Hello, and welcome back! It is an absolutely gorgeous fall day here, and I’m a little sad I have to go to work and can’t stay home to enjoy it. Okay, I’m a lot sad about that. But I will get to play in the books later, so that sort of makes up for it, though not entirely.

This time out, I have the last of our September books, Belong to the Night (Brava), an anthology with stories from Shelly Laurenston, Cynthia Eden, and Sherrill Quinn. One of my faves, Laurenston leads things off with ‘The Wolf, the Witch, and Her Lack of Wardrobe’. Jamie Meacham heads up the coven of witches currently protecting Smithville, and, while she does her job quite well, there are things she’s doing on her own time that are putting her in danger. Tully Smith is the current mayor of the town, and he’s got his eye on Jamie. Officially only, of course. It’s not his fault he keeps coming upon her naked in the woods. Then there’s his birth father coming back to town to try to take over, and Tully has to deal with that as well as his raging attraction to the witch. Laurenston is consistently hilarious, and her stories are always so hot, you’ll burn your fingers on the pages. ‘In the Dark’ by Eden is next, with Sadie James coming face to face with her dead ex. At least, she thought he was dead. Technically, Liam is dead, only now he’s a vampire. And Sadie has kept her own secret, too, that she’s a leopard shifter. Now, they’re forced to work together to catch another shifter who’s murdering innocents in Miami, and there’s no way Sadie can resist the only man she ever loved, even if he is her kind’s enemy. This one is one of those you have to keep reading to find out if they can possibly overcome their obstacles, though it’s a little different from her usual, not nearly as much humor, but I still quite enjoyed this one. Quinn’s ‘City of the Dead’ has witch Dori Falcon heading to New Orleans to find her missing brother. Officer Jake Boudreau wasn’t in her plans, but who could resist the sexy cop? Especially when his help might be the only way she gets her brother back from a demon. This one didn’t do much for me, I’m afraid. I didn’t love the heroine, though Jake is a very sexy hero. Obviously, my fave is the first story in the collection, as Laurenston is one of my auto-buys under either of her names, and I love her shifter stories. For her story and the Eden, this collection has earned four of Cupid’s five arrows.

Until next time, happy reading!