June 9, 2009

Review: Obsession by Gloria Vanderbilt



Architectural genius Talbot Bingham was so enamored of his wife Priscilla, that he built her a dream home and compound name Talcilla. Everyone who knew the couple agreed that they had never known two people so in love with each other.

During their 10th anniversary celebration Talbot dies unexpectedly and Priscilla is devastated. After 6 month’s of mourning she finally gets up the courage to enter Talbot’s home office and finds a stack of letters neatly tied with ribbon. She is pleasantly surprised when she finds her own letters to Talbot from when they first met but as she continues to go through them she also finds a stack of letters from someone only identified as Bee.

What she discovers from reading these letters tears her whole world apart. Talbot had a mistress. And it wasn’t just an ordinary affair. Bee was a paid mistress set up in a home even grander than Talcilla and was well schooled in eroticism. Bee was also obsessed with Talbot and couldn’t stand the thought of Priscilla.

Shocked by this turn of events Priscilla tries to come to terms with this other woman but she herself becomes obsessed over Bee and the pair ultimately faces off in the most unlikely of settings.

This is a quick 143 page read that I finished in about an hour and I swear I was mesmerized the whole time. It was sensual and passionate but not excessively erotic. I thought the ending too much of a cliff hanger but I still enjoyed the read. I just wish it had just a couple of pages more to learn more about the meeting between Priscilla and Bee. The book was an unexpected pleasure and I recommend it for anyone who likes books that are a little on the spicy side.

June 8, 2009

The Elf and The Princess: The Silent Warrior Trilogy - Book One by Anna del C. Dye


Courtesy of I Just Finished


When Prince Paletin comes upon the city of Menarm he finds the entire population decimated by orks. Upon further investigation he finds one sole survivor, Queen Saria. The Queen is mortally wounded but manages to draft a letter and asks him for two things. One, to deliver the letter to Tadren in the elf city of Lothia and two, to find her daughter Adren, who has been training with a great warrior, and take her to Lothia also.

Paletin finds the princess and is amazed by how well trained she is. As they set out towards Lothia they discover that Menarm is not the only city to be attacked by the orks. The pair soon joins in the fight against the orks and Arden has to learn patience in quest to avenge her people. Knowing that the men in battle would never accept a woman warrior, Adren fights as The Silent Warrior, a masked fighter who never speaks.

Along the way Adren meets Dellin and falls deeply in love but when they near Lothia and meet up with Tadren they learn a horrifying truth that devastates them both.

I can’t figure out if The Elf and The Princess is a young adult book or not. The writing seems more geared towards a younger crowd but the book isn’t categorized as YA so it was a bit frustrating adjusting to the writing style. Other than that I enjoyed the premise of the story and how it ended even though I knew how it would work out from the time Adren met Dellin’s father.

The book is both a love story and an adventure story. I absolutely loved how del C. Dye chose to have Adren became The Silent Warrior to fight and prove herself. She became a respected warrior and instead of being upset that they were tricked the people rejoiced and still honored her when they found out she was a female. It was a refreshing change from the male hero and I’m hoping that in book two, Trouble in the Elf City, we get to see a different side of Adren.

I also recommend that you do a quick Google image search for orks before you start reading The Elf and The Princess. Doing that gave me a better mental picture of Adren’s enemy and I understood her anger better. I’d post a picture here but I don’t want to give anyone nightmares. LOL This is a recommended read for fantasy lovers.

June 7, 2009

Review: Out of Sync: A Memoir by Lance Bass and Marc Eliot




From a very young age Lance Bass knew that he wanted to be a star. He sang in the church choir and later on with a group called Showstoppers. When the phone call from Justin Timberlake to join a new band called *NSYNC it changed Lance’s life forever.

Within a couple of years *NSYNC was one of the most popular bands in the world with millions of screaming fans. As great as that seemed there were many things about his stardom that were not so glowing.

With one hit after another, sold-out concert tours and merchandising the band should have been earning hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars but as naïve newcomers they signed a contract that left them earning next to nothing.

Plus to add to the stress, from the age of five Lance always felt different from other boys. He wasn’t attracted to girls. His innocent crushes were always on boys. Raised as a Christian it was hard for Lance to deal with his sexuality and then when stardom hit he had to keep it hidden even more for fear of the truth damaging the band’s reputation.

I was way too old to be one of the screaming fans Lance talks about in the book but I’ve always liked *NSYNC’s music and was very interested in his story. All the turmoil behind the scenes is very surprising and my favorite part was when Lance recounted his training as a Russian cosmonaut for a trip into space that unfortunately never happened.

This was a quick and enjoyable memoir with a few goofy photos to chuckle over. I recommend it for both fanatic and casual *NSYNC fans.

June 6, 2009

Review: BoneMan's Daughters by Ted Dekker



While on a routine mission in Fallujah intelligence officer Ryan Evans is captured by insurgents and forced to witness the torture of children. The only way to stop the madman from killing even more children is for Ryan to sacrifice his own wife and daughter by giving up their address back in the states. After years of dedicating more time to the military than his family Ryan faces the reality that he doesn’t love his wife anymore but he could never make that choice.

When his captor is distracted Ryan escapes and gets rescued by the military but the torture has taken its toll. He has a mental breakdown and runs to the comfort of his family however it’s too little too late. His wife has moved on and his daughter Bethany has no desire to have Ryan in her life.

Then without warning Bethany is kidnapped by the serial killer BoneMan who kills by breaking every bone in his victim’s body without breaking the skin. Leading the investigation the FBI begins to suspect Ryan is the BoneMan and Ryan’s actions take on a whole new light.

BoneMan’s Daughters is an eerie thriller. The BoneMan is seriously creepy. He reminds me of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs…a madman with a strange fascination for lotion.

I especially loved the way Dekker portrayed Bethany. She was beautiful with an emerging modeling career but she wasn’t a typical stuck up teen. She acknowledged that she was lucky to have her looks and wasn’t at all superficial. She was actually more down to earth than her mother who was very shallow. The part I like the least of this read was Ryan himself. I get that he wrestled with demons but he was also way to whiney for me. Overall it’s still an intense read and I recommend it for all thriller lovers.

June 5, 2009

Review: Immortal Outlaw by Lisa Hendrix


Author's Website


While on a mission for his father, Steinarr the Proud along with eight other men, were cursed by the sorceress Cwen with immortality and something much worse. Each of the nine men must spend either night or day in the form of an animal. For Steinarr this meant that each night from sunset to sunrise he was cursed to roam the forests of Sherwood in the form of a lion intent on hunting down and killing any living creature near him.

Amulets with the animal of each of the nine men were scattered across the lands and well hidden by Cwen. As fellow cursed Viking Ivo de Vassy proved, finding your true mate along with the amulet is the secret to breaking the curse and growing old with the one you love.

When a chance meeting in the forest brings Steinarr face-to-face with Marian Fitzwalter he feels an instant connection. Marian has always had the ability to sense animals thoughts. Sensing a man’s thoughts for the first time, Marian sets aside her confusion at this and enlists Steinarr’s help with an important task. Marian and her brother Robin are on a quest to find and interpret clues which will lead Robin to a treasure that will prove he is worthy of inheriting the title of Lord from his late father.

But there is more than one person hoping Robin doesn’t succeed and after years of seeking solace from her defeat by Ivo the evil witch Cwen is back to ensure Steinarr’s animal side conquers over his growing love for Marian.

You can read all about Ivo’s story in Immortal Warrior. In Immortal Outlaw the basic premise of the curse, finding your true love and amulet is the same but the story is a completely different one. The interactions of Stienarr and Marian are not as hot as Ivo and Alaida but still pretty tantalizing.

What I especially loved is how Lisa wove in the beginnings of the Robin Hood and Maid Marian legend. It was an entertaining side story to the main plot line and I thought Lisa did a wonderful job at tying the two together.

I halfway wish that I wouldn’t have known about Lisa’s books until the ninth book is released so I could gobble them all up at once. From Lisa’s Q&A I learned that each book will be set in a different century leading up to the present. The wait for the next book in the Immortal Brotherhood Series, Immortal Champion, is going to be unbearable! You absolutely have to read this series if you love paranormal and historical romances. Be sure to visit Lisa’s website to enter to win a reproduction Viking amulet just like Steinarr's.