Kaetrin's Musings

Musings on Romance

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David’s Selfie by Daisy Harris

Davids SelfieWhy I read it:  I bought this one because I liked the look of the blurb.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads)  When David, a single father, vows to get laid just once before the year ends, he doesn’t figure on losing his cell phone—and with it one very revealing picture. Lucky for him, his phone is found by a disarmingly handsome man who might be perfect for the kind of casual Christmas fling David is after.

Go-go dancer Craig never would have guessed that the guy with the cute cock shot would turn out to be a doctor. Or that he’d find himself lying about his night job and worrying David will find out the truth. To complicate matters, each of their hook-ups requires days of planning. Yet before he knows it, Craig has a new boyfriend, and possibly a whole new family.

David’s ready to dive head-first into something new, but if Craig’s going to commit, he’ll need to come clean about his job, his past, and—most of all—the naughty picture that drew him to David in the first place.

What worked for me (and what didn’t):  I quite enjoyed this book – it was fun and sexy and kind of sweet, but an abrupt end, even with a brief epilogue set 10 years later, let the story down for me a little at the finish.
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Edge by Tiffinie Helmer, narrated by Mia Chiaromonte

EdgeWhy I read it:  I was provided with a review copy by Audible Studios.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads)  He’s lost his edge….

Photojournalist Cache Calder lives to chase a great story. He’s just returned from the Middle East after surviving a suicide bombing that left him injured and grief-stricken. The last thing he wants is to travel to the wilds of Alaska on a “Where Is She Now” Assignment. But when his editor informs him that his subject is former kidnapping victim, Amelia Bennett who jump-started his career 20 years earlier, he packs his bags.

She lives on the Edge….

Mel Bennett’s carefully maintained control unravels the moment she meets Cache Calder. Attraction flares for the man who seems to really “know” her. No one at the Edge of Reason Lodge is aware she was the young teenager who’d survived one of the most publicized kidnappings in recent history, and she wants it to stay that way. But she starts to question her heart and her sanity when unexplained incidents begin to happen and a deadly threat returns to finish what he’d started so long ago.

Trigger Warning: Rape (of a child, off page. NOT detailed, but mentioned in the story).

What worked for me (and what didn’t):  First, let me say that I’m really glad I listened to this one because, at least in Australia, we pronounce “Cache” with a long “a” (ie Cay-sh) and I just don’t think I could have coped with a hero named after a place you hide things.  Thankfully the narrator pronounced the name in the American way so I heard “Cash” which is just fine as a hero name! (*laughs at self*)

I’ve been a fan of romantic suspense for a long time. Perhaps because I love it so much, I have become very picky about it.  I don’t mind a heightened reality but I want the world building to be consistent.  I prefer more romance than suspense, or at least an even balance, rather than the other way around and I’m becoming averse to “torture porn”.  I had high hopes for this book from a new-to-me author (and narrator as it happens).  While parts of the book didn’t work for me that well, I did enjoy it and, in terms of the mix of romance and suspense, I think the book got it about right. Continue reading

January Round Up

Monthly Mini Review

exposed to youExposed to You by Beth Kery – B I read this on the recommendation of one of my Twitter friends (h/t Limecello).  I had been wanting to read it for a while so I was happy when I saw there was a copy in my local library. (It used to be pricey but I notice it’s only $4.99 at Kobo now which is much more my style.)

Joy Hightower is an artist with an uncle in the special effects business.  While helping him out on a movie set one day, she meets a gorgeous man and has a hot sexual encounter. They arrange to meet later but due to crossed wires, it doesn’t happen.  The gorgeous man is Everett Hughes, movie star and sister to Katie (the heroine of Addicted to You (scroll down for brief review). The day of the magical sex with Everett, Joy was diagnosed with a form of lymphoma and she spends the next 14 months in treatment and recovery.  Joy watched her mother die of cancer and wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone. Because of that, she distances herself from all of her former friends and even her beloved uncle, going so far as to move to Chicago from LA. Continue reading

Review at AudioGals

I’m over at AudioGals today with a review of Worth the Fall by Claudia Connor, narrated by Johanna Parker.  A Navy SEAL meets and falls in love with a pregnant widow who has four other children – and it totally works.

Worth the Fall audio

Uncertain Magic by Laura Kinsale, narrated by Nicholas Boulton

uncertain magicWhy I read it:  This one is from my own audiobook library.  I listened over Christmas as a special gift to myself.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads)  As a lovely heiress, Roderica Delamore should be a prize catch–except for her shameful secret. She has the ability to hear the thoughts of those around her. Even her family and close friends can’t hide from her strange gift. Knowing that she can never marry, for no man could bear it, Roddy still longs hopelessly for a family of her own. Until she meets the man she’s been waiting for–the Earl of Iveragh, a mysterious Irish aristocrat whose thoughts are entirely closed to her.

The impoverished Devil Earl is damned in society by dark rumor and innuendo, and, for all she knows, he could be a liar, a rogue, or much, much worse. But Roddy must dance with him at midnight on All Hallows Eve, and entrust her life–and her heart–to a riveting stranger, called by his torment into the faerie mists to discover what she most fears about herself and her own magic.

What worked for me (and what didn’t):  I read this book ages ago and it was originally published in the 1980s.  I had fond memories of it.  Listening to it, the story didn’t feel dated – or, at least, it felt dated in the time it was set, which is late Georgian England and Ireland.  It’s quite an unusual book and different to Kinsale’s other romances in that it incorporates paranormal aspects.  Roddy Delamore can hear the thoughts of others and for her entire life, this has set her apart.  People see her as a freak and she feels she will have no life of her own as no husband will want her.  When she happens to meet Faelan Savigar, the Earl of Iveragh, he is the only person she’s ever come across who’s mind is closed to her.  It is pretty much that which decides her on him for her husband.  She is wealthy and he needs money to repair his broken down estate.  He is 35 and she is only 19 and very pretty and he can’t quite understand his good fortune to have attracted her but he is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
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