Tag Archives: August 2012

TBR Challenge Read: Savin’ Me by Alannah Lynne

Savin’ Me by Alannah Lynne
Contemporary Romance released by Alannah Lynne on August 6, 2012

Lies. Deceit. Backstabbing friends… Welcome to the jungle known as advertising…

Kat Owens can tell you all about the snake-infested world of big-time advertising. Thanks to an ex-best friend co-worker and a gone-wrong love affair with a client, she’s forced to leave her large Charlotte agency for a small-town coastal one. It’s do-or-die time to prove she can be a success to the aging grandfather she adores. Which means she can’t afford to be distracted by a client who’s a walking, talking definition of sex… Even if he is the man who stole her heart thirteen months before in a one-night stand she can’t forget.

Erik Monteague is a handsome, charismatic, highly respected businessman who has it all. Or so it seems. Only his closest friends know the truth about the guilt and emotional scars he carries, or why, following his fiancée’s death, he invoked the twenty-four/two rule. He never spends more than twenty-four hours with a woman, he rarely dates them twice, and he never thinks about them afterward.

But Kat Owens is different. She cheated him out of twelve hours, and now he can’t forget her. At least that’s what he tells himself, because admitting the truth is too dangerous. When she suddenly appears in his hometown, he sets out to finish what they started thirteen months earlier. But while his perfectly executed seduction gets Kat back in his bed, the emotional fallout is more than he counted on. Will he face his tragic past once and for all… or spend the rest of his life running?

This isn’t going to be a formal review because I’m bad … but I did want to make note of the book I read for the March challenge of A “New to Me Author” – and there are a lot to pick from. I think I saw Savin’ Me recommended as a kindle freebie, so I went for it.

I really like the romances where the hero falls first and falls fast. It might have something to do with reading all those earlier romances where the heroine just is in love with the hero “ever since she was a little girl” and just pines and pines for him for over a decade and he’s a total asshat and she’s a doormat – and you know those books. That is not the case here.

I think Ms. Lynne wrote wonderfully developed characters. Kat has a lot of depth, and is focused on her career, but she’s also willing to see reason. Even more than that, however, she’s not willing to take, or put up with Erik’s bullshit. I liked that she lived her life, and tried to do it without having to see or interact with Erik. Erik is sneaky though, and that’s the romance in the book. We all know they’re going to get together, but the journey was quite enjoyable. I found the story reasonable and realistic.

Obviously a lot of fun, and with lots of sex and chemistry between Kat and Erik too. There were some emotional moments, and I liked the focus on introspection from both Kat and Erik.

I liked this book – it was an enjoyable read and I can see myself looking for the rest in the series. If you’re looking for a solid contemporary romance, I suggest Savin’ Me. And you know what? It’s free for kindle right now.

Grade: C+

You can read an excerpt here, or buy a copy here.

Review: Wake by Amanda Hocking

CJ’s Review

Wake by Amanda Hocking
Young adult fiction released by St. Martin’s Griffin on August 7, 2012

Gorgeous. Fearless. Dangerous. They’re the kind of girls you envy; the kind of girls you want to hate. Strangers in town for the summer, Penn, Lexi and Thea have caught everyone’s attention—but it’s Gemma who’s attracted theirs. She’s the one they’ve chosen to be part of their group.

Gemma seems to have it all—she’s carefree, pretty, and falling in love with Alex, the boy next door. He’s always been just a friend, but this summer they’ve taken their relationship to the next level, and now there’s no going back. Then one night, Gemma’s ordinary life changes forever. She’s taking a late night swim under the stars when she finds Penn, Lexi and Thea partying on the cove. They invite her to join them, and the next morning she wakes up on the beach feeling groggy and sick, knowing something is different.

Suddenly Gemma is stronger, faster, and more beautiful than ever. But her new powers come with a terrifying price. And as she uncovers the truth, she’s is forced to choose between staying with those she loves—or entering a new world brimming with dark hungers and unimaginable secrets.

I guess what initially attracted me to this book was the story behind it. You know–the one about self-publishing’s darling and the huge commercial deal. I wanted to know whether Hocking had written something genuinely worth publishing, or if St. Martin’s Press had simply seen a sure profit in her previous success. I wasn’t overly excited to read Wake. It had an interesting premise and I tried to approach it with an open mind but I just couldn’t stave off the sense of trepidation as I started reading.

Gemma, like every other person in this book, is a cookie-cutter-character. She’s a Mary-Sue to the nth degree—beautiful, athletic, and perfect. Oh, sure, she’s got a rebellious streak—she enjoys going swimming at night—but there is no depth to her character and I couldn’t make myself like her.

Harper, Gemma’s older sister and the other main character, doesn’t even warrant a mention in the blurb. She’s a walking cliché—the over-protective older sister trying to take the place of an absent mother—not to mention a complete and utter pain in the arse. Harper actually made me care about her, but in a ‘what the hell are you doing?!’ sort of way. From the moment I met her, I detested her desire to control Gemma’s life and her attitude towards Daniel. She could have such a bright future. The scholarship she worked so hard for guaranteed her a place at any college she wanted, but she chose a local school just because she doesn’t trust that Gemma and their father can look after themselves. When executed properly this trope makes the character in question appear multi-faceted but Harper just seemed controlling.

The romance in this book was almost depressing. Alex, the boy next door, is sweet and nice, but his initial description painted him in such a way that he was so far out of the realm of love interest he could have been Gemma’s brother. Daniel, on the other hand, was obviously a romantic interest even though Harper was so intent on being rude and haughty when he was around. It made me question what he saw in her and made me feel sorry for him.

It’s hard to believe just how much this book dragged on. Wake is marketed as a tale of sirens and fantasy but, for the most part, it’s simply about family relationships, which isn’t what I signed up for. The catalyst for the events in the cover copy doesn’t even occur until the book is half-finished leaving the first fifty percent a hard slog to get through. If I didn’t have a thing about finishing what I start, I would have given up a quarter of the way in when I was still wondering when the real story would start.

My biggest gripe with Wake was the voice. I don’t read to be told a story, I read to escape. The best books drag you under the surface and wrap you in sensory details without actually shoving them down your throat. From the very beginning I choked on the back-story flooding the prose and, if that wasn’t doing the trick, the unbelievable dialogue kept me from enjoying the tale at all.

I feel like I’m grasping at straws to try and find something good to say about this book. I made it to the end, but it was a struggle. I couldn’t picture the world and none of the characters made a lasting impression on me other than dislike. In fact, the more I force myself to try to think of something good I find myself detesting it even more. The only thing that endeared this book to me was the fact the sirens weren’t that of the Disney variety.

I can’t bring myself to recommend it. It just annoyed me too much.

Grade: F

You can read an excerpt here or buy a copy here.

Review: Hearts of Darkness by Kira Brady

Liz’s Review

Hearts of Darkness by Kira Brady
Paranormal romance released by Kensington Publishing on August 7, 2012

In the first of a dazzling new romantic trilogy, one woman’s courageous search plunges her into a millennia-old supernatural war–and an irresistible passion. . .

Nurse Kayla Friday has dedicated her life to science and reason. But for her, Seattle is a place of eerie loss and fragmented, frightening memories. And now the only clue to her sister’s murder reveals a secret battle between two ancient mythologies. . .and puts Kayla in the sights of lethally-sexy werewolf mercenary Hart. He’ll do whatever it takes to obtain the key to the Gate of the Land of the Dead and free what’s left of his soul. But seducing the determined Kayla is putting them at the mercy of powerful desires neither can control. And as the clock ticks down to hellish catastrophe, the untested bond between Kayla and Hart may lead to the ultimate sacrifice.

As an avid sci-fi/paranormal fan, I knew when I began reading Hearts of Darkness that I was in for a wild ride.  Set in present-day Seattle, the story opens from first hero Hart’s POV and then heroine Kayla’s POV.  Werewolf Hart has only one thing on his mind and that’s finding the key to the Gate so he can get out from under his blood-debt to his boss.  The only thing on Kayla’s mind?  Identifying her murdered sister’s body.

Kayla Friday is a unique character in a book filled with incredibly unique characters.  On the surface, she is simply a human woman filled with grief and determined to find out who killed her sister and why.  Underneath that, we find that she is a strong-willed, compassionate woman who trusts too easily.  When she is first given a glimpse into the supernatural world all around her, she is struck with disbelief.  She powers through that disbelief, knowing that the secret to her sister Desi’s demise came at the hands of someone in this newly revealed world that is invisible to humans.  Hart tells her to run as far and as fast as possible, but true to her character, Kayla stays, desperate to know what happened to her sister.  She’s attacked, drugged, taken against her will, and betrayed, but still she finds the strength to keep going.

Hart is a werewolf.  There are several groups of shifters, including the new-to-me Thunderbirds (think human-sized black birds).  An outcast, Hart has a chip on his shoulder the size of California and is only doing what he has to do to free his soul.  Blood-bound to Norgard, a dragon shifter and all-around bad-guy, Hart must complete tasks in order to free his soul and escape.  Complex on a hundred different levels, Hart is a mercenary that thought he needed no one but himself.  A classic look-out-for-number-one sort of man, he finds himself surprised at Kayla’s ability to trust in him and just how much he likes her faith.  Hart was a sexy, likeable, frustrating character.  At times I wanted to both hug him and strangle him.

At war in this world are the Kevarti and the Drekar.  The Drekar have vowed to help humanity, the Kevarti just want to rule the world.  Shifters abound, both in the furry and feathered form, and in the dragon form as well.  In the world that Kira created, the humans are unbelievably obtuse to everything supernatural that is happening around them, explaining away things they don’t understand.  I really, really enjoyed the world because she turned everyday things into supernatural occurrences.  The need for gaslights?  It’s because the aether (which is a supernatural thing) causes the lights to go out.  Cars won’t start?  Ghosts.  It was clever and added a touch of realism to a completely unrealistic world, which is just exactly what a paranormal book needs to be plausible.

I love mythology.  As a teen I devoured books about ancient Greece and the gods and goddesses.  Hearts of Darkness treads heavily in the world of ancient beings, and in some ways it bogged the book down for me.  So many names and histories and words that needed explanations.  It felt at times that I should be taking notes so I would remember the players’ names and connections.  Ancient history lessons abound as Kayla is let into the world by slow degrees, learning about curses, other realms, possessions, ghosts and what happened to her sister, Desi.  And in a world where even the good guys do bad things, it was hard to know just whose side who was on.

I’ll be blunt:   the book is complicated.  But it’s also wonderfully written, engaging, and sexy.  This isn’t a book you can flip through casually, because it’s enchanting and complex and worth every minute that you’ll spend devouring it.  As a lover of all things paranormal, I felt right at home in Seattle with Kayla and Hart as they tried to reconcile their growing attraction and face an uncertain future where life hangs in the balance.  I will definitely be picking up the next book in the series.

Grade:  A-

You can read an excerpt here or buy a copy here.