Halfway To The Grave by Jeanine Frost

Read For:
Summer Reading Challenge
RYOB Challenge
1sts in a series Challenge


I liked this one a LOT more than I thought I would! This book was action filled and very sexy! I would have given the book five stars if not for Cat's mother-who is a real *itch! If you like tough, but flawed heroines then you should give Cat a try. 4 stars!

another failed book-pt.2

ARGH! Nothing more agrevating than reading a good first novel in a series, to only have book to be a total 360 degree wash out! This book is such a disappointment!

My Amazon Review:
too violent for a Romance.....,

January 8, 2009

let me first say that I enjoyed the first novel in this series. Unfortunately, and despite the author's overall good writing skills, the violence, murder, and fanaticism of the heroine killed this book for me.

I kept trying to get through this book, wondering how this bloody, "Hatfield and McCoy's" hated enemies storyline was going to transform into a romance, but when the heroine stabs the hero in the chest, then repeatedly cuts him the final straw was broken and I quit.

The heroine was totally unlikable and I almost quit the book earlier when she threatens to kill the heroes four year old child, but silly me, I kept going. Violence does not equal Romance, and who could honestly love someone who threatened to kill your child? I honestly wonder what the author was thinking.

Since I enjoyed this author's previous work, I may try her again, but I'd not recommend this particular book.

1 star.

Dark Obsession by Amanda Stevens

Readers of Romance Winter 08 Challenge #12- Read a series (Harlequin or Silhouette).

Dark Obsession
Amanda Stevens
Silhouette Dreamscapes series
Rating 4.0
251 pages

My Amazon Review:
Surprisingly good Modern day Gothic.....,December 26, 2008

Synopsis:
Horror novelist Erin Ramsey's latest bestseller brought a dark and tormented vampire into her readers worlds. But such heroes existed only in her imagination. Or so she thought.

How wrong Erin had been! Now her sister was dead, the victim of a shadowy stranger. Detective Nick Slade had promised to help find the killer. But who was Nick, really?

Cloaked in secrecy, his eyes always masked by sunglasses, Nick embodied Erin's most foreboding nightmares -- and her most erotic fantasies. Helplessly, she was drawn into a midnight world where nothing was as it seemed, where a man could be predator -- or protector.

My Review:
I do not not read many of the thinner "series" romances as I find they are, for the most part, too formulaic, and are normally headlined by a very weak heroine. Luckily, Dark Obsession was original and had an equally strong hero and heroine.

Erin is a horror novelist who finds her actress sister dead in their apartments front yard. Nick, is a a sunglasses wearing detective on the case, who is himself very dark and mysterious. What follows is a easy to read, fast paced, sexy yet heartfelt romance.

Like other reviewers mentioned, this is not a "vampire romance" in the classic sense, as the vampires in this book are truly evil and not the "tormented though basically good" vampires that dominate most vampire romances. I didn't find that took away at all from the story, it just had more of a Gothic feel than anything else.

The relationship between the hero and heroine could have been fleshed out a bit more, and the mystery was pretty much solvable from chapter one, but it was still quite enjoyable. A quick read, I finished it in two hours, hurrying to see how it ended, and I take that as a good sign of a well written book.
Recommended-4 stars.
Sensuality scale-about a PG13.