(ARC Review) Backstage Pass by Olivia Cunning

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BACKSTAGE PASS
Author: Olivia Cunning
Source: Sourcebooks
* I received this book free 
of charge in exchange for
an honest review*

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca (October 1, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1402244428
  • ISBN-13: 978-1402244421

SUMMARY:

Five stunning guys, one hot woman, and a feverish romance…

For him, life is all music and no play…
When Brian Sinclair, lead songwriter and guitarist of the hottest metal band on the scene, loses his creative spark, it will take nights of downright sinful passion to release his pent-up genius…

She’s the one to call the tune…
When sexy psychologist Myrna Evans goes on tour with the Sinners, every boy in the band tries to seduce her. But Brian is the only one she wants to get her hands on…
Then the two lovers’ wildly shocking behavior sparks the whole band to new heights of glory…and sin…

MY THOUGHTS:

What I want to say about this book can’t be summed up that easily.  The words I want to use, I will refrain from using so you will get this–SMOKING HOT JALAPENOS!

I was wary of reading a book focused on a band.  Every book I have read about rock and roll stars have been a little corny.  I thought that this was going to be another one of those with just a little hubba-hubba mixed in.  Boy was I wrong!

The Sinners rock guitarist, Brian Sinclair, meets psychologist Myrna Evans in a hotel bar.  After a weekend fling together, Myrna decides to join the band on tour to find out more about the behavior of groupies.  They both have many obstacles to overcome if they want a relationship to work.  Now that we have the main part of the plot mapped out, lets get to the main attraction of the book!

Can I just say that the images of the hot foreplay and sex are permanently seared into my brain. It was so hot and sensual that my brain nearly fried with each sexy scene.  The author did an amazing job of making the attraction hot and sexy, without going overboard that you find in most erotica books.  Thank goodness I read this book in the comforts of my own home to where people could not see the always obvious flush on my cheeks.

What is even more exciting is the fact that each band member is going to get their own book! I can’t wait to read about the rest of them in future installments of the series.  If I had to describe this book in one line, it would be this– A plot that rocks with sexy romps that keep on rolling! 

MY RATING:


Outstanding Book That Will Stay On My Bookshelf For Rereading! 5 STARS

(ARC Review) Once In A Full Moon by Ellen Schreiber

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ONCE IN A FULL MOON
Author: Ellen Schreiber
Source: Around The World Tours

  • Reading level: Young Adult
  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (December 28, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 006198650X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0061986505

SUMMARY:

Celeste Parker is used to hearing scary stories about werewolves—Legend’s Run is famous for them. But when, after an unnerving visit with a psychic, she encounters a pack of wolves and gorgeous, enigmatic Brandon, she must discover whether his transformation is more than legend or just a trick of the shadows in the moonlight. Brandon may be Celeste’s hero, or he may be the most dangerous creature she could encounter in the woods of Legend’s Run. 

MY THOUGHTS:

This is one of those books that you get so excited about to read, not only because the cover is awesome, but is written from a well known and liked author.  When this book was offered as an ARC tour, I jumped on the chance to sign up for it.  While there were parts I really enjoyed, there were also parts that just didn’t do it for me.


In the town were Celeste and her friends live, it is divided in two sections of Westside and Eastside. When Celeste is rescued from a wolf attack by a new boy from school, she finds herself drawn to him.  Brandon is everything she is wanting in a boyfriend.  He is caring, loving and sweet.  She has just broken up with Nash, who is the high school jock, and never really felt like Nash was a great boyfriend. Brandon and Celeste start seeing each other in secret since they are from opposite sides of town.  Ever since Brandon rescued Celeste from the wolf attack, and being injured in the process, he finds himself turning into a werewolf on the nights of a full moon.  


First of all, when I think of a werewolf, I think of big and hairy wolves! In the book, the only thing that really physically changes in Brandon is a new goatee and hair on his hands. He isn’t described as scary at all. In fact, he is described as even more handsome in Celeste’s eyes. Nash was a typical jock jerk, that couldn’t handle being dumped by his girlfriend, even though Celeste has found him with another girl from school sitting on his lap at a party. Ivy and Abbey, Celeste’s friends, were stuck up and snobby.  I couldn’t stand the parts of them in the book. 


The book had parts that just left me shaking my head because it didn’t make sense.  Celeste was naive so many times in the story that their were times I wondered if she even had a brain! Brandon was the saving grace of this book.  I feel the book is more geared for pre-teens than for teens and adults.  The ending is also left open for another story that hopefully will answer some of the unfinished parts of the story that needed to be finished up.


MY RATING:

 
Okay book, but it left me wanting more! 3 STARS

BLOG TOUR: Poisoned Kisses by Stephanie Draven

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Today on My Overstuffed Bookshelf, I have the pleasure of joining in on the blog tour for author Stephanie Draven.  Let’s give her a warm welcome and read what she has to say as a guest posting author today!

Oh Romeo, Romeo, Who Art Thou, Romeo?: Identity as a Theme in the Paranormal Romance Genre 

The Westermarck effect is an observed biological phenomenon demonstrating that children raised in close proximity to one another may shy away from one another as romantic mates once they reach adulthood. This is apparently true whether or not the children are related by blood. This might be because, as the old adage goes, familiarity breeds contempt. Or it might be because part of adult sexual attraction is that our partner is, in some sense, a stranger.

If all the movie montages in romantic comedies are correct–and Hollywood would never lie–part of the pleasure in falling in love is turning a stranger into an intimate. All those romantic walks in the park, the games of strip poker, the cooking together in a kitchen that’s too small…they’re romantic encounters because they help us to know our mates, perhaps as they’ve never been known before.

People have been known to fall in love at first sight. Sometimes over the course of a weekend, or after a few weeks of dates. This seems like a remarkably short time to really get to know someone. Given the compressed nature of falling in love, a cynic might ask, how can any woman ever know her man as well as the family that raised him? How can she truly know him better than he’s ever been known before?

Quite simply, I would argue. Because on the day he falls in love with her, he isn’t the same man he was the day before. She too, is completely changed. Love is a transformative experience. An evolution of personality. At its best, it opens our minds to new experiences and ways of thinking we’ve never allowed before. At its worst, it can make us more insular and selfish. Either way, in subtle but real ways, lovers become strangers to everyone else, even as they become more transparent to the person they love. What’s more, they divulge secrets to one another–secrets they’ve hidden from others, or perhaps even from themselves.

No where is this issue of identity in romance addressed more effectively than in the genre of paranormal romance. The sense of otherness is almost immediately established. Lovers aren’t just different genders, or from different worlds; they might not even be the same species. Vampires, werewolves, animal shifters, angels, demons, and various immortals…they are fundamentally other, and that alone may account for their sexual appeal.

In spite of technology’s ability break down all social boundaries between what we would like to keep private and what the world must see, we all still wear different masks for different people. And for some of us, that can be quite isolating. Paranormal romance takes this idea and exaggerates it. Often, paranormal romance heroes and heroines have been hiding their otherness from the world. Being able to finally confess it–to be loved not for the facade they show the rest of the world, but for the very strangeness that would make them an outcast in society–those are some of the basic building blocks of true intimacy.

Another identity-based theme in paranormal romance is the acceptance of self, in order to find love with someone else. Most paranormal creatures labor under dark and angsty self-loathing. Oh, woe is me, I’m going to be beautiful, if pale, forever, and I have the desire to drink blood…

Then along comes a heroine (because let’s just admit it, it’s usually the heroine who comes to the emotional rescue) and she helps him to see who he really is. He isn’t just a brooding malcontent…he’s a fierce predator who can use his vampiric powers for good! Why, she makes him see his own inner god. And in turn, he helps acquaint her with her own inner goddess.

In my debut novel, Poisoned Kisses, I played with the issue of identity in an open and notorious way. My hero is a shape-shifting modern-day hydra who can wear the face of anyone who has ever hurt him. My heroine is a dark nymph of the underworld who can make mortals see whatever she wants them to see. When she meets our hero, she chooses to appear to him as a woman he once loved, and it’s a terrible deception. Throughout the book, the heroine and hero transform themselves into people of different coloring and races, all in an effort to shield their own hearts. When they finally kiss for the first time, without any masks, with their real selves exposed, it’s magic. I’m not sure I could have accomplished that in any other genre.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Stephanie Draven is currently a denizen of Baltimore, that city of ravens and purple night skies. She lives there with her favorite nocturnal creatures–three scheming cats and a deliciously wicked husband. And when she is not busy with dark domestic rituals, she writes her books. 
Stephanie has always been a storyteller. In elementary school, she channeled Scheherazade, weaving a series of stories to charm children into sitting with her each day at the lunch table. When she was a little older, Stephanie scared all the girls at her sleepovers with ghost stories.  
She should have known she was born to hold an audience in her thrall, but Stephanie resisted her writerly urges and graduated from college with a B.A. in Government. Then she went to Law School, where she learned how to convincingly tell the tallest tales of all! 
A longtime lover of ancient lore, Stephanie enjoys re-imagining myths for the modern age. She doesn’t believe that true love is ever simple or without struggle so her work tends to explore the sacred within the profane, the light under the loss and the virtue hidden in vice. She counts it amongst her greatest pleasures when, from her books, her readers learn something new about the world or about themselves. Stephanie also writes historical fiction as Stephanie Dray and has a series of forthcoming novels from Berkley Books featuring Cleopatra’s daughter.