Karma Girl by Jennifer Estep

Posted on October 12, 2007 by janicu

Jennifer Estep

Wow, I'm so behind on reviews. Oh well. *laze*.

Karma Girl is about Carmen Cole, a reporter who finds out her fiance is cheating on her with her best friend Karen on her wedding day. On top of that she learns he's a superhero and Karen, her now ex-best friend is his arch-enemy. Angry and bitter, Carmen exposes them both, then continues to expose other superheroes and villians throughout the country in her quest for what she considers karmic revenge. Eventually she ends up in Bigtime, New York. She's been hired as a reporter to expose the Fearless Five, Bigtime's resident band of superheroes who constantly battle their archenemies the Terrible Triad. This is where things go bad, and Carmen discovers there is a downside to what she is doing. Since she's persona non grata to the superhero community, Carmen has to rely on herself to fix her own problems, even though she feels a connection with Striker, leader of the Fearless Five.

This was a fun, sort of campy novel, using a lot of comic book standards - yards and yards of spandex, first and last names beginning with the same letter, powers gained by being dipped in nuclear waste that happened to be lying about in the open, and secret identities. I had a lot of fun reading it and recognizing the tongue in cheek references to comic books and superhero tropes. Superheroes and villians are common in this world and Carmen sees at least 5 on her way to work. They even have designated parts of the city that they protect. All of this is mixed to produce a chick-lit/romance/humorous story. Really easy to read, and hard for me to put down. Yes it does have some superficial characters and Carmen gets very angsty towards the end when she doesn't need to be (sigh, most annoying part of the book), but I could overlook this and found it enjoyable.

Excerpt to first chapter of Karma Girl

Review of Karma Girl at Dear Author. With amusing youtube video review that you must watch.

I'll be reading book two – "Hot Mama" which is out in November, and probably book three - "Jinx", out April 2008.

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Wired by Liz Maverick

Posted on September 24, 2007 by janicu

Wired (Shomi)

Liz Maverick

I just finished Wired by Liz Maverick, the first book to come out from the from the Shomi line. So far I'm liking the futuristic aspect of these books (I reviewed Driven which I liked a lot over here). I guess since paranormal is big now – that's sort of a melding of fantasy + romance, that it makes sense that sci fi and romance is another blend that would work as well.

This book is told from the first person point of view of L. Roxanne Zaborovsky, a programmer who gets intercepted from going to the 7-11 one night by two men. What follows is a non-linear story where time gets manipulated like a record being scratched by a DJ – forward and backward, reset and spliced, Roxy lives through the same situations a few times but with different variables. The two men interested in Roxy are doing this all in order to ensure the right future outcome occurs, but who is doing it to keep the future as close as it was meant to be as possible, and who is doing it for their own ends? Roxy has to figure out why she's important and who to trust and she flip-flops on that decision.

I read some of Liz Maverick's Crimson City novel, and I prefer her first person voice here to the third person voice in that start of the series. Roxy's story had an urgent pace, and the story flowed well.

The comment I have would be similar to many other reviewers – I think because I expected this to have romance I noticed that the romance was cut short. But I can't imagine how the author could put more romance into this – Roxy is being thrown into a weird reality and doesn't know who to trust, and keeps reliving certain things over and over. Where is the time for some wooing in there? It was a stretch as it was that Roxy trusted people enough for the romance that was in there. So.. maybe if this wasn't expected, this wouldn't even be an issue? I ponder.. Not only that, I think half of the romance happens off screen – around the timeline of the book, not so much during it, and the reader has to just make their own assumptions. I didn't mind this, other people looking for more romance might.

The one thing that confused me in this book was the timeline thing. I felt comfortable with the record player idea of time, it keeps playing forward but it can get pulled back and sped forward and things can be changed in it. On top of this was the idea of time as a wire where you took splices of one piece and put it on another and made up a whole wire, and eventually it all gets used up, there is no more wire left. BUT, I got so confused by one wire bit changing here then being spliced there even though they're two different timelines really parallel to one another – and somehow this works? My head wouldn't quite wrap around it. I was actually thinking of perhaps a diagram of this on the book flap somewhere..

Light, interesting read.

Link to a dear author review. Link to guest review on the good, bad and unread.

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Driven by Eve Kenin

Posted on September 7, 2007 by janicu

Driven (Shomi)

Eve Kenin

So Dorchester publishing has this new line of futuristic romances called Shomi fiction. All the covers of the books so far published are manga inspired, and the stories are a fusion of romance with sci fi, fantasy, thriller, action, and manga type genres. It's very unique sounding and I like cross-genre books so I've been keeping an eye on Shomi. So far Wired by Liz Maverick, Moongazer by Marianne Mancusi, and Driven by Eve Kenin are out. I'm probably going to pick them all up eventually.

Excerpts for: Wired , Moongazer , and Driven

My first buy was Driven because … seriously – it has siberian ice-truckers in it. I was gravitating to it because that sounded really interesting, plus I kept seeing good reviews for it, liked the excerpt, had $5 in Borders bucks burning in my pocket and a hankering for a HEA. Also a disregard for the length of the TBR (97).

The world in Driven is a post nuclear landscape with an extreme climate. Much of it is governed by a corrupt New Government Organization and by big business (headed by bad guy Duncan Bane). The two main characters are a couple of toughies who value supressing emotion and making quick decisions to stay alive in their harsh environment (a sub-zero Northern wasteland). Raina Bowen is in hiding from Duncan Bane, and determined to win the 50 million interdollars awarded in to the first trucker to deliver their cargo to Gladow Station. Wizard is the contact she was supposed to meet at Bob's Truck stop so that she can get a special license to ride the ICW, the Intercontinental Worldwide. Unfortunately, things go wrong at their first meeting, and the two are thrown together for longer than expected. There is a lot of action as they run from and fight the bad guys – who do remind me of the bad guys in the Mad Max movies.

The story is told from a third person POV, and mostly centers on Raina, although a couple of times the focus shifts to Wizard and his take on the situation. I thought the quick shifts to Wizard was a little odd in the story, and it felt very romance-like to get a tell-not-show, short internal monologue but it wasn't done often. Wizard has a robotic personality which I enjoyed. He reminds me of Data on Star Trek; he has a hard time with human interaction, misses subtle humor and sarcasm and confused about sayings because he tries to interprete them literally. Raina is similar in having a tight rein on her emotions, but not such an extreme case as Wizard (she has them) – she keeps people at a distance and has long hardened herself to expect betrayal. I enjoyed how she pointedly shoved Wizard away when he encrouched her space and hid her feelings even when she found herself attracted to him. It was an interesting relationship to see develop between the two loners.

I thought the author did a great job blending both light science fiction and romance. Lovers of only one of those camps may be turned off by the presence of another genre blended in here, or they may enjoy reading something different. I definitely liked the blend. There are sex scenes and while they did go on a little, they didn't feel gratuitious. The world-building was done well – information (on technology, politics, communication, whatever) was given as needed, not as a huge info dump, and the plot was action packed and well paced. Even till the end it kept my interest. There was a good balance between the story and the focus on the relationship. A recommend for those who like romance and who like cross-genre books. Maybe futuristic romance is going to be the next big thing after paranormals in romance? Hmm.

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Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie

Posted on July 30, 2007 by janicu

Bet Me

Jennifer Crusie

I was having a hard week with lots of tiring work going on so when I saw a post about this book by calico_reaction on livejournal, I was sold on a guaranteed HEA. Sometimes, I neeed a well-written book with a happy ending to get through life.

This is total romance by the way. When I saw the cover, I thought – chick-lit. I think its the font, plus the shoes and no other real "romance-y" cover hints, but this is a contemporary romance. It has romantic elements to it – the hero and heroine meet each other early on, most of the book is about their growing relationship, they both sort of fight it (uselessly, us readers know they are meant to be), and something keeps them from reallly getting together until the very end. Not that this was a formulaic story - the romance was done in a fun way. Also – I think there was a good splash of chick-lit influence – humor, girl with a job in the city with good girlfriends and nice shoes.

The title is about betting and that is something that plays a big part in the plot. The very first time Min meets Cal she overhears what sounds like a bet that he can "bed" her within a month. The jerk trying to make this bet is her ex-boyfriend who dumped her earlier that evening for not having sex with him. While Min isn't an obvious beauty and her mother often chides her for not being a size four (something that I wish was addressed in a more serious way than it was eventually), Cal on the other hand is considered to be gorgeous and godlike (Crusie gives him some traits later on that prove he is human though). So Min doesn't expect a relationship and just decides to give him a miserable time when he asks her out to dinner. After a bad date where Min rolls her eyes and berates Cal for anything he says that sounds like a line, they both part ways expecting that to be that. Except that no matter what they do they keep finding themselves together again. I think the author was having fun with hinting that the fates were putting these two together. When either of them says "I'm never seeing — again" they keep getting into painful accidents, and they both go to a movie to avoid each other and find themselves sitting next to the other when the lights come up. Min avoids Cal to stop him from winning the bet she thinks he made and Cal avoids Min because she doesn't seem to like him. Meanwhile Cal and Min's ex's are watching them get closer, know about "the bet" and plan to keep them apart.

My favorite things –

1. The ensemble cast. Quirky, well-drawn characters that I liked and weren't cookie-cutter who also had their own lives outside of Cal and Min that were interesting and didn't take away from the main plot either.

2. One liners – really amusing one liners that sometimes made me snort.

3. The food. Lots of talk about chicken marsala and Krispy Kreme donuts.

4. I actually liked the scientific breakdown of relationships that Cal's ex keeps explaining to everyone. It was amusing how her list of stages that a relationship goes through was sort of mirrored in the story, though not quite the way she explains it should happen.

5. The chicklit-y elements.

Wasn't in love with –

1. The talk about the heroine's weight. I think to an extent it's great not to have a beautiful perfect Mary Sue of a heroine, but eh, I'm tired of books where it's brought up repeatedly. OK this book wasn't that annoying about it, mostly because I thought that Min doesn't feel sorry for herself and wasn't really obsessed with a diet, but she came close.

2. It could be me, but close to the end it felt like there was one scene too many. The right-before-the-finale bit felt a little longish.

General Feeling: 9 (Loved it), Plot: 7.5 (Really liked it) Writing Style: 8 (Really liked it). I recommend this highly as a pick-me-up.

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