Offline For a While

Just thought I’d post a quick note to let you know that I have moved house. This has cut down on my reading time because of unpacking boxes and exhaustion. I also have no WIFI so all internet access is limited to my phone. This means annoyance of a level I haven’t experienced since the death of dial-up internet access. Obviously this means that the reviews are being held back and thus the blog posts.

In the meantime if you want to recommend books for me to read whilst I’m offline, hop onto my Facebook Page and let me know, because I can get that on my phone!

I hope you can bear with me and I will be trying to catch up with my reviews once I’m up and running on 31st August (fingers crossed). Hopefully there will a post up on that day and all the ones to follow.

See You Soon x

Review: Call Her Mine (Harmony Pointe Series Book 1) by Melissa Foster

Call Her Mine by Melissa Foster
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Two Best Friends and A Baby

This is book was given to me as an Advance Reader Copy by the publisher through NetGalley. The review is my own honest opinion of the book written in my own words.

Melissa Foster is a prolific romance novelist and I often find it hard to keep up with her books, but I’m always glad when I find the time to read one of them. This is no exception. This book is the first in a new spin off series ‘Harmony Pointe’. The protagonists are Ben Dalton who appeared in previous books about his sisters and Aurelia, his best friend.

Both Ben and Aurelia have loved each other since they were youngsters but as the older of the two, Ben knew he had too much to do to be a good boyfriend whilst he was at college. He left it too late and then their timing was never right. Years later Aurelia gave up on waiting for Ben because she thought he would never commit to anyone because he enjoyed being a bachelor so much, so moved to a different town to remove the temptation to pine over him. However, she still ends up asleep on his sofa on a regular basis, wrapped up his arms.

It was a morning just like this when Aurelia was leaving to go home and to her soon to be opening bookstore when she found a basket on the steps of Ben’s house. Inside was a baby and a note saying that Ben was the father. Finding the baby meant that Ben was completely out of his depth and leaned on his best friend in desperation, bonding them together into a tight unit.

This is not a book that is heavy on plot. It is, however, a lovely romantic tale of two people who have known each other for years and their shared love for a gorgeous baby. It’s a story of two really decent people in a strange situation doing their best for a defenceless baby. It’s a story about loving families who support each other at the same time they tease and mock. It’s sweet and funny and sad in places. There are no major fallings out or misunderstandings but it’s still an enjoyable and entertaining read. I definitely recommend it for when you are in the mood for a relaxing read and a Happy Ever After.

Borrow For Free From Kindle Unlimited
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Review: The Dark Orchid Omnibus Edition

The Dark Orchid Omnibus Edition by Auryn Hadley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Superb Polyamorous/Reverse Harem Fantasy Series

I’ve reviewed all three books in this trilogy individually before and as can be read, if you choose, I really enjoyed all the books. It’s definitely one of my favourite Reverse Harem series and it’s really more of a Polyamorous series than a Reverse Harem one.

This box set has recently come out and as a subscriber to Auryn Hadley’s newsletter was able to get my hands on the box set at a severe discount on it’s launch day. Of course I got the box set as I’d only read the books on Kindle Unlimited and knew I’d want to re-read them in the future.

I decided to re-read the box set almost straight away and I’m so glad I did. This series is wonderfully written. I love the idea of the gods dying and the magic being passed onto mages over recent years. The system of magic is very clever and well thought out. The magic system sits along side the world building that is Auryn Hadley’s true strength. Her imagination knows no bounds and she is always consistent within her created social, political and magical creations.

The book is about a prostitute, Jaeda. She lived in a town that is being attacked by a mage, to conquer it for his Sultan. She doesn’t know which mage it is but after living through two other such events before landing in this town she’s not keen to go through it again. She is captured and brought before the mage, Lord Jackal, the Lord of Lust. In order to protect a young girl she captures the Lord’s attention and volunteers to be part of a spell that binds the town to the mage. As you can imagine the spell requires her to incite the lust of members of the town.

This spell is the start of Jaeda’s adventures. Her whole life is transformed by that one act of trying to protect a young teen. After meeting the mage she realises that the mage’s are not as all powerful as they would have normal people believe and their lives are dangerous and difficult. Jaeda finds herself befriending the mage and his assistant and they form a tight bond based on acceptance and understanding. They help Jaeda grow into her strength as a woman who owns her own sexuality and uses it.

If you want to know more about the individual books, then you can read the reviews for those books, but I do recommend you buy the box set because these books really shine as a trilogy read back to back. It’s more a story in three parts than three books.

As you can tell from the subject matter, this is a very sexual series, however it is also about love, friendship and community. It’s also about society and the power of the individual. It’s quite a deep set of books so if you are just interested in a smutty read you may feel a little overwhelmed and alternatively if you are interested in a straight fantasy you may find all the sex a bit in your face. If you can accept both sides of the coin you will relish this series as much as I did. It’s a fabulous read that I know I will read again and again.

Reviews of the individual books can be found here:

Power of Lies
Magic of Lust
Spell of Love

Review: Suffer Less By KB Everly

Suffer Less by K.B. Everly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Contemporary Reverse Harem

I’ve not read anything by this author before, but someone on one of my Facebook groups asked for recommendations of books with a disabled protagonist. As I’m disabled myself, reading about characters who face similar struggles to my own is always interesting to me. One of the things about books is it enables the reader to feel the same things the character feels, because you see inside their mind. It opens your eyes to their reality in a different way to watching them on tv or film. I don’t believe there are enough disabled characters in the media but wish even more that there were more in books.

When this book was listed in the recommendations, I decided to read it, especially as it’s a Reverse Harem book (always a winner for me) AND it’s on Kindle Unlimited. Basically I HAD to read it and I’m really glad I did, especially as the book was written by an amputee, so it was someone who really knew what they were talking about when writing about the reality of dealing with the loss of a limb.

The book is about Alessa, a 22 year old woman who has had a very hard life. Her parents were killed in the same accident that took her leg when she was a teenager and she had lived with her drug addicted aunt ever since. Alessa worked two jobs trying to save up money to leave her small town, where she’d been so miserable but her aunt made it difficult for her. It was at one of her jobs that she met three gorgeous men on motorcycles, Grey, Nash and Jude. Three friends who were touring around on their annual break visiting unusual pubs.

The three guys are not the usual motorcycle club members with being a therapist, paediatrician and a firefighter, but their club is just a riding club. This is not really an MC romance, though there is an issue with another club.

I really liked Alessa, she’s feisty even when she’s not feeling particularly brave. She picks herself up every day and does her best to get things done and she is compassionate even when some people would be bitter with the way life had turned out.

I liked the way the relationship was handled. There were open communications between them all, everyone was pretty honest and straightforward and despite this being a romance it wasn’t overly emotional. There were some sex scenes but there weren’t too many and they weren’t long and explicitly detailed either.

I really enjoyed this book. I will definitely be keeping a look out for others written by the same author.

Borrow Free From Kindle Unlimited
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Review: Dark Dancer (Rosie O’Grady’s Paranormal Bar and Grill Series Book 3) by BR Kingsolver

Dark Dancer by B.R. Kingsolver
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

More Fun in Westport

As always, BR Kingsolver has written a creative and entertaining read. The third book in this urban fantasy series continues the story established in the first two books.

Erin is still working at Rosie O’Grady’s Paranormal Bar and Grill as a bartender and is happier than she thought possible. For the first time in her life she has friends and she is helping people rather than killing them. She is looking for love, but as yet hasn’t found it, but in the meantime she has her friends and that’s more than she’s ever had before.

There seems to be a problem still in Westport, with young people going missing and vampires causing trouble. There also seems to be a distinctly alarming number of Hunters in town, leaving Erin panicking about what or who they want. However, she has friends in various parts of the paranormal community who she can ask for help or information. She’s no longer alone in facing off against her old organisation, and that makes them slightly less scary.

Erin is an interesting character who is at once naive and very very worldly wise. She has lived through real trauma during her training and also been kept very isolated. This leads to an interesting dichotomy in her character. With this third book she is more educated in the ways of ‘normal’ people and has learnt how to trust others. This book shows how all the hard work, she’s put in over the previous books to understand her new reality, has paid off.

I also really enjoy reading about the paranormal community in Westport. The characters written to surround Erin are entertaining and well thought out. Erin’s friends are written to be well rounded, consistent and they are fully fleshed out.

The writing in this book is as good as always. The standard of story telling employed by this author is very high and I enjoy reading her books tremendously. Whenever a new book comes out I try and read it within the first week. This book is another example of why I will continue to do so.

Borrow Free From Kindle Unlimited
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