A Touch of Minx by Suzanne Enoch
Samantha Jellicoe is back and this time she’s searching for some missing antiques for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Plus it give her a good excuse for avoiding the sparkling piece of jewelry Rick’s been carrying around in his pocket. However this time the thief most dangerous man she’s ever encountered and Samantha’s put herself and Rick’s lives in great danger.
A great plot with enough sex and danger to keep you turning pages as fast as you can. This almost (I repeat almost ) makes up for the fact that I had to wade though a historical story to get to another Samantha Jellicoe story. Highly recommended.
Details: Berkley, October 2007
Excellence Rating: Great
When Zeus orders Chloe, the Muse of Happiness, to spend a year on Earth to improve her job rating, Chloe ends up bringing happiness to mortals by working as wedding planner. Her weddings were always perfect and her services were very much in demand. And she took Zeus’s threats about falling in love with a mortal, so she had a strict policy of never dating anyone long enough to fall in love. But then Matthew Castleberry returned. At first Matthew believes Chloe is out to cheat his grandmother out of her wedding business, but soon he feels there’s something special about Chloe. Chloe senses Matthew’s feelings, but as hard as she tries to deny her own feelings, she’s not sure she can hold out until Zeus calls her home. Maybe just one night with Matthew will get him out of her system, if not, she may never see Mount Olympus again. 
By day, Emma Wallace locates vampires for CIA’s Stake-Out team, but by night Emma pretends to be a juicy snack to lure vampires into her clutches and then kill them. But when Emma actions pose a threat to the Romatech Industries and their efforts to fight the malcontents who refused to feed from bagged blood, it becomes Angus MacKay’s to stop her. At first, Emma is impressed by the sexy Highland warrior, but when she learns that Angus is really a vampire, she knows that he needs to die. For the first time in hundreds of years, Angus is attracted to a woman and refuses to do anything that might harm Emma. Now can Angus convince Emma that all vampires are not created equal or will Angus wake up early one evening with a stake in his heart. 
Darius, son of Zeus and god of gems, loved women. Unfortunately during a tryst, he turned himself into a statue to hide from a jealous husband. When the husband wrecked the statue in a fit of rage, Darius found himself walking the earth in search of a perfect replica of himself with which he could return to the normal world. Alexandra de Marco used a recently unearthed Greek statue as a model for one she carved from a slab of solid marble to raise money for the orphanage where she grew up. While Darius studied the statue, he also found something special in its creator – she affected him like no other woman ever had. Alex was surprised when her statue came to life, but now she finds herself without a statue for the charity auction and a Greek god who was as charming and sexy as he was 3,000 years ago. Now can Darius convince Alex that he shouldn’t be returned to the statue or will Alex condemn him to another 3,000 years without a body. 
While in the middle of a sports car race, Scotty Templeton suddenly finds he has a ghostly passenger. After wrecking his racecar and then his career, Scotty learns the only way to rid himself from this ghost is to deliver an engine from his car collection to the ghost’s mother. The ghost’s daughter, Maggie Cooper is ready to make the big leap to Chicago to move in with her boyfriend when Scotty shows up with his package. Maggie tries to convince him to leave, but while Scotty wants to comply, the ghost has other ideas. Soon, Scotty finds himself falling for the driven lady and now Maggie must decide to start her new life in Chicago with Mr. Dull or to abandon her safe relationship to take a risk on a racecar driver like Scott. 
Lily Tyler’s protector Doug the dog, hates all men with a passion, except for Lily’s fiancé, but then he’s never around much. On the other hand, Doug has taken an instant dislike for Lily’s new neighbor, Brady Cole. But while Doug hates Brady, Brady could easily fall in love with Lily. Too bad he’s sworn off women for a while. The mere sight of Brady is enough for Lily to forget her fiancé, but Lily isn’t ready to risk her future for a guy she knows is totally wrong for her. Or is she? 
Lucian Argeneau has been tracking and killing rogue vampires for over two thousand years. But when a young girl manages to escape from Lucian's latest target he finds himself with a problem. After closing her bar for the evening, Leigh feels someone sink their teeth into her neck and she loses control of her body. When she wakes she’s in a strange place surrounded by strange people and she experiencing a brand new kind of hunger. Soon Lucian finds himself responsible for the girl and for the first time in over a thousand years, he wonders if it's time to end his lonely life. When Leigh realizes what she’s become, she’s not sure if she can become a bloodsucker like Lucian. But before Leigh and Lucian can come to terms with their relationship, the renegade vampire returns to claim what he believes is his rightful property. Now is Leigh ready to include Lucian in her new life or will the rogue manage to kill them both before she can make up her mind? 
When Dorsey MacGuinness who’s about to receive her doctorate in sociology, wrote a book entitled, How to Trap a Tycoon, she never expected it to reach the top of the best seller lists. Fortunately she’s able to keep her success as an author separate from her graduate studies, where she’s studying the relationship between stuffy men’s clubs and a male dominated society by working behind the bar in such a club serving drinks and listening to the member’s stories. She’s become especially fond of on individual, Adam Darien. Adam really liked the bartender at Drakes and often discussed his problems with her, including the how the recent success of a pop culture book threatened the readers of his men’s magazine. When Dorsey bows to her publisher’s pressure to go on tour, she creates a persona opposite of her normal self in order to protect her identity, but she runs into a big problem now that Adam is stalking her alter ego. Now will Dorsey lose everything if Adam pierces her secret identity or will she end up following her own book’s advice and land herself a tycoon? 
Bailey Sullivan hates the family Christmas store. So when she left home for LA years ago, she never wanted to see another Christmas item for the rest of her life. But when her parents have a fight just before Christmas and refuse to work at the store, Bailey makes the ultimate sacrifice and returns to run the store just to keep her parent’s business afloat. Unfortunately she didn’t count on the bad boy/high school sweetheart, Finn Jacobson, visiting his grandmother next door. Despite the sparks flying between her and Finn, Bailey knows she needs to leave this place before she gets stuck and can’t leave. Still she just can't resist visiting the past. Will Bailey return to LA or will she decide to stick around and enjoy the spirit of Christmas. 
When Samantha Jellicoe runs into her dead father at a Sotheby’s art auction, she knows her world is about to turn upside down. Even though she no longer steals priceless paintings, her father pressures her into doing it for old times sake. Even her billionaire boyfriend Richard Addison, can’t change her mind. Samantha has a plan to save her father, but it means risking her freedom and possibly her life. Will she be able to convince Rick to help, or will he whisk her away to England where she’ll be safe, but powerless to save her father? 
Patricia Stillwell’s new experimental diet not only helped her lose weight, it also helped her hair to shed its natural color, leaving her blonde and it just happened to catch the attention of Brett Nordquist of the Nordquist Department store chain. Brett was everything she wanted in a husband, rich and handsome and full of passion. Unfortunately, to the rest of the world Brett was a drunk, playboy who didn’t give a damn about the people around him. Little did Patricia know that Paul Costello was more than just a roommate and friend, he also was in love with the real person underneath the hair. When the diet is over, and her blondeness wears off, will Patricia come to her senses and see the real Brett or is she doomed to live a live of rich misery. 
So many accidents have happened around Vincent Argeneau lately that he decided to hire a private investigator. But when Jackie Morrisey arrives on the scene, he was doubly surprised, not only is Jackie a hot looking girl – she’s also a mortal. While Jackie frequently solves problems for immortals like Vincent, she’s had some bad experiences with them in the past, leaving her extra cautious when dealing with them. The danger escalates as Jackie and Vincent search for the guilty party, but so does her attraction to the 400 year old vampire. Now she must decide whether she should stick around to protect Vincent or run away and save herself from Vincent. 
When Zeus decides his muses are slacking off, he sends them to earth on a mission: over the next year, they must use their talents as he intended or face severe consequences. In addition, he carefully instructs them not to get involved with any humans or risk banishment to Earth as a mortal. Kyra, the goddess of Good Luck ends in up Las Vegas where she inspires gamblers that are a bit down on their luck to win just enough money to get their lives back on track. With only a short time left to go before her year is up, Kyra runs into Jake Lennox. Jake is investigating why the casino seems to be losing money and the stream of winners that Kyra leaves in her wake leads him to think he’s found the source of the problem. Unfortunately, Kyra falls for Jakes charms. Now will Kira risk Zeus’s wrath by letting herself fall in love or will she return to Mount Olympus in total disgrace? 
Darcy Newhart longed for a job in television like she had four years ago when she was still alive, so she pitched a new reality TV show called the Sexiest Man on Earth to the Digital Vampire Network. While selecting cast the cast for the show, Darcy decided to throw in a few humans just to make things interesting. Unfortunately, Darcy didn’t know how much trouble that would cause. Austin Erickson, human, is both a contestant on the show, as well as a member of the CIA’s elite anti-vampire team known as Stake-Out. Now Austin and Darcy are falling in love. If Austin survives elimination on the show, will he settle for the million dollar prize or will Austin insist on staying with Darcy for the rest of his life? 
This paranormal anthology contains four different stories that show women surviving their own dates from hell.
Megan Rose returns to her hometown after many years to spend time with her father and help him with his veterinary practice. But during the time she was gone, the billionaire software mogul Sutter Foley has claimed Fredericksburg his residence. Normally this wouldn’t have made any difference in Megan’s life, except when she found a lost golden retriever puppy that claimed Sutter’s mansion as his home. Sutter denied the puppy was his when Megan tried to return it, but she persuaded him to keep the puppy anyway. 
While conducting research for her latest mystery novel, Lucy Rothschild arranges a series of online dates looking for men to serve as patterns for murder victims in her story. Posing as a nurse so as not to give any clues as to why she’s meeting them, Lucy finds most of her dates are men are just looking for quick and easy sex - not at all her type. One date and she has enough material to kill them off in her story, but a second date - no way. Then she encounters Quinn McIntyre, a man totally unlike the other men she met; a man she could fall in love with. She quickly agrees to a second and then a third date, even though she’s has more than enough information to kill him off in her story.