Wednesday Reads and Sweaty Corn

Here’s what I read the past week:

July 20: “A Taste of Midnight” by Lara Adrian, book 9.5 in the Midnight Breed series, a paranormal romance novella at 80 pages. Blurb from Goodreads: A shimmering holiday gala lights up an ancient castle in the Scottish Highlands, but beautiful widowed Breedmate Danika MacConn feels alone in the crowd. Even among the friends and festivity of the Darkhaven celebration, she can’t forget her lost love, a fallen warrior of the Order. Her brief return to her mate’s homeland has become treacherous after rejecting the advances of a dangerous Edinburgh crime boss with a taste for blood sport. As Danika seeks to expose the vampire and his dark trade, she discovers an unexpected ally in his forbidding, enigmatic henchman, Brannoc, a man who exudes heat, danger, and dark menace--and seems somehow achingly familiar. Bran has his own reasons for wanting to keep Dani out of his employer’s business . . . and his own secrets he means to keep buried. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a woman who tempts the wildest part of his Breed nature--especially when that woman is Danika MacConn, the one woman capable of bringing him to his knees. This little novella was packed with suspense and was a quick read (which is good, I need some books under my belt!). I kind of wish I’d read this before book 10, but as it was bonus material, I’d already started #10  when I realized the novella was #9.5. Oh well…

July 25: “Don’t Tempt Me” by Lori Foster, a contemporary romance at 330 pages. Blurb from book: Jason Guthrie has no time for entanglements—between helping out his widowed brother and teenage nephew and getting his hometown back on its feet, his days are spoken for. But his nights are another story… And when his lovely new neighbor, Honor Brown, reluctantly accepts his help in remodeling her house, Jason finds himself wishing his handyman skills could knock down the defenses she keeps building around herself. Martial arts teacher Sullivan Dean knows real danger when he sees it—even when it takes the form of the gorgeous blonde helping her friend move in across the street. After putting his wayward past behind him to focus on teaching control to troubled kids, Sullivan has learned to avoid party girls like Lexie Perkins. But Sullivan can’t seem to keep his hands off the real woman behind that flirty charm—or keep his heart from landing at her feet… This book has two romances in one! I won a copy of this book (which is an uncorrected ARC) from Lori Foster at RAGT this year, so I thought it only fair I read it fairly soon. I enjoyed this story very much, but then I do like Lori Foster’s writing. If you’re a big contemporary romance reader, you’ll definitely love this one.

Apparently I have the corn to blame for the humidity around here. Did you know that stuff sweats? Explains a lot. It never got this humid in Santa Barbara, probably because not a lot of corn is being grown there. What I used to think was humid (when I lived there) wasn’t anything close to humid.

Happy Reading!

Stacy