I borrowed The Cuckoo’s Calling from the library out of sheer curiosity. I wonder how the hell Rowling did at a mystery/suspense thriller. Now that we all know Robert Galbraith is Rowling, it all seems so obvious. Cormoran Strike is so a Hogwarts’ name.
I finally got Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines, and started it immediately. This is my kind of book. Not just because the hero is a librarian (awesome) but the whole concept that there is magic in books that a person with the right kind of talent can release. We all know that there is magic in books, but the idea of bringing into the real world is made of win. (I also love Hines’ work on exposing, sometimes literally, the sexism in sci-fi and fantasy book covers, but there isn’t enough mental bleach in the universe to make me un-see the Flandry re-shoot with Patrick Rothfuss. I love Mary Robinette Kowal’s power-pose, but OMG, Rothfuss in the lower left. Enough said.) If you’ve never looked at the “Cover Posing” section of Hines’ site, take a look. Your eyes will be opened. And your back will spasm in sympathy.
So far, Libriomancer is excellent. But that was to be expected.
A relatively short stack this week. After the Gay Romance Northwest Meetup last week, I decided to finally read the Cut & Run series by Roux and Urban, because everyone always said the series was awesome. I’ve got the whole series on hold at the library, but of course my holds are arriving in a very strange order. (I also was not the only person with this brilliant idea when we bought the series last month) Eventually the first book will come in.
Yesterday turned out to be pretty splendiferous, once the butterflies in my stomach settled down.
I was the Keynote Speaker at the Gay Romance Northwest Meetup yesterday. The conference, and it was very much a writers and readers conference, was held at the Seattle Public Library’s Central Library. The last I heard, the paid attendance was 120, but they were definitely taking at-the-door registration, so there were more people there.
My topic was getting what you want into your local library, or working with your local library to get what you wrote onto the physical or virtual shelves. The Q&A session ran over!!! There’s a very nice summary here, even if I feel funny about being the unnamed librarian.
I stayed for the whole thing. Besides the fact that I got questions and comments at every break and at the happy hour afterwards, this was an awesome event. Also, and one of the interesting things, as far as the writing and breaking into publishing, and questions about diversity and the lack thereof, many of the questions and answers were not dissimilar to things I’d heard at WorldCon a couple of weeks ago.
Becoming a writer and getting published is damn difficult. Period, exclamation point. Diversity is a journey and not a destination. Respectability is something that no genre fiction seems to have achieved, although mystery seems to be closer (for relative definitions of close) than anything else, and LGBTQ romance gets hit with a double-whammy of being both LGBTQ and romance.
One thing struck me, one of the authors (Daisy Harris) said that she wrote m/m romance because it allowed her to write couples who did not follow the alpha male/submissive female paradigm that she had been forced to follow when she wrote traditional m/f romance. Last night I was reading something that I wasn’t planning to review, but it was a couple where the dominant male/submissive female roles should not have occurred, and damn but they did anyway. I’m having a major re-think here.
Format read: ebook provided by NetGalley Formats available: ebook, paperback, mass market paperback, audiobook Genre: Historical romance Series: Survivors’ Club, #2 Length: 379 pages Publisher: Dell Date Released: August 27, 2013 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
Desperate to escape his mother’s matchmaking, Vincent Hunt, Viscount Darleigh, flees to a remote country village. But even there, another marital trap is sprung. So when Miss Sophia Fry’s intervention on his behalf finds her unceremoniously booted from her guardian’s home, Vincent is compelled to act. He may have been blinded in battle, but he can see a solution to both their problems: marriage.
At first, quiet, unassuming Sophia rejects Vincent’s proposal. But when such a gloriously handsome man persuades her that he needs a wife of his own choosing as much as she needs protection from destitution, she agrees. Her alternative is too dreadful to contemplate. But how can an all-consuming fire burn from such a cold arrangement? As friendship and camaraderie lead to sweet seduction and erotic pleasure, dare they believe a bargain born of desperation might lead them both to a love destined to be?
My Review:
What an interesting contrast this couple is! Sophia Fry is a woman who has perfected the art of fading into the shadows as a survival instinct. Everyone overlooks her. She’s petite and thin and hides in the corner. Even her father called her “Mouse”, although he said it with affection.
Her hero is Viscount Darleigh, the former Vincent Hunt, and Hunt is blind. I do not mean that he is blind to Sophie’s charms, I mean that he was blinded in a war accident. Possibly an accident due to not looking before he leaped (apparently a trait of his beforehand) but an accident all the same.
No one would expect the opposites of a man who cannot see and a woman that no one ever sees.
But Vincent notices things that other people do not. And one of the things that they have in common is that Viscount Darleigh is rather being overlooked in his own life. He came back from his war both blind and deaf, and he spent some time recovering hearing and his wits. His sight is gone forever.
He let his too many female relations fuss and coddle him while he recovered. And while the title came to him too soon and unexpectedly, they are much too used to managing him and he doesn’t want to hurt their feelings. He knows they love him, but he needs to have as much independence as possible, and that is considerably more than his mother, his grandmother and his sisters seem to believe is possible.
When they practically arrange his marriage, without his consent, to a young woman who is obviously horrified at the thought, he sneaks out of the house in the middle of the night with his valet/best friend/assistant and escapes to his childhood home.
Where a scheming family tries to compromise him into marriage with a bitch who doesn’t want him but does want his fortune. And that’s where Sophie steps in. She’s the bitch’s poor relation and can’t bear to see anyone trapped. She’s all too familiar with that feeling herself.
Her conniving, scheming, bitching, fortune-hunting cousins toss her out of their house in the middle of the night, believing that starvation and penury serve her right for ruining their plans.
Instead, Vincent offers to marry her.
Both Sophie and Vincent want as much independence as is possible in their varying circumstances. Sophie is the poor relation of gentry. Her father was a scandal many times over, but he’s dead. She has no income of her own, but as a woman, she also has no skills with which to support herself. She’s not a great beauty, so she doesn’t attract men easily. She’s forced to rely on the kindness of her relatives, who simply don’t want to be tarred with the taint of her father’s reputation.
Vincent should be independent, but his blindness is a handicap. He could do more than he does, but it’s only been three years. Three years in the early 1800s, not three years in the early 2010s. Everyone wants to take care of him, and can’t quite understand that they are not helping. They mean terribly well. Getting married to someone he chooses will give him a chance to start over, and give him someone who relies on him as much as he relies on them. Vincent needs an equal, not someone taking pity on him.
Sophie equally needs someone who needs her, not someone taking pity on her, although it takes her quite a while to realize that she is helping Vincent.
They make a bargain, an arrangement after much persuasion on Vincent’s part. They will marry. She will help him straighten out his relationship with his family, and he will support her. In a year, they can separate and achieve their dreams of independence, living apart.
It’s a desperation move on both their parts. They need each other, but neither of them realizes quite how much. Nor do they have a clue just how much they are both going to hate that damn arrangement.
Escape Rating B:The Arrangement is a very lovely romance of manners. I want to call it a comedy of manners, but it isn’t a comedy. The story is a voyage of discovery for both Vincent and Sophie, and the reader is carried along on a very sweet journey to their happily ever after.
There isn’t a lot of tension in this story. On the one hand, it would have seemed artificial to insert a mad crisis of misunderstanding just to have a grand breakup to make up scene near the end, but on the other hand the story does sort of gently float to its natural conclusion. I was expecting one of Sophie’s early caricatures to get discovered and cause a ruckus, but it didn’t happen.
The crises they did overcome involved Sophie’s extreme insecurities and Vincent’s family and friends’ initial hostility over the assumption that Sophie was a fortune hunter. Sophie had to step out of her introvert’s shell, but Vincent also had to change his behavior and stop letting people manage him. They helped each other and people changed their attitude toward them.
Sophie’s methods of increasing Vincent’s independence may have been anachronistic, but the way that she helped him to help himself showed how much and how quickly she came to care.
This is kind of an post-Napoleonic War version of a new adult romance, and I can’t believe I just said that. Sophie and Vincent are going through the kinds of problems and decisions that they go through because they are both very young and are learning to cope with being married, taking over the estate and figuring out new identities all at the same time. Some of those problems are forced on them because they were under extended guardianships for unusual reasons, but still, they are both learning to be independent adults together. They grow towards each other from an unusual start, making this an odd sort of combination arranged marriage/friends-into-lovers combination.
The Arrangement is the second book in Balogh’s Survivors’ Club series. One of the fascinating things about the Survivors’ Club is that all the members have serious and frequently visible and/or debilitating war injuries. I’ll be going back to read The Proposal while I wait for book 3, The Escape.
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
I know, it didn’t really look like we left, but that’s the joy of scheduling posts. Except that last Sunday’s Sunday Post almost posted full of XXX, because that’s the way I left it when we left town. I meant to fill it in, and almost forgot. WorldCon was a blast.
Yes, we’re going to London next August, no matter how scraped the pennies have to be. This was so much fun I’m still bouncing up and down with glee, in spite of having been back for almost a week.
The Con experience ended on a mournful note. When we got home Monday night, word was percolating through that the great SF Grand Master Frederik Pohl had passed away in Illinois just as the Con was ending in San Antonio. One of the marvelous things about SF is just how accessible most of the pros are. Pohl used to attend all the Chicago cons every year, so I heard him read and speak two or three times a year for several years. He’ll be missed.
Before I move on to the regular recap and schedule of upcoming events, one last, but probably not final, comment about WorldCon. Galen posted a Worldcon wrap-up on his blog, Meta Interchange. I pretty much second everything he said, but it would have taken me five times as long to say it. 😉
This isn’t all there is. There’s a box of books shipping via turtle express from San Antonio and I have absolutely no recollection what’s in it. We sincerely tried not to pick up too much, but, there were a certain number of irresistible freebies going around (not exactly free when you factor in the cost of the trip) and it’s important to support the hucksters in the dealers’ room.
I couldn’t resist buying a print copy of Jean Johnson’s Hellfire just so I could get her to sign it. I say this and I already had an ebook copy. Author signed copies are the one place where print is absolutely better. Jean was terrific on all her panels (and I think I went to at least half of them, maybe more) and the book was awesome. My review will be posted Tuesday.
Final note, the last book in the list, A Slight Trick of the Mind, is a Sherlock Holmes novel by Mitch Cullin. It has just been announced that a movie is being made from this novel with Ian McKellen as the retired Holmes. That’s right, Gandalf (and Magneto) is also Sherlock. Simply fantastic news, even if it is possibly a sign of the oncoming nerdpocalypse.
Format read: hardcover borrowed from the Library Formats available: ebook, hardcover, audiobook Genre: paranormal romance, historical romance Series: Ladies of Lantern Street, #2 Length: 385 pages Publisher: Putnam Adult Date Released: April 23, 2013 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
Under the plain gray skirts of Miss Beatrice Lockwood’s gown, a pistol waits at the ready. For Beatrice is a paid companion on a secret mission—and with a secret past—and she must be prepared to fight for her life at any moment.
Yet she is thrown oddly off guard by the fierce-looking man who joins her in foiling a crime outside a fancy ball—and then disappears into the shadows, leaving only his card. His name is Joshua Gage, and he claims to know Beatrice’s employers. Beyond that, he is an enigma with a hypnotically calm voice and an ebony-and-steel cane…
Joshua, who carries out clandestine investigations for the Crown, is equally intrigued. He has a personal interest in Miss Lockwood, a suspected thief and murderer, not to mention a fraudster who claims to have psychical powers. The quest to discover her whereabouts has pulled him away from his mournful impulses to hurl himself into the sea—and engaged his curiosity about the real Beatrice Lockwood, whose spirit, he suspects, is not as delicate as her face and figure.
He does know one thing, though: This flame-haired beauty was present the night Roland Fleming died at the Academy of the Occult. Guilty or not, she is his guide to a trail of blood and blackmail, mesmerism and madness—a path that will lead both of them into the clutches of a killer who calls himself the Bone Man…
My Review:
There was both a mystery woman and a mystery man in this second installment of Amanda Quick’s Ladies of Lantern Street trilogy. I wouldn’t mind a bit if the owners of the Flint & Marsh Agency on Lantern Street found a few more operatives and kept this series going!
Beatrice Lockwood is very much the mystery woman. She starts out as Miranda the Clairvoyant of Dr. Fleming’s Academy of the Occult and ends by attempting to raise the dead. Needless to say, there is a LOT of story in the middle!
And even though Beatrice believes in the paranormal, and definitely has talent, she knows perfectly well that raising the dead is beyond anyone’s ability. But the madman pursuing her is convinced otherwise, and doesn’t care how many other corpses he has to make in order to reach her.
Yes, he’s a bit illogical about it. After all, he’s insane.
Meanwhile, Beatrice is in a bind. The madman is after her for her power. Joshua Gage is after her for much more mundane reasons. He starts out convinced that she’s blackmailing his sister over secrets she learned while posing as Miranda the Clairvoyant.
First, Bea is no blackmailer. Second, she learned no secrets. Third, Joshua has been misled into this case for all the wrong reasons. But someone made a mistake. Because Joshua realizes that while Bea may not be the blackmailer, she is the center of the case, and that they are stronger if they join forces.
Even though Joshua emphatically does not believe in the paranormal, their forces are very considerable. Especially once they realize that the most important thing they have discovered in this case is their need for each other.
But can they discover who is behind the madness before it is too late?
Escape Rating B+:The Mystery Woman was even better than Crystal Gardens (reviewed here). It didn’t have the weight of needing to explain the set up of the story, and the plot was stronger. There were more twists and turns to the mystery. It was much eerier and more diabolical.
Joshua’s story had a lot of depth. He underwent much more of a transformation. He starts the story having been in kind of retreat after a case went badly. This turns out to be the real heart of the story in The Mystery Woman. Joshua was an espionage agent for the government, and his mentor’s daughter as well as a fellow agent died on his last case. Joshua blames himself. He also injured his leg and uses a cane as a result.
Of course, it’s not that simple. The complications are what we learn in the story.
The Egyptology trappings are fascinating. There really was an Egyptology craze in England in the 19th century, so this part really works well!
That Bea not only has a paranormal talent but believes in the paranormal, where Josh has a talent but refuses to believe in anything remotely psychic provides for endless but entertaining banter. He represents the skeptic’s point of view marvelously.
But they not only fall in love, they accept each other. Which helps Josh to accept himself as he is now; injuries, scars and all. They each let go of their past identities so they can build a future together.
Bea does not raise the dead. But she and Josh do rise from the ashes of the past.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
This will be a very quick Sunday Post because we’re still in San Antonio at WorldCon. We’ve already decided that we’re going to scrape our pennies together to go to London next year. This whole vacation idea is awesome! And the extra-special bonus of getting to pal around with Cass from Book Lovers has been a real treat!
Spokane won the bid for the 2015 WorldCon. We’ll be able to drive instead of fly. Woohoo!
Format read: hardcover borrowed from the Library Formats available: ebook, hardcover, large print paperback, mass market paperback, audiobook Genre: Paranormal romance, Historical romance Series: Ladies of Lantern Street, #1 Length: 347 pages Publisher: Jove Books Date Released: April 24, 2012 Purchasing Info:Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository
Evangeline Ames has rented a country cottage far from the London streets where she was recently attacked. Fascinated by the paranormal energy of nearby Crystal Gardens, she finds pleasure in sneaking past the wall to explore the grounds. And when her life is threatened again, she instinctively goes to the gardens for safety.
Lucas Sebastian has never been one to ignore a lady in danger, even if she is trespassing on his property. Quickly disposing of her would-be assassin, he insists they keep the matter private. There are rumors enough already, about treasure buried under his garden and occult botanical experiments performed by his uncle—who died of mysterious causes. With Evangeline’s skill for detection, and Lucas’s sense of the criminal mind, they soon discover that they have a common enemy. And as the energy emanating from Crystal Gardens intensifies, they realize that to survive they must unearth what has been buried for too long.
As I read Crystal Gardens, I kept thinking that there would be a point where this Ladies of Lantern Street series would somehow connect with Quick’s (also known as Jayne Ann Krentz and Jayne Castle) Arcane Society/Harmony series.
All the elements are definitely present for this book to flow directly into the Arcane Society. And that’s not a bad thing!
Evangeline Ames is an independent woman in the Victorian Era, a time when women had very few options open to them if they wished to remain independent. Evie appears to be a ladies’ companion, someone who lives with unmarried rich females and serves as a chaperone. However, it’s all a disguise. Her true position is as an inquiry agent for the female-owned firm of Flint & Marsh, and her last investigation ended badly. She discovered that the gentleman pursuing Lady Rutherford’s granddaughter was the fortune hunter that her grandmother suspected, but that revelation came at a price.
Said fortune hunter died in mysterious circumstances. And someone from the London criminal underworld has pursued Evie to the countryside with the intent of murdering her.
Instead, Evie uses her paranormal abilities to save herself and thwart her would-be murderer, with the assistance of her country neighbor. And that’s where the fun begins.
The ladies of Lantern Street are both Mrs. Flint and Mrs. Marsh, as well as the the women they employ as inquiry agents. One of the requirements for positions with the firm is paranormal talent. Evie has the ability to raise or suppress someone else’s paranormal and physical energy currents. She can soothe a fever, she can keep a heart beating, or she can push someone into unconsciousness. She can go too far.
The other ladies, whom we meet in the later books, have other talents.
Evie was drawn to the town of Little Digby because it has a garden famous for its paranormal energies. The owner of the garden, and the estate it belongs to, is Lucas Sebastian. Sebastian is a hunter talent. He’s come to back to Little Digby to discover why his uncle’s experimental garden has, in effect, gone rogue.
What he discovers is Evie Ames trespassing in his garden in order to escape her would-be killer. Sebastian is more than willing to let the garden have the assassin. For dinner. But now that his hunter talent is focused on protecting Evie, he’ll do anything to keep her safe. But he can’t let her go.
Escape Rating B+:Crystal Gardens reminded me just how much fun Amanda Quick’s historical paranormal romances can be. This was absolutely a pleasure to read.
The story does set up the Ladies of Lantern Street trilogy. We meet all three of the “Ladies” as well as get the background on Flint & Marsh. I’ve read that this connects with the Arcane Society, but not officially. It does seem like the same world.
I enjoyed the give and take between Evie and Lucas in this story. One of the things that makes Quick’s Arcane historicals work for me is that she gives a reasonable explanation for why her female characters are so anachronistically independent. Evie always stands up to Lucas, to the point of eventually managing his relationship with his stepmother and half-siblings, but her independence makes sense in light of her background.
Lucas reveals himself over the course of the story. It’s not so much a redemption arc as a peeling back layers of secrets, but it allows him to show that he has changed and is capable of more.
The paranormal elements add sparkle, even if there are sometimes literal thorns!
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.
This will be my 1,000th published post. I’m stunned and amazed. When I started this blog back in April 2011 I had no idea that it would keep going this long, or that it would be so much fun. Or so much fun work.
I’m also grateful that the word count isn’t nearly as easy a statistic to find!
But thank you all for coming along on the journey, and reading any or all of those 1,000 posts. You’re awesome.
I finally got Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines, and started it immediately. This is my kind of book. Not just because the hero is a librarian (awesome) but the whole concept that there is magic in books that a person with the right kind of talent can release. We all know that there is magic in books, but the idea of bringing into the real world is made of win. (I also love Hines’ work on exposing, sometimes literally, the sexism in sci-fi and fantasy book covers, but there isn’t enough mental bleach in the universe to make me un-see the Flandry re-shoot with Patrick Rothfuss. I love Mary Robinette Kowal’s power-pose, but OMG, Rothfuss in the lower left. Enough said.) If you’ve never looked at the “Cover Posing” section of Hines’ site, take a look. Your eyes will be opened. And your back will spasm in sympathy.
