Tag: romance

Ebook Review Central for Carina Press for November 2011

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

It’s time to take a look at the Carina Press titles from November 2011. When Carina Press posted their November catalog on NetGalley, the whole list looked fairly yummy, and the reviews bear that out. Every title has at least four reviews. This is amazing! Carina published 18 titles in November, and Carina always has the shortest time from the end of the month for reviews to be generated. Clearly, I was not the only reviewer who thought their November list looked really, really good.

And as always, the September and October lists have been updated to include recently published reviews. So keep ’em coming.

This month’s featured books were easy to choose. Any time review numbers start going into double-digits, I sit up and take notice. That means a title has got lots of people not just talking, but reading.

So what were the big three titles in November?

Shona Husk’s Dark Vow was definitely a wow. Eleven reviews, including a TOP PICK! review from RT Book Reviews is enough to make anyone take a second look. For anyone who likes stories with a western flavor, or steampunk, or strong female leads, this book is a winner. There is a hint of science fiction/fantasy, but it’s more of a tease than hard core. It made a lot of reviewers think of the TV series Firefly, and that is not a bad thing by any means. RT Book Reviews made a comparison to True Grit. The blend works incredibly well. Shona Husk’s paranormal series starting with The Goblin King is very popular; this will be too.

For Toni Anderson’s Edge of Survival, thirteen turned out to be the lucky number of reviews this month. Even better, one of those thirteen was a feature review on USA Today‘s Happy Ever After blog. Edge of Survival is a romantic suspense story about damaged people in an unforgiving wilderness, trying to find ways to be strong past the broken places. It is an extremely good book, one that keeps the reader guessing until the end. The heroine of this tale is diabetic, and the author is donating 15% of her royalties to diabetes research. Readers of Nora Roberts suspense titles will love this one.

The third featured title is the second novella in Christine d’Abo’s Long Shots series. A Shot in the Dark was the third book this month to break that magic 10+ review number in November. A Shot in the Dark is an erotic novella with much more than a hint of BDSM. The Long Shots series features the Long siblings and their erotic adventures at an upscale local sex club, Maverick’s. Double Shot, the first book, was sister Sadie’s story. A Shot in the Dark leads sister Paige to her happy ever after. According to the reviewers, these stories are steaming hot, even hotter than the coffee served at the Long Family’s coffee shop. If you are looking for erotic stories that lead to a happily ever after, Christine d’Abo’s trilogy may be just the shot of espresso you are looking for. Pulled Long, the third book in the trilogy, just came out in December.

And that’s a wrap for this week. We’ll be back on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) with the Dreamspinner Press November titles.

What’s on my (mostly virtual) nightstand? 12-17-11

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Virtual Nightstand

Your eyes do not deceive you. This virtual nightstand post is indeed coming to you on a Saturday. Why, you ask?

Because Sunday, December 18 Reading Reality is the host of the Unacceptable Risk blog tour. So it will be my pleasure to have a guest post from Jeanette Grey, the author of Unacceptable Risk, as well as a review of her excellent science fiction romance and a giveaway of one copy of the book.

And we’re still in the middle of moving. So the actual nightstand just got stripped to its essentials today. The virtual one is getting something of a workout. It’s hard to concentrate amid piles of boxes. My office has developed an echo. All the books that formerly lined my walls clearly had a major sound-dampening effect. The boxes, not so much.

I looked ahead to what reviews I have due the week of December 26 and nearly had a seizure. What was I thinking? Was I thinking?

I have five reviews slotted for books with publication dates of December 27. Merry Christmas!

Forever and a Day by Delilah Marvelle is the first book in her new Rumor series. I read and enjoyed her Scandal series, so I decided to give this one a try when I saw it on NetGalley.

Like a lot of readers, I’ve never forgotten the thrill of Maria V. Snyder’s first novel, Poison Study. It was marvelous. It was an utterly amazing fantasy romance, and then to find out that it was her first book, I was absolutely floored. But the sequels never quite recaptured that magic. But I keep hoping. Maybe Touch of Power will be the one. I got it from NetGalley in hopes that it will be.

Demon Lover by Juliet Dark sounded like an interesting “story within a story” when I saw it on NetGalley. A female professor at a remote upstate New York college is writing a book titled “The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers.” She thinks it’s folklore, but finds out it’s biography. I can’t wait to see how this one turns out.

I found Robin D. Owens’ Enchanted Again irresistible when I spotted in on NetGalley. I love the Celta books. I also enjoyed her Summoning series. Enchanted Again is the second book in her Mystic Circle series, after Enchanted No More, which was fun, but no Celta. We’ll see how this one goes.

I picked up The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees because of all the buzz about it. And when I say picked up, I mean that literally, I have a print galley from the publisher. I also have a egalley from NetGalley. Does the “so many books, so little time” cliché apply to multiple copies of the same book? It looks like a hybrid of virtual-reality, alternate history, steampunk and cyberpunk. I hope it’s half as wild and cool as the descriptions make it out to be.

From last week’s perils of Marlene, the question is, did I finish anything at all in the middle of packing and moving? The answer is a yes, but not a whole lot.

Unacceptable Risk, absolutely, positively yes. The review will be part of the blog tour post. Not finishing would have been unspeakably rude.

I’m about halfway through One Perfect Night. And it is perfectly the level of mind candy my brain can process in the middle of this moving mess. I expect to finish it and Lady Seductress’ Ball in time to review them early next week.

And speaking of a brain not properly processing, while the boxes have been flying, one of the things that has been randomly firing the synapses is reading challenges. I know, total non sequitur. Nevertheless, I’ll start posting my reading challenge entry posts this week in between everything else. I know I’m going to read the books anyway, so I might as well enter a few challenges for fun.

And I finally finished David Chandler’s Honor Among Thieves. That was so good. It does not have a happy ending. It has the ending it needs to have, but it is not happy. Bittersweet, definitely, but not happy. But excellent. I sat there stunned for several minutes after the last page, just taking it all in.

I just gacked. I have 8 more books scheduled for the week of January 1. And we have to unpack. Does anyone have a second brain I can attach?

Don’t forget to tune in on Sunday, December 18 for the Unacceptable Risk blog tour and giveaway!

And Monday, yes, Monday we’ll be back with another edition of Ebook Review Central featuring the Carina Press titles from November 2011.

 

From Now Until Forever

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

From Now Until Forever by Sherry Gloag is a contemporary romance that blends the old school and the new. The heroine is very much a product of the here-and-now, but the plot belongs to an earlier time. It almost works.

The story begins with Liam Fitzwilliam Gasquet being shot at. At first, he thinks it’s just some trigger-happy idiots out in the woods, but then he comes to the reluctant conclusion that the insurgents trying to oust his father from the throne of their pocket-sized country on the Swiss border have finally found him. Liam has been travelling around the world for three years, trying to stay under the radar, and he’s finally been found. Since Liam is the third son, he’s been vainly hoping that his attempts to remain anonymous have been successful. It’s suddenly and painfully obvious to him that they haven’t.

Liam is in Scotland, and has been running a riding school for disabled children with his wife, Melanie, for the last six months. He thinks that Melanie doesn’t know he’s a prince. He doesn’t know that Melanie is the head of his security detail. She tailed him all over Europe. When he spotted her in a restaurant, the instant chemistry between them derailed both his normal “love ’em and leave ’em” nature and her duty to remain in the shadows.

When the bullets start flying and they have to escape their formerly secure home, the life they have built together falls apart. When the lies come crashing down, the walls come up between them. But can they find a way to be together, when everything they thought they had was built on deceit?

And will they live long enough to find out?

Escape Rating C+: I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the characters. Melanie and Liam are both interesting people. Mel raised herself up from nothing to be a security officer, and she’s good at her job. Even when she marries Liam, she never stops being his security chief, he just doesn’t know it. Liam isn’t a spoiled prince, he’s trying to be his own man, he just doesn’t go about it very well. But neither do a lot of people.  I had difficulty with the whole “secret prince of the tiny country” thing. That plot device seemed both too formulaic and unrealistic to me.  It tripped my “willing suspension of disbelief” alarm, and that alarm kept ringing.  Those are very few of those teeny, tiny countries left these days. Also, Liam trying to live anonymously in 21st century Europe is just not possible anymore, unless one seriously wants to live off the grid. And Liam clearly likes his horses and his plesaures. He couldn’t have expected to be anonymous.

I liked the characters, but the plot was thin, or not contemporary. I’ve seen this plot used in space opera, and it definitely works in that context. But not here and now, not anymore. Or just not for this reviewer.

Selecting the best romance ebooks of 2011

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | best book lists

Last week I volunteered to select the best romance ebooks of 2011 for Library Journal. The article that resulted from the endeavor was posted at LJ this morning under the title: Librarian’s Best Books of 2011: Ebook Romance, with my picture and everything. Yes, I’m rather chuffed about the whole thing, as the Brits would say.

How did this come about? I review ebook romances for Library Journal. I am a librarian, and I asked to be a reviewer when they started their ebook romance review program this summer. LJ has, like every book review source, been posting their “best of 2011” lists this month. They’ve also been posting “Librarian’s best” guest posts. Since they have only been reviewing ebooks since August, they didn’t have a full year of ebook romance reviewing to work with. When I volunteered to write one for them, they were happy.

But about the books, and the selecting of them. They had to be ebooks, they had to be romances, and I could only pick five. And they had to be 2011 books. I stretched a couple of those definitions just a tad. There was no requirement that they be books reviewed in LJ. Actually, that was the point. LJ wanted me to go through my archives and find stuff I knew about that they didn’t, because I cover more of the ebook “waterfront” with Ebook Review Central, and I’ve been reviewing ebooks longer.

I chose the books in order by time, earliest to latest, plus the one I snuck in and hoped it would stick, which it did. It’s not generally thought of as a romance, but well, some of us think it is.

1. Goddess with a Blade by Lauren Dane, published by Carina Press. Reviewed on June 20, 2011. Urban Fantasy. Escape Rating A.

Goddess was one of the first books I reviewed for NetGalley. And I remembered it in detail six months later.  Every time my editor at LJ asked me if there would ever be a starred review of an ebook (before Serenity Woods’ White-Hot Christmas finally got one) Goddess with a Blade was always my example. Absolutely terrific kick-ass heroine, and great urban fantasy world-building. I hope there are more.

2. Turn it Up by Inez Kelley, also published by Carina Press. Reviewed on August 10, 2011. Contemporary Romance. Escape Rating A.

I reviewed a similar book for LJ, but Turn it Up was just so much better that I cited Turn it Up in my review as the one people should read instead! This was a marvelous “friends-into-lovers” story. And very, very funny.

3. Queenie’s Brigade by Heather Massey, published by Red Sage Publishing. Reviewed on October 10, 2011. Science Fiction Romance. Escape Rating A.

Queenie’s Brigade is terrific science fiction romance. When I wrote my review, I got sucked into reading it a second time, and I’d just finished it! The last rebel spaceship escapes to the last prison planet to try to turn convicts into soldiers. Sort of like the Dirty Dozen in space. Except nowhere near that easy. If you like science fiction romance, get this book.

4. Divide & Conquer (Cut & Run book 4) by Abigail Roux and Madeleine Urban, published by Dreamspinner Press. M/M Romance, Mystery/Suspense. Featured on Ebook Review Central, Dreamspinner October Books, November 28, 2011. Ratings from 4/5 to 5/5 at 8 reviewers.

I crowdsourced this selection to Ebook Review Central. The reviews weren’t just positive, they were glowing. And not just for this book, but for the whole series. It made me put the first book in the series, Cut & Run, on my TBR list. There are paperbacks available for this series, so I was stretching the ebook-only definition just a bit, but no one minded.

5. Beekeeping for Beginners by Laurie R. King, published by Bantam. Mystery. Discussed in the post The Beekeeper and his Apprentice on July 6, 2011.

This was the one that was the sneak. Technically, this isn’t a romance. But the Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell concept definitely is. And anyone who can read what he did for her and say he hadn’t already started to love her, even if he didn’t know it himself, doesn’t have a romantic bone in their body.

I loved creating this list for LJ, but because they had to be all ebooks, there were lots of things that I read and loved this year that were ineligible. Why?  Because they were really “p as in print” books. Or they were older books I finally got around to this year (hello, Elantra!) So later this month I’ll do a personal “best of 2011” list.

What’s on my (mostly virtual) nightstand? 12-11-11

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Virtual Nightstand

I realized something important this week. Ebooks allow someone like me to be a book hoarder without all the unsightly piles that normally betray one’s terrible addiction to accumulating one’s drug of choice. NetGalley may even be enabling this, I can acquire even more reading material without spending money. A book looks interesting and ZAP! another book in the queue.

The whole ebook thing helps an awful lot in one dimension though. Literal dimensions. The movers are coming on Friday to pack. Ebooks don’t have to be packed, because I never let my iPad out of my sight. The 2,300 print books we have on IKEA Billy Bookcases (and yes, the Library Thing measurements are accurate!) do require real packing, real moving, and real unpacking.

My virtual nightstand may not have much drop off of it this week. Or maybe lots. It all depends upon the stress level.

One thing will get read this week. Absolutely. I am hosting the Unacceptable Risk blog tour on December 18, so Jeanette Grey will be guest posting on the 18th, and I will also have a review of her science fiction romance Unacceptable Risk. There will also be a giveaway.

What new gems are piling onto the reading queue? Just two. And both look like sex dreams. Or sex steams. Something along that line.

I have two Carina Press titles listed for December 19.  Lady Seductress’ Ball by Eliza Night and One Perfect Night by Rachel Johns. Lady Seductress is historically steamy, and Perfect Night is contemporary, but they both look like very fun, and very hot stories of the “mind candy” persuasion. Probably just perfect for a week when my real life is turning topsy-turvy.

Looking back at my last week’s “to be read” list, I’m not sure whether Santa would put me on his “naughty” or his “nice” list.

Hellsbane, Deadly Pursuit and A Clockwork Christmas all got checked off the list. After writing a complete review off all the stories in A Clockwork Christmas, I couldn’t resist the impulse to write the same kind of review for Holiday Kisses, so I did.

But, then my impulses led me astray. I liked the format of Carina’s holiday anthologies so much, I got Men Under the Mistletoe from NetGalley, and finished it last night. I’ll be posting my review this week.

And I bought Robin D. Owens Hearts and Swords and immediately inhaled it, so I reviewed it too. I love Celta. I think it is one of the science fiction/fantasy words that I would actually like to live on.

I read a lot. We also watched the entire sixth season of Bones this week. I sleep sometimes. Did I mention we’re moving again? What didn’t happen was reading any of the fantasies. My reading “palate” wasn’t set for them this week. Which is going to be a problem if I don’t get them read soon.

Tomorrow is another day. And tomorrow is Ebook Review Central. This week is the miscellany week. Which means the Review covers Amber Quill, Astraea Press, Liquid Silver, and the debut of Riptide Publishing!

 

Holiday Kisses

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

Holiday Kissses from Carina Press is another book in their terrific Christmas anthologies. I say terrific because the formula they use is terrific. They publish the four stories together under one theme, and people have the choice to purchase all four together, or, they’re available separately. This is a terrific solution to the “your mileage may vary” problem usually found in anthologies.

There’s the obvious theme in this collection. Okay, there are two obvious themes. It’s a romance anthology. And it’s a collection of romances centered around the Christmas holidays. But I noticed that all the stories had the additional theme of second chances. In every story, either one of the couple is getting a second chance at life or love, or they are taking a second chance on their relationship. Or in one case, it may be a fifth, sixth or tenth chance. You’ll see.

This Time Next Year by Alison Kent is the story of a woman with a plan for her life, and a man who has given up on all of his. Brenna Keating plans to follow in her family’s footsteps. After one last Christmas with her grandmother in the North Carolina mountains, she’s off to take her nursing skills to far-flung outposts, just as her grandmother did and just as her parents currently are. Instead, a blizzard wrecks her car, and she is snowbound for three days with Dillon Craig, an ex-Army doctor with PTSD who has practically become a hermit. Sharing the cabin forces Dillon to confront his self-imposed distance from the world, and his familiarity with Brenda from his conversations with her grandmother help him begin to break down the walls he has built between himself and others. The sexual chemistry between them is impossible to ignore, being as they are snowbound in a small cabin. But when the roads are clear, has Brenda build enough of a bridge for Dillon to take a second chance at living a full and real life?
Escape Rating A: There was a lot packed into this story. All the characters are multi-layered, including Brenda’s grandmother. Brenda’s family history and her need to establish herself also play a big part in this surprisingly meaty tale.

Jaci Burton’s A Rare Gift is about a crazy idea that works. Calliope Andrews needs to build an addition onto her day care center. Of course, she wants to hire the best construction firm in town for the job. There’s this one problem. The man who owns that firm is her ex-brother-in-law, Wyatt Kent. Not only was his divorce from her sister really nasty, but Calliope has had a crush on Wyatt since the first time he walked into her parents’ house. But Calliope’s not sixteen anymore, and she wants Wyatt for herself this time. All she has to do is get him to see that she’s the right sister for him. And figure out a way to deal with family reunions with his hopefully once and future in-laws.
Escape Rating B+: This was just a fun story. Going after your ex-brother-in-law is a little odd, but it works. Calliope’s maneuvering so that everyone gets closure and can move past the very icky past was a tad manipulative, but necessary in context. This one is just good fun.

It’s Not Christmas Without You by HelenKay Dimon is about a young couple with very different dreams. Carrie Anders and Austin Thomas have gotten together and broken up over and over (and over) again. But this time Carrie thinks it’s for good. She took a job at a big museum in Washington, D.C. because that’s her dream. And Austin, well, he just never really listened when she talked about her dreams. He’s always been sure that her dreams of arranging major museum exhibitions are something she’ll outgrow. Where his dream of working at, and eventually taking over his family tree farm are what’s really important. And Austin is certain they are meant to be together. So he rents the corner lot next to her apartment building in DC to sell Christmas Trees and brings a little bit of their West Virginia country to DC to convince her that she’s meant to come home with him. But it takes a major event at her museum, one that she arranged, for him to finally start to listen.
Escape Rating C: This was the weakest story in the collection.  Austin was too smug for too long for any woman with a spine, which Carrie has, to have forgiven him that easily. It just doesn’t quite work.

Mistletoe and Margaritas by Shannon Stacey is a terrific “friends into lovers” story that happens to take place at Christmas. Claire Rutledge has been a widow for two years. She’s held her life together with the help of her best friend, Justin McCormick. What Claire doesn’t know is that Justin has loved her since the very first moment he saw her, but his best friend Brendan got there first, and married her. But for the last few months, Claire’s been having some “extra-friendly” thoughts about Justin, not knowing that Justin would be more than eager to reciprocate. Until, after a holiday party where they both have just enough margaritas to let their drinks do the talking, they cross the boundary from friends to lovers, at least for one night. The question is, can they be be both? And can they build something new and wonderful without Brendan’s ghost getting in the way?
Escape Rating B+:  Anyone who enjoys a good “friends into lovers” story will love this one.

I love this formula of Carina’s, I hope they do this again next Christmas.

Reviewer’s note. A much shorter version of this review was posted on Library Journal’s Xpress Reviews on December 16, 2011.

A Clockwork Christmas

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

A Clockwork Christmas is a really neat anthology of Christmas-themed steampunk romances from Carina Press. The individual novellas are not only available separately, but they each have their own absolutely gorgeous cover art. Since the big issue with anthologies is that you might like one story and another not so much, I feel compelled to review each one individually. And this way I get to show ALL the covers.

 

Stacy Gail’s Crime Wave in a Corset is the story that contains the most true steampunk elements. It’s also the one that stuck with me. Cornelia Peabody is a thief. A very, very excellent thief, in a Boston that is just different enough from the historic version that airships are commonplace and women learning engineering and technology, while rare, are far from unheard of. Cornelia never steals from people, only institutions. But she made one mistake. She stole a Faberge egg from Beth Coddington, thinking that it belonged to Rodney Coddington’s museum. The egg was the last light in Beth’s eyes, and without it, she lost her battle with a long-standing illness and died.  Rodney Coddington trapped the beautiful thief in revenge for taking away his Beth’s egg, and gave Cornelia seven days to steal it back. A lot can happen in a week, especially the week before Christmas.
Escape Rating: A

This Winter Heart by PG Forte is a story about a Christmas miracle. Ophelia Leonides is not a real woman. Her father made her out of mechanical parts with human skin and a steel skeleton. The woman her father had loved and lost contributed to her genetic makeup. When her father revealed the secret of her origins to her husband, Dario threw them out of his house, and out of his life. Eight years later, Ophelia returns to Santa Fe, bringing with her the news of her father’s death, and the one thing that her husband never believed possible–their seven-year-old and very much human son. Can Dario find his love for her again? Can he believe in this miracle?
Escape Rating: B

Jenny Schwartz’ story of the early days of the development of the Australian republic reminded me of Colleen McCullough’s The Ladies of Missalonghi because of its setting and its take charge heroine. Wanted: One Scoundrel is a fun story about a woman who is the beloved queen of her small community, and thinks she is looking for someone to take her orders, but instead, finds someone to be her match. The subplot involving Australian political shenigans helped the love story along nicely.
Escape Rating: A

Far From Broken by JK Coi was the story with the most loose ends. A spy for the War Office comes home to find that his ballerina wife has been brutally tortured. The only way to save her life is to allow that same office to replace her missing legs, arm and eye with clockwork replacements. She is so traumatized by the torture she endured, the surgery, the pain, and the changes in her life, that she turns everyone away, especially her husband. While she endures all the necessary surgery, he hunts down her torturers. When he returns to the hospital to rejoin her, they face one last battle against the “inside man” who nearly killed her, and to save their marriage.
Escape Rating B: This story left too many loose ends. What was the war about? Who is fighting who? And why? Also, it could easily have been cyberpunk instead of steampunk.

I want to applaud Carina Press for this concept. They also released two other Christmas anthologies like this, Holiday Kisses and Men Under the Mistletoe. I reviewed Holiday Kisses for Library Journal, and I’m highly tempted to get Men under the Mistletoe just to complete the set.

 

A Midsummer Night’s Sin

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

Robin Goodfellow Blackthorn is the youngest of the Blackthorn Brothers. Having been blessed, or cursed with this Shakespearean name by his actress mother, he is, of course, generally called ‘Puck’. As one of the Blackthorn bastards, he has felt compelled to live up to the ‘Trickster’ aspects of his Puckish nickname, but in A Midsummer Night’s Sin, the second Blackthorn Brothers book by Kasey Michaels, both the dark and light sides of Puck’s nature are required in order to bring this complex but ultimately rewarding historical romance to its delightful final curtain.

Puck has returned to England in order to find out what his middle brother Jack, not so fondly known as Black Jack, is up to. In the first book in the series, The Taming of the Rake (see review), oldest brother Beau got married, and it was revealed that second son Jack, instead of being quite as black as his nickname would suggest, is actually some kind of secret operative for the government. Puck wants to learn what Jack is up to, and possibly get Jack to mend fences with their father.

Mostly, Puck just wants in on whatever adventure Jack is having.

Regina Hackett thought that she and her cousin Miranda were headed to a ball, properly escorted by Miranda’s mother. But Miranda re-arranged all the plans so that the young ladies were instead off for a masked ball at the considerably less reputable, actually quite scandalous, Lady Fortescue’s.

Puck is attending the masquerade in his pursuit of an entree into the lower echelons of the ton, and in his pursuit of his brother’s confederates. But he is captivated by the sight of Regina Hackett, and, believing her one of the ladies hired for the evening’s entertainment, entices her into the garden for a kiss. Regina takes advantage of the anonymity of her mask to experience the beginnings of a flirtation, but when Puck details all of the naughty things he wants to do with her, in French, and starts acting on that list, her shaky innocent withdrawal finally convinces him that she is not what he assumed her to be.

But her cousin Miranda, petite and blonde, has been kidnapped from the masked ball. And when Regina searches desperately for her, she runs headlong into Puck. He is the only possible source of help, and he did act almost honorably, at least once convinced of her innocence. Puck and his coachman determine that Miranda was taken against her will; she did not leave for an assignation. Then Regina and Puck fabricate a story that will cover up the girls’ departure from their original schedule.

Puck’s and Regina’s association should have ended there. Miranda’s father should have called out the Bow Street Runners, and a search for the missing girl should have begun immediately. But the situation is much more complicated than it appears.

Miranda is not the first petite blonde young woman to be kidnapped in London. She is one of more than two dozen such women.  Many have been prostitutes, but some are from extremely well-connected families. Jack and his confederates are on the case on behalf of the government. This isn’t just a matter of kidnapping, “white slavery” is suspected, but no one has been able to determine who the ringleaders are.

But now that her cousin has been kidnapped, Regina feels compelled to help Puck find the culprits, even if her father turns out to be one of them.

But why should Regina even suspect her father? At first, Reginald Hackett seems like just another tyrannical father, a stock character in any romance, if a bit more menacing than most. So what if his father effectively “bought” Regina’s mother, and her title, as a way of bringing his merchant family up in the world? He’s not the first to do so. But Lady Letitia Hackett lives in abject terror of her husband, and so does the rest of his household.

When he demands that the Bow Street Runners he finances go to Gretna Green in search of Miranda, even though Reginald admits that he knows she did not elope, he raises suspicions in many minds.

Soon, Regina and her mother are hiding out from her father in a variety of Puck’s households in London, while Puck, Regina and Jack’s men search for the missing women. But if her father does turn out to be the kidnapper, can Regina possibly have a future when he is caught, even with one of the infamous Blackthorn bastards?

Escape Rating A: This should have been a light, frothy romance, and it wasn’t. But it was all the better for it. Regina is a woman who finds amazing depths of courage, in order to keep hunting for her cousin. Puck reminds me of the Scarlet Pimpernel. He looks and acts like a complete lightweight, up until the point where he totally isn’t.

The “white slavery” plot is one that was a staple of penny-dreadfuls, and it was used here to great effect. It made for an appropriately dark and dastardly villain and gave this story a breakneck pace as the search for Miranda and the other girls ran towards its deadline.

I can’t wait for Jack’s book! Much Ado About Rogues should be out in March 2012. Not soon enough. Not at all!

Desired

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

Desired by Nicola Cornick contains two stories that are almost too big and too opposite to be contained in this single romantic tale. Either the very big and very important story of political reform and spousal abuse are too weighty to be, not just contained but even semi-resolved in what might otherwise be a typical historical romance, or the romance convention is too frothy to hold this rather serious story. At the same time, I really got caught up in the story, and I wanted to see the hero and heroine have their happy ending, and evil get its just desserts.

Owen Purchase, Viscount Roxbury meets Lady Tess Darent when she lowers herself into his waiting arms. As romantic as this introduction sounds, it couldn’t be less so. Tess is escaping from a raid on Mrs. Tong’s house of ill-repute, wearing the borrowed dress of one of the ladies in residence, and she’s climbing down a makeshift rope of silk sheets.

Tess is the Dowager Lady Darent.  She has no husband, well, no living husband, anyway. She’s buried three. It’s something of a habit, if a rather scandalous one. Her parents are dead. Being found in a brothel would be another scandal to add to a very long list, if it weren’t for the reason for the raid. Tess is escaping from a political meeting. Even worse, Tess is one of the ringleaders of that meeting.  She is the infamous cartoonist known as ‘Jupiter’, and she has some of her drawings in her possession. Leaving via the window is her best bet, even in a bawd’s gown and ill-fitting shoes.

But Roxbury is the government’s man, sent as a special investigator to ferret out the leaders of the Reform movement. He knows they all ran into Mrs. Tong’s. At first, the escaping Tess seems like a woman caught up in something well beyond her capability, except…something doesn’t add up for Owen. For one thing, her shoes don’t fit. And she plays the flibbertigibbet a little too well, as though it’s rehearsed. But after he’s seen her into a carriage and searches the room she escaped from, he finds two things that convince him Tess is more than she seems. The room contains a set of male clothing imbued with Tess’ scent and only Tess’, and a sheaf of Jupiter’s drawings. Owen starts to believe that Tess is part of the Reform movement, but has no way to prove it.

Owen and Tess begin a game of cat and mouse, except there are more cats in this game than either of them are aware of. And the cheese is not the one either of them thought they were pursuing when they began.

Owen may be Viscount Roxbury, but his estates have very little money attached. His aunts have money, but will not provide any unless he marries and gets about the business of securing an heir. While this seems slightly cold-blooded, it makes sense from the aunts’ perspective. Owen is American, he had to be searched for up and down the collateral branches of the family tree. The aunts don’t want that to happen again.

Tess needs another protector, another husband. Not just because her identity as “Jupiter” may come to light, but because her scandalous behavior is being used to threaten her step-daughter’s future. And Tess will not let her step-daughter be abused the way that she was. So Tess needs to find a husband who will marry her in name only, just as the late Lord Darent did. Tess suffers from the mistaken belief that Owen will agree to such a marriage, and Tess is filthy rich.

By the time Owen discovers why Tess wanted a marriage in name only, and Tess discovers that he wants a real marriage, it is too late for either of them to change their minds. They are married, and Owen refuses to give Tess up. She does need his protection. The government is closing in. Tess and her Reformer friends have been betrayed, and not by Owen.

Escape Rating B+:There were parts of this story that I really, really liked. Tess’ involvement with the Reform movement was a very interesting route to take. I wanted to know more about Tess’ involvement and whether a couple of people get properly punished. Maybe in the final book in this series (The Scandalous Women of the Ton, Book 6, Forbidden, Summer 2012) those niggling loose ends will get wrapped up.

Where my suspension of disbelief frayed a little was in Tess’ quick recovery from the abuse she suffered at the hands of her second husband. (If he wasn’t dead, I’d want to kill him again too.) Tess has been afraid of being touched by any man for years after her traumatic experiences, and understandably so. Owen’s patience and understanding should eventually win her over, at least in the world of romance, or we wouldn’t have a story. I just thought it was a little too easy. Your mileage may vary.

The element from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities near the end was extremely well done. The character who is a totally bad apple from the beginning of this series until almost the very end of his life redeems himself with his death.

Lord of the Abyss

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

Lord of the Abyss by Nalini Singh is the much-anticipated conclusion to the Royal House of Shadows series. While I was glad to see the House of Elden restored, it seemed like the final battle was almost anti-climactic. On the other hand, the reverse “Beauty and the Beast” love story of Micah and Liliana was very well done.

The daughter of the Blood Sorcerer practically sacrificed herself to transport her broken body through the barrier at the edge of the known realms. Why? Because the Lord of the Black Castle was the last of the children of Elden, and his presence was required in order to defeat her father. More than anything else, Liliana wanted to make sure that her father did not maintain his hold on Elden, even if his death also guaranteed her own.

But first she had to make Prince Micah remember who he truly was, and that was going to take something other than sorcery. Sorcery had cost him his memory, a combination of his mother’s dying spell that flung him to safety, and her father’s foul magic ensuring that he never recalled how he came to Black Castle.

The Lord of the Black Castle was the Guardian of the Abyss, the one who scoured the lands for the souls of those who are evil, whose souls must be cast into the Abyss. His body is encased in a carapace of armor, and he does not remember a time before he was the Guardian. But then, he was only five years old when he was the youngest Prince of Elden. He was just a child.

Now Micah is a man who does not even remember his own name. Liliana must make him remember himself and his own magic, and she only has a few weeks. She cannot use her own sorcery, or her father will find her. Even though she is ugly and broken, she is his possession, and he does not like it when his possessions escape.

So Liliana uses a different kind of magic. She appeals to the child within the man, cooking the treats he loved when he was a boy. And she tells him stories of Elden, stories that remind him of the time before. And she is kind to him, and she is not afraid. Her father beat her, tortured her, and murdered anyone or anything she cared for. Micah does not scare her.

But Micah reacts to her in ways she did not expect. She is the first woman he has ever met who is not afraid of him, and he is only a man. He does not care that she is not beautiful, he only knows that she is good to him, that she challenges him, and that she cares for him. He falls in love with her, not her looks.

And he remembers who he really is. Unfortunately, he also discovers who she really is. And that she concealed the facts from him. Deceit is the one thing that he is not sure he can forgive.

But as they race to the last battle, Micah learns that a love that is willing to sacrifice everything, even life itself, is the most important thing of all.

Escape Rating B: I think I would have liked this better if Micah and Liliana’s story had stood on it’s own. Their love story, her sacrifice to get to Black Castle, her temptation of Micah with childhood recipes and childhood stories, as well as their tentative exploration of love when neither of them had a clue, was heartwarming and touching, as well as deeply sensual.

All of the Royal House of Shadows books have been re-interpretations of fairy tales, and this one definitely re-worked “Beauty and the Beast” in some interesting ways. Both Micah and Liliana could be interpreted as Beauty and Beast, depending on which way you looked at things. Not just Liliana’s actual looks, but Micah’s armor and Guardian’s mannerism were also beast-like. They both change for the better. Black Castle even has invisible inhabitants!

But the re-telling of the Fall of Elden needed to end. I’m glad that’s over, and but it may have gone on one book too long. I’m glad the Blood Sorcerer is gone, too. Did he even have a name? Maybe it’s fitting that he didn’t.