Five Ways 'Til Sunday (Delta Heat 1)

DELILAH DEVLIN

Synopsis from Goodreads: Sometimes a man’s just gotta call for backup…
Delta Heat, Book 1

Marti Kowalski is all wrong for Officer Jackson Teague—he just won’t listen to reason. She didn’t finish high school, runs a bar. Has a tattoo and a blue streak in her hair. Yet he still wants to marry her? She can’t say she’s not tempted, but she’s got a bucket list to complete before she ties the knot.

Not just any bucket—more like a fifty-five-gallon drum of sexual wishes so explicit, there’s no way one man, even Jackson, can fulfill them all.

When Marti turns him down again, Jackson insists on knowing why. That’s when she shows him her list. He takes it, thinks about it—and calls on the only men he can trust: four buddies from his academy graduating class.

Between the five of them, he’s sure they can come up with a plan to check off every item on her list in one wild, wicked weekend. That is, if she has the nerve to follow through—and if he can bear to share her.
Product Warnings
Contains five men on a mission to break down the resistance of one determined woman, using everything in their arsenal from BDSM accoutrements to roleplay of non-consensual situation.

Stats for my copy: ebook, Samhain Publishing, 2011.

How acquired: Bought.

My thoughts:  Hot from the first page! I read this novella in one sitting. Twice. Well, I read it in January 2012, and then again a few days ago. I particularly liked the characters. They aren't just random people, they're a couple who obviously love each other. The blurb pretty much tells you the whole plot. While Jackson gets his buddies to help him fulfill Marti's fantasies, he's not just gung ho completely comfortable doing so. But he thinks if he gets Marti through her bucket list, then she'll have no more excuses not to marry him. So for him, the ends justify the means. And that hastily scribbled bucket list was just an excuse. As much as Marti loves Jackson, she's scared of marriage, and she feels she will not be the right wife for Jackson. So she's shocked when she finds herself checking off each fantasy, along with some extra surprises that Jackson and his buddies plan along the way. *sigh* Where is MY Jackson? 

Kill the Messenger

TAMI HOAG

Synopsis from back cover: Bike messenger Jace Damon is on his last delivery of a long day – a package from one of L.A.'s sleaziest defense attorneys, Lenny Lowell. But when Jace tries to make the drop, he is chased, shot at, and barely escapes with the package – and his life. Meanwhile, Lowell has been murdered and Jace finds himself suspect number one.

In a city fueled by money, celebrity, and sensationalism, the slaying of a bottom-feeder like Lowell won't make headlines. So when LAPD's elite show up, homicide detective Kev Parker wants to know why. Parker begins a search for answers that will lead him to a killer – or to the end of his career. Because if there's one lesson Parker has learned over the years, it's that in a town built on fame and fantasy, delivering the truth can be murder.

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, Bantam Dell, 2006.

How acquired: From my mom.

My thoughts: My mom gave me three or four Tami Hoag books when she was culling books from her collection. This is the first one I've read, and it certainly won't be the last.

From page one we are immediately plunged into the world of bike messengers, as we ride along with Jace through L.A. traffic. I'd not realized what a dangerous and perilous occupation it was, with the messengers putting their lives at risk every day just to deliver documents from one place to another. It was a tense and gripping opening for a book that stayed pretty tense and gripping all the way to the end.

There are lots of characters, and the narrative jumps around at times from one character's POV to another's. We first meet Jace, and stay with him for awhile as he goes on that last ill-fated ride, where the danger he faces is more than the ordinary traffic hazards. He finds himself being chased by a man in a long black car, and while he manages to get away, it's not without injury to himself and destruction to his bike. The attorney he made the pick up from is killed shortly after Jace leaves his office, and whoever killed him is now after Jace and whatever is in the package he carries.

Kev Parker is the lead detective investigating the attorney's murder. He used to be an arrogant hot shot whose career bit the dust after he scuttled a prior investigation. The more involved he becomes in this case, and the more he learns, the more it looks like it could be the case that brings him back. Or the one that ends his career altogether.

There are many other characters seamlessly woven into the plot, and the author does a wonderful job with developing each one, but most particularly (besides Jace and Parker) Jace's younger brother, Tyler. He's a wise beyond his years ten year old who never hesitates to tell an adult he's smarter than they are (with a high IQ to back up that claim), but the author manages to stay away from the dreaded precocious plot moppet trope and make Tyler a realistic little boy. Even when we don't really learn much about a character, he or she is still vivid and individual. And with the detailed descriptions of the city and the characters' surroundings at any given time, L.A. is as much a character as any of the hapless humans roaming it's streets. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad, and there's not a lot of deviation or surprise in that particular characterization, until suddenly there is.

The action zips along at a quick pace, and without being predictable. KILL THE MESSENGER is an absorbing read with a satisfying conclusion and, for me anyway, a perfect introduction to Tami Hoag's work. 

Turtle Moon

ALICE HOFFMAN

Back cover copy: Welcome to Verity – home of more divorced women from New York than any other town in the state of Florida. Where Lucy Rosen has moved to get away from her ex. Where Officer Julian Cash watches over the town with a fierce German shepherd and even fiercer expression. Where Lucy's son Keith hates everything: the heat, the school, and sometimes his mother. He can't wait to get away. And then he does, when a woman is murdered and her baby is left behind. Keith takes off with the baby. Lucy and Julian take off after him. And TURTLE MOON takes off on a funny, touching, and exhilarating journey.

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, A Berkley Book, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1993.

How acquired: Bought.

First line: The last major crime in the town of Verity was in 1958, when one of the Platts shot his brother in an argument over a Chevy Nomad they had bought together on time.

My thoughts: Turtle Moon started out a little slow, as the characters were introduced and their lives begin to intersect, but quickly picked up steam. There's Bethany, hiding from her husband with her baby daughter. There's Lucy, trying to put her life back together after a divorce, fighting with and continually at odds with her twelve year old juvenile delinquent son, Keith. There's Julian, quiet, morose, driving around in his patrol car with his K9 tracker, Loretta, who lives in his house and loves his company, or scouting across the countryside with his cadaver dog, Arrow, who has no use for human kindness and no qualms about biting the hand that feeds him. There's Mrs. Giles, who raised Julian and hundreds of foster children after him. There's Bobby, who can't leave the tree where he died.

One hot Florida night, Bethany is murdered in her apartment, and Lucy's son disappears with Bethany's baby daughter, sending Lucy and Julian on a quest for the truth, coming together and falling apart.

The ending was anticipated and expected, and then suddenly wasn't, leaving me a little unsettled, but with hope for everyone's futures.

Alice Hoffman's writing has such a wandering, meandering, dreamy, mesmerizing quality. There are often long stretches where nothing actually happens, and yet you're glued to the page. While I've enjoyed almost everything I've read by her, I think this is one of her better books. 

Shut Up and Kiss Me

CHRISTIE CRAIG 

Synopsis from Goodreads: Photojournalist Shala Winters already had her hands full bringing tourism to this backward, podunk town, but her job just got tougher. Pictures can say a thousand words, and one of Shala's is screaming bloody murder. Now she has to entrust a macho, infuriating lawman with her life -- but she'll never trust him with her heart.

Trust or not, Sky Gomez isn't about to let a killer get his hands on Shala's Nikon -- or any of her more comely assets, for that matter. Her mouth might move faster than a Piney Woods roadrunner, but all he can think about is how good it must taste...and how she'll never escape true love.

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, published by Dorchester Publishing Company, Inc.

How acquired: Received from a BookCrossing member.

First line: “Is that war paint or love paint he's wearing?” a female voice rang out from behind Shala Winters.

My thoughts: This is the first book I've read by Christie Craig, and the problem with discovering new to me authors is suddenly having a bunch of books to add to my wish list. Because I very much enjoyed SHUT UP AND KISS ME, and am now excited to look through my TBR books and realize that I already do have four of her other books waiting.

While in the small town of Precious, Texas, where she has been hired to come up with ways to promote tourism, Shala attends a powwow. Becoming disgusted by the raucous and disrespectful comments of the women sitting around her (see that first line above), and a little disconcerted by the dancing man who keeps staring intently at her, she gets up to leave. The mayor had warned her there was some members of the community who didn't want the town promoted and didn't want her here, and she thinks this guy must be one of them. As she turns in the bleachers to escape, her bag slides off her shoulder and her camera falls out. She hastily retrieves it, only to have the man suddenly appear in front of her, snatch it out of her hands, and dash away.

Sky Gomez sees a camera flash, and then sees Shala with a camera in her hands, so he jumps to the assumption that she took a picture, and per the sign posted at the gate, stating that cameras are strictly prohibited and will be confiscated, he quickly takes possession of it.

And that's Shala and Sky's meet cute. Although, they don't actually meet until after Shala has run all over town trying to track Sky down. Humor abounds here, from cover to cover, and there were many times I laughed out loud. Sky and Shala are both fun characters, both leery of love for their own reasons. Sky especially. His foster father, Redfoot, claims that the spirits told him in a dream that Shala is his soul mate, but while Sky is respectful of the old ways and participates in the powwows, he doesn't really believe in all that spirit stuff, and he certainly doesn't believe in soul mates. So before even meeting Shala he is already determined to keep his distance from her. Fortunately, he doesn't succeed. Someone is stalking Shala, and getting more and more violent, which throws Shala and Sky together as they try to figure out who, and why.

There are plenty of other characters with side plots keeping the book very busy. Maria, Sky's foster sister, has been in love with their foster brother, Jose, who is Redfoot's son, since she was a teenager, but just when she thought he might be returning her feelings he had taken off for a job in New York. Now she's dating Matt, a white boy, and while she thinks she's in love with him, she still can't stop obsessing over Jose. Plus she thinks Matt is cheating on her with his constant weekend trips to Dallas.

Jose couldn't wait to get out of Precious, but when Redfoot is injured, he rushes back home. Jose's arrival, and his first couple of days in town, played like a farce, as one thing after another happens to him. The string of events was almost over the top, but the author kept me laughing and engaged enough that I didn't mind. I wasn't sure at first if I liked Jose, but he grew on me.

Another character I particularly liked was Sky's friend, Lucas, a loner with a military past, law enforcement connections and a secret government job. Compared to the other characters above I guess he was a more minor character, but he seemed to open up and evolve a little in his brief time on the page, and I would have loved to see more of him.

After I finished the book, I went to the author's website, hoping there were or would be more books about this quirky little town (ok, hoping there was or would be one about Lucas), but alas, no. I did find an Epilogue to the story. However, after only reading about a third of it I navigated away as I didn't feel it really added to the story and was superfluous.

A light, sometimes silly, bordering on slapstick, romantic comedy, with a mystery at it's core, and a fun cast of characters. 

Her Valentine Sheriff (Serendipity Sweethearts, Book 2; Love Inspired Large Print #833)

DEB KASTNER

Synopsis: Rugged and tough deputy sheriff Eli Bishop isn't scared of anything. Except dogs. When he’s assigned a K-9 partner, he thinks things can't get any worse. Then he learns who'll be training him. Local vet Mary Travis is sweet as sugar...but she's also Eli's ex-fiancee's sister. Revealing his humiliating phobia to her is not an option. Neither is developing feelings for Mary – who's built her career around the dogs Eli fears. When a terrible storm hits their town, Mary and Eli must find the courage to work together and save lives – and fall in love.

First line: Serendipity, Texas, had gone to the dogs.

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, published by Love Inspired Books, releases in January 2014; 215 pages; purchased through Harlequin Reader Service subscription.

My thoughts: The Serendipity police force is getting it's first K-9 officer, and Eli Bishop is horrified to learn that he has been chosen to partner with the dog. A frightening encounter with a wild dog when he was very young left him with physical and emotional scars, and the thought of being around a dog still scares him. But he isn’t about to turn down a promotion, not to mention allow himself to become the butt of his fellow officers' jokes and teasing. He's still smarting from the jokes and teasing that followed his ex-fiancee jilting him, and he's not pleased that her sister will be training him. But he keeps his misgivings to himself and stoically accepts the new position.

Mary Bishop is excited about starting a K-9 training program, and if her first pupil and his partner do well, she hopes to get contracts from other local police forces. She's nervous about working with Eli, whom she had a crush on in high school, and she's still angry at her sister for the way she walked out on Eli and their engagement to be with another man.

Eli doesn’t tell Mary about his dog phobia, leaving her to ponder and wonder why he's so reserved and resistant to interacting with Bullet. She needs Eli and Bullet to become a cohesive unit in order to get the new training program off the ground. I'm fascinated by police dogs (well, by any dogs!), and Deb Kastner appears to have done some research into what makes them tick, and I enjoyed this brief glimpse into how the canine officers – and their human partners – are trained. And Eli's first training session with Mary and Bullet had me laughing page after page.

Mary quickly realizes her teenage crush on Eli is still going strong, but she doesn't think he would ever possibly be interested in someone like her. In fact, she spends a majority of the book convinced that he's fallen for her friend Alexis, and determined to be happy for them. Meanwhile, Alexis and Samantha, the other member of the Little Chicks, as the three girls are known around town, plot and scheme to get Mary and Eli together.

The storm scenes were descriptive and realistic, and I got a little tense but very immersed in the story. Thinking back, this is the first book I've read that featured any tornadic activity since my own city was devastated by a tornado back in May, and Mary and Eli heading out with their dogs for Search and Rescue made me emotional. But not in a bad way – with the happy ending it was also cathartic.

Overall an enjoyable and engaging read. I gather from Harlequin’s website that this is the second book in the “Serendipity Sweetheart” series, the first book having been Samantha's story, THE SOLDIER'S SWEETHEART, which thanks to my excessive subscriptions to Harlequin's Reader Service I already have in my massive TBR pile. But scrolling through synopses of Ms. Kastner's other books it looks like many of them are set in the same little town, such as MEETING Mr. RIGHT, which is the fourth book in the “Email Order Brides” series and is about Eli's sister, and which I'm pleased to realize is also in my TBR pile, along two more of her books. So, you know, just what I need. Another bunch of books to move to my “to be read next” bookcase, which is almost overflowing as it is. 

A HIT AND A MISS

First the hit:

Romantic Notions, by Roz Denny (Harlequin Romance No. 3122)

Synopsis: When Sam Court came raging into Brynn Powell’s lingerie shop, Romantic Notions, to return the frivolous undies his thirteen-year-old daughter had bought, he was shocked to find himself attracted to the proprietor.

Sam disapproved of female vanity. Disapproved of women like his glamorous and unreliable ex-wife...a category that included former fashion models who “hawked filmy underwear.”

But despite appearances, Brynn was really a sensible home-and-hearth person. And she had to wonder if a one-time hockey great with a few too many bruises and an ex-model with far too many responsibilities could ever make a match of it.

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback; published by Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 1991; 187 pages; purchased at a library book sale in February 2011.

My thoughts: At one of the annual library sales we go to they always have sealed boxes of books for sale, and I try to get at least one romance box. Some of the books will be good, some will so so, and some will be little gems, like this one. I'd never read a Roz Denny book until now, and what a wonderful introduction to a new to me author.

Brynn was a successful underwear model before coming home to care for her younger brother, who at age 15 needs a kidney transplant, after their parents passed away. But her real passion was design, and in addition to taking over the running of her late mother's shop, she sells her own line of lingerie. Before leaving New York, she had her heart broken by a man who she thought she was in love with at the time, and her focus in life now is to work and take care of her brother and the mounting medical bills. She's not interested in dating or being in a relationship.

Sam Court is a very well known hockey player who has left California (I think that's where he came from) in the hopes of providing a more wholesome life for his 13 year old daughter. He's a little older than the rest of the players on his hockey team, and starting to feel his aches and pains. His ex-wife was consumed by her looks and trying to become famous, and he overcompensates now by being too strict with his daughter.

Brynn and Sam clash from the moment they meet, which is standard fare for these older Harlequins, and which I have come to love and expect. The relationship builds up slowly, tentatively, almost grudgingly. It's a sweet story with wonderfully written characters, including the kids who are integral to the story and not just plot devices (see next review for example). Roz Denny, also known as Roz Denny Fox, is definitely on my radar now and I'll be snatching up everything of hers I can find.

Moment of Truth (Silhouette Intimate Moments, No. 1143)

MAGGIE PRICE

Synopsis: Called to Mission Creek to help find the Lone Star Country Club bomber, Chicago Police bomb tech Hart O'Brien never imagined he'd walk straight into the arms of his first – and only – love. Body Perfect spa manager Joan Cooper had become a cool brunette with a touch-me-not attitude. But Hart HAD touched her one hot summer night ten years ago, then unexpectedly walked away, leaving Joan to deal with the consequences. When anger turns to passion for Joan and Hart, will Joan reveal her ten-year-old secret? Will Hart uncover the identity of the Lone Star bomber?

First line: What the hell am I doing here?

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, published by Harlequin Books, 2002; purchased at a library book sale.

My thoughts: I love category romances, but some of the covers make me cringe. This is one of those covers. She looks like she's trying to feel him up through his pocket. And he doesn't look especially impressed with her effort.

Cover photo aside, the characters are much more likable than they appear. Ten years ago Joan was the spoiled little rich girl, while Hart was a groundskeeper at the country club. After a summer of her pursuing him, they finally had their perfect night together (even though she was a virgin – I never did get how the first time could ever be perfect but maybe my first time was an anomaly?), and then they never saw each other again. Hart was accused of stealing money from the club and threatened with his mother being arrested on an old warrant, and so he and his mother blew out of town to start over elsewhere. By the time they were settled and he was ready to get back in touch with Joan, he learned from one of his friends that she had gone off to Dallas and married a hotshot attorney.

Now Hart is back in town to investigate a bombing at the country club, and Joan is working and living in close proximity. He's still angry that after their night together she just forgot about him and married someone else. She's still angry that after their night together he just took off and disappeared. She has a daughter, Helena, who everyone believes is a product of her quick marriage, and she's determined that Hart not find out the truth. Because she's afraid he'll tell Helena he loves her, like he told Joan, and then up and disappear again, breaking Helena's heart, like he did Joan's.

I liked Joan, and I really liked Hart, and I loved Helena. She takes to her mom's “old friend” like a duck to water, following him around the club and pestering him with questions, which he patiently answers.

In the meantime, while Hart and Joan realize they're still hung up on each other (not that they admit that to each other), his investigation is in full swing. There is also a rival for his affections, and plenty of bad guys. In fact, everyone seems to be a potential bad guy. And the action/suspense ramps up in the last quarter of the book to the point that I sat up in bed until midnight, even though I had to be up at six the next morning, because I didn't want to stop reading. I value my sleep, and when a book draws me in enough to make me forego sleep, it's a winner.

WolfPointe

RICK BUDA

Synopsis: With a colorful cast of characters including politicians, law enforcement officials, land barons and common criminals, Rick Buda has crafted and intriguing and suspenseful novel.

Anyone with a taste for the macabre and the mysterious will enjoy following the political blackmail, intrigue, trail of gore and the discovery a monster could well be living in your back yard!

Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, published by Twilight Times Books, 2004; received through BookCrossing.

My thoughts: I tried, but I just could not get into this. I liked the main character, but the writing just felt too stilted and awkward, and I quit around 40 pages in. The book definitely could have benefited from some much tighter editing.