Tag: romance

This Chick Read: A Darkness Absolute (Casey Duncan #2) by Kelley Armstrong

This second novel in the Casey Duncan series is even more addictive than the first. A Darkness Absolute melds mystery with the paranormal. Even though there aren’t any vampires or werewolves, Rockton is filled with boogeymen. Casey, settled into her role of Detective and happy in her new relationship with Eric Dalton is blindsided when she and another officer on the force find a woman  who had been held captive in a cave for over a year. To top it off, she was a resident of Rockton that they had believed perished in the woods. It’s Casey’s job to find out whether the kidnapper was a resident of Rockton or one of the settlers in the surrounding land.

Kelley Armstrong has a deft hand at pretty much any genre, but I am discovering that I love her rather creepy mystery novels. The fact that Rockton is a town filled with people who are running away from something, either as victims or as the perpetrators of a crime, is the perfect premise for the macabre. Even the people who are friendly need to be looked at, since everyone’s past casts a dim light on their character.

Casey and Eric’s relationship takes a step to the next level with Eric showing signs of possessiveness and insecurity. It’s nice to see the male in a relationship really caring about the outcome of his actions. I’m digging these two as a couple!

For those of you who love mysteries, you need to read this series! A Darkness Absolute was gripping, the mystery totally surprising, and the characterizations of the inhabitants of Rockton like looking at a petry dish through a a smudged magnifying glass. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❣️


Click link to purchase! A Darkness Absolute: A Rockton Novel (Casey Duncan Novels)

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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This Chick Read: The Hunt (Devil’s Isle #3) by Chloe Neill

The Final battle in The Sight ended with Liam having declared his love for Claire gets attacked by a stream of magic, effectively “ supercharging” him with power. Horrified and afraid of what he had become, he abandons Claire and hides away in the swamps of Louisiana. At the beginning of The Hunt, the timeline starts two months later. Claire is also living off the grid, but in New Orleans. She is helping the paras and sensitives by delivering black market goods to them in Devil’s Isle. She discovers that there is a bounty on Liam’s head for killing Brassard. The jerk who had terrorized Claire in book one and who Liam had once worked for in Containment. This bounty gives Claire the perfect excuse to face her fears and go after Liam to warn him. She travels with his brother into the swamp, finding him living with his grandmother Eleanor. And he is a changed man. 

Finally! Claire and Liam are together again. Liam is overly protective of Claire yet makes no claim on her, almost alpha like in his intensity. The tension between the two was very well played by the author. Having to work together to solve the mystery yet protecting their own feelings, tiptoeing arounf each other really gave this book an edge that the series had needed in the first two books. I’ll admit those books were a little slow for me, but the story gained legs in The Hunt, and Claire and Liam as a couple added passion to their story arc.

Claire, a heroine I’ve liked because of her strength and strong sense of self, has a few moments of uncertainty and that uncertainty gives her character an emotional layer that really helped me relate to her even more. This series has finally taken off, and it will be fun to continue on these characters journey. Will they stop the Veil from collapsing? Tune in next time!

❤️❤️❤️❤️


Click this link to purchase!  The Hunt (A Devil’s Isle Novel)

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

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This Chick’s Sunday Commentary: The one where she saves Julie’s life

I would LOVE to have three days to just read and read and read. Unfortunately some thing just keeps getting in the way. This week I read one book. It took me forever to read it and that just, well, never happens. I can always find the time! I write on other bloggers posts, giving them tips and hints about how to carve out more reading time. Listen to audio books while you excercise, read during your commute to work, take a book and read on your lunch break. All of these things I normally do, but this week I just did not.

What’s wrong with me? Nothing really. I am still getting up in the mornings and taking a nice long walk for excercise. I am listening to a series I absolutely loved, Ilona Andrews Kate Daniels series. Well, I guess that is actually the problem. I have become obsessed with these books again! They have gotten in the way of me picking up a new book. I have ARC commitments! Who cares? Says my inner demon. Listen to Kate kick ass and fall in love with Curran. I have projects to focus on at work! Who cares? My inner demon speaks yet again. I am enthralled with the narrator who gives voice to all of these fantastic characters in these books! I laugh out loud at Kate’s inner monologue. She’s got such a sarcastic inner voice and it reminds me of my own! I forgot how much I love these characters that made a lonely Kate no longer alone. I have fallen in love again with Derrick, Julie, Andrea, Aunt Bea, and yes most especially that gravelly voiced Curren. Yum.

So, I have been in a bit of a reading slump. At least of new books. It’s a good thing I pre-schedule my blog and have written a bunch of reviews… ok, I have to get back. I am at the end of book 5 , Magic Slays, you know, the one where she saves Julie’s life? Yeah, intense!

If you haven’t read this series, here’s the first one. If you have a long commute? I suggest listening to it. You will NOT be disappointed.


Click this link to purchase!   Magic Bites

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: The Sight (Devil’s Isle #2) by Chloe Neill

After the Paranormal War, Claire Connolly became infected with magic and has become a “Sensitive”. Illegal in New Orleans, she has to hide what she has become.  In The Veil, Liam, a bounty hunter, had discovered Claire and instead of turning her in he has helped her find training so that she can contain her magic, lessening her chances of becoming a wraithe. Now colleagues, Claire and Liam have stumbled upon a cult that is trying to start up another war that will finish off all sensitives and the humans that support them.

The Sight, the second novel in the Devil’s Isle series, shows a natural evolution between those with magic and those without. Fighting a common enemy has opened their eyes so that hopefully the rules in place will change. However, in the fight against this common enemy, casualties happen that may affect their relationships longterm.

The first novel in this series spent a lot of time setting up the world building and main characters. Because of that it took a little while for the characters to grow on me. In The Sight, I know where everyone stands, their feelings about magic and Sensitives, and so the story seemed to move a lot quicker. Also the fight against a common enemy was a nice way to force characters into holding their bias at bay and growing a bit. If I found fault with anything in this novel it was that the characters feelings seemed a little juvenile for the seriousness of their situations. At times I wanted to give them a kick in the shins to hurry them along the path I wanted them to take. Unfortunately the shins I wanted to kick the hardest were Claire and Liam’s and because of that my feelings weren’t enmeshed as much as they should’ve been in the storyline. However, this book does have a great twist at the end, so I may have to pick up the next book and see how their story continues. ❤️❤️❤️


Click link to purchase! The Sight (A Devil’s Isle Novel)

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: The Veil (Devil’s Isle #1) by Chloe Neill

Claire Connolly is the last survivng member of her human family, but recently she has started exhibiting signs of having magic, which is illegal after the supernatural war. She has gotten good at hiding  her magic, but when she see’s a woman being attacked by wraiths she comes to her defense and the only way to come out of it alive is to use her gifts. Unfortunately she is spotted by Liam, a bounty hunter whose job is to catch the wraiths and take them to confinement in Devil’s Isle. Liam does not turn Claire in, instead he works with her and finds her a tutor to teach her how to control her magic to keep her from turning into a wraith. He also agrees to teach her how to become a bounty hunter, like him, and as they hunt they discover that there are forces at work that are trying to open the veil between worlds, and they can’t allow that to happen.

Claire is torn between the human world and the magical. Her friends are completely human but she can’t ignore the help Liam is giving her, and she can’t ignore the connection she feels to him. Liam, who is human is also drawn to Clair, and is torn between wanting to get closer and wanting to hold her at a distance because if she loses control, he will have to turn her in.

The setting for this novel is New Orleans and added to the characters torn feelings about magic. After all, New Orleans pre-war capitalized upon its magical elements to draw tourists and make money. Now post war, all of those elements are illegal, making the city feel dead and decayed giving it a post apocalyptic mood.

I enjoyed this book as it was different and interesting. It’s the first in the series and made me curious to see how Claire’s character was going to evolve and also see if she and Liam could resolve their differences. ❤️❤️❤️❣️


Click link to purchase! The Veil: A Devil’s Isle Novel

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved.

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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This Chick Read: Blood Cross (Jane Yellowrock #2) by Faith Hunter

Jane is still in New Orleans hired to hunt down rogue vampires, kill them and collect their bounty. As she is doing this rather grisly job, she discovers that someone is trying to raise vamps using ritual sacrifice so that these vampires are immediately cognizant and not ravenous beasts. Unfortunately during this investigation, two of her young houseguests are kidnapped and the clock is ticking for her to rescue them before they are the next sacrifice.

Jane and her inner Beast have quite a few internal dialogs that reveal some personality traits of Jane’s that we may not have seen from her surface persona as a straight up bad ass bitch. Or whatever the cat version of a bad ass bitch may be. I loved seeing this more emotional version of Jane, she is a little easier to like. As the story unfolds she is torn between two men, Bruiser and Rick, and to me it was a little surprising which one she ended up with, as the sexual tension with the loser was A-Maz-Ing. Oh well, I’m sure that story is not over as this is only book two in like a twelve book series or something.

If you are a fan of Urban Fantasy, as I am, you will really dig this series. There is a ton of paranormal dark fantasy, and a lot of the characters are really likeable. I’m still warming up to Jane, but she reveals more with each book, and I know there is a ton of Jane still to discover.

❤️❤️❤️❤️


Click link to purchase! Blood Cross (Jane Yellowrock, Book 2)

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

On By deborahkehoeIn A Hot Chick Who Reads

This Chick Read: City of the Lost (Casey Duncan #1) by Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong’s novels center around a mystery but usually take place in an Urban Fantasy setting. City of the Lost also has a mystery as the center of its story, but seems to be pretty straightforward without any hints of a fantasy world. However, the city Casey Duncan and her friend move to to escape their pasts sounds too good to be true. A city filled with other people who are trying to leave their pasts behind. A city thats off the grid and where no one can find you. A city with hints of the old west, where men outnumber the women and is policed by a sheriff, the favorite hangout is a saloon/brothel, and hints of danger in the forest that surrounds them. City of the Lost is a mystery with hints of horror, typically not my thing, but I loved it.

Casey Duncan, our heroine, was allowed to live in Rockton because of her skills as a detective. Someone has started murdering the citizens of Rockton. When Casey arrives, she butts heads with the sheriff who has absolute rule, but soon learns how to work with him. Is there eventually an attraction between them? Yes, and it’s filled with emotional upheaval, passion, and grit, however, this is not a love story, though that bit was really enjoyable. This is a mystery and it’s intricately planned and the characters involved were fascinating. Imagine living in a city where every person there is escaping something. They could be victims, but they also may be the perpetrators of horrible crimes, yet no one knows each others past. Its a fresh slate, but sometimes a persons nature just can’t be changed.

If you love mysteries, I highly recommend this excellent book. It’s the first in the series and I am not going to take too much time before starting the second! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❣️


Click link to purchase! City of the Lost: A Rockton Novel (Casey Duncan Novels)

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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This Chick Read: By Your Side by Kasie West

By Your Side surprised me by the depth hidden behind what I thought would be cotton candy fluff. A last minute potty break as the library is closing and Autumn Collins finds herself on the wrong side of the locked doors. Having put her bag in a friends car she is without a phone and has no way of letting anyone know where she is. She thought she was alone but is surprised to discover that Dax Miller, mysterious boy from the wrong side of the tracks is locked in the library with her. Autumn, not used to indifference tries really hard to break down Dax’s walls and succeeds. Up to a point.

Autumn, who seemed to be your average teenage girl, was hiding a secret from her friends. She has a severe anxiety disorder and takes medication to control her panic attacks. I thought these panic attacks were an interesting way to spotlight what would be pretty normal high school drama. Semi popular girl has a crush on a popular guy that is just starting to like her back. The panic attacks put more emphasis on if he was the right guy for her. Her working through those thoughts while holding panic at bay added tension to what would have been a banal plotline.

Dax was your typical misunderstood teen. His being locked in the library wasn’t an accident, he was actually “taking a break” from his foster family. His character didn’t seem to be so unusual. What was unusual was his self sacrifice for Autumn. That sacrifice and his willingly becoming her safe harbor placed me firmly on his side.

This type of novel is not my usual choice but I really enjoyed the surprise of liking these characters and enjoying their love story. For those of you much younger than myself, I think you’ll identify with these characters even more than I. ❤️❤️❤️❣️

Click link to purchase! By Your Side

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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This Chick Read: Dear Aaron by Mariana Zapata

I have read only a couple of Mariana Zapata novels and I loved them both. When Dear Aaron was released not too long ago I scooped it up hoping for that awesome slow burn romance I’d come to expect. The premise of the story guaranteed that this couple, like most of her others, were going to follow the friends to lovers plotline. Ruby Santos is paired with Aaron Hall through a military organization that organizes pen pals for overseas military. After getting off to a rough start with Aaron not responding to Ruby’s initial emails, they start penning notes to each other and as time goes on, discovering tidbits about each others lives. I actually enjoyed the flow of the book, learning about both Ruby and Aarons lives, however, the depth of emotion was missing, as it would when you are learning about someone through a letter. You learn only what they choose to tell you. This point of view separated the reader and kept me from developing any strong emotional attachment to either Ruby or Aaron for the first half of the book.

When the story advances, Aaron is on leave in the US, and their communication advances to texting and then finally a phone call. Its at this point that the author starts writing in conventional narrative and we get to read from an actual point of view. The Ruby that we saw in email form was only a little different than the Ruby we now know from hearing her thoughts. My problem was that I liked Ruby better in email form. Aaron was solid both in email and in person. I was given a good grasp of his character and it stayed consistent for the entire book. Actually, through Ruby’s eyes he got even more attractive! I think I just found it harder to connect with Ruby because of the email format at the start. I did still enjoy the book, but in comparison with The Wall of Winnipeg and Me and Kulti it paled. ❤️❤️❤️❣️


Click link to purchase! Dear Aaron

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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This Chick Read: All The Light There Is (The Healing Edge #3) by Anise Eden

The Healing Edge Series is about Cate Duncan’s journey of self discovery, both with her empathic talent, her familial psychic talents, and her feelings for her new boyfriend Ben. All The Light There Is starts up where the previous novel leaves off, with Ben and Cate enjoying their new relationship while on a trip to Washington DC to show off her groups talents in an ancient power circle.  This double kheir enhances each of their talents enabling them to extend their psychic reach. With this power they will be able to increase their healing efforts in those who come to them for help. Unfortunately, evil finds Cate and her friends, wanting to use their talents for commercial gain, and she must “bite the head off the snake”to put an end to this other organization.

This was, by far, my favorite book in the series. Cate and Ben’s love for each other was not physical, because of rules of celibacy during her training, which really put the focus on their emotions. As an Empath therapist, Cate has helped heal clients by creating portals which allows her to sift through their emotions. With Ben, the portal is shared and when open, their feelings are deeply felt. I have never run across these types of descriptions in a romance novel and really enjoyed how that gave the characters added depth and allowed the reader to share in that connection rather than be a voyeur in the bedroom.

The other cast of characters in these novels are unusual and likeable. I’ve mentioned before that my mother is a hypnotherapist and some of the techniques described in these books were familiar to me, which made it fun to read. I think that even if you’ve never gone to a psychic for a reading , had Raiki, or your aura cleansed, you will enjoy all of these characters for their lively interaction with each other and their diversity. Cate and Ben’s love story is at the center of these books but the main attraction is the exploration of the psychic arts. Anise Edens talent lies in the intermingling of the two.

❤️❤️❤️❤️

I was given an ARC of this book through NetGalley for an honest review, and it was honest.


Click on this link to purchase! All the Light There Is: The Healing Edge – Book Three

Copyright 2017 Deborah Kehoe The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved

I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

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