Category / Good Read

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Cheyenne Amber by Catherine Anderson

Format: E-bookcheyenneamber
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Sensuality: 3
Publisher: HarperTorch
Hero: Deke Sheridan
Heroine: Laura Cheney
Date of Publication: March, 1994
Started On: February 26, 2010
Finished On: February 28, 2010

This title seems to be one that is pretty popular with Catherine Anderson’s fans. Maybe because I started reading the book with a lot of high expectations based on the raving reviews this book has received, I found myself sort of perplexed as to why readers found this title to be such a great romance. Believe me the book was interesting enough, but it just doesn’t seem that remarkable a story to me though the story had its good moments.

Laura Cheney comes from gentle breeding and a rich family. Tristan, then her husband married her thinking he could get his grubby hands on Laura’s money but her father, who had always been cold towards Laura ever since Laura’s mom died during childbirth cut all ties from her after she wed Tristan. Then everything went downhill for Laura, where Tristan turned abusive physically and emotionally towards her just to get her money’s worth from her body and soul. He moves her from all that’s familiar to her to Colorado and sets her up in the rough countryside where stories of Indians butchering and torturing the whites seem to echo throughout the mountains that surround her home.

Laura is left to her own vices and she gives birth to her son Jonathan all alone. Meanwhile Tristan goes for mustang rounding with a couple of rough Mexicans who bring a whole new meaning to the word cruel. Tristan who always had a thing for gambling, gambles away and offers his wife as the prize when he loses to Gonzales the head of the rough Mexican crowd. Gonzales kills Tristan without thinking twice about it to claim Laura and sell her across the border for pretty a penny, after all his gang members have had their fill of the pretty lady.

However a turn of events end Gonzales and his gang with Jonathan to lure the pretty white haired Laura into their clutches. Frantic and fatigued beyond anything Laura tries to find someone who would help her track down those who snatched away her baby and the sheriff points her towards Deke Sheridan. Though he is white in origins, he was brought up by Cheyennes and is named Flint Eyes. Rough around the edges with an air of danger always around him, Deke is the best tracker around. Though Deke at first refuses to help Laura, something about her reaches into the cold realms of his heart and before he knows it he is saddled with a woman whose determination to find her baby is unlike anything Deke has ever encountered before.

Suspicious by nature about white people in general, whilst Laura is more than suspicious about anyone who has an Indian heritage, these two make a striking team when they start off on the rough and unforgiving barren land towards tracking those who kidnapped Jonathan. As much as Laura would like to wash her hands off of Deke, she knows that he is her only hope and thus has no choice but to trust him with her life.

Laura’s stubbornness in not admitting that she is sick after her childbirth nearly kills Deke and Laura to be saved in the nick of time by Deke’s Cheyenne tribe. There within the Indians, Laura comes to learn the real man behind the rough facade that Deke puts up to the rest of the world and comes to treasure the way of life of the Indians about whom Laura had always heard the worst things possible.

What irked me the most in this novel was the fact that Deke who deserved her utmost trust when he did nothing to deserve otherwise had to work the hardest to gain it. Whilst at the beginning of the novel, Laura was thinking of trying to make her marriage to the undeserving Tristan work, Laura doesn’t want to trust Deke, who nurses her back to health when she was on the brink of death after childbirth. I just found the notion kind of difficult to swallow. If someone such as Deke treated me the way Deke treats Laura I wouldn’t have hesitated to embrace him with all I have got. Maybe that’s just me. But I guess this whole novel didn’t rate so highly with me because of that.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Against the Rules by Linda Howard

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Silhouette Intimate Moments #22
Sensuality: 3
Publisher: Mira
Hero: Rule Jackson
Heroine:  Cathryn Ashe
Date of Publication: October 1, 1983
Started On: February 2, 2010
Finished On: February 3, 2010

Linda Howard is absolutely one of the best romance writers out there. I stumbled upon her  books quite by chance and nearly devoured up all her work in a short period of time. Maybe this is the reason why that I forgot that I had once read this book, and it was only nearly at the end of the book that I realized that I had actually read this book during my initial Linda Howard crazed phase.

Linda Howard writes romances with strong alpha heroes that never fails to entice us women readers. They are strong, stubborn to a fault and oh yes when they do fall, they fall that much harder which makes us women wring our hands and go into a major sighing session. This book is no exception to this rule and it wouldn’t be a crime to say that Rule Jackson is one delicious hero.

Rule and Cathryn were neighbors when they were growing up. Back then Rule had been a happy boy, although intense in nature. However everything changed when Rule was enlisted to go fight in the Vietnam war. Upon his return, Rule had changed into someone entirely different. Gone was the happy carefree young man, instead a sullen, dangerously silent man remained. Getting into endless trouble over time and going on day long drinking binges finally took its toll and at Rule’s weakest moment, Cathryn’s father Ward took him in and gave him a second chance at living.

Given the vast age difference between Cathryn and Rule, it was to Rule that her father left the management of the ranch upon his sudden death. Cathryn has never felt comfortable at all around Rule and things finally come to their explosive conclusion when Cathryn loses her virginity to Rule in succumbing to the combustive passion they find in each other. Seventeen then, Cathryn scared out of her wits at what she has discovered flees to pursue her higher studies and then marries David.

Now twenty five years of age, Cathryn once again returns home a widow, and Rule stakes his claim on Cathryn from the moment she steps off the plane. Though Cathryn cannot deny her all consuming love for Rule, she cannot be sure whether Rule feels the same way about her. Of course it doesn’t help that Cathryn’s half sister Richy thinks she is in love with Rule as well and tries to poison the fragile bond  between Cathryn and Rule with malicious innuendo at every turn.

A good read, romance as it should be!

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Chicago Stars, Book 2
Sensuality: 3
Publisher: Avon
Hero: Bobby Tom Denton
Heroine:  Gracie Snow
Date of Publication: January 1, 1995
Started On: February 1, 2010
Finished On: February 1, 2010

Though this book wasn’t as satisfying as the last two of the Chicago Stars series that I read, Bobby Tom and Gracie’s is pretty charming in its own way. Gracie Snow, having grown up and worked with old people all 30 years of her life, has never experienced the deep gut wrenching passion that people always talk about. But things make a drastic turnabout when she is hired by the company that is shooting the first movie that ex-Chicago Star football player Bobby Tom has signed onto star in. A fatalistic knee injury which had cut his fantastic football career short, Bobby Tom is a man at odds who doesn’t know what to do with his life when all he has known is to play football and the live the life that goes along with being a football player.

From the moment Gracie sees Bobby Tom, its lust at first sight. Here was a man who could show her everything that she has been missing all her life, though Bobby Tom doesn’t show the slightest inclination that he found her even the least bit attractive, not surprising when he is always surrounded by beautifully made up blonde women with massive chests of which Gracie is the polar opposite. However, this doesn’t deter her from the job she has been handed, that is to drag Bobby Tom’s ass to the movie site so that they could start with the shoot.

However, things hardly go according to plan when Bobby Tom refuses to budge even an inch and leave with Gracie on the flight as planned. Gracie forces Bobby Tom to take her along on the road trip that Bobby would rather take to his hometown (where the movie is to be shot to revive the local economy), and finally they arrive after many detours 3 days later than her boss expected them to. Fired for incompetence Gracie is rehired upon Bobby’s insistence and an arrangement is struck with the producer so that Gracie wouldn’t ever find out that it is actually Bobby who is paying Gracie’s salary.

Before even half way through the novel, Gracie acknowledges that her feelings towards Bobby Tom has turned into love, which she vows Bobby Tom would receive and Gracie be the first person in his life to actually give something to him without expecting something in return.

However, things hardly go according to plan as matters of the heart have a way of their own and to worm its way into someone who has put up such a strong shield against all those women who seem to throw themselves at him, it proves to be a tough journey towards facing the inevitable truth in their feelings towards one another.

A nice little side story of Bobby’s mother and the town’s bad boy Way makes things a bit more enticing for the reader. All in all a pretty good read, recommended for those who love novels with a quirky sense of humor, passion and love.

Purchase Links: Amazon

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Hold by Zannie Adams

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle
Length: Novel
Genre: Futuristic Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Ellora’s Cave
Sensuality: 3.5
Hero: Cain
Heroine:  Riana
Date of Publication:  November 2, 2007
Started On: January 18, 2010
Finished On: January 18, 2010

I usually don’t read romance of the futuristic genre or those of the fantasy genre. However this read was quite okay considering the fact I rarely foray into reading such genres.

The time period in which this story takes place is unknown. However it is a time in which all inhabited planets are ruled by a group called the Coalition, which I took to mean that maybe a group representing all planets had got together to maintain law and order amongst the galaxies.

The Hold is a prison that is maintained by this Coalition. Although the sentences passed out by the said Coalition is swift, it is hardly fair or rather harsh life imprisonment sentences are passed out, even to those who are undeserving of such a sentence at a time where capital punishment is forbidden. The Hold lies on a planet that is not habitable by humans and thus this prison is built deep within the poisonous waters of the seas that cover the planet Genus 6. Inside the Hold it is each prisoner for him or herself. Rather than cells that hold prisoners, all of them are clumped together in one area and the guards that overlook the prisoners never interfere with what goes on inside the holding mega cell.

Riana, an archaeologist who works at a university on Earth, commits unknowingly the crime of digging in the wrong place at the wrong time. She is sentenced to life imprisonment at the Hold, and it is the advice of one of the guards there that she scout out the strongest man at the prison and seek protection with him from the rest by giving herself unto him.

It is during Riana’s introductory ‘tour’ of the Hold that she sees Cain, a prisoner who keeps to himself and is the only one who has a cell in the mega cell that holds all the prisoners. Cain rescues Riana just in time from the other lecherous prisoners and in due turn, Riana gives herself completely to this fierce and rather intimidating prisoner who slowly manages to get into Riana’s heart.

Although I do not agree with all the concepts outlined in this novel, I can relate to giving yourself up if your survival depended on it. Like all novels written by Zannie Adams, this too is a well written novel, easy to read with a high dose of sensuality to it.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: E-mail Order Bride by Kathy Lynn Emerson

Format: E-book
Read with: Adobe Reader
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Belgrave House
Hero: Chase Forster
Heroine: Leslie Baynton
Date of Publication:  April 1, 1998
Started On: January 11, 2010
Finished On: January 12, 2010

Previously titled as Sight Unseen, this is a sweet romance coupled with an instant family and the problems that go along with such a family. Chase Forster, a probation officer in the local office of the department of corrections, meets Leslie Baynton in an online chat forum designed for mystery book lovers. Leslie a shy woman in her 30’s finds that she and Chase share a lot of stuff in common and their friendship continues to grow online. Exchange of e-mails daily gives glimpses and insight into the lives of each other and although both of them seems to be curious to meet one another face to face, none of them wants to voice their desire to do so.

Their friendship continues until during a moment of impulse, Chase asks Leslie to be his e-mail order bride. Chase has been handed over the responsibility of taking care of his niece Calico and Jeremy his nephew both in their teens,  of his deceased brother Jake. Jake and his various forays into criminal activities had finally ended up in killing himself, whilst his wife had ended up in jail for writing fraudulent checks. Leslie who has never had kids of her own but yearns for them with her only experience with kids being the relationship she has with her close to perfect niece and nephew, really has no idea what she is in for.

Leslie and Chase meet and find that they are comfortable with each other in real life as in the cyber world and both feel the immense attraction that crops up during the first meeting. Marriage which seemed to be a practical solution and one of mutual benefit to both Chase and Leslie turns out to be a journey of discovery of feelings that continue to grow between them as well as the relationship that starts to forge between a troubled Jeremy who wants to make things for Leslie as difficult as possible.

A book that portrays love, passion and real family problems, this book is a sweet and heartwarming read that would leave you feeling good on the inside afterwards.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble| BooksOnBoard

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: A Kiss Remembered by Sandra Brown

Format: Paperback
Read with: Paperback
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Hero: Grant Chapman
Heroine: Shelley Browning
Date of Publication: April 1, 2003
Started On: December 15, 2009
Finished On: December 16, 2009

This was a book that was published when Sandra Brown wrote using her pseudonym Erin St. Claire for the Silhoutte Desire series and is a classic love story. Shelley Browning meets Grant Chapman as her high school teacher during which time Shelley was infatuated with the handsome teacher with whom each and every girl in high school had secretly had a crush on. The student-teacher relationship between the two is shattered on a moment that takes both of them unawares and Grant kisses Shelley.

Grant leaves the high school teaching position and pursues a political career in Washington, whilst Shelley marries a man whose passion is to become a well-known doctor and wastes away 10 years of her life working towards fulfilling his goal when ultimately he divorces her citing that he has outgrown her.

Shelley once again meets an older, a more compelling and sexier Grant who pursues her with relentless passion to see whether the kiss that had been with both of them through the years apart could grow into something more.

As with most older romance novels, the problems are trivial, but the story is a great one to sink into, if a light romance is the order of the day.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Seduction by Amanda Quick

Format: E-book
Read with: Adobe Reader
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Bantam Books
Hero: Julian, Earl of Ravenwood
Heroine: Sophy Dorring
Date of Publication: March 1, 1990
Started On: December 2, 2009
Finished On: December 4, 2009

Found this book whilst browsing through FictionDB. I quite enjoyed this book, the story of how Julian, the Earl of Ravenwood, sophisticated and cynical about women in general after a disastrous marriage which ended up with his wife murdered and community folk in general whispering in corners that Julian had killed off his wife due to her nefarious ways, weds Sophy Dorring, brought up in the countryside, thinking that she would be the docile little wife that Julian wants, someone who wouldn’t get into all the trouble his first wife Elizabeth had always been found in.

Julian is in for a surprise when at first Sophy refuses his marriage proposal put forth through her grandfather. Shocked that someone who hadn’t impressed the ton during her coming out, who hadn’t got a single marriage proposal during the time, and quite past the age where the ladies of the ton got married, with very little inheritance to offer and just passable looks had the gall to refuse a godsend of an offer, Julian confronts Sophy on her trip back from an old friend of hers who grows medicinal herbs, a subject of much interest to Sophy.

Ultimately, these two wed, each of them having bargained for a set of conditions to be met, which Julian finds out to be unconventional and fascinating at the same time. Sophy’s conditions being that they wouldn’t consummate their marriage till a three month period during which Sophy and Julian should get to know one another better, her choice of reading material which is far and wide never be influenced by her husband and that she never be cast off to a home in the country side whilst Julian traverses in the city.

Julian quickly realizes the errors in his agreeing to the first condition, when he finds himself in lust with his new wife, whom he tries to seduce, but backfires on him in the most hilarious ways possible. I found myself laughing out loud several times whilst reading through bits of conversation between Julian and Sophy as well as the situations that Sophy tended to land herself in, not the docile and meek wife that Julian had bargained for at all.

To make things more interesting, upon realizing that trying to make Julian fall in love with her when to Sophy’s point of view that Julian had never got over the grief and pain caused to him by his first wife, pursues her little project of finding out who drove her sister to take the life of herself and the baby that she was carrying. With only a black ring of a crude design the only clue as to whom her sister had been holding clandestine meetings with, Sophy embarks upon a mission to make the man who made use of her sister pay for what he had done.

Things get interesting from this moment forward. Sophy and her quirky and eccentric friends help her in their ways to find out what the ring symbolizes, unraveling something far too dangerous that could cost Sophy her life in the end.

All in all, this was quite a fun read which I enjoyed immensely. With a surprising villain in the end, at least it was for me, this book proved to be a ‘seductive’ read which was hard to put down.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: A Few Good Men by Tori Carrington

Format: E-bookA Few Good Men
Read with: Stanza
Length: Short Stories
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Harlequin
Series: Uniformly Hot, Book 1
Hero: 4 heroes
Heroine: 4 heroines
Date of Publication: January 1, 2009
Started On: October 2009
Finished On: October 28, 2009

Tori Carrington is one of my favorite authors of the Blaze line in the Harlequin series. When I first found this author, I was surprised to know that Tori Carrington is the name used by Tony Karayianni and Lori Schlachter (husband and wife) who write these delectable books together. Their books are totally hot and tend to give great story lines as well.

A Few Good Men is a collection of four stories about men who serve in the military and their lives back in their home country. Each story is relatively short, thus wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been, though issues were hastily resolved so that it wasn’t a total waste of time to read these four short stories.

The four absolutely hot men in these novels are Corporal Eric Armstrong, Corporal Eddie Cash, Lieutenant Matt Guerrero and Captain Brian Justice. From the four of these stories, I didn’t read Brian’s story because it didn’t seem to interest me that much. Of the three that I DID read, I would have to say I loved Eric’s story the best.

Eric, while on duty in Afghanistan/Iraq, starts meeting up with a woman online. And it turns out to be his best friend’s wife. His best friend was killed whilst on duty. This story, if it had been a long one, would have made a very satisfying read, although it wasn’t half bad as a short story.

Corporal Eddie has an affair with a woman whilst on leave, and goes back on duty to find out that she is pregnant with his child. Eddie’s story is pretty sweet considering how he tries to woo the mother of his child, without really knowing how to go about it, except for the fact that he is a pretty decent guy and wants to do everything according to his well laid out plan, which tends to backfire on him at moments. This too could have made a great story, but I wouldn’t wanted to have read it as a long novel.

Finally Matt’s story is slightly different, such that he is married and has three kids of whom two are teenagers. I felt that Matt’s story was too rushed, and there was really no resolution of the problems that both Matt and his wife had actually being having.

All in all, this book is a good read to pass the time. Could have been better if all books could have been published as full length novels.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: You’ve Got Male by Elizabeth Bevarly

Format: E-bookyouvegotmale.jpg
Read with: Stanza
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Series: Spy Quartet, Book 1
Publisher: Harlequin
Hero: Dixon
Heroine: Avery Nesbitt
First Published on: October 1, 2008
Started On: October 2009
Finished On: October 21, 2009

Being the first book that I have ever tried from this author, I would have to say that it was a pretty good read.

Avery Nesbitt, the heroine is this genius computer buff who created a virus that would have halted all cyber traffic across the world, and this too when she was a teenager by accident, her motive being to teach her cheating boyfriend a lesson he would  never forget, ends up doing time in jail. Her family, the overly wealthy Nesbitts, cut her off from that day onwards. After 2 years, being released from prison, Avery sets up her own techie firm and has been living alone with her cat, and suffers from agoraphobia i.e. the fear of being out in open spaces. Then she meets Mr. Supposedly prince charming online, whom she finds to be cheating on her again.

Unknown to Avery, Dixon, who works in this un-nameable organization set in the US government after 9/11, has been tracking her online activity without much success, because the one agent who went rogue on them is actually the Mr. Supposedly Prince Charming that Avery has been in contact with. Avery is taken into custody, a deal made with her, so that Dixon and Avery has to work together to bring this rogue agent to justice by luring him to meet Avery out in the open.

The story that follows is pretty charming and romantic as well. I got to learn a lot about this new phobia (since there are so many, one can never keep track of all of em’). Dixon is the super sexy type of hero that any heroine would fall in love with immediately. And throw into the mix the crazy Nesbitt family, you’ve got a hell of a novel on your hands.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | iTunes

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Slightly Shady by Amanda Quick

Format: Hardcoverslightly
Read with: Hardcover Edition
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Lavinia Lake and Tobias March – 1
Publisher: Wheeler Publishing
Hero: Tobias March
Heroine: Lavinia Lake
Published on: May 2001
Started On: September 2009
Finished On: October 2009

This is the first book that I have read of this author; Amanda Quick an alias used by Jayne Ann Krentz. This book starts off in Rome, when Tobias barges into the antique shop that Lavinia and her niece had established in order to get by, after being cheated off by the lady with which they had made the journey from London.

Her antique shop shattered on the accounts from Tobias that the shop was being used by a vicious criminal organization for communication amongst their members by hiding messages in the antiques in the shop Lavinia and her niece finds themselves sent off to London and these two meet once again when Lavinia upon being blackmailed by someone, finding out who the blackmailer is, comes to his place to find that someone had murdered him and in the process finds Tobias at the scene who is in search for the diary that the blackmailer was using.

Then begins the rather fascinating journey these two embark upon after forming an uneasy alliance to find the diary before it reaches the wrong hands once again, with Lavinia changing her profession to become a private investigator like Tobias. Desire, passion and love takes a backstage in this novel, which had me laughing at the quirky dialogues between the two and the really funny situations that these two found themselves in at times.

The story ends with a rather unique twist, which I would say that I didn’t really foresee coming.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | iTunes

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