All posts by Michele

About Michele

Opinionated human, avid reader and bon vivant. Reviewer at Seductive Musings, Night Owl Reviews, and Romancing Rakes for the Love of Romance. Contributor at Bibliodaze.

Review: Seduced By Sunday by Catherine Bybee

Reviews, , , , , , , , , ,

One of the very first romances I read as an ebook several years ago was WIFE BY WEDNESDAY by Catherine Bybee, and it’s still one of my favorite contemporary romances. Since then, that book has been followed by several others in what’s now known as the Weekday Brides series, where each day of the week features another heroine and hero finding their way to each other and a well deserved HEA. What I’ve noticed as the series progresses is that each book in turn has been more romantic suspense than straight up romance. And now with this latest book, SEDUCED BY SUNDAY, what I’d feared would happen has occurred – the actual romance has been downgraded to just another facet of a complicated suspense plot that ends up taking over all but the beginning and ending of the entire book.

SEDUCED BY SUNDAY starts out well enough as we get to know Meg Rosenthal, one of the highly skilled matchmakers working for Alliance, the company started by the heroine of WIFE BY WEDNESDAY. Alliance has successfully matched up several couples who need to be married for reasons other than love, but as we’ve seen in the previous books, sometimes those alliances turn into love, and sometimes they lead its participants to love matches within the circle of those who initially brought them together. In this story, Meg is taking Michael, the closeted gay actor we met two books earlier, to a resort island run by Valentine Masini in the hopes that this resort will work well as a private honeymoon destination for future Alliance clients. But as Meg and Valentine try not to succumb to their shared sexual attraction, their promised privacy is violated by someone with much bigger plans than mere blackmail. By the end of this story, there will be terrible betrayals and more than a few dead bodies, but the promised HEA for Meg and Val will not be denied.

What made SEDUCED BY SUNDAY a less enjoyable read for me wasn’t just how the suspense plot became the focus of the story instead of Meg and Val’s budding romance. It was how that plot went from mysterious photographs hinting at blackmail to a sudden and lengthy trip to Italy while another secondary character was kidnapped and abused, culminating with the heroine saving herself in a way that I could not believe one bit. Then when the romance was finally taken up again near the end, I was supposed to believe that the heroine really didn’t know the hero loved her because she didn’t know the Italian translation of “I love you.” I might have been able to swallow one unbelievable ending, but both were just too much for me. And even though I will always love WIFE BY WEDNESDAY, it’s clear that the series has transformed into a subgenre where I don’t care to follow, so SEDUCED BY SUNDAY will be my last Weekday Brides book.

Review: The Billionaire’s Ink Mistress by Joely Sue Burkhart

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , ,

One of the best books I read in 2014 was THE BILLIONAIRE SUBMISSIVE, the first book in a new series from Joely Sue Burkhart, who continues to be one of my favorite erotic romance writers. So of course I was excited about this second book, THE BILLIONAIRE’S INK MISTRESS, and I’m happy to report that it was nearly as good a read as the previous one.

Jackson Warring is an overworked overachieving lawyer who presents a perfect facade to the world even as his actual life is falling apart. Yet he has no idea what he can do to stop his downward spiral…not until one fateful day when he has to visit his best friend Donovan Morgan on business and discovers the new relationship that has made that man happier than he’s ever seen. That’s when Jackson realizes exactly what he needs, and begs Donovan’s Mistress L for help. Lilly’s friend Diana seems like the perfect match for Jackson even though they come from completely different worlds. But as Diana and Jackson begin to learn each other’s secrets, their happy ending is far from certain, and anything less might be too much to bear.

The best part of THE BILLIONAIRE’S INK MISTRESS was how it avoided the more obvious ways the plot could play out for something less expected, yet more realistic. Of course there were class-based conflicts between Diana’s world and Jackson’s, and the way they each rose to every occasion proved that their love wasn’t based solely on their powerful sexual attraction. Even after the reasons why Jackson had pushed himself to his physical and emotional limit before meeting Diana seemed to be resolved, there had to be one last big threat which only Jackson could resolve himself, leaving Diana to wait and hope he would find his way back to her for good. But none of it the way I might have expected, and that’s what made this great book even better for me. With the Billionaires in Bondage books, Joely Sue Burkhart continues to subvert popular romance tropes and that’s what makes this a must-read series for me.

Review: The Enticement by Tara Sue Me

Reviews, , , , , , ,

One of the reasons I’ve loved Tara Sue Me’s Submissive series is the way she continues to show its romantic couple – Nathaniel and Abby – grow in their love for each other while they deal with everything married life continues to throw at them. It’s not often we get to see a D/s erotic romance couple in their lives together after the HEA, but THE ENTICEMENT, the latest book in this series, is just as fascinating and enjoyable as its predecessors.

Now that Abby and Nathaniel have been married for a while, it seems almost inevitable that they might fall into a bit of a rut in their interactions, and their D/s relationship is no exception. When a new career opportunity for Abby comes up just as Nathaniel is looking to hand off day-to-day control of his charitable foundation, the combined stress has the potential to either strengthen their D/s commitment or open a split in what each believes the other wants both in and out of the bedroom.

What I loved most about THE ENTICEMENT was how neither Nathaniel nor Abby ever once took each other’s happiness for granted even with all the big changes they had to navigate in this story. It was great to see Nathaniel truly happy for Abby’s success and not feel threatened by how it might affect his privacy. And even though Abby had continuing doubts about the new woman trying to come between her and Nathaniel, Abby still trusted in Nathaniel’s love. Best of all, when their D/s relationship began to reflect the major upheaval, they both eventually realized that they needed to communicate what they were feeling and thinking, making the changes deliberate instead of just a knee-jerk reaction to everything going on. Neither one of them is perfect, and they make mistakes along the way, just like anyone else would. But both Nathaniel and Abby know they love each other, and that is what keeps them from losing touch with what’s really important. It’s as realistic a portrayal as one can be for a contemporary billionaire Dom and his submissive wife, and I can’t wait to see what happens in Nathaniel and Abby’s lives next.

Review: Beauty’s Kingdom by Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquelaure

Reviews, , , , , , , ,

BEAUTY’S KINGDOM is the surprise addition to the infamous Sleeping Beauty trilogy written by Anne Rice under a pseudonym over thirty years ago. In the history of erotic literature, the Beauty books hold a special place of honor and with good cause. From THE CLAIMING OF SLEEPING BEAUTY, through BEAUTY’S PUNISHMENT, and ending with BEAUTY’S RELEASE, we see the innocent sheltered heroine both figuratively and literally awakened to a whole new sensual world neither she nor we thought existed. Each book goes deeper in and further out so that by the time Princess Beauty finds her Happy Ever After with the powerful Prince Laurent, the reader can’t help but be as changed by the experience as its titular character.

But now it’s twenty years later in Beauty’s world, and the domain where she discovered both her true nature and her true love is in danger of collapse. The task ahead is great, and it will take the help of friends both old and new to secure their beloved land’s future. All this and more is the story of how Queen Eleanor’s kingdom is transformed into Beauty’s kingdom.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed reading BEAUTY’S KINGDOM even half as much as I’ve loved the original trilogy. But it became clear to me early on that this book was trying to hook new readers unfamiliar with the previous books while still servicing existing fans by bringing back nearly every named character from the original kingdom. The result is a story that falls down in the two areas where the original books excelled, namely exposition and pacing. It wasn’t wonderful and it wasn’t terrible. It was just…there.

In the original trilogy, the story is focused on Beauty herself, and to some extent, the people with whom she comes in contact on her voyage to self-discovery and love. We are given just enough information about where Beauty is and why it matters, leaving the rest for our own imaginations to run wild. But in BEAUTY’S KINGDOM, everything is laid out for the reader in such meticulous detail that it soon becomes a struggle just to absorb everything without losing track of wherever the plot is supposed to be going.

Thanks to all the catching up on what happened since the last book and all the details involved in Beauty and Laurent deciding to accept the throne, it takes seven long chapters – nearly a third of the book – before we actually get to Beauty’s kingdom. Before then, it’s pages and pages of “and then this happened” with name checks for all the original characters in the kingdom, even those who’d just been mentioned briefly in the earlier books, and for me it was easily the most deadly dull part of the whole book. By the time we finally arrive nine months and a hundred pages later, all I could picture was that scene in Monty Python And The Holy Grail where everyone is yelling “Get on with it!”

The most disappointing thing for me about BEAUTY’S KINGDOM was how little we get of Beauty or Laurent’s points of view once they are established as the new rulers. Most of the book is about how Lady Eva kept the kingdom traditions going in the absence of its previous rulers and then how each of Beauty and Laurent’s fellow pleasure slaves from twenty years ago return to take control over various areas of activity in support of the new regime. There are a few chapters here and there featuring “volunteers” in the new and improved pleasure slave experience, and those were the stories that kept me reading when I was tempted to give up. But for someone whose name is in the title of the book, Beauty herself gets precious little time in BEAUTY’S KINGDOM, and the book suffers in her absence.

Yet all could have been forgiven if the ending of BEAUTY’S KINGDOM was worth the work to get there. The other characters constantly refer to some terrible secret involving Lexius, the mysterious Sultan’s servant who’d been mastered by Laurent back in the third book, but when both he and it are subsequently revealed, I didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled. Meanwhile in the few glimpses we get of Beauty herself, we can see she’s still not fully content with her role in the new kingdom despite all the public credit given to her. Up until the very last scene, I was holding out hope that the parallels drawn between her and the pitiable Sir Stephen were hinting at an updated happy ending for her. But like so much of what preceded it, what is intended as Beauty’s ultimate triumph fell flat for me. By then, I was happier to be done with the story than with what I got at the end.

In conclusion, for me BEAUTY’S KINGDOM was as overstuffed as a Thanksgiving turkey, and just as lifeless. I’m not sorry i read BEAUTY’S KINGDOM. I’m only sorry it wasn’t better.

View all my reviews

Review: The Duke of Andelot by Delilah Marvelle

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , , ,

THE DUKE OF ANDELOT is the triumphant conclusion to Delilah Marvelle’s excellent School of Gallantry series, but like the other books before it, it can easily be read as a standalone, even if you don’t know who everyone is in the lovely epilogue. I myself came into this series with book 4, NIGHT OF PLEASURE, and since then have enjoyed going back and discovering the stories running concurrently with all the others.

As the final book of the series, THE DUKE OF ANDELOT is somewhat different from the rest in that the bulk of its story takes place decades earlier. In it we learn how the notorious Madame de Maintenon found her own true love, only to lose him, perhaps forever, to the chaos of the French Revolution. Before she was the toast of Paris and London, she was merely Thérèse, the butcher’s daughter, tramping through the countryside on her way to her beloved cousin Remy and his small Paris theater. When a threatening highwayman turns out to be Gérard, a highly placed aristocrat on his way to attempt an improbable rescue of his beloved godfather, Thérèse is attracted to him, but skeptical of his motives. As their journey continues, their love for each other grows as quickly as the danger they both face while the Revolution speeds toward its predestined conclusion.

I’ll admit that when I first started reading, I was disappointed to begin in the past, with only my knowledge that this was Madame de Maintenon’s story to keep me from immediately losing interest. But once Thérèse and Gérard find themselves completely in love with each other, I was thoroughly hooked. And by the time they each must make the decisions they need to stay alive, I was awash in tears which lasted all the way to the short but satisfying epilogue which tied up the whole series in joy. Even the small repetitive parts (for those familiar with the previous books) couldn’t keep me from wallowing with glee in the Happy Ever After for the woman who had brought so many to others before her and the one man worthy of her love. THE DUKE OF ANDELOT is a satisfying historical romance for anyone who loves a happy ending that’s merely delayed, not denied.

View all my reviews

Review: Say My Name by J. Kenner

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In SAY MY NAME, J. Kenner returns to the world she established in her original Damien Stark erotic romance trilogy, only this time the heroine is Stark’s most trusted employee and her hero is the one man she’s loved enough to push away for his own good. When the only way Sylvia Brooks can save her first solo Stark International project is by begging Jackson Steele for help, that rescue could cost her own sanity. But as the two star-crossed lovers slowly learn to love and trust again, they soon find what’s at stake might be their own lives.

Although I quite enjoyed the original Stark trilogy, I’ll admit this new book started a bit slowly for me. I’ve never been a big fan of trying to guess what the initial relationship was between the hero and heroine, or what broke them apart so brutally that she fears his harsh reaction as he initially tries to reject her. So the story was a bit frustrating for me until the flashbacks were over and we were completely in the present. But from that point on, I was completely enthralled, even already knowing how Kenner structures these trilogies so that the first two books end on a tentative Happy For Now, saving the Happy Ever After for the final story.

Both Jackson and Sylvia have endured terrible childhoods which are still influencing their present lives more than even they could have predicted. They can’t stay apart any longer and yet everything seems to be conspiring to split them up anyway. And hovering over it all is the outsized influence of Damien Stark himself, to the point that Sylvia may soon have to choose between the man she loves and the man who has earned her complete loyalty. It’s a heady mix of love and intrigue, and Kenner continues to deliver a knockout experience that made me long for the next book even as I was more than satisfied with this story’s ending. To say more would give too much away, and I encourage everyone who loved the original Stark trilogy to read SAY MY NAME to find out what’s there for themselves.

View all my reviews

Review: The Companion Contract by Solace Ames

Reviews, , , , , , , , , , , ,

This review originally appeared at Romancing Rakes for the Love of Romance.

THE COMPANION CONTRACT is the latest entry in Solace Ames’s excellent LA Doms series, and although it ended up being a good read for me, it wasn’t nearly as good of a romance as her previous stories.

In this story, we meet Amy Mendoza, who lost her entire family to deportation at the age of thirteen, forcing her into life choices that no child should ever have to make. Now eight years later, the world knows her only as the porn star Serena Sakamoto, and she’s made the most of what life has dealt her in order to stay alive and send money back to her family in the Philippines. But when Amy’s good friend Chiho needs rescuing from a Hollywood party gone wrong, the man who helps them out might end up being the one person Amy can count on to be there for her when nobody else ever has.

Emanuel de la Isla experienced the best and worst of life as he moved from a violent upbringing in South America to incredible success as part of the seminal rock band Avert. When he witnesses Amy’s strength in handling pressure under fire, he realizes she’s the perfect person to keep track of Avert’s problem lead singer as the band attempts a long awaited reunion album and tour. As Amy becomes indispensable to the success of the band’s future, it becomes all too obvious that she’s just as crucial to Emanuel’s happiness as he is to hers. But when the band’s planned future derails yet again, it remains to be seen if Amy and Emanuel’s love can survive outside the protected bubble they’d created together.

As with the other books I’ve read by Solace Ames, I was struck by the richness and elegance of how she structures her stories and develops her characters. No matter how unlike the events and people she writes about are with respect to my own life, I am always able to fully relate on an emotional level to what her characters are feeling and experiencing. In THE COMPANION CONTRACT, our heroine is a porn star who deliberately chose this career on her 18th birthday because she knew it was her best option to make enough money to support herself and her distant family. She falls in love with an albino Afro-Colombian who is the lead guitarist of the band she loved best as a teenager, and becomes the close friend of both the band’s lead singer, who has ongoing problems with drug addiction, and the trans woman he loves but cannot have. All of these characters are fleshed out beautifully and their interactions with the hero and heroine are both organic and essential. By the end of the story, each character is in a better place than they started, and optimistic that they will continue to be happy.

Yet, as a romance first and foremost, THE COMPANION CONTRACT missed the mark somewhat for me. Although I believed in Amy and Emanuel’s love, it was often pushed aside in favor of the various dramas associated with Miles, Avert’s unreliable lead singer, and Xiomara, the trans woman important to both him and Emanuel even as she was still learning how to live as her true self. And with the story told entirely from Amy’s first person POV, it was difficult for me to understand what motivated Emanuel beyond caretaking of his loved ones and a sexual pull toward Amy that she shared in return. That also affected my reaction when Emanuel and Amy were briefly separated, as she worried he wouldn’t return even though he swore he would, and I wondered why she didn’t believe him when I’d never seen any reason why he would lie.

Still, THE COMPANION CONTRACT is a lovely read overall and if you’re good with the romance being equal to other parts of the story, then you shouldn’t have any problems. Either way, I’m still a fan of Solace Ames and look forward to what she’ll be writing next.

Favorite Quote:

I wasn’t a beggar or a queen. I had room in my heart to love everyone who stayed behind.
I was only myself.
And that was enough.

View all my reviews

Review: The Virgin by Tiffany Reisz

Reviews, , , , , , , ,

As each book in the White Years portion of Tiffany Reisz’s Original Sinners series is released, we discover more about how this unconventional family came together as one. So if you’ve read the Red Years books, you can guess the outcome of The Virgin, even if you don’t know how you’ll get there. Yet that’s what makes each of these stories so remarkable, as Tiffany Reisz continues to capture the attention of readers who already think they know how everything will work out. With this latest release, THE VIRGIN, the story of how Eleanor ran away from the only man she’d ever loved and not only found herself, but helped Kingsley do the same, however inadvertently, and like the others, the story might not go quite as the reader might expect.

Eleanor could never have left Søren without being caught if she hadn’t had Kingsley’s detailed training on how to get lost and stay there. But once away, she needs a place where even Søren himself could not gain admittance. Her mother’s convent home may be an unlikely sanctuary, but just as unlikely is the one person who helps Eleanor find the strength to go on, with or without her only Master.

The moment that drives Eleanor away from Søren sets Kingsley on his own path in the opposite direction, unsure if he’ll ever return to his kinky kingdom. The despair of the woman he discovers outweighs his own, stoking his need to save them both. But as Eleanor and Kingsley both find new love away from home, will their individual travels bring them back to Søren or keep them all apart for good?

In THE VIRGIN, as in the others before it, it’s the journey itself and not the destination, and the personal quests for both Eleanor and Kingsley make it all worth reading. And like the other White Years books, we have a present-day framing device designed to keep us guessing as to what is actually happening and how it will affect our beloved characters. All of these threads are expertly woven together in a tapestry of extreme emotions which will keep the reader bouncing about with anticipation as to how it will all come together in the end.

I was happily transported by the majority of THE VIRGIN, with only the part of the story featuring Kyrie, the young novitiate and title character, falling somewhat flat for me. I couldn’t help thinking that her presence was contrived solely for the purpose of helping Eleanor out of the safety of the convent back out into the real world, especially with regard to Eleanor’s future career as an erotic novelist. But that’s a minor quibble compared to the glory that is the sublime romance between Kingsley and Juliette, the heartbreaking angst as Søren and Eleanor struggle with what has driven them apart, and the joy of the first wedding between two of my most favorite Original Sinners.

If you’re a fan of this series, THE VIRGIN is obviously a must read, even though it also means there is only one more book in the series before it all ends forever. I’m sure I’m not prepared to face THE QUEEN, but I can’t wait to read it just the same.

View all my reviews

Review: Protecting Fate by Katee Robert

Reviews, , , , , , , , , ,

I’m a fan of Katee Robert’s romances but hadn’t read this particular series before reading the PROTECTING FATE novella. The good news is that it works well as a standalone without leaving the reader clueless or dumping unnecessary background information. It’s quickly obvious how the hero and heroine know of each other without having had the opportunity to spark any relationship before this moment.

Sara Reaver is still feeling the pain of her parents’ divorce and is trying not to resent her siblings for succumbing to marriage when they’ve all seen how bad it can be. Now that her own reckless actions have forced her into hiding with her brother’s best friend Zebadiah “Z” Loreto as protection, her deliberate avoidance of any emotional entanglements will be tested to the limit.

Z trusted a woman he loved, and nearly lost everything as a result. Sara needs him to be safe, but when he realizes there’s something more between them, it will take more than just their sexual connection to lead them to the happy ending neither thought could ever happen.

Although I would expect a reader familiar with the series to enjoy this story more than I did, there was plenty of romance to get me involved with the characters and root for them to succeed. The couples from the previous books work well as secondary characters here, and the initial danger to the heroine is resolved realistically, if somewhat preemptively. I was also gratified that the heroine didn’t just swoon into agreeing to marriage after her vehement objections to it for so many years. PROTECTING FATE is an intense and entertaining short read that I enjoyed enough to want to read all the previous books in the Serve series.

View all my reviews

Review: Red Handed: A Benediction Novel by Shelly Bell

Reviews, , , , , , , , ,

Anyone who follows my reviews at all knows that I’m not a big fan of serials, but one of the best romances I read last year was Shelly Bell’s four part romantic suspense serial, WHITE COLLARED. So naturally I was excited about reading her full length follow-up novel, RED HANDED. The previous story introduced us to the super exclusive BDSM club Benediction, and now in RED HANDED, we get to see that club’s mysterious owner Cole DeMarco find his own HEA with a woman we meet at the worst time in her relatively short but turbulent life.

Danielle Walker was still in shock after her father had gone to prison and died there soon after, apparently by his own hand. But now that Danielle’s seen her own stepmother kidnapped by the same people who’d helped send her father to jail, she has only a few short days to infiltrate the BDSM club of the only man she’d desired but could never have, Cole DeMarco. The kidnappers want whatever Cole’s hiding in his private office safe, and the kidnappers want her to get there by offering herself up to Cole as a sexual submissive trainee. So off Danielle goes into certain danger, never suspecting that what she’ll find along the way is her one true love.

Cole had known Danielle as the lovely but off-limits daughter of a man who’d gotten over his head with a dangerous crowd. Now that she’s old enough to be naked and under Cole’s control, he’s the one who’s over his head in what is definitely overwhelming sexual attraction but could also be the love he’s tried to avoid his whole life. With the impending danger to them both, there’s no time to take things slowly, and when everything Danielle believes in gets turned on its head, it’s Cole and Danielle’s love that will ultimately see both them and the reader through.

I love this author and this new series, but I’ll admit I was seriously put off by the initial premise of RED HANDED. Romantic suspense is always a bit tricky for me, as there’s only so much violence I can handle as a reader, so the opening scenes involving Danielle’s stepmother and the kidnappers’ threats were almost too intense. The idea that Danielle was being forced to participate in a 24/7 BDSM relationship under duress really didn’t sit well with me, but I continued on, trusting that the author would get me to the place where everything made sense. When that moment arrived, my relief was palpable, and my enjoyment of the story unconditional. Cole and Danielle are more than equally matched in both body and spirit, and as the story progresses, we see how their romance was inevitable in spite of the evil forces that had brought them together. The twists and turns are never too over the top, and the final HEA is well earned. If you love romantic suspense with a BDSM flavor, Shelly Bell’s Benediction series, including RED HANDED, is a must read.

View all my reviews