Never Tempt a Rogue: A Rogues’ Rulebook Novella by Christy Carlyle
My rating:
I vaguely remember reading this when I first bought it, and I’m fairly sure I enjoyed it then. This time… ehhh. I just wasn’t feeling it. Quick read (in terms of actual reading time!), nice HEA ending. Don’t expect I’ll read any more of this series, but I do tend to prefer a regency setting.
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In the Bed of a Duke by Cathy Maxwell
My rating:
I quite enjoyed that – I’m in the mood for undemanding braincandy, and that’s pretty much what I got. It wasn’t the longest book, and I think I’d have liked to see some more interaction between the twins, and a longer build up to the romance (!) but the chemistry between the characters was pretty good. I suppose there’s more of the twins getting to know each other in the rest of the series, but I’m not so interested that I’ll track them down.
Hell’s Gate by David Weber
My rating:
In the almost two centuries since the discovery of the first inter-universal portal, Arcana has explored scores of other worlds . . . all of them duplicates of their own. Multiple Earths, virgin planets with a twist, because the “explorers” already know where to find all of their vast, untapped natural resources. Worlds beyond worlds, effectively infinite living space and mineral wealth.
And in all that time, they have never encountered another intelligent species. No cities, no vast empires, no civilizations and no equivalent of their own dragons, gryphons, spells, and wizards.
But all of that is about to change. It seems there is intelligent life elsewhere in the multiverse. Other human intelligent life, with terrifying new weapons and powers of the mind . . . and wizards who go by the strange title of “scientist.”
I wanted to like this book so very very much! It’s a great premise, and sounded like something that I’d particularly enjoy… but reading it felt like slogging uphill through liquid clay. I don’t know why, but it’s just not for me. So, I give up, and I’m counting it as officially abandoned / Did Not Finish!
Emily Goes to Exeter by Marion Chesney
My rating:
A fun read – definitely a nice bit of braincandy, and one I hadn’t read before. I have read others in this series, so I liked seeing how it started out. Thanks, e-library! (How I love being able to borrow books without even leaving the house. So lazy. So awesome.)
Kris Longknife: Training Daze: A Companion Novella to the Kris Longknife Series: by Mike Shepherd
My rating:
That was fun – I hadn’t read this one before, so it was good to get some fresh material in between re-reading the first few books of the series. Resolute (KL #4) does fill you in on the essentials enough that it doesn’t matter if you have missed this, but I did like learning the extra details, and especially getting that look inside Jack’s head.
Winning the Wallflower by Eloisa James
My rating:
This was a lovely fun little novella with some great one-liners. I did have a déjà vu moment where it suddenly seemed very familiar, but I think I must’ve read the preview on EJ’s website at some point! Anyway, well worth a read, especially for the price.
![DEAD[ish]](http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328348330m/8759497.jpg)
DEAD[ish] by Naomi Kramer
My rating:
Short but fun and engaging, I enjoyed seeing the story through the eyes of the different characters and finding out exactly what had happened to Linda. Maybe it could have been fleshed out a bit more so we could see a bit more of what Mike was and had been up to, but it’s definitely made me want to read more of the series.
Silver Shark by Ilona Andrews (Kinsmen #2)
My rating:
Just like the previous book in this series, the characters and setting pulled me in straight away. It’s relatively short, so it didn’t waste time on getting everything established, but nothing felt rushed either. It was nice to briefly visit the hero and heroine of the previous book, which set this book as occurring about 11 or 12 years after their story.
Claire and Ven were great, and I loved their interactions. Claire’s fear of discovery was palpable throughout, but she never let that get in the way of doing what she thought was right, whether that was accompanying Ven into a potentially dangerous situation with no quick way of defending herself, or helping her own people from the building she’d grown up in back on Uley. I also liked the way that we got a literal peek into Ven’s thoughts a couple of times via Claire. She may not have understood his intentions, but it showed the reader that he was keen on her too. I enjoyed the conclusion to the story, as well, and liked Ven’s reaction when he eventually discovered all Claire’s secrets.
Once again, though, I could have very happily read a novel-length version of this!!
The Bride’s Baby by Liz Fielding
My rating:
This was a perfectly good braincandy read for me. Yes, the whole thing is hung on a total failure to communicate like normal human beings, but I rather liked both the hero and heroine nevertheless. There wasn’t too much faffing about and angsting, which would have been tedious. All in all, it was quite sweet.
Working Stiff by Rachel Caine
My rating:
This might sound a bit odd considering the subject matter, but one of my favourite things about this book was the feeling of realism. Yes, I know. But after all, that’s what makes the best sci-fi: that it could just be plausible. More than anything else, though, it was the characters who sold it for me.
Bryn is an excellent heroine, competent and mentally tough, but not unbelievably so, and despite her army training she isn’t a kick-ass superwoman who can take down any physically stronger opponent. Yes, she’s had hand-to-hand training and knows how to use a gun, but she’s as human (hah) as the rest of us and her reactions aren’t faster than a speeding bullet. She’s a dab hand at logistics from the sounds of it, and can think on her feet, but she’s an ordinary girl thrust into extraordinary circumstances. It’s how she then deals with that that makes her awesome.
The villain is nicely creepy (and I never was quite sure if he or the other boogeyman was responsible for a couple of things that happened to Bryn – could have gone either way) and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in the next book with all the competing elements.