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REVIEW: Calling Invisible Women by Jeanne Ray

Jayne — Tue, 22 May 2012 15:00:31 +0000

“A mom in her early fifties, Clover knows she no longer turns heads the way she used to, and she’s only really missed when dinner isn’t on the table on time. Then Clover wakes up one morning to discover she’s invisible–truly invisible. She panics, but when her husband and son sit down to dinner, nothing is amiss. Even though she’s been with her husband, Arthur, since college, her condition goes unnoticed. Her friend Gilda immediately observes that Clover is invisible, which relieves Clover immensely–she’s not losing her mind after all!–but she is crushed by the realization that neither her husband nor her children ever truly look at her. She was invisible even before she knew she was invisible.

Clover discovers that there are other women like her, women of a certain age who seem to have disappeared. As she uses her invisibility to get to know her family and her town better, Clover leads the way in helping invisible women become recognized and appreciated no matter what their role.”

Dear Ms. Ray,

I fell in love with your first book “Julie and Romeo” then wryly laughed my way through “Step-Ball-Change” though I will admit to failing to keep up with the books after that. So many books, so little time. I did remember that first book from time to time and say “I need to see what she’s written lately” so I was a happy bunny when we were offered your latest book for review. After reading it, I’m glad to discover that your gentle, humorously zinging style is still humming along.

I have heard the sayings for years – that older women become invisible to strangers then to family, that older women are overlooked, that older women fade into the background. Maybe this is why older women turn to purple to stand out? Since I’m headed towards this age, the plot made me sit up and want to read the book. But to Clover, it actually comes true. She also discovers that it leads to some freedoms. If no one cares what you wear, then you can wear anything, go anywhere, say anything and shrug your shoulders saying “the hell with it.” I’m understanding my mother more and more lately.

The book is more women’s fiction – even older women’s fiction as Clover ponders her two children 20 and 24 which might be a turn off to some but the marriage she has is a sturdy one and I enjoyed seeing how it’s held together over the years, though it does take her busy doctor husband a while to catch on to the obvious. Still, once he does he proves that he’s one of the good ones as he rallies to the cause.

Vlad and Nick and Miller, the young men of the story, give me hope – they’re basically decent guys who’ve been raised right by their mommas – which is high praise in the South. Daughter Evie I wanted to shake. Just wait til she gets older and some of that Beautiful Woman light begins to fade and she can’t get by on her looks any more. I hope Clover is still there to gently let her in on “life after your youth is past.”

There are things here that the reader is required to accept: that there is an army of invisible women out there and that some people have actually noticed this – as in the case of the nurse or the teacher Lila Robinson who got fired after fading away – and that it hasn’t become a headline news story. With all the 24 hour news stations desperate for copy and something to fill air space this stretches credulity but that’s what must be believed. Okay, fine. Clover’s initial reaction – stunned panic – makes sense as do her practice efforts about how to live with it and get around in society. Her finding the help group would be a Godsend of support – emotional and practical. There truly are support groups for everything these days.

Yet I’m surprised that it’s taken the Invisible Women so long to confront the pharmaceutical giant responsible for manufacturing the meds that turned them invisible. Or that Jane, the woman who’s devoted so much time to haunting their headquarters, reading mail, listening to conversations and being able to find out so much about what’s going on there, wouldn’t have confronted TPTB there or have met with the chemist who agreed to talk to them. She and Clover are remarkably calm in the face of his brusque response to their enquiries. I think I would have acted on Clover’s thought to overturn his desk and run amok. I’ve always wanted to run amok.

Still, once the ladies make up their minds and decide that they are “mad as hell” and they’re not going to take it anymore, they get organized via Social Media, T-shirts, picket signs and physical presence to make their voices heard and their demands known. Power to the invisible women!

But there’s more to this book than just one women or some women who feel that they were practically invisible to their families, coworkers and friends before actually turning invisible. Clover discovers that there’s a lot she doesn’t know about her husband and son. So the question is, how much do most of us really see those around us? Beyond how the presence or lack of it of those people impacts us and our day, how much attention do we pay to them and how much should we? That’s a sobering mass of thoughts to think on. B

~Jayne

REVIEW: Please Don’t Stop the Music by Jane Lovering

Jayne — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:00:44 +0000

This book won the RNA Romance Novel of the Year Award for 2011. The RNA Award is unique because it involves readers, authors and other industry professionals working together to award one book. I thought it would be fun to repost the review.

“How much can you hide?

Jemima Hutton is determined to build a successful new life and keep her past a dark secret. Trouble is, her jewellery business looks set to fail – until enigmatic Ben Davies offers to stock her handmade belt buckles in his guitar shop and things start looking up, on all fronts.
But Ben has secrets too. When Jemima finds out he used to be the front man of hugely successful Indie rock band Willow Down, she wants to know more. Why did he desert the band on their US tour? Why is he now a semi-recluse?
And the curiosity is mutual – which means that her own secret is no longer safe …”

Dear Ms. Lovering,

Since I enjoyed the first book of yours I read, “Slightly Foxed,” I jumped at the chance to check out your latest release, “Please Don’t Stop the Music.” Your description of it as a ‘dark psychological romance – with jokes’ is dead on. I knew from the beginning that there were going to be angsty emotional revelations along the way but I still enjoy laughing a bit on the road to them.

These are two very wounded people who have both current and past problems. They have to open up in order to heal and allow for possible future love and you take the time to pry them open, almost like clams, to allow this. Thank you for giving them REAL problems and not just “I’m so misunderstood by the world” navel gazing idiocy. I like that you give us some clues about what these issues are – it’s not all coy as some stories are – but the final revelations are still powerful and haunting. But it’s good that Rosie and Jason realize that Jem is hiding something – what friends would they be if they didn’t plus they’d look like idjuts.

I can kind of understand why Jem keeps running and almost runs again one last time. She’s got some serious self-esteem issues she has to deal with. Her warped views on sexuality were gained at a relatively young age and she’s both ashamed of what she allowed to happen and still not quite over it. But as Ben points out – look how she’s grown in the time since he’s met her. She is willing to confront Saskia (what’s with the popularity of this name anyway?) to help her friend Rosie and him and at least she realizes what her problem is even if she’s still sees running as how to overcome it. Ben does a wonderful thing for her in following her and *showing* her what she means to him. I don’t think Jem would believe it any other way.

Ben also has to overcome not only his “sex, drugs and rock’n'roll” past but also the guilt over how he left the band and the grief of the reason why. He had to get over the ‘towering artiste knocked down in his prime’ delusion. But get beyond it he finally does as he admits that he wouldn’t take his past back as a gift if it meant not having Jem in his life. That was a powerful revelation. No, he’ll never play again but he can still work in music.

Even after the explanations of why she did it, I have to say that Saskia gets away with too much. Her reason for what she did doesn’t excuse her for trying to ruin two lives – and harming Ben’s business as well. And she appears to be walking away from it scot free. Perhaps Jem and Ben will put the York trade authority screws to her but I needed to see some punishment or retribution.

I love that baby Harry isn’t a little bundle of total joy and happiness for Rosie. He’s not just a plot moppet but a real influence on Rosie and Jem and Jason’s lives. Rosie’s issues are certainly different and I did wonder about her relationship with the father but you turned that for an interesting twist as well. I like the sort of open ended finale – Jem and Ben look to be working things out. Jason and Rosie as well but no wedding bells are shown yet.

Yeah for the York setting again. Yes, there are other parts of England besides the Home Counties and London and I’m delighted to see them! I love the image of the center of York with streets that fold in on each other and hidden nooks and crannies. Plus I enjoyed the sardonic English humor in the story. Jem and Ben take the piss out of each other on a regular basis.

The book is Chick Lit’ish in that it’s mainly first person but there’s much more angst and we get Ben’s thoughts through his journal, which I loved. You’ve done a good job showing the arc of the characters’ development and change – of Jem and Ben falling in trust with each other, feeling safe and happy with each other, then falling in love. You put these two through the wringer a time or three but theirs is a HEA I believe in. B

~Jayne

Book Link | Kindle | Smashwords| BookDepository

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REVIEW: Rock Chick by Kristen Ashley

Jane — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:00:01 +0000

Dear Ms. Ashley:

After Kati D reviewed Knight for Dear Author, I had to read it myself. It was rough but Ruthie Knox, in the comments, suggested I give Sweet Dreams a try and I did. Sweet Dreams is an interesting story and one that I am going to review later but I actually went on to read several of your books and I wanted to start writing reviews with Rock Chick. Rock Chick is the beginning of a series of books that are interrelated. (another author used the word “Daisy Chained” to describe books that are loosely connected by a series of characters). Rock Chick is one of your better works and it also contains nearly every one of your signature writing features so that if readers like Rock Chick, they are likely to enjoy most of your writing. If they don’t like Rock Chick, then it is probably best for readers to pass on your extensive backlist.

Rock Chick reads like Stephanie Plum fan fiction for the Rangerettes (the shippers who wanted a pairing between Stephanie and Ranger). There is the intrepid heroine who rushes into danger. There is the hot, mysterious security guy. There are drag queens, irascible older people, people getting shot at and cars exploding.

India Savage, known as Indy, grew up loving Liam Nightingale. The Savage and Nightingale families were close. The parents knew each other. Allie Nightingale was Indy’s best friend. Their mothers, especially, wanted the two families tied together by marriage. Indy pursued Liam relentlessly as a teen until Indy finally got the message at the age of twenty that Lee (as he is known to all) would never want her back. From that point on, Indy made a point to avoid Lee at as much as possible. When Indy’s life is endangered, Lee steps in and declares to all and sundry that Indy is his woman and sets out to convince Indy of this new to her truth.

The storytelling is conversational, as if Indy is sitting next to you in her bookstore, Fortnum’s in Lower Downtown Denver. It’s as if you’ve made a new friend and she is telling you all about her crazy mixed up love life and how she got the man of her dreams. It works exceptionally well. The best part of all these books is the unapologetic brashness of the characters. Indy, in particular, is a bold. Indy is a full figured woman with great T&A. She is comfortable in her skin. She is independent, has a great group of friends, likes to wear tight clothes and lots of makeup. Also, she is in danger and every guy, even the bad ones, wants her. While Indy meets the definition of a Mary Sue squarely, she also represents a complete change (at least for me) from the demure, never been kissed, heroines who shy away from loving their body and appreciating their own personal agency.

Ranger, err, Lee is a more reserved guy who owns a security firm that does things like skip tracing and bodyguard work, amongst other security tasks. On more than one occasion, he wades in to save Indy from a dangerous scenario arising from some impetuous act. Indy describes Lee as badass, several times. Despite how bold and independent Indy is, there is a vague tone of msygony that runs through these Rock Chick books. It might be totally unintentional but the men, like Lee, look at the women with benign amusement. They frequently make demands that result in female capitulation. All the demands seem to end in an imperative “get me?” either in tone, eye contact, or verbalization. (I.e., do you get what I am telling you?) Lee cuffs Indy to the bed more than once in order to prevent her from engaging in behavior that he thinks will endanger her (and given her past record, maybe the cuffing is justified). But just about the moment that I (and Indy) are ready to blow our stacks, you have Lee (and the other men in your books) say something completely endearing, making themselves vulnerable:

“Jesus,” he buried his face in my neck, “there’s nothin’ better in the world than hearin’ you say my name when I’m inside you.” He slid in deep, filling me. “I’ve been waitin’ years to be right here.”

Holy crap.

His mouth was at my ear.

“I could be on assignment, in a desert as hot as an oven, in a jungle as close as fuck and sometimes I’d get through it dreamin’ of you sayin’ my name like that.”

I told a friend of mine that these books read a little like old school Linda Howard. Lee is full of take charge machismo. He’s written as if he can do anything including negotiate a detente with a criminal who is after his woman. No lock can keep him out. No situation is too dangerous for him. It’s only dangerous for those that oppose him. The characters drink a lot of beer, curse a lot, watch sports on TV, gossip with their girlfriends, party regularly, and in every aspect seem ordinary and relatable and somehow so very different than many characters I’ve read in contemporary romances of late.

Indy is a good match for Lee. She stands up for herself and pushes back against Lee. The secondary characters are well drawn even if they are exaggerated eccentrics. Plus, Indy’s exchanges (especially the ones with Ally) are funny:

“Did you bring me a Sushi Den outfit?” I asked Ally.

You didn’t go to Sushi Den in jeans and cowboy boots. Sushi Den demanded something else entirely. Clothing… black. Shoes… stiletto. I had a full section of my closet devoted to Sushi Den clothes.

“You bet your ass,” Ally replied.

and

“You just hung up on my brother?” Ally asked, sidling into bitch smackdown mode in defense of her sibling.

“Ally,” Kitty Sue said placatingly.

“We’re on a break,” I told Ally.

“You’re on a break? You’ve been together a week!” Ally yelled.

“We’re on a break,” I repeated.

“I don’t believe this,” Ally snapped, her hand at her hip, countdown to bitch smackdown mode hitting critical.

“Ally,” Kitty Sue put in, “it’s none of your business.”

“What do you mean it’s none of my business? Lee’s my brother, she’s my best friend.”

“She means it’s none of your business,” I told Ally, “back off.”

“Back off? Did you just tell me to back off? I’ve been waiting twenty-two years for this!” Ally was back to yelling. “You can’t be on a break. That’s ridiculous! Hank’s never gonna get married, there’s no one perfect for him. You’re perfect for Lee and you won’t sort it out with him. I’m never gonna get a niece named after me.”

“For God’s sake, Ally, make your own babies,” I yelled back.

“No please, don’t do that. Not until you’ve found someone special,” Kitty Sue threw in.

“Um… I don’t mean to interrupt your asinine conversation but, are we gonna let those diamond earrings just sit on the counter?” Tex asked.

I laughed out loud at several points in the story even as I was simultaneously worn down by the non stop description of Indy’s every outfit, of Indy’s every meal, and of every street in Denver. Your books really need an editor. There are many sentences like this dispersed throughout the book “A body like mine isn’t difficult to maintain, just feed it loads of crap to keep the curves but keep in shape because you’ve got to lug it around everywhere.” I’d often have to read the sentence twice to ascertain its precise meaning. Anytime a reader stops to puzzle out the meaning of a sentence is a break in the mood, the fantasy you are creating.

The stories need a content editor that will help to smooth out some writing tics and to introduce some brevity. Some of the characters make epic long speeches. Speeches so long I wonder at their lung capacities. The stories need a copy editor and a proofreader to eliminate the typos, misspellings, and grammatical inaccuracies. The blurbs for these books are some of the worst I’ve read. You are a great storyteller and I think you are telling stories that aren’t out there right now. Unfortunately, every time I give a recommendation for one of these books, I have to be up front and tell my reader friends that the writing is really rough, that there are serious periods of momentum lulls, and an unholy amount of repetition. (And its repetitive from book to book. In nearly every Rock Chick book there is a time when the hero will go through a litany of things that they love about the heroine and end with an “you’d be a pain in the ass.”

“Honey, it’s good you’re gorgeous or you’d be a pain in the ass.”

Here’s one writing tic that I find challenging (and by challenging I mean difficult to follow and thus annoying)

But, twenty minutes ago, my employee, Rosie, told me something I didn’t want to hear. Rosie could be difficult but this was ridiculous.

And he’d involved another employee (and one of my most favorite people in the world), Duke.
* * * * *

Then, five minutes ago, Rosie and I locked up and stood at the front of my bookstore, Fortnum’s, wondering what to do about that something.

Then two guys came up to us, we had a chat that did not go well (and if I’m honest, the reason it didn’t go well is because of me) and then they shot at us.

Shot.
At.
Us.
With guns.
Guns filled with bullets.

Another writing tic is to use the word “after”

After, we had pie.

Then, we had a shower.

What with wet, soapy, naked bodies, especially with one of them being Lee’s, things got out of hand and we tumbled out of the shower onto the bath mat.

After that, I said a silent thank you to the unknown Judy as the bathroom was sparkling clean and the bath mat smelled of fragrant drier sheets.

Later, we were in bed and I was pressed up against his side, his arm around my waist ….

I’ve read all the Rock Chick books. I’m not going to do a full review for each of them, but instead do a summary review of the next 6 in tomorrow’s post. Obviously I was captivated by your writing, but I can’t give a full throated endorsement. Instead, I feel it necessary to caution readers and hopefully arm them with enough information so that they can make their own decisions. I’d love to grade this book higher but even though the storytelling was engaging, I just can’t. C

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: A Different Kind of Forever by Dee Ernst

Dabney — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:00:05 +0000

Dear Ms. Ernst,

Once upon a time, in a seedy bar, many years ago, I met a man, fell for him on the spot, married him, and decades later count myself lucky to have and hold him as my own. And yet, as I read your book, the wonderful A Different Kind of Forever, I found myself wondering, what if my life had turned out differently. What if I were divorced, trying to raise my kids as a single mom, loving my work, surrounded by great friends, but, romantically, sexually, alone? If I were, if I had that life instead of the one I do, I pray to the gods I, like your forty-five year old divorced heroine Diane Matthews, would have the great good fortune to one day, walking in the park, meet twenty-six year old Michael Carlucci.

Michael isn’t just any twenty-six year old. He’s “Mickey Flynn” the creative genius behind and the keyboard player in one of the world’s most successful bands, NinetySeven. He and his band have come back to their home town to play the last concert of their current tour. A few weeks before the concert, he’s walking his dog Max in the park and Max, who has a serious obsession with pastrami, smells the sandwich Diane is eating and begins dashing toward her. Diane, standing on the picnic table she’s jumped up on, decides her lunch isn’t worth being tackled by a very large dog, and gives Max her sandwich just as Michael finally catches up with his marauding pet.

Diane stared at the animal in amazement, then turned as the owner came running up to her. He was completely winded, gasping, bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

“I’m so sorry,” he panted. “But my dog really loves pastrami.”

Diane stared at him. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”

The owner of the dog nodded his head. “Oh, I know,” he gulped. “It’s probably the silliest thing I’ve ever had to say.”

Diane began to laugh, a tickle that began in her throat and bubbled up. She felt tears streaming from her eyes. No one would ever believe this. The owner started to laugh with her. He seemed very young, dark hair cut short and as he lifted his smiling face, she saw startling blue eyes, an angular jaw. Suddenly, she stopped laughing

“Oh, my God. I know you.”

He was still breathing heavily. “I’m Michael Carlucci, and this is Max.” The dog had finished and was sitting quietly at his master’s feet. Michael gazed up at her. “I’m very sorry. Can I help you down?”

“Oh. Yes, please.” She felt suddenly awkward, and reached down to take his hand. She climbed down off the table carefully, her skirt riding to mid-thigh, heels unsteady on the grass. They were suddenly eye to eye. He was not much taller than her, slim, in a white polo shirt tucked into faded jeans, a thin belt around his waist. His arms and hands were beautiful, she noticed, sculpted and strong-looking.

““I’m sorry,” she said, smoothing her skirt. “I thought you were somebody else. You look just like Mickey Flynn.”

He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, that’s me. Michael Flynn Carlucci. I was named for my Irish grandfather.”

“I thought it was you. There’s a life sized poster of you in my daughters’ bedroom.

Diane is the mother of three daughters. While the eldest, Rachel, has outgrown her obsession with NinetySeven, her younger two, Emily and Morgan, ages fourteen and sixteen, have not. Michael, as a peace offering for his dog’s thieving behavior, offers Diane free tickets to the concert, and, after talking with her for a few minutes, asks if he can buy her lunch. At lunch, he throws in backstage passes as well. Diane isn’t sure he’s serious, but sure enough, the next day, a large envelope arrives at her house with eight VIP tickets to the show. Then, that night, Michael calls her and asks her out to dinner. Diane, nervous but attracted, agrees to meet him but doesn’t tell anyone she’s going out with him.

The date though, is perfect. Michael tells Diane his life story, she tells him hers, they drink, laugh, and, when Michael walks her to her car, he kisses her until she can’t breathe and tells her he wants to see her again. They agree to meet backstage after his concert this coming Friday night. Diane, her friend, and their daughters go to hear the band—Diane isn’t sure what to expect. She hasn’t been to a concert in years and all week she’s thought about Michael, his kiss, his smile, and how much she’s wanted to see him again. The concert is great—Diane is astonished at how talented Michael is. As the music winds down, Michael comes out onto the stage—it’s a band tradition: at the end of each show he tells a story. This night, he tells the story of meeting Diane,

“So, last week, I’m back home and I figure I’ll take Max out to Bloomfield Park. I got the Frisbee, I got tennis balls, we’re ready for anything, you know? So, we’re on the ball field, the park is practically empty, we’re having this great old time, and suddenly the wind shifts. Max freezes, and takes off like a shot and I know, man, I just know.” He paused and dropped his voice. “Shhhiiiit. It’s pastrami.”

Diane sank lower into her seat as Sue hit her excitedly on the arm.

“So Max is flying, and I am pounding after him, and there’s one, lone woman, sitting at a picnic table, eating a sandwich.” Laughter. “I yell, ‘he wants your sandwich’, and the woman jumps up on the picnic table, and she sticks out her hand and Max leaps like a gazelle, gets the sandwich, and it’s gone .” The audience started to clap and cheer. Michael was shaking his head, one hand on his hip. “So I’m looking up at this woman.” He got in closer to the mike, and dropped his voice again. “Sensational legs.” Diane glanced over at Emily, who was open-mouthed. “And this great tattoo right above her ankle.”

The crowd roared and hooted. Diane felt the blood drumming in her ears.

“Since she didn’t say anything about suing me,” Michael went on, “I bought her lunch and invited her to the show.” He shaded his eyes and looked down at them. “Are you girls having a good time?”

Megan, Emily and all their friends shrieked and waved excitedly. Michael nodded.

“Good.” He turned to the stage hand that had walked onstage with another microphone and an acoustic guitar. “Thanks, man.” He slipped the guitar strap over his shoulder and adjusted the mike.

“Now I’m going to tell you all about my sisters. I have three, all older, and they were all into music, and I spent my whole childhood sneaking into one of their rooms, and listening to whatever they were listening to. That’s how I began to love music. That’s when I decided to make it a part of my life.”

His voice had dropped, grown softer, and Diane could feel everyone leaning in, straining to hear.

“When I was five, I started taking piano lessons, because everyone in my house took piano lessons. But I wanted to play guitar. Angela, my youngest sister, was taking guitar lessons. I made a deal with my Dad that I’d go to my piano lesson like a good little boy, if I could also go with Angela. So she took me along with her, I’d sit in the corner and listen, then we’d go home and practice together, and that’s how I learned to play the guitar. Angela had this big, old Lennon-McCartney songbook, and we learned every song.” The crowd burst into applause. As they quieted, he went on.

“My sisters all loved the Beatles, especially Paul. I would play and they would sing along. And that is just about as perfect a memory you could have.” He had been looking down as he spoke, his hands folded over the curve of the guitar. He suddenly lifted his eyes and his smile went out across the audience. “I had forgotten. Diane with the sexy tattoo reminded me. I want to thank her for that. So this song is for the Carlucci girls, who are responsible for so many of the good things in my life.”

He began to play ‘And I Love Her.’

Michael, you see, fell in love with Diane the moment he met her. He believes there is one true love out there for each of us and, for him, he’s sure Diane is his. He woos her with everything he has.

Diane though is, well, forty-five. She’s been married—is happily divorced– and has been in love once since her marriage broke up—he was married, so, despite believing she’d found her true love, she wouldn’t get involved with him. She thinks Michael is wonderful but damn, he’s young. And she has her daughters to think about—she’s afraid to tell them about Michael, fearing somehow, they will see his youth and fame as inappropriate for her. And, in fact, the first time the two come close to making love, not only is Diane overwhelmed, she is horrified to be interrupted by her eldest daughter Rachel who bitterly points out Diane is old enough to be Michael’s mother.

But Michael doesn’t give up and slowly but surely pulls Diane into his arms and then his life. The latter is made easier by the fact Rachel is living in the City for the summer and Megan and Emily are spending the summer on the Long Island Shore with their father and his new wife and baby. They spend almost every day and night together. Diane, an academic and a playwright, is putting the final touches on a play that will be opening in the fall. Michael is working on an incredibly challenging project—the score for a movie being made by one of England’s most famously difficult directors. When not working, they make love—God, Diane loves making love with Michael—sail, visit with his friends and family, and, in general live each day to the fullest.

But when the summer comes to an end, the ease with which Diane and Michael have been together unravels. Michael must go to London to work; Diane’s daughters, who, with exception of Rachel, know nothing about Diane’s relationship with Michael, return home; and, most challengingly for Michael, Quinn, the married man Diane once loved is now divorced and is back in town while Michael, lonely and unsure of Diane’s feelings for him, is a continent away from the woman he loves.

So many things in this book worked for me. I liked the way the jobs Diane, Michael, and others do in A Different Kind of Forever is portrayed. The creative work Diane and Michael do is wholly believable as is the context that work exists in. It was interesting to see Diane as both an academic and as a writer. She’s good at both professions, both require different skill sets, and both are shown in realistic detail. The entire context of this book–the neighborhoods Diane and Michael live in, the meals they share with others, even the way the weather is described–seemed credibly genuine. The world you’ve written is the world many of us live in–full of laundry, bills, swing-sets, arguments, and traffic.

The novel is filled with characters, all of whom have parts to play in the story, and are convincingly and compassionately rendered. Diane has complex relationships with her daughters, especially her middle child, Emily. Emily’s anger and hurtfulness is written realistically–and plays beautifully into Diane’s concerns about the choices Diane is struggling between. Diane’s friends and co-workers are also well-done–I was impressed with your ability to write different voices all of which are original and fully formed.

Most importantly, Michael and Diane are remarkably real people. I’ve read countless contemporaries with famous, sexy young men—rock stars, athletes, bazillionaires–Michael is one of the most genuine. He’s a man–a young man–first, a musician second, and, several steps down the list, a rock star. His love for Diane seems impossibly idealistic and yet authentic. He’s fallen in love for the first time in his life—his joy and hope are breathtaking… and somewhat unbelievable to Diane. As she points out to him, their life together, were they to make a permanent life together, faces all sorts of pitfalls.

Diane’s fears, of course, aren’t unfounded, and that’s one of the very best things about this book. For Diane to partner with Michael, she has to believe not only in his love for her but in herself. We live in a culture where beauty, youth, and wealth are prized over their counterparts. Michael will always have more of all of those coveted assets than will Diane. She likes herself and yet, at one point, she hies herself off for a full spa makeover because, as she tells one of her best friends,

“A couple of nights ago, Michael and I went to the movies, and afterwards, I went to the bathroom, and you know how those lines are, so I was in there for a while, and when I came out, this incredible girl was talking to Michael. Sharon, she was gorgeous, legs up to her neck, boobs out to there, swinging all this long hair around. I just looked at her and felt, well, old and run-down. So I figured I’d treat myself to a little sprucing up.” “Shit.” Sharon said angrily. “You look fantastic, Diane.” Diane looked at her friend. “I know I do. I think I look great for my age. But I’m still forty-five, you know? My boobs sag, I’ve got those great little lines around my eyes, my jaw line is soft and puffy, not to mention the gray hair.” Sharon snorted. “Now wait. Your hair always looks terrific. I haven’t seen gray on your head in a long time.” Diane made a face. “I’m not talking about the hair on my head,” she said wryly. Sharon sighed. “Oh, that gray hair. Yeah, that really sucks.”

Yep, it does.

I don’t know if this book would resonate with younger women in the way that it did with me. If you’ve never, in an irate moment, seen age as just giving you more to shave, perhaps Diane’s fears might seem overblown. After all, she’s got a gorgeous, sweetheart of a man who loves her and has the sexual stamina of a twenty-six year old. But Diane’s fears and doubts are portrayed so well, so realistically that, honestly, I wasn’t sure how the book would end. But as I turned the pages, reading late in to the night, I hoped that Michael and his conviction of true love, would be stronger than Diane’s fears. I give it a B.

Sincerely,

Dabney

Amazon BN

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REVIEW: Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman by JB Lynn

Jayne — Sun, 13 May 2012 09:00:54 +0000

Dear Ms. Lynn,

Honestly, if someone told me a week ago that I’d be reading a book about a woman with a crappy life who survived a car wreck with only a concussion that now lets her communicate with a pet lizard and that in order to pay the astronomical medical bills pilling up to keep her comatose young niece in a speciality hospital has taken up a mobster’s offer to undertake a hit, I would have told them, “Are you shitting me?!” No, wait that’s not emphatic enough. It would probably have been more like, “Are you shitting me and are you on crack?!” But here I sit having just finished “Confessions of a Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman” and all I can pant is “Give me more!” And, “What happens next?!”

So how did I make the decision to read the book? Jane sent it along with a bunch of others and frankly I needed to weed through them all and clear out the “no f’ing way” ones to make room for the new boxes that arrived. With my mission in mind, I began reading the back blurbs and opening chapters. The back blurb of your book sounded like it could be awful. Settling in beside a towering pile of paperbacks, I dug in thinking, “one chapter and we’re probably done here.” Only the next thing I knew, it was 50 pages later. Let me say that the back cover, while certainly accurate, doesn’t give a hint of the style that kept me compulsively turning pages or the plot that grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go.

You certainly do have a “voice” and I completely enjoyed my time listening to it. But I’ll say that it’s probably not for everyone and that since a lot of people don’t like 1st person POV, that won’t help further the cause much. But I loved it. Maggie is a breath of sardonic fresh air. But beyond the deadpan humor and sarcasm, what kept me reading is that Maggie isn’t always right and certainly isn’t perfect. But her heart is in the right place and she tries. And for her little niece, she’ll do anything even if that means buying live crickets for “Godzilla” Katie’s brown anole lizard pet who speaks to Maggie in the voice of Alan Rickman. Maybe a little too much time spent watching Snape?

The fact that I enjoyed the bizarre paranormal aspects of the plot is amazing since I generally run a mile to avoid them in the books I read. However, “God” as he prefers to be called, is a truly delightful character though I wonder how he and Doomsday will work out the living arrangements. Then again maybe they bonded over the second hit Maggie had to carry out with the help of Patrick the detective/mob hitman? Which leads me to another reason I shouldn’t have liked this book because if there was ever any more rock solid conflict standing between two people who crackle with chemistry, I haven’t come across it. Talk about a fucked up family life that Patrick deals with…And let’s not forget Maggie’s meddling aunts, her father in the State Pen, and her mother in the psych ward – these people have issues.

Some might say you kinda cop out by giving Maggie and Patrick the power to turn down hits they don’t want to carry out or that the two people who are killed in the book are made to be such obvious villains with no redeeming qualities but there are limits beyond which I won’t go in books I read for fun so I’ll accept all this. And reiterate that I can’t wait to find out 1. How crappy the bridesmaid dress Maggie will have to buy will be. 2. If Paul has come into Maggie’s life for the reason I think he has. 3. If “God” will help Doomsday with her grammar. 4. Does he talk to Katie too? and 5. At whose wedding will Maggie have to take out her next hit? I’ll be waiting for answers. B

~Jayne

REVIEW: Wicked Burn by Beth Kery

Jane — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:00:53 +0000

This review is reposted from December 2008 when it was originally released in trade paperback. I thought I would revive the review because the book is being released in mass market, four years later.

Dear Ms. Kery:

I had really been down on erotic romance as a sub genre for the past few months. So much of what I had attempted to read was sex without emotion. That type of story gets tired quickly and with many of the mainstream romances heating up, it seemed that erotic romance might be a sub genre that no longer fit my reading tastes.

When I started Wicked Burn, despite the well written sex scenes that nearly singed my eyebrows, I thought that it was going to be just one of those erotic romances because of the unrelenting sex scenes during the first third of the story, but serious relationship issues arise leading to believable conflict, character growth, and a very strong romance. This is a straight relationship driven contemporary erotic romance.

Niall Chandler and Vic Savian live next door to one another in a high end apartment complex in Chicago. They’ve been attracted to each other but haven’t acted on their attraction until Vic hears Niall being hassled outside her apartment one night by an over eager date. Vic dispatches the date and the two embark on steamy encounter after steamy encounter. The two start dating and it seems that there is little conflict to impede the two from moving foward to the inevitable happy ending.

Vic Savian is a prize winning playwright who has recently moved to Chicago and will be opening a new play. His temperment is hot and passionate (much like you would expect a playwright to be). He is the leader in the bedroom. Niall is a bit of an innocent although she has good reason to be. She felt embarrassed by her reaction to Vic, like a rube. Vic doesn’t necessarily glory in her innocence, just her willingness and openness. Vic reads very earthy, almost animalistic, but he doesn’t try to pretty up his attitudes toward Niall or toward sex. Vic is very much a what you see is what you get kind of guy. For example, when he is nervous about the opening of his new play and doesn’t attempt to hide it, sweaty palms and all. When he is confronted with an old flame, Vic admits that he not only slept with the woman but that he was in a pretty bad emotional state at the time.

“I slept with Eileen Moore years ago, Niall. It was after I went through an ugly breakup with a woman I was supposed to marry. I was dead drunk for almost six months after the fact. If you want to know the truth, Eileen probably thought of it as a series of pity fucks. I was damned pitiful, that’s for sure,” he said with a wry twist of his handsome mouth.

Because Vic is so open, the conflict is driven primarily by Niall who is the opposite. She doesn’t really allow Vic very far into her life, keeping him locked out of her family and her past because she has a very big secret. She hopes she can get rid of that secret before it affects her burgeoning relationship with Vic but her furtiveness outside the bedroom raises alarms in Vic. Ultimately, Vic finds that Niall engages in a huge betrayal and this brings up old hurts. Vic’s own past has it’s nightmares. His light burns hot and bright and it always has. Sometimes he’s not sure whether his relationship with Niall is a healthy thing, but he can’t keep away from her. In many ways, for all his masculinity, Vic is the vulnerable one here. Niall has some doormat issues and is definitely overshadowed by Vic which is why I can’t give the book a higher grade. She does not have the backbone of steel of the quiet heroine in Gateway to Heaven but I did find her sympathetic.

I can’t say much about Niall’s secret as it would be a big spoiler. Needless to say that her past is not letting her move on no matter how much she wants to. I went on to read several other Beth Kery books and I found them to all be hot, although some I liked better than others. I can’t help but think that the successful marriage of emotion and eroticisim will make Beth Kery a big name in erotic romance. I know that this is in trade, but if a reader likes ER, then I think she’ll like this book. B

Best regards,

Jane

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REVIEW: Say It With Diamonds by Lucy King

Jane — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:00:21 +0000

Dear Ms. King:

I felt like this book started out with the heroine as a thief and the hero as a good guy and then someone told you to SEX it up and all the backstory and character got chopped for paragraph upon paragraph of mental lusting. There was so much mental lusting, in such an intense and melodramatic tone, that it was surprising to me that either the heroine or the hero could function like regular people. The heroine, in particular, with her description of her insta lust upon seeing Will (just Will not Your Grace) was in such a state I wondered if an ambulance needed to be called:

She’d like him to swerve off to the left, drag her down some dusty deserted corridor and back her up against a wall. She’d like him to lift her up, wrap her legs around his waist and crush his mouth down on hers. She’d like him to run his hands all over her and drive her mindless with need. Most of all she’d like him hot and hard and deep inside her.

At the bolt of desire that thumped her in the stomach Bella went dizzy and stumbled. Would have hit the floor had Will not caught her arm and steadied her.

‘Are you all right?’

Bella dragged in a breath and blinked a couple of times as she fought to wipe her head of the images. Oh, good Lord. She was fantasising. About Will. A duke. So much for thinking she didn’t go for the cynical weary type, she thought dolefully. And so much for sensible and mature.

‘I’m fine,’ she said a little shakily, wriggling away from beneath his grip before she did something really unhinged like deliberately letting her knees collapse and falling into his arms. ‘Absolutely fine. These heels weren’t designed for this carpet, that’s all.’

His gaze was so laser-like, so intense, that it felt as if her clothes were disintegrating in its wake, leaving her standing there in front of him completely naked. And then, at the thought of that, she went so hot and trembly she nearly stumbled all over again.

Now that we are all tipsy on our heels from lust, let me describe the plot. The heroine, Bella, is a jewelry designer and appraiser. Is she the best appraiser in all of England? She should be because the hero, Will, is bringing her a collection that is called “legendary”. It is so legendary and valuable that Will carries around some trinkets in his pockets.

The Hawksley Collection is comprised of a number of jewels the Dukes of Hawksley have given to their lovers. Alas, some of those jewels are paste, Bella discovers. Is Will worried about a scandal ensuing if it comes out that some of the jewels in this famed collection are fake? Nah. He’s a billionaire from the Cayman Islands. (also Duke of Hawksley but that is such a stupid throwaway detail that even Will is embarrassed by it. That makes two of us).

Will immediately invites Bella, this random jewelry designer, to come to his bank and view the entire collection to view what is fake and what is not. At this point, I’d be whipping out my non disclosure form but I’m not a billionaire Duke from Cayman Islands and maybe they just don’t care about those things over there.

Fortunately, because the two are so hot for each other, they have sex in Will’s limo. You know, after Will kind of rebuffs Bella and makes her leave the bank to walk home in the rain. But alas, the road to happiness for Will and Bella is not all paste diamonds and sex filled limo rides. Bella is looking to find a man to settle down with and Will, because he is a cheater and from a family of cheaters, has declared himself off limits for a relationship. This does not stop Bella from pursuing Will or Will to become enraged and jealous by Bella toddling off to date another man. But their physical attraction cannot be denied. (Lest the two are put in a hospital)

As she twisted her hair into a thick dark rope her elbow briefly brushed against his shoulder and for one sizzling moment he thought he’d been electrocuted. His entire body burned as if it had gone up in flames and his heart practically stopped.

The conflict between Mr. Commitment Phobe and Ms. Looking for Forever is understandable. I would have liked to have seen more backstory on why she was determined to be married and have a family. I would have liked a few lines that would have established her as premiere expert in her field. I wouldn’t have minded a few paragraphs about why, other than the two suffer this unrelenting lust, that these two actually belong together. I also wouldn’t have minded if the word “besotted” was used less often:

Since when had he contemplated ditching a friend for a woman? And since when had he brought forward a date because he couldn’t wait? Where had his self-control gone? And more disturbingly, where had the idea that he might be besotted with Bella come from? He couldn’t be besotted with her. He’d only just met her. Besides he didn’t get besotted. Ever.

Will let out a growl of frustration. He’d wait until Saturday because he had to. Because that was the plan. Because he wasn’t besotted. And because he had gallons of self-control. Somewhere.

I guess the good thing is that I really knew where these characters stood. Foolish parts of the story are shown to us like Bella’s conversation with Sam, a date she used to make Will jealous. Other important parts are told to us in summary fashion:

She’d found herself telling him about her peripatetic childhood and the colourful characters that had peppered her upbringing. About how, instead of doing her homework, she’d learned to pick locks, forge cheques and hot-wire cars. Far from being appalled, as she’d rather feared, Will had been fascinated and so, encouraged, she’d gone on to tell him all about her mother and her wildly misspent youth and about how she now lived quietly in Truro, kept goats and grew herbs.

So Bella is a pickpocket, former felon who now works as an appraiser of legendary jewels. Will, an English Duke, ran off to the Caymans where he built an empire. He also has a debilitating phobia that was tossed in to ensure that despite his top lofty and irrational behavior and the fact he cheated on some bipolar chick when he was in his early twenties, Will is a “good guy.”

I guess this is like an after school special for single women wherein the moral is always have sex in limos with guys who treat you poorly because underneath their irrational behavior lurks a socially damaged and phobic man whose just waiting for the right woman to keep his pants zipped up. D

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: Can’t Buy Me Love by Maggie Marr

Dabney — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:00:38 +0000

Dear Ms. Marr—

I was wary about the plot of your short eBook, Can’t Buy Me Love. Meg Parson, executive assistant to gorgeous ruthless multi-millionaire CEO Cole Jackson, has longed for her employer since the day he hired her. She has forced herself to ignore her feelings for him because 1) he’s a player and 2) sleeping with him could ruin her professional reputation. Cole’s had the hots for Meg for over a year now and, when the two have to head to Costa Rica together to close a business deal Cole’s jonesed for forever, he decides he’s ready to acquire both the new company and his sexy assistant.

I’m not wild about boning the boss tales. Yes, I know many women have indeed slept with their superiors and that, shockingly, many felt it helped them get promoted. Still, such stories don’t call to me—when I read them I get distracted by a blinking neon sign in my brain: Bad Idea. Very Bad Idea.

But, I thought I’d give your book a whirl and see if you could recount that trope in a way that didn’t distress me. And, I have to say, you did. I was fine with the way Meg and Cole negotiated their professional relationship. I wasn’t crazy, however, about Meg or Cole nor did I especially enjoy their love story. The two went from colleagues ignoring their desire for each other to lovers so fast I almost got motion sickness. And, they act like such morons in the last chapters of the book—both suffer from excessive TSTL syndrome—I ended up not giving a damn whether they made up or not.

At the beginning of the book, the readers are introduced to Cole and Meg through the way the two view each other. Meg has been Cole’s assistant for three years, but has spent the past six months in an office down the hall, working on that BIG deal. Cole has missed seeing her and now that she’s in his office, he’s awash in lust.

Meg Parson’s voice was brighter and lighter than the curves of her body would suggest. She shifted her weight and her hip teased forward against her suit skirt. The outline of bone against taut fabric taunted Cole with hints of lace panties. In a careless moment his gaze roamed over her legs, caressed her skirt, and brushed over the outline of her breasts. Hunger for Meg clutched his belly and twisted hard.

Meg, too, can barely think about anything what a hunk her boss is.

Even with his tie pulled loose he appeared stunningly sexy….

Meg averted her eyes so as not to stare at Cole. Of course she was physically attracted to him. Every woman on the planet was physically attracted to Cole.

The deal Meg has been working on is suddenly at risk and there’s nothing for it but for Cole and Meg to take his private plane—“one of a handful of custom-made Boeings in the world”—fly down to Costa Rica, and woo the elderly couple who is balking at selling their company, TBC, to Comnet, Cole’s huge multimedia company.

Once the two are in Costa Rica, living the life of the fabulously wealthy, Cole decides it’s time to bed Meg. She, despite her deep conviction boinking her boss will both demean her professionally and probably break her heart, can’t resist the juggernaut of sexy that is Cole Jackson. He gets her alone, and tells her her life

“Is about to get more interesting.” His lips pressed hot against the back of her neck. Her knees weakened and she fought to stay vertical. His arm slid around her waist and held her firmly as his lips explored her neck. She needed to step away from his touch—to pretend that she had never felt Cole’s lips on her neck and his hands on her waist. But her body betrayed her, and her hips pressed backward, arching toward him and against his hardness. This was madness. Absolute and complete….His finger stopped on her lips and pressed ever so gently as if asking permission for her kiss. Meg parted her mouth, her tongue slipped to her lips brushing his fingertip as he gently traced her mouth. She wanted him. She wanted Cole more than her promotion, more than safety, more than security, even more than all the compatibility requirements on her list. “We…we…can’t—” she breathed out heavily. He was too much. More than she could handle, more than she could take— “Oh, yes we can.” His arms circled her and pulled her forward. His lips were on hers with fierceness, a need-a possession of her.

That kiss leads to lots of very hot sex and by the time the two have convinced the sweet elderly couple to sell, Cole and Meg are a couple. They return to the States where Meg essentially moves into Cole’s Bel Air mansion and the two conduct a secret affair: Meg doesn’t want anyone to know because her colleagues might think less of her.

People would forget her stellar education or that she worked tirelessly for three years to get her promotion or brokered an amazing deal between Comnet and TBC. Her reputation would forever be tinged with the implication that her promotion was based merely on her abilities in bed.

There’s lots more hot sex and then, a huge and completely unnecessary misunderstanding. Cole and Meg, who both have “issues” from their pasts, act like idiots. Heartbreak ensues. All problems are resolved quickly—the book’s less than 150 pages.

The brevity of the book is, I think, part of its problem.

All the characters are stock characters—the arrogant, makes the big bucks, sex god boss, the gorgeous assistant whose bodacious body belies a brilliant mind, the lovely elderly couple who are living proof of LASTING LOVE. There’s even a sassy BFF for Meg, although given that Prim, Meg’s friend, works for Comnet’s biggest competition, one would think the two might be a little savvier about email. Just saying.

Can’t Buy Me Love isn’t bad; it’s just too short and too trite to really be good. But, the sex scenes are steamy and, surprisingly, the “I banged my boss” trope is handled well. I suspect were it a longer book, it would have ended up somewhere in B territory. As it stands, however, it’s an utterly forgettable, wile away a few hours on a plane, C. Also, the copy I had, which, granted, was a release, was rife with errors. Words ran together, lines ended randomly, spelling mistakes made sentences unintentionally hilarious—I hope this is just the case for the review copy; in a finished copy, readers deserve more care for their money.

Sincerely,

Dabney

REVIEW: Twisted by Laura Griffin (A Different Perspective)

Jayne — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:00:27 +0000

Dear Ms. Griffin,

I’ve mentioned before that the reason I don’t read much romantic suspense is that usually one aspect or the other gets shortchanged and I end up disappointed. Your books, however, have usually been the exception. A few little things in them might niggle but I’ve come to expect that in order to include both romance and suspense, everybody cuts a few corners here and there. It comes with the territory. Unfortunately, here I find that both the romance and suspense departments suffer to the extent that despite being glued to the ending to see how the killer is caught, I still can’t recommend this book.

Allison Doyle is a rookie homicide detective on the small town San Marco Police Department. She’s not on their most recent case, that of a young woman brutally assaulted and murdered, but when FBI profiler Mark Wolfe appears and talks to the officers who are working the crime, she senses something big. Acting on a hunch, she tracks him down and gets the details. Wolfe feels certain that the woman’s estranged boyfriend isn’t the culprit and that the real killer is a man Wolfe has tracked and sought for over ten years. Given the past sequence of the man’s crimes, Wolfe knows that they’re racing against the clock to prevent another woman from dying. But first he has to get the SMPD to believe his theory and get on board the investigation. And then they have to track down a cold blooded killer poised to strike again.

I was looking forward to this book for a number of reasons. First, it’s by you and for the most part your books have worked for me where few in this category do. Second, from the back blurb I knew Allison would be the heroine and, though she was a secondary character in “Snapped,” she had impressed me in that book. By the end of this book, I was left wondering what I had ever seen in her and wishing that she doesn’t appear in any more. Allison annoyed the hell out of me.

But first let me talk about what I do like in “Twisted.” From the opening chapter, the menace of the killer is evident. He’s a bad SOB which you chillingly convey without being too graphic. I admit I’m squeamish about that and I don’t like detours through a serial killer’s head. Instead of that you present the highlights of the crimes and use the aftermath of how it’s affected those left behind to freeze my bone marrow. The investigation of the most recent murder hasn’t been perfect and this adds to the plausibility factor. Crime is everywhere and the SMPD is as swamped as most police departments these days. The forensic labs are also choked with tests to run and despite better lines of communication, similarities between cases in different jurisdictions might go unnoticed until too late. Mark Wolfe is also stretched too thin trying to handle all the various cases he’s dealing with some of which you sketch in with enough details to make that believable without derailing the focus on the main plot.

As the task force gets in gear, it’s fascinating to get a bird’s eye view of the nuts and bolts of trying to solve this crime. Officers toss about ideas, work up possible leads, follow those through, reach roadblocks, get dead ended and refocus to approach the case from different angles. It’s like watching a riveting flow chart in action knowing the result at stake is death. The cool things that the people at the Delphi Center can do are the icing on the cake for my forensic geek fandom. Seeing all the work that has to go into outthinking and legally tracking this killer shows the dedication of the people involved as well as their frustration at being so close and still not having all the pieces needed to solve the puzzle.

The final few chapters are suspenseful. You ratchet tension well and generally have me on the edge of my seat as the action roars to a climax. Some of the details of the investigation end up not playing a part in getting the killer but every book about solving crimes needs a few red herrings. Allison does end up face to face with death, which I expected, but the way she gets there doesn’t follow the path I thought it would. I am pleased about that and yet also disappointed because the path you use highlights the two issues that don’t work for me – namely Allison and Mark.

Allison’s the only woman in the homicide department – indeed one of only four women on the force – and as a rookie detective constantly feels the need to prove herself. I can understand that. Law enforcement still seems to be a male bastion and Allison has only taken part in one major investigation. She’s eager to earn her place, improve her skills and become a better officer. Though by the way she acts in this story, she’s got a long way to go and if she’s not more careful, she’ll never live to achieve all that. Allison starts the book by making a major mistake that could have got her killed. She knows this and it gnaws at her that she did it and that Mark saves her bacon. Does it seem to be a learning experience for her? Surprisingly not.

Allison pushes her way into two cases not assigned to her and, to her credit, she does prove that the chief suspect in the most recent case couldn’t have committed the crime and that another case from a year ago is actually linked to the killer Mark’s been after. That opens the door to Mark’s theory and gets a task force in place which Allison then becomes a part of – though in reality it seems that by default and for lack of numbers every homicide detective on the force is on it. Allison knows that this guy is bad, that he’s killed at least six women and that they’re fighting to find him in time so yes, I can see her continuing to push to solve the crime but as the book progresses, Allison makes mistake after mistake.

Okay, I accept that she’s learning but she’s got an expert – Mark – on hand telling her not to do certain things yet Allison just busts past his advice and, in some cases, his orders and keeps barreling along. Oh no, she isn’t going to let up, she isn’t going to stop and think “Hmmm, here’s a seasoned veteran telling me to hold up or not do something. Maybe I should listen to him.” Instead she makes more mistakes. What does she do after one of them? She tries to cover it up so that she won’t look bad and take crap from her fellow officers who will then – justifiably in my opinion – be worried about having her cover their backs. I agree that it could unravel her career but maybe, just maybe, her flipping career does need to unravel before she gets herself or someone else killed.

People rise to the level of their incompetence but due to Mark going along with her pleas, Allison floats above hers and this time, she comes damn close to dying while another woman actually does. Here’s intrepid Allison, following up on a lead after spotting a clue that will lead her to where the killer is and does she call in that little fact? No, she calls in a license plate but fails to mention, “Oh and by the way I am at this location where I think a man who’s raped and murdered over six women might be.” Luckily for her she manages to survive the shit storm that follows.

Allison ends up not wowing me with her police skills but how about the romance? Does it help make up for the deficiencies I feel are in the suspense side of the book? Nope, ‘fraid not. Mark has a failed marriage behind him due to his diligence for his job. And for most of this book, he stays in diligent character. At first Allison seems to just want release from the tension of the case and when she finally gets Mark into bed, I’d swear that her primary feeling is one of satisfaction that she won their battle of wills. It’s way past the halfway point of the book yet I haven’t gotten a sense that anything deeper than scratching an itch is going on. Then suddenly! Allison is showing inklings of hope in her eyes and – after they chase down and arrest a suspect – she pulls Mark aside to try to delve into his feelings and get all emo. I sat with book in hand and jaw hanging open in disbelief. With a suspected killer in an interrogation room, this is not the time to attempt to help Mark deal with his chronic stress and avoid Burnoutville. Mark thinks that he feels he’s in the Twilight Zone and I feel that I’m right there with him. WTF?!

But, hold on. It seems that Allison’s questions about when Mark last took a vacation and her worry about his mental health have finally broken through to him. He jacks up going to a mandatory FBI meeting and instead stays in Texas for another night of hot lovin’. Only it appears to be just that, hot lovin’ but not love. Or not that I can see. And as the story races to a conclusion and the aftermath, honestly I still don’t see love. Lust yes, lots of that but when Allison and Mark tearfully offer each other their “I love you’s” on the last page, it doesn’t move me at all nor do I believe in its staying power. Maybe if they make appearances in future books I can be convinced but for now, the only reason I believe they’re holding hands and getting all dewy eyed is because you tell me they are.

And that is why I reluctantly give one of your books a D grade. Allison ends up being mostly a fail while Mark tumbles off into romantic faildom after keeping his head above the suspense waterline. Without the parts of the investigation that I liked and the way you still managed to make me want to keep reading, it would be lower than that. You’ve written many other good books which I would recommend for newbies to try but this one isn’t one of them.

~Jayne

REVIEW: Once Upon a Dream by Jennifer Archer

Jayne — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:00:32 +0000

Can the answer to her curse lie in the dreams of the past?

When Professor Alex Simon moves to Canyon, Texas from England, he welcomes the opportunity to change his locale. Not only would he be aiding his recently widowed sister, but he would have a chance to forget a failed relationship.

Robin Wise is less than impressed by her new neighbor– and his little devil-cat. The feline taunts her dog, and its stuffy owner has the gall to blame her pup for the squabbles. But at a second glance, Alex isn’t quite as nerdy as he seems. As a matter of fact, when he isn’t insulting her dog, he can be quite charming.

But Robin has her own problems. An inherited curse looms over her impending thirtieth birthday, and until Robin can overcome the hex, she can’t indulge in any fantasy she might have regarding the more-perfect-by-the-minute professor. No matter how she wishes she had the courage to act on the awakened desire in her heart.

Dear Ms. Archer,

I think if I’d read “Once Upon a Dream” when it was first released in 2001, I would have had a harder time believing in the heroine and her paralyzing fear. But since then, I’ve read Julia Quinn’s “The Viscount Who Loved Me” which features a hero with a similar fear plus there’s now the show “My Strange Addiction” to show just how much people really are controlled by things the average person might not otherwise understand.

When I initially saw the blurb for this book, I will admit that I was sold after the second paragraph about the dog and cat stuff and didn’t really bother to read the rest. But the first chapter lays out Robin’s issues as well as those of Alex. He has trouble trusting in relationships given how his mother spent years talking bad about him and his ex-fiance spent all her time treating him as a DIY fixer-upper project. I liked Alex’s slightly nerdy persona and felt good for him that he stood up to being twisted into a person he isn’t. Meanwhile, Robin is facing her imminent 30th birthday, firmly convinced that she’ll never live long enough to celebrate it. Three previous generations of women, her mother, grandmother and great grandmother, all died within days before they would have turned 30 – all from freak accidents. For the past year Robin has holed up in her house, never going beyond the edge of her property for fear of what might happen.

Alex wins me over from the start when he doesn’t ridicule Robin for her agoraphobia – but is this truly agoraphobia? – even before he knows what the fear that controls Robin is. He doesn’t try to fix her or change her or bully her out of this which makes sense given his own past. He sees how tight a hold this has on her and works with her up to and including being in the path of a tornado. I do have to say that Canyon, Texas gets over their brush with bad weather faster than a lot of towns in the South have over the past two years.

I’d never heard of the beliefs you mention people having about butterflies and people’s souls. Or about a lot of the superstitions that Robin’s Uncle Ethan has spoon fed her over the years. But the synchronized dreams that Alex and Robin share are my favorite parts of the book. The way the dreams flow and incorporate what happened to them that day plus the anachronistic touches such as historical western gambler Alex passing Robin’s abandoned Honda Civic as he rides his black stallion to her rescue or the town saloon suddenly having a jukebox which then plays Willie Nelson’s “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” as Robin appears in the doorway are hilarious.

The slowly developing relationship between Robin and Alex is sweet as he helps save her roses from black spot after which she introduces him to the fine old tradition of listening to Country and Western “cry-in-your-beer” songs, except all she has is milk which goes fine with the cookies he brings her. Heroes who bring chocolate cookies are boss. They tease each other and laugh together which always bodes well for the future. They’re also frank and honest with each other such as when Robin critiques the way Alex ended his relationship with his fiancee before she opens up and tells him the real reason she’s housebound. Then comes the sex which is also open, honest and unabashed in the way they enjoy being together. I laughed my ass off when they both put their glasses back on in order to be able to openly admire each other once the clothes were on the floor.

What will stick with me about Robin and Alex is neatly summed up in this passage from the book.

“…you’re probably the only woman I’ve trusted since I was a very young lad.”

“In what way?”

“I trust that you’re honest with me. That you don’t play games. That you accept me for who I am.”

I might still need to look up butterflies and souls in order to satisfy my curiosity but you’ve convinced me that Robin and Alex are meant for their HEA. B

~Jayne

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REVIEW: The Words of the Pitcher by Kei Swanson

Jayne — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 09:00:25 +0000

“When the Cleveland Chiefs baseball team signs Kentaro Ikuta as their new star pitcher, they are faced with a man unable to speak English and a media frenzy clamoring for his words. Management turns to the renown linguistics department of Case Western Reserve University for help. Doctoral candidate Claire Ferris is chosen to act as interpreter and English teacher for Kentaro and finds herself suddenly thrown into the glaring fast-paced world of Major League Baseball.”

Dear Ms. Swanson,

Frequent readers here know that I like to seek out the unusual whether in settings, place or characters. In a recent article here, Jane provided us with a luscious photo of Asian mantitty and in the comments, people lamented the lack of Asian characters in books and suggested other phwoar-worthy subjects. One of the posters mentioned your book and I decided to track down a copy.

The first thing I noticed is that the team the story uses has been renamed the Cleveland Chiefs. I assume you did that to get around MLB restrictions or some such even though Chief Wahoo is mentioned. The team is in the correct League and during the season plays other teams in the American League and, when they make the World Series, play a team from the National League. You have Claire down at spring training with the team and go a bit into that and some of the regular season stuff before the playoffs arrive.

There’s some – to me – slightly wonky stuff then such as when Kentaro injures his pitching hand and no team trainer much less doctor even appears to take a look at it before Claire zips him off to her manicurist to repair the completely split nail or Claire questions the pitching coach about why Kentaro isn’t playing one evening and when said coach reminds Kentaro he’s pitching that night in the final Series game. Would he not know which games he’s to play? Would a coach not get pissed at Claire questioning his decisions? And wouldn’t a major league team have a doctor on staff to look after their star pitcher? I would think so but then I know very little about baseball. Still, you appear to get most things correct so far as I can tell which might make some readers very happy if this is of major interest to them.

As for the romance….I love seeing an Asian hero in a contemporary story. Hell, any period story for that matter. But for the first half of the story, I didn’t get much of a feel for Kentaro. Here he’s in a foreign country, learning a foreign language and I learn nothing about how he feels about this. What does he like about Cleveland, about the people, about his team mates and is playing US baseball living up to his childhood dream? But also what does he miss about Japan, what foods does he crave, what or who does he long to see? I’d have like some insights about this. The story starts with mainly Claire’s point of view and for a little while I was afraid the book would remain there but even in the scenes from Kentaro’s POV, the man remains an enigma for a long while.

On the other hand, there’s a lot about and centering on Claire. Claire does a good job as an interpreter and by the end of the story she’s got Kentaro up to speed with his English language skills but Claire can also snap at people and be a little whiny at times though when Kentaro jerks her around romantically, I can understand her anger. It takes them a while to get past Kentaro’s natural reserve but once they’re a couple, it’s hot sex – though please, no more “forested lips” in the purple prose department – all around. That is until an arranged marriage rears its ugly head and, as I referred to earlier, Kentaro won’t either break the engagement nor give up Claire. When his Japanese American agent finally urges Kentaro to grow a pair and fix the situation, he finally – finally! – does so but not before hurting everyone. And why does his Japanese fiancee have to be presented in so negative a manner? She morphs from sweet childhood friend to clingy, sycophant just when the plot demands it. The break ups and make ups tried my patience as well as Claire’s.

I have to reluctantly say that the writing style feels a little clunky and stilted at times when neither Claire nor Kentaro uses any contractions in their speech. I could see Kentaro not doing so but Claire? I do applaud your decision to only sprinkle a bare minimum of Japanese through the text and merely indicate which language Claire and Kentaro are speaking then present it in English.

I’m glad someone mentioned the book and also that I gave it a try. Kudos to you for writing it in the first place and then pursuing what it took to get it into print. Though parts of it didn’t work well for me, maybe others will find it exactly what they’re hoping for.

~Jayne

NOTE: This is an older book (I believe from 2000) so I don’t think there’s an ebook version.

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REVIEW: Rules of the Game by Sandy James

Jayne — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:00:43 +0000

“Kathryn West has it all–she’s a confident, bestselling author living it up in New York City. Too bad she doesn’t actually exist, and is only timid Maddie Sawyer’s pseudonym. Determined to attend her high school reunion with a man right out of one of her racy romance novels, she plots to find a sexy bad boy who’s up to Kathryn’s standards.

She finds Mr. Perfect shooting pool in a biker bar. He’s a blue-collar hunk who just happens to look great in leather. But the mysterious Scott Brady has some rules of his own: he won’t agree to her deal unless she poses as his girlfriend in front of his family and friends first.

As the reunion nears, Maddie tries to maintain her carefree façade, knowing she’ll soon face some old ghosts. She’s torn between her growing attraction to Scott and the nagging feeling that he’s hiding something important. Will she still want him when she finds out his secret? What about when he discovers hers?”

Dear Ms James,

I was interested in this book for a couple of reasons. First it sounded like it could be cute fun. Also, it seemed like Maddie had made the break from Small Hometown to Big City and was lovin’ it. Yeah, and the bad boy too. But….but…but…

For first 60 pages – where’s the conflict? Maddie and Scott seem to fall into insta-love. He’s freaken perfect – handsome, rugged, loves her pets, plays well with others, looks hot, has manners, loves and raised his siblings, is willing to delay sexual gratification, has endless patience teaching Maddie to drive his beloved “still in restoration” car (a 1967 Mustang so I know this guy is serious about her) and speaks in grammatically correct sentences.. what’s not to love? Clone this man and make a fortune. But where’s the conflict aside from Maddie wondering what he does to earn a living?

Then, I wanted conflict and, suddenly! I got it. Tons of it dropped on my head and Scott’s. First Maddie’s skeleton-in-the-form-of-an-asshole high school attacker appears in the picture and then – an even bigger bombshell – the result of that attack. Now I’m swimming in all the conflict and, once again, Scott is almost too good to be true. Sure I’d love a guy like this if I were in Maddie’s shoes right now but Scott is almost eerily perfect, close to robotically so. His only faults are snoring too loudly and (initially) his profession. Yeah, he sounds great on paper but that’s just it – he doesn’t sound real. Even unconditional love givers have a few faults. He even says “I love you” first. What a guy.

I’m not sure it makes sense to me that Maddie is so anxious to go to her class reunion that she goes to the trouble of finding a stand-in bad boy boyfriend and then that she’s having a near panic attack at the thought of going and then almost has one when she gets there and sees the instigator of her teenage trauma. Why go back at all? Yet the next night she confronts this person with righteous anger. Too fast a turn around for someone with her emotional baggage? The way she eventually deals with him and gets him out of her life is smart fast thinking. You do mention that it took Maddie a long time to allow physical intimacy in her life which makes sense given what happened to her.

At one point Maddie says of herself that “You’re a fucking idiot.” Yep, that about covers it. Maddie truly is a heroine who has a ton of growth to go through before getting her HEA. On the one hand, I applaud your skill in making her such a fuck-up who needs to change and grow. On the other hand, there were plenty of places in the story were I wanted to smack her or shake her or both. Scott truly is a forgiving man. I can forgive his, almost, lone comment to Maddie to “Grow up.” Maddie’s primary reaction to conflict or trouble is to run. She runs from Craig, she runs from Eli, she turns off her phone and basically runs from her mother’s calls and then later on she runs from Scott’s calls. Maddie does a runner a lot of times. And she finally admits to herself that her relocation to NYC years ago was running from her old life. I think, I hope, that by the end of the book, she’s realized this trait and has fixed it.

Maddie’s loathing of defense lawyers might sound extreme but – given how important her brother was to her, and that he was killed when she was at a very impressionable age and that she’s nurtured this feeling for years, I can understand it. But, yes there always has to be one with me, hasn’t she encountered other lawyers over the years to tone down her anger? Even if they’re not defense lawyers…

The way Maddie ultimately bonds with Eli is in keeping with their mutual interest in art and being creative. Maddie’s confusion over how to deal with Eli suddenly being in her life seems realistic for someone who hasn’t seen him in years and has to learn how to relate. Eli ends up playing a pivotal role in getting Maddie to reassess how she feels about what Scott does and begin to see the shades of gray in life.

Maddie starts out wanting to be her pen name alter ego Kathryn West – from the blurb, I had imagined this would be a more slapstick type book but after Maddie’s initial quest for a bad boy to go with her to the reunion, the whole West thing was dropped until almost the end of the book where it does figure into Maddie’s change. Still, for it being so prominent a part of the book description – why the drop for so long? I began the book thinking I was getting mainly lighthearted and flirty fun. Turns out there’s a bunch more angst which is okay but required a mental readjustment from me as things got more involved. In the end, Maddie does seem like she’s on the road to getting over her past and welcoming her future. But I just wish that I could believe that her Mr. Perfect wasn’t a life sized Ken doll. C

~Jayne

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REVIEW: Everything You’ve Got by Erin Nicholas

Dabney — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:00:22 +0000

Dear Ms. Nicholas,

Perhaps I wasn’t the best choice to review your latest novel Everything You’ve Got. I’m married to a physician and have worked in and around the medical field for most of my adult life. Your heroine, twenty-seven (I think) year old Dr. Kat Dayton, struck me as unbelievably immature and the problems she faces in her medical practice seem to be in large part of her own making. For most of the book, she annoyed the hell out of me and I couldn’t see why your hero, the literally heroic Luke Hamilton, put up with her.

Kat and Luke have both grown up in the small town of Justice, Nebraska. Everything You’ve Got is the second book in the series Anything and Everything. I didn’t read the first book, Anything You Want, in which Luke and Kat are introduced, but that wasn’t a problem for me. Their back-story is clearly explained in Everything You’ve Got. Kat has been hung up on Luke for years but he spent most of that time stuck on the heroine of Anything You Want, Sabrina. Sabrina is now happily married to Luke’s best friend Marc and Luke has realized the woman he really loves is Kat. The two share a highly charged kiss involving handcuffs the night of Luke’s birthday party and immediately become a couple. As Luke says to Marc after he walks in on the two of them making out madly,

“And we’re both about to have a love life.”

“You’re getting a girlfriend?” Marc asked with a smirk.

“Yep. Terrific gal. You’ll love her,” Luke said.

“And Kat’s getting a boyfriend?”

“Guy who’s crazy about her.” Marc chuckled and Kat rolled her eyes as she took Luke’s hand. “Let’s go. Dining room.” Luke sighed and followed her into what could only be his surprise birthday party.

Kat’s never had a really serious relationship with any man although she’s had many a fling. Not only has she been crushing on Luke for years, Kat has serious intimacy issues. For years, Kat has kept the world at bay with her kick-ass attitude and her physical presentation.

She knew that most people saw her as a tough, confident, no-bullshit kind of woman. And that was absolutely the image she worked to project. Most of the time it was easy and most of the time it made her feel that way. But there were days like this, when even the boots, the makeup, the piercings and body paint didn’t make her feel tough.

It had always fascinated her how outward appearance colored the way people perceived things. She’d chosen her battle armor back in junior high. She changed the color of her hair and the body jewelry and paint she used, but her general look was the same— don’t mess with me.

It had worked like a dream in junior high and high school to keep the mean girls away and the cocky boys at arm’s length. A guy had to really want to get close to make a move. She admired those that tried.

The look had followed her to college and even med school. She was very comfortable with it by then and liked seeing how people responded to her. Some avoided her, feeling intimidated, some labeled her a rebel, some a bad-ass slut.

Some found her intriguing, some figured she was just trying to be odd, still others assumed she was disturbed and felt sorry for her….

She was more than a little fascinated by the whole thing. She’d grown up in small-town Nebraska, so she knew she was an anomaly. After all, it was completely on purpose.

No one knew that behind closed doors she preferred baggy sweats, no makeup and that nothing was pierced or painted anywhere others couldn’t see it.

It was armor, a costume, a Spiderman suit for the Peter Parker that lurked inside her—awkward, unsure, and breakable.

Kat thinks maybe she could let Luke in, but then, something bad happens. As she’s admiring her new boyfriend’s butt at his surprise party, her phone rings. A patient Kat saw in clinic earlier in the day—he came in complaining of arm weakness and a headache after working in the yard—whom she then sent home has just had a massive stroke and is unconscious. Kat realizes she misdiagnosed him—his symptoms were those of someone who had a mild stroke. Kat begins to freak out. Had she realized that Tom, the patient, had a stroke, she would have sent him to the hospital for testing and treatment which then, possibly, might have prevented the huge stroke he subsequently had. Kat doesn’t tell Luke about the issue that night nor does she tell him about the discussion she has with the senior partner in her medical practice who, the next day, essentially forces her to take a leave of absence, and begins the process of forcing her to quit practicing in Justice.

In the meantime, Luke, who always has a plan, decides what he and Kat need to do to take their relationship to the “we’re getting married and having six babies” stage is to kidnap her and take her on a trip in an RV to Nashville—it’s a favor, in part, for Sabrina, a musician, who will be performing in Nashville and needs the RV there, but is pregnant and wants to fly rather than drive. So, Luke handcuffs Kat and off the two go—Kat with her secret career problems and intimacy issues, Luke with the conviction she’s perfect for him and everything’s going to be great.

So many things are wrong with this set up—it’s hard to know where to begin. Let’s start with Kat and the way she presents herself. She’s supposedly brilliant and wants nothing more than to treat the small town patients she sees at the clinic. And yet she never thinks that her appearance might make some uncomfortable with her as their physician. She wears black leather skimpy clothes, pierces her face, covers her body with wild body paint and still wants to be seen as a trust-worthy family practitioner in a small town in Nebraska—the 11th most conservative state in the country. Where I live, in a liberal part of North Carolina, most of the hospitals and medical practices don’t allow their medical employees to have visible tattoos or any visible body piercings other than ears. One can argue this is dumb, archaic, and based on an irrational premise—people who are tattooed and pierced aren’t as trustworthy as those who aren’t—but the bias in patients and medical administrators is real and it seemed ridiculous to me that Kat didn’t appear to give it any thought.

Then there’s the misdiagnosis. Kat is a young practitioner—she’s been licensed for less than a year. And it’s true the patient presented with symptoms consistent with a possible minor stroke. But, the misdiagnosis Kat makes is a common one, and it seems unlikely, had she correctly diagnosed the patient earlier in the day, that diagnosis would have prevented him from having a massive stroke less than twelve hours after she saw him in the clinic. Furthermore, if every time a physician made a misdiagnosis or didn’t catch a problem, she were immediately put on leave, we’d have very few working doctors in this country. It made no sense Kat was not allowed to continue to practice and even less sense that she, who is known for being both a medical whiz and a strong woman, would have allowed herself to be professionally treated in this way. This is a woman who has been to four years of college, four years of medical school and, probably, three years of residency. She’s spent years and—although it’s never mentioned—money to become a doctor. One bad call and she’s on the run, terrified she’ll never be able to hold her head up in Justice again, worried she’ll be ruined in a malpractice suit (unlikely given the circumstances), and, in general, overwhelmingly awash in anxious self-pity.

Luke, who knows none of this, kidnaps her—her office tells him it’s fine because she’s due for some vacation—and Kat goes with him, running away (for most of the book) from the nasty senior partner threatening her professional life. Kat, while on the road with Luke, when she’s not freaking about her awful horrible no-good mistake, is freaking out about having Luke see her without her makeup and body paint. She hasn’t let anyone—anyone!—see her without makeup or body paint since she was in ninth grade. She doesn’t normally take off her clothes when she has sex. And now, she’s stuck in an RV for days with a man who says he wants to marry her and she’s terrified to show him the real her. So, she spends her time alternately trying to get in his pants or panicking her life is going to fall to ruins. One page she thinks she loves him and he can be trusted; the next she’s sure he’ll leave her when he finds out the people of Justice will all think she’s fatally flawed. She’s so all over the map emotionally, I found it hard to either like her or make sense of her feelings.

Luke is also a cipher. He was apparently in love with Sabrina, or thought he was in love with Sabrina, for years. After she hooked up with Marc, Luke realized he just wanted to take care of Sabrina because he’s the kind of guy who wants to take care of everyone and everything. I don’t know why he loves Kat initially—he has a hero complex and she, on the surface, comes across as someone who doesn’t want anyone to be her savior. Then, as the two travel and she opens up to him, he sees she is a far more complex person than he thought and he begins to feel hurt she isn’t offering him much more than just her body. Luke also, unlike Kat, fits in beautifully in Justice. He runs a restaurant there he loves, he’s involved with the community, someday he’d like to be mayor. His dream is to marry Kat, have tons of kids, grow old in Justice, and be the most loved guy in town. He can’t seem to see Kat might not be the right person for that specific future and Kat, who is sure she is not, in the wake of her medical practice problems, that person, punishes them both for this disconnect. It’s an annoying version of the “I love you but I can’t be with you because I’m wrong for you” thesis and, by the middle of the novel, I wanted them to both start seeing other people—in Kat’s case, I hoped it would be a good shrink.

Finally, in the middle of the book, Kat comes clean to Luke in more ways than one. She allows him see her “naked,” tells him about her professional problems, and lets him go down on her. (She’s only ever let anyone do this to her once before—it makes her feel too vulnerable.) And, at this point, I had hopes the two might begin to resolve their issues constructively. My hopes were dashed. I disliked the way this story resolved itself. Kat never really stands up for herself in Justice and Luke, in order to have Kat, not only puts up with way too much crap from her, but gives up almost everything he cares about. The ending is written as though it is a happy, even blissful, one but I didn’t by it. I wanted to say, especially to Luke, (stealing the words of the great country music songstress Kathy Mattea), “Darlin’, you’re not dreamin’ big enough if that’s what you call love.”

The book is dedicated to “to anyone who’s ever been bullied or made to feel like you’re less than you are.” (Is there anyone who hasn’t, at some point in their life, been made to feel less than they think they are? And is that necessarily a bad thing? There’s a reason the ancients were obsessed with hubris and that the ability to succeed is closely tied with the ability to fail.) It’s clear the message of the book is we should all accept everyone on his or her own terms, not judge others by their appearance, or try and force people to fit into limiting social expectations. And yet, in her own way, Kat has a very difficult time not doing just those things. She’s judgmental, struggles to compromise, and needs to control how others see her. She sees the people of Justice as less than they turn out to be and she, one could argue, bullies Luke into a relationship based far more on her needs than his. I have a hard time with pat morality inherently—I had an even harder time with it in this book given the actions of the heroine.

I did like the writing in the book. The sex scenes are pretty hot and parts of the novel are funny. Anyone who has ever waited in a doctor’s office has to smile at this passage:

An hour and forty minutes later, Luke was sitting in the waiting room of the Alliance Medical Partners clinic flipping through a Cosmo magazine from 2009. Still, he couldn’t argue with the seven ways to seduce a man outdoors and the position-by-position guide to “The Best Sex of Your Life” seemed timeless.

But, overall, Everything You’ve Got did not work for me. I give it a C-.

Dabney

REVIEW: Love is a Battlefield by Tamara Morgan

Jayne — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:00:20 +0000

Dear Ms. Morgan,

Though I’ve made the decision not to read any more Jane Austen fanfic – um, I mean homages to JA extending the lives of the characters she created, I couldn’t pass up this book which not really about any of the books JA wrote but rather about a reenactment society dedicated to those books and the world of JA. Nah, not really, in fact it’s about one of the members of that group who goes toe to toe with a hero dedicated to all things manly and Scottish. Kudos to you for managing to combine two of the most beloved tropes in RomanceLand.

Kate Simmons might be a modern day bookstore manager but within her beats the heart of a woman in love with the romance and gentility of the books of Jane Austen. She’s also a dedicated member of the Jane Austen Regency Reenactment Society (JARRS) and has been put in charge of this year’s annual Fauxhall Gardens gala which they plan to hold on August 16th to celebrate the birthday of Georgette Heyer. Everything is spiffy except for finding a location near Spokane to host the event. So far, all the spots are either littered with discarded addict needles or far beyond the modest means of the JARRS. That is until Kate learns about a piece of public land that could be perfect. The only problem is it’s already been staked out by another group.

Julian Wallace might sound like he’s got a Scottish name but actually he’s part Asian/part Caucasian. He does brood nicely and looks damn fine in a kilt which he proudly dons while participating in the lifestyle introduced to him by his stepfather – the Scottish Highland Games. Julian competes in the hammer throw and this year is the year he plans on two things happening. The first is to take back the record once held by his stepfather which was wrested away by a rich knave named Duke Kilroy. The second is to secure a sponsorship from a whiskey distillery which would allow Julian to pay his expenses in this sport and also help support his mother and sisters. And no prissy group of women – regardless of how cute he thinks Kate is – who want to hold a glorified tea party on the same spot on the same weekend are going to get in his way.

So, there are two groups who both need the same land at the same time and two organizers who both have reasons very important to them to secure said land. Let the games begin.

The introduction of the main characters of Kate and Julian show, in a nutshell, exactly who they are and what is important to them at this time. Kate loves the JARRS, though she realizes that not everyone does. She dragged her best friend Jada to a ball and regrets it. Though Kate does laugh at the way Jada spices up the evening even if it causes some of the older ladies to swoon – and not in a good way. Julian is almost fanatically devoted throwing the hammer and being manly as he imagines the great Scottish warriors of olde were. But both are immediately attracted to the other and adult enough to try to work out a compromise over some drinks at a local martini bar only to discover that by “compromise” Julian and Kate each fondly imagine the other will give in.

Only this time, for almost the first time in her life, Kate discovers in herself an overwhelming desire to win. She’s been the good little girl, the easy girlfriend, the one who’s always given up or given in to the demands of others but damn it, not this time. So Julian wants to play rough does he? She’ll show him and everyone else that she’s got what it takes. For his part, Julian hopes that a bit of intimidation will send Kate and the JARRS running. After all, the Scots are better than the English any day. To his surprise, and a little bit to his delight, Kate doesn’t dissolve into tears at the roadblocks he puts in her path. No, Kate gets mad. And then she gets even.

I found that I enjoyed Kate’s various plots to get her revenge and wish that the results of one of them had figured more prominently in the scenes of the actual Games. Highland warriors in kilts plus Drag Queens would have been hysterically funny. Julian’s efforts to beat Kate made me just the slightest bit twitchy. You keep saying that his mother taught him to treat women better than that and Julian himself is uneasy but it seems that his efforts to beat Kate are a touch more mean spirited. Good for Kate that she never buckles. I also like how her friends are willing to pitch in and help her just as Julian’s are there for him. And if the two groups have fun in a hot tub while each trying to stake out the park, well no harm – no foul. The solution that Kate discovers and devises is ingenious and the scenes of how it plays out are some of my favorite in the book. The inclusion of dampening the women’s dresses is brilliant.

What do I think of the flow and resolution of the romance? I like it. You show Kate and Julian beginning to soften towards each other as a progression of them learning more about the other rather than a sudden thunderbolt of lurve. Though they start their relationship as seeming opposites, both discover how suited they are for the other and when they finally do compromise, it feels more even handed and something done for love rather than one or the other giving in.

One thing that I did get tired of is the repetition of Julian’s “Me Great Scottish Warrior. Have pair the size of grapefruits.” chest beating and testosterone oozing. Kate jokes that she almost believes Julian would whip it out and start peeing on the park grounds to stake his claim and I don’t think she’s too far off. I think Julian’s watched “Braveheart” a few too many times.

Still I finished the book with the feeling that Kate has a kilt in her future – and will be happy about that – and that Julian is going to end up cheerfully wearing his pantaloons and cravat to future JARRS events. And that’s why I read romance novels.

~Jayne

REVIEW: About That Night by Julie James

Jayne — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:00:34 +0000

Dear Ms. James,

There’s no easy way to say this so I guess I’ll just come right out and get it over with. The bloom is off the rose. The last second basket rattled off the rim. I don’t love this book the way I’ve loved some of your other books. That hurt me to say it but … well the review will tell.

Relaxing with her friends in a bar after finals are over for their first year in law school, Rylann Pierce is laughing and having a good time. So she doesn’t shoot down the guy who tries to chat her up when she goes to the bar for the next round of drinks. He’s so cute that he just has to be one of those “he knows he’s so cute” kind of guys. But when her friend Rae quickly arranges the exit strategy so that Rylann is stuck alone and Kyle Rhodes steps up to escort her home, she discovers he’s much more than a gorgeous guy and son of a billionaire. But fate intervenes and they miss the planned date the next night thus going their separate ways.

Flash ahead nine years and Rylann is moving back to Chicago following the breakup of a relationship. She’s the newest AUSA in the district which means she opens cans of whoop-ass in Federal cases while working closely with, among others, the FBI, ATF, and Secret Service. Yeah, she’s a Bad Ass Prosecutor. And as an easy opening case that’ll let her get her feet wet, her boss Cameron hands her the plea agreement already worked out with Kyle Rhodes – aka the Twitter Terrorist. No, Rylann never expected to be handed a file folder with “United States v. Kyle Rhodes” on it. Not exactly a meet-again-cute.

Kyle Rhodes arrives in court expecting to see the asshole AUSA who’d railroaded him and called him a cyber terrorist. Yeah, what he did was stupid but when a guy is publicly dumped by his girlfriend in under 144 characters on twitter and then she posts a video of herself frolicking with a movie star, a man might feel the need to resort to some whisky which in turns fuels a dumb hack attack on twitter that shut it down for 48 hours. He eventually sobered up and headed back to face the music and would still be facing another 14 months of it behind bars except for the deal struck for his sister’s help in cracking another FBI case. Imagine his surprise when it’s Rylann Pierce who finalizes his release.

Well, Kyle gets his life back but is ready to act prickly when Rylann contacts him for help about something that went on when he was behind bars for 4 months. Still, he steps up, doing the right thing and finding himself strangely attracted to Rylann as she gets all lawyerly during the Grand Jury hearing. He also decides he wants to discover exactly what she looks like under all her sexy, power suits. So….they date. She does lawyer stuff. And he gets a new business venture started. And they have hot sex. And a few disagreements. And….work things out. The end. Wow.

There is plenty of your trade mark bantering here and I loved it. There’s great best friend dialogue between Rae and Rylann. Rylann exchanges quips with her fellow AUSAs and the tough men in suits she works with as they work to bring down bad guys. Kyle and his sister’s love interest, Nick, do the manly guy sports trash talking. Rylann and Kyle have great interactions even before they get to a bed. This stuff is wonderful. Also, the sex between Kyle and Rylann is smoking.

You do a great job explaining what goes into Rylann’s job. How hard she works, the things she’s up against in her quest as one “who prosecutes on behalf of justice.” I actually liked this part a lot which is saying something because most of the time we see her outside of court and handling paperwork is usually not exactly riveting. Though it is cool to see her go all lawyer on people. Jane does that sometimes at DA when people think they’re going to intimidate us when we post things they don’t like and I always squee and say, “Go, Jane!” Ahem… I have to admit that the parts showing Kyle setting up what he’s going to do are…not so interesting. Actually kind of draggy and skimable. Then there was the weird flashback to what happened to break up their date nine years ago and in the ensuing months after. And that dragged too. And parts got skimmed.

They finally have the talk and work things out but….as I sat reading the book, the unease I had finally crystallized. There’s really very little conflict here between Rylann and Kyle. Perhaps to lawyers, the fact that an Assistant US Attorney is dating an ex-con whom her office prosecuted is a big deal but to a non-lawyer like me, not so much. Maybe it seems like it’s coming close to a line but they never cross over it, nothing is illegal and for me the Klaxon bells and WARNING, WARNING alarms never truly sounded. Even a last minute misunderstanding seemed more made up than anything to worry about.

So, it’s a book with fun and funny dialogue, with two Beautiful People who have great sex as they fall in love and overcome a few tiny speed bumps along their road to happiness. But not much conflict or reason to get my panties in a wad as I wonder how they’re going to finally reach their HEA. C+

~Jayne

REVIEW: More Than One Night by Sarah Mayberry

Dabney — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:00:12 +0000

Dear Ms. Mayberry,

It’s always a delight to read your books. Your characters are interesting, multifaceted, (reasonably) ordinary men and women; your plots are touching without being tawdry; your love stories convincing and sexy. More Than One Night isn’t my favorite of your books—I had trouble with the heroine—but was an enjoyable novel and one I’d recommend to any contemporary romance reader.

Charlie (Charlotte) Long, is at 32, out of the Australian army after fourteen years, and ready to begin the rest of her life. On her first night of “freedom,” she and her friend Gina open a bottle of champagne and Gina toasts Charlie, saying,

“To the rest of your life. To having a home that’s all yours. To meeting a guy who doesn’t know how to field strip a Steyr F88 rifle and who isn’t going to ship out when things start getting good. And to never, ever having to wear khaki again.”

Gina’s been out of the army for a couple of years, has a good job, a sweet little house—Charlie is staying in her spare room—and loves civilian life. Charlie too is happy to move on and yet she’s anxious.

“She’d die before she admitted it to anyone, but rather than being excited by all the choices and possibilities that lay ahead of her, she was feeling more than a little overwhelmed.”

She’s got a nice place to live, she’s building up a business as a web designer, she has a fabulous friend—we all need a Gina in our lives–, but she’s quietly terrified. She tells herself

Stop freaking out. You can do this. How hard can it be? You find an apartment. You buy some furniture. You start a life. It’s not rocket science.

It only felt like it.

Charlie, despite having been a very successful communications engineer with the Royal Australia Corps of Sigs, doesn’t have a lot of confidence. Oh she knows there are things she does well—she’s organized, intelligent, and ethical—but she sees herself as ordinary, plain old Charlie. And when I say plain, I mean unattractive, unsexy, and, in general, uninteresting to men. She’s never been in love, most of her sexual encounters have been awkward, her mirror is not her friend. Gina’s told her she’s crazy, that Charlie is lovely. But Charlie can’t believe it—really, Charlie won’t believe it. She’s sure she’s, to use a phrase from my grandmother, not much to look at.

On Charlie’s first night back, Gina gets the chance to prove Charlie wrong. Charlie and Gina have made plans to go to one of Sydney’s hottest restaurants but Charlie, whose luggage is missing, has none of her own clothes to wear. Gina talks Charlie into borrowing an outfit of Gina’s—a mesh halter and a pair of skin-tight stretch satin black pants. Charlie squeezes into the outfit, puts on some sexy makeup, and, once at the bar, is astonished to see guy after guy checking her out. She’s so stunned, in fact, she stumbles down a stair and spills a glass of red wine all over the white-shirted chest of an absolutely gorgeous guy. When she tries to apologize, he–Rhys Walker–tells her if she lets him buy her a drink, he’ll call it even. She can barely believe this beautiful man is flirting with her—which he very clearly is—and, after finishing her meal with Gina, Charlie decides to go for it. Usually Charlie listens to the voice in her head that tells her she’s just good, old, plain Charlie.

The voice was probably right. It had saved her from making a lot of bad decisions in her life, that voice. But she didn’t want to listen tonight. She wanted more of the feeling she’d experienced when she’d caught Rhys tracking her every move with his dark, heated gaze. For that precious handful of seconds she had felt powerful and knowing and invincible and incredibly sexy.

It might be an illusion—maybe even a delusion—but she wanted more of it. Even if it meant she was setting herself up to fail spectacularly.

Charlie finds Rhys, who has spent the evening praying the gorgeous woman who dumped wine on him will reappear, and, after a few more drinks, conversation, and the obliging exit of Gina, Rhys takes Charlie to his apartment where the two have a night of incredible sex. For Charlie, it’s unlike anything she’s ever experienced.

He started to move, and within seconds she’d found his rhythm. Every clumsy sexual encounter she’d ever had, every second of self-consciousness over her body or her own needs, every doubt she’d ever experienced went out the window as she gave herself over to the moment.

Rhys too is astonished by how sizzling they are together. The two make love three times—using a condom each time—and fall asleep in one another’s arms. The sun comes up, Charlie arises, sees how gorgeous Rhys is as he sleeps, checks out her own—to her—unlovely visage in his bathroom mirror and bolts, leaving him a short note and a hundred bucks to pay for his shirt.

This action on her part—and the attitude behind it–made me crazy. And, unfortunately, it fuels the story that unfolds after that splendiferous night. Eight weeks later, Charlie’s found her own place, her work is going well, and civilian life is working out for her. The only downside of her life is that she spends a little too much time wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t bailed on Rhys. At least that’s the only downside until she realizes—when Gina asks her why she doesn’t have a tampon Gina can borrow—she hasn’t had a period for almost three months. She buys a kit, pees on the stick, and is terrified to realize the condoms failed and she, careful, disciplined Charlie, is pregnant from a night of smokin’ sex with a total stranger. After giving an abortion some very real thought, Charlie decides to keep the baby. She tracks down Rhys, tells him he’s going to be a dad, and, the two begin a “we just spend time together because we are going to have a baby together” relationship.

Rhys, who is a likable perfect hero—I think these are rare– is wonderful after his initial shock at Charlie’s news. Rhys is like Gina—I can’t imagine the woman who wouldn’t want him in her life. He’s gorgeous, funny, sensitive, sexy, compassionate, and—this is how you know he’s almost too good to be true—a great listener. As he goes with Charlie to her doctors’ appointments, has lunch with her, takes walks with her, he’s struck again and again by how much he likes her and is attracted to her. Sure, she’s not the sex-goddess he met at the bar:

“Looking at her now, it was almost impossible to believe that it had been the same woman. Not that she wasn’t attractive and sexy in a far more subtle way in her current outfit, but there was definitely a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on as far as her appearance went.”

He, like Charlie, wonders what would have happened between the two if she hadn’t run out on him that morning. Rhys comes from a large, close, argumentative, loving family. All of his siblings are married and Rhys would like to be too. He’s excited about the baby, his family loves Charlie, and, when he’s with her, he feels a pull of desire he’s sure she shares. And so, he makes the occasional, very subtle overture and, every time, gets shut down. Why? Because Charlie’s so freaking hung on hers and his looks. He’s gorgeous, she’s not. Girls like her don’t belong with guys like him. By the last third of the book, Charlie was seriously ticking me off. As Gina asks, at the very least, “You don’t think being attracted to the father of your baby would be making the best of a bad situation?”

What bothered me even more though, than Charlie’s “we can’t be together because you are a golden god and I’m not” is that Charlie’s issues about her looks aren’t really about her looks. They’re really about her childhood and the lack of love she received from her inattentive, impossible to please, recently dead father. Charlie’s mother died giving birth to Charlie and, no matter what Charlie did—including joining the army—her father never gave Charlie his approval or his affection. Charlie, despite Gina’s friendship, despite Rhys’ care, doesn’t believe she deserves relational happiness. She’s sure she’ll always be alone and were she to let down her defenses and give her heart away, it would be returned to her unwanted and broken. This psychological problem has resonance—Charlie whinging that’s she’s not hot enough to hold onto a hunk like Rhys does not. And the former—Charlie feeling undeserving of love—doesn’t easily explain her issues about her looks. It didn’t work for me that Charlie’s fear of rejection played itself out in her insistence, despite input from people she cares for and respects, that she’s incapable of being physically attractive.

It’s a flaw in the book and one that irked me greatly. But, so much else about the book is wonderful, I forgave the flaw. I prized so much about More Than One Night. I adored that Charlie was in the military and speaks at length about her experiences there. It was a wondrous thing to read a book where the unmarried, working heroine gives abortion some serious thought. Charlie’s and Gina’s friendship is not only a great one, it feels vibrantly true. The love scenes are wonderfully sexy. Rhys’s family is also beautifully portrayed. He and his siblings have issues—Rhys is the successful capitalist in a family of do-good liberals—and they argue in ways that ring absolutely true. I loved the Walkers, loved their argumentative dinners, loved their nosy prying into Rhys’ life. They, like all the other characters in this book, are written as wonderfully real. They talk about their kids, their jobs, whose turn it is to take out the trash—you have such a knack for writing the everyday life.

I venerate the way you write. Your prose is fluid, descriptive, and insightful. When Rhys decides he believes Charlie when she tells him she’s sure it’s his baby, he thinks,

He believed her. He didn’t know why—he didn’t know her from a bar of soap—but he believed she was speaking the truth.

This phrase—“he didn’t know her from a bar of soap”—is perfect and, like so many of your sentences, gets the point across with clarity and innovative but simple imagery. Writing clean, crisp, engaging prose is not an easy thing to do and you, in book after book, do it splendidly. Thank you.

I think perhaps the best thing about More Than One Night is that Charlie does, on her own, take a leap of faith. She decides she’s more than plain, old Charlie. She makes a sad peace with the legacy from her father and decides to live her life on her terms, not his. By the book’s end, Charlie’s happiness is hers, hard-won and true. Seeing her trust herself was lovely. I finished the book, thinking, yet again, how much I enjoy your books.

This enjoyable–not perfect, but enjoyable–book gets a B/B+ from me.

Sincerely,

Dabney

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REVIEW: Choose Me, Have Me, Want Me by Jo Leigh

Jane — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 19:00:23 +0000

Background

This is a connected three book series written by Jo Leigh and published by Blaze. They all center around trading cards made up of men. The idea was thought up by Shannon Fitzgerald, an owner of a printing press. Her idea was that every woman has a man in her life with whom, for some reason, the woman did not make a connection but might make a perfect hookup for another woman. The New York Hot Guys Trading Cards contains the guy’s picture, his occupation, whether he is a marry, date or one night stand, and his secret passion.

Choose Me

The first book, Choose Me, pairs Charlie Winston and Bree Kingston together in a sort of Pygmalion retelling. This one was my least favorite of the three and I pin my inability to connect based on the characters. Charlie Winslow is a celebrity blogger who owns a blogging empire. I immediately thought Nick Denton, the head of the Gawker Media empire. Denton, however, is gay (and frankly maybe I could have accepted this story a bit better if Charlie had been gay) but Charlie and Bree are all about the pursuit of the best party, the most fashionable looks, the best seats at Fashion Week. Charlie finds himself attracted to Bree because she’s everything that New Yorkers are not: excited, gamine, easily entertained. Bree is attracted to Charlie because he epitomizes New Yorkers: glamorous, sanguine, sophisticated. They probably make a perfect pair but their conflict lacked interest to me. Did Charlie love the creation he made in Bree and did Bree just love Charlie for what he could give her? C

Have Me

This was my favorite in the story but primarily because I liked the characters. I don’t think the writing was stronger in Have Me than it was in Choose Me. Simply put, these characters were more relatable to me. The heroine is Rebecca Thorpe, cousin of Charlie Winslow. She’s the head of the family’s charitable organization. She’s not looking for a long term relationship but she wouldn’t mind dating. She picks up Jake Donnelly’s card. Jake is a former cop who became disabled from the job after getting shot. He’s got a bum leg and rather than take desk duty, Jake retired. He’s not sure what to do with himself and thus not interested in a long term relationship. He feels like Rebecca is slumming but he’s willing to take a chance on dating her just for fun. Jake’s feelings of uncertainty regarding his future played well into his feelings of insecurity about being with Rebecca. Rebecca doesn’t apologize for her wealth and delights in the company of Jake’s father and his father’s cop buddies. It’s a sweet story.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Want Me

The last story ran a close second in being a favorite in the series and I actually think that it was the best written of the three. It might have had the most thoughtful emotional conflict of the three. shannon Fitzgerald and Nate Brenner have been friends since kids. Nate is practically a member of her family. She puts him on a card with a One Night Stand only warning because Nate is only in New York City for a brief period of time. He’s come to wrap up the details of his inheritance after the death of his father and then he plans to return to the nearest disaster site where he offers his services as an urban planner. Shannon is struggling to keep her family printing press afloat.

I really liked the mirroring in Nate and Shannon’s situations. Nate’s family wasn’t close and he plans to sell his family’s business. Shannon’s family is tight knit but the family printing press is struggling to keep its doors open. This is a classic friends to lovers trope. Nate is wondering at his burgeoning feelings for Shannon and Shannon is struggling with the ethics of both having created the man trading cards and wanting to rip Nate’s card from the girl who picked it out of the trading card pile. B

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I think a reader could read the last two and not miss much of the overall story but who knows, maybe book 1 will strike reader’s fancies better than book 2 and 3.

REVIEW: Casting Samson by Melinda Hammond

Jayne — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:00:22 +0000

Finding your boyfriend in the shower with another woman isn’t high on Deborah Kemerton’s “best birthday presents ever” list. Her life in London shattered, she retreats to her sleepy hometown to heal her broken heart. There, she’s quickly swept up in planning a pageant to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the village church. Tasked with casting the perfect Samson, Deborah may have found her man in Josh Lancaster—onstage and off…

Fellow committee member Anne Lindsay is convinced a 12th-century crusader is buried under St. John’s. As the story goes, Hugo left for the Holy Land after his true love Maude was given in marriage to his brother. Professor Toby Duggan is equally convinced Anne is wrong, and is determined to prove it. Neither of them counts on their mutual passion for history turning into a passion for each other…

When romantic entanglements and small-town dramatics come to a head, local legend proves to be more than just a story…

Dear Ms Hammond,

A few years ago I read, and enjoyed, one of your Regency novels. At the time, I made a note that I needed to look at what else you had published. Best intentions and all that but it took until now when I saw this blurb and thought, “let’s check out a contemporary of hers.”

Debs starts out really needing some self confidence. But I can understand her as a person in a new environment who is dazzled by this gorgeous man who said he loved her. When she contemplates going back to London – though thankfully never back to Bernard – I did want to shake her a bit. She does become a little more confident as shown when she tells Bernard off at the end and gets mad at Josh when she imagines that he’s making fun of their village or leading her on. Debs approaches her growing relationship with Josh cautiously, as I would expect from anyone so publicly hurt in the recent past. I like this as she’s neither hurling herself at new person – which would have been out of character due to the way she’s been described – nor is she hiding in a shell and totally unwilling to venture into something new. The relationship she has with her father, who obviously loves her, is sweet and the backup she gets from her fellow villagers, who’ve known her all her life, shows the best of small town life. But I’m left with the question of why did Bernard want her back? The office management alone? Can they not find someone else to do this in all of London? I needed a better and personal reason to believe how badly he wants her to come back besides it being needed for the plot as a last minute wrench between Debs and Josh.

Josh is a sweetie who is affronted by Debs’ initial suggestion that he’s only kissing her on their outing because he’s a male and she’s available. Very little of the book is told from Josh’s POV – necessary, I know, to keep his intentions hidden til near the end – but what his friends say about him and his own actions show that he’s a good guy. Plus he’s a cat lover which scores big points from me. I could see Josh’s ultimate placement in the village coming from a mile away but it’s a nice tie up of the issue of what to do with the restaurant, a resolution of Kemmerton’s health issues and Deb’s future.

The second romance didn’t work quite as well for me. More background is shown for Anne than for Toby and thus I was more emotionally invested in her happiness. Toby I didn’t know so much beyond his fixation on the church issue. I can see why Anne wants to investigate and get proof but Toby starts off strident with no reason ever given beyond an academic’s interest in the outcome. Unfortunately it makes him come off as an old fart who is just a stick about it. Then, the morning after of their date is a scene straight out of romance plotting central: hot sex, the Big Mis and flouncing off in a huff followed by a quick make up. Toby just shows up and says “I’m sorry” and Anne apologizes and that’s fixed? I needed a bit more resolution here. As for the Templar Church issue, I figured that “something” would happen in order to finish off this plot thread. Yes, I could see these things coming but still it’s nicely and believably done.

The medieval part of the story is interesting and bittersweet. I’m glad that you let it play out as you did. Any other resolution would have cheapened what Hugo did and how Maude and Andrew reacted. I found it strange that since Hugo was the one who escaped and told the world what happened at the battle it wasn’t known he survived but perhaps that sort of info wasn’t recorded or got lost. As Toby said, voices dim over the centuries.

Lots of romance readers have been indicating that they’re bored with the current worship of small town life. Here it isn’t a problem for me for two reasons: London isn’t denigrated and as an American reader, getting a glimpse of the English countryside is still fun. Gammon steak and Cumberland sausage? I must investigate more about pub food. Everything about the village and its people is important to them. Bernard might think it’s all bucolic nattering about trivial things but to them, it’s central. I kind of hope this small town life isn’t lost as someone needs to care about the St John’s Churches of the world. The pageant, which is a nice coming together of the village, is hilarious and sure to go down in village lore. It also shows that, like everywhere, there are issues and simmering tensions going on as would be expected of a small place where people have grown up being in each others business.

This is more of a sweet type of romance. There is sex but it’s pretty much behind closed doors and it would fit into the genre of “Small town romance.” I found the resolution of one relationship a bit rushed but that of Josh and Deborah is not and get the feeling that they are suited and will do fine. Plus I discovered that a humbug isn’t just a saying for Christmas haters! Love it when I learn something new in a book. B-

~Jayne

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REVIEW: Autumn Bride by Melinda Hammond

REVIEW: Fever by Joan Swan

Jane — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:00:12 +0000

Dear Ms. Swan:

I had not planned to read this book. I kind of recoil from the blend of paranormal mysticism and romantic suspense. For some reason these blends don’t appeal to me even though I have read and enjoyed them in the past (Dream Man and Now You See Her by Linda Howard, for example, are favorites of mine). However, Wicked Pixie alerted me to Mandi’s review on Goodreads and that she had DNF’ed the book because of the racial slurs that peppered the story. Mandi took some grief for this review and you came in to say that the voice behind the racial slurs died just a few chapters into the book, as if the dying of the character washed away the offensiveness of the book. I was curious enough to find out for myself what would justify the use of repeated racial slurs in a contemporary genre fiction book and thus bought this book at the indecently high price of $9.99.

I recognize that by writing this review, I will be propelling sales to those who are curious, just as I was curious but I want to talk about the book and the uses of the racial slurs and thus even though I find the book troublesome and offensive, I think the inadvertent promotional benefit is worthwhile.

Teague Creek was convicted of the brutal murder of his girlfriend, a DA who was investigating a series of arsons. (Pay no attention to all the legal errors such as the DA doing the investigating that a fire cop would do. I’m not sure that this book contains even one correct legal representation). It was posited that she figured out it was her paramedic/firefighter boyfriend and he killed her to silence her. Teague breaks out of prison during a medical visit with the help of another prison, Taz, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. The two take a hostage, a woman named Alyssa Foster. Alyssa is a mix of heritages. She identifies with no particular race and the only reason that the reader knows she might have some non Caucasian blood is that she becomes the target of a variety of racial slurs from Taz. He calls her a dink immediately. The first four chapters of this book are a barrage of racial terms and racial stereotypes. Luckily for me, the book moves beyond that once Taz is dead, but for the first 80 pages or so you don’t go three pages without something offensive being slapped in front of your face. The following are the excerpts with corresponding page numbers (according to my Kindle copy). I am putting everything in a spoiler code (except for you RSS readers) because the racial slurs are so numerous and so offensive that I think that they could be considered triggers.

The sadly ironic part is that the next two hundred pages are incredibly boring. The two talk, drive, talk, eat, talk, kiss, drive, and end up at a cabin. Teague isn’t supposed to be much of a talker but the two seemed to have non stop repetitive conversations and internal monologues about how angsty their situation is.

Alyssa’s initial representation is contradictory and relies heavily on the romance reader’s assumption that all heroes are intrinsically good. In other words, Teague who has the tattoos of a member of the Aryan Brotherhood such as a swastika and other symbols of hate on his body; who hangs around with a man who uses the worst racial slurs possible; who has threatened Alyssa at every turn to do her harm; to kill a cop, a child and a woman if she doesn’t cooperate with him; who has placed in her harm’s way repeatedly; who has essentially ruined her career by helping to plant evidence that makes her look like an accomplice, is really a good guy. When Alyssa voices her physical desire for this racist murderer as she defines him, we are supposed to nod our heads at her good taste. When Alyssa doesn’t trust him and treats him with doubt, we are supposed to be chagrined at her inability to see through all the superficial bad things to the truly heroic guy underneath.

This book asks the reader to buy into the idea that Alyssa should instinctively know that all these bad things are merely acts and a true heroine would recognize the decency and humanity behind the swatiska emblazoned escaped felon/convicted murderer. About 40% in, Alyssa notes “There was a lot of good in this man, more good than she’d seen in most men.” and I couldn’t help but think that Alyssa must know really horrible men if Teague is the guy she think is better than most men.

Teague and Alyssa have a dilemma. In order for the happy ever after to occur, Teague must be exonerated from his crime; solve the mystery behind who framed him; and repair past sundered relationships. Teague wants to do none of these things and although he has no money, he is intent on doing things his way which would essentially mean life on the run for him and his child. Alyssa wants to do things a different way.

Here’s what struck me the most after thinking about this book for a while. The Aryan Brotherhood character’s dialogue is crafted with such attention to detail. Some of the slurs were so obscure to me I had to google them. Others were all to painfully familiar. This was a throwaway character who dies in Chapter 4 and then only two passing references are made to him throughout the rest of the book. Teague supposedly hooked up with Taz because Taz had outside contacts, ones that were willing to help him, but those contacts never come looking for Teague and Taz. Never. There is never any repercussions for Taz dying. He was, literally, a throwaway character one whose deletion from the book would not have affected the plot arc in any fashion. You could have replaced him with anyone and the story would have remained much the same. Additionally, it did appear that Teague had at least one friend on the outside who may have been willing to help him.

Contrast this to the legal aspect of the book. The hero is a convicted murderer. In order for a happy ever after to occur, the conviction has to go away. There are ways for this to happen but not in the way that is described in the book. I’m not sure how much legal research was done for the story, but I wondered if there was even one legal detail in the story that was correct. The ending was almost comical in its improbability.

There were other important inconsistencies. For instance, at one point Teague points out that he is totally broke and cannot afford any more appeals. Earlier in the story, however, Teague uses a credit card to do a cash balance transfer of $5,000 to Alyssa’s account to implicate her heavily in his escape. Where did he get the credit card? Was it just lying dormant for 3 years? I thought he has spent all his money in pursuing custody while in prison! (Yes, he pursues custody of his child while in prison and is devastated when he loses). And then he, a firefighter/paramedic, asks Alyssa what PTSD is:

What the hell is PTSD”

“Post-traumatic stress disorder.”

There are almost no details given regarding the hero’s paranormal ability which consists of primarily being able to burn things with his hands and heal things (mostly cauterization but also reversing his burns). Throughout the story, this paranormal element is never explained and used in the most shallow of ways. He alternately burns and heals Alyssa and uses his high internal energy to hot wire about five cars. That’s it.

This is a Brava and I did think the story would be more spicy than it was. The story contained two full sex scenes and one was fairly tepid. It’s definitely not overly spicy. I wasn’t convinced of the chemistry between the two characters. Alyssa was constantly ruminating about Teague’s amazingly hot body but that seemed about it. Oh, and she noticed how, once he had showered all the blood off him, he looked “cleaner,more human.” Those powers of observation are keen.

These inconsistencies aren’t fatal to the book, but placed in juxtaposition with 10-12 hateful, racial slurs used to build the character of one throwaway person in the book, the inconsistencies place the use of racial slurs in sharp relief. Why?

These words are hateful and harmful. Why are they used? What do they add to the story? I wished some editor at Kensington had taken a step back and asked these questions. This is no Huck Finn comparison. In the first place, the use of racial slurs in Huck Finn were period appropriate. Those terms, unfortunately, were used in regular commonplace vernacular. The use of these types of slurs today get people fired, even if they are used accidentally.

This language added nothing to the story other than to be shocking and offensive. Maybe people who have never been the subject of racial slurs don’t recognize how harmful these words could be but people whose business is made out of the use of words should recognize their power.

I’m not saying that racial slurs should never be used in literature or even genre fiction like romance, but I do believe that when you go down that route, there should be a good reason for their use. There was no good reason for the barrage of hateful words used by a character that is non essential to the storyline. I’m giving the book a D because I feel I may be overly biased due to the racial slurs.

Best regards,

Jane