Erica Lucke Dean

Hundreds of years ago a pregnant woman rode off in a storm to beg a witch's blessing for her unborn child. That choice would plague her into madness.

Ava is the new girl in town. She has recently lost her father and has moved with her Mom and little brother into her deceased grandmother's house. On her first night she sees "lamppost guy" as she calls him, a handsome hunk who seems to be staring up at her window. As suddenly as he appears, he is gone. The next day she thinks she spots him in a store where she's shopping with her mom, but while trying to catch up with him she crashes into her soon to be new bestie and lamppost guy disappears again. Suddenly everywhere Ava goes, she feels his presence, until at last they meet. Ava feels an instant connection as if they are soul mates, but she doesn't know that's only half the story!
Full of romance and suspense without graphic sex this is a perfect read for young adult fans of paranormal romance.

I received a complimentary copy for review… (meer)

I was provided an ARC via Netgalley for an honest review.

Let me just put it out there right now that this is not at all what I expected it to be. I expected smut, hello the name is Jewels of Desire, but I did not expect a novella of pure smut.

expected this:
Lucy Matthews can’t believe her crazy luck. While she’s on a date with Mr. Wrong, her evening tilts from merely unfortunate to downright surreal when his attempt to sneak them into a club lands them in the middle of a diamond heist.

When gorgeous Max Callaghan discovers a hot and disheveled Lucy clutching his bag of diamonds at the crime scene, he brands her with a fiery kiss. His gang wants her dead, so Max rescues her by claiming her as his girlfriend. Lucy soon realizes with sudden, pulse-pounding clarity that she needs Max for another reason entirely, but their passionate ruse might not survive the intense pressure of a high-stakes mob war.

got this:
Lucy's date is fun, but not treating her like the princess she is. Enter hot man who she thinks is a cop, but really isn't. When she find out he's not a cop, but really involved in a diamond heist, she still has no problem letting him touch her and bang her in front of all his friends multiple times in one night.


What? I was totally cool with having smut mixed in with a diamond heist, in fact I loved all the minor characters and the plot. The commentary was hilarious and there really could be a full length novel in there, somewhere. It just could have been done differently or you know, branded differently so I knew what I was getting into. Instead, mid-read, I made some terrible noise and screamed, "what am I reading?!" I wanted more from this for sure and I feel a bit duped that it wasn't clear this was a novella. Now if Erica Lucke Dean decides to make this a full length novel, absolutely keep the smutty scenes, just give me some context. I've never met a girl who witnesses something illegal and then is 100% cool with sex in a car, hotel, club, outside, elevetor, etc. The writing itself is done very well and I didn't find any errors. I'll let you know how I fare with book two.… (meer)

*Book source ~ A review copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

Sorceress Ivie McKie is a Kindergarten teacher and, after a bad couple of experiences, has decided to retire from her short-lived foray into the arena of magic. This suits her fiancé, veterinarian Jackson Blake, quite well, but her back-from-the-dead father who wasn’t dead at all, but a dog then a cat, won’t let her just be happy. He’s determined to settle a debt with an archaic practice and he’ll do anything to make sure it happens.

I’m going to start off by saying I loved book 1 in this series, Suddenly Sorceress. It was quirky and funny and quite a fun adventure. Which makes my disappointment in Suddenly Spellbound all the more heartbreaking. Everything I loved in the first book is missing here. The book is well-written, but I can’t get past all of the shitty behavior. Ivie is a Class A moron. She trips along from disaster to disaster with not brain one in her head. Letting her dad rule her life is another thing that irritated me and it’s this daddy thing that leads me to the thing that pissed me off the most.

Ivie’s dad is the one with magic in the family. Because he’s been in animal form for so many years, Ivie makes excuse after excuse after excuse for him every time he does something weird or dangerous. But when he asks her to do a spell and lies about what kind of spell it is and she blindly agrees despite promising Jack she wouldn’t do any more magic, the result is her father and his “apprentice” giving Ivie a magical roofie and magically violating her. They took away her free will with magic (the roofie) and lied the entire fucking book about it. They used magic to manipulate her and even though Ivie knew something wasn’t right, she kept allowing her dad to do shit to her magically. I am so not ok with this. In fact, I almost just stopped right there, but decided I should hang in and see if Ivie rips her dad a new asshole about this shit. Nope. That is NOT what happens. Ivie continually lies to Jack about the shit that’s going on, completely disrespecting him and their relationship, all the while drooling over the “apprentice” all because of the magical roofie. On top of all of this, toward the end, there are more instances of Ivie being a total moron and it ends in a cliffhanger. I will not be reading any more in this series. I’m completely soured on the whole Ivie and Jack relationship now and I wash my hands of them.… (meer)