Anna Windsor's Bound by Flame

Bound by Flame was an elementally locked in & loaded suspense filled adventure complete with sorcery, kick ass Sybils, sexy demons (and some nightmare ones) bound in a struggle to save lives & tradition all while the reader is seduced with some very hot sex...oops...sexy characters.

I was impressed at how complete this story was. The author doesn't shirk her duties or tie up loose ends quickly. Everything was given its due & went beyond my expectations for where the story would end. I love that! This was especially impressive since it was the middle book in a series. It stood strong all on its own.

 

Lee Child's One Shot

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher One Shot was my first Jack Reacher novel. My dad and I are going to see the new movie but wanted to read the Child book first. Jack Reacher is a very odd, smart, complex, tough guy. At times I felt myself really liking Reacher and at others I was turned off or annoyed by him. Great writing can do that with a main character and I could not stop reading.  I am definitely going to go back to the beginning of Child’s Jack Reacher series and start at his beginnings.

For fans of David Baldacci, Michael Connelly, James Patterson, Carl Hiaasen, and/or Elmore Leanard- Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series are a must read. It has an electrifying plot, realistic action, great attention to detail, while still providing addictive characters you want to follow around on their current adventure.

 

Bad Blood Blog Tour!

The Bad Blood Blog Tour will be visiting The Small Book Blog on February 8th! Click on the Tour Badge to follow this tour:

Bad Blood Blog Tour

 

For more information from the host of the tour, updates of upcoming tours, or how to contact J for your own involvement, please visit Pure Textuality.

 

Happy New Year! What's your reading goal?

I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! With the new year comes new resolutions- What are your 2013 reading goals?

For 2012 I had a reading goal of 100 books. However, after I changed jobs, lost my commute and lunch reading time, I fell short of making my goal by just 6 books! So, for 2013 I went conservative when setting up my reading challenges in Goodreads. In the Cover to Cover book club I am striving to read 60 books. However, in general I am going to try to make my reading goal 75. Wish me luck!

Larissa Ione's Pleasure Unbound

This novel was a great surprise! I have been on a run of trying out new authors lately… some disappointments, some were okay, but Larissa Ione was a great find! I am definitely going to read more of her Demonica series. Ione has created strong female characters and supporting protective men that leave you panting in this series. The characters are inviting, fresh and dynamic.

Pleasure Unbound is just as it sounds… It is a romantic suspense featuring demons (and some were’s and vamps). It is the first in the Demonica series. It was also sizzling sensual and erotic. This novel introduces us to the world of demons and how they are integrated (or not) in the human world. Some of them are downright nasty to even picture wandering around our streets. Pleasure Unbound follows Tayla, a passionate demon slayer, and Eidolon, a sexy doctor incubus. They are enemies by nature but their chance meeting sets in motion an ecstasy of forbidden pleasure that could cost them their lives.

Unlike many novels, the two characters start “tangoing in the sheets” from the start. From there they have to learn to trust each other (or kill each other). The tension mounts as events unfold and lives of friends and ways of thinking are threatened. Ione has created a world that has many species of demons (some evil, some bad, some misunderstood, some good and some the same as humans but with different DNA). Tayla has always thought of demons-all demons- as evil incarnate. However, her rising state of emotions spurred by her unlikely sexual relationship with Eidolon have her second guessing if she can trust some demons and maybe they are not all evil. Ione’s novel creates real tension and anxiety with the reader as to whether Tayla and Eidolon will risk everything for a chance at love as they find themselves increasingly drawn to each other, fighting side by side, and seeking out each other’s trust. Pleasure Unbound is erotic, dark, and action packed. Give it a read!

 

Kate Morton's The Secret Keeper

Kate Morton’s newest novel, The Secret Keeper, was a masterpiece. I absolutely loved it and want to recommend The Secret Keeper, as well as Kate Morton’s previous novels, as must reads. The novel starts out feeling a little cut up but as you start piecing the scenes together you get so involved in the story that is unfolding before you that you cannot put the book down, or at least I could not- even a few times when I was getting mad at the characters! I really enjoyed how Morton chose to introduce us to the characters and players in the story as well as how she plotted out her mystery. Kate Morton is a master at telling a tale through levels and over decades.

The Secret Keeper starts in present day London with a dying woman and her grown up children visiting her. The eldest child recalls a violent memory of her childhood and from there the novel rolls out a suspense filled mystery. We see the sleuthing of a couple of the grown kids, Laurel and her brother, in present day piecing together their mothers past. Laurel is chasing the threads of the story and trying to unravel the mystery of her mother, who she was and is, and what kind of person she is. Then the reader is thrown back in time to the mother as a teenager and older. The story unfolds for us as if it were happening for the first time and we experience the love, tragedy, greed, selfishness, despair, and joy as their mother experienced it during war ridden London in the 1940’s. The stories work in tandem, filling in holes, swelling mundane articles of information found in the present with the feelings of the past, and painting a beautiful historical mystery. I was enthralled from the first chapter and could not wait to find out what Laurel and her brother would discover.

Kate Morton is a must read for anyone interested in mysteries, historical fiction, family intrigue, or novels that toggle between present day and the past to untangle tales.

Lora Leigh's Navarro's Promise (Breeds #24)

Navarro's Promise

Navarro’s Promise was a fast paced novel that gives focus to the bigger obstacles the Breeds are trying to overcome and understand. This allows Leigh to show the ever evolving roller coaster of mating heat, with Navarro and Mica, in all its frustratingly erotic and emotionally crazed glory. Lora Leigh has created a deliciously dangerous plot that is as addicting to read as it is volcanically sensual in the bedroom.  For personal preference I think I am fan of the Wolf Breeds and there sexual anomalies more than the Feline Breeds.

If you are looking for an erotic read of the paranormal variety I absolutely recommend this novel.

 

Krystal Wade's Wilde's Fire



Wilde's Fire

Wilde’s Fire introduces us to the world of fantasy, which is a newer genre for me. Wilde’s Fire was a great “introductory” novel unlocking the world of fantasy. The author introduces us to magic, daemonic creatures, and portals into other worlds. Wilde’s Fire gives the reader a foundation into a new world that I found myself holding my breathe to see if we are going to have the tools and knowledge to save it from the corroding darkness that has taken over Encarda.

Wilde’s Fire is a fun novel. It has strong bones and sets the tone for future adventures. The author has had fun creating varying levels of intrigue, mystery and journeys for us to want to follow in future books. I also believe that the author will be one to watch for stellar writing. I think her voice will only continue to develop and get stronger as she carries on with her writing. The romance was sweet, pure and just as frustratingly tantalizing for us as for Arland and Kate (I would imagine). I am definitely rooting for love and light to win the day over darkness and looking forward to Krystal Wade’s future novels.

Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl

Gone Girl is a psychological thriller written in a creative way. I really enjoyed the voice the author writes the characters with…each of the main characters, the husband and wife, are written in first person within their own chapters. By the end I was not super engaged but wanted to see what kinks the author would give to finally resolve the twisted puzzle she pieced together for us. All the reviews I read before reading Gone Girl told me I would not be able to put it down even though I may want to throw the book against the nearest wall. I agree with this, but by the end I found myself growing weary with both characters and just wanted to get to the end of the tale. The story, on a very basic level, is about an unhappy couple and on their 5th wedding anniversary the wife disappears. From there a full investigation is launched to find her and the husband goes from victim of loss to the main suspect in a possible murder.  How the reader is given the story though is what I loved. It is through chapters that toggle between the wife and husband. The husband is all present day about what is going on and him taking you through everything, reminiscent of his past relationships, and covering his present tracks. The first part of the novel for the wife’s part of the tale is all given by her various diary entries from the past so we are given a glimpse of her as well as their relationship. Each is very different on their perceptions of what is happening.  The book is broken into three parts. By the second part, while still toggling between chapters and voices, we get to know the “real” wife through her actual voice. That’s when the investigation as well as the story really picks up. I felt like the pace of the novel was written as the investigation went. Sometimes slow and collecting evidence while others were nonstop and go-go-go!

Gone Girl is a well written novel that is dark, twisted, and intelligent. You will find that the author and characters love to play with your mind throughout this book. Give it a whirl!