Romance Books - Page 6

Just Breathe

Susan Wiggs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Chicago cartoonist Sarah Moon tackles life's real issues with a healthy dose of sharp wit in her syndicated comic strip Just Breathe. As Sarah's cartoon alter ego, Shirl, undergoes artificial insemination, her situation begins to mirror Sarah's own difficult attempts to conceive. However, Sarah's dreams of the future did not include her husband's infidelity: snag number two in Sarah's so-called perfect life.

With Chicago and her marriage in the rearview mirror, she flees to the small Northern California coastal town where she grew up, a place she couldn't wait to leave. Now she finds herself revisiting the past, an emotionally distant father and the unanswered questions left by her mother's death. As she comes to terms with her lost marriage, Sarah encounters a man she never expected to meet again: Will Bonner, the high school heartthrob she'd skewered mercilessly in her old comics. Now a local firefighter, he's been through some changes himself. But just as her heart is about to reawaken, Sarah discovers she is pregnant. With her ex's twins.

It's hardly the most traditional of new beginnings, but who says life and love are predictable or perfect? The winds of change have led Sarah here. Now all she can do is just close her eyes and breathe.

March

Geraldine Brooks

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 142 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and crafted a story “filled with the ache of love and marriage and with the power of war upon the mind and heart of one unforgettable man” (Sue Monk Kidd). With “pitch-perfect writing” (USA Today), Brooks follows March as he leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause in the Civil War. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks’s place as a renowned author of historical fiction.

“A very great book... It breathes new life into the historical fiction genre [and] honors the best of the imagination.” —Chicago Tribune
“A beautifully wrought story about how war dashes ideals, unhinges moral certainties and drives a wedge of bitter experience and unspeakable memories between husband and wife.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Inspired... A disturbing, supple, and deeply satisfying story, put together with craft and care and imagery worthy of a poet.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Louisa May Alcott would be well pleased.” —The Economist

Snuff

Chuck Palahniuk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

"The Damaged Love the Damaged..." 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

An over-the-hill porn star wants to go out with a (gang) bang, so arranges for a world record effort with 600 stout and hearty fellows, brave and true. A few of this cast of hundreds are there for more than their allotted 60 seconds of, ah, contact with the legend. She has deep ulterior motives, as do each of the featured characters, and all of their twisted narratives come together in the concluding pages.

Someone is supposed to die as this event climaxes, and most of the folks know it, although their perceptions of the who, when and how don't quite match up. The plans go a bit off the rails, and everyone gets more or less what they deserve.

The main characters certainly have had enough of the world, with what they have made of it, with their fortunes having turned on single instances and bad choices, in this case almost all of them sexual. Most everyone is ragingly bitter and resentful, untrue and self-serving, bent on rectifying only their problems, regardless of effects on others. The story runs on damaged adults hurting others, intentionally and instinctively, out of selfishness and revenge, or even to manufacture a more compatible companion. It's about the need for fame, the need for redemption, the resentment of future lost, and the clawing need to retain one's perceived best position, all taking place in arena of porn, the "...job you only take after you abandon all hope."

This is not a novel about the sex industry, but there is some behind-the-scenes detail. Palahniuk's detailed portrait of the washed-up porn star Miss Cassie Wright is not as complete and detailed as I had anticipated. I don't know why, but every time I pictured her, a strange combination of Kitten Natividad and Lisa DeLeeuw came to mind. Ah, but I digress. She is more or less the central character, at least that around which all others and the main story revolve, but I was a tad disappointed in that we didn't get more from her. Much of this was necessary for plot purposes, but I thought we'd get a bit more inside her head, and hear a bit more about what Palahniuk has observed about the porn experience. Cassie is a treasure trove of obscure Hollywood factoids, though, all of them thoroughly fun and enlightening.

And Palahniuk has observed; he slips in what appears to me to be his description of things that come to him, "...a remarkably rarefied set of facts for anyone to reference offhand." It was obvious even in Fight Club with the details about automobile recalls that Palahniuk is a collector of slices of divergent existence and uncommon experience. He's fascinated by the edge of the road, and he collects the esoteric, fascinating and titillating tidbits, saving them for the right time to drop into a story. We saw a very straightforward collection of these experiences in Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories. When it's time and the fit is right, these bits add depth to a character, provide the basis for a scene, or serve to power just a soliloquy. We got that in Survivor, with the Palahniuk's extended dissection of the blissful suffering stupor achieved on the Stairmaster. Such is the case here, and this time we get lots of insight on the directly physical aspects of manufacturing video pornography. Most of it has been covered, but Palahniuk manages to show us a few things that are new. We also get details about embalming, the chemical and physical processes of cyanide, and about the sacrifices Hollywood stars made for their careers--not for their craft, mind you, but for themselves.

Palahniuk records detail, and this brings the porn-shoot green room scene into a sharpness of focus that had me wanting to shower after reading. It is unflinching and close-in; I swear I could smell it.

The story has lots and lots of people in it, but only a handful get to speak. The story is all about them, which seems to me to close down the world a bit too tightly. As struck me reading Invisible Monsters, everyone is intertwined, closely and disgustingly, but it seems a bit too close, that everyone is that tied and related a tad too easily. It works to keep the story tight, of course, but it seems that social groups are just not that tight.

Palahniuk's porn-title takes on classic film and literature titles is good fun, with dozens of them sprinkled throughout the book. My personal favorite, unfortunately, is not reproducible in this venue. If anything, just this exercise must have been inspiration enough to bring forth the novel.

The font is large and the pages relatively small; at 197 pages the book reads quickly, in short chapters of about 7-8 pages. Each chapter is the voice and POV of one of the characters, which takes a bit of adjustment. Most can read it all in 3-4 hours. There is very little raw, graphic sex, but lots of descriptions of the business, how things are done. The adult language is profuse and completely liberated; readers put off by profanity need not go on this ride. The language is not clinical, but, ah, straightforward and non-euphemistic professional language for what is brought to the table, and what is then done on the table, under it, with the legs of the table, with the guys who delivered it, their friends, etc.

Bottom line: I enjoyed this story, another off the wall Palahniuk tale populated with thoroughly original characters in a story for which I had no kind of previous reference. It took me to a new and unpredictable situation, with interesting albeit unpleasant characters, in a story that delivers where it counts, right in the end.

Editorial Review:

From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, a full-frontal Triple X novel that goes where no American work of fiction has gone before

Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera. With six hundred men. Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr. 72, Mr. 137, and Mr. 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny, and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly, and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?

Fantasy Lover (Dark-Hunter, Book 1)

Sherrilyn Kenyon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 211 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Holy Green Guacamole, Batman! Put that book down! 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Whoa. I was actually shocked by how bad this book was. After a long stint of Kresley Cole, I guess I've been spoiled. Regardless, after having other Cole fans recommend Kenyon to me, I expected at least something above a High School level. Let me ... let me just write out one tiny little dialogue scene for you:

"Only on the outside," he said in a voice so low she wasn't sure she heard it.
"What was that?" She asked.
"I'm only human on the outside," he said louder. She caught the anguish in his gaze.

Pfffff. What's that? You didn't hear my emo loud enough? LET ME SPEAK MY EMO A LITTLE LOUDER.

Julian is constantly either whining about his tortured past, or trying to jump Grace, two extremes that don't really sync up. Boo hoo, I'm a sex slave for all eternity! Now let's have sex!

Then there's Grace, the chubby, never-had-an-orgasm SEX THERAPIST that is still tearing up over a college boy who used her and left her. Was his name Jeremiah, and did he work in the library? I think I know that guy! Oh, also her parents died. Yeah, you just keep hitting that Ben & Jerrys to eat away your sorrows.

The worst part about it is that I bought the next 2 books too, and I don't think I could force myself through them. Amazon should require an IQ test before allowing people to leave reviews!

Editorial Review:

Dear Reader,Being trapped in a bedroom with a woman is a grand thing. Being trapped in hundreds of bedrooms over two thousand years isn't. And being cursed into a book as a love-slave for eternity can ruin even a Spartan warrior's day.As a love-slave, I know everything about women. How to touch them, how to savor them, and most of all, how to pleasure them. But when I was summoned to fulfill Grace Alexander's sexual fantasies, I found the first woman in history who saw me as a man with a tormented past. She alone bothered to take me out of the bedroom and onto the world. She taught me to love again.But I was not born to love. I was cursed to walk eternity alone. As a general, I had long ago accepted my sentence. Yet now I have found Grace--the one thing my wounded heart cannot survive without. Sure, love can heal all wounds, but can it break a two-thousand-year-old curse?Julian of Macedon

Moon Called (Mercy Thompson, Book 1)

Patricia Briggs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 257 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fresh paranormal trilogy 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

In Moon Called, Patricia Briggs creates a thrilling community of werewolves, vampires, witches and other magical creatures that have been hiding from the human world. Until recently, that is.
The first installment in the Mercy Thompson trilogy introduces the feisty heroine and her paranormal friends. There's Stefan, the deceptively friendly vampire; Elizaveta the snooty Russian witch; Adam the Alpha of the local werewolf pack; and Samuel, Mercy's one-time sweetheart and son of the most powerful werewolf in America, Bran. Mercy herself has the unique ability to shift into a coyote ("One moment I'm a person and the next a coyote: pure magic").
The novel recants many of the same ideas in other popular paranormal stories, but does it with a new energy and an interesting, no-nonsense heroine. A little brash and extremely stubborn, Mercy bumps heads with every character, but manages to attract the attention of three powerful males in the story. The readers sense that Mercy is more important than she understands. Briggs avoids confirming their suspicions by the end of this first novel.
This paranormal page-turner is full of plot twists and little hints that there is more going on than meets the eye. Moon Called leaves the readers more than ready for another dose of Mercy Thompson.

Editorial Review:

Mercy Thompson's life is not exactly normal. Her next-door neighbor is a werewolf. Her former boss is a gremlin. And she's fixing a VW bus for a vampire. But then, Mercy isn't exactly normal herself.

Playing Dead (Prison Break, Book 3)

Allison Brennan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

DEAD MAN RUNNING

Sentenced to death for crimes he didn’t commit, ex-cop Tom O’Brien is now a hunted fugitive. After fifteen years in prison, he’s determined to prove his innocence–but first he must convince his daughter, whose testimony helped put him behind bars, that he has damning evidence of a plot to frame him.

Claire is no longer the naïve teenager who arrived home to find her mother and her mother’s lover shot dead and her father holding the murder weapon. She’s a successful fraud investigator who assumes everyone lies. Though Claire is convinced of her father’s guilt, curiosity propels her to look into the disappearance of a law student who claimed to have proof of Tom’s innocence. But seeking answers only leads to more questions, reinforcing Claire’s belief that there’s no one left to trust.

Obsessed with the O’Brien case, FBI agent Mitch Bianchi befriends Claire under false pretenses, certain that Tom is not only innocent but in grave danger–and not just from the cops. As the three race toward the truth, a murderous conspiracy tightens its noose–and Claire becomes the target of an ice-cold psychopath who will kill to protect his secrets.

Magic in the Wind (Drake Sisters, Book 1) (Drake Sisters)

Christine Feehan

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Magic in the Wind 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The book was excellent, however, Amazon sold it to me for $4.99 and on the cover it was only $2.99. I am disappointed in Amazon.

This is an author that gets better with age... 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I started the Drake series in the middle with Oceans of Fire and then read on with Hannah's story. I thought it was a mistake starting in the middle, but after reading the first in the series I am not sure if I would have continued with the remaining books. I really enjoyed some of the later books in the Drake series, but the first was somewhat disappointing. It could be the fact that the book was rushed and crammed into 100 pages or so. For one, I thought Sarah embraced the prophecy a little too easily for someone who wanted so hard to avoid it. Two, I think Damon coped well with losing the full capabilities of his leg and hip. Personally, I would have been a little self-conscious about myself. If I was a man trying to measure up to a woman as independent and strong as Sarah I would have found that limp a little more of a problem for Damon than it was. I still think in the end he could have gotten over his pride to open up to Sarah I just thought that it happened a little too easily. Suspense is half the fun in these books and it didn't have much of it in this particular book. Three, I thought the relationship just happened so quickly even if it was a fated romance it could have developed a little more. I loved the way that I could still see the love-hate relationship between Hannah and Jonas even in the first of the series. It was a quick read and it gave me some background info on the Drakes so I do not regret reading it, but I do wish that it was longer and had more suspense.

Editorial Review:

New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan presents the story of Sarah, the eldest of the extraordinary-and magical-Drake sisters, now rewritten and expanded, in this very special collector's edition.

"Sarah Drake has come home." Ever since Damon Wilder sought refuge in Sea Haven, he's heard the same breathless rumor pass the lips of nearly every local in the sleepy coastal town. Even the wind seems to whisper her name-a reverie so powerfully suggestive that it carries the curious Damon to Sarah's cliff-top home, and seeks to shelter him there. But Damon has not arrived alone. A killer has tracked him to Sea Haven, and into the shadows of Drake House. But Sarah has her own secrets, and danger-as well as a desire more urgent than either has ever known-is just a whisper away...

Sweet Trouble (Bakery Sisters)

Susan Mallery

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Sweet end to the Bakery Sisters series 4 out of 5 stars.
15 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Jesse Keyes is the ne'er do well sister who left town pregnant under a cloud of suspicion after failing to get her family and boyfriend to believe her when she was suspected of sleeping with her brother in law. It's five years later and little Gabe has been asking about his father, so she decides it's time to return to Seattle to heal old wounds with her sister and with Matt. Only Matt is just as excited now as he was five years ago and suspects Jesse's true motivation is his vast fortune. But one look at Gabe and he sees the resemblance. Rather than blaming himself for not believing her, he instead decides to destroy her, by making her fall for him all over and then getting full custody of Gabe. But when his feelings start to change, he is not sure if he wants his heart ruled by passion or revenge. Her attempts at reconciling with older sister Nicole are met with trepidation at first, particularly when Nicole discovers that Jesse is so grounded - enough so that she wants back into the bakery to prove herself. Armed with a recipe of to die for brownies, she tries to revamp the bakery, despite Nicole's misgivings.

Mallery's final installment in the Bakery sisters trilogy is an interesting story, and would easily be my favorite if it weren't for one thing - the constant flashbacks. I would have preferred a prologue that contained all this material then the jump five years later. All it does it confuse the flow of the story. The character of Matt is kind of a jerk. Jesse really should have made him squirm a bit more. And Nicole, who was so nasty in the first two books has grown and is finally a mother, but still is somewhat bitter, making her still a character you wouldn't want as a friend. But Mallery ends the series on a high note - despite the flaws, it is a sweet and uplifting story, and little Gabe will steal readers hearts.

© Tracy Vest, September 2008

Editorial Review:

Jesse Keyes has done some serious growing up. With a steady job and a vibrant four-year-old son, Gabe, she's in a far better place than when she left Seattle five years ago…pregnant and misunderstood by almost everyone in her life.

Now it's time to go home and face her demons. But her sisters, Claire and Nicole, aren't exactly impressed with the new and improved Jesse. And then there's Matt, Gabe's father, who makes it clear that he never wants to see her again despite the lust that still smolders between them.

Jesse doesn't know if she can make up for all the mistakes of her past. But the promise of sweet nights with Matt might just give her the extra incentive she needs to make it worth the trouble.…

Blood Brothers (Sign of Seven Trilogy, Book 1)

Nora Roberts

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 128 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Where's the romance? 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I read the 2nd book in this series before the 1st one and wasn't too thrilled about it. This book is just as light on the romance as the 2nd one. The story of the curse or whatever it is, is the main focus and the romances are given the back seat. I want my romance books to have romance as the main focus, call me crazy. Even when the book does get around to the couple it's supposed to be about, there's really no substance to it. There's really no conflict between the couple and so they just have sex every now and then and the book gets back to it's main story. However, Gage does intrigue me (his story will be the 3rd book)...I don't think I will read it unless it's given to me because I know it will be a repeat performance of the previous 2 books. I still like Nora Roberts, just not this series.

Editorial Review:

In the town of Hawkins Hollow, it's called The Seven. Every seven years, on the seventh day of the seventh month, strange things happen. It began when three young boys-Caleb, Fox, and Gage-went on a camping trip to The Pagan Stone. And twenty-one years later, it will end in a showdown between evil and the boys who have become men-and the women who love them.

A Bend in the Road

Nicholas Sparks

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 313 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Where does a story truly begin? In life, there are seldom clear-cut beginnings, those moments when we can, in looking back, say that everything started. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to tell my story in the first place. What can be achieved by unearthing the past? But I know I must try to tell it, if for no other reason than to finally put this all behind me. This is, above all, a love story, and like so many love stories, it is rooted in tragedy. At the same time, it is also a story of forgiveness. And it is my story as well. I, too, played a role in all that happened -From A BEND IN THE ROAD Miles Ryan's life seemed to end the day his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. As deputy sheriff of New Bern, North Carolina, he not only grieves for her and worries about their young son Jonah but longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrews, Jonah's second-grade teacher. A young woman recovering from a difficult divorce, Sarah moved to New Bern hoping to start over. Tentatively, Miles and Sarah reach out to each other....soon they are falling in love. But what neither realizes is that they are also bound together by a shocking secret, one that will force them to reexamine everything they believe inincluding their love.