Category: B reviews (Page 22 of 74)

Crazy For Her by Sandra Owens, narrated by Amy McFadden & Mikael Naramore

December 22, 2016 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I listened to Only Her (which I reviewed for AudioGals) recently and I really liked it. So I borrowed this one from my library.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) When his best friend and fellow Navy SEAL, Evan Prescott, died in his arms on the battlefield, Logan Kincaid gave his word to watch over Evan’s widow. But for two years he kept his distance…torn between honoring his solemn vow and succumbing to his secret love for his fallen comrade’s wife. But when Dani Prescott desperately reaches out to Logan for the help only he can give, he rushes to her side—determined to fight for her safety as fiercely as he fights against his own buried desire.

Someone claiming to be her husband is stalking Dani and her infant daughter, making them virtually prisoners in their remote country home. Logan’s elite military training and high-risk security expertise have outmatched more dangerous enemies. But the real challenge will be the burning temptation that threatens to overcome Logan whenever Dani is near…especially when she reveals her own hidden passion.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Crazy for Her is book one in the K2 Team series. It starts with a prologue showing how Evan Prescott dies in action and eloquently describes the feelings Logan Kincaid, his SEAL team commander, feels about the loss of his best friend. Logan promises Evan he will look after Evan’s wife, Dani and the the baby on its way but then gets shot in the head and recovering from his injury gets in the way.
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The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata, narrated by Callie Dalton

December 17, 2016 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I really enjoyed Kulti so I queued this one up hoping for another winner. I got it – but I liked Kulti better.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Vanessa Mazur knows she’s doing the right thing. She shouldn’t feel bad for quitting. Being an assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to the top defensive end in the National Football Organization was always supposed to be temporary. She has plans and none of them include washing extra-large underwear longer than necessary.

But when Aiden Graves shows up at her door wanting her to come back, she’s beyond shocked.

For two years, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg couldn’t find it in him to tell her good morning or congratulate her on her birthday. Now? He’s asking for the unthinkable.

What do you say to the man who is used to getting everything he wants?

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I was expecting this to be a workplace romance. But, you guys! It was a marriage of convenience story (which is even better in my book). Vanessa Mazur has worked for Aiden Graves as his personal assistant for two years. Her job includes answering his emails, posting on his social media, cooking his vegan meals. He’s terse, uncommunicative and opaque. She’s been saving so that she can pursue her work as a graphic designer. She has been doing graphic design after hours and has finally saved up a year’s salary so that she can launch her own business full time. She’s planning on leaving and even gives notice, but when she overhears Aiden’s shitty manager, Trevor, talking about her and notes that Aiden’s response to Trevor’s words are a big fat zilch, she throws in the towel and leaves immediately. Continue reading

November Round Up

December 1, 2016 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Winterfair Gifts by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Grover Gardner B+ This novella length audiobook follows a few months after the events of A Civil Campaign. Miles and Ekaterin are just about to get married at Winterfair (a kind of Barrayaran Christmas). Gifts are arriving and so are wedding guests. Roic, one of Miles’ armsmen is feeling like a bit of a failure after the shamozzle with the butter bugs and the Escobaran bounty hunters. He thinks Armsman Pym hates him and Miles thinks him incompetent. Roic also serves as the narrator of the story. Dendarii mercenary and former lover of Miles, Taura, arrives for the wedding. Roic grew up in the back country and hasn’t seen anyone like Taura ever. Of course, as she is the only one of her kind left, no-one else has either, but Taura makes a big impact on Roic. When Ekaterin falls ill before the wedding, Roic and Taura combine forces to work out what has caused it and save the day. Continue reading

Porn Star by Laurelin Page & Sierra Simone

November 5, 2016 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: This was a 99c special I picked up recently. The blurb intrigued and as some of my friends had read and liked it, I bought it.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) You know me.

Come on, you know you do.

Maybe you pretend you don’t. Maybe you clear your browser history religiously. Maybe you pretend to be aghast whenever someone even mentions the word porn in your presence.

But the truth is that you do know me.

Everybody knows Logan O’Toole, world famous porn star.

Except then Devi Dare pops into my world, and pretty soon I’m doing things that aren’t like me―like texting her with flirty banter and creating an entire web porn series just so I can get to star in her bed. Again. And again.

With Devi, my entire universe shifts, and the more time I spend with her, the more I realize that Logan O’Toole isn’t the guy I thought he was.

So maybe I’m not the guy you thought I was either.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): While I don’t generally like “cheating” in my romance, I don’t consider an open relationship where every party involved knows the score to be cheating. So I didn’t necessarily require Logan and Devi to give up doing porn with other co-stars in order to feel satisfied about the HEA. I was, however, very curious as to how the authors would pull it off (heh) and whether I’d be convinced by it. I can assure readers that there is a HEA here and it is indeed very satisfying. It is a little unconventional perhaps (and here, I actually mean unconventional in the not-code for non-HEA sense) but it is nowhere near as unconventional as I was expecting in the circumstances. They are porn stars after all and given all the places this story could have gone, in the end, it was still a boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy loses girl, HEA – just with some erotic packaging.
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October Round Up

November 1, 2016 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Grover Gardner – B I am slowly making my way through the Vorkosigan saga. (Next are the 2 Miles romance books and I’m so excited!!) I had heard that Memory was very sad and many of my friends report sobbing as they read/listened. I must be heartless because I didn’t have that reaction at all.

I was a bit grumpy with Miles at the start because he was being dishonest and cheating on Ellie (Quinn). At least by the end of the book he had acknowledged that he was in the wrong on the latter (in relation to the former this happened much earlier in the story). Still, Miles is supposed to be better than that!

I also thought the story took a long time to set up and get going. I knew from previous books that all of the beginning would turn out to be relevant to the tale but it didn’t have any sense of urgency for me until after Miles starts investigating what’s happening at ImpSec (I won’t spoil the story by saying exactly what he’s investigating). Continue reading

Crosstown Crush by Cara McKenna

October 17, 2016 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I’d been meaning to buy this book for ages and finally took the plunge. Then, I actually read it (this is uncommon – I buy far more books that I will never read. It’s a thing that happens).

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) When he’s working, Mike Heyer is all business—every inch the alpha male, with the hard, capable body to back up his persona. But at home he can be a different man entirely, harboring appetites only his wife gets to glimpse…

When Samira first learned of her husband’s fantasies, she was reluctant, even alarmed. But after witnessing the way they set him on fire, she yielded, and happily indulged. As their games have intensified, so has the rush. And now so has the risk—they’re poised to take Mike’s indecent desires to the next level, by opening their bed to a sexy, brazen stranger. A man seeming custom-made to grant every last one of Mike and Samira’s sinful wishes.

Welcoming someone new into their lives was always a dangerous proposition, but the couple imagined if anything was at stake, it was their privacy…not their hearts.

Spoilers Ahoy – what I want to talk about involves spoilers. The book has been out a while so I don’t feel bad about that. Still, be ye warned.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Crosstown Crush is a fairly unusual book for a mainstream romance publisher (Intermix) because it involves a husband with a cuckolding fetish. For Mike Heyer, he gets off on the idea of his wife cheating on him with another guy – a taller, more muscly guy with a bigger dick. A guy who, in the fantasy at least, is better than Mike. Samira, Mike’s wife, has been indulging her husband’s fetish via fantasy for a little while. She comes home late, smelling of the cologne of another guy (she stops at a shop and samples, there is no actual other guy at this point) and Mike confronts her. Samira then makes up a story about how she cheated and who she cheated with for her husband’s pleasure. Samira doesn’t get off on the kink herself but she does get off on how much her husband gets off on it. When the book begins, Samira is at the point where she’d be willing to explore actually having sex with another guy to indulge Mike’s kink. There is a bit of a lack of self-awareness here because Samira thinks it’s mainly for Mike, not really acknowledging to herself that thinking about other guys gets her hot and bothered too. She’s not a cheater by nature so for her to be willing to have sex with another guy just for Mike’s pleasure did not really fly with me. It was obvious from the beginning that Samira requires some kind of emotional connection with her sex partners. And that, in the end, is what causes all the trouble.
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