Tag: 2012 150+ Books Reading Challenge

Wrong Side of Hell

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Wrong Side of Hell by Juliana Stone is a teaser novella for her new League of Guardians series. If you are one of the readers who is duly teased by this link between Stone’s Jaguar Warrior series and this one, don’t worry, you won’t have a long wait. The first League book, Wicked Road to Hell, will be released on April 24.

I was definitely teased. This was a terrific introduction to a new series!

Logan Winters is one of the baddest of all “bad boys”. He’s a hellhound. His job on Earth is to pick up souls marked for damnation, and escort them to their proper place in Hell. If Logan is sent to get you, you’ve earned yourself a spot in District 3. This means you were a very, very wicked person during your life.

Nothing about contract signing or selling yourself to the Devil. That’s not Logan’s end of the business. He handles pickup and delivery. If there is someone handling “sales”, we don’t see that part of the process. And this doesn’t seem like that kind of worldbuilding.

The person we do see is Askelon, except he’d rather be called “Bill”. He cloaks himself in glamour to appear as a short, round middle-aged man, but “Bill” is really one of the most powerful beings in any of the dimensions. And “Bill” bats for the opposite team from Logan’s. I don’t mean sexually, I mean metaphysically.

Logan is a hellhound. Askelon is a being of the heavenly dimension. And one pretty high in the hierarchy at that. Seraphim generally are.

Askelon blackmails Logan into doing him a very, very big favor. Which doesn’t sound all that angelic. He demands that Logan go into purgatory and rescue the soul of a young woman that Logan already returned once from death.

The first time Logan rescued Kira Dove, he spent millenia in The Pit for his crime. (Time passes differently in the infernal dimensions). And he did it because Askelon blackmailed him then, too. Also because the Seraphim convinced him it was the right thing to do.

The same thing is happening again. Neither heaven nor hell should be interfering in one human’s life this much. The Seraphim is convinced that too many fates depend on this one young woman’s survival, and not just human fates either.

Logan tries to convince himself that none of that matters to him. He owes the Seraphim, so he’ll take care of what he has to. But he still remembers that girl, after all those centuries in The Pit.

The difference is, Kira Dove is a woman now. When Logan Winters saved her the first time, she believed in him. She continued to believe in him, and everything she saw when she died that first time and Logan brought her back.

Even though everyone said she was crazy. And committed her for it. Experimented on her. Abused her. She still believed in what she saw, who she saw.

Kira Dove was dead again, but all she knew for certain was that everything she remembered was true. And Logan came to rescue her. Again. But this time, she could fight beside him.

But would he let her?

Escape Rating B+: As an introduction to a new series, this story really whetted my appetite for the first full-length novel. This particular story, although it seems like it resolved to an HEA, also feels like it sets up the series as a whole. I think there are a lot of trials and tribulations ahead for Kira and Logan, even as the focus of the series moves to other members of the League.

Kira reminds me a little of Sarah Connor from Terminator 2, at the beginning when Sarah is in the State Hospital. She has that vibe of “I know I’m not crazy and I have to keep myself strong for the day I’ll need to fight my way out”, but with a hint of vulnerability that Sarah didn’t have or need.

This is intended as a bridge story between Stone’s Jaguar Shifters series and this new series, as Logan appeared as a side-character in the earlier series. But if there are details that I missed, they didn’t hamper my overall enjoyment of the story.

 

Donovan’s Bed

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Donovan’s Bed by Debra Mullins turned out to be the best kind of surprise. All I expected was to get my curiosity sated about Samhain’s Retro Romances. What I discovered was a guilty pleasure of a book.

Sarah Calhoun made one mistake, and the small-minded small-town gossips are never going to let her forget. Admittedly, it was a pretty big mistake. And the entire town knows that Sarah isn’t going to go to her marriage bed (if any man is ever willing to overlook her past, that is) a blushing virgin.

So Sarah has spent the last two years living down her terrible sin, and throwing herself into running her father’s newspaper. The newspaper is all she has left of him. Being a good businesswoman, instead of just a woman, barely keeps the busybodies out of her life.

But of course there is a man. His name is Jack Donovan. She’s been pursuing him as part of her work. He’s new in town, and he’s bought the biggest ranch for miles around. But…no one knows who he is or where he came from. Donovan just showed up in Burr one day with a fistful of cash and bought himself a lot of respectability. Sarah knows he must have a dark secret buried someplace deep.

Jack Donovan does have a secret, and he doesn’t want Sarah to find it. So whenever she tries to interview him, he tries to get her temper riled up. Not true anger, just to deflect her a little. And because the sexual tension between them makes the sparks fly.

But when Donovan has an ornate four-poster bed shipped to Burr from “Back East”, all the mock-flirtation comes to a boil. Sarah wants to know why a single rancher, however wealthy, lavished so much money on such an ostentatious piece of furniture.

Donovan tell her that he’s decided to settle down and find a wife. Then has the gall to tell Sarah that she isn’t on the list. Even worse, he tells that she’d be just fine for a passionate affair, but that she’s not a woman to marry.

Not having lost his entire mind, he doesn’t tell her that the reason he won’t consider marrying her is that he wants a full-time rancher’s wife, and he knows she won’t give up her newspaper. And that it is unfair of him to expect it of her. And there’s that other little problem–he won’t tell her his secrets, and she won’t rest until she finds out.

But Sarah is incensed. Telling a newspaperwoman that she isn’t good enough to marry you is not the way for a man to lead a quiet and respectable life in a small town. Sarah prints Donovan’s wife hunt as front page news the very next day, complete with his stated list of qualifications.

The poor man finds himself besieged, even in his own home!

But the more women who throw themselves at him, the more he realizes that Sarah, the one he believed was totally unsuitable, is the only woman he could possibly spend the rest of his life with.

But first they have to deal with a few pesky little problems. Like his past. And her past. And whether or not they are both willing to make serious compromises in their expectations.

Sarah was right all along. Jack Donovan  really did have a deep, dark secret buried in his past. Jack wanted it to stay buried forever. Until his worst self turns out to be the only one who can save Sarah’s life.

Escape Rating B+: If you have a fondness for Western romances in small frontier towns, this is a good one. I’d forgotten how much fun these stories are. It probably helps a lot that this particular “Retro Romance” isn’t all that retro–Donovan’s Bed was originally published in 2000.

I’m even considering reading the rest of the Calhoun Sisters series, just for fun.

Do not judge this book by its cover. Donovan is probably even more alpha than the picture, but Sarah is making her way as a businesswoman in a man’s world, she’s no sweet, submissive little miss. The original paperback cover may be more lurid, but more accurate.

 

Arctic Rising

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Tobias Bucknell’s Arctic Rising is a near-future science fiction techno-thriller that leads the cast, and the reader, at a breakneck paced tour of a thawed Arctic. Unfortunately for our heroine, she’s on this tour because someone really is out to get her. Fortunately for the reader, figuring out who turns up a grand scheme that keeps the reader guessing until the very end.

It’s also kind of a pre-apocalyptic story of eco-terrorism. What do I mean by pre-apocalyptic? The apocalypse hasn’t happened, yet, but if events in this story go pear-shaped, well, you can definitely see the apocalypse from here.

Anika Duncan begins the story as an airship pilot for the United National Polar Guard. The UNPG has airships patrolling the waters of the Arctic Circle to check for drug smuggling and occasionally nuclear waste dumping. Why? Because airships (read blimps) are cheap on fuel and fossil fuels are expensive and running out. Why are they needed? Because the Arctic Ice Cap has melted, and all that ocean is pretty empty. There’s nobody looking. Nuclear waste, as we already know, is a pain to get rid of. Dumping it in deep water no one is watching is cheap.

But when Anika’s gear pings a radioactive hotspot on the ship below her, she sets of a chain reaction of events much bigger than she could ever have imagined. The crew of the unidentified ship brings out heavy artillery and brings down her ship. Then they ram the debris. Crash landing in the Arctic Ocean is a fast way to die of hypothermia.

Anika’s co-pilot makes it to the hospital, but dies of his injuries. Anika did a better job getting her survival suit zipped up, so she is okay physically, but someone tries to run her off the road. And that’s only the first attempt on her life. Her house is blown up. She’s arrested by men who have no identity.

A friend —  who wants to be her girlfriend — smuggles her out. Anika’s friend Vy is a criminal, but Vy has connections. Right now, Anika needs friends in low-places just to figure out what is going on. But the more she discovers, the crazier things get. And the more collateral damage piles up around her.

Somebody wants to terraform the Earth, to turn back the global warming clock. They’ve even found a way to do it. But there are a lot of powerful people and corporations who like things just fine the way they are, and don’t want to change. They’re willing to let the future take care of itself.

Some of those people have found a nuke. Anika and her friends are caught in the middle. At Ground Zero.

Escape Rating A-: This is one of those books where you just saddle up and hang on for the ride. The story is all about the thrills and chills, and it has plenty.

Something about this story that ties into reality is the opening of the Northwest Passage. In the 1800s, explorers searched, and died, seeking the fabled Northwest Passage over the top of Canada from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. The story of Sir John Franklin’s Expedition is especially interesting, because they found mummies from some members of the party in the 1980s.

The Northwest Passage is opening. Bowhead and gray whales have managed to make the crossing from the Pacific to the Atlantic through the Passage for the first time in centuries. A cruise ship sailed through the Passage in 2006 and a commercial freighter in 2008.

The other neat, funny, cool thing was the portrait of the new Arctic as the really, really last frontier, the place where everyone gets to be an extreme individualist. I lived in Anchorage for three years, and Bucknell’s portrait of the new Arctic was Alaska taken several steps further. Which totally worked.

Arctic Rising is one of those books where you read it and you keep thinking that things can’t get any crazier for the main characters, and yet, they do. And it just makes you want to keep reading even more!

Under Her Brass Corset

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Under Her Brass Corset by Brenda Williamson looked like steampunk when I picked it up from NetGalley. I mean, really, “brass corset”? What would you think?

Instead, think of it as the counterweight to Leslie Dicken’s The Iron Heart, which is steampunk but doesn’t explicitly say it’s steampunk. Under Her Brass Corset has a title that practically screams steampunk, but is more of a historic romance with fantasy and steampunk elements. Any time immortality and Avalon get mentioned, I call fantasy.

The hero has installed steam power on his ship, it does fly, and this is Victorian England, but he hides the steam power from anyone who is not in on his big secret, his immortality. (I’m not calling this a spoiler because it’s revealed to the reader very, very early in the story)

Abigail Thatch begins the story pretty much at the end of her rope. Her father was murdered only two months previously foiling a break-in of their home, and since then, her finances have been going steadily downhill. Her museum job isn’t enough to pay the bills, and the bank is threatening foreclosure.

In walks Jasper Blackthorne. Abigail doesn’t remember Captain Blackthorne, but he remembers her all too well. In between sea voyages, Blackthorne has watched over her all her life, just as he guarded her parents before her. Blackthorne is immortal, having drunk from the waters of Avalon over 400 years previously. He feels responsible for Abigail’s family, because he gave her grandfather a sip from the waters himself. Unfortunately not a big enough sip…her grandfather is immortal but rather absent-minded. He forgets all the children he has created over his very long life.

History records Abigail’s grandfather as Edward Teach, otherwise known as Blackbeard the notorious pirate.

Jasper hid something in Abigail’s house before his last voyage: a clockworks compass that points to sources of the healing waters of Avalon, the waters that are sometimes called the “fountain of youth”. Jasper needs to get the compass back. He fears that Abigail’s father was murdered in an attempt to find it. Murdered by Abigail’s cousin, Eric Teach.

But Jasper has another reason for coming to see Abigail. He’s been watching over her from a distance all these years, and he’s seen her grow from child to girl to woman. As a child she was a delightful little sprite, but as a woman, she’s captured his heart and soul. And it tears him apart. Jasper loved a mortal woman once, 150 years before. She refused the gift of immortality, and he has never loved again.

But Abigail challenges him, body and spirit. She wants him, and the adventure he represents. She also knows that there is a treasure to be found with that clockworks compass; she simply doesn’t believe in his tales of immortality. Abigail needs a rich prize to rescue her home from the bank.

Abigail finds herself falling for Jasper, even though she thinks that everything he says might be a con. She doesn’t remember him from her childhood, but she instinctively trusts him, though her mind says she shouldn’t.

The journey they embark upon is filled with wonders. But also with great perils and dangerous sea monsters. But none more dangerous than Abigail’s long-lost family.

Escape Rating C+: I was expecting much more steampunk than this turned out to be. I like fantasy romance, but I wasn’t expecting one. There are definitely steampunk elements, but they arise because Jasper’s been inventing stuff for himself to keep people away. I tend to think of steampunk being more pervasive to the society-at-large.

The romance itself worked pretty well. I liked Jasper and Abigail, and could understand why they fell for each other. I also definitely got why she didn’t believe his story. From a rational standpoint, it was pretty far-fetched. On the other hand, since she didn’t believe him, she should have needed a LOT more convincing in order to go with him on that trans-Atlantic voyage.

For my willing suspension of disbelief, or the throwing out the window of it, there were one or more too many borrowed elements from other stories. Morgan le Fay and the Lady of the Lake and Avalon and Blackbeard the Pirate and Ponce de León! For this reader, it was a little over the top. Your mileage may vary.

 

A Rogue by Any Other Name

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean is the first book in MacLean’s new pre-Victorian romance series, The First Rule of Scoundrels. It is also a delicious tale about a former tomboy who tells a bald-faced lie that her sudden marriage is a love match between herself and her former childhood sweetheart. There’s a problem with telling whopping lies like that one–fate is so tempted to make them real.

But the story is in why Lady Penelope Marbury and Michael, Marquess of Bourne are in the position to be telling such a whopper in the first place.

You see, there was a bit of a scandal. Actually, there were two. Make that three.

When Michael turned 21, when he reached his age of majority, he lost his entire estate over a hand of cards. Over just one hand. He was maneuvered into it. And the other man cheated. But Michael played, and he bet. And he bet everything that wasn’t tied up in the entail. And he lost it all.

To the man who had been his guardian after his parents’ death, Lord Langford. The man who had taken Falconhurst, an estate that was barely scraping by, and had built it up into something worth having…and who was unwilling to turn it over to a mere boy, even if that boy was the rightful heir. So Langford manipulated, maneuvered, cheated, and won. and gloated over his triumph.

Michael was disgraced. He never placed another bet. But he never lost the taste for it. Gamblers never do. Instead he ran games where other men lost their money, and their livelihoods. And eventually their inheritances. Ten years after Langford broke him, Michael, Marquess of Bourne was one of the four owners of The Fallen Angel, the most exclusive gaming hell in London.

Lady Penelope Marbury was the oldest daughter of the Marquess of Needham and Dolby. Growing up, Michael had been her best friend, along with Tommy Alles, the son of Lord Langford. At least, they’d all been friends until Michael’s scandal. Penelope had written letters to Michael for years, never receiving any in return.

But Penelope had suffered her own scandal. During her first season, she had become engaged. To a Duke, no less. It had all been perfect. Not perfect love, but perfectly arranged. The Duke of Leighton had been slightly boring, but her marriage to him would have made life so much easier for all of her younger sisters.

Instead, the engagement was broken and a week later the Duke married someone else. Infamously, it was an obvious love-match. and Penelope became a laughingtock for not being able to hold on to him. Six years later the ton was still tittering about it. Penelope was secretly relieved. Penelope wanted more than a dull, society marriage to a man she didn’t know or care for.

But her scandal affected all of her sisters’ prospects. Her father won Falconhurst from Langford, fittingly enough in a card game, and attached Bourne’s estate to Penelope’s dowry.

Penelope’s father was nobody’s fool. He knew what Michael thought he wanted–revenge against Langford. The older man wanted his daughter married and settled, and figured that Michael was what she wanted, no matter how he had to maneuver to get it.

Penelope wanted her sisters’ happiness, and was willing to bargain with her own to get it. Everyone in this story is gambling, but the stakes are much higher than your average card game.

Michael has been living for his revenge for ten years, and thanks to Penelope’s father, it is now within his grasp. But revenge, as the saying goes, is a dish best served cold. With Penelope back in his life, the only thing he can think of is the heat they generate together.

Which will win?

Escape Rating A-: I kept reading to see what would happen next! This was a story with a lot of twists and turns, and it also sets up the rest of the series quite nicely.

The glimpse into the past through Penelope’s letters to Michael is terrific! We don’t just see them growing up, we see Penelope changing over the years after Michael left, her transformation from tomboy to the “proper” woman at the beginning of the book. She used to be adventurous, and that’s all still inside her, but it’s been locked away because she has no outlet, and then Michael comes back and it all comes flowing, and sometimes raging, out of her again.

Michael is almost an enigma. He is beset by demons. His revenge has nearly consumed him, but not quite. He doesn’t gamble for money, but he so obviously gambles in so many other ways. He needs the adrenaline.

Penelope’s father is quite the schemer. He sets the whole thing up. Excellently well played!

Reviewers note: I received this egalley from Edelweiss in return for an honest review.

 

Past Tense

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews

Nick Marsh’s Past Tense is almost two books in one. The first half of Past Tense is science fiction/horror, and it’s pretty much of a sequel to Marsh’s first book, Soul Purpose (reviewed here). The main purpose of chapters 1 through 44 (or I through XLIV) is to provide a reason for the rest: the marvelous time travel feast that gives Past Tense its name.

The present day bits about the vet Alan Reece and his friends George and Kate, who saved the world from a Lovecraftian-Cthulhu-monster type takeover in the previous book, serve as introduction. The world is going to hell in a handcart again. Alan is not just seeing monsters, he also keeps slipping sideways into a world where Cthulhu seems to be running the place. And this is NOT GOOD.

He’s also being stalked by a couple of guys in ill-fitting suits and rather poor hygiene. When they finally catch up with him, their explanation floors him. They are like him, except from other “Soul Plains”. They are Conduits, with a capital “C”, and so is Alan.

And they are on Earth to help Alan save it, again. Because that last time Alan saved the Earth, he caught the attention of something nasty, and it wants to spoil things at the Soul Plain level, where only Conduits can fix things. Earth wasn’t even supposed to have a Conduit yet, so Alan is special.

About the poor hygiene thing. The other Conduits are just borrowing the bodies of people from Earth. They don’t quite know how to operate the equipment, so to speak. They get the language and general movement, well mostly, but the nuances of hair combing and tooth brushing are pretty much beyond them.

But they can show Alan how bad the problem is. The creature has no physical existence, except what he borrows. But on the Soul Plain level, he consumes Conduits, kills them, and steals their power. And he wants Alan. But he also want the entire Soul Power of the Earth.

The 21st century didn’t work for him. He was drawn to it because that’s where Alan was, but the 21st century doesn’t believe in much anymore, not on a superstitious level. This being needs to be worshipped to manifest. People need to believe in him. So he’s gone back into Earth’s past.

And that’s where the second “book” comes in. The creature has manifested in Britain, during the late period of the Roman occupation, in a fort on Hadrian’s Wall. In order to stop him, Alan has to go back to that same period to stop him from changing whatever piece in history he changed to trigger the wrong turn in history.

Alan has to occupy someone else’s body, just as the other Conduits do. Alan’s spirit, or soul, or Conduitness, or whatever, travels back and occupies the body of a medicus, a surgeon, on the Roman frontier in Britain at around 177 A.D. This glimpse into the life in Roman Britain is absolutely fascinating.

Even better, although worse for her, one of the creature’s minions mistakenly believes that Kate is the Conduit and sends her back to the same place and time. Kate occupies the body of a slave girl.

Between Alan and Kate, they are able to observe Roman life from top to bottom.

Their mission, which they must accept, is to prevent the assassination of the future emperor Commodus. Bastard that Commodus was, his place in history was necessary in order for the Roman Empire to fall at the appropriate time.

The only way they may be able to accomplish this seemingly impossible task is to convince a loyal and rational Roman Centurion that his commander is already dead and that his best friend is a time traveler. Can they do the impossible in time?

Escape Rating B+: I am of two minds. The set up with the part in the 21st century at the beginning, was necessary, but I wanted more of the part in the past. I adored the story once it moved to Roman Britain. Alan’s perspective on life in the fort really shone. It was so ironic that he found his place in life nearly 2,000 years before his birth. And he knew it couldn’t last.

And Kate, trying so hard to hold up at the absolute bottom of society’s ladder, reminding Alan that his current privilege rested on the backs of people like her, on slavery.

The historic bits reminded me a lot of Judith Tarr and Harry Turtledove’s excellent Household Gods. This was a marvelous book about a woman whose spirit travels back to live on the Danube frontier of the Roman Empire at the same time period as Past Tense.

There’s a slight hint of the Star Trek Original Series episode City on the Edge of Forever in Kate’s relationship with Lucius the centurion. She wants to save him, to the point where she writes herself a message the second they get back to the 21st century, which she already knows she will find and read at the beginning of this adventure, but he will still attack first and die. And it’s necessary to save the future. And she grieves.

For more of my thoughts on Past Tense, take a look at Book Lovers Inc.

 

Synthetic Dreams

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

If there are no such things as demons, which is something that the main character states unequivocally in Kim Knox’ new cyberpunk science fiction romance thriller, Synthetic Dreams, then why are the hackers named after the Celtic demons of yore, the Fomorians?

But the real demon is Ouroboros. The worm of legend that eats his own tail. Confused? So was I–for a bit.

Synthetic Dreams paints a fascinating picture of a future world where the rich and powerful are able to harness the mental energy of certain individuals to power artificial reality dreamscapes.

The reader’s entry into this world is Vyn. Vyn is a Fomorian, a hacker using the codename Bran-seven. All the Fomorians use Celtic codenames. Hacking seems like half-tech and half-magic, so the Celtic analogies fit. While Vyn is in the Corporation-owned artificial reality world known as the Mind Tiers, she wears a glamour, yet another magic term. Glamour normally means enhancement, usually just enhanced appearance; better hair, better teeth, better body.

But Vyn’s glamour is illegal. All glamours are supposed to be tagged. If a person falls for someone else’s enhanced looks, at least they know what was enhanced. Vyn’s glamour isn’t just untagged, it’s a complete change of appearance and registry. She doesn’t just look better than her real self, she is able to fool the registry into believing that her real-life body matches the simulated person she appears to be.

Vyn has created the “Holy Grail” of hacking: she’s created a Simulacrum. It will make her rich–if she doesn’t get caught.

Vyn’s been pursuing a simulacrum for years, ever since the owners of the Corporation, the March-Goodmans, experimented on her, scarred her body, and had her transferred from the privileged N-sector to the slum S-sector.

Vyn wants to hide her scars. She also wants to find out why she was a victim of their experiments. And why her best friend Liam disappeared when he asked too many questions about her. But that was all a long time ago.

Now Vyn has a way to find the answers. With a simulacrum, she can be anybody, anywhere in the Mind Tiers. Or she can just sell it and get rich.

The Corporation is suddenly chasing her again. In the real world. And with intent to kill. And there’s a very hot security agent suddenly willing to protect her. The Corporation wants the Simulacrum. The security agent wants her to rescue his brother from the Corporation, and is willing to trade her promises of a future he can’t possibly mean in order to save his brother’s life.

Why can’t he possibly be sincere?  Because that security agent doesn’t need any glamour to look perfect. And Vyn knows that no one could possibly be interested in her scarred body except to use her as a tool.

Not even after she finds out what her scars were intended for. And after she discover that her security agent has been watching her, guarding her instead of following his assignment, for weeks.

And that the scars that ruined her life when she was a child–may be the only thing that can save her future now.

Escape Rating B-: This story had so many possibilities, but it’s too short to take advantage of them! It’s so frustrating. How did the world end up at this point? Why? This is like the current internet on steroids mixed with the Matrix, except everyone, well, almost everyone, is awake and aware, and a slight dash of the Roman Empire under the worst of the emperors. The corporate espionage bits are very, very insane.

Vyn is an extremely cool character, but we don’t see enough inside the security man’s head to figure out how he got into this. It’s his brother getting rescued, but he’s way more disaffected than that. This world has layers we’re not seeing.

About the Ouroboros thing…Vyn’s life turns out to be part of a very long plan by the Corporation, a plan that someone else manages to turn back against them. In the chilling sense of “revenge is a dish best served cold”. That part was icily well done.

The Iron Heart

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

The Iron Heart by Leslie Dicken is a terrific steampunk romance. The story takes place in and around Lundun, and yes, the resemblance to Victorian London is intentional and heightened, because there is a serial killer just like the infamous Ripper on the loose, and the hunt for him brings in the suspense.

Unfortunately, his first victim provides the introduction for our hero and heroine, and also points out the class divide in this quasi-Victorian society.

Lundun is where the common folk live. The Greenlands outside it are where the nobility reside. Except for Ella Wilder. She’s been secretly living above her Uncle James’ clockworks in Lundun ever since her cousin Jenny was the first horrific victim of the killer.

At the time, it seemed like a random murder. Lundun is a big and dangerous city, and sometimes, death happens. Even gruesome death. But when a second young woman, one who looks just like Jenny, turns up, Ella knows that Jenny’s death was the start of something horrific, and she wants to get the word out to other young women to protect themselves.

Ella even has a way to get that word out. Ella publishes a newspaper in Lundun, She also knows how to mobilize the upper crust to act. Ella is a member of the Syndicate of Provinces, the Council that governs Lundun. But Council members are required to live in the Greenlands, which is the reason that her actual residence over her Uncle’s shop must remain a secret.

The District Four representative is Bennett Pierce, Lord Barrington. He is alarmed by the recent death of the second young woman. He does not know about Jenny. But the second woman was his brother’s fiancee, before his brother’s accident.

Bennett wants to investigate the girl’s death himself. He is already investigating the girl’s death–by himself. He has reason to believe that his brother Hugh, who he rescued time and time again from excesses large and small, may have gone over the edge into madness, and that it is Bennett’s fault.

But as much as Bennett wants to quiet the Council, Ella wants to involve them. The only way for him to keep her from publishing her findings in her newspaper is to give her some information, and to keep her close enough to him to prevent her from finding out too much.

The difficulty with that plan is that Bennett Pierce discovers that Ella Wilder is the one and only person who has ever distracted him from his single-minded quest to find and save his brother. The only saving grace is that he tempts her every bit as much.

But with a crazed killer on the loose, will their mutual distraction be their salvation or their doom?

Escape Rating A-: I was up until 3 am trying to finish this. I didn’t quite make it, but I really, really wanted to. I wanted to find out how it ended so badly that I picked it up at breakfast the next morning. I got so caught up in the romance I forgot to figure out who the killer really was. Very well done!

This is very steamy steampunk. A genre description might be steampunk romantic suspense. The story is romantic suspense. There’s a serial killer on the loose and the hero is hunting him for personal reasons. The heroine is personally involved because someone close to her was a victim. There are hints she might be a target. This is romantic suspense.

But the world is so, so steampunk. Dirigibles, clockworks, automata. Not just big airships, but small personal vehicles as well. Clockwork parts for people are an integral part of the story. Even a tiny hint of Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics makes an appearance.

I found this book because Heather Massey recommended it (while fanning herself) on The Galaxy Express. She also mentioned that the description of the book on Amazon and Goodreads doesn’t use the word “Steampunk”. And it doesn’t. The description is really cute, but the keyword isn’t there. This is steampunk, and the book description needs to just plain say it for readers who will love this book to find it.

Because steampunk romance fans will adore it.

 

Celebrity in Death

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

If Eve Dallas were of a more philosophical bent, she would have meditated on the “life imitates art imitates life” nature of her latest case in Celebrity in Death. But the character that J.D. Robb created over 30 books ago is all hard-nosed murder cop, and that’s why we love her adventures. That’s also why her multi-billionaire ex-criminal husband Roarke loves her too.

But Celebrity in Death is a story-within-a-story. And possibly several iterations beyond that.

For Eve, it’s only been a couple of years since she cracked the Icove case. Dr. Wilfred Icove tried to beat death by cloning human beings, and died for his sins, and his secrets (Origin in Death). The case was so high-profile, and so scandalous, that Eve’s friend and go-to reporter, Natalie Furst, was able to make a best-seller out of her book on the inside story. That book, The Icove Agenda, is being filmed in New York, and the producers want to get all the real-life principals to interact with their actor-counterparts.

The resemblances are eerie, at least the physical ones. Especially when the makeup is in place and the camera is running. But off-camera, the differences are glaring. One difference in particular–Detective Delia Peabody is a genuinely nice woman, but the actress portraying her, K.T. Harris, is an absolute bitch.

Eve Dallas always stands for the dead, whether they are likeable or not. So when K.T. is murdered in the middle of a dinner party Eve is attending for all the movie people and all the original participants in the drama, Eve dives into the hunt for her killer. But not until after she shakes off that cold shiver at seeing a dead ringer for her partner dead in a pool.

At first there are too many suspects, and too few. Everyone detested the dead woman, but no one remembers who left the party and when, because the entire group was watching the movie “gag reel” at the time of death.

As events unfold, Eve discovers that K.T. Harris was both victim and victimized in her life. And although Eve sees the similarities to herself, she doesn’t sympathize much. K.T. made her choices, and they were all the wrong ones.

The case takes a surprising twist, and there are more dead for Eve to stand up for than she expected. But that’s what Eve Dallas does, every time.

Escape Rating B+: While I enjoyed this one, it wasn’t as riveting as New York to Dallas (see review), or my personal favorite, Fantasy in Death.

The dynamics of the cop shop are as much fun as ever. The scene where Dallas and Feeney have to watch a recording of a suspect couple’s private moments to determine whether or not it was tampered with is priceless. Their mutual embarrassment is just so perfect for their relationship.

This story didn’t ratchet up the tension the way that the stories normally do. There isn’t a lot of death, and there just doesn’t seem to be a lot at stake for most of the participants. While a lot of people involved are being bribed, few seem to be getting blackmailed. Something is missing.

Only in mystery fiction do we go looking for more death. But for my taste this story needed a couple more fresh corpses to give it body.

 

Death of a Kingfisher

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

I got hooked on M. C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series back when I used to drive a lot. Notice I said hooked. Rather like a trout in Macbeth’s lovely Highland village of Lochdubh, I was caught, and now I can’t escape the net.

The latest entry in the series is Death of a Kingfisher. The Kingfisher in this instance is a beautiful bird, the showpiece of The Fairy Glen, a new tourist attraction at the nearby village of Braikie.

The locals weren’t to happy about The Fairy Glen, not at first, but it’s brought tourist traffic and tourist money to an economically depressed area of Sutherland, and the owner, Mary Leinster, has charmed the pants off of any opposition. In the case of her male opposition, possibly literally. She’s also played successfully on long-held superstitions. Mary doesn’t just claim to have the “second-sight”, her vision of a boy falling in the pond came true, and the boy nearly drowned.

But the death of the beautiful kingfisher was no accident: the bird, his mate and their chicks were poisoned.

The kingfisher is the first to die, but not the last. And the other deaths are human. First a wealthy and elderly woman dies when her motorized wheelchair lift practically skyrockets her up a staircase, and it is discovered that the seatbelt of the chair was tampered with. The woman may have been a cantankerous old baggage, but she didn’t deserve to fly through her own skylight. Then it’s discovered that she was robbed before she was killed.

After that, murders turn up all over the township, as anyone who hints at knowledge of the murder or the robbery is mysteriously eliminated before the police can question them.

And what about the police?

Hamish Macbeth is the local constable in Lochdubh. His tiny station covers most of the small towns and villages in the county of Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands, which is actually very far north.  Hamish wants to be sure he stays in Lochdubh, the place he loves, and does not get sent to the “big city” of Strathbane.

So Hamish usually makes sure that credit for solving the crime goes to someone else, so that he can remain just where he is. However, he continually worries that budget cuts may close all of the local stations, and there won’t be any place for him except Strathbane.

This crime has him stumped. The suspects always seem to have an alibi, and the alibi is usually CCTV. But there are two sets of crimes. The murders, and the robbery. Once Hamish realizes that there may be two sets of perpetrators, and that there are ways to fool CCTV, he’s well on his way to solving this mess, and getting back to his life.

Escape Rating B: Hamish is a likeable character, and this is a police procedural series although sometimes Hamish spends more time trying to figure out a way around the procedures than using them. But once he figures out which way the crime might have gone, it’s easy to get caught up in the chase.

One of the very interesting things about Hamish is that he has found the place he wants to be in life, and is doing everything he can to stay there. At the same time, he needs to make sure justice is done. So he lets others take the credit.

Something I discovered recently: BBC Scotland loosely based a TV series on the Hamish Macbeth series between 1995 and 1997. In the books, Hamish is described as very tall, thin and with bright red hair. The actor who portrayed Hamish in the series is Robert Carlyle, best known in the U.S. as Doctor Nicholas Rush in Stargate Universe, and Rumpelstiltskin/Mr. Gold in Once Upon a Time. Hamish is extremely likable. Rush and Gold are anything but. I keep wondering which one would be considered casting against type?