Kate

Cowboy Seeks Bride by Carolyn Brown

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Cowboy Seeks Bride
Grade-B-
Hotness Level-Blaze
Kink Level-No Kink
Series-Spikes & Spurs #7
Genre-Contemporary
384 pages
Reviewed by Kate

Haley McKay (whose professional name is HB McKay) thinks her dad is playing a practical joke on her when he sends her to meet Dewar O’Donnell and his buddies at the start of a cattle drive. She’s supposed to ride with the cowboys on the month-long round up as research for a reality show the family tv company is considering, but Haley is sure that when she gets there it will all be a joke.

Dewar is expecting HB McKay to be a middle-aged business man, not the feisty red-head that shows up. He’s been actively looking for a wife, but knows there’s no way Haley’s busy life as a career woman would mix with his life on the ranch. But despite the logic, the sparks between Haley and Dewar fly.

Carolyn Brown is one of my favorite authors of the modern cowboy, In Cowboy Seeks Bride she delivers a solid, low conflict romance. Haley’s city-girl ways clash with Dewar’s country life, but the attraction is instant. I enjoyed watching Dewar and Haley sneaking around and hiding their relationship from the other cowboys on the drive. The ending seemed a bit too easy, a little too perfect, but still believable. I can forgive the ending since I enjoyed the book as much as I did.

Are you a fan of the modern-day cowboy romance? If so, who are some of your favorite authors?

Along Came a Spider by Kate SeRine

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne


Grade: B
Hotness Level: Blaze
Kink Level: No Kink
Genre: Paranormal, Fairytale
Series: Transplanted Tales #3
Reviewed by Kate
191 pages

 Trish Muffett came over from Make Believe at the same time as Nicky Blue and she immediately felt like she had found her soul mate. But they parted ways with barely a hello. Now Trish is investigating some strange deaths and Nicky has turned vigilante. Their paths meet again when Nicky saves Trish during an attack. But it’s getting impossible to tell who’s on the good side and who’s turned evil.

I really liked the premise of this book. Fairytale and nursery rhyme characters living in today’s world. But they’re not exactly who you think they would be. Miss Muffett (Trish) can’t get rid of her trademark curls, but her fear of spiders isn’t because she saw one while eating her whey. And who can resist a reformed bad boy? Nicky started his life in the Here and Now as a crime boss. But now he’s trying to rid the world of one of the biggest bad guys-Dracula. But Dracula has set his sights on Trish. I did struggle at times, trying to keep all the background characters straight. This may have come from the fact that I haven’t read the first 2 books in this series.

Fast-paced and unique, Along Came a Spider kept me turning pages from beginning to end. I wouldn’t hesitate to read another book in this series. Do you have a fairytale themed series you like?

Menage Monday – Training Their Mate by Vella Day

Posted on by Dirty Girl Anne

Training Their Mate (Pack Wars, #1)
Grade-C
Hotness Level-Inferno
Kink Level-High Kink
Series-Pack Wars #1
Genre-Paranormal/Shifter
Reviewed by Kate

When Liz makes a botched attempt to kill Harvey Couch(who raped her mother), Harvey sends some thugs after her. But not just any thugs, werewolf thugs. It’s a good thing that Trax overhears Couch’s orders and manages to save Liz from the attack, but not before she discovers the existence of werewolves. Trax takes Liz to the home he shares with his brother Dante do they can protect her from other attacks by Couch.

Trax and Dante recognize Liz is their mate(they’re werewolves too-but good ones) but are afraid that if they reveal their furry selves, she’ll run and be in danger. They decide to wait until she’s fallen for them before they tell her the truth. we all see where this is going, don’t we?

Liz’s character is filled with the need for revenge, But surprisingly, she’s smart enough to realize she’s out of her league dealing with werewolves. So she leaves Couch to Trax and Dante. Of course, once she’s no longer worries about revenge, she has nothing else to focus on except Trax and Dante. Trax and Dante are part of an organization who take out the bad werewolves like Couch. Dante is a bit of a softy as far as Liz is concerned. But Trax has a one track mind and can’t pay much attention (or be nice) to Liz until after Couch is caught. Trax is a dominant, so when he does pay attention to Liz, it usually involves tying her up. I honestly pictured the pair doing a good-cop/bad-cop routine throughout the whole book. Trax was unfeeling and Dante was always there to soften the harshness of Trax’s character.

My frustration with this book came not from the characters or the plot, but more from the world the author has created. I had so many questions that went unanswered until the very end ( if they were ever answered), even though they had no bearing on the plot. Questions like: How did Dante and Trax know that Liz was their mate? Was it normal for two males to share a mate? Could non-werewolf females be impregnated by werewolves? The list went on for a while. I feel part of the responsibility of a paranormal/shifter author is to make the reader aware of the rules in their world, because let’s face it-each author’s world is a unique. Not knowing the rules of this world really pulled me out of the story quite a bit.

I am an occasional reader of shifter romance. How about you? A huge fan or not so much?