Publisher accidentally sent me two copies of this, so doing a giveaway!
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Saturday, June 1, 2019
Friday, May 31, 2019
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Reading Update: 50%
Rye Mallet, a fearless “freight dog” & Dr. Brynn O’Neal, mysterious and alluring, must learn to trust each other so they can protect their valuable cargo from those who would kill for it.
What could go better with a romance thriller than Cotton Candy donuts? ;)
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Review: Lord Johnnie
Lord Johnnie by Leslie Turner WhiteMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Thank you to Linda Hilton for the rec :)
This book was so much fun, Raiden wanted to get into the spirit. I told him to give me his best pirate mean mug
He did not disappoint, lol.
"The road of life leaves as strong an imprint on the man as the man leaves on the road, Johnnie. We are all the fruits of our experiences. You can't change that."
"A bitter truth," he agreed.
She studied him a long while in silence. "That girl has altered your outlook, hasn't she?"
"Let's say she clarified it, your Grace."
If you're a fan of Errol Flynn movies or any of variation of Robin Hood tv shows, you'll want to get a copy of this.
Johnnie Rogue was born a bastard, his father supposedly died at sea and didn't make it back to marry Johnnie's mother, while she died in childbirth. With an English mother and Scottish father, living in France was difficult and Johnnie had to turn to thievery to survive. When he makes it back to England he becomes a bold and brash highwayman who eventually gets caught.
"The procedure is simple enough: ye marry a condemned rascal, who as yer 'usband becomes legally responsible fer yer debts. We promptly 'angs 'im, leavin' ye a pretty little widow, free as a bird o' both 'usban' an' debts."
Lady Leanna is dangerously in debt and looks to marry a condemned man, using the loophole of her "husband" being responsible for the debts and when he gets hung, the debts are wiped out because he paid for his "crime". As rogues are want to do in these stories, Johnnie escapes the hangman's noose.
"All right—I'll be honest, I'll tell you something I never spoke aloud before, because, until the moment you walked into Newgate, it was nothing but a vain, silly, hopeless wish." He talked rapidly, as if trying to keep ahead of the restraint of reason. "I have always wanted to be a gentleman! I've hated sordidness and poverty, hated coarseness and vulgarity. Then, miraculously, you came into that hell-hole and married me. In that I saw the hand of Providence. I would have been a fool to have thrown the opportunity away."
While Johnnie might be a rascal, he's actually only wanted to live a lawful life, poverty and circumstance led him down a different road. When he finds Leanna after escaping death, he sees her as his salvation, Leanna does not feel the same way as she has someone else in mind for marriage. There's a sex scene that fades to black very quickly and a deal struck between the two that after one night of pretending to be husband and wife, Johnnie will disappear from her life forever. They leave on good terms but a later possible betrayal leaves Johnnie bitter towards Leanna and leads him to berate himself for thinking he could go legit.
These sodden creatures were without initiative; blindly they subscribed to the old rule of the sea: Grumble you may, obey you must.
We leave land to take to the high seas because Johnnie gets captured by the press gangs, which eventually leads to him starting a mutiny and becoming a captain. He decides to travel to America, because he saw Leanna board a ship with her beau headed there and decides he can't live without her. This desire for Leanna feels a bit empty because the reader doesn't really "know" Leanna and what we do of her, doesn't make her a sympathetic character as Johnnie is the lead and is the one the reader's are endeared to.
There is some high seas action and conscious searching in regards to Johnnie helping out England in what is the tumultuous climate of America and England about to go to war and France slithering around. Strong secondary characters help round these parts, Ben Bottle - also press ganged and helps Johnnie pull off the mutiny and becomes his right hand man, Old Ames - Johnnie searched him out to get information on his father, Ames gets press ganged with Johnnie and becomes his source of information on how to survive at sea as Ames is an old sea dog, and 1st Lt. Yew - forced to stay on after the mutiny and spends most the time being frenemies with Johnnie. There are a couple others, like the Duchess of Tallentyre, Reggie, who I would delight in reading their own books.
For first being published in 1949, this has aged remarkably well. The dialect of the sailors was a little hard to read and understand, forcing me to reread some parts and Johnnie's friend Ben had a tendency to use the saying "Rape me" as a sort of replacement for "I'll be", which threw me a couple times. Other than that, the writing, characters, and story stand strong in this time.
For me, this was more of a swashbuckling adventure than romance. We hardly get to know Leanna and she and Johnnie spend very limited time together. This was more of the journey Johnnie goes on and the five women who send him on it: Mother - dies in childbirth, Leanna - marries Johnnie, betrays him, and inspires hope for him to go legit, Moll - starts off as his friend helping to rescue him only to betray him, Mrs. Bloodsymthe - helps reinforce his loyalty to Leanna and rescues him after she sees him as rescuing her, and Reggie - helps him get the opportunity to escape New York.
Johnnie stays loyal to Leanna after he meets her but he also has a moment where he kidnaps her in front of society, thus taking away any decision she would have made and ruining her reputation; he does eventually leave her to make her own decision on staying with him but I wish we could have gotten a stronger sense of her feelings.
All in all, this was so much fun. If you miss Errol Flynn characters, Johnnie the Rogue's courage, ingenuity, charm, luck, and wit, while longing for Leanna and a life of legitimacy, is a story you'll want to pick up.
Johnnie the Rogue is dead, and John Ballantyne has emerged.
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Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Monday, May 27, 2019
Review: A Rogue by Night
A Rogue by Night by Kelly BowenMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
“I don't like to be told what I can and can't do. What is right and wrong based on nothing but preconceptions and ignorance.” He stepped closer. “I don't think you do either.”
A Rogue by Night follows Harland Hayward and Katherine Wright as they get caught up in smuggling, doctoring, and falling in love. The Devils of Dover's previous two books starred Harland's sisters and while you could start here like I did, I think I missed out on the hows and whys of Harland's character. We're introduced to him as a surgeon, learn he's also a Baron, and is the go-between in a smuggling business. It's obvious that he doesn't want to be apart of the smuggling, we don't get in depth scenes with him in this capacity, but we don't learn why he is apart of it until halfway through the book; his parents died suddenly leaving the family in debt (this may have been explained in the previous two books). I was also a little unsure of his desire to be a surgeon, where was the passion to pursue this line of work when it is stepping outside the norm as he was a baron? Missing some of this background on Harland's character had him feeling only like a pencil sketch to me and I never felt connected to him.
“I chose to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. [...]”
Katherine was the better flushed out character to me and read strong on the pages. I still thought the why and how she became a de facto surgeon in the army was left unexplained too long in the book. I think some emotional moments that would have endeared her to readers (view spoiler) were left out or lost their impact by her simply revealing them in one paragraph. Katherine and Harland were pretty busy from the get go and I missed some time to simply get to know them. Katherine is interested in medicine because of her mother and she got into smuggling because of her father, both explanations or impacts from these past occurrences got lost in the current action; they both could have added to the emotion of current events if given more depth in their relaying.
Forget intrigued. Despite his best intentions, he might also be smitten.
The attraction between the two was pretty immediate, especially from Harland's side. I thought the romance was weak, there wasn't time to enjoy the initial spark, then growing, and eventual succumbing. The situation that led them to travel to London and then France together felt very forced, there already seemed like numerous opportunities for them to be together, Haverhall School (a plot continued from the first two books), smuggling danger, or doctoring. Katherine and Harland were two characters with an abundance of personal similarities, so conceptually, their attraction was easy to understand, but the emotions never came off the pages for me.
If you've read other series by Bowen, most notably Season for Scandal, you'll recognize the character of King and a few others, I have a feeling the clamoring for King's story is going to increase as we get another look at this enigmatic character. Other secondary characters played their roles well, adding to the story and lead characters without stealing the show. The journeys Harland and Katherine go on, the character of the captain trying to shut the smuggling down felt over-the-top at times (did a smuggler kick his puppy once?), they sometimes felt contrived (who the colonel turns out to be at the prison), and a little too many off-shoots but I also enjoyed how Bowen tied everything together.
The last thirty percent was top notch writing and drew me into Katherine and Harland's lives but this was ultimately hurt by the lack of emotion, chemistry, and spark I felt was missing between the two. Flashbacks to previous moments in the lead's lives would have created a stronger emotional base and had me feeling these characters more, especially Harland, the issues from his former marriage/wife felt very foggy. If you've been a reader of this series or Season for Scandal, you'll probably enjoy seeing Harland get his happily ever after and getting a peek at King, but I'm not sure I'd recommend starting here.
And because no matter what she tried to tell herself, they were indeed the same. Different. Alone. Untouchable. Until the moment when they weren't.
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Sunday, May 26, 2019
50%
"My lord---"
"Harland," he growled. "You don't get to do this to me and then call me my lord." He was breathing hard, desire still blazing from his dark eyes.
Saturday, May 25, 2019
Review: Cowboy Rebel
Cowboy Rebel by Carolyn BrownMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
He had a bad reputation. Nikki had a crazy mother and an even more demanding work schedule. He could sure look past her issues if she could see past his.
Fourth in the Longhorn Canyon series following along a family and friends in Texas, Cowboy Rebel stars Tag, the always in trouble Baker boy and Nikki, the bestfriend of Tag's sister Emily. Nikki has always been attracted to Tag but never wanted to get involved with a bad boy, her mother's issues are enough for her. Tag's had his eye on Nikki but even though he is trying to clean up his act, he's not sure he is good enough for her.
But then would she care as much for him if he didn't have just a little bit of wild in him?
This was my first read in the Longhorn Canyon series, I think I missed some of the beginning spark between Tag and Nikki, there is talk of the two really starting to notice each other at Tag's sister Emily's wedding (Cowboy Brave). For all the talk of Tag being a rebel, he has decided to clean up his act, so there is no bad boy antics in this one. As a new reader, I wasn't completely feeling why he thought he wasn't good enough for Nikki. It's mentioned that he ran with a tough group and his bestfriend died in a motorcycle accident when he was seventeen, why Tag decides to “live like he was dying”. If you are a country music fan, you'll enjoy all the mentions of country songs and how the author picked songs that match the emotions or scenes that are happening when the song is mentioned.
Tag ended up feeling a bit of a blah character, Nikki had more life to her. Her relationship with her mother was sad but written in a very realistic way; I liked how the mother was completely demonized for having OCD, hypochondria, and the way those presumed issues (she's not diagnosed) amplified or caused her maternal bonding issues. The storyline involving Nikki's father ended up lacking an emotional punch as it felt like a manipulated happy ended with an unnecessary red-herring mystery side-plot.
The actual action/danger plot also ended up feeling forced, a friend from the crew Tag used to run with appears out of the blue and suddenly is angry Tag won't hang with them anymore. This leads to Nikki being put in danger with an almost eye-rolling second ending conclusion. Our characters had actual emotionally charged backgrounds, Tag with his friend dying, Nikki with her brother dying, mother, and father issues but the author never really delves deep enough in them to make the reader feel.
It had taken her a while to understand that family didn't always share DNA.
Even though I haven't read the others in the series, I enjoyed the friendships showcased with Nikki, Emily, and their Fab Five; I like when characters have relationships outside the romantic one, feels like the character gets flushed out more. If you are a reader of the series, you'll greatly enjoy all the reappearances of past couples and get caught up on their lives, there are also numerous side characters who look to be waiting in the wings to star in their own books.
There wasn't a lot of steam to this book, any bedroom scenes aren't until the latter half and the two sex scenes (I think one sentence to mention they have sex happened two other times) are only about two paragraphs long. There just didn't end up being enough umph, spark, or chemistry between Tag and Nikki for me and some of the story threads felt dragged out, manipulated, or not delved deep enough to strike emotion. However, if you're a reader of the series, you'll enjoy catching up with characters, if you like to listen to a soundtrack while you read there are plenty of country songs mentioned, or want a pretty darn close to clean read, this would trip those triggers.
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Wednesday, May 22, 2019
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