Honor Bound by Brenda Novak

To some men honor is just a word…

Jeannette Boucher, a young French beauty from a family left penniless by the revolution, must marry against her will to save them all from ruin. But almost immediately after the vows are spoken, she learns that her old English husband is impotent—and in his desire for an heir, he plans to compromise her in the worst way.

Determined to escape such a fate, she stows away on one of His Majesty’s frigates. But a woman alone is in constant danger.

To Lieutenant Treynor, honor means everything…

Born a bastard to a wayward marquise, Lieutenant Crawford Treynor was given to a poor farmer to raise and was maltreated until he ran away to join the Royal Navy. Treynor is determined to prove he’s as good as any other man and rise to captain his own frigate. But once he finds Jeannette aboard The Tempest he must decide whether to return her to the man he knows would abuse her—or risk everything, even his life, to keep her safe.

I’m so glad I live in a country where girls are no longer chattel to be sold to the highest bidder—not that Jeannette stood still for that once she discovered her groom’s friends had a pool going to see who would impregnate her for him after they gang-raped her on her wedding night.  But she didn’t feel much safer once she dressed as a boy and enlisted in the British Royal Navy hoping to escape to London.  Within minutes of reporting aboard The Tempest she realized cabin boys did not rate private accommodations.  Her secret would be discovered the first time she tried to use the, um…where were such facilities, anyway?  She tried to leave the ship but was caught, charged with desertion, and sentenced to several lashes.  Again, her secret would be revealed when they opened her shirt.  But Lieutenant Treynor took the lashes for her, and she became his servant.

Jeanette is a feisty young lady who overcomes her privileged upbringing and pulls her weight aboard ship, and then some.  She’s not very good at following orders.  Instead of staying in a safe place during battle, she makes her way to the main deck, helps a wounded sailor below and spends the rest of the battle assisting the ship’s surgeon.  No fainting flower, Jeanette.  I admired her, and enjoyed following her from one scrape to the next as she tried to conceal her identity aboard ship.

Lieutenant Treynor, of course is tall, handsome, and going crazy trying to protect the recalcitrant noble woman who should be hiding out in his cabin.  Unfortunately, he keeps tripping over her in parts of the ship where she doesn’t belong.  What is she doing in the armory?  Maybe making her spend a day working as a real sailor will teach her a lesson.  Even once they confess her secret to the Captain, why won’t she stay in the Captain’s cabin during the battle?  She’s driving him to distraction and then some.  He’s a man of the sea—he doesn’t need this.  Or does he?

Honor Bound grabbed me on page one and kept me reading right on through.  It was a bit of “It Happened One Night” meets “Pirates of the Carribean,” but they’re both really good movies.  You youngsters might want to look up the former.  It’s a classic, and one of my all-time favorites.  I highly recommend this book.

Length:  374 Pages

E-Book Price:  $3.99

Paperback Price:  $11.99

Buy Link:  Amazon.com

Switched, Too by Diane Burton

Be careful what you wish for… You might get it.

Down-sized astronaut candidate Scott Cherella leaps at the chance to go into space. He just has to pretend to be the captain of an Alliance of Planets starship. His lifelong dream quickly becomes a nightmare when sabotage erupts. To save the ship and crew he has to depend on an uptight, disapproving colleague.

The only time Veronese Qilana broke the rules, tragedy resulted. She vowed never again. Now, to protect the real starship captain, she'll have to deceive the crew by helping the imposter. They must work together to uncover a saboteur and get the crew safely home. In doing so, they discover opposites really do attract.

I really enjoyed this book and I want to recommend it.  I agonized over how many roses to give it, because it is basically Star Trek fan fiction.  Ms. Burton tried to separate it from fan fiction by calling her collection of planets the Alliance and throwing in a lot of references to Star Trek, like comparing Serenians to Vulcans and such, but the even though the Freedom hails from the Andromeda galaxy, the crew attended Space Fleet Academy, they have a non-interference rule (the Prime Directive), are all humanoid in appearance, and they have a universal translator—although this one is implanted behind their ears and looks like a mole.  Even their computers have a sexy female voice a la Majel Barret Roddenberry.  The ship has been orbiting Earth monitoring Terran broadcasts and the chief engineer is a Star Trek fan who emulates Commander Scott’s accent.  (How is it that Serenians from Andromeda have given people from Earth a name that comes from ancient Rome?)

Fortunately, I’m a Star Trek fan and I don’t mind reading fan fiction if it’s well written.  My only objection to Ms. Burton’s book is that she didn’t file off the serial numbers well enough to separate this story from Gene Roddenberry’s universe.  I would suggest that Ms. Burton either write straight-up fan fic or remove these similarities.

In terms of characterization and plot, the characters were well-rounded and the plot was fast-paced and pulled me in right from the beginning.  This book is part of a trilogy and stood well enough on its own until the cliff-hanger ending.  Oh, yes—it has the kind of ending that means you have to buy the next book to see how it turns out, and no warning at the beginning that it’s part of a serial.  I do want to go back and buy the first book and of course I have to get the third.  So, if you’re a Star Trek fan and you don’t mind waiting for the next book to see how the story ends, then I recommend this book.

Length:  499 Pages

Price:  $3.99

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/tags-on-product/B008A70CSU/ref=tag_dpp_cust_edpp_sa

Artful Dodging; The Torpedo Factory Murders by M.S. Spencer

Waiting out the rain, Milo Everhart takes stock of her widowhood and the handsome man standing in the door to the bar.  Little does she know she will meet that man again and again under both passionate and terrifying circumstances.

Tristram Brody waits for his date, too conscious of the beautiful woman sitting by the door. Little does he know that she will hate him for trying to destroy her beloved art center, and even suspect him of murder. Nor that she will be drawn inevitably into his arms.

Little does either of them suspect they will be embroiled in not one, but two murders, in which the fate of the Torpedo Factory, an art center housed in an old munitions factory on the waterfront in Old Town Alexandria, will be decided.

This is the third book I’ve read by M.S. Spencer and it did not disappoint me.  Her books are tightly written, her characters well-drawn and she keeps me guessing who did it right up until the end—which is difficult to do, because I usually guess at least halfway through.  But when you read her biography, you can understand how she manages it.  Ms. Spencer is well-educated, well-traveled and she brings a wealth of experience into her writing, along with a finely-honed sense of the craft.  Bravo.  I highly recommend this book.

Length:  202 Pages

Price:  $5.99

Buy Link:  Secret Cravings

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.