Tag: Angela Knight

Throwback Thursday Review: Warrior by Angela Knight

Posted April 19, 2018 by Casee in Reviews | 4 Comments

Throwback Thursday Review: Warrior by Angela KnightReviewer: Casee
Warrior by Angela Knight
Series: Time Hunters #1
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Point-of-View: Third
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 277
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

The NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR launches the new Time Hunters series.

In the 24th century, anyone can leap through time at will. To police the time jumpers, the Temporal Enforcement Agency has established a precinct in time. Galar Arvid is a genetically altered warlord and agent who’s been sent back to 2008 to save a pretty Atlanta artist from a Xeran time traveler who intends to kill her for profit. What Galar doesn’t count on is the powerful desire Jessica Kelly ignites in him. But could a romance between them work? A three-hundred-year chasm separates them and, even if they dart through time, there’s still a maniacal killer on their tails.

Every Thursday in 2018, we’ll be posting throwback reviews of our favorite and not-so-favorite books.

This review was originally posted on August 12, 2008.

This is the first of four reviews that I need to do, reviews I should have been working on yesterday. Unfortunately, I could not get myself motivated enough to turn on my laptop, let alone write a review. Instead, I mindlessly watched HGTV for hours. In a house that was silent. It was the closest thing to Heaven that I can imagine. This is totally off topic, but for you HGTV watchers, I’m curious…is the host of Color Splash (the one that wears tank tops and uses more hair products than I do) gay? That was about the hardest my brain worked yesterday. Actually there was one more brief moment of lucidity when I emailed Holly (via my Blackberry) and we discussed sex on a motorcycle a la Heat of the Moment by Jessica Hall. Is that actually possible?

While I can probably drone on and on about the nothing that I did yesterday, let me move onto my review of Warrior. This book begins a new series called Time Hunters. While Warrior is loosely connected to Jane’s Warlord, technically they’re not in the same series. It’s been so many years since I actually read Jane’s Warlord that I couldn’t even tell you the difference between a Warlord and an Enforcer (which is what our hero is).

As a Master Enforcer, Galar Arvid is in charge of the group of Enforcers that travel to 2008 to save Jessica Kelly from being murdered by a Time Jumper. Centuries in the future, Jessica will be infamous, for her art and for how her life was cut tragically short. Galar’s mission is to step in if, and only if, Jessica’s would be murderer is from the future. Following his own laws, he will be unable to help Jessica if her murderer is a human from her time.

Jessica is terrified when she awakes to find a stranger in her house demanding to know where her roommate is, while choking the life out of her. Fighting as best she can, she recalls little about when Galar and his team burst into her house to try to save her life. When she’s taken to the Time Jumpers “base”, what she feels goes beyond disbelief.

This is a bit of a hard review to write b/c there’s so much going on in the book to try to get the reader up to speed on this world. The Enforcers are human, yet not. They have a computer type thing in their brain which can control their bodies reactions to situations, tell them when someone is sneaking up behind them, and give them super human strength. Aside from that, they look just as human and a 21st century human being, which is what they originally assume Jess is. They soon realize their error when they discover that Jess is not entirely human herself. But then if she’s not human, is she a spy?

Even with the information overload at times, Warrior is still a good start to the Time Hunter series. There was an interesting conflict setup with a traitor (obviously not Jess) and a group of almost extinct aliens (imagine the Chicken Little aliens here). Galar is a true hero, someone that has given up a lot for his people. Having been betrayed by a woman he thought he loved in the past, he doesn’t take it well when it’s first thought that Jess is a traitor. Having to ignore everything he believes, Galar does what he must to protect his world and the people in it. Jess was an okay heroine, nothing too spectacular. She really accepted the world rather well considering that she was thrown into it as brutally as she was. That was a bit unbelievable, even with the measures the Enforcers have in place to bring people like Jess up to speed.

Knight also did a good job of setting up the next book, which I look forward to reading. All in all, I would say give this book a try.

4 out of 5.

Time Hunters

four-stars

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Review: Master of the Night by Angela Knight

Posted August 8, 2017 by Holly in Reviews | 2 Comments

Review: Master of the Night by Angela KnightReviewer: Holly
Master of the Night (Mageverse #1) by Angela Knight
Series: Mageverse #1
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: October 5th 2004
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 296
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
three-half-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

American agent Erin Grayson has a new mission: romance international businessman Reece Champion. Seducing the handsome millionaire could put her that much closer to the revenge she craves against a murderous organization.

Erin doesn't realize she's being manipulated by the very group she hunts. Champion is actually an agent of the U.S. government.

He's also a vampire.

Reece senses the latent supernatural powers hidden within Erin, powers as dangerously irresistible to him as her lush body and hot blood. Yet he also knows that yielding to their mutual desire will make them pawns in a deadly game—a game in which their opponent is, quite literally, a monster.

To survive, Erin must embrace talents she never knew she had—and trust a man who is Master of the Night.

I was in the mood for Arthurian romances and asked for recs on Twitter. This series was the first one mentioned. While it wasn’t quite what I was looking for in terms of Arthurian legend, I found the series to be pretty cracktastic. I read 5 full-length novels and 3 novellas back-to-back.

In Knight’s world, Arthur and his round table actually exist, but they’re immortal vampires charged with saving humanity from itself. Merlin and Nimue are aliens from another planet who realized early on civilizations needed subtle help to keep them from wiping themselves out. They created the vampires to watch over humanity and work from behind the scenes to keep them from completely destroying themselves. They must remain in the shadows, for those on Earth must never know they exist.

Reece Champion is the vampire champion of the United States. He’s investigating a sudden surge in cult activity when he comes into contact with Erin Grayson. Erin is a Latent, a descendant of one the round table knights. 1 in every 10 of their offspring can be turned into a Magi (female witch) or Magus (male vampire). Having sex 3 times will trigger Erin’s Latent gifts and open her up to the powers of the Mageverse. The problem is, if she isn’t compatible, channeling that much power can drive her insane and she’ll have to be executed.

It turns out Erin is investigating the same cult activities, but she doesn’t realize Reece is on her side. She’s investigating him as the possible leader of the cult. It isn’t long before they realize there’s more going on than either of them are aware. When they end up locked in a cell together so Reece will trigger her change, they’ll have to decide if they can trust each other enough to work together. The only way out may be by changing Erin, but without a deep personal connection, she might go insane.

I have to admit, the premise caused me a to raise an eyebrow at first. Having sex three times is the only way to release someone’s powers? Okayyy… But it wasn’t as hokey as I expected it to be. I did have to suspend disbelief somewhat to buy the insta-love in each book, but the world is really interesting and the characters drew me in.

Aside from my issues with how quickly they fell in love, I really liked both Reece and Erin. They were both capable and committed to their cause. Erin worked hard and had a deep well of inner strength that appealed to me. Reece was a stand-up guy all around. I did buy their connection, but it just came about too soon.  I enjoyed the way the plot progressed. There was enough action and adventure to keep me interested even when I was a little iffy on the romance.

Someone described these as being “cracky” and I’d agree..the series is totally cracktastic. I couldn’t put it down.

3.75 out of 5

three-half-stars

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What I Read Last Week

Posted February 21, 2011 by Tracy in Features | 16 Comments

And here we are again…another week has gone by.  How do they do that so fast? lol

It was a crazy week again this week.  My oldest daughter is going through some stuff and it’s stressful to say the least. But hey, we’re all hanging in and that’s wonderful! 🙂

This week was the week of the haircut for me.  I got my hair cut on Tuesday and loved it…until I started doing it myself (it always looks better when the stylist does it!) and then I realized that it really wasn’t cut like I wanted it. It was a great cut, just not what I was looking for.  So I went and got another hair cut (I know, no hair cut for 6 months and then 2 in one week…shocking!) and I love it!  I think I got the weight of a small child cut off of my head with all of the many inches that were cut off the back and the thinning of my hair. I wish it had all been at once so that I could have donated it all, but unfortunately since it was done in stages I couldn’t. 🙁  

First there was the “before” picture and if you ask me the back looks like some sort of animal pelt.  How did I walk around with that much hair? lol It was just damned BIG! Of course since I usually put it up into a ponytail about 4 hours of wearing it down each day I didn’t notice it that much.  For as crazy as it was down it turned into quite a nice tail. lol  I didn’t get a picture of the in between cuts – sorry.

Here is the final result.  She went a little short on my bangs but since they grow super fast I have no other complaints at all.

I need to work on styling it but it’s all good! So enough about my hair – on to what I read this past week:

I started off reading Duck! by Kim Dare for my TBR Challenge Review (through Wendy the Super Librarian) and it was really good!  I posted my review already so if you’re interested you can read it here.  4.25 out of 5

Next up was Seducing the Governess by Margo Maguire.  This was my first read by this author and I really liked the book.  This review also posted already so you can read it here if you’d like. 4 out of 5

Next up was Immortal Champion by Lisa Hendrix. I read this one for The Book Binge but it’s a series that I’ve been following since the first book (this is book 3). I really like the mix of medieval romance with the addition of magic and paranormal aspects mixed in.  This was Gunnar’s story and though it was heart wrenching at times it was really good. You can read my review here at TBB. 4.25 out of 5

Next was another book for The Book Binge called Cottage by the Stream by Gail Wolfe.  A woman heads to Scotland because she is hiding from a man who’s stalking her and out to kill her.  She ends up being thrown into a world of fey, Star-Children, Watchers and Druid’s. I really liked the premise of this book but it didn’t end up working for me.  2 out of 5

My next read was Not Knowing Jack by KA Mitchell.  This was an incredibly intense book that I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I got.  The book follows Jack and Tony who’ve been together for a little over a year but they never really talk and thoroughly get to know each other during that time.  Jack has some huge secrets and when they come back and start to bite him in the ass Tony isn’t pleased to have been left in the dark.  I knew from the blurb that the relationship between the two men is tested but, wow, that was intense.  You really have to read it to understand and I don’t want to give any spoilers but it was really good.  I wanted to smack Jack around a couple of times – ok, a lot – but in the end it was good to see the men work it all out. (That’s not a spoiler!  I mean, come on…it’s a romance – you know full well there’s gonna be an HEA!) 4 out of 5

For my Tracy’s TBR challenge read this week I picked up the Burning Up anthology by Nalini Singh, Meljean Brook, Virginia Kantra and Angela Knight.  I only ended up reading all the way through the Singh and the Brook stories and they were wonderful!  The Knight…I just couldn’t get into it though I normally like her writing.  The Kantra I read a few pages but just wasn’t feeling it.  I had read 1 book from the Children of the Sea series and it really wasn’t my thing so I passed on that one.  Anyway…for what I read – the Singh and Brook…5 out of 5!

Another Tracy’s TBR challenge read was Must Love Hellhounds by Meljean Brook, Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh and Ilona Andrews.  I had read the Brook story back in Oct. of 2009 but hadn’t read the rest of the stories.  I really liked the Singh story – getting to see how Sara and Deacon got together in her Guild Hunter series.  The Brook of course was great again and though I don’t read that Andrews series the story was good.  I liked the Harris (my first read by her) but it was probably my least favorite of the bunch.  Overall with it’s highs and lows I’ll give it 4 out of 5.

My Book Binge reviews that posted this past week:
Moon Burning by Lucy Monroe
Immortal Champion by Lisa Hendrix

Happy Reading!

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What I Read Last Week

Posted January 10, 2011 by Tracy in Features | 12 Comments

Hello there and Happy Monday!
It was a quiet week that ended with a bit more excitement. On Sunday I went to Century City, CA and met up with authors Zoe Archer, Nico Rosso, Delilah Marvelle, Lisa Hendrix, Sabrina Darby and fellow blogger Renee for lunch and a incredibly fun chat at the Borders there in the mall. I feel so lucky to be able to meet up and talk to these wonderful people. Delilah and Lisa were in town from Oregon promoting their books and they have fun little gifties to give us – including penis candies – what every girl wants.:) Here we are at the Borders coffee shop
 
Zoe, Nico, Renee, Delilah, Sabrina, Lisa, Moi
Other than that not much happened this week so I’ll get right on to what I read this past week:
First up was Master of Smoke by Angela Knight. This is book 11 in the Mageverse series and another great book. This was the story of a bitten werewolf who’s afraid of her own shadow and the Fae/Spirt/Shifter that falls in love with her. You can read my review here on The Book Binge. 4.25 out of 5
Past Pleasures by Charlotte Stein was my next read. A novella about a woman who gets sent through time to the future and discovers that women are extinct. I really liked this one – you can read my mini review here. 4.25 out of 5
My Tracy’s TBR Challenge read for the week was Brighter Than the Sun by Julia Quinn. The hero and heroine meet by chance one day when the heroine, Eleanor, is out walking and the hero, Charles, falls out of a tree that he’s climbed while dead drunk. Nice. lol Charles asks Eleanor to marry him because he has to get married or lose his money. But someone is out to get Charles and someone else is set on making Eleanor look bad. It’s a book of strange events and the hits just keep on comin. A fun book but I did get tired of the bad things happening after a while – I just wanted them to live a normal life. lol 3.5 out of 5
Brier’s Bargain by Carol Lynne was next. I’d not read any other books in this series or the series this was spun off of so maybe that influenced my thoughts on this book. I really liked Brier a lot and was pulling for him and his boyfriend Jackie the whole time, I just thought the book was a little slow paced for my liking. 3 out of 5
The Christmas Throwaway by RJ Scott was my next read. The story about a rookie cop in a small town who finds a 17 (almost 18) year old sleeping in the churchyard on Christmas Eve. Ben and takes Zach home to his family and his mother takes care of him. Zach is understandably leery of the kindness and has panic attacks around so many people but he seems fine when he’s around Ben. The men seem to have a connection and the story takes it from there. I liked the story and Ben and Zach were cute together. The story takes place over 2 years so Zach is older when Ben and Zach eventually get together – fyi. 3.75 out of 5
Next up was book 2 in the Scandal series by Delilah Marvelle – Once Upon a Scandal. I really liked this book. It had Jonathan and Victoria falling in love via letters – which I just loved. But Jonathan, who is in Venice, enters a contract with a Venetian family that makes him, basically, a lady’s maid…as well as a type of sexual slave to the lady of the house. When Jonathan returns after 5 years he’s determined to still woo and marry Victoria who’s having none of it. I really liked that Jonathan was the more romantic of the two and the story just worked for me. My review will post soon. (releases on 1/18/11)
Next up was Kiss of Darkness by Loribelle Hunt which will be a new release from Carina Press on the 24th of this month. The story is about humans who merge themselves with demons in order to fight demons. There are also lupines and nightwalkers involved. A good story – my review will post soon.
Last on the list was my TBR Challenge book for the month of January. The theme was category romance and I chose off my shelves That Last Night in Texas by Ann Evans. This is the story of a ranch hand and the ranch owners daughter who fall in love but life and a horse accident get in their way. They reconnect after 13 years – Oh, and there’s a secret baby. lol Check out my review on the 19th.
My Book Binge reviews that posted since last Monday:
Happy Reading!

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Guest Review: Master of Smoke by Angela Knight

Posted January 6, 2011 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 1 Comment

Genres: Urban Fantasy

Tracy’s review of Master of Smoke (Mageverse #11) by Angela Knight

When beautiful werewolf Eva Roman discovers a handsome Sidhe warrior being magically tortured by another werewolf, she comes to the rescue. Trouble is, the man she christens David has no memory of why he’s being hunted – and no idea how to control his incredible powers. Now both of them have become targets for werewolf assassins. The only hope of survival they have is to turn to each other.

Eva discovers the man she eventually refers to as David being magically tortured by a werewolf. She doesn’t know exactly what’s going on but she knows that she needs to save this man. When David manages to get away from the werewolf Eva finds that he has no idea who he is, where he’s from, why his enemy is after him – zilch. What he does know is that Eva is the woman he wants and he’s not going to leave her. He’s not sure why he thinks that but he’s going with it.

After several events occur and David is able to figure out who is after him, a werewolf who is also a sorcerer named Warlock, but he’s not sure how to fight him. He wants to protect Eva but knows if he stays with her he puts her in danger. Eva is frightened out of her mind but realizes that she doesn’t want David to leave.

While David and Eva’s story is playing we have the Knight of the Round Table, Tristan, trying to find Warlock and kill him…along with trying to find David, who is known to all in the Mageverse as Smoke. Tristan is accompanied, much to his dismay, by a Mageverse seducer by the name of Belle. Tristan thinks that Belle is good for nothing but sleeping with men to turn them into vampires. Belle knows she’s sick of the seducing gig and wants to show Morgana and Arthur that there’s more to her than her skills in the bedroom.

Another story is that of a young werewolf girl, Miranda, who wants nothing to do with her lot in life, which is to be raped and bred by another werewolf. She wants to live her own life and be happy but her mother, step-father and Warlock all have her controlled and watched constantly. How is she to break free from her bleak future?

There was definitely a lot going on in this book but I thought it really was brought together nicely. Miranda’s story I think was the most obscure but I see how it was information that fit into the story and was a prologue of a story yet to come.

I found Eva to be an interesting character as she was a werewolf – or Dire Wolf in this series – but she was still deathly afraid of werewolves – and her own reflection, even though she herself was quite large an intimidating when she became furry. David really helped her try to work out some of her issues and to show her that she’s stronger and braver than she thought. They played so well together and of course the sex was always quite hot – as is usual with an AK book.

The Mageverse books, I’ve discovered, are never the same and I love that about the series. Some are about vampires and knights, some about magic and witches, some about werewolves – but no matter what the books characters are or what the subject matter there’s always an engaging way that the story is told. I love, too, that there’s always humor in the books – not the slapstick stuff, but just funny lines that I couldn’t help but laugh at.

A good read – definitely recommended.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

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

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