Author Archives: setaian

The Alabaster Hip (by Maggie Fenton)

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Regency Romance

On a mission to rescue his daughters from a fate worse than death — the West Barming School for Recalcitrant Young Ladies — Viscount Marlowe stumbles into the room of Minerva Jones and is discovered there on top of her with his hands in places his hands have no right to be.

His next encounter with her is when his carriage sends her flying into a muddy ditch as he and his daughters are making haste to return home to London.

His daughters rather like Miss Jones and are unimpressed with Marlowe. Minerva who was dismissed from her employment after the Viscount fell on her isn’t all that impressed either.

Killing two birds with one stone, Marlowe employs Minerva as the governess for his two girls. As the months go by she finds herself more and more attracted to Marlowe but the daughter of a sailor has no place in the life of a Viscount.

The Alabaster Hip is a complete hoot. I can’t think of a single bad thing to say about this book. It’s a laugh out loud funny historical romance with characters you can’t help but love. Maggie Fenton writes women you wish you knew.

Position in Series: Book 3

Book 1 –– The Dukes Holiday
Book 2 –– Virtuous Scoundrel
Book 3 –– The Alabaster Hip

 

Yellow, Orange, Red –– What it means: YOR-Guide

Many thanks to Kindle Press and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.

 

 

 

The Last in Love (by Terri Osburn)

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Contemporary Romance 

Life has given Abby a whole truckload of lemons. She lost her husband, is alone and lonely while all her friends have found love, she’s lost her job and to top it all off her kitchen has been gutted after a fire. Things just aren’t going well.

Justin has returned to Ardent Springs after a development he was involved with went south and he was left holding the can. He’s just killing time in Ardent Springs and working as a volunteer firefighter.  When he attends Abby’s kitchen fire he suddenly sees his second chance. He left Ardent Springs years earlier after Abby chose someone else. This time he’s determined to be the one she chooses.

There is something special about Contemporary Romance. Alfred Hitchcock once quipped that, “A good story is life with all the boring bits taken out.”  He was right and for me that’s the attraction of CR.  It’s not about explosions, bigger and badder villains, or finding the most gruesome ways to kill someone. It’s life. An idealised version of life but life none-the-less.

And The Last in Love is all of that. It’s a good story, well told. It’s positive and life affirming. It’s everything I want from CR and truthfully it’s everything I want from reading.  Returning to Alfred Hitchcock he also said, “A good movie isn’t a slice of life, it’s a slice of cake”, and that’s this book. It’s a giant slice of the best cake ever made.

Many thanks to Montlake Romance and Netgalley for providing me with this review copy. 

Yellow, Orange, Red –– What it means.YOR-Guide

North to You (by Tif Marcelo)

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Contemporary Romance

In the cut-throat world of street food, it’s not just about serving great food, it’s also about having a great spot, loyal customers and impressing the food critics. Camille owns Luciana’s, a popular but not famous food truck in the Bay Area of San Francisco.

She has loyal customers, a good spot and it’s only a matter of time before the critics start to pay attention. Then she refuses to serve a rowdy customer who just so happens to be a local sporting hero and overnight she finds herself no longer welcome in her prime location and on the receiving end of a social media backlash.

With little choice she moves out of the Bay Area and into the suburbs and sets up on the Great Highway overlooking Ocean Beach. But she finds a whole new set of problems. A local restaurant doesn’t appreciate her presence and is making life difficult for her.

With a month off before he deploys to Iraq, Drew has returned home to patch up his relationship with his dad. Then he runs into Camille, his high school crush at the Bay to Breakers and he jumps at the chance to rekindle the old spark. Unfortunately things are never that simple, his father owns the restaurant that is causing Camille problems and he finds himself having to choose between his family and Camille.

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North to You is just great. It’s original and buzzes along with an electricity I don’t often come across. It’s not perfect, I think the whole Lois not knowing Clark Kent is Superman was a little overplayed but what the hell! It’s a debut and honestly it’s so much fun that I don’t really care.

This is a book I will be thinking about for weeks and maybe even months. 5 Stars!

Many thanks to Pocket Books and Netgalley for providing me with this review copy. 

Yellow, Orange, Red –– What it means. YOR-Guide

My Kind of You (by Tracy Brogan)

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Contemporary Romance

Twelve years ago, Emily left Wenniway Island. She ran off with her summer romance, and burned all her bridges on the way. Now divorced and with a twelve year old daughter she is flat broke and back on the island. Her grandmother has offered her a lifeline, a job renovating one of her cottages and turning it into high end tourist accomodation.

Ryan is a project developer who finds himself on Wenniway Island when his recently widowered father takes up with a woman. A woman he is convinced is a gold-digger. When he meets Emily there is an immediate attraction but his home is Sacramento and her home is San Antonio. And as they get to know each other the complications just keep piling up.

Contemporary Romance is very much a safe place for me. But in the sub-genre that is CR there is both good and bad. Tracy Brogan is well and truly in the good camp. Her stories are about family, relationships, love and home. She always delivers exactly what I want from CR.
Many thanks to Montlake Romance and Netgalley for providing me with this review copy.

Yellow, Orange, Red –– What it means. YOR-Guide

Cold Reign (by Faith Hunter)

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Urban Fantasy

’twas a dark and stormy night…

…and the European Vamps have arrive.

As the Enforcer for Leo Pellisier, New Orleans’ master vampire, it’s left to Jane to plug every supernatural hole in the dike. She and her team find themselves called from one crisis to another as revenants rise and attack the people of the city while a supernatural storm beats down on New Orleans causing riots in the streets.

Jane is struggling to keep up as the European Vampires launch one attack after another and all the while they are circling ever closer to their end game.

This book is a runaway train. It crashes along at a frenetic pace and leaves you gasping for a breath by the end. It’s brash and in your face and one of the best books in the series to date. 5 Stars.

 

 

 

 

Many thanks to Berkley Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.

Yellow, Orange, Red –– What it means.  YOR-Guide

 

Bend (by Nancy J. Hedin)

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Young Adult / LGBT

As a young gay woman living in a deeply conservative and religious community, Lorraine’s main goal in life is to graduate from school and go to college. And the further from Bend, Minnesota the better. Then Charity arrives in town. She’s the daughter of Bend’s most conservative preacher and like Lorraine, gay.

But along with Charity comes family upheaval. A long hidden secret and a family crisis threaten to destroy more than just Lorraine’s dreams of college.

I love this book. It’s whimsical, innocent, perhaps even a fairy tale but it also tackles some very dark issues. It’s the very best that Young Adult fiction can be.

Yellow, Orange, Red, what it means. YOR-Guide

Many thanks to Anglerfish Press for providing me with this Review Copy.

The Summer Seaside Kitchen (by Jenny Colgan)

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Women’s Fiction / Romance

As she was growing up, Flora dreamed of escaping her life as a farmer’s daughter in a small village on Mure Island. Then when her mother died she railed against her well meaning neighbors and burnt all her bridges along the way. She left the island and moved to the city.

Three years later she is working as a paralegal for a prestigious law firm in London.

But life in the city is anything but perfect. Her job is a grind, her coworkers are hard and don’t get her and she is secretly in love with a senior partner who treats women like disposable commodities.

Then Joel, the senior partner, takes on a new client who is building a resort on Mure Island and wants to stop a wind farm spoiling his views. Flora is sent home to try and bring the locals on board but in returning she is crashing into her past. Her grief for her mother. Her father who is barely holding onto the farm and her brothers who are bitter that she left.

After discovering her mother’s journal, a hand written recipe book, she starts cooking and in doing so begins to heal the wounds of the past.

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The Summer Seaside Kitchen is one of those rare books that heals the heart. It’s a gentle love story about broken people who somehow manage to patch things up and move forward. Everything about this book is 5 Stars.

Many thanks to Hachette Australia and Netgalley for providing me with this review copy.

Screen Shot 2015-11-01 at 10.26.54 PMYellow, Orange, Red, What it means.  YOR-Guide

Snared (by Jennifer Estep)

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Urban Fantasy

Gin Blanco has a lot on her hands. She is not only the unpopular boss of Ashland’s criminal underworld but she has discovered there is a rival and perhaps even more insidious organisation called The Circle that is pulling strings from the shadows.

She really doesn’t have time to track down a missing person but when one of her lieutenants calls in a favor she finds herself doing just that. A serial killer is on the loose in Gin’s patch and she’s determined to hunt him down and save his latest victim.

In Snared Jennifer Estep runs with the same tried and true formula that has made her one of the biggest names in Urban Fantasy. This whole series is like buttered popcorn. There isn’t much to it but it’s so much fun that you won’t be able to stop until all that’s left are those few sad unpopped kernels sitting in the bottom of the bucket.

Position in Series: Book 16

screen-shot-2017-02-22-at-6-53-19-pmYellow, Orange, Red: What it means.  YOR-Guide

Many thanks to Pocket Books 

The Sun Is Also A Star (by Nicola Yoon)

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28763485Young Adult / Contemporary Romance

In the last desperate hours before she and her family is deported, Natasha goes to the INS office in the hope her appeals have been heard and she can stay in the US. As her day progresses she touches the lives of many different people some in small ways and some in life-changing ways.

Daniel is supposed to be attending an interview to discuss his application to study at Yale, but when he sees Natasha, eyes closed and headphones on dancing to some unknown song and oblivious to the world around her, he is immediately captivated.

They spend their day, her last day together, and as the day progresses grow closer.

The Sun Is Also A Star is one of those very rare books that is perfect in every way.  It is achingly beautiful, poetic, heart breaking…and life affirming.  There isn’t a single bad thing I can say about this book, and it’s Young Adult, normally I would have lists. 5 Stars

Screen Shot 2015-11-01 at 10.26.54 PMYellow, Orange, Red. What it means.  YOR-Guide

The Legacy (by Gary Gusick)

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Crime / Suspense

After a young African American woman is found lynched on the grounds of Ole Miss, the governor of Mississippi asks for Darla Cavannah by name.  Together with her partner Rita she flies into Oxford and takes over the investigation.

But it quickly becomes apparent that there is more to this than just a hate crime. Darla and Rita find themselves dealing with sororities, white supremacists and secrets that have remained buried for twenty years.

Gary Gusick books are never easy.  He takes issues that people don’t really want to talk about and crashes into them head first.  He will offend some….and for that I want to thank him.

Honestly I want to gate-crash the Crime Fiction Writers of America Thursday night poker game, wave around a copy of this book, and bellow, “This is what you should be writing!!!”

OK, maybe Jo Nesbo and James Patterson would crash tackle me before dragging me from the premises but it would be worth it.

screen-shot-2016-12-13-at-8-01-24-pmPosition in Series: Book 3

Book 1 –– The Last Clinic
Book 2 –– Officer Elvis
Book 3 –– The Legacy

 

Screen Shot 2015-11-28 at 6.44.49 PMOrange, Red, Yellow. What it means: YOR-Guide

Many thanks to Alibi and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.