Dear Author » opposites attract

REVIEW: Her Best Worst Mistake by Sarah Mayberry

Dabney — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:00:14 +0000

Dear Ms. Mayberry—

I think your novel Hot Island Nights is splendid—I love the rapport between Elizabeth and Nathan—and I was happy to learn your new self-published novel Her Best Worst Mistake is a companion/sequel to that tale. Her Best Worst Mistake chronicles what happens between Elizabeth’s wild best friend Violet and Elizabeth’s stuffy ex-fiancé Martin when the latter is dumped by Elizabeth eight weeks before their wedding. Violet and Martin loathed each other in Hot Island Nights… or so they thought.

One doesn’t have to read Hot Island Nights to enjoy this book, but it was fun to read them back to back. In the beginning of Her Best Worst Mistake, Elizabeth who has always been a very good girl, abandons both her pressuring grandparents and their protégée, Martin, and runs off to find her birth father in Australia. There she hops right into bed with the super hunky Nathan and is on her way to hot sex and happy ever after. When she leaves England, she leaves Violet for whom Elizabeth functions not only as a best friend but as her family and Martin who, having pulled his way up from a poor North London estate sees Elizabeth as

… a million miles from the girls he’d grown up with. She always knew the right thing to say or do. She was beautiful, refined, elegant. Her love had been the final seal on his success.

Neither Martin nor Violet have ever approved of the other. Violet thinks Martin is an uptight, controlling, dullard whose ambitions have limited Elizabeth’s ability to have fun and discover what she—Elizabeth—really wants from life. Violet constantly criticizes Martin to Elizabeth and every time the three are together, Violet snipes at Martin. She knows she does it, but she just can’t stand the guy.

At the ripe old age of twenty-nine, she should probably have grown out of goading people for sport, but for some reason she never tired of poking Martin with a stick to see how long it would take before he growled and snapped.

For his part, Martin thinks Violet is excessively outrageous and loud. He thinks her wardrobe is right out of the “Playboy catalogue,” she does nothing but calls attention to herself, and is a brat to boot. Once he realizes Elizabeth has truly left him, he tells Violet,

“There are many things I will miss about sharing Elizabeth’s life, but spending time with you will not be one of them. I can honestly say that I have never been more…relieved to think that I need never lay eyes on a person again. Was that polite enough for you, Violet, or should I drop a few four letter words in there so you feel more at home?”

But Martin is wrong about Violet. She’s not a self-absorbed bitch and, in fact, when she thinks about how devastated he must be having been dumped by the woman he’s dated and loved for six years, she decides to check up on him and brings him a bottle of peach schnapps as a sympathy gift. Martin is nasty to her and refuses her offering, but she leaves it for him anyway. Later, at his very lonely house, he sips the drink and begins to wonder why the hell she brought him that particular present.

He didn’t usually have a sweet tooth, but when he’d tried schnapps for the first time at a West End bar last year he’d discovered that there was something about the sweetness of the peach and the heat of the alcohol that appealed to his palate.

He lifted the glass to his mouth again, then stilled as it occurred to him that Violet had been there that night, too, lolling against the bar in a purple sparkly dress that had been too short and too tight and too bright.

And when she’d gone looking for a pity gift for him, she’d bought him peach schnapps, out of all the options open to her at the off-license.

Which meant it was either a coincidence… or she’d remembered that night and how much he’d enjoyed the schnapps.

He downed the last of the drink.

It was probably a coincidence. There was no reason for her to remember such a small, insignificant detail about him. Certainly there hadn’t been anything special about that night to mark it in her memory—it had been a night like any other, one of many times he’d socialized with Violet for Elizabeth’s sake….

He reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink, almost filling the glass this time.

As though he’d opened a floodgate within himself, a storehouse of Violet-tinged memories fell out. The fact that she hated escargot but adored truffles. The fact that she’d once queued for days to buy tickets for a George Michael concert. The fact that she absolutely refused to learn the names of any players for any of the country’s football teams, even though it required a concerted effort to forget the headlines and news reports focusing on the country’s national obsession….

“Shit.”

Martin, drunk on schnapps, shows up just as Violet is closing up her boutique, the wittily named Violet Femmes, and demands to know why she bought him peach schnapps. That question leads to explosive sex on Violet’s couch after which both Violet and Martin are appalled at their behavior. Martin does a fast walk of shame out the door while Violet hides in her bathroom. Martin tells himself it was a

… stupid, impetuous act, driven by ego and peach schnapps and undeniable curiosity.

Violet is consumed by guilt. She has broken a cardinal rule: never have sex with your best-friend’s ex. Elizabeth has been the most important person in Violet’s life ever since Violet’s ghastly father and step-mother kicked her out of their house and lives when she was nineteen because of her “Jezebel” ways.

And Violet had just repaid Elizabeth’s loyalty and love and thoughtfulness and generosity by fucking her ex-fiancé on the couch.

Both are sure it will never, should never happen again, but, the next time they see each other, at a dinner party a month later, they are out the door, in Martin’s vintage Jag and polishing his backseat until the windows are completely fogged over. Again, Violet is furious at herself for betraying Elizabeth. She tells Martin,

“Let’s just agree that this was yet another stupid, impulsive mistake that happened for God-only-knows-what reason and leave it at that. You go your way, I go mine.”

Martin, however, has begun to see the situation differently. He realizes he’s falling for Violet and, from his perspective, having a relationship with her has, at this point, nothing to do with Elizabeth. He isn’t sure how someone as outré as Violet will fit into the straight-laced, ambitious lawyer life he has created for himself but he’s unwilling to give her up.

A few days later, he drops by her shop and the two begin seeing each other every night. The sex is fabulous–there’s a lot of sex in this book–and they enjoy each other’s company. And yet, though Violet talks to Elizabeth every week, she never tells Elizabeth she’s seeing Martin. Not only does this bother Martin, it bothered me.

I get it’s bad form to sleep with your best friend’s ex. However, in Her Best Worst Mistake, Elizabeth is now over the moon happy with another man. She’s the one who ended her relationship with Martin. Plus, Elizabeth really loves Violet. I was sure if Violet told Elizabeth, “Hey, it turns out I was wrong about Martin. He’s really a great guy, he treats me like a queen, and I think I might love him. Is that OK with you?” Elizabeth would have given her a double thumbs up.

Fortunately, Violet’s character is so well-written that, even though I found her behavior frustrating, I understood it. Violet has already lost her family of birth. Their rejection of her scarred her deeply. She is terrified of losing her family of choice: Elizabeth. I enjoyed watching Violet—I can’t resist—bloom under the patient care and love Martin gives her. When she doubts her own worth, he makes her see what a wonderful woman she is. At one point, she sobs,

“I don’t deserve you.” His arms tightened around her, a fierce, indomitable band of muscle and sinew. “You do, Violet. And I deserve you. We’ve both more than earned our chance at happiness. And I will not feel guilty about grabbing it with both hands, and I won’t let you feel guilty, either.”

Martin, who really did limit Elizabeth, turns out to be just the man to free Violet from her injurious past. I loved their story—Ms. Mayberry, yet again, you’ve written a novel with heart, heat, and healing. Plus, you worked in an offhand reference to Tenzing Norgay. I stand in awe. This book gets a flat out A.

Dabney

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REVIEW: The Only Gold by Tamara Allen

Sunita — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 09:00:03 +0000

Dear Ms. Allen,

This review is long overdue. I loved this book when I read it last year, so much that I put it on my Best of 2011 list. But I didn’t get the review written in proper time, and then the Dreamspinner Press debacle happened and Sarah and I stopped reviewing DSP’s books. Your review became collateral damage of that decision. Then you retrieved your rights from DSP, and I swore to myself that I would review it as soon as it was available. You’ve self-published it (at an attractive price, no less), so here we go!

Jonah Woolner is a bank clerk in New York City. He is a very good bank clerk, and when his superior retires he hopes to be promoted to replace him. But instead, the bank owner names an outsider, Reid Hylliard to the position. Jonah is devastated; Reid is charming, handsome, and charismatic, and he soon wins over everyone but Jonah. But Jonah’s antipathy is not just sour grapes. He genuinely fears that Reid’s policies will undermine the bank’s business and undo all the good work Jonah has achieved. Reid sees Jonah’s animosity clearly but refuses to accept it. He works to win Jonah’s friendship and then, slowly, more than that. But just as Jonah succumbs to his attraction to Reid and hesitantly begins to believe in an emotionally satisfying life, their fortunes and that of the bank are jeopardized by a bank heist that places them in mortal danger. And worse, it may or may not involve Reid.

One of the aspects of your novels and short stories that I enjoy so much is your ability to create not just a sense of place, but the fullness of the historical moment in which you are writing. As you did in Whistling in the Dark and If It Ain’t Love, you paint a compelling, rich picture of life in New York City, this time in the late 19th Century. Jonah commutes to the bank by a combination of walking and streetcar, and we make that journey with him. The bank comes to life through your words, as do the people who work there. Jonah’s boarding house is full of the kinds of characters that populated Americana novels of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and they are utterly believable. For me this novel recalls the writers of the urban landscape of the United States in that era, like Dreiser writing about Chicago in Sister Carrie. More recently, it brings to mind Steven Millhauser’s Martin Dressler, which painted a minutely detailed portrait of an ambitious young New Yorker. These are the kinds of books that causes me to forget that I’m sitting in a suburban house in Northern California in 2012 because I’ve so thoroughly immersed myself in the milieu. Anyone who reads my reviews knows how high a premium I place on context and historical authenticity. For me, you’re the gold standard, and this book is an exemplar.

But the characters are just as compelling as the context. Jonah is not an easily likeable character. He is extremely disciplined in his approach to his work, and he has little personal life that we can see. He cares about the bank almost too much, the way a more emotionally rounded person might care about another human being. And yet, I had to respect him. His devastation at being passed over for promotion wasn’t just a reaction to his thwarted ambition, he really worried about the bank.

Reid is a complex character. We see him through Jonah’s perspective, and we share Jonah’s suspicion, puzzlement, and unwilling attraction. Where did he come from? He’s obviously intelligent, gifted, and ambitious. Why this bank, now? And why is he attracted to Jonah? This is a classic opposites-attract setup, but Jonah isn’t one of those characters where, when he metaphorically takes off his glasses and gets a good wardrobe, turns into a gorgeous stunner. He really is prickly, repressed, and hidebound. So what does Reid see in him? Does he have an ulterior motive?

At first, Jonah resists, but then as he gives in, he warms up, and Reid sheds some of that obvious, self-protective charm and becomes more genuine. He’s still a mystery, but he’s more approachable.

“You said it yourself. I’m not one to take risks. I’ve been as careful in the planning of this venture as any officer in the bank.”

The searching light returned. “I was wrong,” Reid said quietly after a moment. “You’ve taken one damned substantial risk.”

“Being involved with you?”

“Handing over your heart.”

Jonah raised an eyebrow. “Very sure of yourself, as usual.” That provoked a low laugh, and Jonah was glad to feel more of the tension ease from the limbs wrapped around him. “The damnable thing is—you’re invariably right.”

“Good. That’s the one thing I most wanted to be right about.”

Jonah smiled. “Does everything come to you so easily?”

“Easy? You?” Reid snorted. “Jonah—”

“Jo.”

Reid’s narrowed gaze could not mask an elated light. “You’re just trying to prove me wrong.”

Jonah laughed. “That’s part of it. But only a very small part.” His kiss encouraged more, and Reid took his breath away.

As Reid opens up, Jonah is more willing to let down his guard, and the romance that develops between them is warm and very believable, as is the way you deal with the historical issues surrounding homosexual relationships (I should note here that as with your other stories, the sex scenes are not at all explicit).

Even after the physical and emotional relationship deepens, it’s obvious that Reid is still hiding a lot. I found the contrast between Jonah, who is naturally reticent, and Reid, who seems so extroverted but masks so much, intriguing, and assumed it would cause conflict. And it did, but not at all the way I expected. The storyline ratchets up once the possible heist comes into play, and we move from a rather leisurely character study to an action plot. There are hints of it in the earlier parts of the book, so it’s not out of the blue, but I still found it a bit disconcerting. I probably should have anticipated the mystery better (and Reid’s role in it), and I’m sure other readers will figure it out much more quickly; I think I was subconsciously avoiding solving the puzzle because I wanted to stay in Jonah’s head.

The HEA is quite satisfying, and again, it’s believable for the time period. I closed the book wanting to read it all over again. I can still see Jonah walking to the streetcar, or walking with Reid down the streets of 19th-century New York. Once again, you’ve written a compelling, romantic novel that makes me glad I have one more Tamara Allen book left in my TBR.

Grade: A-

~ Sunita

[Note: The Only Gold is available for 30 percent off the regular price at All Romance ebooks until April 15. ]

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REVIEW: That New York Minute by Abby Gaines

Jane — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 19:00:58 +0000

Dear Ms. Gaines:

The book has a very original opening. Rachel Frye is trying to convince her stick in the mud boyfriend not to break up with her. The breakup is bringing out her least favorite trait, shrillness, and is being done in front of her biggest rival, Garret Calder. Garrett is a fellow creative director at one of NY’s largest independent ad agency.

Rachel is not in love with her boyfriend but she thinks, given time and enough personal investment, this relationship could work out. Garret’s vocal observations about Rachel and her desperation drive the man away leaving Rachel frustrated and alone.

I admit that I disliked Garret from that point. No one likes a know-it-all and even worse, no one likes a guy who professes to know-it-all in public which results in a personal humiliation. The scene is set for Rachel and Garret to be professional and personal rivals when they are both offered the opportunity to fill the one open partner position.

These battle of the sexes books always walk a fine line. Often the females are portrayed at being less career driven by the end of the story while the male ends up with the partnership. There is not enough balance, as if the heroine outshone the hero in the workplace, the hero would be emasculated and thus not worthy of the hero position. Unfortunately that pattern is followed in this story. Rachel is uptight and her ideas are stale. Garret is freewheeling and is always coming up with great pitches, not to mention that he’s the past winner of the top industry awards.

Initially, the two play a game of one-upmanship with each party using some questionable methods to portray the other in a negative light. I think these were meant to be funny but came off as uncomfortable maybe because neither were fully committed. In one scene, Rachel suggests that Garret’s comment about her legs made her feel uncomfortable and exemplified Garret’s problem with women. Instead of leaving that to foment in her superior’s mind, she offers to provide him counseling on the subject. I didn’t really get that. Nonetheless, at least she was attempting to play the same game Garret was.

An effort to show the softer side of both characters was done through the use of their personal lives. Rachel was straight laced and uptight because her parents were not. Garret was more freewheeling because he had grown up an Admiral’s son. They both have to deal with members of their family not acting in the way that they want them to. Garret’s stepmother leaves his father and takes refuge in Garret’s New York apartment. Rachel’s sister is contemplating moving once again to be with Rachel’s parents, something that Rachel is strongly against.

This was the best parts of both the stories. The characters were vulnerable. They weren’t trying to score points off each other. It showed them in a humane light instead of individuals trying to constantly score points off one another. I think what disappointed me the most, however, was that despite the early efforts to show Rachel as a competitor, an equal in the boardroom as well as the bedroom, the standard archetypes remained. Rachel was better suited in a different direction, realizing that not everyone defined success in the same manner whereas Garret’s character arc was about him settling down in one spot and committing to something, whether it is a job or a person. Competently written and even amusing in some places, ultimately the hewing to a more traditional theme disappointed. C

Best regards,

Jane

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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

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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.

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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: Ride with Me by Ruthie Knox

Jane — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:00:31 +0000

Dear Ms. Knox:

I received a number of recommendations for this story and the recommenders were correct. Ride with Me was right up my alley. It was a well paced, contemporary featuring a non clingy heroine and a caretaker hero set on a bike ride across America. The only downside was that Tom, in particular, came off as contrived in certain places.

Lexie Marshall has planned on riding the TransAmerica bike ride for years. This was the year she would ride with her brother until he had to drop out. Using Craigslist, Lexie looks for a riding partner. After being turned down repeatedly after finding the respondents discover she is female, Lexie strikes up an email conversation with Tom Geiger using the handle “Alex”. The two agree to meet in Astoria Oregon to start the trip.

Only Tom was actually Tom’s sister, the only member of his family that still spoke to him, pretending to be Tom. The real Tom wants nothing to do with another a person and he certainly doesn’t need a riding buddy. (Say the term as a curse word to get a real sense of how Tom feels). He reminds his sister that he is the serial killer on the road, not the target of one.

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Please, Tom. You can’t ride your bicycle across the country alone. It’s insane. You’ll end up being slaughtered by a serial killer.”

“Taryn, I’m thirty-five, single, tattooed, and antisocial. I’m the serial killer.”

“Okay, point taken. But you could get hit by a car and bleed to death by the side of the road.”

“How would riding with another person prevent that?”

“It wouldn’t, but he could call me on his cell phone so you could tell me you love me with your dying breath.”

Lexie is supposed to be the romantic and Tom the pragmatist, but in truth, Tom is really the romantic whose idealism was crushed. Lexie’s romanticism stems mostly out of nostalgia. Her parents met and fell in love on the same bike ride decades earlier.

Tom realizes that he can’t allow Lexie to bike by herself and commits to riding along until he can find a replacement. In the beginning of the story Tom was portrayed as Angry Antisocial Tom but as the story unfolded and the readers needed to get to know Tom better, Tom transformed into talkative, social Tom. This transformation wasn’t natural and it made his anti social behavior seem like a construct rather than his personality. Angry Antisocial Tom provided a bit of comic relief and the right amount of sexual tension and conflict in the beginning. In the beginning, Lexie felt lucky to wrench a two syllable “mmm-hmmm” from Tom. Later, however, Tom has no problem carrying on conversations with other bike enthusiasts and even waitresses (even though he once derides Lexie for this). The characters, both of them, failed to maintain a certain consistency, mutating according to what the plot called for. For instance, Lexie hooks up with a very easy going, attractive young man at one point. He’s very friendly to the point that he can’t take a no and virtually assaults Lexie. I never felt like this was true to the young man’s character but it provided a leaping point for Tom to play protector.

That said, this is a genuinely enjoyable story. Neither Tom nor Lexie are perfect individuals. Tom withdrew from society, in part, because of something that happened in his past. Something that he did that could be viewed as both heroic and cowardly. Lexie, for all her good cheer and friendliness, often has an unkind thought about her fellow bikers. (I was rather repelled by her describing another rider as “gross” because he was “huffing and puffing like a steam train” but at least she wasn’t a perfect maiden from a Disney movie).

The story takes you from one side of the U.S. to the other and I loved the descriptions of the country as seen by Tom and Lexie. It was one of the things about the book that really surprised me. I am not much of a biker or traveler and worried that this aspect of the story would be boring but it is not. Instead, there is a true love for both that is expressed in the narrative. I never found it boring and it made me want to travel that same route.

This was why she was riding her bike across the country. Not for the miles, not to see the towns, not even to meet the people. Just this. The rain, the wind, the hill, and her legs powering her up toward the summit.

When she crested the top, she didn’t even stop. The rain had slowed, and she was craving the descent. She worked up a little speed, bent over the handlebars, tucked her body into a crouch, and let her hands off the brakes. Inside of a minute, she was flying, her bike computer clocking upward of thirty miles an hour. Her front tire pulled water off the road to wet her cheeks, while the rear threw a spray of wet grit up the center of her back. It didn’t matter. Below her, the Camas Prairie stretched out for miles, the intense bright yellow of rapeseed set off by purple-blue patches of camas flowers. She could see forever, and forever was breathtaking.

The dialogue and internal monologues are fun, peppered with a dry wit. “Lexie wasn’t the type of person who would do well in isolation, even with a really hot hermit who could kiss like Tom.” Even the sex scenes were often infused with mild humor:

Tom brushed his stubbled cheek over the sensitive skin along the side of her neck, which made her shivery. “You have to understand, this is just a typical day I’m talking about. I could fill a book with all the fantasies you’ve inspired in Missouri alone.”

One minor note. Lexie pretends to be married and she carries the deception on fairly long. Tom acts as honorably as possible and often wishes that her husband would appear and quench Tom’s inconvenient lust for Lexie. I wish Lexie had given up the ghost earlier. I also wondered why Lexie, who loves riding her bike so much, didn’t join a bike club. I had a very hard time believing that there was no one in the Pacific Northwest that shared her outdoor enthusiasm.

What is even more enjoyable beyond the scenery is watching the two characters who really do not like each other at the beginning of the story fall in love. Their intimacy grows, almost grudgingly, over the course of their trip. They both need to rely on each other from time to time and the long days and nights result in sharing of their hearts before their bodies. And when they engage physically, it is built upon a foundation of personal admiration. My guess is that fans of Kristan Higgins would enjoy this book. B-

Best regards,

Jane

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REVIEW: In Bed with a Stranger by India Grey

Jane — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:00:46 +0000

Dear Ms. Grey:

This is a sequel to the Craving the Forbidden (review here) and I thought it was interesting to take an established relationship, shake it up, and still convince the readers at the end that these two could be happy beyond the pages of the book. Sophie Greenham fell in love with Kit Fitzroy after pretending to be his brother’s fiancée. Kit leaves for Aghanistan and when he returns, he is not the same person. There is a bridge between the two that Sophie is unsure of how to cross. The bridge began to build over Kit’s deployment, with his email responses and his phone conversations becoming terser, shorter.

Kit is suffering from a case of PTSD. It’s unclear how severe it is. He is jumpy at loud noises. He is experiencing night terrors. He is feeling tremendous guilt over the injury to one of the young soldiers in his unit. Sophie acted quite young in this book and I was disappointed by her. While Kit was gone for five months, it didn’t seem like Sophie did much to prepare herself for his return. Her lack of understanding of what Kit might be going through seemed a tad self centered and a bit juvenile.

Both Kit and Sophie mask their relationship problems by enjoying each other physically, but Kit wonders that the shortness of their relationship (only three weeks before his five month deployment) could possibly withstand his mental and emotional difficulties. They were, as Kit acknowledge, virtual strangers. Sophie preferred to believe that their physical closeness could not exist without emotional closeness.

The story transitions from Kit’s return to a trip to Morocco to meet with Kit’s estranged mother and to discover the secrets of his past. Much of the book takes place in Morocco and the simple relationship problem is compounded by standard HP tropes which is where I felt the book faltered. Sophie grew up with a hippy mother who refused to acknowledge ordinary structural bonds like the “mother/daughter”. Her unconventional upbringing made her yearn for a stable home and a love like the one she believes she might have with Kit. However, Kit’s wealth and titled family make her feel like that awkward commune girl trying to fit in with the cheerleaders at high school. Sophie overcompensates, driven by her feelings of inferiority. She never wants to show weakness in their relationship which, in turn, leads Kit to believe that she cannot handle the darkness of his emotions. This emotional tug of war is great and the use of the sexual tension pushing against the emotional tension was moving.

I was less enthused by the mystery of Kit’s parentage. I felt that was an unnecessary complication and conflict and led to too easy of a resolution. Kit hadn’t seen his mother since he was six yet the feelings of abandonment and betrayal were quickly resolved. Combined with all the other emotional struggles Kit had to deal with, this seemed improbable. Further, I didn’t like the quick way in which Sophie became attached to Kit’s mother. In some ways, perhaps it was reasonable because Kit’s mother was like what Sophie wanted her own mother to be, but Sophie’s first priority should have been Kit’s emotional well being, just as making Sophie happy was Kit’s first thought. This desire to push reconciliation on Kit was frustrating and seemed, again, a bit selfish.

This is not to say that Sophie was unlikeable but that this portion of the book was my least favorite. I liked the idea of exploring their relationship at greater length, but I didn’t enjoy the mother complications, particularly because of how it was resolved. I will say that this story is very sexy and I appreciate the open door nature of the book, particularly having come off a stint of reading a few Harlequin SuperRomances where the sexual tension was about as spare as the fat on Heidi Klum’s thighs. C+

Best regards

Jane

REVIEW: Mad About the Earl by Christina Brooke

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

Dear Ms. Brooke (aka Christine Wells):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best regards,

Jane

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REVIEW: Loving Our Heroes by Jessica Hart, Amy Andrews and India Grey

Jane — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:00:01 +0000

I feel a bit bad about reviewing this book negatively because part of the proceeds go to a charity but I didn’t know that when it was offered on NetGalley so I will just review it like any other book, regardless of the good deed a purchase will bring about. Maybe just donate that one pound directly?

Last Minute Proposal by Jessica Hart

I’m not a huge fan of reality tv shows as the basis of romance stories but I don’t know if there is anything worse than the reluctant reality tv show contestant who spends the first day saying that she wants to leave and who won’t engage in any of the activities without constant complaining. What are you even there for? The reality show consisted of two challenges. The first is for Tilly, the heroine, to do something that Campbell, the hero, excelled at which was an outdoor challenge. The second was for Campbell to do something that Tilly was good at which was baking cakes. Tilly was a cake baker/decorator.

Neither of them sound authentic. At one point, the producer of the show tells them that another couple has a GPS “That’ll give them an advantage, but we’ve got it here, and I can give it to you, too, if you like.” How is that an advantage if everyone has one? But regardless the response is worse.

‘What’s a GPS?’ asked Tilly

It’s a satellite navigation gizmo,’ said Campbell dismissively. ’Some people can’t get from A to B without them.”

Campbell is supposed to be former marine. I highly doubt he a) turns down GPS and b) calls it a gizmo. And seriously, does anyone under the age of … 70 not know what GPS is? And then Tilly is surprised at the fact that the camera is on them at all times.

“That’s great!’ she said enthusiastically. ’There’s real chemisty between you two. The viewers will love it!’

‘What viewers?’ Tilly said blankly.

‘This is a television programme,’ Suzy reminded her. ‘That’s why we’ve been filming you.’

‘What, just now?’ Tilly cast a hunted look around. Sure enough, one of the cameramen was filiming them from a few feet away. ’I thought it would be just when we were doing stuff,’ she whispered, hurriedly turning her back on him.

Ugh. Seriously? But nothing about this book makes much sense. Neither Tilly nor Campbell are supposed to be the reality show contestants. They are both fill ins. As if reality TV shows are desperate for candidates and will take any number of walk ons. Plus, while the cameras were on the two every second during the outdoors trip, the cameras only showed up for the cake reveal in the second half of the competition not while Campbell was baking the cake or while Tilly was training him. There was no consistency in the competition.

The one interesting thing in the story was seeing how different Tilly was based on her surroundings. Outdoors, she was a ninny and worried constantly about her weight. In her kitchen, she was confident and vibrant. Campbell was your ordinary hard ass who softened at the end. D

Mission: Mountain Rescue by Amy Andrews

This is a reunited lovers story but the whole story felt very manufactured as if the great authorial hand came down to direct my attention. Holly fell in love with Richard but because of their age difference and his job as a soldier with the UN, Richard broke it off. Holly was devastated but decided to do something with her life. She goes out and learns to be a midwife and she is sent to Tanrami on a humanitarian mission. Lo and behold, Richard is part of the military detachment there to protect the aid workers. The two get captured and taken to the mountains (hence the name “Mountain Rescue”). I felt detached from the story.

I didn’t believe that Holly had any interest in nursing (she was Humanitarian Barbie in my head) and Richard was portrayed initially as this hardened soldier and then transformed into Medic Ken in Tanrami, collecting water specimens and beating off the bad guys. Maybe Medic GI Joe?

Nothing seemed to evolve naturally. Holly and Richard need to get back together so we’ll send pretty fastidious Holly to be a midwife and then she gets to go on an aid mission. Richard and Holly need to be together in a high stakes moment. Let’s have them wander around unprotected and then get captured. There needs to be medical jargon. Let’s have some woman in the mountain village camp undergo a difficult birth so the words “cannula” and “episiotomy” can be used. And let’s not forget that Richard, a soldier, has three different kinds of fluid in his pack “Saline, Haemaccel, Hartman’s.” (conveniently he is no longer just a soldier but a medic). It also is amazing that Holly is the “only midwife in her student group who had witnessed a dystocia delivery.” Richard has a big trauma that prevents him from accepting Holly’s love but in the mountains, he finds absolution in Holly’s arms. Maybe if I enjoyed medical romances more, I would appreciate this story line but I found it too bland and unbelievable to be entertaining. C-

Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire’s Pleasure by India Grey

Orlando Winterton is an RAF pilot who is losing is eyesight due to Stargardt’s Macular Dystrophy. He finds Rachel at the base of his brother’s grave, drinking and moaning about her sorry fate. Rachel is a famous pianist who is supposed to marry a famous conductor, the culmination of her mother’s plans. Orlando thinks Rachel is a spoiled rich girl who won’t get her hands dirty when she protests that she can’t even cut a vegetable because her hands are precious.

I thought the confict set up was interesting. Rachel views herself as weak and helpless whereas Orlando is big and strong and capable . They are both cowards and strong in their own ways. Rachel emotionally picks herself up and allows herself to fall for not only Orlando but a baby that comes into their care. Orlando, on the other hand, afraid of what others think of him and devastated by his disease, strikes out against people and becomes more isolated. I wish that the story had been longer to tease out the contrasts, but because of the truncated length, there is no sincerity in the emotions.

I did enjoy the story uses dramatic irony although I think it may have been overused. Orlando thinks that Rachel holds him in disgust because of his eyesight and Rachel thinks Orlando believes her to be a useless git. While I liked the emotion and the writing in this story more than the other three, it relies too heavily on worn tropes and sensationalized emotions. C

None of these books feature a military person in active combat except for maybe Medic Ken.

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Note: £1 donation to Help for Heroes for every book sold from Mills & Boon

REVIEW: A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant

Jane — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:00:01 +0000

Dear Ms. Grant:

I don’t remember reading a book like this lately. I’m sure that there have been ones written, after all, romance has been published for decades at a clip of several hundred a month. There are no new stories, only new ways to tell them. However, Marta Russell and Theophilus Mirkwood are two characters that seemed entirely new to me; characters I hadn’t met in fiction before.

This story read to me about two things: connections and opposites. Connections, particularly in this book, prevent seeing the world in black and white, seeing one person as wholly villianous or virtuous. The way in which the connections to people make us better and how, left to our own devices, our viewpoints and life experiences can be narrow and limited. The best part of an opposites attract story is this idea that the other can fill in where one is lacking, making the duo better than an individual. That is definitely true in “A Lady Awakened”.

The story is fairly simple. Martha Russell of Seaton Park is newly widowed and she is childless. While she regrets that she doesn’t have a child and that she will likely have to go and live off her brothers, she is prepared to do so. Her plans are forestalled by suggestion of her lady’s maid and the local clergy that everyone will need to wait to see if she had quickened before her husband’s death. The seed of fraud is fostered when Martha hears that the heir is a disreputable man who had taken advantage of the servants of the house many years ago and that her husband had shunned the heir prior to his death.

Martha learns that Theo Mirkwood has been sent down by his father after an escapade. She propositions Theo and offers to pay him money to father her a child. Theo is bemused but he is in need of money and impregnating his neighbor seems like a jolly way to pass the time until he is forgiven or he has enough money to return to town. Martha and Theo don’t think much of each either. Martha isn’t the merry widow that Theo would like her to be and Theo is far to reckless and irresponsible to appeal to Martha. Theo thinks quite a bit of his sexual prowess but Martha is unimpressed:

He was watching her, hands on his hips, satisfied to be the object of a lady’s scrutiny. “It’s all yours, darling, bought and paid for,” he said with what was probably a rakish smile.

What on earth did one say in reply to that? It wasn’t even accurate — she hadn’t paid him yet — but really, the less said on this subject, the better. Yesterday had been rather excruciating in that regard. Your skin is like silk. You smell like flowers. He must seduce chiefly on the strength of his good looks. He couldn’t expect to overcome any lady with poetic invention.

As the two spend each afternoon in bed, they begin to learn more about one another. Martha learns that Theo’s easy amiability makes it easier to connect with the tenants, to assist them in the manner in which Martha believes is important for the gentry to do. Theo learns from Martha that taking care of the land and tenants is more than a responsibility but a calling.

In reading the negative Amazon reviews, one of the negatives that is brought up is that Martha is engaging in a fraud. She is. She is trying to steal an inheritance from another person who is rumored to be a bad man. This is not without its troubling morality and is an issue that Martha acknowledges, even unto the end.

Another negative comment was that Martha is cold. She is. She is distant from others. She does not make friends easily and her lack of ability to make connections pushes her to further withdraw emotionally. But she is earnest in her desire to provide for those people around her. She feels their reliance keenly. Moreover, Martha recognizes the perilous position of a woman and seeks to set up a school wherein girls can gain an education, empowering them. Theo is distant as well, for all his amiabiity. His connections, while easily made, are superfluous. Martha and Theo are subtle ends of an emotional spectrum. Theo was undisciplined, but generous. Martha was uptight, but thoughtful.

There is this great subplot involving Theo and a single laborer on his property. He learns that because the man has no family, when the man is older and can no longer work the tenant properly, he will be sent to a workhouse. It brings home to Theo how fortunate his birth and what kind of responsibility he holds in his hands. Theo has the ability to prevent Mr. Barrow from being sent to a workhouse. Theo’s transformation doesn’t come at the hands of Martha. She merely opens his eyes.

“The smaller families with older sons are fortunate,” he said as he and Granville moved along. “Two or more wages, and fewer people to divide them among.”

“The shape of your family makes a great difference, doesn’t it? I’m sorry the Weavers have no grown-up sons.” They were walking a path that followed a rail fence now, and from time to time the man rapped at some part of it, presumably to test the soundness of its joints.

“Mr. Barrow has no family at all? Not even nieces or nephews, I mean?”

“No.” This brought an extra gravity, he could see, to Granville’s weathered features. “He had sisters, I know, but they married long ago and settled somewhere far north.”

“No one to take an interest in caring for him, then.”

“It’s not as uncommon a case as one might like it to be. Reminds a man of the importance of marrying. Not a man of independent means, of course — you may look after yourself and then pay others to do so, if you choose.”

This sounded a dismal prospect. He must remember to think seriously of marriage, in five or ten years, and in the meantime, to ingratiate himself with his sisters’ children. “But Mr. Barrow,” he said. “There will come a time — soon, perhaps — when he can no longer earn a wage.”

“Aye, and after that, a time when he cannot keep house, and a time when he cannot care for himself.” Granville stopped, having found a place in the fence that did not make the proper reply to his knock. He rapped at it again, and then took out a pencil and a folded bit of paper to make some note.

Theo waited. “What happens to such a man at that time?” he said when the agent had finished.

He shook his head without looking up. “If a man does live to that age, and has no connections, like as not he ends in the workhouse infirmary.”

“Workhouse.” The one word was all he could manage.

Another negative is that the sex that Martha and Theo have is quite unsexy. This is also true. Martha hates sex initially. So much so that by the third coupling, Theo is having a difficult time even becoming aroused. The sex is actually a source of humor but it provides a marker for Martha and Theo’s intimacy. Initially the sex is horrible because neither have any feelings for another. As the two begin to like each other, the sex becomes better (although Martha begins to feel guilty about this) and then when the two fall in love, intercourse becomes both pleasureful and painful. Sex is almost a chore for both of them, something to get through in order to get to the good stuff which is the talking that they do after sex and the intimacy that grows between them because of the post coital discussions. The sex in the book ranges from awkward to erotic, a range that I’ve rarely seen in one book.

I just appreciated so much watching Theo and Martha change, subtly, into better versions of themselves. How they found in each other something of value. There are so many wonderful small scenes in the book such as Theo watching Martha’s interaction with the vicar and thinking to himself that he wanted to see that look of admiration and respect on Martha’s face directed toward him. Or Martha learning how to make friends with Theo’s assistance. The one small part of the story that I felt wasn’t as well integrated was Martha’s desire for a school for girls. I wasn’t convinced that her school would provide the empowerment that she desired and it lacked the flavor of the tenant / land management issues in the book. I also thought that the first three chapters started off a bit slow and I worried that Martha would be preachy and insufferable for the whole book (she’s not at all).

I don’t think I can really convey how amazing this book is. I hope people just give it a chance. Read the first chapter in the store. Take advantage of the “Sample” feature for ebookstores. It’s worth that small effort to see if the book captures a reader’s attention. I was captivated from the first chapter. A-

Best regards,

Jane

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REVIEW: The Bride by Julie Garwood

Jane — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:00:04 +0000

Dear Ms. Garwood:

Back in 2006, Jayne and I wrote a few reviews of our all time favorite books. We primarily read and review “new to us” books whether those are new publications or recently republished backlist titles. Because of that, our archives are thin as it pertains to the books which might considered modern romance classics. The holidays are a perfect time to remedy that.

“The Bride” is one of my most often read books. I purchased it new in 1989 and proceeded to read it so many times that the spine fell apart. When Penguin (who apparently must have bought Garwood’s digital backlist titles after they reverted from her original publisher, Pocket) began rolling out the release of new titles, I snapped up my copy. At $5.99, I felt like I was getting a real bargain.

Jamie is the youngest daughter of Baron Jamison who owes the crown money. To pay his debt he offers two of his daughters to marry two Scottish Lairds to help cement a peace between Scotland and England.

In many ways, this is a twist on the Cinderella story. Jamie’s mother came to Baron Jamison with Jamie quickening in the belly. Jamison treats Jamie as his own. But Jamie pays for her place in the family by working. When her mother died, Jamie slowly but steadily took over the mistress duties and her father let her. Jamie’s hands are calloused and her step-sisters are not. She runs the keep, manages the finances, and ensures that the family has a home over their head. What saves Jamie from coming off as a pained martyr is she is portrayed as not only embracing her role as doyenne of the keep, but welcoming it. She doesn’t see herself as being used or abused by her family. When she is taken to Scotland and instructed to rest, she believes that her new husband isn’t valuing her.

The fairy godmother might be the stablemaster, Beak, a Scot himself who views the Scottish Lairds appearance at Baron Jamison’s keep as a way to give Jamie a new and better life. He confronts the two Scottish Lairds, Alec Kincaid and Daniel Ferguson, and tells them that the Baron Jamison treats his daughters like his horses:

Baron Jamison treats his daughters just like his horses and that’s a fact. Only have a look around you and you’ll get my meaning soon enough. The pretty little ladies in these three stalls are for the baron’s daughters, right there for anyone to see. But if you’ll walk down this long corridor and turn the bend, you’ll see another stall hidden away in the far corner by the side door. It’s separated from the others. That’s where the baron keeps his beauty, a magnificent white pretty just waiting for a proper mating.

Jamie is beautiful, a wonder at healing, capable of managing a huge keep, able to tame the wildest of horses. Yet, for all her perfection, she is somehow relatable. She doesn’t view herself as beautiful and every other skill she has she deems without much value. She acts as if she is ordinary even if those around her view her otherwise.

Alec Kincaid is a fierce warrior who is only taking an English Bride to appease his King. His first wife killed herself and The Kincaid, as they call him, views a wife with as much interest as he has for his horse. Despite Jamie’s beauty, her strong defense of her family, and her winsome manner, Alec still is intent on placing Jamie firmly in the wife category, much to Jamie’s dismay.

Jamie doesn’t allow Alec to walk over her. Her strong personality and the rightness she feels in her own beliefs impel her to challenge him: “Alec, if I’m not any good at kissing, it’s your fault, not mine. Maybe you aren’t any good, either. What think you of that possibility?”

Neither Jamie nor Alec change much in the story. Their character arcs are subtle. Jamie begins to see her self worth shouldn’t be tied up in how much work she does for others. Alec’s insistence on holding himself emotionally apart softens when he falls in love with Jamie. In a true melding of the best of both worlds, Jamie’s deliberate refusal to understand the intricacies of clan feuds highlights the ridiculous nature of some of them but she also comes to understand the fierce loyalty the clan system invoked. Robin once said that the key to a captivity narrative is that the captive changes the captor and his people in some measurable fashion. ”The Bride” exemplifies this. Jamie is taken from her home, a forced Bride, and changes Alec and his people by adopting the best of their culture and melding in her own sensibilities to create a more harmonious life for everyone.

“The Bride” features classic Garwood tropes. The inept but beautiful heroine (usually English). The stoic, long suffering Scottish Laird who must marry to protect his people but has no intention of caring for the lass. The reluctant clan that is won over by the heroine’s dogged attempts to fit in. Humorous gags that repeat themselves throughout the book. In “The Bride,” it is Jamie’s poor sense of direction and her name.

“I’ve been in England too long,” he admitted, “else I’d find your arguments overbearing, wife.”

“Will you quit calling me ‘wife’? I have a name. Can you not call me Jamie?”

“It’s a man’s name.”

She wanted to throttle him. “It’s my name.”

“We’ll find another.”

“We will not.”

and

“It isn’t decent to touch like this in front of others, Alec.”

“It isn’t?”

She ignored the amusement in his voice. “No, it isn’t,” she repeated. “And my name is Jamie. You’ve still to say it, Alec.”

“It’s a man’s name.”

“Are we back to that?”

“Aye, we are.”

and

“Did you say your name was Jane?”

“No, it’s Jamie,” she instructed.

She nodded when Gavin continued to look confused.

The soldier turned to Alec and blurted out, “But that’s a man’s name.”

Throughout the text, “that’s a man’s name” is a repeated refrain, always interjected at just the right moment to provide comedic relief. The use of repetitive phrases and motifs are not limited to humor. In the first sex scene between Jamie and Alec, the phrase “Not yet” is traded back and forth between the two, first used by Alec to signal that he isn’t ready to put an end to their activities and her introduction to intimacy and then by Jamie to inform Alec that she isn’t ready to stop.

Another writerly technique that is employed very effectively is the cliffhanger chapter endings matched by startling chapter beginnings. Chapter One starts with “They said he killed his first wife” and ends with “Still? it would make the kill so much sweeter. Chapter Three ends with:

“It will be a frigid day in heaven before I marry you, milord, a frigid day indeed.”

“You’ve just described the Highlands in winter, lass. And you will marry me.”

“Never.”

Exactly one hour later, Lady Jamison was wed to Alec Kincaid.

and Chapter Five begins with “She wore black to her wedding.” There are no wasted scenes in this book. Every word that is stated by the characters is important in either building the characters or advancing the plot. The use of repetition is done with obvious intent and not because of a writerly tic.

Probably nothing in this book is historically accurate, but I care not. As Jayne famously recited in her review of “The Raven Prince” by Elizabeth Hoyt: “I so believed in the romance and the world you’d created between these two that if you’d told me they got into a Range Rover and drove off into the sunset on the M25 I would have nodded and said “of course, that’s the perfect vehicle for Jock to fit into”. That is how I feel about “The Bride” and a whole series of historicals written by you. A

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: Lessons in Seduction by Sandra Hyatt

Jane — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:00:58 +0000

Dear Readers:

Given that Ms. Hyatt has recently passed away I don’t feel comfortable addressing the review to her. Sarah Wendell recommended this book to me and I’m glad she did. I rarely venture into the Harlequin Desire waters.

This is a bit of a role reversed My Fair Lady story. Adam is the heir to a small (and fake) principality, San Phillipe. The weight of this responsibility has always sat heavy on his shoulders making him more serious every day. He should be married but his betrothed ran off with his younger brother. Adam bears no grudge for either of them but he does acknowledge that there must be something wrong with him, particularly after a beautiful Fullbright scholar who seemed to share the same geological interests refuses a second date with him. He seeks out his old friend, Dani, and asks for her help.

Danielle St. Claire is the daughter of the palace driver and from time to time, she would relieve her father in his duties until Adam fired her. She is currently trying to bring the Grand Prix to San Phillipe. She’s unafraid of offending Adam, after all, he’s fired her once, and they have a long history together. Because of her ability to be frank with him, Adam believes she is the perfect person to help him both find the right woman for him and to catch her, because apparently being a prince is simply not enough.

Dani points out that part of Adam’s problem is that he doesn’t know himself well enough to be able to pick a good partner. He’s so caught up in being the “prince” and can hardly name more than one interest (polo) outside his monarchical duties.

Both characters seem to appreciate the bounds of their position: his as the prince and hers as the driver and though they both wanted to kiss each other, they refrain in the beginning.

A couple things seemed off to me. The colloquialisms and cultural references were distinctly British or American and didn’t fit the concept of a separate European principality. The heroine references Barbies and uses the idiom “you’re winding me up” for example.

I would have liked to have a better understanding of Adam’s attraction to Dani. He was shown nearly immediately to have a physical response to her and there was no explanation for why now he was feeling these stirrings of lust yet before he didn’t. It wasn’t well defined, particularly in the beginning when we saw Adam date a couple of beautiful women, one incredibly smart and interested in the same things he was interested in. But he evinced no physical attraction to either of them. Was Dani just his type? Why didn’t he consider Dani wife material? It didn’t seem like he had class issues.

It was clear as the story went on, the case that Dani and Adam were perfect for each other was well articulated. They both felt comfortable with each other and enjoyed the other person’s company. They had a long shared history. They both loved San Phillipe and wanted to see it prosper. Dani would always be able to remind Adam of life outside the palace. By grounding him, Adam would be a better leader.

The two act on their attraction when they get stranded at a chalet manned by a burly and oblivious Australian who was filling in for his sister. The temporary innkeeper has no idea who Adam is and this allows Adam and Dannie to have a little holiday ala Roman Holiday (where the Princess played by Audrey Hepburn runs off for a couple of days with a reporter and pretends to be an ordinary girl).

The best part of the book is where Dani plays the aggressor to Adam’s reserved knight. My only wish is that this was played up more, maybe more extreme. It isn’t that I wanted Adam to be the blushing virgin, recoiling at a light touch, and becoming faint with Dani’s obvious sexuality but I delighted in the role reversal so much that I would have liked to have seen even more contrast. B

Best regards,

Jane

This book is also the pick for Smart Bitches’ Sizzlin’ Book Club which means that there will be a book chat for the book on December 22, 2011, and you can also purchase it at All Romance eBooks with a 50% rebate.

REVIEW: White Hot Christmas by Serenity Woods

Jane — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:00:14 +0000

Dear Ms. Woods:

I’ve developed a deep appreciation for New Zealand/Australian set books and when I saw this in the Samhain ARC listing, I requested it immediately. It is the first story of yours that I read.

The Christmas story set in New Zealand immediately caught my attention. Merle Cameron comes to visit her sister and begins an affair with her brother-in-law’s best friend and cousin, Napoleon (Neon) Carter. It seems like a perfect setup. The affair’s end is a date certain when Merle returns to England. This provides both of them with the luxury of enjoying themselves without the attendant messy emotional feelings. This a lighthearted, sexy read but a totally enjoyable one.

Merle is a university lecturer (and I’m really not sure what that is in the UK as opposed to the US or even New Zealand). She has been caring for her mother who underwent a bout with breast cancer and has had little time for frivolity. Merle is spending a vacation with her sister, Bree, in New Zealand. She’s a bookish woman, having spent much of her life focused on trying to fulfill her very needy mother’s every whim. This vacation is as much an opportunity to relax and unwind as it is to visit her sister, Bree and Bree’s new husband, Jake.

Neon Carter is a firefighter who isn’t ready to settle down. He’s not opposed to getting married and having a family and is somewhat envious of his cousin Jake’s newlywed happiness. He complains to Jake that every woman suffers from tinnitus (ringing in their ears). “It just seems that with every woman I’ve been out with recently, we get to the third date and they start discussing the colour of the bridesmaids’ dresses.” Neon is sure that finding the right woman will take more than three weeks of dating even though Jake reports spending all of thirty minutes before realizing that he wanted to marry Bree.

My favorite part of the book was the realistic but funny dialogue between the characters whether it was Bree teasing Merle or Jake and Neon trading quips or sly interchanges between Merle and Neon. There were travelogue portions of the story which I found a bit dull. I also thought that the story could have delved deeper into the emotional conflicts such as the differences in intellect or social status. Merle delivers a slight insult to Neon early on when she is surprised by a Shakespeare reference. Neon is a firefighter and Merle is college professor (or something like it). Merle is puritanical compared to Neon and lacks self confidence of the women whom Neon dated in the past. Despite these issues, the largest looming emotional issue was Merle’s relationship with her mother. I wished I had seen more of how the mother had her hooks into Merle and why because the mother dictated the course of much of Merle’s life and I didn’t see Merle as a woman without backbone.

The dueling bets that Neon and Merle made with Jake and Bree over whether one could seduce the other were silly and if the genre wasn’t so replete with the “bet” perhaps the inclusion of the bets wouldn’t seem so stale. It could have been used as a joke throughout the story and that would have been a nice insider nod to a romance staple, but instead the “bet” was used unevenly throughout to cause minor emotional flares or provide a reason for the two to be indecisive about the relationship.

While Merle may not have had a lot of experience dating hot firemen in the past I was glad that the story didn’t dwell on that type of insecurity. That would have been a common and easy path instead, it focused on the geographic differences. No matter how easy it is to resolve the class or societal differences, Merle was from England and her sick mother, manipulative, neurotic mother, needed her. I liked the upbeat, modern tone of this book with the fun dialogue topped off with steamy love scenes. Christmas on the beach is irresistible. B-

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: The Body Thief by C.J. Barry

Jane — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:25:17 +0000

Dear Ms. Barry:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The dialogue reminded me of bad cop shows:

“Yeah. Didn’t catch your name.”

“Don’t give one,”

There was misused verbiage:

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

Your terse little planet? Your concise little people?

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

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

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

Later, Griffin thinks of Cam:

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

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

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

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: The Duff by Kody Keplinger

John — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:00:56 +0000

Dear Ms. Keplinger,

Your book has been getting some of the biggest press I’ve seen for a YA title. It’s very rare that I have people that read heavily in the romance community telling me to pick a YA title up. The Duff, however, seems to be a title that captured many people’s attention. In finally reading it, the hype was brought back down to earth for me. This is a smart title for the YA set that gets a lot of things right, but I didn’t leave it with the astounded feeling that I wanted to have.

Of her group of friends, Bianca Piper knows she isn’t the prettiest. The smartest, probably, but not the prettiest. Some would even say she’s the DUFF. The Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Bianca doesn’t party like her friends. She’s the girl who sits and chats with the bartender while her friends dance to Top 40 pop songs at an all ages club. Bianca is the classic example of the DUFF.

DUFF or no, Bianca is smart. It’s because of her intelligence that Bianca is able to see where other people go wrong. Like boys. Her friends may not understand it, but dating someone who’s simply hot and gigilo-ish like Wesley Rush isn’t what Bianca wants. She has her eyes set on a better guy. Someone who wants to go to an Ivy school and who likes politics.

Certainly not a man-whore who has dated and slept with a good portion of the high school girl population. Wesley Rush infuriates Bianca to no end. He stands for everything she dislikes.

It comes as a complete surprise when kissing him sparks something in her. Bianca can’t stand him as a person, so why does kissing him feel so good? The need to escape the stuff she experiences at home – a divorce and other parental problems – makes Wesley and his kisses all the more tempting. Bianca strikes up an unusual deal with Wesley that isn’t the normal high school relationship.

Bianca and Wesley can have sex, but nothing else. As far as Bianca’s concerned, she’s still really in like with another guy. What she doesn’t realize is that her connection with Wesley is more than just in good sex, and when the time comes her choice between guys may not be so clear.

I really appreciate what The Duff stands for as a book. For me, that is really what makes it such a recommended read. There isn’t enough YA that combines a fun tone of voice with serious discussions on sex positivity. The premise is well done enough to impress me, and that’s a good foot to start off on.

From the positive end of the spectrum, I enjoyed reading about Bianca. She’s an unusual female narrator in the YA world. She’s not afraid to be bitchy and cutting, and it’s not in the drama-filled sense. Bianca swears and gets things out in the open with brutal honesty. YA is home to a lot of quieter/subtler protagonists, so reading about someone like Bianca had me going through a sort of assimilation. At first I found her to be quite the asshole, but as I read about her I realized that there was a lot more behind her than I first expected.

Bianca’s strength as a protagonist is this growing amiability. The more you read, the more you get invested in her character. Family troubles and self-image issues easily lead her into the asshole territory at times, and it’s something the reader can understand. It also gives due cause for her attachment to Wesley throughout the story. You establish a strong basis for the overall plot via Bianca’s problems, and on that end she’s really strongly developed.

On the other hand, Bianca has moments that don’t speak well to her character at all. Some of them can be said to be in every average teenager – moments of snark and bitchy bluntness. The problem is that she fundamentally goes against traits that she establishes at other moments in the story. I’ve heard many claims that Bianca is a feminist character, and while I appreciate that she’s very sex-positive and all for the unconventional romantic relationship, I don’t feel like she lives up to the feminist label that’s been put on her by the reading community. On the contrary, I felt that she was extremely negative in some places.

The opening scene takes place at an all ages club, and I was surprised to find that Bianca was criticizing her supposed friends and their dancing.

Once again, Casey and Jessica were making complete fools of themselves, shaking their asses like dancers in a rap video.

I think this just describes a bigger tonal problem I had throughout the novel. While Bianca eventually learns her lesson about judging people and using connotations that revolve around a girl being loose, I don’t feel like it’s a lesson that’s really learned by her. Throughout the book she is consistently and frequently cynical and cutting about the actions of the teenagers around her. Her feminism is something that stems from just disliking what is considered the cultural norm for teenagers. I’m not saying the cultural norm is devoid of problems, but I am saying that feminism in a character should not simply stem from her going against the grain in almost everything.

That was really my biggest problem with Bianca. She is so intelligent in a teenager way in some moments, and then in others her attitude and mannerisms shift over towards a very adult connotation. It gets to the point where she doesn’t have any fun with her friends and talks with the bartender. She uses words and phrases that just feel really out of place for the teen canon in every day usage. I’m friends with some very intelligent people, and even I found the mannerisms and attitudes to be really prudish and overblown at times.

Bianca’s relationship with Wesley is arguably the best point of the book. I feel like this is where you really shine. You portray a really complicated emotional relationship that stems from two teens with problems that knowingly use sex as a diversion. It’s real. It’s something people ignore. But the reality is just so striking that one has to appreciate it. Wesley is very rakish and barbed in his wit, and he easily wins his way into the reader’s heart.

The characterization issues did get in the way here as well. The dialogue between Wesley and Bianca could easily go into contrived/wooden territory, and as the book went on some scenes felt very odd because of the word choice and cadence of the dialogue. An out-of-character moment with a side character also occurs. He acknowledges Bianca’s existence one time and then decides to tell her about his Ivy League acceptance letter first. Such a huge moment felt really out of place when Bianca and this character didn’t exactly build up a strong relationship beforehand.

Despite the problems with characterization, I think The DUFF has a strong plotline. You speak really well to teenage mannerisms in the way you use common swear words and sex. You don’t shy away from the harder stuff, and readers like me really appreciate that in a novelist. This book portrays the sexual relationships and parental relationships effectively, and it links them together in a way that I haven’t read in a YA novel before. The sex-positivity is just such a huge win in that regard.

That being said, I feel like such a wonderful message and depth gets shallow in some spots of the book. You have great ideas and threads connecting them, but they don’t slip into the story in such a way that they are just that – ideas and themes. Instead, they feel like life lessons. Ones that are far too blunt. As the end nears you start to express a very obvious way of dealing with Bianca’s problems with her misconceptions of the school’s loose girl, and other issues that go on throughout the book. It wasn’t enough to make me dislike the section, but it could have been handled better.

What ultimately made this book so hard to put down was your authorial voice. Yes, I’ve found many critical problems in a reading that is admittedly quite critical due to the hype machine, but your voice is beyond what I expected. It has moments of brilliance in its humor and its topic. You have established yourself quite well from a debut novel, and that is something to be commended. It’s easy to read The DUFF despite how much it deals with in reality, and that’s a really good thing.

The DUFF is not perfect by any means. The over hype did give me some problems in reading it, as did the reader assessment of feminism in Bianca. I also had problems with the way dialogue and situations were handled in an unbelievable manner periodically throughout the text.

Bianca and Wesley saved this book, though, and made me enjoy it despite the problems. The DUFF portrays a complicated sexual relationship that is very frank for YA, but sends a really good message about teenage sex with its messages. Your voice as a debut author won me over, and I will be looking forward to seeing how your writing progresses and matures over time. B -

All the best,

John

REVIEW: Pride and Passion by Charlotte Featherstone

Jane — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:00:42 +0000

Dear Ms. Featherstone:

I confess that I read this book because I just loved the cover. The positioning of the characters, the color of the dress, the frills at the cuff of the man’s outfit. It was very evocative. The soft against the hard. It’s a clinch but an evocative, sophisticated clinch. This is the second book in the Brethren Guardian series and I have not read the first one.

Lucy Ashton seeks passion. She thought she had found it in the arms of an impoverished artist, Thomas. The night that she offered herself to this artist she had given him a lace handkerchief with her initials embroidered on it. Lucy believed that this handkerchief was lost to her when a fire consumed her beloved’s rented rooms. She seeks his presence through seances and soothsayers, exploring the occult for answers.

Lucy’s father, however, wants her to marry the “passionless and priggish Duke of Sussex.” What is worse is that the Duke of Sussex has returned Lucy’s handkerchief but while the Duke of Sussex wants answers about where Lucy’s handkerchief was found, Lucy begins to weave fantasies of reuniting with her artist beloved.

Sussex is part of a group known as the Brethren and they guard some artifact, as far as Lucy knows. ”Their business was mysterious and secretive, and dangerous. From what she knew of their secrets, there existed an onyx pendant, which was the very essence of evil, and some sort of chalice they protected.” Lucy took the necklace and swallowed one of the seeds inside the pendant in hopes that it would connect her with her dead lover. Now Lucy is being told that Thomas is an enemy of the Brethren, a rogue Freemason, and thus an enemy of good.

Lucy’s portrayal is one of a hapless but privileged young woman who had no control over her life. Her taking the lover, her seeking out the occult is her way of taking control. Accepting her father’s choice would be an acquiescence that she is powerless. I think that is an interesting concept but I couldn’t really understand Lucy’s thought process here. Could a passionless and priggish man be part of a secret and mysterious and dangerous society?

Lucy’s constant reference to Adrian York, the Duke of Sussex, as passionless isn’t effectively carried off because the reader sees Adrian’s point of view and thus we know he is full of passion. Repeated protestations by Lucy ring hollow. This is likely a more effective technique if the story is told primarily from Lucy’s point of view, either in limited third or first person.

Instead the alternating point of view made it hard to drum up sympathy for Lucy’s position. The reader knows her artist is the bad guy. The reader knows that Adrian totally loves her. The reader knows that he burns to get her into bed. I objectively understood what was supposed to be portrayed here but it wasn’t convincing.

Adrian is not passionless and priggish. He’s in love with Lucy and torn up that she appears to be in love with a man who killed a friend of his in cold blood, a man who is an enemy of the Brethren Guardians. Fortunately, Adrian’s quest to win Lucy’s hand is aided in part by his sister and Lucy’s own cousin. Adrian has enjoyed what Lucy seeks and that is rigid control over his life and his emotions (because of a secret!) but he seeks to lose himself in Lucy.

The secret society, the grail artifacts, and the rogue freemasons were probably there to provide suspense but the it seemed more like a game amongst men than a true and riveting danger. I also felt that it took away from the romance even though part of the conflict arose from the secrets and artifacts.

I did enjoy the close friendship that Lucy enjoyed with her cousin and Adrian’s sister and once the romance got rolling, I enjoyed Adrian and Lucy together. The secondary romance between Adrian’s sister who is blind and the supposedly philandering Marquis of Alynwick is heartwrenching and ends in a cliffhanger.

There were a couple moments of in the book that had my eyebrows raised including one love scene which took place when both were supposed to be in imminent danger and may have been brought about by slightly drugging both of them. And there was a huge coincidence that brings the story full circle. Suffice to say I liked the cover much more than I enjoyed the book. Finally, I wasn’t sure whether this was supposed to be a play on Pride and Prejudice with the Duke of Sussex playing the part of Darcy. C

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: All They Need by Sarah Mayberry

Jane — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:00:01 +0000

Dear Ms. Mayberry:

I almost feel bad recommending another book of yours. I feel like to continually recommend the same author time and again may read inauthentic to readers but your voice and the stories that you tell really resonate with me. I think you really know how to capture and express a modern women that feels very authentic and relatable to me despite the fact that these books almost always take place in Australia, many thousands of miles away.

All They Ever Need is the romance of a love shy heroine and a surprised by love hero. The interesting thing (and perhaps one of the challenges of this book) is that they don’t start out that way. When we first see Melanie Hunter and Flynn Randall it is at a high society party. Melanie is married and Flynn is trying to avoid people wanting money from his father. Flynn muses, as he watches Melanie attempt to help a couple retrieve something from a fountain:

She was easily the tallest woman at the party—at least six feet tall—with broad shoulders that would put a lot of men to shame. Her breasts were full and round, her hips curved. As much as Flynn was wary of Owen’s naked ambition, he’d always liked the other man’s wife. There was something about Mel Hunter that al ways made him want to smile. Maybe because she was often smiling herself.

This party marks the beginning of the end of Melanie’s marriage. The smiles she had worn so often had become diminished by years of verbal and even some sexual abuse toward the end. Melanie had had enough of Owen Hunter and she leaves him. She uses her divorce settlement to buy rental cottages on Mornington Peninsula, a vacation retreat and begins the process of rebuilding her life, from the inside out.

Eighteen months later (and from prologue to the first chapter), Melanie’s divorce is final and Flynn re-enters the picture. Only this time Flynn is bringing a girlfriend with him to stay at Melanie’s cottages while he looks at run down, but famous property nearby. Flynn used to be a landscape architect but when his father starting exhibiting signs of early Alzheimer’s, Flynn sold his business and took up the reins of the family company. Flynn strongly misses his connection to the earth and the lure of the once famous Summerlea estate gardens.

Whether it was his father’s illness or his own myopathy, Flynn missed the signs of seriousness of his girlfriend and he ends up hurting her fairly badly when she proposes marriage to him and he turns her down. (I’m going to circle back to this at the end). Flynn continues to visit Summerlea estate and during his visits gets to know his neighbor Melanie much better. His attraction to her is slow but intense and while she returns the feelings of attraction, Melanie never wants to get married again. It wasn’t like Owen was a bad man when she met him. She had no idea he had money (they met backpacking around Europe) and they fell in love young. But Owen had ambitions and when Melanie was introduced to his circle, she never quite fit in. She was too tall, smiled too much, laughed too loudly. She didn’t know which people to suck up to and at what points. Her identity became so eroded during her six year marriage that the institution itself is an anathema to her.

Flynn, on the other hand, begins to see in Melanie and in their connection- their mutual love for the land, their green thumbs, their pleasure in manual labor out in the hot sun – the things that would make a loving and lasting marriage like the one his parents enjoy. He voices his understanding of Melanie’s fear of marriage, but never really internalizes it. Perhaps he believes that the only natural conclusion to their relationship would be a permanent union.

What I expected, but did not get, was a mental acknowledgment of Flynn’s position with Melanie vis a vis his girlfriend’s position with him. Perhaps it is because his past girlfriend never entered his thoughts anymore, even though he was pained by their breakup. Flynn was a nice guy and was genuinely remorseful that his lack of perspicacity led to someone he cared about being emotionally hurt by his actions.

The other thing that I wanted to see was Melanie with Flynn living his Melbourne lifestyle. Melanie’s issues with Owen stemmed from her inability to fit in and I really would have liked to see Melanie navigating the Melbourne society with Flynn. With Flynn’s position, she would have had to make an appearance now and again. Instead, she couldn’t even eat lunch in a popular Melbourne restaurant with Flynn.

However, those two issues were not enough to bring the book out of recommendation territory. I loved Melanie’s character (and Flynn too). She stuck her shovel in the dirt and rebuilt her life. She had a great blue color family and the scenes which involved her brothers and her mother (who never met a tight pair of pants she didn’t love) were totally enjoyable. While Flynn is wealthy, much of the story is centered around Melanie’s blue color roots and her working class family. Her father is a mechanic who owns a small auto repair shop. They all band together to help Melanie refurbish her cottages. Flynn has to prove to these guys he can fit in with them and I loved that turn about.

Melanie and Flynn’s romance felt very real. It didn’t happen immediately but they developed feelings for each other based on mutuality of interests and not just their strong physical attraction. While other Harlequin Superromances leave the bedroom door only slightly ajar, that is not the case with the Mayberry books. The physical consummation of their relationship was important to the furtherance of the plot in part because while Melanie was okay with giving her body to Flynn, she struggled being emotionally vulnerable. The subplot of Flynn’s father’s Alzheimers provided a good example of how hard a loving relationship can be but how important it is to trust and love the other partner enough to feel safe in one’s vulnerability. B

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: Wishes and Stitches by Rachel Herron

Jayne — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:00:19 +0000

Dear Ms. Herron,

A few years ago it seems quilting in romance books was all the rage. Now it appears that knitting has taken over. I’ve resisted reading any of these books since I’m not a knitter but in my quest to expand my single title contemporary repertoire, I decided to take the plunge with your book “Wishes and Stitches” since it features an outsider heroine who’s also a doctor. I figured that way, she’s got some other interests besides yarn.

Naomi Fontaine had a great time at a recent medical conference which included a hot night with a handsome fellow attendee. Thinking she’d probably not ever see him again, she let it all loose and both had a night to remember. So when Rig Keller shows up in the small town of Cedar Hollow, CA where Naomi practices Family Medicine (GP), she’s shocked. Her next stunner is when she discovers that her pretty much absentee partner is selling out and that Rig is taking his place in the practice.

Rig, so called because up til now he’s practiced on the Gulf oil rigs, enjoyed the time he spent with Naomi at the conference and has no intention of not pursuing a relationship with her now that they’re living in the same town and seeing each other on a day to day basis. But he can’t seem to figure her out. The warm, confident woman of That Night is not who he’s seeing. Yes, she’s an excellent doctor but outside of work, she keeps a tight rein on her emotions and doesn’t appear to want to let him back into her private life.

Her secret is that Naomi desperately wants to be a part of her new community but a natural reserve keeps her from just jumping into town life. Rig, on the other hand, seems right at home with a long established brother in the community. If he presses for more from her, will Naomi open up personally and professionally? And if she does, is Rig ready and willing to commit to a future together?

Good God the people of this town love to knit. Rig calls it correctly when he says something to the effect that this is the knittingest town he’s ever seen. I wonder if the townsfolk would shun someone because that person – gasp! – crochets or, worse, merely sews or scrapbooks? Is there a roadblock at the edge of town to check for balls of yarn before a person is allowed within the city limits? I like characters with outside interests beyond sex or their jobs but this borders on obsession.

Naomi Fontaine is reserved to the point of almost being an emotional stone wall in the face of others yet she’s got such a deep well of need to fit in and be accepted. That plus the fact that this is a small, blue color town whose townsfolk feel a social gulf between themselves and the doctor don’t help her to fit in and be welcomed with open arms. Rig has an “in” since his brother has lived there for years and is an accepted part of the community. And he’s also a more “open” personality. Meanwhile, Naomi has spent her childhood and most of her adulthood, on getting good grades in order to fulfill her lifelong goal of being a doctor with little time spent socializing outside of those in her profession. Her difficulties in small talk and being part of the crowd might seem exaggerated but they also feel poignant and serve to show the glass wall between Naomi and what she wants – to be accepted.

Naomi’s got some baggage in the persons of her younger and – in Naomi’s mind – favored sister Anna and her mother with whom Naomi has never gotten along. These issues don’t feel made up or too far fetched. A lifetime of this also helps shade in the details on why Naomi would feel as if she’s trying but not getting anywhere with the people of Cedar Hollow. The flashes of anger Naomi shows when Anna appears on her doorstep expecting Naomi to fix the mess Anna has made of her life show that Naomi isn’t a pushover. The fact that Naomi doesn’t just tell Anna to take a hike show that deep down, she does love her sister but this time it’s going to be tough love.

Despite the fact that Rig is apparently more self assured than Naomi doesn’t count for much in their relationship. The book starts off with them already having met and spent a night of hot sexing at a medical conference and it’s Rig who spends the book chasing after Naomi while coaxing her into a repeat of the best sex of his life. This is a neat turn on the usual heroine who is shy of and bumbling at sex with a cool, confident hero. The Big Mis, when it came, arrived out of Naomi and Rig’s profession and seemed relevant to who they are and how they see themselves – plus a healthy dollop of family love. It takes Rig a little while to get over what happens but as he does, he comes to a greater and deeper understanding of this woman he loves.

I loved the humorous scenes scattered throughout the story. The one of Naomi running into Rig’s father Frank – in the condom aisle of the local pharmacy store – when Frank knows Naomi and Rig are about to go out on a date, had me in stitches – sorry bad pun. The men of the Keller clan were fun to read about and such…well, men. Of the two secondary romances, Frank’s worked better for me than the quickie of Rig’s brother Jake. That one is just too fast though the fact that both Keller brothers end the book happily living in sin at the instigation of their ladies is cool with me.

I will admit to a partiality for books with the hero chasing after his heroine so on that score, the romance in this one works for me. What I got tired of is the almost cult like mania for knitting. If this is a reader’s craft of choice then they’ll probably be happier while reading about it but for those uninterested in it – like me – it felt like a cup of Kool Aid along with a pair of knitting needles was being pressed on me by a group eerily smiling people. C+

~Jayne

REVIEW: Scandalous Desires by Elizabeth Hoyt

Jane — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 17:00:49 +0000

Dear Ms. Hoyt:

I have not read the previous two books in the Maiden Lane series. While I loved your initial books, Jayne began to review the series and she did such a competent job that I kept putting the Hoyt historicals aside to read and review others. I was hankering to get back in the game. For those readers who are unfamiliar with Hoyt or had gone on a Hoyt hiatus, like me, I can assure you that this book can be read without knowledge of the previous two in the Maiden Lane series. However, I did get the impression from other reviews that there is backstory in the other books which might make this reading experience richer.

“Charming” Mickey O’Connor is a river pirate who steals cargo and imposes a protection tax on every dock in London. Mickey stole the contents of a ship that was captained by William Hollingbrook and the theft was blamed on Hollingbrook. In order to prevent her husband from hanging, Silence begged Mickey for succor. He agreed, but for a price. Silence paid this price but it ruined her in the eyes of all that she held close, including her husband. Silence lost her husband emotionally before his physical body expired.

Whether it was an apology of sorts or a way to tie Silence to Mickey (maybe both), Mickey left his infant daughter on the doorstep of the widowed Silence a year prior to the start of the book. When Silence and Mary Darling (the infant) are placed in danger, Mickey brings the two under his roof for protection.

Mickey O’Connor is not a male protagonist that everyone can support. He’s a real criminal and his victims were often innocents like Silence and her husband. Even when Mickey’s wealth exceeded all that he could ever spend in one lifetime, the spectre of hunger and want hung close on his heels. Or at least that is the excuse he gives to himself and others for why he continues his rapacious activities and his iron hold over the docks.

I’m unsure of whether Mickey is truly redeemed at the end of the story. I don’t believe I read Mickey as repentant of his criminal activity although he does have to make a decision about where his priorities lie.

I admit to being befuddled by Silence at times. Where was her anger at being left Mickey’s bastard; at being held hostage by him; at her marriage basically being ruined by his actions? Silence grew in personal fortitude during the course of the book, challenging Mickey, becoming less of a mouse. While the focus of the story is largely centered around Mickey, it is Silence’s principles that hold sway as she learns to get what she wants without sacrificing her beliefs in right versus wrong.

There is an interesting question that is raised by Silence and William’s marriage. William never loved Silence the same way after her encounter with Mickey. Mickey points out that William must not have loved Silence. I think of all of the second chance at love stories that are premised on big misunderstandings. If Mickey’s assertions about love and romance are true, real love would never fade nor be swayed by actions resulting from sacrifice. This is the attitude of Dimitri’s wife in Archangel’s Blade. Dimitri must go off and serve, perhaps even sexually, an angel who has become obsessed with him and will destroy his family. Dimitri’s wife is understanding. I felt that Mickey’s redemption turned on whether the reader buys into concept of love and romance that is propounded by Mickey. In essence, Mickey’s argument is that his actions shined a light on a serious flaw in Silence’s marriage. It does make her think about love, devotion and loyalty in a completely different light.

Scandalous Desires is a deeply romantic story, with both Mickey and Silence seeking redemption albeit in different ways. The setting is primarily the palace of Mickey in St. Giles and the larger society plays only a small part in the overall story, mostly as a hint for future books. It’s hard not to be swept away by the writing in the book and while Mickey is a scourge, he does come to love Silence unabashedly. Silence’s internal fortitude and her growing refusal to be silenced as she was in the past tips this book into the recommended read territory but I did wish for more anger from Silence earlier in the book. I guess that just wasn’t her character? B-

Best regards,

Jane

Friday Film Review: The Proposal

Jayne — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:00:41 +0000

The Proposal (2009)
Genre: romantic comedy
Grade: B+

Movies which are specifically made to be romantic comedies are often a mixed bag for me and often don’t work well enough for me to even finish the film. I had been eyeing this one for a while and watching the star rating at Netflix before finally deciding to take the plunge and put it in my queue. After I finished watching it, I immediately turned on the commentary track and watched it again. It worked that well for me.

Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock), is a ball busting senior editor at a NYC book publishing company. Her faithful dogsbody of three years, Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) loathes working for her but figures his wagon is hitched to hers so he does what he has to keep her happy and hopes it will pay off for him one day. That one day is now.

Margaret is a Canadian immigrant who has pushed off meetings with her immigration lawyer and done things she shouldn’t do, immigrationally speaking, and now it’s caught up to her. With deportation imminent, Margaret pressures Andrew to marry her so she can stay in the US legally. He’s no fool and, with a 5 year stint in jail and a $250,000 fine facing him if the truth comes out, he pushes for what he wants from her.

With her back to the wall, Margaret gives in with little grace but in order to start fooling the USCIS, she has to accompany Andrew on a weekend trip to his home for a family celebration. Once in Sitka, things really start to get out of hand and Margaret begins to see how her plan could end up hurting this family she’s coming to love. Will there be wedding bells or handcuffs come Monday?

Alrighty then. First off, I’m not sure how real the immigration aspects of the film are so I just watched those and laughed at the stellar performance of Denis O’Hare who plays the main immigration officer assigned to Margaret’s case. The questions he helped come up with which are shown being answered during the closing credits of the movie are hysterical. Be sure to watch for these.

The character of Margaret starts off as a Beyotch from Hell. Her employees hate her yet at the same time fear her wrath. IMs fly though the computer systems of the publisher warning of her arrival and when the news breaks about their (false) engagement, Andrew is subject to pitying and astonished looks from his fellow drudges. Yet Bullock manages not only to pull this off without making me hate her too badly but she also gets me to buy into her gradual change of heart about Andrew.

At first she’s appalled about going to Alaska, flying on a commuter plane, getting into a boat to reach the Paxton island home, facing the 50 guests at a party arranged to celebrate the engagement, attending a bachelorette party with Sitka’s only male stripper or joining Grandma Annie (Betty White) in her nature worship but soon manages to show a convincing change of heart.

But none of that would have worked for me if not for Ryan Reynolds’ performance as Andrew. Watching him think and react to what’s going on around him is a treat, especially in the scenes when Margaret first announces their engagement and while at the USCIS. You can see the wheels turning and his mind computing what he’s going to be able to twist out of his boss for his cooperation. Then he takes exquisite glee in turning the knife at every opportunity he can. Margaret will get what she wants but Andrew’s going to make her pay through the nose for it.

But as with Margaret’s change of heart, I can believe what Reynolds does with his character as he watches his bitchy boss show her softer side and begin to loosen up under the influence of his family who accept her into their midst. So when he does propose to her for real, I buy it hook, line and sinker.

Another thing I like about the film is that it has several places where it could turn onto the standard Hollywood rutted road of rom-coms but doesn’t. Subplots concerning Andrew’s relationship with his father and a former girlfriend could have gone the way I almost expect them to but they didn’t. It’s a little thing but another instance of the director pulling back from the usual cliches.

The film is filled with fantastic actors including Betty White who almost steals the show – watch for her facial expressions and perfect comic timing, Mary Steenburgen and Craig T Nelson as Andrew’s parents, Malin Ackerman and Oscar Nunez as well as the previously mentioned Denis O’Hare. They are all perfectly cast and do a superb job.

But I think what makes the movie work for me is the fact that it tries to pull back from overdoing it. The film makers go for some subtlety of emotion rather than broad OTT slapstick. Yes, some of the scenes are played for laughs – the stripper and the nature dance are two – but none of the characters comes off as or is made to look too much like an idiot – unlike other rom-coms I’ve seen recently.

I would agree with several reviewers who state that overall, the movie is formulaic but then, it’s a rom-com and the ending is supposed to be a reversal of the initial polar opposite main characters. But it’s the way that the film gets to that reversal that makes it different for me. Sharp dialogue, great scenery – even if it’s mainly computer enhanced, a great supporting cast and likable leads combine to give me a fun and enjoyable viewing experience. B+

~Jayne

REVIEW: The Long Way Home by Cheryl Reavis

Jayne — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:00:56 +0000

Dear Ms. Reavis,

I’m so glad that by the time I’d heard of these books, the second one was already out and the third one wasn’t too much of a wait. In Little Darlin’ you make me actually like a secret baby book and toss in a marriage of convenience just for fun. In this follow up book, you take a woman who pretty much showed her ass by her actions in that book – and who showed her ta-tas for a living in the strip clubs on Bragg Boulevard – and make her into a character I wanted to stand up and cheer for as she finally gets her knight in shining armor – though his armor is slightly dented and she as much rides to his rescue as he does to hers.

Rita Warren grew up without much and that included people who cared about her. After running from her mother’s latest grabby boyfriend before she’d finished school, she found that dancing – the only thing she’d ever truly been good at – was the only thing she knew how to do that could make her any money. Her dream was Las Vegas but when she found herself without rent money, locked out of her apartment and unable to provide for her hungry young daughter, she did what she knew she had to – even if she didn’t want to – and handed Olivia over to her, up to that point unknowing, father SSgt Matt Beltran.

With Olivia settled (in Little Darlin’), Rita followed her dream to Vegas and actually made it. But she discovered that she wants more from life and that includes being a bigger part of Olivia’s life. So she heads back to Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg but this time she’s got money, the intention to get her GED and plans to turn her life around. After a less than happy meeting with Matt Beltran, Rita learns that an old friend, Spec 4 Calvin “Bugs” Doyle, is in (Womack Army) hospital following a Black Hawk crash that killed almost everyone on board. The other survivor is Lt. “Mac” McGraw who is in a room across from Bugs and who is buried under self recrimination and determined to make life hell for those around him.

Mac might have most of the nursing staff running scared but Rita is less than impressed as she proves when she hurls back at him the magazine he throws at her. Rita isn’t Army and feels free to give Mac any number of set downs. It’s this lack of pity – and the fact that he thinks she’s drop dead gorgeous – that piques Mac’s interest in her though “guy like” he shows it by acting bratty at times. Not that this has any affect on Rita who brazenly asks for his help with her GED algebra class. Slowly the two begin to spend time together though neither is looking at the other as relationship material. With their unsettled personal lives needing to be sorted can these two damaged souls find something special in each other?

Rita and Mac both begin the book as difficult characters. As the villainess of Little Darlin,’ Rita has some serious shit to make up for before she can move into the heroine role. Meanwhile Mac is non-heroically struggling with the physical and emotional aftermath of his crash along with a wandering fiancee

Rita’s still in “two steps forward and one step back” mode. She has a plan but she still suffers mental set backs and has things to fix about herself before she’s ready to move on: personal growth issues, new ways to cope with roadblocks – ie not running as a way to fix the problems in her life. She has to learn to stand her ground and work things out rather than just fleeing from them since she’s discovering that even though she thought it worked in the past, it only prolongs the issues and solves nothing. But she does face up to this, admits it to herself and works on it.

I like how she advances in her interactions with Olivia, Corey and Matt. That situation isn’t going anywhere either and Rita demonstrates that she’s getting her act together and learning new normals as she faces up to what she did and how she acted. She also doesn’t take any gruff from Mac’s mother even though she’s quaking inside. She looks the woman straight in the eye, tells her what she can do with her insinuations and leaves with her head held high.

Rita has a past, a major one that lots of people know about – the stripping – and a private one that fewer people know about – Olivia. These will be with her for life and are things that she makes sure Mac knows about when they’re working out their HEA. Here’s another thing that would have been better had she confronted it and told Mac to begin with but as she says, she didn’t count on a relationship with him, didn’t plan on it and why should she tell him all this when she first meets him? But when the rubber meets the relationship road, she does insist that he figure this into their future and be ready for it. This is the point when I knew she’d finally reached her goal and could advance into a forever HEA.

Mac is doing the wounded warrior thing. As an officer, he blames himself for what happened to his men and for surviving when most of them didn’t. Up until this point in his life, he’s had it pretty easy. From a moneyed background, he’s used to privilege and the belief that things will go smoothly to whatever he wants. He has broken slightly from the family mold by going into the Army but still caved to family pressure in the choice of his “perfect” fiancee. Now he’s faced with the reality that life can suck and at first he reacts badly. He’s certainly far from perfect and noble and I like that you let him be that way.

Rita doesn’t try and make that easy for him, doesn’t pat him on the hand and try to sweep it under the rug. She tells him she understands, she gives him time to process, she supports him when he needs it and she doesn’t let him wallow. She also makes him stand on his own two feet – literally – and face the fact that his body is going to be slightly dinged from now on. One thing I really like is that Mac knows full well – thanks to his mother – what Rita’s past is before he goes and proposes to her. He knows the good, the bad and the ugly and still wants a future with her.

I enjoyed watching these two snipe and snap at each other over the course of the book – they definitely have the “for better or for worse” part of the vows already worked out. They are both strong willed individuals and clashes are inevitable but they learn to give and take, they complement each other and they are both better for being with each other. The epilogue is also one of the few that I truly enjoyed as it shows them dealing with both the ups and the downs that come with marriage and life in the military. I like that these are two real people dealing with real issues and solving them giving me the feeling that whatever else life throws their way, they’ll be able to deal with it together. B+

~Jayne

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