Review: Taken By Surprise by Tonya Ramagos

Dr J Here. I have been asked to share the review of a novel that I particularly like and so I have chosen one that I think is a wonderful example of what I call "The Complete Novel." You will find hot love scenes, covert action, suspense, unresolved issues, partially resolved relationships, human and imperfect characters, consistent writing quality, a plot that can stand alone but has been expertly connected to all the stories that precede it. The publisher's blurb is as follows:

Rhonda Ramsey's future plans didn't include a man until she met temptation in a set of exotic eyes and a six foot package of pure sex appeal. Unable to resist, she lets him into her life only to watch him walk away months later.

She's furious with herself for allowing her desires to control her head. But when a drug lord takes her hostage, depending on the man who tempts her soul might be her only chance to survive.

DEA Agent Michael Cosmos has done a lot of tough things in his career. Walking away from Rhonda topped the list. He did it to keep her safe. He failed. Now she's at the mercy of a drug lord out for revenge. Michael will put his career and his life on the line to get her back in his arms. But will it be enough to hold on forever?

This novel is actually the 7th book in "The Heroes of Silver Springs" series which features the stories of firefighters and local law enforcement officers. There are also some secondary characters that have been introduced in previous novels that serve with the FBI, DEA, and a Special Ops SEAL team. Throughout the novels, like a poisonous snake, winds the presence of a Cambodian drug lord. He is highly successful in his international drug business, seemingly velcro-coated as he continually eludes law enforcement and continues to bring disaster and destruction to individuals and families. Silver Springs is a fictional community that is on the Easter seaboard and thus is a target port for drug illegal importation. Thus it is also the site where these government agencies and their personnel have gathered.

Michael Cosmos has been a presence throughout several of the novels and it was during another rescue operation that he encountered divorcee Rhonda Ramsey. She had finally left a 9 year marriage that had really been over for six of those years, was working so hard to support herself and her young son, and was on a mission to become a truly independent woman. She had dreams of becoming a published author of erotic romance and she wasn't about to allow another man to take over her life. Their attraction was immediate and almost impossible to resist, but Rhonda never lost sight of her goals. Michael couldn't stand the thought of having some involvement in her life, so they agreed to just remain friends. I didn't get the impression that anyone else bought that story, and Rhonda and Michael knew it was just biding their time. After several months of doing things together and just hanging out, it became evident that the drug lord had plans to use Rhonda to nab Michael, just about his #1 target for revenge. In an effort to protect Rhonda and Lucas, Michael just walked away, broke contact, with no "good-bye" or "see you later," or "it's been fun."

Many months later, Rhonda had an opportunity to take a vacation trip to Thailand with a good friend, and it was during their sojourn in Bangkok that the drug lord kidnapped Rhonda, murdered her friend, and took her back to his Cambodian jungle compound where he promptly fell in love with her and planned to keep her. Even though she hoped otherwise, because of Michael's turning his back on her months earlier, she really didn't think he would ever come after her. She was really wrong on that score.

Throughout this story there are several other tentative love relationship that were hanging fire. Michael's FBI partner was gay, was suffering a massive crush on their boss who was bi-sexual and keeping that fact under wraps, but Adrien was also strongly attracted to one of the new Silver Springs firefighters. Even after they spent a night of hot loving together, Adrien still couldn't get past his crush and thus he and Thaddeus were at an impasse, one he knew he could end with a word. Another FBI agent who accepts an undercover assignment as a sexual submissive in a fetish club is twin to a Silver Springs firefighter. ( His partner in this operation is with the DEA, has spent several years establishing herself as a dominatrix who doesn't share her lifestyle with the DEA and doesn't allow the DEA affiliation to influence her participation in the BDSM lifestyle.) He has long hankered after the sister of his boss, a woman who really wants him as well but her fear of commitment prevents them from anything more than an occasional sexual romp. Their story continues on in segments throughout this book.

I think the only moment of puzzlement for me was thinking about the heroine taking a vacation in the Far East when she already knew that the Cambodian drug lord was taking hostages and kidnapping children of those connected to the U. S. government agencies. This may have permitted a smooth segue to the rest of the story, but that really seemed patently foolish for a woman who appears to be really smart in so many other ways. I guess even in such a good book as this overall, the author must be permitted some literary license. I can't figure out why she wouldn't be aware that she was putting herself even closer to danger by visiting a country that was in very close proximity to Cambodia. Oh well . . .

All that aside, this is one of those novels that not only brings all the strands that are woven throughout the series into final form, it also is the kind of book that doesn't require the preceding novels for the reader to make sense of it all. However, I would recommend the entire series as being a wonderful introduction to a community that holds its firefighters and police officers in high esteem, who have a deep sense of being connected as a community, and who care deeply about one another. It is the kind of book that readers will find digs deep into the emotions and which celebrates the best that people can be while being honest about the pervasive evil of drugs and those who live by their sale and distribution. I think any reader can relate to many of the feelings that the characters express, their hopes and dreams, their disappointments, even their delayed gratification.

Tonya Ramagos is a writer I first encountered about ten months ago and I have been so delighted with the consistency of her writing, her stories that are so well told, her celebration of people involved in all kinds of relationship configurations and orientations, and her characters that seem to display the full range of feelings and opinions common to all people. She has rapidly moved on to my "favorite authors" list and I am careful not to miss any of her new releases. I am now working through some of her early publications and shorter series.

I hope you will take a serious look at this series which is published by Siren Publishing and especially this novel. For a number of reasons, I give this novel a rating of 5 out of 5.

Playing the Game of Life: Hardball by V. K. Sykes

After years of hard work and keeping her nose firmly to the grindstone, Dr. Holly Bell has finally achieved her dream: a position as a pediatric surgeon at a prestigious teaching hospital. Children’s lives rest in her skilled hands. That means total dedication to her work and her patients without letting anything or anyone get in the way. And a hot affair with a superstar athlete is most definitely getting in Holly’s way.

Nate Carter, star pitcher for the Philadelphia Patriots, has the world in the palm of his baseball glove. He’s at the height of his game, a west coast team is about to lure him with even greater riches, and the most gorgeous women in town are in full pursuit. Nate has everything he wants, or at least he thinks he does, until he meets the beautiful and brainy Dr. Holly Bell. He’s totally up for a hot affair, and Holly turns out to be the hottest.

But will Holly be willing to play his game? When the lovely doctor starts changing the rules, Nate realizes he just might be playing for keeps.

Coming from a family with a confirmed baseball "fanatic" as a husband, this book was one that I found extremely interesting as it involved a professional baseball player as the hero. My hubby is still talking about the great players of the old Brooklyn Dodgers even though he is now a LA Dodger fan (and his all-time favorite is Sandy Koufax, a pitcher), and I found it interesting that the hero, a star pitcher, was considering possibilities with the LA Dodgers. So it was with a great deal of background that I came to this story. Add in my own involvement with the medical community as a nurse in past years, and I felt I could sit down and find something I understood contextually.

Having said that, I must say that I was truly impressed by this novel. I have not read any works by this team of writers before and so came to this reading task with no preconceived notions about "good, bad, or indifferent." Yet the story held my interest from the first paragraph. (I have a particular bias that good writers need to do as much to grab their readers with the first paragraph as they do about the rest of the story.) Doctors must deal with lots of issues that are, in many ways, side issues to the actual treatment of patients. In this doctor's case, she was new to the teaching hospital, was taking over patients from a retiring pediatric surgeon, and was getting to know the hospital personnel as well. Add in the long days, getting settled in a new living setting, and dealing with parents who know almost nothing about her, and you have a pressure cooker of context before she even lays a single hand on a single patient. So it was with Holly Bell, a young woman who had finally reached one of her life goals--be a pediatric surgeon in a well-known teaching hospital. It took lots of time, study, sleepless days, and working with lots of other professionals and patients to get to this place, and she was confident she could meet any challenge given her. That is, until she met a parent who absolutely refused to allow her to operate on his son, a youngster who needed an artificial heart valve to not only prolong his life but to increase the quality of his life. But it wasn't just the parent's refusal; it was the violent nature of that refusal and the threats that went with it--threats that kept on increasing in tone and intensity. Not a good beginning for Dr. Bell.

Now she has come face to face with Nate Carter, professional baseball pitcher, charmer par excellence, and reputed all-round ladies' man. He was the last person she needed in her life, but she was captured by his open manner with her patients, his apparent love of kids and concern for their morale as they lay in the hospital, as well as feeling an unaccustomed physical response to his nearness. As for Nate, he was bowled over by the good Dr. Bell and determined to find a way to begin some kind of friendship with her, hopefully leading to a more romantic involvement. He was quite up front about that.

This novel is about the clash of two worlds--professional baseball and surgical medicine--and the cultures that surround them. There was no doubting the sparks that flew between them and the fire those sparks ignited. But it didn't take too long, just a matter of a few weeks, for the realities of their lives to intrude on their love affair. But I think there was far more going on with these two. Nate was a joyful pro athlete, making buckets of money, enjoying all the perks of being the darling of his fans, and able to select just about any woman he desired for however long he chose. His life was all about fun and women were all about fun, too. He loved to play! And considering the fact that he was being paid millions to play what was originally a child's game, Nate took the concept of play to the maximum degree. Consider Dr. Holly Bell: a woman who had effectively expunged "play" from her life in her efforts to reach the lofty goals she set for herself. She also came from a family where she dealt with an absentee father and a mother whose acidic "drip, drip, drip" of bitterness about the untrustworthiness of men shaped and formed her attitudes whether she was aware of that fact or not. There was lots more to overcome than the gap between their professional worlds. And those life issues were the very ones that threatened this relationship.

Perhaps it is also a book that might pose the question of whether or not love really can conquer all. I sometimes wonder if that is a truism we all want to believe but are loath to recognize that there are situations where just loving someone falls short of what is needed. Certainly Holly came to love Nate, but their values, their approach to living and relationships, their view of fidelity and trust were so different. Add in the need for a mature understanding of oneself and life's challenges, and you have, in my opinion, the core issues that drove this story and out of which grew the crisis in their togetherness.

This is a wonderful story that certainly embraces the reality of a very hot love affair, filled with erotic loving and descriptions of encounters that were steamy, to say the least. Yet there were the raw realities of a dying child, an angry and threatening parent, the inadequacies of law enforcement to provide safety for those who are threatened, the necessities of trust and fidelity between two people, the pressures of a professional team management, the worries surrounding an incapacitating injury, and the prospect of a long-distance relationship. All gave balance to a story that was certainly romantic, but one that is rooted in real life and its stresses. I found the characters to be very realistic, edgy, clearly defined and able to stand on their own, with strength and with a sense of who they were. Even the secondary characters were quite wonderful even though several of them were "on stage" only briefly.

Sports-based novels can be a drag when they contain so much about the sport that readers are turned off. That is not the case here. This is really about people and relationships. Ultimately, that is what romance fans are looking for, and that is what the reader will find here. There are surprises, and certainly I was thrilled to see that the plot took some twists and turns that were unexpected. Kept me on my toes, to be sure. I was delighted to have the opportunity to read and review this novel, and I highly recommend it as being a story that is well told, characters that are engaging, a novel that is vastly entertaining, and one that is well-worth the time to read. I give it a rating of 4.5 out of 5.

A TBR pile of GARGANTUAN proportions and book give away

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen of the Island.


How are you all? This is a well needed trip to the Island for me the weather here in Ireland is appalling at the minute and there are is so much rain. But as you can see below that has not stopped our rugby boys training in preparation for the World Cup!



So the topic I would like to bring to the Island today is the size of my TBR pile. It has taken on proportions of the peach in James and the Giant Peach!!



As a young girl I grew up with the image of the library in Beast's Castle in Disney's Beauty and the Beast and like any bibliophile of my generation, I wanted it.



Now I am all grown up (which is debatable hehehe) and I realise that there are not enough hours in the day to read all the books I want to read, let alone have a library of the proportions of Belle. Although my new kindle is certainly helping me expand my book collection.

My TBR pile I am starting to think is multiplying while I sleep!! There seems to be a new book every week that I want and have to have on release day but I never get to read them when I want to read.

So for that reason I have brought some of my books to the island with me to send them to a better home where they can be loved and bring someone else happiness. Plus my boys are happy that some of their potential 'competition' are being sent to new homes just in case my affections would have been transferred even momentarily.

The books I have on offer are the following, these books are all by some of my all time favourite authors and I hope that you will have as much fun with them as I have had and fall in love with the author's writing and will discover something new to you -

Karen Marie Moning's - Kiss of the Highlander

Karen Marie Moning's - Dreamfever

George R R Martin's - Game of Thrones ( I have two copies of this as the book cover for tie in with Sean Bean got me!!)

Janet Chapman's - Seductive Imposter

Nora Robert's - The Search

All you have to do is leave me a comment and tell me which book you would like and tell me what your TBR pile is like and I will pick a winner on Sunday for each of the books using a Random Generator!


So while you are tying to choose the book you would like to give a new home to, I can hear my boys arguing over whose turn it is to give me a massage..... don't they realise they can all do it together?!

I am off to enjoy some Mojitos and soak up some sun before I go back to the real world.

Winners!

The winner of PT Michelle's Brightest Kind of Darkness is:

Dr. J

The winner of one book from the backlist of Sandy James is:

Jen B.

 UPDATE:

The winner of J.R. Barrett/Julia Barret's book Incorporeal is:

Aurian

Aurian please email Tracy at redneyrae AT ca DOT rr DOT com your email address so that we can get your book to you.

Congratulations to you all!!!

Review: The Rifter Part 6: Broken Fortress by Ginn Hale

Warning: This review contains a number of spoilers for the previous parts of The Rifter.

After all the excitement of part five of this serialised novel, which ended on a heart-stopping cliff-hanger, this sixth part seems at first a little, well, dull in comparison. In actual fact that turned out not to be the case, as the quietness of the first few pages soon begins to build in intensity. It's a different feel, both in pace and tone, from the previous 300 pages, and at first I was frustrated at the change of pace because I wanted to know how things would work out for John and Ravishan. As it is, we get to find out some of their story within the memories of Kahlil and Jath’ibaye, some of which were tender reminders of their romance and some which were much darker. It also answered a few questions for me over Jath’ibaye's initial reaction to Kahlil when he sees him in part 2.

The book can be divided roughly into two themes. Firstly there is Kahlil's struggle with the knowledge of who he was and who he is. His changing memories cause him great consternation as does the knowledge that he is both Kahlil, who was sent to Nayeshi and spent years observing John from the coldness of grey space, and also Ravishan, who met John as a young man and fell in love. During the book there is a consolidation and affirmation of those feelings which led to a number of very romantic scenes. My one criticism, or maybe, again, it was more of a frustration, was that I really wanted to know Jath’ibaye's thoughts during the first half of this book. This is possibly because I'd just spent the last 300 pages in John's head and the switch to Kahlil then denied me John's voice. This frustration lessened as the book continued as I settled back into Kahlil's narrative, and also because of some of the events which happen later in the book.

The second theme is that of the coming war between Jath’ibaye's country of Vundomu and the counties of the South ruled by various Gaun'im. The political discussions and the rising tensions added to the interest, but the main attraction for me was in the threat from Fakiri and what he and his Lady are trying to achieve in the Northern lands once occupied by Rashal'pesha. We discover a number of chilling revelations about this and I am now very much anticipating the direction that the story is heading with Fakiri.

In and around these two main themes the author continues to add to the world of Basawar, the character of Jath’ibaye as Rifter, the role of the Kahlil and life at Vundomu. We are introduced to new characters who help and hinder our heroes, and whose allegiances could easily change given a change in circumstance. The development of even minor characters and the way their thoughts and concerns are shown, creates vivid characterisation in even the most minor of roles. It is this masterful showing of character, along with the many thoughtful touches which seek to add even more layers onto the personalities of Kahlil and Jath’ibaye, which leaves me in awe of this author's talent.

I've been deliberately vague in some of my references in this review, simply because I don't want to take away anyone's pleasure by accidentally spoiling this book. Despite its slow start, and my initial frustrations, the way the the plot built, layer upon layer, through the book kept my interest and left me anticipating the coming events. We may be on the downward slope in terms of numbers of books left in this serialisation, but the story is in no way slowing down. Instead we are being pulled inevitably towards both disaster and victory; death and new life. I'm very much looking forward to what is coming in book seven.

You can either buy this sixth part - and then any of the other parts - separately for $3.99 each, or buy the whole book at $29.95 and each month the new part will be sent to you via email. More information about this and the buy now page can be found HERE.