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REVIEW: Home for the Holidays by Sarah Mayberry

Jane — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:00:11 +0000

Dear Ms. Mayberry:

I think this might be your most emotional romance yet. I certainly felt a little misty eyed (damn you) at the end of the story. Hannah Napier and Joe Lawson meet under inauspicious circumstances. Joe is exhausted and all he can hear is the loud sound of an engine next door. It’s keeping him from enjoying some solitude and it’s bound to wake his kids. Hannah is working on her motorcycle. Once it’s finished, Hannah is going on a long awaited road trip, escaping her ex fiancé and her sister who have found love together. She thinks Joe is good looking but a jerk and Joe, well, he doesn’t appreciate Hannah’s physical attraction either.

Joe lost his wife, Beth, in a car accident a couple of years ago and he is left to parent their two children. He feels like he is losing control over his kids. He does not want to be over his deceased wife Beth. He resents his body’s attraction to Hannah.

Worsening the situation is that the one place where Hannah felt safe, a bar/restaurant called The Watering Hole, has been purchased by Joe. It was Beth’s dream to own a restaurant and when she died and he found himself needing to be with his kids, he quit his job as troubleshooter on oil rigs and bought this restaurant. I found the scenes about and in the restaurant to be unnecessary. It seemed contrived that Joe would buy the one place that Hannah enjoyed hanging out. Given that they lived next door to each other, I wasn’t sure why this was even included. It didn’t add anything to the conflict and after a couple scenes, the bar was almost forgotten.

These are two reluctant lovers. Hannah hasn’t really recovered from the body blow to her heart and ego when her fiancé jilted her for her sister. Joe is trying to reconcile his love for Beth and his feelings for Hannah. Hannah is so much one of the guys that the holding of the door open for her is something that gives her pause. She feels completely out of here element. Their first date is a study in awkwardness. Problematically, Hannah is getting near completion of her bike and Joe can hardly bring himself to talk about the wife’s death without choking up.

They both acknowledge that they are too screwed up to be dating and from then on, the flirting, the talking, the companionship comes easier and harder. Easier because there is no pressure and harder because neither are ready to expose themselves to vulnerability by admitting that there might be a future for them.

It was really wonderful watching the two of them fall in love and it was heartbreaking to see them face difficult challenges. This was a very emotional book and I admit to feeling a tiny bit manipulated at the end. I kept thinking that they had both already suffered and now you were laying this on top of it???

Ben and Ruby were very conflicted about their dad dating, as were Hannah’s mother and Joe’s mother. Everyone seemed to question Joe and Hannah together. I liked it when Joe responded to his mother’s request that Ben come stay with her: ”No. We’re a family. He can’t opt out when it suits him. We have to work this through.” There weren’t easy solutions for any of them although Ben’s resentment over Hannah’s inclusion in their lives resolved rather quickly toward the end.

I loved Hannah and the way that she grew back into believing in herself with the help of Joe and Ruby and even Ben. And Joe as the struggling single father falling back in love was sweet. B

Best regards,

Jane

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

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Friday Film Review: Dear Frankie

Jayne — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:00:46 +0000

Dear Frankie (2004)
Genre: Drama
Grade: A-

Gerard Butler, please stop acting in rubbish films that have heroines put in vibrating underwear and do more like this one. This film is wonderful. And it’s wonderful without overdoing the important moments or slathering on the pathos in order to yank on our heartstrings.

Lizzie Morrison (Emily Mortimer) has carried on a deception for years. When her son was a baby, she took him and fled her abusive husband. Living with her mother, Nell (Mary Riggans), they’ve moved from town to town to avoid Davy. But she’s kept all this from Frankie (Jack McElhone), instead telling him his Da is a merchant sailor and writing to Frankie as if the letters come from his father.

[[Show as slideshow]]

Their latest move has taken them to Glasgow and unintentionally brought about the thing Lizzie has always worried about. The name she randomly chose for the ship Davy supposedly serves on is actually the name of a real ship and it’s coming into port soon. When Frankie’s new classmate bets him that Frankie’s Da won’t come to visit while his ship is docked, Lizzie sets out to find a stranger to play the part for a day. But the Stranger (Gerard Butler) might turn out to be more than either Frankie or Lizzie ever hoped for.

Director Shona Auerbach hit the jackpot with her cast who all turn in spot on performances. Mortimer conveys a woman who’s put up barriers against being hurt and against seeing her child get hurt. Then she has to pull them down to reach out to this stranger and allow him to know the hidden hurt of her world. For her son, she’ll do it but she still stands ready to defend Frankie and the lie she’s perpetuated to give him some contact with a father.

Butler displays an awkwardness one would expect of a man trying to pull a fast one on a 9 year old child. But then slowly warms and thaws to the role of being an absentee father beginning with watching Frankie at football then finding him the perfect stone to skip across the water. Later he’s the one who wheedles Lizzie into allowing him to spend one more day with the two of them, extending his role of having this family for a brief moment longer.

But McElhone, as Frankie, steals the film. He’s not above using his deafness to get his way, as with a librarian he guilts into letting him check out more books but he’s a decent kid who actually knows far more than he lets his mother think he does. And he can hold his own against the classmate Ricky played by Sean Brown with cheeky charm. Frankie also has a girlfriend of sorts, Catriona (Jayd Johnson) who defends him against Ricky then gets him into trouble herself with her knowledge of where mothers store things in order to hide them.

Everything about the film is subtle and scaled perfectly. There’s no overblown orchestral score or soaring violins to hammer us with the knowledge that this is an Important Emotional Moment in the film. The music backs up the acting and the acting is done with finesse. There are looks and glances, spacing to emphasis the awkward first meeting between Lizzie and the Stranger and time to catch the shock on the Stranger’s face when he finally learns why Frankie’s real Da isn’t part of his life.

When I rented the film, I wasn’t expecting much beyond some nice eye candy moments from Butler. I hoped that it wouldn’t be too mushy or maudlin. I hoped that the ending wouldn’t pull out all the stops to manipulate me and force the film into a “feel good” resolution. The film avoids the pitfalls I was worried about and still gives me eye candy. It’s a film that uses silence and physical space to let the actors tell the tale. It’s a charmer and a film I’m glad I took a chance on.

~Jayne

This is currently available in DVD form but it ain’t cheap so my thanks to Susanna Kearsley for pointing out that it’s posted on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZY-xUzLoAw

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REVIEW: Christmas Angel for the Billionaire by Liz Fielding

Jane — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:00:23 +0000

Dear Ms. Fielding:

I’m not sure if you were inspired by Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck but there are a lot of similarities. Audrey plays a princess who, struggling under the strictures of her position, decides to flee. Princess Ann falls asleep on a park bench and is rescued by Joe Bradley, a reporter. He takes her back to his apartment. Over the course of a day or so, Ann and Joe fall in love, but they can’t be together because of Ann’s duty to her people. Cue bittersweet ending. (I always thought that Ann shipped Joe in for regular loving because what’s the point of being a princess if you can’t bone your lover from time to time?)

Roseanne Napier is the daughter of the Marquess and Marchioness of St Ives who died during a humanitarian effort when Rose was 6. Lady Rose, or Annie to her intimates, grew up to be the people’s princess. Unfortunately all that Annie does is smile, shake hands, smile, kiss babies, smile, go to parties. Her only skill is looking good and being polite. Every part of her life is rigidly controlled and now it seems time for her to get married and have children. Her grandfather has the perfect candidate picked out, one Rupert Devenish, Viscount Earley. The crushing weight of the public expectation is making her crazy.

After one event, Annie runs into her double. There is a professional lookalike that Annie’s handlers have hired for security purposes but Annie asks her what she charges, just in case Annie would like to have “a day off.” Lydia, the lookalike, gives Annie a card and tells her to call anytime. Annie tells her grandfather that she just wants a week to think about her future, but in reality, Annie just wants a vacation from everything. She gets in a car and drives until her car breaks down in Maybridge.

Stranded, Annie is ultimately rescued by George Saxon and his truculent daughter, Xandra. George has been an absentee father, at first because he was working hard to provide for his young wife and child; and later, as his wife and he parted, Xandra, turned to other men for guidance including George’s father. In the end, George drifted away from Xandra completely providing financial support and occasional visits. Xandra was essentially raised by George’s parents but what she desperately wants is her father and she engages in classic teenage behavior to get his attention.

George has been at odds with his father since his high school years when it became apparent that George had no intention of carrying on his father’s mechanic / car repair business. Xandra is, however, and it is just one more source of conflict between the two. George resents his father’s easy relationship with Xandra and is filled remorse for his failed relationship with Xandra. He doesn’t know how to reconnect.

George knows right away that Annie is lying about who she is and why she is in Maybridge and initially can’t wait to usher her out of the door but in the end forces conspire to place Annie in George’s home. Through Annie’s help, George comes to realize that there is a relationship that can be repaired with his daughter, even if it will take time and commitment on his part.

Annie has to come to grips with what she feels like she owes her grandfather and the public. She’s been the people’s princess, always striving to please everyone as if good deeds will fill the hole left in her heart by her parents’ death. She’s unprepared to really let go. The week’s vacation is just that, a temporary respite from her duties. But in order for her to be with George and live the life that she has always longed for, she has to let go.

I felt like Annie’s path to emotional fulfillment was easier than George and I was disappointed at how quickly it seemed that Xandra and George would patch things up given the long history of dereliction. I wondered that Xandra wouldn’t have been resentful of the attention that George was paying Annie or if I was supposed to believe that Xandra saw Annie as a way to secure George’s presence in Xandra’s life.

I did love the Roman Holiday feel to the book and I thought Annie and George’s characters were sweet and honest. As a holiday themed book that riffs off one of my favorite movies, I can’t help but be fond of it despite its flaws. B-

Best regards,

Jane

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REVIEW: Transformed into the Frenchman’s Mistress by Barbara Dunlop

Jayne — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Dear Ms. Dunlop,

A friend of mine married her Frenchman so when I see books with French heroes, I check them out. Since I’ve found that the Desire line tends towards less assholic heroes, I decided to give “Transformed into the Frenchman’s Mistress” a shot.

If there was anything Charlotte Hudson had learned in her twenty-five years, it was how to be proper. So how had the ambassador’s granddaughter ended up on a wild movie assignment, ensconced in a centuries-old Provençal castle with notorious French playboy Alec Montcalm? While her relatives from Hudson Pictures were busy filming at Chateau Montcalm, the real drama was going on behind the antique wooden doors–beneath satin sheets. Charlotte knew their crazy, scandalous secret liaison wouldn’t last. And then she discovered she was pregnant….

This is a hard book for me to grade. There are some things about it I loved and other things that drove me nuts.

Charlotte actually has a backbone and is fairly intelligent. When she arrives at the Montcalm chateau to ask her school pal Raine Montcalm
if her family can rent it for a movie location and finds she’ll have to deal with Alec, with whom she has a slight history, instead, she shifts gears quickly and comes up with a plan of attack. What she agrees to do to get the shoot, isn’t something sleazy. No, all Alec negotiates with her – and I loved the fact that they negotiate instead of Alec going all demanding about it – is that she’ll stay there during the shoot and keep an eye on the production staff.

Alec does have his eye on Charlotte and wants to finish their earlier, unfinished business from three years ago. But he takes his time, is gracious and charming and well mannered about it. Early in the book when Charlotte throws his “playboy” ways in his face, he defends himself by pointing out that a lot of what he does is for the Montcalm business, he doesn’t poach other men’s women and why shouldn’t he enjoy taking out lovely women if they want to be taken out by him? He even dislikes his assistant’s idea that he be seen with Charlotte to deflect attention from the female star of the movie. Hey, I like this guy.

When he and Charlotte start their physical relationship, Alec is determined that she enjoy it, he doesn’t force anything, he’s delighted when she refuses to let him pay for everything during their worldwind – okay more Europewind – buying sprees and together the two are having a great time. Wonderful.

Then they head back to the south of France and things head south with them. Charlotte’s Hollywood mogul family – all from whom she’s estranged though, like a child with her face pressed against the glass of the candy shop, she clearly longs to be a part of it – has arrived and the book turns into an info dump of the previous couple in the series plus a preview of the upcoming attractions. There’s just enough of these other people taking up breathing air to annoy me without enough explanation to make me care at all about what might happen to them.

And – the moment I’d been dreading – Charlotte finally realizes she’s knocked up. Oh noes, she can’t tell Alec! Oh dears, she’ll head off on her own – no worries as she does have money of her own – and have the child by herself. “But you can’t,” Raine and Charlotte’s sister-in-law rightly tell her. So she tells Alec and basically gets called a money grubbing bitch slut by this man who up until now had been charm itself. Talk about a personality 180.

Except that Charlotte’s estranged brother finally acts like a brother and slugs Alec. At which point Alec tells Jake about how Charlotte feels like the redheaded stepchild of the Hudson family which leads to a too sudden reunion between Jake and Charlotte which didn’t satisfy me at all after 22 years of her family’s neglect. Then Alec sees the light because Jake informs him about the family money so – gosh! Charlotte can’t be one of those women who only wants him for his cashola – it must be twue love.

I really wanted to like this book. I really started out liking this book when it centered on a smart heroine and a charming hero but the herd of Hudsons, the incompletely dealt with family issues and Alec’s frankly slightly frightening 0-> 180 trip to bastard and back changed my view. C+

~Jayne

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

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REVIEW: SEALed and Delivered by Jill Monroe

Jane — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:00:52 +0000

Dear Ms. Monroe:

Is it too corny to say that this book delivered for me? I’m not a huge fan of the Navy SEAL books anymore because I think that there are so many of them and I worried about the machismo level of the hero but nothing about the book was very expected. That was a good thing.

Hailey Sutherland and her sister have taken over the family business, a San Diego institution that was once the place for social events like showers and parties and small receptions. Hailey was not as excited about the revitalization of the family business as was her sister for although she had been engaged three times, she doesn’t really know much about party planning. Because she was engaged three times, had her heart broken three times, she really isn’t in the mood to celebrate others’ newfound love.

When a SEAL team exercise plays out in front of a shower party and the women are drawn to the beach like George Clooney to brunette cocktail waitresses, Hailey recognizes that the Sutherland’s position on the beach could present some unique marketing opportunities for The Sutherland.

Lt. Commander Nate Peterson is stateside helping to train a new set of SEALs due to an injury that has left him unable to perform his duties. He resents being sidelined and stuck training newbies but realizes that in another year or two one of these newbies might be fighting along side of him. I liked that Nate was both a bit peeved but also realistic.

Part of the setup, where Hailey is playing a shower game which requires her to kiss the first man she sees, was a bit irritating. Would Nate Peterson, SEAL hardcore, really stop and kiss some chick during a training exercise? I wasn’t sure but one off note in the book didn’t slow me down. Part of the scene, the part after the kissing, did a great job at rendering how tough the SEALs were. One of the trainees was hit in the head and lost consciousness. Peterson dragged him to the shore and allowed him to recover. The shore was right in front of the Sutherlands. The SEAL trainee recovers and then goes back into the ocean to finish out the training exercise because, as Nate points out to a shocked Hailey (and a concerned reader), the trainee would have to endure much worse in battle.

Hailey’s plan to use the SEAL training exercises as a way to draw in more business is a concern to Nate. He comes to ask her to rethink her plans because the attention and boisterousness of the crowd interferes with the training. In other books, this would become an issue of contention between the two but both recognize and value the other person’s position. Nate recognizes that Hailey needs the business and is willing to listen to an alternative plan. Hailey accepts Nate’s explanation that the training is being compromised and offers up a different solution.

This is not to say that the book is conflictless, but the conflicts weren’t based on disrespecting the other person. The conflict was based on Nate wanting nothing more than an affair and Hailey having sworn off men. She falls in love too easily. Nate begins to court Hailey. There’s no other word for it and I really thought this part of the book was charming.

Nate and Hailey have a deep physical attraction toward each other, but they do not fall in bed immediately. Maybe some would say that means that their passion just wasn’t strong enough but for me, this detail helped me buy into Nate and Hailey’s happy ever after. Nate would be going back into service once he was fully healed which would mean long separations for the two of them. Their ability to forego immediate gratification made me believe the two would be able to survive Nate’s obligation (and desire) to be part of the SEAL teams. Hailey clearly could survive without Nate by her side.

I also appreciated the secondary romance between a young bride to bride to be. The arc of Nate and Hailey’s romance was somewhat echoed in that of the secondary characters. B

Best regards,

Jane

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

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REVIEW: Runaway Lady, Conquering Lord by Carol Townend

Jayne — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:00:22 +0000

Dear Ms. Townend,

I’ve enjoyed several of your other books for Harlequin Historicals and was delighted when you contacted me offering a copy of your latest in the “Wessex Weddings” series for possible review. (Note: FTC discloser out of the way!) And the heroine is a Fallen Woman too. Even better. At first I didn’t realize that the hero is the same man used as a decoy in “An Honorable Rogue,” but once I recalled this, it upped the incentive to read the book.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Four years ago, Lady Emma of Fulford would never have thought she’d be sorry to lose her livelihood – washing dirty laundry in an icy cold river – that puts clothes on her back and a roof over her head. But then she also never thought she’d have an illegitimate child or not be living in her father’s noble household. A love affair gone bad has landed her where she is today and that somewhere is desperate to escape the abusive father of her child who has somehow tracked her down.

Her appeal for a job to the garrison commander of Winchester, Sir Richard of Asculf, initially gets her nowhere. They have a bit of a history since he’s a BFF of Emma’s brother in law, Adam, who was awarded her father’s lands. Richard takes a little pleasure in seeing her in such reduced circumstances since Emma apparently made life difficult for them after the Battle of Hastings fallout but he’s also honest enough to admit that she stirs his sexual interest. Not that he’s going to lay a hand on her as Adam would nail him for it.

But with Judhael making threats against her and terrified that he’ll discover the fact that they have a son, Emma is pushed to offer herself to Richard as a mistress with the hope that he’ll take her and her son with him when he returns to Normandy to settle an inheritance. Can these two find love as well as sexual feelings for each other during the journey?

I like a good medieval and am glad to see the subgenre making a bit of a comeback. But for me to be interested in it, I need more than the standard Norman knight (who’s usually a bastard) and willowy Saxon maiden snipping at each other in faux medieval dialogue. I mentioned before how much I appreciate the fact that you avoid this but let me say it again to emphasize how much this means to me. No “mayhaps!” No “tis, twases!” No irate Jayne!

I haven’t read the first book in the series “The Novice Bride,” but I gather that Emma is quite changed since then. Several mentions are made of how her viewpoints on various things have changed since her days as the daughter of a powerful Saxon thane. At this point, she’s taken refuge in an inn with several ‘ladies of the night’ and far from looking down her nose at them, she thinks of them as friends. She’s even tickled pink when they show up after her wedding to wish her well. She’s practical and not above doing what it takes to see to the safety and care of her child.

Richard is shown to be human. He’s a man who can appreciate Emma’s curves and who is also not adverse to enjoying, just a little bit, seeing her pay a bit for her past actions. But his honorable side quickly comes out on top and he goes to great lengths to help her and feels guilty when they succumb to passion. I figured some revelation was coming to explain his nightmares and at first rolled my eyes a little that a big Norman knight would be so anguished at what bothers him but then thought again about how any warrior might take a particular death hard and be haunted by it.

The book is also a bit of a road romance and I enjoyed reading about the journey conditions. Definitely not modern traveling with ‘en suite’ bath included and one can forget having any privacy. You handled some aspects of the story differently than I expected which in this case is a good thing. When a potential wife for Richard is mentioned, I had images of catfights and outraged foot stomping to dread but thankfully this didn’t come to pass. When Emma imagines she feels someone watching her during their trip, I thought of several scenarios involving showdowns between the men. Again, you took a different path.

Emma’s venture towards “please don’t go there” territory alarmed me somewhat. True, she is given one good reason but I would have preferred that she ask before she acted. And let’s be honest, Judhael displays more common sense about her choice of action than she did considering she also has the welfare of her child to consider.

“Runaway Lady, Conquering Lord” – and can’t we just tell this is a Harlequin title? – is a fairly fast read and is quite readable, which I consider to be two different things. It stays away from many of the subgenre’s conventions and features two likable lead characters. I think readers interested in medievals will welcome it to the list. B-

Jayne

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REVIEW: Hidden Conflict by Various Authors

Joan/SarahF — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:00:01 +0000

Dear Authors and Readers.

If you will excuse a personal history, you will see its relevance to my review. I enlisted in the Army National Guard after 9/11. I became a US citizen and commissioned (became an officer) in 2003. I accepted a medical retirement in May of this year, at the rank of Captain, after 7 ½ years of service. I never went overseas, but I served in the Katrina response in Louisiana. I was a soldier and damn proud to be so.

But I am also bisexual (with some extra kinks outside the Kinsey continuum). This is the first time I’ve been able to admit this in public (well, I came out on Twitter on National Coming Out Day) since figuring it out because of the US military’s destructive Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. My sexuality in no way affected my service. All outward appearances show a happily married, monogamous, heterosexual soldier, which is mostly what I am. But every now and then the issue came up and I had to bite my tongue. I could have been kicked out of the service if anyone had dug too deep, for a reason that didn’t affect my service or that of others around me.

At a time when Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is destroying the careers of loyal, hard-working, supremely competent soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen of the American Armed Forces, this fictionalized retrospective of men who serve together and love each other is never more necessary and welcome. I was thrilled to receive it (free) from the publisher (through Jane) and while it did a great job of showing the soul-destroying problem of homophobia in general, I could have wished that it had focused more specifically on the subtle differences of the problem of being gay in the military, rather than just showing gay military men.

“Blessed Isle” by Alex Beecroft
I don’t know what it is about Beecroft’s writing that ravishes me so. Maybe it’s that her prose is like Keats’ poetry to me: redolent with scent, aching with color, and beautiful with taste and sound. Maybe it’s how she scours me inside with the deeply-felt emotions of her characters. But this story manages to do in 58 pages what False Colors did to me in more than 300.

Set in the late eighteenth century, Captain Harry Thompson, late of her Majesty’s Navy, safely ensconced in Rio, begins a journal of his relationship with his Lieutenant, Garnet Littleton. They met when Harry took his first command of the Banshee with orders to escort three transport ships to Australia. Buffeted by storms, typhus, mutinous convicts, and his own yearning for the free-spirited Garnet, Harry only finds happiness when he and Garnet are marooned for months on their own small Pacific island. The actual sexual activity is minimally detailed, but you feel every prick and rush of longing and satisfaction, the abject fear and bone-deep rightness when the men fall in love. See how much Beecroft can do with so few words:

When we woke, that first morning, we made love. Nothing needed to be said; we both understood it would happen as soon as we had the physical resources to allow it. It was sweet and weary and gentle, and afterwards I held Harry tight and mourned for all the things he had had to lose to make this possible. I wished I might give his prudishness and his confidence and his career back to him. And in a petty part of myself I wished he might have come to me despite them, instead of needing to be ruined first. But I will say that holding on to him afterwards, in the warm glow and satisfaction of coitus, I entertained the inexcusable thought that the past months had been worth it.

Harry and Garnet find their happy ending and record it for posterity, for a time when their love might be celebrated rather than reviled, for a time after their death when they don’t have to pretend. The story is told in journal form, with Harry’s memories interspersed with Garnet’s as they reveal to each other, even after years together, their feelings and motivations in the past, as they reveal them to their reader, who also becomes a character in the story. So even the journaling has a place in their relationship. Brilliantly, perfectly done. Grade: A+

“Not to Reason Why” by Mark B. Probst
This is a narrative — a very boring narrative – of Custer’s last campaign, told from the perspective of a corporal (I think? Too bored to go back and look). Brett has the hots for Dermot. Dermot is married to Sarah. Dermot loves Sarah very much, and Brett is jealous of Sarah. There’s absolutely NO indication that Dermot feels anything at all for Brett beyond deep friendship and besides one kiss Brett almost (but not quite) forces on Dermot a few days before the big battle, there’s nothing overtly romantic about this story at all. In fact, there’s nothing covertly romantic either. This is not a romance (especially since it does not end happily); this is a narrative representation of a campaign: They saddled up, then they stopped here, then had dinner, then dicked around in the evening as soldiers tend to do, then slept, then had breakfast, then saddled back up for another grueling day of chasing Indians, then stopped for lunch, then…. Seriously, with a little more detail to prove that Probst had done his research (They stopped under overhanging cliffs. They crossed the stream eight times.), that’s what the story is like. Every now and then Brett will think something emotional for a sentence or two, but then he’ll ignore it and move on. I hate to play to stereotypes, but this read like it was a “romance” written by a man, and hey, look! It was written by a man. Okay, dude, you did your research; now tell me a fucking story.

And seriously, someone please proofread: “Dermot was in line looking none the worse for wear, though Brett could see his eyes were still vacuous from lack of sleep.” Really? I do not think that word means what you think it means.

And if we’re going to have a story about a man who runs away from battle, who deserts his troops, then lines like “The heat was stifling and there were times Brett would have welcomed a warrior arrow straight into his heart just to end it all” are not only not helpful, they’re patently wrong.

After Brett does desert, the level of his thought processes about his actions are symptomatic of the level of emotion and characterization in the rest of the book:

The wind and his body heat had dried his clothing and he began to warm up. His thoughts were a jumble of images and confusion. He couldn‘t sort it out enough to put together a plan of action. A piercing accusation kept surfacing—You are a coward and a deserter. Was he? What good would it have done to have stayed and died with the rest? Perhaps a couple more Sioux and Cheyenne may have been wounded or killed, but it would not have saved a single soldier‘s life. He longed to be unconscious so he didn‘t have to think. After the celebrating quieted and morning drew near, he got his wish and fell asleep, lying on his side on the creek-bank.

Oh! Coward! Deserter! Right, check. Let’s move on, folks, nothing to see here.

The author didn’t seem to be aware of the weight of his words, and coming after Beecroft’s clarity and precision, it was almost painful. At one point, Brett engages Dermot in deep conversation:

“Wrong side?” Dermot frowned. “How can you say that? There is no wrong side against the Indians.”

“I mean wrong side, in that it may not be the victorious side.”

“There‘s nothing wrong with dying to protect your country.”

“Dermot, haven‘t you ever noticed how these things are reported in the newspapers? When we win they say it‘s a victory, but when they win they say it‘s a massacre.”

Then after the Brett escapes/deserts, he listens to the Indian victory drums: “It went on for hours. The chanting haunted him. He wanted it to stop. It tormented him by constantly reminding him of the massacre. He sat huddled on the riverbank; the drums felt like his own heartbeat.” Completely, utterly without irony, Probst uses the word he’d previously questioned.

Dermot was cardboard, Brett was an unlikable, whiny, cowardly turd, there was no romance, no emotion, no connection. What there was was wishy-washiness. Was this deep, thoughtful commentary or just campaign details? Neither. Sorry. Grade: F

“No Darkness” by Jordan Taylor

Okay, so when the book starts like this:

“Lieutenant Darnell!”

“Sir?”

“Oh, there you are. Why are you skulking, man?” The red-faced, broad-shouldered platoon sergeant did not wait for an answer but plowed on before Darnell could even open his mouth, “Find someone to take with you down to the cellar. There should be half a ton of supplies in this bloody shack and no one seems able to find so much as a tin of jam.”

Private Morgan stepped forward and saluted the sergeant. He had large front teeth and matching ears that reminded Darnell of a corgi.

“Sir,” the private said. “Me and Stokes searched the cellar already. Nothing, sir. No sign anything‘s been in there for some time, sir.”

The sergeant walked right past him as if he had neither seen nor heard the private. “Well, Lieutenant? What are you waiting for?”

I’m confused. Unless things are very different in the British army in World War I from the US Army now, lieutenants don’t call platoon sergeants “sir” and platoon sergeants don’t call lieutenants “man” and give them orders. And no one salutes NCOs. So I don’t think much of your research abilities if that’s how the book starts. I mean, seriously. And my father (British AND British history buff) also confirmed for me that the officer corps in 1915 was still very much of and from the upper classes and Darnell is not upper class. He’s almost the opposite of upper class.

Inaccuracies aside, this has to be one of the most depressing stories I’ve ever read. This is precisely why I don’t read stories that aren’t romances with HEAs. Yes, I understand that World War One was a desperately horrible war. Yes, I understand that being gay in the military is terrible. AND, I understand that the purpose of this anthology was not all about the happy endings. But can we have ANY bright points of light? Can we have ANY happiness in the story? Apparently not.

LT Darnell and PVT Fisher get shelled into a cellar with no way out. Fisher’s broken so many ribs he can’t do anything to help get them out. Darnell literally ruins his hands digging them out, but even when they get out, it takes days to find anyone else and of course when they do, disaster strikes. There’s only a relationship between these men on the level of two men who find themselves stuck in a cellar together, trying to get out. The fact that they’re both gay doesn’t really factor into it at all.

What I do think is interesting is that both this story and the last both conform to the melodramatic abjection of the married gay man being the one to bite it. Think Brokeback Mountain, right? Sure, Jack’s more out, more comfortable with himself than Ennis, but he’s the one who marries first and stays married so he’s the one who has to die. Ditto these two stories.

This story isn’t a romance. Not in the slightest. Not that it’s trying to be — and that’s fine, of course. But it isn’t really even a story about being gay in the military. It’s just a depressing story about a horrific war. I don’t know how to grade it. It’s not badly written like the previous story (research abilities aside). It’s just…not something I choose to read. So, I guess…Grade: C-

“Our One and Only” by E.N. Holland
This is the only story that truly deals with the problems that being gay specifically in the military can produce. Philip is Eddie’s lover, but when Eddie dies in France in 1944, Philip is left feeling invisible, able only to admit to being Eddie’s best friend, not able to fully express his grief over his beloved’s death. The story is told over 40 years, at intervals of a decade. We see Philip deal (or not) with Eddie’s death, even though every now and then you want to hit him over the head and say “Get OVER yourself already!” The story shows the expected and unexpected repercussions the life and death of one soldier have on his friends, fellow soldiers, and family. While not amazing, this story is thoughtful, interesting, and eventually has a hopeful ending (not with Eddie, obviously).

One thing pulled me out of the story. In 1954, Philip thinks, “he always thought war was sort of pointless and his feelings only sharpened after Eddie‘s death.” Maybe this is just me overthinking things, but if there was one “just” war, one necessary war, it was World War Two and I don’t think very many people can disagree with that. Yes, war is devastating and horrible, but with Hitler as an aggressor, there’s not much else that the Allies COULD have done besides what they did. WW2 was not a pointless war; of any war in history, it was the least pointless. The mindset Philip expresses is very much a post-Vietnam mindset and I found it jarring in this story.

Other than that, I enjoyed watching this man through 40 years of his life and I was very happy that he had a hopeful ending “blessed” by his long-lost partner. Grade: B

Overall, while I think that an anthology against DADT, showing the emotional devastation it causes, is a wonderful idea, it was only the last story that really dealt with the peculiar problem of being gay specifically in the military. Because in 1790, 1876, 1915, and 1944, being gay was a problem NO MATTER WHAT. So being gay in the military was no more or less difficult that being gay anywhere else (it might have been easier, perhaps, considering close proximity). I would really like to have seen the awful Custer-era story or the depressing WW1 story dropped, and a story about the Gulf War or even Iraq or Afghanistan added, to make the point that “being gay in the US military” specifically IS an issue NOW, because being gay now is much more accepted than in 1876 and it’s the military that’s ridiculously behind the times.

I once had someone ask me why a gay person would join the US military when they know they’re not wanted, and the question made me shake with rage. Gay and bisexual men and women want to join the military for the same reasons as everyone else: we love our country and want to defend it, we like the opportunities and benefits, we’re loyal and hard-working and honorable people. Just like everyone else. Why should we not be able to serve? We have just as much to offer — more, perhaps, since we’re joining knowing we’re not wanted, joining knowing we’re going to have to hide who we are in order to serve.

Anyway. Overall, I’d give the entire anthology a high C+ or a low B-, but the whole thing is completely and utterly worth buying just for the sublime Beecroft story, “Blessed Isle,” with a nice added bonus of the gentle “Our One and Only.”

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook version that I could find.

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REVIEW: Hot on Her Heels by Susan Mallery

Janet — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:00:01 +0000

Dear Ms. Mallery:

Having finished the entire Titan sisters series, I find myself in virtually the same place after the fourth book as after the first: I loved so much of the interaction among the women but found the basic suspense premise substantially problematic. Witty dialogue buoyed each book, while unconvincing characterizations torpedoed my ability to make the ultimate buy-in for each book. This last book, Hot on Her Heels, repeats the pattern faithfully, with Dana (an honorary Titan sister and oldest sister Lexi’s best friend for years) a witty, prickly, sassily amusing heroine and Titan half-brother Garth, her inevitable if not expectedly suited hero. With this book, we get the resolution to the power struggle between patriarch Jed Titan and his vengeful son Garth, as well as the Titan sisters’ campaign to bring Garth back from the dark side (i.e. war with the family). Can love redeem either or both of these difficult men?

First a bit of backstory. Unbenkownst to Jed Titan’s three daughters, before he married the first of his wives (Lexi’s mother), he got a local girl pregnant and ended up treating her very badly. When she did not accept his apology, the proud, rash Jed cut all ties to his son and his first love, going to far as to throw Garth out on the street when, at 14, he came to beg his father for enough money to treat his mother’s brain tumor. So now Garth is seeking his revenge on his father, and just for fun he decides to jerk with his half-sisters, as well. After all, they’re Titans, too, and have benefited from Jed’s wealth. And it’s not as if Jed is innocent, exactly; in fact, Jed’s sins are becoming more and more apparent to his daughters, and his behavior is becoming more and more hostile.

Although the older sisters had been slowly regaining control of the parts of their lives Garth messed with, in the last book, Straight from the Hip, wild child Izzy Titan was blinded in an explosion on the offshore rig where she worked as an underwater welder. Believing that Garth set the explosion, the sisters set Titanville police deputy Dana Birch on Garth, figuring that if anyone can get the truth out of Garth – who insists he had nothing to do with the explosion, despite his manipulations in getting Izzy to his best friend Nick’s facility for rehab – it’s the dogged, jaded, done with men, Deputy Dana. Not that Dana is resisting; in fact, she takes a leave of absence so she can tail Garth properly, even going so far as to let Garth know that she will be following him anywhere and everywhere he goes. A notion to which Garth seems unexpectedly receptive.

Because this is a Romance novel, in case we might forget, and the two remaining eligible single folks must be paired off by the end. And what is more canonical than the handsome, wealthy, committed to being single bachelor who can have any woman he wants wanting the boyish, no make-up wearing, defensive, only dates weak men woman? And in that respect, Hot on Her Heels is very traditional. There is a bit of a twist with Garth, who was held captive and tortured in a South American jungle, as well as with Dana, who was the teenaged victim of an abusive father. But for the most part, these serious issues serve as obligatory obstacles to emotional vulnerability and commitment for the two.

Now for the good, most of which happens around the smart-alecky sisters and their campaign to make Garth a true and loyal Titan sibling:

…”Come on. Join the party. As I said the other day, you’re family. This path of destruction you’re on is just plain stupid. So we’re going to save you.”

“Against my will?”

“If necessary.” She smiled. “We can be very persuasive.”

“Izzy wants you to join the family,” Skye said.

“By Christmas,” Izzy added.

He remembered her saying something like that before. “Thanks, but no.”

“You don’t get a choice.”

“Part of saving me against my will?”

“Uh-huh. Come on, Garth. We’re your sisters. Didn’t you ever wish you had someone to braid your hair?”

Scenes like this constituted the most enjoyable passages in the novel for me; the exchanges were sharp and well-written, the humor not overdone or tired. I was even willing to go along with the idea that the sisters would be so forgiving of Garth (something that becomes a bit more believable as Jed treats them more and more badly).

Unfortunately, the strong, well-portrayed bonds among the sisters and Dana were not well-matched by the development of the romantic relationship between Dana and Garth.

Which brings me to the bad.

By the end of Skye’s book, Lip Service, Dana was so motivated to bring Garth to justice for his attacks on the sisters that she was voluntarily breaking with her duty as a cop and engaging in some seriously unlawful behavior. That move was about as believable as the ease with which the sisters have decided to ‘love Garth into submission,’ but I was willing to suspend some disbelief because Dana’s loyalty to the sisters is so strong. That is, I was given enough of a basis in the existing relationships to accommodate this rather unexpected shift in Dana’s character.

Garth’s necessary rehabilitation into romantic hero material manifests in a form that is not unexpected but is also awkward, as the attention in Hot on Her Heels shifts away from his bad deeds to someone who is even more of a threat to the women. In relatively short order, Garth is able to shift positions from threatening outsider to trusted ally and long-lost brother, a transition that has been anticipated since the last book, but which is still hastily accomplished and involves the problematic sacrifice of another character.

Further, with Garth and Dana’s relationship, there is really not much foundation established for their budding attraction and romance (after all, Garth has been the guy going after Dana’s best friends in the whole world and her honorary sisters). And yet, Garth is already falling under the spell of Dana’s sensuous mouth by Chapter 2 of Hot on Her Heels, hastily confessing to her that “Your mouth drives me crazy,” kissing her senseless and giving her the magic orgasm of HEA bonding, all in about a hundred pages. By the time Garth proposes she move in with him so he can protect her from “the real threat,” conventional romantic formula is firmly entrenched as the main motivator of this couple’s relationship:

He turned to face her. “I thought you’d be more comfortable here. I didn’t want to assume…”

It was the first time she’d seen him unsure of himself. He didn’t look directly at her as he spoke and after gesturing to the bed, he shoved his hands into his slacks pockets.

A guest room. Who would have thought?

She thought of the big bed in the room down the hall, of sleeping next to him every night, of having him touch her and take her until she was weak with wanting to give all she had. And if she did that, what would be left of her?

“This would be great,” she said.

Something flashed through his eyes. Something that if she’d been brave like Izzy or beautiful like Lexi or emotionally strong like Skye she might have thought was disappointment, but being just her, she ignored it.

Garth and Dana spend a lot of time and narrative space questioning and ignoring the looks in each other’s eyes, the intention behind each touch, the emotion behind every smile and frown. Garth finds himself wanting Dana with properly intense and momentous desire, even though he’s convinced he will never fall in Love. Dana finds herself wearing mascara and high heels, questioning herself but enjoying the feeling of being a girl, prickly as a matter of form but clearly falling for the handsome, wealthy, I survived torture in a South American jungle Garth. There was so little here that was new or challenging that it communicated to me as trite, even annoying at times, especially all those moments of ‘does she or doesn’t she?,’ ‘does he or doesn’t he?’ Within a few chapters, it is obvious that these two are not only meant for each other, but that every aspect of their characters heretofore, every reason they have to distrust one another, to be truly suspicious of each other, and to follow the logic of Garth’s far-reaching revenge plot against the Titans, is swept away in the throes of their mutual passion.

And that is really the ugly of Hot on Her Heels. Garth’s systematic campaign against the Titans, which at least had some real justification behind it, is easily forgotten, at which point Garth really becomes the true Titan patriarch. Because we’ve known since the first book, Under Her Skin, that Jed was being set up as the true villain of the series, an egomaniacal nut who viewed his daughters as either pawns or whores (or both). This transfer of sympathy created two insupportable scenarios for me: either Jed had always been that way, in which case I could not imagine how his daughters were not neurotic messes, or he suddenly became that way, which I felt should have prompted something akin to a 5150 mental health hold as opposed to a Titan-sister counter-attack. Since neither option was explored in the series, by the time the sisters engineer their family reunion with Garth and join forces against their father, I had pretty much lost faith in the vehicle that drove the series arc. And with that it was difficult to see Garth and Dana’s relationship as anything more than a by-the-numbers coupling of romantic series convenience. Garth needs to be a “true Titan brother” and Dana needs to be a “true Titan sister,” so what better way to accomplish that than to make Garth a hero and match him up with Dana?

The last Titan sisters book I reviewed, Straight from the Hip (Skye and Mitch’s story), actually rose in evaluation once I started composing my review. Hot on Her Heels, by contrast, read much more generously than it reviewed. Once I really started reflecting on what worked for me against what didn’t, one column clearly dominated. And it was a disappointment, because the sisters and Dana had so much potential and so much fun in their portrayal. But the clichés became more and more wearing, such that what should have been the most challenging (and, it follows, the most satisfying) relationship in the series to develop – that between the vengeful bastard son and the avenger of justice and friendship – felt the most trite. C-

~ Janet

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

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REVIEW: Blaze of Memory by Nalini Singh

Janine — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:00:06 +0000

Dear Ms. Singh,

Blaze of Memory begins shortly after Devraj Santos finds an unknown woman unconscious on his doorstep. Dev is the director of the Shine Foundation, an organization that assists the Forgotten and protects their children from those who would exploit their psychic powers.

For those who haven’t read the earlier books in the Psy/Changeling series, the Forgotten are the descendants of Psy who dropped out of the net that psychically links the members of that race. Those Psy intermarried with humans, and their descendants manifest psychic gifts that are frequently different from those of the Psy. Some of the high ranking Psy view the Forgotten as a threat, which is why they persecute them.

As director of the Shine Foundation, it is Dev’s role to put the Forgotten first at all times, and to do whatever is necessary to keep them from harm. Dev has a cold and ruthless side to his personality partly because of that, and partly because of his psy ability, which remains shrouded in mystery for much of the book but is said to involve metal. But despite his hard edges, Dev feels protective of anyone who has been abused, and the woman he finds on his doorstep clearly qualifies.

When she wakes up, the mystery woman does not remember anything, even her own name. She is also malnourished, and her amnesia appears to have been brought about by psychic tampering. But she is quickly identified as Ekaterina Haas, a former colleague of Ashaya, the heroine of Hostage to Pleasure.

Katya, as she renames herself, begins to remember bits and pieces of the psychic violation that has altered her and left her able to experience emotions. The visions come to her in nightmares, and she is not always able to retain the memories. One such nightmare reveals to the reader, but not to Dev or to Katya, that Katya is a sleeper agent whose mission is to infiltrate Shine and gather information on the children of the Forgotten and their abilities. After she has done so or attempted to do so, she is to kill Dev.

But although neither of them knows the exact details of her mission, both Katya and Dev are keenly aware that she may be programmed to do something treacherous. Katya asks Dev to kill her before he allows that to happen, and Dev agrees. It is in fact something he has already planned on, but Katya’s courage earns his admiration and makes the prospect of killing her even more painful.

Once Katya is well enough to leave her hospital bed, Dev insists that she come with him to his house in Vermont, since he can’t trust her not to harm the children he has sworn to protect. Although Katya knows that she may in fact be a sleeper agent, she feels a compulsion to head north. Katya is angry at finding herself an effective hostage when Dev denies her the freedom to leave. She is also offended by the fact that Dev distrusts her even when she is being completely honest.

But despite the tension between them, Dev and Katya can’t completely resist their growing attraction to one another, especially when Katya’s nightmare memories leave her in need of Dev’s comfort. They are uncertain about what the future holds for either of them, and everyone who observes them feels that their love is doomed.

Katya and Dev’s storylines are interspersed with hundred-year old letters written by a mother with Psy powers and addressed to her young son, Matthew. The letters chronicle the lives of the writer’s family through the implementation of Silence, the protocol that keeps the Psy from experiencing emotions but also prevents them from committing horrific crimes.

Also interspersed are logs from a place called Sunshine Station, where something bad happened, and scenes that involve the members of the Psy Council, some of which are becoming aware of a dark patch forming in the PsyNet, something that may prove dangerous to all the Psy.

The first third of the book was slow to engage me for the following reasons. First and foremost, Katya and Dev’s story felt a bit repetitive early on since their budding relationship keeps running into the wall of Dev’s justifiable distrust. I felt that in that section of the book, they were essentially arguing in circles.

Secondly, much of the information in the letters to Matthew is about the inception and early implementation of Silence, and this terrain has already been covered in earlier books in the series, albeit not from this perspective. I realize that some readers won’t have read the earlier books leading up to Blaze of Memory, but for the reader who has, there isn’t much that is new in the epistolary storyline.

Third, like the main plot, the subplot about the Sunshine Station takes a while to kick into higher gear. And lastly, we don’t visit much with the changeling characters until later on in the book. I have grown attached to those characters, and before they appeared, I missed seeing them.

However, in the second half the book really gathers momentum. Since to go into the details would involve spoilers, I’ll just say that the Sunshine Station subplot eventually grabbed this reader by the throat, changeling characters from previous books play a significant role in the second half, and most importantly, Katya and Dev’s relationship turns around. Their arduous, star-crossed path to a happy ending makes their relationship richer and deeper, and that makes reading about it very satisfying.

The ending of the book is very emotional, and although I’ve begun to detect a pattern in the endings of your last three books, it still got to me viscerally. I think I may have cried harder toward the end of this book than I ever have while reading your books.

While this book isn’t up there with my favorites in the series, Caressed by Ice and Branded by Fire, I still felt it was worth reading and would not hesitate to recommend it to readers. B for this one.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony on November 3.

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GIVEAWAY: Signed Stephanie Laurens Backlist & Vera Bradley Bag

Jane — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:00:54 +0000

Updated: We are extending the promotion until Friday (today) at 11:59 pm EST.

Avon put together this really lovely giveaway to celebrate the start of the new Stephanie Laurens‘ series, The Black Cobra Quartet. The premise of the Black Cobra Quartet is that there is a British traitor who is the head of the Black Cobra cult, an organization that is terrorizing villages and setting up a reign of fear in Bombay. Evidence has been gathered to deliver to the England but given the scope of the Black Cobra influence, it is determined that the four British officers who have this information will split up and make their way back to England separately in hopes that at least one of them will be able to deliver the incriminating evidence and put a stop to the Black Cobra.

You can read the prelude to the series here and the first 20 % of the launch title,

Untamed Bride, here.

The winner of this contest will be sent this gorgeous Vera Bradley bag stuffed full of the entire Laurens backlist (almost 30 titles). To enter, simply leave a comment about a) your favorite Laurens book OR b) if you haven’t read a Laurens, what book of hers interests you the most.

This contest is sponsored by Avon and will run until Friday November 6, 11:59 PM EST. Updated: This contest is for US residents only. Sorry folks.

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