Recent Reads

Outlaw Hearts by Rosanne Bittner

Why this one:  I LOVE THIS BOOK

Genre: Western

Steam Level: pert ‘near perfect

Outline: At twenty, Miranda Hayes had known more than her share of heartache and loss. Widowed by the war, orphaned by a vicious band of rebel raiders, she was a woman alone in a harsh, unyielding frontier. Then she clashed with the notorious gunslinger Jake Harkner, a hard-hearted loner with a price on his head, and found within herself a deep well of courage...and feelings of desire she'd never known.

Hunted by lawmen and desperadoes alike, haunted by his brutal past, Jake had spent a lifetime on the dusty trail--and on the run. Until he met a vibrant, honey-haired beauty who was determined to change his violent ways, who loved him enough to risk her life to be his woman...an outlaw's woman.

From the vast plains of the Midwest across the Oregon Trail to the sun-drenched valleys of southern California, from the blazing Nevada desert to the boomtowns of Colorado, Miranda and Jake struggled to endure amid the perils of a lawless wilderness. In a world of heart-stopping danger and burning desire, could their hard-won love survive the shadows that stalked their happiness?

 

My Thoughts: Take this review I did last year:

I read this book years ago when it first came out and it blew me away at first reading. I’ve reread it a number of times since then and I've loved it more every time.

Jake Hackner is an outlaw. Pure and simple he’s a bad guy. He’s in town loading up on supplies when Miranda Hayes accidentally shoots him. He manages to get away and heads out of town. He finally holes up at a farm to recover a bit. Little does he know the farm he ended up belongs to Miranda. She is a young widow whose husband died in the Civil War. After raiders kill her father and take most of their belongings she decides to head out west to look for her younger brother.

She finds Jake and nurses him back to health. And during this time she sees something good beneath the outlaw exterior. She asks him to take her out west since he is headed the same way, but he refuses.

Later he has a change of heart and decides to look for her to help her. He finds her at station after she’s  been left behind by the wagon train she was with.  She’d been bitten by a snake and the nasty scoundrels were taking advantage of her illness.  Jake saves her and thus begins a truly amazing love story between an outlaw wanting to go straight and an incredibly strong woman. They are desperately in love with each other but time and time again Jake’s outlaw past comes back to try and destroy them.

This is one of those epic type books. It’s a long book coming in at 501 pages with teeny tiny print. It spans over 20 years. Bad things happen to good people and it isn’t always easy to read. Each time I read it, I have to take breaks due to its richness and length. It’s like a truly rich feast that is best eaten slowly in order to savour it.

Jake is one heck of a hero. He’s not all good. He definitely has shades of gray to him. But what saves him is his almost worship of ‘Randy’. He knows he’s no good for her; staying with her can bring her great heartache.

But Randy sees past his outlaw ways into his hidden heart and realizes he is a victim of his early circumstances. She sees the lost little boy inside and that inside he really has a good person wanting to come out. She refuses to let him give up no matter what fate throws at them.

This really is a heart in your throat, breathtaking book. I have a list of about 10 books that seem to stand out above all others. Outlaw Hearts has always been one of them and I know it always will be. So I'm spreading the word early on this one, you don't find much better than this book

 And add a Hell to the Yes!! – even if it is a review I did previously.   I don’t know how many times I’ve read this book now, but it just doesn’t get old and I fall in love with Jake and Randy all over again – not that I ever fell out of love with them.  The love and devotion and passion that exists between them is timeless.  They have to fight so hard to keep it going so that when they do overcome whatever has kept them apart, it’s even better, their coming together.  Randy is the goodness that Jake needs in his life to keep him on the right path when it would be so easy to go off it.  And Randy needs Jake because he needs her.  She sees the goodness in him where no one else does and because he had such an abusive past, she needs to keep reinforcing him that he is good.  He truly does treasure and cherish her, and she stands by him through good times and bad.

She has another book coming out next month with Jake and Randy, apparently one she’s been wanting to write for years now.  I already have it preordered and I can hardly wait until it appears on my kindle.

Grade: 5 out of 5

Will I read it again: A Resounding YES.  Again and again and again.  I can’t get enough of it.

 ~~*~~*~~

Night Whispers by Leslie Kelly

Why This One:  I really enjoyed Bringing Down Sam and Reforming Jake and I really enjoyed them and went searching for some of her back list

Genre: Contemporary

Steam Level: simmers for a while then breaks out into a full boil

Outline: Thanks to her sexy radio talk show, Night Whispers DJ Kelsey Logan has become infamous! Suddenly, men all over Baltimore are desperate to discover the true identity of Lady Love, the sultry siren who keeps them up all night. But the only man Kelsey is desperate to have is sexy, stuffy Mitch Wymore.

Mitch is having a hard time believing that his bratty childhood nemesis has grown into the temptress the whole city's lusting after. A woman he's lusting after. He might have been able to keep his libido under control if Kelsey hadn’t made it clear she wanted to seduce him.

My Thoughts:  Leslie Kelly is a good writer.  I just finished a reread of Outlaw Hearts and loved it all over again.  Sometimes when you finish reading a very good book there is almost a restlessness that comes over while you search for the next book.  But Night Whispers had a very soothing effect on me and was a perfect book to read after.

I like the trope of this story, heroine has had life-long crush on hero but she was just the pesky little sister of his bed bud.  Mitch had mostly lived with Kelsey’s family growing up due to his own lousy home life, but he always felt like he was standing on the outside looking in.  so when Kelsey comes back into his life and things are combustible between them, he’s very reluctant to start anything, not wanting to upset the family who raised him.  But things burn hot between him and Kelsey.  He was kind of wild as a young man but he’s gotten a bit stuffy over the years and Kelsey unstuffs him.  She drives him crazy with some of the things she does, she’s kind of a wild and crazy heroine, and he particularly hates her job, though he does admit she’s very good at being a late night, very seductive DJ.

He finds himself living on the wild side again and he finds he’s enjoying it and falling more and more for Kelsey all the time.

While I didn’t enjoy this quite to the level I did Bringing Down Sam and Reforming Jake, still, it was a very good treat when one was needed.

Grade: 4 out of 5

 

Will I read it again:  Probably not – but NOT and I repeat NOT because I didn’t enjoy it.  But I’m trying to be realistic.  I’m buying books at a very scary pace and I already have so many to read the first time as well and a number that I reread frequently.  If I was much younger, my answer would probably be different though – heh, heh, heh.

 

 ~~*~~*~~

Alex by Irish Winters

Why this one:  No real reason, it’s just where my finger stopped when trying to pick the next book to read

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Steam Level: I’d say warm – not boiling but nice and warm

Outline: He’s trying to forget . . .

Alex Stewart, ex-Marine and tough as nails boss, ditches the success of his fledgling business and flees to his cabin in the deep woods. He’s had enough. Four years after the deaths of his wife and daughter, he’s stuck in the anger stage of grief. He wants to be left alone. Life used to make sense. It just doesn’t bring him joy. Nothing does.

She’s trying to remember . . .

Left to die in those same deep woods, Kelsey is the last thing Alex expects to find at his cabin. She’s everything he’s running away from. Responsibility. Memories. Having to care about someone else beside himself. To make matters worse, she can’t remember anything except her first name. Neither can she explain the marks on her body, nor why two darling baby boys haunt her dreams.

But Alex can . . .

My Thoughts: I struggled with how to rate this book.  I liked the characters, I liked the story but there several plot points left untouched after being introduced and one was a GLARING plot point that was never addressed and since it was MAJOR to the story, the lack of follow-up was very jarring.  And sadly, this was too big a mistake and I can’t ignore that fact and it brings down the grade of this book.

The book opens with Kelsey running through woods and finally collapsing against a wall.  It then switches to Alex, the founder of a group of former army snipers who help out in the world trouble spots.  His own life exploded a few years previously when his wife and young daughter were killed and he hasn’t really recovered since.  He’s full of anger and frustration and decides he needs to get away from it all and visit his very rustic cabin in the woods with his two inherited war dogs.  He comes across Kelsey and can tell right off the bat that she is in very bad shape.  She’s been badly beaten, has scrapes all over her and is in a very weakened condition.  On top of that, when she regains conscious , she has no memory of who she is or what happened to her.  He’s resentful at first, having to take care of her, almost blaming her for the state she’s in, but he very quickly gets past it and sees that she is someone very special.  He falls deeply for her and is determined to help her in whatever it is she needs.  As he is a very angry individual, his almost blaming her goes along with his nature at the time so he reaction didn’t bother me at all and then he is so sweet and protective of her that I really liked him once he took off his grouchy uniform.

Kelsey is a good heroine.  She has gone through some horrendous things that most of can’t even imagine dealing with and a large part of the book is spent with her grieving and finally and slowly being able to move on with her life with the help and support of Alex who has been through that difficult and painful journey himself.

So – what are the problems?  Well for one thing Alex mentions that he’s been married twice. We know of his one wife but nothing else is mentioned about the other one – what happened to her, why did he marry her, was she the first or second wife?  I had all kind of questions running through my head and why start that thread if one isn’t going to do anything with it and just leave it hanging?  But a much worse thread left hanging is the fate of Kelsey’s abuser.  It’s never mentioned and this is such a huge oversight all things considered that it really did spoil what could have been a great book.  It’s a complete fail by the author and I’m very shocked that it wasn’t fixed through editing.

So because of this I don’t know if I can recommend this book.  It should serve as a warning book to authors.  Alex had such great potential to be a 4.5 or even 5 star book, but the author torpedoed that for me by completely ignoring a vital piece of the story.

Grade: 3 out of 5

Will I read this one again:  Sadly no.  Though I do want to try another book by her since it was absolutely not the writing itself, nor the characters that didn't work.  It was a plot hole I couldn't get past.

  ~~*~~*~~

 

Take a Chance on Me by Susan Donovan

Why this one:  I’ve read this book a number of times now and it never fails to cheer me up and make me laugh.

Genre: Contemporary

Steam Level: A nice rolling boil

Outline: They've Got Nothing In Common...
For animal behaviorist Emma Jenkins, romance has been at the bottom of her daily "to do" list since making it through a messy divorce. But everything changes the day six-feet-of-gorgeous Thomas Tobin walks into her office with a quivering Chinese Crested named Hairy, a canine that looks more like an underfed rodent than a dog. Sure Thomas is sending her mixed signals-but that charming smile just sent Emma's dormant sex drive through the roof...

But Animal Attraction-
Thomas isn't looking for a fling. In fact, he wants nothing to do with women. He just wants to know if Hairy witnessed his owner's murder. But something tells him that asking Emma to help him with the case will spell nothing but trouble-trouble in the form of serious temptation.

And the Willingness To Take A Chance On Love
Thomas knows that relying on Emma's expertise-and her soft touch with a weird dog that has somehow become his-may be a crazy way to track a killer. Especially when Emma's down-home warmth makes him want to believe that anything is possible-even true love.

My Thoughts:  This is one of those books that every so often I get an urge to read again.  As I said above it never fails to cheer me up.  The characters are all delightful, each and every one of them, including and almost especially Hairy, the Very Ugly Chinese Crested who is in some ways the real star of this book.  I’m not even a dog person but he is such a hoot.  Sometimes we get his POV and it’s hilarious.

Thomas Tobin is a grouchy bear of a hero – one of my favourite kind.  But he has a reason for his grumpiness.  He’s a lawyer who masquerades as a hit man in order to catch they bad guys who want to have people murdered.  He doesn’t really see the best of mankind in this role.  In addition, he questions his very masculinity when he and a former fiancé were told his ‘swimmers’ were in pretty bad shape and he’s probably never be able to father a child.  His former flame didn’t take the news so well and really did a number on him.

He meets animal behaviourist and heroine Emma Jenkins when he kind of inherits this ugly, traumatized Chinese Crested dog Hairy when one of Thomas’ informants is murdered and Hairy was his dog.  Hairy is very high maintenance and the advice that Emma offers Thomas to help poor Hairy out is LOL hilarious and almost makes Thomas squirm in embarrassment.  Both Thomas and Emma are wildly attracted to each other but both have issues.  Emma’s ex has done as big/bad a number on her as Thomas ex did on him and it’s cute watching them completely misread each other.  But attraction and love eventually wins out.

If you are looking for a book to make you smile, possibly laugh, with a wonderful grump of a hero and warm, loving, smart heroine, this is the book for you.  It would be under the “if you like” type of Rachel Gibson, Julie James, Susan Andersen kind of book.

Grade: 5 out of 5

Will I read this book again: Yep, already have a few times and I know I will again.

 

And that's it for this latest batch

 

'til later

Recent Reads

Desperate Hearts by Rosanne Bittner

Why this one:  I answer this question further down

Genre: Western

Steam Level: Warm, but not too warm

My Thoughts:

My favourite book by this author and one of my top 10 all-time favourite reads and top 3 Western reads (if not the top) is coming out as an ebook in a few short weeks so I wanted to immerse myself in her world once again.  I’ve read quite a few of her books but I think this one is fairly new and I hadn’t read it before so it was a natural fit.

The book opens with a bang.  Elizabeth Wainright is escaping something bad.  She is fleeing west on a stage coach when it’s attacked by thieves.  All on board except for Elizabeth are killed but she is saved when lawman and vigilante Mitch Brady, who patrols the area as part of his job, rescues her, kills some of the outlaws and captures the others.  He’s taken with Elizabeth right from the beginning; with her beauty and her innocence and he knows she’s running away from something.  He takes her under his wing, seeing she gets help with her injuries, her lodging and her looking for a job.  He wants her to trust him with her secrets as he knows instinctively that she is innocent of whatever she is running from but she is so scared she won’t trust him, especially at first, with even her real age.

But slowly over time and as she begins to see what kind of man he really is, Elizabeth begins to trust Mitch and return his feelings, and finally tells him all, including her real name, Emma.  She’s running from her step father who is framing her for the recent death of her mother in order to claim a family heirloom because of his gambling habits.

While not as emotionally draining as some of her earlier stories, I still really enjoyed this book.  Ms. Bittner really does write great Westerns, she really seems to have a feel for the time and the setting.  Her books, including Desperate Hearts, are gritty and as the old west was a gritty time, so they should be.  I found the fact that Mitch was part of a vigilante group interesting.  The setting is Montana before it was a state and there was no official “law” in the territory.  And they enacted vigilante justice in the book.

Thankfully Mitch is an honest man, albeit a hard one.  He’s so gone for Elizabeth/Emma and so protective of her.  I love that kind of hero.  He is one heck of a yummy hero.  And I liked Emma also, though I did find her a bit slow to trust Mitch.  But then considering what she has gone through, it’s not really surprising.  She was raised in a privileged and wealthy home in New York and she was so out of her element in the old west it was almost a different planet.  Everything she knew was different.  She makes friends with a woman of ill repute.  She’s still in deep mourning over the death of her mother, a death she knows she is being accused of.  Her dealings with her step-father were horrifying.  So I didn’t wonder that she almost didn’t know which way to turn.

As I said, it’s not the best I’ve read by her, but I still enjoyed it quite a lot, look forward to seeing more of her older books being reissued and ebooks and I’m in countdown mode now for Outlaw Hearts

Grade: 4 out of 5

 

~*~*~*~

 

 

Trust Me by Ella Sheridan

Why this one:  I loved the first book in the series and it was a given I'd try this one.

 

Genre: Romantic Suspense

 

Steam Level: Very, very hot!

My Thoughts:  The first book in this new series, Teach Me, was such a great find, that I was excited to read the next one, Trust Me.  I read it and now I’m trying to put my thoughts into words and sometimes it isn’t so easy is it?   This book gets the dreaded – “it was OK.”  I don’t know if it was because I had such high expectations after the first book, whether this one was too similar or what exactly, but I wasn’t nearly as impressed.

It was a good book, don’t get me wrong, but it suffered from “but quite as good as”.  I really liked Jack – but he was not quite as good as Con for me.  The heroine, Maddie, was not bad once we got to know her though she was kind of tough for me to like at first as she came across as rather cold and emotionless.  But she wasn’t quite as good as Jess from the first book.  The stories were very similar (too similar) but the one in Trust Me wasn’t quite as good as Teach Me.

We first met Jack in Teach Me.  He is a very good friend and business partner of Con from book one.  This takes place a little while after the first and Con and Jess are happily married.  Jack is feeling somewhat left out and envious of his friend.  He’s at his local watering hole, in a real shitty mood when a ruckus breaks out and the newest bartender he hasn’t yet met gets involved.  This of course, is Maddie.  When she takes on the customer harassing one of the waitresses, Jack thinks this is hot, while at the same time wanting to take on the situation himself.  He and Con run a detective type agency and they specialize in women in distress. And it doesn’t take him long to figure out that Maddie is in distress though she comes across as tough as nails and not needing anyone.

As the book continues on, we discover she has been horribly abused by her husband and she’s deep in hiding.   She knows he’s trying to find her and she’s terrified that he will.  At the same time, she is trying to find a young teenage girl who she figures has been taken by her ex and his cronies and she wants to find and rescue this girl.  By a strong coincidence, Jack is doing the same thing though they don’t realize it until much later in the book.  They finally join forces and try and catch the bad guy with the help of Con and another buddy who is being set up for his story next book.

This is too similar to the first one – poor but brave heroine who has suffered major abuse at the hands of an ex, rescued by a caring, wonderful hero.  While the villain in book #1 was chilling, villain in book #2 is almost cartoonish in his evilness.  Maybe I’m being too harsh, but this one just didn’t work like the first book I read by this author.

And I read the synopsis of the next book and the hero of that book has a twin brother and it seems they both share the love of the same woman and if it goes where I’m wondering if it might, I just won’t be going on that journey.  It’s a little bit too much for me if that is the set-up.

Grade: 3 out of  5

 

and more to come

'til later

Another Recent Read

(I'm working the late shift this week so my getting home late is your gain *chuckle* - but psssst - don't tell my managers)

Teach Me by Ella Sheridan

 

Why this one:  I had started it before ‘cause it sounded good but got sidetracked by Westerns.  It looked good when I got it

 Genre: Romantic Suspense

 Steam level: Oh yea, this one is hot alright

 My Thoughts: This is another one book outside the Western genre I was immersed in for a while. I had started it some time ago but was called by Western’s so I kind of put it aside until I got past the call of the Western and then picked this book up again to finish. And I’m most glad that I did. It didn’t completely grab my attention when I first started reading, but it did when I picked it up again.

Jess Kingston is in trouble. She is being stalked by an ex-boyfriend who really did a number on her before the book opened. He’s a psychopath through and through. Jess has done what she can, but he comes from a wealthy influential family and despite being hospitalized, the cops don’t carry through on getting him and putting him away.
Our hero, Conlan James, has seen Jess and has kind of a ‘crush from afar’. He frequents the same coffee shop she and her friend go to so he can get a ‘seeing Jess’ fix. He doesn’t know her, doesn’t plan to get to know her because he doesn’t do relationships. A close friend had killed himself when his former girlfriend broke up with him and Con isn’t going to let anyone have that kind of power over him. But all that changes when he sees Jess being attacked by her ex.
Turns out that Con is ex-military and he and his best friend Jack run an agency that offers protection to people. They even specialize in helping abused women.

He offers his company’s services to Jess and she takes him up on it. He plans on handing her off to someone else to teach her self-defense but finds that he can’t and begins teaching her himself. They are very attracted to each other but Con does his best to resist it. At the same time, the ex is escalating in his stalking of Jess to the point of becoming completely unhinged that she is being looked after by another man.

But even as her ex is escalating, Con is having second thoughts on his hands off policy towards Jess and begins to examine if his stance on no commitment is wrong. He’s falling and falling hard for her
This is a great romantic suspense, a great balance of both the romantic and the suspense. Once Con gives in, I love how deep his love goes. He will protect Jess at any cost to himself and I was quietly humming Bryan Adam’s ‘I Would Die For You’ under my breath – as I did recently see him again in concert – heh, heh, heh. Jess is equally strong in her love for Con. She doesn’t allow her past brutalization at the hands of her ex to destroy what is happening with her and Con. All things considered, she’s a strong heroine.

And the suspense angle is great too. We can feel the malevolent nature of the villain coming through as we slowly learn how truly depraved he is.

If you are a reader who is bothered about violence towards women, this may be a book to avoid, but if you can read that storyline, this is good, really good. It took no time for me to get Jack’s book too.

 

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

'til later

Recent Read

Shadows at Midnight by Elizabeth Jennings

Publisher: Berkley

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Why this one: She is also Lisa Marie Rice and I love Lisa Marie's books. I'd read Pursuit before this one (I'd had it my TBR pile but wasn't aware until recently that she and LMR were one and the same) and I enjoyed it so I wanted to read this one.

Steam Level: Certainly worked for me! While not a steamy as her alter ego, still this one was nice and toasty.

Blurb: (slightly altered from Barnes and Noble)

Shadows at Midnight starts with a literal bang: gunfire and explosions outside an American embassy in a fictional West African country. Defense analyst Claire Day and Marine Daniel Weston are nearly killed when suspiciously well-armed rebels attack. A year later, Claire has emerged from a three-month coma with no clear memory of the bombing, only nightmares with a brown-haired man protecting her. When she sees Dan on TV, she flies to Washington, D.C., to see if he can help with her lost memory. Dan thought she died in the attack, and he's thrilled this fantastic woman is alive. But someone is out to silence any memories she may have of the bombing, and soon they're facing danger together again.

My Thoughts: Shadows at Midnight was a real page turner, or rather a real hit the little right side button as the case may be since I got this one as an eBook. I think this is the fastest I've clicked since I got my Kobo. I was late for work; I was late getting back from break; I was late getting back from lunch and the minute I left at the end of the day, I had to sit outside on the bench reading since I couldn't wait long enough to get home to read it.

First off, it has the kind of hero I adore, the heroes that are totally gone for the heroine. And this was certainly the case with Daniel Weston. He caught a glimpse of Claire Day when she was working in the embassy in Makongo, a fictional West African country where she worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency and wheeled and dealed until he got himself assigned to the same location. He had yet to talk to her until one Thanksgiving when they were the only two people left at the embassy when it came under attack by rebel forces. Daniel is seriously injured and Claire is killed in a bombing - or so he believes until she shows up over a year later, not the same person at all that he remembered.

Daniel is so gone for Claire that he deeply mourned the whole time he thought she was dead, mourned to the point where he lost all interest in sex with anyone else. You just gotta love a hero like that! Due to his injuries, he's forced to resign from the army and has started his own successful private detective agency in Washington DC, but he still feels responsible for Claire's death.

Things haven't gone so well for Claire either. She was in a coma after the explosion and is unable to remember anything of what happened. On top of that she is suffering from PTSD and has become a real recluse without any kind of life to look forward to. When she watches a news story where Daniel has risked his own life to save a mother and her children and thinks she recognizes him, on the spur of the moment, she takes a big risk to go see him, hoping he might be able to fill in the blanks of missing memories.

As you can imagine, Daniel is delighted to see the Claire didn't die in the explosion and he is determined not to let her out of his sight. It soon becomes apparent that someone is after Claire and as they try and figure out who wants her dead and why, they grow closer and closer.

Daniel makes for a great hero. He feels unworthy of her for all kinds of reasons. He came from a nasty childhood, he figures she could never feel anything for a guy who is 'just a soldier' when she could get someone much better and he feels such regret that she was injured so badly on his watch. But this doesn't keep him from being so adorable protective. He truly respects her and at no time does he think he knows better than her. While he disagrees with some of the things she wants to do, he thinks things through and allows her to do things her way.

And Claire also makes for a great heroine. She starts out a real mess, she can't eat, she can't sleep, she's cut off from any real connection with anyone, but as time goes on and she and Daniel begin to figure things out, she grows and gains strength and slowly becomes the intelligent and determined person she used to be.

Together Claire and Daniel make a great team. They each have their own talents and each respect the others gifts. It would have been so easy for the author to make Daniel out as this big macho marine who knew better, but she didn't do that. As I said, I found myself racing through this book, wanting to find out what would happen next.

The only small, small thing that kept this from being a 5 out of 5 book was the slightly over the top villain.

I love her writing as Lisa Marie Rice and now I love her writing as Elizabeth Jennings. Good thing I have her new LMR book on the TBR pile - heh, heh, heh!

Grade: 4.75 out of 5

Recent Read

The Search by Nora Roberts

Why this one: I received an ARC and since it's been a while since I've read Nora Roberts I thought I'd move it up in the TBR pile.

Steam Level: Just about perfect

Blurb: To most people, Fiona Bristow seems to have an idyllic life-a quaint house on an island off Seattle's coast, a thriving dog-training school, and a challenging volunteer job performing canine search and rescues. Not to mention her three intensely loyal Labs. But Fiona got to this point by surviving a nightmare...
Several years ago, Fiona was the only survivor of the Red Scarf serial killer, who shot and killed Fiona's cop fiance and his K-9 partner.
On Orcas Island, Fiona found the peace and solitude she needed to rebuild her life. But all that changes on the day Simon Doyle barrels up her drive, desperate for her help. He's the reluctant owner of an out-of-control puppy, foisted upon him by his mother. Jaws has eaten through Simon's house, and he's at his wit's end.
To Fiona, Jaws is nothing she can't handle. Simon, however, is another matter. A newcomer to Orcas, he's a rugged and in-tensely private artist, known for the exquisite furniture he creates from wood. Simon never wanted a puppy-and he most definitely doesn't want a woman. Besides, the lanky redhead is not his type. But tell that to his hormones.
As Fiona embarks on training Jaws, and Simon begins to appreciate both dog and trainer, the past tears back into Fiona's life. A copycat killer has emerged out of the shadows, a man whose bloodlust has been channeled by a master with one motive: to reclaim the woman who slipped out of his hands...

My Thoughts: As I said it's been a while since I've read a Nora Roberts book. I think she is an incredible talent and I inhale her In Death series written by JD Robb. But as a LONG TIME reader of Nora Roberts, I finally gave up her series books as I found the characters in each of the three books were getting to be pretty rehashed. But I have always enjoyed her single titles. I just kind of lost track of which was a single title and which was part of a trilogy.

And as usual with a Nora Roberts single title, I really enjoyed this book. As you read in the blurb, Fiona has had a major tragedy in her life. But she didn't let it define her. Instead she's made a very fine life for herself as a member of the local canine rescue team and a dog trainer. She's a very good heroine and I liked her tremendously. When her past comes back to haunt her, she doesn't give in to the fear it would be easy to.

And Simon is just adorable as a hero. The last thing he wants is a "relationship". He is perfectly content to go on being a loner while crafting beautiful wood furniture. But when his mother gives him the adorable 'puppy from hell', he's reluctantly drawn into the Fiona's world. He desperately needs the dog training she offers. Fiona and Simon really 'get' each other. Simon doesn't offer Fiona sympathy for her difficulty, instead he is more a help for her with his practicality. And Fiona, though falling hard for Simon, gives him the space he needs and lets him move at this own pace in their growing relationship.

The mystery is good and tense and kept me turning the pages to see what was going to happen.

The secondary characters are also quite well developed and I loved the relationship between Fiona and her step mother, Syl, a local shopkeeper who sells Simon's work. They were very good friends who had the love and loss of Fiona's father/Syl's husband in common.

And I can't not mention the other secondary characters. I'm not a dog person. I'm a cat person. But when I found myself reading this book and thinking I just might want a dog after all, despite not really caring for dogs, you know the author has done a wonderful job in writing about them. Jaws, Simon's out of control puppy, is such a hoot and I haven't enjoyed reading about a dog as much as I did this one since Hairy, the Chinese Crested in Susan Donovan's Take a Chance on Me. And as well as Jaws, Fiona's own three dogs, Newman, Bogart and Peck are also great dogs.

And although I don't own a dog - don't think I ever will, I also found a lot of Fiona's dog training techniques very interesting and helpful. I think dog owners themselves will really find them useful.

I'm very happy that I read this book. It again reaffirmed that Nora Roberts is a one of the best in the biz.

Grade: 4.25

Recent Read

I have a number of reviews upcoming including another duo review with Katie. Luckily I've been reading lately. So here is the first of a number of my recent reads

Satisfaction by Marianne Stillings

Type: Romantic Suspense

Heat Level: Very nice and made me happy

Amazon Blurb: Hotshot private eye Ethan Darling regularly risks his life to collar dangerous criminals, but he’s pretty sure his latest assignment will be as easy as apple pie. He’s the new bodyguard for Gerogiana Mundy, culinary queen and host of her own top-rated TV show. But while protecting the delicious diva from a man in her past, he’s surprised to find that it’s not just her delectable desserts that are making his mouth water.
It’s getting harder and harder for Ethan to keep his mind off the brunette bombshell and on his job. Soon he and Georgie are creating some incredible heat – both in and out of the kitchen. But if Ethan can’t hunt down the dangerous enemy out to destroy her, he and his new love are going to get burned.

Why This One: Earlier this year I read and loved Arousing Suspicions by Marianne Stillings. I said at the time that I saw great potential for this author in her first book even though it didn’t work for me and that she reached that potential in Arousing Suspicions. I’m very happy to report that Satisfaction also met very much with my approval.

My Thoughts: This book is a real delight! I loved both the main characters. Ethan is the troubled brother of Nate from Arousing Suspicions. For those who read it, Ethan was quite reticent in that book and in this one we find he has very good reason to be the way he is. He suffered a great loss in his past and is still dealing with it. He’s a wonderful hero and one who is very easy to fall for. He’s a hero just waiting to be loved and Georgie is just the heroine to love him.
For a while Georgie is rather resentful that her boss hired Ethan to be her bodyguard and find out what is going wrong. Georgie has some trust issues to overcome before she can let her guard down and finally trust Ethan with her own secrets.
She is a wonderful heroine. At first she comes across as almost too good to be true, but we gradually see past her perfect exterior and find a heroine very loyal to those she loves.
This book also holds some wonderfully funny parts too. I found myself chuckling out loud during a visit to a winery house party. This book gets a hearty thumbs up from me!
If you enjoy Susan Andersen, Rachel Gibson and that type, this should also be one you enjoy.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

'til later