Saving June

Saving June
by Hannah Harrington
Published by Harlequin Teen
ISBN-10: 0373210248
336 pages
Available on Amazon.com
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.


4.5 / 5 cupcakes


I will get to the bottom line, straight away: you must read this book, because if you don't, you miss something extraordinary.

The plot appears simple: Harper Scott's older sister, June, commits suicide a week before she would have graduated from high school. The girls' parents are divorced, their mother having already succumbed to grief over her marriage and their father all but evaporated from their lives. June was the "good" daughter, seemingly confident, successful and the standard to which her parents held Harper.

And then she kills herself, and Harper finds the body.

The book begins at June's wake, during which Hannah Harrington establishes the taut dynamics in the Harper home: Mom is vacant and self-focused on her own loss, Dad is on the periphery, Aunt Helen is brittle and judgmental, and Harper is unable to cry or, for that matter, appear terribly disturbed by her sister's death. We also meet Harper's best friend, Laney, as well as Jake Tolan, a mysterious boy who shows up, smokes, and irritates Harper.

Since June did not leave a note, Harper is forced to try and figure out why her sister killed herself. She pries through June's stuff and uncovers a few clues. She also discovers one last thing she can do for her sister: take June's ashes, which her parents plan to split, and scatter them in California, a place June desperately wanted to go to.

Harper, Laney and Jake hop in Jake's minivan, affectionately named Joplin (after the singer, not the Missouri town), and head west. Jake, as Joplin indicates, is a fan of classic rock and the blues, and the road trip not only gives Harper a chance to take care of her sister, it also provides a learning opportunity about music. (Hannah Harrington even provides playlists for us, so that we can create the soundtrack for the book.)

What makes Saving June so good - so phenomenal, actually - is its realism. Harper is confused and unsettled. She feels guilty. She also feels a little unburdened. She feels forgotten and abandoned. But mostly she feels lost. Why did June kill herself? What was her relationship with Jake? What will Harper do when Laney heads off to college? Can anything come of Harper's interest in photography? And most of all, who is Harper without her sister serving as the measuring stick for her life?

As Harper herself observes,

Well, my head could use some clearing. Everything is so complicated. The mess with Laney. How I feel about Jake. How I feel about my sister. I want someone to make things black-and-white. Someone to tell me, These are the people worth caring about, who won't hurt you or let you down. These are the people who will put you through the wringer and abandon you in the worst ways. When it really counts.

The one thing Harper knows to be true is that June was more than how she was categorized; she was not the person they wanted her to be.

I don't want to think about Aunt Helen. She's just like everyone else downstairs, seeing in June only what they wanted to see - a perfect daughter, perfect friend, perfect student, perfect girl. They're all grieving over artificial memories, some two-dimensional, idealized version of my sister they've built up in their heads because it's too scary to face reality. That June had something in her that was broken.

Harper realizes that Jake hold some of the answers, but she can't bring herself to ask him. And that's something I really liked about this book. Harper wants to know, but she's afraid to find out. She waits for Jake to tell her about June, even as she yearns to interrogate him. She doesn't want to know that someone saw June's death coming, that Jake knew her sister better than Harper did. But at the same time, she wishes June had a Laney - a friend to stand by her side.

This book is beautifully written. Harper makes mistakes; oy, does she make mistakes. She sometimes says the wrong thing, sometimes does the wrong thing. She will fill your heart with love for her even while she breaks it with her loss. Laney and Jake are nicely developed, too. They each have struggles, and each of them needs something from the trip to California.

I do, however, have two quibbles with this book. The first is that a resolution to on character's problem seems very convenient, almost cheapening the issue in the first place. It was an unexpected development, because nothing comes easy for Harper. The other quibble is the adults in Harper's family, who seem like cardboard, stock characters.

But those complaints are minor when seen in the scope of this book. It is just so good. It will make you laugh, it may make you cry. Read it. Right now.

Lord Atwood's Lovers

Lord Atwood's Lovers
by Eva Clancy
Published by: Spice Briefs
Available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.


Looking for a hot novella about threesome sexy times? Then look no further, my friends. Eva Clancy serves up total hotness with a m/f/m ménage.

This tasty morsel is a historical romance, of sorts, focused on the eponymous Lord Atwood, who recently married Imogen, a comely - and rambunctious - widow. They have this thing where they go to balls, she flirts with other men, he gets aroused, and they come home for some raucous headboard rocking.

"You knew you were making me hard tonight. You were being a wicked girl, weren't you?"

"Yes," she said hoarsely. "I was being a bad little slut, Charles. Now fuck me, please."

And there you have it. Pillow talk, Atwood styles. When Imogen happens across Alex Lambert in the park, she finds out that he is an "old friend" of her husband's and invites him for dinner. Turns out, Atwood and Alex liked to share all sorts of things, and Imogen is nothing if not determined to please her husband, so ...

Other than an oddly placed sub plot involving Imogen's first husband, Lord Atwood's Lovers is all about the nooky, both within marriage and with a little extra something something. Clancy's sex scenes are good, but better when it's just Atwood and Imogen. The ménage outings were insufficient, I guess is the word. It isn't that they are not hot, but there wasn't enough.

If you're in the mood for a quickie, this is the novella for you.

Against the Sun

Against the Sun
Kat Martin
Publisher: Mira
400 pages
ISN:  0778313506
Available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.


I think I need to quit reading romance novels, because the men in these books are just too much.

TOO MUCH, people.

In this case, we have Jake Cantrell (seriously ... the name alone, right?), an ex Marine now working in a sort of private investigations/protection capacity. He is all man. Tall, big (yes, BIG in exactly That Way). Growly and manly and virile. And HOT.

He has been assigned to protect Sage Dumont (is it wrong that every time I saw her name, I pictured a Thanksgiving turkey, with its crisp skin covered in butter, salt and sage? Kat Martin probably didn't intend for that to be the thought going through me head), who is trying to broker a oil platform and pipe deal with a wealthy Saudi family. Jake and Sage's fellow Houstonians do not embrace this idea, whether for environmental or ethnic reasons - fears of terrorism and whatnot. But Sage is determined, because if she makes the deal, her grandfather might appoint her president of the company.

There are some twists and turns in the plot, many of them involving the Saudi Sheikh's family, not to mention the fiancé that Sage needs to jettison before she and Jake can rock the headboard.

Before you can say, "Take your clothes off," the aforementioned fiancé is a mere memory, and Jake and Sage are coupling with a fervor. When she gets a look at his, um, appendage, Sage does experience a moment of apprehension, to which Jake says, "I'm a big man, Sage."

See? I told you he was big. and he promises her that she will make room for Daddy, as it were. During their first romp, she begs him several times to not stop, and he complies. Boy, does he COMPLY.

Kat Martin can write some steamin' hot sex scenes, never you fear that.

She gasped as he hauled her up and lifted her into his arms, carried her over and settled her on the bed. Jake followed her down and began to feast on her breasts. She thought he would take her, but instead he lifted her, set her astride him, let her sink slowly down until he filled her completely.

 "Your turn," he said, and her eyes closed as pleasure washed through her. For a moment she just sat there, absorbing the feel of him inside her, the way they fit so perfectly together, the thrum of her heart and delicious sensations.

In other words, Jake was right. He fits her JUST FINE.

In terms of plot, the story is fast-paced and packed with action - and I don't just mean rocking the headboard action. It's a fun read, perfect for the beach, especially if you have someone handy to help you with the hotness, as it were.

Against the Sun is part of the Raines of Wind Canyon series, but you do not have to read the prior books to understand this one. Curiosity might drive you to it, though, just to see if the other heroes are half as masterful as Jake is.

 

Dirty Little Secret

The fine folks at Under the Covers host a weekly meme all about the stuff we don't want you to know. 

To participate in the meme, all you need to do is:

1. Be a follower of Under the Covers
2. Create a post in your blog taking the image above and copying the instructions
3. Answer the question we propose! This can be done in any way you like - post a video, write a post, etc.
4. Then add your link below.

Non-bloggers: we want to hear from you as well! Let us know your answer in the comments.

We hope you join and let us know your Dirty Little Secrets!

This week's question: 

With the upcoming release of MAGIC MIKE where some of the hottest guys strip nekkid and shake their ummmm assets, we want to know YOUR fantasy cast! 


If you could choose six of the hottest stars to shake their moneymakers for you, which guys would it be? 

Six hot guys? Well, then. 

We shall begin with my Spiritual Fiancé, Bruce Springsteen. Minus that awful soul patch, which I do not like. Bruce, my darling, my pretend boyfriend since I was fourteen. Please shave that thing off your chin. Or better yet, let me do it. He is 62-years-old and can "perform" for nearly four hours. All that intense focus he normally puts on the guitar and the audience placed squarely on YOU and making YOU happy. Girls. Need I say more?

Next on the docket is Clive Owen, who looks all sweary and forceful - in a good way. And those eyes. Oh, Clive Owen. CLIVE OWEN. You are delicious.

Number three: Michael Fassbender. And I haven't even seen the movie where he reveals his naughty bits. I mean Michael Fassbender as Mr. Rochester. Like Clive Owen, he's another Brit who appears very sweary and forceful - as if he'd grab you by the hair, throw you on the bed, and make you scream for more.

Number four: Alex O'Loughlin. The Moonlight Alex O'Loughlin, with the shaggy hair, not the Hawaii 5-0 Alex O'Loughlin with the short hair. Longer hair, please. The sort you can grab onto, if you know what I mean.

Number five: Riggins. I mean, Taylor Kitsch. Again, Taylor with the longer, Riggins-esque hair. And slightly sweaty. And not wearing a shirt.

And last, but certainly not least, Brendan Shanahan. For those of you who follow hockey, Brendan played on the Detroit Red Wings - a team I do not love, by the way - and won a few Stanley Cups with them. He works for the NHL now and enforces discipline. Maybe I've read too much Fifty Shades stuff lately, but enforcing discipline? Please, Brendan Shanahan. PLEASE. 

So there you go. Six I'd love to see buck nekkid and ready to go. And by "ready," I think you all know what I'm talking about. If you don't, bless your heart.

Shades of Desire

Shades of Desire
Virna de Paul
Published by: HQN Books
ISN:0373776357
384 pages
Available on Amazon.com
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.





If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Virna de Paul likes it nice and slow. Girlfriend keeps us waiting a long, LONG time for some headboard rocking.

Shades of Desire is more of a mystery than the title (and cover) would indicate. Only even then, the mystery is solved for the reader before it is for the characters, so I'm not sure you can say this is an edge-of-your-seat mystery, either. It's more of a how-long-can-I-keep-you-from-the-sex-scenes type of book.

Globetrotting photographer Natalie Jones has macular degeneration, and one day, the last vestiges of sight leave her. Unfortunately, she has a camera with her at the time, and she might have taken a picture that implicates someone in a crime. So she is attacked. Liam "Mac" McKenzie is the detective called to help her, and he takes n instant interest in her. And she in him.

It wasn't a darkness that scared her. Instead, it was erotic. Heavy. Heavenly. In her mind, it pressed her against him. Prompted him to put his arms around her. Made her nipples harden and her breath hitch and the spot between her legs ache. Heat fluttered its fingers across her entire body, not just warm but hot, banishing the coldness that had continued to cling to her over the past month. In the intimate space of the enclosure, she greedily reached for more, pressing harder against him, wanting to get inside him, wanting him inside her, big and thick and hard and ruthless, refusing to let her turn away or hide for one second longer -

Whoa. That's during their FIRST MEETING. Yet I do not want to tell you how long you have to wait until these two rip their clothes off and tear each other apart.

And that is my problem with Shades of Desire: it can't figure out what it is. A Hot Romance Novel? A mystery? A murder mystery? Erotica? It's frustrating. One minute, Mac and Natalie nuzzle each other, and the next he's trying to help her make peace with her blindness. They want to heal each other, but first they need to get naked. Well, first they need to figure out who's trying to kill Natalie and why.

Virna de Paul takes us into the heads (no pun intended ...) of a lot of characters: in addition to Natalie and Mac, we get to know Mac's partner, Jase, and the people (there is more than one) chasing Natalie. It's too many. We don't need to know that Jase is hot for a woman on the squad, and we don't need to know as much as de Paul tells us about the bad guys. In fact, this book would have been better served by letting us guess more.

Now, the sex scenes. They are pretty hot, thank goodness, and not in a subtle, hazy way. We get details, and after waiting so long, details are nice. Details are good. Mac is HOT, people. And, um, proficient. His stamina gives Christian Grey a run for his money, let's just say. On his BEST day, Christian can't last as long as Mac on his worst.

It all comes back to Christian Grey, doesn't it? I need to let go of that, don't I.

Beyond Sugar Shock

Beyond Sugar Shock: The Six-Week Plan to Break Free of Your Sugar Addiction & Get Slimmer, Sexier & Sweeter
by Connie Bennett
Publisher: Hay House
303 pages
ISBN: 1401931898
Available on Amazon.com
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.





Can you live on five or six teaspoons of sugar PER DAY? Not per hour. Per DAY?

Well, if Connie Bennett and her anti-sugar crusaders have anything to say about it, you can and you will.

Sugar is bad for you. I think we all know that. We - or at least most Americans - consume too much sugar, which puts our health at great risk. And contrary to what we may believe, we do not need sugar to survive. Bennett tells us that we get all the glucose we need from stuff like vegetables, fruits, seeds, whole grains and nuts.

Does that sound like fun eating to anyone? Sure, I may not NEED sugar to survive, but believe me when I tell you that the people in my house are a whole lot happier when I've consumed some dark chocolate (preferably dark chocolate covered caramels, my FAVORITE, but please don't tell Connie Bennett, because she undoubtedly will tell me how awful that is for me and how I have one foot in a cardiac arrest unit and the other on a banana peel).

But I digress.

Sugar can trigger - or at least encourage - cancer, weight gain, obesity, diabetes and osteoporosis. We eat a lot of food with high fructose levels, and even I can admit that fructose is Bad. It is no mere coincidence that obesity rates rise in tandem with the amounts of fructose we consume.

So after Bennett scares you to death (or "into action," as she puts it), she gets down to the good stuff: what do we do now? She acknowledges that for some of us, the mental hurdle is as tough as the physical, as she points out that there is "no lasting comfort" in comfort foods. Sigh. But they taste so GOOD, Connie Barrett.

She lays out five stages of sugar freedom:

1. Trapped in Sugar Denial: where most of us are, because we refuse to admit how much sugar we consume
2. Scary or Humiliating Wake-Up Call: "something horrible, frightening, awkward, or embarrassing" that causes us to break free from the sugar shackles
3. The Negative Abyss: in which we alternate between the 10 Stages of Sugar Complaints - anger, defiance, resistance, resentment, guilt, self-blame, self-pity, self-hate, self-criticism, and why me?
4. Insecurity and Self-Doubt: can we succeed? Can we be free at last?
5. You're On Your Way: we are filled with curiosity, we accept our sugarless fate, we have self-pride, and we are determined, confident and committed to being sugar-free.

The good news is that Connie Barrett is not a sadistic task master. She does give us weekends off, limiting us to four main steps per week during the first three weeks of our new lives. She is big on motivation, giving us little pep talks about how great we're doing and how fabulous we look and feel. Like a lot of self-help practitioners, she also has us write down all sorts of affirmations and responses, and she peppers her book with testimony from former sugar addicts, including HLN correspondent Jane Velez Mitchell. 

Some of her tips include dreaming up a music playlist for yourself (I'm sorry, but that seems kind of silly to me; then again, I skipped this step entirely, so maybe I owe Connie Barrett an apology). She also provides a template for writing down your daily sugar intake - what time did you eat it? Why? How did you feel before and after, both physically and mentally? That was far more helpful for me than the playlist thing. I knew I was an emotional eater, but seeing it written down in my handwriting was sobering, to say the least. 

The problem with this book, though, is that you do not get to substantive help until page 100 or so. Up until then, Bennett's advice and guidelines are typical for any weight loss book out there. When she gives you tips on sugar substitutes, though, that's helpful. Going cold turkey won't work for all of us. She exposes hidden sugars in some of the stuff we eat, and she also provides exercise tips. 

As far as true, nuts and bolts help, though, I was disappointed in this book. So much of it pushes meditation and gratitude journals. That's all fine and good, but, to quote Elaine in Seinfeld when discussing The English Patient, give me something I can use. Around page 140 or so, she does give more explicit eating guidelines, focusing on the benefits of protein. Haven't we read that somewhere before? Oh, hi, Dr. Atkins.

Most of this book is common sense and offers nothing that I haven't already heard or read. Maybe for some people, focusing solely on the detrimental effects of sugar is what it will take to start their path to a "slimmer, sexier and sweeter" them. But I felt like I'd read all this before.

Dark Kiss

Dark Kiss
Michelle Rowen
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
ISBN: 0373210477
352 pages
Available on Amazon.com.
Thanks to NetGalley for the preview.



I am not a fan of paranormal romances or paranormal mysteries or paranormal anything. I have had it up to HERE with vampires and werewolves and shapeshifters. I don't care about otherworldly critters or entities. I have enough trouble trying to exist on earth without worrying about those things.

So no one is more surprised than I am that I really, really enjoyed Dark Kiss.

Please do not judge this book by its incredibly lame cover. What the hell is that? A Chris Isaak / Elvis / Robert Pattinson mash up? And the wings? This book is so much better than that cover. Just forget about that rather odd - if nor injurious - marketing decision and crack this sucker (no pun intended - and you will know what I mean when you read it) open and start reading.

Samantha is seventeen and seemingly mired in mediocrity. She has a best friend, Carly, and she might have the teensiest crush on Carly's ex-boyfriend. But for the most part, Samantha feels like life sort of happens to her, rather than her happening to life. It is an unsatisfactory existence.

But then one night, she and Carly go to a teen club, and Samantha is kissed. Oh, boy, is she kissed. Not only that, but she's kissed by Stephen, Hottie McHot, the boy she has fantasized about kissing for a long time. And it's a good kiss. So good that Stephen's warning to her, that the kiss would be "very dangerous" and change her life forever, means nothing to her. He tells her she's delicious, and she feels dizzy. But cold. Very cold. And then he releasees her and says, "Sorry, kid. Really."

Not exactly the stuff of romance.

A few days later, she stumbles across an apparently homeless boy, and the two have an instant connection.

I felt uneasy now that he was towering over me rather than sprawled on the sidewalk, and yet I didn't turn away from him. Those eyes - they seemed to hold me in place. And he smelled so incredible - spicy and sweet - I couldn't even describe it properly. His very presence seemed to sink into my senses. 

He tells her she is beautiful. He tells her his name is Bishop and he needs help finding the others. He touches her, and she has a vision of people being sucked into a giant back vortex, with Bishop just beyond her reach to rescue her.

What in the world is happening to Samantha?

There are many zigs and zags to this story. Bishop is an angel, sent here to combat demons. Some of "the others" are angels, some are demons themselves. But Bishop and his merry band of saviors all want to ensure the same thing: that the soulless demons - the "grays" - not succeed in whatever nefarious plan they are scheming.

Samantha, meanwhile, is special. There is something about her that is different from other angels, demons and humans. She can read minds, for one thing, and she can zap people. Those particular skills didn't come to her until after Stephen's kiss. Ah, yes, the kiss. It turns out that Stephen is a "gray," and he sucks out people's souls by kissing them.

Just as Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss, so do the grays betray humans with an act of intimacy and love.

A lot goes on in this story, most of which I can't really discuss for fear of giving away too much. Suffice it to say that Samantha and Bishop sort of team up together, all the while fighting a fierce attraction to each other, not to mention all those grays. Bishop wants to find The Source, a mysterious woman who started this whole "I'm going to kiss your soul right out of you" business. The Source, Samantha discovers, has a connection to her.

Like I said, I am not typically a fan of paranormal stories, but this one is so good. The characters are interesting, the pacing is fantastic, and the story sucks you in. There I go again with the whole "sucking" thing.

Be warned, though: this book ends on a cliffhanger, which is NOT NICE. Now I have to find out what happens to Samantha. And I'm probably going to have to wait a while.

This isn't perfect - there are some easy coincidences and conveniences of plot that sort of cheapen the story at times. But it's good, and Michelle Rowen's story and characters will keep you turning those pages.