Review: Offensive Behavior

Bless her heart, even though she knows I have a TBR that can be seen from space that doesn't keep KristieJ from recommending books to me.  Or nagging me about them.  Which she does a lot.  Offensive Behavior by Ainslie Paton jumped to the top of the queue because Kristie said the magic words: "virgin hero."  Did I like it?  Well, sort of.  But I'm a big enough person to admit that a lot of what was a mixed bag for me sits firmly in the camp of Wendy Is A Weirdo.

This book has a plot that honestly can only be found in genre fiction.  Once upon a time Zarley Halveston was a world-class gymnast with her eye on the US Olympic Team. Then she screwed it up.  Now she's working as a pole dancer in a past-seed bar known for it's food poisoning track record and going to college.  Reid McGarth was a dot-com wunderkind before his lack of people skills led to his ouster from the company he founded.  So now he's a member of the idle rich, drinking rotgut at a dive bar, feeling sorry for himself and watching Zarley dance. 

And that's pretty much it.  Eventually they hook up, have sex, have more sex, and have to work through their internal baggage to have a meaningful relationship.

This book started out great for me.  I have a weakness for heroes who have hit rock bottom and this book basically opens with Reid doing his best to pickle his liver.  I also like no-nonsense, I don't need your pity, heroines and Zarley isn't the sort to get taken in by a drunk (even if he is a regular) who lives in the back booth.  But while it started out great, it slid south for me the further it went along.

Here's the thing: when it comes to contemporary romance my brain is wired for category.  This book felt entirely too long for me.  It would have been perfect as a Harlequin Blaze.  A Temptation, if that line still existed.  Once Reid sobers up (around the 30% mark) that leaves us with 70% of sex, Reid ticking off his former friends at his company, and Zarley telling Reid he can't buy her.  Blah, blah, blah.  At 350 pages I felt like this book was 100 pages too long.

I'll be blunt, I got bored.  My interest waned.  At first I thought it was a combination of 1) my cantankerous nature 2) the Reading Slump That Won't Die 3) my belief that all contemporary romance is infinitely better when it's category length.  But then I did begin to notice cracks. 

SPOILERS AHEAD!  

Namely that this book is, at it's heart, a rescue fantasy.  Stuff happens to Zarley over the course of this book and Reid wants to make it all better - which he can do since he's fabulously wealthy and doesn't have to work for a living.  Zarley does push against this, but then towards the end of the story she breaks things off with him because, wait for it, he's essentially ignoring her (he finds himself working again on a big project and is burning the candle at both ends).  Boo-frickin-hoo.  He has a job.  He is busy.  And because he's working his butt off he's not around to spend time with her.  She writes him a Dear John Letter to this effect.  Seriously?!?  Seriously!?!?!?!?!?!

Yeah, it sucks - but it's called being a grown-up.  Suck it up cupcake. 

So that annoyed.  And all the sex, which to be perfectly honest after the First Time felt like page filler to me.  The whole He Can Rescue Her With Money/Resources, She Can Rescue Him "Emotionally" thing that after years of reading romance kind of annoys me (Why can't the hero rescue emotionally?  Why can't the heroine be the one with resources/money?).  The whole New Adult thing - the characters, their baggage, the whole dot-com thing, the fact that the heroine's name is "Zarley" (my apologies for any Real Life Zarleys reading this review - but Zarley?  I'd never speak to my parents ever again). 

And I'm about 90% sure a lot of this is me being unreasonable.  It grabbed me by the throat the first few chapters but once it lost steam?  It really lost steam.  I skimmed big chunks - including almost all the sex scenes.  I have absolutely no interest is picking up any other books in this series.  After the initial shine, the character failed to fully engage me (any of them - including the secondary ones).  It just....didn't work for me.  Lots of other people have loved this book (I get it, I do) - so why didn't it work for me?  I'm not sure but I'm beginning to think New Adult is not my bag.

I can read a Harlequin Presents story featuring a 21-year-old heroine, but for some reason you slap on the New Adult label and I'm out.  Maybe I'm too old?  Maybe I just don't get millennials?  Maybe I just haven't found the right New Adult romance for me?  Is this story "bad?"  I wouldn't call it bad.  But it just wasn't for me.  If you're a New Adult fan and you haven't already read this, give it a whirl.  You'll probably love it.  I did like the beginning.  I did feel like Reid made for a compelling Jerk Face hero but other than that?  Meh.

Cranky Wendy out.

Final Grade = C

Review: The Obsession

The entire time I was listening to The Obsession by Nora Roberts the phrase "damning with faint praise" kept running through my mind.  Which means I feel the need to explain how I tend to approach romantic suspense.

I was a mystery/suspense reader long before romance, so when it comes to romantic suspense I tend to be a Suspense First, Love Cooties Second kind of gal.  And I've long accepted that this puts me in a small minority in Romancelandia.  The premise of this book is dynamite.  Roberts really outdid herself cooking up this one.  The downside?  With the suspense concept so dynamite I totally began to think of the "romance stuff" as "filler."  Which probably isn't a good sign.

Shortly before her 12th birthday, Naomi Carson follows her father out into the early morning dawn and discovers he's a monster.  He's been raping and murdering women for years, using an old, abandoned cellar to carry-out his evil.  Naomi discovers a woman, still alive, that day and rescues her.  Her father is arrested, but it's only the beginning.  Her, her mother, her younger brother, go to live with mother's brother - looking for a fresh start.  But the past doesn't stay buried - even after Naomi is all grown up, and finally trying to settle down in the Pacific Northwest.

The first part of this book is bloody fantastic.  It's the story of Young Naomi, her rescuing her father's latest victim, her father's arrest, and the fall-out from realizing that Daddy is a monster.  Then the story jumps to present day.  After years of traveling the country, working as a photographer, Naomi falls in love with a rundown house, decides to fix it up, plant roots, and falls in love (rather unwillingly at first) with Xander Keaton, local mechanic, singer in a bar band, and all around good guy.  She's finally starting to settle down, to let people get close, when someone following in her father's footsteps finds her.

Here's the issue.  Once we're past the Young Naomi portion of the story, we get into Settling Down Grown-up Naomi.  Grown-up Naomi:

Buys a rundown house
Hires a contractor to fix it up
Blah, blah, blah whole bunch of renovation/remodeling porn
Finds an abandoned dog
Keeps the abandoned dog, reluctantly
Falls in love with the dog, because of course
Starts tap-dancing around Xander
Cooks several delicious meals
Takes a bunch of photographs - work, work, work
Romance, romance, blah blah blah....

I. Don't. Care.

Yes, it's harsh.  But the whole concept of this book (that even serial killers can, and sometimes do, have loved ones, family, friends - they're not always loners....) is so fantastic.  That's what I want.  I want more of that.  I don't give a flying hoot about Naomi finding the perfect desk to rehab for her home office.  Or that she makes Eggs Benedict for Xander and he practically orgasms on the spot.

I. Just. Don't. Care.

But back to the suspense.  Once it shows up again (Praise Jeebus!), Naomi has to stop running from her past and admit some hard truths.  The one (and it's big) downside is that while the concept of the suspense is fantastic, the actually WhoDunIt is....obvious.  As in, really, really obvious.  I felt like Roberts' tipped her hand way too early and there are no credible red herrings or uses of misdirection.  Which made getting through the I. Don't. Care. Renovation, Dog Owning, Cooking Porn even more tedious.  I know who the bad guy is.  Can't we just skip all this other stuff and get to the end?

Seriously, I wonder what this book would have been like as a Harlequin Intrigue?  I'm thinking pretty awesome.

The world-building is good, the characterizations are good, and Roberts writes small town life in a way that doesn't make me want to put my fist through a wall (no cutesy cupcake shops!).  And Roberts is a great storyteller.  This is a good story.  The plot concept is great!  But it's how it's executed that I found myself bored by.  I also wanted the mystery to be a bit beefier.  Some twists and turns would have been nice.  This is more straight line.  Wide open space.

I'm not sure where this leaves me and my reaction to this book.  I hate giving it a low grade.  I recognize the good story.  I recognize that I liked these people, I liked the concept - I just didn't really care for how it was all executed.  So it's going to be a middling grade, but it's honestly probably better than that.  Especially if you're a Romance First, Suspense Second romantic suspense reader.

Final Grade = C+

Mini-Reviews: Turbulent Times and Sour Nostalgia

Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X by Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith is, admittedly, not my usual reading fare.  But we were featuring the audio version on a digital display at work, it's been positively reviewed all over the place, and it scratches my dormant Former History Major itch.  All that and The Autobiography of Malcolm X was one of the few books I was required to read in college that didn't make me want to poke my eyes out.

This book covers a few brief years (from the late 1950s until Malcolm's assassination in 1965) and details Ali's rise to Heavyweight Champion of the World, Malcolm's break from the Nation of Islam, the rise and eventual fall of their friendship.  It's the sort of book where nobody comes off looking all that good.  I'll be honest - not an Ali fan.  There are certain things I respect about the man, but this book covers the period immediately before and after Ali defeated Sonny Liston for the heavyweight title.  It's easy to forget now, what with the canonization of Ali that has occurred over the past 20 to 30-odd years - but he was a once a young man.  A young, insufferable, 21-year-old kid.  It truly is amazing what Ali was accomplishing (both personally and professionally) at such a young age - but I'm an old lady now.  I'll be honest, it's a rare 20-something that I don't find insufferable. 

The book is interesting and it's obvious the authors put a lot of time in researching it.  But where this book sings is in the final third after Malcolm has broken with the Nation and he's got a giant target painted on his back.  Look, you know what's going to happen.  Malcolm is going to die.  But knowing that doesn't make the final chapters of this book any less suspenseful.  It's like a thriller towards the end, as Malcolm is slowly marching towards his final destination.  I'll be blunt: it's a nail-biter, even though you know exactly how it's going to end.

It's an interesting mix of race, politics, social history and boxing.  If you're a non-fiction reader, chances are there's at least a little something to appeal to you here.  It's a book about complex men, one of whom finds himself on the path to tragic destiny.  It's not an easy read, but then history seldom is.

Final Grade = B+

Back in the day Mary Higgins Clark was my Kathleen Woodiwiss.  I devoured her books during my teen years, but once college hit (and all leisure reading came to a dead stop), we parted ways.  Shortly after I finished school and could start reading for fun again - I discovered romance.  So I never did get caught up on MHC.  The Melody Lingers On is a recent release (2015), and while it features some Clark trademarks, I can't say it's a book I particularly enjoyed.

The plot is basically Bernie Madoff.  Wealthy hedge fund guy swindles a bunch of people, and then disappears off the face of the Earth, presumed dead.  The heroine is a single mom who works for an upscale interior designer in New York City.  Through a series of events she ends up dating, and falling for, the missing-Bernie-Madoff-like-guy's son.  The son is also in investment/finance and the assumption is that he's in cahoots with Daddy Dearest.  Is he innocent or is he a scumbag?

What Clark does well in this book are what I consider her trademarks.  She's the master at juggling multiple points of view and peppering in misdirection.  She's one of the standard bearers when it comes to introducing multiple characters and then setting them on a collision course - all coming together for a dramatic finish of the novel.

What doesn't work well in this book?  The heroine.  When the heroine isn't uninteresting, she's annoying.  She's like a reactive Mary Sue.  Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and she wouldn't know proactive if it hit her upside the head.  She's the type of heroine who "reacts" to what is around her and she takes zero initiative.  She never thinks to ask why - about anything.  Plus it doesn't help that she's raising her daughter, the very definition of Plot Moppet; a kid so cutesy-wootsy I'm keeping my uncharitable thoughts to myself before one of my Dear Blog Readers has me committed. 

The story marches on to the conclusion, which is OK but not terribly suspenseful.  Mary Sue comes off smelling like a rose, even though she's a ninny.  Blah, blah, blah - The End.

I've read worse (Lord knows I have), but this isn't very strong at all.  Especially given my fond memories for 1980s/1990s era MHC.  Which makes me wonder: is it just the more recent work that is problematic?  Or are my fond memories colored by rose-tinted glasses?  Is this a case of nostalgia getting the better of me?  Whatever it is, I think I'll dip further back in the MHC's archives for my next read by her, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Final Grade = D+

#TBRChallenge 2016: How Times Have Changed

Title: No Mistaking Love by Jessica Hart

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Romance, 1993, Out of print, not available in digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: A few years ago I fell in love with Jessica Hart's Harlequin Romances, and naturally she has a ginormous backlist that I've been collecting ever since.  This is one of her oldies.

The Review: One of the misconceptions about genre fiction that tends to annoy me the most is when people seem to think that genre doesn't evolve.  That it doesn't change.  That the romance novel published today is going to be identical in style and tone as a romance novel published 20 years ago.

Um, no.

No Mistaking Love is a perfect example.  Cracking open my battered used copy, reading the first few paragraphs, I knew I was reading a Jessica Hart story.  This is truly amazing, but her style and her skill in the category format was just as strong in this 23-year-old book as it is in her more recent works.  The words sing off the page.  Her way of setting her stage, of developing her characters - I knew these people inside and out before I was clear of the first chapter.  Where this book shows genre evolution?  Baby, it's all in the content.  I wanted to gut the hero before I got out of Chapter Two and my opinion of him never rose above garden slug.

And that's probably an insult to garden slugs everywhere.

Kate Finch had a horrible crush on Luke Hardman (get it? "hard" and "man?") when she was a gawky, awkward teen girl with Coke-bottle glasses.  She's all grown up now, but that doesn't mean she's not above feeling flummoxed when she spots Luke at the theater one night.  After all, most girls don't forget their first kiss.  But it's a brief moment, they don't even speak in fact, and she's put it all out of her mind until she shows up to a job interview she has the next day.  You guessed it - that too-good-to-be-true sounding secretarial job?  Turns out Luke Hardman is now her boss.  Oh, and he doesn't recognize her - which any romance reader worth her salt knows is going to come back to bite Kate in the butt during the final chapters.

Luke is cookie-cutter, high-handed, Alpha jerk.  The author tap dances a bit around his insecurities of "not being good enough," but this is so minimally explored he merely comes off as a boorish AlphaHole.

"Oh really?  In my experience, women have a fine disregard for the truth when it suits them!  I'm sure you can type, I'm just not convinced that you haven't increased your speeds - oh, just an extra ten or twenty words a minute! - to make your CV look more impressive."

And this would be on page 29.  DURING THE JOB INTERVIEW!!!

Luke is like this for the whole blessed book.  Right down to telling Kate she WILL get her hair cut to look more stylish and sophisticated and he WILL buy her a new wardrobe for the same effect before they go on a business trip to Paris.  And even though he told her to be polite and charming to the French businessmen he wants to broker a deal with, when she is polite and charming he accuses her of forgetting that it was a "business meeting":

"Instead of tarting yourself up like a dog's dinner and leaning all over Xavier so he could get a good look at your cleavage?  Anyone watching you would have known that business was the last thing on your mind!"

This is Luke for the whole blessed book.  When he's not being insufferably rude, he's being a possessive jerk.  I seriously loathed him from the moment I met him to the close of the final chapter.

Kate on the other hand?  Despite the fact that she falls for Luke (thereby making me question her intelligence) - this was the early 1990s.  Which means romance heroines were starting to push back a bit more against brutish heroes.  They'd still swoon, but at least they'd do some pushing back.  Kate verbally spars with Luke to the point where you can almost confuse this with an Enemies To Lovers story.  She gives as good as she gets - it's just a shame that Luke doesn't seem to learn his lesson.  At all.  They're blissfully in love at the end (because of course), but there's nothing on the page to make me think Luke will change his ways AT ALL.  He was a high-handed jerk at the start of the story, he remains one at the end.

And did I mention that at the start of the story he's dating a model Kate knew growing up?  And that towards the end of the story he's sending Valentine's Day flowers to not only Model Helen, but some chippy named Lynette as well?

RUN KATE!  RUN AND SAVE YOURSELF!

Sigh.

However, I'm not entirely sorry I read this.  Hart's writing and style sing for me, even when it's 23-years later.  The way she weaves a story is just marvelous.  This is also an interesting book when looking through the lens of category romance history.  The story is entirely the heroine's point of view (as it so often was back in the day), but she's got some backbone.  This isn't a damsel waiting to be rescued.  It's just too bad it's 1993 and we were still stuck on this sort of insufferable hero.  Although really, these days the genre is boasting criminals, mafia bosses and stalkers as "heroes."  Luke is positively Boy Next Door in comparison.

If you're a Hart fan, I do think there is some merit to reading this - if only to further immerse yourself in the history of her writing.  As a category romance history nerd?  There's also some merit to be found here (did I mention the fairly graphic - by 1993 standards - sex scene?  In a Harlequin Romance!).  However if you don't nerd out on old categories and you've never read Hart before?  Yeah. It's not worth a treasure hunt through library sales or used bookstores.

Final Grade = D+

Reminder: #TBRChallenge for August

For those of you participating in the 2016 TBR Challenge, this is a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, August 17.  This month's theme is Kickin' It Old School (publication date 10 years or older)!  This is the moment where I remind everyone that 10 years ago was 2006 (::sob::).  So really, this theme should be fairly easy for most of us with ginormous TBR piles.

That being said....

Remember - the themes are totally optional and are not required.  It's not about the themes but reading something (anything!) out of your TBR.

You can find more information about the challenge (and see the list of participants) on the Information Page. 

Review: Playing With Fire

I don't know an author alive who doesn't wish to "hit it big" with a popular series (And frankly if you're a writer who says you don't? Liar, liar pants on fire).  But I also think that hitting upon that Big Series Idea is a bit of a double-edged sword.  Because as great as being successful is, readers can be a demanding lot.  Once we discover your series and love it? That's all we want from you.  Which leaves authors dealing with how to keep things fresh for them, from a writing standpoint.  Some authors fail miserably at this, get bored, and morph their popular series characters into Pod People.  Others, like what Tess Gerritsen has done with Playing With Fire, write a stand-alone book.  The hope is, of course, that your series readers will stop whining long enough to pick it up and read it.  Which I finally have.  And you know what?  It's pretty good!

Julia Ansdell is a professional violinist.  Before heading home to Boston after a performance in Rome, she enters a decrepit antiques shop and buys an old book of gypsy music.  Tucked inside the book is a handwritten, presumably unpublished, manuscript for a waltz titled Incendio.  But when she gets home and plays the waltz for the first time?  It has a powerful effect on her 3-year-old daughter, Lily.  So powerful that it seems to have "changed" her - and not for the better.  Can music truly be evil?  Or is Julia losing her grip on reality?

This is a novel with alternating timelines.  There's the present day Julia story and then there's Lorenzo Toedesco, a young Jewish musician living in World War II-era Italy.  The Lorenzo story details the history of the waltz and eventually the two story-lines collide as Julia searches for answers.

Gerritsen does some interesting things with this book.  It starts out one way, with the reader thinking we're going to get a Domestic Horror novel with a Is My Child Evil? plot and frankly I was bracing for some paranormal woo-woo.  But as the author begins alternating between Julia and Lorenzo the story carries you on a totally different path.  I can see some readers feeling like the resolution to the Julia story-line is a "cop-out" - but I didn't.  I rather liked the way the author twisted it around.

You never know for sure when you throw something up on the ol' Interwebs - but I would hazard a guess that this blog is predominantly read by romance readers.  And romance readers tend to like "happy."  So I feel like this is worth noting - this story is tragic.  There are also some rather upsetting elements.  A family pet is killed/murdered and part of this story is set in World War II-era Italy and features a Jewish family.  Descriptions of how people died during the Holocaust are included. 

The author resolves her story lines, she wraps up her plot, but readers should expect that not everybody is going to be skipping through meadows filled with wildflowers at the end.  This one has a heartbreaking ending.  I think the author ends it the way she had to end it, and I didn't feel like she was unnecessarily heaping on piles of tragedy just for the sake of it - but after finishing this story I feel like I should read a nice Harlequin Romance to cleanse the ol' palate.

Of course I want another Rizzoli/Isles book and certainly this book won't be for everyone - but I rather liked this.  It's what I call a Quiet Thriller and Gerritsen twists and turns the plot in such a way to keep things lively and interesting. 

Final Grade = B

Retro Review: Hot As Ice

This review of Hot as Ice by Merline Lovelace was first posted at The Romance Reader in 2002.  Back then I rated it 3-Hearts (C Grade) with a MPAA sensuality rating of "PG-13."

+++++

Major Charles Stone has been missing since his plane went down over Soviet airspace in 1956. Imagine the government’s surprise when Stone literally resurfaces encased in a block of ice! Not wanting to muddy relations with newfound allies, the OMEGA team is called into action. OMEGA is a top-secret government agency with highly trained operatives - operatives that tend to be called in as a last resort when crisis is afoot. They dispatch biologist Diana Remington to get the goods on Stone. Her objective is to restore him, and debrief him on why his plane went down.

Diana is witness to a scientific marvel when Major Stone is revived, and shows little effect from his years under deep freeze. The trick is to keep him concealed, get him to trust her, and gently ease him back into a society that is light years beyond 1956. It’s easier said than done though, as Diana knows immediately that her objectivity is slipping under the heated gaze of Charles Stone.

Enjoyment of this lasted entry in the Code Name: Danger series hinges on the reader swallowing the whole “Iceman” angle. I was willing to suspend belief somewhat, but was unable to wholly let myself go. The scenes when Charles is first revived provide the reader with a certain amount of hope, as the author does a good job of portraying what it was like to be a pilot during the Cold War. Charles wakes up, fiercely protecting what he knows, thinking that the people who have found him could very well be KGB agents trying to brainwash him.

However, he’s in for a bit of shock when it comes to Diana. When it comes to women’s liberation, Charles is the classic fish out of water. Diana doesn’t cook? She doesn’t wear a bra? However, her being a doctor, not to mention a biologist doesn’t seem to faze him.

Diana finds herself warming up to Charles mainly because she begins to feel sorry for him. Here’s a man who has missed out on half of his life, with no family left, and many friends dead. There is also the issue of Diana being involved with another man, and Charles once having been engaged to an army nurse. These issues are briefly explored, and dropped entirely once the story reaches the climax.

While I liked Diana and Charles, my skepticism of the “Iceman” angle, and my desire for more background exploration left me lukewarm. That said, I did finish Hot As Ice in one morning, and found the premise of a top-secret government agency like OMEGA an appealing one. Readers who enjoy military themes, or have followed this series will likely enjoy a return visit regardless.

+++++

Wendy Looks Back: Back in the day Harlequin would (occasionally) squeak through with a completely banana-pants plot for a romance - oh, like military heroes found frozen in a giant block of ice.  Makes secret babies and amnesia look almost quaint, doesn't it?

Also, I obviously was completely oblivious at the time - but DIANA AND CHARLES?!?!?  If that name combo wasn't outlawed in Romancelandia in 1981, it definitely should have been by 2002.

Lovelace had a 20+ year career in the US Air Force and retired as a Colonel.  She's written a bazillion books and is still writing today, for a variety of Harlequin lines.