Shattering Halos by Sunniva Dee

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Shattering Halos by Sunniva Dee
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Contemporary, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Action/Adventure
Length: Full length (352 pages)
Heat Level: Spicy
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Daisy

I traded my death for love. I wasn’t given a choice. His decision has caught up with us, so now I am a living, breathing catalyst to war between Heaven and Hell.

The violations he committed saved my life. Since the collision, he’s appeared everywhere. In my hospital room, my school, even my house. He shows up in my paintings, my drawings, in all of my art projects. I can’t stop thinking about him.

He says his name is Gabriel, and he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. He doesn’t know how I can see him or why he wants me in ways that should be impossible for a Celestial.

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The war is about to begin.

Shattering Halos is a book which draws the reader through adventure after adventure and into the world of angels on Earth without pause. Sentences fall into one another with little time to dawdle over details and there were very few boring or unnecessary scenes.

Gabriel is a guardian angel out the pages of a fashion magazine with high morals and an unending need to protect his charge, Gaia. Gaia is an ordinary human girl who almost died in a horrific car crash, only to actually witness her guardian angel. The premiss is strong and drew me in immediately but the worst sides of this issue weren’t dwelt on and Gaia got on with her life a little too easily. She was far more distraught by a later romantic mishap which did not sit well for me.

In addition, Gabriel acted like a young teenager as opposed to an angel that has lived through centuries of guarding his charges and he falls into temptation far too easily to be realistic. I felt the chemistry between the two would pay off far more if their relationship was developed more slowly and with Gabriel’s reactions being more manly rather than coming down to the high school level of Gaia.

Sunniva Dee also tries to get many different themes and story arcs into one piece from the darkest of advances to the biggest of battles and sweetest of loves. I feel the story could have been simplified and cut down for greater effect and realism.

The romantic side of the relationship is very overcharged and oversimplified  and feels like teenage high school drama.  It wasn’t really my cup of tea. The bedroom side of the relationship was not too detailed. Parts were mentioned but the joy of the outcome was more metaphysical than physical.

Taking all this into consideration, this book is not one I would recommend to a lover of adult fiction but perhaps it’s more appropriate for lovers of young adult or new adult stories. They may enjoy Shattering Halos for the fast pace and innocence of a younger time.

Embraced by Fire by Louise Delamore

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Embraced by Fire by Louise Delamore
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Contemporary, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Suspense
Length: Full length (354 pages)
Heat Level: Spicy
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Daisy

The last thing Ryu McKay needs on a mission to expose a black market information ring is a simmering attraction to his boss. Not only is he undercover, he needs to keep his shape-shifter identity a secret. Despite his desire, he dare not act on his attraction.

For Kait, excitement and that one special man exist only in her dreams. However, everything changes when Ryu walks into her office looking for a job as a fire-eater. Now she wants nothing more than to turn her dreams into reality.

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Embraced by Fire is a book which draws on the hypnotism of flame and the heat of sexual attraction. Ryu and Kait – the main characters – are drawn to each other physically and thrown together through dangerous circumstances.

This is a romance which revolves around a secret dealer in Kait’s company. The stakes get higher as the lust between the main characters blossoms into romance. The kisses are hot but I found the sexual scenes were downplayed and not as satisfying as I would have wanted due to sex scenes being fully played out in dreams as well as reality.

I also felt the beginning was cliché and ineffective – “Today was just like yesterday, and like yesterday’s yesterday”. The depression from the first line doesn’t draw me into the sparky and lively romance this turns into and it doesn’t put me on the character’s side from the beginning. “The only place anything exciting happened was in her dreams” was also not particularly promising for the rest of the book. Grammatically, there were a fair number of comma splices throughout but not many typos.

Ryu, as the love interest, is introduced quickly and described in great detail. I found this to be too much too quick and more of an info dump than a brilliant illustration of the character. Kait obviously finds Ryu to be incredibly attractive but I didn’t pick up on what made this man so special until much later in the story, when he’s playing with fire (literally). The descriptions of characters in movement were much better, more alive on the page.

That said, the book did turn out pretty good and I enjoyed reading it. Kait is a logical character who comes undone under Ryu’s skilled hands, developing her into a much more emotional and sexual person. I did feel at times her logical actions did not fit with her overly emotional thoughts but that may just be me and those only looking for romance could overlook these small inconsistencies.

On the whole, I found the book an enjoyable romance read, as long as I did not look too closely at the plot (which I found a little predictable). The characters are strong in dialogue and individuality and don’t match any stereotypes I’ve found to be worn out in romance fiction. Kait is an ambitious businesswoman undone by a fire eating god of a man and Ryu is a man who realises commitment isn’t such a bad thing.

Silent Deceit by Kallie Lane

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Silent Deceit by Kallie Lane
Publisher: Wild Rose Press
Genre: Contemporary, Action/Adventure
Length: Short Story (85 pages)
Heat Level: Spicy
Rating: 2.5 stars
Reviewed by Daisy

When undercover cop Natasha Roberts sets out to find her missing brother, the trail leads to a biker bar where one false move will get her killed. Taking a job as a bartender at Trailblazer’s, she’s in over head almost before she starts.

Skip McQuade, a cop himself, isn’t impressed. But when orders from his CO come down, he’s forced to stick to her like Velcro in order to find out what she’s doing. It doesn’t take him long to realize the odds are stacked against her. Convincing her to become his partner is hard work, but when she finally agrees, he wastes no time getting in on the search.
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Together, they continue the hunt while fighting the growing passion between them. Will they find her brother and stop a killer in time?

Silent Deceit is a short, kicker of a story with a hot-tempered heroine and a more reasonable (if a little shifty to begin with) hero. The pace is fast, the action is full of mysterious hiding places and a few dramatic scenes of peril.

The environment feels very wild west, with miles and miles worth of forgotten mines fixed up with brand new electronics for a very seedy character who lords over a bar full of criminals from both sides of the tracks. The description for the setting is well done and I had a clear visual and visceral sense of the scene. With the hot passion of the leads thrown in every time they slide up against each other while desperately trying not to think of sex, this story has everything to be a real show down.

Unfortunately, I found the action too fast to be believable. The heat between the protagonists is raging but Natasha goes from thinking Skip is a murderer to hopping into bed with him in record time. There is a need for more shock, character development and joining of hands before the sheets get covered in sweat.

Having said that, some readers will like the short wait until “the good bit” and may enjoy that the romance is not too romantic but rather more lusty. That’s not to say the protagonists don’t like each other, but they aren’t against getting in a quickie before work calls, either.

All in all, that style of romance is not to my taste but I can recognise the constraints of a novella and the time it leaves for character and plot development. I felt more could have been done with the space Lane had but some will love this book for the raunchy outdoors tumbles and high-risk undercover gambles. There’s even some questions left hanging at the end, ready for any lovers of the storyline to hang onto, ready for the sequel. In short, this is a book of young lust and mischief with a couple bad guys looking in.

Gretel and the Dark by Eliza Granville

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Gretel and the Dark by Eliza Granville
Publisher: Penguin Imprint – Hamish Hamilton
Genre: Action/Adventure, Historical, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Suspense/Mystery
Length: Full Length (358 pages)
Heat Level: Sweet
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Reviewed by Daisy

A dark, distinctive and addictively compelling novel set in fin-de-siècle Vienna and Nazi Germany—with a dizzying final twist.

Vienna, 1899. Josef Breuer—celebrated psychoanalyst—is about to encounter his strangest case yet. Found by the lunatic asylum, thin, head shaved, she claims to have no name, no feelings—to be, in fact, not even human. Intrigued, Breuer determines to fathom the roots of her disturbance.

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Gretel and the Dark is a strange mixture of genres. Historical, fantastical and sometimes sadly romantic, it keeps the reader yearning for more details of its protagonist’s life, right up until the end. There are three distinct time periods which make up the narrative of the book. One is in the past, one the assumed present and one becomes the new, later, present towards the end of the book. It becomes apparent as the pages go by that these narratives are intertwined. Fairytale links help to support this, as well as the similarities in characters.

The protagonist in this book does not have an easy ride and this is not a traditional romance by any means. There are some romantic elements but these are often sad, seemingly impossible, or darkly one-sided. The main character faces paedophilia and cases where men much older are keen to be intimate with her. However, these implications are subtly done and not too graphic to read. They are along the lines of saying the man placed his hand on her bum and forgot to remove it or that he touched under her skirt where the woman said no man should. These instances are by no means present throughout the whole book but it is a recurring theme in light of the historical time period the main character experienced.

The novel covers the time period of Hitler, pre-Hitler and post genocide. The protagonist and her love interest are the main sweet romantic thread. They make it through horrific scenarios together and come out stronger but this is not a tale which ends in marriage and kids. The ending reminded me of the bitter-sweet movie PS I love you; even though it didn’t end in death, it made me tear up. This is not a feel-good novel.

The fantastical elements consist of the protagonist’s imaginings and fairytales or old wive’s tales remembered from her youth and threaded into the narrative. In one case this was used repetitively to imply the rape of the protagonist as a child by older men to avoid any graphic descriptions. However, this is also used to show the child’s shaky grip on reality and their need to escape it for a better world, where she can make a difference to the outcome of her life. The fairytales may be dark but they hold the determination of a strong woman, prepared to battle the monster behind her misfortunes.

I gave this book 4.5 stars because, despite all the strong thematical links and historical references, the beginning of the book was too full on. Too many fantastical references were thrown at the reader at once. I would have preferred a slower opening. I also found that I did not pick up on the historical links until much later in the book. Someone thinking along more historical lines would have made the connection a lot earlier but because nothing like this was mentioned in the prologue, I assumed this was merely a dark tale based upon a fairytale, with no real life, historical links.

However, I believe a reader will feel the emotional pulls of history through this book, following in the footsteps of a character full of hope, obstinance and determination to survive and have her own way. She can be too stroppy, as most children can, but she makes it through terrible times off her own back and, through her, I had a peep hole into history I could never have experienced first hand.

Cara O’Shea’s Return by Mackenzie Crowne

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Cara O’Shea’s Return by Mackenzie Crowne
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Genre: Contemporary
Length: Full Length (214 pages)
Heat Level: Spicy
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Daisy

After eight years of self-imposed exile, shy bombshell Cara O’Shea returns to her hometown to create her art in peace. Big city living has left her craving the quiet only a small town can offer. Bitter over the wreckage of her father’s infidelity, she risks town gossip, and her heart, when she enlists the town’s football hero to help renovate her studio and mend a decade-old rift.

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As old truths are revealed, will Cara and Finn overcome the mistakes of the past, trust their hearts at last, and take a chance on love?

Since she was in school, Cara has known exactly what she wanted when she grew up: Michael Finnegan. This is the spicy rendition of her getting to know him in more than his capacity as a football player and it’s just as sweaty as a ball game!

Michael is famous, sexy and talented but more than a little insecure with a failed marriage behind him. This is refreshing in a romance as the man is not completely stable and confident all the time. Cara is the one in these pages who knows what she wants and doesn’t waiver, even if she is a little bad at expressing herself.

However, the reason for Michael’s reluctance to commit, beyond his failed marriage, is unclear. He often seems stone-headedly stubborn and I did wish there was deeper reason for this reluctance to have a relationship extending beyond one-night-stands. I also felt that Cara’s humiliating experience at school which caused her to move away from her home town as soon as she could needed more to the dramatisation in order for the depth of her embarrassment and her resulting reactions to be more realistic.

Despite these small faults, the sex scenes had me sweltering and heady and the chemistry between these two very intelligent characters is steamy as a fogged up car in winter. This is not just a honeymoon romance but a meeting of two like souls who fit each other well mentally and physically, as a real romance should.