Tag: Elizabeth Michels

What I Read Last Week

Posted March 10, 2014 by Tracy in Features | 0 Comments

Happy Monday!

I hope you all are doing well and reading up a storm.

Have you read any books lately that you feel like you need to tell everyone about? Or maybe you’ve read one that you feel everyone should avoid? Let me know!

Life is calm and pretty peaceful in Tracyland so I’ll get on to the books (as I know that’s why you’re here!).

First for the week was Dazed by Kim Karr. This is a story in the Connections series. The previous two books have been about Dahlia and River but this novella veers off and gives us Dahlia’s best friends story. Aerie Daniels is a woman who keeps herself organized. She’s a structured type of person and doesn’t break off from things she knows. Enter Jagger Kennedy, River’s cousin, and soon she’s living life in a completely different way and falling in love. This was a cute story that I really enjoyed reading. Aerie takes some getting used to but it worked in the end. 3.5/3.75 out of 5

Next up was Desperately Seeking Suzanna by Elizabeth Michels. This historical showed us Sue who, along with her sister and cousin, snuck into a masked ball. She meets Holden and they hit it off in a big way but when the masks come off Sue, who was referring to herself as Suzanna as she felt like a different beautiful woman, isn’t recognized by Holden at all. Parts of the story are really good and others frustrating. You can read my full review of the book on Book Binge by clicking here. 3.5/3.75 out of 5 

Reckless by Jessi Gage is a contemporary romance with a paranormal twist in it. Derek has a temper and ends up being the cause of an accident on the freeway (one he’s not actually involved in). He then starts thinking he’s having dreams that involved his dream girl and they fall in love. DG helps him change and he realizes he needs to take responsibility for his actions. DG, however, is actually Cami who was in the accident he caused and when she wakes up and he finds out that Cami is DG he’s not sure how she can forgive him causing it all. This was a good story. I liked how Derek grew throughout the book. I did think that the “I love you’s” came to quickly and I had another issue with Cami’s family but overall I liked the story and the writing. 3.75 out of 5 (read for Book Binge)

So Right With You by Maggie Kaye is the story of a woman who finds her fiancé cheating with her best friend and ends up staying with her boss who she then falls in love with. I didn’t care for this book. I thought that it was completely contrived and as the book was supposedly centered around Chloe and her best friends (it’s called The Girlfriend Series) then why did she not feel she could impose on them when she needed somewhere to stay. I found the story bland and nothing really happened. Not my cup of tea. 1 out of 5 (read for Book Binge)

Next was The Devil’s Pearl by Jennifer Haymore. Devlin and Julia were once lovers. He thought she knew he loved her but he treated her like a mistress and even tried to set her up in a house. She eventually leaves and moves to France but when she rejects another man’s advances he heads back to London and spreads rumors that she’s a courtesan. Now Dev is pissed that she cut him and took up with other men. When she heads back to England he kidnaps her and plans on keeping her forever. Ok, talk about anger issues. This guy was creepy and I think he’d actually lost it when he wanted to possess Julia. She needed to be with someone else entirely, imho. This is my first read by Haymore, and I liked the writing just not the character she wrote. I’ll definitely give her another chance but this one I found to just be ok. 2.5 out of 5 

Last was I Found You by Jane Lark. This is a new adult story about Jason who moved from small town Oregon to New York City. It’s not what he thought it would be at all and he’s pretty disillusioned. One night on his nightly run he finds Rachel on the Manhattan bridge about to jump off. He talks her down, takes her home and helps her out despite warnings from his mother, fiancé back home, and co-workers. The pair end up falling in love but the road is not easy and the issues they have to deal with are many. I just finished this one last night and I’m still formulating my thoughts on it. For the most part it was good but I did have some issues with it. 3.5 out of 5

My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:
For His Eyes Only by Liz Fielding

Happy Reading!


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Guest Review: Desperately Seeking Suzanna by Elizabeth Michels

Posted March 10, 2014 by Tracy in Reviews | 2 Comments

Guest Review: Desperately Seeking Suzanna by Elizabeth MichelsReviewer: Tracy
Desperately Seeking Suzanna by Elizabeth Michels
Series: Tricks of the Ton #2
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: March 4, 2014
Format: eARC
Genres: Historical Romance
Add It: Goodreads
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three-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

 

Sue Green just wanted one night to be the pretty one. But a few glasses of champagne and one wild disguise later, she’s in some serious trouble. Who knew the devastatingly handsome face of Lord Holden Ellis would get in the way of her foot? And how exactly did all that high-kick dancing start in the first place? At least she blamed it all on her new persona—Suzanna. So Society’s most eligible bachelor will never find out the truth.

All Holden wants is the truth. Who was that vixen who seduced him so thoroughly, then disappeared? The only one who seems to have any answers about Suzanna is Miss Sue Green. She’s promised to help him find his mystery woman, but in truth she’s not being all that helpful. And in truth, the more time Holden spends with Sue—witty, pretty, and disarmingly honest—the more he realizes he may have found exactly what he’s been looking for all along…

Sue and her gorgeous sister, along with their two cousins, sneak into a masquerade ball one night. The cousins and Sue’s sister, Evangeline, primp Sue up until she doesn’t even recognize herself in the mirror. She’s so excited that she starts to call herself Suzanna and does a bit of a dance down the staircase. Unfortunately Sue ends up can-canning her foot right into Holden Ellis’s nose. She’s very apologetic and yes, he takes advantage of that, as any good rake would do. They go up to his room so that he can change out of his bloody clothes (he had a bloody nose) and as Sue has had champagne and then a glass full of liquor while waiting for Holden she’s quite sloshed. She stretches out on his bed to wait and next thing you know Holden and Sue are being quite intimate with each other. They eventually make it down to the ball and have a great time together…until Sue’s mother finds her and takes her from beautiful Suzanna back to plain ole Sue. When Sue heads back into the ball Holden sees her but doesn’t recognize her – which rips her heart out a bit.

Holden is not happy when he returns from getting drinks for Suzanna and himself and finds her gone. She had told him that she was staying with the Fairlyn’s (his aunt and uncles new neighbors) so he heads over the next day and asks after her. Sue’s cousins let him know that Suzanna is unavailable but that she’ll be in London for the Season and they’ll be happy to keep him informed of where she’ll be. Holden is a bit perplexed at himself as he’s never chased a woman before but there was something about Suzanna and he just can’t get her out of his mind.

Meanwhile Sue’s mother, who is a beastly, nasty, condescending woman, is telling Sue that this Sue’s last Season. If she doesn’t find a match then she’ll be sent to the wilds of Scotland to become a companion to her great-aunt. Sue is devastated and becomes determined to find a husband. Of course her mother thinks this is absolutely impossible. In the mother’s words…

“I had long hoped we could find you a match this year. An old gentleman more in need of a caretaker than a wife or a gentleman with some abnormality… perhaps even someone’s destitute fourth son by the season’s end.”

OMG I wanted to beat the mother upside the head and neck. She was SO mean to Sue when Sue was by no means ugly. She was short and she wasn’t necessarily a diamond of the first water. So what? She deserves a man with abnormalities. Ug. That was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the mom. My heart ached for Sue as she had to put up with this badgering constantly.

Ok, enough about the mom. Anyway, Holden goes off for the season and finds himself attending balls he never planned on attending just so he could find Suzanna. He actually meets Sue and asks her about Suzanna as he believes them to be staying in the same home. Sue’s angry that he doesn’t recognize her and because of this doesn’t fall for Holden’s supposed charms. This gets Holden’s attention and he finally starts to see Sue for her lovely self and recognizes her as Suzanna. Now that he’s made a bumble of things, however, he’s not sure Sue will have him.

I have to say this book really started off with a bang. I was thoroughly engaged from the first page and read the whole story quite quickly. I loved Sue and everything about her. She was just a nice person and I admired the strength she had to possess just to handler her immediate family.

Holden wasn’t exactly who we thought he was in the beginning. We learn some things about him, and so does Sue, that show him in a completely different light. He had some family issues that were actually a secondary story line that eventually mingled with the first. I wasn’t sure that I cared all that much about the second story line but eventually saw that it was an integral part of who Holden was and how he lived his life. I did find him to be quite oblivious when it came to Sue. I mean, really? You see a short blond woman standing exactly where you left Suzanna and you don’t take a second look? I did think it too him too long to clue in but he made up for it in the end, imho.

This was a sweet & sexy romance and I’m glad I took a chance on this new-to-me author.

Rating: 3.5/3.75 out of 5

The Series:
Book Cover Book Cover

three-half-stars


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