Tuesday, October 2, 2018

5 stars for Consumed (Firefighters #1) by JR Ward



Consumed (Book #1 of Firefighters series) By J.R. Ward

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the popular Black Dagger Brotherhood series comes a brand-new novel about arson investigator, Ann Ashburn, who is consumed by her troubled past, her family’s scorched legacy, and her current case: chasing a deadly killer.


Anne Ashburn is a woman consumed...


By her bitter family legacy, by her scorched career as a firefighter, by her obsession with department bad-boy Danny McGuire, and by a new case that pits her against a fiery killer.

 

Strong-willed Anne was fearless and loved the thrill of fighting fires, pushing herself to be the best. But when one risky decision at a warehouse fire changes her life forever, Anne must reinvent not only her job, but her whole self.
 

Shattered and demoralized, Anne finds her new career as an arson investigator a pale substitute for the adrenaline-fueled life she left behind. She doesn't believe she will ever feel that same all-consuming passion for her job again--until she encounters a string of suspicious fires setting her beloved city ablaze.
 

Danny McGuire is a premiere fireman, best in the county, but in the midst of a personal meltdown. Danny is taking risks like never before and seems to have a death wish until he teams up with Anne to find the fire starter. But Danny may be more than a distraction, and as Anne narrows in on her target, the arsonist begins to target her.
 

From the creator of the bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood, get ready for a new band of brothers. And a firestorm.
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What I thought about Consumed

When I finish a book and the first thing I want to do is re-read it, that tells me a lot about how I should rate a book.  I breezed through Consumed in two days and when I got to the end, I just wanted to re-read that beginning and the ending again.  It is so good.

The story starts out with a fire -- one that turns dangerous for many of the firefighters in this book.  But for Anne, the consequences are serious and the even though the aftermath changes everything, she's still connected to the firefighters she worked with, especially Danny Maguire. He saved her life in the fire, but not without some serious changes for Anne.

I absolutely adored Anne.  She kicks some serious butt throughout the book. She has a lot to deal with -- starting with a firefighter legacy that stretches to her brother and deceased father.  She's also vulnerable most of all to Danny Maquire, but she's no pushover either.  

Danny Maquire-- all I had to hear was he is a dark haired, blue-eyed Irishman, which had me swooning.  His interactions with Anne are sometimes tense and mostly filled with some serious heat of the attraction kind. I love it when an author can communicate deep feelings in just a few pages, and JR Ward did not disappoint me.  I loved Danny and Anne together. Their pages together sizzled and I felt that same sort of rush about them that I felt about Wrath and Beth in the first BDB book, and that made me very happy.

There's a lot of world building going on in this book, with the introduction of many characters and relationships, mostly focused on Anne and her family.  There's some really nice scenes as Anne attempts to heal some sore spots with her mother and her brother.  

The main plot has to do with Anne investigating the fires happening at the warehouse district where she was injured.  There's a political component here that makes this very contemporary, and some really bad dudes that are still around at the end of the book, so I'm thinking this is a continuing story.   

There's a lot of suspense as Anne hones in on the firestarter and a seriously tense conclusion that had me turning the pages to see how it was all going to play out. While it felt a little rushed, I did like how everything was wrapped up at the end, even though it was a bittersweet ending for many reasons. 

Overall, I just loved this.  The pace was good for the most part, I loved Anne and Danny and it left me wanting more of this world. Great start to the series!

An ARC was provided for review.

J.R. Ward

J.R. Ward is the author of more than thirty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are more than fifteen million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-six different countries around the world. She lives in the South with her family.

Monday, October 1, 2018

Review: Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2) by Nalini Singh


Book 2: the Hard Play series

New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh continues her Hard Play series with a sweet, sexy romance featuring big, fat, OTT weddings, a meddling grandma, and a too-serious hero who needs to be unbuttoned…

Nayna Sharma agreed to an arranged marriage in the hope it would heal the fractures in her beloved family… only to realize too late that a traditional marriage is her personal nightmare. Panicked, she throws caution to the winds, puts on the tiniest dress she can find, and ends up in the arms of a tall, rough-edged hunk of a man who has abs of steel—and who she manages to mortally insult between one kiss and the next.

Abandoned as a child, then adopted into a loving family, Raj Sen believes in tradition, in continuity. Some might call him stiff and old-fashioned, but he knows what he wants—and it’s a life defined by rules… yet he can’t stop thinking about the infuriating and sexy woman who kissed him in the moonlight then disappeared. When his parents spring an introduction on him, the last woman he expects is her. Beautiful. Maddening. A rulebreaker in the making.

He’s all wrong for her. She’s all wrong for him. And love is about to make rebels of them both.


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What I thought about Rebel Hard

Nayna is in the process of interviewing prospected grooms for an arranged marriage when she decides to go out and get a little wild. At the party she meets a gorgeous man who sets everything about her on fire. He's exactly what she's looking for as a fling before she's put in the marriage cage. The heat level between them is enormous but things don't exactly work out quite the way Nayna wants them to.

Enter Raj. Raj is an amazing man. He's traditional, alpha as heck and he cares about Nayna enough to listen to her. He also has a sensitive side he only shows to Nayna. I really liked him. He too straddles between tradition and love.  His heart is delicate, and he has reason to guard it, yet he knows he wants Nayna and is willing to risk his heart for her. It doesn't get more swoony than that.  I really loved getting both perspectives in this story.
Nayna challenges the notion that she's only valuable as a wife and wants to develop her own self before she makes the decision to marry.  Some of it is caused by fear of being caught in a loveless relationship. She's seen people change and fall out of love. She wants to be something herself, before she commits to another and she needs a man who understands that.

Felt like I was transported to a world I knew nothing about, and yet everything seemed so familiar.  Aukland is not a setting I see often in my reading, nor is arranged marriage.  It was all so very interesting and I adored how tradition was explored in this story.  I loved everything thing about Rebel Hard.  There is so much more to this story than just a set of abs on the cover. I don't think the cover does this book justice.

My favorite character, besides Nayna and Raj is most definitely Nayna's wise and wonderful grandmother who manages to sum up life in one meaningful sentence... "Love grows when it's tended."  There are so many jewels in this story, and Aji is one of them. 

 Definitely on my favorites of 2018 list... 

An ARC was provided for review. 







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 Author Information


Nalini Singh is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Psy-Changeling, Guild Hunter, and Rock Kiss series. She lives and works in beautiful New Zealand, and is passionate about writing.

If you’d like to explore her other books, you can find lots of excerpts and free short stories on her website. Slave to Sensation is the first book in the Psy-Changeling series, while Angels’ Blood is the first book in the Guild Hunter series. The Rock Kiss books are all stand alone and can be read in any order.




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Thursday, September 27, 2018

Review & Excerpt:Hot Winter Nights (Heartbreaker Bay #6) By Jill Shalvis

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Hot Winter Nights by Jill Shalvis
Release Date: September 25, 2018
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 Hot Winter Nights, a stand-alone Heartbreaker Bay romance, by Jill Shalvis is a sexy romance in which hero Lucas Knight wakes up with a woman in his bed with no memory of how that happened. What the heck?

Who needs mistletoe?

Most people wouldn’t think of a bad Santa case as the perfect Christmas gift. 

Then again, Molly Malone, office manager at Hunt Investigations, isn’t most people, and she could really use a distraction from the fantasies she’s been having since spending the night with her very secret crush, Lucas Knight. Nothing happened, not that Lucas knows that—but Molly just wants to enjoy being a little naughty for once . . .

Whiskey and pain meds for almost-healed bullet wounds don’t mix. Lucas needs to remember that next time he’s shot on the job, which may be sooner rather than later if Molly’s brother, Joe, finds out about them. Lucas can’t believe he’s drawing a blank on his (supposedly) passionate tryst with Molly, who’s the hottest, smartest, strongest woman he’s ever known. Strong enough to kick his butt if she discovers he’s been assigned to babysit her on her first case. And hot enough to melt his cold heart this Christmas.

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What I thought about Hot Winter Nights 

When Lucas Night wakes up with a woman in his bed, his first reaction is to get out of there fast! He has no idea who's in his bed and when he finds out, he's in for a whole mess of emotions.

Molly has had a crush on Lucas for a while, but her heart is protected by a good size wall.  Her previous relationships haven't gone well and some of that is related to an injury she suffered as a young girl.  

But the spark between them won't go out, and Molly and Lucas engage in what they both kid themselves to be no-strings attached nights together. Yeah, right.  They end up falling for each other.

I really liked Lucas and Molly together.  They really needed each other for reasons I'm not going to spill in this review.  There's a really nice mystery going on too, with Molly wanting to have her own case at Archer's investigations.  Personally, I think she needed to be a lot more harsh with Archer and her brother when the truth comes out! I did love the nosy co-worker scenes when everything comes to a head near the end of the story. 

Lucas's family also has a nice spot in this story, and I wish there had been more of them, especially after the events at the end of the story.  Their absence was noticeable. 

Overall, Hot Winter Nights is another nice installment in the Heartbreaker Bay series, which I love, and I was happy to see that a few more characters were introduced for the series.  Looking forward to more!  

An ARC was provided for review.

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Excerpt:

“You’re staring at me funny,” he said.
               Probably because she was confused over how badly she wanted him. Okay, not so suddenly, but still, denial had been her friend and now that friend had deserted her. “No, I’m not.”
               “Yes, you are. You’re staring at me like …”
               She turned her back on him and grimaced to herself, knowing exactly how she’d been staring at him. “Like I’m annoyed by your presence?” she asked.
               “Like I’m dinner.”
               She closed her eyes. “Oh, please,” she said on a low laugh. “I’ve slept with you now. Trust me, I don’t need a repeat.”
               “So you keep saying.”
               His voice sounded right in her ear now. He’d moved, shifting close enough that his chest nearly brushed the entire length of her spine. She could feel the heat of him and nearly moaned. Nearly. But she caught herself. It was just that his body heat was soaking into her and she found herself wanting to back into him. He smelled amazing and he was still dressed from his job, and that was a shocking turn on too. As was the sexy smirk she heard in his voice.
               Which didn’t make any sense. From the time she’d come into her sexuality as a teenager, complete with all the baggage of her kidnapping still hanging over her head, she’d only ever felt comfortable when she was the one doing the charming and chasing. She’d dated guys here and there, all very different from her brother and men like Lucas. They’d been … beta. Not pushovers, but non-threatening. Nice and sweet. Emotionally available.
               The exact opposite of Lucas.
               But the truth was, no one had ever really invested in her, and she wasn’t sure Lucas was the investing type either. In fact, she was fairly positive he wasn’t, but it still felt a little bit like he was chasing her and she wasn’t at all certain what to do with that.

About the Author:
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jill Shalvis writes warm, funny, sexy contemporary romances and women’s fiction. An Amazon, BN & iBooks bestseller, she’s also a two-time RITA winner and has more than 10 million copies of her books sold worldwide.
Jill lives with her family in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters (Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is mostly coincidental). She does most of her writing on her deck surrounded by more animals than humans. Which is quite astonishing considering she’s a city girl who was plucked from the wilds of L.A. to the wilds of the Sierra’s. Most of her books come from a combination of hard work, cookies, and hot guy pics, and not necessarily in that order.
Jill often travels to reader weekends & conventions where she LOVES getting to meet and hang-out with readers. The only problem being she tends to get lost in her hotels. So if you ever see Jill Shalvis roaming the halls, someone please return her immediately.
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Review: Brimstone Hollow (Annie Gore #2) by Archer Sullivan

Following her powerful debut in The Witch’s Orchard , private investigator Annie Gore returns in Brimstone Hollow , bringing readers back to...