Today's Delish Book Binge

The battery on my watched died today, so I ran downstairs to have the guy in the jewelry shop replace it. Then I figured, I might as well stretch my legs a bit... in the direction of the bookstore.

When will I ever learn I can't resist?!?!?!


Today's buys:



How could I resist that title? I couldn't!

Synopsis:
Sienna Wainwright has one passionate night with international financier Rafe Lombardi before he unceremoniously casts her out of his bed. Sienna hopes never to see his seductively arrogant face again, but six weeks later their world changes—forever….
Rafe is no longer just a billionaire, but is revealed as the prince of Montvelatte. What's more, Sienna is pregnant—with his twins! What choice does she have now? Rafe is determined to claim his heirs and take Sienna as his royal wife!

Click onto the cover for the Amazon page, and the pretty damn risque deliciously classic-Presents-in-tone excerpt. (10 points for describing the heroine's hair as Titian!)






I think the title caught me on this, one, then the image. The blurb sold me. Although this one sounds vaguely like that movie with Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie (Original Sin).

The bookcover even kinda looks like her. Oh, and you can't see it in the picture, but the image is all glossy, except for the writing which is matt with embossed/raised font. And the edges of the pages are all rough. Love it. (A little off tangent here, I love my Sony, for many and varied reasons, but this is why I'll always perfer the tactile experience of a book in hand.)

Okay. Here's the synopsis: (From the publisher)

Set in a small Wisconsin farming and manufacturing town still crumbling a decade after the depression of the 1890s, A Reliable Wife tells the story of Ralph Truitt, a wealthy businessman who advertises for “a reliable wife” in newspapers across America.

The woman he chooses, Catherine Land, describes herself as “a simple, honest woman,” but in truth she is both complex and devious— not the missionary’s daughter she claims to be in her letter to Truitt but a courtesan of great beauty, kept by men and haunted by a terrible past.

Catherine’s plan in accepting the marriage offer is simple: she will win this man’s devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is the passion she finds in this seemingly solid, forthright man—a man who also harbours secrets and whose own past is far from pure.


Another case of the cover art jumping off the shelf at me.



Love the noir imagery and the hot pink/mauves.

Ed Brubaker is an awesome comic book author. That was enough for me. Sold!

Synopsis:

A woman in trouble, friends on the run from cops and mobsters, and a secret no one is prepared to face! Five years ago, Jake was a happy family man, long-retired from the life of crime he grew up in, and then the police made him the prime suspect in a horrible crime and ripped his life apart! Now, years later, Jake is less than a shadow of his former self, a hopeless insomniac who walks the city streets at night. But one night, he walks into the wrong place at the right time, and his whole life changes again... Collects Criminal 2 #4-8.


Last but not least, since the credit card was already warmed up, I finally shelled out for a used copy of Megan Chance's The Portrait, a book I've been wanting to read for years.




Synopsis:

She was his inspiration and his undoing....

The reigning master of the New York art world, Jonas Whitaker was brilliant and compelling, a man of dark passions and uncontrollable emotions. Terrified of his own dangerous nature and scarred by the horror of his emptiness -- until Imogene Carter pushed her way into his life.

He discounted her on sight, seeing her as a colorless, fragile woman with no spirit and less talent. He could send her running with a word -- and he intended to do just that. But Imogene was not so easily frightened. She came to Jonas to learn from a master, and learn she would -- everything he could teach her. She wanted his artist's secrets and his brilliant passion. She wanted to be swept up in his seductive, forbidden world.

Until she saw the terrible price he paid for his talent.

And realized it was impossible to catch a shooting star without being burned.…

(For those of you who've never heard of this one, the hero is bi-polar and from all accounts the author did a realistic portrayal of the condition.)

I'm in the writing cave this weekend. Gonna get the wip done/edited and sent to the crit partners byt Sunday night the latest.