White Ninja (by Tiffany Hall)

Posted on October 1, 2012 by setaian

All the things I hate –– Chinese burns, pimples, cheese, answering questions in class –– are Christmas compared with having to walk through the gate to school.

Roxy Ran is a 13 year old girl who doesn’t quite fit in. She goes to school at Hindley Hall where she is getting some special treatment from the school bully, Hero. Then one day while rescuing a kitten Hero is attempting to flush down the toilet, Roxy discovers she has some super ninja powers.

All of a sudden she finds herself on a quest to find the White Warrior and the Tiger Scrolls before the powers of evil get them.

White Ninja is a very short and cute story for early teens and perhaps a little younger about a girl finding the strength to face her fears. Tiffany Hall manages to weave a subtle anti-bullying message into this story without ever preaching.

I think this book would be great for young people who find reading difficult. It’s great fun and easy to read.

Many thanks to Harper Collins and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Stolen (by Shiloh Walker)

Posted on September 29, 2012 by setaian

Tearing her mouth away, Shay ducked to the side. “We … we can’t do this.” She pressed a hand to her buzzing lips. “I’m just getting to the point where I’m used to going through the days without you calling. I’m just getting to where I can pass a few nights without dreaming of you.”

As a child, Shay suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of her step-father. Everything about her adult life has been about hiding from the trauma of her past. She lives in a remote town in Alaska. and has isolated herself from her family and friends.

Elliot broke off their relationship because Shay couldn’t open up to him, but he can’t let go of what they had together. When a stalker, someone who knows Shay’s most closely guarded secrets starts stealing her life and attacking her friends, Elliot is determined to be there for her…determined that he won’t abandon her a second time.

But in order to find her stalker, Shay will need to remember the horrifying events of her childhood (events so horrifying that even this reader winced). With Elliot’s support she figuratively returns to her past, as she literally travels to her childhood home town. There she comes face to face with the person who has stolen who she is.

Stolen is an intense and gripping story, packed with truck-loads or romance and suspense. It never strays too far from the tried and true formula you’ll find in many books of this type. It does everything it’s supposed to do and also manages to throw in a surprise or two.

It’s very good adult romantic suspense.

Many thanks to Ballantine Books and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes (by Denise Grover Swank)

Posted on September 20, 2012 by setaian

I didn’t know anything about saving anybody. I didn’t even know where to go, let alone have a car to get there. But I did have a gun, even if I’d never shot one before. I unwrapped it, careful to point it away from me. I couldn’t find the round spinny thing for the bullets. Then I remembered, those were the kind of guns they used in prehistoric times. That covered most of the television shows I’d watched pre-cable. I was looking for the thing at the bottom of the gun. After a lot of fumbling and, I hate to admit it a little bit of cussing, I got it opened.

Rose has a mundane job at the Department of Motor Vehicles. She lives with her mom and dresses like a nanna. The most interesting thing about her is she has the “second sight”, but even her visions are pretty unremarkable. She sees visions of toilets overflowing or dogs getting out of yards. Then one Friday afternoon while at work, she has a vision of herself dead in her home. Later when her mother turns up dead, suspicion immediately falls on her.

With dead bodies turning up, gangsters gunning for her, the police suspecting her and pretty much the entire town convinced she’s a murderer, things aren’t going so well for her. The one bright spot is her sexy neighbor, Joe who seems to be the only person in her corner. But he has his own secrets and at a time when she needs him most pulls away.

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes is a seriously good fun murder mystery set in Arkansas. It’s a laugh out loud funny story with a quirky heroine. Most of the books I read have interesting heroines. Look at the books I read an you’ll see it time and time again. For me Rose stands out in that long list of interesting heroines as something a little more. I put her in the same league as Lisbeth (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Nora (The Siren), Angel (My Life as a White Trash Zombie) and Justine (Mind Games). I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next story about Rose Gardner.

The Disullusionists Trilogy (by Carolyn Crane)

Posted on September 15, 2012 by setaian

“You wish to be free, but there is no such thing as freedom. You can redecorate dungeon to give illusion of freedom, but you are still in dungeon.”

“I should’ve had the choice.”

“Choice is illusion, same as happiness and freedom.”

As a hypochondriac with extreme levels of health fears, Justine makes for an unlikely crime fighter, but that’s exactly what she is. Together with a ragtag bunch of men and women she uses her irrational fears for good, by psychically zinging them into bad people so they can be broken down and rebooted.

Her life is complicated by the two men in her life. Packard is a crime boss, he’s mercenary and unscrupulous. He has an agenda, and uses his band of disillusionists to achieve that end. Otto is the exact opposite to Packard. As the chief of police and a psychic with the ability to create force fields, he is able to imprison criminal highcaps who can not be held in any conventional prison, using the power of his mind. But is it moral to imprison people for life without a trial?

Book 1: Mind Games

Justine is recruited by Packard into his group of Disillusionists. Teamed up with Simon, a disillusionist who can zing his own reckless behavior into others, and Shelby, who can zing people with her bleak view of the future, she struggles with her first mission to disillusion a woman who brutally murdered her husband.

She soon discovers that Packard has another agenda and that she is a crucial part of his plan to destabilize one of Midcity’s most prominent crime fighters. A man she idolizes.

Book 2: Double Cross

Justine has managed to get Packard his freedom, on the condition they disillusion the Highcap criminals Otto has imprisoned around the city. One such woman is a dream invader named Ezmerelda. After Justine accidentally touches her, Ez gains access to both her’s and Packard’s dreams. But despite a shocking crime-wave in which the sleep walking criminals bite their victims, Justine can’t help but think Ez is the victim of a frame-up.

Added to this, a group of killers is targeting highcaps, and the trail leads back to a conspiracy theorist. A man who could be Shelby’s perfect match.

Book 3: Head Rush

Justine is getting married to the man of her dreams, Otto. But she can’t seem to get Packard out of her mind, and with every one in the city gunning for him, why is he still hanging around.

The city is under martial law, crime is rampant and Otto is keeping secrets from Justine. In the end the fate of all her friends are in her hands, but can she find the courage to make the ultimate sacrifice for them.

The Disillusionists series is great urban fantasy. Quirky and funny, but also plenty of action. These books flow well and are entertaining from start to finish.

Fashion magazine disease articles. My personal Kryptonite.

Tab Bennett and the Inbetween (by Jes Young)

Posted on September 8, 2012 by setaian

The first time it happened I was completely unprepared. I was in the kitchen making a peanut butter and banana sandwich when I started to feel light headed. I steadied myself against the the counter, closing my eyes so the room would stop spinning. When I opened them, I was with Molly, I was Molly, and I was in the dark gasping for air. I panicked until there was nothing left to breath and then she died…

Tab Bennett has lived her entire life without knowing who she really is. Then she starts having visions of a world that has been hidden from her. A world in which dark elves are trying to kill her, and the people she thought were her family are actually guardians, sent to protect her.

After her mother, the queen of the Elves was killed, Tab was sent to the human world to protect her from those who meant to do her harm. Now in her twenties and coming into her powers, her enemies are stepping up their efforts to kill her.
Adding to her problems, there are two men vying for her affections, Alex to whom she was promised at birth and Robbin one of her guardians.

Tab Bennett and the Inbetween is an unusual book. It reads a little like a Young Adult novel but then I would be hit with a very adult sex scene. There are elements of Paranormal / Fantasy, Romance and even a little Mystery there. I could spend hours trying to figure out where it belongs, or I could just say it’s a very good book which doesn’t quite fit anywhere.

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

When Lightning Strikes (by Brenda Novak)

Posted on August 30, 2012 by setaian

(Whiskey Creek Trilogy, #1)

Simon O’Neal is a hard drinking, womanizing Hollywood superstar. He surrounds himself with people who fawn over him and won’t call him on his reckless behavior.
Gail Dimarco was his PR consultant until she sacked him as a client. But after an over-zealous employee intimated that Simon sexually assaulted Gail, they need to get together and do some serious damage control.

Simon is in a bitter custody battle for his son, and any more bad press will destroy his already shaky case. To rehabilitate his reputation, Gail marries him and they flee Hollywood for Gail’s hometown of Whiskey Creek.

When Lightning Strikes is a cute contemporary romance about a broken man and an insecure woman. Away from the craziness of Hollywood, Simon is able to set his life in order, and in Simon’s arms Gail is feeling treasured for the first time in her life. But someone has other plans and will do anything to ensure that Simon and Gail don’t succeed.

Fans of Robyn Carr and Toni Blake would probably enjoy When Lightning Strikes

Many thanks to Harlequin and Netgalley for this ARC

A Thin, Dark Line (by Emma Elliot)

Posted on August 27, 2012 by setaian

“I need to know what happened fifteen years ago, Cormac. I need to understand. Because I think what’s going on now is connected to what took place then. T-to you.”
His expression was bleak. “Let it go. The past is over and done with.”
“Apparently not. It looms over us. Over the whole damn town.”
“Leave it alone, Eloise.”
I bristled. “I can’t. I won’t.”

Cormac O’Malley has returned to his home town of Dogwood, Ohio after serving 15 years in prison for murder. The town is boiling with anger that a murderer is amongst them and when local librarian, Eloise Carmichael gives him a job as a handyman, the town turns against her as well.

It soon becomes apparent that there are dangerous men in the town who are plotting against Cormac, men who have secrets they will kill to protect. Eloise risks everything in her search for the truth about a crime committed fifteen years earlier.

A Thin, Dark Line is a very well written romantic suspense. In some ways it reminds me a little of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Alfred Hitchcock rarely showed violence in his movies. He hinted at it and left the rest to the imagination of his audience. It’s hard to believe that this is a debut. It’s really that good.

“Now, tell me why you’ve decided you’re boring.”
I Worried a cuticle ad said, “Jane, when I burn a piece of toast, do you know what I do?”
“Um…Throw it away?”
“No! I scrape off the burnt parts and carry on.”

Many Thanks to Netgalley and The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House for providing me with this ARC.

My Life as a White Trash Zombie & Even White Trash Zombies get the Blues (by Diana Rowland)

Posted on August 26, 2012 by setaian

My Life as a White Trash Zombie

Everything about Angel is on the wrong side of the tracks. She lives in a run down house with her abusive drunk of a father. Her boyfriend is a deadbeat and she can’t even hold onto a dead end job.

That is, until she is turned into a zombie. Now things are starting to look up for her. She has a job at the morgue which she is actually good at. She’s had to give up the drugs and alcohol and she’s managed to find a few friends who think more of her than she thinks of herself.

But there a zombie hunter out there somewhere and she needs to find him before he turns his attention to her.

My life as a White Trash Zombie is seriously good fun. It flows beautifully is suffused with snarky and intelligent humor, has a good dose of adventure and mystery and just a little romance. It works on every level.

Even White Trash Zombies get the Blues

The second in the White Trash Zombie series is every bit as good as the first.

Just when Angel’s life is starting to look up, a body she picked up from a mysterious research facility is stolen from her at gun-point, and with her criminal record, nobody is believing her story. Now her job is on the line, her relationship with her new boyfriend Marcus is on the rocks, and someone is killing off witnesses.

If she doesn’t get to the bottom of the mystery her parole might be revoked and she could very well end up back in jail. With little choice she accepts some help from an unlikely source and the race is on to solve the puzzle and save the day.

With these two books Diana Rowland has well and truly cemented her place as a favorite author. The White Trash Zombie books are reminiscent of Molly Harper’s Jane Jameson / Half Moon Hollow books. They are intelligent, snarky, good fun and easy to read. I love everything about them.

Confessions of an Angry Girl

Posted on August 23, 2012 by setaian

As I get to the last turn, I suddenly see pom-poms in my peripheral vision. A few of the girls are lined up on the side of the track, like they’re cheering someone on. I’m tempted to look back to see who it is, but I’ll lose my stride if I do. I keep going. I get closer and closer to them, and I realize too late that it’s Lena, Susan and Regina. Just as I’m about to pass them, they chant, “How did Daddy’s Little Girl like the gynecologist?”

Rose is having a bad year. Her father was killed by an IED in Iraq. Her mother, consumed with guilt and grief, has become distant. Her brother has run off to college and seems to be doing just fine. Her best friend, Tracy, is only interested in having sex with her jerk of a boyfriend and becoming a cheerleader. To top it all off, Regina, one of the cheerleaders has it in for Rose. Regina is convinced that Rose is trying to steal her boyfriend Jamie…and maybe she is.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m running across the lanes that separate me from the cheer bitches. It doesn’t matter that it’s three against one. After everything Regina has done to me, I want the satisfaction of hurting her. I run faster. I start screaming.
Lena and Susan look like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car⎯ I must seem like a complete maniac, flying at them, covered in blood, screaming like a madwoman⎯

Confessions of an Angry Girl resonates. It deals with a whole grab bag of issues facing young adults, including bullying; pier pressure; binge drinking; sex; anger; and grief, without ever preaching or getting sentimental. Louise Rozett doesn’t treat young adults like idiots, she tells her story and allows them to draw their own conclusions.

Tracy. Tracy told her I kissed Jamie.
I slam into Regina with every ounce of strength I have, knocking her to the ground.

If you liked Easy by Tammara Webber or Almost by Anne Eliot you will probably like Confessions of an Angry Girl.
Thanks to Harlequin and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.

The Angel (by Tiffany Reisz)

Posted on August 17, 2012 by setaian

“God have mercy on me, a sinner.”
“‘Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs on your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.'”
Nora smiled. Luke chapter twelve, verses six and seven— one of her favorite passages.
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been…”
“Eight days,” Søren supplied.
“Eight days since my last confession. Let’s see…where to start?”
“Pace yourself, Eleanor. If you forget something, I will remind you.”

The Angel is the second in Tiffany Reisz’s Original Sinners series. Twelve months have past since Nora returned to Søren at the end of The Siren. As a priest and a Dominant their relationship must remain a secret, so when Søren is nominated for a promotion within the church he ships Nora, and Michael off to the country and away from a reporter who is snooping around looking for a scandal.

“Michael, the eponymous Angel” http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/336801143 has been emotionally abused by his father because of his kink. He is a submissive, a person who finds both sexual pleasure and emotional fulfillment in submitting to a Dominant. Griffin is a bisexual Dom who has never loved anyone. His longest relationships have lasted no more than a few weeks. When Michael arrives at Griffin’s country estate there are immediate sparks between them.

The Angel is a very different book to The Siren. It is a much brighter book, more fun and a lot more sexual. Both are equally good but if you want them to be the same, you’ll be disappointed. Tiffany Reisz has mentioned that all the books in this series will be very different from one another.

Apart from the obvious male/female you would expect from erotic fiction, The Angel contains male/male/female and male/male scenarios. I imagine some readers (particularly male readers) would run for the hills when they hear that, but they’d be missing out on an amazing book. The way Tiffany Reisz writes is so sincere that I think any reasonable person will enjoy her books.

“He stepped forward. As he brushed past her he dipped his head and whispered in her ear, “I’m not afraid of you.”

Thanks to Harelquin and Netgalley for providing me with this ARC.

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