Kat loved Brock when she was a teenager and he broke her heart... not once, but twice. So ten years later on the eve of Kat's wedding when he wades in from the sea onto a beach occupied only by Kat, she's going to need to keep her senses to keep from being swept away by Brock.
Brock is in the middle of a mission and doesn't need any distractions. But when he discovers Kat on a private tropical island, he decides that a little hot and sweaty fun might be in order since they are stranded. And he's not about to let her engagement to a man she doesn't love stand in the way of making up for his past rejection of her.
I could not put this book down. I was drawn in from the first page, which happened to be a flash back to a teenage Kat on her high school graduation day. I enjoyed the characters and the situation Ms. Blake placed them in. The isolated tropical island, a couple bad guys hunting down Brock, a little suspense and a red-hot romance make for an intriguing story. I think my only complaint is that I figured out who the mastermind criminal was almost from the minute he was introduced. Granted he wasn't the smartest criminal, but it would've been nice to have been in the dark a little longer. That said, this one thing did not diminish my enjoyment of the book. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on my books from Ms. Blake and highly recommend this one.
When Darren Michaels approached me about reviewing Flipside Erotica, I was intrigued with the concept. In his book he takes various erotic encounters and tells then from both sides of the story.
I decided to read the "male" point of view stories first. All the tales feature Darren as the "hero". I found these rather interesting since there aren't many erotica books out there told from a man's view and written by a man. The stories seemed to flow and drew me in.
Then I moved on the the "woman's" point of view. Each story featured a different woman and her liaison with Darren. This was when the book started to let me down. We had all the same scenarios, but they didn't have the same appeal. Much of the thoughts running through the ladies' heads seemed awkward and forced. It also may be just been my .pdf copy of the book, but the editing on this half of the book seemed sub-par.
Overall, I did enjoy the book. The scenarios were interesting (however, mentioning of safe sex practices might have been a smart idea as I don't remember one condom being mentioned in the whole book) and the sex scenes were quite hot. I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for insight into the male's mind when it comes to sex. And also suggest keeping a fan, cup of ice water or an adult toy nearby if your partner isn't available.
When Keta Diablo contacted me about a promo on the blog she also asked about getting a review of one of her books. After reading descriptions, I picked Decadent Deceptions as the one I wanted to read. And I am glad I did.
I found Decadent Deceptions to be quite riveting and found that I couldn't put it down until I was done. Here's the book description from Amazon:
Daring and desperate to win Morgan’s love, Olivia Breedlove embarks on a reckless folly. But everything backfires when Morgan remains one step ahead of her and the game ventures down a path of duplicity and murder.
A decade ago, Morgan was a heartbeat away from taking Olivia’s virginity. Her father, Thaddeus, intervened and threatened to meet him over pistols if he so much as looked at his daughter again. But now, Thaddeus is dead and Morgan has no intention of ignoring the ravenous hunger he’s harbored for the blasted woman for ten years.
One way or the other, he will quench this burning desire and make her his forever.
The concept of Decadent Deceptions is quite interesting. I did question some of the accuracy of the historical detail (such as some of the spoken phrases), but it didn't distract from the book. The love scenes were red-hot and explicit, but fit well into the story. I suppose the only thing that really bothered me was that when the book was over I felt kind of short-changed when it came to the actual romance between Morgan and Olivia. More often than not, the love just wasn't believable and it just seemed like their relationship was based on lust.
Overall, I did enjoy the book. And if you're looking for a hot read, a historical erotica, Decadent Deceptions is a great option.
This excerpt is PG-13. You've been warned.
“Now, do you want to tell me what it was you wouldn’t tell me last night?” Aiden asked. “The thing you thought would put me off marrying you.”
Oh, damn. Harmony’s jaw tightened. The time had finally come.
Her gaze fell to the counter and rested on her intertwined hands. She nodded, then sucked in a deep breath.
“Every year since university, I’ve gone away on a vacation with a group of friends.”
This story hadn’t started the way Aiden had expected. Not that he really knew what he had expected. But the fact she went on vacation with friends didn’t seem so bad.
“These are friends I met in university.” She glanced from her hands to his face. “Well, I guess you figured that out.”
“So you go on vacation with these people. You want to continue doing so? Is that it? Because we can certainly arrange to—”
She raised her hand. “No. I mean, yes, I’d like to keep doing it… well, I’m not sure anymore… I’ve been thinking a lot about it this year and re-evaluating…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, this is just… hard.”
He took her hands in his. “It doesn’t have to be. Whatever it is, we’ll work it out.”
“The point is, we go away every year… and have for the past twelve years… the six of us, and we… have fun.”
He nodded.
“A lot of fun.”
“That’s great.”
She sighed and got up to pace the kitchen floor.
“You’re really not getting this. There are three women and three men…”
At her pause, then her exasperated expression, his brow furrowed. He wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at.
“Do you think I’ll be jealous because some of your friends are guys?” He would have thought she knew him better than that. “Do you have history with one of these men? Is that what you’re worried about?”
She nodded. “You could say that. Not just history.”
“You’ve been intimate with one of them?”
“No.”
He sighed in relief. He wouldn’t like the idea of her going away on vacation with a man she’d had sex with, even though he knew he wouldn’t stand in the way if that’s what she wanted to do. After all, the past was the past.
“I have been intimate with all of them.”
His gaze locked with hers. It took a moment for the words to sink in.
“All of them?”
She hesitated, as though choosing her words carefully.
“The other women have been intimate with all of them, too.”
He cleared his throat. “So this is… a kind of lovers’ reunion?”
“In a way.”
Sure, maybe they’d been a group of friends in university and wound up dating each other at different times. Of course, they’d all become close and now they met once a year to rehash old times.
“I understand. After all, it’s all innocent, right?”
She pursed her lips. “No, not so innocent. We actually meet for a full week of no holds barred sex.”
He chuckled, but her grim expression told him she wasn’t joking.
His jaw dropped.
“You mean you…” He cleared his throat, which had gone hoarse. “You have sex with each of the three men?”
“It’s not really having sex with each of the men as much as with all of them. Sometimes separate. Sometimes together.”
Jealousy raged through him at the thought of Harmony in another man’s arms. Men. Other men touching her, making love to her. Several at the same time.
His cock twitched.
“The women, too,” she continued. “Whatever permutation you can think of, we do it. Not that I’m bi, mind you, but when there are three… or four… or more of us together, we just do what comes naturally.”
His breaths came in shallow tugs as adrenaline pumped through him at the sudden image of Harmony kissing another woman, of the two of them stroking each other and… His cock pushed painfully at his jeans.
“And it comes naturally to you to make love with other women?”
The thought of Harmony stroking another woman’s breasts, of another woman kissing down Harmony’s stomach, heading for those delicate black curls sent his cock pulsing.
“Look, Aiden, I’m not kidding myself that any of this seems natural to you. I know it’s probably very unsettling to you and you probably want to run out of here right now and never see me again. You probably think that I’m a… that I…”
She was absolutely correct that he felt like running away right now--mostly from the confused feelings sweeping through him. He wasn’t sure what he thought of the situation. He couldn’t believe the woman he’d proposed to last night… a woman he thought he’d known so well… could actually be involved in an annual orgy.
From the look of her, he realized she was totally convinced this would drive him away. Although he would need some time to get used to the idea… to readjust his thinking… he knew he still wanted her in his life.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I don’t think less of you.”
She swept a tear from her eye and gazed up at him. “But you are shocked.”
That he couldn’t deny.
“What you just told me does defy everything I thought I knew about you, but that doesn’t mean I love you less. I just have to get used to the idea, that’s all.”
She nodded then pushed herself to her feet. “I understand if you want to withdraw your proposal.”
He grabbed her hand and drew her toward him.
“You’re not getting away that easily. I still want to marry you… the question still stands…” He gazed into her eyes and smiled. “Will you marry me?”
Harmony stared at Aiden, amazed that he still wanted her to be his wife. She’d been certain he would march away in disgust, yet here he was… a little shaken, but still ready to make an honest woman of her.
She wanted to accept his proposal–to grasp the lifeline of normalcy and uprightness he had thrown her.
But she couldn’t.
As much as he thought, here in Buffalo, where everything was proper and normal, that he could accept her annual activities, she didn’t think he really comprehended the reality of it. And she didn’t think he could really accept her if he did.
And, the bottom line was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to give it up.
“What if I told you that I wanted to keep going on these annual vacations?”
Aiden stared at her a moment and scratched his chin.
“Well, I guess I’d say that that would be fine. As long as I could go along, too.”
Opal Carew is the author of over a dozen romance stories (also writing as Elizabeth Batten-Carew) in which she makes offerings of hope, success, and love to her readers. Opal loves crystals, dragons, feathers, cats, pink hair, the occult, Manga artwork, and all that glitters. She earned a degree in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, and spent 15 years as a software analyst before turning to her passions as a writer. Opal lives with her husband and two teen-aged sons in Ontario, Canada. To learn more about Opal, visit her website at http://www.OpalCarew.com or contact her at OpalCarew@BestRomanceAuthors.com.
Opal is giving away a ebook copy of her futuristic novel The King and I, written as Elizabeth Batten-Carew to a random commenter this weekend. Leave a comment by Sunday, February 8 at 5:00 pm PDT and you'll be entered in the drawing. The winner must be over the age of 18 due to the content of the ebook. Read More......
Here's the blurb from Amazon.com:
Sexual healing...there's nothing like it. And Ecstasy Island is where it happens. Meet two heroes who know exactly how to vanquish a woman's every fear and teach her to love - and fully live - again. But this erotic escape is by invitation only...Chris Cavanaugh considers it his calling to breathe new life into women with troubled pasts. From the moment he brings Claire Vaughn to the beautiful but isolated outpost of Ecstasy Island, he's surprised by her strength and spirit - and held captive by her sensual imagination and skill, night after night after night...Treah Baldwin believes in greeting each one of the women sent to him to be healed with a literal sexual awakening. His hands-on technique does wonders for body and soul. Dana Lancer has never experienced anything like it. Finding scorchingly hot erotic bliss in his muscular arms becomes a reality straight out of her wildest dreams...
Escape to Ecstasy is a two story anthology revolving around healers at an exclusive island resort. The concept is intriguing. The characters are a little on the unbelievable side, but likable. The best part of the book is the hot sex scenes. In fact, the whole plot revolves around those hot scenes. Take out the lust and sex and the book is pretty thin on plot.
Here's the blurb from the back of the book:
Miranda Johanson has had a very bad day. The straight-laced uber-conservative stock-market analyst has lost eight million dollars of her clients' money. If that weren't enough, she also just had wild, no-holds-barred sex with a complete stranger on her coffee break ... And that complete stranger turned out to be her new boss.
Hot sex, interesting characters, unique plot. I found it to be a pretty quick read and engaging enough for me to not want to put it down until I was done. My only issue with the book is that it's marketed as an erotic romance. It's definitely erotic, but I felt the romance part was a little lacking. Miranda and her stranger, Max, meet in the first chapter and by the end of the 250 pages they're in love. They have obstacles aplenty to overcome as they get to that point... but I never really felt that "ah-ha, we're in love" moment in the story, which is what really makes or breaks a book for me. But if you look past the romance aspect, Jamaica Layne as a pretty solid story in Market for Love.
Nicky Malloy is on the run and Tyler Calhoun is the bounty hunter hired to bring her to justice. Nicky's managed to evade the law for 3 years, but with Tyler on her trail she knows her time is limited. And as they travel to Wyoming and his reward, sparks fly and both Nicky and Tyler begin to believe that a happily ever after might be within their reach.
I picked up the ebook version of this book a while ago after seeing Beth Williamson promo this erotica western series. I'd been looking for more historical erotica and thought it sounded good. Besides, it's the first book in a series and we all know by now how much I love reading series. At any rate, this book sat on my ebook shelf for months and months. But then, recently I saw it waiting for me and decided to start reading. And I am glad I did.
I liked the characters of Nicky and Tyler. Nicky is haunted by the events that led her to go on the run and Tyler is jaded from his childhood and career path. But both were able to get past the obstacles and embrace life. I enjoyed the plot. I haven't run across many women fugitive stories and this one was well done. And now I'm anxious to pick up the next book in the series (which follows Nicky's rather large family), The Prize (Malloy Family, Book 2). I highly recommend if you like some spice in your historical western romance reading. And the whole series is available in ebook and print.
‘Centaur Heart’ by Lucinda Betts, ‘The Dream Well’ by Dawn Thompson, and ‘Thunderstruck’ by Devyn Quinn are tied together by their mythology themes. I got a free copy of this book by one of the authors and am glad that I did not spend the money on it (outside of the shipping costs). For me, the problem is that the stories are too far into the fantasy genre, which I generally don’t care for. So, here’s a quick review on each story.
‘Centaur Heart’ was middle of the ground for me. Lucinda Betts is a new-to-me author and I’m not sure if she develops her mythology better in other (read full-length) stories, but in this one, I found myself confused about the world she was creating. The romance was OK for this length of story. I can’t say that having read this story I will be hunting out more by this author.
‘The Dream Well’ was my least favorite of the three stories and at one point in the story almost skipped to the end to get it over. I didn’t like the characters and that makes for a bad story. The plot and world were interesting, but characters ruined it. Not much more to say…
‘Thunderstruck’ was by far my favorite. Maybe it was because it was the least “fantasy” and perhaps a little closer to paranormal. At any rate, I liked the heroine of the novella and the plot was unique. There wasn’t so much a romance here, but it is an erotic tale and Devyn Quinn definitely knows how to write a very steamy sex scene. A word of warning that there is a short F/F scene.
Warning: This is a gay romance between two men. So, if you're squeamish about these things, pass this book by. There are a couple not very graphic sex scenes, and some violence. You have been warned.
This is the blurb taken from Linden Bay Romance (the publisher):
Ambitious and handsome, Joshua Andrews had always valued his life too much to take unnecessary risks. Then he laid eyes on the elegant picture of perfection that is Peter Kenyon. Soon to be promoted to captain, Peter Kenyon is the darling of the Bermuda garrison. With a string of successes behind him and a suitable bride lined up to share his future, Peter seems completely out of reach to Joshua. But when the two men are thrown together to serve during a long voyage under a sadistic commander with a mutinous crew, they discover unexpected friendship. As the tension on board their vessel heats up, the closeness they feel for one another intensifies and both officers find themselves unable to rein in their passion. Let yourself be transported back to a time when love between two men in the British Navy was punishable by death, and to a story about love, about honor, but most of all, about a Captain’s Surrender.
I received this book as a contest winning and am glad to have had the chance to read it. This is one of those rare m/m stories that focuses more on the relationship between the characters and not so much their bedroom romps. Both characters struggle with their feelings in a time when it was unacceptable to be gay. Ms. Beecroft does a masterful job of bringing the reader into the heads of Joshua and Peter as they pit their wants and needs against society's rules. For an interesting history lesson intermixed with a romance story, this book is a winner.
This story is a m/m romance (meaning that the romance is between two male characters). And there are graphic sex scenes. You've been warned.
Remi has had a hard life, growing up with an abusive father and trying to protect his younger brother from the same fate. He's also adjusting to being a newly made werewolf. And to top it all off, he's attracted to his new friend, Jake, and he's not gay. Jake is torn between allowing Remi adjust to his new life and claiming him as his mate. So, when Remi comes to him for help in protecting his brother, Jake feels the time is right.
I first discovered J.L. Langley's
Jake has been in love with Ellie for years. He stood by and watched her marry his best friend and then supported her when their marriage fell apart. Now Jake is ready to claim Ellie as his own... but is she ready for another relationship?
Maya Banks is one of my favorite erotica authors. I completely fell in love with her writing when I read Colters' Woman
This book is currently only available as an ebook. However, I understand that Samhain Publishing is planning on printing this book as part of a Maya Banks anthology in the future.
I've had Shiloh Walker
Kane Winter watches vampires kill his bounty hunting partner and makes it his mission in life to seek out the woman responsible for his friend's death. Two years pass before he finds Kendall, but nothing is what it seems. Kendall is a vampire who's job is to hunt out the bad ones of her species. Yet now she's the one being hunted... by Kane and some unknown person. And of course, since this is a romance novel, Kane and Kendall end up in a relationship.
One quick word of warning. This book is on the more erotic side, so if you don't like reading sex scenes, you've been warned. It's graphic in both sex and violence (to a lesser extent... I can't handle very graphic violence). I felt the characters were interesting and the plot was focused and well-written. And I'm fervently hoping that Ms. Walker writes a story for Jax, a secondary character that just popped off the pages.