Dear Author » Assassin

REVIEW: Shaedes of Gray by Amanda Bonilla

Jia — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:00:29 +0000

Dear Ms. Bonilla,

If there’s one character type I love seeing, it’s assassins. Especially female assassins. I could probably stand to see less redheaded assassins though. Seriously, what is it with fantasy and redheaded assassins and/or redheaded women? Still, the promise of a female assassin was enough to lure me into picking up your debut. I tried to read another debut earlier this year featuring a female assassin, but that quickly became a DNF. So I hoped for something better with your book. But while I did finish your novel, it was with very mixed feelings.

Darian is an assassin. She makes it a point to only kill people who deserve it but there’s no getting around what she does for a living. She kills people and she does so well. Until now.

Darian is also a Shaede. Shaedes are supernatural beings that can turn into shadow at night. Very effective ability for an assassin. People are usually born Shaedes but a select few — the powerful ones — can turn others. The process to become one isn’t very clear — no exchange of blood likes vampires, no bites like werewolves — so I’m guessing it was something mystical.

Darian was made into a Shaede. The man who turned her into one vanished many years prior and is assumed dead, so she assumed she was the only one of her kind. After all, that’s what her maker told her so why should she have any reason to doubt him?

It turns out he lied. Darian is not the only one of her kind. In fact, she’s been recruited back into the fold for specific particular mission. And to succeed at this mission, she’s got to train for it because while she was good against humans, it turns out her current skill level is nothing at all compared to other Shaedes and the man she now has to kill.

I really wanted to love this book. It had promise. Finally, a female assassin who’s hard and not depicted to be incompetent in the opening pages! But as the book progressed, I realized that while I like my female assassins to be hard, I also prefer for them not to be complete and utter sociopaths dissociated from their emotions. Now I assume that to be a good assassin, you need to be able to dissociate to a certain extent, but there’s compartmentalizing and then there’s being emotionless. It makes it hard for me to like Darian.

For example, Darian’s backstory is that she was an abused wife. Yes, I’m sure everyone is surprised that the tough as nails heroine had a tragic backstory in which she was beaten by her husband. At least she wasn’t raped. On the other hand, the reason the husband beat her was because he was closeted gay and resented it. Talk about cliches and stereotypes! A woman can’t become strong unless she was abused? The gay man is evil? Really?

But that’s not even the point I was trying to make. You see, when the abusive husband gets what’s coming to him, Darian watches the scene unfold with no reaction at all. I would have taken anything. Hysteria. Cheerfully jumping in to help. Screaming and running away when she realizes that the man they invited into their house is in fact a murderer! Her dropping to the floor and saying, “Okay, kill me next.” Anything! Instead, I got nothing. She just stood by and watched.

Now you could say her lack of reaction was a sign that the abuse had affected her. That she could no longer feel. But based on the rest of the book, I don’t think that was what was intended at all.

I also found her to be willfully ignorant. It’s not just her actually believing they were the only ones of their kind. It’s the fact that she didn’t stop to think that there were other supernatural things walking around. And to tell the truth, I can’t help but think badly of a supernatural character who has no idea what a Jinn is. When she was human, sure. I can buy that lack of knowledge. But Darian’s been alive for a long time. She lives in modern-day Seattle. She doesn’t know that jinn=genie? Let’s not even get started on the fact that while Darian insists on only killing evil people, she doesn’t actually confirm that the people she’s killing are evil! She trusts her handler, Tyler, to vet everything. I know it’s just a personal preference but I really want my protagonists to be smart and clever!

There’s a romantic subplot but it feel really flat for me. I had no idea why Tyler was so in love with Darian. Was it a genuine emotional connection? Some sort of supernatural soulbonding? Both? Who knows? And I personally found the insistence that Xander was a rival for Darian’s affections to be laughable. I found the scenes where Darian interacted with Xander to be lacking in romantic or sexual chemistry at all. Trying to see Darian as being torn between Tyler and Xander was impossible despite the book telling me that Darian was attracted to Xander. I didn’t see that at all and every time the book told me that, I made a face.

Which brings us to the final point. This book is a lot of telling. It’s also a lot of withholding information for the sake of withholding information. I really dislike this. I knew who it was Darian had to kill the minute they mentioned it. It was so obvious there might as well have been neon orange flags around it. The fact that it took so long for them to reveal the identity in the book was annoying.

While I liked that the novel took the idea of a shadow assassin and showed how nasty the applications of that can be, I really could not get behind Darian. Her backstory was so cliche and she followed the path of many an urban fantasy heroine and started developing unique and random superpowers no one has ever seen before when times got tough. The romantic subplot was poorly done in my opinion, and the plot lacked any twists at all. I don’t regret reading the book but it does remind me of why the urban fantasy genre frustrates me so much. C-

My regards,
Jia

REVIEW: Fate’s Edge by Ilona Andrews

Josephine — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 20:00:13 +0000

Dear Ms Andrews,

I must confess, I am a fan. You are one of those authors I count on to consistently deliver good stories. The presence of your name on the cover of a book will motivate me to buy what I would otherwise pass. I’m hooked on your Kate Daniels series of Urban Fantasy novels. I enjoy the way you twist tired genre tropes in your Kinsmen series of Sci-fi Romance ebook novellas. I adore the excitement, intricacy and interconnectedness of your Edge series of Fantasy Romance novels, the third and most recent installment of which, Fate’s Edge, is reviewed here today.

Unfortunately, intricacy and interconnectedness have their price in that they tend to make later books in a series less accessible to new readers. Though I enjoyed Fate’s Edge and look forward to the next book in the series, I was left wondering whether the plot threads and characters carried in from earlier books would intrigue new readers or alienate them.

Like other heroines in this series, Audrey Callahan lives in the Edge, a hardscrabble, half-magical borderland between the Broken—the modern North America we know and love—and the Weird, an alternate North America which, with all of its monsters, mayhem and magical devices, more than lives up to its name. Audrey comes from a family of grifters, but where most Edge families stick up for each other, Audrey’s family used and neglected her in favor of her drug addicted brother. She reluctantly agrees to one last heist for an unknown buyer in order to sever her ties with her family.

Kaldar Mar is exactly the sort of handsome, smooth-talking con man Audrey knows she should avoid, but he’s also the secret agent tasked with recovering the item she stole. And he’s not the only one after her. With evil agents of the Hand close on their trail, Kaldar and Audrey must combine their talents for conning and thievery in order to find and regain the dangerous device. Along for the adventure are stowaway brothers Jack and George whom fans of the series will recognize as Rose’s brothers from the first Edge book, On the Edge, and Kaldar’s ward, Gaston, whom we met in book two, Bayou Moon.

I enjoyed the way this book started with the events that bring this group of adventurers together. It filled me in on what life was like for Jack, George, and, to a lesser extent, Gaston, since I last saw them in earlier books. It also served to establish Kaldar’s and Audrey’s excellence in the arts of deception. Though it takes a while for them to meet, when they do, the scene is a very fun contest of cons with each trying to manipulate the other.

In addition to scenes shown from the hero’s and heroine’s points of view, Fate’s Edge gives the reader several scenes from Jack’s point of view and some scenes written from the villains’ points of view, too. I enjoyed your POV choices, and especially appreciated that though the villains were cruel and scary and evil, their motives made sense. Additionally, the increasingly complex plans Kaldar and Audrey devise in their quest for the MacGuffin require independent action from all of the main characters. We would have missed a lot of excitement without Jack’s point of view. And, we would have missed Jack. To be honest, I like Jack and George so much that I would have read and enjoyed this book even if it were only about them.

And therein lies the difficulty. While I adored the relationship between George and Jack—the dramatic posturing of adolescents, the alternating feelings of responsibility and resentment each boy feels for his brother—Audrey and Kaldar’s romance just was not as vivid a relationship. I think part of the problem is that much of Kaldar’s character development comes in the form of other characters telling Audrey—and by extension, the reader—about Kaldar rather than Kaldar showing who he really is:

Gaston bit his lower lip. “He’s not right… He still pretends that everything is cool. You can’t tell by looking at him because he acts normal, but the rudder on his boat stuck…He wants revenge on the Hand, and he doesn’t care what happens to him or how he gets it.”

Given that Kaldar is a con man, it makes sense that he would not readily reveal his deepest secrets, and I would have thought it odd if he had. But because he spends so much of his time with Audrey trying to be the type of man she would sleep with, I don’t feel like his character ever really solidified for me, even during the endearing scenes where he realized he loved her.

The difficult thing about confidence men as heroes is that the con is often bigger than the character. I found Audrey a fascinating heroine at the start of the book, but she faded in comparison to the scams she and Kaldar ran in order to retrieve the MacGuffin. By the end, I was happy when Audrey and Kaldar got their HEA, but content to let them ride off into the sunset. I am sure they will be useful in future installments of the Edge series, but Audrey and Kaldar didn’t hook me the way William and Cerise did in Bayou Moon or, to a lesser extent, Rose and Declan did in On the Edge.

Overall, I enjoyed Fate’s Edge and would recommend it to any fan of the series. I would not recommend it to new readers for fear that the tangle of preexisting characters, plots, and histories might prove daunting rather than intriguing, and I would really hate for any reader to miss out on a series as good as this one.

~Josephine

REVIEW: Isle of Night by Veronica Wolff

Jaclyn — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 15:00:15 +0000

Dear Ms. Wolff,

Jaclyn says:

When I opened to page one of Isle of Night I was expecting a historical romance set in Scotland—presumably on the Isle of Night. The ARC I had didn’t have a cover image and because I have enjoyed your books in the past I did not seek information about the story before starting to read. My assumption was half right: most of the story takes place on the Isle of Night.

Isle of Night begins with seventeen-year-old Annelise leaving her abusive dad’s dingy Florida apartment to register for college. The specter of her father, who uses his fists to communicate, sows the seeds of suffocating menace that permeates the pages of this story. Unable to register for college and left with no money and nowhere to go, Annelise accepts the offer of a mysterious young man to drive her to the coast. But in turns out he didn’t mean the coast of Florida, and what follows is a coming of age story set in a school that trains girls to become agents for vampires—Watchers—who travel the world doing their masters’ work, whether it means gathering information or assassinating enemies. The experience of reading this book is visceral. As I read page after page my body was tense, my heart rate picked up as Annelise faced danger, I was scared for her and simultaneously wanted her to win and to escape, but mostly I wanted her to survive.

John says:

Unlike Jaclyn, I knew from the beginning what this story was about. I was expecting an unusual setting for YA (Scotland – not the boarding school itself, which is a common trope in YA books) and something with a little more spice than the regular vampire novel. The blurbs and marketing have been promising this as a combination of The Hunger Games and other big YA titles. Many of the comparisons could have set this book to fail before it even began, but I was soon sucked into Wolff’s world the same way you were.

What makes me feel like this book works from the beginning is that it’s appealing to a lot of different fronts without feeling like a pretender. I never once questioned WHY Wolff wrote this book – which I often due with these adult-turned-YA authors that come out with hyped books – and that in and of itself is something that I am impressed by. She strikes a tone that feels completely natural, and she manages to make everything feel suspenseful and gripping. Even the romance. It’s a paranormal novel that really has a lot of grit to it.

Jaclyn says:

I agree with John about the tone and level of grit in this book. The most compelling novels create rich atmospheres that allow me to drop out of the real world and immerse myself in the events of the story. Wolff does this by appealing to all of the reader’s senses. Almost all romances offer detailed visual descriptions and appeal to a reader’s emotions, describing how things look and what the characters feel; with Isle of Night, sound, taste, and scent are deftly woven into the story, and in particular sound plays an important role in Annelise’s life and maintaining the tension throughout the story.

Annelise smuggles two things into the boarding school, a photo of her mother and her iPod, deciding that her need for the solace of music and a tangible connection to her beloved mom is greater than the potential for punishment if she is caught with the forbidden items.

During the early weeks of her training these two items become a source of life support, a moment of escape from the stress of the intense Watcher training and Annelise’s way out of the school without leaving the campus. But because they are forbidden, they also become a point of stress for the reader—will she get caught? What will happen if the items are discovered? And they are eventually discovered.

My only complaint in this whole story is the iPod: whenever Annelise listened to her iPod I found myself wondering how she managed to charge it—which drew me out of the story for a brief moment.

John says:

I think Jaclyn makes a really important comment above, so I’m going to reiterate it:

”Almost all romances offer detailed visual descriptions…”

The comparison is very adequate on a multitude of levels. What is so appealing about Wolff’s style is that she has all of the description and atmosphere detailing of a romance novel—which would make sense, considering she’s penned several historical romances—while still keeping the pacing and focus of a YA work.

What Jaclyn describes about Annelise is precisely why I enjoyed her character. I haven’t read The Hunger Games, so I can’t say how she’ll compare to Katniss fans, but I felt like Wolff knew how to make a strong female character that wasn’t perfect. The iPod and the picture are both obvious weaknesses that get exploited throughout earlier parts of the book, and I felt Wolff really understood that her character couldn’t be this perfect person. Annelise’s weakness is such a highlight to the story, and it’s really rewarding to see her grow into someone who can be utterly ruthless.

I think that the characterization extended well into the side characters, too. Annelise’s love interest admittedly made me swoon. Even her friends caught my attention. Wolff has really thought about what her world entails, and I think it’s most obvious when you consider the side characters. She has an island in Scotland where the elite train to be vampires—which is already a step from the YA norm—and she places all of these really interesting and diverse people on it. There are characters from around the world in this story, and they don’t feel tacked on at all. It gives such a good idea of just how sweeping her world is.

Jaclyn says:

John makes a good point—the secondary characters enrich this story. At the same they also play into the menace—Annelise is learning a dangerous lesson about whom she can and cannot trust. Each new person she met at the school left me wondering if they would betray her, though she manages to make some genuine friends.

In the last quarter of the story violence ratchets up as all the first year trainees, including Annelise, take part in a competition for the Directorate’s Award. The girls fight in one-on-one combat. There are a few rules to the fighting, but they are not intended to keep everyone safe and the girls are often fighting for their lives. In the last match Annelise faces off against her archenemy in an epic battle. When it’s over the true threat to Annelise is revealed.

After finishing Isle of Night I sat for a moment and realized I had read it straight through. Then I immediately headed online to find out when the next book in the series will be published. Isle of Night earns a well deserved A.

John says:

Like Jaclyn, this book completely sucked me in. I didn’t read it in one sitting, but if I had the time I easily would have. Minor quips like the iPod easily brushed past my reading, and I think Wolff sets herself up for what promises to be a strong YA series. A-

Cheers,

Jaclyn & John

Friday Film Review: Wild Target

Jayne — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 09:00:57 +0000

Wild Target (2010)
Genre: action/comedy/romance
Grade: B+

“I love you, Victor Maynard.” – Roger, a parrot

It’s got a hit man, an inept thief, a forged Rembrandt, a lost young man, the second best assassin in the business, a mother with high standards, a pink cat, a stolen bullet strafed car and a lesson about cleaning your gun. What more could you want in a film?

Victor Maynard (Bill Nighy) is 54 years old, the best assassin in the business and assigned to kill Rose (Emily Blunt) who pulled an art heist fast one on Mr. Ferguson (Rupert Everett) a ruthless real estate tycoon. But as Victor follows her – do I see a smile? Yes, I do – he is intrigued by her free and easy “all for me” ways and doesn’t pull the trigger. As his exacting mother tells him, in order to restore the family reputation, he needs to finish the hit. But when he goes after Rose again, it’s to discover that someone else has been assigned the job.

Ferguson’s bodygoons botch the business and Victor, Rose and Tony (Rupert Grint) – a young man who witnessed the whole thing – find themselves on the run from Dixon (Martin Freeman) the second best assassin, now hired to kill them. Can Victor stay one step ahead of Dixon, instruct Tony as his new apprentice, win the girl and get his mother’s (Eileen Atkins) approval of her?

Bill Nighy’s movies either work for me or spectacularly don’t (Glorious 39, Pirate Radio). In this case, like “Love Actually,” it works brilliantly. Here he plays Victor, a man as stiff as a board, who shrink wraps his furniture – and I don’t just mean the upholstered pieces – but who can give a mean foot massage and who looks after his mother. It’s a joy to watch him slowly thaw even as he’s trying not to strangle Rose who is unlike anyone in his life, ever.

Emily Blunt plays Rose as someone who in a romance novel would be described as delightfully infuriating. Just watch her larcenous stroll down a street market or listen to her droll sarcasm and shoulder shrugging nonchalance in the face of Victor’s uptight efforts to keep her alive. But she wakes Victor up and makes him question where he is in life. Then “just enough” happens to make her fall in love with him.

Rupert Grint is sort of a Robin to Batman in the movie. Grint gives Tony a youthful, earnest enthusiasm that also catches Victor’s interest and in a way he becomes almost the son to Victor’s father figure. He and Rose get to squabble like children as they both breathe life into Victor’s up-til-now quiet life. Eileen Atkins is brilliant as usual. I love this woman in almost everything I’ve seen her in. She’s determined that the family standards be maintained and don’t underestimate her with an eight inch knife or a gun.

Rupert Everett is delightfully sinister as the thwarted tycoon who is more dangerous than the goons around him. As Dixon, Martin Freeman is given a lesser role and unfortunately, I don’t think as an assassin he’s nearly as interesting as Victor. Though his goon is quite funny at times.

There are so many moments in the film I love. Listen out for some football commentary which also applies to what’s going on between Victor and Rose at the moment. And watch for the crib mobile that Victor’s father made for him and the parrot who overhears too much. And definitely pay attention to the French phrases Victor is practicing – not only are some hysterically funny in relation to his hits but they’re also poignantly telling of his emotional state.

So should a hit man, a thief and an apprentice hit man be rewarded in the end with success and the beginning of “one big happy family?” Oh, yes indeed. I might wish that the deus ex machina wasn’t as blatantly telegraphed, that Grint weren’t quite so clueless at times, that the second best assassin had as much flare as Victor and that there was a commentary tract – this movie just cries out for one – but overall I’ve enjoyed it each time I’ve watched it. B+

~Jayne

REVIEW: Angel Burn by L.A. Weatherly

Jia — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 15:00:34 +0000

Dear Ms. Weatherly,

I’ve become rather selective when it comes to urban fantasy, even in the young adult genre. It’s just that there’s so much of it these days that if I don’t, I’d end up buried under a pile of books until well into the next decade. I’m also a little lukewarm on angels. Even after being introduced to Caris Roane’s brand of crack. I know angels were one of those trends people used to tout as “the next vampire,” but they never caught my interest. But despite these things, I decided to give your book a try and I’m glad I did.

Willow is her high school’s resident social outcast, but there are actual legitimate reasons for this. She lives with her aunt because her mother is mentally ill and unable to care for her. In fact, Willow has been practically looking after her mother for as long as she can remember. Her father’s been a nonexistent presence in her life and according to her aunt, is the cause of her mother’s current mental state. She also gives psychic readings. I find this aspect of her character fascinating because it both ostracizes her from her peers (who label her a freak because of it) but also makes her an object of interest because those same peers who scorn her have no problems coming to her on the down low for a look into their futures.

And it’s one of these readings that sends Willow’s life into chaos. When she gives a fellow classmate a reading, she discovers that angels are real. However, Willow senses something is terribly wrong with this angel and wonders what exactly he’s doing to her classmate. Even worse, she inadvertently reveals her existence to the angels. This is bad because Willow is the key to their destruction.

In the world of Angel Burn, angels are not kind, benevolent beings. They want you to think that but in reality, angels are parasites. The dimension from which they come from has begun to collapse, which means they need to find a new home, one with an energy source to nourish them. In their home dimension, that energy source was ether. On Earth, that energy source is humans. To make matters worse, humans find the euphoria resulting from an angel’s feeding addictive and want nothing more than to experience that sensation again. This persistent desire to commune with angels usually leads to their own demise as prolonged contact results in any number of ailments and disease.

For the most part, this was a refreshing change from other paranormal YAs. While there was a romantic plot, it was balanced by an action thriller plot. After Willow’s existence is discovered, an angel assassin named Alex is sent to kill her but they team up when they realize that her hybrid nature might be the key to saving humanity from the angelic threat.

In many ways, this is a road trip story and I’m fond of those kinds of narratives. Willow and Alex don’t particularly trust each other — Alex was sent to kill her and Willow is the result of everything he hates — but they have no choice but to rely on one another. I enjoy that kind of tension, with or without the added layer of physical attraction. (That is present here, of course.)

Both Willow and Alex are independent, self-reliant people but this doesn’t necessarily translate into their being loners with no networks or friends. Willow has her mother and aunt, as well as her best friend. Alex has his fellow angel killers. They were both separated from them due to circumstances beyond their control, but the forced break doesn’t mean they forget about them. Willow constantly worries about her mother and fears for her best friend, who doesn’t believe the lie concocted to explain her disappearance. When the chips are down, Alex falls back onto his old connections. These reactions are normal and believable to me, and I’m glad they were presented here.

The one thing I didn’t care for was that stretch in the second half of the book where Willow and Alex holed up in the cabin and didn’t do anything. I understand that was part of the romantic plot but the majority of the book spends its time telling the reader that angels are bad, angels will destroy humanity simply because we’re viewed as food, and angels are coming to invade our dimension. While it’s believable that people would get overwhelmed and want to run away from their destiny, I had a hard time believing Willow and Alex would drop everything and do exactly this based on what we’d seen of them beforehand.

I also thought the identity of Willow’s father was so obvious. Talk about cliche. Why does the protagonist always have to be

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Part of me wonders if this book was originally intended to be a standalone but had to be altered in order to fit the (now-traditional and almost-expected) trilogy structure. I felt like the climax and resolution was choppy and an obvious set-up for future books. That said, I thought the ending was refreshing because for once, not everything goes the protagonist’s way.

While I doubt I’ll ever be enamoured of angels, I am interested in seeing what’s next for Willow and Alex. Not so much the development of Willow and her father because I feel like I’ve seen that storyline a million times before, but to see how the war between humanity and angels plays out. B-

My regards,
Jia

Friday Film Review: Grosse Pointe Blank

Jayne — Fri, 06 May 2011 09:00:43 +0000

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
Genre: Action/Romance/Comedy
Grade: B+

It’ll soon be that time of year again, when we get contacted about the organized hell that are High School Reunions. “Festivals of Pain” as one character here calls this one, when we see people we’ve barely thought of in 10, 20, 30 years and wince as we look back on our class pictures. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could arrive and casually mention that you’re a professional killer? That’d get some looks!

With apologies to “Afterburner” I’m going to snag, but slightly modify, the IMDB synopsis of the plot.

Martin Blank (John Cusak) is a freelance hitman who starts to develop a conscience, which causes him to muff a couple of routine assignments. On the advice of his secretary (Joan Cusak) and his psychiatrist (Alan Arkin), he attends his 10th year High School reunion in Grosse Pointe, Michigan (a Detroit suburb where he’s also contracted to kill someone). Hot on his tail are a couple of over-enthusiastic federal agents (Hank Azaria and K. Todd Freeman), another assassin who wants to kill him, and Grocer (Dan Aykroyd), an assassin who wants him to join an “Assassin’s Union.” Plus there’s his high school sweetheart (Minnie Driver) he left waiting in her prom dress 10 years ago who might, or might not, want to figuratively kill him too.

On someone’s advice from a previous review, forgive me I can’t recall who or which review, I put this one in the rental queue and loved it. I’ve since added it to my growing DVD collection – doing these reviews is playing fun havoc with my credit card – and enjoy it each time I pull it out. It also serves to solidify my certainty that I will never attend a class reunion if I can possibly avoid it. Gah!

Popcorn! I love the assassin “spy vs spy” (for those of you who’ve ever read Mad Magazine) stuff that Blank and Grocer engage in. The careful meetings where each has one hand on his gun and the final showdown when we see that television – or in this case A television – really can kill you! The firefight at the Ultimart is hilarious too.

Minnie Driver is fantastic as Martin’s abandoned girlfriend who gives him hell “on the air” when he shows up after 10 years. She manages to avoid doing “bitter” or “my life stopped 10 years ago and I’ve never gotten over you” while retaining a confident sense of humor and not letting Martin off the hook. She makes it easy to see why Martin would never have forgotten her and decides to turn his life around to keep her in it.

John Cusak is Martin Blank, a sort of loner who discovered a moral flexibility while in the Army which has allowed him to become a rich professional killer. And I’m amazed at how many people in town he tells what he does for a living as well as their humorous responses to the news. “Do you get dental with that?” His sister Joan cracks me up as Martin’s secretary who needles him into going to the reunion as she coolly orders more hollow point bullets for him. She definitely deserves the profit sharing.

And then there’s the reunion when Martin discovers that a real friend really will help him dispose of the body. As well as being able to get pens, have a chance to break into his old locker, put those motivational hall banners to actual good use and dance to oldies but goodies. The soundtrack for the film is fabulous. I love the stuff he comes up with before heading to the High School to tell people what he’s done with his life. Pet psychiatrist, couch insurance, test marketing positive thinking and leading a men’s group – “We specialize in ritualized killings.”

But wait, there’s more! The final showdown during which Martin saves the day, ponders the meaning of his life and what he’s done for the past few years then proposes to Debi is worth the price of admission. I laughed myself silly when Martin finishes up one assassin by bashing him with a frying pan. I will say that the Newberry house is going to need a lot of refurb’ing before going back on the market, though.

The film is clever, funny, with action sequences so OTT that you can sit back and enjoy them as entertainment and not worry that you’re laughing at and with assassins. It has a strong heroine and an introspective killer hero who truly seems to have a “newfound respect for life.” The music is great, the actors are well cast and it’s certainly not your usual rom-com. Here’s a big “Thanks!” to whoever recommended it to me.

~Jayne

REVIEW: White Cat by Holly Black

Jia — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:00:32 +0000

Dear Ms. Black,

I was first introduced to your books a few years ago with your debut, Tithe, the first in a series about faeries in modern times. In some ways, I consider those books to have kickstarted the popularity of faeries in recent young adult fiction. That said, I’ve made no secret of the fact that faeries are among my least favorite denizens of the supernatural menagerie so I just didn’t love Tithe as much as many other readers did. I admit I felt a little left and that maybe I was missing out on something. So when I heard you were starting a new, non-faerie series, I leapt at the chance to review it.

Cassel Sharpe comes from a family of criminals. Unlike his brothers and his mother, however, he’s trying to go straight. You see, in Cassel’s world magic is real and is outlawed in the U.S. This doesn’t stop it from proliferating, of course. What magicians, or curse workers as they’re called, don’t get drafted into “service” by the government end up on the other side of the law. It turns out that ever since curse work was made illegal during the Prohibition era, curse workers have formed gangs. That’s right. In the world of White Cat, the mafia is made up of magicians.

As you can guess, Cassel’s family consists of nothing but curse workers. His mother manipulates emotions. His brother, Philip, can shatter bones with his pinky. And his grandfather? His grandfather can kill you with the mere touch of a single finger. But despite all that, Cassel has no ability whatsoever. So despite his infamous family ties, he’s trying to live a straight, completely legal life at the private school he attends. Of course, I personally can’t help but laugh that his concept of straight living involves running an illegal betting ring at school so he can pay his tuition. Details, details.

Unfortunately, despite his best attempts, Cassel’s plan is doomed to failure. Not only has he been sleepwalking, waking up to find himself in the most inconvenient of places, he’s positive his brothers are keeping something from him. Add in a mysterious white cat that’s been invading his dreams at night and stalking him at all other times, Cassel has a mystery on his hands that needs solving.

What a fun book! I really liked Cassel a lot. You can’t help but sympathize with him as he struggles with people judging him for coming from one of the most infamous curse worker families in the U.S. while not actually having any ability whatsoever himself. What I enjoyed best about his character was that even though he didn’t have access to curse work for the majority of the book, he was able to use his smarts to counter his brothers’ plot. I’d say Cassel learned his mother’s lessons in how to be a con artist best out of all the sons.

I also enjoyed the worldbuilding, which I thought was very well done. Magical mafias and curse work families? I’m there. I liked the fact that the curse work was diverse but still logical since it can only be done via touch, hence the importance of gloves in society. As a longtime fantasy reader, I appreciated the fact that curse work has a cost. Cassel’s mom can manipulate emotions — such as causing men to fall madly in love with her — in others, but it’ll rebound and make her a mess. His grandfather can kill people, but he’s lost all the fingers on one hand as a result of that work. You can alter someone’s memories, but you’ll lose some of your own in exchange. It’s a logical world with a clear system of checks and balances.

It was also very realistic to see that even though curse work was made illegal in the U.S., it wasn’t that way all over the world and that even in the U.S., people were lobbying to make it legal under certain circumstances. The paranoia that Cassel’s mother and other curse workers depict at being watched and monitored certainly made sense and echoes our reality today.

I’m a sucker for family books — that is, books that show family relationships in all their ugly, messy glory. White Cat definitely delivers on that score. Cassel loves his brothers but as with all family relationships, that love is intertwined with envy, jealousy and resentment. The exasperation he has for his mother, who’s in jail, will no doubt remind many people of parental relationships. But I admit, my favorite family member was Cassel’s grandfather, who was famous for what he did and yet lived in Jersey and made his grandsons do mundane work like mow the lawn when they stayed at his house during the summer. He was more like the cranky old man next door than a feared mafia hitman.

As for the mystery surrounding Cassel and his midnight walks, I figured out pretty early in the book what was going on. I’m interested in hearing from other people who’ve read the book to see when they figured out the deal between Cassel and his brothers. Did you figure it out early on or did you only realize it during Cassel’s revelation? I don’t want to spoil what the mystery is but I think readers should go into the book knowing as little as possible because I believe puzzling out the clues is fun. (But if readers want a more specific clue, look at the tags for this post.)

I’m pleased to discover I like this new series of yours far more than I did Tithe and its sequels. I don’t know where we’re going from here, and I’d like to say that the ending was completely heartbreaking, but I’m definitely along for the ride. B

My regards,

Jia

This is a hardcover published by Simon & Schuster and thus subject to the Agency Five pricing.

GUEST REVIEW: Fault Line by Barry Eisler

Guest Reviewer — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:00:10 +0000

Dear Mr. Eisler:

Fault Line was the first book of yours that I’d read. I’ve since read more, by the way. In the past, I have worked at Intellectual Property law firms as well as in the legal department of a Bio-Tech firm, so I am intimate with the portion of Fault Line that deals with patent prosecution and the highly educated and degreed men and women who do this kind of work. I am also currently employed in the technology sector and while I do not work directly in the security end of IT, my job daily involves many of the issues involved with the security software that is at the heart of the plot of Fault Line. Lastly, I live in the Bay Area and have been to most of the Northern California areas where Fault Line takes place. I found Fault Line to be quite accurate in those respects and I say this with the painful experience of having read books in which authors did not do any research worthy of the noun into the technology they decided to write about. So thank you, Mr. Eisler, for getting it right.

Alex Treven is an intellectual property attorney who’s brought on a client of his own to the firm where he hopes to make partner. The client’s product, a computer security software application, has the potential for immense profits. His hopes unravel when his client is murdered. When the murders continue, it’s clear someone is eliminating everyone assoiciated with the software. Alex and Sarah Hossieni, a beautiful junior associate of Iranian heritage assigned to work with him on the patent application, are the obvious next targets. Correctly afraid he’s in over his head, Alex is left with no choice but to ask his estranged military-operative brother for help.

I confess I was a bit put off by the opening of Fault Lines. A great deal of backstory gets laid down in the first twenty to thirty pages (an estimate, since I was reading on my iPhone) and I started feeling anxious for things to get started.

Two main backstory lines are important to Fault Line; the security software program for which people are being killed on page one and throughout the book, and the family history between the two male protagonists, brothers Alex and Ben Treven.

Initially I was puzzled by Alex who I mistook for the protagonist and found to be oddly beta for the hero of a political thriller. Alex is quickly in physical peril, and for a bit I wasn’t at all sure how this guy was going to survive his story. Patent attorneys do not typically learn the skills required to survive attempted assassinations.

To an experienced reader of Romance (which I am) Alex’s brother Ben is immediately identifiable as Hero Material. In fact, Ben was so precisely the kind of man who is the protagonist of a military Romance that I briefly floundered a bit as I tried to figure out what kind of book I was reading. A traditional political military thriller or a Romance? Or was Fault Line going to be a book that attempted a fusion? Oh, how I have been dying for someone to do this!

Ben Treven is a shooter for US government-sponsored Black Ops, and we meet him as he is carrying out the assassination of two Iranian nuclear scientists. He’s emotionally isolated and (to a romance reader) desperately in need of the love of a good woman. But wait! Isn’t Alex in love with Sarah, the only possible Heroine of any romance that might take place? Why, yes, he is! Very interesting, Mr. Eisler. Gotta keep turning pages to find out how that works out.

Fortunately, I got myself properly oriented to the story -’ that is, open minded about where Alex and Ben were headed as dual protagonists and absorbed in the many fascinating dynamics laid out on the pages. Alex and Sarah have the smarts and knowledge required to solve the mystery surrounding the security software while Ben has what it takes to keep them alive and investiate just who is behind the killings while the software mystery is being solved. The various story lines bend back around, intertwine and intersect in intriguing and chilling ways up to and including the ending.

Ben eventually takes over as the protagonist of the story, but Alex remains a strong second protagonist who is vital to the resolution. Ben thinks he’s safe in his tightly controlled world only to gradually suspect betrayal of the worst and potentially fatal sort. Alex and Ben have a truckload of childhood issues to either resolve or figure out how to keep from igniting before the past ends up getting them killed in the present. Alex wants Sarah. Ben wants Sarah and wishes he didn’t. Sarah knows her own mind but really, what woman can resist the likes of Ben after he proves there’s a softer side under that damaged exterior? It’s this portion of the book that is most strongly a Romance. With a capital R.

Most female readers of military thrillers (we are legion, just ask Lee Child) are familiar with the traditional fate of the woman unfortunate enough to fall for the hero. At best, she’s doomed to be dumped while the hero moves on with hardly a regret. Often, however, she’s doomed to die. Fault Line breaks with this tradition. Sarah has scenes in her point of view, which means readers get a direct line to her doubts about Ben and her eventual resolution of most of them. These scenes make Sarah a more fully realized female character than is usual for a thriller.

The romance element of this story is wonderfully done and done without sacrificing the unraveling mystery and resolution as the disparate plot lines come together. Unlike Alex and Ben, however, Sarah is not in a situation that requires her personal or emotional transformation in order to survive. Ultimately, the story is not about the relationship between her and Ben. For this reason, Fault Line is not a romance. That isn’t a criticism, by the way. It’s merely an observation.

I suspect that for readers of military thrillers the deeper focus on Sarah and the relationship between Sarah and Ben must seem novel. Ben is challenged and transformed (in part) by his relationship with Sarah. And yet, she’s not there just so Ben gets to have sex. In fact, I’d even say that in at least one key scene, Ben is there so Sarah gets to have sex. The focus given to the sex scenes and their unusal flip from the male-centric to the female-centric is refreshing. For readers familiar with romance, of course, this is nothing new.

Fault Line is a gripping political/military thriller that moves quickly and features one of the more fully dimensional female characters I’ve seen in the genre. I thoroughly enjoyed Fault Line for all the reasons I enjoy military thrillers and for many of the reasons I enjoy romance.

A-

~Carolyn Jewel

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

REVIEW: Skin Game by Ava Gray

Jane — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:00:37 +0000

Dear Ms. Gray (aka Ms. Aguirre):

In reviewing my emails (because my memory, as you know, is terribly spotty), I see I received the book for review from you. I had enjoyed Grimspace and heard that this book was fresh for the romance genre and it is. Kyra is a grifter, working with her father, until he is beaten and left for dead by a casino owner named Serrano. Kyra runs a long con on Serrano, not just to take his money, but to humiliate him. She does this by learning what Serrano likes and transforms herself into the perfect woman, luring him in, and then ultimately humiliating him by gambling away his engagement ring, taking his money, and publicly admitting she just dated him for the money.

Serrano has his security guy hire a hitman to retrieve the money and kill Kyra, in that order. Reyes is one of the best but he’s a hitman with scruples. He is meticulous about who he kills and for whom he kills. He agrees to take down Kyra because she allegedly killed her father. A woman that kills her father needs killing herself in Reyes’ mind. Foster, the guy who hired Reyes, didn’t have a long history with Reyes and so it seemed a little farfetched that Reyes would just accept the “report” given to him, as if that was sufficient to whitewash his kill. Reyes is set up, curiously, as a one man judgment squad. He decides if you are worthy of taking out based on the information provided and he takes you out. Reyes realizes later he’s been lied to by Foster by I wondered how often he has been lied to. It’s not something Reyes even considers.

Kyra and Reyes have convenient morals. Kyra only screws over bad people and Reyes usually only kills bad men. Bad being relative here. They both don’t like drug dealers and at one point burn down a meth lab. Later they take a bad drunk/drug dealer on the side for a little con. Like many cons or morally ambiguous characters, they are good people to the core. Their justifications somehow make them all good. Whether that’s a realistic view of things or not, it’s how the story is played. And for all Kyra’s “wickedness” as Rey would put it affectionately, she still reads fairly innocent.

Admittedly, Reyes is pretty heartless. There is some sort of perverseness in Reyes character that he would have sex with someone he planned to kill. Later in the story, we are shown a real streak of ruthlessness. In the end, Reyes loves only Kyra. She’s his lodestone, and, I imagine serves as his conscience in the future.

There were other things that niggled such as Kyra so easily accepting Reyes as a partner. For someone who was on the run, this seemed improbable and quite stupid. She never even once thought that Serrano was out to get her; that Reyes somehow just so coincidentally shows up in two backwater towns hundreds of miles apart.

The sexual tension is really well done and after a wild romp in the bed, Kyra considers whether to break her no second night rule. It’s inevitable that she will, but the delicious tension that overlays the wait adds spice to the story. I was surprised at how sexy the book was but it fit with the danger. The adrenaline rode the two of them hard, particularly after a fight. I thought the romance was particularly well down. You really see how these two fit together.

They both knew each other’s flaws. I think this is why the con/killer setup worked so well. Neither was a deceived innocent.

Reyes ground his teeth. Something dark and primitive swept over him at hearing this asshole practice his sloppy endearments on her. It was all Reyes could do not to punch the son of a bitch in the face, which told him he had a problem. No wonder she’d played Serrano-’and so well. Kyra was a pro, all right, well schooled in manipulating a man’s emotions. And that made him twice the fool-’because even knowing what she did, he found himself susceptible.

Toward the latter half of the book, it really lights up. Kyra and Reyes fall for each other. For some reason Kyra begins to trust Reyes. For Reyes, Kyra is like no other. Her gift for the con, her matching scruples, her wicked ways all allow him to dream of a perfect kind of marriage, not in the white dress church style, but of the matching of hearts and souls.

As the two travel along, Kyra biding her time and Reyes trying to figure out if he kills her or scotches his perfect reputation and throws in with her, the story grows darker and darker. Kyra and Reyes are some kind of Bonnie and Clyde with the bad guys trailing them making things worse and worse. When the truth comes out on both ends, Reyes realizes how close to heaven he touched with Kyra now that he’s lost her and Kyra who is sick with shame over being duped and in bed with an assassin.

This book is very edgy and I appreciate the risks that it takes with the genre itself. It’s dark and the characters aren’t always doing likeable things. There is no questioning of morality in this story. You take the characters as they are. Everyone in that group of grifters, drug dealers, killers, thieves, have a differing take on the right v. wrong thing. Living up to your reputation, making sure you don’t harm those who don’t deserve it. That’s the code by which the characters of this book live. Trusting someone is the hardest thing to do, the most vulnerable thing to do. These emotions were well conveyed by both characters and while some of the contrivances that worked to bring Kyra and Reyes together made the earlier part of the book less believable, the romance made up for it. B-

Best regards

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

REVIEW: Covet by J.R. Ward

Jia — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:00:11 +0000

Dear Ms. Ward,

I don’t even know where to begin. While it’s true I’m a fan of your Black Dagger Brotherhood series, I stopped making any claims about its purported quality many books back. Romance? Unlike most readers who thought the first books were romance, only for later ones to shift into the urban fantasy category, I never believed the series belonged in the romance genre in the first place. So I took it with a very large, very heavy bucket of salt when I heard that your new series, starting with Covet, would be more romantic. Sorry, but it’s true.

Jim Heron is an ex-military assassin, jaded and cynical about life. He drifts from one place to the next, putting down no roots and trying to stay out of trouble. He’s currently employed as a construction worker but when the mansion he’s currently helping to build is completed, he intends to move on. Then on the eve of his fortieth birthday, he hooks up with a woman at the club, Iron Mask.

What he thought would only be a pleasant memory unfortunately leads to more, just not in the usual way. The next morning, the woman shows up at the construction site on the arm of his boss, Vincent DiPietro, who will one day live in the mansion Jim’s helping build. As expected, this is awkward but Jim takes graceless reactions to a new level: he gets into an accident on-site and electrocutes himself.

This sends Jim into the afterlife, sort of, where he meets four angels who tell him the score. This is the final end game between heaven and hell. Jim, because of the balanced amount of light and dark in his soul, is a sort of neutral player whose role is to save (or damn) seven souls. Best out of seven wins. If he saves more souls, the world and the people who live in it can continue on as we know it. But he fails and loses more souls instead, the world as we know it will cease to exist at all.

At any rate, Jim is sent back to earth with his new mission and his first assignment is none other than Vincent. And if the novel’s title is descriptive of anyone, it’s Vin. Growing up from virtually nothing, as an adult, Vin likes surrounding himself with the very best money can offer — furniture, cars, real estate, and women. One woman, in particular — his girlfriend, Devina, and yes, I am not joking; that is indeed her name. Vin plans to make things official and ask her to be his wife but even though he’s bought an expensive diamond engagement ring, he finds himself unable to pop the question. Something is holding him back. And he soon discovers what when he reluctantly goes to the Iron Mask with Jim and meets the head prostitute who works there, Marie-Terese.

A few years ago, Marie-Terese escaped a bad situation. She’s free of a controlling, abusive husband who lives on the wrong side of the law and now has complete custody of her son. There’s only one catch. She has to live under an assumed name to avoid the notice of her ex-husband’s former associates, and she has massive debt due to lawyer and private investigator fees. She’s managed to whittle down the debt but to do so, she’s had to work as a prostitute, a profession which is killing her slowly inside day after day. She swore she’d never get involved with men and especially not with anyone who reminds her of her ex, but then she meets Vin.

Jim thinks the way to save Vin’s soul is to matchmake him with his long-suffering girlfriend, Devina. But Vin finds himself falling in love with Marie-Terese and vice versa. To complicate matters even more, Devina is not at all who she seems, someone is killing people who get involved with Marie-Terese, and Vin’s long dormant psychic abilities have reawakened. And what those abilities are telling him is that Marie-Terese’s life is in danger.

If you find yourself thinking my summary of the book sounds convoluted, you’d be correct. But in my defense, I also happen to think it’s reflective of the novel itself. This book meanders. I can’t think of any other way to put it. We hop from one storyline to the next, and unlike the Black Dagger Brotherhood novels, I wasn’t invested in any of them. Or even one of them. Jim, Vin, or Marie-Terese? I couldn’t have cared less about anyone.

To be honest, however, I was most disappointed by Marie-Terese. I liked the brief glimpse we’d had of her in Lover Avenged but in that book, my impression of her was that of a no-nonsense, tough woman who has to do what she does to survive. In Covet, I find her tedious and annoying in her constant emo whining. I think I’m simply done with prostitute characters who feel sorry for themselves and self-flagellate every five minutes. In Marie-Terese’s case, it was made even more trying by the fact that for all she complained about her situation, she was in no way trapped by it. She had a standing offer from a good man who’d help her, no strings attached. It’s too difficult for me to feel sympathy for a character who chooses to martyr herself on the altar of the sex trade. Oh, and as an aside? Her real name? I must have different standards but with the way she went on about it, that wasn’t at all what I expected her “beautiful” real name to be.

For those readers who want to know, I wouldn’t consider this novel a romance. I think it’s even less of a romance than the Black Dagger Brotherhood books and I didn’t even think that was possible. But unlike the BDB series, this novel lacks the multi-layered background storytelling that keeps me reading despite a lack of interest in the main storyline. It’s trying to, I think, with the framework of Jim’s work to save seven souls and the “romance” storyline between Vin and Marie-Terese and the implication of Devina’s true loyalties, but it all reads as cursory and shallow. When I finished the novel, I’d be lying if my immediate reaction wasn’t, “…what did I just read?” Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t the dreaded WTF reaction. It was merely a slight sense of bewilderment. I asked part-time reviewer, Nonny, what she thought and she had much the same reaction. I wish I could articulate what exactly it was about the book that left me so unenthused but it’s fairly accurate.

I also have to get this off my chest. What was up with the Black Dagger Brotherhood cameos? Even though I had advanced warning this would be happening, I still found myself thinking it was self-indulgent. Trez, I could understand, because he owns the Iron Mask and Marie-Terese works there, but Phury? Butch? I know it was intended as an authorial wink of sorts, but they kept tossing me out of the book. It’s hard to suspend disbelief if I keep coming across passages in which the author might as well be yelling, “Hey, I write this other series too and this conspicuous character here is in it!”

As you can probably surmise by all this, I wasn’t too impressed. I’m still having difficulty reconciling the vampire cosmology and the Christian cosmology co-existing but that’s not too surprising. I’ve been having that problem since the introduction of Lassiter in Lover Enshrined. But despite all that, I already know I’m still going to end up picking up your next book, whether it’s a Black Dagger Brotherhood installment or the next novel in this angel series. There’s no denying that your novels are compulsively readable, and you’re still a habit I can’t break. C

My regards,
Jia

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers starting tomorrow.

REVIEW: Made To Be Broken by Kelley Armstrong

Jia — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:00:02 +0000

Dear Ms. Armstrong,

While I’m quite familiar with your Otherworld novels, your non-paranormal Nadia Stafford books are a recent discovery for me. But as I said in that review, sometimes being late to the party can have its advantages. Namely, no long wait in between books! And unless I’m mistaken, almost two years have passed since Exit Strategy was published.

Nadia Stafford is a former cop who lost her career when she killed a suspect on the job. These days, she runs a lodge and has been rebuilding her life. But it takes a while to make a business profitable so to keep the lodge afloat, she works as a hitwoman for a small-time New York mafia family.

These days, things have been going well. She’s making enough money now that she can hire an assistant. It’s true the assistant in question is not the most personable or responsible of employees, but Nadia wants to help the girl, who’s a teenaged single mother and comes from a family known for being bad news. Everyone else in town has given up on the girl but Nadia refuses to be like them.

Then one day the girl and her baby go missing. Everyone in town thinks the girl ran off — even her own mother. Nadia suspects otherwise. When she looks into it, what she discovers is far worse than she ever imagined.

If Exit Strategy explores the lines assassins refuse to cross and the conditions under which they decide to break their own personal codes, Made To Be Broken builds on that and adds in the layer of what makes a person worth saving. Nadia’s employee is written off as trash, just like her mother, who was just like her mother before her. But Nadia wanted to help her, because she saw a girl who’d never been given a chance to escape her family’s reputation.

As was shown in the previous book, Nadia continues to exhibit guilt over what happened to her cousin, Amy. She wasn’t able to save Amy from being raped or killed, nor was she able to give Amy justice because the rapist was found innocent of all charges. In a way, finding out what happened to her employee is a second chance for her. Amy’s memory haunts every decision and action — from second-guessing what she could have done differently to prevent her employee’s disappearance to the irrational overreactions when she does learn exactly what happened.

What I found most interesting in this storyline, however, is the further details we receive about Amy’s rape and murder. Even though the narrative explicitly says one thing, I believe it implicitly states something else about Nadia’s involvement. If I inferred correctly, I think it explains a great deal about Nadia, her outlook on life, the way she approaches relationships of all kinds, and why her survivor’s guilt is so pervasive. Jane and I chatted about this aspect and we had both reached the same conclusion separately, so I’m very interested in hearing from other readers as to what they think.

Jack and Nadia continue to tease us by dancing around each other. At the start of Made To Be Broken, their relationship is strained due to a lack of communication. As a result, their interactions have a different feel from the previous novel. I’m not exactly sure where Nadia’s relationship with Quinn is headed, but I might just have blinders on because I keep wanting to push Jack and Nadia towards one another. I guess that’s for another book.

While I don’t think Made To Be Broken was quite as tightly plotted as Exit Strategy, I do think it made up for it with the character developments and hints into Nadia’s past. I felt it was simpler story in that sense, so readers who prefer less intricately layered plots will be pleased. As for myself, I certainly hope there will be more books in the series because honestly, I want more Nadia and Jack. I feel like their relationship is approaching the breaking point, one way or another, and I hope us readers will get to see what happens when that day comes. B

My regards,
Jia

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

REVIEW: Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong

Jia — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:00:56 +0000

Dear Ms. Armstrong,

I know I’m way behind the curve when it comes to this book. If there had been a bus, it departed weeks ago and I’m the lone person standing on a street corner with only tumbleweeds to keep me company. There’s no reason it took me so long to pick it up. I’m a big fan of your Otherworld paranormal series and I like reading books about female assassins. But even so, it’s languished in my TBR pile for nearly a year now.

Luckily two things recently happened. We received the sequel for review, and Keishon announced she’d be once again holding the TBR Challenge in 2009. That was more than enough encouragement for me, so I fished Exit Strategy out of my teetering TBR pile and dove in. Maybe I should pay attention to signs like these more often, because I don’t regret the decision one bit.

Nadia Stafford was once a good cop, but she retired prematurely when she shot and killed a suspect. Picking up the pieces, she opened a lodge and made a good attempt at starting a new life. But as with most new businesses, money was slow to come in and the lodge was in danger of closing only a few years after it opened. That’s when Nadia received an offer from a small-time mob family to become their personal hitwoman.

Nadia can’t really complain. She now has the funds to keep the lodge running until it takes off, and business shows signs of doing just that. She knows the sorts of jobs the mob family wants done and so far, they haven’t been anything that violates her own sense of honor. Inevitably, they all tend to be jobs involving taking out family rivals or underlings who’ve crossed the line and endangered the delicate balance of power in the criminal underworld.

Then a series of sensationalistic murders hits the U.S., dubbed the work of the Helter Skelter serial killer. That’s bad enough but what’s worse — all signs point to the Helter Skelter killer being a professional hitman. As a result, Nadia teams up with her mentor, Jack, to stop him. After all, a professional hitman turned serial killer isn’t a good thing. First of all, he’ll attract unwanted attention to hitmen everywhere who are just trying to do their job. More importantly, if it’s a hitman gone bad, someone’s who succumbed to the power of killing people and the fear that it inspires, he needs to be put down much like you’d put down a rabid dog.

What I liked best about this book was that you gave us a sympathetic female assassin without downplaying the grim realities of her line of work. It’s not glorified but it’s not minimized either. Nadia is a tough heroine but it’s easy to see how she came to this point. She comes from a family of cops. It’s in her blood. But just as there are grim realities in being an assassin, there are grim realities in being a cop. Sometimes the suspect that’s guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt gets away. Sometimes the system fails to deliver justice. Nadia learned this firsthand as a child and when she’s confronted with it again as an adult and as a cop, she makes the choice that cost her career.

Because of that traumatic childhood event, Nadia suffers from survivor’s guilt. It’s what led her to become a cop. It’s what keeps her code of honor as an assassin. There’s a fascinating thematic exploration in the book about the boundaries assassins put down, what lines they will not cross, and under what circumstances they will. One of the things that Jack, as Nadia’s mentor, emphasizes to her is the importance of having the lodge in her life, of having something other than this profession. Because let’s face it: what kind of person does it take to be an assassin for their entire life? And is Nadia that kind of person? In meeting the various assassins throughout the book — from Jack to the Helter Skelter Killer to Evelyn, Jack’s mentor — there’s a noticeable difference between Nadia from them. Will Nadia retain her code of honor or will she become like them?

Speaking of Jack, the tension between Nadia and him is smoking. I realize there’s currently a more likely love interest for Nadia at the moment but for me, Nadia and Jack is where it’s at. It’s not so much the mentor and student relationship because I generally don’t find that dynamic interesting and in fact, many times find it off-putting. It’s the fact that sometimes I get the impression Jack is mentoring Nadia not because he wants her to be a good hitwoman but because he doesn’t want her to become like him or any of the other assassins he knows in their line of work.

For a book that’s nearly 500 pages long, I thought the plot moved at a fast pace. It had enough twists, turns, and complications to keep me turning the pages. As I said earlier, Exit Strategy doesn’t glamorize the life of an assassin. It shows all the legwork and research that leads up to a hit and all the preparations, planning, and contingencies that must be taken into consideration. Put like that, it sounds boring and tedious but this book made it interesting. I enjoy reading details like that; if anything, glossing over such details annoys me as a reader. And what I liked even more was that the idea of an assassin needing to plan and prepare plays just as big a role in the plot as the idea of an assassin getting drunk on power.

Many thanks to the TBR Challenge for coming along to give me that extra kick in the butt to pick this up. Otherwise I would have missed out on a really great read. What’s even better is that I have the sequel, Made to Be Broken, to look forward to. Sometimes there are advantages to waiting so long to read a novel — no long waits in between books. A very high, solid B+ for me.

My regards,
Jia

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or ebook format from the Sony Store and other etailers.

REVIEW: Death Angel by Linda Howard

Jane — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:00:51 +0000

Dear Ms. Howard:

I was ruminating about this book as I polished up the review. At first I thought, this is a departure for you because it is such a dark book, featuring a very different type of heroine. But you’ve had darker books before (Cry No More) and you’ve featured different types of heroines (Duncan’s Bride) so it’s not really those attributes that set this book apart from the others in the Linda Howard library. I can’t pinpoint it, but this read like a different Linda Howard. Not bad different, just different.

Drea Rousseau is smart woman who made some poor decisions and ended up being the girlfriend of a drug lord. She’s used her body as currency most of her life and when her boyfriend, Rafael Salinas, hands her over as payment to an hired assassin, she’s broken.

It’s not that she loved Salinas nor that she thought of herself so highly. It’s that in the four hours in which the assassin beds her, she feels more and wants more than she has ever in her whole life. She begs him to take her with him when he leaves and he responds with ‘Why . . . once was enough”. And walks out.

After spending herself in a river of tears, Drea decides that she’s had enough. She gathers up her possessions, robs Salinas blind and disappears. When Salinas first discovers her gone, he thinks she has been kidnapped but then uncovers the truth and hires the self same assassin to find her and kill her.

Drea and the assassin play a short cat and mouse game in which Drea is at a great disadvantage despite her intelligence. It’s a game she’s destined to lose and she believes it which ultimately leads to her demise but she is given a second chance at life.

Drea is a great character and her sense of desperation, her utter loss of self, is really heartwrenching. As a reader I cheered for her to survive, to win another chance at the game. I loved that Drea was really a bad girl. She wasn’t with Salinas because of some coercion. She wanted to be there. She liked the lifestyle. She used her person ruthlessly to get what she wanted out of life but Drea was likeable despite, or maybe even because of, her lifestyle decisions.

This is one of the better Howard books I’ve read in a long time and I appreciate the dark characters, but the thing that really held me back from loving this book was the paranormal aspect. I thought it was kind of shortcut in bringing about the emotional change that created such a line of demarcation in both Drea and the assassin’s lives. The paranormal aspect allowed Drea to make the change into doing something worthwhile with her life but it seemed like the easy way out.

One commenter noted the other day that the book included very little about the hero. I think that was an intentional exclusion but it is worth noting that the hero is fairly occluded and mysterious throughout the whole story. It would have been nice to have had greater insight into his motivations and what brought him to Drea, particularly since what is considered to be a hallmark of a Linda Howard novel are her great male characterizations.

One other comment I’d like to make is that the official blurb of this book is a bit misleading because it suggests that Drea teams up with the FBI but that doesn’t really play a big part in the book at all (and I thought that the FBI scenes didn’t add much to the story). B-

Best regards

Jane

This book can be purchased in hard cover from Amazon or Powells. Ebook formats to come.

REVIEW: Fire and Ice by Anne Stuart

Janine — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:04:42 +0000

Dear Ms. Stuart,

Fire and Ice is the fifth and (if I’m not mistaken) final book in your Ice series, which features the agents of a ruthless spy organization known as the Committee. This one is all about the flamboyant Reno, Taka’s younger cousin.

Back in the third book, Ice Blue, Reno, aka Hiromasa Shinoda, a video-game loving Japanese punk with long red hair and teardrops tattooed on his cheeks, met up with Jilly Lovitz, Summer’s brainy half sister, who was then eighteen years old. From the moment those two laid eyes on each other, a powerful attraction was born, but Summer and Taka made Reno promise to stay far away from Jilly.

Fire and Ice opens two years later. Reno is now twenty-seven and an agent of the Committee (though how exactly he is able to do the Committee’s work looking as conspicuous as he does is not explained). In the opening scene, Reno learns that while Taka and Summer have gone into hiding from Russian mercenaries who have been hired to take out all the Committee’s agents, Jilly, unaware that they are no longer in Tokyo, has decided to pay them a visit. Realizing that Jilly is in danger, Reno breaks his promise to stay away from her in order to go to Japan and save her life.

Jilly has come to Tokyo in the wake of a one-night stand that went so badly she is uncertain whether or not she is technically still a virgin. Jilly, who at age twenty has already graduated from college and is now working on her PhD, has always been isolated from her peers because of her intelligence and her studies. In the two years since she last saw Reno, she has not gotten over her crush on him, and he is one of her reasons for coming to Japan.

Just as three of the Russian mercenaries are about to grab Jilly from Summer and Taka’s deserted apartment, Reno shows up and kills them. After escaping on the back of a motorcycle to a traditional Japanese inn where they encounter more mercenaries, Reno and Jilly head for the mountains. Reno’s grandfather, a yakuza (Japanese mafia) boss, has an onsen (traditional bathouse) there.

On the way to the onsen, they bicker as Reno does his best to annoy Jilly in order to maintain a distance between them and thus keep his promise to Summer and Taka, and even more so because he values his own freedom and recognizes that his feelings for Jilly endanger it. Jilly, meanwhile, keeps telling herself that now that she has seen him kill, her crush on Reno is a thing of yesterday. But even she realizes that she protests too much.

Just as they are about to arrive in the onsen, all hell breaks loose, leading Reno to wonder if there’s a traitor in his grandfather’s organization. So Reno and Jilly go on the run again, and this time, sharing close quarters leads to growing intimacy between them, as do close calls with death and desire.

Fire and Ice is a tough book to grade and review. At the end of my review of Ice Storm, I indicate that I have enjoyed the Ice series, but that its pleasures were diminishing for me. I loved Black Ice so much that though it’s not perfect, I gave it an A. Cold as Ice was a B+ for me, Ice Blue a B, and Ice Storm a B-.

So how did I feel about Fire and Ice? Fortunately, I am not sorry I spent $6.99 on it. But at the same time, I wish I loved it as much as I loved Black Ice.

One of the best things about Fire and Ice is that it is only nominally about the Committee. Except for a very brief appearance by Peter Madsen in the first scene of the book, the only other Committee agent who shows up in this story is Taka, and he is there far more in his capacity as Reno’s cousin and Jilly’s brother-in-law than as a secret agent.

That is all to the good in my opinion, because the Committee came very close to being reduced to a bunch of bumbling fools in Ice Storm, and I think that as a consequence the ruthless spy organization aspect of this series is pretty much played out.

Other elements we have seen before in the earlier books are present in Fire and Ice, including the pairing of a relatively innocent and softhearted heroine with a more experienced and tough hero, the hero and heroine’s going on the run together, the hero’s saving the heroine’s life while forcing her to confront her own desire for him, the heroine’s initial certainty that the hero doesn’t return her feelings, and her shock when faced with the brutality of death and killing.

While some of these ingredients are key to what made me love Black Ice, the fifth time around they don’t feel as fresh as they once did, and for the most part (with exceptions like a powerful scene in Reno’s apartment that involves an unexpected twist), I think Fire and Ice is at its weakest when they come into play.

The book is at its strongest when exploring newer terrain, such as the Japan setting, the relative youth of its hero and heroine, Reno’s fear of commitment, and the vulnerability that lies behind his punkster facade. You win big points from me for these aspects of the book. Reno, in particular, is a truly memorable character, especially in those moments where he reveals himself to Jilly or to the reader.

The fact that Reno and Jilly are in love to begin with is both a weakness and a strength in my eyes. It is mentioned on your website that a free story about Reno and Jilly’s first meeting will be available soon. I look forward to reading it, but there were times when I wished that falling-in-love process was shown more in the pages of Fire and Ice.

It’s clear why Jilly has a crush on the flamboyant Reno, and why her feelings deepen as he protects her, but it’s not so evident why Reno would feel the same way about Jilly, beyond his physical lust for her body, since although we are told she is brilliant, that brilliance isn’t shown, and otherwise there isn’t much that makes Jilly distinctive or different from many other young women, except perhaps for her for her sexual inexperience.

There is a scene in which Jilly puts together some information about Reno and arrives at a different view of him than she had before, and this scene does give a bit of insight into why Jilly might have attracted him. I would have liked to know even more about this aspect of his background.

At the same time, the presence of Jilly and Reno’s mutual obsession from the very first page of the book also serves to give the book a different twist that the previous Ice books did not have. Because he is already in love to begin with, Reno is softer with Jilly and more protective of her than Bastien, Peter, Taka and Serafin were with Chloe, Genevieve, Summer and Isobel, respectively. That is one of the things I liked best about Fire and Ice, especially since Reno is young and not ready to settle down, confused by his promises to Summer and Taka to stay away from Jilly and not sure what he wants to do about any of it.

On the whole, I found Reno intriguing enough to hold my attention easily, but Jilly less so. The Japan setting felt well-researched to me, and I was glad to read a book that was set at such a different locale. While there were times during Fire and Ice that I felt I was reading something I’d read before, there was just enough freshness to keep me interested, and I also savored your lean, tight writing style at several points. Had I not read the earlier books in the series, I would probably have liked Fire and Ice even more, but I still liked it as much as its most recent predecessor, or perhaps even a bit more. B- for Fire and Ice.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or ebook format.

REVIEW: The Queen’s Bastard by C.E. Murphy

Jia — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:00:04 +0000

Dear Ms. Murphy,

Your urban fantasy novels have failed to work for me in the past but I like giving authors second chances, especially when they expand into a favorite subgenre. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a political fantasy, and this book reminded me why I enjoy it.

Set in an alternate fantasy world modeled after historical Europe, The Queen’s Bastard follows the life of Belinda Primrose, the illegitimate daughter of Queen Lorraine of Aulun. Unacknowledged by her mother, Belinda was raised by her father, Robert Drake, to be an assassin and spy who serves Aulum by protecting her mother’s throne. Her latest mission brings her to Gallin, where she must find proof that the rival Queen Sandalia of Lanyarch and Lutetia is plotting to kill Lorraine in order to seize her throne. There, Belinda insinuates herself within the circle of friends belonging to Sandalia’s son, Javier, and soon discovers they have something in common: magic. As they learn to wield this mysterious witchpower together, Belinda, used to living her entire life serving the wishes and schemes of others, discovers she wants power for herself.

The first thing that struck me about this story is that all of the ruling figures are women. Lorraine, Sandalia, Ilyana (of Khazar). It’s rare to find a fantasy in which this is the case. Maybe one or two ruling female figures but three? All of whom rule the major countries depicted? That’s not something often found in this particular subgenre. In addition to Belinda, who works in the shadows and is a force to be reckoned with, there’s also the dangerous Countess Akilina who has motives of her own. I’m hard-pressed to think of another fantasy in which the major political players are women, and I found this refreshing.

While I wouldn’t consider Belinda to be a nice or sympathetic character 100% of the time, I found her story compelling. I admit the opening of Chapter 1 made me hesitate because it was a birthing scene, told from perspective of the baby of all things. There are some things even the best worldbuilding will never make me believe. It appears this is one of those things. Once I made it past that first scene, however, I found her coming of age interesting. Belinda has always sensed she was different, that there was a secret her father kept from her. It wasn’t until she met Javier that she realized it was magic. Belinda’s sudden exposure to her strong latent ability, more even more potent because she didn’t grow into it like Javier, is both a godsend and her downfall.

I’m particularly intrigued by the background players — the mages: Robert, Dmitri, and the still-unseen Seolfr. Why have they insinuated themselves into the major courts? Robert is father to Belinda. Dmitri is father to Ivanova. I don’t think it’s a coincidence these witchbreed offspring are being born of royal blood. And for that matter, who is Javier’s father? Is it the unknown Seolfr? Or is it another player entirely? I have a feeling this will come into play in future books. Witchbreed don’t seem to be in vast numbers, so I wonder if there is a plot to seize all of the major royal thrones and place them under witchbreed rule. Only speculation at this point, but I think it’s a possibility.

While not exactly a criticism, this book reads like the first installment of a longer saga. It contains a complete story, but I don’t think it stands alone very well. Like many other books in this subgenre, I believe the sequels will need to be read to fully enjoy the world and plotlines presented here.

Overall, I consider this a refreshing change from all the urban fantasy and paranormal romance I’ve been reading lately. It still features vivid, strong female characters but brings some of that traditional fantasy setting I sometimes miss. B-

My regards,

Jia

This book can be purchased in mass market from Amazon or Powells or ebook format. Note from Jane: Random House’s site says this book is available in ebook format, but I have yet to find a buy link which is frustrating because I want to buy the ebook.

REVIEW: Aurelia by Anne Osterlund

Jia — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:00:01 +0000

Dear Ms. Osterlund,

When I received this book from Jane, I was excited. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book solely about a princess and I admit I had a soft spot for them when I was younger. And not only did Aurelia feature a crown princess, it also had the spymaster’s son who loves her and an assassination plot. So many elements I love in one book. How could it possibly go wrong?

Aurelia is heir to the throne of a kingdom currently ruled by a king who’s driving it to bankruptcy in order to please his second wife, Aurelia’s stepmother. Needless to say, while the common people love Aurelia, they have little respect for her father. But it appears someone doesn’t share the citizens’ affection for the crown princess. Unbeknownst to Aurelia, someone has been trying to kill her. They’ve succeeded in foiling the assassination attempts so far but how long can that last? So the king asks his spymaster to come out of retirement to find the assassin and the person who hired him. Unfortunately, his former spymaster refuses. Instead the spymaster’s son, Robert, comes to the capital.

In theory, this storyline should have fascinated me. It promised me twists and turns through political and courtly intrigue to ferret out Aurelia’s would-be assassin. I love this type of plot in adult fantasy so I was excited to see how it would be executed in a young adult fantasy. Sad to say, not only were there not enough twists and turns to keep me on my toes, Aurelia turned out to be that well-known heroine type called “feisty.”

Now I don’t mind feisty and sassy characters in YA fiction, provided they have something to back it up. But when a crown princess walks into the public marketplace to do her own shopping, accompanied by a single maid (that, of course, is also a close friend) and a token number of guards? My suspension of disbelief is a little stretched. And when that same princess comes upon a mob about to tear apart her father’s statue and actually walks into the center of the riot to ask them what’s wrong? Any credibility about Aurelia’s common sense flew out the window. I have a hard time believing that royalty and commoners can interact on casual terms but I can let it go if the writing’s good enough. But an angry mob on the verge of violence? And neither the maid nor guards try to stop her? I don’t think so.

I’ve also said in the past that I love storylines that involve friends becoming more. Aurelia and Robert should have been that. They grew up together and shared many of the same classes when Robert still lived in the capital. But their relationship struck me as so one-sided it utterly failed to work for me. This was especially disappointing given how many opportunities for flirting and interactions the book offered — like the the midnight carnivale and the numerous court scenes. Instead, Aurelia came off as so prickly and standoffish — and not in a sympathetic and charming way — that I felt sorry that poor Robert fell for such a disagreeable girl.

Ultimately, what ruined the book for me was the ending. I’d figured out one piece of the puzzle but the rest of it seemed to have come out of nowhere and with so little development that I honestly was confused. Not about the resolution but about whether or not the ending was even part of the same book! I felt like I’d missed a crucial part of Aurelia’s character growth and I even went back to check if I’d somehow skipped any chapters.

If we’d been given more hints about the true culprit behind Aurelia’s assassination plot and the reason why the assassin would ultimately never be brought to justice, I could have accepted the ending. Sadly, I didn’t feel that way and overall, this turned out to be a disappointing read. C-

My regards,
Jia

This book can be purchased in trade paperback from Amazon, Powells or ebook format.

GUEST REVIEW: Ember and Like a Thief by Bettie Sharpe

Guest Reviewer — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:00:49 +0000

This special guest review is from author Sherry Thomas. You’ll want to read the entire thing down to the end because Sherry and I are sponsoring a pay it forward Bettie Sharpe giveaway. You see, Bettie Sharpe gave away a fantastic retelling of the Cinderella story. Only we got it in drips and drabs, one installment a week on the blog of Dionne Galace.

But it was so good that I think everyone was salivating for Bettie’s release from Samhain. I suspect that Bettie is bound for New York. You heard it here first. (okay, maybe not here first since I think any number of people said that on Dionne’s blog).

***

Dear Ms. Sharpe,

Brace yourself. I’m going to French-kiss you-’I’m talking about serious, messy, slobbering tonguing-’and I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop at just that.

I’ve railed on my blog that although romance is largely a genre by women for women, there is a lack of memorable heroines that almost rivals that of Hollywood action flicks. This is, of course, one picky woman’s opinion. But I don’t think I’m at all alone in it. Romance, in its current state, is men-centered, full of matches between larger-than-life heroes and very nice but no-more-than-life-size heroines.

While I can enjoy that match-up as well as anyone, being a very nice, no-more-than-life-sized suburban soccer mom in real life, I’ve come to realize that deep in my heart, I don’t want to be a good girl and never have. My fantasy is to be the baddest motherfucking woman that ever lived, like Queen Elizabeth I, a woman who wields tremendous power with ease and surety and harshness when necessary, and who yet is respected, admired, and even loved. And if QE1 had had a worthy man to warm her bed nightly, why then, the fantasy would be complete.

You write my fantasies–my complete fantasies.

There is no other way to put it. I don’t know how you do it. It is as if you heard all the vague moaning and rattling in my head, laughed, and said "No, sweetie, pie, this is what you fucking want."

And like the limp and sore but oh-so-happy heroine in a ménage story who’d just experienced the man-sandwich for the very first time, all I can say is, "Fuck me again, Bettie."

Oh, I guess readers would want a synopsis or two here. This is Bettie’s own introduction to Ember.

Everyone loves Prince Charming. They have to-’he’s cursed. Every man must respect him. Every woman must desire him. One look, and all is lost.

Ember would rather carve out a piece of her soul than be enslaved by passions not her own. She turns to the dark arts to save her heart and becomes the one woman in the kingdom able to resist the Prince’s Charm.

Poor girl. If Ember had spent less time studying magic and more time studying human nature, she might have guessed that a man who gets everything and everyone he wants will come to want the one woman he cannot have.

Charm is a curse. Love is a fire. This story is no fairytale.

Ember is Tanith Lee on acid. It’s the bestest, baddest take on the Cinderella story and turns every last familiar element on its head with a "Ha!" and a fuck-you. One of my favorite such moments happens at the meeting of Ember and the Stepmother.

She paused when she saw me, and I couldn’t blame her. I knew what I looked like-’my cold expression, my red hair and freckled skin, my angry black eyes smoldering like hot coals. Her eyes flicked to the torches flanking our door, noting, I am sure, the way the flames yearned toward me though the wind urged them in the opposite direction.

Her face tightened beneath its faÃ§ade of paint. Her white-powdered hand wavered on the verge of greeting me. In that moment, she realized my father’s tales of an innocent, biddable daughter were spun from the same wishful imagination that had let him believe her to be a noblewoman, and to believe the two hard-eyed whores (scarcely a decade her junior) who peered out of the carriage behind her were her daughters.

"Step-mamÃ¡!" I greeted her, taking her shoulders and kissing her powdered cheeks.

My lips came away white with a mixture of lead and lard, but it was worth it for the expression of surprise that crossed her face. When my father wasn’t looking, I wiped my mouth on the cuff of my velvet sleeve.

And it gets even better when the Stepmother and the Stepsisters, frightened of Ember’s power, tells her they would leave.

"Leave?" I said. "But my father needs a wife. The Old Wives say sheep dogs are descended from wolves, and the best thief takers were once thieves, themselves. You know how gullible my father can be, for you gulled him. Who better to look after him than one who knows his weaknesses?"

My new stepmother opened her mouth to protest, but the fire flared in anger at her interruption. She snapped her jaw closed and let me speak.

"Sylvia’s potion must be made and taken by the month. The price of my help, dear Stepmother, is that you stay."

"But I saw your sour face at the sight of us. You don’t like courtesans."

I laughed and every flame in the room danced with joy at the sound of it. "You mistake me, Sister. Whores are the better part of my business. A witch who shuns the custom of whores and courtesans will be a pauper. No. I dislike liars and cheats. I dislike deceivers and dissemblers.

"Now that the air is clear between us, I like you just fine. My father needs a wife, and as long as you care for him and do not cuckold him with other men, we shall get along as well as he imagined."

As I had predicted, we got along quite well.

Ember is a witch, not a nice one, but a true one, with a fundamental sense of fairness you could only hope that anyone wielding a large amount of power would possess. She is what she is, she loves as she is, and her love is as full of flaws and fascinating and dangerous as herself. She is, without a doubt, one of the best heroines (protagonists) I’ve ever read, anywhere. And the prince, he is every asshole Prince Charming you’ve ever wanted to bring to heel, and then some. And he comes to heel in the most satisfying way here.

And by the way, Ember is a free story. It was first serialized at Bam’s blog. And now available to be read online or downloaded in pdf at your website. How can anyone beat that?. An A+, for the orgasmic reading experience it was.

Like a Thief in the Night is not free, but that’s fine. I was very happy to pay my $3.50 ($3.15 in fact) for it, so as not have to go through ten long weeks, counting down the days till the next Thursday to read the next installment.

The blurb:

She’s a heartless assassin; he’s an immortal thief. In another life, they would have been lovers. In this one, he’s her target and she’s his prize.

Somebody would have a fit reading this story. It’s sex, violence, more sex, more violence, even more sex, and even more violence. And such language as would have fainted an entire population of Victorian ladies and exhausted the world’s supply of smelling salt. In Ember, the word "cunt" was thrown about like firecrackers at Chinese New Year. In Thief, you even used the word "twat". I believe I choked on my dinner at that and read on with even greater glee.

I love that Arden is a heartless assassin, truly a bad, bad, bad girl–and omg she likes sex too, looks for it, in fact, when she’s not killing. And I love that she’s finally come up against a man she can’t kill. And he’s caught her and is holding her in a super-secret, super-inescapable location. Mandatory sex, anyone?

I love the way Arden sees herself.

And how screwed up was she to check out the man who had stripped her naked and tied her to a chair in his basement? The answer to that question was all too obvious. She killed people for a living; she was a very sick girl. She would just have to add this newfound taste for high-stake bondage to her already long list of kinks.

And does she have kinks ever. Let me just say that though I’m not such an innocent girl at heart, this story had a good several "Holy shit!" moments for me, as in "I can’t fucking believe Bettie Sharpe wrote that"-’but in a good way, cuz I am obviously developing a taste for kink and sick and all that good shit.

Oh, and did I mention that it’s a pretty decent love story too?

Is it perfect? No. I would have liked for you to have explored the relationship more at length. And I thought the SF/fantasy aspects were slightly pat, in the sense that they made things too easy for our protagonists at certain points. But perfection is such a pale, silly standard before the force and vitality of your writing. A-

Your talent burns like a star gone supernova. I love your lean, potent prose. I love your bad-to-the-core and yet still-worth-loving characters. And I love your take-no-prisoner voice.

And I love how I feel when I read you: like someone finally understands me, understands the rotten, crazy, bad, bad, bad girl that I am at heart and loves me all the same. The. Best. Fantasy. EVA!

And because I love it so, and because you first instilled the idea of pay-it-forward in me, I’m going to buy three more copies of Like a Thief in the Night and give them away to three commenters to this post. Jane’s Note: I liked this book too and would be willing to chip in 3 more books

Let the fun begin. And I look forward to a long, and illustrious career from you, young lady.

Sincerely,

Sherry Thomas

P.S. And I just love that my spellchecker had no suggestions to offer when it came to the word "motherfucking".

Very Important Notice: I would like readers of this blog to know that my normal writing voice is as serene, radiant, and unsullied as a Renaissance Madonna. The tone of this post is entirely Bettie Sharpe’s corrupt influence. Oh, fuck me again already, Bettie.

REVIEW: Ice Blue by Anne Stuart

Janine — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:00:29 +0000

Dear Ms. Stuart,

ummer Hawthorne, the heroine of the third book in your Ice series, is the curator for a Los Angeles museum that specializes in Asian art. She is also the owner of a blue ceramic bowl that her Japanese nanny entrusted to Summer just before she died. Summer's self-centered mother belongs to a religious cult known as the True Realization Fellowship. The group's leader, a Japanese man who is known as the Shirosama (Meaning “White Lord” in Japanese), covets the bowl, which Summer's mother has promised him.

But Summer feels her mother had no right to do so, and she doesn't want the Shirosama to get his hands on it. When a bowl matching the description of Summer's shows up in one of Summer's museum exhibits, the Shirosama follows suit. On her way to her car that night, Summer is kidnapped by two of the Shirosama's men and rescued by a mysterious half-Japanese man, Takashi O'Brien.

Like the heroes of your previous books in this series, Taka is an agent and assassin working for the shadowy organization known as the Committee, which believes in saving the world by any means, including the killing of innocents. In the previous book, Cold as Ice, Takashi was captured and tortured after helping save the life of an innocent woman, and this is his first assignment since then. Taka tells himself that he's learned his lesson from that experience.

Now the Shirosama is planning terrorist attacks throughout the world, but only after he holds an important ceremony for which he needs the bowl, and knowledge of the secret location of a Japanese temple. He and Takashi both believe that Summer has that information. To obtain it as well as the bowl, the Shirosama intends to capture Summer and torture, then kill her. To prevent that from happening, the Committee's leader, Madame Lambert, orders Taka to find and kill Summer.

Though she doesn't fully trust Taka, Summer soon realizes that he's the only thing that stands between her and the Shirosama, so she allows him to take her into hiding. Summer was sexually abused as a child and has never truly enjoyed sex, but she finds Takashi almost mesmerizing in his beauty. Taka too feels a powerful sexual pull toward Summer. He realizes that killing her will only be harder if he gives in to the attraction, or allows himself to get to know her, but it becomes impossible for him to be as cold toward her as he would like.

I think that the Ice series is some of your best work and Ice Blue is no exception. I enjoyed it very much. First, let me say Yay! for Takashi O'Brien. I'm so glad that you and the folks at Harlequin / MIRA recognized that a hero with an Asian background can appeal to readers.

Takashi is a fascinating hero — dark, dangerous and conflicted, lethal and ruthless relative to most people, but not as ruthless as he wants to be, especially not where Summer is concerned.

Summer doesn't have the same kind of hypnotic magnetism, but she still held my interest. Several of the events in her past made her sympathetic to me, and I could understand why she blinded herself to the clues that would have allowed her to see that Takashi was ordered to kill her.

The last hundred or so pages of Ice Blue take place in Japan. While I'm by no means an expert on all things Japanese, the setting felt authentic enough to me. I would have liked more descriptions of the country, but I enjoyed the setting very much. I’ve always loved contemporaries set in foreign countries, so this was a treat. A Japanese side character named Reno was great, too.

There is a leanness to your writing that gives it a powerful emotional punch. Much of the time, you don't flinch from complicated, messy realities and the result is a gritty, spare and full of impact.

I think I would have enjoyed Ice Blue even more if I hadn't read Black Ice and Cold as Ice first. That's because some elements in these books, while very compelling, are starting to get a little repetitive.

In each of the three books the heroine is someone the Committee sees as expendable, and the hero feels he might have to kill her. In Ice Blue, this goes further than it did in the other two books –" Taka takes over half the book to come to the decision not to kill Summer. More than once, he puts his hands on her neck in order to break it, but can't go through with his intent. A lot of the book's power comes from the tension between Taka's desire to kill Summer and his more human desire for her as a person.

I found Taka very sexy, but I also had to ask myself what it says about me that a hero who comes close to killing the heroine three times is so compelling to me. My uneasiness with this aspect of the book interfered a bit with my enjoyment, and I liked the second half, in which Taka committed himself to saving Summer's life, much better.

Another element that was present in the earlier books is the hero's thoughts about his ability to use sex as a weapon and to break the heroine with it. In one scene, Takashi muses that:

He'd always been able to compartmentalize his life and his work –" sex was an everyday part of his job, one he did with his usual skill. It was said he could seduce a seventy year old lesbian and make her like it, and he didn't doubt it for one moment. Everyone had skills. Peter was a sniper, a born assassin. Bastien Toussaint could be anyone he wanted, and he was lethal with a knife.

Taka knew how to fuck. He could get what he wanted from any woman, no matter what age or sexual orientation. He had skills that would have made Casanova blush.

I had to laugh when I read this, because Bastien and Peter sure thought they were great at using sex as a weapon, too. It got me wondering if all the Committee's agents went around thinking they were the each the best at this particular skill.

I think the idea of characters who have sex as part of their jobs and use it as a weapon in a battle to save the world is terrific. I love reading about it because it makes for complicated characters and relationships. But it's not feeling as fresh to me as it did in Black Ice.

I also still miss the Committee as it was in its earliest and most ruthless incarnation in Black Ice. In Ice Blue, as in Cold as Ice, Madame Lambert was wringing her hands about each innocent life she ordered her agents to take, while she still gave those orders. Something about this seems a tad hypocritical. I think I'd find her a more interesting, and believable character if she compartmentalized the way her male agents do, or at least tried to. Her inability to do so doesn't quite jibe with the nature of her job and her past history as an agent herself.

Such are the pitfalls of series –" elements can start to feel repetitive from book to book, or aspects of the different books can seem inconsistent with one another. These issues are present here, but so are some enormously satisfying aspects of this book. For all these reasons, Ice Blue isn't an easy book to grade. My head wants to give ita B- and my heart want to go with a B+. And so, I split the difference between those two grades and give it a B.

Sincerely,

Janine

REVIEW: Cold as Ice by Anne Stuart

Janine — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 22:00:53 +0000

Dear Ms. Stuart,

Genevieve Spenser finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time when she arrives on billionaire Harry Van Dorn’s yacht. Harry is not only rich but gorgeous and charming, and his sexiness has gotten People magazine’s stamp of approval. He is known for caring about working conditions in his factories and is meeting with Genevieve to give away oil fields to charity.

Among the staff working for Harry is his practically invisible assistant, Peter Jensen. Peter is meticulous, bland and polite, except when Genevieve catches him casting a disapproving look at her seven hundred dollar shoes. He seems completely sexless and Genevieve thinks of him as “that gray ghost of a man.”

From this description some readers who haven’t read your previous book in this series, Black Ice, might assume that Harry is the hero whom Genevieve will end up with and Peter is just a fly on the wall. The nice thing is that they’d be wrong. Harry, it turns out, is a megalomaniac villain plotting to bring seven worldwide disasters he can profit from. And Peter, a secret assassin sent by a shadowy organization called the Committee to stop Harry at all costs, is the hero, such as he is.

Peter is a professional in every sense of the word. He has killed countless villains in the line of duty and views sex as just another weapon in his arsenal, one he can use on both men and women. No, Peter is not bisexual. He is straight, but will do what it takes to get a job done, and as he admits to Genevieve later on in the book, he is willing to prostitute himself.

Though Genevieve is far less experienced than Peter, she is perhaps not as different from him as she’d like to think. A former legal aid attorney, Genevieve now works for a law firm that caters to the wealthy. Once idealistic, Genevieve now wears Armani and Blahnik, and takes tranquilizers to allay her unease. She even considers sleeping with Harry, not because she wants to, but because she knows it is what the senior partners at he law firm expect her to do to close the deal.

But Genevieve ultimately decides against it, and next thing she knows she is being kissed and rendered unconscious by Peter. When she wakes up she is lying next to the tied up Harry, both of them hostages of Peter and the other men who have hijacked the yacht. Genevieve soon learns that Peter, no longer the gray ghost but now a man who exudes danger, has orders to kill her within a day or two so there will be no witnesses when the Committee gets rid of Harry.

What she doesn’t realize is that Peter is balking at the order to execute Genevieve. He has never had to kill an innocent bystander before, and he doesn’t want to start now. Seemingly so Genevieve will be able to protect herself from his fellow agents but secretly in the hopes that she’ll escape as well, Peter begins to teach Genevieve self-defense.

These scenes are some of the most effective in the book, with a dark and hypnotic feel. It’s as though an invisible thread binds Peter and Genevieve together, and neither can escape the other’s powerful effect. Peter feels caught between his commitment to keeping the world safe and his need to spare Genevieve, and Genevieve is mesmerized by a man she believes intends to kill her.

As they arrive on Harry’s island, the sexual pull between them leads Peter and Genevieve to become even more entangled, and the sex they eventually have is hot and disturbing. Meanwhile, Harry Van Dorn plots his escape and his evil plans for Peter, Genevieve, and the rest of the world.

I think Cold as Ice is one of your best books. A lot of this is due to your fine portrayal of Peter, who is more than just another bad boy hero. His coldness never feels gratuitous because it is the mechanism that allows him to function in a job he doesn’t like but feels is necessary for the good of the world. He is a character with depth and nuance, and I liked him very much and empathized with him even knowing that he was a killer.

Genevieve, though not quite as interesting as she seemed when introduced, was also a character I liked. Her mouthy comebacks made for a nice counterpoint to Peter’s solemnity. Although she’s not as tough as Peter, she (with just one exception) fights for her life and for others’ as well. Her interactions with Peter are written with a stark honesty that I really appreciated.

I can’t help but feel, however, that I would have liked more scenes between Peter and Genevieve to develop their relationship even more, especially in the second half of the book. In addition, Cold as Ice could have been even better if not for its over-the-top villain. Not only does Harry plot death and destruction all over the world, he’s also an abuser of women and children and a fanatic believer in the zodiac. His character felt out of place to me in this otherwise psychologically acute book.

Readers who have read Black Ice might be interested to know that the Committee has become a slightly more restrained version of itself. Its new head, Madame Lambert, agonizes over every death order she signs. The Committee’s agents too, seem less ruthless here than they did in the earlier book. That is perhaps necessary to differentiate these two books from each other, but even knowing that, I miss the earlier version of the Committee that gave such a dark context to Bastien and Chloe’s romance in the superb Black Ice. Still, I think Cold as Ice is one of the better romances of 2006, and it easily gets a B+ from me.

Sincerely,

Janine

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REVIEW: Dirty Little Lies by Julie Leto

Jane — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:00:51 +0000

Dear Ms. Leto

It was been debated whether you write to the market or write what is in your heart. I have always voted that I want writers to write what is in their hearts because it makes for a better read. Your heart, shows through in this story and the first one in the series: Dirty Little Secrets. You make the Latino life so colorful, so passionate that I want to be part of it (you do say in your story that Latino is a culture not a race).

The members of Titan Int’l, a security corporation, are hired to oversee security at a fundraising event. During the event, Congressman Bennett is shot and would have been killed had Marisela Morales not distracted the assassin. The assassin is carrying out a revenge hit for a murder that Bennett seems to have committed but gotten away with. After the shooting, Titan is hired by the Senator’s wife to stop the assassin.

Marisela Morales is a former street gang member. This is no Stephanie Plum who leaves her gun in the cookie jar. No, Marisela Morales fought her way out of the gang and pulled herself into a better life. Part of this is owed to Titan who employs Marisela. Titan is run by twins Brynn and Ian and employs various individuals including enigmatic Max who seems to get sexier with each word he does not say. Brynn, by virtue of being born first, is really the leader of Titan. But before Brynn came stateside to throw her weight around, Ian was in charge. Ian and Marisela have been dancing a tentative and flirtatious tango that hasn’t really gotten past the intro steps.

Ian isn’t the only man in Marisela’s life. Frankie, with whom Marisela ran with on the streets and to whom she lost her virginity, is her current partner at Titan. Marisela isn’t sure that Frankie is her future. She also isn’t sure that he is her Right Now but it’s hard to resist the moves that Frankie puts on her.

The plot moves quickly and the action scenes are well executed. I appreciated that you dealt with some deeper issues such as the rightness of revenge killings and Marisela’s own questionable morality. The assassin is a fully fleshed out character and I couldn’t help but sympathize with her, just as you wanted me to. I also liked how the women play such strong roles in this story from Marisela to Brynn to the assassin. I loved the Spanish phrases used as endearments and come ons and in sexual play. It really made for a fully developed experience.

While this story is focused on Marisela, we do get glimpses from Frankie and, on rare occasions, Ian. Max is a true mystery man which makes him all the more tantalizing to the reader. I am not a big fan of the multiple partner offerings, but it works for me because neither man to whom Marisela is attracted is perfect for her. That makes it believable for me that she would be uncertain of her own feelings.

In all, this is a great action read with steaming hot scenes and wonderful promise for the future. The characters are smoking hot (think Ranger but speaking Spanish). Your voice is fresh and modern in this book. I heard that if this doesn’t sell well that you may not be able to provide us readers with more episodes in the Marisela series. That would be a crying shame. B for you.

Best regards,

Jane

Note to Jolie and Bookseller Chick: I need you to start handselling these books so the series goes on. For those readers who want an immediate fix, Simonsays sells Dirty Little Lies as an ebook for under $3.89!!!