Love or Death

The Midnight Bride by Kati Wilde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Read this one for a quick romance fix back in the early part of the year. I enjoy Kati Wilde's books. They are pretty raunchy but also very romantic. Her characters have a lot of depth for such short books. The low fantasy setting stands out for paranormal romance. I always really feel the love between her characters and the strength of their emotions. Mara has to win a life or death competition. Strax took a vow that he'd make sure that no one won. But his feelings for her got in the way. Their relationship turns from an adversarial one to a relationship full of intense, powerful love that makes both of them count the cost of vows made and what they have to give up to achieve those goals. Wilde is channeling Robert E. Howard's Conan series, so she she doesn't pull her punches with the barbaric violence or the arcane dark sorcery despite the sweet, and heartfelt love story. The ending is very sweet.


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To Claim His Heir by Christmas by Victoria Parker

To Claim His Heir by Christmas by Victoria Parker
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

I'm so glad that some of my discerning buddies on the Harlequin Presents Reader group raved about this book. It was an excellent short and sexy romance to read before the end of the year. At first, I was thrown by the writing style, very descriptive and emotive to the degree that it was hard to get a feel for the tone initially. But it didn't take long before I was soaking this book up like a sponge. Parker taps into my need for an intense, escapist, passionate romance book. It definitely gave me my angsty/dramatic romance fix.

Thane is all that and a bag of chips! Intense, honorable, grumpy, dedicated to his one and only woman (that alone made me swoon over him), and sexy as all get out. I could totally see why Luciana found him irresistible. He touches on all my hero qualities that I love. Luciana is a great heroine. Her motives are sound and her heart was good. She's strong in the best ways. Even though I did want her to cave and fall in with Thane's plans head first ('cause he was just so very...), I could understand her misgivings and her pain and anguish because of what she'd seen in her parents' marriage and scars from her own childhood. She made the best decision she could have at the time, even though she did deny Thane four years of his child's life. She regretted that she had cost him that and understood how wrong she was about him. While I don't care much for secret baby romance, this was well done. Scenes of Thane bonding with his son made me all cartoon starry eyed.

This is the kind of Romeo and Juliet tale I love. Honestly, I didn't care much for the original play, but Parker has given die hard romantics the version of that tale of young lovers and feuding families that they will love.

The sexual chemistry and tension was off the charts, but what made it so powerful was the delirious and intense love that Thane and Luciana found together and never got over. You could tell it was a once and a lifetime connection and you wanted them to get their happy ending.

Parker has convinced me that she's an author to watch for in the Harlequin Presents line. If she has more heroes in the vein of Thane (no rhyming intended), I'm sold!

Definitely recommend this book. Overall rating: 4.5/5.0 stars.

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Bellwether by Connie Willis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A huge thanks to Nenia for recommending this when I asked for a Nerd Romance. This was exactly what I wanted and more. I can't even begin to classify this into a genre.  It's so distinctive.  First of all, it's hilarious!  I felt like Connie Willis nailed what it's like to work in Corporate America. I could have changed the name of HiTek to the places I worked and it would have been exactly the same.  The complete waste of time exercises they come up with in the hopes that it will increase productivity (when it actually interferes with it), the jive turkey meetings, and horrible acronyms, and the fact that said environment is so fertile for folks like Flip, Desiderata, and even Dr. Bullock.  I loved the wry and deadpan humor. I mainly listened to this while I was doing my Wii Fit exercises, and this is one where you can't be quiet while you read. It made the exercise time fly by!

Sandra is a very accessible heroine.  While she does have a snarky way of looking at the world, and the narrator has her sounding a bit superior at times, her inner voice is very realistic. You don't always see people in the most charitable ways internally, even when you make an effort to treat others well.  Sandra's field of study is fascinating. She's a sociologist/statistician who investigates fads. I loved the facts about various fads throughout the many years of human history. While I feel that she is really a hater of Barbies and I like Barbies, I can't argue with her on most of what she says.  I loved how Sandra processed Flip, who is a complete slave to fads and seems about the most useless person on earth.  Flip is that person you know who just seems to make your life a living 'you know what', but then you realize that they do have a purpose in your life, and they help you to grow as a person. With that in mind, her sometimes superior way of looking at Flip and folks like her is put into complete perspective.  I also loved how Sandra is a big reader and she processes life events in light of what she's read. This book is definitely for bibliophiles.

Can I tell you I adored Bennet?  Oh my, he made my Nerd Love meter go off big time. I wanted to hug him with his horribly fashion-challenged self and his adorable Coke Bottle glasses.  Man I wish I could find a Bennett of my own. :)

The sheep storyline had me dying of laughter. Yeah, sheep aren't the brightest animals, and you really understand why they need shepherds.  I had no idea about the bellwether and it just draws the story together so well when we learn about it.

I tell you, this is a really clever and just wonderful book. It takes a lot of writing talent to take such dissimilar ideas as sheep, fads, Chaos theory and hair bobbing and actually craft a meaningful story around it.  A nice sized read.  It helped me enormously with my book reading slump because it was just so clever and vivid and kept me interested.  I never thought I'd enjoy a book about something so non-specific as research into fads. I surely did.  I definitely recommend this to readers who want something different. And for sure to those looking for Nerd Love and satire about the corporate work environment.  It hits high on every point, so five stars!



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