Grade: A

Bam,

Okay, I’ve already said I’m a little shit for not getting this to you sooner. [Ed. Note: Yep.] What can I say? I’m busy? Nah, that’s the worst excuse on the planet. I’m prego? No, that excuse only works with my husband… and truthfully it doesn’t really work all that well. Especially when I told him I had to buy maternity shoes. He didn’t think that was quite as funny as I did. You know I always have time for you, even when you’re having a… moment. Because I love you, no matter what. Ewww! Now that my hormonal love fest is over, I’ll tell you something: I love Joey W. Hill. With a passion I simply don’t understand. Maybe I’m a voyeur. Well, no, I think I’m a mental voyeur. Actually seeing the stuff she writes about would probably cause a mental breakdown, but imagining it? In all of it’s dark, heavy romantic glory? Well, that I can definitely handle.

I read Natural Law on your recommendation and it took me a long time to get through it. Every few chapters I had to put the book down and think about what I was reading, what power plays (both sexual and non-sexual) are really about and what draws a certain man to a certain woman and vice versa. From that moment I was hooked, and have read nearly all of Ms. Hill’s backlist (at least all of it that I could get my hands on). Now, I know this review is late, but when you told me to hurry up and read The Vampire Queen’s Servant, I was ecstatic. I also knew that like the majority of Ms. Hill’s writing, this would be an intense story with strong fantasy elements. This book was not a letdown, and definitely not for the faint of heart.

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Grade: A-

[REPOST: THIS BOOK IS OUT NOW. GO BUY IT!]

I wasn’t sure if I should review this book because I totally geeked out on the author sticking my name in the acknowledgment page and pretty much bragged to anyone who’ll listen! I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep my objectivity and feel bad about giving Ms. Gleason a bad grade. Fortunately, this book did not suck. No, it was a little more than unsucky, it was actually pretty good! This series started out with the gimmicky premise of Buffy Meets Jane Austen, but I think it has surpassed that. While reading this book, I actually had to put it down a couple of times because I was afraid the heroine wasn’t going to make it out of the sticky situations she just happened to find herself in, but there were also a couple of scenes that tore my heart out of my chest like that time Buffy sent Angel to Hell by stabbing him through the chest with a fucking sword. I’m still traumatized, man. Anyway, there were spots in this book that had me scratching my head and wondering what the hell (heh!) was going on, but for the most part, I was totally absorbed. Victoria, the heroine, is developing into a seriously smart, kickass chick and the two men in her life, Sebastian and Max… oh, totally broke my heart. Dicks. Oh, man, I’m so thankful that Gleason wrote a severely readable book and I was spared from a potentially awwwwkward situation of giving her a shitty grade. What a pal. Oh… and spoilers aplenty in this biznatch.

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[REPOST!]

Grade: B+

Sharon Cullars is awesome. Her first book Again was both scary and sexy and after reading it, I found myself looking for more to read by this lady. I was psyched beyond belief when I checked out Amazon and found this book available for pre-order. It releases on April 24, but I couldn’t possibly wait that long, so I emailed the lady and begged her for an ARC. She was kind enough to send me this copy and kids, let me tell you, the very moment I had this book in my hand, I shoved everything aside and read it from cover to cover in one sitting. You can’t tell from the man-titty on the cover, but what’s inside is actually plenty creepy, yet sexy at the same time. There’s really two stories in this book: one is about a grieving woman who had just lost her twenty-one year old son in a senseless accident and takes solace in the arms of her son’s twenty-one year old best friend. The other is about an angry, angry ghost who can’t seem to let go because he sees his mother being seduced by his former best friend and wants to make sure that the two of them never ever end up together even if he has to resort to murder. Individually, the stories work quite well without the other, but don’t blend as well together. It is not seamless. They don’t flow together, which is why in some places, the supernatural aspect feels slapped on. But more on that later. The romantic aspect of the story doesn’t quite work for me, either, but the two leads do have some sizzling sexual tension between them and the fact that they’re such flawed, damaged characters trying to reach out to each other made for a compelling read. (more…)

[Ed. Note: This is fourth from the last of Annie’s reviews. *sad face* Enjoy it!]

Grade: B-

Payback Is A Bitch
by LA Banks

This story opens with a bang. Two sexy sluts are going at it with some dude, and my first reaction, “Woohoo! Finally, a threeway that doesn’t involve two dicks.” Then I read on to discover that this dude is, in fact, the villain of the story, and I hate shit written from the villain’s point of view. It almost always come across as so evil it’s just a caricature, and doesn’t enrich the story. This scene is no exception because they’re licking drugs off each other’s body parts, and while he’s fucking these fine ladies, Douglass is thinking about how he’s getting even with his frigid wife by being such a manwhore. That’s a helluva handicap to overcome. I woulda cut that scene so fast it’d make your head spin.

Nonetheless, I read on, hoping the story would improve. Lemme set up the plot a bit for you. Sidney Coleburn-West is married to a dickhead named Douglass. He’s doing his best to catch the clap all over town, but he’s refusing to give her a divorce because he wants her money. She’s fed up with his mess and hires an enforcer named Mitchell Brickland, Brick to his friends, probably named for the giant man-tool he keeps in his BVDs. Sid is willing to pay a cool 20K to him in exchange for him getting the dirty info on Douglass so she can wash that man right out of her hair.

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Grade: A-

Readers of this blog know I have no objectivity when it comes to P.C. Cast. NONE. I love that woman. I am a P.C. Cast fan girl. I will read anything she writes. What I like most about Cast’s books— and I do find very little of it in other romances— is the sisterhood, the coming together of women, the “hey girlfriend” stuff. In a lot of the romances I’ve been reading lately, the friends are always shoved to the background (or relegated to annoying “matchmaker” duties) once the girl meets the hero, but this particular book is really about two girlfriends growing together as people as well as finding their own true loves. That said, even though I enjoyed the hell out of this latest contribution to the Goddess Summoning series, there were some parts that made my eyes glaze over a little bit or roll to the back of my head. You see, there are two romances in this book and I just wasn’t that interested in the second one. Who wants to read about two incredibly gorgeous people falling in love? Give me the one about the guy with the gimp leg! Oh, and because one of the heroines of this story is the Goddess of Love, the deux ex machina gets a lot of mileage. Why wouldn’t it? The literal translation is “god from the machine”. Heh.

Warning: here there be spoilerz.

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