Tag Archives: Book in Series

Review: False Match by Lynne Silver

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False Match (Coded for Love, #3)False Match by Lynne Silver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

This review contains spoilers for Heated Match, the first book in the Coded For Love series. You could try to read False Match as a stand-alone book, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Now that Dr. Samara Jones has been rescued from the evil Dr. Paulson, she is safe and yet still has no freedom in what she chooses to do next. She is blackmailed into contributing her considerable skills as a geneticist to the Program in return for not being prosecuted as Paulson’s co-conspirator, but no one there truly trusts her. It’s only when Chase Stanton is assigned as her tour guide / babysitter that there’s someone willing to offer friendship, and perhaps even more.

When the Program discovered the traitor in their midst back in Heated Match, they also discovered that he had falsified his studies to force Chase and Loren’s father to leave Loren’s mother for Chase’s, convincing her that the latter woman was his true genetic match. But the likelihood of a person having two perfect matches is highly unlikely, and Chase worries that perhaps he’s not genetically enhanced at all. Samara is the one person who can help him discover the truth without anyone else finding out, and their continuing close association eventually leads them to a love that is immediately threatened by those who intend to recapture Samara in their goal to breed terrorist warriors.

Most of False Match involves Samara and Chase learning to trust and love each other even while their growing attraction is threatened by the emerging secrets of what Samara had done when Adam was Paulson’s captive. It was an interesting change of pace to have a hero and heroine who weren’t compelled to fall in love by their DNA and it made their HEA all the sweeter. Lynne Silver ends this story with a heart-stopping epilogue cliffhanger that ensured I would be seeking out Desire Unmatched, the newest book in the Coded For Love series. I can’t wait to read it.

Ratings:

Overall: 4
Sensuality level: 3 (hot sweet love scenes between the H/h)

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Review: Conquered Match by Lynne Silver

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Conquered Match (Coded for Love, #2)Conquered Match by Lynne Silver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

This was a short but intense look at what genetically enhanced soldier Ryan does to punish his wife Thea for leaking details of the Program to the press. We discover that Thea has been the one to dictate the terms of their relationship ever since they had been found to be a perfect genetic match for each other. Ryan had always been content to let her be in charge, not realizing Thea was trying to force his hand into being the dominant one. Now that she’s betrayed him and everyone else, Ryan finally knows what needs to be done and is ready to give Thea what she needs to fix their marriage and ease the anger that led to her stunning betrayal.

Although this story was dramatically shorter than the previous one, what occurs between Ryan and Thea was portrayed well, conveying all the immediacy of Ryan’s reaction to Thea’s actions and the deep tenderness behind the decisions Ryan makes to heal them both. Thea has needed this domination from the beginning, and Ryan knows that giving it to her now is what can make things right. I wished there had been more to read, but was happy for this brief visit back to the world of the Program while waiting for the next full length book to arrive.
Ratings:

Overall: 4
Sensuality level: 4 (light BDSM including anal sex)

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Review: Heated Match by Lynne Silver

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Heated Match (Coded for Love #1)Heated Match by Lynne Silver

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

Lynne Silver’s Coded For Love series tells the stories of men who were genetically bred by the US Government in a secret program designed to create unstoppable warriors who would only be able to mate successfully with the women who were their perfect genetic counterparts. The Program has continued in secret for decades and it’s only recently that the public has become aware of what’s been going on, thanks to a Program wife who leaked the story to an outside source. At the same time, there are various groups both here and abroad who are trying to kidnap any one of the men for their own evil experiments. This sets up the compelling plotlines and intense romances which follow in each book.

Heated Match starts the Coded For Love series off with a sequence of incredibly intense scenes as two people who’ve never met before discover they are each other’s perfect genetic match. Adam is supposed to be protecting a diplomat’s infant son from being kidnapped at the boy’s high profile 1st birthday party. As one of the highest performing “super soldiers” in the Program, he should be focused on his task, yet there’s a woman there who has got him more sexually aroused than he’s been in years. Loren has crashed the birthday party in the hope of discovering more information about the Program, but there’s something about one of the bodyguards that has her thinking more about sex than getting the scoop for her story. When the diplomat’s son is kidnapped, the resulting investigation exposes Loren’s familial connection to the Program, and its leaders’ machinations work to bring Loren and Adam together to fulfill the genetic destiny neither of them is ready to embrace. What no one realizes is that the Program and all its participants are in mortal danger from someone in their midst who has been betraying them for years.

The Program that Lynne Silver has created in this series reminded me of Lora Leigh’s Breeds series, but not in a derivative way. We have the “fated mates” setup to bring Adam and Loren together, and the prerequisite secret family affiliations that neither of them had known existed before they met. During this initial story we discover much of the plotting and betrayals that had occurred during the creation of the Program, and they lead us to the moment where everyone’s future depends on finding the diplomat’s kidnapped son. As passionate as the scenes were between Adam and Loren, the suspense elements of the plot often threatened to overwhelm my enjoyment of their destined romance. I wanted more of them, and less kidnappings and torture, but the overall story arc was captivating enough that I would definitely be reading the next book in the series.

Ratings:

Overall: 4
Sensuality level: 3.5 (multiple passionate scenes of H/h who can’t stop having sex)

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Review: Because We Belong by Beth Kery

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Because We Belong (Because You Are Mine, #3)Because We Belong by Beth Kery

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

This review contains spoilers for Because You Are Mine and When I’m With You, the first two stories in the series. You could try to read Because We Belong as a stand-alone book, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

After having to read the previous stories in this series as serial novels, it was a huge relief for me that Because We Belong was being released as a complete book from the start. The prologue takes place hours before the dramatic moment in When I’m With You when Ian found out that his mother had died and that he and his good friend had both been fathered by the same man who had raped their mothers and thousands of other women before his death. We then move forward six months to find that Ian has been missing that entire time, with only his personal assistant Lin knowing where he is or what he is doing. Francesca has moved back into the house she once shared with all her old roommates while trying to go on without Ian, angry and sad that he has refused to contact her even once. When Lucien returns to ask for Francesca’s help in managing a delicate financial crisis at Noble Enterprises, her decision sets off a chain of events that put her in danger from an unknown enemy and force her to confront the mania driving the man she doesn’t want to live without.

I loved Ian and Francesca so much in Because You Are Mine, and hated having to wait each week for the next entry in the story. When I’m With You was a good read in its own right, but because the focus was on Lucien and Elise, it was less compelling for me right up until that heart-slamming chapter when Lucien revealed his relationship to Ian just before Ian found out his mother had died, leaving that same night to see his family in England. I was shocked to find that Ian was still gone and not communicating with Francesca months after that night, and that got me even more hooked into Because We Belong, as I wondered what the hell was going on with Ian and what might happen next.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that I tore through Because We Belong as fast as I was able to read without skimming or missing a single word. All of Francesca’s feelings were front and center in this book and I felt what she did as it was happening. My relief was palpable when Ian finally made contact, yet I cheered her on as she made him see just how much he had hurt her by his absence, and never allowing him to succumb entirely to his obsession with his late father’s past.

In Because We Belong, the passion between Ian and Francesca is just as deep and true and undeniable as it ever was, and their intimate moments burn up the pages whenever they come together. The growing threat to Francesca’s life is intrinsic to the overall story but never overwhelms the romance between Ian and Francesca as they rediscover the love they both had feared they’d lost. Best of all, the end of the story sets up another book in the series, so we’ll be able to see more happy moments between Ian and Francesca now that they’ve defeated both the internal and external threats to their happiness. Because We Belong is a fantastic entry in the Because You Are Mine series and was worth every minute I had to wait before I got to read it.

Ratings:

Overall: 5
Sensuality level: 4 (BDSM elements including light bondage, anal sex and voyeurism, threats of sexual violence and discussion of rape)

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Audiobook Review: Overheard by Maya Banks

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Overheard
Title: Overheard
Author: Maya Banks
Narrated by Chandra Skyye
Publisher: AudioGO
Length: 2 hrs and 43 mins
Release Date: 8/1/2013

A copy of this audiobook was provided to me by Audiobook Jukebox for an honest review.

Overheard is the second entry in Maya Banks’ Unbroken series, telling the story of a woman who is tired of settling for men that can’t give her what she wants in bed, but gets exactly what she’s missing when one of her male friends overhears her sharing her sexual fantasies with a trusted girlfriend.

Gracie has finally had enough with her latest crappy boyfriend and has kicked him to the curb. She’s lucky to have a set of lifelong friends to lean on while she tries to figure out how to get a good man in her bed. One of those friends is Luke, a man who has always seen Gracie as an attractive woman but never figured he’d get the opportunity to turn their friendship into something more personal. Then he overhears Gracie telling their mutual friend Shelly all the things she wants to do with the right man, and he knows that he’s just the guy to make it all come true. What happens next between Gracie and Luke shows them that sometimes overhearing what wasn’t meant for you can be both the best and worst thing ever.

I’ve found that Maya Banks’ writing usually lends itself well to an audio version, and Overheard is no exception. The story is short and intense, but we are given everything we need to know about what motivates Gracie and Luke, and how their previously platonic friendship was able to morph almost seamlessly into a sexual relationship (at least at first) and how their love growing into something deeper was a natural and realistic progression. Chandra Skyye does a good job of differentiating voices between the various male and female characters. I did find her deliberately Southern-style accent a bit grating at times, but that’s a matter of personal preference.

Overheard is another scorching but sweet tale of sex and love in the Maya Banks tradition and it was an enjoyable listen I won’t soon forget.

Review: Colters’ Gift by Maya Banks

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Colters' Gift (Colters' Legacy, #5)Colters’ Gift by Maya Banks

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for a honest review at Seductive Musings.

Colters’ Gift is the latest entry in Maya Banks’ Colters’ Legacy series and with Colters’ Legacy, the additional novella included as a bonus, it concludes the story of the Colter family and their multiple generations of brothers who share and love a single woman together forever.

We last saw Lauren Wilder in Colters’ Promise, when she was rescued from an abusive relationship by her brother Max and the two men he had hired to protect her. In that story Max, happily married to Callie Colter, convinced Lauren to leave New York for Clyde, Colorado, where she could be looked after by the whole extended Colter family. Now months later, Lauren is just starting to regain her confidence and feel like herself again, while her two bodyguards, Noah and Liam, are still in New York trying to find the man who had abused Lauren. What they don’t know and Lauren hasn’t shared is that her ex-boyfriend Joel Knight is a dangerous criminal kingpin who uses his wealth and influence with corrupt law enforcement officials to do whatever he wants, including drug trafficking, prostitution, and worse. When Noah and Liam realize the danger Lauren is in, they return to Clyde both to protect her and claim her for their own. But Joel hasn’t given up looking for Lauren, and when he finds her, the entire Colter clan rallies to eliminate the danger to her and themselves once and for all.

So much of Colters’ Gift was taken up with the threat to Lauren’s life that the romance between her and the two bodyguards suffered by comparison for me. I hadn’t gotten a sense from the previous book that either Liam or Noah had harbored deeper feelings for her, let alone ones so strong that they were willing to share her. Of course the idea of being shared wouldn’t be out of the question for Lauren after seeing how happy her in-laws were in their relationships, but it almost seemed like it was being forced into the plot just to keep with the overall menage theme of the series. What I found especially odd was how the story just seemed to end suddenly with Colters’ Gift, and then the actual happy ending for everyone was in the bonus novella, Colters’ Legacy. It would have made more sense to me to just have that in the one book, but perhaps there were other issues not obvious to the reader forcing that decision.

As a longtime reader of the Colters’ Legacy series, I was happy to have final closure on the characters’ lives, but beyond that, Colters’ Gift was just an okay read for me. There really wasn’t anywhere else for Maya Banks to go with the story and I’m glad she was able to end it on a positive note with everyone happy, safe and loved.

Ratings:

Overall: 3
Sensuality level: 4 (MFM menage including anal sex, multiple threats of sexual violence)

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Review: Passion Eternal by Jenn Sawyer

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Passion Eternal (Passion Eternal, #1)Passion Eternal by Jenn Sawyer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided to me by the author for an honest review at The Romance Evangelist.

I’m still not sure what I just read, but I’m not going to be able to discuss it here without significant spoilers. Consider yourself warned.

Here is the blurb for Passion Eternal:

Tina Shawn was nine years old when she developed an uncontrollable crush on Brad Anderson, who was two years older than her.

Now, seven years later, the boy who has held the key to her heart is moving out of Cleveland, Ohio. It spells the end of her dream. But little does she realize that their paths will cross again. Except that finding her dream again only gradually throws her into a state of confusion as conflicting events unfold.

“Conflicting events” is a mild description for what occurred in this book after the opening scene when Brad’s family moved out of town. Tina attempted to forget Brad by agreeing to go out with an older rich kid who got her drunk and attempted to sexually assault her before she was rescued by another kid who knew her from high school. This part of the book went on for several chapters, albeit ones that weren’t more than one or two pages long. When the next chapter began with “Three years later,” I wondered what the point was for providing all that detail if there weren’t going to be any repercussions.

So it’s three years later, and Tina has moved to Teaneck, New Jersey, to attend college. Apparently by pure coincidence, she spots Brad and then lashes out when he doesn’t act happy to see her again. The remainder of the book consists of the two of them getting drunk and having sex and fighting and Brad’s father threatening them. There is also a weird side trip to visit Brad’s ailing mother in a strange medical facility where Tina provides blood for a transfusion (!) and then more sex and more fighting and more of Brad’s father threatening. The book ends with an anonymous phone call directing Tina to look in Brad’s closet for a box containing letters and videos showing him having sex with another woman, prompting Tina to leave him again, ostensibly for good this time.

So many things happened in Passion Eternal and yet nothing important was actually explained or resolved. We get elaborate introductions to transitional characters who only appear in a single scene, such as Collin Sheldon, the boy who rescues Tina from the rich kid who attacked her, and Audrey, the woman who brings up the room service food for Tina and Brad in the hotel where they’re staying. Yet we are never given any clues about more pressing questions, such as how is Brad paying for all the hotel visits and the new apartment, what is wrong with Brad’s mother, and why did Brad borrow $15,000 from his father in the first place?

Yet the most frustrating part of this book for me was Tina herself, and her propensity to start screaming and losing control whenever her bad choices put her in bad situations. I seriously wondered if she was going to be alive by the end of the book, what with all the times she got drunk and passed out after either being attacked or ending up in bed with Brad. By the time she had decided to leave Brad one last time after finding the evidence of his infidelity, I was just relieved that the book was finally over, and I didn’t have to try to figure out what the heck was going on anymore.

Somewhere in Passion Eternal is a story that is trying to come out, but I wasn’t able to find it. I sincerely hope that the author will work with a copy editor and some unbiased beta readers before releasing her follow-up book.

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Review: Game For Trouble by Karen Erickson

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Game for Trouble (Game for It, #2)Game for Trouble by Karen Erickson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Romancing Rakes For The Love Of Romance.

Game For Trouble is the second book in Karen Erickson’s great new sports romance series about the attractive single men on the San Jose Hawks professional football team and the women with whom they fall in love. The first book – Game For Marriage – featured Jared, the team quarterback and Sheridan, a local artist who was corralled with him into a sham marriage for the sake of repairing his playboy reputation. In this second book, Jared and Sheridan are safely settled and deliriously happy together, and their obvious bliss starts to grate on Nick Hamilton, the Hawks’ usually happy-go-lucky tight end and best friend to Jared. When Nick sees what his friend has, he wants it for himself, and the only woman who can give him what he wants is Willow Cavanaugh. Unfortunately for Nick, she also happens to be the one woman who has vowed never to give him a chance to break her heart again. Willow doesn’t know that Nick dumped her years ago because her high-powered lawyer father had threatened his budding football career. But now that she’s trying to start a new business away from her father’s influence and money, it’s Nick who has the building she wants to lease, and he’s going to use every bit of leverage to convince her that this time he’s not going anywhere without her.

The romance trope where the hero blackmails the heroine into spending time with him against her better judgment can be tricky if it’s not handled well. In Game For Trouble, Karen Erickson’s sure hand keeps everything balanced perfectly so that we see Nick’s feelings for Willow are more than met on her end, even if she’s afraid to express them directly at first. Jared and Sheridan work well in this story as secondary characters, and any necessary details about their own relationship that a new reader would need to follow along are provided without resorting to massive and annoying data dumps.

The heart of Game For Trouble is the second chance at love for both Nick and Willow, and how their mutual and individual pasts must be learned from, instead of just gotten past or forgotten, for them to be able to love each other freely and completely at last. There are more than a few misunderstandings along the way, but there are also delicious scenes of groveling and makeup sex afterward. The love Nick and Willow have for each other is genuine, and their final reconciliation is a satisfying coda to the story. I adored Game For Trouble and I’m looking forward to reading Karen Erickson’s next entry in the Game For It series.

Favorite Quote:
Watching Sheridan smother Jared with kisses made him realize that what he really wanted was his woman back in his life. For good. He was tired of the fight. Tired of letting her go without protest. Sick and damn tired of giving up too damn easy. For once, he was gonna fight for what he wanted. Who he wanted.
And he wanted Willow.
He’d always wanted Willow.

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Review: Steady Beat by Lexxie Couper

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Steady Beat (Heart of Fame, #4)Steady Beat by Lexxie Couper

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review at Seductive Musings.

STEADY BEAT is the fourth book in Lexxie Couper’s Heart of Fame series, but I had no problem reading it as a stand-alone. The band previously known as Blackthorne has been on hiatus since their eponymous leader found his one true love in LOVE’S RHYTHM, the first book in this series. Their talented drummer, Noah Holden, is at loose ends since his swimsuit model girlfriend, Heather, dumped him for their dog-walker three months earlier, and worries that his ADHD will keep him from ever being able to have a real relationship outside the band. When “Blackthorne sans Blackthorne” meets in a local bar to discuss an offer to reform for a lucrative movie soundtrack, it’s their waitress, Pepper Kerrigan, who seizes on the perfect opportunity to get an audition as their new lead singer. What she ends up with is an immediate attraction to Noah and the chance of a lifetime. But can the new band survive both their sparks and the unforeseen return of Heather into Noah’s life?

As much as I try to avoid using this phrase in a review, I can’t help but say it for STEADY BEAT: I wanted to like this book more than I did. The premise was like catnip for me, featuring a shy and gifted heroine with a lifelong dream to sing with a band, meeting a sexy and sweet drummer who sees in her the woman who could be the steady love he’d thought he’d had before. The way Pepper and Noah meet borders on unbelievable, but Lexxie Couper makes it work, mostly because Noah is such an ingratiating hero who made me want to believe that this was all for real.

I’m generally inclined to give insta-lust a pass if what follows provides insight as to why these two people would have such a compelling attraction and shows the fallout from what happens next, especially when the couple have such disparate backgrounds as these two do. What I’m not inclined to ignore is when the insta-lust morphs into a seemingly magical cure for a genuine medical ailment such as Noah’s acknowledged ADHD. Meanwhile, we have a heroine who self-identifies as “chronically shy” but has somehow succeeded previously as a band manager and now wants to be the new lead singer for the reformed version of a world-famous rock band. I honestly didn’t know if I should be relieved or disappointed that Noah didn’t cure Pepper’s shyness in the same way she settled his attention span deficit, since it was that shyness that threw an unwelcome twist in the ending that the whole story had been moving toward since the first chapter.

There was much for me to enjoy in STEADY BEAT, most of which was related to Noah’s interactions with his band mates and how they ultimately came to like and trust Pepper as a member of their group. But as compelling as the romance was between Pepper and Noah, their happy ending didn’t blunt my disappointment at her inability to follow through on what she had claimed were her career goals all the way up until the end of the new band’s first gig. The somewhat abrupt ending of the story made Pepper’s sudden decision even more frustrating for me, and I wished that there had been an additional chapter or epilogue so we could see that her choice clearly made in haste was one that had actually worked out well for everyone involved.

Ratings:

Overall: 3
Sensuality level: 3.5 (hot passionate sex between the main characters but nothing kinky)

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Review: The Wrong Billionaire’s Bed by Jessica Clare

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The Wrong Billionaire's Bed (Billionaire Boys Club, #3)The Wrong Billionaire’s Bed by Jessica Clare

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for an honest review. The full version of this review can be found at Night Owl Reviews.

When Reese first meets Audrey in a hilarious scene involving a hot tub and a naked woman, it seems impossible that they could ever fall in love with each other. But Jessica Clare shows us each step of how Reese gets behind the walls Audrey has lived behind for so long, and how Audrey comes to see that Reese, not Cade, is the man she’s meant to be with. Their intimate scenes are at first fun and then serious, but they are always hot and exceedingly well written. The payoff of all the characters’ plotting and motivations is an ending that is touching and real without losing the sense of humor that runs through all three books. I loved “The Wrong Billionaire’s Bed” and I’m eagerly anticipating the next book in the series. 4.5 stars

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