Tag Archives: romance

Book Review of Trust (Running With Alphas #1), by Viola Rivard

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Running With AlphasI picked up a copy of Viola Rivard‘s Trust: Running With Alphas from Amazon when it was free. It is part of my Alpha reading challenge.

Description from Goodreads:
Just when she thinks her life can’t get any worse, Taylor meets alpha wolf Alder – the most caring, gallant, and handsome man on the planet. On the run from the police, there’s no way she could possibly get involved with him. But somehow she does anyway.

Alder seems to be convinced that the two of them are going to live happily ever after in his mountain territory. But between looming pack wars, her dicey past, and his twin brother – the most obnoxious, sadistic, and handsome man on the planet – Taylor has a feeling that her new life among werewolves may be just as complicated as her human one.

Review:

This was surprisingly cute, which was a bit of a shock when I was expecting trashy erotica. But no complaints on that front. I have a soft spot for big alphas who shepherd, tend and fret over their mates, trying to feed them and such. Alder is just such a shifter, so he was a winner for me. I liked Taylor too, but Alder carried the book for me.

I did think the plot was a little shaky. You never find out the details of what Taylor is running from and I don’t get the feeling we ever will. It’s just a frame to hang the romance on. The characters were pretty shallow. The chemistry between the two wasn’t really shown. The mishap with Hale was predictable, there is a cliched female enemy and it’s a cliffhanger. But all in all, I was more pleased than I expected to be.

Book Review of Sunset Park (Five Boroughs #2), by Santino Hassell

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Sunset ParkI bought a copy of Santino Hassell‘s Sunset Park. It’s the sequel to Sutphin Boulevard, which I reviewed last year.

Description from Goodreads:
Raymond Rodriguez’s days of shoving responsibility to the wayside are over. His older brother wants to live with his boyfriend so Raymond has to get his act together and find a place of his own. But when out-and-proud David Butler offers to be his roommate, Raymond agrees for reasons other than needing a place to crash.

David is Raymond’s opposite in almost every way—he’s Connecticut prim and proper while Raymond is a sarcastic longshoreman from Queens—but their friendship is solid. Their closeness surprises everyone as does their not-so-playful flirtation since Raymond has always kept his bicurious side a secret.

Once they’re under the same roof, flirting turns physical, and soon their easy camaraderie is in danger of being lost to frustrating sexual tension and the stark cultural differences that set them apart. Now Raymond not only has to commit to his new independence—he has to commit to his feelings for David or risk losing him for good.

Review:
Oh man, another winner from Hassell. I’ve said it before, but I just love his voice. There is a certain realistic grittiness to it that I just swoon over. He writes real people and you can’t help but relate to them.

For me, Raymond was the undisputed star of this show. I just loved the way he could be so easy going but still 100% willing to go for what he wants (in some areas of his life). It was incredibly endearing.

I liked David too and completely understood his hesitancies and struggles to risk his heart on what he perceived as a maybe. Though it’s never said, it boiled down to a basic distrust of Raymond’s bisexuality and this is something real and hurtful that bisexuals deal with that rarely gets discussed. Trust Hassell, who never seems to flinch away from difficult themes, to slip that one in there successfully.

The sex is hot but not so frequent as to overpower the plot. The characters are appreciably blue collar (when almost everywhere else I look I’m finding billionaires and rock stars). The writing is tight. The dialogue is sharp. The drama did seem to drag on a bit and some of the blow ups seemed a little overblown, but for the most part, I’m almost wholly without complaints.

Balanced on the Blades Edge

Book Review of Balanced on the Blade’s Edge (Dragon Blood #1), by Lindsay Buroker

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Balanced on the Blade's EdgeBalanced on the Blade’s Edge, by Lindsay Buroker is a perma-freebie on Amazon, which is where I got it.

Description from Goodreads:
Colonel Ridge Zirkander isn’t the model of military professionalism—he has a tendency to say exactly what’s on his mind, and his record has enough demerits to wallpaper the hull of an airship—but as the best fighter pilot in the Iskandian army, he’s used to a little leniency from his superiors. Until he punches the wrong diplomat in the nose and finds himself issued new orders: take command of a remote prison mine in the inhospitable Ice Blades Mountains. Ridge has never been in charge of anything larger than a flier squadron—what’s he supposed to do with a frozen fortress full of murderers and rapists? Not to mention the strange woman who shows up right before he arrives… 

Sardelle Terushan wakes from three hundred years in a mage stasis shelter, only to realize that she is the last of the Referatu, the sorcerers who once helped protect Iskandia from conquerors. Their subterranean mountain community was blown up in a treacherous sneak attack by soldiers who feared their power. Everyone Sardelle ever knew is dead, and the sentient soulblade she has been bonded to since her youth is buried in the core of the mountain. Further, what remains of her home has been infested by bloodthirsty miners commanded by the descendants of the very soldiers who destroyed her people. 

Sardelle needs help to reach her soulblade—her only link to her past and her last friend in the world. Her only hope is to pretend she’s one of the prisoners while trying to gain the commander’s trust. But lying isn’t her specialty, especially when the world has changed so much in the intervening centuries, and if Colonel Zirkander figures out who she truly is, he’ll be duty-bound to sentence her to the only acceptable punishment for sorcerers: death.

Review:
Just a shorty review today, because I’m a Buroker fan and I pretty much knew I’d like this. I enjoyed it almost as much as The Emperor’s Edge series. I liked the characters (especially the fact that they were in their 30s and 40s) and thought the world an interesting one. There was humor and a little bit of romance. Unfortunately, I didn’t think it was quite as meticulously written as past books and there was a little too much he felt drawn to her but didn’t know why sort of hand waving. It made the whole thing feel a bit rushed. But despite that I’d be happy to read more of series.