Love Romance Passion » Contemporary

Review: Susie White and the Right Hand Man by Lucy Felthouse

Lynn Reynolds — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Reviewed by Lynn Reynolds

The book starts off with a real hunk on the cover. He can be my right hand man anytime. This cover will tempt you to open the book and see what’s inside. Scott invites us to join him on a very sensual ride.

Susie is the owner of a confectionary company called “White Bites”. The story reads like a fairytale. Which one do you think it could be – keep in mind the cast of characters. She is seen participating in her father’s wedding when she sees him walking through the doorway. His name is Scott and he works for her new stepmother.

If you’re expecting an erotic tale, I’m afraid that you will be disappointed. But if you like to read a sweet romance with a smidge of suspense, than you will like this one. You’ll want to see what happens to Susie and Scott. If you don’t have a lot of time, this is a fast read and one that you can read over and over again.

Lucy also makes this a cliffhanger. Will this story continue? Will Lucy write another story based on a fairy tale? We’ll just have to watch to see what Lucy comes up with next.

Rating:

Buy: Susie White and the Right Hand Man

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Review: Accused (Pacific Coast Justice Series, Book 1) by Janice Cantore

Susan S. — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:46:19 +0000

Reviewed by Susan S.

Accused is a powerhouse of suspense!

Summary: Pacific Coast Justice Series-Book One As a law enforcement officer, C. Edwards, has always upheld the law and followed her agency’s protocols. And prior to becoming a divorcée, she was also the faithful wife. No one would categorize Carly’s life as perfect, but at least it has a semblance of stability. Now all that’s about to change!

As Carly searches for answers regarding who murdered Mayor Teresa Burke, she’ll uncover deeply protected secrets. Secrets those in power would kill to keep. With body counts rising, Carly will find herself in a race to stay alive! She never would’ve guessed it, but she’ll have to rely on the two people she’s been avoiding the most. Her ex-husband (Nick) and God.

Review: Janice Cantore is a new-to-me author. And the first thing that impressed me was the flow of the story. Everything flowed perfectly! There were no abrupt and jarring scene changes. It was one continuous smooth storytelling. Secondly, the suspense is top-notch. Furthermore, as a former police officer, Cantore’s uniform dispatch signals were accurate. As a civilian, I also found her descriptions of police procedures insightful.

Recommendations: Recommended for readers who enjoy police stories and inspirational tales of faith and hope.

What I Enjoyed:

Element: I liked the police officers’ sobriquets: Carly is Crash, Joe is Control, and Nick is Face.

Scene: There’s a scene where an officer risks his life for another. I wept copiously! I wouldn’t say I used an entire box of tissues, but it was close!

Extras: After the story there’s an author interview; that was a novel element.

Disclaimer: I requested this novel from NetGalley because of my interest in police stories.

Rating:

Buy: Accused (Pacific Coast Justice)

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Review: If Wishes Were Husbands by Elizabeth Kyne

Karin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Reviewed by Karin of Savvy Thinker

I really enjoyed this book.

The story: Rachel is tired of being unmarried. While all her friends can tell horror stories about their men, she has nothing to say, so when her new hairdresser asks if she is married, she spins a story about the perfect man she is married to.

And then when she meets her friend for a drink, she spins the same story to the new women she meets, even as her friend challenges her about the story in privacy. Rachel says she will put them straight, the next time she meets them.

And then…

Imagine her surprise when she goes home and finds the man of her dreams, the one she has spun lies about, ensconced in her apartment, having prepared the gourmet meal she had said he prepares, with a perfect body, perfect sex, perfect everything.

And because she doesn’t remember how they got to that point, he re-proposes to her and tells her about their marriage, and…

But honestly, perfect is not what it is cracked up to be.

Even perfectly perfect in all his ways, after all she did make him up, ends up driving her mad.

The ending: Well, I won’t give it away. It ends differently than I thought, and perhaps my ending would have been better – and I suspect you could propose several endings yourself. But it is satisfying and wraps up some of the loose ends, while giving me other questions, which perhaps if I had read slower, I might have caught – or not. Perhaps the ends are not wrapped up tightly.

This book is delightfully funny, wry, interesting, witty…with good friends…with a mother going through her own mid-life crisis – funny in itself.

You would enjoy it. Part fantasy, part reality, a little bit of everything.

Buy: If Wishes Were Husbands

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Review: Carrie Goes Off the Map by Phillipa Ashley

Karin — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Reviewed by Karin from Savvy Thinker

I really enjoyed this book.

The story: Carrie’s life has changed dramatically.

She had been in the midst of planning her fast upcoming wedding to the fellow she’s known since college and lived with for about 10 years. Meantime she had put some of her own dreams on hold to help him with his family farm. Then he tells her he just can’t go through with it.

And to top it off, four months later he is marrying someone else.

And all her friends have kept the news from her.

When she finds out on the very day of his wedding, she goes a little bit crazy, a mixture of grief and anger -- and how she finds out is as funny, as life sometimes can be, as what she ends up doing.

I’m not sure it is supposed to be funny, maybe more ironic, and it is certainly has an equal amount of pathos.

And intersecting with her story is the story of Matt Landon, MD, newly back from his charity post overseas, to get over an accident.

They end up in a camper, an old VW van, along the English countryside – not quite what Carrie thought, when she expected to go with her friend Rowena through the Continent.

My take: This book is well written, easy to read, with romance, love, laughter, good friends, and some mishaps along the way. What more could we want in a read? Even Carrie’s ex is not as bad as he seems, and gets a bit of a comeuppance along the way – and is even willing to buy out Carrie’s part of the family farm, as well he should, and fairly.

And along the way, she finds a new love and accomplishes her dream.

Rating:

Buy: Carrie Goes Off The Map

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Review: Nightwatch by Alice Gaines

Sandra Scholes — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Reviewed by Sandra Scholes

Women like Janice Morgan enjoy all the pleasures sex has to give them, whether she is with a man or not. She can please herself with movies that give her what she wants with the end result being hot, steamy and passionate – plus she is not afraid to experiment no matter what it is.

Janice is about to go one step further with her sexual ambitions when she finds out a man over the way from her likes to give the women of the neighbourhood something to talk about. He strips for their amusement, and one night he strips just for her. She is both surprised and delighted that he would do this for her, and can only show her appreciation for him later. He’s an exhibitionist while she is the voyeur, and she likes that very much, but when he is also a man who likes to experiment as much as she does, she likes him even more!

Janice thinks she is safe observing the man of her dreams, but once he finds her watching, she thinks he might have something to say about it. Sam Winsdsor though, likes her watching him – he gets a huge thrill out of it, so they both get what they want out of it if they carry on as they are. Life isn’t that kind though and Sam and Janice start to form a friendship, one based on voyeurism, and exhibitionism that acts as an amazing stimulus for both of them.

I liked that there was a lot in Janice’s life that had prevented her from forming a decent relationship with a man. One of them is her thought that she is incapable of having sexual relations with a man at all as she gets her kicks from seeing naked men on film and through a window. Sam can’t believe she is like that at all, and when he wants a relationship with her, she is happy as well as daunted by the possibility she might disappoint him.

Both characters show their differences in this novel, but opposites do tend to attract, and what better way of attracting than forming a bond based on mutual kinks. Alice Gaines shows she can pen more than just a romance novel, this one’s a sensualists dream come true.

Rating:

Buy: Nightwatch

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Review: Aefle and Gisela by Libby Malin

Carla F. — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:10:57 +0000

Reviewed by Carla F.

The heroine is DeeDee McGowan who is the owner of a car dealership in the very small town of Oyster Point. She is all ready to settle for and marry Buck Bewley, but the night before the wedding she finds out he is cheating on her.

The hero is Thomas Charlemagne, a Medieval Studies professor at a university in Baltimore whose special area of study is Aefle the Minuscule (a poet monk of the twelfth century). He is back in Oyster Point to attend the wedding of his cousin. At the bachelor party the guys dare Thomas to stand up at his cousin’s wedding and object to the marriage. He agrees in order to finally stop everyone from calling him his nickname since childhood, “Timid Tommy”. The next morning hung over and unable to find his glasses, he does stop the wedding. It is just that it is not his cousin’s but the one of his former lover DeeDee.

This is a satire of both higher education and small time life. There many laugh-out-loud moments most of which came from Thomas. One happens when he and DeeDee are running from the wedding and a beating of Thomas by Buck. DeeDee tells him to get into her SUV.

“Oh, sorry, I don’t ride in SUVs,” he said. He’d signed a pledge at the university against the gas guzzlers. He was still working on what to do about the one he occasionally drove, his father’s big Jeep Cherokee. Megan had insisted he take over its care. At least he’d put a “Greed Kills” bumper sticker on it."

The titles of Thomas’s papers were all funny (and realistic). I especially liked:

“My Heart Is a Turnip in God’s Cellar: Platonic Romance in Aefle’s Monastery”

At first Thomas and DeeDee were a little bit over the top for me. Thomas is definitely a nerd. His social unawareness made me squirm at times, and I would have to put the book down for awhile. DeeDee took whatever Thomas said as a slight at her intellect/small town life. However, as the book went on and the characters grew and changed they both (especially Thomas) became very appealing. They were definitely characters who were better together than the sum of their parts.

Overall: A hilarious look at higher education, small town life, and of course, love.

Rating:

Buy: Aefle and Gisela

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Review: Christmas Cheer: The Love Genie by Pepper Goodrich

Lynn Reynolds — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:58:43 +0000

Reviewed by Lynn Reynolds

Nicholas Eugene Spanekopolas works at the Fantasies-R-Us Motel and is looking to do a promotion for Christmas. Mitch McDonald was checking his email and saw a message from an old friend. He follows the link and fills out the form. Now we wait to see what the Love Genie has in store for him.

Irene Landin lost her husband a couple years before. She just wants to snuggle. She goes to the motel to get something that she hasn’t had in a while.

What I love about Pepper’s story is that our major characters are older than some. It shows that love can come at any age. The reader doesn’t need to be of a certain age to appreciate the romance of an older couple.

As you continue to read this story, you’ll see how the Love Genie got his name. You can tell he takes his job very seriously. He believes in having the fantasies realistic down to the clothing and the couple’s meal. If you could have the Love Genie create a fantasy for you what would it be?

Mitch arrives at the motel and changes into his costume for the evening. Then he walks into his fantasy and guess who’s there to greet him. As Mitch and Irene get to know each other, Mitch decided they have at least one thing in common. We also see that Irene loves a man with a great butt – and that’s not a bad thing.

As the story ended, I was left wanting more. I wasn’t ready for the story to end. What happened to Mitch and Irene after they left the motel? Do I need to use my imagination and make an ending for them?

Being the holidays, if you’re strapped for time, this is a great story to read. It may even give you some ideas of things to do with your significant other. This is definitely a title you will want to read every holiday season.

Rating:

Buy: Christmas Cheer : The Love Genie

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Review: Hermes Online by Rose Anderson

Carla F. — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:12:37 +0000

Reviewed by Carla F.

Summary: Vivienne has been having a difficult time since finding her boyfriend in bed with another woman. It particularly didn’t help when he told her that she drove him to it since she was boring in bed. Now she feels sad, boring and unsexy. In an effort to cheer her up, a friend sends her a link to an adult literature site. Viv enjoys reading the stories and decides to submit an erotic story that she had written years ago. She is surprised to receive many positive comments on her piece. One comment from a reader signed “S” grabs her attention, and they begin an exchange of erotic email.

Review: Wow. This story shows clearly the power of words, and proves once again that the most important sexual organ is the brain. From the vivid sexual descriptions that Viv shares with S, she regains her feelings of sexiness and leaves behind those that made her think that she is boring.

“Yes, I did look this way, this was me. I wasn’t a black and white and gray being after all. These simple words I found to describe myself implied I was filled with color.”

As Viv and S’s exchanges become more detailed, you can see how words can make connections and changes lives. Viv looks eagerly for S’s emails, and she finds herself doing things that she has never done before.

The only thing I didn’t like about the story was that I felt that the email exchanges went on a bit long. I wanted them to meet already!

Overall: A hot story of a woman finding herself and love again.

Rating:

Buy: Hermes Online

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Review: Night Watch by Alice Gaines

Lynn Reynolds — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:56:42 +0000

Reviewed by Lynn Reynolds

Janice Morgan loves to watch porn. How many of you can admit the same? But it sounds like she’s getting bored by them. They don’t seem to satisfy her like they used to.

Janice has a new neighbor that lives across the way. His name is Sam Windsor. Janice has a great vantage point to watch a great show that’s going on over at Sam’s place. Alice lets us see that Sam “swings both ways”. You also get a chance to see the differences in the way that men and women interact during sex.

Janice doesn’t realize it at the time but Sam knows what’s going on. Interesting thing is that Sam doesn’t seem to mind. He actually seems to like the idea. This brings a different level to their relationship. They seem to have an instant connection and set out to explore where it will take them.

It’s nice to see an author that makes a character that is so considerate of their partner – making sure that the partner comes first. Sam gives Janice the ride of her life. In order to add some spice to their relationship

Alice, what are you doing to us? She leaves us hanging at the end. This is where your imagination will have to take over (unless she gives us a series). If you only have a little time to read and need something to get your engines going, “Night Watch is the story for you. It may also give you some ideas to spice things up in your relationship with your partner.

Rating:

Buy: Night Watch

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Review: Beauty is the Beast (Woodcutters Grim Series, Book 7) by Karen Wiesner

Sandra Scholes — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Reviewed by Sandra Scholes

This novel serves as the last in the four book mini series of Woodcutters Grim which has the curse on the Shaussegeny family as the main arc of the story.

As the others are roughly based on popular fairy tales, this one deals with Beauty and the Beast. Here Ransom Shaussegeny decides once and for all to try and get rid of the curse on their family forever, but it will be a tricky task, and one which has its pitfalls. One of them is that Ransom is cursed with becoming a werewolf when the full moon rises in the heavens and life as a ravening beast isn’t the best he can hope for.

Shaussegeny finds himself amazed that he might believe that a kiss from a woman might save him from the curses grip, but even he thinks it is nothing but fairy tale nonsense – until he has the chance to have the one woman who could be his own.

Beauty is the Beast follows a similar story to the original fairy tale as a man who intends to take a rose for his daughter has to make a deal with Ransom so he can have his daughter when the time is right.

From the first few pages there is a nod to Glynnis Shaussegeny and her new husband which formed the sixth in the Woodcutter Grim series of novels previously. Beauty comes in the form of Tess, the old man’s unfortunate daughter, who turns up at the Shaussegeny family house. Ever since the old man had come to his house wanting the rose he had cultivated, he had never imagined that Tess would come, but he finds out his father didn’t have to send her to him-she came of her own free will, and being a lover of plants and flowers, she couldn’t stay away as she has a great fondness for all flora and fauna of every kind and she is fascinated by them as she ends up being fascinated by him.

Unlike the Beast in the fairy tale who wanted a woman through his own selfishness, and didn’t think that it would lift the curse, Ransom is well aware that she could be the one to lift the curse from his family if she is a willing woman.

As in this excerpt he feels he might be asking a lot of her to tolerate:

“A monster, that’s what I am. She’ll never know who and what I really am. I can’t allow her to see me that way. I have to trust in science. The new formula I’ve created has to be the one. It’s shown more promise than anything else has before. Under the full moon at the end of this month, I’ll inject it and, if it works, everything will change. Tess and I will be free to fall in love without the curse hanging over us.”

Even though this is a novel where the characters have their problems, everything can be worked out for the better, and it ends up being an interesting and compelling retelling of a popular fairy tale.

Rating:

Buy: Woodcutter's Grim Series - Classic Tales Of Horror Retold

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