Thirty Nights, by JoAnn Ross

Ok, this is supposed to be my reading diary, so I'll start by dissecting what I'm reading right now. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a batch of 12 Blaze books from an Amazon.com Auctions seller. I've had mixed results from the couple of Blazes I've read, but they are great for when you want to read something fast, and don't want to get into anything too deep.

Anyway, what I'm reading right now is JoAnn Ross's Thirty Nights.

Blurb:

"Hunter St. John wants Gillian Cassidy. In his bed...fulfilling his fantasies. For 30 nights, that's the deal. He's going to make her scream with wild, wanton pleasure. Enjoy a little sweet revenge in the process. The perfect way to get her out of his system, right?

Maybe. Gillian is shocked by his proposition — and aroused. She's never forgotten Hunter and the way he can make her feel. But it's emotional blackmail. It could also be the best sex of her life....

Except what happens when the 30 days are over? "

It sounded fun. I thought it was going to be a storyline where Gillian and Hunter agreed to sleep together for a while, just sex, etc. The revenge angle would be something Gillian didn't know, so she would feel betrayed when she found out, etc. again. But no. This was no agreement, but blackmail on Hunter's part. As far as I'm concerned, this is rape. The worst part is that the blackmail part is that Hunter threatens to expose Gillian's dishonest father, who never paid the slightest attention to her. I didn't understand why she didn't tell him to just fuck off.

At one point, I actually banged the book against the wall. Why, WHY did Hunter consider it ok to exact revenge on George by hurting his daughter? She never did anything to him. As the confrontation ends, I find myself feeling that she deserves what she's getting. What a wimp!

I tend to agree with Mrs. Giggles' review so far, unfortunately.

Posted later...

I've had it. Still reading Thirty Nights and Hunter's turned into Superman now. He's just fought a terrorist and thrown him over a cliff. Singlehandedly. I'm wondering: why didn't that idiot terrorist take a gun into the island? Oh no, he had to kill his target with his bare hands. Sorry, but I don't think I've ever read of a terrorist hit where a target was strangled or beaten to death.

And did I mention I find the science in this book (Hunter is a scientist involved in a very hush-hush project) very suspect? A computer model which predicts a group's behaviour based on the region's history and values and the DNA of a sample of the population? Hmmm. Can we actually predict personality with DNA? I mean, I know scientists keep announcing they have just identified "the gene which determines alcoholism", but I thought this was just hype.

Off to work now. I'll probably finish this in the evening, though I'm tempted to stop reading right now.

And posted later still...

I finally finished Thirty Nights, and I'd give it a D. It's just that this book pushed all the wrong buttons. A rapist hero, a wimpy heroine, an improbable terrorism and science side-plot, too much sex... This was bad.

The set up could have been good (I myself have had similar fantasies), but it felt too much like forced sex. In their first confrontation, he did say he wouldn't allow her to leave, and even if he then claimed she knew she could have left if she had really wanted to, that sounded false to me. There was a whole undercurrent of dominance there that bugged me. And some things Hunter said were like: "you know you really want it" = the typical rapist's "she was asking for it" defence.

It also didn't help that I couldn't stand Gillian. I don't know, I guess I just wouldn't stand for a situation like that one. I also felt really insulted by the "I've never heard anything sadder in my life" crack she said when Hunter said he'd never fantasized about having children. I know it's a common attitude, but it bothered me. She was a bit pathetic.

I skimmed at full speed through the final 50 pages, and that is not good.