Ooops, I'm Importing....
and I have no idea what this looks like to anyone following me. If I'm clogging up your feeds, mea culpa!
1
30% DONE
"I hate you," she muttered.
"I am certain you believe you do."
There was a pause as she pondered that. "Wouldn't you rather d-dance?"
He bit back a scoffing laugh. "No." No man, no matter his sexual preferences, would ever choose waltzing over willing lips wrapped wetly around his member.
2
10%
"Two things happen in this closet, kitten. People suck or they fuck." He bent, his breath almost too hot against the sensitive shell of her ear. "But you and I are going to do something different. You and I are going to play."
I have absolutely no idea how to use this site (it's going to take some major tinkering on my part) but it looks good so far.
Hi to everyone I've followed tonight who is following me back -- I hope you see this, I haven't figured out how to talk to anyone yet!!!
Not even gonna rate this -- I sat on my patio in the sun and skimmed this one, plowing through just find out what happened. Great idea, right? Except now I can't remember it. Reserving the rating for the inevitable re-read. :)
It's been awhile since I've picked anything up by la Nora, and it was clear by a couple of pages in that I was reading the work of a polished, established author. (Yet ANOTHER reason I have got to stop picking up those Kindle freebies on Amazon!)
She is sticking to a formula that works for her - the laid back, laconic wit of the handsome small-town cop (of course, he used to be a big-city cop until something brought him back home), the danger trailing the heroine to his backyard, instant attraction between the two with the heroine fighting it every step of the way...She's pulled it off for, what is it, 200 books now? Even if you don't like Nora Roberts, you have to admit she's built a pretty good widget.
The latest "thing" in contemporary romance seems to be the rock star romance. Most of the time I leave these alone - as fairytale-ish as the story would seem, I think they are pretty hard to pull off without being cartoonish.
What drew me to this story was that the rock star in question was one the heroine had had a super-duper teenage crush on. She interviews him for Rolling Stone magazine 22 years later and they fall in love. Cool! That's a double-whammy fairytale if ever I heard one. So I downloaded the sample, got hooked on it (just as Amazon intended) and like a responsible Kindle owner bought the book.
A quick, clean, cute, enjoyable read.Another take on a popular storyline lately in contemporary: heroine in love with her co-worker/boss/best friend, she pines for him until she gets him then realizes he wasn't worth her time and attention. Of course, by then she's fallen in love with new coworker/boss/friend and we have to wait and see if she sees the error of her ways in time.
The story isn't new, but I always like to read these ones just to see how the author gets me from beginning to end. This one didn't disappoint, although I might not remember it a couple of months from now.
Yes, another Kindle freebie. :D
Another freebie from Amazon.
Let me just say this - if this guy existed in real life, the woman he ended up with would have no friends.
She would be like the woman all of us know who is constantly having to explain or apologize for what a complete DICK her husband is. Sure, sure, he loves her to the point of distraction (obsession?) but he's a complete asswipe to everyone around her. So possessive/controlling/desperate. Of course, all of the tortured desperate love that he feels for her can't make a girl feel anything but cherished, right? When your man can't hold you tight enough, have you close enough, fuck you hard enough?
It was a little too much for me. I couldn't help but imagine their relationship a few years into their HEA, thinking that if he doesn't get all that emotion sorted out he'll start using her as a punching bag. I was also not a big fan of the author's writing style in this novella - lots of very short sentences. That are very dramatic. And used to make a point. But can also get very tiresome.
Fans of OTT tough guy Heroes will enjoy this steamy little bit tremendously. I'm going to use the 3-book rule for this author and try some of her other stuff.
2.5 stars
You know how the GR review box starts with the question, "What did you think?" Here's my answer: I thought I was pretty darn disappointed, that's what I thought!
I didn't initially have high expectations for this book until I remembered the reason it was on my tbr in the first place. I've read one other by Jess Michaels (Everything Forbidden and LOVED it) and unfortunately this one didn't appeal to me nearly as much.
I didn't buy the characters, I didn't buy the backstory of either the Hero or heroine, I thought the entire thing smacked of wallpaper and the author merely playing lip service to her romance being a historical. Crap, that makes me sound like a historical romance snob.
I'm not sure exactly what it was about this book that made me feel that way - perhaps it was the seamless way the heroine integrated herself both with the belowstairs staff and the ton at the opera? The ease with which the Hero talks of his love for his mistress-in-training? The future sister-in-law who gives the Hero a rah-rah speech straight out of a modern chick-flick about risking it all for love, and how she would be proud to call this demimondaine a friend? The Hero's father, who does an about-face after realizing his son is in love with his mistress and plans to marry her, also gives him a rah-rah speech and ends by telling him he loves him?
Pffft. All of those probably did it. To be fair, it wasn't a really BAD book, it just didn't do much for me. It felt like a "been there, done that" version of an oft-told story, except with lots of sex and a couple of hints of naughty sexy stuff.
All in all, I'd have to agree with my GR friend Lady Wesley, who said, "Nothing special there." To that comment I'd would add, "Nothing new, either."
2.5 stars.
I think I might possibly be one of the last people in the western hemisphere to read this book. Thanks to Kristen, who read it last week and recc'd it to me. She convinced me to move it up on my tbr and dive in.
Here goes, I thought, and then spent the better part of two days scowling. Mostly at my Kindle as I tried to decipher the meaning in Robin Schone's prose, but sometimes at my husband, who insisted on chatting with me the whole time I was trying to read this. To be fair we ARE married, and I'd complain if he never talked to me either, but for cripes sakes, sometimes a girl just needs to read!!!
(Look out, I spill the entire plot.)
I have GOT to stop picking up free books from Amazon.
I got sucked in by the synopsis on this one, and who could blame me?
"When Addison Hauser gives her heart to her best friend at fifteen, she never expects him to disappear with it. Working the ranch and caring for her alcoholic father after tragedy strikes, she doesn’t have much time to dwell on the hole he left.
Twelve years later, Mack returns to claim her and is reminded why bullies ran from his best friend when she was seven. It isn’t going to be easy to get back in her good graces.
He’s willing to do the work…if he can just keep her from shooting him."
So much story crammed in to 111 pages - hoo boy, this author is busy. That was the whole problem for me with this.
When your initial thought upon finishing a book is, "Oh thank God", it doesn't bode well for the rating. The story of a chubby, tomboyish miss ("an innocent Mississippi wildflower", if you believe the cover copy) who falls in love with the gold-digging husband of her evil stepmother could have been freaking awesome. A rip-roaring, scenery-chewing historical potboiler, in fact, and that's what I was anticipating.
Instead, I got a strangely tame, watered-down, BORING novel - with an evil stepmother who doesn't really do much evil stuff, an "impossible" love that doesn't seem that difficult, obstacles that aren't much more than anthills and characters that I didn't really give 2 you-know-whats about. Oh, and happy slaves who not only sing while they pick cotton, but they also as they walk home from the fields at night, so the whole plantation is alive with the sound.
Our Hero, Stuart Edwards, starts out promising enough - he slaps the heroine for calling his new wife a whore, and gives every indication he is an old-skool alpha just looking to give someone a spanking. Unfortunately, before long he reveals himself to be a sheep in wolf's clothing and much of his appeal (including a super-hairy chest and rock hard thighs) was lost for me. He was really a NICE GUY, thoughtful and kind, and truly in love with the "headstrong Jessie Lindsay" (again, thank you, cover copy).
Speaking of the headstrong Jessie Lindsay - she was one of those heroines who, once she loses the layer of baby fat and new dresses, becomes the most beautiful thing in 3 counties. Yeah, whatever. The cover copy says she's headstrong but the you don't see much of it.
The big secret? His real name is Clive McClintock, he's a gambler and he killed Stuart Edwards Taken care of nicely. Even somewhat realistically, I thought.
The scandal? Glossed over, cleaned up and tied with a bow.
I generally like Karen Robards, but I wouldn't recommend this one.
2 stars.
Well. A gander at Goodreads has set my mind at ease. The reason the heroine has an answering machine with a tape is because this book was written in 1998! Cripes, for a couple of minutes I thought I was going nuts.This is currently free on Amazon and touted as a new release. The author must have gotten the rights back to her old books, methinks.
Anyhoo, a standard, run-of-the-mill contemporary romance with an impossibly beautiful, pregnant heroine and a super-hot handyman Hero, marred slightly by an implausible secondary love story that felt almost weird to me.
And I can't stand the new cover - my GR friends TJ and Tonya will immediately know why. ;D.
Yeah...the synopsis sounded promising until I got to about the third page and the heroine was thinking to herself that her cunt was throbbing and her clit twitching.Call me a prude, but I STILL don't like that word. And I like it even less when it's a woman referring to her own ladybits that way. Blech.
Not my cuppa, as they say. Onwards and upwards!