99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne
Contemporary Romance
January 29, 2019 by William Morrow

Favorite Quote:

I say up to the ceiling, “Tell me I smell right.”

He senses the uncertainty underlying my sharp order. “You smell like the only person.”

Sally Thorne’s sophomore release has garnered mixed reviews. I’ve seen quite a few people who loved it and some who had a hard time getting into the flow of the story. And I can see why. The first two chapters are disjointed and kind of odd. I had a hard time trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

Then Darcy goes home in the third chapter and sees Tom Valencia on her front porch and it started to come together and get better.

This book is so different than The Hating Game, which was office place enemies to lovers romance, in this case we get a super angsty childhood friends to lovers romance between a Mr. Perfect who isn’t so perfect and an edgy heroine who is reckless and hard to get to know.

But there was just something about this tortured couple that got to me.
This book is told in first person POV and it’s confusing being in Darcy’s head at times. It’s also hard to understand the dynamics between Darcy, her twin bother, and Tom at first. There is love and anger and distrust, and Darcy’s blatant disregard for her health and safety. BUT THERE WAS SO MUCH SEXUAL TENSION AND ANGST. As irritated as I was with Darcy at times and as much as I wanted Tom to speak up about his feelings, the chemistry and tension between the two drew me in and kept me reading well into the night.99 Percent Mine started out choppy and a little rough, but in the end I really enjoyed. Final Grade- B-

Secret Lives by Sierra Dean
Secret McQueen #9 
Urban Fantasy
December 6, 2018 Self Published

Favorite Quote:

“This was the biggest motherfucking demon gate I had seen in my whole life.”

Secret McQueen is back! It’s been four years since Secret died, sacrificed both her werewolf and vampire sides to come back to life, married Desmond and settled into a life as a human FBI agent over supernatural affairs.

If you follow the Genie McQueen series (Secret’s half werewolf/half witch sister) you’re caught up with some of the recent happenings with Lucas/Secret/Desmond and the pack. If you don’t, then rest assured you’ll get caught up by the time you finish Secret Lives. You might be a tad surprised, but you’ll be caught up.

This Secret is still the sarcastic, in your face, kick ass heroine who we all know and love. She’s currently living in LA and visiting Desmond in NY every other week. You would think now that she is fully human she would be taking it easy, but you’d be wrong. She’s just as reckless as she used to be, throwing herself into danger without a second thought. Desmond is trying to talk his wife into living in NY full time and letting him turn her into a werewolf, worried that one day she will get herself into a situation that she won’t come out on top of.

Meanwhile Sig goes missing and Holden drags Secret back into Vampire Tribunal business to help him find the missing elder. What follows is the usual Sierra Dean high intensity, adrenalin fueled action scenes and Secret and her crew kicking ass and taking names. I loved it.

I can’t wait to see where Ms. Dean takes this series next. I’m so happy to be back in this world. Final Grade-B