Musings on Romance
I’m over at AudioGals with a review of Bad Judgment by Meghan March, narrated by Andi Arndt & Sebastian York. Interesting developments toward the end of the story surprised me. Big secret isn’t my favourite trope but I liked the direction this one ended up taking… right up until the end when it went a bit WTF.
I’m over at Dear Author with Janine and a joint review of Someone to Love by Mary Balogh, book 1 of her new Westcott series. Basically I lapped it up with a spoon. The hero reminded me of Luke from Heartless and we all know how much I adore him! There are some problematic elements however and I expect there will be a huge divide in how people receive it.
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.
Continue reading
I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Dirty Like Me by Jaine Diamond. I took a risk on a blurb I liked and it paid off. I really enjoyed this one.
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
I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Explosive Forces by DD Ayres. I struggled to accept a central premise of the plot.
© 2026 Kaetrin’s Musings
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑
