In the Cards (by Jamie Beck)

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Contemporary Romance

Lindsey has an ivy league education, a trust fund, and the perfect fiancé. That is until she discovers her fiancé had a fling with a woman he met at a bar and might have given her an STD. Heart-broken she leaves New York and rents a beach house in Malibu hoping to make some life changing decisions.

Levi is a gambler by nature who made his money by pushing his luck at the card tables in Vegas and shrewdly investing his winnings. Having a con-man for a father and being abandoned by his mother has left him with trust issues and a reluctance to form attachments.

When Lindsey moves in next door his world views are immediately challenged. She somehow manages to keep breaking down the walls he built to protect himself. Then after a motorcycle accident he finds himself depending on her more than he’s depended on anyone since his mother abandoned him.

 
I really loved this book. I was expecting a lot of angst and was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t materialise. It’s contemporary romance and the story is typical in one sense but with quite an interesting take on things.

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Love Me Sweet (by Tracy Brogan)

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Contemporary Romance

After her rat ex-boyfriend released a sex tape to the media, Delaney decides she needs to escape the scandal, the paparazzi, and the reality TV show about her celebrity family. She withdraws all her money, buys a beat-up old Volkswagen and heads for the middle of nowhere –– Bell Harbor, Michigan. There, she rents a ramshackle old house and settles in to ride out the scandal.

Grant is the cameraman on an adventure tv show. That is until his girlfriend decides the star of the show is better prospect than a lowly cameraman. Angrily, he quits and heads home to Bell Harbor. Only, when he arrives he finds out that his mother has rented out his house to Delaney, that Delaney paid the entire six months rent in advance, and his mother has already spent the money.

With very few options Delaney agrees to allow Grant to live in the house until he can get her money back. As the days go by their attraction to each other builds but Delaney is keeping her secrets and Grant knows it, she also knows that Grant loathes the Hollywood fakery and she is ultimate symbol of that. It’s very likely she will lose the first decent man she has known when reality comes crashing back in.

 
Love Me Sweet is fairly typical contemporary romance. There are no real surprises in here. That said, at the moment there are only two authors of contemporary romance who are must reads for me. Terri Osburn and Tracy Brogan.  For me they are the shining lights of contemporary romance and very much the next generation of writers.  The writers who are breathing new life into the genre. Honestly, if it wasn’t for them, I’m not sure I’d still be reading the genre.

So yeah, you’ve probably read something like this before, but Love Me Sweet still sparkles. It’s great fun and entertaining.

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Many thanks to Montlake Romance and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Prize Time!

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I have a gift for one person who reads this post.  You don’t need to subscribe to Floating Leaves, and all details provided will be deleted after I have contacted the winner.

All you need to do is send a message to me via the “Contact Me” form and type “Cross Pen” in the body of the message.

So what is it?  A Cross Century II Medalist Ball Point Pen (worth about US$80.00)

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I will draw one name at random on Friday 16th, January and contact him / her via e-mail.

Ian

Update:  

This morning I drew a winner.  I allocated each entry a number and used an online ‘random number generator’ to select the winner. All messages with the exception of the winner’s have already been deleted.  Her messages will be deleted after I have posted the pen.

Congratulations to C from Germany who will soon be receiving a shiny new Cross pen.

Key the Steampunk Vampire and the Dungeon of Despair (by Becket)

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Early Readers / First Chapter Books

On her 9th birthday, just as she was about to cut her cake, Key and her family were visited by an evil vampire and his two zombie henchmen. What should have been the happiest day of her life quickly turned into the saddest night.

She is made into a vampire, her parents have disappeared and might have been done in by the zombies, and to top it all off she is thrown into the Dungeon of Despair and quickly forgotten. As she lives her unlife in despair, the years, decades and centuries pass by. But she still manages to find small things to cheer herself even while she is chained in the dungeon.

 

Key the Steampunk Vampire Girl and the Dungeon of Despair is a great book for early readers and children who are just venturing into chapter books. It is wonderfully illustrated, the story is fun and even this 45 year old found it quite entertaining.

It would be a great book to give to children who find reading challenging.

(illustrated by Raven Quinn)

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Until the End of the World / And After (by Sarah Lyons Fleming)

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Zombie Apocalypse 

I’ve read a few zombie novels, and this is one of them.

Honestly, you could take the synopsis from any of them and switch it seamlessly into any of the others. Pretty much the same things happen in them all.

So quickly…there’s a virus, looters, they escape the city. Head to the farm, meet some bad guys, get over-run by zombies. Make their way to a fort, go to walmart, get over-run by a tsunami of zombies. Head into the wilderness. As expected along the way there is a lot of crunching, squishing and exploding brains. A few loved characters bite the bullet but a motley group
manage to escape and drive off into the sunset.

Maybe I read too much into these books but I grew up when people routinely talked about being “over-run” by immigrants of one persuasion or another. This book has the tsunami of zombies coming from the south…err Mexico, and when I read that sort of stuff I cringe a little. I don’t think it’s deliberate but it’s overt enough that I always notice it and draw those parallels.

That said, the books are entertaining enough even if they’re not all that original.

Note:  These two books work well together.  You could read them and walk away without any trouble.  That said, there is a third book coming out in early 2015.  

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The Girl and the Clockwork Cat (by Nikki McCormack)

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Steam Punk / Young Adult

When Maeko finds a clockwork cat while running from Literati Officers she finds herself caught in the middle of political machinations between the ruling elite and the pirates who oppose them. When the wife and child of a famous inventor are murdered, the blame immediately falls on the pirates but with detectives, assassins, businessmen, literati and pirates all pushing their own agenda it’s hard knowing who is on her side and who will be the death of her.

She enlists the help of her partner in crime, Chaff, and the son of a pirate, Ash as she tries to find the murderer and save the day.

 
The Girl and the Clockwork Cat really is proper steam-punk. It’s complex and gritty and highly entertaining. I can’t really fault this book in any way.

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Montana Romance Novellas (by Merry Farmer)

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1. Sarah Sunshine

After working as a prostitute to pay off her debts, Sarah is now free and determined to live a respectable life.  With an indefatigable spirit and a little help from her friends she might just succeed, but there are those in town who are all too willing to judge her for her past.

 

 

2. The Indomitable Eve

After escaping her mother who sold her to men for sex, Eve has finally been reunited with her sister.  But her sister has everything Eve wants but can never have and running is the only way she can protect her heart.  Until the town preacher manages to get past the walls she has built to protect heart and finds a woman he loves.

 

 

3. Seeks For Her

After divorcing her violent and abusive husband, Rebecca expects little more than to live for her children.  When the town’s pond is threatened she joins forces with Thomas, a Native American doctor to save it.  Together they battle against small minds and prejudice even as they battle their attraction.

 

 

These three novellas were given to me by the author’s publicist for review.  The writing style reminded me a little of Christian romance –– and then the sex started.  I nearly fell off my chair!

Still I dusted myself off and continued with the novellas and after throwing out all my previously held notions started to enjoy the books.  They really are kind of perfect short Christmas / Holiday reads, quick and easy and not too taxing.

Screen Shot 2014-02-27 at 9.23.18 pmMany thanks to Badass Marketing for providing me with these review copies.

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2014 Best Five.

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These are my best five books for 2014 (all published from December 2013 to November 2014).

1. Wildfire (by Mary Pauline Lowry)

It’s gritty and in your face. The story of a woman who joins an elite hot-shots team of remote area fire fighters.

Fiction / Adventure

 

 

 

2. The One Plus One (by Jojo Moyes)

The story of a single mother who is struggling to do the best for her children, her children who are struggling with bullying, and a man who is being investigated for insider trading.

Women’s Fiction / Romance

 

 

3. More to Give (by Terri Osburn)

The best man for the job is a woman…but unless someone gives her a chance she might end up back living with her mother.  Terri Osburn writes some of the best contemporary romance going around.

Contemporary Romance

 

The Dukes Holiday (by Maggie Fenton)

A stuck up duke battling wits with a woman who wrestles pigs.  A complete romp from beginning to end.

Regency Romance

 

 

Without Words (by Ellen O’Connell)

Ellen O’Connell somehow manages to write Western Romances that are proper romances but also have a believable realness to them. She’s a favorite author and her books are game changers in that they have the potential to bring new readers to the genre.

Western Romance

 

 

So that’s my list.  What have been your best books of the year?

 

 

A Trail Through Time (by Jodi Taylor)

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Science Fiction / Time Travel

Leon and Max both died. And now they’re both back. In this episode they must do battle with brutal time police who are hunting them down for messing with the time line in a St Mary’s of an alternate dimension.

You know how sometimes day-time soap operas kill off a character and then six months later their identical twin brother shows up, usually to do a little ratings CPR…well to be honest this book really feels like that. It’s still quite good though.

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Black Widow (by Jennifer Estep)

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Urban Fantasy

When Gin finally killed Mab Monroe she thought her life would get easier. Unfortunately since that day, every single gangster in Ashland has been out to make a name for themselves by taking her out. That is until Madeline Monroe (Mab’s estranged daughter) shows up.

She’s a powerful acid elemental and she’s decided to take over her mother’s empire, but first she needs to take care of business, and that includes getting rid of Gin and all her friends.

She’s one of the most powerful elementals Gin has ever faced and her acid magic can burn right through Gin’s ice and stone magic.

 
This series had a bit of a shaky start for me –– I wasn’t expecting to be reading book twelve, to be honest I considered walking away from the series after the final showdown with Mab. But I’m glad I continued. The last three or four books have been the best of them all and the series has very much found it’s groove.

The only thing that really didn’t work for me in this book was the romance. I want it to be there, just not necessarily on the page –– and that’s coming from a romance reader. Still that’s such a small part of the story and it’s done and dusted in ten minutes.

Everything else is kind of perfect. It delivers everything I expect from urban fantasy.  And as usual the cover art is sublime!  Whoever is creating these covers needs to be paid more.

Screen Shot 2014-11-24 at 6.21.53 pmMany thanks to Pocket Books and Edelweiss for providing me with this ARC

Yellow, Orange, Red –– what it means: http://wp.me/P2B7b5-9l