May 17, 2011
Graveminder by Melissa Marr
William Morrow
ISBN: 978-0061826870
reviewed by Katherine Hazen

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this book to just anyone. Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoyed it, and would love to see more in this world. It was perfectly eerie, and a must for anyone the slightest bit interested in Southern Gothic.

However, one of the main protagonists, Rebekkah, is a little hard to connect with. I imagine she might rub some people the wrong way. So this may only be one for those who don’t mind a protagonist who’s a little rough around the edges. She has real flaws and real issues, and if you want your main character to be a bit more Mary-Sue’ish, this book isn’t for you.

Unfortunately, it is hard to tell you much about the premise of this book without giving away spoilers. So I won’t say much more about the premise, I think the summary that was originally posted tells you everything you need to know before reading the book:

Three sips to mind the dead . . .

Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the attention her grandmother Maylene bestowed upon the dead of Claysville, the small town where Bek spent her adolescence. There wasn’t a funeral that Maylene didn’t attend, and at each one Rebekkah watched as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual: She took three sips from a silver flask and spoke the words “Sleep well, and stay where I put you.”

Now Maylene is dead, and Bek must go back to the place she left a decade earlier. She soon discovers that Claysville is not just the sleepy town she remembers, and that Maylene had good reason for her odd traditions. It turns out that in Claysville the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected; beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land ruled by the enigmatic Charles, aka Mr. D. If the dead are not properly cared for, they will come back to satiate themselves with food, drink, and stories from the land of the living. Only the Graveminder, by tradition a Barrow woman, and her Undertaker—in this case Byron Montgomery, with whom Bek shares a complicated past—can set things right once the dead begin to walk.

Although she is still grieving for Maylene, Rebekkah will soon find that she has more than a funeral to attend to in Claysville, and that what awaits her may be far worse: dark secrets, a centuries-old bargain, a romance that still haunts her, and a frightening new responsibility—to stop a monster and put the dead to rest where they belong.

I gave myself a few days to let this simmer in the back of my head before writing my review, and I think the big conclusion I came to is this story is more about Byron than Rebekkah. Rebekkah may change the most, but I felt it was less about change and more about letting go of her baggage and accepting herself for who she is. Byron, on the other hand, is the one you find yourself silently routing for from the very beginning.

The things the delighted me most about this book were the world-building and the supporting cast. Marr excels in the creating and twisting mythologies department, and this book is no different. I think Alicia, Charles, and Amity were by far my favorite characters in this book. I would flock to the nearest bookstore to buy a sequel, if it were available, in order to get more of their stories. Overall, definitely a good read if you don’t mind Rebekkah’s issues.

June 21, 2011
Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz
Hyperion
Paranormal, Fantasy, Suspense
ISBN: 978-1-4013-2390-5
Reviewed by Miranda

Joanna Beauchamp and her two daughters, Freya and Ingrid are the Witches of East End. Only these witches are forbidden to use their magical gifts. As summer arrives in North Hampton the ladies are finding it hard to resist using their magical talents. Fearful of the council that punished them they start off using small amounts of magic to help people in need. People start behaving erratically and someone goes missing. The Beauchamp’s become the perfect target for hysterical people looking for someone to blame. To find the cause behind the mysterious happenings in North Hampton the ladies will have to use more magic than ever. Can they find the darkness that has invaded their town before it’s too late or will it find them first?

Melissa de la Cruz’s Witches of East End is full of witchy goodness and a bit of wicked naughtiness as well! The Beauchamp family has its share of mysterious secrets which seem to make them all the more alluring. Joanna the matriarch may have the power to resurrect the dead but she cannot help someone she loves. The pain Joanna feels regarding her perceived failures throughout her long life is palpable. Joanna more than anyone else struck an emotional chord pulling at my heart. Freya may have a talent with love potions but her love life is a mess. It took me awhile to warm up to Freya. At first it seems she doesn’t care about anyone else’s feelings, especially considering she is torn between two brothers but it doesn’t take long to learn there is more to Freya. Ingrid has the gift of foresight and reading auras but she’s not very good at reading men. Ingrid does come off as the frigid sister but there is so much more going on underneath her steely exterior. Plus I just love that she’s in love with books and is in charge of the North Hampton Library. Books are cool you know!

It did take me a little bit to warm up to the story. The first little bit was all about getting to know the ladies and perhaps that is why I felt like it was a bit slow. Once the ladies decided to forgo the council edict and use magic it picked up marvelously. I also felt that once they did start using their magic I got my first look at their true natures. The ladies became who they were born to be when magic is brought back into their lives. I love that I was kept guessing until the very end. Every time I thought someone was evil my theory would be turned upside down. I get such a thrill out of a book that keeps me guessing. The last section kept me on the edge of my seat! I was so nervous for the ladies and the town! Witches of East End is a hauntingly sexy suspenseful tale full of shocking surprises!

This is my first Melissa de la Cruz title; I have heard great things about her other titles so I was curious to sample her first adult series. I was not disappointed! Ms. Cruz has created a fabulous world filled with intriguing characters that I can’t wait to read more about. This is the perfect summer read. Sitting poolside with one of Freya’s cocktails would be perfection. Witches of East End features many ups and downs, thrills and chills, and let’s not forget the ‘holy cow’ ending that will leave you breathless and begging for more!

*****

I’ve got another copy of this book to giveaway courtesy of the publisher. If you’re interested, post a comment below and I’ll draw a name from all those left by Wednesday, June 8, 2011, 6:00 a.m. CDT.

No sooner had supermodel Laura Ayers and Celtics star David Baskin said “I do” than tragedy struck. While honeymooning on Australia’s Great Barrier Reed, David went out for a swim-and never returned. Now widowed and grieving, Laura’s search for the truth will draw her into a web of lies and deception that stretches back thirty years.

Though I haven’t read any of Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar books, I’ve read all of his standalone thrillers, and loved them. He writes some of the best twists ever. When I went looking for the first Bolitar title to catch up, I found that Coben’s very first thriller had been rereleased, with an interesting (at least to me) author note up front:

Okay, if this is the first book of mine you’re going to try, stop now. Return it. Try another. I’ll wait.

If you’re still here, please know that I haven’t read PLAY DEAD in at least twenty years. I didn’t want to rewrite it and pass it off as a new book. I hate when authors do that. So this is, for better or worse, the exact book I wrote and published when I was in my twenties, just a naive lad working in the travel industry and wondering if I should follow my father and brother and (shudder) go to law school.

I’m hard on it, but aren’t we all hard on our early stuff? Remember that essay you wrote when you were in school, the one that got you an A-plus on, the one your teacher called “inspired”–and one day you’re going through your drawer and find it and you read it and your heart sinks and you say, “Man, what was I thinking?”

That’s how it is with early novels sometimes.

I chose this book for my reading challenge because it was originally published in 1990 and was already on my iPod, and because I needed a male author since I’d just finished a book by a female author. I bought it and read it on my Kindle app.

Having recently digitized two of my early books, I can identify with Coben’s forward. PLAY DEAD is twenty years old. LOVE IN BLOOM and LOVE ME TENDER are around twelve. I have another early book, PLAYING LOVE’S ODDS, written in 1992, that I haven’t released digitally. If I do, I won’t rework it or update it as I did with the others.

As with PLAY DEAD, PLAYING LOVE’S ODDS relies on the year it was set in to work. Cell phones would null every bit of the suspense. It was easy to change pagers to phones and VHS to DVD in the two I revised. Not so with this last one. Coben’s book also works in the year it was written and set, but would not work today without major revisions. And those revisions would change everything about the plot, ergo, some of our earlier works have to stand on their own merit and remain in the past.

Older works aren’t hindered only by technology, or cultural influences of the time. They also showcase a beginning author’s weaknesses and creative immaturity. Conversely, they aren’t burdened by rules an author learns along the way, or by feedback that finds its way into an author’s toolbox as s/he discovers what does or doesn’t work for reader fans. When reading through my two earlier books, I could clearly see signs of the times, the lusher storytelling that is harped on today by those wanting stripped to the bone prose. There was more drama, more angst, true scenes and sequels that left no doubt in the reader’s mind what the characters were thinking or feeling because it was poured like thick paint onto the page. As Coben says in his note:

Finally, flawed and all, I love this book. There are an energy and risk taking in Play Dead that I wonder if I still have. Youth, as they say, is wasted on the young. I’m not this guy anymore, and that’s okay. None of us is stagnant with our passions and our work. That’s a good thing.

PLAY DEAD was unmistakably a Harlan Coben thriller. His love of basketball, his plot twists and turns. While he now writes more about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, his main protagonists in PLAY DEAD are not ordinary. Laura was a household name as a model, and David as a player for the Boston Celtics. That said, they are written as two people caught in circumstances out of their league, and are therefore identifiable as real people struggling to make sense of things gone wrong.

The pace is fast, moving between multiple viewpoints as the various players in the plot are introduced and their roles established and deepened. There is a lot, a LOT, of uber dramatic backstory: addiction, gambling, adultery, murder, rape . . . basically, a kitchen sink of Bad Things, as if the more dysfunctional the characters, the more sympathy their plight invoked. There is also a lot of mental anguish: Could this have happened? Could this really be true? How can I ever go on? Please, please let this be a bad dream.

I liked the characters. I liked that Laura was smart, surrounded herself with other smart people, sussed out any BS, dealt with it, and wasn’t easily duped. David? Well, what he did was rather dramatic, and if he and Laura had discussed the truth after he learned it, the WHOLE truth would most likely have come out in the end anyway as I believe Laura’s Aunt Judy would’ve seen to it. But talking doesn’t make for suspense, and even though I knew early what he’d done, it took a longer time to figure out why.

Once I had, guessing most of what had driven David to “play dead” before it was revealed, Coben tossed in another twist that turned the end around completely. I knew he would do it because that’s what he does so well (and why his thrillers are autobuys). And I waffled between three villains, so he also kept me guessing on that.

The paperback release is 560 pages, so this is not a short book. Some of the bloat could’ve been edited down to shorten it, but I didn’t care. I raced through it, flipping page after page until my thumb seized up, heh. Thrillers are my escapism, and this one, though not as polished or as tightly written as Coben’s newer works, kept me engaged from beginning to end. I enjoyed it a lot, early faults and all!

Marissa Fordham had a past full of secrets, a present full of lies. Everyone knew of her, but no one knew her.

When Marissa is found brutally murdered, with her young daughter, Haley, resting her head on her mother’s bloody breast, she sends the idyllic California town of Oak Knoll into a tailspin. Already on edge with the upcoming trial of the See- No-Evil killer, residents are shocked by reports of the crime scene, which might not have been discovered for days had it not been for a chilling 911 call: a small child’s voice saying, “My daddy hurt my mommy.”

Sheriff’s detective Tony Mendez faces a puzzle with nothing but pieces that won’t fit. To assist with his witness, Haley, he calls teacher-turned-child advocate Anne Leone. Anne’s life is hectic enough-she’s a newlywed and a part- time student in child psychology, and she’s the star witness in the See-No-Evil trial. But one look at Haley, alone and terrified, and Anne’s heart is stolen.

As Tony and Anne begin to peel back the layers of Marissa Fordham’s life, they find a clue fragment here, another there. And just when it seems Marissa has taken her secrets to the grave, they uncover a fact that puts Anne and Haley directly in the sights of a killer: Marissa Fordham never existed.

This is the second book in Tami Hoag’s 1980s set thriller series, 1986 for this one to be exact. SECRETS TO THE GRAVE is the sequel to DEEPER THAN THE DEAD, and picks up not long after. Anne Navarre is waiting for her assailant, Peter Crane, to go to trial, and she has married Vince Leone. There is a small subplot involving Dennis Farman who is also incarcerated following the previous book, and we spend time with Sara, Steve, and Wendy Morgan again. As with DEEPER THAN THE DEAD, Hoag introduces us to a large cast of characters who populate the small town of Oak Knoll, California.

First, we meet Zander Zahn, a professor and mathematical savant, who had an unusual friendship with the deceased Marissa Fordham and a history that puts him under the spotlight as a murder suspect. We also meet the wealthy Bordain family. The matriarch, Milo, was artist Marissa’s patron, providing her and her daughter Haley a place to live, but something is just not quite right with their relationship. And just like Marissa, her friend Gina Kemmer is not exactly who she seems to be. Then there are the men in Marissa’s life, including Steve Morgan, Milo’s husband Bruce, her son Darren, and his friend Mark who teaches at McAster College. The same detectives that worked the case in the first book – Tony Mendez, Cal Dixon, and their teams, with help from Vince Leone – set out to discover what happened to Marissa … and who she is.

The story is classic Hoag, giving the reader a list of suspects who all seem to have motive. Revelations are made timely, keeping the reader engaged. The ONLY problem I had with the book was the same one I had with the first. I love that the detectives have to rely on leg work, on interviews, on common sense and deduction, that they have no instamatic DNA testing or anything more high-tech than a fax machine. Behavioral analysis is in its infancy. My issue is when Det. Mendez comments repeatedly on how great police work will be when all these things are in place. When they will be able to access national fingerprint databases, and test hair follicles and blood and semen. He’s too prescient and it jolted me right out of the story, feeling like the author interjecting the thoughts rather than the character having them.

That is just a quibble, however, as the story kept me reading from beginning to end. I’m a huge Hoag fan. She’s an autobuy and has been since NIGHT SINS. It’s just the forced feel of the 1980s police work. It didn’t work for me – unlike the short lived US version of the British TV show LIFE ON MARS. That police drama was set in the 1970s and felt like it every step of the way, er, minus the main character, Sam Tyler, being from the future, LOL! Any time Sam would mention computers or DNA or databases, the rest of the officers would look at him like he was out of his mind (which he was, of sorts). Mendez gets some of that “what the hell are you talking about” from his co-workers, but IMO, his having said thoughts in the first place felt forced.

Still, I can totally recommend SECRETS TO THE GRAVE as a great read.

(I bought and read the Kindle version of this book.)

Going from “Hello” to “How was it?” doesn’t have to take long!

“A LONG, HARD RIDE *(4.5 – TOP PICK) by Alison Kent:* Trey Davis takes time off as crew chief for a race-car driver and returns to Tennessee to sell his late father’s home and to find out what made his father attack a pillar of the community. It was Cardin Worth’s grandfather that Trey’s dad attacked, and
now her entire car-racing family is fighting because her grandfather refuses to explain anything. To unite them, she pretends she’s engaged to Trey, knowing her parents, who won’t want her following the racing trail, will join forces against the engagement. Soon the attraction between Trey and Cardin deepens, but will a secret destroy everything? This very sexy, emotional story has strong and wonderful characters who make it a memorable read.” ~ Page Traynor

One of my 2009 resolutions (and I *am* calling it a resolution because it’s something I’ve resolved) is to read more. As in WAY more. More being as many books as I can scarf down. Since network TV is turning into a crapfest of reality programming, forgoing all things story and canceling the shows with true character and heart (yes, I’m still ticked off about losing Firefly AND then Journeyman AND now Eli Stone), I’ll be going back to books to unwind. (I’ve chosen TV for a long time because at the end of a long writing day, I didn’t have to keep my eyes open to enjoy the dialogue!)

The last two weeks of ’08 were wonderfully relaxing, though I was glad to see ’09 arrive as it meant structure would return to my life, or at least as much structure as I ever have. While lazing about and clicking through to links posted at Twitter, I saw bunches of blogs around the web about reading challenges (this post at Maw Books Blog links to a LOT of the challenges readers can join). I’m participating this year in eHarlequin’s 2009 Book Challenge; I’m on a team (for now) with Lori Borrill, Elle Kennedy, Juliet Burns, Tracy Wolff, Loreth Anne White, and Laurie Gold. I like eHQ’s challenge because of their commitment to donating books to the National Center for Family Literacy. (You don’t have to be a member of a team to participate. Just set up an account, sign in, and post reviews!)

eHarlequin’s challenge does require at least 50% of the books read and reviewed be published by Harlequin or Silhouette or any of the single title imprints like Mira, HQN, Spice, Red Dress, etc. With the number of books I’ve downloaded from the site, and the number I’ve ordered this last year, that’s not going to be a problem. And it also lets me participate in the Read Your Own Books Challenge since, well, I have all these books! Another one I’ve decided to tackle is the 999 Challenge, reading 9 books each in 9 categories in ’09, and for extra credit, doing so by 09/09/09! (Yes, that’s 81 books, but I’ll give myself the full year!) Another challenge I’m going to do is the New Author Challenge. For this one I’m going to read 25 new to me authors.

What I love about finding these challenges across the web is meeting new readers, making those friends, and discovering recommended books outside of my usual comfort zone. The romance community is awesome, but also insular, so stepping into the bigger reading world has been fun. If I stick with the plan (and how often do I NOT stick with plans), I will read at least 81 books this year. That’s only a book and a half (or so) a week, and really. With nothing on TV worth watching, how hard can it be?

I’ve made a page where I’ll post all the books as I read them and apply each to its challenge. I’ve also put an Amazon widget in the sidebar with books I’ve pulled off the TBR pile to read for the month. I might change my mind on those because I’m fickle that way, but for now, the books in that widget are my January choices to read. Some I’ll give away as I finish them. Others I’ll put into a box and give that away later on.

What about you? Are you participating in any Reading Challenges or have you set any personal reading goals? Is your TBR as overwhelming as mine? What are you reading right now? (I’m in the middle of two books, and enjoying both of them!)

I could swear I’ve posted before about Kelly Howell’s Brain Sync series, but I’ve searched my archives for fifteen minutes, using every combination of keywords I can think of, and have found nothing. Ergo, if this is repetitive, I apologize, but really I don’t because it’s one of those things worth repeating. I know a lot of writers write to music, certain soundtracks. Barb Ferrer for one. I love reading the playlists she puts together for her stories. I remember hearing (or reading) something Elizabeth Lowell said about playing one sort of music during the morning while writing her historical romances, and another sort of music during the afternoon while writing her thrillers (or vice versa on the morning / afternoon thing). Other authors need complete silence. I know from conversations we’ve had that Lori Wilde uses noise canceling headphones and Leslie Kelly (now aka Leslie Parrish) uses industrial strength earplugs.

When I’m in the zone, the noise doesn’t bother me. The dogs barking. The cars running up and down the street. The chatter of people in the mall food court. The cooing of the doves in the tree who love to drop their business on my backyard writing chair. Over the years, I’ve written while working a reception desk, written while riding a commuter bus to work, written on lunch hours in city parks or Starbucks. I’ve never written at a desk, and always written in noise. I have three albums I play repeatedly on my Creative MP3 player, Coil, Adore, and Whatever. But more than anything I love listening to Brain Power, one of the Brain Sync brain wave recordings.

Unlike guided meditation with voices instructing you to visualize a babbling brook, or to breathe deep and relax, and unlike sounds of nature, wind in the trees, the ocean, etc., the Brain Sync series of mind expansion therapies are nothing but sound waves. Like . . . a deep thrumming, I guess. Or a thrumming that then has a higher pitched tone on top of that. I’ve never found anything else that will help me focus the way these do (and having just visited the site, I see they have new ones on self-confidence and stress relief . . . oh, and a PILLOW! With speakers! I WANT!). The thrumming focuses my thoughts on the words I’m typing onto the page, and I don’t hear anything but my characters talking. I’m not a Brain Sync affiliate and am doing this product review solely as a satisfied user – one who would have NO focus if not for headphones and these brain wave therapies.

Along Elena’s smooth white back is an ancient scar that cuts downward in grotesque beauty like a long, graceful snake. It begins at the joint of her right shoulder and sails south across her shoulder blade, then her spine, swoops around the lower edge of her left ribs and across the unguarded softness where vital organs once lived, and finally ends deep in her left buttock. In places, it looks like a rope dark pink and angry; in others, it submerges beneath the flesh, showing only a slight white scratch above the skin.

Men love it, thinking themselves so original, so generous in their tracings of it, so accepting. In fact, it is the lover’s version of slowing to look at an accident on the freeway, equal parts horror, fascination, and, if there is any wisdom, gratitude. Some ask her what happened. Some do not. All of them wonder.

But only Elena’s ghosts know her story. The ghosts who travel with her. The ghosts she protects. The ghosts who will never leave her.

I’ve been a fan of Barbara Samuel since reading my first Ruth Wind authored Silhouette Special Edition. I followed her into her historicals, then stayed with her as she moved into big women’s fiction. For me to want to put my life on hold and read an author’s work, she has to own her voice, to be a confident master of her prose, and Barbara does it every time. She is a brilliant storyteller, one who wields the tools of a wordsmith with such skill that getting lost for hours in her world is pure pleasure.

Her latest book, THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS written as Barbara O’Neal (Bantam Discovery, trade $13, mmpb $6.99, 464 pages, December 30) continues her exploration of troubled, damaged women who find their place in life, make peace with their past, and allow themselves the love of a good man. Elena Alvarez is hired as executive chef to take over a failing Aspen restaurant owned by restauranteur and movie mogul Julian Liswood. Julian also owned the Vancouver restaurant from which she was fired as sous chef the very day he asked her to resurrect what becomes The Orange Bear. Elena has her work cut out for her, dealing with a kitchen staff of illegal immigrants, a previous executive chef whom she dubs Rasputin, the pressure of being a female chef running her own kitchen (and with a boss to whom she is attracted), and working on her feet for long grueling hours with her physical body betraying her.

As a teenager, Elena was the sole survivor of a horrible car accident that killed two siblings, a cousin, and her boyfriend. Her sister, Isobel, and Edwin, whom she was to marry, still appear to her all these years later, as Elena’s survivor’s guilt keeps her rooted to her past — and unable to put down roots in any of the cities where she’s worked. Aspen is different, however. Whether it’s being in charge of her own kitchen and bringing her New Mexican culture, customs, and cuisine with her, or whether it’s the comfort of including old friends in the venture while growing close to new ones, Elena finds herself shedding the old skin of the life she’s lived and trying the fit of this new one — one in which Julian Liswood and his daughter Portia play a huge part.

Barbara O’Neal tells the story of Elena Alvarez’s spiritual and emotional recovery with unmistakable authenticity. The colorful details of the Colorado and New Mexico Southwest flavor the book as fully as the recipes she’s included, and the food is as much a character as is Elena’s dog Alvin – and anyone who regularly reads Barbara’s blog knows of her enjoyment of cooking, her passion for her heritage, and her love for her animals. I found myself hungry for tamales and churros and pork pie, and dying to try the pomegranate baklava. (I did try Juan’s Carne En Su Jugo, and loved it!) My only quibble with the book was never feeling as if I knew Elena’s old friend Patrick (who has a substantial role) as fully as I knew her new friends Juan and Ivan and Julian and Portia, or even as fully as her long dead sister Isobel. But that doesn’t keep me from recommending this book highly. It’s big and lusty and delicious, and well worth taking a day away from real life to spend in the world Barbara has created.

I’m giving away one copy of the book (my last giveaway of 2008) to a commenter who tells me something about food. Something you ate for Christmas dinner, or a favorite holiday recipe, or a restaurant you can’t get enough of. I’ll pick a winner Monday night, December 29, 2008, at 8:00 p.m.ish CST whezn I pick the 12 Days of Alison Kent’s Christmas winners. THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS releases on December 30, so if you got a book store gift card in your stocking, this should be the first thing you buy!

It should be obvious from that photo that I REALLY need a new fountain pen. All I did was take off the cap to cross off several items from my to do list. Yeah. That happened. So keep it in mind while doing your naughty and nice thing, kthxbai!

Today you can win a copy of MAXIMUM EXPOSURE at the PlotMonkeys blog (where I’ve posted an exclusive excerpt) and at Writeminded. HelenKay Dimon still has a giveaway going on, and my Fresh Fiction contest is also running. If you’re not a member of my newsletter list, sign up as I’ll be sending out a MAXIMUM EXPOSURE newsletter soon with a chance for one subscriber to win a prize!

I have comments from a few more early readers of the book! I had linked to Laurie Damron’s contest, but Laurie also gave the book a review, saying:

“This book has teeth. Finn and Olivia don’t simply become romantically involved, there’s a connection of hearts and souls; their emotions are meticulously written.”

Phoebe Jordan was a winner of one of my early ARCs, and she says:

Overall I can honestly say I was glad that I had the opportunity of reading and reviewing Alison Kent’s ARC of Maximum Exposure because even though I had a hard time with the beginning by the middle of the novel I couldn’t wait to find out the characters Happily Ever After.”

Another ARC winner, M.G. Braden said this:

“So, here’s the thing – the storyline between Olivia and Finn is fantastic and I loved it, BUT, for me, the storyline between Roman and Jodi made the book. Seriously, there’s a pool scene that… go buy the book and read it yourself, this blog is rated PG . Ooh, there’s also a warehouse scene (this time Finn and Olivia, very hot) and a… Really, you have to go buy the book, if only to read these scenes.”

And Jillyan, a reader at the eHarlequin community chose MAXIMUM EXPOSURE as her 100th read of the year, saying:

The characters of Maximum Exposure have flaws and feel real. Finn managed to capture my heart from the first chapter. And I found myself wanting to reach through the pages and give Olivia a hug after a soul-spilling moment.

Today is release day, so go out and buy a copy for yourself and for a friend! ;)