they stubbornly refused to act on them and fell in love on their own instead.
  
  I'm with you, Annie---it made a nice circle when Kate & Michael had their own twins, and named them Honoria and Trixie (nice that she didn't get stuck with Agatha!). Wonder if one of them will marry a fairy prince?!

Once again, the Once Upon A... anthology is just a real treat. Not only are all the stories entertaining on their own, but they're in an order that makes it a pleasure to read the book straight through. It starts out with a bang and a lot of laughs, then keeps a bit of the humor and adds the seriousness of a feud, then moves us into a more emotional, bittersweet mood, and then pulls us up into humor again with a more serious undertone. I'm probably babbling, and I know I'm not saying this as well as I could---hopefully I've managed to get across the gist of it.

Labels: books, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 9/04/2009 08:50:00 AM 0 comments

• ***** "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 0 comments

• ***** One More Valentine by Anne Stuart.
  
  Leave it to Anne Stuart to make a romance out of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. The seven victims have been coming back to life once a year for 48 hours--the 13th and 14th of February. One by one, they've found someone to love, and when that happens, they escape the 2-days-a-year cycle.
  
  Jamey Rafferty is the last one. This year, he's spending his two days trying to help his recently married buddy. Billy is in trouble: he's under arrest for participating in a robbery with Ricky Dragos, another of the seven. Dragos had seemed to turn around when he married, but his wife died, and now Dragos is back to his old evil ways, and he blames Helen Emerson, an associate district attorney, for her death.
  
  It's an eventful two days, to say the least. And there's so much emotion packed into them.
  
  Jamey is one of Stuart's trademark tortured heroes, and he was utterly realistic as someone from the 1920s who's now in the 90s, but has only experienced the intervening time as two days a year. He knows a lot about the current time, but only the big developments; the smaller details are missing.
  
  
  
• **** Be Mine, Valentine by Vicki Lewis Thompson.
  
  Roxie Lowell has been told by St. Valentine (or at least by Charlie Hartman, an eccentric old man she's taken under her wing, who claims to be St. Valentine) that the first man she met on Valentine's Day would be her husband within a year. The problem is (if she believed it, that is) that the first man she met on Valentine's Day isn't her fiance Doug; it's Hank Craddock, a widowed father of two.
  
  Even after Roxie and Hank fall in love, it's not all smooth sailing. Roxie desperately wants a child; Hank absolutely refuses to have another one. And there's a lovesick llama to add comic relief.
  
  The llama was a little too cute for my taste, and I'm not fond of either the desperate-for-a-baby plot or characters who refuse to discuss their problems or consider compromise. But it's a sweet story anyway.
  
  
  
• *** Baby on the Doorstep by Cathy Gillen Thacker.
  Just from the title, you could probably have guessed that this would be my least favorite novel in the volume. I really dislike baby romances. Ick.
  
  Also as you can tell from the title, a baby is left on Alec Roman's doorstep. So he looks for the baby's mother, and finds her sister, Jade Kincaid.
  
  How much is wrong with this? The scenario is even ickier than usual. Alec Roman is a slut. He's apparently slept with one woman and gotten her pregnant, and now he's all cozy with her sister and the baby that's his son and her nephew. And they don't seem all that concerned about finding the mother, or her motives in dumping her baby on this irresponsible guy's doorstep.
  
  If you can get past all that (obviously, I couldn't), it's a cute, light read.
  

Labels: 3 stars, 4 stars, 5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance, tbr challenge

// posted by Darla @ 3/27/2009 03:02:00 PM 5 comments

Labels: 4.5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 1/28/2009 10:54:00 AM 2 comments

• **** "Witch Way" by Maryjanice Davidson.
  Rhea Goodman and Chris Mere aren't just from feuding families; they're fated to kill each other because of a curse that's affected their families for generations. Or rather Rhea is fated to kill Chris and die in the process.
  
  Only MJD could pull this off, I swear. The story is laugh-aloud funny, and it's actually a pretty good conflict, if you suspend disbelief. Rhea is convinced she has no choice, and Chris is determined to end the curse, and of course adding falling in love to the mix, not to mention wacky relatives, just makes everything that much more complicated.
  
  
• ***½ "Street Corners and Halos" by Catherine Spangler.
  Rachel is a vampire hooker--which actually makes pretty good sense: she feeds on the men and then leaves them thinking they had sex. But she's depressed and feels terrible about herself. Enter Gabriel, an angel on a mission--to show her her true worth.
  
  It's not a bad story, but it's pretty predictable, and a little sappy. Still, it was an interesting premise.
  
  
• ****½ "The Demon's Angel" by Emma Holly.
  This story is part of Holly's "demon" series about the Yama (called demons by humans, but they're more like aliens) in Victorian England. Khira is a Yama genetic scientist; Harry is the human abducted for her to experiment on.
  
  Since this is Emma Holly, the story is very steamy, and as always, it's not just tacked-on sex scenes: they're integral to the plot. Khira and Harry are definitely star-crossed lovers (which is what this anthology seems to be about, rather than demons, despite the title): of different races, and completely different lives.
  

• *** "Angel and the Hellraiser" by Vickie Taylor.
  Rosemary and Zane are the angel and the hellraiser from the title. Zane is a professional daredevil; Rosemary is an angel who takes human form. She's on a mission to collect his soul.
  
  Rosemary's adjustment to being human is fun, and it's clever the things she's surprised by--not always what you'd expect. But this story is a bit too predictable and sappy for my taste. Similar, in fact, to "Street Corners and Halos," but not as dark.

Labels: 3 stars, 3.5 stars, 4 stars, 4.5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 1/06/2009 05:43:00 PM 3 comments

"Dragonswan"---I don't think I've ever read a romance where the hero's actually a dragon before. Amazing how different the stories ended up, isn't it? Two historicals and two time-travels, one with dragons & one with fairies.

I also really liked the life-mate idea, just as I like it with the Carpathians. And in "Dragonswan", the stakes are even higher, because there's only a small window of time in which they can become mates before he's destined to spend the rest of his long, long life alone.

In "To Kiss in the Shadows", I didn't think the hero was that ugly. His face was scarred from the pox, but the heroine said when she looked at him "in the shadows," she couldn't see the scars. To tell you the truth, I half expected her to come up with some wonder-working ointment that would make his scars go away. Yes, it would have been cheating, I know. And I'm glad she loved him in spite of the scars.

Good point about shorter stories leaving out the cat-and-mouse game. (or cat & dog in this case, because I don't have a cat & mouse smilie) We get down to the bottom of things right away.

In "An Interrupted Tapestry," I was so ready to hate her brother. Instead, I just felt pity & disgust for him. He'll never change.

And "Into the Dreaming". I'd never read anything by Karen Marie Moning before, either. Actually, I only read my first story about fairies (other than fairy tales) a couple of years ago, so they're still fairly new to me.

Labels: books, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 11/14/2008 08:29:00 AM 1 comments

Labels: 3.5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 10/10/2008 01:02:00 PM 0 comments

Labels: 4.5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 10/06/2008 12:19:00 PM 1 comments

I don't think I've ever read a paranormal regency before! What a lovely, fun surprise!

Our hero, Jovian, seems to be continually drunk, except for rare instances when our heroine, Anthea, sees him as he used to be, back when she fell in love with him.

I knew something was up, but the answer was a surprise. And in addition to the love story and the magic, there's a bit of suspense as well that kept me turning pages until the end. Quite a lot packed into only 231 pages!

Labels: books, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 8/29/2008 03:01:00 AM 0 comments

Labels: 4 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 8/26/2008 04:18:00 PM 5 comments

Well, this one was long-awaited! FYI, for those of you who haven't heard yet, we won't have to wait like this next time Nora writes a trilogy---next year's trilogy will be out in successive months.

Whew! That ending was a cliffhanger. Literally!

Someone mentioned to me elsewhere that the three books seemed more like one long book, and I have to agree. All three heroines figure prominently in all three books, unlike the usual brief mention. If (when?) this trilogy gets reprinted in a 3-in-1 volume, it'll work out nicely. Not that the individual stories weren't complete, but they're more complete together. Am I digging myself into a hole here?

I really liked that Sam was a witch himself. I think Mia needed someone with magic because magic was so much a part of her life, more than it was with Ripley or Nell. She needed to be able to share that part of herself.

The separation seems to be the biggest bone of contention among readers. I think Sam was wrong in the way he left her, but I also think it was necessary for both of them. Neither of them would have reached their full potential if he'd stayed & they'd gone on the way they were. Reminds me, frustratingly, of a teenage daughter who tends to blow of studying in favor of talking on the phone with a boyfriend.

I'm cutting Sam some slack, though, because they were both so young. I certainly hope nobody's still blaming me for mistakes I made when I was a teenager.

And I'm betting I'm not alone in liking that love scene where Sam uses magic.

Labels: books, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 8/22/2008 02:58:00 AM 0 comments

This is a trade paperback reprint of After Dark and the novella "Bridal Jitters", but since I hadn't read either of them before, it was new to me.

I read a lot of science fiction, so I didn't have any trouble with the different world scenario. I did drive myself a little crazy trying to figure out when the books take place, since the inhabitants of Harmony were cut off from Earth 200 years before the story starts---is it 200 or more years in the future, or did they lose contact with Earth 200 years ago? I finally had to just ignore that. (OCD much? me? )

In both stories, the hero is a ghost-hunter, & the heroine is a tangler. Tanglers apparently have a deep distrust of ghost hunters, who are kind of like Harmony's version of the maverick cowboy, or a fighter jet pilot---sexy, arrogant, not reliable. I really liked that the strength these men had was mental strength, rather than just physical strength, although they did have nice bodies, of course. And what was really nice is that tanglers & hunters have complementary skills---they have to work together, which crosses over nicely into their personal lives.

Also interesting in "Bridal Jitters" were the two forms of marriage---the MC, or marriage of convenience, & the covenant marriage. Nice idea. The MC was for a limited period of time, renewable---basically conferring legal benefits to an affair, while a covenant marriage was considered permanent. I was thinking it would be a good solution to the high divorce rate, but then I realized that everyone thinks it'll be forever when they get married. Maybe in 200 years....

Anyway, these were fun, entertaining stories. I'm glad I read them.

Labels: books, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 8/01/2008 02:42:00 AM 1 comments

Labels: 4 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 6/15/2008 12:21:00 PM 0 comments

Labels: 5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 6/11/2008 11:56:00 AM 0 comments

• "The Widow's Auction" by Sabrina Jeffries. Contemporary romance.
  
  The fantasy in this one? Anonymity. Without it, 'Bella' would never have been able to be so uninhibited. So, did she actually realize Justin knew who she was, but didn't admit it to herself? I so enjoyed watching him go from being determined to save her from herself---just give her a little scare ---to falling in love & not wanting to let her go.
  
  The description of her married sex life was so sad. I liked how her goals at the beginning of the story changed, and how Justin fit in with those new goals.
  
  Just a lovely story. I'll be looking for more by Sabrina Jeffries---I wish I'd found her books sooner!



• "Luisa's Desire" by Emma Holly. Paranormal romance.
  
  1600 Tibet?! One thing I've learned is Emma Holly is not predictable. Except that she will have very erotic stories about characters that you can really care about. I recommend her books whenever the conversation turns to "hot" stories. Okay, I'm going to gush here just a tad, because I missed the chat earlier this month & didn't get to gush then. I've never been disappointed, & I've never felt that the story or the characters were sacrificed to the sex scenes, or vice versa. This is just an incredibly talented author, & I'm delighted to see her stories in the mainstream.
  
  Okay, gush done.
  
  The fantasy in this one was vampires. And Eastern mysticism. What a combination. I loved watching Martin's desire to continue on his path to spiritual enlightenment war with his desire to help Luisa, & later on his love for her. Both of them were seeking a selfless life, but they ended up finding joy in each other.



• "Mr. Speedy" by Elda Minger. Contemporary romance.
  
  I had to laugh aloud when I read the title to this story. I had a completely different idea of what "Mr. Speedy" might refer to.
  
  The fantasy in this one is masquerading as a man, and oh, is that tempting! Wouldn't it be nice to be on the inside & know what they're really thinking?! This was just a fun, fun story. I held my breath at Miranda's slip-ups, then laughed aloud when she didn't get caught. I thought that was fairly realistic, btw---people tend to see what they expect to see, & I'm sure if anyone had suspected she was a woman, they'd have recognized it without much difficulty. But since they expected a man, that's what they saw. Jake's protecting him/her as a little brother was so sweet. And I loved the comeuppance Anton Levine got at the end.
  
  And I can't believe that with over 20 romance novels out there, I haven't run across Elda Minger before. I've obviously been missing out. Not for long, though.



• "The Awakening" by Christine Feehan. Paranormal romance.
  
  The thing I absolutely about Christine Feehan's books is the way she uses words. The descriptions of the rain forest are as lush as the rain forest as well, & I swear the pages felt damp & I could smell the forest smells as I read. I've told her this before, so I don't have to gush now. (yeah, I know, it's too late.)
  
  The fantasy here was shapeshifters. And soul mates. Such a vivid portrayal of a woman who's a shapeshifter but doesn't realize it starting to feel her animal side. There's the increased acuity of the senses, the joy in being wild & free & home, and the fear & shame when her human side doesn't understand what is happening to her. I enjoyed that Brandt didn't push her into accepting that she was his fated mate, and that he was willing to live in the city with her if that's what she wanted. And I liked that she helped save him from James.
  
  I'm very curious to know if we'll see this world again. It seems there are at least 3 more shapeshifters with stories to be told, & probably more--those who have moved out of the forest. Sounds like another wonderful series to me.

Labels: books, ContemporaryRomance, flashback, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 5/30/2008 01:23:00 PM 0 comments

• ***** "Dragon Dance" by Angela Knight
  Police Sergeant Arial Dean, the department's top hostage negotiator, is working a domestic hostage situation when it suddenly gets much worse: the perpetrator turns out to be a new Hyper, and they have to call in and FBI Hyper called Tracker to deal with him. Hypers are people infected with... something.... that gives them one of a variety of supernatural powers. When they first become Hypers, they're extremely violent until they learn to control their powers.
  
  Tracker is able to subdue the man, but in the struggle, Arial becomes infected herself, and Tracker spirits her away to help her through the initial phases. Only to find that there's a Hyper out there controlling other Hypers and Tracker is a major target.
  
  This is a new world for Angela Knight, and I hope she sets more stories in it. There's a great balance between interesting worldbuilding, the emotional dilemma of a woman finding her life irrevocably changed, an incredibly steamy romance as Arial and Tracker discover each other, and the excitement of finding and fighting a supervillain. And if that's not enough, there's a wonderful twist at the end.
  
  
• ****½ "Caught by the Tides" by Diane Whiteside
  Emma Sinclair is a young widow who rescues the shipwrecked Owen Bentham, a King's Mage on a mission to return to England with the counter to a spell that Napoleon's mages can use to invade. Emma nurses him back to health using magic spells. She'd learned the spells years ago, but they'd never worked well. Now, however, they're working fine.
  
  Turns out Emma is a Chalice--someone who amplifies a mage's power. Now Emma has to deal with her newfound power, her growing feelings for Owen, and the fact that her neighbor reveals himself to be an enemy mage who wants to kill Owen and use her as his Chalice. For his part, Owen is torn between protecting Emma and completing his mission.
  
  Another new world here--the time of Napoleon, with magic. And again, it's well-developed and interesting. I could have used a little more romance between Emma and Owen, but it's still a wonderful story as is.
  
  
• ****½ "Queen of All She Surveys" by Emma Holly
  In the ongoing war between King Ravna and Queen Tou, the queen's army has won a major battle. So King Ravna sends his son Prince Memnon in exchange for the soldiers who'd been taken captive.
  
  Memnon discovers that Queen Tou isn't quite what he'd expected, and that his father had betrayed him. The story is complicated by taking place in the Yama universe, and both Memnon and Tou have virtually inexhaustible sexual needs--she keeps a plethora of men to keep herself barely satisfied, while Memnon has developed incredible control.
  
  Between the steam and the political intrigue, this was definitely a story I didn't want to put down.
  
  
• ***½ "In a Wolf's Embrace" by Lora Leigh
  Matthias Slaughter is a Wolf Breed and an assassin. He's been sent to kill one of the evil scientists who'd created and tortured the Breeds. And he does. The only problem is that there's a witness: Grace Anderson. Matthias should eliminate her, too, as a liability, but the problem with that is that he's recognized her as his mate.
  
  It was an entertaining story, and I liked the premise, but Grace got on my nerves. Too much "I love him but he killed someone so I have to turn him in." Even after explanations. And unfortunately, a lot of Matthias's arguments take the form of "come on, you know you want me," as if sexual desire is the same as a logical argument.
  

Labels: 3.5 stars, 4.5 stars, 5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance

// posted by Darla @ 5/27/2008 10:05:00 AM 0 comments