Tag: 2012 Ebook Challenge

Sunrise Point

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

Sunrise Point by Robyn Carr was my first trip to the lovely town of Virgin River in northern California. But I don’t think it will be my last. Not just because the town was beautiful, but because the people who live there are ones I’d like to see again, to catch up on their stories. And because the love stories that seem to happen there, like Sunrise Point, involve terrific characters and great storytelling.

Nora Crane is a single mother with two very young daughters. Her daughters’ sperm donor (father is so the wrong word) abandoned her in Virgin River in a house that not only wasn’t ready for winter, it wasn’t even fit for habitation. The whole town pitched in to help Nora get by.

But Nora wants to stand on her own two feet. The school of hard knocks is a rough teacher, but she’s learned better than to be dependent on anyone ever again. She was young and stupid when she dropped out of college to follow a minor league ballplayer who ended up a drug dealer, but she’s not stupid anymore. Now she’s still young, but she’s pragmatic as she can be.

And she needs to work to support herself and her girls. Harvest time at Tom Cavanaugh’s orchard is the best paying work she can get now that school is out for the summer and her teaching assistant job is temporarily over.

It doesn’t matter that the orchard is over 3 miles outside of town, that she has no car, and that Tom Cavanaugh is ruggedly handsome, overly opinionated…and only hired her because his grandmother made him take pity on her situation. Nora will prove to herself, and Tom, that she can learn the back-breaking, callous-making hard work of picking apples.

The thing is, Nora is all wrong about the reason Tom didn’t want to hire her. Oh yes, he’s worried about her learning the job, but everyone is new once. Tom’s problem is that he finds Nora much too attractive, and he doesn’t want to get himself involved with someone who works for him. And he’s just back from serving with the Marines in Afghanistan. He’s thinking about settling down, but he’s not ready for a ready-made family either.

Nora is both an employee, and a single mother. He should be declaring her completely off-limits.

And Nora has already made some seriously bad decisions about men once in her life. Getting involved with her boss is all kinds of bad.

But the heart wants what the heart wants. The head can be so totally wrong about these things. Especially in Virgin River.

Escape Rating B+: Watching Nora and Tom court and spark is the fun part of this story. When they are thinking and not feeling, they think they are wrong for each other. But when they simply interact, everyone around them can see they are so very right for each other. It just takes them a long time to see it. Their obliviousness is funny, and almost heartbreaking. The wrong choice does loom over them for a while.

There are two sets of background characters. The set that are part and parcel of Nora and Tom’s story are terrific. I’m not sure there is anyone who wouldn’t want Tom’s grandmother Maxie for their own. Or at least to borrow her for awhile. She’s marvelous. The story of Nora’s childhood, and the resolution, that part introduces some good things as well.

The other piece of the story is probably the setup for the next book, with some characters who had their HEA in a previous story and one new one. Because this was my first trip to Virgin River, I was a little bit lost in the parts with Luke, Jack and Cooper. But I think Cooper’s story might be the next book, since Luke (Temptation Ridge) and Jack (Virgin River) have already had their stories.

Speaking of temptation, I’m tempted to go back to find out exactly what their stories are. Before book 20 in this series comes out. I want to catch up with everyone!

For more of my thoughts on Sunrise Point, check out Book Lovers Inc.

 

Grave Mercy

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

Assassination has often been a tool of politics throughout the centuries. There is a classic quote that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”. Assassination has historically been one of those “other means”–sometimes as a way of starting the war, sometimes as a way of stopping it.

But seldom outside of fantasy have readers had such a god-ridden heroine’s journey to follow, with an assassin as that heroine.

The heroine is Ismae Rienne, and the book is Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers. It is the first in her series about, as the author’s website puts it “assassin nuns in medieval France”. That series is titled His Fair Assassin.

It’s historical fiction, not fantasy or science fiction. But Grave Mercy is still quite a trip.

Ismae grows up in a tiny farming village in Brittany. Not France, Brittany. That’s important. Brittany was still independent in the late 1400s and many people still clung to the old ways and the old worship. The old local gods were called “saints” by Ismae’s time, but people still brought them offerings.

Brittany was an independent duchy, and she wanted to remain that way. The tide of history was against her, but the tide wasn’t all the way out, yet.

Ismae was born with a significant scar on her back. Everyone in her superstitious town saw it as a sign that Ismae was the daughter of Death, literally, the guy with the scythe, Mortain. Why? Because that scar represented the effects of the drugs her mother took to abort her, drugs that failed. Only the child of Death himself would have failed to die.

Instead, Ismae spent her early life abused by everyone around her, including her father. And when it came time for her to be married, her father sold her to another brute, one who intended to kill her the moment he saw her scar.

But she was whisked away by Mortain’s followers to the Convent where his assassins were trained. After three years, she was sent on her first assignment. And thus became embroiled in the realpolitik for which the Sisters had barely prepared her.

Anne of Brittany‘s court turned out to be a spiderweb of intrigue. And even worse, the man the convent sent with her both for her to spy on and as her cover, Gavriel Duval, well, Duval is not what he appears to be. The Convent believes he must be betraying the Duchess, but Ismae knows he is not.

Which means that someone else is. Ismae must find the real traitor before he, or she, brings down the ducal house of Brittany. And Ismae must decide where her loyalties really lie.

Ismae is only seventeen. The Duchess whose realm she must protect at all costs is fourteen. The future rests on them.

Escape Rating A: This was one of those books where the pages fly by. Which was excellent, because there are a LOT of pages. This is a story that drags you in and doesn’t let you out until it’s wrung every emotion out of you.  At the end you’re completely spent and you feel satisfied, and slightly disappointed because you have to leave the author’s world.

This is historical fiction, not fantasy. The historical characters and the place and history behind this story did happen. Anne of Brittany, and the Mad War, and the fight over who she would marry, all happened. Gavriel Duval, Ismae and the Nine Old Gods or Nine Saints are fictional, but the blending of the fictional into the historic is seamless.

Grave Mercy reminded me of Maria V. Snyder’s Poison Study, the young assassin’s training and first target story, except that Snyder’s story is fantasy. The seriously politically insane fantasy version is Kushiel’s Dart, although that is in no way YA, and Grave Mercy and Poison Study both ostensibly are.

Grave Mercy is a story you won’t want to let go. It’s an excellent thing that the author is returning to the world of His Fair Assassin in the Spring of 2013 with Dark Triumph.

 

Haevyn: Humanotica Book 2

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

Haevyn is a way, way, way better book than Silver.

Why? Because Haevyn Breina, the title character of Haevyn, is not just the star of her own story, Haevyn is an adrenaline junkie. She is psychologically incapable of waiting for life to happen to her. She is forced by her own nature to make things happen. In other words, Haevyn has “agency”, sometimes too much of it for her own good. She’s never passive.

There are occasions when Haevyn plays the submissive, but she never truly submits. Her point of view is well worth following, even to the point of wanting to shake her for some of the choices she makes, because she makes choices and acts on them. Decisively.

If Silver was intended as the story of a trinex, a person equally identifiable as male, female and humanotic, Haevyn is a story that separates those roles into three individuals, Haevyn herself, Grishna, her childhood friend and sometime lover, and Entreus, the humanotic rebel from book one, and Grishna’s lover. This should be a triangle.

But Grishna loves both Haevyn and Entreus, and his role is that of healer, mediator, balancer. He’s a peacemaker between two warriors who need each other to be whole. But they also both need his healing as a calming agent. The trick is to bring them together in a way that Haevyn won’t find manipulative, because she is easily spooked.

And Haevyn is both fascinated and repelled by humanotics. Her first sexual experience was rape by a humanotic. It’s left scars on her soul that she’s never been able to erase.

Grishna brings Haevyn to a Cockrage, which makes Fight Club look not just tame, but bland. A Cockrage is a cock-fight, but those are men in the ring, not birds. The fight is not just about the violence, it’s a fight for dominance. The champions and their challengers fight  in the nude, just to make that point more clear. The loser gets screwed in the middle of the fighting ring, in front of the wildly cheering audience.

The audience is supposed to be only male. Grishna sneaks Haevyn in under the pretense of losing a bet. He wants her to see Entreus in Cockrage. Entreus is the reigning champion. Haevyn’s risk-taking nature overwhelms her fear of humanotics, and she is caught up in the overwhelming sexual atmosphere of the Rage, but only for Entreus, who is equally enthralled by Haevyn. She reminds him of the warrior-women of his home dimension of Oricta as none of the submissive ladies of Quentopolis ever have.

But there is more to this story than just the erotic. Haevyn is an officer of the military, even if the branch she serves are trained sex-workers assigned to personally serve high-ranking officers. It is the only way a woman in her society can earn a decent wage.

Haevyn needs that money. Her brother is addicted to body-modification. (And doesn’t that sound strangely familiar?) But on Quentopolis, if a person has more than a certain percentage of humanotic parts, they automatically become a slave. Haevyn is afraid that someday she will have to buy her brother out of slavery, and her fear is justified. She’s saving up.

Most importantly, the officer Haevyn serves, besides being a sado-masochistic bastard, which Haevyn is not just required to tolerate but trained to deal with as part of her duties, is also a treasonous bastard. Haevyn has to go undercover in many, many more ways than she was trained in order to save her city.

And she has to do it fast. Her brother and both her lovers are in danger. And there’s a sorcerer on the loose who might blow everything up just for spite, first.

Escape Rating B-: Once I started Haevyn, I couldn’t put it down. I had to find out how the whole thing turned out. This was so much better than Silver. I liked Haevyn as a character much better than Silver, which made a huge difference.

There are things about the worldbuilding that bothered me. Since this is the second book in a Science Fiction Romance series, there was stuff about the underpinning that I would expect to know by now. Other worlds are referred to as “dimensions”; how is travel accomplished? It’s never clear.

The branch of service Haevyn is in, the CompSociates, are military prostitutes. A society that restricts the roles of women the way Quentopolis does, would it also develop something like this? It was an interesting idea, but I’m not sure. On the other hand, it made me think, which is always good.

Another puzzle: Haevyn refers to damage to her sporiti from her rape. Is sporiti spirit or mind? That was never quite clear in context, not even in combination with the first book.

But if you  have an interest in very erotic science fiction romance, Haevyn might be your ticket. For more thoughts on Haevyn, head on over to Book Lovers Inc.

 

Wreck of the Nebula Dream

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

A passenger liner is launching with technology so advanced that everyone is just positive it will break all the speed records for the route! Lots of money is riding (yes, pun intended) on her making port on a record-breaking date.

And in order to get her out of her docking berth, she’s launched with untested technology. Oh, she’s ahead of her time, alright, but even advances ahead of their time need shakedown cruises.

If all this sounds just a little familiar, it should. With a little tweaking this could be an introduction of the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. The 100th anniversary of her first, and last, voyage is this week.

But this is a book review of a slightly different story. The ship is the Nebula Dream, and her maiden voyage is a space flight. She’s still a passenger liner, and many of the conditions are intentionally the same. The Titanic disaster served as inspiration for this absorbing science fiction adventure.

Wreck was definitely inspired by the original events, but it is not slavishly devoted to them. Disasters make for great drama. They bring out the best in people…and the worst.

The Wreck of the Nebula Dream by Veronica Scott is the story of the maiden voyage of the passenger cruise ship Nebula Dream.

Instead of being an ocean-going vessel, the Nebula Dream cruises the space-lanes. Like the Titanic before her, the maiden voyage of the luxury Nebula Dream also includes some of the wealthiest people in her corner of her universe. They plan to be part of her record-setting trip.

But space and other factors make Nebula Dream‘s story a bit different from Titanic‘s, although not much less disastrous.

A chunk of that “less disaster” quotient is because the Nebula Dream‘s story is also the story of Special Forces Captain Nick Jameson.  He’s on board because his career has already crashed, and this trip is his last hurrah. Except that what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation turns out to be a mission unlike anything he ever undertook in his service career.

His last service mission was behind enemy lines. This vacation, well, this so-called vacation may not be as far from his last mission as it was supposed to be.

But from the minute that the luxury cruise starts heading towards disaster, Nick learns he’s not alone in this accidental adventure. The woman he’s been watching for days, the ice-cold business executive he was sure would think a simple Special Forces Captain wasn’t worth her time, well, she turns out to be the best partner he could want in this crisis. And maybe after…

If there is any after.

Escape Rating A-: I wanted this to be just a little bit longer. I also wanted to slap one of the side characters upside the head, or shake some serious sense into her. (Read the book and you’ll figure out exactly who I mean)

Wreck of the Nebula Dream is a terrific mix of science fiction, action adventure, and just the right touch of romance. I loved that there was both an alpha male and an alpha female! The heroine does not wait to be rescued, and she’s not just rescuing herself, she’s helping to rescue other people. The hero can either help or get out of her way!

The awesome assassin/sidekick from the mysterious Brotherhood was extra-special cool. I think the extra bit of story I want is where he came from, where he’s going, and are there any more like him at home? I’d like a sequel with his story.

 

Wanted: Handsome Alien Abductor

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

Every Star Trek fan has wanted Scotty to “beam them up”.

But Amber doesn’t want an engineer, she wants an alpha male with the body of a Viking hero and the same interest in history that she has. In fact, when Amber puts her wish list together in Myra Nour’s Wanted: Handsome Alien Abductor, the title pretty much sums up her perfect man.

Sounds like an impossible dream, and that’s just what Amber figures it is, a dream. Especially when her best friend Sarah tells her that she found her husband by praying to some Goddess in the middle-of-nowhere South America.

But what does Amber have to lose? South America is a nice place to vacation. Isn’t it?

So when she visits Sarah’s Goddess, and makes her offering, she expects nothing. Still, she dreams up her ideal man. That alpha male explorer, space traveler, historian, and oh yeah, alien.

Then she has the best erotic dream she’s ever had, and the star of the show is her perfect man. And is he ever perfect! In every possible way.

Then she wakes up. On his space ship. And discovers that her fantastic erotic dream–really happened.

Ryja travels the galaxy, and aboard his ship he has a time machine. He’s come to Earth to study its history. He couldn’t be a more ideal man for Amber, except for one major problem. His mission will only last for just a few short months, and then he’ll be travelling on. Amber isn’t looking for a fling, she’s playing for keeps.

Can this intergalactic love match find happiness among the stars?

Escape Rating B-: This isn’t so much science fiction romance as it is wish-fulfillment romance. Considered in that light, it is a blast of a good time. Amber dreams up a perfect man, and gets one perfect for her, with all the coolest toys imaginable.

I liked how the author dealt with the science fiction geek-speak, by not doing it. Ryja was not an engineer, so he didn’t pretend. Most of us don’t know how a TV works, we just click the remote. Most people wouldn’t know the ins and outs of their technology, they’d just use it. This kept from drowning the reader in polysyllabic pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo and went straight to the “good stuff”.

And it was very good stuff.

 

North of Need

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

Humans have personified the great forces of nature since mankind (and womankind) first created fire. The winds howling outside of those early cave-dwellings must have seemed like gods…and so some of the world’s most fascinating and enduring myths were born.

Zephyrus, the west wind, Eurus the East Wind and Notus, the South Wind are three of these, but the greatest and most feared is Boreas, the North Wind. Boreas is feared because the North Wind brings Winter.

In North of Need, the first of Laura Kaye’s Hearts of the Anemoi series, Megan Snow has gone north to face the heart of winter alone. Megan believes that she needs to face Christmas, and the second anniversary of her young husband’s death, alone. Alone in the isolated cabin where they shared their love, and their all too few Christmases.

Out of a need to escape the confines of the cabin, the walls that are closing in, Megan goes out into the snow and builds a snow man, and a snow woman, and last, a snow child. Finished, she stares at her handiwork, and realizes what she has unconsciously done. She’s built a vision in snow of what she can never have in real life–the Snow Family. Her husband is dead and she is alone.

Megan breaks down and sobs, wrapping her arms around the snowman, her tears fusing her to its solid snow body. Tearing herself away leaves a snow burn on her cheek.

Stumbling into the cabin after her emotional storm, Megan crashes into sleep as a blizzard descends on the isolated area. She wakes to find a man on her doorstep. She doesn’t want to give up her grief-stricken isolation, but the man will freeze to death before he reaches the next cabin, if he can even find another shelter in the white-out. She must take the stranger in, and hope for the best.

What she finds even more strange is that the man on her doorstep has no shoes, but is wearing the clothes that she used to “dress” the snowman.

Owen Winters is the snowman. And he will be again, if Megan doesn’t grab this chance at love. Owen is one of the Anemoi, one of those primal forces, an agent of the North Wind. And he has one precious chance, a few brief days, to convince Megan to fall in love with him.

The West Wind is coming, bringing the thaw. When the snow thaws, Owen will be gone, unless Megan can commit to him first. But love in the face of death is the one thing that Megan fears above all. She’s loved and lost before, and she’s not in the least bit sure it’s better than never having loved at all.

Will Megan’s heart thaw first, or will the snow?

Escape Rating A: Now I understand what all the fuss was about! Besides the fact that the use of Greek mythology was awesome (Boreas hasn’t been this much fun since he was used as Bigby Wolf’s father in Fables) the metaphor of winter for grief was done just right. It’s a trope that can easily be overplayed, but Kaye went just far enough, and then turned it on its head by having Owen and Megan have so much fun in their winter sports. For Owen, wintertime equals playtime, and he makes Megan see it too.

Owen has a much harder time getting Megan to trust him, especially when he starts by understandably not revealing his true nature. But his courtship, and the building of their frienship, is what makes the story so incredibly good. It helps that the romance part of this paranormal romance is both sweet and hot.

West of Want, book 2 of Hearts of the Anemoi, is coming on July 10, 2012 (excerpts and swag giveaway post here). Book 3, South of Surrender, not until December, 2012. For the grand finale, East of Ecstasy, I’m going to have to wait until April 2013. Just in time for my next birthday.

 

Skies of Fire

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

If the British Admiralty is sending airships to fight the Hapsburgs, then this must be steampunk. And damned fine steampunk indeed!

Zoë Archer’s latest book, Skies of Fire, is that steampunk, the first tale of The Ether Chronicles. It’s that “ether” that powers those airships. Along with something, or rather someone, who has been transformed into a “Man O’War”. And no, Ms. Archer was not referring to the horse.

In this alternate-19th century, a scientist has discovered a rare element: Telumium. Telumium is amazing. One of its byproducts is ether, which powers the airships, and ether rifles, and ether-based lights. Another, even more amazing, property of Telumium is that it can be bonded to a human being, creating a super-human, a Man O’War. A Man O’War’s strength is what literally powers his airship.

Christopher Redmond captains HMS Demeter, and his small gunship is trapped and looking for a place to repair behind enemy lines when he catches the glint of an SOS from a British agent. Literally a glint: the signal is being sent by mirror flashes, and only his enhanced sight could have caught it.

Even while hiding from the enemy, Redmond is duty-bound to retrieve that agent, so he drops the jollyboat with a small crew. He puts himself on that jollyboat, knowing the agent must be in desperate straights.

The agent is desperately in need of rescue. And is the last person Christopher Redmond expected to find in the Carpathian Mountains. Or anywhere in his life again. Louisa Shaw is the only woman he ever loved. But when he asked her to marry him, three years ago, she left him, without a work, without a note. He underwent the transformation to become a Man O’War not long after. But he never stopped loving her, even while he sometimes hated her.

Christopher always knew Louise was a member of British Intelligence. Even that she was one of their best field agents. He just wasn’t expecting her here.

And Louisa wasn’t expecting Christopher, either. She still missed him. She always had. But he had wanted a wife, even though she had told him from the very beginning that she would not marry. She had panicked, and run.

But she followed his career and had even memorized the layout of his ship. She just hadn’t expected him to be the one who rescued her. Hadn’t expected him to have changed so much, and yet, not changed at all.

They had to work together, in spite of the lingering wounds and the growing tension between them. Louisa held vital intelligence about a munitions factory behind enemy lines. A factory that must be destroyed at all costs.

But first, it has to be found.

In the midst of searching for that factory, can Christopher and Louisa find their way back to each other?

Escape Rating A-: It was great to see some steampunk with a British background for a change! There’s been a recent run of Wild West steampunk (cowpunk!) that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, but the change of scene was good.

The relationship between Christopher and Louisa isn’t just hot (although it is) but is also believable. The way the author makes them fight through their bitterness and betrayal, fight each other, and work so hard for their reconciliation is intense. Their second chance has to be hard-won, and readers need to see it to buy into it.

I was dying to figure out where in the alternative timeline this war fit in, and couldn’t quite figure it out. Drove me crazy. Is this an alternate to the Crimean War, making it the 1850’s? When did the telumium discovery taken place? Inquiring minds get caught on these niggly details.

I read this all in one gulp. I wish the next book in the series, Night of Fire by Ms. Archer’s husband and fellow romance writer Nico Rosso, were available now instead of in July.

Review + Giveaway of Isadora Daystar

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> ebook giveaway> ebooks

As a human being, Isadora Daystar barely managed to a half-assed job at every single thing she tried in her life. But being the title character of this science fiction novel by P.I. Barrington, this one time, Isadora Daystar finally manages to come up aces.

The reader’s introduction to Isadora has a familiar feel to it. Isabella is a soldier, and she’s in the brig for screwing up. Her commanding officer is paying her a visit, disappointed that she’s messed up, again.

At first, Isabella reminded me of Starbuck on Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck also screwed up a lot, but had incredible potential. The difference was that Starbuck fulfilled hers, however strangely that turned out.

In the very opening of Isadora Daystar, Isadora’s life takes a different path. In her memory (and it is obvious that she is remembering something in her past) Isadora’s commanding officer Renan, chews her out, expresses his disappointment, turns off the cameras in her cell, and kisses her senseless.

And that’s the last good memory Isabella seems to have.

Isabella’s present is a mess. She’s not in the military any longer. She not fit to serve. Isadora Daystar has fallen from being a Sergeant-Major to being a drug addict. One who will do anything to get her next fix. And since the military taught her how to kill, Isadora Daystar has become an assassin.

But she’s not terribly good at it. She admits that to herself in her coherent moments. She tells herself that she wasn’t all that great of a soldier, and she’s not all that great of an assassin, either. But she needs the money. For the drugs.

Beggars can’t be choosers. Assassins who don’t complete their assignments don’t get to pick their targets. They don’t get to negotiate terms, either.

Isadora takes what she knows is a bad job on the planet Nova Cheiros. It’s a place where too many people in too many low places remember her none too fondly. But she has to take what she can get.

The contractor is a liar and a cheat, and she knows it. But she needs the money. The target, well, she thinks she got him. But nobody told her he was a cop. So she has to get off planet, and fast.

Then her ride off-planet gets shot out from under her, and her fellow crash victim is a teenage girl with a whole lot of attitude; the daughter of that cop Isadora killed.

Are they going to save each other, or kill each other? And who shot the ship?

Escape Rating B: Isadora’s story is not for the faint of heart. She starts out at the bottom, and she knows she’s hit bottom. The worst part is, she doesn’t think there’s anything left for her except complete degradation and death. We see her memories and know that Isadora believes she deserves her fate.

When the Isadora’s escape ship crashes, fate intervenes. Of course saving the girl she’s stranded with keeps her alive. That’s a story we expect. But quite a bit of how that story resolved was a surprise. Guilt is easy and forgiveness is hard.

In spite of the scene in Isadora’s memories with her commanding officer kissing her senseless, this is not a romance in any way, shape or form. It’s science fiction, but that’s probably more of a setting than an actual necessity. This is a redemption story that happens to be set in a science fiction world. The space travel is a nice bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, this review is part of the Isadora Daystar blog tour from BTS Virtual Tours. I have 2, yes 2 e-copies of Isadora to give away. The giveaway will be open until 12:01 am EDT the morning of April 10, 2012 and I will announce the winners on April 11, 2012. All you have to do fill out the Rafflecopter form below:


a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Watchmaker’s Lady

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

First there was steampunk, and now there’s clockpunk. And is it ever cool.

In the hands of an author like Heather Massey, it is also very, very hot. Hot enough to melt anyone’s circuits.

In Massey’s latest novella, The Watchmaker’s Lady, the “lady” in question is a combination of clockwork bits, metal parts, and a lifelike porcelain head. Or is she?

As the story begins, Matthew Goddard is one lonely watchmaker in the midst of New England in 1840. In our terms, he’d be a geek or a nerd. He enjoys fiddling with clocks and watches, and while he would like to marry and have some female companionship, he’s not interested in someone who wouldn’t provide interesting intellectual conversation as well as stimulating sexual escapades.

But Matthew is nothing if not resourceful. On one of his regular parts-buying expeditions to the local general store, he spies a mannequin’s head in a scrap heap. To Matthew, that dusty and bedraggled bisque face represents the woman of his dreams. Possibly literally.

Matthew acts as if “Isabel” requests that he take her home with him. He bargains with the shopkeeper for her head, and returns to his home in a lather of expectation. He lavishes care on the life-size and eventually life-like porcelain head, holding long conversations with “Isabel” as he washes her face and combs out the tangles in her long dark hair.

Matthew treats her as his lover, even as his wife, to the point of fashioning a body for the head. In fact, increasingly complex and complicated bodies, first from straw, and later from brass and clockwork mechanical parts.

However, Matthew Goddard is only a clockmaker; he works for his living. Creating Isabel’s body out of brass and parts is expensive. And in their intimate conversations, Isabel tells Matthew that she wants clothing as well. As a single man, Matthew has no socially acceptable method of purchasing female clothing, not to mention ladies’ “unmentionables”!

But Matthew is adept at creating small mechanical objects, clockworks in other words. And in that time and place, many ladies suffered from what was then called “hysteria”, an imbalance of the so-called “female humors”. Matthew creates a secret business in vibrators, which he demonstrates to a select clientele. His clients pay him in articles of clothing, which he uses to dress Isabel.

Everything is fine, until one of his clients wants more from Matthew than he is willing to give. She spills the beans to her husband, selectively edited, of course. The townsfolk head for the store with fire and pitchforks.

Matthew’s only desire is to save Isabel at all costs. Their love was worth everything to him. But is Isobel real? Or only a clockwork?

Escape Rating A-: This was wild, and there were some parts of the wild that were a little bit true!

As I read the story, a part of me kept wondering if Isabel was real, or if the whole thing was in Matthew’s head. It is very, very easy to get taken along with his delusion, or illusion, that Isabel is a real person, and not a clockwork, especially when he’s making love with her.

You’re also never totally sure how far he’s gotten with making her into an automata or android as we would think of it, either. Does Isabel become self-aware? We never know.

There is a Pygmalion aspect as well. Matthew creates the woman he wishes existed, and then she falls in love with him. Pygmalion is one of the great myths, and it’s been told and re-played multiple times, George Bernard Shaw wrote one famous version of Pygmalion, which in turn inspired My Fair Lady. Of course, the creation doesn’t always fall in love with her creator!

The business about the vibrator business, that part is from history. If you want to read a hilarious account this plus some of the other even weirder things that went on in the name of health, try The Road to Wellville by T. C. Boyle (never judge a book by its movie).

The Watchmaker’s Lady is a terrific steampunk/clockpunk erotic story with a delicious surprise at the end. A surprise that you notice I am not spoiling for you.

As one of my Blogo-Birthday giveaways, one lucky reader will get their very own digital copy of The Watchmaker’s Lady (PDF, EPUB or .mobi) and find out what the surprise twist is for themself. (If you don’t win, I highly recommend buying your own copy. It’s definitely worth it!)

The deadline to enter the giveaway is 12:01 a.m. EDT on the morning of April 8, 2012. I will announce the winner on April 9th.  To enter, leave a comment that answers the following question: If you could build an automaton of any kind (robot, android, etc.,) what would you build it to be? or do?  Also, please let me know what format (PDF, EPUB, or .mobi) you want the book in if you win.

Continue reading “The Watchmaker’s Lady” →

Wrath

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

Wrath is the second book in Denise Tompkins’ Niteclif Evolutions. The story takes up immediately, and I do mean immediately, where Legacy leaves off. (This review contains spoilers for Legacy, book 1 of The Niteclif Evolutions. If you haven’t read Legacy, check out my review, then go forth and read Legacy. It’s a terrific and necessary introduction to the Niteclif supernatural world of Wrath.)

As Wrath opens, Maddy Niteclif’s new life as the supernatural investigator for the High Council has fallen apart before it had fairly begun. The prophecy that she and her newfound love, Bahlin Drago spent all of Legacy trying to avoid seems to be coming true in the worst possible way.  Their dreams are in tatters, and Maddy’s trust in everyone in her new world is shattered.

The death-curse of Bahlin’s rival has left Maddy sick, weak and dependent: she’s now an invalid who needs a full-time attendant just to make it to the bathroom!

She’s not even capable of doing her job as the Niteclif, and someone in the supernatural community has turned serial killer. The murderer clearly has some kind of grudge against Maddy, since all of the victims look enough like her to be her twin.

And into the middle of this mess steps yet another prophecy. The first prophecy said that whichever male member of the High Council managed to get Maddy into a sexual relationship would become Head of the High Council. That man was also fated to love Maddy and lose her. Bahlin and Maddy spent all of Legacy hoping to thwart the prophecy, but prophecies do not readily accept being thwarted.

That High Council had three men sitting on it when Legacy began. Tarrek, the fae prince, met his fate by the end of Legacy. Bahlin was the other contender for Maddy’s hand. But what of the third?

During Legacy, the last man, Hellion the wizard, was not “in play”. He had a mate. By the time that Wrath begins, Hellion is available, but still angry at Maddy for her part in in his mate’s death.

However, there’s another prophecy…

Can Maddy manage to get over her betrayal by one man (even if he is a dragon), long enough to figure out if she’s ready to trust another (even if he is a wizard)? Can she stop railing at her fate long enough to listen to her heart? Can Maddy stay one step ahead of the killer long enough to figure out who it is before he kills her and makes all her other problems go away–permanently?

Escape Rating B: There are parts of Wrath that I absolutely love, and parts that made me want to shake Maddy until her teeth rattled.

The whole concept of this supernatural world, and that someone like the Niteclif has to straddle the two, is a terrific concept. The idea that Maddy’s great-grandfather was Sherlock Holmes still gets to me. Maddy has to maintain her balance between the worlds, otherwise she’ll just fade away into fiction like great-grandad. That’s cool…and eerie at the same time. Maddy knows there’s a fiction writer already prepped and waiting in case she fails.

On the other hand, Maddy’s love life definitely has its ups and downs, and not all of them between the sheets. While I understand that Bahlin’s betrayal would make her rather gunshy when the prophecy about Hellion comes along, I found the constant angst a bit much. Especially the repeated refrain of how seldom Maddy had sex until after she become the Niteclif but now she’s supposedly a bed-hopper.  Then she’d have some internal debate and “give in” to Hellion again, as though he or the circumstances were responsible instead of Maddy being responsible for her own actions.

Not that the romance and the sex weren’t sizzling hot, but I wished that Maddy would take more responsibility for her personal actions sooner in the story. As the Niteclif, she can be judge, jury and sometimes executioner in criminal cases. I wanted to shake her when she kept pretending that circumstances were in control in her sex life for so long.

But I’m really enjoying Maddy’s evolution and I can’t wait to see what happens next! I have some guesses but the next book, Vengeance, doesn’t have a pub date yet. Now I wish I could find a prophecy!