Since the last few Nora Roberts books I read were set in the mid-twenty-first century and written under her pseudonym JD Robb, it’s been a minute since I read anything of hers set in our current timeline. So it was a nice switch to delve into her new paranormal romantic suspense, Mind Games. It’s got an old school feel with an old school villain and low frequency psychic vibes that reminded me of some of my favorite Linda Howard books from the late nineties (I’m looking at you, Now You See Her). I could read this kind of story over and over. Told in three parts – Tragedy, Living, and The Gift ..read more

Eden Winters’ Darkness is an inventive and intriguing mixture of police procedural and urban fantasy with a dash of sci-fi and a touch of romance, and is quite unlike anything else I’ve read recently. The worldbuilding is excellent, but the pacing is uneven; I liked that the author takes time to set up the story and characters, but the downside to that is that the second-half feels rushed and the ending abrupt, and while I liked the two leads as a couple, their romance takes a bit of a back seat to everything else that is going on. Darkness is fascinating and utterly compelling in parts, but ..read more

Skeletons in the Closet gets Nicky James’ new romantic suspense Shadowy Solutions series off to a great start. It’s a spin-off of her popular Valor and Doyle stories in which the author continues her winning combination of intriguing, twisty suspense and sexy, emotionally satisfying romance with a new and compelling central couple, one of whom we’ve met before, the other appearing for the first time in the prequel novella, Invisible Scars, which I strongly recommend reading before jumping into this. Tallus Domingo – whom we first met in Matrimonial Merriment – is the cousin of IT guru, Costa ..read more

I was in the mood to read some romantic suspense when a new Lora Leigh novel came to my attention. She’s been publishing books for more than two decades in the romantic suspense, erotic romance and paranormal genres. Play Dirty is the first in a new series, Tempting SEALS: Triton, a spin off from her Tempting SEALS series (originally published 2005-2008, with collections published since then). Jack and Poppy have known each other since they were kids, but when Jack joined the Navy SEALs, he went out of his way to avoid Poppy whenever he came back to town. Now, after a secret deal with the Nav ..read more

While it’s been a little while since her last novel, Lara Lacombe was a category romance autobuy from me ever since I read her debut, Deadly Contact, for review back in 2013. When I saw that this month’s TBR Challenge theme was “Not in Kansas anymore”, I figured the opening book in the 2016 Doctors in Danger trilogy would be the perfect fit. After all, the heroine in Enticed by the Operative fits the category in more ways than one. Not only are these leads far from home, but they’ve been thrown into the middle of a criminal operation. The plot centers on plastic surgeon Olivia Sandoval. Dr. S ..read more

The Family Man is a promising start to a new romantic suspense series, The Mind Hacker, from new-to-me author AJ Rose featuring a small team of special agents who work for the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit. There are a few stock-in-trade tropes here and the author sometimes gets bogged down with too much description and explanation, but I enjoyed the story overall. The action sequences are tense, the sex scenes are hot and the two leads are interesting and likeable. Their relationship is in the early stages here, but that’s pretty much what I expect from book one in a same-couple series, an ..read more

I’ve become a fan of Eli Easton’s over the past couple of years, and although I wasn’t wowed by RJ Scott’s foray into romantic suspense (the Lancaster Falls series), I decided to give this first book in their new Lake Prophet Mysteries collaboration a go. I enjoyed Solstice on the whole – the mystery plot isn’t especially complex and the bad guy is telegraphed a mile off, but having an animal behaviourist as one of the leads is unusual and I liked that the mystery has a slightly different angle as a result. Gabriel Thompson, a former undercover cop in LA, has returned to the hometown he left ..read more

If you could do the Time Warp back to 2001, you might love Stacey Abrams’ re-release, The Art of Desire. Nowadays Abrams isn’t separating her powerhouse political brilliance behind the romantic suspense pseudonym of Selena Montgomery, but in this re-issue, she’s thrust her literary chops back two decades to a time when she was an emerging author with a scattershot storyline that included ALL the stuff. Phillip Truman is a former congressman with a side hustle at the ISA – the International Security Agency. His last assignment lasted about three years longer than intended, and he spent them un ..read more

A missing, possibly murdered, child. A skeptical cop. A psychic turned scientist. A painful love triangle. These are the elements Julia Heaberlin uses to weave an enthralling tale of love, loss, and lies in Night Will Find You. It’s a gripping story; once you pick it up, you won’t want to put it down until the very end. When her mother dies, Vivvy (Vivian) Bouchet agrees to pack up the family home and prepare it for sale. It is the least she can do since her sister, Brig, had taken on the heavy load of caring for their mother during her illness. But being back in her hometown isn’t easy. Her ..read more

I have thoroughly enjoyed Rebecca Zanetti’s Laurel Snow series, and this third installment, You Can Die, is another stellar hit. It’s a thrilling procedural filled with well-developed characters and a plausible, engaging plot. Laurel’s field office in Genesis Valley is now operational, and she’s chugging along at a good groove. It’s a little worrisome to learn there’s another serial killer in her neck of the woods, (pretty much cementing my decision to continue residing elsewhere in the lower 48!) Her community is lucky to have her because Laurel proves time and again that her analytical int ..read more