I jumped at the chance to review this. I was so excited. I love Vikings. Medieval Icelandic literature does it for me. I adore romance novels. Romance novels featuring Vikings have never worked for me before, but I’m like a bird that doesn’t understand glass. This time, this time it’s going to work out. Flutter flutter flutter. Thunk. I tried repeatedly to finish this. I tried really hard, harder than any erection you have encountered, … Continue reading Viking Warrior Rising by Asa Maria Bradley →
First of all, I have to say that I really love the paranormal genre. Give me werebeasts, phoenixes, dragons, etc, I am ready to read. Secondly, this is the third book in a series and I found I did not need to know what had happened in the previous volumes to make sense of this story. I consider it a standalone, which is in its favor. The series is called Horsemen because it is about … Continue reading Possessed by a Wolf by Sharon Ashwood →
Before reading “Nice Girls Don’t Ride,” I’d tried two Roni Loren books. The first was a DNF; I read more than 50 pages before giving up, and now, maybe three months later, I can’t remember any of it. The second was Off the Clock. The premise intrigued me, so I gave Loren another try, and I ended up loving it. The description of “Nice Girls Don’t Ride” sounded promising, and I figured there was a decent … Continue reading Nice Girls Don’t Ride by Roni Loren →
This was my first book by Angela Quarles, and I picked it purely because of the name. Must Love Chainmail is the second book in the series, but it can easily be read alone. The best way I can describe this book is to compare it to my experience with Lynn Kurland’s time travel romances: light-hearted, fun but rather forgettable, and with absolutely no explanation of how the time travel works. Katy is a busy professional … Continue reading Must Love Chainmail by Angela Quarles →
Trigger warning: Various kinds of sexual abuse are referred to in this story. When we were told that there were grey places the RITA spreadsheet I looked to see if there was anything I wanted to review. I went to Amazon to read the description of this book and somehow clicked on “Buy with 1 click” instead of the title. Sneaky Amazon. I was upset because the cost is above what I allow myself to … Continue reading Once Pure by Cecy Robson →
I’ll start with a plot overview, so you have a little context for my response to the book—I’ll try to stay neutral, but that’ll be hard. Your main characters are Rikki (the girl) who narrates the novel in first person. She’s intelligent and insightful, which makes her vapid and irrational insecurity even more painful. Then you have Sam (the boy) who is a cool, complex, sensitive teenager (where the hell were guys like him when … Continue reading Rikki by Abigail Strom →
I chose this book because I wanted to go outside my usual reading and then found comfort in the parts of the story that were familiar. Mistletoe Justice is a Love Inspired Suspense book, so it is an inspirational romantic suspense story which also happened to be set during the Christmas season. A tall order. Well-delivered, Ms. Post, well-delivered. The story included prayers for help and thanks to God for blessings received, but there was … Continue reading Mistletoe Justice by Carol J. Post →
NB: Though Qualisign gives Sweetest Scoundrel a B as a standalone, she gives it an A- if being read as part of the Maiden Lane series. For the second year in a row, I have misread the date for the first of my two RITA reviews and have had to play catch up after the rest of the participants in this section have sent in their reviews. From the wrong side of the missed deadline, I can only … Continue reading Sweetest Scoundrel by Elizabeth Hoyt →
My review takes a quasi-newspaper article type format, with each section being worth a point. Who/Why Lady Miranda Hawthorne, our heroine, has been repressed all her young life by her mother’s well-intentioned “lady lessons.” The reader is reminded, frequently, how Miranda can’t do this or that thing because such behavior’s deemed unfitting of a lady. Quite a bit of Miranda’s internal monologue is dedicated to this theme, which is irritating, for one, but also kept … Continue reading A Noble Masquerade by Kristi Ann Hunter →
I read and reviewed A Love Like Ours by Becky Wade when it was first released, and gave it five stars on my Amazon review (but only four on Goodreads. It was good, but it takes a lot to get five stars out of me on Goodreads). It has been a while, so I did the novel again and found it stood up well to rereading—although I’m not sure it would have made my list … Continue reading A Love Like Ours by Becky Wade →
Lunges, pivots, turns, spins, Salchows, loops, flips, Lutz jumps, axel jumps, singles, doubles, and triples. It’s okay if these terms don’t mean a whole hell of a lot to you. I’d consider myself a casual fan of ice skating. When I see a skating competition on television, I definitely watch. Plus, watching The Cutting Edge throughout the ‘90s was a formative romantic and figure skating touch-point—as it was for the earlier SBTB reviewer, and our author, … Continue reading Pairing Off by Elizabeth Harmon →
