So I want to make a complaint on this book. The guy on the cover is not what Ice looks like. He is supposed to have ice blonde hair. I am sad that the cover doesn't show that.
Okay, so this is the third book in the Torpedo Ink series. I skipped book 2 because I didn't like the premise of the story. I just don't really like books in which the main characters have a past romantically. Makes for some annoying reason on why they aren't together and then they can somehow work past it this time and...yeah, I just don't care for it. This book is just as rauncy and smutty as the first book BUT I was rolling laughing for half of it. Now, I do kind of skim the sex scenes because....welll they are long and I'm not there to read about sex all the time. BUT the beginning of this book was freaking HILARIOUS to me. Also, totally unrealistic and totally wouldn't happen this way in real life BUT its a raunchy romance novel so it works. The story starts with Soliel, a rich girl who has never belonged anywhere and has never had anyone that really cared about her. She drifts along with everyone else so she isn't rejected but that has landed her in a spot that she doesn't want to be in. Specifically, engaged to a man she doesn't like. She tells him that she wants to break off the engagement and he grabs her wrists and bruises her. She goes to a bathroom to calm down and meets Lana, one of the two girls from Torpedo Ink. Lana gives Soliel her number and tells her to be careful and if she needs anything to get out of the abusive situation, then just call. Even shows her the group's jacket so that Soliel knows who is part of her group. Basically, offering to help her when no one has done so before. So Soliel confronts her fiance in their hotel room, tells him to go to hell, he hits her and tells her they are getting married, she bolts but she overhears a conversation about a plan to kill her before she makes it out of the door. She runs away from the places that she thinks her fiance will look for her and towards the bar area of Las Vegas. Forgot to mention this but the beginning of this book does take place in Las Vegas. So goes into the bar with the most bikes out front hoping to meet Lana. She meets Ice and other members of the Torpedo Ink group instead. So, why is this hilarious. WELL, let me explain. Ice already wants Soliel and he has determined that he is going to claim her as his old lady (wife in biker language I guess). So he starts to ply her with alcohol. He is attracted to her and wants to protect her. Soliel isn't as innocent as we are made to believe. After Ice does what he can to calm her down and make her feel safe, she gets it into her head that she wants to trap him to her. She also thinks she will be killed soon sooooo YOLO. The first half of this book is them trying to get the other drunk and to a the alter in Las Vegas! Yes, there are a lot of smutty and raunchy things going on as well BUT they both think they are tricking the other and I find that so fucking hilarious that I was literally laughing for half of the book. That is my takeaway from this novel. There is a lot of public nudity and sex in this book, which is why I skim it because I am not that comfortable with that kind of smut, but, take that away, and it is a decent story. I still laugh thinking about it. Both of them feeling guilty of trapping the other in marriage. So funny. See you next read!
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So this book is from Christine Feehan's newer series, Torpedo Ink. They are Russian assassins turned biker club and in the same universe as her Sea Haven book series. This is also the most raunchy and smutty of Christine Feehan's book series. This is borderline Erotica.
So this story is about Anya, a girl on the run and a bartender for the Torpedo biker bar. She catches the eye of Reaper, on fucked up dude. That is all I can say about that. Reaper has never been attrached to a woman like he has been towards Anya and they start this relationship. Reaper has never been in a relationship and Anya has no idea what it means to be connected to one of the Torpedo Ink men. Yeah, this is a smut book with some kind of plot to it. The characters do have their moments where you kind of like the them. I will say that that Christine Feehan definately has a darker raunchier side and this book series definitely shows it. This book reminds me of the Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R Ward, in the fact that the men are super messed up and very sexual. Like, really sexual....and graphic in how they describe women. DAMN. I had a perpetual blush on my face for this book. THAT BEING SAID, I still kind of liked the story. Anya does what she can to help Reaper to deal with his demons, even if that idiot does some super stupid things trying to fix himself for her. Comminication is not Reaper's forte, that is for sure. The world of Torpedo Ink is interesting and grundy and I always love books that have a group of people you get to visit multiple times in different books because you get see the past characters again and see previous characters grow. I will be reading most of the books in this series. There are a couple that I am not interested in because I have weird issues with certain romance book cliche storylines, specifically if the romantic couple has history or a past together and something caused them to break up and then they find each other again. Usually one of the characters annoys me a lot in those books. So those books, I don't want to read them. I have already read the reviews of them and have seen that they aren't worth it for me. So, I shall see you in the next book. After this series, I will need to shift away from the raunchiness to something else. See you next read! So this is the beginning of the Baltimore series by Karen Rose. We meet J.D. and Lucy in this book. J.D, much like one of the males from the Chicago series, has just transfered to Homicide from Narcotics where he was after he lost his wife. J.D has a different reason for his grief than Abe did in the Chicago series. Lucy is the one one this book centers on the most and I am not as impressed by her as I wanted to be. So, the story starts with Lucy descovering a body that looks like her neighbor while she is out for a run. She goes into shock until she learns that it isn't her neighbor but someone from her past. And he is only the beginning.
Now, there is two things going at once. You have the main killings and the detectives that are trying to figure out how they connect and why this is happening to Lucy. At the same time, we have a private detective who is trying to find someone he helped to disappear because he has a suspision that person lied to him. So, you get to figure out who the killer is early on but it takes awhile to not only find out how he is connected to Lucy but why he is killing to begin with. The big twist is that he is disguised as someone around her. If you just follow the small clues in the killer's point of view and when Lucy talks to her friends, it isn't that hard to put two and two together. As for the relationship, Lucy kind of made me a little mad. See, she has this thing with not wanting to get into it with someone who likes excitement too much. You know, the adrenaline junkie. She had a bad experience with that when she was younger. She sees a helmet used by motocross racers in J.D.'s trunk and just shuts him out because of it. Mind you, she had already told him she was interested. SO, instead of acting like an adult and asking him to explain, she pulls away, lies to him when he is trying to protect her, and then get mad at HIM when he follows her for her protection. It is already established that the killer will try to hurt Lucy at this point. It kind of made me think less of her. I get not wanting to get in a relationship with someone because of their interests and how that will affect you but act like an adult and not just assume. Turns out, it was from something he did in the past, not what he was interested in now. He was done with the trill seeking. If Lucy had talked to J.D. like an adult, then she would have known that and wouldn't have put other people at risk by trying to sneak around behind his back because she coudn't face him. Just kind of made me mad. She figures it out once he confronts her. Granted, she gets mad that he finds out her secret of owning a club and playing the violin dressed in a leather black dress and heels along the way but I blame her for that, not him. Her secret would have been kept if she had just been honest with J.D. to begin with. The mystery was pretty good. The recent killings were connected to a crime that was commited 13 years previously in the small town all the victims were connected to, Lucy's hometown. Lucy has no idea what the crime is but knows that her brother, who died around the same time, was a part of it. It was super interesting to see that unfold as well. I didn't quiet get the crime guessed as I did on how the killer was close to Lucy. All in all, an interesting way to start the Baltimore series. I am interesting in seeing how the other characters play out in their books. I have all the books, so don't be surprised to see updates with them on here soon. See you next read! This book is a re-read for me. I read this book when I was a teen and I like the premise. It is about an artist Sweeny who started to see ghost and sleep painting. The books starts when Sweeny feels a shift and she finally sees her boss's soon to be ex husband as more than just a backgroud person. So, Richard and Sweeny's boss have been seperated for over a year and are getting a divorce. Richard wants nothing to do with his soon to be ex-wife but she is trying to get as much of his money as she can. Richard has always had a thing for Sweeny since she come around about the same time his threw is ex out. So this shift is something he has been waiting for.
So, every time Sweeny paints something in her sleep, she wakes up super cold. Richard comes by at one time, sees Sweeny suffereing and helps to get her body temp back to normal through cuddling, he calls it huddling and he learned it in the military. This starts a chain of events where Sweeny starts to call Richard when she is cold because she doesn't know any other way to get warm again. Of course, they are both attracted to each other, so it leads to some intersting times. There is a mystery in the book. Sweeny starts a painting, adding a little to it each night, that reveals a murder, specifically the murder of her boss. It is interesting but it doesn't really add too much tension. Honestly, most of the action and tension is in the last quarter of the book when the relationship is pretty much established. That is all for this book. This was just a fun read, really. I decided to read it because I wanted a story that focused more on the romance than the suspense since the last couple of books that I read had more suspense than the romance. Got to balance it out somehow. See you next read! Book 27 is called I Can See You by Karen Rose. This book calls back to the first couple of books because the lead is Eve, the girl that was almost killed in the first book and was kidnapped at the end of the 4th book of Karen Rose’s Chicago romantic suspense books. Eve has moved with Tom, the son of Caroline from the first book, where she is working on a study at the university. She is trying to prove that virtual reality could be used for therapy. She works at a bar to help pay for her apartment and school, a bar that a lot of cops go to, including Noah. Noah is part of a special group of detectives known as the Hat Squad, who have been getting a lot of publicity. Noah has been watching Eve for a year but won’t let himself ask her out because he doesn’t think a woman should have to deal with his demons, specifically her battle with alcohol. He has been sober for ten years but he still battles with wanting a drink but he would go to the cop bar to see Eve. So, what happens? Women who were part of Eve’s study start showing up dead and Eve comes forward, giving Noah a sign that maybe he can find a partner in Eve. Unfortunately, Eve doesn’t think she is worth being with anyone either. Not only that but who are killing these women, why are they all connected to Eve’s study, and how does the killer pick his victims?
So, the killer. I figured out who it was before the reveal at the end of the book. How? There is a scene where a character acts a little suspect because they try to talk Eve to leave a place that Noah had told her to stay at because he thinks someone is after her. It just made me believe that this person wasn’t good and I was right. SOOOOO, yay me! The romance is better than the previous book but it does take some time for Eve to start letting Noah in. Once Noah sees Eve outside the bar, a place he swore he wasn’t coming back to and that he was going to leave Eve alone, he thinks that he is being given a sign and so he decided to try to pursues her. He finds out about her past, he is cautious as he tries to convince her that they should try to work things out. I like when the guy goes for the girl but it does become annoying when the girl is stubborn even though she does want to pursue a relationship with the guy. I kind of hate that. Like, I understand that he believes that she is broken but she is going into psychology to be a therapist. You would think she would be able to understand that she isn’t broken, that she can have a regular relationship. You would think she would have been to therapy as well. So, it was a little annoying. The romance does get pushed a lot towards the end of the book to help to create more tension. So, that is if for this book. This isn’t a favorite book in the series but it isn’t a bad book for me. It was a good story. Can’t wait to see how the other books go as we will be moving to another city in this book series. See you next book! Book 26 is the direct sequel to book 25 of this year. It is called Kill for Me by Karen Rose and it is a doozy. This book follows Susannah and Luke from the previous book. Susannah is Daniel’s sister and Luke is his best friend and is also a special agent. So, the first 4th of the books is actually the events at the end of the last book, Scream for Me, just from Susannah’s and Luke’s point of view. We get to see how the agents and police find the evidence that Alex tells Daniel about when he wakes up at the end of the previous book. This book does have a lot about rape and sex trafficking as well as some child pornography so if those subjects are things that you are uncomfortable with or don’t like to read about, I would skip this book.
Now, my biggest gripe about this book is that is really does lack the romance part for at least half the story, making it a little bit of a slog to get through. Susannah is a victim who blames herself for things that happened to her in the past and Luke wants her to see that she isn’t to blame. Luke sees in her a darkness that also claims a part of his soul and feels a connection with her because of it but Susannah doesn’t think she deserves anything good. And they are at a standstill for almost 2/3rds of the book. Was hoping for at least something to break up all the talk of trying to find kidnapped girls that were in a sex trafficking ring. So many details and so much investigation that I don’t feel we get to know Luke and Susannah outside of that like we have with other books and their main characters. This book is depressing to read so those breaks would have been really nice. Something that made Susannah seem more than just someone who had been used and abused. Luke has more personality because of the previous book and how you get to see him interact with Daniel and see him through Daniel’s perspective. You don’t get much more out of Susannah except that she does love animals. It seems when the reader gets to know more about her, it’s to show how much more of a victim she was. So….depressing to read. The romance, what little we got, was nice but there wasn’t as much of a build to the emotional side of things. Just didn’t seem….real? Believable? I am not sure how to describe it. The mystery was okay as well. There were too many twists for me and too many names to keep track of. This deals with people in a small town so there are so many connections to people and so on and so forth. It was confusing sometimes. And then there was twist on twist as to why things were happening. Just became overwhelming for this book and I am glad I finished it but not exactly satisfied. Anyways, that is all for this book. I will most likely read another of Karen Rose’s books next as that is what I feel like right now. I do have the next Witcher book planned as well and some other books that look interesting. See you next read! Book 25 is called Scream for me by Karen Rose. We have finally moved away from Chicago in this book. Technically, there is a book before this one called Die For Me but I didn’t want to read it and it does tie into this book some but you don’t have to read it to get this book and it’s crime. This book does deal with some really heavy issues, specifically with drug use and rape, so I do want to give everyone a heads up.
This book is about Alex and Daniel, the brother of Die for Me’s killer. In Die For Me, Daniel finds pictures of girls that are being raped but it doesn’t show the men’s faces. These were left to him by his mother and they belonged to his serial killer brother. This does become important and the book does fill in this information for you. Alex’s sister was raped and murder thirteen years ago. She was taken away from her step sister and brother by her aunt and uncle and was able to do something with her life. One day, she gets a phone call from social services. Her step sister is missing and Alex was put down as an emergency contact for her step niece. AT THE SAME TIME, a body is found by Daniel, who is a special agent for the state. The body was raped, killed, and disposed of in the EXACT same manner as Alex’s sister. So, there are TWO different things going on at once. The bodies that are piling up and the pictures from the past. They are connected and lead straight into the next book. So, I love Alex and Daniel! Alex has more trauma from what happened with her sister and Daniel carries a lot of guilt from what happened with his brother. So, it does make for an interesting romance. Daniel is super protective of Alex, I think, because he doesn’t want her to end up like her sister. This does create some really nice scenes. I also like that Alex makes reasonable decisions and doesn’t get upset when Daniel keeps something from her for her own protection and because it is part of procedure. They communicate, which I love so much. I really really loved both characters. The mystery is really different in this book because there are two things going on at the same time. The newer murders bring attention to the rapes from the past so the people that committed the rapes do not want the newer killer to keep killing. So, you have people trying to cover up what happened in the past and to steer the investigation away from those rapes AND you have a new killer watching these people as well as attacking women who have nothing to do with what happened in the past. This mystery has layers to it and it was a wild ride trying to figure out who did what and who was killing women now. It was a real nail biter trying to figure out what is going on. So, this book does lead straight into the next book, Kill For Me. The first book ends with everyone knowing that the people that had raped the girls in the past had joined into the sex trafficking business and that there are other victims that they didn’t get to at the end of this book. SO, the next book will deal with them finding this trafficking ring and taking it down, I do believe, and will deal with Susannah, Daniel’s sister and one of the past victims, as well as Luke, Daniel’s friend who is also a special agent that deals with computer crimes. It will be interesting on how that book will go as well. Well, that is all for this book, see you next read! Book 24 is another of Karen Rose books, Count to Ten. This book is about Mia, Abe’s partner from I’m Watching You, and Reed, a fire marshal. They must team up when the fire that Reed is investigating has a body that wasn’t killed by the fire, like he first thought, but by a gunshot wound. Mia is back after recovering from an injury after she and her partner were shot. Because Abe is still recovering, Mia is given Reed as a temporary partner to work this crime. Reed, who is a widower and has a teenage daughter, is attracted to Mia but doesn’t want a relationship. Mia, who is dealing with her own demons, doesn’t believe she can handle or deserves a relationship. She blames herself for Abe’s injury because she was distracted. The fire bug, their murder, is on a path of vengeance so something that happened in his past. These crimes are very personal.
I loved the mystery in this book so much and I loved Mia and Reed. I thought their relationship was really awesome, though I was frustrated on how much they were trying not to get in a relationship. They both deserved happiness but neither of them could see themselves having that happy ending. So, the mystery! You know right away that it is personal from the little bits of parts from his point of view. It takes a while for Mia and Reed to put together that this is a personal vendetta and who the original targets were. It is actually frustrating because, as we readers know, the first victim wasn’t the original target, and it takes a Mia and Reed a while to figure it out. There isn’t so much of a twist in this book but just a really good mystery. The characters are awesome. Of course, you get to see many of the same characters from I’m Watching You and You Can’t Hide. You get to see how Abe and Kristin are doing and you see Aiden and Murphy again (Murphy is Aiden’s partner in You Can’t Hide). So, it is really nice to see those characters. You also get to see Dana and Ethan from Nothing to Fear. Karen Rose does a great job of building characters and their relationships. We get to learn so much about Mia and what makes her….well her. Mia and Reed, once they admit their attraction to each other, are a really cute couple. They act professional when they are in the field but they really heat up the story when they are alone. I will say this, Reed has a problem with eavesdropping on conversations that Mia has with people. He gets a lot of personal information on Mia that way. At first it upsets Mia but then she gets used to it. Reed does it mostly to get information that Mia won’t share with him. Mia does tend to not share how she feels or ask for help when she needs it. As for the backstories, because every Karen Rose character has a backstory, Mia’s is sad. She did well for herself from where she came from and she carries much grief and guilt. It takes a while for Reed to get the full story because Mia tries to keep things locked up. Reed, his back story, though sad, isn’t horrible. He lost his wife in a car accident and he hasn’t recovered from it. He does what he can for his only daughter but he hasn’t done much for himself. His story is mostly understanding that he can move on and find happiness. I love when he makes the realization that he can be happy with Mia and that doesn’t take away from the love he felt for his previous wife. He really is a sweet character. That is all for this book. I don’t know what I am going to read next. I have the next in this series already lined up as well as the next Witcher book but I might just pick one of the random books that I have bought but haven’t read yet. I have A LOT of books that I own that I haven’t read yet so who knows. See you next read! Book 23 is the next anthology in the Witcher series called Sword of Destiny. This is another collection of adventures of Geralt’s, and they too have some resemblance to fairy tales as The Last Wish did. But that isn’t what I want to talk about in this book.
This book, this collection of stories, has not only a way to set up the main series but gives the reader more insight on Geralt and his relationships with Ciri and Yennifer. Honestly, I don’t like Yennifer in the book. I feel Geralt could do better when it comes to who he is destined for. She pulls away from him because she wants a child and she can’t get one from him. She says that destiny isn’t enough and that does deal some damage to how Geralt views the world. He even gives up on going back for Ciri, a child promised to him by destiny. The last couple of stories deal with him meeting Ciri and walking away from her to only see that destiny is enough. She become destiny for Geralt twice fold. It was meant to be that they be together. Destiny is enough. I hope that the Yennifer sees this in the main storyline but there is a part of me that doesn’t want Geralt and Yennifer to be together and that he finds someone who actually feels that he is enough. Reading all the things he has been through, I feel like he deserves that. Maybe that is what Ciri is for. A pure love from someone who thinks he is enough (remember there is more than just romantic love). Hell, I have a feeling that Yennifer will come around when she sees Ciri could be that child she always wanted but couldn’t have. Anyways, there isn’t so much to say about this book. It does what it was meant to do, add to the world that is in the Witcher series and to build Geralt as a person. I LOVE the ending with him and Ciri meeting again and him seeing what a miracle she is for him. I really can’t wait to see how that relationship will grow in the main story. I hope that Geralt does find some sense of happiness. That is all for this book. See you next read! |
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