Tag: 2012

Categories
Romance Science Fiction

Read Dark Space

Read Dark Space (Dark Space, #1)

Brady Garrett needs to go home. He’s a conscripted recruit on Defender Three, one of a network of stations designed to protect the Earth from alien attack. He’s also angry, homesick, and afraid. If he doesn’t get home he’ll lose his family, but there’s no way back except in a body bag.

Cameron Rushton needs a heartbeat. Four years ago Cam was taken by the Faceless — the alien race that almost destroyed Earth. Now he’s back, and when the doctors make a mess of getting him out of stasis, Brady becomes his temporary human pacemaker. Except they’re sharing more than a heartbeat: they’re sharing thoughts, memories, and some very vivid dreams.

Not that Brady’s got time to worry about his growing attraction to another guy, especially the one guy in the universe who can read his mind. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just biochemistry and electrical impulses. It doesn’t change the truth: Brady’s alone in the universe.

Now the Faceless are coming and there’s nothing anyone can do. You can’t stop your nightmares. Cam says everyone will live, but Cam’s probably a traitor and a liar like the military thinks. But that’s okay. Guys like Brady don’t expect happy endings.

I didn’t realize how important to the plot a past rape would be 😬 I might have skipped it if I’d realized. This book had a lot of pretty intense things happening and a lot of uncomfortable things happening — would not recommend this as an entry point to sci-fi romance or m/m. I did turn out to like it overall, and will try the next book.

This was interesting to read after Ocean’s Echo, which also involved two guys stuck in the military forced into a mental bond (though I would class that on the other side of the romance line). This one is ten years older, and I suspect some of the less comfortable consent comes from its age.

Categories
Romance

Re-read About Last Night

Read About Last Night

Sure, opposites attract, but in this sexy, smart, eBook original romance from RITA finalist and bestselling author Ruthie Knox, they positively combust! When a buttoned-up banker falls for a bad girl, “about last night” is just the beginning.

Cath Talarico knows a mistake when she makes it, and God knows she’s made her share. So many, in fact, that this Chicago girl knows London is her last, best shot at starting over. But bad habits are hard to break, and soon Cath finds herself back where she has vowed never to go . . . in the bed of a man who is all kinds of wrong: too rich, too classy, too uptight for a free-spirited troublemaker like her.

Nev Chamberlain feels trapped and miserable in his family’s banking empire. But beneath his pinstripes is an artist and bohemian struggling to break free and lose control. Mary Catherine—even her name turns him on—with her tattoos, her secrets, and her gamine, sex-starved body, unleashes all kinds of fantasies.

When blue blood mixes with bad blood, can a couple that is definitely wrong for each other ever be perfectly right? And with a little luck and a lot of love, can they make last night last a lifetime?

At least third read. Forgot how quickly the ending happens — too fast IMO, I thought I’d somehow missed a chapter — and the hero’s redemption not fully earned. I bought the heroine’s standoffishness more than another recent reread, The Soulmate Equation — though some of her self-abuse comes off uncomfortably judgmental and sex negative — probably would be updated if written today. Her ending arc was good but totally implausible.

Categories
Romance

Read Seducing Mr. Knightly

Read Seducing Mr. Knightly (The Writing Girls, #4)

He’s the only man she’s ever loved…

For ages it seems advice columnist Annabelle Swift has loved Derek Knightly, editor-owner of The London Weekly from a distance. Determined to finally attract her employer’s attention, she seeks advice from her loyal readers—who offer Annabelle myriad suggestions…from lower-cut bodices (success!) and sultry gazes (disaster!) to a surprise midnight rendezvous (wicked!).

She’s the only woman he never noticed…

Derek never really took note of his shy, wallflower lady writer. But suddenly she’s exquisite…and he can’t get Annabelle out of his mind! She must be pursuing someone, but who? For some inexplicable reason, the thought of her with another man makes Knightly insanely jealous.

Will Dear Annabelle find her happy ending?

But Knightly’s scandalous periodical has been targeted for destruction by a vengeful Lord Marsden, and the beleaguered editor now faces a devastating choice: either marry Marsden’s sister to save his beloved newspaper…or follow his heart and wed his Writing Girl.

The heroine is as smart as a rock and a-quiver over the lack of attentions from the man she ‘loves’ despite never having had a conversation with him. Entertaining setup and I suppose her blundering is somewhat endearing? Unfortunately she’s also dull and a pushover who lets herself get treated like shit by her family. She is extremely proud of herself for using a slightly rude word to describe someone in print. I wish she’d had a little more going for her, because I have a hard time believing a sharp editor-in-chief is going to fall head over heels with someone for being brave when she can’t carry on an intelligent conversation, has no grasp on any higher machinations or motivations, is naive and clueless, and mostly writes articles about etiquette.

Her self sacrifice at the end is a disappointing regression in personality, and the ending serves to give him the empowering moment, not her. She just suffers more of the same treatment and gives up, when I think storywise she needed to fully embrace her new personality traits and pursue what she wanted. Her physical and personality transformation makes me think of Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle, where she reverts back to her old lady form when she disses herself and accepts things without fighting for herself. Sophie was given power by her ending, whereas this book would be like her waiting around at the hatshop being bombed in her old lady form and never trying to help.

Categories
Romance

Re-read A Lady by Midnight

Read A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove, #3) by Tessa Dare

After years of fending for herself, Kate Taylor found friendship and acceptance in Spindle Cove—but she never stopped yearning for love. The very last place she’d look for it is in the arms of Corporal Thorne. The militia commander is as stone cold as he is brutally handsome. But when mysterious strangers come searching for Kate, Thorne steps forward as her fiancé. He claims to have only Kate’s safety in mind. So why is there smoldering passion in his kiss?

Long ago, Samuel Thorne devoted his life to guarding Kate’s happiness. He wants what’s best for her, and he knows it’s not marriage to a man like him. To outlast their temporary engagement, he must keep his hands off her tempting body and lock her warm smiles out of his withered heart. It’s the toughest battle of this hardened warrior’s life . . . and the first he seems destined to lose.

Reading a Tessa Dare book always makes me want to read another one 😂

This has some over the top scenes (especially the climax) that are funny if not totally in keeping with how the hero should be feeling at the end. His capitulation at the end isn’t fully earned.