The Morning Gift, by Eva Ibbotson

TITLE: The Morning Gift
AUTHOR: Eva Ibbotson

COPYRIGHT: 1993
PAGES: 416
PUBLISHER: Puffin

SETTING: Mostly 1930s England, with some of the early parts taking place in Vienna
TYPE: Fiction
SERIES: No

REASON FOR READING: Ibbotson is one of my favourite authors, but I've been hoarding the few titles I've yet to read. A recent column at AAR inspired to read one of them.

Twenty-year-old Ruth Berger is desperate. The daughter of a Jewish-Austrian professor, she was supposed to have escaped Vienna before the Nazis marched into the city. Yet the plan went completely wrong, and while her family and fiancé are waiting for her in safety, Ruth is stuck in Vienna with no way to escape. Then she encounters her fathers younger college professor, the dashing British paleontologist Quin Sommerville. Together, they strike a bargain: a marriage of convenience, to be annulled as soon as they return to safety.

But dissolving the marriage proves to be more difficult than either of them thought, not the least because of the undeniable attraction Quin and Ruth share. To make matters worse, Ruth is enrolled in Quins university, in his very classes. Can their secret survive, or will circumstances destroy their love?

THE PLOT: All I'll add to the good summary above is that most of the story takes place in England, where Ruth and her family are part of the struggling refugee community, while Quin is very much a member of the upper classes.

MY THOUGHTS: God, I love Ibbotson's writing. She's got this amazing voice, which manages to be poetic without ever crossing the line into overblown. It really does feel magical, gave the story a fairy tale atmosphere. Best of all, this atmosphere somehow didn't trivialise or diminish the horror of what wass going on in Europe or the difficulties the refugees were facing, all the while making reading the book bearable and even pleasurable.

The secondary characters were beautifully drawn and well realised. From the downstairs psychoanalist neighbour to the old lady pushed out by her daughter in law with a pocketbook full of money, who just wants to buy everyone cake as a bribe to get them to listen to her, from Ruth's uncle, with his unlikely and romantic love story to Quin's colleague at the university, with his fertility issues. I especially loved that Ibbotson brings out the deep-down decency of people. Even the "villains" of the piece, like Verena and to a certain extent, Heini, are not inhumanly mean or evil, just regular, believable people who happen to be more self-absorbed and selfish than is good.

This wasn't by any means a perfect book, though. The romance wasn't as wonderful as I would have liked. I liked it, but it wasn't really what I loved most about the book. I liked Quin and Ruth individually and thought they were good together, but I didn't feel the inescapable certainty that these two should be together that marks really good romance.

But the main reason why The Morning Gift misses A territory was the ending. Throughout most of the book, Ibbotson succeeds in making Ruth's naiveté and flights of fancy charming, as they're combined with her otherwise very prosaic and down-to-earth outlook. But nearer the end, her tendencies stop being charming and harmless and just make her behave like an idiot. She seems to think she's a heroine in a bad melodrama and acts like it, and I lost patience with her.

MY GRADE: A B+. It's a testament to how much I loved the rest of it that Ruth's silly behaviour there at the end didn't derail the whole thing.

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One Scream Away, by Kate Brady

TITLE: One Scream Away
AUTHOR: Kate Brady

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 464
PUBLISHER: Forever

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Romantic Suspense
SERIES: It might be the start of a series, but no end are left untied, so it stands alone perfectly

REASON FOR READING: The great review at Dear Author.

Killer Chevy Bankes is a master of disguise, and just paroled, he's coming after the woman who sent him to jail, the beautiful antiques expert Beth Denison. A set of antique dolls brings Beth into his sight, and inspire Chevy's disturbing crimes as he draws closer to Beth and her young daughter. Chevy sends the dolls to Beth one-by-one and she soon realizes that these antiques carry the same marks as his victims, signaling that the final piece in his collection will be for her.

Neil Sheridan gave up his FBI shield five years ago, but his best friend Rick, a cop, pulls him in as a consultant on a case involving a serial killer who is eerily similar to a murderer Neil encountered in the past. The investigation leads Neil to Beth's doorstep, and he is certain she isn't telling him the truth. Neil is the only one who can get through Beth's defenses and, as they grow closer, discover the secrets that Beth is hiding about her fateful night with Chevy.

New author Kate Brady shows a lot of promise in this, her debut. One Scream Away kept me turning the pages like crazy, dying to know what was going to happen next. It's strange, because about a third into it I felt like I already knew so much... the identity of the villain, most if not all of the heroine's secrets. I wondered how Brady was going to keep up the tension, but she somehow did, and until the very end.

Right, backing up a little to describe the plot. A woman is tortured and killed, and her murderer uses her mobile to call and taunt Beth Denison. The police track the call and pay Beth a visit to find out why this call might have been placed. Beth doesn't seem to be the sort of person who'd be working with a murderer at all. She's got a young daughter and a typical white-picket-fence-type house in the suburbs. And yet, when she says all she knows is that she received an obscene phone call, it's clear she's lying.

Former FBI agent Neil Sheridan is helping the police, since the murder is eerily similar to a case he investigated years ago, one in which he thought he'd got the right man. Neil accompanies the police in the visit to Beth's house and is determined to find out why she's lying. It's clear to him that Beth is terrified, but what's keeping her from asking for help?

Even though the tension was kept high, there was a bit of ebb and flow in my liking of the story. At the beginning I wasn't completely on board. Some of the things Neil and his policeman friend did when trying to get the truth from Beth made me queasy. She should have been filing complaints about them for very clearly violating her rights. And it felt a bit contrived that they wouldn't tell her that the reason they were asking those questions was because a woman had been murdered. It's such an obvious thing to do... the way they ask at first no one would have any motivation to tell them at all.

But once they do, the book really took off. It's quite a plot-driven book, and the plot was excellently done and very well paced. The doll thing was creepy as hell and the villain was great: a very scary combination of madness and cunning intelligence. This meant that he could keep one step ahead of the police without making them look like idiots. The investigators were competent and took all the right steps in the investigation, but the villain could still avoid them. There was only one point in the story where I thought it was all a bit too much, the way this one man could just hit them at will, but on the whole, I bought it.

I've mentioned the book is very plot-driven, but there is some strong character development and the romance is given more than enough space as well. I liked a lot of it, but some areas gave me some concern. On the like column is the fact that the characters are well developed and felt individual and distinct.

Beth's characterisation is crucial, because a lot of the book hinges on the secrets she's keeping. So of course, whether the story succeeds or not depends on whether the reader finds it understandable that Beth would keep the secrets she did. I'm a bit conflicted about that, actually. When she first tells the investigators the story, given what she told them, it made no sense that she would feel she'd have to hide what happened. However, it was clear to the reader that this was not the whole story, so I gave the author the benefit of the doubt and trusted when the whole thing came out, I'd understand Beth's behaviour. But in the end, I don't know whether I did. And I'm afraid any more detail would constitute a spoiler, so I'd better stop here!

The romance I had even more mixed feelings about. Both Neil and Beth are clearly people who've been hurt in the past and have a tragic history, and it was lovely seeing them come together and start to heal from past hurts. However, there was somethign about the dynamics of their relationship that I didn't like. Neil constantly kept hiding things from Beth so as not to worry her (and of course, that had disastrous consequences in the end, and was the basis for the entire final showdown). I got the feeling that this would be the tenor of their relationship after the story. Neil just felt Beth was his and he had to protect her and provide for her. I don't know, it might be that this is just the sort of relationship Beth wants and needs, but I'm not sure.

Hmm, I shouldn't be finishing on a negative note, given that I actually did enjoy the book very much (and even, for the first time in months, stayed up late to finish it). I'll just close by saying that it was a really good first effort, and Brady is going on my buying list.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Virgin River, by Robyn Carr

TITLE: Virgin River
AUTHOR: Robyn Carr

COPYRIGHT: 2007
PAGES: 416
PUBLISHER: Mira

SETTING: Contemporary California
TYPE: Straight romance
SERIES: First in the Virgin River series.

REASON FOR READING: It came highly recommended

Wanted: Midwife/nurse practitioner in Virgin River, population six hundred. Make a difference against the backdrop of towering California redwoods and crystal-clear rivers. Rent-free cabin included.

When the recently widowed Melinda Monroe sees this ad she quickly decides that the remote mountain town of Virgin River might be the perfect place to escape her heartache, and to reenergize the nursing career she loves. But her high hopes are dashed within an hour of arriving: the cabin is a dump, the roads are treacherous and the local doctor wants nothing to do with her. Realizing she's made a huge mistake, Mel decides to leave town the following morning.

But a tiny baby, abandoned on a front porch, changes her plans…and a former marine cements them into place.

Melinda Monroe may have come to Virgin River looking for escape, but instead she finds her home.

I usually run far, far away from any book described as "heartwarming", as that tends to be codeword for sappy and saccharine. But since the person who originally recommended Robyn Carr's Virgin River trilogy and called it heartwarming has as much of an aversion to sap as I do, I thought I'd take the chance. Good thing I did, because these books are the real thing and gave me warm fuzzy feelings without making me want to retch.

Amazing, really, because the plot includes a woman leaving the big city for a small town and a baby left on a doorstep. The woman is midwife and nurse Melinda Monroe. Mel doesn't hate L.A., but she's been recently widowed and the type of cases she's been seeing in her job is getting to her, so doing something completely different and getting away for a while definitely appeals to her. An ad requesting someone to do exactly what she does, in a small town in rural California seems like a godsend.

On arriving to the town of Virgin River, however, Mel doesn't find quite what she expects. Getting to the cabin promised to her is a scary experience in bad weather, but not as scary as the dilapidation she finds when she arrives. And given that the local doctor is not at all welcoming, refusing to admit he needs any help, Mel quickly decides she'd better cut her losses and just go back.

And she means to do just that the next morning, right until she finds a baby in her porch. Feeling she has some responsibility to care for it doesn't mean she immediately changes her mind and decides to stay, but it does mean she needs to postpone her leaving. This gives Virgin River a chance to work its magic on Mel, and for Mel herself to work hers on the town -and on Jack Sheridan, the owner of the town bar.

This is not a fast-moving story, but it's one that kept me turning the pages. The things that happen might be low-key, but they're certainly not lacking in human drama. Surprisingly, I especially liked the baby storyline, finding out what the story was behind that.

The romance was lovely, but only one of those many storylines. In a way, this is a bit of an ensemble story, as much about Mel and Jack as about their relationships with all the other townspeople, and the townspeople relationships among themselves. That worked well, because I really liked the town of Virgin River. I think Carr strikes the perfect balance with it. It's a good place, with good people, but it's also a place with real-world, modern problems.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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The Lighthouse, by PD James

TITLE: The Lighthouse
AUTHOR: PD James

COPYRIGHT: 2005
PAGES: 467
PUBLISHER: Penguin

SETTING: Contemporary England
TYPE: Mystery
SERIES: Part of the Adam Dalgliesh series

REASON FOR READING: I always end up reading James' books, sooner or later.

Combe Island off the Cornish coast has a bloodstained history of piracy and cruelty but now, privately owned, it offers respite to over-stressed men and women in positions of high authority who require privacy and guaranteed security. But the peace of Combe is violated when one of the distinguished visitors is bizarrely murdered.

PD James' The Lighthouse is set in remote Combe Island, where VIPs go to relax. A famous novelist who was staying there is found murdered, and Dalgliesh and his team are sent to investigate. It's an important case, but it comes at a very bad time for him, a crucial moment in his developing relationship with his girlfriend.

I really enjoyed the mystery. It was an interesting, intriguing one, in a setting that really added to the story, a kind of country house mystery with a twist. There's a theme here I've read in James' books before, and it's that of a murder victim who was threatening the statu quo, and whom everyone disliked. I liked the detail of the investigation, and that the people involved were really interesting. James' vivid character studies are the reason why I keep reading her, in spite of my dislike for her detective.

Yep, Dalgliesh still rubs me wrong. I couldn't care less about his personal life and his relationship with his Emma, who seems as annoying as he does. I've no idea why I've developed such an antipathy for the sanctimonious, judgemental bore.... eh, there you go. I do like the rest of his team, though. Kate and Benton-Smith are a lot more interesting and easy to like. The latter, especially, is becoming more and more developed, and more and more intriguing as the series progresses.

The one disappointment was that I was really excited to see at one point (for reasons that would be spoilerish), that Kate ended up with the responsibility of solving the case. But no, even in diminished circumstances, Dalgliesh had to be the one to hit on the solution. Clearly, there was no way Kate could have been as perspicacious and smart as the great man. Hmph! What on earth was the point of it all, then? I suppose progress in Dalgliesh and Emma's relationship, but given how I feel about that, it just didn't work for me.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Let Sleeping Rogues Lie, by Sabrina Jeffries

TITLE: Let Sleeping Rogues Lie
AUTHOR: Sabrina Jeffries

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 368
PUBLISHER: Pocket

SETTING: 19th century England
TYPE: Straight romance
SERIES: 4th in the School for Heiresses series.

REASON FOR READING: Jeffries was Author of the Month in my yahoo book group, and though the more recent books of hers that I've read have been disappointing, I really loved some of her earliest.

When Madeline Prescott took a teaching position at Mrs. Harris’s School for Young Ladies, it was to help restore her father’s reputation. Instead, she’s in danger of ruining her own. The devilishly handsome Anthony Dalton, Viscount Norcourt, has agreed to provide "rake lessons" to Mrs. Harris’s pupils so they can learn how to avoid unscrupulous gentlemen, and Mrs. Harris has tapped Madeline to oversee his classes.

Madeline has always believed attraction to be a scientific matter, easily classified and controlled—until she finds herself swept into the passionate desire that fiercely burns between her and Anthony. Nothing could be more illogical than risking everything for a dalliance with a rake . . . but nothing could be more tempting either.

There's only so much preposterousness I can take in a book, and there was enough in the first three chapters of Sabrina Jeffries' Let Sleeping Rogues Lie that I couldnt' bear to go on.

The hero is fighting for custody of his recently orphaned niece. Unfortunately,since he's a well-known rakehell, the only way he's got to make sure the courts will choose him over his evil uncle and aunt, is by proving he can give the girl a good education. He'll do anything to get her into this School For Heiresses place, which offers what everyone knows is an unusual curriculum. Right, let's stop here. As if that would have been the sort of thing that would have swayed the courts in his favour! Actually, it does sounds as if it might have, only in the exact opposite direction Anthony's hoping for. Moving on.

Even more preposterousness ensues. There's no space in the school for the girl, so the headmistress is ready to reject his application, until one of the teachers intervenes. She proposes that Anthony prove his good intentions by providing the school's students with -wait for it!- rakehell lessons. God. And this is only the most preposterous part of a half-baked plan this stupid woman (the heroine, mind you) has to rehabilitate her father, ruined by the machinations of evil uncle (same evil uncle mentioned above, how's that for a coincidence?). Apparently she needs to meet this particular person (I didn't read far enough to understand exactly why), and the only way she finds of doing so is come up with the rakehell lessons idea, so that Anthony will be indebted to her, so that in return he'll have to invite her to a nitrous oxide party, so that there she might get an introduction to the man she's after, who apparently is fond of nitrous oxide parties.

And this happens in between puzzling conversations, in which the heroine discusses the habits of rakehells and prattles on about observing them in ther natural habitat (she's of a scientific bend, see, and this only proves it!), and Anthony somehow dares her into a kiss (although why she would be dared into it I never understood). Too much for me, I refused to waste any more of my time with this idiocy.

MY GRADE: A DNF.

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The World's Wife, by Carol Anne Duffy

TITLE: The World's Wife
AUTHOR: Carol Anne Duffy

I confess I don't really get poetry. I don't dislike it, or anything, but I just don't have the skills or practice to appreciate it. The World's Wife, by Britain's new Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, was the book chosen this month for my book club, and I really had no idea how I would react to it.

"Poetry by Britain's Poet Laureate" sounds awfully stuffy, doesn't it? But stuffy is the very opposite of what this book is. Duffy is funny and irreverent, without sacrificing any depth.
How funny? This is one of the poems. Each of them is written by the wives of famous historical or mythical figures, and this one is by the wife of Icarus:

Mrs. Icarus

I'm not the first or the last
to stand on a hillock,
watching the man she married
prove to the world
he's a total, utter, absolute Grade A pillock.

I still wouldn't say I completely get poetry, but this was a very good place to start.

MY GRADE: A B+.

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Life Skills, by Katie Fforde

TITLE: Life Skills
AUTHOR: Katie Fforde

COPYRIGHT: 1999
PAGES: 343
PUBLISHER: Arrow

SETTING: Contemporary England
TYPE: Straight romance / chick lit
SERIES: No

REASON FOR READING: My library had tonnes of Fforde's books, and I wanted to try one

A combination of overwork and jet-lag had propelled Julia Fairfax into becoming engaged to Oscar. She then realised she had fonder feelings for his adorable Labrador than for Oscar himself and that something was drastically wrong. Ditching her fiancé and jacking in her job, she decides to revolutionise her life.

Her new career as a cook on a pair of hotel boats is certainly a departure, and teaches her more about life than how to get a couple of narrow boats through a lock. But even afloat Julia’s past catches up with her. Not only must she contend with the persistent Oscar (not to mention his frigthful mother and her own mother’s determined matchmaking), but also the arrival of her childhood enemy, the enigmatic Fergus Grindley.

I've been fascinated by narrow boats since I moved to England and first saw then slowly floating down the canals. When I decided to try a Katie Fforde and realised Life Skills was set in one, I knew where to start.

Julia Fairfax has a boring job, a pompous, patronising upper-class twit of a fiance and some serious dissatisfaction with her life. As the book starts, she has decided to change her life radically, and you can't get more radical than break up with your fiance, quit your job and get another one as chef in a narrow boat hotel.

Julia knows nothing about narrow boats, and neither does her new boss, Suzy. Suzy has always been under the thumb of her very rich father, and this venture is a way of proving her abilities both to him and to herself.

They set out in quite a flimsy position, depending on a surly and mysoginist crew member who's the only one who knows how to manage the boat. This flimsy position quickly becomes almost untenable when the bastard quits (surprising the hell out of me, actually, as I was convinced he and Suzy were going to get together), and Suzy and Julia get left short of both extra hands and all experience.

But to the rescue comes Fergus Grindley, sent by Julia's kooky mother. Fergus was Julia's nemesis when they were children and she's not ready to forgive and forget. She has no chioice but to accept his help, but she doesn't have to be nice to him, does she?

I really can't decide whether this was chick lit or romance. I think I'm leaning towards romance, but with some elements of chick lit, so it would be a book I'd recommend to romance readers.

It's a feel-good, funny book, with good characters, and I loved learning about narrow boats, including the long, labourious process of getting them through the locks, something which I had the chance to see close up soon after, during a visit to Chester (see below).

I really liked the romance. Julia's a great character, sensible and loveable, with very dry wit. Fergus was lovely, a non-perfect, vulnerable figure, and obviously crazy about Julia, and I'm a bit evil that I liked seeing him suffer. Although, I must say, Julia was a bit too insistent on cutting off her nose to spite her face there in the end.

I also really liked the secondary romance. Suzy and her love interest, Wayne, are both characters who are much stronger and all-around great people than they seemed on the surface. And I even developed a bit of a fondness for Oscar, actually. He was a pompous, sexist ass, sure, but there has to be something good about a man who has such a crush on a woman like Julia ;-)

The humour was quite interesting. Right before Life Skills I read Watching the English, a truly fascinating sort of sociological analysis of English culture, and had been thinking of what it had to say about humour with regards to British chick lit I'd read. I was thinking of authors like Sophie Kinsella, and how yes, their humour is very much based on embarrassment.

I was expecting something similar here, but it was nothing like it. It's strange, because the book has a lot of potential for disastrous, tremendously embarrassing situations. There are plenty of instances of characters stuck in situations they don't really have the skills to deal with yet (or those skills are a bit shaky). Say, when Suzy and Julia's unreliable crewmember leaves them on the lurch two hours before the first passengers were due to arrive. Clearly, potential for funny, funny disaster here. But nope, they cope. They work hard and tirelessly, and they cope. Same thing when the Health and Safety inspector (really great character, btw; Fforde gets it right here) arrives. There's potential for disaster, but everything turns out to be fine. So the book wasn't at all funny in this sense (although it did have a bit of a wry sense of humour), but this did mean that it turned out to be warm and comforting.

My only criticism would be that the book felt a bit disjointed, in that there's a radical change in what it's about at about the mid-point. Suddenly the story isn't about making a success of a pair of hotel narrow boats on the canal, but about the romance and a very unexpected development for Julia. And there were a couple of story threads that didn't really go anywhere... what was that about the missing papers at Julia's office and their suing her? It just suddenly disappeared.

Still, even with that, it was a very enjoyable read.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Magic, Cannibalism and Christmas

TITLE: Simply Magic
AUTHOR: Mary Balogh

This was a bit of a disappointment. It had nice characters and a sweet relationship, but frankly, it was also a little bit boring.

It's the third book of Balogh's Simply series, which tells the story of four teachers from a girls' school. Simply Magic is about Susannah, a former charity pupil of the school who's stayed on after she finished her schooling. On a visit to one of her former colleagues (heroine of an earlier book of the series, of course), Susannah meets Peter, Viscount Whitleaf. She's predisposed to dislike him, as another Whitleaf was responsible for her father's death, which left her destitute. However, Peter is such a lovely person that Susannah can't stay aloof towards him. Before long, friendship has led to something more, but is the social gulf between them too wide to do anything about it?

Now, I like Beta heroes and couldn't disagree more with those who think only an alpha can be interesting. I was ready to love Peter, and I should have. He really is nice, a guy who truly likes and respects women (especially appreciated in a genre where some authors seem to think that despising all women other than the heroine is an attractive trait in a hero). Unfortunately, this particular lovely beta is stuck in a romance that is quite blah. Not every book needs to be a page-turner, and I quite enjoyed the time I spent reading this quiet, sweet book, but I can't deny it was quite unmemorable.

MY GRADE: A B-.


TITLE: A History of Cannibalism: From Ancient Cultures to Survival Stories and Modern Psychopaths
AUTHOR: Nathan Constantine

Read when I was in a bit of a morbid mood.

"So why do people do it? Why .... have people done it? There are three essential reasons: duty, desperation and desire. Or, put another way, because they ought to, need to or want to." The book is basically Constantine exploring each of the three, as well as their overlaps.

Quite interesting stuff, but sometimes the balance between anthropological analysis and anecdote was a bit iffy. In the "because they want to" section, for instance, I got the feeling the author was taking a little bit too much pleasure on gorey detail.

Still, some good stuff.

MY GRADE: Another B-.


TITLE: His Christmas Bride
AUTHOR: Helen Brooks

Helen Brooks is one of the very few Presents authors I read (thanks to Jane's recs -and I think this particular book was actually one of them). His Christmas Bride pairs a heroine with trust issues with a hero who is determined to get through them.

Blossom is still recovering from a very bad marriage, one in which the husband she loved was just with her because of what she could do for him professional. It was clearly bad enough that her reluctance to trust another man again is perfectly understandable. Zak is her brother-in-law's boss, and when he meets Blossom he falls for her completely, deciding to do anything to show her he's different from the scum she married.

I liked it because Zak's tactics for winning Blossom are the opposite of the sledgehammer approach many alpha heroes seem to take. Rather than trying to steamroll her into anything, he determines to prove his character through his actions, and their courtship basically involves Zak being steadfast and not giving up, and them actually having conversations about things. It was just lovely, and this was one couple I truly thought would work.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Have You Seen Her?, by Karen Rose

TITLE: Have You Seen Her?
AUTHOR: Karen Rose

COPYRIGHT: 2004
PAGES: 499
PUBLISHER: Warner

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Romantic suspense
SERIES: All of Rose's books are related to different degrees (see diagram here), but all but the last two stand alone fine (Have You Seen Her? does).

REASON FOR READING: Rose is one of the best romantic suspense authors out there.

DO YOU LOVE HER?

One by one, the girls disappear from their beds at night. Each one is pretty, with long, dark hair. And each one is found brutally murdered.

DO YOU MISS HER?

Special Agent Steven Thatcher has sworn to find the serial killer preying on this small town. As the investigation pulls him one way, his family pulls him in another. A widower haunted by loss, he now worries about his son Brad slipping away. But there's a bright light in his life; his son's teacher, Jenna Marshall, has reached out to help. She's beautiful, kind, and considerate— and slowly, tentatively, she and Steven are starting to fall in love. But both have been hurt before— badly. And as the two try to find the courage to bare their souls, a murderer who has slain many looks for the real treasure he craves. He sets his traps. And waits. For Jenna . . .

HAVE YOU SEEN HER?

This is quite an early Karen Rose. It's more of a typical romantic suspense than subsequent books, but it's still quite good and with plenty of glimmers of originality, as well as Rose's trademark excellent balance between suspense and romance.

We have a serial killer plot in a small town here. Special Agent Steven Thatcher is investigating the murders of several cheerleaders, while dealing with trouble at home. His eldest son has been doing badly at school, and single father Steven makes time in the midst of the investigation to meet with his chemistry teacher, Jenna Marshall. The chemistry (ha-ha) between them is immediately sizzling, and before long it's clear that Jenna might be in danger from the serial killer as well.

I enjoyed the characters most of all. They're all nicely complex and subtly drawn. Even the matchmaking auntie is well-done. She's not this motivation-free matchmaking monster, like so many secondary characters, who seem almost psychotic in their compulsion. Part of it is she wants Steven to be happy, yes, but also wants to go back to her own life, and can't in good conscience do so until Steven's situation is resolved (she's been living with them and taking care of the kids since S's wife died). The main characters are even better and unique. Steven, for instance, is quite religious, and while this is not really a big issue in the book, it's something that adds depth to him.

The suspense was all right, but unfortunately not as good as I'm used to from Rose. It was a bit frustrating, because the police felt a bit ineffectual, as if they weren't really taking all the logical steps and doing as much as they should have been doing. Usually Rose's investigations give me the same feeling as JD Robb's, that the police are smart, competent professionals. And as much as I enjoyed the romance, at times it felt as if Jenna was becoming a distraction to Steven and affecting his investigation.

All in all, though, Have You Seen Her? was well worth a read.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Vintage Fashion: Collecting and Wearing Designer Classics, by various authors

TITLE: Vintage Fashion: Collecting and Wearing Designer Classics
AUTHOR: Emma Baxter-Wright, Sarah Kennedy & Kate Mulvey

COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 211
PUBLISHER: Carlton Books

SETTING: M/A
TYPE: Non Fiction
SERIES: No

REASON FOR READING: Looked pretty :-)

Vintage Fashion is the ultimate guide to the most exemplary women's clothing from the turn of the twentieth century through the end of the 1980s. Along with a detailed, authoritative text, this gorgeous book offers more than 250 outstanding full-color photographs showcasing the quality fabrics, innovative techniques, silhouettes, shapes, and exquisite workmanship that are testimony to enduring and influential styles.

Ahh, being able to read big, expensive, coffee-table books with plenty of lovely photographs for free: reason number 634 why I love libraries.

Vintage Fashion: Collecting and Wearing Designer Classics has a bit of a deceptive title, as it's more a history of 20th century fashion than a practical guide to actually wearing vintage classics. There's a half-hearted attempt at tips on doing this at the end of the book (advice on which of the pieces you might find in good condition today, that sort of thing) but it had nothing to do with the rest of it.

Being a complete philistine in the area of fashion, I found it all really interesting, although I do have some comments. Chapters (one for each decade) are written by different authors, and there was quite a difference in writing quality. I thought the later chapters were better written, more readable. The images were really beautiful, although sometimes I felt a bit of a lack of coordination between them and the text. I would also have liked the images to illustrate the text more closely. Like, the Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress was mentioned tonnes of times, and yet there were no photos of it. Or, sometimes there would be a mention of a particular dress or style and a picture of it would be pages later.

On a purely personal taste note, from the mid 1970s on, I just hated the fashions shown. So ugly. Previous decades had some particular dresses and styles I didn't care for, but plenty of others that I did, and would actually wear very happily. In the 80s chapter, however, I think there was only a single dress I'd consider wearing these days (unfortunately, I was in my early teens at the end of the 80s, and fashion arrived a bit late to Uruguay, so I did wear some of the ugliest 80s fashions. Ugh). And if this makes me unsophisticated or bourgeoise, so be it.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Two books by Jeanette Baker

Jeanette Baker was Author of the Month at my favourite romance book group a few months ago (I won't say how many months; it's embarrassing how behind I am with reviews). I hadn't heard of her before, but when I checked out her books, it turned out she writes several different things, all of which sounded very good to me. So I ended up getting two books: one a straight contemp set in Northern Ireland, one a contemp with paranormal overtones (past lives, etc.) set in Scotland.

Unfortunately, as good as the plots sounded, awkward characterisation and writing made reading them a disappointing experience, to varying degrees.

Blood Roses was the first, the Northern Ireland-set contemporary. Kate Nolan is a widow whose lawyer husband was murdered in front of her. He specialised in defending fellow Catholics. In the years since his death, Kate has become more politically involved, fighting for peace.

Her son hasn't recovered from his father's death, though, and when he gets involved with the drug trade and is arrested, the police use this to pressure him to become an informant, and about more than garden-variety drug dealing, too.

The man mainly responsible for leaning on Kevin is Neil Anderson, who is quite high up in British Special Services. Kate doesn't know this, so when she and Neil come into contact and an attraction develops, Neil knows he should keep far, far away from her. But of course, this being a romance, he can't resist.

It could have been a brilliant, angsty story, but the emotions never rang true to me, probably because the characters never did, either. Neil was nice enough, but he felt a bit generic. Pity, because his guilt about the effects of his placing pressure on Kate's son (something he still feels was necessary) could have been fascinating. As for Kate, she was very hard to warm up to. Maybe it was because she's a kind of woman I've never been able to understand, the sort who let her husband take care of everything and so when he died, she had no idea what to do. She's had to fight, but for all that, she remains too much of a martyr for my taste. I just couldn't get involved in the romance at all.

The only thing I liked and thought was interesting was Baker's portrayal of the political situation, which was a hell of a lot more nuanced than her main characters. I felt that it gave me some insight into what the troubles are all about. I won't say it helped me understand the issues better (I suppose my ignorance is such that I've no idea if the portrayal was accurate, really), but the thing is, I'm an agnostic raised in a country where religion is completely irrelevant. I've never been able to wrap my mind around why being Catholic or Protestant would be an issue at all, and what I got from this book is some inkling of why it might matter, and why it might actually be something with roots in religion, but that now goes pretty much beyond that.

Gaining this insight was actually worth the effort of reading the book (and it did take me some time), but between boring characters and a final action denouement featuring cartoonish villains, I can only give this a C+.


The second book was Catriona, another one with a heroine named Kate who irritated me. This particular Kate is Kate Sutherland, an American lawyer. Kate was actually born in Scotland, although she hasn't been able to find out much about her birth. The book starts as one of her cases takes her there, where a mysterious woman tells her going to this little island off the coast of Scotland will answer all her questions.

However, arriving there only sparks more questions, as Kate begins to have visions of herself living 500 years before. With her is historian Niall McCormack, whom she accidentally met only a few days before. Together they must investigate what the relationship is between Kate and this woman, who they suspect is Catriona, the first Countess of Bothwell, a woman caught up in the fight between England and Scotland.

It sounded great on the back cover, but again, the problem was in the execution. The book quickly settles into a pattern, with regular scenes telling the story of Catriona and her "courtship" by Patrick, one of the King of England's men, and Kate trying to make sense of things in between.

I was more or less all right with the present-day story (although Kate was a bit of a twit who persisted in not eating and then feeling faint), but I absolutely hated the story of Catriona and Patrick. It felt like the worst kind of bodice-ripper, with this awful attempt at a tempestuous courtship. It was a "taming" kind of relationship, and Patrick delighted in humiliating Catriona. He was despicable bastard, really, and to make matters worse, Cat was dumb as a rock, and "fiery" and "headstrong" to boot. She was hopelessly outmatched by Patrick, who could see her "cunning" plans a mile away. So boring and infuriating, I much prefer a competent kind of heroine, and an evener, more equal match.

I could only tolerate this (not to mention the awkward writing, with POV flying around and all telling and no showing) for so long, and gave up before the mid point. A DNF, then.

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She's Got It Bad, by Sarah Mayberry

TITLE: She's Got It Bad
AUTHOR: Sarah Mayberry

COPYRIGHT: 2009
PAGES: 224
PUBLISHER: Harlequin Blaze

SETTING: Contemporary US
TYPE: Category romance
SERIES: No

REASON FOR READING: Online buzz

Twelve years ago Zoe Ford let Liam Masters break her heart. But now? There's not a chance. Zoe is as tough and wild as they come. So when Liam shows up at her tattoo parlor, she's more than ready to take him on again. That's not going to be a hardship, since he's hotter than he ever was.

This time she's staying in charge. And she's not going to consider their score settled until he's hot, bothered and begging for more! Then she'll move on as callously as he left her. Unless all that deliciously bad sex is just too good to give up….

I've been hearing great things about Mayberry's Harlequin Blazes, and my first try didn't disappoint.

She's Got It Bad tells the story of two characters with a history. After his mother's death, teenaged Liam was taken in by his best friend's family. The Fords treated him like part of the family, and he was happy with them. The only problem was his feelings for 15-year-old Zoe. Liam wanted her, but knew doing anything about it would be a betrayal of these people who'd done so much for him. Zoe, however, had just a big a crush on Liam and no problem with it. When one night she threw herself at him and they almost ended up in bed, Liam knew he had to leave, and did so the next morning.

Years later, Liam runs across a nude portrait of Zoe in an art gallery. Remembering the innocent 15-year-old he used to know, he's convinced she must be in trouble (why else would she be so desperate for money that she feels she has to pose naked, he thinks). He must help her.

However, he gets the surprise of his life when he manages to track her down. The grown-up Zoe is a tough tattoo artist (covered in tattoos herself, of course) , who plays in a trash band and is clearly very sexual and comfortable with it (her on-stage persona, Vixen, delights in sexually teasing her audience). This new Zoe wants nothing from Liam, other than possibly some no-strings-attached sex.

Mayberry walks a bit of a fine line with Liam. His attitude could come across as judgmental, if he wasn't so clearly focused on really helping Zoe and not at all interested on what he can get in return. Technically, of course, there is some judgment there, in his refusal to believe she could actually have chosen her life as it is, but you don't get the sense that he disapproves of her or thinks there is something wrong in her lifestyle. He just doesn't think the Zoe he used to know would have chosen it, and in a way, he is sort of right.

For Zoe, Liam's abrupt departure was the start of a couple of very traumatic years, which have left her psychologically scarred. It's clear to us that while many aspects of her persona are the real Zoe, others are defense mechanisms and a way of dealing with her belief that certains choices are not available to her. There's quite a lot of vulnerability under Zoe's very real toughness, and Liam brings it out. At the same time, Liam carries some baggage from his past himself, and just as he helps Zoe get over hers, she is able to help him right back.

This is a very engrossing 100% character driven romance. Mayberry's writing is smooth, and while this is not a particularly fast-paced book, the pace never drags and you just keep turning the pages. It would have been a solid B+ and only just misses because I didn't believe Liam's baggage as I did Zoe's.

MY GRADE: A B.

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Branded by Fire, by Nalini Singh

TITLE: Branded by Fire
AUTHOR: Nalini Singh

COPYRIGHT: 2009 (comes out tomorrow)
PAGES: 368
PUBLISHER: Berkley

SETTING: Alternate reality version of future California
TYPE: Alternate reality romance
SERIES: Yes, latest in the Psy/Changeling series

REASON FOR READING: One of my top 3 ongoing series (the other 2, in case you were wondering, are Meljean Brook's Guardians and JD Robb's In Death series).

Though DarkRiver sentinel Mercy is feeling the pressure to mate, she savagely resists when Riley Kincaid, a lieutenant from the SnowDancer pack, tries to possess her. The problem is not simply that he pushes her buttons; the problem is that he’s a wolf, she’s a cat, and they’re both used to being on top.

But when a brilliant changeling researcher is kidnapped from DarkRiver territory, Mercy and Riley must work together to track the young man—before his shadowy captors decide he’s no longer useful. Along the way, the two dominants may find that submitting to one another uncovers not just a deadly conspiracy, but a passion so raw that it’ll leave them both branded by fire.

THE PLOT: Mercy, a sentinel for the DarkRiver leopard pack, is none too fond of her counterpart in the SnowDancer wolf pack, Riley. Both packs have formed an alliance, so technically, they're not enemies, but that doesn't make working together any easier. Especially, that is, because for both of them, their adversarial relationship is just a way of sublimating their attraction.

When they finally give in to this attraction (no spoiler here, it happens really early in the book), this only opens an entirely different can of worms. Both Mercy and Riley are quite clearly dominants, and any giving in to the other won't be easy, for either of them.

MY THOUGHTS: So for the first time in the series, both hero and heroine are changelings. I've always loved how Singh doesn't simply portray her changelings as people who just happen to be able to shift into animals. Rather, the fact that a they are animals as well as humans influences her changelings even when they are in human form. "Their animal" is still there, and will react to events and feelings, giving changelings' emotional reactions a certain wildness which I love.

I've very much enjoyed seeing changelings with Psy or human, but in Branded by Fire, the fact that both Mercy and Riley were changelings made the dynamic of their relationship even more unique and interesting. It really reflected the issues underlying any relationship between two very strong individuals.

Mercy's struggles included issues any strong woman will identify with. She needs a mate who's also strong, as she'd walk all over a weak one, but it needs to be someone who won't be forever trying to establish dominance over her. In a way, I suppose Mercy being a changeling actually made more explicit some issues implicit in such a relationship. In order for two changelings to establish the emotional bond that a true union requires, they both need to consciously surrender to each other. That means that there can be no half-hearted relationship, where one of the couple holds something of him or herself apart. This is something that's right out there in their considerations, rather than something almost symbolic, as it would be normally.

It's a relationship that in the wrong hands, could have turned into an exhausting and dispiriting power struggle. The way Singh does it, though, it's affirming and results in something that made me very happy to see.

As ever in this series, the main romance is enriched by the cast of secondary characters, which includes the heroes and heroines from previous books. Singh does an excellent job of giving them all real roles in the action, and completely avoids pointless "look how happy we are!!" cameos. Not to mention, Hawke and Siena. Ohhh, I can't wait to see how that's going to develop!

You'll notice I haven't really talked much about the outside plot. That's not because there wasn't one. In fact, there are developments in the world-building, as the Human Alliance becomes a bigger player and a true threat. The thing is, all this felt quite external to Mercy and Riley's relationship. They were part of the changelings' reactions to all this that's happening, but it didn't really have a bearing on the issues they were facing as a couple, unlike in previous books. Still, I did enjoy the suspense and appreciated that this series is clearly going somewhere. Things will truly come to a head in a future book and with such great writing, I, for one, will definitely still be reading this series.

MY GRADE: A very strong B+.

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Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

TITLE: Remember Me?
AUTHOR: Sophie Kinsella

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 346
PUBLISHER: Bantam

SETTING: Contemporary London
TYPE: Chick lit
SERIES: No

REASON FOR READING: The author

When twenty-eight-year-old Lexi Smart wakes up in a London hospital, she’s in for a big surprise. Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. Having survived a car accident—in a Mercedes no less—Lexi has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years to be exact, and she’s about to find out just how much things have changed.

Somehow Lexi went from a twenty-five-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a personal assistant, a carb-free diet, and a set of glamorous new friends. And who is this gorgeous husband—who also happens to be a multimillionaire? With her mind still stuck three years in reverse, Lexi greets this brave new world determined to be the person she…well, seems to be. That is, until an adorably disheveled architect drops the biggest bombshell of all.

Suddenly Lexi is scrambling to catch her balance. Her new life, it turns out, comes complete with secrets, schemes, and intrigue. How on earth did all this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does?

Kinsella's non-shopaholic books are all fun, but with some depth to them, and this one's no different.

The premise is quite unique. Lexi Smart has a pretty sorry life, in typical chick-lit style: she's not good looking, she has a boring, meaningless job and bad luck with men, not to mention, her dad has just died.

After an awful night out with her friends, Lexi trips and hits her head. When she wakes up, as far as she's concerned, it's the very morning after and her life still sucks. She's astonished to hear that it's actually 3 years after that night, and that she's lost all memory of the time in between. Oh, and her life is now perfect. She looks perfect, she has the perfect boyfriend, she's become the boss at her old job and has become quite well off. Great, right? Except that in those 3 years, Lexi has become someone she's not sure she likes.

I enjoyed Lexi's discovery of who she really was. Did she change completely during those missing 3 years, or was "The Cobra", as she's now known in the office, inside the old Lexi all along? The answer is not at all straighforward.

On the way to it are extremely funny disasters, as Lexi tries to bluff her way through her new life, some very poignant moments, as she tries to salvage her relationship with her old friends (who are among the people at work who despise and fear The Cobra) and a really nice romance.

MY GRADE: A B+. Kinsella is chick lit for those readers who think they don't like chick lit.

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A Wicked Liaison, by Christine Merrill

TITLE: A Wicked Liaison
AUTHOR: Christine Merrill

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

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

REASON FOR READING: Heard good things about it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MY GRADE: A B.

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A Fine Specimen, by Lisa Marie Rice

TITLE: A Fine Specimen
AUTHOR: Lisa Marie Rice

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

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

REASON FOR READING: Auto-read author.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MY GRADE: A B-.

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Lara Adrian - a bit of catching up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

MY GRADE: Very good, a B+.


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

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

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

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

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

MY GRADE: A strong B.

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

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Betrayed, by Jamie Leigh Hansen

TITLE: Betrayed
AUTHOR: Jamie Leigh Hansen

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 336
PUBLISHER: Tor

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

REASON FOR READING:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MY GRADE: A B-.

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Shadows of the Night, by Lydia Joyce

TITLE: Shadows of the Night
AUTHOR: Lydia Joyce

COPYRIGHT: 2008
PAGES: 304
PUBLISHER: Signet

SETTING: Victorian England
TYPE: Romance
SERIES: No

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Bye for a couple of weeks!

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

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You Can't Hide, by Karen Rose

TITLE: You Can't Hide
AUTHOR: Karen Rose

COPYRIGHT: 2006
PAGES: 528
PUBLISHER: Warner

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

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

YOU DON'T KNOW WHO I AM

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

YOU CAN'T STOP WHAT I'M DOING

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

YOU CAN'T HIDE

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

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

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

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

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

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

MY GRADE:A B+.

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Some interesting non fiction

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

TITLE: The Logic of Life
AUTHOR: Tim Harford

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

MY GRADE: B+.


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

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

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


TITLE: Pies and Prejudice
AUTHOR: Stuart Maconie

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

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

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

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

MY GRADE: Loved it. A B+.

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