Triple Book Review

Today I have two novels and a novella to tell you about.  So let's get to it!

The first book I want to tell you about is Me Tarzan, You Jane by Camelia Miron Skiba.  This book has an intriguing blurb and the first chapters really hooked me (even though there is some language) so I continued with it.  Our heroine, Jane Sullivan, is a widow with a young daughter.  She's a budding writer at a writing conference where there are several cover models there.  One cover model in particular has all the ladies gushing over him, but all Jane can do is roll her eyes.  Lucas Oliver is the epitome of a player and she wants to stay far away from the likes of him.  Circumstances keep putting them together, however, and the sparks are flying.  But no matter what Lucas makes her feel, Jane feels there is only one love of your life per person and she won't be given a second chance.

Not that Lucas stops trying to change her mind.  He's drawn to Jane and her daughter and really wants her to see who he is behind his outward appearance.  It was fun in the beginning to see them both try to work through their scars of the past, but there was a lot of sexual innuendo in the first half of the book that moved on to sexual situations (not detailed, fade to black) for the last half.  For me, it started to become more about the lust than falling in love, which took a little of the lustre off the book. I felt like the author is good at her craft, but for my taste I wish she would have continued with the back and forth of the first half where the writing and romance shone and less of the sex and a few relationship cliches in the last half.  This might not be the case for everyone, obviously, and there were a lot of things about the book to like. You can buy your copy here for $2.99 and decide for yourself.

Here's the back copy:

Moving on doesn’t always have to mean goodbye.

Widowed makeup artist Jane Sullivan is more comfortable keeping her husband's memory alive than dating a pool full of sharks. Ella, her 4 year-old daughter, is her whole world.

When Jane meets Lucas Oliver, famous cover model, it’s hate at first sight. His playboy persona rubs her the wrong way.

Accustomed to every woman fawning over him, Lucas is drawn to the shy, uncompromising single mom and completely melts at the sight of Ella. He is determined to convince Jane that sometimes a second chance can mend a broken heart.

The second book I want to tell you about today is is a novella that Shana Galen did as a prequel to her Covent Garden Cubs series, The Viscount of Vice.  We meet Henry Flynn who is a tortured soul. Years ago he was supposed to be watching his little brother and lost him during a game of hide and seek.  The little guy was never found---until now.  A Bow Street runner has turned up a man that he believes is the lost brother and Henry goes to Bath to see if it's true.  

Everything gets more complicated when Lady Emma Talbot is also in Bath and inserts herself into his investigation.  Emma has secretly loved Henry for years, but her brother the Duke had warned him off.  (I would have, too.  Henry started to fall for her when she was sixteen.  And he's a lot older, so that was a teensy bit skeevy, but okay.)  There were some really emotional scenes and the seedy side of society was shown quite well, I thought. The dialogue was sharp and the main characters were relatable and realistic. There was a brief sex scene that was easily skipped over.  I really enjoyed this series introduction.  You can buy your copy here for $2.99

Here's the back copy:

Whispers and secrets are no match for love...

Henry Flynn, the new Lord Chesham, still blames himself for the disappearance of his younger brother when they were children. That incident destroyed his family, and now he's on a path of self-destruction that no one can interrupt...

Lady Emma Talbot can't stand watching the man she secretly loves destroy himself little by little. She's determined to show him that no one holds him culpable, before it's too late. But Emma doesn't know what really happened to Flynn on that fateful day long ago, so what chance does she have of saving him from himself?

The last one I want to tell you about today is Earls Just Want to Have Fun by Shana Galen. This is the first full-length novel of the Covent Garden Cub series.  It starts out with a pickpocket named Marlowe pulling jobs with her gang of thieves.  They all work for a very scary man who will never let them go and he's got special plans for Marlowe.  She's learned to fend for herself, but even in the slums, behind her dirty curtain that gives her a bit of privacy, she remembers a time when she was called Elizabeth.

Things get really interesting when she's kidnapped off a street by a Bow Street Runner who thinks he knows who Marlowe really is.  He takes her to his brother's house, but Lord Dane is not thrilled to have a dirty, angry thief in his home where his mother and sister are.  I laughed out loud at the dialogue between the two and how Lord Dane handled the situation.  These two are definitely opposites, but Lord Dane sees something in her that even she has a hard time seeing.  Before they can explore anything further, Marlowe's gang life intrudes and Lord Dane finds himself pulled to Seven Dials to try to save her. There were brief sex scenes, easily skipped over, with a lot of romance and intrigue.  You can buy your copy here for $6.15

Here's the back copy:

His heart may be the last thing she ever steals . . .

Marlowe is a pickpocket, a housebreaker—and a better actress than any professional on the stage. She runs with the Covent Garden Cubs, a gang of thieves living in the slums of London’s Seven Dials. It’s a fierce life, and Marlowe has a hard outer shell. But when she’s alone, she allows herself to think of a time before—a dimly remembered life when she was called Elizabeth.

Maxwell, Lord Dane, is intrigued when his brother, a hired investigator, ropes him into his investigation of the fiercely beautiful hellion. He teaches her to navigate the social morass of the ton while his brother attempts to confirm her true identity. But Marlowe will not escape so easily. Instead, Dane is drawn into her world of danger and violence, where the student becomes the teacher and love is the greatest risk of all.