Review of Legendary

Synopsis

Aliana Fagan spent her childhood traveling the world, dreaming of legendary heroes and mythical lands. But after the sudden death of her parents, she hides behind the safety of her camera and her art until a vivid recurring dream compels her to dig into her father's research about Avalon and Camelot. When she is hurled into a magical realm by forces she thought were only the stuff of fairy tales, she finds herself thrown into an adventure she could never have imagined. Nearly everything she thought she knew about Arthurian legend was wrong.

The independent eighteen-year-old is shocked to find that the people of Avalon think that she is the Destined One, the only person who can summon King Arthur back to life from his hidden chamber. Most surprising of all is that it's up to her to lead the Knights of the Round Table on an epic quest—an adventure that will transport them across the seven magic realms to reclaim all that has been lost so they can defeat the evil Mordrid for good. But first, she must bring the ancient warriors into her world and reunite them with their lost brothers. Chaperoning the legendary knights-with-a-chivalry-complex as they navigate the modern world is a constant challenge, and she certainly never thought she'd be caught between her intense feelings for the noble Sir Galahad and her growing friendship with the King. 

To fulfill the prophecy, Aliana will have to discover the meaning of friendship, bravery, loyalty, true love, and forgiveness. But can she do it all in time to save the realms from Mordrid's impending Armageddon?

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK 

Review

Let me preface this review by saying that I am not much of an Arthurian legend girl. My interest in the legend pretty much stops at Sword and the Stone but something about the description for this book really piqued my interest.  I think it was the combination of a noble kingdom, magic, and the modern world.  Regardless of what drew my initial interest, it effortlessly held my interest and I am seriously impressed with how the author effectively wove together the various elements.

The story begins with a rather sad girl who is almost completely alone in the world and is still struggling with some uncovered deceptions from her past.  She has a vivid dream and sets out on her journey as a result.  I appreciated the fact that she took some basic precautions in her journey and that she is an experienced solo hiker. She is not perfect, as she has certainly been reckless in the past, but I appreciated the fact that her excursion didn’t raise my “she is too dumb to live” hackles. The remainder of her journey is filled with wonder, fear, and danger as she uncovers her role in the legend she thought she knew everything about.  After a successful romp in Avalon, she returns to the modern world with new friends in tow to take the next step in their journey.

This is the part that I enjoyed the most as I loved how she introduced them to the modern world and how her previous life integrated with her new life.  We get the perfect mix of overprotective alpha males, independent modern females, and a little humor when some new technology is thrown in the mix.  I really loved the heroine and the fact that she was the perfect balance of strength and weakness.  She struggles to overcome her fears and the emotions that result from only being seen as a “key” for her new companions.   There is definitely some romance but it was relegated to the end of the queue as there were bigger items of concern.  The villains are quite frightening and the consequences for failure are certainly extreme so the stakes are definitely high.  Our heroes manage to test themselves in battle before the book concludes at the ideal pause point.   Overall, this story can be summarized in one word, epic.  This was a delightful ride that I can’t wait to continue when the next book is released.

*A copy of this book was provided in exchange for an HONEST review*

Try it for yourself! Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK 

Katie

Bookish Treasures Recommends - Humorous Romantic Reads

For people who enjoy a healthy dose of humour in their reading diet, I have compiled a list of some of the ones I have personally enjoyed. This is obviously more of an off-the-cuff list rather than an all-inclusive compendium. Humour is subjective but hopefully, you will find something here that suits your tastes.

Contemporary

Tara Sivec's Chocolate Lover's Series

Synopsis

Claire is a twenty-something, single mom that grudgingly helps her best friend sell sex toys while she attempts to make enough money to start her own business to give her foul-mouthed, but extremely loveable (when he's asleep) toddler a better life.

When Carter, the one-night-stand from her past that changed her life forever, shows up in her hometown bar without any recollection of her besides her unique chocolate scent, Claire will make it a point that he remembers her this time.

With Carter's undisguised shock at suddenly finding out he has a four-year-old son and Claire's panic that her stretch marks and slim to none bedroom experience will send the man of her dreams heading for the hills, the pair will do whatever they can to get their happily ever after.

Warning: contains explicit sex, profanity and enough sarcasm to choke a horse.
The humour in this series is a little on the crass side but doesn't go too far over the line (for me, at least).  I didn't follow through to the last book as it focused on two of the weirder peripheral characters and I was a little hesitant to commit to their story. The first two focus on Claire and Carter who have a wild night at a frat party with an unintended byproduct and no way to get in contact with each other.  Fate gives them another chance a few years down the road and between the main characters and those on the periphery, you are guaranteed some laugh out loud moments.

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK 

Katie Ashley's Rock Chick

Synopsis

Indy Savage, cop's daughter, rock chick and used bookstore owner, has been in love with Lee Nightingale, once bad boy, now the man behind Nightingale Investigations, since she was five years old. No matter what ingenious schemes Indy used to capture his attention, Lee never showed an interest and Indy finally gave up. Now Indy's employee, Rosie, has lost a bag of diamonds and bad guys are shooting at him. When Indy gets involved, Lee is forced to help. Complicating matters, Lee has decided he's interested, Indy's decided she's not. But she can't seem to keep Lee out of her life when she's repeatedly stun gunned, kidnapped and there are car bombs exploding (not to mention she's finding dead bodies).

Indy's best bet is to solve the mystery of the diamonds before Lee. Lee's challenge is to keep Indy alive and, at the same time, win back her heart.
If you are familiar with Katie Ashley, you are probably aware that her books lend themselves more to marathon reads rather than short and concise stories. ;Fortunately, the combination of action, steam and humour make for a very enjoyable read. The humour in this particular book mostly relates to the heroine constantly finding herself in bizarre or mischief-laden situations and her band of misfit secondary characters

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Tangled by Emma Chase

Synopsis

Drew Evans is a winner. Handsome and arrogant, he makes multimillion dollar business deals and seduces New York’s most beautiful women with just a smile. He has loyal friends and an indulgent family. So why has he been shuttered in his apartment for seven days, miserable and depressed?

He’ll tell you he has the flu.

But we all know that’s not really true.

Katherine Brooks is brilliant, beautiful and ambitious. She refuses to let anything - or anyone - derail her path to success. When Kate is hired as the new associate at Drew’s father’s investment banking firm, every aspect of the dashing playboy’s life is thrown into a tailspin. The professional competition she brings is unnerving, his attraction to her is distracting, his failure to entice her into his bed is exasperating.

Then, just when Drew is on the cusp of having everything he wants, his overblown confidence threatens to ruin it all. Will he be able untangle his feelings of lust and tenderness, frustration and fulfillment? Will he rise to the most important challenge of his life?

Can Drew Evans win at love? Tangled is not your mother’s romance novel. It is an outrageous, passionate, witty narrative about a man who knows a lot about women…just not as much as he thinks he knows. As he tells his story, Drew learns the one thing he never wanted in life, is the only thing he can’t live without.

This is a story told from the male perspective and the male is, well, a bit of a dog.  It is a read where the hero grows on you despite your attempts to dislike him.  There are also some entertaining attempts at sabotage that, while on the immature side, you cannot help but enjoy. 

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Paranormal

Magic Bites

Synopsis

When the magic is up, rogue mages cast their spells and monsters appear, while guns refuse to fire and cars fail to start. But then technology returns, and the magic recedes as unpredictably as it arose, leaving all kinds of paranormal problems in its wake.

Kate Daniels is a down-on-her-luck mercenary who makes her living cleaning up these magical problems. But when Kate's guardian is murdered, her quest for justice draws her into a power struggle between two strong factions within Atlanta's magic circles.

The Masters of the Dead, necromancers who can control vampires, and the Pack, a paramilitary clan of shapechangers, blame each other for a series of bizarre killings—and the death of Kate's guardian may be part of the same mystery. Pressured by both sides to find the killer, Kate realizes she's way out of her league—but she wouldn't have it any other way…

Thoughts

The romance is slow to build in this series but so worth the ride. The series revolves around a post magic shift Atlanta where pretty much any weird creature imaginable is possible. The heroine, Kate Daniels, is the perfect mix of snark, intelligence, badassery and vulnerability.  While there are about a million accolades about this series that I could expound upon, I have to say that the humour is probably my favorite.

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

 

Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs by Molly Harper

Synopsis

Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children's librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that's sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she's mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.

Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased favorite aunt is now her ghostly roommate. She has to fake breathing and endure daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She's forced to forgo her favorite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn't enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What's a nice undead girl to do?

Thoughts

This is one of those stories where humans are well aware of vampires and manage to coexist in relative peace.  The heroine, Jane Jameson, is kind of pathetic at first as she has pretty much nothing going for her and is prone to the some serious bad luck.  Fortunately, her circumstances improve over the course of the book but her luck, well, that appears to be the one constant in her life.

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK (Paperback Only)

First Grave On The Right

Synopsis

This whole grim reaper thing should have come with a manual. Or a diagram of some kind. A flow chart would have been nice.

Charley Davidson is a part-time private investigator and full-time grim reaper. Meaning, she sees dead people. Really. And it's her job to convince them to "go into the light." But when these very dead people have died under less than ideal circumstances (like murder), sometimes they want Charley to bring the bad guys to justice. Complicating matters are the intensely hot dreams she's been having about an entity who has been following her all her life...and it turns out he might not be dead after all. In fact, he might be something else entirely. But what does he want with Charley? And why can't she seem to resist him? And what does she have to lose by giving in?

Thoughts

I have to admit that this one borders on the line between hilarious and outlandish.  The heroine is pretty bizarre and has a strange obsession with assigning names to everything, including her body parts.  Her oddity may have something to do with the fact that she can see and communicate with ghosts and has all her life.  Fortunately, I thoroughly enjoyed it and the mysteries associated with the various plot points were quite intriguing.  One delightful treat associated with the book is that each chapter opens with a humorous slogan from a t-shirt or bumper sticker.

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Rule, Jet and Rome pretty new covers and rerelease

Today is the release of the new UK paperbacks of Rule, Jet and Rome by Jay Crownover. These feature the stunning new covers that I just cant stop staring at.

Rule by Jay Crownover

Synopsis

Sometimes opposites don’t just attract – they catch fire and burn the city down.

Shaw Landon loved Rule Archer from the moment she laid eyes on him. Rule is everything a straight-A pre-med student like Shaw shouldn’t want – and the only person she’s never tried to please. She isn’t afraid of his scary piercings and tattoos or his wild attitude. Though she knows that Rule is wrong for her, her heart just won’t listen.

To a rebel like Rule Archer, Shaw Landon is a stuck-up, perfect princess – and his dead twin brother’s girl. She lives by other people’s rules; he makes his own. He doesn’t have time for a good girl like Shaw – even if she’s the only one who can see the person he truly is.

But a short skirt, too many birthday cocktails and spilled secrets lead to a night neither can forget. Now, Shaw and Rule have to figure out how a girl like her and a guy like him are supposed to be together without destroying their love…or each other.

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Jet by Jay Crownover

Synopsis

The second book in the Marked Men series from Jay Crownover - a sizzling story of love, lust and longing.

With his tight leather jeans and a sharp edge that makes him dangerous, Jet Keller is every girl’s rock and roll fantasy. But Ayden Cross is done walking on the wild side with bad boys. She doesn’t want to give in to the heat she sees in Jet’s dark, haunted eyes, but even his touch sets her on fire.

Jet can’t resist the Southern Belle with mile-long legs in cowboy boots who defies his every expectation. Yet the closer he feels to Ayden, the less he seems to know her. While he’s tempted to get under her skin and undo her in every way, he knows first hand what happens to two people with very different ideas about relationships.

Will the blaze burn into an enduring love… or will it consume their dreams and turn them to ashes?

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Rome by Jay Crownover

Synopsis

The next thrilling and sexy book in the MARKED MEN series.

Cora Lewis is a whole lot of fun, and she knows how to
keep her tattooed bad boy friends in line. But all that flash
and sass hide the fact that she never got over the way
her first love broke her heart. Now she has a plan to make
sure that never happens again: she’s only going to fall in love
with someone perfect.

Rome Archer is as far from perfect as a man can be. He’s
stubborn and rigid, he’s bossy and has come back from his
final tour of duty fundamentally broken. Rome’s used to filling
a role: big brother, doting son, super soldier; and now
none of these fit anymore. Now he’s just a man trying to
figure out what to do with the rest of his life while keeping
the demons of war and loss at bay. He would have been glad
to suffer it alone, until Cora comes sweeping into his life and becomes the only colour on his bleak horizon.

Perfect isn’t in the cards for these two, but imperfect might just last forever…

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Waiting On Wednesday - The Fire Artist

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine and it allows readers to share the books that they are most looking forwards to reading.

This week the book I have chosen to feature is The Fire Artist by Daisy Whitney.

Title: The Fire Artist

Author: Daisy Whitney

Series: Standalone (I think)

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Publication date: October 14th (US)

Links: Goodreads | Amazon

Synopsis

A forbidden romance literally heats up in this new fantasy from acclaimed author Daisy Whitney.

Aria is an elemental artist—she creates fire from her hands. But her power is not natural. She steals it from lightning. It’s dangerous and illegal in her world. When she’s recruited to perform, she seizes the chance to get away from her family. But her power is fading too fast to keep stealing from the sky. She has no choice but to turn to a Granter—a modern day genie. She gets one wish at an extremely high price. Aria’s willing to take a chance, but then she falls in love with the Granter . . . and he wants his freedom. Aria must decide what she’s willing to bargain and how much her own heart, body, and soul are worth.

In a world where the sport of elemental powers is the most popular form of entertainment, readers will be swept away by a romance with stakes higher than life and death.

My Thoughts

This book just sounds utterly amazing. I'm getting back into reading a lot more Fantasy and Paranormal novels at the moment at this is just the sort of book I am looking for. To top it off, though I haven't read any of the other Daisy Whitney books I am a HUGE fan of the authors NA novels under her pen name.

What books are you looking forwards to this week?

Review of Into The Storm

Synopsis

She is a woman on the run. Pain, loneliness and terror are what she is leaving. Where she is headed doesn’t matter as long as it’s away from the hell her life has become.

Joshua Bennett is trapped in a prison of his own making by the memories of his past. Traumatized and isolated, he is a reclusive writer, living a quiet, lonely life, his only companion his dog, Bear. It is what he knows, what he has accepted to be his life.

One dark night, one huge storm, and one ice patch brings them together. He finds himself with an unexpected houseguest with no memory. She wakes up a stranger to herself and the man watching her. Even more mysterious is the lack of any sort of identification with her or in her car. She is an enigma to both of them.

Trapped by the storm and isolated from the outside world, they slowly open up, learning to trust and love, until the world once again shows up, threatening the fragile peace of their newly discovered world, and tearing them apart.

There are many twists and turns as they struggle to find each other, overcoming both the mental and physical elements that keep them apart.

A story about overcoming our fears, finding love and learning to live again.

Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Review

This book sat in my queue for a while as I never seemed to be in the mood for a story revolving around someone with amnesia.  I was sorry I put it off after I read the first few chapters though because the premise really drew me in.  The book starts with her fleeing someone who abused her.  You don’t know who the abuser is or her particular circumstances but you know the threat is very real.  Then she gets turned around in a horrendous winter storm and ends up crashing her car and sustains a head injury.  She is rescued by a reluctant hero who tries to help her piece together the mystery of who she is and their relationship develops from there.  Of course, there are some significant hurdles for them to overcome and there were times it was a really tense read because I knew something bad was coming but I didn’t know exactly what would occur.  There is a happily ever after and there is some karmic retribution but I feel kind of ambivalent about the story on a whole even though it had some good things going for it.

 

The premise of the book is great.  She manages to escape her abuse only to have no recollection of it when she comes to.  Rather than those stories you read where the heroine is simply too ashamed or scared to share her burden with someone, she can’t, and as a result, ends up thrown back to the wolves until her handsome knight finds a way to rescue her.  Another great thing about this book is the dog, bear.  He is an instant protector and I loved how his personality was portrayed whenever his owner displeased him.  The author also writes a fabulous villain.  The control, isolation and abuse he inflicts upon the heroine are starkly defined and definitely pull you into her plight.

 

As for what I didn’t quite enjoy about the book, I didn’t really get into the initial development of the relationship between the two main characters.  The hero behaves a little erratically and that really threw me off because I couldn’t buy into the subsequent progression of their relationship.  The relationship certainly grew on me and I will say that, by the end of the story, it felt like a rather epic love story but my initial disconnect kept me from enjoying a substantial chunk of the book.  I didn’t really like how the main conflict was resolved and felt supreme frustration with all of the people who turned a blind eye to what was going on.  The karmic end was awesome but a little too tidy and convenient.  The story is also rather long which usually is not a negative for me but there is a difference when a story feels long and this one did.  I appreciated that the author tied up every loose end and gave those glimpses into the future that we rarely get enough of but it felt like we were flipping through their life to hit all the milestones which didn’t flow very well. 

 

So, in conclusion, while I really enjoyed the premise of the story and there were aspects that I really enjoyed, there were enough detractors and missteps that I didn’t get to enjoy the book in its entirety.  I don’t regret reading it because there were certainly parts that I connected with emotionally and I was anxious to see what would happen next but the overall execution was just missing something from my standpoint.

Try it for yourself! Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Katie