Shannon C.’s review of Jewels of the Nile, Vol. II by Samantha Kane, Anna J. Evans, Natasha Moore, Rebecca Airies, Maxie Cooper, and KyAnn Waters
Erotic romance anthology released by Ellora’s Cave 20 Jun 08

I own several of Ellora’s Cave’s multi-author anthologies. I tend to not read many anthologies, because they’re so easy to just put down again. But I did buy this one specifically for the Samantha Kane story, and I was pleased to find that I liked quite a few of the other offerings as well. Read on for my thoughts.

After Dark by KyAnn Waters
Contemporary paranormal

Well, I liked the idea of native American vampires, but Ms. Waters tried to do too much and didn’t succeed. The essential story, that of a woman who meets a vampire at a nightclub and the consequences of her one-night stand with him could have been much more compelling, except Ms. Waters tried to throw in extraneous paranormal world-building. I also felt that the conflict resolution was weak. I wasn’t convinced that heroine Kayla would have been happy being with hero Alandro for eternity, since there were too many other things in her life that she was concerned about leaving behind. This story tried to be a lot of things and never quite succeeded.

Grade: C-

Summary:

Kayla March has never reached orgasm…not even with a vibrator. However, she has the feeling that could all change when she meets Alandro Blackwood at the club After Dark.

Few vampires can breed. Alandro carries the unique recessive gene. His blood match, believed to have been killed by a vampire slayer, has been found. Unless her dormant vampire gene had already been awakened by a breeder, why would she go to After Dark, the feeding grounds? He’d soon find out.

Read an excerpt.

From the Sea by Maxie Cooper
Contemporary Paranormal Romance

Kelly discovers her soulmate, but can she conquer her fear of the sea to be with him?

This was much better. I felt that Kelly’s motivations were well-realized, and Sean was hot. Ms. Cooper managed to convince me of their romance in a relatively short space of time, even if the story did involve fated mates, a plot device I am generally tired of reading. I particularly liked that Ms. Cooper tied up Kelly’s loose ends, leaving her with no excuse not to go be with Sean, something I found lacking in the last offering. This is an author I’m definitely interested in seeing more of.

Grade: B

Summary:

Kelli Rhodes is vacationing at a beachside cottage when a mysterious man emerges from the sea, offering erotic pleasures beyond her wildest fantasies. For the first time in her life, Kelli feels a connection with someone — and his unbelievable story might explain the mystery behind Kelli’s birth.

There’s no denying the sexual chemistry between them. But to claim this man, Kelli must overcome her greatest fear…and take a leap into an even greater unknown.

No excerpt available.

Lady’s Choice by Rebecca Airies
Futuristic Erotic Romance

This one suffered from many of the flaws of the Waters story. Set on a space station that has recently lost power, our heroes and heroine are trapped together until they can be rescued and power restored. The men, who naturally come from the kind of alien culture that encourages two men to share one woman for reasons that are never explained, have a few ideas as to what they can do with their time. But after the rescue, can Kyna, the heroine, accept the love they offer?

Because of the limited word count, I didn’t really understand why the men wanted Kyna as much as they did. They tell her later that they’ve been watching her for a while, but I’m not sure I bought it. I also felt that certain aspects of the world were given much more detail than necessary (we learn an alien term of endearment) while others were pretty much glossed over (The guys have tattoos on their chests, but of what, I have no idea. Also, I really wanted someone to mention how sticky constant sex in the position they were using would be after several days, unless alien sperm is self-cleaning?) The result is a story that is all over the place, and my least favorite in the anthology.

Grade: C-

Summary:
Kyna has fought long and hard to establish herself as a dedicated, capable soldier in the Laurati army. Now she is determined to let nothing about her past tarnish her reputation as she works to advance among the Calazi militia. She’d wanted to impress her commanders, but not like this.

In the midst of a power outage on their base, Finn and Drace make their intentions toward Kyna crystal clear. Kyna is intrigued and aroused but wary of sleeping with a superior, let alone both of them. As the heat between them rises, however, she quickly realizes she needs to make a choice — and not between the two men.

Read an excerpt.

Sunrise by Natasha Moore
Contemporary Romance

Here’s another story I really liked. Caroline has been taking walks alone on the beach and meeting up with Alan for anonymous sex. Alan wants to take things to the next level and have something more permanent and less anonymous, but Caroline is afraid to.

This is such a great slice of life story. The characters have already met and are established as a couple, but their story is moving. Caroline’s first-person narrative brings a surprising immediacy to the story that made me identify with her, despite the craziness of the premise. I was rooting for her to accept what she was offered, and I was glad she did. I was left feeling satisfied with the direction of the romance, and I moved on to the next story with a smile on my face. This is hands down the best story in the anthology, and completely worth the price of admission alone.

Grade: B+

Summary:

Caroline has been meeting Alan at sunset for months. The hot sex they’ve been enjoying started out mindless and anonymous, just the way she wanted it. Little by little, they’ve gotten to know and care for each other. Caroline fears the changes in their relationship she can’t seem to prevent.

Alan wants Caroline in his life. He sets out to seduce her with his voice, his hands, his body. He’s no longer satisfied with sex in the shadows and wants more. Can he make Caroline feel the same?

Read an excerpt.

Surrender Dorothy by Anna J. Evans
Contemporary Paranormal Romance

This was a cute paranormal with an interesting setup. Stephen must convince Gelsey to become handfasted to him and perform a midsummer rite in order to save her from the dark magic that has always taunted her.

“Let’s have sex to save the world” stories are fun. And this is no exception. Ms. Evans ratchets the tension up expertly, and even though the outcome is pretty obvious (this being a romance anthology) I was still on the edge of my seat wondering if they would or wouldn’t. And there is a nice grovel scene near the end. This isn’t my favorite, but it is a fun story.

Grade: B

Summary:
Sexy men, magic, and mayhem…oh my!

Gelsey is grateful to land a gig as costume mistress for a theatre. She simply wants to hide from the dark forces that pursue her. She never plans on falling for the sexy, surly Tin Man, the character every Wizard of Oz fan knows has no heart.

Stephen has finally found the woman destined to be his. Now only one night of danger, a little sex magic and Gelsey’s stubborn refusal to admit she’s his stand in his way. But Stephen won’t give up. He’ll have Gelsey, giving her such pleasure she’ll have no choice but to surrender.

No excerpt available.

The Debutante by Samantha Kane
Historical Erotic Romance

OK, let’s be honest. This story was the entire reason I bought this anthology, because I am a slavering Samantha Kane fangirl. Seriously, I would read her grocery lists as long as there was hot sexoring going on between the bread and the eggs. So I knew I’d like this story, and I did. Viscount Lethbridge meets debutante Clarissa at a house party, and, after seeing her from afar, decides he wants her. Naturally, he has a BFF/partner in sexual escapades and he’s determined that the lovely Clari will want them both.

Unlike other of Ms. Kane’s stories, there’s no M/M involvement between the two partners, and I don’t entirely know that I bought their habit of sharing women as a result. I did like that by the end of the story I never felt that the third member of their triad was simply being cast aside. That said, I do prefer Ms. Kane’s longer works, and so I’m not especially convinced of the romantic connection between the three characters. But the sex was hot, and the characterization well-done as always, and Ms. Kane manages to write the sorts of rescue fantasy type stories that hit me especially right, so I’d still recommend the story.

Grade: B

Summary:
Dominic, Viscount Lethbridge, is struck by debutante Clarissa Welliston’s voluptuous form and arresting, unusual features. In spite of her innocence, he wants her. But first he needs to discover if she can embrace his sexual appetites.

Clarissa wants a man between her thighs, desperately. When Viscount Lethbridge pursues her, she finds the love and passion she’s longed for in the dark, seductive pleasures he desires.

Read an excerpt.

Overall, this wasn’t a bad anthology. None of the stories failed to work for me, though I had my favorites. The Moore and the Kane stuck out, though at least in the latter case this isn’t one of her best stories. I’d recommend buying the anthology for those two stories in particular, then reading the Cooper and Evans stories.

Final Grade: C+

Shannon C.‘s review of Fire Princes’ Bride by Rebecca Airies
Fantasy erotic romance released by Ellora’s Cave 25 Jun 08

Fire Princes’ Bride had a blurb that compelled me, and was a bit of an experiment on my part. It’s obviously part of a series, and I know that I need to get over my compulsive urge to read everything exactly in order, so I picked this book up hoping the conflict would be entertaining and hoping I could follow along without having read prior books. It turns out that I could, although ‘entertaining’ is not precisely the word I would use to describe this book.

The quick and dirty premise is as follows: Callan and Tyral (henceforth referred to as Callantyral for the purposes of this review) are fire elementals. They have many enemies, and they end up magically stranded on a random planet. Along comes Karissa, an ice elemental, who joins them. Lots of fun sexoring is had by all, only Callantyral fail to let her in on the fact that she is their bonded mate. She goes home, but must return to their side, because otherwise her very life is in danger. Not that it’s any safer when she joins her men, because a faction in their realm wants her dead as well.

There was a lot going on in this story, some of which seemed overly convoluted. I didn’t ever really understand what an Aliara was, or why men should bond with their mates when they get to a certain level of power. I don’t know if this was explained in previous volumes of the series, but this was one of those rare times when I really wanted someone to go, “As you know, Bob, when X occurs, that causes Y.” That being said, I was definitely curious about the different kinds of elementals and how they worked, much less what it would be like to have a spirit of your chosen element living inside you. I also never really got why the princes had fangs, which was a detail that kept popping up but didn’t really seem to need to be there.

As for the characters, I had trouble with them. For one thing, Callan and Tyral were pretty much indistinguishable, hence my jumbling them together as Callantyral. The author does this a lot herself, having the men react of one accord. This took away from the dynamics of the romance for me, because essentially I felt like Karissa was with the same guy, but in two bodies, for convenience. Therefore, I didn’t feel the chemistry, and this book failed the litmus test by which I judge such things, since I did at one point fall asleep while reading a sex scene. Not only that, but Callantyral were the worst sort of alphas. There was a lot of “Now, don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.” And whenever Karissa was angry with them, there was a lot of smiling indulgently and metaphorical patting her on the head and patronizing, “Awww, you’re so cute when you’re mad.” If anyone treated me the way those men treated Karissa, there’d be more than just an icy bath in the works for them. There would be two hot alpha men currently… well… not getting any. But that’s just me.

This book pretty much didn’t work for me. I suspect that readers who like M/F/M romances will find this appealing, but there’s no way I can wrap my head around making it plausible, particularly when the men are brothers. There’s enough here that could be interesting, but I can’t recommend a book where the heroes are two halves of the same uber-asshole jerk and the fantasy world-building is too complex for the story it tries to tell.

Grade: D

Summary:
One thing is universal in all the Elemental Realms — women are told when to seek a mate. Because of the power she holds, Karissa knows she will have to embark on that journey far earlier than most women in the Ice Court. But she does not expect to find her betrothed — especially not before her search has even begun. And she certainly does not expect to have two mates — let alone for those mates to be the Princes of the Fire Court.

Twin brothers Tyral and Callan know Karissa is their mate as soon as they see her. They greet her with a carefree playfulness, wanting to give her time, but things quickly heat up between them. The Princes’ biggest challenge, however, proves not to be their opposing Elemental Spirits, but convincing Karissa to submit to their rules.

As Fire and Ice clash in the bedroom, an enemy moves in, plotting to destroy the Fire Princes’ future with their new bride.

Read an excerpt here.