This was one of those weeks that went by in a blink and not because I was super busy. Writing is going at a good clip and reading has been alright. Audible had that huge sale a week or so ago and I bought a ton since I listen while crocheting (and I crochet a lot! LOL). The sale made me brave and I bought audios for several new-to-me stuff and so far it's been 0/3. Because I spent so much money, I felt guilty for thinking about abandoning the books and ended up forcing myself to finish one that I ended up complaining about it every time I paused. After that experience, the next two I didn't even try to push through. You win some and lose some. I have plenty of other titles by authors I know and love so it's not so bad.
The days are warming up to the point that I can open the garage door and start reburnishing some chairs and other furniture. It will mean I won't crochet as much but I'll technically be more active.
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Series: Diviners Game, 3
Author: Jennifer Cody
Length: 405 pages
Genre: Romance / Paranormal / D/s / Age Gap / Teacher-Student / Gay
Notes: By the end of book 2, I wasn't a fan of Chanda and I wasn't really interested in his and Robbie's romance. But I was invested in the overall plot arc and wanted to know what happened. I'll be honest and say I skipped all of their intimate scenes. Their romance before and after that was engaging but I'm really a low spice reader though I know there are a lot of readers who would love it. My opinion of Chandra did change while reading this and some of the strings left from book one about Tio were revealed and resolved. And I have to say, that I was more upset with Deejay at the end of this book once my suspicions were confirmed. #TeamTioAllTheWay. My adoration of Tio only solidified throughout the series.
Blurb: Robbie:
I don’t know how Chanda Marduke slipped past all my defensive walls. He’s a towering wall of muscle and strength, and I’ve been conditioned to fear men like him, but I’m falling in love. I know the attraction between us, the chemistry, and the friendship falls under a morally ambiguous standard, but he engages me in ways I have never experienced, he treats me like I have intrinsic, inherent value, and I can’t give that up for social mores that have failed to protect me my entire life. He may be the most terrifying man I’ve ever met, but we fit together too perfectly to let anything stand between us.
Lamentably, Fate's animus toward me followed me to Houston.
Chanda:
Until I walked into my classroom to find a pretty little guy reading one of the textbooks, I had no idea what temptation was. He’s my student, and I shouldn’t lust after him, but the more time I spend with him, the more I realize lust doesn’t begin to cover what I feel for him.
Unfortunately, another Diviner has drawn me into a real-life game of chess where every decision I make could end someone’s life. I’m trying to keep my pieces on the board, but free will is a bitch, and so are the Fates.
I don’t know how Chanda Marduke slipped past all my defensive walls. He’s a towering wall of muscle and strength, and I’ve been conditioned to fear men like him, but I’m falling in love. I know the attraction between us, the chemistry, and the friendship falls under a morally ambiguous standard, but he engages me in ways I have never experienced, he treats me like I have intrinsic, inherent value, and I can’t give that up for social mores that have failed to protect me my entire life. He may be the most terrifying man I’ve ever met, but we fit together too perfectly to let anything stand between us.
Lamentably, Fate's animus toward me followed me to Houston.
Chanda:
Until I walked into my classroom to find a pretty little guy reading one of the textbooks, I had no idea what temptation was. He’s my student, and I shouldn’t lust after him, but the more time I spend with him, the more I realize lust doesn’t begin to cover what I feel for him.
Unfortunately, another Diviner has drawn me into a real-life game of chess where every decision I make could end someone’s life. I’m trying to keep my pieces on the board, but free will is a bitch, and so are the Fates.
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Title: Pass
Series: Shattered Pawns, 1
Author: Jennifer Cody
Length: 336 pages
Genre: Poly Romance / Paranormal / Fated Mates / Gay
Notes: So I finished this Thursday night and loved it. Half the reason I loved it was because it's Tio's romance.
#TeamTioAllTheWay #TioIsMyBoo I was so happy that he got two fated mates. There is zero angst here and I was so engaged that I even read all the steamy scenes.
The world building and plot are excellent, but it follows the same format as the first trilogy with each book following different MCs and having an overlapping timeline with the other two books. Once again I find myself in the position of being invested in the plot even though I'm not particularly interested in the MC pairs of the next two books. To add to my concern, the next book has a sadomasochistic romance. I've read my share of BDSM and enjoyed some, but it's not something I seek out and I usually skip romances when it is part of the plot. I spent a couple hours Thursday night trying to decide if I could just be happy with how things resolved in Pass and just use my imagination to create a resolution. I really want to know what happens with the gods and I'm so hoping that Set gets trounced into puddy. And really, if there was a story about Charon and Anubis, I would be all over that book, like givemegivemegiveme. So I started Capture Thursday night. I expect to do a lot of skimming over the spicy scenes. The Forward does ask the reader to 'trust me' so I'm expecting a cliffhanger after something truly awful happens. You'll probably be hearing about it next weekend.
Blurb: Luca:
I’ve lived my life in the pursuit of justice. I worked my way from the police academy to detective to the leader of the organized crime task force. Then six weeks ago all that career momentum came to a screeching halt after someone set off a car bomb across the street from L.L. Security. That event changed everything for me. Six weeks of fear, looking over my shoulder, and pretending my world hasn’t crumbled down around my ears. Sometimes I wish I’d never heard of L.L. Security, sometimes I’m glad I at least know how dangerous this world really is. I may be the only detective who can see the wings on the body in my crime scene, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to find the guy’s killer even if my Captain keeps trying to erase my memories with magic.
Auggie:
Something is wrong with my roommate, but every time I ask, Luca says he’s fine. I want him to confide in me, but expecting him to talk to me when I’ve been hiding secrets from him for years seems a bit hypocritical. I have enough patience to wait until he’s ready to talk. The Chimera inside me isn’t in a hurry to mate him anyway, at least not until he comes home tasting just right. Luca kissed someone else and now the beast inside me is ready to take them both and make them mine.
Tio:
After my father sold my brother to the youngest prince of Morgaine, the Elven Realm, I thought it would take me a decade at least to buy him back, but my employer tussled with the wrong Headsman—well, Headsmen. Erroll’s execution relieves me of the contract I had with him, but it puts me and my brothers in infinitely more danger. My father is coming, one of my brothers won’t talk to me, the other doesn’t know who I am, and controlling my extra arms has become an exercise in futility; kissing Chimeras is not normal for me. I promise.
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Title: Clean Sweep
Series: Innkeeper Chronicles, 1
Author: Ilona Andrews
Length:
Genre: Urban Fantasy / Sci-Fi / Romantic Elements
Notes: #rereading This used to be one of my go-to rereads and I haven't picked it up in a while. It still holds up with amazing story building and characterizations but there was something that I noticed this time around. Sean uses female fairytale characters to provoke Arland and poke at Arland's beauty. Goldilocks. Rapunzel. It's the type of misogyny that easily recognizable nowadays since we are more aware of it. There isn't a lot of it, a couple of jabs, but it still smacked me in the face. I looked up the publication date and it says 2013, but I was published in 2012 and I know I first read this long before then. It bugs me and sours my enjoyment of the story a little. As an author, I would have gone back and replaced that with something else, but that is me. Book 4, Maud's story, doesn't have this BS so I figured that the authors are aware and evolved in to being more conscientious.
Blurb: On the outside, Dina Demille is the epitome of normal. She runs a quaint Victorian Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town, owns a Shih Tzu named Beast, and is a perfect neighbor, whose biggest problem should be what to serve her guests for breakfast. But Dina is...different: Her broom is a deadly weapon; her Inn is magic and thinks for itself. Meant to be a lodging for otherworldly visitors, the only permanent guest is a retired Galactic aristocrat who can’t leave the grounds because she’s responsible for the deaths of millions and someone might shoot her on sight. Under the circumstances, "normal" is a bit of a stretch for Dina.
And now, something with wicked claws and deepwater teeth has begun to hunt at night...Feeling responsible for her neighbors, Dina decides to get involved. Before long, she has to juggle dealing with the annoyingly attractive, ex-military, new neighbor, Sean Evans—an alpha-strain werewolf—and the equally arresting cosmic vampire soldier, Arland, while trying to keep her inn and its guests safe. But the enemy she’s facing is unlike anything she’s ever encountered before. It’s smart, vicious, and lethal, and putting herself between this creature and her neighbors might just cost her everything.
Title: Treasure Trail
Series: Treasure Trail, 1
Author: Brice Morgan
Length:
Genre: Romance / Mystery / Paranormal Ghosts Spirits / Gay
Notes: #reading I wanted a mystery and thought I'd give this a go. I'm hoping that this is more of a mystery with a side of romance. I am reading this slower than normal since there is a bit of pining going on that slows down the story for me, but they mystery is picking up and at the point that these two have cleared some air.
Blurb: Erik Mitchell traveled the world uncovering art fraud and relic theft, which pitted him against spoiled billionaires, unscrupulous collectors, mobsters, and cartels. He worked with law enforcement across the US and Europe, but then a sting goes wrong, Erik ends up injured and returns to find his partner cheating. He decides to stop globetrotting and buy an antique shop in scenic Cape May, New Jersey, rebuild his life, and nurse his broken heart.
Undercover Newark cop Ben Nolan went down in a hail of bullets when a bust went sideways, after a tip-off from a traitor inside the department. When he recovers, he spends a couple of years as a private investigator, only to tire of seeing the worst of human nature. So when his aunt offers him the chance to take over her rental real estate business in Cape May, it seems too good to be true. Now if he could just believe he could ever be lucky again in love.
Sparks fly when Erik and Ben meet. But when a cursed hotel's long-ago scandals resurface, the two men are pulled into a web of lies, danger, and deception that will test their bond - and might make them Cape May's newest ghosts!
Undercover Newark cop Ben Nolan went down in a hail of bullets when a bust went sideways, after a tip-off from a traitor inside the department. When he recovers, he spends a couple of years as a private investigator, only to tire of seeing the worst of human nature. So when his aunt offers him the chance to take over her rental real estate business in Cape May, it seems too good to be true. Now if he could just believe he could ever be lucky again in love.
Sparks fly when Erik and Ben meet. But when a cursed hotel's long-ago scandals resurface, the two men are pulled into a web of lies, danger, and deception that will test their bond - and might make them Cape May's newest ghosts!
Thank you for stopping by and reading!
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