3.16.2013

Review - A Bride by Moonlight by Liz Carlyle






A BRIDE BY MOONLIGHT
Liz Carlyle

Genre: Romance 

Publisher: Avon

ISBN: 9780062100283
Number of pages: 432

Book Description:

Royden Napier, Baron Saint-Bryce, is tall, dark, and ruthless—and on the hunt for a dangerous beauty . . . On the eve of her escape to the Continent, bold, beautiful Lisette Colburne accepts a proposal she dare not refuse: masquerade as the future bride of the steely-eyed Royden Napier and help him solve his most dangerous case. Soon Lisette is in even greater danger—of losing her heart to the one man with the power to destroy her . . .

Estranged from his aristocratic family, the enigmatic Napier has forged a reputation as Scotland Yard's most relentless police commissioner. He's vowed to bring Lisette to justice—but with every forbidden kiss and every tantalizing touch, he finds himself becoming less convinced of her guilt . . . and more certain he must have her. But when danger touches Lisette, can he save her?



My Review : 

 

 This was a good book. I'll give it 3.75 stars.  Let's start with the drawback-- For me,  I had a hard time getting into it.  The beginning is fraught with what I felt was background information.  While you need it for the book, I wanted to jump into more of the time where the main characters are alone away from London and beginning their masquerade as an engaged couple.  It took me until chapter 3 to get to the "I don't want to put it down" point.  Once I got there I was hooked!  There are some well written 'steamy' scenes which always adds to a good romance book :)   The intrigues among Royden Napier's long lost family is quite entertaining.  Until the very last minute, I was still going back and forth between two characters trying to figure out 'who did it'!  I love that in a book!!  A Bride By Moonlight was wonderfully written.  If only I could have fell in love immediately rather than 3 chapters in, it would have gotten a higher score for me.  It's one of those that I loved when I was done but I'm not sure that I'll reread due to the slow start.  However, I'm fairly sure that's just me and I was expecting a different beginning! lol :)  Give it a try yourself, you won't be sorry !




About the Author:
A lifelong Anglophile, Liz Carlyle cut her teeth reading gothic novels under the bedcovers by flashlight. She is the author of over twenty historical romances, including several New York Times bestsellers. Liz travels incessantly, ever in search of the perfect setting for her next book. Along with her genuine romance-hero husband and four very fine felines, she makes her home in North Carolina.






Cover Reveal -- Her Loving Husband's Return by @copperfield101

Welcome to the cover reveal for Book 3 in the Loving Husband Trilogy!!  I hope you'll enjoy checking this series out!!







Her Loving Husband’s Return
Book Three
The Loving Husband Trilogy
Meredith Allard


“I need to get home,” James said aloud.
He heard shuffling behind the wooden plank that separated his quarters from the rest of the barrack. “We all need to bloody well go home,” he heard.

What would you do to return to the only one you have ever loved?

James Wentworth’s secret is no longer a secret, and now he and his beloved wife, Sarah, have been separated. While suffering his own internment, James is reminded of his time with Japanese-Americans in the Manzanar Relocation Camp during World War II, and he cannot allow the past to repeat itself. With the help of his friends—Chandresh, Jocelyn, Timothy, even the irreverent Geoffrey—James learns what it means to return, and he is determined to return to his Sarah no matter the challenges—or the consequences. Will James and Sarah be reunited once and for all despite the madness surrounding them? Will James’s most fervent wish be granted? The changes in store for the Wentworths may be irreversible.




Her Loving Husband’s Return

Prologue


In seventy years so little has changed. Then, the gate was taller than the tallest person, electrified, eager to shock to the death. Looming above the fence were eight high-standing towers with armed guards with submachine guns who looked down upon the people as though they could be, should be shot for amusement’s sake. They were at one with the enemy across the Pacific Ocean, many decided. They had to be. They were traitors. They were spies. How else can we separate the good ones from the bad ones? How else can we know the loyal ones from the conspirators? We must round them up like cattle and pen them here where they’re safe from us and us from them.
            Looming above the barracks, higher than the gates, beyond the guard towers, were the mountains. Always the mountains. They encompassed everything within their distance—one vast, jagged, granite wall stretching toward the heavens from the deepest valley in the Americas, cascading Vs flecked with icy snow, unmistakable even through the wintry clouds. The mountains were everything everywhere. If the gates, the guard towers, and the armed military police weren’t enough to remind you that you were a prisoner here, the mountains shouted your helplessness. You are here, the mountains said, and we will trap you here forever.
            I remember when the bus stopped near the guard station, a lonely shack at the edge of the camp, one window on either side, misshapen rocks slapped together with mortar, a pagoda-style roof. The guards spoke to the bus driver and barked directions as though the people inside were orange-clad prisoners linked by irons, but they were only families—fathers, mothers, children, grandparents. I remember the anxiety in those inside the gate, their quick-scanning eyes wide as they drew as close to the barbed-wire fence as they dared, searching those on the other side for missing family or friends. I remember the fear in those outside as they stepped off the bus and shivered in the bitter desert cold. Their clenched hands grabbed hold of family members and they stared without seeing the nighttime landscape of brush and tumbleweed that promised blinding dust storms, the horizon flat until the mountains. Always the mountains. The bewildered people outside clutched their bundles of luggage, all that was left of their former lives. The people from the buses were herded inside, shouted at, tagged and numbered. Already they were losing themselves. When the gate slammed and locked behind them they looked toward the outside as though they would never be free again.
So, yes, I have been here before. I have walked this arid wilderness. I have heard the sand blow a maddened howl in the night. I have seen the white-glow moonlight reflect the saw-toothed horizon. Through it all, the mountains have remained the same. After all, what is seventy years to a mountain range that has watched millennia pass away? Now, the gates are taller since they guess we can jump anything less. Now, the gates have silver coating, the barbs deemed no longer necessary since they guess the barbs cannot pierce our preternatural skin. Now, the military police carry guns with silver bullets, which we secretly laugh at. Now, I am the one who has been carted away, considered too unpredictable to be out among polite society. Yet the barracks, the mess halls, the natural barrier of the mountains between us and everyone else in the world…so much of it is the same. There are nights when I cannot make the distinction between then, when I was here from compassion, and now, when I am the one encaged. But do not worry for me, my love. Now, with this silver-coated gate and these imposing mountains between us, I am reminded all too strongly how I cannot be without you. Soon, Sarah. I will hold you in my arms soon. Be patient this little longer, my love, and I will return to you. I will.




And now, for more about the series ...








Her Dear & Loving Husband
Book 1
The Loving Husband Trilogy
Meredith Allard


James Wentworth has a secret. He lives quietly in Salem, Massachusetts, making few ties with anyone. One night his private world is turned upside down when he meets Sarah Alexander, a dead ringer for his wife, Elizabeth. Though it has been years since Elizabeth's death, James cannot move on. 

Sarah also has a secret. She is haunted by nightmares about the Salem Witch Trials, and every night she is awakened by visions of hangings, being arrested, and dying in jail. Despite the obstacles of their secrets, James and Sarah fall in love. As James comes to terms with his feelings for Sarah, he must dodge accusations from a reporter desperate to prove that James is not who, or what, he seems to be. Soon James and Sarah piece their stories together and discover a mystery that may bind them in ways they never imagined. Will James make the ultimate sacrifice to protect Sarah and prevent a new hunt from bringing hysteria to Salem again? 

Part historical fiction, part romance, part paranormal fantasy, Her Dear & Loving Husband is a story for anyone who believes that true love never dies.


  
Buy it :  Amazon   /   Barnes & Noble 


Her Loving Husband's Curse
Book 2
By Meredith Allard


How far will you go to protect the one you love?

Finally, after many long and lonely years, James Wentworth’s life is falling into place. Together with his wife, Sarah, the only woman he has ever loved, he has found the meaning behind her nightmares about the Salem Witch Trials, and now they are rebuilding the life they began together so long ago.

But the past is never far behind for the Wentworths. While Sarah is haunted by new visions, now about the baby she carried over three hundred years before, James is confronted with painful memories from his time with the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears. Through it all, the persistent reporter Kenneth Hempel reappears, still determined to prove that the undead walk the earth. If Hempel succeeds in his quest, James and Sarah will suffer. Will the curse of the vampire prevent James and Sarah from living their happily ever after?



Buy it :    Amazon   /  Barnes & Noble




About the Author:

Meredith Allard is the author of The Loving Husband Trilogy, Victory Garden, Woman of Stones, and My Brother’s Battle. She is the executive editor of The Copperfield Review, an award-winning literary journal for readers and writers of historical fiction. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Follow Her : 


Smashwords                       The Cooperfield Review




3.15.2013

Excerpt from Lethal Obsession & Interview with @shandramillerwr

Welcome everyone!  Today I have the honor of interview Shandra Miller, author of Lethal Obsession.  So please welcome her & stay for a chilling excerpt!

*Warning, this book is for 18+ Mature audiences Only! *





1.  Let’s start out easy. Tell us a little bit about your book.

 I think the best way for me to answer this is to give you a peek at the synopsis.
Angela Martin is chief detective for the Moose Creek, N.C., police department, when a possible murder call comes in. At the scene she finds the body of a woman, hanging from hands bound overhead, eyes blindfolded, mouth gagged. Red whip marks crisscross the woman’s buttocks, the back of her legs. She recognizes the scene, knows exactly what happened to the woman before she died, because Det. Angela Martin was bound and blindfolded, gagged and whipped exactly as this woman had been. By a man she met on line.

A killer.

A master whose power over her is so strong she’s willing to risk everything – her career, even her life – to be with him again.

LETHAL OBSESSION is a novel of desire and domination, suspicion and fear, and the mysterious way those emotions mingle into an inescapable pull, one that might cost Angela her life.


2. What inspired you to write this story?

 That’s hard to say. Sometimes I just start thinking along story idea lines, asking “what if.” For LETHAL OBSESSION, I started thinking about people meeting online, in chat rooms, through Craigslist. We all know of people who hook up this way, get together in a hotel room – sometimes for a one-time meeting, other times in ways that lead to longer-term relationships.

So I wondered what might happen if a woman, a police detective, met a man online, they developed a friendship, a trust, and they began sharing fantasies that turned to bondage. Then they decided to get together to play out some of their fantasies. What happens if, afterward, she is called to the scene of a murder, a woman who had been bound and assaulted, in much the same way the stranger had toyed with the detective?

What would she do? What if she was head-over-heels in lust with the guy, if he had awakened some passion inside her she never knew existed? Yet, the clues point to him as a murderer. How would that play out?

Thinking like that, I just kept writing, putting in new twists.


3. What is the main lesson that your book is trying to teach?

 I’m not so much trying to teach a lesson as just tell a story to entertain. I suppose if there’s a lesson it’s that even in erotic and BDSM fiction, there should be a story, a strong plotline and believable characters, not just a bunch of sex scenes strung together. That’s one of the things I wanted to accomplish here, was to put together a story that was erotic, that relied heavily on BDSM, but wasn’t the 50,000th rehash of 50 Shades.

I’d like to think I’ve been successful in that regard – thus far I’ve gotten several 5-star reviews, and they all say that very thing – an erotica story with a real, honest-to-god plot that’s not solely dependent upon sex scenes – though there are plenty of, as one reviewer said, “hawt sex scenes.”


4. Moving on to your writing career, how long have you been writing? Did you always dream to become an author?

 I left home at age 16, bounced around for a few years, worked as a carnie in the south, even worked on a small traveling circus. I don’t know that I’ve had a writing career, but I spent a lot of my down time playing with stories, figuring out things, I suppose making up my own little worlds and putting them down in words. I’ve actually only been writing on a computer for three years. Prior to that it was all longhand.

Finally I suppose I grew up, settled down (a little) in a small North Carolina town, I work in an insurance office and I write a little more formally now. I’ve published a few shorts over the several months, and LETHAL OBSESSION is my first novel.
For many of those first years when I was writing, it was just for myself, working through issues. I guess over the past two years I’ve begun to think more along the lines of being an author.


5. I’m always curious whether or not authors read the same types of books that they write.So tell us, what book genres do you love to read? To write?

 I read a lot of horror, some erotica and romance, a fair bit of detective noir-type stories. I read a lot of nonfiction – history and science particularly. Those subjects fascinate me.
As for writing, thus far I’ve mostly written erotica, a little horror, and with LETHAL OBSESSION I’ve begun to include some thriller/suspense elements.


6. What are you reading right now?

 Right now I’m rereading Now and Then by the late Robert Parker.

7. Have any particular authorsinspired you to write? If so, can you name one and what you like about their style?

 That’s a hard one. I’ve read a lot of different authors, and I try to take something from everything I read. I suppose Robert Parker has inspired me a great deal by the way he writes – funny, sparse language, and ability to tell much with few words, and a great story teller.

Another writer I really enjoy is Douglas Clegg, a horror writer. He’s probably one of the best-selling, yet least-known writers in that genre. If I had to recommend a novel or two for someone trying to learn about him, and about how to write, it would be Nightmare House or The Hour Before Dark. He tells great stories, and his prose is almost lyrical. Sometimes I find myself stopping and rereading a passage simply because it was written so beautifully.

I’m a bit of a fan of Patricia Cornwell, and I’ve enjoyed some Stephen King along the way.

8. Do you have any upcoming projects?

 I’m pretty hot and heavy into trying to market LETHAL OBSESSION , and that’s become much more time-consuming than I had anticipated. So I’m not doing as much writing as I’d like. I am in the midst of putting together a sequel to LETHAL OBSESSION, which I hope to have out this summer. I’ve also got another novel, as yet unnamed, based on a few media accounts of cases where a couple has kidnapped and held a woman to be their sexual slave. Only my novel will come with a pretty significant twist.

Thanks so much for stopping by Shandra!!  I really enjoyed our interview!  Now for more about her book Lethal Obsession & stay tuned for an excerpt below!!




Lethal Obsession
 by Shandra Miller


Publisher: Purple Pleasure Publishing (February 27, 2013)

Length: 128 pages
ASIN: B00BMU968O


Book Description: 

 Angela Martin is like everyone else. She wants acceptance. Love. Passion.

For five years she’s lived with the pain of knowing her husband cheats on her. She’s dealt with the heart-rending rejection by rebuilding her life around her work, becoming the first woman detective in the history of the Moose Creek, N.C., police department.

Then she stumbles upon him. A man who reawakens desire, who makes her feel more alive than she believed possible by pulling her into a world of bondage and dominance, devotion and trust taken to a new level, fear mingling with desire, a craving stronger than any drug.

Soon women start turning up dead in Moose Creek, bound and tortured, tied in ways that Angela finds startling familiar. Angela’s heart tells her that her newfound love cannot be the killer, her detective instincts tell her otherwise, and her obsession with this new lifestyle draws her back to him, even at the risk of her life.

LETHAL OBSESSION is a tale of sex and bondage, love and fear, desire and suspicion, with an ending that will leave you breathless, craving more.

LETHAL OBSESSION is available for purchase during March for an introductory offer of $2.99.

Amazon: http://ow.ly/iW85q  

Nook:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lethal-obsession-shandra-miller/1114727993?ean=2940016377414

Kobo: Available Soon

Apple: Available Soon


LETHAL OBSESSION, an excerpt


    It was late Friday afternoon when Angela walked into the chief's office.  Two days had passed since the second victim was found, since Angela had blacked out and fallen onto the body.   For those two days Angela had been off the case, on mandatory sick leave until Chief Suggs was satisfied she was fit for duty.  He had arranged for a full physical the day after her blackout, and called her in this afternoon to discuss the findings.

Or so she thought.

"Chief," she said as she stepped through the open doorway.

"Close the door Angela."

   Fear welled in the pit of her stomach. This can't be good.  She did as he asked, then took a seat when he motioned her toward a chair.  The chief leaned over his desk, pulled a paper from a file folder and looked at it.   From the back Angela could tell it was a picture of some sort.

"Buddy of mine at the state lab called me a little while ago," he said.

"He find something important?" Angela fought to keep her voice steady.

"You tell me."  He put the photograph on the desktop and pushed it toward Angela.  She didn't pick it up -- even viewing the photograph upside down, she knew what it was at first glance -- a still shot taken from a surveillance camera.  A picture of Angela, slipping from a hotel room, the time stamp showing she exited the second-floor room on the back side of the Moose Creek Motor Inn at the same time her colleagues were surveying the latest murder scene- on the first floor of the front side of the same hotel.   Angela's body turned cold, her skin clammy.  Her mind was blank.

"Can you explain this?"

Angela opened her mouth.  Nothing came out.  Her heart hammered inside her chest, and she focused on that, on slowing her pulse.  Her mind refused to address the photo.  They sat in silence for several minutes.

"Detective, I'm going to need an explanation."

Angela slumped in her chair.  "I...I don't know what to say."

"Start with telling me why you were caught on this footage, what you were doing there when that woman was killed, and most importantly why I didn't learn about this from you?"

"Chief, I..."  Her mind went blank... Angela stood and paced the office.  "Chief, I screwed up.  I didn't compromise the case.  What I did there ..." her voice faltered.  She knew what happened to her very well could relate to the investigation. "... had nothing to do with the case."


“Everyone in that hotel has to be questioned, checked, and double-checked. Angela, I don’t want to pry, but we need to interview the guy you were with.”

Angela’s stomach tightened. She felt as if she would throw up.

“He’s not a suspect,” she said, voice little more than a whisper.

“Everyone is.”

“He was with me when the call came, you don’t need to talk with him.”
“Coroner puts the time of death between ten that morning and noon. The call came in at twelve-eighteen; the first officers were on the scene at twelve twenty-four. I know you were here until eleven forty-five. That leaves a couple of hours where your…friend…is unaccounted for.”

I was with a killer.

The thought rammed through Angela so hard she almost gasped. She felt dizzy.

“Angela?”

She shook her head.

“Detective, that’s not a request. I am ordering you to divulge his identity.”

“I…don’t know.”

Angela bowed her head, gaze on the floor. The room was beginning to spin, and Angela thought for a moment that was appropriate, given that her life was about to spin out of control.

“Detective, I don’t really want to get into any details here, nothing more than the case requires. And I’ll keep as much out of the public arena as possible, but you have to explain what’s going on. You didn’t know the guy?”

She closed her eyes, leaned back until her head rested on the wall behind the chair. “She opened her eyes, stared directly at the chief. “I met him online.”

“I need to know who this guy is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Describe him for me. We’ll use that to find him.”

Angela leaned over, propped her elbows on her thighs and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know what he looks like.”

She heard a heavy sigh.

“Chief, I…we…I had an itch to experiment…I was blindfolded the whole time.”

“Jesus Christ,” the chief said, his voice cracking as he did. “Next thing you’re going to tell me is he had you trussed up like a damn turkey.”

Angela looked up from her hands.

“God damn,” the chief whispered….

About Shandra Miller


Shandra is a mid-western gal who left home at 16 and never looked back. Eventually she made her way to Florida, worked for three years as a carnie and another three with a circus -- yes, a real, live, honest-to-god circus. Traveled all through the South and Mid-Atlantic, town to town, on the road eight months at a time.

Now she’s a small-town office girl, filing papers, answering the phone. She doesn’t own a cell phone or a TV, she takes long walks at night, lies in the grass in the day time and watches the clouds go by, and she writes erotica. Blazing hot erotica. And mystery stories dripping with lust, sex and suspense.


Follow Her:

Blog     Facebook     Twitter


You can also join her March Lethal Obsession blog tour at https://www.facebook.com/events/160648374086892/ -- There you’ll find contests and giveaways, and a chance at winning a $20 Amazon gift card and an e-copy of all of her published fiction!