Evie Byrne | Stumbling Over Chaos

Congrats to MrsPao and Cecile, who were winners in my Rain Mix contest! Donâ€™t forget to leave a comment on the other contest post before 7 pm CDT, Friday, October 16, for your chance to win a copy of Shannon K. Butcher’s new romantic suspense novel, Love You To Death!

Remember I mentioned that I hung out with CJ at Uncle Hugo’s on Saturday? Well, CJ blogged about it, too, complete with photographic evidence:

Not only does she have mad Photoshop skillz, her post is funnier than mine. Curses.

And then I discovered that what happens at Estes does not stay at Estes…

Dang, Donna (Fantasy Dreamer) has an absolutely amazing list of bookish contests posted. Wow. (Plus links to interviews, new release news, and more!)

As always, Dear Author has great links to all sorts of ebook news, including to an article about upcoming ebook readers.

Eeeeek!!

Doesn’t the kitty in this moderncat contest (for an eco-friendly scratcher/lounger) look like Chaos?! (Although, according to CarrieK, this would be more his style.)

Reading Update
The Pregnancy Test by Erin McCarthy. A sweet romance about a woman, pregnant and on her own, and her boss, who has a lot of emotional baggage.
Storm Watch (Harlequin Blaze) by Jill Shalvis. I had a lot of trouble with suspension of disbelief on this one. The hero (National Guard guy) and heroine (ER nurse) spent way too much stopping to make out and have heart-to-heart talks while struggling through flood waters to rescue a woman who was nine months pregnant. Focus, people, focus! Stay alive and rescue people now, nookie later.
Damned By Blood (Faustin Brothers, Book 3) by Evie Byrne. ebook. Alas, poor Mikhail is not a happy vampire prince when his mother prophesizes that his mate is none other than the first girl he loved, who now, 30 years later, is his sworn enemy. If you like well-written, enjoyable, and hot vampire romances, I highly recommend this trilogy.
As You Are by Ethan Day. ebook. Very good m/m romance. This one totally sucked me in. I was sniffly. Definitely recommended! (No, I’m not going to tell you anything more about it, because if you know what happens, it won’t have as much impact. Really, there is a method to my madness.)
Self-Preservation by Ethan Day. ebook. Good m/m romance, but dammit, I cried. I can see that Ethan Day’s going on my “must-buy” list.
Alternative Treatment by Claire Thompson. ebook. Another good m/m romance, about a doctor and a guy doing community service because of a DUI.
Gobsmacked, Happy Ending, and Cover Me (Men of Smithfield, Books 1-3) by L. B. Gregg. More good m/m romance. If you’re brave and not at work, I highly recommend Miss Doreen and CJ’s take on the opening scene in Cover Me. (That’s a totally NSFW link, people.)
Pas de Deux by Jamie Craig. ebook. Dang, I was totally on a roll this week! Intense m/m romantic suspense about a cop and a lawyer seemingly on opposing sides of a high-profile case. Highly recommended. (Trivially, “Jamie Craig” is actually Vivien Dean and Pepper Espinoza.)
Wranglers: Discovery andÂ Wranglers: Voir Dire by Vivien Dean. ebooks. These are the first two parts of the three-part Wranglers story, which is an m/m romance about two adversarial lawyers. The third part will be out later this year.
What We May Be by Vivien Dean. ebook. Ok m/m romance about a former model turned fashion designer who gets involved with a guy who’d rather wear t-shirts and jeans than high fashion.
My Only Home by Pepper Espinoza. ebook. This m/m romance had enough impact on me to have me crying… So, have you figured out yet that I’m a big mushpot and that it takes very little emotional trauma in a book to set me off?! Just get me engaged with the characters enough to care…
Most Likely To Succeed and At Long Last by Shawn Lane. Hmm. This was apparently m/m lawyer romance week! Yup, two more (unrelated) lawyers in love stories.
White Flag by Thom Lane. ebook. Sweet and powerful m/m romance about a travel writer and a French vintner.
Unlikely Hero by Sean Michael. Another sweet m/m romance – this one’s about a teacher whose daughter is abducted, and the only person he can think to turn to for help is his ex.
Unholy Matrimony by Audra Beagle & Chloe West. ebook. Decent m/m romance… sometimes what happens in Vegas follows you home. Whoops.
Dreaming in Color by Cameron Dane. ebook. Very good m/m romance. For the past two years, Colin’s been having very hot and vivid dreams of a faceless man and a house with a red door. Will fate help bring them together outside of his dreams?
The One That Got Away by T. C. Blue. ebook. Lots of assumptions and miscommunication made things rocky for two roommates in this ok m/m romance. (Really, so many problems in fiction could be solved by a short conversation. Hmm. Probably in real life, too, huh?)

“ROWR!!!” -Mayhem

Fang-tastic Books is giving away an ebook copy of Maree Anderson’s steamy and enjoyable paranormal romance, Even Demons Get the Blues. Leave a comment for your chance to win.

For a chance to win a copy of the young adult paranormal Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, leave a comment at Book Smugglers by July 25, 11:59 pm. (Oh, and don’t forget that it’s Young Adult Appreciation Month at Book Smugglers!)

Barnes & Noble launched an ebookstore, complete with its own DRM (digital rights management) scheme. According to Dear Author, of the 700,000 books available, 500,000 are in the public domain… so B&N pretty much has the same non-public domain offerings as everyone else.

Oh, my. The Broomba?! Very Sorcerer’s Apprentice…

We should’ve guessed it was coming after Pride and Prejudice and Zombies… Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Learn how to load non-Amazon ebooks on your Kindle. Why would Kindle owners want to do that? Well, perhaps you heard about Amazon’s latest Big Brotheresque kerfuffle, in which they removed copies of 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindles without notifying those who’d purchased the books first. (Really, could they have picked a better book than 1984 for this shenanigan?!) Yes, the books weren’t legal for the US (still copyrighted here, not so in the rest of the world), but the sweeping unannounced delete was probably not Amazon’s finest moment. Also, apparently there’s a class action lawsuit in the works over the fragility of Kindles.

Signs that you might be reading too many romance novels… (although I can make a case for #7 and Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels!)

Too bad this reading lamp/bookstand is just a concept.

Did you hear about Book Blogger Appreciation Week? It’ll run September 14 – 18.

Head over to Lurv A La Mode to vote yay or nay for mantitty on romance novel covers. (Some covers will look familiar to you from this blog.) Can you guess what I voted? 😉

Reading Update
Red Fire and Red Kiss (Gods of Midnight, Books 1-2) by Deidre Knight. After how much I loved Knight’s book The Butterfly Tattoo, I had high hopes for this paranormal series about immortal Spartan warriors. I’m intrigued by the characters (enough to continue following the series), but the writing seems uneven and parts of the storyline annoy the heck out of me.
Animal Instinct (Men of Alaska) by Paige Tyler. ebook. Another story about a hunky Alaskan werewolf. What’s not to like? 🙂 This is the sequel to Animal Attraction.
A Fantasy Medley by Kelley Armstrong, C.E. Murphy, Robin Hobb, and Kate Elliott. Short stories, set in each author’s particular world. I liked the stories by Kelley Armstrong (no familiar Otherworld characters, alas) and C. E. Murphy (Janx! And Daisano! And Baba Yaga!) the best.
Tooth and Claw by Annmarie McKenna. ebook novella. Seth’s a vampire who can shift into jaguar form and faints at the sight of blood. He’s met his mate… only she doesn’t know it yet. Oh, and it’s too bad she hates vampires… My only complaint about this one? I wanted the story to be longer!
Forever Immortal (Immortal Series, Book 4) by J.K. Coi. ebook. Ok story about a demon hunter who finds himself in love with a demon who used to be human.
Called by Blood and Bound by Blood (The Faustin Brothers, Books 1-2) by Evie Byrne. ebooks. Very good, steamy paranormal romances about vampire brothers who live in NYC and whose mother has visions that send the brothers out to find their fated mates. I’m looking forward to the next book!
My Wicked Enemy by Carolyn Jewel. Very good paranormal romance about fiends (a type of demon) and magekind (humans who wield magic and often enslave fiends for nefarious purposes). Recommended.
Oleander House, What Hides Inside, Twilight, and Closer (Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Books 1-4) by Ally Blue. ebooks. This is another series I’m really enjoying. These are sort of hard for me to categorize – they’re definitely romances, although be warned that they are m/m romances. They’re paranormal, in that they’re about a group that investigates mysterious phenomena. Also, be warned that each book gets progressively more steamy.
Turn Left at Sanity by Nancy Warren. Delightful contemporary romance about a New Yorker who goes to Beaverton, Idaho, to see if it’s a good place to locate a kitty litter factory. The eccentric residents of Beaverton aren’t particularly pleased with the factory idea. Particularly notable about this book? The spectacular errors in the back of book blurb, where the town is referred to as Saunders, Idaho. Whoops.