Welcome, Romance Lovers! Book Reviews Today!

     Available from Jasmine-Jade

Welcome, Romance Lovers!

I took the holiday weekend off, and left you with a whole grundle of videos to watch while I was gone.  I hope you enjoyed them!

Today I have a couple of fabulous books to tell you about, and I certainly hope that you will enjoy them as much as I did!

RED ALERT

by Lynne Connolly

Ellora's Cave 2009

Ms. Connolly builds her story with wicked and wonderfully imaginative flair.  Megan has been having nightmares for some time...and the doctors have told her that she has a brain tumor.  They want her to check in to the hospital for "observation" and "more tests".  The words "exploratory surgery" fill her with dread. And Dr. Jones gives her the total creeps!

She has been dreaming of a shape-shifting dragon who calls himself Ricardo...and he has cried out to her for help every night for weeks. A dragon? Is she truly crazy? Is the brain tumor causing these hallucinations?

The "doctors" don't really seem to be doctors, but now she's virtually trapped.  Until a deep voice in her mind asks "You want out?"    And then, "Choose. Now. Them or me?"  She chooses the voice, and begins the wildest, most mind-bending adventure of her life.

Here is a blurb:

Megan meets Sandro at the lowest time of her life—when she thinks her crazy nightmares are symptoms of the tumor that is killing her. But the sexy dragon shape-shifter tells her the dreams are telepathic messages from his missing brother. More than telepathy flares between them. Megan and Sandro burn up the night with sizzling passion, but Sandro won’t commit, and Megan wants more than a fling.

When Sandro rescues Megan from a dangerous situation, she gives him the key to locate his brother, but he wants far more from her. He wants her body, all ways, all day, all night.

But he knows he can’t promise Megan any kind of forever.

Excerpt:

Tomorrow…

Megan stood when the nurse called her name, steeling herself for the ordeal ahead. The entrance doors to the unit opened with a click and cool air touched her cheek. She paused to look around, glad of any distraction.

A man entered the hospital ward. The breeze ruffled his dark hair and he turned back to close the door, unconsciously displaying the strength of his powerful body in the stacked muscle rippling the t-shirt under his worn leather jacket. Just how she liked her men, tall and strong.

Normally, that was. Today, all she could think about was sleep and getting some—soon. Even the results of today’s test gave way to that desperate need. She hadn’t slept the night through for weeks. She was about to hear that she was in for long bouts of painful treatment with a death sentence at the end—the fate she’d been dreading for weeks, but in her current state of exhaustion even that took second place to sleep. She dismissed the sexy stranger with a weary shrug and turned her attention to the nurse.

The nurse led her past a line of curtained cubicles into a private room. “The doctor will be with you in a moment,” she snapped before exiting briskly.

What was her problem? Megan couldn’t help her busy day. For her information, Megan’s day would be much worse and she hadn’t snapped at anybody. Yet.

The quiet in the room assaulted her senses after the bustle of the ward. Humanity, in all its shuffling, smelly reality lay out there but here Megan felt sequestered, almost as if the room was soundproofed. Anxiety tightened her throat and she looked around for a distraction. Worry wouldn’t help her now. She’d taken the tests, and once she had her results, she’d know what would happen next.

But here, in a room with a steel hospital bed, reality hit with sickening impact. They must have brought her here because they wanted her to stay, not just give her the results and tell her to come back later. That meant whatever was wrong with her was urgent, needing immediate treatment.

She said the words “Brain tumor” aloud a few times, trying to get used to the idea. It still sent a shudder through her every time.

Biting her lip, Megan glanced up at the TV bolted to the wall above her head. Pictures flashed across the screen, an internal hospital channel showing reminders to eat your five portions of vegetables a day, images of a well-manicured hand slicing carrots into sticks, then green peppers into appetizing slices. She watched the silent images then glanced away. Food was the last thing on her mind.

Usually a patient was stuck with the hospital information channel but not here. A remote lay on the windowsill. Megan picked it up, flicked off the mute and turned to the next channel. CNN News.

“Can New York take this new pressure on its infrastructure?” the commentator said. “How long will it be before there’s a collision in the sky and a bloody mess in the street?”

The camera switched to a view of a dragon in full flight. The creature must have a twenty-foot wingspan. Its great blue-green body gleamed in the weak spring sunshine, the hue shining iridescently as it beat its wings against the wind currents. So beautiful. So impossible, until yesterday.

Damn but she wished she could see one. The existence of people calling themselves Talents had blasted shock waves around the world. She’d seen the footage of the dragon in flight a dozen times since yesterday, when it was the central part of a documentary devoted to the subject. An amateur cameraman—if there such a thing in New York where everybody seemed to be selling their private photos to one agency or another—shot the dragon in flight over Central Park. Other corroborative film and evidence followed, with the strong suggestion that these “creatures” were urban terrorists and spies.

So far, Talents hadn’t spoken, although a spokesman said they would break their long silence later today. That kind of confirmed it. One solitary documentary couldn’t persuade the world but when they came out and said they existed and they’d prove it, that would send the networks into orgasms of delight.

If Megan hadn’t been dreaming about a particular dragon for the past couple of months, it might have come as more of a shock to her but she had her own concerns now, and they overshadowed everything else. The commentator continued. “A representative from STORM will be speaking to the public later today. The Society of Talented Officers Resisting Mistreatment has been with us for some time but until recently nobody knew the specific definition of Talents. It means dragons, vampires and other creatures who have lived among us for centuries. Little is yet known of these Talented beings although they have promised to reveal more in the interest of public awareness.”

Megan slumped bonelessly to the bed, remote in hand.

A marvelously addictive, can't-put-it-down read from Lynne Connolly!

A definite 9.0 on Fran's Richter Scale, and 115 degres F!

ANIMAL

by

Nathalie Gray

Ellora's Cave 2009

Ms. Gray spins a masterful tale of ultimate deception and treachery with a deft hand and a fine eye to detail while she weaves her unforgettable characters into the tale with a sensuous skill that leaves the reader panting for more.

Haruto is a lycan. A lycan like no other Brioni has met, and she has been fighting this hellish war for longer than she cares to remember. There is a finely-drawn sensuality in Ms. Gray's character that draws the reader in like a magnet and keeps the tension up until the final page.

Here is a blurb:

Brioni believes there is good in everyone. Even the mysterious new lycan who joins Earth’s organized resistance. He does not mingle with the others, kills without passion and never, ever takes his goggles off.

 One night, she happens on him secretly playing the ocarina. The haunting music calls to her, as does Haruto’s loneliness. For once, when she reaches out, he does not respond with his trademark smirk or disappear. And as she shares herself with him, Brioni learns just how wicked a lycan’s touch can be and how a mere lick can unleash a fire she had not known possible. His flesh brands hers, his mouth sears a decadent trail on her skin. Pure sensualization. Until all hell breaks loose.

Haruto never cared about consequences, to himself or others. Until now. He would do anything to shield his precious “Goth Fairy” from harm. He would kill for her. Or die. And the enemy knows.

Here's an excerpt:   Adult matter

Behind her, a small sound allowed a split-second warning.

Something hit her in the back. She yelped, hit the fence, tried to brace the impact with her arms as she was pinned facing it. Rain made the metal slippery and cold. A lean and strong body pressed all along the back of her, from knees to shoulders. A hard lump was crushed in her lower back. To have felt that magnificent body before, she recognized it well.

Haruto.

Long fingers tipped in black claws glossy with rain curled into the chain links by her face. Like anchors. “There you are,” he murmured through the wet hair covering her face.

“You’re safe!” she panted, swallowed the lump in her throat. She could’ve wept in relief. “I thought—”

“Shhh,” he breathed.

Adrenaline shifted gears. She quivered as he put his mouth against her ear.

Brioni swallowed. “Are you…are you all right?”

“Now I am.”

“W-what are you doing?”

She’d never seen him this way. The lycan was clearly in control. Although he wasn’t like the others, didn’t change that much in physical appearance when the lycan took over. Only became more. More menacing, more the lean and mean hunter skirting the shadows. Like a hungry wolf without a pack.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” he breathed, stopped for a deep but delicate sniff. A frisson shot up her spine. “I’ve been hungry for you.”

She tried twisting her head to look over her shoulder but he pressed himself harder. Metal links dug in her breasts and belly. Created a thrill she never would’ve expected from the situation. “Are we safe? Are they…? Did you get rid of them?”

“Gone back to their masters,” he replied in singsong. She smelled a faint hint of alcohol on his breath. “With their tails between their legs.” She felt him tense. “Did they hurt you?”

She’d escaped an inferno by the seat of her pants, had fought two men while flying ten feet off the ground at forty miles an hour, crashed on an airbike, had received a punch right in the forehead. “No, I’m all right. I—”

He pressed his mouth against the back of her hand, which glistened with rain as she gripped the fence. His breath warmed her skin. He slowly licked the droplets from her knuckles. “Did you miss me?”

“I was worried. I thought…” She tried to go on but no sound came out when he raked his bottom teeth very, very lightly up the back of her hand. His metallic fangs dangerously tracing veins and tendons. She could feel the reined-in power, the suppressed violence. The hunter resting a delicate claw on the prey’s tail.

But she was no one’s prey.

“I was worried,” she repeated with more aplomb. “You should’ve said something. At least to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m your friend.”

“Mmm. My friend.” He seemed to taste the word, test it, roll it around in his mouth.

His licking her knuckles again closed her eyes. She shivered. The hard feel of him crushed against her was starting to affect her mental processes. Despite his state. Because of it. She couldn’t think. Torn between remnants of fear and a budding arousal. Between her relief he was all right and her worry about where he was taking this. Yet hoping he would. What a mess.

A long lick from wrist bone to curled fingers. “I love your taste.”

With the angle, rain still reached them, rendered his skin the richest shade of wet sand. He yanked on both hands, which were still attached to the fence with curled-in fingers, while pushing his pelvis against her lower back. The clink of the fence was like music. A ribbon of breath rose in the air when she opened her mouth. Haruto did it again, this time rolled his pelvis in an upward thrust that crushed his erection up against her butt. She bit her bottom lip to keep her focus sharp.

She gasped when he fisted the side of her coat and tugged it up so he could slip his hand underneath. Stitching ripped. Contact. Skin against skin. The heat of his palm triggered frissons up her side. Haruto followed her waist, squeezed into the drawstring of her loose-fitting pants. Brioni didn’t try to stop him when he curled fingers over her mons, parted her. Liquid heat gathered in her folds. The smell reached even her.

“You missed me too,” he whispered, chuckled. She’d never heard him do that. Haruto? Chuckling?

When he crouched behind her, one hand still curled into the chain-link fence while he pulled her pants down with the other, she let him. When he denuded her butt and thighs and yanked her pants down around her ankles then off altogether, she hung on to the fence and didn’t make a single move he could’ve construed as unwillingness. And when he straightened, plastered himself against her back, hand around her front and still pressed against her pussy, Brioni remained immobile. Waiting to fall over the edge. That one last gust of wind that would topple her off the cliff. Relinquishment was a powerful thing. As were the animal instincts keeping her put while he readied her. Because that was what he did—readying her. She knew what he wanted.

A sexy read from a hot author!

This one is a definite 9.2 on Fran's Richter Scale, and 120 degrees F!

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