John Riley's Girl by Inglath Cooper (Super Romance)
Back in high school, Harlequin Mills & Boon Super Romance was my particular brand of crack. I loved these books. I inhaled them, and even though I’d occasionally dabble in Blaze or Temptation, I always came back to Super Romance. John Riley’s Girl by Inglath Cooper took me back to those days of pretending to listen to our Spanish teacher while surreptitiously reading a romance book hidden behind a stack of textbooks. That said teacher was a nun only made it more daring. We bookworms can be rebels, too.
Olivia Ashford hasn’t been back to her hometown in fifteen years after a deeply painful event in her childhood. But a phone call from an old friend stirs up memories and curiosity, and on a whim she decides to return for her high school reunion. Olivia hopes that her visit to Summerville will help her find closure to old wounds. But John Riley, her high school sweetheart, isn’t willing to forget–much less forgive–the fact that Olivia abandoned him without so much as a goodbye. So when the reunion ends up being held at his farm, there’s no way to avoid the confrontation between them.
From the very first chapter, it’s obvious that there’s a huge misunderstanding
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The Spaniard's Baby Bargai by Helen Bianchin (Modern Romance)
Realising that I haven’t made a dent in the The Harlequin/Silhouette Romance Reading Challenge, I made it a point to grab a handful of HMBs on my last library visit. I picked up The Spaniard’s Baby Bargain by Helen Bianchin because it’s part of the Modern Romance imprint (to which the Rugby Union related books will belong), it’s set in Sydney, and it’s written by a New Zealand author. I was disappointed by the awkward prose and hugely contrived set-up of the story, but there were moments in the second half of the book that I thought were done well, so it wasn’t a total write-off.
When Ariane Celeste interviews billionaire (AUD or USD, I wonder?) Manolo del Guardo for a TV documentary, she finds herself staying on as a temporary nanny for his daughter. But Manolo finds the arrangement so satisfactory that he asks her to marry him–he gets a wife and a mother for her child, and she gets the child she’s always longed for and his protection against her stalker ex-husband.
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Kiss of a Demon King by Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark, Book 6)
Rydstrom is the deposed King of Rothkalina, kingdom of the rage demons, who lost his kingdom centuries ago to Omort, the evil baddie who can’t die. Rydstrom has been trying to recover his kingdom ever since, with the help of his brother Cadeon, who is supposedly responsible for his loss of said kingdom.
Sabine, Queen of Illusions, is Omort the evil baddie’s half-sister. Thanks to a special hold he has over her and her sister Lanthe, she is stuck living with him, to all appearances supporting his evil desires while at the same time plotting a better future for her and her sister.
Omort has been told via prophecy that Sabine is the destined mate of the King of the Demons and their son will be destined to unlock the secrets of the Well of Souls, a font of power within the castle that the Demons were created to protect before Omort usurped them all. Rydstrom, as per the last book in the series, had just become aware that someone has supposedly created a weapon that could finally kill Omort. On his way to get it, he is trapped by Sabine who is determined to seduce him and bear his child so that the prophecy can come to pass NOW.
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A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole (Immortals After Dark, Book 1)
There are some books that you re-read and remember and, as you begin again, wonder why you read it. This is one of them. While I love the Immortals After Dark series dearly, I remember only starting it because I had heard wonderful things about book 3 and I had to get there. So I started it. I’m glad A Hunger Like No Other was not my first Kresley Cole book—I had read her historicals before—or else I might have gone, Whut? and hurled the damn thing.
Lachlan, leader of the Lykae Clan, has been imprisoned for 200 years. While chained underground he scents his mate, manages to find the strength to bust free, and goes off to find her. Emmaline is half vampire, half Valkyrie and about as innocent as Britney Spears would have liked you to believe she was when she still sang Sometimes I run, sometimes I hide… Anyway, he semi convinces, seduces, abducts, you can call it anything, her and tries to get her to Scotland before the full moon.
What I liked: The world building and the riotous adventure, constantly wondering what would happen and what Cole would decide to unfurl next. While it starts out as a battle between a semi-deranged Lykae and an innocent virgin,
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Dance with the Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dark-Hunter, Book 4)
While I am an avid Dark-Hunter fan, I haven’t read anything Dark-Hunter in a while. In fact, I haven’t even read Acheron despite receiving a copy before the US release date, thanks to being in Australia (yes, I know it’s blasphemy). I don’t remember why I read everything in order except for Zarek but that’s what I did, so I only read it now.
Dance with the Devil by Sherrilyn Kenyon features Zarek, a former Roman Slave who was made a Dark-Hunter. Generally deemed insane and irredeemable, he lives in the middle of nowhere in the Alaskan wilderness after being banished for an unspeakable deed he did about a thousand years ago or thereabouts. After fucking with a bunch of gods in the previous novel, Acheron, effectively his boss, and Artemis, the “bitch goddess” who founded the Dark-Hunters, argue about whether or not he should be executed. To maintain impartiality they send the goddess Astrid, baby sister to the Fates, to judge him guilty or innocent.
Astrid has never found anyone innocent in all the years she’s been sent to judge a Dark-Hunter.
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Claiming The Courtesan by Anna Campbell
Update: A shorter version of this review won the Reader Challenge award at the 2009 Australian Romance Readers Convention. Thanks to everyone who voted for us!
I wasn’t planning to read Anna Campbell’s highly controversial debut novel. Wandergurl refused to take one for the team, and I get very disturbed by rape scenes, so I wasn’t willing to risk it. But when I read the excerpt to Tempt the Devil and I found a copy of Claiming the Courtesan in Elizabeth’s Bookshop, I finally took the plunge.
So let’s get it out of the way: yes, he rapes her. More than once. And no, Campbell doesn’t sugarcoat it.
Justin Kinmurrie, Duke of Kylemore, has been obsessed with Soraya for six years. After being her protector for a year, Kylemore is still no closer to understanding his notoriously beautiful mistress. When his mother tries to manipulate him into marriage, Kylemore instead proposes to Soraya … who refuses him.
Because, in fact, Soraya—Verity Ashton—is determined to leave behind her career as a courtesan to live a nondescript life. Destitution had given her no real choice but to accept the protection of a wealthier, older gentleman, but she always planned to leave the demimonde to live quietly with her younger siblings once she had enough money to support her family.
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As Darkness Falls by Bronwyn Parry
The first I heard of As Darkness Falls by Australian author Bronwyn Parry was a small blurb in the Dymocks Booklovers catalogue. I was intrigued because it sounded like a romance (just because the catalogue says it’s romance doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be genre Romance), it’s set in Australia, and it looked meaty. When I finally got my hands on the book, the cover promises: “If you enjoy reading Nora Roberts you will love…” That is a big call, I thought, especially since it’s the author’s first novel. But after reading As Darkness Falls, I think it really is a book that Nora Roberts fans might like. It’s a shame, then, that so few Australian romance bookstores have it in their catalogues.
As Darkness Falls centres on Detective Isabelle O’Connell, who has isolated herself from society to recover from some serious personal trauma resulting from an investigation into a child killer. Not only had she been unable to find the killer in time, she had been unable to protect a local suspect from falling victim to an angry mob. But when she receives a visit from Detective Chief Inspector Alec Goddard informing her that another girl has gone missing in her hometown of Dungirri, Isabelle is compelled to go back home and help solve the case.
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Sea Fever by Virginia Kantra (Children of the Sea, Book 2)
Sea Fever is the second book in the Children of the Sea series by Virginia Kantra. I haven’t read the first book, but will probably be getting it soon. That said, there is enough information in this book to not leave you feeling left behind, and although there are references to the first one, everything necessary is explained well enough.
Regina Barone is an ex-aspiring chef who returned to her island hometown when she got knocked up by the head chef of the restaurant she was working in, a Gordon Ramsey-esque type who dumped her and ended up with his own TV show. She now works for her mum’s restaurant, has an 8-year old son, and is generally trying to make the most of what she has got. Her character is quite balanced, not with too many obstacles against her, or not trying too hard the way some authors make their characters angry grrrls that push back at the world because they’re so pissed off. In short, she’s normal.
Dylan Hunter is a selkie. For those unfamiliar with the legend, basically selkies are like seals, who shed their pelts to become human. These pelts are usually left hidden in the cliffs near the seashore and without them selkies cannot return to sea.
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Stroke of Enticement by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series) in The Magical Christmas Cat
Is it sad that I’m posting on Christmas Day? (Um, that was a rhetorical question). Since many of us are celebrating Christmas, I thought it only fitting to talk about a Christmas-themed book.
Stroke of Enticement is the first story in the anthology The Magical Christmas Cat, and it’s the second novella set in Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series. I loved the previous novella, Beat of Temptation, so I had very high expectations for this one. While enjoyable, Stroke of Enticement didn’t quite reach the sames heights for me.
In Stroke of Enticement, we meet two new characters, Annie and Zach. A near-fatal childhood accident has had a lifelong impact on Annie, the most significant of which is her mother’s insistence on treating Annie as fragile. A leopard changeling with soldier rank isn’t exactly on her mother’s list of acceptable boyfriends for Annie. At the same time, Annie has difficulty imagining that she can have the kind of love she dreams of–an enduring love that won’t fizzle out and turn into a trap as her parents’ marriage has become.
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Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh (Psy/Changeling Series, Book 5)
Once I get past, say, the third book in a series, I tend to approach subsequent books with trepidation. Because there’s always the fear that maybe this will be the beginning of the end, the one that signals that the series is about to jump the shark. Thankfully, Hostage to Pleasure, the fifth book in Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series, doesn’t disappoint.
Warning: Contains spoilers from previous books
Ashaya and Dorian: then and now
Ashaya Aleine is a genetic scientist coerced by the Psy Council to lead a top-secret project to create an implant that will turn the Psy population into a hive mind. Her story started in the previous book, Mine to Possess, although you don’t need to have known any of her backstory to start this book. Dorian Christensen is a sniper from the DarkRiver changeling pack, who, unlike the other changelings in his pack, can’t shift–he’s a leopard, but for some reason he can’t turn into his animal form. His sister was murdered by a serial killer whose psychosis was kept secret by the Psy Council.
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