Jennifer, recovering from pneumonia, is offered a job on Everett Culhane's ranch. She takes it as she is in a dead-end job and is enamored with Texas. When Everett discovers Jennifer's past, he cruelly drives her away. But neither is able to get past their relationship.

I enjoyed this story. It is an alpha/ingenue story but well done. Everett knows he has to make amends while controlling his alpha tendencies. Both need to learn how to forgive and push pass their pride. When they are together they are dynamite. I also liked how Everett's employees let Jennifer know what Everett has done when she was gone. Jennifer was able to put him in his place and hold her own against him.

This is a sweet read. I love reading Diana Palmer.

@debbiereadsbook, @Archaeolibrary, #Paranormal, #Romance, 4 out of 5 (very good)

A vampire warrior. A shrink. This could get uncomfortable.

Kyr, leader of the Vampire Defense Agency’s elite ground team, doesn’t have a choice in the matter. Either he participates in this bullshit psych eval, or his team gets suspended.

But this isn’t about Kyr’s mental health. This is an investigation. Because the director wants to know why the Hush hasn’t been joining the company singalong lately. The reason? A traitor at the VDA is betraying vampire females into the hands of a demon lord.

Yeah. Kyr doesn’t trust anyone, not even—especially not—the gorgeous agent assigned to evaluate him. The only thing more difficult than dodging her questions?

Denying the intense (and inconvenient) attraction sizzling between them…

by Anne & Christopher Rice

Curiosity got the better of me on this collaboration. Once upon a time I loved reading Anne Rice's early vampire books and I've enjoyed one book by Christopher Rice (Vines) despite being written in present tense (the ultimate sin).

So, I started reading and my first impression was that it had the tone of those early vampire books and that perhaps the collaboration with her son was what Anne needed to get back on track. I started having some doubts when it became overtly sexual and the emphasis on gay sex started to impede the story flow. I don't object to gay sex, but I generally don't want to read about a lot of sex in general. It also dragged in a few places.

It's the story of Bektaten (totally fictional) who developed a formula to attain eternal life. The formula comes to Ramses and then the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, making them both immortal. Each of them shared their immortality with a few favorites and conflicts ensue.

This isn't, as I had assumed, a new vampire novel. No blood drinking has taken place. The immortality elixer is a new thing, not explored in any previous books I've read by either author, though there are some Ramses books by Anne Rice that I haven't read so this might be a series I just wasn't aware of. The Egyptian theme seems to be a favorite of hers.

The important thing is that I was drawn into the story and began to get to know the characters and all their foibles. My sympathies were naturally with Cleopatra, as she's a favorite historical figure, though not the nicest person in this story. I had some problem with keeping secondary characters in context as they weren't as well-defined as they needed to be, but it all fell into place near the end when the significance of their roles comes to fruition.

I found it interesting how the story explored concepts of reincarnation and afterlife, encompassing a few different belief systems within the plot and the beliefs of the main characters. The end seemed to drag out a long time, but the loose ends were all tidied up while still leaving room for some of the characters to appear in a new story.

Dirty and pure are a total contradiction. Wilde proves herself a genius when it comes to making them work. Unforgotten Passion is an imaginative, stroll into the dark side of a fairytale. Behind the beautiful dressing lies heartache as tempting as it is dangerous. Raevynn and Collin are magic. Their dance of love is a masterful blend of past regrets and present shadows. Secrets haunt them. Danger stalks them. Will their happy ending forever elude them? Wilde has crafted a mesmerizing enigma that sticks in your heart and stays on your mind.

I love this book! I always expect cheesy and predictable storylines when I read romance but, although still fairly predictable (come on, we read these books because we do want a happy ending), I wasn't bored one bit as I read this. I found myself smiling along a lot, which is always a good thing. As a protagonist, Naomi is a good blend of strong and vulnerable, something I don't find in a lot of books in the same genre. I'm definitely filing the next books in the series in my TBR folder.