Succubus Dreams by Richelle Mead

 Some days, a girl just can't catch a break. . .
. . .especially when the girl in question is Georgina Kincaid, a shape-shifting succubus who gets her energy from seducing men. First there's her relationship with gorgeous bestselling writer Seth Mortensen, which is unsatisfying on a number of levels. It's not just that they can't have sex in case Georgina inadvertently kills him (generally a turn-off for most guys). Lately, even spending time together is a challenge. Seth's obsessed with finishing his latest novel, and Georgina's under demonic orders to mentor the new (and surprisingly inept) succubus on the block.

Then there are the dreams. Someone, or something, is preying on Georgina at night, draining her energy, and supplying eerie visions of her future. Georgina seeks answers from Dante, a dream interpreter with ties to the underworld, but his flirtatious charm only leaves her more confused--especially as the situation with Seth reaches crisis point. Now Georgina faces a double challenge--rein in her out-of-control love life, and go toe-to-toe with an enemy capable of wreaking serious havoc among mankind. Otherwise, Georgina, and the entire mortal world, may never sleep easy again. . .

It didn't matter that this is the 3rd in the series rather than the 1st, you can still work out who is who and how the world works.

I was hooked within the first few minutes and couldn't put the book down. 

A Round-Heeled Woman by Jane Juska

Juska is a semiretired English teacher with refined tastes: Trollope novels , opera and museums. "Before I turn 67-next March," she wrote to the personals column of the New York Review of Books, "I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like." While her adventures meeting these men frame her narrative, she's no geriatric Emmanuelle on a coast-to-coast fling, in spite of proclamations like "I adore penises." It's just that she was raised by repressed Midwesterners and had never managed-given her spiritual and physical bulk-a truly fulfilling love affair. Married to a loveless man, she then spent years in social retreat as a single mom. By the time she emerged from her chrysalis, she realized she'd never had a chance at pleasure, hence the ad and her comic adventures with the assortment of men culled from the daily mail


 I found the parts of her story about the other, main, parts of her life more interesting than her adventures with sex and romance. Perhaps it would have been better if her adventures were a bit more adventurous and not quite so sad most of the time.

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

Twenty-seven-year-old Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter in her North Carolina hometown is her favorite season, she's a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her hidden closet. For a while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother's house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night...Until she finds her closet harboring none other than local waitress Della Lee Baker, a tough-talking tenderhearted woman who is one part nemesis--and two parts fairy godmother...

Fleeing a life of bad luch and big mistakes, Della Lee has decided Josey's clandestine closet is the safest place to cradh. In return she's going to change Josey's life--because, clearly, it is ot the closet of a happy woman. With Della Lee's tough love, Josey is soon forgoing pecan rolls and caramels, tapping into her startlingly keen feminine instincts, and finding her narrow existence quickly expanding.

Before long, Josey bonds with Chloe Finley, a young woman who makes the best sandwiches in town, is hounded by books that inexplicabley appear whenever she needs them, and --most amazing of all--has a close connection to Josey's longtime crush.

Aa little by little Josey dares to step outside herself, she discovers a workd where the color red has astonishing power, passion can make eggs fry in their cartons, and romance can blossom at any time--even for her. It seems that Della Lee's work is done, and it's time for her to move on. But the truth about where she's going, why she showed up in the first place--and what Chloe has to do with it all--is about to add one more unexpected chapter to Josey's fast-changing life.


The characters are well drawn, the sprinkling of magic just right and the story wonderful.

i always love Sarah Addison Allen's books. They leave me with a smile.

Christmas Kisses

In Christine Cameron's A Highland Christmas, we meet Scottish lassCassandra McIntyre, who is forced to marry English Baron Drake against her wishes - and his as well. All Drake wants is to get his hands on his family home, which has been bestowed upon his brother Cedric, marry Cassandra because he must, and then abandon her as soon as he is able to. When Cassandra overhears this, she is understandably upset.

Jill Henry's Sara's Gift was a sweet, heartwarming story about love healing old wounds. Sara Mercer is a widow on her way to a job and, hopefully, a new life. She can't help herself, however, and makes a stop in Moose Creek to see the child she gave up for adoption four years earlier. Her stop is lengthened by a heavy snowstorm and, with the train passengers taking every available hotel room in town, she ends up staying in the same house as Mary, her daughter, and Mary's adoptive father, Sheriff Gabe Chapman.

When we meet Katherine Peters, she is absolutely through with Tanner Barkley. The cad had apparently been using her for a big undercover story for the newspaper, and when the story appeared, Katherine was left beyond humiliation at discovering that her first and only lover had been merely using her. Of course, this is not really how things really happened....

3 nice Christmas stories. My favourite was Sara's Gift.

Shoe Addicts Anonymous by Beth Harbison

In this entertaining novel set in Washington, D.C., three very different women are brought together by a shared passion: shoes. They meet once a week to trade Manolos and Maglis, but soon they rely on each other for much more. Lorna, a debt-ridden waitress, founded the group to curb her destructive shopping sprees. Helene, a senator's trophy wife, attends to escape her loveless marriage and the banality of high-society life. Sandra, an overweight phone-sex operator, hopes the group can help cure her agoraphobia. They're joined by Joss, a young nanny, who doesn't care about shoes but needs a place to avoid her demanding boss. The four women become fast friends, trusted advisors, and eventually business partners.  While there is lots of talk of shoes (never quite understood the fascination myself) - this book turned out to be quite entertaining.

Santa Baby by Jennifer Crusie

In "Hot Toy," Crusie's wickedly witty and entertaining romance, Trudy Maxwell sets out on Christmas Eve to find the season's most-wanted toy, only to become tangled up with lies, spies, and the infuriatingly sexy Nolan Mitchell. Foster puts plenty of sensual heat into "Christmas Bonus," her story of two people who indulge in a holiday office romance only to find it turning into something more serious. And Carly Phillips tells a steamy tale, "Naughty under the Mistletoe," in which Toni kisses her boss' twin brother by mistake.



3 sweet Christmas romances. My favourite was Naughty Under The Mistletoe.

A Christmas Secret by Anne Perry

Dominic and Clarice Corde, minor characters who fell in love in Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt novel Brunswick Gardens (1998), are called to the small village of Cottisham in Oxfordshire, where Dominic is to replace Reverend Wynter, who unexpectedly went on holiday right before Christmas. While fetching coal from the cellar, Clarice discovers the vicar's body in the second cellar. Some holiday. Although the local doctor says Wynter died of natural causes, Clarice and Dominic don't agree and begin their own investigation as snow blankets the village. What secrets did Wynter know that may have caused his death?


A nice, sweet Christmas mystery.