Tag: Christie Craig

Review: Blame it On Texas by Christie Craig

Posted September 27, 2012 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: Blame it On Texas by Christie CraigReviewer: Rowena
Blame It on Texas (Hotter in Texas #2) by Christie Craig
Series: Hotter in Texas #2
Publisher: Forever
Publication Date: August 28th 2012
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 464
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four-stars
Series Rating: four-stars

Zoe Adams has always been content with her quiet nights at home, watching TV alone-until her life turns into a real-life episode of Unsolved Mystery Hunters. The story of a kidnapped girl triggers unexplained memories, and Zoe is dead-set on figuring out why. Her search leads her to one of the Lone Star State's richest families-and to sexy PI Tyler Lopez.

Tyler has sworn off women, especially redheads with killer curves who poke their noses into his clients' private lives. Still, he can't deny the attraction any more than he can deny that some of Zoe's crazy story makes sense. But when she becomes a hit man's target, this cold case starts heating up. Suddenly, Tyler will do anything to protect Zoe-even risk his heart.

I read and enjoyed the first book in this series enough that I wanted to read the second book. When it came up on NetGalley, I had a smile on my face because ever since I finished Dallas’ book, I wanted to read Tyler’s book. Tyler was the smart one, the bookish partner that made lists of questions for every case they took on. Tyler was the sexy Mexican guy that I wanted to know more about and I was super glad to finally get his book.

And I’m glad that I read it.

This book was cute and fun and I enjoyed reading it. I enjoyed seeing Dallas and Nikki again and Tony and LeAnn, Ellen and Austin and Rick and just, well, everyone. They’ve got that huge, chaotic dysfunctional family thing going and it totally works for them. I ate every scene with everyone in it up, it was great.

Tyler meets his heroine when she’s in his office, peeking through the files on his desk. Her name is Zoe Adams and she’s from Alabama. She’s in town to find out if she’s the long lost grand daughter of some rich dude in Texas who was kidnapped when she was a little girl. She was watching one of those unsolved mystery shows on television and came across the story of Caroline Bradford from Texas. Caroline’s story triggers memories that Zoe can’t understand but remembers anyway so she takes herself to Texas to get some answers. When Zoe first approached Tyler about her story, he thinks she’s crazy but when unexplainable things start to happen to Zoe while she’s in Texas, he starts to think that maybe her story has some truth to it.

The attraction is there between both Tyler and Zoe but they’re not going to act on it (ha!) because Zoe is going back to Alabama and Tyler doesn’t do relationships. Zoe doesn’t want to be Tyler’s bangable toy girl and Tyler isn’t into long term commitments. But they hook up anyway. The more time they spend with each other, the more the feelings start to grow between the two of them.

The romance between Tyler and Zoe was cute and sweet because they knew that they wanted each other and they knew that the other wanted them but they wanted to avoid the awkwardness of “after” the lust fades away so they tried to keep it professional. Ha! Like that was going to happen. But as cute and sweet as their romance was, the romance that I was most drawn to while reading this book was the romance between Rick and Ellen.

Now, I’m not sure if it was because I love kids and I liked seeing Rick trying to be a good father to his son. Seeing him try to make things right for him and give the kind of home that Ricky deserved endeared Rick to me and I loved the heck out of him. I liked seeing Ellen come out of hiding from her ex and really get into being with Rick. When she finally gave him a shot at a relationship, I squeed for joy. I really enjoyed their page time and was happy when things worked out for them. I really enjoyed the way that they came together.

Tyler was everything I knew he was going to be. That strong, protective man who would move heaven and earth for those that he loved. He would hurt anyone who tried to hurt the people in his life and I ate all of that up. I loved the way that he was with his sisters and the way that he was with his niece Anna but most of all, I loved the way that he was with Zoe. The solid way that he was always there for her and the way that he made sure she was protected at all costs made me all swoony for him.

Zoe was a good heroine. She was a straightforward woman who had a mission to accomplish so that she could move on with her life. She had a lot of questions and she went after the answers with courage and I liked that about her. The back and forth way that she was with Tyler, telling him one thing (no!) and then confusing him by her actions (yes!) was something that I could have done without but it kept her from being that cookie cutter heroine that romance novel heroines are thought to be. I think my favorite part about Zoe though was how earnest she was in Tyler’s defense when they went to the police station. I wanted to hug her when she walked out of there with Tyler. It was great.

I’m really looking forward to reading Austin’s book now. I had totally forgot all about the part of the first book where they were digging for something to get the guys that set them up for their big arrest. I’m glad to see that even though Dallas and Tyler seemed to have other things on their mind, that Austin was still looking for answers and his book seems to be all about getting those answers that will help them all move on from their lives. It looks like it’s going to be a good one and I can’t wait! If you enjoyed the first book then I’m almost positive that you’ll enjoy this one too.

Grade: 4.25 out of 5

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

four-stars

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Book Watch: Blame it on Texas by Christie Craig.

Posted July 28, 2012 by Rowena in Promotions | 1 Comment

Zoe Adams has always been content with her quiet nights at home, watching TV alone-until her life turns into a real-life episode of Unsolved Mystery Hunters. The story of a kidnapped girl triggers unexplained memories, and Zoe is dead-set on figuring out why. Her search leads her to one of the Lone Star State’s richest families-and to sexy PI Tyler Lopez.

Tyler has sworn off women, especially redheads with killer curves who poke their noses into his clients’ private lives. Still, he can’t deny the attraction any more than he can deny that some of Zoe’s crazy story makes sense. But when she becomes a hit man’s target, this cold case starts heating up. Suddenly, Tyler will do anything to protect Zoe-even risk his heart.

I read the first book in this series and enjoyed it so I’m looking forward to reading this book as well. This book follows the hero from the last books partner in their PI business and I’m pretty stoked to get his story. This book comes out on August 28, 2012 so we still have a bit of a wait for this one but I’m sure that it’ll be just as good as the first one so it’s on my calendar.

Is it on yours?

This book is available from Forever. You can pre-order it here or here in e-format.

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Review: Don’t Mess with Texas by Christie Craig.

Posted October 6, 2011 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments


Rowena’s review of Don’t Mess with Texas (Things Are Just Hotter in Texas, Book 1) by Christie Craig.

Hero: Dallas O’Connor
Heroine: Nikki Hunt

Nikki Hunt thought her night couldn’t get worse when her no-good, cheating ex ditched her at dinner, sticking her with the bill. Then she found his body stuffed in the trunk of her car and lost her two-hundred-dollar meal all over his three-thousand-dollar suit. Now not only is Nikki nearly broke, she’s a murder suspect.

Former cop turned PI, Dallas O’Connor knows what it’s like to be unjustly accused. But one look at the sexy-though skittish-suspect tells him she couldn’t hurt anyone. The lead detective, Dallas’s own brother, has the wrong woman and Dallas hopes a little late-night “undercover” work will help him prove it . . .

I’ll admit that my initial curiosity over this book was over the big ol’ drama that brought this book to my attention in the first place. I guess it was my way of thumbing my nose at those idiots who were suing this author over something as stupid as the title of her book. I’m glad to say that while drama brought this book to my attention, the storyline itself kept me invested in the book and the characters.

It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for the characters in a book. Craig did a wonderful job of drawing her characters out in a way that I was interested in what they were thinking and doing throughout the entire book.

Nikki Hunt goes is broke and is thinking about taking her cheating ex-husband back, only because he’s rich and she wants to pay her grandmother’s cable bill. So she meets him at an expensive restaurant (he picked it) and when she gets stuck footing the bill because he took off on her, she’s royally pissed…until she finds him in the back of her trunk. And dead.

Needless to say, Nikki is at the top of the suspects lists and the cops are really gunning for her. She’s not sure what to do or what to think since she didn’t kill her ex and doesn’t know who would have killed him so when PI, Dallas O’Connor comes and tries to save the day, she doesn’t fight him too hard.

Dallas was at dinner not far from the crime scene with his brother, a local homicide detective when the call came in. Not having anything else to do, he tagged along with his brother and before he knows what’s what, he’s taking on a new customer. At first glance, he thought Nikki was guilty but after talking to her, he realized that she couldn’t hurt a fly and since he knew all about being wrongfully accused of a crime, he wants to help her clear her name.

I enjoyed getting to know both Nikki and Dallas. Right from the beginning, I wanted to know what happened to Dallas and I wanted to cuddle him close. He was sexy, smart and he had a good heart and I loved that about him. The protective way that he was with Nikki, right from the jump had me going all soft for him, it was great. Nikki was a good heroine as well. She was one of those goody heroines who always took care of her family and I thought it was adorable, the relationship she had with her grandmother.

From what I could gather online, this is the first book in a new series from Christie Craig and I’m pretty excited for the other books. I really enjoyed Dallas’ partners and look forward to reading more from them. I also enjoyed the secondary romance between Dallas’ brother and his estranged wife. It was a good addition to an already entertaining read so I would definitely recommend this book.


Grade: 4 out of 5.

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

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What I’ve Been Reading This Week

Posted April 27, 2009 by Tracy in Reviews | 8 Comments

Happy Sunday!

It’s been a beautiful day in So California, I’m so sad to see it end. As I was telling someone earlier today we had 102 degree weather earlier in the week and then down to 65 by the end and now it’s back up to 85-90! Crazy! I’m enjoying it though and between laundry, putzing/cleaning around the house and reading today I spent a lot of time outdoors with my daughters. They love being sprayed with the hose! Ah the joys of being young. 🙂

My boss went on sabbatical a week ago and I thought it would be dull in my office – yeah, right! I was so stinking busy this past week but it did make the week go by fast even though I felt like I’d temporarily lost my right arm. With only 2 people in my office (me and the boss) it made it very quiet in there!


The first book I completed was Queer Wolf ed. by James Rasmussen (see 1 post down for review). I say this is the first book I completed because technically I’ve been reading it for a few weeks. It was a book of 17 short stories and I would read 1 here and 1 there. Pretty good shorts all about werewolves in some fashion with all being m/m or f/f stories. 3.5 out of 5


My next book was Till There Was You by Lynn Kurland. My first book by this author and I very much enjoyed it. I read this one for The Book Binge so you can go here to read my review. The book releases this Tuesday the 28th. 4 out of 5


My Tracy’s TBR challenge read for the week was Divorced, Desperate and Dating by Christie Craig. Katiebabs sent me this book a while back and though it caught my attention I just didn’t read it for some reason. I find myself saying that a lot, don’t I? lol Anyway, since KB sent it to me I’ll be doing a review of this one for her blog while she’s away visiting Ana in England May 1-6. I’ll let you know when the review posts.


My next read was the continuation of the story of Luc in Hellbourne: Bound and Determined by Amber Kell. I didn’t like this one quite as much as I did the first but I still loved Luc. He’s great. He’s just torn between men and he’s getting ready for his birthday – which means he’s taken to hell by his father the devil and tortured by his brothers which they try to coerce him in to giving up his soul.
The problem I think I had with the story is that in the first he was completely broken hearted by the alpha were but then it was like he forgave all in book 2. I know it’s a short and there’s not time to delve too deeply but I thought that was something that could have been worked in – imho.

Next up was my Year of the Category read for the month Awaken to Pleasure by Nalini Singh. I’ll be posting my review on Wednesday of this week.


After that it turned into the novella weekend: first up was Captured by Anna J. Evans. I’ve had this one for a while as well and finally got around to it. It was a really good erotic historical. Lillian takes erotic pictures of herself and sends them to her lost love. He tries to resist her for many reasons but he can’t deny the love he’s had for her. Hot story but also heartwarming. 4 out of 5


Then it was on to Happy Ending by L.B. Gregg. Wow I just loved this one! That LB really write great stories and great characters. I’ll review this one later this week. (great job Lisabea!)

Finally it was Running from the Past by Katie Reus. Katie just found out this past Wednesday that this book is a finalist in the Passionate Plume Contest from Passionate Ink. Congratulations Katie!!!
A woman, Emma, running from her not so distant past and a very dangerous man, runs straight into the home, job and arms of Caleb Ryder. Though she’s there to be his cook neither of them can deny their attraction to each other. Just a great novella – very much enjoyed it! 4 out of 5

Have a great week and Happy Reading!

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