In Florida, when the calendar turns to August, it’s too hot to even think about going outside. Which means that curling up with a good book in the air conditioning is the best way to while away the dog days of summer. I read fourteen books that way this month, so let’s jump in.
I was deeply buried in another of Keri Lake’s intimidating tomes when the month began. This one, the 670 page dark gothic academia romance, NOCTICADIA, is about a young woman, Lilia Vespertine, who’s trying to survive a difficult fate while looking for a cure for the mysterious illness that claimed her mother’s life. No one believes her account of the bizarre circumstances of that death until she writes a paper about it for a class at her community college. After reading it, her professor recommends her for a scholarship to the prestigious Dracadia University, located on a secluded island off the coast of Maine. And that’s where the mystery deepens.
Dracadia has secrets. For one, it’s said to be haunted, both by the ghosts of the former residents of the island, who disappeared hundreds of years before, and the victims of a more recent tragedy. That ties back to a shadowy secret society and the project that for years has been studying the source of the island’s mysterious illness. The current head of the project is a brilliant and brooding pathologist, Dr. Devryck Bramwell, known around campus as Dr. Death. He’s enigmatic, brusque, and devastatingly handsome, and he’s one of Lilia’s professors. When she discovers his work could be the key to solving her mother’s death, she ingratiates herself to him, convincing him to let her help in his lab after hours. One thing leads to another, and they began a heated clandestine affair. But there are darker secrets at play here, ones that nearly cost both Lilia and Devryck their lives.
The book weaves a spell of intrigue and deception throughout. I personally thought it could have been shorter, but then I’m not a fan of overlong books, so that’s on me. Still, it’s a worthy read for fans of gothic and academic romance, and it ends on a happily ever after.
After the heaviness of NOCTICADIA, I needed something light as a palate cleanser, so I dipped back into my infatuation with MM romance for another book in Lucy Lennox’s Maid Marian series. This one, MOVING MAVERICK, as about one of the adopted sons, Maverick Marian, who receives word that his birth grandmother has died and he’s been named sole beneficiary in her will. He goes back to Rabbit Island, South Carolina to settle the estate, and there he runs into his childhood best friend, Beau Talmadge, who’s been living with Maverick’s grandmother as her caretaker.
Maverick still harbors resentment toward his grandmother since she refused to take him in when his parents died, thus kicking him into the foster system, and all he wants to do when he gets to town is sell the property in her estate as quickly as possible and get back to his life in San Francisco. He doesn’t count on the depth of his feelings for Beau and the fact that his friend has harbored a secret crush on him since they were kids. Thus begins a spicy relationship that complicates Maverick’s plans for a quick resolution. When Maverick returns to San Francisco, he can’t get Beau out of his mind. Circumstances force him back east, and he discovers his relationship with Beau is more important than past resentments. Of course, as always they work it out in a satisfying happily ever after.
I put off reading the next book, SHADOWS SO CRUEL, because I had heard the ending wrecked everyone who read it. I had read book 1 of Liv Zander’s Court of Ravens duology, FEATHERS SO VICIOUS, back in March, and because it ended on a cliffhanger, I wanted to jump right into book 2, but the paperback was unavailable at the time. By the time I got it, I’d read so many spoilers I had to psyche myself up to dive in.
SHADOWS SO CRUEL lives up to its reputation. Like its predecessor, it’s a dark fantasy romance full of intrigue and tragedy, with exceptional worldbuilding and a steamy reverse harem relationship between the novel’s FMC, Galantia, and her two male lovers, the pathfinder Sebian and Prince Malyr. In the opening, Galantia has just learned she’s a rare white raven, an epiphany brought about by Prince Malyr’s betrayal, who had promised to marry her. She flees the palace and when Malyr and Sebian finally locate her again, she’s gone back to her ancestral home of Tidestone, hoping to regain her position with her human parents by informing on Malyr’s invasion plans.
Malyr has finally admitted to himself that Galantia is his fated mate and he wants to win her back, but his betrayal cut her deep. In the meantime, he allows Sebian to take her back as his lover and watches as the two of them grow closer. Through patience and a lot of soul searching, Malyr eventually wins his way back into Galantia’s heart, and the three of them form a bond of love and friendship. Everything is falling into place when tragedy strikes, and it becomes a race against time for Malyr and Sebian to find Galantia. The final battle ends in the tragedy everyone warned me about, and I have to say, even knowing it was coming, it was a tearjerker. That being said, the book ends on a hopeful note, and while not exactly a happily ever after, it’s still satisfying.
I found the next book from a Facebook ad. PROPHETS TANGO: SEASON 1 ~ OUT OF STEP by Deborah Lacativa offers a refreshing interpretation of the paranormal romance genre. The structure of the book is different, with shifting POVs and multiple trips back and forth in various time periods that could be annoying but somehow works. After all that, this book ends up in the same place where it began. There are ghosts and angels and villains and heroes tied together with a poetic writing style that kept me reading far into the night.
Anna Catalano reads tarot and uses her psychic ability to vet jurors. She feels everything the people around her feel, so she stays just high enough to filter out the noise. That is until her wannabe gangster husband blackmails her into his scheme for climbing the underworld ladder and she starts looking for a way out.
Jackson Jude Bell is a charming rake, dealing weed for a living while dispensing his brand of divine justice on those he deems worthy because he can read what those around him are thinking and what they’ll do next. Anna and Jack meet in a dance at a dive bar due to the machinations of two hapless spirits, and from that moment, their fates are forever intertwined.
There are three books or seasons in the PROPHETS TANGO series, each dealing with a different aspect of the continuing relationship of Anna and Jack.
In Season (book) 2 of PROPHETS TANGO, DANCING IN THE DARK, Jack starts working construction for Anna’s husband, not knowing his wife is the woman Jack danced with at the bar. Their first face-to-face meeting doesn’t go as Jack planned, however, because while Anna was just as taken with Jack as he was with her, she was so high she doesn’t remember anything about his appearance. Their relationship progresses at a snail’s pace due to Anna’s reluctance to open herself up to anyone. At first she wonders if she can use Jack to rid herself of her husband Ray, but then after a night that seemed more fantasy than reality, she realizes that the two of them are fated for each other and that she might love him.
Just when Anna is ready to accept a life with Jack, Ray becomes suspicious and decides to take matters into his own hands. The book ends on a cliffhanger, which I truly loathe in books. I’m hoping there’s a happily ever after in the resolution in Season 3.
I jumped into some mafia romance next with Deborah Garland’s RECKLESS OBSESSION, book 1 of the Astoria Royals standalone series. Eoghan O’Rourke is the ruthless lawyer of the O’Rourke Irish mafia family from Boston. He’s come to Las Vegas to get the charges against his reckless younger brother dismissed. That’s when he meets Jillian Diamond, an up and coming prosecutor who needs this victory to advance her career. When her half-brother, who’s also her boss and has made a deal with O’Rourke, tells her to drop the charges, she’s furious at him and the arrogant Eoghan. A chance meeting later that night at a local bar when she’s half drunk leads to an ill-advised hookup between the two opposing attorneys.
Eoghan becomes obsessed with Jillian and begins to stalk every aspect of her life. And while she resists, worried about the repercussions of a relationship with a mafia lawyer, she can’t deny her attraction to him, nor the fact that their one night together claimed her virginity and awakened a side of her she wasn’t aware existed. When she’s assigned to work with Eoghan on another case, the two of them dance around each other while he tries to woo her back into his bed. What neither of them realize is they’re both pawns in a wider conspiracy that will threaten both their lives. Fortunately, everything works out in the end for a nice happily ever after.
My final thoughts: Eoghan has just the right amount of morally grey character, dangerous good looks, and possessive touch-her-and-die vibes that will make any dark romance fan curl her toes. I thoroughly enjoyed this romantic romp.
Okay, no matter what you might think this next book is about from its title, you would be wrong. I haven’t had a story pull the rug out from under me so completely since the movie Jacob’s Ladder, which, it turns out, was one of the author’s influences in writing this book.
PEN PAL by J. T. Geissenger starts out innocently enough at a funeral. Kayla has just buried her husband and comes home to find a mysterious letter on her kitchen table. “I’ll wait forever if I have to.” Signed Dante. Nothing else. The return address is a prison. Who Dante is or how the letter got into her house she doesn’t know. After that, strange things start to happen around her house. Lights flicker. The TV turns itself on and off. The doorbell rings and no one is there. Kayla thinks she’s losing her mind. When a roof leak sends her searching for a roofer, she meets Aiden, a surly if good looking stud who offers to fix her roof for a discounted price. When they run into each other later at a bar, sparks start to fly.
Kayla and Aiden begin a heated affair. Aiden offers her security when she’s feeling vulnerable, as well as opening up a side of herself she never knew existed. But she’s still plagued by mysterious occurrences at her house. When her housekeeper suggests she might be haunted and that they do a séance, she at first refuses, claiming she doesn’t believe in ghosts. When events escalate, she finally agrees, and that’s when things get interesting.
I can’t say anything else without spoiling the ending, and believe me, I don’t want to do that. This book should be experienced with fresh eyes, so if you see a spoiler, look away. But don’t pass it up. It’s just that good.
Since I’ve reached the email length limit on this post, I’ll continue August Reads with Part 2 tomorrow.