Lord of the Storm, by Justine Davis

Lord of the Storm, by Justine Davis is a very, very hard to find book. I was practically dancing around the UBS, when I found it for about $1.00! I didn't even leave it at the clerk's desk while I continued browsing, as I'd done with the other books I'd found. What if someone saw it and stole it from me? ;-)

THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN SPACE WARRIOR & THE SLAVE OF HER DESIRE

He is Wolf, one of the few survivors from the planet Trios, conquered by the mighty intergalactic Coalition. Magnificently handsome & virile, he is a valuable sexual slave programmed to pleasure a woman beyond her wildest dreams. She is Captain Shaylah Graymist, the Coalition's beautiful & fiery ace fighter pilot, with countless battles & victories to her credit. Medals are but a part of the reward for her heroism. Another is Wolf, offered to her as a special accolade.

But Wolf, whose spirit stays free even as his flesh is pressed into service, stirs more than Shaylah's hunger. He melts her heart. And they join together as equals to battle against slavery & the evil Coalition . . . and they unite as man & woman in the forbidden feeling called love - causing a burst of passion to shake the stars & light the vastness of space . . .

One of the marks of a keeper is when you simply can't put the book down, and when you've finished it, you can't stop thinking about it, and feel the need to go right back and reread certain scenes. That's exactly what happened to me with Lord of the Storm. I started it early on Saturday and finished it before midday. And then, during lunch, I just couldn't concentrate on conversation, because my mind was still with Shaylah and Wolf. My grade for LotS is an A-.

This is the kind of futuristic I do like. No barbarians kidnapping naive virgin healers, or crap like that. In fact, no sexism at all. Shaylah is a fighter pilot, and she's strong and resourceful (though, yes, a bit too prone to cry, almost as if to make her more palatable to readers who insist on "feminine" heroines).

Davis played with my emotions as if they were guitar strings, which made for plenty of knot-in-my-throat moments. Some of these scenes I know were a little manipulative... I mean, some were transparently manufactured precisely to tug at my heartstrings, but I still fell for it every time. Moments in which one of them would misinterpret something in a way that was not really understandable, just so that certain things would happen and the reader would get weepy. Still, I repeat, it worked.

I literally almost cried a couple of times, often with anger. The first part of the book, especially, with Wolf a slave, under the control of other people, wasn't particularly pleasant to read, but things improved once he was with Shaylah and they were on the run. The plot was very well done, fast-paced and full of adventure, but, at the same time, giving the protagonists plenty of time to develop their relationship.

As I said, I did like Shaylah. I liked her at the beginning and I admired the way she became willing to question the way things were done in her world and to fight against what she perceived as injustices. Wolf was a fascinating character, too, though I would have liked to see more of his POV. As it is, I admit, we do pretty much know how he's feeling every time, though, and it's incredibly affecting.

I'm now dying to read the sequel, Skypirate, which I've already ordered. The heroine is someone who was pretty hateful in Lord of the Storm, and I'm curious to see how Davis will redeem her. I really hope she won't defang her!

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The Arms of the Law, by Jenna Ryan

One of the reviewers at AAR is a fan of series romance and in the past months she has written DIK reviews for some very different ones. I've tried a few and have been very happy with them. However, it was a different story with the latest I tried: The Arms of the Law, by Jenna Ryan, an Intrigue title.

A snowstorm at a psychiatric hospital and the discovery of a frozen corpse turn life upside down for the new doctor and the handsome homicide detective investigating. But when one murder becomes more, she finds comfort in THE ARMS OF THE LAW

The Arms of the Law sounded fascinating, a mystery set in a psychiatric hospital where people started turning up murdered. I love gothics, and this one was sure to have atmosphere in spades. It did, but it was all it had going for it, I'm afraid. It's too bad, but I have to give this one a D+.

The main characters were cardboard. Vachon, especially, never came alive and his "Oh, I can't trust Niki because she's a psychologist, and a psychologist once ruined my grandmother's life" routine was just stupid. He persisted in this for ages, and it got old fast.

Nikita irritated me with way too many TSTL moments . With a multiple murderer roaming loose, one who had actually attacked her a couple of times, she never hesitated in going alone all over the darkest, spookiest corners of the hospital, and was attacked every time. If this one had been a classic gothic, she'd be the idiot who hears a noise outside and goes to check it out in her nightgown, carrying only a candle.

As for the secondary, too many were unpleasant and their actions just didn't make any sense. I especially disliked Nikita's womanizing brother Martin, who openly cheated on his wife with every woman he saw. I even started disliking Nikita when she'd make her "boys will be boys" excuses for him and got upset with his wife (who was actually her friend!), for having an affair herself.

The romance was a bust. I didn't perceive any chemistry whatsoever between the Nikita and Vachon, and their realization that they were in love came completely out of the blue.

The mystery was interesting, and the setting was really good and made the ambience suitably creepy and spooky. But the whole thing was too contrived. In order to keep everything mysterious till the bitter end, the author ended up inadvertently portraying the police, including Vachon, as inept. They were so cavalier about the murders. No one took any special precautions, they neglected obvious lines of investigation (why did it take them so long to investigate exactly what was going on with Flynn's experiments in the basement?) and never got anywhere with their inquiries.

It took me almost two weeks to read; a lot, considering I'm a fast reader and this was a short book. I kept expecting it to get better, but it never did.

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Captives of the Night, by Loretta Chase

As is often the case with rereads, one inspires another, and rereading Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels made me want to reread Captives of the Night, which stars two characters featured in LoS and I practically didn't remember.

Nine years earlier, lovely Leila Beaumont's criminal father died mysteriously. And now her cruel, profligate husband has been murdered--with innocent Leila suspected of the crime. Determined to uncover the truth, no matter how unpleasant, the beautiful portrait painter turns to the enigmatic Comte d'Esmond for help--a mesmerizingly handsome stranger who carefully hides an identity that would shock her . . . and a past that inextricably intertwines with her own. And though danger unites them, it is desire that chains their hearts--as d'Esmond's virility and bold, sensuous touch enflame Leila's blood . . . and draw her into the most irresistible intrigue of all: passionate love.

The only problem with reading this so close to Lord of Scoundrels was that I was expecting something just as good, especially because I'd been so intrigued by d'Esmond and Leila. I got something excellent, yes, though not as great as I was hoping for. Still, this was a very enjoyable B+.

Both Leila and Esmond were fascinating characters. I very much enjoyed Ismal, the dangerous man with the face of an angel. There's just something so good about a hero who is usually lethal, but who would never dream of hurting one hair on the head of the woman he loves. I loved the way he was so enigmatic to everyone, but couldn't help revealing himself to Leila. There was a little bit too much backstory to him, though. Chase did a good job in recounting the events from The Lion's Daughter, but it was so much that it took me out of the story, plus, I kind of felt I never got to know the whole Ismal, that I was just reading the second half of his character development. I wish I'd read TL'sD, but I'm afraid it very hard to find.

Leila was a great character, too, no "perfect" martyr heroine, but a strong woman with a real temper and who was nobody's fool. She didn't allow Esmond to manipulate and handle her as he usually manipulated and handled everyone else.

The mystery here was interesting, and I never came close to guessing what exactly had happened. It struck a good balance with the romance, enhancing it, not overwhelming it.

All in all, an excellent book, perfect if one is looking for something a bit different from the norm.

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Lady Gallant, by Suzanne Robinson

I just checked my records and I purchased Lady Gallant, by Suzanne Robinson on February 2002. 2 years and 8 months, it spent in my TBR shelf. It's strange, actually, because from the comments I'd heard I knew I was likely to enjoy it.

The ladies of the palace called Nora Becket "mouse". But beneath her shy, artless ways hid the heart of a lioness. A daring spy in Queen Mary's court, she risked her life to rescue the innocent from a terrible fate. Yet it was Nora who needed rescuing when cutthroats attacked her - and when Christian de Rivers, a lusty sword-wielding rogue, swept her out of harm's way...and into his arms. As magnificent and mesmerizing as a hawk, Christian both frightened and excited Nora, even as he pursued her with a single- minded passion that left her longing to be caught. Yet soon she would discover that she had reason to be frightened. For the dashing nobleman had his own secrets to keep, his own enemies to rout - and his own brand of vengeance for a wide-eyed beauty whom he loved only too well...

It was an excellent read, as good as I'd heard and more. My grade: an A-.

I loved both the characters and their romance and the excellently done setting.

Christian and Nora were not characters who felt like the same old thing. They felt fresh and they felt real. Christian was a fascinating character, brash and charming and dangerous at the same time, capable of both tenderness and cruelty. We discovered him little by little, with the author gradually showing us more and more of his facets and not falling into the temptation of over-exploiting his past, which she left a bit mysterious. I loved the way Robinson showed his increasing fascination with the woman he, at first, had seen as much too weak for him. As for Nora, wow! This was a woman who really came into her own during the book, changing from a timid mouse to a dragon.

And now to what first attracted me to the book, the grovelling. I'm a sucker for a good grovel, i.e., not one that is 2 paragraphs long coming after 400 pages of the hero treating the heroine like dirt. The one here was just about perfect. At one point, Christian believes Nora has betrayed him, and, hurt, decides to wound her as badly as she has wounded her. His actions literally kill her love, and he then has to make an almost superhuman effort to win her back. What I liked so much about it was that Nora is not trying to get revenge when she won't forgive him. No, she's been so badly hurt by him that she really has stopped caring. When she doesn't want him to touch her it's not because she fears he'll make her want him again, but because his touch takes her back and makes her hurt, so she can't tolerate it. Christian has to make her fall in love with him all over again, and the process all but kills him, and he deserved the suffering. It was all so wonderfully satisfying!

The setting was also outstanding. The final days of the reign of Queen Mary come to life. It's a colourful world, and one where violence lurks under the shiny colours. The language is also perfect. There is some political intrigue, with both Nora and Christian being supporters of Princess Elizabeth at Queen Mary's court, but the focus is on the romance.

From the reviews I've been able to read, Robinson's other books are not as good as this one. A shame, but this one was so excellent I think I'll still look for them, especially the one that's a spinoff of this one.

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Devil Takes a Bride, by Gaelen Foley

Devil Takes a Bride (excerpt), by Gaelen Foley, is the latest in the author's Knight Miscellany series. The characters here are not actually part of the Kight family, but the Knights do take part in the story.

In the quiet English countryside, far from the intrigues of London, Lizzie Carlisle slowly mends her broken heart, devoting herself to her new position as lady's companion to the Dowager Viscountess Strathmore---until her peaceful life is turned upside-down by a visit from "Devil" Strathmore, the old woman's untamed nephew---a dangerously handsome man whose wicked reputation hides a tortured soul.

Devlin Kimball, Lord Strathmore, has spent years adventuring on the high seas, struggling to make his peace with the tragedy that claimed the lives of his family. But now he has uncovered the dark truth about the so-called accident and swears retribution. Then, to his astonishment, his eccentric aunt's will forces him and Lizzie together, and Devlin finds his path to vengeance blocked by the stubborn but oh-so-tempting Miss Carlisle. Her passionate nature rivals his own, but disillusioned once by love, Lizzie will accept nothing less than his true devotion. . . .

Devil Takes a Bride was a bit disappointing to me.

It was especially disappointing because some things about it were really excellent. I just adored the romantic triangle, with Devlin and Alec Knight, Lizzie's first love, competing for her attention. When I'd read the previous books in the series, I feared Lizzie was actually going to end up with Alec. I was not anxious to read that story, as I couldn't see Lizzie as anything else than a kind of mother figure to Alec and I'm not interested in reading about a romantic relationship in which the guy behaves badly and the woman takes care of him. So, seeing him get his comeuppance and Lizzie getting the better man was very satisfying.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems with the rest of the book. First of all, pacing. Dev and Lizzie's relationship was pretty much solved long before the end of the book. They'd exchanged "I love yous", they'd decided to marry, all done. All was left to provide conflict was the plot about the killers of Devlin's family, which I just wasn't that interested in. The result was that the last 100 pages were simply not interesting to me, even if it was fast paced and included a lot of "thrilling" moments. No romance, no Alec suffering *bg*. To be honest, I wasn't too crazy about that suspense subplot at all. It was very reminiscent of the one in Lord of Fire, but that one was much better.

Another problem I had was actually with the romance. Most of it I loved, but there were certain moments which were kind of sacharine sweet, way over the top. Devlin and Lizzie raptly staring into each other's eyes for hours... stuff like that. Over the top. And Devlin's characterization was sometimes a bit too melodramatic.

My grade would be a B-. I was close to giving it a C+, but then I remembered how much I loved the triangle, and how rare it is to find a situation in which two men who are basically "hero material" competing for the heroine. If the hero has competition at all, it's usually someone who's so obviously horrid that there's never even a contest.

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Key Trilogy, by Nora Roberts

To avoid burn-out, I usually try to space out books by the same author, even if they are part of a series. I even try not to read two books in a row in the same genre! So far it's worked and I haven't really had a slump in years.

With Nora Roberts Key Trilogy, though, I decided to make an exception and read all three books together.

THE BOOKS:

Three women. Three keys. Each has 28 days to find her key. If one fails, they all lose. If they all succeed, money, power, and a new destiny await.

Book 1: Key of Light:

The life of gallery manager Malory Price is stalled when she is invited to a reception at a mansion near her small Pennsylvania town. Upon her arrival, she discovers that she is one of only three guests-all of whom are feisty young women with life challenges just like her own.

Their mysterious hosts explain that centuries earlier, they allowed the souls of the three demigoddesses under their care to be stolen by a sorcerer. Legend says the demigoddesses cannot be freed until three mortal women find the keys to the glass box in which they are housed. Should they agree, Malory, Dana Steele and Zoe McCourt will each receive $25,000 to search for the keys, plus a million dollars if they succeed. They nervously accept, and Malory is the first to tackle her task, with the help of Dana's charming but commitment-phobic brother Flynn.

Book 2: Key of Knowledge:

This second book continues the story of three contemporary female friends chosen to free the souls of ancient demigoddesses called the Daughters of Glass. This time, the heroine is Dana Steele, a librarian who is sure that the key she's seeking lies in a book.

As she begins her search, Dana renovates Indulgence, the gallery-cum-salon-cum-bookstore she is opening with her friends Malory Price and Zoe McCourt. She also spends sometimes passionate, sometimes vexing time with Jordan Hawke, the thriller writer who broke her heart years earlier when he abandoned her and their small Pennsylvania town of Pleasant Valley to seek fame in New York. Dana slowly realizes that the love they once felt for each other has not died-and that Jordan's writing is inextricably entwined with her supernatural quest. In the end, Jordan must join with Dana to fight the spells of the sorcerer Kane and fulfill the terms of her quest.

Book 3: Key of Valor:

This book concludes Roberts's Key Trilogy. The third and last woman to make the attempt is hairstylist Zoe McCourt. Like her friends Malory and Dana, Zoe has a single month and a cryptic set of clues with which to find her key. The angry sorcerer Kane fights her efforts as friends both mortal and immortal lend their support.

As she searches, Zoe is courted by Bradley Vane IV, the sexy heir to a home improvement empire. She's not sure which is more difficult: accepting that she's magically linked with Brad or trying to quell her suspicions long enough to accept his love in the here and now. When she finds the courage to do both, the souls of all three goddesses are finally released.

By the time I was half-way through Key of Light, I was very glad I was going to be able to read all three books together. Nora's trilogies are always very interconnected, to a much higher degree than those series in which the only link between books is that the protagonist is the brother of the hero of the first book, or something like that.

That said, of all her trilogies, this one's probably the one where all thre books are most of all a whole. Each book focuses on one of the three couples, but the remaining two don't fade into the background. Dana and Jordan don't politely wait until the second book to start developing their romance, and neither do Zoe and Brad. And of course, there's the plot about each woman's quest to find one of the keys and free the Daughters of Glass. That one develops equally in each of the books. In fact, I think someone who started reading books 2 or 3 would be very lost, and someone who started by reading number 1, will feel they're missing part of the story if they don't read the other books. They simply don't stand alone very well. This made reading them together even better, so I'm not complaining about it at all, but someone who's interested in reading them should take note of this fact.

I very much liked all three romances, though I didn't really find any of them tremendously outstanding. Malory and Flynn were very sweet, and I liked the way she was the one to pursue him. This made for some very funny moments, as Malory delighted in making Flynn nervous. Malory was fun, being so girly and happy with it, while Flynn was a sweetie.

I liked Dana and Jordan's romance, too, but it was a bit overshadowed by the fact that I'd read Face the Fire not one month before, and I liked it a bit better where Nora went with the reunion romance in that one. Still, I did like their story, and I particularly enjoyed the fact that both were so crazy about books. I had to laugh at Dana having a "bath book", a "bedside table book", a "breakfast book", and so on!

Zoe and Brad's storyline was probably the one I liked best, simply because I adore stories where the hero falls for the reluctant heroine fast and has to win her. I loved the moment in the first book when Brad sees Zoe for the first time and his knees go weak (see what I meant about having to read all three books to get the entire story?) and I thought Nora did very well the way he felt he couldn't seem to do things right in front of her. However, I did find Zoe a bit too prickly and ready to jump to (the worst) conclusions about Brad's actions.

The books weren't only about the three romantic relationships. The friendship between these six people was a major part of them, and one I really liked. I enjoyed reading about the increasing new friendship between the three women, and the continuing friendship of the men, who had known each other well for so many years. They felt distinctly different, as was the way they interrelated as couples. All these dynamics were wonderfully done.

I also enjoyed the plot about finding the keys. I always like quests and treasure hunts, and these were very entertaining. Each woman's process of searching for the key was interesting, and the solutions were very satisfying and appropriate for their personalities. The supernatural element here was done very well, too, much, much better than in the Three Sisters Island trilogy.

I'd grade the books maybe B separately, but as a whole, this trilogy is a B+.

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The Paid Companion, by Amanda Quick

I'd heard The Paid Companion being compared to Amanda Quick's older books, so I just had to read it!

The Earl of St. Merryn needs a woman. His intentions are purely practical—he simply wants someone sensible and suitably lovely to pose as his betrothed for a few weeks among polite society. He has his own agenda to pursue, and a false fiancée will keep the husband-hunters at bay while he goes about his business. The simplest solution is to hire a paid companion.
Finding the right candidate proves more of a challenge than he expected. But when he encounters Miss Elenora Lodge, the fire in her golden eyes sways him to make a generous offer.

Her sorry financial circumstances—and dreams of a life of independence—convince her to accept. But St. Merryn appears to be hiding a secret or two, and things seem oddly amiss in his gloomy London home. Elenora soon discovers that this lark will be a far more dangerous adventure than she'd been led to believe. And the Earl of St. Merryn will find that the meek and mild companion he'd initially envisioned has become a partner in his quest to catch a killer—and an outspoken belle of the ball who stirs a bothersome passion in his practical heart.

Well, it does feel, in a way I can't really pin-point, more similar to earlier AQs than some of her more recent books, but I still found elements of what I haven't been liking so much about the author lately. I guess I could call it a small step forward. My grade: a B-.

The romance had a lot of potential. Arthur and Elenora are two outsiders, who find in each other the understanding they haven't been able to find anywhere else. I loved the way they immediately clicked and instinctively knew who the other was. This was what I meant when I said some things were as good as in early books, in Quick's latest I'd felt very little chemistry between her protagonists.

It could have been better, though, if more space had been devoted to it. There's still too much emphasis on the convoluted and, unfortunately, uninteresting suspense subplot, and the romance suffers for it, especially in the end.

Also, it may sound shallow, but the book needed a bit more sex, in my opinion. The mental attraction was wonderfully done, but the sexual attraction and the love scenes could have been better. Quick used to write such great love scenes, scenes which were not gratuitous in the least and served to further develop the romance.

Still, it was an entertaining book, and very much a comfort read.

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Jade Island, by Elizabeth Lowell

I started Elizabeth Lowell's Donovan series basically because I wanted to read the third one, Pearl Cove. Book 2, Jade Island wasn't even in my radar.

Wild and restless, Kyle Donovan has freed himself from the constraints of his family's high-powered gem-trading empire to rove the world as a treasure hunter.

Now the president of Donovan International has given Kyle an assignment with explosive ramifications. A case he must take.

When one of China's legendary cultural treasures is stolen, Lianne Blakely, a mysterious and beautiful jade expert, is accused of the theft. It's Kyle's job to get to the bottom of what could be a potential disaster for the Donovans as well as Lianne. Kyle finds himself irresistibly drawn to the exotic beauty and captivated by her fierce claim of innocence.

Soon they are in dangerous pursuit of the real thief, drawn deeper into the perils of spiraling power plays, and linked by a passion as powerful as the lore of the ancient culture and as enduring as the splendor of the treasured jade.

Not having particularly anticipated reading Jade Island, it was a surprise how much I enjoyed it. It was very close to an A grade, but a few little niggles about the romance kept it at B+, still a very respectable grade.

Kyle has become my favourite Lowell hero. He was macho and alpha, like all her heros, but he was no sexist jerk and I liked that he always treated Lianne respectfully and nicely. Even when he was so sure she was trying to use him, he felt drawn to her and was prepared to treat her well and protect her even from his brother. I also liked that she was the knowledgeable one about jade here, and Kyle had no problem listening to her advice. He was actually attracted by her intelligence and expertise and confidence in this area.

As for Lianne, I ended up really liking her. At first, I found it difficult to warm up to her because I thought that her practically killing herself to please a family who so obviously don't care about her and who don't deserve her effort, was very stupid. I didn't change my mind throughout the story about the fact that she really should have consigned her family to hell, but I came to understand Lianne and her desire to be accepted by them. It made me terribly angry the way she and her mother were treated by the Tangs, but it did make sense that Lianne could react by craving their acceptance in spite of herself, even as she resented their indifference. At least, there was some validation for her in the end, as her family ended up giving her more acceptance than she thought possible. I especially liked how Kyle stood up for her in front of them and demanded she be treated well.

The romance was both one of the strongest and weakest elements of the book. I'll explain: Lowell did very, very well in showing them gradually falling in love and in building sexual tension. Plenty of angst here, enough to give me that nice stomach-clenching feeling. However, I thought Lowell dropped the ball with the pay-off in the romance, just as in Amber Beach. The love scenes themselves were strangely short and un-intense (and remember, this is Lowell! I know she can write beautiful, intense scenes) and the conclusion of the romance was a bit unsatisfying and much too short.

The jade-centered suspense subplot was excellent. Also like in Amber Beach, this was not break-neck speed, on-the-run suspense, but something more leisurely, with plenty of time for the romance to develop. I also loved the info about the jade. I'm sure it might be considered a little excessive by some, and a couple of little sections do smell of info dump, but I thought it was so fascinating that I didn't care, and actually, I thought most of the "lectures" were written to be pretty naturally integrated to the story.

Jade Island reminded me a bit of an old Lowell I read years ago from my high school library, Tell Me No Lies. I liked this one so much, that I'm going to have to look for TMNL and see if it was as good as I remember.

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Harvard's Education, by Suzanne Brockmann

Reading Suzanne Brockmann's Get Lucky, one of my two favourites in the TDD series, made me want to reread my other favourite, Harvard's Education. So I just did...

As a Navy SEAL, Harvard had seen his share of trainees before, but PJ Richards managed to pack more fire in her five-foot-two-inch body than all the men he’d ever worked with. And he couldn’t help hoping for some more personal contact.

One thing always-in-control PJ Richards couldn’t afford to do was let herself get sidetracked. Not now, when her goal was finally within reach. Unfortunately so was Harvard -- every hard-muscled, pure-male, irresistible inch of him...

It was an A-, and I don't know if I can decide which I liked best, this one or Get Lucky. Of course, the cover on this one is miles better!

The characters and romance are wonderful. I really liked PJ. She's one strong heroine, sure of her worth and used to fighting for what she wants. She's got some strong defenses Harvard has to go through, but this never feels like just a plot device to increase conflict, simply something integral to her character. In fact, she's a virgin, and this is much, much better explained than it usually is in other romance novels. It's not used as a way of saying she's pure and innocent and virtuous, it's simply something that says a lot about what her life was like as a child, and it makes sense for the person she is. Her attitude towards it also feels right... this is not what she set out to do, but now that she's waited so long, she's going to make sure that when she finally does it, it's not just a throwaway moment.

I loved Harvard. Big and strong and very, very intelligent, he was a sweety. I especially liked to see him with his parents. The way that family was portrayed was great.

I have to say, I don't usually enjoy books in which the heroine has to deal with sexism. It's an issue that makes me so horribly angry, that even a good resolution of it is sometimes not enough to compensate. Plus, if some of the sexism the heroine has had to face came from the hero, well, let's say I find that very hard to forgive. Here, Brockmann manages to deal with the issue in a way that worked for me. Harvard does have some qualms about PJ's abilities and whether a woman will be able to do what has to be done. However, this is a man who is very intellectually honest. He's not afraid of questioning his assumptions, and he's perfectly willing to see that he might have been making a mistake. He doesn't try to fit new facts to his prejudices, but fits his worldviews to the facts, even if this means he has to change his mind, and I have to respect that.

Harvard and PJ's relationship was wonderfully done, especially the way it proceeded so very gradually. PJ doesn't like Harvard very much at first, and he, while very attracted to her, has some doubts about her abilities. I loved how they slowly change their perceptions as they start getting to know each other, how Harvard comes to respect and like PJ, and how she realizes he's not the pig she'd made him out to be in her mind. They become friends before becoming involved more intimately, and the whole progression felt lovely and so natural. And speaking of their more intimate involvement, Brockmann is a genius in this area. Her love scenes and the way she creates sexual tension are perfect.

The plot was just right, too. Most of the book, while PJ and Harvard's relationship is still developing, is just the day to day of training. The focus is squarely on the romance, and what little plot there is simply serves to enhance it. The action plot intensifies on the last part of the book, and still serves to further advance the romance. There's a scene there, while they're waiting for the sun to set before starting a mission, that could have come across as melodramatic, but is lovely and sweet instead.

As for negatives, hmmm, maybe I would have preferred that the Navy Seal rah-rah-rah stuff be toned down a little. Maybe it's just that I've already read all of her books, but I really don't need a lecture on how Navy Seals are the best and can do anything and blah, blah, blah. But that's really just a minor irritant, nothing that bothered me too much.

Reading my two favourites of the series has made me want to reread all the others, something I haven't done in ages. There's bound to be some massive rereading in my future!

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Night Smoke, by Nora Roberts

Night Smoke is the fourth story in Nora Roberts' Night Tales series. It was the last one written, originally, but Nora did add one some years later.

FLASHPOINT

Ryan Piasecki: A man's man. A woman's fantasy. The kind of guy who got the job done, no matter what the obstacles...or how beautiful they were.

Natalie Fletcher: Cool, calm, collected. Until someone started making trouble for her business...and he showed up.

Arson investigator Ryan Piasecki came from the street, and he wasn't exactly the type to make nice with an upper-crust business executive like Natalie Fletcher. His business was fires - and his instincts told him the one at Fletcher Industries was no accident. They told him something else, too - that the sparks flying between him and this very classy lady had all the makings of a five-alarm blaze…

Night Smoke was a solid entry in the series. My grade: a B.

Again, as in Nightshade, the darker atmosphere was one of the draws here. The subject matter wasn't as dark here, but the setting in the city, mostly at night, gave the story a much different feel than it would have had if the same plot and characters had played their parts in the sunlight. It was very well done.

The characters were interesting, though at times, Ryan's "she's rich, I can't give her what she's used to" was irritating. Other than that, I liked them together. I especially liked Natalie. I enjoyed the fact that she's running a big business, doing it well and liking it. And all with a very matter-of-fact attitude.

The suspense subplot was interesting, though I did immediately zero in on what exactly was going on. I'm guessing I must have remembered something from the first time I'd read this, years ago, because I don't think it was that obvious.

I don't know why this series isn't better known. While not as good as her best, I found it very satisfying.

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The Seducer, by Madeline Hunter

I was planning to wait until I had all the books in the series before I started The Seducer (excerpt), by Madeline Hunter, but I couldn't stop myself from starting it!

An innocent searching for her lost family, Diane Albret finds herself living in the house of Daniel St. John. The world thinks she is his cousin, but she knows differently. She also knows that her attraction to this dangerous, dark and mysterious man is perilous to both her heart and her future. Worse, she fears his generosity is a prelude to seduction and that he plans to make her his mistress--an offer she does not trust herself to refuse.

Daniel indeed has plans for Diane, but they involve his scheme to complete a lifelong dark quest. The legendary seducer also has a secret about her lost past that he will do anything to keep; a secret that will put both their lives in jeopardy even as the passion they deny threatens to break out of all control.

After a somewhat slow start, The Seducer got very good indeed. I'd grade it a B+.

As I said, I was a bit doubtful when I read the first pages of the book. At first, the dynamics of Daniel and Diana's relationship bothered me a bit. It was all to unequal. Daniel had too much power over Diana, being her tutor and having so much more information about her life than she did. I also felt him to be cold, almost indifferent to her.

Fortunately, this started changing, and it was soon obvious that Daniel was everything but unaffected by Diana. In the end, she had as much power over him as he had over her, and that made the book work for me. I loved the way he purposely made himself vulnerable to her, made sure she knew her power.

Something else I liked was the way the revenge plot was dealt with, the way being with Diana helped Daniel throw off a lot of the past's power over him.

The ambience was excellently done. This is no wallpaper historical. Of course, I'm not an expert on the history, but the period felt real. Her rich, dense style (reminiscent, at times, of Liz Carlyle's) worked wonderfully in making it come alive.

The Seducer is first in a series I'll definitely be reading. I have the next two books in my TBR already, and plan to get the remaining two as soon as possible. I've already met many of the characters here, and I thought their presence was not just sequel-baiting, they served a purpose.

I'm glad the book was a success for me. I'm still a bit sad that Hunter has changed periods, since her medievals were pretty much the only ones I read, but she does well in Regency, too.

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Creative writing... book version!

As promised, here's what I got doing the book version of the game Màili put up in her blog the other day:

Rules are:

1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page 50
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page 100
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page 150
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph.
8. Feel free to "cheat" to make a better paragraph.
9. Name your sources
10.Post to your blog.

My result:

Charlotte Bowen thought she was dead. Wonderful, grateful relief. She may have the Sight - present at times, absent at most- but even such a Gift could not have foretold her how important she and her prisoner were to Lord Nelson's hopes for saving England. Damn, I though. Then Camden Ruledge, the terribly solemn and oh-so-proper Earl of Treyhern, blushed three shades of red as his Great Hall erupted into a thunderous round of applause.

Books I used:

Book 1: In the Presence of the Enemy, by Elizabeth George
Book 2: By Design, by Madeline Hunter
Book 3: My Lady Pirate, by Danelle Harmon
Book 4: Season of Storms, by Susanna Kearsley
Book 5: Beauty Like the Night, by Liz Carlyle

I almost didn't have to cheat, I only moved Carlyle's book from number 4 to number 5.

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The Moon-spinners, by Mary Stewart

A couple of months ago I found a reprint of The Moon-spinners, by Mary Stewart, which I'd been trying to get for some time. The older editions were pretty hard to find, so I'm very glad someone decided to reissue it!

Young, beautiful, and adventurous Nicola Ferris loves her life as a secretary at the British Embassy on the lush island of Crete. Then on her day off, she links up with two hiking companions who have inadvertently stumbledupon a scene of blood vengeance.

And suddenly the life Nicola adores is in danger of coming to an abrupt, brutal, and terrifying end . . .

The Moon-spinners is that kind of book which was so popular some years ago, the British young woman visiting an exotic locale who gets embroiled in some adventure. When they are well done, I adore these books, and this was was very good indeed. A B+.

These books really live or die on their heroines. A boring or dumb protagonist can easily ruin the whole thing. Fortunately, I really liked Nicola, a smart, resourceful and fun woman. I loved how she was so confident and sensible. She never acts stupidly and she thinks things true. Of course, sometimes her actions have bad consequences, but it's simply that she's done the best she can with the information she had, and she didn't have all the info.

Her involvement in the whole problem made perfect sense. That's something that can get a bit iffy, actually. I've read a lot of books in which the heroines' determination to be part of the investigation of a certain crime they're only peripherally involved in was pretty unbelievable. Not so in this case. Nicola even half-heartedly considers forgetting about the whole thing and enjoying her holiday, but she's too decent to do it in good conscience.

The actual suspense subplot was interesting and engaging, with very well written "action" scenes and well-drawn secondary characters.

Crete had as much a presence in the book as a main character. Steward is wonderful at making her settings come alive, and this one's one of my favourites so far. Her descriptions are lovingly detailed, and made me feel as if I was there.

The only negative I can find in the book was the romantic thread, which was underwritten. Nicola and her love interest just don't spend enough time together, I'm afraid.

This is one to read for the heroine and the setting, not the romance, but that's fine, too!

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Heartbreaker, by Linda Howard

Heartbreaker, by Linda Howard, is related to Diamond Bay, though the only link between them is that John, the hero of Heartbreaker was a very minor character in DB, and at one point in his book he gives a passing thought to the protagonists of the other one. Not much of a relationship!

Michelle Cabot has inherited her father's Florida cattle ranch -- and a mountain of debt. To make matters worse, a huge chunk of that debt is owed to the neighboring rancher, her nemesis John Rafferty.

Nothing shocks Rafferty more than discovering that the spoiled, pampered rich girl he once despised is painstakingly trying to run the Cabot ranch herself, working the land with desperation the only thing she has left. He likes this new Michelle and decides to make her his woman. What he doesn't know is that underneath Michelle's cool, polished façade lies heartache, secrets and the raw determination to live life as her own woman. But Rafferty isn't about to take no for an answer.

Though this one is actually ok compared to some old Linda Howard series books, that's not really such a big compliment! It's pretty dated, and the hero and heroine weren't particularly likeable. It did improve a bit near the end, so I'm giving it a D+.

As I said, the characters were simply not to my taste. John's was a neanderthal, in the sense that his actions were more fitting to someone living in the prehistory than to a supposedly modern man. The first scene in which he's with Michelle was enough to make me want to kill him, when he offered Michelle to forgive her her dad's debt to him if she'll become his mistress. Nice going, very respectful. I just hate men who are so arrogant that they think they have the right to judge, condemn and punish other people. At least his misconceptions about her didn't last long, once they came into closer contact, but I found I couldn't really forgive him his earlier hateful behaviour.

As for Michelle, I'm sorry, but she was stupid! I mean running herself into the ground, trying to run an entire ranch by herself? It was so painfully obvious that it was impossible. She does think she doesn't know what she'll do when time comes to have to castrate the cattle and do other stuff to them that requires quite a few people, but she still goes on, refusing to think about it. Come to think of it, she seems to believe that if she ignores problems, they'll go away. Just witness the way she sticks her unpaid utility bills in a drawer and forgets about them, this ending with her having her electricity cut off.

I didn't like the dynamics of John and Michelle's relationship. At first, at least, all John did was take care of Michelle and solve all her problems and generally rescue her, basically in exchange for sex. I also couldn't stand the hypocrisy of him resenting her for being a parasite when the book starts, and then trying to keep her wrapped in cotton once they become lovers. The whole thing had such a condescending feel, an air of "Just don't worry your pretty head about it", that I couldn't stop gritting my teeth.

Things improved a bit near the end, luckily, basically when John acknowledged he was in love with Michelle and when he started making an effort to allow her to do something more fulfilling with her life than sitting around in luxury.Still, too little, too late, and even when he had improved I still thought he was a condescending jerk.

Oh, and the suspense subplot was a bit of a joke. I mean, are we supposed to not realize what's going on? It was so obvious that it made John and Michelle seem like real boobs for not realizing immediately.

Why not an F, then? Well, Howard does the sexual tension very well. Also, I don't deny that this type of story has some kind of instinctive appeal. Yes, I did get a little thrill when John realized how mistaken he'd been, how he'd been misjudging the poor little put-upon heroine. It's not the type of story I like, but it's a good example of its kind and I guess a fan of hyper-dominating alpha heroes would enjoy it much more than I did.

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Lucky's Lady, by Tami Hoag

Lucky's Lady, by Tami Hoag used to be one of my favourite romance novels years ago. I hadn't reread it in some time, though.

As wild and mysterious as the Louisiana swamp he called home, Lucky Doucet was a dangerously attractive Cajun no woman could handle. His solitary life left no room for the likes of elegant Serena Sheridan, but Lucky couldn't deny her desperate need to find her missing grandfather. He would help her, but nothing
more--yet once he felt the lure of the flaxen-haired beauty, an adventurer like Lucky couldn't help playing with fire.

Serena felt unnerved, aroused, and excited by the ruggedly sensual renegade whose gaze burned her with its heat, but she did not dare tangle with a rebel whose intensity was overwhelming, who claimed his heart was off limits? Deeper and deeper they traveled into the steamy bayou, until with one electrifying kiss her resistance melted into liquid desire. And the devilish rogue found he'd do anything to make Serena Lucky's Lady.

Unfortunately, while it was good, it was nowhere near as wonderful as I remembered it. My grade now would be a B.

On the plus column: the hero, the romance and the ambience.

Lucky was yummy, a bad boy who had actually wanted to be a scientist before a tragedy in his past made him drop everything and join the military. He was also one tortured guy who didn't make everyone around him miserable because of it. He did irritate me at first with his immediate assumption that Serena was the same as her bitch of a sister, Shelby, but he was willing to keep his eyes open and accept he had been wrong.

He and Serena had some explosive chemistry together, and I thought the romance was nicely developed, with each of them attracted to the other in spite of themselves, and unable to resist. The love scenes were beyond steamy, and of the kind which are definitely not gratuitous and actually serve to show us more about the characters and their development.

The ambience of the swamp was really well done, too. Hoag succeeded in showing the beauty of it as well as the danger, and while I don't think I'd like to visit in real life, I enjoyed doing so in the book.

And now for the negatives. Serena was one of them. I wasn't too crazy about her, basically because she was a bit too willing to be manipulated by her relatives. I mean, it's fine to want your sister to love you, but she allowed her wishful thinking ("She's my sister, I'm sure she isn't that bad and that she actually does love me") to ignore facts. After what Shelby had done to her leaving her for days in the swamp, and the way she made fun of Serena's phobia about it, a smart person would have at least been a bit more careful about trusting her. I also didn't like Serena's grandfather's manipulations and the way she gave in to them.

And this brings me to my biggest problem with the book: the suspense subplot and the villains. Much too over-the-top, especially Shelby. She was eeeevil, tremendously immoral and selfish and stupid with it. I also thought the thingie about the chemical company was too unrealistic. It simply didn't ring true to me that a mere employee would be so fanatical about what amounted to buying a site for a new plant.

All in all, an entertaining read, but one which didn't completely satisfy.

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Creative writing with blogs

Ooooh, Màili's just posted a really fun exercise in creative writing thingie. The one with books will have to work until I get home, but I can do the blog version from right here.

1. Blog 1 - first sentence of the latest blog entry
2. Blog 2 - second last sentence of the earliest blog entry on the front page
3. Blog 3 - last sentence of the first blog entry of the entire blog
4. Blog 4 - third sentence of the third blog entry on the front page
Then, click on the last link of the Blog Links sidebar at Blog 4. If there isn't one, do this with Blog 3
5. Blog 5 - last sentence of the latest blog entry
6. Put all together to create a paragraph out of all that
7. Post it to your blog along with links to all blogs that you used here.

Here are my results. Maru, I took the liberty of translating yours. Please don't stick me in the Shitty Translation Corner!

I've long been told you can't have a discussion with me. If this is happening on our staff, I imagine it's also happening in the rest of the romance-reading world. If not - ach, well, at least I tried. :) The purse is probably in a garbage can somewhere while the money is pocketed by whoever found it. Of course, there are still 100 pages to go....

Blog 1: Basket Case
Blog 2: Laurie Likes Books' Blog
Blog 3: McVane
Blog 4: Mad's House
Blog 5: The Misadventures of Super_Librarian

Sounds... weird?

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Big Guns Out of Uniform, an anthology

I got Big Guns Out of Uniform because I'd heard great things about the third story, and I just adore Liz Carlyle's historicals and was curious about how she'd do in a contemp setting.

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The first story was my least favourite, BAD to the Bone, by Sherrilyn Kenyon.

In Sherrilyn Kenyon's "BAD to the Bone," teacher Marianne Webernec wins the "Hideaway Heroine Sweepstakes" and a chance to pretend to be the heroine in her favorite romance novel. Whisked away to a remote tropical island, Marianne's fantasies become real when BAD (Bureau of American Defense) agent Kyle Foster kidnaps her. Together they uncover Marianne's every desire, and Kyle's secret fantasy, too.

I actually liked the romance here ok. Kyle falls for Marianne hard the first minute he sees her, and these two actually like each other and treat each other kindly. I could say it was a little creepy, the way he got so turned on by her "innocence" and "purity", but I guess it could make sense, given his past, that he'd find normalness attractive.

Kyle was one of Kenyon's trademark needy heros with a horrid past, but luckily the short format of the novella didn't allow her to go overboard with the pathos, as she's been known to do in other books (see my comments on her Born in Sin for more on this). Marianne, meanwhile, was a bit too much of a wide-eyed innocent, but she didn't really go into TSTL territory, so I could bear it.

Where this story went horribly wrong was with what was going on around this nice romance. I do enjoy some kinds of silly, but this was silly in a bad way. From the whole "romance novel reenactment" crap (with its not particularly flattering portrayal of romance novel readers) to the final scene, with all those big, bad antiterrorist agents who seemed to delight in spending taxpayers' money on playing their games and matchmaking for Kyle, it was all beyond stupid, crossing the line into painful.

This lowered my grade quite a bit, to a C.

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Then came Let's Talk About Sex, by one of the few autobuy authors I have left, Liz Carlyle.

In Liz Carlyle's "Let's Talk About Sex," Dr. Delia Sydney dishes out perfectly sound sex advice on the radio. So how is it that this slightly repressed divorcee is so easily seduced by her bad-boy neighbor? And just what is it about Nick Woodruff, a smooth-talking sergeant on a forced "vacation," that makes Delia feel she'll do anything -- anything -- when she's with him?

Carlyle's contemporary voice is very, very different to her historical style, but it works. It's actually quite distinctive and modern, something many historical romance authors don't manage when they switch genres.

The story itself, well, I must say I enjoyed it in spite of myself. I just can't believe I liked a story with a good-ol'-boy hero who tells the heroine things like "You just need to have your brain fucked out.", or the ever classical "Let me teach you what a passionate creature you are." However, I did. I liked his sexual obsession with Delia and I liked the way Carlyle showed it turning into love.

Delia was ok, too. Yet another sex therapist who's never enjoyed sex (I really don't understand why authors seem so fond of this), but at least she a) wasn't a virgin, b) gave good advice and c) didn't get all shocked about sex... she had the theoretical knowledge, at least, down pat.

My grade would be a B.

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The best in the book, though, was the story I actually bought this anthology for, The Nekkid Truth by Nicole Camden.

Things get even hotter in Nicole Camden's "The Nekkid Truth" when crime scene photographer Debbie Valley works more closely than ever with the detective who has fascinated her for years. After a harrowing accident Debbie finds her life forever changed when she loses the ability to recognize faces. She is forced to identify people by their bodies and soon finds that the wonders of Detective Marshall Scott's body never cease...and that he needs her unique gift to help catch a killer.

This was the freshest short story I've read in a long time. A story about a heroine with a strange condition in reaction to a head injury (the romance novel version of amnesia comes to mind) who falls in love with a police detective is a staple of many category romances, and yet Camden does something with it that is wonderful.

The Nekkid Truth is narrated in first person by the heroine, Debbie, and she's an amazing narrator. I loved her voice, she was a bit of a smart-ass, but didn't cross the line into being a walking one-liner. I found her attitude towards sex refreshing and I loved the way she dealt with her problem with not recognizing faces. She was very matter-of-fact about it, but this didn't really hide her angst about it.

This is (obviously) a very short story, and yet both Debbie and the hero, Marshall Scott, are very well drawn, though maybe Marshall a bit less than Debbie, an understandable consequence of the first person narration. Their relationship was believable, and I bought their HEA easily.

There is a mystery here, but it's very definitely not the main (or even secondary) focus of the story. This is very much a romance, a very steamy romance, and Camden does have a way with her sex scenes. These, BTW, had a different "feel" from what I'm used to in romance. Good, too, but different.

My grade: an A-. I'd never heard of Camden before, and it seems this is her first published writing. Unfortunately, there's no info in her website about upcoming books. I'll be keeping her name in mind.

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Just the fact that there were no clunkers makes this a good anthology, as far as I'm concerned. Given that 2 of the stories here were actually good, I'd give this a B

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Falling Angel, by Anne Stuart

Anne Stuart can always be counted on for something different. You never know exactly what you're getting with one of her books, even with her categories, and that appeals to me. Falling Angel is one of her old Harlequin Americans, and it sounded interesting.

Bad boys weren't meant to be angels... until Gabriel Falconi returned to Earth!

With just one last chance to redeem his immortal soul, the man suddenly felt truly alive. He could really taste mulled cider, feel snow melting on his skin, appreciate Christmas festivities... and still revel in the devilishly delicious vision of Carrie Alexander.

Unfortunately, he was sent to help the woman, not make love to her. And yet Gabriel trembled to touch his newfound angel-in-the-flesh. He began to believe that one single, heavenly night in her arms would be worth a whole eternity of flames.

Falling Angel was very, very readable and it had an interesting hero, but it had way too many problems for me to really enjoy it. What was good was very good, but what was bad was really horrible. My grade: a C+.

I enjoyed the main plot about the hero having to go back to Earth to earn his passage into heaven by saving three people whose lives his actions had destroyed. It kept me turning the pages like crazy, even if it wasn't particularly hard to guess who these three people were and what Gabriel was going to have to do to help them.

And I found the hero a very interesting character, especially his earlier incarnation as superficial, cold bastard Emerson MacVey. The conflict between the man he had been on Earth and the man he was now, carpenter Gabriel Falconi, was fascinating to read, even if I did think that he became Gabriel too easily at first. It seemed to be almost too quickly, the way he started to see things as Gabriel would see them, not Emerson, but later on his Emerson instincts did show up a bit more.

However, too many things rubbed me wrong. First and foremost, I absolutely detested Carrie, the heroine. I've read too many martyr heroines since I've started to read romance, but Carrie is hard to beat. She blames herself for everything and is determined to sacrifice herself to make up for what she has built up in her mind as the most horrible sin anyone could have committed... something which was basically no more than her trusting the wrong person to do a good thing for her town. She's one of those heroines who "forget" to eat, for instance. She refuses to take any care of herself and to ask for help when she's over her head, so the result is that people have to end up rescuing her all the time. She doesn't eat so she gets sick, and of course, she doesn't phone her friends to ask for help, so by the time they find her, she's very, very ill, and what could have been easy to solve has become a sickness that takes days and days of bedside vigils to cure. Typical Carrie, this.

I also didn't appreciate the message that poor people are good and rich people superficial and mean, as if poorness in itself was a virtue. It was a very heavy handed message, and I just hate being preached to.

Oh, well, I can't say I hated the book, but I wish Carrie had been written differently. It would have been a much better read.

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Face the Fire, by Nora Roberts

Face the Fire is the third in Nora Roberts' Three Sister Island trilogy. I reread the previous book, Heaven and Earth, not long ago.

A stunningly beautiful, powerful witch who possesses the gift of Fire, Mia Devlin locked her heart away when Sam Logan rejected her youthful love and left Three Sisters Island. Eleven years later, Sam returns to the island to claim Mia and take over his family business, the Magick Inn. Passion still burns between them, but Mia refuses to trust the man who once tore her life apart, leaving her grieving and alone. It's imperative that they find a way to resolve their thorny, complicated relationship for time is running out and the deadline for breaking a centuries-old curse is near. Mia has the steadfast aid of her two sisters of the heart, powerful witches that rule Air and Earth, but without Sam's help, even Mia's powers may not be enough to keep her alive until the deadline. And unless Mia makes the right choice about her heart and Sam, evil may win in the final confrontation, destroying all their lives and Three Sisters Island as well.

Nora Roberts' trilogies are not simply 3 stand-alone books connected by characters who show up for a couple of pages. The trilogies are a unit, with characters who play important parts in all of them. They take turns in the spotlight, but they don't disappear in between. This rather roundabout intro is to say that by the time I came to Face the Fire, I knew a lot about Mia and I had a very good idea of what had happened between her and Sam 11 years before. I knew the basic facts and how Mia had felt about Sam's desertion, so even before starting Face the Fire, I confess I suspected I wouldn't enjoy it much. I'm not a big fan of reunion romances when the guy really hurt the heroine terribly in the past.

However, this book surprised me with how well all this was dealt with, and I very much enjoyed it. A B+.

What surprised me the most was how well I understood Sam's reasons for feeling he had to leave Mia all those years ago. There's no big misunderstanding here, no evil relatives manipulating our protagonists to pull them apart. There's just a young man's increasing suffocation in the face of a future that seemed preordained and leaving nothing to his free will, and I could imagine his increasing claustrophobia perfectly. I'm not saying he was blameless, because he wasn't. The way he actually effected the break left a lot to be desired and hurt Mia, who actually was blameless, IMO, unnecessarily. Still, sympathizing with his reasons was basic to my enjoyment of the book.

The story also worked wonderfully because Sam is made to work hard for what he wants, and made to go through a lot of anxiety, not knowing if he is even going to succeed. He starts out a little irritating, very sure of himself and confident that because he's finally able to deal with this preordained love of his and Mia's, Mia will be basically waiting for him, ready to take things up where they left them. She's not, and Sam soon begins to fear he might lose this woman he needs so much.

Mia took Sam's desertion very, very hard, and now she's understandably doubtful about whether she should allow herself to fall for him again. She's attracted to him and gives in to this attraction, but she simply isn't convinced that he won't leave again, so she refuses to let herself fall in love, certain that when he leaves, she wouldn't be able to resist it.

So that's the romantic conflict, Sam madly in love with Mia, trying to convince her to return his feelings and start a life with him, and Mia resisting, not to be difficult, but because she truly believes her very survival depends on it. I adored this!

All this played before the backdrop of the final struggle between good and evil that could claim the entire island. This was not the strongest point of the book (it was actually a bit lame, at times, like when our characters broke into rhyming chants), but it didn't bother me all that much.

The other element in this book that I loved was the relationships between the Sam and Mia and the extended family that are the protagonists of the earlier books. These are six people who obviously like each other very much, and Roberts wrote their interactions beautifully. I especially liked the teamwork in how they worked together to break the curse on the island. It reminded me a bit of some of my favourite Barbara Michaels paranormals, actually, and that's a high compliment, coming from me!

This was an excellent close to a trilogy that started out a little weak but improved on each further book.

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Divided in Death, by JD Robb

Divided in Death is the latest in JD Robb's Eve Dallas series to be released in paperback.

Reva Ewing was a former member of the Secret Service, and now a security specialist for Roarke Enterprises—until she was found standing over the dead bodies of her husband, renowned artist Blair Bissel, and her best friend. But Lieutenant Eve Dallas believes there was more to the killing than jealous rage—all of Bissel's computer files were deliberately corrupted.

To Roarke, it's the computer attack that poses the real threat. He and Reva have been under a code-red government contract to develop a program that would shield against techno-terrorists. But this deadly new breed of hackers isn't afraid to kill to protect their secret—and it's up to Lieutenant Eve Dallas to shut them down before the nightmare can spread to the whole country.

After 19 books (not including the one I haven't read yet, which is still in hardcover), plus two short stories, this is a series that I'm still enjoying. This one's not my favourite, not even close, but it was a solid entry in the series and I enjoyed it. My grade: a B+.

The mystery? Ok. Not boring, but not particularly interesting either. As always, an excuse to visit with these characters I'm so fond of. This is what I read the In Death books for, the interactions between the characters and the buildup in their character we get from book to book.

What engaged me the most was Eve and Roarke's personal stuff, also as always. They face some trouble here, an instance when their outlooks on life and the way they each think things should be dealt with clash. It was an important thing for them to solve, and I liked the way it was done.

I hope I can get a copy of the next quickly!

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