Unscripted by J.S. Marlo

Available today from Breathless Press:

I can't rate this because I edited it. So, of course, I think it's good. What I will say is fans of television shows, firefighting, suspense, good clean romance, people that have faced the loss of a loved one, mothers, there's something for all of you in this book. 

Riley is a writer who gets a fun, exciting job writing for a television show called Wild Rescue. She friends a handsome man, Blythe, who has some troubling stuff going on his life. Writing for the television show isn't all fun though...there's a coworker who is most unpleasant. 

Meanwhile, Riley's husband is back home on the ranch fighting fires and tracking down an arsonist who shoes no signs of stopping. 

Riley, Blythe, Ollie, Chad, Rowan... A wonderful cast of characters that will really draw you into their lives.


Buy Here: Unscripted on Breathless Press

A Proper Lady's Gypsy Lover by Juliet Chastain

Having read this author's The Captain and the Courtesan and enjoyed it, I bought this as soon as it was made available. I sat down and read it in a sitting as it's another novelette.

I liked this because we have a headstrong heroine who does not want to marry against her will and thwarts suitors at every turn because her heart belongs to another...but he's a gypsy, and her oh so proper aunts won't let her see him. Imagine Lucy Ann's surprise when Liberty shows up at a dance dressed as a gentleman!

But he's not a gentleman. He's trying to weasel money from the rich. He loves her and yet spurns her to save her. There's no future for them...is there? Well, there could be, but they'll have to make one for themselves.

Well written, engaging, and just a good, simple romance. I recommend it for when you just want to escape briefly to another time, place, and to a fictional character's problems. Or for when you need that HEA and soon. Stories like this are what I like to call "spirit lifters."

Four bikes. I think it could have been fleshed out a bit more.

Kissing the Captain by Kianna Alexander

This was as short, sweet novella. 1879. A young woman's father passes away, leaving her alone...but not destitute. However, the 26 acres of farmland she's inherited comes with a string attached: marry her father's best friend's son, Ricardo.

Her dilemma: She has to marry a man she doesn't know. This is scary.

Ricardo is a sea captain who can no longer handle being at sea. His dilemma: Making Lily want him when it seems he pisses her off at every turn. 

They argue over whores, drinking, and after they wed, a woman's place in the home. I really liked Lily. She won't take any lip from this guy. She'll take the lovin' and all, but when it comes right down to it, she says she's going to do her thing and he can't stop her. I also liked how she sorta saves him, not the other way around. Trouble falls on them and I didn't really see him as protecting her. She ended up looking out for herself in my opinion.

It was a decent and entertaining read, I didn't buy the whole suicidal woman thing at the end though. I also found something a bit irritating as I read: It was all very proper English. We are. You will. I am. No we're, you'll, or I'm. I can see having them speak that way, but even the narrative? It was a minor irritant.

Three bikes. I received this from the author in exchange for an honest review. 

Women Heroes of World War II by Kathryn J. Atwood

Not all the heroes of WWII were in the trenches, some were behind the lines and they were women.

This book talks about 26 of those women. Women who hid Jews right in Nazis' basements, women who were radio operators, women were underwent torture, were purposely infected with gangrene, sterilized, women who smuggled fake papers, tried to save sick Jewish kids from ghettos, transported bombs in the bicycles, parachuted into enemy territory... I could mention each one, but the review would be as long as the book.

One that stood out for me: Josephine Baker. Despite her ill treatment in America, she helped the Allies by hiding secrets in her underwear. She was a spy. This woman's chapter was fascinating. There's so much more to her.
Marlene Dietrich...this really shocked me. I confess I'm not a fan. I think she's always a hussy in her movies. (Yes, I watch those old back and whites.) She was German by birth and canceled her citizenship out of disgust for the Nazis. She sent money to get friends out of the country and joined the USO, traveling with the American  troops, pistol in her pocket, as she sang over the radio, sad German songs in an attempt to dissuade German soldiers. She was also a member of the OSS. I didn't know that!

Very intriguing book. Something I noticed in particular. At least half of the stories are about women trying to smuggle/hide/save Jews and when their male comrades were tortured, the men blabbered out names, turning in the women and the resistance organization..but when the women were tortured--sometimes for four months or more--they didn't break. Some died, but none of these women gave names. Interesting. Something to be said for a our pain tolerance there.

Quibble: Though the WASP was mentioned briefly in the opening of the U.S. part, there were no stories, no women pilots featured. I wasn't too pleased to find that. Many of the WASP and the ATA were def heroes. *frowny face*

Four bikes. I bought this on Amazon.

Prohibited Passion by Alyssa Linn Palmer

More of a romance than an erotic. Major points for that. I'm not into more sex than story. I thought the story to sex ratio was perfect. The characters were engaging and realistic though the romance was a tad rushed.

Major thumbs up for uniqueness. A f/f romance in a town and a time that didn't tolerate such things. The sideline story is bootlegging/thugs. You got a minister's daughter, Ruth, who knows she's different (I'd have liked this dwelled on more.) and she immediately falls for a woman passing through with her gangster boyfriend. Gangster boyfriend gets mad and forces Ruth to help him with his bootlegging operation. Things go seriously wrong...

More points for not conforming to everyone's expectation of a HEA. Frankly, I'm sick to death of HEAs. Life isn't always a HEA. Let's be realistic.

I enjoyed it, was surprised at the short length. I love shorties, but in this instance, I think it could have been longer. Not by too much, just a bit more so the romance wasn't so quick. 

Three bikes. I bought this on Amazon Kindle. 

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

A very exciting read, if a bit long -winded. Anything over four hundred pages starts to lose my attention in the middle. I didn't realize it was so long when I first picked it up.
You've got a girl with special skills she's not really aware of...she isn't affected by the plague, heals quickly, and her family and village are terrified of her. She's death's daughter..death being Saint Mortain. She escapes from an abusive father and unwanted marriage and ends up in a nunnery of killer nuns.

"If you choose to stay, you will be trained in His arts. You will learn more ways to kill a man than you imagined possible. We will train you in stealth and cunning and all manner of skills that will ensure no man is ever again a threat to you."

Sign me up!

From the nunnery, she goes on to "work a case" so to speak alongside a handsome duke's bastard. Together, they are embroiled in a political mess involving the kingdom, the threat from Franch, who the duchess is to wed... Men die, there are attacks on her and her companion's lives... here is where it started to drag for me. As someone who is tudored out and just tired of ye olde court politics, my attention started waning. But comments like this one kept it lively:

"I have been in Guerande three days. As urgently as the abbess wanted me here, I would think there should be someone who needed killing by now."

LOL. And the heroine does some intriguing killing...from the pearls in her hair net to other ways... and did I mention there is budding romance and self-doubts? Can you really believe all you are taught?

I got this from netgalley.

Blue Asylum by Kathy Hepinstall

This book had me mumbling the same question throughout the entire reading of it..."Who's really the crazy one?"


It's not the heroine, Iris who tried to save a slave from being whipped, tried to save a baby and ran away with the entire population of slaves from her husband and their overseer...No, she was pretty amazing.


Blue Asylum is about an insane asylum on an island during the Civil war. This is a time when men could toss their wives in the looney bin for being a suffragette. And it seems, in this asylum, everyone is nuts but Iris. 


The man she loves has PTS from a experience he went through in the war. There's a woman who eats everything. I think one of my favorite scenes was when she offered Iris a ring back, shiny as new, after having swallowed it a few days before. LMAO. The matron has a control and abusive issue, tearing up beds and demanding they be remade over and over. The doctor's wife is a sniveling ninny. The doctor's son has an obsession with fondling himself and masturbation. The doctor thinks he is in love with Iris.


Everyone but Iris is nuts. And the chef.. he seemed sane.


What I really liked about this, (besides Iris), was how the book raises the question..."You think you know it all, but do you? Who really has the problem here?"


"There's a woman in this asylum, Doctor, who never says a word. Who merely claps in delight at anything spoken to her. And I suspect that if I merely clapped at everything you said, I could clap my way to freedom."

The doctor is a pompous arse who needs to realize it, and his son needs help.

And all this unfolds with the Civil war in the background, and there's an escape plan and a surprising turn of events that I didn't predict. I also really loved the woman who refused to be widowed.. That was just too sweet.

What I didn't like: I'm not big on descriptions. Most reviewers seemed to love the descriptions. Me, I grow bored with that and want it to get on with the story. I don't have trouble visualizing an island. Nor did I care much for the son and his fondling/masturbation problems or his memories of Penelope. I didn't see how that added to the tale, really. And the romance... I didn't feel the love. 

Three bikes and I got this on netgalley.