Tag: Christine Warren

Guest Review: Baby, I’m Howling for You by Christine Warren

Posted January 31, 2018 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Guest Review: Baby, I’m Howling for You by Christine WarrenReviewer: Tracy
Baby, I'm Howling for You by Christine Warren
Series: Alphaville #1
Also in this series: Baby, I'm Howling for You (Alphaville, #1)
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: January 30th 2018
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 304
Add It: Goodreads
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three-stars
Series Rating: three-stars

WELCOME TO ALPHAVILLE, where the she-wolves and alpha-males play. . .for keeps.

Renny Landry is a wolf on the run. Pursued by a shapeshifting stalker and his slobbering pack of killer coyotes, she is forced to flee her job as a librarian to find sanctuary in the wooded hills of Alpha, Washington. A well-secluded safe space for troubled shifters, Alpha is Renny’s last hope. But the first person she meets there is a gorgeous alpha male with fiery eyes, fierce tattoos, and one ferocious appetite—for her…

Mick Fischer thought he left his past behind when he moved to Alpha. But fate has a way of biting him in the tail when a female wolf shows up on his property. Wounded, desperate—and disarmingly hot—Renny brings out the snarling, protective alpha beast in Mick like no other woman he’s known. Can these two haunted, hunted wolves manage to mate for life…even as the deadliest past demons howl at their heels?

Renny is on the run from a pack of coyote’s when her car breaks down.  She’s so close to her destination of Alphaville but she ends up having to make a run for it.  She shifts to her wolf and takes off.  She’s almost caught when she is saved by Mick Fischer.  He’s a wolf shifter as well and surprise, surprise, her mate.

Mick Fischer had a mate but she was murdered 8 years previously.  He has no idea why he is still alive as so often mates follow one another into death.  When he meets Renny he knows why he’s still alive – to be with her.  He’s determined to keep this mate safe despite the psycho that’s after her.

Mick and all of Alphaville step into the help Renny with her coyote problem, which she thinks is great but feels guilty about anyway.  She meets lots of new people and gets her dream job – she loves Alphaville!  She just wishes that she could figure out if Mick loves her for her or only because they are destined mates.

This was a cute paranormal romance story.  It was pretty standard stuff but it was cute, none-the-less.

I can’t say that I loved Renny, but I did admire the strength it took her to keep running from the psycho who wanted her for himself. Mick was kind of your stoic, protective mate who wouldn’t let anyone hurt Renny.  I liked the book, but I did wish we’d gotten more romance and less hunting for coyotes.

There were some secondary characters that got my attention in this story, and I’ll be reading more of the Alphaville series just to read about them.

Rating: 3 out of 5

three-stars

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What I Read Last Week

Posted March 21, 2011 by Tracy in Features | 18 Comments

Good morning!
So it’s going to be a busy day at work today. Yesterday we had quite a storm and got mucho rain. My office at work was flooded as well as the preschool that’s attached to it and part of the rest of the facility. Lots of work to do.
This past weekend I got the pleasure of spending quite a few hours with Lori, Holly and Nikki which was just a ton of fun. We had lunch, went to the local Borders (which is closing down so all the romance was on sale for 50% off) and then to B & N. We talked and laughed and just had a great time.
A funny thing that happened last Friday…I was assaulted by the Oatmeal Police. You didn’t know that they existed, did you? Well frankly, I didn’t either until I was in Starbucks. This is what happened…I got my coffee and oatmeal from Starbucks and was “fixing” my oatmeal at the counter when a man walked up to me and started spewing about how much milk I put in my oatmeal. Now, if you’ve ever had oatmeal from there you’d know that the cups are rather small so really I had probably put about 2 tablespoons in but apparently that was way too much in this man’s opinion. I asked him why he thought it was his business and he was just disgusted that I would put milk in and not let the oatmeal “cook” with just the water. I told him that it would “cook” by the time that I got to work, it would just do it with the milk in it. He just shook his head and walked off. This man was seriously disturbed about my oatmeal. I had to laugh but then I started thinking about the fact that this guy thought that it was really OK to tell me how to do something – someone he doesn’t even know. I have a sense of propriety and even if I think someone is doing something completely ridiculous I would never say it to them (unless they were harming someone else). Is this something that would just happen in America or would this happen in say England where (I think) they are very proper? Or any other place? I just don’t get why people think everyone else’s business is theirs as well. Huh. Something to think about.
So on to what I read last week:
My first read for the week was a YA fantasy book called Chime by Franny Billingsley. I don’t normally read YA or fantasy all that much, for that matter, but it was a decent read. You can read my review here if you’re interested. 3.75 out of 5
Next up was The Rake and the Recluse by Jenn LeBlanc – a book I read for The Book Binge. This was a time travel historical where a woman is sent back in time. The theory that her father had come up with is that there is that one person that we are destined to be with and that we could travel time in order for that match to happen. She thought he was nutty but obviously something happened. She falls in love with the recluse, a Duke, who finds her by almost running over her with his carriage. This was a decent read as well. There were parts of it that I didn’t care for but since it was so long (580 pages) there could be parts that I didn’t like and still like the book as a whole. 3.75 out of 5
After that was Shades of Gray by Brooke McKinley. This was an m/m about an FBI agent, Miller, who is determined to bring down a drug lord. He gets an ex-con who works in the drug lord’s organization, Danny, to help him out and ends up babysitting and protecting him when said drug lord comes after the informant. But there’s so much more going on here besides Miller trying to save Danny’s life. It’s Miller admitting to himself that yes, he is gay, and that yes, he has been living a lie his entire life and what will he do about it if he wants to be with Danny. This was such a great read. I loved the tension both sexual and suspense-wise. Danny and Miller’s relationship really had me on the edge of my seat and I loved not being able to figure out how the hell they would ever be able to be together. Just a damn good read. 5 out of 5
My Tracy’s TBR Challenge read for the week was Born to Be Wild by Christine Warren. Josie is a vet and Eli is the town sheriff and also an Other – a lion shifter. Eli brings in a wolf – who’s actually a shifted human – to her clinic and she tries to help the person. They discover that there’s something funky going on with the wolf as well as in the town and they’re determined to figure it out. The suspense part of this book was really the only thing I cared for in the story. It was pretty interesting and kept me guessing. The romance did nothing for me. I didn’t like Eli because he treated Josie like she was an idiot though she was really quite smart. However, she did have her TSTL moments and I ended up thinking they were perfect for each other. 2.5 out of 5
Call Me Irresistible by Susan Elizabeth Phillips was my next read. This was another good read about Meg who heads to Texas for her best friend’s wedding and realizes that these two people should not be getting married. She manages to get Lucy to realize that Ted is not who she will be happy with the rest of her life. The wedding gets cancelled but Meg is stuck in town because she has no money. Though they hate each other, eventually Ted and Meg start a sex only relationship but as does happen, Meg ends up falling in love with Ted. I wasn’t sure what to think about Ted at first but as the book went on I got to like him more and more. Meg and Ted were great together and I really ended up liking the book. 4 out of 5
Last on the list was Called Home: Two Hearts Answer by Gloria Schumann. This was the story of Emma and David who head back to their home towns for different reasons and meet up. I’ll be reviewing this on Wednesday so you can read more about it then.
My Book Binge reviews that posted this past week:

Happy Reading!

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Guest Review: Prince Charming Doesn’t Live Here by Christine Warren

Posted December 16, 2010 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 0 Comments

Genres: Paranormal Romance

Tracy’s review of Prince Charming Doesn’t Live Here (Others #10) by Christine Warren

Danice Carter is not one for glass slippers. A stilettos-wearing lawyer at one of Manhattan’s most elite establishments, Danice has a very strong grip on reality. So when she’s asked by one the firm’s founding partners to take on a personal case, Danice knows she’s in for the opportunity of a lifetime. All she has to do is convince her top boss’s granddaughter, Rosemary, to file a paternity suit. Sounds simple enough…until Danice arrives at Rosemary’s home and is pounced on by a handsome stranger.

Private investigator McIntyre Callahan’s was only following his powerful client’s orders: Find Rosemary—at all costs. Instead, he’s found a super-hot lawyer prowling around looking for answers he can’t give. The half-human, half-Fae Mac tries to warn Danice that she’s way in over her head—that Rosemary may roam among The Others, and may have dangerous ties to the Unseelie Court—but she won’t be deterred. Even if that means following Mac to the ends of the earth to find Rosemary…or surrendering to his supernatural powers of temptation…until death do they part.

Danice Carter works at a prestigious law firm in Manhattan. She’s doing well and works mostly with contract law. She’s more than a bit astounded that the senior law partner calls her up to his office and gives her an assignment – one that has nothing to do with contract law. You see the partner has found out that his granddaughter is pregnant and he wants the father of the child to bleed, at least legally, and he wants Danice to take care of it for him. And won’t that look good for her when reviews come along? Basically the man threatened her with her job to do something she really didn’t want to do nor was she the most qualified for.

She meets Mac Callahan when she heads to the granddaughter, Rosemary’s, summer home – only Rosemary’s not home, Mac is. Mac’s a PI and he’s there to find Rosemary as well but not for the same reasons. In fact he’s not sure of the reasons, he’s just sure that the client if offering a lot of money to find this woman. When Mac meets Danice he’s bowled over by her looks but soon finds that she’s quite intelligent as well and he likes that a lot. When Mac, being half Fae, finds out that Rosemary might be in Faerie, or at least the answers to his questions might be, he decides to go, but Danice isn’t one to be left behind. They don’t find anything that they expected while in the land of the Fae but they do become closer to each other in the process.

This book started out on a rather good foot. It shot right out of the gate and I was getting quite into things and then it just kind of fizzled. The plot was pretty simple but that could have been taken care of with more interesting dialogue, but it wasn’t. I found myself trying not to skim as I went because I didn’t want to miss anything important but I discovered there wasn’t a whole lot there to miss.

Now, Mac was a good character – he just wasn’t developed all that much and I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get more of him. Danice on the other hand was a lawyer but her mouth got her into more trouble than anything. I would have thought that she would have learned to control her tongue. Yes, she came from working class and pulled herself up by her bootstraps but really she acted like she’d never met a manner she liked and it really put me off the whole story. There was also just a slight romance in the story. Yes, they liked each other and they had great sex but other than that, I just didn’t see the luuuuv.

This is a pseudo re-working of Warren’s original short story Faer Fetched. There wasn’t a lot of the same anything in the book except the sex scenes (which was about all that was involved in the original story) which Warren always does well. I really liked the stories in the Fixed series when Warren originally released them in ebook format and have liked the ones that she wrote just for print like The Demon You Know, Wolf at the Door and Howl at the Moon. I can’t say, though, that I’ve liked the re-written versions of the original ebooks so far. I’d love to see her move on to other story lines and get back to writing stories about new characters.

Rating: 2 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from St. Martin’s Press. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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What I Read Last Week

Posted December 13, 2010 by Tracy in Features | 5 Comments

Happy Monday! Hope you’re all rested from your weekend. I’m not, but I hope you all are. lol
Let’s see we put up the tree and trimmed part of the inside of the house on Saturday. We usually put up a 4’ tree in the kitchen/dining area and that’s where the kids have the “fun” tree. They put up all their silly, crazy, homemade ornaments with a big Santa hat on the top of it. It’s great, really, and they love putting it up. Except I can’t find the friggin ornaments! I’ve had them in the same box as the ornaments for the tree in the living room for a thousand years but I obviously deviated from the norm last year and now can’t find a thing! Ug! lol
Then yesterday I spent a few hours on the computer getting things ready for the DIK Winter Break giveaway that we’re having starting the 19th. That was a lot of work but let me tell you, it’s gonna be great! It’ll run from the 19th of December until the 2nd of January and LOTS of stuff is being given away so be sure and check every single day during that time. There will be multiple posts per day so keep checking!
My oldest is still having eating issues but we’ve talked some more about underlying issues and they may be winding down. She was much better this weekend so we’ll see how this week goes. On a funny note with her…we were talking about sex stuff and you know, how she should avoid it at all costs, condoms, etc. We’ve had the talk before but something she said brought it up again. She was, of course, completely embarrassed about talking about it and said, “Mom, we don’t have to have the sex talk again, I’m not gonna have sex until I’ve been married for 2 years!” LOLOL Omg I tried so hard not to laugh that I excused myself and had to go into the bedroom and giggle to myself for a few moments. I went back, hugged her and told her that it was the best plan I’d ever heard. *sigh* Funny, funny girl.
Anyway, on to what I read this week – as I said last week, I wasn’t focused enough to review last week but I still read!
First up was The Princess in His Bed by Lila Dipasqua that I read for The Book Binge. This was another set of fairy tale adaptations that included The Emperor’s New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling and The Princess and the Pea type stories. They were quite good and I enjoyed reading it. My review has posted over at TBB so you can go here to read it if you’d like. 4.25 out of 5
My Tracy’s TBR challenge read for the week was Bound by Deception by Christa Paige. This is book one in the Blood Vine series and though it was short it was pretty good. It was about a race of people who were long lived and the men turn into vampires. The women have to find their true mate or end up aging as humans do and dying. Anna kind of gets duped into being with Dimitri but he knows that he’s her true mate. There’s a man in the story who feels that Anna should have been his and takes matters into his own hands. It was a cute story with a different take on the whole vamp thing. I liked it. I just need to put book two on my ereader now. lol 4 out of 5
Christmas at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas was my next read and I loved it. It got such mixed reviews when it released that I wasn’t certain what I should expect. Well I loved it. Really loved it. The story follows bachelor Mark as he “inherits” his niece after his sister dies. The little girl hasn’t spoken a word since her mom died. He’s not sure what to do with her so ends up moving in with his brother to share the responsibility. He’s dating a woman but he’s not feeling the love. Six months after the little girl starts to live with him they meet Maggie who runs the local toy store. She has her own baggage because of being widowed at such a young age and not being sure how to deal with it. Mark and Maggie and Holly end up making an unlikely family. I have to say that I liked both the hero and the heroine, Mark’s brothers, Maggie’s family, the emotion, the humor and everything else about the book. It touched all of the different places in my heart – I just wanted it to be longer! lol Now, I do have to say that I got this from the library – if I had paid the HC price for it I might have felt differently because of the length of the book. But since I didn’t – it was great! 5 out of 5
Next was A to Z by Marie Sexton. This was the story of video store owner Zach and Angelo who eventually becomes his employee and so much more. But Angelo has issues that he has to work through and it’s not always smooth sailing between the two men. I really liked both the characters in this book. It had alternating first person pov from chapter to chapter but it flowed really well. Sometimes when that happens I tend to like one person’s pov better than the other but not so with this one. I also very much liked Angelo’s inner thoughts and views on some things. For all of his hard shell on the outside he was quite a tender person on the inside. Good story. 4.5 out of 5
Next up was How to Wed a Baron by Kasey Michaels. This was more or less an arranged marriage story but they don’t actually get married. It was about a hard man who is softened by a woman and I really liked it. I’ll review this on Wednesday so stay tuned.
Last but not least was Prince Charming Doesn’t Live Here by Christine Warren. This is an expansion of her original ebook release Faer Fetched. It has very little resemblance to the original story, however, except a sex scene or two – even the hero’s description changed quite drastically. I read this one for The Book Binge as well but I’m sad to say that I didn’t love it…or even like it that much. 2 out of 5
My Book Binge Reviews that posted this past week
Happy Reading!

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What I Read Last Week

Posted May 17, 2010 by Tracy in Features | 14 Comments

It’s Monday again! I can’t believe the weekend went by so quickly but I guess that’s how it always is when you have days off.
This weekend was a bit crazy with kids. I took my oldest to get her 6th grade graduation/promotion pictures. These were actually retakes because when she had them done at school she had worn a t-shirt that said center of attention. lol They were pretty funny lookin. Anyway, we dressed her in the dress she’d planned on wearing for graduation – we bought it a month ago – and yeah, it was TOO SMALL! Well, we got it zipped enough to take the picture but there’s no way she’ll fit in it in another month. That girl really needs to stop growing. We then shopped for yet another dress – oy.
Then my youngest had to go to the doctor as well so we heaped that on the pile of weekend activities. She’s much better now though so it’s all good.
Other than the weekend the rest of the week was relatively quiet so that was nice.
All right – on to what I read…
First up was Big Bad Wolf by Christine Warren.  A rewritten and expanded version of Warren’s Fur Factor.  The book was just as good as the first time but it had a lot of editing issues which were annoying. You can read my review for The Book Binge here.  4 out of 5

Next up was Love Means…No Shame by Andrew Grey.  This was the story of Geoff who takes over his family farm after his father dies.  While there he meets Eli who is an Amish man who is taking a year away from the community.  Eli and Geoff start a relationship but Eli is concerned about his family and them being shunned if the community finds out he’s gay.  This was an incredibly good story.  I really liked Grey’s writing and his characters – they felt like old friends. I’ve already bought the other two in this series and plan on reading them soon. 4.5 out of 5

In and Out by LB Gregg was my next read and boy did I love this one.  You can read my thoughts here. 5 out of 5

I read the three books that are in the Lucani Lovers seris by Stephanie Julian for The Book Binge (I did a lot of TBB reading this week and plan to do more next week to catch my ass up!).  The first book was Kiss of Moonlight, the second was Moonlight Menage and the third was Edge of Moonlight.  All four books I found to be very good.  4 out of 5 for all the books.  I’ll let you know when my reviews post.
My Tracy’s TBR Challenge Read for the week was The Love Affair of an English Lord by Jillian Hunter.  I had a very hard time getting into the book and actually debated not finishing it – but I’m glad I stuck with it.  The story was about Dominic who was stabbed and thought dead.  He’s actually quite alive and after being chased ends up climbing in a window at his neighbors house and ends up in the closet in the trunk of her unmentionables.  Chloe Boscastle finds Dominic in the closet and is persuaded by him to not tell anyone he’s there. This begins a clandestine relationship that is very sweet and romantic.  I very much enjoyed the story and will look into seeing about reading about the rest of the Boscastle family. 4 out of 5
Next was Delicious by Shayla Black.  I really like Black as well as her alter ego, Shelley Bradley, but this book was not a favorite.  I met Luc in the previous story and expected him to be at least similar in personality.  This book showed him in a whole new light and frankly I didn’t like him very much at all.  I read this one for The Book Binge so will let you know when my review posts. 2.5 out of 5

Last book for the week was Highland Surrender by Dawn Halliday.  This was Cam’s story.  We met Cam in Highland Obsession and he was a little crazed.  This story showed him bringing his new English betrothed home to Scotland. They are set upon by Highwaymen and Cam is shot.  He is found by Ceana who is a healer and she takes care of him.  This is Cam and Ceana’s story as well as Rob (Cam’s half brother) and Elizabeth’s (the English lady) story.  I liked it.  Read this one for The Book Binge so I’ll let you know when my review posts. 4 out of 5
My Book Binge review that have posted this week (besides the one above)
Happy Reading!

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