I’ll confess that I had become disenchanted with your work. The grown up hookers with a heart of gold series followed by two dark and somewhat unromantic stories made me gun shy. But a free book of an author I’ve liked in the past? I can’t resist at least giving it a [...]]]> Dear Ms. Haynes:

I’ll confess that I had become disenchanted with your work. The grown up hookers with a heart of gold series followed by two dark and somewhat unromantic stories made me gun shy. But a free book of an author I’ve liked in the past? I can’t resist at least giving it a try and I am glad that I did.

Rachel Delaney is a newly divorced single mom sharing custody of two teen boys with her ex husband. Before her divorce, she was a homemaker. Now she is working at a receptionist for a local company but her small salary doesn’t allow her for many extras even with her ex picking up the tab for the mortgage. Her eldest, Nathan, is playing Rachel against his father like a pro, starting to hang out with a bad crowd, and acting perpetually angry. Rachel would like something just for herself and while a lover would be nice, she’d settled for a vibrator.

Rand Torvik is a believer in the law of attraction or perhaps the universe reshaping things that were meant to be. He sees Rachel three random times – at a grocery store, outside a sex store where Rachel bought her vibrator, and in a local coffee shop – before approaching her with his interest. Rachel isn’t looking for a relationship but she wouldn’t mind calling on Rand for a little adult time. This suits Rand just fine.

In some ways, Rand and Rachel’s sexual interaction is much like a courtship. Even in this erotic book, their first encounter is relatively chaste, at least between the two. Rand’s neighbors are exhibitionists and Rand essentially sets up a first date atmosphere with wine on his upper balcony and a cinematic view of the neighbor’s hot tub antics. Every encounter that Rand and Rachel experience explore a few more fantasies from video taping themselves to participating in some exhibitionism themselves. Inevitably their physical connection brings them emotionally close. Rachel and Rand’s relationship is put on hold when she discovers that Rand is her son’s new principal, a man that her son hates.

As Rachel becomes more sexually adventurous with the encouragement of Rand, she gains confidence at work with the encouragement of a co worker. I felt that Rachel was blossoming into the person she could have been, not because she had a job and a lover, but because she began to identify herself as an individual and it was through those two vehicles that this came about. I enjoyed her recognizing that her skills as a mother translated into managing fractious co workers.

The one weakness in the story was Rand. The story could have been written in the first person because despite scenes from Rand’s point of view, he remained much of a mystery. He had little character movement and everything he did was exactly right. He knew exactly how to nudge Rachel into loosening her inhibitions, guessing exactly what would turn her on. He was able to turn her son around with exactly the right methods. I found him too good to be true and in many ways a flat character. I was also puzzled by his mantra that the laws of attraction bound his actions. The way he conducted his life didn’t seem as metaphysical as his philosophies would indicate.

The ex husband storyline was fairly predictable and while it was used to propel Rachel’s storyline and exhibit her newfound personal strength, I didn’t find the ex husband’s actions particularly believable which worked to lessen the tension that I believe it was supposed to present.

I did love the subtle sex positive, pro woman message in the story. A repeated mantra is that Rachel deserves to have it all. She deserves to be viewed as a good mother, an upstanding member of her community, and most of all, she deserves to have great sex. Rand is happy to stand by her side to make sure all of those things come to fruition, particularly the great sex part. It seems that full length erotic romances are a wasteland of late so The Principal’s Office, even at the trade paperback price, might be worth it. B-

Best regards,

Jane

This book was not what I expected when I picked it up. In fact, I’d even venture so far as to offer a caption.

Heat is probably the best independently published book I have read, and one of the best books I have read in a long while. It is also [...]]]> Dear Ms. Smith,

This book was not what I expected when I picked it up. In fact, I’d even venture so far as to offer a caption.

Heat is probably the best independently published book I have read, and one of the best books I have read in a long while. It is also one of the most graphic, and most disturbing books I have read in a long while. When I finished this book, I told a friend about it and she said it sounded awful. On paper, it does sound awful, but it was a truly compelling read and I could not put it down. I mainlined this book as if I were a junkie and this was my fix. I debated about reviewing it, since it is not the standard Dear Author sort of book. But the bottom line is that I want to talk about this book with other people, so here’s the review.

Warning – if you are easily triggered, this is most definitely not the book for you. Move along.

I stumbled upon this book on Amazon, but I’m not sure how. Perhaps someone mentioned it on a villainous hero thread. Someone said it was the most unique and different romance they had read in a very long time, and that was all it took for me to purchase despite the hefty cover price. This review will probably end up rather long, so fair warning.

Heat does not fall into my regular reading category. It’s about two sets of alien men. One is an escaped drug dealer and criminal who is hiding out on earth. The other is the stiff and proper interplanetary cop who is chasing him. They are both the heroes, and over the course of this very long book, they both fall in love with their respective females. This is definitely a romance. A bizarre one, but ultimately with a happy ending for both parties.

The book starts out with Kanetus, aka Kane. Kane is a Jotan interplanetary pirate who has been sentenced to life in prison for any number of crimes. He escapes and heads to earth. Earth is full of humans, and the Jotan treat them like pets, sex toys, and slaves. Sometimes all of the above. Another interesting thing about humans is that they produce a chemical called dopamine that can be harvested from their brains. From this chemical, an illegal drug called Vahst can be made. Vahst is in high demand and Kane is broke, so he has a plan. Go to earth, harvest humans to make Vahst, and return to his life of space piracy a rich man. When Kane gets to earth, his plans are quickly turned upside down. It is summer on earth, and heat makes Jotans go into heat – they must have sex on a regular basis or else they are in intense pain and become ill. Kane doesn’t have time for this, so he decides he will steal himself a human. After grabbing and raping the first woman he runs across, he is perplexed when she runs away and kills herself. So he gets another human, and this time reminds himself to be more careful.

The new human female is named Raven, and she’s an eighteen year old street prostitute who loves drugs and living wild. She’s terrified of Kane and how brutally he treats her, as any woman in her right mind would be. What Raven wants isn’t a factor in the first half of the story. She is Kane’s to use as he wishes, and gradually she begins to help him with his harvesting of other humans for the Vahst, which is just as graphic and awful as it sounds.

Tagen is the interplanetary cop who has come to earth to find Kane and bring him back to justice. He’s afflicted by the same situation as Kane – the heat of summer makes him need sex intensely, but he refuses to give in to it. Tagen accidentally kills a human with his blaster and he is horrified that he is so careless with human life. Suffering from the elements, Tagen collapses on the doorstep of Daria, a human woman who is a recluse. Daria takes him in despite his fearsome appearance and his strangeness, and she helps him recover and later assists him in his hunt for Kane.

The story is a very interesting dichotomy about two men who could not be more different, but are both influenced by their late fathers, and you layer this in beautifully. Kane remembers his dead father with fondness, for all that his father was a murderer and pirate who taught Kane to be just like him. Tagen was adopted by a man that served as his father, but he never felt affection or love, merely duty, and this influences the man he has become. It’s a very interesting nuance to a story that on the surface sounds coarse, violent, and a little weird.

Though we are given dueling storylines, the ‘romance’ between Kane and Raven is the more compelling of the two storylines. It’s interesting to note that Kane is a villain, but over the course of the story, he is not reformed from his wicked ways in the slightest. He remains a rebellious killer on the first page and the last. Nor does Raven, his love interest, change from her hedonist ways. Rather, the characters change by being together, and change in how they perceive each other. Raven begins to assist Kane with his Vahst collecting, and Kane begins to appreciate how smart and clever and cautious she is. Raven, for her part, begins to understand Kane’s cues and how he functions, and learns how to show him that she is a worthwhile partner. While their story starts out with a very Stockholm-Syndrome vibe to it, it progresses to something else, and by the end of the book, Raven is very much an equal partner to Kane, and the last scene of the book had me thrilled to my bones at how far Raven had come.

Tagen and Daria have a much sweeter, more traditional romance. Tagen is worried about hurting Daria, who has clearly been damaged in the past. In addition, Jotan women are the ones that are aggressors in the relationship, and since Daria does not make a move on him, he simply waits for her to indicate that she wants him. This takes a very, very long time since Daria has been hurt in the past. Tagen is obsessed with his police-work, and he appreciates Daria’s clever mind as she begins to help him track down Kane. In turn, Daria is attracted to Tagen, but she is afraid of letting someone into her safe, protected life and being hurt all over again. Their relationship is much slower to develop, but is a nice counterpoint to the violence of Kane and Raven’s relationship, and when they finally get together, the reader knows it is because they have come to a genuine understanding and mutual desire.

This is dubbed as ‘erotic horror’ by the author, and while I don’t think it’s really a horror novel, the erotic tag is very key. Kane rapes multiple people throughout the book, including the heroine. Raven herself is passed around and forced to service other men and sometimes other women, all upon Kane’s whim. There is lots of extreme violence and Raven is manhandled for the first section of the book to the point that I was very uncomfortable with some of the scenarios. I’m not a fan of rape in novels. Usually that is the first thing that will make a book hit the wall. Yet I kept reading this, and I found myself still hoping that Kane and Raven would have a happy ending by the end of the book. I’m not sure what that says about me.

Despite the violent storyline, there are some genuinely touching moments between each couple, and some very funny ones. The conclusions that Tagen comes to as he tries to figure out earth culture by watching TV are quite funny, as well as the scene in the sex shop.

I would be remiss without pointing out that this book is very long.  The page count is not listed on the Amazon page, but clicking over to the paper copy shows that it’s over 600 pages long, which sounds about right. Yet the book does not feel dragged out or change plots halfway through (unlike your other book, Olivia, which I bailed out on at 40%) and the story never loses its momentum. I was actually sad to see the book end and immediately looked for other reads similar to Heat, because I wanted to return to that enjoyable intensity your writing brings.

Overall, Heat was an uncomfortable read at times but a riveting one the entire story. I am struggling with the grade to give this book. The writing and intensity that I felt while reading it mark this into A+ territory, and I am stingy with my grades. I haven’t felt quite so caught up in a book in a very long time. Yet if I were taking off marks for awful things depicted in the story, I’d have to mark it right back down to an F grade, because there are a lot of reprehensible things done and committed by one of the heroes. Kane is not nice. He does not become nice. He is not reformed into a kinder, gentler Kane by the end of the story. If you are interested in villain heroes, this is definitely a book to get. If not, you should pass this one on by because you will regret every dollar you spend.

I do feel as if this sort of book was the reason I read indie books. I’m constantly hoping for that one read that will probably never be published by a mainstream publisher, yet is intense and consuming and surpasses all my skeptical misgivings. The happy ending for both couples cinched this for me, since I was worried that it could not possibly end well. And yet, you pulled it off.  I have to give this a very enthusiastic B+/A- and hope that others pick it up so they can tell me if I have lost my mind with my affection for this book.

All best,

January

PS – Your website is awful and your book covers almost as bad.

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I’ve been remiss in not reviewing these books. I recommended them in November, but then the end of the semester and the holidays and then the beginning of the semester and and and…caught up with me. But I’ve been dipping into them again and again through the last few months when I needed [...]]]> Dear Ms. Haimowitz.

I’ve been remiss in not reviewing these books. I recommended them in November, but then the end of the semester and the holidays and then the beginning of the semester and and and…caught up with me. But I’ve been dipping into them again and again through the last few months when I needed to cleanse my palate from other books.

Nicky Avery is a TV star who is rehearsing for a Broadway show. He meets Devon Turner, film star and all around amazing actor. They connect instantly, Nicky feeling Devon’s dominance, Devon reacting to Nicky’s submissiveness. But this isn’t a touchy-feely story. This is pure D/s with intense sadomasochistic overtones. Devon doesn’t let Nicky get away with anything, either physically or emotionally. The first book, Master Class, shows Nicky and Devon’s meeting and the start of their relationship. SUBlime (really on that title?! Please trust your readers to Get It without the hokey capitals!) is a serious of short vignettes, mostly (really great) wank material more than anything else, that reveals scenes in their daily life, but that doesn’t really forward their relationship.

Devon and Nicky meet at a dinner with friends. I love this. I love that they don’t meet at a Kinky Klub of Kinkiness. They meet like other normal people do. And they’re drawn to each other through mutual attraction rather than some ridiculous set up. The book definitely has a lot of “All-Knowing All-Seeing Dom Who Knows What’s Right for the Misguided Little Submissive”-itis to go around. Devon recognizes that Nicky’s submissive, that he’s deeply masochistic, that he’s utterly fucked up. And he knows just what Nicky needs. Of course. (Honestly, just once, I’d like to read a book with a fucked up Dom and a has-it-together sub who saves him/her.) But if that’s going to be the point of the book, it’s very well done. Brilliantly done, even.

Devon takes care of Nicky. He knows what Nicky needs and he gives it to him. And as physically excruciating as their play can be, both for them and for the reader, depending on the reader’s squick levels, it’s possible to see Devon’s care for Nicky all the way through the book.

As an example of the physical and emotional intensity of the book:

Devon retrieved his crop. He wasn’t usually such a one-toy man, but he needed precision tonight without too much bite. He thwapped it lightly against Nicky’s testicles. Stretched and weighted as they were, even a light touch was painful; Nicky grunted, stumbled, fell. The rigging caught him, and he scrambled back to his feet and forced his limbs back to their straining stance. Devon rewarded this by striking Nicky’s nuts again, upping the force a bit. Perhaps expecting it this time, Nicky kept his feet.

“Now, I do believe we were having a conversation. Tell me what I’m doing.”

Another strike. Nicky gasped.

“You’re cropping my nuts, sir.” Again, and Nicky lifted one foot but quickly put it back, gasping out, “Fuck, it hurts.”

Devon knelt down to add a second weight to the leather cord, stretching Nicky’s sack a little more. He let it go carefully, stroking one sweat-damp thigh as he released the weight. Nicky’s whimper went straight to Devon’s cock, but he ignored it. Right now, his boy demanded all his focus.

Devon picked up the crop again and rubbed it against the stretched skin of Nicky’s scrotum, then slapped it lightly, several times in succession, until Nicky danced away. “Hold still,” Devon warned, grabbing him by the rigging to keep him in place and resuming his tapping with the crop.

It was impressive that Nicky remembered to speak through this treatment. He gritted out, “Tapping my balls, sir,” through increasingly heavy breaths that became grunts, then cries: Devon’s cue to stop. Devon smoothed over the hot skin with his thumb, gave Nicky’s half-hard cock a few quick pumps.

“And I suppose you know what my next question’s going to be.”

Chest heaving, limbs quaking, Nicky said nothing as Devon worked his erection. Finally, he shook his head, looking contrite and a little frightened. A drop of sweat flew from his chin and plopped to the floor.

Good. Nicky was moving beyond the ability to parse every little thing, moving beyond control and into true subspace. Devon added another weight, and another.

“How do you feel, Nicky?”

“Hurts,” he panted.

“How you feel, Nicky, not how it feels. That’s five.”

This book is not for the faint of heart. It shows an intensely physical and deeply emotional relationship between a sadist and a masochist, between a Dom and a sub, that has some necessary suspension of disbelief (do people REALLY play that hard — especially emotionally — with each other right away?), but is otherwise beautiful, brilliant, and if you like that sort of this, deeply arousing.

Grade: B+

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SUBlime, on the other hand, is a series of vignettes that seems to lose sight of the fact that Devon and Nicky are people. In these stories, ever-in-control Dom and bratty sub are thrown in with various kinks (medical play, knives, cross-dressing, isolation, mummification). And while the individual stories stay true to Devon and Nicky’s personalities, and while the stories are arousing if it hits the reader’s kink buttons, and while they’re very well-written, Devon and Nicky are no longer actors with real lives. They’re just posable kink dolls you brought out whenever some nifty new kink caught your fancy.

Which is not to say they’re not fun, but I doubt very much that an A-list film actor can bring his A-list stage and TV actor boyfriend to a huge party, no matter how “private,” and parade him around in pony-play gear without having to worry about it getting out to the press. No matter how much you trust other people in the lifestyle, stardom is still fraught with blackmailers and paparazzi, and I just missed the real lives of Devon and Nicky amidst the kinkiness.

I feel like I’m hammering these stories for not being something they never tried to be, and I REALLY hate it when people do that. I *think* they were written first, precisely AS wankable shorts, and Master Class was written to show how Devon and Nicky got together. But however they were written, they were published as a stand-alone story and some sequel shorts, so that’s how I read them. And with that in mind, the posable kink doll thing bothered me, as much as I enjoyed the individual stories themselves. They were more erotica than romance. Brilliantly GOOD erotica, with each short having an emotional arc of its own, which is SO important, but erotica, not romance, nonetheless. As erotica, I’d give it another B+. But as romance:

Grade: C+

Best regards,
-Sarah

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In the teaser for your book, Still Hot for You, your publisher Lyrical Press, describes it thusly:

Want to get your man talking?  Give him booty!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. And Shay LaCosta is pretty desperate. She’s wrecked her blissful marriage of five years by demanding she and her husband [...]]]> Dear Ms. Escalera,

In the teaser for your book, Still Hot for You, your publisher Lyrical Press, describes it thusly:

Want to get your man talking?  Give him booty!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. And Shay LaCosta is pretty desperate. She’s wrecked her blissful marriage of five years by demanding she and her husband Dylan have a baby. What the hell was she thinking? She knows she was wrong and she’s ready to set things right, if only Dylan will let her. Bet he can’t shun her Booty Camp offer: delicious, white-hot sex in exchange for what’s going on inside his brain.

My curiosity was peaked. I wondered if perhaps you’d offer up an interesting tale of a couple dealing with the stress of trying to have a baby or with the stress that comes when, in a committed relationship, one person’s vision for a shared future isn’t the same as the other’s. I should have paid more attention to the fact that your blurb used the word “booty” twice in less than two paragraphs. Your book is mostly about the varied ways Shay and Dylan have sex in their upscale house. It wasn’t very interesting or, to me, erotic.

I, like you (according to your biography), am married with kids. Like your heroine, Shay, I was once twenty-nine and hell-bent on having a baby. I mention my own experience because I found Shay’s desire to have a baby pretty normal. I think many couples, after several years together, do begin to think about having kids. (About 75% of American women have had at least one child.)  And let’s be honest, the older a woman is, the less easy it is for her to conceive. (Fertility starts to decline for women from about the age of 30, dropping down more steeply from the age of 35.)  So, to me, Shay’s desire seemed pretty sane.

That’s not to say I didn’t empathize with Dylan’s lack of interest in a baby. He’s dug himself out of poverty, works really hard, and isn’t sure he’s financially ready to take on the responsibility of a child. Kids are expensive—in 2011, the average cost for raising a kid in the USA from birth to 18 (this excludes college) was just under $200,000. Having a baby is a life changer.

Dylan’s and Shay’s predicament is one that many couples (of all stripes) face. I wish you’d written more about it. Frankly, I couldn’t understand why Shay suddenly decides she’s crazy to want to get pregnant. When your book begins, Shay and Dylan are almost completely estranged. They don’t talk, haven’t had sex in five months, and each thinks the other may be ready to call it quits. Apparently, Shay had gotten angry at Dylan because he wouldn’t back her baby plans and told him to stay the hell away from her. OK. That’s a fight I can see—I couldn’t, however, see why he’d actually done it for five months or why she’d let him. The two love each other, are super hot for each other, and yet somehow, none of that is in play when the novel begins.

Then, Shay, after an erotic dream about her first kiss with Dylan, decides Booty Camp—a planned week of seduction—is just the thing her marriage needs to get the, um, channels open again in her marriage. She starts by wearing a see through tank top and cutoffs to greet Dylan when he comes home that night, serves him a home-cooked meal on their nice china, and after “slicking her tongue across that full bottom lip, she tormented him with the sexiest I-want-you eyes he’d ever seen,” and asks him to jump her bones. Which he is beyond thrilled to do.

You don’t describe their make-up sex or the conversation they had after it.  Had they talked about all the sex and conversation they haven’t been having? Or did they just shag in silence? I was again lost.

Over the next week, Shay keeps up her seduction campaign; the two have sex in the shower, hot tub, in bed, and on the kitchen counter. It’s clear they live in a very nice home—Shay’s got a good job with a banking company; Dylan’s construction business is going well—and, I have to say, all the descriptions of their home’s accoutrements distracted me from their mildly-hot sex. It’s hard to take seriously a sex scene set in “Their deluxe kitchen” which “flickered with amber candlelight that danced off the stainless steel appliances.”

By the end of your brief novel (my pdf was 78 pages long), Shay and Dylan have had a few short talks about the baby thing. Dylan has acknowledged he’s kinda crazy about money (he hates that Shay’s wealthy dad has always made him feel professionally and financially inadequate) and that, at some point, a baby or few would be fine. Shay has decided she’s unwilling to give up working yet and, given that she wants to be a stay-at-home mom for at the least her children’s early years, she’s not interested getting pregnant at this point in her life. The two now have the same vague family plan and, thanks to all that booty and those few chats, are again wonderfully connected emotionally and sexually.

If there’s a lesson in your book, it certainly isn’t that solving tough issues in a marriage takes work. What I got out of your book was that hot sex can help couples come together (in more ways than one.) And that’s totally true. But more booty isn’t, even with a man as well-built as Dylan, a magic wand. Figuring out how to balance work and family and struggling with the issues around fertility are challenges that need more than coitus, cunnilingus, and a few chats. It irked me you raised such serious issues and then dismissed them so casually.

Your book is not all bad, however. There are elements that are well-done. You do a great job of making your characters distinctive—I really liked Dylan’s brother, cousin and aunt and could visualize the three of them, as well as Dylan and Shay clearly. You made Dylan’s love for Shay very believable—almost more so than hers which seemed to be substantially fueled by how sexy she finds him. You write cogently and clearly about Dylan’s and Shay’s jobs—I could see how they spent their time at work and why they loved what they did. Lastly, I enjoyed your enthusiasm for Shay’s and Dylan’s sexy marriage. So often romance novels have all the hotness happening before a couple weds—it was nice to see matrimony as a venue for spicy sex.

I would suggest, however, that next time you pen a tale of true love, you pay a bit more attention to the details of your prose. I’d have liked your writing more had you expanded your vocabulary—you use the same words over and over—and had you paid more attention to consistency. (Characters’ placements, dress, and moods were often discontinuous.)

You write, in a blurb at the end of your book, you hope readers will go to your website and find more “Stories that will hopefully touch your emotions, ignite your passion, infuse you with the belief that true love conquers all.”  Still Hot for You did none of those things for me. It did however remind me that steamy sex in marriage is a damn good thing.

Sincerely,

Dabney

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I first encountered your debut novel on NetGalley. I admit I’ve always been fond of historical YA, especially if there’s a paranormal flavor. Your book sounded like the ticket. It was a nice change of pace from the urban fantasies and dystopians overwhelming the genre right now. The unique setting was just [...]]]> Dear Ms. Bridges,

I first encountered your debut novel on NetGalley. I admit I’ve always been fond of historical YA, especially if there’s a paranormal flavor. Your book sounded like the ticket. It was a nice change of pace from the urban fantasies and dystopians overwhelming the genre right now. The unique setting was just icing on the cake.

Katerina Alexandrovna is a young aristocrat in late 19th century Russia. She’s expected to marry rich and marry well and thus, is attending finishing school. The very idea is sheer torture to her. She hates the balls, which she considers to be meat markets. In fact, she’d much rather spend her time studying medical textbooks. Katerina dreams of becoming a doctor even though the profession is considered absolutely out of the question for a woman. Especially a noble one, because what suitable husband would allow his bride to do something so pedestrian as treat the sick and poor?

But Katerina has one little secret: she can raise the dead. Some people would consider it a gift. She thinks it’s a curse and has kept her ability hidden from everyone. After all, it’s abnormal and she doesn’t want to be viewed as a monster. Unfortunately, her gift is discovered and soon Katerina finds herself embroiled in a political conflict between the supernatural forces that rule Russia.

I really enjoyed Katerina as a protagonist, but I admit I have a weakness for heroines who love science. I thought it was a good choice, however, given that this time period in Russia is one characterized by superstition and folk belief. Katerina’s mother depends on her tarot cards and routinely holds séances. In fact, it was at one of these séances that Katerina accidentally discovered that she was a necromancer. But she loves science and the advances in modern medicine. There’s already conflict between her career aspirations and her class. To toss in her ability, which drags her back into old world beliefs is great.

One thing I did have a little trouble following was how the supernatural world overlapped with the Russian court. In this world, the Light and Dark faerie courts battle it out in a political dance of power. Some families are aligned with the Light Court (like the tsar) and others are aligned with the Dark Court. Katerina is, I believe, aligned with the Dark Court due to her family’s social circles. It’d make sense considering the fact that she is a necromancer. But on top of that, there are werewolves (I thought it fairly obvious who the werewolves were) and vampires. So many different kinds of vampires, I lost track of who was important, how, and why. At times, it was a little tough to figure out which characters were allies based on their family ties and which were enemies based on their supernatural ones.

I thought the plotline involving Katerina trying to find a way out of the Montenegro family’s schemes was interesting. After all, who wants to become the sacrifice to make a new living vampire? Certainly not me. On the other hand, I thought the romantic subplot was poorly executed. It was fairly obvious who Katerina would ultimately fall in love with, given the fact that one of the potential suitors is Evil with a capital E. But even though I knew and expected it, I needed something more to go on. It seemed like Katerina went from arguing with and disliking him to realizing she was madly in love in a snap. That transition phase between the two states didn’t entirely come through, in my opinion.

While the ending was a little too heavy-handed in setting up the sequel, I really enjoyed Katerina as a heroine. I’m a big fan of characters that love their family and do everything to protect them, even if it’s a mistake by our standards. I’m interested to see how future books balance her career aspirations, burgeoning powers, and new obligations so I’m definitely on-board for the continuation. B-

My regards,

Jia

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I read book one in the series and didn’t love it so I skipped the second, but I think you may have hauled me back into the fold with this one. The two characters are at daggers drawn (to use an old fashioned phrase) because the hero is destined to be a [...]]]> Dear Ms. Wright:

I read book one in the series and didn’t love it so I skipped the second, but I think you may have hauled me back into the fold with this one. The two characters are at daggers drawn (to use an old fashioned phrase) because the hero is destined to be a Breed Male which means he can have no mate. The heroine has no mate either but has faked a mate sign through a tattoo of sorts with another vampire who had lost his true mate.

There is a lot going on here with mutores (shapeshifting vampires), lost mates, Breed Males, veannas, and so forth. Rant on – I think that there are a number of made up words that you use to imbue ambience but seem completely unnecessary. This isn’t a problem unique to your book but an epidemic in paranormal romances. For instance, why virgini for virgin but not principessa instead of princess. Or why use flash to describe vampires moving from one location to another instantly instead of flashini or some made up noun for any other random noun. It’s one thing to use made up terms to describe nouns/verbs that are specific to the world that you are creating. That seems like real worldbuilding. It’s another thing to use special made up terms for random nouns or verbs that you pick and choose. That seems like hokey and ineffective worldbuilding. – Rant off.

Back to the book. Bronwyn Kettler, a genetic scientist studying the Breeding Male phenomenon, accidentally fed from Lucian Roman but that one bite has bound her too him more securely than any human bonds. “In consuming his blood she had consumed his very soul and now—every day, every moment he existed, she moved inside him, her unending hunger deafening as she searched and slithered through his veins, circled his muscles, squeezed until his brain threatened to explode.” Neither of them want this which is what makes this mate book different. Bronwyn intends to proceed with the Veracou, a binding ceremony with another vampire. Lucien has only two choices, to “fuck her or kill her.” Sex with Bronwyn would turn Lucian into a “Breeding Male” which is essentially a vampire who does nothing but rut “a rutting animal with no conscience, no control, only a hunger to claim.” Killing her, well, obviously, that’s not a solution either. Regardless of the Sophie’s Choice presented, Lucian’s blood drives him to essentially stalk Bronwyn.

Brownyn feels Lucian too and has chosen to go through with the Veracou in hopes that the mating ceremony with another vampire will break the compulsion and need she has for Lucian. Yet the Veracou with her good friend, Synjon Wise, does not have the desired effect. Synjon goes into the bonding ceremony willingly because his heart died when his true mate’s life was extinguished.

The stakes are sufficiently high for me from the very opening of the book. When the book focuses on this struggle to not mate, it is at its best. The emotion rings true and is further heightened when Bronwyn and Lucian begin to have tender feelings toward each other and want to consummate their relationship but cannot because of the threat of Lucian turning into a Breeding Male. Knowing that the story ends happily diminishes some of the tension but what keeps the pages turning is guessing what will solve the Breeding Male problem. Sadly, I felt that the answer was a cop out, very Andromeda Strain, if you will.

Where the book falls off the rails is its tendency toward overdramatization, even though that is another hallmark of PNR. I do feel that there is a need to either go big or go home in paranormals, but sometimes it can be taken too far. The description of Synjon is a perfect example.

. Nicknamed the ghost, the only vampire paven to ever serve as both an elite Special Forces officer in his native Britain and as an American Navy SEAL regarded his current existence as a spy, an assassin, and a bounty hunter for the Eternal Order as bloody perfection

It is not enough for Synjon Wise (which somehow changed into Samwise in my head) to excel in country’s elite military arm, but two country’s. Why stop at two? Why not have him be part of every elite military arm? What kind of slacker is he?

Another part of the story focuses on Cruen, a mad vampire scientist who has been creating mutores. (If this reminds people of Lara Adrian’s stories, it did me as well). Cruen abduct Bronwyn in order to lure Lucian to him. The two will breed and Cruen will embark on the next step of his King of the World plan.

Despite the villain, the questionable made up word choice, and unnecessary over the top descriptions, I found the story angsty and compelling with just the right amount of humor. Lucian and Synjon’s testosterone (or testesteroni?) driven fights made me smirk. Don’t we all love a good alpha male throw down? (I always envision them wrestling in jello and accidentally touching each other, don’t you?)

“Blood!” Lucian said the word, rising from his seat and pointing at Synjon.

“What the hell are you doing?” Synjon asked. Shooting his gaze around the room, he demanded, “What the hell is he doing?”

Nicholas shrugged. “It’s not always clear.”

“You and Bronwyn have mated,” Lucian said, his tone threaded with disgust. “Have had your Veracou.”

“Yes. Do you have a point, or are you just reminding yourself that I am Bron’s mate?”

Lucian ignored the barb. “You should be able to find her, track her, know where her blood is. Isn’t that right, Alexander?”

Alexander nodded, his eyes suddenly graying over with thought. “It is.”

“There’s no need for any of this,” Lucian said, his voice rising, his fangs dropping. “Let’s go. Let’s go and get her.”

But Synjon didn’t move. “Stay where you are, Frosty. I haven’t taken her blood. She was nicked from me before we could have our consummation, both in blood and in body.”

Despite the problems, I was engaged the entire time and I certainly want to read more about poor Synjon and the mutores. The story was very sexy and that aspect of the book worked well. New readers likely could start with this entry into the series. I didn’t read book two and I barely recall book one. While “Eternal Captive” doesn’t break new ground, the emotional strength of the story elevated this above other paranormals I’ve read of late. C+

Best regards,

Jane

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Best regards.

Anyone who listens to the podcasts will know that I (and Sarah Wendell) are huge fans of werewolf books, particularly those that involve a pack dynamic. I was so excited to read this story. The promotional materials refers to the heroine being an Alpha and a “strong leader.”  Apparently being a strong [...]]]> Dear Ms. Reus:

Anyone who listens to the podcasts will know that I (and Sarah Wendell) are huge fans of werewolf books, particularly those that involve a pack dynamic. I was so excited to read this story. The promotional materials refers to the heroine being an Alpha and a “strong leader.”  Apparently being a strong female alpha means finding the right male warrior alpha to take care of yourself and your packmates because you are too weak in all areas to take care of yourself.

Alpha Instinct is about this poor pack of she wolves who are left alone after all the men (and pregnant women) in the pack were poisoned. Connor Armstrong, a shifter from the heroine’s past returns with a new pack of his own, all warrior caste and alpha males to join with the women’s pack because the women can’t protect themselves. Not only can the she wolves not defend themselves, but they CANNOT EVEN PROVIDE FOR THEMSELVES.  Yes, this set the table for the entire book.

“At least we know him and his brother, and if the Councili has officially recognized them it means they have the financial wherewithal to support all of us”

This is said by the “strong” female warrior to her cousin.  *weeps* They can’t even financially support themselves, you guys. Not only can the chicks not protect themselves nor can they provide for themselves, they are also the last to know if they are “mates.”

She was a smart-ass. Absolutely perfect. And he was absolutely screwed, because she was human. Matings between shifters and humans weren’t exactly accepted in all circles. On either side. For all he knew, she hated his kind anyway. His inner wolf didn’t care, though. It recognized her on a primal level. When he’d been barely seven, he’d asked his father how he’d known his mother was his intended mate. His father’s green eyes had sparkled as he’d explained that some shifters knew immediately but most didn’t. And males almost always knew before females did.

The women were so dense, apparently not being able to tell that the males were wanting to have sex with them. I guess this is consistent with the portrayal of the women not being able to even financially care for themselves.

After he’d gotten back from the bank, he’d been putting out fires between his guys and Ana’s packmates. Small, unavoidable spats that were based more on sexual frustration than anything else. The females didn’t seem to realize it, but he could see it clearly. Most of his guys had been lone shifters, roaming the globe for decades or longer until he and his brother had convinced them to settle down. Now that they were on a ranch full of single, beautiful wolves, they wanted to mate in a bad way. Their most primal instincts were kicking in and wanted release.

and

She stared at him, waiting and wanting him to do something to ease the ache she felt inside. She briefly thought about asking him why he’d left, but bit the question back. Maybe there had been someone else. That thought stung impossibly deep and she didn’t want to hear the answer. If she pushed harder and he told her there had been another female . . . that would be worse than not knowing. With his hard length pressing against her abdomen and distracting the hell out of her, it was hard to think of anything other than what he would look like naked. Yes, she wanted to keep some control, but she was also a female and wanted him to want her as much as she did him.

So in sum females don’t know about sexual tension. And because she was female she wants to be wanted. Unlike males.

The basic plot in this book is that  Analena Cordona is the head of her pack, a pack that has had all its male members killed.  Ana and her pack live on a ranch but recently have been subject to increasing vandalism from a male alpha who wants Ana and her girls to assimilate into his pack.  Ana’s solution is to find another alpha male group who is more amenable than her neighbor Taggart.  Ana is an alpha wolf but she isn’t strong enough to defeat Taggart (and apparently she isn’t a good enough fighter to take down someone who has more strength than her).

Taggart plays a classic villain character.  A trill of the keyboard should accompany his every entrance on stage.  He grabs his crotch in the first scene:  ”He shrugged and had the nerve to grab himself. ‘I wanted the exercise. Besides, you should get to see what’s going to be yours soon.’”  He threatens violence even though we are told Pack violence against female wolves was rare.  He calls her a bitch (is that really an insult to a werewolf?) and turns tail and runs when he spots a stronger alpha male.

Connor Armstrong appears with his brother Liam and a whole host of alpha males ready to defend Ana’s pack and mate with them.  When Conor had disappeared from Ana’s life, she wondered why. In keeping with the obvious and unoriginal nature of the story, it was because Ana’s father didn’t think he was a fit mate for Ana and so Connor ran off.  He’s back and with a pack of his own, he has something to offer because while Ana and three of her cousins and sisters are alphas they are not Alphas.

Even the thought of one of her sisters at his mercy made her see red. “We might be alphas,” She gestured to the four of them at the table, “but none of us are Alphas and certainly not of the warrior class.”

All true Alphas were also warriors, though warriors weren’t always Alphas. They were just damn good fighters. Warrior shifters were so different from the rest of the population. Bigger in human and shifted form, they seemed to be born with slightly different DNA, even from their shifter counterparts. They embraced their animal side a lot more than their human one. It’s what made them the protectors of the rest of their kind. Ana might hate it and crave complete independence from outsiders, but she wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t an Alpha or a warrior, and if it came down to it, it was better to embrace someone like Connor as pack Alpha than an unknown.

I guess in this world only the men are born with a warrior shifter gene? She’s only an alpha, lowercase “a” as are all her fellow she wolves. In sum, the worldbuilding includes alphas, Alphas, Warrior caste Alphas, and betas. There is additional external tension provided by vamps and weres coming out  of hiding about 40 years ago.  They are viewed with suspicion by the human populace. This is supposed to add a layer of external tension by bringing the human police to their doorstep for perceived problems but instead it read like a retread of other paranormal worlds.

I didn’t find the world building to be all that consistent either. Ana complains that the North American Council won’t pay attention to their little tribe of female wolves, but obviously the female wolves were important enough to have two Alphas ready to go to battle over them. If female wolves were important yet viewed as weak and ineffective (which they were), then it made sense that the North American Council would award them to some Pack that they wanted to elevate in power instead of leaving them to flounder and possibly die out.

Ana and Connor renew their past acquaintance, fight off the bad guys, and prepare for all the girls to be nicely matched up with the boys.   The world building was  uninspired.  There was no tension, either suspenseful, emotional, or sexual, and the depiction of these poor little she wolves who couldn’t even financially care for themselves was depressing.  D

Best regards,

Jane

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One of the first AAR DIK books I ever read was one of yours: “Walking After Midnight.” Now here I am, years later, reading another “walking” book that involves a hero and heroine on the run and trying to stay alive. My questions for myself as I started the book were will [...]]]> Dear Ms. Robards:

One of the first AAR DIK books I ever read was one of yours: “Walking After Midnight.” Now here I am, years later, reading another “walking” book that involves a hero and heroine on the run and trying to stay alive. My questions for myself as I started the book were will the romance work, will the suspense work and how will I feel about the thief hero when all is said and done. The answers are yes, partly, and ultimately it’s a cop out.

“For years after witnessing the murder of her mother, Micayla “Mick” Lange has been forced to relive the horrific events of her dreams, often causing her to sleepwalk. Now a Detroit cop, and stinging from a recent breakup, Mick has arrived early to housesit during the holidays for the wealthy father of her longtime best friend. When she catches Jason Davis in the act of stealing a large sum from the home safe, Mick finds herself embroiled in a crime so explosive it could cost both of them their lives. Although their attraction to each other is palpable, as natural adversaries their only common ground is mutual distrust – and the fact that the same killers are now hunting them both. Sparks fly and passions flare as Mick and Jason run for their lives, knowing that teaming up is the only chance they have to survive.”

The book gets off to a quick start with a throw down that shows Mick and Jason just how evenly matched they are. Mick might be littler but she can put a hurting on anyone stupid enough to discount her in a fight. But when proof of a horrific crime stares her in the face and she realizes that her knowledge is known, she has no choice but to flee with this crook she just caught red handed. This is one of the better set ups that forces the bickering hero and heroine on the road together that I’ve read. In a flash, Mick’s whole world is flipped and it’s she who does the most to get them away from the henchmen – something that I truly enjoyed. She doesn’t want to do this but once she makes up her mind, she’s the one leading the charge. I did wonder how she’d managed to remain in total denial about the true nature of the main villain, though. That must have taken some mental hoop jumping of major proportions.

The race away from the killers is one of the best parts of the book. There’s enough trash talking to keep the tension between Mick and Jason wound tight plus a little sexual frisson which – thank God – doesn’t lead to inappropriately timed boinking. Several thugs are still after them, forcing our lead characters through the bitterly cold, snowy night, just barely missing being caught time and again. But caught I knew they’d eventually have to be and it’s done realistically and due to the fact that Mick is a cop with ingrained instincts. Makes sense. Yet, I also think most people will see the twist coming that brings Mick and Jason into the hands of the baddies.

That entire scene is cool and I sat riveted to see how they’d escape from handcuffs, several men who weren’t going to hesitate to kill them, and through a steel reinforced door. Jason’s calm under pressure is a joy to see and his humor in the setting of a large percentage of the DPD being hot on their tails needles Mick in a way that had me laughing.

Now, this is the point where the suspense stuff begins to go pear shaped. I’m willing to go along with how you get these two out of Detroit. I can also accept the sweet little set up Jason and his cronies have going. And the explosion of Happy Boinking between Jason and Mick is inevitable given the sparks that are being struck between them. I can also trust Jason’s realization of how much Mick means to him and not just because of the hot lovin’. She’s more than that to him and given the life or death situations that they’ve gotten into and out of, I think they know each other and their feelings pretty well by this time. But…but…I did some serious eye rolling from here on out about the suspense.

The baddies had to make a return if only because they hadn’t been dealt with. Suddenly Mick lying to Jason about what she did was alright. And given Jason’s history – he only robs from crooks so that makes it all okay – he still has contacts in a Big Government Agency who are deliriously happy to help them out when it’s discovered that Mick is being blackmailed by the killers to return to Detroit – in a way that makes me wonder why none of these smart people realized it was a given it would happen this way. And everything that could go wrong does go wrong yet – booyah! – it’s Mick who mainly saves the day.

I gotta say that I have serious doubts about the rainbow happy ending. No one is going to discover where Jason lives by following him or – later – Mick back to the Bat Cave? No associates of the villain will make trouble for the rest of Mick’s family? She’s going to be okay living with a thief who, at the end of the day, has no plans to quit? But, that’s right, he’s a Disney thief who only steals from crooks so I guess she can accept that. I suppose she won’t be tied up for ages taking part in the trial of the villain or his minions either. It’s off to Jason’s sunny little hideout to put cracks in the wall plaster and shock the iguana.

After how good lots of the previous parts of the book are I hated to see it all go wonky at the end. Sigh.

~Jayne

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Dear E.L. James,

So I’m pretty much in the minority when it comes to this book as I hated it.

Fifty Shades [...]]]> This review is being posted in lieu of a morning opinion piece because it is an opinion piece of sorts and because, well, it is verbose. So you get three reviews today. Yay!

Dear E.L. James,

So I’m pretty much in the minority when it comes to this book as I hated it.

Fifty Shades of Grey came to my attention during a Twitter conversation. I was intrigued by the fact that the book was apparently once a Twilight fan fiction piece entitled Master of the Universe and featured a BDSM relationship between the main protagonists. I was told that there was a high level of WTFery but I ignored this warning. I’m usually a fan of WTFery. If I was not a fan of WTFery, I would not have enjoyed afternoon soap operas for most of my teen years. After all, WTFery is simply the absurd taken to new heights of, well, of absurdity. But this was not WTF in an absurd, adorable way. It was infuriating. I wanted to scratch my eyes out or maybe the characters’. I’m not really sure. At one point, I had to start drinking heavily. But even gin didn’t dull the fury.

In writing this, I’ve been thinking of alternate titles, something that plays on the title of the book, what it is about, and how I feel about it. Something succinct like: “50 Shades of Grey, 7 Shades of Scarlet, & 372 Pages of Dumb.” Or maybe: “120 Days of Boredom.”  What about: “The Story of Oh . . . My!” Perhaps, “Where There’s a Will, There’s an Ellipsis” or “The Whiner, the Witch, and the Wanker”? No, I’ve got it: “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” but I wouldn’t want to associate X-Ray Spex with this book. So let’s call this after my favorite safe word: Julie Andrews!

I should state, for the record, that I was did not buy this book. I was lent it and I am very grateful to that person.  Yes, I am very grateful despite the fact that I ended up loathing this book. So, what’s it all about?

Anastasia Steele is on the cusp of graduating from Washington State University. Before she can do that, though, she’s got to get through finals, a task which would be made easier if she didn’t have to drive up to Seattle to interview some billionaire named Christian Grey for the student newspaper. But she does have to, even though she isn’t technically on the student paper. Her BFF Kate is sick, and being sick she is incapable of driving the three hours or conducting the interview. So Anastasia does it instead. It’s a last minute thing and honestly, she’s just not prepared for it (or for anything in life, really, but we’ll get to that). She doesn’t know anything about Christian Grey. She doesn’t know how old he is or what he does. All she knows is that he’s rich and he donates to the university.

Whatever she expected, it wasn’t the reality of Christian Grey. He’s young, for one, and he’s intense, really intense. Anastasia knows that she’s no match for him looks-wise, so it baffles her when he starts pursuing her: showing up at her work, sending her a first-edition of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, rescuing her from a drunken evening out. She can hardly believe her luck when this perfect man whisks her away to his penthouse in Seattle. Only Christian Grey has a dark secret. No, he isn’t a vampire or a spy or Batman. He’s kinky. He’s into BDSM. He likes to whip and chain it. GASP!

That’s pretty much the plot. Ignorant young woman with virginity still intact and a case of low self-esteem meets a controlling, manipulative, hot, young billionaire who identifies as a dominant in order to justify the fact that he’s a paternalistic control freak. Yay! Oh, yay! It’s just such an original and imaginative take on heterosexual relationships, don’t you think? It really offers some new insight into sexuality and power.

I am, of course, being sarcastic. Fifty Shades of Grey does the exact opposite. Not only does it perpetuate damaging untruths about BDSM as a sexuality and a sexual identity, it also manages to do so in the most clichéd and hackneyed way possible. It is a thoroughly uninteresting book. The characters are as flat as a thing can be without entering the first dimension. The plot has only a single conflict: that Christian is BDSM identified and Anastasia is vanilla. E.L. James has managed to take the worst aspects of Twilight, the worst elements of a Mills & Boon circa 1977, and the worst of BDSM erotica and combine them into one glorious whole (or should that be hole?). She deploys the tropes and clichés with a heavy hand—tropes and clichés that, to be fair, are everywhere in romance. But it is the thoughtless use of these clichés that makes them problematic for me. And this is coming from a person who has just written and presented an academic paper defending the cliché and clichéd language!

Worse, the prose itself is stuttering and robotic. Sentences are rendered in a childish sing-song structure (subject verb predicate) and overwhelmingly they are in the active voice. Moreover, the prose beats you over the head with its intended meaning. James clearly doesn’t trust her readers to pick up on nuance, to infer traits and qualities from the characters dialogue and interactions, or to remember events from mere paragraphs prior (God knows Anastasia doesn’t). Instead, she spends a great deal of timing telling us all sorts of things about Anastasia and Christian but somehow manages to demonstrate the exact opposite.

What I hated about this book are certainly issues and problems that I have disliked in other novels. However, as I said above, by separating the clichés from the original forms and contexts (particularly in the case of Twilight), James loses the subtlety that made these problematic clichés at the very least tolerable in their other contexts. For instance, in Elizabeth Hoyt’s Wicked Intentions the hero’s desire for kinky sex is “cured” by his relationship with the heroine. However, the central conflict of that book does not revolve around the hero’s sexual identity nor does the heroine find it any way monstrous. As such, I was able to overlook it enough to enjoy the rest of the novel. That simply was not the case for me in Fifty Shades of Grey.

In order to address the multitude of problems in the narrative, I have divided the review into three sections. I have not written a thesis statement, which I’m sure will disappoint Maggie Stiefvater. C’est la vie! We can’t always get what we want. I certainly didn’t whilst reading this book.

Prose

The prose is dull, but it isn’t unreadable. It’s competent. The best thing I can say about it is that vast majority of sentences are grammatical. More problematically was what I shall call the rhythm of the prose. Like Gertrude Stein, I believe the sentence is the basic building block of narrative. The sentences in this book did not help me enter the world of the story. They were an obstruction. A series of pedestrian, pre-chewed sentences only slightly more sophisticated than the ones found in my 2^nd grade reader:

The drive to the heliport is short and, before I know it, we arrive. I wonder where the fabled helicopter might be. We’re in a built-up area of the city and even I know helicopters need space to take off and land [Reviewer’s Note: No. They don’t. That’s their advantage over the plane!] Taylor parks, climbs out, and opens my car door. Christian is beside me in an instant and takes my hand again.  (p. 63) Kindle Edition.

By pre-chewed, what I mean is that every sentence, every piece of dialogue is exactly the sort of thing you’d expect in a book like this. Like in a James Cameron movie where every character says exactly what such a character always says at such a moment. It is uniformly predictable and because it is uniformly predictable it doesn’t convey any subtle or nuanced meaning to the story. Its uniformity on a sentence level shapes the superficiality of the rest of the book—the plot, the characters, and the underlying themes. This is what I mean by clichéd.

The prose is further made awful by James’ weird and arbitrary use of the italics. Italics are used to emphasize certain words or phrases. They are also used, on occasion, as a way of setting off a character’s thoughts. By using the italics all the time, which she does, the emphasis loses all meaning and force. Quite frankly, the italics make Anastasia look dumb—not that she needs any help with that. They create a constant sense of Anastasia as a person easily startled, like someone suffering from short term memory loss who forgets she just saw you ten seconds ago and then jumps when she sees you again. It’s fucking ridiculous. For example:

“I assume you’re not on the pill.”

What! Shit.

“I didn’t think so.” He opens the top drawer of the chest and removes a packet of condoms [Reviewer’s note: the pill doesn’t protect from STDs, yo!]. He gazes at me intently.

“Be prepared,” he murmurs. “Do you want the blinds drawn?”

“I don’t mind.” I whisper. “I thought you didn’t let anyone sleep in your bed.”

“Who says we’re going to sleep?” he murmurs softly.

“Oh.” Holy hell.

He strolls slowly toward me. Confident, sexy, eyes blazing, and my heart begins to pound. My blood’s pumping around my body. Desire, thick and hot, pools in my belly. He stands in front of me, staring down into my eyes. He’s so freaking hot. (p. 82).

Why are these in italics? What is the purpose of the emphasis? What does it tell us that the context doesn’t? That the words themselves don’t? We don’t need them if they are just supposed to be setting off Anastasia’s thoughts because the story is told in the first person and we are already occupying her headspace. We don’t need to be told that this is what she is thinking via italics. They emphasize nothing. And at one point, dialogue coming from another room is in italics (Location 2842 of 10541). So to me, there is no rhyme or reason for this usage. It just takes the reader out of the story. Let’s not even get into the plethora of ellipses (oh my god . . . the ellipses!).

A final, but by no means last, word on the prose is the use of the word subconscious. The subconscious plays a large role in Anastasia’s life. Almost as large as her inner goddess, which I can only assume is some kind of euphemism for vagina. The subconscious is constantly berating and admonishing her. The problem is that this is not what the subconscious does. That’s what the conscience does or the superego, if you are going to be Freudian about it. You are not actually consciously aware of the subconscious because it is sub conscious; it is below the level of consciousness. This may seem like mean-spirited nitpicking, but it isn’t a singular instance of wrong usage. It is a constant refrain within the book. Every time the subconscious spoke, I thought to myself: No. Wrong. No.

Because the prose is so weak, it ends up highlighting and accentuating the book’s other weaknesses, which are as follows:

Plot/Character

The plot in this book is the characters. And that’s the problem. There is no other conflict or story other than the fact that Anastasia wants a normal relationship and Christian can’t give her one. He gives it the old school try, I’ll tell you that. Theoretically, this could be a really interesting story. What happens to a kinky person when/if they fall in love with someone who is vanilla? Is it bound (ha!) to be a doomed relationship? Or is there a way to make it work for both people? There’s a good story there. That’s a good premise. Unfortunately, that is not the story in Fifty Shades.

Going in, I had heard rumors to the effect that Christian gets “cured” of his BDSM kink and to me it was fairly clear from the beginning that this is trajectory of the story. This because of the way the narration—that is Anastasia as the first person narrator—characterizes Christian’s kink and the presumption that the reader is going to or ought have her same perspective about BDSM. But let’s talk about Christian first.

Christian is an asshole of the first order. At the outset of the story, he employs the classic move of mind-fuckers and bad boyfriends everywhere, “Anastasia, I’m not a hearts and flowers kind of man, I don’t do romance. My tastes are very singular. You should steer clear of me” (p. 52). Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ooohhh god! What girl hasn’t heard a version of that before? Am I right, ladies? Regardless of what language it is uttered in, this is the first tip off that you are dealing with a manipulative fuck. But you know what? Let’s give credit where credit is due, Anastasia actually takes him at his word, something Christian never manages to do when it comes to her word. No, no. He just steamrolls right on over every one of her objections. But Anastasia doesn’t pursue him after he tells her this. No, he pursues her. He sends her a first edition. This is not the action of a man who wants a woman to stay away from him. When she calls him drunk to ask him why he would do that, he tracks her down and takes her back to his hotel. Nothing happens, but again, his actions say something different than his words. I would call him a stalker, but he doesn’t have that level of subtlety

The mind games really set the scene for when Christian takes Ana to Seattle where he has her sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement prior to revealing the fact that he’s a dom. There is so much wrong with this I don’t know where to begin. First, Anastasia has no effing clue what BDSM is. Second, she has no sexual experience. Third, the agreement says she can’t talk about this to anyone, which means that she cannot ask anyone bedsides Christian anything about BDSM. Thus, Christian gets to be the one who controls the interpretation of what it means to be a submissive. Does that not strike anyone else as abusive? This is such a violation of kink ethics, of ethics period.

Fine. Whatever. Let’s move on. So then, he hands her a contract. Surely you jest? I mean, dude. Just . . . wow! For god’s sake, he doesn’t even give her a chance to find out what BDSM is or whether or not she wants to pursue something with him. No. He just hands her a contract that’s basically structured to be a 24/7 Dominant/submissive relationship. I mean, I’m not kinky but it seems to me to be common friggin’ sense that you ought to at least play with someone, do a few scenes with a new partner before you go all 24/7! Let’s hire a U-Haul! Forevah, Babes! Not the mention the fact that he’s totally pressuring her to say yes immediately. Argh!

Anyhow, I shouldn’t have been surprised that Ana’s virginity would not stop him from just steamrolling right on over that issue and continuing with his plan to have her as his sub. Oh! And did I mention he blames her for not telling him she was a virgin. Douchewad! So then we get this romantic and touching scene:

“We’re going to rectify the situation right now.”

“What do you mean? What situation?”

“Your situation. Ana, I’m going to make love to you, now.”

“Oh.” The floor has fallen away. I’m a situation. I’m holding my breath.

“That’s if you want to, I mean, I don’t want to push my luck.”

“I thought you didn’t make love. I thought you fucked hard.” I swallow, my mouth suddenly dry.

He gives me a wicked grin, the effects of which travel all the way down there (p. 81)

Somebody call the producers of Jersey Shore, because it turns out The Situation is actually Anastasia Steele’s intact hymen. Yes, responsible sex at its finest. This attitude pretty much characterizes Christian throughout the novel. The only difference between Christian Grey and a Greek Tycoon is that Christian isn’t Greek, as far as I know. He also has more contracts. Other than that, his paternalism and general alpha-hole behavior may as well have been stripped from any number of Harlequin Presents, sans the nuanced characterizations or groveling scenes of penance.

Besides being the worst sort of alpha male, Christian’s personality can be summarized thus: spectacularly beautiful man who smirks a lot. There’s not a lot there. He’s pretty much a cipher, not so much enigmatic as empty.

Then there’s Anastasia Steele. She has shockingly little personality for a first person narrator. She’s vapid and dumb, so very, very dumb. She’s TSTL, but not because she chases down villains in London’s worst slums. No, but because she fails to register the blatantly obvious. Right after Christian tells her he’s kinky, we get this gem of an exchange:

My mouth drops open. Fuck hard! Holy shit, that sounds so… hot. But why are we looking at a playroom? I am mystified.

“You want to play on your Xbox?” I ask. He laughs, loudly.

“No, Anastasia, no Xbox, no Playstation. Come.” (p. 70)

Is this supposed to be cute? Endearing? If so, fail. It is one thing to be a virgin, it is another thing to be so flamingly, fantastically ignorant of the universe and the obvious. I mean, good god, Xbox?! Freaking Xbox?! (Note the use of italics, used to emphasize my disdain). Come on, woman!

I don’t have a problem with virgin heroines, because I don’t equate virginity with being a brain-dead ignoramus. Call me crazy, but I don’t think one needs to have had sex in order to be able to connect the dots in basic human interactions. James has Christian constantly praising Ana’s intelligence and bravery and cleverness, but everything Ana does renders these compliments into ironic, nay sarcastic statements. Every time something sexual is mentioned Ana blushes or flushes or gasps. Any time Christian tries to have an adult conversation with her about BDSM, she bites her lip and peeks out from under her hair like Princess Diana used to do at the paparazzi. Then he tells her he wants to fuck her. Ana’s entire attitude towards their relationship is immature and adolescent, while Christian’s is controlling and manipulative.

If only she were just dumb and easily embarrassed by sex, but no. Ana’s also judgmental and shallow. I think her attitude towards Christian is fairly well summarized in the following lines: “The problem is, I just want Christian, not all his… baggage – and right now he has a 747 hold’s worth of baggage” (p. 217). And later she says: “I’m in this fantasy apartment, having fantasy sex with my fantasy boyfriend. When the grim reality is he wants a special arrangement, though he’s said he’ll try more” (p. 269). The sheer immaturity of these statements is awe-inspiring. Ana doesn’t want Christian with all his baggage. She wants the fantasy, not the grim reality of the actual man. The fact that her adolescent crush on him is characterized as true love illustrates the underlying fuckwitted-ness of this book.

In an adult relationship we deal with the other person’s baggage, whatever that baggage is because everyone’s got it. When Ana talks about how she doesn’t have any examples except literary heroines for knowing how to deal with men, her fundamental misreading of relationships is revealed. She says, “My other references are all fictional: Elizabeth Bennet would be outraged, Jane Eyre too frightened, and Tess would succumb, just as I have” (p. 163). Ana seems to be under the misguided impression that Elizabeth was upset with Darcy for having baggage. That Jane was scared of Rochester’s baggage, which like most people he kept in the attic. But this is a terribly naïve reading of those books and the relationships they depict.

And this naïve attitude toward sex and romance is reiterated in the way that Ana repeatedly characterizes Christian as a monster, as depraved, as a nut-job, as scary, and as dangerous. At one point she says, “This man, whom I once thought of as a romantic hero, a brave shining white knight – or the dark knight as he said. He’s not a hero; he’s a man with serious, deep emotional flaws, and he’s dragging me into the dark. Can I not guide him into the light?” (p. 259). And that pretty much sums up the problem with Ana, Christian, and the plot. BDSM is something you do when you don’t know how to have a “real” relationship. Something you use when you don’t know what “real” love is. “Real” love being two flawless people with no baggage loving boinking. And that’s bullshit.

Spectacle

Oh BDSM! Up Yours! Kink serves three contradictory purposes within this story: it is a justification for Christian being an alphahole (He’s damaged! He’s dominant! He doesn’t know what real love is!). It is the erotic titillation and tension in the sex scenes—which, FYI, are so boring they could have acted as general anesthesia. I could have had a tooth drilled during and not realized it. And it is the obstacle or conflict the hero and heroine must overcome in order to be together.

The narrative wants to occupy a position where we get to take the moral high ground sexually speaking but at the same time get to be thrilled by the eroticism of BDSM. It wants us to think of Christian’s BDSM as something that’s wrong with him, a symptom of his inner, childhood demons. But it also wants us to get off on it. Like teenage girls giggling over pictures of penises, it seems to say of BDSM, “Tee he he he! That’s so gross!” But secretly loves the titillation it gets from viewing the forbidden.

Nowhere is this made clearer than in the depiction of Mrs. Robinson. Mrs. Robinson is the name Ana gives to the older femdomme who introduced Christian to BDSM when he was but fifteen years old. Ugh! But friends, it gets worse. Ana, in her typically sensitive and insightful way, refers to her in front of Christian as Mrs. Pedo. To which Christian responds, “She’s a dear, valued friend and a business partner. That’s all. We have a past, a shared history, which was monumentally beneficial for me, though it fucked up her marriage – but that side of our relationship is over” (p. 314).

Cue stunned silence.

I don’t even know where to begin with this: the fact that one of the few, and certainly the most important, femalez involved in BDSM is depicted as child molester. Or the fact that she gave Christian the only kind of love he would accept and saved from a life of darkness and drugs. Oh my! Or the fact that it basically justifies Ana’s view of BDSM as “scary” and “dark” . . . like Christian’s eyes. This is just so, so, so WRONG.

The characterization of Mrs. Robinson as a pedophile is followed by Ana getting turned on, for the umpteenth time, by Christian and then trying to use sex to get him to tell her about his past. Followed by BDSM being characterized as some kind of therapy. Followed by another mind-blowing orgasm. This is fairly typical as far as this book is concerned. One minute BDSM is wrong, wrong, wrong. So scary! So dark! Then the next it is hot, hot, hot! Then it is therapeutic. Then it is wrong and dark again. Then Ana’s getting off on images of Christian with a riding crop, and so on and so forth. In short, the depiction of BDSM as an identity and as sexuality is careless, inconsistent, and rests on common myths and misperceptions about it. And I haven’t even gotten to the contract, yet!

It is entirely obvious to me that this used to be Twilight fan fiction because James manages to capture the vibe of the original: the shoe-gazing, eye-gazing, pseudo-angst of Bella and Edward’s tumultuous love affair. Yes! It’s all there from the zero conflict to the zero chemistry! However, as it turns out—and believe me I’m as surprised to be saying this as you are to hear it—Twilight turns out to be the more sophisticated version. If we were to characterize Edward and Bella’s relationship as BDSM, then unlike Anastasia, Bella eagerly and unconditionally accepts Edward and his darkness. She embraces him and his baggage wholeheartedly. She is happy to go into his world. She never thinks of saving him from his darkness. She never thinks of him as a monster. Edward is the one in the closet, so to speak. Edward is the one who fears his desires. This book has completely missed that aspect of its source material.

For all that Twilight normalizes the Gothic, the monstrous, and the kinky it never “cures” it. It never tries to “drag it into the light” and reform it from its bad, bad ways. Instead, and I’m quite startled to realize this, Twilight posits a world in which the “monstrous”, too, can be happy. Even the villains experience real love and true love. In fact, Victoria’s pursuit of Bella is based upon the fact that she did love her partner and mourns his death. Fifty Shades, on the other hand, persistently characterizes kink as abnormal except when it uses it to excuse bad behavior or to titillate its readers. It is exploitive and appropriative in the worst sort of way. More importantly, it separates the “hearts and flowers” sort of romantic love Anastasia wants as being distinct from and incompatible with BDSM.

I could say a lot more about this book: the use of musical references as status symbols, the weird relationship to food the narrative has, the weird relationship to appetite generally the narrative demonstrates, how the text defines love and normalcy, etc. Not to mention the hoops E.L. James has to jump through to keep Ana innocent of the world. I mean seriously, what student doesn’t have an email address? Or a computer? And there is a helluva lot more to say about the depiction of BDSM. But I will refrain.

While I recognize that there are two other books in this series that I have not read and have, therefore, not completed the narrative arc, I have no confidence that the problems that were so garishly on display in this first book have, in any way, been resolved in the subsequent installments. And I will not be reading the others to have my suspicions confirmed. I’m quite positive that my predictions will come true: Jack Hyde will turn out to be some kind of bad dom; Mrs. Robinson will play the role of jealous, glamorous older lover that Christian has to break free from in order to be with Anastasia; and finally, Christian will be set free from his need to be a dominant once he has fully come to terms with his dark past.

But why did this infuriate me so? Why? I think, after much contemplation, it was because the way in which the clichés and elements of genre romance were deployed served to reveal a troubling and repugnant worldview. Troubling for the very fact that these are not issues isolated to 50 Shades of Grey. The artless way in which they were written simply laid bare the problems, exposing a terrible underlying ideology. Whether James realizes it or not, intended it or not, she has written a book whose ultimate message is this: the only people who deserve love are those who are perfect and normal. Redemption is nothing more than learning that you were always already chosen, always already perfect.

How Calvinist! I find this message foul and damaging. Because of that fact and because it is rendered in dull, robotic prose, I hereby give this book an F.

Lazaraspaste

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I loved your 2009 book, Scandal, and very much enjoyed Indiscreet, which came out later the same year. So when I learned that you were publishing a new historical called Not Wicked Enough I got excited, and asked Jane if she could send me the ARC. Having now read it, I have [...]]]> Dear Ms. Jewel,

I loved your 2009 book, Scandal, and very much enjoyed Indiscreet, which came out later the same year. So when I learned that you were publishing a new historical called Not Wicked Enough I got excited, and asked Jane if she could send me the ARC. Having now read it, I have mixed feelings about Not Wicked Enough. The novel has quite a bit of elegance and charm, but it’s in a lighter vein than Scandal and Indiscreet and was not quite as satisfying to me.

Lily Wellstone arrives in Bitterward, the home of her widowed friend Ginny, at night and in the middle of a downpour. Occupying the entrance hall is an unsmiling gentleman in rough clothes. Yet despite his ill-fitting attire, Lily correctly identifies him as Ginny’s older brother, the Duke of Mountjoy. Lily and Mountjoy converse and when Lily mentions that she is rarely tired enough to sleep before four in the morning, Mountjoy shows her to the library.

Once there, Mountjoy learns from Lily that she is a wealthy heiress, the owner of Syton House, a very prosperous property, and that she was once disowned by her father for her wild nature. Lily offers to leave Bitterward before Ginny learns of her arrival, but Mountjoy, who finds her uncommonly attractive, welcomes her into his home despite the misgiving that Lily may “disrupt his peaceful country existence.”

Mountjoy is not wrong about that, since Lily proves to be a “managing” kind of woman, a bit like Sophy in Heyer’s The Grand Sophy, but more whimsical and less madcap. Lily likes to take others in hand and assist them in finding happiness by enticing them to have fun.

Lily’s first and foremost project is Ginny, who has been mourning her late husband too long, to a point of isolating herself and not allowing herself to enjoy life. Under Lily’s encouragement, Ginny begins to blossom once more, to wear colors and smile again.

But Lily does not confine herself to amusing Ginny alone, she also engages Mountjoy’s near-fiancée Miss Jane Kirk, and his brother Nigel, in such experiments as writing with glowing (and flammable) phosphorous ink. Which would be bad enough, to Mountjoy’s thinking, even without Jane’s suggestion that she write “Mountjoy has not smiled these seven years.”

Although Mountjoy and Jane are not betrothed, the entire neighborhood, Mountjoy included, expects they eventually will be. That Jane is shy and even fearful in his presence is disconcerting to Mountjoy.

Mountjoy and Lily encounter each other at night, when Lily wanders the house or the gardens because she has difficulty sleeping. The first time they meet in the garden, they kiss and then restrain themselves from succumbing to their mutual attraction.

That same night, Lily shows Mountjoy the medallion she says she received from a gypsy king in thanks for rescuing his dog. The gypsy king promised the medallion would unite its wearer with the person with whom he or she “is happiest in love.” But Lily does not expect that will happen for her, since she has already met that man.

Lily loved and still loves Greer, a soldier she meant to marry who died in the war before their union could come to pass. It’s been five years since Greer’s death, but Lily does not believe she will ever love again. Nonetheless, she still has an appreciation for a man’s body and has not forgotten carnal pleasure.

Thus it happens that Lily and Mountjoy become lovers, although neither of them admits that is what they are. During their nighttime encounters, one thing leads to another, and another, and another. Eventually they become what today would be termed “friends with benefits,” neither intending to fall in love with the other, although they like each other very much.

Lily will never love again. Mountjoy will someday marry Jane. Yes, he should stay away from a gentlewoman who is also his sister’s friend. Yes, she shouldn’t touch her friend’s brother. But when there is so much pleasure to be had, how can they keep their hands to themselves?

Not Wicked Enough has considerable strengths to recommend it. First, the characters are delightful. Lily, for all she takes charge of others’ happiness, is endearing because of her generosity of spirit. Her desire to bring joy to her friends makes her appealing, as well as charismatic and outgoing.

Although she had a lonely childhood, Lily looks forward rather than back, and displays a great deal of strength of character regardless of the occasional moment of vulnerability. Her love of color, clothing, and other beautiful things, her sense of whimsy and adventure make her stand out in Mountjoy’s eyes like a bright, exotic flower.

Mountjoy is just as appealing, though in a subtler way. He was a gentleman farmer who came to prominence when it was discovered he was the heir to a dukedom, but he continues to dress like a gentleman farmer in an attempt to prove something to people who are superficial enough to dismiss him on the basis of his garments.

And that is not the only difference between him and Lily. Whereas she is extroverted, he is shy of crowds and social occasions. While she looks for ways to enjoy life, he is dedicated to hard work. And when she takes risks, he feels protective of her. (I especially appreciated that despite those protective feelings, Mountjoy does not attempt to control Lily but gives her the freedom to be herself. He also acknowledges at times that she is in the right and he is in the wrong.)

The affection between these characters is palpable, for all that it grows out of a physical relationship. Their energetic lovemaking sessions are filled with humor and teasing, and I could see them bonding with each other in a way that reminded me of some of Susan Johnson’s earlier erotic romances.

To add to the novel’s strong points, your writing style has a beautiful clarity that I love. There is smoothness to the writing that made me want to savor the words.

Still, while I liked Not Wicked Enough I found myself reading a few chapters and then putting the book down for the day. The reason, as best as I can articulate it, has to do with the relative absence of either external or internal conflict.

While Mountjoy was almost engaged, his near-betrothal never felt like a real obstacle to me. Although he kept thinking that he ought to propose to Jane, his heart was never in it, and it was also evident that Jane’s affections had settled on someone else.

Yes, Lily believed her own heart belonged with Greer and she could never love another, but since she rarely thought of Greer except to repeat this mantra, it was hard to feel that her disloyalty to Greer ever truly upset her. I also didn’t get much indication of what Greer had been like as a man, so I did not feel that Lily was haunted by her past love.

Additionally, the subplots didn’t have much forward momentum except near the very end of the book. Lily’s cousin the Marquess of Fenris skulks around Bitterward’s neighborhood for much of the story, but doesn’t really reveal his motives until close to the end. Nor do we find out the reasons behind Nigel’s odd behavior any sooner, although I guessed what was going on there early on.

Because of the above, and because Mountjoy and Lily were such good friends and lovers, and clearly got on like a house on fire, I didn’t feel their relationship faced real obstacles. The stakes felt relatively low, and consequently I wasn’t deeply driven to find out what would happen next. I also don’t know how much this book will stick with me. Still, while I read about them, the characters charmed and entertained me, and I enjoyed their sexy relationship and the hours I spent in their company. B-.

Sincerely,

Janine

My favorite books have always been your hockey books and I’ve recommended “Body Check” to any number of readers looking for a modern contemporary romance. We were given locker rooms scenes and game scenes and while none of it may have been authentic, it felt authentic to me.  We then detoured into [...]]]> Dear Ms. Martin:

My favorite books have always been your hockey books and I’ve recommended “Body Check” to any number of readers looking for a modern contemporary romance. We were given locker rooms scenes and game scenes and while none of it may have been authentic, it felt authentic to me.  We then detoured into a number of books involving non hockey players and found ourselves in Ireland.  ”Breakaway” attempts to bring the hockey to Ireland but unfortunately the only real sports connection is that the hero is a hockey player.  The focus of “Breakaway” is on the reunited lovers theme.

The male protagonist is Rory Brady, the first Irish born hockey player to play for the New York Blades.  He dated a girl from Balleycraig, Ireland, for eight years and promised he would marry her.  When he left for the NHL, he was going to bring her with him, but once he arrived on U.S. soil he promptly forgot her caught up in living the high life as a professional athlete in New York City.

Erin O’Brien was stuck in her village, slaving away for her parents and dreaming of getting an art degree. She gave Rory an ultimatum that they marry or they are done. So he breaks up with her. He essentially leaves everyone in Balleycraig behind, including his best friend. Two years later Rory decides he has made a mistake.

I thought, based on the blurb and set put, that this would be a redemption story and that Rory would have to suffer consequences of his actions in order to win over his best friend and win back his girl. Unfortunately there was no comeuppance.  Rory waltzes in.  His best friend, Jake, forgives him.  Erin takes him back without almost no whimper. What makes it even more sad was that Jake, the nice steady guy, tried to woo Erin after Rory left her and at the cusp of the two of them exploring something deeper than a close friendship, Rory returns and Erin can’t take her pants off fast enough.

I didn’t understand Erin at all.  She had a wonderful man who was ready to commit to her, but instead she readily accepts Rory back into her life who left her two years ago. I didn’t feel that the depiction was consistent with Erin’s portrayal as someone stuck in a rut, unable to muster the courage to leave her village to explore the big world beyond and pursue her dreams. Settling into a marriage with her best friend Jake would have made more sense than sliding back into a relationship with Rory. Returning to Rory’s arms with no resistance after stating that she was mistrustful and hurt led to a story with little conflict.

Eerin’s inaction creates a certain aura of passive aggressiveness. If she wanted to leave so badly, why didn’t she?  Unanswered was whether she didn’t love Jake because he represented stagnation and wanted Rory because he represented the incarnation of her own dreams – success outside in the big world, a conflict that might have retained some interest. Yet, if that were the case then the romance isn’t true because Erin doesn’t love Rory for who he is (and who would, really) but rather what he represents.

It is a small town setting but the small town relies too much on quirky characters to give it personality such as the three brothers who seem to be an Irish version of Larry, Curly and Moe. Three dumb and loose lipped individuals we see only in the Balleycraig pub and only as set up characters for Rory’s actions.

Rory seemed to exemplify the rich jock who treats everyone shabbily and gets only accolades in return. There wasn’t anything compelling about him. He never suffered or wanted for success, love, or even happiness. A conflict arising out of Erin’s fear of independence came far too late. A disappointing entry in the Blades series. C-

Best regards,

Jane

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I passed this book over several times on NetGalley because the blurb seemed to imply a two girl one guy menage.  I am not usually a fan of those but curiosity got the better of me. I figured that access to a free copy should be utilized to try books that I [...]]]> Dear Ms. Elyot:

I passed this book over several times on NetGalley because the blurb seemed to imply a two girl one guy menage.  I am not usually a fan of those but curiosity got the better of me. I figured that access to a free copy should be utilized to try books that I might not otherwise take a chance on if I had to spend the money.  This book, however, isn’t a romance.  If anything it is a horror book with sex and since I have never reviewed a horror book and read even fewer, I don’t know whether this is a good horror book or a bad one.  From a romance reader’s point of view, it was a bizarre story with a cliffhanger ending and a sad depiction of women.  Perhaps the next book, the women rise up? I don’t know.

It’s hard to review this book because much of the details are surprise so I’m going to be intentionally vague.  There are three main characters in this story with two important secondary characters.  Anna Rice falls for a charming and wealthy man, John Stone.  She becomes completely under his control. She quits her job. She acquiesces to his sexual demands but she is very happy.  She is even happier when she becomes pregnant.  In some ways, I wondered if this was supposed to be a satire of Harlequin Presents or, at least, a pointed jab.

Mimi Leblanc is billed as Anna’s best friend but she doesn’t really act like it.  While she questions Anna’s near instant devotion to John, particularly when John makes noises that he’d like to add Mimi to his harem of women, Mimi succumbs to John’s advances as well.

I think the problem that I had was the quickness in which everything took place. Anna falls for John immediately and is swiftly captured by him, moving in with him and then marrying him.  Mimi puts up only a token resistance and perhaps her weak resistance can be blamed on something out of her control; yet, because the women were so weak in this story, such easy prey, it lacked power in the telling.  Perhaps if there was more time between Mimi trying to protect Anna and Mimi wrestling her clothes off, I would have sympathized more.

John is no hero.  If anything he is villainous. (Is this a spoiler? I don’t even know!)  He intends to use both women for a nefarious purpose yet, even knowing this, they both seem to love him.  Mimi’s is a reluctant love, however.

I don’t know much more to say other than I don’t really understand the point of the story.  Was it that all really hot, rich men are evil?  Was it that women are nothing but vessels?  I felt sad and confused by the story but I wasn’t really scared. I was horrified at the women and perhaps that was the point? That women in harlequin presents romances are nothing more than spineless wimps whose sole purpose is to be the fruit bearing wombs for men?

C-

Best regards,

Jane

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I was interested to read your debut novel for two reasons. First, I love the title. I’ve always thought being a husband’s harlot is one of the best parts of marriage. (Plus, it reminds me of a classic song, the number one single from 1973, Charlie Rich’s Behind Closed Doors. I’m humming [...]]]> Dear Ms. Callaway,

I was interested to read your debut novel for two reasons. First, I love the title. I’ve always thought being a husband’s harlot is one of the best parts of marriage. (Plus, it reminds me of a classic song, the number one single from 1973, Charlie Rich’s Behind Closed Doors. I’m humming it as I write.) Second, I think it’s impressive you’ve taken your 2010 winning manuscript, (Her Husband’s Harlot was a 2010 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Finalist) and turned it into a successfully selling novel: It’s currently the 36th most popular Regency romance at Amazon.com and has a five star reader rating.

I enjoyed your book. You utilize a typical regency plot—virginal girl marries sensually experienced and sexually voracious man whose heart she longs to win—and give it an innovative rendering.  I loved the opening scene in which your heroine, the well-bred Lady Helena is wandering the halls of the Nunnery, a high-end London brothel, determined to track down her husband Nicholas and beg him not to consort with whores but to consort with her instead. The two have been married just a month and, after a truly awful experience for both on their wedding night—she practiced “ladylike forbearance” until the moment she screamed in startled pain; he jumped off her, ran out of the room, horrified he’d hurt her—the two barely speak. Helena, though, longs for another chance and so, upon learning Nicholas will be at the bordello this evening, she slips on the clothes of a tart, paints her face, dons a wig and a feathered mask, and goes husband hunting.

She finds him, hidden behind a curtain, watching an exceedingly bawdy threesome. Nicholas has been in sexual hell since his wedding night. He is consumed with lust for his wife, but sees her as too genteel and pure for him. He thinks, after their wedding night, she wants nothing to do with him. But he’s a guy with big needs and even beating off three times a day, while fantasizing about fucking the hell out of Helena, is neither slaking his lust nor assuaging his loneliness. He came to the Nunnery thinking he’d find relief in another woman’s quim, but found, much to his despair, he only wants his wife.

Usually, in romance novels, the hero doesn’t ever have sex with another woman—many romance readers have zero tolerance for unfaithful husbands. In your book, you take a different path and I liked that. When Helena literally bumps into Nicholas, he doesn’t know her. The light is dim—they are swathed in heavy velvet drapes–, she’s wearing a mask and, most importantly, in Nicholas’s mind, Helena is a paragon of virtue; there’s not a chance in hell his highborn, pristine wife would ever be rubbing up against him in a den of vice.

The minute the room is emptied of the threesome, Nicholas jerks Helena into his arms, lays her flat on the nearest table, yanks down her bodice and unbuttons his trousers. He is aflame with desire for this woman who is not his wife. Helena, who got quite an education from watching the ménage a trois, is just as desirous of him. She realizes, though, he doesn’t recognize her, and, afraid he’d condemn her for her wantonness—she speaks to him in French in an altered voice. The two have explosive sex—I love the bawdy language of your sex scenes—after which Nicholas drops a fifty pound note on the table and abruptly leaves.

Nicholas, of course, feels worse than ever after this event. He’s already believes he’s not a worthy spouse for Helena and now he’s gone and fucked a whore while imagining he was defiling his wife. Helena, now that she knows how great marital bliss can be, is more determined than ever to woo her husband. Here again, you don’t take their story down the expected path.

Helena does everything right and Nicholas behaves like an ass to her. She tries to talk with him, works on de-dowding herself, and—I really liked this—gets angry at him when he doesn’t respond pleasantly to her. The nicer she is to him, the nastier he is to her. Normally this dynamic would irritate me, but you make it work. You do a wonderful job of showing why Nicholas thinks he’s so unworthy of Helena.  Nicholas is not from the privileged class. He grew up alone and wretchedly poor in the slums of St. Giles.  He was well on his way to death by noose or starvation when he was given a chance by the owner of a shipping company. Nicholas worked his way up, ethically, to managing the company and when the owner died, he left it to Nicholas to run. Nicholas now has money and a title, but he still sees himself as the abused boy he once was. He’s consumed with shame for things done to him and the things he did in his vile past.  You write Nicholas’s shame so believably—he may be crippled by it, but you give him just enough emotional flexibility for the reader to believe it’s possible for him to change.

You also do a nice job of making Helena a credible character. She may be from the ton with snotty parents, but she really doesn’t care that Nicholas isn’t from her class. She was thrilled when he courted her and has always found him incredibly attractive. She really doesn’t understand why he doesn’t seem to want her anymore—she knew nothing about sex and thought what happened on their wedding night portended permanent problems. Once she goes to the Nunnery, and experiences successful coitus, she sees sex as a way to connect with her husband. It’s not, however, the only way she tries to forge a bond between them. She asks him about his work, invites herself to meet the Fines (they are the family of the shipping company owner and are as close to family as Nicholas has), and pleads with him to socialize with her. She sees what works, what doesn’t, and adjusts her behavior accordingly. I liked that she works so hard to get her husband to be with her but she never acts in any way that is debasing or untrue to whom she is.

I appreciated the emotional relationship between Nicholas and Helena. I liked the way it evolved and how, over time, both Nicholas and Helena began to trust and rely on one another. I also really liked their sex life. Your sex scenes are incredibly graphic and your characters use fairly blunt, even brutal language, as they couple.  Nicholas is such a sexual person—the way he speaks in bed is the way he thinks out of bed. And Helena has, from the beginning of the book, wanted to become her husband’s harlot. For her, listening to Nicholas ask her if she wants his cock and being able to say yes is an affirmation that all she’s worked for is hers.

I did feel that Nicholas’s self-loathing went on longer than it needed to, but this is a small quibble. In general, I loved the romance in your romance.

I wasn’t as engaged in the suspense plot that comprises a great deal of your book. You have Nicholas being anonymously threatened by some unknown villain. Nicholas keeps getting notes that threaten to tell the truth about his past. This extra level of threat seemed overkill to me. Nicholas is already consumed with fear that if Helena knew what he’d been, she’d be disgusted and repulsed. When he uses the possible blackmail to distance himself further from Helena, it felt heavy handed to me. I also had a hard time caring who was behind the notes and, as the book progresses, the criminal activity at Nicholas’s shipping company. For me, the relationship between Nicholas and Helena was so interesting, I was somewhat resentful when you took the focus off of the two of them and put it on bad guys at the docks.

All in all, though, this is a good book. It’s the kind of debut novel that gives me faith your next book will be even better.  It seems possible the next book will be about Helena’s friend Marianne. (She helps Helena get into the Nunnery in the first place.) She was a great secondary character and I hope to read more about her.

So, again, congratulations. Her Husband’s Harlot is a pleasing, out of the ordinary read.  I enjoyed finding out what went on behind closed doors in your book—it was nice to watch Helena become her husband’s harlot!

Thanks,

Dabney

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I liked the poetic nature of the title given that this book kind of closes the door on the Black Ops, Inc., or BOIs, crew. Joe Green is indeed the last man standing of the group. The other living members have all fallen in love and had a happy ending. Joe’s done [...]]]> Dear Ms. Gerard:

I liked the poetic nature of the title given that this book kind of closes the door on the Black Ops, Inc., or BOIs, crew. Joe Green is indeed the last man standing of the group. The other living members have all fallen in love and had a happy ending. Joe’s done the falling in love part. He can’t stay away from Stephanie Tompkins. But the happy ever after ending is eluding them, primarily because Joe is driven to seek justice for the death of his best friend, Bryan Tompkins, Stephanie’s older brother.

This leads him to Sierra Leone, a cell, and certain death. Stephanie, a code breaker at the NSA, sees a picture of Joe, beaten. Under the photo is a notation that he was arrested for the slaying of a Sacred Heart priest. Stephanie calls on the BOIs to get Joe out but the team is deployed on a deep undercover mission with no communication. Rafe is manning the home base but is recovering from a severe bout of malaria. He tells Stephanie to wait until the team comes back, a week, maybe ten days. Stephanie believes that Joe will not make it ten days and flies to Sierra Leone. Help comes in the form of a teenage boy who Joe saved. Together they work to get Joe and Stephanie out of Sierra Leone to safety.

The setup worked for me. Stephanie is out of her mind in love with Joe and she wasn’t going to leave him in a Sierra Leone prison to die alone. While a number of coincidences, or conveniences may be the better word for it, occur to aid Stephanie in freeing Joe and escaping with him, Stephanie never acted TSTL. In fact, she demonstrated for Joe a certain type of strength he hadn’t seen in her before.

I’ve really enjoyed this series and reading Last Man Standing was bittersweet for me and maybe it was for you as the author. The tone of the book seemed regretful. Joe wanted Stephanie, loved her, but he didn’t love her enough to be with her. Instead, he had to seek out the truth behind Bryan’s death, a truth he believes implicates someone wealthy and powerful. Stephanie loved Joe more than anything. She’d do anything for him, including following him to a hellhole in Sierra Leone.

Joe says to Stephanie when he leaves her that he doesn’t love her, not enough. And frankly there is a ring of truth to that even though Joe would deny it. He characterizes his departure as being weak, succumbing to the pleasures of Stephanie’s flesh where the better man would have resisted and broken it off with her long ago, knowing that he could never commit. But I did view Joe as not loving Stephanie enough or maybe he was scared of loving her.

Even though I admired Joe and his dedication, there were several points where I wanted to tell Stephanie that she was just too good for him. But her dogged pursuit of Joe and her refusal to accept him pushing her aside won her the man she wanted in the end and that is kind of kick ass all on its own.

What does happen is that Joe begins to see that Stephanie isn’t the frail, weak kneed girl he must have thought her to be. She blows his mind (and well she should). I never could figure out if Joe was falling in love with a new Stephanie, whether Stephanie blossomed under dire circumstances, or whether Joe was simply blind to the kind of person that Stephanie always was. I think it was the last one. Joe was so caught up in his own mission that he couldn’t see the gentle but determined woman that Stephanie was.

Even though this was the last in a long line of books, I definitely think that a reader could pick this up and not be lost. There aren’t many appearances of the other BOIs until late in the book. The focus is primarily on Stephanie and Joe. B-

Best regards,

Jane

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Which shattered Lauren Russell’s perfectly ordered life. Lauren’s new neighbors were about to see the Southern lifestyle columnist’s temper! Then she met Cole Donovan, the sexy single dad. He was not the man from her husband list; he was too tall, too sexy—and definitely had too many kids! But somehow, [...]]]>

“It started with a baseball…

Which shattered Lauren Russell’s perfectly ordered life. Lauren’s new neighbors were about to see the Southern lifestyle columnist’s temper! Then she met Cole Donovan, the sexy single dad. He was not the man from her husband list; he was too tall, too sexy—and definitely had too many kids! But somehow, looking into his blue, blue eyes, she forgot all that….

Lauren was too elegant, too prim and didn’t understand that his three rambunctious kids were the focus of his life. But his tempting neighbor smelled delicious, looked luscious and cooked like a dream. Cole wasn’t looking for a wife, but he couldn’t stay away from Lauren. Was it a recipe for disaster—or marriage?”

Dear Ms. Winstead Jones,

There still sure are a lot of Harlequin authors who I haven’t tried yet and it just happened to be your newest book which caught my eye next. My own house is a disaster and my cooking – though I love to do it – often depends on how many pots and pans I’m willing to get dirty at a time. I envy people who can look into their pantries and whip up something scrumptious from what’s there so Lauren’s profession called to me. Then it’s also kind of fun to watch an ordered person’s world upended and it appeared that these three children would accomplish that. And who isn’t interested in sexy? So, selection made I got to reading.

Cole and Lauren begin to interact almost cautiously. Neither had counted on meeting the other, both have lives and plans and they take things fairly slowly, get to know each other and establish a foundation before jumping into bed. They get to like each other before they start to love each other. They’ve also dated in the past and are open to possible relationships. This is important to me because I don’t like characters who fixate on one past love to the exclusion of all others. I’ve just read that trope too often. Here, Cole and Lauren seem like fairly normal, well adjusted adults.

The three children also come across as such. They’re definitely not plot moppets and are neither perfect, lisping angels nor spawn from out of a nightmare. They run around, they play, they like to eat fish sticks and don’t want to brush their teeth. The’re also intelligent and view their dad’s relationships in the way young children would – how the dates would affect them. I especially think Meredith’s character is well drawn as a young woman on the verge of growing up but who’s still got a bit of maturing left.

A major thing I like about the book is that both Cole and Lauren don’t immediately dissolve in a puddle of lust. In fact, despite noticing each other’s better physical qualities, they remain relatively in control until after quite a few meetings. When things do heat up, they sizzle yet at the same time there’s a degree of humor that had me laughing such as the first time Cole arrives at Lauren’s house and sex is on the agenda.

“Reality intruded like a splash of ice water. “Oh, tell me you came prepared.” When she’d thought about not overthinking, that hadn’t meant they shouldn’t think at all.
His voice was raspy as he responded, “Do I not look prepared?”
She smiled, touched him, leaned in so her breasts rested against him. He was so warm. Almost hot. “A condom, Cole. Please tell me…”
He squatted and reached into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out three wrapped condoms. A baby monitor and a three-pack. He was most certainly prepared.”

I do like some humor with my sex. Some smiles along with the sparks. And things were going well until the last minute additions of Complications to the mix combined with the panic button pushing done by both Cole and Lauren. One person sounding the “I’m not sure I’m ready for this” alarm is understandable but when they both did it, it was too much. This followed by the quick realization by both of them that they’d messed up all seemed too much like plot manipulations and running out of space rather than the natural flow of a relationship.

This slight hiccup is somewhat redeemed by a good, solid ending. Both Cole and Lauren have come to their senses, they talk and it doesn’t appear that Lauren is ready to throw over her career to be a baby maker. The children and adults are all on the same page about the relationship and things look good without an immediate frog march down the aisle to show how deliriously in love everyone is. Overall, I’m impressed with “The Husband Recipe” and have added you to my list of watched authors. B-

~Jayne

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One of the reasons I was excited to read The Whip is that I lived for quite a while in Santa Cruz County, where some of the novel is set. I was also intrigued by the idea of a fact-based story about Charley Parkhurst, a woman who not only lived for most [...]]]> Dear Ms. Kondazian:

One of the reasons I was excited to read The Whip is that I lived for quite a while in Santa Cruz County, where some of the novel is set. I was also intrigued by the idea of a fact-based story about Charley Parkhurst, a woman who not only lived for most of her life as a man, but who was one of the most respected “whips,” aka stagecoach drivers, for Wells Fargo. While not a great deal is known about Parkhurst’s life, especially her early life, what is known provides a lot of rich material for any novelist, and certainly there is a great deal of drama in this fictionalized account of Parkhurst’s life. I found some of that drama moving, and there were significant stretches of the story I felt immersed in as a reader, but I ended up feeling ambivalent about both the kind of drama created around Parkhurst and the amount, which for me too often crossed the line into melodrama.

In 1812, Charlotte Parkhurst was left as an infant on the doorstep of the Boston Society for Destitute Children. Her first days at the orphanage were hardly auspicious, as the overworked, uncaring caretaker sees fit to lock the crying infant in a laundry closet at night so she will not keep the other children awake. Were it not for the immediate interest and devoted protection of a four-year old boy named Lee Colton, who rescued Charlotte from the closet and then kept her under his protection for the first four years of her life, Charlotte may not have made it through that first night alone in the closet. The relationship between Lee and Charlotte is somewhat like brother and sister, but the appearance of a new headmistress and the imposition of new rules, including the separation of male and female orphans, jeopardizes Lee’s authoritative protection of Charlotte, and his open defiance of the rules results in the kind of discipline that brings out the bad in Lee, a darkness that never leaves the bond he shares with her.

As Lee and Charlotte grow, their relationship becomes fraught, both with Lee’s conflicted feelings toward his “sister,” and the perceptions of others about the nature of their closeness. Charlotte is much more innocent than Lee, and while she escapes most of the brutality that Lee suffers under the orphanage’s “improvements,” her persistent efforts to spend time playing games with the boys instead of learning the domestic arts eventually results in her banishment to the stables, where the headmistress is certain she will learn humility and a desire to be a “good” girl. Instead, Charlotte discovers her love of horses, and under the wise tutelage of the stable master, Jonas, she gains both skill and the protections of a father-figure, both of which become necessary once Lee’s mixed feelings become dangerous to her and she needs to fashion a life without social, financial, or family connections.

Charlotte lives as a woman for the first four decades of her life or so. During that time, Lee moves in and out of her life, becoming more and more unstable and belligerent, and Charlotte moves from job to job, each more drab than the last, and the sum total causing her to “disappear” from her own life. Until, quite unexpectedly, she meets the local farrier and blacksmith in Providence, Rhode Island, where she is working and living in a women’s boarding house. Byron Williams, who was born into slavery and sent North through the Underground Railroad at 12 by his mother, who also taught him to read and write so he could support himself as a free man, introduces Charlotte to Emerson, and their mutual passion for the Transcendentalist’s ideals is matched by their physical passion for one another and their eventual love. Although their relationship is shunned in Providence, they eventually find happiness and stability on a farm, and the birth of their daughter brings them fulfillment neither ever thought possible.

So when tragedy comes to the farm donning white sheets and masks, and fueled by racism and a personal anger that is definitely not brotherly, Charlotte heads out West to California, where she hopes she will find the master of her misery and exact well-deserved and long-overdue revenge. Instead what Charlotte finds is a new life as Charley Parkhurst, stagecoach driver and Sacramento resident. Although small and slim, Charley manages to pass as a man, although the parts of the narrative told from Charley’s point of view continue to use female pronouns, suggesting that Charley never thought of herself as male. Whether this was the case in real life is not clear, but for the purpose of the book, Charley’s dual identity is necessary because of the various relationships she has during the second half of her life, one of which is as a woman with a local gambler she periodically trysts with in San Francisco, and another as a man with an actress and her daughter who live with Charley as caretakers of a sort. I will not describe this section of the book in much more detail, because it is difficult not to venture into serious spoiler territory, but I will say that this was the most problematic part of the book for me.

Fictionalized biographies are interesting creations, because the choices the author makes for her “characters” are as significant as the real life history on which she draws. In Parkhurst’s case, there are so many gaps in the story that Kondazian invents the majority of the biographical details, incorporating those that are speculated or known alongside the fictional aspects. For example, it is known that Parkhurst was abandoned and raised at an orphanage, but the content of those years is not known. The invention of Lee Colton is interesting and provocative, because it is Lee’s idea to initially disguise Charlotte as a boy so she can stay with him once the orphanage is divided along gender lines once the new headmistress arrives. He is the one who dubs her Charley, and even though her real gender is discovered almost immediately, the ruse sets the stage for the second half of the book and problematizes the relationship with Lee in a way that creates a lot of dramatic attention throughout the novel. Lee is characterized as possessing “anger” that is often seen “showing off its sexual side.” He feels possessive and protective of Charlotte/Charley, but is also attracted to her, and it baffles and angers him that she does not easily submit to those desires.

Lee’s dark ambivalence is later mirrored in Charley’s dualistic experience of herself as both male and female. She is most at home on the stagecoach driving her beloved horses, but experiences some of her happiest moments dressed as a woman and making love with a man who knows her secret:

Charley could sense Edmunds not only made love to Charlotte, but to Charley as well. The vision of Charley on the driver’s box, sweaty, dirty, whipping the six-team, powerful and brave as any man. She imagined it excited him to feel Charley beneath him or on top. As it excited her . . . the freedom to be a man and a woman in the same body – at the same time.

But that dualism can also be extremely difficult, as when Anna, the woman who lives with Charley, wants to make their relationship sexual and Charley can neither satisfy Anna’s desires nor tell her the truth.

And, indeed, this ambivalence, which can be so interesting when it’s explored in terms of the fluidity of gender identity and issues of power, also becomes problematic and ironically constraining when it comes to the novel’s dramatic structure. For example, why is it that Charley can trust her male lover with the truth of who she is but not the woman who claims to love her? And why is it that Charley necessarily thinks of herself as female when she not simply passes as male but seems so embedded in male culture and so infused with male habits and behavior as to be considered male and to be characterized as relishing the freedom of being male? Is there really a gender duality or is it more about conforming to the varying demands of the fictionalized drama? Also, why is it that some people conveniently see through her disguise but not others? Why does no one who could be dangerous to her see through it? And if, as she is told by her doctor at one point, that she is not the only woman living the way she is, that there is “nothing unusual” about her choice, why doesn’t she run into any of these other women? It feels that her secret is alternately urgently well-hidden or not so necessarily hidden depending on the circumstance, and the differences feel more contrived for plot than realistic consistency.

Realism is not necessary for the success of a fictionalized biography such as this one, but believability is, and there are so many coincidences in the book, especially in the second half, that for me that crucial believability became strained to the point of frustration at several crucial points in the story. In some ways it was fun to see all the artifacts and details packed into the book – the historical speculation that Charley was the only woman to vote in the US during her lifetime; myriad locations from Rhode Island to Sacramento to San Francisco to Soquel to Watsonville; Transcendetalism; saloons and chewing tobacco and sound horse knowledge and relevant social issues and events; even the preserved head of Joaquin Murrieta! But in other ways the novel had a kitchen sink feel, and more importantly, a sense that the book could not decide whether it wanted to be a serious, even heartbreaking, examination of prejudice and social identity or an indulgently pulpy historical melodrama. Even the prose shifted from banal to lyrical to purple:

Byrne had heard that old Charley Parkhurst was one of Wells Fargo’s most adept drivers…that he could get his coach along twisting roads in the dead of night as a dog can follow a trail by his nose.

. . .

It was March of 1812, the month when wagon-ruts were filled with cold, dark puddles – the month of mud and suicide in New England.

. . .

She tried to take all this in. That the woman in her had died in anguish and a vengeful man had been born in her place apparently brooked no notice of the universe. Nor had the universe even blinked in the absorption into itself of her tragedy.

And speaking of tragedy, there is a lot of it in this book. During the first half of the book, I felt that the darkness was effective at engaging my emotions and empathy. But the second half, where the tension between Charley’s tragic past and the almost ebullient indulgence of her masculine identity creates some over-the-top melodrama, I felt like The Whip was drawing on a number of stereotypes of life in 19^th C America more than constructing a believable tale about a complex and provocatively fascinating character. Consequently, my experience of the book was mixed and while I’m glad I read it, I cannot recommend it without reservations. C+

~ Janet

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In general, with the exception of Deadwood, I have never been a fan of the western. I’ve read good things about your Hell’s Eight series, however, so I thought I’d see if perhaps your book Shadow’s Stand might be the western that changed my mind. After finishing it, I am open to [...]]]> Dear Ms. McCarty,

In general, with the exception of Deadwood, I have never been a fan of the western. I’ve read good things about your Hell’s Eight series, however, so I thought I’d see if perhaps your book Shadow’s Stand might be the western that changed my mind. After finishing it, I am open to reading another western. That said, I don’t think it will be one of yours.

My struggle with Shadow’s Stand began with the opening scene. The time is the summer of 1859; the place, the West Kansas territory. Fei Yen, a young Chinese American woman, needs a husband and she needs him fast. There’s a new law that forbids Chinese from holding mining claims and Fei has a claim on which she’s found gold. (Were you were referencing the Foreign Miners Tax passed in California in 1850 that taxed any non-citizen—which meant non-white–claim owners at astronomical rates?) There’s also, in your book,—I couldn’t find any mention of such a law after a cursory internet search so I’m taking your word for this—a law that allows a woman to take a condemned man as a husband thus saving him from death and giving her a spouse. This law also states that should the woman become displeased with her convict, she may return him to the gallows where he will be immediately hung.

Fei, who has just locked her literally crazy father in the cellar and has no one to turn to, rides into town and claims the half Mexican, half American Indian Shadow Ochoa just as he’s about to be hung. Shadow, though, despite the noose around his neck, refuses to be claimed by Fei until she actually asks him to marry her. The sheriff, racist asshole that he is, starts to hang Shadow before Fei has a chance to say anything. Fei grabs up a knife conveniently sticking out of a nearby boot, runs up Shadow’s body and, as he is choking to death, saws through the noose around his neck and, in the literal nick of time, cuts him down. Even after she’s saved his life, he still won’t take her up on her offer until she gasps out “Marry me,” to which he replies, “I thought you’d never ask.”

None of this made much sense to me. If Fei needs someone who could legally protect her claim, why pick Shadow, a non-white? Won’t he run up against the same prejudices and laws limiting the Chinese? The men hanging Shadow are violent racist drunks; Fei, a young unmarried attractive “half-breed” Chinese with an out of it dad, lives near them and yet none of these cretins have managed to rape or harm her. Shadow viciously fights the men trying to hang him, despite having his hands tied behind his back, and yet, when offered escape, he refuses it. This seemed unlikely to me. One moment he’s fighting for his life and the next he needs to be wooed?

After the two are (maybe legally, maybe not) married by a drunken “padre,” Fei, who married Shadow so she’d have protection, then asks the same men she’s worried will harm her and steal her claim to put Shadow in shackles and toss him in her wagon.  Fei puts the key to the shackles “into the lace-trimmed pocket above her breast” and Shadow thinks “Of all the things that pissed him off about the last day, it was her drawing attention to her breasts that he resented the most.” REALLY? Being beaten, hung, knifed, and shackled all rankled less than having to notice his new wife has breasts?

Shadow doesn’t want to have hot flashes for his bride because “inside him there was only darkness.” He’s a bad, bad man, or so he tells himself over and over. Fei, of course, can tell by page 30 he’s wrong about himself, that really, he’s an honorable guy. That dynamic pretty much sums up most of the book. Shadow can’t stay with Fei because he knows he’s not a marrying man, he can’t love, he isn’t worthy—the dude’s got quite a list. Naturally Fei falls for him like a ton of gold bricks. Everything about him–his voice, his body, his arrogance, his strength, his overly thick eyelashes, and, especially, his outrageously stimulating kisses—gives her pleasure. She’s sure he’ll leave her once he’s helped her but she gives herself to him anyway—she wants what she believes will be her one shot at passion and love even if she knows it can’t last.

Part of the problem with this dynamic is that it allows both Fei and Shadow to act inconsistently. Fei picks Shadow as a protector, and then locks him up. She kisses him passionately, and then tells him they can’t have sex. A few chapters later she’s changed her mind and goes to great lengths to be able to make love with him. Shadow behaves just as contradictorily. He freaks out when she’s in danger, and yet plans to leave her as soon as he honorably can. He’s consumed by lust for her and yet doesn’t have intercourse with her. Until he does—I had no clue what changed his mind.

Their relationship flip flops between the two sharing their deepest thoughts to not telling each other the most basic pieces of important information. At times, Fei trusts Shadow with every aspect of her being. A chapter or two later, she doesn’t tell him the truth about her plans or her feelings. Shadow is at times all action and the plot whooshes forward; other times, he just lets things happen, too busy feeling sorry for himself to take charge. Neither of them really owns their separate and combined fates—it takes the other Hell’s Eights to show up and push the two into their happy ending. Fei and Shadow were more irritating than interesting, despite their unusual backgrounds.

Your plot was marred by Fei’s and Shadow’s emotional melodrama. The most interesting parts of the book involved the two fighting against the racist establishment’s efforts to steal Fei’s claim. I enjoyed all the information about explosives although I thought it unlikely that Fei’s sexist father would have taught Fei his craft as an explosives expert for the mining company. But the parts of the book—and they seemed to go on forever—that dealt with Fei’s relationship with her Chinese family dragged for me. I haven’t read the first four books in the series, so the plotline revolving around Shadow’s being wanted for murder by the United States Army was both a little hard to follow and clearly not resolved in this novel. (It bothered me Fei risks her life, at the end of the book, to steal a notebook that may or may not shed light on the truth about the man Shadow killed, and then nothing more was mentioned about it.) I felt like the novel had some exciting scenes and far too many meandering confusing scenes.

I wish you’d done more with the social issues faced by your main characters. The American West in the 1850’s was a brutal place in which to be a woman, a Chinese, an Indian, or a Mexican. You touched on the prejudices Fei and Shadow faced but didn’t really explore them. Your book showcases what Fei and/or Shadow are thinking rather than what they are experiencing. One of the oldest adages on writing is it is better to show than to tell. Shadow’s Stand is full of telling—it would have been a much more riveting book had you spent less time elucidating your characters’ inner musings and more time describing the world around them.

Your sex scenes were detailed without being very sexy. Shadow clearly has a dominant side but keeps it suppressed around Fei. He swats her butt, uses lots of four letter words when the two have sex, but for all that, their love making is a bit uninspired. Here again, I got a better sense of what the two were thinking when they made love rather than what they were feeling and/or doing. I understand the earlier books in your series are quite spicy–this book was not.

You also have Fei, the first time she wants to have sex with Shadow, do a truly creepy thing. Fei and Shadow have rescued Lin, Fei’s more traditional Chinese cousin from an angry old lecher. (Fei’s father had sold Lin to the man to pay a debt.) The three of them are traveling to the town of Barren Ridge to return Lin and Fei to their Chinese family. Although Fei and Shadow have only known each other a few days, Fei has decided she wants to do the deed. However, since they are in the middle of nowhere and being pursued by several different villains, Fei and Shadow can’t head off into the hills and abandon Lin while they get busy. Fei’s solution to this? She gives the unwitting Lin an herbal tea that knocks Lin out. Fei tells Shadow, “If I had not, she would have spent the night talking and I would not have had this time with you.” Even Shadow “didn’t know whether to be flattered or appalled.” I was appalled. There’s just no way that’s an acceptable thing to do.

Ironically, the thing I liked best about your book was the setting. The American Wild West was crude and violent; poverty beat out prosperity for most who journeyed there. The rule of law rarely existed, women were far and few in between; the prejudice faced by and done to immigrants and Native Americans was extraordinary. That world which you convey bits and pieces of is a fascinating place.

Sincerely,

Dabney

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Note from Jane: Dabney is a new guest reviewer for Dear Author and will be reviewing here during the Spring to see if she feels comfortable with us. You can find her at her blog http://thepassionatereader.blogspot.com/. You can also find Dabney at All About Romance.

While historical romances aren’t my favored genre, I do love paranormal romances. If I pick up a historical, more often than not there’s a whiff of the paranormal in it. I remember first hearing about your debut novel several months ago and it sounded interesting enough that it stayed on my radar. [...]]]> Dear Ms. Callihan,

While historical romances aren’t my favored genre, I do love paranormal romances. If I pick up a historical, more often than not there’s a whiff of the paranormal in it. I remember first hearing about your debut novel several months ago and it sounded interesting enough that it stayed on my radar. As I was warned, Firelight is certainly a mix of many different genres. I’m all for genre-mixing, but I’m just not sure it worked here.

The youngest daughter of a destitute family, Miranda Ellis was born with an unusual gift. She has the ability to start fires, and I don’t mean with matches. In fact, it is because of this firestarting ability that her family is penniless. To survive, Miranda has taken to using her pretty face (and other, ahem, assets) to steal.

That ends when Miranda is forced to marry the infamous Lord Benjamin Archer, who wears a mask to hide his disfigured face. Miranda is resigned to her fate but complications arise when Archer becomes the main suspect of a series of murders. The victims were all prior acquaintances of Archer’s and more importantly, were known to be on poor terms with him.

Despite his reputation, Miranda knows that her husband can’t be responsible. She sees the goodness in him. She embarks on a quest to discover Archer’s past in order to learn the mystery behind his mask and why he hides his face from the world. But in doing so, she attracts the attention of the real murderer and may soon become the next target.

Firelight is indeed a paranormal historical and while I think that’s an accurate subgenre label, it’s also very much a gothic romance in tone. At first glance, I thought these elements would work well together. But as I continued reading, I was strongly reminded of a conversation I once had with Jane in which we discussed why paranormal historicals often fail for readers. In a nutshell, we concluded that both paranormals and historicals require a certain amount of worldbuilding to ground the narrative for a reader. In a paranormal historical, you have to combine the paranormal worldbuilding with the historical worldbuilding. Unfortunately, you end up with one of two options: success or a confusing mess. I found Firelight to be a confusing mess.

I realize a lot of this is the result of my preferences. I know I’m particular when it comes to worldbuilding. I don’t like it when things are dropped in without any explanation whatsoever and I’m just supposed to accept it. As a reader, I’m already accepting that there are fantastical elements which, let’s be fair, is a pretty big suspension of disbelief. I need a little more grounding to avoid frustration. In this case, I’m specifically talking about Archer’s “disfigurement.” What was up with that? I was torn between rolling my eyes at the tweeness and going WTF at the random tossing in of Egyptian mythology.

This in turn brings us to what I consider the major flaw of the novel. There’s a fine balance when you draw out a mystery. It can increase tension or it can become outright annoying, thereby having the opposite effect of slowing down the narrative. While it was initially novel to speculate about Archer’s disfigurement and presumed paranormal dilemma, this soon got tiresome. And the more tiresome it got, the less engaged I became. It was very easy for me to put this book down. I sometimes forgot I was reading it and had to force myself to pick it back up. By the time we learn Archer’s secret, the revelation was so anticlimactic I found I couldn’t care less.

At its heart, this is a Beauty and the Beast story. Unfortunately, the romance left me cold. I understood why Archer loved and adored Miranda. But I never quite followed why Miranda began to reciprocate. Whether or not this romance works for a reader will depend on that reader’s tolerance for couples who lie to each other. Miranda and Archer spend the majority of the book lying to one another. Miranda doesn’t tell him about her firestarting abilities. Archer doesn’t tell her about his past, what he knows about the murders being pinned on him, or about his disfigurement. This type of storyline is one of my least favorites. They kept lying to one another and shutting each other out, so I failed to see any lowering of defenses or the emotional intimacy I like to see in romantic plots.

Overall, I found this book to be unfocused. That could simply be due to the fact that I was so irritated with the drawing out of Archer’s mystery disfigurement that I began to notice other flaws. It happens. In theory, I thought the various elements should go well together but they came off as jumbled to me: Archer’s mystery disfigurement, Miranda’s firestarting ability, the murders, Archer’s rivals and enemies – one of whom keeps flirting with Miranda and may not be entirely human, a mysterious woman who may be Archer’s ex-lover, a mysterious club that Miranda cannot track down and so on. I guess I expect a certain level of depth to any given plot element and when you have too many in a book of this length, it starts becoming a bit shallow.

I can see why some readers would enjoy this book. It has a gothic sensibility to it. It’s very reminiscent of Phantom of the Opera. For all that I found Archer’s secret to be underwhelming and perhaps a little silly, it was fairly original. I don’t say that often when it comes to paranormals. But despite all that, I’m afraid this book just didn’t work for me. C-

My regards,
Jia

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