Book Review: Ranae Rose - Battered Not Broken

Rating: Adult

Published: December 19, 2012
Format: e-book
Battered Not Broken is a full-length novel of approximately 110,000 words.
Categories: Erotic Romantic Suspense
ASIN: B00AOP6E56
Websites:  Barnes & Noble , AmazonKindle, All Romance Ebooks


4 of 5 Stars

Ryan Moore forged his own path when he defied his wealthy family’s expectations by joining the United States Marine Corps as an enlisted man. After a period of service that’s cut short by an IED explosion, the lingering physical and mental effects of war result in an isolated struggle to exist in the civilian world. He throws himself into competitive MMA fighting – the one thing he’s still able to excel at, even if every match is a risk he can’t afford to take.

His first encounter with amateur female fighter Ally Rivera ignites a spark of desire he hasn’t felt since before a bomb left its marks on his life and his body, but his flirtation with her turns out to be anything but harmless. She’s struggling to hold together a family ravaged by violence – a feat that isn’t easy when her father has been imprisoned, leaving her vulnerable to relatives who run a local gang. Can two unrelenting fighters overcome challenges they couldn’t defeat alone, or do the wounds of war and crime run too deep for even love to heal?

~
This was a very enjoyable book for me.  Plenty of good steamy sex in between a really good story with a bonus bit of education about a fairly common condition for anyone who knows a “Wounded Warrior” returned from Iraq or Afghanistan or any of the other locations our brave troops are located.

Alexandra Rivera, Ally to anyone who cares, is a young woman working as a manicurist in her Aunt’s beauty shop, training and fighting in local MMA matches in Baltimore, having lived there all her life.  Between her job, sporadic winnings from fighting and the money her mother makes as a beautician, she and her mother are managing to keep things together for when her dad gets out of jail, having been there for 6 years already, with one more left to serve.  She is also a person who needs to feel safe.  She dates occasionally and then, only guys she has known forever.

Ryan Moore is a large, handsome stranger who appears at the MMA gym one day to train. 

I love how they meet:   

Thanksgiving Memories????

I know I'm terrible about updating this, but I may be the only person who sees it, so I guess I'll please myself!  I did feel the need to write about our experiences this Thanksgiving.

DHB, SonofMine and I had a pretty quiet holiday, other than almost not getting to eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

We love frying turkeys at Thanksgiving, but the last several years we have gone to WV for the holiday because of our Moms. DHB's Mom passed in 2010 and my Mom passed in February, so there wasn't any reason to travel this year.

So, while DHB cleaned up the Fryer, I bought 2 fresh turkeys from the local butcher, we measured oil, got everything ready, DHB started heating the oil...... and found out the thermometer wasn't working.
 
Temperature is very very important when frying turkeys, so at 4:00 p.m., we were faced with cooking one of the turkeys in the oven.   That wouldn't have been too bad except I've used self-basting turkey bags for nearly 30 years before we started frying turkeys.  We're talking around 1979!  Of course,  we didn't have any turkey bags, since it has been 6 or 7 years since I cooked a turkey that way. 

So on Thanksgiving, with no place to buy a new thermometer or cooking bags, we dug out the roaster I haven't used since 1978 and cooked a turkey. The only thing that saved the day is that we have a stove in our basement as well as the kitchen.  It was DHB's Mom's stove, but when we moved her into a place with a better stove a few years ago,we moved her old one into our basement kitchen

So, instead of cooking a turkey for 4-5 hours, THEN doing all the side dishes and not eating until midnight or later, we put the turkey downstairs to cook and I was able to do the side dishes in the kitchen oven and we got to eat around 8:30 instead of midnight.

Of course, during all of that, my rolls raised no fewer than 3 times and barely resembled rolls by the time I got them baked.  They still tasted good though.

We finally got the 2nd turkey fried Sunday after Thanksgiving and it was wonderful!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Murphy's Law in Action.....

This is something that happened to me a few years ago.  I wrote this down and just found it again.  Thought it might be something you can sympathize with:

Talk about a day when anything that could go wrong does! This is mine!

I get up at 5 a.m. to pack the clothes that I stayed up till 2 a.m. last night to wash so I can drop my son off at the bus stop by 7 a.m. to get to work by 7:30 a.m. so I can leave at 4:00 p.m. to go to my Mom's house 4 hours away so I can go with her at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning for her cataract surgery.

Everything is going on schedule until......

Book Review: Linda Conrad - Texas Baby Sanctuary

Series:  Chance, Texas
Publisher: Harlequin
Rating:  PG 14
Published: March 20, 2012
Format: e-book, paperback (224 pages)
Categories: Romantic Suspense
ISBN 13: 9780373277728
Websites: Author, Harlequin Books, GoodReads, Amazon

4 of 5 Stars

 

“Grace, I won’t screw it up again.”

There was nowhere safe for Grace Baker and her baby to run. Even the law was no match for the ruthless drug lord who'd fathered her child. Serrano had spies everywhere and wouldn't stop till he captured his son and killed Grace. Now Marshal Sam Chance was suddenly back in her life offering protection…could she dare to refuse?

Sam believed his family ranch was the one place Grace would be safe. Here they found refuge in each other's arms. But returning home only reminded Sam of his past failure to protect those he loved. This time had to be different. Because Grace and her baby meant more to him than life itself.

~

I really enjoyed reading the trials and tribulations of Grace and Sam.  It has U.S. Marshalls, cowboys, a giant ranch, a drug lord, and two people with a lot of misplaced guilt. 

Grace Baker – Not her real name! – is running away from her baby’s father after being a witness against him in court.  He’s a Mexican Drug Lord who escaped from Jail before he was sentenced to life in prison and is now on a crusade to find her and her son, kill Grace and take the child back to Mexico to his mother.  No, Grace is not his girlfriend or willing lover.  She was a 19 year old college student when she was kidnapped by Jose Serrano, the drug lord, to try to control her father’s Spanish Language Newspaper in San Diego.  The father refused so instead of killing her, he kept her and made her his very unwilling mistress.