Scent of Magic (Healer) by Maria V. Snyder Edition: Paperback Price: $10.17
There is Nothing Moving the Story Forward., December 27, 2012 This review is from: Scent of Magic (Healer) (Paperback) Scent of Magic by Maria V Snyder (Book 2) This is the second book in the Healer Trilogy. Avry has to do the same things she did in the last book all over again. I think poor Avry is in a rut. A boring rut. The only difference is that she is doing all of the same stuff without Kerrick. There is no mystery, there is of course no romance -there is betrayal, espionage galore and a ton of people we have trusted and liked that we shouldn't have! Avry is as stubborn and thoughtless in this book as she was in the last one. Actually, she is even more stubborn and thoughtless. I don't mean she is thoughtless to other people. No, she is thoughtless with what happens to herself and after a while it just gets tedious. She spends most of her tome in this book pretending to be a sergeant in Estrid's army and teaching the soldiers how to be soundless while traveling through the forests. I am still annoyed with the characters usage of modern vernacular since the book has a feel of being set in times long ago. Tohon is still as annoyingly egotistical and uttering "my dear" either before or after whatever he says to Avry. I would like to pluck out my eyeballs when I see this repetitive, trite, clichéd group of words. There is no character growth, Avry is not as strong as she could have been, and she is just whiny and overly sarcastic. While this should be a book to transition us to the third and concluding novel, it doesn't manage to do so. What it does do is to bog us down in detail that does nothing to move the story along.

		Santa Viking Price: $4.79
Truly Sweet AND Hot!, December 19, 2012 This review is from: Santa Viking (Kindle Edition) This book gives you two stories for the price of one. Two fun, romantic and sometimes hilarious novellas that I think will really put you in the holiday spirit. Bolthor's Bride We have the long awaited story of that Viking Scald Bolthor. Yes, he finally found someone who could listen to his verse without cringing, someone who thought him to be breath stealing handsome...someone with four children and 3 swine-like husbands under her belt, someone who could use his strength and love! This would be a very merry Yule season for Bolthor the Skald and Katherine the Saxon. This was a fairly short novella, but with Sandra Hill's usual humor and depth of characters it will not be a disappointment for her fans. In a "Viking for Christmas" we come back to the 21 century with the story of Erik Thorsson and Jessica Jones. Jessica believes that she has a curse upon her and for all intents and purposes it really DOES look like that. Jessica meets Erik while she is dressed as Santa Claus attempting to 'rob' the Piggly Jiggly of the money they owe her for a broken toy. During the attempted... uhm... robbery, she ends up taking Erik as a sort of hostage and things just escalate from there. The only thing I could possibly have had problems with was that Erik fell in love in a matter of hours, and just kept talking about wild sex and how great he was in bed. However, the story was so sweet in the long run, with an amazing depth of character growth in such a short amount of time that I finally found myself overlooking that issue and falling in love with Erik and Jessica and, oh, did I forget to tell you that there is also houseful of orphans in this story ? I fell in love with them too. It was a magical Christmas for all and this book sure helped me find a little Christmas spirit which I was sorely lacking this year!

Any Taint of Vice: A Kate Shugak Story (Kate Shugak Novels) by Dana Stabenow (Kindle Edition -Dec 18, 2012) - Kindle eBook

• $0.99 Kindle Edition

Yes this is a short story with a good excerpt at the end of Ms Stabenow's newest book. But for 99 cents you get an action and mystery packed happy 15 or 20 minutes of reading time.

Kate is hired to find her old college President, Victor Boatwright, to find his missing son. She manages to do so but with so many unexpected twists,. murders and turns you may not beleive your eyes. There are some interesting scenes with her friend and fellow PI - Kurt Pletnikof, who has now gone totally straight in an impressive way. This was written with a slightly different style than I am used to reading from Ms Stabenow and I think it is because she has tried to pack so much into so few pages. It is a starkly written story that suits the mood and the characters perfectly

If you are waiting as anxiously as I am for the next book Bad Blood like I am, this will fill in the time for you a little.

Blood of the Pride by Sheryl Nantus (Feb 13, 2012)

				This is the first book in an interesting new series by long time author Sheryl Nantus.  Book 2 “Claws Bared” will be out on January 21st. Rebecca is a cat shifter, and she is an unusual one at that.  She is also a PI, and has just gotten a summons of a severed rabbit foot calling her back home to her Pride.  The same Pride that kicked her out so many years ago. Another Pride mate has been murdered and an investigative reporter is spreading evidence around that ‘cat people’ may exist. Now that Rebecca has to investigate this murder for her old, Pride-she decides to go to the source of the photo and she soon finds herself smitten with this sexy journalist.  Therefore, they decide to investigate together. This was quite the interesting book in that the author really takes her time in setting up the world so that there will be no questions asked by the readers.  I really appreciated the time and effort this took Ms Nantus.  It made it much easier for me to lose myself in the story – and really understand everything that was happening. The characters are well written and defined. The use of Toronto as a home base is a slightly different one and is quite interesting for us south of the boarder.  The story and mystery isn’t too complicated, but just enough to keep you guessing for a while.  There is at least on sort of red herring thrown in to keep you off-kilter. Some may be tempted to classify this as a romance, but romance takes a back seat to all of the investigating and action that fills these pages. In fact, on the one occasion that Rebecca and Bran DO get together, it is not written using explicit language or descriptions.   This was a pleasant shift away from so many of these types of books that put so much emphasis on the sex even though they are touted as action/suspense books. Some of these books come off as more erotica  with the adventure taking a back seat.  Not so with this novel.  Yes you do get romance, it just isn’t an ‘in  your face’ type of romance.

The Escape Diaries: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance) [Kindle Edition]

Juliet Rosetti (Author)

The Escape Diaries by Juliet Rosetti

There are so many books, that after a while I find so many of them just don’t manage to hold my complete attention…but not so with The Escape Diaries, a debut novel and whist a debut!  I picked it up this morning and didn’t put it down until I was done.  This was an amazing book.  It was funny, mysterious, filled with action and it even managed to have a bit of romance! 

Mazie Maguire has been convicted of murdering her husband; and it must be true because after all it was filmed on the nanny cam right? Now she has spent 4 years of a life sentence behind bars and has missed so much of life.  Until one day, a tornado touches down and Mazie takes a chance.  She manages to escape and I must say she has an action packed escape.  It was actually true to life, the reader did not have to take him or herself out of reality too far to believe what was happening, Mazie had to go through a lot to continue with her escape. Nothing was ever easy or convenient for her and I as a reader appreciated that.

One of the best parts of this book is how the town itself starts backing Mazie and her escape…It become hysterically funny.  Add to this her demented Mother-in-Law who had been baking poisoned cookies and sending them to Mazie in jail and then manages to nearly electrocute Mazie while she is on the lam.

This is a tightly written novel, with very well fleshed out characters.  Even the secondary and tertiary characters have been comp;lately written to a believable degree.  There is no extraneous annoying inner-dialoguing to get in the way of the action.  The action is nearly non-stop, but Ms Rosetti is such a good author that she knows when to give the reader and her characters some time off.

I would love to see this become some sort of trilogy or series…but since at this point in time Ms Rosetti has no Web-Site, we have no clue as to what is up on deck for us next.

				Touch of Power (Healer) by Maria V. Snyder Edition: Paperback Price: $10.17
Pre-Teen Novel Perhaps?, December 2, 2012 This review is from: Touch of Power (Healer) (Paperback) Color me confused...is this a novel for pre-teen/teens or a novel for adults? Because as I read this book I'm finding myself thinking that if I were some years younger I might have enjoyed this more. There is nothing to this novel but a simple back and forth of the same plot device used over and over. The heroine is hiding - the heroine is caught. The group is chased...the group is caught...over and over. The heroine heals someone, the heroine almost dies. If the heroine does what her new friends want her to do she will almost certainly die (not!) The characters certainly act more like children than the adults they are supposed to be. There is no emotion to them, no character or passion, even what are supposed to be exciting bits of this story are more a cliché than anything else. To add more confusion into this read, we cannot really be sure just what kind of world this is supposed to be. Is it a future world? A past world? One on a galaxy far, far away? Perhaps a parallel world? The world is a simple one with no technology...they have magic. However, some of the ideas, solutions, mechanics and problems are of the 21st century. The language the characters use is 21st century slang which for some readers may just pull you out of the story and make it a very uncomfortable read. It is a fantasy novel filled with modern colloquialisms and sarcasm. The part of the evil Tohon was played ( in my imagination) by a mustache twirling Simone Legre and he never started or ended a sentence without adding "my dear" when he was talking to Avry. He is such a clichéd `bad guy' that I couldn't help laughing at most of the ending. Yes, there are interesting bits, but not enough to make this book worth the time or the price

				Killer Librarian by Mary Lou Kirwin Edition: Mass Market Paperback Price: $7.99
A New Series, December 1, 2012 This review is from: Killer Librarian (Mass Market Paperback) Killer Librarian by Mary Lou Kirwin " first book in a new cozy mystery series" What is described as a `new cozy mystery series' could be described as more of a romance series with murder being the secondary or even a tertiary story line. I was disappointed to find this out after investing my time into this novel. However, I persevered to see where this author was going to take us. One of the places the author took us was to make the heroine Karen a bit of a liar...granted you can easily see why it was done, but it still made me uncomfortable as it seemed to really serve no true purpose except to make Karen look and act a little flighty.. With sometimes trite dialogue and oft-times overly nit-picky descriptions of things, places clothing etc. - I waited to see if there was going to be any sleuthing going on. There was a bit but only in between bouts of Karen touring England, `dating'' her B & B host and shopping for books. If you love books and love hearing thoughts about books - especially Old English authors and descriptions of England, you will enjoy the gist of this story. If, however, you want a little excitement or even just a tiny bit of tension with your murder and cup of tea you may want to pass this one by. With more than 80% of the book finished, you will finally come to a part where Karen and Caldwell start to take things a little more seriously and start investing some time in sleuthing. The method of the murder itself is somewhat interesting, but is one that I have read before. If you do read this book, I hope you manage to stick it out until the ending...someone gets their just desserts and it gave me quite a giggle! I hope that it will do the same for you.

Waking Up Married by Mira Lyn Kelly (Dec 1, 2012)

 

Waking Up Married by Mira Lyn Kelly

This could have been the conventional type of romance. One which consists of an ‘accidental’ marriage that the pair decides to try to make real. It would have been good too.  Instead, this author took what could have been a trite and silly fairy tale type unbelievable romance and turned it into something more…something a little more real. Moreover, it is  a lot better than the usual conventional themes.
Let’s face it, it you are reading a book like this you love romance and you may even be willing, like I am, to  take yourself out of reality and throw all illusions of real-life into the wind.  And I think this book actually takes that step back from reality  and turns this into a book that is just a little more special.

We have, as I said, a sort of typical romance of accidental marriage.   We have the perfect man, or what passes a perfect man offering to stay married for the idea of a strong partnership/marriage and father-hood.  However, of course he wants more. However, not the way it seems we should be expecting.  All along, he has had to persuade Megan that she was doing the right thing. You start thinking that he loves her and really does want this to go farther than a mere partnership.  But, alas, this is not to be.  However, the interesting part is just beginning when he sees the error of his ways.  
What I did not see coming was just why Connor didn’t want love in his life, and to get to that point in the book the ride was a pretty interesting one.
The characters while not 100% believable, are likeable. The humor in the story is dry and well written and the emotional aspects are fairly believable.  It was a short novel so things are not as developed as I would have liked.  Nevertheless, for a quick, light, fun read I think that this will make for a good one.

			Drive Me Wild (The Others) by Christine Warren Edition: Mass Market Paperback Price: $7.99
Was "Fur For All", November 27, 2012 This review is from: Drive Me Wild (The Others) (Mass Market Paperback) Drive Me Wild (The Others) by Christine Warren This is NOT truly a re-print BUT... ...this WAS originally published as an Ellora's Cave Publishing book in 2003 and has been out of print for quite a while. I loved the original and as with several other of Ms Warrens re-prints, I was looking forward to some added scenes, dialog, etc cetera and I was not disappointed! The 'romance' scenes are just as steamy as I remember from the earlier book and I was a little shocked to see that they hadn't seemed to have been toned down for the wider market as they had been in at least one of the other re-prints. The story features what could be a woman that you could easily come to dislike since it seems early on in the book that Tess Menzies has no spine. This book is ALL about the fact that the woman is going to be submissive sexually and I have no problems with that, but I hate it when that submissiveness plays into Tess's daily life and it seems like she can never say no to ANYONE. Luckily, Ms Warren really knows how to make her characters grow and by the end of the novel you will be rooting for Tess. Tess is a witch and as she has come to realize not a very strong one and she has an ability for some brief lapses into premonition. Tess has been drafted by her Grandfather to bring a message to the Council of Others leader Rafael De Santos a lusty, sexy, hot-hot-hot were-jaguar. The message gets delivered and things very quickly go from promises of heat, to full blown passion in a matter of a couple of chapters. So now, we have a mystery of why the Witches Council wants to meet with the Council of Others (the furred and fanged group). However, we have an even more interesting mystery that has to do with an old curse and the fact that the feline population of were's have been losing the ability to reproduce...that is until Rafe and Tess get together! This is a thoroughly engaging story filled with heat passion and a lot of humor. There are plenty of interesting characters and enough mystery to keep you reading well into the night. Rafe may get on your nerves a little bit, but he even with his flaws he is an adorable Alpha/Dominant type that will be sure to please most readers. Have a good read!

 

Wild About You (Love at Stake) by Kerrelyn Sparks (Nov 27, 2012)

• $7.99 Mass Market Paperback
• Available for Pre-order. This item will be released on November 27, 2012.
• $5.99 Kindle Edition

Oh, I’ve been waiting a while for Howard’s story and here it is.  Handsome Howard, Hunky Howard and the list goes on!.  The majority of these books are about vamps, but when Ms Sparks gets a notion to write about the furrier side of life she really goes all out!

This book is filled with a ton of steaming innuendo, longing looks, sexy passages, sexy male anatomy wonderful descriptions, mystery and suspense!  You name it, you will find it!

It has been a while since Elsa has felt even the tiniest bit petite.  At over 6 feet, this beauty has never felt delicate. In fact, she works demolishing homes for a international televised home show, pretty much with her bare hands and a few tools.

Howard has a secret, he has a box of DVD’s hidden under his bed featuring two men and a lady – but it isn’t what you’re thinking...oh no, it is a stash of the home show with Elsa starring!  Howard has a major celebrity crush.  But his crush may become a reality if Howards employer has anything to do with it.

Now Howard is a bear shifter and Elsa is coming to find out she is just a bit different too. {Just why do forest creatures cluster about Elsa?)

There is so much going on in this book that it would be nearly impossible to give a good synopsis without giving away a lot of the story.

So I will say that it is a wonderful story.  It has great humor, excellent mystery; fantastic sex scenes that do not occur at the beginning, but give the characters time to forge a relationship with each other.  It has fully fleshed characters and a complex story line that encompasses years, distances and nearly improbable to believe myths/curses.

Will Howard and Elsa get their happily-ever-after?  Will Howard ever get revenge for all the wrong perpetrated upon him?  You are just going to have to read   “Wild About You” to find out! And if this is your first Kerrelyn Sparks I assure you it will not be your last one!