Wish Craft by Lauri Robinson

Title: Wish Craft
Author: Lauri Robinson
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Release Date: June 2010
Format: Ebook
Genre: Time Travel, Romance
Length: Short Story
Rating: 3 ½ Lyres
Reviewer: GJM

After reading an old family diary Jayden decides to take a quantum leap back in time. Emily and her family have fallen on hard times and the medical bills for Emily’s husband are making things worse for the young family. Jayden believes if she invests money over a century before that money will ease her sister’s burdens. She’s also hoping to meet and get to know Levi as she’s fallen a little in love with him through reading an old family diary.
Levi is more than a little shocked to find a young woman asleep by his fireplace when he gets home from proposing to his sweetheart. Little does he realize he’s about to hear a story that is totally unbelievable and will test his faith to the limit.
Great story could have been a little longer. Jayden is adorable and will try anything for her family and those she loves. Levi is a little bit skeptical till he’s challenged to believe the impossible. I really can’t say too much more without giving too many spoilers but I will say this. If you want a fast paced read that leaves you looking for more by the same author Ms Robinson will fit the bill with this charming short.

Caged by Diana DeRicci

Title: Caged
Author: Diana DeRicci
Publisher: Purple Sword Publications LLC
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-936165-43-8
Release Date: May 26th 2010
Format: Ebook
Genre: Erotic Romance, Science Fiction, Shapeshifter
Length: Short Story
Rating: 4 Lyres
Reviewer: GJM
Mira is a Felid. She can take the form of any feline she wishes, and it’s while she’s in the form of a cheetah that she is captured. Lucky for Mira, Rhys, her lover and bonded mate, finds her and releases her from the cage that would become her permanent home.
Rhys is one of the few people who knows Mira is a Felid. He hasn’t even shared that information with his family. So when Mira is captured by one of the neighbors outside Rhys’ grandfather’s cabin he starts to wonder if it was a coincidence or if someone is actually hunting Mira.
When it turns out that the neighbor is wanted for poaching and indeed appears to know more than he should about Felids, Mira comes up with a dangerous plan to stop the hunter dead in his tracks–but she could lose everything if it doesn’t go according to plan.
A fast paced read, Ms DeRicci gives us a well-thought out plot. I loved the chemistry between Mira and Rhys. I also liked that while Rhys was against any plan that would endanger his mate he also loved her enough to let her do what she needed to do. Kudos, Ms DeRicci, for bringing your readers another enjoyable tale.

Superstition by Samantha Wright

Title: Superstition
Author: Samantha Wright
Publisher: Champagne Books
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-926681-30-6
Release Date: April 2010
Format: Ebook
Genre: Romance / Dark Fantasy/Young Adult
Length: novel
Rating: 4
Reviewer: GJM
When Jessica and her mother Lillian inherit an old plantation mansion in Louisiana, Lillian is thrilled as since she is presently trying to hold down two jobs to keep a roof over their heads and barely making ends meet. So off they go to Gilgamesh to start their new life, not knowing that Gilgamesh is a town corrupted by evil and stuck two hundred years in the past.
Jessica is plagued by strange dreams and even though she has never seen the house before knows exactly what they will find in it, she can even tell you what rooms are where and how the furniture is placed in each room.
Is Agatha Byrd a sweet old lady or part of the evil that plagues the house and surrounding town? Is her nephew Adam really the schizophrenic as he appears to be? Then there’s Serafine, the owner of the voodoo emporium. Can Lillian and Jessica really trust her? Last, but by no means least, there’s the young man that can only be seen at night and seems to have a fascination for Jessica.
I must point out that I usually don’t review anything that falls into the Young Adult genre. That being said I was really impressed with the way this book is written and if I had a daughter in her mid teens I’d have no objections to her reading this book. I loved Lillian and being a mother and having gone through the raising teens thing I really got her. The characters were believable in fact there were a few I had an intense dislike for almost as soon as they were introduced. There were a few areas where the editing could have been a little tighter, with repeated words and missing words. All in all very enjoyable.

Roleplay by Megan Ziese

Title: Roleplay

Author: Megan Ziese

Publisher: New Concepts Publishing

Ebook ISBN

Release Date: May 26^th 2010

Format: Ebook

Genre: Erotic / Ménage/ Multiple Partners/Mild BDSM

Length: Short Story

Rating: 4 1/2 Lyres

Reviewer: GJM

What happens when a couple’s night of role playing gets them arrested? Why the husband bribes the officers with sex of course.

Claire and Dylan have been married for fifteen years and decide to spice things up with a little role playing. Claire dresses up as a hooker and stands on the corner. Dylan plays the part of the client things are going really well till the police show up. As they are being cuffed Dylan suggests they all go to the couple’s cabin and come to a mutual agreement rather than heading downtown to jail.

Riley and his partner Audrey decide to take Dylan up on his offer and the four head to the cabin. Once at the cabin Claire is paired with riley while Dylan is paired with Audrey. Claire will do anything to avoid the embarrassment of going to jail. She soon finds that Riley is a man used to being in charge and not as accommodating as her husband when it comes to her wants.

Dylan meanwhile is in the next room showing Audrey that while she may be wearing the uniform he’s definitely the boss. When the twist is revealed Dylan might find himself in more than a little hot water.

The characters are believable, I was so impressed with the way Claire was written she didn’t want her children to know that a sex game had gone terribly wrong and is more than willing to submit to Riley to ensure she doesn’t go to jail. I don’t want to give the twist away but I will say Dylan knows satisfying his wife will go a long way to helping his cause.

What can I say this is probably one of the hottest short stories I’ve read this year, Ms Ziese grabs your attention right of the bat and leaves you wanting more. The only thing I can think if that would of made it more enjoyable was to make it a longer story. Do yourself a favor and grab a copy when it releases next week you won’t be disappointed.

Self’s Blossom by David Russell

Another deviation from my standard format….

Self’s Blossom by David Russell

Publisher: Devine Destiny (Destinies?)

I can in no way in hell rate this novel. Sorry. I don’t even know if i can write a cohesive review for it!

First of all, it’s written by a guy, in a woman’s point of view. This technique is in no way new, untried, or even unusual. What makes this book stand out like a sore, rotten thumb is the way Russell take on the technique. Existentialist, Russel is not. Dude trying to write like a 19th century classical novelist, sort of. Russell makes Selene out to be this ancient-soul-in-a-young-body (figuratively) woman, who is on this self-righteous journey to discover herself, hence the title, Self’s Blossom. Instead, Russell takes us on a painfully verbose trudge through a incredibly boring, self-entitled, shallow woman’s mind. Literally. Way too often, an event in the book is preambled by one of Selene’s pages-long self-analysis. It’s even worse when Russell has his characters tackling some ‘liberating’ issue. Sex does not liberate a woman! Obsession with a man does not liberate a woman! Liberation for Selene would have been her ditching her whiny-ass friend, finding a job she enjoyed, and letting go of all her melodramatic bullshit from her past–not running away from her problems, mooning over the whiny friend’s statements, seducing strangers, and molesting ocean waves. This book riles up the pissed-off feminist in me.

The prose was on this side of unreadable. If I were reading an essay written for a college-level sophomore English class by some long-dead existentialist author expounding on the facts, or lack thereof, of life, I would be more accepting of this sort of writing in a modern novel. In this day and age, there just isn’t a place for such flowery, purple-prosed, extravagant droning verbiage. I enjoy intellectual fiction. As an English major, I have to read quite a bit of it. I can see where a novel like this–minus the ‘erotic’ portions, may have an extremely remote resemblance to the great novels of Sylvia Plath, D. H. Lawrence, distantly, Camus, Kate Chopin.

Self’s Blossom has this vaguely nihilist, Kafka-esque air about it. I think maybe if Russell hadn’t attempted to write an ‘erotic’ novel, had not made Selene so self-important and broadened her internalizations—

No. I was trying to find something positive to say. But no…I just can’t even fake it.

I’ll never tell anyone not to buy a book. I’m —-> <—– this close to saying that here. In short, Self’s Blossom is hard to read, very slow, not sexy, and honestly, vaguely offensive.

Shades of Night by R. G. Porter

Title: Shades of Night

Author: R.G. Porter

Publisher: Eirelander Publishing

Ebook ISBN: 1450544517

Release Date: May  2010

Format: Ebook

Genre: Paranormal, Vampires, Werewolves, Fae

Length: Novel

Rating: 3 1/2

Reviewer: GJM

Krystoff is a Vampire who hunts down and destroys rogue vampires. He is not having a great night the rogue he has tracked down manages to escape him. Edward his friend and fellow hunter comes to tell him that his mother has been murdered by rogues. When the two hunters go to a bar so Edward can give Krystoff more details and the two friends can discuss the changes they have both noticed in the rogues, Krystoff hears a woman sing her voice calls to him and he’ll do whatever he has to meet the owner of that voice.

Alexandra is half Fae and has spent most of her life alone protecting a very special book. She has always avoided vampires so when Krystoff approaches her she’s more than a little scared. Soon after running from Krystoff and Edward Alexander realizes that even though they are vampires they are not as scary as the rogue vampires that are after her, and the knowledge that she doesn’t know she possesses.

The rogue vampires need Alex or more to the point they need her book and the knowledge she possesses to turn day into night so they can rule the earth. They believe that humans are only good for one thing FOOD they also want to free their exiled brethren. Freeing the exiled will so NOT be a good idea. The reasons for why the exiled should remain exiled become more and more obvious as you read.

I found that the tale started a little slow but the pace really picks up a few chapters in Edward is charming and I’m assuming his will be the next story in this series. Krystoff at times annoyed me he seemed too guilt ridden over things that he couldn’t possibly control rather than accepting that sometimes things happen and there is little we can do about it. Alex was really gutsy and after she gets over her initial fears she accepts her destiny for what it is. Even when faced with a choice of dying in order to save Krystoff she makes the decision and sticks to it.

All in all I enjoyed the book what’s not to like a charming vampire and a guilt ridden vampire, lots of not so nice vampires. A half Fae half Human who is just discovering all that she really is, then add in a sprinkling of werewolves.  Something for every paranormal reader out there, there are even a few spirits from beyond that want to give valuable advice to our heroes.

Riding Double by Sayde Grace

Title: Riding Double

Author: Sayde Grace

Publisher: Wild Rose Press

Ebook ISBN:

Release Date: May 7^th 2010

Format: Ebook

Genre: Erotic / Ménage/ Multiple Partners

Length: Short Story

Rating: 4 1/2 Lyres

Reviewer: GJM

Billie Atwater is the owner of Atwater Buck- Out and provides stock to the rodeo circuit. Her life has been steadily spinning out of control over the past two years since she split with her fiancé . It don’t help that he’s also on the rodeo circuit as a bull rider. Billie has been trying to forget Bo in the arms of other cowboys and her contract with the rodeo is now in jeopardy due to what her competitors are calling her loose morals. It’s the old double standard of a man can sow all the wild oats he wants but a woman best not even think about doing it.

After Chet Haskins gets thrown by one of Billie’s horses he asks her out. Billie agrees as Chet makes her laugh and he’s sweet she thinks maybe just maybe he may be the answer to her finally getting over her ex. When Chet suggests a threesome with his room mate, Billie is tempted to agree then she finds out his room mate is none other than Bo Bennett her ex Fiancé.

Bo Bennett has never gotten over Billie. Two years later he’s had ready to admit he still loves her and explain what really happened if only she’d listen. He’s tired of pretending he hates her and he never wants to hear her say she hates him anymore.

When Chet and Billie invite Bo to join them he agrees to a weekend with them but resigns himself to the fact that by the end of the weekend it will really be over between him and Billie. He figures if he can have her for one more weekend even if he has to share her it will be worth it.

I really enjoyed all the characters in this story and hope that we get to see Saige and Melanie in stories of their own in the near future. The characters are all very real and believable and I love how conflicted Billie’s emotions were when it came to Bo. This story is fast paced and easy to read kudos to Ms Grace for bringing  these characters to life for readers and for taking us along on the emotional roller coaster with Bo , Billie and Chet.