Finished Two More

So, it was so hot here today that all I wanted to do was lay in bed and read.  In doing so I was able to finish 2 books.  Samson's Lovely Mortal and Pleasure Unbound.  Both reviews coming soon if this heat ever breaks :-).

I Burn For You (Primes Series Book 1)

I Burn For You By Susan Sizemore

Back cover synopsis:

     Battling the dark hollows of his soul, vampire Alec Reynard undergoes secret medical treatments that allow him to bear daylight.  Living a double life as a bodyguard, he must also battle his powerful attraction to Domini Lancer, a mere mortal--and, unbelievably, his soul mate.  When danger threatens, he kidnaps Domini to protect her but wonders: will she accept the darkness within him--or is she a vampire slayer who's cleverly infiltrated his clan?

I read this series a little out of order.  I bought the last book in the Prime Series not knowing it was part of a whole world.  When I was done reading it, I was sad because I didn't want it to end, so I went online to see what else the other had out there and found out that I had read book nine in the series.  Captivated by the world that I was just submersed in, I ran right out and bought the whole series.  I have to say that I loved the first book as much as I loved the last one.

Domini Lancer is a body guard in one if the most successful agencies around (her grandfathers) and is good at what she does.  When it comes to business, she doesn't mess around or let personal things get in the way.  Even when her feelings and dreams about the new member of their team start to make her life a little more difficult.

Alec Reynard is not who he claims to be.  Yeah, he's a Delta boy, an elite branch of the military, but he is also a vampire trying to survive.  That's why he was here, to get the treatment so he could keep living his life in the daylight and keep protecting the humans that he swore an oath for.  He goes to a secret clinic to get help with his condition.  As part of the treatment, he has to get a job to keep him busy.  Little did he know that that little task would be his undoing because in finding a job he also found his bond mate.

As if Alec didn't have enough to worry about with the drugs not working, but now he has to be around the woman that he is ment to be with forever everyday and cant have because that would mean introducing her to his darker, feral side that is on the verge of winning his sanity.

Domini is not sure why this guy excites her so, he seems to dangerous for his own good, but has done nothing but be the perfect partner.  All she wants to do is protect her client and do her job, but she can not take her mind off of Alec.  When her life is suddenly thrown into more danger than normal being a body guard, her world flips upside down as she is saved in more ways than one by Alec.

Domini will be his and after saving her life, he starts to show her just how much she means to him.  Even after she discovers who and what he is, neither one can deny what they feel for each other.

     People fall in love in less than an instant.  Some people fall in love before they ever meet.

     "I've been looking for you all my life," he said.  "You've no idea how long that's been."

     His words hit Domini with a double punch that sent her reeling.  He loves me.  He's a telepath.  He loves me.  He's talking inside my head.  He loves me.  He can read my mind.  Can you read my mind?

     Yes

After the initial shock of who and what he is, Domini realizes that she cant fight what she feels anymore.

     He took Domini's hands and asked, "You love Reynard?"

     "Yes," she answered, without hesitation.

     She hadn't realized until this moment that she had no doubts, no questions, about what he was, what they had, and what they could build.  Even if he wanted her to have lots of babies, when they were ready for them.  Besides, Grandpa had been nagging her for great-grandchildren.

Even with this realization, what will Domini do about her love when every time she turns around someone is threatening her life, or his family is butting in or hers is keeping secrets that should not be kept.  You will have to see how she deals with all of this yourself.  Welcome to the world of the Primes!!!

Available at Amazon.com

Sanctuary By Beverly Barton (Raintree Part 3)

Back cover synopsis:

      For Mercy Raintree, war with the evil Ansara clan means she must assume her position as guardian of the Sanctuary--the sacred Raintree home deep in the Smoky Mountains.  But doing so threatens to disclose her most precious secret.  Dranir Judah Ansara wants to kill Mercy, personally.  Then he comes face-to-face with her--and with her daughter, Eve.  Will Mercy's closely guarded secret change not only the outcome of the battle. . . but also Judah's own bitter heart?

Ok, so here is the last of the Raintree trilogy.  This one follows the last of the Raintree's royal family, Mercy Raintree and her daughter Eve. 

Mercy is the most powerful empath and psychic healer in the world, so naturally she is the guardian of the Raintree home place, Sanctuary, and has been so for many years.  She loves her job because she gets to help her people and keep her daughter safe at the same time.  But Mercy has a mark on her head that even she doesn't know about.  Cael Ansara has a plan to take out the royal family and claim the homeplace as his own and rule the world. 

When Judah Ansara, the Ansara Dranir (king) finds out what his evil half brother, Cael, has planned for the Raintree, he is forced into action to save Mercy, who has been claimed as his kill in the coming battle.  He takes off to North Carolina after his half brothers hired assassin to save her.

Mercy is called late one night that there was an accident near Sanctuary and that she is the only one who can get there and possible save the people involved.  She leaves the safety of the fortress to help and is attacked when she is healing the survivor of the accident.  Judah runs up behind the attacker and kills him before her can kill Mercy.  Worn out by her ordeal with the healing and the attempt on her life, Mercy passes out and Judah is left to take care of her.

Judah takes Mercy home to heal.  As he is leaving, Eve, who is Mercy's daughter, runs out in the hall to stop him.  Amused by the brave child, he decides to stop and talk to her.

     "Do you know who I am?" he asked, his curiosity piqued by the child's precocious nature.  He sensed an unnatural strength in her. . . and a kinship that wasn't possible.

     She nodded again, her smile widening.  "Yes, I know."

     The child could not possibly know who he was.  He kept his true identity protected from all who were not Ansara.  "If you know who I am, what is my name?"

     "I don't know your name," she admitted.

     Judah sighed inwardly, relieved that he had overestimated the child's abilities and had been mistaken about the momentary sense of a familial bond.  Oddly drawn to the little girl, he approached her, knelt on his haunches so that they were face-to-face and said, "My name is Judah."

     She held out her little hand.

     He took her hand.  An electrical current shot through Judah, unlike anything he had ever experienced.  A raw, untamed power of recognition and possession.

     "Hello, Daddy.  I'm your daughter, Eve."

     An earsplitting scream shook the semi-dark bedroom as Mercy Raintree woke from her healing sleep.

 
Mercy has had her worst fear realized.  Her mistake all those years ago has now been revealed.  She didn't know who Judah was until that one night of passion long ago when she conceived his child.  At that moment she found out that he was the dreaded Ansara and disappeared back home and kept Eve's father a secret until now. 

Both Judah and Mercy are rocked with conflicting emotions.  Judah has swore to hate the Raintree, but how can he battle the mother of his child without making his child hate him.  Plus he has the added secret to hide from everyone that he is the Ansara Dranir.  Mercy is still in love with Judah and is petrified that Judah will take Eve from her.

All of this is is topped with the fact that Cael is now aware of Eve's existence and has vowed to kill the child.  Judah and Mercy decided that the best way to protect Eve is to team together against this lunatic, but had no idea the emotions that would resurface because of it.

     "Leave me!" Judah shot up off the boulder, hell's fury in his eye's.  "I don't want you."  As he came toward her, he pinned her to the spot, and she didn't try to break through the invisible bonds that kept her from moving.  "I don't need you.  Damn you, Mercy Raintree!"

     Judah grabbed her shoulders and shook her as frustration and anger and passion drove him hard.  She felt what he felt and realized that he hated her for making him care.

     "My poor Judah."

     He clutched her face between his open palms and ravaged her with a possessive kiss.  Swept up by the passion neither of them could deny, Mercy surrendered herself.  Heart. Mind.  Body.
    
    And soul.
 
How will this love last with the upcoming war that is inevitable because of Cael.  How will Mercy's people react to the fact that her daughter is half Ansara.  This and more will be revealed in this phenomenal conclusion of Raintree. 

I loved this book and think its my favorite among the three.  I was both happy and sad when I was done because the story was great but I wasn't ready for it to end and not have any more books to read to take me into this fascinating world.  With that being said,  all that's left to say is, Enjoy!!
 

Available at Amazon.com

Haunted By Linda Winstead Jones (Raintree Part 2)

Back cover synopsis:

     Homicide detective Gideon Raintree can harness electricity and talk to ghosts.  To solve his newest case--a relentless serial killer unleashed by the dark Ansara wizards--he will need to wield gifts he's kept hidden. With evil lurking at every turn, Gideon and his alluring new partner, Hope Mallory, are in a race against time to save their love, their family. . . and their newly conceived child.

Sorry this review took a little while to post because, as I said before, I'm rereading them to brush up on the good parts.  This one took a little longer to read because: 1. The book was longer and 2. I had to stop mid book to go to work (what a drag, I know, lol)  But here it is without further ado, Hunted.....

Gideon Raintree is the only homicide detective in Wilmington, North Carolina.  Not that he needs help because Gideon's record speaks for it's self.  He has solved all but one homicide he has ever worked on.  That's not just because he is a good detective, which he is, but because he is a Raintree and that gives him an edge that most detectives don't have. . . He can talk to ghosts. . . However that's not the only ability that he was gifted with being of the royal family.  Gideon can also control electricity, ie: lightning.

When Gideon gets a call from his cousin, Echo, its usually to talk about a premonition she had of a disaster and to calm her down.  This time it was to tell him that her room mate had been murdered.  Gideon get to the scene and and proceeds with looking for clues and to talk to the dead girls ghost when all of the sudden, his new partner walks in, Hope Mallory.

Hope just transferred to town to be with her mother and is new to the department.  She has done her homework on her new partner and knows every detail of his file, but is totally caught off guard when she meets Gideon face to face.  Determined to show that she can handle her new position and that she is just one of the guys, she refuses to take orders and run from this man who is bent on making her transfer departments and prove she can be a great partner to him. 

When Gideon starts acting weird, she assumes that Gideon is a crooked cop and is going to prove it one way or another.  Even if she is wrong and he is not crooked, he was hiding something from her and she has to know what it is.

Gideon has enough of his own problems to deal with right now like the coming summer solstice, a new murder, trying to make sure the Raintree hierarchy is carried on by his brother Dante (the Raintree Dranir or king) and not him and a pesky spirit named Emma that keeps appearing to him and telling him that she is his daughter and she is coming soon in a moonbeam.  Top all that off with a new partner that is to nosy and stubborn for her own good and you have Its a Wonderful Life ( yeah right, lol). 

Gideon is determined to get this woman out of his life.  Not only is she a distraction, and shes a big one because he is so attracted to her, but he cant do his job because she is always there and exposing who he is and what he can do is not on the top of his to do list.  But when Emma appears and tries to push Hope out of the way of a bullet, he realizes two things.  1:  Someone out there wants one or both of them dead and it has to do with this resent murder and 2:  There is more that just an attraction going on between Hope and himself, something that goes way deeper.

Hope is struggling to come to turns with the weirdness of her partner when her life is suddenly put into jeopardy.  In an effort to keep her family safe with a lunatic out there hunting her or possible Gideon, she has no other option than to move in with him for the time being.  While there, they can not resist the physical attraction between them and start something that neither one of them is prepared for, least of all Gideon.

     "Two nights together, and I wake up because you're not where you're supposed to be," he responded with a touch of displeasure in his voice.

This isn't easy for Hope to deal with either,  she has learned her partners secrets and they are not ANY THING that she expected.  Now she was living with him for safety and starting to develop feelings beyond what partners should have for one another and isn't sure what that means for her or her heart.

     She hadn't thought herself in love for a very long time.  Her mother, her sister, her nephews, that kind of love was all she dared to believe in.  Romantic love was filled with pitfalls.  She not only didn't wish for that emotion, she did her best to avoid it.  Love was a trap, heartache just waiting to happen.  This unexpected rush of emotions she felt for Gideon right now, while he held her and filled her and brought her closer to release, surely it was just the power of sex. 

But as he made love to her, with her back to the wall and her arms and legs wrapped completely around him, she couldn't imagine any other man but Gideon making her feel this way.  She could love him.  She could wrap her entire world around this man and change who and what she was, who she had become.  Ghosts, light shows and all, she could love him.

How will they cope when their very new love is pushed to the test by constant dangers?  Will they crumble or will they overcome together in a world that seems to be filled with monsters around ever corner?  And what of Emma, his supposed would be soon daughter, how does she fit into all of this?  You will have to read the book and find out.  I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did both times I read it.  Up next is the final book in the trilogy, Sanctuary, where the final sibling, Mercy's story begins and how her world gets turned upside down.    

Available at Amazon.com

Inferno By Linda Howard (Raintree Part 1)

Back cover synopsis: 

Two hundred years after the Raintree clan defeated them, the Ansara wizards are rising up again to take on their bitterest foes.  As king, it's up to Dante Raintree to protect his clan, but when Lorna Clay walks into his life, suddenly fire, always his to control, defeats him, leaving him wondering whether Lorna is to blame.  Will Dante's strength be enough to win the fight of his life??

This book is my dirty pleasure.  I reread it before I wrote this, just to brush up a little on some of the best parts.  And once again, I was sucked in by the fast paced action and romance that I finished it in 12 hours.  So, its time to tell you why I love this book.

Dante Raintree is a rich and powerful casino owner in Reno, Nevada.  But that's not all he is, he is also Dranir(or king in layman's terms) of the Raintree clan.  When Lorna Clay is brought to his office on the suspicion of cheating in his casino his world is suddenly thrown into chaos.

Lorna Clay has always known she was different, she was constantly reminded of that when she was a child.  Now a days she prefers to be invisible, unnoticeable to everyone. That's how she has lived her life so far and it has worked to keep her out of harms way and a little money in her pocket.  Everything was fine until, while gambling in the Inferno casino, she was grabbed by security and taken to the owner.  From that moment on her world has spun out of control and in her own words has gone into the Twilight Zone.

When Dante sees Lorna in person for the first time, he is completely enthralled   She is likewise affected, but will not admit it, stubborn to the end as she is.  But before he can even figure out who let alone what she is, they are thrown into danger.  The casino is on fire and they are on the 19th floor with no elevators!!

Grabbing Lorna, they make their way down the staircase and try to get outside.  Unfortunately, they run into other patrons of the hotel/casino also trying to escape but panicking (and we all know what can happen in those situation...)  To keep order and to get everyone out and to safely, Dante does something he didn't even know he was capable of until now.  He uses his power of mind control to calm everyone down and get them out of the stairwell and out side before they are cooked alive.

When everyone is safe he goes to battle the fire himself with Lorna along for the ride, unable to break his mind control.  Dante being able to control fire, try's to battle he monstrous flames to no avail and sees that without help he and Lorna are going to die.  Without time to consider the consequences, he taps into Lorna's power to at least get the fire in check until the firefighter can get a hold of the flame, all the while sensing that something supernatural is feeding the inferno.

Once rescued and and the fire extinguished, he take Lorna back to his house to determine who and what she is.  If she is part of the Ansara he would have to kill her, if she is a "stray", she is the most under trained and powerful stray he has ever met.  One thing is for sure, he needs to find out and soon.

After being what she considers kidnapped and kept prisoner by his weird mental leash, Lorna is more than upset with Dante and shows it every way she can, either with upper cuts to the face or messing with his coffee.  All the while he is telling her thing so ridiculous that they seem right out of a science fiction book about how she is gifted and no alone in the world.  The only problem with that is it all makes sense to her.  Dante offers to train her to use her abilities just to protect herself from other "gifted" beings, but she is so guarded and jaded from a troubled childhood, its hard for her to trust anyone.

After he saves her life again in another near miss, she realizes that this man will always be with her and shes not sure how she feels about that.

     Her mother certainly wouldn't have risked a nail, much less her life, to save Lorna from anything.  So what was this. . . this stranger doing, putting his own life in danger to protect her?  She hated him for doing this to her, for making himself someone whose footprint would always be on her heart.

And as for Dante, he is realizing its more that just a simple attraction to a woman.

     He loved her.  This wasn't just sex, just a brief affair, or just anything.  It was the real deal.  He loved her courage, her gallantry, her grumpiness.  He loved the snarky comments, the stubbornness and vulnerability she hated for anyone to see.

When more and more of what is happening to the both of them seem more like a deliberate attempt on their lives and not just mere coincident, their very young relationship gets tested as it is pit up against century's of war.  Will their love survive, I don't know, I will let you get entranced by this book as I was and find out for yourself.  Hopefully it will have you wanting more.  Enjoy.

Available on Amazon.com

The Raintree Trilogy

Raintree: Inferno / Sanctuary / Haunted

By Linda Howard, Beverly Barton and Linda Winstead Jones.

This book is all three in one:
Raintree: Inferno (Silhouette Nocturne)By Linda Howard
Raintree: Haunted (Silhouette Nocturne)By Linda Winstead Jones
Raintree: Sanctuary (Silhouette Nocturne)By Beverly Barton

I blame this book for my obsession of Paranormal Romances.  I bought it by accident thinking it was just a fantasy book, but after the first couple chapters I was a lost cause.  Once finishing the trilogy, I just had to have more.  So, since this was the catalyst to my obsession, I figured its a good place to start.  I am going to review each book separately in this post so sit back and relax because this is going to be a long one broken up into three parts.
 

Hello And Welcome

I have always loved reading.  Didn't matter what kind of book, all though I preferred fantasy, lol.  I then purchased a book by accident thinking it was just a vampire book and it turned out to be a paranormal romance.  Two years later, I am obsessed with paranormal romance books and haven't been able to put them down since.  I have now become enthralled with several series and have no one to talk to about them so I started to read blogs.  My favorite is Maryse's Book Blog. As my library grew, I decided that maybe I should start sharing what I know about these awesome books.  My first review will be coming soon so please be a little patient and please enjoy.