Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt

Lord of Darkness (2013) (Piatkus)

Elizabeth Hoyt

Grade: A

Genre: historical romance

Sex scenes: HOT

Source: library 

Maiden Lane: (1) Wicked Intentions, (2) Notorious Pleasures, (3) Scandalous Desires, (4) Thief of Shadows 

Godric St. John was blissfully married to the love of his life, Clara, for one short year before she contracted a fatal illness. He was forced to watch helplessly as she disintegrated a slow death before his eyes. His life lost all meaning and he became the Ghost of St. Giles, protecting the vulnerable people of London at the risk of his own life.

Cover Reveal: The Elite

I've read virtually no YA books in 2012, but The Selection by Kiera Cass is by far my favourite. I liked the cover when it appeared on NetGalley and while the summary sounded great, the cover was definitely my motivating reason for requesting it for review.

The cover for book two, The Elite, doesn't disappoint. The theme for The Selection was initally a great choice and so they've done well in following it and keeping with the theme, yet the colour scheme gives the book it's own character and independence. It's stunning.

I can only keep my fingers crossed that it's going to be available on NetGalley in the new year! Can't wait for April 2013!

Crossed by Ally Condie

Crossed (2011)
Ally Condie
Grade: B-
Genre: dystopian YA

Source: library
Matched: (1) Matched, (2) Crossed

When Society decides what you eat, what work you do and who you have children with, not everyone is going to blindingly obey. The vast majority have been indoctrinated to believe that this is the only path to follow, but underneath the surface, if you know where to look, dissenters exist aplenty. Society has its ways of controlling those who are more vocal in their dissent; those like Cassia are more aware of what will happen to them if they lash out and instead keep one ear open for any news to do with the Pilot who it is said will lead The Rising.

Bared to You by Sylvia Day

Bared to You (2012)
Sylvia Day
Grade: B+
Genre: erotica
Sex scenes: beyond scorching. Possibly more sex than I've ever read in a single novel
Source: own / NetGalley
Crossfire: (1) Bared to You

BE WARNED: Bared to You has more sex than even I was expecting. I didn’t count, but I’m hazarding a guess that there’s more sex and more orgasms than Fifty Shades of Grey. I was reminded of Ms Reisz’s writing with regard to the unapologetically intense nature of the sex (though nowhere near as heavy on the bdsm) and the sex in Bared to You was (IMO) more powerfully written than Fifty Shades of Grey (not difficult and review coming soon, I promise). Expect in this review: spoilers, unashamedly crude, lurid details and excerpts from scenes that will get you hot and bothered. It might get squicky. Read on at your peril.

Cover rant: Nora Roberts

My love affair with Nora Roberts is well-known amongst regular readers and well-documented on this blog. The recent covers for her US contemporaries have been great (Bride Quartet and Inn Boonsboro) – very dreamy and romantic – and I’ve loved them. There’s been some slight changes for a few titles for the UK versions, but they’re ones that I can live with.

NR’s books are constantly being reissued and none so more than ever for Kindle with brand new spanking covers to match. I’ve generally approved (MacKades, Dream trilogy, Stars of Mithra) because they’ve been great choices. NR has been writing since 1981, so her ‘contemporaries’ thirty years ago can’t really be called as such today, but she writes with such a timelessness that it doesn’t matter; her books could be set in the seventeenth century and you might not notice. While you can probably tell with the older books that it is slightly out-of-date, there is never enough to properly pinpoint the book to a set timeframe, and so I find myself not really caring that it is twenty years old and some practices just aren’t done anymore. This is Nora Roberts for Chrissakes: she’s The Master.

The Angel by Tiffany Reisz

UPDATE!!!: I've found the proper Harlequin UK cover for The Prince! By 'proper' I mean that it matches the ones for The Siren and The Angel and isn't the one with the blindfolded guy or the piano and crop. A shame, because both are great but this one is truly beautiful.

The Angel (2012)
Tiffany Reisz
Grade: B+
Genre: erotica like you've never known erotica before
Sex scenes: hotter than the eighth circle of hell (you have to read it). Contains the most sadistic yet strangely titillating sex scene I've ever read. I swear even the most hardened erotica readers might be slightly put off, though this may be my relative inexperience in the genre peeking through. Also contains homosexual sex scenes, threesomes and lashings of innuendo to blow your mind (amongst other things) away; there's nothing that Ms Reisz doesn't (or won't) do

Source: NetGalley
The Original Sinners (The Red Years): (prequel) Seven Day Loan (1) The Siren, (2) The Angel, (3) The Prince, (4) The Mistress

Ms Reisz has no qualms about sticking her hand in your chest (amongst other places …), yanking your heart out and leaving you still breathing to boot. And the worst thing is, she’ll enjoy doing it and you’ll be left begging for more (I know I am). The best kind of erotica writer.

Scandalous Desires by Elizabeth Hoyt

Scandalous Desires (2011)
Elizabeth Hoyt
Grade: B+
Genre: historical romance
Sex scenes: not quite as hot as might be expected from Elizabeth Hoyt
Source: library
Maiden Lane: (1) Wicked Intentions, (2) Notorious Pleasures

Widowed Silence Hollingbrook has a history with Charming Mickey O’Connor and it’s not a very pleasant one. A year ago, she spent the night in his bedroom (quite possibly the most innocent night of Mickey’s life) in order to free her husband from a crime he didn’t commit. Though they did nothing but stare at each other all night, neither her husband nor her siblings would believe that Mickey – the most notorious pirate in St. Giles – hadn’t touched her. When William died at sea, Silence moved into the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children run by her brother, Winter.

As manageress of the Home, Silence must care for and ensure the safety and well-being of all the children in her care, but one child holds her heart: Mary Darling was left on her doorstep a year ago as a newborn infant and Silence has raised her as her own. When she wakes one day to find Mary Darling missing, Silence goes to the only person who might have a clue where she is: Mickey O’Connor.

My Abhorrence of: New Book Covers

I really really hate this. Particularly where a series is reissued with new covers and the series hasn't even finished. Okay, I understand that they're doing it to market the books and boost sales; I even accept that sometimes (rarely, I've found) the new covers are nicer than the old ones, but in principle, I just hate it.

Firstly, for a purely selfish reason. Where I own the series, then it'll just mess up my entire shelf if the series is still ongoing and I'd been planning on buying the next books. Yes, I know, I shouldn't judge books by their cover, but I do and I can't help it and new covers are just a pet hate of mine.

Secondly: when they just get it completely, absolutely WRONG. At the moment, a lot of covers of YA novels targeted at teenage girls will feature a girl posing in a pretty dress. Mainly paranormal books, but other genres too. At first it was cool and I came across some awesome covers, but now it's gotten old and lots are not particularly attractive. I admit that if a book has a pretty cover, then I probably won't care too much that it's not 100% related to the content of the book itself, but when the cover is just totally wrong for the timeline in which the book is set - then I get annoyed. [There's a word for when stuff is in the wrong chronological order, but I can't remember what it is. Anyone?]

I had actually planned a post based around this, but it wasn't going to be until quite a while ahead. But I was doing stuff on Shelfari and I saw the new covers for a trilogy of books that I like, and I saw red.

TED: Half a Million Secrets - Frank Warren

I love PostSecret. For those of you that don't know, PostSecret is a blog started by Frank Warren where people from all over the world send in their secrets on a postcard. Each Sunday, a new 'batch' of secrets are posted up and it has become my ritual to check PostSecret every Sunday morning and take some time to laugh and cry at the thoughts and feelings that people have found the courage to share with the world. Frank sums the project up pretty nicely in the first few minutes of his talk.