The Marine Next Door (Harlequin Intrigue Series)

He saw that her safety was threatened...

Maggie Wheeler never stopped looking over her shoulder. It was a habit she'd learned from being a cop... and from a devastating event in her past. So when John Murdock moved in next door, Maggie didn't know what to make of the sexy Marine. But once her son formed a bond with the mysterious stranger, Maggie knew that past might not remain hidden much longer...

She saw him for the hero he truly was...

With his unwavering sense of duty, John would never let a call for help go unanswered. Especially from a beautiful wounded warrior who refused to give up her secrets. Although she likely knew more about who was after her than she'd ever let on, John vowed to protect those in need. Only then could he find peace, maybe even a door away...

John Murdock is a retired, highly decorated and honorable Marine who's last tour in Afghanistan left him shaken and roughed up a bit. Despite the damage a road side bomb left him, his honor and duty to always serve and protect is still intact. Maggie Wheeler is a tough cop and on her way to becoming a great detective with precinct four with Kansas City Police Department. The only thing stopping her is a nagging past and its close ties it forms to the case she is currently working on. In short... loved this book! It was well written, had a great storyline, and smoldering romance! I might be slightly bias, since I have a thing for men in uniform, but if you share that same interest than Julie Miller's thrilling and suspenseful romance novel will not disappoint you. I will also be picking up the next installment of this great new miniseries to see what happens next with precinct four and the efforts to nail the rose red rapist! This series and publisher left a good first impression for my first romance novel!

My hotness meter gives it...3 out of 4 enthusiastic chili peppers up!
That's Blazing in my book! :)

My hotness scale...
1= Spark, 2= Sizzling, 3= Blazing, 4= inferno

Murder Buys a T-Shirt (A Haunted Souvenir Shop Mystery)

Glory Martine has inherited her great uncles souvenir shop, Southern Treasures along with a super size headache. Nestled in Keyhole Bay, Florida, the shop is stuffed not only with collectibles and mementos of times gone by, but with a ghost who, like her customers, refuses to let go of the past... Glory always dismisses ghost stories-until she inherits her great uncle Louis's souvenir shop, where items seem to rearrange themselves and her pet parrot, Bluebeard, is suddenly uttering phrases he couldn't have picked up from the customers. If Glory told anyone her shop was haunted, they'd think the fresh sea air had gone to her head...
Then, at an end of the summer party, local football hero Kevin Stanley dies, and the story starts to go haywire. Glory finally shares her secret with her best friend, who takes it seriously and is convinced the ghost is trying to send a message. Kevin's death was no accident, ant it's linked to Glory's very own great uncle Louis. Now Glory must dig through the junk to find the truth, before someone leaves her with a deadly souvenir of her own...

It was a pretty good read for a first in a brand new series. I was excited to read it when I first started and it did have a good storyline, but in the end it kinda fell flat a little for me. I was happy in the end that Glory's new beau has joined her circle of friends and I'll be hopeful to read more about their prospective relationship in the next book. However I felt the actual climax of solving the mystery at the end was predicable and a little too short. I had a feeling the killer was exactly who I thought it was the whole time, it just seemed the obvious choice, given the clues about half way through the book.

I've come across first time books in a new series and then waved them off before and then I find the second and third books are much better, so I'm not going to be counting out Christy Fifield just yet! I do love the characters, the sleepy tourist town of Keyhole Bay is really quite charming and of course who could not love that crazy old parrot bluebeard!