Format: eBook

Review: Knight’s Redemption by Sherilee Gray

Posted February 27, 2023 by Casee in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: Knight’s Redemption by Sherilee GrayReviewer: Casee
Knight's Redemption by Sherilee Gray
Series: Knights of Hell #1
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: October 24, 2018
Format: eBook
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 298
Add It: Goodreads
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three-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

With one fatal mistake, immortal demon hunter Lazarus started a chain reaction that set him and his five brothers on a collision course straight to Hell. There's only one way to save them all-claim his mate, a sweet beauty he doesn't deserve and will only end up hurting. But immortals fall hard, and walking away from her when it's over is going to be near-impossible. When bookstore owner Eve Taylor starts hearing the thoughts of others, she is certain she's losing her mind. Until the day a wickedly seductive and dangerous warrior appears and introduces her to a terrifying new world-one she has been part of her whole life and never knew. Now, with a traitor consumed by darkness and driven by revenge hunting them, they have one chance at survival. But they must give into the scorching desire that, if they let it, could destroy them both.

Eve Taylor is a local bookstore owner that has no idea that the paranormal exists. When a strange man comes into her shop, she is instantly wary. When he kills one of her regulars, who is actually a demon, she loses her shit. Eve has always known she was different than other people, but she had no idea how different she was. It’s only been recently that she has been able to hear thoughts of those around her. Even then, she never considered that the supernatural existed, let alone that she would end up abandoning the life that she has built.

Lazarus is a Knight of Hell. His sole purpose on the Earth is to protect it from demons. When he first senses Eve, he instantly knows who she is to him. His mate & the other half of his soul. The only problem is that he doesn’t want a mate. After losing the woman that he thought of as a daughter, Lazarus blames himself for her death. While the demon side of him wants Eve desperately, he will never put her in a position where her life will be put at risk. Then he gets to know her & all his plans go straight to hell (heh).

This book was an extremely easy read. Lazarus was pretty annoying what with his refusal to take Eve as his mate, or even tell her that she is his mate. He’s so determined to protect her that he almost fails to see what is right in front of him. Eve was a great heroine, a woman that knows her own mind & wants to learn. As a newly awakened demi-demon, she is just coming into her powers & Lazarus might be the only one that can help her mater them.

I liked this book enough to read on, though it wasn’t spectacular by any stretch of the imagination.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Knights of Hell

three-stars

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Review: Beyond Destiny by Georgia Lyn Hunter

Posted February 20, 2023 by Casee in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: Beyond Destiny by Georgia Lyn HunterReviewer: Casee
Beyond Destiny by Georgia Lyn Hunter
Series: Fallen Guardians #8
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: December 27, 2022
Format: eBook
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 480
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four-half-stars
Series Rating: five-stars

Can a creature of the dark and an angel conquer a forbidden love?
As a new Guardian, bloodshed and death have become Ely’s way of life. During a skirmish, she faces off with a demon unlike any, whose sexy swagger and wicked smile throw her off her stride. Until he opens his mouth. Then she wants to kill the maddening male. Yet, every time he’s near, the draw to him is inexorable…but he’s her sworn enemy.
They call him Sicari, an assassin. Except he is something worse—a monster. Bound to a hellish existence, Nate shuns entanglements of any sort until a female who’s as lethal as the weapons she wields cracks through his armor with just a glare. Their attraction is undeniable, but they can never be. Not when his all-consuming desire for his beautiful nemesis becomes as dangerous as his need for gore and death.
As their emotions unravel and eternal heartbreak looms, both succumb to a dark passion, awakening Nate’s sinister side. With enemies closing in and time running out, Nate must sacrifice everything to protect the angel he loves. But Ely will battle the entire Dark Realm to save him, even if it means facing a fate from which there is no escape…
Another slow-burn dance in this 126k+ words enemies-to-lovers story!

Ely is an Empyrean princess who escaped her realm to Earth after her parents tried to force her to mate. It’s taken Ely time & effort to prove to her fellow Guardians that she is worthy of the job. After months in Gaia’s realm, Ely is finally gifted with her Guardian weapons. All Ely wants to do is fit in with her brethren & protect humans from an evil they don’t know exists.

Nate was left for dead as a child & his savior gave him a demon symbiont to save him. Aba had no idea when he gifted Nate with the symbiont that it would have been better if he let him die. Nate’s life is not easy, in fact it’s hell. Being bound to an archdemon in the Dark Realm, Nate is known as Sicari. Assassin, killer, demon. Then he meets Ely & she turns his world upside down.

Ely is drawn to Nate even as she’s repelled by her feelings for the demon at first. As their paths cross again and again, Ely begins to suspect that Nate is her mate even if he is not her destined mate. When Nate’s wyvern side comes out in the Dark Realm, Ely will do anything to save him, even give her own life.

The author mentioned in the Afterword that this book was long than she intended. I think it was the perfect length as we got to know Nate’s story & how Ely has been a part of his life for far longer than either of them have realized. I loved this book from the first page to the last. I can’t wait for the next book in this series!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Fallen Guardians

four-half-stars

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Review: The Duchess Hunt by Lorraine Heath

Posted December 5, 2022 by Holly in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: The Duchess Hunt by Lorraine HeathReviewer: Holly
The Duchess Hunt by Lorraine Heath
Series: Once Upon a Dukedom #2
Also in this series: The Duchess Hunt
Publisher: Harper Collins, Avon
Publication Date: September 28, 2021
Format: Audiobook, eBook
Source: Library, Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Genres: Historical Romance
Pages: 384
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

New York Times bestselling author Lorraine Heath continues her Once Upon a Dukedom series with this lush love story of a duke who discovers what he desires in a wife may not be what he needs...
Hugh Brinsley-Norton, the Duke of Kingsland, is in need of a duchess. However, restoring the dukedom—left in ruins by his father—to its former glory demands all his time, with little room for sentiment. He places an advert encouraging the single ladies of the ton to write why they should be the one chosen, and leaves it to his efficient secretary to select his future wife.
If there exists a more unpleasant task in the world than deciding who is to marry the man you love, Penelope Pettypeace certainly can’t imagine what it might be. Still, she is determined to find the perfect bride for her clueless, yet ruthlessly charming employer.
But when an anonymous note threatens to reveal truths best hidden, Kingsland has no choice but to confront the danger with Penelope at his side. Beguiled by the strong-willed, courageous beauty, he realizes he’s willing to risk everything, including his heart, to keep her safe within his arms. Could it be the duchess he’s hunting for has been in front of him all along?

The Duchess Hunt is the second book in the Once Upon a Dukedom series. I switched between reading and listening. The narrator, Kate Reading, is a personal favorite.

The Duke of Kingsland needs a wife, but he can’t be bothered with trying to find one on his own, so he puts an advert in the Times and asks anyone interested in becoming his duchess to send him a letter with their qualifications. Naturally, everyone is interested as he’s a duke. When his first choice falls in love with another man, he gives the task of choosing the runner up to his secretary, Miss Penelope Pettypeace.

Penelope has been in love with Kingsland forever, but it’s a quiet kind of love. She’s damn good and her job and loves what she does. She isn’t willing to compromise that for a love that can never be. So she dedicates herself to finding the right girl to be the future Duchess. Things are going well until suddenly the duke seems to notices her as a woman. Where before he treated her well, but just like any other person in his employ, all of a sudden he’s treating her as a woman first. When something threatens to expose secrets neither want revealed, they both realize things are more complicated between them than they ever knew.

This was a great unrequited love story. Penelope was a lovely character. Her steadfastness and attention to detail really came through. She may have been in love with the duke, but it wasn’t a starry-eyed kind of thing. These were two adults who respected one another and I loved that. While I enjoyed the first book in the series, this is definitely my favorite so far.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

Once Upon a Dukedom

four-stars

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Review: Eclipse the Moon by Jessie Mihalik

Posted November 28, 2022 by Holly in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: Eclipse the Moon by Jessie MihalikReviewer: Holly
Eclipse the Moon by Jessie Mihalik
Series: Starlight's Shadow #2
Also in this series: Hunt the Stars
Publisher: Harper Collins, Harper Voyager
Publication Date: July 12, 2022
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: First
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Genres: Science Fiction
Pages: 440
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Kee Ildez has been many things: hacker, soldier, bounty hunter. She never expected to be a hero, but when a shadowy group of traitors starts trying to goad the galaxy’s two superpowers into instigating an interstellar war, Kee throws herself into the search to find out who is responsible—and stop them.

Digging up hidden information is her job, so hunting traitors should be a piece of cake, but the primary suspect spent years in the military, and someone powerful is still covering his tracks. Disrupting their plans will require the help of her entire team, including Varro Runkow, a Valovian weapons expert who makes her pulse race.
Quiet, grumpy, and incredibly handsome, Varro watches her with hot eyes but ignores all of her flirting, so Kee silently vows to keep her feelings strictly platonic. But that vow will be put to the test when she and Varro are forced to leave the safety of their ship and venture into enemy territory alone.

Cut off from the rest of their team, they must figure out how to work together—and fast—because a single misstep will cost thousands of lives.

Eclipse the Moon (Starlight’s Shadow #2) by Jessie Mihalik picks up where book #1, Capture the Sun“>Hunt the Stars, left off. Kee is a systems specialist on board Starlight’s Shadow, a mercenary ship. They’re on the hunt for a traitor set on restarting the war between the Human Federation and the Valoffs. Neither Kee nor any of the rest of the crew is willing to go back to war, so she heads to, Bastian, a space station in human airspace just outside a Valoff wormhole to see if she can track down their enemy or figure out what plot is afoot. If that gets her away from Varro, the sexy Valoff she’s been crushing on, all the better. She’s been sending out hints for weeks and he’s clearly not interested, so she needs some space to get her head on straight and move on.

Only Varro follows her. When things escalate and they end up fighting for their lives she’s grateful, if mortified that he doesn’t return her feelings.

Kee isn’t my favorite crew member, but I liked her in the previous book and wanted to know more about her and Varro. I enjoyed them both, though I did think they danced around each other a bit too much. There’s a lot of action in this book, which kept the pace moving but left me frustrated at times since it interrupted communication between them. Still, I enjoyed how they worked together and how the overall storyarc progressed. I’m anxious for the next book.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

Starlight’s Shadow

Capture the Sun

four-stars

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Review: One Percent of You by Michelle Gross

Posted November 14, 2022 by Holly in Reviews | 1 Comment

Review: One Percent of You by Michelle GrossReviewer: Holly
One Percent of You by Michelle Gross
Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: May 5, 2019
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Point-of-View: Alternating
Cliffhanger: View Spoiler »
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 341
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four-stars

Make no mistakes about it. I know what I look like to others. Young, government-aided, pregnant mom. They see Lucy on my hip, and they see a mistake. I mean, why else would someone have a child so young, right? They couldn’t be more wrong. I’m too busy most days between parenting, work, and finishing up my last year of nursing school to let their judging gaze tear me down until he moves in the vacant house next to the apartments I live in.
His cold, blunt observation of us doesn’t differ from any other stranger. He doesn’t know me, but he’s already painting a picture of who he thinks I am in his mind. He judges my very round belly, Lucy’s inability to leave him alone, the bags under my eyes, and the fact that I could not care less what I look like anymore.
He’s a rude guy. Stays that way for months too. Then something happens, I’m not even sure what. Judgmental Guy decides Lucy and me — as well as baby Eli — are worth his friendship.
Turns out, Judgmental Guy isn’t too mean — okay, he kind of still is. But he graduates to Elijah. I build an unlikely friendship with him which deems it necessary for him to start smiling around me and my kids.
I’m wrong again. Elijah isn’t rude. He’s terrifying. His strange acts of kindness are unraveling me. Elijah is only my friend.
Right?
Oh, fudge. I think I’m wrong. Again.

One Percent of You by Michelle Gross is a single-mom contemporary romance. My friend Ames recommended this book to me. If not for her, based on the blurb and the first chapter, I probably wouldn’t have read it. I’m glad I did. It turned out to be really cute, though it could have used a good edit.

Elijah sort of accidentally on purpose scared a little girl in the grocery story and stole her bag of chips. Then she moved into the apartments next door to his house, and became his arch-nemesis. He’s feeling pretty judgmental about her and her obviously pregnant single-mom, but also kind of intrigued. As time goes on, Elijah comes to realize he’s been a jerk and he becomes friends with the little family.

I loved how Elijah was sort of intrigued by this little family of Hadley’s, despite his resistance to kids. The way he and Lucy, Hadley’s daughter, formed a bond was adorable. There were a lot of editing errors and I thought Hadley held onto things a little more than she should, but overall it was a great read. It was just what I was in the mood for at the time.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

four-stars

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