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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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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The cover song has always occupied a precarious position in the annals of music lovers. On the one hand, it is quite a safe thing to do—cover someone else’s song. One already knows that it is beloved. One already knows what sort of person might like that song. It has a brand, a [...]]]> Dear Ms. Livesey,

The cover song has always occupied a precarious position in the annals of music lovers. On the one hand, it is quite a safe thing to do—cover someone else’s song. One already knows that it is beloved. One already knows what sort of person might like that song. It has a brand, a mark, a name already stamped upon it. You, as the musician, can rely on people’s nostalgia to bring to the song you are playing emotions you might not be guaranteed to evoke through your own work. If you are a really excellent musician, you may even bring to the original song something that wasn’t there before. You may make it better. You may, like Jeff Buckley singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” create an entirely new song.

But there is also a risk in covering a song, especially a beloved song. You may just make people wish they were listening to the original. You may just make people sad that they never got to see the Beatles the first time around. You may expose your own mediocrity by attempting a song that is beyond your abilities. You may, like a cover band at a wedding, make people’s skin crawl with your rendition of “I Will Always Love You.” Yes, the cover song is a dangerous thing to do.

So, too, are books that re-tell classic works of literature. There’s something both naive and arrogant in supposing you, as an author, can say something more interesting about, for example, Lolita, than Nabokov did. It’s rather an act of hubris, isn’t it? Of course, when it is done well . . . but there’s the rub. You’ve got to do it well. And if you don’t? There’s a lot more to lose.

In the book description on Amazon.com, The Flight of Gemma Hardy is called a “captivating homage to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre” which is rather misleading. Homage? Is that the word to use? I would not describe this book as an homage to Jane Eyre. No, that book would be Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart. This book is Jane Eyre—Jane Eyre dressed in the slacks and cardigans of the 1960′s, Jane Eyre missing all its teeth and replacing them with wooden dentures—but Jane Eyre, nonetheless. There are, of course, differences. But those differences are in the details rather than the plot structure, the themes, or the characters. The differences are either superficial, amounting to just mere costume changes, or they are substantial in such a way as to make the plot simultaneously absurd and dull. This is, in my opinion, merely a bad cover version of Jane Eyre.

The book is divided into five parts roughly corresponding with the parts in Jane Eyre. The first two sections focus on Gemma’s childhood, the loss of her only friend Miriam, and her years at Claypoole School. The third section focuses on her time as a nanny to a young girl, the niece of a wealthy banker and landowner, Mr. Sinclair on the Orkney Islands. Part four focuses on her flight from Mr. Sinclair upon learning his secret and Gemma’s recovery of herself during that time period. The last part focuses on the discovery of the remaining family she never knew she had—a family that lives in Iceland—and her eventual return to Mr. Sinclair.

Gemma Hardy is an orphan. Her beloved Uncle has died leaving her in the care of an aunt who, she is coming to realize, hates her. When the village doctor suggests that perhaps she might be better off at school, she sees this as her chance to escape the increasing misery and grief that seems to be her lot at Yew House. Much like the titular character of the book upon which this novel is based, Gemma finds that school is not at all what she expected. Claypoole is a school with an inordinate number of scholarship girls, but they are not there to learn. They are there to earn their keep. Gemma finds no solace at Claypoole but she does find a kind of freedom. When the school closes, she takes a position as a nanny for the Sinclairs in the Orkney Islands. It is there she meets the handsome, brusque Mr. Sinclair and promptly falls head over heels in love with him. But Mr. Sinclair has a secret that seems to be connected to the steward, Seamus Sinclair. Despite this, Gemma feels as if she has finally come home. But this feeling is shattered when, on her wedding day, a secret from the past is revealed and forces Gemma to find her own way in the world.

So, ya know, like I said, it is pretty much Jane Eyre. The names have been changed, but the problems are real, as they used to say on Mathnet part of Square One.

And the book is problematic. It wants to retain all the elements of the original whilst modernizing the plot. What this means is that Ms. Livesey has to jump through some very difficult hoops in order to sustain the original plot structure. Her decision to set the story in the 1960’s makes certain elements of Jane Eyre nearly impossible to deploy with any kind of verisimilitude or believability. I think I can say with a fair amount of confidence that it is a fact that orphaned young women in the 1960’s had advantages and opportunities that orphaned young women in the 1840’s simply did not possess. I hope that we can all agree that this is the case. It certainly seems like it ought to be the case. I suppose it is important that as a reader I certainly felt it ought to be the case. Getting a job in the 1960’s, even without references, wasn’t nearly as difficult as getting a job in the 1840’s, surely? But in order to give to Gemma the kind of isolation and alienation that is the hallmark of Jane’s character, Livesey has to do a lot of work in order to make that come off in the setting she has chosen

We see this problem first on the announcement that Claypoole School is closing due to financial difficulties. As such, Gemma finds that her dreams of university are unlikely to manifest themselves. She must find other employment until such a time as she can gain entry into a university. On the advice of a professor she takes a job as nanny. Well this seems all fine and dandy. I accept this. I find this believable. However, it makes her about 18 years old when she meets Mr. Sinclair (42!), which granted is about the same age Jane was when she met Mr. Rochester but 18 in 1966 seems a hell of a lot younger than 18 in 1846. Also, there is no reason that Mr. Sinclair should be that old except for the fact that the author needs to have had him fight in WWII. It all seems so forced, this plot. Where Jane’s involvement with Rochester is rife with inequalities (age, class, education), these differences are superficially dealt with in The Flight of Gemma Hardy. Nor are we given the kinds of conversations between Gemma and Sinclair that occur between Jane and Rochester; conversations that are essential to the establishment of these two people’s connection and love for each other. The age difference between Sinclair feels out of place and anachronistic within the confines of the setting. More importantly, it seems superfluous to the rest of the novel, an unnecessary holdover from the original that doesn’t make any sense in this new book.

Because the fact of the matter is, Gemma has more long term opportunities than Jane did. She still could to University. She can go to University. She could get another kind of a job. She could become a doctor or a lawyer or a spy. Jane Eyre didn’t have those choices. Where Jane comes off as having a valiant integrity—albeit an idealistic and at time impractical integrity—against a society that inexorably attempts to degrade her, Gemma just comes off as spoilt and foolish and unaware of the world around her or the possibilities it has to offer.  I could have forgiven the acrobatics Livesey employs to maintain the “homage” to Bronte had they had any emotional weight within the narrative. But they didn’t. A book that I was finding rather innocuous became really annoying to me when Sinclair reveals his great, dark secret.

If you will recall, the great, dark secret of Mr. Rochester is one of the most scandalizing reveals in the history of literature and a large part of that novel’s themes revolve around it. The problem is that it simply does not work in a modern context. Mr. Rochester had very little choice about what to do with his wife. Assuming, as I do, that Bertha had some kind of severe schizophrenia or something then she couldn’t simply be allowed to live in a house like a normal person where she might end up hurting a totally innocent bystander or herself or a servant or something. Nor could he put her in a madhouse. Oh well, Rochester could have but considering the state of madhouses in the 19^th century, that seemed a really despicable thing to do. Even Rochester, not known for his upstanding morality, thought it was despicable. I’ve always taken the position that Rochester was doing his best under the circumstances. It’s not like he locked her in the attic and THEN she went crazy. No, he locked her in the attic BECAUSE she went crazy. But even this is an overly simplistic version of the matter.

Bertha’s existence and her insanity bring up a lot of issues in the novel, issues that must be dealt with before the “Reader I married him”. Is Bertha a kind of mirror to Jane? To Rochester? Is she a metaphor for female sexuality? Is Rochester cruel? Is he evil for what he has done to her? For his deception of Jane? Is Jane right to leave him? Does he deserve to be burned in his bed? What does it mean to love the unloveable? Is Bertha any more or less unloveable than Jane feels herself to be? What is forgiveness? What is atonement? How do these relate to things like class and gender and money and sex and death and God? I could go on. In short, the revelation of Bertha in the attic is pivotal to the religious, ethical, and existential questions that weave throughout the book. If you take away the particular of that revelation and replace it with something else, that something else should perform as powerful and visceral a problem to the characters and to the reader as the original revelation. You know, if you are writing an homage and all that.

Spoiler alert: I will in the following paragraphs reveal Mr. Sinclair’s secret.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Gemma gets her knickers in a twist, decides she can’t trust Sinclair anymore, etc. etc. just as Jane does. Only this seemed a rather tame secret in comparison to having a mad wife in the attic. And Sinclair wasn’t going to commit fraud or bigamy or anything by marrying Gemma. All in all, the whole thing seemed like a rather unfortunate incident. Even at 18, naïve and arrogant as I was, I would not have considered this to be a big, fucking deal. That Gemma does is baffling to me as a reader. I was expecting something like murder or an actual exchange of identities, like Hugh Sinclair really was Seamus Sinclair. It could have been incest, or God anything that would have a force like the original.

The question I came away with is this: if one is going to re-tell a story, or re-imagine a famous work of literature, a famous song, a famous painting—what does your version of this other story offer the reader? What makes your version of this story interesting or different? What does it add to the original? How does it converse with original? What does it leave out and why? What does it focus on and why?

It seems to me that The Flight of Gemma Hardy is a book that didn’t bother to ask these questions. It simply regurgitates the original story into a different time period without asking any significant questions either of the narrative or through the narrative. This might suggest that this book is badly written. But it isn’t and I struggled with it because of that. In fact, it is quite well-written. The prose is clean and smooth; the setting is detailed in such a way as to paint a picture in your mind’s eye; the characters, both primary and secondary, are complex, well-drawn and interesting; it is what I would call a well-crafted novel. Yet, even as I recognize the craft that went into writing this novel, it lacked a vital spark. I recognize this is a vague criticism. It is not helpful to the author. But readers will know what I mean when I say: This book had no breath. I slide through it with all the ease and expediency of a drive-thru, and I drank it with the same unthinking speed as a chocolate milkshake. It was, in short, forgettable, flavorless, and fast. More so, because it only made me think with regret of the book I’d rather be reading, Jane Eyre.

As such, despite the skill with which this novel is written, I must give a C- for being one of, in the words of Jarvis Cocker, “the sad imitations that got it so wrong.”

Lazaraspaste

P.S. To those interested, the incredible video to Pulp’s “Bad Cover Version” can be found here.

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Thank you for sending me your book for review.  I really liked the idea of this book as pitched in the review query and initially I was very excited about where the story was going.  Alice Standish, former mistress of the King, is kidnapped and brought to the palace.  Either marry Louis [...]]]> Dear Callen Primer:

Thank you for sending me your book for review.  I really liked the idea of this book as pitched in the review query and initially I was very excited about where the story was going.  Alice Standish, former mistress of the King, is kidnapped and brought to the palace.  Either marry Louis Montanero, the margrave and Warden of the Night or suffer dire consequences at the hands of the new Queen, Marie, who is now Queen of Day but cousin to Louis.  Some of the lowlanders still chafe under the King’s rule and look to Louis as the acceptable heir to the throne.  To disqualify Louis in the eyes of his people, Ned, the King, and the Queen ask Alice to marry Louis because under lowland law, a king cannot marry a slave born woman.

In exchange of the marriage, Alice gets Ned to agree to repeal the Pursuit Clause.  It used to be that prior to the treaty between the lowlands and Highlands, if a slave of the North stepped a foot on the soil of the South that she or he would be free.  The Pursuit Clause gave the slave owners the right to pursue their quarry into the south.

Alice was a slave until Ned and his troop of men came stumbling through her orchard. She fed them and he took her up and carried her off.  Despite their 10 year relationship, Ned and Alice did not love each other and Alice gladly let him go when he needed to marry to secure the crown.  All this is interesting. Unfortunately, it is not what the story is about.  Instead, the story’s main thrust focuses in a magic in the southern fens but we aren’t introduced to this issue until about the 30% mark of the book.  I think that the story gets lost in the attempt to make a rich and complex world.

The problems were in both the big and small details.  Alice is a former slave and there are some strains of the slave issue that follow her into the south but there is no explanation of who were slaves, how they were freed, what role they played in the south versus the north.  Slaves seemed to be accepted in the south by everyone.  The highlands were bright sunlight and day filled. The lowlands were dark, an eternal night. Why?

There were airships and a new gasworks plant.  The gasworks plant processed oil and created diesel.  Where was the rest of the manufacturing that would go along with that?  Why was the gasworks, the only one, not creating a stronger foothold of power for the south?

There is such a strange amalgamation of landmarks such as the men wearing kilts and the use of Highlands v. Lowlands suggesting an alternate form of Scotland.  Yet, there are ice walls to the north and other references that might make one think of the Netherlands.  There was a mix of surnames from Indian to Japanese to Korean/Chinese.  There is Standish, Louis Monatero, Janey Li, Abel Wahid, Kai Sung, Rafe Tokami.  Surnames provide a lot of cultural and regional placement.  If this was a full on fantasy, then the use of existing landmarks confuses readers.

The world building in the story is dense with little dialogue or character interaction throughout the story.  The latter half of the book moves at a much faster clip and I couldn’t help but wonder if the story began at the wrong place.  The pace of the story was slow, without anything really happening until about after chapter 8.  Up until that point, Alice travels from the Highlands t o the Lowlands and settles into her home.  There are a host of new words thrown at the reader and new meanings to existing phrases such as “For a fire marriage to become permanent, the couple had to live together for a year and a span, or have a child together.  Otherwise, it could be asserted by one party just leaving.”  Asserting means to leave the marriage, but I’m not certain the exact meaning or why the word “asserted” was used. I point this out as an example of how word choices made the book less accessible and slowed down the pace at which the book moved.  I had to re-read words several times to gain their meanings.  I wasn’t even sure what a span was.  I did a word search after multiple appearances but still was unclear.

• Admittedly the woman only been queen of Day for three spans, not enough time to learn how things worked here..
• Big Kloster rang in the new span, Little Kloster followed with the first hour, then with the second…
• “How long were they together?”  ”About three spans,” said Janey.

Finally, the romance is non existent. I think Louis and Alice are present in about three scenes together and while the conflict presented could have been a very good one, it wasn’t explored in depth. This is really a story about the world and about Alice’s battle with the big bad.  Long time fantasy readers may have a greater appreciation for this than I.  C-

Best regards,

Jane

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This book ended up being too frothy for me. Alissa is a Muse and as such her role in life is to inspire those around her. The big concept in the book is that the heroine is competing to be the Best Muse of All (or for to be the Wreath Muse) [...]]]> Dear Ms. Frost:

This book ended up being too frothy for me. Alissa is a Muse and as such her role in life is to inspire those around her. The big concept in the book is that the heroine is competing to be the Best Muse of All (or for to be the Wreath Muse) which is akin to a Miss Universe pagaent complete with an evening gown competition and a swimsuit (“I’ve heard we’ll be wearing bathing suits for the photo shoot by the retreat’s tropical indoor pool. No gloves or long skirts for that session.”) and sportswear component as well. It’s not even ironic. Her competition is her former best friend:

Cerise Xenakis, her former best friend, held court at the center. Cerise’s dark hair gleamed in the candlelight. She wore a daring dress of white leather and pewter lace. From a distance it looked like lingerie, and Alissa had heard that Cerise had taken the dress from a music video she’d starred in for the Molly Times, one of the bands she inspired. The Molly Times’s debut album had gone platinum and had been nominated for three Grammy Awards.

Alissa swallowed hard, wondering to whose presentation the EC—the Etherlin Council—had given more votes: hers or Cerise’s. Among the people Cerise inspired, there were an Olympic gold medalist, a Heisman Trophy winner, a principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet, and four multiplatinum musical artists. Among Alissa’s aspirants, her writers had won a Pulitzer, three National Book Awards, and two Academy Awards. Her scientific and engineering aspirants had published eighty-four scientific papers and generated nineteen patents, two of which Alissa had been included on. She had transferred her share in the patents to the Etherlin community trust. She was proud that her work on clean energy had generated eight million dollars over four years. That was four million more than she’d made modeling. She wanted to be respected and regarded as a muse of substance, but she was glad to have the modeling income for the community as well. She knew that with her combined earnings, she’d contributed more money to the trust than all the other current muses combined.

The romance tension comes from Alissa falling for someone who is forbidden to her. Alissa is the daughter of the House of North and one of the most accomplished Muses of all time. The Wreath comes with extra powers. (Kind of like a power up pack in a video game). Alissa seems to be a shoo in. She even seems to have the support of the father of her closest rival.

Alissa’s coronation, however, is imperiled by a scandal involving Merrick, a ventala. A ventala is the progeny of a human and a vampire.  Some view Alissa with suspicion regardless because her mother killed herself. Alissa must be an exemplar candidate because she needs to be the Wreath Muse in order to save her father who is suffering from some kind of dementia. Alissa met Merrick when he saved her from a demon five years ago. Ever since then, Alissa has secretly written him letters and he has left her gifts. When Alissa is up for the crown title Wreath she begins to be targeted by someone dangerous. Merrick comes back to protect her with the Etherlin security team reluctantly allowing him into their midst.

Part of Alissa’s danger seems to be intertwined with her mother’s suicide and her father’s dementia. Unlocking those mysteries will reveal a dark side to Etherlin.

On the one hand, there was some interesting world building. Outside the Etherlin live a mix of humans, vampires, demons and ventala in the Varden. There are syndicates that rule with Varden and its fairly lawless…yet, the Muses venture out during sanctioned visits to inspire greatness. (Are they inspiring the gangsters? I could never really tell if the Muses were responsible for all the success or only the good success. Were there evil Muses out there? )  Alissa says:

“To be entitled to a muse’s energy and efforts, a person has to work extremely hard and has to have talent or intelligence, ingenuity and drive. Do you understand? There aren’t a lot of muses. Our focused attention facilitates the greatest inventions, the greatest works of literature, feats of athleticism, scientific discoveries . . . If a muse expends energy on someone who isn’t capable of doing something extraordinary with it, then what happens to the person who could have created a masterpiece or the next technological revolution? It’s actually a weakness in my character that I haven’t stopped.”

The idea is that the people who live in Etherlin are superior. They are ruled by intellect and inspire others to create great art, invent useful products, or be successful politicians. Yet the vampires are looked down upon because they are impulsive and driven by emotion and need. Isn’t there some inherent inconsistency here? Someone who inspires others through emotion thinks that emotion is somehow devaluing? And what is with all the focus on how someone looks in their gowns and their bathing suits if you are a MUSE? My face, it has a very confused look on it.

The Etherlin people hold a pageant to pick their Wreath Muse! How can these people think themselves superior? Their entire days are spent looking good. Alissa has to meet with the Ralph Lauren people but soon “She hoped to be completely consumed with the Wreath Muse publicity tour and the obligations of the role.”  In the end, I couldn’t get over that a) I was reading a paranormal pageant book interspersed with some vampire sexxoring and B) the only reason that Alissa wanted the Wreath was to save her father.  Seems rather unMuse like to me and the ending.  Oy, the ending. It shot another huge hole in the worldbuilding.

Best regards,

Jane

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I’ve never read a steampunk book and frankly had doubts that it would be to my taste but since I’m trying to expand my reading of new-to-me authors, I thought why not try a new genre as well. The results weren’t what I was hoping for but the reason for the grade [...]]]> Dear Ms. Gooden,

I’ve never read a steampunk book and frankly had doubts that it would be to my taste but since I’m trying to expand my reading of new-to-me authors, I thought why not try a new genre as well. The results weren’t what I was hoping for but the reason for the grade isn’t the gears and goggles. Rather it’s due to some issues with the characters.

Older Olyve Blackwell knows that her actions flout propriety and at her age she isn’t likely to get any offers of marriage from the gentlemen of the ton but since she’s one of THE Blackwells, the effort to be proper probably would have been wasted had she even been inclined to attempt it. Instead she indulges her liking of things mechanical and tries to help those less fortunate than she. Disturbing visions have her asking around about missing women and she knows she’s rattled someone’s cage when an assassin tries to kill her. An unknown man comes to her rescue then gently pushes her off the train at the next station. Olyve doesn’t think she’ll ever see him again but to her surprise, he rescues her again at a ton party she attends.

Olyve quickly realizes that she’s stumbled upon the heart of the evil conspiracy behind the missing women and children but to her horror, she isn’t sure whether her savior is genuine or if he’ll turn out to be one of the inner circle. Does she dare trust her Intuition as her world collapses around her?

My suspicion that steampunk isn’t for me was confirmed but that’s not your book, it’s me. I doubt I’d have liked anyone’s steampunk and will probably avoid it in the future. The steam powered gadgets, gears, flying mechanisms and goggles just don’t do anything for me. However I suspect that you include all the necessary ingredients to make aficionados happy.

No, the reason the book doesn’t work for me are more related to the actions of the characters with a bit of the world building. I never really got a handle on the world here. I can tell it’s England and probably sometime in the 19th century but the rest is a blur. Are the Quarters which are mentioned actual places or ranks in society? What are all the feminine dress codes about? What is the Revolutionary movement? Why does the ton dislike or is it disdain the Blackwell family? What happened to Olyve’s sister? Perhaps this long novella is part of a series and more is explained elsewhere but I felt lost here.

Olyve and James Reeves have what I call insta-love. Immediately they Just Know and are in love. Why? I don’t know – time constraints? Shorthand? I usually like to see a couple interact a little more than these two do and especially if the interactions they do have are mainly life threatening. I also thought they fell into insta-sex way too fast. And the way it starts, with Olyve being threatened by the ring of villains and James having to play along is downright distasteful. She’s unsure of James then, being threatened with gang rape by the slavering others, he’s having to manhandle her to keep in his true motives hidden and she’s getting turned on. Hell to the no. Then after they are taken elsewhere, she’s after him again but it’s James who tries to put the brakes on by announcing she has gone through too much then when that doesn’t work that he wants twue lurve from a marriage and when Olyve announces she just wants him, he gives into the passion. At least this time there was no mention of the earlier “weeping sheath.” Oh, and I got tired of James calling Olyve “his sprite” and disliked the “brave little minx” as both felt slightly condescending.

Reeves has been working on some major project for a while when he’s pulled – via the comb talking box at the gambling den – onto the case of the abducted women/girls. Then when we next see him as an operative, he, while trying to save Olyve, thinks that he can’t blow his cover here since he’s been working undercover for so long to infiltrate this group. Huh? No mention of a lot of passing time between the two scenes so, huh? I do love his instructions from The Comb that the Monarchy wants case closed but without the need for trial – kind of makes James a 00 agent with implicit instructions to kill whoever is doing this.

I was also lost about Olyve. What are the barriers in Olyve’s mind? Her gift is Intuition? Just what is her “gift/power?” For a woman who is supposed to be so intuitive about danger/situations around her, she sure gets caught up in a lot of dangerous things and taken prisoner. Then, after being warned by her Uncle and attacked on the train, Olyve heads back into danger at the party. Smart? Olyve then uses another one of her powers – which she seems to pull out of a hat just when they’re needed – to find out about an object as she holds it in her hand. And she almost dies only to be saved by James. Then she says she wants to try again. James – and I – are astounded and not in a good way. There’s a lot to “being a Blackwell” and it seems to grow by the page. Her glowing/color changing fingertips sort of gross me out. There’s too much “just in the nick of time stuff here.” Though how she turned her powers on the villain-in-charge was cool.

And thus ends my first and probably last foray into steampunk. My main problems of this book wasn’t that but what I’ve outlined above. Nevertheless, the genre failed to impress me so I think I’ll stick to my historicals and contemporaries.

~Jayne

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I confess that my dislike for the portrayal of one character in this book really overshadowed everything else.  I haven’t been following this new series of yours closely but I understand that you are revisiting classic fairy tales.  This story is based on the Princess and the Pea.  The Princess and the [...]]]> Dear Ms. James:

I confess that my dislike for the portrayal of one character in this book really overshadowed everything else.  I haven’t been following this new series of yours closely but I understand that you are revisiting classic fairy tales.  This story is based on the Princess and the Pea.  The Princess and the Pea is about a woman who is constantly tested for her worthiness as a partner to the prince by the prince’s mother.  Olivia is invited to the home of the Duke of Sconce so that her sister, Georgina, can be evaluated as a bride for Tarquin, the Duke of Sconce.

Tarquin was madly in love with his faithless first wife and after she died, he retreated to his mathematical studies.  His mother is relentless in her desire to see him remarried.

Olivia is betrothed to the heir to the Dukedom of Canterwick and has been since she was fifteen.  Rupert is five years younger than her and is dimwitted, short, slender, with a “potato shaped nose and penduluous lower lip.”  Rupert is clearly not all there and is the subject of scorn and mockery.  He is also about the only physically unattractive person in the book. Not only does he have the bad nose and puffy bottom lip, but his nose ”just seemed to force one to pay more attention to his mouth. Which invariably hung open, his lower teeth visible in a glistening pout.”  Rupert’s father choose Olivia because of her “hips and brains”.  He tells her to bed the duke’s heir before he goes off to fight in the war.  Rupert, the heir, can’t get it up.  The heroine mocks him to her sister saying “neither two of his most important organs are functioning.”

What makes Olivia’s mockery of Rupert even more distasteful is that she is aware that he had lost air at birth.  The duke told her that to reassure her that her children would not be similarly affected.  At times, Olivia shows concern for Rupert but primarily because mockery of him reflects poorly on her.  When Tarquin is commenting on Rupert’s lack of mental faculties, Olivia decides to put up a resistance.

Of course she agreed, but she had realized when the duchess was so dismissive of Rupert that she could either spend her entire life listening to sniggers behind her husband’s back, or she could make it clear that no one should dare to insult Rupert to her face.

It’s not out of true concern or care for Rupert that Olivia defends him, but because she doesn’t want to listen to sniggers about him.  She can snigger, though, calling him a “little beardy-weirdly bottle –headed chub” and a “buffle-headed fool” and having “the brainpower of a gnat” and assigning him not so clever acroynms like “FF” (Foolish Fiance) or “HH” (Halfwit Husband).

When Olivia and Georgina arrive at the Duke of Sconce’s residence, Olivia and Tarquin aka Quin immediately are attracted to each other when Tarquin rescues Olivia from the rain.

I’ll insert a spoiler tag here although I don’t feel that the stuff is particularly spoilery.

But shallowness is the byword for this book. Olivia’s big problem is apparently that she was fat. She self describes herself as fat frequently but no one ever slights her for it.  There was no indication that any one (but her mother) thought she was overly large, not her sister, not her fiance and not the hero, Tarquin.

Tarquin’s emotional arc was supposedly that he loved his first wife, but she cheated on him so he’ll never again marry a woman that he doesn’t love.  Right, that makes no sense to me.

Finally, the ending was completely bizarre and included two pages that involved whether some French woman was the best baker of bread in all of France.  Two pages.

What was the point of Rupert in the story? Was it to put on display the mistaken and ignorant attitudes of society toward mentally handicapped individuals and how some of those same attitudes exist today?  If so, where was the lesson in why these attitudes might be mistaken or ignorant? Further, why portray Quin as an absent minded scientific mind without drawing some parallel between Rupert’s disengagement with society and Quin’s similar path? “For example, he [Quin] seldom knew what the people around him were feeling. He had a formidable intelligence and rarely found other people’s thought patterns very surprising. But their emotions? He greatly disliked the way people seemed to conceal their emotions, only to release them in a gassy burst of noise and a tearful exposition.”  I think Tarquin was supposed to be written as if he had Asperger’s but it didn’t come across that way in any significant fashion.  Perhaps the tone of the book was too light hearted (interspersed with too many clever witticisms from Olivia) for mental disabilities to be of anything but a joke.

Was it to highlight the contributions mentally handicapped people provide?  If so, why do it in such a way that allowed Rupert to be torn down for most of the book?  Mocked and criticized by the characters?

Was it to provide a pivot point for Olivia’s character arc?  If this is the correct answer, I have to say, how distasteful.  Through Olivia and others, Rupert was mocked for being “dimwitted”, “limp”, and unattractive featured.  And where was the pivot?  Was it when Rupert went off to war and Olivia breathed a sigh of relief.  Was it when Olivia was sleeping with her sister’s intended?  Was it when Olivia worried that she wouldn’t be able to break her betrothal as conveniently if Rupert was a hero?  Was it when Olivia and Quin lay in bed and Quin felt somewhat guilty for cuckolding Rupert while Rupert was sacrificing his life for England?

Importantly, while Rupert is a central figure to the story, his point of view is never shared.  We only learn about him through the eyes of others.  Strangely, Quin is portrayed as having difficult time concentrating, his thoughts moving quickly from one topic to another.  But because he is an attractive, sexually powerful man his mental acuity is never in question, nor was his desirability.

Having said all that, the book is readable and readability is tough to pull off.  I’m giving the book a reluctant C-.

Best regards,

Jane

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I like your voice. I really do. After all, it’s why I keep trying your books. I’ve even enjoyed some of your Hammer Club series (Kinky Klub of Kinkiness, ahoy! in which Sarah learns about sexual sounding. O.O ). I just wish you believed in plot a little more strongly. I think I’ve [...]]]> Dear Sean.

I like your voice. I really do. After all, it’s why I keep trying your books. I’ve even enjoyed some of your Hammer Club series (Kinky Klub of Kinkiness, ahoy! in which Sarah learns about sexual sounding. O.O ). I just wish you believed in plot a little more strongly. I think I’ve just got to stop reading your books, because they never give me what I need and I just get frustrated. It’s not even good “Plot What Plot?” I’m all for hot sex without plot (although it’s better WITH plot) but even the sex isn’t that important, at least to this story.

This story is about Donny, fresh out of college with an Early Childhood Ed degree who can’t get a job because he’s both male and gay. The world sucks in that this is probably absolutely true to life. Anyway, he goes to an interview to be an in-home nanny for Jeff. It’s trial by fire because Jeff is not doing so well and Donny walks in on a disaster-zone. Jeff inherited a three year old boy and a three month old girl. They’re his biological children, but he never expected to have them full-time. Their mother, his very close platonic female friend, to whom Jeff donated his sperm and not much else, died in a house fire. Jeff accedes to Beth’s wishes and commits to taking his kids, but he’s completely out of his depth and with his hours as a chef at a high-end restaurant, he desperately needs a nanny. Jeff and Donny connect over being gay (they call it “family,” a term I hadn’t heard before) and Donny moves in immediately.

And then everything’s perfect. They’re attracted, they make out, they share blowjobs, they become lovers, the kids are fabulously perfect, Jeff’s strangely unbalanced ex-boyfriend, who left when the kids arrived, shows up and tries to destroy everything, Jeff almost lets him by becoming depressed (but no less committed to Donny and the kids) but then he snaps out of it when his sister tells him to and they all live happily ever after. Easy-peasy.

There’s NO tension of any kind until the last quarter when the ex shows up, and then that tension’s completely manufactured and fake feeling because the ex is quite so unhinged. There’s no angst about whether Jeff should be banging his children’s nanny. There’s no angst about anything because these are two perfectly ordinary men who meet, fall in love, join households, and are happy. Their kids are well-adjusted, their relationship is healthy. There’s no barrier to their relationship, which is great in real life (falling in love is almost always an amazing feeling), but it’s not so great for a book.

A little tip: character *conflict* + character *conflict* + relationship *conflict* + happy resolution to all the conflicts = satisfying book. For a romance to be really great, each character has to have their own emotional arc that intersects with a relationship arc. They have to learn something about themselves. They have to become better people because they’re together. They have to get over themselves to make the relationship a priority. And the relationship has to overcome something as well. For a romance to be even worth reading (rather than really great), either one of the characters or the relationship has to have some sort of conflict to overcome. There’s NO conflict in this book until the manufactured foaming-at-the-mouth ex who comes out of nowhere, inflicts random destruction, and leaves. And he’s not even captured by the police and no one seems to care.

Random inconsistencies: At one point, Jeff thinks that he’s been best friends with Beth since kindergarten,but  at another, Beth’s parents says something about them meeting when they were sixteen. That’s…quite a difference there. At one point Jeff complains about not having health insurance, but then makes no demur about being taken to the emergency room in an ambulance for a panic attack (and then there’s no discussion of how to pay for it). I don’t believe that Jeff makes the kind of money as a chef (without ANY advanced degree) that would build him such a beautiful house, but maybe I don’t understand how restaurant economics work.

All in all, fun dialogue and good characters can’t support for very long sloppy research, sloppy writing, sloppy editing, and no conflict at all. Despite the delightful characters, I think I’m done with your books. Even the stories that teach me something (see above re: Hammer Club series) don’t often have emotional conflict. I need to care about these characters, above and beyond them being delightful people.

Grade: C- (ie: reading it wasn’t a complete waste of my time because I *liked* Jeff and Donny, despite their saccharine sweetness)

Best regards,
-Sarah

P.S. That cover is fucking awful. That is all.

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The Trophy Wife by Janette Kenny is the [...]]]> I haven’t had much luck with Harlequin Presents subscriptions of late. In December, I enjoyed three of my eight books. The problem is that I’m never sure what books I’m going to enjoy and thus the subscription seems worth it. I guess I’ll reevaluate mid year 2012.

The Trophy Wife by Janette Kenny is the next to last addition in the Notorious Wolfe series (or Bad Blood series as it was originally labeled by Mills & Boon). It featured a model with an eating disorder and computer billionaire. While I appreciated that the story attempted to tackle the issue of anorexia and societal concepts of beauty which prizes thinness over everything, I felt that the story was overloaded with sex and dealt very little with the conflict between the characters. I wasn’t even convinced that they knew each other by the end of the book. They had been married for nearly two years but spent so little time together, wrapped up in their own jobs, that they hadn’t even seen their partner’s homes which may have been okay if the first time that they actually went to the other’s homes wasn’t by the 70% mark of the book. C-

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The Power and The Glory by Kimberly Lang. I bailed on this one after the second chapter. The hero is the campaign manager for his father, a Senator, who sounds like a dickwad and the heroine is a protestor for some environmental lobbying group. I am so sick of politics and politicians that I could not stomach reading more than about 20 pages of this book. Maybe in another era I would find this more palatable but, alas, could not. DNF

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The Man Every Woman Wants by Miranda Lee. The heroine is a lawyer who does contract work for a sports agent. She confesses that she has been weaving a tale about their faux engagement to her dying grandmother and now her dyying grandmother wants to meet him. The hero agrees to do this favor for her and has a bit of fun with it. The heroine’s family is sports mad and the heroine showing up with a former star athlete and current sports agent increases her cachet. B-

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A Christmas Night to Remember by Helen Brooks. My main complaint about this story is that it takes place over two days and the couple has serious issues. The heroine is involved in a terrible car wreck. She’s maimed and scarred and has never felt secure in her husband’s love. He’s so beautiful and so rich and there are always dozens of women casting lures for him, all of which he has steadfastly ignored. The heroine was beautiful prior to the car wreck and she prided herself in being able to fit in with the fast and fashionable but now that her legs are less than perfect, she doesn’t know what will become of her and she’s sure that her husband will leave her. In order to prevent him from leaving her, she’ll leave him. He refuses to leave and in the space of two days (right before Christmas) convinces her anew of his steadfast devotion. I should love this story. It is the kind of Brooks’ story I usually enjoy but I wasn’t convinced that the heroine’s deepseated emotional fear could be assauged in just a couple of days. C

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On the First Night of Christmas by Heidi Rice. Cassie gets splashed by a car careening around the corner while she is looking at holiday windows at Selfridges in London. Rather than be a doormat, she marches over to the vehicle, stopped at a signal and bangs on the window. She tells him off and when he fails to provide an appropriate response to her, she jumps in the car only to realize that the driver is a former high school classmate of hers, one she’s always had a crush on. Just off a broken engagement, Cassie’s confidence is at an all time low and when Jace Ryan comes on to her, it’s like a balm to her wounded ego. They embark on an affair, destined to only last until the New Year when Jace returns to New York. In that time period, Cassie falls hard for Jace but Jace is confused by his feelings. He doesn’t really believe in love and just wants to enjoy the moments as they come. I really enjoyed the ending because I felt like it didn’t force the issue. It does have a traditional HEA (provided by the epilogue). B

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On the First Night of Christmas actually had a similar conflict to Once Touched, Never Forgotten by Natasha Tate, a book that I didn’t like much. Once Touched, Never Forgotten is a secret baby story. The heroine decides that the hero won’t be a good father and more importantly, doesn’t want to be a father so when she finds out she is pregnant she leaves him. Five years later he rediscovers her and her secret baby. She had a terrible childhood and was abandoned by her own father. She projects her fears onto the hero that he too will abandon their child. Of course, she never gives him the opportunity to choose. The hero isn’t sure he knows how to love but he promises that he will be a good father. The heroine is relentless in her accusations that he will be a terrible father based on nothing more than her own fears. She was a bitch but then he later uses sexual blackmail to get her to marry him so I figure that they belonged together. And unlike the Rice book, the hero in this one belabored his inability to love over and over again. I got it. She was abandoned. He had crappy relatives. The melodrama was over the top. D

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I’ve been intrigued by your writing for a while. Your tagline is “Kink, love, and a happy ending. Do you Dare?” which I think is incredibly cute. Honestly, though, I’ve been put off by your publishers (Total-e-Bound and Resplendence Publishing…who?) and by the fact that your series are quite so long (TWELVE [...]]]> Dear Ms. Dare.

I’ve been intrigued by your writing for a while. Your tagline is “Kink, love, and a happy ending. Do you Dare?” which I think is incredibly cute. Honestly, though, I’ve been put off by your publishers (Total-e-Bound and Resplendence Publishing…who?) and by the fact that your series are quite so long (TWELVE stories?!). But I bit the bullet, bought all TWELVE of your G-A-Y series, and I’m going to review ALL of them here.

I chose the G-A-Y series because they’re all m/m, they’re all kink (as all your books are), and they “revolve around various problems gay men might encounter. The stories can all stand alone, and can all be read in any order,” although I’m reading them in order. And the series is complete, so I won’t be missing any. $36 initially seemed steep for 12 stories, but, God, these are SO good, it’s almost worth it.

TL;DR overall impressions for those who can’t be bothered:

• The editing sucks. Doubled words, missed words, and homonyms, worse in some stories than in others. So I was right to be leery of your publisher. And the prices are a bit ridiculous: $2.96 each for 15,000 words each. It just seems…a bit much.
• However! The stories are AMAZING. Oh my ghods, lots of angst; perfect emotional arcs for the short novella size of the stories; amazing distinct, individual characters; hot hot sex.
• The stories are all D/s. You’ve got very little pain play in the stories (except one) and occasional sneers about “sadists” which set up my hackles. But the D/s is fun and very well done and it’s SO fucking refreshing to have stories in which the fact that the characters are D/s isn’t where the angst and trauma is located.
• I’ve read more of your stories than this series (all m/m, though — none of your m/f yet) , and unreservedly recommend every one I’ve read. You’re a very consistent author with strong writing, strong individual characters, great conflict that gets solved satisfyingly every single time, and really great sex.

1. Gaydar
Mathias has incredibly bad luck with men. Either his gaydar is completely messed up, or he’s got really good asshole-dar. He makes an assignation to meet someone in the men’s room of a bar, only to be met there instead — and thoroughly kissed — by the bartender, who has been watching him and lusting after him for months. None of Matt’s experiences have ever been more than fumblings in the dark or an hour in a hotel room, so he’s completely unprepared not only to be with someone who is out, proud, happy, and looking for a longterm relationship, but is also a dominant. He’s very confused and very turned on:

The moment Flynn closed the door, Matt dropped to his knees and reached for the other man’s fly. Flynn easily caught both his wrists in his grip before he even felt denim under his finger tips.

“Don’t do that,” Matt protested.

“Do you remember what your safe word is?” Flynn checked.

Matt nodded. “Yes, but I find it a hell of a lot easier to think when you don’t do that, so if you’re going to start confusing me again, I’d much prefer it if you didn’t hold on to me like that.”

Flynn smiled. “It only distracts you because you like it, don’t you? Being held like this, belonging to another man.”

Matt looked at his wrists, somewhat scared by just how much he loved the feel of Flynn’s hands wrapped tight around his skin. Trying to push that aside, he cleared his throat. “I’d also like to suck you off. I’m good at that. I know what I’m doing with that.”

“I’m sure you do.” He made no move to release Matt’s wrists and let him get on with it.

Matt looked down. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he whispered, surprised by his own honesty. Without knowing what it was Flynn wanted, he had no idea how to keep Flynn wanting anything at all from him and that was even scarier than the lust that shot through his veins every time Flynn’s hands took hold of him.

I liked this story. Told entirely from the perspective of Matt, he’s funny and sweet and sad — partly it’s his unrealized submissive nature that steers him wrong in the first place — and it’s great to see him get his happy ending. Flynn was…pretty much a cipher, but he liked, respected, and wanted Matt and that showed. The only thing that was annoying was Flynn talked about himself in the third person: “It’s not a test. Just show your master how much you like sucking his cock and everything will be fine.” I loved the collaring scene in this story, how it shows that Matt has the courage to go after what he wants. And the sex is hot.

Grade: B+

2. Gay Like You
Tristan’s mother is trying to set him up with someone, anyone. She invites Cory to dinner, someone Tristan knew in high school but who hasn’t been around for years. Cory hasn’t been around because his family threw him out when he was 15. It’s implied, although never stated outright, that he hustled to make do. Certainly he doesn’t know how to interact with Tristan at all without bringing sex into the equation. Tristan shows him that he likes Cory without the sex, but it takes some intense work to get Cory to believe him:

Tristan turned the smaller man around in his grip. “If we have sex like this, you’ll disappear and I’ll never see you again.”

He had no doubt about that. Something about Cody screamed his need to belong to a man who didn’t screw him at the first opportunity. Even if Cody didn’t know it was what he needed, Tristan knew he had to prove that he knew Cody was more than a convenient screw.

“You think I’ll stick around to be turned down again?” Cody snapped. “Thanks, but humiliation isn’t one of my kinks.”

As a result of the waiting, the sex is put off and put off and is intensely emotional when it happens. I LOVED this story. I loved the angst. I loved Cody’s emotional barrier. I loved Tristan’s solution. It’s told from the alternating perspective of both men. And the sex was SO hot. I can’t think of anything wrong with it besides the fact that it was too short. Hits all MY buttons.

Grade: A-

3. Gay Till Graduation
Baxter, who is gay, has lusted after his best friend for years. Spencer, who is bi, is swearing off women, because they might get pregnant and thereby prevent successful college graduation, as it does for a mutual acquaintance, six months before graduation. He’s also intrigued and, we get the impression, pissed that Baxter’s been seen subbing at a kink club. Spencer’s “gay till graduation” vow quickly includes “Baxter’s master till graduation.” Three months later, they’re doing well together, but there are cracks at the edges because Baxter’s convinced Spence is going to dump him as soon as they graduate. Seeing his stress, six weeks later, Spencer’s trying to convince Baxter that everything will be better after graduation, which hurts Baxter terribly, because he thinks Spencer wants to get rid of him.

It’s all one Big Misunderstanding, but for all that, it’s well done and believable. And the fight they have is so well done. Authors can write good sex, good barriers, good resolution, but still fuck up fights. This fight was great and natural and fun. And the make-up sex is, naturally, awesome.

Grade: B+

4. Gay For Pay

This is NOT a Gay For You story, like I thought it would be. Ben Smith is a security consultant and has been charged with finding the missing son of one of his clients. He finds Nate Lockwood for auction as “Gay for Pay” in a ridiculous BDSM club. He buys Nate (hope he can expense that!) and gets him out of the club. He then works out that Nate has promised his father never to say that he’s gay (we find out that it’s because his father is worried that Nate, with his submissive nature, won’t be able to hold his own in business when the gold diggers come out after he comes out — it’s complicated…).

I thought the plot was a little too far-fetched, but Ben’s gentle, dominant guidance of Nate’s first sexual (and first BDSM encounter) was sweet and hot. The story wraps up all the emotional ends very nicely, but there’s one thing at the end that’s odd. Ben gets Nate to sign two documents and then uses the fact that Nate signed without reading them as an object lesson in the fact that Ben’s not a gold digger and doesn’t want any of Nate’s money. But we never find out what the documents are. And that’s just strange.

Grade: B-

5. Gay Divorcee

This one was a little odd. Jones is raving about the possibilities of gay marriage equality at a BDSM club and pisses of Grayson, an older Dom who, it is revealed after he makes a fool of himself ranting about how gay marriage should be banned, married his submissive as soon as he was able to but then found his submissive fucking another man and had to get divorced. So he’s bitter. But not bitter enough to refuse Jones’ offer of spending Christmas together. They hit it off while they each try to figure out what Christmas means to them, but have too much vodka-spiked punch. In their drunkenness, Grayson collars Jones using his submissive’s old collar and when he realizes in the sober light of morning what he’s done, he vows to take things much slower.

What I like about Dare’s work is how she’s got 24 men in these stories, and even though 12 of them are dominant and 12 of them are submissive, they’re all still very distinct from each other, as is the sex and even the D/s interaction between the men. This one is about two men who are really comfortable with themselves and their sexualities finding out what they like about each other and how they can negotiate each other’s baggage and still have a successful relationship, very little angst involved. Gentle, sweet, and hot.

Grade: B

6. Gay Since Today

Tyler Harris and James Ford are at university. Tyler’s had a crush, both romantic and kinky, on James Ford, even though James is straight. Except Tyler’s friend comes to tell him that James is in the gay bar across the street. Tyler rushes there and meets James, who’s just come out (“Gay Since Today”). Tyler takes him back to his place and introduces him not only to gay sex, but also to kinky sex — and he’s right: James is a fabulous dominant. But after their first encounter, it looks like James was pulling off an elaborate April Fool’s joke, rather than really coming out. The Medium-Sized Misunderstanding is dealt with quickly and the boys get back together.

I love reading about an experienced submissive and a virgin-dominant coming into his own. It’s so seldom done because the balance of being “tutored” by the submissive and still exercising dominance is pretty difficult to do. But Dare does a pretty good job. The misunderstanding in the middle was…annoying more than anything else and it seemed that the heroes went through the same realizations in the second half as they did in the first half.

But at the end, there’s a HUGE error about the day on which everything happened. First encounter is March 31, second is April 1, but at the end of the novel, they’re saying it was April 1, and then April 2. Pulled me right out of the story and pissed me off right royally.

Grade: C

7. Gay Pride

Jayden shows up drunk and wearing only a gay pride flag on Crenshaw’s doorstep. Crenshaw is a gay and leather rights activist. Jayden is a reporter who nominally wants to interview him, but really just wants to introduce himself to Crenshaw and hopefully start a relationship. Crenshaw refuses Jayden’s drunk advances that night but allows Jayden to sleep on his couch and in the morning they start to explore their attraction. Crenshaw introduces Jayden to some pretty heavy bondage and Jayden loves it. There’s a hiccup when Jayden announces that he’s a reporter and Crenshaw takes it the wrong way, but Jayden sticks up for himself and gets Crenshaw to admit that he’s wrong in his assumptions.

Over all cute, but not a standout story. I like that Jayden stands up for himself, but the opening scene where he’s naked and drunk and Crenshaw turns him down (rightly so) is a little wince-inducing. But the sex is hot because so unusual

Grade: B

8. Gay Man Seeks Same

Craig McKinley has a huge crush on his coworker Donovan but feels that Donovan’s way out of his league, experience-wise, and anyway, he just wants to find one guy to love and grow old with and he knows One-Night-Stand Donovan doesn’t that. So he goes onto an online dating site and tries to find someone else like him. His first date turns out to be…with Donovan, who is finally ready to admit his interest — his long-term interest. But Craig is convinced that Donovan wants with him what he’s had with all his other lovers. Refusing to consider any alternatives, he figures this is a chance for him to have one night with Donovan before he moves on.

Donovan doesn’t make clear until the very end that he’s interested in anything other than a one night stand, so the reader is taken in as much as Craig is, especially since Craig is the only point-of-view character. Donovan is dominant, of course, so Craig gets to explore bondage with his friend. Confronted with Donovan’s bedroom of kinky delights, Craig feels overwhelmed. Donovan asks him:

“Do you know what my favourite thing is—what I like to play with more than anything in the world?”

Craig shook his head.

“A submissive. Without a man to tie up, the rest is all pointless. It’s the man who goes in the bondage that’s important—everything else is just window dressing.”

I love that answer. :)

Grade: B-

9. Gay Friendly

Ellis is 18 and goes with his cousin to a “gay friendly” hotel, where he finds himself fending off unwanted advances from all the other guests. Thompson helps him out by granting him a collar of protection and then letting Ellis sleep in his room when Ellis’s cousin’s friends get too “friendly” in their room. Over the next week, Ellis and Thompson slowly start exploring each other.

The age difference here was a bit squicky: Thompson is over 30, Ellis is 18. But Dare doesn’t leave this undiscussed. Thompson insists that Ellis ask for everything, that it be obvious to all concerned that Ellis wants everything that happens to him. And it goes deeper than that:

Part of him couldn’t help but believe that Ellis would be far better off with a vanilla boy his own age. Except he’d seen how panicked Ellis became when he was with a man who wasn’t old enough to know how to take his time and appreciate someone who was so new to everything. And he’d seen the way Ellis had soaked up every touch of dominance that had been offered to him.

Bowing his head, Thompson brushed another gentle kiss against the younger man’s lips and forced himself to face the true facts of the matter. He had no intention of telling Ellis he would be better off with another kind of man because the thought of another man laying a hand on him made him want to throttle the guy. He tightened his grip around Ellis’ wrists at the very idea. Ellis whimpered his approval and rose onto his tip toes in the hopes of gaining a deeper kiss.

Because the age difference isn’t ignored, and because Thompson is such a mature character, perfectly aware of how far and how fast he’s falling and how to deal with Ellis, I totally trusted that these two would make it, despite the age difference.

Grade: B

10. Gay Best Friend

And here we have the Gay For You story I was expecting earlier and the opposite type of sub from the previous story. Carlton, who is straight, is best friends with Bryce, who is gay. At the pub one day, Carlton is sort of goaded into kissing Bryce (the other guys they’re with made a bet behind their backs, but Carlton noticed, kissed Bryce, and took the ante for the bet and split it with Bryce). This precipitates Carlton getting trashed, finding out that Bryce is not only gay, but kinky, not only kinky, but a very pushy, brash submissive, and then trying out his Gay-For-You feelings out on Bryce when utterly smashed. Bryce pours him into a cab, but the next time they get together, they explore things a bit more.

This is another story with an inexperienced dominant and an experience submissive. But this submissive is very dominant in his everyday interactions with everyone:

As fantastic a friend as he was, Carlton was more than a little aware that Bryce had the potential to be a complete bastard when you caught him in the wrong mood, and he sure as hell wasn’t the kind of guy to make things easy for a friend who suddenly found himself out of his depth.

No, Carlton couldn’t help but smile a fraction at the idea of him babying someone through anything. Bryce was very much the ‘learn how to swim fast or get back into the shallow end where you belong’ kind of guy.

I love how we get into Donovan’s head, even though the whole story’s from Carlton’s perspective:

The look of easy relaxation Carlton had seen in his friend’s expression earlier in the night deepened with every moment that passed, as if Bryce had focused in on that one task and, if only for a little while, that let him forget about the rest of the world.

I also love that this story has the dominant choosing to bottom for sex, to make a point to his submissive about how “Gay For You” he really is:

When Carlton opened his eyes, Bryce was staring up at him. It was only then that he really realised just how closely every single move he made, his every reaction was being studied. And Bryce would remember it all. He had no doubt about that. Bryce would always know, and he’d always know that his gay best friend knew just how much pleasure shone in his eyes when he rode him for the first time.

Loved this story all around.

Grade: A

11. Gayday! Gayday!

Okay, first thing: Rip and Slade? Really? Scraping the bottom of the name barrel there. >.<

Right. So, Rip is a submissive who has a habit of getting himself in over his head at clubs. At which point he calls Slade, his dominant but straight — or so Rip thinks — friend to come save him. And Slade’s happy to oblige, giving them a great scene each time he does, with no strings attached. Except both Rip and Slade increasingly want strings. Finally, Rip gets himself into a really bad situation…and gets himself out of it again, meaning, he thinks, that his need for Slade’s “white knight” routine is exposed for the ruse it has been for a long time. Then things get really interesting.

I love the twist at the end where Rip thinks he’s messed everything up by NOT needing saving. But I found it incredibly frustrating that he remains utterly blind to the fact that Slade is very very bisexual. Even at the end, Rip thinks:

he had never allowed himself to fall so far into his fantasies that he’d forgotten he was playing with a straight man who was occasionally willing to indulge in a little guy-on-guy kink when given the right motivation.

This is quite so frustrating, because it’s made very clear in their very first scene that Slade comfortably identifies as bi.

That aside, this is a great story. It’s one of the very few that has some pain play in the D/s when Slade punishes Rip.

Grade: B+

12. Gayish

After reading eleven really strong, interesting, sexy stories, it was very disappointing to read the last one of the group. It seemed very scattered and confused and the characters seemed a little off.

Ben Langford, out and proud, is at a gay pride rally in the rain. He sees across the road, standing in the rain, the deli counter guy he’s been lusting after for months. The guy’s either waiting for a bus, or trying to get up the courage to go to the rally. Langford takes him home, dries him off, takes him back out to the rally to introduce him to people, then takes him back home and fucks him. And I understood why he did that, but it dragged the story out and didn’t seem to add much to character development. And Tayton was just a wet blanket. I wanted him to grow a spine and he never really did.

Grade: C-

Overall, except for the last story, I loved these stories. They all did a great job at showing the very beginnings of twelve different relationships between twelve different couples. Each of the characters were distinct, as were all the relationships, all the D/s pairings. This series utterly hooked me on your writing. Which is great, because you seem to do a lot of it.

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Steampunk is that subgenre I want to love, that I think has so much potential. Unfortunately, we have a rocky relationship. I’ve attempted to read too many novels in which the steampunk trappings are superficial — put a pair of goggles on someone, mention an airship, and have someone drink some tea seem [...]]]> Dear Authors,

Steampunk is that subgenre I want to love, that I think has so much potential. Unfortunately, we have a rocky relationship. I’ve attempted to read too many novels in which the steampunk trappings are superficial — put a pair of goggles on someone, mention an airship, and have someone drink some tea seem to be all that’s required. It can be disappointing.

This anthology, however, spans the gamut of what steampunk can offer. From the South Pacific or ancient Rome, it takes us to places beyond the traditional Victorian England setting. Some stories take place in the modern day; others in the far-flung future on an outpost-like planet. In total, Steampunk! collects twelve stories and two short comics. For the purposes of this review, I’ll only be covering the included short stories simply because my review copy mangled the comic formatting so badly I could barely follow what was going on.

“Some Fortunate Future Day” by Cassandra Clare
The opening story is surprisingly creepy. The protagonist is a teenage girl who’s been living alone for some time. Her father went off to war, and she has no idea if he’s ever coming back. The only thing keeping her company in that big, empty house are the automatons her father made for her. That is, they did until the day an injured soldier comes crawling out of the forest and into her garden.

I thought this story did a great job showing how the innocent can transform into something menacing. It starts off on a normal, if melancholy, note but as it progresses, the tone becomes increasingly ominous. Things that seem harmless transform into the creepy and macabre. In the end, the protagonist — for all her faults — is a pitiful person, left alone and caught in a self-destructive cycle. B

“The Last Ride of the Glory Girls” by Libba Bray
My favorite story of the entire anthology, “Last Ride” takes place on an outpost planet, proving that even a sci-fi western can embody the heart and soul of steampunk. This tale is about a young woman who left her religious fundamentalist home and sought her fortune as a gifted tinkerer of technology. First, as a watchmaker’s apprentice, then as part of a investigative task force, she later goes undercover with a gang of female outlaws who rob trains courtesy of a gun that can stop time.

This short story reminded me of why I love Libba Bray’s writing and makes me want to give Beauty Queens another try. The strong voice of the narrator combined with the female outlaws and a heroine with a strong technological bent, it features so many of my favorite elements. I also loved how it interwove the present-day plot with the past events that drove the heroine to her present circumstances. A-

“Clockwore Fagin” by Cory Doctorow
I’ve heard a lot about Doctorow’s work so I read this story with interest. It tackles the disabled orphan trope of many a Victorian story, portraying children who’ve sustained injuries (lost limbs, lost extremities) from working on various forms of steampunk technology and are sent to an orphanage under the care and guidance of an abusive monster. The main story gets going, however, when a new orphan arrives and faces their caretaker head on.

I won’t say that this isn’t an interesting story nor will I say this isn’t a well-written story. It’s both of these things. But for all that, it left me feeling ambivalent. B-

“Hand in Glove” by Ysabeau S. Wilce
What’s a steampunk anthology without a mad scientist story? This story features a female detective who struggles not against sexism but against skepticism over her style of investigation — one that utilizes forensics (e.g. fingerprints and evidence) over beating confessions out of suspects (who, past a certain point, would admit to anything to make the pain stop). Her rival, the golden boy of the precinct, has just caught the perpetrator of a series of brutal stranglings. Our heroine, however, thinks he’s gotten the wrong guy because none of the evidence supports it but no one will believe her. Despite this, she won’t stop her own investigation because she refuses to let an innocent man hang.

This story was entertaining and over the top. It treaded just barely on this side of ludicrous and made it work all the more because of it. Overall, I thought it was a good story but the ending left me unsatisfied because it lacked that comeuppance of the golden boy rival for mocking the heroine. I admit I prefer that in my stories, realistic or not. B

“The Ghost of Cwnlech Manor” by Delia Sherman
This is the gothic offering of the anthology, complete with absent-minded heir of an established family, a young local woman who becomes the housekeeper, and a ghost who knows the location of the family treasure. Again, another well-written story but not particularly exciting. While I liked that the story didn’t walk the well-trodden “housekeeper falls for heir” storyline, I wish there’d been a little more life to the narrative. As far as I’m concerned, the best part of the story was the ghost. Poor thing. I’d be annoyed too if the person I’d been trying to reveal the location of the family treasure to completely explained away my existence and wouldn’t acknowledge it because he was a man of science. C

“Gethsemane” by Elizabeth Knox
Chronicling what happens to the denizens of a South Pacific town before a volcanic eruption, this is one of those stories where I knew it was referencing something while reading it. Unfortunately, not knowing the what it was actually referencing, I suspect a lot of the context went right over my head. I never connected with any of the characters nor cared what happened to any of them. Perhaps if I’d been familiar with the reference/event beforehand, my initial experience would have been different. As it is, my reaction can only be described as “meh.”C-

“The Summer People” by Kelly Link
In addition to being what I consider a characteristic Kelly Link story, this is also one that pushes what steampunk can be. More magic realism than outright genre SFF, it’s about a girl whose female ancestors have taken care of the local faeries for generations. The steampunk comes in with the faerie inventions that they bestow on their caretakers and people they like.

I liked “The Summer People” more for the ideas and concepts it introduces than for the feelings it left me. In the end, it’s about escaping the burdens parents leave their children and while that’s something I can understand, I also don’t like that often times in stories it means finding someone else to take your place. Sure, I’d like to think the replacement would be more willing and happy to do so, but there’s a part of me that dislikes a character for doing so. C+

“Peace in Our Time” by Garth Nix
I have a feeling this story is one that only Garth Nix fans would enjoy. While I thought the technology portrayed in the story was great, an example of how versatile steampunk can be, I thought it was depressing and there were parts of it I could not understand. I think it might have been better as a longer story. D

“Nowhere Fast” by Christopher Rowe
In a future where technology has broken down and the U.S. is divided into sectors, a group of teenagers meet a guy with a car. And I use the term “car” very loosely. But given the state of technology, this is a big deal that causes a ruckus among the local people and law enforcement. When I finished this story, I felt like it was an extended set-up that finished just as the main narrative was about to start. Disappointing. C-

“Steam Girl” by Dylan Horrocks
Similar to Kelly Link’s story in which it’s set in the modern day, “Steam Punk” tells the story of a high school outcast who befriends the new girl, another outcast who tells the awesome adventures about a young woman named “Steam Girl.” What I liked best about this story is that it can be read two ways. It can be about a girl telling stories about an alter-ego that lives an amazing, adventurous life to make her real life in high school bearable. At the same time, though, I think the story plants enough hints to make you doubt that and wonder if she is in fact telling the truth and is really from an alternate universe where she used to be Steam Girl. The second option is more outlandish, I’ll give you that, but wouldn’t it be nice to imagine that was true? B

“Everything Amiable and Obliging” by Holly Black
The fantasy of manners offering of the anthology, Black’s story tells the tale of a young woman who’s been recently orphaned and taken in by her aunt. But unlike other stories where the relatives hate her or treat her badly, this aunt actually wants her to marry her son. Now our heroine would like nothing more than this as well. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem aware of her existence which is a change from their childhood. Things get further complicated when her aunt’s other child, a daughter, falls in love with one of the house robots. Awkward.

This is my second favorite story of the anthology and one I wish could have been longer. Not because it needed to be longer but because I wanted to see more of Amelia and Valerian. That said, I felt horribly sorry for the robot who’s become the object of the sister’s affections. I suspect that fate is not a good one for him. Robot or not, it can’t be a good thing to be wanted solely because you’re incapable of saying no! B+

“The Oracle Engine” by M.T. Anderson
I suspect the final story of the anthology is one that is simply not for me. A reader-story mismatch, if you will. It puts a steampunk spin on ancient Rome, which I like, and portrays a revenge tale, which I normally like even more, but I admit I found it boring. It’s written in a semi-historical voice (it’s meant to be a translation), but it just didn’t work for me. C

While I’m not sure this anthology is worth the price of hardcover, I liked that it contained a variety of stories set in different places and time periods as well as spanned many different genres. When I think of an anthology, this is the sort of variety I expect. I also like that there was good representation of women and minorities. And once again, I do think “Last Ride of the Glory Girls” is not a story to be missed and the anthology is worth checking out for that story alone.

My regards,
Jia

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In looking in my past reviews, I don’t see that I’ve read you before but I believe I have and just not reviewed the book(s) that I’ve read.  Because of the List starts out with a old but favorite premise.  Hero is best friends with heroine’s older brother.  The twist in this book [...]]]> Dear Ms. Knupp:

In looking in my past reviews, I don’t see that I’ve read you before but I believe I have and just not reviewed the book(s) that I’ve read.  Because of the List starts out with a old but favorite premise.  Hero is best friends with heroine’s older brother.  The twist in this book is that the hero, Alex, is beset with guilt for having piloted the BlackHawk helicopter in which the older brother Quinn was riding when the helo was shot down.  Quinn died in that crash.  Alex returns home to recuperate and return to service because while it was only a job for Alex, the military and the war was a calling for Quinn.   Returning to service is a way for Alex to honor Quinn’s death.

Taylor’s only family was Quinn and she was so socially awkward, she had zero friends. No female friends, no male friends.  Her only companionship was the presence of two household cats.  There was a real opportunity to explore grief and loneliness in this book but instead the focus was on the heroine’s lack of confidence and the story rolled out in a multitude of clichéd scenes with clichéd characters and unclear emotional transitions.

Taylor was a list maker. It’s something that Alex ribbed her about and is, obviously, referenced in the title.  She makes lists about everything including the kind of man she wants to marry.  Yet, it wasn’t until midway through the book that Taylor’s internal monologues included list making.  This is a small point but it exemplifies the shallowness of the characterizations in this book. The list making is a hook and instead of being integrated into Taylor’s character (as it should be) it’s used as a gimmick to provide laughs and point of conflict.  Both Taylor and Alex’s characterizations are inconsistent with certain attributes being tacked on to provide conflict at certain points.

For instance, Taylor is so fearful of dating that she is nearly hyperventilating at one point yet she is sexually aggressive at with Alex the first time they had sex, initiating it with a proposition.  I actually had a hard time buying that Taylor wasn’t a virgin given she had zero friends and she’s even portrayed as having nerve wracking anxiety by a non sexual overture from a female who wants to be her friend (that female is Alex’s sister). Her social awkwardness was played up at certain points in the book that I felt like she verged on having a true psychological disorder, but of course, social awkwardness like the list making was only there superficially to provide conflict in the moment.

The tearing down of the geeks in this book was ridiculous.  Taylor was a self declared computer nerd yet it seemed at every opportunity, she was internally mocking the geeks she went out with.  The first date she had was with someone she met on the internet who had “hidden his weirdness” which included being addicted to a computer game, so addicted that he left their date to rush off to save his guild.  Later, another nerd she dated actually wasn’t over his ex and had asked Taylor out only to make the ex jealous.  Taylor chalks this up to more geek bad behavior yet she wasn’t an innocent schoolgirl herself. She had very little heat with Joel and she was thinking of Alex the entire time they were together, comparing Joel unfavorably to Alex.   In many ways, she was using him as well yet sees nothing wrong with activities.  Her actions aren’t absolved simply because he’s a dick because she doesn’t know he’s a dick until later.   Post hoc activities showing Subject A to
be a douche does not wipe away a priori acts of douchebaggery on Subject B’s part.

Another nerd she dates gives her some qualms because he has a hard time getting dates. “As he’d humbly admitted, his dating life had been almost nonexistent of late, Taylor had smiled and nodded. She ignored the fleeting voice in her head—the one that sounded a lot like Alex— cautioning her to beware of a man who willingly admitted to having trouble getting a date.”

Alex describes one of the “nerds” as follows:

inches shorter than Alex and as scrawny as a teenager. His hair thinning—he’d be half-bald in two years, max. In his favor, he didn’t have a pocket protector or tape on his glasses. His wardrobe was nondescript but neat…wasn’t that another criterion on the holy list.

There was an uncomfortable focus on physical manliness in this book, particularly when juxtaposed with Alex’s mocking thoughts of how deficient the geeks were in his eyes.

“Joel Cavelli wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous or dripping with raw masculinity the way Alex was. He didn’t turn her into a tongue-twisted idiot just by looking at her. “

and

When she’d taken two steps into her room, her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. Alex lay diagonally across her double bed, sound asleep. That was the raw masculinity she was talking about. Lord above.

and

Brian rested his warm hand on her arm, which helped marginally. As they listened to the relaxing music, she studied his hand. It was white- collar all the way, nails neatly manicured, wisps of light hair on each thin finger. Gentle strength. Reassuring in a way. Unlike, say, Alex’s hands, which were rough and calloused. Brimming with raw masculinity that could make her squirm.

The constant references to how hot Alex looked particularly juxtaposed with how smart and nice the “geek” typified the shallowness of the characters. Just because Alex had a hard body didn’t make him a hero or a heroic lead. It merely made him a man with a good body and that is hardly sufficient in creating a fully dimensional character.

In fact, the only thing that Taylor seemed to really love about Alex was his body.

For Alex, he seemed to like that Taylor was pure and innocent. Or strangely he could smell this on her.

“As he breathed, he caught her scent. Apples and sugar. Sweet, pure.” and “Damn her sweet scent of apples and innocence.”

So pure and innocent smells like a baked apple pie?

But the gaming geek was just another clichéd character like the waitress that comes on to Alex while he is drinking and eating with Taylor. (So many inept waitresses in romance books!) Taylor doesn’t need condoms. She’s on the Pill for medical reasons. I’m not sure if this even needs to be an excuse any more. Is there
any other reason for a romance heroine to be on the Pill?

I actually would have enjoyed seeing Taylor hook up with one of the Five Brainiest Bachelors of Madison (a newspaper article provides this fodder) rather than mopey Army helicopter pilot who was one dimensional and who, while bartending at his sister’s MBA graduation party, rates the chicks around him. Probably just something those guys with “raw masculinity” do all the time:

He managed to continue to interact—albeit in a half-assed way—with his apparent fan club while making a game of privately rating the women who came up to the bar on a scale of one to ten. He probably
would’ve given Page and Kylie a seven and a six and a half when they’d first approached, but they’d each had a point deducted for wearing out their welcome.

It wasn’t so much that Alex rated these women but the way in which he gave points and deducted them (points deducted for flirting and looking sexy!) But still, Alex’s predilection for rating chicks shows how highly he values other women. Fortunately he is attracted to the brainy types now and so I’ll assume Taylor is his ten, even though it is unstated.

In the whole story, though, Alex and Taylor’s love for each other is never defined. Why does Alex love Taylor? We know that Taylor loves Alex for his raw masculinity and hard body but Alex’s attraction to Taylor is unexplained. We readers are left to fill in those gaps. What we do know (and what is stated repeatedly) is that she’s not good enough for him and that he cannot love, standard issue military bad boy think.

There were other areas of the book that contained throwaway lines which, if you thought about them, led not to the conclusion that was intended. For instance, Taylor comes upon Alex sleeping in her bed after he’s been fixing things around her house. They haven’t slept together yet and she has no idea that he is attracted to her but her thought was that if she were a different type of woman, she would throw off her clothes and climb in bed with him. What kind of woman is that? The type that gets rated down by Alex for “wearing out” her welcome? The type that accosts men while sleeping? I’m sure it is supposed to mean that if Taylor was a sexually adventurous woman that she would climb into bed with random sleeping men but I don’t think that a sexually confident women actually needs to accost sleeping men. Sexually confident women approach men who are awake and capable of consent.

Another consistent problem was that the emotional transitions were absent.  We would flip from one point of view to another but we wouldn’t get the transition.  For instance, Alex was resisting having sex.  Then he agreed to a one night stand but that was going to be it.  No more.  Then next sex scene is Taylor climbing on top of Alex and Alex showing no resistance.  There was no transition between Alex internally deciding that he wasn’t going to have sex with Taylor ever again and Alex and Taylor’s subsequent encounter. I expected some voiced resistance given his previous adamant stance.

This story was shallow, reaching for the clichéd, low hanging fruit for emotional angst. There are appealing elements but those were overshadowed by, well, everything described above. C-

Best regards,

Jane

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This is the first book in Six Pack Ranch series which, given that there are six boys in the Coleman family, means that each book will likely feature one of the Coleman brothers.  The oldest brother is Blake and this story has a friends to lovers theme.  While I liked the concept [...]]]> Dear Ms. Arend:

This is the first book in Six Pack Ranch series which, given that there are six boys in the Coleman family, means that each book will likely feature one of the Coleman brothers.  The oldest brother is Blake and this story has a friends to lovers theme.  While I liked the concept – young girl blossoms into a woman who knows her own mind and pursues the reluctant prey, err, man – much of the story involving the family seemed extraneous and strange.

Jaxi is a friend of the Coleman family. She grew up around the boys and is considered by many to be one of the family. Perhaps kissing cousin may be a better descriptor because at one point or another, all of the Coleman boys have kissed her or more.  All except the one that she wants, Blake.

“You and Jesse kissed Jaxi? At the same time?” Blake was still reeling from the thought. “Was this before or after she went out with Travis?”

“Before.” Joel plopped on the bench next to Blake. “I still don’t understand why she ever dated him. I know he’s our brother and all, but sometimes he’s such an ass. Of all the guys she could have gone to Grad with, why’d she pick him?”

“I still don’t believe she kissed you and Jesse. Together.”

“Well, it wasn’t her idea, Blake. We were rather insistent. And she kissed us one at a time. It’s not as if I want my lips right next to Jesse’s. I’m not into that.”

Daniel sat across from them on a stool and joined in. “I kissed her once.” Blake barely stopped his jaw from hitting the floor. “Yup, only it was kiss her or kill her. She rode Thunder without permission, and when she managed to get him back into the barn without getting killed, I kind of lost my head.” Daniel winked at Joel. “You’re right, she is a sweet kisser.”

Joel poked at Blake. “You ever kiss her?”

“No! Course not. She’s just a little girl. I’m surprised at you, Daniel. She’s five years younger than you.”

“If I had been fifteen and her only ten, it would be have been a problem,” Daniel said. “She was old enough and she knew what we were doing. I didn’t give her much choice in the matter either. Looks like you’re the only Coleman boy she hasn’t kissed yet, Blake. Maybe we’d better set you up or something.”

…..

“Oh, that. Matt kissed her when she was thirteen. She told me about it.” Joel shrugged. “We were all down at the swimming hole, and Travis was teasing her how she didn’t need to wear a girl’s swimsuit yet, that she could still join them like she had as a little tyke, shorts and nothing else. Matt stopped the ass from being himself, then escorted her home. Jaxi told me he talked about changes, and how she would be a beautiful woman and not to worry when and where things would grow. Then he kissed her. She didn’t remember exactly what he said because she’d been surprised but it was something about a kiss for the woman she was going to become.”

When mother of the Coleman brothers gets injured, Jaxi comes to the house to help with the household duties.  While there, several of the Coleman boys flirt with her at nearly every encounter.

I struggled with all of the text around the romance between Jaxi and Blake.  Why did the story start out with Jaxi fighting with Trevor Coleman?  Why was she even dating him?  She had purportedly known that she wanted Blake forever so why would she date his brother when she had no real interest in the brother?  Her excuse was that she was trying to find someone her own age but why the brother?  At one point, she even offers to give Trevor a blowjob just to get him alone. There are no other boys in the region?  Some of her interactions with the Coleman brothers had an uncomfortable tinge of harassment in that they were constantly after her for some kind of sexual contact even though she wanted them to leave her alone.

After dinner Matt tugged her aside. “You want to go to the children’s summer theater performance at the community hall this Wednesday?”

She hesitated, panic flooding her. Not Matt too. Sweet, considerate, usually insightful Matt. He excited her about as much as a bouquet of dandelions. The expression on her face must have shown her fear because he chuckled and quickly reassured her. “I don’t mean with me, Jaxi. Hell if you need that kind of complication in your life right now. Not to mention you know Helen would have my balls if I stepped out on her.”

Her muscles unclenched slowly as he patted her shoulder. A pat from him felt proper, caring and supportive. It wasn’t a cop-out like the treatment from Blake the other day. If any of the Colemans was a big-brother figure to her, it would be Matt.

In my hunt for more shifter books, I came across your November title. I had heard good things about you in the past. Your book, Body Master, won the 2011 Winner of RomCon’s 2011 Reader’s Crown for Best Sci-Fi, Futuristic or Time Travel. Reader’s Crown was a reader judged contest and I [...]]]> Dear Ms. Barry:

In my hunt for more shifter books, I came across your November title. I had heard good things about you in the past. Your book, Body Master, won the 2011 Winner of RomCon’s 2011 Reader’s Crown for Best Sci-Fi, Futuristic or Time Travel. Reader’s Crown was a reader judged contest and I thought I would give this second book in the Shifter series a try.

Camille Solomon is a Shapeshifter, a being from another planet who has come here with other Shifters to begin anew after being forced off other planets. The number of shifters is very small and they are largely feared or hated by humans and with good reason. Shifters can take the form of any human so long as they have the human’s DNA. This has led to shifters assuming the identity of humans and wreaking havocs with the stolen person’s life. Griffin Mercer, a XCEL agent, was the victim of a Shifter identity theft. The Shifter took over Griffin’s life, ruined his marriage, killed his partner, destroyed his career, and took down his credit rating. Griffin’s only chance at redemption is this project which is to find Shifters who may be destroying property.

Griffin’s career is supposedly in ruins but he is charged with leading a huge task force to bring down Cam and then coerce her into hunting other Shifters. This operation is for “national security” and under the auspices of the Director of EXCEL, Roger Harding. Roger is the villain in this book but as a villain he’s fairly cartoonish and I think part of the problem is the inconsistency and unbelievability in the worldbuilding that leads to Roger as a caricature instead of a character.

In chapter one, Griffin notes that the orders that he carries out came from a special senate committee and that “His assignment had come from the above Harding’s big head, and that’s really why Harding hated him.” Yet, throughout the book, Harding answers to no one and runs XCEl as his own little fiefdom, declaring agents as “outlaws” (perhaps a riff off the Mission Impossible movies) and ordering killings. Griffin, whose orders and assignment come from above Harding’s head according to chapter one, decides to go rogue in effort to discover the truth behind the role that he has been given by Harding.

Every time Harding would engage in an act so outside the purported interests of XCEL, I kept wondering why he wasn’t require to report to any one given that this project of national security came from people above him.  In other words, how was he carrying out this massive chemical warfare of genocide without it getting to the people who actually were in charge? Who was funding it?  In only a year, he was able to get some scientists to develop a chemical that would adversely affect Shifters, an alien population?

Most of the first 60% of the book consists of Cam and Griffin going out each night and looking at ruined property sites and thinking to each other that the elements in the scenes aren’t making much sense. I found this part of the book incredibly boring. It actually took me three weeks of dedicated effort to even finish the book.

It wasn’t just the weak worldbuilding which only involved science fiction tangentially in that Cam is a Shifter from another planet and instead was much more of a boring police procedure novel which involved good Shifters trying to take down a megalomaniac whose goal was to bring down the tiny Shifter population. It was the writing itself. The prose contained cliche after cliche:

• Playing with fire had always been one of her favorite pastimes. Besides, she was in full control and held all the cards.
• So much for having the upper hand. This wasn’t her first rodeo.

“Yeah. Didn’t catch your name.”

“Don’t give one,”

There was misused verbiage:

I didn’t ask to be born this way. I didn’t ask to be dumped here on your pithy little planet with its pithy little people. You all think you’re so special.

Your terse little planet? Your concise little people?

Cam was the more interesting of the two.  She was forced into hunting other Shifters against her will.   They have captured her father and she decides that she’ll participate in their project so long as they will search for her brother.  She needs him to save their father.  She struggled with acceptance of her own Shifter identity.  At one point, she says that she feels her Primary Shifter body was ugly.  She expressed distaste at being a shifter at all and her character arc includes coming to terms with her gifts, her race, and growing her self esteem.  But most of that character arc was buried under the mundanity of the plot.

There was some discomfiting racial depictions.  In Cam’s primary Shifter form, she was all black, a blank canvas:

Her Primary form was a charcoal black humanoid-like body that was just female enough to be interesting. Her skin was smooth and tough, like a formfitting bodysuit. Her face was more delicately featured than the male Shifters he’d seen, her body leaner, and her frame tall and leggy. In Primary form, shapeshifters were like blank canvases.

Later, Griffin thinks of Cam:

In Shifter form, black skin muted her features. But in his mind, he saw her red hair and ivory skin.

Cam, herself, finds her Shifter form ugly but was she only beautiful to Griffin with red hair and ivory skin? Later he says that he doesn’t find her ugly in any form and there isn’t any mention of her skin again. I’m unsure what to make of it.

In all, I found this to be a disappointing and fairly boring science fiction/fantasy romance.  C-

Best regards,

Jane

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I have been anxious to read your books since The Heir came out and circumstances (and other books) have always interfered with that goal until this month.  I bought The Virtuoso the day that it came out and sat down one evening with great anticipation.  The sad fact is that there scarcely [...]]]> Dear Ms. Burrowes:

I have been anxious to read your books since The Heir came out and circumstances (and other books) have always interfered with that goal until this month.  I bought The Virtuoso the day that it came out and sat down one evening with great anticipation.  The sad fact is that there scarcely seems a page goes by that does not include some kind of historical inaccuracy. The unstated invitation is to enter the book and put aside any form of reality and simply immerse oneself in the Burrowes world, as it is constructed.  The voice is lovely but the period feel of this story ranges from Regency to Victorian (both early and late) to even modern day sensibilities.   There is no resemblance to the Regency period as written by Heyer, Austen or even Quinn.

I can’t really catalog all the errors in the book and while I am a historical rube, there were obvious ones such as the hero, Val Windham being referred to constantly as Mr. Windham.  This is explained later that it is at Val’s insistence but people who do know he is a duke’s son refer to him as Mr. Windham before he expresses his desire to be plain mister.     Val did not have a valet despite coming from a wealthy titled family and having quite a bit of money of his own. Instead, his friends such as a son of an Earl and another gentlemanhelp him dress and undress and ready for his bath.  In other scene, the landed gentry friend actually shaves Val and unbuttons Val’s pants for him.  Val is highly regarded for own two piano factories and being a wealthy “merchant.”  This is a duke’s son, the youngest, but a member of the nobility, and he and all of his friends (nobility and gentry) are doing manual labor refurbishing his own estate.

There is a certain nonchalance in which class is treated. For instance, Val dallying with a maid in a friend’s home. Val didn’t seem the type to exert his power over lowly help and take advantage of her in that fashion. Instead, it is just another example of the fluidity of class in the Burrowes book. It’s a modern sensibility, at times reading like a contemporary rather than a Regency set historical.

Ellen, the widow, baring her feet and ankles to dangle her naked feet in a pond next to Val, whose breeches are rolled up around his bare calves. Then he whips off his shirt and uses it to dry her feet.  It is the country and Ellen is a widow, but it seemed odd. They are mere acquaintances although they both feel an attraction toward the other but this scene is on the heels of Ellen chiding Val for using her christian name without her permission.

This propriety mismatch occurs throughout the book. At one point, Val is sitting with Ellen, at night and alone, with her in her nightgown and with Val’s arm around her. He muses that perhaps he should have written to her after stealing a kiss but then acknowledges that it would not have been proper:

Now he wished he’d written, though it would hardly have been proper, even to a widow.

Val often runs about with just a shirt that he sheds at any given moment but notes:

Val quirked an eyebrow at his friend, who had foregone cravat and waistcoat in deference to the building heat. “You’re in dishabille.”

Later Val and Ellen are lying outside during the day on a blanket.  They nap in a spoon fashion.  They awaken and proceed to touch each other intimately, with Val pulling up Ellen’s dress and Ellen removing Val’s shirt.  There is no concern exhibited by either that servants or individuals working on Val’s home just a walk away could come upon them.  Even in a contemporary, most individuals aren’t so brazen as to engage in public coitus like this without even a smidge of concern.

The plot is this.  Val is a virtuoso of the piano but after his brother died, he began suffering pain and discomfort in his hand.  He is advised to not use his hand and it is suggested that he may not be able to play piano again.  Rather than resting it, as instructed, so that he may play piano again, Val decides that he can do gross motor skill activities such as laboring which includes roofing and other refurbishments of an estate he won in a card game.  (As an aside, was there a delineation of fine v. gross motor skills at this time?)

Ellen is the Baronness Roxbury, Roxbury being one of the oldest titles short of the monarchy.  She lives on the estate that Val has won and apparently met Val a year ago where they flirted and shared a scorching kiss.  She also grows flowers and makes soaps and lotions.  These she sells in the village from a wagon.  There is some secret about her percuniary difficulties.

Ellen and Val rekindle their attraction when Val tries to come to terms with his infirmity.  Val tells Ellen that he can’t offer for her because of his crippled hand, but he does want to dally with her.  About half way into the book, a suspense plot is introduced.

Another drawback is the huge cast of characters.  There are so many people in this story and it is quite the challenge to place how they are all interrelated. For instance, Nick is a character referred to in the beginning as having overprotective tendencies toward Val. He’s a friend but why should he send his brother and the sons of another friend to “spy” on Val?

Val extended a hand, recognizing the tall blond fellow from his friend Nick’s wedding to Darius’s sister Leah just a few weeks past.

Nick himself does show up for a scene in the latter part of the book along with any number of men who may have appeared in previous books (or not).  When the story is just about Val and Ellen without all the extraneous people, it’s much easier to catch the threads of the story.  And there is a lot to like in this book.  There is some lovely imagery such as when Val is sitting next to Ellen who is in her nightgown and wrapper on the back porch of her home and she is rubbing salve into his inflamed left hand.

As she worked, he felt tension, frustration, and anger slipping down his arm and out the ends of his fingers, almost as if he were playing—

HIs arm is a barometer for his feelings.  Everyone recognizes it before Val despite it being spelled out for him by his doctor/Viscount friend.  His identity is that of being the Virtuoso, the fine musician.  It is what set him apart in a family of five boys and various number of sisters.  He regularly refers to Herr Beethoven and I found it strangely ironic that Val could idolize Beethoven without acknowledging Beethoven himself was a handicapped musician.

Ellen is a lonely widow who feels insubstantial because of her inability to provide an heir to her deceased husband. She dropped the title and does not socialize with the locals other than to sell her wares.  She’s a bit moody, a bit secretive, a bit sad.  Her affection for Val wasn’t just sexual in nature but arose out of a need for comfort and companionship.  I felt like we knew Val better; however, as much of the story seemed from his point of view.  Perhaps this was an intentional effort to make Ellen more mysterious.

The tone of the story is gentle; the physical relationship graphic and sensual; the unwinding langorous.  I found Ellen and Val both  engaging.   I enjoyed how the slowly the physical part of the relationship developed, no matter how inappropriate their encounters.  The prose is very nice.

This book would read so much better as a fantasy historical or perhaps even a country set contemporary.  If the setting wasn’t “historical”, then perhaps the obvious thumbing of authenticity wouldn’t really bother me.  Unfortunately, nearly every scene had me raising my eyebrows despite all the potential.  I wished that I could have accepted the invitation to lose myself in the text, but I simply could not do it.  C-

Best regards,

Jane

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