Review: Fatal Affair by Marie Force + Giveaway

Review: Fatal Affair by Marie Force + GiveawayFatal Affair (Fatal, #1) by Marie Force
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Fatal #1
Pages: 294
Published by Carina Press on June 21st 2010
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Washington, D.C., Metro Police Detective Sergeant Sam Holland needs a big win to salvage her career--and her confidence--after a disastrous investigation. The perfect opportunity arises when Senator John O'Connor is found brutally murdered in his bed, and Sam is assigned to the case. Matters get complicated when Sam has to team up with Nick Cappuano, O'Connor's friend and chief of staff...and the man Sam had a memorable one-night stand with years earlier. Their sexual chemistry still sizzles, and Sam has to fight to stay focused on the case. Sleeping with a material witness is another mistake she can't afford--especially when the bodies keep piling up.

My Review:

I think the Fatal Series is going to be my new reading crack. Fatal Affair was over the top in all the best ways, and now I’m itching to read the rest of the series. Whenever I need a guaranteed good read to turn to, I have a feeling that Fatal will be it for a while.

I can’t figure out why I didn’t read this when back when it came out. I seem to have downloaded it multiple times, but just never got a round tuit. My mistake.

Fatal Affair is definitely in the romantic suspense category. There are at least three different plots boiling along in this book, all bubbling nicely throughout the story, until they make a marvelous stew by the end.

The romance is of the second-chance-at-love type. Sam and Nick had a hot one-night-stand six years ago. Nick called Sam repeatedly afterwards, but she never called back. So he eventually gave up. Which doesn’t mean that he hasn’t compared every woman since to “the one that got away”.

Sam always wondered why Nick never called back. Eventually she married the guy who provided her with a shoulder to cry on while she wondered how her judgment about what happened between them could have been so off. It wasn’t. But her judgment about the guy who comforted her certainly was.

Yes, we have entered into crazy ex territory. That thread of the story is just part of the over-the-top-ness when Sam and Nick meet again. Over the dead body of Nick’s boss, the suddenly late junior Senator from Virginia.

We have a scandal at the Watergate again!

Someone hated the Senator so much that they “Bobbitized” him and stuffed the offending appendage into the deceased’s mouth. So as much as everyone says that everyone loved John O’Connor, someone obviously did not. And with extreme prejudice.

It’s up to Sam to figure out whodunnit, in a high-profile and high-pressure case. The first item on her agenda is to clear Nick, because they are headed straight back into the relationship they didn’t have six years ago. It’s bad enough that Sam is lead investigator on a case where she has a previous relationship with one of the material witnesses. It would be a career-ending move if Nick had any involvement with the murder.

But he doesn’t. Only an involvement with Sam that he wants to take to the next level. The minute she lets him.

And in that minute, her crazy ex throws himself into an already complicated case. Sam hates being the focus of an investigation, yet again. But if she doesn’t dig out all the truths, she’ll never be safe again.

And neither will Nick.

Escape Rating B+: I had so damn much fun with this, but it is definitely reading crack. There’s a slight soap-opera-ish feel to the story. Too much happens to Sam personally, it feels like too many things center on her as an individual for just one book. But it was just enough to be fun while not being so much that it threw me out of the story.

It helps that I liked Sam and Nick as characters a lot. I want them to be happy together.

Sam is a Detective Sergeant in the slightly fictional Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C. Her father is a retired Deputy Chief who was wounded on the job and is now a quadriplegic. She grew up in the force, and her uncle is now Chief. Her Lieutenant has a vendetta against her, believing that she got where she is because of who she is. And it’s partially true. Not that she isn’t capable, but her bosses have let a couple of things slide that they probably shouldn’t.

Her ex is a whack job. And while I did not like seeing the wacky-stalker-ex trope again, at least in this book the story is resolved. I really don’t want to read about him in subsequent books – Nick and Sam already have enough going on.

A lot of the story is about the uses and abuses of power. If the Senator’s father (and former Senator)  hadn’t abused some of his, this whole tragedy would never have happened. But the need to hide long-buried secrets almost derails the entire case. And almost delivers some nearly just desserts.

In the end, the reasons for the crimes are as much sad as they are malicious, and a whole lot of chickens come home to roost, carrying the red herrings that the author successfully salted throughout the story.

As I read Fatal Affair, I realized that Sam and Nick remind me a bit of another fictional power couple, Eve Dallas and Rourke. And that’s fine company to be solving crimes in.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

fatal series button

Marie and Harlequin are giving away a paperback set of the entire Fatal Series to one lucky entrant:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And for those who can’t wait to get their hands on the latest entry in the series, there is also a preorder promotion giveaway for Fatal Identity

fatal identity preorder giveaway

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 7-10-16

Sunday Post

lazorra as elder statescatThe most exciting event this week was the feline health crisis. We love them. They are kittens for so brief a time, adult cats for years that are never long enough, and then suddenly they are little elder statescats with all of the unfortunate issues of old age. LaZorra is 17, and her kidneys and her thyroid seem to be in a race to see which one will actually do her in. Something happens, she scares us half to death, and then the new problem seems to clear up. At least until the next time.

I did have some good books to retreat into, in between visiting the vet.

Current Giveaways:

$25 Amazon Gift Card from Harlequin
$10 Book or $10 Gift Card in the Freedom to Read Giveaway Hop

binti by nnedi okoraforBlog Recap:

Fourth of July 2016
A- Review: A Reckless Promise by Kasey Michaels + Giveaway
A Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
B+ Review: Star Cruise: Outbreak by Veronica Scott
A+ Review: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Stacking the Shelves (192)

pistols and petticoats by erika janikComing Next Week:

Fatal Affair by Marie Force (blog tour review)
Unexplored by Anna Hackett (review)
Pistols and Petticoats by Erika Janik (review)
All These Perfect Strangers by Aoife Clifford (review)
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren (review)

Stacking the Shelves (192)

Stacking the Shelves

After loving both The Invisible Library and Just One Damned Thing After Another, naturally I couldn’t resist the following books in the series, even if I did have to buy the St. Mary’s books. There are a fair number of entries in series on this list. I loved Bauers’ Unbreakable last year, so I was very happy to discover Indomitable on Edelweiss, even if I did somehow miss it when it first came up. And as much as I liked A Gentleman Never Tells, I decided to grab the rest of James’ Essex Sisters series. Lucky for my pocketbook, that’s available at the library.

For Review:
All These Perfect Strangers by Aoife Clifford
The Crepes of Wrath (Pancake House #1) by Sarah Fox
Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal
Indomitable (Chronicles of Promise Paen #2) by W.C. Bauers
Last Kiss of Summer (Destiny Bay #1) by Marina Adair
The Masked City (Invisible Library #2) by Genevieve Cogman
Nobody by Marc Lamont Hill
Seven Skeletons by Lydia Pyne

Purchased from Amazon:
A Symphony of Echoes (Chronicles of St. Mary’s #2) by Jodi Taylor
A Second Chance (Chronicles of St. Mary’s #3) by Jodi Taylor

Borrowed from the Library:
Much Ado About You (Essex Sisters #1) by Eloisa James

Review: Binti by Nnedi Okorafor

Review: Binti by Nnedi OkoraforBinti (Binti, #1) by Nnedi Okorafor
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Binti #1
Pages: 96
Published by Tor.com on September 22nd 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher learning in the galaxy. But to accept the offer will mean giving up her place in her family to travel between the stars among strangers who do not share her ways or respect her customs.
Knowledge comes at a cost, one that Binti is willing to pay, but her journey will not be easy. The world she seeks to enter has long warred with the Meduse, an alien race that has become the stuff of nightmares. Oomza University has wronged the Meduse, and Binti's stellar travel will bring her within their deadly reach.
If Binti hopes to survive the legacy of a war not of her making, she will need both the gifts of her people and the wisdom enshrined within the University, itself - but first she has to make it there, alive.

My Review:

I was intending to review The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin today, but I spent too much time wading through A Hundred Thousand Worlds for a review over at The Book Pushers, and ran out of time. So I decided to review a different (and much shorter) book that is also among this year’s Hugo nominees. I’ll get around to The Fifth Season before Hugo voting is final.

Let me say this up front, I loved Binti.

Binti is a story in the classic SF coming-of-age-by-leaving-your-home-planet tradition, given a fresh twist by its Afropolitan heroine. The freshness comes from both aspects of that description. Females are much less often featured in this trope, where the protagonist leaves their home planet driven by a desire to be more than what home has to offer. Also, the heroine of Binti is unmistakably African, and in a future world where she faces similar types of prejudice to today, but in ways and for ostensible reasons that make more sense in this future. Although there are multiple shout outs to the present day “can I touch your hair?” issue.

Ultimately, this is a story about healing and survival. It’s about finding commonalities between people who have always seen each other as deadly enemies, to the point where both sides shoot first and ask questions never.

And this is a story about cultural misappropriation gone terribly, terribly wrong in the name of profit and fame.

At the same time, Binti is an everyteenager, leaving her family, her home and her predictable but probably excellent future for the great unknown. She is compelled and propelled by the desire to grow beyond the place where she was planted. But this is done in the story in such a way that nothing and no one is demonized. She’s not leaving because things are bad in any way at all. Only that her family desires to see her continue in the place and life they have planned for her, and view her desire for something different as both wrong and selfish.

In the end, she becomes far more than she, or anyone, ever dreamed. But she also becomes a different person than the one who left. As she strides off into her very brave new future, she is forced to wonder whether the price is a complete unmooring from her past.

And to know it was worth it.

Escape Rating A+: Binti changes the course of the galaxy, not because it wants to change, but because she feels compelled to change it. And because making things change is the only way for her to survive.

Binti has, along with its coming of age story, the feeling of a first contact story. Although this isn’t the first time the Meduse and the humans have crossed paths, it does seem to be the first time that they have had a reliable method of communication.

As Binti postulates in the story, it is a lot harder to kill someone after you have learned their name and had lots of conversations with them. It still isn’t impossible, as Earth’s history all too clearly shows, but it is harder once there has been some tentative steps toward understanding.

Especially when Binti’s ability to “harmonize” different things and different people through very, very high-level mathemagic allows the Meduse to finally see her, and eventually other humans, as an intelligent species, however different, like themselves.

But in the story, we see Binti’s hopes and desperate fears as she tries to find a solution that will allow them all to live. She seems to go through those seven stages of grief over and over as she is constantly sure that the Meduse will kill her as they did the rest of the passengers on the ship. Her breakthrough is almost as frightening as her initial capture, and equally unlikely of success.

In conclusion, Binti is a beautiful story. And even though it is short, it manages to both feel complete and leave the reader wanting more. I can’t wait for the sequel to come out in January.

Review: Star Cruise: Outbreak by Veronica Scott

Review: Star Cruise: Outbreak by Veronica ScottStar Cruise: Outbreak: (A Sectors SF Romance) by Veronica Scott
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Sectors SF #5
Pages: 240
Published by Jean D Walker on May 2nd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

She saved countless soldiers in the wars ... but does she have the weapons to fight an outbreak? Dr. Emily Shane, veteran of the Sector Wars, is known as "The Angel of Fantalar" for her bravery under fire as a medic. However, the doctor has her own war wounds-severe PTSD and guilt over those she failed to save. Persuaded to fill a seemingly frivolous berth as ship's doctor on the huge and luxurious interstellar cruise liner Nebula Zephyr, she finds the job brings unexpected perks-a luxe beach deck with water imported from Tahumaroa II, and Security Officer Jake Dilon, a fellow veteran who heats her up like a tropical sun. However, Emily soon learns she and Jake didn't leave all peril behind in the war. A mysterious ailment aboard the Zephyr begins to claim victim after victim ... and they must race against time and space to find the cause and a cure! Trapped on a ship no spaceport will allow to dock, their efforts are complicated by a temperamental princess and a terrorist-one who won't hesitate to take down any being in the way of his target. If anyone's left when the disease is through with them...

My Review:

wreckofthenebuladream_coverFour years ago, I reviewed Wreck of the Nebula Dream here at Reading Reality. And I loved it. The story is an action-adventure/science fiction romance re-telling of the wreck of the Titanic, released for the 100th anniversary of that real-life disaster.

The disaster on the Nebula Dream was every bit as crazed as the sinking of the Titanic – but only fictional lives were lost in the making of this story.

The author Veronica Scott has continued her exploration into the universe she created for Nebula Dream in her Sectors SF series. Book 3 in the series, Mission to Mahjundar was reviewed by Jo Jones over at Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly back a bit closer to when it first came out.

I haven’t read any of the books between Nebula Dream and Star Cruise: Outbreak I don’t think it matters. I enjoyed Star Cruise: Outbreak so much that I immediately purchased the previous and the next books in the series. It did help that I had read Wreck of the Nebula Dream before Outbreak. It’s not that the characters continue, but as both Nebula Dream and Outbreak are set on cruise ships, the disaster and the resulting changes in regulations after Wreck, have some effect on Outbreak. But not, I think, enough to keep people from jumping right into the series at this point.

On the other hand, Wreck of the Nebula Dream was just plain good. So if you love SFR, why wouldn’t you read it?

Back to Star Cruise: Outbreak…the title does give a bit away. There’s obviously going to be an outbreak of something or something on this cruise. And it’s something all right.

Our heroine is Dr. Emily Shane, decorated war veteran, PTSD sufferer, and reluctant temporary Chief Medical Officer on the Nebula Zephyr. Her dad, also a doctor, pretty much diagnoses that the cure for Emily’s PTSD is to take what should be a paid vacation as ship’s doctor on a luxury starliner. And then he strategically makes sure she can’t refuse the posting.

Dad was right, even if a bit high-handed about it, but not quite in the way he planned. Serving on this cruise is the best thing that the “Angel of Fantalar” can do to find a way to occupy her time and energy – and the ship desperately needs a well-trained medic who won’t fold under extreme pressure to figure out how to treat the epidemic that breaks out among the 3,000 passengers on board.

At first, she thinks it’s a norovirus – and yes, that they are still around feels right. But when the disease mutates into more and deadlier strains, it is up to Emily and her makeshift crew to figure out the problem before it is too late. If the Nebula Zephyr becomes a plague ship, the captain will have to fly it into a sun to eradicate the disease.

Along with everyone on board, including Emily and the man she has come to love.

stardoc by sl viehlEscape Rating B+: If you’ve ever read Stardoc by S.L. Viehl, there’s a resemblance if you squint a bit. In both cases, it’s the doctor who saves the day, not any of the more traditional warrior-type heroes (or even heroines). This is a story where smart wins out over brawn. And also over a few cases of idiocy.

Let’s just say that a few of the secondary/tertiary characters are not just eligible for Darwin Awards, they actually manage to receive them!

But Star Cruise: Outbreak is Emily’s story from beginning to end. She’s a marvelous character to follow. While we don’t see the military action that resulted in her unwanted moniker, the Angel of Fantalar, we do see what she did to earn it – through the eyes of Security Chief Jake Dilon, one of the Special Forces veterans who is still alive because of her heroism on that deadly beach.

Jake has had plenty of fantasies about the woman who kept him alive, but none of them live up to the reality of meeting his “angel”. She saved his life, and now he returns the favor. Among the crew of mostly military veterans, he introduces Emily to people who understand what she went through and just how difficult the recovery is. He gives her space in which to find herself again, and to eventually, slowly, carefully, fall in love.

When the outbreak occurs, it becomes instantly clear that not only does Emily need the Nebula Zephyr but it needs her. The previous (and missing) CMO just didn’t have the skill or the discipline to handle what hits them.

One of the unanswered questions in the entire story is the fate of that missing doctor. It was necessary for the story that he BE missing, but not ever learning his fate is a gaping hole. Chekhov’s gun was on the mantlepiece, but no one picked it up and fired it. Which niggles at this reader more than a bit.

The process of dealing with the outbreak is gripping from beginning to end. Because this series uses different characters and scenarios in each book, it wasn’t necessary that everyone survive – and that wouldn’t have been realistic. So the tension is always high.

There are a lot of little stories within the big story that stand out – people who do their utmost to help solve the outbreak, people who fall victim, and people who survive. It’s their stories that make the tale so fascinating, even though the eventual solution was just a bit deus ex machina.

If you like SFR, if you loved the Stardoc series, or if the episodes of Star Trek Next Gen where Dr. Beverly Crusher saved the day are your favorites, you’ll love Star Cruise: Outbreak.

SFRQ-button-vsmallOriginally published at Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly

Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil GaimanThe Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Pages: 178
Published by William Morrow Books on June 18th 2013
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.
A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

My Review:

If the man who is never named, who may be someone not dissimilar to the author, returns to that ocean at the end of that lane so that Lettie can see if her sacrifice was worth it, readers are left with the certainty that it was.

If only that so we can read this strange and marvelous story that has bits of fantasy, parts of horror, and a few things that go bump in the night. Along with the sense both that we never quite grow up, and that the bits and pieces we remember of our childhoods do not necessarily resemble what actually happened.

And probably shouldn’t.

From one perspective, this story is relatively simple. A man returns to his childhood home for a funeral, and in his grief he finds himself wandering back to the places he knew as a child.

Much of his childhood has been torn down, and this is not surprising, it happens to all of us as we reach middle-age. But one place is still standing, because it is a place that has always been standing, and possibly always will be, even after the rest of us have turned to dust.

It is the place where the narrator experienced something both wonderful and terrible, an experience that was awful both in the sense that it was a horrible thing to have happen , and in its original sense, that it was full of awe. But it was an experience that his seven-year-old self wasn’t ready to experience, and one that his ordinary self is unable to remember.

Except when he returns, as he sometimes does, to remember what really happened and to give an accounting of his life to the one person who made it all possible.

And it’s magic.

Escape Rating A: Fair warning, this is going to be one of those reviews where I mostly talk about how the book made me feel. I’m not sure there is any other way to approach it.

Although most of the events being recounted happened to the protagonist when he was seven, this is an adult book. It is the man looking back on those events, and recognizing that there are things he knows now that he didn’t know then. And sometimes vice-versa.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a story that will either charm you and draw you in, or it won’t. It is also not quite what you might be expecting. There is a sense that it is fantasy, a possibility that it is horror, and even a chance that everything the author thinks he remembers is mostly a story that he tells himself rather than events that he actually remembers.

There are readers, who will be turned off by the child’s perspective, and there are readers who will be turned off by the fantasy elements that are inserted into the real world. Obviously, I wasn’t one of them. I found the sense that he was telling the story to himself added to the magic. It felt like a memory of the things you think you see out of the corner of your eyes – or when when you turn suddenly and what you thought was there seemingly isn’t.

This is also one of those stories that when you finish, you look back at what you read and are forced to view it in an entirely different way because of what you have learned. One of the ways in which the author turns this trope on its head is that while the reader ends with enough knowledge to re-evaluate the whole story, the protagonist forgets all that he has learned. Again.

What he experienced, what he learned, is too magical, too real, to exist in the mundane world. But it is such an important part of what made him who he is that it is necessary, every once in awhile, that he come to Lettie’s Ocean to remember it all over again.

And as the reader, I am very grateful for that.

If you believe that the world is much, much stranger than it seems, and that there are forces both wondrous and terrible still lurking in its hidden corners, this book is an incredible, and intense, treat.

Ocean
This post is part of a Pump Up Your Book Tour. Click on the banner for more reviews and features.

Review: A Reckless Promise by Kasey Michaels + Giveaway

Review: A Reckless Promise by Kasey Michaels + GiveawayA Reckless Promise (The Little Season #3) by Kasey Michaels
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Little Season #3
Pages: 400
Published by HQN Books on July 26th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

London's Little Season has never been so scandalous 
It's the kind of vow often made on the battlefield. Darby Travers, Viscount Nailbourne, never imagines he'll have to honor it. Yet here she is on his doorstep—his late comrade's young daughter, and Darby's new ward. Worse, she comes with the most overprotective, mistrustful, bothersome chaperone—the child's aunt, Sadie Grace Boxer. Darby is quite sure that behind her lovely facade, the woman is guarding a secret. 
Sadie Grace faced many trials working in her brother's surgery, but none prepared her for the world she's thrust into with his passing. Navigating the ton, with its endless ball gowns and parade of parties, is difficult enough, but hiding the truth about her niece while the sophisticated viscount watches her every move proves nearly impossible—particularly when his searing gaze tempts her to bare all. But when her family's past catches up with her, she'll have to trust in Darby…no matter the cost to her heart.

My Review:

The lark of The Little Season continues, even though the birds are mostly confined to cameos this time around.

The entire series has a very high froth quotient. If you are in the mood for a bit of light-hearted entertainment filled with intelligent banter, this series is marvelous. And although each book stands alone, there are characters that continue through the series that readers, or at least this reader, will be glad to see get their happily ever after.

The story in A Reckless Promise is similar in many ways to the other books in the series, but the characters make it every bit as delightful to read as the earlier books. Now that I’ve finished, I can see the patterns, but while the story is rollicking along, it’s just pure fun.

It all goes back to the Napoleonic Wars. The four English officers, Darby, Rigby, Sinclair and Cooper who are the heroes of this series were prisoners of war. They just barely made it out with their lives. Darby, the hero of A Reckless Promise, owes his life to the Army Surgeon who was imprisoned with them, John Hamilton.

And that’s where this story begins. When the four men escaped, they begged the doctor to come with them, but to no avail. Hamilton refused to leave his other patients. But he did extract a promise from Darby that if the doctor did not survive, then Darby, the Viscount Nailbourne, would stand as guardian to his little daughter Marley.

It takes nearly two years for Marley to show up at Darby’s door, with her redoubtable aunt in tow. Darby is more than willing to take care of the child. Not just because a promise is a promise, but because he genuinely likes the seven-year-old spitfire, especially after she kicks him in the shin.

But her aunt, Mrs. Sadie Maxwell Boxer, gives him a great deal of pause. He’s more than willing to take her in as well, but the immediate question in his mind is “take her in as what?” The widowed Mrs. Maxwell is relatively young and surprisingly beautiful. Even though she is a widow, Sadie is much too young to remain as the sole female in his bachelor establishment, no matter how much Marley loves her.

The situation becomes even more dire when Darby figures out that the Mr. Maxwell Boxer he has been desperately trying to find was the doctor’s dog. Mrs. Boxer is really Miss Hamilton, and Darby decides he has to marry her. Or at least that’s the excuse he gives himself for doing what he really wants.

What they both really want.

scandalous proposal by kasey michaelsEscape Rating A-: Just like A Scandalous Proposal, this story is carried by its utterly marvelous piffle. If you are looking for something serious, find another book. This one, and the series, are to be read just for the pure light-hearted fun of it.

At the same time, one of the great but slightly serious things that the author has done with this series is to create unconventional heroines that are easy for the 21st century reader to identify with but who do not seem to be anachronistic. It’s not just that Sadie is a doctor’s sister, but that she was forced to take over much of his practice while he was in the Army. And then to continue that practice after he came home debilitated by the lingering wound which eventually killed him.

Sadie has been forced to act as a professional, to have her advice taken seriously, to run a household, and to think entirely for herself. That’s unusual in society-based Regencies, and makes this series stand out. All four of the heroines, including Clarice Goodfellow who unfortunately does not seem to have a book of her own, are unconventional in ways that seem plausible, and that give them a lot of agency. Even if it’s the kind of agency that their society does not expect from a woman.

In addition to the marvelous banter and developing romance, there is also a serious subplot to this book. Sadie and Marley fled to Nailbourne in secret, out of what turns out to be justifiable fears for Marley’s safety. John Hamilton whisked an heiress away from the life her mother planned for her when he married his Susan. Now that both he and Susan are dead, the family that rejected Susan wants Marley back. John’s last wish was that Sadie make sure they don’t win.

But it isn’t Marley’s grandfather who is trying to claim his only grandchild. Instead, there is a much more nefarious plot afoot that Darby and Sadie must thwart in order to secure Marley’s happiness. But their focus on Marley’s happiness almost gets in the way of their own.

As someone who has read the series, the conclusion to Duke Basil’s birthday woes was appropriately a hoot.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Kasey and Harlequin are giving away a $25 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky entrant in this tour:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fourth of July 2016

July 4 Fireworks, Duluth GA
July 4 Fireworks, Duluth GA

Today is the 240th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was the beginning of the “American Experiment” which has mostly worked, but has certainly had its ups and downs in the intervening two plus centuries. Which years are the “ups” and which ones are the “downs” is something that history will have to decide.

For those of you in the U.S., I hope you have a fantastic three-day weekend. We can see the village fireworks, just like in the picture above, from our front yard. The cats will be cowering somewhere in the house, wishing for the “night of big booms” to finish up and leave them to their late evening naps.

 

The Sunday Post AKA What’s on my (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 7-3-16

Sunday Post

It’s good to be home. The cats think so too. I’m not sure we’ve been completely forgiven yet, but we’re getting there.

I had a lot of good books last week. Something about A Certain Age sucked me in and wouldn’t let go. It was fun to see the book in the publisher’s booth at the conference and tell them that I almost forgot to come to the Opening Exhibits Reception because I didn’t want to put their book down. And Just One Damned Thing After Another was absolutely marvelous. I know I’ll be buying the rest of the series!

It was great to spend a few days with 17,000 of my nearest and dearest colleagues, but home is where the heart is. And where the kitties are.

And speaking of where my heart lies, the latest issue of Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly has just been released into the spacelanes. Check us out at http://www.scifiromancequarterly.org/

freedom to read giveaway hopCurrent Giveaways:

$10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Freedom to Read Giveaway Hop
Essex Sisters Box Set from Eloisa James and Forever
$25 Amazon Gift Card from Harlequin

Winner Announcements:

The winner of Riverbend Road by RaeAnne Thayne is Elizabeth H.
The winner of The Woman in the Photo by Mary Hogan is Anita Y.
The winner of the $10 Gift Card or $10 Book in the Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway Hop is Stacy T.

just one damned thing after another by jodi taylorBlog Recap:

B Review: The Daredevil Snared by Stephanie Laurens + Giveaway
A- Review: A Certain Age by Beatriz Williams
B Review: Hell Squad: Niko by Anna Hackett
B+ Review: A Gentleman Never Tells by Eloisa James + Giveaway
A+ Review: Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor
Freedom to Read Giveaway Hop
Stacking the Shelves (191)

 

ocean at the end of the lane by neil gaimanComing Next Week:

A Reckless Promise by Kasey Michaels (blog tour review)
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman (blog tour review)
Star Cruise: Outbreak by Veronica Scott (review)
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (review)

Stacking the Shelves (191)

Stacking the Shelves

I tried mightily to resist the impulse to pick up the entire conference floor at ALA. We drove, so there was no baggage limit. That’s very dangerous. But I went to an author dinner where they signed their books, and another luncheon where a different group presented their books. Some things I picked up, and some things I requested on Edelweiss and Netgalley, occasionally while they were speaking.

But I’m really, really glad to be home. And the cats are very happy, in their disgruntled feline way, to have their staff back.

For Review:
Carry On by Lisa Fenn
Chow Chop Suey by Anne Mendelson
Darkest Journey (Krewe of Hunters #20) by Heather Graham
Darktown by Thomas Mullen
Daughters of the Bride by Susan Mallery
Her Nightly Embrace (Ravi PI #1) by Adi Tantimedh
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube by Blair Braverman
The White Mirror (Li Du #2) by Elsa Hart

Picked up at the ALA Conference:
Die of Shame by Mark Billingham
Perfume River by Robert Olen Butler
The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel