Tag Archives: Lucy Monroe

Contests, Linkity linkity link, Reading, Reviewettes

Books and links and books and links and books and…

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Thanks for the fun captions you’ve been leaving on that picture of Chaos from yesterday! I definitely needed the giggles. 🙂 Mayhem did her part by sending one of her toy mice along with me in the bag of library books to be returned. Chaos… um… well, he didn’t succeed in tripping and killing me while I fed him. 😉

I know that there’s a heckuva lot of book linkity going on in this post – fear not, as it’s meant to tide you over until my next post on Monday, August 17. I’m leaving for da cabin up nord bright and early Thursday morning.

Don’t forget to leave a comment on the contest post before 7 pm CDT, Monday, August 17, for your chance to win a copy of Sandra Hill’s So Into You!

For your chance to win a copy of Mr. Darcy, Vampyre (yes, you read that right!), leave a comment over at Yankee Romance Reviews.

If you’d like a chance to win a copy of Robyn DeHart’s romance Seduce Me, leave a comment at Park Avenue Princess by midnight EST, August 30.

Need a new bookcase? Temple Library Reviews is giving one away – comment before September 6 for your chance at it.

J. Kaye’s usually has over a dozen various book/audiobook giveaways going at any given time, covering a breadth of genres. You should subscribe to J. Kaye’s blog. 🙂 (Speaking of good stuff from J. Kaye, is your library part of Library Elf?)

Fantasy Dreamer Donna has links to many, many more book-related contests!

An interesting post about the benefits of print and ebooks at Embrace the Shadows.

Looking for free ebooks to fill your reader? The Finding Free Ebooks blog might be just the thing for you.

Author Monica Ferris is giving away a free short mystery about a female police investigator and the Minnesota State Fair. (It isn’t a Betty Devonshire mystery, for those who follow that series.)

Some tips for how to read faster. I hadn’t thought of it before, but I guess when I’m reading books, I don’t subvocalize. I do for other sorts of reading, such as blogs, emails, etc. Teaching yourself to knit while you read (or is it read while you knit?) might have a similar effect to the technique in the linked post.

Which of the top ten hero types is your favorite? My answer won’t surprise any of you…

Need a giggle? Carolyn shows how adding vampires would spice up an otherwise ho hum spam email.

And while you’re giggling, you simply must check out this hysterical historical romance-themed cover from Minnesota Monthly magazine.

It ain’t your mama’s romance – and that’s not a bad thing.

Notice anything similiar about the cover of Lynn Viehl’s Darkyn novella, Master of Shadows, and the cover of Lynda Hilburn’s book, The Vampire Shrink??

Dear Author always has informative and thoughful posts. Some that caught my eye recently were on buying ebook readers and a wonderfully snarky book news roundup.

Did you hear that Sony’s coming out with some new, less expensive ereaders? They’re pretty cute. Astak’s also coming out with some comparable looking ebook readers in the same price range.

Hmm. Could Kindles go the way of Betamax? (Really too early to assess things like that, but it’s always fun to speculate.)

Reading Update
Spin a Wicked Web: A Home Crafting Mystery by Cricket McRae. I couldn’t resist the cover when I saw this book at the library, and I’m glad I didn’t! Spin a Wicked Web was a well-written and enjoyable read; it managed to avoid the cloying sweetness to which many craft-related novels succumb. I plan to read the other books in this series – and I wish I’d read the others first, as this turns out to be the third book.
Personal Demons by Stacia Kane. Enjoyable paranormal romance about a psychologist who starts a radio show promising to banish people’s personal demons and gets more than she bargained for.
Watch Over Me by Lucy Monroe. Latest contemporary romance in her Goddard Project series. I read half the book, realized I didn’t care about any of the characters and that I’d napped through a s3x scene, and put it in the pile going back to the library. Also, while using the word “adamantine” (and helpfully clarifying it as “diamond-like” within a few sentences) to refer to someone’s abs does showcase your vocabulary, it’s not a common word and using it twice (complete with “diamond-like” reference) in the first half of the book? Sticks out.
Boys of Summer by Cooper Davis. ebook. Sweet m/m romance about how scary falling in love and coming out can be.
Don’t Look Back, Dangerous Ground, The Dark Horse, and The White Knight by Josh Lanyon. ebooks. Suspense and m/m romance by one of the masters of the genre. Well-written, vividly characterized, deeply involving, and definitely steamy hot – what’s not to like?
Among the Living and Criss Cross (PsyCop, Books 1-2) by Jordan Castillo Price. ebooks. More excellent romantic suspense and m/m romance, but with a titch of paranormal!
Protect and Defend by Francesca Hawley. ebook. A steamy paranormal romance about a cop who’s a shapeshifter and a writer who turns out to be his mate. Unfortunately, there were far too many pages used for the amount of story available, and the draggy bits were too sappy for me. (But hey, it has a great cover and it wasn’t even m/m!)

“I’m sure you heard wrong. No way would Mom leave us for four days!” -Chaos

Contests, Linkity linkity link, Reading, Reviewettes

Midweek Bookity Break

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Nicola of Alpha Heroes is giving away five copies of the upcoming Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey. Leave a comment by June 24 for your chance to win.

Largehearted Boy’s giving away a set of David Wellington’s vampire novels. Leave a comment before midnight CDT, June 19, for your chance to win.

Do vampires have hearts? Answer that question in your comment at Fang-tastic Books for your chance to win a pdf copy of Susan Blexrud’s book Love Fang.

For a chance to win a book from Shiloh Walker’s backlist, leave a comment at Literary Escapism by midnight, June 23.

J. Kaye’s giving away the audiobook Testimony by Anita Shreve. For your chance to win, leave a comment before June 27 and then stop by after June 27 to see if you won.

Check out the free ebooks available from eHarlequin, including titles from Stephanie Bond and Michele Hauf.

Scary thing. If I hadn’t gotten divorced (one year marriage, one year separation), this would’ve been my 20 year anniversary.

I’m honored that Nicola of Alpha Heroes was inspired to do a post of book reviews in my, um, succinct style.

Dear Author had a nice look at the week in ebook news.

Weigh in with your perception of ebook quality. Then go read an amusing (scary?) review about an ebook that seems to embody all the worst that you’ve heard/read.

Interested in DRM-free ebook publishers? Here’s a list.

The New Yorker interviewed Nora Roberts – go, Nora!

Could Amazon be moving to non-Kindle ebooks?

Curious about the new, larger Kindle? Gizmodo reviewed the Kindle DX.

Reading Update
Twice the Temptation by Suzanne Enoch. Half historical, half Samantha and Rick contemporary. Heck, if all of Enoch’s historicals are as much fun as the first half of this book, I could be swayed. But I still like Enoch’s straight-up contemporaries better.
Familiar Vows by Caroline Burnes. Mystery, romance, and a black cat sleuth! Too bad the main character has a bad case of TSTL for the first half of the book. Cute story, but I’m not interested in reading any others in this series.
Too Good To Be True by Kristan Higgins. I spent the first part of this book sort of annoyed with most everyone in it, but I thawed a bit in the second part.
Three Brides for Three Bad Boys by Lucy Monroe. Hopefully no one got hurt from all the eye rolling over the title? Very steamy set of three interconnected novellas.
In Darkness Reborn, Redeemed in Darkness, and Darkness Unknown (Paladins of Darkness, Books 3-5) by Alexis Morgan. Favorite quote, from Darkness Unknown: “But as far as she knew, they’d never made a show about a woman who raised alpacas, spent her evening hours knitting, and had no social life at all.” Not only are there hunky Paladins fighting evil, there are alpacas! Spinning! Knitting!
Turn Coat (Dresden Files, Book 11) by Jim Butcher. Amusing abs quote from this book: “He might have been just a little bit smug, the bastard. His abs looked like they were added in with CGI. My abs just look like I can’t afford to feed myself very well.” Ah, Harry. We love you anyway! But I really, really, really hated how this book ended. I was traumatized.
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo. Felix Gomez didn’t come back from fighting in Iraq with post traumatic stress disorder or Gulf/Iraq War Syndrome. Nope. He came back as a vampire. Now he’s a PI, investigating an outbreak of nymphomania at the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. Well-written and I deifnitely wanted to see how things would end, but I doubt I’ll read more of the series, because I just didn’t care about Felix that much.

“Legs? Who needs legs? Go away and quit bothering me. Look! Over there! It’s Mayhem, doing something stupid cute.” -Chaos

Contests, Linkity linkity link, Reading, Reviewettes

Abs-olutely

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For your chance to win an assortment of 25 books and 25 cds, leave a comment at Largehearted Boy letting him know what cd or book you’d hope to find in the assortment. Contest closes midnight CDT, June 12.

Leave a comment about why booksellers rock and you could win a signed copy of Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. Contest closes by June 14. (Ok, this is a superhero book, but I don’t consider that paranormal.)

For a chance to win a copy of Annie Solomon’s One Deadly Sin, leave a comment at A Journey of Books about whether you’ve ever thought of or committed an act of revenge. Contest closes midnight EDT, June 26. You will need to check back to see who won!

A Journey of Books is also giving away The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos – leave a comment before midnight EDT, June 30, about something that triggers a strong memory for you. Remember to check back to see who wins!

For a chance to win an audiobook of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s The Cabinet of Curiosities or 7th Avenue by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, leave a comment on the respective posts at J. Kaye’s before June 27. Remember that winners will not be notified, so make sure to check back to see who won.

Nice look at some of the new ebook devices at The Good, the Bad and the Unread.

Google’s entering the ebook market. I haven’t decided whether this is good or bad.

SciFiGuy has an overview of the May issue of Locus Magazine, which was focused on urban fantasy. (My copy is still sitting on the kitchen table, waiting for me to read it.) But I do know that the top story was the revelation that author Kim Harrison does not exist! This was quite shocking to me, since I had seen her at Uncle Hugo’s and have some books signed by her. 🙂

Hee hee – Smart Bitches have an amusing list of the top medieval history facts that you won’t see in any romances.

Thanks to Mary Lou for this list of amusing things that would sound wrong if you were saying them to a human instead of to a cat. I can think of some that aren’t on the list, such as “Quit eating the toilet paper!” and “Hey! Stop running across the kitchen table!”

Wait, how did they sneak in to my condo to get this picture?! Did you get your seat before they ran out of space?

Apparently I haven’t been reading enough books with scantily clad, abs-baring males on the cover and there’s been some agitating in the comments. This update’s for you, MamaT! 😉

Reading Update
Sentinels: Jaguar Night (Silhouette Nocturne) by Doranna Durgin. This was a surprisingly good low-steam paranormal romance. My biggest complaint is that, although it appears to be the first Sentinels book, it seemed to assume a certain level of familiarity with the Sentinels that I certainly don’t have.
Men at Work by Janelle Denison, Nina Bangs, and MaryJanice Davidson. A light’n’fluffy romance collection about hunky guys wearing toolbelts…
Surf’s Up by Nina Bangs, MaryJanice Davidson, and Janelle Denison. Another light’n’fluffy romance collection from Denison, Bangs, and Davidson. Please note that if you plan to read this and Men at Work, you should read that book first, as the stories by Davidson and Bangs are related to the stories in that collection. Eerie that I picked these books up at the same time, not knowing that or noticing that the same authors were in both. I just went for the covers. 🙂
And Able by Lucy Monroe. Yup, this is the conclusion to the trilogy that began with Ready and Willing.
Deal With This and The Spy Who Wants Me by Lucy Monroe. These tie into her Ready, Willing, and Able series and her secret agents series and her other non-series books. I love that.
The Chosen Sin by Anya Bast. I love this cover, and it isn’t even NK! 😉 This is a well-done futuristic vampire romance, very steamy. Very, very steamy.
Simply Irresistible by Rachel Gibson. Enjoyable contemporary romance set in Seattle.
Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James. This was another near-perfect contemporary romance from Julie James. Highly recommended.
Night’s Kiss by Amanda Ashley. Vampires and good witches and bad warlocks, oh my! An ok start to a series that I’ll probably keep reading.
Between a Rock and a Heart Place by Natalie Stenzel. This is the sequel to The Druid Made Me Do It and is pretty fun (druids and pucas and nature spirits, oh my!), if a bit drawn out at times.
Dark Protector and Dark Defender (Paladins of Darkness, Books 1-2) by Alexis Morgan. They’re warriors who come back from the dead when they’re killed protecting our world from the evil Others. An ok paranormal series that’s completely vampire and werewolf free. And hey, that’s NK in leather pants on the cover of Dark Defender.

Think carefully before switching to Holy Water in the cat’s water bowl…

“That poor kitty! If I chew on these vampire fangs, do I have to worry about you putting Holy Water in my water bowl?” -Chaos

Contests, Linkity linkity link, Reading, Reviewettes

In which Mayhem attempts to select a book (and the contest thing gets insanely out of hand)

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Paula’s participating in the 2009 North Central Alabama Race for the Cure and is looking for donations. Every $5.00 you donate will get you an entry in a raffle for some sock yarn after she reaches her $250 goal.

Author Barbara Bretton is giving away two skeins of Elann Peruvian Baby Lace Merino in Irish Moss if you send her an email before the the evening of June 3 (aka today, so hurry up).

Author Jeaniene Frost is giving away four copies of the The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance, which is a great collection! Send her an email (info’s in the post) before 11:59 pm EDT, June 4, for your chance to win. (If I didn’t already own this book, I’d be all over this contest myself.)

Jen’s friend is about to go through her fifth birth, but first cesarean – leave some cheering comments for Jen’s friend (and vote in the baby name poll) for your chance to win a gorgeous skein of Yarn Pirate sock yarn.

For your chance to win a copy of the superhero novel Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge (reviewed below), stop by and comment at Deadline Dames.

Leave a comment at Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin’ Giveaways by June 12 for your chance to win one of several short story collections. These aren’t paranormals, for those who worry about such things. 😉

If you’d like to win a copy of the Blood Ties dvds (based on Tanya Huff’s Books of Blood series), you’ll need to do a tiny bit of research and send an email by June 15.

For your chance to win an advance reading copy of the young adult book Ghost Huntress (Book 1: The Awakening), leave a comment at J. Kaye’s Book Blog before June 27. Remember, winners will not be notified – you’ll have to keep an eye on that blog to see if you’ve won. Another contest of interest over at J. Kaye’s includes one for the audio cds of The Bourne Deception. (And thanks to J. Kaye for including me in the new book blog discovery post last week!)

Largehearted Boy’s giving away an eight-volume Buddha graphic novel series – leave a comment before midnight CDT, June 5, for your chance to win.

If you’d like the chance to win a signed copy of the new collection Tails of Love, which is a charity anthology to benefit needy animals and which features stories where animals play a key role in romance, leave a comment at Anna’s Book Blog before June 11.

The Suvudu free reads (all scifi or fantasy) for June have been posted. Smart Bitches have some links to romance ebook deals/promotions.

Head over to SciFiGuy.ca to see what urban fantasy, fantasy, paranormal, and scifi books are coming out the month.

Sydney found a new to me book holder.

Looks like BeBook’s going to have a wireless ebook reader available for sale by the end of this month (for $199).

Apparently Google’s planning to sell ebooks by the end of this year.

Woot! I won a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies over at Historic Fibers for my zombie haiku (#2 in this post). Thanks, Julia!

Reading Update
True Confessions (set in Idaho), See Jane Score (not set in Idaho!), Truly Madly Yours (set in Idaho), Daisy’s Back in Town (not set in Idaho), and It Must Be Love (set in Idaho) by Rachel Gibson. One more to go and I will have read all of Gibson’s books in a shockingly short time. Important Note: If you find yourself in a Rachel Gibson romance, please be aware that condoms always seem to break and prepare yourself accordingly.
Night and Day (Jesse Stone) by Robert B. Parker. Finally! I swear, if a critical bit of series progression hadn’t happened in this one, I wouldn’t ever pick up another book in this series. I barely nerved myself up to read this one.
Traveling Light by Diana Rubino. ebook. This was a time travel romance that takes place briefly in the present, but primarily in fifteenth-century England. Review posted at Fang-tastic Books.
Satisfaction Guaranteed by Lucy Monroe. Scorching hot and very good contemporary romance about people working for a super secret antiterrorism agency. Very scorching. Very hot.
Ready and Willing by Lucy Monroe. More scorchers from Monroe. Can you guess what the name is of the next book in the series? 😉
Come Up and See Me Sometime by Lucy Monroe. This was written a few years earlier than the other books of hers I’ve read. Let’s just say her writing has improved a great deal in the past several years. In fact, I spent so much time rolling my eyes while I read this one, I think I strained something.
Demon Can’t Help It by Kathy Love. Favorite line: “Oddly, I find it reassuring you haven’t put anyone’s soul in a house pet before.” (The guy on the cover of this totally creeps me out for some reason.)
Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang: A Dark Ones Novel by Katie MacAlister. Noticed a doozie of a typo on the “Also By” page – MacAlister’s book Zen and the Art of Vampires got turned into Zen and the Art of Dragons. Whoops. This book continues the story of Pia and Kristoff that began in Zen and the… and ended on a cliffhanger in that book. This book is still a bit all over the place, plus I spent way too much time wanting to slap Pia, Kristoff, and plenty of other characters. However, at least this one didn’t end on a cliffhanger – just with an open question or two. (Oh, and I have no idea what the cover art has to do with the book!)
Black and White by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. Please note that I received this as a review copy/prize, so you’ll get a slightly longer reviewette than usual.

We have lots of metaphors related to white and black, good and evil. The line between good and evil is supposedly black and white. Good guys wear white hats and bad guys wear black hats. Good is light, bad is darkness. Black and White plays with those crisp delineations, showing us that things are never that clear, even when superheroes (or “extrahumans” as they’re called in 2112) are involved.

Black and White is told alternately from the perspective of two extrahumans, Jet and Iridium. The narrative weaves back and forth between the story’s present and five to ten years in the past, when Jet and Iridium were roommates at the Academy. Jet’s a Shadow power, yet completely focused on following the rules and being a model hero. Iridium, a Light power, is much more independent and much less interested in rules. Both had fathers who were considered insane or “rabid”, leading many to expect similar behavior from Jet and Iridium.

What starts out as a seemingly simple comic bookesque tale of good versus evil slowly develops into an involving tale about shades of grey, friendship, and betrayal. (In fact, in some respects, it reminded me of Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman, which I also thoroughly enjoyed.)

Hmm. Mayhem seems to be having trouble selecting a book, as she stands on what are apparently her discards and contemplates The S3x Lives of Cannibals.

“What to read, what to read… Mom, what are cannibals? What is s3x? Are there any black kitties in this book? I’m sure it’s not worth reading if there aren’t black kitties in it.” -Mayhem