Fortune and Fate, by Sharon Shinn

TITLE: Fortune and Fate
AUTHOR: Sharon Shinn

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 448
PUBLISHER: Ace

SETTING: The Kingdom of Gillengaria
TYPE: Fantasy romance
SERIES: 5th in the Twelve Houses series

REASON FOR READING: Sharon Shinn is one of my favourite authors, and I've loved her Twelve Houses books.

Plagued by guilt for failing to protect her king, Rider Wren has fled the city of Gilengaria and given herself the penance of a life of wandering, helping strangers in need. But when chance brings her to the great estate known as Fortune, Wren will find her fate, and finally confront the ghosts of her past.

Two years after civil war tore Gillengaria apart, the former Rider Wen is still aimlessly wandering the countryside, unable to find peace. In an effort to atone for one single disastrous failure, she looks for opportunities to do good and make amends. She rescues a kidnapped young serramarra, who turns out to be Karryn Fortunalt, daughter of one of the marlords who took the country to war. Karryn’s guardian, Jasper Paladar, persuades Wen to settle at the house known as Fortune and assemble a guard that can protect the serramarra from future attempts on her life. Wen finds herself drawn to the gentle, scholarly Jasper, who is like no one she has ever known before, and she grudgingly grows fond of the flighty Karryn. Nonetheless, she is eager to fulfill her contract and move on—but she cannot leave when she realizes Karryn is still in danger.

NOTE: This review contains some spoilers for the first 4 books.

As far as I know, the Twelve Houses series was supposed to be four books long. By the end of book 4, Reader and Raelynx, not only had the civil war that had been brewing throughout the series been fought and won, all 6 of our central characters: Senneth, Taise, Kirra, Donnal, Justin and Cammon, had found their partners and had their romance.

Fortune and Fate takes place a couple of years after the end of the war, and follows Wen, once of the King's Riders whom we met in previous books. Wen was with King Baryn when he was assassinated, and although she knows very well she did all she could to defend him (she was gravely injured in the attack herself), King's Guards are known for being fanatically loyal to their monarchs, and she can't help but still feel guilty. She's left the Riders and has spent the past few years wandering around Gillengaria, hiding her past as a Rider and going under an assumed name. She's been doing some work here and there and coming to people's aid when she comes across those who need her.

It's while doing this that she runs into young Karryn, the young future serramarra of Fortunalt. Karryn has been kidnapped by a suitor determined to force her into marriage and willing to use any methods to make marriage necessary. On seeing them together, Wen immediately realises something is not quite right, and rescues the girl.

If you've read this series, you'll remember the previous head of Fortunalt was right in the middle of the uprising against King Barryn. He's dead now, though, and Cammon has used his reader's gifts to find a good regent until Karryn, the dead man's daughter, is old enough to take over. The man chosen for her role was her uncle, Jasper Palladar. Jasper is a studious, politically unambitious man who loves his niece and wants the best for her.

When Jasper finds out what happened, and Wen points out how ridiculously unprotected Karryn is, he offers her the role of Captain of the Guard and carte blanche in putting together and training the Guard itself. Wen initially rejects the offer, as she has no interest in settling down at all, but finally changes her mind and takes the job, with the understanding that she'll only commit to short periods at a time, and can leave whenever she wants.

Reluctant as she might be, though, Wen soon starts feeling the satisfaction of putting a guard together from scratch, as well as enjoying her briefings with Jasper a bit too much. And when she receives news that Cammon and his friends, which include her former lover, Justin, are doing a tour of the Southern provinces and might be at Fortunalt before long, she must decide whether to run or stay.

F&F might not have been in the plans originally, but I loved the idea of being able to see what happened next. There were some big changes coming after the civil war, not just in specific houses, but in the role of the minor nobility, the "thirteenth house", which had created such problems with their grievances. Shinn shows us here what those changes have meant, both the good and the potentially problematic, and I found that all very interesting.

Best of all, though, was Wen and her return to the land of the living, so to speak. She's one tough lady, and I loved that Shinn gave her a partner who appreciates and loves that about her. There's a bit of a role reversal here, with the tough warrior being the woman and the bookish intellectual being the hero, and I especially liked that, apart from a moment of shock when he sees just how deadly Wen can be in a fight, Jasper is perfectly happy with who she is and doesn't want to change her.

We also catch up with Senneth and the rest of the crew, and that was fun. Objectively, this was a bit self-indulgent. In the previous books in the series, the presence of the original sextet was always relevant. They were necessary for the story to move forward and they actually evolved as characters themselves. Here it was more akin to your typical romance series trope of having couples from previous installments parading themselves showing how happy they are. Not so objectively, though, I love these characters, and although I was more interesting in what was happening with Wen and Jasper, I enjoyed seeing them again.

A good ending to an excellent series.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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The Subtle Build of Perfection, by LM Turner

TITLE: The Subtle Build of Perfection
AUTHOR: LM Turner

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 50ish in my ebook reader
PUBLISHER: Cobblestone Press

SETTING: Contemporary (I kind of assumed it was set in the US, but the bio at the end says the author is English and lives in Ireland, so it might be set elsewhere)
TYPE: M/M romance
SERIES: Not that I know of.

REASON FOR READING: This review at Dear Author.

Connor Morgan lives a life of mediocrity. Hopelessly single, he spends his time working at the video store with his insane friend Boyd. But Connor gets the distraction he needs in the form of his newest customer: beautiful, green-eyed Dane Masters. Before Connor can wrap his mind around their instant connection, he's dealing with the kind of obsession that can only lead to disaster.

With Boyd's dubious help, Connor manages to get Dane on a date, and soon they're racing towards something that looks like a relationship. But fate has no intention of letting them find happiness so easily...

This was a really cute short story. Connor works in a video store. He and Dane meet when the latter comes to the store to return some DVDs. The attraction on both sides is clear straight away, and after dancing around each other for a little while, they start dating.

And that's really pretty much it. No big conflicts, other than Connor (from whose point of view the story is narrated) feeling that Dane, a social worker, is too intelligent to really want to go out with someone who never even went to university and works in a dead-end job. In a full-length book this might have been a bit boring, but at this short length, it worked perfectly. They really do talk to each other before anything really happens (the telephone conversations about nothing were an excellent illustration of just how much they clicked and felt comfortable with each other), and by the end of the story, I really believed there was something strong there

Best thing about the story: How both were a bit unsure at the beginning that their advances would be welcomed, and so kept (usually quite unsubtly, despite the title of the story) testing the waters and then nervously withdrawing. I found that really sweet.

Also liked: There wasn't a lot of sex. Not that I have anything against sex, but I've found way too many M/M romances that go a bit overboard and it gets boring. It was just perfect here. The one sex scene comes quite late in the story, so it a) allows time for the actual romance to develop, and b) there's very nice sexual tension leading to it, so the scene was great payoff.

Needing improvement: At some points Dane and Connor sounded exactly the same. It would have been good for each to have a more distinct voice.

I'm very glad I bought this one, and I'm going to seek out more books by this author.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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Best Laid Plans, by Sarah Mayberry

TITLE: Best Laid Plans
AUTHOR: Sarah Mayberry

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 288
PUBLISHER: Harlequin Superromance

SETTING: Contemporary Australia
TYPE: Category romance
SERIES: None

REASON FOR READING: Mayberry has become an autobuy author for me. If I ever feel like reading category romance, she's the one I go to first.

Boundaries. The key to how corporate lawyer Alexandra Knight manages her busy life. However, lately all her precisely drawn lines are getting blurred. Blame it on her out-of-control biological clock that is ignoring her single status…and on Ethan Stone.

Because her sexy, no-strings colleague has posed an outrageous solution to her dilemma—he'll be her baby daddy. This from the guy who avoids all commitment? Okay, so they're attracted to each other. Really, really attracted. But crossing the line from coworker to co-parent with Ethan could ruin Alex for all other men. After all, when you've had the best…

Successful lawyer Alex Knight has always had a deep desire to be a mother. She would have had a child years earlier, if possible, but circumstances haven't cooperated. Even though she's now 38, she kind of assumes there's still time, and she'll meet someone. Until, that is, the day when she receives two big shocks.

First she runs into her ex, with whom she spent 7 years. All that time he refused to even consider having a child, and they actually broke up over this. But now she sees him pushing a stroller, and even though he tells her it was an accident, Alex feels betrayed. And the rug gets pulled out from under her even more when she goes for her annual check-up later that day and her doctor sets her straight on just how hard it gets to become pregnant once you hit your late 30s.

Faced with the possibility of never becoming a mother, Alex has a good, hard look at her options. All things considered, she decides her best bet is finding a sperm donor.

Alex is a very private person and has always maintained a very professional facade at work. She plans to keep this all very private, but even before she makes her final decision on how to proceed, her fellow partner and raquetball buddy, Ethan Stone, accidentally discovers what Alex is planning.

Ethan is initially horrified (and can't resist making it very clear to Alex, too), but his discovery gets him thinking. He wants to have a child of his own almost as much as Alex does, but a betrayal in his past has left him determined not to ever get married again. But what if he offered Alex to be the donor? They like and respect each other, surely they can manage to negotiate a way to raise a child?

Best Laid Plans didn't start on a high note with me. I was initially quite cross with Alex because of her anger at her ex. When she started ranting about it, I assumed he had misled her in some way. I don't know, told her she wanted kids and then kept postponing it and postponing it, only telling her that he actually didn't want any after years and years. But nope, the guy had been perfectly honest and said he didn't want children at all right from the start. Alex herself was the one who made the decision to completely disregard this and assume he would change his mind at some point in the future. And I thought, how dare she then get angry at him when he didn't? It's her own bloody fault she wasted her most fertile years, as she puts it. As someone who doesn't want children and is absolutely and completely sure about it, the thought of a guy doing to me what Alex does to her ex (she describes the final months of the relationship as full of tears and fights) gives me the shivers. I have always found the refusal to accept that someone could possibly not want children particularly exasperating. Now that I've hit my 30s people are starting to accept it, but way too many are still convinced I just haven't met the right man, or that my body will demand it at some point, and that makes me want to scream. I know what I want!!

Right. Erm. Sorry for the rant. I clearly took it quite personally. I'd better get back to the book. Anyway, however annoyed I got with Alex at the beginning, I was able to get over it soon enought and even to sympathise with her desperation to have a child and her shock at realising that it might already be too late to fulfill what is really her dream. Neither she nor Ethan go into their arrangement thoughtlessly. It was all very rational and reasonable... until it wasn't. And that's when it got even more interesting. I liked how Mayberry showed that this is an issue so loaded with emotion, that even people who are normally cool and rational aren't able to keep that up all the way through.

Ethan and Alex's relationship rang completely true to me. At the start of the book, they have a sort of distant, quite casual friendly relationship. They both recognise the other as someone they might be very attracted to and enjoy a close friendship with, but both have made the conscious decision to keep it more distant. And then there's one unguarded moment and they can't go back again. I loved how they build on the friendship and respect they already have, and by the end, I truly did believe they loved each other.

As I was reading, I was conscious that the book would succeed or break with the reason for Ethan's determination never, ever to marry again. He has an example of a perfectly happy marriage in his brother, after all, so why is he so convinced that he can never have the same? Would his reasons be believable? Or would they feel like an artificial obstacle to a HEA? I'm not going to reveal what they were, but I will say I understood his fear completely. This bit of the book was also slightly problematic for me, though. I chose to take it at face value, as being simply about these particular people, but I'm aware that one could interpret that the message there is that people like me are awful and abnormal. I guess I'll just have to read a couple more of Mayberry's Superromances (all of which seem pretty child-centric), and hope that she doesn't have this sort of thing every single time.

MY GRADE: A B+, with the caveats described above.

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One Touch of Scandal, by Liz Carlyle

TITLE: One Touch of Scandal
AUTHOR: Liz Carlyle

COPYRIGHT: 384
PAGES: Avon
PUBLISHER: 2010

SETTING: Victorian England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: Starts a new trilogy, but I'm not quite sure what it's called.

REASON FOR READING: Autoread author.

Against the glamorous backdrop of Victorian high society, Liz Carlyle paints a dramatic tale of dangerous desire, the first in her sizzling new trilogy.

All Grace Gauthier ever wanted was the security of a good marriage, family, and home. Instead, despised by her aristocratic father’s family because of her mother’s foreign birth, she’s taken a “safe” position as a governess. Now, unprotected and alone in London, accused of the shocking murder of her employer, she has no one to turn to except the mysterious—and possibly dangerous—Lord Ruthveyn.

A dark-eyed Lucifer, Ruthveyn guards his secrets carefully. His shadowed past is a source of pain and rumors—only whispered. Grace’s plight—which echoes his own—moves him, as does her quiet beauty. Ruthveyn is determined to save Grace by unmasking a killer. But his growing passion places his own heart at risk and threatens to expose his dark gifts to the world.

Grace Gauthier is in trouble. Things seemed to be going so well... she'd been working as a governess for two little girls she adored, and their father had proposed marriage. She didn't really love Ethan Holding, but she respected and liked him and yearned for a family, so she had said yes. They were about to announce their engagement. Then one night, after receiving a strange-sounding note from Ethan, Grace comes downstairs to his study only to find him murdered. Her two beloved charges are swiftly taken away, she must leave the house and go live with her horrid aunt, and worst of all: it soon becomes clear that the police suspect her of the murder.

At the end of her tether, Grace decides to an old friend of her father's. But when she seeks him out at the St. James Society, she finds Lord Ruthveyn instead.

The St. James Society is the home of the mysterious and ancient Fraternitas Aureae Crucis. With powerful bloodlines on both sides of his family, Ruthveyn is one of its premier members and has got powerful gifts. When he touches people he can both see into their souls and find out exactly how they're going to die. Understandably, this makes physical contact something not to be undertaken lightly.

When he meets Grace and realises he can't read her at all, and sees nothing when he touches her, Ruthveyn is fascinated. He's determined to help her out, as tells himself his friend would want him to, and solve the murder to make sure she's not a suspect anymore.

I confess I started out the book with some misgivings. I knew there was a secret society and paranormal elements involved, and that's something I felt would be a weird departure for Carlyle. And though the book did improve quite a lot in the second half, I'm afraid this was a bit of a disappointing read, especially disappointing because Carlyle has written some of my favourite authors.

On the surface, this sounds like there should be quite a lot of angst going on. There's Grace's worry that she might end up accused of murder, however innocent she might be, and there's Ruthveyn's struggles with his paranormal gifts. He's very strongly drawn to Grace, he wants her an likes her, and is very tempted to look at the fact that he can't read her at face value and just assume it's all fine, he'll be able to have a relationship with her because of it. But he knows that it's very possible that once they start becoming more and more intimate, the veil will lift, which would be intolerable.

Good, no? But for the first half of the book, I just didn't feel it. I had to almost force myself to carry on reading, because I wasn't too engaged. Somewhere around the halfway mark, though, the emotional intensity started getting across, and I enjoyed the book more, although it never managed to lift itself above average. I still don't exactly get what the whole secret society is about, and I found the mystery of who killed Ethan Holding remarkably uninteresting, but oh well, at least the romance ended up being ok.

I also wish Carlyle had done a bit more with the paranormal aspects. If you're going to have a paranormal plot, and have Ruthveyn constantly worry and angst about his powers and how they didn't allow him to have a normal life and so on, and so forth, at least show us how exactly they work. As with the secret society thingy, I'm still not 100% sure of how they work. I think he basically uses them once in the entire book, and that was very unsatisfying and vague.

The most interesting element of the book, in the end, was that about Grace and Ruthveyn's mutual friend, Rance (what's with the weird names, by the way? Rance, Royden, very silly), his past troubles with the law and the journalist who is hounding him. It all feels a bit irrelevant for most of the book, because I kept wondering what this whole thing had to do with anything else, but I found myself really riveted by a shocking revelation near the end. Still didn't have anything to do with the rest of the book, mind, but I found it really intriguing and would very much like to see what Carlyle does with it.

MY GRADE: I'm going to be generous and go with a B-, but it could just as easily, if I'd been in a different mood, been a C+.

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A Fountain Filled With Blood, by Julia Spencer-Fleming

TITLE: A Fountain Filled With Blood
AUTHOR: Julia Spencer-Fleming

COPYRIGHT: 2004
PAGES: 400
PUBLISHER: St. Martin's

SETTING: Contemporary Millers Kill, small town in the Adirondacks
TYPE: Mystery
SERIES: Second in the Claire Fergusson / Russ Van Alstyn series.

REASON FOR READING: I loved the first book, In the Bleak Midwinter.

It's summertime in in the Adirondack town of Millers Kill, and temperatures are running high. Local activists are up in arms over a resort being built at the site of an old toxic waste dump. A series of violent homophobic assaults have left several men hospitalized. And Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne and Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson are discovering that it's impossible to ignore the heat. When the resort developer, a gay man, is found brutally murdered, Clare and Russ will have to face up to their own past demons--and their present temptations--to sweat out the truth behind the killing.

A Fountain Filled With Blood starts with an extremely disturbing scene, in which a series of gay bashing incidents culminate in a violent attack on the town's medical examiner, who happens to be gay. Before long, he's not the only victim of the attackers.

But that's not the only trouble in Millers Kill that summer. A land developer is trying to get a project approved, and chemicals, possibly from an old waste site, are discovered near a children's playground, sparking off protests. And Claire manages to find herself involved in every single one of those issues.

I read Spencer-Fleming just as much for the mysteries as I do for the relationship between her main characters. And that says a lot about how well plotted her books are, because the relationship between Episcopalian priest Claire Fergusson and sheriff Russ van Alstyn is bloody fantastic. They met in the previous book and immediately clicked, their friendship becoming very deep very quickly. But there's also a definite hint of something else there, something potentially extremely problematic, especially given the fact that Claire is a priest, committed to living morally, and Russ is married to a woman he (tells himself he) loves.

In AFFWB their friendship and liking continue to develop and become deeper, but they hit some conflicts here. Claire doesn't agree with the tack Russ takes in a certain area, and her struggle between being loyal to her friend and doing what she thinks is right ends up creating much trouble between them. It's all really riveting.

The only element of the book I didn't like was that Claire's involvement in the detective work didn't feel as organic as it had in the first book. In In The Bleak Midwinter, it seemed perfectly natural that she'd be in places which meant she'd become involved in the issues. Here, although her initial involvement is well justified and flows perfectly well from her work as a priest, she also does some very silly things. It was bad enough at one point that I kept wondering who this woman was who thought she was Nancy Drew. Certainly not the Clare I know and love!

But that was not a huge issue, and on the whole, this was an excellent read. In addition to being a great mystery and having wonderful characters, it also had a very vivid sense of place, which is always a plus. Millers Kill in the summer feels completely different than it did in the winter, as we saw it in ITBM, but it feels just as real.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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Beauty and the Black Sheep, by Jessica Bird

TITLE: Beauty and the Black Sheep
AUTHOR: Jessica Bird

COPYRIGHT: 2005
PAGES: 256
PUBLISHER: Silhouette Romance

SETTING: Contemporary US (upstate New York)
TYPE: Series Romance
SERIES: First in the Moorehouse Legacy quartet (I think it's a quartet).

REASON FOR READING: Random pick.

THE FORCE OF THOSE EYES HIT FRANKIE MOOREHOUSE LIKE A GUST OF WIND

But she quickly reminded herself that she had dinner to get ready, the staff of White Caps B&B (such as it was) to motivate. She didn't have the luxury of staring into a stranger's face.

Although, jeez, what a face it was.

And wasn't it just her luck that the owner of that face, Nate Walker--with his rebel attitude and distaste for authority--was the chef her restaurant desperately needed, and he was staying for the summer....

And...it was a bit too tempting to let this breath of fresh air sweep her off her feet. Because all work and no play had been Frankie's motto for much too long!

On a trip to check out a potential site for a restaurant, chef Nate Walker's car dies in the middle of nowhere in the Adirondacks. Planning to ask for help at the nearest house, he ends up offering his when he finds a crisis situation in Frankie Moorhouse's B&B.

Frankie hasn't been having a good year... actually, she hasn't been having a good decade. Orphaned when she was barely out of her teenage years, she took on responsibility for her whole family (including a gran suffering from dementia) and has been struggling to keep the old family home going as a B&B for 10 years.

It hasn't been going well. The formely spectacular house is fast losing its lustre (a ballgown with sweatstains, Nate calls it, which I thought was a very effective image) and there's no money to reverse the process. In fact, it's doubtful that there will be money to pay the mortgage before too long. And the last drop: Frankie's cook has quit without giving notice, she's got a couple of hypercritical guests waiting for dinner and she's just burnt the chicken she was planning to serve them.

When a man comes in asking to use the phone and instead produces some hi-tech chef's knives and proceeds to rescue dinner service, Frankie knows she should be grateful, but she's used to being the one rescuing the situation. Still, the situation is desperate enough that she accepts the help.

Nate is strangely attracted by the prickly Fran, and he figures he might as well stay for a while and make some money, so he offers to work for the Inn for the next few months, just until the end of the summer. Fran has no choice but to accept this potential lifesaver, but she's determined not to get involved.

I find I quite like JR Ward's Jessica Bird persona. The writing is nothing like that in the larger-than-life Black Dagger Brotherhood, but at the same time, it's got the same addictive, absorbing quality that keeps you turning the pages like crazy.

Beauty and the Black Sheep was not my favourite Jessica Bird ever (as the first book in the series, there was a teeny bit too much setting up of the upcoming books), but it was a nice, good romance. Frankie was a character that could have come across as a complete martyr but didn't (much), and the romance between her and Nate was sweet and quite steamy at the same time. Quite enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to the next books in the series.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Colours, girl detectives and changelings

TITLE: Shades of Grey
AUTHOR: Jasper Fforde

Shades of Grey starts a new series, set in a world were people are organised hierarchically by which colour and how much of it they can see. Some colours have more cachet than others, with Greys being practically untouchables. It's a bit of a dictatorship, where The Rules, arbitrary and nonsensical as they are, must not be broken. The hero is a young man who's completely oblivious to this, until he meets a Grey woman who leads him down a dangerous path.

It was all very funny and ingenious, with lots of wordplay and oblique references that make you feel proud of yourself when you get them (although you wonder what you're missing, too). Typical of Fforde, and I loved the intrincacy of the world-building. While this, maybe because it's the first book in the series, spends quite a lot of time setting out the world, we still get really interesting characters, including a protagonist who's a bit of an antihero. And he's not an antihero in the usual way. Rather, he's quite complacent and disinclined to question what's around him until he's pretty much slapped in the face by it. I had a blast reading this, and only disliked that we get an extremely open and quite unsatisfying ending.

MY GRADE: A B.



TITLE: The Sweetness At The Bottom of the Pie
AUTHOR: Alan Bradley

This is a mystery, set in an idealised (think Enid Blyton) 1950s English village. The narrator is the outrageously precocious 11-year-old amateur (but don't call her that) chemist Flavia de Luce, who is determined to find out the truth behind the dead body found in the cucumber patch behind her house.

It sounded very good to me, and I've seen some excellent reviews, but I just couldn't get into it. The big problem was Flavia, who never rang true to me, not at all. An unrealistically and exageratedly precocious character is not a problem per se (the obvious comparison is to Ramses, in Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series, and I LOVE Ramses), but there's precociousness, and then there's precociousness, and Flavia's voice didn't feel real to me. There were some funny moments, especially Flavia's outrage when she's treated by adults as the 11-year-old she actually is, but not enough to keep me engaged. I might well come back to this at some point in the future, but for now...

MY GRADE: A DNF.


TITLE: Whisper of Sin (from Burning Up anthology)
AUTHOR: Nalini Singh

Nalini Singh's Psy/changelings series is one of my favourites, but even though this short story was part of it, I found it pretty blah. The action takes place some time before the first book in the series, and features Ria, whom we've met as Lucas' personal assistant. Ria lives in an area claimed by the DarkRiver leopards, but which a gang is trying to take over. When she's attacked by a gang member, DarkRiver send Emmett to protect her.

Both Ria and Emmett are nice enough, but they didn't really capture my imagination, and I wasn't too interested in the gang vs DarkRiver fight, either. Also, the heroine's family, who have quite a large role in the plot, I found quite shouty and annoying. All in all, not a bad story, but not one I'd particularly recommend to someone wanting to try Nalini Singh's books, either.

MY GRADE: A C+.

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A Kiss to Kill, by Nina Bruhns

TITLE: A Kiss to Kill
AUTHOR: Nina Bruhns

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 368
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Romantic Suspense
SERIES: 3rd in the Passion for Danger trilogy

REASON FOR READING: I liked the first 2 books, and wanted to see the resolution of the storylines which started there.

Revenge…
Eight months ago, Dr. Gina Cappozi and CIA black ops commando Captain Gregg van Halen were lovers until Gregg committed the ultimate betrayal. Left in the hands of terrorists and to do the unspeakable or die, Gina vowed to kill the man she once loved.

Danger…
She knows that Gregg lives in the shadow world of violence and darkness. She knows that he’s watching her every move. What she doesn’t know is that Gregg isn’t the only one following her–or that he still cherishes her.

Sex…
When Gina’s burning need for revenge leads her back to the one place she can easily lure Gregg–his bed–she rediscovers another, more irresistible need. Now, with the threat of enemies at every turn, Gina and Gregg realize that the power of betrayal and revenge is nothing compared to the power of love.

I don't think a trilogy has ever gone so quickly downhill for me as this one did. I thought book 1, Shoot to Thrill, was compulsively readable and really liked it. Book 2, If Looks Could Chill, was good, too, but the different storylines were a bit of a mixed bag. And this, book 3, was just plain annoying. The remaining unresolved storylines were ones that I had really liked in book 1, but by the time I got to A Kiss to Kill, I was equal parts bored and annoyed by them. So much so, that I couldn't even finish the book, even though I'd already read about two thirds of it.

The supposedly main storyline here is about Gina and Gregg Van Halen, the man she's sure betrayed her to the terrorists who kept her captive and tortured her for months in earlier books. Of course, we readers know that Gregg did not such thing and was betrayed himself, but the evidence is pretty compelling. Gregg has been following Gina covertly, as he knows her life is still in danger. And when an attack is made on her life, he swoops in and kidnaps her again, for her own protection.

This actually could have been really, really good. It definitely had the potential for major angsty goodness... Gregg's pain at knowing that the only woman he's ever loved now hates him and will never, ever trust him again is excellently done, and had me very excited to see them actually interact. But when they do, it's a massive anticlimax. Basically, Gina quickly decides that, all evidence to the contrary, she trusts Gregg. It's a "A man who makes me feel this way cannot possibly be bad" kind of thing. Twit. In fact, she behaves like a twit all the way through. The point where I stopped reading was where she was holed up in a hotel, under the express orders of not opening the door to her room whatever happened, and she decides it's a good idea to do a quick run to the ice machine. Whatever could go wrong? Twit.

The other big storyline is about Alex Zane and his friend and FBI agent Rebel. They've been in love with each other forever, but Alex had got himself engaged with Rebel's friend Helena. That engagement is over, but they still can't get together because... who knows? I certainly didn't, and Bruhns attempts at explaining I found actually offensive and ridiculous for a book set in the 21st century. These two are even bigger twits than Gina. They had already thoroughly annoyed me in book 2, and by the time I stopped reading, I intensely disliked them.

There was yet another small storyline there, and I was actually enjoying it (it involved a female detective in her late 40s whom I found a really nice character), but not enough to keep me reading about all the other idiots.

MY GRADE: A DNF.

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The Apprentice, by Tess Gerritsen

TITLE: The Apprentice
AUTHOR: Tess Gerritsen

COPYRIGHT: 2002
PAGES: 400
PUBLISHER: Ballantine

SETTING: Contemporary Boston
TYPE: Mystery
SERIES: 2nd in the Rizzoli / Isles series

REASON FOR READING: I loved The Surgeon, the first in the series.

I know I am not the only one of my kind who walks this earth. Somewhere, there is another. And he waits for me…

The Surgeon has been locked up for a year but his chilling legacy still haunts the city, and especially Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli. For now a new killer is at work and Rizzoli senses something horrifyingly familiar about this murderer’s modus operandi. Grim coincidence? Or more terrifying still, could these two monsters have somehow made contact?

It’s when the FBI starts taking an interest in the investigation that Rizzoli begins to wonder just what makes this case so different, so dangerous that the Feds feel the need to get involved. But then the unthinkable happens: the Surgeon escapes. And suddenly there are two brilliant, twisted killers on the loose – master and apprentice, united in their hunt for the most challenging prey of all: the very woman who is hunting them…

If you're new to Gerritsen's Jane Rizzoli/Maura Isles series, I suggest that you don't start with this one. The Surgeon would be a much better starting point, as The Apprentice is a sort of continuation of that story.

When Jane Rizzoli is called in to have a look at a case outside her normal jurisdiction, she immediately gets why the detective in charge called her in. There are some very disquieting similarities to the murders committed by the Surgeon, which is weird, as the Surgeon has been in jail since Jane got to him at the end of book 1.

Unfortunately, she and the detective who called her in are the only ones who find this to be grounds for concern. Everyone else seems to think Jane is just still obsessed with the Surgeon case and not ready to let it go, seeing it in every unrelated murder. The only other person who seems to see what she's seeing is an FBI agent, Gabriel Dean, although why he's so interested, Jane has no idea.

The set-up of The Apprentice reminded me of Nora Roberts' most recent single title, The Search, but these are completely different books. While The Search is very much a romance, with a suspense subplot, The Apprentice is all police procedural, albeit with a bit of romance going on in the background.

The case and investigation were as well done as those in the first book. This is one scary killer, and the fact that the police are still more than a match for him makes this a very satisfying mystery to read. But the best aspect was again the characters, especially Jane. This is as much about who she is and how she feels as she investigates the case, as it is about the investigation itself. It's clear that the Surgeon case has had a big impact on her, and she hasn't completely recovered from it. But she feels she has to go on, and she doggedly does all she can, whether she's really ready for it or not.

The only aspect that didn't really work for me was the introduction of Gabriel Dean. First, I thought it was a bit weird that Jane and her colleagues didn't insist much more strongly and early on knowing exactly why he was interested in this case. After all, nothing they knew explained this interest, so it was obvious there must be more going on, probably something that might help solve the case. And when we find out exactly what Agent Dean is hiding, this is exactly so. Why didn't he share as soon as he was sure this was what he suspected? Why didn't Jane insist earlier? I'm afraid the only reasons I can think of have more to do with the author wanting to pace the plot in a particular way than with any decent police work.

Second, I wasn't too thrilled with the more personal Agent Dean / Jane relationship, either. That whole thing kind of came out of nowhere. I usually see this stuff coming, but I didn't here, and it just felt a bit weird.

Still, this was a good one, and I look forward to continuing with the series. Maura Isles is finally introduced in this book, and though we don't get much of her, she sounds interesting.

MY GRADE: A B.

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The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas

TITLE: The Slap
AUTHOR: Christos Tsiolkas

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 496
PUBLISHER: Tuskar Rock

SETTING: Contemporary Melbourne, Australia
TYPE: Fiction
SERIES: None

REASON FOR READING: I read it for my September book club. We chose it because we wanted to read something on the Man Booker prize longlist, and this one sounded interesting.

At a suburban barbecue one afternoon, a man slaps an unruly 3-year-old boy. The boy is not his son. It is a single act of violence, but this one slap reverberates through the lives of everyone who witnesses it happen. In his controversial, award-winning novel, Christos Tsiolkas presents an apparently harmless domestic incident as seen from eight very different perspectives. The result is an unflinching interrogation of our lives today; of the modern family and domestic life in the twenty-first century, a deeply thought-provoking novel about boundaries and their limits...

Hector and Aisha are hosting a summer barbecue for their family and friends in their garden in a Melbourne suburb. Everything's going well: the food is good and the multicultural, multigenerational crowd are enjoying themselves. And then a spoilt 3-year-old starts throwing a fit and threatening one of the older children with a bat. The 3-year-old's parents do nothing, but the older child's father does. He slaps the other boy. And everything starts to unravel.

We see the unraveling through the eyes of the different characters, who take turns narrating the action from their points of view, starting with Hector. The Slap, its title notwithstanding, is not really about the slap. The incident provides the excuse and starting point for getting to know these people and understanding the complex and multilayered relationships between them.

Many of these characters are not particularly likeable and quite a few are truly horrible (especially the men), which would normally have made me enjoy the book less. It didn't here. These people are so real and fascinating and unpredictable, that I couldn't wait to find out more about them. They surprised me, and the structure of the book helped. I thought the way it was narrated was genius. The people you end up hearing from are not those you would expect a priori. Even the second person was a complete surprise to me (and I won't describe who gets a section, as part of the fun is discovering that and wondering who's coming next). Once you start getting to know the new narrator, it's sometimes a real shock to see how different they are from the image other people have of them. And yet, it always rings true.

It was also brilliant to get a completely different perspective on Australian life. I realise that since I moved to England I've kind of absorbed a certain conventional wisdom on what life there is like: laid-back, sunny, great quality of life. The picture that emerges here is quite different and quite a lot more complex. The Slap is set amongst immigrants (both first and second generation, from different places), white Australians and aboriginals, and though they would seem superficially completely integrated, there are still tensions. These tensions were clearly simmering all along, but they become even clearer during the fallout after the slap.

I believe there's been some controversy about the often very casually racist language. Most of the characters here use it, especially the Greeks. I guess my first instinct was to think surely this cannot be modern Australia? And then I realised it's not that different from the way it is back home in Uruguay. In any case, it wasn't something I found offensive, as it was more about the author portraying the way people speak than about him actually being racist, if that makes sense?

What I must confess did shock me a bit was the even more casual drug use. None of the characters have a problem with drugs, but every single person we read about will happily go for it, and not just a spliff here and there, either. We're talking about a bit of speed while the children are in the room next door, that sort of thing. Every single one. That was a bit weird.

Still, that was quite minor. The Slap is a powerful page-turner of a story, and I'm not at all surprised it's been the best-seller amongst the entire Booker longlist.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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Shiver, by Jo Leigh

TITLE: Shiver
AUTHOR: Jo Leigh

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 224
PUBLISHER: Harlequin Blaze

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Series romance
SERIES: Part of a continuity series

REASON FOR READING: Hallowe'en was approaching...

Welcome to the Crider Inn, one of the most haunted spots in Colorado, and the venue for this year's ghostly convention. Mingle with fellow fans. Be prepared for a week of unexpected encounters and spine-tingling exploration….

Comic-strip artist Carrie Sawyer doesn't actually believe in ghosts—she only agreed to accompany her best friend on this crazy trip. What she does believe is that hotel owner Sam Crider is mind-bendingly delish! And since this vacation is all about dark, empty hotel rooms and late nights, it's perfect for some naughty, after-hours encounters of the X-rated kind….

The kind that can make a girl shiver with temptation! And fear the unknown…

Carrie Sawyer doesn't believe in ghosts, but her friend Erin does, and it's her turn to choose a vacation spot. And as luck would have it, Erin chooses to spend a few days in the very haunted Crider Inn, on a ghost-hunting convention. Not Carrie's cup of tea at all, but at least it will provide material for the snarky online comic strip she writes.

Sam Crider grew up at the Crider Inn, but it was never really his thing. He's a documentary maker, and is only at the Inn because his father died a few months earlier. Sam is in the middle of arranging a sale when he suddenly stops dead at the sight of the most attractive woman he's seen in ages, checking in for the ghost-hunting convention.

This was a nice read. Carrie and Sam are a likeable couple, and I quite enjoyed their romance. This is a Blaze, so there's some very steamy stuff going on, but there's also a sense of wonder from both our Sam and Carrie about just how much they actually like and want to find out more about each other in between the sex. Leigh made me believe that from the very beginning, it wasn't just lust between them, but that they clicked and enjoyed spending time together.

I also had fun with the setting, which was cute, and liked that there wasn't a "how dare you sell off a property that's been in your family for years" vibe about Sam's plans. Oh, and for a book set in a haunted inn and called "Shiver", the paranormal thread was very subtle. That might be a negative if you were expecting full-on paranormal, but I quite liked how it worked out.

There are some ho-hum things as well, though. There's a half-hearted attempt at conflict, in which both think that the other believes in ghosts, and oh, how disappointed would they be if they discovered I didn't believe! Pretty lame, because it's just not believable for a minute. Carrie takes it even further, angsting about Sam discovering that she writes a snarky comic, oh, no! Even lamer, as it's obvious Sam is the type of guy who'd actually enjoy it. I understand that we did need a bit of conflict there, otherwise there's not that much impetus to keep reading, but with this, the author might not even have bothered.

I think this is supposed to be part of a continuity series, but that element is pretty unobtrusive. There's some extraneous stuff at the beginning, an email from this woman who announces to her friend that she's now started some sort of dream holiday organisation company, but it doesn't seem at all relevant to what actually happens later, and it never comes up again. Pretty pointless, but at the same time, hardly worth getting annoyed about.

MY GRADE: The chemistry and liking between Sam and Carrie raises this from a C+ to a B-.

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If Looks Could Chill, by Nina Bruhns

TITLE: If Looks Could Chill
AUTHOR: Nina Bruhns

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 384
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Contemporary Louisiana, US
TYPE: Romantic Suspense
SERIES: Second in the Passion for Danger trilogy

REASON FOR READING: I really enjoyed the first book, Shoot To Thrill

A kick-ass Yankee cop and her special-ops Cajun guide

Mysterious deaths stalk the bayou. No-nonsense Louisiana State trooper Tara Reeves reluctantly enlists the aid of Marc Lafayette, a too-sexy-for-his-own-good Cajun heartbreaker, to guide her on her search for evidence so she can bring down those responsible. But the source of the deaths is more dangerous than Tara could ever imagine. A foreign terrorist cell, plotting an attack on U.S. soil, is testing a deadly biological weapon in the remote wilderness of the swamp.

But the terrorists aren't the only ones with secrets... What Tara doesn't know is that her sexy guide is part of a covert special ops team sent to destroy the terrorist threat, and Marc is not happy about having to babysit a nosy cop--even one as temptingly beautiful as Tara. But as they search the Louisiana swamp for a deadly virus, they succumb to a fever of a very different sort. Both of them know that love and work don't mix, a harrowing showdown with the enemy will make their steamy passion boil over...and change their lives forever.

WARNING: Spoilers for book 1 ahead!

At the end of Shoot To Thrill, we saw Rainie's doctor friend Gina being kidnapped by unknown villains. We also saw that while Kick succeeded in killing his terrorist target, one of the bad guy's confederates escaped with the dangerous virus they had been guarding.

In If Looks Could Chill, these two elements are combined into a dangerous plot. The terrorists have moved to the US, and they're holding Gina hostage in the depths of the Lousiana bayou, where they are forcing her to use her expertise in developing inhalable vaccines to weaponise the virus.

Fortunately, Marc Lafayette and his team from STORM are aware of what's going on, and are in Louisiana trying to pinpoint where the baddies are hiding. But while the rest of the team is combing the bayou, Marc is assigned to distract Tara Reeves, a state trooper who is poking her nose into the case.

With the first book, I was happy to ignore any unlikely elements and just go with the story. I loved the main romance, I enjoyed the secondary storylines just as much and I had a blast with the exciting, fast-moving plot. We kind of get all that with this book, although the shine has started to dull a little bit, and I wasn't quite as ready to go with the flow. Maybe I shouldn't have read these back to back? I never learn.

The main romance was ok. I liked Marc and Tara well enough, but I found it hard to get too excited about them. I think the problem might have been that I just didn't get any sense of internal conflict from them. They're busy with a high-pressure investigation, but they like and are attracted to each other. And that's it. There's some stuff about Marc not being able to get involved with anyone seriously, yadda, yadda, but I just didn't buy it as an issue at all.

Oh, and by the way, the Cajun swearing really got on my nerves, way overdone. A lot of it felt off to me, but I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt on the accuracy, as I've no idea how different Cajun is from traditional French... maybe they do use "cher" rather than "chère" for a female, who knows? But still, much too much of it going on for my taste.

The secondary storylines are still going strong here, but I found them to be a bit of a mixed bag. There's a new one introduced here, which was the one I kept wanting to go back to. It involves two of the operatives in Marc's team, Darcy and Bobby Lee, who've been casual sex partners for years, basically getting naked every time they are working together. Now Darcy's started to feel something more, and since she just knows there's no way Bobby Lee will want a proper relationship with her, she's decided to stop with the casual sex. Which, really, really throws Bobby Lee. These two were interesting, and I enjoyed watching Bobby Lee squirm.

As for the other one, it was a big disappointment. At the end of book 1 I was most excited about finding out more about Alex Zane, who had been rescued after being kept prisoner by terrorists for years, enduring constant torture. There was a subplot about him dreaming about a mysterious woman and those dreams basically keeping him alive during his captivity. Then he gets rescued, and it turns out that this woman isn't his fiancée, but the friend who introduced him to said fiancée. I was very curious about what would happen with this in ILCC, but I really disliked what I got. The main problem is that there's absolutely no reason why these two couldn't get together straight away, other than the fact that they behave like utter idiots. Plus, the woman (Rebel, whose name I found stupid, stupid, stupid) got on my nerves with her constant, missish "Language, Zane!" bleating. I wanted to slap her every time she opened her mouth.

There's something here that is beginning to bother me, which is that the men in these books tend to be very dominant, especially in bed. Kick was a bit of an exception in the first book, and since he was the main character, I was fine with it. But here it's coming more to the forefront. Gregg in the first book, Wade, Bobby Lee, even Marc, they all have scenes where they basically overpower the woman they're with... with the woman's full consent, yes, but it's still something I'm starting to get a bit creeped out by, since there's so much of it going on.

The plot was just as strong and exciting as in the first book, in spite of the change of scene and the fact that it all took place in the US, rather than in an exotic location. The only thing that bugged me was the concept of having a private company investigating what's basically a huge threat to national security, with no interference whatsoever from all the long alphabet soup of agencies that you would expect would be investigating this. Would this really happen? And even if it did, is this really a good idea? It doesn't seem so to me! But eh, well, I was able to let it roll.

What I wasn't really able to let roll was what I saw as extremely unprofessional behaviour from practically everyone. There's lots of passionate kissing in front of the whole team, and sex which might as well be in front of everyone (screaming monkey sex in a thin-walled tent in the middle of the campsite? Classy!) which I very much doubt any serious organisation would really be ok with, especially when the team is in the middle of desperately trying to stop a terrorist attack which could kill millions!

MY GRADE: A very qualified recommendation. B-.

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The Iron Duke, by Meljean Brook

TITLE: The Iron Duke (excerpt)
AUTHOR: Meljean Brook

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 384
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Alternate version of 19th century
TYPE: Steampunk Romance
SERIES: First single title book in Iron Seas series, which started with short story Here There Be Monsters.

REASON FOR READING: Autoread author, and Here There Be Monsters was amazing.

After the Iron Duke freed England from Horde control, he instantly became a national hero. Now Rhys Trahaearn has built a merchant empire on the power — and fear — of his name. And when a dead body is dropped from an airship onto his doorstep, bringing Detective Inspector Mina Wentworth into his dangerous world, he intends to make her his next possession.

Mina can’t afford his interest, however. Horde blood runs through her veins, and despite the nanotech enhancing her body, she barely scratches out a living in London society. Becoming Rhys’s lover would destroy both her career and her family, yet the investigation prevents her from avoiding him…and the Iron Duke’s ruthless pursuit makes him difficult to resist.

But when Mina uncovers the victim’s identity, she stumbles upon a conspiracy that threatens the lives of everyone in England. To save them, Mina and Rhys must race across zombie-infested wastelands and treacherous oceans — and Mina discovers the danger is not only to her countrymen as she finds herself tempted to give up everything to the Iron Duke.

Wow. Just... wow! I worried before I started The Iron Duke. My expectations were sky-high, a combination of one of my favourite authors, a genre which, even though I've had limited experience with it, appeals to me immensely, and a short story prequel (Here There Be Monsters, from the Burning Up anthology) which comfortably took a place amongst my top 3 short stories ever.

But I'm very glad to be able to report that every single one of those sky-high expectations was fulfilled, and how! Great characters, exciting adventure and romance in equal measure, and a fully realised world which I can't wait to keep exploring. Brilliant!

The Iron Duke is set in a sort of alternate version of the 19th century. A couple of centuries earlier, the Mongols (called the Horde here) used their technological advances to conquer their way through Europe. The very sneaky way in which they conquered the British Isles was through infecting sugar with nanoagents. Once these where inside people's bodies, the Horde could use radio transmitters to control the infected completely. They could control their bodies, but also, on a somewhat brutal level, evenwhat they felt, including sexual arousal. This went on for years and years, with the British having no way to fight back against Horde control.

Some 8 years before the start of the story, though, everything changed. A pirate called Rhys Trahaearn suddenly sailed up the Thames and blew up the Horde's main transmitter tower, shattering their control completely. Since then, the country has been slowly recovering after so many years when society didn't work like a society at all, and Trahearn has become a national hero. He has been made Duke of Anglesey, and is revered by the British people, who call him the Iron Duke.

Mina Wentworth is a Detective Inspector with the Police. When a dead body is found right outside the Iron Duke's residence in the Isle of Dogs, Mina is called in to investigate. Anglesey isn't initially too happy to have the police sniffing around (he'd much rather deal with the matter himself), but Mina is just as determined to get to the bottom of things. And after he meets her, and becomes both impressed with her professionalism and determined to get her in his bed, Anglesey is quite happy to merely stick close while they investigate together.

Making my way through The Iron Duke was a complete feast for me as a reader. There was just so much in there that I absolutely adored. Like with Here There Be Monsters, I didn't want the book to end.

It's hard to decide what my favourite thing about it was, but the worldbuilding was so brilliant that it has to be it. Detailed, imaginative and extremely original, it made me hungry to know more, especially because this being the first full-length book in the series, there was so much new stuff to explore. I was like "Yay, zombie-infested continental Europe! This is so cool! Oh, no, no, I don't want to leave, please let's stay here a bit lon... ohhhhhh, a city made wholly out of airships tied together and floating over Africa! Can we visit? Pretty please?". It's all extremely cinematic, too, done in a way I could picture the locales (and the non-stop action happening in them) perfectly.

And it's not just the places and the history of what had happened in different places during the period of Horde domination (it might be a weird comparison, but the latter sort of reminded me of how I feel when JD Robb offhandedly mentions things like the Urban Wars in her In Death series. I always want to know more, and would like nothing more but to read a History textbook about it). It's also the technology (some, like the prosthetics and nanoagents, a lot more advanced than what we have today, but in a very cool "steam" way), and what all those years under the Horde, with, for instance, most babies being raised in communal creches, did to the way society works. Like I said, there's a lot of stuff here, but it's all coherent, all fully realised, and all perfectly integrated into the story, in such a way that it never feels like exposition.

And even with so much stuff crammed in, the romance and the characters aren't overshadowed in the least. This is not a simple romance storyline, where hero and heroine fall in love while they face an external threat. They face an external threat, all right (and it's quite a doozy), but there are some very real obstacles in their relationships, not least that Mina, while appreciative of Trahearne's actions in freeing the country of the Horde, doesn't forget that before his famous sail up the Thames, he was a pirate and slaver. Knowing this, his dogged and often tactless persistence in trying to get her into his bed is quite scary to her (this is not helped by the fact that Trahearne is initially quite an oblivious, almost assholish character, without much in the way of social skills).

And as if that weren't enough, there's also the difference in status. Mina's family's part of the nobility, technically, but it's all a lot more complicated than that in this world. Life under the Horde wasn't that much easier for the nobility than for anyone else, so although they still have some status, Mina's family are impoverished and depend on Mina's job (at risk due to Trahearne's attention) to make end meets. Not to mention the way society would view a relationship between them. Mina is half-Horde, the product of a rape during one of the Frenzies the Horde induced periodically, mainly to make their labour pool reproduce. Now that the Horde is defeated, the very sight of her inspires hate in too many people, to the point she always needs to be accompanied by her constable to prevent people from attacking her.

Seeing this two amazing characters work their way through all those minefields was immensely enjoyable, even if parts are so powerful that they are actually a bit uncomfortable to read. I know some readers have felt disturbed by the first sex scene, which brings up some issues with consent, since all those years when her very bodily reactions could be controlled against her will have understandably had quite an effect on Mina's psyche. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll just say that I had no problems with it at all, even though I see where people would have issues with it. I just didn't feel I was being fed a "he knows what her body wants better than she does" line, and that made all the difference.

This is already much too long a review, but rereading what I've just written, I'm struck by just how much else was there that I haven't even mentioned. Buggers vs. bounders, Mina's family, including her mom, with her tragic past and amazing prosthetic bionic eyes, Scarsdale, Yasmeen, the explorer Fox and his sad fate (can't wait to see what's up there), and much, much more. I really, really hope this series does well, because I want MORE!

MY GRADE: An A.

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Shoot to Thrill, by Nina Bruhns

TITLE: Shoot to Thrill
AUTHOR: Nina Bruhns

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 352
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Contemporary US and Sudan
TYPE: Adventure / Thriller Romance
SERIES: First in the Passion for Danger trilogy (I think it's a trilogy!)

REASON FOR READING: Impulse buy. I can't really say why it appealed to me, as it's not my usual kind of book. Hmmm, maybe because of that, actually!

A sexy black-ops hero and a beautiful ER nurse must fight for their lives--and for a love they never thought possible...

"Do this last mission and we'll tear up your contract." Kick Jackson, former CIA spy, has heard that one before. But this time, saying no isn't an option. Only he can identify a dangerous terrorist and stop a bloodbath--and Kick's conscience won't let him walk away. Unfortunately, his enemies are bent on making sure he never walks again, sending him on the run--and straight into the arms of the one woman with the power to save him.

Nurse Rainie Martin wants to run like hell when Kick kidnaps her, but how can she abandon a wounded hero? Thrown unwittingly into an international game of deadly stakes, Rainie soon realizes the drop-dead gorgeous rogue operator has sent her well-ordered life spinning out of control. To survive she'll have to face her worst fears ... including a lethal attraction to her dangerous captor.

From the glitter of New York to the desolate sands of the Sahara, the unlikely couple must battle to stay alive, while finding the courage to trust again--and something even scarier: to open their hearts to love...

Typical. With the book I read before this one, I had plenty of time to read, but a hard time caring enough about the characters to actually want to spend time finding out what would happen. And then I started Shoot To Thrill and proceeded to have a week where I had stuff going on every single evening. I only had time to read STT in dribs and drabs, even though I was desperate to sit down for an entire evening and finish it. It was that good.

Nurse practitioner Rainie Martin has been dragged along by her friend to a speed dating event for medical professionals. She's not into it at all (it's been a while since she's found a man interesting, and the people at the event are the same old, same old), until she sets eyes on a sexy, dangerous-looking guy. The guy sets his eyes on her right back, making it clear it's lust at first sight on both their parts. And before she knows it, Rainie is doing something completely out of character and leaving the event with him, against her friend's protests that the whole point was to find someone safe! Turns out Rainie's friend was right, and Rainie soon realises the man is not quite what he appeared to be.

Kick Jackson is on the run from his former CIA colleagues, who are determined to have him back and on a mission he really doesn't want to go on. He crashed the speed dating event with the sole purpose of finding a medic who could help him through some health issues, and at the same time give him a place to lie low for a couple of days. When Rainie sees through his cover, he is desperate enough to kidnap her and force her into helping him.

But things don't go quite as he expected, and Kick is soon forced on that dreaded mission, which turns out to be in Sudan. And so is Rainie, because the CIA guys aren't dumb, and they realise holding her is a good way of pressuring Kick into doing what they want. But things go wrong almost immediately, stranding the two of them in a desperate situation...

I can't really pinpoint exactly what it was that got me so excited to read this book. Yes, the pacing is pretty frantic throughout the entire book, with a fast-moving plot, but that's not something that would necessarily draw me to a book (I tend to prefer more character-driven and thus usually slower books). I suppose it's just the way the book flowed and Bruhns' writing style. She just does fast-paced, sexy adventure really well. In spite of the short time-frame and the fact that there was exciting stuff going on pretty much all the time, there was character development and enough between Kick and Rainie to make me believe in their relationship. I was even interested in the plot about the terrorists!

I thought at first that there wasn't going to be a huge deal of character development, but there was. Possibly even a bit too much, as Rainie changes from a woman who can't even bear to go into a car or look at a gun without getting panic attacks to a gung-ho warrior who refuses to be left behind even for what pretty much is a suicide mission. I didn't 100% buy this, but I quite liked it anyway. I liked that before too long, she's more than a match for Kick. As for Kick, he's got your garden-variety tortured background that made me what he is, blah, blah. Worked all right, but nothing particularly interesting.

The only annoying thing about STT was the nicknames. Seriously, what is it with these people? What problem do they have with their given name? Kyle constantly insisted on being called the very silly-sounding Kick, but I thought Rainie was even worse. I actually like the nickname Rainie, but to me, it sounds quite girly and cutie. Surely when faced with tough CIA agents who are blackmailing you into helping them do something you feel is very wrong, and when you're trying to stand tough and resist their pressure, the last thing you want to do is to sound girly and cute. Why on earth did she make a point of insisting they call her Rainie rather than Lorraine?

Anyway, minor stuff. I liked pretty much all else. Actually, this book reminded me a bit of Suzanne Brockmann's Troubleshooters series, in the way Bruhns starts developing but leaves hanging a couple of other storylines at the same time as Kick and Rainie's. There's the mysterious man being held by the terrorists, with his dreams of his "angel with an H", which I loved and hope to see more of in the next books. And then there's Rainie's friend Gina (the one who dragged her to the speed dating). Now, that one I was very interested in as well, but had mixed feelings about. When Rainie disappears after contacting her with a weird story, Gina is desperate to find her friend. She ends up being contacted by a CIA operative whom she's sure is trying to keep her quiet and stop her from making a fuss, and there's a violent attraction between them. There is a lot of chemistry and potential for yummy conflict there, but some of the sex scenes made me uncomfortable. I think I'll still read their book, which is the third in this trilogy. I wonder if they'll feature in book 2 as well?

The other similarity to Brockmann is in STORM, the private company involved in military operations that is introduced during the book, quite similar to Brockmann's Troubleshooters Inc. I have huge problems with the very idea of companies such as these, but so far, I'm willing to keep going along with it.

MY GRADE: A B.

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The Surgeon, by Tess Gerritsen

TITLE: The Surgeon
AUTHOR: Tess Gerritsen

COPYRIGHT: 2001
PAGES: 368
PUBLISHER: Ballantine

SETTING: Contemporary Boston
TYPE: Mystery / Police procedural
SERIES: Starts the Jane Rizzoli / Maura Isles series (although only Jane appears in this first book)

REASON FOR READING: Tess Gerritsen has been on my radar for a while now, and a post by Wendy about why she thinks Gerritsen's past writing romances helps her create such good mysteries, followed by a really intriguing review of the author's latest at AAR, made me finally pick up one of her books.

In her most masterful novel of medical suspense, New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen creates a villain of unforgettable evil--and the one woman who can catch him before he kills again.

He slips into their homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, unaware of the horrors they soon will endure. The precision of the killer's methods suggests he is a deranged man of medicine, propelling the Boston newspapers and the frightened public to name him "The Surgeon."

The cops' only clue rests with another surgeon, the victim of a nearly identical crime. Two years ago, Dr. Catherine Cordell fought back and killed her attacker before he could complete his assault. Now she hides her fears of intimacy behind a cool and elegant exterior and a well-earned reputation as a top trauma surgeon.

Cordell's careful facade is about to crack as this new killer recreates, with chilling accuracy, the details of Cordell's own ordeal. With every new murder he seems to be taunting her, cutting ever closer, from her hospital to her home. Her only comfort comes from Thomas Moore, the detective assigned to the case. But even Moore cannot protect Cordell from a brilliant hunter who somehow understands--and savors--the secret fears of every woman he kills.

I'm feeling lazy today and the description above is very nearly spot on, so I won't bother duplicating the effort. Do read it and come back.

Done? Then I'll just add the big thing that's missing, which is Jane Rizzoli. Jane is part of the team investigating the Surgeon case, and as the only female detective working in homicide, she's got something to prove. She's just as desperate to solve the case as Thomas Moore, even though she doesn't particularly care for Catherine.

Within minutes of starting The Surgeon, I was kicking myself for taking so long to try Gerritsen. This is exactly what I want out of a police procedural.

Whether you like this as much as I did will probably depend on your tolerance for graphic violence. There is quite a lot of that here, and it's truly horrific, so be warned. I didn't have a problem with it, but all I need to be able to cope is that the violence is not gratuitous and exploitative. It's certainly not that in this book.

It also develops into a case that's truly fascinating. It's not only what's actually happening that's interesting, it's also the connections to the previous case and it all combines to create a case that had me wondering how on earth this could be and how would Gerritsen manage to tie it all together and make it make sense.

She does, and how! The answer develops organically from the investigation. For a procedural to work really well for me, I need to be able to follow and understand the logic of the investigation. I need to buy that it would happen that way. Here, I did. Gerritsen's detectives don't ignore obvious avenues of enquiry just to move the plot in a particular direction. They don't make leaps of logic that just, oh so serendipitously, happen to be on the money. The work their asses off to unearth evidence and then follow it. It makes for a very satisfying (to the reader) investigation.

But best of all was that not only was I interested in the investigation, I was also even more interested in the detectives involved in it, most especially Jane. Oh, I liked the other characters well enough. Thomas and Catherine provide a really nice romance subplot, and other characters were very well drawn. It was Jane, however, who I loved. She's very not an easy character. She's prickly and defensive, with a huge chip on her shoulder. She's definitely got a reason for it, given her family and some of the sexist pigs who surround her at work, but it's still sometimes frustrating to see her deal with them. She's a good person, but sometimes isn't nice at all. She's good at her job, but sometimes makes head-bangingly wrong decisions. All of which, actually, makes her an even more real and interesting character.

I've read an interview with Gerritsen where she said that she originally meant to kill off Jane in the first book. Instead she kept her, and she's become the central character of the series, together with Maura Isles, who doesn't show up until later in the series, apparently. I'm very glad Gerritsen changed her mind, and I will continue to follow her.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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Warrior, by Zoë Archer

TITLE: Warrior
AUTHOR: Zoë Archer

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 370
PUBLISHER: Zebra

SETTING: Outer Mongolia, late 19th century
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: #1 in Blades of the Rose series.

REASON FOR READING: Just see setting above. Setting a book in Outer Mongolia will make me want to read it, whatever the plot.

To most people, the realm of magic is the stuff of nursery rhymes and dusty libraries. But for Capt. Gabriel Huntley, it’s become quite real and quite dangerous…

IN HOT PURSUIT…
The vicious attack Capt. Gabriel Huntley witnesses in a dark alley sparks a chain of events that will take him to the ends of the Earth and beyond—where what is real and what is imagined become terribly confused. And frankly, Huntley couldn’t be more pleased. Intrigue, danger, and a beautiful woman in distress—just what he needs.

IN HOTTER WATER…
Raised thousands of miles from England, Thalia Burgess is no typical Victorian lady. A good thing, because a proper lady would have no hope of recovering the priceless magical artifact Thalia is after. Huntley’s assistance might come in handy, though she has to keep him in the dark. But this distractingly handsome soldier isn’t easy to deceive…

Captain Gabriel Huntley has only just resigned his commission in the British Army and after 15 years of non-stop action all over the world, isn't too excited about the idea of settling down back home into a quiet life. Mere minutes after getting off his ship in Southampton, he comes across a man being beaten up by a group of people. Gabriel doesn't like bullies, so he dives in to the man's defense and succeeds in beating off his attackers.

Unfortunately, the man dies of his injuries, but before he does, he passes on a cryptic message to Gabriel that he says will save thousands of lives. This message needs to go to a man in Outer Mongolia, and oh, yes, the only ship that will get Gabriel there in time leaves in hours. Since the man saved Gabriel's life during the fight, he feels obliged to do it (and of course, his reluctance to abandon all adventure helps).

After arduous weeks of travel, Gabriel finally reaches the home of Franklin Burgess and his daughter Thalia and delivers the message. Noticing Burgess has an injured leg, Gabriel offers his further help, but is rebuffed. Partly out of a sense of duty, partly out of the same adventure-seeking that brought him to Mongolia and wanting to see where this goes, Gabriel is determined to help and decides to stick around. But the person who sets out the next morning, clearly prepared for a long trip, is not Burgess, but Thalia.

Thalia isn't initially any more disposed to accept Gabriel's help than she was at the beginning, but after he helps repel an attack by Thalia's enemies, she decides to accept his help. And as they travel all over Mongolia, Gabriel is introduced to a world he didn't even suspect existed, one of secret societies and powerful magic.

Now, the setting was as good as I might have hoped. The landscape, the people, the culture... all those were well drawn and very unique. Obviously, since beyond having met a couple of Mongolian people, I know very little about the country, I have no way of judging whether it was accurate. It was fun and interesting and felt different, though, and that's enough for me.

Unfortunately, however, apart from the setting, this was one of those books where I liked the idea of it, I liked the bare bones of what was going on, but just didn't like the actual book as much as I wished I would. It was very frustrating.

So what made me wish I'd like the book more? Well, I've mentioned the setting already, but there's also the fact that we have a strong, unusual heroine, whose unusualness is perfectly well justified. We also have a hero who really values that strength and unusualness and considers it one of the main reasons he loves the heroine. But much as I liked that in theory, I couldn't bring myself to care all that much about Gabriel and Thalia and their relationship. I just wasn't engaged. I had to fight very hard to avoid the temptation of skimming over their scenes together.

This is an adventure romance, and there's a lot going on, as they ride all over Mongolia, escape supernatural storms, participate in a Mongolian tournament and finally make their final stand in what sounded like a really cool location. There's powerful magic and secret societies. But again, as exciting as that sounds, I wasn't as excited as I should have been. I wasn't turning the pages desperate to know how things were going to turn up, but trying to force myself to keep reading and not get distracted, so I could get to the end of the book. That sounds awful, but I'm afraid it's the truth.

All of these are things that I expect will strike other people very differently. It could be just me not clicking with Archer's voice, or not being inthe right mood. I have no doubt that many other readers will have a completely different experience and love this. There was one thing I thought as really bad, though, and that was the villains. They were beyond cartoonish and flat. They babbled for no reason and in completely out-of-character ways, leered at the heroine, made racist comments for no other reason than to show us readers how evil they were, etc. I rolled my eyes quite a bit when these people showed up.

MY GRADE: Warrior was at best a C+ for me. However, I think I might actually give the future books in the series a shot and see if they work better for me. Not only do the settings sound as great as Outer Mongolia, there's also the fact that one of the heroes, the inventor Catullus Graves, whom we meet in this book, is a black Briton. I actually thought when he was first referred to in the book that he sounded really cool, and what a shame that he most probably wouldn't have his own book. It's very, very nice to hear that he will.

NOTE: After writing my review, I like to seek out others. I notice that quite a few describe Warrior as steampunk. Good thing I didn't see them before I read it, because I love steampunk, and I would have been disappointed. Yes, Catullus' inventions are advanced for their time, but that was a very minor element, especially compared to the magic, which was a huge part of the plot.

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Into the Crossfire, by Lisa Marie Rice

TITLE: Into the Crossfire
AUTHOR: Lisa Marie Rice

COPYRIGHT: 2010
PAGES: 320
PUBLISHER: Avon Red

SETTING: Comtemporary US
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: Starts the Protectors trilogy

REASON FOR READING: Autobuy author.

Former Navy SEAL Sam Reston keeps to himself. His world is dangerous, uncertain, violent...and there is no room in it for the helpless and weak. Then the most beautiful woman in the world moves in next door to him...

Nicole Pearce's life is complicated enough-with an ailing father and a new business to worry about-and the last thing she needs is to get involved with a secretive, hard-bodied, hardheaded neighbor. Yet Sam leaves her breathless-her body tingling with erotic desire-and it takes every ounce of her fabled control to resist offering herself to him, no strings attached. What she doesn't know is that Sam Reston is on an undercover assignment . . . and she's about to step into the crossfire.

Never has Sam ached for a woman so badly, and he's never fallen in love before. Now that Nicole is in grave danger, he will become her shield, and guard the tempting body he longs to touch and taste. Because a terrorist plot hatched half a world away is heading to their doorstep-and it can only be derailed by one man and one woman.

Nicole Pearce's life is not in a good place. Her father is dying, and in order to allow him to spend his last days with dignity, she's working herself to death to cover the costs of his care. The translation business she started after moving back from abroad to be with her father is going well and growing. However, so are the treatment costs, so it's a struggle to make enough money to keep up.

Sam Reston's security firm has offices in the same building as Nicole's company. Ever since he first saw her, Sam has been fascinated by Nicole. Really fascinated. The guy practically salivates every time he even thinks of Nicole. However, all that time he has been working undercover, so he has been coming and going looking like a scary lowlife -hardly the sort of person someone like Nicole would want to date.

Sam's chance comes just after his undercover case ends, when he finds Nicole struggling to break into her own office after forgetting her key. Not getting in equals losing an important business deal, so Sam, as ruthless as every LMR hero when it comes to getting close to "his woman", manages to to snag a date with Nicole in return for his help.

And just in time, too, because Nicole has just unknowingly become the target of an assassin. Someone has sent her compromising information hidden in some translation documents, and the evil terrorists it would compromise want her neutralised before she can pass it on.

I hadn't been reading for long before I went "Yay, she's back!". LMR's latest books for Avon Red have been ok, but nowhere near as addictively good as the Ellora's Press books that put her squarely on my autobuy list. These latest books lacked intensity (not to mention, I wasn't completely convinced by the heros). Into the Crossfire has intensity in spades, and Sam was just the right blend of tough and soft.

Sam's attraction to Nicole and his physical and emotional reactions to her are as gloriously over-the-top as ever. He only has to smell her to get a boner that could hammer steel (why you'd want to hammer steel, I don't know, but all LMR heroes think this). He can have sex with her ten times and still be hard. He shoots a "small lake" of semen into her. And as soon as he begins to know the real Nicole, he is absolutely and completely certain that this is the woman for him, and that he'll do anything to be part of her life. And no, I'm not complaining about any of this. This is something I actively enjoy about LMR's books, unrealistic or not, and I wouldn't have them any other way.

Interestingly, I found Sam a bit more human than most of the author's heroes, a bit more vulnerable. He actually has doubts about how Nicole feels about him, and about whether he'll manage to make their relationship go the way he'd so much like it to go. There's a scene when Nicole has sneaked out of Sam's house after sex and is not answering her phone, and he keeps ringing her every 5 minutes, leaving "pleading" messages on her answering machine. I quite liked the self-doubt, actually, because that shows he's not all-knowing and all-confident about everything. It made it seem as if there wasn't that much of a power imbalance between Sam and Nicole. I've sometimes found that a bit problematic in LMR's books, but not at all here.

The other thing I've sometimes found problematic in LMR's books is the heroes' mysoginistic internal monologues. Sam doesn't do that at all. He doesn't think about how he can barely tolerate to touch the women he normally fucks, or about how they are hard and bitter and materialistic (or, my personal favourite, how their pubic hair is stiff and bristly, as opposed to the heroine silky pubes). It was very refreshing, as I had began to consider LMR a bit of a guilty pleasure because of this. Instead of seeing Nicole as an exception, the one woman who's actually ok, Sam actually likes women in general. He doesn't quite see them as strong and equal to him, but rather, more as precious and fragile and needing his and his brothers' protection, but hey, I'll take that over mysoginy any time!

I realise I haven't mentioned Nicole much, but I actually quite liked her. On the surface she's a bit boring: the self-sacrificing daughter, perfectly ladylike and in need of rescue. However, there's more to her than meets the eye, and she's a lot stronger than I thought she'd be.

Finally, I should at least mention the suspense subplot. I never really see them referred to at all in reviews of LMR's books, but I always find them really good. They are different from the usual tired ones used over and over again in too many romances, and actually make sense and keep me interested, even (especially) during scenes told from the villains' point of view. This one involves dirty bombs and assassins, and I found it all quite thrilling.

MY GRADE: An A-. That's how much I loved it.

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