Favorite Line: “You’d think that lightening struck her p**sy, too.” (p. 100)

Emma Holly is known for her erotica so don’t be surprised by the many pages full of twinge worthy sex. It is also book one in a trilogy.

Read the review of Kissing Midnight by Emma Holly at Scooper Speaks. Kissing Midnight goes on sale in June 2009.

Food to go with your fiction: roast beef. Eat it while you read. Click on the picture to find the recipe.

Favorite lines: “We could see your most secret desires, could watch them together. You know I can make all your wildest dreams come true if you let me into your mind.” (p. 106)

Rydstrom Woede: A dethroned king searching for a weapon to kill a usurper incapable of death, is taken hostage by the usurper’s sister and chained to a bed.

Sabine: The sorceress of Illusions is capable of evil after multiple deaths and resurrections leave her with intimate knowledge of the dark. She needs a piece of the former king to make a safe home for herself and her sister.

The two will lie and bring both pleasure and pain to one another, before they discover that embracing their differences may be the only way to bring about the downfall of their common enemy.

Kresley Cole has been writing the Immortals After Dark series since 2006 when she first introduced them in A Hunger Like No Other. Usually we get a kick ass heroine that is basically good. Kiss of a Demon King is a little different. It gives us an evil heroine, Sabine.

She needs help, after being taught that bad is good. (She is a demon.) Sabine is someone that I didn’t really like, but she was interesting. As the story progressed I began to see that her ability to weave illusions included her ability to hide her emotions from me. She wove an illusion that made me believe she was a cold and evil women, cause who else will make people believe their worst fears are taking place?

That’s where Rydstrom comes in. He has learned to deny his personal needs over the years, especially because of his need to overthrow the demon who stole his thrown. He is savage when he has to be, but he’s a courtly demon. He cares. He is suppressed. But when Sabine shows up and provokes his inner monster, Rydstrom learns that he wants a little bit of darkness in his life.

This darkness is played with throughout the story because the book is full of sexual tension. It takes up a huge part of the book as the main characters’ major battle is held sexually against one another. They torment and tease each other throughout the first half of the book. And while it worked to build tension, it made me uncomfortable. Two people learning about each others’ sexuality when they really don’t know each other(or want to know each other) bothered me.

In the end, I enjoyed this tale of two gray characters walking a gray line. Sabine and Rydstrom pick up something from the other. They grow as characters, prove that opposites attract, and learn that life is definitely interesting with the other present.

So what do they all have to do with each other? Well each one leads to the next. Take romance. We all know that romance alone is fine, but with sex it just gets better. A physical “pick me up” to go with the emotional high.

That takes me to fingers. Man hand fingers. You know the big, beautiful, clean manly fingers that usually show up in every good romance novel. “His finger slid through her heat, pressed deeper into her. That easy she came, shattering into fragments her body so responsive she couldn’t hide her reaction if she wanted to.” (Christine Feehan’s Dark Demon, p. 342)

So, we got the pleasure that goes with man hands and that makes me think about girl hands. You know, you paint your nails and then it starts to come off, but you’re always too lazy to actually clean them off with nail polish?

I’m at WalMart buying nail polish remover, cause face it, after awhile it’s just pathetic to have a few chips of paint that won’t come off staring at you everyday. At WalMart you get the jar of polish remover that you can stick your fingers into and soon your pumpin’ fingers with a jar. After awhile the cold feeling goes away and it warms up, which takes me back to Christine Feehan’s book, and well…pap smears. Eww!!

So I want to thank my co-worker for telling me why she doesn’t use the jar of nail polish remover. I never connected it to finger sex before today because I twist my fingers in the jar.  Her reply?  “That’s a good technique.” What do you think?

Favorite lines: “She has the mark. Hannah. She has the death mark.” (p. 21)

Long ago, there were good earth witches who worked along side the witch hunters. Together they destroyed the demon witches, earth witches gone bad.

One day the demon witches worked a curse that separated the witch hunters and earth witches. The curse made the hunters hunger for witch blood and they disavowed their God. The earth witches went into hiding.

Some hunters were determined to remain true to their sole purpose in life…to protect earth witches. They didn’t seek out witches and refused to give in to their blood lust, for they knew to do so would be to give up their soul for all eternity. Axel Locke, leader of the Wing Slayer Hunters, is such a man. He will not lose his soul because of  lust for power, but he will to save his sister’s life.

Axel’s father killed the wrong witch and in retaliation a death curse was placed on him. Because he is an immortal witch hunter the curse passed along to the next mortal of his line, his daughter, Hannah. Axel has a limited amount of time to find an earth witch to break the curse or kill the demon witch who placed the curse or his sister will die.

Jennifer Lyon has a unique concept of witches and their guardians who were torn apart by the bad guys, finding their way back together in Blood Magic. The good guys are faced with two options in life: Kill a witch and lose their soul, or have sex often to slake their need for blood.

The tormented hero isn’t new territory for the romance circuit (most heroes are tormented and sex often plays a role in their reaction to their problems), but it is fun and well written. I devoured the book, even as my rational mind screamed at the men for being to thick-headed to pick up on the signs of earth witches having more to offer than blood.

The heroine, Darcy MacAlister, is a woman with many issues and needs to come to terms with her witch bloodline. She works at it throughout the book. Despite her personal issues, Darcy is understanding and overcomes her own hangups in order to help Axel with his. She proves to be powerful, independent and willing to give it all up for the love of her life.

In closing, Blood Magic made me want more. More witches. More witch hunters. More sex. More. More. More.

paranormal romance. I think I would use blend Christianity with my imagination to create the following mythology. (The picture is by selfmade1 and is for sale at Deviantart.com)

It is written that God created man and woman, and placed them in a beautiful garden.  This first couple was perfect in all ways.  They were also innocent, sin did not exist.  They wanted for nothing, until the day an angel took the body of a serpent in order to tempt the first couple to break the only commandment that God had given them.

He had told them not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad but at the serpents urging Eve did so anyway. Adam, unable to bear life without his woman followed his wife’s example and ate from the tree too.  Instantly God knew what was done and cast the couple from the only home they had ever known, exposing them to a brutal world.

Satan, the serpent, and his fellow fallen angels were cast out of heaven to the desolate world below: the same hard world where man was cast.  The fallen angels were transformed into carnivorous men who were dependent on blood to live: the original vampire.  God knew that without protection his greatest creations would become extinct. With that thought in mind he created creatures with the ability to transform into animal form but he also tempered the creatures with mans better qualities, compassion and love.

The were-creatures could be any of the animal predators, but more than that they could co-exist with the humans while protecting them.

Because God is loving he created a means of redemption for the fallen angels.  These vampires could become mortal or human if they found their true life partner and made amends for their traitorous actions.  The bond between Fallen and mortal would make the need for blood disappear.

In the meanwhile, were-creatures live amongst the humans, co-habitating with them and protecting them from the soulless vampires that walk the earth.  Sadly humans feared that which was different and killed any were-creature they found. Those left untouched, became fearful, pessimistic and indifferent to humanity. They did as they were commanded, but learned to hide their differences from those who would hunt them.

Favorite Line: “I opened the door, adjusted the large leather strap that ran across my breasts so it hid my nipples and tugged down the minuscule bit of cloth on my rump, prayed the upcoming ceremony was going to be brief.” (p. 32)

After being taken to Abbadon, May Northcott knew that her mate, Gabriel Tauhou, would find a way to save her. She just never imagined that it would mean her becoming a demon lord consort.

Gabriel can’t wait to get May back. He has worked relentlessly towards her return, even while putting off a weyr meeting. When she is returned, it is back to business. The business of leading the silver dragons, loving May and ensuring the survival of dragonkind.

In the second installment of The Silver Dragons series, Up in Smoke, Ms. MacAlister presents May in her new Abbadon home trying to outwit her boss, the demon lord, Magoth. It isn’t long before Gabriel is able to talk her into becoming Magoth’s consort, because this will give Magoth access to the human world, something that he’s wanted for a very long time.

When May returns to Earth she yearns to take up her duties as Gabriel’s mate and that means attending the sarkany, weyr meeting. At the meeting a discussion about the rightful leader of the blue dragons is discussed, ending with a group of men entering and opening fire on the assembled people. During the attack a horrendous act takes place that changes May.

I was a little disappointed that Magoth didn’t torture May. He had an image to uphold and he ruined it for me by just insisting that May become his consort. I’m hoping he’ll redeem himself in the upcoming books.

The books are full of sexual tension that is relieved by quickies with no foreplay. And I had no problem with that. Not every sex scene needs to be the same and by eliminating the foreplay a lot of repetition is eliminated.

But other than the Magoth issue, I enjoyed the comedic story. By the end, I disliked May’s sister even more, wanted Aisling to have her baby, and wished for book three. Up in Smoke is not a stand alone book, so check out Playing with Fire before picking this book up. What do you think about Up in Smoke?

Favorite Lines: “He didn’t realize he’d already kissed just about every inch of Sookie Stackhouse. We’d been as up close and personal as a man and woman could be.” (p. 30)

The witch wars ended with the vampires coming out on top and Eric regaining the memory of who he was, but no memory of his time with amnesia. Dying to know what went on between himself and Sookie, he relentlessly drops hints and waits for Sookie to tell him about himself.

Meanwhile, Jason (Sookie’s brother), turns into a werepanther and is accepted into the nearby inbred community of Hotshot. That is until a shooter begins targeting shifters and suspicion drifts to Jason.

Sookie takes it upon herself to find the killer before Jason can become targeted for retaliation.

If you’ve been keeping up with with the Southern Vampire series you know that werecreatures are made after being bit several times. So Dead as a Doornail takes place a few weeks after Dead to the World ends, and begins with Jason turning into a werepanther. This begins an even thorougher introduction into the were-world and its politics.

As is the norm with this series several threads are taking place: Sookie’s hunt for a killer, her concern for Tara and her part in the contest for pack leadership. All have their own climaxes, but Ms. Harris has a talent for making the seemingly seperate stories come together for a great ending.

Bill is still around pissing off Sookie with his new human girlfriend, but he plays a tiny role in this book. Eric’s insecurities show as he makes it clear that he remembers every detail of his life with the exception of his time with amnesia. Tara makes a prolonged appearance with a new vampire never before introduced culminating in a great ending and Eric and Sookie on the same page.

Basically, Dead as a Doornail is an integral part of the Southern Vampire series. It points out interesting things that happened in the past and leads the reader through a mystery to the next book, Definitely Dead.

Okay, now it’s time to read what other people thing about Dead as a Doornail. Check out The Gospel According to Prisco, HorrorScope, and Debbie’s World.

Favorite Lines: “His hands cupped to capture my naked breasts.” (p. 308)

Delilah Street, paranormal investigator, has been hired by four different clients to discover the identity of the male half of an two embracing skeletons found in the park.  She’s already discovered that the female half is the daughter of the werewolf mob and barely survived when that mob decided to hunt her.

With the help of her lover, Ric Montoya, Delilah escaped, but this does little to prepare her for her the Egyptian evil lying in underground Las Vegas, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Once again Carole Nelson Douglas has done a great job making me interested in old movies, vintage clothes and the possibilities that come with a wonderful imagination.

Her cast of zombies, vampires, demons, werecreatures, humans, and the unknown are interesting and exciting. They are beautifully detailed and given lively dialogues, but most importantly all play a great role.A character in itself is Delilah’s familiar, the lock of hair Snow gave her in book one. It is constantly morphing into something new, fashionable and at times protective.

The book is all about a mystery, but it plays up the paranormal romance brewing between Delilah and Ric and the potential sexual pull between Snow and Delilah.

Brimstone Kiss has its share of mind blowing foreplay and surprises. Some of the story-lines  from book one, Dancing with Werewolves, are answered, while others are explored and left to linger for the next installment in the Delilah Street: Paranormal Investigator.

One of my favorite parts of the story is the way Ms. Douglas humanizes Delilah by making her menstruate and get cramps. Yeah, I know it’s kinda gross, but how many books take the time to bring up the inconvenience of Mother Nature in detail, along with the embarrassment of having an attractive man smell you because of it. (No, I’m not talking about the funky smell that sometimes accompanies bloody pads.)

The story ends like a great action packed movie. It’s bloody, emotional and has a cliff-hanger ending guaranteed to bring you back.

Other reviews: SciFiGuy, Darque Reviews, PNR Bookworm. Or check out this interview at International Thriller Writers.