Finding Santa: Almost a Billionaire Series, Book One by Bridget E. Baker

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance
Content: Clean


 
After Mary's mom left her family to pursue a career-as a trucker!-Mary vowed she'd never repeat her parents' mistakes, even if it meant never having any children of her own. Her resolve destroyed her last relationship, but she's over it. She fills her time with work and volunteering. Mary runs an enormous Christmas charity called Sub-for-Santa.

Her life lacks nothing, or so she thinks, until a strikingly handsome master electrician named Luke doggedly pursues her, convincing her to hazard a first date.

Contemporary romance isn't my usual genre. I usually like my romances to be of the historic variety, but after reading Bridget E. Baker's YA trilogy Sins of Our Ancestors, I liked her writing style quite a lot, so I decided to give this one a try. It also helped that it's a Christmas romance that immediately reminded me of a Hallmark Christmas movie when I read the description.

Overall I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I think it even tops the YA trilogy. Maybe it's because this is about adults, and I've recently been leaning toward adult reads over YA ones. Whatever the reason I found this a nice cozy Christmas read with characters that were very likeable. I did have a hard time relating to Mary's love for preparing taxes (Ick! Definitely not my thing.) But I loved her devotion to her friends and family and her love of giving to children in need.

My one complaint would be that things were tied up just a little bit too neatly for me. There was one thing that Luke was able to do concerning a house that I thought was a little too much, but that's a small thing compared to how entertaining this was. There is going to be a sequel and I will definitely read it. I'm guessing it's going to be more of a companion book, and I'm already betting I know who it will feature. I guess I'll find out.

Thanks to the author for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

Dark Minds by Michelle Diener

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Romance, Space Opera
Content: Strong Language, Sexual Situations, A sex scene that happens mostly off page.

 
Imogen Peters knows she's a pawn. She's been abducted from Earth, held prisoner, and abducted again. So when she gets a chance at freedom, she takes it...

Captain Camlar Kalor expected to meet an Earth woman on his current mission. Instead, he and Imogen are thrown together as prisoners in the hold of a Class 5 battleship. When he works out she's not the woman who sparked his mission, but another abductee, Cam realizes his investigation just got a lot more complicated...

Imogen's out of her depth in this crazy mind game playing out all around her. But she's good at mind games. She's been playing them since she was abducted. Guess they should have left her minding her own business back on Earth…

This last book in the Class 5 companion series was on par with the others. Imogen and Cam where both likable characters, and we get to revisit the couples from the other two books. I liked seeing all three women interact and bond with each other, but honestly I didn't feel like there was much difference in the characters or story lines of any of these books. The most distinct characters where in the first book Dark Horse. Sazo and Rose are still the best characters in the whole trilogy. I just feel like maybe the author lost some originality after that and went on repeat a bit.

Here are some examples of how much alike these books are:

-The kidnapped women are all from earth. This in itself is not a bad thing, but they are
not very distinguishable from one another to me. There were little differences in them, but not enough.

-They each end up developing a special bond with one of the A.I.s from a Class 5 ship, and this in turn sets into motion actions that are very similar in each story.

-The love interests in each of the books are also all of the same race. Each of these women fall in love with one of the Grih, a race that is very elf-like in appearance. I think it would have been more interesting if they had each fallen in love with someone from a different alien race.

-There is also this whole thing about one of the alien races holding music - singing in particular - as almost sacred in this trilogy, because few of them can actually sing themselves. That aspect came into play yet again in this book. When I finished the second book I thought it would be great if one of these earth women would end up being completely tone deaf and maybe they would cringe when they heard her try to sing, haha. Needless to say that didn't happen. What a lost opportunity, although the musical performance at the end of the book was nice. I often found the choice of songs they sang to be somewhat amusing and odd.

All in all this series was a mildly enjoyable, but mediocre read. If you like space romance and are looking for something light to fill the time between heavier reads then by all means give this series a try. It's not bad, it just skims the surface of being good.

The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter by Michael J. Sullivan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Content: Small amount of strong language



Riyria's job appears easy: discover what happened to the missing duchess and, if she lives, bring her home . . . if not, punish those responsible. But nothing is simple in the crowded, narrow, mist-filled streets of Rochelle, where more than one ancient legend lurks.

This was such a fun read. The story line and the mystery surrounding the city of Rochelle was good and Genny, the duchess was such a likable character. I was rooting for her the whole time and hoping she would get rescued and that the duke really did love her. I won't spoil what happens though.

What I loved the most about this book were the secondary characters. From Genny to Evelyn Hemsworth (I absolutely loved every scene that woman was in, and Royce's reaction to her cracked me up), they were all so very well written. I laughed out loud quite a few times while reading this. Plus the banter between Royce and Hadrian is always entertaining. I cannot think of another book duo that I love more, although Wax and Wayne from Mistborn era 2 come close.

The Death of Dulgath had some nice references to the Legends of the First Empire series and it seemed as though this book hinted at things from the new "bridge series" that is currently being written. I'm excited to see where that series goes. There was one thread left hanging at the end of this book that I'm dying to know more about. Here's hoping we find out more in the next book.

I must say that I'm sad to be caught up on all the Riyria books now, but so glad I read them at the same time. I'm looking forward to reading more in the future.