Category: B reviews (Page 32 of 74)

Anticipation by Sarah Mayberry

May 12, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I was provided with a review copy via the author. Disclosure: The author and I are friendly on Twitter and bonded once over a Ted Baker dress. We’ve met in person too.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Blue Sullivan knows a player when she sees one. And Eddie Oliveira—charm and sex personified—was born to play. She never wanted him to say goodbye, so for the last ten years she’s ignored the sizzling attraction between them and focused on being the best sidekick a guy could have. Smart girl, right?

Then Blue has a serious accident, and overnight Eddie changes. Suddenly he’s more intense and singularly devoted…to her. With all this sexy attention, it’s hard to stay within the boundaries she’s scrupulously drawn. The temptation, the anticipation builds and, finally, she has to have what he’s offering. Of course Eddie proves to be brilliant. Now, she worries he’s ruined her forever…and she might regret leaping from friends to lovers.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I always enjoy Sarah Mayberry books. It’s just a matter of degree. I liked Satisfaction last year and like many other fans, I too clamoured for Blue’s and Eddie’s story. They were so close and anyone with eyes could see they were perfect for one another. When I received the book, I didn’t even bother reading the blurb. Who needs a blurb when you know you’re going to like the book anyway right?

I think Anticipation is a stronger book than Satisfaction. It felt more cohesive to me. I gave Satisfaction a B/B+ so it’s not like I hated it or anything, it’s just that it was a book of two distinct halves. Anticipation has a smoother feel to the transitions. Eddie is also slightly less perfect than Rafel and this appealed to me more as well. Eddie is impulsive and hot-tempered, although he’s rarely a jerk.

When Eddie first me Blue some 10 years before the book begins he hits on her (because of course) and she turns him down flat. Eddie is something of a player. That’s not something that offends me about him because he’s honest about it. He has hookups or relationships (one at a time) but they are mostly short-lived. He hasn’t dated the woman he wants to settle down with yet. I always thought Blue was a little unfair to Eddie in that way. When you think about it, every relationship you have fails until one doesn’t (thank you Dan Savage) so if Eddie’s had a lot of girlfriends, what of it? Sure, things usually end when the girl wants to take the relationship to the next level and Eddie wants to keep things casual. But that doesn’t seem to indicate a problem with Eddie’s constitution – or that’s not what I default to. It just means he hasn’t dated the right woman for him yet. As becomes clear through the course of the book, there are in fact reasons for this. Continue reading

Rocky Mountain Romance by Vivian Arend, narrated by Tatiana Sokolov

May 8, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: Someone linked to the audiobook on Twitter and I one-clicked that sucker straight away.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Second chances are the sweetest—and the hottest.

It took a spectacularly embarrassing break-up to knock Steve Moonshine Coleman off his lazy butt. In the ten months since that night, he’s changed his ways, and now that Melody’s back in town, it’s time for this sweet-talking cowboy to convince her to get back in the saddle with him.

A return to her veterinary position in Rocky Mountain House was always in the cards for Melody Langley. Getting back together with Steve? Never part of the plan. He had lots of potential but zero ambition, and there’s no way she’ll accept anything less than a man who can keep up with her, in and out of bed.

But the new-and-improved cowboy is impossible to resist, so Melody issues a challenge. Three months to prove he’s reformed. Three months of Steve orchestrating one sexual indulgence after another—wicked distractions from the old boys’ club Melody faces at work and Steve’s growing responsibilities.

He’s got one shot to prove with more than words what’s in his heart and soul.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I’ve been enjoying this series mostly on audio – Rocky Mountain Freedom isn’t out yet so I read that one – and I was happy when I saw there was a new book out. Not only that, it’s a bit longer at more than eight hours of listening. Steve Coleman hasn’t featured strongly in the series previously. He was playing guitar and singing with the band at Trader’s Pub a while back when a woman dumped a pitcher of beer on his head but other than that, he was mostly unknown to me. (There’s a family tree on the author’s website which is helpful. Go here.)
Continue reading

April Round Up

May 4, 2015 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Dirty Secrets by Jane O’Reilly – B+ The second in her recent erotic novella duology, Dirty Secrets is about Jules, Amy’s (from Dirty Talk) kind-of-former-best friend. Jules has split up with Dave the Dick for the last time. She has escaped to London for a month to try and recover herself. Somehow over the course of their relationship, Jules lost all sense of her self worth, her value and her self esteem. Dave the Dick slowly eroded her confidence in everything. She is finally out and she realises that he’s done a number on her but it is only as she begins to recover that she realises exactly how big of a number he did.

Theo is a friend from school. They haven’t seen each other in 10 years, but when she calls him he offers her a haven and she takes him up on it. Good decision Jules! Theo is a co-owner of an exclusive sex club in London, the complete details of which are (I think, deliberately) vague. They cater to fantasies, with a particular emphasis on women’s pleasure. Theo offers Jules a 30 day membership to explore her fantasies and get in touch with her sexual self. Theo’s gentle friendship and calm support, together with the encouragement and charm of Theo’s business partner, John, are balms to Jules’ soul and there are sexual adventures with a “stranger”. Continue reading

Dirty Talk by Jane O’Reilly

April 21, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I was provided with a review copy from the publisher via NetGalley. Note, the author and I follow each other on Twitter and chat regularly.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) When words are not enough…

Amy can’t believe she’s let herself be bullied into a write off with the odious Dave. Now she needs to produce twenty pages of a story by next Friday – the content is to be of a very particular nature!

Fortunately Amy has an advantage: she’s a secret – and voracious – reader of erotica and she knows just what turns her on! But when it comes to putting her own words down on paper embarrassment and nerves have left her with a severe case of writers block…

Enter her good friend Phil. While she’s always thought him too sexy to be true her crippling shyness has held her back. But with Phil as her willing muse, Amy’s reality is suddenly more erotic than any fantasy…

What worked for me (and what didn’t): One look at the title will give readers a fair idea of what they’re in for with Dirty Talk. Jane O’Reilly gives good sex like whoa. What makes the story even better though is that she also delivers on characterisation and romance. This novella is just over 60 pages long and that’s not a very high page count to do all that. In fact, I was just marvelling over this very thing, and how completely I’d bought into the HEA, when the story took a slight downturn when an unexpected revelation is made. But more about that later. Continue reading

Radiance by Grace Draven

April 13, 2015 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: This was recommended by many Twitter friends so I bought it.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) THE PRINCE OF NO VALUE

Brishen Khaskem, prince of the Kai, has lived content as the nonessential spare heir to a throne secured many times over. A trade and political alliance between the human kingdom of Gaur and the Kai kingdom of Bast-Haradis requires that he marry a Gauri woman to seal the treaty. Always a dutiful son, Brishen agrees to the marriage and discovers his bride is as ugly as he expected and more beautiful than he could have imagined.

THE NOBLEWOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

Ildiko, niece of the Gauri king, has always known her only worth to the royal family lay in a strategic marriage. Resigned to her fate, she is horrified to learn that her intended groom isn’t just a foreign aristocrat but the younger prince of a people neither familiar nor human. Bound to her new husband, Ildiko will leave behind all she’s known to embrace a man shrouded in darkness but with a soul forged by light.

Two people brought together by the trappings of duty and politics will discover they are destined for each other, even as the powers of a hostile kingdom scheme to tear them apart.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): My Twitter friends were right. I liked Radiance very much. The conflict is mostly external and the romance is really quite delightful.

Ildiko and Brishen both knew they would be expected to marry for political alliance rather than affection and both are resigned to their fate. Nevertheless, each has some misgivings about marrying someone from another species. This is the first inter-species romance I have read and I appreciated that the first look at “other” was from Brishen’s point of view. It was the humans I was seeing as different and the descriptions were apt and amusing but they also served to relax me into the “other” of the Kai (the species to which Brishen belongs). Continue reading

March Round Up

April 2, 2015 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Rock Chick Redemption by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Susannah Jones – B+ I said in my review of Rock Chick (I read the print version) that I imagined Amanda Ronconi reading the story to me and that this would probably mean I’d be inclined to judge the narration by Ms. Jones more harshly. I listened to Rock Chick Rescue and Rock Chick Redemption for fun, “just for me” listens because sometimes it’s nice for me just to be a consumer and not a reviewer and I wanted my brain to relax for a bit. But I wanted to say something about the narration.

I could wish that Susannah Jones has slightly more vocal range and could portray a larger variety of male voices – pretty much, all the heroes sound the same and they’re really only slightly deeper in pitch than her female character voices. (For regular audiobook listeners, this is a trade off we make fairly often. There are only so many character voices a narrator can perform and many male narrators cannot sound “female” in pitch and vice versa; however, they do adjust their tone sufficiently to give an audio cue to listeners that this is the hero or heroine talking and, provided it’s not grating, that can be enough.)

But, as for the rest, Ms. Jones was brilliant. She didn’t have any trouble with some of the more convoluted sentences Ms. Ashley uses (which I love even though their grammar is sometimes quite tortured) and the completely nailed the humour of the piece. I cannot even express to you how much I love her characterisation of Tex. He is twice as hilarious on audio. Continue reading