Read An E-Book Week Recap

Last week was Read An E-Book week and I decided to stick to e-books for the week. Had the chance to read three e-books but none were standouts for me. Sorta had issues with all of them. Not sure if it was just me and my mood and I was just too picky about certain things or what. Had planned to do reviews for each one as I read them but was so busy with the girls and stuff going on here that I never did get the chance. Best laid plans and all that. 😉 So, here’s a quick recap of the three that I had the chance to read.

Title: SECOND CHANCES
Author: Denise Belinda McDonald
Why I Read It: One of the e-books I read for Read an E-Book Week that happened last week.

Blurb: Be careful what you ask for. It might come with spurs—and baggage.

The Paintbrush Series

After catching her boyfriend with his pants around his knees while a walking, talking cliché takes “dictation”, Suzanne Walters quits her job, quits her man, quits Texas and moves to Wyoming to find the woman she used to be. Unfortunately, her first five minutes in Paintbrush finds her facing down the town bully in the local diner—and running smack into the one thing she’s not looking for: a wet dream in cowboy boots, Jacob Bowman.

Jacob excels at two things—flying under the radar, and saving his pennies in hopes of running his own ranch someday. He can’t stop thinking about the fantasy in tight Wranglers who nearly mowed him down exiting the diner. The curvy, vivacious spitfire makes his mouth go dry. She’s got her eye on him, as well, but her determination to prove her independence is just as strong as the sexual pull between them.

Life’s knocks have given them both strong hearts, and even stronger wills. As danger looms, that stubborn pride could cost their one chance to discover if there’s something more between them than great sex.

Will they swallow their pride, or will they lose it all?

Brief Comments: This one started off slow before it got interesting and grabbed my attention. I’m a sucker for a cowboy and loved Jacob in this. Zan was his perfect match. My only quibble was the villain. He was too fixated on Zan from the minute he met her and needed to be taken down a notch or two. I’m hoping there will be a story for Quinn (Zan’s nephew) in the future.

Rating: B

Title: MIDNIGHT REBORN
Author: D. McEntire
Why I Read It: Another of the e-books I read for Read an E-Book Week.

Blurb: Never look back…

The Watchers, Book 1

After suffering years of abuse as the virtual prisoner of a drug lord, Robyn Andrews has had enough. A carefully planned escape is her only hope for survival. Her past nipping at her heels, she boards the first bus out of town and heads for Louisville, Kentucky.

Trigg is a Watcher with two missions in life. One, to hunt and eliminate Rogue vampires. Two, to be left alone. Yet he can’t bring himself to harden his heart against the petite woman who looks so lost standing in the rain. And when Robyn joins him in a battle against Rogues, the little spitfire shows the bravery of ten Watchers. She’s someone special, someone he needs in his dark life.

Someone he can never have. He’s vampire; she’s human. A future for them is impossible.

But the past has a way of catching up—and changing destinies with deadly speed.

Brief Comments: This was a new to me author. The blurb sounded good and as I was in a paranormal mood, I uploaded this to my Kindle to read. I found it sad and somewhat depressing, too much drama. The heroine was much too young, IMO. She was only 18. Lived in Texas on a ranch with her mother and her mother’s boyfriend (she was 13/14 when she first moved to the ranch so I’ll call him Creepy Dude) who liked to abuse them and keep her locked in the basement wearing only a nightgown so she couldn’t escape. Mother was always locked in the bedroom, away from the daughter. Said boyfriend was a drug runner. Liked to look at the heroine but never did more than look. Mother later dies of a drug overdose and heroine gets released from the basement to take over her mother’s job in cooking and cleaning the house before getting locked up in the basement again each night. One night the heroine woke up to find Creepy Dude had shaved off all her hair because he said she had either talked or looked at one of his men. Bastard. On her 18th birthday Creepy Dude tells her once he came back from town, he’d have a “special gift” for her. You can probably imagine what the special gift was.

Several hours later, someone comes into the basement wanting to cop a feel and the heroine, fearing for her life, stabs the guy, thinking it’s the Creepy Dude. Turns out it’s one of Creepy Dude’s men who was left at the ranch to watch over it while all the other men went off to town to drink and have some fun. Heroine fears what Creepy Dude will do when he gets back so she steals whatever money she can get her hands on and takes a truck, heads to the bus station and gets on the first bus heading out of town. She takes with her a bag with a couple changes of clothes and a journal she always wrote in, detailing stuff that happened ever since she moved to Creepy Dude’s ranch with her mother.

Sometime later she arrives in Kentucky. She ends up seeing the hero in a restaurant she stopped to eat at. Even though they don’t speak, the hero has the waitress take over a burger and milkshake to the heroine, just before he walks out, after seeing the way she kept staring at him while he was eating. Fast forward a bit and it’s after Robyn leaves the restuarant and is trying to find someplace outside to sleep because she has no money. She hears an altercation between the hero and a couple men (Rogues) and because she didn’t think three against one was fair, she hides her bag and leftover burger and she steps in to help. Gets hurt, hero takes her home with him and she flips when she wakes up later realizing that she left her bag back where she hid it. Pleads with the hero to go find it for her (because of the journal) and all he finds when he goes back are her clothes, dirty and on the floor and nothing else. Because while she was recuperating at the hero’s house, someone came along and found the journal, read it and noticed the name of Creepy Dude and made a call to try to make money off the journal because how did we not know that even though Creepy Dude lived in Texas he also had his fingers in the drug trafficking in Kentucky and he was still mighty upset that his little lady flew the coop and he was determined to find her and make her pay for embarrassing him in front of his men?

While Creepy Dude is heading to Kentucky, Robyn and Trigg are giving in to their feelings but Trigg isn’t sure how to feel about Robyn so after a night where he almost took too much blood from her, he told one of his buddies to find Robyn somewhere else to live because he couldn’t control himself when he was near her.

I don’t know why I kept reading this but I figured I had gotten so far into it that I had to see what happened next. Trigg seemed to ignore Robyn more than anything once he realized she’d gotten too close and made him want things he never thought he’s have. Creepy Dude was just creepy and my main problem with him was that he looked and made comments to Robyn while she lived on his ranch but he never tried anything until she turned 18? A drug lord with morals? That didn’t seem believable to me and I felt her going from the ranch to the hero’s place and falling so quickly in love with him was just way too soon.

Rating: A D bordering on an F because this is one I won’t be rereading and I think I’ll be skipping the rest of this series when it comes out.

Title: DANGEROUS BOYS & THEIR TOY
Author: Shayla Black
Why I Read It: Last of the e-books I read for Read an E-Book Week.

Blurb: Trading orgasms for information isn’t their usual way of doing business, but when a missing criminal-turned-star-witness and fifty grand are on the line, bounty hunter R. A. Thorn and Detective Cameron Martinez are prepared to put their bodies to the task and give gorgeous Brenna Sheridan everything she needs.

An exchange they never anticipated becomes an experience none can forget—or walk away from. Sexual hunger sizzles the threesome, but the stakes and danger rise as a mafia bad-ass stalks Brenna.

Soon, their “deal” is no longer about information—or sex. Emotions bind Brenna, Cam and Thorn together more tightly than they ever imagined as the men protect—and serve—the beloved woman neither can live without.

Brief Comments: I usually love everything Shelley Bradley/Shayla Black writes. WICKED TIES and TEMPT ME WITH DARKNESS are probably my favorite books by her but this one. It just didn’t work for me. I’m probably one of a few who doesn’t like reading m/m scenes but I will read it if the author can make it work for me and it’s not coming completely out of left field. My main issue with this one was that the men were friends for several years and never even thought of each other as anything but a friend yet we were supposed to believe that after the heroine came along that the guys had a major epiphany and realized they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves?

Rating: C

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