Erin McCarthy (1)Besprekingen

Fun book almost reads like a mystery. Two vampires awaken handcuffed together. While another is in assless chaps in a sling. This is all after the wedding reception of one of their friends. Now there our to find out what happened. Was it the caterer who also doesn't remember anything. The gang of 5 drag queen Chers. Or could it be someone/something else.

"The Good Girl's Guide to a Very Bad Christmas" Kylie Adams -- this was my favorite, hands down.

I'll review each story separately

Hard Drive I liked the best of the three. I thought the set up worked well and didn't feel like McCarthy was pigeon holing Mack or Kindra into a stereotype to fit the needs of the story. If at times I was hard pressed to remember Kindra's inexperience in reality wasn't a put-on to make Mack sweat, I ignored it in favor of Mack's reaction at the end.

User Friendly, aside from the fact that Evan is my idea of an ideal mate, this story didn't interest me overmuch. Halley was a bit much for me and I felt like Evan really could have done better. Neurotic is perhaps the word I would use for Halley, though from all the caterers I've met in the past that seems to be a requirement.

Press Any Key, worked for me. I liked Candy, despite her very ridiculous name (Jared's right, it does sound like she should have been a porn star) and I liked the fact that Jared was somewhat dense when it came to her flirting with him.

All in all they were 3 pretty decent stories, and if I understood the back cover rightly this was back when McCarthy was still fairly new to the publishing scene.

Gone with the Ghost
Murder by Design, Book 1

I Picked Up This Book Because: I had one of the series on my #WinterGames TBR but didn’t realize it was a part of a series so went ahead and listened to this one to give the series a try.

Media Type: Audiobook
Source: Scribd
Dates Read: 12/6/23 - 12/7/23
Stars: 3
Narrator(s): Elizabeth Klett

The Characters:

Bailey Burke
Ryan

The Story:

I found it just okay. A decent mystery but there seemed to be a lot of misunderstanding. The unrequited love aspect just didn’t work for me. As I write this a week or so after reading I don’t even recall the resolution. So, yeah, just okay.

The Random Thoughts:

Midnight Rendezvous by Jamie Denton
He's a playwright with an alcohol problem and she is an ex model disfigured by a drunk driver. He's searching for a muse and her naked midnight swims are keeping his creative flow going but his life is in New York and her life is in New Orleans and the two of them couldn't possibly work as a couple until they do.

Dime Store Cowboy by Kate Douglas
Mark decides after an experience at a dude ranch to move there and try the life, Betsy has escaped an abusive relationship and resents his flippant attitude to life. The two of them have to find common ground.

From the Storm by Lori Foster
Sabrina works at a children's shelter using her life experience as a child to help the children. Roy works as a vet who also has an animal shelter. When they were younger his family took her in when her junkie
Sweet, tender. She was an abused girl his family had saved and taken in after her abusive junkie father tried to sell her for a fix. Storms make her very upset and he's always willing to soothe her but he respects her boundaries until they both change theirs.

Life in the Past Lane by Kathy Love
Rocco Vincente is happy with his life of writing columns and squiring women around New York but his 15 year reunion happens and the woman in charge of the Bed and Breakfast he goes to happens to be Fanny who he liked from afar. As he explores the town where he finished his high school education from a group home, he gets some perspective from himself as adult.

Take Me Home by Erin McCarthy
Sarah is home and pregnant and unsure who the father was. Travis has always been her refuge but he's cautious, she mightn't stay and that would break his heart but he can't stop helping her.

Razors Edge - Sylvia Day
This was included in the Shadow Stalkers Novella Anthology - he's an old friend of her now-dead husband and he's always been attracted to her but didn't want to go there on a friend, she's getting over the death of her husband and trying to find a new future.

All in all the stories were okay, in some instances I would have liked a bit more, in others the story was about the right lenght. A few of the authors I'd look for again.½

Jacked Up is a sweet, steamy and sexy contemporary read. The relationship McCarthy explores in this book is based on mutual attraction and love but battles against external factors such as money, family, and social conditioning. It did, however, feel rushed in the end and lacking in a proper resolution.

For the rest of the review:
http://fictionnecessary.tumblr.com/post/24894844539/jacked-up-erin-mccarthy

ugh. the heroine sucks.

Cute story. It started off pretty slow, but got better as it progressed. It sort of seemed like the author hit her stride with the story about 1/4th of the way into the book. I'll definitely check out the other books in the series.

Double Exposure
2 Stars

Fellow journalists Emma Gideon and Kyle Hadley bare it all on their common assignment covering a large scale nude photoshoot. As their relationship changes from rival co-workers to lovers, Emma and Kyle will have to decide if their passion and intimacy is worth the risk to their careers and hearts.

Kyle is a charming and affable hero, and Emma is cute albeit somewhat self-absorbed and strait-laced. They have smokin' hot chemistry and their office romance is very engaging.

Unfortunately, Emma does something so monumentally stupid toward the end of the book that it ruins the entire story. What woman in their right mind would contact a clearly disturbed stalker and arrange to meet with them in a dark and isolated parking lot?.

Moreover, there is a lack of closure for the secondary plotlines involving Kyle and Emma's spiteful boss and the photographer's stalker.

All in all, Erin McCarthy's Harlequin debut goes from sizzle to fizzle.

Ten First Dates

Bayou Tonight - Erin Nicholas - Stars - Characters - Thoughts/review

The Girl in the Jersey - Off the Ice, Book .5 - Ainsley Booth - 4 Stars - Kieran Marsh, “Jersey Girl” - Quick, fun and very hot. I’m interested in continuing this series because I need to know what happens when these two find each other again.

Stay Always - Kaylee Ryan - Stars - Character Names - Review/Thoughts

The Matchmaker’s Mistake - Angela Denise - Stars - Character Names - Review/Thoughts

False Start - Kingsmen Football Stars, Book 1 - Piper Rayne - Stars - Character Names - Review

Shopping for a Booty Call - Julia Kent - Stars - Character Names - Review

At First Glance - But First, Whiskey, Book .5 -- Erin McCarthy - 4 Stars - MacKay Lennox, Faith - Another book that has me ready to dive into the series. Brother’s best friend is one of my favorite tropes and these two have so much chemistry I know it will be good.

Call Me - The Donovan's, Book .5 - Samantha Chase - 4 Stars - Arianna Donovan, Will Jameson - Again a really good start to a series. I’ve already looked up the next book and marked it to borrow from Scribd.

Rebel Secret - SERIES INFO - Zoe York - Stars - CHARACTER NAMES HERE - REVIEW/THOUGHTS HERE

Moments with Him - Molly McLain - Stars - CHARACTER NAMES HERE - REVIEW/THOUGHTS HERE

We start off and a group of vampires don't remember the night before. One has gotten married to a newly made vampire and another finally admits to his feelings for his band manager. Also there was apparent suicide of one of the band mates at the start of the book. Was an ok book, read about like a mystery with some hilarious moments and graphic sexual escapes thrown in.

I received this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

How to Get Lucky by Erin McCarthy is the story about Allison Parker, who's not having the best life. She gets told by her supposedly psychic friend that love just isn't in the cards for her. But money is. So the friend convinces her to buy a lottery ticket. Which she does. And she wins. Then she meets a rock star and her life changes in ways she can't imagine.

I really liked this book. There was humor and romance and a whole lot of fun. I didn't love Allison at first, but as the book goes on, you really begin to know and understand her and it's easier to warm up to her. Marco was great. I loved him. The other characters were equally as charming, especially Beckwith. Hands down, Beckwith was my favorite character.

As it turns out, How to Get Lucky is the book I've been waiting YEARS for ... and I never even knew it! I read this book pretty much "sight unseen." Meaning, when I saw it was an Erin McCarthy novel, I knew I had to read it. I've read and enjoyed books by this author in the past and knew it would be good reading. So I didn't read a summary or synopsis or anything about the book. I just jumped right into it .... and could NOT put it down. I read it pretty much in one sitting. Stayed up past my bedtime to do it. And when I got to the author notes at the end, I saw that it's book 3 in a series I had started years ago and had been waiting for the continuation. I was so excited and bummed at the same time. It had been so long since I read The Pregnancy Test and You Don't Know Jack and just didn't make the connection. But this book gives me an excuse to go back and re-read the first two books. If you read those first two books, I highly recommend reading this one. If you didn't read those first two books, I still would recommend this as it can pretty much stand on its own.

This was okay. Really funny in some parts. Tuesday was a funny drunk .... until her drunkenness stopped being funny. She had some problems. I liked her and Diesel, but I'm not sure they were healthy for each other in the end.

Seamus is a 370 year old vampire and a campaign manager for the president of the vampire nation. He hasn’t had sex in 200 years since his last girlfriend betrayed him but all that is about to change. When he spots a shadow dancer (someone who dances behind a screen) at a strip club, he instantly becomes enamored.

He is there to speak to the dance choreographer who is the aunt of Alexis, the vampire president’s wife, to find out if she knows who the father of Alexis’ sister, Brittany. I know…it’s hard to follow. Alexis’ mom cheated on her dad with a vampire and had her sister Brittany. They never knew until recently that vampires even existed or that Brittany’s father was a vampire. Their mother died of an overdose when Brittany was only thirteen so she can’t tell them but hopefully, the aunt knows who her father is.

Cara Kim dances behind a screen at the strip club as a shadow dancer. She could never dance nude in front of an audience but this club lets her shadow dance which helps pay her way through veterinary school. She never has to see or interact with the audience except when she finishes her act and puts her robe on, a man appears and is asking her questions and looking at her with lust. She wonders how he got past the bouncers. She tries to back away but she is frozen like she is in a trance. He asks her name and even though she doesn’t want to, she tells him. Then a skinny dark-haired woman interrupts them and is frantically telling the man something. Cara makes her escape. She goes to the dressing room, puts on her jeans but feels like the man she just met is in trouble. She exits out the back door.

Kelsey was taken by bad guys and was drained of blood. Seamus fed her his blood to revive her. She was already a vampire so it didn’t kill her but she is scared now and has been clinging to Seamus. When she interrupts his chat with Cara and frantically tells him the people who hurt her are in the club, he escapes through and exit door and finds himself in an alley with the bad guys. While he is fighting them, he notices that Cara is hiding and watching them. He tries to keep the bad guys from seeing her but one does spot her and he tries to bite her. Cara ends up running into the street and gets hit by a car. She is dying. Seamus has no choice but to change her into a vampire.
The bad guys are thugs sent out to kill Seamus and Kelsey by Donatelli, Ethan Carrick’s opponent for the presidency of the vampire nation. Donatelli is evil and really wants to win the election but so far the good guys haven’t figured out that it is Donatelli who is sending assassins after them.

This book has a serious storyline and plot but it also has a lot of humor in it which makes it fun to read. The author does a great job of pulling the reader into the story by making loveable characters. She does something interesting with one of the characters, Ringo. He starts out in the first book as an assassin for hire and human. He has no idea his target is a vampire. He meets the targets secretary, Kelsey, and starts to have feelings for her. He is bad but he also has the capacity to be good also. I like what the author is doing with this character. In this book, Donatelli has made Ringo into a vampire and has addicted him to drug laced blood. Ringo feels trapped by Donatelli and fears if he doesn’t get away from Donatelli, he will be lost forever and turn totally evil. He is conflicted. I’m interested to see what happens to this character.

Now, I’m hooked so I am going to read the next book. I noticed that there are only four books written so far…or maybe there are only four books to the series. It shouldn’t take me too long to finish all of them.

Brittany Baldizzi is pregnant by a vampire who she barely knows. He promised to be a part of the pregnancy and baby’s life but it’s been eight weeks since she has seen him last. He’s sent flowers every week with a computer generated card reading, “Thinking of you, Corbin.” He said he was going to court her but in her opinion, he is failing big time to woo her. He did tell her that they had to be discreet because she is half vampire herself and a baby between a vampire and impure (half vampire) has never been heard of before. The ramifications of that could be dangerous. Someone might want to take the baby and study it or worse.

Brittany has no idea what all this means because she has just recently discovered vampires even existed and had no clue that her unknown father was a vampire. Her mother was a stripper who cheated on her then husband, the father of her older sister, but she never knew who the father was and she still does not know.

Corbin Jean Michel Atelier is vampire and scientist. He has been trying to find a cure for vampirism since the 1800s and he is very close. He accidentally let a woman die 40 years ago so the vampire nation punished him by a sort of house arrest. He has to wear a watch which is the equivalent to an ankle bracelet. He has to stay in the Las Vegas area and cannot leave. He is also shunned by most vampires and cannot attend vampire events. He met Brittany and when he learned she was an impure he knew she might be the missing link in his experiments. She agrees to give him a blood sample and they ended up having sex which ended in pregnancy.

He can’t help falling for Brittany because she is so beautiful, sweet and understanding but he is afraid someone will discover that he is the father of the baby. He wants people to believe that a mortal fathered the baby so Brittany and the baby will be safe but at the same time, he wants to be with her and be involved with the pregnancy so he signs up for a class called Daddy Boot Camp. It’s hilarious to watch him go through the class.

Meanwhile, Ringo has gone to New York to tell Donatelli about the baby. He overheard the conversation between Brittany and Corbin while Corbin was helping him detox from heroine laced blood. Ringo became addicted to it after Donatelli turned him into a vampire. He was hired by Donatelli while he was human to assassinate the president of the vampire nation, Ethan Carrick, who was up for re-election. Donatelli was his opponent. Ringo, of course, didn’t realize he was up against vampires and that a bullet wouldn’t kill Ethan. While casing the casino, he met Kelsey who made him want to change his ways but the opportunity to make money with this information proves to be too much for him so he takes off to find Donatelli.

A new candidate for president has been announced, Gregor Chechikov. He was known for working with Vladimir Kiev in the tenth century as a warlord who would crush rebellions by killing entire villages. He isn’t a nice man. He is downright evil. He is the one funding Corbin’s research and if he finds out about the baby, it would be disastrous.

I am really into this series but there are some things that drive me nuts like how the bad guys are not punished when they are discovered. Ringo was basically given a slap on the hand for trying to assassinate Ethan. Donatelli was given an electronic monitor and sent to New York to live free. After all the trouble he caused. He hired an assassin. He terrorized Kelsey, Cara and Alexis in his hotel room but making Cara strip and dance for him and breaking Alex’s wrist. He also addicted his employees to drugs by putting heroin in their blood. I think he got a rather light sentence for all of that.

I was caught up in the romance of Brittany and Corbin. My heart went out to them and their situation. I wanted to shake Corbin a few times too.
I’m off to read the next book. I think it is the finale but I’m not real sure. I’ll find out when I read it.

www.paranormalromanceslut.com

Alexis Baldizzi is upset that her younger sister has blown off her dental practice and started living at a hotel/casino with the owner. She thinks her sister has been kidnapped and brain washed so she storms into the casino, ignores the front desk attendants and bullies her way passed security and demands to see her sister. The hotel and casino owner, Ethan Carrick, is polite to Alexis but…despite being a prosecutor, Alexis starts pulling martial art’s moves on him and trying to beat him up. It was pretty juvenile and I kept thinking she was over-reacting and Ethan should have called the police on her. I’m thinking her career would have been over but instead, Ethan got turned on by it. I, however, was turned off and decided not to like the leading lady.

Ethan Carrick is not only the hotel and casino owner of a successful casino on the strip of Las Vegas but he is also the president of the vampire nation and he is campaigning for a second term against a rather unsavory opponent. His campaign manager thought that Ethan’s image would be improved if he settled down so when he met Alexis’ sister, Brittany, an impure (someone born from a human mother and a vampire father) he thought it would be the perfect opportunity to impress his constituents by marrying her except for one thing, he wasn’t attracted to her and had no feeling for her.

Brittany is a sweet girl but she has no idea she is half vampire. She’s figured out that Ethan and his friends are vampires and thinks she needs to save their souls. When she tells Alexis this, Alexis thinks that Ethan and his friends are playing like they are vampires like people play Dungeons and Dragons. She agrees to take Brittany’s place to play Ethan’s girlfriend for a week so her sister will go home and back to her dental practice. She thinks Ethan and his friends are all crazy.

Alexis grew on me. After the disaster of the first meeting with Ethan, she stopped being so juvenile. She was still crass but that endeared her to me because I realized she reminded me of me the way she doesn’t get all sappy and she just says what she is thinking.

I enjoyed the romance between Ethan and Alexis and I was intrigued by the secondary characters and the plot. The thing I liked the most was the humor. Humor goes a long way with me.

I’m not sure if I am hooked or not on this series but I have downloaded the second book and am going to start reading it tonight.

www.paranormalromanceslut.com

I not really the target audience for this New Adult book but I enjoyed it. It was angsty (a NA prerequisite) without being OTT. Maybe angsty lite. It's really amazing how using the correct vocabulary can set the tone for a book. These characters really felt their age, college kids. It was nice to read about a heroine who was cute but not drop dead gorgeous and a nice hipster type real smart guy who was not the greatest at figuring out girls. The whole story just seemed pretty real to me. Sort of the story of a relationship which might happen in the real world no rock stars or prize fighters or running from the mafia. ;-)

This book didn't really know if it wanted to be funny or not. Mostly it was funny and I enjoyed that element. I did find it totally unbelievable that she could be his assistant for two months and he only saw her twice. That was just stretching my willing suspension of disbelief too far. I also liked the element of his wife's murder and how he began to heal when he fell for the heroine. I liked that when she found out that he had been arrested for the murder she never had that moment of doubt that most romance authors throw in to increase tension. She believed in his innocent without a moment of hesitation. But really the two elements were jarring together for me. So his character didn't seem really solid in either the humor or the healing from murder thing. Maybe these should have been two stories? Still I enjoyed it and it was overall a nice pleasant read.

Okay first I'm going to say how odd it is that this, Book 3, came out in a paper copy way after Book 4 did. Hmmm...

I liked this one. I liked that the heroine, Robin, had had a wake up call and realized that heavy drinking and partying in college was a very wrong road. Before the book starts she has spent 4 months turning her life around after blacking out and doing something she is very ashamed of. So when she meets the hero, Phoenix, who is fresh out of prison, she doesn't judge because she knows she is in no position to call herself better than anyone else.

The author did a very good job with her fragile state of mind and self loathing. The relationship between the hero and the heroine was fast but seemed realistic to me. They are both only 20 and these things happen fast at that age. They were just boyfriend and girlfriend. They were committed to being together but in a realistic young kids way rather than marriage and kids and stuff right off the bat.

I've read some of Ms. McCarthy's adult stuff and while I enjoyed it, I think I really like this NA stuff of hers better and since NA isn't really my favorite that's saying something.

This was a pleasant read. Nothing lifted it to great heights however. It was fun to see Piper grown up. It was fun to see Danny and Amanda again. I thought the seeing ghosts thing was not developed as well as it could have been. The beginning of the story set us up to believe that ghosts etc., would play a greater role in the story which didn't happen. Plus some of the actions of the main ghost didn't make sense and weren't adequately explained/resolved.

The relationship was okay but seemed to happen awfully fast. I know they knew each other as young people but I thought their level of closeness after 12 years apart was too great. Plus the age difference when they were younger kept them from having the kind of relationship that could be easily picked up again after that length of time with no getting to know each other stage.

Plus the hero was a bit of a washed up loser which is not what I really like in my romance heroes. There was a requisite breakup before the resolution which was odd and not well motivated.

So ultimately just okay.

Decent quick read. I enjoyed the character of the hero particularly. There were some fun bits where they were flirting with each other in the beginning that I really enjoyed. Didn't like the heroine so much. I think I just didn't really like reading about a heroine with a drinking problem.

It was fun to catch up with some of the characters from previous books.

A good quick read. Nascar Romance. Older woman younger man. Pretty good straight forward romance. Sweet younger man which is a type of romance I like.

Like others I expected this book to be chick-lit which I'm not fond of but someone recommended it to me so I tried it. I'm glad I did because it is not chick-lit it is a romance pure and simple. So if you're expecting chick-lit you probably won't like it.

I loved the character of Amanda. I loved how she was looking for something better in her life and how she learned and grew. I loved how Danny saw himself as boring but in reality he was a steady, dependable man, the type of man who appeals to many women who are not looking for a bad boy but a life partner. It was light and funny, but touching and there was not a lot of angsty trauma for the characters to overcome. I also love a story that shows a man loving his child. It just makes me say aww...

The book was well written and moved right along.

Stripped Down
Tap That, Book 1

I Picked Up This Book Because: Cleaning up my book backlist/have liked the authors works in the past.

Media Type: eBook
Source: Apple iBooks
Dates Read: 1/25/22 - 2/11/22
Stars: DNF - no rating

The Characters:

Rick Ryder:
Sloan O’Toole:
Lilly Ferguson, Sullivan O’Toole (Sloan’s brother and Rick’s best friend), Axl, several other friends and family

The Story:

A lot of things in this book should have worked for me. Best friend's sister, small town, second chance (ish) but in the 28% of the book I read neither of the main characters managed to snare my interest and if I don’t love the characters I’m not investing my time. That’s just the way it is. Fortunately I do like this writer and I have a lot more books of hers to explore. #CantWinEmAll

The Random Thoughts:½

All of her life, Molly's big brother has been strongly advising his friends that his sister is off limits to them all. When she needs a job , there is an opening at Cole Security, a friend of her brother. They know she is over qualified for it but when Cole sees her he knows she the one for the job. Plus it doesn't hurt that he is attracted to her. But he can't do anything about it but has someone else who helps him out with him needs, even though they are only friends. Cole is trying to stay in a friendly relationship, things are getting stressful between them and Molly doesn't want it to stay that way. When she goes on an assignment against his permission things between start to change when Cole learns about what she is willing to do to be part of it. Wonderful strong characters, strong emotions of all kinds, dangerous situations, and even more dangerous people. This is a book that I considered a must read and I'm positive that I'm going to love the series.