Jove Belle

Picture, if you would a young teenager living in a bad part of L.A. She doesn't know her father, and her mother spends her time looking down at the bottom of various alcohol bottles. Bought from the liquor store, as bars are too expansive. Said mother skips out every once in a while, until, when this young teenager is 16, the mother disappears for good. Dead? Alive? Unknown. The young teenager has an older brother named Gabriel. He's 19. In most other stories, Gabriel would have ended up stepping up and being a surrogate parent for his younger sister. At least for a few years. He might resent having to do so, to having his dreams pushed to the back-burner. But he would have done so.

Gabriel? He was so far down the heroin pathways by the time the mother poofed, that he was in no position to take care of himself, much less a younger sister. No, to a certain and limited extent, it was the sister who had to help the older brother. She didn't become a mother to him or anything grand like that, but tried to help him. And she did - extending his live another seven years.

Eden is around . . . oh, 23 or 24 when this book opens. Eden being the kid referenced above. She's not the typical 23/24 year old. Not by a long shot. No, she's someone with power. Someone who, during one exchange, noted that she didn't have to worry about anyone doing anything to her car. Despite the type of neighborhood they were in. Because no one would want to touch her car. Because in the seven or eight years she's worked for Luther Ward - the top drug guy on the West Coast, she's become a stone-cold killer. Luther's top enforcer.

Then, somewhere around six months before the start of this book, that brother of Eden's, Gabriel, died. Directly related to some stupid stuff he did near Luther/to Luther. The seeds of need, of escaping, were planted.

The book, though, specifically starts with Eden on her last mission for Luther. Moves through it, then moves to Eden on a motorcycle, zooming along . . . somewhwere, ends up in Idaho. And a specific ranch/farm/body of land attached to the Cornwell family.

When the book opened, Eden was in control of the point of view. But somewhere along the way Brandi Cornwell popped up with her point of view. At the start of her story, she's struggling mighily to try to save the family land. From the heavy debt placed upon it by her now dead father.

While making repairs on the land, Brandi spots a woman pushing a motorcycle up the road. Brandi mounts her horse and rides over. Cowgirl and biker meet (that's the image presented; Eden, though, only got the motorcycle just before leaving L.A.).

Brandi offers help. Eden accepts. They warily circle each other. With both knowing that Eden will leave once she is able to repair her motorcycle. Each 'wanting' the other Some heavy flirtation takes place.

Time on the farm advances. Relationships move along. The past comes back to haunt the present. To a large extent due to Eden's own fault.

The book was quite a good book. There are certain 'issues' a lot of lesbian fiction authors use to add points of conflict and the like to the story - miscommunication, misunderstandings, etc. - are not the bedrock to which the conflict is built in this story. No, I've already mentioned it - Eden plans to leave as soon as she can. Brandi isn't the type to have a fling in her own home - technically she isn't the type to have long-term relationships; instead preferring to hop into a bar every once in a while for some fumbling action; but she can't do that in her own home. With her own mother just down the hall. And so, most of the tension is based on that. On the short term nature of their temporary situation. In addition to certain cultural/class differences. A person from L.A. (or from just from a city) is going to have certain different life experiences from someone from a more rural area. Add in the part wherein one of the two was raised in the more standard sterotypical way, while the other was basically a gang-member . . . then you have built in differences (I immediately note that assumptions should not be made regarding how gang-members act in terms of how Eden acts; nor the part wherein Eden is fleeing her old life when she bumps into Brandi ).

That was a wad of words. I liked the slow-burn relationship. I liked both Brandi and Eden as people. And I liked the plot-line of the book. Eden did certain stupid but understandable things which, to a certain extent, needed to happen for a specific plot to move along, but - while stupid - the action wasn't unrealistic. She made contact with someone from her past; when she left she left both clues that she was dead, and clues that 'something' was going on, that she might not be dead; etc.

Long and short - I liked the book and the people involved. It was not the standard lesbian fiction storyline, which added to my enjoyment.

June 25 2016… (más)

This book sold me on the blurb alone. No reviews necessary. Does the rest of the book live up to it?

Sera Williams is an undercover FBI agent. On the day her cover is blown, she is dragged into a bank heist (ala Patty Hearst) by the terrorist gang she had infiltrated. Sera isn't sure what they're after--money or something else more sinister--but when her ex-gf steps into view, she is forced to point a gun at her to keep her safe.

The book is structured very similarly to a recent read--Andrea Bramhall's Nightingale--in that the present action is told in alternating chapters with past flashbacks. It worked much better in Nightingale than here. In the former, the past was just as interesting as the present because we want to know how a very spirited and driven woman ended up a virtual prisoner in a god-forsaken place. On the other hand, Sera and Tor here had a rather vanilla romance. They broke up. Sera became a cop; Tor a bank manager. Good for them! :) The flashbacks just aren't compelling enough and literally stop the action dead in its tracks. And this is supposed to be a very thrilling, down-to-the-wire, action-filled book. Much more so than Nightingale. But even during the bank robbery, there were many instances where action is delayed in favor of romance, reminiscing about the past, an LQ** or two, etc, etc. while the clock is counting down to a massive explosion. A little too many eye-roll/groan-worthy moments and not enough heart-stopping ones.

Bottom line, it's a thriller that romance readers can get into. BUT, a reader looking for a logical, non-stop, page-turning thriller will find this very frustrating.

** Yep, 45 minutes to go before the end of their lives, they are having a fight and making up LOL
… (más)

I think that this book has a really catchy and memorable hook for sure. What if you found your Ex-Girlfriend robbing the bank that you manage, and she even points a gun at you?

That's sorta where the book starts and then the rest of the novel is part romance with a surprising amount of thriller mixed in there as well.

There are two main characters. Sera, an undercover FBI agent, and her ex-girlfriend Tor, who's the bank manager. There's also Marcus, a man in the same organization that Sera's undercover in. and when he decides that he's going to rob a bank (or is it just about robbing the bank, that's definitely one of the thriller-y aspects of the novel) he manages to put Sera in one after another sticky situation, and Tor gets caught in some of those situations as well.

At the same time that we have the bank robbery plot, the author also gives us a look into Tor and Sera's past in college.

For the most part I liked the plot, both the one in the present, and the one in Sera and Tor's past. Neither plot was super surprising, but they did complement each other very well.

I also liked the characters. The two main characters were interesting and they as well as the secondary and minor characters were each unique within the story.

I did have a problem with picturing the characters, especially the two main characters, but also the other characters as well. They were well rounded when it came to their internal lives, back stories, feelings, but the whole time I was reading I just couldn't see them in my head at all, and that, for me, definitely took away from the story a bit.

Over all though, it was an enjoyable read, and a pretty fast read, although it didn't keep me guessing as much as other thrillers have in the past.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Bold Strokes Books.… (más)