What I've been reading lately

This is up today at DearAuthor.com. If you want to check any of these books, click over to my post, and hit the buttons at the bottom of each book.

The Seduction of Lady X by Julia London

I had such high hopes for this book, the last in a series of three. I liked the first book, The Year of Living Scandalously, and I loved The Revenge of Lord Eberlin. I hated this book. It was unrelentingly sad, the heroine is abused and raped by her alcoholic husband, she loves a man she just can't have. Furthermore, the series has revolved around the fate of a set of missing rubies and the resolution of that plot is little more than a disappointing afterthought. The book, plot and tone, really did not work for me.

Willing Victim by Cara McKenna

Janine recommended this book to me after a long Twitter discussion about the role of forced seduction in romance novels. It was interesting. I liked how regular the hero and heroine were and I enjoyed the writing. Ms. Mckenna has a great way with dialogue--the way her characters speak makes both them and the novel stand apart from run of the mill erotica. I didn't mind the very open ending--I believed good things would happen for Laurel and Flynn, both together and apart in the future. The sex in the book was grittier and rougher than what I usually encounter, but, it fit the characters and ended up, for me, being interesting but not hot.

The Edge of Impropriety by Pam Rosenthal

I read this book when it came out in 2008 and forgot about it. Then Jane asked for books with older protagonists and I thought of this book. The heroine is in her late 30's; the hero, in his mid 40's. I liked this book a lot when I read it this go round. The relationship between the two main characters has a very different feel than in most in historical romance. This is also almost the only historical romance I've ever read that has low-key "backdoor" sex scene. Perhaps my favorite thing about this book is how independent, in every way, the heroine is. In a genre awash with women whose lives are defined by men, it was refreshing to read about a happy, financially secure, self-directed grownup woman.

Not Quite a Husband, Private Arrangements, His at Night, Delicious, Beguiling the Beauty by Sherry Thomas

After reading Ms. Thomas latest, Beguiling the Beauty, I was so entranced by her fabulous writing, I went back and read all her earlier novels. The experience left me more in awe of Ms. Thomas than I already was which is saying something. (She is one of my top five favorite romance novelists.) Before I reread all her books, I would have said my favorite of hers is Private Arrangements. I like the plot, the hero and heroine, and, the wonderful subplot involving the heroine's mother and her flirtation with the Duke next door. Now, however, while I still love Private Arrangements, I've decided my favorite is His at Night. Ms. Thomas writes heartbreak in a completely non-sentimental way. Both Vere and Elissande are living lives of quiet desperation when they meet. Both are achingly lonely. Their love story is so well-done and the plot moves along with nary an unnecessary device. His at Night is Sherry Thomas at her best.

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Crazy on You by Rachel Gibson

I like Ms. Gibson--she's one of those authors I almost always enjoy. Her books are comfort reads for me--easy to take, usually funny, and filled with good sex scenes. This novella, however, did little for me. The heroine and the hero were cardboard characters and their connection never came across as much more than lust. The book is set in a small town in the Texas panhandle and every stereotype I've ever heard about Texas is included in this tale. I felt like Ms. Gibson was trying for cute and, instead, ended up at tacky. The heroine's voice was annoying as well. She says things like,

“No self-respecting Southern lady leaves the house without her hair in place, her makeup done, and her panties on.”

Ugh. It's safe to say I wasn't the least bit crazy about Crazy on You.

The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne by Madeline Hunter

I also usually like Ms. Hunter but this book bored me to tears. The characters and the plot is so hazily presented, I kept forgetting what I'd just read. The pace of the book is glacial and the motivations of the hero and the heroine odd. The heroine of the book runs an auction house in London and there's lots of information about how the auction houses of the 1790's functioned. I wasn't drawn into the story or the context--I just kept getting sleepy every time I picked up the book.

My reviews thus far for 2012

A Lady Awakened Cecilia Grant Historical A- Hot Unraveled Courtney Milan Historical B Hot The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae Stephanie Laurens Historical D Hot An Affair with Mr. Kennedy Jillian Stone Historical C Hot The Danger of Desire Elizabeth Essex Historical B+ Hot She Tempts the Duke Lorraine Heath Historical C Hot A Scandalous Countess Jo Beverley Historical B Warm Forever and a Day Deliah Marvelle Historical C Hot Breakaway Diedre Martin Contemporary C- Warm Capturing the Silken Thief Jeanie Lin Historical A- Warm Blame it on Bath Caroline Linden Historical B Hot The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne Madeline Hunter Historical C Warm The Seduction of Lady X Julia London Historical C- Hot Shadow's Stand Sarah McCarty Western C- Hot Her Husband's Harlot Grace Callaway Historical B Hot Still Hot for You Diane Escalera Contemporary C- Hot A Lady Never Surrenders Sabrina Jeffries Historical C- Warm Time Out Jill Shalvis Series B Hot The Revenge of Lord Eberlin Julia London Historical B+ Hot Everything You've Got Erin Nicholas Contemporary C- Hot Moonrise Anne Stuart Romantic Suspense C Hot To Dare the Duke of Dangerfield Bronwen Evans Historical C- Warm Teach Me Cassandra Dean Historical C- Hot More Than One Night Sarah Mayberry Contemporary B Hot The Saint Monica McCarty Historical C- Hot Wedded in Scandal Jade Lee Historical B- Hot Abigail Jones Grace Callaway Historical/Paranormal D Hot At Your Pleasure Meredith Duran Historical A- Hot A Week to be Wicked Tessa Dare Historical B+ Hot The Price of Innocence Susan Sizemore Historical A- Hot Hot Under Pressure Louisa Edwards Contemporary B Warm A Kiss in the Wind Jennifer Bray-Weber Historical B- Hot Somebody to Love Kristan Higgins Contemporary C+ Warm Trouble Me Laura Moore Contemporary C- Hot

Trouble Me by Laura Moore

Grade: C-

passion rating: hot

Dear Ms. Moore,

The first two pages of your novel Trouble Me made me uneasy. Your heroine, Jade Radcliffe, is driving to her family farm, Rosewood. As she drives, she thinks about all the people there she’s looking forward to seeing. There are her two sisters and their two husbands, her six nieces and nephews, and an elderly gentleman who’s worked for the family for years. Immediately, I felt as though I’d been dropped into someone’s family reunion without any idea who all the people milling about were. Trouble Me is the third in the Rosewood series. The first two books, which I’ve not read, tell the stories of the Jade’s sisters. By page three, I’d forgotten which perfect sister was married to which perfect guy; perhaps I might have enjoyed this book more had I read its predecessors, but I doubt it.

By page three of your book, Jade has decided to stop driving—it’s begun pouring rain—and spend the night in a motel. She does so, in part, to show her sisters, Margot and Jordan, “how much she’d matured.” Even though she’s only twenty-two, she’s “leagues removed from the Jade of yesteryear.” The old Bad Jade was

the one who sometimes felt the need to step right up to edge and do something crazy with a wild, fiery lick of danger. But though she’d had her share of parties and experiences, it hadn’t prevented her from getting straight A’s even with a super-charged course load, being the top scorer on her riding team, and writing a very popular advice column for the school paper.

Hmmmm, I thought, Bad Jade, doesn’t seem very bad to me. In fact, she seems like an over achiever. I began to hope she wasn’t going to be one of those practically perfect in every way heroines. Then, on page 17, after Jade has checked into a hotel, showered and put on “her white jeans, a Jean Paul Gautier chiffon tank… and a pair of high-heeled sandals” to head down to the bar where she just wants to have a drink and relax, she is described by Rob, the hero of the book.

Magnetic was the first word that came to his mind; within seconds she’d drawn every male eye in the bar to her. Trouble was the second. A woman who looked like this, slim yet curvy in all the right places, with sun-streaked hair that fell past her shoulders in thick waves, and with a walk that was bold yet carried sensual promise in each step, could only cause mayhem….

In the wrong place, this woman could start a riot.

The dynamite package only got more explosive as she neared and Rob took in the lushness of her lips and the high slash of her cheekbones. Passion and drama.

By the end of the third chapter, where Jade is proved to be not only super smart, a great rider, fabulous with kids (she’s just started teaching second grade), a vixen in bed, and able to eat all the junk food she wants without ever gaining a pound, I was ready to put the book down. Flawless folk don’t do it for me—and New Jade is flawless.

The only reason I kept reading was to see what came of what happened in Chapter Two. In that chapter, Jade walks into the above mentioned bar and, unsurprisingly is instantly hit on by a steady stream of losers. Rob tells one of the most overeager to get lost and gets Jade to dance with him instead. After standing in each other’s arms for about two minutes, Rob asks Jade—Bad Jade is back!–if she has a room. She says yes and off they run to have a night of no-holds, barred, staying up all night, smokin’ sex. Their encounter is supposed to be a one night stand—Jade won’t even give Rob her name. They part; sure they’ll never see each other again.

click here to read the rest of the review

the beginning of a book

Recently, on Facebook, the great Meredith Duran asked for people to submit, for fun, first lines of a novel. I came up with this: 


Emmaline slipped into her pink satin dress, retrieved her sandals from beneath the best man's battered sofa, and tip-toed out the door. She'd decided not to leave a note. She walked across the lawn to her car and, suddenly, stopped. There, on the back of her ancient Volvo, was a bumper sticker she'd never seen before. It glowed in the light of the street lamp. It read, "Guilt is payment on trouble come due." As she stared at the neon yellow letters, a light came on in Walker's bedroom window. Emmaline glanced at his house, gazed again at her bumper, then got in her car and drove away. As she turned left on McDowell Street, then right on James, she wished, for the hundred thousandth time, she'd never agreed to marry Alexander Calder Coates at noon the very next day.

The Seduction of Lady X by Julia London

Grade: C-

passion rating: hot

The Seduction of Lady X is the last book in Ms. London’s series The Secrets of Hadley Green and that’s a good thing. The series is built around the whereabouts of a set of ruby jewelry, and in all three books, that plotline has been lackluster. In the first two books, however, the love stories were compelling. In this book, the love story is not. The novel is a depressing read with a strained happy ending. The heroine endures an alcoholic spouse who physically abuses and rapes her; she has a sister who almost justifies sororicide; she loves a man she can never have. Her life, until page 359, is one of misery and I didn’t enjoy reading about it at all.


The other two books in the series have taken place in Hadley Green and have centered on its leading family, the Ashfords. This novel is set in the village of Everdon and focuses on the Careys. The heroine of this novel, Olivia, is married to the Marquis of Carey; the hero, Harrison Tolley, is the steward of the Carey family holdings. Harrison, a saint of man, is the illegitimate yet legally valid heir to the Ashford title of Earl and corresponding estate. One would think this heritage, which Harrison learns of in the beginning of The Seduction of Lady X, would be a significant plot point. After all, the series has been focused on the secrets hidden by the Ashford family. One would be wrong. In this book, inexplicably, when Harrison is informed he is a wealthy Earl, neither he nor the author does much with that information. Instead, Harrison (and the novel) is focused on his impossible love for Olivia, the married Lady Carey.

Olivia, a determinedly cheerful beauty, married for love and for money. Her husband married for an heir, and Olivia, after six years, has not conceived. Olivia’s lack of fertility enrages Edward, a horrendous man. Edward’s rage is magnified when Alexa, Olivia’s selfish eighteen year-old sister, arrives at the Carey home, Everdon Court, pregnant and unwed. (The sisters’ parents are dead and they have no other family to turn to.) Edward, already appalling, becomes a monster. He says to Olivia, when she and Alexa come to tell him of Alexa’s plight:

I find it interesting that while you are as barren as a Scottish moor, your sister is a whore who apparently will conceive a by-blow with any man who lifts her skirts.

He berates Olivia repeatedly, beats her, and, finally, rapes her.

All this abuse is written in a disconcertingly light tone. It’s as if Ms. London is unwilling to acknowledge how awful Olivia’s treatment at the hands of Edward actually is. I had a hard time making myself turn the pages — the way Olivia’s circumstances were described unsettled me.

click here to read the rest of the review

Readers Write In about Romantic Suspense

Over at Dear Author, I recently asked readers to suggest their favorite romantic suspense novels. And, boy, did they! If you are looking for recommendations for that genre, head over to DA today and check out the list.


http://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/reader-generated-list-of-titles-if-you-like-romantic-suspense/

The Seduction of Miss Fairbourne by Madeline Hunter

Grade: C

passion rating: warm

Have you ever met someone, listened to him introduce himself and talk for a while and then, suddenly, sadly, realize you’ve not registered a word he's said? I had the literary version of that experience with Ms. Hunter’s The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne. I read the novel — twice — and both times, as soon as I’d finished it, was hard-pressed to remember anything significant about it. When I think how I’d define this novel, the word that comes to mind is bland.

The heroine of this book is unsurprisingly a Miss Fairbourne, first name Emma. The Fairbourne family owns a famous and successful auction house in London which, until his recent death, was run by Emma’s father. Emma, despite the expectations of society, wishes to keep the auction house open. Emma has a brother, Robert, whom everyone but Emma believes is lost at sea and now dead. Emma is sure Robert is alive and is adamant the auction house be kept running until Robert returns to take its reins.

The auction house, however, is no longer owned solely by the Fairbourne family. Three years ago, unbeknownst to Emma, her father sold a half share to Darius Alfreton, the Earl of Southwaite. Darius is determined Emma will sell the auction house. Not only does he think a woman couldn’t possibly run such a business (this is, after all, 1798), he believes that her father was engaged in shady business practices involving smugglers and he does not want his name to be associated with anything that would besmirch his reputation.

Emma wants to keep the auction house. Darius wants her to sell it. Emma tries several different tactics to delay Darius from taking any action that would gainsay her wishes. As Darius battles with Emma for control, he realizes he’s exceedingly attracted to her and decides that rather than trying to control her through argument, he’d be more successful and vastly more pleasured if he used seduction to get his way. Emma, who has had very little experience with men, finds Darius difficult to resist and soon their relationship is about both the fate of the auction house and whether or not the two will become lovers.

Ms. Hunter is a very good technical writer and she invests this book with historical authenticity. She effortlessly explicates the conflict between England and France and showcases the role smuggling played during this era. The class distinctions between Darius, an earl, and Emma, a woman from a family in trade, are portrayed credibly. Ms. Hunter has her doctorate in art history and her book is filled with details about art, the auction world, and the artists of the time. It’s all very accurate and not very interesting.

click here to read the rest of the review

Somebody to Love by Kristan Higgins

Grade: C+

passion rating: warm

Dear Ms. Higgins,

I’ve read several of your books and, in general, have found them to be a bit too toothsome for me. I did however enjoy one of your earlier books, The Next Best Thing, so I was interested to read your latest novel, Somebody to Love, whose heroine, Parker Harrington Welles, was introduced in The Next Best Thing. I liked Parker in The Next Best Thing and I liked her in this book as well. I also liked James Cahill, the book’s hero. Nevertheless, I did not particularly enjoy the book itself. Again, I found your story to be so cute, so affable, and so neatly completed it left me disgruntled and slightly cranky.

Parker is thirty-five, worth millions thanks to her stock savvy father, a single mother to Nick (his father is Ethan, the hero from The Next Best Thing), and the writer of a truly dreadful series of children’s books called The Holy Rollers. Parker, a Harvard grad, proposed the series as a sarcastic joke to her editor when her first book, Mickey the Fire Engine—which sounded a lot like one of my favorite children’s classics, Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel—was rejected by her editor as being “a little familiar.”

“Got anything else?” George asked, already glancing at his watch.

“Yeah, I do,” Parker said. “How’s this? A band of child angels are sent to earth to teach kids about God. Right? They haven’t earned their wings, though, so they roller-skate everywhere—they’re the Holy Rollers. Do you love it? All they eat is angel food cake, and they live in a tree fort called Eden, and whenever a regular kid is up against a tough moral decision, in come the Holy Rollers and the preaching begins.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s The Crippled Lamb meets The Little Rascals meets The Exorcist.” She sighed and stood up. “Well, thanks for your time, George. Good to see you.”

“Hang on,” he said.

The next week, she’d had an offer and a contract….

The books have sold millions of copies and a 3D movie is being made, but Parker, who loathes the books,  has written her last Holy Rollers best-seller. (She’s never made a penny off them—she donates all her income to a charity called Save the Children.) Then, very suddenly, her father is busted for insider trading and she’s kicked out of the mansion in which she grew up and where she and Nicky, when he’s not with Ethan and his wife Lucy (Parker’s best friend), live. Furthermore, her father has raided hers and her son’s trust funds and she’s got $11,000 to her name.

Parker gets this news from Harry, her father, the day before he’s headed to jail. He tells her to have James, his personal lawyer, help her sort out the mess. Parker and James, whom she rudely calls Thing One, have a history. Unbeknownst to Parker, James, now twenty-nine, fell in love with her five years ago, the very first time he saw her. Parker was in the hospital, having just  given birth to Nicky; her father had sent James to the hospital with paperwork for Parker to sign. (Her father never shows up for anything in Parker’s life.) Parker has almost always treated James like scum—she sees him as a kiss-ass extension of her self-absorbed, greedy father. I sayalmost because once, two years ago, at her cousin’s wedding, Parker, after one too many vodka martinis, grabbed James, dragged him into a near-by bedroom, and had wonderful, nasty sex with him. (One of my complaints about this book is you keep the reader firmly outside the bedroom door—your characters talk and think about sex a great deal, but when push comes to shove, you don’t let the reader in on any of the action. It’s an odd choice in a book so filled with lust and banter about sex.) Parker blew James off in a big way after their tryst and, since then, whenever she sees him—her father sends James to all of the family events rather than attending them himself—she acts the snotty, frosty rich girl and treats him as the lowest of the low.

click here to read the rest of the review

The Saint by Monica McCarty

Grade: C-

passion rating: warm

Dear Ms. McCarty,

The Saint is the first of your books I’ve read and, if they are all like this, it will be the last. This book combined the worst of the two components of historical romance. The history, of which there is a ton, is info-dumped in large swathes into your prose—I began to feel as though I were studying for a test– and the romance is so frustrating, by the novel’s end, it would have suited me just fine had Helen and Magnus (known as Saint), the star-crossed lovers of the tale, ended up apart.

The book takes place in the era of the famed Bruce: Scotland in the early 1300’s. Saint is a MacKay and Helen is a Sutherland and, of course, the two clans share a long and bloody feud. Helen and Saint first meet at the Highland games when she is fourteen and he is nineteen. The two fall in love, despite only seeing each other for a few moments when the Games are held each year, but keep their love a secret. Finally, when Helen is 18 and old enough to wed, Saint, at the 1305 games, finally beats his Sutherland nemesis Munro for the first time. After the match, Saint finds Helen, gives her a long hard kiss–her first–and asks her to marry him. She, unable to choose him over her family, turns him down. Saint, instantly a man ruined for life, immediately accepts a dangerous offer by the Bruce to become one of the Kings’s newly formed secret elite Highland Guard created to defeat the English.

One chapter and three years later, Saint, feeling as though he’d rather be tortured by the English Crown’s vilest knaves, is headed to his best friend’s wedding. William “Templar” Gordon, a member of the Highland Guard and a close friend of Helen’s brother Kenneth, is marrying Helen. Even though Saint and Templar are best friends and are partners in the secretive Highland Guard, Templar has never mentioned his courtship—albeit scant—of Helen to Saint. So William has no idea that his best friend Saint—so called because he never whores around—holds an inviolate tendre for Helen. Nor does he have any idea that Helen, whose brother has pushed her upon William, is still profoundly in love with Saint.

Saint shows up Dunstaffnage Castle, Helen’s home, the night before the wedding is to take place. The two have not seen each for three years, not since she rejected his proposal, and when they lay eyes upon one another, both realize they are still madly in love. Helen, who has known for some time she should have chosen love over family, finds Magnus and asks him for another a chance. He, full of (arrogant) duty and honor, blows her off, telling her he feels nothing for her. Helen then marries William who, as the ceremony is taking place, suddenly gleans the feelings of his bride and best friend. On their wedding night, William, the hero in all this, refuses to take Helen’s maidenhood given that she loves his best friend. In the morning, he, Saint, and the Guard leave for an undercover mission to save the Bruce’s brother Edward from a siege in Galloway. William is essentially killed on the excursion although, since he’s only (to steal a phrase from The Princess Bride) mostly dead, in keeping with Guard code, Saint has to actually finish him off and make him unidentifiable. This latter action leaves him with enough guilt to ruin the rest of the novel.

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