Kenzie and Austin are the main character this short novella, however some of the other Snow Pirates do make an appearance, along with some character’s who’ve been mentioned and will star in the upcoming Cedar Rapids series (coming soon).
The Snow Pirates are in Cedar Rapids for a “friendly” pre-season game which means Kenzie is going along as the team Physio, and Austin has some business in town so tagged along as well. At a date night dinner for Kenzie and Austin, some of the Snow Pirates crash their dinner. Then of course some of the Cedar Rapid team members come into the restaurant and a bet ensues that leads to the drama of the novella.
I pre-ordered this coz I knew it’d be good and boy was a right.
For just 71 pages, there was enough intensity, drama and of course sexy time to be a classic Las story. Of course I was a little upset that Kenzie’s fantasy didn’t get played out, or at least the answer given coz I’m super curious and now I gotta hope the Cedar Rapids series give me the answers I want.
Hazel is a single mum of a 4-year-old little girl doing her best to make the best of her life. She’s resourceful, quick and determined making her potentially difficult for others to work with.
Vark is an Orc we’ve met in the previous 2 books, but now he’s finding his own love. He’s still coming to terms with the trauma he experienced in the first book, Her Orc King, but he’s doing his best while also trying to accept a mate that he wasn’t expecting at his “lowest” point in life.
Vark is surprised to discover his mate in the back of his wagon, almost as surprised as Hazel is to find out that the wagon driver is an Orc!
Because of this surprise for them both, things heat up, get complicated and of course, drama ensues. Together, they need to find their way to clear communication, safety and security for them both and a future together.
In some ways, this felt a little slower than some of Zoe’s other books, but in others it felt perfectly paced. For those that like fast paced books, I can understand why this might not be for them. But I really enjoyed the slow character development and reveal for both of these characters.
Since we met Vark back in the first book, it felt right that everything happening between Hazel and Vark was careful, considered and measured. We of course had our moments of erotic fun, because how could it be a Zoe book without some smut?
Although in the grand scheme of things, this was still very tame for Zoe!
Nora, Levi and Raphael are a team made up of two witches and a vampire competing in a secret competition. Throughout the first book (Cursed in Love) they find a way to be together and work together.
Now, we add in the complication of Isak, an Icelandic sea dragon who’s competing in the same competition but also somehow features in Nora’s life.
Nora, Levi and Raphael travel to Iceland to find and complete the second task in the Balendial Trial in their quest to bring witches knowledge into a more accessible forum.
Only problem is, they need to somehow access some underground cavern and survive the tortures the witches have planned for them.
I’m sorry. I love reading Zoe’s books. I love that I’m in her advanced readers list.
BUT I’M NOT SURE HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN TAKE HUGE GAPS BETWEEN BOOKS WHILE SHE WRITES THEM!
You know that feeling you get when you read a book and go “OMG I need the next book now!”?
Now, imagine you read a book, get that feeling, and you know the authors only just finished writing this book and hasn’t even started the next book…
It’s hard.
So hard!
I love Zoe. I love her books.
But at the same time I really wish she’d write a full series then give it to us all at once because she writes such amazing stories I can’t wait to keep going but I have to. How awesome would it be if I could just smash out a whole series in a couple of days?
Nora and Levi are the focus of our story, although Raphael joins in along the way and Isak is a little on the periphery of their adventure.
Nora and Levi are powerful witches that have left their coven for their own reasons. Nora’s mission is to create an online library of spells that any witch from any coven can access for free so that no one has to suffer or die because their coven doesn’t have centuries of knowledge at their disposal. Levi on the other hand is trying to protect Nora and absolve himself of the guilt he feels in relation to Nora’s mum’s death.
Raphael is an old flame of Nora’s back from college days. He also somehow seems to have the perfect knowledge to help them in their adventure.
Nora and Levi enter a witch competition to win access to their century’s old library for 24 hours. As part of it, they find themselves up against witches who’re willing to kill the other competitors. The competition requires them to travel to three locations around the world, find and win their tokens and return to the witches coven within 28 days.
Nora and Levi choose Egypt, Iceland and Greece, with Egypt being their first stop. On the way from Scotland to Egypt, they stop off in Paris and pick up Raphael to help guide them through Egypt.
Almost immediately after starting this book I started to get some serious Da Vinci Code and Matthew Reilly with a touch of XXXX vibes. The balance of the action, romance, sex, drama and life-threatening situations was about as perfect as I can imagine them getting.
I also love that this trilogy is in the same world as Sea Dragons of Amber Bay and Norse Sea Dragons series. The intricacies Zoe has created deserve to have more stories told!
I honestly can’t wait to read the next two books in this trilogy. I know Zoe is taking her time writing these to make sure she keeps the quality as high as I’ve come to expect. So while that means that I need to wait for the next book, I’m hoping it’ll mean it’s epic!
To find out more about Zoe and the books she’s written, head on over to her author page. And don’t forget to get a copy of Jinxed in Love by signing up to her mailing list!
This is an anthology of short stories with a common theme, vibrators.
In a world where so much is accepted, this one thing is generally considered taboo, dirty or otherwise insinuates that a guy is lacking in the bed department. So Lasairiona decided to write an anthology of short stories focusing on this one little thing to show everything how awesome they can be.
The short stories have a wide range of themes and tropes meaning that you get to experience a bit of everything, so long as they include toys.
The way each author wove them into the stories was awesome. Some were quite obvious how they’d play a part; others were a bit more subtle, yet artfully executed.
Generally, I find it hard to get into short stories that don’t form part of a wider series, but these were excellent!
They each had their own beginning, middle and end that wrapped things up nicely. The artform of being able to do that is a rare skill I believe.
Olivia is a CEO who lost her husband a year ago and since then has been living her life as if any moment could be her last. She’s confident, successful and knows what she wants.
Valentine, however, is the PR expert who’s been hired to reign in Olivia before she kills herself or permanently destroys the reputation of the charity her and her husband founded. He’s gone through his own trauma with his wife dying seven years previously.
Olivia is spiralling out of control and Valentine is called in right as she takes the plunge in a BDSM club. That one night and the events that follow set the tone for Oliva and Valentine’s entire relationship.
As they work together, their attraction is undeniable and of course it’s not long until it comes out in all the ways it shouldn’t and they learn more about each other than they every thought possible.
Rachael has a tendency to create compelling, sexual stories that capture the very essence that a lot of us wish for. Many of us wish for that instant attraction, the chemistry you just can’t deny. But most of us never get there.
Yet, even amongst those aspects, she always includes a theme. A theme that’s powerful and needs to be heard. While she has included the family violence theme before, she hasn’t done the angle where you’re willing to go along with it because it makes you happy too.
In that way, this is a new angle that also shows how subtle the control can be that still forms a part of family violence. The problem is, where’s the line between wanting to be a better person for someone and it being family violence?
That very question is why I love the fact that Rachael brings it up in her books and makes us think about it. If we can’t think about it, we can’t talk about it. And if we can’t talk about it, we can’t improve on it.
Continue to read further down to find out about the author and any extra giveaways available.
Author Bio
Rachael Stewart adores conjuring up stories for the readers of Harlequin Mills & Boon and Deep Desires Press, with tales varying from the heartwarmingly romantic to the wildly erotic.
She’s been writing since she could put pen to paper as the stacks of scrawled on A4 sheets in her loft will attest to, and the lovingly bound short stories that her father would run off at work and proudly share out with his colleagues. Thinking it was a pipe dream to be published one day, she pursued a sensible career in business but she was really play-acting, achieving the appropriate degree and spending many years in the corporate world where she never truly belonged. Always happiest when she was sat at her laptop in the quiet hours tapping out a story or two. And so here she is, a published author, her full-time pleasure, a dream come true.
A Welsh lass at heart, she now lives in Yorkshire with her husband and three children, and if she’s not glued to her laptop, she’s wrapped up in them or enjoying the great outdoors seeking out inspiration.
Giveaway – Win an e-copy of Reawakened by Rachael Stewart (open internationally)
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
Faye is the best friend of the bride and her Maid of Honour. She’s had her own problems over the past few years with the death of her mother and the end of her marriage but she’s happy now.
Meanwhile, Rafael is the brother of the bride, closed off, emotionally cold but o so sexy and irresistible! He comes with the baggage of his parents failed marriage and doesn’t believe that people should get married, including his little sister.
It’s got the typical boy stumbles upon girl and instant attraction. They fight it but eventually get together.
In Rachael’s case we’ve gone back to some explicit sex thrown in for good measure. I mean, can they really fight their attraction long enough to not sneak off to have sex during the wedding festivities in a castle?
But it’s also not Rachael if there wasn’t an undercurrent of something more serious. In this case, she touches on rediscovering your sexuality, learning to move on and families recovering from past trauma together.
My first thought is that I love that Rachael has gone back to including explicit sex. I’m sorry, but that sweet romance just felt so wrong based on all of her other work I’ve read! She does the steamy sex in amongst such serious stuff so well that I was missing it.
The way that Rachael balances the emotional development and drama with the sex is perfect. You can be with one character all caught up in their head or helping other people or having fun with the family. Then right as you start to go “yea but where’s the romance?” BOOM! Rachael delivers!
I don’t think I’ve read any other author that can balance these aspects so well and create such a compelling story that you’re emotionally invested the whole way through to such a deep level. She’s definitely one of my favourite authors! Which is a first since usually my favourites do series!
Continue to read further down to find out about the author and any extra giveaways available.
Author Bio
Rachael Stewart adores conjuring up stories for the readers of Harlequin Mills & Boon and Deep Desires Press, with tales varying from the heartwarmingly romantic to the wildly erotic.
She’s been writing since she could put pen to paper as the stacks of scrawled on A4 sheets in her loft will attest to, and the lovingly bound short stories that her father would run off at work and proudly share out with his colleagues. Thinking it was a pipe dream to be published one day, she pursued a sensible career in business but she was really play-acting, achieving the appropriate degree and spending many years in the corporate world where she never truly belonged. Always happiest when she was sat at her laptop in the quiet hours tapping out a story or two. And so here she is, a published author, her full-time pleasure, a dream come true.
A Welsh lass at heart, she now lives in Yorkshire with her husband and three children, and if she’s not glu ed to her laptop, she’s wrapped up in them or enjoying the great outdoors seeking out inspiration.
Giveaway – Win an e-copy of Our Little Secret by Rachael Stewart (open internationally)
*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome. Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below. The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data. I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.
Welcome back everyone, Rachel is back with a follow up novel to Getting Dirty and it’s amazing!
I was really hoping there’d be a sequel to Getting Dirty and I had my wishes granted in a way I wasn’t expecting! Who knew the bartender was hiding so much and it’d take the PR queen to get it out of him?!
We start off at a wedding in Scotland where Cait finally convinces Jackson to sleep with her. And this is when we start to discover the issues that Jackson has struggled with for years. We had no idea about any of this until now and it’s exactly up the alley of Rachael’s style to bring in difficult topics.
If this was the first of her books I’d read I’d think she was copying 50 Shades of Grey, but I know better. Although the Mrs Robinson vibe is still there with an underage boy being seduced by a married woman, there were marked differences between those cases and Jackson.
In this case, Cait and Jackson work through his issues together over months and in ways I wasn’t expecting. Who knew so much could happen in just 6 months and in the way that they did?
I have a couple of fav bits including the car scene and the very last chapter. I don’t want to say more than that coz it might ruin it for you, but I felt like those were major breakthrough moments for them. Jackson more so given everything he’d been through, how he felt about it and the lasting impacts on his mental and emotional health.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this review; on Monday I’ll be reviewing A Christmas Wedding at the Castle by Eliza J. Scott. Continue to read further down to find out about the author and any extra giveaways available.
Author Bio
Rachael Stewart adores conjuring up stories for the readers of Harlequin Mills & Boon and Deep Desires Press, with tales varying from the heartwarmingly romantic to the wildly erotic.
She’s been writing since she could put pen to paper as the stacks of scrawled on A4 sheets in her loft will attest to, and the lovingly bound short stories that her father would run off at work and proudly share out with his colleagues. Thinking it was a pipe dream to be published one day, she pursued a sensible career in business but she was really play-acting, achieving the appropriate degree and spending many years in the corporate world where she never truly belonged. Always happiest when she was sat at her laptop in the quiet hours tapping out a story or two. And so here she is, a published author, her full-time pleasure, a dream come true.
A Welsh lass at heart, she now lives in Yorkshire with her husband and three children, and if she’s not glued to her laptop, she’s wrapped up in them or enjoying the great outdoors seeking out inspiration.
Welcome back everyone, the third and final instalment of the Sea Dragons of Amber Bay trilogy is here!
I’ve been waiting a while to get this and even bugged Zoe for it coz I was looking forward to it so much. In a way it was a little bit of a letdown, but it’s amazingness in other areas well and truly made up for it.
Adrian really bugged me with his inability to commit to them but refusing to let Skye leave or anything to happen to her. Like it’s great that he was so into showing her how he felt, but did he have to fight against it for so long?
I was really hoping this book would be about the four of them fighting together against the world. Not a mixture of still figuring out their relationship and fighting against the world.
The other areas that were amazing, included Adrian trying to figure out how to impress Skye, Jack and Ty fighting to make their life with Skye and Skye learning about her magic and the community. Reading about how Skye was figuring things out was amazing and I loved her thought process.
Although I beat her to the anchor thing.
The ending to the trilogy was very satisfying, although I’m surprised with the turn that Zoe took to get us there. I also kinda wish the epilogue was set further into the future coz there’s a couple of things I really wanted to hear about that would only need a chapter to cover off.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this review; on Monday I’ll be reviewing It’s Raining Men by Rich Amooi.
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