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REVIEW: Shakedown by Michelle Roth

7/20/2015

Title: Shakedown

Author: Michelle Roth

Length : 41 Pages

Genres: Suspense/ Mystery Romance

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 4 stars - Recommended Read!

Heat: 2/5 - Flirty

Short, but amusing book. Cassidy has a prize-winning (literally) pooch that’s been dog-napped and turns to Diamond & Diamond PIs to help find the dog. Mike Diamond hasn’t been in the business long and gets assigned the case. He doesn’t think much of it, and much less (initially) of a woman who’d spend money looking for a dog, and so the sparks fly from the first meeting where they can’t stand each other.

It doesn’t take long for either the dog-napping case or the romance to move forward. The only part I didn’t care for was how pretty obvious it was who was behind the dog-napping. I did like the push and pull between Cassidy and Mike simply because their backgrounds were so different. It’s enjoyable and sweet. Not very spicy (aka sexy), but that’s okay. It was an engaging story and I recommend anyone who likes romance and mystery mixed together.

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REVIEW: Bad Larry and the Divorcee by M. Levesque

7/19/2015

Title: Bad Larry and the Divorcee

Author: M. Levesque

Length : 85 Pages

Genres: Contemporary Romance / Mystery Romance

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 4 Stars - Recommended Read

Heat: 2/5 - Flirty

This book was hilarious when it came to the titular “Larry” – a little miniature pinscher who absolutely hated men. He had a real attitude and was a good protector…for a dog that weighs less than many purses do, what with all women carry around in their purses (me included).

Riya is attending the funeral of a high school classmate when she meets Jaden, in a very not-ladylike-position because of a cream incident gone very wrong. He offers some medical advice, being an EMT among other things, and gives her his card so they can talk. Larry does…bad things to the card. Very bad things. Luckily Jaden tracks her down anyway.

The mystery involved was minor, though I enjoyed seeing and finding out just who was behind the deaths. I loved the secondary character of Jaden’s mother (who really was a hoot in her own way), and seeing Jaden and Riya get together finally when everything’s solved. These two made a cute couple, er, trio with Larry. Definitely check this out if you want to giggle over the antics of a dog!

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REVIEW: An Appetite for Blackmail by Ravenna Tate

6/23/2015

Title: An Appetite for Blackmail

Author: Ravenna Tate

Length : 118 Pages

Genres: Futuristic Romance

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 4 Stars - Recommended Read

Heat: 2/5 - Flirty

This book is set in the 22nd century (2118+) after the vast majority of humanity has been forced underground. Harper, in a moment of weakness while consoling a co-worker over being dumped, hacked into CEO Ace’s computer records to try to dig up dirt. He of course caught her (or at least detected the hack) and blackmails her into becoming his girlfriend while using her hacking abilities to hopefully try to track down the people behind the hacking of the planetary weather system, so they can just maybe return humanity to the surface.

I have to say the most enjoyable thing about this book was the futuristic setting. It wasn’t overly preachy like so many “the world came to an end because of weather disasters” can be. It had a clearly human cause (not the ones we sometimes think of potentially causing climate change these days). It was realistic in that I can see humans finding a way to control the weather and then the system being hacked by mischief (or downright evil). Ace had good reason to try to blackmail Harper into working for him (even if not necessarily into his bed) – if she could break into his system, she might be able to help find the monsters who screwed up the weather.

The chemistry, the attraction and fight against that was great and I thoroughly enjoyed watching them work through it. There was of course an entirely predictable dark moment in the book, but I liked seeing how it developed, so didn’t have a problem with it.

So glad I read this and certainly hope there will be more set in this same world.

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REVIEW: Bind by Sierra Cartwright

6/18/2015

Title: Bind

Series: The Donovan Dynasty #1

Author: Sierra Cartwright

Length : 274 Pages

Genres: Romance, bdsm

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating:5 Stars - A Must Read

Heat: 5/5 - Orgasmic

Holy smokin’ sex, readers! This was…AWESOME!

Lara’s father turned down a deal that could have potentially pulled her family company out of danger without even checking with the board of directors because he didn’t feel the price was good enough. Being the company’s CFO, she decides to make a proposal to the head of the Donovan company to give Connor a chance to join the board – to marry her and be able to make his pitch. He’s attracted and comes back with his own bargain: become his submissive while they’re married and he’ll do it.

Okay, I completely just brushed aside the silliness of the fact that they were having lawyers look over this contract and focused on the story. It was an amazing story and the sex was to DIE for. There was one scene that, for me personally, hit right into one of my biggest fantasies, and…sadly I was at work at the time (lunch break) so there wasn’t a danged thing I could do to let go the delight. Sigh. But OMG, it was incredible.

Read it for the story, read it for the sex. Just read Bind by Sierra Cartwright!

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REVIEW: Hawking a Future by Zenina Masters

5/31/2015

Title: Hawking a Future

Author: Zenina Masters

Length : 68 Pages

Genres: Paranormal Romance

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 4 Stars - Recommended Read

Heat: 2/5 - Flirty

Hayley is the product of two bird shifters who has never managed to shift because she has two inner animals and neither one is able to rise far enough to let her change. She’s instead devoted her life primarily to working as a counselor in the human world, though she periodically spends time counseling recently freed shifters who were captured by the fey and released as part of the recent deal to allow fey into the Crossroads to find mates. Tovin is one of the first fey (an elf specifically) to take part in the new program. These two meet when Hayley arrives. She doesn’t expect to find a mate because she’s largely ignored that part of her life since she can’t shift. However, upon meeting and touching Tovin, receiving some of his fey energy, her inner animals finally emerge and she spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to get back to her human form.

I loved the idea of Hayley, who felt so abandoned by the shifter community yet still wanted to help when she could. IT took a lot of personal courage for her to face potential rejection by traveling to the Crossroads since she couldn’t shift. Tovin, he was an all around pretty decent guy and I liked seeing him find his mate in Hayley. I laughed a lot as Hayley tried to deal with the fact that she now had two alternate forms and how to shift between them easily.

Another great book from Ms. Masters!

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REVIEW: Waking Her Tiger by Zenina Masters

5/31/2015

Title: Waking Her Tiger

Author: Zenina Masters

Length : 70 Pages

Genres: Paranormal Romance

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 4 stars - Recommended Read

Heat: 3/5 - Blush Worthy

Zenina Masters is, well, a master at mixing up breeds when it comes to her Crossroads series, and to the shifters themselves. In this book Maddy is a tiger shifter…who was born to a tribe of prairie dogs, who while loyal to her family of course inspires a bit of fear from her relatives since she’s officially a predator while they’re prey. They love her, but she has a tiger’s instincts and has to fight the drive to pounce when she sees them when they’re in their natural forms. Suran is the last djinn of his family line and as such, has all the power of all the djinn of his line, so people are quite nervous around him. Thanks to recent developments in the series, the fey are now being gradually introduced to the Crossroads to find potential mates and Suran is sent by the fey court to see if he matches. He meets Maddy quickly (after she’s nearly lost to the ether thanks to an incompetent transfer from our world to the Crossroads) and discovers Maddy is his mate.

I love, love, love the imagination required for this series. Maddy as a tiger-raised-by-prairie dogs is an outcast, though never explicitly made so by her family. Suran’s known his entire life he was the last of his line and people are afraid of him. Seeing these two find each other was great, and I loved how they gained traits of the other when they were mated (Maddy turned blue with stripes and gained some of Suran’s magic while Suran gained stripes and an alternate form, I believe).

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REVIEW: Sheikh's Dream by Leah Leonard

5/18/2015

Title: Sheikh’s Dream

Author: Leah Leonard

Length : 99 Pages

Genres: Contemporary, Romance

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 3 Stars - A Good Read

Heat:2/5 - Flirty

Jenny Bradley works in her father’s water park building business, which is starting to expand and do quite well (or so she thinks). They get hired by Sheikh Ari to create (or at least expand) a water park in Dubai. Ari’s dream is this water park, until he catches sight of Jenny, and then she’s all he thinks about, to the point of threatening Jenny’s father that he’ll take his business elsewhere if Jenny isn’t the one brought to oversee the project. Jenny doesn’t want to go. She thinks the business is overburdened already to take on a project that must be done within three weeks, but then her father drops the bomb that he’s borrowed a lot of money and if he doesn’t get this commission, their business will go under and they’ll never get to fulfill Jenny’s dream of building a non-profit park that sends its proceeds to cancer research. So she goes and instead of being involved in the project, Ari wines and dines her (so to speak) into falling in love.

This was an okay story, over all. Jenny was commendable, in her desire to build a park that would send its profits to research the disease that killed her mother a few years back. However, I felt she was a bit weak in not pushing more to actually work while she’s in Dubai. Ari…well, he was certainly focused on what he wanted. A bit of a throwback in his attitudes, but it was definitely nice that these two didn’t necessarily get hot and heavy immediately.

So – it was okay, and I’d probably check out other books by Leah Leonard, but this wasn’t a re-read in my mind.

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REVIEW: Chameleon by Ashe Barker

4/15/2015

Title: Chameleon

Author: Ashe Barker

Length : 262 Pages

Genres: Contemporary Romance (some BDSM to it)

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 4 Stars - Recommended Read

Heat: 4/5 - Smoking hot

Ethan is in Marrakesh to perform a geographic survey for his friend and boss, James, CEO of the Totally Five Star resort chain. His car dies in the middle of the desert and he's rescued by a "Berber peasant" who's riding by on a donkey. But his little peasant isn't what he initially thinks: she's actually a temp doctor for the Marrakesh Totally Five Star hotel he's staying at. Fleur is half European, half Middle-Eastern, all chameleon and a blend of the two cultures. She rescues Ethan, concerned he might have a concussion after he wrecks his car out in the middle of nowhere. The attraction between them runs fast and hot, quickly leading them to the bedroom and they both must decide whether they can part when Ethan's job is up in Marrakesh or if there's more there.

Overall, I enjoyed this. The sex was well written and certainly hot. My biggest gripe is there was a certain act that Ethan imagines doing to and with Fleur throughout the book, wants to do it, craves it...and then never does it, despite threatening a time or two. This might have made it to a five-star despite that, but my biggest gripe about this book was that there really was no good reason these two couldn't have been together as a couple. Seriously - Fleur is only on a temp job, and she does move on that fact once she decides she wants to be with Ethan permanently, but the job issue was never a real impediment to the romance.

Still, good book and worth reading. I'd love to see more in the Totally Five Star series.

REVIEW: Rescuing Cade by Elodie Parkes

4/6/2015

Title: Rescuing Cade

Author: Elodie Parkes

Length : 80 Pages

Genres: Contemporary Romance (some BDSM to it)

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 3 Stars - A Good Read

Heat: 3/5 - Blush Worthy

A year ago, Cade was dumped by his fiancé, who told him the reason was because he was absolutely hopeless in bed. He took that rejection to heart and since has not been able to, erm, rise to the occasion, even if he’d been interested, which he hasn’t. In an effort to get him back into the game, his best friend takes him to “The Club”, a BDSM club which Jack believes will spark Cade’s interest once more.

Marissa acts as a Domme at The Club, though she admittedly doesn’t have a strong need/desire to dominate or be dominated. She immediately sees Cade when he comes in with his friend. She meets him at the bar where he admits he probably shouldn’t have come. One thing leads to another and she takes him home with her. She dominates him, though he’s barely interested in things like that and she privately admits it doesn’t feel right being dominant with him. Things are a bit messy, but Cade is freed from his year-long belief in his horribleness in bed.

I think this book was unnecessarily drawn out. I liked both Marissa and Cade, but didn’t understand why they didn’t just talk. It was ultimately a sweet romance, but I honestly didn’t feel the spark between them at all. They spent too much time trying to be what they thought the other one wanted them to be.

Thanks to the publisher for sending this to review!

REVIEW: Callahan's Fate by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

4/3/2015

Title: Callahan’s Fate

Author: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Length : 154 Pages

Genres: Contemporary Romance

TBR Reviewer: Victoria

Rating: 3 Stars - A Good Read

Heat: 3/5 - Blush Worthy

Callahan is a NYC cop and Raine is a Midwestern transplanted teacher who teaches disadvantaged kids at a variety of schools throughout the burroughs of NY. They meet by chance at a subway station and end up spending the day together. They have a slight run-in with a gang which ends up being significant throughout the story, as the leader of the gang they run into is the major villain and has a key to Callahan’s tragic past.

While this was a sweet little love story in places, I found the romance entirely too easily achieved. There was absolutely nothing that kept these two apart. Even the “villain” never really posed any threat toward their romance. The heroine (and hero, if I want to be honest) have an absolutely too-stupid-to-live moment when dealing with the villain. I liked Callahan and Raine both, I just think they could have been much better together if their romance had faced challenges. Yeah, they did have the gang kid to deal with, but he never actually posed a threat to the romance. Just them physically. There was never any “oh, I shouldn’t be with you because it’s too dangerous” moments, which (IMO) might have perked up the story a bit by offering some emotional conflict.

So – nice love story, just no real umph to it or emotional fist-pump exhileration.

<<Previous

REVIEW: Shakedown by Michelle Roth

REVIEW: Bad Larry and the Divorcee by M. Levesque

REVIEW: An Appetite for Blackmail by Ravenna Tate

REVIEW: Bind by Sierra Cartwright

REVIEW: Hawking a Future by Zenina Masters

REVIEW: Waking Her Tiger by Zenina Masters

REVIEW: Sheikh's Dream by Leah Leonard

REVIEW: Chameleon by Ashe Barker

REVIEW: Rescuing Cade by Elodie Parkes

REVIEW: Callahan's Fate by Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

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