Book Reviews – Page 4 – Have Coffee Need Books

Book Reviews, High School Romance, Sports Romance, YA Fiction, YA Romance

Book Review: In The Penalty Box by Kelly Anne Blount & Lynn Rush

In The Penalty Box by Kelly Anne Blount & Lynn Rush

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On January 28,21 | 1 Comment

Title: In The Penalty Box
Author: Kelly Anne Blount & Lynn Rush
Genre: YA Sports Romance
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Toe Pick.

I’m old enough for that to be romantic and adorable before reading Kelly Anne Blount’s and Lynn Rush’s In The Penalty Box.

After a horrendous injury, Willow Covington is home nursing her wounds. She’s doing what she can to work her way back to the Olympic Figure Skating Team she was on before getting hurt. It just isn’t going well. Going to open ice time at the local ice rinks is giving her practice and keeping her sane.

Puck Head.

Book Reviews, Contemporary Romance, Enemies to Lovers Romance, New Adult Fiction

Book Review: Enemy Dearest by Winter Renshaw

Enemy Dearest by Winter Renshaw

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On January 22,21 | 0 Comment

Title: Enemy Dearest (Monreaux Brothers #1)
Author: Winter Renshaw
Genre: Contemporary Romance
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Rose girl by any other name is still a Rose, and if you are a Monreaux that might as well be the dirt below one’s feet. August Monreaux recognizes Sheridan Rose as the naked venus floating in his pool on a hot-as-hell summer night, but why she is there is anyone’s clue. He knows, and she apparently is aware of too, that Monreauxes and Roses don’t mingle. Enemy Dearest is a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, and Meredith Hills plays the part of Verona.

I enjoyed this story! There is a fair amount of rawness to Winter Renshaw’s storytelling that feels like she’s giving her character’s open-heart surgery. They don’t get to love easily; they really have to work for it. I can appreciate any story where the characters are put through their paces.

Adult Fiction, Book Reviews, Horror

Book Review: The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel by K.T. Rose

The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel by K.T. Rose

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On December 04,20 | 0 Comment

Title: The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel
Author: K.T. Rose
Genre: Supernatural Horror
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you are looking for something in the vein of Darcy Coates you might pick up K.T. Rose’s The Haunting of Gallagher Hotel. Pulling from haunted house lore and pure horror fiction, this book is meant to take the ugly in human beings and punish those sinners ala the highway to hell style.

Riley is just trying to eek by. She’s doing her best to fake it until she makes it as she recovers from her son’s tragic death while dealing with the daily pressure of an overzealous boyfriend bent on commitment. She’s rather shocked to receive a private request to handle an overnight catering request as a server. Riley desperately needs the money.

Book Reviews, Collection, Short Stories, Speculative Fiction, Uncategorized

Book Review: Road to Woop Woop by Eugen Bacon

Road Woop Woop Eugen Bacon

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On December 01,20 | 0 Comment

Title: Road to Woop Woop
Author: Eugen Bacon
Genre: Collection / Speculative Fiction / Dark Fantasy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Road to Woop Woop and Other Stories is a collection of 24 of Eugen Bacon’s tales that run the gambit of warm and witty to chillingly sinister. The thread that pulls these stories together is relationships within storytelling, whether it is a father and daughter or an author and his story; Eugen Bacon builds you a world where the bond between the two is the crux.

These narratives are compelling and provoking, and this book is impossible to put down. Vignette after vignette pulls you further along the line until you are well hooked. And although some stories are short, the compendium allows the reader to nosh at will what they may and leave more for another bite later.

Book Reviews, YA Fiction, YA Paranormal

Book Review: The Claires by C.L. Gaber

The Claires by C.L. Gaber

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On November 30,20 | 0 Comment

Title: The Claires (An Ascenders Novel)
Author: C.L. Gaber
Genre: YA, Paranormal
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

C.L. Gaber’s The Claires is probably not where I was supposed to start the Ascenders series. But I did start it here, and I’m not mad about it.

The Claires are four sisters who were first born in 1911. The quadruplets each have an extraordinary power: Claire V is clairvoyant; she is clear seeing of the future. Claire S is clairsentient; she has an exact feeling of others’ emotions, Clair A is clairaudient; she is clear hearing and can tap into the spirit realm, and Clair C is Claircognizant, which is clear all-knowing. Every lifetime they die on their seventeenth birthday only to be reborn two months later for the cycle to begin again.

In the year 2013, the girls are sixteen and pre-planning their upcoming seventeenth birthday. This time they are hoping to break the curse finally. They’ve lived this entire life differently and are hoping that it will make a difference.

Book Reviews, Christian Fiction, New Adult Fiction

Book Review: They Call Me Gomer by J.C. Miller

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On November 25,20 | 0 Comment

Title: They Call Me Gomer
Author: J.C. Miller
Genre: New Adult, Urban Inspirational, Christian Fiction
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Real deal, like a heart attack, kind of read.

They Call Me Gomer is one of those reads that pulls you in and drags you through in immersion therapy. J.C. Miller doesn’t just use diary entries, but she enriches the story with the characters’ tongue. You can hear the speech, feel the personalities. She takes you there and makes you part of Go-Go’s story–the path she makes through her early life and the bumps and thumps she takes. They Call Me Gomer is not a pretty tale. It’s rife with instability, self-destruction, and a desire to live the better of the best life. GoGo’s journey is sometimes something you would want to turn away from but can’t stop yourself from reading more.

Book Reviews, Contemporary Romance, High School Romance, NA Romance

Book Review: Break Me by Meagan Brandy

Break Me by Meagan Brandy

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On November 19,20 | 0 Comment

Title: Break Me (Brayshaw High #5)
Author: Meagan Brandy
Genre: Contemporary Romance, New Adult Romance
My rating: 5 of 5 Stars

Break Me is the best sort of fan service.

Brielle Bishop is supposed to be a pawn in Royce Brayshaw’s plans for payback. That would work if she didn’t shake his world up five minutes after meeting him.

Okay, peeps, this book put me through the wringer. I laughed. I got pissed off. I cried my ever-loving eyes out. Royce has always been a mess, and his book could not be anything other than a love story of epic messy proportions. You love him, and you know he is going to eff it up from the start.

I didn’t understand the animosity between Royce and Bishop that sets up the plot, but you need to have some crisis to have a story. Still, I loved Brielle, and she is a unique character to this series, very different from the earlier heroines. It’s nice not having an in your face female. Something softer for the most in your face Brayshaw is a plus. But watching Royce fight himself while all the previous MCs pulled for him and tried to get him to disengage his head from his bottom was ironic.

Book Reviews, Paranormal Romance, Reverse Harem

Book Review: Earth by Helen J. Perry

Earth by Helen J Perry

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On November 16,20 | 0 Comment

Title: Earth (Elemental Reverse Harem Quartet #1)
Author: Helen J. Perry
Genre: Reverse Harem, Paranormal Romance
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Earth is the first in the Elemental Reverse Harem Quartet, which promises to be a titillating new series by Helen J. Perry.

Malka Selby doesn’t know she’s a witch. The joke is more or less on her because all the men she encounters seems to know who and what she is. And the kinky menagé contest she’s having with her best friend to see who can have the most, the best, is getting lots of fodder as these men seem to make all her dreams come true.

Adult Fiction, Book Reviews, Paranormal Romance, Reverse Harem, Romantic Comedy

Book Review: Submission by Elle Lincoln

Submission by Elle Lincoln

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On November 13,20 | 0 Comment

Title: Submission (Fated Souls #2)
Author: Elle Lincoln
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Reverse Harem
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

ARGH! And not in a pirate way. I’m so frustrated. What I thought would happen when I read the cliffhanger of Surrender occurred, and I’m not happy about it. I hate delayed gratification. I’m basically a human-cat –we human-cats don’t do that.

Submission introduces mate número cinco. Kade isn’t a full dozen doughnuts, and since Bean can’t help but devour all the doughnuts she sees, she’s a-okay with the whacked-out lycan. But with Kade comes a lesson in how the lycan world really works. That might be more than she is ready for, considering Bean becomes a vampire juice box on the first go. Kade might be crazy, but Sabina must be losing her mind. The Stockholm Syndrome she suffers has her wanting more of the danger that comes with the secrets of her new life.

Book Reviews, Horror, Thriller

Book Review: The Reaper by Jade Royal

The Reaper by Jade Royal

ByMs Ali Cat: Ali Crean | On November 10,20 | 0 Comment

Title: The Reaper Collection
Author: Jade Royal
Genre: Horror – Thriller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Reaper is a collection of short stories meant to tickle your senses. Whether it’s to avenge a betrayal, confront cruelty, punish hypocrisy, or revenge for murder, these gritty stories have one thing in common, and that is the dark, creepy feel of a thriller.

Jade Royal has a unique writing style that is straightforward and leaves a bit of a dirty taste in your mouth. She writes about straight-up ugly things and the payback for those sins. I had to take a break. I couldn’t read this short compendium all the way through in one sitting.

One of the things I could appreciate is the sense of doom she infuses in all her work. She never promised any silver linings in any of these stories, and you knew upfront what you were reading. I liked that.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys horror-thriller.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary advance copy of this book.