Queen Of Swords by Katee Robert

Queen Of Swords
by Katee Robert
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
This was quite a space opera/adventure. It had a little bit of everything in it: space travel, paranormal, suspense, harlequin-esque secret baby, intrigue, contemporary drunk partying, daddy-issues, etc. I would be hard pressed to categorize this into only one genre.

Ophelia was quite an intense character. She was constantly faced with tough decisions. She did pretty well with them, at least as well as you'd expect when you're puking through most of the book. She was well tuned in to what was needed of her and even when she didn't want to do it, past guilt kept her walking the road laid out for her. I wasn't really sure how her partying and drunk sex ways lined up with being a gun runner and generally trying to hide from the authorities. She woke up from her first night with Boone, remembering nothing and thinking she really has to stop doing that so she doesn't kill anyone or get kidnapped. I couldn't figure out if that was simply something she did out of guilt (her ship was taken and crew killed) or if that was generally her personality anyway. Most of that got pushed aside when the adventure started anyway.

Boone had a lot of his shoulders too. He was rather domineering and controlling, even if he was trying to do what was best for everyone. He wakes up to his feelings for Ophelia before she sees them and is willing to work through whatever's necessary to be together. Like all the other characters in this book, he walked a fine line between likable and distasteful. He's honorable but also demanding enough to not give explanations. He's a bit annoying when he doesn't truly listen to the people around him, but luckily most of those people are strong enough to take matters into their own hands.

No one in the book was truly good or evil. The good guys did bad things and the bad guys weren't without their complicated motivations. People died and were betrayed and had friends betray them too. I enjoyed the amount of thought behind it all and the action, but there were so many different worlds and cultures, I don't think we got a real intense taste of what any of the cultures' or individual's motivations were. I didn't feel like a whole lot of world building took place. Lots of drama and action but not a lot of the whys behind it.

There were lots of injuries and blood. I mean, LOTS of blood. People bleeding and dying but generally carrying on with life as necessary. Not so much sadism that I had to stop reading, but it was always lurking in the background. It was all very intensely action-packed.

This was more drama/action story to me than simply a romance-type novel. I thought that Boone and Ophelia had an almost Klingon style relationship with each other. There was a lot of fighting, a broken nose, some stabbing and other various injuries in between the times they expressed caring and had sex.

This wasn't a very emotional book for me, but in the end I think that was good. If the bad parts were written more intensely I probably would have stopped reading. Instead the book took a birds-eye view of most of the physicality and emotion to make it an intense story but not a tear jerker or sadistic madhouse. It was a swashbuckling adventure in outer space and a good start to a series.

Hot In Here

Hot In Here
by Lori Foster
Rating: 4 of 5 stars average

My Review:
For each of these stories, I really like the length of them. When you're looking for an emotionally fulfilling story with lots of happy twinges but you don't have hours and hours to get sucked into a full length novel, these are great. The sex scenes are somewhat graphic but they don't take up huge portions of the story. My one complaint with these stories is that they tended to make a lot of gender role assumptions: it's not just that “this” is what the heroine is like, it's that she acts (or looks) so feminine because of “this”. Same thing with the heroes, they do things because they're masculine not because that's just the heroes personality.

Uncovered
4.5 stars
I've read this story three-plus times now. I love the characters, the emotion and the plot. It's been on my keeper shelf for a while and I liked that I got to add it to my Kindle collection now. Whenever I need a nice, easy, shorter story, I pick this one. It's a great friends-to-lovers story and gives me lots of happy twinges when I read it. Clair is strong and smart and decides to take her destiny into her own hands. Harris likes his friendship with Clair and starts out pretty nervous to change that, but he doesn't deny his feelings as they get stronger. You can really believe in these two.

I like that, even though there are the gender stereotype issues for me, Clair is still obviously smart and capable. She goes after what she wants and doesn't let insecurities in her relationship with Harris stop her. She caved with some of the “girly” stuff, like when Harris gets protective and doesn't want her to run alone, first she starts to set him down but then mutters that she wouldn't do that anyway. It bugged me a little bit on this read, but the story is good enough to get through that and I know I'll read it again.

Tailspin
4 stars
Buck and Sadie were fun to read. It was my first time reading this story. There were some well-worn, old-school stereotypes for romance heroines in here. Sadie grew up sheltered, alone, and teased with a freshly deceased mother who was sick for a long time. Now she's a wide-eyed virginal heroine just waiting for someone like Buck to notice her. But she's so shy and reserved that she wouldn't dream that someone like Buck would be interested.

The two dogs really pull off this story though. You're able to see so much of the characters personalities through their interactions with the dogs. I enjoyed the book for the fun romp that it was. It had some nice romantic parts and was fulfilling in an old-school sort of way. It won't be my first choice in a re-read, but it'll definitely be read again sometime.

An Honorable Man
3.5 stars
This story was a bit more difficult for me. It felt more sad overall. Instead of happy twinges, I ended up holding back tears a couple times. Liv has been so love-deprived her whole life and Ham has plans to finally change that. But his plans involve making Liv confront her biggest fear: marrying a military man.

I can totally understand trying to compromise and take love where you can, but this just felt so sad to me. I left the story feeling like “you might as well take what you can get because it's better than nothing”. I mean, Liv has real reasons for not wanting to marry a military man and while Ham is trying to find ways to compromise he just ends up seeming rather controlling. He didn't come out and ask Liv about his ideas. He didn't try to brainstorm compromises with her. He just set some plans in motion and then assumes she'll be prepared to give up everything she's worked for because he decided to “compromise”. I just felt Liv was the only one truly being asked to give anything up and that was just sad. The end felt like jumping off a cliff, “whoa, it's over” and didn't really feel like the characters would enjoy long-term contentment.

Each of these stories involved the hero having a certain amount of time off work. Buck and Ham were both on vacation for the length of the story and I think Harris had some vacation time during part of the story too. I believed Harris and Clair's story a lot because they had a prior relationship. I wasn't too sure about the other two stories' long-term prospects because everything was outside normal with the whole vacation thing. Still, I enjoyed the stories for the romantic snapshot that they were, but don't read the last one unless you're ready for the tug on your heart-strings and possible tears. These stories, especially the first two, are fun rainy day stories when you just want to relax for a couple hours.

The Accidental Bride

The Accidental Bride
by Christina Skye
Rating: 2 of 5 stars

My Review:
This was somewhat different than I was expecting, but started out rather compelling just the same. I had a little trouble with all the different names and time line jumps that the books starts out with, but I got it straightened out in my head after not too long.

The sense of place in this book was really good. I liked the author's descriptions of the setting and felt most of the interactions between characters were authentic and compelling. I got into this book pretty easily and looked forward to each day when I had some time to read. I felt like the characters often monologued in unrealistic ways, but most of the time that was easy to overlook. I found out later that this is not the first book in the series so some of my confusion might be cleared up if I read these books in order.

Jilly is a restaurant owner and chef. Her one passion is cooking. But when she has some heart problems she's told to cut back. Her friends send her on vacation (but trick her by saying it's cooking classes) to help her relax. She gets involved in the town of Lost Creek and is almost indispensable to them, in the process of worming her way into Walker's heart.

Jilly had this almost preternatural ability to read people, but she can't read Walker. I think there was also some sense that she could share his dreams later. It was an odd combination of almost supernatural and not. I couldn't tell if the book was trying to go somewhere with that because it's never mentioned outside these strange occurrences (that seem to be important somehow). I was left adrift wondering why it felt so important but was just dropped.

Walker and his dog Winslow are great characters in the book. They have a great relationship together and the time that Walker and Jilly spend together is most special because Winslow is around. It made both of these characters more real to see them interacting with Winslow. I didn't feel like Walker grew in a believable way. He was very reserved and taciturn at the beginning of the book, even though Jilly has the magical ability to get him to open up. But by the end of the book, he was monologuing to the two women that he thinks might be Jilly's friends about his relationship with Jilly. I didn't find that believable at all, along with some of the preachy monologue from Jilly's friends themselves. People just don't talk like that and if they do, you really just want to slap them.

There was no sex in this book. Some heavy petting, but things didn't go further than that. I was rather surprised about that because of how long the book was. Not that you can't have a book without the sex, I know a lot of authors write those books really well, but I ended this book feeling like the hero and heroine didn't really spend all that much time together.

This book felt super long and I ended it feeling like nothing was actually solved. Jilly had some heart episodes, but they never gave her a definitive reason for them and she's made no connection about why she gets them each time. We know a couple things that Jilly decides to cut out of her life but we never find out what she'll actually keep doing. She has so many things that she's capable of (that never seem to impact her heart condition) and you read each thing that she gets involved in and go “oohh, that's going to be a part of what her life will look like”, but it never panned out into anything. Maybe it is one of those things that these issues don't resolve themselves until the whole series is over.

I ended up feeling rather disappointed with this book. Maybe over the entire series these issues get resolved more to my liking, but I don't think I can get over the disappointment to read the other books. I had to force myself to read the last 20-30 pages just because I couldn't leave the book that close to the end. But by that point I was pretty sure it couldn't work out in a believable way. So it doesn't get a completely bad grade because I did enjoy most of the reading. But I can't get away from how unsettled everything felt when I left that world.

Truly

Truly
by Ruthie Knox
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
I got the opportunity to read this story as a serial on Wattpad. A couple chapters were released each week for a couple months. At first I was rather irritated when I'd get the end of each section in a given week. I wanted to keep reading NOW. But then I sort of warmed up to it. This was a good book to read a little bit at a time and really savor some of the parts before moving on.

May is in a bad place: dumped her boyfriend, got mugged, can't get home. She generally does what is expected of her, but she's waking up to find that it's not really who she is. This is the story of her adventure to take control of, not so much her life but, her personality. She doesn't want to be the person who just floats along doing what would look best. Truth is, she has quite the aggressive personality inside her. She's just never let it out.

Ben is a huge chunk of the catalyst that pushes her to be who she really is. At first I really didn't like Ben. He's angry, he yells. He's got some nice in him, but he almost has to pep talk himself into actually being nice. But by the end of the book, he's stopped yelling. He seemed to get a handle on his temper and figure things out. I think this is one reason it was good to read in smaller chunks. For the first few weeks, I kept expecting that he would do some terrible stuff because of how angry he was. As he gradually changes, I was able to take that in more seamlessly instead of still expecting him to act like a jerk still.

Because the truth is, I think the story was specifically about May. Yes, Ben grew. But the important thing was May's determination and seeing her break out of her shell. You keep reading to see how May finally takes control of her life, not specifically to see the romance blossom. And she does a nice job figuring out how to grab life by the horns. From the clothes she wears, to the way she stands up for herself, to the decisions she makes about her life. It's all about her growth. I liked seeing all that. I liked how I could relate to it. I think just about anyone can relate to this book. I appreciated her struggle to find that part of herself on her own, but then also having to learn to own herself in other situations, like when she joins her family finally.

And none of that negates the fact that Ben had to grow too. He had a lot of trouble accepting himself and figuring out what direction to take his life. It's all left a little open ended for both Ben and May when the book closes, sort of like they made peace with themselves so now whatever else happens is just gravy.

On a side note, before this book was released, I kept hearing that it was “the naked beekeeper book”. Sadly, I didn't find any actual naked beekeeping happening in the book. Yes, Ben is a beekeeper who doesn't wear all the beekeeping gear, but alas, not actually naked that I could tell. Not that fully naked would be reasonable, but hearing about it ahead of time my curiosity was definitely peaked.

So overall, this was a good book. I liked it. It was well written, out of the ordinary, relatable and had lots of yummy food. It's a sexy romance that's more a journey for the heroine to open herself up to life and take what she wants rather than simply the process of finding a soul mate. Ben was intriguing and sexy, but May carries the book through her own process of coming out of her shell.

Unbound

Unbound
by Cara McKenna
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

My Review:
I started this book intending to read some of it for a half hour each day and then switch off to a different book during my other reading time. That only lasted for one day before I was too caught up in this story to let it go. Then after a while I had a different problem: I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened next, but I'd read a paragraph and then guiltily close the book and stop myself because I wanted to savor the rest of the story.

This was a poignant, narrowly focused, sex-filled story of two messed up people. The story is almost completely set at Rob's cabin, in the middle of nowhere. There aren't really any other characters in the book, except vague mentions for the sake of Rob and Merry's healing process. Merry is further along in the healing process than Rob. She's started taking ownership of her problems and her trek across Scotland is supposed to be the pinnacle of her journey. Her physical body has changed but she still has lots of work to do internally. Rob's physically taken himself away from the bulk of his problems but he really hasn't dealt with any of them.

This book didn't give any easy answers. The characters were working on themselves, but they will always carry the scars of their journeys. It made me think a lot about what we see has whole and healthy. It left some things rather open ended – what friendships turn into when people change, what end Rob and Merry found for themselves. I wouldn't call it a sad book exactly, the characters didn't dwell on their problems in such a way that it brought the mood down but it definitely left me thinking.

I'm still not too sure what I think about the bearded, scruffy hero. But if that's your thing, definitely read this book. I couldn't really line up Rob with his description, so I didn't worry about it and just left him pictured some other way in my own head.

The sex: well, these two were definitely kinky. Cara McKenna really knows how to write these scenes. She strikes a perfect balance between kinky and caring. I loved that they were able to be together without judgement and even when they were living out some fantasy, it was always based around their relationship without objectifying the other. I loved how Merry was able to step up and let go of her insecurities enough to own her sexuality. She was able to catch on empathetically to Rob's kinks and put herself fully into the role of dominant character. Even though she had only had passive sexual experiences before, she didn't let that stop her from being fully engaged and able to enjoy the power and explore with enthusiasm.

I really wanted to know where these two ended up in the other parts of their lives besides just “together”. They were both on a path that worked for them to be together, but they still felt like they were living in a vacuum. No real career path, no definite plan beyond “we'll see if we work out”. The story leaves it all rather open ended for your own thoughts to keep churning about what it means to heal and what long-term relationships can and should look like when you (like anyone) still have emotional issues to work through.

All that said, I think I'm becoming addicted to Cara McKenna's style. I've only read a couple of her books so far, but I've enjoyed each of them so much that I have to start searching the backlist. If you're like me and read the cover copy on these books and say “wow, that might be a little too messed up for me”, if anyone can take all that and make it a compelling, hopeful and satisfying read, it's Cara McKenna.

Down For The Count

Down For The Count
by Christine Bell
Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

My Review:
Luckily this one wasn't too long because I just couldn't put it down. It's always nice when you find a great book that you can't leave but you still finish it at a reasonable hour. I think this one took me 2-3 hours, so I only had to stay up a little past midnight.

I had been pretty iffy on this book when I read the blurb because I'm not really into the fighter books that are so popular right now. Galen is a boxer and I don't know, I just don't tend to see the appeal of someone who makes it their job to beat people up and get beat up in return. I know lots of people must have a different opinion because of how popular that trope is in romance novels right now, but oh well. I just finished up my first Christine Bell book and knew that I had to get another hit.

Lacey starts out the book finding her 2-hours-old marriage voided when she catches her new hubby cheating with a bridesmaid. She's heartbroken and angry, but man does she seem strong and in control. She was a force to be reckoned with, even as she looked at herself as weak. She's got quite a code of ethics and her internal systems keep her toeing the line all the time.

She's a control freak and I think she was most upset because her honeymoon was supposed to be her time to let go. After a night of drinking her pain away, Galen convinces her to take the honeymoon anyway to relax. It takes her a while, but she does start relaxing. She's able to look at her life a little and start looking for what would make her happy.

Galen is in between fights so he has some free time. There's some sense of obligation for him starting out. He has to take care of his little sister's friend. But then he starts realizing he's not doing it because he has to. He's hot and knows what he wants, and yet gives Lacey space to come to terms with her life.

Galen and Lacey have a shared history. Years and years of little-sister's-friend banter. They have an comfortable, if slightly awkward, friendship. Secretly, Lacey's had a crush on him forever. So in the process of letting go, in paradise, with her secret crush, Lacey lets some of her inner sexuality come out too. It was awesome to see Lacey and Galen start figuring each other out. It all progressed so organically that you just knew they were at the right point to take their relationship further. The sexy-times were pretty scorching, but also sweet.

They still had their bumps and bruises along the way. Lacey's mom was a piece of work and things were not magically better because Lacey stood up for herself. It's always sad to be in that part of a story, but the book also had a good dose of sexy romance and some humor too. I had lots of feelings for these two; good, fun, sexy feelings as things were going well, and sad, depressed feelings as they had to deal with setbacks and problems. Now I can't wait to read the follow up novella for these two and see what else they've been up to. Then I'll have to move on to Galen's sister's book too.

At Your Service

At Your Service
by Amy Jo Cousins
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
I started following Amy Jo Cousins on twitter and liked what she had to say. When I saw she's still writing, I had to look up her old books in preparation for her new works. I was only able to find one or two available on Kindle, so there might be others that are just harder to find in print. I don't read too many Harlequin Desire books lately, but I made an exception for this one. It was written in 2003, so somewhat old school.

I think the best part of this story was the writing itself. I love talk of starbursts and flowers and it's so rare I find those sorts of books nowadays. It wasn't one of those hugely emotional, passionate, soap opera books from the 80s and 90s. But it was whimsical and fun and real.

Grace's life is just so barren. She's this in-charge, go-to sort of person, but she has no one. When she runs away from the family business to sort stuff out in her head, she makes her physical life match her emotional landscape. Now, in addition to having no relationships, she also has no money, no home, no nothing. But in stripping away all the abundance that she has, she's able to start rebuilding her emotional life.

I did shake my head at her with all the running away and prevarication that she does. I mean, she has this whole internal monologue about how what she's doing is wrong, but she takes the entire book to get to the point of owning any of it. I could understand her need and all of the little-girl-needs-love reasons she stayed where she was. But she was just so strong and in-charge in the business sense, that it was extremely sad to see her not take care of the problems in the same way and just honestly go after what she wanted.

Tyler's got the ambition to get stuff done and that's led him to opening this business. But his biggest asset is his family. They're wonderful and caring and would do absolutely anything for him. He's stable in that way. He hasn't left room in his life for a romantic relationship, but he is so likable and picks up friends everywhere he goes. And then again, when love does come knocking for him, he doesn't take too much time second guessing himself. He's willing to give Grace the space she needs and he's not very pushy, but he knows where he wants to go, even with the secrets that Grace has.

The interactions between Grace and Tyler were so sweet. Especially when you could forget all of Grace's lies, they were just the perfect couple together. Fun banter and easy camaraderie. They both did what they were good at and let each other have space to grow. The romantic scenes were all rather PG in nature, about what you'd expect from a Harlequin Desire. The ending was touching and heartfelt, but I would have loved to see more of what Grace actually did to stand up and get her business and family affairs in order.

I'm excited to try and find the other books (because I think there's more for the other Tyler siblings). I also can't wait for the upcoming books by this author.