Arouse: What Happens After the HEA.

Arouse by Nina Lane
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've come to a place in my reading that isn't bitter or burnt out yet, but it's a bit tired. I'm done with the pages of sex and skin that lack the bones of a real story. As much as I love good sex in a good book, I can't even remember these people's names and I'm tired.

This is the story of Olivia and Dean West. I know their names and so will you.

As a romance reader, this is the book I'm dying to find in the piles of bare-chested covers. Finding out that it was about an already married couple, already seemingly past their HEA, forcing the question of what happens next made me immediately put it first in my TBR pile. I wanted to see it done, and from the reviews everyone seemed to be in agreement that here it's done memorably well.

Hauntingly well.

The Guilty WTF Pleasure of Black Dagger Brotherhood: Books Wrath-Thor.

Okay. It's a timely moment to talk about one of my deepest, darkest guiltiest of pleasures. This is not something I can bring up in polite society. I mean...how do I even bring it up? What descriptions do I use? What sort of picture am I going to paint for the uninitiated?
Deep breath.
I'm a fan of leather pants wearing vampires who drive Escalades and fight bad guys that smell like baby powder.
Oh, God.
There's just no coming back from that is there?

With the long-awaited release of Lover At Last, it's hard not to get all caught up in the BDB talk. The Black Dagger Brotherhood is a funny sort of obsession, but it's one I can't shake. Some series you dive into with the gusto of a fangirl, but you find yourself looking around after awhile and trying to walk out of the room without anyone noticing you were even there.

But with BDB, I'm still in there, still reading the next books, still skimming the parts about the Lessers. Still hanging out with vampires who use unnecessary H's in their names and wear boots they obsessively refer to as shit kickers, and always seem to end their sentences with either yup or true.

Listen, I don't have explanations or a diagnosis for why I'm still waving my BDB flag. What I do have is a run through for where we've been with this brotherhood of vampires with poor grammar, kinky bedroom secrets and sometimes dragon tattoos.

Have Yourself a Swoony Christmas.

It wasn't until last year while I went through shelves and shelves of Holiday themed romances that I actually read one. There I was, working at the library, setting up display upon display of holly jolly books, and people were coming up and asking for recommendations and I was the Scrooge that hadn't dabbled in the glitter and mistletoe.

I was a reindeer in the headlights. 

The Paperback Queen. The Book Slut. The Swooner of Rakes, Lumberjacks and Alphas alike.

And I hadn't read a holiday romance? What was wrong with me? The swoony moments are bountiful in books filled with hometown drama, depressed drinking, and forced cheer. 

So, I jumped in with spread hands and I grabbed and I took and it was magic. 

 Here wrapped in shiny bows are some of my favorite holiday romances. May they cover you in tinsel and sexual tension.

You Annoy Me < Take Your Pants Off.

Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was effervescent.

It was chemistry and sparks and heat and it was everything I want in a contemporary romance, because it went that one step further and surprised me with the depth of emotion without having to lean on any dramatic miscommunication trope. This is simply the story of two people falling for each other in such a real, lovely and electric way. Two people who've been tolerating the other because of the person they have in common, but it only takes that one misstep, that one caught look, that one push to send them over the edge.

And, wow. This is how you write chemistry. This is why when two actors have it they only need the other to turn a conversation into something you can't look away from. It's not just two hot leads looking at each other and deciding to bang it out. It's the way the words turn that look into tangible sparks. That kiss into a punch to your solar plexus.

"Not so long ago you despised me," she said. "You could barely stand to look at me."
“And now I can’t keep my hands off you or get you out of my head. Which one of those reactions is the more accurate reflection of my true feelings, do you think, Violet? Let me give you a clue here, even though we’re arguing, even though I’m almost one hundred percent certain that you’re about to walk out on me, I have a hard-on with your name on it. That’s how much I can barely stand to look at you.”

It would have been SO EASY to make them one-dimensional. To make him the nerdy beta hero she wakes up and the girl he calms down. But he's someone who built himself up from the Hackney and she's been tossed aside by her family.

This isn't just Flighty Girl meets Stuffy Guy.

He's been with her best friend for years, and she's been on the wings noticing the stupid things about him, yanking his chain while he looks at her with annoyance unable to get the smell of her perfume out of his clothes even though he barely brushed past her. 

“Good afternoon, how can I—” She stopped in her tracks, words momentarily escaping her. Martin didn’t speak, either. He simply stood there watching her, his dark gaze intent and hot. She felt an answering heat spring to life inside her, even as she gathered her will to send him packing. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.” They were both lying. She hadn’t needed to ask why he was there, and they both knew what he wanted.
“We can’t keep doing this,” she said weakly. So much for sending him packing.
“Tell me how to make it stop, then.” He took a step toward her. 

You almost need to take a breath it's such a fantastic execution of this set up. They go years not even realizing that all the animosity is because they're so hot for the other, and then he gets dumped and she tries to do something nice, but he barks and she spits and it's fireworks. They're unraveling the other, and it's lovely and hot and just so, so good and it turns into a solid romance and a relationship you can't look away from, rooting for the happily ever after with a stupid smile.

Smoking Cigarettes & Sex in Trucks: Why I Love Southern Romances.

There's just something about the south. Being that both of us are southern girls we understand the bonafide difference of life below the Mason Dixon line. Whether it's the Tennessee mountains, Florida swamps, Louisiana bayous or South Carolina low country, there's just a different heat to a good romance story that gets its bones and pace from this sticky humidity. It's a dirty blues riff in a smoky honky tonk. It's a glass of sweet tea sweating on a front porch. It's a fan moving too slow, while hands go a little faster.

You see what I'm saying, right?

I cut my teeth on the trashy paperback romance. Not the bodice ripper historical, but The Sandra Brown. Where take no shit women come up against fiery dudes from Texas. Where we're hunting for oil and people are getting murdered and dumped in swamps and women are letting their hair loose and the curses fly and someone's got a rifle in their truck because shit is about to go down. It's good and it always builds to one hell of a climax.

So which books make you want to turn up The Black Keys, put your boots up on the dash and fall hard for the kind of man who wears jeans the way the good lord meant him to?

Here are some of my favorite cowboys:

Always had a Thing for Artsy Boys.

Easy by Tammara Webber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been circling this one for a couple months. Dipping my toes into the New Adult waters, I've been seduced by the sexy, gritty angst. The choices and decisions someone makes when they're on their own for the first time. The boys that show up and the nights that don't end. And Easy was touted amongst them, but I kept side-stepping it.

I can be completely vain and tell you it was because of the cover.

God, I'm a horrible person, but the guy looked like a Richie Sambora kind of rocker and my brain kept thinking cheesy rocker fan-fiction and I kept turning the other way. Then my soul sister read it and I knew it was okay now. Time to do this.

I absolutely adored this book. I swooned, clutched it to my chest, and found myself a new boyfriend. And he looks nothing like Richie Sambora.

More like Trent from Daria.



Hullo, Lucas.

Sex with a Vulcan.

Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've been attempting to start Singh's other series Guild Hunters for awhile now and I can not get past the first twenty pages to save my life. I've heard such great things, and yet I keep getting hung up on the writing style and how it's keeping me outside of the story. So I figured I'd take a stab at this whole Psy-Changeling thing since this is the other series everyone is all hot and bothered over.

There was no difficulty in getting into this one for me. None. For the first half of the book I didn't want to put it down. It was such an interesting and sexy introduction into this world of Psys and Changelings. Basically the Psys are Vulcans and the Changelings are hot blooded animal shifters and they live in a world where the Psy are the emotionally void politicians and the Changelings own businesses and have different Packs with different Alphas, but there are uneasy truces going on. That is until the cat Pack have one of their own murdered and they smell Psy at the scene. They've figured out that there have been several well-calculated murders that stink of Psy, the race that isn't supposed to feel anything and has no recorded instance of violence.

Super interesting set up that spoke to the geek girl in me that digs world building and the romance fan that likes to see two people face crazy, tension-filled odds in their I Just Gotta Have You transformation. 

Nerd Girl Chats: Lux Edition.

"Wait! We weren't done yet. Hey Pepe, can you say glow stick?"

So, Willow and I found ourselves on gchat the other night and we were discussing random things, birthday parties and crybaby husbands with the sniffles when suddenly:

P: UM I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'LL EVEN GET THIS OR IF YOU'RE CURRENTLY PARTYING HARD BUT HOLY FUCK DID YOU SEE THIS: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13362536-opal AND THE SYNOPSIS IS BACK UP AND I'M KINDA DOING SOME CRYBABY BIEBER TEARS OVER HERE.

Beiber? Bieber? Whatever.

W:...a lot of spontaneous combustion? Give me a minute.

P: I was looking through our Lux reviews earlier, trying to figure out how to combine them and I found all these Daemon extras Armentrout posted on her site and I AM DISTURBED BY HOW BADLY THIS SERIES HAS MADE ME LOSE MY SHIT.

P: But seriously? Those extras? Good shit, dude. I'm not saying I threw my panties at the computer, but I'm not saying I didn't either.

W: Wait....wait. There are extras. Extras with Daemon?

P: YOU DIDN'T KNOW?!

W: Uh, no, dude. I didn't know this. I'm getting squeaky right now

P: OH GIRLFRIEND. LET ME SEDUCE YOU.