Paranormally Yours by Anne Gimpel, et al.

Seven of today’s hottest paranormal authors come together to bring you a boxed set guaranteed to keep you warm on a cold winter’s night. Do shifters make you howl? Or do you prefer the bite of a vampire? Perhaps the controlling hand of a demi-god is more your style. Paranormally Yours has a story—or seven—to set your pulse racing.

(See the Goodreads link at the bottom of the post for full blurbs of all included stories.)


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It's difficult to write an general review for a collection like this that is comprised of so many different stories, for it is nearly impossible to find descriptions that apply to all of them equally. Overall I enjoyed the collection, though my enjoyment of the individual stories varied of course. Some I loved, some I thought were just OK, others I didn't really care for much. None were "bad" in my estimation though, and the ones I didn't care for so much were mostly a matter of personal preferences, not any real faults with the stories themselves necessarily. It should be noted that the collection is very shifter-heavy even though a couple of the stories do include vampires or other paranormals, so if you don't care for shifters you probably won't care for this anthology. Likewise, if you're looking for stories about vampires or magic users you might do well to look elsewhere (though the one story here that's primarily about vampires is one of the better ones IMO). I'm giving this a 4 star rating overall since that is more or less the average of my ratings on the individual stories. Read on past the jump to see those individual ratings and reviews.

Note: I received a free copy of this collection from one of the authors in exchange for an honest review.

The Kiss by Sotia Lazu

Eliza is out on a first date, when the lights go out and someone other than the man she's out with takes advantage of the dark to kiss her more passionately than she’s ever been kissed before.

Since the mystery kisser has to be one of the men sitting nearest to her, Eliza is now determined to kiss as many frogs as she needs to until she finds her prince.


Where to Buy

Amazon

This was a cute story, and I really liked the first part when she was trying to figure out who had kissed her. It's pretty obvious almost right away to the reader who it was, but was interesting to see how she went about trying to figure it out. I thought the story drug on just a bit too long though, and the last chapter and a half or so could have been left out I think and the story would have still been reasonably complete. I also found the teenage antics/angst a bit off-putting at times, but not enough so that it was ever really an issue for me. Still, I think I might have enjoyed this just a bit more if the characters had been a bit more grown up and mature instead of still barely out of high school as they are. I'll give it 3½ stars, and I'm sure fans of new adult contemporary romance will enjoy this one.

• The Kiss on Goodreads
• Sotia Lazu's website

Cherry Stem by Sotia Lazu

Turned at the cusp of a promising career in the adult movie industry, Cherry Stem has to rely on her mesmerizing vampire gaze for her meals and money. With the rent deadline approaching, settling for pocket change isn’t an option, so she reluctantly lets tall, dark, and handsome Detective Alex Marsden take her home for the night and fulfill her needs.

Only she gets more than she bargained for.

When Cherry meets Alex, she expects him to be nothing more than another “girl meets boy, girl feeds from boy, girl erases boy’s memories” hook-up. Once missing young women, the vampire council, and her irresistible ex are thrown into the mix though, she realizes nothing is as simple or random as she thought it was.

And her unlife isn't the only thing at stake.


Where to Buy

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
All Romance eBooks

A fun read that manages to be both lighthearted and heartbreakingly serious by turns. Just when you're chuckling and settling into this book as something of a light comedy perhaps, something happens that has you holding your breath for Cherry or for one of her guys. While the end is largely predictable, still you'll feel Cherry's heartbreak right along with her.