🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance set in/near a haunted house 🎃
I finished my Halloween Reading Challenge! FINALLY!
SHORECLIFF is a strange little book. The cover is deceiving, because that old skool gown and misty castle would have you thinking that this is a wallpaper Victorian about some governess who might be in love with a murderer, etc. But no. SHORECLIFF is set in the 1960s (Twiggy is mentioned).
Anita and Charles inherit a crumbly old mansion when one of his relatives kicks it, much to the dismay of some of his other relations, including his cousin and foster sister, Pat. One of the clauses of the will states that Pat gets to continue to live with them, even though the house and the bulk of the fortune goes to them.
Once there, Charles gets the idea to write a book about his ancestress, Amanda Shore, who, according to legend, murdered her husband and then went to France, where she had a beauty treatment that coated her entire face in enamel. This part was confusing to me, because the words the author used made it sound like the enamel was injected into her face, but I suspect that - since this would have been happening in the 1860s (100 years ago, from "today", i.e. the 1960s, according to the cover) - the enamel treatment was actually referring to lead enamel, the popular makeup of the day.
Anyway, Charles starts acting weird and Anita starts seeing what looks like the ghost of Amanda looming around the house. Charles accuses her of sabotage. Anita accuses him of being in love with Amanda and Pat, by turns, and claims that Amanda is coming to get her revenge, etc. Their marriage suffers. There's a psychic who appears and makes ominous comments that for some reason most people seem to take seriously. More stuff happens, then there's a Scooby-Doo style unmasking.
I read this book while drinking wine, and went through two glasses over the course of this book. Wine did not improve the logic of this storyline or the characters' actions (although it actually was a lovely compliment to that dry, sweet, "old book smell"). I see that this author also wrote some novelizations of the vampire soap, Dark Shadows, which helps explain the expositional dialogue and unnecessary melodrama. It was pretty bad. Still, it was not the worst gothic novel I have read - that dubious honor goes to MISTRESS OF THE MOOR. #IRegretNothing
Far too often, YA novels lauded for their 'strong female characters' have me throwing the book across the room in frustration and asking, loudly and rhetorically, "IN WHAT UNIVERSE?"
Not THE IMMORTAL RULES.
Allison Sekemoto is a human living in a city ruled by vampires. A wall separates them from zombies ("rabids") roaming just outside the city limits. There are two kinds of humans in Allie's world: those that go willingly as feudal slaves and get fed in exchange for the tithes of their blood, and those who live off the grid, forced to scavenge in the ruins of civilization for food, shelter, and comfort. Allie was a member of the latter group, until a terrible accident results in her near-death, and she's forced to become what she hates in order to survive.
It's difficult to say too much more without spoiling anything, and this is a book that really should be read knowing as little as possible. In a way, it's a lot like ANGELFALL, in the sense that it's a post-apocalyptic world filled with paranormal characters, and a butt-kicking Asian girl who wields a sword. I actually like THE IMMORTAL RULES a lot better, though, as Allie is far more likable, the world-building is much more consistent, and the love interests - Ezekiel and, I suspect, Kanin - are much nicer, and more interesting, than the angel dude was in ANGELFALL.
I really can't wait to read the next book (which I own- what would I do if I didn't? Cry, probably). I'm really, really trying hard to be rational and explain my love for this book without spoiling the story or screaming nonsensically in all caps, and it's SO HARD, oh my god. The heroes and villains were handled with equal care, and the world was convincingly grim. I read this pretty much in a single sitting, putting it down only to eat, drink, and occasionally rest my eyes. This is such a good story and if you're a fan of dystopian novels like THE HUNGER GAMES or vampires, you should read this.
I was wary about picking this one up because two reviewers I almost always agree with, Heather and Khanh, both gave this a pretty negative review. Also, it's steampunk and YA - two genres I often have issues with. Paired together? It seemed like too much. But THEN I found out that this was a Phantom of the Opera retelling and I was like, "Dude, I love that shiz."
But did I really love that shiz? After all, I think we all remember what happened when I tried to read ROSEBLOOD.
OF METAL AND WISHES has a pretty cool concept. It's set in this industrial universe, chopped up into districts that serve out various functions. Wen, the main character, is the daughter of the doctor/surgeon who works inside a slaughterhouse.
The workers are a different race than Wen's people, called "the Noor" and are dehumanized, called animals and barbarians by the people in the more prestigious roles. But Wen quickly finds sympathy with them because one of them, Melik, is hawt. He's not the "phantom," though. That role belongs to a mysterious figure called "Ghost" who haunts the slaughterhouse, answering the wishes of those who leave offerings at his shrine. Ghost allegedly died in a factory accident years ago, and while some laugh off those claims, mysterious things happen in the factory. Dangerous things. Deadly things.
I'm still laughing about The Phantom of the Slaughterhouse. I'm trying to decide if that's better or worse than The Phantom of the Rave. Probably worse, because neon lights and strobes can be pretty freaky, but it's hard to take a phantom seriously when he's trying to push his way through a bunch of swinging meat carcasses while still trying to look intimidating (note: this did not actually happen, but oh man, it would have been hilarious if it did - like Adam Levine in Animals).
OF METAL AND WISHES tries to tackle racism and rape culture but it fails at both because of some really bad mixed messages. Wen has all kinds of bad things to say about women who sell their bodies, and the men who take them up on that offer, but from her position of privilege it comes off as incredibly insensitive. Especially when she is put into that position later, multiple times (virtually all the men in this book are creeps). She holds herself to a different standard because she is "pure": as if being virginal somehow makes you less deserving of abuse and sexual harassment, which is an absolutely terrible mindset to have.
The racism, likewise, also feels very awkward. Wen comes across as very superior and sanctimonious, and when she feels betrayed by Melik, she's quick to resort to her old, racist beliefs as a means of channeling her rage. Which is realistic in a sense - people often show their true, racist colors when they're angry. But it just seemed to underscore the fact that Wen saw Melik - and the Noor - as being beneath her, and I never really got a sense that she had changed much as a person, even at the end of the book. She was still selfish and awful and judgemental.
Perhaps that could have been forgivable if the story had been better, but it wasn't. The pacing was very slow. The world-building was original, and reminded me of the grim, caste-segregated steampunk stories that Paolo Bacigalupi is well-known for, but Sarah Fine did not flesh out the world enough, and it felt more like a backdrop than a well-developed world. What a shame that was, because a dark and dangerous factory and creepy mechanical spiders could have served as the setting for a modern day Jungle, a la Sinclair Lewis. But this ended up feeling like yet another cliche, wallpaper YA forbidden love story masquerading as a dystopian.
This is one of those books that tries to be many things and ends up failing at all of them, simultaneously. Part police procedural, part dark erotica, PRETTY STOLEN DOLLS aspires to be CAPTIVE IN THE DARK and KISS THE GIRLS, but it's got too much romance to be a straight up thriller and it's too disturbing to be a romance. Also, all of you saying that "Benny" is hot... umm, wtf. It never ceases to amaze me how much creepiness people are willing to tolerate from "heroes"/love interests as long as they have abs...
Jade was kidnapped when she was a young teenager by this doll-making serial killer named "Benny." Benny kept her and her sister in cells, along with other girls, which he liked to dress and put makeup on. Jade was the only one he never dressed up. He kept her naked, and filthy, in a cell, where he repeatedly subjected her to sexual assault. During these moments, his abs are sometimes mentioned, and we get to hear about how attractive he is. The first time it happened, it seemed to come out of nowhere! Ugh.
Eight years later, Jade is a cop and - through some incredible and gross oversight on the part of her superiors - is handling the Benny case while looking for her sister. Too bad she has zero sense and by her own admission is using confirmation bias to treat every missing persons case as a possible link to Benny. She's so determined that she'll ignore direct orders from above and even resort to a bit of vigilante justice, because what's abusing the justice system if it means absolving your personal demons? The stupid was strong in this one. I literally couldn't suspend my disbelief at all. Pretty sure that if you have a personal stake in a police case, you're not supposed to be anywhere near it.
"Benny" is pretty creepy and elements of the relationship between him and Jade is done pretty well. Her PTSD is evident, and permeates her waking and dreaming hours, especially when she's getting intimate with someone else. The problem is that I didn't understand the need for Jade to have not one, but two romantic partners (Bo and Dillon). Neither of them were very interesting and the sex scenes were gross (not gross as in disturbing, but gross as in badly written). Do we really need to know how "big" Dillon is - multiple times? Dillon also struck me as an insensitive mackerel. He pursues a relationship with his colleague with very aggressive sexual overtures that border (or probably are) workplace harassment despite knowing that she's damaged. That's not cool, dude.
I did think that a lot of the disturbing stuff in here was done for shock horror. It felt pointless, just thrown in there for lolz, and reminded me of some of those pulp horror novels from the 70s where it become a gore-off between authors to see who could write the most sex-packed, f'd up material. When I looked up the second author on this book, K. Webster, some of the over-the-top-ness made sense. Apparently she's notorious for those kinds of literary stunts. I've never heard of Ker Dukey before this book, so I don't know what her writing is like when it's removed from Webster's, but yeah, the last act of the book really escalates, and it's not really foreshadowed at all - so be forewarned.
Also - that cliffhanger ends mid-scene, so if you're sticking with this book, as I did, expecting some sort of resolution, brace yourself for disappointment. This is a blatant "TBC..."-type ending that cuts off abruptly right as Benny and Jade are about to meet once more. I guess I was hoping to see Jade get some sort of closure after seeing bad stuff happen to her for almost 200+ pages.
BUT NO.
I can't recommend this book. It isn't very good and I've read other books in this genre (THE COLLECTOR, THE BUTTERFLY COLLECTOR, THE KILLING MOON, SKIN AND BLOND) that were so much better. Give this one a miss and read any of those instead.
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance written by an author who is dead 🎃
There might not be any sex in Georgette Heyer regency romances, but man that woman can pack more drama into these puppies than Julia Quinn at her most malicious. DEVIL'S CUB is downright soap opera-ish in terms of scope and characterization.
The plot is basically this - hold onto your bonnets: Dominic/Dominique (for some reason his name is spelled two different ways here) is a marquis and a rake and a wastrel who has resolved not to marry, instead flitting about with mistresses until he tires of them. His current prospect is a girl named Sophia Challoner. Her mother, foolishly, encourages the affair, thinking that she can use her daughter's pending disgrace as a means of trapping the marquis into marriage. Sophia is more than willing to let Dominique use her. Her sister, Mary, is the only one who thinks this is stupid.
**WARNING: SPOILERS**
One day, Dominique accidentally sends his plans for elopement to the wrong sister (he's forced to flee the country after mortally wounding a man in a duel). Wanting to save her sister, Mary goes in Sophia's place. At first he plans to use her as well, even making a threat of rape, but Mary shoots him with a gun. For some reason, this makes them get on fairly well and Mary even confesses (privately, in her head) to loving him shortly after....!?
At the same time, there's a character named Frederick Comyn who is in love with a girl named Julianna. They're supposed to be married as well, but Julianna thinks he's too stuffy (she's Dominique's cousin) and constantly provokes him to spark a light under his seat. Instead, she ends up offending him and rather than admitting wrong, loftily declares that being with Comyn would be marrying beneath her, anyway. Comyn ends up making a marriage proposal of convenience to Mary instead, seeing as how Dominique and his proposal to Mary have upset her (?!).
Obviously, there's a happy ending but it's a rough road getting there.
Why? Because all of the characters in this book, with very few exceptions, are odious AF.
Sophia, Mary's sister, is absolutely awful and takes an unpleasant amount of glee at the thought of bad things happening to Mary, even though Mary was attempting to save her honor. She throws tantrums, cries, and insults everyone around her, when she's not acting like a vain little slip. I really could not stand her, and thought it was odd that the book ended with her just dropping out of the plot.
Mrs. Challoner, Mary and Sophia's mother, is also awful, so keen to push Sophia into the arms of the marquis despite his reputation. She's also not very nice to Mary, calling her plan and declaring that she will be impossible to wed (which is rather Mary Sue-ish since Mary receives 2 marriage proposals and is constantly getting praise for being well-spoken and pretty).
Leonie, Dominque's mother, is utterly dismissive of her son's behavior and when she finds out that he may have abducted a girl, immediately blames the victim and makes light of the situation, basically saying, "Well, it's not like he tied her down and raped her." When people call her on her son's behavior, she insults them or their children. She's a truly awful woman. I hated her.
Julianna, Dominique's cousin, is just as spoiled as Sophia. I couldn't stand her for how she treated Comyn, who is the only other character I truly liked apart from Mary. She wants him to be forceful with him so she tries to provoke him into anger to make him "man up." I'm sorry, but that's borderline emotionally abusive, in my opinion; this is exactly how cycles of abuse are perpetuated. (And, disturbingly, several characters say how Julianna could use a beating to correct her behavior.)
Dominique/Dominic the hero was also not really a favorite character of mine. He had the potential to be a good antihero but at the last minute, Heyer pulls the punch and decides to make him fall head-over-heels for Mary (?), offering her anything she wants and basically going around acting like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Too many romance authors want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to alpha heroes, and it usually doesn't work. It doesn't work here.
I'm giving this book 3 stars because the story was interesting and the dialogue was witty, and Mary was a pretty good heroine (she gave as good as she got, and her properness was quite amusing). If you're new to Georgette Heyer, though, don't start with this one. She has much better books in her bibliography.
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance where one of the characters is a murderer 🎃
Oy, this is disappointing. I really enjoyed Chambers's other two books, KILLING MOON and SKIN AND BLOND. Both were in genres that I'm generally highly skeptical about and the author managed to win me over with dark, tight plotting and stellar characterization. Even though I'm generally leery about assassin romances, I thought for sure that SLOW BURN couldn't be anything but good in V.J. Chambers's hands.
I was wrong.
For the first 1/3 of the book, I thought this would be good. It has the hallmarks of her other book - damaged men and broken women who don't really "fix" each other (in fact, you could argue that they even make one another worse), but their love persists despite or because of everything, resulting in train wreck drama that makes it hard to look away. SLOW BURN actually reads like a prototype of SKIN AND BLOND, which also featured a promiscuous heroine and an asexual (or, I guess, demisexual in this case) hero with serious emotional problems. Unfortunately for this book, SKIN AND BLOND is the better book and I read that one first.
Here's what I think the author was going for: something like Anne Stuart's Ice series, only with a sci-fi bent. Because the heroine, Leigh, nearly died in a car accident (too much cocaine and alcohol). Her father, who works for a super secret organization, stole a serum that not only heals but also results in increased strength and regenerative abilities. He gave it to his daughter, and she lived; but now that super secret organization is after Leigh. She hides in plain sight, going to college, and taking her father's calls once a month or so on a disposable cell phone. Only, one day he doesn't call, and a man named Griffin shows up in her life claiming that he's been inoculated with the same serum and that her father has hired him to protect her.
It's an interesting premise, even if it is a bit cheesy in an 80s action hero way. My problems stem primarily from the execution. Leigh is an idiot. I like how drug addiction and sex addiction are portrayed in this book but oh my god, it was so much better in SKIN AND BLOND, where you could tell the heroine was competent even though her life was slowly being torn apart. Here, Leigh lacks all sense. This is a girl who is told "lie low" and immediately throws a party and starts snorting cocaine. Not just once, but multiple times. I get that addiction isn't convenient and I understand why the author did it, but it was really frustrating to read - I don't like TSTL heroines, and it would have been easier to stomach if there was something to her character other than the fact that she was beautiful and unashamed of her sexuality and used that to "cure" the demisexual hero.
That's another thing I took issue with in this book: sexuality. This was present in SKIN AND BLOND, but to a much lesser extent. The "asexual" hero keeps referring to himself as broken. In this case, it's a result of sexual abuse, but I don't really like asexuality being compared to a disability: in psychologically healthy human beings, it isn't. Since Griffin was a victim of abuse, it's natural that he wouldn't want sexual contact but that's not really asexuality, that's PTSD. The hero in SKIN AND BLOND referred to himself as broken too, but in that book, it was clear that he was a true asexual (but not aromantic) and just felt frustrated at not being able to live up to the sexually active, heteronormative standards set by society, and that his "brokenness" was an expression of that sentiment. Here, it felt muddled and weird. There's also a strange line from the heroine about the movie, Boys Don't Cry, in which she refers to the trans hero of that movie as a "girl dressing up as a boy." Which, again, I'd like to give the author the benefit of the doubt here, and assume that this is her way of showing the heroine's ignorance (she was, very), but it came off as sounding very misinformed.
Lastly, the pacing. The story just felt way too jumbled and uneven. The sci-fi element ended up making this book really cheesy, and not in a good way. There was too much emphasis placed on the sex, and it detracted from the action sequences. The "grand reveals" felt cliche. It really upset me because SKIN AND BLOND, in comparison, was tight and perfectly paced, with great reveals, excellent sexual tension, and a really smart and flawed heroine, who I didn't always like but always secretly rooted for.
One of the things I like best about Chambers is that she allows her heroines to make mistakes. There are too many books out there that demand perfection from their heroines: they must be beautiful, pure, and good, held to completely different standards than the hero, from whom we're far more quick to forgive much greater flaws. Chambers, like Gillian Flynn, has a penchant for flawed heroines who often do the unforgivable while somehow managing to appear human and even relatable. She just needs to tighten her pacing and omit some of the weird, unnecessary asides from her books in the cutting room.
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance novel romance about ghosts 🎃
I have a love-hate relationship with reading challenges. On the one hand, sometimes I find new gems I never would have thought to pick up otherwise (for example, this year's challenge led me to discover a new favorite author, V.J. Chambers). On the other hand, sometimes they have me scrambling around in the Daily Deals/Free sections of the Kindle Store in a panic, desperately seeking free or cheap books to complete a category I do not like.
MUST LOVE GHOSTS sort of falls into the later category. I went through this very brief period in college where I was reading romances that fell more on the supernatural side of the paranormal romance fence, i.e. psychics, realistic ghost novels, etc. I liked them because they felt more plausible than werewolves, because it's easier to believe in inexplicable occurrences in an old house than it is a hulking GQ model who turns into a furry once a month. (And no, I have nothing against furries or GQ models.) Then I got sick of them and haven't picked up another since...UNTIL NOW.
I picked up MUST LOVE GHOSTS two Halloweens ago because I thought the jack-o-lantern satchel on the cover was cute. The premise was also intriguing. Abby is a girl who lives in a small Virginia town called Banshee Creek that is rife with history. It's a destination location for those interested in the occult and paranormal and many who live there have built their lives around capitalizing on that. Not Abby, though, who's a singer in a folk/country band (although not by choice). This whole time she's been trying to get over the grief of losing her fiance in Afghanistan.
Mike was a friend to both Abby and Cole, the fiance. He's also been in love with her since the day he met her and has tried to hide his feelings out of respect to both his friends. Now that Cole has been dead for two years, though, it's getting harder - especially because he has to deliver an important momento to Abby that he's been holding onto her for years, from Cole. What makes hiding his feelings even more difficult is the possibility that they might not be unrequited.
This was a pretty good story, honestly. It doesn't have a very significant paranormal element. Most of the story focuses on Mike and Abby and their growing attraction to one another, set against the backdrop of this small town vibe. The writing was solid and I don't think I spotted any typos. Both characters felt real in a way that romance characters sometimes don't, by which I mean they are annoying human beings. Mike, especially, got on my nerves with his Debbie Downer routine, and the fact that he was constantly playing Officer Safety, and telling everyone, "that's not safe!" I'm the same way, but he even got on my nerves - and that says something.
MUST LOVE GHOSTS is a fun, light read though. It kind of reminds me of those "cozy mysteries." There isn't a lot of tension and it's mostly written for light entertainment and feeling good. I think this would be a good rainy-day read in a warm, cafe setting. Possibly with a cinnamon flavored pastry.
I'm too tired to do a properly angry review, so while reading this, just picture my face looking like this: 😡
CAPTURED was bad. The characters were incredibly bland. Braith, or whatever his dumb name was, is a generic beautiful vampire who is feared by all without actually giving any reason that he should be regarded in this way. Seriously. What is "evil"? in this world, if Braith is considered on the cutting edge of it? Girl Scouts?
Arianna is a human who is part of the resistance against the vampires. If you think that this means cool fight scenes THINK AGAIN. We meet Arianna post-capture, when she's about to be sold as a blood slave or drained of all her blood. If you think this means emotional tension, THINK AGAIN. She metaphorically bites her nails as she finds out she's being sold to a vampire with cruel eyes and a crooked nose, only to be rescued by Prince Braith.
The ensuing pages are a blathering mess of purple prose, odd word choices, bad writing, and terrible characterization. Arianna is constantly described as special, sometimes in that exact word. She has insta-hate immediately with her female human "rivals," even before she falls into insta-love with Braith. Her eyes are described as "crystalline sapphire" more than once. Her hair has "red streaks" and it's a color the hero has never seen before. She always cries "a single tear" when she's upset. The prince has never had a blood slave before: she is his first. The prince usually goes for curvy women, but now he's discovering for the first time that skinny women are beautiful and so are their angles. I'm not kidding, and yes, there's a scene where she stands in the sunlight and it flatters her sharp angles. Oh, and the kicker is that it turns out Braith was blind - but through mthe magic of Mary Sue Technology (pat. pending), she has restored his sight. Because... magical hoohahs.
I love vampire stories and I love captive romance stories, so this should have been the best of both worlds. Instead, it's the worst, featuring all of the cringiest tropes and starring the Mariest Sue in the Mary Sue universe.I don't think I'll be reading any more books in this series, and probably not anything else by this author, either.
I grabbed a ton of this author's books while they were free, because they were FREE - and also because they looked spooky, and I needed books to fulfill the Halloween romance challenge I am definitely still committed to, even though it is now November. The first book of hers I read was THE KILLING MOON, named after an Echo and the Bunnymen song (YAS), and I enjoyed it way, way more than I thought I would. In fact, I liked it a lot.
When I picked up SKIN AND BLOND, I had raised expectations - but somehow, this book (and the author) exceeded them.
SKIN AND BLOND is about a private investigator named Ivy, who got kicked off the force due to bad behavior (e.g. sleeping around). She has a lengthy history of emotional trauma, as well as a sex addiction, so solving other people's problems seems like it ought to be the last job she should have. And yet, she's good at what she does. Good enough that people go to her when they think that the cops won't or can't help.
One such case gets passed along to her from her last friend in the world, her ex-boyfriend, and previously fellow cop, Miles. A distraught brother is determined to find his missing sister, who vanished without a trace, taking her bed sheets with her apparently but leaving her phone behind. But the simple missing persons case quickly blows up as drugs and mafia ties enter the mix, and pretty soon a flighty girl's post-college misadventures start to look a whole lot more sinister.
Plenty of authors try to write dark content, but Chambers actually succeeds. SKIN AND BLOND is creepy, in more ways than one, but it also has a great dark emotional sphere. Ivy is torn up about losing her job, her inability to form personal relationships where sex is an act of intimacy instead of oblivion, and her own unpleasant past that involves the death of her parents. Her relationship with Miles tore me up inside because Miles is asexual, but desperately wants a family and love, but even though he's not aromantic, he still is averse to sex and touching. His love for Ivy and her love for him took on the tragedy of a Greek play, and watching them interact made my heart hurt.
And no, that love doesn't magically "cure" their problems or their lack of sexual desire/intimacy.
I really enjoyed this book a lot. It's everything I want in a thriller, and the closest thing I've found to filling that gap left by a dearth of new Gillian Flynn books. If you enjoy psychological thrillers with strong female characters riddled with flaws and personal baggage, you will love this book.
I needed a romance novel about a demon for a reading challenge, and this book was free (this is becoming a familiar refrain from me). The summary sounded intriguing but it had one of those horrible cartoony covers (not pictured here), and I always side-eye my acquisitions from the freebie section because while I have unearthed some gems there, there's also a lot of garbage.
At first, I really enjoyed the childish banter and gossipy writing style. It kind of reminded me of Katie MacAlister before her writing got kind of bad, or the middle Stephanie Plum novels when they were formulaic and cheesy but still good.
Ysabel is a witch who was burned at the stake 500 years ago when she got too inconvenient for her lover to have around. She cursed him, his mother, and three other villagers who were responsible for her death with her last dying breath - only she didn't read the fine print of that spell. Now, she's doomed to serve as Lucifer's assistant in the afterlife and he wants her on a special assignment: those 5 humans who killed her have escaped, and she's going to relive the final moments of her death in increasing increments of time every day that they remain at large.
Remy is the half-demon assigned by Lucifer to help him, and he's basically a walking sexual harassment poster. Remember the heroes of the early 2000s, the hyper-sexualized ones who acted like frat boy rejects and thought "no" was just a "yes" in the rough? Remy is cast in that mold, so much so that I actually checked the book's publication date to see if it was a 2002 release, or something like that. But no, this came out in 2012.
Despite his grating personality, I really liked the premise and the chemistry between them was somewhat well done, so I thought I might be able to overlook that element of sleaze. I sat on a three-star rating for this book until the 50% mark, when I realized that the sexist comments were going to keep coming and Remy was going to let his alpha flag fly, saying things like, how he wished he could have her walk around panty-less but oh, then the demons who lived in the sewers might see her crotch when she was walking around and that crotch belonged to him... but oh, then he could just kill all the demons who lived in the sewers in a massive act of genocide so she could be panty-less and remain his alone! Ha ha! A winner is he! And Ysabel, she eats this up, hook, line, and sinker, after some token resistance, because Remy likes women who say "no" because he sees it as a "challenge."
Ew.
Also, at the end we find out that Lucifer secretly orchestrated this to play matchmaker because he wants to breed more inhabitants of hell. Double ew @ infernal breeding programs.
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance novel romance about zombies 🎃
The blurb on Goodreads is super confusing, because I don't remember reading any of the parts about Sera controlling his own brain or the details behind the government mandated experiments. All of that was sort of hinted at, but as far as I can remember it was never stated in such black and white terms.
Sera is a psychic who has, apparently, died. While he was alive, he was friends with a guy named "Wish" who promised him that he was going to create this great mental afterlife that he could frolic in when he died: think heaven, only for psychics, except that it's called, appropriately enough, "Wish City."
When Sera gets to Wish City, he finds out - surprise, surprise - that it's not exactly what Wish promised him. Paradise is downright ugly, with drugs and cheap sex filling the streets. Everything is dark and grungy and completely unlike what Sera expected.
Fiend, like the city, was also dreamed up by Wish, and like the City, he's a creation that managed to get loose from his creator and take on a shape all of his own. Fiend likes to eat brains, and next up on his cerebral prix fixe menu is Sera. Only... he's attracted to Sera physically as well, and decides to toy with his food before eating him - but that doesn't quite go as planned, either.
HOW TO LOVE A MONSTER falls into that hateful three-star review territory for me. There was nothing particularly wrong with the story but it didn't wow me enough where all I wanted to do was gush. It entertained me, and then we parted ways. I did think the world building was very odd, and while original, there were many aspects that confused me and could have used more fleshing out.
While reading, I kept having this sense of deja vu, wondering what this book reminded me of. Then it hit me: those weird dark fantasy movies from the late 90s like eXistenZ (1999) and Dark City (1998). Both of those movies had an incredibly original world with a compelling storyline and scenery, but - for me - also felt kind of confusing and sometimes even nonsensical (and not in a good way).
I bought this while it was 99-cents and for that, I think it was a good deal. If you're a fan of bizarre stories and/or are looking for m-m erotica that doesn't fit the usual mold, you'll like this, I think.
P.S. I realize that Fiend isn't a zombie, but since I don't read zombie novels for the most part, I decided to go ahead and use him for a zombie category on my Halloween romance challenge. He eats brains - I figured that was close enough.
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance novel with a skull on the cover 🎃
I've read several mafia romances and so far all of them, without exception, have been incredibly stupid.
My expectations when I picked up PASSION & VENOM were low, but I needed a book with a skull on the cover for a Halloween challenge and it was free (and still is free as of 11/4) in the Kindle store, so I figured, "Why not? YOLO."
To my surprise, PASSION & VENOM was actually a decent read. It has the dubious honor of being the only mafia romance I didn't want to throw out the window.
Unfortunately, it is still kind of stupid.
There are two kinds of stupid. There is the kind of stupid that makes you want to throw books out the window, and the kind of stupid that feels incredibly fun and goes best with popcorn. This book is the latter. In fact, it shares many attributes (good and bad) with the books of one of my favorite authors of all time: Bertrice Small. I would call her books stupid, but I love them all the same. The over-the-top situations, bad writing, inexplicable violence, and d-bag heroes are part of the fun.
PASSION & VENOM is about a girl named Gia. On the day of her wedding, her husband is killed, Kill Bill style, and she is kidnapped and kept in squalor under the constant threat of torture. Her only companion is a man without arms - her captors cut his arms off, and this man warns her that they might very well do the same to her - or worse.
Her captor is a man named Draco Molina. One thing about him that I appreciated is that the author shows he is a bad guy without beating us over the head with it. He is not one of those ill-tempered buffoons who shows off his "might" by waving around a gun and yelling and basically acting impulsive. Everything Draco does is cold and calculating. He is scary, and some of the (graphic) scenes in here are downright disturbing, straight out of a 1970s bodice ripper.
There were two things about this book that I really couldn't forgive and ultimately these two things were what dragged down the rating of this book from a 4 star to a 3 star rating.
1. Gia doesn't really have much in the way of personality and falls for her captor way too quickly, given what he'd done. In the beginning, I felt for her. She was kidnapped and wanted to escape. I liked her resourcefulness and hoped to learn more about her as a character. I don't feel like she really developed from that point. She was a highly superficial character who only really had two facets: attempt to escape and fail spectacularly and fight attraction to Draco. He was a bad man. I would have liked to have seen more conflict about that attraction.
2. The writing is, at times, really terrible. The heroine refers to her vagina, repeatedly, as "her sacred place." People "smash their lips together" instead of pressing them together in thought. Some of the sex scenes are cringe-worthy and involve the phrases "I am making his face my b*tch" and "my nectar coating all of him." Blech, no, thank you. Using nectar for sexy times is almost as bad as "cream."
Lastly, I wasn't thrilled that Draco's relationship to her and her family is teased at throughout the entire book, only to end on a cliffhanger. I also thought that the relationship between Gia and Francesca was interesting but it yo-yo'd a lot for the convenience of the plot, and it might have been nice to see more development there (as opposed to the sudden events of the ending).
Overall, thought, PASSION & VENOM was a pleasant surprise. I found it to be a fun, quick read that hit all the same buttons as a 1970s bodice ripper pulling all the triggering stops. I don't recommend this for the faint of heart (so anyone who doesn't appreciate reading about violence, rape, gore), or for people who balk at the idea of trashy books for entertainment value (ya squares!), but if you like dark romances where the villain gets the girl or are fed up with bad mafia romances, like I am, then you should probably give PASSION & VENOM a try.
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance where a graveyard is a major setting in the novel 🎃
I've seen some blatant false packaging before - I've seen Sarah Huckabee Sanders's press conferences - but this book takes the cake. The title and bright cover with primary hues make you think you're getting some adorable little chick-lit book that's probably set in either New York or Tuscany, about some woman in her early thirties who's "finding" herself.
What you're actually getting is a grim book set in France about a woman named Diane who has lost her husband and daughter in a terrible accident. She's obviously in a period of grief, but that grief appears to be turning to depression - she doesn't wash, doesn't go out, doesn't live, and it's starting to impact her life in a hugely dysfunctional way. The title of the book is actually the name of the literary cafe she ran with her husband before he died, and now it's falling into disrepair just like her.
One day, Diane gets this idea that she's got to go to Ireland. Her husband always wanted to go there, because he liked the cold, so she feels like this trip, in a way, will be an exile that punishes her for her family's death even further, while also bringing her closer to her husband spiritually. I don't like to use the word "crazy" but... man, this woman is pushing it.
So she gets to Ireland, where she rents a place, and her neighbors are some pretty friendly Irish people - except her grumpy neighbor who irrationally dislikes her for no apparent reason. They fight with each other constantly and he says the cruelest things to her, and even makes her so upset that she throws up and cries. And then... suddenly, she and this guy - who happens to be named Edward - has an abrupt personality change, and they decide they like each other, and oh, by the way, how did you catch that crabapple so quickly and how long have you been 37 anyway? A long time? Are you just saying that or are you actually a vampire who transformed to escape from dying of the Spanish flu?
I'm kidding. None of that later stuff happens. Except for the personality change, that is.
I picked this book up on impulse, and when I saw the average Goodreads rating for this book, I was like oh no. The first half of this book is so depressing, and the main character is such a sh*t, that you're torn between feeling sorry for her and kind of wanting to slap her because she's so annoying. That's how I felt about Alessandra Torre's THE GHOSTWRITER, so I think if you enjoyed that book, you might enjoy this one, too, because both are dark stories that feature unlikable main characters. When the romance finally comes along, it's dysfunctional, and the hero reveals himself to be a man who is spinally challenged when it comes to the hilariously OTT b*tchy OW.
I see this book was originally written in French and translated for the benefit of an English speaking audience. Perhaps the book is better in the original language. I always wonder about that, whenever I get a translated book that falls short for some inexplicable reason, or the "writing" in English is just bad. I did enjoy this story, despite everyone being jerks and the somewhat odd story. I think whether or not you will like this book depends on how great your jerk tolerance is.
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance with a masquerade/costume party 🎃
This is a Nenia and Sarah BR brought to you by Kindle Clean Out Club Productions. Tired of hoarding ebooks and not reading them? Now, in 200-550 easy steps, you can! No, but seriously, if it weren't for this forum, I'd be way more behind on my to-read list. It is The Best. If your Kindle is also out of control, join our group and make us of this forum! I'm always looking for new partners in crime.
First, a disclaimer. I received a free copy of this book to review a while ago. I don't think it particularly biased me one way or the other, since I'm an assh*le and have no problem rating the books I receive - for free - one star, but just in case it did bias me, now you know. NOW YOU KNOW.
HOW THE DUKE WAS WON is kind of like a Regency era version of The Bachelor. James, Duke of Harland ("His Disgrace"), needs to get married for business. He decides the best way of going about this is inviting four ladies - and their mothers - to his estate for three days to choose which of them would make the best duchess. Which I guess would make this The Duchlerette?
Charlene - a totally accurate 1800s name that does not scream Dolly Parton-esque country music singer at all, no ma'am - is the daughter of a famous courtesan. The creepy dude the two of them are indebted to, Grant, is about to call her in for their debts, and just to prove that he's a total creep, he's tried to brand her with an iron to make her his. Charlene is also afraid for her younger sister Lulu (these names guys, omg) who she is trying to shield from their family's unsavory history.
As it turns out, Charlene is the half-sister of one of the women who's been invited to the Duchlerette, Dorothea. Her mother, a countess, proposes a My Fair Lady-esque transformation, lasting just long enough for Charlene to compromise the duke, thereby landing a proposal and allowing Dorothea to swoop in and claim her regal prize.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG?*
*everything
Most of my friends didn't like this book, which always has me worried. I can definitely see why HOW THE DUKE WAS WON could rub people the wrong way. It is not on the scale of Lisa Kleypas or Courtney Milan, and the dialogue is rather laughably modern with the characters all behaving in highly unconventional ways with no consequences. If you like historical accuracy, the names of the characters alone should have you tossing this down and fleeing the other way.
For a fluff piece, however, it's quite enjoyable. I liked Charlene as a character, with her penchant for martial arts as taught to her by her Japanese bodyguard, her devotion to her younger sister, and her very compelling reason for agreeing to this scam in the first place (Grant is a creep). James was a good character too. He was an alpha male without being brutish or creepy and I liked him a lot. The sex scenes in here are pretty steamy, too. Not too graphic, but definitely not fade-to-black either.
Overall, I enjoyed Lenora Bell's HOW THE DUKE WAS WON. I'd read more in this series for sure.
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance novel with blood on the cover 🎃
Good books make you ask questions - but sometimes, bad books make you ask questions, too. Questions like, "Why is this book so long?" "How did this even get published?" And, most pressingly, "What is it about this book that people actually like?"
I read SEMPRE for our book of the month over at URR, and am only just now finishing it because of how awful it was. It wasn't even spectacularly awful - just dismally so. Everything about this book dragged. Most of those 500 pages? They're all padding. The story, without all that fluff, is pretty simple. Haven is a teenage slave. Carmine's father buys her. He falls in love with his slave, and she falls in love with him, and it's all hearts and cuddles and tender moments - until the mafia steps in and says, "Hell no."
I hate to say it, but I was on the mafia's side in this one. I was like, "Hell no," too.
Here's my biggest issue. SEMPRE reads like the author wanted to write fanfic of Goodfellas, Godfather, and Sopranos, but she also really wanted to write a disgustingly fluffy book like Stephanie Perkins, but she also wanted to write a really edgy new adult book with SEX, but she also really wanted her hero to be a Nice Guy, but she also really wanted her heroine to be pure and virtuous.
Even though, you know, she grew up in a world of sex trafficking.
So what we have is a PG-13 mafia/human trafficking book where most of the book takes place in high school and there's a few random scenes that seem to be heavily inspired by the three mafia books I mentioned, all written from Carmine's father's POV. Haven is a slave, whose mother is basically a sex slave, but Haven herself is used for cooking and cleaning and that's it. She's innocent about everything, and even asks, in all seriousness, whether there are colleges in California.
WHAT.
I mean, there's sheltered, and then there's how-the-hell-did-you-not-know-that.
Carmine is everything I hate in a hero. He swears a lot and punches people out to show how tough he is, and Darhower desperately tries to make him the good guy by punching out these people on Haven's behalf and having all these forced intimate moments with her. Forced in the technical sense, that is: not the rapey sense. And Haven is so naive that she makes me sick. You can tell that she's just supposed to be so adorable because she nibbles at food, nuzzles at people, peers up at people, and chases fireflies while the adoring Carmine just sits there and smiles in vacant admiration because that's what people do when they watch cat videos, and Haven is basically supposed to be the human equivalent of a cat video - only for some reason, it's not cute when a person does it, just disturbing.
I'm still blown away by how boring and terrible this was, and that it has a 4.2 average rating on Goodreads (did we read different books?). SEMPRE took a dar topic and tried to make it a cute love story. The result is a book that comes across as both tone deaf and ridiculous.
The Kindle freebie section can be a cesspool of literary garbage, but once in a while, you dredge up a total gem. THE KILLING MOON, named after an Echo & the Bunnymen song, is like a cross between one of those gritty early 00's paranormal romances and the movie, The Silence of the Lambs.
Dana was kidnapped and tortured by a werewolf named Cole, but their relationship was complicated before that, and became way more complicated afterwards. Now he's locked up and she's a professional werewolf tracker, and she's forced to interact with him yet again because of information he may or may not have about a bunch of werewolf-related murders. It's painfully clear how damaged she is psychologically, and the struggle between the mind and the heart is clear as she struggles to resist the manipulative Cole.
I thought the murder mystery part was very well done. The pacing was excellent and the flashbacks heightened tension and improved the storyline instead of bogging it down. Dana was a sympathetic main character and even though she made some stupid decisions, I felt like they were in line with her character and they never bordered on TSTL - because she's one seriously F'd up piece of work.
Cole was actually sexy and that's testament to the author's skills, in my opinion, that she managed to turn a werewolf serial killer into an attractive love interest. The sexual tension between him and Dana was seriously off the charts. I think what makes it work is that it's clear that he respects Dana and understands her. He's not an alphahole. Avery was also a great male character and I couldn't decide whether I wanted Dana to end up with him or Cole. Hollis, on the other hand? Total slime-bucket. Hated him immediately and wanted him dead by the end. Boooo!
THE KILLING MOON has some disturbing content (rape, gore, kidnapping, etc.), but it was nothing too graphic in my opinion, and it never felt gratuitous. The pacing is tight and I was actually almost late for work one morning because I just had to find out what happened next. I really enjoyed the story and the tone of THE KILLING MOON and am definitely interested in reading the sequel(s).
As of 10/04/17, this book is currently only $1.99 for Kindle.
I really enjoyed this little book. Granted, my hopes were low. I'd looked through the reviews of DARKWATER and many of them were saying that DARKWATER was dull and flat, with a raging Mary Sue of a heroine who wouldn't STFU.
To my surprise, I found myself with a rather delightful Gothic romance written in the vein of such popular favorites as Victoria Holt or Patricia Maxwell (AKA, Jennifer Blake). Better yet, I got to buddy read it with one of my new Goodreads friends, Elena.
Fanny is the ward of some awful relations. Her uncle, Edgar, is an enabler to his cold and greedy wife, Louisa, and air-headed, vain daughter, Amelia. Much to the rage and annoyance of Louisa and Amelia, Fanny is far prettier than Amelia, the heiress, and is constantly turning heads despite being poor. When Edgar finds out he has two new wards to take care of, he's the only one who seems indifferent, even pleased. Louisa is annoyed and Amelia, disenchanted. Fanny is the only member of the family who truly harbors a soft spot for the young children, and despite having planned to use their pick-up as a chance to escape, voluntarily stays on in order to care for and nanny them.
I just want to pause here, and say that I often hate seeing children in fiction because they're either way too precocious and cutesy, or else used as plot points without much in the way of characterization. These children, Nolly (Olivia) and Marcus were incredibly well-written and actually acted like children (i.e. at times sweet, at other times, bratty). They added a lot of comic relief but they also stood on their own as characters. I also thought that Fanny's family was well done. Amelia was far from being the b*tchy, jealous rival... she had moments of thoughtless kindness, and even Louisa had some humanizing emotions. I felt like that made their dynamic so much more interesting.
Oh, and then there's George. Fanny's creepy, "no maybe means yes" cousin. Ew, George. Ew.
The love interest, Adam Marsh, appears mysteriously (such is the way of the gothic romance) and leaves just as mysteriously. When he returns, he seems more interested in Amelia than Fanny (much to Fanny's devastating) and he strings Fanny along while cavorting with Amelia, which I really disliked him for. Obviously there is an explanation towards the end, but I so did not buy that.
Call me slow, but I didn't guess the perpetrator(s) until the very end. I wasn't trying to figure it out, though. I was reading DARKWATER in between reading Stephen King's IT, and this cozy mystery was the perfect balm for sleepless nights inspired by psychotic, murder-happy clowns. I just sat back and let the story carry me away, and found myself pleasantly surprised by the journey.
If you enjoy Gothic novels, this is a great addition to the collection. I want to read more Eden now!
🎃 Read for the Unapologetic Romance Readers Halloween 2017 Reading Challenge for the category of: a romance with a Celtic theme 🎃
I recently reread and reviewed OUTLANDER, to see if it would hold up to my initial reading. To my pleasant surprise, it did. I enjoyed the book so much that I immediately launched into the sequel, DRAGONFLY IN AMBER. The book starts out in the present day for Claire - the 1960s. Now she has a daughter in her 20s, and she's returned back to the place where she first disappeared. After a hundred pages or so, the book slips back into the 18th century, to Charles Stuart as he holds court in France, and, of course, to Claire and Jamie's desperate attempts to avert the Battle of Culloden.
Usually time travelers do everything they can not to change the course of history. In fact, it's like a rule: don't touch anything, don't even step on anything, because if you step on a butterfly, even, the Internet might not exist, or the US might be colonized by England. Not Claire, though.Claire comes from the 11/23/63 school of history, in the sense that she doesn't just not try to avoid changing history - she actively dedicates her life to f*cking with events.
For the greater good, of course.
This is a difficult book to rate. It's so long. Longer than it needs to be, I think you could argue. Parts of it were great. I loved the parts set in France - the plotting, the intrigue, the scandals, the violence. There were duels, rape (of course), cults, assassination attempts, poison attempts, potion-making, and, of course, long and gratuitous scenes involving primitive healthcare. Parts of the Battle of Culloden were good, too (I've been to Culloden... it's a beautiful and haunting place). Jack Randall makes an appearance, and he is just as disgusting as he was in the previous book, reminding everyone that he is the Ramsay Bolton of the Outlander universe, and everyone wants him just as dead.
(Spoiler alert: he doesn't die in this book.)
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I wasn't too keen on the parts about Roger Wakefield and Brianna. I also felt like there was a lot of wandering around, doing nothing - especially in the last three-hundred pages or so. Even when Claire gets kidnapped by (spoiler), I was just kind of like, "Well, okay, but what now?" Honestly, I feel like I was emotionally exhausted. Jamie and Claire's relationship consumes everything about this novel. When they're not having sex, they're arguing, and when they're not arguing, they're pledging their lives for one another, and when they're not doing that, somebody's trying to kill them, etc.
I did enjoy DRAGONFLY IN AMBER quite a bit, albeit not as much as the first book. There were fewer memorable scenes, but a handful (like the French Court) were just as good, if not better. I'm still interested in continuing this series and reading about my favorite Scottish romance hero.
I can't stop side-eying the condescending blurb on the back jacket, though.
"Diana Gabaldon is light-years ahead of her romance-novelist colleagues." -Daily News (New York), emphasis mine.
"Light-years," huh?
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I mentioned in OUTLANDER that I came across an article about the book and TV series and how the author resisted the romance category because she apparently felt it would detract from the literary merits of her work. Under the FAQ section of her website, where Gabaldon says some interesting things about DRAGONFLY IN AMBER (my reason for going to her website in the first place), she also has a subheading dedicated to this same topic. I read it. The whole thing has left a sour taste in my mouth. OUTLANDER won a RITA award - although she's quick to point out on her website that non-romance books can win those too (*eye-roll*) and I believe she's a member of the RWA (Romantic Writers of America). I'm a die-hard romance fan, and I guess it makes me sad that a romance novelist whose work I respect and admire seems to be trying so hard to distance herself from the genre in a way that almost seems as though she considers herself to be superior to it.
That aside, the Outlander series has, thus far, caused me to read about 2,000 pages about the same characters without becoming utterly fed-up. Whether you agree that it's a romance or not, it's certainly a compelling and action-packed series with morally grey characters who are forced to confront their mortality and their passions, time and again. I'm looking forward to VOYAGER.
I love my romance reading friends, but sometimes they lead me astray. Take my first foray into the Alexa Riley novels, which read like the manuscripts of a bad porno featuring a hero who wouldn't be out of place in an episode of Criminal Minds in which the cops discover a human breeding farm in his basement. Or, take the (thankfully) short-lived monsterotica trend, in which all the creepies from those pulpy 50s B-movies return in titles like The Blob That F*cked Everything or Swamp Monster Gang Bang.
When I saw ICE PLANET BARBARIANS showing up in my Goodreads feed, I was highly skeptical. It was being read by many of the same people who tried recommending Alexa Riley to me. I had horrific visions of probes, scary alien genitals, and bad dialogue being set to porn music with theramin solos (so, basically Broken Bells without the singing).
When this book showed up - for free - in the Kindle store, I decided why not? Apart from my time, that's as risk free as you can get with an ebook. I downloaded it immediately and forgot about it for several months until my romance group started its yearly Halloween challenge and I found myself looking at the "aliens" category and going, "Hmm..."
ICE PLANET BARBARIANS, despite that cover that seems determined to make you think that you are reading a terrible book, is... not a terrible book. In fact, it's a bit like diet R. Lee Smith - you have a heroine who is kidnapped by alien slave traders who are then forced to dump their cargo on an icy planet that is inhabited by hunky alien warriors. One of them, a chief named Vektal, happens upon Georgie while she's trying to get help or find food. She turns out to be his "resonance" or mate, the one who makes his khui all hot and bothered. Which means the sex is great (obviously - apparently ice planet barbarians are built like sex toys, with the downstairs equipment of a robust dildo, replete with vibrating) but the angst is high, because Georgie kind of wants to just go back home. To Earth.
Unlike R. Lee Smith, the world-building in this book is not so epic or complex. It's still creative, but it lacks that development, because the romance is at the forefront of this story whereas Smith is more about deep relationships that develop over the course of hundreds and hundreds of chapters in the style of the hefty epics from the 70s and 80s. The focus is on Georgie and Vektal's physical relationships, which then later graduates to insta-love. I rolled my eyes at that. This is that paranormal fated-to-be-mated BS, with interstellar packaging. YOU CAN'T FOOL ME, RUBY DIXON.
Despite my numerous reservations, though, I actually liked ICE PLANET BARBARIANS. I love the cheesy title. I thought the world building was cool (although I would have liked more development of the universe, as well as the other alien races, and though that the subplot with the slavers was tied off pretty hastily at the end). Georgie was a decent heroine. Vektal was actually kind of an adorable hero. I thought the secret behind the khui was interesting. I would read more in this series, for sure.
Thanks, Elena, for participating in this impromptu buddy read!
I needed a romance about witches for a Halloween reading challenge, and I figured a historical romance novel about the Salem witch trials was close enough. Because we all know that the whole point of these challenges is to skirt the rules as closely as possible, right?
Right.
The premise of this book sounded fantastic. And at first, it was. Brianna's aunt, Pegeen, is burned as a witch in King James's Scotland by a fanatical witchfinder named Matthews who is so twisted up about his sexual urges that he's decided attractive woman = witch.
When Brianna comes running up in horror, only to catch the tail-end of her aunt's murder, Matthews is struck by her beauty. And naturally, anything that makes his naughty bits feel funny must be using the foulest magics indeed, so Brianna is also declared a witch, and he and his men chase her all the way to the docks. Brianna ducks into an inn, where she encounters Sloan, our hero. He figures she's the prostitute he ordered and Brianna, fearing for her life, rolls with it. When Sloan later figures out the truth, he feels responsible for her, and decides to protect her. The two of them flee, with Matthew in pursuit, and Sloan declared witch-by-association. The chase is on.
There's definitely a Frollo/Esmeralda dynamic between Matthews and Brianna that feels super creepy. Matthews was a great villain, and I think it was a huuuuuge mistake to kill him off in the first quarter of the book, because everything after that feels like filler - especially since the h and the H have sex pretty early on in the book, and the will they/won't they? tension that keeps most romance readers (aka, "me") turning the pages is absent, since it's clear they are both super into each other. That's when Graham whips out her trump card: the hero is married to another woman and has been this whole time, which is why the h and the H can't get married. But it's not really cheating because she's a madwoman in an attic. Brianna just got JANE EYRE'D!
Brianna, meanwhile, leaves Scotland for New England - because it's totally safe there. No witch-related executions in Salem or anything. *rolls eyes* So she and her kid live with her cousin, Robert (or Rupert?) (who she married after she found out about the OW). The kid is Sloan's. Witch fever hits Massachusetts. The people featured in The Crucible are mentioned, which was a nice little Easter Egg, but the Puritan witchfinders are super lame compared to the sinister figure that was Matthews. Rupert/Robert gets accused of being a witch and kindly dies off in the last act, freeing Brianna to be with Sloan. They rediscover their carnal passions and the book ends with a happily ever after.
I wanted to like this book so badly but it was so boring that I ended up skimming the last 100 pages because I could feel time draining away with each page. The ingredients for a good story were here, but they were never fulfilled. Matthews was such an excellent villain, and he really was not permitted to go full-on crazypants by the author the way a 1970s bodice ripper-type novel would have. I also couldn't stand Brianna, who is not only TSTL, she's also foot-stompy and averse to following even the most simplest instructions (especially if they are for her own good/will save her life). It's hard to like a heroine who has two emotional settings: horny and outraged. JUST TWO. Sloan wasn't much better. He was kind of a jerk. Not really an alphahole. Just a bland, unlikable "dear john" type.
I kept hoping Matthews would return as a zombie in the third act, but that didn't happen.
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨
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