Sandra C. Lopez's Blog, page 288

Blog Tour: MISS DEMEANOR, P.I. series by Joanne Jaytanie

P.I. I LOVE YOU 
Miss
Demeanor P.I. Book 1 by
Joanne Jaytanie Genre:
Romantic Suspense, Mystery, Adventure 
Rivers don’t let rocks hold them back. River Nightingale has decided to blow past the rocky men in her life.
She’s played by the rules for too long—especially when it came to her career as a cop. She was the top closer of cases for years, but promotions in her small town cop shop went to her less productive male counterparts. River decides it’s time to change careers. She leaves her small town to purchase a Seattle private detective agency and become her own boss.
Homicide Detective Gage Hamlin takes pride in his job; he closes cases and fosters justice. All that changed the day River Nightingale sauntered into his office. River has him questioning his pride, his cases, and his aversion to private detectives, especially beautiful private detectives.
River’s client thinks Gage got it wrong, and River is forced to prove Gage missed a murder. Will River and Gage find a way to play nice, or will River be forced to leave Gage behind?



My review: River Nightingale may not have it going on in the Hot Dates department, but at lease she had her chat room (Lady Cops.) Rather than live out their days in front of a computer, the gals take a vacation together to Seattle. Five months later, their new private investigation company, Miss Demeanor, was open!

“I thrive on hard work. I worked hard for ten years and closed more cases than all my colleagues combined. What I do have a problem with is being passed over for promotions while some yahoo, with half the closed cases and experience, gets the job. And why? Merely because he has a d#ck and I don’t.” (25)
The first case involved proving an accident was actually and finding a long-lost half-sister.
I liked these women. They were smart, spunky, and strong-willed. Although I felt the bulk of the story focused mostly on River and Gage (the homicide detective) working together and getting too chummy very quickly, I thought this was a well-rounded mystery with good investigative skills.  The revelations can get a little puzzling and complex, but this was, overall, a quick and easy read.
My rating: 3.5 stars
Add
to Goodreads Amazon
* Apple
* B&N
* Kobo






TWICE AS BADMiss
Demeanor, P.I. Book 2

River has already lost a partner to a better job, and now a truck has mowed down another partner and a key informant. Her surviving crew is reeling and dead set on finding the killer. Working with them is a Seattle PD homicide detective, Gage Hamlin.

Gage and River have been a volatile combination since day one, but now it’s twice as tense, as they both seek the killer and Gage struggles to keep River alive.
On the waterfront, Seattle is known for slinging fish, but River’s stakeout of a seafood plant reveals that fish aren’t the only thing being sold on the docks. And if River isn’t careful, fish aren’t the only thing that will end up dead on the docks.
Looming dangers lurk closer with every clue River uncovers. River’s business, her relationship, her friends, and her life are all in jeopardy. And the cost of solving the case is at least twice as bad as usual.


Add
to Goodreads Amazon
* Apple
* B&N
* Kobo



Joanne was born and raised in Sherburne, New York, a quaint village surrounded by dairy farms and rolling hills. From the moment she could read she wanted to
explore the world. During her college years, she slowly crept across
the country, stopping along the way in Oklahoma, California, and
finally Washington State, which she now proudly calls home. She lives
with her husband and Dobermans, in their home located on the Olympic
Peninsula with a panoramic view of the Olympic Mountains.Joanne writes romantic suspense, paranormal, mystery-thriller, supernatural
suspense, and contemporary romance. She loves to submerge herself in
the world of her characters, to live and breathe their lives and
marvel at their decisions and predicaments. She enjoys a wide variety
of books including paranormal, suspense, thriller, and of course
romance.
Joanne is a PAN member of Romance Writers of America, (RWA), Kiss of Death, (KOD), Greater Seattle Romance Writers Chapter, (GSRWA), Sisters In Crime (SIC), and Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal, (FFPRWA). She served as President of Peninsula Romance Writers, which was Debbie Macomber’s home chapter.


Website
* Facebook
* Twitter *
Instagram
Pinterest
* Bookbub
* Amazon
* Goodreads



Follow
the tour HERE
for special content and a giveaway!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: PERSEPHONE UNDERGROUND by Jennifer Russon

Graphic Image designed by Sandra Lopez



Seph Gonzalez is haunted by a DUI crash that left her with serious learning disabilities. She falls prey to Mami Wata and her strange grandson, who recruit her to clean their house of voodoo. Lured under the premise of a summer job at The Pomegranate, Seph is undeterred by the nightclub’s criminal reputation. Girls have gone missing, but it’s as though witnesses and local police have all been brainwashed.

Mami Wata and her family are coming for Seph as well – against a romantic backdrop of Ft. Lauderdale beaches and gondolas drifting down canals. She tries to escape, but it’s not so easy after falling in love with one of her captors.

In this faithful retelling of the Greek myth, a 17-year-old gives her personal account of what it’s like to live between two worlds. Her story unravels in a fever dream, tapping into an all too pervasive fear of gun violence happening at school.

It may actually be safer down in Hell…

Will Seph choose to reign there with Hayden, her dark Prince – or will she choose to stay with the mortals who love her on the surface? 




My review: Persephone (Seph) Gonzalez was a young, gothic girl with pale skin and cuts so deep that they ran into her soul. She was deeply fascinated with the dead, which often sent her to the cemetery grounds. She was as haunted as they come.


Having to live in foster homes while her mom was incarcerated and living with learning disabilities, Seph had resentment (of course!) Not only was she a cutter, but she often “checked out”—daydreaming of different worlds. One day, a message gets seared into her palm: “Mami Wata wants you dead.”


Seph gets kidnapped by Mami Wata, the evil voodoo queen.


The happiest day for her was finding Hayden. The worst day was when demons from Hell came looking for her.


The story is told out-of-order, but, yet, the reader can still follow along. It had a few typos, which can be overlooked for the most part. I liked Seph’s smart-aleck commentary, and you can feel empathy toward the dark characters. It was bad enough to be held captive and enslaved against your will, but to do so with something inhuman and…scaly? Story was an interesting spin on the urban legend of Mother Waters (Mami Wata.)


It turns out that her captors were reincarnations of their own flesh—they were the undead and rulers of the Underworld. Seph becomes Hayden’s queen and gets brutally deflowered by his dead counterpart (not the human version she fell in love with.)


Would she be doomed to a life in Hell or privy to an oceanic Heaven? Can Seph escape her fate? Or did she even want to? Did she have the courage to die?


Normally, I’m not that into fantasy, but this was more than what the genre exemplifies—it was fantasy, mythology, fairy tale, and horror all mixed into one dark and alluring tale. It was oddly compelling.


My rating: 4 stars

Review: RED NIGHT by R.K. Close

Samantha knows what’s hiding in the shadows…


After witnessing what looked like a “death by hickey” moment on a routine surveillance job, Sam could not stop thinking how elusive, dangerous, and exotic the Mystery Man was. Did she dream about him that night? Or did he follow her home?


Then she learns his name: Adam. Adam continues to watch her, which is kinda creepy.


I thought Sam was quippy and sassy with a cool job of following cheaters and stealers; however, her story keeps a steady pace throughout, almost repeating the same scene over and over again. At times, I felt like there wasn’t much happening. Sam just seems to ruminate a lot, mostly about Mystery Man. It is perceived that Adam was a vampire, but it was never confirmed. Using her reporter’s instincts, Sam chases the trail—a very long and slow trail.


I thought this would be better. There were some things I liked, but, mostly, I didn’t like it.


My rating: 2 stars

Review: THE WITCH AND THE GENTLEMAN by J.R. Rain

Allison works part-time for a psychic hotline. Little do her callers know that they are dealing with a REAL psychic, whose power was enhanced daily thanks to a vampire.


One of the callers she gets is in agony. She connects with him right away with her psychic intuition and reveals for him that his daughter was murdered. He wants her help in finding her killer.


Even though she can’t see ghosts, Allison felt an eerie presence in the gentleman’s house. It was there that Peter (the handsome gentleman) divulges the whole sad story. Evidently, Peter’s mother was a witch, who died a while ago and encourages Allison to take her spell book.


Dreams of ghosts and girls, of murder and witches. Allison gets sucked into a chilling mystery and whirlwind of voodoo. And although she was new to all this witchy stuff, Allison takes it in stride…and lots of alcohol.


Compelling and well-written. A good read and full of mysterious twists.


My rating: 4 stars

Review: MAYBE THE DREAM KNOWS WHAT’S REAL by Steve Grogan

“No matter how real someone’s love might feel, I had to remember it wasn’t; I would have to train my eyes to see through this illusion.” (5)
A young boy that was different. “Time spent reading was time not spent exercising. As a result of this, I gained weight, which was just one more piece of lumber for my peers to throw on the fire so they could fuel their contempt for me.” (8) He was a loner…and, thus, his fixation with horror began.
Writing was pretty good. At first, this seems like a typical coming-of-age story of an isolated boy trying to come out of his shell and see the world around him. As he began his entanglements with the opposite sex, a jealous rage began to take root. Reading this felt like watching an episode of The Wonder Years, except there was a lot more sexual exploration and explicit scenes. His only purpose in life was to fulfill a dream of being wanted by another human being, but, unfortunately, it didn’t usually work out for him. Soon, he realized that love was nothing but a lie…and the rage got stronger.
There was definitely a vulnerable darkness to this story. It definitely shows what happens when a person snaps. How was this real? Was this a dream? Maybe only the dream knows what’s real. I didn’t quite get this statement. I understood as a psychological trauma, of being lost between fantasy (what you want to see in your mind) and reality (what actually is there.) I kind of think this is something that Hitchcock would say. It was a mad man’s fantasy.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: THE FIXER: THE NAKED MAN by Jill Amy Rosenblatt

Katerina Mills lived by the golden rule of “fixing” people’s problems: get in, get out, get done. See everything but never be seen.
One morning, she gets a frantic call from The Naked Man and goes to meet him. I wish I could say the name was a euphemism, but…he was reallynaked when she gets there. Flaccid penis swinging in the wind. Oy.
The Naked Man had a problem he needed to go away: an unconscious naked woman in his bed. For Kat, this was no problem. She was a Fixer, after all.
In desperate need of some quick cash, she takes a trial job working for MJM for what can only sound like an escort service. It’s pretty clear that what Kat does is highly covert and maybe even a little dodgy, but it’s kind of hard to tell what her assignment was. What exactly was she doing here?
Writing was simple, and the dialogue was refreshingly witty and candid; however, it’s kind of hard to follow a story when you don’t really know what’s going on. I liked that Kat was like this secret spy and was looking forward to seeing her in action. The reader does get to see her in action without fully knowing the mission. This could be a pretty good read with just a bit more clarification.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: THE OTHER TIDE by Carly Spade

Sam was a shark researcher with a fancy Biology degree and bodacious body. When an opportunity to join an expedition comes up, she jumps on it. The last person she expected to see was the same cocky bastard she’d hope to forget. The boat suddenly didn’t seem big enough.
Story is simple with a steady rhythm, and delves into great knowledge about sharks and sea-diving. It’s a tumbling life at sea! The schematics regarding the expedition and the scientific research were a little confusing at times. That along with the various cast and crew members made the story a little daunting. There certainly didn’t seem to be that much interaction between Sam and Luke. It would’ve been better to have felt how much those two really hated each other. Perhaps even find out what happened to have caused such animosity. The writing was pretty good. I liked the concept, but I wasn’t really that into it. It’s an okay read.
My rating: 3 stars

Review: SADIE’S SPIRIT by CB Samet

A person can only die once.


Sadie hadn’t expected her own death to come so quickly. A ghost among the living, her only salvation is in the form of a long-lost love, whom she left heartbroken years ago. If she didn’t believe much in the supernatural, she believed now. Now, with Asher’s help, she must resolve her unfinished business and close the case on her murder.


Story was well-written, intriguing, and east-to-read with sprinkles of romance, mystery, and supernatural elements.


My rating: 4 stars

Review: CONFESSIONS OF AN ABANDONED WIFE by Michal Hartstein

A woman is a proclaimed adulteress.


“I have a husband, but he’s never around.” (3)


I thought this would be an interesting read of indecent proposal, but it was nothing but the whiny confessions of a lonely and cheating wife. It made for some blasé reading.


My rating: 2 stars

Review: THEN HE KISSED ME by Maria Geraci

Lauren is a single, divorced parent, who is grateful for everything she has. She owns a nice, little vintage clothing shop in FL and enjoys classical holiday films—namely It’s a Wonderful Life. She never asked for much, but her meddling mother thought she should have more—like a man. So she sets her up on a blind date with a successful entrepreneur, who was as arrogant as they come. Lauren didn’t need a man to complete her; she could complete herself. You go, girl!


On the blind date, she sees a public proposal go sour. Turns out the guy was someone she used to know back in high school. He was the likable nerd, like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Lauren then realizes that Nate dodged a bullet when the girl turned him down.


I thought the character was witty and relatable, and Nate was such a nice guy—quiet, quirky, and so smart. I thought they would have a nice romance. Story started off good, but then it slows down dramatically. It kind of made me wonder when exactly does he kiss her. It’s still a decent read though.


My rating: 3.5 stars