Recent Reads – A Mixed Bag of Brief Reviews

I’ve been hauling in deliveries from Amazon almost daily – like a true book addict looking for fix.  I have no defense, some authors are ‘must have’ even at hard cover prices, and many trade paperbacks would take forever to get through a book swapping site, then there’s the lure of the 4-for-3 promotion that extends to unreleased titles on pre-order.  What can I say, I’m just weak.

For the first time in awhile, I read some erotic romance.  With so many of the ebook authors moving from small press publishers to major print houses, I ended up trying 3 new to me authors at Siren.  Keep in mind, the current popularity of m/m, f/f, and BDSM books cuts way back on what I might read.  Not opposed to them and many good ones have m/m or BDSM elements, they just don’t have a lot of interest for me.  With what I did buy, the results were not encouraging.  In print, yet another anthology came up, meh!, another a cut average thanks to good wring – and there were two winners – Cipher by Moira Rogers and Jory Strong’s Inked Magic!  YEAH!!!!!   I had other winners too -  in the mystery category Boca Daze by Steven M. Forman, in the historical cozy category The Cocoa Conspiracy by Andrea Penrose, and in the noir Urban Fantasy category Aloha from Hell by Richard Kadrey.

First up are the Erotic Romance ebooks and print books:

• Title:  Cowboy Commandos Seduce Their Woman (Wyoming Warriors 3)
  
• Author: Paige Cameron
• Type:  Contemporary erotic romance
• Genre: ménage
• My Grade: C (3.0*)
  
• Rating:  NC-17
• Length and price:  Short/ Category Novel – under 60,000+ $5.99
• Where Available:  Available online at Siren
• FTC Disclosure: purchased through an online publisher bookstore

I know, the title should have been a dead give away.  I bought it anyway.  Actually, it was the pick of the litter, even though the shopworn plot has one used so many times, by so many authors, it embodied trite.  Still, the characters had some personality and  for a short novel, it managed a beginning,  middle, and end.  The sex was OK, but not really pulse racing.

New Releases – Paranormal UF and 2 Siren Erotic Romance

We all know I do love my paranormal, especially shifter and UF and there have been some good and blah releases lately, plus a couple of erotic romances.  Here we go.  First is a favorite series of mine, the Elemental Assassin.

• Title: Venom
  
• Author:  Jennifer Estep
• Type:  Paranormal Urban Fantasy
• Genre:  #3 of the Gin Blanco Elemental Assassin series; murder and mayhem as Gin finds her youngest sister
• Sub-genre:  Former assassin goes after the elemental who murdered her family
• My Grade: B- (3.8*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel about 90,000+ words for $7.99
• Where Available:  book available at any book store
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased book from online bookseller

New Concepts Publishing – 3 Books; Erotica – Shapeshifter to Futuristic

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.

• Title: Dragon’s Blood
  
• Author:  Madelaine Montague
• Type:  Paranormal erotic romance; ménage or polyandry
• Genre: Dragons living hidden among Native Americans
• Sub-genre:  FBI recruit finds herself pregnant and confused about a bear attack
• My Grade: C+  (3.4*)
  
• Rating:  NC-17 to X
• Length and price:  Full novel about 80,000 words ebook for $5.99
• Where Available:  book available at New Concepts Publishing book store online
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased book from publisher’s website

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: 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: Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O’Connor

Kaitlyn O’Connor is one of my favorite furturistic erotic romance writers.  Her Cyborg Nation series is funny and brings up a lot of interesting philosophical points and men just dying for sex.  For Dark Abyss, she freely borrows many of the elements in her cyborg series and blends them with catastrophic climate changes on Earth to create the near future world in which Dark Abyss is set.

• Title: Dark Abyss
• Author: Kaitlyn O’Connor
• Type: Futuristic erotic romance
• Genre: Near future after cataclysmic climate change
• Sub-genre: Genetically altered humans
• My Grade: C+ to B- (3.5*)
• Rating: NC-17 to X
• Length: about 78,000 words – full novel
• Where Available: ebook only at this time from New Concepts (link for convenience only)
• FTC Disclosure: This ebook was purchased on the publisher’s website

Dark Abyss opens with an act of sabotage against the underwater territory of New Atlantis, the primary supplier of food, water, and power to now devastated US that lost much of its arable land to the rising seas when the polar ice caps melted.  The men who agreed to start the underwater cities were genetically altered so they could live and breath underwater, even though the cities are domed and filled with air so the machinery can function for things like the desalinization plant, and plants can grow in the greenhouses.  These genetically altered people are called ‘mutants’ by those who live on the surface.  They in turn call the surface dwellers ‘air breathers’.