Prince's Courtesan (Imperial Princes #1)

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Prince's Courtesan
Mina Carter
Imperial Princes, book one
ebook
Published February 4th 2011 by Etopia Press
ISBN 132940012282569

He wanted the one woman he couldn't have.

Outlawed noblewoman Jaida Lianl had been everything from a high speed courier on Arcalis Prime to a waitress in the cloud café’s on Selenis. Different careers, different names, different identities. When a cover got this easy--so easy she started to believe it herself--she knew she’d been in the same place too long. It was time to move on before she got comfortable and started to make mistakes. Mistakes would allow Imperial Prince Sethan to find her, and if that happened, people would die…

Now after five years, Seth has found her, and she can no longer outrun her destiny: she'll be the prince's courtesan, but he'll never own her heart.

Jaida was once a noblewoman of the court, deeply in love with the Imperial Prince Sethan, until the night he took her to his bed and she awoke to find his manservant gifting her with a whore's silks instead of a betrothed's band. From that day, she's been on the run, fleeing the prince's ever constant will to keep her as his own.

It's a story of betrayal and misunderstandings with the mother of all overreactions fueling the drama. Hard to believe an outlaw has the right to marry a prince... and I'm not entirely certain what made Sethan a prince (blood? no, er, maybe)... but the man surely has one hell of a military training. By the end I thought I'd slipped into a contemporary, armed forces romance.

3 out of 5 stars.

Knight's Woman

Then he tilted his head, his lips parting...

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Knight's Woman
Mina Carter & Kurt Drake
Sentinels
ebook, 78 pages
Published July 12th 2010 by Liquid Silver Books
ISBN 139781595787194

The United Terran Colonies are under attack. Desperate for pilots to combat the enemy raiders the Fleet puts out an all pilots call, hoping to fill their empty fighter squadrons. A call ignored by ex-con Radha Kaden, who figures she doesn’t owe anyone anything. Since a pilot’s life expectancy is slightly less than that of your average lemming, she steers well clear.

Then a bar brawl violates the terms of her release and she has a choice. Go back to Acheron, the harshest prison facility in the combined systems, or pilot a fighter…

Thanks to high casualty rates Wing Commander Davin McAvoy constantly needs new pilots. Dead men can’t fly Valkyries nor can they protect the base or her crew. When he’s told he’s getting that rarest of creatures—an experienced pilot—he’s ready to throw a party. Until he finds out not only is his new pilot an ex-con but she’s a woman too. Both unforgiveable sins in Davin’s book.

Until he meets her and sparks that have nothing to do with the war fly…

I must have been in a deeply vulnerable place when I decided to sneak this book in before the impending arrival of Michelle Sagara's new Cast book because Knight's Woman had one hell of an impact on me. So much so that I didn't even care that our main man was a cheater-a detail that has never before failed to infuriate me in the past.

Davin, aka White Knight, is a by-the-book, no-questions-asked kind of guy. Radha, on the other hand, is a mouthy, sarcastic, ready-to-brawl wild card who survived the worst of prison after being suspended just shy of graduating with her pilot's license. The two couldn't be more opposite of each other, and yet, couldn't be more perfect.

Despite being in a two year relationship with his girlfriend, Lanna, Davin finds Radha's playful act at pushing his buttons too good to resist. He gives it back, par for par, until to his horror and amazement, finds he's actually flirting with her. Bad girls have never been his thing, but he can't stop himself from seeking her out to continue the game.

Radha lives to ruffle feathers, especially those of the goody-goodies like her new commander. But she isn't prepared for the reaction his touch has upon her body, or the impact it has on her heart.

He moved closer, pulled by an invisible force. Her grip on his flight suit burned through the fabric as the tingling in his chest moved through his body. He closed his eyes, put his forehead on hers and brushed the very tip of his nose across hers so softly it almost tickled. Then he tilted his head, his lips parting...

Davin and Radha experience a number of passionate encounters, each disrupted by outside forces that send one or the other scrambling from the room. So for a while the pages are blazing with kisses that are too hot for commentary and only teases of something more. Hell, they could have never sealed the deal and I still would have been ecstatic over the heat from these two. White Knight knows how to damn well kiss a woman.

4 out of 5 stars. Now if I can only get Bonnie Tyler's version of the song 'Holding Out For A Hero' out of my head. Damn that White Knight reference.

Where have all the good men gone

And where are all the gods?

Where's the street-wise Hercules

To fight the rising odds?

Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?

Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need.

Devoured (Brides of the Kindred #11)

Devoured
Evangeline Anderson
Brides of the Kindred, book eleven
ebook, 409 pages
Published June 5th 2014

Tess Hughes is on the run from her abusive ex-husband. The problem is, he’s a detective and there’s no place on Earth he can’t find her. Solution? Hide somewhere that’s not on Earth—the Kindred Mother Ship. That’s how she winds up posing as Pairing Puppet—one of the robotic mistresses that service the Unmated Males of the Kindred who need a little sexual stress release from time to time. Of course, Tess never actually performs a Pairing Puppet’s duties—she hides every time a new ‘customer’ comes in. But then she gets caught out in the open…at exactly the wrong time.

Garron of the Rai’ku Kindred has a dragon sized problem and it’s living right inside of him. His dr’gin, the ravenous beast that lives inside every Rai’ku male, is trying to get out. Problem is, if Garron lets it escape, it will eat the first person it sees. He’s burning with need and the more his desire grows, the greater the danger to those around him. Desperate to quench his smoldering desire and keep his dr’gin contained, he goes to the Pairing House…and chooses Tess.

Now the two of them are on the run. Expelled from the Mother Ship, Tess is once again menaced by her abusive ex who will stop at nothing to get her back. Garron has sworn to protect her but the beast inside him is more dangerous than any outside threat could be.

Can Garron protect Tess from the man who has sworn to destroy her without letting the beast inside him run free? If not, she will surely be… Devoured.

Brides of the Kindred has rocked my world since its beginning. Unfortunately, Devoured, book eleven, fell short of the awesomeness achieved by its predecessors with a plot that held so much promise for a riot of laughs and yet was detoured before it ever got started.

Tess is on the run from an abusive ex and, with the push from her best friend, takes to hiding aboard the Kindred Mother Ship in their Pairing Puppets house, home to robotic women provided to the unmated males in their times of need. Enter Garron, Truth's half brother. A Rai'ku Kindred, Garron is possessed by nature with a beast that will emerge on a set anniversary of his birth. He's held it off for years, fearful of the hunger that will come with the beast's first emergence. A hunger that thrives on sentient prey before ultimately brutally claiming a mate.

Years ago, he lost the female he loved to another Rai'ku's beast. Convinced he'll never want another, he turns to a pairing puppet as a safe recourse for the budding danger inside him.

Before you know it, he zeroes in on Tess. And with a blink her ruse is over. For all of us.

From there, it's a jump ship and run with her ex fast on her tail. It sickens me that men like Pierce actually exist in this world. Anderson did oh so well with the terror and brutality of an abusive, sadistic relationship. I've no experience, but those that do should take heart with the warning she delivers before reading.

On a brighter note, Devoured did set the stage for book twelve, Enhanced, due out later this year and supposedly the final of the series. Mei-Li, daughter of a U.S. Senator has been dream sharing with a Kindred of Zeaga Four, one who has had multiple enhancements done upon his person. An emotion damper for one. And an optic scanner for another. As a child, he joined those who swore to never take a mate and to live apart from emotion. Now, although Six has no idea how to claim a mate, or what he should do with one once he has her, the Kindred has been ordered to go claim Mei-Li from Earth.

And an all out war could rise up from that action.

Again, so much promise.

3 out of 5 stars.

Previously in the series:

Hunter By Night (Chronicles of Yavn #3)

Available at Amazon.com

Hunter By Night
Elisabeth Staab
Chronicles of Yavn, book three
ebook, 352 pages
Published June 3rd 2014 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
ISBN 9781402263224

She wants out
Party girl Alexia Blackburn is only hanging around the vampire compound until her best friend—the queen—has her baby. After that, nothing is going to stop Alexia from getting back to daylight, safety, and feeling like a normal human being. But leaving the vampire world has one big catch...


He needs her to stay
Head of vampire security Lee Goram has hated and distrusted humans for centuries. Feeding on vampire blood has kept him strong...but now it's killing him—and he's horrified to discover that Alexia may hold the key to his cure. He'd rather die defending his king than admit his weakness, but time is running out for the great vampire warrior.

I was reading another book on the day this one released. And since it was doing nothing for me... The main characters had not even met yet and I was already thirty something percent in... I dropped it when I was able to snatch up this sequel to one the most entertaining vampire clans I've come across in my literary journey.

I never did read book one which I quickly came to regret when I began book two, and even now I am sincerely considering going back to it. What all have I missed?!

In Hunter By Night, we follow three potential love stories. Two of which began in the last book. Lee and Alexia. Xander and Theresa. Now adding Siddoh and Ivy. Unfortunately, this installment had a weird feel to me. Just when a scene was getting interesting, we jumped to the next set of characters. Meanwhile, there were times, and many of them, when I felt that the characters knew more about what was happening than I did. Were doing more than I was being told about. And just plainly progressing in their own story while I was elsewhere with other supporting characters. Madness was settling in big time.

I always imagine vampires with eloquent mannerisms. Not these guys. They're more like video game soldiers. Smart ass, cursing fools high on way too much testosterone and toting guns. Oh, and magical powers that vary from one to another.

Lee and Alexia have a back and forth, two steps forward-three steps back relationship. Xander and Theresa *finally* manage to get their crap together and quit tiptoeing around one another. And then, Siddoh, who was once the lover of Tyra, Thad's (the vampire King) sister and Anton's (exiled wizard) mate, takes an interest in Ivy, a vampire female who was raised in the traditional ways of their kind. Her father is dying, and he wants her to have an arranged marriage before he goes. Despite Siddoh's respect of the old ways, he believes in love and thinks the idea is preposterous. Doesn't stop the guy from stepping up when her intended groom rejects the arrangement though.

3 out of 5 stars.


Previously in this series: