BOOK REVIEW - Lord Byron's Secret Obsession [Net Galley]

I shall be posting my Net Galley reviews up on Sundays to keep the separate from other reviews (and because adding them to the queue may back them up too much). This shall not be posted every Sunday, only when I have an NG book finished.

Author: H.C. Brown - http://www.hcbrown-author.com/
Format: Kindle eBook from Net Galley [I received a complimentary copy from the publisher thru Net Galley for an honest review.]
Did it feel like a full novel: yes
Cliffhanger: no
Genre: romance, gay, erotica
Dates Read: July 28-31, 2015

• Publication Date: August 27, 2015

Official Blurb: Lord Byron Wilton leaves England for the Americas after a public argument with his secret lover, Lord David Litchfield. On his return, he finds, Lord David has become an unwilling sex partner for the reprobate Mr. Hale and his cohorts, due to unpaid gambling debts. After Mr. Hale refuses his offer to settle the debts, Lord Byron makes an outlandish and dangerous plan to outwit the trio. He must use every trick in the book, and a considerable amount of his fortune, in an effort to regain his lover's freedom.

Hadn't gotten much chance to read historical fiction of any type, though my m/m reading experience is from various fanfictions since I was a teen, heh heh. This started out with a super hot scene, totally grabbed my attention. The way the story developed was nice, and the ambiance with the vocabulary, clothing, and such was pretty realistic. Two small complaints though: 1) “bunghole” makes me giggle, not blush, so that kinda brought down scenes where it was mentioned a touch; 2) some of the vocab was not something I could easily look up and had to pick up from context, such as rake, chit, etc. Context is good, but sometimes I had no clue, bleh. The rest was written well, with a good variety of dialogue, sex, and plot advancement.

There were some very nice naughty bits, written with enough detail and diversity to keep sexy. The relationship between Byron and David was rich with a bit of drama but not too much. More like obstacles to overcome so they can be together (other people and David's having to get past some stuff too). I wasn't so sure that Byron really loved David at first though, I kinda figured he just desired his body, but later you feel they equally care for each other. It's probably bad of me, but I wanted more detailed scenes with David and Hale (plus his buddies). The way the blurb was written, I thought there was going to be more of that *snicker*. Had a nice end with most everything wrapped up in a nice bow except I had thought John had found a special someone, but perhaps that was a red herring, or maybe there'll be another book later? If so I really hope Brown will consider him and Joe getting together :D

Rating: 4 stars

MEME - Stacking the Shelves - 08-08-15 #005

Tried not to get a lot of books this week, but I did! I don't have pictures, but my friend who got me into Alanna: The First Adventure lent me the rest of that series. In the general sense, I'm sure there were like 15-20 books in the reusable shopping bag, bwahaha! The best of the rest of my haul consists of:

 

BOOK REVIEW - Mastering Her Man

 

Author: Margeaux Adler - http://margeauxadler.weebly.com/
Format: Kindle eBook from All Romance
Did it feel like a full novel: no (maybe 30 minutes?)
Cliffhanger: no
Genre: erotica, femdom
Dates Read: Aug 6, 2015
Official Blurb: Jenna’s no snoop, but a sleepless night leads her to check her boyfriend’s online history. What she finds there surprises her, but the biggest surprise is how much it turns Jenna on. 

Now it’s time to explore her dominant side and try out her first strap-on. 

Pretty hot short little book. Brandon was a good sub, who ached for serving his mistress in that way I find adorable. It felt awkward that Jenna so quickly managed herself as a good Domme though. I would love to read more like this but LONGER! Eager to try more stuff from the same author if she keeps to this theme in bigger novels. Her quality is very good though, I'm just greedy for quantity too! I may get the rest of this series, but only after I check out some different femdom writers. Because oh my, what other games will they play? 

And yes, this is kinda an extra mini-review because I think I'm going to do so without taking up Tues/Wed for anything that takes less than an hour to read. So they'll be intermittent as I read such books/novellas.

Rating: 3 stars

Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award [vvb32 reads]

Thank you vvb of vvb32 reads!

The Rules:

Thank the blogger who nominated you, linking back to their site.

Put the Award logo on your blog.

Answer the ten questions sent to you.

Make up ten new questions for your nominees to answer.

Nominate ten blogs.

_________________________

Never been tagged like this, so got all kinds of giddy! Let me do my best to answer my questions!

1. What book are you currently reading?
Still working on Atlas Shrugged. At the time of writing this post, also Traitor, Seas of Time, Chaos Company, A Little Princess, and Ecstasy Unbound.

2. In your current book, if you were one of the characters, who would you want to be?
I’d want to be Dagny from the first because I think she is a bad ass lady, but I don’t want to go through the same hardships! I would have broken easily in the beginning, heh. Otherwise I wouldn’t mind being Talia in Seas of Time. She’s got herself a hot merman who goes around shirtless pretty much all the time ;)

3. In your current book, is an animal mentioned?
.... Besides the fish they eat in Seas of the Time, I don’t any of these books really mention any animals. Not that I can recall. Weird.

4. What book is next on your reading list?
Not sure if will be Accuse, Indulge, Dirty Bad Wrong, Beware of Me, and Willing Sacrifice. They’re pretty much all romantic ones so I’ll probably try to get one or two non-romantic like Lumiere or Chivalrous.

5. What book is your significant other (or other person in the house) reading?
I think my roommate is reading Feast of Crows right now.

6. Do you like to keep your books (horizontal) stacked in a pile or (vertical) standing upright on a shelf?
Definitely vertical, except the tippy top where I can pile more horizontally, because I don’t know when to stop.

7. Who usually gives you a book as a gift (non-blogger)?
One of my sweet co-workers gave me a Barnes and Noble card for my bday I haven’t yet splurged with :3

8. Where do you usually buy your books (physical location)? 
Barnes and Noble for new, used bookstore for used. Usually I get something specific new, but browse and grab random ones that sound good used.

9. What dream location would you like to be while reading?
I wonder what it would be like to read while weightless in space. It's a real place, but dream to be able go there just to catch up on some reading I suppose.

10. Which current author(s) would you like to visit your local bookstore for a reading/signing?
I’d go to a reading of any of them, but I’d likely be too shy to get anything signed myself so I’d just stare at them from afar.

__________________________________

Question set

1. What are you currently reading?
2. What’s the next book on you TBR list (not yet in your possession) you want to go after?
3. If you had to be a new or existing sidekick to the villain/antagonist of any in number 1, who would it be and why?
4. What locale mentioned/described in any book do you wish you could visit?
5. Do you currently prefer physical, audio, or ebooks?
6. What the best weather or time of day for reading?
7. If you write novels (or even if you don’t) what trope/theme would you like your novel to not have that everything else of the genre overuses?
8. What book would you like to be made into a miniseries (however long as needed) if the author could keep everything true to the source material?
9. What’s a book genre you enjoy but have a hard time finding exact stuff you like?
10. What book character would you like to live your life as if you couldn’t change any major decisions or plot points?

I hereby tag:
Michelle @ bookbriefs
Girl Who Reads 
Care @ Care’s Online Book Club
Sheila @ The Deliberate Reader 
Sissy or her mommy @ Sissy’s Reading Corner
Hazel @ Hazy Reads
Tynga’s Reviews
Tif @ Tif Talks Books 

But anyone else who wants to do this is quite welcome to! Please drop me a comment so I can go read your answers :D

BOOK REVIEW - Unforgiven (Unseen Trilogy #2)

Author: Stephanie Erickson - http://www.stephanieericksonbooks.com

Format: Kindle eBook (free from joining newsletter linked in the back of The Unseen)

Did it feel like a full novel: yes

Cliffhanger ending: so-so

Genre: young adult

Dates Read: July 9-13 2015

Official Blurb: Mackenzie Day is reeling from the death of her best friend, Maddie. She's lost her rock, her partner in crime, and her only family in one feel swoop. With that loss, Mac has lost track of herself, and the things she cares about, including her mind-reading abilities.

When the opportunity for vengeance arises, she becomes so blinded by her hatred that she no longer recognizes the person she's become. As her empathy towards others slips away, even she can't believe how far she is willing to go to claim justice for Maddie.

Without her moral compass and her sense of self, how can she possibly stop a group of mind-reading terrorists from killing tens of thousands of people? Can she see past her anger to care about anything besides retribution? How can she save her newfound family, when she can't even tell the difference between herself and those who are truly unforgiven?

This sequel is enjoyable, and not jarring from the first book as they sometimes can be. You can feel the change in Mac after the events of the first, and how she deals with them lets her grow a bit. The problem isn’t that the beginning is slow, it’s that the other parts of the book feel rushed in comparison. For how much detail was in the beginning, I would have liked the same for the other parts.

Especially Mac’s big thing where she does that thing. Sorry I don’t like to post spoilers so I try to be vague. But she makes a decision because everyone changes, that’s cool and understandable. Yet Erickson writes it so quickly that it happens and you feel like maybe you missed a paragraph or a page somehow. Perhaps she rushed it because she felt uncomfortable making Mac do this, I’m not too sure. There’s not all that much more detail when it comes to the Unseen vs the Potestas though you get a better hint of what the latter is capable of if not why they’re doing it. 

Besides Mac you get a good view of Owen (who is a super awesome boyfriend!) and Tracy, though not much of David. I was VERY happy to see we find out more about Mitchell, though I wish there was more. Granted, being that the first book’s line said he was ‘broken’ at a point, I don’t expect him to say much firsthand. But I did want more information, because his quiet thoughtful demeanor must have been totally different from who he was before. It’s explained, but again, I wanted more.

Looking forward to the conclusion which releases in September I think, and I feel like this is definitely a good author to follow even when her books aren’t free. I think so far I really just want more than a quicker read, but Erickson doesn’t leave her stuff too lacking, she does give you enough to feel somewhat satisfied. 

I received this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review.

Rating 4 stars

BOOK REVIEW - TUESDAY FLIRTATIONS - Breaking Josh (Blackwood Manor Training Center #1)

I'm sure a lot of us download free romance novels to read because there are SO very many of them out there. And then the little guys breed like rabbits in our eReaders. Why don't we share our reviews/impressions so we can find the best ones to read?

Rules:
1. Read a free romance book (this was started for legally free eBooks, but you can count anything gifted, borrowed, ARC, etc!)
2. Review it on your blog. If you can and it's still available, share the link to the free book.
3. Link back here by using the code below.
4. Leave your link to the specific blog post (NOT your main site) in a comment on the recent week's TF post.
5. Delight in reading reviews by real people who's likes/dislikes you can compare to and thus find a romance you most likely will enjoy :D

<a href="http://beyondthebackcover.blogspot.com/2015/07/tuesday-flirtations-introductory-post.html"><img src="http://i1027.photobucket.com/albums/y333/hazelmbear/meme_tues%20flirtations%2006a%20final%20text_zpsrftsfabp.png"> </a>

Author: Lily Snow 

Format: Kindle eBook (free at the time on amazon)

Did it feel like a full novel: no, just a few chapters worth

Cliffhanger: you’re barely at the beginning, so yes but it’s not a real precipice

Genre: erotica, femdom

Dates Read: early/mid June 2015

Official Blurb: How far will a man go to win the girl of his dreams? Juliette Hartford runs Blackwood Manor, a successful winery in the Pacific Northwest. But the business is actually a front for something much more bizarre: the country’s foremost training center for submissive males. 

When Josh Stevens runs into ex-girlfriend Juliette, he finally realizes he can’t live without her. Juliette still loves him, but requires a test of obedience before taking him back: graduate from her center’s training program. 

It won’t be easy. He faces three months of intensive slave training and re-education at the hands of Juliette’s lover, Talia, who has her own reasons for hoping Josh washes out of the program. 

Will he succeed at becoming the “man” Juliette wants? 

Wanted a change of pace, so purposely started looking for ‘femdom’ kind of romance/erotica novels. Was a little bored of too many female sub books. The blurb is interesting, and I thought it’d be something super sexy. Well, it’s only a little sexy, though fairly interesting. 

Josh’s want of Juliette is pretty believable, and it though he’s supposed to be a Dom kind of guy, it’s not over the top that you don’t think he can't switch for her. Juliette doesn’t feel that much a main character, maybe just a big second? But Talia doesn’t either. Still, it’s kinda cool to have Josh as the main character of a femdom novel, so there is that. But I don’t care for this type of femdom. Juliette is all about ‘female supremacy’ which really annoys my feminist beliefs (feminism = gender EQUALITY). Just as bad as the patriarchy in other books, which was a theme I wanted to get away from. 

The BDSM only started, and while it was sexy to read about how Josh is taking it (*snicker* pun intended), it wasn’t all that detailed. Nor was it that realistic (being on your knees on hard surface is not a good thing, for one). But as a naughty fantasy story, it wasn’t bad.

I would like to see what else Josh has to undergo as training, as it seems Talia is really gonna make him work for Juliette! But the story itself didn’t latch me in all that well. I may purchase the rest of the series, but I think I’ll look around some more for different femdom varieties first.

Rating: 2 stars

MEME - Stacking the Shelves - 08-01-15 #004

This week I had the BEST time playing around Net Galley! Although I'd heard it's difficult for new bloggers to get books, it called to me and I had to answer by signing up and creating a profile. It's wee and simple, but when I requested 10 books, I got 9! Then, Book Briefs has set up a list that they can send to persons who ask them to review their books with eager bloggers' information so we can be considered as well. The very kind Christopher Slayton found me this way and asked me to check out his novel, Chaos Company, in return for a review. I am so ecstatic! But even then, I still can't help but download other freebies like crazy, ehehehe. I CAN STOP AT ANY TIME I SWEAR!

FOR REVIEW

      

           

    

           

FOUND FREEBIES

A couple OK ones, but nothing earth shattering this week.

PURCHASED BOOKS

None this week