Sandy M’s review of The Heart of a Killer (The Killer Series, Book 1) by Jaci Burton
Romantic Suspense published by Mira 18 Oct 11

I enjoyed the majority of this book. It has a great mystery linking five people together through a crime that was committed twelve years ago. There’s plenty of heat and sizzle between the hero and heroine to burn up a few pages. Everyone has several secrets of their own, aside from the big one they all share. Unfortunately, what let me down is the ending.

We meet Dante, Anna, Gabriel, Jeff, and Roman when they’re teenagers hanging out together in high school. Even then, Dante and Anna have a special bond. But when Anna is in the clutches of a rapist/murderer, the boys come to her aid, beating the jerk to a pulp. After making sure Anna is okay, they discover they went too far, but all agree they should keep quiet about the body in the alley. Calling her father, after talking the guys into letting her handle it all, Anna is saved from facing any further trauma, as are her friends. But when the storm clears the next day, Dante is gone. Without so much as a goodbye.

For twelve years Dante has never stepped foot in St. Louis. Until now. Only because his foster mother asked him to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary with her and her husband. Not much has changed. Except his friends. Jeff is a successful businessman. Gabe is tied up with the local mob. Roman is a police detective. As is Anna, which he discovers when their past comes back to haunt them – a murder has happened in the same alley, done in the same way as all those years ago. Including the same special surprise on the body as Anna’s attacker left on hers. Someone else must have been there, seen what happened. But why wait so long to let them know?

All they can figure is that they’re all together again, so the killer is making his move. Dante and Anna dance around one another in between working the case, but they’re fairly honest with one another, at least as much as they can while hitting the sheets. Dante’s military status gives him carte blanche in whatever area he wants. To be in on the case, he requires FBI identification, so he gets it. But all his friends know is he’s with the FBI. Anna is still wary where Dante is concerned, except her body has no issues with the man at all. They do steam up the pages quite well.

Then their world falls apart as the killer strikes again, this time very, very close to home. Twice. Burying two more loved ones pushes them all to find this guy, but it’s been tough going because he leaves no evidence whatsoever. Then they do catch a break, but it’s a long shot. It’s better than nothing, however, and they grab on to a thread and begin pulling. Frayed edges and torn pieces come into focus, but just when they think they’ve got it all figured out, the killer does what they never expected and has Anna in his clutches, just as she was in another’s hands years before.

I like the mystery of this story. Ms. Burton keeps me guessing from chapter to chapter. But when it finally comes down to revealing the killer? I have to say I’m a tad disappointed. It’s nothing new. We’ve read it before. And when I finally figured out who it is, it’s much earlier than I normally figure such things out. It just all clicks into place at one point, so reading the rest of the action doesn’t have the punch it should have otherwise.

Dante is a terrific Burton hero. He comes back home confident of who he is. He’s grown up quite nicely. Of the four brothers, I like Gabe next. It’s going to be really interesting to see what’s up his sleeve, since we know he’s not what he seems. Anna is also a great heroine. She’s become strong and independent because of what happened to her, but that event also marked her in more ways than one. She hides behind her work instead of working her life out as it should be. It takes Dante and his love to help her do that.

Despite my disappointment with the revelation of the killer, this is still a good book. Everything else works, and though this ending blip could be considered a major issue, it doesn’t overshadow the characters and the mystery of the story. A slight letdown, yes. But friends and family, steamy lovemaking, and a stalking killer keep everything interesting the rest of the time.

Grade: B-

Summary:

No one said coming home would be easy. But for Dante Renaldi, it’s murder.

Before the Special Forces hero has even unpacked his bags from twelve years of active duty, he’s embroiled in murder—corpses bearing the brutal trademark he’s seen only once before—on the worst night of his life.

The last time Detective Anna Pallino saw Dante Renaldi, they were in love. Now, he’s part of the connection to a string of fresh homicides and a horrible assault Anna only survived thanks to him.

More than anything, Anna wants to trust Dante. But as the bodies and the coincidences stack up, Anna will have to decide, and fast: Is the man she owes her life to the very same one who wants her dead?

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of Inside (Bulletproof Series, Book 1) by Brenda Novak
Romantic Suspense published by Mira 28 Jun 11

I had this book to keep me company on a long, loooong airplane journey and it ate up a nice bunch of hours. After a shaky start I found the story totally absorbing, the characters believable and engaging.

I wouldn’t call this romantic suspense, more a straight thriller with a romance, but don’t let that put you off because this is one great read.

Peyton Adams is a deputy at one of the biggest high security prisons in the US. She is asked, or rather given no choice, to help with an operation to discover which member of a gang killed a judge, and to do that, they are going to put an ex-con undercover.

We first meet Virgil Skinner under his fake name of Simeon Bennett. He has just been exonerated from a crime for which he served sixteen years, but he’s not home free with his release because he killed two men in the prison. He was a member of a gang, but not the gang they want him to go inside to finger.

The romance is hot, hard and fast, and probably the weakest point of the story. There is little development, it just is. They meet, sleep together and they are in love. But with so many other things going on, there isn’t the room to develop a full-bodied romance.

Novak handles the complex storyline with a masterful hand. Different characters who may not know each other interact and do things that affect everyone else in the story. There’s no big “tada!” moment, which can put a story off balance, there is just a relentless progression.

There are numerous points of view too, something not found in the regular romance and I felt that a few of them weren’t really needed, and it might have helped the suspense if they were left out, but Novak’s delineation of character is fine and beautifully done. If that’s the way she needs to tell the story, that’s okay by me.

I enjoyed it, and read breathlessly to the end. Novak says she got the idea for this story after watching Prison Break. I don’t know how accurate it is, but it seemed authentic to me, and she sustains her world so that I believe in the danger threatening the two main characters. The only jarring point is the dearth of curse words. I don’t believe that cons and ex cons don’t use fuck on a more regular basis, but in this story it’s only used in relation to the sex act.

I’ll be looking for the next story in the series, if there is one, because this is an engrossing and well-written book.

Note: I got this book as an ARC from netgalley.

Grade: A

Summary:

Book 1 of the Bulletproof Series

Virgil Skinner served fourteen years for a murder he didn’t commit. He’s finally been exonerated, but he can’t escape the gang he joined in order to survive. They’ll do anything to keep him from telling what he knows. And if they can’t get to Virgil they’ll go after his sister and her kids.

The California Department of Corrections needs someone to infiltrate another gang, one that’s taking control of the state’s most notorious supermax. Virgil’s the perfect candidate — and he’ll do it in exchange for his sister’s protection.

Assistant deputy warden Peyton Adams is opposed to having Virgil in her prison. How will she protect him if things go bad? Besides, she’s attracted to him; she might even be falling in love with him. That makes her all the more desperate to keep him safe — and it gives him someone else to lose.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

November 2011

LynneC’s review of The Vampire Voss (The Regency Dracula Series, Book 1) by Colleen Gleason
Paranormal Historical Romance published by Mira 22 Mar 11

I was excited starting this book. A paranormal set in Regency England. Boss!

The read was – satisfactory, which for a new subgenre isn’t bad at all. It didn’t knock my socks off, but I wasn’t disappointed, either. Yes, it’s one of those reviews. Something that annoys me more than somewhat is the formatting. It isn’t good. I read it on my Kindle. Scene breaks disappeared or weren’t there, and the chapter headings weren’t clear. The cover put me off a bit because of the depiction of the hero. Not exactly the man of anyone’s dreams.

Voss and Dimitri, both peers of the realm, are rival vampires. But there is a bigger, badder vampire, who, if I’m not mistaken, will feature in a future story. But for now, the initial trilogy concerns Voss, Dimitri, and a female vampire, Narcise, the sister of aforesaid Big Bad.

The first ninety pages, yes ninety, are pretty tedious, I’m afraid to say. It would have been much better sliced or better still, left out. It would be interesting if someone new to the book could start at that page (the ballroom scene) and see how they get on. I ploughed through, wincing at the Americanisms, as is my wont, but reminding myself that this is a Regency with vampires.

Ms. Gleason has kept to the period fairly well. Apart from having molasses, gotten, and whiskey (whisky is a Victorian drink – whiskey came later, and yes, there are distinct differences), frock (a frock was a gentleman’s informal coat in this period, not a woman’s dress) I worked my way through. The errors aren’t bad enough to make me stop. What nearly did make me put the book down is the tedium. There are lots of explanations and backstory, and I really didn’t care. The hero and heroine aren’t different or interesting enough to keep me going, but I’d received this book as an ARC, and the premise intrigued me enough. And maybe her editor could persuade her to use the phrase “a bit” a bit less. That’s repeated and repeated until I started looking for it.

Yes, if I get the book as an ARC, I’m far more likely to read all the way through. I received the book, after all, and I owe them something in return, although not a good review. The reader deserves honesty.

Okay, so Voss and Angelica, the heroine, are forced together after a deliciously dramatic scene in a ballroom on or around page ninety. To give you an idea, that’s about a quarter of the way through my copy. That’s where things start looking up. Voss wants Angelica, although he knows he shouldn’t, and she is attracted to him, although he is a vampire, and, as such, her enemy, because she is the sister of the greatest vampire hunter around.

It’s all a bit Gothic, which is appropriate for the period that saw the release of “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” “The Monk,” and “Northanger Abbey.” But the violent emotions get a little wearing at times, and sometimes I had to stretch my credibility to believe in the world she’s created.

For instance, the big ballroom scene includes Big Bad Vampire attacking various members of the aristocracy, and yet the world at large doesn’t seem to be aware of their existence. No mention of a coverup, either. You’d think that the British press would be up in arms about it the next day, and, as we all know, the press can’t be bribed to keep quiet when there’s a story like that around (and they didn’t have D notices or superinjunctions in those days!) Maybe I’m confused, but it didn’t seem that the world at large is talking about it. It didn’t seem like an alternative universe, although of course, it is. Now I’m confusing myself.

Once the story got going, I plunged in, and it’s a breakneck race to the finish. Voss is a typical Stoker-esque vampire, but Gleason has a few interesting variations on the theme. The most powerful vampires were created by Lucifer himself and had a mark on their backs that throbbed and gave them pain when they refused to feed in the most violent, destructive way possible. I like that touch. And they are day walkers, although they can’t go into bright sunlight. They will still burn up.

I’m happy that most of the vampires knew what they were getting into, and they were happy with their bargain.

Now Angelica and her sister. They work reasonably well. Angelica isn’t a complete ninny, and she did fight back, but she seems a little naïve. She has a special gift, the gift of seeing when someone would die, if she holds something that belongs to them. This is a genuine gypsy gift, but a gypsy grandmother is stretching things a tiny bit. Never mind, it works.

Sex? Not so much. Very little, even kisses, but Voss is attracted to Angelica, despite his tortuous problems. She brings out the tenderness in him.

So it’s a curate’s egg read. Will I read the next book, about Dimitri? Probably, because I have it as an ARC, and it is interesting enough. But I hope she gets down to the story a bit faster in the next one.

Grade: C

Summary:

Regency London – a dizzying whirl of balls and young ladies pursued by charming men.

But the Woodmore sisters are hunted by a more sinister breed: Lucifer’s own.

Voss, also known as Viscount Dewhurst, relishes the sensual pleasures immortality affords. A member the Dracule – a cabal of powerful, secretive noblemen marked with a talisman that reveals their bartered souls – the mercenary Voss has remained carefully neutral … until Angelica.

Angelica Woodmore possess the Sight, an ability invaluable to both sides of a looming war among the Dracule. Her very scent envelops Voss in a scarlet fog of hunger – for her body and her blood. But he is utterly unprepared for the new desire that overcomes him – to protect her.

Now Voss must battle his very nature to be with Angelica … but this vampire never backs down from a fight.

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

Other books in this series:

Liviania’s review of Shift (The Shifters, Book 5) by Rachel Vincent
Paranormal romance published by MIRA 1 Mar 10

Sometimes I read other people’s reviews before I write mine, sometimes I don’t. This time I did. I found that a number of people hated the book because they’d enjoyed the first several but lamented Faythe’s lack of growth. This surprised me considering I finished SHIFT thinking that it was the kind of book that made me glad I stick with a meh series if I believe it has potential.

When I reviewed Rogue, I noted that Faythe showed a lack of growth, I liked Jace, and Faythe’s relationship with Marc seemed borderline abusive. In my review of Pride, I noted Faythe’s sledgehammer-like attempts at politics. I must admit, Faythe is still about as subtle as a sledgehammer.  But by golly, I couldn’t help but feel proud when she attempted negotiations as a first course of action instead of act-macho, think-later.  It’s something the Faythe of the early books would not have attempted.

SHIFT also kicks the love triangle into high gear.  Jace starts acting like the alpha I thought he would become back in the early books.  (I had a comment debate about this, somewhere, but alas it is lost since my google-fu is not strong enough.)  Now, my discussion is going to get a bit spoilery about what happens in the relationships, so you might want to skip to the last paragraph if you want everything to be a complete surprise.

Faythe cheats on Marc with Jace.  I know that cheating is fairly verboten in romance novels.  But Faythe is young, sheltered, has only had one serious boyfriend, and her brother just died.  I see Marc not immediately tearing Jace apart as character growth, not derailment.  He’s acting rationally, not according to his instincts.  A theme of the entire series has been that the way the pack usually does things is wrong and that they need to modernize.  Exploring your romantic and sexual options is pretty modern.

Cheating is a hot button subject.  Perhaps I would hate the romantic storyline more if I hadn’t always liked Jace and been somewhat averse to Marc.  Either way, I’ve already bought the final book and intend to read it to discover how the love triangle plays out as much as to see the war between the werecat factions.

The Shifters will never be my favorite series.  But Vincent took a shaky beginning and turned it into something more solid and satisfying.  I wanted to slap the Faythe of Stray and Rogue.  The Faythe of Prey and Shift is a more interesting and adult heroine.  A lot of people apparently disagree with me.  The beauty of reviewing is that we get to disagree with each other.

Grade: B+

Summary:
TROUBLE IS IN THE AIR…

Being the first female werecat enforcer isn’t easy. Scars accumulate, but I’m stronger in so many ways.

As for my personal life? It’s complicated. Choices worth making always are. Ever since my brother’s death and my father’s impeachment, it’s all I can do to prevent more blood
from spilling. Now our Pride is under attack by a flight of vicious thunderbirds. And making peace with our new enemies may be the only way to get the best of our old foe.

With the body count rising and treachery everywhere, my instincts tell me to look before I leap. But sometimes a leap of faith is the only real option…
Read an excerpt here.

LynneC’s review of Invincible (Benedict Brothers, Book 1) by Joan Johnston
Contemporary romance published by Mira 26 Oct 10

Invincible is the story of one of the children of the ‘infamous’ Bella and Bull. Bella is an English duchess who married an American millionaire (squillionaire?). Now she wants to see her children married before she dies. Since she’s 52 and her children are “all over 25,” she must have married at an indecently young age. But it’s possible. Other parts of the story aren’t so possible, but improbability piled on improbability, a preponderance of tropes I don’t like and the clunky style made me give up on this book. I’ve left the boring bit until the end, so those of you who are interested can read it, and if you’re not, then just skip it.

The heroine works for the FBI but is in danger of losing her job. She has a child, the result of one hot night with Max ten years ago. The neon lights started flashing “secret baby,” a trope I don’t hate, but I don’t like either. It has to work well to work with me. Here, it doesn’t. IMO, when a child is involved, it’s the child that’s important, not the parents. When the parents behave responsibly, I can take the trope.

For instance, when the heroine has done everything she can to inform the hero that he’s a father or when the father is presumed dead, I can go along with it, but in this case, Max hurt Kristin and she chose not to tell him about the baby. She told her daughter that her father was dead. No, just no. I can’t like anyone who puts their own feelings above that of their child’s, especially when the father is filthy rich and the child has some realistic expectation of having a more comfortable life. It’s selfish and unacceptable.

So now we have two of the tropes I don’t like. The secret baby and the big misunderstanding.

The heroine, Kristin, can afford to send her daughter to school in Switzerland. On an FBI salary? Maybe I missed something, but by then I’d begun to skim. Not just the title errors or the improbability of the whole thing (a CIA agent working with an FBI agent on a case? As partners?) but the acres of backstory. The prologue is Bella and how she wants to see her children married before she dies (my guess is that she gets a heart transplant and then reconciles with her estranged husband). I found it irritating. I didn’t care, at that point in the story.

Max? He’s a lord, he’s a world-class tennis player, he’s an intrepid ocean-going sailor, he’s a spy for the CIA. He probably does heart operations on the side (I made that one up). Yawn. Far too perfect. I didn’t believe in him. Oh, and he only uses condoms if the girl asks him to. Pardon me? Do I have to explain why I dislike that one? No, I thought not.

At the beginning there is a big scene where Max explains the plot to Kristen and how she has to help him on a case. What writers call a “kitchen table” scene. Not quite in the AYKB category, (“As You Know, Bob”) but close. And nothing happens.

Then Kristen meets her child off the plane. I don’t like stories where children play a significant part, it’s just a personal preference, but it didn’t really endear me to Kristen, who spends a lot of her time whining. At least up to this point. Already I know that Max and Kristen are going to be forced together to do this job, because, otherwise, there’s no story.

After chapter three, I started skimming. I felt obliged to read this book, as I had the galley to review, but already it had hit a lot of my hot buttons, and the style didn’t help. I just couldn’t engage with these characters.
A couple of scenes along, a new character entered, another of Bella’s children. So far, Johnston hadn’t sold me on Max and Kristen. Emma didn’t interest me, either.

I read the reason why Bull left Bella. After many years of marriage. I didn’t buy it. Basically, it was her twin in bed with her lover, not Bella. Another trope I dislike, and if Bull couldn’t tell the twins apart, even when one was pretending to be the other, he didn’t know his wife well enough. Another Big Misunderstanding.

The style of writing didn’t engage me, either. There are far too many dialogue tags for my liking, and after a while I found them intrusive. And the reader is “told” not “shown” too many things. There are too many explanations, not enough interaction between the characters and so the story, for me, became stilted and awkward. And infodumps galore.

Sorry, that was where I stopped reading. The plot contrivances didn’t persuade or convince me, and taken with the inaccuracies, improbabilities, and the tropes (child bringing a couple together, secret baby, big misunderstandings) I didn’t have the heart to go on. The clunky style, frequently stopping to explain things, the complicated plot, and the hero and heroine didn’t engage me at all.

If I’d bought the book, I’d have put it aside and read something else, probably chosen not to review it. But I didn’t, I got this book as a galley. I hate doing negative reviews, but sometimes it can’t be avoided. I searched and searched for something good to say. However, it might work for you, you might love it. I’d never say never, just make your own minds up.

Here’s “the science bit.”

Johnston has done her research, but not well enough. It floored me when she referred to Bella as “royalty” on the first page, because royal girls aren’t duchesses, unless they marry dukes. They’re princesses or nothing. Royalty is different, governed by different rules. The title of Royal Duke is totally different to that of “ordinary” ones. So I dismissed the “royalty” thing as just a silly mistake, and one we’re all entitled to, since I don’t think it was repeated.

Johnston later explains how Bella has the title:

When all the male Blackthorne heirs had died heroically during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, Parliament had amended the Letters Patent creating the Dukedom of Blackthorne so the title would pass “to all and every other issue male and female, lineally descending of or from the said Duke of Blackthorne, to be held by them severally and successively, the elder and the descendants of every elder issue to be preferred before the younger of such issue.

Which meant that either males or females could inherit the dukedom. This prevented the title from being extinguished by the death of the last male Blackthorne during the war. It was the first time such a thing had been done since the Dukedom of Marlborough was preserved in the same way for similar reasons in 1706.

As the elder of twin sisters, his mother was the current holder of the title. Max’s eldest brother, Oliver, would succeed her as the next Duke of Blackthorne. As the eldest son, Oliver currently held one of the Duke of Blackthorne’s lesser titles, Earl of Courtland, and was often referred to simply as Courtland.

Erm no, or at least, not exactly. I wasn’t sure, so I took advice on this one. Letters Patent can’t be altered or amended, and these questions aren’t usually dealt with in Parliament, they’re dealt with by the Crown. The Marlborough title was set up that way in the first place. It was never altered. The title could have been re-created with new Letters Patent, but that’s not what it says. And all titles are subject to the laws of primogeniture. Stating a different method in the Letters Patent isn’t going to cut it. Titles are always inherited by the eldest male in direct line. Failing any male heir, then a female may be allowed to convey the title to her sons, but she doesn’t usually use the title.

Why is it so important to the story? Why bother twisting the inheritance laws to that extent? Am I supposed to be impressed that she’s a duchess? Also, I’m informed by the expert I consulted that the property wouldn’t go with the title, it would most likely be tied up in entail and go to the nearest male relative or back to the Crown.

The Dukedom of Marlborough was amended that way because the Duchess of Marlborough was the lover of Queen Anne. At that time, the Queen would have done anything for Sarah. And since the duke was a war hero, that gave her the excuse. Even the Marlborough title carries the rule of primogeniture, that only in the event of no male heirs, can females inherit or convey the title.

If Bella is British and Bull is American, then their children will carry American citizenship by birth. They would have to renounce that citizenship in order to inherit a peerage, although courtesy titles being virtually meaningless, they could use them if they wanted to. It’s just a bit pretentious. The American constitution forbids its citizens to hold anything but honorary titles. And British law forbids anyone but a British citizen from inheriting a British peerage and the land that goes with it. Which, since until recently peers were an important part of the law making process, only stands to reason, really.

Max, the hero of this book, is a covert agent for the CIA. I thought that only American citizens could join the CIA. If he’s British, and Lord Max, then he’d surely be recruited via MI6?

Yes, nitpicking, but since the author seems to want her heroes and heroines to have everything, she has to jump through some convoluted hoops to get there. And it detracted from the story for me, kept me wondering when I should have been concentrating on the heart of the story. Even if it’s possible, it’s not a detail that would make me care about the characters more, or anything that adds to the story.

And they sleep in a bed that has been slept in by Henry II. A bed over eight hundred years old? Something that precious and fragile belongs in a museum, properly preserved. And it most definitely doesn’t belong in a house designed by Robert Adam. It would make Adam revolve in his grave at great speed, this man who even designed the doorknobs in rooms he created.

There was something about jewels, but I didn’t care enough to find out. I think the jewels are supposed to bind the stories in the series together, but I didn’t get that far in. Or, in skipping yet more infodumps, I missed it.

The book reminded me of this passage from  “Alice Through The Looking Glass”

Alice laughed. There’s no use trying, she said: one can’t believe impossible things.

I daresay you haven’t had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

I guess I’m out of practice.

Grade: DNF

Summary:

Bella Benedict’s five grown children are scattered around the world like a handful of precious jewels. Now she’s dying and she has one last, secret wish. To bring her children home. And to give them what she once had: a marriage of passion.Wealthy playboy Max Benedict has no interest in long-term commitment. He had his heart broken once and that was enough. Instead, he travels the world, working as a sometime spy for the CIA. When he’s asked to investigate a foreign threat against the president, he doesn’t think twice about accepting—until he hears who he’ll be working with in London.

FBI Special Agent Kristin Lassiter is under investigation and on the verge of losing everything—her savings, her job, her beloved father. So when Bella Benedict approaches her with the offer to pay her mounting debts, she’s tempted to accept. But there’s a catch—a big one. Bella wants Kristin to win the heart of her son Max, the very man who destroyed Kristin years ago. A man unaware he fathered her nine-year-old daughter. If Kristin succeeds, she’ll get the money she needs—and the priceless Blackthorne rubies Bella has offered to sweeten the deal. The only problem is, can she win Max’s heart without falling back in love with him?

Other books in this series:

CindyS’s review of Ruthless by Anne Stuart
Historical romance published by MIRA 01 Aug 2010

I have to say that after loving her ‘Ice’ series I wasn’t sure what to expect and in the end, I was surprised by the charm of Ruthless.

Rohan, Comte de Giverney, Viscount Rohan, Baron of Glencoe etc is also known as the King of Hell. Basically he holds parties where everyone can do as they please and he’s even managed to add Latin phrases and dark cloaks to make it all that much more dramatic.  Yes, I know.  Clubs are so over done in historicals right now but then, it’s hardly about a club.  It’s about a man who for twenty years has only lived by one creed.  Do as you will.  For Rohan, there is no Heaven or Hell, or real reason for life.  He’s seen it all, had it all and sees no reason to change.  Even when he meets Elinor.

Elinor Harriman is in dire straits with a younger sister, two older servants and a crazed mother to look after. As it is, the family is living on the very edge of destitution due to Lady Caroline’s (Elinor’s mother) frivolous lifestyle. Years of living for pleasure only, has finally caught up with Elinor’s mother and disease is eating at her brain. The book opens with Lydia, Elinor’s younger sister, using her bright beauty to call off the landlord one last time as Elinor discovers that her father’s estates have been left to a distant cousin. Hope is all that is left and as much as Elinor hides things from her sister, Lydia is not nearly as clueless as Elinor hopes.  There’s not enough food, no money for rent and in the middle of winter the last few pieces of furniture may have to be used for heat.

How do the King of Hell and a woman on the edge of desperation meet?  Not as you might think and as the story unfolds, there is almost a fairytale quality to courtship that starts.

But wait.  This is Anne Stuart, so for as many fairytale moments there are darker, twisted moments and that is what brings the story to life.

Elinor has a true past.  Not a whitewashed ‘oh no, I was ruined because I was seen alone’ kind of past but a dirty, horrible truth that has etched itself into who she is.  She considers herself plain and unattractive and hardly worth noticing so instantly rebuffs any of Rohan’s flirting.  After all, he is toying with her as a cat does a mouse.  Rohan is gorgeous in a beautiful way that has any person he wants falling at his feet.  Working hard for anything is a laugh so discovering a woman who sees him and keeps on walking is a novelty.

I was expecting a dark hero, especially with the title of the King of Hell.  Instead Rohan is charming and solicitous to Elinor and really, all those around him that he considers a friend.  He likes to play Devil’s advocate so of course, he can come off as a complete ass and yet, if he truly hurts someone he does try to back off.  As much as Rohan’s past is filled with pain, his recent past is more about pleasure and fulfilling it without judgment or worry.  So there a few scenes that other readers might cringe over.  I was shocked at one point but when I thought on it I realized that Rohan truly knows no better so why would he do anything different.

The fairytale part of the story comes from Rohan’s need to save Elinor and her family.  Sure, not every member, and in the end he had a plan but knowing that he couldn’t help but send food and wood and clothes to Elinor and her family made me smile.  Anne Stuart’s heroes are not normally known for their sweet side so seeing this in Rohan was too cute.  But remember, Rohan is not always cute.

Another part of the story I found compelling is the time line.  I know we’re all so rushed nowadays and want the hero and heroine to just fall in love already but there is time between Rohan and Elinor’s meeting and I appreciated it.  Falling in love over a weekend and wrapping it all up in a HEA with a marriage proposal can be wonderful but it can’t happen every time!  I should also mention the secondary romance which is true to Ms. Stuart’s way of complete opposites finding true love with Rohan’s best friend Charles Reading and Elinor’s sister Lydia.  And I always appreciate the reality that Ms. Stuart brings to all her stories.  If the heroine is in danger, then she is in real danger.  The villain is never silly or comical, they might be dumb or misguided or even crazed but their intent is true and they will do everything in their power to reach their desired result.

In the end, this is a lighter book for Ms. Stuart when it comes to the romance between Rohan and Elinor and it was fantastic.  The best part, is this love story is set against a back drop of real life and all it’s dangers and quirks.  For those readers who have sometimes wished that Ms. Stuart wrote epilogues, you will be quite happy with the end as is and not need anything more to prove Rohan and Elinor’s love.

GRADE: B+

Few outsiders will ever witness the dark misdeeds of the Heavenly Host. And among this secret society, where exiled Georgian aristocrats gather to indulge their carnal desires, fewer still can match the insatiable appetite of their chief provocateur, the mysterious Viscount Rohan.

Pursuit of physical pleasure is both his preferred pastime and his most pressing urge, until he encounters the fascination of a woman who won’t be swayed. And while his dark seduction appalls the pure and impoverished Elinor Harriman, she finds herself intrigued…and secretly drawn to the man behind the desire.

Sandy M’s review of Rule’s Bride (Bride Trilogy, Book 3) by Kat Martin
Historical Romance published by Mira 27 Apr 10

I’m very glad Ms. Martin didn’t place the bulk of this story in America, which had been my thought might happen when reading the two previous books and Rule’s promise to his dying father was mentioned. Not that America of the time wouldn’t have made a good backdrop, I just felt this series needed to continue and finish in England.

We do, however, get a little bit of both. The book begins in Boston where Rule has been working for Griffin Manufacturing, where high-quality armaments are made. His boss is impressed with Rule’s work, as well as Rule himself, and extends an offer that ultimately Rule can’t refuse. The man is dying and wants to make sure his then sixteen-year-old daughter is taken care of when the time comes. Throwing in part ownership of the company is the deal maker for Rule, and he departs for England a married man, to return in three years’ time to claim his bride.

He never gets that chance, however, when Violet shows up on his London doorstep now a nineteen-year-old woman who has been keeping her father’s business successful since his death, who knows her own mind, and who takes the bull by the horns, so to speak, to get what she wants. And she wants out of her farce of a marriage to a man who never came back for her.

But once Rule gets a glimpse of his wife, he thinks married life couldn’t be so bad with a woman like Violet to come home to every night. He talks her into giving him a chance to prove himself, giving them both a chance to see what being married could be like. Against her better judgment, Violet agrees to one month in England. And so the seduction begins. Along with the danger.

I did enjoy watching the rake become a husband. Rule has always done what he’s wanted without regard to anyone or anything. He’s never had any experience of love in his life aside from his brothers, so he’s not familiar with the emotion when it comes to women. He knows what feels good and goes for it. Violet, on the other hand, falls for her husband once again, and this time around it’s a grown-up love, but can Rule really change his ways to commit to one woman in his life? Would she be better off with the man she left behind in Boston?

In the middle of all the seduction going on, Rule is accused of murder, a case is built and he’s tossed in prison. This brings  his family together to find the true culprit, which really doesn’t come as much of a surprise after some misdirection for a little doubt here and there is thrown in.

All in all, a good ending to the trilogy. These books don’t jump out and grab you as you read, but they’re solid stories that entertain. The Dewar brothers follow through on their promises to a dying father and find love along the way. We should all be so lucky.

Grade: B

Summary:

Unrepentant rake Rule Dewar is living the good life

when a most surprising event occurs—

he falls in love with his wife.

After their strategic “marriage of commerce” three years ago, Rule quite forgot about Violet Griffin, the teenage heiress to a Boston manufacturing fortune. He simply spoke his vows, took over her father’s business and returned to England to resume his usual pursuits: high-priced wine, high-stakes gambling and high-born women.

Yet when Violet, now a sophisticated woman, unexpectedly appears at Rule’s London townhouse, husbandly duties no longer seem so odious—he can’t wait to take his stunning bride to their marriage bed. Violet, however, is not so easily led: she has her own ideas and is seeking an annulment to marry another. But as Rule attempts to win her over, someone else is determined to frame him for murder and keep him out of the way for good….

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

Other books in this series:

Sandy M’s review of Reese’s Bride, Bride Trilogy, Book 2) by Kat Martin
Historical Romance published by Mira 29 Dec 09

Ms. Martin has given us another solid read in her Bride trilogy, continuing with Reese, the middle Dewar brother. I actually like this book a little better than the first, though part of the story we’ve all read before but the author makes it work with her characters and the surrounding storyline.

Reese is home after being injured during his latest military stint, and it looks as though he won’t be going back for any further duty. So he’s determined to keep his promise to his father to finally make Briarwood his home as he’d intended years before – years that included Elizabeth. But she married another man and Reese hasn’t seen her since. So the first time he does run into her once home is fraught with tension and all sorts of emotion, especially hate.

Knowing she can’t ask more from Reese, especially forgiveness, Elizabeth at first hesitates to run to him when she finally realizes her life is in danger, ergo so is her son’s life if anything happens to her. He’s the next earl and has an uncle who is overly ambitious. But her son’s life is more important than her pride, her lost love, and anything else. Thus, she finds herself on Reese’s doorstep, knowing he will be honor bound to protect her and her secret.

And she’s right. Reese can’t turn her away, no matter how he feels, and he feels plenty. But he does the right thing, and you have to admire him all the more for it. He also gets to the root of the problem for both Elizabeth and her son, once he sees how they both flinch if he gets too close. Realizing there’s more to Elizabeth’s story, Reese begins to soften little by little the more he interacts with her, as well as with her son, who needs a man and a tender hand in his life.

I think that’s the biggest reason I like this book more than the first – Reese and how he handles Jared. The boy is obviously afraid of men, but Reese gets down on his level and talks to him man to man, despite his age. When Reese calls him son the first time, Jared takes that to heart and I thought my heart would break during the conversation between these two when Reese questions Jared’s calling him Papa. Lovely little scene.

Of course, Elizabeth’s secret does come out amid all the mystery and investigation of the attempts on her life, and that’s another terrific scene when Reese finally learns what she’s been hiding. Their love grows again, if it every really truly died, and I found these two characters quite charming together, trying to muck their way through a hurtful past to a bright future.

So far this trilogy has been quite rewarding. Rule, the third brother, will complete the series.  He’s a bit of a rake, loves the ladies, and it will be interesting to see what Ms. Martin has in store for him.

Grade: B+

Summary:

Wounded in battle,

Major Reese Dewar returns to England –

but his damaged leg is nothing

compared to his shattered heart.

Years before, love-struck Reese departed his home at Briarwood with a promise from raven-haired Elizabeth Clemens: that she would make a life with him upon his return. But mere months later, she married the Earl of Aldridge, attaining wealth and status Reese could never match. Memories of that betrayal make his homecoming far more bitter than sweet.

Elizabeth knows when she appears on Reese’s doorstep dressed in widow’s garb that she is twisting the knife. But fear for her young son’s safety has overcome guilt and shame: she begs Reese for protection against the forces that would see the boy Earl dead to possess his fortune. The former lovers forge an uneasy alliance, but Elizabeth still harbors some deep secrets—and Reese knows that protecting her means placing himself in danger…of losing his heart all over again.

Read an excerpt. (click book cover)

Other books in this series:

Liviania’s Quick-Quack Review of Queene of Light (Lightworld/Darkworld, Book 1) by Jennifer Armintrout
Paranormal romance released by MIRA 29 Sep 09

Jennifer Armintrout wrote a popular series about vampires, and now she’s moving onto that other familiar supernatural creature, faeries.  I enjoyed her premise, since posits the opposite of many supernatural “coming-outs.”  The humans remain more powerful, and the supernatural is forced to live in the sewers.  But the Seelie and Unseelie still don’t like each other, causing life in the sewers to be sharply divided.

Ayla, an assassin, is looked down-upon because of her half-human heritage.  She takes pride in her job, but the only way to improve her lot is to marry Garret, the queen’s brother, who has been pushing his suit.  Of course, she sees him as her mentor only, not as a love interest.  But in the sewers she runs across the Death Angel Malachi and fails to kill him, as she is sworn too.  Unfortunately, she finds herself more drawn to him than wanting to kill him.

I found both Ayla and Malachi to be interesting characters. While Ayla is strongly shaped by the prejudices of her people, Malachi is much less familiar with society.  Ayla tries to do her best based on what she knows of the world, although her decisions might not always be the best based on what the reader knows.  I also liked the side characters, from the mad queen to the strange Keller who aids Malachi.

I must admit, I also enjoy the political maneuvering of Garret.  He’s unlikeable, but understandable.  His mad sister is not a great ruler and he can’t take the throne since he’s male.  If he were more honorable and less selfish, he could have been the hero of a similar story.

There were not many twists and turns in Queene of Light, but there was an enjoyable story set in a solid world.  I look forward to the other two novels in the series to see what Armintrout will do with her sewer-bound faery land.  I may also pick up the aforementioned vampire books, to see if her premise in them is as inventive.

Grade: B

Summary:

An unimagined destiny an undeniable passion.

In a time not long from now, the veil between fantasy and reality is ripped asunder creatures of myth and fairytale spill into the mortal world. Enchanted yet horrified, humans force the magical beings Underground, to colonize the sewers and abandoned subway tunnels beneath their glittering cities.

But even magic folk cannot dwell in harmony and soon two Worlds emerge: the Lightworld, home to faeries, dragons and dwarves; and the Darkworld, where vampires, werewolves, angels and demons lurk.

Now, in the dank and shadowy place between Lightworld and Darkworld, a transformation is about to begin….

Ayla, a half-faery, half-human assassin is stalked by Malachi, a Death Angel tasked with harvesting mortal souls. They clash. Immortality evaporates, forging a bond neither may survive. And in the face of unbridled ambitions and untested loyalties, an ominous prophecy is revealed that will shake the Worlds.

No excerpt found.

Welcome back to Duck Chat!You’re in for a treat today – Nicola Cornick is with us!

Nicola has a terrific backlist of books, but it’s her latest Brides of Fortune trilogy that has her excited nowadays, and she’d like to tell you about them, along with having some fun with all of you. The trilogy actually starts with a prequel, The Secrets of a Courtesan, which is in ebook only from eHarlequin. Then The Confessions of a Duchess, The Scandals of an Innocent, and finally The Undoing of a Lady round out the series. Nicola tells us all about them today.

Nicola started her writing career in 1998 when she was first published by Mills & Boon.  She’ has a passion for history, studied Medieval history, and her dissertation was on heroes, which she knows a little bit about! She is married, lives in the countryside of Oxfordshire, England with her husband and their many pets. Geneology is a favorite pasttime, and she works for the National Trust for the famed Ashdown House, which has been the inspiration for a couple of her books.

So if you love to read Regency romance, you need to talk to Nicola today. Be sure to leave that meaningful comment because she’s giving away one complete set of her Brides of Fortune trilogy. Now let’s chat!

DUCK CHAT: Nicola, let’s talk about your latest releases, your Brides of Fortune trilogy. Tell us first about the series as a whole, where the idea for it came from, did it evolve as you envisioned when you first started writing, and anything else you’d like to tell us about it.

NICOLA CORNICK: Even though I write historical fiction, I get a lot of my ideas from contemporary newspapers and magazines. A couple of years ago I read about a village in England where someone had bought the title of Lord of the Manor and then discovered that he could impose lots of ancient taxes on the villagers. He started to charge them for walking their dogs on the village green and for parking their cars when they went shopping. Naturally there was uproar with the villagers rebelling. I thought this would be great idea to explore in a Regency series and so the Brides of Fortune trilogy was born! Sir Montague Fortune imposes an ancient tax on the villagers that means that every lady has to marry or lose half of her dowry. Penniless gentlemen come flocking to the village and so Fortune’s Folly becomes the marriage mart of England!

The series didn’t really evolve as I had planned it because my books never do. Although I had ideas about the underlying murder mystery I had no notion who the murderer was going to be or how that sub-plot would develop. And although I had a rough outline for each story, they all surprised me with the way that they grew and changed in the writing.

DC: The first book in the trilogy is The Confessions of a Duchess and it’s about Laura, the Duchess of Cole, and Dexter Anstruther, both of whom we met in Unmasked. Please tell our readers about them and their story.

NC: After Unmasked came out I had so many emails from readers asking for Laura’s story that I couldn’t resist. Confessions of a Duchess is set four years after Unmasked and Laura has retired to live quietly in the country with her young daughter Hattie. Then her former lover, Dexter Anstruther, comes back into Laura’s life and turns everything upside down. Dexter and Laura parted on bad terms and now he has to marry a rich heiress to save his family but despite knowing that he has to marry for duty, Dexter finds it hard to resist his attraction to Laura. There are so many secrets keeping them apart and so many reasons why they cannot be together, not least that Laura is eight years Dexter’s senior and she thinks that to have a toy boy lover is totally scandalous!

Excerpt from Confessions of a Duchess:

He heard a knock and a step in the doorway and turned to find Laura there, her arms full of clothes. She was staring at his naked torso and a deep pink colour stained her cheeks. There was confusion and shock in her eyes. The clothes slipped from her hands and she made a grab for

them even whilst her gaze was still riveted on him.

“I’ve brought… Um… Did you…”

Dexter was surprised that she was acting like a startled virgin when she was an experienced woman, a widow with a child. Surely there was no need for any pretence between them after all that had happened? And surely she did not possess an ounce of modesty? In bed with him four years previously she had been open and generous, warm and wanton. Her sweet, seductive shamelessness had been one of the reasons that he had fallen so disastrously in love with her. It had seemed so honest and unguarded at the time.

But she had put him right quickly enough on that score. She had no use for him and his devotion, so she had said. And when she had had him in her bed once it seemed that she had no further use for him in that respect either.

“It would be best for you to leave now,” she had said in the morning, with a cool, aristocratic disdain that had made him feel utterly insignificant. “I would not wish the servants to find you here…”

Yet now it seemed that she had forgotten her indifference to him, since she was staring like a woman who had never seen a half-naked man before and looking flustered and more than a little intrigued. Her glance stirred something sensual in Dexter, reviving the fire he had only just managed to damp down.

Somewhere at the back of his mind a voice was cautioning him that to take this any further would be dangerous and irresponsible. He ignored it. He wanted to know if what he had experienced before with Laura had been no more than vivid imagining. He needed to know. Once he had exorcised the power she had over him, once he had proved that there was nothing special about Laura at all, he would be free of the past and this curious hold she seemed to have over him. And this time he could control his feelings. This was not like the time four years before when he had been an inexperienced youth. He was at no risk of falling in love with Laura Cole all over again.

Very deliberately he bent down and eased off his boots. When he straightened up Laura was still staring. With calculated intent he started to unfasten his trousers.

“Did you want me to take these off as well?” His voice had a rough edge to it.

Laura’s eyes met his and there was a confused and heated expression in them that made the lust slam through him, tightening its grip on him even as he cautioned himself not to lose control.

“Stop! No!” Laura seemed to wake from a trance. She thrust the pile of clothes down on the table and glared at him. “What are you doing?”

“I am removing my wet clothes,” Dexter said. He allowed his gaze to drift over her appraisingly. “You should do the same, your grace. You look,” his voice dropped, “most dishevelled.”

He saw Laura swallow hard. Her hazel eyes darkened further and the unconscious desire in them sent another jolt of lust through him. The warmth of the room, the intimacy of the small space, the heady scent of lavender and his semi-nakedness were a powerful blend. Dexter took a step towards her.

He had not intended this when first they had met. He had certainly not meant to provoke Laura or tease her or make love to her. Such a course of action was completely irrational. But she was standing there with her hair tumbled about her shoulders and the damned gown still clinging to every curve and he wanted her. He wanted her with all the raw longing he had known four years before. And he wanted to prove that he could master that longing and take one kiss and that it would mean absolutely nothing.

He took another step towards Laura. She took a step back so that she was trapped between his body and the warming room door. She was clutching the pile of garments to her breast now like armour.

“Mr Anstruther,” Laura’s voice was a thread of sound, “this is most improper.”

“You were swift enough to help me out of my clothes the last time we met,” Dexter said, “and you know that your concessions to propriety are only for outward show.”

DC: If you could retire any question and never, ever have it asked again, what would it be? Feel free to answer it.

NC: “When are you going to write a proper book?”
I prefer writing the improper ones.

DC: The Scandals of an Innocent is the next book where we meet Alice and Miles. Can you give us a look inside their book?

NC: Alice is a former housemaid who inherited her late employer’s money so she is struggling with the snobbish attitudes of some members of society towards her – they look down on her socially, even though they’d quite like to have her fortune! One of Fortune Folly’s penniless adventurers, Miles Vickery, decides to blackmail Alice into marriage and sets out to seduce her. Miles is an out and out rake, a real scoundrel, but Alice is determined to reform him so it is a battle of hearts. I have to confess that Miles is probably my favorite of the trilogy heroes! Although I love heroes who have integrity and a strong code of honor, I am a total sucker for rake heroes and Miles is a very, very bad boy indeed. He totally does not want to reform and fights really hard against it but Alice is no pampered society miss, she’s got a tough background, and she’s not going to just let Miles walk in and take what he wants.

Excerpt from The Scandals of an Innocent:

The Village of Fortune’s Folly Yorkshire, February 1810

Alice Lister was not cut out for a life of crime.

She had not even committed the robbery yet and already her palms were damp with anxiety and her heart was beating light and fast.

This, Alice thought, as she tried to calm her breath, is a very big mistake.

There was no going back. That was the coward’s way. Bravely she raised her lantern to illuminate the interior of the darkened gown shop. She had broken into the workroom at the back of the premises. There was a long table with piles of fabric heaped up on one end. A half-finished gown was draped across a stool, the pale silk glimmering in the light. Paper patterns rustled and fluttered in the draft from the open window. Ribbons uncurled on the floor. Sprays of artificial flowers wilted in a corner. Lace trimmings wafted their ghostly fingers against Alice’s cheek, making her jump. The whole place with its unnatural silence and its darkness made her think of a sinister fairy story in which the gowns would come to life and dance in front of her—and she would run screaming from the shop straight into the arms of the night watch. Yes indeed, burgling Madame Claudine’s gown shop was not for the fainthearted.

Not that this was theft, precisely. Alice reminded herself that the wedding gown she was hunting had been bought and paid for. It would have been delivered in the normal manner had Madame Claudine not gone out of business so abruptly and shut up her shop in the face of all inquiries from her anxious clientele. The modiste had disappeared one night, leaving nothing but a pile of debts and bitter words for those of her aristocratic customers who lived on credit. The contents of Madame Claudine’s gown shop had been declared the property of the moneylenders, and all the stock impounded. This was particularly unfair to Alice’s friend Mary Wheeler, for Mary’s father had paid the bill already with the same promptness he had paid a gentleman to marry Mary. Sir James Wheeler had been one of many to take advantage of the Dames’ Tax, the wholly outrageous edict leveled the previous year by the squire of Fortune’s Folly, Sir Montague Fortune. Sir Monty had discovered an ancient tax that had entitled him to half the dowry of every unmarried woman who lived in the village of Fortune’s Folly— unless they wed within a twelvemonth. Sir James Wheeler had been only one of many fathers who had seen this as an opportunity to get his daughter off the shelf and off his hands, parceled away to the first fortune hunter who asked.

Mary Wheeler had been distraught to hear of the gown shop’s closure. In the months of her betrothal she had managed to persuade herself that hers was a love match despite the fact that her ghastly fiancé, Lord Armitage, had returned to London and was carousing in much the same way as he had before their betrothal. With the wedding date only a matter of weeks away, Mary had taken the whole thing as a bad omen. And to be fair, Alice thought, marrying Lord Armitage was a poor enough proposition without getting off on the wrong foot….

“Alice? Have you found it yet?” The urgent whisper brought Alice back to the present and she raised the lantern again, scanning the piles of clothing hopelessly, for there were so many gowns and they were as tumbled as though a wintry gale had blown through the shop.

“Not yet, Lizzie.” Alice tiptoed across to the open window where her coconspirator, Lady Elizabeth Scarlet, was keeping watch in the passage at the side of the shop. This whole venture had been Elizabeth’s idea, of course. It was she who had thought it the most marvelous scheme to go to Madame Claudine’s shop and simply take Mary’s wedding gown. After all, Lizzie had reasoned, the gown belonged to Mary and she had set her heart on wearing it at the wedding, and even if they had to break in to take it, no one would know and right was on their side.

It had been another of Lady Elizabeth’s astound-ingly bad ideas. Alice shook her head to have been so easily led. Naturally, once they had reached the shop it became apparent that Lizzie was too tall to squeeze through the window and it was Alice who was the one who had to break in.

“What is keeping you?” Lizzie sounded decidedly testy, and Alice felt her temper prick in response.

“I’m doing my best,” she whispered crossly. “There is a mountain of gowns in here.”

“You are looking for one in white silk with silver lace and silver ribbons,” Lizzie reminded her. “Surely it cannot be so hard to find? How many gowns are there, anyway?”

“Only about two hundred. This is a gown shop, Lizzie. The clue is in the name….”

Sighing, Alice grabbed the next pile of dresses and hurriedly sorted through them. Silver with pink trimmings. White with green embroidery…golden gauze…that was pretty…white and silver with silver ribbons— Alice snatched up the wedding gown even as Lizzie’s agonized whisper floated up to her.

“Alice! Quick! Someone is coming!”

With a muttered and very unladylike curse, Alice ran for the window, squeezed through the gap at the bottom of the sash and struggled to climb out and down into the street. It was only a drop of about four feet, and she was wearing boy’s britches, borrowed from the wardrobe of her brother, Lowell, which made movement a great deal freer and easier. But as she tried to ease her leg over the sill the britches caught on something and stuck fast.

“Alice!” Lizzie’s hissing held a note of panic now. “Come on! Someone is almost upon us!” She caught Alice’s arms and tugged hard. Alice heard the material of the britches rip. She wriggled free for a few painful inches and then stuck fast again. She was not a slender girl and every one of her curves currently felt as though it was squashed into too small a space. The edge of the windowsill dug painfully into her hip. She dangled there helplessly, one leg out of the window, the other on the sill. She could hear footsteps coming ever closer, their measured tread loud on the cobbles of the road.

“He will see us,” Lizzie groaned.

“He will certainly hear you,” Alice said crossly. Lizzie’s idea of being quiet seemed to equate to behaving like a bull in a china shop. “If you will cease that pulling and pushing and keep still and quiet for a moment, he will pass by the end of the alley. And put the lantern out!” she added fiercely.

It was too late.

She heard the footsteps stop. There was quiet for a moment; quiet in which Alice’s breathing seemed loud in her own ears and the window ledge creaked in protest beneath her weight. She lay still like a hunted animal. Instinct told her that the man, too, was watching and waiting….

“Run, Lizzie!” Alice gasped. “I am right behind you!” She gave her friend a shove that sent Lady Elizabeth stumbling off down the passage even as everything seemed to explode into noise and movement around her. A man came running out of the darkness, and Alice wrenched herself free of the ledge and tumbled headlong on top of him, wrapping them both in the silky, voluminous folds of the wedding gown as they fell to the ground. As an ambush it could scarcely have been more effective had she tried.

Alice scrambled up, lost her footing on the slippery folds of material and fell to her knees. The man was quicker. His arms went about her, scooping her up and then holding her fast against him, so that all her kicking and pummeling was quite in vain. His grip was too tight to break, as taut as steel bands about her waist and back. Her struggles were embarrassingly puny against such quiet, almost casual, strength.

“Hold still, urchin,” he said. His voice was mellow and deep, and he sounded carelessly amused, but there was nothing careless in the way that he held her. Alice could tell she was not going to be able to break his grip. She also sensed by instinct that this was no drunken lord returning home after a night’s entertainment at the Morris Clown Inn. There was something too powerful and purposeful about him—something too dangerous to dismiss easily.

She was in deep trouble.

Fear clawed at her chest as she frantically tried to think of a way to escape him. Her whole body was shaking with fear and panic and a desperate need to flee. She stopped struggling and went limp in his arms in an attempt to trick him into loosening his grip, but he was evidently too old a hand to fall for the ruse, for he simply laughed.

“So docile all of a sudden? Listen, boy—” He stopped.

Held so close to him, Alice could feel the hard muscles of his body tense against her own and she recognized the precise moment that he realized, despite the evidence of her attire, that she was not a boy at all.

“Well, well…” The amusement was still in his voice, but it had a different quality to it now. He shifted, his chest unyielding against the betraying softness of her breasts, his hand moving intimately over the curve of her bottom where the rip in her britches exposed rather more bare skin than she would have wanted. His grip on her slackened, not much, but enough for Alice to wrench herself from his arms and turn to run.

It was the treacherous wedding dress that foiled her again. Wrapping itself about her ankles, it tripped her so that she staggered and almost fell. The man caught her arm in a savage grip, spinning her around so that her back was against the rough brick wall of the alley. Alice gasped as the pain jolted through her, and gasped again as he deliberately brought his body into closer contact with hers, holding her pinned against the wall with his hips, his hands braced on either side of her head. She was trapped, caged. A long shiver went down her spine that was neither fear nor cold.

The man took her chin in his hand and turned her toward the pale light of the lantern. His face was only inches away from hers, the harsh lines and planes shadowed in the darkness. She could feel the beat of his heart against her breast, feel his breath against her skin and the press of his lower body, lean and…

DC: I’ve heard writers often say their stories take them in surprising directions, or dialogue flows from some unknown place. Is it the same with you? Do your characters surprise you sometimes?

NC: One of the joys of writing is when your story takes off in a direction you haven’t foreseen or dialogue pops into your head and you can’t pin down the source but you like it! My characters constantly surprise me. It’s one of the reasons that I love them. As I get to know them better and they become real to me they start to act very independently.

DC: Lastly is The Undoing of a Lady to complete the series. Lizzie is a bit of an unconventional heroine for her time, but she complements Nat quite nicely. Would you tell us about them?

NC: I love Lizzie because she is truly outrageous and unconventional. In part this springs from the fact that she is unhappy but also because she has the wealth and freedom to behave as she pleases so in that she is spoilt. She has a lot of growing up to do. Lizzie and Nat are childhood friends and she has always taken his presence and support for granted until he tells her he is about to marry. Her possessiveness can’t take it – she’s always seen Nat as her property – and so she kidnaps him on the night before his wedding to prevent him from going through with it.

Superficially Lizzie and Nat don’t seem to be well suited because they are so different but she needs the stability and reliability that he brings to her life. Nat is honorable and steady as a rock and everyone else has always let Lizzie down. Nat is the only one she feels she can trust.

Lizzie and I are very, very different characters but I drew on a lot of personal experience for this book. Like Lizzie I had a very unstable childhood, I was an only child and I “lived in my head” a lot and felt I could only rely on myself. I think all of that went into the book in one way or another.

Excerpt from The Undoing of a Lady:

The Folly, Fortune Hall, Yorkshire—June 1810 A little before midnight

It was a beautiful night for an abduction.

The moon sailed high and bright in a starlit sky. The warm breeze sighed in the treetops, stirring the scents of pine and hot grass. Deep in the heart of the wood an owl called, a long, throaty hoot that hung on the night air.

Lady Elizabeth Scarlet sat by the window, watching for the shadow, waiting to hear the step on the path outside. She knew Nat Waterhouse would come. He always came when she called. He would be annoyed of course—what man would not be irritated to be called away from his carousing on the night before his wedding—but he would still be there. He was so responsible; he would not ignore her cry for help. She knew exactly how he would respond. She knew him so well.

Her fingertips beat an impatient tattoo on the stone window ledge. She checked the watch she had purloined earlier from her brother. It felt as though she had been waiting for hours but she was surprised to see that it was only eight minutes since she had last looked. She felt nervous, which surprised her. She knew Nat would be angry but she was acting for his own good. The wedding had to be stopped. He would thank her for it one day.

From across the fields came the faint chime of the church bell. Midnight. There was the crunch of footsteps on the path. He was precisely on time. Of course he would be.

She sat still as a mouse as he opened the door of the folly. She had left the hallway in darkness but there was a candle burning in the room above. If she had calculated correctly he would go up the spiral stair and into the chamber, giving her time to lock the outer door behind him and hide the key. There was no other way out. Her half brother, Sir Montague Fortune, had had the folly built to the design of a miniature fort with arrow slits and windows too small to allow a man to pass. He had thought it a great joke to build a folly in a village called Fortune’s Folly. That, Lizzie thought, was Monty’s idea of amusement, that and dreaming up new taxes with which to torment the populace.

“Lizzie!”

She jumped. Nat was right outside the door of the guardroom. He sounded impatient. She held her breath.

“Lizzie? Where are you?”

He took the spiral stair two steps at a time and she slid like a wraith out of the tiny guardroom to turn the key in the heavy oaken door. Her fingers were shaking and slipped on the cold iron. She knew what her friend Alice Vickery would say if she were here now:

“Not another of your harebrained schemes, Lizzie! Stop now, before it is too late!”

But it was already too late. She could not allow herself time to think about this or she would lose her nerve. She ran back into the guardroom and stole a hand through one of the arrow slits. There was a nail on the wall outside. The key clinked softly against the stone. There. Nat could not escape until she willed it. She smiled to herself, well pleased. She had known there was no need to involve anyone else in the plan. She could handle an abduction unaided. It was easy.

She went out into the hall. Nat was standing at the top of the stairs, the candle in his hand. The flickering light threw a tall shadow. He looked huge, menacing and angry.

Actually, Lizzie thought, he was huge, menacing and angry, but he would never hurt her. Nat would never, ever hurt her. She knew exactly how he would behave. She knew him like a brother.

“Lizzie? What the hell’s going on?”

He was drunk as well, Lizzie thought. Not drunk enough to be even remotely incapacitated but enough to swear in front of a lady, which was something that Nat would normally never do. But then, if she were marrying Miss Flora Minchin the next morning, she would be swearing, too. And she would have drunk herself into a stupor. Which brought her back to the point. For Nat would not be marrying Miss Minchin. Not in the morning. Not ever. She was here to make sure of it. She was here to save him.

“Good evening, Nat,” Lizzie said brightly, and saw him scowl. “I trust you have had an enjoyable time on your last night of freedom?”

“Cut the pleasantries, Lizzie,” Nat said. “I’m not in the mood.” He held the candle a little higher so that the light fell on her face. His eyes were black, narrowed and hard. “What could possibly be so urgent that you had to talk to me in secret on the night before my wedding?”

Lizzie did not answer immediately. She caught the hem of her gown up in one hand and made her careful way up the stone stair. She felt Nat’s gaze on her face every moment even though she did not look at him. He stood aside to allow her to enter the chamber at the top. It was tiny, furnished only with a table, a chair and a couch. Monty Fortune, having created his miniature fort, had not really known what to do with it.

When she was standing on the rug in the center of the little round turret room Lizzie turned to face Nat. Now that she could see him properly she could see that his black hair was tousled and his elegant clothes looked slightly less than pristine. His jacket hung open and his cravat was undone. Stubble darkened his lean cheek and the hard line of his jaw. There was a smoky air of the alehouse about him. His eyes glittered with impatience and irritation.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

Lizzie spread her hands wide in an innocent gesture. “I asked you here to try to persuade you not to go through with the wedding,” she said. She looked at him in appeal. “You know she will bore you within five minutes, Nat. No,” she corrected herself. “You are already bored with her, aren’t you, and you are not even wed yet. And you don’t give a rush for her, either. You are making a terrible mistake.”

Nat’s mouth set in a thin line. He raked a hand through his hair. “Lizzie, we’ve spoken about this—”

“I know,” Lizzie said. Her heart hammered in her throat. “Which is why I had to do this, Nat. It’s for your own good.”

Fury was fast replacing the irritation in his eyes. “Do what?” he said. Then, as she did not reply: “Do what, Lizzie?”

“I’ve locked you in,” Lizzie said rapidly. “I promise that I will release you tomorrow—when the hour of the wedding is past. I doubt that Flora or her parents will forgive you the slight of standing her up at the altar.”

She had never previously thought the Earl of Wa-terhouse a man who made a display of his emotions. She had always thought he had a good face for games of chance, showing no feeling, giving nothing away. Now, though, it was all too easy to read him. His first reaction was stupefaction. His second was grim certainty. He did not even stop to question the truth of what she had said. If she knew him well, then the reverse was also the case.

“Lizzie,” he said, “you little hellcat.”

He turned and crashed angrily down the spiral stair, taking the candle, leaving her in darkness but for the faint moonlight that slid through the arrow slits in the wall. Lizzie let her breath out in a long, shaky sigh. She had only a moment to compose herself, for once he realized that there really was no escape he would be back. And this time he would be beyond mere fury.

She heard him try the thick oak door—and swear when it would not even give an inch. She saw the candle flame dance across the walls as he checked the guardroom and the passageway for potential exits. The swearing became more colorful as he acknowledged what she already knew—there was no way out. The tiny water closet opened onto the equally miniature moat and was far too small for a six foot man to squeeze through. The room in which she stood had a trapdoor that led up to the pretend battlements but she had locked it earlier and hidden the key in a hollow tree outside. She had wanted to make no mistakes.

He was back and she had been correct—he looked enraged. A muscle pulsed in his lean cheek. Every line of his body was rigid with fury.

When he spoke, however, his voice was deceptively gentle. Lizzie found it more disconcerting than if he had shouted at her.

“Why are you doing this, Lizzie?” he said.

Lizzie wiped the palms of her hands surreptitiously down the side of her gown. She wished she could stop shaking. She knew she was doing the right thing. She simply had not anticipated that it would be quite so frightening.

“I told you,” she said, tilting her chin up defiantly. “I’m saving you from yourself.”

Nat gave a harsh laugh. “No. You are denying me the chance to gain the fifty thousand pounds I so desperately need. You know how important this is to me, Lizzie.”

“It isn’t worth it for a lifetime of boredom.”

“That is my choice.”

“You’ve made the wrong choice. I’m here to save you from it.” Lizzie kept her voice absolutely level despite the pounding of her blood. “You have always cared for me and tried to protect me. Now it is my turn. I’m doing this because you are my friend and I care for you.”

She saw the contemptuous flicker in his eyes that said he did not believe her. Lizzie’s temper smoldered. She had always been hot-blooded, or perhaps just plain belligerent depending upon whose opinion one sought. It seemed damnably unfair of Nat to judge her when she had his best interests at heart. He should be thanking her for saving him from this ghastly match.

Nat put the candle down on the little wooden table beside the door and took a very deliberate step toward her. He was tall—over six-foot—broad and muscular. Lizzie tried not to feel intimidated and failed.

“Give me the key, Lizzie,” he said gently.

“No.” Lizzie swallowed hard. He was very close now, his physical presence powerful, threatening, in direct contradiction to the softness of his tone. But she was not afraid of Nat. In the nine years of their acquaintance he had never given her any reason to fear him.

“Where is it?”

“Hidden somewhere you won’t find it.”

Nat gave an exasperated sigh. He flung out an arm. “This isn’t a game, Lizzie,” he said. She could tell he was trying to suppress his anger, trying to be reasonable. Nat Waterhouse was, above all, a reasonable man, a rational man, and a responsible…

DC: Do you ever argue with your characters while you’re writing? Who usually wins?

NC: Yes, I do. My characters always win because it’s their story. I’m a very instinctive author, a pantser not a planner, and so if my characters go off in a particular direction and it feels right then my instinct is to follow that rather than try to change it. I think this just goes to prove there’s no right or wrong way of writing!

DC: What is sure to distract you from sitting down and working/writing?

NC: My Labrador, Monty, who will bring me toys because he wants to play!

DC: You took a trip to Scotland last year. What was your favorite part of the trip? Favorite part of Scotland that you saw? Will you be writing a book with a Scottish backdrop inspired by your trip?

NC: I’m lucky enough to visit Scotland every year because my husband’s family is Scots and we go to stay with them. We usually have a week in a cottage in the West Highlands and then choose a different place to visit for a second week. Last year we went to Cromarty, which is a wonderful little town on the East Coast. It was definitely my favorite part of the trip. We stayed in an ancient hotel with creaking floors and four-poster beds – it felt like being part of an Agatha Christie mystery! The town of Cromarty itself is fascinating because so many of the Georgian streets and buildings are intact. It was like stepping back in time.

I’ve written one book with a Scottish backdrop – Kidnapped: His Innocent Mistress – and I would definitely like to set more books against that background.

DC: What has been your favorite book cover from all of your releases and why?

NC: I was blown away when I saw the covers for The Brides of Fortune. I love Laura’s gown on the cover of book 1 and the rich green and purple covers of books 2 and 3 are really lush. The cover goddess was definitely smiling on me when HQN went for those!

DC: How about your least favorite? Why?

NC: That’s an easy one! I had the most appalling cover for the UK edition of Lord Greville’s Captive. Even my editor admitted that it looked as though it had been stuck in a cupboard since the 1970s! The hero is carrying the heroine and she is wearing what looks like a see-through nightgown and her legs are in a strange scissor position and his hands appear to be in a very intimate place… It was simply dreadful.

DC: How do you feel your male or female characters have evolved over your career? Do you think you write them differently now than you did when you started?

NC: What an interesting question! I haven’t consciously changed my approach because I have always enjoyed writing strong female characters and my readers seem to enjoy them too. I think it’s true to say for both my heroes and heroines that I explore their emotions, motivations and conflicts in greater depth now than when I started writing. My books used to be lighter in tone. Now they are a lot darker and more emotional, though still witty and humorous, I hope.

DC: I’m so curious about the different covers for some of your books between America and the UK. Deceived, Lord of Scandal and Unmasked are great examples you show on your web site. The UK covers depict more of a Regency feel than their American counterparts. I’m assuming that’s because it’s what UK readers like and look for; they sell better for the publisher? Or is it something else?

NC: They are very different, aren’t they? The UK team is using contemporary Georgian paintings for my covers at the moment. Although I think that reader taste in Regency historicals has come closer together in the UK and the US over the past decade, the covers remain very different with more of an emphasis on the Georgette Heyer Regency style in the UK. Apparently market research suggests that this is what appeals to readers here. That said, I LOVE my US covers and I always have done.

DC: Is there a genre you haven’t tackled but would like to try?

NC: I’m itching to try historical fiction and also time slip and “gentle” paranormal.

DC: What advice would you give to your younger self?

NC: Writing wise, I would tell myself to apply myself more. It took me 15 years to get my first book published because I kept stopping and starting, re-writing the beginning and not finishing it, and going off and doing other things for months on end. And I would advise myself to join a writing organization like RWA or RNA for all the marvelous help and support that they can give.

DC: If you were a book, what would your blurb be?

NC: Ooh, great question! Tea-addicted UK author with a double life as historian and romance writer struggles to balance pets, family, writing, chocolate éclairs and a passion for history.

DC: What would be your “voice’s” tagline?

NC: Wittily historical and wickedly sensual.

DC: You have an upcoming book set in London and the Arctic. How’s that coming along? Can you give us a little sneak peek?

NC: It’s coming on very well, thank you! It doesn’t have a title yet, but I’m just finishing the revisions and the book will be the first in a new series due out next summer. It was fascinating setting a book in the Arctic, but it did require a great deal more research than usual. The hero is an explorer and adventurer and the heroine is the widow of his best friend, a frivolous society butterfly who thinks that all explorers are vain, arrogant and only interested in their own glory.

DC: If you had never become an author, what do you think you would be doing right now?

NC: I think I would be pursuing one of my other passions and would work in the heritage industry running a stately home for the National Trust. Or perhaps I would have opened a bookstore.

DC: Who’s your favorite author?

NC: There are lots of authors whose books I love, but Mary Stewart probably tops my list.

DC: What’s on the horizon for Nicola Cornick?

NC: I have a novella a month out for the next few months! In September there is The Elopement, a brand new short story in the anthology Love Me, Loves Me Not, which is being published by MIRA to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Then in October I am thrilled to have a reprint of The Season for Suitors in a book with exciting new HQN author Courtney Milan and the wonderful Mary Balogh. Finally in December there is the first print publication of my e-book The Unmasking of Lady Loveless, which is a very hot, sexy and sweet Regency short story.

Lightning Round:

- dark or milk chocolate?    – Dark
- smooth or chunky peanut butter?     – Chunky
- heels or flats?    – Heels
- coffee or tea?    – Always tea
- summer or winter?    – Winter, but only just!
- mountains or beach?    – Both!
- mustard or mayonnaise?   – Mayonnaise
- flowers or candy?   – Flowers
- pockets or purse?    – Purse
- Pepsi or Coke?    – Neither
- ebook or print?     – Print. I love holding a book in my hand.

And because we never seem to get tired of them:

1. What is your favorite word?    – So difficult to choose… Malfeasance
2. What is your least favorite word?    – Death
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?    – Music and nature
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?     – Bad news
5. What sound or noise do you love?    – My dog snoring and the wind and rain outside when I’m tucked up in bed.
6. What sound or noise do you hate?    – Fingernails on a blackboard
7. What is your favorite curse word?    – Can I really say this? Fuck.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?   – Air traffic controller
9. What profession would you not like to do?    – North Sea Fisherman
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?     – “You did your best. Well done.”

DC: Nicola, we’re so glad you spent the day with us. Thank you!

Liviania‘s review of Prey (Shifters, Book 4) by Rachel Vincent
Contemporary paranormal romance/urban fantasy released by MIRA 1 Jul 09

I love it when I stick to a series and it pays off.  With Rachel Vincent’s Werecat books, the first two just didn’t work for me, but were so close to working that I couldn’t resist continuing.  I mentioned in my review of Pride that I felt it was a running leap in the right direction, which makes Prey the right direction.

The events in the preceding novels have really forced Faythe to grow up, especially becoming responsible for the health of a teenage girl.  That definitely helps Faythe understand her parent’s point-of-view better.The book begins with Faythe’s father still under fire for his decisions as the Pride’s leader.  It’s absolutely the wrong time for Marc to get kidnapped, because Faythe wants the best (and most egalitarian) leadership  for the Pride as much as she wants to rescue her lover.  Marc and Faythe’s relationship is finally leveling out to something that doesn’t ping my squick buttons.  (When something happens in Faythe’s love life that I wanted to happen in the earlier books, I was very upset since it was very much the wrong time.  Not that the wrong time wasn’t a believable time, just the wrong one.)

It helps that I also like the supporting cast.  The male members of the group add humor, as always, but this one brings out more of their relationships with each other and how they behave professionally.  Kaci’s dilemma is heart-breaking, but she can still be pretty cute, like a fourteen-year-old girl should be.  Manx, who is on trial during Prey just as Faythe was in Pride, is affecting as a tough woman stuck in a vulnerable position.  I wish we could’ve seen more of her even though it would have slowed the plot down some.

There are multiple plot threads in Prey, but they mesh well.  While something important is going on the narrative focuses on it, but never too long to forget the other plots/sub-plots.  It’s also easy to feel Faythe’s frustration and sometimes despair, since it would be tough to keep up with everything going on if you had a personal stake in all the events.  Not to mention with Faythe taking more responsibility for her actions, she takes the time to think about her options and weigh the consequences.  Impulsiveness can be less mentally taxing.

Like Faythe, the Werecats series has grown up.  I loved seeing the potential reached, with brutal fight scenes interspersed with drama.  (I think even if I weren’t a total softie Vincent would have made me cry with this one.)  I cannot wait for the fifth book to come out.  On that hand, I am happy with the quick release between Pride and this one.  I like that publishers are experimenting with schedules if the author already has the next book completed.  To me, it helps the story keep momentum.  Of course, Prey is fast-paced enough not to need much help with that.

Grade: B+

Summary:
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Sometimes playing cat and mouse is no game…
.
Play? Right. My Pride is under fire from all sides, my father’s authority is in question and my lover is in exile. Which means I haven’t laid eyes on Marc’s gorgeous face in months. And with a new mother and an I-know-everything teenager under my protection, I don’t exactly have time to fantasize about ever seeing him again.
.
Then our long-awaited reunion is ruined by a vicious ambush by strays. Now our group is under attack, Marc is missing and I will need every bit of skill and smarts to keep my family from being torn apart. Forever.
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Read an excerpt here (scroll down).

Other books in the series:

Liviania’s review of Silent On the Moor (Lady Julia Grey, Book 3) by Deanna Raybourn
Historical romantic suspense released by MIRA 1 Mar 09

Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey mysteries offer what I like to find in a modern Gothic novel.  In Silent on the Moor there is a family secret, an isolated manner, the sound of a tolling bell before a death, and a slowly unfolding mystery.  There are less horror elements than romance, but there’s oodles of atmosphere which is what really makes a Gothic novel work.  Raybourn also manages to inject some modern sensibility without disrupting this atmosphere.

Lady Julia Grey is a touch scandalous.  Until the murder of her husband she acted dutifully and in the interest of her family.  Now she’s more interested in seeking what she wants, and she wants Nicholas Brisbane.  He invited her sister to help him set his new estate Grimsgrave in order and Julia decides to accompany her uninvited.  As any reader of mystery knows, you should always be on your best behavior when a widow shows up uninvited.

I find it easy to sympathize with Julia.  She’s accepting, loving, and tenacious.  She truly cares for Brisbane and wishes to help both him and the Allenby women who used to own the house.  She becomes involved in the mystery not because of cleverness but because she wants to help.  Brisbane, while dark and brooding is no Heathcliff, which is a good thing since Heathcliff is a psycho stalker.

The only real issue I have with the novel is the mystery.  Raybourn develops a great setting and characters but doesn’t give them much to do.  Until someone gets poisoned most of the mystery is simply Brisbane acting oddly.  Even after that, it still takes awhile for the questions that are supposed to be solved to take clear form.  And quite a few of the answers are rather obvious, even though some of the motivations escaped me until the big reveal.

As for the modern elements, Julia’s sister Portia is involved in an openly stated lesbian relationship and a Gypsy witch is portrayed in a positive light.  (I say openly stated as there were circumspect lesbian relations in Gothic novels like Carmilla.)  Raybourn adds these elements without giving up all historical accuracy – Portia’s relationship makes her mostly unwelcome in society and there’s a reason why the villagers don’t persecute the Gypsy Rosalie (and why she stays in one place).  She simply lets these elements (and others) be part of the story without using them as a chance to soapbox for a contemporary cause.

I enjoyed watching Julia Grey pursue her happily ever after.  The haunted Brisbane makes a sensible counterpoint to Julia’s tendency to get involved before she knows the details.  The secondary characters are nicely done and you care what happens to many of them as much as you care about the main couple.  The central mystery is a bit of a letdown, but the atmosphere was strong enough to keep me from noticing how the mystery was rarely present.  (It wasn’t strong enough to keep me from solving most of it.)  With many of the secondary relationships left open, I do hope Raybourn will write more about Julia Grey and her family.

Grade: B

Summary:

This is a wickedly witty Lady Julia Grey mystery. ‘There are things that walk abroad on the moor that should not. But the dead do not always lie quietly, do they, lady?’ It is England, 1888. Grimsgrave Manor is an unhappy house, isolated on the Yorkshire moors, silent and secretive. But secrets cannot be long kept in the face of Lady Julia Grey’s incurable curiosity. In the teeth of protests from her conventional, stuffy brother, Lady Julia decides to pay a visit to the enigmatic detective, Nicholas Brisbane to bring a woman’s touch to his new estate. Grimsgrave is haunted by the ghosts of its past, and its owner seems to be falling into ruin along with the house. Confronted with gypsy warnings and Brisbane’s elusive behaviour, Lady Julia scents a mystery. It’s not long before her desire for answers leads her into danger unlike any other that she has experienced – and from which, this time, there may be no escape.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in the series:

Liviania’s review of Pride (Shifters, Book 3) by Rachel Vincent
Contemporary paranormal romance released by MIRA 1 Feb 09

Pride is the third book in Rachel Vincent’s werecat series and my third time to give her a chance.  Normally I would give up if I didn’t think the first book was anything special, but Stray and Rogue came so close I couldn’t help but give her another chance.  It’s rare I find a series I want to like so much but don’t.  Fortunately, I think Pride took a running leap in the right direction. 

One of my biggest problems with the first two books was Marc and Faythe’s relationship.  He was too controlling; she was too absorbed in her own drama.  In Pride Marc allows Faythe to make her own bad decisions.  If she’s not so indignant over people trying to stop her from acting dumb maybe she’ll realize how terrible her decisions are.  And, hey, presto!  She does have an epiphany about how crappy she treated Marc and the terrible decisions she made regarding that relationship.  I can’t say some of the decisions she picks out are ones I would, but baby steps.

On the other side of the baby steps coin, Faythe shows some rudimentary signs of understanding politics.  That is to say, she understands the general shape of other’s machinations.  She still prefers to make her point with a verbal sledgehammer.  Sledgehammers lack the ability to make a convincing argument.  Of course, in Pride many of her points make sense.  Faythe is defending herself against a murder she committed in self-defense and takes on the protection of a young girl.  Both are difficult in an institutionally misogynistic society.

With the progress Faythe made in Pride, I’ll give it the benefit of a doubt that she learns from her mom’s example and begins changing the system by bending it to a little.  To paraphrase one character, she doesn’t make the rules and never has (so maybe she ought to pay some attention to them).

The action side of the story is straightforward but exciting.  Faythe’s trial is being held in free territory and it turns out several rowdy strays have been staying in the area.  The local bruin (think werebear) takes offense to their conduct and asks the Pride to take care of it.  (As this is the third group of strays working together in as many books I wonder why the characters still believe a stray’s usual pattern of behavior is being a loner.)  While this plot gets shunted aside for most of the books, it isn’t complex enough to demand more time and delivers excellent action scenes when they’re needed.

Pride isn’t a slam dunk.  However, it’s a quick-paced read with a heroine shows empathy for others and demonstrates just enough smarts to live.  It’s a book that makes me finally, truly like this series.  Okay, so I won’t reread the first two.  I’ll still pick up the fourth with something other than desperate hope.  I may even pick up Vincent’s upcoming venture into YA lit.

Grade: B-

Summary:

I’m on trial for my life. Falsely accused of infecting my human ex-boyfriend—and killing him to cover up the crime. Infecting a human is one of three capital offenses recognized by the Pride—along with murder and disclosure of our existence to a human.
I’m two for three. A goner.

Now we’ve discovered a rogue stray terrorizing the mountainside, hunting a wild teenage tabbycat. It’s up to us to find and stop him before a human discovers us. With my lover Marc’s help, I think I can protect the vulnerable girl from both the ambitious rogue and the scheming of the territorial council.

If I survive my own trial…
Read an excerpt.

Other books in the series:

February may be the shortest month of the year, but that doesn’t mean the Harlequin Digital Team has any shortage of exciting news to share with TGTBTU readers!  What does the team have in store for the cold winter nights?  Well how about a special coupon code for TGTBTU readers, several e-book bundles and series announcements, welcoming new authors into the fold, and a chance to escape to sunny Mexico?  Wow!  Read on to get the inside scoop…

Series Spotlight on…Harlequin Romance!
Warm your heart with the ultimate feel-good Harlequin Romance tales, our Series Spotlight for the month of February! Whether in an exotic setting or somewhere a little closer to home, you can’t miss the best in romantic fiction. To celebrate, all six books out this month belong to the special Diamond Brides miniseries – which is also available as a convenient eBook Bundle!

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We’re romancing the iPhone…again
As part of our Anniversary celebration, we’ve partnered with Stanza, an eBook reading application, to make our 16 free titles available on the iPhone and iPod Touch. You can find out more from http://www.lexcycle.com/content/60th_anniversary_harlequin on how to enjoy these eBooks wherever you go.

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Buzz Books for February
Released this month exclusively in eBook format, we’ve got the Forged in Steele Bundle by USA Today bestselling author Brenda Jackson. You can enjoy her complete Forged of Steele series in one convenient download. As a little something extra, we’ve included the free bonus novella Never Too Late that introduces all the Steeles!

Harlequin heats up the New York Times bestseller list with two big titles this month – Susan Wiggs hit #1 with Fireside (MIRA) and Linda Lael Miller is sitting at #2 with her latest Western romance for HQN Books, Montana Creeds: Logan! Montana Creeds: Logan is also available as a special enriched ebook with bonus photos of the three Creed brothers. The next other Creeds – Dylan and Tyler — get their own books (and enhanced ebooks) in March and April, too.

A few more titles getting the buzz this month:
- The Courtship Dance by Candace Camp (HQN Book), the latest in her Matchmakers series of Regency romances
- A new installment of Robyn Carr’s Virgin River miniseries: Second Chance Pass (MIRA)
- Get hooked on sexy historicals with Charlotte Featherstone’s Spice title Addicted and Jade Lee’s The Concubine, a historical Harlequin Blaze set in Imperial China
- Harlequin Presents launches the first of an eight book miniseries International Billionaires, part of a deal with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) for rugby-related romances, with The Prince’s Waitress Wife by Sarah Morgan
- Caridad Pineiro adds a new story to her vampire miniseries The Calling! This time, it’s a Silhouette Nocturne Bite Honor Calls

Welcome another to the Harlequin Family!
Congratulations go out to Lucy King, who sold her first book to Mills & Boon Modern Heat! Her book won the Feel the Heat writing contest held though our blog, I Heart Presents. Lucy joins the ranks of fellow contest winner Lynn Raye Harris, who sold her first book to Harlequin after winning the Harlequin Presents Instant Seduction Contest last year.

From Harlequin, with Love
You didn’t think we’d do a February update without mentioning Valentine’s Day, did you?! As a little gift to our readers in honor of the most romantic day of year AND our 60th anniversary, we’ll be offering a FREE eBook A Valentine For Harlequin’s Anniversary at our eBook Store (www.ebooks.eharlequin.com), containing authors’ and readers’ cherished Harlequin memories and a short story An Evening to Remember by Catherine Mann.

If audibooks are your thing, we also have a FREE download of Stranded! by Lori Foster on Audible.com, too.

And be sure to pop by eHarlequin.com for more special offers over the Valentine’s Day weekend!

Happy Reading!

Connie’s Quick Quack review of Deadly Gift (The Flynn Brothers Trilogy, Book 3) by Heather Graham
Romantic Suspense released by MIRA 1 Dec 08

Heather Graham is an old hand at giving you a story you want to read and this is no exception. 

Caer is spending Christmas with strangers to help protect Sean O’Riley – a man who seems to be threatened and they must figure out by whom, or he could end up dead

Sean goes to the old country for a visit and takes sick about the same time his business partner disappears.  Sean is accompanied by Zach Flynn, an old family friend and someone the family trusts to guard Sean. Zach stays to help unravel the mystery.  Sean has trouble believing someone wants to hurt him and is reluctant to believe his longtime friend is dead.

Sean’s daughter is sure he married an evil gold-digger and, since the woman is about her age, you figure she married for money, but is she evil? This is one of the questions you must answer to unravel the mystery.

It turns out this is not a new idea and the answers are old and long planned. Since I love serial killers I missed Zach’s brothers and was not sure where this story would go but it was worth getting there and I’m sorry I missed the other two books in the trilogy.

Grade: B-

Summary:

Zachary Flynn is off to Ireland to escort an old friend, Sean O’Riley, home to Rhode Island after a bout of illness in the land of his birth. Zach has no idea he’ll be coming home with far more than old friends. While Zach doubts that murder was intended, he must accept the possibility, since Sean’s business partner has gone missing. Caer, a woman with an agency in Ireland, knows that Sean’s life is in danger, and she takes on the role of Sean’s nurse to stay close to him. Zach doesn’t trust her anymore than he trusts the third partner in the sailing and charter business, his wife, the cops, or the man in the moon.

But if Sean is to make another Christmas, especially after receiving a strange gift in the mail, he knows he has to find the truth behind the mist that comes in the night, and the strange whispers of ancient Ireland that tease him in the darkness.

No excerpt available at the time this review was written.

Connie’s Quick Quack Review of A Cedar Cove Christmas by Debbie Macomber
Contemporary Romance hardcover released by MIRA 1 Oct 08

We have an extra book in this series to enjoy for Christmas.

Mary Jo Wyse’s three brothers have finally decided to kidnap that the cad who got their sister pregnant and left her high and dry. They’re determined to force him make an “honest woman” of her.

Mary Jo decides to warn the cad before her brothers get to him because she doesn’t want to be forced into a marriage neither want. Of course, Mary Jo is stranded at Grace’s when there is no place for her to stay and then she goes into labor. Meanwhile, her brothers run around the Cedar Cove streets looking for her. Luckily for her there’s medical help at Grace’s – yummy Mack McAfee.

This is a quick enjoyable visit to the Cove and a reminder of the real Christmas story, with all the the similarities in the stories.

Grab a mug of hot chocolate and enjoy the visit and root for Mary Jo to end up happy, without the cad.

Grade: B-

Summary:

Mother-to-be Mary Jo Wyse arrives in Cedar Cove on Christmas Eve, searching for her baby’s father. David Rhodes had said he’d be in town. But he isn’t. Which leaves Mary Jo stranded, pregnant and alone. And there’s no room at the local inn….

So Grace Harding brings Mary Jo home to her nearby ranch. She and her husband, Cliff, have a houseful of guests, but they offer her a room over their stable (currently sheltering the animals – including a donkey and a camel – for Cedar Cove’s Nativity pageant!).

When Mary Jo goes into labor that night, a young man named Mack McAfee, a paramedic, comes to her rescue, just as her brothers – the three Wyse men – show up in town. The people of Cedar Cove join them in celebrating the birth of baby Noel. But no one has more to celebrate than Mack. Because this Christmas brings him faith, hope and love…

Read an excerpt scroll down.

Gwen’s review of The Hiding Place by Karen Harper
Contemporary romantic suspense released by Mira 1 Nov 08

I like Harper’s writing.  I do.  I just don’t like how she limits her story-telling.  This is an interesting story with some unique elements that I can just see happening in a “movie of the week” (and probably have).  It was good, but I wanted more.  Just FYI – the title doesn’t really make a lot of sense for the book.

I’ll just get right to the point.  My chief complaint with Harper’s writing is she stops at the bedroom door, so to speak.  She hints at intimate relations between her heroes and heroines, but we don’t get any details.  And me, mildly prurient child that I can be, I like the details.  For one, they’re HAWT and, for another, they tell me a lot about the relationship dynamics and help develop the characters.  That is, if the sex scenes are done well and aren’t just secks for the sake of secks.

As a result of no sensual details in this book, I feel the hero isn’t developed enough.  I didn’t know enough about his motivations and the way he thought.  I love his dog, though – and sometimes an animal in a story can be a distraction or seem to be just an unnecessary detail.

I feel the little girl (his niece, her ward) is alternately too old and too young for the purported age in the story.  So her element was a little confusing and, again, because we don’t spend any time in her head, we don’t really know much about her.

The suspense is nicely done, but the evil-doers are not developed enough.  I needed a little more time in their heads to understand if they were truly bad people or just doing the best they can.  When they meet their demise, I didn’t really care about it or whether they get their comeuppance.

So, while this story is a bit too tangled and involved to be wholly believable, it is still interesting enough to be a good read for someone who like to keep their reading “clean”.  Me?  Not so much – I don’t mind a bit of grit and spooge.  I had the same problem with Below the Surface, Harper’s other book I’ve read.

Grade: C+

Summary:

She awakened from a coma — and found herself trapped in a nightmare.

After spending nine months in a coma, Tara Kinsale awakes to devastating news.  Her best friend, Alexis, has been murdered, leaving Tara as guardian to her daughter, Claire.  And Tara’s husband has divorced her for another woman.

Forced to start over, Tara focuses on reopening her P.I. firm and caring for Claire.  But soon her world is shattered again when Nick MacMahon, Claire’s uncle, returns from military service in Afghanistan to take guardianship of his niece.  The bad dream turns unbearable when Tara learns that something precious was taken from her while she was in a coma.

Working with Nick, a man haunted by his own past, Tara begins to investigate the missing months of her life.  Together they will find that secrets don’t stay buried forever… even when they are kept in the darkest of hiding places.

No excerpt available at the time the review was written – will update if one becomes available.

Connie’s Quick Quack Review of 8 Sandpiper Way (Cedar Cove, Book 8 ) by Debbie Macomber
Contemporary Romance released by MIRA 1 Sep 08

Everyone will want to join on this trip to Cedar Cove. Debbie Macomber has a great way of creating a feeling where the reader gets a chance to catch up with old friends and meet some new ones.
The minister’s wife thinks he is having an affair and he is reluctant to tell her where he is. So the suspicions grow and then he has some stolen jewelry in his pocket that he can’t explain.

Olivia has her surgery for cancer and the sheriff is trying to patch things up with Faith now that his daughter has regained her emotional footing. Megan also finds out that she is pregnant again. When Megan goes to the doctor she meets a woman she decides would be just right for her father but unfortunately it is Faith with her twice broken heart.

No one will want to miss dropping by Cedar Cove again, so sit back and enjoy the book. I know I stayed up late reading.

Grade: B+

Dear Reader,

I have something to confide in you. I think my husband, Dave, might be having an affair. I found an earring in his pocket, and it’s not mine. I’m also worried because some jewelry was recently stolen from an old woman—and Dave used to visit her a lot.

You see, he’s a pastor. And a good man. I can’t believe he’s guilty of anything, but why won’t he tell me where he’s been when he comes home so late?

Reader, I’d love to hear what you think. I also want to tell you what’s going on with your other friends in Cedar Cove. Like Sheriff Troy Davis, to mention one. His long-ago love, Faith Beckwith, just moved here!

So come on in and join me for a cup of tea.

Emily Flemming

Read an excerpt here.

Connie’s Quick Quack review of The Healer by Sharon Sala
Contemporary paranormal romantic suspense released by Mira 1 Apr 08

Jonah Gray Wolf appeared out of nowhere and has a connection to animals no one can explain and he is also a healer. This gift puts him and anyone he cares about in great danger because a man he once helped will do anything to get him in his power.

Jonah helps Luce by healing her dog and finds a kindred soul. Since winter is coming Jonah decides to go to ground in this little town where he thinks he will be safe for a little while but there is always someone hunting him for the reward on his head.

When Jonah’s gift draws attention to him he knows it is only a matter of time but this time instead of running he is making a stand for himself and Luce.

This was a quick read but good after you get into it. Sharon Sala is usually a good read.

Grade: B-

Summary:

It is a gift that may cost him everything

All his life, Jonah Gray Wolf has had an uncanny connection to animals and the power to heal the sick and wounded. Driven from the only home he’s ever known by those who wish to harness his gift for profit, he becomes a drifter, working in out-of-the-way towns, never staying long. It’s a lonely life, but Jonah knows he’s still being hunted-he can’t afford to get close to anyone who might learn his secret.

In West Virginia he finds Luce, a tough but beautiful loner who knows all about keeping people at a distance-a kindred soul with whom he might dare to make a life. But the hunters have caught Jonah’s scent again. Danger is coming to their mountain refuge-a confrontation that will be decided only by a force of nature.

Read an excerpt.

Wendy the Super Librarian‘s review of Sleep Softly by Gwen Hunter
Romantic suspense released by Mira 01 February 2008

When my older sister was pregnant with my nephew she went through a phase where she couldn’t read about “anything bad happening to children.” This coming from a woman who used to read early Stephen King horror novels in my parents’ basement, in the middle of the night. Even factoring in her pregnancy hormones, I suspect this is what will keep a lot of readers away from Gwen Hunter’s latest, despite the fact that it’s not a terribly gory read. Sometimes the mere suggestion and an active imagination are too much to overcome.

Ashlee Davenport Chadwick is a single mom of a college age daughter, and a forensic nurse. She has just come off of a grueling shift at the hospital and wants nothing more than to fall into bed. However, her dogs have other ideas. They want to play catch with a ratty children’s sneaker they dug up somewhere. When Ashlee gets a better a look at the shoe she realizes that there is still a toe inside.

Ashlee follows procedure, preserves evidence, even finding the body and calls the police. Showing up with the local cops is the FBI, including Jim Ramsey who she is kind of dating. Someone is kidnapping young girls, and burying their bodies in old cemeteries. The girl Ashlee found was buried in an old plot on her family’s farm. It’s the sort of site that local history buffs would know about, but a dead girl on Chadwick land immediately places suspicion on Ashlee’s large, Southern family.

Sleep Softly is the kind of book that gets better as you go along. It starts out a little shaky because the author writes it in a manner that made me think I was already supposed to know these characters. After some digging, I discovered that Ashlee has been featured in the author’s Dr. Rhea Lynch series. It also took some time to keep the characters straight. Ashlee’s family tree is a sequoia, and like most good southern families there’s umpteen cousins to go around.

The suspense thread is pretty good here, although it does take some time to develop. The author spends the early chapters detailing the finding of the body, and then Ashlee’s involvement with the FBI investigation. This aspect took some suspension of disbelief on my part, because even though Ashlee is a forensic nurse, the dead body on her property means the Chadwick family is suspect.

The romance is fairly light, and doesn’t really come into play until the second half. Jim and Ashlee have a history, and I thought her reticence in taking their relationship to the next level was believable. Besides an age difference (she’s older), Ashlee learned some terrible secrets after her husband died of a heart attack. That betrayal still badly stings, and she’s not quite ready to thrust her trusting heart into another man’s hands.

Once I got past the early set-up chapters, I started to get a better handle on the characters and the suspense thread started to cook. I thought the ending was particularly well done, and while the kidnapping and murder of several young girls isn’t uplifting material, the author keeps the pages relatively gore-free. Fans on Hunters’ other books will surely be interested in this one, and even with my quibbles, I’m interested in reading some more of her work.

Grade: B-

Summary:
He’s searching for his perfect daughter … with each little girl he takes.

Four little girls—each blond, each on the verge of adolescence—stolen from their families.

Their bodies discovered months later in shallow graves, surrounded by trinkets they never owned, clutching a scrap of paper bearing a cryptic verse.

As a forensic nurse in rural South Carolina, Ashlee Chadwick Davenport acts as both caregiver and cop, gathering evidence from anyone who arrives in the local E.R. as the result of a crime. It’s a tough job, both physically and emotionally draining, but deeply satisfying.

Then a child’s red shoe is discovered on Davenport property. The evidence leads Ashlee to the body of a missing girl and her work suddenly invades every aspect of her life. As an expert and a witness, she must call upon all her resources. And when the killer’s eye turns to her, she becomes intimately involved with a crime that tests her mind and her spirit … and the price of failure will be another child’s life.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

Gwen’s review of Below the Surface by Karen Harper
Contemporary romantic suspense released by Mira 1 Feb 08

This romantic suspense book appears to be either loved or hated by readers. I didn’t like it. Read on to find out what underwhelmed me.

The book centers around two sisters (twins) who own a dive/salvage shop. The crux of the story is how little one twin knows about the other, and her path to discovery. Along the way she begins to repair her relationship with an older sister, finds the love of her life, and discovers a lot about herself. All of this is interesting, even if some of it left me going, “Huh?”

What I didn’t like about this book:

• The physical relationship between the hero and heroine never progresses beyond a few chaste kisses and a grope here and there. I like to read how the protagonists interact physically because, hello, it’s HOT, and also because if it’s written well it gives me a window into the characters’ minds you just don’t get from “stopping at the bedroom door.”
• The emotional relationship between the hero and heroine certainly develops, but the romance is definitely in the backseat to the suspense elements in the book. I want some of both when I read romantic suspense. The h/h never even go on a date in the book.
• There was too much rather dull technical details about diving and the surrounding community. Perhaps some of the book’s “real estate” used up on the technical bits could have been spent on the romance?
• I didn’t believe in the heroine’s response to her older sister’s bad behavior. I wanted to slap the stupid wench (both of them) and didn’t understand why the heroine didn’t stand up for herself more. I also thought the older sister needed to be committed to a psychiatric facility for a while and the fact that she wasn’t bothered me.
• I got tired of the heroine’s TSTL moments. Several times I wanted to throw the book at the wall when she did something completely boneheaded – like diving the day she got out of the hospital from exposure. Not smart decisions on the author’s part – why couldn’t other characters have discovered the strobe light and anchor?
• The plot was unnecessarily convoluted and some of the plot points were crazy easy to figure out long before the characters were allowed to discover them.

So, the upshot is this wasn’t a horrible book, but there was just too much that irritated me or bored me. But, I’m sure there are people out there who loved it. I just can’t recommend it.

Grade: D+

Summary:

She surfaced from the depths of the sea… and was terrifyingly, inexplicably alone. Briana Devon knows her twin sister would never deliberately leave her—but when she emerges from underwater, Daria and their boat have vanished. Fighting rough waves and a fast-approaching storm, Bree doesn’t have time to question: if she wants to survive, she has to swim.

Exhausted and terrified, Bree barely makes it to a tiny barrier island, where Cole De Roca, who has also taken shelter, revives her. Bound to Cole by the harrowing experience, she turns to him as she struggles to understand what happened to her sister. What was her twin, whom she thought she knew so well, hiding? What really transpired that terrible afternoon? And what secrets lie dormant…below the surface?

Read an excerpt (scroll down).

Connie’s review of Dark Matter by Cameron Cruise (no author site avbl)
Romantic suspense released by Mira 1 Jul 08

One by one the Indigo children are disappearing and turning up dead. Seven and his partner Erica are to work with the FBI to try to stop a set of psychic twins before they can kill more. Seven must now work with a psychic from another case and her daughter Stella who is picking up her own “ghost.”

FBI Agent Carin Barnes is pushed to solve this case and hope to help her autistic brother in his silent world. Carin has already risked her career to help him and is not about to stop now but one of the evil twins has already been trying to meld their minds together to create greater power and finally reach the goal their father has pushed them toward since his wife died.

Unfortunately Gia’s daughter is coming into her own as a psychic and has picked up a ghost boy who later turns out not to be dead but he sticks with her and she is trying to help him since he will not leave her alone. Stella wanted to be normal but coming from a family of strong psychics means this is not an option.

I bought the first in this series and did not finish it. I found both books to be a little weird and they did not move well enough to keep my interest. This book seemed to pick up about half way through but I found the whole concept rather weird. I am not in line for the next book of the series. I feel this author has put out much better other books…

I bought the first of this series new and never did finish it. This book seemed to really drag until about half way through and then seemed to pick up but I do not think psychics are that nutty.

Grade:D-

There are those among us whose mental capacity is so evolved that they are able to tap into abilities that are beyond this world. Often diagnosed as autistic, these medical marvels have led quiet lives, ignored by science.

Until now.

One by one, these special “Indigo children” are disappearing and turning up dead. Now a boy handcuffed in a basement awaits his turn while two predators fulfill a mission for a madman.

Caring for her own autistic brother, FBI agent Carin Barnes is driven to find the missing boy and hunt down his abductors—psychic twins Adam and Evie. At the command of their father, the pair are collecting children for torturous experiments he believes will lead to the evolution of the human race.

But in order to succeed, they need one powerful element…something that Carin and her brother possess…matter that elevates some minds to the highest levels of intelligence—and drags others to the deepest pits of hell.

Read an excerpt.

LauraD’s review of Sister’s Choice by Emilie Richards
Women’s Fiction released by Mira 1 Jul 08

Emilie Richards is a prolific author of what is frequently referred to as “women’s fiction”. Along with others such as Maeve Binchy and Anne Rivers Siddons, she writes novels that usually revolve around a family drama of some kind, and frequently are centered around a very strong sense of location. In this case, the Shenandoah Valley – Sister’s Choice is actually book 6 in Ms. Richards’ Shenandoah Album series. I was testing it as a standalone, as I’d never read Ms. Richards before.

Jamie Dunkirk is the younger of two sisters, and the single mother of two young children. She’s also almost completed her architecture studies. Sister Kendra Taylor is the more responsible, married but unable to have children. She still carries some resentment for having to help raise Jamie, and for Jamie’s lost years of addiction. Kendra and her husband Isaac have a cabin in Virginia, and it’s during a weekend together at the cabin that Jamie offers to be a surrogate parent for Kendra and Isaac.

Kendra agrees almost immediately, and soon Jamie is carrying her sister’s child. She’s also overseeing the building of a large home on Kendra’s property, raising her two kids, dating the contractor, getting sick and not telling anyone, and becoming fast friends with the contractor’s grandmother Grace.

I’ve got to admit, I spent most of the book wanting to slap Kendra.* She simply never let Jamie forget that Jamie had been a screw-up at one time, never stopped trying to be Jamie’s mother. I have a big problem with holier-than-thou types, and Kendra wears a homemade halo. Jamie is quite self confident for someone who is choosing to gestate and give birth as a form of penance. Despite her past drug problem, she’s the mom who cooks healthy meals for the kids while letting them play outside and get dirty. At one point she gives Kendra a reality check on parenting that made me want to send the book to my S-I-L. (And I don’t even have kids.)

There is a lot going on in “Sister’s Choice” besides the surrogacy. Jamie also has a romance, but that’s probably the least interesting relationship in the book. We get a trip back in time with Grace, learning about her marriage. Of course, there is also the parent/child relationship between Jamie and her girls. There is a lot in “Sister’s Choice”, maybe a little bit too much. For me, I think less might have been more.

Emilie Richards was at one time, or perhaps still is, a family counselor. The multitude of issues and family dynamics within “Sister’s Choice” are certainly meaty enough for several counselors to set up practice in the fictional town Ms. Richards’ characters live in. The ending isn’t a total HEA, so be forewarned. After all, this isn’t a romance.

If you are a fan of women’s fiction set in the south, you’ll probably grade it higher me.

*Kendra has her own book in the Shenandoah Album series, “Lover’s Knot”. Just FYI.

Grade: C

With nine years and a turbulent childhood between them, Kendra and Jamie have never been storybook sisters. After a long estrangement, they’ve finally begun to heal their hurts and forge a new bond.

Now Jamie is offering a gift Kendra has long since given up hoping for, the fondest wish of her heart—a baby. Already raising two young girls on her own, Jamie wants to become a gestational surrogate for Kendra and her husband, Isaac, giving birth to a child the husband and wife have created together. Despite some lingering misgivings about her once-wayward younger sister’s commitment, Kendra agrees, and soon Jamie is pregnant.

In addition to this amazing gift of life, Jamie has designed a new house for Kendra and Isaac and is overseeing its construction on Isaac’s ancestral property along the Shenandoah River, with the help of Cash Rosslyn, one of the most attractive men Jamie has known. By giving her sister both a home and a family, Jamie hopes to prove to Kendra that she deserves absolution for her past mistakes. But when a medical crisis threatens her health and her promising new relationship with Cash, Jamie learns that the most difficult choice in her life is yet to come—and its cost may be beyond calculation.

Connie’s review of The Night Cafe by Taylor Smith
Thriller released from MIRA 1 Jun 08

Gun for hire Hannah Nicks agrees to take a job for her sister’s longtime friend. All Hannah needs to do is deliver a painting to a gun runner in Puerto Vallerta. This simple, well paying job goes bad when Hannah reaches the gun runners estate and finds everyone dead. Hannah hides the painting and returns to her home only to find her sister’s friend has been murdered.

Hannah finds the gun runner is alive and will go to great lengths to find his picture. Hannah is trying to figure out why he paid so much for a painting that is so unappealing, why everyone is dying and why everyone she knows is in danger from this man.

Hannah’s neighbors are a gay couple with an adopted special needs child. The guys are likeable and you don’t want to see them hurt because they are friends with Hannah.

Will Teagarden does much to explain Hannah’s problem and is an appealing characer with great charm. I like happy endings and this was mostly happy. One character was a loss and I would have enjoyed seeing him again. Over all interesting story from a new to me author I will read again.

Grade: B-

Blurb:

Hired by her sister’s friend, a gallery owner, Hannah sets out to transport a minor artist’s painting to its buyer in Puerto Vallarta. But when Hannah arrives at the delivery point, she finds the tail end of a massacre and is nearly killed herself. She hides the painting, fearing it is not a meal ticket but a death warrant, and flees back to the States.

But it only gets worse for her in L.A. The gallery owner has been killed, and Hannah is named as the murder suspect. In order to prove her innocence, she must hunt down the person who framed her…and uncover the secret of a deadly work of art.

Read an excerpt.

This just in…

I received Diane Chamberlain’s newsletter yesterday and the cover of her new book caught my eye. The very brief paragraph that described the storyline of Before the Storm caught my attention.

~ Just that brief description had me thinking this is probably going to be a five-or-so-hankie read. Check out an excerpt here to see what you think.

~ A little more incentive for you: “Chamberlain lays out her latest piece of romantic suspense in a shattered chronology that’s as graceful as it is perfectly paced. . . . her engrossing prose leads the way to redemption.”
—Publishers Weekly

~ Before the Storm was released June 1 by Mira. See the trailer here.

Consider yourself flashed.

Connie’s review of The Angel by Carla Neggers
Romantic Suspense released by Mira Books (Hardcover edition) 29 Apr 08

While in Ireland, searching for a mythic stone angel, Keira becomes trapped in a ruin. Keira’s uncle is a Boston homicide detective and is worried, so he asks Simon Cahill, who does search and rescue work, to find her. Since he’s recently been working on the take down of a major criminal network, Simon figures now would be a good time to get away for a while, and agrees to help.

Keira’s mother is a religious fanatic living in the middle of nowhere. Her daughter barely knows her, and is unaware that one of her childhood friends was murdered. Keira is an illustrator and folklorist so the stone angel idea inspires her to hunt for it while in Ireland.

Violence follows Keira and Simon to Boston and they realize evil can come in many forms.

There are quite a few characters in this story, mostly family and friends that aren’t drawn well and the reader barely gets to know. Having enjoyed Carla Neggers’ books in the past, I found myself disappointed in The Angel. I found the pace of the story slow, and when it finally does begin to pick up steam, the reader is very near the end of the story.

Grade: D

     Blurb:

     Her passion for myth and magic leads a woman into the heart of a murderous evil

     On a remote stretch of the rugged coast of Ireland, folklorist and illustrator Keira Sullivan pursues the mysterious Irish legend of an ancient Celtic stone angel. As she searches an isolated ruin, she’s certain she’s discovered the mythic angel, but before she can examine her find, she senses a malevolent presence…Is someone in there with her? Then the ruin collapses, trapping her.

     Keira’s uncle, a Boston homicide detective, enlists the help of Simon Cahill to find his missing niece. Simon, an expert with Fast Rescue, a rapid response search-and-rescue organization, is trying to keep a low profile after secretly assisting the take-down of a major criminal network, but he rushes to Ireland, pulling Keira out of the rubble just as she’s about to free herself.

     Simon isn’t interested in myths or magic, nor is he surprised when Keira can’t find a trace of her stone angel. He doesn’t believe it exists. But the gruesome evidence of a startling act of violence convinces him that whatever she found in the ruin, the danger she faces is real.

     When the violence follows them to Boston [and escalates], Simon and Keira realize that the long-forgotten story that has captivated her has also aroused a killer…a calculating predator who will certainly kill again.

     Read an excerpt.

This just in…

Debbie Macomber and her publisher, MIRA, are announcing the Make Your Wish Come True Contest, inspired by Debbie’s new book, Twenty Wishes (Book 4 in her Blossom Street series), which will be released 29 Apr 08.

• Debbie and MIRA invite readers to enter a special contest to make their most-desired wish come true.
• Like Debbie’s characters in Twenty Wishes, simply writing down your wishes can change your life and make it better. Just tell Debbie, in 50 words or less, about the wish you would like to come true.
• They will then choose one lucky winner to receive a $10,000 cash award to help make that one, most-hoped-for dream happen in their life.
• Read all about it here!

Consider yourself flashed.

Connie’s review of Trapped by Chris Jordan
Suspense Thriller from MIRA 1 Nov 07

Jane Hartley’s 16 year old daughter fought and beat leukemia when she was a young child. And since she beat it, Kelly has been fighting her mother’s desire for her to ‘take it easy’. This all comes about in the first chapter as Jane is ‘tsk, tsk’ing a young, tattooed woman, who is too stupid to have on a helmet, while holding onto her boyfriend (with one hand!) as he recklessly drives his motorcycle on the freeway.

Of course, she is shocked to see the young woman is her daughter. Suddenly, everything Jane thought she knew about Kelly disappears faster than you can say ‘Myspace.’ Sadly their mother/daughter relationship isn’t the only thing that is missing – so is Kelly. And the police seem to think she has ran off with motorcycle driving bad boy (boyfriend?) Jane knew nothing about. [Ed. note: she is still only 16! I don't understand why that wouldn't be an issue!]

So she does the only thing she can think of doing and hires a former F.B.I. agent to help locate Kelly. And things go from bad to worse – not only did her 16 year old daughter have a boyfriend she knew nothing about, she met him online and Seth is no boy but an adult.

They are finally lead to Florida but really on their own because they keep hitting walls and no one seems to be able or want to help them. Even though Kelly is something of a brat you want her to be okay. She is a childhood survivor of leukemia, Jane’s been thru the pain once before, and there is no fear worse for any woman then losing her child.

I read this book with my breath held hoping everything would be fine. Yes this is MIRA and is published from Harlequin but make no mistake – THIS IS NOT A ROMANCE.  Honestly, that was disappointing because all the pieces were in place and it could have tied up very nicely on the romance side of things without taking away from the suspense plot, but, the author (a man) didn’t go that way.

The characters are really enjoyable – one of my favorites would be “Fish” – but it does drag in places. And gets to be too detailed and boring in spots. Over all not a bad story, but if the ending had tied the characters together, I would have ended up much happier as is I was left with a very confused feeling at the end of the book.

Grade: C -

Read an excerpt.

“Mom, I need your help. Please call—” That’s it. The call cuts off in midsentence. No static. Nothing.

Just an overwhelming silence.

Long Island single mom Jane Hartley is frantic when her sixteen-year-old daughter, Kelly, a survivor of childhood leukemia, disappears from her bedroom one night. To Jane’s frustration, the police believe that Kelly ran off willingly with her boyfriend, Seth. Unaware that her daughter even had a boyfriend, Jane soon discovers that Seth is no boy. He is an adult—a man who, after meeting Kelly on the Internet, took the teenager on one thrill-seeking ride after another. From motorcycles to skydiving, Jane’s little girl has been hiding some dangerous secrets.

Like mother, like daughter.

Adamant that Kelly is not a runaway but, rather, is being held against her will, Jane hires ex-FBI agent Randall Shane to follow the trail of her missing child. But every step brings them closer to a cold-blooded predator lurking in the shadows… coiled around Jane’s shameful secret…waiting to strike.

Read an excerpt.

Alicia’s review of Guarded Heart (Masters at Arms) by Jennifer Blake
Historical romance released 1 Feb 08 by Mira

I read this book for a few reasons. First, I read Clay a couple of years ago and loved it. I wanted to read the rest of the Louisiana Gentleman series but it never happened for one reason or another. Bad TBR management for the most part. So, when I saw an ARC was available from her I had to check it out.

It sounded good. A woman learning from a sword master. Very cool. And a historical set in New Orleans. I couldn’t wait. Then it came in the mail from Sybil and I started reading it.

[Ed.: Author has a site with nothing on it but a couple of links so-so book videos.  Bad author!  No bonbons for you!]

I couldn’t understand half of the dialogue. I enjoy historicals and usually have no trouble at all reading books imitating Medieval or Regency English. But here there was a lot of innuendo, poetic phrasing, and French, too. It was plainly intelligent authorship, from the parts I could follow. There were just too many parts I couldn’t follow.

There was also a lot of “info dumping.” I love the setting and can see that Blake does, too, but I would have preferred little references that I could look up on Wikipedia later. Instead there were descriptions and explanations of non-relevant subjects in the middle of the story. I just wanted to get on with it.  After about fourteen chapters I had gotten the style down and it was a lot easier to read. I still had to skim a lot of extra verbiage but I was into the story, so that helped.

The characters are good. The heroine, Ariadne, is torn. She lost her brother when he moved away. Then she lost him, forever, to death. She has no other family left and has sworn to avenge his blood, herself.  Gavin is a great hero. I love his smooth handling of Ariadne and her shocking demands. He understands her at every turn and is there for her, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense that he would be.

One other problem I had was a credibility issue. She just hadn’t been having lessons enough to have the second-nature responses she is given toward the end of the book. She also could never have been able to hold off a man with the brute strength of her attacker for as long as she did, especially with a heavy weapon. But this was a small part of the book.

Mostly, this was a beautiful book. The way the tension built between Ariadne and Gavin was exquisite. The dialogue was intelligent and artful. I was reminded of reading Shakespeare. Wonderful, but just so bloomin’ much work!

So, I recommend this book but make sure you are the right audience for it. This one is for those who enjoy deeper historicals and aren’t afraid of some hard words.

Grade: C+

     The New Year begins with a lady’s intriguing proposition for Gavin Blackford-though not the sort he’s accustomed to. Alluring widow Ariadne Faucher requests private lessons from the rakish sword master in order to challenge her sworn enemy to a duel.

     Though disinclined at first to teach a woman, Gavin is fascinated by this statuesque beauty, cloaked as she is in grief and mystery. Ariadne proves a quick study with a blade, her resolve fueled by a vendetta that is all she has left in the world. Their lessons crackle with undeniable electricity but the secret of her all-consuming vengeance may have rendered her heart impervious even to such a virtuoso as Gavin.

     Read an excerpt.

Connie’s quickie review of Victim by Gayle Wilson
Romantic suspense released 1 Feb 08 by MIRA

After Sarah Peterson’s son is murdered and justice fails her she decides the only choice left to her is to kill the murderer. Detective Mac Donovan manages to stop her, only to leave the killer with the idea Sarah is a worthy prize. The only thing left up to Mac is to protect her and he is determined to see her safe.

Victim is a sad story, as any novel is when it involves murdering children. Justice does finally win the day but it is a great ride to get there. I loved Sarah’s character. The strength she finds in herself after such a horrible event and her determination to see her child avenged was something I could relate to and I think many a mother will see themselves in Sarah.

Grade: B

Summary:

     She has nothing left to lose…

     Like all clichés, this one is true at its core. Racked with grief over her son Danny’s brutal death, Sarah Patterson steels herself to take revenge on his murderer. When detective Mac Donovan stops her from shooting Samuel Tate on the courthouse steps, he risks his career-and the case against Tate-to protect her.

     With a serial child-killer now walking free, New Orleans is taut with anticipation of his next savage crime, and the police and FBI are helpless. But Tate has developed a sick fascination with Sarah Patterson-and he’ll kill to keep her attention. With Mac’s help, Sarah positions herself at the center of a dangerous operation designed to stop Tate for good.

     Nothing can bring Danny back…but Sarah is hell-bent on ensuring that no other mother will suffer as she has at the hands of his murderer.

     Read an excerpt.