Tag: Resplendence Publishing

Review: Waking the Beast by Lacey Thorn

Posted April 30, 2015 by Holly in Reviews | 0 Comments

Review: Waking the Beast by Lacey ThornReviewer: Holly
Waking the Beast by Lacey Thorn
Series: Awakening Pride #1
Publisher: Resplendence Publishing
Publication Date: 3/30/14
Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
Pages: 190
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
two-stars
Series Rating: two-stars

The legend of the Paka Watu...

Ever since she was a young girl, Abby Lane can’t resist the allure of a catshifter tribe forced to repress their beasts. On a trip to Africa, she discovers a coveted piece of information—the name the pride leader assumed when he left his home—and she traces his lineage to his descendent.

The sleeping lion...

Utah Pearce can’t keep his gaze off the woman who slips into the bar every night. Though not his usual type, she brings out the possessive instinct in him, making him battle with himself as he tries to stay away.

Mine...

Abby’s research never prepared her for the reality in front of her. The beast is waking, and Utah is changing in ways both exciting and terrifying. He is possessive and dominant, and when he finally claims her, neither of them will ever be the same.

This was a free download.

I’ve been wanting to read more shifters lately and I like the idea of trying a series before I buy it. The premise is really great, and it started out with a bang, but it lacked in execution.

The story starts out with the legend of the Paka Watu, an African tribe blessed by the Great Spirit and given spirit guides, which end up being large jungle cats they can shift into. Abby has been obsessed with the legend her whole life, and thinks she’s finally found the descendant of the original leader of the Paka Watu, Utah Pearce, a former Marine and current bar owner.

When they’re abducted by her uncle and Utah is forced to change, her suspicions are confirmed. Except it freaks her out more than she thought it would. Dreaming about finding a race of shapeshifters is one thing, actually discovering their real is quite another. Of course, her reaction is nothing compared to Utah’s. One day he was running a bar, the next he was acting crazy possessive of Abby and rumbling a lot in his throat.

As I said, the premise was good and I liked the legend of the Paka Watu. It fell apart fairly quickly, however. Utah’s strange reaction to Abby and her involvement in his abduction was sort of touched on, then ignored. He should have been suspicious and angry, but instead he just wanted her. This is kind of a case of fated mates, and those rarely work for me.

There were a ton of plot holes and silly inconsistencies that pulled me out of the story. Not to mention the sequel baiting. I wanted to start a drinking game every time a secondary character came on page and their back story was hinted at but never revealed. Scenarios like “So-and-so finally shared her story, which shed light on Abby’s current situation” were prevalent. The stories weren’t shared with the readers, so the book felt half-formed and ended up frustrating me more than not.

I’m kind of curious about the wolvves,  so I may go back and read that story. As for this one, it could have been a stellar read but ended up leaving me feeling bored and mildly frustrated.

2 out of 5

two-stars


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Review: On Thin Ice by Jessica Lee

Posted March 14, 2012 by Tracy in Reviews | 3 Comments

Silas Murdock, lion Pride leader of Ariel Estates, is on the trip of a lifetime, big game hunting with his entourage in Alaska. Everything had been perfect right up until a freak storm barreled into the area ruining their plans followed by an assassin’s bullet plummeting them into the frozen tundra.

Enter wolf shifter and former pack physician, Theodor Lucas. Returning from a trip to a nearby village, he witnesses the crash and finds the wreckage along with an unconscious and barely alive Silas. Theo’s ethical sense won’t allow him to walk away, leaving the male to suffer and freeze to death when there’s a chance he could be saved. Despite the personal risk and his vow to never be responsible for another soul, Theo takes the lone survivor back to his cabin to care for his injuries.
Silas Murdock is on a small plane with other members from his pack when all hell breaks loose. The small plane goes down and Silas is the only survivor. Theo Lucas sees the plane go down and though he doesn’t want to get involved he heads to the crash sight. He gets Silas home and nurses him back to health. Theo knows that there’s something going on with Silas and that he’s more than a human when he witnesses Silas’s injuries healing at an alarming rate. Well, not too alarming since Theo is a wolf shifter and he heals quickly as well. But Silas doesn’t have the scent of a  wolf so what could he be? Theo can’t wait to find out. Unfortunately he’ll really have to wait because when Silas wakes up he has no idea who he is or where he’s from.
Silas stays with Theo as he tries to recovers his memories and while he’s there the two men can’t deny their attraction to each other. Not only do they begin sexual relationship but something deeper and more meaningful to both of them. Unfortunately there are people out there that want Silas dead and will stop at nothing to complete their mission.
Anyone who’s been reading this blog for a while knows that I’m a sucker for the amnesia trope. Having that in this book and a good part of it being a cabin romance really made this a really good story for me.
I loved that the two men had the time at Silas’s cabin together before reality reared it’s ugly head. I think that with Silas having lost his memory it made him a fresher character as he had no bad habits to fall back on. We didn’t get to see anything of Silas prior to the accident (or very little) and really couldn’t get a taste for who he was but it did mention that he was bisexual and relationships weren’t for him. With Theo he could be whoever he wanted with no preconceived notions of how the relationship should go.
Reality did intrude though with assassins coming to do Silas in. Silas does get his memory back and though he knows that he doesn’t want to leave Theo he must go back to his Pride to find out who’s behind the murder plot. This part was interesting as we got to see Silas back on his home field but we still didn’t get to find out exactly who the real Silas was. I have to admit to being a bit frustrated as I wanted more! lol I know it’s a novella but I’m greedy that way. 🙂
The HEA in this one is very different than I expected but I really liked it. It was far more realistic than anything I expected and I was extremely happy the author decided to go that way.
Overall a really good book that I very much enjoyed reading.
Rating: 3.75 out of 5


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Review: Secret Sacrifices by Jannifer Hoffman.

Posted March 16, 2009 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments


Hero: Quint Douglas
Heroine: Jamie LeCorre
Grade: 4 out of 5

Driver Jamie LeCorre, competing in the male dominated Stock Car Racing field, needs a tape that will exonerate her from a deadly crash. Weary of dealing with domineering, chauvinistic males, she is suddenly attracted to just such a man. A man who can get her tape.

Quint Douglas has sworn off high profile, overly intelligent women. He discovers the blond bimbo of his dreams trying to change a flat on a pink BMW. Offering help, he uses a bit too much attitude and is shot down. Yet, Quint still tries to win her over in spite of his deep-seated fear of speed.

Together they enter the tight knit Stock Car Racing world to investigate an old murder, a new body, and a highway collision-all tied together with too many suspects. Quint tries to keep Jamie from being the next victim even as she races around the track at 180 miles an hour, pursued by those who would like to see her eliminated, in more ways than one.

This is the second book in the Douglas Brothers series by Jannifer Hoffman and it was another pretty good read by Ms. Hoffman. This book follows Hunter’s cousin who’s more of a brother to him than anything else, Quint Douglas. Quint is getting ready to head over to Hunter’s wedding when he runs into a total hottie on crutches driving a pink beemer. It’s enough to catch his attention and when he gets to the wedding, he’s pleasantly surprised to see that the woman from the motel is the singer at the wedding and at the reception, he gets comfortable with her.

There’s a mystery plot that surrounds Jamie and Quint finds himself drawn into the mystery to try to keep Jamie safe and it makes for a really adventurous read. This book revolves around NASCAR and since I’m not a big fan of NASCAR, I didn’t think I would enjoy this book as much as I did but boy was I wrong. It was so easy to fall into this story and I just really enjoyed getting to know Jamie and Quint and I’m mighty curious about Virgil’s book as well. I heart Virgil.

Quint is one of those stand up heroes, the ones that are inately good and I was glad to read more about his family and his hang ups that were mentioned in Secrets of the Heart. It was just really good to get to know Quint. I enjoyed his character in Secrets of the Heart and it was a real pleasure getting to know him in this book as well. To see what made Quint the way that he was made for a real pleasure of a reading experience and I’m really glad that I was able to read this book.

Jamie was a great heroine, one that you can totally see as one of your own friends. She was strong and independent and you couldn’t help but cheer her on and hope that she finds the proof that she needs to clear her name. You see, Jamie was in an accident during one of her big profile races for NASCAR and it caused a big pile up which in turn made people whisper about how she did it on purpose but Jamie knows herself as a driver well enough to know that she had nothing to do with the crash. She knows she didn’t do anything wrong and yet she can’t prove it, not without getting a hold of the tape that only one person has.

Who does she know that could help her out with this little project? Quint Douglas of course. Quint’s work sometimes calls for him to retrieve information, pieces and anything else his clients need so he’s the perfect guy for this snatch and grab job.

It was really interesting to see these two unlikely people get together. I mean, you’ve got one person who is deathly afraid of speed (with good reason) and then the other person who makes their living using a whole lot of speed. The way that Hoffman brought these two together in an adventure of a lifetime made for a definite fast paced read. I enjoyed this book a whole lot more than I enjoyed the first book (and I enjoyed that one too) so I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is in the mood for a steamy romance with great characters and a fast paced storyline.

Now….bring on Virgil’s book. =)

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


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Review: Sinful Temptation by Cassidy McKay.

Posted January 18, 2009 by Rowena in Reviews | 7 Comments


Hero: Nicholas Germaine
Heroine: Jennifer Amante
Grade: 2.75 out of 5

Old habits die hard, no matter how much time has passed. Twenty-eight year old real estate receptionist Jennifer Amante calls a phone sex line on a dare from her childhood friend, and encounters “Naughty Nick”, the self-made man who runs Sinful Temptations.

As passion tempts them both beyond their previous boundaries, Nick and Jenn must confront the deceit, jealousy, and death that stalks them.

Can they survive their Sinful Temptations?

It is official, I’ve fallen back in love with my ebook reader. I haven’t used my ebook reader in a few months but now that I’ve got new books loaded on there, it seems that ebooks are the only kind of books that I want to read right now.

This is a book that you’ll probably finish in one sitting because on my ebook reader, the book was only 197 pages so I zipped right through this one with ease. It wasn’t a very hard story to follow with the storyline being very simple. It’s a very short story and the book left me wanting more, I guess I wanted more to make the story believable.

The story goes like this, Heroines best friend makes heroine call one of those naughty phone sex lines and heroine makes the call, meets the hero and they have all sorts of hot steamy phone sex, then hero goes into heroines work and wants to buy a house and comes face to face with heroine and finds out that she’s his steamy phone sex partner from the other night. He asks heroine out and she declines, stating that she doesn’t date clients and then she goes home and calls Naughty Nick because the guy that came into her work reminded her of him and since she couldn’t go out with him, she wants to masterbate to Naughty Nick’s voice and pretend that hottie guy from work is the person she’s talking to.

*rolls eyes*

I couldn’t care for Jenn after that because of course, the shit hits the fan when they finally do end up going out and Jen is all in love with Nick and she finds out from the office bitch that Nick from the office owns a phone sex company and she puts two and two together making her Naughty Nick and Nick she went on a date the same person, she gets all pissed off and throws this big ol’ tantrum that made me want to slap her silly but what really got me is that Nick is supposed to be this laid back kind of guy and this macho guy with a 9 inch schlong and then we see him get all panicked and start pleading with Jennifer to take him back.

I guess my issue with that whole thing was I didn’t see what the big deal was about his name being kept a secret, he tried to tell Jen before they slept together but she wasn’t trying to hear it and just seeing the way she blew up just made me sigh and roll my eyes a little more.

If there was more to the story, if I could have gotten to know both Nick and Jen more, I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more but because I couldn’t really connect or relate to the characters and because I thought Jen was a dummy, this story fell short for me. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t really love it either, oh and if you could believe this coming from me, I wanted more sex too.

But because I’m cool like that, I’m going to offer three copies of this story in ebook for anyone who wants to give this book a try and see if they like it more than me, so who wants a free ebook? I’ll announce the winners for the giveaway in two days, on January 20th at noon.

This book is available from Resplendence. You can buy it here.


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Review: Secrets of the Heart by Jannifer Hoffman

Posted January 16, 2009 by Rowena in Reviews | 2 Comments


Hero: Hunter Douglas
Heroine: Nicole Anderson
Grade: 4 out of 5

Nicole Anderson owns a successful costume design business, has a wealth of small town friends and sleeps in a lonely bed haunted by demons from the past. She’s convinced herself her life is exactly the way she wants it and has shot down every marriageable man within a fifty-mile radius.

When Hunter Douglas is assigned the task of delivering a deceased friend’s children to their aunt, he must first convince the belligerent Nicole Anderson that she actually had a sister. Though forced to take his two charges to Minnesota, Hunter fully intents to persuade Ms. Anderson to allow the children to return to New York with him without sharing his own little secret. The last thing he wants to do is fall in love with a woman who lives in a small Midwest town with neighbors who seem to know every move he makes.

As the heat index between Nicole and Hunter rises, a bizarre puzzle begins to unfold involving false birth certificates, a stolen suitcase, odd pictures, an elusive stalker, and a grandfather’s legacy that could turn deadly.

It’s been a couple of days since I finished this story and I’m still trying to gather my thoughts on exactly how I felt about reading this book. I mean, there’s no doubt that I enjoyed this story but there were a few times when reading that I just wanted to throw my hands up in the air and say, “I give up!” because there is so much going on in this story. A whole lot of things that you have to keep in mind while reading this story.

Okay, so Hunter Douglas was put in charge of delivering Brenda Casey’s children to her half sister in Minnesota after Brenda dies. Hunter knows Brenda because he’s a PI and she hired him to find her biological father about 7 years ago. So Brenda’s dead and she’s left behind two kids, Shanna and Kyle. Brenda hasn’t lived a very straight and narrow kind of life, she was a little loosy goosy and she had a very brief affair with Hunter after he found her father for her and that information gets Hunter into a lot of trouble with Nicole.

Now Nicole is the half sister that Brenda never knew she had. She found out about her biological father and found out about her sister and brother. The intricacies of the whole plot and Brenda’s plan was executed well in this story and I enjoyed watching everything unfold. There’s a lot going on in this story with Nicole finding out she’s got a long lost sister that is dead and she’s the primary caretaker of two small children that are her blood relatives.

It’s a whole lot to find out that your Dad might have possibly had an affair while he was still married to your mother, especially when you find out about your dad’s other family after he’s already gone and dead and Nicole handled it pretty well. She reacted as any normal person would react to having your entire world collapse around you and I ended up really liking her. The problem with Nicole’s character for me, was that in the beginning of the story when we first meet Nicole, I couldn’t really see what was so special about her. My first impression of Nicole was that she was forgettable. She was one of those heroines that serves her purpose in this story but I’m probably going to forget everything about her by next week…but as the story progressed, so did my appreciation of Nicole Anderson.

Do you guys remember this email story:

Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Most men don’t want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they sometimes take the apples from the ground that aren’t as good, but easy. The apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they’re amazing. They just have to wait for the right man to come along, the one who is brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

Nicole was one of the apples at the top of the tree, at first glance you wouldn’t see how amazing she is but the more you got to know her, the more you got….her. She was great with the kids and she was good with Hunter. She found out a whole lot about herself that she never knew and she faced down her demons with Hunter’s help and I just found her character to be a delight.

Hunter, on the other hand, I loved immediately. How can you not love a man who fell in love with two kids that were thrown into his lap and wanted to do right by them? Hunter was a hero who got under my skin (in a good way) right from the jump. I loved his relationship with the people around. The relationship he formed with Shanna and Kyle was what really sealed his fate as my favorite character of the entire story, I just got all gooey inside for him because he loved those kids and he was going to give them the kind of home they should’ve had all along if Nicole didn’t take them. He wanted those kids and I heart him for that. Hunter’s relationship with his family and with his assistant made him that much more awesome. I loved reading his conversations with Virgil and Quint and I just really enjoyed him. I loved how gentle he was with Nicole and I loved his role in helping her live again. There were times aplenty in the book where I was thinking, AWWWWWWW after he did something sweet and I just really, really heart him. My one complaint with him was, Hunter, Hunter, Hunter….why oh why did you ever think it was a good idea to keep your big secret from Nicole? He took his sweet ol’ time telling her about the secret that when she finally found out about it, I was sooooo mad at him. I wanted to smack him upside his head but alls well that ends well and this story ended well.

As a whole, the story was enjoyable but there were a lot going on, a lot that you had to keep up with and then there was the whole coincidence thing with Billy that I could’ve done without because it reeked of overkill but even with all of that stuff going on, I enjoyed this book and cannot wait to finish this series out, Quint’s story here I come. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a great story that you can sink your teeth into and figure out. This was a good one.

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


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