Meet the Montgomery brothers – Beckett, Ryder, and Owen – as they bring an intimate bed-and-breakfast to life in their hometown.

The historic hotel in Boonsboro, Maryland, has endured war and peace, the changing of hands, and even rumored hauntings. Now it’s getting a major face lift from the Montgomery brothers and their eccentric mother. As the architect of the family, Beckett’s social life consists mostly of talking shop over pizza and beer. But there’s another project he’s got his eye on: the girl he’s been waiting to kiss since he was sixteen…

Dear Ms. Roberts,

There’s a great story here buried underneath all the inn refurbishment stuff. Seriously, if I wanted to learn how to rehab a historic inn, I’d go back and read these parts carefully but, here’s the important part, I’m reading this as a romance, not a blueprint how-to. And since I know that you and your husband recently rehabed a historic inn in, guess where?, Boonsboro, Maryland, I felt uncomfortable that this is one big sell for you – write a book, hawk your inn and maybe get some customer reservations from it. It isn’t just the Inn, but also the bookstore, and and every Boonsboro reference that seems to read like one giant, but beautiful, infomercial.

I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed a lot of your contemporary romances and as I said, there are parts of this story which are great vintage Roberts. The relationships of the two sets of brothers – the hero and his potential hero brothers plus the three young sons of this heroine – are wonderful. The book has that easy, comfortable and insulting in that casual way that among men says “I love ya bro” way about it. It’s also got a realistic heroine who occasionally has babysitting issues and has to work around the boys and their schedule. A working mother of young sons who doesn’t have this, who miraculously always has enough sleep, the laundry folded and never worries about coverage for potential dates would make me think she’s a space alien. I really enjoyed watching Beckett and Clare fall in love. They’ve got pasts, lives outside of the romance and ties to the community. They seem like real people.

I usually hate it when I feel that book one is all about the set up of the characters for the next two books – which is the stated goal of this series. Here, it’s annoying me to some degree but the characters are still mainly here to play a role in this book.

I didn’t much care for the subplot with Clare’s stalker. A bit of him to shift Beckett closer to declaring himself is okay but the whole thing went from annoying to psychotic in a heartbeat. And the warning from Lizzie is just bizarre. Sorry but it’s truly bizarre.

Beckett’s “Men Nights” with the boys and his manly gifts to them are funny and touching. Also that he kept his promise to talk things over with Harry before asking Clare to marry him. See there are parts of the book that are fabulous, that are simply effortlessly good. And then more inn stuff would come along which would send me into FF mode.

It’s a fast read, especially when I’m basically skimming most of the stuff about the inn, but there was way too much of that. And yes, I noted the reference to Eve and Roarke. The romance part gets a B but the information brochure about the Inn Boonsboro got old very quickly. Overall grade C

~Jayne

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

Over at Faster Times, Joshua M Brown ridicules Amazon’s move into publishing “They are starting with romance novels, we are told, because they are cheap and the nitwits buyers of them consume product constantly”; and then there was this supremely insulting article written by Claudia Cornell for the Daily Mail that says all romance authors are old ladies with blue rinses, “All around me are middle-aged and elderly women in their pearls and support tights.”

The more that these articles pop up, the less interested I am in proliferating their messages by blogging and tweeting about them.  Sure, the romance as pornography gave rise to a funny #hashtag on twitter titled #romancekills but why be defensive about articles that are so stupidly written? Doesn’t acknowledging them and defending them actually give them credence and power?  Because does any rational person think that reading about a couple that is praying together is going to ruin someone’s marriage? Does any rational person think that the readers of this blog and other romance readers out there are mindless nitwits?  No, of course not.  These are such huge and stupid overreaches that I just shake my head at their banality, lack of originality and thought.  These people will never be convinced of the value of romance novels or romance readers.

Or at least this is my excuse for not blogging about these articles. I’d rather point out things like this sent to me by reader Sandy. Nora Roberts donates $100,000 to McDaniel College where they will start a romance writing minor.

In addition, the college plans to use the funds to help build a core American romance library collection, including the complete works of Roberts, as well as to establish an endowed fund to support the collection.

The collection’s titles will be available online.

The college will hold an international conference on romance novels in November, with keynote speaker Mary Bly, a Shakespearean scholar at Fordham University who also writes as Eloisa James, a best-selling author of historical romance novels.

*****

Which brings me to this Salon article that asks whether reading great books makes you a better person.  Um, no. Everyone has the capacity to better themselves and some will find lessons through books and others through different mediums.  However, it’s an interesting theory:

There’s a theory, vaguely associated with evolutionary psychology, maintaining that fiction builds empathy, and therefore morality, by inviting us into the minds, hearts and experiences of others. This is what the British children’s book author Michael Morpurgo implied recently in the Observer newspaper, when he claimed that “developing in young children a love of poems and stories” might someday render the human-rights organization Amnesty International obsolete.

******

Some of the romance bloggers in our community were plagiarized by another well known member of the romance blogging community.  Wicked L Pixie and others found pieces of their reviews in this other blogger’s reviews.  The blogger had been notified several weeks ago but it wasn’t until Wicked Pixie went public that the blogger apologized and began to take down the offending reviews. It appears that there are so many of them that may contain plagiarized material that it is taking the blogger some time to rectify the situation.

******

In a tech headscratcher, 3M is investing heavily in digital books.  Last week they announced 3M Cloud Library, a software and delivery system for digital library books.  Now comes the news that they have bought a 25% share in Txtr, an ebook device manufacturer and the programmers behind the epub reading app, Txtr.  Nate thinks they are going to be a competitor to Overdrive. I would not have guessed that 3M, of all companies, would have entered the market of digital books.  I’m fascinated by this move and what it could mean, if anything.

*****

Kristen Nelson is accusing publishers of underreporting ebook sales. I hope she has some evidence to back that up.

2. Publishers are under-reporting electronic book sales in any given period on the royalty statements we are seeing.

That’s a fact.

I would hope that Nelson starts auditing those publishers, then, on behalf of her authors.  Another author is suggesting that her ebook sales and that of others are also being underreported.

* Carolyn Jewel found this letter to the editor which is pretty close to the KLS article. See analysis by Sunita

Confronted with evidence, a Facebook spokesman last night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson, citing two reasons: First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service.

The idea that FACEBOOK is concerned about privacy is a joke. But given that all the whispers were true, it’s hard to make a case out against Facebook, at least a legal one. More from the Daily Beast.

*****

Remember when Jennifer Egan made the off the cuff criticism of YA author Kaavya Viswanathan for plagiarizing banal YA authors? She’s offered up a gracious and fulsome apology calling her comments indefensible and thoughtless, adding nothing of value to the conversation.

“I have nothing to defend in what I said,” she said. “I really wish I hadn’t said that, and was incredibly and immediately sorry that anyone was hurt by it. I don’t blame anyone for being mad about it.” Though she does believe there’s an interesting conversation to be had about genre and gender and literary culture, she doesn’t see her comments in that interview as any kind of effective contribution to that discussion. “I’m all for criticizing; I’m not saying that no one should ever criticize anyone else,” she continued. “But if you’re going to criticize, you should do it intentionally and thoughtfully and carefully and know whom you’re criticizing and for what. And I didn’t meet any of those criteria.”

*****

Paidcontent has an article summarizing the publishers’ fears of tech companies overtaking publishing.

HarperCollins’ international CEO Victoria Barnsley warned delegates, noting Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) recently launched a new publishing imprint for romance novels.

“We must be very wary of any of the tech companies becoming too dominant, We must recognise the misalignment between us and some of the technology companies. Some of them would happily see content commoditised and, as we’ve seen with Google (NSDQ: GOOG), they can have a casual attitude to copyright.”

*****
Authors in the news include:

Danielle Steele is still known as a romance author, although I am not sure why. She apparently lives in Paris now and is offending San Francisco by deriding its lack of style.

In an interview this week, she complained: ‘There’s no style, nobody dresses up — you can’t be chic there. It’s all shorts and hiking books and Tevas [an ugly but practical style of shoe].

‘It is as if everyone is dressed to go on a camping trip,’ she told the Wall Street Journal.

and Nora Roberts was wearing the requisite hat at the Kentucky Derby. This is a short interview of her on the KD red carpet.

*****

Facebook contests run by authors might be coming to an end. Ashley March alerted her fellow authors that hosting facebook contests could lead to your page being deleted.

***You should read this last one again. If I’m reading this correctly, it means that we can no longer hold “Like my page and I’ll give away a Kindle when I reach 5,000 fans” contests.***

*****

Barnes and Noble has finally convinced Wall Street that it is on the right track. Stock is up 50% in the last month. This is a great analysis of BN which includes praise for its digital initiatives:

Shares really took off in the last week of April when Barnes & Noble formally upgraded the Nook and kicked off an ad campaign highlighting the Nook’s unsung capabilities. (Forget books. What about streaming movies, reading e-mails and all of those other time-sucking hobbies that the iPad is known for?)

But warnings about the drag of the physical retail space:

This is still a company that has slowly sat by as $400 million in annual free cash flow (back in the middle of the past decade) steadily shrank until the red ink started to flow in 2010. Foot traffic continues to slump at its stores, and a rising number of them are no longer profitable (and would have been culled by a tougher management team). The race is on for the Nook and BN.com (the company’s web arm) to boost profits high enough to offset losses from the brick-and-mortar stores.

Ultimately BN will either have to downsize it’s physical presence or convert that retail space into selling something other than books. In many BN stores, there is a rise in toys and game merchandise but BN will have to go beyond selling Legos and Monopoly in order to maintain revenues to justify its rents.

Now we have Mills & Boon authors descending on Teach Me Tonight taking issue with the critique of the new M&B line, Riva, posted by Laura Vivianco. In Kelly Hunter’s With This Fling, a Riva launch title, we are treated to a woman who decries feminism and gets “accidentally” pregnant through engaging in unsafe sex with a stranger. Riva is billed as fresh, modern and “sassy”.

As I mentioned earlier, this is only one book and one has to be careful about extrapolating from a small sample, but I’m nonetheless left wondering how often “sassy” in the Riva line will mean “prone to exhibiting ‘Power-based selective feminism’ and ending up accidentally pregnant.”

Trish Morey, Anne Gracie, and a couple others, come in to take the commenters and Vivianco to task. Trish Morey called out AGTigress who rightly pointed out that making a 25 year old an associate professor strained the bounds of credulity:

Yes, I’ll admit it now I’m also a romance author and I know Kelly Hunter both personally and professionally (and yes, AgTigress, you can rest assured Kelly is a professional, unlike your comment), and no, Kelly didn’t put me up to this. She’d no doubt be horrified. I just thought a little balance was called for.

Morey goes on to suggest that readers should see the anti feminist statement as a throwaway line (although never comes out and defends the unprotected sex with a stranger) and that those who argue differently are suggesting readers are not very savvy:

Readers are actually very savvy at working things out and knowing when a character is teasing as opposed to being deadly serious. I do believe it’s a mistake to underestimate romance readers that way.

For the record, I read and enjoyed With This Fling, but I never got the sense that the heroine was teasing about her lack of support for feminism. Apparently I am one of those unsavvy readers.

Anne Gracie doesn’t like the criticism because these books are fun and flirty and are not meant for serious inspection:

But more to the point, these are romances — fun, escapist fantasies, and this RIVA launch book is fresh, original and funny. I mean — for heaven’s sake — the heroine invents a fiance, and then disposes of him with rumours of “long pig” (cannibalism) — how serious do you think this is meant to be? It’s a comedy, not a realistic treatise on the Status of Young Female Academics Today.

Anne Gracie

I think that Mills & Boon authors should appreciate that their books are taken seriously and that we readers view them as authentic literary figures instead of people who are writing throwaway trash. But maybe they prefer to think of themselves as writers of work that are undeserving of critique and that their work is so lacking in substance as to be unable to withstand scrutiny. Can’t have it both ways. And really, Teach Me Tonight is a blog run by academics inspecting the vagaries of the romance genre. Do you really expect them not to flyspec a book?   It’s like going to Five Thirty Eight and complaining about all the talk about statistics.

****
Update: Decadent Publishing claims the following:

We do not (and did not) share any purchaser information. Outside sources approached me with the claim that one of our authors was being personally targeted and by whom…not vice versa. We have a policy at Decadent that our authors will not review one another.

I asked a follow up as to why the unhappy author was accusing the reviewer of piracy and the other accusations of rifling through the sales data for personal information but no response has been given yet.

Update x 2:   Decadent claims that it never provided the reviewer’s real name to the Enders.   I have asked the Enders to contact me.

Next up in the What the hell category is Decadent Publishing. Apparently an author for Decadent Publishing co blogs with someone else and reviews books. They reviewed a Decadent Publishing book by Graylin Fox and gave it a poor grade. Fox took to Twitter and accused the reviewers of pirating the books because Decadent (according to the bloggers) matched up the purchaser records to the reviewing records and informed the author that the reviewers had a) not been on the official review list and therefore not real reviewers and b) there was no record of any of the reviewers purchasing the book from Decadent.

What. the. hell. That is a serious invasion of privacy. What you purchase from a company should not be shared with a third party, at least not without a subpeona and an opportunity for the purchaser to take legal action to quash that subpeona.

Decadent Publishing posted on another thread that the author who reviewed the Fox book might want to be released from her contract:

Decadent Publishing said…

A question?

Would you like out of your contract with Decadent Publishing since you don’t seem to respect either them or their authors?

I guess buyer beware for those who buy direct from Decadent. This is one reason I try to never buy from small presses and only from the larger corporate retailers. I have some confidence that Amazon isn’t going to be checking my purchasing records on behalf of some angry author out to exert some petty agenda.

****

Nora Roberts has joined the millionaire club at Kindle.

Amazon.com, Inc., (NASDAQ:AMZN) today announced that Nora Roberts has become the third author to sell over 1 million Kindle books, becoming the third member of the "Kindle Million Club." As of yesterday, Nora Roberts has sold 1,170,539 Kindle books under her name and her pseudonym J.D. Robb. The Kindle Million Club recognizes authors whose books have sold over 1 million paid copies in the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). Stieg Larsson, author of the Millennium Trilogy, was the first author to hit the 1 million mark. James Patterson, author of more than 65 books that span the genres of suspense, fantasy, romance, historical fiction and children's, was the second author to join the Kindle Million Club.

****

The Young Adult Library Services Association released their best of YA fiction list.   Even though the list is called 2011, it contains all books published in 2010.   It’s a nice list for those who are struggling with a) what to read or b) what to buy for a teen.

****

While not directly related to books, at least one survey shows that the gap between consumer expectations and publisher understanding of those is huge and that publishers will either have to change consumer expectations or meet them:

The good news for publishers is there’s a consensus that digital is the future. Over three-quarters of the publishing industry professionals surveyed believe that technology is driving publishing, and slightly less than three-quarters think that technology can “make or break a publication.”

The bad news for publishers is that as important as technology is, you simply can’t ignore the expectations of your customers and hope to succeed — even if you nail the technology.

That leaves publishers with two options: change consumer expectations, or find a way to meet them. Chances are the publishers who do the latter will get to where they need to go a lot sooner.

****

Finally, I was sent this fascinating blog post by Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson publishing.     Hyatt goes through and explains why ebook prices have not dropped dramatically, stating that many of the publishing costs are not eliminated by the move to digital.   In conclusion, though, Hyatt gives away a big position and that is under the 9.99 price model, his company is making the SAME AMOUNT in digital as they are selling hardcovers at retail.

So far in our experience at Thomas Nelson, the elimination of manufacturing and distribution costs are being offset by retail price reductions and the three additional costs I have outlined. The good news is that we are making about the same margins, regardless of whether we sell the book in physical form or digital.

In reality, if the margin is the same at the reduced price of $9.99, the efficiencies gained by going digital are quite meaningful.   Hyatt doesn’t address the zero unit cost of reproduction of the digital file v. the print book or the issue of mass market pricing (wherein publishers must be making out like bandits with the change to 70% revenue without the corresponding retail price reductions).

I have to confess that my enjoyment of The Search is based in large part of my personal circumstances and therefore my review could be wildly inaccurate for others. The Search is about a search and rescue dog.   I mean, it is more than that but it is primarily about dogs, the training of dogs, the magic of dogs.   A dog lover will probably love this book.   Others?   I don’t know.

For the past couple of years, Ned and my daughter have wanted a dog.   We’ve watched what seems like a hundred episodes of Dogs 101, It’s Me or the Dog, and Cesar Milan’s Dog Whisperer. The dog mania hit a fevered pitch last year when Ned began researching breeders (i know, we should have adopted but Ned wanted a specific dog). Non fiction books on dogs began to appear around the house. Then we told my daughter and once you tell a child that you are getting a dog, YOU ARE GETTING A DOG.

So I was fully steeped in dog lore when The Search arrived on my doorstep. To some degree it’s like a fictional characterization of one of those dog trainers on TV.   This could have been a special on the Animal Planet.

Fiona Bristow is the head of Canine Search and Rescue. Her unit is comprised of handlers and their dogs who assist in search and rescue operations such as the location of lost children. When not helping local police, Fiona helps train other dogs. Her skills bring Simon Doyle, a fairly famous wood artist, to her doorstep. His mother gave him the puppy and since the puppy’s arrival, Simon has not known a minute’s piece.     Simon is a surly, intractable man who slightly resents his attraction toward Fiona. The more time he spends with Fiona, the more he likes her, learns her and the more he feels aggrieved.

Fiona welcomes Simon and her attraction toward him. She had once loved quite deeply and then lost her fiancé when he was killed by a serial killer trying to enact revenge upon Fiona for escaping his clutches.   Fiona was to be his thirteenth victim.    Fiona has the best revenge by living and enjoying her life, but it is lonely at times and Fiona has a big heart.   She’s ready for Simon.

The book is quite lengthy and I never really understood why it took so long to unpack what seemed like a fairly simple plot: serial killer threatening Fiona, Fiona and Simon unwillingly falling in love, the end.   I also thought that given the length of the book (nearly 500 pages) that the ending was really quite abrupt.   However, I was not bored but that is primarily because all of the dog stuff, from the basic training  techniques  Fiona taught Simon to the more elaborate search and rescue exercises, was very interesting to me. I couldn’t help but wonder whether others might find it pedantic.

The characters of Fiona and Simon will be familiar to Roberts’ fans. There is no new ground broken here. Even though their backgrounds might be dissimilar to previous characters, their mannerisms are the same. I found Fiona’s speech patterns, in particular, to be very recognizable. She talks in longer paragraphs but with the same staccato rhythm. Simon didn’t speak much so he’s harder to peg but his internal monologues are classic. Even so, the dialogue is snappy and very authentic. Both get in some very good lines. Simon says to Fiona at one point “I’m pissed off about the five years you shaved off my life. I had plans for them.”

It’s hard to read a Roberts’ novel and not like the main protagonists.   Fiona and Simon are eminently likeable which makes the journey of them falling in love, which happens a little bit at a time, also enjoyable.    The suspense isn’t going to keep a reader up at night. It’s the characters and what is happening in their lives that keeps you turning the pages.   C+

Best regards,

Jane

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony | Kobo |

This is a hardcover published by Penguin, one of the Agency Five.

This is a difficult review for me to write, because something happens in Fantasy in Death that many will likely regard as insignificant, but which for me changed the series in a fundamental way. Several books ago, Jane noted that Eve did something at the end of Creation in Death that seemed completely out of character for her. Whether blip or character shift, only time would resolve, and for me, with this book, it's resolved in favor of a frustrating change in Eve's character. Readers who see Eve as any different or who don't find the change I see concerning will probably find Fantasy in Death a much more satisfying book than I did. Especially if they are enjoying the stronger mystery/procedural focus the series has recently acquired.

When techno boy wonder Bart Minnock is found dead in his locked holo room, burned, bloody, and alone except for the disk of the new game his up and coming company, U-Play, is readying for sale, the NYPSD and Eve Dallas are stumped. There was no sign of tampering with Bart's droid, his apartment, or the lock on the holo room, and no record of any visitors since he came home from work the previous day. As soon as the e-team tries to retrieve the game disk from the hard drive, it self-destructs, a safety measure Bart had in place to deter spying and stealing. How could a guy who seemed to have no enemies and whose biggest competition was the man who had generously helped Bart build his business (Roarke) be murdered? How could anyone actually get in that room to murder him?

These mysteries generally run one of two ways: Eve has a suspect in mind from the beginning and spends the book setting him/her/them up, or she is working to narrow down a broad field of suspects before revealing the killer near the end of the book. Fantasy in Death is of the second variety, and it is an effective suspense builder, as the way Bart died is so closely connected to who might have done it. From Bart's girlfriend to his three partners to game company competitors to the kids in his building who played various games with him, there are numerous people around Bart who could have been responsible, even though it is difficult to imagine anyone wanting a guy like Bart dead. Affable, honest, brilliant, non-threatening, and young, Bart is a rather unlikely murder victim. In fact, was it even murder that took his life?

For the past handful of books, I have been noting a decided shift toward a bigger emphasis on the mystery and police procedural aspects of the series. While Robb has always woven the relationship and mystery elements together, the past few books have featured Roarke and Eve working together on these cases, almost like partner detectives, with Roarke's own world-domination a footnote at best and any battles between them erupting in the context of the case or over a somewhat mundane issue. I will return in a bit to the main conflict between Eve and Roarke in this book, because it connects to my most substantial problem with Fantasy in Death, but in terms of their personal life more generally, Nadine's book launch is the primary "life event" featured in this book (and note that the book is launched in print hardcover!), allowing Trina to make her usual terrorizing appearance, Leonardo to design a fab dress for Eve, and the extended gang of friends to dress up and mingle at the launch party. These appearances are becoming routine (Eve feels compelled to say something nice about Mavis's baby Bella, Peabody gets to dress up and be complimented by Roarke, etc.), although they are reassuring in regard to series continuity.

As for the mystery, I actually guessed the method early on, although it took me a while to catch on to the responsible party. Fantasy in Death felt current to 2010 in its specific focus on gaming and on the changing technologies we are, even now, seeing around us. I have always wanted the more futuristic aspects of the In Death world to be more directly featured in the books (as they were in the beginning), and Fantasy in Death delivers on this a bit more than quite a few of the recent books have. I enjoyed all that quite well, and even though I caught on pretty quickly to what was going on, it was still fun to watch Eve's brain sift through various suspects and theories. I've always found her most compelling when she's in "cop mode," and there's a great deal of that in this book.

Where I had real issues was in the way Eve's moral compass, the aspect of her that has been so powerfully inflexible since the beginning of the series, has, in my opinion, gone inexplicably wonky (well, I think there is an explanation, but I'll get to that). I still remember the huge battle Eve and Roarke undertook in Purity in Death over whether "justice" as Eve or Roarke sees is should prevail over the limits of the law and Roarke tells her how "black and white" she is. Or when, later in the book, she makes a deal with a dirty cop who took the law into his own hands to bring down his confederates:

She looked away from him a moment because knowing she'd try for the deal made her sick. The greater good, she told herself. Sometimes justice couldn't sweep clean.

Or what about Conspiracy in Death when Eve temporarily loses her badge and is literally inconsolable because her respect for the law is so complete and her dedication to enforcing it so fundamental to her identity. How many times in the series has Eve taken a stand to do things the "right" way, from within the letter of the law? Dirty cops have disgusted her, cops who take the law into their own hands have enraged her, and she's made many hard choices out of respect for the law. Even her use of Roarke's unregistered equipment has made her feel conflicted, although that lessened once she was able to officially bring Roarke on board to her investigative team. Any mercy she has shown has been carried out within the letter of the law, even if it was at the very edge. So, a few books ago, when Eve stepped out of that moral absolutism in regard to a suspect it was extremely shocking to me. It seemed a very clear and abrupt change of direction for a character whose identity for more than 20 books has been consistent in regard to her respect for the law.

Whether that change was a blip has, in my mind at least, been settled by Fantasy in Death. And my belief now is that Eve has changed, and the change is a function of what I see as the new series focus, namely Eve and Roarke, married detectives. Here Roarke, runs a deep security check on his own employees, because of the close professional connection between his company and Bart Minnock's (yes, of course Roarke is developing new gaming technologies). Eve objects strenuously to this search, not so much because it violates police procedure but because he does so without telling her and being told by her to do it:

"Any data from your run has to coincide with mine, and officially come from mine whether it clears your whole crew or somebody bobs to the surface."

"I know how it works, Lieutenant. I'll just get back to it then, so you can have what you need and shift it back to your side of the line." . . .

She sat brooding into her wine. She didn't know, exactly, why they were at odds. They were doing basically the same thing for basically the same reason.

Basically.

But he should've let her do it, or waited until she'd assigned him to do it. And that probably grated. The assign portion. Couldn't be helped. She was the LT, she was the primary, she gave the damn orders.

Now she was passing aggravated and heading toward pissed, she realized.

She'd just been trying to shield him a little. Wasn't that her job, too? she thought in disgust as she rose. Part of the marriage deal? So why were they fighting when she'd done her job?

So Roarke's stepping outside the strict limits of the law is now merely a challenge to Eve's authority and a frustration of marital responsibilities? While I have always enjoyed the petty struggles Eve and Roarke engage in; I even enjoy the petty aspects of Eve's character – they help make her human and relatable. But the old Eve, in my opinion, would have been worried that Roarke was himself going to take the law into his own hands, not so much whether she should have assigned the work to Roarke first.

If, indeed, the series is moving more toward Eve and Roarke as a detective team, Roarke has to become more "official," and thus his often unorthodox methods have to become more "official," and I wonder if this is why Eve has taken a turn away from her previous stance of the law above all. It makes a certain sense that this would be the case, and certainly, spending two years married to Roarke has challenged many of Eve's previously unchallenged biases. However, for me, her fundamental respect of the law and its limits has been the most defining aspect of her character, and I fear that is going to be more and more undermined as the series – and Eve and Roarke's professional partnership – moves forward.

As far as the mystery and procedural aspects of Fantasy in Death are concerned, while I can never read the interrogation scenes without counting the Constitutional violations (and yes, I assume that a society that still has some version of Miranda hasn't substantially altered the Bill of Rights), I found the book moderately enjoyable. Not the best of the series, nor the worst. Somewhere between feeling engaged and entertained and wishing for a bit more fire and novelty in the series, or between a B- and a C+.

~Janet

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony | Kobo |

This is a hardcover. The mass market release is set for July 2010.

The book series revolves around four childhood friends, who share a love for weddings that led each to develop a speciality of their own: photography, bakery, organisational skills, and floristry, which in turn led them to form a wedding planning company: VOWS.

Vision in White (ViS from now on) is the story of photographer Mackensie "Mac" Elliot and high school teacher Carter Maguire. (I should say at this point that even after finishing this game twice, I still haven't quite fully understood their story, so forgive me if I cocked up some story details during this review. Please feel free to correct me in comments.)

Official blurb:

When a casual fling turns steamy for a brilliant wedding photographer, life remains less-than-picture perfect. Relying on girlfriends to cope with the reality of her past, will Mackensie capture the romance, or will her narcissistic mother and fear of commitment be the prophetic snapshot of her future? Take part in Nora Roberts' best-selling novel in  Nora Roberts Vision in White, a fun Hidden Object game.

I haven't read the novel so I went into this game blind. When the game opened to a splash page, my first thought was "Pretty." And a couple of seconds later, the next thought: "White. A lot of white." I had no idea how much this would affect me later in the game.

Before the game started up, a video of Nora Roberts herself appeared. I didn't have sound on -   thanks to a sound card problem – and there were no subtitles, so I didn't know what she talked about. I'm assuming it was a welcome introduction. After the usual round (configure settings in Options if necessary; type in your name in Players and then click to play), a dialog pop-up appears:  Timed Mode or Carefree Mode.

In  Carefree mode, you take time playing the game and in  Timed Mode, it's thirty minutes per chapter with a countdown, which can be seen on the clock face. As far as I can see, difficulty levels and four mini games in both  Timed Mode and  Carefree Mode aren't different.

I had forgotten to let the timer run its course to see what would happen. Having played  ViS twice, I don't have the energy to fire it up again. Perhaps a DA reader could confirm my guess: when you run out of time, you have to start from the beginning of a chapter you were in.

In the main layout, there is a bar located on the left side with a clock face at top, a list area in the middle, and a Hints system with four decorated letters – VOWS – below. Those four letters are hidden randomly within a playable scene. When you locate all VOWS letters, you gain a hint. Some were devilishly hard to find, but fret not: the Hints system will recharge itself within a minute if you couldn't find all VOWS letters when you have no hints left.

The Hints system has a feature I'd not seen in other games I played so far. When you click on the Hints system, an orange rectangle arrow appears. You just simply point and click it on an item on the list, allowing you to decide instead of letting the game decide which item it'd highlight. I really liked this feature.

Vision in White is a surprisingly straightforward HOG, with four rotating mini wedding-related games: cake decoration, photography, flower arrangement, and table escorting.

Each of those mini-games – which didn't take me longer than a minute – is tied to each of four best friends: Mac the photographer, Parker the organiser, Laurel the cake maker, and Emma the florist. When you complete one of those mini games through the game, you gain a bonus hint. You can skip a mini game if you don't need a bonus point.

I skipped every instance of the cake decoration mini-game because some colour shades were too subtle. The icing, for instance, has eight colours: ivory, white, pale green, beige, darker beige and so on. I admit that each time this mini-game appeared, I swore at the monitor. I detested it that much.

Almost all objects in playable scenes are related to Mac or Carter's life – clothes, shoes, photography items, organising, wedding theme, school room, and so on. I was grateful for this, to be honest. Each HOG scene is related to the events within the story. For example, when Mac's friends decide to cheer Mac up by taking her out to a night club, we get a playable scene of champagne glasses, shoes, handbags, ear-rings and telephone numbers all over the place inside a hired limo.

Some hidden objects were near impossible to find, because some were colour-coordinated with bigger objects. Some objects were so tiny that it bordered on pixel hunting. At times like this, I relied on Hints to help me out because too many times, my eyes kicked and screamed when I had my face close to the laptop monitor screen to find those objects. So this would probably frustrate those with poor visibility.

Vision in White is eye-pleasing, but I eventually dreaded playable scenes with all things white or other pale colours – the snow, wedding dresses, table cloths, windows, pale pink flowers, white-grey VOWS letters, snowflakes, white birds, and so on. There was so much whiteness that it surprisingly hurt my eyes. Because of this I had to take breaks from the game. Not all scenes are that pale, but there were enough to affect my gaming.

Although every scene is tied to the story, I didn't have a strong sense of the story itself. It's a series of impressions, really. A synopsis of the story, even. Actually, I admit I thought Mac was actually Nora Robert herself, probably because of the NR video at the start, because both have red short hair and a similar taste in clothes. Heh!

As far as I can see, Mac appeared head-strong, assertive, a go-getter, and passionate about photography, but commitment-phobic due to her mother's antics. She became friendly with a client's friend, Carter Maguire, who came across as a warm, friendly, laid-back and considerate person. As the game progressed, it became clear that the angst lay with Mac and that Carter was pretty much her pillar of support and stability, which I thought was nice. It was a bland and safe romance, basically, but it would be good for players at 14 or over. As far as I can recall, it doesn't feature drugs, smoking, irresponsible actions and such. There is an implication of Mac and Carter going upstairs after an evening together, but you never see them kissing and sharing a bed. There is a negative portrayal of Mac's mother, though.

Looking on the bright side, the  ViS storyline is  much more coherent and "realistic' than the one in  Harlequin Presents: Hidden Object of Desire. Although I have no idea if the game was faithful to the novel, I think players who have already read the novel would probably enjoy it a lot more. You don't need to read the novel first to play the game, though. Well, it didn't affect my game play.

As a player who prefers adventure-style HOGs, I found ViS rather dull, but there isn't anything wrong with  ViS. It was bland and inoffensive, but it delivered what it promised. It's a matter of gaming preferences, really, as it seems much more suited to those who prefer traditional HOGs. With this in mind, I feel  ViS deserves a B-.

The next game adaptation of Nora Roberts's  Bride Quartet series is  Bed of Roses, featuring florist Emma Grant and architect Jack Cooke, and it'll be released at the end of this year. Further adaptations of the  Bride Quartet series will be released during 2011.

Vision in White is available as free one-hour demo: Windows. As far as I can see, the Mac and Linux versions are not yet available.

This is a coup for Amazon because the only thing that prevents Amazon from real domination is content control.   I’ve argued, although not many people believe me, that Amazon wants to publish and will unveil more partnerships like this in the future.

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Huffington Post has collected a number of photographs of innovative bookcases. I love the first one that has the lounging seat in the middle. I wonder if I could get Ned to build one in the tot’s bedroom.

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Author’s Guild calls the move by Random House that all its ebook rights belong to the publishing house so long as the word “book” is in the contract “regrettable.” Regrettable? Really, that’s the harshest word you can think of?

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Harlequin’s collaboration with Big Fish Games hits the market today.   You get to play the role of a reporter while you find hidden objects and solve puzzles.   Have I ever mentioned how I played Riven like 32 hours straight.   It is sad but true.   Nora Roberts has a game coming out based on her wedding series. I would have said that a JD Robb based game made more sense, but puzzles are puzzles, right?

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Speaking of Harlequin, it has been the subject of two more controversies.   First up is the fact that Harlequin, in re-releasing some vintage titles, edited the content to make it more palatable.   Harlequin probably should have had a forward/editorial note regarding the changes.

Second, in the recent Harlequin Presents writing contest, entrants were disappointed that two published authors won the contest.   The authors were within the terms of the rules because only currently contracted Harlequin authors were ineligible but entrants felt the playing field was uneven.   I think Trish Morey has it right, though, that you don’t have to win the contest to sell.

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Andy Ihnatko writes about the mythical Apple Tablet, the death of the Crunchpad, and envisions new publishing formats:

Device-independent standards are the tools that allow them to sell content to anybody with money to spend, and investing in an open standard liberates them from the problem of predicting a winning horse a year before the race is run.

Class action lawsuit has been filed against Amazon over the fragility of the Kindle device. Matthew Geise purchased the Kindle and optional protective cover. Shortly after its purchase, the Kindle screen began to crack. Amazon refused to pay for repairs. Geise found others who suffered the same problem and thus the class action suit was birthed. Amazon has responded by offering to repair the devices without charge, but the lawsuit lives on.

The Washington Post got to post its snarky commentary on the romance genre in When Romance Writers Gather, The Plot Quickens. The article starts out with a quote by Colleen Gleason regarding the number of orgasms she includes in her books (one per chapter) and goes downhill from there.

There is no prototypical romance writer. Here at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel, some 2,000 women of all races and ages wear everything from chunky Goth boots to strappy stilettos. (There are also men. Maybe five of them.) But if you squint and look for a general appearance trend, this is it: They look like your mom. They look kind, comforting, domestic, as if they are wearing perfume made from Fleischmann’s yeast.

NPR did a piece on romance publishing and how it is one area that is surviving in the troubled publishing world. Nora Roberts was interviewed. Nora says romance books are about hope and continuity and help us to feel good. Nora says that there are constants and frameworks to romance: need sexual tension, emotional commitment, conflict, and a satisfying ending. She goes on to say that romance is broad enough to encompass aspects of mystery, horror, fantasy. It’s worth a listen.

All Romance eBooks has opened a sister site called OmniLit which “will offer genres currently not available on the All Romance site, including best sellers from some of the biggest names in publishing, as well as offerings from small, midsized, and indie presses. Customers will be able to select from hundreds of thousands of titles, everything from mainstream, children’s, and speculative fiction, to books on health & fitness, cooking, travel, and business.”

More news later in the day…

One thing that you never fail to do is make the setting come alive. The South Dakota Black Hills have never sounded so welcoming, so engaging than in your book, Black Hills. The story is in three parts and while I am never a fan of flashbacks, I did feel like the story dragged a bit in the beginning.

Cooper Sullivan is an angry 11 year old who is sent to stay with his grandparents over the summer. His parents are going away to "save their marriage" and can’t be bothered with their kid. Cooper is sullen and unhappy to be stuck in the backwoods of America without even a television. "As far as he could see, it would be him and Tetris for the duration of his prison term."

His expectations are challenged not only by the outpouring of love that his grandparents lavish on him but also his burgeoning friendship with Lil Chance, the girl next door. Lil loves baseball and riding horses and animals and that summer she opens her heart and takes in Cooper.

Cooper and Lil are inseparable for the summers that he visits his grandparents, but it would be a book length story if it ended with them married and happy, would it? No, Cooper needs to find himself and to that end, it means rejecting Lil. Oh, Cooper doesn’t like to think of it that way. He made a decision that it was best for both of them to have time apart particularly since Cooper never knew what he wanted out of life.

It is true that Lil has always known where she fit in and what she wanted out of life: to save animals and love Cooper. Cooper’s rejection stunned Lil and she tried to forge a new life without him with a new man and her mission to save her Black Hills wildlife.

Lil sets up Chance Wildlife Refuge in her backyard, essentially, run by grants and visitors. It’s the one part of her dreams that has survived her path from youth to adulthood and she is fiercely protective of it. Someone threatens to derail the Refuge by killing animals and people and targeting Lil.

Cooper, having made his mark in the world, comes back to his grandparents in South Dakota and comes back for Lil. He hasn’t ever stopped loving her and is in a place, both emotionally and financially to be her partner.

I would have liked to have seen Lil hold out against Cooper but I guess her emotions were too strong. I, unlike Lil, never really forgave Cooper for breaking Lil’s heart; for having to sacrifice her feelings in search of his own self worth. I objectively understood that had Cooper not gone on his path of self discovery, he wouldn’t be right emotionally and mentally for Lil but that still didn’t stop me from scowling at him while I was reading.

The secondary characters are so well drawn here from the grandparents of Cooper to the parents of Lil to her employees at the Refuge.   Even short appearances of townspeople.   There was a sweet older woman/younger man subplot that I found charming.

The suspense plot was good. I was surprised at how anxious I felt about the safety of the animals almost more so than the safety of the people.   I suppose, in part, because the animals appeared defenseless, even the predators. Despite the suspense, as with  most Roberts books, I was more engaged with the interaction between the main characters. B-

Best regards,

Jane

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

While I haven’t read all of your books, I’ve read a great many of them and I think I can safely say that Vision in White is one of the funniest books you’ve penned in a long time. I thought Carter Maguire, the clumsy, blushing, tweed wearing, Yale educated, English lit teacher was adorable; and Mackenzie Elliott was a dynamo.

Vision in White is the first of four books featuring the best friend owners of Vows, a full service wedding event business. Parker inherited a mansion with a ballroom and together with Lauren, the cake decorator; Emma, the florist; and Mackenzie, the photographer, the four have created the place for weddings in Connecticut. Vision features the romance of Mackenzie and Carter.

This is a straight contemporary romance with nary a hint of serial killers or stalkers. The focus is straight on the burgeoning attraction between Carter and Mackenzie which is complicated by Mackenzie’s fear of commitment. Mackenzie had a shitty childhood. Her mother is an emotional vampire who is constantly laying on the guilt to get Mackenzie to support whatever bad habit her mother is into at the moment.

The funny mostly comes from scenes in which Carter is advised on dating by his friend Bob, the math teacher.   Carter has had a long crush on Mackenzie, since high school, and the idea of dating and then having sex with his crush, well, it makes even picking out flowers a challenge.

They were colorful, he thought with some resentment. They smelled nice. A couple of those big gerbera daisies were mixed in, and they struck him as a friendly flower. None of the dreaded roses, he mused, which, according to the Law of Bob, meant he’d basically be asking Mackensie to marry him and bear his children.   

So, they should be safe.   

Maybe they were too safe.

The kind-eyed cashier gave him a quick smile. "Aren’t those pretty! A surprise for your wife?"

"No. No. I don’t have a wife."

"Oh, for your girl then."

"Not exactly." He fumbled out his wallet as she rang them up. "Just a . . . Could I just ask you if you think these are appropriate for a date? I mean to give to the woman I’m taking out to dinner.”

"Sure they are. Most everybody likes flowers, don’t they? Especially us girls. She’s going to think you’re real sweet, and thoughtful, too."

"But not too . . ." Stop while you’re ahead, Carter told himself.

She took the money, made the change. "Here you go now." She slid the bouquet into a clear plastic bag. "You have a real good time tonight."

"Thank you." More relaxed, Carter walked back to his car. If you couldn’t trust the checker in the express line at the supermarket, who could you trust?

Another laugh out loud scene for me was when Carter was trying not to get advice from Bob after screwing up royally with Mackenzie

“You have two women after you. Two. Man, Carter, you’re a dog. You’re the big dog."

"For God’s sake, Bob, you’re completely missing the point."

"Not me, pal." The slack jaw had morphed into a grin of pure admiration. "The point is two hot chicks got it for you….” Bob’s eyes went bright with fantasy. "You’re the big, bad dog."

"I don’t want to be the dog." There was a reason he’d kept the incident to himself through the workday. But what madness had overtaken him to make him believe he could get reasonable advice out of Bob anywhere, anytime? "Try to stay with me on this, Bob.

"I’m trying, but I keep getting flashes of the girl fight. You know, with the rolling around on the floor and ripping each other’s clothes." Bob lifted his skinny cinnamon latte. "It’s pretty vivid."

The romance between Carter and Mackenzie unwraps slowly despite what seems like a compressed time space.   They ruminate; they spend time together; they rehash their dates with their friends.   It’s authentic, funny, and charming.   The parts of the story that lacked realism for me was the relationship Mackenzie had with her mother.   Early on in the story, Mackenzie receives a phone call from her mother asking for $3,000 to pay for a spa package, something Linda must have in order to recover from her latest breakup. Mackenzie forks it over with very little resistance and then berates herself for doing so.

I didn’t understand Mackenzie’s complicated dynamic with her mother at this point of the book (and really for most of it).   I could see maybe paying your mother’s rent or food or something, but a $3,000 spa package? It just seemed outrageous and I didn’t get why Mackenize so easily succumbed to her mother’s manipulations. I wish I had been provided greater insight regarding that.   It was an important issue and impediment to Mackenzie’s relationship with Carter but I felt it was the least fleshed out issue.

I loved the girl power relationship Mackenzie had with her three friends. I also appreciated that they fought and made up.   It wasn’t halcyonic storybook friendship, but real and authentic.   Again, it was Carter, blushing, sweet, earnest and hot Carter, and his hilarious conversations that made the story for me.

B-

Best regards,

Jane

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

A less expensive, but feature rich, ebook reader is the new BeBook which features a screen that accepts handwritten notes and is equipped with WiFi and 3G.

LeAnn Rimes is filming Nora Roberts’ Northern Lights and is having a little romance of her own, only not with her husband. Instead the two married co stars of Northern Lights were caught practicing their love scenes (only kissing) at a local bar in Laguna Beach. My thoughts? How can they film a movie about Alaska in Laguna Beach?

Bookstore sales were flat in January which is actually positive news since retail was down over 8%. In Europe, however, booksales are actually increasing.

Scribd, the bain of some authors because of the tendency of users to put up pirated copies of books, is inking more legitimate publisher partnerships. To date, the company has raised $12.8 million and has the following agreements: Random House, Simon & Schuster, Workman Publishing, Berrett-Koehler, Thomas Nelson, and Manning Publications.

We have open ended series like Kresley Cole’s Desires After Dark and nearly every cross over or paranormal fantasy. We have trilogies such as the Nora Roberts Pagan Stone series, the last of which was just recently released. Elizabeth Hoyt, one of Jayne’s favorite historical authors, is in the midst of The Legend of the Four Horsemen books. There are the seeming never ending books about the Cynsters by Stephanie Laurens. Some series I’ve given up on and some I don’t feel compelled to start but lord, wouldn’t it be lovely to have some stand alone books again? Or not?

Hilarious, as always (Note to self: no food/drink while watching authortalk videos). See Nora perform some of the skills she picked up researching Tribute, her July release.

Authortalk.tv

Usually your single title books work for me and work well. It’s the single titles, not the JD Robb books or the categories, that made me a fan. Unfortunately, I never quite grasped hold of the characters in Tribute. I like Cilla well enough but Ford, well, I did not lose the creepy stalker vibe he gave off in the beginning.

Cilla McGowan is a former child star whose been ducking the limelight for several years. Her greatest desire is to get her contractor’s license and make a career out of flipping houses. Cilla’s former husband, and now good friend, got her into the business. Cilla manages to wrest her grandmother’s farm from her neurotic mother (an A list wannabe) and begins to renovate the farmhouse as a start to her business.

Ford Sawyer is a graphic novelist who is famous for his “The Seeker” series. He lives across the road from the Hardy farm. His first impression of Cilla is she is a vandal and he ambles over to warn her off. When he finds out she is legit, he’s pretty taken with her and begins to dream up a character for another series based on her. He begins watching her, surreptitiously, through his binoculars to sketch her in action. He Googled her, studied photographs of her, rented movies of her, wished she was naked for professional reasons, of course.

He then asks her to pose for him. And while Cilla is supposed to be a character who wants to put all notoriety aside, she ultimately agrees. When Cilla so easily forgives Ford for the intrusion, I was surprised and thought that it was very inconsistent with her media shyness. I don’t know that her efforts to stay out of the limelight would be helped by becoming the template for a new Ford Sawyer graphic novel.

Cilla’s attempts to renovate her new home is marked by vandals and attempts on Cilla’s life. Cilla’s grandmother is the famous Janet Hardy who died a tragic death. Cilla finds a cache of love letters that Hardy exchanged with a local man wherein it suggests that Hardy was impregnated by said man at the time of her death. Not everyone in Shenandoah Family appears to have warm memories of Janet Hardy.

I found Ford to be overbearing at times. He demanded instead of asked and took offense over the strangest things. Such as when he finds out that Cilla is roughing it in the renovated house with a sleeping bag. He reacts in such a way that it’s like a personal affront to him. Ford just grated me wrong. I wondered if his strong actions were to show that someone cared for Cilla for the first time. Everyone else in her life had shown a marked lack of interest. She was neglected by her mother, father and even grandmother. Ford is the intense opposite.

I have to mention how much I disliked Cilla’s dad. He abandons her to a crazy, neurotic mother and goes off to create a new perfect family and Cilla is full of forgiveness for him when he offers to paint a room. I thought Cilla’s response was quite odd. I couldn’t figure out whether she lacked any emotional depth or whether she was simply so inured to being neglected that any affection was worthwhile. She didn’t come off that way. She came off was well adjusted.

I found the Cilla/Janet dream sequences that began many of the chapters to be odd. I couldn’t really get a handle on what those were to represent, i.e., whether they were paranormal/ghostly dreams or whether they were incarnations of Cilla’s imaganings.

The story is full of renovation details. Minute details about sinks, tiles, shower blocks, paint, and trim. It’s a bit indulgent and for someone who doesn’t like home renovations, it might be a bit boring. As an avid HGTV fan, it didn’t bother me at all. I particularly liked the subcontractors like Bob who looked at Cilla’s requests for things like pot faucets askance but secretly enjoying all the new fangled things she’s making him do.

The dialogue is very good and I enjoyed the interplay between Ford and his buddies and Ford and his family. There are several quotable lines including one from a very familiar romance blogger but because I struggled so hard to grasp the characters and their motivations, I had to give this one a C.

Best regards,

Jane

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

In response, Little Brown is giving Nora Roberts’ the fly away hair cover because nothing says “strong female” like whispy, out of control hair, and a cute, strapless frock. This looks like a Susan Elizabeth Phillips book. Way to go Little, Brown.

The Hayes’ have previous small business and restaurant experience owning a tapa-style bar called Rugna’s and a home decor store called Rustique.

The Lake County News-Sun via ShelfAwareness.

The Smart Bitches reported on this yesterday and Nora dropped in to give a couple of updates.

Via SBTB and the tipsters in the email.   Thanks.

I discovered the In Death series almost 20 books in (at the publication of Portrait in Death), so I had the opportunity to read a big chunk of Eve and Roarke’s story all at once. I was immediately and completely caught up in the fictional futuristic world, from the tumultuous adventure of Eve and Roarke’s courtship and marriage, to Peabody and McNab’s touching and funny transformation from antagonists to lovers, to the HoloRoom and AutoChef and hovering cars and every other technological transformation of half a century into the future. It really felt like one integrated story to me, and I couldn’t get enough. Now, after a few more years and almost ten more books in the series, I still feel compelled to check in with Eve and Roarke and New York circa 2060. But whether it’s the months between books or the circumstances of any long series, my enthusiasm shifts back and forth with each new book. With Strangers in Death, my experience was mixed: I loved reading about the investigation but was not so enraptured by the relationship aspects of the novel.

This time out Eve must solve the murder of Thomas A. Anders, a charming and respected sporting goods magnate found dead in his own bed in what appears to be an erotic asphyxiation gone bad. His wife was out of town at the time, suggesting that Mr. Anders had some secrets and perhaps a bit of the kink, something especially humiliating for his family and in stark opposition to his reputation for honesty, sportsmanship, and fidelity. How does Eve endeavor to solve the murder of a man who seems to have no enemies and whose death isn’t one in a string of serial murders?

Like in those wonderful old episodes of Columbo, in Strangers in Death Eve fixes on a suspect quickly, which creates a taut pleasure for the reader who gets to watch her unravel the mystery, thread by thread. Knowing who did it means little if Eve can’t prove it, especially when the high profile of a case like this makes it imperative that she tuck in every single loose end. This has probably become my favorite set-up in the series, because I so often guess the killer very early on that there’s less enjoyment for me in having Eve catch up than there is in watching her match her instinct with the evidence, hoping that she and I have both guessed right. And Eve’s in fine form here, fully confident in her suspicions and wonderfully sharp in both insight and tongue. She’s back to threatening the local addicts into keeping her POS cop car safe, smart-mouthing Summerset, bantering with Baxter (aka Detective Pig-Eater) and Morris, and sparring with Peabody:

“This is going to have to come out of my Roarke fund.” [paying off a bet to Eve] “You have a fund for Roarke? To donate to him, or to try to buy him?”
“I wish – on the buying part. It’d be a skim for McNab. We have a deal where we both get to pick one person, and if we ever got the chance to . . .” She closed her fist, pumped it while she wiggled her eyebrows. “With said person, the other of us would understand. A one-shot deal. I picked Roarke.”
“Well, he’s a superior lay, so you’d have that before I peeled the skin off your still quivering body, roasted it on an open fire, and then force-fed it to you.”
“Okay then. So . . .” Clearing her throat, Peabody turned the cube on record. “I owe Dallas, Lieutenant Meaniepants Eve, twenty dollars to be paid out of my hard-earned, under-appreciated detectives salary next payday. Peabody, Detective Churchmouse Delia.”

This is the Eve I have enjoyed and admired throughout the series – the Eve who is “the top bitch cop in New York City,” because she understands the law inside and out and has an amazing insight into people and what they try to hide beneath the surface. And when Eve’s in cop mode the novel clips along, the movements logical, the pacing sharp and even. I can never tell how revised the Constitutional protections are in Eve’s world, because they don’t always conform to current versions of the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments, so there are things during the evidence gathering, interrogation, and charging stages of the investigation that I just choose to ignore. And although I wondered at the wisdom and logic of Eve sharing her suspicions with a couple of characters, overall the investigation was the most consistently compelling aspect of the book for me, reigniting that same excitement I had during my original series glom.

What didn’t work so well for me in Strangers in Death were the parts of the story that focused Eve and Roarke’s relationship. I realize that because Eve and Roarke have been together a much shorter time than we have been reading the series that there is sometimes a disconnect between the reader’s time frame and the characters’. This is, I think, why some readers are tired of Eve’s flashbacks and the like. And the good news for those readers is that Eve doesn’t have any bad dreams in this book, nor does she get unglued by the sexual elements of the crime. That felts a bit off to me, precisely because she and Roarke have been together for a relatively short time and her emotional trauma has been portrayed as so acute. Also, while one aspect of Eve’s emotional insecurity seems to have abated, that urgent intensity between she and Roarke, the undercurrent of desperation between them, continues to be expressed strongly. And those two elements have been powerfully intertwined in the series, so to see them separate was not completely convincing to me.

I also have to admit to some reader’s fatigue of my own in regard to that relationship intensity. For example, at one point Roarke comes home to find Eve working, and — again, still — he’s bowled over by the depth of his feelings for her:

She’d taken off her jacket, tossed it over a chair, and still wore her weapon harness. Which meant she’d come in the door and straight up. Armed and dangerous, he thought. It was a look, a fact of her, that continually aroused him. And her tireless and unwavering dedication to the dead – to the truth, to what was right – had, and always would, amaze him. . .
She sensed him. He saw the moment she did, that slight change of body language. And when her eyes shifted from her comp screen to his, the cold focus became an easy, even casual warmth.
That, he thought, just that was worth coming home for.

I think that some version of this monologue has occurred at least once in every book, along with all the peaks and valleys of their lovemaking, those consistent – and dramatic – reassurances of the intensity of their physical and emotional bonds and the surprise in both of them that they really did end up happily together. Even the language feels repetitive (i.e. Roarke’s lyrically poetic face and Eve’s intoxicating whiskey eyes). I was talking to a friend about this, and she suggested that Eve and Roarke have not yet developed a lightness of being with each other, an ability to tease and take each other a little for granted. I think she’s right, and I don’t mind that in and of itself, but because some aspects of their character development in the relationship seem a bit fast-tracked while others have become somewhat repetitive, I have a hard time tuning into the relationship with the unremitting seriousness that Eve and Roarke still do.

In fact, I was incredibly relieved when they finally had a fight about two-thirds of the way through the book, because even though it was basically the same argument they have over and over (Roarke: "why can’t you trust me enough to depend on me?’ Eve: "why can’t you trust that I can take care of myself?’), it broke some of the melodramatic tension. And while I understand the vagaries of relationship evolution, sometimes it feels more like a heavy authorial hand than a natural unevenness setting the trajectory of Eve and Roarke’s relationship. Although I did chuckle with satisfaction over a reference to Magdalena (“Magdabitch” as Eve refers to her) that played nicely into the plot at one point.

Readers sometimes complain that secondary characters have become gratuitously planted in these books, and for the most part I didn’t feel that way here. Trina got a reference but no personal appearance. Louise and Charles came on scene in a way that was actually relevant to Eve’s investigation, and both Summerset and Mavis were present and accounted for but minimally obnoxious. I do have one quibble, though, which is that I’m starting to miss some of the more futuristic aspects of the series. When was the last time Eve and Roarke took a HoloTrip? Why isn’t Eve beating traffic with a patrol car capable of going vertical? I enjoyed those touches, and I think a number of them have fallen away.

When contemplating a grade for this book, I realized how divergent my reactions to the police procedural and relationship aspects of the book were. When Eve was in the groove of working, I was completely engaged in the novel, and when she and Roarke were in relationship mode, I vacillated between boredom and frustration. So in the end I decided to split that difference, awarding the procedural aspects of the book a B+ and the relationship parts a C. I have no idea how that averages out, but in the same way I couldn’t reconcile the different aspects of the book, I have no interest in trying to do so with the grades.

~ Janet

This book can be purchased in hardcover or ebook format (only in Mobipocket that I could find).