Kimberly Dean (2)

Secrets, Volume 9.

*** "Wild for You" by Kathryn Anne Dubois.

College intern Georgie gets lost in the Congo and is rescued by a modern-day Tarzan (Mark) who's never seen a woman before. Despite that, he's a pro at foreplay. She helps him remember how to talk; he teaches her about sex.

It gets a little more far-fetched when they get "rescued," with a strange interlude with a native tribe, and then when Mark is reintroduced to civilization.

It's a cute story, but required too much suspension of show more disbelief for me.

***½ "Wanted" by Kimberly Dean.

Dani is wanted for stealing computer codes, and Reno is the FBI agent on her trail. Think The Fugitive. She's innocent, but is on the run until she can prove it. She and Reno have been emailing each other during their chase and have formed a connection.

It's a fun, exciting story, but again, there were some things I just couldn't buy. And the scene where Dani gives Reno a lap-dance when she's working as a stripper to get some quick cash and neither of them recognized the other just seemed gratuitous and hard to believe.

***½ "Secluded" by Lisa Marie Rice.

Quick giggle: this story starts with the sentence "I want your daughter." We just watched The Blues Brothers, and I flashed on the scene with John Belushi in the restaurant.

Nicholas is no longer a gangster, but he's got a very dangerous enemy, so he's come to terms with the fact that he can never have a long-term relationship because anyone he might be close to would become a target. So he has a series of short affairs.

Isabelle is different--Nicholas actually feels something for her. He tries to stay away, but when she's mugged, he rescues her, stays with her until she's healed, then takes her to his secluded hideout, fully expecting to give her up after 2 weeks.

It's a very sweet story, but I really questioned the premise. There didn't seem to be any danger when he was staying at her house, and then at the end, it made no sense that they'd have to go into hiding at that point.

**** "Flights of Fantasy" by Bonnie Hamre.

Journalist Chloe has been "invited" on a cruise on a yacht, the Fantasy. Her boss essentially told her to go or lose her job, but she has no idea why, as the yacht's mysterious owner "doesn't do interviews." The plot thickens when she discovers two ex-lovers on the cruise, with orders not to talk to her about why they're there.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story--figuring out what was going on, and just who was supposed to be the hero. I'm a big sucker for intrigue. And there was some pretty steamy sex.

But the hero was a pretty major stalker, which spoiled some of my enjoyment of the story. If he'd even talked to her before, I'd have been fine with it.
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Secrets, Volume 10.

** "Private Eyes" by Dominique Sinclair.

*blinks* Well. That surprised me. My least favorite story of all 8 in this omnibus, and most of the Amazon reviewers cited this as the best story. How very odd.

I guess the story itself is pretty entertaining--private eye Nikki specializes in catching cheating husbands, and between that and her mother's past, she has a low opinion of men and of relationships. But a mysterious man keeps running into her, and there is a pretty clever misunderstanding-type plot between them.

However. I absolutely could not get past the writing. I wanted to take the author's (or the editor's--I'm not picky) thesaurus away and bury it. Seriously purple prose, and some misused words that set my teeth on edge (the heroine thinking that "her body was scintillating after a night of vivid dreams"? I don't think so.)

**** "The Ruination of Lady Jane" by Bonnie Hamre.

This was a sexy Regency romance. Lady Jane's guardian has arranged a marriage for her with and old, thrice-widowed man, and she, quite sensibly, IMO, has run off. The guardian asks his younger brother Havyn, who remembers Jane as a teenager with spots (zits, for those of you unacquainted with Regency lingo), to go find her.

He does find her, and she's definitely improved with age. What's more, she begs him to "ruin" her so she won't have to marry the old man.

It's a nice story, particularly if you enjoy the Regency period--it's just a little predictable, also particularly if you enjoy the Regency period. The sex scenes were quite sensual, even though I found the Kama Sutra references to be a little self-conscious.

***** "Code Name: Kiss" by Jeanie Cesarini.

Wow. This novella pushed every one of my buttons: spies, and friends turning into lovers, plus a hefty emotional punch. It was well-written, and I was on pins and needles through the entire story.

And of course, the Amazon reviewers hated it. I'm seeing a trend.

Lily is a spy, and her mission is to infiltrate a terrorist camp as a sex slave, make contact with a double agent, and through him get close enough to the leader to plant a tracking device on his skin.

Seth is the agent in control of the mission, which he's leading via video feeds back at headquarters. Both Seth and Lily have a thing for each other, but due to their positions, neither has acted on it.

The story alternates chapters between Seth and Lily, keeping track of the mission time, which adds tension. Lily's chapters are in first person and are very deep POV, which is very affecting. Even though Seth's chapters are in third person, his emotional turmoil as he's forced to watch from a distance as the woman he's realized he's in love with has sex with another man is vividly clear.

"Code Name: Kiss" is emotionally wrenching, and better yet, the sex is an integral part of the story.

I was surprised to see in the "about the author" that Jeanie Cesarini = Jeanie London. I guess I'm going to take those recommendations for Jeanie London's books seriously now.

***½ "The Sacrifice" by Kathryn Anne Dubois.

Anastasia is about to become a nun, but she has definite ideas about those vows. She believes that for the vows to truly be meaningful, she has to know what she's giving up. For example, she was raised in a wealthy family, so taking a vow of poverty has meaning. However, she has no knowledge of carnal pleasures, so taking a vow of chastity is, to her mind, meaningless.

So she sets out to change that by going to the castle of the notorious debaucher Count Maxwell. It's a bit of a goofy premise, but I do rather like her reasoning about the meaning of sacrifice.

The first half of the story is sensual and sexy, but then it turns into something else. I found myself irritated that the oddly principled, determined young woman of the first half of the story turned into such a coward in the second half. It ended well, but I didn't quite get over that. show less

I read a similar type book a few months ago. Yet, it was not as good as this book. Kylie and Luke worked well together. I like that Luke admired Kylie's intelligence. This book shows that there needs to be more female hacker stories. Women are just as smart. Kylie proved that in this story.

The romance between Luke and Kylie was hot. Yet, it did not overpower the story. In fact, there was no insta hook up. It was slow building. This made it more real when they did hook up. While, I did enjoy show more this story as well as the characters; the aspect of the hacking felt a little weak. However, the way Kylie and Luke stopped the hacking was cool. This was a nice read. show less

I absolutely loved this book. Having lived in a haunted house with a friendly ghost this really hit home. There were some twists that were unexpected and a pleasant surprise. Western Massachusetts is a beautiful area and it was fun to recognize the towns. I only hesitated a little on the 5 star rating because as I always say sex is not romance and never needed in a book with an actual story of its own. Thus said, I skipped over those sections.

This was a grabber right out the door! Really liked this creepy mystery!

Inheriting a house from an aunt she hardly knew was interesting enough for Callie Thompson, but to inherit one possibly considered haunted was beyond anything she could have imagined!

Not too long after moving into the house, she starts experiencing all kinds of strange phenomenon. She hears thumping from the basement, creaking noises up in the attic, footsteps around the house, flickering lights, things disappearing, show more and some of her boxes that were not unpacked yet were open.

She is on pins and needles most of the time while she is there, but then she meets the towns people who let her know that the house is haunted by a woman that lived there in the 1800's.

Callie also comes head to head with the police chief, Carter Landy, on a couple or so occasions while she is in town. Chief Landry tries to dissuade Callie from listening to town gossip about the house as he doesn't believe in ghosts and hauntings. He has other matters to worry about as there are a couple of prison escapees on the loose.

The more that things start heating up in the house with the haunting, that is not the only thing heating up as Carter and Callie's relationship intensifies to the point where he wants to protect her from whatever is causing havoc in her house.

I have never read this author before, but I thought the book was very well written and it was easy to get attached to the all the characters in the book. The book moves along at a fast pace and the haunting of the house threw me right into the thick of things as I felt that I was there experiencing the situations along with Callie. Giving this book four stars for giving me spooky chills. show less