Karen Kelley

MY FAVORITE PHANTOM is a good time. Period. Kaci Melton, ghost-phobic Ghost Exterminator, is a saucy, irrepressible force of nature, I think. Sure, she’s very afraid of ghosts, but when the choice is dealing with a spook that may not be able to harm you and a very real thug who can, well, the choice isn’t really much of one, is it? Kaci dances around who she is very nicely by playing a different personality. She’s a tough girl from New Jersey when she needs to put up a tough front or show more she’s a silly bimbo when she needs to play dumb.

(for the full review please refer to Romance Reader at Heart) show less

A freebie that was actually enjoyable.

Tough DEA agent who cheats death hides out with small town sheriff after drug king pin/all around bad guy almost kills her. What makes this story a good read is the cast of supporting characters. Doc, the grumpy town doctor. Audrey, town gossip. Andy, the observant deputy. They have a good deal of one-liners that will make you want to LOL.

As for our main characters, Fallon and Wade, they met in an unconventional manner and their story just built from show more there. Steamy chemistry and the seeing too much destruction because of bad guys makes these two perfect for each other. They both have issues, attitude and scars that each can help the other with. Think what I like about Fallon is unlike other females that start out strong but kind of lose something when they "fall in love" Fallon takes those feelings and it makes her stronger in the sense of she doesn't fall to pieces and wait for someone to rescue her, she works alongside Wade to catch the bad guys and make it out alive.

Nice surprise at the end which I have since discovered is the into for the next book in the series, will I read it....maybe. show less

This book really needed an experienced editor. It dragged as its potential muddied by the same few things happened repeatedly; erotic dreams, ghost tricks, accusation/rebuff, s/he-looks-hot-but-I'm-not-gonna-look. If a good editor had eliminated that tedious repetition within a promising premise, I might not have grown less interested with each chapter.

A sexually-repressed, whiny twenty-six-year-old loan officer who keeps a journal of erotic sex wishes is adopted by a half angel/half human cowboy whose goal is to show her how erotically appealing she is. Sounds like the beginning of a joke someone would tell in a bar when half sloshed, right? But that’s the premise of Kelley’s second in a trilogy.

Because Haley isn’t fashion-model thin and because she supposedly is brainy, her mother and her lawyer sister Rachel have told her she’s show more ugly all her life. Haley believes them until cowboy half-angel Ryder shows up in answer to her prayer for a miracle.

Ryder is fascinated by her and thinks she’s the epitome of female beauty; she isn’t flat as a board and bony as “most” women are. His goal is to convince Haley that he, and not her relatives, is right. In fact, he’s up (literally) for fulfilling every one of the fictional sexual encounters she’s written in her secret diary.

Repression in this fantasy story equates to doing anything in order to have sex, so Haley goes at it with Ryder after knowing him for less than twenty-four hours. Not only that, but she agrees to walk around the rest of the day nude —even to answering the door nude should anyone come to her home — something Haley sees as really “brazen.”

Methodically, Ryder takes Haley to every fantasy she’s ever imagined, with her protesting and commenting that each step is wrong and naughty along the way, even as she enjoys what he’s doing.

Read the rest of my review at AAR: http://www.likesbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookReview.pl?BookReviewId=9267 show less