The Pleasure Chest by Jule McBride

Tanya Taylor loves artwork as only an artist could. When she sees a painting of a pirate dating back to the 1790’s, she just has to have it, even though her credit card says she shouldn’t. Then one evening she finds a mysterious stranger in her bedroom that bears a striking resemblance to the pirate in the painting. Stede O’Flannery enjoyed taking human form for the first time in years, though he knew he had exactly one week to fall in love or the curse will return him to the painting. And without love, he’ll have to wait patiently until his next opportunity to take human form arises. But love requires two people. Now can Stede convince Tanya that he’s in love with her, or more importantly can he convince himself?

This is a cute story about an interesting couple. I really enjoyed Stede’s personality and how he had adapted to modern life. Tanya was also an interesting person too. But I really wish that Moon Beam played a larger role in the story. She's too interesting of a character to have just a walk on role in the story. The basis for the story shows that Jule has a very creative mind and I’m looking forward to reading her next book.

Details: Blaze #281, October 2006

Bottom line: A very good book

Something in the Water by Jule McBride

The town of Bliss, West Virginia is best known for its spring water. But apparently the spring water also hides the infamous Romeo virus being sought by Dr. Rex Houston of the Center for Disease Control. Meanwhile Ariel Anderson decides to return home to film a local interest story for her TV station. When Rex arrives at the bed and breakfast run by Ariel Anderson’s mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, he finds the place empty and decides to check out the local water for the virus. When Ariel Anderson arrives home to begin working on her story, she finds everyone acting strange – only love songs playing on the radio, only romantic movies were shown in the local movie theater and people that hated each other were walking around town arm-in-arm. Had the virus stuck? Together Ariel and Rex try to piece together the strange happenings, while at the same time enjoying incredible sex, which eventually blossoms into love.

When I started reading this book, I was surprised. The first half of opening chapter features a larger than normal set of secondary characters, and neither the hero nor the heroine was present. The rest of the chapter introduced some other characters, but again it wasn’t clear how they would fit into the rest of the story. As I continued to read the story, things slowly began to clear up and somewhere around chapter four or five, everything clicked into place. By the middle of the book it dawned on me – this book wasn’t a Blaze, but rather a short single title book. When viewed as a Blaze, I’d have to give this book rather low marks, but when viewed as a single title, it was pretty good. So I’ll go with the single title classification and wait for next single title style Blaze.

Details: Blaze #226, January 2006

Bottom line: A very good book