Short Reviews: New Release Paranormals, Romantic Suspense, Erotic Romance, Cozy Mystery

Talk about a disappointing group of books.  YEESH!  Not one really good one in the whole lot!

• Title: Accidentally Catty
  
• Author:  Dakota Cassidy
• Type:  Humorous paranormal romance series
• Genre:  A vet gets infected my a mountain lion that’s really a shifter and must deal with the paranormal reality
• Sub-genre:  Normal human gets involved with vamps and shifters and an insane scientist
• My Grade: C  (3.0*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel – about 100,000+ $8.50-10 with list of $15.00
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

And Still MORE Super Short Reviews – Assorted Genres

Yes, there are still MORE reviews of urban fantasy, paranormal romance, mystery, and erotic romance to get through.  So here we go again!

• Title: Quick Study
  
• Author:  Maggie Barbieri
• Type:  Mystery
• Genre: Amateur sleuth college professor
• Sub-genre:  Professor with cop boyfriend steps on law enforcement toes
• My Grade: B-  (3.8*)
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full length novel; about 80,000+ words for $6.99
• Where Available:  book available at at any book store; 4-for-3 program on Amazon
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased hardcover book from online bookstore

This third installment in the Alison Bergeron series is an entertaining read.  Alison is late thirties, divorced from a ‘serial philanderer’, and college literature professor with an indomitable curiosity and a talent for finding trouble.  Written in the first person, Alison is a likable character who realizes that age is no barrier to her acting like an idiot.  Her ‘boyfriend’, divorced police detective Bobby Crawford, could decide she’s more trouble than she’s worth.  Her childhood friend, now a priest, keeps hoping she’ll get interested in his too handsome brother, and best friend Max is a drop dead gorgeous TV personality married to Bobby’s caveman like partner.

Alison is working her community service hours at a soup kitchen where an extended Latino comes once a week for a family dinner.  She hires the father and his nephew to do some painting in her house in Dobbs Ferry.  When the nephew turns up dead on a piece of land in Brooklyn that’s being developed by a former boyfriend of Max’s, Maggie gets involved in trying to find out what really happened.  The action just keeps moving and the plot has plenty of surprises, so settle in and enjoy.

The verve is fun and interesting.  Though some characters are ‘central casting’, it’s kind of hard not to get interested in Alison and her chaotic approach to life in general.  Fans of amateur sleuths can enjoy a fun read.  Good summer choice!

Short Reviews: Mystery, Erotic Romance and Paranormal Reviews

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.

• Title: The Forgotten: Discovery
  
• Author:  Kaitlyn O’Connor
• Type:  Futuristic erotic romance
• Genre:  Human discovers cyborgs;  cybogs discover themselves and sex
• Sub-genre:  Science fiction with a touch of ménage
• My Grade: B  (4.0*)
• Rating:  NC-17 to XX
• Length and price:  Full length novel; about 90,000+ words for $7.99
• Where Available:  ebook available at New Concepts Press
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased book from publisher’s website

Book Review: The Mane Squeeze by Shelly Laurenston

• Title: The Mane Squeeze
• Author: Shelly Laurenston
• Type: Paranormal Romance
• Genre: Humorous shifter with serious edge
• Sub-genre: Pack and Pride series
• My Grade: B+ (4.4*)
• Rating: NC-17
• Where Available: Everywhere books are sold
• FTC Disclosure: Purchased from online bookseller

After the very disappointing Pack story in Belong to the Night, Shelly Laurenston is pretty much back in form with The Mane Squeeze, her latest entry in the Pack and Pride series.  This story starts at the wedding of Jessie Ann and Bobby Ray on Long Island.  Jessie Ann is good friends with grizzly shifter, Lachlan ‘Lock’ MacRyrie and the bear reluctantly gets dressed up and attends.  Bears aren’t fond of socializing, but for Jessie Ann, he’ll do it. Then he sees something interesting – Gwen O’Neill.  Interrupted in his slow efforts to get to know Gwen by Brandon, whom he just casually tosses about 50 feet away, Lock waits months mentally berating himself for not making more of the opportunity with her.

Book Review: I Only Have Fangs for You by Kathy Love

• Title: I Only Have Fangs for You
• Author: Kathy Love
• Type: Paranormal Romance
• Genre: Contemporary light romantic vamp
• Sub-genre: Womanizing bachelor vamp meets his prim vampire-in-denial soulmate
• My Grade: C+ to B- (3.5*)
• Rating: PG-13
• Where Available: Everywhere books are sold

This charming, light-weight romance romance is third in Ms Love’s Young brothers series.  Christian and Rhys, Sebastian’s two older brothers, are, in his opinion, fang-whipped.  Chris, once an evil vampire, who thought a massive English country house full of servants was too dull for words, now live in the hills of West Virginia and helps his now vampire wife Jolee run a karaoke bar.  Rhys, the studious middle brother has the apartment above Sebastian – actually, Sebastian had to move out because he caught Rhys and Jane going at it everywhere all the time.  Yup, those two guys are so fang-whipped.

Book Reviews: Short Reviews of New Ebooks

Well, the usual suspects in the erotic romance epub list was visited by me to examine this weeks crop.  Didn’t see anything that interested me at Loose-Id or Siren and nothing at Ellora’s mid-week release appealed to me, but I had one left from last week and found 3 more – all at Samhain.  None really lit my fire but none were awful either.  The other odd thing is all felt more mainstream than usual.  Aside from some brief elements in Dance of the Dragon and Songbird, none really qualified a ‘erotic’ in my mind.  Romance, yes, but two of the four were romantic adventure and less erotic than Lora Leigh’s Nauti series, which is sold as mainstream.  The other two didn’t hit the ‘hot’ level of her Elite Ops books.  Just because a book is sold by Samhain, doesn’t make it erotic romance, and unlike many publishers, Samhain does not provide a relative measure of intensity for the sexual content.

Book Review: What a Dragon Should Know by G. A. Aiken

• Title: What a Dragon Should Know
• Author: G. A. Aiken/Shelly Laurenston
• Type: Epic fantasy romance
• Genre: alternate world/dragon shifter
• Sub-genre: conniving liars meet their match
• My Grade: A- (4.5*)
• Rating: NC-17
• Where Available: Everywhere books are sold

G. A. Aiken is Shelly Laurenston’s alter ego for her dragon fantasy series.  In the first two books, Dragon Actually and About a Dragon, the author builds a world where various species of dragon exist side-by-side with humans, who are often seen by the dragons as a food source.  The dragons rarely trouble themselves with short lived humans, but somehow the off-spring of  Queen Riannon of the Southland fire dragons, keep finding human mates, much to their father Bercelek’s annoyance!   She’s added an interim story of the parents of this mob – Queen Riannon and Bercelek contained within Dragon Actually, and Everlasting Bad Boys had a great novella, Can’t Get Enough, about Ailean the Wicked and Shalin the Innocent, the grandparents of the dragons in the Dragon Kin series, written as Shelly Laurenston.  I love Laurenston’s humor and strong female leads and the males who love them for being exactly what they are, tough as nails schemers and fighters.  What a Dragon Should Know is book 3 in her Dragon Kin series and it’s far more of an epic fantasy than a romance.  Regardless, it’s another complex, laugh out loud story of wildly eccentric dragons and the equally eccentric mates they choose.

Short Reviews – More Romance and Erotic Romance

Here we go with a bunch more reviews, mostly ebooks – novellas, short novels, and full novels.

• Title:  The Joy of Ex
• Author: Brit Ryan
• Type: Romantic Suspense
• Genre: Murder Mystery
• Sub-genre: First Book Lily MacInnes series
• My Grade: C- (2.8*)
• Rating: PG:17
• Where Available: Samhain

This romantic mystery by new author Brit Ryan had a terrific start and initially I liked Lily MacInnes.  Unfortunately, the story got choppy and nearly unintelligible at points and Lily behaved like an idiot in a ‘too-stupid-too-live’ chick-lit book.  The worst was when they suspected she’d been slipped a ‘roofie’ and her new police superintendent boyfriend, Paul Mascara, insisted on a blood test and she threw a tantrum that would have annoyed me in an eight year old.  On top of that, the moron who drugged her may end up partner in her

Short Reviews – Assorted Romance

I’ve read several shorter books or books that were reviewed elsewhere and I have little or nothing to add, so I’ve grouped them here in short reviews.

• Title: Make Me Yours
• Author: Betina Krahn
• Type: Romance
• Genre: Historical Romance
• Sub-genre: Harlequin Blaze
• My Grade: B
• Rating: PG-17

BOOK REVIEW: Mr. Impossible by Loretta Chase

Every so often I need the equivalent of a palate cleansing course in a meal when it comes to books. I keep a re-read pile for a good reason, it’s there that I find just the perfect ‘flavor’ to clean my taste buds and remind what really good writing is all about. Last month I re-read Lord Perfect. This month I chose another Carsington novel, Mr. Impossible. All I can say is thank heavens for Loretta Chase.

Rupert Carsington is the ne’er do well son of the Earl of Hargate. Charming, brawny, carefree, affable, a man with a strong sense of right and wrong, he’s never been the brains of the family, but he’s not dullard most think. He does have a talent for attracting trouble that borders on genius and has cost his father a small fortune. Hargate cuts Rupert’s allowance off and ships his hide off to Egypt to help the consul general to do something useful for a change. Mr. Salt feels like he’s been given a terrible burden, not help! He’d like nothing more than to ship Rupert back, but then he’d likely land somewhere at the end of the Earth for annoying Lord Hargate, so he’s stuck with paying yet another bribe to get Rupert out of the Pasha’s dungeon.