Dear Author » thief

REVIEW: Sleepwalker by Karen Robards

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

Dear Ms. Robards:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

~Jayne

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo

REVIEW: Hellbent by Cherie Priest

Jia — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:00:08 +0000

Dear Ms. Priest,

I was first introduced to your work with Four and Twenty Blackbirds, your Southern gothic debut. I remember liking it but for some reason, I never picked up another book by you again. It happens. So when I saw this book pop up on NetGalley, I glanced at your backlist and was shocked to discover how extensive it was! Time passes fast. Upon realizing that Hellbent was the second book in a series, I tracked down the first book Bloodshot (which I talked about briefly here) and liked it enough to give this one a go.

Raylene Pendle is a vampire who makes a living as the thief known as Cheshire Red. She’s lived a long time and is good at what she does — so good that many people think Cheshire Red is actually a man. After the events of Bloodshot, the normally solitary Raylene has picked up some friends: the blind vampire Ian Stott and the ex-Navy SEAL turned drag queen Adrian deJesus.

In Hellbent, Raylene is recruited to steal a very strange set of magical artifacts. Unfortunately, a brilliant but mentally unstable sorceress also wants them for her own purposes. And when she gets them first, Raylene will have to contend with the woman’s greatly amplified powers to get them back.

At the same time, Ian has a political problem on his hands. Vampires normally belong to Houses. Raylene left hers decades ago after a falling out with the head of the Chicago house. (The head wanted Raylene to die for her, and Raylene disagreed.) Ian, however, never actually left. He went into hiding after losing his sight because as one of the potential heirs, such a perceived weakness would put him at a disadvantage and make him a walking target. But now the San Francisco head has died and people are looking for Ian. And because of her feelings for him, Raylene will do anything to dissuade him from leaving, even if that means dealing with the San Francisco vampire house instead.

I’ll be the first person to say that urban fantasy is a crowded subgenre. Adult, young adult, blending with paranormal romance, traditional fantasy with urban fantasy trappings, it’s everywhere despite the fact that I think the subgenre’s heyday is behind us. But despite all that, I found Raylene’s voice very refreshing. Anyone who’s read urban fantasy is used to the tough loner heroine with attitude and a chip on her shoulder.

And while Raylene started out a loner in the previous book, Bloodshot, she’s a different take on that archetype. She’s a loner because of necessity. While she can be tough, it has more to do with living a long time on her own without a vampire house to back her up and being competent at what she does. It’s not a front. In fact, the only lies she tells involve her valuing her solitary life and disliking all these people barging in on it. That’s obviously not true since she collects people and takes them in, just like the valuables and artifacts she steals.

The biggest thing that sets her apart, however, is her personality. Raylene is neurotic and has OCD. I liked that this played on the traditional folklore about vampires where to distract them, you throw rice at them because that makes them stop and have to count each individual grain. (Like how The Count on Sesame Street teaches counting?) It makes for an interesting character because Raylene is simultaneously overprepared and reckless. She likes planning for contingencies but ends up taking risks when faced with the actual situation.

I think it’s this trait of Raylene’s that made her interactions with the sorceress Elizabeth interesting. Once she realized Elizabeth had schizophrenia, she stopped being the rival Raylene needed to eliminate. Instead she became someone Raylene wanted to help. And if there’s something Raylene suffers from, it’s this unacknowledged desire to help.

For me, though, the main flaw of Hellbent is that the plot is divided between the stolen artifact storyline and Ian’s vampire house storyline. A part of me originally thought they would converge and I read on, interested in seeing how they would. Because that didn’t happen, I was left with a scattered impression. I liked the vampire house storyline because plots involving political intrigue are a favorite of mine. But Raylene jumping back and forth between that and the stolen artifact storyline weakened it for me.

I was surprised by the conclusion to the subplot involving Adrian’s missing sister. Maybe neverending series have conditioned me to expect mysteries to be drawn out for several books. That the question was answered in this installment was refreshing. Unfortunately, it also struck me as a little too convenient.

As for the relationship between Raylene and Ian, I still have problems wrapping my mind around it. I think I just never bought it in Bloodshot, so while I can see Raylene doing all this because he’s a friend, I have a harder time thinking of them in a romantic way. I don’t know if that’s intentional but I admit I find their interactions to be emotionally unsatisfying.

Adrian, on the other hand, I can’t get enough of. I don’t care what he does. I just want more of him. I am interested in seeing how his new connection to Raylene will impact their relationship in the future.

Overall, I do think Hellbent was a worthwhile read. Maybe not so much about the events that take up the majority of the book but rather the fallout and what it means for the future. I am curious to see how Raylene proceeds from here. C+

My regards,
Jia

Previous book in this series: Bloodshot

REVIEW: The Curtis Reincarnation by Zathyn Priest

REVIEW: Money Honey by Susan Sey

Jane — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:38:52 +0000

Dear Ms. Sey:

I admit that your book intrigued me because the cover was akin to Julie James’ books and after I read the first chapter, I emailed a friend to let her know that I was hooked and had she read it too (the answer was negative). This story is a bit of a spin off of the Thomas Crowne Affair trope – sexy thief chased by uptight law enforcement officer. A number of people liked this in the Eve Dallas series and a number of people liked the trope in the Samantha Jellicoe series. While Money Honey doesn’t have the same feel (more toward the Jellicoe series than the Eve Dallas series), the base conflict is similar.

Patrick O’Connor was a master thief who gave up the criminal life and became an FBI informant when his sister became entangled with the law. (The chef sister and her casino owning husband were written like former stars of their own book and I was mildly surprised that there was no previous book telling their love story). Liz Brynn, FBI agent, and his sister, changed his life irrevocably and O’Connor resents this a bit. When his sister calls for help, Patrick comes immediately but maybe not just for the all good reasons:

Did he want to witness the two women who between them had turned his life upside down go after each other like a couple of feral dogs?

“Why, yes,” he said, a smile spreading over his face. ”Yes, I do.”

Patrick was trained by Jorge Villanueva and when Villanueva’s actions imperiled Mara, Patrick chose his family over Villaueva. Villanueva has been nursing a bad, bad grudge against Patrick for years and Villanueva has come to Mara’s town to play out a fantasy revenge scenario. Liz Brynn is trying to catch a counterfeiter that may or may not be connected to Patrick’s past. I could easily do the math.

I think O’Connor worked well for me because we were invited inside his head and were privy to his mass of insecurities. His bravado and intentional needling of Liz was done to create distance between himself and Liz. “The urge to smooth his shirt was unbearable, but he didn’t give in. He shook his head at his own foolishness, sank deeper into the indolent slouch he knew she hated and stepped into her world.” Further, for all his outward protestations of being completely insular, his actions betrayed him. He flew across the country, played nice with the FBI – all to save his sister.

Mara, Patrick’s sister, however, shoots back at him. “It’s not like I asked you to sacrifice yourself on the altar of my freedom, Mr. Christ Complex,” Mara said. ”It’s entirely possible that I’d have managed the situation on my own.” I appreciated Patrick’s pomposity, deliberate or no, being punctured now and again.

Liz Brynn is a fairly complex character. She understands Patrick on some level (he’s trying re exert control over the situation by engaging her sexually because he knows that it makes her uncomfortable) but she misses the obvious childish cues that he likes her (because this is akin to the grade school version of pulling the girl’s hair or dipping her ponytails in inkwells). She’s competent at her job but her rigidity to the law comes from a dark place in her past. I also liked how Liz was honest with herself about her attraction to Patrick, her weakness toward his advances.

But Liz was nothing if not pragmatic. Love didn’t last. Everybody knew it. If she was in love–and she was too scrupulously honest to even think about denying it–the only smart thing to do was embrace it. Accept it. Accelerate it toward the inevitable messy end. And in Liz’s experience, nothing propelled a romance toward a crash-landing faster than sex.

I also appreciated that Liz wasn’t constantly one upped by Patrick. In one significant area, Patrick was slow on the uptake whereas Liz caught on quick to the real danger. I felt that there was a very natural build in the case which lead to a personal conflict and resolution for Liz that had both everything and nothing to do with Patrick. (To say more would be a spoiler but I mean this to say that without the personal conflict and subsequent resolution, I wouldn’t have found the HEA as believable between the two).

Now, the suspense was a bit of a caricature and the story’s strength rests largely on the dialogue and the emotional interplay between Patrick and Liz. The sexual heat of the story was akin to a Julie James’ novel relying on the tension versus consummation. I enjoyed this debut novel and will definitely read the next Sey story. B-.

Best regards,

Jane

REVIEW: A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner

Janine — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:00:59 +0000

Dear Ms. Turner,

Somehow, I've become a huge fan of your YA series. My love for the books has taken me by surprise because the first book, The Thief, was slow to engage me and aimed at a younger audience than the later books. It wasn't until the second half of that book that I was drawn in and not until the second half of the second book, The Queen of Attolia, did I become a true fan.

By the time I got my hands on The King of Attolia, though, I was enthralled with almost every page, and I am happy to report that the fourth book, A Conspiracy of Kings, which was just released on March 23rd (Can you tell I've been counting the days?) is nearly as satisfying.

My reviews of the earlier books can be found here:

Review of The Thief
Review of The Queen of Attolia
Review of The King of Attolia

Before I review A Conspiracy of Kings, I want to warn readers that due to the way these books are written, it is almost impossible to discuss any of the later three books without giving away spoilers for the earlier books in the series. Therefore this review will contain SPOILERS for books 1-3. Readers who have not yet read these books, who may want to read them and who prefer to avoid spoilers are advised to read no further.

Like the other books in this series, A Conspiracy of Kings is set in the fictional kingdoms of Sounis, Eddis and Attolia, which are patterned on Greece. But this book differs from the others in that the focus here is not Eugenides, the hero of the first three novels in this series. Gen does make an appearance in this book, and play a significant role, but in this book, the main character is Sophos, Gen's traveling companion from The Thief.

Readers of the earlier books may recall that Sophos disappeared in The Queen of Attolia, and in this book, we learn what befell him at that time, and during the events of The King of Attolia as well.

A Conspiracy of Kings begins with a third person prologue in which Sophos and the Magus (his elderly, wise advisor) arrive in Attolia and try to attract attention from Gen (now the king of Attolia) without drawing any to themselves. As Eugenides and his wife ride in an open coach, Sophos aims a peashooter at Eugenides, but Gen does not show recognition even after being hit with the pea.
Eventually, though, the Magus and Sophos do manage to gain an audience with Eugenides, who greets Sophos warmly-’at least until he hears that Sophos is now king of Sounis.

What is the king of Sounis doing arriving in an enemy country without a retinue? In the next several chapters, Sophos narrates his story in first person, and we learn where he has been all this time and why he arrived in Attolia as he did.

Sophos' tale begins in the country of Sounis, back when he was nephew to the king and heir to the throne. His father could find nothing right with Sophos, who was more interested in poetry and plays than in swordsmanship and political machinations. As Sophos tells it, his father blamed the Magus who had been Sophos' teacher, and had Sophos sent to the island of Letnos to study under new tutors, first one who indulged in drinking, then another who turned abusive.

One day, Letnos is invaded by a company of armed men. Sophos manages to overcome a couple of them, and to herd his mother and sisters into a hiding place in the ice house. But then he is captured and gagged, and has to watch helplessly as the villa is burned. Sophos is filled with grief for his sisters and mother, and anger that is directed at both himself and others. He refuses to cooperate with his captors, who reveal their intention to kill the king and use Sophos as a puppet monarch in his place.

The man who takes charge of Sophos is a slaver named Basrus. Sophos' face is scarred and his hair is dyed so he will not be recognized, and he is then taken on a slave ship to the island of Hanaktos. But there the captors' plans go awry. Basrus leaves Sophos in the care of another slaver for a short while, instructing the man that Sophos isn't for sale, but while Basrus is gone, a baron's softhearted daughter, Berrone, decides to rescue the slave that is Sohpos. The price she offers for him is so handsome that Basrus's friend sells him despite the orders to the contrary, and Sophos finds himself in Baron Hakantos' home- only to realize that the baron was in on the kidnapping plot.

The baron, however, does not know that Sophos was purchased by his daughter and is now among the field slaves, and Sophos does his best to act the part of a slave so as not to draw attention to himself. Sophos worries that he is becoming what he is pretending to be:

My freedom was like my missing tooth, a hole where something had been that was now gone. I worried at the idea of it, just as I slid my tongue back and forth across the already healing hole in my gum. I tasted the last bloody spot and tried to remember the feel of the tooth that had been there. I had been a free man. Now I was not.

But as time goes on, Sophos is surprised to realize that slavery has become a strange comfort to him:

I was still happy. It was no rest day. I faced a day in the hot sun, shifting dirt and stones, with scant food and ignorant company, and I'd never felt so much at peace. I laughed at myself as I shifted on my pallet for a more comfortable spot and a few minutes' rest. Let me be beaten, I thought, and then see how well I liked being a slave. Too soon the overseer knocked on the doorway with his stick, and we all rose, grumbling, for another day.

I had grown skilled at shifting dirt. If I couldn't compete with some of the men in the field with me, I could keep up with most of them. I worked hard, I slept well at night, and I dreamed often. I grieved, but a part of me felt a lightening of the burden I had carried all my life: that I could never be worthy of them, that I would always disappoint or fail them. As an unknown slave in the fields of the baron, I knew the worst was over. I had failed them. At least I could not do so again.

Eventually though, an opportunity to change his circumstances comes along, and Sophos must choose whether to maintain his disappearance or to step forward and claim a throne he never wanted.

A Conspiracy of Kings is an immensely satisfying book and probably my second favorite in the series, after The King of Attolia (I loved the last third of The Queen of Attolia to bits but I thought the book took too long to get there).

While Sophos isn't as charismatic or amazingly multifaceted a character as Eugenides, he is still very sympathetic. It is interesting to compare his portrayal here to the one in The Thief. In that book, which was told in Gen's first person POV, Sophos came across as younger, but very sweet and lovable. In this one, Sophos is the main POV character (the book alternates between his first person POV and omniscient third person). We see though his own eyes that Sophos is hard on himself, and doesn't always paint himself in a flattering light. For this reason, I found him a little less lovable here, but more complex and compelling.

This is a story about how a young man begins to come into his own, and Sophos' journey to greater self-confidence kept me turning the pages. I shared in his grief for his mother and sisters, in the freedom he experienced at a time when he was (ironically) pretending to be a slave, in his dreams of a magical library, in his love for and wariness of his friend Gen turned king of an enemy country, and in his longing for the woman he had loved for years.

There is one thing I'm torn about. I would have been disappointed had there been less of Gen in this book, yet at the same time, I did feel that Sophos faded a bit during those third person sections in which Eugenides appeared. The problem is that Gen has turned into such a compelling character that he casts most of the other characters into the shade. Thus, much of the book was Sophos' story, yet when Gen's presence was felt, the book became something else, and for this reason, it took some getting used to the transitions between the first person and third person sections.

I would have loved for there to be more of Irene (Attolia) in this book. She was mostly in the background and I greatly missed her. There is one scene in which Eugenides describes the moment he knew he was in love with her, and that is probably my favorite scene in the whole book.

As for Sophos' own romantic relationship with Helen, the queen of Eddis, it really tugged at my heartstrings to see how much she meant to him and I felt his love for her even when they were apart.

I have just a few more quibbles. One is that I never got a good fix on Sophos' father. The book seemed to alternate between two interpretations of this character. Also, the section just before the book's climactic scene felt a bit slow, one plot turn was a bit convenient, and in discussing the book with my friend Elle, she pointed out another contrivance that I hadn't noticed.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed A Conspiracy of Kings tremendously. Adventure, intrigue, and romance – this book had them all. That climactic scene near the end was thrilling, the love story was both poignant and romantic, and then there was Eugenides, who is such an amazing character. Although Sophos could not equal Gen in that regard, he was still interesting, sympathetic, and worth rooting for. A- for A Conspiracy of Kings.

Sincerely,

Janine

PS I hope there will be a fifth book in this series — it seems like there is plenty of fodder for one. And if there is another, I personally would love to have one of the women as a main POV character. You write such strong and interesting female characters that I wish I could see more of them. I also adore Eugenides, so of course I can't wait for more of him, too.

This is a book published by one of the “Agency 5″ but it is a hardcover and the ebook price is $9.99

REVIEW: The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Janine — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:00:23 +0000

Dear Ms. Turner,

Last month Jane, Jia and I embarked on Keishon’s TBR challenge 2009. This time Keishon’s suggestion is a book that AAR has rated as a DIK (Desert Isle Keeper). While scanning through AAR’s list of DIK reviews, I was excited to unearth Rike’s review of your Thief Series.

Back in July of 2007, I reviewed the first book in this series, The Thief, and in January of 2008, I reviewed The Queen of Attolia. While neither book received an A grade from me, the ending of The Queen of Attolia was so compelling that I was salivating to read the third book when I finished the second.

But other reviewing commitments delayed my reading it and then my life got so busy that I barely had time to read a thing. The consequence was that The King of Attolia has languished on my bookshelf far too long. Happily, the TBR challenge was the excuse I needed to pick it up and finish this set of reviews.

It is impossible to discuss the third book without giving MASSIVE SPOILERS for the first two. Readers who haven’t read The Thief or The Queen of Attolia and want to avoid spoilers for these books should read no further.

The three books are set in a fantastical world based on the Mediterranean (Greece in particular) and deal with the three kingdoms of Sounis, Eddis and Attolia. This third book focuses mostly on Attolia.

As The King of Attolia opens, Eugenides, master thief of the kingdom of Eddis, has married the Queen of Attolia, who once cut off his hand, and in doing so, become Attolia’s King. But most of the Attolian court and the queen’s guard have nothing but contempt for Eugenides.

The Attolian custom is that a new bride goes to her husband’s bedroom on their wedding night, but in Eddis the groom is the one to visit his wife. The corridor between the king and queen’s apartments is full of attendants, so it is widely known that neither Attolia (as the queen is called) nor her new husband has traversed that distance.

Eugenides lacks the demeanor of a king, and he seems to most Attolians to be a childish fool. Among those who despise the new king is Costis, a member of the queen’s guard. One day, in a moment of rage he can’t even understand himself, Costis hits Eugenides in the mouth, despite his being king and having only one hand.

Costis fully expects to be tortured and then hanged for treason. But he is unexpectedly pardoned by the king, who comes to visit him in his rooms. Costis is then called to attend on the king. While spending time in Eugenides’ vicinity, Costis observes the king’s attendants and the palace guard making a fool of the king with little tricks, like staining his clothing, and making jokes at his expense.

Yet even as he tells himself how little respect he has for the king, Costis begins to hate him less. The more time he spends in the king’s company, the more puzzled Costis grows at the king’s relationship with the queen. He finds himself torn between his loyalty to the men he serves with, who despise the king, his fealty to the queen, whom he reveres, and what his own sense of honor demands of him.

Costis senses there are machinations in the palace, plots against the king, but is uncertain what, if anything, he should do about it, and whether there may be, after all, a point in protecting Attolia’s King.

The King of Attolia is a thrilling book, especially to anyone who has read the previous two books in the series.

Most, though not all, of the scenes are written from the viewpoint of Costis, and he is a very likable character — honest, loyal, brave, and above all, honorable. His dilemmas where the king and the other palace power players are concerned are understandable and involving.

Readers of The Thief and The Queen of Attolia know that Eugenides is nobody’s fool, even when Costis doesn’t realize it, so it’s delightful to see the thief king’s cleverness at work as he himself fools many of Attolia’s nobles. The plot takes unexpected twists but Eugenides is always two steps ahead of everyone but his queen.

The relationship between Eugenides and the older (and even taller!) Attolia is incredibly romantic. Here, as elsewhere in Eugenides’ life, things aren’t what they appear to be, and Attolia, who has a reputation for ruthlessness and whose very name instills fear in so many, has a soft spot where her new husband is concerned. Theirs is a relationship between two highly intelligent people who are sometimes tortured by their past and who must outthink their many enemies and rivals.

But the most thrilling thing about the book is the character of Eugenides. Readers who have been following his adventures since The Thief have the chance to see him grow from a daring boy into a haunted man and now into a worthy leader for the kingdom of Attolia.

There is so much complexity in your portrayal of Eugenides that I’m in awe of the way you have bound maturity and boyishness, ruthlessness and vulnerability, cleverness and devotion, into this one character. It is this portrayal that makes The King of Attolia one of the most engrossing and satisfying young adult books I have ever read. 2010 and book four can’t come soon enough for me. A-/A.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased in paperback from Amazon. No ebook format.

REVIEW: Passion and Pleasure in London by Melody Thomas

Janet — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:00:25 +0000

Dear Ms. Thomas:

Your books remind me acutely how much of the relationship between reader and book depends on some chemical, perhaps even alchemical, reaction, indescribable yet potent in its effect. They also remind me of how possible it is, even now, for a compelling storyteller to make stock characters and situations come to life. Which is what I found to be the case in Passion and Pleasure in London, a book that once again blends romance and intrigue in a satisfying, albeit not thoroughly original way.

Winter Ashburn is a thief, a petty thief for the most part, but a thief nonetheless. She is also a lady by birth, granddaughter of a duke, her father long dead following a horrific accident, her mother suffering from some form of dementia, and her younger brother fully in her care. Winter’s uncle, Baron Richly, has given her a small cottage, leaving her to her own independence in the wake of an incident eight years ago that set in motion both her father’s death and Winter’s larcenous behavior. An in-between existence is what Winter leads, not destitute but hardly flush, not disrespectable but still outside the society into which she was born. It is no wonder, then, that when she spots the half-English, half-Rom Rory Jameson, a man whose dark beauty matches his brooding manner, she is drawn to him, recognizing a strange kinship with the stranger.

Rory is similar to Winter in a number of ways. The grandson of a nobleman, the Marquess of Granbury, he has lived the life as an outsider – his Gypsy mother consistently derided and his disgraced father killed trying to defend her. Like Winter he has taken a different path in life than the one he was born to, a solitary path, as it happens. But now Rory is on his way to Granbury Court, summoned finally by his dying grandfather to assume his inherited position, and despite his resistance, his distrust, and his resentment toward the family who rejected his own parents, Rory finds himself wending toward a home he has never known, never expected, but that has always been intended for him. When he spots Winter in a local pub, he is instantly on alert; when he finds her going through his saddlebags, he is revealed as that time-honored combination of alpha maleness: anger and arousal. One forbidden kiss in the stable and an attempt on Rory’s life later, Winter and Rory find themselves irrevocably snared in a complicated mix of attraction and mystery.

Not everyone is thrilled with Rory’s appearance at Granbury Court, especially his cousin Trevor, who had hoped to become the marquess’ heir, Baron Richly, to whom the old marquess had indebted himself quite extensively, and Richly’s daughter Lavinia, who is contractually betrothed to the marquess’ heir. There is also some distrust among the those in the shire, who have suffered under Granbury Court’s mismanagement and are still uncertain of who burned to the ground Winter’s former home, Everleigh Hall, some years earlier. It is unclear who is behind the attempt on Rory’s life and their motive, but Rory’s extensive military and government experience (yes, he’s one of those heroes) tells him that the attack was not the random robbery it appeared to be, making him distrustful of practically everyone. And while he initially distrusts Winter, especially when he wakes to find her standing over his sick bed (following the attack) and assumes she is trying to kill him, he soon realizes that she presents a different sort of danger, the peril of excessive feelings.

Neither Winter nor Rory is lighthearted, neither is perfectly honest, neither is wholly forthcoming with the details of their life, but both have a basic integrity and loyalty that overrides their superficial deviousness and wariness of each other. Both have suffered a great wrong at the hands of family, both are essentially orphans (although Rory has a sister, Eve, with whom he’s close, and Winter has her brother and others in the shire who look after her), both have taken on too much responsibility at too early of an age, and both have guarded their hearts jealously despite their passionate natures. In other words, they are a perfect, brooding, Romance match.

I do not think the strength of this book is reflected in its basic characterization and plot, because so much of that detail comes across as derivative. For me the strength of the book is expressed in the emotional spark between Rory and Winter and the way the novel makes the most of their characters to develop that passion. At one point Winter tells Rory, “‘I have never known a person to touch as much as you do, my lord,’” to which Rory aptly replies, “‘And I have never known a woman who needs to be touched as much as you do.’” This exchange communicates perfectly the nature of Rory and Winter’s relationship – their mutual need for connection and the way it pushes and pulls at them, driving them to ever-deeper levels of physical and emotional intimacy:

She had never known anyone like him before. The man might be a scapegrace, but he did not seem overset by his faults. She envied his acceptance of himself. Never before had anyone made her so aware of her own body and feelings. Or made her feel so alive and unafraid. . . .

“I will not be a trophy,” she said. “The prize for a game won between us.”

“Is that what all of this is about?” he quietly asked.

“I don’t know. I only know is that I am all tight inside. Like I’ve been caught in an apple press. I can’t even seduce you properly, and you’re the easiest man I know.” . . .

He knelt and combed the hair out of her face. “Look at me, Winter.”

And she did. . . .

“You are seducing me, love.”

One of the things I like most about Rory and Winter is that they are not wincers and mincers; for the most part they say what they mean and they mean what they say, neither disposed to whining, self-pity, or cruel pettiness. Rory, for example, has many reasons to despise his grandfather, and yet his response to the marquess and to the prospect of taking on the title himself is not what I expected (it is deeper and more thoughtful). Winter, who is very aware of her growing feelings for Rory, is nonetheless not moved to besotted manipulation or stupidity. In fact, there is an honesty in both characters, in their portrayal and the way they function in the novel, that is compelling enough to push my sympathies past their superficial type-ness and make me care about them.

There are also a number of secondary characters in the novel who manage to contribute to the emotional authenticity of the central relationship, namely Angelique Kincaid, who becomes a much-needed friend to Winter and who challenges Winter to take new stock of past relationships. Rory’s sister Eve, who, like her brother, is strong and practical, also provides some help along the way, intervening in Rory’s relationship with Winter just enough to keep things from flying off the track and providing some much needed clarity to Winter. The ostensible villain of the book, Baron Richly, is not portrayed with a great deal of subtlety, but the effects of his greed and ambition reverberate through the novel in sometimes effective ways (especially in the economic challenges he creates for Granbury and the way that affects Rory). As was the case in the last novel, Sin and Scandal in England, there is still a fair amount of purple prose, especially during the love scenes, but I found it less frustrating in this book, in part, I think, because Rory and Winter were better suited to the linguistic intensity and also because it seemed less intrusive and less prevalent this time around. Also, I found myself negotiating fewer typographical errors in this ARC, which likely relieved my general crankiness in also navigating through the sometimes melodramatic prose.

The biggest disappointment in the book for me was the mystery plot, which had much more dominance in the last book than here. One thing I enjoyed about the mystery plot in the last book was the way it broke some of the romantic tension and provided a nice layering to the grossly overused spy Romance tropes. In Passion and Pleasure in London there is less emphasis on the spy stuff, but also a weakening in the strength of the mystery, which in this case revolves around the attempted murder of Rory. The resolution to this mystery, which was intended to tie a number of the novel’s elements together, was not particularly satisfactory for me. The reasons for this – which I will attempt to convey without giving away spoilers – are related to the characterization of the main culprit, which I found inconsistent (why didn’t anyone see it before?), the motive of one of the secondary culprits (this person’s involvement past a certain point was never explained), and the way this resolution invoked another Romance trope that frankly diminished the importance of some of the financial/economic issues that had been developing during the novel. I did, however, appreciate the way in which one of the would-be villains actually revised some of the presuppositions that predicated the initial attempt on Rory’s life. Had this character been nuanced a bit more, the mystery subplot might have been stronger and more effective in its unraveling.

Overall, though, I found Passion and Pleasure in London a compulsively readable book. As with the last book, I am somewhat torn between a C+ and a B-, but since I am still feeling fondly toward the book several weeks after reading it, its strengths are obviously enduring in my recollection beyond its weaknesses, so I will go with the B-.

~Janet

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

REVIEW: After the Kiss by Suzanne Enoch

Jane — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:00:20 +0000

Dear Ms. Enoch:

Like commenter Corrine, I had admittedly had some issues with the past few historicals. I had enjoyed England’s Perfect Hero so much (as Corrine says “hands-down favorite SE title”) that it may have affected my opinion of the books that followed.

Needless to say, I adored After the Kiss. First, I loved the title. It had real meaning for the story. Sullivan James Waring joined the Royal Dragoons and while he was gone his mother, Francesca Perris, died. She was a tenant of Sullivan’s father, the Marquis of Dunston. Dunston has never recognized Sullivan although it is well known that he is Dunston’s bastard son. Sullivan is sneaking into houses at night to recover his mother’s legacy – 13 paintings that Dunston commandeered and sold or gave away.

One of the paintings was given to the Marquis of Darshear’s family. Sullivan sneaks in, grabs a number of things including the paintings and is about to scamper off when Isabel comes down for a late night snack. They engage in a short conversation and Sullivan grabs and kisses her to keep her from screaming and then escapes only to realize that during the kiss Isabel took off his mask. The next day, Sullivan and Isabel meet in person and Isabel decides she will blackmail Sullivan, just for the fun of it. She makes him sell her a horse and promise to train the horse to be saddle ridden. Suddenly both Isabel and Sullivan’s life change, “After the Kiss.” So simple, yet so clever. (okay, maybe not clever, but I will always remember that this book is about Isabel and Sullivan).

Isabel is a bit delighted that she was kissed by a handsome burglar. She’s a society girl whose life is filled with balls, suitors, and frivolity. Her dance card is always full. She’s courted by the best bachelors in England. She’s considered to be a darling of the Ton. The tale of confronting a burglar is full of dashing and is only going to raise her in the esteem of her peers. Maybe because Isabel’s life is so perfect that she impetuously decides that Sullivan can be brought to heel like anyone else.

Isabel is actually frightened of horses (and for very good reason) and her family is delighted that the well known Sullivan is going to help her ride again. Her brothers are practically drooling being in the same area. The training of the horse and the riding lessons put Sullivan and Isabel in close contact with each other on a regular basis. As they grow closer, Isabel becomes the subject of malicious gossip which turns her from the Belle of the Ball into a near social pariah. Her family speaks to her, her mother warns her of the danger of continued association.

Both characters change over the course of the book. They have to set aside preconceived notions such as how Isabel views herself as a member of the aristocracy and Sullivan has to set aside his prejudice against the aristocracy. I particularly liked how details of the characters were revealed in an offhand way, dropped here and there throughout the story, like the reason that Isabel was afraid of horses and why Sullivan joined the Royal Dragoons. Both details provided depth to the main characters and were added at just the right time instead of telling us all of it right up front.

Isabel and Sullivan are a great match and it’s a wonderful play on the stableboy/lady of the manor storyline. One other thing that I loved were Sullivan’s interactions with his friend Bram:

With a quickly covered frown, Sullivan glanced at his friend and then away again. “I kissed her,” he said shortly.

He felt rather than saw Bram pause. “Beg pardon?”

‘I kissed her, and she took my mask off before I’d realized it. That’s how she recognized me.” Sullivan kept his back to his friend, but it didn’t help. He didn’t need to see Bram eyeing him to know that he’d been an idiot. “I never expected her to appear at Tattersall’s, and it’s not as though we’d ever meet at Almack’s.”

‘What? Apologies. I’m still at the part of the conversation where you said you kissed her.”

‘She stumbled across me.”

‘And onto your mouth?”

and

‘Tell me again why you don’t have any friends of your own station?” Sullivan asked, stripping off his rough work jacket as they entered the cottage and hanging it on a peg beside the door.

‘They’re all jealous of my good looks and keen wit. You, however, know the true, inner me.”

Sullivan shook his head. “The only inner you I’ve seen is when you got sliced on the arm. It’s red.”

‘Precisely. As are your innards. You see, we have so much in common.”

There’s a well placed suspense to the story both in whether Sullivan will get caught and hung for the crime of theft and in whether Sullivan and Isabel can actually be together given society’s constraints against the match. The way in which both Sullivan and Isabel developed made the ultimate resolution very natural. It all seemed organic, as if the story told by you could have actually happened and you were just the narrator. A-

Best regards,

Jane

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

CONVERSATIONAL REVIEW: Your Scandalous Ways by Loretta Chase

Jane — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:00:47 +0000

Jane:

At the beginning of Lord of Scoundrels, a book that has been in print since its first publication in 1995, Lord Dain meets Jessica Trent for the first time

She was not classic English perfection, but she was some sort of perfection and, being neither blind nor ignorant, Lord Dain generally recognized quality when he saw it.

That statement fairly sums up my experience with Your Scandalous Ways. It is a kind of perfection, romance perfection perhaps. Francesca Bonnard is a high class courtesan who was married to John Bonnard, a highly ranked politician in England. He divorced her, threw out into the street, and hoped she would end up used and diseased and possibly dead. The only course open for Francesca was the oldest profession but she parlayed that into being one of the most famous and most expensive whores alive. Her protectors were princes, dukes, dignitaries. Every notch in her bed post became a weapon in her correspondence to her former husband. Younger sons of England’s titled set, like James Cordier, simply did not have enough cache.

Of course, James Cordier is not an ordinary younger son. He’s a spy, a thief, and a whore himself; only he sleeps with women for his government instead of for money. He is dispatched to obtain letters that Francesca supposedly has in her possession. James is a bit tired of being the government’s whore but if he has to sleep with a beautiful woman one last time then he’ll do it and then retire to the country side with a milk and roses miss.

It’s hard to sum up in a few sentences what I liked about this book. Francesca, for one. She’s such a survivor but you can see her vulnerability in how she’s still fighting this battle against her horrible former husband; how she constantly tells every new person that she’s a whore as a shield so that they can’t stab her with it later. James is the perfect match for her. He’s strong but emotional. His longing for the traditional English miss is dashed to dust nearly the minute he meets Francesca. He never, ever looks down on her and even suggests that his parents would love her (after all his mother is very unconventional). I thought this book was expertly plotted with no wasted scenes, no throwaway dialogue or extraneous characters. The one weakness I saw in Lord of Scoundrels was the plot and particularly how it kind of fell apart at the end. There was no weakness here, that I could see. It’s a book I know I will read forever and it’s one I’ll recommend to my daughter when she’s of an age. It shows that true love does triumph and it does heal and it is magical.

Robin:

I haven’t been able to make it through Lord of Scoundrels yet, so I can’t comment on that comparison, but I definitely agree that Your Scandalous Ways is “some kind of perfection.”

Let’s start with the first sentence of the first chapter. It’s one word: “Penises.” Followed by one more: “Everywhere.” That’s it; the first paragraph. How many Romance novels begin their first chapter with the word “penises”? Right then I understood that I was reading a different book, a book that would challenge and excite me, kind of like the, . . . well, okay, back on track. The penises, it turns out, belong to a veritable hoard of Putti on the ceiling of the “decorative insanity” that is Francesca Bonnard’s Venetian villa, little naked boys suspended above her that she compulsively counts, certain they are reproducing by the day:

“They crawled about the ceilings, lifting plaster draperies or creeping among the folds, looking for who knew what. They clung to the frames of the ceiling paintings and to the gold medallions over the doors. They vastly outnumbered the four bare-breasted women lolling in the corners and the four muscled adult males supporting the walls.”

The Putti are such a perfect reflection of James and Francesca’s relationship: ostentatious, overwhelming, annoying, lush, and unexpected, perhaps even unwanted — in short, trouble. And it’s all because of the way Chase builds these characters from the ground up as surprising subversions of Romance types, playing with the types as she sketches out their generic misbehavior (sort of how I felt when I read Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady). Francesca does use her courtesan status as a shield, but it’s a shield with the substance of absolute truth; she is a courtesan, a woman who promised herself after her humiliation at the hands of John Bonnard that she would always choose the who, when, where, and how long of any sexual relationship, and she really means it.

Francesca is a woman who had to fight for her freedom and who understands its value. She’s one of the few Romance heroines whom I believed when she insisted that she didn’t want to fall in love. Which, of course, electrifies her relationship with James, who, I think, is even angrier than Francesca about their mutual attraction. James may be a guy who is willing to do what it takes for every mission, but he is craving freedom, too, and a woman who refuses to simply fall into his embrace as an easy and and easily forgotten conquest really pisses him off. In fact, I think the anger between these two is as powerful as their attraction, and in a strange way, it gives a palpable depth to their love. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a Romance where such a dark and powerful core of anger drives a romantic attraction and yet is so deftly sublimated into seemingly superficial verbal jousting. I mean, this book was funny. And poignant (especially when we find out what James has endured during his career and what really drives his anger at Francesca). It was like watching two people fence with flame throwers, beautiful and dangerous, nothing I’d want to attempt but something I can’t turn away from.

Jane:

It was a great sparring match and what made it so exciting was that the two were so evenly matched. It was stubborn alpha male against stubborn alpha female. One problem in the Bourne book was how often the power seemed to shift to the hero’s hands, but in this book, the seesaw was even. I even thought that Francesca played the traditional male role, at times. She thought that perhaps she would dally with James, even though she shouldn’t because he wasn’t quite the luminary she usually brings to
bed. She gives him jewelry at one point and my favorite part of the whole book is when he is about to throttle her for putting herself in danger.

“You’re beautiful when you’re angry,” she said.

But James is never emasculated partly because he gives back as good as he gets. He doesn’t give in and he is constantly challenging her. He treated her as an equal.

He got the waistcoat off and draped it neatly over the chair seat. “I have an excellent idea,” he said. “Especially now that I’ve seen you naked.”

‘You don’t need to flatter me,” she said. “I don’t need honeyed words.”

‘When have I flattered you?” he said. He undid the button at the neck of the shirt sticking wetly to his torso. It sagged open, revealing a V of his powerful chest, gleaming bronze in the candlelight. “I believe I called you an idiot more than once this morning alone.”

Robin:

Oh, yes, that point where she turns the gender tables on James is wonderful, because he is, despite all of his protestations, the romantic in the relationship, from his long curly hair to his passionate intensity. He even lusts after Francesca’s jewels like one would a lover. Remember the scene in the gondola where she bets him that she can seduce him right there, and James almost loses it when she starts fondling herself, torn between the attractions of her necklace and her breasts? It really is amazing that you can have two people who are used to being in control, who really *don’t* give it up for the other in any way that compromises their core values.

As for Francesca, she exemplifies what I’m starting to think of as the anti-heroine heroine in Romance, the heroine who not only fights love, but fights the Romance formula, continuing to subvert the reader’s expectations about how a relationship should proceed through a novel. I can see where a character like her can frustrate readers, but what’s so great about Chase’s book, I think, is that James is so frustrated that readers who get frustrated by Francesca can sympathize with James.

This is really, I think, Chase at her most masterful, using humor to highlight the darkness underneath, but not giving in to maudlin angst. One of the things I didn’t like about the last book, Not Quite A Lady, was that difficult things seemed resolved too easily and swiftly. But here I didn’t feel that at all, because she so perfectly balances that signature dry humor with the bittersweet aspects of the story. This is a happily ever after made for people who don’t really believe in happily ever afters, I think.

Jane:

What is so wonderful is that James and Francesca belonged together and Chase makes you believe it from the very minute that they appear on the page together. And Chase closes in much the way she begins, with the ceiling of little penises being the focus, only now Francesca is joined by James in studying the art form. The other day you talked about how romance, as the love fantasy, is supposed to be “sex positive, woman positive, man positive, love positive, and relationship positive.” That’s how I saw Your Scandalous Ways. It was positive and uplifting and beautifully reaffirming of love.

This book can be purchased in mass market at the end of May from Amazon or Powells or ebook format. (no link yet).

Want to read this early? Answer the following question. I’ll pick 5 random winners from those who give the correct answer.

What gemstones is Francesca wearing in the excerpt?

REVIEW: The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Janine — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 20:09:49 +0000

Dear Ms. Turner,

Since in reality, our reviews are at least as much for readers as they are for authors, let me begin this letter with a warning to readers who haven’t embarked on your YA fantasy series beginning with The Thief. The book I am about to review here is The Queen of Attolia, second in this series, and because of the way the series is constructed, any review of this book would be chock full of spoilers for the previous one.

(So readers, if you haven’t read The Thief yet, and have an interest in doing so, you might want to bypass this review entirely, and if you haven’t done so yet, go read my review of The Thief instead.)

As The Queen of Attolia opens, Eugenides, also known as Gen, master thief, is in Attolia, a country that is enemy to his own homeland of Eddis. Not only that, he is in the palace of the Queen of Attolia, which he has infiltrated many times, and is now trying to escape undetected. But this time, the Queen of Attolia is one step ahead of Eugenides at every point, and for the second time in his life, he is captured.

Having been humiliated by Eugenides when he escaped from her earlier, Attolia, as she is known (the monarchs in this world all bear the names of their kingdoms), is determined that Eugenides will not escape again, and that she will mete out a punishment that will impress on everyone the folly of humiliating her.

At first Attolia thinks to execute Eugenides, but when the ambassador from the Mede Empire suggests that the Queen of Eddis, on whose behalf Eugenides’ greatest theft in Attolia’s kingdom was perpetrated, would prefer that he die quickly and painlessly, and reminds Attolia that she could ransom Eugenides for a tidy sum, Attolia decides to cut off Eugenides’ right hand instead.

And thus, Eugenides, Queen’s Thief of Eddis and cousin to the Queen of Eddis herself, is returned to the palace in Eddis, wounded both in body and in spirit, grieving for his lost hand and his lost art, and desperately afraid of being maimed forever in the afterlife, as well as of what further vengeance the Queen of Attolia might wreak on him before then.

In Eddis, Eugenides isolates himself in the palace library and only rarely comes out. Even after his physical injury heals to the extent it can, he still finds the most basic social interactions painful and suffers from nightmares in which he relives the moment when his hand was cut off.

The Queen of Eddis, who loves her cousin and Thief dearly, is greatly concerned about him — and about the precarious situation that his capture has plunged her kingdom into. For Eddis is a small but strategically placed kingdom wedged between Sounis and Attolia. And not only does the threat that Eugenides might slip into his castle and kill him no longer prevent the King of Sounis from attacking Eddis now that Eugenides has lost his hand, but Eddis’ retaliation for the cutting off of her cousin’s hand has incited a threat of war with Attolia, and the Mede are hoping that this war will give them power over Attolia, Sounis and Eddis.

Eugenides is kept in the dark about the turmoil that surrounds his country, but when the magus of Sounis visits him, Eugenides learns that war is brewing, and realizes that no matter how terrified he might be inside, he must now conquer his fear and embark, one handed, on the greatest theft of his career on behalf of his Queen: stealing nothing less than peace.

The Queen of Attolia makes a good continuation to The Thief, but it is clearly aimed at a somewhat older audience than the earlier book. Whereas in The Thief, Eugenides was referred to mostly as “Gen,” and portrayed as a boy on an adventure, here we see him mature into a man who is far more aware of his own vulnerability and limitations, a man who, due to his amputated hand now has to rely less on the dexterity of his fingers, and more on the cleverness of his mind to pull off the feats of his heroic thefts.

For this reason I was more interested and engaged in reading The Queen of Attolia then I was when I read The Thief, but that is not to say that I was always thoroughly entertained. As much as I enjoyed reading about this more mature Eugenides, I also felt that the book lagged somewhat in the first half while I was waiting for the main character to come out of his depression, and especially for the romance I had heard about to take off.

Yes, there is a romance and it is quite wonderful, but it doesn’t really become the focus of the book until two-thirds of the way through. There are a lot of things I could say about this relationship, especially in regard to some fascinating dynamics that emerge from it, and to its freshness and originality, and the ways in which it, to quote a friend, runs counter to the usual romance tropes, and is so unexpected and yet quite romantic. But I’m limited by the fact that since it comes so late in the book, to describe it further would be to lean into spoiler terrain.

Therefore, instead I’ll talk about the nitpicks that (sorry Michelle!) keep this book from being an A for me. While I loved the final third, I felt that the The Queen of Attolia took a bit too long to get to that part of the story. As in The Thief, the first half, though interesting, was less exciting than the second.

There were also, interspersed with Eugenides’ story, some summaries of the battles between Eddis, Attolia and Sounis. These were dispensed out in a rather dry fashion, without dramatization, and seemed to me to be examples of what is sometimes known as info dumping. Fortunately these sections weren’t that long, but as I read these paragraphs, I was forced to resist the urge to impatiently skim them and return to the characters I cared about.

I also want to mention the narration. The Queen of Attolia is written in third person, and while I do feel that this was probably the right choice for this book since it adds the diversity of multiple viewpoints, I nevertheless missed the liveliness of Eugenides’ chatty first-person voice from The Thief.

Despite these quibbles, I enjoyed The Queen of Attolia more and more as the book progressed, and I loved the maturation of Eugenides as well as the many colorful and clever secondary characters. I liked the fact that beyond the made up kingdoms, the fantastical elements in the story were kept to a minimum, so that when they did come into play they were all the more potent. The marvelous romance in its final third left my mouth watering for the third book, The King of Attolia, which lies on my desk as I write this and glance at that book longingly. Other reviewing commitments are keeping me from getting to it right away, and oh, how I want to pick it up right now!

Assigning a grade to this book is a conundrum. Yes, The Queen of Attolia was slow in places but the romantic elements were terrific. Only I wish there were a whole lot more of them. Oh, but what there was in the way of romance was so smart, so mature, so very worth reading! If only there had been more…

In evaluating The Queen of Attolia, I keep wanting to section it into thirds. The first third would earn a B-, the second a B or B+, the third an A-. But I have to grade the entire book, and so, I end up in that awkward midpoint between a B and a B+, and those are the categories under which I file this letter.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased in mass market.

REVIEW: The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

Janine — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:30:46 +0000

Dear Ms. Turner,

Your young adult fantasy novel, The Thief, was named a 1997 Newbery Honor Book, an ALA Notable Book, and an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. After hearing good things about the series that begins with this book from two different friends, I was eager to begin reading it.

Gen, the hero of the story, is languishing in the King of Sounis's prison when the Magus, who is the king's advisor and scholar, comes to see him. The Magus explains that he needs Gen (a thief who managed to swipe the King's seal) to steal something for him, but he won't reveal what. Gen will be released into the Magus's custody if he agrees to this theft. If he tries to escape before stealing the object and turning it over to the Magus, the King of Sounis will offer a huge reward for Gen's capture.

So it comes about that Gen agrees, and the next day, he begins a journey to an unknown destination in the company of the Magus, a soldier named Pol, and two young men that Gen dubs Useless the Elder and Useless the Younger. Gen must make the journey on horseback, and he is not very good on horses. He is also weak and hungry because of the time he spent in prison. Therefore he is not always on his best behavior as the group travels, and tensions begin to develop in the group.

Since Gen bragged about stealing the king's seal, the Magus thinks Gen is a good thief but a stupid one. He plans to use Gen as he might a tool, like a hammer, but he doesn't accord him anymore respect than he would a hammer. Gen, who had reasons for bragging about his thieving that he doesn't want to reveal, is chafed by the Magus' attitude.

Then there is Useless the Elder, whose real name is Ambiades. He is the kind of person who looks down at anyone from a lower station, and sees most people as being below himself. To say that Ambiades is difficult to get along with is an understatement, and Gen doesn't even bother trying.

On the other hand, Gen comes to like Pol and Useless the Younger, whose real name is Sophos. Pol is very capable and Sophos friendly to Gen.

During their travels, the group passes from the Kingdom of Sounis to that of Eddis. Gen's mother was from Eddis, and he is familiar with its religion, in which a different, older set of gods is worshipped than the ones prayed to in Sounis and Attolia. To make the journey more enjoyable and to educate Ambiades and Sophos, the Magus begins to tell Eddis's creation myth to the other men. Gen knows different variations of these stories from his mother, and eventually, he too begins to tell the others stories about the old gods.

Some of the dynamics between Gen and his companions begin to change as the journey progresses. Gen also learns that the object he will be stealing is something that could shift the balance of power between the three kingdoms of Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia. When, about halfway through, the travelers reach their destination, the place turns out to be more mysterious and magical than Gen imagined.

Will Gen succeed in stealing something where countless others have failed? And what will happen to him and his companions after this attempt? What will happen to the balance of power between Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia? Those things are left to the reader to discover, and in the process, we also learn that not everything is what it appears to be.

It took me a while to get involved in the story because although Gen's narration was very well written, his character was not instantly sympathetic to me. In the beginning of the book he is portrayed as a rather selfish person who cares mostly about his own comfort and about becoming famous through an extraordinary theft. This does change as the book continues, and I gradually grew to like him better.

The first half of the book seemed somewhat slow to me. The tension between Gen and his companions begins with mild annoyances, and I felt a bit impatient while waiting for something of greater significance to happen. The myths of the old gods held my interest, and I thought that you did a terrific job of making them unique, and giving them the flavor of mythology at the same time.

The second half of the book held more excitement, and I especially liked what happened when Gen and his traveling companions reached the place where the object he came to steal was located. There were some twists that were revealed at the end of the book, and even though I had guessed one of them all along, there were others that surprised me.

The setting of The Thief is based on Greece, and it was refreshing to read a fantasy with a Mediterranean flavor. I enjoyed the little details such as the characters eating olives and cheese for lunch and yogurt for breakfast, but one little detail that threw me was the mention of guns. Although they were said to be less accurate than crossbows, I still had to revise my mental picture of the society of this world. Because everyone traveled on horseback and there were no other inventions as advanced that were mentioned, I had not anticipated that guns would exist in Sounis, Eddis or Attolia.

While I can't rave about The Thief, I enjoyed it enough to look for the next book in the series, especially since I've heard that this is where things get romantic between Gen and a rather interesting woman who makes a brief appearance in The Thief. As for this book, although I think it may be a better read for young adults than for grownups like me, it's still good enough to get a recommendation and a B- from me.

Sincerely,

Janine

REVIEW: Harlequin Manga Reviews Take 2: The Good, and the Bad and Ugly

Jan — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 10:00:19 +0000

Never Kiss a Stranger by Madeleine Kerr and Mayu Kasumi.Retail: $7.99.Rated T for Teen, 12 and up, lots of sweet kisses only.1 of 1 volumes.D.

Three Wishes by Darlene Scalera and Matsuri Akino.Retail: $7.99.Rated T for Teen, 12 and up, lots of sweet kisses only.1 of 1 volumes. Based upon A Man for Megan, 1999.B+ for young girls and for older readers. (Oh, and I just noticed these books are selling for $6.39 at eHarlequin.You can’t beat that!)

Dear Harlequin,

*sigh*No, no, and no.I read the second of my Harlequin Pink purchases, Never Kiss a Stranger.Aside from the annoying visuals (more about that later), I noticed the story seemed decidedly … dated.I looked at the copyright.MMCLXXXV.22 years old.One of those misunderstood CEO novels.Just what a modern girls wants.< /sarcasm>I know, I know, some stories are timeless.But this ain’t one of them.This story was dated when it was written.

The heroine is a companion to a wealthy romance author, and they’re traveling inEurope(Aside: I didn’t know you ladies lived in such an extravagent style!).She awakens one night to find a burglar in their suite, but upon seeing her the thief only steals a kiss.Later, on the cruise ship they suddenly find themselves on (because I could have sworn they were in a hotel in Nice) she realizes the thief was none other than the fabulously rich owner of the ship, who is not only a rich cruise director, he’s also a genius engineer airplane designer CEO *and* a Russian prince (now defunct). …Bwahahahaha!

OK, so let me talk about the art.In romance manga, art is pretty important.I’ll admit I’m shallow, but judging from covers of romance novels, “pretty” is a part of the fantasy.Emaciated is not.Nor is malformed.The women in this manga are drawn with painfully thin features.The older ones looked like corpses.The younger ones looked like fresher corpses.Whenever I looked at them, I was reminded of lemur skulls.The hero had worse problems.For some reason, the eye further away from the reader was always drawn larger than the one closer.Either his eyebrow was perpetually raised by that accident he had as a youth falling into rice picker (nerd joke), or aside from being a wealthy CEO genius thief and prince, he was also descended from Herr Frankenstein’s lab assistant.And to add insult to injury, he always looked cross-eyed.So we have a dead lemur kissing cross-eyed Igor Jr and I’m supposed to be entranced?

(As usual, pages are read right to left; these are 2 separate samples.)

Let’s be candid here.*looks at previous paragraphs*OK, well, let’s continue to be candid.Someone at Harlequin has the right idea.A Prince Needs a Princess is a great little manga to get younger girls interested in your brand.It had a lot of things going for it, a fun story, nice art, the feeling that it’s not your grandmother’s romance.This one however was a step backwards, the complete opposite, where everything just went wrong.Please tell me it’s an aberration.I really don’t want to have to go through this again.Igor’s evil eye is going to haunt me long enough as it is.

I pick up the next volume with trepidation.

… And am completely thrilled.You restored my faith in you.To be honest, the first thing I did when I looked at Three Wishes was check out the original copyright.1999.Good.Full speed ahead.

This manga was so CUTE!It was sweet, and funny, and the characters were both adorable and sexy.Everyone looked a bit more real in this book than your average shoujo, though of course Gino with his cat eyes and pointed ears was exotically lovely.So yes, you get the bishounen thumbs up from me.(bishounen = pretty boy in Japanese).The art is perfect for a romance.

I think this is my favorite manga of yours so far. I loved the plot and the humor that was included.

Megan buys an old crockpot at a garage sale for $2.She gets home and cleans it up and plugs it in, and low and behold Gregor the Slow Cooker Genie appears (evidently he had a master in his past who was a writer with a sense of humor).He’s lived hundreds of years, which only confirms my thoughts about crockpots by the way, and he has only to grant wishes for 2000 people before he’s free.Megan is number 2000.

Of course, Megan doesn’t believe in it at first so she doesn’t wish right away, then when she does believe she doesn’t have wishes.Gregor (renamed Gino by Megan at one point) spends time trying to show her what she could have, and she tries to explain that happiness doesn’t come from what he’s offering but from the heart, and the one thing he can’t grant is love.In the meantime they start kind of liking each other.

Doesn’t that page just make you say “Awwwwwwwwww.”?

Outside interferences come along in the form of her accountant fiance Elliott and his mean mother, in Megan’s company which is on the verge of collapsing and ruining the small town she’s living in, and from a dastardly plot that only Megan and Gino can stop.Of course, Gino has a good old time taking care of all of these things, and the ending is a touching one showing how much both of them have learned about love.

It was just a sweet read that had me laughing and smiling through it all.I even hunted down a couple of Ms. Scalera’s books, including the original for this story.I think romance lovers of all ages would get a kick out of this one.

So, one D, one B+. They’re great examples of what not to do, and what to keep on doing. The Japanese have a word, ganbatte, which means “good luck, forge ahead, do your best”. They use it to urge each other on to success. Harlequin, ganbatte ne!

Sincerely,

ã‚¸ã‚§ãƒ¼ãƒ³
(JÄn)

REVIEW: The Smoke Thief by Shana Abé

Janine — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:00:30 +0000

Dear Ms. Abé,

Imagine a place so ripe and thick with the promise of magic that the very air breathes in plumes of pearl and gray and smoky blue; that the trees bow with the weight of their heavy branches, dipping low to the ground, dropping needles and leaves into beds of perfume. A place of white sparkling mountains and black forests and one high, ancient castle. Of diamonds that churn up raw from the marrow of the earth to lace the woods, unseen, in necklaces of ice and fire.

The first book in your drákon series begins in this fashion, with a prologue that tells of a species of dragons who, in order to survive the encroachment of mankind, took human shape and traveled from their home in Eastern Europe to England. Although I am usually a fan of luxurious language, the descriptions in the prologue verge on being too rich for my blood. They are very effective at conveying that drákon’s origins are the stuff of fables, but I am nonetheless glad when the prologue gives way to chapter one and The Smoke Thief settles into a lovely style that is still poetic, but more restrained.

The girls had paused in a soft valley between the hills, clutching their hats as the breeze turned brisker. Sunlight showed honeyed locks flying and flaxen, strawberry blond and ginger red. Four girls, smiling and chattering amid the green. Someone loosed her flowers, and the August wind blew them into bright confusion.

The year is 1737 and the girls are being observed by sixteen year old Kit Langford, Earl of Chasen, just as his father, the Marquess of Langford, and the men on the drá kon’s council are discussing the fact that no female in four generations has completed what they call the Turn. Kit, bored with the discussion, watches as a younger, mouse-like girl appears in the meadow and the other four girls begin to chase her. She is Clarissa, whose father was human, and who for that reason is considered a "Halfling" of no importance to the drá kon tribe. Kit gives little thought to Clarissa, who is in love with him, and five years later, when he is away at school, he learns that she has drowned.

Nine more years pass, by which time Kit’s father has died and Kit has become the tribe’s alpha. He and the others on the council are plagued by the growing notoriety of a London jewel thief associated with smoke, dubbed "The Smoke Thief" by the press. Such a thief could only be a runner, a member of the tribe broke their laws and escaped their village of Darkfrith. To do so is punishable by death, and this particular runner’s high-profile thefts are endangering the safety of the entire tribe, whose survival depends on passing for human.

In order to capture the thief, Kit and his fellow members come to London to display the tribe’s cherished jewel, the Langford diamond, in order to tempt the thief into carelessness. When the diamond is displayed at The Stewart, Kit makes a stunning discovery: that the Smoke Thief is female — the girl whom everyone believed dead — and that unlike any other drákon female, she possesses the power to turn herself to smoke and then to dragon. Before he can capture her, the woman disappears, and someone else steals the diamond.

Rue, as she is now called, always felt like an outcast among the tribe and has carved a life for herself in London. She does not want to return to Darkfrith, but when Kit and the council find her, they don’t give her a choice. Were she male, she would face execution for her crimes, but the fact that she’s a female who can Turn makes her far too valuable. She is now the tribe’s female alpha, and the man whose mate she’ll become will have supremacy. Like the other men, Kit covets Rue for himself and he intends to have her, one way or another.

But as much as she is attracted to Kit, Rue craves her freedom more, and so she strikes a bargain with him: she will help him find the Langford diamond and capture the drákon who stole it, in return for liberty from the tribe. Kit agrees, but has no intention of honoring his end of the deal.

The Smoke Thief is one of the best examples of paranormal romance I have found in my reading so far, a successful blend of romance and fantasy, fable and gritty reality. Going into it, I expected that any book about people who can turn into dragons would be at least a little bit cheesy, but I was happy to have my prejudice refuted. The fantastical aspects of the book are married so well with its romantic aspects, its historical atmosphere, and its jewel thief subplot that what emerges is a nearly seamless creation, the written equivalent of a creature that can fly and thieve and perform dazzling tricks one moment, and in the next be as naked as a newborn, stripped down to its essentials.

Rue and Kit are such creatures too, and they display both human and dragon characteristics. Each of them is in his or her own way covetous, ruthless and pragmatic, and they fight not only for each other, but for the upper hand and for the having of the other on their own terms. But through their streaks of selfishness and self-possession wind threads of generosity and bravery, and this combination of traits make them not only multidimensional and real, but also right for one another. I closed the book unable to imagine Kit with someone other than Rue, or Rue with someone other than Kit.

As I was debating what to grade this book, I thought of giving it a B+, because a few things did interfere just slightly with my enjoyment, namely the lushness of the prologue, the presence of yet another orphan urchin, the emphasis on Rue’s purity, and a few same-scene viewpoint shifts that were a bit jarring to me. But while I was debating, the book and its characters stayed with me, like an unusually vivid dream.

In this season of gratitude, I’m thankful to have discovered you with this book and that I have your backlist to explore. Writers who put words together like jewelers crafting bracelets, whose characters have as many facets as polished diamonds, whose creations sparkle and gleam, make me glad to be a reader in a genre rich with possibilities. A-.

Sincerely,

Janine

REVIEW: Dream Thief by Shana Abé

Jane — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 09:00:09 +0000

Dear Ms. Abé:

The Dream Thief is a sequel to The Smoke Thief. Lia Langford, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Chasen/Marquess of Langford (one of the two), is a dreamer. She dreams of future events and many of those events involve her lover being pitted against her family, against her friends.

Zane, former apprentice of the Smoke Thief and current thief extraordinaire, is commissioned by the Earl/Marquess and the Countess/Marchionness to obtain the Dreamer’s Stone. Whispers of the stone is reaching the ears of the drÃ¡kon and the drÃ¡kon must have it all costs. They are willing to pay Zane a king’s ransom if he obtains it and returns it to them.

This book moves quickly and contains some great story telling. The parts where Lia dreams of Zane forcing her to do terrible things is chilling, suspenseful and frightening. Zane is an appealing hero: roguish, living on his wits. Lia is also appealing. She’s smart, crafty and driven. If I could take out certain parts of the story, this would have been an A.

The story was narrated by some unknown person telling us the fable of a drÃ¡kon who was controlled by an evil man who held the Dreamer’s Stone. The narrator also tells us the story of the hero and heroine and the narrator actually spoils upcoming sections as well as restates obvious issues. The narrator was our very own Cliff Notes summarizer inside of the book. It began to be very irritating.

Also, hello, get your titles straight. Is this the Earl and Countess or the Marquess and Marchioness. Is Lia an earl’s daughter or a step closer to the throne. When I first started the story I couldn’t figure out who the Marquess of Langford was. I looked on the website and saw that the Smoke Thief was about “Christoff Langford, Marquess of Langford . . .”

So then I picked up my book, the Smoke Thief and chapter one starts with this: “The Right Honourable Christoff René Ellery Langford, Earl of Chasen, . . .”

In the Dream Thief, you alternatively refer to Christoff as a Marquess and an Earl. Lia Langford is alternatively an earl’s daughter and a marquess’s daughter. I’m a historical neophyte. I don’t know my titles from my ass but even I know that there is a difference between an earl and marquess. The reason why I harp on this a bit is because I was so confused as to who was whom that I didn’t know if this story was about a different clan of dragons or the same clan in Smoke Thief. I had to research the issue for about 20 minutes before I could continue the book.

At the risk of being ranted out by those authors who are tired of PC ruining books, let me state I was disturbed by the fact you have young girls experiencing very sexual events: Lia in her dream sequences when she was 14 and even younger and another 11 year old girl who . . . Well, let’s just say that I was disturbed, very disturbed, by one part of the story. In fact, this part of the story so disturbed me that I had to completely push it out of my mind in order to finish the book. I could not even contemplate the ramifications of it. I’ll put it in a spoiler part of the story involves a villain taking an 11 year old girl and making the girl his wife, dressing her up with heavy rouge and makeup so that she appears older. I assume that he was violating her on a regular basis and that just made me sick. It did make the villain more villainous but I think I could have used a dose of PC here. Maybe made the girl older. Even a girl in her late teens would have been more acceptable.

I am not sure what grade to give this. It’s probably a book that those who enjoyed the Smoke Thief will like but not love. It’s definitely a paperback purchase or a library read. I’m not sure whether it’s worth the hardcover price. B-

Best regards,

Jane