Recent Reread

 First read - April 9, 2105

Radiance by Grace Draven I'm so glad I love to reread I just recently picked up the third book of this series. It’s been quite some time since I read a book in this series so I wanted a refresher and figured it was time for a reread of Radiance. When I read the review below again, I realized I couldn’t do a better job. This is still just as beautiful as it was six years ago.     *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* This is a wonderful story of two rather throw away people who were put together for political reasons. Brishen is a warrior and prince, the second son or the spare of the race of Kai. They aren’t quite human and they look very different. Their skin is grey and their eyes are very different than human eyes. They live at night and sleep during the day. Ildiko is the impoverished niece of the king of the Gauri, a human race. It was determined that the two of them marry to shore up a political alliance – marry sight unseen. They run into each other before the wedding and in a very sweet and funny scene, the each agree they find the other one repulsive. It’s not meant to be insulting, more of a matter of fact admission. But what is rather cute is Brishen is very attractive to fellow Kai and Ildiko is very attractive other humans. But this meeting and honest assessment of each other is the basis of a growing deep friendship. Brishen becomes very protective of Ildiko, defending her against his vile family and protecting her from those who would attack her because of the political intrigue resulting from their marriage. Ildiko, on her part, does everything she can to immerse herself into Kai culture and become a helpmeet to her new husband. There is an ever growing respect for each other and I loved the dynamics between the two. This is a true story of friends first and then developing romantic because the friendship does turn deeper and they both see the inner beauty in the other and they slowly fall in love. I loved this book – simply loved it. I liked that the conflict came from outside, not from the hero/heroine. They are united throughout the story. It made very much for an ‘us against the world’ kind of feeling. Though there is a great secondary character, Brishen’s cousin and a warrior in her own right. She is devoted to Brishen and slowly sees that Ildiko is a true mate for him, even though she does come from a different race entirely. Both Brishen and Ildiko are wonderfully written. Brishen is a warrior, but he is also very sharp when it comes to the machinations around him. He’s attentive, protective, and gentle and all that is good to Ildiko and eventually he’s even jealous when he realizes how attractive she is to others. And Ildiko is tender, understanding, compassionate towards Brishen and fierce when it comes to protecting him. They are in fact perfect for each other. While the story did end, and happily so, there is a final little bit that leaves it open for another book and in fact this is called Book 1 in the Wraith Kings. I shall be happily waiting for the next one. In the meantime, I have Master of Crows and Entreat Me by this author to help in the wait. And then of course, I’ll have to reread this one again when the next in this series comes out.

Recent Read

Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer

Why this one:  A friend on GoodReads reviewed it just recently and it called to me

Setting: Georgia just before WWII

Steam Level: Beautifully perfectly perfect warm

My Thoughts:  There are classics in literature, Moby Dick, War and Peace, Oliver Twist and many, many more.  I think the romances of yesteryear have their classics too, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and more. Modern day romance – not so sure if they have what would be considered classics yet or not, it may be too soon, but if they did, I’m sure they would have a book or two by Georgette Heyer, Kathleen Woodiwiss.  And then we come to another author who has written some of what I consider modern day romance classics and that’s LaVryle Spencer.  I’ve read most of her books except for perhaps her last couple before she retired and of all that I’ve read, I truly believe Morning Glory needs to be added to the classics of romance.  I first read this book more years ago than I can remember and I’ve reread it every year or two since then.  I can’t quite remember the last time but I have it on my Ipad and I know I’ve read it since I bought it but when I saw a friend recently post a review on GoodReads, it got the need to reread it again stirring.  And heaven knows when a book starts calling, there is no relief until you answer it.

 This is a beautiful moving story of two very sad and lonely people, how they come together in an enduring gentle love and heal each other with that love.  Will Parker and Elly Dinsmore are characters that have stayed with me since the first time I read this book probably more than 20 years ago.  It’s almost like I’ve absorbed them.

The book opens with Will Parker working at a lumber mill.  He’s only been there 3 days and he’s literally starving.  The book opens just before the second World War and Will has just been released from prison for murdering a prostitute.  We find out details later in the story.  His bully boss finds out this info and dismisses Will on the spot.  Will has just been wandering around the countryside trying to find work and now he’s out of yet another job.  The men laughingly tell him that maybe crazy Elly Dunsmore will take him in.  She has an add up advertising for a husband to help work her farm.  She is known as the local crazy widow woman and her story is just as sad as Will’s.  She was the bastard granddaughter of the town’s religious zealots and was practically locked into the family home with the blinds drawn.  Only after the truant officer found out about her was she allowed out but only to go to school, then back to her prison.  She somehow managed to escape long enough to meet and marry.  But her husband was died in an accident and she has two young boys and is pregnant with her third child and is in desperate circumstances.  Her only option was to look for a husband.  After some thought and due to his own desperate circumstances, Will does go see Elly to check things out.  It’s an awkward meeting, neither one of them real comfortable in dealing with others, Elly because of the isolated way she was raised and Will because of his prison record.  But they manage to come to an agreement and thus starts the most poignant, tender, beautiful, tear inducing books I’ve ever read.  Seriously, I mean it.  If I only had one word – the story is beautiful.

Will has never known love and he sees all he’s ever wanted in the mother that Ellie is.  He falls in love with her partly because of that.  He was an orphan who never knew parents, doesn’t even know his own birthday.  His only friend betrayed him, resulting in his prison sentence.  I think he’s the loneliest, saddest hero I’ve read at the beginning of the book.

Elly is also sad and lonely but not so much.  She has her children and she had a good husband.  Despite or maybe because of her lonely upbringing, Elly has quite a streak of whimsy to her.  She’s actually rather upbeat all things considered and this is just what someone in such a dark place as Will is needs.

Throughout the story, they heal each other.  While she had loved her husband, Will is different.  He’s young, and strong and determined and handsome and he has beautiful eyes.  He loves her two sons and is a wonderful father figure to them. He is loving and very appreciative of everything Elly does both for him and her children.  He never takes anything for granted.  Who wouldn’t fall in love with someone like Will?

And for Will, Elly is everything he couldn’t even have imagined he wanted and needed.  She meets the mothering role he has longed for all his life.  There is a scene where she cuts his hair and one is almost in tears reading just that scene alone.

Slowly, Will gains a sense of pride.  When he first comes to Elly, he’s a broken man.  But with Elly’s help along with Ms. Beasley gets self-respect.  Ms Beasley is the local librarian who helps him when he wants to learn more on different things he fixes around the farm, plumbing, bees, a number of different things.  Ms Beasley is another wonderful character.  She’s starchy and she’s tough and she’s opinionated and she has such a soft heart for Will.  He’s like the son she’s never had and she is a lion in defense of him and when she offers him a job as library custodian, he gains a pride he’s never had before.

And of course there is conflict that comes along in this book.  It takes place in 1941 and the threat of war hangs in the air.  Will knows he is a prime candidate to be called up and wants it to be on his terms.  But Elly is terrified and would rather keep her head in the sand.  Finally the inevitable happens and Will must leave and he joins the Marines.  It turns out that he completely becomes the person he was meant to be.

This part of the book, told through letters, is as wonderful and poignant as the rest of the book and it marks a turning point.  Will comes back but not quite the same person he left.  But now there is another block.  He is being stalked by a woman who refuses to accept the fact he’s not interested.

I really don’t have the words or confidence to completely explain how truly wonderful this book is and how I think it needs to be read at least once by every reader who loves this genre.  Ms. Spencer makes us feel every emotion that Elly and Will in particular experience.  We feel the betrayal that Will feels when his best friend testifies against him during the trial that sends him to jail.  We feel his despair and shame when he brings up the green apples he ate because that was the only thing he could find.  We feel his wonderment over his growing relationship with Ellie’s two boys.  We feel his panic when Ellie insists he be the one to help her give birth and we feel his pride when Ellie gives her new-born daughter his last name.

This is a book that shows, not tells the story and because of that she makes us feel like we are right there with them during their journey to healing and love.  If you check reviews for this book on GoodReads and or Amazon, many reviewers give this higher than 5 stars even though that’s the highest grade allowed.

I might have done a review on Morning Glory before - I can't remember but having just recently read this book again, it’s timeless, it’s a classic and it only gets better with each reading.

Grade: 5+++ out of 5

Recent Read

Homeward Hearts by Alexis Harrington

Why this one: It's a reread of an oldie but goodie

Steam Level: very nice indeed

My Thoughts:

I’ve noticed that more and more older books are being rereleased as ebooks and I am loving this.  I’m rediscovering authors I’ve lost track of.  My latest ebook glom is Alexis Harrington.  This works out well as I’m also in a Western Frame of Mind at the moment.

 

The first one up is Homeward Hearts.  Ms. Harrington tends to write poignant tales about people battered by life and this one is a good example.  Chloe Maitland is a bossy young woman who has to fend for herself in a dying town named Misfortune after her blacksmith alcoholic father drinks himself to death.  He was the only family she had and with the mortgage coming due soon, she is in a difficult situation.  She places and add for a blacksmith but can only provide room and board, no real wages until after the amount needed for the mortgage is earned. She is being courted by the local teacher, a bland useless kind of man.  She’s not really keen on him, but she’s lonely.  Because of her bossy ways, though with a tender heart, she has no real friends.

 

Travis McGuire answers her add, but before he can start, he needs to be tended to as he walked a long ways to Misfortune in the boiling sun and is now suffering from a bad case of heat stroke.

Chloe and Travis clash from almost the beginning.  A lot of times I don’t really like bickering protagonists, but in Homeward Hearts, it was their way of bonding and getting to know each other.  Travis had his own issues.  He’d spent a number of years in jail for murdering his adulterous wife but he was innocent.  Because of this and the fact that he is being hunted by a bounty hunter bound to take him back to jail.  He has no family left either and I loved this story of two lonely people finding each other .

It’s been a number of years since I’d read any books by Alexis Harrington though not long ago I purchased one as an ebook.  I checked to see which one while I was reading this one and did a quick little happy dance when I realized it was a sequel to this book; the bounty hunter’s story.  I started reading it last night right after I finished this book and I’ve also purchased 3 more by this author I first read years ago. 

I really hope a whole new generation of readers who enjoy Westerns discover this author and maybe some older authors rediscover her.  She really is good

 

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

 

'til later

I just can't quit you Book

 

 

 

It's said that women and men are from two different planets when it comes to communication, but how can they overcome the obstacles of prehistoric times when one of them simply doesn’t have the ability to comprehend language?

 

Ehd’s a caveman living on his own in a harsh wilderness. He’s strong and intelligent, but completely alone. When he finds a beautiful young woman in his pit trap, it’s obvious to him that she is meant to be his mate. He doesn’t know where she came from; she’s wearing some pretty odd clothing, and she makes a lot of noises with her mouth that give him a headache. Still, he’s determined to fulfill his purpose in life – provide for her, protect her, and put a baby in her.

 

Elizabeth doesn’t know where she is or exactly how she got there. She’s confused and distressed by her predicament, and there’s a caveman hauling her back to his cavehome. She’s not at all interested in Ehd’s primitive advances, and she just can’t seem to get him to listen. No matter what she tries, getting her point across to this primitive, but beautiful, man is a constant – and often hilarious – struggle.

 

With only each other for company, they must rely on one another to fight the dangers of the wild and prepare for the winter months. As they struggle to coexist, theirs becomes a love story that transcends language and time.

 

This hasn’t happened for a while – in fact not since I read Broken Wing, but I can’t move on from this darn book.  I’ve tried but it’s just not working.  It’s got stuck inside me like an ear worm song and I find myself thinking about it at most unusual times.  So I’ve had no choice but to answer the book siren call.

 Despite the fact that there is no conversation in the whole book between hero and heroine, the inner dialogue of the hero is so compelling.  This book is far from perfect technically and if a more technical reader challenged me on some of the inconsistencies, I would so give it to them.  But EMOTIONALLY this book is damn near perfect and since I have strong emotional reactions when reading, this book has gotten to me in a big way.  It has a very emotional ending and the first time I read it, I choked up and even went so far as to CRY.  I’m not a crier and holding back those tears even made my throat hurt more.

 

I tried moving onto another book after this but it didn’t work, I couldn’t forget Ehd, Beh and Transcendence so there was no other option but to reread it again.  When I finished it this time, I was at work and again got all choked up.  It was my break and there were people around so I couldn’t let the tears flow.

 

 

 

 

Having read it a second time I tried to move on to another book but once again found that any book I tried paled in comparison.  I even tried rereading another book I’ve love just to kick start me on but again it didn’t work and I had no choice but to give into it and read it a third time in a row.  This time I was doing the cottage thing, having a wonderful time when I came to the end.  And for the third time got all choked up. But again I couldn’t give in to the tears that wanted to flow.  How would I explain to 4 other women, 2 teenage boys and 3 dogs that I was crying over a romance about a cave man and a woman who came from the future.  One that I had just finished reading twice before – in a week!  In a week filled with frivolity, that would have been just too weird.

 It’s still calling to me though. I have started a couple of other books since then and I can tell they are good and normally I would really enjoy them, but once more, I don’t know how far I’ll get  before the compulsion comes over me again.

 

Am I the only one that has this kind of reaction to a book?  It's more than a desire to read it again.  It's a NEED!  I read Broken Wing FIVE times before I could move on.  I wonder how many times with this book.........

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Recent Reread

After the Night by Linda Howard

Why this one: Since all my coworkers on my team at work know that I'm a huge fan of romance, some are quite open to reading some that I recommend. I've been looking for books I think will suit them and I thought this book might work for one of them. But before I brought it to her, I started rereading it again myself.

Steam Level: Perfection! A nice, steamy read.

Blurb: SHE RETURNED TO UNCOVER OLD SECRETS...AND NEW DESIRES --

FAITH DEVLIN -- A poor, outcast child in Prescott, Louisiana, she'd always adored the town's golden boy from afar. But he called her white trash that sultry Southern night when his rich, respected father disappeared, along with her pretty Mom. Now Faith wanted to hate Gray Rouillard...not to feel a powerful surge of desire. But she couldn't quench her passion, any more than she could hide the truth about the past she had waited so long to unravel...

GRAY ROUILLARD -- Even when he raised hell, he did it with style. Reckless, charming, and backed by Rouillard money, Gray controlled the town of Prescott - and Devlin was a name he never wanted to hear again. But when he gazed at Faith Devlin, all he saw was a swirl of tangled sheets and her silken flesh beneath him. To care for her was impossible, unthinkable...because Gray Rouillard planned to use all his power to ruin her...


My Thoughts: It's real hard to pin down my favourite Linda Howard book. She's written some pretty amazing books. But whichever one is my current fave, After the Night is right up there with it.

A lot of readers have read this one already since it's one of her older books so instead of going over the storyline, I'll just explain why I love this one so much.

Faith Devlin! I just love the character of Faith. She was raised in one of the trashiest families ever. Her father and older brothers were drunks. Her mother slept around with just about anyone who wanted her and her older sister was headed strongly in the same direction as Renee, her mother. Faith had a younger brother she was almost the sole caretaker for. There is a very painful scene near the beginning of the book which happens in earlier times. Gray, the hero later on in the book, has just learned that his father left town with Renee, Faith's mother and after hearing this, his sister has attempted suicide. Grey is enraged and goes to the shack that Faith and her family live in and with a group of sheriff's men, throws Faith and her family out. As a young Faith has loved Gray her entire life, she is traumatized by this event.

The story then picks up much later when Faith, realizing her mother didn't leave town with Guy all those years ago, travels back to Prescott to confront the place of her childhood trauma and is again thrown out of the hotel room she's staying at by Gray.

Faith is an incredible heroine and my all time favourite. She came from such a bad place and is now a strong young woman who has made a success of her life. She's a lot stronger than she used to be and is able to stand up to Gray even though she still has very strong feelings for him and not let him push her around. Because of the way she was raised, she went in the opposite direction and has a very strong moral code. There is a very compelling attraction between her and Gray and he really puts pressure on her to give into the attraction, but she holds firm, not giving in and allowing him to think her the tramp her mother and sister were. Her strength of character is what makes this book so gripping for me.

Gray! I've seen that a lot of readers don't like his character and I can see why. He's alpha to the max and sometimes he does go beyond to the point of cruelty. There is one scene where he and Faith finally give into their desire for each other and his words to her after are just plain nasty. If Faith wasn't such a strong character herself and able to stand up for herself against him, I wouldn't like him either. But he does have insight into how unfair he has been with Faith in the past, and while Faith doesn't realize it for a while, he does respect her and what she has made of her life.

The love scenes are smokin'. There is one scene that when discussing this books with others who have read it and you say "washroom scene" they immediately know what you are talking about. It's hot and it's funny and it's one of the most memorable sex scenes in romance books. The love scenes are combustible in this book.

The mystery. Faith has come back to town to find out what really happened that night that changed her world only to discover that Guy was never heard from again. She is determined to find out what really happened. In a lot of romantic suspense, one takes a back seat to the other, but in After the Night, both are equally well done.

I think I reread this book once a year - I know it almost off by heart now. But that hasn't lessened my enjoyment of this fabulous book one bit.

Grade: always has been and always will be - 5 out of 5

Recent ReRead

Once a Pirate by Susan Grant

Why this one: As you can tell, this is a reread. And as to why - it called to me. Really! It did. It was on the bed right out in plain sight in the computer room and I saw it every time I was in the room. I don't know how it got there - must have traveled up from 'the Library' late one night while I was sleeping. Every time I saw it, it whispered a little louder until I could no longer deny it's call.

Steam Level: Oh yea.

Blurb:
Once A Pirate
Andrew Spencer sailed the seas seeking revenge, and there were very few merchants' treasures that he hadn't given a jolly rogering. But on this particular voyage, he found his task harder than usual. As a brown-eyed beauty was hoisted from the waves, he found his pirate's soul plundered from without and a fiery need conjured up from within.

Forever Her Man
The freak storm that caused her plane to go down in the Atlantic sent fighter pilot Carly Callahan's life spinning out of control as well. Pulled from the freezing ocean, she found herself in the hot embrace of an Adonis. But his eyes were cold and hard, and the man's burning lips swore she was someone else before he claimed her as his own. Carly knew she had one chance to go home, but there was so much to see and feel here-and the best was yet to come.

My Thoughts: You say you can't buy a book by it's cover. Well, I'm shallow and I'll often buy a book if it has a good cover. But the opposite shouldn't hold true. Despite it's horrid man titty, wind blowing hair, this is one heck of a good read. I'd read a couple of Ms. Grant's later books and quite enjoyed them so I ordered this one.

As well as ignoring the cover, you might be best to kind of ignore the back cover blurb too. I mean seriously - " jolly rogering", "a brown-eyed beauty was hoisted from the waves", "his pirate's soul plundered from without and a fiery need conjured up from within". Shudder. Whoever wrote this should have been demoted.

Instead, this is a wonderful story with a great hero (and a nice ordinary name) and an equally great heroine.

I first blogged about this book in 2006 and I'm happy to say I enjoyed it just as much in 2010 as I did in 2006