Category: B reviews (Page 20 of 74)

Relationship Status by KA Mitchell

April 20, 2017 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I’m a fan of KA Mitchell and I have enjoyed the previous two novellas in the series.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Life doesn’t come with a syllabus.

Ethan knows firsthand that long distance is hard on love. If Wyatt is spending his summer at an internship in Pittsburgh, that’s where Ethan will be. Even if it means inventing his own career goal just to find a reason to stay with his boyfriend. He didn’t expect they’d be living in a hot, crappy apartment, with work schedules that keep them apart more than together.

Wyatt’s past has taught him to keep his head down and focus on living through the day. Loving Ethan has him looking to the future for the first time; he’s just not in as big of a rush to get there. It’s hard to trust in happiness when life has been busy kicking you in the nuts.

Together they’re getting the hang of real life, when a new responsibility for Wyatt throws everything off balance. Ethan’s doing everything he can to prove he’s in this forever, while Wyatt is torn between a future with Ethan and a debt to the past. Too bad they didn’t cover this in college.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Most of Relationship Status takes place over the course of a summer where Ethan and Wyatt are sharing a room in a small apartment together in Pittsburgh while working and interning. Wyatt is interning at a prestigious engineering firm and Ethan at the ACLU – because there is the vague possibility he might want to be a lawyer but mostly because he wants to be near Wyatt. Between their jobs and internships, there is not a lot of time for them to spend together and when things start off, there is some tension between the pair because of the whole “ships passing in the night” thing.
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Close To You by Kristen Proby, narrated by Roger Wayne & Arielle de Lisle

April 10, 2017 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: This is one from my own TBL.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Camilla, “Cami,” LaRue was five years old when she first fell in love with Landon Palazzo. Everyone told her the puppy love would fade—they clearly never met Landon. When he left after graduation without a backward glance, she was heartbroken. But Cami grew up, moved on, and became part-owner of wildly popular restaurant Seduction. She has everything she could want…or so she thinks.

After spending the last 12 years as a Navy fighter pilot, Landon returns to Portland to take over the family construction business. When he catches a glimpse of little Cami LaRue, he realizes she’s not so little any more. He always had a soft spot for his little sister’s best friend, but nothing is soft now when he’s around the gorgeous restaurateur.

Landon isn’t going to pass up the chance to make the girl-next-door his. She’s never been one for romance, but he’s just the one to change her mind. Will seduction be just the name of her restaurant or will Cami let him get close enough to fulfill all her fantasies?

What worked for me (and what didn’t): The long-time crush Cami had on her friend Mia’s older brother, Landon, was referenced in Listen to Me, which I listened to a little while back. Landon was a navy pilot and when Close to You begins, he has been discharged from the military after having to eject from his fighter jet. It was never specified exactly why, but the result of the accident was that he was unable to ever fly (as a pilot) again. He loved to fly so this was a huge blow to him. He comes home to Portland to lick his wounds and work out what he’s going to do with the rest of his life. He had planned to stay in the navy for life but after 10 years, that dream is over. Understandably, he is not the happiest camper when he first comes home.
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March Round Up

March 31, 2017 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Lady Luck by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Emma Taylor – B+ I reviewed the ebook of Lady Luck sometime ago and I wouldn’t normally review the audio as well. But, because it’s been some time and because I had a different reaction to it and, also because I wanted to talk a little about the narration, I thought it was worthwhile posting this mini review.

What I’d recalled from the book was that I liked it okay but it was also my least favourite in the series – mainly because there was a lot of men referring to women as “pussy” and I didn’t like it. I still don’t like it but for some reason it was easier to hear in my ears than to read on the page. I put that down to the narration which was, for the most part, very good. But it’s also possible that I’ve seen and heard so much derogatory referencing of women in books and real life that maybe I’m just becoming slightly immune to it (although if that’s the case, that’s very sad). Continue reading

It Happened One Autumn by Lisa Kleypas

March 23, 2017 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I listened to Devil in Spring recently and it made me want to read Devil in Winter – I was advised to read It Happened One Autumn first so I borrowed it from my library.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) It happened at the ball…

Where beautiful but bold Lillian Bowman quickly learned that her independent American ways weren’t entirely “the thing.” And the most disapproving of all was insufferable, snobbish, and impossible Marcus, Lord Westcliff, London’s most eligible aristocrat.

It happened in the garden…

When Marcus shockingly—and dangerously—swept her into his arms. Lillian was overcome with a consuming passion for a man she didn’t even like. Time stood still; it was as if no one else existed… thank goodness they weren’t caught very nearly in the act!

It happened one autumn…

Marcus was a man in charge of his own emotions, a bedrock of stability. But with Lillian, every touch was exquisite torture, every kiss an enticement for more. Yet how could he consider taking a woman so blatantly unsuitable… as his bride?

What worked for me (and what didn’t): It took me quite a long time, relatively speaking, to read this book. It wasn’t even really the book. No, I struggled because it was a paperback. For various reasons, I much prefer reading ebooks these days and I found there was a certain reluctance in me to pick it up and hold the darn thing open so I could read it. It was a somewhat surprising revelation. I knew I preferred ebooks but I hadn’t realised just how much until now. I’ll still read the occasional paper book but I am firmly and forever in the ebook camp. Continue reading

February Round Up

March 1, 2017 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Echoes in Death by JD Robb, narrated by Susan Ericksen – B+ It took me quite a while to understand the title of the latest In Death book. (In fact, Roarke had to tell me what it meant before I got it.) The “echoes” are between the murders and violent crimes Eve Dallas investigates in the book and Eve’s own violent past. (There you go KM readers. Now you don’t have to wait for Roarke to make the connection. You’re welcome.)

Eve and Roarke are driving home after a social deal where Eve wears a sparkly dress, the dreaded facial goop and skyscraper high heels. It’s the early hours of a very cold winter morning and the couple are stunned to nearly run over a naked, bloody woman wandering down the middle of the street. It turns out she was raped and beaten by the man who killed her husband and thus begins the investigation the subject of the latest In Death installment. Perhaps I’m more sensitive and the earlier books were actually just as brutal but the last few have had some pretty difficult things to read or listen to. There is sexual violence in this book and it is fairly graphically described, albeit after the fact and not in the villains POV (so that’s something). Anyway: all the trigger warnings. Continue reading

Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Grover Gardner

February 21, 2017 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: This is one from my own TBL.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station, in distant Quaddiespace, after a bloody incident on the station docks involving a security officer from the convoy’s Barrayaran military escort. Lord Miles Vorkosigan of Barrayar and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, have other things on their minds, such as getting home in time to attend the long-awaited births of their first children. But when duty calls in the voice of Barrayar’s Emperor Gregor, Miles, Gregor’s youngest Imperial Auditor (a special high-level troubleshooter) has no choice but to answer.

Waiting on Graf Station are diplomatic snarls, tangled loyalties, old friends, new enemies, racial tensions, lies and deceptions, mysterious disappearances, and a lethal secret with wider consequences than even Miles anticipates: a race with time for life against death in horrifying new forms.

The downside of being a troubleshooter comes when trouble starts shooting back . . .

What worked for me (and what didn’t): A year and a half has passed since Miles and Ekaterin wed in A Civil Campaign. They are enjoying the tail-end of a belated honeymoon and are planning to return to Barrayar in plenty of time for the birth of their twins – Aral Alexander and Helen Natalia – gestating away in uterine replicators. However the plan goes awyr, as Miles’s plans often do, when Emperor Gregor calls upon Miles to sort out a diplomatic disaster in Quaddie Space. (I first learned about quaddies in Falling Free and those who have read or listened to the book will recognise some of the names mentioned here. Falling Free takes place hundreds of years before Diplomatic Immunity and quaddies and downsiders from the first book have now become part of the quaddie cultural heritage.)
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