I'm A Voracious Reader : Entangled Publishing

Welcome to my tour stop for Pan's Conquest by Aubrie Dionne. This is a clean adult romance. The tour will consist of reviews only and will run from April 21st-25th. Check out the tour page for additional stops.

*Book source ~ A review copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

Title ~ Pan's Conquest

Author ~ Aubrie Dionne

Publisher ~ Entangled: Covet

Published ~ 24 February 2014

Genre ~ Paranormal/Fantasy/Romance

Pages ~ 200

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My Rating ~ 4 bites and a nibble out of 5

Syliva Rain owns the flower shop Sylvia’s Creations and she’s not doing too badly considering she’s Syrinx, a goddess imitating a human and living without using her powers. When she gets an order for 500 roses for an important client and he invites her to the house to take measurements, she and her assistant Kaye go to meet this rich mysterious man. However, when Syrinx meets Parker Thomas she’s attracted to him and that’s not good for the goddess of chastity. After all, hadn’t she fled to the 21^st century to escape the attentions of Pan, the god of fertility, to protect what she held most dear? If she could resist giving in to Pan then she could certainly resist a mere human. She doesn’t realize though that Parker Thomas is actually Pan, come to the human realm in pursuit of the one who got away. And Pan doesn’t know that in his pursuit, he will face some hard truths about himself. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Looks like we’re about to find out.

This is a great read. The writing is wonderful and the characters seem to just step right off the page. It made my office seem a bit crowded, but it was worth it. I loved Syrinx, but Pan is the one who stole my heart. At first, he was a bit of a jerk. He is just interested in getting laid. I know he’s the god of fertility and all that, but it just made him seem kinda sleazy. When he goes human and interacts with his butler Rutherford and then later when Syrinx talks about her ‘stalker’ (Pan) that’s when he starts seeing himself in a different light and he doesn’t particularly like what he sees. He grows as a character and that makes him wonderful. My only complaint is that I really didn’t get who Rutherford was and why he felt Pan, er, Parker Thomas needed him or how he even knew. I even thought he might have been a god in disguise, but that didn’t pan out. Hehe I said pan. Anyway, this is an excellent boy-chases-girl story with wonderful characters and mythology added for extra spice.

Aubrie Dionne is an author and flutist in New England. Her books have received the highest ratingsfrom Romance Times Magazine, as well as Night Owl Reviews and Two Lips Reviews. She has guest blogged on the USA Today Happily Ever After Blog and the Dear Teen Me blog and signed books at the Boston Book Festival, Barnes and Noble, and the Romance Writers of America Conference. Her writings have appeared in Mindflights, Nightblade, Silver Blade, Emerald Tales, Hazard Cat, Moon Drenched Fables, A Fly in Amber, and Aurora Wolf. Her books are published by Astraea Press, Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Publishing, Inkspell Publishing, Lyrical Press, and Gypsy Shadow Publishing. When she's not writing, Aubrie teaches flute and plays in orchestras.

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*Books source ~ Many thanks to Entangled Publishing for providing review copies in exchange for honest reviews.

Title ~ Ghosts of the Falls

Author ~ Sarah Gilman

Published ~ 28 October 2013

Genre ~ Paranormal/Romance

Pages ~ 100

My Rating ~ 4 bites and a nibble out of 5

Jade Clarence is an exorcist, but she doesn’t like the way the family business handles exorcisms. Her great-grandfather started the business after his wife was killed by a spirit and his incantations destroy the soul of the spirit causing extreme pain to the ghost. Jade feels that she can find an incantation to send a spirit on without destroying the soul or causing pain. She also feels that a good spirit should have the right to stay if it wants. However, after allowing the spirit of a teen hoodwink her into believing he is benign, he kills the property owner where he is hanging out. A tragedy that falls on Jade’s shoulders since she refused to perform the exorcism. Her older brother is giving her a chance to redeem herself with an exorcism at Hutchinson’s Falls. If she can’t do her job he’ll have no choice but to kick her out of the business. But Jade finds out that Dutch is no ordinary ghost, so she doesn’t do the job. When her brother comes to do what she can’t, Jade is forced to resort to extreme measures to make her point.

This is a great short story with interesting aspects of exorcism and great characters. It could use a bit more character development because I couldn’t get a really good feel for Jade or Dutch, but for a short it is pretty good. I’m a little fuzzy about what Jade did there at the end and how that’s going to work for the long term, but I’ll suspend belief and just go with it. I don’t think I’ve ever read a story involving exorcists, so that aspect of the story was fascinating to me. I look forward to reading more stories by Sarah Gilman.

Title ~ Banshee Charmer

Series ~ Files of the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency, #1

Author ~ Tiffany Allee

Published ~ 24 January 2012

Genre ~ Paranormal/Romance

Pages ~ 159

My Rating ~ 5 bites out of 5

Kiera ‘Mac’ McLoughlin is a Detective with the paranormal unit of the local Chicago Police Dept. As a half-banshee she’s an OW (Otherworlder) and considering the fear people have of banshees, she doesn’t have a lot of close friends. When she and her witch partner Amanda pull a case involving a murdered woman with no apparent COD Amanda decides to use a little witchcraft to try and track down the killer. While Amanda is off doing witchy things Mac goes home to find her house has been invaded by a hunky man named Aidan Byrne with a badge showing he’s from the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency (OWEA). He says he believes her case is connected to his and they should combine forces. But is he who he says he is and is this case what it appears to be? When Amanda is murdered and Mac is pulled off the case, she decides to find out on her own.

Oh, yeah! Another series for me to dive into. This story had everything I enjoy in a paranormal book: an alternate world to our mundane one where paranormal and mundane live side-by-side, many and varied paranormal entities, murder, villains, mystery, humor and hotness. Banshee Charmer is a great start to what looks like a very interesting series.

The characters are wonderful though I didn’t really get a good sense of Aidan. He’s almost a secondary character and that does bug me a bit. I’m hoping there will be more about him, at least in passing, in upcoming books. Several people are mentioned as working for the paranormal unit and I did get to meet a few of them. I look forward to their stories as well as meeting the others. Well-written with a decent plot, if you like paranormal with suspense and a cop for a heroine then this one should do the trick.

Title ~ One Thousand and One Nights

Author ~ Ruth Browne

Published ~ 30 September 2013

Genre ~ Paranormal/Post-Apocalyptic/Romance

Pages ~ 68

My Rating ~ 4 bites and a nibble out of 5

Sheri and Dani have been in the foster care system since their parents were killed. Sheri is a bit of a rebel who loves stories and she’ll do anything to protect her little sister. When the zombie apocalypse begins Sheri packs up supplies and a shotgun, steals her foster brother’s motorcycle and takes off with Dani. For five years they survive until one day Aleksy comes across the mountain cabin they’re living in while he’s out scouting for supplies and offers to take them back to his Midwestern mountain range fortress where he and some others are protected from the infected. Sheri agrees for Dani’s sake, but once inside the fortress the others discover Sheri has a zombie bite. She’s bitten, yet she hasn’t turned. Aleksy always kills the infected. What is he going to do about Sheri?

This is a retelling of Arabians Nights set in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies. I love stories about unusual characters and this story delivers. Sheri is a rebel yet she loves stories. She reads whatever she can get her hands on, but her real talent is in the telling. When Aleksy reluctantly decides he must kill her he’s on his way to her cage when he hears her telling Dani a story of the Beauty and the Beast with Aleksy as the Beast and Sheri as the Beauty. He’s hooked. For four months Sheri tells him stories while chained to his bedroom wall and he occasionally lets her out of the fortress to search for books in libraries and supplies they can use.

Despite having been bitten multiple times, Sheri has not turned. She’s pale as death, doesn’t menstruate, is strong and fast with excellent sight and hearing and yet she’s still a living breathing human, not a zombie. I would have liked to know more about why she hadn’t turned, though I’m sure the characters are just as confused as I am. What has kept her human? The way she treated her bites? Her genetic make up? Her very active brain? A combination of many things? We don’t know. Aleksy’s treatment of her is cruel, but he doesn’t want to be. Conflicted much? This is a great short story that would have been awesome as a longer version with more detail.

Title ~ From Here to Eternity

Author ~ Paige Cuccaro

Published ~ 17 February 2013

Genre ~ Sci-Fi/Romance

Pages ~ 79

My Rating ~ 5 bites out of 5

Rachel Burns sees her obituary in the paper and immediately calls her husband, Nate. Getting his voicemail, she starts to leave a message only to get an incoming call from her husband’s phone. However, when she answers she doesn’t recognize his voice. This day is getting weirder and scarier as things don’t add up for Rachel. The man on the phone promises everything will be ok and he’ll be right home, but when he shows up Rachel doesn’t know who he is. She has gaps in her memory, the date is wrong, the home security doesn’t acknowledge her voice, she can’t open the front door to leave, the house is a mess and the man who says he is Dr. Nathaniel Burns is not familiar to her. Is Rachel losing her mind? Or has something else happened?

Wow. This is an excellent sci-fi short. Even though it is a short story it feels a lot longer. It’s very well-written, the characters of Rachel and Nate are well-fleshed out, the moral situation they are in is a slippery slope and extremely tricky, not to mention dangerous. I could feel Rachel’s confusion and fear as she tried to logically work through what Nate tells her. Then there’s Nate. Oh, boy. Nate’s dilemma is one that makes you think really hard, what would you do if you were in his shoes? And the twist? Didn’t see that coming and though it’s a bit far-fetched and quite the stretch, I let it go. If you like sci-fi I recommend picking this one up.