Between a Highlander and a Hard Place by Mary Wine
Highland Weddings, #5
Released November 6, 2018

Athena Trappes thinks she’s in love…until she discovers the scoundrel only wanted her as his bit on the side. Enraged, she does what any spirited Englishwoman would do: set fire to his belongings, incur his dangerous wrath, and flee—immediately. With nowhere else to turn, she seeks freedom in the wilds of Scotland.

Highland Laird Symon Grant lost his wife years ago, and it’s his duty to find another. Athena is not exactly what the clan has in mind for him, but Symon’s heart burns with unexpected passion for the woman who would risk everything to be free.

Ugh, this cover felt like such a romance throwback that I couldn’t resist.  Then I read the blurb and went into full on, gimmie overdrive!  Highland widower falls for spirited English woman  against the wishes of his close knit clan. Both know their own minds and hearts, both unafraid to blaze a path rife with resistance.  All the heart eyes with this one!

Athena and Symon both shine in this romantic and  suspenseful tale.  Which honestly surprised me because romantic suspense isn’t usually my bag, let alone, Highlander romantic suspense. However, author Mary Wine not only makes it work, she makes it interesting- though it was obvious that the damn scoundrel and the super villain, Will Tinker was the architect behind the darkness and danger stalking Athena and endangering Symon’s clan, watching the plot unfold was surprisingly fun.  Symon was a great clan chief and man- though imperfect enough to make him feel authentic.  Losing his young wife and child on the birthing bed has soured him on marriage, and even still intends to ensure the stability of his clan by marrying.  Athena was a host of imperfections, but I found all her rough edges easily forgivable because she was so courageous and steadfast in her belief that she deserved a love that was truly her own and she’d settle for nothing less.  Hear, hear!  

If you like a little darkness and suspense in a grand and sweeping highland romance with a colorful cast and strong characters, Between a Highlander and a Hard Place is available now wherever books are sold!

Kindle

Grade: B

First Kiss of Freedom, by Nichole Wolfe
Whitemoon Warriors, #1
Released October 30, 2018

For four hundred years, Charlie Matthews has waited for his revenge, becoming the very creature he seeks to destroy. When he finally returns to his Maker’s mansion, he knows the time is close. And only one thing stands between what he wants, and what he never knew he needed.

Celebrating her eighteenth birthday, Nessie Robinson, a lowly vampire’s slave, isn’t expecting much. What she gets is the return of her ex-best friend. Emphasis on “ex.” With his return comes tragedy, and buried feelings she doesn’t want stirring back to life. One bite will set them both down a dangerous path, fighting for survival, freedom, and a chance at a future they never imagined.

First Kiss of Freedom is the introductory novel in the Whitemoon Warriors fantasy paranormal series. Typically, at least in my experience, first novels in this type of series can go two ways – A little bland and heavy on laborious world building and character introduction. Plots take a back seat to series arc set up and you hope things are interesting enough to stick around for the real show in books to come.  Or, it is a home run, brilliant and demands obsessively counting down until the next novel lands.  Not much middle ground. And I found this to hold true with this new series novel.  The blurb was promising, but there were many dots that didn’t connect for me.  I never really felt like I knew the characters and there was some character inconsistency that distracted from my reading.  It is hard for me to truly get into a story if I don’t have interest or a connection to one of the characters.  Even if I hate them, I have to feel something– and this is where First Kiss of Freedom lost it for me and became rather boring.

Even vampires, whom I love in all their variations, couldn’t save me from my meh driven ambivalence for this one.  To compound the dull storytelling, everyone (literally) was so forgettable.  There aren’t any characters that I walked away from wanting more from.  Which makes my interest in any other Whitemoon Warriors nill. This was disappointing because I’ve been often rewarded by some seriously awesome books because a secondary character’s light shone so brightly in a book that I stayed the course and couldn’t help but read their story.

In a nutshell, it isn’t written poorly, it just isn’t written very well and feels like yet another uninteresting cog in the trendy paranormal-fantasy romance wheel.

Kindle

Grade: D