Burning Up
3.9
109
5
1
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780425235959 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/03/2010 |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Sales rank: | 429,527 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.20(w) x 6.70(h) x 1.20(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Burning Up
3.9 out of 5
based on
0 ratings.
109 reviews.
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"Whisper of Sin" by Nalini Singh. In 2072 San Francisco, leopard shifter Emmett and his pack rescue Ria Wembley from a rapist. She is under their protection while they fight an evil destroying their beloved city. Emmett knows Ria is his soul mate.
"Blood and Roses" by Angela Knight. With justification Ameris has no choice but to seduce an abomination (in her mind) vampire knight Raniero. However, as she becomes acquainted with him, she changes her opinion of his race
"Shifting Sea" by Virginia Kantra. In 1853, Major John Harris inherits an estate in Scotland and much more, the love of Morwenna, one of the Children of the Sea.
"Here There be Monsters" by Meljean Brook. Ivy flees Mad Eben Machen who chases after her. When he catches her, she will find the heart of the monster.
The four romantic fantasies are entertaining tales starring fully developed protagonists in terrific settings as each author contributes a world building winner.
Harriet Klausner
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Loved this book!!
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I haven't read all the stories in this book, but I have read the one by Nalini Singh. It is a really good story, and brings more background about how Lucas got is administrative assistant. I have this story in paperback as well as on my e-reader. If you like Nalini Singh, then this is another great read!
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Whisper of Sin / Nalini Singh - A prequel to the Psy/Changeling series. After human Ria is attacked by thugs, DarkRiver leopard-shifter Emmett takes her under his protection. Compared to Singh's other work, this story seems kind of 'phoned in, but it's still enjoyable. If you haven't read anything in the series yet, this would be a fine place to start.Blood and Roses / Angela Knight - Vampire warrior Raniero and Blood Rose Amaris must battle an evil sorcerer and their distrust of each other to save their kingdom from invasion. Set in a medieval fantasy realm. The world building seemed kind of incomplete, but still interesting enough that I'd be willing to read more in the series (if there is a series planned). I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to.Shifting Sea / Virginia Kantra - Set in 1813, Major John Harris has returned from war after inheriting property in Scotland. There, he meets a mysterious woman named Morwenna, whose secrets seem at odds with her forwardness. I'm not super keen on historicals or mermaid stories, but this was nice in a fairy tale sort of way. (Well, fairy tale-like except for the HEA, of course.)Here There Be Monsters / Meljean Brook - Loved it! Romantic steampunk done well. Blacksmith Ivy is on the run from monsters and asks the pirate Mad Machen for help. Unfortunately for them both, he's so madly infatuated with her and so verbally-clumsy from it that he completely freaks her out. Solid world-building and I loved the characters. This changed the book from being a read-once to a keeper-shelf book for me, and I'm now planning to pre-order The Iron Duke.
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I got this book as part of a reading challenge I am doing with vvb32 reads (thanks for the awesome book!). Readers of my reviews know that I am more of an urban fantasy fan than a paranormal romance (PNR) fan, but I do enjoy the occasional PNR novel. I was eager to read stories by Nalini Signh and Meljean Brook since those were two authors I have been dying to check out. The collection of stories was pretty good and widely varied.Angela Knight's Blood and Roses was set in a fantasy setting with a creative world set-up; I enjoyed it and loved the special powers of the Blood Roses. It was a little romancy for me but the creative world definitely kept my attention.The highlight of the book was Here There Be Monsters, a prelude story to Meljean Brook's new Iron Duke series. This was a great story and made the whole book worth reading. The world Brook has created is incredible, the characters full of depth, and some of the scenes incredibly steamy. This story packed more story than any of the other stories in this novel and didn't sacrifice creativity and action to provide romance. Overall it was a wonderful story that I really enjoyed.Whisper of Sin by Nalini Singh and Shifting Sea by Virginia Kantra were more typical PNR. Both about tough men falling for beautiful women; the majority of the story focused on getting the two main characters in "bed" so to speak. Although I will say that Kantra's finfolk are interesting and I have never read about anything like them before.A highly varied collection of stories. All more with a romance bent to them than an urban fantasy bent. I would definitely recommend urban fantasy and steampunk fans check out Here There Be Monsters by Meljean Brook. See below for more detail on each story.- Whisper of Sin by Nalini Singh (3/5 stars)Supposedly this is a prelude to Singh's Psy/Changeling series. It was okay. The characters definitely have good chemistry. The story plot is just barely there and mainly used as a vehicle to provide steamy scenes. This was bit too much of your helpless female/alpha male set up for me. I am really not into that kind of thing. It was well-written though.- Blood and Roses by Angela Knight (4/5 stars)This was a well done fantasy story. The chemistry between the two main characters was excellent and Knight creates a story in a complex universe with complex politics. The main character is a Blood Rose whose lot in life is to fuel the desire and power of vampires. Both the Blood Rose, Amaris, and the vampire, Raniero, are very conflicted characters. There are some nice fight scenes and some very steamy scenes. I liked this story. Again it was a bit too much of a romance for me, but still well-balanced.- Shifting Sea by Virginia Kantra (3/5 stars)Story about a soldier turned landowner who stumbles upon a beautiful woman, Morwenna, who is not quite human. Morwenna is one of the finfolk and wants to escape the ocean to try out life as a human. Basically the soldier sets out to woo Morwenna and there are complications because of her background. The story is well-written and the finfolk are unique. Not much humor or action.- Here There Be Monsters by Meljean Brook (5/5 stars)This was an absolutely wonderful story. I have never read any of Brook's books before but I want too. This was a great opportunity to be introduced to her writing and her new Iron Duke series. This is a steampunk fantasy novella and featured an incredibly creative world with a bleak tone to it. Loved that the characters had clockwork limbs grafted on and that steampunk and nano technology helped to run so much of this world. There was action in here, a wonderful world, believable characters, and great descriptions of fantastical devices. The two main characters had excellent chemistry and really tugged at your heart. There were the prerequisite steamy scenes which were tastefully done and engaging. I just really loved this story and am eager to read the Iron Duke series
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This was a totally wonderful book, hope you enjoy as much as I did.
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So, in between books I like to read Anthologies, to freshen up my mind, (I tend to continue to think about the book I finished in the days that follow), and to discover new reads and new authors. It works for me this way.
In "Burning Up" we have a very good start with "Whisper of Sin".
The story is set in Chinatown and we have the story of Emmett and Ria.
Ria comes from a traditional family and is attacked by order of a gang because her family denied to pay "protection".
Emmett is part of the Dark River pack and is a leopard. He almost instantly recognizes Ria as his mate and from that moment on the game starts.
Between leading with Ria's family and wining her over to him the bad guys are taken down and we have a happy ending.
I pretty much enjoyed this story and got me wondering why I never read the Psy-Changeling Series or anything from this author. She won me over and I'm a fan.
What I really enjoyed from this story :
1) Emmett - I'm a sucker for a big, bad macho that loves his woman and protects her from the ugliness of life.
2) Ria - I love a woman that can face up the challenge of taking on her family and fighting for the man she loves. Shows character, perseverance, and wise knowledge. Love it when that woman can pull this through without hurting those she loves and doing it quietly right under their noses.
3) Emmett and Ria lovemaking - I do love a good attraction and when that infatuation turns into a good "rub" and winds up into a hot "fight" between the sheets or anywhere else, you got me. We can't forget that Emmett is a big wild cat and Ria is a little, but very smart woman who knows how to take care of the big bad cat, so ....
4)Short story - Even though this is into an Anthologie and is a short story, in the end I didn't get that feeling that things rushed out a little or that the development of the story got cut in short, so this was a goog thing.
I will take up on this series from the start and enjoy this beautiful Psy-Changeling, and when I get here, I'll probably re-read Ria's and Emmett's story with pleasure.
"Blood and Roses" Angela Knight
So, this author was a first read for me even though I've read a lot about her Megaverse Series.
I'm not going to write about the story itself because I found it short and fast, but I'll tell you about the aspects that I think stood out in the story.
The idea of a Blood Rose, women being born to tame the vampire knights is original and I've never read this idea in any other book, so this was a positive thing to consider.
The setting where the story was placed is appealing to me, the fact that this is probably away from the center of the kingdom and far away from the eyes of the king where traitors and ambitions rise up as facts of broken unity of the nations peace, another point in favor of this read.
The fact that both characters have been betrayed by their loved ones and have to work out their feelings to trust another again, yes this does appeal to my head, it makes the characters grow and is always a fact that puts my mind to work and understand their feelings.
I don't know if the relationships in that time were as easy as it is written, but sex was easy and without taboos, in a way simplified by where people belonged in the social hierarchic class, this is also very well explained in this story.
Now, the bad guys. The fact that there is a barrier and a mean universe behin
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i was dissappointed.page after page skipped to find a storyline,reminds me of the garbage romance novels that my mom kept up on the bathroom shelf
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***There Be Monsters*** My first steampunk novel: what did I think? Well it wasn’t so much different from other romances. If it didn’t have the artificial limbs, airships, and mechanical gadgets, I’d say it was just another pirate story. In fact, the steampunk portions seemed more of a flavor than anything. Not really important to the overall theme. My first impression of steampunk is I can take it or leave it. The stakes were set early. And the pacing was great. Ivy and Eben were strong characters who I could really root for. The only thing I didn’t understand was Eben’s infatuation with Ivy. It wasn’t something which grew. Eben seemed obsessed with Ivy straight from the beginning with no insight into why. I’d hope it’d come to light at the end of the story, but no explanation was given, making it the weakest element of the plot. I had so much fun with Ms. Brook’s novel, I’m definitely looking forward to reading the Iron Duke. 4 Stars ***Whisper of Sin*** The character development was decent. Ria and Emmett were likable folks. Honestly, I don’t have much to stay about them. They didn’t stand out as overly unique. As far as the plot goes, well… I’d say it was one of the weakest story lines in the Psi-Changeling series, in my opinion. However, I liked it better than her prior novel, Blaze of Memory. So what was the issue with it? The stakes were rather weak. I remember reading on Singh’s website once something to the effect, think of the worst thing which could happen to your character, then do it to them. Well, nothing bad happened. There were no significant wedges driving the lovely couple apart. The fight scene was given as back story. 2 Stars ***Blood and Roses*** Starting with the romantic setup: I didn’t buy it. The idea that a captor could seduce a prisoner into betraying his loyalty just didn’t work for me. I certainly wouldn’t trust my captor. I don’t care how hot he is in the sack. And if I were the captor, I wouldn’t think my prisoner would be so stupid to fall for some seduction trick. That’s just me though. Amaris, the heroine, wasn’t so bad though. I’m all for strong women, and she definitely was one of those. Raniero, the hero, wasn’t so bad either. He didn’t stand out as unique as Amaris, but he was pretty cool in his own right. The only thing I didn’t like about our hero and heroine was they seemed to have the exact same hangup keeping them from a romantic union. So there were a few plot holes in my mind. However, this work was still enjoyable. I’d certainly be interested in reading another story in this world. If nothing else, I’d love to pick up another anthology which included Angela Knight and along with another author I’m familiar with. 3 Stars ***Shifting Seas</i> by Virginia Kantra*** This book pretty much jumps into to things… no preliminaries, no wasted words. I didn’t really buy the story line at first. I always expected there to be a catch to the way the heroine behaved. It turns out there wasn’t a catch, just the heroine had a different mentality due to being a finfolk. In terms of characterization, It seemed as if the hero and heroine switched gender roles, something I love. Overall, the plot was okay. So, would I purchase a Kantra book in the future? Well, this one didn’t stand out enough to make me say yes. However, I definitely would read one of her stories if it were in an anthology with another author I enjoyed. 3 stars.
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i read the story by Nalini Singh. its a short story about Ria and Emett. not one of her best but still worth reading.
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