This is what we talked about at Smexy this week:

A review – Dance With Me by Heidi Cullinan
B+ review – Rocky Mountain Desire by Vivian Arend
B+ review – Gone to Ground by Brandilyn Collins
B+ review – Nightborn by Lynn Viehl  
B review – Nice Girls Don’t Bite Their Neighbors by Molly Harper
B- review – Tempted by Blood by Laurie London
B- review – Deep Dark Secret by Sierra Dean
C- review – Protector by Catherine Mann
C- review – Dire Needs by Stephanie Tyler
D review – Blood Avenged by Gabrielle Bisset
DNF review – Cage the Darlings by Elora Bishop

April S&S Urban Fantasy Preview
Tori and the Wall Street Journal Talk Erotic
AAD Spotlight – Melanie Card
Smexy’s Top Ten 

News From Mandi: I finished up my read of If I Fall by Kate Noble and really enjoyed it. For fans of this author, the Blue Raven makes a come back and I love that storyline. I got a sneak peek at Lucky in Love by Jill Shalvis, her next Lucky Harbor book out this June. It features “Mysterious Cute Guy” – and I have to agree, he is mysterious and cute. I liked this book, but not quite as much as Ford or Sawyer’s book. Maybe it is because we have to meet three new girls and their future HEA’s. I still enjoyed it, just was missing a little something. (I think Ford remains my favorite!) I read At Your Pleasure by Meredith Duran and just loved this book. It was an “A” read for me. I hope to have my review up by late this coming week or at least by its 3/27 release date. Has an amazing villainous hero and a heroine stuck in the middle of a brother she loves, but is hunted by hero. So good. Because Helyce gave Dance With Me an “A” at Smexy this week, I had to read it. I really liked. It is a M/M romance featuring an injured football player and a dance star. Really well done..I need to check out more from this author. I’m also listening to Harry Dresden #4, Summer Knight. I love my Harry!

News From Tori: It’s been an interesting week to say the least. I was interviewed for an article at the Wall Street Journal about my views on eroticia and erotic romance that opened a can of worms. *sigh* My advice to those who love it? Enjoy it. What you read is your business. To those who think it’s porn and evil? My mama has an old saying, “You need to clean your own porch before you go criticizing someone else’s.” And just for the record, telling me I read mommy porn may get you punched in the head-just a friendly reminder. Just finished the third book in Dianne Sylvan’s Shadow World series-Shadow’s Fall. ZOMG! I was hesitant to read because of book two, which everyone knows was a love/hate book. Most readers either loved it or completely hated it. As I did not read it because SOMEONE posted a major spoiler on Goodreads, I thought I might be lost here in book 3. Nope. This one picks up later in time, explains much, and goes down some paths that blew me away. Review to come. Lydia Dare’s The Wolf Who Loved Me, a historical pnr, was a disappointment to me. The plot was weak and the characters not well fleshed out. Review to come. Cara Lynn Schultz’s Spellcaster (Spellbound #2) was an enjoyable read. Fast pacing with engaging characters and dialogue. Review to come. Getting over Garrett Delaney by Abby McDonald (YA) was a cute, laugh filled read. Set in the first person, we watch our heroine set up a 12 step program to get over her crush on her bff. The ending was a treat with it’s message that you never have to settle being second best. One more YA and I’m out of your hair. :) Kelly Keaton’s A Beautiful Evil (Gods and Monsters #2) picks up where Darkness Becomes Her leaves off and continues with it’s fantastic world building, multiple plots, and complex yet personable characters. Looking forward to book 3 in the series. I did do some Julie Garwood re reads because I loves her lots and her books make me laugh-especially her historical romances.

News from May: Oh what a week! I kind of went on a binge this weekend and was reading a book a day for a few days – oh that felt GOOD. Now back to more normal levels, but still nothing but GOOD to share this week!!

It began with reading Julia Quinn’s A Night Like This – and I was delighted to find that she’s got her groove back. Very classic Quinn, and while not an all-time fave of hers, still a very good read. (review to come) I continued on a historical England fixation with a pair of Suzanne Enoch books London’s Perfect Scoundrel (good lord yes. SO GOOD) and England’s Perfect Hero (ok, not amazing). They are related – a trio of friends are teaching scoundrels lessons and ending up in love with them (of course) but totally can be read as stand alone. I’ve not yet read the first in that trilogy because it’s around here somewhere… not sure where. You know how that goes.

Anyhow, then Mandi made me read a book by Kate Noble. When Mandi gets pushy about a book, I let it jump to the top of my TBR.

Revealed by Kate Noble, was everything I dream of in historical romance. Oh, oh MY! Plot twists and an unremarkable overly tall hero and a super smart heroine and action and – oh my. I must recommend it most strongly. I am now starting The Summer of You by Kate Noble and I don’t expect any book to be able to tear me away from it. When that’s done I anticipate jumping into another new to me author- Joanna Bourne.

Eventually I expect to leave all the tea drinking behind (fun fact: I tend to drink even more tea than usual when reading historicals vs other genres) and head into something else… but it would seem I’m on a bender and I’m going to go with it for a while longer. Sorry Iron Duke (Meljean Brook) and Proven Guilty (Jim Butcher) – you’ll have to keep waiting for me to finish you some other time…

News from Helyce:  Last week, I read Nightborn, by Lynn Viehl.  I had read a few of the books from her Darkyn series a few years back, but they were just so so for me and I never completed the series.  I really enjoyed this new book.  Ms. Viehl takes a unique approach to the normal vampire story and gives it a twist. Next up was Dire Needs by Stephanie Tyler.  I was really looking forward to reading this book.  I’ve really enjoyed this authors romantic suspense books in the past and couldn’t wait to dive in to her world of sexy, leather wearing, Harley riding wolves. Unfortunately, the information overload of the world building and the jumping back and forth made the flow of the book choppy. In spite of that, I did enjoy the characters a lot and I hope that some of these issues are resolved going into book two.  I started Born To Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann.  I’ve read some of her Troubleshooters series which is romantic suspense with strong military type characters and really liked them.  In this new series, Ms. Brockmann goes slightly paranormal and takes things into the future a bit and gives us some really interesting and exceptionally gifted characters. This book is 500+ pages and is very hard to put down as we meet not only the main H/H but also have two side couples one of them M/M. *SQUEEE* Look for my review coming early next week. For fun, I started a novella out recently by Kendra Leigh Castle called Reflected Desire which takes the story of Snow’s White’s magic mirror and gives it a very interesting erotic spin.  Very sexy and I’m only a few pages in. I’m starting to get really anxious for the release of Lover Reborn by J R Ward.  I cannot wait for this book! Have a great weekend!