Double Your Pleasure

Today's blog includes two reviews for books by two amazing writers. If it seems that I'm mentioning these two a lot, it's because they are writing the books that I am excited about reading.

Maid for Death
Amarinda Jones
Ellora’s Cave
Buy it here

Maid for Death opens incredibly hot and maintains its burn all the way to the last. This book is one of Ellora’s Cave’s Quickies. And, yep, that’s just what it sounds like, a short story of intense, scorching erotica. Cassandra Kent is a young Aussie who is working her way through the UK. Her latest job is as a chambermaid at the Philbeach Manor Hotel. On Halloween night she gets more than just a dirty room to clean, she gets a ghost and a ghost hunter, both interested in having carnal knowledge of her body.

Jones leaves the reader panting as she moves from one sizzling scene to the next with more than enough plot to keep you intrigued as well as hot under the collar, or wherever it is you get warm.

Cherished Destinies
Anny Cook
Ellora’s Cave
Buy it here

Anny Cook delivers the next installment in the Mystic Valley series with all the style and humor we are used to from her. Though this story deals with much more serious situations, domestic violence, sexual assault and rape, she still manages to deliver a warm and sometimes funny dual love story to readers featuring the characters we’ve come to love. (You’d think by now Dancer would understand about getting caught with his sharda down.) Cherished Destinies tells the story of two very damaged people. Both were brutalized and violated, one through a particularly violent rape and one through systematic beatings, emotional abuse and sexual assaults.

Arano is the son of Jade and Merlin, brother of Eppie and Wrenna who we met in earlier stories. Arano has long been in love with Silence who is many years his senior. But Silence is bonded to Homer, a man who treats her cruelly. When Homer dies during Eppie and Dancer’s bonding storm, he leaves a terrified and confused Silence who does not know the first thing about taking care of herself. Arano slowly and carefully begins to take care of Silence teaching her to take care of herself and teaching her to find her place in their community. The couple defy the conventions and rules of Mystic Valley to have their relationship and are rewarded when the Valley itself sanctions their bonding.

But Arano is torn in his loyalties. His twin brother Arturo has recently been the victim of a brutal and vicious rape. His violators have been found and judgment delivered to them. But healing for the young warrior and judge is slow as he must also face his twin’s finding of a mate and what that means for the two of them. But Arturo’s family and the valley take steps to make sure the wounded young man finds his destiny and his own bond-mate.

The story is wonderfully told and engaging. The characters we’ve come to know and love add such rich life to the borders of these painfully touching stories. Cherished Destinies is a welcome addition to the series.