Lady Notorious
Lady Notorious by Theresa Romain is $1.99! Sarah reviewed this one and gave it a B-:
If you read this book, and I would recommend it with some reservations, you’ll get to know two characters who are lovely together, who fit together intellectually and emotionally, who make each other happy, and change the way they see the world in ways that are constructed of all the finest dialogue and chest-tingly feels-infused moments
Who knew love would be her secret weapon?
Cassandra Benton has always survived by her wits and wiles, even working for Bow Street alongside her twin brother. When injury takes him out of commission, Cass must support the family by taking on an intriguing new case: George, Lord Northbrook, believes someone is plotting to kill his father, the Duke of Ardmore. Decades before, the duke was one of ten who formed a wager that would grant a fortune to the last survivor. But someone can’t wait for nature to take its course—and George hopes a seasoned investigator like Cass can find out who.
Cass relishes the chance to spy on the ton, shrewdly disguised as handsome Lord Northbrook’s notorious “cousin.” What she doesn’t expect is her irresistible attraction to her dashing employer, and days of investigation soon turn to passionate nights. But with a killer closing in and her charade as a lady of the ton in danger of collapsing at any moment, Cass has no choice but to put her life—and her heart—in the hands of the last man she ought to trust.
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RECOMMENDED: The Principle of Desire by Delphine Dryden is 99c! Sarah reviewed this book and gave it a B, enjoying the smart characters doing sexy things:
The Principle of Desire combined a lot of things I love, like super-smart characters and terrific heroes growing in their own self confidence, nerd and geek culture, and visiting characters from prior books and finding themselves still awesome. I really liked this one, and I recommend all three.
1 Sexy Switch + 1 Nerdy Newbie = A Master Class in Seduction
After several years as a submissive, psychology lecturer Beth is eager to experience being on the other end of the whip for a change. When she meets sweet but socially awkward Ed at a party, it’s obvious the aerospace engineer is interested—and obvious he’s way too vanilla.
When tracking down a friend lands him in a BDSM club, Ed’s eyes are opened to a whole other world—and a whole other side of Beth. Then Beth’s former Master shows up, and Ed agrees to play along as her sub in exchange for a real date. The biggest surprise of the evening? How much he enjoys letting her take control…
Beth’s ex makes it clear he wants her back, but she needs more from a relationship than he can offer—and not just the freedom to explore her switch side. At first Ed is just an enthusiastic student. But the more she gets to know him, in and out of the bedroom, the more Beth wonders if he’s everything she desires…
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Playing with Fire by Kate Meader is $1.99! This is the second book in the Hot in Chicago series. I loved the firefighting heroine in this book and gave it a B- in a Lightning Review:
I really loved the characters and how Meader reversed the typical hero/heroine roles, but I just wished the rest of the book had the same fire (heh) as the first hundred pages.
From popular romance author Kate Meader comes the second novel in Hot in Chicago, a brand-new, sizzling series that follows a group of firefighting foster siblings and their blazing hot love interests!
As the only female firefighter at Engine Co. 6, Alexandra Dempsey gets it from all sides: the male coworkers who think she can’t do the job, the wives and girlfriends who see her as a threat to their firefighter men, and her overprotective foster brothers who want to shelter their baby sister at all costs. So when she single-handedly saves the life of Eli Cooper, Chicago’s devastatingly handsome mayor, she assumes the respect she’s longed for will finally come her way. But it seems Mr. Mayor has other ideas…
Eli Cooper’s mayoral ratings are plummeting, his chances at reelection dead in the water. When a sexy, curvaceous firefighter gives him the kiss of life, she does more than bring him back to the land of the living—she also breathes vitality into his campaign. Riding the wave of their feel-good story might prop up Eli’s flagging political fortunes, but the sizzling attraction between them can go nowhere; he’s her boss, and there are rules that must be obeyed. But you know what they say about rules: they’re made to be broken…
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A Conspiracy of Whispers by Ada Harper is $1.99! This appears to be a trope-tastic sci-fi romance with a diverse cast of characters. I believe the second one features a F/F romance, though there doesn’t seem to be any updates on a third installment. Harper also writes horror/fantasy under the name AJ Hackwith.
Desires and loyalties clash when a sensual assassin and an intriguing enemy agent must fight together in this exciting debut by Ada Harper.
For Olivia Shaw, the danger of her assignments as a deadly Whisper agent is matched only by that of her hidden status: Liv is one of the caricae, extremely rare women capable of bearing children and therefore controlled by the Syndicate’s government. When her handler sends her into the Quillian Empire, her mission is complicated by stumbling upon a kidnapping in progress.
Liv is drawn deep into political upheaval when her hostage is revealed to be the infamous Red Wolf, Galen De Corvus, brother of the Quillian Empress. Worse yet, he is an altus, more sensitive than most to the pheromones of caricae. If he realizes what she is, he could expose her secret to either government and doom her to a life as breeding stock.
Quillian nobleman turned operative Galen never planned to involve himself with a citizen of the cold, cruel Syn, but Olivia entices him more than she should. As they work together to protect his royal sister from a violent coup, the passionate bond between them proves to be more than mere biology. And Liv must decide if that bond is worth dropping her guard for both an enemy and an altus.
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Nancy Friday’s 1973 classic, MY SECRET GARDEN, is a KDD for $2.99 today. For us “women of a certain age” (I was 16 in 1973), MY SECRET GARDEN was both eye-opening in its acknowledgment that women had sexual lives and sexual fantasies and was the first of (in my mind) the 1970s triumvirate of sexually-explicit books (followed by FEAR OF FLYING and SWEET SAVAGE LOVE), written by, for, and about women and their sexual/emotional journeys, that helped create the Romancelandia of today. Highly recommended, if only for time capsule purposes.
The Principle of Desire is very good. It is the third book in the series and while it can definitely be read as a standalone, I would recommend reading all three books. (The first one, The Theory of Attraction is excellent.)
@DiscoDollyDeb: I’d make that a quartet, since the first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves was published in 1970.
I enjoyed the Romain quite a bit—I generally like how she writes historicals that feature a more diverse cast from a class perspective (i.e., not every hero is a duke/not every heroine is the daughter of an earl.) I particularly like her SECRETS OF A SCANDALOUS HEIRESS.
@hng23–wow, the Our Bodies, Ourselves reference takes me back! My mom had an original copy and I definitely learned a LOT from that book. (See also: Outlander which has a lot of issues in retrospect, but the first person sex scenes were a revelation for me at 16ish. A woman telling her own sexual narrative not dictated by a man?? Mind. Blown.)
I loved the Kate Meader book! And it’s a breath of fresh air to have the heroine be a firefighter, I haven’t seen many of those 🙂
@DiscoDollyDeb: I was 19 in ’73 and completely blown away by MY SECRET GARDEN. It was revolutionary and startling, a whole vista I’d never even contemplated. Throw in those old school romances and I was stupefied for months; gees, I was so naive. It’s hard to imagine the impact today, given how much the world has changed, how much we’ve learned and how we now think about romance, agency and feminism. Now is better, but then was illuminating.
I couldn’t get into A CONSPIRACY OF WHISPERS by Ada Harper. Galen is so politically perfect romance hero material, it got on my nerve. He’s all about the heroine, suspending his own life for her; protective, but not too much; he gives her space, he respects her abilities, he doesn’t push… All good things… but somehow, too much. He’s so considerate, in contrast the heroine comes off as a rock brained harridan. And it’s unfair, because she’s not – she’s in fact a GREAT heroine. And all the side characters are kick ass too! The romance just didn’t work for me.
Playing with Fire is one of my very favorites – of this series and book couples. It has definitely been one of my quarantimes comfort reads. As it rarely goes on sales, grab it now!!
That Kate Meader book is sexist and misogynistic. I’m surprised to see it recommended on this site.
@hng23: thanks for that info! I was a general practitioner in rural Canada using that book to help educate my female patients. I loved it so much, it was so helpful.
The Dryden really didn’t work for me as a romance because so much emotional energy was directed towards Beth’s horrible ex and how she moves towards breaking his hold on her. The romance was much less developed, so I just couldn’t buy that it was anything more than a rebound relationship for her.
My other problem with the Dryden is that it’s presented as a story where the woman is the sexually dominant one. She isn’t: both main characters are switches. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that — in fact, it’s great, because there are so many switches IRL, and yet they’re largely absent from romance novels. But since it had been recommended to me specifically for a sexually dominant heroine, and since the cover copy supports that, I felt kind of cheated.* So don’t go into it with the wrong expectations! It’s about two switches, and the harder-core submission scenes are the ones with the heroine in the submissive role. I might have liked it better had I known that going in.
* This was exacerbated because of a comment Dryden had had a female character make in the second book of that trilogy, to the effect that women are hard-wired to want to submit. I had been annoyed by it but was willing to chalk it up to being about that character, since I thought the third book had a woman on the other side. Discovering that the promised dominant woman was actually a switch altered that context for me.