Lone Heart Pass by Jodi Thomas

As a romance reader I have admitted that I tend to sway more in the erotica direction than I do in the proper romance direction.  There’s something addictive about literally feeling the blood in your veins heat up while you do nothing more than read a book.  Sometimes though you get the craving for something more simple, more… innocent.  Jodi Thomas’ Lone Heart Pass is that sort of book.

Jodi Thomas’s novel is well-researched and well-written with an accompanying slow burn of a romantic story.  Jubilee Hamilton is an exhausted campaign manager with three losses to her name.  Her boyfriend leaves her, she’s suddenly unemployed, and she finds out that her grandfather has passed away leaving her his ranch.  Jubilee doesn’t know a thing about running a ranch, but she’s desperate to make it work.  Thankfully a seasoned ranch hand, Charley Collins knows what it takes.  Together they attempt to build a successful business, fight attraction for one another, and somehow find themselves wrapped up in a murder investigation.

The love between Charley and Jubilee builds slowly.  The way that you or I might fall into love.  It doesn’t happen at first sight, or even overnight, or even in a couple days.  It doesn’t happen in a flourish of drama, either.  It’s all very… normal.  It’s a cute, mostly conflict free, relationship, which is preferable given the amount of non-romantic drama swamping the novel.

I am used to reading romance novels with mysteries.  Lone Heart Pass doesn’t have a mystery in the sense that you spend effort trying to guess who the murderer is.  You follow the story, you’re curious about the ending, but you aren’t really invested in solving the case with the characters.  I do not think this is a fault of the novel, however, it is just the type of novel that Thomas wrote.

I learned quite a lot about ranching from this novel.  Thomas did her research or has lived the life, it’s honestly hard to tell.  While many novels gloss over the unfamiliar, Thomas explains it so well that I may even be able to hold my own in a conversation with a legitimate rancher.  I might as well have been reading a woman named Jubilee’s memoir.

One complaint I had though was that the amount of facts overtook the amount of romance by a lot.  Maybe it was because I was expecting a romance romance novel, which would be my own fault, and thus this complaint wouldn’t count as a genuine complaint.  The romance could have been eliminated completely and it wouldn’t have impacted the overall plot in the least, which is atypical for a romance novel.

This novel was not exactly my taste.  I probably would not seek out another novel by Jodi Thomas, but that’s not really her fault.  It was a pleasant, comfortable read, but as I have always known, I lean more towards dramatic, erotic, exciting novels that keep me on the edge of my seat.  Lone Heart Pass was the book I read before I went to bed because it was that relaxing.

Tough Luck Hero by Maisey Yates

In the last two months my fiancé and I finally moved in together.  This means that he now has to share space with my 600+ romance novels and my romance novels have to share space with his 7 video game books.  Getting married is all about compromise, I suppose.  Anyways, our apartment is still a little chaotic and my iPod charging cord has been misplaced.  So, when my iPod died and I couldn’t bring it to the gym I had to start bringing my books instead. 

I read, and reviewed, Maisey Yates’ Take Me Cowboy about a week ago and found it to be a cute, easy, romantic read.  So, when I had to work out and needed to choose a book I grabbed Yates’ newest novel, Tough Luck Cowboy, coming June 28, 2016.  Reading a book on the Crossramp isn’t the easiest, but reading Tough Luck Cowboy made the whole experience a tiny bit less sucky.

In this novel we meet Colton West, briefly mentioned in Take Me Cowboy, on his wedding day.  Well, it was supposed to be his wedding day, but his bride never showed.  So, Colton, shamed and humiliated in front of friends and family, grabs Lydia Carpenter, his least favorite person, and together they wind up in Vegas and married.  Though they’re fairly certain they won’t survive a marriage together, they both know they can’t just end it and get divorced.  Colton is already dealing with some heavy family shame and Lydia is so close to being mayor that she can almost taste it.  They decide to stay married and pretend to be madly in love, which turns out to be more difficult than they imagined considering they are at each other’s throats constantly.  It’s even more difficult when they realize that they’re both fighting an insane attraction to one another.

Usually I get turned off a novel when the author creates unrealistic situations with even more unrealistic reasoning backing it up.  So you can probably understand that I was very hesitant to believe that Maisey Yates would be able to convince me that two people who despise each other would agree to stay married.  However, Yates managed to do just that.  The motives that both Colton and Lydia had to stay married, without spoiling your read, were plausible.

Another bright spot of the novel is that the characters were relatable and really well thought out and, for the most part, unique.  Obviously they had the typical alpha male, independent woman trope going on, but I liked the time that Yates spent developing their backgrounds.  Without giving away too much, I will say that at one point in my reading I realized I was actually tearing up.  I have laughed out loud during readings, gotten really angry, applied an ice pack to the back of my neck during particularly steamy sections, but I don’t know if a romance novel has actually made me cry before. 

Oddly enough, my biggest complaint is that I didn’t think there was enough drama, which is a feeling I do not usually have.  I felt that the whole book wrapped up one or two dramas short, but overall it was still an entertaining read.  The ending happened organically and I did not feel that the relationship that developed between Colton and Lydia was rushed in the least.

Maisey Yates writes an entertaining, romantic read.  I will definitely come back for more.

Take Me Cowboy by Maisey Yates

Prior to reading Take Me Cowboy I had never heard of Maisey Yates.  I will admit that my collection of romance novels stem from a select few of my absolute favorite authors.  I have been eager to branch out however, and Yates' small 200 page Take Me Cowboy seemed like the perfect step into her world.  

Anna Brown is your typical girl, okay, well she's not exactly typical.  She runs a mechanic shop for large farm vehicles, she's more comfortable in grease and dirt than a dress and heels, and she hasn't had a date in years... years!  Her best friend Chase McCormack is drop dead gorgeous, good with his hands, and she's been trying for years to convince herself that he isn't her type.  Anna and Chase, in order to win a bet, must now pretend that they're dating and madly in love to boot.  In the meantime, they also have to pretend they don't have insane chemistry and desire to see one another naked.  

While the plot (girl who doesn't know she's attractive scores super hot dude) isn't a relatively new plot in the romance sector, Yates still managed to keep me interested.  The way that Yates writes dialogue switches between "slightly cliche" and "totally believable" which is alright by me.  In my opinion, when dialogue is too believable it's actually a negative.  If my romance novels were too realistic, they'd be like my regular life, and my dialogue isn't scoring me hot dudes (at least anymore, since I'm getting married to a hot dude I scored 4 years ago with my wit and charm).  

The relationship between Anna and Chase builds in a surprisingly realistic manner for such a short novel, as they tend to rush things, though I suppose it helps that the characters had been friends for some time.  Their male/female friendship reminded me of my own friendship with my best guy friend (which is totally amicable, by the way).  It's hard to go from friends to lovers, and the story has to reflect that difficulty which I think Yates accomplished.

One thing Yates does amazingly is her sex scenes.  At one point (page 70 for those looking to skip ahead) I was legitimately sweating.  Some sex scenes can either focus too much on the emotional or too much on the sexual, but Yates definitely managed to find the gentle balance between the two.  

My one complaint was that I felt that the book wrapped up pretty quickly.  I have never really liked when the climax happens only pages from the end.  However, that might just be my enjoyment of long drawn out arguments/drama talking, so you might find that you actually find pleasure in the ending.  

All in all, this was a really great start to my adventure into Maisey Yates.  Coming soon is my review of Tough Luck Hero by Maisey Yates, out June 28th, 2016.

The Marshal's Justice by Delores Fossen

It is always my hope when I begin reading a romance novel, or venture into the works of a new author, that I will absolutely love what I read.  One of the novels I picked up from the BookExpo America last week was The Marshal's Justice by Delores Flossen, an author I have never heard of before.  Unfortunately my following review will not be an overwhelmingly positive one.

This is the 4th novel in what appears to be a series of possible stand alones.  I am sure that reading the first three novels would probably have given me a better understanding of the characters and their relationships, but Flossen did a decent job of recapping the previous books in a natural way throughout the book.

In The Marshal's Justice, April Landis is pregnant with marshal Chase Crockett's daughter... or at least she was pregnant the last time he saw her.  April and Chase soon find themselves, and their infant daughter, entangled in a scheme involving mobsters, untrustworthy brothers, angry ex-girlfriends, murder, and mystery.  

This book will not satisfy your romantic cravings.  In fact, most of the book I was actually annoyed at the main characters rather than rooting for them to get together.  There was an unbelievable amount of tension between the characters, and not the good kind of tension, i.e. the romantic kind.  It was mostly just an uncomfortable sort of tension that had me wishing the book would simply end.

My biggest issue with the book was that things just. kept. happening.  They would catch the bad guy one moment, and the next he would escape.  Ten pages later they would have captured him again, and four pages after that he was gone again.  I find it hard to believe that these cops still have jobs with the number of times they have let criminals escape.  Flossen attempted to create a mystery with regards to who the true criminal was, but in the end her work seemed sloppy and it certainly didn't come together to create an overall successful plot.

Long story short, I would not recommend this novel.  I have one other book by Flossen and I will give it a chance in case The Marshal's Justice was simply a fluke.  

1/5 stars.

Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Nancy Campbell Allen

Last Thursday I was lucky enough to attend the BookExpo America which, this year, was located in Chicago.  The BEA is like a giant book fair with authors, publishers, agents, and everyone in between.  Many of the publishers give away free books and I was able to snag, oh, about fifty of them.  Right before closing on Thursday I was walking around some of the booths as they cleaned up and saw a cardboard cutout of a handsome man.  Knowing that this was most likely an indicator of romance novels, I paused and started chatting with the publicist. 

The publicist, Chris, recommended their newest novel, out August 2016.  Beauty and the Clockwork Beast is a steampunk proper romance.  A proper romance novel, I learned, is closer to Pride and Prejudice than Fifty Shades of Grey, by a lot.  It means that the most Lucy and Miles, main characters of Beauty, are going to do is kiss.  This is a new concept for me considering most of the novels I read are torrid, sexy, and blush worthy.  The Steampunk genre, according to Google, is “subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.”

Beauty and the Clockwork Beast is, pretty obviously, based loosely on the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale.  Lucy Pickett is an exceptionally bright and talented woman.  Miles Blake is handsome, surly, and hiding a terrible secret.  Lucy arrives at Blackwell Manor to care for her ill cousin and becomes the target of a sinister force.  Miles and Lucy team up to figure out who, or what, has decided to eliminate Lucy.  It could be a vampire, a shapeshifter, a ‘ton, or even a regular, normal human being.  Throughout their adventure, Lucy and Miles grow close, and they have the potential to grow closer, if Miles can get past his insecurities and let Lucy see the true him.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Beauty and the Clockwork Beast by Nancy Campbell Allen.  It had a thrilling mystery paired with a suspenseful romance and a lovely steampunk twist.  I have never read steampunk before, except some free kindle download I read a while back, and I’ll admit I was a little confused at the beginning of reading.  It took me until page 92 (I counted) to truly get into the book because prior to that I was spending a lot of energy trying to understand all the unfamiliar terminology.

I beg you though, please power through the confusion and get to at least page 92.  That’s when the mystery ramps up and the romance does, too.  Despite there not being any scenes of a sexual nature, there were many moments where my heart skipped a beat and more than one scene that I reread a few times just to keep that feeling going.  Allen writes amazing chemistry between her characters while still making it seem realistic, rather than forcing interactions and feelings. 

I have two complaints about the book, however.  The first is that I think this book would have sufficed being either a vampire/shapeshifter novel or a steampunk novel. Together the whole plot seemed a tad overwhelmed.  The second complaint is that it was over so fast.  I really could have kept reading, and romancing, and swooning over Miles for ages more.

All in all, it was a great read and I would definitely seek out more books by Nancy Campbell Allen.  I might even be persuaded to check out more novels of the steampunk genre, now that I have somewhat of an understanding of the genre as a whole.  When this book comes out in August 2016, I strongly suggest that you check it out. 

4.5/5 stars

Bared to You (A Crossfire Novel) by Sylvia Day

I have read 50 Shades of Grey.  I am one of those who fell victim to the popularity, and the scandalous nature, of the books when they first came out.  I even, gasp, read them in public.  This often drew stares from random strangers, but like I have mentioned previously, I refuse to be shamed for my reading choices. 

Bared to You (A Crossfire Novel) by Sylvia Day is very similar to 50 Shades of Grey.  Following the release of 50 Shades of Grey, there was suddenly an influx of similar novels flooding the market attempting to ride the erotic novel’s popularity.  The Crossfire series was absolutely that sort of novel.

Eva Tramwell lived a seriously messed up childhood, but has come a long way since then. She’s a fully functioning adult now, she’s even starting a new job.  On her first day of work she runs into Gideon Cross, playboy billionaire, and also the owner of the building she now works in.  She’s inexplicably drawn to him, even as her intuition tells her to run far, far away.  Together they navigate a dark, troubling relationship.

In terms of pros, Bared To You is full of blush-worthy sex scenes and dramatic fights/make ups between Eva and Gideon.  It is the sort of book that kept my blood pumping into my face the entire time I was reading it.  Thankfully, Sylvia Day is not known for skimping, so you’ll find plenty of erotic scenes throughout the novel.  The writing was well done and my attention was captured the entire read.

What goes up must come down, however, and this novel was full of flaws.  For one, the main characters, and even secondary characters, were full of over-the-top problems.  It is unfathomable to me that such troubled human beings could function in society.  They, including Eva, had very few redeemable qualities, and were, to keep it simple, incredibly annoying.  I just could not find myself attracted to Gideon because his character was completely unbelievable. 

The other major issue that I had with this book is that it was originally part of a trilogy.  It was not until I was reading the third book that I started to realize that the author did not appear to be wrapping things up, instead she seemed to be extending sections that did not need extending, simply to make the book longer.  At the end of the novel Day admitted that she did not feel that the books could end yet, and revealed that she was adding two more books to the series.

I was really upset when I read this, because it seemed like an obvious ploy to make more money by making readers buy extra, unnecessary books, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she had some really good ideas for the next books.  However, upon receiving and reading the fourth novel it was clear that Day did not have grand ideas for her series.  The fourth novel was over 300 pages and took place over the course of one week for Gideon and Eva.  It was full of the same fights, the same drama, and the same problems, with zero addition to the plot itself.  As a reader I felt disrespected that Day would think she could pass off this garbage as the fourth novel.  Due to that, I refused to buy the fifth novel in her series, and have not read it to this day.

Overall, the first book was a fun, dramatic read that got my heart pumping madly, but the fact that the characters were such terrible people, the obvious money grab, and the lack of normal communication between the characters really ruined the rest of the series for me.  Read at your own risk.

3/5 for the book, 2/5 for the series

'Til Death Do Us Part by Amanda Quick

I have not always been a fan of historical romances.  When I first started reading romance novels I started reading contemporary romance novel because I did not have to focus too much on the background information: the dress, the vocabulary, and facts of the time period.  I live those every day.  I used to struggle reading historical romance novels because I was unfamiliar with so much of the novel’s background information. 

However, now that I am a little older I find that I can appreciate these novels so much more because I am no longer looking to find myself in these novels.  When I was younger I wanted to believe that these romances could happen to me, and that was made easier by reading situations I believed I could be in.  Now, I’m looking for a way to escape my own reality, temporarily, and delve into a new time period, a new country, a new experience.

Amanda Quick, the historical penname of Jayne Ann Krentz, writes some of my favorite historical romance novels.  I am always impressed with the way historical romance authors, such as Amanda Quick, can make me feel such a part of their chosen environment, an environment I have never lived in, nor studied extensively.  ‘Til Death Do Us Part is no exception. 

Calista Langley runs an “introduction” agency in Victorian London.  Though some consider her work to be merely one step higher than a brothel, Calista runs an honest business bringing together lonely individuals at her various social hours.  Some of her introductions end in formal relationships, but other times they merely end in friendships.  Everything is going well for Calista, and her younger brother, until someone starts leaving threatening gifts that seem to imply Calista will be meeting an early grave.  Fearful, Calista turns to the brother of one of her clients, Trent Hastings, author of a popular detective series.  Together, with the help of their families, they work to uncover who is trying to harm Calista, while also trying to navigate their growing feelings for one another.

Quick writes great mysteries.  I typically pride myself on being able to guess the ending to a mystery well before it is revealed.  This probably comes from the many hours I have spent watching CSI, Bones, Law and Order: SVU and every other crime show on television.  However, I do not believe that I have ever guessed the ending to one of Quick’s book in less than 200 pages.  In ‘Til Death Do Us Part I think I managed to guess the ending around 250 pages in, which might be a new record for me.  For a little while I deluded myself into thinking I knew who it was 100 pages in, but alas, Quick twisted things so that I was left confused and bewildered once more.

Amanda Quick (i.e. Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle) creates some of the most amazing characters with the most believable, strong relationships.  ‘Til Death Do Us Part brings us yet another strong female character and a male character willing to let her be herself in a time period when women were continuously oppressed. Calista and Trent’s relationship is built on mutual respect and a budding attraction to one another and it culminates in some wild nights of passion.  I have always loved the way that Quick writes her romantic scenes, not glossing over the sexual situations like some authors tend to do. 

The one complaint that I might have regarding Quick’s main characters actually stems from this fact.  Quick’s female characters are always strong right from the beginning.  I think that I would appreciate seeing a female character develop her strength throughout the novel rather than being blessed with it from birth.  I will concede that some of Jayne Ann Krentz’s have female characters closer to what I am describing, but Quick really tends to focus on these strong women. 

All in all, I was not disappointed by ‘Til Death Do Us Part, but then again, I am never disappointed by Quick.  I think that her novels follow similar plot outlines to one another, but I’m still incredibly impressed with the creative conflicts that she creates.  If you continue to follow my blog you’ll notice that I am an insane lover of Krentz’s book, under all names, but I don’t play favorites with my reviews.

4/5 stars.

Fun fact: I own 99% of novels by Jayne Ann Krentz (contemporary romance), and her pennames (Amanda Quick: historical romance, Jayne Castle: sci-fi romance novels, and Stephanie Laurens: her name from the 1980s).  

Been Here All Along by Sandy Hall

After reading Sandy Hall’s novels, A Little Something Different and Signs Point to Yes, and being rather disappointed by them, I was not too optimistic about her soon-to-be-published novel, Been Here All Along (coming August 2016).  Sandy Hall has a tendency to rush her novels, while at the same time creating far too much drama in her character’s lives.  This new novel will be here in August 2016, but I received an advanced reader copy.

Been Here All Along is very similar to Hall’s other novels in terms of characters, writing style, and plot development.  Gideon is a self-described nerd.  He’s running for class president, head of the yearbook club, and incredibly smart.  His best friend Kyle is a basketball superstar, dating the head cheerleader, and an all-around popular guy.  To outsiders it would appear that they live perfect lives, but each of them is harboring a secret they do not want anyone else to know, including their best friend. 

This book has one large difference from Hall’s other two novels.  The romantic relationship it focuses on is between two male characters, Gideon and Kyle to be exact.  It was a pleasant surprise to find a book with a gay relationship in it because they are so under-represented in our libraries/bookstores.  I have found there to be less of a stigma on these novels in the kindle world, especially among free kindle books, but their presence is severely lacking on physical shelves.

Despite the difference in the romantic relationship, the rest of the novel follows the same plot outline as her other books.  There is simply too much happening and too few pages to contain it.  While attending an author event one night at work I heard a quote that stuck with me.  The author said that, when writing a novel, you write, and write, and write and then when you think you’re done, you cut the content in half.  It seems like Sandy cut the length of her novel, but forgot to decrease the intense amount of drama happening.

Rather than focusing on one or two specific conflicts within the novel Halls tries to give each characters two or three conflicts to deal with, which ends with the reader being overwhelmed.  Every time a conflict would be resolved two more conflicts would pop up in its place.  Without spoiling the novel, I think that this book could have done without Ruby’s (Kyle’s girlfriend) over-the-top dramatic reactions and annoying interference.  She was an unnecessary character in this novel.

I can say with great confidence that I would never spend money on one of Sandy Hall’s books.  I wanted to like these books, I really did, but I just could not get past the immature, run of the mill plots and the subpar writing.

2/5 stars.