Synopsis

Megan is a widow whose first husband was an adrenaline junkie died in a plane crash. Now mother a 7-year old daughter, she lives in an apartment in San Francisco. When there is a fire, the firefighter who saves her and her daughter is Gabe. While she is attracted to Gabe, she has a rule not to date men whose jobs are dangerous.

Gabe is a firefighter who is used to being the hero. However, he gets tired of people putting him on that pedestal and expecting him to be perfect. That is why he has a rule not to date women that he saves while firefighting. The rule was a result of a failed relationship that he attributed to that fact. Even though he tries hard to avoid a relationship with Megan, it seems that the attraction is too strong.

“There was an earthquake going on inside her from nothing more than Gabe’s hot eyes staring at her from across the room.”

Opinion

Gabe was a hottie firefighter. Love him. When he decided what he wanted, he was a man with a plan.

While in the beginning Megan and Gabe has their reasons for thinking they were not right for each other, it seemed the rest of the characters were conspiring to ensure they got together. Megan’s daughter was the most devious of the bunch in that aspect. It was humorous the way that Gabe and Megan were fighting the attraction.

“The growing heat in his eyes was response enough for her to realize that she already gone off course on the whole ‘nothing but friends’ thing”

I understand Megan’s reasons for trying to avoid a relationship with Gabe. As the wife of a firefighter, I know the reality of fighting fires is that their lives can be in danger. But after a while, I wanted to tell Megan to get a grip. She was sending so many mixed messages to Gabe. At least she worked out all of her hang ups and let herself be happy.

SIDENOTE: A long time ago (about 3 years), I read a book by Bella Andre and I thought it was trashier than my normal trashy. I cannot remember the story line but I remember thinking it was ridiculous. For a while I would not read any of Bella Andre’s books. I think because I have a soft spot for firefighters, I decided to give her a try again. I enjoyed reading “Can’t help falling in love” and I am looking forward to reading other books in the Sullivan series.

For the record, this book does not qualify as a trashy romance.

Weird Sci-Fi stories challenging notions of what is #Romance #sciencefiction

Jun5

Weird Sci-Fi stories challenging notions of what is romance ♥♥♥

I go through phases at times where I want to read a particular genre. I was in a science fiction mood and searched Amazon for books that I thought might be interesting. It started because I read a book about 3 years ago and I cannot remember the title or any of the main character names. I think I got it from the library. All I can remember is that it was a sci-fi and the main characters had a lot of conflict with each other but end up falling in love. Then she gets kidnapped and he saves her. I want to capture the emotion when I read that story but my search is has been fruitless. I wish I could get that book back. In the meantime, I read sci-fi romances trying to evoke similar feelings.

As the saying goes:

And I have been reading a lot of “frog” like books trying to find the book of my dreams.

Trek Mi Q’an series ♥♥♥

The Empress’ New Clothes (Trek Mi Q’an, Book One) – Zor & Kyra
No Fear (Trek Mi Q’an, Book Five) – Jek & Brenda
No Escape (Trek Mi Q’an, Book Four) – Cam & Kara
Devilish Dot Trek Mi Q’an, Book 6.5 – Vaidd & Dot ( Included in the book collection Manaconda)
Seized (Trek Mi Q’an, Book Six) – Dak & Geris

One Thousand Brides (Star Brides) & Bride’s Holiday Gift ♥♥♥

Planet Mail ♥♥

Suddenly a Bride (Across the Stars Book 1) ♥♥♥

One thing that I realized was that if a book is published by Ellora Cave, it probably is more about graphic, explicit love scenes than romance. I mean how romantic is the aliens-need-human-women trope?

Of all the books I read, Suddenly a Bride (Across the Stars Book 1) was my favorite. Yes, she was “married” without her consent, but her alien guy really tried to make sure she fell in love with him.

The books One Thousand Brides (Star Brides) & Bride’s Holiday Gift were freebies at the time because of a promotion. Even though the women were in effect kidnapped, I think I liked this story because (1) these aliens valued larger sized women (2) the heroine developed and embraced what she thought was important in order to fight for the male she wanted. I skipped over the excessively graphic scenes because it becomes redundant after a while.

In Planet Mail, while the heroine was not kidnapped, she was supposed to feel that it was a privilege that the king was going to try to get her pregnant. He is doing his duty with all women to try to get an heir. Because she is not tripping over herself to try to get preggers, he is intrigued. In the end, he is forced to choose between duty and love. Everyone has a happy ending in more ways than one **wink wink**. I skipped the multiple-parties-involved love scenes in this too because I am traditional one male-one female type of girl.

A common theme in Jaid Black’s books is that the female (even when forcibly snatched from the life she knew) is supposed to acquiesce because she is the soul mate of the alien. Plus, monogamy is a tenuous concept with a lot of grey area. It may seem that since I read a lot of the Jaid Black books that I must have enjoyed her series. I am confused myself why I read all of them.

The first book I read was No Fear (Trek Mi Q’an, Book Five). It was okay but a lot of it did not make sense because (1) some of the character names were similar (2) I had no idea about the back story of the worlds and (3) everyone seemed to have no problem with any weird-looking alien bring them pleasure. Not my idea of a party.

I read mostly a mixture out of curiosity as to what the author could imagine next and slight interest into the worlds that she created. I think of all the heroines, I liked Brenda (No Fear (Trek Mi Q’an, Book Five) the most and Geris (Seized (Trek Mi Q’an, Book Six) the least. Brenda’s easy acceptance was because her life on earth was not getting any better than being kidnapped by an alien swearing to love her forever. It seems that Geris was written with the stereotypical ghetto girl in mind. While I guess I supposed to be glad women of color were getting kidnapped too (at least she was being made a queen and not a slave…but I digress) I still did not like how she was portrayed. Kara was also annoying, but she was immature as well, which that had a lot to do with her decision-making. Dot was okay and the most realistic (as possibly could be when being kidnapped by aliens).

I did not buy the books on Amazon, but borrowed the series from a friend. I think the Jaid Black books are overpriced considering they are novella length. If I had bought for 99cents each, I would say it was worth checking out. However, the $3- 6 range for each book is way overpriced in my opinion, especially when a book is 100 pages or less. If my friend had not already had this books, I doubt that I would have bought any of them on my own.

My suggestion to Jaid Black: Think about lowering the price of your books

Should you buy? Go for the freebies if you want something different, but be prepared for gratuitous love scenes and possibly some explicit language.

Accidental Abduction – Blood, Boobs, and Carnage #Blogfest #bloodboobscarnage

May18

I am participating in a blogfest called Blood, Boobs, and Carnage

The terms were simple- choose a movie, book, or television show that fits the theme. It can be any genre that fits the bill – fantasy, science fiction, action, adventure, western, thriller, etc. This Blogfest is hosted by Alex J Cavanaugh andHeather Gardner.

I chose the book Accidental Abduction

Synopsis
Tren is an alien that thought he was beaming up some fish from earth to sell on the universal market. He didn’t mean to abduct the human female too, but now that he has her, he wonders what to do with her.

Megan was drowning in the ocean after her boyfriend pushed her off a boat. Instead of dying, she is beamed up on to a space ship. While she knows she should be more subdued, she cannot resist being mouthy.

Tren prides himself in staying in control of his emotions and actions, but Megan pushes all his buttons and ignites his baser instincts. When she is kidnapped on purpose, he will stop at nothing to get her back.

Opinion
This book. Where do I even start? I guess I should explain why I chose it for the challenge.

Blood

When Tren decides that he is not going to deny how he feels, his enemies see kidnapping Megan as a way to manipulate him. THAT does not go well for them. He has no mercy when it comes to eliminating his enemies. Funny thing, Megan is gets a guilty thrill on the fact that he killing all these aliens to save her. She is trying to be shocked, but at the same time, she is like

Boobs

It is a romance.
Tren has no nipples!
And he says she is weird for only having two breasts.

Carnage

There is a line of entrails from evil villains that tried to kidnap Megan, but failed miserably. It is the wild, wild west in the universe and no one messes with Tren’s mate and gets away with it. She gets kidnapped twice and both times Tren is like

Overall, the book made me laugh. Tren was not trying to pick up a human to be his mate, it just happened. Megan was cheeky, brazen, bold, and audacious as ever. Tren tried to intimidate her, but she had nothing to lose. To be fair, he did keep threatening to sell her. She was just calling his bluffs. With all that sexual tension going on, there was only one way it was really going to go.

Book details
Accidental Abduction (Alien Abduction Book 1)
Length: 142 pages

Z is for Zero Factor #atozchallenge #ABCofRomance @AprilA2Z

Apr30

Zero Factor (Cybershock) ♥♥♥♥

Synopsis

Via is a psionic. This is a person who can see future events by touching a person. The government required all psionic persons to register and become government property to be used as the government sees fit.

Locke is a man with mechanical enhancements working as a soldier in a militia to keep order and protect the general public. He takes his job very seriously.

Via sees Locke’s death because of a tear in her glove and her skin touches his. She kisses Locke so that he can see her vision. From that point on, the Locke is trying to avoid being killed while trying to figure out how to deny how Via makes him feel.

Opinion
This is a sci-fi story and the setting is in a dystopian future and made me think of the Hunger Games (no other book/plot similarities though). I rated this book 3 hearts and then 4 hearts and was going back and forth, but decided to stay with 4. I am stingy with my hearts, but in this case, I thought it deserved 4 hearts because it was a story that I kept thinking about long after I finished the book. The story is short (only 68 pages), but it is action packed with a cute little love story.

I liked the characters too. Via is trying to survive and has a “Woe is me” attitude in the beginning. Soon enough she develops enough to embrace her gifts to the fullest. Locke believes that has to be order and the psi cause confusion. But when a psi woman saved his life and his commander tried to kill him, his world is turned upside down.

The villain’s reasons for causing havoc and mayhem was as usual insane-in-the-membrane. No real logic as to why he wanted to do what he did, but the reader is suppose to take it for granted that it needs no explanation.

But I thought it was weird that he was so over the top crazy and no one else noticed. How was he able to do all those outrageous things and the government not know about it. Of course, the book ends with all ends tied up neatly.

Should you buy? I thought it was a great book but I do think it was overpriced for the length. I probably would not have got this book if it had not been for the A-to-Z challenge and I needed a “Z” book.

Book details from Goodreads
Unknown Binding, 68 pages
Published August 1st 2011 by Samhain Publishing
Available on Amazon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So this is the last post for A-to-Z blog challenge hosted by http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

I am so happy that I was able to stick with it and post every day. I met a lot of great bloggers that I am sure I will keep in touch with in the future. I am tired but in a good way. This makes my usual posting schedule of every 5 days seem easy. I wanted to challenge myself more this year and the feeling of accomplishment shows me that it was worth it. So now, I share with you some of my favorite celebratory gifs.

V is for Very Special #atozchallenge #ABCofRomance @AprilA2Z

Apr24

A Very Special Delivery (Love Inspired) ♥♥

Synopsis
Molly is a sad person who loves children but thinks she is a danger to them because of an incident when her nephew died in her care.

Ethan is a delivery man and needs to leave his baby at Molly’s house while goes and makes a delivery during a snowstorm. Once he returns, it is too perilous to try to drive home, so he stays at Molly’s house.

This begins their romance and Molly’s return to finding her faith in God.

Opinion

While I am very religious person, I do not usually read Christian romances because they can be mediocre. Like many in this sub-genre, the author depicts Molly as a lost, bitter, sad person. Then she re-discovers religion, causing her to be a better person. Happier and content. Only then is she worthy of being loved. Meh

Molly’s conflict with her estranged sister was over the top to me. If this is supposed to be a town full of a lot of “good Christian people”, why didn’t any of them help Molly deal with her grief at the time her nephew died? It was as if everyone saw the car accident, but decided to wait for the paramedics to get there instead of trying to help.

Plus, I do not think I really got over the fact that Ethan left his baby with a complete stranger. I do not care about the fact that it was in the middle of a snowstorm. Didn’t he have any friends?

It was so cheesy. I skipped over pages just to get to the end. Some parts were about as interesting as watch paint dry.

You may not agree, but that is my opinion.

Should you buy? If you want a super, scrubbed clean romance with no hint of anything to offend the sensibilities, then this book is for you. You might want to check out other Love Inspired books too. For me, I now know the code words “Love Inspired” mean that I will pass on reading that.

Book details from Goodreads
Paperback, 250 pages
Published May 1st 2006 by Steeple Hill (first published January 1st 2002)
series: Tiny Blessings #8
Available on Amazon