Free fall by Jasmine Haynes

Sensuality Rating – Torrid

Blurb from Goodreads:

Deanna Rain has always made the safe choice, taken the safe job, dated the safe guys. But now she just has to bust out of her self-imposed chains or she’ll die. She needs to do something wild and crazy. Something like skydiving. What could be riskier or more wild than jumping out of a plane? Jumping tandem with Cole Johnson, that’s what. But with Cole, the risk might very well be to her heart.

Jumpmaster Cole Johnson is barely keeping his head above water. He’s supported his passion for skydiving by starting a parachuting school. But his bills are stacking up and his calendar is empty. Soon, he’ll have to close his doors to return to a nine-to-five job.

When Deanna shows up for a tandem jump, Cole knows this is going to be his last lesson. And he plans to go out with a bang.

Jesus, thank God this book was a freebie.

This story was just so damn random. It all went a bit pear-shaped for me when the heroine had an orgasm twice during a tandem parachute jump. COME ON!! Really? Really??

You can buy Free Fall from Amazon.com here.

The Hunger Games – Book 1

Sensuality Rating: YA Candyfloss (no sex here folks)

Blurb from Goodreads.com

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don’t live to see the morning? In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts.

The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

I really enjoyed The Hunger Games, and actually found myself crying at a particularly poignant part of the book. Katniss’s relationship with Peeta was wonderfully complex, but yet this reader still wondered at what the end game would be between her and Gale, who she’d obviously left behind.

The conclusion of the book had me going straight to my Amazon page, and downloading the second installment.

The writing in this book was excellent and the world-building was second-to-none, but I stopped short of giving it five stars because the after effects didn’t stay with me long after I read it, which considering the subject matter, surprised me.

Still well worth reading though, and definitely an improvement over Fifty Shades of Grey. OK maybe that’s not saying much…

If you’re one of the few people who still havn’t read the book, you can but it here.

Beauty or The Bitch(A sexy contemporary retelling of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast) by Jasmine Haynes

Sensuality Level: Torrid (the lite edition)

Blurb from Goodreads.com

Reporter Dexter King is about to get the story of a lifetime. Shelby Stewart was the hottest rising star in Hollywood until suddenly, she was cursed. Retreating to her mountain hideaway, far from that fairy tale life, she hasn’t been seen in ten years. Now Dex will ferret out the truth behind her fall from Hollywood grace. But will he find a beauty? Or a bitch?

This was a surprisingly good read. I think I expected something far more graphic, but it was actually quite a sweet book, with good depths. A nice twist to the Beauty and The Beast tale, with ‘the beast’ being an emaciated recluse who used to be a movie starlet. I wasn’t overwhelmed by the heroine, but I didn’t hate her as much as the title suggested that I would. Good effort.

You can buy Beauty or The Bitch from Amazon.com here.