Tag: TBR Challenge 2012

TBR Challenge Review: Highland Moonlight by Teresa J. Reasor

Posted December 20, 2012 by Tracy in Reviews | 4 Comments

The TBR Challenge theme for this month was Holiday Reads. Well, this wasn’t a Christmas read but there was a scene during Christmastide…does that count? lol 


Seduced and shamed by Alexander Campbell, the warrior to whom she is betrothed, Lady Mary Mac Lachlan flees to the Campbell stronghold of Castle Lorne and demands sanctuary from Alexander’s father.

Though Alexander seduced Mary for her own protection and his men’s, his actions have greater repercussions than expected. His betrayal destroys Mary’s trust and his belief in himself as a man of honor. Determined to heal the breach, and claim Mary—who now carries his heir—as his wife, he follows her to Lorne and finds himself brought before a council of arbitration on charges of rape.

When Collin Mac Lachlan, Mary’s father tries to coerce her into testifying against Alexander, Mary refuses. But when violence threatens to break out between their clans, Mary is forced to wed him to fulfill their betrothal agreement and save him from the executioner.

Amid the hostilities between their clans and the wounds inflicted on her heart, can Mary find the love and happiness she’s always craved or will she discover she’s been chasing a dream as illusive as Highland Moonlight? 

Alexander Campbell and Mary McLachlan have been engaged for 3 years but have finally met. They hit it off and plan on marrying, but when Alexander hears that Mary’s father is planning on sending in a rival clan Laird to seduce and ruin Mary so that he can marry her instead, Alexander makes his move first. 

When our book opens Mary is living in a cave so that she doesn’t have to deal with either her bastard father or the man who seduced and shamed her all in the same night. She is pregnant with Alexander’s baby but that won’t stop her from seeking sanctuary from Alexander’s father. But Mary’s father isn’t going to give his daughter – aka his pawn up so easily. He thinks he can get rid of Alexander and then have Mary to do with as he pleases. He doesn’t plan on Mary hating him so much that she chooses Alexander over her father. 

Alexander and Mary end up getting married but the road ahead of them isn’t smooth. Mary’s from a rival clan and the women of Alexander’s clan look at her with suspicion as well as the fact that she was pregnant before getting married. Of course Mary’s father doesn’t give up on getting her back and I won’t even start with Alexander’s old lover. Lots of obstacles but love conquers all. 

I read a review of this one a while back and was intrigued enough to buy it. The story, in general, is about trust and fear. Mary definitely has feelings for Alexander but she’s afraid of trusting him again. She thought that he truly had feelings for her when he seduced her originally, only to be walked in on and have him tell everyone that he did it on purpose. Alexander really does care for Mary and knows that he messed up but he didn’t want to lose her. He doesn’t actually tell Mary what her father had planned because he wants to take responsibility but he gets a little frustrated with the woman. 

I thoroughly understood Mary’s trust issues. I think I would have been fearful as well. I did feel that she took it a little to the limit but that’s just me, I think. Now Mary was a sensible girl but when she was confronted with Alexander’s previous lover she really lost her senses. She did some pretty stupid stuff – especially near the end and I just wanted to throttle her. It all worked out though. 

Alexander, for all his blustering, really was a great guy. He loved his clan and his home and yes, Mary. He acted the ass but had good intentions. Yeah, I know, the road to hell and all that – but it worked in this book. I was quite happy when the couple finally found their footing and eventually their HEA.
 
The story, imho, was a little slow going but pretty realistic in its harshness. The author didn’t beat around the bush or make things seem like they were easier than they actually were. This was medieval times and life was not easy. We got a good taste of that in this book and I liked almost every minute of it. 

If you like reading good, solid medieval romances then this one would be a good one not to miss. 

Rating: 4 out of 5 

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TBR Challenge Review: I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long

Posted October 17, 2012 by Tracy in Reviews | 4 Comments

Violet Redmond’s family and fortune might be formidable and her beauty and wit matchless–but her infamous flare for mischief keeps all but the most lionhearted suitors at bay. Only Violet knows what will assuage her restlessness: a man who doesn’t bore her to tears, and a clue to the fate of her missing brother. She never dreamed she’d find both with a man whose own pedigree is far from impeccable.

“Savage” is what the women of the ton whisper about the newly styled Earl of Ardmay–albeit with shivers of pleasure. Born an English bastard, raised on the high seas, he’s on a mission to capture a notorious pirate for vengeance. But while Violet’s belief in her brother’s innocence maddens him, her courage awes him . . . and her sensuality finally undoes him. Now the man who once lost everything and the girl who has everything to lose are bound by a passion that could either end in betrayal . . . or become everything they ever dreamed.

Violet Redmond is bored. It’s not that she doesn’t love being the daughter of a very wealthy man but there’s just not much that gets her blood pumping. Because of this she tends to make impulsive decisions that may not be the best ones. When she meets the Earl of Ardmay at a ball she’s not sure what to think of him. Especially when he seems to think that her brother, Jonathan, is a notorious pirate – one that he’s been asked to bring to the King to bring to justice. Violet immediately lets him know that Jonathan could not possibly be the pirate Le Chat but when she receives more clues about the infamous Le Chat she begins to believe it IS her brother…her brother Lyon. Lyon left Pennyroyal Green over a year ago and no one had heard from him since but the clues Violet gathers all point to him. Jonathan doesn’t believe any of it so Violet takes matters in to her own hands and manages to stowaway on the Earl of Ardmay’s ship.

Asher Flint, the Earl of Ardmay, is understandably pissed off when he discovers Violet on his ship – even more so when he finds out exactly why she is there. He is intrigued by her, however, and though they are at constant odds he can’t help but be impressed by Violet for many different reasons. The couple eventually fall in love but how can they ever be together when he’s going to arrest her brother and see him (possibly) hanged? Where does Violet’s loyalties lie?

This is book 4 in the Pennyroyal Green series and though I’m reading them almost backwards (I read book 5 then 3, 6, 7, now 4) it didn’t ruin anything for me. Getting to know the characters that I’ve read about in more recent books just brings it all together in my head.

Violet and Asher were fantastic characters to read about. Their extremely tumultuous relationship was nothing short of brilliant and I adored every minute of it. These two people were so very different yet appreciated those differences. Violet for all her family’s wealth and position had never known love between a man and a woman – only familial love – and Asher was basically raised on a ship after barely having had a family at all. The falling in love part was kind of like pulling a veil from around their faces and seeing the world in a completely different way. sigh It was just so good!

Asher, for all his rough edges had a way about him that just spoke to me. At one point in the book Asher meets Lyon and they talk about Violet and why they love her. Lyon says, pretty much, I know why I love Violet – but why do you? I won’t give you the entire answer as that’s something you have to read for yourself but a part of it – and mainly the part he thought in his head – just made my heart flutter (yes, it can actually do that!):

“I’ve very little experience of what they like to call the finer emotions, Mr. Redmond. I haven’t your talent for grander expression…I can only tell you…”

How in God’s name to describe Violet? It was like trying to describe his own heart, which naturally he’d never actually seen. It was an idea, his heart; he felt it beat inside him, sending life coursing through his veins. He needed it. It was everything.

OMG that last paragraph…so damned good. Which basically describes how I felt about this book – So. Damned. Good.

I can’t say enough about how much I loved this book but if you haven’t read this series and you love historical romances then I have to say you’d definitely missing out.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Julie Anne Long

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TBR Challenge Review: After the Night by Linda Howard

Posted September 19, 2012 by Tracy in Reviews | 7 Comments

This month’s reading suggestion: Paranormal or Romantic Suspense – I chose Romantic Suspense

FAITH DEVLIN: A poor, outcast child in Prescott, Louisiana, she’d always adored the town’s golden boy from afar. But he called her white trash that sultry Southern night when his rich, respected father disappeared, along with her pretty Mom. Now Faith wanted to hate Gray Rouillard…not to feel a powerful surge of desire. But she couldn’t quench her passion, any more than she could hide the truth about the past she had waited so long to unravel.

GRAY ROUILLARD: Even when he raised hell, he did it with style. Reckless, charming, and backed by Rouillard money, Gray controlled the town of Prescott — and Devlin was a name he never wanted to hear again. But when he gazed at Faith Devlin, all he saw was a swirl of tangled sheets and her silken flesh beneath him. To care for her was impossible, unthinkable…because Gray Rouillard planned to use all his power to ruin her.

In Prescott, Louisiana the Devlin family is considered trash. The father drinks as do the two oldest sons. The oldest daughter, though not that old is sleeps with just about anyone with 2 legs and the mother, Renee, though the mistress of the richest man in the area, Guy Rouillard, also sleeps around. The youngest daughter, Faith, keeps her nose clean, goes to school, takes care of her family and her little brother who has Down’s Syndrome. It doesn’t matter that Faith isn’t like the rest, she’s a Devlin so therefore is lumped in with all the rest.

Faith, though just 14 years old, has a huge crush on Gray Rouillard. He’s 8 years older but she doesn’t care she’s been half in love with him for forever and despite his hatred of her family has always treated her decently.

One night Renee Devlin and Guy Rouillard disappear. Everyone is town assumes that they have run off together though neither family can understand why – they each had families as well as non-stop access to each other – why would they head out of town? Despite the confusion the oldest Rouillard child, Gray, just 22 years old, kicks the Devlin family out of their home (which is on Rouillard land and they don’t pay rent) and then has the Sheriff department escort them out of town.

Now it’s twelve years later and Faith Devlin, though always traumatized by the night they were kicked out, has returned to her hometown. Despite the crappy way she was treated by all the townsfolk she feels like Prescott is where she belongs. She had a rough life but she had made something of herself and she’s not going to let the prejudices of those people bring her down. She’s also very anxious/excited to see Gray because she’s really never stopped loving him, even after that night.

Gray wants his family taken care of. They are so dysfunctional it’s ridiculous but he wants no more gossip about his father and Renee Devlin to read his mother and start upsetting her once again. He tries to get rid of Faith to make his family happy but his heart’s just not in it. His is peeved that Faith is snooping around town and asking questions about his father. He’s not sure what her angle is but he wants her to stop.

Faith suspects that more than the obvious happened the night her mother left town and she’s determined to discover the truth even after her life is threatened.

This was a really good book. I just had to start out by saying that. It wasn’t at all what I expected when I started reading, it was better.

First I had to completely admire Faith’s hutzpuh in returning to Prescott. I can’t say that after being treated so badly by everyone around that I would have had the fortitude to return. But not only did she return she didn’t let anyone make her feel inferior. She knew she wasn’t and she didn’t let them get her down. She was really quite smart in figuring everything out and though I think she was a bit crazy at time to do the things she did I understood her determination.

Gray was another matter. I think I had a love/hate relationship with that man. I liked the fact that he wanted to protect his family but not the rude way he went about it. I hated the way he treated Faith but then if he thought he’d hurt her he would immediately turn to a big softy. He was a very different kind of romance hero, that’s for sure.

Though I had the suspense part of it and the bad guy figured out at quite an early stage I loved reading about the journey that was made in order to get us to the reveal. Howard has a true gift when it comes to the ins and outs of a mystery.

Overall a very good book and one I definitely recommend reading.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Linda Howard

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TBR Challenge Review: Real Men Do It Better Anthology by Carrie Alexander, Susan Donovan, Lora Leigh & Lori Wilde

Posted August 15, 2012 by Tracy in Reviews | 2 Comments

This month in the TBR Challenge we were instructed (ok, it was only suggested) to read an erotic novel. I found that I really don’t have many of those hanging around. Sure there are some on my flash drive with all my ebooks but quite frankly I was too damned lazy to go searching. Lol I saw this book on my shelf and realized that when I originally got it in 2008 I only read Lora Leigh’s novella. I decided that since it said, right on the cover, “four steamy novellas” that it would qualify for this challenge. So here are my thoughts about whether real men really do make it better.

In Carrie Alexander’s HIS BODY ELECTRIC, an aloof stranger arrives at Karen Jaffe’s farmhouse seeking shelter at the height of a violent lightning storm. Strange events follow–the power goes out, every clock stops, sparks fly from the visitor’s fingertips. Alone in the dark with him, Karen uses her skills as a phone sex operator to seduce the mystery man, uncovering the secrets and erotic pleasures of HIS BODY ELECTRIC.

Karen is on her Iowa farm when the skies open up and the rain pours down. Thunder and lightning accompany the storm and Karen rushes to get the animals in the barn. On the way back she runs into a stranger who is seeking shelter from the storm. He’s a bit odd but oh so cute and since she’s been by herself for so long she’s kind of got sex on the brain. Keeping her hands off of Gabe is pretty difficult and eventually they give in to their attraction in an electrifying way.

This was a pretty darned cute novella. I really liked how the story was laid out and the way the author had the couple getting to know each other a bit before falling into bed together. Ok, it wasn’t like they knew each other for long, really only hours before they made their move, but it worked for this erotic novella. There was a little bit of the unusual in this one but it worked.

In Susan Donovan’s BED AND BREAKFAST, a stressed-out corporate dynamo with designer boots and a bad attitude is sent to the New Mexico mountains to “get centered” or not come back to Los Angeles. She arrives at the rustic Windwalker Lodge north of Santa Fe, only to find the place in the middle of a renovation and the hunky owner in a pair of lounge pants with no shirt and no idea she was coming. She plans to leave on the first available shuttle the next morning, but one of the area’s notorious rains washes out the bridge, and she’s stuck. Though resistant at first, she eventually lets the beautiful setting and the extraordinary man give her a new perspective on life, love, and especially sex.

Kate is having a bad life. Seriously, it has been one hit after another and she needs to de-stress. Her boss sends her to a retreat in new Mexico to relax and “find herself.” She’s nothing but bitchy when she gets dropped off at 1 am and when she’s not immediately let in and continues that way for a couple of days. She soon finds out that her assistant got the dates mixed up and she’s a month late for her planned pilgrimage. Oops. Jorey lets her stay the night (on his bed since all the guest rooms are being remodeled and are demolished) but when a rain storm keeps Kate at the lodge she finds that there’s more to finding herself then she thought. She’s also found a man she could love but how will that work when she lives in LA?

This was another cute novella that had a bitchy heroine to start. She soon got to relax and get a bit centered but it takes her a bit to get to that point. When it did happen it was almost too extreme but I could see how it might happen in reality. Jorey, our hero, is someone who was living the same kind of fast-paced life as Kate was when reality hit him in the face with a medical issue a few years back. Now he runs the lodge and is more than happy with his life. I think what I liked about Jorey was that even though he was more spiritual/fruit and nut (if that makes any sense) than I normally like in my heroes he accepted Kate for who she was. Of course he wanted her at peace, but he didn’t try to push his ways on her too much. He was a caring and sensitive man while still being quite manly. You gotta love that in a hero.

In Lora Leigh’s FOR MAGGIE’S SAKE, Maggie Chavez from Leigh’s sexy Navy SEALs series is in protective custody with a member of her former lover’s SEALs team. Joe, her ex-lover, thinks Maggie is hiding information from him about a powerful drug lord and the deaths of some SEALs. He intends to seduce her and get the information before she can sell it back to the drug cartel. But when a member of the notorious crime family captures Maggie and holds her hostage at gunpoint, Joe realizes how wrong he is, and only he can save her life.

Joe and Maggie were lovers at one point. Because of a misunderstanding, and some stupidity on Joe’s part, they parted ways and Maggie ended up married to Joe’s best friend Grant. Now this is a novella that is part of the Tempting SEALS series and apparently Grant was a bad guy – now he’s dead. He wrote journals and in those journals he completely implicated Maggie as being part of his criminal activities. Now she’s under suspicion from the police and the bad guys are after her thinking she knows too much. Joe ends up taking her to a safe house and while there the pair work out their differences.

I read this novella in 2008 and frankly I could remember about 3 pages of it near the end. Lol I kept thinking, I read this? Really? When I got to those 3 pages a switch flipped in my head my memories came back. 🙂

While they’re at the safe house they finally start talking about their past. They argue and argue and they both see that they’ve made mistakes. I liked how we saw Joe coming off his high horse a bit as he thought he’d done nothing wrong and that their breakup had pretty much all been Maggie’s doing. Of course they end up sleeping together and working things out but they have to go through some hard times, including facing death, to come to their HEA. The story was more intense than I was expecting after reading the first two books in the anthology but it was good. You gotta appreciate Leigh’s alpha males but this one wasn’t such an ass and I liked that. Maggie was a bit whimpier than I expected a man like Joe to be in love with but she had been through hell with her husband so I cut her a little slack. lol

In Lori Wilde’s SIREN’S CALL, Annie Grave is back in her hometown, St. Augustine, looking after her grandfather’s dive shop as he lies bedridden with a broken hip. Though she is a Harvard MBA with a high-powered finance job in Manhattan and a boyfriend on the brink of proposing marriage, she’s never forgotten her first love, sun-bronzed dive instructor Duncan Stewart–or the day years earlier when she lost her virginity to him and he told her it was just a fling. But what she doesn’t know is that Duncan has regretted that decision every day since. Afraid of not being able to hold onto a smart, sexy, beautiful woman like Annie, he pushed her away and ran away from St. Augustine. But now she’s back, and so is he, and he’s cooked up a plan to win her back. After all, what girl could resist the lure of buried treasure, and a hot, handsome Scotsman to guide her on the hunt?

Duncan and Annie met when he was 16 and she was 13. Even though Duncan liked Annie immediately he didn’t do anything about it. They became friends and over the years Duncan planned to make himself a better man and then make his move on Annie. When they eventually sleep together Duncan realizes that he’s holding her back and hurts her in order to make her live the life that she should, instead of giving up college to stay with him.

Annie has been hurting for 5 years after Duncan’s betrayal of her feelings. Now he’s back and says that he has a treasure map to a legendary idol that her parents died searching for. Annie tells herself that she wants nothing to do with the man and she’s practically engaged to a nice man back in New York, but she can’t seem to keep herself away. For Duncan this is a plan to finally get Annie where he wants her – in his bed and in his life – permanently. If he has to use an idol that is supposedly an aphrodisiac to get her, he’ll do it.

This was a lovers united story but since Duncan had hurt Annie so much she wasn’t exactly thrilled with his return to town. Now secretly she’s in love with him but is unwilling to face being hurt again. Duncan didn’t exactly go about getting Annie back in the most honest way – ok, it wasn’t honest at all, but he was so desperate that he’d try just about anything to get her back in his life. It was a cute story and definitely hot – the hottest in the anthology, imho.

Actually the Alexander, the Leigh and the Wilde were all pretty steamy in different ways. The Donovan had sex involved but it wasn’t anywhere near as erotic as the others. Overall I liked all the stories in their own way. They each brought a different view of erotic romance to the table and I found them all to be good stories.

Overall Rating: 3.75 out of 5

Carrie Alexander
Susan Donovan
Lora Leigh
Lori Wilde

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