Day: January 14, 2015

Review: Visions of Heat by Nalini Singh

Posted January 14, 2015 by Rowena in Reviews | 18 Comments

Review: Visions of Heat by Nalini SinghReviewer: Rowena
Visions of Heat by Nalini Singh
Series: Psy/Changeling #2
Also in this series: Mine to Possess, Hostage to Pleasure, The Magical Christmas Cat , Kiss of Snow, Tangle of Need, Slave to Sensation , Wild Invitation, Heart of Obsidian, Shield of Winter, Shield of Winter, Mine to Possess, Caressed By Ice, Branded by Fire, Blaze of Memory, Mine to Possess, Hostage to Pleasure, Hostage to Pleasure, Shards of Hope, Shards of Hope, Heart of Obsidian, Caressed By Ice, Branded by Fire, Blaze of Memory, Play of Passion, Allegiance of Honor, Kiss of Snow, Tangle of Need, Shield of Winter, Shards of Hope, Allegiance of Honor, Allegiance of Honor, Wild Embrace, Wild Embrace, Wild Embrace, Silver Silence, Silver Silence, Tangle of Need, Ocean Light, Ocean Light , Caressed By Ice, Wolf Rain
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: March 6th 2007
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 352
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: five-stars

A Psy/Changeling novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Shards of Hope, Shield of Winter, and Heart of Obsidian..."the alpha author of paranormal romance" (Booklist).

Used to cold silence, Faith NightStar is suddenly being tormented by dark visions of blood and murder. A bad sign for anyone, but worse for Faith, an F-Psy with the highly sought after ability to predict the future. Then the visions show her something even more dangerous—aching need…exquisite pleasure. But so powerful is her sight, so fragile the state of her mind, that the very emotions she yearns to embrace could be the end of her. 

Changeling Vaughn D’Angelo can take either man or jaguar form, but it is his animal side that is overwhelmingly drawn to Faith. The jaguar’s instinct is to claim this woman it finds so utterly fascinating and the man has no argument. But while Vaughn craves sensation and hungers to pleasure Faith in every way, desire is a danger that could snap the last threads of her sanity. And there are Psy who need Faith’s sight for their own purposes. They must keep her silenced—and keep her from Vaughn…

 

This is the second book in the Psy/Changeling series and it was another great story by Singh. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading the rest of the series. I’m really glad to have the books on hand (no year long waits for me, yay!) because I don’t think that I’d survive waiting so long between books.

This book follows Vaughn, the lone jaguar in DarkRiver and Faith NightStar, celebrity F-Psy who is worth billions to her Psy-Clan. She can foresee the future and she works at projecting good and bad deals for large corporation. She makes the Psy-Clan a lot of money so she’s safe…at least she thinks she is. When she starts getting dark visions, the only person she thinks that will give her honest answers is Sascha Duncan, the Psy who defected and lives with her changeling mate out in the forest.

I should say that what got Faith’s butt in gear was the murder of her sister, Marine. She’s got some guilt going on and is trying to figure these dark visions out. She feels that Sascha can help her without the lies that she knows she’d get from the Psy people.

Faith and Vaughn were great characters. I really liked them both. I thought Faith really came into her own with Vaughn’s help. I liked seeing her defenses against him fall with each visit he paid her. I really enjoyed seeing them come together. Vaughn’s fierce protectiveness made me love him more and more with each page. There were times when I was worried that he pushed Faith too hard, too soon but that all went away once we find out what’s going through Faith’s head during all of that.

The story was interesting, the characters were great and I was glad to meet all of the characters that I know get books down the road. The character that I’m most interested in getting to know better is Judd. He seems to be a really popular hero in the series and in this book, I saw why. He’s so mysterious and cold but you can see the potential in him in this book. I’m mighty curious to find out more about him, about his family and their story.

I thought Singh did a great job of answering any questions that newcomers to the series would have. The information about the world she built for these characters is readily available while reading the book without bogging the story down. I appreciated that. I also enjoyed the way that Faith and Vaughn’s story wrapped up, with all of the questions answered and resolutions in place. I’m not a fan of cliff-hangers so it was nice to see a story wrap up in one book while still introducing future stories.

My favorite part of the book was probably when Vaughn beat up all of those Psy warriors by himself. Haha, as you can tell, I loved me some Vaughn. I loved him in his human form but also in his cat form. He was just all over yummy. A fantastic hero.

Overall, this book was great. I can’t wait to read more so I definitely recommend this book to the few readers out there (if there are any) that haven’t read this book. Nalini Singh doesn’t disappoint.

Grade: 4 out of 5

This book is available from Berkley Sensation. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.

four-stars


Tagged: , , , , , ,

Guest Review: You Really Got Me by Erika Kelly

Posted January 14, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 1 Comment

Guest Review: You Really Got Me by Erika KellyReviewer: Tracy
You Really Got Me by Erika Kelly
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: January 6th 2015
Pages: 352
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars

The first irresistible novel in a hot new series about a rock star on his way up—and the woman he wants to take all the way…
Emmie Valencia has what it takes to be the music industry’s hottest band manager. She just needs to prove it. Determined to discover a killer new band, Emmie is ready to make her move. First stop: Austin, Texas.

As a sizzling-hot lead singer, Slater Vaughn has no trouble raising heart rates—but his band’s been flat-lining for years. When Emmie, his bandmate’s sister, crashes with them in exchange for some free management, her industry know-how lands them a spot in the biggest music festival in Texas. But it isn’t just her business acumen that catches Slater’s attention. Emmie is sexy and warm, and—for the first time in his life—he wants more.

But as irresistible as Slater is, Emmie is done with musicians. In her experience, a man can’t be a rock star and someone to trust with your heart—but Slater is determined to show her he’s both.

Tracy’s review of You Really Got Me by Erika Kelly

Emmie has been a personal assistant to the best A&R guy in the recording industry for eight years. She wants desperately to get a promotion and be an A&R person herself. The problem is that her boss won’t promote her. She finally decides to take matters into her own hands so she takes a 6 week leave of absence to try to discover her own band. She feels if she can just discover ONE band that her boss will sign then she’ll get her promotion.

Emmie has other things she wants to take care of while she’s on leave. She was in a relationship with a band member for three years. She found him cheating and then found out he’d been cheating for a long time while on tour. When confronted her ex told her that she wasn’t wild – that she serviced him. What an ass! Emmie has made a list and has decided she will work on being a bit more wild. Things like skinny dipping and sleeping naked. She heads to Texas to see her brother, Derek, and to check out bands. While there she helps Derek’s band, Snatch, in getting organized and getting them ready to be discovered. The lead singer of the band, Slater, is someone that Emmie can’t seem to get off her mind. He’s amazingly hot but they also share an amazing connection. Slater, however, is a man whore as far as Emmie knows and on top of that she’s sworn not to get involved with any more musicians.

Slater – whose real name is Jonny – doesn’t quite know what to make of Emmie when he first meets her but he soon finds himself thinking about her constantly. He also feels the connection that they have but he knows that she’s been hurt by another musician and there’s the fact that she’s Derek’s sister and he’s been warned away. They soon can’t stay away from each other but Emmie is leery of letting everyone know of their change in relationship and he hates that because he wants to shout it from the rooftops that she’s his girl.

Emmie manages to get Snatch booked at a local music festival AND get them to open for a music star by the name of Piper Lee. Once that happens Jonny and Emmie only have 11 days together before he goes on tour with Piper. Jonny tries to make Emmie believe that their relationship will endure the tour but Emmie is positive that Jonny will need to move on and be with other women. Then of course there’s Piper who is a barracuda and a manipulative bitch who has her eye on Slater. It’s a tangled web that Emmie’s not sure they can ever get out of.

You Really Got Me is a story that has a great romance in it but one that has relationship issues. These issues are different from your average every day variety as it has Jonny and Emmie dealing with him being gone on tour and all that is involved with him being the talented rock star he is (mainly groupies). I could see how Emmie could doubt Jonny’s feelings for her but she was so mercurial emotionally that it was hard to tell how she would react to some things. She doubted herself because of her ass of an ex but Jonny was forthright enough with his feelings for her that she should have seen how much he loved her. He definitely told her enough. Her up and down emotions really started to get on my nerves until she finally believed she was good enough for him – and that was near the end of the book. I was more than frustrated with Emmie the last half of the book.

Jonny was really a good guy who had had a strange childhood. Because of that he was unsure of his talent and that caused him to seek approval from those in the industry. I did love that he was willing to blow off interviews or events that would further his career just so he could be with Emmie. I’m not sure I believe that that would ever happen in RL but it was a good part of the fiction.

Overall I found the book to be a good one. There were many aspects of it that I really loved and then some that I didn’t. That evened things out for me and left me with a very good start to an interesting series.

Rating: 3.75/4 out of 5

This title is available from Berkley. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

four-stars


Tagged: , , , , , , , ,