eyes.2c Reviews

Once a Soldier (Rogues Redeemed #1)  by  Mary Jo Putney   The minute I started this I was swept away. It certainly helped that I am a huge Shape's War fan and I could immediate picture the battles and areas that Will Masterson goes through. And I loved the idea of the fighting goddess Athena, sweeping into action, so reminiscent of the Contessa,  Teresa Moreno. I loved Will and Athena's story. The story opens in the town of Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal 1809.  Imprisoned in a cellar by the French, due to face a firing squad, Lord Will Masterson,  along with five other men escape  death by a near to miraculous route.  They make a pact. Having escaped death, they would look to right wrongs from their past once the war is over. And so the Brotherhood of Rogues Redeemed is born. 1814. Athena Masterson, illegitimate daughter of an English Duke has found rest in the small kingdom of San Gabriel between France and Spain. Athena is acting as...

Murder in the Marais (An Aimee Leduc Investigation #1)   by  Cara Black A confirmed Aimee Leduc fan, this stunning mystery casts its net around the life of Aimee Leduc and draws her (and me) ever more tightly into the centre of a dark web.  It starts when an elderly gentleman, with the look of a survivor searching for lost ones, presents himself at Aimee's office. He utters these words, 'I knew your father, an honourable man. He told me to come to you if I needed help.' Aimee doesn't take investigative detective work anymore, she deals in corporate security. This seems like a simply delivery, and she needs the money. Nothing is ever as it seems with Aimee. She finds herself drawn into the hunt for a killer with Nazi ties through circumstances that open her own wounds, haunted as she is by nightmares of her father's death. This time the past crawls out to confront the future as Aimee finds herself investigating the death of an old Jewish woman who...

Late Harvest: A nineteenth-century historical saga   by  Fiona Buckley A timeless story of two young lovers torn from each other's lives by murder. Not quite Tess of the Durbervilles, but you can sense the fecundity of the landscape and imagine the breadth of the moors, and the generations of folk of the land with Buckley's telling descriptive writing. All is  vivid, you can smell the moors and taste the sea of Exmoor in the 1800's. A tale of smuggling, love and accepting what life throws at you. Of a lost love that when faced down defies sense and sensibilities. At times I felt like I was moving in a Constable painting, at others I was looking around for Ross Poldark and Demelza. Peggy Shawe was engaged to Ralph Duggan, a free trader, a euphemism for smuggler. Her mother sends Peggy to live with Ralph's family for six weeks to test the relationship. When Ralph's brother Philip is accused of murder, Philip is forced to flee England. Ralph goes with him, a...

Vinegar Girl: A Novel (Hogarth Shakespeare)   by  Anne Tyler I must admit that there was not much of the shrew with Kate Batista. If anything Kate, a nursery school assistant, comes across as a displaced and down trodden person who is floating through life rather than partaking of it. Viewing life from the outside. I keep flashing back to where her four year old girl students are playing with dolls and acting out life's situations and to Kate it seems so foreign. There is much of Kate that is silent and doll like, allowing life to happen around her, allowing other people to chart her path. She seems to have spent a lifetime trying to make up for what she's not. She does not believe in herself. She takes the line of least resistance, particularly having grown up with a brilliant and driven scientist f ather. Kate's father is a self centred man who analysis his world scientifically, governing the very food the family eats from a nutritional standpoint. They eat a m...

Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane Book 1)  by  Elizabeth Hoyt Where it all began! This series is such a winner! I loved each and every novel under the arc of Maiden Lane. Like some other reviewers I first came across this series when reading The Duke of Sin and was swept away so much by that, that therein followed a solid few days of reading the Maiden Lane series from this the very first chapter. 'And I kept asking myself how had I never read the series before! It's really different, and wonderful as it's complexity morphs into the simplicity of selfless love conquering all.' Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire wants to avenge the murder of his mistress. Temperance Dews, a widow, cares for children in a foundling home her family began. The home needs a rich benefactor, Lazarus needs a guide to through the pitfalls of the dangerous slum known as St Giles. It seems they each have access to something the other wants and so a bargain is struck. The attraction that flare...

The Crow Girl: A novel   by  Erik Axl Sund A hard read that I had to keep putting aside for a while.  The abuse and trafficking of children is not something of which humanity can be proud. Add torture and sadism and the absence of light is completed. The story (actually three novels extended into one which makes it a very long read!) drops into lines that are chilling and arresting. The two main character voices of  Detective Superintendent Jeanette Kihlberg who leads the investigation the therapist Sofia Zetterlund wrap around each other in interesting ways. Sofia has several cases / patients / requests she's looking at.  The sentencing of Tyra Mäkelä,  the following up Victoria Bergman (a client she finds profoundly puzzling), a request from a social worker to see a war affected child from Sierra Leone, that sparks forgotten nightmare. All build a carefully weighed background to this extreme psychological thriller. I found the wr...

The 9:45 to Bletchley (The Dudley Sisters Saga)   by  Madalyn Morgan Ena Dudley is strong, forthright and a little opinionated. Mind she is very capable, although sometimes almost too reticent, and at others she rushes in. Working on parts for machines that end up as part of the 'hush, hush' work done at Bletchley during World War II, she discovers her factory's work is being sabotaged. How she knows that is really very clever. Ena becomes part of an intelligence investigation looking at who's responsible. A few candidates appear and yet nothing is clear until the very end. Whilst feeling sympathy for Ena, I am somewhat at a loss about her relationship with the American, Ben and then her friend Henry. It all seems a tad disjointed around these two. I'm putting it down to the situation she finds herself in. However she does seem too trusting at times. There were jumps that made no sense in the last part of the story. I reread those parts and it still ...

The Valiant Highlander (Highland Defender Book 2) b y  Amy Jarecki Enjoyable highland romp with a delightfully fresh heroine and a handsome braw Jacobite hero. Complete with with a traitorous,  leering, despicable Scotsman  red coat officer, Lieutenant Balfour MacLeod, a kidnapping and a rescue and so much more. Balfour was a great villain to dislike. Sir Donald MacDonald, Baronet of Sleat and Mary of Castleton clash at every turn. Not helped by their first meeting when he thought she was a lad and took up her challenge to a shooting match. Hmm! Completely dismissing her, he is drawn into an involvement he doesn't want when Mary is taken by force from Dunscaith Castle, and to add insult to injury, in Donald's sea galley. The thing is Mary is just so brash, not at all the sort of wife to fit into the life he leads as a leader of society. That sentiment certainly smacked of vanity, misunderstanding and elitism. About then Sir Donald was shown for the unt...

What We Become: A Novel   by  Arturo Perez-Reverte In the first three pages or so I was a tad confused. I felt detached, disoriented even. As I should! I was crossing the Atlantic bound from Lisbon to Buenos Aires--ar least the characters I was about to become totally engaged with were. As I read on I became absolutely fascinated with them all. Max, I envisage as an aging Pierce Brosnan type, suave and sophisticated harbouring the faint memory of a rougher beginning. As we go between Max's past and present, between his coming to know Mecha onboard the luxury liner where he works as a dancer, and their last meeting, the threads are electrifyingly taut. The tango discussions between Mecha's husband, Armando de Troeye (a famous composer), Mecha, and Max are robust and heady laced as they are with the undercurrent of explicit yet restrained sexuality. De Troyeye is seeking to compose a new piece, a tango, as part of a bet with another composer. This is the connection...

Wicked Burn (Realm Enforcers Book 3)  by  Rebecca Zanetti Take a witch and a demon and a love spurned over 100 years ago--a love that still sizzles! Nicholai Veis had no choice. The Prophet Lily escorted by the King of the Realm Dage Kayrs foresaw events that required Nicholai to take long term action for the good of the realm that may ensure peace after so many years of war, even if that meant denying his one true love, the witch Simone Brightson. Shift to today and throw in a few wars along the way, a cesation of the troubles amongst the immortals that could be disrupted by the slightest thing. Add planekite, a drug that's threatening lives, some weird things happening along the way including Simone being forced to flee a trial by the Coven for treason. The penalty if guilty is death. Nicholai is not about to let that happen now that he's so close to reuniting with Simone. Then there's a few very strange relatives, some vampires and shape shifters, a cunnin...

Seduced (The Wicked Woodleys #5)   by Jess Michaels Captain Jack Blackwood inhabits a dangerous criminal world Widowed viscountess Letitia Seagate and cousin to Jack's sister-in-law only wants to protect her younger brother Letitia is:      1. At odds with Jack 2. Viscerally attracted to Jack 3. Accuses him of seducing her brother into wicked ways. Really brother Griffin acts like a spoilt child refused. He is out to prove himself with no thought of the danger to others. I had no patience with him. Jack is: 1. A man from the rookeries 2. A man whose taken on the worst and come through 3. A crime lord on the brink of a gangland war in which anyone is fair game. 4. A man who finds himself drawn to Letitia even though he's promised his brother not to dally with the dark beauty who's attracted his attention. So when Letitia confronts Jack it's no wonder the sparks fly, and then some. Add in the danger factor and the bad boy fi...

The Sorcerer's Daughter: The Defenders of Shannara     by Terry brooks Paxon Leah, the Druid's Blade, and protector to the Order has come a long way since Defenders of Shannara first began. Now he faces a challenge that will compromise the order and destroy those he holds dear. The dark sorcerer Arcannen Rai strikes into the heart of Druid and Federation strongholds with a twofold attack. One, as the Druids and Federation forces are meeting to forge a peace agreement. The other, the abduction of Paxon's sister Chrysallin who has come into her own magic from Paranor. This latest offering in the Defenders of Shannara has Leofur, the dark sorcerer Arcannen's daughter and Paxon's lifemate coming into her own.  Horrified that Chrysallin has been taken whilst under her care Leofur is determined to bring her back. She is joined in her quest by a shape shifter, Imric. They must join together psychically, a process that brings its own share of angst and burde...

The Ghost (The Highland Guard #12)  by Monica McCarty I very much enjoyed this last of the Highland Guard series. (Hold for a few moments of heartfelt sobbing as this reader farewells a series she's absolutely loved! I can see a binge reread happening in the very near future!) The turning of a 9 year old into a committed and fervent supporter of the Scottish King when Joan Comyn is forced that day to watch the torture of her mother Bella McDuff, forges the steely conviction to do all she can for the Robert the Bruce. She swears it on that day. Now  Joan, disinherited and declared a bastard is acting as her cousin's maid,  is a spy within the English court, gathering secrets and delivering them to the Bruce. By the Way, Joan's  cousin is a piece of work; demanding ,selfish and vain. I really don't like her, and seems neither do many others. Alex Seton is a Scottish border lord, who once stood with Bruce . He turned away from that allegiance in...

Duke of Sin (Maiden Lane #10)   by Elizabeth Hoyt The Duke of Sin just wrapped me up like a fabulous gift and drew me in! Valentine Napier, The Duke of Montgomery, is wonderful decadence hiding a broken boy's heart and years of secrets. A man brought up by a depraved father whose secret society, The Lords of Chaos, excelled at the worst sorts of excesses involving children, ghastly bacchanalia rituals and murder. Yet don't get too sympathetic for Val or enchanted by him because he is an awful man, ruthless, and described by his housekeeper as 'deadly as a coiled adder.'  Val thrives on power derived from blackmail and the secrets of others.       His housekeeper, the prim Mrs. Crumb is hiding her own secrets. All beneath a housekeeper's dowdy robes and hideous cap. (We have met Mrs. Crumb previously, around the edges of the main story. As each novel of the series unfold, the stories of others in the series comes into play. We greet them as old frien...