Category: A reviews (Page 12 of 16)

Dare You To by Katie McGarry

May 22, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I picked this one up from NetGalley. I loved Pushing the Limits last year and was so looking forward to where this author would take Beth… and Isaiah. I had read the first chapter in the back of Pushing the Limits so I had a fair idea that Isaiah wasn’t the hero. He’s the hero in the next book. Cannot Wait.

What it’s about (from Goodreads): “I dare you…”If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s home life, they’d send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom’s freedom and her own happiness. That’s how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn’t want her and going to a school that doesn’t understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t get her, but does….Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn’t be less interested in him.But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won’t let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all….

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I loved this. On Goodreads, it says the book is just over 300 pages but on my reader it was showing up at just over 600. Who knows why. But regardless of the actual length, the book was a pleasure to read. I really like Ms. McGarry’s writing style. I like the alternating POV chapters, from both Beth’s and then Ryan’s perspectives. The present tense fit the immediacy of the book too.

The Gamble by Kristen Ashley

April 27, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I liked Sweet Dreams so much I bought the rest of the books in the series and started at book 1.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Nina Sheridan’s on a timeout adventure in the Colorado Mountains. She needs distance from her clueless fiancé, distance to decide whether she wants to spend the rest of her life with a man who doesn’t care enough to learn how she takes her coffee.Arriving in a blinding snowstorm at the A-Frame she rented, she comes face to face with the most amazing man she’s ever seen. Minutes later, when he kicks her out of his house, she goes head to head with him.Beyond angry because she’s flown half a world away to start her timeout adventure, not to mention her sinuses hurt, she heads back down the mountain and ends up in a ditch. Unable to extricate herself, she gives up, hopes for rescue and falls asleep in the backseat.The next morning she wakes up in the amazing man’s bed and she’s sick as a dog.Holden Maxwell spends days nursing her back to health and then he spends the next two weeks trying to convince her to take her Colorado adventure further, in other words, make it permanent and take a gamble on him.

Nina has a tough time fighting her attraction to Max, especially when it seems all Max’s friends, her mother and stepdad and the whole town want them together and both she and Max get embroiled in the murder of Max’s ex-friend and the town of Gnaw Bone’s most detested resident – a man everyone has motive to kill, especially Max.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I’m a big fan of the main characters in a romance spending a lot of time together. I like it when they meet very early in the book and I don’t like long separations. There are exceptions to every rule of course but I think one of the reasons that the Kristen Ashley books I’ve read so far have worked for me, is that her main characters get together on the page very quickly and if there are any separations, they are short. Nina and Max, spend a lot of time together in this book. It is a fairly long book and they get a lot of page time. There is a lot of dialogue and I got a good handle on Max, notwithstanding the book is almost completely from Nina’s 1st person POV.

I have another review up at AudioGals today…

April 26, 2013 / Kaetrin

I reviewed Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs in print here. At AudioGals I review the audiobook version – Lorelei King brings it.

Sweet Dreams by Kristen Ashley

April 24, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: Continuing my glom. I bought the whole series and also the first 4 Rock Chick books. KA addiction, I have you. I started with this one because Kati D told me that Tate was a bit like Tack (ie yummy). I still like Tack better but Tate was pretty special.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Lauren Grahame has spent her whole life thinking something special was going to happen. She didn’t know what it was, she just knew it would one day be hers. But she learned the hard way that special wasn’t on offer.So, after divorcing her cheating husband, Lauren searched for nothing special and she thought she found it when she landed a job as a waitress in a biker bar in Carnal. It was perfect: a nothing job in a nowhere bar in Nowheresville.Then Tatum Jackson walked in. Part-owner of the bar, he took one look at high-class Lauren and wanted nothing to do with her. And he made this known, loudly.

Tate’s angry insults seared in her brain, Lauren decides the feeling is mutual and she doesn’t want anything to do with the gloriously handsome Tate Jackson. The clash of the bartender and barmaid begins but, even though Tate makes his change of mind clear (in biker-speak, a language Lauren is not fluent in), Lauren is intent on going her own way.

Until a serial killer hits Carnal and Lauren finds out Tate isn’t a bartender, he’s a bounty hunter. He stakes his claim for Lauren before he goes on the hunt for a killer but Laurie doesn’t speak biker nor does she understand bounty hunters and Tate comes back from the hunt to find his old lady has moved on.

Life throws curveball after curveball at Laurie and Tate. As secrets are revealed, women are brutally murdered, and Lauren tries to find her inner biker babe.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): There are some unusual things about this book if you compare it to what’s around the place generally in Romancelandia. Firstly, both the hero and heroine are in their forties. Next, Lauren, when she first arrives in Carnal, is a bit overweight and almost the first thing Tate (our hero don’t forget) says about her (which she overhears) is that she’s “fat, old and sorry-ass”. And she kind of is. Lauren has been driving around for months, trying to find a place to settle after being betrayed by her husband and all of her friends (he was cheating, they all knew it and no-one said anything to her). While Lauren is close to her sister and parents, she has been distant from them for the past few months while she’s been trying to get her head together. She’s looking for a place where she can just be but she’s not expecting anything special in her life. Tate’s comment (which he later does apologise for, fully realising he was out of line – although he gets impatient that she doesn’t forgive him immediately upon apology – something I had quite a bit of sympathy for by the way) spurs Lauren into taking a bit better care of herself. She doesn’t get a makeover to try and attract a man, but rather she realises that she’s let herself go a bit and she decides, almost by osmosis, to start looking after herself. She doesn’t ever do it for anyone other than herself. This is very good. And, it has to be said, that even upon arrival, when she wasn’t at her best, the townsfolk thought she’d be exactly Tate’s type – I got the impression that Tate was happy enough with the way she looked all the time, notwithstanding his out of line early comment (which was actually not much to do with Lauren at all).

Big Boy by Ruthie Knox

April 18, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I had this pre-ordered from Books on Board but the download failed (and this was just around the time that the news hit that BoB was bust. The author kindly sent me a copy when she saw me lamenting on Twitter that the download link was broken and no-one from customer service was responding.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) He’ll be any man she wants–except himself.A Strangers on a Train storyMeet me at the train museum after dark. Dress for 1957.

When Mandy joins an online dating service, she keeps her expectations low. All she wants is a distraction from the drudgery of single parenthood and full-time work. But the invitation she receives from a handsome man who won’t share his real name promises an adventure—and a chance to pretend she’s someone else for a few hours.

She doesn’t want romance to complicate her life, but Mandy’s monthly role-playing dates with her stranger on a train—each to a different time period—become the erotic escape she desperately needs. And a soul connection she never expected.

Yet when she tries to draw her lover out of the shadows, Mandy has a fight on her hands…to convince him there’s a place for their fantasy love in the light of day.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Sometimes a book can be unexpectedly moving. Mostly, I don’t expect a novella to pack an emotional punch. I do think it is a special skill to write short and to have fully realised characters when there’s a limited word count. I’d read the blurb so I was expecting a sexy short and I did get that. What I wasn’t expecting was that it would have undertones of melancholy and an emotional resonance to it.

Motorcyle Man by Kristen Ashley

April 10, 2013 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I had to check out what all the fuss was about. Honestly, I expected to be underwhelmed. Imagine my surprise when I found myself sucked into the Kristen Ashley vortex. There is no going back.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Stuck in a colorless world, Tyra Masters decides to chuck her old life and starts searching for something. She doesn’t know what it is until she meets her dream man. The goateed, tattooed, muscled, gravelly voiced motorcycle man who plies her with tequila and gives her the best sex of her life. But she knows it isn’t the tequila and sex talking. He’s it. He’s who she’s been daydreaming about since she could remember.Until he makes it clear she isn’t who he’s looking for.Tyra slinks away from his bed, humiliated. The problem is, he’s her new boss. She just may or may not have forgotten to tell him that part.Kane “Tack” Allen has a rule. He doesn’t employ someone he’s slept with. And he lets Tyra know that in his motorcycle man way. Tyra fights for her job and wins it using sass and a technicality. Tack challenges her that if she hits his bed one more time, she loses her job.

Tyra is determined to keep her job and keep away from Tack. But she makes a big mistake. During their head-to-heads, she lets it all hang out and shows Tack she is who he’s looking for. And Tack has had a good woman slip through his fingers, he’s not about to let that happen again.

Although Tack colors Tyra’s world with a vibrancy that’s blinding, being with him means she has to live in his Motorcycle Club world. Full on, no holds barred. And since Tack’s world, not to mention Tack, is a little scary, Tyra isn’t so sure.

It’s Tack’s job to convince her.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Oh man! Where do I start? The enjoyment factor of this book for me was off the charts. Sure, there were some problems with it. Mostly, those problems were related to writing tics and some problematic editing. But I now completely understand what other people have been talking about when they say that they wouldn’t want to see her books too heavily edited because part of the crazysauce is what makes the story so much fun. It’s a wild ride from start to finish and I lapped it up.