If You Dare

If You Dare by Kresley Cole


My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pub. Date: May 2005

Series: MacCarrick Brothers Book 1

Synopsis: Can he exact revenge?
High in the Pyrenees, a band of mercenaries led by Courtland MacCarrick wages war for General Reynaldo Pascal. When Court turns on the evil general, Pascal orders him killed but Court narrowly escapes and exacts revenge by kidnapping Pascal's exquisite Castilian fiancée.

Can she deny her passions?
Lady Annalía Tristán Llorente despises her towering, barbaric captor almost as much as she does Pascal. Her inexplicable attraction to the Highlander only fuels her fury. But nothing will stop her from returning to Pascal — for if she doesn't wed him, she signs her brother's death warrant, as well as her own.

Can there be love between them?
From the moment Court discovers that Anna's prim façade masks a fiery, brave lass, his heart's ensnared, and he dares to defy the curse that has shadowed his life — to walk with death or walk alone. But Pascal vows that he'll hunt the two, never stopping until he's destroyed them both.

Recommended Reading:
If You Desire (MacCarrick Brothers Series #2)Kresley Cole
If You Deceive (MacCarrick Brothers Series #3)Kresley Cole
A Hunger like No Other (Immortals after Dark Series #1)Kresley Cole

The Smoke Jumper

The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans


My review
rating: 3 of 5 stars

Pub. Date: July 2002

Synopsis: The fire that was to change so many lives so utterly started with a single shaft of lightning. It struck a mountain ridge on a still and moonless night and nestled like a pupa of death in the desiccated heart of an ancient pine. There were witnesses no doubt to this sudden splintering of air and wood, but none that was human. The woman, camped nearby with her group of troubled teenagers, slept on and heard nothing.

She has brought them here by court order on a youth program to help them find themselves. But one among them will be lost forever. For soon the cocoon of fire will hatch to engulf the entire mountain and exact its deadly toll. And into this inferno will come ... The Smoke Jumper.
His name is Connor Ford and he falls like an angel of mercy from the sky, braving the flames to save the woman he loves but knows he cannot have. For Julia Bishop is the partner of his closest friend, Ed Tully, an ambitious young musician. Julia loves them both but the tragedy on Snake Mountain forces her to choose between them and burns a brand on all their hearts.

With his blond, blue-eyed looks and laconic cowboy charm, Connor is the only child of a Montana rancher and a rodeo queen. Until that fateful day, he has been happy to spend his winters nurturing a career as a photographer and his summer vacations with Ed, "smoke jumping" — being dropped by parachute to fight remote forest fires.

In the wake of the fire, he embarks on a journey to the dark heart of human suffering, traveling the world's worst wars and disasters to take photographs that find him fame but never happiness. Reckless of a life he no longer wants, again and again he dares death to take him, until another fateful day on another continent, he must walk through fire once more....

Recommended Reading:
The Divide by Nicholas Evans
Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult

A Man in a Kilt

A Man In A Kilt by Sandy Blair


My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pub. Date: September 2004

Synopsis: For the first time, Beth Pudding has a home of her own, even if it is a haunted castle. Blackstone Castle's ghost is reported to be Duncan Angus MacDougall, who has spent the last 600 years trapped between life and death after being cursed by his third wife's gypsy-witch mother. Just when Beth is getting used to having her own personal ghost, a boating accident sends her back in time to the real Duncan, who mistakes her for his fourth wife. Trapped in the past sans her trusty makeup case, Beth is desperate to figure out how to return to the present until she realizes that her love for Duncan might be the key to breaking the curse.

Recommended Reading:
A Highlander for Christmas by Sandy Blair
A Thief in a Kilt by Sandy Blair
How to Marry A Duke by Sandy Blair
A Rogue in a Kilt by Sandy Blair