One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 1 Star
Length: 161 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Covet publisher Entangled Publishing, LLC via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Hearts of the Fallen, Book 2
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 232 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Covet publisher Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




As the sister of the vampire king and a behind-the-scenes co-ruler of Terra Noctem, Drusilla has spent her two thousand years existence supporting her brother and protecting their people from danger, whether that danger comes from without or within. In the two years since several of the Fallen escaped from hell and agreed to defend Terra Noctem in exchange for sanctuary there, one Fallen in particular has been a bane to her people. And it's the one who in Dru's opinion has always been the most frustrating, volatile, unapproachable...and, okay, fine...gorgeous of them all: Meresin.

Lately, though, Dru has noticed Meresin is becoming even more erratic and hostile. The fallen angel who commands lightning has always had the habit of electrocuting any vampire who annoys him, but recently everyone seems to annoy the angry, standoffish Fallen. Just by existing, apparently. It's beginning to create an untenable situation, one her brother is threatening to solve by banishing Meresin from the underground city forever. For all that she loves her brother and her people, the thought of Meresin being banished lights its own fire in Dru.

But how can you save a fallen angel who, by all indications, couldn't possibly care less about saving himself?


I'm a huge fan of Kendra Leigh Castle's books, especially her Dark Dynasties series, but this one wasn't as wildly entertaining to me as I'm used to from the author. I had a firmer grasp of the world and characters than I did in the preceding book, so that was a plus, but the plot seemed a little two-dimensional and flat to me and because it centered around Meresin's very internal conflict with himself it wasn't as compelling to me as a story with a more three-dimensional plot and extensive external conflict.

It didn't help that I didn't like Meresin all that much.

I could have, I think, if his character had evolved a little differently throughout the story. I'm a huge fan of tortured heroes, and Meresin is definitely tortured...but he was never my idea of a hero. My biggest problem was his attitude about his issues. It sucked. He's surly, self-destructive, defeatist, and pissed off at the world, and while I think he had good reason for all his self-pity and angst, at least initially, wallowing in it and focusing on it for eighty percent of the book while he pushes away any expression of concern, kindness, or affection with bitter fury did not make for fun reading.

And it didn't make for a very satisfying romance.

Meresin reminded me very much of a wounded animal, so broken by life that he lashes out at the slightest provocation, so damaged and self-loathing that even a touch of kindness feels like a slap of pain. And so damned alone, so starved for a single wisp of some measure of goodness despite it all that he's dying inside.

Oh yeah, that's usually right up my alley. Some of my favorite heroes in the paranormal romance genre are the most damaged and wounded male in a brotherhood of alphas, but what separated Meresin from those others was a combination of the utterly defeatist attitude and ambivalence towards changing the inevitability of his fate. Not to mention a preponderance of whining about how no one understands his pain.

Even if that were true, dude, you're thousands and thousands of years old and one of the most powerful beings on the planet. Man up and learn a coping mechanism or two for pity's sake. Get a dog. Provide free electricity to a few low-income families. Do something besides brood and wallow and piss off everyone who could possibly give a damn about you.

The shame of it is, I liked Dru a lot. I actually liked her a whole lot. Strong, independent, intelligent, she's exactly the sort of romantic heroine that I find most appealing. She's a pretty impressive chick for someone who's older than dirt. Two thousand years hasn't mired her in stagnant elitism, like so many vampires of her age in so many other books. She was a completely solid heroine who dealt with Meresin - and her feelings for him - surprisingly well and with much patience and persistence, and even a little fire when it was called for. She fits into the world and the story very well.

I just wish she'd had more to do besides tag along as Meresin's unwanted sidekick for so long into the book. There simply wasn't enough in the plot to give her to do beyond that, what with the sole focus of the narrative locked on fixing Meresin. There was a very minor thread about her own bad memories, and that area could have benefited by a more complex backstory, but it wasn't bad. When it came to her relationship with Meresin, though, and the evolution of it throughout the book, it felt way too much like she was doing all the work and he was doing little more than spouting off why she shouldn't bother.

And then there was the big story climax.

For a book so locked onto redemption as the end-goal in a series dedicated to exactly that, I was disappointed and surprised at the abrupt catalyst and conversion here. There was so little actual evolution in Meresin's character throughout the book that when the climax arrived, his about-face was lacking in almost all foundation and the subsequent conclusion felt anti-climactic as a result. In a book of this length, it was especially jarring because there was plenty of room for a more subtle change in his character over time.

This just wasn't as great a KLC read for me as others, but it did have it's moments and I'm not finished with this series by far. Castle's writing style is wonderfully rich in personality and vitality, and while I wasn't sold on the romance between the two characters and thought their relationship arc suffered from Meresin's issues, they did have a satisfying amount of chemistry. Plus we get to see more of the enigmatic Levi, who has interested me - a lot - since the previous book. He's as deliciously inscrutable as ever.

It may never be Dark Dynasties, but even with my lukewarm feelings about this book, this series isn't a bad way to spend some reading hours.


Hearts of the Fallen Series:

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Hearts of the Fallen, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 242 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Covet publisher Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


There may be a myriad of things Phenex would rather be doing than entertaining the haut monde in a hoity-toity vampire club on a Friday night, several thousand of which pay a hell of a lot better...literally, but when you're a demon-hunting Fallen who used to be the Angel of Song, the gig at least gives you a chance to connect with the very music that called you into being eons ago.

The night starts looking up when Phenex catches the scent of blood. A lot of blood. Definitely a bad omen in this particular club, which sits above the underground haven of the supernatural community he's tasked to defend. Looks like he'll be pulling double duty as entertainer du jour and otherworldly ass-kicker after all.

Emergency room nurse Sofia Rivera is on a mission. Her roommate and best friend hasn't been home in days, so she sneaked into the club where she works to talk to her and make sure she's okay. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but that was before she caught sight of her friend in the crowd, followed her into the bathroom, and tumbled headlong into a horror movie. Some freak was...biting her friend...drinking...he had fangs...

Before Sofia could really process the reality of the situation, she's defending herself against an actual vampire, and if that isn't enough to make her brain take a fast train to Looneytown, the huge guy with the big set of wings and the really serious sword who slams into the bathroom and cuts the vampire in half right in front of her sure helps pack her bags.

Now Sofia's got to contend with a group of rogue vampires who aren't fond of letting witnesses live and a pushy, arrogant...and, okay, gorgeous former angel as a self-assigned bodyguard making sure she does.


As a huge fan of Kendra Leigh Castle's Dark Dynasties series, I was thrilled to see this new series debut. I was a little perplexed when I started reading it, though, because it sure didn't read like a first book. In fact, it very much read like the third book in an existing series. Turns out, there's a good reason for that. Though released by a different publisher, there is an earlier novel and a short story/novella set in this world with some of the characters that show up in this book. That created some problems for me in this story because I definitely felt like I was missing something whenever those characters were mentioned or their histories discussed.

It wasn't an issue of not being able to follow the developing events in this book, or the world not being sufficiently defined. It was just a niggling sense of being out of the loop that pervaded while I was reading. I hate that feeling, but I tend to be fairly obsessive about reading a series in timeline order to begin with, so it's likely it bothered me more than most.

Setting that aside, though, I liked this book very much. Castle creates lovable characters. Her heroes tend to be alpha males who are deliciously flawed or tragically wounded in some way but with big squishy centers for their heroines, who themselves are feisty, independent, intelligent females and very easy to like - a plus for me, because I'm picky about my book heroines. Phenex and Sofia were right on trend and I enjoyed them both very much. They had depth of personality, fantastic chemistry, and each complimented the story and each other.

I mean, come on, Phenex had flower boxes! Loved that!

The plot lacked some of the complexity and definition of her Dark Dynasties series, and the storyline leaned more heavily on the romance and relationship between the main characters than on the external plot conflict, which often felt more like an afterthought. That was a shame, too, as I really enjoyed the world and the idea behind Terra Noctem, the underground city of nightwalkers. I would have loved to see those expanded with a meatier plot.

Fortunately, the characters were strong enough and their romance compelling enough to support the book without it. Phenex and Sofia had a great relationship, and the ups and downs of its evolution were truly driven by the people they were and the lives they had lived to that point. I've gotten so tired of stumbling across contrived relationship conflict in romance. It's boring and trite. The conflicts that crop up between Phenex and Sofia were natural consequences of their personalities, their passions, and their pains.

Sofia in particular endeared herself to me with an unshakable strength of character and determination to be true to herself in the face of ravaging heartbreak. I loved the hell out of her for that...though I did want to give Phenex a kick in his sexy tush for putting her into that position.

The book also has a solid cast of intriguing secondary characters with a truly unique, and sometimes contentious, dynamic. There lies a wealth of story potential and I can't wait to read it. I definitely want to spend much more time with them and in Terra Noctem in future books. I don't expect this series to approach the depth and dimension of Dark Dynasties, but with Castle at the helm, I have no doubt I'll be highly entertained and fall in love with each Fallen on their rocky road to redemption.

Genre: Paranormal Romantic Suspense
Series: N/A
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 227 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Ignite publisher Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


Since his mentor John's sudden death a year ago, it's been a daily struggle for Zach Goldman to keep up with the construction business he inherited. He's getting by though, clawing his way through. Until someone leaves an inscrutable note on his door one morning. It asks just one short question. "Where is she?"

When Zach figures out John's daughter is missing, he's rocked by self-loathing and fear. He'd promised to take care of the woman who was like a sister to him. Obviously, he failed, but he's going to do everything he can to bring her home.

Boutique shop owner Sloane Swift isn't too concerned when Zach first shows up to ask about her friend and employee Ann. She's too shocked by the pleasant zap to her psychic senses when they touch and too overwhelmed by healthy, normal lust for the gorgeous man. When they meet up at Ann's house later that day, though, Sloane finds out just how bad things really are, for Ann and for her own closely-guarded secrets.

She can tell something very, very bad has happened even before she comes in direct contact with the negative energy around Ann's front door. Actually touching the doorknob hurdles her into a dark and terrifying psychic vision that makes her violently ill. Now she's got to explain the inexplicable to someone who doesn't look real long on embracing a bunch of woo-woo stuff, because one touch tells Sloane that Ann's time is very limited, and if Zach wants to find her, he's going to need Sloane's help to do so. No matter how desperate she is to keep her secrets.


Have you ever read a book that introduced you to a secondary character with such presence on the page that you're desperate for that character to get their own book just so you can spend more time with him or her? Maybe it was the scars and damage that the character has that drew you to him/her, or the honor with which he/she lived despite it. Maybe it was just the sheer intensity of his/her personality. Whatever it was, it caught you by the throat and almost superseded your feelings about the book in which he/she was introduced.

Then you get that next book, the one in which the secondary character you met and fell for is now featured, and it's fantastic, giving you a more detailed look at the character, more definition to his/her personality, and the sort of thorough backstory that both breaks your heart and makes you fall even more in love with the guy...or girl. It's everything you were hoping it would be and leaves you feeling excited and satisfied for that character.

That is exactly, to the letter, how I felt about this book and Zach's character. I loved him intensely and enjoyed finding out a bit about his past and the people in his life who helped shape him into the sexy, strong, sometimes self-doubting but noble man he is. A far better man than he thinks he is. There's just one problem with all that awesome.

In this case, there was no first book. In fact, as far as I know, this book isn't a part of a series at all. It's a stand-alone novel. And yes, that's a big problem.

See, I think there actually is a first book. There has to be, even if that book has never been published or the story exists only in the author's mind. This one is just too quintessentially a second book in a series to ever convince me that there isn't something, somewhere, written or not, that featured Zach's friends Twyla and Archie and their relationship. A story in which John is still alive, at least in the beginning, and Zack is the brooding guy with a tragic past that offers up a kidney to his best friend's terminally ill wife because he can't imagine not doing everything he can to save the life of the woman who has come to mean absolutely everything to the man who is closer to him than a brother, regardless of the danger to himself.

Because that is who Zach is. That's the awesome character we meet in this book. And we get all that delicious detail about his past that fleshes him out and makes him real, if in too-brief snapshots of a rough childhood and heartbreaking young adulthood. What we don't get is the foundation, the building blocks of the character and his key relationships to the now-deceased John, to Twyla and Archie, to Morgan, and most notably to Ann.

It felt very much like walking into a movie theater twenty minutes into the featured presentation.

Therein lies the largest stumbling in this book for me, particularly as it pertains to the suspense elements of the plot. Ann was a complete non-entity to me throughout the story, with no real impact on my emotions one way or another. As a result, I didn't care beyond the level of passing curiosity what happened to her, or if Zach and Sloane would find her before her ugly demise. I was more affected by what happens to a character we do meet in this book, yet that horror never really seemed to have much of an impact on either Sloane or Zach after the initial hit, which puzzled me.

Here's the thing though, I still liked this book, despite what is a pretty serious problem. In fact, I liked it a lot. The elements I couldn't connect with were far less significant to me than all the wonderful things to which I connected brilliantly. Like Sloane, who I absolutely adored.

Despite her tendency to burst into tears a bit too often for my tastes, I loved her. She had some personal issues and a tragedy in her past which provided some nice layers to her character. I appreciated that. What really made me love her, though, was her unerring eye for judicious pragmatism in the face of pretty disturbing goings on and the way she dealt with Zach's inherent alpha male-ness. She not only held her ground with the overprotective and occasionally stubborn male, she had no qualms about telling him exactly where he could stick his attitude when it started to choke her healthy independent streak.

I believe the term she used was seismic jackass, and I loved every second of it.

They were great together as a couple, and their chemistry hit hard, fast, and was totally off the charts. Maybe it wasn't always appropriate to their surroundings or what was going on in the story, and their relationship progressed to love way, way too fast for me given the timeline of events, but I couldn't help but absolutely love them. And I was a huge fan of Sloane's psychic abilities and how they were introduced and utilized in the story.

Now, about that story...

As a reader, I don't have to feel particularly connected to the victim of a crime to be able to fully enjoy the pulse-pounding action and thrilling danger in which the main characters get themselves embroiled. That's a very good thing in this case, because this book was an absolute roller coaster of emotion (in Zach and Sloane's relationship), danger, mystery, and suspense. I had no idea who was responsible for Ann's disappearance until the moment of reveal and the plot twists after that reveal made my gut clench. Did not see that horror coming at all.

For me, this book was absolutely a high-octane thrill ride of paranormal romantic suspense with great characters and a sizzling romance that wowed me in a lot of very awesome ways. It's just not a stand-alone novel...despite the fact that it is.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: The Order, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 246 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Out of everything in the world she could possible have, all Tara Collins wants is one thing: a normal life. A normal life that doesn't include twenty-two years of living a lonely, secluded existence with a sheltering, secretive aunt. A normal life to be found beyond the borders of a small town in the middle of Nowhere, England, one that includes friends, a formal education at an actual university, and breaking every single rule her aunt had drilled into her head as she was raising her.

To have that normal life, Tara has to first find out exactly who she is, but for that she needs professional help. Five minutes after meeting private investigator Christian Roth, Tara has no doubt he can help her find the truth about her identity. She's less certain, however, that she can afford the answers.

From the moment Christian catches the tantalizing scent of Tara Collins he wants her. In over five hundred years as a vampire, he's never smelled anything quite like her, certainly not anything human. And if nothing else, his senses tell him Tara is very human.

Of course, that begs the question of why demons are trying to kill her.

Delving into her murky and suspect past, Christian is forced to face one grim fact. It's no longer who she is that matters. It's what she is. Unfortunately, the answer to that puzzle will definitely kiss goodbye any hopes of her having a normal life. Right before it kills her.


Even after giving it some thought, I'm not totally sure how I feel about this book. On one hand, it's old school vampire romance, which I've always enjoyed. On the other, the plot was predictable to the extreme and neither the world, the characters, nor the narrative itself had much in the way of depth or detail. I even found the dialogue painfully pedestrian in places.

As far as the story goes, it wasn't bad, it just didn't bring anything new to the table, and while the characters had their moments, there were also several times I could have cheerfully throttled both of them. By the halfway mark, if Tara complained one more time about wanting a normal life, I would have been thrilled had Piers just eaten her and been done with it.

Still, I managed to like them well enough, and I was particularly fond of how Croft keeps her vamps from being paragons of virtue. They're not evil exactly, but they're sure not fluffy bunnies, either. They fit comfortably into that gray area where I find the most interesting characters in fiction. With more detail and definition, they could have been really spectacular.

Despite my annoyance with Tara's perpetual insistence on a normal life, she was my favorite of the two main characters. She had a nifty habit of being pointedly sarcastic, irreverent, and dismissive of danger. It didn't always balance out the moments when she came off as an insipid victim, but there was enough there to keep me interested in what happened to her. Christian was a fairly typical alpha male, but his tendency to make decisions based on his opinion of Tara's best interests is a hot button of mine and kept me from really embracing him as a romantic lead.

One of the more frustrating aspects of the read was the unrealized potential. The secondary characters were interesting and diverse, but without really having anything to do besides stand around and glower, or pop in and out when the action was low, they didn't get a chance to really add much to the read. The predictable plot could still have been fully entertaining if the climax hadn't been so abrupt and anticlimactic and the resolution so odd. The romance could have been hot and sexy and completely satisfying if the main characters had a bit more to say to each other that went beyond the surface.

Too many could have beens and not enough was was my biggest problem, and it kept me from fully enjoying the read. There was absolutely nothing that was so egregious that I was totally turned off, but neither was their anything specific that wowed me. I was mostly entertained, and the book was a lot of fun at times. Just not quite often enough.

Quotables:

"I love you," he said, and she went still at his words. "I might not have mentioned it yesterday, but I wanted you to know. I've never loved before. I'm new to this. I just hope I get it right."

Genre: Contemporary Romance; Sports Romance
Series: Play Action, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 145 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Brazen publisher Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





When NFL quarterback and hometown hero Cade Reynolds returns to Harper Falls for the first time in sixteen years to do a favor for his old high school football coach, the town's welcome is...well...slightly underwhelming. No one even recognizes him. At least, no one but the stunningly sexy woman who is on her way out of the coffee shop when she sees him sitting at a table.

The heated recognition that flares in her eyes puts Cade's blood flow on a southward bound sex train. He should probably meet her first, however, before asking her to be his lusty conductor.

Angie Peterson couldn't imagine what her former high school crush was doing back in Harper Falls after all these years. She knows he's still rehabbing the shoulder injury that knocked him out of the game for almost two seasons, but all reports indicate he should be heading back to the sport soon. She should know, she's followed Cade's career as devotedly as she follows football. One is her life and her passion, the other, well, a different sort of passion. So the frank interest she sees in his eyes when she meets his gaze thrills her to her core.

Thankfully, he doesn't seem to remember her. That opens the door for all sorts of delightful recreation. After all, it's not like the illustrious Cade Reynolds is likely to be in town for long.

After a decadent night of unbridled passion, Angie returns to the real world and her job as math teacher and assistant football coach for the high school. Coming face-to-face with Cade at work so soon after relegating their fabulous night together to the past is a shock, but it's finding out exactly why Cade is back in town that really tilts Angie's world on its axis and threatens everything she's worked so hard to achieve.

He may be there to take a job that should rightfully be hers, but when it comes to football, Angie is a master at strategy, and this is a game she has every intention of winning. Even if it is against the only man she's ever truly wanted.


As a mostly cute and wickedly sexy little contemporary romance with heavy sports influences, Barbosa's series debut works nicely and even has a few nifty little unorthodox touches. I enjoyed both characters, even though Cade's character stayed fairly consistent with the wounded sports hero stereotype. He had enough charming traits that went against-type to keep him interesting. It was Angie's character, though, that really brought a breath of fresh air to the read for me.

I loved that she's not only an assistant coach, but she's brilliant with game strategy and play calling. That was a particularly nice touch in a sub-genre where the female protagonists are usually stuck working for a sports team's front office or as some sort of sports reporter.

Angie and Cade had excellent chemistry, too, and the level of competition between them set the evolution of their relationship on a very nice simmer as the story progressed. And it has to be said...Barbosa completely delivered on the page-burning, sizzling sex. It was fan-worthy and positively delicious.

The overall plot wasn't terribly complex, and the few threads of external conflict were fairly anemic in both depth and definition, with a resolution that I found lacking. Still, this isn't the sort of story that necessitates a tremendous amount of complexity to be entertaining. Some elements were pretty far from realistic, others could have been a little more believable with a little more foundation, but those are really pretty minor issues, all things considered.

I didn't like the end of the book, though. That was a problem. And I hate when a book ends an unsatisfying or disappointing note when so much else in the story works for me. Whenever that happens, my overall impression of the read takes a hit. Too much about this ending, though, felt more like a setup for the next book than a satisfying conclusion to this one and I just wasn't happy with it.

I was happy with much of the rest of it, though. It was sexy as hell, with solid characters in a contentious but fiery romance and a story that had just enough individuality to make it memorable. A steamy-hot way to spent a few fun reading hours. Speaking as a football lover, I'd say this one made it to the end zone, even if it missed the extra point.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Sons of Kane, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 209 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Covet publisher Entangled Publishing, LLC via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Alice Shepard is thrilled about her sister's upcoming wedding, but the idea of attending alone and having to face her cheating bastard of an ex-boyfriend and traitorous ex-best friend makes her sick inside. She needs a date. Actually, she needs a sinfully handsome guy to act completely enthralled with her for the duration of a wedding cruise. And Alice is certain that her long-time neighbor, the gorgeous and enigmatic Noah Thorpe, is perfect for the role.

Convincing him to go along with the plan is another matter altogether.

Noah is in a bind. The Council, the group of vampires who rule his people, is pushing him into a forced bonding with a stranger out of some high-handed and misguided concern for his welfare. Though his best friends are trying to reason with them on his behalf, it's not looking so good for Noah's continued bachelorhood.

Getting out of town for awhile may be just what he needs, and Alice's offer may come just when he needs it, but the idea of spending a week on board a cruise ship full of humans with his gorgeous but odd neighbor as his date is a hell of a price to pay to slip The Council's leash. On the bright side, sharing a small stateroom with the woman and having her alluring, addictive scent and delectably perky body teasing his senses every minute of every day may go a long way to footing that particular bill.


I don't normally favor paranormal romance with this sort of fluffy, romantic comedy tone, and the romance theme, drag-a-stranger/friend/neighbor-to-a-wedding-as-a-fake-date-and-fall-in-love, has been done far too many times for my taste, but I have to admit, there was something about the combination of these characters and Allee's writing that made the story work for me a lot better than I was anticipating.

Alice was a little quirky and odd, but plucky and cute. Noah was all dark and broody in his own mind, but endearingly out of his depth when Alice is in his personal space and absolutely charming with her family. They had great chemistry from the start and I enjoyed their relationship evolution quite a lot, despite the week-long time frame.

The non-paranormal elements of the read were fairly formulaic. The threads of conflict between Alice and her ex could have been in any of a hundred other similarly-themed stories I've read. I still enjoyed seeing Noah deal with him. The paranormal elements weren't as defined as I would have preferred, and they had a more understated impact on the whole of the story than I was hoping, but there were a few nice surprises and one twist in particular that absolutely delighted me.

I could have done without the Big Misunderstanding as the relationship conflict, and I never felt Kane's sudden appearance made all that much sense for the external conflict, nor did I feel his motives were clear, but overall, there were no big issues that put a serious crimp in my reading enjoyment. Mostly this was just a sexy, fluffy, fairly superficial but cute read. It definitely provided more fun than I was anticipating. Enough to make me interested in reading more stories with the other sons of Kane.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: N/A
Rating: 2 Stars
Length: 247 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Covet publisher Entangled Publishing LLC via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Vampire Liaison Valerie Craig has a big, bad situation on her hands. There have been a rash of bloodings lately, vampires draining human victims, and an increase in derangements, or a transformation from human to vampire that went wrong. She has no choice but to take the matter to the king and queen of the vampire nation and ask for help to put an end to the crimes.

There are a couple of problems with her goal, however. First, Valerie loathes vampires with a deep and highly bigoted passion, so dealing with them in person always gives her a case of the willies. Even if she can get a handle on that reaction, she's got to simultaneously convince two members of undead royalty that there is a problem, and that their own people are responsible, without making one single political misstep lest the temperamental Immortalis Dominorum view her accusations as an aggressive act, potentially kicking off an inter-species war in the process. The sort of war that would not go well for the human population.

As it turns out, the vampires do something even worse than start a war. They give her one single vampire to act as her backup and mouthpiece during her investigation. And if Val's instinctive reaction to the king and queen of Dominorum is bad, then the foul-mouthed, bad-tempered killer Kade is going to give her convulsions.

She hates vampires, he hates humans, and they will have to rise above their prejudices to work together to stop the killings and prevent a war that would decimate the population of both their peoples.


I think I should have reviewed this book sooner, because the more time that's passed since I finished it, the more problems I have with the story upon reflection. There were some nice, fresh elements in the world building and concept of the plot. I enjoyed the vampire caste system and the idea of the Vampire Liaison Office for which Val works. The external conflict of the investigation into the bloodings may have been a bit pedestrian, but it was introduced well and fleshed out enough to sustain the narrative. It also provided a nice framework for the relationship arc between the two main characters.

Unfortunately, all those good individual pieces weren't assembled in a way that appealed to me. I struggled with the characters, their romance, and various plot points and story elements that either didn't make sense in the framework of the story or contradicted previously established mythos. It all just ended up seeming a bit of a frenetic mess.

My concerns started early in the book. Val's ignorance and militant bigotry was so extreme it was off-putting. She was working on legislation that would eventually result in the eradication of an entire race of sentient beings because her ex-husband was a douchebag to her. Thousands of people expendable because one guy did her wrong. That made it sort of hard for me to warm up to her as the romantic heroine.

To make matters worse, she was a hypocrite. She blasts her friend Graham for going gaga over the vampire Rex and Domina when he meets them, but five minutes after meeting Kade she does the same thing. I was far into the book before her character evolved enough for me to find her tolerable, and even then she was too inconsistent for me to really like her.

I did like Kade, though. Quite a lot. Problem is, he's supposed to be this foul-mouthed tough guy. So much so that the book is titled accordingly. Except he wasn't. Oh sure, there was profanity, and every once in a while he'd blurt out something...earthier than what one would hear in normal polite conversation, but it never struck me as egregious, nor was it consistent throughout the narrative. And by the end of the book there were more cheesy-romance mouth moments than bad mouth moments.

Val still reacted to his language throughout the book like he was a drunk sailor with poor impulse control. It got tiresome.

They did have solid sexual chemistry, and had the timeline of the story occurred over a longer span than the handful of days it does, the romance would have been a plus for me. Val and Kade just went into it with way too much baggage for me to buy that they'd get over their prejudices and fall in love in less then a week. I don't like romance arcs that culminate that quickly to begin with, and these characters started with pretty virulent antagonism that quick-flashed into romance melodrama well before the end of the book. It didn't work for me.

There were some interesting secondary characters that had surface appeal, but none of them were really fleshed out in any great detail. If I'm dealing with a series that will feature those characters as protagonists in their own book at a later time, that lack of character definition doesn't bother me as much, but nothing I've seen has mentioned that's the case with this book so I wasn't even able to be really happy with them.

Other niggling details, like seeming contradictions in established mythos (Graham bounced back faster than I thought was possible), moments of character stupidity, questionable timelines, and a Big Bad's suspect motivations all served to muddy the waters more than they entertained. And boy howdy, that Big Bad took the concept of a Long Game to extremes far beyond insidious Machiavellian intent and straight into delusional idiocy. I'm still not sure I understand the reasons behind it all.

To be fair, I didn't dislike the book while I was reading it. I didn't love it, but it was okay. It wasn't until I gave it a few days to marinate in my mind, though, that the sum the issues that had built up throughout the story started to wear down my opinion of the read. It may have had all the right pieces, but it just didn't put them together in a way that left me happy with the book. I would like to revisit the world, though. There's potential there.

Genre: SciFi Romance; Paranormal Romance; Futuristic
Series: Blood Hunter, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 286 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: From the Files of the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency, Book 1
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Length: 159 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




As a police detective for the paranormal unit, half-banshee Kiera "Mac" McLoughlin is used to getting some fairly peculiar cases, but the crime scene she and her partner are called to, and the condition of the victim's body, has even her concerned. The method of death is one that points to an incubus as the perpetrator. That would give Mac a solid place to start looking for suspects if it wasn't for one little detail.

Incubi are extinct.

Mac returns home to find a dark, gorgeous stranger sitting calmly at her table, sipping her coffee and perusing one of her romance books, relaxed as can be...even with the gun she has pointing at his head. He introduces himself as Aidan Byrne, detective with the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency, and beyond being slickly charming as hell, he gives her disturbing news. The case she'd been called to that day isn't the first of its kind.

Mac has a serial killer on her hands. A murderer targeting young women. And the only evidence left on any of the victims points to a species of supernatural that no longer exists.

The stakes are raised and the case becomes personal when Mac's partner becomes the killer's next victim. Reeling from the loss and removed from the case, Mac refuses to let it go. She has only the enigmatic Aidan to help her track down the monster responsible, but she's determined. So determined that she doesn't notice that all is not as is seems with Aiden, and trusting him to watch her back may only accomplish one thing.

Giving him the chance to stab her in it.


Maybe I'm slow on the uptake (okay, obviously I am), but I was just getting into this book, the characters and world were being introduced, when it hit me. I have a genuine fondness for books and series surrounding paranormal units of law enforcement, whatever the level. One would think, given my extensive reading history, that I would have figured that out before now, or at least recognized on a conscious level what my subconscious has long understood. Nope. Not me. I am, apparently, not all that bright.

Ah, well. I know now.

Though this series debut is shorter in length than I expected, and much in the way of world-building was absent as a result, I enjoyed the diversity of the various species of paranormal inhabiting the world. Mac is half-banshee, her partner practiced witchcraft, and there are succubi (the incubi's female cousins), vampires, goblins, and more, that indicate a richly populous world of supernatural variety. I tend to favor diversity over a world that just has vampires and/or weres.

The investigative elements of the story were a little less appealing to me than the world in which the series occurs. I liked Mac as a character very much. She was an intent, prickly, headstrong, determined little thing. There was just not a lot to recommend her as a competent detective.

It's not that she's incompetent, exactly, it's just that most of the story seemed to revolve around her and Aiden "investigating" independently, then meeting up to ask each other what the other has found out. They exchange information often, but it felt like the actual investigation was almost simplistic and lacking in the sort of detail and dimension that would really elevate it to what would seem appropriate for professional detectives, paranormal unit or not. The information that Mac does uncover and the progress that she does make is almost more despite herself than it is a result of a methodical, discovery-based investigation.

I liked the storyline, though, even if the investigative elements fell short. And I liked Aiden quite a lot, too. I figured out what his connection to the case was fairly early on, but as that's not uncommon, it didn't detract from the story for me. I liked watching him and Mac circle around each other as they worked towards catching the killer.

There were a couple of nice twists and turns in the plot that also appealed, and the resolution was solid. I was left wondering, though, if this was intended to be a paranormal romance or an urban fantasy with romantic elements. There wasn't quite enough of a romance between Aiden and Mac to really work for me as a romantic relationship, and the HEA struck me more as a Happily For Now.

That would usually have me leaning more towards the urban fantasy end of the spectrum, but the next book features the succubus we meet in this book as the main character. That has me leaning more towards the series being intended as a paranormal romance. An argument could be made for both, but not being able to really tell definitely messed with my expectations, and my lack of satisfaction with the romance affected my feelings about the overall reading experience.

Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance
Series: Goddesses Rising, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 300 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Moon Goddess Quinn Caldwell is feeling the strain of managing her bar and doing her goddess consultations while holding off on using her very willing best friend Sam to enhance her power. He's in love with her, and as much as she loves him, she just can't return his feelings. Her heart is otherwise occupied on her own hopeless love interest. Still, having sex with Sam during the full moon just doesn't seem right any more. It's holding him back from finding real love.

The conflict between them has made work difficult, though, and the strain of tension between her and her best friend is stressing her out. So much so that Quinn would relish any distraction. She should have been more specific.

When Nick Garret, her official goddess protector and unrequited love interest, calls her with an ominous...and unexplained warning, then shows up at her bar before his normal guarding rotation, Quinn is concerned. That concern turns to shock and alarm when he tells her that goddesses are being attacked and drained of their power and she may be a target.

She tries to contact the Society for Goddess Education and Defense, the ancient society she serves as a board member, for answers and guidance, but she is shut out by the very organization that she has served so faithfully. Then a rumor of Nick going rogue starts swirling around, along with rumors of some mysterious family connection between Quinn and the perpetrator of the crimes against goddesses.

Her life is caught up in a confusing, scary maelstrom of suspicion and fear, and soon she and Nick and Sam are racing across country, investigating the source of the danger and rumors as Quinn tries to stay a step ahead of a power-hungry madman. What she will find at the end of their journey will either change everything in her life...or end it.


I wanted to like this book more than I did. I liked the idea of a paranormal story without any vampires, shapeshifters, or Fae. Instead we have goddesses, but that's where the trouble started. Though the overall storyline in no way resembles another book featuring goddesses that I read a few months ago, there were a wealth of similarities in the main character and setting. Quinn draws her power from the moon, like the goddess in the other book, she owns a bar, like the goddess in the other book, and sex plays a part in her ability to use her power, like the goddess in the other book.

Being hit with all of that so early into this book made me feel like I had picked up a more fully fleshed out and heavily edited version of a story I've already read. Fortunately, the similarities pretty much ended there.

I have to admit, the concept for this story is original, and the world Damschroder created was obviously well thought out and clearly conceived. I didn't get the sort of detailed definition of that world that I needed to make it real to me, though. The focus of the book stayed tight on the main character and those secondary characters surrounding her, not leaving much room for world view.

The characters were another issue. They were okay, but something about the story kept me from feeling connected to them. Part of the problem could very well be that I was expecting more romance. I thought it was a paranormal romance when I started reading it, but it reads more like an urban fantasy - or, because of the relationships involved, a paranormal romantic suspense, but the romance was almost ancillary to the story. It was more like Quinn and Nick rotated around each other instead of a romance between them evolving alongside the other story threads.

The reader knows Quinn has loved Nick for years, but Nick's feelings are questionable to both Quinn and the reader throughout most of the book. Their relationship doesn't actually start to change from friendship and protection until late into the story. That prevented the romance elements from satisfactorily translating to me as a reader, and the romantic climax lacked much of a punch because of it.

I liked the concept of the Big Bad in the book, but my enjoyment was tempered by the haphazard investigation by Quinn, Nick, and Sam. I was also never clear on why they would be the only ones really doing any serious investigating, given the world and the organizations connected to the matter. Especially given the lack of significant connection to the victims.

A couple of goddesses Quinn was moderately friendly with are attacked and Quinn gets treated weird by the organiztion she belongs to, so she abandons her work and throws herself into stopping a power-hungry madman. There just didn't seem to be enough motivation on Quinn's part for the massive effort she expended given the seeming ambivalence of everyone else.

And while the trio were driving across the country, trying to stay away from a threat they weren't even sure was targeting them, the story dragged. I felt like I was spending too much time with three fairly average characters as they wandered around, failing to gather much pertinent information. Add to that a habit of jumping to conclusions and getting into trouble before dashing off to trace the next clue.

It's not a bad read, though. I didn't dislike the story and I don't mean to sound like I did. Damschroder created a world with an interesting mythos and a conflict that was a serious threat to the characters, then she set it all in motion with sheer force of will. It just didn't do it for me, through a combination of false expectation, reading preference, and story issues. Too many questions went unanswered (how the heck did he get her sock?), too many coincidences to be believed (Sam's roommate, really?), too many things lacking emotional impact impact. This one was just okay for me because of all of it.

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Series: Demons of Infernum, Book 3
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 286 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Entangled Publishing via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Ronin hasn't been sleeping well lately. He and his three brothers are concerned about the lack of work they've had. It isn't an issue of money. They are paid well for their jobs as interdimensional bounty hunters and they have savings. What concerns them all is the very real possibility that the Council could very well decide that they're not needed in this dimension any longer and send them back to Infernum.

That would not be okay.

The worry combined with his antsy restlessness is starting to make half demon, half angel Ronin Meyers a little nuts. That's the only reason Ronin can think of for being in a freaky place like the Otherworlder club Opiate at three in the morning, tossing back whiskey like it's mother's milk. Not his normal modus operandi in location or activity, to be sure. And then he looks across the crowded club and sees her, and suddenly Opiate doesn't seem like such a freak fest after all.

He should have just kept drinking.

Succubus Amara can tell Ronin is a genuinely decent male as soon as he sidles up to her and smiles. She enjoys their flirting, but has no intention of taking it any further. He doesn't deserve it. Her actions are no longer always under her control, though. An incubus is calling all the shots, and Amara is no more than his slave and his weapon. Problem is, he doesn't treat his property very well, and she's just so damn hungry...

Ronin is lucky to have survived his brush with the succubus, but hasn't been able to forget her since she almost killed him during a world-rocking round of sex. When the Council finally throws a new case to the brothers, he's practically thrilled at the chance to get out of his head a little with a fresh hunt. Then he's brought up short in shock when he slams into the fact that the succubus he can't stop thinking about is living in the house of the incubus he has been commanded to bring in.

Oh, hell. This can't end well.