Dear Author » C Reviews Category

REVIEWS: Master Class and SUBlime by Rachel Haimowitz

SarahF — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:00:03 +0000

Dear Ms. Haimowitz.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another strike. Nicky gasped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“How do you feel, Nicky?”

“Hurts,” he panted.

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

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

Grade: B+

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

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

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

Grade: C+

Best regards,
-Sarah

REVIEW: Still Hot For You by Diane Escalera

Dabney — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Dear Ms. Escalera,

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

Want to get your man talking? Give him booty!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Dabney

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REVIEW: Eternal Captive by Laura Wright

Jane — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:00:17 +0000

Dear Ms. Wright:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best regards,

Jane

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Best regards.

REVIEW: Sleepwalker by Karen Robards

Jayne — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:00:56 +0000

Dear Ms. Robards:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Jayne

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REVIEW: Breakaway by Deirdre Martin

Jane — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:00:02 +0000

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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REVIEW: Under His Influence by Justine Elyot

Jane — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:00:43 +0000

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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REVIEW: The Whip by Karen Kondazian

Janet — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:00:19 +0000

Dear Ms. Kondazian:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

. . .

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

. . .

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

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

~ Janet

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REVIEW: Shadow’s Stand By Sarah McCarty

Dabney — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:00:19 +0000

Dear Ms. McCarty,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

Dabney

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

REVIEW: Firelight by Kristin Callihan

Jia — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:00:20 +0000

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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REVIEW: The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey

lazaraspaste — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:00:08 +0000

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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REVIEW: The Players’ Club series by Cathy Yardley

Jane — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:00:55 +0000

This post reviews all three Players’ Club books, two of which are available now and one which is set to be released digitally on February 1, 2012. I will say that if you read one, you’ll have to read them all.

Players’ Club: Scott

The Players’ Club is an urban legend of men jetting around the world, throwing amazing parties, playing huge pranks, or so Scott Ferrell thinks, but when he stumbles upon the monthly meeting he refuses to leave until they reveal the truth to him. The Player’s Club was formed by two friends named Lincoln and Finn and they ask one question: “When was the last time you did something that made you feel as though your life was worth getting out of bed for? ”

Scott can’t recall. His life is okay but he’s never really asserted himself. His co workers think he’s dull. His last girlfriend dumped him for being too nice. The Player’s Club offers Scott an opportunity to push his boundaries. The problem is that his cute neighbor, Amanda, was on the fire escape watching the same shenanigans as he was and when pressed, Scott admits to the existence of the Player’s Club to impress her. And it does. Amanda is a planner. She is never without a list and a clear idea of where she wants to be tomorrow but ristk taker she is not. Scott and his introduction into the Player’s Club gives her a chance to experience some risk, within boundaries.

The two get swept up in the Player’s Club until they aren’t sure whether their emotion for each other is from this emotional high of risk taking or something deeper. There was something charming about the lack of smoothness in Scott and Amanda’s interactions. They both are nice people but their niceness has been perceived as a weakness. In trying to remake himself, Scott becomes something else: “He’d been so worried about not being a ‘nice guy’—so intent on being the badass he thought Amanda wanted—that he’d become the opposite. Selfish, insensitive. Cruel. ”

Amanda had to find a backbone and Scott had to discover how you could be a nice guy and still get the girl. It was a fun and sweet story, albeit driven by a hokey concept of a rich man’s frat club. B-

Players’ Club: Lincoln

This story read to me about the redemption of socialite, Juliana Mayfield, whose entire worth is wrapped up in being famous. She learns to let go of fame, to be a person of worth based upon her own actions (and not the measurement of others). Talking with Sarah Wendell about this book in our podcast leads me to believe that how much a reader likes this book depends a lot upon how they view Juliana. I liked Juliana’s redemptive path but Sarah did not. The unhappy socialite is no different to me that the world weary billionaire which is a standard staple of romance. Juliana decides that she’ll infiltrate The Player’s Club and try to sell the reality tv version of it because Juliana has no money and this is her last ploy to stay relevant.

Part of why I liked this story is because Juliana knows that her search for fame is empty but she doesn’t feel like she has any other options. Of course she does, but at the beginning of the book she can’t see those options. That’s not the worldview everyone around her, including her dilettante parents, holds. Over the course of getting to know The Players’ Club, particularly Lincoln and another new initiate, Juliana begins to see how truly empty her quest to remain with the “in” crowd is.

Lincoln I liked less. Lincoln was wealthy and viewed Juliana with contempt. He treated her as if she wasn’t worth being the gum under his shoe, yet he couldn’t wait to take her to bed. I have little appreciation for men like that. At some point, the tables turn. Juliana becomes sympathetic and Lincoln begins to realize his assumptions about Juliana might be incorrect. C+

Players’ Club: Finn

This was my least favorite but mostly because I felt like Finn was a rich guy without a clue. I didn’t understand his unhappiness. He had it all. A ton of money. Great friends. As many women as he could want. Yet, he was disenchanted with life and began taking increasing risks in his adventures. His father sends in the family lawyer to rescue Finn from himself. Diana has spent her adult life trying to repay Finn’s father for the chance that he gave her. She’s the fixer for the family and this time it is Finn that needs fixing. Diana is portrayed as the Hard Ass Asian, kind of Tiger Mom wannabe, which I loved. What I was frustrated by was that the HA Asian portrayal wasn’t internally consistent (maybe this is because Diana is only half Chinese?) When Diana was having all these soft moments in the middle of the book, I might have yelled, err, raised my voice at the portrayal. HA Asian wouldn’t be crying all the time. HA Asian’s don’t cry!!

Diana’s early breakdowns diminished the tension and build up that could have been. If she had held on to her emotions until the penultimate scene (before the denouement) when she would realize that her course of action would lead to loneliness and that her obligation had been fulfilled, then the outpouring would have been so much more powerful. Instead, I felt that it was a cop out, as if a heroine can’t be hard, cold, and resisting whereas a hero can. My dislike for this story may be more about how I wanted the story to read rather than a failure of the story to deliver but in the end, I have to give it a C.

REVIEW: Sex, Lies & Surveillance by Stephanie Julian

Jane — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:00:16 +0000

Dear Ms. Julian:

I liked the blurb for this book. The heroine is the daughter of famous CIA agents who have retired. Janey DeMarco works in the family agency that does everything from surveillance to retrieval of kidnapped victims. Their agency’s services are wide ranging, almost too wide ranging in my opinion. I had a hard time getting a handle on exactly the nature of this agency as if it was deliberately opaque so that the agency would have the mutability to change according to the needs of the series. In this book, it seemed as if there were only but a few operatives to carry off the extensive agency business.

Much is made of the DeMarco parents’ past. They are legendary in the CIA and with other government agencies but their name has appeared in conjunction with gun sales to terrorists. Malcolm Laughlin is sent in, by himself, undercover to ferret out the DeMarco secrets by posing as a new hiree. Mal and Janey strike sparks off each other, but given that Mal is lying to her the whole time, their relationship is premised on untruths. Frankly, the HEA ending didn’t work for me because of the quickness of the resolution given the length and number of lies that Mal told.

I did like the emotional conflicts. Mal was torn between his growing belief that the DeMarcos could not possibly be guilty and the need to see justice done for his now dead partner who was shot in a botched undercover gun deal. He liked all the DeMarcos, from the parents to the hard ass older brother and the mad genius young brother, not to mention his inappropriate feelings toward Janey. Janey was frustrated with the mundane roles she played at the agency. Her parents and brothers were over protective and Janey felt stifled by their attitudes and strafed at the familial bonds. She is being recruited by the NSA to go work in their computer division but she is reluctant to leave the firm, particularly given the recent health scare of her father.

It seems EVERYONE in this book has mad computer/hacking skills but Janey was portrayed as nothing more than an office administrator. I know good ones are hard to find, but recruited by the NSA:

These days, Janey barely left the office. She sat in front of a computer most days, dealing with clients or various government agencies.

There were some world building details that bothered me. Why was Janey being recruited by NSA when she was suspected of a serious crime? I had a hard time believing that the DeMarco’s agency was very good given that Mal could root around the computers, enter a pristine tech lab, and basically steal information from the agency without any one knowing.

The main suspense offered in this story (other than Mal’s snooping) is finding the stalker of a famous movie producer. The identity of the stalker seemed so obvious or at least the purported agency didn’t seem to do much to discover the stalker except to follow the director around.

Mal and Janey and everyone is likeable and their chemistry seemed genuine. I’m intrigued by the other romances that are set up and would probably be interested in reading the DeMarco mom and dad’s romance. However, as much as this is a decent read, it didn’t stick with me and I was vaguely unsatisfied by the ending. C+

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: Shattered by Jennie Marsland

Jayne — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:00:33 +0000

Dear Ms. Marsland,

When deciding on a romance novel to read, if there is something out of the ordinary about it, I’m more likely to give it a second glance. It still might not make the cut but it has a better chance. Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1917 with WWI still raging, a heroine hoping for a hero whom she never thought would be interested in her and a looming event which changed the town forever definitely is different.

In the six months since injured Liam Cochrane returned from the battlefields of France, not much makes him want to dream. Instead he prefers to spend his time trying to find a bottle and have a good time. Not so much to get drunk as to avoid making any choices about his future. Though his family doesn’t blame him for coming back when his younger brother didn’t, Liam blames himself and between that, the shell shock he knows he’s still not over, and his badly damaged leg he’s just not ready to move on with his life.

Alice O’Neill has been in love with Liam for years, though she’s never said a word and has tried not to give her secret away. Her family might be socially a bit above his but she knows that a woman who can’t read can’t aspire to much more than being either a housekeeper for her parents or settling as a wife to a man she’ll never love. Her ne’er-do-well, belligerent brother’s unexpected return from France doesn’t help the home life situation either.

As Alice keeps coming into his life, will Liam finally see the woman she is now instead of the girl he barely remembers? And if he can win her love, will it be ruined when a secret from his past appears?

The best thing about this book is how real Liam and Alice are to me. They aren’t perfect people by any means. They make mistakes. But then who doesn’t? Their slowly blossoming love feels realistic and I enjoy that they take their time about it and aren’t about to rush into anything. Perhaps Alice is a bit too forgiving and understanding about Liam’s issues and the blast from his past but then she’s already loved him for years and has realized that nothing has changed her feelings in the months since he returned, even if she didn’t hold out any hope of a relationship with him. What clinched it for me is when Liam thinks that with Alice now he is actually looking forward to the future instead of just looking for a way to get through it.

Not everything works for me though. Alice’s issues with her learning disabilities are mainly told in past tense with only a few nods to how she copes now. Carl O’Neill is obviously being set up for his own book, which I realized before reading the notice about it, but his character never interests me much and during his page time, all I wanted to do was get back to Liam and Alice. The issue facing Liam from his time on leave in England also seemed contrived and merely there for page padding purposes.

As the book progressed, I noticed a lack of foreshadowing of the Halifax explosion. Of course the townspeople wouldn’t have known it was coming but I kind of liked that you didn’t Drop Clues or Point Arrows towards what was in store for the city. Yet when it did – finally! – occur, it also seemed an afterthought to the main issues of the book. Explosion, a little wandering around as the characters tried to find friends and loved ones then – poof – the book jumps past it to the epilogue. Kind of seemed like a let down after I anticipated it for so long.

I enjoyed the realism of not only the main characters but the secondary ones as well. The historical feel of the book is good. And I always like to see a heroine who never thought she would get her happy ending. I just wish that some of the plot threads didn’t seem so superficial and quickly disposed of. C+

~Jayne

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REVIEW: Colorado Dawn by Kaki Warner

Sunita — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:00:43 +0000

Dear Ms. Warner,

I am a big fan of Western romances and your books have been praised by many of my trusted reviewers. So when I was offered the opportunity to review your latest, the middle book in the Runaway Brides trilogy, I was happy to accept. Although I haven’t read the first book, I felt this novel largely stood on its own. My reading experience was very mixed, but by the end I understood why your work is so popular. Be warned, readers, this is going to be a long review, but Colorado Dawn is a long, rich, book, the kind we often complain that publishers don’t offer anymore.

The book is set in the Colorado Territory after the Civil War, but the prologue takes place in England. This is because the main characters, Maddie and Ash, are English and Scottish respectively. Maddie married Angus Wallace, an officer temporarily billeted near her home, soon after meeting him. He went back to his regiment and she went to Scotland and lived with his family. In the prologue, Maddie has just come back to England to bury her parents after they were killed in a carriage accident. Feeling unhappy and abandoned by Angus, she decides to pursue her love of photography. She receives a commission to photograph the American West, sets off across the ocean, and doesn’t look back.

Chapter 1 begins two years later, when Angus, now known as Ash, is searching for Maddie in Colorado because he has become heir to his brother’s earldom and he needs her to come back to Scotland and take up her duties. Maddie is fulfilled by her photography and mostly content. But when she sees Ash again, her long-repressed feelings for him re-emerge.

There are two primary conflicts in the book. The internal conflict between Maddie and Ash first arises because each feels abandoned by the other and resentful, and then it continues because Maddie genuinely doesn’t want to give up the life she’s built and Ash feels duty-bound to return to Scotland and his family responsibilities. The external conflict involves a very obvious villain. Both conflicts play out over the entire course of the story.

I had real trouble warming up to Maddie. I couldn’t understand why a woman (even a young, inexperienced one) would think that when her husband returned to his officer duties it would constitute abandonment. The lack of letters from him offers some justification, but not much, frankly, given the places he was posted (we get the real reason for the lack of letters soon after they are reunited). She complains about her treatment by Ash’s family, but again, we don’t get much evidence beyond what Maddie tells us, and she came across as spoiled and demanding rather than neglected. Until quite late in the book, where she makes a short and unsatisfying apologia, Maddie shows little or no awareness of the responsibilities she assumed when she married him.

Maddie definitely improves as she spends time with Ash, and her growing maturity and the way she agonizes over her dilemma is well portrayed. By the end I liked her quite a bit, which is testament to your characterization. I just wish the setup to make her a Runaway Bride had been more convincing.

Ash is much more likeable. He is a career officer whose injuries have invalided him out of that life and who never expected, as a third son, to be in a position to succeed to the earldom. He shows considerably more understanding for Maddie’s perspective than she does for his, and he genuinely respects her talent and ambition. That respect didn’t feel modern to me, but rather the way a man in any era might take seriously the things that make the woman he loves the way she is.

The first section of the book, where Ash finds Maddie and her right-hand man, Mr. Satterwhite, and the villain is introduced, unfolds in a leisurely way. When Ash and Maddie return to Heartbreak Creek we are introduced to her friends and the town community and the pace picks up. This part of the story is more of an ensemble piece, but since we have spent a lot of time with the main couple already, I felt it enriched the book without taking too much away from the central relationship. There is plenty going on: Ash and Maddie try to work out their difficulties, a secondary couple’s romance is sketched out, the villain subplot intensifies, and there are trips back and forth to Denver because of the statehood debate.

Aside from the over-the-top villain (not only does he verbally and physically abuse his mentally challenged brother, he abuses his horse), I found most of the Heartbreak Creek setting enjoyable and well portrayed. You know your Colorado geography and history. The American Indian character, Thomas Redstone, veered a little close to a Noble Warrior stereotype for my comfort, but I’m probably hyper-sensitive to multicultural depictions compared to many readers.

What made this a mixed read for me was the portrayal of Maddie and Ash’s backstories and Ash’s “highlander” culture. We begin with a prologue where Maddie is in her parents “small, stone cottage” near London. The family is apparently so poor that the house has to be sold to pay for their funeral and she has no other family. But her father is a baronet; there was no heir to be found anywhere? This combination of circumstances is certainly possible, but it isn’t likely, and I would think it unusual enough to warrant an explanation, or at least a passing reference to the baronetcy reverting to the Crown.

But while the impoverished baronet who had no heirs to the baronetcy seemed odd, it wasn’t enough to keep me from suspending disbelief. Then I reached the description of Ash’s position as heir to the earldom:

Turning to the old man, Ash said in a friendly tone, “In the future, Satterwhite, you willna call my wife ‘missy.’ She is a viscountess and should be addressed as my lady or Lady Madeline or Viscountess Ashby.”

“Oh, rubbish,” his wife interjected. “And I suppose next you’ll insist I call you Lord Ashby. Don’t be such a stick. Missy is fine, Mr. Satterwhite. We are friends, after all.” Turning back to Ash, she added as if he were a blithering numptie, “Americans do not recognize titles, Angus. And as I have not yet accepted yours, I choose not to use it.”

He managed to keep his voice calm. “It’s not a matter of choice, Maddie. I am Viscount Ashby. You are wedded to me. Thus, you are Viscountess Ashby. And even though it’s customary for peers to be addressed by their titles rather than their given names, if Ashby is too lofty for you, I’ll answer to Ash.” He punctuated that with a wide grin.

Let’s count the errors. (1) Lady Madeline is incorrect address for a Viscountess unless she is the daughter of a Earl, Marquess, or Duke and chooses to retain that form. (2) Courtesy titles do not elevate the holder to the peerage. (3) As the current Earl’s brother, Ash is the heir presumptive, not the heir apparent; therefore he wouldn’t become Viscount Ashby because only sons and grandsons of title-holders may use courtesy titles. If the Earldom is Scottish (pre-1707), then Ash could be termed “Master,” but Maddie would still be the Hon. Mrs. Wallace.

These errors wouldn’t have grated on me so much if they weren’t reiterated throughout the book. Maddie says several times that Ash is a “member of the peerage” and refers to her privilege as the wife of a peer. His nickname, Ash, is given him by his fellow officers (who are British and would know better, and would probably keep calling him Wallace anyway). While I can skate over occasional miscues, this one is central to Maddie and Ash’s relationship, conflict, and interaction, and it is repeated over and over again.

The misconstruction of their social rank was compounded by the use of “Scottish” words. I have little patience for “dinna fash yerself lassie” language of Ochlassieland (TM Maili) at the best of times. In this book Ash is constantly substituting dinna, willna, wasna, and “bluidy” in place of their generic English equivalents. Since the book is written in third person omniscient POV, with much of the narrative from Ash’s perspective, we get a lot of passages like this:

Ash blinked at the old man, deafened by the ring of truth in his words. That joy in life was what had attracted him to Maddie in the first place. Attracted him, still. But a member of the peerage couldn’t go haring about in disreputable places just to pursue a hobby. It wasna safe. Or proper. Or acceptable. Such behavior would make her the laughingstock of society, and he dinna want that for the lass.

I know there are readers who like dialect in their historical romances. For those who don’t, the dialect detracts from some really lovely writing. Indeed, the writing and the western setting are strong enough that at times I was swept up in the romance and the story despite the dialect. The scenes where Maddie and Ash are trying to work out how they can stay together made me understand why your previous books have had such ardent fans:

He looked away, afraid she would see the wanting in his eyes. He would bargain with the devil himself to keep Maddie by his side. But he couldna let her give up her art. She would end up hating him for it.

He felt her hand cup his cheek and gently force his head around until their eyes met. “It’s all right, Ash. This is what I want to do. My decision. Just give me a little more time, that’s all I ask.”

Tipping his head into her hand, he kissed her palm. Then he gave her a smile he hoped would hide his doubt. “As it happens, love, time is all I have right now.” Then before she could see the despair in his eyes, he pulled her hard against his chest. He took a deep breath and let it out, knowing what he was about to do was wrong, but unable to keeping himself from clutching at any reprieve he could find.

“All right. I’ll stay here with you, lass. As long as I can.” But he wasn’t convinced it was the right decision. In the end, she still wouldn’t be able to leave, and duty wouldn’t allow him to stay.

She reached up and pulled his head down and kissed him hard. Then again, gentler, her tongue sweeping the seam of his lips.

That was all the invitation he needed.

Regular readers of Dear Author know how pedantic I can be about historical errors, but I am often able to gloss over inaccuracies. Several circumstances prevented me here: first, the mistakes weren’t brief or superficial; they were repeated and they were integral to the plot and relationships. Second, there was some excellent historical contextualization, so the missteps stood out. And finally, I’m more easily able to overlook howlers in a fluffy book than a serious one, and this is in many ways a serious book.

I dithered and waffled over my grade. How do I reconcile the wallbanger parts, the parts I dislike but know other readers will enjoy, and the really well done parts? In the end I have to give it a C. But it’s not a “meh” C. It’s a “good + bad = split the difference” C.

~ Sunita

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REVIEW: A Wind Out of Indigo by Callan Primer

Jane — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:00:53 +0000

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

REVIEW: Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke

Janet — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:00:43 +0000

Dear Ms. Guhrke:

In a way I wish I had read Trouble at the Wedding before the first two books in the Abandoned at the Altar series. The Edwardian setting, pairing of the bourgeois heroine from the American South and the titled but impoverished English duke, and mixed cocktail of the marriage for money and the reformed rake plots add up to an ambitious vision. But I’m not sure whether my expectations were set higher after the first two books, or if what struck me as fresh earlier now seems a bit worn, but whatever the reason, I found this third installment to be a bit of a kitchen sink of tropes and clichés, more interesting and successful in the concept than the execution.

Annabel Wheaton may have catapulted from near poverty to great wealth, and from Gooseneck Bend, Mississippi to New York City, following the death of her father, but she still feels like the “poor white trash” she’s been called most of her life. A smart, independent, business-minded young woman who has already been burned by what she thought was true love, Annabel is determined to marry into the British aristocracy, trading her money for a respected title and a sedate and secure life overseeing her husband’s English estate and raising their children. The man she has chosen, Bernard Alistair, Earl of Rumsford, is not particularly exciting, but then that’s the point. Annabel has had her fill of exciting men, and she frankly doesn’t trust them. Instead, she’s looking forward to a life of security, which she is certain will more than compensate for a lack of passionate romantic love.

Not everyone is on board with Annabel and Bernard’s upcoming wedding, however, which is set for six short days away on the ocean liner Atlantic, a compromise solution to the problem of whether to hold the ceremony in New York or London. One of the dissenters is one of Annabel’s trustees, her uncle Arthur, who believes that Annabel deserves a better match and is determined to get Annabel to see how ill-advised her choice of husband is. Which brings Christian Du Quesne, the handsome, rakish, and nearly broke Duke of Scarborough into the mix, hired by Arthur to talk Annabel out of the wedding in exchange for a half a million American dollars, a sum that will substantially rehabilitate the family estate, which fell into deep debt under the control of his older brother Andrew, whose death has brought the ignominious and unenthusiastic second son into the title.

Christian does not have to stretch the truth in articulating his disdainful view of life in England, especially for the dissolute aristocracy, and once he makes the acquaintance of the lushly beautiful Annabel, his attraction to her, combined with his dislike of Rumsford, generates an urgent personal interest for Christian in convincing Annabel that she doesn’t want what she thinks she wants. Annabel, who is well aware of her tendency to fall for the bad boy, doesn’t want to believe the things Christian is telling her about the unsuitability of life as an English countess, and especially as the Countess of Rumsford, but because Christian promises her he will tell her all the unwritten rules of the life she is choosing, she cannot stay away from him long enough to remain immune to either his charms or his admonitions.

As is the case in many Romances featuring two outsiders, Christian and Annabel have a rapport that is evident to both of them, despite their mutual insistence that they would never suit as a couple. Still, that rapport creates a kind of fast friendship, which tolerates a great deal of mutual honesty and fosters a powerful mutual attraction. Christian tells Annabel of his own past, married to a young heiress who killed herself after miscarrying their baby, while Christian was traveling and partying with friends. Annabel tells Christian of her own humiliation at the hands of the town rich boy, who took Annabel’s virginity and then unceremoniously dumped her. Which makes Annabel even more determined to go through with the wedding and take the life she wants, and even as Christian admits defeat and drinks himself into a stupor, he inexplicably finds himself standing up at the wedding and calling it a “farce and a lie,” humiliating Annabel a second, devastating time and necessitating, in Christian’s mind, a proposal to save Annabel’s reputation.

But Annabel isn’t going to meekly accept Christian’s loveless sacrifice, and instead she engineers a strategy by which Christian will retroactively become one of Annabel’s trustees, thus making his wedding protest one of avuncular protection rather than scandalous insinuation. And in the meantime, Christian’s sister Sylvia volunteers to bring Annabel more fully into London society, where she can make an appropriate match and ultimately resuscitate her original ambition.

In many Romances, all of this set-up would have occurred in the first quarter or third of the novel, with the remainder of the story dedicated to unraveling Annabel and Christian’s true feelings for each other. Actually, many novels would likely turn the plot into one of marriage of convenience between the protagonists. That this particular plot occurs at the halfway point of the novel is indicative of its ambition, as does Annabel’s incredibly independent focus and resolve:

“First of all, let me say I owe you my most sincere apologies. My conduct was reprehensible”

“Which part?” she asked in a tart voice. “The part where you agreed to take money for talking me out of marrying Bernard? Or –“

“You know about that?”

“Uncle Arthur told me. Needless to say, he’s not feeling inclined to pay you that money now, so is that what you’re apologizing for? Hoping he’ll give it to you anyway? Or maybe it’s breaking up my wedding that you’re sorry about? Or maybe it’s because you called it a farce and a lie, and hurt my reputation? Or maybe it was the fact that you hauled off and kissed me last night? Which of those reprehensible things is the one you’re apologizing for?”

. . .

“We should become engaged.”

. . .

“Thank you for your gallant effort to save the day,” and the sweet drawling sarcasm in her voice told him his hope of an easy solution was rather out the window. “I appreciate it so very much, Your Grace. But I think I’ll pass.”

“You’re saying no?” He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. No doubt she felt a bit let down by the idea, for he knew he hadn’t made any effort to put a romantic gloss on it. Nonetheless, she couldn’t really refuse. “But we have to become engaged. It’s the only way to avert a scandal.”

“It’s not the only way. It’s the simplest way, and the easiest way for you because it doesn’t affect your life at all.”

I really liked this Annabel. I was even willing to overlook the sitcom sorghum character of her Southern accent and idioms, as well as the cliché-ridden prose and conversation. I liked the fact that the book took a somewhat unexpected turn at this point and that Annabel seemed to be the engineer of her own rescue.

Then it all fell apart for me. Annabel and Christian find themselves in that push-pull of attraction and resistance, with Annabel literally begging Christian to stay away and then feeling disappointed when he complies. Christian is torn between doing “the right thing” and pursuing his own desires, even as he knows he doesn’t want another marriage to a woman who supposedly deserves better than a rake like him. Rinse and repeat.

I have recently been thinking about certain Romance character pairings where you have an almost unresolveable conflict. For example, a heroine who deserves to be loved for who she is and a hero who is destined to let any woman who loves him down. As often as we see these kinds of conflicts, I’m not sure they’re usually resolved by means that don’t seem almost supernatural, often in the form of a crisis that clues the hero in to how much he loves the heroine and wants to be the man she deserves. I have, of late, been pining for more realistic resolutions to these complex conflicts, and one of the things that frustrated me about Trouble at the Wedding was the way in which the dramatic tension in the second half of the novel is generated in part by Annabel’s increasing desolation over the depth of her feelings for Christian and his inability to love her in return.

Not only does this dynamic weaken Annabel’s character and undermine her independent resolve, it accomplishes this by manipulating the reader into desperately hoping that Christian will come to his senses and accept his own feelings are more than simple lust. It became a problematic dynamic for me in this novel because I kept feeling like I was put in a position where I had to depend on Christian for Annabel’s happy ending, which contravened so much of what appealed to me about her character. While that is typical Romance form, it was constructed at the expensive of a character who, for me, at least, was appealing to Christian for that precise independence that the romantic trajectory of the novel undermined.

Part of the issue may have been the relatively short time and page frame in which the second half of the novel proceeds. But I also think there was a difficult pairing of plot and character ambition and genre mimesis that went too far out of balance in the second half of the book. I also felt that there was more infodump in this novel than in the previous two, with passages that sounded almost like they were powered by cinematic adaptations of Edith Wharton novels or Wikipedia:

The door banged again and the young woman below looked back over her shoulder. “There you are at last!” she exclaimed as a girl about ten years old came into view, her age evidenced not only by her more diminutive stature, but also by the shorter length of her skirt, the sailor motif of her dress, and the fact that her dark hair was not put up.

As much as I appreciated the details provided, their integration didn’t feel as easy as in previous novels set during this same time, and that added to the kitchen sink feel of the novel for me. Still, had Annabel’s happiness not depended so very much on Christian’s change, I think I would have overlooked so much else in the novel. But that substantial disappointment made other elements seem more pronounced, undermining my appreciation and enjoyment of the more unexpected and ambitious elements of the novel. C

~ Janet

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REVIEW: All That Bleeds by Kimberly Frost

Jane — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:00:23 +0000

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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REVIEW: Mad About the Earl by Christina Brooke

Jane — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:00:08 +0000

Dear Ms. Brooke (aka Christine Wells):

I didn’t pick up the first title in this series. I think I was put off by the concept of the Ministry of Marriage (although that’s probably why the series was bought by the publisher). The Ministry of Marriage (and the fact that is has a name) is this corny idea where the old folks get together and arrange marriages for the young folk. Some of the old folks aren’t all that old. The Duke of Montford, the central figure in the Ministry of Marriage, is in his 40s. The stories are about the wacky hijinks of getting the kids together and showing how clever the olds are at matching them up.

The Duke of Montford has a collection of five wards. This was the confusing part of the story to me. In the first two chapters there are a slew of new characters and many of them were related and had similar titles. Lord deVere is a Baron and the hero is from the deVere family and he is the Earl of Tregarth. The heroine’s cousin is the Marquess of Steyne who is also referred to by the name Westruther and then there was his cousin the Viscount of Westruther. And so on and so forth. I eventually went to your website and gleaned some understanding from the minimal family tree information that was provided but I was irritated that it wasn’t better explained in the book itself. Maybe a family tree would have been helpful or a cast list?

Rosamund Westruther had been betrothed to Griffin deVere in the summer of 1812. She was thrilled. She gazed at his tiny portrait, an odd and not very attractive compilation of features, often imagining his lovely proposal and his sweet, soft betrothal kiss. What she hadn’t bargained for was the beast of a man to not want to marry her. When she overhears deVere’s grandfather speaking with Montford about deVere’s reluctance, she has the choice to flee in tears or fight. She chooses to fight which completely baffles Griffin. He cannot believe that Rosamund, a woman so beautiful that men stop in their tracks just to gape at her, would be interested in him.

“Fury burned through him, the same kind of frustrated anger that ultimately crashed in after an encounter with a willing bit of muslin. Those women never cared what he looked like as long as he paid handsomely for their favors.”

Yes, he wanted her so much, he was near crazed with it. But he hated the feeling. The hurt and resentment of it tangled inside him until he couldn’t see straight. And that same impulse that made schoolboys pull pretty girls’ hair made him step toward her, boxing her in between his body and the stone wall behind her.

She didn’t shrink back or cry out or weep. She simply looked up into his face.

While I enjoyed the sentiment his “want her so much, he was near crazed with it” occurred on page 18 of the book and merely minutes after their first encounter. This represents the problems I had with much of the book. Every emotion was troweled on but dealt with superficially.

Griffin thinks of himself as a lout, a brute and that no woman could ever find him desirable. We never see any one snubbing Griffin nor are we shown why he believes that women would hold him in disgust. When he bursts onto the London scene every one of Rosamund’s family views him as the stablehand but he’s not dressed appropriately and he had just come from the stable. Unfortunately for Griffin, he needs something from Rosamund. In exchange, she wrings an agreement from him to court her.

My main complaint (other than the hook) was that I didn’t feel that the story went deep enough into the emotional conflict. The resolution was too easy. Griffin’s big character change was believing that Rosamund loved him but I didn’t feel like Griffin’s insecurity manifested itself in other ways. Rosamund read as a more static character for me. While the interactions were lovely between the two, the plot moves along more by external threats to their relationship rather than internal angst. It’s a sweet and sexy romance but it doesn’t have a stickiness of other stories. Still, I am a sucker for a beauty and the beast story. C+

Best regards,

Jane

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REVIEW: From This Moment On by Bella Andre

DA_January — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:00:27 +0000

Dear Ms. Andre,

I purchased this book on a Kindle Daily Deal, I think. It’s regularly priced at $4.99 and while I felt that $4.99 was a bit too pricey for DA_January’s budget, I could spend two dollars and not hate myself in the morning for buying it. From This Moment On was extremely readable, but at the end, I think I respected myself a little less for enjoying it, because I shouldn’t have. The storyline is saccharine sweet and almost unbelievable, and the hero and heroine are very one note.

From This Moment On is the romance of Marcus Sullivan and Nico the pop star. Marcus is part of the Sullivan clan. They are a cross between the Bridgertons and the Village People, in that there are eight siblings of eight varying jobs and each sibling will get their own book. There is the fireman (book three), the world-famous photographer (book one), the rich Vineyard owner (this book), the pro baseball player, the movie star, the automotive whiz who owns a chain of auto stores, and two sisters. The sisters are a choreographer and a librarian. If I am a Sullivan sister, I am thinking I got a raw deal. The Sullivans are the basis of the series, of course, and it feels a bit contrived. Like Romance Pokemon, readers must collect them all.

Nico is a pop star. She goes by Nicola during her downtime. She is very young and likes to lounge around in her pajamas at home when she gets free time. She doesn’t like parties and clubbing because she is a nice girl despite being a sex kitten pop star. In her last relationship, her boyfriend took advantage of her fame and took some risque photos of the two of them in an intimate embrace, and they surfaced on the internet. Now, Nicola doesn’t trust men and she has a scandalous reputation, which makes her even more famous.

Marcus Sullivan is the hero, and he’s 36 and owns a winery. He’s recently gotten out of a two year relationship with a woman that cheated on him. He decides that he’s going to go to a club and pick up a woman. Nicola has also decided that she’s going to live the wild pop star life and go to a club and pick up a man. They of course, pick up each other. After exchanging two or three sentences, they get in a cab and head out to Marcus’s place. And thus the romance begins.

There were so many instances that strained belief in this story that it would take forever for me to go through them. Nicola, who claims to not trust men, is falling asleep in Marcus’s arms moments after she has met him. She has sex with him in public places and lets him tie her hands, even though her last boyfriend abused her trust. This did not seem like the reactions of a woman who had her trust violated, because she blindly obeys every edict Marcus gives her.

Marcus is a bit of a creeper. He’s 11 years older than Nicola, and is very take charge in the bedroom. I couldn’t help but feel that he was going to take over other aspects of Nicola’s life very shortly, like the Jason Trawick to Nicola’s Britney Spears. After they had been together for a week, he was giving Nicola career advice (because vineyard owners know so much about pop music, I suppose) and even worse, she was taking it.

I should have hated this book. I thought Nico was a cleaned up, unrealistic version of a pop star. I thought Marcus was singular and overbearing. But I read the book in one sitting, and found it enjoyable despite the myriad flaws. You have a compelling, light voice and though your characters do have a sameness to them, I thought it was readable and pleasant. When the characters got together, it was sexy, and I felt the storyline was straightforward. There were no ridiculous, convoluted storylines to keep the characters apart. It was a very simple story about two very different people getting together. And while their jobs made me roll my eyes, I didn’t mind the read. I even bought other books in the series, because I guess I am a fan of Romance Pokemon after all.

C+

All best,

January

REVIEW: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Jane — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:00:58 +0000

Dear Ms. McGuire:

Angela James loaned this book to me and I went on to purchase my own copy ($1.99 using the Kobodollaroff coupon). This book is often recommended on the goodreads forums and it is highly rated. I totally understand the appeal because it is a very readable book plus I think that there are hookable elements such as a fantastical ideal of the bad boy who transforms for one person only. The voice of the author is compelling and her command of the characters make the book seem all the more real. The reason that it is disturbing is the fairly positive light in which this dangerous and dysfunctional relationship is portrayed. In real life or as an exemplar of a healthy relationship, this is a terrible book. It’s a book that you want to talk about with your daughter if she reads it. There may be triggers ahoy for those sensitive to physical abuse.

Abigail Abernathy attends an illegal fight in the bowels of her university early on in her freshman year. There she catches the attention of fighter Travis Maddox (whom I believe is a junior). They come into more frequent contact as a result of her best friend, America, dating Shephley (Shep), Travis’ cousin. Travis and Shep live in an apartment off campus and when the dorm showers break down, America and Abby move into the apartment.

Travis immediately attaches himself to Abby but he’s a man whore, bringing home any number of women after drunken binges. Abby recognizes that Travis is bad news right away, particularly given her past, and she agrees to be friends only with Travis.

Travis leaned so close that I could feel his breath on my cheek. “I’m sorry…did I offend you in some way?”

I sighed and shook my head.

“Then what is your problem?”

I kept my voice low. “I’m not sleeping with you. You should give up, now.”

A slow smile crept across his face before he spoke. “I haven’t asked you sleep with me,” his eyes drifted to the ceiling in thought, “have I?”

“I’m not a Barbie twin or one of your little groupies up there,” I said, glancing at the girls behind us. “I’m not impressed with your tattoos, or your boyish charm, or your forced indifference, so you can stop the antics, okay?

Travis is determined that they should be friends and Abby is helpless against Travis’ charisma. The flirty exchanges between Travis and Abby are very cute. Their relationship, however, to any one looking on the outside is more of a girlfriend / boyfriend. Abby sleeps with Travis in his bed, platonically. They spend almost every minute together when they aren’t in classes. Travis worships Abby and demands every one treat her respectfully, even though he has little respect for other women.

While Travis is taking home a different girl every night, Abby starts seeing Parker, a wealthy pre med kid, who happens to be Travis’ fraternity brother. Abby’s on again/off again relationship with Parker might drive readers crazy but I saw it as a defense mechanism. How else could she prevent herself for falling for Travis?

I loved the setting of this book at Eastern University and Abby, Mare, Shep, and Travis felt authentically college aged to me, full of self confidence and invincibility but without the responsibilities and worries that post college brings. Eastern U must be a tiny college, though, given that it seems everyone eats lunch at the cafeteria at the same time. In some respects, this setting resembled a high school more than a large university. The dialogue was engaging and fresh. Shep warns Abby off, saying that her having a one night with Travis will lead to Shep and Mare breaking up:

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Mare. Do you know how many times he’s screwed things up for me because he one-nights the best friend? All of a sudden it’s a conflict of interest to date me because it’s fraternizing with the enemy! I’m tellin’ ya, Abby,” he looked at me, “don’t tell Mare she can’t come over or date me because you fall for Trav’s line of BS. Consider yourself warned.”

The interaction between the four was really well done and displayed the volatility of youthful romance.

I didn’t feel that Abby’s past was fleshed out enough to provide a basis for her refusal to date Travis. It would have been easy to understand her refusal to date him based on his seeming inability to treat woman as anything other than objects but instead her refusal to date him was based on the idea that she was bad for him. Yet, this is a guy who went insane after Abby left him:

“He took a swing at Shep when he found out we helped you leave. Abby! Please tell me!” she pleaded, her eyes glossing over. “It’s scaring me!”

The fear in her eyes forced only the partial truth. “I just couldn’t say goodbye. You know it’s hard for me.”

“It’s something else, Abby. He’s gone fucking nuts! I heard him call your name, and then he stomped all over the apartment looking for you. He barged into Shep’s room, demanding to know where you were. Then he tried to call you. Over, and over and over,” she sighed. “His face was…Jesus, Abby. I’ve never seen him like that.

“He ripped his sheets off the bed, and threw them away, threw his pillows away, shattered his mirror with his fist, kicked his door…broke it from the hinges! It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!”

There were a number of unbelievable elements such as Travis being not only the bad boy, but a card carrying member of a popular fraternity. He smokes, is an incredible instinctive fighter, never trains, drinks constantly, drives a motorcycle, and is so brilliant he doesn’t need to study. He doesn’t even run or lift weights or engage in any kind of physical activity other than fight occasionally (and even that is not on a regular basis). At one point, he even sings in the cafeteria getting everyone to sing along with him. His charisma is just that amazing. Abby is an even more shallow character. We know only that she wants to remake herself in college but into what, I don’t believe if even Abby knows which would be fine except that eventually Travis becomes her whole world.

Travis’ default reaction to everything is violence, no matter the danger in which might place Abby.

Travis barreled his way onto the dance floor, and plunged his fist straight into the pirate’s face, the force sending both of us to the ground. With my palms flat on the wooden floor, I blinked my eyes in stunned disbelief. Feeling something warm and wet on my hand, I turned it over and recoiled. It was covered in blood from the man’s nose. His hand was cupped over his face, but the bright red liquid poured down his forearm as he writhed on the floor.

Travis scrambled to pick me up, seeming as shocked as I was. “Oh shit! Are you all right, Pidge?”

When I got to my feet, I yanked my arm from his grip. “Are you insane?”

America grabbed my wrist and pulled me through the crowd to the parking lot. Shepley unlocked his doors and after I slid into my seat, Travis turned to me.

“I’m sorry, Pigeon, I didn’t know he had a hold of you.”

“Your fist was two inches from my face!” I said, catching the oil-stained towel Shepley had thrown at me. I wiped the blood from my hand, revolted.

The seriousness of the situation darkened his face and he winced. “I wouldn’t have swung if I thought I could have hit you. You know that right?”

He is a scary guy who views everyone as a threat and every situation as a potential fight. Abby encourages this for all her protestations otherwise. Later in the book she tells Travis to teach another guy a lesson in manners and Travis goes over and beats the hell out of said guy.

“Did you mean it when you said you didn’t want me to change?” he asked, squeezing my hand.

I looked down at Chris laughing to his teammates, and then turned to Travis. “Absolutely. Teach that asshole some manners.”

….

Travis lifted Finch’s tray off the table and swung it into Chris’ face, knocking him off his chair. Chris tried to scramble under the table, but Travis pulled him out by his legs, and then began to wail on him.

Chris curled into a ball, and then Travis kicked him in the back. Chris arched and turned, holding his hands out, allowing Travis to land several punches to his face. The blood began to flow, and Travis stood up, winded.

“If you even look at her you piece of shit, I’ll break your fuckin’ jaw!” Travis yelled. I winced when he kicked Chris in the leg one last time.

In some ways, Abby is more of a possession than a person to Travis. Abby chastises him for acting like he is marking her, peeing on her leg (figuratively), yet despite all the warnings, this is where Abby wants to be.

This book, for its flaws, is compulsively readable. While reading the book, it is easy to get caught up in the fantasy of it and the romanticism of Travis’ strength of feeling for Abby but at the end, you are left with this uneasiness because Travis doesn’t change. He’s still the uber violent rage monster that he was in the start of the book who is routinely destroying things and then asking for forgiveness and Abby is the very young woman who keeps forgiving him. C

Best regards,

Jane

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