Tag: Hunter Raines

What I Read Last Week

Posted June 6, 2011 by Tracy in Features | 13 Comments

Another Monday and here we are. Let’s all congratulate ourselves for making it through last week – shall we? Yep, I’m pretty glad I made it through. lol

In blogland – if you’re not following Kassa’s Fan Letter Blog Crawl you definitely should! Some awesome letters are being written to authors and you wouldn’t want to miss out. 🙂

Diet and Exercise – Only 1 time exercising this week but I think I did ok on my food. I was in a huge hurry this morning and forgot to weigh myself so no news on that front. It was a good week though.

My youngest went to her very first Taekwondo competition this past weekend. It was in Oceanside (about 2.5 hours away) and I was afraid that she would be out of it because we had to wake up so darned early to be there to register and she was really nervous. She did a great job and for her first competition though and got a SILVER MEDAL! Woohooo! Go baby! I was extremely proud of her to say the least. I have a few pictures and my hubby has a vid on his phone (my stupid camera died right before her part in the comp.) so I’ll have tod download those and post them later this week for you all.

So on to what I read last week:

I started with Lessons in Indiscretion by Karen Erickson. This was the story of a widow who is craving intimacy with a particular man. She wants him to become her lover for the rest of the Season. He up for the challenge but what happens when they become closer and the end of the Season rolls around? This was a short novella and a very good one. I’ll post my review next week.

Next up was Keeping House by Lee Brazil. This is the short novella story of a rich twenty year old who is pretty much a free spirit. Mischa’s brothers want him to work for their film production company and that’s just not his bag. The brother’s dare Mischa into finding a job and supporting himself for one year with no help from his trust fund. Mischa takes them on and ends up taking a job as a housekeeper to an advertising exec. He has no clue what he’s doing but he muddles through and does a great job – he also falls in love with his boss. This was cute but too short. I would have liked more time for the men to get to know each other as I’m just not a huge fan of insta-love. 3 out of 5

After that I read Hunter and the Hawk by Gale Stanley. This is the story of Lycans and Vampires who hate each other but they have a treaty that was made hundreds of years ago. Both genetic lines are dying out and one vampire, a doctor, is trying to see if the addition of lycan blood to the vampire blood makes a difference. The doctor, Abbie, sends her brother, Aidan, to talk to the Lycan alpha but he is intercepted by Hunter. Due to many circumstances Hunter decides to help the vamps without telling his alpha and Aidan and Hunter end up being mates who will die without the others blood. This was pretty good but it didn’t really have a conclusion. It’s a continuing story and I hope we get more info about Hunter and Aidan in future books – as well as info on the infertility issues. 3 out of 5 (novella)

Paradise Found by Hunter Raines was my next read. This was an m/m/m ménage story with some BDSM elements to it. It was good but I did find myself wanting more as I read. You can read my review here if you’d like. 3.75 out of 5 (novella)

I was doing the happy dance when I opened my mail and found Storm’s Heart by Thea Harrison in there from Holly. I, of course, dove right into it and it was great! This is Tiago and Niniane’s story (Niniane – formerly known as Tricks) and when there is an assassination attempt on Niniane’s life – because she’s going to be taking the Dark Fae throne as their queen – Tiago, who is an excellent tracker, heads to Chicago to find and protect her. The romance was great and while the suspense part wasn’t as good, as a whole, I really liked the book. (This one comes out August 2nd) 4.25 out of 5

My Tracy’s TBR Challenge read for the week was an anthology called Hot Summer Nights by Mary Wine, Karen Erickson, Elle Kennedy and Samantha Lucas. These four different stories told of men and women getting together in all different circumstances for all different reasons. For the most part I liked the stories and the characters. 3 out of 5 overall

Last up was The Rake by Suzanne Enoch (yes Lori, I finally started the Lessons in Love series!). Six years ago Lord Dare had accepted a wager to get a kiss from Georgianna Halley. Dare got that kiss and they both got a night of passion. But when Georgianna found out about the wager – as well as the other wager involving her stocking – Georgianna was pissed! She had thought that the night meant something to Dare but she was wrong. Now Georgianna and her friends have decided that there are some lessons they’d like to teach men and Georgianna wants to teach them to Dare. She has to make him fall in love with her so that she can break his heart when she breaks it off – making him realize how horrible it is and therefore making him a better husband when he marries. But what starts off as Georgianna teaching a lesson soon became Dare and Georgianna falling in love with each other. This was a really good story and I loved seeing this pair come together. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next in the trilogy. 4 out of 5

My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:

*crickets chirping*

Happy Reading!!

13 Comments

Tagged: Elle Kennedy, Gale Stanley, Hunter Raines, Karen Erickson, Lee Brazil, Mary Wine, Samantha Lucas, Suzanne Enoch, The Book Binge, Thea Harrison, What I Read Last Week, What I've Been Reading This Week

Review: Paradise Found by Hunter Raines

Posted June 3, 2011 by Tracy in Reviews | 12 Comments

Paradise is just an illusion…

Or so Philip thinks as he vacations on exotic Anguilla. He should be celebrating the end of law school and the start of his successful career, but he’s tired of living a lie for his family’s sake. For just one night, he lets down his guard with two men he thinks he’ll never see again.

He isn’t the only one with secrets. For years, Cameron Drake has suppressed his need for dominance, afraid of hurting his lover, Mark Wilder. But when Cameron’s hand meets Philip’s ass, there’s no more pretending. Mark can’t face his conflicting feelings about the ménage; does Cameron want more than Mark can give?

The three of them may have been perfect together but consequences follow them back to their real lives. Will their desire for another encounter shatter the illusions they’ve built to protect themselves or clear the obstacles to paradise?

Cameron and Mark have been together for a few years and though they love each other deeply their sex life has been pretty ho hum of late. While on their way to Anguilla Cameron suggests that adding a third man to their duo, just for one night, will spice things up. Though Mark isn’t completely sold on the idea he agrees. They meet Philip who is there with friends and Mark and Cameron decide to go for it.

Philip is in Anguilla on vacation – enjoying one last great vacation before he goes to work for his father. His father is in denial about the fact that Philip is gay and wants nothing more for Philip to be “cured” of this disease. Philip knows that once he heads back to Boston to work for his father’s law firm that he will have to completely fake it and make his family believe that he is straight. He’s not happy about that at all. When he is approached by Mark and Cameron he wants nothing more than to be with the two men, but he’s afraid of what that will do to the mind-set he’s determined to have. He heads up to their room with them just for a drink and one thing leads to another.

The three men share a sexy and incredibly hot time together but during the course of their sex play Cameron starts spanking Philip. Both Philip and Mark are a little shocked but Philip loves it. Both Cameron and Mark find that they’ve formed an unexpected emotional connection to Philip as well. The next day Cameron is quiet and stand-offish with Mark and fearing the eminent break up of his relationship with Cameron, Mark has breakfast with Philip where he tells him, in no uncertain terms, to never try to find them after they leave Anguilla. Mark is fascinated by what happened with Cameron and Phillip (spanking) but when he asks Cameron to spank him as well Cameron goes soft and loving with him. Mark is more than frustrated and has no idea what’s going on.

Cut to many months later – Philip is working in his father’s law firm. He’s taking case after case and winning most of them. After a discussion with his father he finally gets his old man to believe that he’s now interested in women – when that couldn’t be farther from the truth. He keeps seeing Cameron and Mark in every male couple he sees and it’s starting to make him crazy – he just can’t stop thinking about the men. He eventually has an investigator friend try to find the two men in LA. But what he finds in the report that he gets back isn’t what he expected. The photos of Cameron coming out of a BDSM club and the knowledge that Cameron and Mark’s relationship isn’t what it once was sets Philip to thinking and he eventually knows he can get them back to where they need to be. But when is all said and done – where will that leave Philip?

This story was not what I expected when I picked this book up at netgalley – it was better. I really didn’t expect it to be quite as emotional as it was and I really liked that characteristic of it.

Let me talk about the men first.

Mark – I really liked him from the get go. He seemed to truly love Cameron and just wanted what was best for their relationship. I was with Mark when it came to being slightly confused about adding the third party into the mix. Adding another man would spice their sex life up – for one night. It certainly wouldn’t help them with the problems they were having in the bedroom, which seemed to be effecting every aspect of their lives. I hurt for Mark because, really, he was so in the dark about Cameron and most of the problems, at least I felt, weren’t his fault.

Philip – I very much liked him as well. Philip was in such a rough spot. On one hand he truly wanted to be the man his father wanted him to be…professionally. But on the other hand he wanted to be himself and be loved for who he was. He also didn’t care for the type of cases he was taking and so was doing pro bono work for a women’s shelter – which made me like him even more. My heart ached for Philip as well because he couldn’t be accepted by his family for who he was – a gay man. When it came to Cameron and Mark I was a bit on the fence as to whether I thought they should all be together. Yes, in the end he was the glue that put Cameron and Mark back together but I ‘m not sure I saw how the three of them would work so well together. By the end of the book, however, Ms. Raines had me believing that it was all possible.

Cameron – While I believe he was a good person deep down I found it extremely hard to forgive him for his deceit – which is what it was when he hid his past so thoroughly from Mark for so long. The lack of honesty in the relationship was taking its toll and even then he couldn’t come out with the truth. He even made an (aborted) attempt to try the BDSM lifestyle again without Mark involved and that just pissed me off even more. I believe that he truly did love Mark but if that was the case why couldn’t he trust him enough to tell him the truth so that they could work on it together? If he had gone 6 months without telling him I may have understood but it had been 3 years and still he remained silent.

When all was said and done I actually believed that the three men would work it all out and the conclusion was quite good. But that being said I think I would have liked to have just seen Mark and Philip walk off into the sunset together…alone. I know, bad Tracy wanting to change the story! lol In the end I liked the writing and will definitely be reading more from this author in the future.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5