Book 22 is called Jde's Law by Lori Foster. This is about Jude and May. Jude is a fighter turned actor turned bad boy after a false accusation led to court and Jude leaving Hollywood. May owns a small art gallery in which Jude goes to a lot, though not for the art. He likes May but she won't let down her guard to accept that Jude is seriously interested in. She isn't a skinny starlet like what she assumes he would like. But when May's brother, Tim, gets in trouble, May turns to Jude for help.
This is a cute romance. Nothing too suspenseful about it. Nothing but a cute romance. I like that May isn't a skinny pretty girl but described as having curves. Makes her more relatable than other leading ladies in many romance books. I like how obsesses Jude seems to be with May, how he can't stop thinking about her and wants her so much. Makes a normal girl feel like she can get a handsome devil like Jude interested in her. All in all, this is a cute book, a fast read, and definitely steamy. I like Lori Foster's leading men so I wouldn't be surprised if I re-read some of her books. I don't think I will go out of my way to find newer books, but just stick with the ones I have already read and like. See you next read!
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Book 21 is an oldie that I read when I was a teen, a historical romance called Saving Grace. I decided to read this book because I started reading a webcomic that had a similar kind of story. So this about Joanna, who was married to a really bad guy, finally gets the news that her husband is dead. Unfortunately she hold a secret that King John doesn't want to get out so she is forced to remarry. Lukily her brother is able to arrange for her to marry a Laird of a clan in the Highlands, Gabriel McBain. Through her relationship with Gaberiel, Joanna fines her inner backbone and strength.
So, this book is cute. Like, you never have to really worry about Gabriel and Joanna fighting or any mistunderstanding. They fall for each other pretty quickly. There is a time jump from when they get married to when most of the story takes place but it is only about 3 months. So there is all that time that we don't see where they are getting along with each other. The story is mostly about Joanna kind of finding her own and rising above her trauma. There are different things that happen that makes her see that she was lied to a lot by her previous husband and that the world isn't nearly as bad for women as she was "taught". There are moment in this book that lag a little. It's a cute romance so I understand it isn't supposed to have so a lot of tense situations. I love that there isn't so many misunderstanding between Gaberiel and Joanna. I have read books before where there is just misunderstanding on top of misunderstanding and no one talks to each other and it causes so many problems and is frustrating so I love this book because it doesn't do that. Really, there isn't much to say for this book. It's a cute and wholesome historical romance based in the Highlands of Scotland during the time that King John ruled England. I enjoyed it. That is all there is to be said. That is all for this book. See you next read! Oh, I was supposed to finish a different book when I got sidetracked onto this book so that one should also be finished today. It isn't a romance novel, as that seems to be all I am reading nowadays but that isn't true. Romance novels are just the easiest and quickest to read for me. They all tend to follow the same formula. I do have a lot of books outside of the romance genre that I am to read and will read. They just take longer to get through because there is so much more detail. Bare with me, please. Book 20! Didn't think I would be able to reach this goal of 20 books this month but I did! This book is called You Can't Hide and it is another Kare Rose book. This one is one of my favorites because of the twist on who the killer is and how the crimes are commited. This one was really creative in my opinion. This book is about Tess, a psychiatrist, who's client kills herself. But there is a twist. Someone drove her to it. This is where Aiden comes in. He is a detective and it's his job to find out who drove this person to their limits. At first, all clues point to Tess. Her voice leaving a message. Her fingerprints in the apartment. But not all is as it seems.
I love this book! The romance is good but it does move fast. Again, many of these crimes, from start to finish, that the relationships that show up in them only span a week or a couple of weeks the most. SO, yeah. But this one doesn't have an " I love you" when the crime is done. The author does a time jump ahead to their wedding, showing that it did take time for them to "fall" in love and get engaged and such. We just don't get to see those parts. The biggest thing is the twist. Who is the bad guy? How are they setting Tess up? Why are they setting Tess up? Who hates her that much? It does become such a mystery. Now, I didn't figure out who the bad guy was until it was revealed and, when I re-read the book, I don't really look for the clues anymore because I just don't want to. I often skim the parts from the killer's point of view and only look at the police as they work through the clues. More fun that way. I am sure the hints to the twist are in those scenes from the killer's point of view but....I already know who that it and love seeing the police put it together. I do love Tess's character. I think she is strong and caring. She does have her ethics and she sticks with them, which is great. Aiden lives up to what his names mean (fiery one if anyone didn't know). He does have a temper and he does jump to comclusion a lot BUT he doesn't let his temper rule his action and he picks up on the clues to know he is wrong BEFORE he hurts other people's feelings (If you actually follow my book blog, you will know I did have an issue with a male character before who jumped to conclusion and often made mistakes because of his anger). Their romance is interesting because it starts from Aiden not liking Tess because of a case she worked where a killer was deemed unfit for court. The killer had killed a cop and several little girls so Aiden thought he didn't get justice. But, as he gets to know Tess, he finds out that he is wrong about her. Tess doesn't hold Aiden's emotions against him as she can understand why he doesn't like her at first and she learns to trust him because he does want who ever pushed her client to kill herself to be punished. So...its sweet to see them come together. All in all, my favorite when it comes to Rose's murder cases. I know not all her suspense novels have to deal with a serial killer, but she is most creative when they do, in my opinion. That is all for this book. I think the next book or two may stray from the suspense novels. I have plenty of books to read and a lot of others I want to re-read sooo I shall see y'all after the next read! Book 19 is another re-read of mine and another Karen Rose book (I'm going to read them all this year so get used to seeing her name) Nothing to Fear. This book follows Dana and Ethan. Dana we met in Don't Tell, the first of Karen Rose's book. She runs a secret shelter for abused woman. Dana goes to meet a woman who has a young boy at the bus stop but what she doesn't know is that that boy, Alec, is a kidnapped victim and that woman is a killer. That is where Ethan comes in. Ethan is the boy's godfather. He was called by Alec's parent because the kidnapper had said no police. Ethan is an ex-Marine and runs a security buisness. So, Ethan comes to Chicago, where this all takes place, following the kidnapper. He meets Dana randomly and they start to see each other. Now, it's not like Ethan is putting off finding Alec. He spends a lot of time doing that. It only when he needs a break that he asked Dana to meet. Dana is the same. Ethan is the one to push the issue because they both felt "sparks" when they met and he has a policy not to let life pass by ever since he almost died overseas.
So, there really isn't much of a mystery here, only why Alec was kidnapped to begin with. We are led to believe that it is because of money, the motivation for a lot of child abductions from rich families, but that isn't the case. There is another reason and that twist was interesting. I didn't see it coming. See, I did read this book a long time ago but I didn't remember the story. I had other ones that I liked a lot more that I had re-read several time. But I kept the book because I love Karen Rose's books. The romance is cute. It takes a week from moment of meeting to being rescued. I will say there isn't any declarations of love until the epilogue, which is good, but there is a declaration of need and willing to move to another state to see where it would leave. The epilogue has a time jump to the time of the marriage proposal and the author tells you how everything worked out for all the people involved, so there is that closure. I love Ethan as a character and I like Dana. I kind of hated how she was so hard on herself for everything but I know people like that so it made her realistc. All in all, a great book. I don't know why I didn't remember it for the first time I read it. I don't know why haven't picked it up again in all these years. I know why with most other book but this one is definitely re-reading material for me so who know. That is all for this book. See you in the next read! Book 18 is a re-read from my past, this time a paranormal romance, called Dark Desire by Christine Feehan. Shea is a doctor who has had a dark haired man haunt her dreams. She is on the run from some psycho guys who think she is a vampire because of her rare blood condition. She is compelled to travel to the Carpathian Mountains. She hides in the mountains but she is still haunted by that dark haired man. She searches and find him, wounded and looking dead, in a cellar. What she doesn't know is that he isn't dead. He is part of an ancient race of being called Carpathians, and he has been in that hell for seven years.
So, this is technically the second book in a series but each book can be read on it's own. I like this book because Shea and Jacques, her dark haired man, try to figure out everything that is going on at the same time. Jaques doesn't have the memory he should have to help Shea because of the seven years of torture as he tried to stay alive while trying to get Shea to come rescue him. Just FYI, if you have issues with over bearing men, the ones that think because they know what is best, they can force compliance, this is not the book for you at all. Actually, I would just kind of stay away from this series. The men are super protective of the females and they are centuries old so they kind of do what they want. A lot of the romance is the guys learning they need to compromise because they don't want to make the women mad or upset. But there is a controling nature so, if that is something that bothers you, just don't read this series. That is all for this book. I just wanted to read this book because the last book I read reminded me something of a scene from this book so I read this book. See you next read! Book 17 is a new book for me called Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco. This book is about Emilia, a twin and witch, who is on a mission of vengeance. See, her sister was found, by her, dead and her heart ripped out. Now Emilia wants who did this to her sister and she will do anything to get what she wants. To do so, she decided to use the dark arts to summon a demon to help her. What she doesn’t realize is that she summons one of the seven princes of Hell, Wrath (seven princes=seven deadly sins). Wrath insists that he wants the same thing as her, who killed her sister, but there is more at play going on and Emilia doesn’t know if she can trust him.
So, this post is going to have a lot of spoilers for the book so I am just going to say now, I actually liked how this story played out and I really want to know how the author is going to play out the twist in the very end. The ending is either going to make you hate the book or love it. I don’t see people being somewhere in the middle. This is an ending that should make me made but it didn’t. I loved it because I want to see what is going to happen in the next book. This is your warning. SPOILERS: There is something going on than what we see. This book is first person point of view and Emilia is given some clues that something else is going on but we, and her, never get all the information before the end. My friend, who also read this book, hated the ending. She hated it so much she sold her book after she read it. I understand why she is upset. See Emilia isn’t the smartest protagonist and she does some stupid things that leads to the unsatisfying cliffhanger that we got. See Emilia will not, at any point, trust Wrath, even though he takes care of her and has saved her several times. She was told since she was a baby that the Princes of Hell were only her enemy and wanted to kill her or trick her (honestly, I am still unsure as to why Emilia and her sister couldn’t trust them other than that they are demons…I don’t think their grandma made it clear why the Princes of Hell were more dangerous than other demons). Every time Emilia encounter any of the other Princes, Greed, Envy, and Lust, she was reminded that they can do damage and the power they hold. Why would Wrath be different? He has to have another motive….and he does but it isn’t as bad as Emilia thinks. It really is none of her business until she makes a power play and then…yeah, it’s her business. (Sorry if this is confusing, I don’t want to write the whole book out to explain) MY POINT, don’t go in this book thinking the it’s a enemy to lovers romance. The ending: makes sense and just solidifies that something else is happening. See, the author through a little information at us in the end that I think is important but doesn’t seem to be for Emilia. The reason her sister was killed was because Pride needs a bride to lift a curse and that is what her sister agreed to do before she was killed. SOOOOO…once she finds out who the killer is, the other clues that her sister was planning something else are erased out of her mind. She finds werewolves and finds out that her sister made a deal with the Prince Greed to make a deal with the werewolves that they would fight for the devil when the time comes. WHAT DID HER SISTER KNOW THAT WE DON’T? So, the ending is Emilia agreeing to be Pride’s bride. Upsetting because we want her to get with Wrath BUT we think he is dead because he won’t come when summoned. So, when Emilia agrees to becomes Pride’s bride and she goes to sign away her soul, who is there? Wrath. See, he only needs to collet one more soul before he is free to walk the Earth without an anchor to summon him. Now we know what soul he needed. The book ends with Wrath taking Emilia to the underworld. OH, and he doesn’t act kindly to her AT ALL when they see each after he had sacrificed himself to save her life. Again, I think this is a red herring and there is something else going on. Wrath could be mad at Emilia for giving herself to her brother BUT, why wasn’t she able to summon him before if he was still alive? That is strange. Also, when he was sent back to Hell, maybe it erased the little bit of emotion that he had because he wasn’t himself until he fully recovered. There is just so many questions. My friend took Emilia agreeing to be Pride’s bride as a “girl power” moment and I took it as a grief and vengeance moment. Emilia believed Wrath was dead and that she was alone in trying to keep the Gates of Hell from opening on the world. She wanted to protect what family she had left so she thought to kill two birds with one stone, by becoming the bride of Pride, she gets to do whatever she wants to her sister’s killer AND she keeps the demons from her world so her family is safe. Sounded reasonable to me. When she saw Wrath there to take her soul, she probably thought it was another betrayal, that he purposely ignored her when he said he couldn’t. ANYWAYS, I can’t wait to read the next book. It is only a duology so I only have to wait for it to reach the conclusion. I think the next book is going to be political intrigue on who Emilia can trust now that she has given her soul to House Pride. I bet anything she gets to move to House Wrath and they get married. I mean, she did mark Wrath as her for eternity and that wasn’t mention ANYTIME after he was sent back to hell. As in, we have no idea what happened to her mark and if the parameters of that spell are still working. I think they are and it’s going to be Wrath and Pride against his brother on who gets to rule the underworld. I also feel like Pride is going to give Emilia to Wrath because she is technically already claim by him. Those are my thoughts on this book. It definitely is a page turner and the author is so skilled at the sexual tension. In all seriousness, their relationship is mostly them drawn to each other physically with just a little of bonding thrown in. But that is going to send me in more explanation and this post is already long enough. Also, I will say this one more thing: I couldn’t totally see someone taking the concept of the personifications of the seven sin and princes of Hell and turning them into romance novels, especially if they are written like they are in this book. Damn! Anyways, see y’all in the next read! Book 16 is a new book for me, Timeline by Michael Crichton. Now, I did not know this was a book when I was first introduced to the story. I watched the movie first. It has been a long time since I have seen the movie, so I thought it would be fun to read the book before watching it again. This book follows a team of historians who find themselves back in time. It starts with their professor, the lead of this historical site, going to visit the executives that fund their archeological dig. When he disappears and the team can’t get a hold of him, they are whisked off to the company headquarters to find out that the company that has been funding them have learned how to go back to part of the past. They had sent the professor back in time and now need the team to go back and get him.
Now, I love the story. What they present in the movie is not bad as long as it isn’t compared to the novel. The movie does change motivation and relationships between some of the characters but it isn’t horrible. The book does a great job of keeping the reader interested once the team goes back in time. Unfortunately, you have to get through at least a 3rd of the book and a lot of info dumps to get to that. The pacing isn’t the best. It starts off a little mysterious, which was good, and then you get to meet the team and see this historical site as they are digging it up. And when the professor leaves and then some interesting things come up, it still isn’t bad. During that time between the professor leaving and the team finding his note for help, there is this good amount of information dump on the reader about the time period and technologies from the past. It isn’t presented in the best way to keep an average reader interested. As I have studied history myself, specifically European history, I was somewhat interested so I kept reading. The thing that KILLED me was all the science information and how long it took for the team to get sent back in time. OMG! That was too much science to follow and it is all kind of thrown at you in the book at once and, unless you like and understand some more complex things about science, it’s hard to understand. I only got through it because I skimmed the pages after a while because I couldn’t follow along. I didn’t want to have to re-read the science part yet again and try to understand it to continue. I was there for the adventure back in time and that was all I was interested in. The characters were interesting and the author does a great job of building a development for one of the main characters, Chris, in this adventure. I didn’t like him that much in the beginning but he was great by the end of the book. Got to appreciate when an author does that. There is a little extra twist in the end that keeps the reader really engaged and helps move the story along. I do have to say, once the action started, it just seemed like one close call with death to the next and got a little repetitive. Once a character was out of danger and then something else happened, I wasn’t surprised to see that character in danger, yet again. Lots of fake outs when it came to characters dying. Granted, I knew who would die in the end and who wouldn’t because of the movie but, damn, you can see the author was trying to keep the reader on their toes with how many times there would be a sudden cliff hanger and you were supposed to think a character had been killed. It just got to the point that when that happened, I knew there had to be a way for that character to live and just moved on with the book. I didn’t believe the fake deaths. Now, it may seem that I am just bashing on this book, but I did enjoy it. I loved how the author crafted this out of time narrative of historians. I loved how the author showed how, even though we are advanced in the future, we could probably not survive in the past because of how “soft” and depended on technology we have become (that was one of my takeaways from the book). I loved Andre Marek. I was always both sad and happy by the choice he makes in the book. I just wish you really get to see how he fairs with his choice. My favorite parts of the book were once they were back in time. It kept me interested and you really got to see the characters’ strengths. All in all, I am happy with my choice to read this book. I am going to watch the movie in the next day or two because I love it, even if the story is slightly changed from the book. It doesn’t give me all the science but it does give me all the action so I am there for it. I will see you in my next read! Book 14 is another romantic suspence re-read called Don't Tell. This story is about Caroline and Max. Caroline has a secret. Years ago she faked her and her son's death and ran from her abusive cop husband after he tried to kill her. She now lives in Chicago and works as a secretary at a university while working on her degree. Her previous boss, the mentor that helped to get her where she is now, has passed and a new professor is taking over his position. His name is Max and he has his own past. Max, though still young, walks with a cane because of an accident from years before. His disability is a sore spot for him but it doesn't matter to Caroline, who understands scars and injury all to well.
So the concept of this book is not new. I have read other books and see shows where there was a woman running from her abusive husband and her husband, half the time, seems to be a cop. Now I like how this this book is structured. You have 3 things that are going on at once: Caroline's husband and his investigation into his wife, who he now thinks is alive, Caroline and her relationship with Max, and Steven Thatcher, a FBI agent who is investigating Caroline's husband for her and her son's murder. This keeps the pacing up and interesting. The relationship between Caroline and Max is cute but not my favorite. I guess the reason why is because of Max's self pity attitude. See Max used to play basketball and was a rookie for the Lakers in this story. Unfortunately he was in an accident that not only crippled him but also killed his father. Though I understood why he was upset, he had something so important taken from him so suddenly (both his father and the ability to play basketball professionally), he kind of took his anger out on other people instead of dealing with it. It causes fights with Caroline. Honestly I would have liked this relationship is Caroline, because of her past, was a little more hestitant about getting involved with someone and that is what causes the relationship to have issues, not Max getting mad over small stuff that the book makes it seem that he had worked past already. That is just my opinion. That is all for this book. Yes, I still am reading other books outside of the romance genre but I am liking these stories again and they make me excited to read sooooo you will see more of them. I will have other genres sprinkled in, of course, but don't be surprised if you see a lot of romance here. See you next read! Book 13 is another re-read called I'm Watching You by Karen Rose. This is a romantic suspense book that is centered around a vigilante. Kristen Mayhew is an ADA who is overworked. Suddenly someone decides to start killing people who committed crimes that Kristen was unable to put in prison. This killer leaves boxes in Kristen’s trunk and she finds it one night when walking to her car with Abe Reagan, a detective who has just been assigned to Homicide. This starts the case of trying to find this killer and Abe and Kristen starting to get to know each other.
Yes, this does have some of the “insta” love. The book takes place over a couple of weeks and it ends with a marriage proposal BUT Rose does an amazing job at making you think more time has gone by. I do like the back stories we get of Kristen and why she does that job that she does and of Abe and what happened to him before he came to Homicide. It works for character motivation and how these two interact with each other. And the chemistry between these two characters are really nice. Like I said, the author does a great job of making the relationship seem like it grows over a longer time and is realistic. Rose does good when it comes to background characters as well. She drops little things to not only show that these characters have more going on other than what we see but it also gives them development that will hopefully come out in other books (yes, most of Rose’s books connect in some way) The mystery is also really good. I honestly didn’t know who the killer was until it was revealed the first time I read it and when I re-read it, I still don’t see the clues like I do in other books. It is actually a thing for many of Rose’s books that I have kept and like to re-read. But what is really good about this book is not that there is the killer, because that person isn’t after Kristen so there is no danger to her, but that killer took out a nasty son of a “mob” boss (that is how I think of him as he uses money and hired thugs to get things done) and the boss goes after Kristen to find out who killed his son. The now creates suspense because there is more at stake. It’s not just that the police need to find the person killing bad guys because killing is bad. It becomes a race to find the killer so that Abe and the rest of the police can get the mob boss off of Kristen’s back and keep her safe. Well that is all for this book. I am reading another book right now and it is a new book for me but it is taking me awhile to finish because it has a lot exposition and background information in it, which then makes it harder to get into. I am hoping that I can finish it this week but who knows. I do have a lot of books that I am looking forward to reading so look for more of my post. See you next read! |
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