The Reluctant Amazon by Sandy James (Alliance of the Amazons #1) Carina Press (Sept 2012) Ebook, 300 pages Fantasy Romance When it comes to Urban Fantasy or even Paranormal Romance, it is becoming ever more difficult to find a book with a truly unique hook. For me, Sandy James’ series Alliance of the Amazons is one of those rare gems. Instead of the usual Vampires, Werewolves and Fae (along with those that hunt them), this series is all about a group of four women taking on the mantle of “Amazon”…
Rush Me By Allison Parr Carina Press (April 2013) Ebook, 246 Pages New Adult | Contemporary Romance Rachael Hamilton is a post-grad living in Brooklyn, New York. She is an unpaid intern for Mapel&Co publishing and she scrapes together her rent money by working for an agency doing exhilarating tasks such as photocopying. On a night out with her flatmate Eva (theatre buff and star of Pride and Prejudice – The Musical! We all have on of those eccentric friends), she ends up loosing her group and gate crashing the…
Pretty When They Collide by Rhiannon Frater (Pretty When She Dies #0.5) Self-Published (March 2013) Ebook, 145 pages Urban Fantasy A beautiful, brave Dhamphir with a weakness for stunning blondes sets out to rescue the damsel in distress who is also a rare full blooded witch, but the master vampire Frank loves his little witchy slave and will not let her go without a fight. Pretty When They Collide is a spin off from the main Pretty When She Dies series using two characters that were introduced in Pretty When…
Poison by Sarah Pinborough Gollancz (April 2013) Hardcover, 200 Pages Fantasy Poison is a retelling of the Snow White fairy-tale but with a modern edge and some wonderfully delicious touches. First off this is a book well worth purchasing in hardcover, it is like one of those old treasury editions albeit one with shiny holographic effects etched into it. It is gorgeous to look at and has some lovely illustrations by Val and Les Edwards. The main character in this version of the tale is the Queen, Lilith. Sarah Pinborough…
Bittersweet by Brooke Moss Entangled Publishing (Apr 2012) Ebook, 95 pages Contemporary Romance Having loved Brooke Moss’s novel, Keeping Secrets in Seattle, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from her short novella, Bittersweet. Expectations were high and, although it didn’t quite live up to my previous experience, it was still a sweet romance to indulge in. The book begins with Anna and her eight-year-old autistic son, Bowen, at one of their weekly sessions with therapist, Gianna. Bowen has sensory issues, and struggles with the idea of touching or walking…
Wicked As She Wants by Delilah S Dawson (Blud #2) Pocket Books (April 2013) Ebook, 384 Pages Steampunk Romance Warning: contains minor spoilers The expectations for Wicked As She Wants were extremely high for me, since I adored Wicked As They Come, The Mysterious Madam Morpho and The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance. Dawson had set the bar very high for this book and the fact that it had the vagabond Casper Sterling, AKA The Maestro, had me giddy with anticipation. However, this book just didn’t reach those giddy heights of the…
Full Blooded by Amanda Carlson (Jessica McClain #1) Orbit (Sept 2012) Paperback, 322 pages Urban Fantasy Full Blooded is Carlson’s debut urban fantasy, and I really enjoyed it. Jessica McClain is the only female born into a pack of werewolves, and with the help of the Cain Myth, which declares she is evil, Jessica is feared among her kind, even those of her Pack. But Jessica has never been full blooded, until now. One night she wakes up in agony and goes through the change unexpectedly, kicking off a chain of…
Fangirl by Angel Lawson Self-Published (July 2012) Ebook, 303 pages Contemporary Romance This was a freebie on Amazon Kindle and I *thought* it would be some zombie book and therefore would have fitted into the zombie event we had back in November. I was wrong, but rather than be completely disappointed, this book was an enjoyable little romance. There are a lot of “What if’s” in the book and the author manages to write in such away that you are experiencing the events that the main character, Ruby, is going through….
Flesh by Kylie Scott (Flesh #1) Momentum (Oct 2012) Ebook, 284 pages Erotic Zombie-Apocalyptic Romance Flesh is an erotic romance set in a zombie-apocalyptic world. Ali is a woman in her 30s who has been hiding in an attic since the zombies started walking the Earth. After two months she decides to head out only to come face to face with Dan. Frightened senseless Ali reacts and holds a shot gun to his face. She’s scared, thinking that he wants nothing from her but to rape her. Dan on the…
Playing the Maestro by Aubrie Dionne Entangled Publishing (Feb 2013) Ebook, 190 Pages Contemporary Romance Melody Mires has banned herself from dating musicians, especially since her latest nightmare, Blake, the individual that runs the orchestra that suffers from a VERY huge ego. She vows to find a man outside of the music industry. However, a little hurdle comes in the form of the failing orchestra’s new conductor: Wolfgang Braun. Wolf is young, fresh German conductor that has been roped in to help the struggling orchestra where Melanie is the main flutist….
A Stitch In Time by Amanda James Choc Lit (April 2013) Paperback, 301 pages Time-Travel Romance It took me about 3 or 4 chapters to get into A Stitch In Time. I wasn’t even sure at first if I was going to like it. But, as soon as the story got going and got used to the author’s writing style, I was whisked away and the story became a complete page-turner. A Stitch In Time is a contemporary, time travel romance and I found the time travel concept refreshingly unique….
The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike Tor Books (March 2011, first pub. 1992) Paperback, 400 pages Science Fiction | Horror The Season of Passage by Christopher Pike takes sci-fi, horror, a pinch of dystopian and thriller and throws them all together in this rollercoaster ride of a novel. On the surface the book has a somewhat simple plotline: a trip to Mars gone wrong. However, there is more than meets the eye as the problems begin before the rocket even leaves Earth. Dr. Lauren Wagner is due to depart for Mars,…
Seven Kinds of Hell by Dana Cameron (Fangborn #1) 47 North (March 2013) Ebook, 362 pages Urban Fantasy Seven Kinds of Hell is the first in a planned trilogy of urban fantasy novels by Dana Cameron. The lead character is Zoe Miller an archaeologist with a difficult past who stumbles into the middle of three factions who are after some important historical artefacts. Growing up Zoe and her mother never stayed long in the same place. Her mother was afraid of her husband’s people and didn’t want them to have…
Something from Tiffany’s by Melissa Hill Hodder & Stroughton (May 2011) Hardback, 404 pages Contemporary Romance Warning: contains spoilers for the book’s ending It has been a while since I have read a book that would have been classed as “chick-lit”. This is due to the fact that they are all pretty much the same, but I picked up this book since it fit nicely in with the “SmeXmas” event held in December. Unfortunately I didn’t finish it in time, but this is not a reflection on the quality of the novel as…
Fragments (Partials Sequence #2) by Dan Wells HarperCollins (Mar 2013) Ebook, 482 pages YA Dystopian Warning: contains spoilers for book one In Partials, Kira set out to find the cure for the RM virus and in finding it, she also found out that she was more than human. Fragments, starts out where Partials ended, with one viable cure procured and her best friend’s baby saved. Kira sets out to find the answer to why she was created, leaving a cure sample for her ex, Marcus, to work from and to…
