Sweet Surrender, by Maya Banks

Published by Berkley HEAT, Sweet Surrender is the first in a loosely connected series of erotic contemporary romances set in Houston. This novel, at its core, follows Faith Malone’s path of self-discovery. She is considered by everyone who knows her to be a sweet and feminine girl (nevermind that she’s twenty three or so *ahem*). As such, so far all of her romantic relationships have left her vaguely dissatisfied and wondering whether something is wrong with her.

Before going further, reader beware: this novel contains graphic language, explicit sexual scenes and what some may term objectionable sexual practices.

Here is the back cover blurb:
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Relentless, by Lauren Dane

The second book set in Ms Dane’s Federation universe, Relentless is an excellent romance novel, focusing on building the relationship between its main characters, Roman, head of the House Lyons, and Abby Haws, unranked barrister.

Published by Berkley’s Heat imprint, Relentless is considered an erotic romance, with explicit and graphic sexual content; therefore, all minors-as well as adults who have issues with strong language or sexuality-should avoid the review and the novel.

Without further ado, the back cover blurb:

In this erotic universe, passion knows no rank…

Since the first settlers came through the portals from Earth, fifteen Families have held the rule of the Federation Universes in their hands. There’s never been a better time to throw out the old and usher in a new order, giving voice to the unranked. Abbie Haws has spent her life battling the system. A fighter by nature, she’s always been too busy and too driven to pay much attention to finding love. But when she’s granted an audience with Roman Lyons, the head of House Lyons-a man who stands for everything she hates-her instant attraction catches Abbie off guard…

It’s common knowledge that the Known Universe revolves around the world Ravena-and that Ravena revolves around Roman Lyons, bred to lead since birth. Roman dreads this meeting with a defiant-if stunning-rabble-rouser. But sometimes headstrong personalities in the conference room make for hot-and-heavy, guilty trysts in private…

Now, Abbie will show Roman the parts of her world he wouldn’t otherwise get to see. And he’ll give her a glimpse of the Families’ age-old traditions and unleash a sexuality he’s never given rein to before.

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Be With Me, by Maya Banks

This is only the third of Ms Banks’ tittles that I’ve read, but will by no means be the last. Published by Berkley Heat and labeled as an erotic romance, Be With Me focuses much more on the relationship than it does on the sex. Of course, the fact that it’s a ménage à quatre is probably reason enough for most people to consider it more erotica than romance.

And that brings me to the usual warning: this is adult reading material, with graphic sexual scenes and language.

Here’s the (humdrum) back cover blurb:

Three men. One woman.

Hutch Bishop, Cam Douglas and Sawyer Pritchard were delinquents with a reckless and wildly sexy side. But they had more in common than that. They had Regina Fallon, a wealthy but lonely girl from the right side of the tracks who formed an unusual friendship with the boys. She felt protected. She felt needed. She felt loved… for the first time in her life. By all three.

So much closer than just friends.

Today she’s a police officer, dedicated to her badge and wary of reigniting her relationship with the hot trio after one night of passion left her confused—and stunned—by what they wanted from her. But when a mysterious attempt is made on her life, Hutch, Cam and Sawyer jump in to protect her again. Now Regina and her three lovers are forming an all-new bond. It’s more exciting, more intense and—as a killer looms in the shadows—more dangerous than ever before.

The first chapter is an excellent example of action writing, introducing the heroine and showcasing her strengths in just a couple of pages: a small town police officer, Regina answers an anonymous call reporting a potential crime and finds herself face-to-face with a crazy, grudge-holding killer. (more…)

Lord and Master, by Jules Jones

Back in July, I read and enjoyed Ms Jones’ short story “Black Leather Rose” and ever since have had a hankering for more of her writing. Very kindly, she sent me review copies of both Lord and Master and its sequel, Lord and Master 2, and even though it’s been a few months (me, ssssllllloooooowwwwww) she’s been extremely patient with me. A few days ago I was finally able to sink into Lord and Master and oh man! what a treat it was!

Published by Loose Id as an erotic romance, it has the following publisher’s note: “Lord and Master is a homoerotic love story. As such it depicts sexual content that may be objectionable to some readers: male/male sexual practices.” It also has explicit language and is pure contemporary romance (which should delight the peeps at Smart Bitches and Dear Author *said innocently*).

Here’s the (yay, good!!!) blurb:

When Mark’s PhD supervisor sent him for a job interview with an old university friend, he didn’t mention that the friend was devastatingly handsome. He also neglected to mention to either that the other is gay.

Steven was just looking for a young scientist to train as a PA to help him run his technology company. No extra services required. But watching other people react to a young, pretty man playing secretary to an openly gay CEO amused them both. Watching people wonder if they were having an affair was an entertaining game.

But when the game became real and caught them both up, Mark was left wondering… how real? Because he’s the one PA in the building who can’t marry the boss.

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The Countess Lends a Hand, by Bonnie Dee

I believe I mentioned before that I fell in love with Ms Dee’s writing after reading The Countess Takes a Lover. My infatuation has only grown after reading Empath a few weeks ago and the short novel The Countess Lends a Hand just now.

I confess that I don’t know how much of the historical detail in the Countess’ stories* is accurate or not—I sense that some of the language may not be, at any rate—but the story telling and the characterization in each of Ms Dee’s stories that I’ve read so far has grabbed my interest from first to last page.

From the publisher, the usual warning: This title contains a Regency hero and heroine doing the library lambada, and graphic language Jane Austen wishes her editor would have let her characters use. (more…)

Unless of course you’re Elloras Cave.

I read over at Mrs Giggles’, that they’d had a make-over, so of course I went to have a nosy.

Well, I surfed in about six minutes ago, and I’m still waiting for the page to fully load.

Also, for some reason, the page URL is defaulting to Jasmine Jade Enterprises. According to Mrs Giggles, they may be trying to house EC, Lotus Circle, and Cerridwen Press all under one roof. I guess probably because Lotus and Cerridwen weren’t doing so great.

I like the new colours, but I’m hating the fact that there’s so much information on the home page. (Just re-checked the page, there’s just one item apparently left to load.) I’ve given myself a headache just trying to figure out what’s what.

I see that they have new and funky names for the different lines and sub-genres. Apparently ‘Aeon’ books are futuristic sci-fi. ‘Spectrum’ are gay and lesbian fiction, and ‘Moderne’ are contemps.

Surely keeping things simple would have been the best route to take? Changing the names to make them sound more interesting might seem like a good idea, but I’m guessing that most people would prefer a spade to be called a spade. I know I would.

Anyhoo, having just checked back, I’ve now got that yellow error thingy on the bottom left hand side of the page, so I guess it’s given up the ghost.

Balls to it, I have better things to do with my time. I’ll check back next week, by which time, EC should have ironed out the loading problems.

I bet their books are selling like hotcakes today. Not.

Sheesh.

Undercover, by Lauren Dane

This erotic futuristic romance is Ms Dane’s print debut, but the fact that she’s been writing for years is evident in the quality of her craft. I was privileged to get an ARC of Undercover, which made me really happy as a well written ménage à trois is one I enjoy very much (particularly in the M/f/M incarnation, as is this one).

With that said, the usual warning: this novel is not meant for minors; any adults who object to any sort of relationship deviating from the typical one man, one woman would not enjoy either the novel nor my review; there is graphic sex, some BDSM, and what could be considered offensive language.

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It’s been a while since I felt moved enough to write a review, but I have read a few decent (and not so decent) books over the past month, so I’ll try to get some of my thoughts about them out in review format.

The first book on the list is The Conquest, By Julia Templeton.

I’ve never read Templeton before, but I decided to pick this one up at the Borders store in Clearwater, whilst we were in the states.

Rhiannon MacKay is the daughter of a wealthy laird, who’s destined to be married off to a man, selected by her father. She’s never really been bothered by this fact, assuming that she would like whoever her father ultimately chose for her.

Predictably, Rhi’s father ends up giving her to a man who’s older than he is, which of course pisses Rhiannon off no end. When Lord Malgor (Rhi’s decrepit intended) sends the rather delish Adelstan Cawdor to escort Rhi to her betrothed, the shit truly hits the fan.

Adelstan and Rhi fall in lust with each other, and although Ade tries very hard to resist her womanly charms, (mostly because he doesn’t want to be accused of being a traitor, and killed off) they eventually end up doing the horizontal foxtrot. Over and over, and over again.

I have to say, I rather enjoyed this book, flaws and all. Rhi was a total Slutty Suzie, even though I suspect that a lot of well-bred girls in 11th Century Scotland, wouldn’t have known what their front bums were for, pre-marriage. But I kinda liked this about her. Adelstan was a slightly wet hero, but he was pretty likeable, nonetheless.

I also liked that the sex between the two of them were pretty hot, and mostly well-written.

The villain of the piece (The coffin-dodging intended) was predictably cookie-cutter-bad, but I wasn’t overly interested in him, even though his presence in the book was the main source of conflict for Rhi and Ade.

Although this was an historical erotic romance, I liked that Templeton didn’t have them jumping into bed on page six, so there was enough tension to keep the juices flowing.

Having said that though, in this book, you get the erotic romance full kit and caboodle. Not only do you get the straight, if slightly kinky, M/F sex, but there was also an m/m/f threesome. As well as the odd blowjob here and there. Oh yeah, and if I remember correctly, I’m pretty sure Rhi gets herself off in the bath whilst she’s alone too. All good erotic romance fun.

Ultimately, The Conquest was a good read for me, but it certainly wasn’t perfect. I suggest that if you enjoyed War and Peace, this book probably aint for you.

You can buy The Conquest from Amazon.com here, and from Amazon UK here.

By the way, you can tell this is an erotic romance because it seems obvious to me that in order to fulfill the Lots Of Sex quotient requirement, Templeton uses Rhi’s maid, Elspeth (who also happens to be a bit of a Loose Lucy) and Ade’s brother-in-arms, Jorden to ramp up the action. It was probably easier than having Rhiannon drop her knickers for every Tom, Dick and Barbara.

Just sayin’.

(Two Feral attraction stories, released April 15th 2008 by Samhain)

Before starting, I have to apologize profusely to the amazing Angela James and the authors for it taking me six and a half months to get around to reading and reviewing these, since I got them at a giveaway hosted by the wonderful ladies at WriteMinded. I suck, and not in a good way. Sowwy. (Two down, four to go.) (more…)

Riding Temptation, by Jaci Burton

Second installment in Ms Burton’s Wild Riders series, published by Berkley Heat, Riding Temptation follows Díaz Delgado and Jessie Matthews during an undercover investigation in weapon smuggling.

The Wild Riders are a number of bikers—dudes and dudettes *tip o’ the helmet to Ms Burton*—who are in fact undercover federal agents working in tandem with other federal agencies (ATF in this case) by penetrating different bike gangs wherever illegal activities are suspected.

The usual warning: this series is considered erotic romance, which means that there’s graphic language and sexual behaviour. Minors and those who are bothered by either should skip these. (more…)