Some new, or at least recent releases, in various genres.
New Concepts Press has several very reliable authors in their stable, the two I read most are Madelaine Montague and Kaitlyn O’Connor and this lot was no different. NCP does not release books on any particular schedule, so it’s not a site I check on any regular schedule.
So here we go, with the Good, the Bad, and the Really Icky.
My apologies for slacking off on reviews the past few weeks. I’ve been reading a lot, but too busy with life to get here as I should. Here are a few books worth mention.
Well reading I’ve been lately has been quite a mixed bag – erotic romance, mystery and paranormal. I’ve also had mixed results, as usual, but a couple worthy entries – one erotic futuristic and one mystery.
Paranormal romance has been reigning supreme in the romance genre for some time now. Tough as nails heroines are a blessed relief from the barrage of fan wielding beauties of the Ton that populate Regency Romance. Yes, I do read Regency, but after awhile, there’s just so much you can do with men in frock coats. The rage for paranormal has given a lot of talented writers – and an even bigger pool of copycats – a whole new area to explore. As with any genre, tropes get overworked and some writers are far better at world building. No, they might not J.R.R Tolkien, Raymond Feist, or Robert Jordan, but then romance readers want different things from their stories than mainstream fantasy readers. And the best of today’s writers deliver that in spades. Then, thanks to Paperback Swap, I can get many books in print version that I would not otherwise buy. Here are some short reviews of a few books I got thru various swaps for erotic paranormal romance as well as some recently released titles that I’ve bought.
Shiloh Walker has a pretty loyal following in erotic romance and steamier mainstream. With erotic romance, many readers are less concerned about the story than they are the steam. The two book anthology has one of each. The first story is a category length novel titled Declan and Tori. It’s one of the better erotic romance paranormals. The second, Eli and Sarel is more steam than story.
After a considerable drought, I bought a number of ebooks off the usual small publisher sites lately. As always, the editing and proofing at New Concepts Publishing sucked. And the prices at Siren are entering the silly zone. What are publishers thinking? I bought a couple of Siren books, but had they had just slightly more reasonable prices, I would have bought 3 more titles.
As usual with erotic romance, it was kind of a mixed bag when it comes to quality. Mostly the reads were derivative, but one was original enough to be worth a serious mention.
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!
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. (more…)
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. (more…)
It’s the time of year for publishers to release their holiday titles, most of which aren’t worth the money, so I’m buying very little new releases. Wicked Pleasures came my through a sale at Ellora’s Cave, but Red Shadow is a new release, one of very few I’ve purchased lately. Ellora’s Cave is having it’s famous end of the year sale. Yesterday there were 23 pages of print books to choose from, and today it’s down to 22, so go grab some of your favorites while they’re still available. There are a number of Denise Agnew titles for her Special Investigation series, a few by Shelly Munro and some other popular authors including Reese Gabriel and Shiloh Walker and Joey W Hill. For $4-$5.50, worth a close look.
Wicked Pleasures starts off reading like a boink-fest, but the story starts evolving into something more, not a LOT more, but more. Selena DeLaPlaya is taking a well earned break from years of college by Scotland with her best friend. She gets dragged off to a re-enactment of some ancient rite that’s acting as her friend’s graduation party. Somehow she goes from dancing around a bonfire to flat in her back in a jungle like area with a godlike commanding her to pleasure herself. Compelled and bespelled, she does so. The two are found by Serosen, a Prince and a Night Ranger guardian. He berates Du’an for bringing over a female from Earth, and makes him leave her. Du’an is no more than gone when a princess of the faeries appears and insists he leave the woman. He refuses and says he will send her back thru the gate to her home. The faerie screeches at him about how she must die and he knows this woman must be protected. There is a war on between the various kingdoms of the ‘elves’. He leaves with the woman slung over his should. (more…)
Bianca D’Arc is a favorite writer of mine and when she’s on, she’s excellent, when she isn’t, it’s often average with glimmers of her potential coming through. Unfortunately, Dragon Storm falls into that second group. I don’t know if it’s the pressure to write too many books a year or not, but this fluctuation in the depth of character and complexity of story is very noticeable. The same wide variations can be seen in her Blood Brothers vampire series. In her Dragon Knights series, it stays mostly above average, but here we go back to shallow, poorly developed characters whose sole purpose seems to be to introduce another set of lead characters. If you haven’t read her previous Dragon Knights books, you might find some of this confusing. (more…)
With a title like Gothic Dragon I had high expectations for this twisted time travel story. I started it three times and three times I stopped reading, unable to get into the story. I wasn’t worried. It happens time to time. Finally, I finished it. After a rather slow and difficult start, it was occasionally an interesting read, but more often, just choppy and vaguely annoying. The basic premise: a modern researcher, Esther Conway, gets pulled into a book and keeps moving between the modern world and the semi-fictional world of The Prince of Costanzo, a Gothic novel written by Margaret Marsden, a distant relative and the subject of Esther Conway’s proposed novel. Lady Hay invited her down to see the papers in her husband’s collection pertaining to Margaret’s life and book, but she had never thought to find an actual copy of the The Prince of Costanzo! Rounding out the cast of characters in real life are Lord Hay, a somewhat secretive book collector, and Kevin, her whining fiancee who would look much better with a boot in the ass. (more…)
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