21 things about Janet Evanovich's Top Secret 21 (Stephanie Plum #21)

21 things about Top Secret 21

1. Stephanie is still a bounty hunter, and Lula is still her sidekick
2. Mrs. Plum is still making pot-roast, ironing when stressed, and hitting the whiskey
3. Gramma is as wild as ever and this time has a bucket list she’s trying to complete.
4. Joe hasn’t changed: still watching sports, drinking, beer, eating pizza, and calling Stephanie a cupcake.
5. Ranger reveals more of himself in this book: You find out that while still sexy and mysterious, he’s also a bit of an ass:
   R: “I understand your emotion, but you’d serve no purpose today, You’d be a liability”
   S: “Gee, that’s so flattering. Let me get this straight. You only have me tag along when I serve some useful purpose, like being a dumb bimbo in a bar?”
   R: “Yes.”
   and…
   “Are you worried about me?”
   “Of course I’m worried about you”
   “Nice.” He looked at his watch. “I have to go.”
   “What? Are you serious? You didn’t tell me anything!”
   “This is why I’m not married. Women ask too many questions.”
6. Buuut, you also get a glimpse of his real feelings for her:
   “There are times when I seriously consider marrying you, but then I get yet another black mark on my path to enlightenment and forgiveness and I scratch marriage off my bucket list”
   “Really, you think about marrying me?”
   “Marrying you might be extreme, but once in a while I think about sharing my closet.”
7. There’s wacky animals in the book. Again. This time a gang of Chihuahuas.
8. Stephanie gets kidnapped. Again.
9. Stephanie loses her POS car on Stark Street. Again.
10. Ranger loans Stephanie his car she gets it blown up. Again.
11. Bob eats stuff he shouldn’t and throws it back up.  Again.
12. Stephanie’s apartment gets blown up. Again.
13. Stephanie stays at Joe’s house while her apartment is getting cleaned up. Again.
14. Gramma Mazur goes to a funeral viewing. Again.
15. Tank is mentioned but doesn’t say anything in this book. Again.
16. Stephanie STILL hasn’t make a firm choice between Team Ranger and Team Morelli.
17. I swore I wouldn’t read any more books that were exactly the same story as the other 20 before it and I read this new one anyway. Again.
18. The writing doesn’t seem like it’s really JE writing. It has a different tone, style, and vocabulary than other books.
19. Ranger is chatty. Again, different writing style.
20. The kindle version stops at 89%!!! WTF is that all about? I thought I had another chapter or two to go and nope. End. Blah. Preview of her other series “Pros and Cons”.
21. If you’re a die hard JE fan, then go get this. Otherwise, you can do any of the following:
    a. Wait for it to be available in your local library
    b.Borrow a copy from a friend
    c. Re-read any of the other books 1 – 11, and you’ll basically get the same thing
    d. Read some FanFiction sites. At least with the FanFiction, you get to pick Team Ranger, or Team Morelli, you have a conclusion, the character development is a bit better and you don’t have to shell out bucks for a book that is a rehashed, watered down version of what you’ve previously purchased.

Only With You, by Lauren Layne

Sophie is a free spirit with charm for days and quick wit. She’s intelligent and educated, but has yet to find what she really wants to do with her life and dropped out of law school and has been working at a bar for the last few years. During a weekend bachelorette party in Vegas, she gets stuck in an elevator with a gorgeous stranger that takes one look at her exaggerated party outfit and mistakes her for a hooker! Rather than correcting him, she storms off, returns home, and re-evaluates her life, and quits her job. 

She’s not just surprised, but shocked when the elevator man, Grayson Wyatt, shows up at her home on the arm of her “more perfect” older sister Brynn. They have a brief confrontation and decide to be civil with each other. Sophie introduces her BFF Will as her “date” to try and save face around him. The family dinner is uncomfortable to say the least, and when they discover that Sophie quit her job, and Grayson is suddenly without an assistant, they convince him to hire her! Hoping she will decline, he goes along with the idea only to find that Sophie accepts the challenge just to get under his skin. 

She starts work, continues to irritate him, and tries to break his icy cold exterior and bland personality. He tries to reign her in, and finds that he’s impressed by the way she can charm the entire office – something that he hasn’t been able to master. While they continue to irritate each other, they cannot deny that they are attracted to each other. When their attraction explodes into an encounter, they both try to fight it and the tension between them becomes stronger. They eventually rely on each other for work, and Gray finds that he really needs Sophie in his life – she compliments him and brings him out of his shell.  Sophie finds that she is falling for her boss.

This is my first experience with Lauren Layne and I’m absolutely a fan. While I thought Gray was a bit of an ass at first, and overly hard on Sophie, it felt like the old “the bigger they are the harder they fall”. It took a bit of time for Gray to melt his icy exterior than I would have liked, but he’s redeemed by the end of the book. 

This contemporary romance has a parallel story between Brynn and Will that will be teased out in the next book. I’m looking forward to reading the follow-up and what happens between these two!

*Promotional copy provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

Game of Thrones: The Children. AKA: And you think your parents suck?

Yes, this a late post. I started summer vacation and was drinking margaritas and forgot to hit submit. Whoopsie. 

Jon Snow goes out to meet the leader of the Wildlings, Mance Rayder. He may be the leader of a gang of thugs, but isn’t that the coolest name ever? 

Mance. 

Rayder. 

Where was I? Oh, right. Chat with the leader. 

Mance tells him they’re flying south to avoid those freaky white walkers. Then in comes Stannis! He takes his role of king and with his army, but doesn’t chop everyones head off, not yet. Jon tells Stannis that since Mance gave him mercy when he was captive, the same should be bestowed upon Mance. 

Awww. That’s sweet. 

 Jon then takes his beloved Ygritte and burns her body in the woods. 

Cercei brings in a younger, voodoo witch-doc to help save Mountain. Didn’t that dude die? Guess not. So Cers wants him around to be per personal thug. Then she gives her dad, Tywin, his Fathers day present: I’m not marrying Loras, I’m keeping my baby Tommen. Oh and hey! Guess what else? Those whispered rumors are true - I’m shagging my brother, and oh yah, I’ll burn the house down before I do what you want! She then finds her brother lover and gives him a big smooch, telling him “I love you brother. I choose you.” 

Dragons are in a serious time out!

Daenerys Targaryen, a.k.a. the Mother of Dragons, a.k.a. Queen of Meereen, a.k.a. Mother effening Queen of blah blah blah, has put two of her three dragon teens in time out when the third is discovered to be off confusing children for goats, burning them to crispy critters. Taking them to the dungeon, she ties them up and locks them in. They are not happy! They scream at her as she looks over her shoulder and locks them in.

Bran and his gang of kids head toward the magical tree, only to be ambushed by White Walkers hiding in the snow.  Bran does his possession thing with Hodor again, and saves everyone but Jojen. The creepy 'children' girl calls them to run to the cave, which has a magical barrier barring zombie skeletons from entering. They are taken to see the wizard (The Three-Eyed Raven), who tells Bran he will fly. Cue R. Kelly music. 

Arya and The Hound meet up with Brienne and Podrick. Bri is surprised to find Arya. Tells her she made her mom a promise to bring her home. Arya gets sassy and says “yah, well, mommy is dead, so is my sister and brother so no, I’m not going with you.” Hound fights to keep Arya as well, and Brienne and Hound fight for her. Brienne voys to keep Arya safe. Hound answers back “There’s no safety, you dumb bitch,” he says. “If you don’t know that by now, you’re the wrong one to be watching over her.”

This is a smack down to the extreme. Swords. Punches.  They kick each other in the balls. Then, Hound goes over a cliff, and Bri searches for Arya. Unable to find her hiding amongst the rocks, she and Pod go off in search of her. Arya goes down to see Hound. He’s dying, tells her “remember where the heart is?” and begs her to kill him. Arya being all bad-ass, walks away. Leaving him there to die a grisly death. Before she goes, she takes his coin of course.

Did The Hound really die? IDK. I thought the same thing about The Mountain and he’s still alive. 

Tyroin is still waiting for his death scence. Jamie comes in to save him, and sends him on his way through a passageway. Tyrion decides to take one last look at his old room before going off to wherever, and sees Shae. She’s on the bed waiting for daddy dearest. Tyrion is shocked, pissed, and she goes after him but he strangles her with her gold necklace. When it’s over, he whispers “I’m sorry.” Sorry? Tyrion you needed to strangle that biatch!

Then, he continues on his path to find daddy. Grabbing a crossbow, he opens a door to find his father sitting on a throne. Not THAT throne…ahem. The other one. While dad is on the pot, Tyrion points the crossbow at him. Tywin says he really wasn’t going to kill his son, and son is all “yah right dad.” Tyrion  says he killed Shae, Tywin calls her a whore, Tyrion says “Don’t call her that” and shoots one arrow at him. When daddy-dearest says she’s a whore again, Tyrion shoots him with a second arrow and kills him. Dad killed while sitting on the throne. Classic! 

Tyrion is then loaded into a box, loaded on a boat, and goes off to sea with Varys as his guide. Also off to sea is Arya. She finds a captain who initially won’t help her until she hands over her special coin and says “Valar Morghulis”. Hocus – pocus, magic words, she’s not only let on the ship but given a cabin. Final scene has her running to the front of the ship and doing the Titanic pose. 

So that’s all folks until next season. What happens to the third dragon? Tyrion? Arya when she gets to Braavos? What about the new dark Sansa? We’ll have to wait for the next season. 

Until then, I leave you with a dancing Tyrion, celebrating killing his evil dad, his whore, and of course, his release!

Dirty Angels, Karina Halle.

Javier is dirty. Filthy. He’s a drug lord, evil to the core. What he’s missing is a queen to rule by his side. When he captures the wife of a rival, he finds he not only has his prisoner, but the one woman who can match his attitude, darkness, and sexuality.  

Javier was first introduced in The Artists Triology, and while some players from that series are mentioned, there’s no need to read those first. Unless you want – and I encourage it as you understand a bit more about Javier, his relationship with Esteban, and how he became the leader of a drug cartel in Mexico. 

This story picks up with Luisa, a former beauty queen and now struggling waitress, trying to provide for her aging and disabled parents. Salvador sees her in the bar, and decides she’s the one that can be his arm candy and give him what he needs in private. He makes her an offer – marry him and he’ll take care of her needs and provide for her parents. She goes along with this only to find that an evil drug lord is evil in all relationships – not just those that involve his crimes. Seeing an opportunity to escape, she takes it, only to be captured by a rival to be used as a bartering chip for expansion of his own cartel.  

“The wife of the jackal is the greatest card you can play in this game”

When Javier’s men take Luisa and bring her to his safe house, he had no idea that he’d want her for more than just extortion. He decided he wanted her to be his. Holding her hostage, sending demands to Salvador, and torturing her by carving his name on her back, Javier finds that Luisa is not someone that he can easily break. Luisa, finding that her life is going to end if she fights or submits, she decides to fight. He places her in positions to shame her, but finds that it only excites them both.

“Don’t you know it turns me on when you fight back?” he whispered in my ear, his voice ragged. “Though it turns me on when you don’t fight back, too. I guess you can’t win.” 

She wonders what will become of her. Knowing that her husband won’t pay any ransom for her – she’s not that important to him – she reflects on what her life has become. She tries to escape and fails. She continues to be defiant and challenges her captors. She realizes that while Javier is still the leader of a cartel, he’s not like her husband. 

“You’re not a monster”
“Just a terrible person then”
“Yes. There is a difference. I lived with a monster. I know what that feels like”

She starts to question him, trying to discover more about him and while she is captive, she grows more defiant. 

“I changed this past week, in ways I wasn’t even able to understand. Without realizing it, I was starting to relate to Javier Bernal instead of fearing him. I saw his desire to make me break, and I felt the same desire, to make others break, the ones that hurt me all this time.” 

Javier recognizes this in her and their twisted attraction to each other grows. Her bravado grows. She tells him to finish carving his name on her back so she can be his. She wants it. 

“I am more yours than I am Salvador’s. So finish branding me. I want the knife. I want your name.”

While Javier may want her, he knows he cannot keep her. He must hold to his threats: Salvador either gives into his ransom or he will kill Luisa. 

What concludes is what some could call a romance. Some could call it a twisted connection between two broken people. Whatever it is, it’s fantastic. This is not a typical novel about two people finding love. It’s more about two people finding power, giving into their attraction and using each other for mutual benefit. Finding that they don’t want to live without the other – is that love? While never spoken, it’s implied through Javier’s actions and Luisa’s emotions.

Like some of Karina Halle’s other books, this one is gritty, raw, full of things that most people want to pretend don’t exist. As always, it’s a story told with emotion and even a bit of humor. It’s not for the faint of heart. If you’re opposed to abuse, violence, lewd sexual acts, immorality, and well, you get the point, then this book is not for you. For fans of Karina Halle, it’s just another one of her works of art that dragged me in and want to find my own evil drug lord with a sexy smile and dirty mouth. But not really. 

Get this now while it's still at the lower price on Amazon and Barnes and Noble