A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones

A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones

First off, A Good Day for Chardonnay is the second in the series, and it really is better to read #1 first. It will give you a much fuller picture of our main characters and their backstories. I really enjoyed A Good Day for Chardonnay. Sunshine is a fabulous character, sarcastic, funny, loyal. She is surrounded by quirky but incredibly helpful and supportive friends, some of who are on her staff, and parents who are caring but have a bad habit of meddling in her life. She's got a smart 16-year old daughter, who has a boyfriend that is way cooler and competent than any kid I knew at that age. There's a lot going on in the book. Sunshine Vicram is still looking into a case from her past. Auri, her daughter, thinks she's on the trail of a serial killer who was active in the 50s and 60s. And then there's a stabbing in town that leads to a...
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Chaos by Iris Johansen

Chaos by Iris Johansen

It's been a long time since I've read any romantic suspense and I don't think I've read anything by Johansen before. Our main characters here are CIA agent Alisa Flynn and billionaire inventor Gabe Korgan. They both want to be in charge and while they bicker a lot, the attraction is clear. And that's one thing that sometimes annoys me about romantic suspense: we're in the grimy wilderness, desperate to stop the bad guy and save the teenage girls, but my mind just keeps going to sex. Really?  As a couple, though, they're pretty good. They're both strong, a little short on trust, and long on independence. The bad guys are really awful human beings. The story is violent, with rapes and beatings, but not overly graphic. And while you know Alisa and Gabe will rescue the girls, even Sasha, Alisa's ward, the tension lies is how they'll do it and how much harm will be done to the girls...
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Buried Threads by Kaylin McFarren

I'm sorry. I had to give up on this one half-way through, and it took me a month to get that far. I just couldn't get into it. I didn't care about the characters and found the plot a little confusing. They were going on a dive to find swords but yakuza were somehow involved and there was a monk who I think was good guy but was in love with a giesha who ended up "owned" by another man. Then that guy ended up dead and I quit reading. It just wasn't for me....
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Spotlight: Banished Threads by Kaylin McFarren

Excerpt: A lone figure stood in the estuary lookout nestled in the trees above the North Sea on the Holderness Coast, waiting with restless anticipation as Gwen Gallagher approached the cliff's edge. A quick adjustment to the night-vision binoculars allowed the watcher a closer view of the twenty-eight-year-old secretary as she savored the last autumn sunset she would ever see. The crisp, cool air picked up speed, leaving her long black hair sailing like a ghostly pirate's flag behind her. It lifted the hem of her black skirt slightly, exposing her white shapely legs and black suede booties to the wintry elements. Her pale blue eyes swept across the landscape, appraising the beauty surrounding them. She raised her chin toward the darkening sky and smiled, obviously believing the note she had received, inviting her here, had come from her married lover. As Gwen moved even closer to the edge, the watcher inhaled a deep breath. All that remained between this ludicrous woman...
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Guest Post: “On Becoming an Author” by Leslie Tentler, author of Fallen

I'm happy to welcome Leslie Tentler, author of Fallen, to my blog today. She's talking about how she went from reader to write and mentions a couple of books I read when I was a kid. On Becoming an Author By Leslie Tentler It’s sometimes said that authors start off as avid readers who begin to desire even more immersion into fictional worlds. Simply reading becomes not enough, so we begin to dabble in creating worlds of our own, daydreaming stories until finally we attempt the task of putting those ideas on paper (or these days, the computer screen). For many authors, I believe this path is true. As a child, I never planned to be a novelist, but I did have a strong imagination. And I also loved to read. My particular favorites were Nancy Drew mysteries. I’d learned the general timeframe in which new ones arrived at our local “Rose’s” – a discount retailer similar to Target or Wal-Mart in our small Southern...
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