Silent Blade by Ilona Andrews

Posted on August 1, 2009 by janicu

Despite the teetering TBR pile, I went ahead and bought Ilona Andrews’ latest (a short story from Samhain) as soon as I thought I’d made a wee dent in my reading. The price is $2.50 at the Samhain website but a helpful commenter (_ocelott_ from genrereviews) let me know it was cheaper at Books on Board. As of this review, the price there is $1.74, and its $2.00 at Amazon.

This is a short story in a world that isn’t the same as that of the Kate Daniels series or the upcoming On the Edge series. And.. its a science fiction romance!! *happy dance*.The Premise: In a futuristic world in which powerful families control much of the world because of their biological and technological enhancements, Meli Galdes is an assassin who was excised from her family so that she could carry out killings without being connected to them. Meli has just gone into retirement when her kinsmen ask for one more kill: Celino Carvanna, the man responsible for ruining her life. It’s been twelve years since the event, and Celino doesn’t recognize her, but Meli hasn’t forgotten the pain he caused and plans to exact her revenge.

Read an excerpt from the Samhain site

My Thoughts: I like the way that the world building is related in this one. In the space of a few short pages I understood the concept of families with enhanced biological traits and financial power. A futuristic society is presented through DNA scanners, robot security, ereaders, plasti-paper, and other day-to-day objects. Meli and Celino are also conveyed in quick strokes. In 41 pages, their characters had more depth than I’ve seen in full length novels. Celino is a ruthless business genius who is impatient and powerful, and sometimes overlooks things because he moves too fast. Meli is just as smart, just as lethal, feminine, and much more observant. She’s aware of his deficiencies and knows how to counteract them. Of course, she knows a lot about Celino, and the back story of why is fascinating.

You know, after pondering about it, I realized that this is like a Harlequin Presents novel (my favorite Harlequin line by the way). It’s got a businessman mogul and rival companies and an engagement for the sake of business strategy. Of course, in this case the Billionaire businessman is a preternaturally fast knife expert. And the rival’s daughter is an assassin who wants revenge on him. I’m not sure if I’m reading too much into the story by coming up with this, but if it was a deliberate spin on a popular trope, I’m delighted.

Unlike the Kate Daniel’s books out so far, this story does contain sex. It’s done nicely and although I was surprised at first how quickly it happens, fits in with the revenge plot. The romance is more than just physical attraction, there’s a mental connection as well (the discussion of books in particular, some titles I googled and now want to read, was a touch I loved). The couple also have a history, which means the romance really spanned a longer time period than what the short story focused on. I wasn’t sure how the author was going to pull of this story with a satisfying HEA but they managed to do it!

Overall: I liked it a lot! I recommend it, but I will read anything and everything by this author so it’s probably not a shock to those who regularly read my blog. I spent a nice hour or so reading this story in bed. Well worth the money and my time, and if this ever comes out in print, I’d buy it all over again. In an Ilona Andrews short story collection perhaps? I’d die of happiness!

If you want an idea of how well Ilona Andrew’s short stories are written, I suggest reading her freebies on her website. I noticed that the idea of powerful, mafia like families is something the writer likes to play with; it also shows up in one of my other favorite short stories – Days of Swine and Roses.

Endless Blue by Wen Spencer

Posted on July 28, 2009 by janicu

Endless Blue

Wen Spencer

Wen Spencer is among the Authors I Stalk. Yes, she is on my list. Therefore I have been eagerly anticipating Endless Blue since I knew it was coming out. Unfortunately it came out in hardcover, and I’m a paperback girl, so I waited another few months for the paperback copy to be released. Finally I bought it last week and although it’s about 495 pages, I inhaled it. Ah, sweet space opera!

The Premise: Mikhail Volkov is a clone of Peter the Great and heir apparent to the great Novaya Rus Empire. He’s captain of the warship the Svobada, and helping the United Colonies fight off the alien Nefarim when it’s requested that he investigate the sudden appearance of a warp drive from the long lost Fenrir. With the drive being covered in coral and sea life, it’s apparently come from some body of water, but according to it’s data, it’s last jump was a misjump to location zero. Mikhail accepts the mission, jumps to the same location and crashes. His adopted brother Turk becomes separated from him in a world where they are surrounded by aliens and humans in the same situation and who never escaped.

My Thoughts: Wen Spencer is one of those authors with sometimes really complex ideas. I find I have to read about 100 pages in before what the characters are talking about begin to make sense. It’s always worth my patience, because once I get it, it’s smooth reading. In this case I had a hard time first understanding the world of the Sargasso Sea which Turk and Mikhail find themselves, and I had to understand what a Red was. To help others this is what I understood:

A Red: is an “adapted” human. Basically, human genes were manipulated to create a super soldier who is faster, stronger and better at surviving harsh conditions, but they were also taught to obey and treated as second class citizens, like animals. Usually they are grown in batches and raised in a creche where they all undergo some behavioral imprinting.
The Sargasso Sea: A world where spaceships disappear into when they misjump. Most of it is covered in water, gravity follows strange rules, and no one can figure out how to get out. To me it sounded like the inside of a very large egg, but don’t ask me where the sun is, I still don’t know.

After I got those two concepts, I felt comfortable enough with the world and what was going on, but there are still some complex ideas going on in here about communication and behavior and faith. There’s also a LOT of ideas from japanese culture (Tinker also had this). In some ways it’s refreshing to be expected to be able to follow these ideas, but it meant I couldn’t read this book when I was really tired, my brain just wouldn’t work. Anyway, the world building was awesome – boats, floating islands, minotaurs, cannibals, the list goes on, I really can’t describe it. I think if you’ve read Tinker maybe you’d see what I mean, it can get very out there in a good way.

Wen Spencer writes well rounded, three dimensional characters too. Turk and Mikhail are leaders and quick thinkers but they have fears and problems. Mikhail suffers from depression, and Turk has issues with being a Red. Having a clone and a super-soldier as adopted brothers was an interesting twist on common science fiction tropes, plus we get to see the family dynamics, which seems to be a Wen Spencer trademark (see A Brother’s Price). There are Turk and Mikhail, and then there are the Baileys, who have a huge extended and remarkable family. Their familial bonds felt realistic – you know what the pecking order is, who is better than this than who, what they always fight over, how siblings could easily guess their siblings reactions and thoughts. It was very well done. Of course comparing the Baileys and the Volkovs, there are some big differences in upbringing which had a big part in the book. The big difference seems to be Turk’s status as a Red, and being treated like an animal in normal space. He can “fur up” and there’s a contingent of people who call themselves “cat fanciers” and get off on the idea of sex with Reds. This brings a whole level of effed up to his psyche.

There is a nice romance going on here between Turk and one of the Baileys. Near the beginning of the book when Turk was separated from his brother, the narrative would go back and forth between Turk and Mikhail. I just wanted to skip ahead to all the parts with Turk (and the romance), and ignore Mikhail. Thankfully the narrative stopped bouncing back and forth before I become really impatient, and by then I’d become equally interested in both their stories.

The romance had some interesting problems on the way to the couple’s HEA – race is one, having to choose between love or the world you came from is another. The way these problems were resolved were interesting, though one resolution felt a little implied and off screen. In some ways a lot of the romance is also off-screen, with very key scenes shown or mentioned to the reader. Which means it felt like I had missed something because the book would sometimes fast forward between the couple’s relationship milestones. This was OK, but I did crave for a little more.

Overall: I really liked this one. At almost 500 pages long, it’s a clunker, but it’s a standalone with well written characters, and I thought it was worth the read. Recommend this one to space opera fans and fans of science fiction romance (although I’d say the romance is a secondary plot), with the warning that there’s some complex plotting and ideas going on, but if you’re willing to deal with a little thinking, you’ll be rewarded.

Other reviews: I couldn’t find any reviews of this book amongst the book blogs I read. Go forth and read it! Amazon | B&N

My Soul to Lose // My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent

Posted on July 24, 2009 by janicu

My Soul to Lose by Rachel Vincent

My Soul to Lose is a free short story prequel (free!!!) which is available here at Rachel Vincent’s site.

The Premise: This is prequel happens about a year before the events in My Soul to Take, and is referred to in the book. Kaylee is shopping in the mall with her best friend Emma when she sees someone who triggers an attack. It is so bad that Kaylee’s aunt and uncle go to extremes for her own safety- they put her into a psychiatric hospital.

My Thoughts: A substantial freebie and worth reading. My Soul to Lose fills in some back story mentioned in My Soul to Take, while hinting at Kaylee’s problems in that book. It also was a little illustration on Kaylee’s relationship with her friend Emma – who sticks by her through everything. The setting seemed well researched as well. I’ve visited psych wards and Vincent does well to describe the setting, although I would say in my experience there is a mixed bag – friendly and not so friendly people, not all scary which seemed to be the perception here. I found it interesting that the reader finds out some things in the short story that Kaylee doesn’t remember in the first Soul Screamers book. I’m curious if she begins to remember in later books.

My Soul to Take (Harlequin Teen)

Rachel Vincent

I wanted to read My Soul to Take after I saw Tez’s review, and was happy to the ARC at BEA at the Harlequin booth. Harlequin is starting a new Teen line (Harlequin Teen) and My Soul to Take is their first offering.

The Premise: Kaylee Cavanaugh is a teen with a secret problem. Sometimes she sees people and knows they’re going to die, and this causes an unbearable compulsion to scream – loud, scary, wails that she has no control over which scares everybody and herself. Her family treat her like she has some kind of panic attack and seem afraid of her episodes. One night Kaylee and her best friend sneak into a nightclub and run into Nash, a very popular guy at school. Remarkably, Nash seems interested in Kaylee, and when she starts feeling an episode coming along, he has an idea of what to do and how to help. But things don’t end there, girls Kaylee’s age keep dying for no visible reason, and Kaylee begins to feel convinced that they were never supposed to die.

My Thoughts: Kaylee seems like an average, run-of-the-mill teenager. It seems to be an unremarkable life except for her strange “panic attacks”. I prefer hearing about a “normal” teen, not someone who is a teen cliche, like “the cheerleader” or some other stock character. She isn’t too angsty despite her problems either – she has a balance and a small, but good support system. She approached her problems with a level head even though she was confused and frightened about what was going on. As heroine’s go, she’s not too bad: I wouldn’t call her voice distinct, but she has interesting abilities and life.

The world building is the best part of the story. When you first get into the book there are a series of questions that as they get answered, provide the basis for a whole world unbeknown to most. What Kaylee’s screaming really is and why it’s happening. What the people around Kaylee know. How the world we don’t know about works. What Nash knows and how he fits into things. I enjoyed the way the author took a seldom used aspect of the supernatural in this book and put her own spin on it, but I won’t go into detail because that would be spoilerific. I DID come into this with a guess as to what Kaylee was because: girl who senses death and cannot stop a scream? It points to one obvious thing. However, Vincent makes it a little more complicated than that. This is told from the first person point of viewpoint of Kaylee, so we learn as she does at a natural pace as events unfold. I thought this was well done and made me keep turning the pages to learn more.

One thing I have to say though: What the hell is up with the adults in this book? They did some questionable things, particularly Kaylee’s dad and his decision regarding her upbringing. I guess his past was his excuse but I found the excuse a little flimsy and felt as annoyed as Kaylee at all the adults around her when she discovers what had been going on. It seemed to be more of a convenient way to keep Kaylee ignorant rather than believable parenting. I hope they redeem themselves in some way in the next book because I wasn’t satisfied here.

The other minor issue I had was to do with the romance. I believed that Kaylee and Nash made a cute couple, and Nash seemed to care about Kaylee once he made it known he was interested, but I couldn’t quite trust his explanation for why he was interested in the first place. He’s a known player in school, going from girl to girl and tossing them aside like Kleenex, and suddenly he seems genuinely interested in Kaylee. Kaylee herself half expects his attention to be a big joke and for him to ignore her the next day at school. It’s true that they have more in common then you would initially suspect, but I can’t believe it’s just what Kaylee really is that attracted him, yet that’s what seems to be his reason for noticing her. This didn’t satisfy me as a reason to date someone, and his explanation to Kaylee contradicted his mom’s comment about “finally” meeting her. I hope more is explained in the next book because right now it makes me feel a bit like something is “off”, despite the pacing and other aspects of the romance being fine. Kaylee genuinely seems to connect with Nash, and he is the only one who can calm her or know what’s going on with her “panic attacks” which brings the two of them closer fairly quickly. It just bugs me that his motivations don’t seem clear, and that I know why Kaylee likes him (he’s charming despite her reservations), but not vice versa (but this could be a downside of the first person POV). Hmm.

Overall: A solid read. It didn’t bowl me over, but I really liked the world building in this one and there’s enough mystery and suspense in it to keep me reading. There’s a decent teen romance here as well, secondary to the main plot. Although the romance’s pacing is fine I still have an unexplained niggling feeling about it (expounded on above), which may be splitting hairs. I’m interested enough to probably read the second book My Soul to Save which comes out in January 2010.

My Soul to Take is released August 1st.

Jess is giving away a copy but deadline is TONIGHT (July 24th)

Other reviews of My Soul to Take (Most I see so far loved it):

Sci Fi Guy gave it a glowing review

Anna’s Book blog gave it a 5/5

Book Reviews by Jess – she gave it an almost perfect score

Tez Says – also a good review with a profound reaction

Reviews of My Soul to Lose

Dear Author gave it a C-

Anna’s Book blog gave it 3/5

Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Jennifer Rardin

Posted on July 19, 2009 by janicu

Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Jaz Parks)

Jennifer Rardin

I’d seen Once Bitten, Twice Shy in the bookstore and I liked the premise from what I could tell it was, but didn’t pick it up right away just because of all the series I had already started and haven’t finished. But when it was $1 at the onedollarorbit website, the price was right and I downloaded it.

The Premise: Jaz Parks is a CIA agent whose job it is to kill vampires. A few months ago she was assigned a new partner – Vayl, the only assassin who is also a vampire. No explanation is given but Jaz wonders about it: Vayl has NEVER worked with anyone and he’s considered a big deal. She can’t imagine someone ordering him to suddenly take a partner like her, so she guesses Vayl asked for her specifically, but doesn’t know why. The story begins a few months into their partnership when Jaz and Vayl are in Miami to perform a simple mission to help smoke out their biggest enemy, the Raptor, which soon becomes much more than it seems.

This is the first book in the series:

1) Once Bitten, Twice Shy

2) Another One Bites the Dust

3) Bitting the Bullet

4) Bitten to Death

5) One More Bite

6) Bite Marks

Excerpt of Chapter 1

My Thoughts: This book is told in the person person from Jaz Parker’s viewpoint. Jaz is a character who seems like the prototypical fantasy heroine. Red hair, wields deadly weapons, drives fast cars, and kicks butt at killing vampires. There’s also a bit of a smart mouth, though to me it just seemed like she often shared the first thing she was thinking, no matter how random it was (there were times that Jaz thought she was funny when I did not, but humor is subjective). Jaz also has a dark back story; a recent tragedy hangs over her head, and she doesn’t get along very well with the male members of her family when the book begins (her father and twin brother, David). The only one Jaz has no difficulty with is her sweet-tempered sister Evie, but it sounds like a typical family: there is still love even when they don’t get along.

Vayl is a tall, dark and mysterious vampire (handsome too, obviously), centuries old who has his own reasons for choosing to work for Jaz. I thought his noticing her at the agency then wanting to work with her, was a little hard to believe, but didn’t question it much. The important thing seems to be exactly what she means to him. She’s more than just a coworker. And this is where I was a little disappointed at the book. It feels like we’re not getting the slow buildup of a relationship as people get to know one another. Instead we’ve skipped ahead to the “I like you, do you like me?” stage. Frankly, I’m all about the slow build-up and I really don’t know why they even have these feelings about each other, I’m just told they do. It wasn’t what I was expecting in the romance. Meanwhile even though it’s clear we’re in that stage, that’s pretty much where we stay. It just hovers there between them. I suspect the author is not going to address them for a while, which I don’t mind, but if nothing is going to happen, why not show more of why they like each other, and make me believe it?

Most of the characters where like this: a little flat. Jaz and Vayl pick up a team of a private investigator, a psychic, and a tech wizard, and they’re pretty quickly sketched out and don’t do much more than provide support to let Jaz and Vayl do what they do best. Even the villains seemed like the usual fare: the psycho ex, the evil henchmen, evil doctor, terrorists, cult, and Uber-Villain pulling strings behind the scenes. There is however, plenty there to build from and I’m hoping more fleshing out happens in the next books.

Despite all of this, which I know, I know, I sound a little ranty: I didn’t hate it, I enjoyed myself! I didn’t find the read annoying, it’s only looking back that I see some things, but as I read I did want to see where the story was going, and I did want to know the mysterious back story of both Jaz and Vayl. I think a lot of why I didn’t end up disliking the book was the action. There’s plenty of it, in a very.. action movie kind of way. Think James Bond meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Jaz and Vayl are a good team, working together to kill the bad guys and save the day, using high tech weapons and gadgetry alongside some supernatural abilities. For the most part this was fun, like watching a spy movie: there are getaways and car chases, tense moments, and civilians in danger. It’s easy to follow (although near the end I had that I’m not quite sure where everyone is feeling) and not much thinking is necessary.

Overall: This has several elements of a typical urban fantasy – a strong, kick-ass heroine with mysterious powers she’s beginning to learn, lots of action, and a supernatural love interest. I think that if you are at all sick of this type of thing, move on. Otherwise, keep reading. It’s kind of like a written version of a high octane Hollywood blockbuster. Lots of entertainment value but only for those in the mood for action and entertainment. I still had a fun and will probably pick up the second book, but your mileage may vary. I’d recommend this book for those who also like Karen Chance.

I like the covers. Orbit posted the making of them: Part 1, Part 2.

Other reviews:

Lurv a la Mode has a thoughtful, very detailed review (4 scoops out of 5)

Books and Other Thoughts (also liked it)

LesleyW’s Book Nook – another positive review

Smart Bitches – gave it a B+ and really liked Jaz

Unbound! – isn’t sure yet, will keep reading

Tez at Tez Says also had mixed feelings, will keep reading

The Eternal Kiss by various authors, edited by Trisha Telep

Posted on July 17, 2009 by janicu

The Eternal Kiss:

12 Vampire Tales

of Blood and Desire

I actually tend to like anthologies because it gives me a chance to “try out” or find new authors I may not have tried out on my own. Usually there are always hits and misses, but what I liked about The Eternal Kiss was that although it is a young adult anthology and it’s about vampires it doesn’t make the mistake of only being about teenage romance, and it doesn’t shy away from the darker side of vampires. I picked this ARC up at BEA.

I did something a little different here – I wrote up my review as I read the book, just jotting a couple of sentences on each short story. Very brief reviews follow (my two favorite stories were the ones by Karen Mahoney and by Sarah Brennan):

1) Falling to Ash by Karen Mahoney – Vampire girl (Moth) comes home to find her sire wants her to get the ashes of a recently staked vampire. Really like this one, this author has been on my radar on LJ, but I hadn’t connected the the LJ user with “Karen Mahoney” (sometimes things get past me), until I had already read and liked this. This is the introduction to a series about Moth, so now looking forward to it.

2) Shelter Island by Melissa de la Cruz – 15 year old Hannah has a mysterious visitor at night. I couldn’t connect with this one. I think the characters, particularly the female protagonist were a not substantial enough in the amount of pages this story was for me to grasp them.

3) Sword Point by Maria V. Snyder – Girl fencer discovers that the prestigious fencing school she goes to is more than it seems – interesting at first but then I started to lose interest halfway when the relationship part occurs. The action at the end felt very perfunctory.

4) The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black – A bitten girl tries to stay human, but then learns her ex-boyfriend and a neighbor girl have run away to Coldtown, the vampire section of town. A dark story about the glamorizing of vampirism. Liked it, nice and chilling.

5) Undead is Very Hot Right Now by Sarah Brennan – A nineteen year old who has been a vampire for a year joins a boy band. Hilarious. I laughed aloud so much reading this one. Another author I plan to look for in the bookstore.

6) Kat by Kelley Armstrong – A teen is awoken by her vampire guardian and try to escape would-be captors in the middle of the night – Interesting. Ending makes me want to read more, maybe the start of a series?

7) The Thirteenth Step by Libba Bray – Teen gets a job at a halfway house which may not be all that it seems. I think my own experiences cloud the way I read this story. It bothered me that the protagonist become like the addict sister she considered selfish.

8 ) All Hallows by Rachel Caine – Vampire boyfriend of the narrator gets into trouble and she goes in to save him. Readers may need to have read other Morganville books. This is a short story in that world that seems to fit in the timeline after the first 4 or 5 books.

9) Wet Teeth by Cecil Castellucci – A vampire begins to feel alive for the first time in a long time after meeting a strange girl in the park. This one seems to focus on the ending, and left me a bit wanting for the rest of the story, but seems to be in the right vein for horror.

10) Other Boys by Cassandra Clare- A girl begins to get interested in the new boy in school, who says he’s a vampire. This one had elements of nice old school horror.

11) Passing by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié – A girl has to pass the final class in her vampire hunter academy – only one student will get a special elixar. A bit too complex of a back story to cram into a short story space.

12) Ambition by Lili St. Crow – Smart but poor schoolgirl meets boy at club. Girl falls out with rich best friend. Boy may be supernatural. Dreamy, sort of hazy relationship that may be dangerous à la Heavenly Creatures. I keep re-reading the last three lines, wanting questions answered.

13) All Wounds by Dina James – Girl discovers her grandmother and the bad boy in detention aren’t exactly who she thought they were, and neither is she. Looks like the start of a new series so there’s a lot of plot set-up, but not much time for more than brief character sketches.

The Eternal Kiss will be released July 27th.

Razor Girl by Marianne Mancusi

Posted on July 16, 2009 by janicu

Razor Girl (SHOMI)

Marianne Mancusi

Razor Girl is a book from Dorchester’s Shomi line. I loved this line but it has been dissolved, oh well. I plan try to read all the Shomi books I can find anyway (Viva la SF romance! RIP Shomi!)

The Premise: In the year 2030 a mysterious “flu” decimates much of the population. Razor Girl starts just before this, focusing on Molly Anderson and Chris Griffin, once typical teens with a budding relationship, who are torn apart by what’s happening around them. Six years later, they rediscover each other as adults in a “a plague ravaged, monster-ridden wilderness”. Molly, whose father is a conspiracy theorist and scientist, has had extreme modifications done to her body and has been in an underground shelter since she last saw Chris. She has to meet her father in Disney World so that they can literally save the world. Meanwhile, his time on the surface has changed once-geeky Chris (now Chase) into a man, but he remembers all too well the betrayal of Molly’s abrupt disappearance six years ago.

The book jumps back and forth between the past, when Molly and Chase are teens and things are beginning to happen, to the future six years later, when the two meet again.

Excerpt of Razor Girl

My Thoughts: I’d read this author’s YA offering, Boys That Bite (as Mari Mancusi), and it wasn’t for me, but I wanted to give her adult writing a try and found I liked Razor Girl much better.

I quite like the idea that Molly is a Razor Girl, based off of Molly Millions in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, but I never read that book, so I wonder what references I may be missing. I did read Gibson’s Burning Chrome, which has Johnny Mnemonic in it and Molly Millions makes an appearance, but I don’t really recall it very well. Anyway, there seems to be enough to understand it.

Molly has retractable blades that come out of her fingers and ocular implants, and because she has to be tough, she doesn’t cry; her tears are redirected to her mouth and she spits. It’s clear from what he’s done, her father is very extreme in his beliefs, and his influence is felt throughout the plot. Molly has been taught how to fight because of her father’s paranoia, which is helpful when she comes out of her shelter to kill off the zombie-like creatures that now populate the streets (man, zombies are popping up in a lot of my reads these days). Molly’s enhancements give the book a bit of an eighties movie vibe – like Tank Girl or Mad Max, and it makes for a very cool cover (one of Tez’s favorites).

As I mentioned earlier, the story jumps back and forth in time from a teen to adult perspective. One chapter would happen in the 2030, one in 2036. For the most part it worked, although a couple of times I ended up guessing what happened when they were teens from what I’d inferred when they were adult. As a teen it seemed really sweet how big a crush Chris has on Molly and how he wins her over eventually by just being a nice guy who was willing to listen to her. Once he’s an adult, he has some resentment towards Molly’s disappearance, but I can’t help feeling he still has an idealistic view of her that never goes away. OK, maybe that’s part of love, but I’d like to see more acknowledgment of each other’s faults in a couple. I think that there was something missing and this was part of it – not enough delving into the characters for me. Even when Chase is hiding a serious problem and gets himself into trouble because of it, it felt like we only scratched the surface into that issue before it was “resolved” and put away, as were other serious incidents.

One minor nit I will mention – this is a copy editor thing that threw me out of the story. A character who Molly has just met, knows her name without her telling him what it was.

Overall: Not bad. Razor Girl definitely has the traits of the typical Shomi: a futuristic setting, action (with zombies!), and romance, but sometimes my attention wandered and I’d want to put the book down, particularly in the scenes when they were adults. I can’t really put my finger on why, so it could just be a personal reaction. Anyway, I seem to prefer the teen perspective: the romance then was cute, and because of their past I could believe in the couple reconnecting, although I felt that Chase idealized Molly.

Other reviews:

Popin’s Lair gave it 5/5

The Good, the Bad, and the Unread gave it a C (similar thoughts to mine in their review)

Katiebabs gave it a B (I really liked her review)

What Happens In London by Julia Quinn

Posted on July 8, 2009 by janicu

What Happens in London

Julia Quinn

This review is for an e-ARC copy I got at BEA with The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever.

The Premise: This is the book after The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever and focuses on Olivia Bevelstoke, Miranda’s best friend. Olivia’s friends have gossiped that her new neighbour, Sir Harry Valentine killed his fiance, which she doesn’t believe, but it makes her curious so she begins to spy on him from her window. Meanwhile, Harry knows Olivia is watching. He works for the War Department as a Russian translator, and he spends a lot of time in his office pouring over things to translate. He figures he may as well give Olivia things to look at. Olivia thinks Harry is up to something because she sees him quickly burning papers and wearing odd hats, not knowing it’s all for her benefit. Neither is happy with the other once Harry finally confronts Olivia about her nosiness, but fate keeps putting them together: the War Office asks Harry to keep an eye on a Russian prince who in turn has his eye on Olivia.

Excerpt of Chapter one

My Thoughts: This was a really sweet romance without the extreme ups and downs in feeling that Olivia’s friend, Miranda went through (My review of her story: LJ | wordpress). At first the hero and heroine don’t really like each other, Harry is annoyed at her spying and she’s annoyed at being caught, but they soon realize that they get alone pretty well and a friendship develops. When the they realize they love each other, it’s very romantic and happy rather than a tortured thing (and I didn’t feel sickened by the sweetness so for me the process felt just right). I quite enjoyed that both accepted it, and Harry in particular was very straightforward in thought and in deed once he’d made that decision:

“I can’t help it,” he said, his words ticklish against her skin. She could hear his smile in his voice. He sounded happy.
She felt happy. And more.
“You were there,” he said, one of his hands moving down her side, around her back. “You were there, and I had to kiss you, and that’s all there was to it.”

Of course the book has the same great dialogue I saw in The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever , and I am quickly becoming a fan of it. It wasn’t very hard to enjoy the book when both characters were so likable as well. I thought that Olivia stays true to the character she had in The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, but we learn some new things about her like her enjoyment of the newspaper and the quirk of making lists in her mind, which seems to happen when she’s particularly bored or trying to keep herself calm.

There are some really funny parts, like when the hero and heroine are both reading a gothic romance. The gothic romance is quite over the top (um.. death by pigeon?), and Olivia exclaims aloud at some of it (a situation I can relate to), but things get even more amusing when Sebastian, Harry’s best friend, enthralls an audience with the book. Sebastian seems geared to be the next hero in a Quinn novel, and he should be an interesting one – he’s got a very irreverent sense of humor and enjoys great popularity with the ladies.

I wonder if some of the younger men here will get their own books eventually. I’m thinking of Winston, who is Olivia’s twin, and Edward, who is Harry’s younger brother. I was especially interested in Edward, who had a maybe a slightly darker experience to their father’s drunkenness than Harry and wanted to learn a bit more about him and his relationship with Harry. There were some references to resentment that Harry “left him” to join the military but that thread wasn’t expounded enough for me.

Overall: A book with a great beta hero, excellent dialogue, some laugh out loud moments, and sweet romance. A keeper. It picked my spirits up after a bad day.

Other reviews (the general consensus is this is one of our favorite Quinn books and better than the last few, which I can’t confirm or deny since I’ve only read two):

Smexy books gave it a 9 (I agreed completely with their review!)

Monkey Bear reviews gave it a B+

Katiebabs at Babbling about Books, and More! gave it an A!

The Book Binge gave it a 4.25 out of 5

The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn

Posted on July 5, 2009 by janicu

The Secret Diaries

of Miss Miranda Cheever

Julia Quinn

This book is the prequel to What Happens to London and was being signed by Julia Quinn at BEA instead of her newest (What Happens In London ). A card with a code to download an electronic ARC of What Happens in London was included in the book. I am reading that one soon too. Lots of romance reads from me this week.

The Premise: Miranda Cheever has always been in love with Turner (aka Nigel Bevelstoke, Viscount Turner), since she was 10 when they first met. Turner was nice to Miranda when she was feeling unsure of herself and she always remembered this. Now, 8 years later, Miranda is starting her first season with Olivia, her best friend and Turner’s sister. While Miranda has finally grown into herself,Turner has become bitter and jaded after his marriage to a woman who cheated on him.

My Thoughts: At first when I read this book, I thought it was going to be a bit cheesy. There was a prologue. I always read prologues, but this one had Miranda’s first meeting with Turner, and her 10-year old adoration was making me think “Oh dear, is she going to adore the hero in this mushy way the whole book?” and I put it down. Yeah.. if I’d picked this up in a bookstore and read the prologue I would not have bought it. Luckily positive reviews online had me trying again. A week and a half later and started from Chapter one, and I found that I really liked the writing and liked Miranda. Phew!

This book has two of my favorite romantic tropes in it:

1) The Long Time, Secret Crush: This could go badly if the person with the crush acts ridiculous because of it. Sometimes you wince when you read some particularly awkward conversations with the object of the crush. I hate that! I was a little afraid this book would have some painful moments where the heroine acts like an idiot, but thankfully Miranda doesn’t. She’s always practical and quick witted and doesn’t let Turner get away with things even though she loves him. And she thinks before speaking, which made me like her.

2) Beauty and the Beast – Not so much that Miranda is a beauty and Turner looks like a beast, but Miranda does affect his “beastly” attributes over the course of the book. The relationship between Miranda and Turner evolves slowly in the first half of the book, and their verbal banter was great. Turner kisses Miranda early in the book when he was drunk and he does other big jerk things which Miranda makes him feel ashamed about. He was an imperfect hero, but his redemption via Miranda made me like the book.

Now to the peeve I had reading this. The last quarter of the book had me thinking to myself that it could have ended earlier. This is because it involves the good ol’ romantic cliche “He has never said those three words to me”. The writing was still pretty great, but while I do believe Turner had his issues because of his first wife, his inability to say the words for so long coupled with Miranda’s insistence he say them started to annoy me, particularly since he acted like he did love her?! So.. Argh, *shakes fist*. In any case I can see the ending being satisfying to others who are less irritable over this type of thing.

Overall: Despite annoyance with the ending (which others may or may not share depending on their level of tolerance), I liked this one. I will be reading more from this author if she writes more characters with dialog like this.

Other reviews

A note about these other reviews. I found it very interesting they both had complaints that didn’t really bother me. They both liked it less than I did because of this. Anyway, worth reading these reviews for another POV, and they also describe the plot in more detail than I did. 🙂

The Book Binge (gave it a 2.5, did not like the second half of the book and inconsistent characters)

Dear Author (gave it a C+, had same complaint I did about the ending)

Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas

Posted on July 4, 2009 by janicu

Blue-Eyed Devil

Lisa Kleypas

This is an author highly recommended by a friend of mine so I picked this book up when I saw it at a library book sale last month. I think the cover is quite awesome, love the blue sky and the shirtless man silhouetted against it.

**** Minor spoiler: I can’t really talk about what I thought about the book without mentioning why Haven’s marriage failed. Also spoiler for the love triangle in Sugar Daddy. ****

The Premise: Haven Travis is a heiress from a powerful Houston family. Haven wants to prove her independence and marries her boyfriend despite her father’s threat to cut her off and his warnings that Nick is only interested in her wealth. When her marriage falls apart spectacularly, Haven comes back to Houston a changed person. She is starting to get back on her feet again when she runs into Hardy Cates, a brother’s rival, and not one of her family’s favorite people.

Thoughts: I was really engaged (I think the word I used was “raw”) with what Haven had to go through in her marriage to Nick during the first part of the book. Kleypas obviously researched narcissistic personalities and domestic abuse and I felt like I was learning some things about boundaries and the way they are pushed in these situations. I hadn’t considered the boundaries people trying to help also crossed, but I felt a lot of sympathy for some of Haven’s family members when she told them not to get involved.

It felt quite believable that at first Nick was very attentive and loving, but as time went by and things did not go his way, he slowly changed and started blaming Haven for everything. The way he twisted things in his mind was disturbing and I hated his character, but I never felt annoyed at Haven for putting up with it because I also saw how he manipulated her.

Kleypas also does a good job in highlighting the narcissistic personality in the workplace as Haven is unlucky enough to meet another person with this type of personality there.

Then Haven and Hardy meet again, and in my mind it doesn’t feel very long before they get pretty hot and heavy. Maybe I’m being very prim and proper here, but I think the book suffers because the physical is a large part of Hardy and Haven’s relationship. Which conflicted with what I’d seen before: Haven flinching at her own brother’s touches because she subconsciously associated men with her abuse. Not that it was easy for her to get physical with Hardy, but I would have found a longer courtship before the physical intimacy more believable. These two characters fit together well, with both their pasts making them flawed in just the right way for each other, but this discovery feels overshadowed by the sex. Of course, I prefer my romances to be slow moving anyway, and I haven’t seen anyone else complain, so make of this what you will.

The secondary characters are mostly people from Haven’s family, and we see a lot of her brother Gage and his wife Liberty, who have their own book, Sugar Daddy, but both books stand on their own. Usually I don’t like seeing gratuitous visits from characters in past books, but in Blue-Eyed Devil it worked because they seemed to have a place in the plot and had meaningful interactions with the main couple. It’s Gage and Liberty’s wedding where Haven and Hardy first meet and they also help Haven when she wants to leave Nick, then with supporting her emotionally afterwards. Another brother, Jack, helps Haven out a lot too. He gets his book next (Smooth Talking Stranger), but there are also another brother who looks to be primed for his own book after that.

Overall: This is fiction that also tries to do some educating about narcissistic personalities and domestic abuse, and in this aspect the book does very well. In my mind however, it set up Haven’s character in a way that the sex scenes brought the story down for me, but I am suspect I’m in the minority on this and in skimming past them. Otherwise, it was very well-written (particularly the first part. I was heavily involved with Haven’s experiences in her marriage), had engaging characters so all in all, I thought it was very good.

Other reviews: Let’s just say this book swept the board.

Book Binge gave it a 4.75 out of 5

The Book Smugglers – It got a 10

The Good, the Bad, and the Unread – gave it an A+

Ramblings on Romance – 5 out of 5, must read book of 2008

The Season by Sarah MacLean

Posted on June 29, 2009 by janicu

The Season

Sarah MacLean

The Premise: This is a young adult version of adventure/romance in Regency England. Seventeen year old Lady Alexandra Stafford (aka Alex), daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Worthington and her two best friends Lady Vivian Markwell, daughter of the Marquess of Langford and Lady Eleanor Redburn, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Marlborough (aka Vivi and Ellie), are all coming out in one season. The three headstrong girls aren’t really loving the idea of being paraded around in a marriage market, but things are made interesting when the girls stumble upon something suspicious regarding the death of the Earl of Blackmoor, who was the father of Alex’s childhood friend Gavin.

Thoughts: There are a lot of young friendships in this book. Alex has her three brothers, William (Will), Nicolas (Nick) and Christopher (Kit), her lady’s maid Eliza, her two best friends Vivi and Ellie, plus Gavin. All of them seem to get along very well, and they are all talented and striking according to the descriptions in the book. It’s in their conversations that I thought the book’s strong points lay: everyone is very articulate and well spoken, which fits with the time period and their upbringing in London society. It was nice to read conversations between teenagers where there’s wit and proper manners.

The problem I had however was there were a lot of characters to take in and after a while some of them sort of blended in together. Alex’s brothers seemed indistinguishable to me besides one being the oldest and one being the most tactless (can’t remember who that was though). They had very small roles as just annoying older brothers who liked giving their sister a hard time and to give a male perspective on also hating having to deal with the marriage market. Vivi and Ellie also have very similar voices, and when the three girls spoke, I couldn’t really tell them apart besides their names, because their personalities are so similar. I only know Ellie really likes to write and draw, while Vivi lost her mother and claims she’s looking for “The One” but may have already found him and isn’t telling. I’m not sure that most of these characters brought much to the story and I had the niggling feeling that all these characters were being set up for their own romances in later books. Besides that, they were very wholesome and supportive of each other here, which lends to some amusing conversation when they got together, but I wish they were a bit more distinguishable and maybe a bit more flawed. There were so many times that Alex felt proud of her friends and family and they were so perfect, I was starting to feel very guilty. Guilty of feeling like a hardened cynic and wondering whether it was just me.

Their flaws were pretty much their headstrong characters, which in this day is more of a strength. In Regency London however, it made me remember I was reading fiction. Even with strong wills and an interest in politics, I didn’t find it believable when the girls started reciting facts about Napoleon to people at balls as proving they were well informed, or that Alex wouldn’t be at all concerned about her reputation when she tells all her friends she was kissed and she wanted it to happen again. There needs to be a suspension of disbelief in these areas to enjoy the book and I couldn’t quite muster it.

The best part of the book is Gavin. He’s the one whose father has just died in what looks like an accident, but turns out to be more than that. I had a guess within the first few chapters as to who the villain was, because there just isn’t anyone else to choose from, so the mystery in this book was very obvious, it’s more of an addition to the romance between Gavin and Alex. Gavin reminded me a little of Mr. Knightley from Jane Austen’s Emma. He’s a childhood friend of the main character and sometimes he disapproves of Alex’s behavior and tries to caution her in ways that just tick her off, but she also begins to realize her feelings for him aren’t sisterly. Their scenes are the best ones in the book and luckily there are quite a few of them, though their relationship seemed to repeat itself – from normal to scorching and back again. Alex isn’t an Emma in that she doesn’t try to play Cupid, but she and her friends do get very curious, so in that regard, maybe there are similarities.

Overall: I was pimped this book by a couple of girls at BEA, and the author was so nice that I really wanted to like this book. Part of me cringes a little writing this review, but I have to be honest: this was not quite for me. I think it’s one of those books I thought was just “OK”, but others really loved it. I see a lot of glowing reviews online. For me, the best parts involve the romance and the conversations between characters, and it’s still a quick, fun read but the plot is a little too predictable and the characters a little too wholesome for my tastes.

Other reviews (mostly positive):

Fantastic Book Review – 4 out of 5

Steph Su Reads – 3 out of 5 (and a review with similar thoughts as mine)

Pop Culture Junkie – 5 out of 5 (she was one of the people who recced it to me)

Tempting Persephone – cements my belief if you just view the book with a less jaded eye you’d like it more

Sharon Loves Books and Cats – she loved it too. Also pimped this book to me, especially Gavin.