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Moonstruck Madness
Moonstruck Madness by Laurie McBain is $1.99! This is a Kindle Daily Deal that is being matched. There’s also another McBain romance as a KDD! This is a bit of a crazy, Old Skool romance, so you’re either onboard with that or not. Moonstruck Madness was originally published in 1977.
She’s one thing by day, something else altogether by night…
After escaping the slaughter of her clan at a young age, Scottish noblewoman Sabrina Verrick provides for her siblings by living a double life, until the night she encounters the Duke, and her secret and all she holds dear is threatened…
He’s so disillusioned, he’s completely vulnerable…
With his inheritance at stake, Lucien, Duke of Camareigh, sets a trap for the Scottish beauty with the piercing violet eyes, never imagining what will happen when the trap is sprung…
As their lives become irreversibly entangled, Lucien and Sabrina become each other’s biggest threat, as well as their only salvation…
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Kismet’s Kiss
Kismet’s Kiss by Cate Rowan is 99c! This is a fantasy romance and the second book in the Alaia Chronicles series, though I believe it can be read as a standalone. It was also an RWA Golden Heart finalist! A few readers felt the ending was a bit abrupt, while others loved the fairy tale elements. It has a 3.7-star rating on Goodreads.
Nights, and Anna and the King, you’ll adore this romance of a strong woman who won’t give up on her ideals and a man whose kingly responsibilities have precluded true love… until now.
In the desert realm of Kad, a deadly epidemic strikes the palace of Sultan Kuramos. Only a magical healer from an enemy land has the skill to save his royal household, but Kuramos never imagined the healer would be a woman.
Healer Varene finds her own surprises in Kad. She expects the sultan’s arrogance, but not his courage, his selfless care of the ill, or the possibility the epidemic is the hex of a vengeful goddess.
Kuramos’s culture condemns Varene’s mystical talents. Her presence triggers an insurrection, yet as he and the healer toil for a cure, he loses his heart to her. She falls for him as well, but how can she relinquish her homeland and her principles? He already has a harem…and his family may be cursed.
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Signs of Attraction
Signs of Attraction by Laura Brown is 99c! This is a romance with two characters who have hearing loss, but be warned that part of the hero’s backstory contains allegations of rape. Carrie gave the book a C+:
I was so sad to see this element thrown into a story that was otherwise so positive. I loved the fact that hearing loss was not presented as a uniform thing, but rather something that would affect every individual differently (in addition to Reed and Carli, we meet Reed’s friends who also have various degrees of hearing loss). However, I did feel that this story needed one more round of editing – between Reed’s back-story with the evil girlfriend, and Reed’s adoption issues, and Reed’s dad’s death, and Carli’s issues, there was a lot of emotional stuff going on and these storylines tended to suddenly drop out of sight to make way for the next round of angst. At its best, this was a good story about thriving with hearing loss.
Do you know what hearing loss sounds like? I do.
All my life I’ve tried to be like you. I’ve failed.
So I keep it hidden.
But on the day my world crashed down around me, Reed was there. He showed me just how loud and vibrant silence can be, even when I struggled to understand. He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever known. His soulful eyes and strong hands pulled me in before I knew what was happening.
And as I saw those hands sign, felt them sparking on me, I knew: imperfect could be perfect.
Reed makes me feel things I’ve never felt. It’s exciting…and terrifying. Because he sees me like no one else has, and I’m afraid of what he’ll find if he looks too closely.
The only thing that scares me more than being with him? Letting him go.
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Smut
Smut by Karina Halle is 99c! This book has been on my TBR pile and it seems like a funny, new adult romance. Readers said it had a great mix of romance and comedy, with an opposites attract element. However, others had trouble liking the heroine. Have you read this?
Smut is a standalone, tongue-in-cheek romantic comedy from the NYT bestselling author of The Pact.
What happens when the kink between the pages leads to heat between the sheets?
All Blake Crawford wants is to pass his creative writing course, get his university degree and take over his dad’s ailing family business. What Amanda Newland wants is to graduate at the top of her class, as well as finish her novel and prove to her family that writing is a respectful career.
What Blake and Amanda don’t want is to be paired up with each other for their final project but that’s exactly what they both get when they’re forced to collaborate on a writing piece. Since Amanda thinks Blake is an arrogant jerk (with a panty-melting smirk and British accent) and Blake thinks Amanda has a stick up her (tight, round) bottom, they fight tooth and nail. That is until they discover they write well together. They also might find each other really attractive, but that’s neither here nor there.
When their writing project turns out to be a success, the two of them decide to start up a secret partnership using a pen name, infiltrating the self-publishing market in the lucrative genre of erotica. Naturally, with so much heat and passion between the pages, it’s not long before their dirty words become a dirty reality. Sure, they still fight a lot but at least there’s make-up sex now.
But even as they fall hard for each other, will their burgeoning relationship survive if their scandalous secret is exposed or are happily-ever-afters just a work of fiction?
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There are actually three Laurie McBain books as KDD’s today, it also includes Wild Bells to the Wild Sky. I loved Moonstruck Madness when I read it a long long time ago! I have no idea how well it will hold up today.
OMG! OMG! OMG! The Dominick trilogy and Devil’s Desire were my first romance reads. I was 11 and my mom handed me Devil’s Desire and said that since I was so curious about her collection I should read one of her favorites. I still reread the Dominick trilogy every few years. My paperback copies are held together by rubber bands and duct tape. I’m so happy to see all of McBain’s books are available on kindle, and it looks like audiobooks too. I noticed they’re also doing the same with Shirley Busbee, which also makes me ridiculously happy.
I still have all my original Laurie McBain books. She’s a must read for anyone interested in the transitional period from early non-consensual, your mouth says no, but your eyes say yes, she secretly loves the sex books of the 70’s and 80s to the sex positive books of today. There’s even an ex love interest type character in one that anywhere else would have been that stereotypical vixen out to steal the man, but instead is treated both sympathetically, and gets her own HEA. Imagine.
Her books were also unusual for the amount of time the MCs spend apart. In the first sequel which features Dominic and Sabrina’s daughter, Rhea Claire, and Dante (OMG, Dante Leighton. STILL one of my all time favs after 40 years) don’t actually meet until about a third of the way into the book.
Of course, there’s also all the battlefields, cross-dressing highwayman, sword fighting, evil twins, kidnapping, big misunderstanding, cross country chasing, hidden treasure, kidnapping, pirates who make women’s clothes, plot moppeting, dastardly deeds, smuggling goodness that made MM and it’s sequels, Chance the Winds of Fortune and Dark Before the Rising Sun keepers.
I enjoyed Signs of Attraction less for the romance between the two characters and more for the look at Deaf culture. The author has some level of hearing loss (I can’t recall how much she noted in the back of the book), so she knows what she’s talking about. I would give the romance a C as there were some really unnecessary things thrown in there, but the look at Deaf culture a B+/maybe A-. If that’s something that might interest you I would recommend it for a dollar.
“She expects the sultan’s arrogance, but not his courage, his selfless care of the ill, or the possibility the epidemic is the hex of a vengeful goddess.” I, too, often find myself woefully unprepared for the vengeful goddess eventuality.
I wish Laurie McBain’s Tears of Gold would go on sale. I know I read a number of her books back in the day, but TOG really stuck with me for some reason. It’s one of those big, angsty books with sea voyages, gold in California, old family issues in New Orleans, etc. I guess I’ll have to check out the sale books while I wait for TOG.
Laurie McBain was my absolute favorite romance author when I first started reading “real” romance novels (in other words not Barbara Cartland and not Victoria Holt- ones with actual love scenes). After her last book “When The Splendor Falls” was published I spent years looking for her next book which never came. Moonstruck Madness was the first book of hers I read and the one I loved the most. Lucien Dominick the Duke of Camereigh set the standard for all brooding, scarred and arrogant romance heroes. Sabrina and her violet eyes actually seemed original to me at the time, let alone her masquerading as a highwayman. While her heroes and heroines had tempestuous relationships there was no rape or forced seduction as I recall. The details of everything worn and spoken are legion and for a modern reader the romance scenes are few and far between, but it was my book crack back in the late 80’s. I think Donnamarie did a great job above of summing them up. Off to one click buy.
Smut sounds like it might be fun, but the word “respectful” in the blurb is a little off-putting. Is it supposed to be “respectable”? Should I buy a book with a probable-error in the blurb? (I can read past usage errors in writing.) Hm.
I loved Moonstruck Madness, it was the first of my grandmother’s romance novels that I sneakily read at the age of 12!