Redneck Ex – Claire Croxton

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Kathy Wheeler

Available today from TheWildRosePress.com and Amazon.

“Well.” Wait! Can I say that in a southern accent? Yes, I believe so. I’m from Texas. Let me start again.

Whey-ell. How do you like Redneck Ex for a title? I have to admit, even being from Texas, I’m not wild about the cowboy, southern thing. However, I found this story to be one of the most heartwarming I’ve run across in some time.

This debut author’s novel will grip your heart in the first two pages. I expect Ms. Croxton will have many more successful endeavors to follow. Her wit is unparalleled, balanced perfectly with gripping emotion.

Begged by her elderly ex-in-laws, Summer Leigh Johnson flies to Germany to see her ex-husband, comatose after a stint in Iraq. Years prior, Dwight Sebastian Sullivan dumped Summer Leigh and remarried repeatedly. She hasn’t seen or spoken to him since the divorce, yet he listed her as next of kin. Talking to a comatose ex was much easier to deal with than a smiling sexy live version, and it takes its toll.

But, supposin’ it’s not just romance you want. Perhaps, you’d wouldn’t mind a little mystery as whey-ell. Gripping, I tell you. Just gripping.

Claire Croxton’s positively delightful, in both wit and emotion that cannot fail to stir your heart. —Kathy L Wheeler.

In Total Surrender – Anne Mallory

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Kathy Wheeler

I love the title of this book. What I love more is whose surrender it is. The hero is so dark, one has to wonder how he can find the light. But, of course, he does—its romance.

Andreas Merrick is a big time crime lord. If you read Regency, you will understand how unusual a hero this is, at least, in historical. His thought process is fascinating. Ms. Mallory does a fabulous job in convincing the reader how he little he believes in his deserved happiness.

Enter, our heroine, Phoebe Pace. Her father has been showing signs of losing his mental facilities over the course of the past few years. She and her mother have, so far, been able to keep her father’s illness a secret. (In current day, it’s known as Alzheimer’s.) Phoebe has single handedly kept the family business above water, but it’s ripe for takeover. She manages this by posing, somewhat, as a ditz with an over-bright smile and…food—an unorthodox method.

She shows up on Andreas’ doorstep. But he has several dark secrets of his own. That’s all I am willing to say. Suffice to say this book is more unusual than the Historicals I usually read. But I loved it. You will not be disappointed…I promise. —Kathy L Wheeler

A Beginner’s Guide to Rakes – Suzanne Enoch

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Kathy Wheeler

Page 82—’nuff said. Okay, not really. But, honestly. I’ve owned the book for a month and have already read it twice.

Let’s see! Where to start? Diana Benchley, Lady Cameron, widow, destitute, of course. After the death of her gambling husband, she times her return from the Continent to London perfectly. This is a heroine who may have been down, but never out. She had plans—big plans. Upon her arrival in Town, she finds her original benefactor has tested fate and succumbed to his death with a broken neck, chasing foxes—in the rain. She is struck with another notion, insane, notion. To blackmail the man she’d once believed her hero. When she announces her plans in a London ballroom to open a gaming hell, she is destined for destruction. (Again, page 82; On your e-reader, the last line of Chapter Seven—ingenious).

Clever, clever plot. Brilliant dialogue and a twist of suspense that will NOT allow one to set down a truly intriguing tale. There is so much to say that I hesitate, because to give away such a delicious story is flat out ruinous.

Suzanne Enoch’s acumen is intelligent, creative and, in this case, outrageous. Excellent fun!—Kathy L Wheeler.

Lost in Austen

Posted on November 15, 2011 by JodiL

It is a truth universally acknowleged that an Austen lover facing the holiday season with family must be in want of some quality time lost in a beloved literary character’s life. If the family antics that character faces happen to make the Austen lover’s family seem infinitely less tiresome, the visit is evermore worthwhile.

In modern parlance–and with apologies to author Lev Raphael and Janeites everywhere who do Regency English much better–I’m reading a mashup of Pride and Prejudice this month and taking a somewhat perverse pleasure in the fact that the Bennet family is not my own. Though like many a Janeite I have always thought Elizabeth and I were kindred spirits–(dark looks, sharp tongue, Daddy’s girl)–in Lev Raphael’s Pride and Prejudice: The Jewess and the Gentile, she and I have even more in common, our “Hebraic” background.

Raphael’s retelling is so ingenious I’m surprised no one had thought of it sooner. (There is, after all, an infinite number of Pride and Prejudice innovations/continuations/reimaginations out there. My favorites till now: Linda Berdoll’s Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and Darcy and Elizabeth. Both are available on Kindle.) When the Bennets are an Anglo-Jewish family, Darcy’s prejudice regains the fangs that may be lost by readers many generations and a continent removed from the British class system. Mrs. Bennet’s frenetic effort to marry off her daughters has never before seemed so reminiscent of conversations overheard barside at a Great Neck Bar Mitzvah. Mr. Collins is no less insufferable, but his devotion to Lady Catherine and his persnickety determination to follow proper social form become almost endearing when Collins’ first generation conversion to Christianity is its source.

Lev Raphael is a writer I’ve admired for years. He writes across genres. Mysteries, non-fiction, memoir. There are short stories in Dancing on Tisha B’Av that will haunt me always. So it’s especially heartening to feel like he’s having the time of his life romping around Longbourn and Pemberley. I’ve reached the point where I have to ration my reading, and I am not a patient person. That’s how highly I recommend it. Please do give Lizzy my best.

Prey – Linda Howard

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Kathy Wheeler

The last book I reviewed of Linda Howard’s (Veil of Night http://www.bookendbabes.com/2010/09/17/veil-of-night-linda-howard/), while suspenseful, was fun. Prey, however, was so tension filled, I had to be careful where I stopped reading for the night, for surely I would have nightmares. That being said, if you like sitting on the edge of your seat for a horror flick, this may be the book for you.

Not having read the flap (just to see if I could pinpoint the villain, hero, heroine…etc.) The title, Prey (appropriately named in several aspects), should have given it away. And, it did, but not in the way I expected. This story felt like a cross between a Stephen King novel and the movie, The River Wild.

As always, her fabulous writing draws me in. Honestly, I was biting my nails. Obviously, I cannot say much more without giving it away. What I can say, is the heroine is truly angry with the hero, who has moved into her home town and opened a business that rivals hers. A business primarily suited to a man’s world. Wilderness, backpacking guide, hunting…

She is on her last leg, financially speaking. House now on the market, but for her last booking, she is ready to shut down shop. This book is more graphic than most Linda Howard’s you may be familiar, but it will definitely have you turning pages as no other.

My advice? Just keep the lights on when you are ready for sleep—Kathy L Wheeler