Promise Me Tonight
Author: Sara Lindsey
Publisher: NAL / Signet
Pub. Date: February 2, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-0451229373
Retail Price: $6.99
320 pages

Isabella is determined to marry James…

Isabella Weston has loved James Sheffield for as long as she can remember. Her come-out ball seems the perfect chance to make him see her in a new light.

James is determined never to marry…

James is stunned to find the impish girl he once knew has blossomed into a sensual goddess. And if he remembers his lessons, goddesses always spell trouble for mortal men.

A compromise is clearly necessary.

When Izzie kisses James, her artless ardor turns to a masterful seduction that drives him mad with desire. But, no stranger to heartbreak, James is determined never to love, and thus never to lose. Can Isabella convince him that a life without love might be the biggest loss of all?

~*~*~

Readers will find this funny, heart-wrenching and promising debut a delightful read.

Promise Me Tonight is the first in a series of Shakespearean name siblings who each find love. In this romantic tale, readers meet Isabella Weston, the eldest daughter of the Weston clan, who is madly in love with her older brother’s best friend, the guy next door. Though this is a theme that has been used repeatedly, Sara Lindsey was able to hold my interest until the very last page.

Isabella is a persistent, beautiful and witty young woman. She has desired James for so long and now that she is all grown up, she will do whatever it takes to get her man. For the first half of the book, I disliked “Izzy” because she was constantly crying and begging. Some of her tactics were deceitful and selfish. However as the story progressed, I found myself rooting for her. She slowly started to mature and come into her own. I realized her tenacious behavior was inherited. Who wouldn’t be a romantic with parents who openly loved one another and set an example of a passionate marriage? By the end of the story, my opinions of Izzy evolved.

James is a very honorable and stubborn man. After suffering some painful incidents as a child, James closes his heart and vows never to love or marry.  For most of the book, James’s theories on love were tiresome. I understood and even sympathized with him at times, but I found myself becoming bored with his excuses. It was only toward the end that the author revealed more of his past and his reasons for fighting Isabella so hard.  Finally, he was able to confront his past and succumb to his desires for Isabella.

Some of the things I liked about the story were that there was a lot of seduction and sexual buildup in this book. The love scenes were hot, steamy and tasteful. Sara writes well written love scenes.  I also liked the introduction to the Weston family. They were well written and developed secondary characters that added to the story. The close knit family had some of the funniest lines in the book. They loved James as a part of the family and their hilarious well intentioned schemes left a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

For true romantics and die hard fans of historical romance, I recommend Promise Me Tonight. I eagerly await the second book in this series.

Rating: 7 (Good)

Heat Level: 3 (Sensual)

Buy Links: Book Depository ~ $5.49 | Amazon Kindle ~ $4.36

Most authors have thick skins because opinions are so subjective when it comes to their work. That said, I’d like to briefly explain how I tackle the dreaded DNF reviews I receive from the reviewers. If I can find another reviewer to read the book, I will have someone else have a go at it. Once I receive that new review, I will post both–one will be the DNF and one won’t (2nd reviewer must complete the book). So, to some degree, readers will then get two takes on the book. If I can’t find another reviewer to review the book I will post the DNF review and of course readers will know they are getting an opinion based only on a partial reading of the book and not the whole picture.

I’d like to avoid DNF as much as I can. They have a place, but I think it should be a very, very small percentage of reviews posted. Readers want the whole take on the book, not a partial read.

~*~*~

Knight of Glory
Author: Nicole Zoltack
Publisher: Desert Breeze Publishing
Pub. Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN-13: 978-1936000494
Novella

Sir Geoffrey, along with some companions, has been sent away from Arnhem, entrusted by Queen Aislinn for a special mission, and has to leave behind the mysterious lady Celestia. On his journey, he uncovers seeds of a sinister plot, learns a horrible secret, and makes a new friend in exile Jenanna.

Their mission completed, Geoffrey and his companions rush to two different kingdoms to ask for aid. Danger and betrayal lurks around every corner, and even allies have secrets that could prove deadly. Geoffrey’s feelings for Celestia grow and wane. After learning some of Celestia’s secrets, he begins to have second thoughts about his love for her and is even drawn to Jenanna.

Rumors abound that the Speicans have enlisted a mage of their own, to work unspeakable, forbidden magic. The war between Speica and Arnhem has just begun. Will Geoffrey survive the battle to live another day and discover which woman he truly loves?

~*~*~

Lack of emotion, poor characterization and poor world-building amounted to a DNF for me.

Let me preface this review by saying I enjoy fantasy. I have lost myself in Middle-earth many, many times during my life. I have also lost myself is such disparate fantasy worlds as J. K. Rowling’s and Guy Gavriel Kay’s.

Unfortunately, I cannot say that Nicole Zoltack’s fantasy realm of Arnhem had the same effect on me. I read about a quarter of Knight of Glory, when I decided that the story’s problems made reading onward more trouble than it was worth.

I do not completely fault the author for this, by the way. The ebook contained numerous typos and confusing sentences, enough to make me see it required much tighter editing.

The story involves Sir Geoffrey, a knight for the mythical kingdom of Arnhem, and his quest for love. He is also involved in a secret mission for the current king and queen of the land to bring back news of the former king and queen, who are thought by the general populace to be dead but who have actually gone into hiding. In typical fantasy fashion, he picks up companions along the way, including Jenanna, a mysterious girl from another land.

My issues with the story-telling began in the opening chapter, in which the hero attends a ball and finds himself attracted to a woman named Celestia. How do I know of his attraction? Because the author tells me about it without actually showing any of the emotional impact that ought to accompany such an event. The characters talk, but no chemistry exists between them. That’s all right, actually, because I got the idea from the outset that Celestia isn’t the heroine of the story.

If anything, she’s an enemy spy.

Which brings me to my next point. For a fantasy hero, Geoffrey comes across as awfully dense. He doesn’t pick up on anything off about Celestia when she keeps directing the conversation away from her origins. Later in the story, Geoffrey lets Jenanna (the heroine) join what is supposed to be a top-secret mission, even though he tells her to her face that he does not trust her. Mere paragraphs later, he accepts food from her, even though it’s a sort of food he is unfamiliar with.

Any good fantasy relies on solid world-building to keep the reader engaged. Unfortunately, here again, this story falls short. The kingdom of Arnhem seems to rely on a medieval-level of technology. There are a lot of knights running around with swords, involved in sieges and such. Add to this a few mentions of mythical creatures, such as dragons and kelpies, the use of magic, a holy order, and you’ve got your typical Dungeons-and-Dragons sort of fantasy world.

It’s jarring to me as a reader, then, to read about the northern hemisphere, say, or to have one of the characters talking about going through puberty. Such instances (and there were others) read as too modern for the world.

The chapter where Geoffrey and his companions finally come upon the king and queen in hiding, only to find the queen dead and the old king nearly so, turned into the deal-breaker for me. It was written in such a way that I was supposed to believe the former monarchs were popular and beloved. When both of them died without any of the characters showing the least bit of grief or remorse, or, really, any emotion at all, I was done.

How am I supposed to believe in an emotionless romance?

Rating: DNF

Heat Level: N/A (I didn’t actually get to anything resembling kissing, but the rating on the publisher’s website is “sweet”)

Buy Links: Desert Breeze Publishing ~ $5.99