A Wicked Liaison, by Christine Merrill

TITLE: A Wicked Liaison
AUTHOR: Christine Merrill

COPYRIGHT: 2007
PAGES: 299
PUBLISHER: Mills & Boon Historical

SETTING: Regency London
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: No, although I believe some characters first appeared in an earlier book.

REASON FOR READING: Heard good things about it.

Constance Townley, Duchess of Wellford, has always been impeccably behaved. So why does she suddenly feel a wild urge to kick over the traces?

Anthony de Portnay Smythe is a mysterious figure. A gentleman by day, he steals secrets for the government by night.

When Constance finds a man in her bedroom late at night, her first instinct is to call for help. But something stops her. The thief apologizes and gracefully takes his leave…with a kiss for good measure!

And Constance knows that won't be the last she sees of this intriguing rogue….

I haven't had the best of luck with M&B Historicals. Most of them sound just fascinating... exotic settings, original plots, interesting characters. And yet, most have turned out to be distinctly blah and even hard to plow through. A Wicked Liaison has been one of the exceptions. While it had some flaws, it had a to-die-for hero and some of my favourite plot elements, not to mention good writing that flowed really well and had me turning the pages.

Anthony de Portnay Smythe is a former thief, now working for the government. His latest mission is to recover stolen money-printing plates, which could bring down the whole British economy if not found. He has a very good idea of who's responsible, though, and his first step is to go after the woman gossip currently links this man to, a woman who happens to be his first love.

Constance is the widow of a duke, and at her last tether. Her economic situation is extremely precarious, and she's become the target of a disgusting man, who seems to think that because she's a widow, she is therefore obviously desperate for sex. Even though she finds this man repugnant and has done nothing to encourage him, he has still succeeded in creating gossip about them, and her chances of making a good marriage are rapidly sinking.

Anthony has always considered himself to be too far below Constance's station to ever have a real chance at being with her, but when she surprises him searching her bedroom, something develops with the mysterious spy she believes him to be.

I'm a sucker for romances where the hero has been in love with the heroine for ages, so I really enjoyed this element of the romance. Tony is just lovely, so determined to help out Constance, and he's doing it for selfless reasons, too, since he doesn't think he'll be getting anywhere with her.

Constance I liked a bit less. I was perfectly happy with her completely mercenary marriage objectives, but she was too much of a damsel in distress for most of the book, powerless and resigned. I just found it hard to understand what was so great about her, what has Tony so far gone and head over heels.

Well, maybe it wasn't the characterisation of Constance that bothered me, but the fact that I didn't completely buy the situation. What I mean is, Merrill paints her as actually being powerless to stop Jack Barton and vulnerable to his threats, but I just couldn't believe that she was. She's a dowager duchess, for heaven's sake, and she does have friends! This is a man who's not particularly influential and he's basically just making shit up. Am I supposed to believe that it was so easy for a nobody to destroy the perfectly spotless reputation of someone with a high position in society?

I did like, though, that at the end, Constance snapped out of it and took steps to save herself. All in all, it was a good read, and I'm planning to seek out more of Merill's books.

MY GRADE: A B.

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A Fine Specimen, by Lisa Marie Rice

TITLE: A Fine Specimen
AUTHOR: Lisa Marie Rice

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: No exact idea, it's about category romance-length.
PUBLISHER: Ellora's Cave

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: None
NOTE: Previously released as Taming Nick. Where it was released, I've no idea. I went through a period of trying to search for all of LMR's books (even got all her Elizabeth Jennings ones), and I never heard of this one.

REASON FOR READING: Auto-read author.

Lieutenant Alex Cruz eats, sleeps and breathes law enforcement. He's tough, brusque, and cops and criminals alike tremble beneath him. And that's the way he likes it. Until he meets Caitlin Summers—and decides he wants her trembling beneath him.

The beautiful scholar is doing dissertation research in his cop shop, and seriously messing with his head. His self-imposed sexual abstinence comes to a screeching halt in Caitlin's ratty hotel room, and dies a permanent death in his bed…and his kitchen…and his living room. Caitlin is also intelligent and funny, kind and generous, her smile a burst of warmth in his cold, austere life. And that scares the crap out of him.

With his head and heart fighting a battle of wills, Alex can barely concentrate on work. And that's too bad—because his dangerous job and his newfound love are about to clash in the worst way possible.

I was very happy when I saw LMR had another book out and it was with Ellora's Cave. I haven't loved her Avon Red books, and I was hoping this would be more similar to favourites such as Midnight Angel and Woman on the Run. In some ways it was, although a few too many flaws meant it didn't quite reach their level of wonderfulness.

Alex Cruz is a hard-ass police Lieutenant. A former gangbanger, he was rescued by the man who's now his captain and feels he owes him. So when his captain sends a young researcher to do some field work at Alex's police station, he can't really say no. But Caitlin Summers is more distracting than he expected, and workaholic Alex, whose life has become all about work in the last months and who wouldn't dream of bringing his personal life into his cop shop, suddenly finds himself feeling the urge to do some very unprofessional things.

A lot of things here are classic LMR, and I totally relished them. Alex's immediate and utter focus on Caitlin and his protectiveness and possessiveness were just delicious. I've even given up feeling guilty about finding such caveman attitudes sexy, when in real life I'd stay far, far away from a guy like Alex. As for the juxtaposition of huge, aggressive alpha and dainty, almost child-like heroine, it does still make me a bit uncomfortable, but there's something about the way LMR writes it. Basically, se makes it seem hot as hell. What I did like unreservedly was that Alex respected Caitlin's intelligence and opinions, even being open to considering her theories on law enforcement.

It's an intense, intimate and 100% character-driven story. There's a bit in the background about Alex being after a particular criminal, but it was only a slight distraction. I quite liked complete focus on the romance, even though I'm probably the only reader who did enjoy the very original suspense subplots in this author's older books (yes, even the scenes from the criminals' POV).

Unfortunately, it's now time to talk about the flaws. The main one was something that left a bad taste in my mouth was the complete derision with which Alex would think of his previous sex partners. It was especially bad during love scenes... he kept making comparisons between Caitlin and those other women, and I found some frankly offensive. I think the low point came when he was thinking how soft Caitlin was down there, whereas some of his other lovers had had "cunts like steel traps". Euwww! Doesn't speak very well of him that a) he'd think of other women that way, and b) that if he thought so, he'd sleep with them!

Also, the development of the romance wasn't totally satisfying to me, mainly because Alex's commitment-phobia didn't feel fully believable. What I love about previous LMR heroes is how they are so immediately convinced that the heroine is the best thing that's ever happened to them, and though they know they don't deserve her, there's no way they're going to let her get away from them. With Alex it was weird, because when we saw the way he felt about Caitlin, it felt as if he should naturally be trying to bind her to him as firmly as possible. And yet, he was so insistent on there not being a future in their relationship, and him not being into long-term relationships. Which didn't make much sense, really, because Rice didn't give any reason for why he would feel that way. It just felt strange and out of character, I suppose. Less objectively, there's also the fact that mindless commitment-phobia in a hero just doesn't appeal to me in the least.

Finally, I thought the ending was a bit lacking. For starters, it was quite abrupt. That's been the case in quite a few of LMR's books. Yes, long, drawn-out endings, with everything tied into neat bows and scenes showing the main couple happy, happy, happy are quite boring, but I could have used a little bit more. Not to mention that the way things happened was extremely predictable. In fact, the exact event that makes Alex reevaluate and change his mind about commitment was literally predictable; a long time before it happened I stopped for a minute and thought "I bet this and this and this is going to happen." And it did.

MY GRADE: A B-.

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Lara Adrian - a bit of catching up

I read these three books in quick succession a few months ago, and meant to read the fifth in the series, Veil of Midnight, before I did all the reviews together. Well, I haven't got round to reading it (or the sixth, out now) yet, so I better review these three before I forget all about them!

NOTE: for a description of the world these novels are set in, see my review of the first book in the series, Kiss of Midnight.

The second book in the series is Kiss of Crimson, and as in Kiss of Midnight, the heroine is a breedmate and the hero, a vampire, runs into her by chance and decides he wants her. Tess Culver and Dante meet when she finds him bleeding all over her veterinary clinic. Even though she fears he might be a criminal, Tess heals him, after which Dante wipes all memories of what has happened from her mind and leaves.

But not before realising she's a breedmate, and as you would expect, between that and the instant sizzling attraction, he can't stop thinking about her. Dante knows he needs to focus on discovering whoever's behind a new drug that has been making young vampires turn Rogue, but Tess' draw is too strong to ignore, and before long, he's made contact again.

I enjoyed this one, but didn't love it. The romance was nice enough, but flirted with bland. A few months on, I can't say I remember all that much about Tess and Dante, other than that they had some nice chemistry between them. As individual characters, though, they've kind of vanished from my mind.

The plot, I did quite like. The idea of the drug was interesting, and there are some really interesting developments there at the end. If I'm remembering correctly, I don't think I let even a full day pass before starting the next in the series!

MY GRADE: A C+. I would probably have gone for a B- right after reading it, but I require memorable characters to go into B territory.


Next was the one that's turned out to be my favourite in the series so far, Midnight Awakening. It features Tegan, a character I thought was the Zsadist-wannabe in this world, but who turned out to be quite different and individual.

For Tegan, the fight against the Rogues is his whole life. Centuries ago, they were responsible for the horrifying loss of his mate, and so Tegan has become a machine, caring only about defeating the Rogues.

A widow, Elise has decided to remove herself from her community and stop taking blood, since it cannot be from her husband. By doing so, she's going back to a normal, human lifespan, choosing to give up the quasi-immortality bestowed by vampire blood. Elise has as much reason to hate the Rogues as Tegan, as her son was one of the young vampires who died after becoming addicted to the lethal drug the Rogues were pushing in the previous book. Since his death, she has began going out and hunting Rogues. It's not as if she cares if she dies a bit earlier, after all.

These two come into contact when Tegan steps in to help Elise when she's going after a Minion and a reluctant attraction starts developing. Neither of them wants to follow through, but when Elise accidentally comes across an object that the leader of the Rogues is after, she and Tegan have to spend quite a bit of time together working things out. And guess what happens?

There was a very interesting dynamic between these two, and I really liked what Adrian did with the symbolism of the blood-taking. Both characters are very tortured, but they deal with their awakening feelings in different ways, and the result was an affecting romance.

Again, the plot was interesting, and I also liked the way Adrian depicted the relationship between the warriors and the community of civilian vampires, who disdain them as uncivilised and are kind of becoming convinced that they are unnecessary.

MY GRADE: Very good, a B+.


The plot of the 4th book in the series, Midnight Rising is based upon some developments in previous books, so I'll be vague to avoid spoilers.

Journalist Dylan Alexander is on holiday in the Czech Republic, when on a walk in the countryside, she stumbles upon a cave with walls covered in mysterious markings. Smelling a story, she snaps some pictures, right before a smelly, aggressive man who seems to have been sleeping in the cave chases her away.

Smelly caveman is Rio, a Breed vampire who's taken the mission to secure what's in the cave. Rio suffered a horrible betrayal in the first book of the series, and is now scarred and bitter. For months he's been gathering courage to end it all when Dylan crashes into his party.

Obviously, Rio can't allow those photographs to fall into the wrong hands, so he hunts Dylan down, in an effort to recover them. But it's not as easy as stealing her camera and wiping her memory, because Dylan has already done something with the files. Not to mention that she's a Breedmate. In the end, Rio kidnaps her and takes her to headquarters.

This was quite good, actually, even with the kidnapping element (a non-favourite of mine). Dylan is brave but not stupidly so (even though at times I felt she should be a bit more scared of the smelly caveman than she was). Rio is quite tortured, and with reason, and through his developing feelings for Dylan, he gradually begins to learn how to live with his past and forgive the person who wronged him. This last, btw, was one of the things I liked the most about this book. It would have been very easy to paint this person as the devil incarnate, but it was all done a lot more subtly.

MY GRADE: A strong B.

All in all, this is developing into a good series. I really should read the next two books soon.

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Betrayed, by Jamie Leigh Hansen

TITLE: Betrayed
AUTHOR: Jamie Leigh Hansen

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 336
PUBLISHER: Tor

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Paranormal Romance
SERIES: Starts one.

REASON FOR READING:

A love found at first glance can last for lifetimes...

This is their last chance. After nine loveless lives and nine horrible deaths, Kalyss must save Dreux from his stone prison--or pass without him into an empty eternity.

When two strangers violently enter her life, Kalyss's gift awakens--along with the memory of her past lives--and she must learn who she can trust in order to break the cycle of hatred and betrayal that has held them captive for centuries. For only then can she free Dreux from his prison of stone.

But will Kalyss be strong enough, now that the last chance has arrived--now that she must face not only the pain of this life, but of all her lives before?

Betrayed promised to be a kind of paranormal there's not much currently around of... no creatures, just human beings caught in a curse and struggling to break out of it. It did deliver on that, but didn't quite capture my imagination.

The real beginning of this story takes place in the 11th century. His mind poisoned by his mother's lies, Kai decides to take revenge against him half-brother, Dreux, and kills him and his wife, Kynedrithe. However, a larger force intervenes, and the three of them, plus one of Dreux's knights, who'd unwittingly betrayed him, are caught in a seemingly neverending cycle.

Dreux is turned into a statue, while Kynedrithe gets reincarnated every time she dies, having the purpose of freeing Dreux in each and every new lifetime. As for Kai and Geoffrey (Dreux's knight), they find they simply cannot die. They resurrect each time they do, and so spend their time on their own missions: Kai's being to prevent Kynedrithe from awakening and saving Dreux, Geoffrey's being to aid her in doing so.

And so we reach the present day. Kynedrithe is on her 10th reincarnation, her previous 9 having all ended in tragedy. She's now called Kalyss, and has no conscious memories of her past lives. The memories of her more recent past are bad enough, as she is a survivor of an extremely abusive marriage. After escaping that situation, she's become a fighter, and even teaches self-defense.

When a strange man attacks her in her gym, and another rescues her and uses her long-denied psychic abilities to give her instructions to escape and get to Dreux, Kalyss is plunged back into the cycle. But this time she's different, and she and Dreux suddenly have a real shot at getting out of it for good.

It sounds interesting, doesn't it? It's the kind of book where if you think objectively about the plot and about the character, you think you should have loved it.

There's an intriguing set up and pacing that never drags, but still leaves the characters plenty of down-time in which to fall in love again. Which they do, it's not a matter of just picking up where they left off 1000 years before. Kalyss is a different person now, shaped by her past into someone a lot stronger than Kynedrithe. Dreux has to deal with that, and it's to his credit that although he loved his medieval wife, he loves what's she's become even better. There's subtlety in the feelings and there's a well-drawn cast of secondary characters.

But for some reason... I didn't love it. I didn't really dislike it, either. It just left me cold, I suppose, enough that I don't feel at all tempted to read the next book. Weird. I don't even have any specific criticism, other than the two following details.

First, the presence of something larger... angels and nephilims or whatever they were, manipulating and watching the action, felt completely unnecessary. That aspect of the world wasn't adequately explained, and I think removing it altogether wouldn't have affected the heart of the story at all. Everything would have still been completely understandable. I think it felt as if its only purpose was a bit of sequel baiting (ohh, now Maeve's free, danger is coming!).

Also, it might sound petty, but the names annoyed the bloody hell out of me. Dreux is bad enough, in its faux-Medieval, trying-hard-but-not-succeeding to sound French way, but Kalyss? Kynedrithe?? Holy made-up name, Batman! Where did those come from, Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing? The "my heroine's so speshul she needs a speshul name" vibe made me roll my eyes. *Sigh* Sorry, sorry, that's a bit ranty. Wow, I didn't know I felt that strongly about it! Anyway, I promise I'm not letting this affect my grade.

I would actually recommend this book to other readers, as I suspect it was just something about the tone that didn't hit the right note for me. If you do try it, do let me know how you felt, ok?

MY GRADE: A B-.

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Shadows of the Night, by Lydia Joyce

TITLE: Shadows of the Night
AUTHOR: Lydia Joyce

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 304
PUBLISHER: Signet

SETTING: Victorian England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: No

REASON FOR READING: I've enjoyed Lydia Joyce's books a lot in the past. Not sure why I haven't read one in a while.

Lauded for her "quietly chilling sense of suspense,"* Lydia Joyce delves into the shadows of Victorian England and beyond as a newly wed couple tests the limits of their loves...and of their hidden language.

Fern and Colin Radcliffe had a conventional courtship and expected a conventional marriage. But Fern's wedding night leaves her shaken — and reborn. Driven by a desire to control her own destiny, she strikes out at her new husband in a passionate assertion of independence. In doing so, she awakens a secret craving in the recently bound couple — an exquisite erotic delight that ignites their love and creates an insatiable hunger for more.

To encourage this new, forbidden love, they spend their honeymoon alone at Colin's isolated estate — the perfect setting to explore a world of pain, pleasure, and power. But their exploration is interrupted by a devastating secret from Colin's past — a secret that threatens their future together...and their very lives.

Shadows of the Night is a story I don't think I've ever read in romance. Well, the first half of it is, at least -more on that later.

Of all things, the first half of the book reminded me of one my favourite Anne Perry Victorian mysteries, A Dangerous Mourning. What struck me the most in that book was Perry's depiction of the claustrophobia and oppressiveness that a woman could suffer in a perfectly conventional family or marriage (and by that I mean one in which her father or husband wasn't some sort of sadistic monster, just a person with the normal attitudes and mores of the times). More than the mystery itself, what stayed with me was the hearbreak of her feeling her identity disappear and there not being any possible escape from such a situation, no possible happy endings.

In Shadows of the Night, Lydia Joyce puts her heroine in such a situation, and then does find a happy ending for her.

Colin Radcliffe courts and marries Fern Ashcroft just because at his age, he feels it's time he got married and Fern seems appropriate as a candidate. She's got the right background and breeding, seems of a quiet and docile temperament, and is attractive enough.

We've all read this same set up before, but what unfailingly happens in romance novels, is that it's quite clear the hero is fooling himself. He *obviously* doesn't want that docile wife he's telling himself he wants, and he *obviously* finds the heroine a lot more attractive and interesting that he's telling himself he does.

Not Colin. He really is that cold. He really does want a wife who won't have an opinion of her own and who will have his comfort as her life's mission, never putting her own wants before his, never contradicting him. In fact, when at one point Fern very mildly ventures that she would like to do a certain thing (attend a certain dinner party which he doesn't feel like going to, if I remember correctly), he's quite upset and disappointed at her unbecoming behaviour.

He is, in other ways, a complete and utter bastard to modern eyes, but really just a guy behaving as he's expecting to behave, and feeling as he's expected to feel.

Fern's reactions to the first days of her marriage are wonderfully done. This is a naive, normally docile girl -exactly as she was brought up to be, that is. But there's a rebellious streak in her, and something in her just cannot allow her helplessnes and the complete subsuming of her self under Colin's and urges her to strike out against it.

There were bits that rang just so true to me. At one point, Fern asks for something, even though she knows Colin would prefer otherwise and in fact, will completely overrule her and do things as he likes. She does this just to put this fact that she's being overruled out in the open, to make Colin have to actively decline her request, because she knows it's easier for him if she just pretends she wants the same things he does. A completely useless bit of passive aggressiveness, but then, passive aggressiveness is the only weapon Fern has in her situation.

This situation, of Fern anguishing about what she's got herself into and Colin being completely oblivious to there being anything at all wrong, beyond the vague feeling that Fern might need some time to adapt to her new circumstances, comes to a head during what to Fern is the most aggressive attack to her sense of self: sex. Completely without thinking about it, Fern lashes out and slaps him. And it just turns out, that pain somehow manages to wake Colin from his self-satisfied life and makes him feel alive for the fist time ever. From then on, he really sees Fern and himself, and things begin to change.

I must note that this slight S&M element isn't one I would normally be drawn towards, so don't let it put if off if you're not usually into it. It's one that makes sense. Only something so radical could change a man so immersed in the conventions of society. It even develops in a way that makes sense, too. Fern is not one of those natural-born sex kittens who seem to populate some historicals (you know the type I mean, completely innocent virgins who even on their wedding nights, are clamouring to perform oral sex). She doesn't set out to use mildly S&M sex to awaken Colin. It just happens, and she notices there's an effect, but it's not even like she immediately understands this effect. When she does, however, she realises she has power, and a great deal of it, and this changes everything.

At the point where Colin and Fern have began to explore their changing relationship, however, the book changes radically. They leave Brighton, where they've gone for their honeymoon and go to a remote estate of Colin's, which has been giving him some trouble lately. And this is where the story goes from an intimate and sensual portrayal of a fascinating relationship, to an over-the-top gothic that makes Colin's last name of Radcliffe seem like a clue.

There's mysterious letters, a crumbling keep, insane writing on a wall and hints of deep, dark secrets. Now, I love gothics. I liked this part of the book very much on its own. The only problem was that it didn't go with the first half at all. This is something that Joyce has done already, in Whispers of the Night, and it drove me just as crazy then. Why set up something so fascinating and then decline the opportunity to really, really explore it?

MY GRADE: I would give the first half an A, the second half a B+, but the book as a whole, rather than an average grade between the two, would be a B+ as well. The whole ends up being a bit worse than each of its two halves.

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Bye for a couple of weeks!

It seems like a shame when I've only just got back into the reviewing groove, but I'm off for a couple of weeks. It's for a good reason, though: my parents are visiting and we're flying to Italy this evening. Venice (and Florence and Rome and Amalfi coast *g*), here I come!

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You Can't Hide, by Karen Rose

TITLE: You Can't Hide
AUTHOR: Karen Rose

COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 528
PUBLISHER: Warner

SETTING: Contemporary
TYPE: Romantic Suspense
SERIES: All her books are loosely linked. She's got the info on her website, here. Excellently done, all authors should have something like this.

REASON FOR READING: The author. I went on a Karen Rose glom after reading my first of hers.

YOU DON'T KNOW WHO I AM

Terror has forever changed the life of psychiatrist Tess Ciccotelli. Someone is tormenting her patients, pushing them to commit suicide, and setting her up to take the blame. But Tess can't break her oath to protect her patients' privacy at all costs. Even when detective Aidan Reagan demands a list of everyone she's treating. Even when the mounting danger threatens Tess herself.

YOU CAN'T STOP WHAT I'M DOING

Aidan doesn't like anyone who stalls his cases. Still, he can't help but admire Tess's fierce loyalty to her patients, especially when it becomes clear that a nameless, facelss enemy is set on destroying her career, her family , and finally, Tess herself. As Aidan's heart softens, the killer's will hardens, and one thing becomes clear - the noose is tightening around Tess's neck.

YOU CAN'T HIDE

When Detective Aidan Reagan is called the scene of a suicide, his investigation seems to point to the victim's psychiatrist, Dr. Tess Ciccotelli, as being responsible for instigating it. Aidan is already familiar with Tess, having been involved in a case where her testimony in court, in his view, let a guilty person get off a murder charge. He's therefore quite hostile to her, and ready to believe what the evidence suggests.

But this is not the last of Dr. Tess' patients who kill themselves, and as the suicides keep coming and Aidan starts to spend some time with Tess, he begins to believe that someone is framing her, and that she might be just as much in danger as her patients.

I almost feel tired of saying it, but as always with Karen Rose (except maybe for her past couple of books in the Vartanian saga), the balance between romance and suspense in this book is absolutely perfect. The suspense plot is unique, interesting and very well-developed, with a police investigation that makes me believe that these people truly are professionals in law-enforcement (i.e. no TSTL investigations!).

It's well-developed, but in a way that doesn't overpower the romance, which is just as strong. It starts out as an adversarial relationship, with Aidan being extremely contemptuous of Tess and what she does, but they both soon begin to see what's beneath the other's outer layers and realise that they like what they see.

This is a very long book, but rather than feel padded, it gave me the feeling of being able to sink into it and immerse myself in its world.

The only thing that keeps this from being an A read is the villain. I felt it was way too much, especially this person's actions before the string of suicide instigations (trying hard not to spoil anything here, but I think those who've read this will understand what I mean). I'm afraid Tess comes out as a rubbish psychiatrist for not noticing utter and complete whackiness right under her nose!

MY GRADE:A B+.

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Some interesting non fiction

A short round-up of some non fiction books I've read recently:

TITLE: The Logic of Life
AUTHOR: Tim Harford

One of the fastest growing areas of economics is behavioural economics, which emphasises the ways in which, in many cases, people don't behave quite as rationally as traditional economics assumes. Harford's book is a defense of rationality in the face of this, and showcases the hidden rationality behind many real-world phenomena, such as marriage, racism, CEO pay, and many more. This is NOT a very technical book; it's very accesible to the non-economist, and I highly recommend it.

MY GRADE: B+.


TITLE: A Long Time Coming
AUTHOR: Evan Thomas and the staff of Newsweek

This book contains Newsweek's coverage of the latest US presidential election, starting at the primaries. Apparently, Newsweek reporters had been embedded in all the campaigns, in return for not publishing some of the stories until after the election. This resulted in a fascinating glimpse of what went on behind the scenes, with very vivid portraits of the people involved.

It's great material, but I confess to a small degree of disappointment. The reason I bought it was that I wanted something I could read in a few years again, a document of the 2008 election, so to speak. Unfortunately, in some cases the authors assumes too much knowledge. There is an underlying assumption that we're immersed in the campaign at the time we're reading them, or that it's just finished. This implies there are things we, of course, know. So several pages will be spent on the preparations for, say, the third debate, and the actual debate will be covered very cursorily, in one paragraph. I can't remember what happened in the third debate, not off the top of my head, and I bet in a year, most Americans won't, either. So as a document of the campaigns, it's only half-way there.
MY GRADE: A B.


TITLE: Pies and Prejudice
AUTHOR: Stuart Maconie

The author's from Wigan (not far from where I live, and made famous by George Orwell in his Road to Wigan Pier), and this is a travelogue about the North of England, contrasting the reality with the image of grinding poverty and rough people that Southerners seem to have of it.

It was amazing stuff. Before I came to England, I wasn't aware of the North/South divide at all, you see. England was England to me, period. After living in the North for 6 months (and in the Midlands for a year) I did have a bit of an inkling, especially when a Londoner friend commiserated and started teasing me about Northern monkeys when I told him I was moving to Liverpool (a Northerner who was standing nearby cut into the conversation after that and said something about Southern fairies). I had an inkling, but I wasn't really aware of just how big the divide was. To me, Liverpool's a pretty sophisticated place, with plenty of great restaurants and cultural offerings. This book was pretty eye-opening about what people's perceptions generally are and even why, and as a bonus, gave me some great ideas about things to do and places to visit.

The only aspect of the book I wasn't crazy about was the constant music references. The author has a background as a music journalist, so it's understandable. Unfortunately, 99% of the references meant nothing to me. I'm not very knowledgeable about music in general (or interested in it, to be honest), and much less about British music from the 70s and 80s. Never mind, I just kind of skimmed over those passages where it got to be too much.

PS - Why pies? Apparently, Wiganers are well known for their liking of pies. Paraphrasing Maconie, give a Wiganer the most exotic meats (kangaroo, oyster, wild boar),and he'll put them in a pie and eat it in a bus stop. I opened the book at random at the bookstore and this was the phrase I read, and it made me buy it immediately.

MY GRADE: Loved it. A B+.

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The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie, by Jennifer Ashley

TITLE: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie
AUTHOR: Jennifer Ashley

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 335
PUBLISHER: Leisure

SETTING: England, Scotland and France in late 19th century
TYPE: Historical romance
SERIES: Starts a quartet about the 4 brothers Mackenzie

REASON FOR READING: Good comments online, and I thought the hero sounded intriguing.

The year is 1881. Meet the Mackenzie family--rich, powerful, dangerous, eccentric. A lady couldn't be seen with them without ruin. Rumors surround them--of tragic violence, of their mistresses, of their dark appetites, of scandals that set England and Scotland abuzz.

The youngest brother, Ian, known as the Mad Mackenzie, spent most of his young life in an asylum, and everyone agrees he is decidedly odd. He's also hard and handsome and has a penchant for Ming pottery and beautiful women.

Beth Ackerley, widow, has recently come into a fortune. She has decided that she wants no more drama in her life. She was raised in drama--an alcoholic father who drove them into the workhouse, a frail mother she had to nurse until her death, a fussy old lady she became constant companion to. No, she wants to take her money and find peace, to travel, to learn art, to sit back and fondly remember her brief but happy marriage to her late husband.

And then Ian Mackenzie decides he wants her.

The summary above is pretty good, so I'll only add that when it says everyone agrees that Ian is decidedly odd, that's because he suffers from Asperger's syndrome. That was the main reason I wanted to read the book: because I thougth it would make for interesting issues in the romance, as Ian and Beth dealt with things like Ian's obsessive tendencies, or his difficulties in understanding the non-verbal cues and the subtexts in communication.

Everyone seems to have loved the book, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to be a bit of a party pooper. After reading this book, the first word that comes to mind is "disappointing".

I did like the characterisation, and even most of the romance. Ian's very well-drawn and believable, and quite a fascinating character. So is Beth, actually. She could easily have been overshadowed by Ian, but she held her own, with her good humour and earthiness, and most of all, her matter-of-fact attitude to Ian's difficulties. That, I think, was one of the best things about the book. Beth recognises that Ian has issues, and she loves him for who he is, issues and all. She's even comfortable enough with the real Ian that she can tease him by making little jokes.

The problem was that this potentially wonderful romance got completely diluted by a seriously crappy suspense plot. Ian and his eldest brother, Hart, were somehow involved of the murders of two prostitutes, you see, and there's a police detective who'll do anything (anything, I tell you!) to pin it on them. This was just boring and over-the-top, and completely took over the whole story.

The police detective's character was unbelievable (just wait until you get to the revelation of why he's so unbelievably obsessed with the Mackenzies. Eye-rolling) and the resolution got way too convoluted and silly, as well as giving Beth a perfect opportunity to act like a complete idiot and do her best to endanger herself as much as possible. Even worse, after a while, everything, even the romance, becomes all about the mystery of the dead prostitutes. The development of Ian and Beth's relationship becomes all about whether he tells her the truth or not.

I just got progressively more and more bored and irritated. I started feeling tempted to skim, and that reached a peak during the long, drawn-out resolution. There were pages and pages and pages after the mystery had been solved and nothing much really needed to be settled, and I almost just closed the book and declared myself done with it. That's a bad sign, isn't it, if I didn't care what else would happen?

I also found myself annoyed by the constant and incessant sequel-baiting. Ian has got 3 brothers, and a significant portion of this book was devoted to setting up their stories and trying to get us to want to read them. I didn't find them particularly intriguing, so I kept wishing we could get back to Ian and Beth.

MY GRADE: A complete waste of a fascinating hero and potentially great romance. A C-.

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The Sign of the Seven trilogy, by Nora Roberts

10-year-olds playing hooky on occasion of their birthday, going camping and swearing a friendship blood oath seems like a pretty harmless, even cute thing. However, when Caleb Hawkins, Fox O'Dell and Gage Turner did it, on a 7th of July, they ended up releasing an evil power they couldn't control.

Ever since, their town has been engulfed in violence and madness every 7 years. During the Seven, as they call it, a large percentage of the very otherwise normal people in Hawkins Hollow become intent on killing, maiming, raping and generally trying to hurt each other. It's as they're possessed. After the fact, they remember nothing of what happened, and somehow, the town returns to normal.


Caleb, Fox and Gage are among the few who remain in possession of their senses during the Seven, and they remember everything that's happened perfectly. Over the years, they've done their best to limit the damage, but the Seven seems to be getting worse every single time.

The trilogy starts as the yet another Seven approaches. The boys are now 31-year-old men, and still determined to protect their town. As time passes, and July gets closer and closer, we follow them as they try to find a way to defeat the demon they released, with the help of three women, newcomers to the town, who somehow seem destined to be there.


I've said it before of some of NR's trilogies, but I'll say it again, because it's truer than ever this time: this trilogy really does feel like a long book chopped in three. The only real division between the three is the romances, as each of the men fall in love with one of the women.

I'm a bit ambivalent about the overarching storyline of the Seven.

Likes:

• I quite enjoyed the mix between horror and romance. Not something that's too common, but I wish it was. It truly was scary, too, which I appreciated.


• I liked the idea of the research into the past to understand the nature of the evil and how to defeat it. It felt almost reminiscent of some of my favourite Barbara Michaels (Queen of the paranormal, as far as I'm concerned).


• The teamwork required for the above was great, as well. Each of the six had their strengths, and they were put to use, although not without much bickering :-)


• Finally: the friendship was what I liked best. Both the childhood friendship between the three men, which has turned into a solid one between grown-ups, and the newer one between the three women. This is what Nora does best I think, and these were good ones.

Dislikes:

• I didn't completely buy the fact that the Seven would happen and then things would just go back to normal, and for seven years, people would just live their lives happily. Oh, I am willing to accept a paranormal explanation... the evil that possesses then blocks everything, etc. What didn't make sense was that they would be left alone by the outside world to live their lives. It's not as if the Seven is a secret; in fact, Quinn, the heroine of the first book, actually comes to Hawkins Hollow to write a book about it. Why isn't there more interest, especially since it feels like perfect tabloid fodder?


• The actual story they discover of how the evil came to be trapped and then released wasn't that interesting. Plus, there was a lot of repetition.


• I didn't find the resolution particularly satisfying, I'm afraid. Oh, they do defeat the evil (I'm not spoiling anything, am I? This is romance after all), but the way they do it felt a bit heavy on the mumbo-jumbo power of looooooove! and didn't make much instinctive sense to me.

The romances were good and solid, if unexciting. The one in Blood Brothers features Caleb Hawkins and writer Quinn Black. Cal is a terribly nice guy, and I liked him very much. His family has been in the community forever (notice his last name's the same as the town's?), and he loves it and is determined to save it. Quinn is a writer, specialising in the paranormal, who wants to write about the Seven. She's the perfect one to shake up solid Cal, and she does. They have some very nice moments together.

Fox O'Dell and Layla Darnell are the hero and heroine of The Hollow, the second in the trilogy. Fox is a small-town lawyer, the son of a loving, hippy family. He enjoys his work and his town, and has a lovely, playful charm. Layla is the less gung-ho of the women. Her arrival to Hawkins Hollow was almost accidental. She felt that something was leading her there, and when she discovers what is going on, she feels like she has to stay. Layla is quite quiet and low-key, and rouses Fox's protective instincts. Their romance is sweet.

Finally, the romance in Pagan Stone is the most explosive of the three. Gage Turner grew up as the son of the town drunk, and he escaped Hawkins Hollow as soon as he possibly could. Now a world-famous poker player, he's only back because he loves his two friends and because he promised he'd come back for every Seven, not out of any heroic love of the town. Cybil Kinski is Quinn's friend and specialist researcher, a cool, sophisticated woman, more than a match for Gage. Their romance takes place among much resistance (especially on Gage's side) to falling in line and falling in love, just like the other two couples. This makes for some very poignant moments, as Gage pushes Cybil away needlessly at times, hurting her. In the end, it's a good, satisfying romance.

On the whole, I think Blood Brothers was probably my least favourite of the three. The romance is nice, but there doesn't seem to be any plot. We get the setup, we get the evil force showing what it can do, and everyone's determination to defeat it strengthens. And that's about it, really. It didn't feel like there was a proper climax. I'd grade it a B-.

The Hollow was just as good in terms of romance, but better in terms of plot. There's a not-so-supernatural antagonist introduced, which helped give the book a bit more of a resolution (the evil force cannot be defeated without ending the series, but this guy could). I really loved Fox and his family, and there was also an interesting subplot with his sister, who wanted to have a child with her partner. A B.

I liked Pagan Stone best. The romance is the most absorbing, and there's also Gage's relationship with his father. After his mother's death, Gage's father became an alcoholic who'd beat up on his son for no reason. But now he's kicked the drink and repented, and would like his son's forgiveness, which Gage isn't at inclined to give him. I liked the way this was handled, in a much more subtle and nuanced way than silly "he's your blood so you should forgive" crap. A B+.

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The Spymaster's Lady, by Joanna Bourne

TITLE: The Spymaster's Lady
AUTHOR: Joanna Bourne

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 384
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Early 19th century France and England
TYPE: Historical romance
SERIES: Not really, although some characters will appear in future books

REASON FOR READING: Online buzz having reached deafening proportions!

.
.
She's never met a man she couldn't deceive...until now.

She's braved battlefields. She's stolen dispatches from under the noses of heads of state. She's played the worldly courtesan, the naive virgin, the refined British lady, even a Gypsy boy. But Annique Villiers, the elusive spy known as the Fox Cub, has finally met the one man she can't outwit..
.

The Spymaster's Lady is basically a battle of wills between two spies. To give you a very basic idea of the plot (part of the joy of reading this book is discovering what direction the action will take, so I don't want to say much more): Grey is a very high-up member of the British intelligence-gathering community, while Annique has spied for the French since she was a girl. Annique is supposed to have the plans for Napoleon's invasion of England, and Grey wants them. After they escape a horrible Parisian prison, where both were about to come to very bad ends, Grey will do his best to get Annique and her valuable information to England, while Annique will do hers to avoid this.

I'm not particularly attracted to spy plots, but this was a good one. Bourne didn't fall into the temptation of making things convoluted just because. The plot is relatively simple, but loses no punch for it, as the potential consequences for whichever side winning were huge. I loved that there was no automatic assumption that we should be rooting for the British to win, and that Annique would obviously realise the error of her ways and go over to the British side. I especially appreciated this, given some revelations about her past, which written by other authors, could easily have led her to change sides without even thinking about it. Annique is French and retains loyalty for her country. She doesn't necessarily want them to destroy England completely, but she doesn't want to cause them to lose, either.

But what was best of all was that both Annique and Grey were 100% believable as what Bourne told us they were: competent operatives, so competent that they were considered to be among the best of their respective sides. This sounds obvious, but I can't even begin to count the times when an author has told me a particular character was terribly competent and experienced at their job, but their actions were so idiotic that I just couldn't believe it. For some reason, it seems to be worse with spies. Well, not so with Annique and Grey. They clearly knew what they were doing, those two.

And, I must add, they were each just as competent as the other, which is also important for me. It was quite an adversarial relationship for a long part of the book, but I liked that they each won some of the battles. Annique was just as capable a spy as Grey, so he couldn't easily (or even not easily) manipulate her. I didn't get any feeling that she might be in above her head, which is something that's tended to happen in other romance with heroines in similar situations. Annique could definitely handle herself, and she did, and she got the better of Grey as often as he got one over her.

As for the romance, well, this is why I read romance. I love getting that tingly feeling you get when there is real chemistry between the characters and you absolutely and completely care about what happens to them, and I got it in spades with this book. The romance is among the most fantastic I've read in the past few months. I cared, and cared deeply about whether Annique and Grey would be together. Every kiss made butterflies flutter in my stomach, and every scene with Annique and Grey together made me want to turn the pages as fast as I could, but at the same time, want to slow down so that it wouldn't be over so soon.

It was the scenes from Grey's POV that I most relished, I think. He's this cool (I'd say cold, actually) man who, after so many years playing the game, knows he cannot let his emotions become engaged and expect to keep functioning as he was. But when it came to Annique, he wasn't cold at all. He's a very self-aware character, too, and this means that he doesn't jump to judge Annique, because he knows exactly what's involved in their jobs.

I know there are some little things in the book that might have been hard to believe, but I loved the book so much that I was happy to suspend disbelief. Can a blind woman remove a bullet? Whatever doubts I might have had, I was so caught up in the action, the writing, the chemistry and the fascinating characters, that I didn't care!

Finally, the ending. I just loved it. I had absolutely no idea how Bourne could manage to get them Annique of the tangle she was in, but she did, and in a way that made perfect sense to me. Excellent all around.

MY GRADE: An A.

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Vision in White, by Nora Roberts

TITLE: Vision in White
AUTHOR: Nora Roberts

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 352
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Contemporary romance
SERIES: First in the Bride quartet.

REASON FOR READING: Autobuy author.

Meet childhood friends Parker, Emma, Laurel, and Mac--founders of Vows, one of Connecticut's premier wedding planning companies.

Wedding photographer Mackensie "Mac" Elliot is most at home behind the camera, but her focus is shattered moments before an important wedding rehearsal when she bumps into the bride-to-be's brother . . . an encounter that has them both seeing stars.

A stable, safe English teacher, Carter Maguire is definitely not Mac's type. But a casual fling might be just what she needs to take her mind off bridezillas. Of course, casual flings can turn into something more when you least expect it. And Mac will have to turn to her three best friends--and business partners--to see her way to her own happy ending.

Oh, I've missed this! As much as I've enjoyed the fantasy/horror in NR's latest trilogies, I've missed her straight contemps. This is just vintage Nora. I sank into the story immediately, and didn't want to come up for air.

Photographer Mackensie Elliot and her three best friends own Vows, a wedding planning business. The brother of one of their latest brides turns out to be an old acquaintance of them all, and way back when, he used to have a crush on Mackensie. Mac never paid any attention to him back then, but now Carter Maguire has grown up to be a deliciously sexy nerdy professor, and she's interested, all right!

If you really think about it, nothing terribly exciting happens during this book. That's the beauty of a good NR contemp. Even when nothing much is happening, it's fun to read and interesting and I keep turning the pages.

For instance, we see a lot of Mackensie and her friends running their business. They experience a couple of very minor mishaps and bid for a big project. That's it, but how I enjoyed reading it! I had a blast with the drama of a groom's asshole brother, who was determined to bring his new lover to the wedding, even though his extremely recent ex was the bride's maid of honour (or MOH... the accronyms really made clear the military precision of Vows' operation. That Parker should have been a general).

And it was quite the same with the romance. The only rock in their path there was the lightish one of Mac being very reluctant to commit, influenced by the fact that her parents were complete asshats and horrible at relationships and parenting. That did create some conflict, but no high drama, or anything like that. Apart from this, Mac and Carter's romance was all about two people getting to know each other and realising they fit well and falling in love. Just lovely. I enjoyed seeing Mac realise she couldn't live without Carter, and I adored Carter's constancy and the way his quiet insistence just completely wore Mac down.

Another strength of the book was the strong depiction of female friendship. I just loved the relationship between Mac and her friends. It was so very satisfying. They clearly loved each other and knew one another to the core. It was great that their friendship wasn't all sweetness and light. They behaved like a family, i.e there was teasing, fighting and annoyances, with it still being clear that they loved each other to bits.

I even liked the bits about Mac's relationship with her mother, who was an incredibly annoying, inconsiderate user. I got frustrated with Mac's difficulties standing up to the woman, but at the same time, I did buy her behaviour and understood it. I suppose I got just as frustrated with her as she did with herself, which helped not make this a problem with the book. Of course, she does end up standing up to her mother, and that was very satisfying, but I appreciated that it wasn't an over-the-top moment and that Mac knew that there would still be problems and scenes in the future.

I should note that unlike previous NR trilogies, there is no overarching storyline here. I do really like these in the author's series, so I missed having one here a bit, but at the same time, it does mean that I don't need to beat myself up for being weak and not being able to wait until all the quartet is out before I read the books.

MY GRADE: I'm tempted to give it an A-. Objectively it's probably more like a B+, but what the hell, I enjoyed reading it so much that I'll be generous.

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Nightlife, by Rob Thurman

TITLE: Nightlife
AUTHOR: Rob Thurman

COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 352
PUBLISHER: Roc

SETTING: Alternate reality New York
TYPE: Urban Fantasy
SERIES: First in one.

REASON FOR READING: I'm still trying different kinds of Urban Fantasy, seeing if I can find something that suits me. So far I've only really enjoyed Wen Spencer's Ukiah Oregon series, but the Cal and Niko Leandros series came highly recommended, so I had high hopes for it.

Welcome to the Big Apple. There’s a troll under the Brooklyn Bridge, a boggle in Central Park, and a beautiful vampire in a penthouse on the Upper East Side-and that’s only the beginning. Of course, most humans are oblivious to the preternatural nightlife around them, but Cal Leandros is only half-human.

His father’s dark lineage is the stuff of nightmares-and he and his entire otherworldly race are after Cal. Why? Cal hasn’t exactly wanted to stick around long enough to find out.

He and his half-brother Niko have managed to stay a step ahead for three years, but now Cal’s dad has found them again. And Cal is about to learn why they want him, why they’ve always wanted him…for he is the key to unleashing their hell on earth. The fate of the human world will be decided in the fight of Cal’s life…

Was Nightlife as good as I'd hoped? Not quite. It was all right, and I think I'm intrigued enough to keep reading, but I had some niggles.

The series is set in an alternate version of our world, one where monsters lurk in every corner. Cal Leandros is one of them, or rather, half one. His father was what he and his half-brother Niko call a grendel, a kind of violent, psychotic monster straight out of classic fairy tales (but before they were sanitised!).

When Cal was a teenager, his father kidnapped him, taking him through some sort of portal into the grendels' terrifying homeland. Cal managed to escape after some 2 years, but he's completely blocked what has happened. He only knows it's not an experience he cares to repeat. Cal and Niko have been on the run from the grendels ever since, and they spend their lives looking over their shoulders.

Their running comes to an end in Nightlife, as the grendels finally catch up and we discover just why they're so interested in Cal.

There were quite a few really good things here. My favourite was the relationship between Niko and Cal. Brotherly love at its best. They are both quite obviously willing to die to protect one another, but that doesn't prevent them from teasing each other mercilessly. It was sweet, and Niko was especially so. He had this zen ninja thing going on which was really hot :-)

I also enjoyed Cal's struggle with what he sees as the monster inside him. This was really interesting, and it doesn't feel as it's something that's been completely resolved.

Unfortunately, not everything was great. The action is narrated in the first person by Cal, and at times, his voice irritated the hell out of me. It was quite strange, but he sounded almost like a feisty, TSTL heroine at times. And things didn't improve when the narrator changed (don't want to say any more to avoid spoilers). That was such an unenjoyable experience. As much as Cal kept annoying me, at least he didn't make my skin crawl.

MY GRADE: A B. This was a good enough intro to this world, and I'm looking forward to learning more about Niko, as well as about a couple of other characters who were introduced, such as Robin and Rafferty.

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Jackson Brodie series, by Kate Atkinson

Reason for reading: On a recent trip, I travelled with a colleague who was reading the third book in this series. He was so absorbed in the book that I thought it must be good! He said I should start at the beginning of the series, though, so I did.

This series starrs former soldier-cum-policeman Jackson Brodie. When we meet him at the start of Case Histories, he's a private detective and a bit bored with his routine cases (mostly divorce, as you would expect). But then bam! Complicated old, cold cases start coming out of the woodwork. It's cases he has no desire to take, unfortunately. Theo wants him to solve his daughter's mysterious murder. Amelia and Julia want him to discover what happened to their little sister, who disappeared decades ago. Sheila?? wants him to find her missing teenager niece, whose mother is a convicted axe-murderer.

They're all Interesting cases, with strong a-ha moments at the end. There are even good reasons for why Jackson would be able to solve them now, when that hadn't happened all those years before (well, the two he solved, anyway. The third case, the one about the axe-murdering young woman wasn't solved, as much as revealed).

The best thing about this book was the small, understated connections. I expected that all the cases would end up being somehow connected, but while there was a small element of that in the resolution, the links weren't in unbelievable coincidences. It was a lot more subtle than that. It was more a case of small echoes, sentiments expressed by more than one person, in different contexts, or insights gained in one case that gave an idea for making progress in the other. And yes, some links were "accidentally" formed between the people involved in the different cases, but that felt right as well.

There are plenty of interesting characters around. Jackson, for one, has a complex, deep backstory and a very defined personality. He's no all-powerful detective, but has vulnerabilities. But the secondary characters were also interesting, and Atkinson made me care about them, enough to be truly touched by the ending. Theo, the father of the young woman who'd been knifed was probably the one who touched me the most. I wanted to hug him, and although of course, he didn't get a *happy* ending (impossible without raising the dead!), he did end up in a much more hopeful position. I was also happy for Amelia.

Finally, the tone and Atkinson's voice was very interesting. It's not funny -exactly-, but there is quite a bit of humour and compassion there.

MY GRADE: a B+. I like it even better on reflection.


I had a completely different reaction to the second book in the series, One Good Turn. I mostly enjoyed it as I was reading it, but on starting to think about it, I find that too many things irritated me.

Jackson is in Edinburgh for the festival, when he witnesses an incident of road rage. Also present on the scene are a variety of characters, including a painfully shy writer, an assassin and a wronged wife, whose lives end up tangling in all kinds of strange ways.

This second case is a lot more confusing than the one in Case Histories. The coincidences and links here are a lot less subtle, and really strained credulity. Time and time again, I couldn't really suspend disbelief and was thrown out of the story.

But I think what bothered me the most was that quite a few times, characters behaved in ways that were illogical and even worse, completely out of character. Jackson, especially, had a couple of episodes like that. His refusal to talk to the police after witnessing the road rage incident (even though he knew he was a trained observer, and really had no reason to assume someone else would have registered the relevant license plate) was one of them, and another was his decision to plead guilty after a the guy responsible for that incident assaulted him later, even though it would have been extremely easy to tell the police about what had happened. I don't know, maybe the fact that this behaviour was so out of character for Jackson *was* supposed to tell us something about his state of mind, but I was unconvinced.

I was also disappointed by the conclusion to Martin's story. I suppose I felt about him a bit like I felt about Theo, in the previous book, wanting to hug him, wanting to get his happy ending, albeit not in the exact form he wanted it (the happy, stalwart farm wife would have been all wrong for him. I really thought he and Louise, the inspector who ends up tying most of the ends of the case together, would suit perfectly). But... no definition whatsoever! Oof.

Not to mention, no real definition or closure in the case, either, with it finishing with a supposed twist that didn't make all that much sense to me, or add much to the story.

It wasn't all bad though, no matter what my litany of complaints would suggest. Again, we have vivid characters and a page turner, but the first one was a lot better.

MY GRADE: A C+.


The third book, When Will There Be Good News falls somewhere in the middle. We again get coincidences and connections, as well as an incredibly endearing character in the middle of them.

The huggable character in this case is Reggie Chase, a teenager trying to hold things together on her own, after her mother's death. Reggie is motivated and determined to do well. She's studying hard for her A-levels and working as mother's helper for a doctor to keep the money coming in. She loves her job and she loves Dr. Jo Hunter, whose baby she's minding. When Dr. Hunter disappears and no one seems to think anything's wrong, Reggie will do all she can to make sure the police do their job.

This main storyline was actually quite interesting, and Reggie was a fantastic character. The problem is, the rest wasn't as good. The bit about Dr. Hunter's past and the person from her past who shows up at one point was intriguing, but the resolution of it left me thinking "so what was the point of that?". And Jackson is beginning to bore me a bit. This thing of his with Louise is just completely uninteresting.

MY GRADE: I think a B-, as on the whole, the book was a page-turner.

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Unreviewed April reads

April wasn't a month of spectacular reads, but most were pretty solid.

TITLE: Then Comes Seduction
AUTHOR: Mary Balogh

Second in the Huxtable series. This one's about the third sister, Katherine, who is the subject of a really awful bet made by hero Jasper. He ends up repenting at the last minute, but a few years later, they are not able to avoid the consequences. Strangely, even though it had the potential to be quite angsty, it wasn't. In fact, the first book in the series, in which hero and heroine didn't have such a conflictive history at all, was much more so. I did like it quite a bit, though.

MY GRADE: A B.


TITLE: To Seduce a Sinner
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Hoyt

TSAS is also second in a series, this one the Four Soldiers series. Wallflower Melisande has been quietly in love with Jasper (hmm, just realised it's yet another Jasper!) for ages. When he gets jilted by his second fiancee in a year, she steps forward and offers to marry him. Jasper has only been vaguely aware of Melisande's existence, but once she's right before his eyes, he can't believe he never noticed her.

It was quite a nice, sweet, gradually developed romance. My only complaint is that Melisande has a very interesting history that isn't really as well developed as it should be. I got the impression it was only used as an excuse for giving her a lot of sexual knowledge and making the book extra hot.

TSAS also continues the storyline that started in the first book, about the investigation into was the traitor responsible for the massacre at Spinner's Fall. I found this as interesting as the romance, and can't wait for the next book to see what develops. The next one seems to be a nice gothic, too!

MY GRADE: Also a B.


TITLE: Moon Called
AUTHOR: Patricia Briggs

First in the Mercy Thompson series, which is urban fiction. Everyone who loves UF loves this series, which I suppose means that since I thought this was nice enough but nothing special, UF will never be my favourite genre. I did really like Mercy as a heroine. She's tough and brave, but sensible with it. No feistiness and certainly no episodes of TSTL behaviour. If there's something she can't cope with, Mercy is the first one to run for help. The worldbuilding is interesting, but I have to say werewolves make me a bit uncomfortable (er... reading about werewolves, I mean. I imagine real werewoves would make me a bit more than uncomfortable!). I think it's the whole thing about dominants and submissives, which plays a large part of the character development here. This is not romance, but there is a bit of a triangle being set up, with two characters clearly interested in Mercy. I'd like to see how it develops, but I don't know if I'll have the energy!

MY GRADE: A B.


TITLE: Tempted All Night
AUTHOR: Liz Carlyle

I really enjoyed myself while reading this one, but only a few days after, there's only some vague feelings about it in my mind. Definitely didn't make a huge impression, clearly. It's got one of those heroines determined to get involved in something dangerous... this time it's Phaedra wanting to rescue her lady's maid's sister, who's abandoned her child and is apparently working in a brothel. Although given Phaedra's history, this determination ends up being understandable, even if to the reader it's obviously a pointless activity.The hero, Tristan, is investigating some spying related to the same brothel, and so they work together. I liked both characters, and enjoyed their interactions, very much including the love scenes. Pretty steamy, this one, with some non-standard hints which were really well done.

MY GRADE: Yet another B. See what I mean about a solid, unspectacular month?


TITLE: The Economic Naturalist
AUTHOR: Robert H. Frank

Only the latest of many "popular economics" books I've been reading. This one's got an interesting format: the author, an economics professor, sets his students an assignment every year that he calls "economic naturalism". The idea is that they have to look around them and ask a question about how a certain area of the real world works the way it does. Then they have to answer by applying economic principles. You get questions that range from "Why does a light come on when you open the refrigerator but not when you open the freeezer?" to "Why do brides buy a really expensive dress that they'll wear only once in their lives, whereas grooms rent a suit that wouldn't be that expensive to buy and they could actually wear plenty of times in the future?". There are some interesting ones, but really, to someone with a background in economics, most are a bit too obvious.

MY GRADE: A B-.


TITLE: Predictably Irrational
AUTHOR: Dan Ariely

More pop economics, this one concentrating on the most fashionable field of behavioural economics. Behavioural economics is all about how we human beings often don't behave in the way economic rationalism would predict, and how we deviate from those predictions in, er, predictable ways. We have certain biases, in other words. It's an interesting field, but I think I've been reading way too much about it for work, because most here was stuff I'd already read about in other books. Not Ariely's fault, of course, but it did result in me not enjoying the book as much as I might have. A more objective criticism I have is the writing style. It felt somewhat uncomfortable, in an "I'm an academic trying as hard as I can to write in plain English" kind of way.

MY GRADE: B-.


TITLE: The Woman Who Walked into Doors
AUTHOR: Roddy Doyle

I read this one for my book club, and that's the only reason I would ever have picked it up, and the reason I finished it at all. I knew I probably wasn't going to enjoy it. I tried my best to keep an open mind about it, but I think I would have felt the same way even with no preconceptions. It's about the life of an Irishwoman called Paula Spencer, who ends up married to an abusive man. The book starts as she receives the news that her husband, who she had succeeded in kicking out a year ago, is now dead, and Paula looks back at her life. I suppose objectively, it's a successful book, in that if you consider it sets out to accurately describe the unrelenting ugliness of this woman's life and how complex the relationship between an abused wife and her abuser can be, it does that pretty well. Unfortunately, I hated every minute of it. I couldn't stand Paula, which might be a failure in MY character. As much as I understood why she'd be as she was, I despised her for even after almost 20 years of abuse, still making excuses for this horrid bastard and still loving him. The D I'm giving it is purely about how much I enjoyed my experience of reading it. If I had to rate it thinking about how well it does what it wants to do, I think possibly more a B. I've got one bit of objective criticism, and that's that after Paula's descriptions of exactly what Charlo did to her for 17 years, I didn't believe for a minute that she would have been able to get rid of him the way she did. Oh, no, he wouldn't have stayed gone. Eh, well, at least it was quite short.

MY GRADE: A D.


TITLE: If You Dare
AUTHOR: Kresley Cole

First in the MacCarrick Brothers trilogy. Oh, I had high hopes for If You Dare. I mean, an Andorran setting? But unfortunately, after a little while I had to recheck the copyright, to make sure it was 2005 and not 1985. It had a horrid old-school vibe, with a feisty, foot-stomping heroine and a complete asshole of a hero. I probably would have been able to tolerate Annalia, but the "hero" kept treating her like shit, making stupid assumptions and accusations, like the worst examples of bodice-ripping idiots way back when. My limited reading time is too valuable for this.

MY GRADE: DNF.

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Scream For Me and Kill For Me, by Karen Rose

TITLE: Scream For Me and Kill For Me
AUTHOR: Karen Rose

COPYRIGHT: 2008 and 2009 respectively
PAGES: 472 and 438
PUBLISHER: It's Headline in the UK

SETTING: Dutton, Georgia
TYPE: Romantic Suspense
SERIES: Yes, second and third in the Vartanian series, after Die For Me. If you haven't read that one, don't read on, as you'll find plenty of spoilers.

REASON FOR READING: Die For Me is probably my favourite Rose book so far.

Special Agent Daniel Vartanian has sworn to find the perpetrator of multiple killings that mimic a 13-year-old murder linked to a collection of photographs that belonged to his brother, Simon, the ruthless serial killer who met his demise in DIE FOR ME. Daniel is certain that someone even more depraved than his brother committed these crimes, and he's determined to bring the current murderer to justice and solve the mysterious crime from years ago.

With only a handful of images as a lead, Daniel's search will lead him back through the dark past of his own family, and into the realm of a mind more sinister than he could ever imagine. But his quest will also draw him to Alex Fallon, a beautiful nurse whose troubled past reflects his own. As Daniel becomes attached to Alex, he discovers that she is also the object of the obsessed murderer. Soon, he will not only be racing to discover the identity of this macabre criminal, but also to save the life of the woman he has begun to love.


Five teenage girls have been murdered. One survived, and only she can reveal the secrets of a disturbing ring of people who kidnap and sell teenage girls on the black market. But those responsible for the crimes will do whatever it takes to maintain her silence.

Susannah Vartanian and Luke Papadopoulos have both sworn to stop the murderers for their own reasons. Susannah, the sister of the hero in SCREAM FOR ME, suffers from a mysterious past that is connected to the sinister black market. Luke is an investigative agent and a computer expert who refuses to let another child predator get away.

Susannah and Luke are instantly attracted to each other, but their troubled pasts prevent them from immediately acting upon their feelings. The case will lead them to the shady realm of Internet chat rooms, where anyone can mask their identity. As Susannah and Luke draw closer to the criminals, they discover a chain of deception so intricate they don't know who to trust. Susannah and Luke find comfort in one another's arms, but the killers are ruthless and determined, and will take extreme measures to insure their anonymity and keep their business intact.

After Die For Me, I'm afraid these two were a bit of a disappointment. What I love so much about Karen Rose's books is that both the romance and suspense are very strong, and both are enjoyable. In Scream and Kill For Me, although both were strong, I didn't much enjoy the suspense bit.

Both books follow continuing stories, involving dastardly deeds related to one Simon Vartanian. He was introduced in the first book, which basically was an investigation into a string of crimes committed in... I want to say Massachussets?... by this guy. Those crimes were solved, but it was suggested, that they weren't the first committed by the sick, sick bastard. The next two books move to Dutton, Georgia, the Vartanians' home town, and star Simon's brother and sister, Daniel and Susannah, both of whom have been very much affected by Simon's crimes and their parents' tolerance of them.

My problem was I absolutely hated every single second spent in Dutton. Creepy Simon and his asshole friends had pretty much created a reign of terror there. It got to be just way overwhelming. It wasn't just the ridiculously high body count (there were quite a few deaths in Die For Me, as well), it was the fact that it seemed everyone with power in Dutton was corrupt and in the pocket of these little bastards. Everyone's evil, everyone's for sale, or at least, will cave under a bit of pressure and end up on the take. So different from Die For Me. That one was all about seeing a smart, professional police force painstakingly solve a complicated crime. The last two were about how solving relatively straightforward ones is pretty much impossible in a corrupt hellhole.

In the middle of all the shit and ugliness, however, the romances were still good. Daniel, Susannah and their respective partners are decent, brave people determined to right the wrongs of the past, and that I really liked.

MY GRADE: The romances were strong enough to make me give these books B-.

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Three recent books

TITLE: Silent in the Grave
AUTHOR: Deanna Raybourn

Silent in the Grave starts with a really intriguing first line: "To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.". Cool, I thought. I like this narrator's black humour.

Edward's death happens in the middle of a dinner party, and since he's been frail since childhood, it's put down to natural causes. But not long after the funeral, his widow, Lady Julia, receives a visit from Nicholas Brisbane. He's a private enquiry agent, he says, and Edward had engaged him to investigate some threatening anonymous notes. Nicholas can't help but suspect that the death wasn't quite as natural as it has been assumed. At first, Julia refuses to even conceive the possibility and doesn't believe him, but then she finds one of the notes herself, and she engages Nicholas herself. But of course, she insists on cooperating in the investigation, whether he wants her to or not.

I've heard many good things about this series, and I really wanted to like the book. I did, but not as much as I would have expected to. It was good enough, and had a lot of elements which were good, such as the atmosphere and some interesting, well-drawn secondary characters, but I didn't really connect with the narrator, her love interest, or the story itself. Maybe it was because I felt the novel suffered from overkill. There were way too many subplots and Julia's family, while very likeable, had a few too many unbelievable quirks. And I'm afraid Nicholas was nowhere near as fascinating and mysterious as Raybourn was obviously setting him up to be. As for the mystery? Well, the murder weapon was surprising and very apt, but the murderer was way too easy to spot, even if I didn't guess the motive.

MY GRADE: I think I'll go with a B-. I'm not feeling particularly interested in reading the next book, but a couple of people have told me the first one was the weakest. Any advice?


TITLE: The Various Flavours of Coffee
AUTHOR: Anthony Capella

Saga-like books covering years and years are not usually my thing, but I'm glad I made an exception for TVFOC. We meet Robert Wallis when he's a lazy, shallow young wannabe poet. His life consists on whoring, sponging off his parents, hanging around in coffeehouses trying to look interesting and dashing off bad epigrams. It's in one such coffeehouse that he meets coffee trader Samuel Pinker, who notices Robert's superior palate for that drink. Pinker wants to develop a guide to all the different kinds of coffee bean available, and he makes a job offer the perpetually cash-strapped Robert cannot refuse. The work on the guide goes well, but Robert falls for Pinker's daughter Emily, and she for him. This results in his being sent to Africa to make his fortune by establishing a plantation of the best coffee in the world.

Quite a lot happens in this book. This is only the start of it, and the story covers quite a bit more, but I think readers will best discover it on their own. What I will mention, though, since most people reading this will be romance readers, is that you shouldn't go into this book expecting a romance. It's nothing like Capella's wonderfully romantic The Food of Love in that sense. Robert starts out as a complete and absolute bastard with women. Actually, not only with women; I despised him for most of the first half of the book. He's a spoiled git with a huge sense of entitlement. Selfish, dishonest, lazy... that's just an understatement. As for his romance with Emily, suffice it to say that he continues to whore constantly even while telling himself that he loves her.

It probably sounds quite awful. I seriously considered giving up on the book after some 100 pages, but the beauty of Capella's writing kept me going, and I'm glad I kept on. Things improve quite a bit once Robert gets to Africa. For starters, he gets his comeuppance with women, and I cheered the person responsible for it. And by the time he comes back to England, Robert has grown and become a much, much better person, and I actually cared about him.

It is a rich, absorbing story. It takes place in the early part of the 20th century, and the setting really comes to live, as well.

MY GRADE: A B.


TITLE: Gabriel's Angel
AUTHOR: Nora Roberts

Reclusive artist Gabriel Bradley is driving back home in a heavy snowstorm when he witnesses an accident. The driver is 8-month pregnant Laura Malone, who's on the run from her late husband's family (they're cold blue-bloods who want to take the baby away from her, of course). Gabriel rescues Laura, and they end up snowbound in his cabin. And that was basically all that had happened up to the point I stopped reading.

Why did I stop? It wasn't that the book was horribly bad, it was just really boring and predictable. It's a 1980s category romance, and it shows. It shows in the clichéd characters and in the dated situations. Laura is hyper-feminine and flawless and Gabriel is broody, and that's pretty much all there was to their characters. They felt quite flat. I just didn't care what was going to happen to them, and I had no motivation to pick up the book when I put it down.

MY GRADE: A DNF.

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