I love this time of year, no, not just all the spooky decor for Halloween, but the time that the we begin to see the holiday (Christmas) anthology show up in bookstores. Starting in October, we are usually blessed with a choice of anthologies from some of our favorite authors and they usually can be counted on to be lighthearted and fun reads.

This year, I received an anthology for review that included novellas by seven authors – Adrienne Bell, Juliet Blackwell, Cecilia Gray, Rachael Herron, Lisa Hughey, Ruby Laska, L.G.C. Smith – some I had read before, some not. …

Set in Chicago, Tiffany Allee‘s Files from the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency (OWEA) series is really enjoyable. I received a copy of book four, Vampire Games, to review and, of course, had to get books one through three (Banshee Charmer, Succubus Lost, Lycan Unleashed) to read first. Wow! I’m so glad I did. Allee has created really interesting characters, an arcing story line throughout the four books, and fascinating investigations into otherworldly crimes, mixed in with some very steamy romantic action.

First introduced in book one, Chicago police detective and vampire Claude Desmairis the focus …

I’ve had the two books in Lolita Lopez’s Dragon Heat series on my Kindle TBR (to be read) shelf for a while, but receiving a copy of the second book Red Hot Dragon from the publisher, I decided to read the two books asap.

I’ll be up front – I love dragons. I’m not sure if it’s my Welsh heritage or if there is just something uber sexy about fire breathing reptiles, but I do tend gravitate towards these shape shifting beasts.

Lopez’s dragons are part of a secret brotherhood that protects the dragon race from St. George’s descendants – …

Ghosts, romance, a setting on an island off the coast of Maine – how could I resist reading this novella-length book, Ghosts of Kingston Cottage, by Libby Bishop. I couldn’t. It’s a perfect pre-Halloween read, but to be frank, although spooky, the romance between the ghosts and the paranormal investigator (medium) and skeptical reporter really is the focus of this story.

I can only commend Bishop as this story is engrossing. From the paranormal investigation agency that we want to hear more about, to the three friends who grew up in the small Maine coastal town, to the possible romance, …

I love cooking and truly enjoy reading cookbooks, chef biographies, and tend to seek out novels that feature kitchen time. So I very much savored the day I spent reading Kate Meader’s first two entries in her Hot in the Kitchen series. She serves up some very generous quantities of steamy romance in this contemporary romance series set in Chicago that features some hot chefs, with intriquing accents, and two very sexy Italian-American sisters.

I haven’t read any of Meader’s books before and wasn’t familiar with this series until I received book two, All Fired Up, from the publisher …