Flight into Fantasy

We all know that the hardest books to write about are the ones that didn’t move us one way or another. They come into our lives, we read them, and then quickly move on to the next book.

This was the experience I had with The Bride and the Beast by Teresa Medeiros. It featured prominently on several lists of romances with a Beauty and the Beast theme, so I figured it would be something I’d like. And while I didn’t dislike it, I wasn’t really in love either.

Our story takes place in 18th-century Scotland, in the village of Ballybliss. Apparently, to live in Ballybliss, there’s a requirement that someone drop you on your head repeatedly as a child. Put another way, none of these people, with the arguable exception of our heroine, are smarter than a fifth grader.

Our heroine is Gwendolyn Wilder, the plump, bookish daughter of the former clan chieftain’s steward. Gwen’s three sisters are all skanky whores in the making, but of course, Gwen is too pure and innocent for such things. When the Dragon, who is reported to have moved into the clan chieftain’s former castle and who is, incidentally, our hero, starts making demands of the villagers for vast sums of money, they decide to eliminate their strongest link and send Gwen to be a virgin sacrifice. The dragon takes her in, keeping her prisoner in his castle because if she knew who he was she could tell the villagers and somehow ruin his unnecessarily convoluted revenge scheme.

I liked our leads well enough. Gwen is the sgtronger character of the two, because even though she is pretty much a typical example of a romance novel heroine, she doesn’t go around insisting people call her the Dragon. The Dragon, on the other hand, sorely tested my patience. His identity is patently obvious to any reader who read the prologue, and I didn’t really buy his motivations for deciding to put forth such a cheesy disguise. Granted, he does live in Ballybliss, so maybe he, too, was dropped on his head as a child?

The romance between Gwen and her hero is cute if predictable. There is also a secondary romance between the Dragon’s one friend, the “plodding son of a minor viscount” and one of Gwen’s sisters, who is less debauched than the others. I actually enjoyed that subplot more, because I love a good beta hero and Tupper was adorable. Much more adorable than the Dragon.

Ultimately, though, this book is quite forgetable. I am not likely to remember it in the future, so I don’t feel comfortable recommending it. I’m also not sure how well it fits with my Beauty and the Beast theme this week, since the Dragon isn’t very beastly, and, in fact, the story is more Cupid and Psyche than anything else. I give this one a C.

Other Opinions

• All About Romance
• Mrs. Giggles

Lauren Baratz-Logsted’s Crazy Beautiful was the first book I chose to read this week during my short exploration of the theme of Beauty and the Beast. It bears little actual resemblance to the fairy tale itself, except in very superficial ways, and it suffers from the fact that I waited almost a week after I finished reading it to write up a review. If I’d reviewed this book after I’d finished it, I might have gushed more, but as it is, the flaws became more noticeable as time passed.

Our beast is Lucius Wolfe. He snuck into his old school’s chemistry lab, stole some chemicals, and experimented with them in his parents’ basement. Naturally, an accident happened, and Lucius was badly scarred. He lost both hands and now has to wear hooks. He and his family have moved to a new town for a fresh start, even though Lucius has seriously damaged his parents’ trust in him.

The beauty is Aurora Bell. Her mom has recently died, and her dad has taken a job as a school librarian, and so Aurora and her father also end up moving to the same town as Lucius. The two of them catch each other’s eyes on the bus, and, without a single word being spoken, are suddenly fascinated with each other.

As I was reading this book, which was a fast, one-sitting read, I liked it. Both Lucius and Aurora are nice kids, and I liked watching Lucius slowly try to shrug off his loner persona and realize he does care for other people. I also liked the relationship between Aurora and her dad, which was very sweet. And while I did find the romance flawed (more about that below) Baratz-Logsted had me rooting for both these kids.

But…and you knew there would be buts… there were problems. First of all, for a book that’s supposed to be about how we shouldn’t judge other people by physical appearance alone, the romance seemed pretty shallow. Aurora was fascinated by Lucius’s smile. Lucius thought Aurora was pretty. They spent a lot of the book ogling each other from afar. There were a few conversations, but Lucius shows more actual friendship toward Nick the security guard than he does Aurora. So I’m supposed to believe these kids are in love? OK, granted, they’re in high school, and high school romances weren’t exactly sophisticated or full of depth, but still, considering the story’s theme I would have liked to know why it was these two were fascinated with each other aside from “He’s so mysterious/sad” and “She’s so beautiful and nice.”

Which brings me to something else. I couldn’t stand Aurora. From her Disney princess name to her sugary-sweet personality, she just seemed too perfect. Except, of course, at the end, in which she jumps to shrewish conclusions for the sake of the plot and allowing Lucius to save the day.

Lucius I found more fascinating. His motivations were much clearer, and I found his loneliness truly heartbreaking. I also thought his protectiveness toward Aurora was terribly endearing. Plus, he’s got a lot more to work through, and the development of his relationships with his parents was fun to watch.

I don’t know if Crazy Beautiful would have worked better for me if I’d actually been a teenager. I hate to make a pronouncement one way or another, since that way I run the risk of labeling all YA as unsophisticated, which it isn’t at all. But Crazy Beautiful could have had a lot more depth. If you like YA romances, and you don’t mind somewhat lackluster characterization, go for it. But I think there are better books for your time. C+.

Other Opinions

• The Book Vault
• Devourer of Books
• Juiciliciousss Reviews
• Presenting Lenore
• One Librarian’s Book Reviews

P.S. I got this from Bookshare

Once upon a time, there was a book blogger. She was pure as the driven snow, and lived a happy life reading books of all genres, unaware of the dangers that could befall the unwary.

Then one day, the book blogger got herself a twitter, and, recognizing the potential Twitter represented, she made friends with other bloggers. All was well in the land, and the sweet and innocent book blogger reveled in her new friendships, and the book recommendations they brought.

Then, one day, Katiebabs and another book blogger–our narrator cannot remember who–commenced a conversation on Twitter about The Cat Star Chronicles by Cheryl Brooks. Actually, the conversation was specifically about something found with alarming frequency in this series. No, I’m not talking about exclamation points, although those pop up quite frequently. I refer instead to… snard.

Before you ask, snard is what happens when a man in this series finds a woman that he likes very much. While smexing her, he usually emits excretions that taste, according to one of the books, like hazelnut. These cause spontaneous orgasms in the female.

Anyway, our erstwhile book blogger, being a fan of fiction of questionable taste, made haste to acquire the series and read the first four in something like a week, devouring the books the way she has also been known to devour whipped cream straight from the container. (This explains why our intrepid book blogger is not a small woman.) And the books were good. They were engaging, didn’t require a whole lot of brain power, and didn’t seem to take themselves all that seriously. The fourth book, especially, introduced our blogger to a tortured hero she just wanted to hug.

Months passed, and soon there was a new addition to the series, which our intrepid blogger eagerly dived into. And it is this book she–OK I–will review today.

First, a little background on the series. Apparently, the Zetithian race was destroyed a couple of decades ago when their planet was blown up. A band of Zethithian soldiers were captured, however, and sold into slavery. Each of these men endured a lot before finding a woman they were drawn to, women whom they gave their snard to on a regular basis. (And if you think I should be above random references to snard throughout this post… you obviously don’t know me very well.)

Anyway, in this fifth installment of the Cat Star Chronicles, Fugitive, Earth artist Drucilla has come to the idyllic Barada 7 to paint birds after a breakup with her latest gay boyfriend. Apparently, homophobia still runs rampant in Brooks’s future, which makes me sad. Anyway, she soon becomes aware of Manx, who is, you guessed it, a Zetithian. Manx thinks Drucilla smells wonderful and wants to boink her ASAP, but there’s a bounty on his head. So, needless to say, wacky hijinks ensue.

There’s a lot to like here–at least if you’re a reader like me who enjoys an element of cheese in her fiction. Manx and Drucilla are both quite likeable, and even though I didn’t buy the chemistry completely, I wasn’t sorry they ended up together. There are also great secondary characters, including couples from previous books, some precocious children, and a garulous alien. I enjoyed reading about all these people immensely, and am sad that I have no idea when the next book will come out so I can see what else Ms. Brooks has in store for them. Because there’s definitely a few loose ends I’d like to see explored. I hope there is at least one Zetithian female wandering around, because I really want to meet one. And the answer of who destroyed the Zetithian home world is still not revealed.

That all being said, I do have significant quibbles. In the first place, I feel that there was way too much going on, and that an editor could have been a bit more strenuous in tightening things up. There were way too many POV shifts to characters whose heads I didn’t need to be in. And I don’t actually want to read sex scenes involving previous characters. They had their books. It’s time to keep them out of the spotlight.

The other thing that bugged me was that the sex scenes were raunchy. I don’t read erotic romance for loving descriptions of how much the heroine wants the hero to smear her face and body with his snard; I don’t care how much like hazelnut the stuff tastes. And when I wasn’t reading raunchy sex, I was reading repetitive sex. I know there are only so many ways to say that nutella-flavored excreta has awesome effects. But surely saying so over and over and over and over and over again rather ruins the effect.

The result of all this was that, while I enjoyed this book while I was reading it, it took me a while to finish, and I didn’t think it had the same campy quality that the other books in the series had, which I liked so much. The end result is a mixed bag, and so I’m going to have to give it a C+.

Other Opinions

• The Bookgirl
• Kylee’s Journal
• Cheeky Reads
• The Book Binge

Hi, Internet,
I’ve not exactly been in a reading slump so much as I haven’t read anything inspiring lately. I’m in the middle of a couple of books I really enjoy, but I always seem to find other things to do that don’t involve picking them up. Which was why I was quite pleased to see that some kind soul had scanned a whole bunch of recent Harlequins and put them up to be proofread for Bookshare. Harlequins are quick reads–I could read one in an afternoon without working hard, and you never know what you’re going to get. Especially given the fact that Harlequin’s marketing strategy largely involves taking any semblance of mystery away from the reader via their horrendous titles.

The book I picked to read had a horrendous title, though I passed up several other choices that were worse. And, surprisingly, I found Plain Jane and the Playboy by Marie Ferarella to be a pleasant read. It’s not so earth-shattering that you should all go buy it right this second, nor was it as awful as I always expect Harlequin romances to be.

Our basic premise is that Jorge Mendoza is a ladies’ man. He loves women of all shapes, sizes, and, apparently, ages. One night, while at a New Year’s Eve party, he ends up chatting with a local teenager and boasts that he can pick up any woman at the party with no effort. So the kid points out wallflower Jane Gilliam and Jorge does what Jorge does best.

For her part, Jane is surprised that a guy as obviously good-looking and charming as Jorge is showing any interest in her. After an explosive kiss, she’s prepared to enjoy Jorge’s attention, however fleeting, until the aforementioned teenager, rather predictably, makes a mess of things. Jorge spends the rest of the book being drawn to Jane without quite knowing why, and, this being a romance, we all know how it will end.

I’m about to pick several nits with this book, so I wanted to start out by telling you what I liked. Firstly, I basically liked our leads. Jorge wasn’t an asshole, and though Jane has her moments of not being very bright, she’s basically a sweet girl. She has insecurities about Jorge, which I thought were pretty reasonable for the most part, given what a player he is. I also appreciated that the romance ran a pretty true-to-life course, with the couple dating and taking time to get to know each other before they fell into bed. I also thought Jorge and Jane had very good chemistry, even though the book isn’t as explicit as many romances.

Now for the stuff I didn’t like. Some of this isn’t Ms. Ferarella’s fault. It isn’t, for example, her fault that I find the pure-as-driven-snow romance heroine archetype to be extremely tedious. Not only does Jane teach kids how to read, but she volunteers in her spare time, reading to kids in the hospital. Gag me with a spoon. Not that these things are unworthy pursuits. I’m just tired of that archetype. And, of course, Jorge finds Jane refreshingly straightforward and honest and kind, unlike the other women he’s dated, which, since there have allegedly been zillions, must mean someone somewhere doesn’t have a very good opinion of women in general. I also found some of the elements that make this a miniseries annoying. There were several POV shifts to random secondary characters including one prolonged scene in which one guy goes through his pockets so his wife can take his clothes to the dry cleaner. Yeah. Clearly fascinating stuff, that. There seems to be a larger plot going on in the series as a whole, but it wasn’t incorporated very well into this story, so, again, it was just tedious.

Then there’s the stuff Ms. Ferarella could control. There was a lot of telling rather than showing. For example, if Jorge’s such a playboy, I wish we could have seen him in action with other people besides Jane. Alslo, though Jane is shy and a bit bland with Jorge, it’s repeatedly stated that with others she’s warm and gracious, but we only saw her with someone else once or twice, when she demonstrated said graciousness. And some of the writing is downright clunky. Jorge compares Jane at one point to Bambi, because she is so gosh-darn innocent. Is Jorge aware that Bambi is, in fact, a male deer? And then there was my favorite metaphor, in which a girl’s hair is compared to windshield wipers. I laughed. I’m not sure I was supposed to.

Overall, this was a bit of a mixed bag. It was a pleasant read with likeable characters, but I could have wished for less input from secondary characters, a more cohesive integration of the long-term story arc, and a bit more showing instead of telling. This one rates a C.

other Opinions

I couldn’t find any. If I’ve missed your review, feel free to smack me with a wet noodle in the comments.

Hi, Internet,

Back when I was a proto-human, my mom, in an attempt to broaden my reading horizons and introduce me to the world of adult fiction, spent a couple of rainy days reading aloud Thunder Heights by Phyllis A. Whitney. This spawned a meme in my childish heart, and I soon devoured several of her books. Sure, even my ten-year-old brain was well aware that they were formulaic. But it was a formula I enjoyed.

So, when I found out about Aarti’s Flashback c hallenge, I knew that I wanted to reread some Phyllis Whitney and see if I still found her enjoyable. After perusing Bookshare, I selected Columbella, which I remember being kind of confused about when I read it as a girl. Still, there was a deliciously evil villain, and I remember being surprised that Whitney broke away from her formula by having the token love interest be a married man.

Here’s the deal. Jessica Abbott’s vain, shallow, bitchy mother has died. Jessica, a spinster, isn’t quite sure how to cope with this new sense of freedom because she basically took care of her mom during the last few years. So she goes to stay with her aunt in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. After spending time moping on the beach, Jessica is approached by Maud Hampden, a rich island resident. Seems Maud has a problem. She has a skanky whore daughter who, sadly, reproduced. Maud thinks Catherine, the skank whore daughter, is going to exercise an undue influence on Leila, Catherine’s daughter. Catherine’s husband, our token love interest, Kingdon, wants to send Leila back to Colorado, which would solve the problem, but then we wouldn’t have a story. Maud thinks Jessica can exert some positive influence on Leila, thus making her need to go away moot. So off Jessica goes to Hampden House.

The formula that I remember is very much in place. Lots of the characters distrust Jessica for no discernible reason. Kingdon starts off cold and autocratic, but eventually he is won over by Jessica’s kindness and her fiery spirit. Leila is a precocious child, pulled in several different directions, torn between her worshipful adoration of her mother and her mom’s skanky ways and her need to be her own person. Sadly, I would much rather have read a YA from Leila’s POV, since she was by far my favorite character.

The characterization isn’t particularly wonderful, though most of the characters do have a few hidden depths. There just isn’t much to a lot of them, even if they go in surprising directions. As I was reading, I kept wishing we were in the heads of characters that were not Jessica, who I actually found rather dull. Maud’s eldest daughter, Edith, for example, was just fascinating. She’s married to a snarky, sometimes cruel man who mostly seems to ignore her but who it’s revealed early on may or may not have had a thing for Catherine, Edith’s sister and the aforementioned skanky whore. Edith exists mostly as a background character, and I found that a shame.

As for Catherine, well, basically, she reminds me of Cathy Dollanganger from Flowers in the Attic. She’s conceited, she has a high opinion of her own beauty, and while she may not have engaged in incest, she’s very good at twisting the knife and tends to get pissy when she doesn’t get what she wants. There is basically nothing redeemable about this character, and her spoiled upbringing is only the flimsiest of justifications. Plus, she’s a skanky whore. And if I never have to read about a woman who likes sex being considered depraved, it will be too soon. Not that I condone Catherine’s behavior–she was happily screwing around with men that were not her husband, which is never OK–I wanted more from her personality than skanky whoreishness.

Even if I didn’t really like Jessica, who was just quite dull, I did appreciate Whitney’s ability to keep things interesting. I was never bored, even though there were several long, descriptive passages. Whitney manages to make even a tropical setting come off as gothic and creepy, which is all to the good. Her only misstep, plotting-wise, was the romance. Like Jessica and Kingdon themselves, it just wasn’t terribly interesting, and I didn’t quite believe it. It was hard to accept that for Kingdon, Jessica wasn’t just a rebound girl. And I found their eventual getting together somewhat hackneyed in its development.

Overall, this one was a mixed bag. I’m not sorry I read it, but I’ve come to appreciate a bit more in the way of nuance from my books. I’m going to have to give this a C.

Other Opinions:

If you, too, have read this book, let me know what you thought of it in the comments.

Hi, Internet,

Last year, My Friend Amy, who has only to make a subtle suggestion to spawn memes because she is that awesome, decided to host a book drive to encourage people to buy Nothing but Ghosts by Beth Kephart. I did not buy the book during the book drive, because I am a rebel like that. (Also, I am easily distracted by shiny things and/or lazy, but being a rebel seems cooler somehow.) But buy it I did, and I finally got around to reading it…

…And I did not love it. I was expecting to love it, because Amy did. I was expecting it to be moving and touching and make me rethink my perceptions of the world. This is why I never read books everyone raves about. The disappointment always seems greater when everyone else loves something you don’t.

And it wasn’t that I didn’t like the book. I did, actually. But I put it down a lot, got distracted by other, shinier books, and when I did pick it up, I felt like I was slogging through it so I could move on to something better. And, of course, I can’t pin down what didn’t work for me. It wasn’t the writing, which was beautiful and evocative and lyrical. It wasn’t the characters, who were interesting and relatable, particularly our protagonist, Katie. But there was something there that didn’t click with me at all.

The story centers around Katie, whose mother, a woman who was very vibrant and full of charisma, has died. She and her father are trying to move on from that. Her dad has thrown himself into baking, and Katie has taken a job working for the reclusive Miss Martine, who has decided she wants a new gazebo. As Katie and the other workers dig out the area for the gazebo, she becomes fascinated with Miss Martine, and spends her time at the library trying to figure out her story.

This is ultimately a quiet, reflective sort of book. The mystery isn’t nearly as important as Katie coming to accept the loss of her mother and move on from that. The parts about Katie’s mother were poignant and moving, and I especially loved the way Katie and her dad’s relationship worked, with both of them struggling in their own ways to fill the void Katie’s mother has left. Katie often finds her dad exasperating, but she loves him anyway. There’s also a nice romance, which is subtle but sweet in its own way, even though I’m not really sure that it was altogether necessary. And, of course, there is the story of Miss Martine, which was resolved in a way I hadn’t seen coming.

My only real complaint that has any substance to it is that the dialogue didn’t quite ring true. The characters talked like book characters, and not real people. I think this is one of the major reasons I didn’t connect with them emotionally. And, as I said, not much happens, so I felt the book dragged. I suspect that if I’d been in a more introspective mood, the book’s style wouldn’t have bothered me, so I don’t feel like the pacing is a valid criticism.

There is a lot to like about this book. I just wish I had liked it more. You can read other people’s takes on the book below to find reviewers who were less ambivalent and more positive than I was. For me, it only rates a C.

Other Opinions

• My Friend Amy, of course.

• Rhapsody in Books
• Devourer of Books
• Book Nut
• Presenting Lenore

Title: Sleep No More
Author: Susan Crandall
Genre: Romantic suspense
Source: Bookshare
Challenges: None
Reason for Reading: A couple of years ago, I read and loved Pitch Black by the same author. So when this book came up on Bookshare’s New Books list, I knew I had to read it.

Synopsis:

DANGER NEVER RESTS

The night was always Abby Whitman’s enemy. As a young girl she walked in her sleep, and one night, started a fire that scarred her sister for life and left Abby with unbearable guilt, and a loneliness that echoes within her

AND EVIL NEVER CLOSES ITS EYES

Now Abby has begun blacking out again—with apparently fatal results. A car accident has killed the son of a prominent family. Even though the evidence seems to exonerate her, Abby is plagued by doubts—and soon by mysterious threats. A young psychiatrist, Dr. Jason Coble, is intrigued by Abby and offers to help her explore the dark recesses in her mind. Through this terrifying journey, Jason’s interest turns to passion, and he yearns to give her the love she craves. But first, Abby must trust him—and shed light on secrets that will rock this Southern town and reveal a danger that threatens them both.

My Thoughts: When Abby Whitman starts walking in her sleep again, she is terrified. Always cognisant of the fact that she set the fire that destroyed her family home and left her sister scarred, she perceives herself as a danger to herself and others, and so she’s refused to let anyone else sleep under the same roof with her. This has worked well for her so far, at least until she begins sleep-walking. When she wakes up in a pond, having been sleep-driving, and comes upon the body of a murdered man, self-doubt begins to creep in.

Jason Coble has problems of his own. He worries about his ex-wife, Lucy, whose drinking hasn’t stopped like it’s supposed to. And when he meets Abby, he knows he wants more from her than simply being her doctor.

There was a lot going on in this book. We have Abby and her sleep-driving. We have Jason and his family problems. There is a priest who’s been acting strangely, and Jason’s stepson, Brice, has issues of his own to work out. For the most part, all of these stories are successfully woven together, and they all added to the plot in a satisfying way. I rooted for the characters, and found this a satisfying read, but compared to Pitch Black it was a bit disappointing.

My main problem was Abby. Girlfriend had a huge martyr complex that I found annoying. I could understand her worries about being a danger to herself and others, but she took it to extremes. She also spent much of the book in a state of emotional frazzledness that made her hard for me to relate to. I wanted to see her be strong, and for the most part she wasn’t. Also, a revelation comes at the end that completely banishes Abby’s fears, allowing her to get together with Jason. That felt tacked on, as if the author wasn’t quite sure what to do to get her leads together, so she resorted to deus ex machina.

Jason I liked quite a bit more. He’s a man with some genuine problems, but he was basically a good guy. I liked that he had an ex-wife that was always going to be in the picture, and even though the ex was an awful mother Jason still respected her and didn’t angst too much over his feelings about Abby as a result of this prior relationship. That relationship is presented realistically, and I bought the chemistry between Abby and Jason.

As for the secondary characters, they were disappointingly flat. The good guys were clearly good. The bad guys were clearly not, and none of them felt fleshed out.

I do think Ms. Crandall can deliver a fast-paced and engrossing plot. When I was reading the book, I was engrossed. It was only when I put it down that I realized I could easily get distracted by other things. Like all good mysteries, I didn’t have the villain pegged right away, and I was left quite satisfied with the story, with the exception of the silly deus ex machina at the end.

It should also be noted, because it started to bother me, that Abby has a lot of property damage to deal with. I stopped counting after she had to replace her third cell phone, and things always seem to break, burn, or get vandalized when she’s around. It would be funny with another heroine, but as another reviewer points out, Abby goes through the trials of Job, so after a while it all seemed a bit much.

Final Thoughts: I’ll probably read more Crandall, but I’m glad I didn’t buy this book. If you like romantic suspense set in the South, and you don’t mind characters that are a little bland, check this book out. But it’s not my favorite by the author, and I know she can do better.

Final Grade: C+

Other Opinions

• All About Romance

Title: The Nanny Diaries
Author: Emma McLoughlin and Nicola Cross
Genre: contemporary fiction
Challenges: None
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I saw the movie last week and really enjoyed it.

Synopsis:

Working her way through NYU, Nanny takes a post with the super-wealthy X family of Park Avenue. She immediately adores their four year old son Grayer, and just as quickly learns the insane amount of work it takes to insure a worry-free day for Mrs. X, a mother who, by all appearances, does not work or clean, cook, shop, or wash clothes, does not even see her own child more than is strictly unavoidable. When Nanny’s presence starts to take an unexpected toll on Mrs. X’s relationships with her husband and son, Nanny finds herself with an unexpected and powerful enemy. Realizing what a precarious and potentially explosive position she’s in, Nanny finds herself simultaneously trying to take care of both the increasingly miserable son and the increasingly irrational mother, before the situation blows up in all of their faces…. Authors Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus skillfully skewer the pretentions of Manhattan’s super-rich and allow the rest of us a rare peek into the heretofore closed world of Park Avenue backstairs.

My Thoughts: This is one of those books which is hard to review. I find that, even though I finished the book two days ago, I don’t really have a lot to say about it. It was entertaining, and I enjoyed reading it, but I did not love it. I would, in fact, rather watch the movie again.

The problem here is that I’m a Midwestern girl. The closest to Park Avenue I’ve ever been in my entire life are the times I’ve landed on Park Place in Monopoly. I can’t judge, therefore, whether this is a good example of social satire. I believe that it is because the authors were trying for that, but I’m far from an expert.

I do know that what Nanny goes through in order to appease the X family is crazy and ridiculous, but I never really felt like I was reading a chick lit story. The tone was a bit too somber, though there were funny and light moments occasionally. I loved Grayer, the boy that Nanny watches, and I liked Nanny herself. I also found the reactions of her family and friends to her job as a nanny to be quite fascinating, but I think overall the movie delivered a far more satisfying story. There was a more cohesive plot, and I got more of a sense of the character of Nanny than I did from the book.

Final Thoughts: I would absolutely recommend watching the movie. The book just left me meh.

Final Grade: C

Other Opinions

Have you read and reviewed this book? Let me know in the comments!

I am several reviews behind, and I wanted to jstart fresh and review books I’d read in 2010. With that in mind, I thought I’d steal an idea from Kailana. She does a feature occasionally called Six-sentence Saturday, in which she talks about recent reads in reviews of only six sentences. Here, then, is my attempt at the same kind of thing.

• Hard Candy by Andrew Vachss: This is the fourth in Vachss’s Burke novels, and is largely a transition book. The case Burke works on is incidental except that it allows him to deal with some of the demons he’s been fighting since the last book. As such, I didn’t think it was as strong as some of the others I’ve read. Still, Burke is one of my favorite characters in all of literature, and I can’t wait to dive into the next adventure in his life. This book works fine as a stand-alone, though I think you’d get more out of the series by starting from the beginning. This book rates a B.

• Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel: This classic Mexican novel of romance and cooking had an interesting premise–a woman is thwarted from marrying her true love because she has to take care of her mother, so she throws herself into life in the kitchen. Sadly, as awesome as this idea was, and as much as it’s a modern classic, it didn’t work for me very well. I found the novel quite readable, but the main character, Elena, struck me as a Mary Sue. I also thought a few of the magic realism bits were just random, and that took me out of the story. I’m sure this makes me a plebe of the lowest order. I have to give this one a C.
• I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want To Be Your Class President by Josh Lieb: The premise is pretty much right there in the title. I thought this book was quite fun, and enjoyed it while I was reading it, but it wasn’t perfect. Mr. Lieb tried too hard to make this book appeal to both kids and adults, and I’m not sure how well it would appeal to either. It did make me laugh out loud in places, though, so it succeeded somewhere. I’d read more by Josh Lieb in the future. This book gets a B-.
• His Ordinary Life by Linda Winfree: I officiallhy love the Hearts of the South series. Each book is an intimate glimpse into the life of two small-town Georgia residents and their friends. In this installment, the romantic conflict–a marriage in trouble due to poor communication–is expertly handled, and I was invested in Dell and Barbara’s making things work. The suspense plot was also quite well-handled, with a villain I didn’t see coming. I’ve got to stop waiting months between reading these books. My grade is a strong B+.
• A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotsen: What a fun, delightfully fluffy confection of a book! This is a romance in the best sense of the word, with an impoverished Russian countess charming everyone she meets in the house of an earl where she is working as a housemaid. I smiled all the way through this book, and eagerly look forward to reading more Ibbotsen. I suspect that fans of more realism in their romances will find this book hard to deal with, but to them I say “Thppppt.” I loved it anyway, and the book neatly avoids any romance tropes that make me cringe. I rate this another B+.
• The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things and How to Do Them by Peter Sagal: I like books like this, which are deeply personal encounters journalists have with whatever they’re studying. Sagal, who hosts the NPR show, Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me goes on a personal journey through several vices. Ultimately, he decides he’s better off sticking to his vanilla lifestyle. Mostly, I thought this book was quite funny and I definitely couldn’t put it down. Still, there was a certain prissiness to Sagal’s writing that kept me from really taking him seriously. Despite that, though, I’d rate it a B.

And there you have it, the last of the books of 2009. There is one more review forthcoming of a book I read last year, but I’ll let it speak for itself when the time comes.

Title: The Magical Christmas Cat

Authors: Nalini Singh, Erin McCarthy, Linda Winstead Jones and Lora Leigh
Genre: Paranormal romance anthology
Source: I bought it.
Reason for Reading: I have a bunch of Christmas romance anthologies, and I’ve been trying to read a few of them this year.
Synopsis:

Put a little meow in their stockings this year with these all-new tales of Christmas and felines–from beloved bestselling authors! New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh and top-selling authors Nalini Singh, Erin McCarthy, and Linda Winstead Jones have a special gift for readers this year: never-before published holiday stories featuring passionate romance, paranormal adventure, and a distinctly alluring feline touch. With four new stories–including one featuring Lora Leigh’s genetically altered Feline Breeds–this is a collection packed with more surprises than Christmas morning, and more chills than the snowiest winter night….

My Thoughts: I bought this anthology for the Nalini Singh story. I was also curious about Erin McCarthy, and I knew Lora Leigh wasn’t going to agree with me. Nonetheless, I did read this whole book. Read on to hear what I thought of all these stories.

**********

“Stroke of Enticement” by Nalini Singh: Annie Kildair is a teacher who one day inexplicably has to deal with a misbehaving student, who won’t explain the reasons for his bad behavior except to his uncle Zach. Zach is a member of the Dark River Pack of leopard Changelings. Sparks fly between Annie and Zach, but their relationship is strained by Annie’s self-doubts.

I enjoy Ms. Sing’s Psy/Changeling series very much, and this is a story set in that universe. I think my understanding of that universe made the reading of this story a bit more interesting, but I also don’t believe it’s necessary to have followed the series completely, and this might be a good introduction to the Psy/Changeling world for those who don’t want to invest in a full-length novel.

Annie and Zach are both likeable characters. I found Annie much more interesting, because I found her need for independence extremely compelling. I know how she feels, even though we don’t share the same disabilities. Zach is marginally less interesting, but I adore Ms. Sing’s heroes anyway, since they are both dominant and tender and none of them are assholes even when they could be. I liked how Zach stood up to Annie’s family, I liked that he didn’t swoop in and take care of her but assumed she would let him know when she needed him. As I’ve come to expect from Ms. Sing, these two characters had awesome chemistry, and I very much enjoyed their story. My only real quibbles were that it was a shade too long, and I also didn’t think there was much of a Christmas element to the story at all.

Still, Nalini Singh is one of the best paranormal romance writers working these days, and so her story rates a B+.

********

“Christmas Bree” by Erin McCarthy: The love of Bree Murphy’s life is not a stuffed shirt corporate metrosexual wearing a pink shirt. But that’s exactly what her sister Abby, who occasionally has visions, has forseen. And sure enough, Ian, a Chicago lawyer with whom she’d locked horns a year ago, is exactly what Bree doesn’t need. Yet here he is now back on her doorstep, wanting to get her out of his head. Will the earthy witch and the classy gentleman find love?

Erin McCarthy is lauded for her romantic comedies, but paranormal romantic comedy rarely works for me, and this was no exception. I felt as if the author was trying a bit too hard to be funny at times, with the result being that I wasn’t laughing. And yet, there is a genuineness to her writing that did make for a few moments of subtle humor that I did like, though these were far fewer and farther between than I’d have liked.

This story was also part of a series. It stands perfectly well on its own, but since I hadn’t read any of the stories of Bree’s family and friends, I mostly felt that the nods to other works were more distracting than enticing, particularly Abby’s last vision, which just screamed “Sequel-bait” in neon letters.

Aside from the forced humor, my general reaction to the story was one of complete boredom. The characters were likeable enough, but I just didn’t feel the chemistry, and I didn’t really feel invested in either as a couple. It wasn’t a bad story, just boring.

Grade: C

**********

“Sweet Dreams” by Linda Winstead Jones: When Ruby receives a jade cat for a Christmas gift from a secret admirer, she has no idea that it will change her life forever.

Zane knows the cat is a sign that a demon wants to eat Ruby’s soul. But there’s nothing he can do to protect her. As Ruby’s inevitable confrontation with the demon approaches, will she and Zane be able to fight off their attraction in order to save her life?

This is another story that was just OK. Ruby and Zane were, again, fairly likeable characters, and I liked the plot involving the demon enough to keep reading to figure out how Ruby would extricate herself from it. However, what kept me from truly getting involved with this story was the absolutely awful dialogue. Zane sounded like a professor, but only if the professor was an awful nerdy stereotype. Ruby’s dialogue wasn’t much better, although at least she managed to avoid peppering her speech with words like “practicable”.

There was also a plot contrivance that kept Ruby and Zane apart that didn’t work for me. It wasn’t exactly a big misunderstanding, but it was an element whose point was entirely transparent. I rolled my eyes when it showed up, and got a little less invested.

That being said, I read this story in one sitting, which is more than I can say for the McCarthy piece. For that, and for the pacing, which really works well, I have to give the book a few points.

Grade: C+

*********

“Christmas Heat” by Lora Leigh: Librarian Haley McQuire is hanging out in the library of Sanctuary, the headquarters of the Breeds (genetically engeneered men and women with characteristics of the predatory animals whose genes they share.) She happens to overhear an incriminating conversation that puts her in some danger, so she must rely on the protection of fierce jaguar Breed Noble to keep her safe.

I don’t have a very good relationship with Lora Leigh’s books. I know that there are romance fans who love her, but for my part I have no idea what the draw is. I am further unimpressed by the fact that this story in particular is part of a series and doesn’t stand alone at all. Characters are introduced, including Haley and Noble themselves, and I feel like I am expected to know who they are. Since I don’t, I was left feeling rather lost, and, even worse, disconnected from the story.

To give her credit, Ms. Leigh can write very steamy love scenes, and I really enjoyed reading those. But love scenes alone don’t make a good story, and I was too lost as to what was going on around the couple to care. It also didn’t help that I never really got a sense of what motivated either Haley or Noble. Haley has a shrewish fit of irrationality, Noble growls a lot, and none of it makes any kind of logical sense.

That all being said, this is the best Lora Leigh story I’ve ever read. Given that I didn’t like it, that’s not a high compliment, but if the author is reading this, I guess that’s the silver lining.

Grade: D

**********

Final Thoughts: The Nalini Singh story is by far the best in this anthology, but I’m not sure even it justifies the price of this book. The other pieces ranged from boring to outright awful, so I think, if you must read a Christmas romance anthology, you should look elsewhere.

Final Grade: C-

Other Opinions

• All About Romance

• Gwen at The Good, the Bad and the Unread
• Rip My Bodice, part I
• Rip My Bodice: Part II

Title: Red Dragon
Author: Thomas Harris
Genre: Thriller
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: After finishing Heartsick by Chelsea Cain, I decided I wanted to see whether I liked that novel’s serial killer, Gretchen Lowell, better than Harris’s infamous Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
Synopsis:

A second family has been massacred by the terrifying serial killer the press has christened “The Tooth Fairy.” Special Agent Jack Crawford turns to the one man who can help restart a failed investigation–Will Graham. Graham is the greatest profiler the FBI ever had, but the physical and mental scars of capturing Hannibal Lecter have caused Graham to go into early retirement. Now, Graham must turn to Lecter for help.

My Thoughts: You know how there are books that are beautifully written and compelling, but which just don’t work for you for whatever reason, probably having to do with your mood at the time, the chemistry of your brain, or some other strange reason? Yeah, Red Dragon was that book for me. I can appreciate its merits–Thomas Harris is a great writer and a masterful storyteller–but I just didn’t like it very much.

I think, for me, the biggest problem I had with the book was that I found the actual serial killer FBI Agent Graham was after to be a far more compelling character than I found Graham. Graham is a deeply troubled man, but I just didn’t see the core of darkness that people who knew him attributed to him. Compared to the villain, who was a wonderfully warped and twisted individual, he was just boring.

As for Hannibal Lecter, there really wasn’t much about him in this book. I did find him an interesting character, and I think I would enjoy reading more about how he manages to get under the skin of the people around him, but I’m not sure I’ll be in that mood for a while.

The one thing I have to squee about is that there is a blind character portrayed in this novel who is captured perfectly. Normally, I tend to avoid books with disabled characters, but I liked Reba McClane. I thought her struggles for independence were well-drawn, and it was obvious that Harris had at least done a bit of research.

There is a lot of violence in this book. I didn’t realize I had a certain squick threshold in the books I’ve read, but I damn near put this book down and didn’t finish at the scene where the Tooth Fairy bites off a man’s lips. Just thinking about that scene, which was written in a spare style that made it even worse to read, makes me shudder.

I think I am more inclined to read Chelsea Cain’s books than I am the rest of this series. I’ve not seen any of the associated movies, although apparently my sister thinks this should be remedied, but I have to admit to being a bit paranoid over the treatment of Clarice Starling, the FBI agent who begins to pursue Lecter in later books. I’ve been assured on twitter that she is a smart and capable woman, but while I find Gretchen Lowell’s predatory relationship with Archie fascinating, there’s something about the idea of Hannibal preying on Clarice that makes me shudder, and I don’t even really know what happens. This is probably just my inner feminist talking, but as it stands, the sheer darkness and the graphic violence of this book makes me not want to read about a man manipulating a woman to make her vulnerable on top of all that.

Final Thoughts: Tbhis review is a bit scattered. I do wish I’d enjoyed the book more than I did. But, though I acknowledge objectively that it’s very good, it just isn’t one I’m ever likely to pursue myself for a reread.

Final Grade: A for the writing, D for the subject matter, so we’ll compromise with a C.

Other Opinions

• When Books Tell a Story

Title: Mizora: A World of Women
Author: Mary E. Bradley Lane
Genre: speculative fiction
Source: Project Gutenberg
Reason for Reading: This semester I’ve been taking a class about women in literature. I haven’t reviewed any of the other stuff we’ve read as we’ve mostly focused on short stories, but this is a novel so I figured it was fair game. It also qualifies for the Women Unbound challenge.

Synopsis from Amazon:

What would happen to our culture if men ceased to exist? Mary E. Bradley Lane explores this question in Mizora, the first known feminist utopian novel written by a woman.

Vera Zarovitch is a Russian noblewoman—heroic, outspoken, and determined. A political exile in Siberia, she escapes and flees north, eventually finding herself, adrift and exhausted, on a strange sea at the North Pole. Crossing a barrier of mist and brilliant light, Zarovitch is swept into the enchanted, inner world of Mizora. A haven of music, peace, universal education, and beneficial, advanced technology, Mizora is a world of women.

Mizora appeared anonymously in the Cincinnati Commercial in 1880 and 1881. Mary E. Bradley Lane concealed from her husband her role in writing the controversial story.

My Thoughts: So what would a world of women be like, according to Mary E. Bradley Lane? Mandatory education for all children would be enforced, making teachers the highest-paid people in the land. (Good.) Blue-eyed blondes would be found to be superior to everyone else. (Bad.) Electricity would be used to make rain. (WTF?)

Basically, not a lot happens. Our narrator shows up in Mizora, learns how awesome it is, and that our world can’t possibly hold a candle to it. And… that’s pretty much it. Also, there are lots of lectures about how awesome education for all would be, and how it would solve all the world’s problems. And then there’s some insidious racism, which I suppose is to be expected of a 19th-century novel, but which was still jarring nonetheless.

I can see why this book would have been considered controversial. Lane has strong opinions, particularly about how free education and embracing technology will solve all problems. But I didn’t really like it. After a while, the lectures about Mizoran society wore thin, and I wanted some characterization, or, you know, something to happen aside from broad political statements. But nothing does until the very end, when our protagonist goes back home and is basically, predictably, miserable.

Final Thoughts: Give this one a miss, historical significance aside, at least if you like characters who are more than just political mouthpieces to root for.

Final Grade: C-

Other Opinions

• The SF Site

Title: Tillmon County Fire
Author: Pamela Ehrenberg
Genre: contemporary young adult fiction
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I thought the synopsis looked interesting, and when I was reading this last week, I was looking for short, low-stress books to get me through the holidays. This book isn’t long, though I’m not sure it was a good choice if I wanted light reading.
Synopsis: Two teenagers in a small Appalachian town perform an anti-gay hate crime, which effects the rest of the teenagers in the town in various ways.

My Thoughts: I really liked the execution of this book. I love programs like This American Life, which tell very human, personal stories in a variety of ways. In some ways, I felt as if this book was a good example of a TAL episode given fictional form.

There’s not really much of a plot. We all know who started the fire, but the fun part of the book is trying to figure out why, and learning more about the motivations of each of the characters. And these kids are real. Their voices felt authentic to me, and I never once had to suspend my disbelief that I was reading about teenagers. (In fact, in the case of Amelia, who writes in txt speak and doesn’t bother with capitalization or much in the way of punctuation, they were a bit too real.

I enjoyed reading this book, but I also would have liked to see more. There wasn’t a whole lot to the story, and I felt like the characterization was a bit shallow. I would have liked to have seen a few scenes drawn out more fully. And there were storylines that I wasn’t sure should have been included, like Amelia’s online romance that goes very wrong, which lasts for pages and pages. I also didn’t quite think the final resolution worked for me. It made things a bit too easy, and since the book had been focusing a lot on the complications of the lives of these kids, having there be a simple explanation for it all made everything a bit too pat.

In the end, though I did enjoy this book, I think it was trying a bit too hard to tackle too many issues at once, and didn’t entirely succeed.

Final Thoughts: It was a good story, dealing with interesting issues in a thoughtful manner, but it tried too hard to cover too much and so it didn’t really work for me as well as it could, so I suspect I’ll end up forgetting about it.

Final Grade: C

Other Opinions

• Bookshelves of Doom

I meant to put this review up earlier today, but I was sick all weekend, so my posting has continued to suck. Oh well, better late than never, right?

Title: Nature’s Pentacle
Author: Eden Rivers
Genre: Paranormal erotic romance
Source: I bought it.
Reason for Reading: One of the book’s sequels caught my eye, and I like to start series at the beginning.
Synnopsis:

After someone exposes their role in a forbidden, sexual rite to heal the parched earth, Matt and Lena are forced to flee vigilantes and a rogue witch. Drawn to each other despite Matt’s ties to Kenji, the man who rescued him from a troubled past, they’re swept into a ménage, and the three witches exchange magical traits in an explosion of power and passion. As Matt and Lena face another pentacle rite, a violent kidnapping, and a magical duel, their attachment deepens–and so does Kenji’s resentment at losing Matt. The addition of another witch to the group eases Kenji’s jealousy, and sparks fly when the foursome mingles sex and magic on the kitchen floor, carrying them finally, to the love they never imagined they’d find.

Publisher’s Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Anal play/intercourse, dominance, male/male sexual interaction, ménage (m/m/m/f), multiple partners, voyeurism.

My Thoughts: I’ve been seriously burned out on romances in general for several months, but I’ve had this book on my TBR pile for ages. I thought it looked hot, and the bits I’d read were intriguing. But maybe I’m not quite over my burnout, because this ebook didn’t work for me as well as I’d hoped.

First, the characters. Matt and Lena and Kenji are nice enough people, but, a few days after reading the book, I find that I can’t remember much about who they are. I do think Lena, in particular, had an interesting past, but I wish more had been done with it, or that it mattered at all. It’s the reason she doesn’t want to commit fully to Matt, but in the end, that wasn’t dealt with, and the reader is left knowing the characters are together only for a little while. While that may be true to real life, it’s unsatisfying in a romance.

It doesn’t help that the two main characters lack chemistry. There was a distant quality to the writing that made it impossible for me to connect with either Matt or Lena. Also, this is one of those stories in which there’s a lot of sex. I have no problems with sex, but not all of it felt significant, and after a while, my reaction was one of boredom rather than real interest. This is especially troubling since some of the sex scenes (particularly the aforementioned orgy scene and some of the scenes with Kenji, Matt and Lena) felt tacked on for the purpose of titilation. The main couple are fairly vanilla, and I kept wondering what in the world was wrong with that. Vanilla’s a perfectly good thing, you know!

This book is marketed as a multicultural romance. I really wish I’d found anything multicultural about it, other than that Kenji, Matt’s ex-lover and someone else with whom Lena has sex, is half-Japanese. I wish that had actually meant something in terms of the world-building. I would have liked to have read about a more Eastern sort of witchcraft, but alas, that didn’t happen, and again, I was left wondering what the point was. In fact, the whole witchcraft angle didn’t seem particularly new or refreshing. I’ve read about witches who heal the world through sex before, and these witches weren’t noticeably different from the normal witchy stereotypes.

There were things I did like. I like that Ms. Rivers starts out with a bang (literally, heh) and keeps the action going. There’s not a lot of time to pause and info-dump, and this gave the story a fast-paced tension that I liked. I also liked the fact that the setup for future books felt authentic rather than forced, though I’m not sure that I’m so inclined to keep going.

Final Thoughts: I would have liked this book better if I’d been able to connect with any of the characters, and if there hadn’t been so many seemingly gratuitous sex scenes.

Final Grade: C-

Other Opinions

I couldn’t find other reviews for this book. Let me know if I’ve missed yours!

Title: Blood Roses
Author: Francesca Lia Block
Genre: YA urban fantasy-ish
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: I really love Block’s famous Weetzie Bat books, and I knew she would be a good choice for the Readathon.
Synopsis:

What shall we do, all of us? All of us passionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth, our mushrooming brains, our watermelon hearts? What’s real is what’s imagined in nine tales of transformation by Francesca Lia Block.

My Thoughts: I’m torn about this one. Nothing I’ve read by Ms. Block has been as enchanting as Weetzie Bat and its sequels. But there is something magical about her writing. It is urban fantasy in its purest form, set in a glittering, glitzy L.A. with distinctive and memorable characters. So, basically, I really wanted to love this book, and I didn’t.

There were short stories I adored. “Giant”, which features the quote from the synopsis and describes a girl’s awkwardness with growing up, was lovely. I adored the darkly comic “My Boyfriend is an Alien”, because haven’t all girls at some point thought boys were from another planet? Plus, that short story has a blink and you miss it darker thread that lends it a poignancy that makes it beautiful. The same is true for “My Mother the Vampire”, in which the relationship between the mother and daughter is quite complex for a very short story.

That all being said, I couldn’t help thinking that some of the stories were trying a little too hard to be overtly symbolic. I kept reading some of them and thinking, “OK, this one’s about puberty. This one’s about first love. This one’s about sex.” I just wanted Block to get on with telling the stories and not have themes that were so very obvious.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ve grown out of Block’s dark fairyland L.A. I’ll still keep reading her books, but this one was meh.

Final Thoughts: Some of the stories were lovely, but taken together, the collection didn’t really leave much of an impression.

Grade: C

Other Thoughts:

• Teen Book Review: She wasn’t sure what she thought of it either!

• Estella’s Revenge: Very positive.

Title: Speak No Evil
Author: Allison Brennan
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Source: Bookshare
Reason for Reading: A friend recommended Allison Brennan to me. Romantic suspense is usually a hard sell for me, but it seemed, from the descriptions of the books my friend had read, that Ms. Brennan writes strong heroines, and I really like that.

Synopsis from the author’s site:

Don’t say a word . . . Just scream.

The murder of eighteen-year-old Angie Vance was exceptionally vile–her mouth was sealed with glue, an obscenity was scrawled across her skin and she was suffocated in a garbage bag. The killing seems personal, so police detective Carina Kincaid focuses her efforts on the victim’s much older ex-boyfriend, Steve Thomas. But without physical evidence, Carina can’t make a collar or a case. She also can’t stop Sheriff Nick Thomas, the prime suspect’s brother, from conducting his own unwelcome investigation.

Though Nick is still scarred and unsteady from a recent confrontation with a serial killer, he’s determined to prove his brother’s innocence. But his confidence is shaken when he learns of Steve’s dark side, and when a friend of the murdered girl meets a similarly gruesome fate. With no time to lose, Carina and Nick work together to trap a psychopath, before another unlucky woman faces an unspeakable end.

My Thoughts: Romantic suspense is, I think, incredibly hard to do well. First, the author has to balance both the suspense element with the romance perfectly. If the story leans more toward one side or the other, someone will be dissatisfied. Authors who have done romantic suspense right, in my opinion, include Karen Rose and Bethany Campbell.

Unfortunately, this book doesn’t quite make it. It falls more heavily on the suspense side of the equation, which I don’t have a problem with. My problem comes from the fact that the romance felt a little forced, as if the author suddenly realized, “Oh, wait. I’ve written this whole book and should probably include some chemistry.” There should, by rights, be plenty of sparks between Nick and Carina. But while Carina does at first put up some resistance to Nick’s investigation, she lets him in readily enough after only a short time. Even then, I never really felt that there was a connection between the two. I was told there was, but I didn’t believe it.

Another thing that didn’t work for me was the fact that Ms. Brennan relied a lot on presenting us with the killer’s POV. She wrote the killer well, don’t get me wrong, but rather than add to the suspense, I mostly found him tedious and a little pathetic.

There were things I did like, though. Ms. Brennan is a good storyteller, and while I wasn’t as engaged as I would have liked, when I was actually reading, the book kept my interest. I also enjoyed the fact that there were connections to other books which were, for the most part, subtly introduced.

The book does stand alone, and the good guys, though not particularly memorable in the boudoir, were pleasant enough people. Nick was brooding without getting into uber-emo territory, and Carina was strong and competent, though I did find her to be a bit of a fuddy-duddy, something that is sadly not an uncommon characteristic of romance heroines. The minor characters, particularly Carina’s brothers, were interesting enough that I’d read books about them.

Final Thoughts: Though Ms. Brennan’s obviously a talented storyteller, and though I do want to read more of her books, I don’t think I’ll be doing so in a hurry. Too much time in the killer’s head while he was committing his graphic deeds and a romance that felt pasted on brought my enjoyment down.

Final Grade: C

Other Thoughts

• All About Romance: She liked it less than I did.

Yesterday I reviewed the adult fantasy and SF I’ve been reading. Today, I’m going to take a brief look at some of the YA fantasy I’ve gone through over the past few months.

• Skellig by David Almond came recommended by Nymeth. It’s the story of a sad and lonely little boy whose family moves to a ramshackle house. His parents are preoccupied by the fact that his baby sister is seriously ill. Michael, the boy, is fascinated by the garage, which is condemned, and discovers a strange, winged man inside. He begins feeding the man, and with the help of a misfit girl he meets, he begins finding hope again.

  This story packs a lot in a very few words. It took me a while to get into it, and I’m still not entirely sure everything worked for me. I enjoyed the imagery, and I enjoyed the story’s gentle hopefulness, but I’m not sure it’s a book I would have chosen to read on my own. I think this one will get a C.

• I Was a Teenage Fairy is the first book by Francesca Lia Block that I’d read that wasn’t part of the Weetzie Bat series. like the Weetzie Bat books, Block takes us to a glittering version of Los Angeles. We meet Barbie, a struggling teenager whose mother, the worst stage mother ever, wants her to be a model so that she can relive her glory days. Barbie finds herself powerless, and she befriends Mab, a fairy she meets. Mab has a lot to teach Barbie, and in turn, there’s a lot Barbie can teach Mab as well.

  This is the kind of urban fantasy I like–the kind that evokes a definite sense of wonder. I don’t think I’d want to live in Block’s L.A., but it sure would be fun to visit. I found Barbie to be a bit of a doormat at first, but I adored Mab, and I liked watching Barbie come to find a sense of pride in herself. This one gets a strong B.

• Graceling by Kristen Cashore is another book I read because of all the hype. I think Renay was the one who eventually got me to pick this up. And I’m glad she did. While the book does lose a few points for not being as awesome as advertised, those don’t really matter outside of my head. This story features Katsa, a prickly, sharp-tongued young woman with different-colored eyes and amazing special powers. Mary Sue fanfic, right? Well, I thought it veered that way at the beginning, and so it took me a while to truly get to like Katsa. But gradually, without my picking up on it, Ms. Cashore made me care about her. It’s the vulnerability that I really like in my bad-ass fighter chicks, and though Katsa hides hers well, eventually it became obvious and from that point on, I was in her corner all the way. I also really loved Po, and I got why Katsa finds him fascinating. And I do have to say that I agree with part of Renay’s assessment of the book, and I’m glad to see a book end with the couple still together but not married, because that’s a perfectly acceptable choice, and anything else wouldn’t have been true to Katsa. My grade wavers on this one from a B to a B+, so I think I’ll be generous and go for the higher grade, because I do want to revisit this particular fantasy world.
• The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J. K. Rowling wasn’t a book I’d intended to read. I actually haven’t readd any of the supplimentary Harry Potter materials, because honestly, that kind of stuff feels a bit like the author cashing in on the hype. And, in this case, that’s exactly how I felt reading these stories. I didn’t feel like I got much insight into wizarding culture that I’d missed before, and the fairy tales, while interesting in and of themselves, are kind of forgetable. I think I’ll stay clear of JKR until she writes another actual novel. C- for this one.

Come back tomorrow for some quick peeks at the romances I’ve read.

I haven’t been blogging much lately, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Life got in the way, and then the number of books I had to review kept getting larger and larger, and I’ve found that if I don’t get my thoughts down quickly enough about a particular book I’ve been reading, I tend to lose it.

So, for the next few days, I’ll be writing mini reviews of the stuff I’ve been reading. I’m going to abandon my normal reviewing format for these posts, just to make it easier on myself.

Today’s list of books are all adult and are SF and fantasy related. And, just to put how far behind in reviews I actually am in some perspective, I read this first book in May.

• Nine Princes in Amber is the first of Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber. It tells the story of Corwen, who wakes up in a hospital room with no memory of who he is, and is enmeshed immediately in a family feud so powerful that the wrong move could cause destruction throughout every demension.

  Like the reader, Corwen is simply dumped into the story, and I liked learning along with Corwen what was going on. Of course, Corwen does think rather highly of himself, which colors the narrative, but I found him engaging. I’m not sure yet whether I’m intrigued enough to keep going with the series, but this one does rate a B-.

• Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling is an epic fantasy. Alec, wrongfully imprisoned by a cruel lord, is rescued by the mysterious and compelling Seragil, who teaches Alec the art of spying. Soon the two are embroiled in adventure involving cursed objects, wizards, and deadly politics.

  I read this one back in May as well, and it was fairly forgetable. I think a lot of the reason for this is that I’m used to a lot of the tropes Ms. Flewelling employs, and I just don’t find them memorable, although I can see this being a good choice for a newbie fantasy reader. Alec and Seragil, sadly, weren’t particularly compelling characters. I did, however, like that the dialogue flowed in what I thought was a natural way. There’s no pretentious, high-falutin speech here, nor is there a tendency to be as crude as possible, both sins other fantasy writers commit all the time. I did enjoy the book while I was reading it, and may finish up the series. This one gets a C.

• Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest was one of those books I read for the hype. I know several bloggers think she rocks, and whenever bloggers speak in hyperbole, I do tend to listen. It centers around Eden, who has developed some rather unusual abilities, and is told in a compelling Southern Gothic style. I really enjoy Southern Gothic stories, and this one had plenty of the elements I like from that genre–small Southern towns, lots of family drama, and engrossing horror elements. Unfortunately, after I finished it, the details slipped away. I know that I like Ms. Priest’s writing, but I really can’t remember very much about the plot overall, so I’m going to have to give it a B-.
• Blue Diablo by Ann Aguirre is an urban fantasy set in an unusual location. Corine Solomon is living a quiet life running an antique shop in Mexico when she is contacted by her ex, Chance, who wants her to help him find his missing mother.

  As a reviewer, the hardest books to talk about are the ones that don’t leave a significant impression. Particularly when the book is written by one of the reviewer’s favorite authors. Ann Aguirre is talented, and I did find myself enjoying the story while I was reading it, but the gripping excitement I feel when reading her Sirantha Jax series just isn’t here. The story felt a little quieter somehow, and I do like that Ms. Aguirre writes her characters with distinct enough voices that, while I was reading, I wasn’t thinking, ‘OK, so this is Jax but in Mexico.’ Corine seems to be more reflective than Jax, and she’s got a lot of reasonable issues to work through. But there was something about this story that didn’t quite grab me. I don’t even particularly want to argue about which of the two love interests Corine could develop– for the record, I am on team Chance. To that end, this book gets a C+.

• In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Cathrynne M. Valente is the second and final volume of her Orphan’s Tale duology. I really loved the way that the stories spun out in the first book, but the second wasn’t nearly so captivating. The stories in the second book are quite a bit darker than in the first, and when I wasn’t reading I found myself pondering logistical questions, like how the girl who spins the tales acquired language skills considering she was thought to be a demon and banished to the castle gardens. The end wraps all the plot threads up in a neat and tidy bow that, upon further reflection, I find eyeroll-inducing. For all that, though, I do enjoy some of the ideas Valente plays with. I really love the feminist themes in her books, and I like the way her female characters must survive and do the best they can in a world that is often cruel. I think I would read more Valente, but sadly, her urban fantasy novel, Palimsest doesn’t really appeal. C+ for this one.
• Elantris by Brandon Sanderson is a rare breed of book. It is an adult epic fantasy, and it stands alone. It is the story of the titular Elantris, which is a city of magic and beauty. Unfortunately, ten years ago, everything changed when the magic ran out, and now the citizens of Elantris are little more than half-rotten, mad corpses.

  I think I would have liked this book much better had I not listened to an audio version. The narrator doesn’t do this book any favors, and I found his style kind of giggle-inducingly self-important. Also, Sanderson’s writing isn’t particularly polished, something I pick up on a lot more if I listen to someone read me a book than I would have if I were reading on my own. Still, the characters are fun, and subversive enough that I didn’t feel I was reading a cliche-ridden fantasy novel. The characters are warmly drawn, and there’s only one who is distinctly hard to sympathize with. My quibbles with the book are minor, and purely my own preference–I hated that the end required the strong, capable female character to need rescuing from capture, but that’s just me. A strong B for this one.

Tomorrow, come back for some reviews of the children’s and YA fantasy I’ve been reading!

Title: the Etched City
Author: K. J. Bishop
Genre: Apparently, it is classified as New weird, which means it’s part science fiction, part fantasy, and part… something completely random and bizarre.
Reason for Reading: My friend Primavera. We have this mutually enabling ritual where she makes me read books like this and I make her read books like Geek Love . Sometimes it works out. Sometimes not.
Synopsis:

Gwynn and Raule are rebels on the run, with little in common except being on the losing side of a hard-fought war. Gwynn is a gunslinger from the north, a loner, a survivor . . . a killer. Raule is a wandering surgeon, a healer who still believes in just–and lost–causes. Bound by a desire to escape the ghosts of the past, together they flee to the teeming city of Ashamoil, where Raule plies her trade among the desperate and destitute, and Gwynn becomes bodyguard and assassin for the household of a corrupt magnate. There, in the saving and taking of lives, they find themselves immersed in a world where art infects life, dream and waking fuse, and splendid and frightening miracles begin to bloom . . .

Other opinions:

Shannon’s note: I met Lora via a mutual friend. We both happen to be blind, we’re both big readers, and we’re on a private listserv full of bookish blind women. I’ve been hoping to recruit a blogging partner, and Lora was by far my most enthusiastic volunteer. She has no idea that blogging will eat her soul, so don’t tell her, OK?. Anyway, here is her first review!

Title: Howling at the Moon (Tales of an Urban Werewolf, Book 1)
Author: Karen MacInerney
Genre: Paranormal romance
Reason for Reading: I have been reading a lot of books about werewolves recently, and the synopsis for this one caught my eye. So I read it cover to cover as I was validating it for Bookshare.

Synopsis:

A werewolf auditor who hasn’t met but a handful of other werewolves in Austin in the last eighteen years is suddenly tripping over them wherever she goes. At the same time, someone is threatening her, sending her packages whose contents allude to her secret, and threaten to reveal it. And if all that isn’t enough, her mother, an herbalist witch, is accused of poisoning a politician, and winds up in jail.
Other Opinions:

Cloth Dragon

Darque Reviews

Scooper

Sandy M at TGTBTU

Limecello at TGTBTU

My thoughts: The Werewolf Wears Prada?  Oh, how the loup-garou have fallen!

I wanted to like this book.  The protagonist, Sophie Garou, is somewhat witty and entertaining, even if I cannot relate to her fashonista obsession. She is plagued with a bitter, gossipy office assistant, and a gorgeous best friend, and tends to be a bit of a workaholic, all reasonably believable challenges.  Her hunky human boyfriend, Heath, is the marrying kind, and he seems like a sweetheart. 

Enter Tom Fenris, the first real werewolf Sophie has ever met.  She is inexplicably drawn to him, for reasons that are never really touched upon, and even though she has a loving boyfriend who is ready to propose, she spends a good majority of the book mooning over Fenris, who isn’t even very likable.  The attraction felt forced, unbelievable and uninteresting.

I read on in any case.  I love mysteries, and I kept hoping that one of the mysteries presented to us would have an interesting resolution. Unfortunately, the story felt a little disjointed, and the explanations for the events that plagued Sophie from the beginning were rather unimaginative.

Final Thoughts: I can’t give this book an absolutely failing grade.  Some of the situations were mildly amusing, such as Sophie as a werewolf, whose panty hose get caught on a bush, or the badly bungled office break-in that Sophie and her friend orchestrate, but much of this book felt like the author was trying too hard. Ms. MacInerney has already published a second book in this series, On the Prowl, and a third is due out in July. I doubt I will read either. 

Final grade:  C-.

Title: The Bad Seed
Author:William March
Genre: Thriller
Reason for Reading: I’ve actually meant to pick this book up since I was in junior high.

Synopsis:

What happens to ordinary families into whose midst a child serial killer is born? This is the question at the center of William March’s classic thriller. After its initial publication in 1954, the book went on to become a million-copy bestseller, a wildly successful Broadway show, and a Warner Brothers film. The spine-tingling tale of little Rhoda Penmark had a tremendous impact on the thriller genre and generated a whole perdurable crop of creepy kids. Today, The Bad Seed remains a masterpiece of suspense that’s as chilling, intelligent, and timely as ever before.

Other Opinions:
None that I could find. If any of y’all have read it and reviewed it, please post your links in comments.

My thoughts: So basically, our story goes like this. Rhoda Penmark is an adorable, obedient child who lives alone with her mother in an apartment in the ubiquitous small Southern town. There have always been whisperings and vague uncomfortable feelings about Rhoda, but it’s only after a boy seems to have drowned by accident at a school picnic–a boy who had won the penmanship medal Rhoda craved–that her mother, Christine, starts to suspect her daughter’s involvement. This leads Christine to uncover some secrets of her own past, and to take matters with Rhoda into her own hands.

This book was originally written in 1954, and you can tell. I tried not to be distracted gby some of the things that wouldn’t have bothered 1954 readers, which also probably wouldn’t bother less sensitive readers than I am. But, well, I’m me and the blatant racism and the slightly less blatant misogyny got on my nerves. I tried to go with it, but it did distract me in places.

What was really good was the depiction of Rhoda. She’s a classic sociopath, and I found her deliciously creepy. She manipulates everyone around her, even her mother, and I could absolutely see why the other kids didn’t like her.

There’s not really any suspense. It’s pretty obvious that Rhoda is evil from the start. The suspense comes from Christine’s coming to terms with that fact and her own part in shaping that evil, and it’s this part which worked the best for me. I also loved the ending, which was just the right shade of irony, and which I’m told was absolutely butchered by the movie.

I can’t say that I particularly agree with March’s assertion that insanity is necessarily hereditary. In fact, I don’t think he really made a convincing case for it, but I’m not sure, again, if that’s because he didn’t, or because we simply know better these days. To this end, I didn’t like Christine’s final resolution, because it seemed a little over the top. Surely there were other alternatives for what she could do about Rhoda than the one she ultimately took.

In the end, I’m not sorry I read this book. I do wish it were a bit better able to stand the test of time, but it was definitely a landmark book of its time.

Final Grade: C – the stuff I loved was balanced out by the stuff that didn’t quite work for me.

Well, today is Wednesday, and that means it’s time for the monthly entry into Avid Book Reader’s TBR challenge. I know that the deadline was extended until tomorrow, but y’all really don’t want to see what I’m capable of after a long and grueling day getting edumacated.

Anyway, here’s the review:
Title: Hunter’s Moon
Author: CT Adams and Cathy Clamp
Genre: Urban fantasy/paranormal romance
Reason for Reading: this month’s TBR challenge was to read a paranormal/science fiction romance/urban fantasy book. Since I have a ton of those TBR, this was a tough choice, but I went with this one because I couldn’t remember why I had a copy.

Synopsis:

What do you get when you cross an assassin with a wolf?

A good reason to stay indoors on the full moon.

Welcome to a new reality. Shapeshifters live among us. The Sazi are wolves and bears, snakes, raptors and cats. With each full moon, their bodies sprout fur, or scales or even feathers. They are all races, all cultures, but are forced to hide from the human population — hide in plain sight. If anyone had proof of their existence, they would be captured for testing, or slaughtered en masse.

Tony, a hitman for the Mafia, was brutally attacked during a hit gone wrong. He woke up furry, and now, with every full moon, he changes into a wolf. Months later, Tony has a bad feeling that the wolf-senses are encroaching on his human life. This is confirmed when he meets a new client, Sue, and feels an immediate attraction to her. But there’s a bigger problem – she wants to hire him to kill her. As he’s drawn further into her life and her problems, the wolf inside of him clamors to be let out – and he realizes he’s not the only one in the Midwest whose life is ruled by the moon …

But Tony and Sue’s enemies aren’t only those in the mob and aren’t just furry. Sue’s family has their own agenda, and Tony is definitely in the way.

Other Opinions:

• Mrs. Giggles

• All About Romance

My Thoughts: I’ve been drawn to dark fantasy lately, the kind of books where the dilinniation between good and evil isn’t glaringly obvious, where the good guys have suspect motives and there’s some actual interesting development to the villains. It’s one of the reasons I come back to urban fantasy so often. The characters are often complex and much more interesting, especially when the stories are done well. And this book had so much potential for being awesome. I loved the idea of a werewolf mafia hitman. I’m fascinated with how different authors play with the werewolf tropes in these books.

This book features everything I could want in those respects. Tony, our hero and narrator, is a great character. He’s witty and sardonic without being self-conscious about it. He is brutally honest with himself, and he has a great group of companions, even if they all totally come from the place where mob cliches go to die.

If this book had been a standard urban fantasy story about the mafia, with shapeshifting thrown in, I would have loved it unreservedly and joined the ranks of Tony’s fangirls. Alas, it isn’t. And the thing that brings this book from something I would recommend without reservation is, well, the romance.

In Shannon’s ideal world of romance novels, every romance would have two equally compelling protagonists who did something for each other and weren’t merely drawn together because of author fiat. Sadly, we do not live in Shannon’s ideal world, and this book doesn’t do that. Because Sue? She’s the sort of character that only a compassionate therapist would love. She’s a trainwreck and a doormat, and a character like Tony should have, by all rights, steamrolled the hell over her. Sadly, he doesn’t, and some of his credibility as an OMG amoral antihero!!!11 disappears because he’s too busy fixing Sue. Sure, he makes nods to the fact that Sue should be fixing herself, but it’s Tony that deals with her mom, Tony that gets her a therapist, Tony that literally saves her life on numerous occasions. never once did Sue actually attempt to stand on her own, and when she did, she kept looking to Tony for validation, which read very squickily to me, and I couldn’t help comparing supposedly bad-ass hitman Tony to, say, legitimately bad-ass Burke and finding Tony wanting.

The plot was also a bit scattered. I felt like the introduction of the Sazi at the end was an awkward bit of deus ex machina, and, while it may be an important element of the next books in the series, I wish it had been integrated a bit less awkwardly.

Final Thoughts: I knew I was going to have problems with this book when the authors thanked Laurell K. Hamilton and her assistant, Darla. And while there is definitely stuff to recommend this book, like a likeable protagonist who has some fascinating friends, the romance, which is, arguably, the point of this book, not only fell flat but was actually irritating.

My Grade: C-

In which I review a seriously overhyped YA SF novel.
Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
Genre: science fiction
Excerpt: You can actually download the whole thing here
Reason for Reading: It had been on my radar for quite a while, but it wasn’t until Thea reviewed it that I decided to try it.
Synopsis:

Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.

But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.

When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

My Thoughts: If you go to the Amazon page linked above, you’ll see lots of critical acclaim for this book. That’s how it got to my attention, so I eventually knew I had to read it to see if the hype amounted to anything. To be fair, there’s a lot going for this book, not least of which is the fact that it can be downloaded for free from the author’s site. I also really like what Doctorow has to say, but the fact is, when I read, I want relatable characters, and Little Brother didn’t provide. Not only that, but I just felt like there was too much Doctorow in the story and not enough Marcus.

Little Brother is set in that famous science fiction construct, Twenty minutes into the future. It’s a future that is not unlike our present, and from what little googling I’ve done afterword, seems likely to happen. Unfortunately, this trope will probably make the book seem dated in a few years. At least, one hopes. When terrorists attack San Francisco, Marcus Yallow and his friends are at the wrong place at the wrong time and are picked up by Homeland Security and interrogated. They’re suspicious of Marcus because he doesn’t give the passwords he’s got on all his technology right away. After a humiliating interrogation, Marcus and his friends are released, minus one of their number, and Marcus is determined to fight against the injustices perpetrated by the DHS.
What really worked for me about this setup was the use of technology. It all seems so very plausible that I half want to find myself an XBox and see if I can use it to get online. If anything, I learned a lot about what technology can do, and Doctorow’s extrapolations about where it can go from here are fascinating.

Unfortunately, as I said, the characters leave something to be desired. Marcus is likeable enough, but he’s so encumbered by Doctorow’s message that he’s never quite allowed to escape and become a three-demensional character. The few moments of vulnerability he experiences are quite moving, but then he figures out how to solve his latest problem, and I was never left in any doubt that in the end he would prove victorious, since he was basically the author’s self-insert. His friends aren’t given much more depth, either, though I did quite like his love interest. And the less I say about the DHS goons, the better.

Speaking of self-inserts, there really are a lot of them in this book, and I mean that literally. Doctorow dedicates every chapter to a different bookstore. This brought me out of the book every time it happened, and while I’m sure that the information is excellent, it seems like highlighting his favorite bookstores is maybe something he should have done somewhere else. In addition to all that, Doctorow takes the opportunity to engage in massive amounts of fillibustering on everything from technology to politics and the threat to our rights to privacy. While I agree with most of his positions, this was seriously annoying after a while.

When the plot is allowed to happen, it is engaging, and there were moments where, despite massive eyerolling in the beginning, I enjoyed it. The climax, while rolling along about like I thought it would, had me glued to the edge of my seat, and I liked the end, which was positive without wrapping things up too neatly.

Final Verdict: Pauses in the action for the author to air his political views and characters who were flat and bland made this book’s interesting premise fizzle without ever getting a chance to work properly. My grade: A C-. Then again, I guess I get what I paid for.

Title: Taming Heather
Author: Lorie O’Clare
Genre: paranormal erotic romance
Grade: C
Reason for Reading: I bought this ebook a couple of years ago on the strength of an excerpt I read on the Ellora’s Cave readers yahoo group, to which I no longer subscribe because OMG the traffic!
Synopsis:

Heather Graham had one thing in mind—furthering her career. And an exposé on the werewolves in her community would do just that. All she needed was to get up close and personal with one of them, and she could write an article that would give her front-page coverage across the nation. Her career would skyrocket! And Marc McAllister was just the man—and werewolf—to help her do it.

But when Marc realizes Heather’s flirty behavior exists solely so she can exploit werewolves in her newspaper, he decides it’s time to show little Miss Graham exactly how a werewolf behaves. And Marc McAllister isn’t just any werewolf, but purebred Cariboo Lunewulf—wild, strong, aggressive and the quintessential alpha male.

In a clash of wills, bodies and souls, Marc and Heather set off enough sparks to start a raging fire. Drawing the wild side out of Marc hits Heather with a bolt of lust that won’t go away. Unexpectedly for Marc, he may just have met his match in the little spitfire.

But their biggest hurdle may not be with each other, but from another direction entirely.

My Thoughts: Well, I imagine that the fact that I probably b ought this book two years ago and have only now actually finished it says a lot for the meh reaction that I experienced. It’s not a bad story, but neither is it the best thing I’ve read.

The characters were likeable enough, although Heather Graham kept dropping me out of the story because isn’t that the name of a pretty famous Harlequin author I’ve never read? And you know, reading along and thinking, ‘Hmm, Heather Graham. I have one of her books in the TBR. What was it about again? Let me pause and do a google search.” is not condusive to the fact that I am being rivetted.

Anyway, book Heather is certainly not the worst heroine I’ve run across lately, but I thought that the lengths she went to to cover her werewolf story were a bit TSTL. Her storyline also progresses the way I expected it to, with no real depth of characterization.

Marc was drawn slightly better. He was a dominant, sexual man, and I thought that the chemistry between himself and Heather was pretty intense. I also really liked the fact that he really does seem to be primally attuned to his inner beast.

I also liked the werewolves that are featured here. They seem genuinely fierce and primal creatures, not simply guys who like to run around on the full moon and howl. I didn’t really understand the politics of this particular werewolf pack, but that’s OK. It’s not particularly important to the story.

There is some sequel-baiting that was pretty obvious but not excessively annoying, and I’m not entirely certain if I’m going to fall for it or not and read th3e rest of this series. Overall, I think I could like the kinds of stories Lorie O’Clare tells, but this one was pretty forgetable.

Title: Triad
Author: Lauren Dane
Genre: paranormal erotic romance
Grade: C-
Reason for Reading: I don’t remember how Lauren Dane wound up on my radar. I think a friend recommended that I try her, so I did.

Synopsis:

Lee Charvez is a witch in a family where all of the women are born with inherent gifts of power. She is a witch dreamer, she has the ability to walk in dreams and the subconscious and to work magic there. There is only one Charvez witch dreamer each generation and she’s the strongest in generations.

She meets the man of her dreams, literally, when she bumps into Aidan Bell outside their apartment building in New Orleans. He’s a three-hundred-year-old vampire with the face of a wicked angel, and he has no problem with claiming her as his own. As if that isn’t miraculous enough there’s another man, a powerful wizard, Alex Carter, who makes their partnership into a triad. Problem is, there’s no time to sit back and enjoy her newfound loves because there’s a demon out to destroy the source of her powers, and her entire family in the bargain.

My Thoughts: I could have enjoyed this a lot, and for the first quarter of the book, I did. It never would have been an A book for me, but it was headed toward B territory. Then the momentum just kind of fizzled and I ended up sitting on the book for several months without finishing it.

Lee Charvez is a powerful witch. She’s a witchdreamer, which means that she is even more powerful than your ordinary witch, and she is born of a long line of powerful witches who protect the city of New Orleans. This makes her come across as quite a Mary Sue. She doesn’t really struggle except in the basic sense that she has to control her power somehow, and I felt that everything pretty much fell into her lap.

Nowhere did things fall into Lee’s lap more than the romances. It looked like Ms. Dane was going to give a nod toward some emotional complexity involving the menage relationship, but she never quite does so. Lee meets Aidan, realizes that she has some kind of connection with him, and a few pages later they’re married… after only scant hours have passed. From there, there’s no real conflict between the two of them, and Ms. Dane pretty much dismisses any jealousy issues that Aidan might be having when Alex shows up. Apparently, in paranormal romance, good sex cures everything.

There was a lot of sex, and after a while, it got a bit repetitive. I was, however, disappointed that Ms. Dane didn’t quite do much with the simmering attraction between Alex and Aidan. I really thought she would, and I understand that in other series, she does explore the M/M aspects of her menage relationships in greater detail, but in this case I was disappointed.

As for the plot… Well, like I said, it felt too easy. I never got a sense that anyone was in real danger, so there was no sense of urgency during any of the pivotal scenes. The villains were of the typical moustache-twirling “Bwahaha, I am teh evol!” variety, which made them boring.

There were nice moments, though. I was intrigued by the relationships between Lee and her family, and I did like all of the characters. There were some lovely, sweet, tender moments that I enjoyed. I also did like that the fact that Lee is such a Mary Sue isn’t really all that lost on any of the characters.

I’m not sure that I’ll be rushing out to buy the next book, and I’m not sure I’d recommend this one, but it’s certainly not the worst book, or even the worst menage story out there.