ARC REVIEW Mama Sauveterre's Curiosity Shoppe by John Yeo Jr.

Mama Sauveterre's Curiosity Shoppe by John Yeo Jr. is a paranormal mystery. It's a really good read. It's an adventure with demons and angels; ghosts and vampires; and a mystery that has you guessing 'till the end. It's about love, not romantic love well not entirely; it's about familial love and love of your closest friends and puppy love. But also the kind of love that is hurtful a selfish love; the love of yourself above all other. This love story is about a woman who loved herself so much she has no problem hurting everyone who gets in the way of what she wants. This love story is about a little old woman taking in people who need a family and giving them a purpose.  

It starts off with a woman who gave away all her earthly possessions to a demon to be young and beautiful forever. She however got cursed in the process. Now Mama Sauveterre a little old lady who is blind owns a little curiosity shoppe, which a big stingy land developer is trying to buy from her. She is stead fast in her refusal, her little brick an mortar building is more than just her shop and home it also houses a dark vault full of dark magic. The people Mama has adopted over the years go out and collect the object used for black magic and keep them hidden in the vault and out of the wrong hands.

Tassina D'Emerald is more then she seems and is determined to get what she wants. She offer a deal to Mama's ward, Patty, if she will become a willing servant to Tassina she will return from the dead the young girls friend, Tolliver. Tolliver is one of Mama's oculist who went out searching for relics he also unfortunately died in a car accident a few months earlier. Much to Patty's surprise a couple weeks later Tolliver shows up. Tassina in her goal to reverse the curse brought back Tolliver but something went horribly wrong and now she has a vengeful demon and a desperate vampire are one her trail. But Mama has her "family" of occultist, a hippie, young Patty, a ghost, and even the angels come down to help.  

Overall, it was a great read I really loved reading it. Anything that can go wrong does. The selfish machinations of a narcissistic woman screw up the lives of so many people but the ending is an action filled and intense.  

ARC REVIEW His Lover to Protect by Katee Robert

His Lover to Protect by Katee Robert is the third book of her Out of Uniform series. Not to worry it can be read as a stand-alone. Katee Robert delivers a smokin' hot read. Two people who have survived life threatening circumstances are trying to figure out what to do now.

Alexis Yeung is a cancer survivor she lived through the same horrible disease that killed her mother. But Alexis doesn't feel whole anymore; the doctors had to perform a hysterectomy and since then her fiance left her because of it and her very traditional Chinese Grandfather told her she has failed as a woman and disgraced the family. To top it all off her sister just got pregnant. Filling inadequate and lost she ups and leaves for a backpack trip of Europe.

Luke Jackson was good at being a soldier, a pararescuer, it's the only thing he has known; until the world exploded around him. Now he has been medically honorably discharged and wondering what he can do with his life now. An old friend and another former pararescuer asks him for help, one of his best friends left unexpectedly for Europe and he wants Luke to follow her just to make sure she stays safe.

Luke catches up to Alexis in Ireland walking back from the Blarney Stone. It's fairly obvious she can take care of herself because she knows he is following her and kicks him in the face. Luke plays it up like he just happened to be their at the same time, they end up having a beer together. The sexual attraction between them is palpable and end up in bed together. ( steaming hot! ) Alexis is gone before he wakes up. Luke follows her to Norway then from then on out he travels with her. She admits why she is taking the trek and Luke falls in love with her. She falls in love with Luke but one little slip and she figures it out. Alexis is hurt but Luke is going to prove to her everything he told her everything they shared was real.

Overall, this was a really nice, quick read. I'm going to have to looking to reading the first two.    

RELEASE BLITZ Haunted by Jade Kerrion

RELEASE BLITZ

Title: Haunted

Series: Life Shocks Romances #8

Author: Jade Kerrion

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Release Date: September 8, 2015

BLURB

Holly Langford has given up on love, but the Christmas season unexpectedly ignites her bleak and solitary life with three men who represent her past, her present, and her future. Peter Warren, her high school and college sweetheart, who shattered her heart but rules her dreams… James Kerrigan, the principal of Havre de Grace Elementary School and her boss… Brandon Smith, the dashing New York City lawyer, who promises an escape from the confines of her small town life… Which man offers the gift of true love and happily ever after?

GOODREADS LINK: 

 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26030412-romance

PURCHASE LINKS – 99c

US:  http://amzn.to/1K86ocb

UK:  http://amzn.to/1L1UCVU

B&N:  http://bit.ly/1LXAlPP

Kobo:  http://bit.ly/1UHojfD

iBooks:  http://apple.co/1idFGZM

 Later that afternoon, after classes were over, Holly hurried along the school corridor.“James is looking for you,” a fellow teacher said as she passed. “And she’s in his office.”Holly grimaced. The last thing she wanted was to see her again, but there was no avoiding it, not when the other parents in the class had followed through on their threat to file an official complaint against Aidan. What did they expect James to do? Suspend Aidan? The boy was only in the first grade, and besides, no one could stay home with him. Debra, his mother, was always working, which, Holly supposed, was part of the problem, and Peter, his father—well, Peter had never been around, which was most of the problem.Holly paused outside of James’s office and brushed her hair back from her face. Some childish part of her wished she had stopped long enough to touch up her makeup. The more rational part of her reminded her that the war between her and Debra had been won eight years earlier—by Debra.Aidan was living proof of it.She knocked on the door.“Come in,” James called out.She straightened her back, raised her chin, and pushed the door open.Her gaze flashed past James and Debra to fix on the other man in the room. Shock stole her breath. When had he come back to town?“Holly.” Peter Warren pushed to his feet and extended his hand to her in greeting.She didn’t move.The years rolled back. Memories roiled forward.How could eight years have passed when the memories and the pain were still fresh? Peter had stood in front of Holly, his handsome face a mask of regret. Debra stood behind him, her hand placed protectively on a stomach that had yet to swell with her unborn child. “Holly,” Peter pleaded quietly. “You know what you mean to me.” He reached out to her with both hands and took a step forward.“No, I don’t.” Her heart breaking, Holly stepped back. She tugged the engagement ring off her finger and dropped it. The tinkle of the ring hitting the tiled floor in Debra’s kitchen was inaudible over the roaring in her mind.The heartache rose to swamp her, drowning her.

OTHER BOOKS IN SERIES

All books from the series can be found here: http://www.lifeshocksromances.com/novels/

AUTHOR BIO

Jade Kerrion writes her award-winning science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary novels at 3:00 a.m. when her husband and three sons are asleep. She aspires to make her readers as sleep-deprived as she is. Her alphabetical Life Shocks Romances series anchors around unlikely romances you will root for and happy endings you can believe in. Her favorite romance is the Double Helix love triangle between Galahad—the lab-created perfect human being; Danyael—an alpha empath and Galahad’s physical template; and Zara—the woman who can wreak more havoc with love than most people can with hate. Join Jade Kerrion's Romance Readers mailing list for a FREE copy of Aroused: http://bit.ly/GetAroused

AUTHOR LINKS

Website:  http://www.lifeshocksromances.com

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/jadekerrion

Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/jadekerrion

Mailing list:  http://bit.ly/GetAroused

GIVEAWAY

 http://bit.ly/hauntedgiveaway

ARC REVIEW The Rogue You Know by Shana Galen

Book two of Shana Galen's Covent Garden Cubs series. If you know this book is a retelling of Disney's Tangled then this book would be a lot less aggravating. Don't get me wrong I LOVE Tangled but... I didn't know and I was fairly annoyed. From page one up until about thirty percent of the way into the book it is a Regency Tangled.The cartoony cutesy stuff that worked for Tangled really didn't transition well for a romance, Flynn's "smoulder" look was kind creepy and Rapunzel's I have a dream was better with the song and especially since "Flynn" is now a crude foul mouthed bastard. I wasn't expecting it and that kind of made it annoying for me at certain parts to the point that I almost stopped reading it, but after it got more into the story and away from the way to obvious Tangled similarities it got GOOD. It really diverted from the movie and in the end I really liked. I loved Susanna's innocence and that no matter how scared she got she still stood up for what was right even if it meant standing up to some really scary men, even her own mother. Gideon after he stopped purposely acting like an ass ended up very noble.

Lady Susanna feels suffocated by her mother. She wants something more than afternoon tea, ballrooms, trying to find a husband she doesn't want and her mother constantly attached to her hip. In a rare occurrence Susanna escapes to the retiring room without her mother only to told a bit of gossip about her mother. Now that she has that little seed of information in her mind she wants more and she thinks she can find it at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. Her mother vehemently refuses, she will never go no if and's or buts about it. But fate has other plans for Susanna and who should show up escaping from a group of thugs none other than Flynn Rider, oops sorry, Gideon Harrow.

Gideon Harrow, is a thief one of the best in London, and he just dug his own grave by stealing a necklace from one person for someone else but keeps it. Now he was half of London's criminal class after him. He shows up at the Dane townhouse in search of Marlowe, the current Lady Dane former thief and old cronie of his, only she isn't there he finds Lady Susanna instead. Lady Susanna takes the necklace and says she'll return it after he takes her to Vauxhall Garden. Nothing goes as planned. They have no ride, no money and Susanna wore shoes not meant for walking. Along with a stray dog Susanna names Beauty, they narrowly escape the villains of  Seven Dials, make friends and fall in love along the way.

Meanwhile back at home Susanna's mother is at her wits end scared out her mind for her daughter and faced with the knowledge that this is her own fault. She is determined to remedy it. Brooke the second son of the family who works with the Bow Street Runners as an investigator is looking for Susanna and gets the truth out of his mother. Gideon doesn't think he is good enough for Susanna and despite his better judgment he falls in love but he is willing to push her away and hurt her before bringing her into his lifestyle.

Overall, despite the beginning I really did enjoy the book. I loved the characters even Gideon after he stopped acting priggish. It really did have a great HEA and a very exciting climactic end.  

ARC REVIEW Too Hard to Handle by Julie Ann Walker

This is one of those time I am mad at myself for not discovering this series earlier. This is book eight in the Black Knights Inc. series and despite the characters meeting in a previous book and this picking up from that a couple months later it is very easy to get sucked to the world of the Black Knights. And just in case you don't know the series what you learn from this book is that BKI is a super secret government organization with the cover story of a motorcycle shop and take their orders directly from the president. There are a lot of guys and some have wives and all of them it got kind of confusing but for the story they aren't important. The important ones there is no confusing them. Dan "The Man" Currington and Penni DuPaul met during an assignment the attraction was instant but circumstances and feelings separated them.

Three months after what Penni started calling "The Assignment" she finally has flown to Chicago to have a much needed talk with Dan. Only when she gets to the Black Knights warehouse Dan is not there. Not thinking anything bad could happen two of the Black Knights, Becky and Ozzie, set it up for Penni to fly to Peru. Dan is in Peru with Dagan Zoelner and CIA agent, Chelsea Duvall, tracking the rogue CIA operative that stole a bunch of information from the government and caused the big clusterfuck that caused the death of several people. The last thing Dan expected to see in the courtyard of a small Peruvian village was Penni. The old saying "absence makes the heart grow fonder" has never been truer than with Penni and Dan. If it wasn't for the fact they they were in the middle of a mission Dan would have taken Penni right then and there. The problems just start piling on with the appearance of a Russian agent looking for the same traitor. Dan, Dagan, Chelsea, Penni and the Russian aren't the only ones looking for the guy they have another killer on their trail who is leaving no loose ends or witness. Action and suspense and so many close encounters Dan and Penni finally get a moment alone together after they capture their guy only to be interrupted... again.

Penni and Dan fell hard but there is still so much they don't know about each other, like the fact that Dan is a recovering alcoholic or the that he is a widower who lost his wife two years ago. Penni has a secret of her own the real reason she left the Secret Service. But can these secrets tear them apart or tie them closer together.

Overall, I am ready for Dagan's story. I need to find the rest of the series, this one was great it was exciting and really hot.

ARC REVIEW The Brigadier's Runaway Bride by Erica Ridley

The Dukes of War book 5, The Brigadier's Runaway Bride was one that I was looking forward to. I have read all the other books in the series and throughout the books I had been hoping that the death of Brigadier General Edmund Blackpool had been greatly exaggerated. I was happy when I found out I was right. I love stories like this two people so in love but have grown and are different from the young person they once were but still stick it out and deal with it and figure out no matter what they will always love each other.

Edmund Blackpool was left for dead on the Waterloo battlefield. He woke up in a Polish convent and his only thought was getting back to Sarah. Eight months ago Sarah was able to sneak away and visit Edmund before he went of to battle in Waterloo. Confessions of love were spoken and an unofficial engagement happened. Edmund has traveled all the way back only to find the one woman he has ever loved standing up about to marry another man, and very pregnant.

Sarah Fairfax thought her love was dead and then she found out she was pregnant with his child. Raised with an unsteady flux of money she was determined not to have that for her baby and even though it felt like a betrayal she agreed to Ravenwoods proposal. When during the ceremony Edmund shows up and claims his bride. Sarah is relieved and scared at the same time. She is relieved that Edmund is alive and still wants to marry her, but she is scared that he is only marrying her because she is pregnant and everything afterward. Edmund feels betrayed, by his friends for not coming back for him and because Sarah didn't wait. He doesn't blame the he understands it but it still hurts. He is now afraid of not being a good father and a good husband, he is scared that Sarah no longer loves the man he has become. Sarah and Edmund have a hard time being parents not knowing what they are doing. Love conquers all, especially when there is trust and communication to go with it.

Overall, it was short, and kinda sweet. A little rushed but enjoyable none the less. I really look forward to Ravenwoods story I think he really needs his HEA.

ARC REVIEW Wicked Wild Fantasies by Shiloh Walker

Previously published as HER WILDEST DREAMS. This title has been extensively rewritten and revised. New material has been added and it has been re-edited.

This was a great one; sweet in a romantic way, and steamy hot, hot, hot. Best friends/little sisters is one of my favorite tropes. Shiloh Walker is fantastic when it comes to seduction with a touch of dark. I always like the style of Shiloh Walker's narrative she writes engaging characters and panty dropping Alpha's and always an engaging story with a hint of dark. I can only imagine how this story went before the rewrites. 

Alison Ryan never really thought about what she was missing in her life until it flashed before her eyes, when a druggie tried to mug her. She was saved by her brother's best friend Detective Alex O'Malley. Alex always knew is best friends little sister had a crush on him but when he saw her being threatened by a druggie with a knife his perception of her changed, almost as if he was really seeing her for the first time. Alison was raised by a cop and raised to never cry but Alex knew that what she needed and that his shoulder was the one she would cry one. After having the scare of her life Alison fell asleep in Alex's arms when she woke up he was still asleep but playing with her. The only thing she ever wanted was for Alex to make love to her so she took the chance and didn't wake him. He he finally did wake up he couldn't, didn't want to stop. After he felt guilty and blamed himself for what happened. It was almost too much for her to bear; she was just as much to blame than Alex but it hurt her deep inside to have him apologize for what happened. The final straw was when Alison's co workers once again tried to take advantage of her good nature, that is when it hits her that she needed a change and with the help of a good friend that exactly what she does.

A makeover, finishing school, getting her RN license, ten days in Ireland, a lover, and a couple months away from Alex was all Alison needed. She flourished, she blossomed into the beautiful woman that was hiding underneath her own insecurities. Alex hasn't been able to shake this new feeling he has in regards to Alison, he can't stop thinking about her when he is awake and he dreams about her at night. When he finally sees her he doesn't recognize her, and when he realizes it's her he can't stop himself from loving her. Alex's sexual appetite leans heavily on the dominant side and is at first hesitant that it might scare Alison away, until she admits to him she has always wanted him in that way and that she isn't scared by it but turned on. Alex isn't going to have an easy time because convincing Alison he loves her for her isn't enough he has to convince his best friend/ her brother.

Overall, ooohh this book is good. It's hot, almost guaranteed to make you horny.