Book Review: Nice Girls Don’t have Fangs by Molly Harper

• Title: Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs
  
• Author: Molly Harper
• Type:  paranormal Contemporary Romance chick lit
• Genre:  Librarian has day from hell and wakes up undead
• Sub-genre:  Fangs, family, and a hot sire in a small town; Tracy and Hepburn do vampires
• My Grade: C+ to B- (3.5*)
  
• Rating: PG-13
• Length and price: Full Novel – over 80,000 words for $7.99; various discounts available
• Where Available: Where books are sold
• FTC Disclosure: Purchased from online bookstore

I do love finding books with a sense of humor and snappy dialogue.  I also like finding new authors.  With Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs I found both, though there is a strong sense of déjà vu.  The unoriginal trope and all to familiar characters weigh against the book, but that’s offset by the acerbic wit of Jane Jameson, the first person narrator for the book.  On the whole, the lack of originality was made acceptable by a combination of good writing, fast pacing, and plenty of laugh out loud moments.

Short Reviews: Erotic Romance Novellas

I could be wrong, but I seems to me that the vast majority of erotic romances these days are novellas – often sold as short novels.  A few of these ‘novellas’ have been outrageously priced – like Tymber Dalton’s Steam which sells for $4.50 for just under 29,000 words for an ebook.   Sometimes I have to wonder what possess publishers.  It is stopping me from buying, I’ll tell you that.  Had Ms Dalton’s latest release been correctly priced, I would have bought it happily.  As it stands, not a chance.  I seem to be saying that more and more often.  Ah well, here are some that I did buy!

• Title: Ringo’s Ride
  
• Author: Regina Carlysle
• Type:  Erotic paranormal romance
• Genre:  Angsty werewolf mating; the ‘princess’ and the dark and dangerous cowboy battle rogue werewolves
• Sub-genre:  I am unworthy of a mate, even though we both have only one chance
• My Grade: C+ (3.2*)
• Rating: x
• Length and price: Novella – sold as a short novel, about 32,000 words for $5.20 as an ebook
• Where Available: ebook available from Ellora’s Cave
• FTC Disclosure: Purchased from publisher’s website

Ringo’s Ride, the third installment of Regina Carlysle’s werewolf series picks up where Lone Star Lycan left off.  As Joe McKinnon and his mate Quinn celebrated their Consummation Ceremony, rogue weres, lead by attacked and made off with unmated females for their pack.  They were led by Ramona, Joe’s former lover and wannabe mate to the pack Alpha.  She ran after her unsuccessful attempts on Quinn’s life, but returned with the rogues to steal the unmated females.  One of those females was Rayne Poteet, the only daughter of well to do pack members.  As Ringo walked into the party, he and Rayne formed the psychic bond that only happens between mates.  In wolf form, he goes after her captors while Joe handles the rogue Alpha.

Book Review: Claimed by the Wolf by Charlene Teglia

• Title: Claimed by the Wolf
  
• Author: Charlene Teglia
• Type:  Erotic paranormal romance
• Genre:  Witch accidentally opens a portal for demons and is given second chance – at a price
• Sub-genre:  Sex magic and death
• My Grade: C+ (3.5*)
• Rating: xxx
• Length and price: Full novel.  80,000 words for $13.99, discounts available
• Where Available: Where books are sold
• FTC Disclosure: Purchased from online bookstore

In Claimed by the Wolf, Charlene Teglia writes a super hot paranormal sex romp that tells the tale of what happens when rookie witch Sybil Ames dabbles in magic well beyond her skill level.  Sybil is the coven’s youngest witch and frustrated by her very slow training.  One day she stops at an estate sale and discovers a book hidden in an old dresser.  Thinking it an old grimoire, she buys it for $1.   In just barely trying it, she accidentally opens a portal to the demon world when the old spell book compels her to speak a spell.  Realizing she’s done something awful, she calls on the Goddess for help.  Caught in the lash of power she can’t control,   Sybil does the only thing she can think of, breaks the magic circle to allow a Guardian in to try to destroy the spell book she’d thought so ordinary.  Kenric, a werewolf, breaks through, but in trying to burn the book. the spell is able to jump and write itself in her body.  She has become a living spell that could open a portal to the demon world.

Book Review: The First Rule by Robert Crais

My apologies for being missing in action.  I’ve been experiencing computer difficulties and two of my electronic babies are in the shop – one with a hard drive issue and one with a virus.  So I’m on a new, rather stripped down model, trying to carry on.  SIGH!  Please be patient while I get these issues resolved.  Thanks!

• Title: The First Rule
• Author: Robert Crais
• Type:  Action thriller mystery
• Genre:  Avenging crusader
• Sub-genre:  Joe Pike kicks ass and kills bad guys
• My Grade: B- (3.8*)
• Rating: PG-17
• Length and price: Full novel.  80,000 words for $26.95 and sold at significant discounts most places
• Where Available: Anywhere books are sold
• FTC Disclosure: Purchased from online bookstore

I’ve been a fan of Robert since he first published The Monkey’s Raincoat way back in 1987.  Long time.  Crais wasn’t one of those writers who regularly churned out a novel every 9 to 12 months.  At first, it would be 2 to 3 years between books.  It seems nearly every book he’s ever written, whether an Elvis Cole or one of his free-standing novels, gets multiple nominations for various book

Book Review: Some Girls Bite by Chloe Neill

• Title:  Some Girls Bite
• Author: Chloe Neill
• Type:  Paranormal
• Genre:  Vampire in Chicago society
• Sub-genre: Series; destiny and the unwilling vamp
• My Grade:  B+ (4.3*)
• Rating: PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel; 80,000+ words for $14.00 list, but discounts available
• Where Available:  Where books are sold
• FTC Disclosure:  The book was purchased from an online bookstore

Chloe Neill is a new author and a good one.  Though kick-ass heroines are pretty thick on the ground these days, good ones are still emerging and I really LIKED Mertit.  Merit is the daughter of a self-made Chicago millionaire mover and shaker, Joshua Merit.  She’s also a scholar, doctoral candidate, and teaching assistant.  The last thing she remembers is walking across the quadrant one night and realizing someone is following her, then a lot of pain.  She wakes in the back of a limo with a middle aged woman telling her she’ll feel better soon – she’s a vampire after all.  Merit is none too thrilled to hear THAT piece of news.  Helen helps her into the house she shares with her best friend Mallory, gives her a huge book on vampire etiquette, and generally annoys both Merit and Mallory.  Then Helen finds herself on the door step being given an unexpected bums rush out the door.  A rock through the window with a threatening message against the new vamp sends Merit off for help and advice.  Merit ends up at her grandfather’s house, always her place of refuge and comfort. 

A Seasonal Special

It’s nearly Mardi Gras time.  That means time for me to re-read books set in New Orleans or one of the other major Mardi Gras cities.   This year, it will be Kiss and Tell by Linda Howard, a good romantic suspense novel, and then the Witches Knot series by Lauren Dane.  Triad, Thrice United and Vengeance Due are especially evocative.  So what do you plan to do to celebrate Mardi Gras?

I often find I’m moved to read books that I associate with certain places either at specific times of the year, or based on a seasonal event.  I’m not big on holiday anthologies, regardless of genre.  Instead, I like books that echo of certain locals and lifestyles.  John D. MacDonald, Carl Haaisen, Randy Wayne White, Jonothan King, and others for when I visit Florida, Tony Hillerman, Michael McGarrity, and many others for the Southwest.  Some writers just imbue their works with an intense feel of the surroundings.  So many good mysteries, carry their setting as a virtual character, not a backdrop, but an living breathing entity the seeps into the very pores of the book.  Hillerman is a master of that, so is Lawrence Block with his Matt Scudder books.  The very best fantasy writers create whole worlds – look at everything from Lord of Rings to Harry Potter.  Those worlds are as real as our own.  That’s the great thing about books, they contain more than characters, they hold entire worlds.

So grab a book and travel to a time and place of your choosing.  Me, I’ll spend a few days in the Crescent City before I move on.

Book Review: Hallowed Circle by Linda Robertson

• Title:  Hallowed Circle
• Author:  Linda Robertson
• Type: Paranormal
• Genre: Witches, vamps and weres in modern society
• Sub-genre:  Semi-romantic paranormal mystery/thriller
• My Grade: B+ to A- (4.5*)
• Rating: PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel to Plus novel, over 100,000 words for $7.99
• Where Available: Where ever books are sold
• FTC Disclosure:  Purchased from online book seller

I read Vicious Circle last fall and was hooked by Linda Robertson, so her newest book, Hallowed Circle was a MUST BUY for me.  Ms Robertson has penned another winner here carrying on the story of Persephone Alcmedi, her Nana, Demeter Alcmedi, her sort-of boyfriend, werewolf rocker Johnny, and the master vampire-sorcerer  Menessos.  In Vicious Circle, Seph became instrumental in bringing down the High Priestess of the Cleveland Coven.  Now there will be a competition for the job and Seph has been nominated to be the local competitor.  She is well aware she can’t compete – she bares a vampire’s mark (stain) and she is Lustrata.  Only a witch marked by a vampire can be Lustrata, so she is automatically disqualified as a High Priestess – a position where the witch must be pure and unmarked.

Three Erotic Romance Short Reviews Including A New Release

OK, let’s continue with the erotic romance short reviews.  Honestly, The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown couldn’t get more boring and tedious if it tried, so I have to read it in small sections to prevent a narcoleptic attack.   I’ve been using my windfall of erotic romance and a HUGE stack of new paranormal releases as a distraction.  Hallowed Circle by Linda Robertson,author of Vicious Circle, is calling me.  Loudly!  But first, some more erotic romance – some Si-fi, some shifter, some suspense and well, you get the picture.

• Title: Planet Mail
• Author: Kate Pearce
• Type:  Si-fi erotic romance
• Genre: Alternate world; crash landing in a king’s bed
• Sub-genre: Ordinary woman save an entire planet and finds true love
• My Grade: C (3.0*)
• Rating: xxx
• Length and price: Short novel for $10.99, but available for less as ebook, used, an on sale
• Where Available: Mostly at Ellora’s Cave and occasionally from book stores and used book sites
• FTC Disclosure: Purchased from publisher

Douglass Fraser is the future of UPS, she flies a delivery ship for United Planetary Parcel Services (UPPS – though occasionally they spell the acronym wrong in the book – one of those eye-rolling moments of bad proofreading).  Something happens to her ship and she ends up crash landing on a planet well off the usual interplanetary shipping routes.  Her rescuer is Marcus Blood Axe, the ‘King’, who had enjoyed some intimate time with a woman in a village the night before.  He’s still feeling the affects of his evening – which he can’t really recall.    Douglass is taken away and three gorgeous men are now there to pleasure her – but no sex.  Only the King can do that.  Still, if you have to be stranded and left waiting for rescue, a male harem isn’t a bad thing.  The men are to keep her ready and aroused for the king.  (Why is that seen as exciting?  It’s damn uncomfortable and it also causes all manner of health issues.)

Some Erotic Romantic Suspense Short Reviews

Well, between the year end sale at Ellora’s Cave, a sale at Amazon on some wanted titles in trade paperback sizes, and general ordering, I am just BURIED in erotic romance – print and ebook.  So here’s my opinion on e a few that I waded through already!  In all fairness, the three books below, while considered ‘erotic’, are really more like a hot romantic suspense, not erotic.  And yes, I know I have a pronounced weakness for romantic suspense.  For all you shifter lovers, I’ve read a bunch of them too and there will be short reviews for them this week as well!

• Title: Caught!
• Author: Lorie O’Clare
• Type: Romantic Suspense
• Genre: Boss lust; Making accounting exciting
• Sub-genre: I just know she didn’t do the dastardly deed; smart people do stupid things
• My Grade: D+ to C- (2.5*)
• Rating: PG-13 to NC-17
• Length and price: Full novel; 80,000+ words; print book on sale for $5.50+ shipping
• Where Available: Ellora’s Cave as print or ebook and other ebook sellers
• FTC Disclosure: Purchased print book on publisher website

Jordan Hall owns runs his own accounting business and has a smart, savvy assistant in Roxanne Isley, herself an accountant.  OK – here’s where the problems start – Roxanne is treated as if she were a high level administrative assistant, not an account.  And two, she shares an office with the big boss, Jordan, even though she’s just a junior account.  This odd disconnect had me confused.  Roxanne and Jordan have a mutual secret lust for each other.  Jordan asks her to come to dinner with him and a client and then intercepts all the client’s passes and all but warns the man off Roxanne.  She makes an end run and accepts a date with the guy – in his suite.  Then she learns that Jordan provides him with ‘companions’ when he’s in town and he’d like Roxanne to be his semi-permanent paramour in town.  Now, his proposition didn’t bother me, what did is the fact that the supposed ‘hero’ acted as a pimp.  THAT disturbed me no end, and the fact that it didn’t seem to bother Roxanne was really troublesome.

Happy New Year!

It seems hard to believe that the first decade of 2000 is coming to an end.  It’s been a decade of change for me, for my family, and for our country.  Perhaps one of the things I remember most clearly, other than 9/11 when I stood on the roof of the building where I worked watching New York City disappear in a cloud of dust on a beautiful fall day, is a moment of personal clarity two months later.  I worked for decades in corporate America and had a job I used to like.   The changes within the company caused me so much stress I had to have a thallium stress test on my heart just a month or so before 9/11.  I had planned to skip the rest of my vacation days that year so I could finish a project I was working on for a product launch.  Though I lost no family or close personal friends, I knew far too many who did.  I decided life was too short and I was taking off.  Thanksgiving 2001 found me sitting in a lovely large villa on the island of St John in the US Virgin Islands.  It was a real last minute arrangement and many people had canceled their vacations, which is how I ended up with that villa.  I recall sitting there dividing my time between reading and gazing at the beautiful view of Chocolate Hole.  I was puzzled because I felt something was missing.  That’s when it hit me – for the first time in nearly a year I had no chest pains.  I slept well and for more than 5 hours a night.  I didn’t even realize it then, but I had decided to do what I had longed to do for several years, quit my job and go to work for myself.