I interrupted my reading of Mercy to pounce on a book my mother brought home yesterday: El Vino de la Muerte (The Wine of Death), by Alvaro Alfonso. The melodramatic title refers to an episode which happened here in Uruguay in 1978, during the dictatorship, when 3 leaders of the National Party received bottles containing poisoned wine. One person (the wife of one of them) died, and the book chronicles the episode and the unsuccessful investigation.

It was an interesting book, especially because it's hard to find books here which deal with things that happened during the dictatorship without showing an obvious bias.

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Mercy, by Julie Garwood

The next one I'm reading is Julie Garwood's Mercy (Pandora's Box on this book). Up to now, I've only read her historicals, and they don't work for me. However, lots of people have mentioned they didn't like her historicals but loved her contemps, so I'm willing to give her a try.

Book description:

"In Mercy, Theo Buchanan, the brother of FBI agent Nick Buchanan from Heartbreaker, Garwood's first foray into suspense fiction, meets surgeon Dr. Michelle "Mike" Renard when he throws up on her designer dress at a New Orleans gala. Dr. Mike saves Theo's life with an emergency appendectomy, enabling him to return to Boston and his job as a federal prosecutor.

But Theo can't stop thinking about Mike and her little hometown on the bayou. After concluding an investigation and trial that brings down a powerful organized crime syndicate, Theo receives several death threats and his boss recommends he keep a low profile. What better place to go incognito than Bowen, Louisiana, where the catfish practically throw themselves at your fishing pole and where a certain pretty young doctor is opening her new practice? But when Theo arrives, he finds life in Bowen isn't quite as idyllic as he thought. Someone has ransacked Mike's new office and seems dead set on harming her. As Theo struggles to protect Mike, he uncovers a ring of upper-crust criminals willing to do anything, even murder, to keep their dirty little secret--all $40 million of it--from being discovered. What connection could they possibly have to Mike? And why does everyone under the age of 18 keep calling Theo "Coach"?"

Posted later...

Finished Mercy, and I enjoyed some parts and hated others. The final grade would be a C+.

The two elements that bother me the most about Julie Garwood's historicals were present here, but were less intense. Her hyper-simplistic style continued to bother me, but maybe because of the contemporary setting, it sounded less out of place and I could tolerate it. The idiotic heroine was a bit more problematic, basically because her episodes of idiocy alternated with episodes of bright intelligence. The woman was a surgeon, for heaven's sake! She's usually extremely capable and smart, but in most of her interactions with Theo I wanted to throw the book against the wall. She becomes 15! Luckily, this improves as the book continues, so ok, I could finish it.

Theo, on the other hand, was really nice. My favourite kind of hero. I especially loved his scenes with Noah and with John Paul. Really funny stuff. He does become a bit to much of a warrior in the final action scenes, which wasn't very realistic (for once, I'd like to read about a hero who doesn't have much physical courage!), but in balance, he was great.

I didn't enjoy the suspense subplot. I was very, very bored by all the stuff about the Sowing Club. It sounded too contrived to me. Near the end, I actually skimmed through the final action sequences. And Monk... I don't see the fascination with him. As I said, all very boring. The only bright spot related to this was the final scene, when John realizes what's happening. That was an excellent ending: suggestive and very appropriate.

Finally, though I liked the swamp as a setting, I hated the parasitic, manipulative people of Bowen. They were users, as was Michelle's dad.

All in all, though Mercy was readable, I don't think I'll try Garwood again. I've given her historical's a chance and no luck. I've given her contemps a chance and no luck either. I give up!

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I finished My Sexiest Mistake in one sitting. It was GREAT! An A-.

Like Vicki Lewis Thompson's Acting on Impulse, this one is what I though (or wished) the Blaze line would be like. Real adult people, with modern lives. Cade and Ryan were all that (though Ryan was a little bit too inexperienced for my taste). They had interesting jobs, and I actually identified with Ryan, working in a job she didn't like (for the record, I love the job I have now. I'm talking about when I worked in a bank's Marketing department.), and wanting to switch jobs but wanting to be sure of the next one before she left her current job. And it was fun that she was a romance writer. Loved it when Cade asked her what she wrote and she said "Hmm, Women's Fiction"! And when Helene wants her to hire a publicist and she says "I'm not exactly Nora Roberts"? LOL! I only had one little quibble with Cade's job. Hardy never mentions if this is happening before or after the dot-com bomb, so I kept worrying that eTrain.com would go bust in a few months. Do you know how few dot-com IPOs were successful after this?

I also loved the fact that both Ryan and Cade had friends. Becka, especially, was great, so I was happy to find out her story's coming out next year.

But the best part was the great chemistry between Cade and Ryan. Their falling in love was very believable, and the love scenes were HOT!. However, the only thing that I didn't like about the book also relates to their relationship, and it was the ending. I'm realizing I don't like it when it's the heroine who says "I love you" first and the hero who runs away. I don't like it when the roles are reversed either, but at least I can tolerate it. In this case, the ending also felt a little rushed.

Anyway, it was still a great book, in spite of a few little problems.

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My Sexiest Mistake, by Kristin Hardy

I started reading a Blaze I got last week: My Sexiest Mistake, by Kristin Hardy. The premise sounds a bit contrived, but I think I'll still enjoy it.

Blurb

A simple mistake... A sexy mistake...

In fact, it would be the most incredibly sexy mistake of their lives. One minute, Cade Douglas, delectable Boston businessman, is signaling for a waitress in the bar of a very fashionable hotel. The next, he's nearly racing upstairs with a beautiful stranger, who'd answered his summons instead.

Gorgeous Ryan Donnelly can't believe it's all happened so smoothly. Before arriving, she had imagined how awkward it would be to meet the gigolo who'd been hired for her. Her gigolo. Her secret lover. The one who would ignite the intense passion she wasn't sure she'd ever experienced.

She was the one, the one who would fill his senses, save his soul. Cade was certain of it.

He was the one, summoning her so casually, so confidently. Ryan was certain of it, of him.

If they'd only known.

Posted later...

I finished My Sexiest Mistake in one sitting. It was GREAT! An A-.

Like Vicki Lewis Thompson's Acting on Impulse, this one is what I though (or wished) the Blaze line would be like. Real adult people, with modern lives. Cade and Ryan were all that (though Ryan was a little bit too inexperienced for my taste). They had interesting jobs, and I actually identified with Ryan, working in a job she didn't like (for the record, I love the job I have now. I'm talking about when I worked in a bank's Marketing department.), and wanting to switch jobs but wanting to be sure of the next one before she left her current job. And it was fun that she was a romance writer. Loved it when Cade asked her what she wrote and she said "Hmm, Women's Fiction"! And when Helene wants her to hire a publicist and she says "I'm not exactly Nora Roberts"? LOL! I only had one little quibble with Cade's job. Hardy never mentions if this is happening before or after the dot-com bomb, so I kept worrying that eTrain.com would go bust in a few months. Do you know how few dot-com IPOs were successful after this?

I also loved the fact that both Ryan and Cade had friends. Becka, especially, was great, so I was happy to find out her story's coming out next year.

But the best part was the great chemistry between Cade and Ryan. Their falling in love was very believable, and the love scenes were HOT!. However, the only thing that I didn't like about the book also relates to their relationship, and it was the ending. I'm realizing I don't like it when it's the heroine who says "I love you" first and the hero who runs away. I don't like it when the roles are reversed either, but at least I can tolerate it. In this case, the ending also felt a little rushed.

Anyway, it was still a great book, in spite of a few little problems.

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I finally managed to finish The Stone Forest. Luckily it got moving at the end, when Jenna decides in earnest to really start investigating what happened to Mandi. The solution mostly made sense, and the last quarter of the book was easier to read, so this meant my grade for the book was bumped up from D to C. However, this one still goes on my trade shelf. It was obvious, actually. It's not a good sign when a book takes you 2 weeks to read.

I had lots of problems with this book:

• The dialogue sounded wrong. Strictly the dialogue, the rest of the writting style didn't bother me. Gil (who's supposed to be English) was especially badly done. He sounded like an American trying to sound British and not succeeding very much. A couple of "bloodys", a couple of "blokes" is not enough. Incidentally, I'm no specialist on Brit-speak, but it seems to me you don't call someone "you bloke".
• Mace never really came alive to me. I never understood what made him tick. Jenna I did get, but he remained an enigma to the very end.
• The love story between Jenna and Mace was terrible. It made no sense. When he first kisses her, for instance, I went "huh?, What are they doing". The problem was probably that they had 0 chemistry together.
• Jenna sometimes behaved TSTL.

The only things that I liked were the setting (the caving expedition at the end of the book was great) and Mace and Jenna's occupations, which were fun and original. Otherwise, this book was a waste of time.

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I'm done with The Hippopotamus Pool, and it was very good, though not as good as other books in the series, so it gets a B+.

I don't even need to mention what I enjoyed about this, because it was the same as always, the Emersons, the archeology, the Egyptian setting, yadda, yadda, yadda. All that was great. With the added bonus of having the archeological part of this even more fascinating this time and having David introduced as a character.

Problems? A couple. Ramses wasn't such an important character here as in other books. The suspense part was a bit too convoluted, and Ricetti wasn't a very good villain. Otherwise, enjoyable, re-readable book.

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I'm still reading The Hippopotamus Pool and have resumed reading The Stone Forest. So far, I've been able to get into it better than last week, though I don't know why that idiot Jenna doesn't treat the harassment she's getting as the grave matter that it is.

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I finished The Vicar's Daughter last night, and it was good, though it didn't really live up to all the hype. It would be a B for me.

Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but I didn't love it, and I didn't even think it was Simmons' best book. And I had quite a few problems with it, one of which I've already mentioned, which was having a 17-year-old as a heroine, paired with a hero over 10 years older. Very icky for me. Also, though Max was quite well-drawn, Charlotte's characterization wasn't so good. For a long time, the logic of her thought processes simply eluded me. She kept going back and forth: "I'll try to win Max" - "no, it's no use" - "He might feel something for me, I have some hope" - "He just feels sorry for me". Aghhhhh!!

Oh, and the ending was terrible. First, those last 50 pages, with a tacked on abduction to add conflict (these seems to be a regular problem in Simmons' regency-set books. I had the exact same problem with The Devil Earl and, to some extent, The Last Rogue.) Then, the horrendous epilogue. Poor Charlotte not only has had to wait like 10 years to finally visit Greece, but she finally goes with her 7 brats! Yes, count them, 7!!! I bet she really enjoys that trip. Sorry, too much for me.

Reading what I've written so far, it sounds as if I hated the book. Not so. The protagonists had a lot of chemistry, and I kinda liked them, and there were quite a few funny moments. And the book was quite hot, with lots of internal lusting, which I love. It's just I was expecting more, and got a book that was just nice.

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I've just come to a decision. I refuse to keep reading discussions about Sam and Alyssa (from Suzanne Brockmann's Troubleshooters series). I usually love talking about characters and books I enjoyed, and these two are characters I adored, but I'm sick of hearing about them. I'll refrain from reading any thread about them in AAR message boards, and I'll just read the books in the series.

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I'm liking these 2 so far, but I'm having the same problem with The Vicar's Daughter that I had with Cullman's For All Eternity. Basically, that the heroine is 17. Yes, I know, it's historically accurate, but ick! I've decided to pretend she's 5 years older in my head. Otherwise, I just know I won't be able to enjoy this book.

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The Vicar's Daughter, by Deborah Simmons

I also started a book I was very much looking forward to reading, The Vicar's Daughter, by Deborah Simmons. It's quite hard to find, and I only got it this week.

Blurb:

"Charlotte Trowbridge has been looking forward to her London season since she was a little girl. It will be her opportunity to meet eligible men and bring home a husband who will help take care of her family. But when she meets the new owner of the Great House, she knows she doesn't need to go to London to find the man she wants to marry. The Earl of Wycliffe is everything she could want in a husband. Unfortunately, she is only a country girl from Sussex and the vicar's daughter -- he would never want her.

Maximilian, Earl of Wycliffe, is charmed by the vicar's daughter-- and her entire family with all its boisterous children. He offers to look out for Charlotte during her time in London and he promises the vicar he will find a suitable husband for her. Yet once Charlotte arrives in London, he finds fault with every one of her suitors no matter what their wealth or title! The vicar's daughter has a strange affect on Maximilian, but he is determined to act as her guardian. So why does he keep ending up in compromising positions with the young lady? Realizing she will never be happy marrying another man, Charlotte sets her sights on Max, even though she knows he wouldn't marry a simple country girl. She wants to help her family, but she loves Max and often finds herself in situations that will bring him to her rescue. His self-control stretched to the limits, Max finds Charlotte's escapades irritating and a disruption to his rigid schedule. Her beauty and intelligence are an attractive combination and he finally decides that the only way to stop the advances of her suitors is to marry her himself. But one of her scorned suitors interrupts their wedded bliss and this time Charlotte can't wait for Max to rescue her!"

Posted later...

I finished The Vicar's Daughter last night, and it was good, though it didn't really live up to all the hype. It would be a B for me.

Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but I didn't love it, and I didn't even think it was Simmons' best book. And I had quite a few problems with it, one of which I've already mentioned, which was having a 17-year-old as a heroine, paired with a hero over 10 years older. Very icky for me. Also, though Max was quite well-drawn, Charlotte's characterization wasn't so good. For a long time, the logic of her thought processes simply eluded me. She kept going back and forth: "I'll try to win Max" - "no, it's no use" - "He might feel something for me, I have some hope" - "He just feels sorry for me". Aghhhhh!!

Oh, and the ending was terrible. First, those last 50 pages, with a tacked on abduction to add conflict (these seems to be a regular problem in Simmons' regency-set books. I had the exact same problem with The Devil Earl and, to some extent, The Last Rogue.) Then, the horrendous epilogue. Poor Charlotte not only has had to wait like 10 years to finally visit Greece, but she finally goes with her 7 brats! Yes, count them, 7!!! I bet she really enjoys that trip. Sorry, too much for me.

Reading what I've written so far, it sounds as if I hated the book. Not so. The protagonists had a lot of chemistry, and I kinda liked them, and there were quite a few funny moments. And the book was quite hot, with lots of internal lusting, which I love. It's just I was expecting more, and got a book that was just nice.

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The Hippopotamus Pool, by Elizabeth Peters (Amelia Peabody #8)

I simply couldn't resist and started the next Amelia, The Hippopotamus Pool.

Plot summary:

The prolific Peters' latest features intrepid British feminist and Egyptologist extraordinaire Amelia Peabody Emerson. Amelia, along with handsome husband Radcliffe, precocious son Ramses, and attractive young ward Nefret, returns to her beloved Thebes, this time to excavate a heretofore undiscovered tomb that supposedly contains the remains--and priceless treasures--of Queen Tetisheri. Amelia's old nemesis, the Master Criminal, may be gone, but there are still plenty of obstacles to overcome: heat, bats, rock avalanches, assorted thieves and scoundrels, greedy antiquities dealers, pesky tourists, and ambitious journalists, not to mention a wickedly tricky art dealer with the physique of a hippopotamus and a mousy governess who's not the quiet scholar she first seems. The excavation is progressing satisfactorily if slowly. Then Ramses and Nefret are kidnapped. Terrified for the youngsters' safety, Amelia must use all of her considerable detecting skills--including the dreaded parasol-weapon--to find out who has taken the children and why.

I'm done with The Hippopotamus Pool, and it was very good, though not as good as other books in the series, so it gets a B+.

I don't even need to mention what I enjoyed about this, because it was the same as always, the Emersons, the archeology, the Egyptian setting, yadda, yadda, yadda. All that was great. With the added bonus of having the archeological part of this even more fascinating this time and having David introduced as a character.

Problems? A couple. Ramses wasn't such an important character here as in other books. The suspense part was a bit too convoluted, and Ricetti wasn't a very good villain. Otherwise, enjoyable, re-readable book.

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what fun! Shield's Lady was great, an A-! The setting was well drawn and very interesting. It was similar, but not the same as the the ones of her other Futuristics, which could have been confusing. However, she succeeded in making its rules completely clear and everything made sense to me.

The characters, Sariana and Gryph, were perfect for this. Sariana was very intelligent, and I loved the way she reacted when things didn't go the way she wanted them to. She didn't throw temper tantrums. She did what she could to resist, and if she saw there was no way to do so, she simply analyzed the best way to deal with the new circumstances. And Gryph, though a teeny bit more alpha than I usually like, was perfect for her. The thing is, JAK's heroes are always betas inside, even when they are supposed to be warriors. These 2 were great together; I enjoyed seeing how much Gryph truly needed Sariana, and how he felt helpless against his feelings. And the love scenes... I'd say Burning!

The weakest element of the book was the suspense subplot, which was much too predictable. The moment Targyn was mentioned, I was sure he was the one behind the disappearance of the prisma cutter. Still, a great book. I'll be looking for JAK's other futuristics.

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Shield's Lady, by Jayne Ann Krentz

I did start something else, an old book by Jayne Ann Krentz, written under her Amanda Glass pseudonym. The title is Shield's Lady, and this is no reissue, it's got the old cover, with no mention of JAK on the cover... probably the reason why I could afford a copy. ;-)

Plot summary:

Born and raised in the far-off East on the Planet Windarra, Sariana Dayne's business expertise is desperately needed by the West sector's flamboyant Avylyn clan, but even her cool logic can't solve a serious business theft. Desperate, she devises a scheme to employ a member of the warrior Shield clan in the recovery operation. Unfortunately for Sariana's peace of mind, her practical plan turns shaky when she gazes into the fierce eyes of the Shield mercenary Gryph Chassyn, and realizes that she may have bitten off more than she can chew.

Gryph takes one look at Sariana and decides that she's one of the few women in the world who could become his Shield mate. Unfamiliar with the West sector's Shield society, Sariana can't even guess what mating with Gryph will do to her life--she only knows he stirs a depth of passion in her that she can't deny. Before she grasps the consequences, Sariana is allied with the powerful mercenary and they set off on a dangerous journey to recover the stolen prism cutter. Along the way, they discover unexpected possibilities in their bonding, even as their lives are threatened with deadly peril. And if they can only survive the obstacles, Gryph and Sariana just may change the future of Shield society forever.

So far, this is great. I'm loving it. This is JAK in top form, and I feel a glom coming up.

Posted later...

What fun! Shield's Lady was great, an A-! The setting was well drawn and very interesting. It was similar, but not the same as the the ones of her other Futuristics, which could have been confusing. However, she succeeded in making its rules completely clear and everything made sense to me.

The characters, Sariana and Gryph, were perfect for this. Sariana was very intelligent, and I loved the way she reacted when things didn't go the way she wanted them to. She didn't throw temper tantrums. She did what she could to resist, and if she saw there was no way to do so, she simply analyzed the best way to deal with the new circumstances. And Gryph, though a teeny bit more alpha than I usually like, was perfect for her. The thing is, JAK's heroes are always betas inside, even when they are supposed to be warriors. These 2 were great together; I enjoyed seeing how much Gryph truly needed Sariana, and how he felt helpless against his feelings. And the love scenes... I'd say Burning!

The weakest element of the book was the suspense subplot, which was much too predictable. The moment Targyn was mentioned, I was sure he was the one behind the disappearance of the prisma cutter. Still, a great book. I'll be looking for JAK's other futuristics.

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I haven't been able to get into The Stone Forest and Heaven's Fire at all. Now that the weekend's here, I think I'll just start reading something else. I mean, I have to make the most of my weekend, right? Plus, I got a big bagful of books on Wednesday, and I'm dying to read some of them. I'll continue reading these 2 next Monday.

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The Stone Forest, by Karen Harper

The other book I started is The Stone Forest, by Karen Harper. Sounds interesting.

Plot summary:

"On Jenna Kirk's 16th birthday the day of her first kiss from her longtime crush, Mace MacCamon, her charismatic older sister's boyfriend Jenna and her sister, Mandi, are abducted from the yard of their home in a Midwestern quarry town. Several days later, Jenna alone is found wandering in her grandfather's stone forest of eerie carvings, drugged, with her memory gone.

Fifteen years later, Jenna returns to uncover the truth. But as she regains her memory, someone tries to scare her off, and the culprit may be someone she trusts most: Mace, who was the prime suspect in Mandi's presumed death; Jenna's driven mother, who's utilized the tragedy to become Indiana's first female lieutenant governor; a psychiatrist who has urged Jenna to repress rather than work through her past; or a stalker who's either a Norman Bates-type psycho in women's clothes or Mandi back from the dead"

Posted later...

I'm still reading The Hippopotamus Pool and have resumed reading The Stone Forest. So far, I've been able to get into it better than last week, though I don't know why that idiot Jenna doesn't treat the harassment she's getting as the grave matter that it is.

...and posted later still:

I finally managed to finish The Stone Forest. Luckily it got moving at the end, when Jenna decides in earnest to really start investigating what happened to Mandi. The solution mostly made sense, and the last quarter of the book was easier to read, so this meant my grade for the book was bumped up from D to C. However, this one still goes on my trade shelf. It was obvious, actually. It's not a good sign when a book takes you 2 weeks to read.

I had lots of problems with this book:

• The dialogue sounded wrong. Strictly the dialogue, the rest of the writting style didn't bother me. Gil (who's supposed to be English) was especially badly done. He sounded like an American trying to sound British and not succeeding very much. A couple of "bloodys", a couple of "blokes" is not enough. Incidentally, I'm no specialist on Brit-speak, but it seems to me you don't call someone "you bloke".


• Mace never really came alive to me. I never understood what made him tick. Jenna I did get, but he remained an enigma to the very end.


• The love story between Jenna and Mace was terrible. It made no sense. When he first kisses her, for instance, I went "huh?, What are they doing". The problem was probably that they had 0 chemistry together.


• Jenna sometimes behaved TSTL.

The only things that I liked were the setting (the caving expedition at the end of the book was great) and Mace and Jenna's occupations, which were fun and original. Otherwise, this book was a waste of time.

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I've again started to read 2 books. The first is Patricia Ryan's Heaven's Fire. I'm always a bit cautious about starting a medieval by an author I've never tried before, but I've heard great things about this one. Also, a guy who's active in the AAR message boards once said that the only romance in which he'd felt the hero really thought like a man was one of hers. So I'll give her a shot.

Blurb:

"Young Constance was practically a slave, waiting to be taken at will by the cruel Sir Roger Foliot. But Sir Roger did not count on her ability to escape from him into the protection of priest, Oxford scholar, and sworn celibate, Rainulf Fairfax.

Now Rainulf and Constance have a lesson to learn about love...how unstoppable it is...what it will cost them...and what the priceless ecstacy of sharing a future--forever--can be."

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Manhunting, by Jennifer Crusie

Yesterday, I felt like a fast read, so I decided to go with one of Jennifer Crusie's category books. I've read my favourite, Anyone But You a million times already, so I decided to give Manhunting a go.

Blurb:

"Kate Svenson knew exactly what she wanted in a man - he had to be tall, handsome, distinguished and, most of all, successful. So she went on a serious manhunting excursion at a singles resort, bound and determined to hunt down Mr. Right or die in the attempt!

There was the tall, handsome, distinguished groper whom she ended upo pushing in the pool. There was the tall, handsome, distinguished snob whom she stabbed with a fork. And then there was Jake Templeton.

Okay, Jake was tall, handsome and sexy as all get out. But he didn't have a distinguished or aggressive bone in his body and was content to laze about and enjoy life. He was exactly what she didn't want. Right?

I enjoyed it, and would rate it a B. I really prefer Crusie's categories to her latest single titles. I guess I like the humour better, since it's slightly less cynical. I LOLed at parts, and even liked the physical humour, though I'm not usually a big fan of slapstick.

There's a lot to like here. I always enjoy the "friends falling in love" storyline, and I loved the protagonists. Jake was easy to like, but I soon warmed up to Kate, who seemed to be a little more problematic. Also, the story was completely character driven, which is the way I prefer it.

I had two problems with this book. First, I didn't like the ending. It just didn't jibe with the rest of the book. Second, it had an anti-business undertone which bothered me at times.

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I finished The Bride Thief almost at the same time. I enjoyed it, too, but it had quite a few things that bothered me. I'll give it a B-.

I liked both Sammie and Eric, but especially Eric, a beta hero who is truly heroic. I liked what he did as the Bride Thief, I felt he had excellent reasons to do it and, though he could have done it a different, less dangerous way, he did the right thing. I also liked that he gives lots of thought to the consequences of sleeping with Samantha. And so does she, even finding out how to prevent pregnancy.

My problems were the following:

1 - The "I love him so I'll let him go" - "I love her so I'll let her go" , "oh, he's letting me go, so he doesn't love me", ad nauseam in the last quarter of the book. This got tiresome.

2 - The resolution of the Bride Thief problem was much too predictable. As soon as it was implied that the magistrate had once been in love with Eric's sister, I was sure that he was going to find out that her arranged marriage had been hell, and so, when he discovered that Eric was the Bride Thief, he was going to let him off the hook.

3 - This was minor, really, but I hated Sammie's mother, and intensely disliked her father. I have a problem with characters who just refuse to listen to what people are saying. They frustrate me, and I want to kick something, so when any character in a book does this, it just puts me in a bad mood.

To summarize, I enjoyed this one while recognizing its faults. I'll probably keep reading this author.

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I simply adored The Snake, The Crocodile and The Dog. An A from me. As soon as I finished it, I literally had to stop myself from grabbing the next one in the series and starting to read it immediately.

Incredibly, a large part of the plot is Emerson's amnesia. Shades of the worst type of category romances, no? But it was really good. This allowed Peters to go back in time, in a sense, and to have Amelia and Emerson court again, and back in Amarna (the setting of the first book) too. All this in the context of a very entertaining plot. The only thing that bothered me was the resolution. Having Cyrus turn out to be Sethos in disguise was a bit iffy, IMO. Almost like cheating on Peters' part.

I was a bit disappointed in the beginning to see that Ramses wasn't accompanying them in this particular trip. As I've mentioned, Ramses is usually one of the best elements of these books. However, Ramses was there through his letters, with the added bonus that this way he was (finally!) allowed to express himself without interruptions on his mother's part. :-D

I'll do my best to restrain myself from reading The Hippopotamus Pool as soon as I finish what I'm presently reading. I don't want to read them all back to back.

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