Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary » C Reviews

REVIEW: Ice by Linda Howard

Jane — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:00:08 +0000

Dear Ms. Howard:

I confess that I was at first taken aback by the length of this hardcover. I remember thinking unkind thoughts about this format when Janet Evanovich put out her first Christmas hardcover. Those have sold like crazy so I guess that readers are unfazed by the length of the story and the cost. After all, a story is a story, right?

When I started ICE, I began to get excited. A good category length Howard is worth hardcover pricing. I know that I would have paid quite a bit to read the Diamond Bay trilogy because it was so good. The first and second chapters read like a vintage category Howard romance and if it had kept in that vein, I would have been able to recommend this unreservedly. However, in keeping with your current writing voice, this book is far more focused on the action/suspense than it is on the characters and their relationship with each other.

The story takes place, mostly, over the space of one afternoon. There is an impending icestorm and military policeman, Gabriel, is home on leave. His father, the local sheriff, sends him to retrieve Lolly Helton from her mountain home because she won’t be able to survive up there if there is an icestorm. Gabriel is not thrilled about his father’s assignment. He wants to spend the afternoon with his son and he doesn’t really like Lolly. When they were in high school, Lolly always looked down her nose at him. Him! The highschool jock, son of the sheriff, friend to everyone; yet Lolly was always using her sharp tongue to cut him down. Still, Gabriel isn’t going to refuse to do what his father asks and heads up the mountain.

Lolly is preparing the family home for sale. Her parents have moved south and Lolly doesn’t live in the area. The local grocery store owner invites Lolly to stay with them over the icestrom and Lolly acquiesces. She knows the danger. She heads back up the mountain to get the supplies she needs. Her return to town is cut short when two meth addicts break into her home and prepare to rape, rob, and kill her.

It’s about the time when the meth addicts appear on the scene that the book kind of falls apart for me, maybe because I was hoping and anticipating Lolly and Gabriel interaction. no matter how hard you had Lolly explain everything to me, I was beset with questions regarding the plausibility of the suspense. For example, meth addict 1 is male and tries to rape Lolly only his girlfriend, Meth 2, comes in and starts to beat Meth 1 about the head. Why would Meth 1 think that he could get away with raping Lolly when his girlfriend was standing right there? Did he have a history of this? Was it simply to place Lolly in further sympathy with the reader? When they put Lolly in a room upstairs, it easily allows her to escape. Why not just tie her to a chair in the same room as the Meth heads? Or why wouldn’t they try to secure her in some fashion?

Now the answer may be that the Meth addicts are high and who can explain their actions, but they seemed capable of executing a plan (targeting Lolly in the grocery store and following her up the mountain, getting her to give them money, etc). It was no quick grab sort of thing.

Gabriel comes along and they try to escape together but they are found out by the bad guys so Lolly, Gabriel and the bad guys are running in the woods in the mountain during the icestorm. Only Gabriel and Lolly are affected by the cold. The Meth addicts seem impervious. Where Lolly is nearly hypothermic, Meth addict is able to plot, plan and carry out an effective threat to both Gabriel and Lolly’s lives.

The interaction between Gabriel and Lolly is quite brief and there is no real character development. The focus is squarely on the icestorm and the meth addicts and the danger the two pose for both Gabriel and Lolly. While the story ends with Gabriel and Lolly pursuing each other, I wasn’t convinced of much of anything at the end, least of all their ability to form a lasting connection. C

Best regards

Jane

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

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Redline Lover by Charlene Teglia

Jane — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:00:20 +0000

Dear Ms. Teglia:

Thank you for sending this novella to me for review. I know, having read erotic romance* for several years, that here is a real skill in delivering believable and sexy consummation scenes. You have that skill and I appreciated the delivery of that content. The overall construct, perhaps because of the length, was problematic.

Maggie Parker and Adam Richards were a couple until Maggie up and left one day, leaving Adam sleeping and a post it note breaking up with him. She moved to Chicago to take a job with a magazine. When Maggie’s sister gives birth to a son alone and abandoned by her husband, Maggie returns to her hometown near Washington, D.C.. Of course, that puts her back into proximity with Adam.

Adam feels like there was unfinished business between them and proposes that Maggie have sex with him until she leaves for Chicago again. Adam wants to sex Maggie out of his system. Maggie is given a remote assignment to come up with a story about Adam, race car driver who leaves it all behind to start a mechanic shop.

I wasn’t sure why Adam and Maggie started dating in the first place and I never got a sense of where their relationship was when she left. They obviously had communication issues. Maggie never explained to him that she was searching for jobs outside the D.C. area and Adam never explained why he gave up competitive racing. Some of the conversations they had was if they had never dated before. Adam really didn’t see Maggie’s departure coming. He was curiously even keeled about Maggie leaving him. He was more frustrated and wondering if his strong desire for her had driven her away.

There are great little touches here and there that convey a lot of emotion and provide great setting but the coherency of the story lost me from time to time. I was confused about how Maggie could maintain any journalistic integrity by sleeping with Adam and I was confused about Adam’s desire to both push Maggie away and sex them both into exhaustion. For example, Adam swung back and forth after their first sexual encounter. First he leaves her on the bed, wanting more and hoping that she is gone when he is done with his shower. When she comes in to the bathroom to say goodbye, he draws her into the shower and they proceed to satisfy each other. I needed something to signal his own internal conflict if that is what you wanted me to read into this. If he wanted to fuck her out of his system, why did he engage in delayed gratification to heighten sensory satisfaction?

I did love the explanation of what the redline was and I wish that this were teased out even more. I thought it was an interesting concept that was brought up but never fully integrated.

There was a nice circling of around for Maggie, from running away to staying and deciding to risk Adam’s rejection in order to find out if they could be together. As I said in my opening, your sex scenes are always well done and this book is no different. I wished that there was more cohesiveness in the character motivations. C

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Samhain in DRM Free multiformat.

* I’m not sure I would tag this an erotic romance. I didn’t find the scenes to be any more erotic than in a Blaze.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Falling Through Glass by Barbara Sheridan

Jayne — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:00:05 +0000

Dear Ms. Sheridan,

When Tina submitted a list of new books to Dear Author for possible review, “Falling Through Glass” grabbed my attention. Hmmm, time travel to 19th century Japan in the waning days of samurai warriors. Can’t get much more different than that.

Since I’m feeling lazy this morning. I’m just going to steal the blurb at Liquid Silver.

Los Angeles
Present Day

Japanese-American Emiko Maeda set aside her film school studies following the sudden death of her father. At odds with her mother and burdened with the guilt over her role in the tragic accident, she moves in with her uncle Jake and comes into possession of an antique mirror. While accompanying Jake to Japan on a film shoot, Emmi is caught in a freak storm and plunged through time–into Feudal Japan and the world of samurai.

Kyoto, Japan
1864

The city of Kyoto is ablaze with violence and on the brink of civil war. Nakagawa Kaemon is a young samurai with a secret. He gathers information on those who claim to “Revere the emperor” but harbor their own agenda to control the country. Kae is honor bound to execute anyone who poses a threat to the throne even if it is Emmi, the unusual young woman he has come to love.

The first 50 pages of this book almost lost me. Way too much telling and not showing. I had actually put the book down at this point only to rethink it the next morning. I want to promote different times and places in books so I hefted it up and kept going. I’m not sure if it was my determination to finish the book or at this point you started more showing and less telling but it’s then that things started to pick up and become more interesting.

But I have to ask, what is with heroine casually accepting that her Uncle Jake has time traveled? I’d be all “WTF?!” but she just brushes it off in the conversation almost like Jake was merely saying he’d gone to San Diego for the day. Then when she tells Kae she’s from the future, he does the same. Or at least initially, though later he does think a little on what she’s said. But it’s more that he wants to see this future than any freaked out, “OMG! (or Japanese equivalent), she says she’s from the freakin’ future!” Emmi’s g-g-g-whatever grandfather is the same. His “visions” were never actually explained to my satisfaction. Ditto how Emmi’s mother’s monk works in the story.

Emmi is young – and she does act it at times. Pouting when Kae leaves her alone, excited about her wedding night – let loose your inner slut!, hasn’t had her maternal hormones kick in yet as seen when she takes Matsuhito out slumming through the festival, worries about possible STDs after her hot wedding night. Emmi also creates a ruckus whenever she’s let loose. I just wish she’d take a little more responsibility for the people she injured and the property she destroyed. Instead she pouts some more and tries to put the blame on everyone but herself. It takes possible deadly consequences to others (Emmi have you ever heard of seppuku?) before she finally does realize when she’s done something wrong.

Lucky for Emmi that Kae can look deep into her eyes and “just tell” that she’s not a traitor. Which he’ll believe until she does something – yet again – to make him rethink his position on that. At one point, Kae thinks that he wished he had more time to just sit with Emmi and get to know her. So did I. These two fall in love fairly quickly given all the unusual aspects of how they meet and get to know each other.

At first, I wondered if we’d get Emmi’s view of how things differ from her world vs 1864. Specific things and not just, “wow I’m in the past.” I loved her thoughts on the Shimabara brothel district, the palace, the hair gunk and face paint, the whole physical process of dressing for the wedding and actually walking in her outfit. This made the story more immediate and interesting to me.

Along the same lines, the scenes of the fair when Emmi and Kae attend as well as when she takes Prince Matsuhito there, are fun and a wonderful way to “show” the past and how Emmi views it.

The use of the historical actions as a way to decide whether or not Emmi’d stay in the past or return to the present is great. With TT books, I dislike any lingering regrets of “should I stay or should I go?” You remove all doubts about this. I was a little lost at times with regard to the historical action going on at this point in Japan but not enough for the story to lose me.

I hope that she and Kae work out their differing views on marriage and a woman’s place in it. But hey, at least he’ll buy her lingerie! Oh, loved the haiku poem but did you not want to include any of Emmi’s crappy poetry?

Like Mrs. Giggles, I also got the impression that this is a sequel to some other book. That I was missing some information that would allow some of the incidents in this book to make sense. There is a lot I like in the story and I wish I could give this book a higher rating but with all the issues I have with it, I’m afraid not.

~Jayne

FTC discloser – A free copy of this ebook was provided to Dear Author by the publisher for a potential review.

This book can be purchased at Liquid Silver Books.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Soul Magic by Jennifer Lyons

Jane — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:00:30 +0000

Dear Ms. Lyons:

This is a witch/witch hunter paranormal and while witch stories are not proliferous within the paranormal sub genre, the underlying tropes are familiar. Wing Slayer hunters, men chosen by the Wing Slayer to protect witches, must find their soul mirror or succumb to the rogue state where they live to slaughter witches. This story tries to inject new life into the soul mate saveth trope by placing into question whether love can overcome magical destiny.

Carla is a powerful witch who helps those rescued from cults to overcome brainwashing. She works at a local clinic with her good friend Max, a sociologist (and probably a Wing Slayer to be). Max was a caring, curious sociologist until he was unable to save someone from dying in a cult. Then he became romance hero material: “The curious sociologist in Max died, and this man, full of passion, grief, anger and guilt, was born.” Max is mentioned quite frequently but plays absolutely no role in this book despite having unrequited feelings for Carla. I can only guess that he is to be hero of his own book after suitably suffering enough angst and drama.

Carla was kidnapped by rogues, witch hunters who give into their desire for witch blood, and subsequently saved by Wing Slayer Hunters. Sutton West was one of the Wing Slayer Hunters who was involved in the rescue. Part of Carla’s blood got on Sutton and now he lusts after her.

Sex is what witch hunters use to suppress their desire for witch’s blood. At some point in a witch hunter’s life, his desire for witch blood overcomes him. The witch hunter can either choose to kill himself or go rogue. Going rogue means he becomes a very bad guy, hunting and killing witches randomly. This is bad because each witch is some witch hunter’s soul mirror. Find the soul mirror and the witch hunter is released of his curse to lust after witch blood and, I think, the witch hunter and the witch get immortality. It’s like the ultimate wedding present. (If you are invited to the wedding at the gods present immortality to the participants, what’s the point of a toaster?)

Someone is taking mortal women, brainwashing them, and turning them into weapons against the Wing Slayer Hunters. Witches are also disappearing. On top of this, Carla’s dead twin is calling for her on the astral plane, a plane where Carla can reach people who are in comas and where Carla can have some sexy encounters with Sutton. I didn’t really understand the bounds of the astral plane but it’s probably unimportant in the larger scheme of things. Carla’s twin’s soul is trapped in a knife and the twin is calling out for Carla to save her.

Sutton has a strong desire for Carla and it becomes apparent that she is his soul mirror, or so they think, when the eagle tattoo on his back begins to respond to her. The problem is that Carla’s twin is reaching out to Sutton (whom she refers to as her Eagle) and Carla doesn’t know whether Carla or her dead twin is Sutton’s soul mirror. Further, if Carla bonds with Sutton, she will lose her connection with her twin. Sutton refuses to accept that Keri, the twin, is his soul mirror because he loves Carla. Sutton, beset by his insecurities about his lack of education and his rough manners, believes that part of Carla’s reluctance to accept him is because he is not good enough for her.

We don’t get to see Sutton fall in love with Carla. He simply is. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was, for all intents and purposes, infected with Carla’s blood because it was only after getting her blood on him that he started wanting her, only her.

Probably the best parts of this book was the interaction between Sutton and the other male Wing Slayer Hunters. They spent the better part of their downtime making fun of each other but when danger arose, they worked as a team.

While I appreciated the message here: that can love be the strongest magic of all, too much is controlled by the “gods”. Prayer can result in miracles. I have nothing against prayer and the power of people’s faith, but the fact is that when prayer can result in getting around the rules of worldbuilding, it totally deflates the tension. Because I felt like the Wing Slayer could intervene and make changes for the better, I don’t really trust the worldbuilding in the story and I don’t see how I could buy into tension based on that worldbuilding in the future. Worse, I felt that the ending really, really defanged the spirit of the story that the mate bond could be overcome by choice. C

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers tomorrow, October 27 2009.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Seduced by Shadows by Jessa Slade

Jane — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:00:17 +0000

Dear Ms. Slade:

I confess to being reluctant to start this book. I’m not sure why. I think because there wasn’t anything about the description of the book or the cover that really stood out. It was a paranormal story about good demons and bad demons. Given that it was a free book, however, it didn’t hurt to at least read the first chapter. I was intrigued enough by the first chapter to continue given that the writing style appealed to me.

Ferris Archer is a former southern gentleman who is now one of the demon possessed. He and others like him have banded together to fight in the war against other demon possessed individuals and malices that populate the earth. Archer views himself not so much as a warrior, but a trash collector . Malices can be drained but they cannot be returned to hell and over time, just regenerate. To say that Archer is weary would be an understatement. He went from fighting in the Civil War to a non stop, centuries long battle against entities simply cannot be defeated. When others warn him that the battle is being tipped toward the evil, Archer doesn’t believe it. The battle has always be tilted against them. Their numbers are few and seem to be getting fewer all the time. Archer plays the ennui inflicted rebel quite well.

Sara Littlejohn is a thanatologist who suffers a terrible car accident, leaving her maimed and in pain for possibly the rest of her life. She is tempted by a demon in the form of Archer who promises her a pain free life. She invites him into her body in some strange dream sequence. (Archer previously appeared to her telling her, cryptically, to refuse the demon).

Sara’s demon is a rare and powerful kind and she is desirous because, well, I wasn’t quite sure. I think it is because she represents some rare connection to the other side of the Veil which separates Earth from hell. Sara is being hunted by a djinn who wants to harness that connection.

Sara’s possession is different and there is little explanation why. It just is. There hasn’t been a female possessed in centuries. There’s some whisper of mated-talyan bond but again, no explanation why she is the first in the long line of many demon possessed individuals to be a) female and b) teshuva versus djinn. Teshuva’s are good demon possessions (if there can be good demon possessions). Teshuva demons are those who are repentant. Djinn are those demons who are not. Teshuva demons and their possessed gain redemption by dying in battle against the djinn. The demons appear to be written as male in gender although it is referred to as “it” in pronoun form. The demons, even though they are sentient beings inside the body, have little impact on the characters in the book except through violence.

The extent of the demon possession is not fully explained for me. Does the teshuva merely lie dormant until called upon? This wouldn’t be accurate since at one point Sara’s powerful demon cowers in the face of a djinn. But while Sara and Archer have sex, there appears to be no connection or involvement by the demons.

There’s no rhyme or reason for why someone gets a teshuva or djinn, it seems. Is it because the soul is qualitatively good in some fashion? It seems awfully convenient that the good guys get the teshuva’s. Would a truly repentant demon possess a serial killer? Does the demon change their soul?

The style of the prose is engaging but the overall story was confusing and difficult to follow. There was a tendency toward repetition (I don’t know how many times that Archer referred to himself as taking out the trash but it was too many). I kind of felt like the romance between Archer and Sara was a default one. Sara saw Archer first, became physically attracted to him, he helped her through possession and then they were a pair. I am intrigued and will read the next book in the series, but I left this book with many an unanswered question. C

Best regards,

Jane

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

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Primal Hunger: Pendragon Gargoyles by Sydney Somers

Jane — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:48:11 +0000

Dear Ms. Somers:

Thank you for sending me your book for review. It was recommended as an erotic shapeshifting romance. I’ll confess that when I started it, I thought it was a werewolf book, but it is not. The Pendragon Gargoyles myth is based on cursed (or blessed) creatures that turn to stone during the daylight.

Kennedy Beaumont is a bartender at a popular club called Pendragon. She has the hots for one of the owners, Tristan Pendragon, but he’s never signaled a return interest and so Kennedy has just lusted from afar. One night she is targeted by an unknown danger and Tristan helps to save her. They are placed in such close proximity (her car) that Tristan’s longing for Kennedy cannot be suppressed. Much to Kennedy’s surprise, Tristan has lusted in a reciprocal, but silent manner as well.

The length of the book is category and I felt it was too short for the subject matter. Primal Hunger is the first book in the series, but it seemed like it was a middle book. There were references to other stories, occurrences and myths, none of which are resolved in this book. The myth that we are told is one that is a bit complicated. There are the Pendragons who shapeshift into animals as well as stone. There are fae, dragons, wraiths, and illusion casting shapeshifting gargoyles.

Tristan and his family owe allegiance to King Arthur. There are six daggers that are embued with magical abilities. In order to save his brother from eternal stone and to defend against Excalibur from falling into the hands of Morganna, Tristan and his family must recover the six daggers. There is no effort to advance the search for the daggers or progress the myth along. Instead the conflict is whether Tristan must give up one of his daggers to cancel out a death contract on Kennedy.

This leads me to the next problem I had with the story. Each section of the book ends a bit abruptly and the next section starts, chronologically, some time after the end of the last section. For me, it was confusing because I wasn’t always sure where I was in the story. For instance, one scene ends with the couple going to bed. The next scene, Tristan in the shower. I wasn’t sure if I had missed part of the story and kept having to go back to see if I had missed something. It took me a paragraph or so for me to orient myself. This is not to say that I need each minute of the day of a character’s life to be narrated for me, but these were abrupt time shifts.

This habit of fast forwarding us and then having the characters discuss, either in dialogue or narrative, the events that occurred in the time lapse made me detached from the story. I felt like I never got to see the real action of the story.

This sense of disorientation was compounded by the fact that I did feel that parts were missing. In one scene Kennedy heads to “Tristan’s room” even though she is new to the house and hadn’t been to his room before (and no one pointed her there). In another scene, Kennedy summons a fae with a charm that she took from Tristan’s room. We were never shown the scene where she found the charm, how she identified it as a charm or how she knew she could summon a Fae.

To be honest, Kennedy didn’t sound very bright at times. Her actions were impulsive and lacked intelligence. True, she seemed more motivated by feeling and emotion than sense, but lack of foresight isn’t always connected with lack of intelligence. I never really got a sense of who Kennedy was. (or who Tristan was for that matter). What motivated her? Was she logical, moved by emotion?

The erotic part of the erotic romance was very well done. The scenes were hot and tasteful. I really liked how you used the sexual tension to ratchet up the heat instead of just relying on the coupling. The erotic part of the story gets a B, but the other parts a C-.

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Books on Board in ebook format only.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Covet by J.R. Ward

Jia — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:00:11 +0000

Dear Ms. Ward,

I don’t even know where to begin. While it’s true I’m a fan of your Black Dagger Brotherhood series, I stopped making any claims about its purported quality many books back. Romance? Unlike most readers who thought the first books were romance, only for later ones to shift into the urban fantasy category, I never believed the series belonged in the romance genre in the first place. So I took it with a very large, very heavy bucket of salt when I heard that your new series, starting with Covet, would be more romantic. Sorry, but it’s true.

Jim Heron is an ex-military assassin, jaded and cynical about life. He drifts from one place to the next, putting down no roots and trying to stay out of trouble. He’s currently employed as a construction worker but when the mansion he’s currently helping to build is completed, he intends to move on. Then on the eve of his fortieth birthday, he hooks up with a woman at the club, Iron Mask.

What he thought would only be a pleasant memory unfortunately leads to more, just not in the usual way. The next morning, the woman shows up at the construction site on the arm of his boss, Vincent DiPietro, who will one day live in the mansion Jim’s helping build. As expected, this is awkward but Jim takes graceless reactions to a new level: he gets into an accident on-site and electrocutes himself.

This sends Jim into the afterlife, sort of, where he meets four angels who tell him the score. This is the final end game between heaven and hell. Jim, because of the balanced amount of light and dark in his soul, is a sort of neutral player whose role is to save (or damn) seven souls. Best out of seven wins. If he saves more souls, the world and the people who live in it can continue on as we know it. But he fails and loses more souls instead, the world as we know it will cease to exist at all.

At any rate, Jim is sent back to earth with his new mission and his first assignment is none other than Vincent. And if the novel’s title is descriptive of anyone, it’s Vin. Growing up from virtually nothing, as an adult, Vin likes surrounding himself with the very best money can offer — furniture, cars, real estate, and women. One woman, in particular — his girlfriend, Devina, and yes, I am not joking; that is indeed her name. Vin plans to make things official and ask her to be his wife but even though he’s bought an expensive diamond engagement ring, he finds himself unable to pop the question. Something is holding him back. And he soon discovers what when he reluctantly goes to the Iron Mask with Jim and meets the head prostitute who works there, Marie-Terese.

A few years ago, Marie-Terese escaped a bad situation. She’s free of a controlling, abusive husband who lives on the wrong side of the law and now has complete custody of her son. There’s only one catch. She has to live under an assumed name to avoid the notice of her ex-husband’s former associates, and she has massive debt due to lawyer and private investigator fees. She’s managed to whittle down the debt but to do so, she’s had to work as a prostitute, a profession which is killing her slowly inside day after day. She swore she’d never get involved with men and especially not with anyone who reminds her of her ex, but then she meets Vin.

Jim thinks the way to save Vin’s soul is to matchmake him with his long-suffering girlfriend, Devina. But Vin finds himself falling in love with Marie-Terese and vice versa. To complicate matters even more, Devina is not at all who she seems, someone is killing people who get involved with Marie-Terese, and Vin’s long dormant psychic abilities have reawakened. And what those abilities are telling him is that Marie-Terese’s life is in danger.

If you find yourself thinking my summary of the book sounds convoluted, you’d be correct. But in my defense, I also happen to think it’s reflective of the novel itself. This book meanders. I can’t think of any other way to put it. We hop from one storyline to the next, and unlike the Black Dagger Brotherhood novels, I wasn’t invested in any of them. Or even one of them. Jim, Vin, or Marie-Terese? I couldn’t have cared less about anyone.

To be honest, however, I was most disappointed by Marie-Terese. I liked the brief glimpse we’d had of her in Lover Avenged but in that book, my impression of her was that of a no-nonsense, tough woman who has to do what she does to survive. In Covet, I find her tedious and annoying in her constant emo whining. I think I’m simply done with prostitute characters who feel sorry for themselves and self-flagellate every five minutes. In Marie-Terese’s case, it was made even more trying by the fact that for all she complained about her situation, she was in no way trapped by it. She had a standing offer from a good man who’d help her, no strings attached. It’s too difficult for me to feel sympathy for a character who chooses to martyr herself on the altar of the sex trade. Oh, and as an aside? Her real name? I must have different standards but with the way she went on about it, that wasn’t at all what I expected her “beautiful” real name to be.

For those readers who want to know, I wouldn’t consider this novel a romance. I think it’s even less of a romance than the Black Dagger Brotherhood books and I didn’t even think that was possible. But unlike the BDB series, this novel lacks the multi-layered background storytelling that keeps me reading despite a lack of interest in the main storyline. It’s trying to, I think, with the framework of Jim’s work to save seven souls and the “romance” storyline between Vin and Marie-Terese and the implication of Devina’s true loyalties, but it all reads as cursory and shallow. When I finished the novel, I’d be lying if my immediate reaction wasn’t, “…what did I just read?” Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t the dreaded WTF reaction. It was merely a slight sense of bewilderment. I asked part-time reviewer, Nonny, what she thought and she had much the same reaction. I wish I could articulate what exactly it was about the book that left me so unenthused but it’s fairly accurate.

I also have to get this off my chest. What was up with the Black Dagger Brotherhood cameos? Even though I had advanced warning this would be happening, I still found myself thinking it was self-indulgent. Trez, I could understand, because he owns the Iron Mask and Marie-Terese works there, but Phury? Butch? I know it was intended as an authorial wink of sorts, but they kept tossing me out of the book. It’s hard to suspend disbelief if I keep coming across passages in which the author might as well be yelling, “Hey, I write this other series too and this conspicuous character here is in it!”

As you can probably surmise by all this, I wasn’t too impressed. I’m still having difficulty reconciling the vampire cosmology and the Christian cosmology co-existing but that’s not too surprising. I’ve been having that problem since the introduction of Lassiter in Lover Enshrined. But despite all that, I already know I’m still going to end up picking up your next book, whether it’s a Black Dagger Brotherhood installment or the next novel in this angel series. There’s no denying that your novels are compulsively readable, and you’re still a habit I can’t break. C

My regards,
Jia

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

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Billionaire’s Bride of Vengeance by Miranda Lee

Jane — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:25:32 +0000

Dear Ms. Lee:

This is the first book in your Three Rich Husbands series (no need for subtlety here). Honestly the last memory of a Lee book I had was of a weeping doormat heroine who shed more water than rain falls in Seattle. I had signed up for the HP subscription service and your book was one I received. So I tried it out.

Russell McClain vowed vengeance against Alistair Power, a wealthy Australian businessman, when Power Mortgages foreclosed on Russell’s family farm leading Russell’s father to commit suicide. Sixteen years later, Russell is successful. He has ruined Alistair Power, and, as a coup de grace, has even purchased the Belleview Hill mansion that housed the Powers for years.

Nicole Power is summoned to claim her personal possessions before the family home is turned over to the new buyer. Nicole was a spoiled rich girl who, after finding her fiance in the arms of his PA, began shambling about the world, finding new meaning in helping poor children. She realizes that the jewels and other effects can be sold to provide for a better environment for the children in a particular Thai orphanage.

Russell’s ruining of Alistair Power doesn’t give him quite the satisfaction that he thought it would. When confronted with Nicole Power, Russell begins to believe that if he gets Nicole to fall in love with him, his need for revenge will finally be satiated. After enjoying a sex filled weekend with Nicole, Russell’s need for revenge begins to fade in proportion to his need for Nicole. Russell vacillates back and forth, based on whether he thinks Nicole is a spoiled rich girl or whether she’s someone worthy of his love and trust.

The best part of the story is the interplay between Russell and his friend Hugh (also called “Hush” in one of the typoes in the ebook). Hugh thinks Russell is a right bastard for trying to wreak vengeance on Nicole. Of course, Russell’s reasons for vengeance are all for naught because Alistair is Nicole’s stepfather; Nicole is good and pure; and she’s out there to help the children. It’s fairly classic HP angst though so I’d give it a C because Russell is a right bastard and his comeuppance wasn’t enough but I was very interested in the romances of the two other RICH MEN whose reviews follow this one.

Best regards,

Jane

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

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Witch Craft by Caitlin Kittredge

Jia — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:00:45 +0000

Dear Ms. Kittredge,

I have a very hard time explaining why I keep reading this series. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the main character, Luna Wilder, can be really off-putting at times. On the other hand, it’s very nice to see her maturing and evolving over the course of the series. The Luna Wilder we meet in Witch Craft, the fourth installment of your Nocturne City series, is certainly not the same Luna Wilder we met at the beginning in Night Life. Well, in some ways, at any rate. I still question her taste in men.

When Witch Craft opens, Luna is now the head of the Supernatural Crimes Squad (SCS), a new division in Nocturne City’s police force created to look into cases not quite on the mundane side of things. Problem is they want the SCS to start bringing results ASAP. If not, then they’ll be disbanded and Luna and her co-workers will be out of a job.

Luna sees their chance to prove themselves with a new case. Mysterious fires are being set all over the city, killing some unsavory people who deal with Nocturne City’s supernatural side. What’s more, Luna is being targeted for reasons she doesn’t understand, by things she’s never seen before. To further complicate things, Lucas, the serial killer wendigo from Second Skin, has returned and Luna finds herself unwillingly attracted to Will Fagin, a federal agent who’s been assigned to investigate the ongoings and might have a secret or two of his own. Add to that a mole who’s feeding information to the people the SCS is trying to bring down, and Luna’s got a lot on her hands.

I wish I could say I enjoyed this book more than I did. I didn’t hate it and I did finish it, but it just didn’t incite much of a reaction from me either way like previous books in the series had. In fact, I actually put the book down in the middle for several weeks, and I didn’t feel any pull to return to it. I’m not sure why that is. In a sense, it sort of felt like the story and plot was just going through the motions.

I wasn’t very interested in Luna’s new love interest, Will, even after we learned what his secret was. I’ve also never been particularly keen on Lucas, but serial killers tend to bring forth that reaction from me. Even though I never cared for Dmitri, his interactions with Luna were at least interesting. I can’t really say that here.

It also didn’t help that I figured out who the mole was the second we learned there was a mole in the SCS. I thought it obvious and that removed a lot of the suspense from the plot for me. I’m not sure if we were supposed to believe another person on Luna’s team was the spy. Unfortunately, that person was too obviously a red herring for it to be effective.

I did like the fact that the mythology of the Nocturne City world expanded by having different creatures than we’ve seen previously, and also by including different disciplines of witchcraft. But it almost felt very kitchen sink-like; too much going on to form any lasting impression.

As usual, I enjoyed the relationship between Luna and her cousin, Sunshine. I still think that’s one of the best aspects of the series. And how funny is it that Sunny is now dating Luna’s former boss. Ha! How traumatic that must be for Luna. I also liked seeing the interactions between Luna and her formidable grandmother. It makes me wish we could have seen more of it in previous books. Well, maybe in the next one.

I really do wish I could have liked this book more than I did. I know that the Nocturne City series ends with the next book, though, so maybe the final novel will yield different results. C

My regards,
Jia

This book can be purchased at Amazon. Ebook format? What’s that?

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

REVIEW: Sindustry II

Joan/SarahF — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:00:27 +0000

Dear Authors:

I opened THIS anthology because I liked Sindustry I. But this volume is so obviously all the leftover stories from the Sindustry I anthology that didn’t quite make it into the first volume. And most of these stories should NOT have been included. This anthology had very few redeeming stories and some that make me want to puke, which kinda dampens any enthusiasm I might have for the whole. Mostly it’s filled with stories with awful, weak, boring, TSTL characters who couldn’t characterize their way out of a paper bag, and their ridiculously over-protective and unrealistic saviors. I have never really understood what m/m readers are complaining about when they say that that one of the characters doesn’t have to be the woman, but I do now. In this volume, one half of the relationship was invariably the damsel in distress who needed saving, the other the knight in shining armor who knew just how to take care of things, pretty lady…uh, I mean lad. Yech.

As in Sindustry I, the premise is that these are all stories about people in the sex industry, either strippers, prostitutes, or porn actors. This volume does a much worse job of speculating about whether it is possible to have a realistic representation of tricking and yet still have a good romance. Because the other problem with most of these stories is how glamorized prostitution or stripping is made out to be. And it’s not. That’s why I liked “Sunshine” so much, I think, because it showed some gritty realism about what money does to a relationship.

“Package Boy” by Connie Bailey
A strange little story about a high-end rent boy who has fallen in love with a client who happens to be the heir to a Mafia family. He hears a hit ordered on his lover while on another call and the rest of the story deals with how he and his lover respond to the news. Told mostly in choppy, untagged dialogue, the conflict is mostly external. The relationship conflict isn’t sign-posted very well so I didn’t know that it existed until it was solved. The affection between the lovers is genuine and the sex is pretty hot, but there’s a bit too much grating, unexplained mafia language. Grade: C

“Dance for Me” by Maria Albert
This story was both so melodramatic it was funny, and so completely disturbing I was sickened. Carlo is saved from an abusive john by Michael, a bouncer at a club. Carlo is barely 21 and has been kept in literal sexual slavery for 7 years, only to have been thrown out by his captor 2 weeks previously. Michael is 43 and lives at the club, which seems to be a kind of halfway house for gay homeless men, complete with Leprechaun-like Irish owner. Carlo and Michael instantly fall in love, but can’t communicate enough to actually figure things out without intercession by Michael’s boss. Carlo is a complete mess and Michael seems a few cards short of a deck and to have a relationship between them when Carlo is only 2 weeks out of 7 years of abuse and Michael seems emotionally unstable was unbelievably appalling. There’s a limit to what can be solved in a novel, let alone a short story. Don’t set up characters who need years of therapy and think some sex and a few kisses makes everything all better. Ew. The ending’s even worse, the HEA degraded beyond compare by the creepiness of Michael’s final words to Carlo. Grade: F

“Unorthodox Utopia” by G.S. Wiley
Stephen owns a salon but needs extra cash. He hires on as hair and makeup artist for a low budget porn shoot, where he meets Jeff, one of the actors, who has an abusive boyfriend. The story, told from Stephen’s first person point of view, is a nice, gentle blossoming of a good relationship, as Jeff leaves his boyfriend and grows closer with Stephen. There’s no sex, just two men getting to know and care for each other, even if they do it rather too quickly considering Jeff’s abusive relationship. Grade: C+

“Leather Dancer” by Andrew Grey
Denny is dragged to a Leather Expo by his way-more-outgoing friend. There he sees Robbie, the next-door-neighbor he’s been crushing on for months, dancing at a booth. Over the next month, they build a solid relationship. The characterization seems non-existent. Denny is a shy introvert, then he’s the driving force behind the relationship. Robbie is an annoying wet noodle who seems to bend to Denny’s whim and whatever the story needs him to do. Complete lameness: having Denny buy books from a booth at the Expo that is obviously the Dreamspinner booth, complete with titles mentioned. Stretching credulity: Robbie takes Denny to his father’s restaurant on their first date. Boring writing, very little conflict. Grade: C-

“Corona & Lime” by Sonia Devereaux
Jacob hasn’t wanted or had a relationship — or even sex — in ten months, since his boyfriend dumped him. Race is paid by Jacob’s friends to pick him up in a bar. They go to Race’s apartment, but Jacob puts on the breaks and they fight in a very amusing way (to me, at least). The next morning, they find a way to the beginnings of a relationship. The story is told from the point of view of both Race and Jacob as they each feel out their vulnerabilities and find how the other could fix them. Each convinced that the other couldn’t want them, the end is sweetly optimistic. Grade: B

“Sunshine” by JL Merrow
I thought Merrow’s story in Sindustry I was one of the best in that volume. “Sunshine” is definitely the best in this. The story is set in England, I presume in London, and replete with British slang. Daniel is a street-walker, Rob a bouncer at a bar who checks up on Daniel on the way home. He takes Daniel home with him once, paying for sex, ruining their tentative friendship and the story tells how they find their way back to each other. Sweet and sad and wonderful. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Merrow has any full-length novels yet, just short stories. Pity. Grade: B+

“Night Moves” by Patric Michael
Guy who is NOT a trick spontaneously rescues a hustler and vows to protect and keep him all of his days. Huh? Over-emotional, crying at the drop of a hat, unbelievable love at first sight, out-of-left-field motivations, and generally a story that makes absolutely no sense. And don’t people know that relationship tattoos are incredibly bad juju? They’re a death knell to a relationship, so if characters go out and get one, I’m pretty much ready to chuck the book. Not sexy and romantic, just stupid! (But that might just be me.) Grade: D

“Wanting More” by Cari Z
Alex is a stripper who goes home with a trick, only to be discovered by the guy’s long-term partner. He is surprised when the partner, James, shows up at the club 2 weeks later and asks for a private dance. Surprised but thrilled, because he’s very attracted to James. They establish a relationship of sorts, with lots of really hot D/s sex, that eventually works into something more. A satisfying development of a wonderful relationship. Although if James didn’t learn from his previous lover or from Alex, when IS he going to learn?: a fact which threatens my belief in the HEA. Grade: B-

“The Cowboy and the Movie Star” by Kate Roman
Oh, blech. Jake is the foreman of a ranch hired out for a gay porn shoot. Matthew is the star of the show and a complete and utter wet blanket. If any heroine acted like Matthew—completely unable to take care of himself in any way—I’d chuck that book across the room without hesitation. One night of hot man-lovin’ changes their lives and Matthew quits in the middle of the shoot, except Jake doesn’t believe him….blahblahblah. The core of the story is when Matthew says to Jake, “Jake, do you know how long it’s been since someone’s touched me because I asked them to? Or because they wanted to? Because they wanted me?” And, I mean, sure. That’s the fantasy, right, that prostitutes and porn stars want their One True Love as well, that sex isn’t worth it without love. But these characters are awful, the story is unbelievable, the villain is ridiculous, and the sex is boring. Grade: D

“The Meaning of Perfection” by Taylor Lochland
A prostitute falls for the owner of the hotel who rents him and his roommate rooms for their jobs. Julian, the hotel owner, takes payment in kind from Felix’s roommate, which makes Felix very jealous because he wants to be the one servicing Julian. He eventually gets the chance, only to have Julian reject anything more in the morning. They eventually find their way back to each other, and poof! Felix quits whoring. Um, yeah, not so much. Grade: C-

“See Me, Feel Me” by Zahra Owens
A stripper takes a private gig for a friend, only to be wined and dined by a blind massage therapist, who does his own, unofficial sex work during his business. A fun little read, but the length of these “short” stories sometimes leaves me feeling like the story could be 2000 words shorter. Very little conflict and merely a progression of the relationship ensues and while that’s enjoyable, there’s no incentive to keep reading besides some moderately enjoyable sex—nothing’s at stake. Grade: C+

“Exposure” by Marguerite Labbe & Fae Sutherland
Whoa, hello head hopping! Give me whiplash, why don’t you! Ahem. That aside, this was a surprisingly hot story about a photographer introducing one of his models to a little bit of BDSM. The instant attraction between the two made me roll my eyes a bit, but then I was completely sucked in to the sexual and relationship tension between the characters and was very happily following along until the photographer called the model “Pretty baby.” That just stomped on all my squick buttons and pulled me right out of the story. I could tell that it was still hot in the same way it was before, except every time “pretty baby” showed up again, I’d get squicked all over again. Except for that, very enjoyable, and very very hot, very well-written D/s sex with a little bondage thrown in. Grade: B

Looking through the whole, now that I’m done, there’s quite a few more Bs than I thought there were. But still, the awfulness of “Dance for Me,” “Night Moves,” and “The Cowboy and the Movie Star” overshadows the good of “Exposure,” “Sunshine,” and the quirkiness of “Corona and Lime.” Skip this volume unless you can find those three stories separate.

Overall grade: C-

Best regards,
-Joan/Sarah F.

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Books on Board or other etailers.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Dear Author earns a small referral fee if you use these links to buy Harlequin books. Click only if you are interested. (Thank you to those who have been clicking and buying!).

It's a Moonlight Madness sale.
eBooks Backlist Bookshelf: Get 15% Off Newly Released Backlist eBooks! More eBooks just added this month!

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary » C Reviews

REVIEW: Ice by Linda Howard

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Redline Lover by Charlene Teglia

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Falling Through Glass by Barbara Sheridan

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Soul Magic by Jennifer Lyons

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Seduced by Shadows by Jessa Slade

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Primal Hunger: Pendragon Gargoyles by Sydney Somers

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Covet by J.R. Ward

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Billionaire’s Bride of Vengeance by Miranda Lee

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Witch Craft by Caitlin Kittredge

Related Posts:

REVIEW: Sindustry II

Related Posts: