Review - Cat's Lair by Christine Feehan

Cat's Lair
by Christine Feehan

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The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Leopard’s Prey returns to the feral underworld of her astonishing Leopard novels in an arousing new romance of forbidden animal instincts…
Cat Benoit has finally escaped the past—and the man who was the source of her nightmares. She’s off the grid, underground but watchful, and creating a new life for herself in Texas, far from the torrid dangers of her native New Orleans. She’s safe. He’ll never find her this time. Cat has to believe that. It’s the only thing keeping her sane.
Yet she can’t escape the attention of Ridley Cromer, the instructor at the martial arts dojo where Cat takes lessons. She arouses the animal in Ridley—and something feral comes to life when their body heat rises. Cat is in no position to let her guard down with anyone, especially someone who could be endangered by her past. But Ridley has secrets of his own—secrets only Cat would understand. If she dares to trust him..

Do you hear that shriek? That's the sound of being completely irked because you want to quit a series, but you're still waiting for one particular character's story.

Review - Falling for a Redneck by Eve Langlais

Falling for a Redneck
By Eve Langlais

So this is the second story in a row that simply hasn't worked for me. And not just random stories, but things that should have worked. I don't know if I'm heading into a slump or it's just awful luck for this weekend, but whatever it is, I hope it straightens out PDQ.

Be forewarned, there WILL  be spoilers and ranting.

So generally speaking, even if Eve Langlais books don't make my top favorites list, I can at least count on solid enjoyment. This is in fact the first book of hers that was completely wrong for me. It should have been right dang it. We have an uptight, germaphobe, white collar woman, and an earthy blue collar guy with two adorable plot-moppets to melt her icy facade. But this reprint should have stayed safely in the past.

From this point on there will be spoilers and rants, feel free to skip out, but if you haven't read anything by Eve Langlais, skip this book and try her Freakn' Shifters (ignore the horrible apostrophe usage) or Furry United Coalition (yes that does spell FUC). Both of them are full of humor, whimsy, and sexy times.

So, we start out meeting Marissa, the pro-Domme, in full regalia in a session. Except this isn't her kink, it's a job she does so she can punish men and vent her anger at all men over the horrible way her ex-husband treated her. So yeah, we have another BDSM practitioner doing it in lieu of therapy, a trope I quite despise. It actually gets worse though because her former therapist is the person who turned her onto it. So, yeah, that happened. And then she doesn't even own it, she's all conflicted over it. Enter the sexy redneck Dirk and his adorable plot moppets. I settle in thinking alright, this is working for me. I'm even getting into the mystery of Marissa's stalker. And I'm especially enjoying getting to know Dirk and seeing him as a person and his back story unfold. Then WHAM, another trope/comment I abhor. Marrisa refers to her pro-Domme activities as "...as bad as prostitution". Literally, WTF? First off, that's just an awfully denigrating way to think about or write about prostitutes. Considering prostitutes as " bad" is just not something I can condone. There's plenty of ways to think about prostitutes (and that's definitely a debate for another time), but that dismissive horrified line of thought is one that just pisses me the hell off. And secondly, if you aren't having sexual contact with a human being for money (which she wasn't), then it isn't prostitution. It's a service right up there with paying for massage, hair cuts, or spa services. Yes it's a little out of mainstream for the general population, but it still isn't sex for money. So she's going to quit because she's tired of it anyway, and her anger's all cured by the love and care from her redneck and his magical peen. That's a little bit of magical thinking, but I tend to accept it in romancelandia. Whatever, on with the story. So Dirk takes her to his parents house to be safe from the stalker. It's a farm, which makes for some fairly funny scenes. We get to find out plenty more about Dirk and his kids, and both he and Marissa really open up. The plot moppets' bio-mom even breezes in giving Dirk closure and forcing both of them to confront their feelings for each other, and then conveniently breezes right out with no real repercussions or consequences. So Dirk and Marissa head back to real life, and she's figured out her stalker is actually one of her now-former client's wife. She sets up one last appointment with the man to lure his wife in, and this part I actually did like, she talks the wife down and teaches her to dominate her husband as he likes to be dominated. Those two go home a happier and kinkier couple. Then Marissa finally confesses to Dirk that all her angst and anger came from the fact she had cervical cancer which resulted in a hysterectomy, and that her husband knocked someone else else up and left her. Yes, that's very miserable, but Dirk is a sweetie who explains she's not half a woman, she's the other half of his heart. They get married and our formerly very starched and buttoned up clean freak doesn't even freak over the handprints the plot moppets leave on her wedding dress. It's sweet.

Now, if that were the end of it, at least it would have been a high note. Still not a great or even good story, but a high note. But of course I wasn't that lucky, we then have the epilogue from hell. A year later they wake up and find a freaking baby on their doorstep. The plot moppets' bio-mom has popped out another kid and left it on their doorstep as a belated wedding present. WTF?!?! I guess someone must think that's a happy ending of massive wish fulfillment proportions. But personally, I just found it creepy and weird.

I think what frustrated me so much, is that there was the bones of a great story in there. And Dirk and his backstory were just excellent. He's one of my favorite heroes so far this year. I actually kind of even liked Marissa. But the story around them just completely irked the hell out of me. How on earth does an author even write characters I like in a story I can't stand? There's some sort of voodoo going on here, but I'm still giving this story 1 star.

ARC Review - The Girl Who Wouldn't Die by Marnie Riches

The Girl Who Wouldn't Die
By Marnie Riches

I received an ARC of this book from the Publisher, via Netgalley, this does not affect my opinion of this book or the content of my review.

"When a bomb explodes at the University of Amsterdam, aspiring criminologist Georgina McKenzie is asked by the police to help flush out the killer.

But the bomb is part of a much bigger, more sinister plot that will have the entire city quaking in fear.

And the killer has a very special part for George to play…"

Theoretically, this should have been right up my alley, thrilling and with a brainy heroine. I mean, there's plenty going on, people blowing up, a serial killer, assaults, kidnappings. But somehow it was just boring and plodding. I didn't care, I felt no urgency. And some of it was because I couldn't care less about the characters. George and Ad fell flat for me, George seemed a little less than advertised, and the villains weren't any more engrossing.

Frankly, I found myself skimming trying to get it over with. I even jumped to the end to see if seeing the ending could inspire some interest (sometimes for me it will), and that wasn't any more successful. There was nothing, so far as I could tell, technically wrong with this book, I just found it uninspiring.

1 Star

ARC - Rocky Mountain Miracle

Rocky Mountain Miracle
by Christine Feehan

I received an ARC of this book from the Publisher, via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. 

This book gets a great big fat 1 star from me, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, I assumed that this was a new novella. It is most assuredly not, and while this one wasn't so memorable that reading the synopsis tweaked my memory, once I started reading it reminded me of all the things I disliked about it before.


So, this story was first published in The Shadows of Christmas Past, which includes another paranormal Christmas story from Suzanne Sizemore. It was then recycled with other previously released Christmas stories in A Christine Feehan Holiday Treasury, which is almost certainly available in your library (and the other stories in this particular anthology are much stronger IMO), or on Amazon for extremely low prices in print. So if you are considering this book, first check your shelves and then maybe check your library. I just can't see this book as being worth $4.00.

As for the story itself, I now faintly remember disliking it the first time I read it, and it simply hasn't improved with time or re-reading. Maia is insipid, Cole is irritating, I kind of like Jase and the story between the two brothers, but the dialogue for this thing really just kills me. I accept a certain amount of info dumping dialogue in paranormal and urban fantasy because sometimes the world building needs it. But this is essentially a contemporary with a bit of paranormal, so it is just frustrating and irritating. And even without the info-dumping aspect, I just could not get behind the characters or what they had to say. So I recommend this to no one and want to shame the publishers for not posting up front that this was previously released.