The Keeper of the Key by Debra Smith

Kate, an everyday book store owner, is thrown into a world of danger after receiving a letter from her deceased husband. She follows the clues into the arms of Xander, a tough guy she can’t stop herself from wanting. Her passions ignite from a single glance, and she is unable to control her desires. Her love isn’t enough to save her, because a human can never survive a vampire's hunger.

Xander admires the fiery temper of the seductive human he’s determined to help. She must follow the dangerous trail onto which her dead husband’s message leads, for it ends in the mythical land of Shangri La. In an effort to save her, Xander bonds them together, sentencing her to death unless he can reverse the blood tie. Though he craves her touch, he's forced to push her away while they battle their way to the chaos at the heart of Shangri La. Can he protect her from her family’s secrets and find a way for both of them to survive, or will their love be lost in the pits of a crumbling castle?

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Note: I was provided with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An interesting read by a new author who shows a lot of promise. A "return to Eden" kind of story where the protagonists are Kate, a bookstore owner who lost her husband a prior to the opening of the book and Xander, the vampire who had been one of her husband's colleagues. At the start of the book, Kate receives a mysterious package from her late husband that contains a pendant and a cryptic letter telling her that she's in danger and that she needs to find Xander and accomplish some unspecified task with the pendant. She dutifully heads out looking for Xander, and so the adventure begins.

My Life As a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

Angel Crawford is a loser.

Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of southern Louisiana, she's a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record who's been fired from more crap jobs than she can count. Now on probation for a felony, it seems that Angel will never pull herself out of the downward spiral her life has taken.

That is, until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in an horrible car crash, but she doesn't have a mark on her. To add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter telling her there's a job waiting for her at the parish morgue—and that it's an offer she doesn't dare refuse.

Before she knows it she's dealing with a huge crush on a certain hunky deputy and a brand new addiction: an overpowering craving for brains. Plus, her morgue is filling up with the victims of a serial killer who decapitates his prey—just when she's hungriest!

Angel's going to have to grow up fast if she wants to keep this job and stay in one piece. Because if she doesn't, she's dead meat.

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A fun book that I enjoyed far more than I originally thought I would. Zombies aren't normally my thing, but this book made them relatable and normal-seeming. Right from the start Ms. Rowland has you sympathizing with Angel, and rooting for her to figure out how to survive and to thrive in her new life. While there are some scenes and descriptions that are more than a little gross, the ick factor is usually mitigated with humor to help make it less repugnant.

Immortal Desire by Sirena Van Schaik

Monsters are real, and they stand before me pretending to be human...

Caught in a world of vampires, dark desires and addiction, Angela Cross has walked on the edge of the surreal and found herself in a struggle for her own heart. Drawn to two dangerous men, Angela must make the choice between a life with vampires or a life against them. Will she succumb to the immortal's desire...or will she become the hunter?

A strange and rather disturbing story. The prose has a very gothic feel to it, though the setting is contemporary and nothing is overtly goth about any of the characters. Angela's confusion as she finds herself torn by her attraction to two different men is palpable, as is her frequent near hysteria when she thinks about what she's doing and allowing to be done to her. It's hard to feel sorry for her exactly, since she walks into everything with her eyes open, knowing what she's getting into, or at least mostly knowing. Still, there's the sense that she didn't really know, and that she's very quickly in over her head without even realizing it, and even by the end of the story she still hasn't found her way out of the labyrinth, she's merely gotten sucked deeper into it, though not in the same way she got sucked in to begin with. My rating on this would really be about 2½ stars I think, for I'm not certain I can entirely say I liked it, but I also didn't dislike it. Those who enjoy dark, confusing, and somewhat disturbing stories might like this one.

• Immortal Desire on Goodreads
• Sirena Van Schaik on Goodreads

A Bolt from the Blue by Georgia Fox

Alix likes her secrets, but one of them is about to draw her out of hiding and make her face a few facts about her life. He's someone she's only chatted with online, yet he already knows more about Alix than any other man she's ever encountered. For some reason she's told him more than she should and when the voice in her head asks what the hell she's doing, she has no answer to give. Nothing can explain the nature of this unusual relationship or why she feels so close to a stranger.

Until they finally come face to face and discover that lightening can strike in the same place twice.

Be Warned: anal sex, public exhibition.

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A brief vignette of one evening in a hotel where two people who've known each other online for months have arranged to meet for a quickie before a banquet they are both scheduled to attend. Instead of being a detailed account of that encounter, however, it focuses on them after their frenzied coupling as they go separately to the banquet, how they deal with the emotions raised by the encounter and the desire they still feel for one another. We even get a bit of backstory regarding how their lives have been connected longer than they realize.

Hard Candy for Christmas by Ella Dominguez

When a sexy little pixie loses her wings, all she wants is hard candy for Christmas.

Lia was in magical limbo. That's what you get when you piss off a witch! How was she to know that the man she threw Pixie dust on was the witch's lover? He had seemed interested and she had been in the mood to play. Now she's stuck in the human realm with no magical powers. She had to break the curse, but she was running out of time. If the curse wasn't broken by midnight on Christmas Eve, she would be stuck human forever.

Nick and Dale had been friends forever. They had grown up together and had been there through each trial the other had endured. Nothing could separate them. Until they met Lia. The stunning petite woman was everything each of them had ever wanted.

Would their friendship survive if only one of them won her heart?

Lia didn't know what to do. She had finally met someone she believed she could love. But that wasn't the problem. She had met TWO men that tugged at her heart strings. Would one or both of them love her back by Christmas Eve? And if so, what happens when her powers return?

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What a wonderful little story this is! What it lacks in length it makes up for with a tight story that's paced just right to develop the relationship between the three main characters at a believable rate. While there's instant strong attraction between them, this not a story of undying true love at first sight. True, it is still a very fast romance, taking place over the course of only three weeks, but it's a pretty intense three weeks so it doesn't seem so unreasonable that they're each ready to make a commitment at the end of that time, especially when you add in the paranormal aspects that are at play here.

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.


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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.

Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James

When unworldly student Anastasia Steele first encountered the driven and dazzling young entrepreneur Christian Grey it sparked a sensual affair that changed both of their lives irrevocably. Shocked, intrigued, and, ultimately, repelled by Christian’s singular erotic tastes, Ana demands a deeper commitment. Determined to keep her, Christian agrees.

Now, Ana and Christian have it all—love, passion, intimacy, wealth, and a world of possibilities for their future. But Ana knows that loving her Fifty Shades will not be easy, and that being together will pose challenges that neither of them would anticipate. Ana must somehow learn to share Christian’s opulent lifestyle without sacrificing her own identity. And Christian must overcome his compulsion to control as he wrestles with the demons of a tormented past.

Just when it seems that their strength together will eclipse any obstacle, misfortune, malice, and fate conspire to make Ana’s deepest fears turn to reality.

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A big disappointment after the strength of the last book in this series. All of the good momentum that had been gained in Fifty Shades Darker was largely lost in this volume, or at least the first half of it. After all the growth and progress Ana and Christian make with their relationship in Darker, the first half of this book puts us back to the repetitive back and forth bickering that we saw so much of in Fifty Shades of Grey. While it does pick up again in the second half, the agonizing first half really makes you question if you want to stay with it or not. Frankly, only sheer determination to make it through this one kept me from bailing on it, and even then it was a near thing at times.