Tag: Paranormal Erotica

Guest Review: Surrounded by Woods by Mandy Harbin

Posted August 21, 2011 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Tracy’s review of Surrounded by Woods by Mandy Harbin.

When Mikaela Patterson must take on a client with specific requirements that no single women be allowed on his property, she keeps her broken engagement a secret. She doesn’t realize her client and his sons are mountain lion shifters whose instinct to mate with any available woman turns deadly.

Josh Woods is her client’s eldest son, and he is immediately drawn to Mikaela. Knowing his father would never allow an available woman on the property, Josh doesn’t understand his fascination with her. Josh and Mikaela fight their attraction because of their own secrets, but when the truth comes out about Mikaela’s true availability and Josh’s animal instincts, they must be prepared to face the consequences.

Mikaela heads to a clients house that’s in Texas – surrounded by woods and lots of acreage. Because of its distance to any nearby town Mikaela is required to stay at the house with Thomas Woods and his four sons. This doesn’t seem all that bad to Mikaela but she has no idea that the Woods family is a family of mountain lion shapeshifters. Their need to mate is strong in their genetic make up and therefore they don’t let any woman on the property that’s not already spoken for by a boyfriend, fiance or husband as they respect the mating bonds that are already in place. Mikaela was engaged but the bastard cheated on her the month before and now she’s free. She was just so embarrassed that she never let her boss know and he thought she was taken when he sent her.

Josh Woods immediately upon meeting Mikaela is drawn to her. He feels a special affinity for her and is immediately all over her. While he was pretty crude when he first talked to her he seemed to mellow out the longer she was there. He knew he should stay away from her though and tried to but he just couldn’t do it. Pretty soon the pair are all over each other, spending the day together talking and laughing. They fall in love – but how will it work with Josh thinking that she’s married? And how can he possibly explain to her that he’s a shapeshifting mountain lion?

This was a cute book but there just wasn’t much to the story except the attraction, the submitting and then the conclusion. Neither Mikaela’s nor Josh’s worlds were explored all that much and besides their attraction to each other we really didn’t know much about them. Frankly, I was a bit disappointed in the story because of it.

The brothers seemed nice but they weren’t mentioned all that much except when they went all mountain lion on Mikaela and then they seemed like jerks. I know they were supposed to be feral lions trying to claim a mate but it just didn’t endear them to me at all.

Mikaela, when she and Josh finally were together at the end, went inexplicably alpha mountain lion on Josh – trying to fight him for dominance – and I didn’t think it fit her personality all that much. Josh loved it but he’s a guy who was having sex – as long as he got some what did he care how she acted. lol

In the end the book was cute but just ok for me.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

This book is available from Amira Press. You can buy it here in e-format.

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Guest Review: Kiss Across Time by Teal Ceagh

Posted April 17, 2011 by Ames in Reviews | 1 Comment

Ames’ review of Kiss Across Time by Teal Ceagh.

Taylor Yates just got fired from her university job for insisting that the fifth-century British poet and playwright, Inigo Domhnall, existed. When she hears the poet’s lyrics in a death metal song, she engineers a meeting with the dark-eyed, dark-haired lead singer, Brody Gallagher. An unintended kiss sends them spinning back to the poet’s time, when Saxons were pillaging King Arthur’s Britain, and a warrior expects a proper farewell from his woman before he sets off for war.

Brody’s all for kissing her again. More, he’d like her to try kissing his friend and lover, Veris, just to see what will happen. His tall, blond, blue-eyed Saxon friend, Veris.

I don’t know what made me pick this book up but it was definitely a quick, interesting read.

Taylor is at a death metal concert with her friend Andy. She heard his music through their apartment wall a few weeks ago and she’s intrigued by some lyrics she heard. She wants to find out who wrote them, because they’re from a poem of the man she’s researching, Inigo Domhnall. A man she got fired from her university job for believing he even existed. Taylor is at the concert, hoping to get backstage when the lead singer approaches her…on the second balcony. He kisses her and they’re thrown back in time, to a time where they loved each other and where they’re saying a bittersweet goodbye as they can hear their enemies attacking their village. Powerful stuff! And exactly the ticket Taylor needed to get backstage to talk to the singer and find out who wrote those lyrics. But things get even more complicated backstage when Taylor meets the lead singer, Brody’s, lover, Veris. Because kissing Veris throws them back in time too! Taylor quickly realizes that things are not what they seem with these two sexy hot men…

Ok, this was an interesting story. I didn’t find it particularly hot, but the concept behind Brody and Veris’ past was interesting. I’m also not a fan of time travel, but this is more like going back into someone’s memory. And there’s a good explanation for why this is happening to Taylor, Veris and Brody. I don’t want to give too much away – but there is a connection to an Arthurian legend. I do plan on reading the sequel, Kiss Across Swords, and hopefully that will shed light on how Brody and Veris became what they did. I thought Taylor’s bit of resistance towards the end of this short story was a bit too much – what did it really bring to the story? My not liking this part could be that it wasn’t explained until afterwards.

All in all, interesting concept. I’m giving it a 2.75 out of 5. I’d give it a bit higher, but there were some editing mistakes that would have been taken care of with a more thorough proof-reading.

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.

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Guest Review: Werewolf Me by Amarinda Jones

Posted January 30, 2011 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 1 Comment

Tracy’s review(ish) of Werewolf Me by Amarinda Jones

Truro Simpson is confused. What the hell is going on in the sleepy town of Ludlum? One moment her life is quiet and boring and the next she’s having orgasmic sex with a hot, tattooed stranger and odd people are turning up talking about werewolves and soul mates. Do the wolves of Ludlum have something to do with that? And does any of it really matter when she is having the best sex of her life?

Every fifty years, a clan of wolves seeks new mates. Murphy Green is a werewolf. He is in Ludlum for Truro, his soul mate. The problem is the lady doesn’t believe it. That’s okay. His plan is to seduce her with sweet words and hard cock until she’s as breathless with need and as hungry to touch and taste as he is.

This was a DNF for me.

Truro lives in a small town in Australia. One night she decides to pick up a hot man in a diner and they head to a motel for what she thinks is a one night stand. But as she is blowing him the man starts psychoanalyzing why she’s doing it? What??? He gets really into her really quickly and that was, quite frankly, a little creepy. Then he tries to figure out why she’s feeling inadequate – which she is, but still. Now?  Really? He was talking about “forever” and “mine” during the first scene – it was just bizarre . When he started with the pet name – Petal, no less – on the second page of the book my hackles started to rise. I wanted to give the book a fair shot though so I read on.

It looked like there was going to be some sort of a coup to try and take down the werewolf clan by a man who hated the alpha but this was only one scene in all of the pages I read. I kept waiting for more of that but it wasn’t forthcoming.

The couple had sex twice before they exchanged names and when he said I Love You on page 63 after having just exchanged names I was done. DNF

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.

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Guest Review: Kiss Across Swords by Teal Ceagh

Posted December 18, 2010 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 0 Comments

Tracy’s review of Kiss Across Swords (Time-Crossed Love #2) by Teal Ceagh

Growing up, Taylor Yates never dreamed she would end up happily living with two drop-dead sexy vampires and time-hopping through their thousand years of personal history. Her life is complete—or is it?

When she finds herself at the siege of Jerusalem during the first crusade, Taylor discovers Veris doesn’t know her at all…and doesn’t want to. Worse, he and Brody are total strangers, and Taylor drives a wedge deep between them by trying to seduce Veris at their first meeting—not something a lady of the day does if she wants to keep her head.

Taylor and Brody must woo Veris using the customs of medieval England, win his heart and his full commitment before Jerusalem falls in four days’ time—or when they return to their own time, their lives as they know them will be gone.

In book 1 of this series we discover that Taylor, Veris and Brody are all bonded and can jump back in time to either a time in Veris or Brody’s life. They think that this is a way to show Taylor their very long lives but they really don’t know for sure exactly why they jump.

On Taylor’s birthday, after four years of being together, Taylor asks Veris to change her into a vampire. Veris gets very upset, for reasons that aren’t revealed until later in the book, and leaves Brody and Taylor without a word. Brody and Taylor end up jumping time one night straight into the first crusade in Jerusalem and it’s the time in Brody’s life when he first met Veris and started their very long relationship. But Veris isn’t the same person. The details of his life have changed somewhere along the way and he’s a much more intense, harder person than he was the first time Brody met him. After things get muddled with Veris, Brody and Taylor discover that they are going to have to seduce Veris into being with Brody – because if they don’t the three of them may never exist together in the 21st century and all of their lives will change.

Veris’s refusal to change Taylor at the beginning of the book was quite confusing. There are four years in between the novella that is book one and this series and I was actually surprised that some of the information that came out in this book had never been talked about between the trio. In this story, while Brody and Taylor are back in Jerusalem, events happen and details come to light that explain Veris’s anger at being asked to change Taylor.

Part of the book is really an explanation of how Brody and Veris came into their relationship as told as a story from Brody to Taylor and how, with Taylor there now, how things have changed. But then Taylor and Brody go about trying to get Veris alone and trying to make him see their love for him, without trying to give too many details of his future. The story was a tad confusing at times with trying to figure out what was the past, the future and the present but it was good enough that it kept me wanting to know more.

Teal Ceagh has written a sensual and steamy historical/paranormal/contemporary book that is quite fantastic in its premise but is quite engaging in its telling. If there are more in the series in the future I’ll definitely be interested in reading them.

Rating: 4 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.

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Guest Review: Risking Eternity by Voirey Linger

Posted November 9, 2010 by Book Binge Guest Blogger in Reviews | 1 Comment

Judith‘s review of Risking Eternity by Voirey Linger.

For two hundred years, Dominicus has lived in isolation, sentenced to take human souls to hell. But this night’s victim is unlike all the others. She tempts him. One kiss and she comes apart in his arms. One taste, and he can’t walk away.

But Maggie isn’t the only temptation he faces. Dominicus fights an attraction to Renatus, his best friend through the eons and a male with whom sex is forbidden. With her, he risks Hell; with him, losing the only piece of Heaven he has left.

Maggie cannot begin to understand what Dominicus has done. Demons covet her soul and Lucifer won’t give up his prize. In claiming her, he has not only compounded his sin, he has sparked a war between heaven and hell. Angels battle demons, and Domincus must make a choice. Does he deliver to Lucifer the human whose soul calls to him and ensure his salvation, or save her and risk eternal damnation?

This is a somewhat complicated tale that brings the reader into a confrontational awareness of the best and the worst of the celestial world–Renatus and Dominicus as representative of the blessedness of Heaven, and Lucifer and his minions as the beasties of Hell. Caught in the middle is a normal, work-a-day, pay-her-taxes-and-go-to-work kind of woman who has little if any concept of or awareness of this hidden world of good and evil that is swirling around her. That an angel teetering on the brink between redemption or damnation may fall in love with her is totally beyond her mental or emotional consideration. She just wants to live a nice, normal life, and she would like someone who would love her and for whom she would be special, someone who would welcome her affection and trust. Little does she realize that the Prince of Darkness has claimed her soul, one that Dominicus realizes is pure and clean, one that has been consigned to Hell and one that Dominicus is determined to keep from Lucifer at all costs.

This is not a benign book but is, rather, full of the intensity of the supreme struggle between good and evil. That Dominicus is divided in his affections makes for a good story, but it also brings the reality of dual attractions into play. Renatus, his best friend, is a staunch believer in keeping everything proper and bound by strict rules. Dominicus’ desire to save this soul from Lucifer goes over like a cement canary. Yet in spite of his growing awareness that his friendship with Renatus weighs in the balance, Dominicus just can’t abandon Maggie to the evils that lust after her pure soul.

There is much in this novella that is bracing and good–the intensity of true friendship, the true goodness of genuine love, a love that is able to give more than it needs to take. Yet there is also sadness and in large part, betrayal and dishonesty. There is a reason that Lucifer is called the “Father of lies.” Maggie’s ultimate destiny is truly in jeopardy because she fell for one of those lies and invited evil into her domicile. Is there a lesson there? This novella is alive with the push/pull between the forces of Heaven and Hell, the pull toward Maggie on the one hand, and the attraction of restoration and eternal friendship with Renatus. Dominicus is as caught in the throes of the two poles just as much as is Maggie.

This is a very readable and enjoyable novella, one that fantasy readers will enjoy and find quite satisfying. It moves along well and contains lots of action. The dialogue is relevant and believable. The conflicts are resolved in creative ways. There are twists and turns in the story and sufficient suspense to keep the reader’s interest. What’s not to like? This story will not entail a major time commitment, but it will be time well spent. I give this book a rating of 4 out of 5.

This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.

You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place.

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