Hell, Yeah
by Carolyn Brown
Mass Market Paperback
List Price: $7.99
Published in 2010
ISBN-10: 1-4022-3927-0

This title is the second installment of the Honky Tonk series. It started out with I Love This Bar. You don’t need to read the first book to enjoy this one. Cathy O’Dell is an accountant who bought the Honky Tonk bar from her cousin, Daisy, who was the star of the first book.

On New Years eve, Travis Henry kissed her. He’s geologist in town for a new oil well. He just also happen to have his new trailer located right next to Cathy’s bar. Sparks fly, and this story is off to a rollicking start.

While I enjoy reading this story, it didn’t hold my attention like Carolyn Brown’s other book. She’s an awesome writer guaranteed to make you enjoy her story, but I just can’t seem to care about Cathy or Henry for some reason. I think maybe it’s because Cathy and Henry are simply happy and well-adjusted. One of the reason I grow from reading stories is when a character has a personal struggle. I can learn from the choices that they make. I can learn from when they do it wrong, or when they do it right. I can decide for myself if there’s no clear answer. In this story, it’s a beautiful sunset. Period.

Other books in the series
I Love This Bar (June, 2010)
Hell, Yeah (Aug., 2010)
My Give-A-Damn’s Busted (Oct., 2010)
Honky Tonk Christmas (Nov., 2010)

Tags: Carolyn Brown

Burn: A Novel
by Linda Howard
Read by Joyce Bean

My Review:
Linda Howard is one of my favorite author. Her Mackenzie series is still one of my favorite books. I still re-read Sarah’s Child, Loving Evangeline, and Duncan’s Bride. I haven’t had a chance to read her latest 4 books. So, when I find this audio book at the library, I did my happy dance. It’s 11 disc long, and I had it in my iPod in no time.

Unfortunately for me, I had to restart that prologue and chapter 1 twice. I thought there might have been some mistake. The story wasn’t grabbing me the way that I expect a Linda Howard book would do. The prologue happens on a ship. Then it went back to 7 months ago when Jenner Redwine won a lottery jackpot.

I am always seduced my Linda Howard’s book that by the time the hero and heroine get it on, I am so happy for them…but Jenner and Caile (sp?) does not have any chemistry. (at least, when I was listening to the story, there wasn’t any). By the time I got towards the end, I just wanted the story to end so I can go on to the next book.

Would I recommend this book? Not on a first try, absolutely not. Go with her backlist because they’re awesome books. They have punch. They have chemistry by the gallons that would just pull you in and never let you up until the book ends. And in the end, you’ll sigh wanting more of the story.

So, I won’t be giving away a copy of this book. I will give away one of my other favorite Linda Howard title. Open worldwide, drawing on February 26.
Three different winners. Make sure to let me know which particular book you’d like to get in your comment.
Shades of Twilight
After the Night
Almost Forever

Product Description

It’s true what they say: Money changes everything. And in Linda Howard’s red-hot novel Burn, the changes come fast, furious, and filled with the kind of sexy suspense, heart-stopping romance, beautiful people, and risky business guaranteed to give you the most bang for your buck.

Money certainly changes Jenner Redwine’s life when she wins a lottery jackpot. But it also costs her plenty: Her father rips her off and disappears, her fortune-hunting boyfriend soon becomes her ex, and friends-turned-freeloaders give her the cold shoulder when she stops paying for everything.

Flush with new money, Jenner can’t imagine ever finding a place in the world of the wealthy. Seven years later, though, she’s rubbing elbows with the rich, despite the fact she still feels like a party crasher. Luckily she finds an ally–and a guide to the rarefied realm of privilege–in shy, kind-hearted heiress Sydney Hazlett, who quickly becomes Jenner’s confidante and surrogate sister.

When Sydney invites Jenner on a charity cruise aboard a luxury liner, Jenner reluctantly agrees. But while she’s expecting–and dreading–two weeks of masquerade balls, art auctions, and preening glitterati, what she gets is more like a Hitchcock movie than a Love Boat episode. Taken hostage by a menacing stranger, Jenner must cooperate in a mysterious cloak-and-dagger scheme–or else. With nowhere to run, and with Sydney’s life as well as her own at risk, Jenner is drawn into a game of dizzying intrigue and harrowing danger. But as her panic gives way to exhilaration, and fear of her captor turns to fascination, Jenner rediscovers feelings she hasn’t had in years–and realizes she’s found a life worth living. If she survives.

HER BOOKS: as listed by Fantastic Fiction

Series
Sarah
1. Sarah’s Child (1985)
2. Almost Forever (1986)
3. Bluebird Winter (1987)
Sarah’s ChildAlmost ForeverBluebird Winter

Kell Sabin
1. Midnight Rainbow (1986)
2. Diamond Bay (1987)
3. Heartbreaker (1987)
4. White Lies (1988)
Midnight RainbowDiamond BayHeartbreakerWhite Lies

Mackenzie
1. Mackenzie’s Mountain (1989)
2. Mackenzie’s Mission (1992)
3. Mackenzie’s Pleasure (1996)
4. Mackenzie’s Magic (1996)
5. A Game of Chance (2000)

Duncan and Evangeline
1. Duncan’s Bride (1990)
2. Loving Evangeline (1994)

Western
1. A Lady of the West (1990)
2. Angel Creek (1991)
3. The Touch of Fire (1992)
A Lady of the WestAngel CreekThe Touch of Fire

John Medina
1. Kill and Tell (1998)
2. All the Queen’s Men (1999)
3. Kiss Me While I Sleep (2004)

Blair Mallory
1. To Die for (2004)
2. Drop Dead Gorgeous (2006)

Novels
An Independent Wife (1982)
All That Glitters (1982)
Against the Rules (1983)
Come Lie with Me (1984)
Tears of the Renegade (1985)
The Cutting Edge (1985)
The Way Home (1991)
Overload (1993)
Heart of Fire (1993)
After the Night (1995)
Dream Man (1995)
Shades of Twilight (1996)
Son of the Morning (1997)
Now You See Her (1998)
Mr Perfect (2000)
Open Season (2001)
Dying to Please (2002)
Cry No More (2003)
Killing Time (2005)
Cover of Night (2006)
Up Close and Dangerous (2007)
Death Angel (2008)
Burn (2009)
Ice (2009)
Blood Born (2010) (with Linda Jones)
Veil of Night (2010)

Tags: Joyce Bean, Linda Howard

Shadow Music: A Novel
by Julie Garwood
Audio
Read by Davina Porter

The Secret is my first Julie Garwood book. It’s a story set in the highlands. This one is too, but the girl, Gabriel is a related to the King of St. Biel. I find that I don’t like this story as I did the others. I don’t know if it’s the reader who sounds like a very old woman. The heroine is young, and the narrator is old or at least sounds like a really old person. I was disappointed. Maybe it’s the story. I just don’t know. But, it’s Julie Garwood, so I had to read it. I’ve always like her book, except this one.

About the book:

I usually enjoy Louanne Rice’s books. I first read her Dream Country and was so touch by the characters. I emerged from the story bleary-eyed and satisfied. I cried over her Home Fires, I was so touched. Follow the Stars Home just about broke my heart into million little pieces. In Cloud Nine, Safe Harbour and Firefly Beach, I didn’t want to stop reading, I just truly enjoyed her characters and their lives. Then I started reading The Perfect Summer and just stopped for no special reason. I think it was because I veg out on her books and needed a break.

I picked her books again with this one, and it wasn’t a Louanne Rice I know. This is a story about Sister Bernadette and Tom Kelly, and of their son they left behind in Ireland, Seamus Sullivan and his love of Kathryn. For 23 years, Tom stayed near Sister Bernadette, working as a groundskeeper.

What Matters Most is not about love. It’s about being true to your vocation no matter the wreckage it left behind. While Sister Bernadette might make for a good Nun, she sure sucked as a mother, and as someone who’s supposed to love Tom Kelly. She’s so selfish, I just want to dive into the book and slap her a little.

While she was pregnant, she received a calling from Mother Mary, which she took to mean that she has to be a Nun. Never mind that she’s pregnant with Tom’s child. Tom seem like a wonderful, hardworking man. She wouldn’t even let Tom helped with raising their child or have much to say in what to do with him. She left the child in a convent orphanage, and not a nice one at that. Tom’s family is rich and powerful and good people. What could it hurt for her to have Tom raise their child?

The story picks up from when they went back to Ireland to find their child. I just couldn’t really excuse her behavior. Why didn’t she let Tom raise their child? Why leave in Orphanage to suffer? It wasn’t the Mother Superior who had an axe to grind that ruined their lives, it’s actually her, Sister Bernadette – a selfish, self-centered woman! She’s right up there my list of unlikeable heroine. The secondary story is about Seamus and Kathryn.

The story is effective, after all, Ms. Rice have managed to make Sister Bernadette so hateful. Only a talented author could draw out such emotion. Still, I wouldn’t be keeping this book for re-reading. In fact, I’m sure to put this on my list of books never to be read again.

Would I recommend Louanne Rice’s books? YES! Would I read more of her books? YES!

If you want story that’s epic, sweeping, and magnificient, I suggest Jennifer Donnelly’s The Tea Rose and The Winter Rose. There’s a third book coming out, and I can’t wait to read it.

A Far Country (Vintage)
by Daniel Mason
Paperback, 288 Pages
ISBN-10: 1-4000-3039-0

I picked this book because my husband just bought me an iPod and I want to listen to audio books. I think I’m going to get the 160 G iPod because I like to carry a lot of books at one time. This book kept me company as I dig and played with dirt trying to plant my hedges.

The prose is wonderful. Except, for some reason, it felt like driving on a freeway tired. You know how when you drive tired, you’re seeing the road in snapshots? I feel that way listening to this story. I thought at first the setting was somewhere in North America, then at some points, it felt like it might be in the middle east. I can’t quite grasp it. When I don’t have the pages to flip back and forth, it makes it hard to guess.

I can’t stop listening, but I can’t also keep tract of the whole story in a smooth fashion. This author wrote another book before, A Piano Tuner. I’m going to listen to that one to see what I’m missing. This is what amazon said.