Day / July 13, 2010

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Crazed Hearts by Shiloh Walker

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Fantasy Romance
Series: Grimm’s Circle, Book 3
Publisher: Samhain Publishing Ltd.
Hero: Thomas Renfield
Heroine: Aileas Corbett
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication:  July 13, 2010
Started On: July 13, 2010
Finished On: July 13, 2010

This is the first book that I tried out from the Grimm’s Circle series and at the beginning I was a bit confused as to what or who Ren really was. Then I decided to do some digging and went poking around Shiloh’s website to find blurbs on the two previous books published in the series; Candy Houses and No Prince Charming.  Once I had gone ahead and done that I had the basic idea of what these stories were really about and from then onwards I sank into the world of Ren and let him take me away on his journey towards true love.

Grimms are special kinds of guardian angels placed by God to protect mortals and kick the asses of  demons and the likes of them. Ren is a Grimm and an empath as well; someone who could sense and feel emotions of beings that surround him. Ren has resigned himself to living a lonely life with the animals that surround his home as his only friends at times. But all of this changes in a heartbeat when he encounters the woman who drives right into the heart of his woods.

Aileas is a woman on the run, not knowing exactly what she is running from. Its just the growing feeling of trepidation that she has had ever since her brother died and that dreaded book which has been giving her nightmares fell into her hands. The book which she feels as if it were talking to her, driving her onto do things that she really does not want to do. And to top that off, Aileas feels that someone or something was hunting her down and the feeling that they were closing in on her had propelled her to run for her life.

As soon as Ren lays his eyes on Aileas, the smoldering heat that flashes between the two is hard to ignore. And Ren identifies that the demons who are relentlessly on her pursuit wouldn’t give her or the book up easily and the one thing that his heart urges him to do is to protect the woman who stands in front of him, looking so lost but determined to flee whatever that was after her even though she couldn’t believe herself at times.

With classic Shiloh Walker style, Ren and Aileas wove their magic on me and made me fall a little bit in love with Ren by the time I was through.

Recommended for those who love a good paranormal/fantasy romance with a dose of sensuality with a bit of kick-ass action now and then.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | Kobo | Samhain

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Night Magic by Karen Robards

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Hero: Jack McClain
Heroine: Clara Winston
Sensuality: 3.5
Date of Publication:  October 1987
Started On: July 11, 2010
Finished On: July 12, 2010

I have always loved a good smashing adventure with a high dose of sensuality and romance in the mix. This is a testament as to why Wild Orchids by the same author remains a favorite of mine. Adventures where a hero and heroine who are as different from one another as night and day gets thrown in together to survive against tough as nails bad guys and the unforgiving conditions of the wilderness of nature that surrounds them. From the moment I found out about this novel on a discussion forum on Amazon I knew that this would be one of those romances that I wouldn’t be able to put down. And boy was I glad when I was proven right!

CIA Agent Jack McClain is as tough as they come. Having fought in the Vietnam war and then later working deep undercover in remote areas of the world and finally being the catalyst that brought everything to a disastrous conclusion earning him a stint in a psych facility and later a desk job at the agency, Jack never thought that he would be lucky enough to land a job within the intelligence community that would boost his career once again. Tim Hammersmith, Jack’s boss in many a deep cover missions sticks out his neck for Jack once again and assigns him with the task of getting Yuprov, a Russian KGB spy to spill his guts about a mole who was working deep within the highest ranks of the American intelligence.

Jack never thought that before he was through with the assignment that he and Yuprov would  be captured and tortured, and Jack barely escapes the fate of death at the hand of his captors by jumping ship into the murky churning waters of the ocean. Jack barely survives drowning and his rescue by two fishermen out at sea and his subsequent transfer to the hospital for treatment once again sets the Russian KGB goons after him from which he barely escapes only to be labeled as the raving lunatic who carried out a massacre at the hospital. Now its not only the KGB that is after his ass but the whole country who is on the lookout before the day is through.

Clara Winston, a romance author who just turned thirty, lives with her old gray Persian cat Puff and two cream and gray Siamese cats Amy and Iris. Clara has always been coached the ways of a proper lady through and through and though Clara yearns to settle down, start a family of her own, she has never been tempted by any of the men who have shared her life albeit for brief moments in time. Clara has always envisioned that she would find a noble and uncomplicated knight in shining armor and settle down and have normal uncomplicated kids someday. She has no inkling of the fact that her dedication in her latest novel to the “Magic Dragon” would land her in a whole different load of trouble and that before the night is through, her home would be invaded by Russian KGB agents and that she would barely escape with her life intact.

Clara first encounters Jack whilst running through the tobacco fields that surrounds her home trying to escape the Russian goons that invaded her home, and though at first Jack thinks that Clara is in cahoots with the KGB, to Clara’s surprise Jack finds the whole story of her book dedication a source of mirth and merriment and a dumbfounded Clara is advised by the roughneck who stands in front of her to take a vacation and get the hell out of the country.

Though Clara runs to the town Sheriff and complains, no one really thinks that her home invasion is more than just a burglary gone wrong. And Clara finds herself captured with her cat Puff and once again in the company of the man who was wreaking so much havoc in her life. These two barely escape and runs for their life for all its worth. The immediate dislike that these two have for one another makes for the best of simmering tension that explodes with no bounds before halfway through the novel. The unbelievable flare of red hot passion Clara feels for Jack, someone she doesn’t even like makes her wary at best, but that doesn’t stop her from succumbing to the raw sexuality that Jack effortlessly wields around her.

Before the story is through, Jack and Clara are captured once again, Clara tortured and Jack shot in the chest during their last escape from the Russian goons. My heart was pounding through most of the novel and I couldn’t for the world of me put it down and go to sleep without finding out how the story ends. And like Wild Orchids, I found myself unhappy with the way things ended, as Clara was the one who goes after Jack and yes, Jack welcomes her with open arms but doesn’t Clara deserve a bit of wooing other than a rough trek through the jungles dodging bullets and running for her life just because she unknowingly used Jack’s undercover code name as a dedication in her book? But then again, the story has me sighing all over the rough and tough Jack and wistfully yearning for a Jack of my own.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | BooksOnBoard

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