It was so good to get back to the Breed and to Rafe, who felt like he had a lot to make up for since the last time we saw him when he fell for the Opus operative. Devony also has an agenda and it doesn’t include this Breed male coming and interfering with her plans to get at Opus Nostrum for what they did to her family. The story was fast paced and passionate. The conflict was great and had several surprises that kept it interesting and not predictable. When she learns the truth, Rafe has a lot to make up for and that made for some really good reading. From start to finish it was an awesome read, I loved every second of it.

DNF @ 20%.

I am not impressed. 

The women characters are pretty vapid apart from Olga, Pasternak's muse. However, even she is so far only defined by her relationship with Pasternak.

I don't know why, but I'm really noticing how this book would fail the Bechdel test in every scene so far. 

Also, I'm not interested in the writing style. It's aggravatingly a lot like chick-lit and I also have issues with other aspects of the tone.

I came across this one as an audiobook on my library's BorrowBox and am intrigued enough to give it a go. 

It will probably be my "work from home companion" next week.

by Lara Maiklem

Non-fiction

This was a rather interesting book about an activity I hadn't known about before, though it seems an obvious thing to do now. Mudlarking is searching through he shore of a river, in this case the Thames, at low tide to find valuables and artefacts the higher tide might have washed along. This can include some fascinating historical pieces from buttons to jewellery in the Thames.

I enjoyed reading about the different segments of the river and how the patterns of the tides differ from one to another, as well as the bits of London history that are revealed from the various finds. The personal connection the author expresses about the river really adds character to the narrative and makes me want to get a pair of wellies and go see what I can find myself! Though I'm not sure I would be up to the task in the end.

A fascinating narrative about a too little known activity. I just hope it doesn't result in inspiring so many mudlarking tourists that the lifelong hobbyists get crowded out!

by Olivia Lara

This one had a lot of consistency problems, yet I couldn't put it down! With short chapters alternating between two protagonists, there was always just one more chapter and a few late nights ensued.

Leon and Zara meet very young, hiding in a dark museum. They share a love of art and especially for Monet. Zara comes from a family where the women have dreams about the man meant for them, seeing things though his eyes. Some of them ignore the ability and slough it off as superstition and imagination. Some believe it whole-heartedly.

Among the problems with this book is Zara, whose real name is Dominique, sharing the story of her star-crossed romance with Leon with her granddaughter and switching between present and past tense to maximum cringe effect, yet the story itself comes through and it was easy to care about the characters and to want to slap them when they made stupid decisions that made them miss each other.

Hopefully the final edit will fix some of the problems, especially the disappearing walking stick and the wrong name used in one of the later chapters. The fact that it held my attention so well makes it necessary to give it four stars either way.