Spin Cycle: What are You Reading this Summer?

This weeks spin cycle assignment is Books!  More specifically what I'm reading and wanting to read this summer.
I am an avid reader.  from the time I was about 9 I could be found nose down in a book at any opportunity.  I was the classic bookworm.  I haunted the library at school and the county library and always had piles of books to read.
The topics are many and varied, I'll read anything that catches my interest and is well written.  I found my first adult romance book at the read and return at the library when I was maybe 13.  I had been devouring the teen romance at the school library and when I discovered adult romance and the s-e-x to be found there in, well I grabbed up as many as I could.  Most were awful, but some were not that bad.
I have been reading romance ever since--mostly historical but a few contemporaries thrown in for fun.  I also read mysteries, true crime, adventure novels, and humor books and a goodly amount of non fiction too.  But Romance will always be my first love (no pun intended).
Now to recommend a series of books for your summer reading pleasure. I recently found the author Zoe Archer and her Blades of the ROse quartet of books.  Warrior, Scoundrel, Rebel, and Stranger.  Each is a stand alone story, but the characters do show up in each book, some more than others.
Let's start with Warrior.  Think of these as a sort of Victorian Indiana Jones type of story.  Adventure, magic, and romance.  All the elements of a good time. 
Synopsis from Amazon:  The vicious attack Capt. Gabriel Huntley witnesses in a dark alley sparks a chain of events that will take him to the ends of the Earth and beyond - where what is real and what is imagined become terribly confused. And frankly, Huntley couldn't be more pleased. Intrigue, danger, and a beautiful woman in distress - just what he needs. Raised thousands of miles from England, Thalia Burgess is no typical Victorian lady. A good thing, because a proper lady would have no hope of recovering the priceless magical artifact Thalia is after. Huntley's assistance might come in handy, though she has to keep him in the dark. But this distractingly handsome soldier isn't easy to deceive... 
I started reading this when I was sick and the story was good enough to keep my admittedly poor concentration riveted.  I'm going back for a reread now that I'm feeling better and can focus more.


Scoundrel is the second book and was just as much fun as the first book.  Amazon synopsis:  London Harcourt's father is bent on subjugating the world's magic to British rule. But since London is a mere female, he hasn't bothered to tell her so. He's said only that he's leading a voyage to the Greek isles. No matter, after a smothering marriage and three years of straitlaced widowhood, London jumps at the opportunity - unfortunately, right into the arms of Bennett Day. Bennett is a ladies' man, when he's not dodging lethal attacks to protect the powers of the ancients from men like London's father. Sometimes, he's a ladies' man even when he is dodging them. But the minute he sees London he knows she will require his full attention. The woman is lovely, brilliant, and the only known speaker of a dialect of ancient Greek that holds the key to calling down the wrath of the gods. Bennett will be risking his life again - but around London, what really worries him is the danger to his heart... 
Rebel is the next in the series.  Amazon synopsis:  Nathan Lesperance is used to being different. He's the first Native attorney in Vancouver, and welcome neither with white society nor his sometime tribe. Not to mention the powerful wildness he's always felt inside him, too dangerous to set free. Then he met Astrid Bramfield and saw his like within her piercing eyes. Now, unless she helps him through the harsh terrain and the harsher unknowns of his true abilities, it could very well get him killed...Astrid has traveled this path before. Once she was a Blade of the Rose, protecting the world's magic from unscrupulous men, with her husband by her side. But she's loved and lost, and as a world-class frontierswoman, she knows all about survival. Nathan's searing gaze and long, lean muscles mean nothing but trouble. Yet something has ignited a forgotten flame inside her: a burning need for adventure, for life - and perhaps even for love...
And the last of the series (hopefully, so far) is Stranger.  Amazon Synopsis: Gemma Murphy has a nose for a story - even if the boys in Chicago's newsrooms would rather focus on her chest. So when she runs into a handsome man of mystery discussing how to save the world from fancy-pants Brit conspirators, she's sensing a scoop. Especially when he mentions there's magic involved. Of course, getting him on the record would be easier if he hadn't caught her eavesdropping...Catullus Graves knows what it's like to be shut out: his ancestors were slaves. And he's a genius inventor with appropriately eccentric habits, so even people who love him find him a little odd. But after meeting a certain redheaded scribbler, he's thinking of other types of science. Inconvenient, given that he needs to focus on preventing the end of the world as we know it. But with Gemma's insatiable curiosity sparking Catullus' inventive impulses, they might set off something explosive anyway...
I really enjoyed these books.  There was a  wonderful mix of adventure, magic and romance that kept me turning the pages until way too late at night.

I really read all of these in one week and thoroughly enjoyed all of them.  To me the hallmark of a truly great book is the desire to go back and reread.  And I do want to go back to these stories when I get the time to enjoy them all over again.
So there you have it, four books that I heartily recommend for summer reading.
And in the spirit of full disclosure the links take you to Amazon, where if you buy, I get a few pennies of the purchase too.  So if you feel moved, buy!
Now go see Sprite's Keeper for more spins on summer reading.