Rowena’s review of The Reckless Bride (The Black Cobra Quartet, Book 4) by Stephanie Laurens.

Hero: Rafe Carstairs
Heroine: Loretta Michelmarsh

He races to complete their mission against escalating odds–his task made more perilous when he loses his heart.

She’s determined to defy convention and live a solitary life–until she tastes the reckless pleasure found only in his arms.

Drawn together by fate, united by fiery passion, they pursue their shared destiny…one they’ll live to see only if they unmask the Black Cobra.

This is where the road ends for the four brave soldiers that risked their lives to bring the Black Cobra to justice and to avenge their friend. Man, I can’t believe the end is already here and when I jumped into this book, I was so jazzed to finally be reading Rafe’s story. I’ve been so ready for Rafe’s story since Del’s story. Right from the very beginning, I knew that Rafe was going to be my favorite hero of the bunch and while I loved him through out the series, I felt a bit let down by his story.

In this story, we finally get to see what the heck Rafe has been up to since he departed India all those stories ago. In the last three books, we could only speculate on his whereabouts and I just knew that he was out there battling the bad guys right along with Del, Gareth and Logan…but of the four of them, Rafe’s journey was so much tamer in comparison. He was the most reckless of the four soldiers and his story was mostly made up of him hooking up with Esme and Loretta and then fighting his growing feelings for Loretta.

While that’s all good and dandy, the emotional drama between Rafe and Loretta drove me bat shit crazy throughout most of the book. I spent equal time being annoyed with both Rafe and Loretta. I mean, Loretta knows about the seriousness of his mission. How important this mission is to Rafe because duh, he lost a friend to the bastard that is the Black Cobra and yet she keeps right on distracting him from his mission but on the other hand, there’s Rafe. While Loretta is throwing herself at him at every opportunity, Rafe is rebuffing her, telling her no more than one. How many times do you need to get rejected before your pride gets the best of you and you let him come to you? I mean seriously.

There was a lot of the going back and forth between the two of these guys and it got tiring for me. Among the back and forth, there’s all of the words that Stephanie Laurens just loves to have us read through and by the time Rafe and Loretta are in England and everything is coming together for the capture of the Black Cobra, I was kind of ready for the book to end. I wanted to like this book so much more than I did but that just wasn’t the case.

Rafe was a good, solid hero but the hype I gave him in my head throughout the series was too much for him to live up to. While I didn’t hate the book, I wasn’t over the moon about it either. The book was slow to pick up and then it dragged some in the middle and by the time I got to the end, I was glad. Not finishing the book was out of the question because I needed to know for my sanity how the whole thing came to an end and when we find out what we find out about the Black Cobra, I rolled my eyes.

There were things about this book that I liked. I adored Esme. I thought she was such a great old lady and every time she was on the pages, I smiled because she’s the bomb. I loved the way that her part of the storyline ended too. When Rafe and Gabriel are handling Esme’s light weight, I cheered because she had such great guys on her side. I think for me, Esme’s devil may care attitude won me over and I was glad that things ended the way that they did for her.

It wasn’t the ending that I was looking for with this series but I’m glad that I finished it because now I know. I’d recommend this book only because if you’ve read the other books in this series, it shows how the entire series comes to an end.

Grade: 3 out of 5

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

Rowena’s review of The Brazen Bride(The Black Cobra Quartet, Book 3) by Stephanie Laurens.

Hero: Logan Monteith
Heroine: Linnet Trevission

USA Today bestselling author Stephanie Laurens adds a dynamic, sweeping tale to her extraordinary adventures.

They’re bold, courageous, resolute . . . ex-officers of the Crown united against a deadly traitor known only as the Black Cobra.

Shipwrecked, wounded, he risks all to pursue his mission=only to discover a partner as daring and brazen as he.

Fiery, tempestuous, a queen in her own realm, she rescues a warrior=only to find her heart under siege.

Bound by passion, linked by need, together they must brave the enemy’s gauntlet to win all their hearts’ desire.

So this is the third book in the Black Cobra Quartet and it follows Logan Monteith. Logan Monteith’s ship is shipwrecked and he washes ashore where a bunch of kids save him and bring him to the home of the lady of the land, Linnet Trevission who nurses him back to health.

This is one of those amnesia stories and if you know me, you know that I’m not a fan of these. I think this accounts for the reason it took me so long to read this book because I kept putting the book down after every other page. Amnesia stories make me nervous. I hate the falling out that usually comes with the memory returning to whoever lost their memory to begin with (Until You by Judith McNaught anyone?) and though I’m happy to say that there wasn’t a falling out like that in this book, I do have to say that this is my least favorite book of the three that came out so far.

My issues with this book stems with the heroine. She was too perfect for my tastes. She was the lady of the land, so she knew how to farm, she knew how to sew, she knew how to do every bloody thing under the sun and she could still do so much more. On top of everything she could do, she was this saint who took in orphaned kids and gave them a home in her house. She went above and beyond the call of duty to take care of her people. Her only black mark was that she wasn’t a virgin. In those times, that was a big black mark but because I’m a modern gal, it wasn’t that big a deal to me.

The other thing that pissed me off about her was that she treated Logan while he was there. Not the taking care of him but because he was a prideful man, he wanted to earn his keep. Help out since he couldn’t afford to pay his way since he couldn’t remember exactly what he did for a living and blah blah blah. He mentions this and she’s like, okay well pay me in sex. The way she throws this in his face when his honor demands that he stops their liaisons made me want to punch her in the face. She doesn’t do it all the time but the fact that she did it at all made me not like her.

Logan was a good, stand up hero though. I mean, he wasn’t perfect but at least he knew he wasn’t perfect. He tried to be good for the most part but he’s a man in love and sometimes he did stupid things for which I forgave him because he wasn’t like Linnet. He had some deep feelings for her and everything he did for her was out of love and while she shares those same feelings with him, her actions of the past (the whole sleep with me as payment for me keeping you alive and feeding you and blah blah blah) left a bad taste in my mouth that I never quite forgave her for. It tainted all of the good she did throughout the story.

At the beginning of the book, we got a lot of Logan and Linnet and not a lot of the whole cultist stuff. Daniel and Alex are brothers, correct? Half brothers but still they share the same father, right? Those two had a relationship that just did not sit well with me. To be frank, it was gross. Watching those two over the course of the book turned my insides and showed me just how evil they are in regards to the whole cultists things.

A lot of the black cobra cultists things are getting to be repetitive if you’ve been reading the series from the beginning so the retelling of Del and Gareth’s missions was a bit tedious but I didn’t exactly hate this book. I just didn’t like it as much as I liked the others. I very much enjoyed both Gareth and Del’s book but every time I get to the cultists things, I want to breeze over that because I already know what happens.

So this is what I have to say on this book. It’s good. I’m glad that I read it and I cannot wait for Rafe’s book to come out at the end of the year because holy goodness, I’m anxious for it. There was good stuff, there was bad stuff and I still want to read more.

Grade: 3 out of 5

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