I’m over at AudioGals with a review of I Loved You First by Suzanne Enoch, Molly Harper & Karen Hawkins, narrated by Amanda Ronconi. An anthology of second chance contemporary romances.
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I’m over at AudioGals with a review of The Subway Girl by Lisa Becker, narrated by Erin Mallon. Can a guy find a missed connection and true love?
Monthly Mini Review
CW: torture/abuse in interrogation
Siren’s Call by CS Harris C Siren’s Call is the fourth and final novella from The Deadly Hours, a multi-author anthology of historical mysteries with at least some romance, connected by a cursed gold pocket watch called “La Sirène”. I had expected (maybe even hoped for) a Sebastian St. Cyr novella but Siren’s Call has completely new characters and is set in June 1944 just after the D-Day landings. Rachel Townsend-Smythe, daughter of a prominent family in New Godrick in Kent, discovers the dead body of her elderly friend, Major Henry Crosby. Rachel is a museum curator, she had hoped to finally convince the major to store some of his treasures (including the watch case which once held La Sirène in safety from potential German bombs. It is apparent the major was murdered and it turns out, the watch case is missing.
Jude Lowe, former spitfire pilot injured in the war turned MI5 agent is in New Godrick with a colleague looking for a spy after the military had intercepted a series of coded messages emanating from the area. Given Major Crosby’s recent duties with the Royal Observation Corps, there may be a connection to the spy and the murder so he ends up investigating.
The mystery itself is well done and an enjoyable story. There is a hint of romance which ends happily but I wouldn’t call this novella a romance. Most of the courtship between Rachel and Jude happens off page and in the space between the mystery being resolved and the brief epilogue. The main thrust of the story is the mystery, which is solved in only a few days. I don’t judge the story by the romance (or lack thereof) however, because I approached the anthology as a series of historical mysteries.
However, there was one aspect to Siren’s Call which gave me pause and it did have an effect on how I viewed the romance as well as the story overall. It’s a mild spoiler so look away know if you don’t want to know. Continue reading
I’m over at AudioGals with a review of Imago by NR Walker, narrated by Antony Ferguson. The narration was disappointing.
I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Common Goal by Rachel Reid. Sexy hockey romance with an about-to-retire goalie and a younger man.
Why I read it: My friend Brie recommended it to me.
CW: Extreme violence and gore, rape, torture, abuse (mostly – but not all – off page).
What it’s about: (from Goodreads) A generation past, the western realms were embroiled in endless war. Then the Destroyer came. From the blood and ashes he left behind, a tenuous alliance rose between the barbarian riders of Parsathe and the walled kingdoms of the south. That alliance is all that stands against the return of an ancient evil – until the barbarian king and queen are slain in an act of bloody betrayal.
Though forbidden by the alliance council to kill the corrupt king responsible for his parents’ murders, Maddek vows to avenge them, even if it costs him the Parsathean crown. But when he learns it was the king’s daughter who lured his parents to their deaths, the barbarian warrior is determined to make her pay.
Yet the woman Maddek captures is not what he expected. Though the last in a line of legendary warrior-queens, Yvenne is small and weak, and the sharpest weapons she wields are her mind and her tongue. Even more surprising is the marriage she proposes to unite them in their goals and to claim their thrones—because her desire for vengeance against her father burns even hotter than his own…
What worked for me (and what didn’t): When I think of words to describe my reading experience, ones like “epic”, “sweeping” and “magnificent” come to mind. In ‘old skool’ romance this often means that the main characters spend a lot of time apart however and that’s so not my jam. A Heart of Blood and Ashes has the advantage of being epic and sweeping but Maddek and Yvenne are together for most of the book so it is way better than my experience of most old skool sagas. Continue reading
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
