52. The Half-Orc's Maiden Bride by Ruby Dixon

listened on Audible, I think....
190 pgs.

2022
Adult X-rated Fantasy
Finished 6/7/24
Goodreads rating: 4.05
My rating: Fun to read

My comments: Yes, filled with Ruby Dixon's usual steaminess, this is the story of a 30-year-old clueless virgin and her more experienced husband to be.  You feel sorry for the extremely-tall unloved woman and hate her father...a good way to begin a story, hmm?  There's a pretty decent storyline and it's told in an easy manner....and it's almost a How-To sex guide if you don't mind that kind of thing,  lol!  Very likeable main characters.

Goodreads synopsis:  Lady Iolanthe of Rockmourn Keep expects to be a spinster all her days. She is very tall. She is very poor. And she is thirty. What lord could possibly want her?

But then her father returns with news that he has found a bridegroom for her - one that is impressively tall. One that is strong, and bold, and wealthy. And best of all? He wants Iolanthe. It seems too good to be true.

And when Iolanthe gets her first look at her husband-to-be, she realizes why.

No one mentioned the 'orc' part of things...

29. The Drowned Girls by Loreth Anne White

Angie Pallorino #1
read on my iPhone
2017 Montlake Romance (but don't consider this to be in the ROMANCE genre!  It's much more mystery...)
524 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery/Police Procedural
Finished 4/1/18
Goodreads rating:  4.28 - 2282 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting:Contemporary city of Victoria, Canada (British Columbia?)

First line/s:  "We all lie.  We all guard secrets -- sometimes terrible ones -- a side to us so dark, so shameful, that we quickly avert our own eyes from the shadows we might glimpse in the mirror."

My comments: I think I'm going to rate this one a three.  It was a pretty decent murder mystery, but that was only 50% of the story.  The other 50% followed Angie Pallorino on her own quest - mysteries surrounding her own emerging, unidentifiable memories from when she was very, very young.  It also detailed her growing relationship and desire for her new boss, James Maddocks, who was handsome, rugged, smart, and newly unmarried..  Unlike many of the police procedurals that I've read, this had some pretty explicit sex scenes between the two protagonists.  Hmmmm,  interesting, but pretty descriptive for this genre.  The setting of a Canadian island on the western coast was also an interesting factor.
     There is now a second book in the series.  I'm not sure I really like Angie, she is a bit hotheaded and selfish, driven in an almost unhealthy way, and the  reviews I've read about the second book make me feel that her personality is not going toc hange.  We'll see, I'll probably read it eventually....

Goodreads synopsis: He surfaced two years ago. Then he disappeared ... 
          But Detective Angie Pallorino never forgot the violent rapist who left a distinctive calling card—crosses etched into the flesh of his victim’s foreheads. 
          When a comatose Jane Doe is found in a local cemetery, sexually assaulted, mutilated, and nearly drowned, Angie is struck by the eerie similarities to her earlier unsolved rapes. Could he be back?
​          Then the body of a drowned young woman floats up in the Gorge, also bearing the marks of the serial rapist, and the hunt for a predator becomes a hunt for a killer. Assigned to the joint investigative task force, Angie is more than ready to prove that she has what it takes to break into the all-male homicide division. But her private life collides with her professional ambitions when she’s introduced to her temporary partner, James Maddocks—a man she’d met the night before in an intense, anonymous encounter.
          Together, Angie and Maddocks agree to put that night behind them. But as their search for the killer intensifies so does their mutual desire. And Angie’s forays into the mind of a monster shake lose some unsettling secrets about her own past . . . 
          How can she fight for the truth when it turns out her whole life is a lie?