Tag: novella (Page 9 of 28)

Priddy’s Tale by Harper Fox, narrated by Chris Clog

July 7, 2018 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I downloaded this one with the #AudibleRomance package.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) What doesn’t kill you sometimes makes you wish it had…

Priddy’s a lost soul in a part of Cornwall the tourists don’t get to see. He’s young, sweet-natured and gorgeous, but that’s not enough to achieve escape velocity from his deadbeat village and rotten family life.

He’s a drifter and a dreamer, and self-preservation isn’t his strong suit. An accidental overdose of a nightclub high leaves him fractured, hallucinating, too many vital circuits fried to function in a tough world. When a friend offers him winter work in a lighthouse – nothing to do but press the occasional button and keep the windows clean – he gratefully accepts.

His plans to live quietly and stay out of trouble don’t last very long. A ferocious Atlantic storm washes a stranger to Priddy’s lonely shore. For a shipwrecked sailor, the new arrival seems very composed. He’s also handsome as hell, debonair, and completely unconcerned by Priddy’s dreadful past.

Priddy has almost given up on the prospect of any kind of friendship, and a new boyfriend – let alone a six-foot beauty with eerily good swimming skills – out of the question entirely. But Merou seems to see undreamed-of promise in Priddy, and when they hit the water together, Priddy has to adapt to Merou’s potentials too, and fast. His lover from the sea might be a mere mortal from the waist up, but south of that line…

Far-flung west Cornwall has a hundred mermaid tales. Priddy’s loved the stories all his life. Now he has to face up to a wildly impossible truth. Merou’s life depends upon his courage and strength, and if Priddy can only find his way in the extraordinary world opening up all around him, all the ocean and a human lifetime needn’t be enough to contain the love between merman and mortal.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): While I have many Harper Fox books on my TBR, I haven’t read most of them. I remember enjoying Life After Joe after it was first released – way back in 2010 now. What sticks in my memory is how well Ms. Fox writes melancholy. There is a way she writes which is poignant and sweet and sad but not tipping over into emotional torture porn or OTT melodrama. Like Nora Roberts, Ms. Fox makes me care about characters quickly. And in Priddy’s Tale, I cared so much about Priddy almost from the start of the book. He’s young and a little lost, recovering from an accidental drug overdose which has derailed a life which was already difficult because of an abusive father. When Priddy’s best friend, Kit, leaves town to attend university, Priddy feels very alone. Continue reading

Once Upon a Haunted Moor by Harper Fox, narrated by Tim Gilbert

June 25, 2018 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: My friend Caz recommended this series to me.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Gideon Frayne has spent his whole working life as a policeman in the village of Dark on Bodmin Moor. It’s not life in the fast lane, but he takes it very seriously, and his first missing-child case is eating him alive. When his own boss sends in a psychic to help with the case, he’s gutted – he’s a level-headed copper who doesn’t believe in such things, and he can’t help but think that the arrival of clairvoyant Lee Tyack is a comment on his failure to find the little girl.

But Lee is hard to hate, no matter how Gideon tries. At first Lee’s insights into the case make no sense, but he seems to have a window straight into Gideon’s heart. Son of a Methodist minister, raised in a tiny Cornish village, Gideon has hidden his sexuality for years. It’s cost him one lover, and he can’t believe it when this green-eyed newcomer stirs up old feelings and starts to exert a powerful force of attraction.

Gideon and Lee begin to work together on the case. But there are malignant forces at work in the sleepy little village of Dark, and not only human ones – Gideon is starting to wonder, against all common sense, if there might be some truth in the terrifying legend of the Bodmin Beast after all. As a misty Halloween night consumes the moor, Gideon must race against time to save not only the lost child but the man who’s begun to restore his faith in his own heart.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I enjoyed the story very much. It was a short (novella-length) audio and, considering that the main characters had not met before it began, it managed to sell me on the budding relationship between Gideon and Lee. There is a bit of insta-lust (nothing wrong with that) and perhaps one or two narrative jumps which suprised me just a little in the romantic story but nothing I wasn’t able to go with fairly easily. Gideon’s last relationship broke down because he was closeted. It’s clear that he has enough regret about that and enough time had passed that when Lee bobs up in his life, Gideon wasn’t likely to let that happen again. So it made sense to me. Continue reading

Rock Chick Reborn by Kristen Ashley

June 20, 2018 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I bought this one as soon as I knew it was available because of course.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) As a Rock Chick, Shirleen Jackson lived through all the kidnappings and explosions. Along the way, she also watched the dramatic love stories that came with those rides unfold.

But long ago, Shirleen made her choice. It affected who she was and would always be. She decided to settle for what she had and not want more. She had good friends. She was raising two fine young men who weren’t hers, but she loved them anyway.

She was good.

And then Moses Richardson crashed into her life, literally… and deliberately.

Moses has different ideas about Shirleen. He’s more interested in the Shirleen of now, mostly because she’s interesting. And funny. And loyal. Smart. Beautiful.

But Moses has a big challenge on his hands.

He has to convince Shirleen of all that.

And then convince her she deserves to have more.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I’ve come to expect kidnappings in Rock Chick books but there are none in Rock Chick Reborn. Perhaps that’s a good thing! In some ways, the book is fan service. Certainly those who have no familiarity with the series would struggle to understand who everyone is and how they came to be where they are when the story begins. That’s not a criticism. Fan service isn’t a pejorative. And, the Rock Chick books have a very large fan base, many of whom were crying out for Shirleen to get her own HEA. Indeed, from the acknowledgements it seems that parts of the book were crowd-sourced (the hero’s name for example) so I think it’s explicit that this is a book for fans.
Continue reading

Review at Dear Author

May 18, 2018 / Kaetrin

I’m over at Dear Author with a review of Planet Dragos by Thea Harrison. This novella is the last Dragos/Pia book in the long-running Elder Races series. *cries*

April Round Up

April 30, 2018 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Carolina Heart by Virginia Kantra – C I’ve been a fan of the Dare Island series since the beginning. I was browsing Amazon recently, idly wondering what Virginia Kantra was doing and whether there might be a new book out soon (not that I could see alas) when I came across Carolina Heart and realised that I had missed it.

The story is novella length and it really would have benefited from some further expansion. Cynthie Lodge is a single mother with two daughters from two different dads. I liked how the author showed this heroine unapologetically as deserving a HEA too. She’s perhaps the kind of woman one might easily judge. Certainly society most often does. So it was a lovely surprise to see her get her own book (albeit a novella) and to be treated sympathetically while being true to her story as well. She was married to the father of her first daughter but her second daughter was the result of a drunken one night stand with a soldier whose name she does not know. She loves her daughters and works hard to support them. She’s studying at community college to be a dental hygienist and holding down a job at night waitressing. She’s decided that she has to be a good example for her girls and has no time for men anymore. She won’t be hooking up or bringing random men through her daughter’s lives.

When she stumbles into the path of Max Lewis, she notes straight away he’s good-looking. But, as a professor of marine biology and a man from a wealthy privileged background, he’s not for her and she knows it. Besides, she’s not getting involved in any relationships. She’s too busy and she has her girls to think of. Continue reading

Rough Ride by Kristen Ashley

March 22, 2018 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I read it as soon as I could after it came out because of course.

TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic abuse/violence to women. The heroine is severely beaten by her then boyfriend (not the hero) and the description is relatively graphic.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Rosalie Holloway put it all on the line for the Chaos Motorcycle Club.

Informing to Chaos on their rival club—her man’s club, Bounty—Rosalie knows the stakes. And she pays them when her man, who she was hoping to scare straight, finds out she’s betrayed him and he delivers her to his brothers to mete out their form of justice.

But really, Rosie has long been denying that, as she drifted away from her Bounty, she’s been falling in love with Everett “Snapper” Kavanagh, a Chaos brother. Snap is the biker-boy-next door with the snowy blue eyes, quiet confidence and sweet disposition who was supposed to keep her safe… and fell down on that job.

For Snapper, it’s always been Rosalie, from the first time he saw her at the Chaos Compound. He’s just been waiting for a clear shot. But he didn’t want to get it after his Rosie was left bleeding, beat down and broken by Bounty on a cement warehouse floor.

With Rosalie a casualty of an ongoing war, Snapper has to guide her to trust him, take a shot with him, build a them…

And fold his woman firmly in the family that is Chaos.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): I admit it’s been a while since I read a Chaos MC book (although I did re-read Motorcycle Man over Christmas – as you do – that’s part of the Dream Man series so I’m not counting it). There have been so many books in between Own the Wind and now, I barely remember the plot. I know Tabby and Shy got their HEA but to be honest, I’d forgotten all about Rosalie.

I put it together quickly enough once I started reading Rough Ride. Rosie was the girl Shy had been dating and then he dumped her to take up with Tabby. I’m sure at the time I was all Team Tabby but I am Team Rosalie now. That’s not actually a conflict because they don’t both want the same man and everyone gets a HEA (It’s like Oprah – you get a HEA! and YOU get a HEA, etc). Continue reading