The Bookish Snob Promotions Book Review: Taken

Author: L.M. Pruitt
Title: Taken
Publisher: Red Hot Publishing
Publish Date: Oct 28, 2011
Review Copy Provided By: The Bookish Snob Promotions and the author
Buy: Amazon
Book Blurb: Cheating spouse? Stolen jewelry? Missing person?


Call Frances--Frankie--Post. A private detective with a trick of two up her sleeve and a few skeletons of her own.

What starts out as a simple missing person's case dumps Frankie and her lover Jack right in the crosshairs of a dangerous human trafficking organization. With lives on the line, bad blood and old wounds finally see the light of day. And Frankie and Jack are forced to realize: The past always catches up with you.

Always.

Review: I read Shades Of Grey by Pruitt last year and really enjoyed it, so I jumped at a chance to read Taken and I'm glad I did. This is a fantastic PI story with a lot of hot and steamy action going on both in and out of the bedroom.

Yeah. I said hot and steamy.

Like sizzlin' hot and steamy.

Melts ice, hot and steamy.

Have I mentioned hot and steamy?

OK.

Frankie is hired to find the cousin of a lawyer in the DA's office. But this is more than just a missing person's case as they find out through a little sluething. This is something big! Really big. Oh and Frankie has "The Sight." She has an ability to slip into a person's mind, which is how she found Audrey Clark and a whole lot more about her.  I like how this helps set things up in the story but doesn't take over the story. For the most part, this is a good PI story, with lots of sex!

Pruitt has created a fun cast of characters for this series. Jack is super sexy and so is Ian, aka Lawyer Boy...and then there's Casey Lynn and the doggie Monster, not to mention Johnny. One of these characters won't make it to book 2, but I'm not tellin' which..because you really have to read it.

There's one more thing about Jack and Frankie...they have a bit of a criminal past..and Jack and Frankie aren't their real names.

Want to find out more?

Read the book! You won't regret it..this was a good one.

Rating: 5 flowers

To read an excerpt, click here

Book Review: Shades Of Gray

Author: L.M. Pruitt
Title: Shades Of Gray
Publisher: Red Hot Publishing
Publish Date: August 13, 2011
Review Copy Provided By: The Bookish Snob Promotions and the author
Buy: Amazon

Book Blurb: Orphaned at birth, raised by nuns, a teenage runaway living on the streets… she now earns a living at odd jobs, including one as a fake tarot card reader. Very little about Jude’s life appears normal, by any scale. When she accepts a gig to do a private reading, unconventional takes on an entirely new meaning. 

Life as she knows it ends when she’s thrust into a world she never knew existed—one filled with magic, vampires, and her beloved New Orleans on the verge of an underground war. To make matters worse, she's got two men in her life vying for attention, Williams and Theo. Both call to a different part of her, but one scares her just a little bit. Can she step up to the challenges set before her and make the right choices for the greater, which may or not be the greater good?

Review:This type of book isn't usually my thing, but the book blurb called to me and I had to read it. I really wasn't disappointed. Jude is the type of heroine that most women are totally excited to see. She's a no nonsense, kick ass kind of girl. She's really a refreshing character, plus she's not super rich, which is another thing that scores points with me.


When I started reading this the setting and the vampires and the witches reminded me a bit of True Blood. The characters all share that same "we take no shit" attitude. I really liked that, even though this isn't the usual type of story I reach for.

Pruitt combines magic, paranormal with an interesting family and weaves a killer story. Getting to know Jude's family history as the book goes on really pulled me in. I felt more inclined to care about Jude once we discovered more about her ancestry. (I don't want to give anything away with the plot).

I also liked the toned down relationship between Jude and Williams and Theo.  The feelings and relationships between these characters could have become really hot and heavy, but sex took a back burner in this story, and as much as I love me some smokin' sex in my books, it wouldn't have worked well in this story. Shades of Gray is too action packed with other things to have the sex take center stage.

This book was a definite challenge for me to read. Not because of the writing, but because urban fantasy is out of my comfort zone, but I'm really glad I read this one, and I hope to be able to read the next Jude Magdalyn book.

Rating: 4 flowers