Reviewer: Rowena
Firestorm by Brenda Joyce
Series: The Bragg Saga #2
Also in this series: The Fires of Paradise, Violet Fire
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date: October 6th 2009
Genres: Fiction, Erotica
Pages: 352
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books

Series Rating:

From the sensuous voice of novelist Brenda Joyce comes Firestorm, the extraordinary second book in the Bragg family saga that has captured the hearts of readers everywhere. Here is the beginning of the Bragg empire-opulent and glamorous-vast, dangerous, and as untamed as the sweeping plains of Texas...

Storm Bragg could outshoot and outride any man, but her family decided it was time she traded in her buckskins for a ballgown and made her debut in San Francisco society.Quickly pursued by every eligible gentleman in town, the young hellcat from Texas had eyes for only one, and he was no gentleman.Brett D'Archand was a self-made success -- arrogant, impossibly attractive, blatantly sensual -- and looking for a wife who would give him respectability.

Storm was completely bewitched by him, but she made him lose his head as well as his heart. And, threatened by scandal and ruin, they are forced to wed -- a tempestuous union of free spirits, shackled only by the irrepressible bonds of love.

Alright, I have officially given up on this author. I’ve tried three books by this author in this series and though I’ve enjoyed them for the most part…I didn’t enjoy them enough to continue on with this series.

This story is Lucy’s aunt and Rafe’s sister, Storm Bragg’s book. Storm could out shoot and out ride anyone, man or woman and she’s the biggest tom boy known to man. She loves the outdoors but her family thought it was best for to hang up her chaps and put on a damn dress, much to Storm’s chagrin. She’s packed up and shipped off from her Texas ranch home to San Francisco in hopes to snare a husband (not so different from the British ton) but because Storm is such a hot damn boy, there isn’t many offers coming her way.

It doesn’t help with the way she acts around Brett D’Archand and when a scandal blazes around these two and they’re forced to wed…Brett is NOT happy.

The rest of the story is spent with these two finding their way toward their happy ending.

And man is it a frickin’ trial trying to get there…a trial in my patience, a trial in my sanity and a trial in my effort not to strangle the snot out of Storm AND Brett.

rolls eyes

I was loving Brett when I first started the book, I thought, oh okay, this guy is a hottie but it went straight to hell in a hand basket, atleast my love for Brett did when it came to their wedding night.

After that night, I found it very hard to forgive him and to like him and though I ended up liking him well enough (because I’m a sucker for a sexy stud and Brett is definitely sexy, even if he’s a big asshole!) at the end, I couldn’t bring myself to get over their wedding night.

sigh

Think Jordan and Alex’s wedding night in Judith McNaught’s Something Wonderful.

sigh again

Storm, on the other hand…I think she got on my nerves more than Lucy did and Lucy got on my hot damn nerves a lot. It must be a writing for the times kind of thing because I know these are rereleases and man, I had a hard time getting through this book because I was always irritated by how bratty Storm was and just how spoiled she was and then Brett’s dominant personality. There were times in the book when he threatened Storm and I just couldn’t like it.

I mean, the book wasn’t a boring read, not at all…but it was just like the other books in this series. It engaged those same damn emotions that had me wanting to smack a bitch (in this case, Storm) and call the cops on a asshole (in this case, Brett)…so should you read it? If you like those forced seduction stories with the heroes that threaten the heroine a lot and the heroine being a snotty nosed brat, then yeah check it out but if you don’t check this book, I don’t think you’ll be sorry.

For me, this is my last Brenda Joyce because seriously, enough is enough with the dumb ass heroines who think they know everything and heroes that are just too hot damn mad about how they feel for the heroine…it makes me want to read something sweet and fluffy, just so that I can get over my madness with this series.

Reviewer: Rowena
The Fires of Paradise by Brenda Joyce
Series: The Bragg Saga #5
Also in this series: Violet Fire, Firestorm
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date: September 14th 2010
Genres: Fiction, Erotica
Pages: 448
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books

Series Rating:

The Scorching Saga of the Braggs Continues . . .
Heiress to the magnificent Bragg empire, lovely, headstrong socialite Lucy Bragg lives a life that flies in the face of convention. Dark and rugged half-breed Shozkay Savage lives an outlaw's life on the edge. These two people inhabit different worlds--hers, opulent and privileged; his, dangerous and wild. But on the vast and sweeping plains of Texas, their worlds collide . . .
Abducted and held for ransom, Lucy despises Shoz for his arrogance . . . yet is drawn to the strapping fugitive by a bold, unquenchable desire. Sworn to escape him but betrayed by her own reckless passion, she will follow Shoz from the unforgiving wastland of Death Valley to the tropical heat of revolution-swept Cuba--braving scandal and heartbreak, risking life itself for an untamed and blistering love as perilous as it is forbidden.

 

Wow.

This was my very first book by Brenda Joyce and though it won’t be my last because I’m going to start another Bragg story today, I have got to say that this story was quite …engaging. It engaged my emotions a lot, a lot of my more passionate emotions. The emotions that made me want to slap a bitch and throttle someone!

This story is about Shozkay Savage and Lucy Bragg. Shoz is part Apache and all throughout the story, he was this brave, courageous jack ass who had too much hot damn pride for his own good. There were times when I wanted to give him a swift kick where it hurts…the most. He ended up being a really good man, one that anyone would be proud to be married to but hot damn, all the miscommunication and all the assumptions on both him and Lucy’s part drove me up the effing wall. I wanted to hurt someone so many times during the course of reading this book.

Lucy, oh gosh, Lucy was one of those TSTL heroines that just didn’t quit it. The hero tells her to do something and she does the complete opposite of what he said, landing her in situations far too dangerous for her to be in and what does she do when hero yells at her for it?

She yells back like she wasn’t just scared out of her mind that something bad was going to happen to her. I swear, there were times aplenty when I wanted to rip Lucy a new one in this book, I think the only time that I softened in my attitude toward her was when they finally get to Death Valley and I see her bond with little Roberto. If ever anyone needed someone it was that little boy, the little boy that Shoz loved and who loved Shoz right back.

There was so much drama in this book too. From Shoz and Lucy meeting because Lucy and Joanna (her friend) left New York and traveled to Texas all by themselves without a chaperone and then their car broke down and Shoz shows up and fixes it for them and then they had to abandon the car because they ran out of gas and so they ended up walking for days until Shoz delivers them to her grandparents house.

Things go down between Lucy and Shoz of course and this is where I started getting pissed off at Lucy AND Shoz.

A few weeks ago, Casee put up a post about Forced Seduction and I’m not a fan of those kinds of love scenes. I don’t like the forced seduction and though I feel that some authors can pull off a forced seduction easily, I still don’t care for them.

This book was filled to the brim with those kinds of seduction. So naturally, I wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t like the first time they came together, it was just too unbelievable and then every other time afterward, Lucy would piss me off because she would want it just as much as Shoz wanted it and then after it was done, she would blast him for it. Even when she was the one that did the seducing.

Shoz wasn’t a bad man, he had a good heart and you could totally tell by the way that he was with Roberto. He was good to the little boy and it was more than evident that he loved the young boy. I was glad because I loved Roberto too. But just because I knew that Shoz had a good heart didn’t mean that I didn’t want to kick his ass more than one time throughout the book. The way he wore his pride on his sleeve was enough to drive me mad and the way he was so horrible to Lucy, because he hated her kind…and I didn’t even blame him for the way he looked at the kind of girls that Lucy was. She was horridly rich and she got whatever she wanted and all that junk but when Shoz was with her, the chemistry was unmistakable but they were just so stupid about it that it drove me insane.

Overall, this story was good. The characters were good characters, characters with stubborn personalities and though I ended loving the ending, I was still pissed through a great deal of this book. But I’ve got to say this, no matter how mad I got at Lucy and Shoz, I never thought that they belonged with anyone but each other and I think that Brenda Joyce did a great job writing their story. Her writing style is laced with great history that was easy to fall into and there was a wealth of other characters that were charming and likeable.

This book reminded me of one of those McKettrick books that I read by Linda Lael Miller and I remember I hated all of the assumptions that ran rampant with the hero and heroine but aside from their dumbness with each other, the story really was engaging and it did seem to fly right by when I was reading it so that’s gotta be something.

Should you read this story? Hmmm, I’m not sure…I did enjoy it but I can already tell that I won’t be rereading this story anytime soon, so yeah if you want to try it out and form your opinions you won’t hate me too much…so it’s totally up to you.

Now I’m moving on to the next Bragg book that I got, which I just found out is Lucy Bragg’s …PARENTS oh I hate finding out that I got the wrong reading order, sigh

Wish me luck. =)

3 out of 5