The Magician’s Accomplice: A Commander Jana Matinova Investigation
by Michael Genelin
Hardcover
List Price: $25.00
Published in 2010
ISBN-10: 1-56947-626-8

I was very lucky to get a free Kindle copy of this book. I actually turned on the speech function of Kindle so I can listen and drive. This story enthralled me from the start. An impoverish student, masquerading as a guest, sneaked into Savoy hotel in Slovakia to get a free breakfast. He was gunned down as a result. Slovakian police commander Jana Matinova received the call late at night and plunged into this unusual murder case.

I love the setting. When I started reading this book, I had no idea of it’s foreign setting. It’s always fun to know about other countries. Just like when I read Blood of the Wicked by Leighton Gage. I like the journey and the information that I wouldn’t otherwise know. I highly recommend this book. It was free when I downloaded it, but right now, it’s $9.99 as an e-book in Kindle.

About the author:

Michael Genelin, a graduate of UCLA and the UCLA Law School, has served in the LA District Attorney’s Office and the US Department of Justice in Central Europe. He has written for film and has been an adviser to television series. He now lives with his wife and daughter in Paris. (from Fantastic Fiction) More info at the author’s website.

Tags: Michael Genelin

When A Woman Takes An Axe To A Wall:
by Allegra Bennett
Paperback
List Price: $15.99
Published in 2006
ISBN-10: 0-9754402-4-1

When a Woman Takes an Axe to a Wall is an uplifting book. It demonstrates the power of a woman to do just about anything she sets her mind to. At first I couldn’t relate because I’m always the one in charge of fixing anything that goes wrong in the house. If there is such a thing as traditional role in house repairs, then my husband and I have switched it since the beginning.

Each chapter features a woman who takes control of her home. Most of the featured women are divorced, but they don’t stay down for long. They triumph over their situation. I can say that this is a feel good book.

If you had ever thought you couldn’t possibly do repair because it’s a man’s domain, read this book and see for yourself. All kinds of women takes control and took an axe to a wall.

Giveaway:
I’m giving away my used copy of this book. Contest open worldwide. Answer this question:

Have you ever taken on a repair in your home? How did it make you feel on completion?

and fill up this form at the same time.

I’ll pick a winner from the comments left below and address for shipping from the form.

Tags: Allegra Bennett

I Love This Bar (Book 1, Honky Tonk Series)
by Carolyn Brown
Mass Market Paperback, 384 Pages
List Price: $7.99
Published in 2010
ISBN-10: 1-4022-3926-2

I was 9 years old when I started reading about cowboys. I particularly like Diana Palmer’s Long, Tall Texan series and Joan Johnston’s Hawks Way series. I just love cowboys. When I was offered a chance to immersed myself in Honky Tonk set almost right at my backyard, I cannot resist.

This time, there’s Daisy O’Dell who’s perfectly happy to manage a bar she inherited from her friend, Ruby. She has her regulars, and her juke box. She takes care of animals in her time off. She’s sort of the anointed local vet.

One night, she literally run into Jarod McElroy, a guy from Oklahoma who only went to Texas to help his old and sick uncle, and changed the course of her life. Jarod’s uncle Emmett is an adorable curmudgeon of a man. He’s practically a teddy bear with a bark and bite. He deserves special mention because I really like him.

This is a fun book to read. I highly recommend it. Carolyn Brown excels at giving you a close look at the locales,  you can almost taste the dust on your tongue.

If you also reviewed this book, feel free to leave your link. The link must land to that specific post. All others will be deleted.

Tags: Carolyn Brown, Danielle Jackson, Sourcebooks

by Laura Kinsale
Sourcebooks Re-issue 5/2010
ISBN-10: 1402237022
Publication Date: 2010-05-04

I enjoyed reading this book very much. It’s probably one of the earlier paranormal books written, before it was it was commonly done. I couldn’t tell because it’s beautiful. Although I might be a little lost why Faelan was ‘weird’, I enjoyed everything else in this book. Roderica can read thoughts of everyone around her. She doesn’t wish to, but she can anyway. Personally, I will not be comfortable being around someone who can hear my thoughts.

I’d rather not guard what I think about. If I think it is tough, Roderica has to live with it. It’s no wonder that she jumps at the chance to marry Faelan, ‘The Devil Earl, when she met him. She can’t hear him, and that is heaven for him. Unfortunately, all is not smooth-sailing in their relationship.

There’s mystery, lots of romance, and a wonderful book all around. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Danielle at Sourcebooks for my review copy.

Giveaway:

I have an ARC, it’s a tad worn, because I’ve read it already. If you’d like to have it, leave a comment, e-mail your address, and a week from today, I’ll pick a winner and mail the book right away. Oh, yeah. Open worldwide. But like I said, the book is used. It’s an ARC.

From the author’s site:

Cursed with the ability to hear the thoughts of those around her, Roderica is resigned to living without marriage or love. But when she finds one man’s thoughts closed to her, she takes her only chance on marriage with an enigmatic, impoverished lord, The Devil Earl, whose Irish estate is haunted by memories and faerie mists…

This is a romance with paranormal elements written before fantasy and paranormal was cool. The sidhe that briefly appear in Uncertain Magic are of the traditional Irish type, powerful and enigmatic

What would it really be like to know the minds of everyone around you?

Tags: Danielle Jackson, Laura Kinsale, Sourcebooks

by Gwyn Cready
Mass Market Paperback, 448 pages
Pocket, March 2010
ISBN-10: 1439107246

I had a tough time getting into this book. I wanted to read it because it couldn’t have won all those accolades if it isn’t any good. Sometimes, my mind gets into a certain mindset when I hear a certain word, like “time travel”. I find myself getting into the story about a fifth of the way through. It just all come together and I was hooked.

I love the way she landed back into the past. There’s so many time travel books out there, and it makes it really fun for me when the author comes up with unique ways to get there. Cam and Peter’s story has many surprises that I love their moving story. If you’re reading this book and you find it a little slow in the beginning, don’t give up. It picks up and heats up when Cam goes back into the past.

This book reminds me so much of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. I adore that book, but you couldn’t tell the first 7 times I tried to read it. Then I finally got into it and couldn’t get enough. Cready’s book is brilliant.

Thanks to Ayelet of Simon & Schuster for my review copy.

About the book:

In RITA® Award–winning author Gwyn Cready’s fun and sexy new time-travel adventure, an ambitious writer discovers that bad-boy painters are as timeless—and irresistible—as their art. . . .Art historian Campbell Stratford is about to make a name for herself with her scandalously sexy tell-all “fictographies” of famous seventeenth-century artists, but she’s more iintimately familiar with her subjects than her eager readers can imagine. Thanks to a time portal she accidentally discovered, she has caused quite a stir in the Great Beyond. To save their reputations, the Guild protecting dead artists convinces playboy Peter Lely, portraitist to the king, to sabotage Cam’s latest project. A few hours posing on Sir Peter’s modeling chaise leads to a night of seductive passion—then Cam returns home and discovers his betrayal. But before she can turn her angry pen on her lover, Sir Peter makes a surprise visit to the future and transforms Cam’s twenty-first-century life into chaos of classic proportions. . . .

Tags: Gwyn Cready, Sarah Rea