I love something that is fresh and original. Unfortunately, sometimes readers are slow to shift gears and enjoy the sheer brilliance and fun, simply because it's different. It breaks
the rules of writing romance. Well, I am here to say, break those rules baby when you can deliver something totally dazzling. And that is what Cathy Clamp and C.T. Adams do with
Hunter's Moon.

An ex-Mafia hitman, Tony Giodone was turned into a werewolf by a mystery lady. She did not take the time to give him the FAQs of wolfdom, and face it, watching Lon Chaney films just does not fill the gaps. So Tony Giodone is still trying to get his feet...um, paws...under him. It written from Tony's first person POV (point of view), and shame on you Clamp and Adam for daring to break the rules, how dare you be so innovative, so refreshing! Just hurry and do it again!

The sexy romance plays ala Mike Hammer. Tony meets his new client, one Suzi Quentin. She wanted someone offed. Well, this is child's play to our boy...um...wolf...Tony. Only she knocks him for a loop when she tells him the name of the person she wants killed - herself! Poor Suzie is really stuck with the family from Hell and being dead is better than living with them one minute more. Only problem is Tony the pony...um...wolf...catches Suzi's scent. Wolves in the wild mate for life and Tony suddenly finds his mind on the same track. He has been hit with the near crippling need to mate with Suzi - for life!

Tony is being dawn into a dark coven with secrets, secrets that give him the key to his new lifestyle. So he must battle this menacing evil, claim Suzi for his life mate, and learn what to do about those pesky dog hairs on his suit!

Both men and women should enjoy this witty, action-paced romance. I can hardly wait for the next instalment on Tony's life. This is another super novel coming from TOR where they are willing to take chances and ignore the rules.

Kudos to the two writers and their publisher for ignoring stick in the mud rules and going for the wild ride.

1. Town Without Pity
2. Louisiana Mama
3. Every Breath I Take
4. (I Wanna) Love My Life Away
5. Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
6. Hello Mary Lou
7. Half Heaven, Half Heartache
8. Only Love Can Break A Heart
9. True Love Never Runs Smooth
10. Mecca
11. That Girl Belongs To Yesterday
12. Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa
13. Yesterday's Hero
14. It Hurts To Be In Love
15. I Must Be Seeing Things
16. Backstage (I'm Lonely)
17. Looking Through The Eyes Of Love
18. Princess In Rags
19. Boss's Daughter
20. Just One Smile
21. Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart
22. Somewhere In The Country
23. Maria Elena (I'm Going To War)
24. Billy, You're My Friend
25. Shady Lady
26. Street Called Hope
27. She Let's Her Hair Down (Early In The Morning)
28. Nessuno Mi Puo Gludicare
29. I'm Gonna Be Strong
30. Teardrop By Teardrop

Sigh...as a long term Pitney fan and I am so glad to find good collections of this marvelous talent. You cannot find a singer/performer/writer/musician with the soulful, poignant ballad. In a period where the Stones and the Beatles were taking over the rock world, it was a mark of Pitney's talent that he continued to be a force. You will even find him playing piano on a couple Stone songs!

These are the pure heartfelt songs that take you back to days of jukeboxes, sock hops and Drive-Ins. The old tunes are faithful to the originals, not fancied up. Just Pitney as you remember him.

Pitney has been around for four decades now. Original he was a favourite of my uncle to passed the love to me. I have passed it on time again.

When he sings me "Something Gotten Hold of My Heart" you will feel the same way.

Bless you, Gene, for giving us these marvelous songs, touched out souls and heart!

Simple a great collection.

Jayne Ann Krentz is back dancing on the high wire in the centre ring! This is typical JAK at her very best, but at the same time just a wee bit different from her usual range, pushing over more into her Jayne Castle territory. With Paranormal Romance hitting big numbers this one should do well for her.

It's a very clever story, a bit more intricate than some JAK's of late. Isabel Wright works at the Belvedere Centre for Sleep Research at in "iffy" job of dream analyser. She is a Level Five dreams, and has a preternatural talent of being able to tell everyone what their dreams mean. She is happy with her steady job and finally has money to splurge on things to change her life. She sees herself as a woman with so much inside, but fears the rest of the world dismisses her as humdrum. She wants a man to notice her, think she is a vivacious woman with a lot of risk and daring to her character. She has a new wardrobe, and a haircut Mr. Nicholas her hairdresser assures her makes her sexy. But with an ex-boyfriend still calling her Izzy and says her haircut is "cute", she fears her dreams - real dreams may never come true. Worse, her cushy job is on the line. Her boss the elder Dr. Belvedere has just died, and the Dr. Belvedere the younger is determined to take the sleep clinic into commercial application. Isabel sees this as a violation of the decades of solid research done by his father. When she resists his plans, he fires her, little understanding that Isabel is the key to the whole company and it's survival. Isabel sees this is a chance to go freelance, but Belvedere, once he realises his stupidity, is determined to lure her back to the firm before it goes belly up.

Ellis Cuttler is a freelance operative for a Black Ops firm called Frey-Salter - a highly classified government agency - that works in the shadows. One of their workers Katherine Ralston has been murdered and Ellis blames himself. Though working on his own, he still accepts work for Frey-Salter and blames himself for Katherine's death. He felt he should've seen it coming, because he is not your usual operative. He uses his dreams to "manhunt". He goes to a scene of a crime, stores all the images and facts and later uses his Level Five dreaming to analyse the information - actually walking through the murders as if he were there.

Ellis is a patient of Isabel's and she is concerned about the dreams of violence she analyses for him, fearing they are real memories. She knows him as patient #2. He's met him in his dreams and calls her "tango dancer" in his mind. Finally, a man who sees the "real" Isabel, the exciting, daring Isabel waiting to be set free! Isabel and Ellis, unknowing about the other, have actually been sharing dreams for months, so when he brings Isabel into his operation to find Katherine's murderer, to help analyse his dreams, their attraction is hot and instantaneous. However, by using Isabel to catch a killer, he's now made her a target, too.

This is JAK at her top form. The characters are quirky, warm, sexy and will steal your heart. One of the best under the JAK name this decade. Absolutely divine!

Code Red? That label should appear on the cover of any of the Carrington duo's books for they are the best at sensual sizzle! They quickly establish strong characters that reach into the reader and immediately make them care. And that they do it again in this book is hardly a surprise. They consistently turn out high class, high voltage books that have earned them a loyal fan base! They deliver every time and they deliver with Code Red's Total Exposure.

In this fourth in the Code Red series, Total Exposure sees Dr. Natalie Giroux as a doctor specializing in burn victims. Fire Chief Ben Egan is injured on the job, Natalie treats him initially, but then he refuses to come back for follow up exams, avoiding the pretty doctor as if she has the plague. Ben's daughter encourages Natalie to pay a "house call" by stopping by the fire station to make sure he is healing properly.

A torrential rain causes a mud slide trapping a man suffering with chest pains. Natalie is there when the call comes through to the station. Natalie offers to go with Ben on the rescue, thinking having a doctor there instead of an EMT might be the difference in saving the man. Ben agrees so he flies the helicopter to save the day. They get there and save the victim, however, Ben and Natalie are forced into an emergency landing on an abandoned isle in Courage Bay off the California coast. They are forced to take shelter in an abandoned Coast Guard shelter and the enforced closeness allows them to learn more about each other. Soon their attraction flares.

While the romance is Carrington hot, it's the deft handling of two people that have been hurt before, reaching beyond the pain to try again, is what captures the readers' heart. The Carringtons have a basic understanding of the instant physical attraction between man and woman that goes beyond most writers. They turn up the heat to white hot, yet the whole time they deliver strong characters and believability that marks them as the tops in Romance.

So chalk up another brilliant winner in the Carrington's column!

Debut writer Diane Perkins really makes a splash with this wonderful Regency, sounding warning there is a new "kid on the block" for Regency Romance. It's a wonderful book that grabs the reader from the start. The story is well researched and her writing style very polished for a first time writer.

Maggie Delaney is tricked into wedding the wrong man, an imposter. When a pregnant Maggie arrives at her husband's lodging, the baby's coming is quite near. The only person there to aid her in delivering her baby is a dark haired man, who
smells as if he's been on a week-long drunk. When she asks for her husband Captain John Grayson, she is horrified to learn the disturbing man standing before her IS Captain Grayson. Maggie is shocked and has a bit of trouble grasping she has been tricked. She is not really married and has no home for her or her baby. Grayson sends Maggie and the child to his cousin Harry's to avoid scandal, giving him money to assist the woman. To him the matter is over. His military career keeps him away for the next two years.

Through another mistaken impression, Harry and his wife Tess believe Maggie to be Grayson's wife and takes her to Summerton Hall, the ancestral home. Maggie knows that pretending to be Grayson's wife can, at any time, blow up into her face. She hopes once the child is older she can find a means of supporting herself. While she wears this mask, she comes to love Gray's family, and they welcome her. Gray's father, the Earl, as well as other members, see Maggie as a ray of sunshine to their lives.

However, Grayson returns and is not so happy to find he has a 'wife'. Troubles between the father and son over Gray joining the military adds to Gray's upset. His father disowned him after he enlisted, yet this woman - who is not his wife - is accepted and loved. Slowly Gray sees the benefits of making the woman his wife.

Just as he is accepting Maggie into his heart, the cruel trick played on Maggie years ago comes back to haunt her and threaten her new life and love. Maggie fears losing Gray, if she reveals the whole story, but he is determined to know everything.

Maggie is not a weak heroine taking the easy way out, she is a strong determined woman doing what it takes to see her child and she survives. Gray is a caring, tormented man, the kind to win a readers heart.

Perkins writes with a sure voice, vivid characters and a promise of more wonderful books to come! One of the best Regencys out this year.

inda Howard is one of my favourite authors, and her Mackenzie's Mountain was one of her earlier works that set her above the rest of the writers coming out of Silhouette Intimate Moments. A Game of Chance, is a continuation of that series, following Mackenzie's Mission. Surprisingly, it's rather a tame read for Howard. Chance Mackenzie, the adopted brother to Zane, is on a mission to capture a known terrorist and his unknown mole in the FBI. The only way to get to him is through the daughter he has never seen, Sunny Miller. Sunny is the one link and Chance intends to set her up to lure her father out.

He arranges it so she is nearly robbed in an airport. She is a courier and she missed her flight because of it, just as Chase intends. When she says she has to get her case to San Francisco ASAP, Chase offers to fly her there. Once they are out a ways, Chase fakes fuel pump trouble and sets down in a secluded canyon, with Zane on their trail keeping an eye on them. The whole purpose of this is to get Sunny to depend upon Chase, get her to trust him. They spend nearly ten days with Sunny thinking they are fighting to survive. Only, once Chance learns there is another sister and that Sunny is not in league with her father, he let's them be "rescued", just to use Sunny as bait. He leaks her whereabouts knowing the FBI mole will give the information away.

Chase is just a wee bit non-caring about using Sunny in the beginning. And the fact she has fallen in love with him does not make him blink at using her as bait. The depth that is usually there in Howard's characters is just missing from this tale. It's all very predictable, with the mole tossed in at the last minute, so there is no mystery.

Rather disappointing, considering the powerhouse Howard always is. It was nearly 40 pages into the book before we meet Sunny. In a 250 page book that is a long time before you actually get into the story. And sorry, Chance just really loses points at being such a user.

When I saw the title of this book, Mistress of Trevelyan, I immediately thought of Mistress of Mellyn by Victoria Holt, likely the first Romance I read as a child - though they were not called Romances back then. As I read it, the familiarity continued because St. Giles evokes that sinister Gothic air. It's glad to see Gothics making a slow comeback. St. Giles pens a tale that keeps the reader spellbound, and to an older reader who cut her teeth on Gothics, it's so enjoyable.

In a typical Gothic beginning, evocative of Daphne du Maurier, "Last night I dream of Manderlay...", when Ann Lovell walks through the gates of the old San Francisco mansion on Trevelyan Hill, she reflects how she was always mysteriously drawn to the house, almost a portent that her fate and the house was somehow intertwined. Set in the 19th century, foggy San Francisco, it's pure Gothic spooky, the big house full of sinister secrets, dark corners where evil resides. Ann, whose real name is Titania, is a lowly laundry worker. Her mother was a sweet lass lied to by a man of higher birth. A tall woman, who has to look down on most men, she has come to apply for a position of governess (as I said, pure blissful Gothic!) for Justin age 7, and Robert, age 5. No one seems to be able to keep the job, and now no one is applying, so Ann believes she stands a good chance of landing the position.

Benedict Trevelyan was rumoured to have killed his wife, but naturally, that does not daunt Ann. Immediately, upon settling into her new role in the house, duckbumps prickle up her spine as she becomes certain someone is watching her. With no surprise, Ann and Benedict's relationship spiral from first kiss into full blown affair - those cads never can resist the governess! Being loyal to her new lover, Ann knows Benedict did not kill his wife, thus someone else in the sinister house is the evil-doer. Occasionally, Giles lapses into deep purple prose, especially in love scenes, but she is able to maintain a sinister, passionate tension through out the story.

There is a bitter rivalry between Benedict and his brother Stephan. Toss in a secretive sister Katherine, and mother Roselind, secret passage ways you have a true Gothic in the best fashion.

Another fun, though light tale from Moore. Set in 1235 Scotland, Marianne is a pawn to her brother Nicholas' evil deeds. He has stolen a castle from the Mac Tarens (fine auld Scots name there...lol!), and he needs coin to rebuild the keep. So, he hits upon marrying off his sister to get the money. Marianne is called back from Normandy so he can marry her off to an old disgusting, vile man Hamish MacGlogan (another fine Clan name...lol!)

Adair Seamus Mac Taren hates all things Norman, especially Marianne's brother. While raised with the nuns, Marianne is a woman of spunk and fire, and immediately Seamus is attracted to her. He risks his own life "kidnapping" her to help Marianne escape the arranged marriage her brother has bound her to. But then, Marianne finds herself married to Seamus, the Chief's son, unable to communicate with the people she now finds herself living with, because she speaks Norman and they Gaelic. However, there are those who oppose Seamus as Tanist (next in line to inherit) and being married to him puts her equally in danger.

The book is rushed, the situations enjoyable, but hardly a surprise. A wee bit below Moore's usually good efforts. Someone looking for a good Scottish Saga should check out Sue-Ellen Welfonder's great books or Susan King's strong ones.

Considering this is Harlequin's new HQN and they permit lengths up to 150,000 words, I cannot blame the publisher as confining the writer to a limited amount of words for the story. Moore, you have more room in HQN, use it.

Some of Nora Robert's Early works, the "Night" tales are hard to find. You find them in secondary bookstores used - maybe - and for very high prices. Here you have all four tales (four complete Silhouette novels) in one volume - Night Shift, Night Shadow, Nightshade and Night Smoke. They are some of the best of her early works and it's great to get them all under one cover.

Night Shift has Detective Boyd Fletcher assigned to protect Cilla O'Roarke. She is a nighttime talk Disc Jockey at a local Denver radio station whose life has been threatened. Cilla is a tough cookie, but even she knows she needs Boyd's help. While being her bodyguard, Boyd falls for her, which jeopardizes his objectivity he needs to catch the psycho. But he cannot deny the attraction.

Night Shadow is Cilla's sister's story. Deborah O'Roarke. Deborah is an assistant DA, and she gets into danger because of the case she's involved in. Gage and his alter ego Nemisis (think Daredevil with sight) see it as their duty to protect the gusty DA. The Fantasy element in this is outstanding and I love the strong leads.

Nightshade is the story of Boyd's ex-partner, Althea Grayson (we met her as she helped Boyd protect Cilla in Night Shift). She is an early Eve Dallas (...In Death Series - the "role" model for Eve?) a very independent lass, who is a by the book cop. Sexy Colt Nightshade is a Private Investigator who disdains rules, unless he makes them up. They are both strong willed detectives with their own methods, and naturally clash - on the streets and in bed - as they are forced to work together to stalk a killer.

Night Smoke sees Natalie Fletcher, Boyd's sister clash with arson investigator, Ryan Piasecki. When several of the buildings Natalie owns has fires, she and Ryan clash, soon they are proving where there is smoke, there is in deed fire!

Four early Robert's tales guaranteed to delight her fans.

William Melcombe dies, leaving his poor family destitute. Fortunately, for them, the ghostly Lady Margaret Melcombe decides to put her ghostly finger into matters. The Powers that Be have granted her the ability to leave her portrait once a year on Halloween night, to make sure her family is fairing well. Lady Margaret decides what is needed is a bit of matchmaking this Halloween, between Lord Justin Alderney and her innocent relative Rowenna Melcombe. But this may require more biffity-boffity-boop to see her plans realized. Justin is a rake of the first order, and Rowenna has just narrowly escape ruin at the hands of one rake. However, time is short and there is no other likely candidate, so Lady Margaret works her special magic. That is why, despite all Rowenne's best sense, she suddenly find Justin Alderney so enchanting. He is just passing through her tiny village, and a rogue; common sense scream keeps away. Yet, Lady Margaret really pushes opposites attract in this charming tale. Everything is going along romantically, until dawn when Halloween ends...and shatters the illusion woven by ghostly hands on this mystical night.

A wonderful tale for Halloween, under the deft hand of Sandra Heath one of the strongest Regency/Gothic writers around. She has such a strong foundation of lore and history, that she is simply amazing. I also appreciate her Multi-POV (Point of View) writing, which allows you to enjoy all her charming characters, even Lady Margaret, letting the readers experience the full story.

I highly recommend all of Heath's works, especially Lavender Blue.