Review: Inside Out by Lauren Dane

The latest "sexy, pulse-pounding adventure"* (Jaci Burton) from the national bestselling author of Coming Undone.


In the wake of an attack that left her nearly dead, Ella Tipton has spent each day putting her life back together. She doesn't have any room for romance, but that doesn't mean she has to stop admiring the scenery.

Sexy security professional Andrew Copeland is no stranger to women, but he knows Ella is something different. Determined to get her to let him in, Andy does the one thing he can think of to get close: he offers her hands-on training in self-defense-and before long, all that skin on skin contact with have them both turning inside out.

While the Brown Sibling series is one of my favorites, Inside Out didn't thrill me like Laid Bare and Coming Undone. 

There's no doubt Ella Tipton and Andrew Copeland (aka Cope, Andy or Andrew, depending on who is speaking) have chemistry and are hot for one another.  I loved that Ella schooled their extended family on Andrew's virtues: his poetry, his art, and his woodworking skills.  I also loved seeing their courtship, the strengthening of their relationship, told via their notes and packages to one another. 

But it was the drama surrounding Erin's pregnancy and subsequent childbirth I kept tuning in for.  Also for Raven, though she affects other characters in such a way, be it positive or negative, I'm not sure why I like her so much. 

I am looking forward to Never Enough (September 2011), the next book in the series featuring the elusive Adrian Brown.

Eagerly Anticipating

Review: Seven Nights to Forever by Evangeline Collins

The author of Her Ladyship's Companion once again pushes the erotic boundaries of Regency romance.

Destitute after her father's death, Rose Marlowe has debts to settle and a younger brother to support. But she also possesses a matchless beauty-one that could command quite a price. Now, every month, Rose spends one week at a decadent London brothel, where she's become a sought-after prize.

Then one night she meets a wealthy merchant. Handsome, kind and compassionate, with a lonely soul that matches her own, James Archer is not her typical client. Falling in love with a client, never mind a married one, is unthinkable. Yet Rose can't help but lose herself as one night becomes seven-and seven nights leads to a chance at forever.

This is a love story, pure and simple.  Sure, the heroine is a courtesan, plying her skills to keep her younger brother in school, and the hero is in a loveless marriage with a shrew of a wife.  So there are some complications. 

Overlook those. 

Rose and James meet.  They spend some time together.  They start to think about one another in their moments apart.  They begin to need one another.  They each want the other.  Those complications I mentioned earlier crop up.  (You knew they would.)  But guess what?  Love totally wins!  And the journey Rose and James go on, both together and separately, is so passionate, so sweet, so amazing, their happily ever after makes the hell they go through worth it. 

(A very special thank you to Dear Author and Berkley for sponsoring the contest in which I won an ARC of Seven Nights to Forever.)

Eagerly Anticipating

Review: The Darkest Hour by Maya Banks

It’s been one year since ex-Navy SEAL Ethan Kelly last saw his wife Rachel alive. Overwhelmed by grief and guilt over his failures as a husband, Ethan shuts himself off from everything and everyone.

His brothers have tried to bring Ethan into the KGI fold, tried to break through the barriers he's built around himself, but Ethan refuses to respond… until he receives anonymous information claiming Rachel is alive.

To save her, Ethan will have to dodge bullets, cross a jungle, and risk falling captive to a deadly drug cartel that threatens his own demise. And even if he succeeds, he’ll have to force Rachel to recover memories she can’t and doesn’t want to relive—the minute by minute terror of her darkest hour—for their love, and their lives, may depend on it.

What a mile-a-minute thrill ride!  I've read several of Ms. Banks' erotic romances, and none of them have stuck with me like this story. 

Ethan Kelly, mourning the loss of his wife, Rachel, receives a mysterious package in the mail with documentation claiming Rachel is in fact alive. This is exactly the information Ethan needs to get his sorry butt off the couch in the hopes of finding his wife.  His guilt -- both because of the last few months of their marriage and his immediate acceptance of Rachel's death -- is palpable, but he turns to the only people he's confident could help prove if Rachel is alive: his family.

This book was so good, a great start to a new series.  Whether it was the family connection (and the promise of more books) or the romantic suspense genre, The Darkest Hour was exactly what I needed.  I'm looking forward to learning more about the Kellys.

Review: Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor by Lisa Kleypas

ONE LITTLE GIRL NEEDS A FAMILY


One rain-slicked night, six-year-old Holly lost the only parent she knew, her beloved mother Victoria. And since that night, she has never again spoken a word.

ONE SINGLE MAN NEEDS A WIFE

The last thing Mark Nolan needs is a six-year-old girl in his life. But he soon realizes that he will do everything he can to make her life whole again. His sister’s will gives him the instructions: There’s no other choice but you. Just start by loving her. The rest will follow.

SOMETIMES, IT TAKES A LITTLE MAGIC…

Maggie Collins doesn’t dare believe in love again, after losing her husband of one year. But she does believe in the magic of imagination. As the owner of a toy shop, she lives what she loves. And when she meets Holly Nolan, she sees a little girl in desperate need of a little magic.

…TO MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE

Three lonely people. Three lives at the crossroads. Three people who are about to discover that Christmas is the time of year when anything is possible, and when wishes have a way of finding the path home…

For as much as I loved Ms. Kleypas' The Hathaways and The Travises, I expected to really enjoy this book.  It was a quick read, an easy read, but I found it lacking.  It didn't wrap itself around and make me want to put everything on hold until I finished this book.  The writing isn't as lush or as emotionally charged, something I loved about The Hathaways series.  A disappointment, and I hate saying that about any book.

Cover Love

Second in line, first in love

A secret society of younger sons, sworn to aid and abet each other, no matter the scandal or cost.... Their fathers and brothers may rule the world, but they run it . . . and when it comes to passion, they refuse to accept second best.

Searching for hidden treasure, finding forbidden fantasy.

London's most sensual former courtesan, Viola Whedon, is incapable of being seduced-she does the seducing. Until she meets Leonidas Vaughn. Her salacious memoirs have made her the target of half the lords in England, and Vaughn is the only man she can turn to. When he promises to protect her-and to make her beg for his touch-the alluring beauty finds both offers impossible to refuse.

Leonidas Vaughn secretly believes Viola possesses a fortune given to his family by the King of France. So the strong and sexy Vaughn charms his way into Viola's life . . . and her bed. But when their arrangement is consummated, he'll experience pleasure far beyond his wildest fantasies-and realize his heart may need the most protection of all.