A Gaggle of Book Reviews

My reading choices vary by mood – some days I might want a suspenseful novel, and others a romance. Sometimes a mystery will hit the spot, and others a chick lit novel is more to my taste. If you are in the market for a novel that will lift your spirits without being saccharine sweet, pick up Earthly Pleasures, a new novel by Karen Neches. Earthly Pleasures will enchant you with its storyline about the inhabitants of heaven, but you’ll keep turning the pages to see how the romantic storyline unfolds.

In Earthly Pleasures, Karen Noches introduces us to Skye Seabring, working in the Hospitality Sector of Heaven. Skye greets the newly dead, acclimating these returning souls to the wonders of Heaven. Her newest charge is 13 year old Chelsea, who requires some finessing to get her accostomed to her new status as a deceased person, and giving her some extra care and guidance because she’s so young. The eponymous Earthly Pleasures is Heaven’s reality TV show that entertains with edited content from different Earth celebrities, and the current hearthrob is the lawyer son of a prominent Senator, Ryan Blaine.

Ryan’s life makes fascinating Earthly Pleasures entertainment for Heaven’s inhabitants because his fiancŽe Susan had received a head injury in a car accident the previous year. Their bedside wedding and his romantic nature enchant the women in Heaven, never mind his goood looks. On Earth, though, Ryan is concerned because his fiancŽe is acting very differently after the car accident, and he is feeling that something isn’t right.

Karen Neches juggles Skye’s story, Ryan’s story, as well as the story of a comatose young woman named Emily in Earthly Pleasures. Emily’s new nursing home roommate Caroline is insistant that they can bring Emily out of her coma, and starts Googling different methods of encouraging alertness from Emily. It takes great skill with character development and plot manipulation to bring several characters to life and keep the reader entertained and looking forward to turning the next page. As the storyline in Earthly Pleasures unfolds, secrets are unearthed, the characters’ personalities develop, and we uncover several surprises.

I am very impressed with the way Karen Neches deals with religions and spirituality, taking an approach that is a little different from what is believed in most religions. However, the heaven in Earthly Pleasures is a gentle heaven that shouldn’t offend anyone, and will entertain you. If you are looking for an uplifting, entertaining book, you will love Earthly Pleasures – it’s a great summer read!

When you’ve been reading romantic paranormal novels for a while, there’s a point where you think you’ve seen every storyline. Prepare yourself for something new this time, a concept I haven’t seen in print in about 15 years, and an execution that is engaging, endearing, and unique. Bound To Love Her is a novel in which the worlds of the elves and the humans collide by new author Esri Rose. If you aren’t accustomed to paranormals, you’ll want to give this a try, as it doesn’t require as much of a suspension of disbelief as many other novels in this genre.

In Bound To Love Her, the elf and human worlds collide when Erin is walking her neighbor’s dog and happens upon a handsome injured man in the park. She helps him up off the ground, and ends up bringing him to her house before bringing him to the hospital with her housemate. While Erin’s housemate Jed is collecting his things, Erin brushes Galen’s hair off his face and uncovers his pointed ear, and Erin learning that elves are among us.

Galen had been injured by a poaching elf, Fellseth, when he broke Galen’s bond with his land (the public park), and took it for himself. When Erin happened upon him, Galen ended up bound to her energy rather than energy from the land, thereby saving his life. Once they are bonded, Galen can’t find a way to un-bind them, so he needs to stay very close to Erin, or else he becomes quite ill. As they spend more and more time together, Erin and Galen find that they are attracted to eachother, and their relationship becomes more complicated. Do they really want the bond to be broken?

Bound To Love Her is not just a romance, though, the underlying storyline has intrigue and suspense that keep you turning the pages. The elves need to find out why Fallseth stole Galen’s land, stop him from stealing land from other elves, and uncover mysteries that lie in the elf world and the human world. Elves are not used to working with humans, so Erin needs to fight long-standing prejudices as she tries to help Galen and his people.

Esri Rose has created a world of elves that feels incredibly realistic in Bound To Love Her. The next time I’m in a state park I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for a glimpse of an elf! The characters are also very realistic; Erin’s thoughts about Galen could be coming from any woman with an incredibly gorgeous elf sitting nearby. When Galen’s elven world and Erin’s human world mix, the elven powers over humans are fascinating, and the personalities of all the characters jump off the page.

In addition to having a storyline that will keep you hooked, Bound To Love Her is currently available as a special value for $3.99, which makes it an easy choice for adding to your Amazon shopping cart!