Review: Copy That

Suspense readers come in two different varieties: 1) Those who cannot tolerate even a whiff of "the love cooties" and 2) Those of us who have been inoculated.  Even long before I was a romance reader, I was firmly in Camp #2.  Copy That, the latest Harlequin Intrigue by HelenKay Dimon is the sort of book I would have enjoyed reading back in my Pre-Romance Just Give Me Dead Bodies days.  Sure there's romance, but it's pretty light given the Intrigue word count, and Dimon keeps the pages flipping with non-stop action.

Jeremy Hill is a Border Patrol agent on some forced R&R thanks to an injury he sustained on his last assignment.  He has plans to lay low in Coronado, California, where he has a house with his twin brother, Garrett.  However, when he gets there he finds himself rescuing a tenant he didn't know he had, and knocking out a Very Bad Man who was systemically searching the house.  Then, because that's not enough, the house blows up.

Meredith Samms is an elementary school teacher still picking up the pieces from a Very Bad Relationship.  The apartment she rents from Garrett is the size of a matchbox, but it's the price one pays for living in paradise.  Her landlord is nice, and travels a lot - which means normally it's a pretty ideal place to live.  That is until she interrupts a burglary in process and meets the twin brother that Garrett never bothered to mention.  What exactly does Garrett do for a living that would warrant a hired goon?  There's secretive, and then there's just plain spooky.  Now she's homeless, scared, apparently in danger - and the only choice she has is running off with Jeremy while he tries to figure out what is going on.

The first half of this book is all about secrets - of which Garrett has many.  His job is mysterious, he has a twin brother he never mentioned, and apparently.....a fiancee'.  That troubles Meredith not because she was attracted to him, but because, who doesn't mention a fiancee'?  She does find herself attracted to Jeremy though, and that spells trouble for her.  Meredith doesn't have the best track record with authoritative, secretive men and Jeremy might as well have Alpha Dog tattooed on his forehead.  But attracted she is, not that she has a lot of time to dwell on, what with all the bullets flying around.

I tend to not care for twin stories, mostly because they can easily descend into cliches I get annoyed with.  Evil Twins, the ol' "Sometimes I'm hot for him and sometimes I'm not - how come?," the ol' Separated At Birth, Raised Separately thing, yada yada yada.  Dimon avoids all that.  We've simply got brothers, who happen to be twins, who both happen to have secretive law enforcement type jobs.  She also avoids that tedious "which brother is which?" when it comes to the women in this story.  Meredith knows, from the moment she meets Jeremy, that he may look like Garrett - but he ain't Garrett.  Same goes for Garrett's fiancee'.

The action and suspense here is very good, and pretty much fits the Action Movie profile.  Lots of bad guys, lots of guns, and the twins trying to figure out who is behind it all.  The romance is much thinner.  The back cover blurb sells this as a romance between Meredith and Jeremy, but there's also a secondary storyline involving Garrett and his fiancee' - who isn't all that happy with him at the moment.  It's the sort of thing that I think suspense-heavy readers will enjoy, because the love cooties aren't blatantly in your face.  But if you're primarily a romance reader, and you want just a romance?  This one could leave you a little dissatisfied.  It's more like an appetizer than say, a main course.

I still enjoyed this story though.  Dimon does very well writing action-oriented stories, and I really enjoyed the San Diego/Coronado back-drop.  I also liked that she gives us two very different female characters, and twin brothers who, while unique in their own ways, shared some similar traits and played well off each other.  I did feel the declarations of love a bit rushed, but the author avoids the sappy epilogue trap and doesn't go anywhere near a marriage proposal (thank you Lord!).  A story that won't be for everybody, but might be for you depending on what you're looking for.  Personally, I think it would make an ideal addition to any Labor Day weekend beach bag.

Final Grade = B 

Giveaway: Danger, Danger Will Robinson!

Seriously folks, you have no idea how buried my home office is right now.  My eyes might have been a wee bigger than my stomach when I was going through the last of the leftover Literacy Signing books looking for giveaway opportunities.

Oh well, my insanity is your gain!

This time around I will be giving away yet another RWA 2012 conference tote bag, along with a number of romantic suspense titles.  Most of these are from Harlequin (the Romantic Suspense and Intrigue) lines, but I've also tossed in a couple of Avon releases from Wendy Corsi Staub to give you a little single title fix.

To enter, all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post answering this question:

If you were writing a suspense novel, what spooky setting would you choose as the back-drop for your story?

This giveaway is going to have a quicker turn-around time.  The winner will be drawn at random, and announced on Sunday, September 2.  Giveaway is open to US and international readers.

Winners! Avon Calling Giveaway

Yes, folks we have two winners for the Avon Calling Giveaway!  Those two lucky winners, according to the randomness of random.org were comments #22 and #35.  And they are....

Lisa Hartjes

and

Nath

Ladies, please e-mail me your shipping addresses and I'll get your prize boxes out to you soon.

For the rest of you, I'll have another giveaway going live tomorrow, and yes - another one that will be open to international folks.

Review: Starlight

I've always been a social history nut.  Yes, it's all well and good to learn about wars, world leaders and various political maneuverings, but I like learning (and reading) about how your average person lived.  You know, somebody that could have been my ancestor.  That's essentially what Carrie Lofty does in Starlight, the second book in her Christie series.  Yes this story takes place Scotland, hardly a new setting in historical romance circles.  That being said, we have a late Victorian era backdrop, when Glasgow was dominated by ship yards and textile mills.  That's right folks, we're talking industrial revolution, women and children working in factories, and labor union agitation. 

Alex Christie is an astronomer, a man who looks to the stars.  Then his father dies, and leaves all four of his children a task to complete if they have any hopes of getting their one million dollar inheritance.  Alex's job is to turn around a failing textile factory in Glasgow.  He's all set to tell Dad's solicitor to sod off, when his father-in-law comes calling.  An evil, vile man, Alex married Mamie in part to save her from the scumbag.  Mamie died in childbirth, and baby Edmund has not been the heartiest of infants.  Now Josiah is threatening to take Edmund.  Alex has no choice, he needs the money to fight Josiah and the only way to get that money is to jump through his father's hoops.

Polly Gowan is the only daughter of a famed union leader.  With her brothers working on the docks, when her father becomes too ill to continue working at Christie Textiles, Polly pretty much becomes de facto head of the union.  It is not an easy position to be in, and it gets harder when someone sets off an explosive device at the factory.  Now the new master, Alex Christie, wants answers and he takes one look at Polly and thinks she can provide them.  She can, but she has to play things pretty close to the vest. 

Naturally what follows is Polly and Alex working together - sort of.  They both want to find answers behind the factory sabotage.  Alex needs to turn things around to claim his inheritance, thereby defeating his father-in-law.  Polly wants answers in hopes that the other textile masters won't use this latest development to continue to treat their workers like crap.  These are two people who want two very different things, and for that reason there is an exorbitant amount of tension and bickering in this book.

I've read stubborn heroines before, but they were all mere amateurs compared to Polly.  Granted, one understands why she is so combative with Alex.  You grow up poor in Scotland where your only means of meager survival is sitting at a loom all day, in dangerous conditions, for pennies, while your employer has no concern for your welfare, safety, health or the fact that maybe you want more out of your life than just making him money.  Sure Alex is the new guy in charge, but there is nothing in Polly's past or current existence that makes her think that this guy is going to be any different from the ones that came before him.

Alex may be the eldest son of a self-made man, an industrialist who pulled himself up by his bootstraps from the very area where Polly lives, but he's an intellectual.   He's not a businessman, but he has to become one in order to keep his son safe.  And make no mistake, Alex has a protective streak wider than the ocean that separates Scotland from his home in New York City.  Mamie's life was destroyed by her father.  Even marrying Alex didn't bring her peace.  No way in hell is Alex going to let that man destroy his child. 

Polly is a very different sort of heroine from Lofty, who has written several books featuring quiet, buttoned-up women concerned with propriety and safety.  Polly is working-class.  She's not naive.  She's a fighter.  Alex is a man who desperately wanted to save his wife, but couldn't.  So yes, he was married - but in a lot of ways he's still a little green in the ways of passion.  His feelings for Polly, his need for her, are totally foreign to him.

This is a romance that gets better towards the end of the book.  The couple's combative natures brought to mind Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  That is to say, a relationship built entirely around fighting and make-up sex.  Passionate, exciting, but not exactly the sort of thing that screams longevity.  After a while, it made me a little weary.  I understood why they were combative.  I totally got that.  But seriously, it wore me down.  Luckily the final chapters, which includes the unmasking of the factory saboteur, helped calm my concerns.  That stress resolved, I think Polly and Alex just might be able to be married, and stay in the same room for more than 5 minutes together, before they start arguing with each other.

Unlike Flawless that included quite a bit of "business stuff," Starlight plays more on the romance and conflict between the characters than it does Alex turning the factory around.  Which I suspect will suit most readers just fine, although I would have liked a tiny bit more of that.  I'm not sure how that could have been accomplished without padding the story, but it would have been nice to see exactly how Alex and Polly got to the final chapter of the book.

I didn't like this one quite as much as Flawless, but this is the book where I think the author firmly sets roots for her series.  Being the eldest son, Alex's relationship with his father is interesting, and we get some more insight into the man who, instead of just leaving his children a giant pile of money, tasked them all with various missions to earn their inheritance.

This is a good, solid book and so breathlessly different from nearly every other historical romance that's been released in recent memory.  The industrial setting, the working class heroine, and a slice of history that romance readers don't always see because we're stuck at a house party, Almack's or out in the middle of the prairie.  This has been a really intriguing series so far, don't miss it.

Final Grade = B

Giveaway: Avon Calling!

Yes, the giveaways are rollin' here at the Bat Cave!  Need more books in your life?  Covet an RWA 2012 tote bag?  Not only is this Chance #2 to win, but Chance #3 as well!

Two lucky winners will receive an RWA tote bag and a pile of historical romances published by Harpercollins/Avon.  Hence the title of this giveaway.

For a chance to win, all you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post answering this question:

If you were to travel back in time to the 19th century, what modern convenience would you want to take with you?

Winners will be drawn at random, and announced on Monday, August 27.

Good luck!

This contest is open to international readers as well as US residents.

Winner! : RWA Tote Bag Plus Home & Hearth Harlequin Style

Yes folks we have a winner!  Thanks to the randomness of random.org, the lovely commenter who has won an official RWA 2012 tote bag along with a mother-lode of Harlequin Home & Hearth-y titles is none other than lucky number #17:

Bri!

Bri, please claim your prize by e-mailing me with your shipping address.

And for those of you who are not Bri, step away from the sharp, pointy objects.  Another giveaway (yes, there will be another chance at a tote bag!) is launching tomorrow.

The Month That Was July 2012

Me: Yeah, whatcha doin' kiddo?

Lemon Drop: I am working Auntie Wendy.  I can't be waiting around for you forever, this girl has work to do.

Me: Well, well, my apologies!  Did it occur to you that I am late because I to have work to do?

Lemon Drop: Oh, I know you do Auntie Wendy, but you obviously aren't doing it.

Me: How do you figure?

Lemon Drop: I've seen The Batmobile.  It's filthy.

Me: Well hardy har har.

Title links will take you to full reviews.

Summer Nights by Susan Mallery - Contemporary romance, 2012, HQN, Part of series, Grade = D

• Librarian heroine needs to raise money for a bookmobile and thinks the way to do is "horse dance" in some local parade.  She goes to the hero, a cowboy-type, to teach her.  Liked the "librarian stuff," but thought the hero was a stupid jerk-face and all the cutesy small-town series stuff made my head hurt.

Kill You Twice by Chelsea Cain - Suspense, 2012, Minotaur, Part of series, Grade = B+

• The latest book in Cain's series about eff'ed up Portland homicide cop, Archie Sheridan, and female serial killer, Gretchen Lowell.  After a reprieve, the violence is back - as is Gretchen's character.  A solid read, not perfect, but so damn readable and addictive it's hard for me to be critical.

The Lightkeeper's Woman by Mary Burton - Historical romance, 2004, Harlequin Historical, Grade = B-

• My TBR Challenge read of the month.  After he loses his men and ship at sea, hero hides out in lighthouse.  His former lover, the heroine, shows up to give him a mysterious box her father bequeathed to him in his will.  Since the hero blames the heroine's father for his disgrace?  Yeah, this reunion is bumpy.  Harlequin Cheat Sheet: Hero Done Wrong, Well Born Lady Heroine Laid Low By Tragedy, One Conniving Dead Daddy, One Oily Would-Be Fiance', Reunited!

A Very Personal Assistant by Portia Da Costa - Contemporary erotic romance digital short story, 2012, Spice Briefs, Grade = B-

• High-powered business woman heroine enters into a BDSM relationship with her male personal assistant.  Pretty standard stuff until the ending - which really cooks thanks to the couple having to admit they have more than "just fling" feelings for each other.  Harlequin Cheat Sheet: Boss/Secretary, Just A Fling

A Man of Privilege by Sarah M. Anderson - Contemporary romance, 2012, Harlequin Desire, Part of series, Grade = B

• Lawyer hero with political ambitions needs the heroine's help to bring down a corrupt judge.  Things get complicated when he finds himself attracted to the Native American woman, who has turned her life around after spending her youth as a junkie prostitute.  Not exactly the stuff of potential political wives.  Harlequin Cheat Sheet: Native American, Heroine With A Past, Ambitious Hero With Mommy AND Daddy Issues, Different Worlds.

One Day to Find a Husband by Shirley Jump - Contemporary romance, 2012, Harlequin Romance, Part of series, Grade = B

• Hero looking to put some shine back into his professional reputation proposes a temporary business partnership with the heroine.  She agrees, but only after she finds out she needs a husband in order for a foreign adoption to go through.  Not a perfect book, but extremely readable with just the right amount of character baggage to propel the conflict forward.  Harlequin Cheat Sheet: One He Been Done Wrong Hero, Heroine Taking Over Daddy's Business, One Orphaned Kidlet, Marriage Of Convenience

Men of Smithfield: Mark and Tony by L.B. Gregg - Contemporary gay romance ebook, 2012, Carina Press, Part of series, Grade = B

•  Hero comes home from work to find his lover having icky, sweaty, hairy sex with their landlord.  What's a guy to do?  Well for starters, how about going to the noon mass where his lover and mother are in attendance, grabbing the nearest Bible, and beaning the cheater upside the head?  Then the hero finds out that his bank accounts have been cleaned out, and that's when the local law - an unrequited crush, steps in.  Funny, charming, a well-told "chick lit" style story that features gay men.

Me: So, have you met any movie stars or Indian chiefs?

Lemon Drop: Not yet.  Although it's not so bad.  The boss don't mind sometimes when I act the fool.

Me: I know The Boss AKA Mommy does tend to prefer that over tantrums.

Lemon Drop: If she would just resign herself to the fact that it's all about me there would be no need for tantrums.

Me: Yeah, Mommy tends to be unreasonable like that.

TBR Challenge 2012: Emotional Accountability

The Book:  Sweet Temptation by Maya Banks

The Particulars: Erotic Romance, 2010, Berkly Heat, In Print, Book 4 in the author's Sweet series.

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  I picked this one up at RWA 2010 (uh, Orlando?)

Danger, danger thar be minor spoilers ahoy matey!

The Review:  I have no idea why I finished this book.  I suspect it's because the only other book I've tried to tackle this month I'd already DNF'ed.  Which is probably what I should have done with this one.  At any rate, be advised I skimmed large chunks of the final 150 pages, mostly the sex scenes which....did not work for me.

Micah Hudson is a asshole former Miami cop now living in Houston and working for some private security-type company (Series-Itis Ahoy!).  Back in Miami he was married to Hannah and they had a "relationship" with David.  David was Micah's BFF and he also had the hots for Hannah - so they all lived together, with David and Micah sharing Micah's wife.  Then David and Hannah die in a car accident, Micah runs away to Houston, leaving behind David's little sister, Angelina, who is now 23.

Angelina has been in love with Micah forevah, and feels he's now past the worst of his grief (he returns to Miami every year to visit the grave site and she's had the chance to spy on him).  So she packs her bags, moves to Houston, and sets about rockin' Micah's world, hanging out at the BDSM club that he frequents.  Naturally this causes Micah's head to explode because Angelina is David's little sister!  Oh noes!  And he gets all tingly around her!  Oh noes! 

Then there's some nonsense about Angelina having a stalker who she thinks will just magically go away because she's left Miami under an assumed name and covered her tracks.  Blah, blah, blah, whatever.

There are three elements in erotic romance that never fail to cause my eyes to roll back into my head:

1) Sex clubs in general.  BDSM or otherwise.
2) Virgins who design sex toys for a living (blessedly not in this book).
3) Virgins who design sexy lingerie for a living (blessedly not in this book).

But I understand that this is my personal kink (sorry, couldn't help myself) and was willing to roll with the BDSM thing even though there's a lot of pain/pleasure stuff flying around that made me personally wince.

The major problem here is Micah.  He can't have a relationship with Angelina.  He just can't!  She's David little sister!  But apparently it's OK for him to have a "just sex" relationship with her and screw her to the point where I'm wondering how she's capable of standing under her own power anymore.  It's also, apparently, OK to dominate her to the point of ordering her to pleasure three (yes, three) other men that he invites to play with them while they're holed up in the BDSM club because Angelina's Crazed Psycho Stalker is after her.

Yeah, I'm sure if Big Brother David were still alive he'd be totally cool with his baby sister in a gang-bang ::headdesk::

And that's the problem with this story - it exists purely in the realm of Erotic Romance = La La Fantasy Land.  There is zero emotional accountability here.  Angelina and Micah do whatever they want, to whomever they want, and there's no fall-out.  None.  Everyone just traipses around la dee dah, with nobody's feelings getting hurt.  Even Micah's relationship with David and Hannah is treated like this.  I get that David was his BFF - but dude, you shared your wife with him?!?!  Nobody just does that.  Nobody.  I would speculate that Micah must have had feelings for David that ran deeper than BFF territory - but yeah.  Author doesn't go there.  Why, I have no clue since, frankly, it makes infinitely more sense to me that Micah would be gun-shy about Angelina being "David's little sister" if his relationship with David had been dealt with more realistically than just He Was My BFF And I Let Him Bang My Wife!  

This is such a major missed opportunity that it damn near makes me weep with frustration.

There's also a bunch of past couples and single sequel baitin' hunks who mostly just annoyed me.  The men are all "dominant" and possessive of their women so you get a lot of "mine," "baby," and "sweetie."  Worse still, given Angelina's name we're subjected to a lot of "Angel."  The other women in this story drove me batshit insane.  Angelina's Crazed Psycho Stalker starts targeting all of them, and after one of them is threatened the girls all get together and still have the presence of mind to twitter about how great their sex lives are.

OK, who does that?  Crazed Psycho Stalker on the loose!  Crazed Psycho Stalker who knows where you all live!  I wouldn't be twittering about sex so much as buying enough weapons to arm a militia, but to each her own.

So was there anything about this book that didn't make my brain bleed?  At times, I liked Angelina.  I liked that early on she called Micah on some of his bullshit.  I also liked that in the final showdown with Crazed Psycho Stalker she goes about rescuing her damn self.  And despite me really not liking this story?  Banks can write.  Her style flowed for me, and it was easy to keep going from chapter to chapter.  Which means while this series is Not My Thang, maybe I should look into some of Banks' other books - of which there are many.  I have my pick of category romance, historicals and romantic suspense.....

Final Grade = D

Giveaway: RWA Tote Bag Plus Home & Hearth Harlequin Style!

Given the sheer force of the bookgasm that I experienced thanks to this year's RWA Conference, I've decided to do the unthinkable.  Something so rare for the Bat Cave that frankly I can count on one hand the number of times it has happened in the almost 10 years this blog has existed.

That's right kiddies - brace yourselves....

Wendy is going to be hosting a series of giveaways for the next several months!

And this is how much I love all of my followers - besides a cornucopia of books, I'll be giving away several of the RWA conference tote bags this year.  Yes, giving them away - instead of selling them to the highest bidder, which honestly given the amount of offers I've had, I could technically do.

The first giveaway is going to be for one awesome-sauce tote bag and a whole horde of category romance from Harlequin in what I call their "home and hearth" lines.  Harlequin American, Harlequin SuperRomance, Harlequin Special Edition, Harlequin Romance and Harlequin Heartwarming are all represented in this Mountain Of Somewhat Mystery Books.

To enter all you need to do is leave a comment on this blog post telling me what romance author (dead or alive) you would love to spend a day with.

The winner will be announced on Monday, August 20.

This contest is open to US residents only.  Yeah, I know - that sucks.  Blame it on the heavy box.  I promise that some of the future giveaways WILL be open to international folks.

Reminder: TBR Challenge For August

For those of you participating in the 2012 TBR Challenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, August 15. 

The theme this month is Steamy Reads.  It's hot, hot, hot in my part of the world, which means it's time to pull out a book that matches the weather outside.  And even if you don't read erotica or erotic romance?  Have some fun with this theme!  Maybe you've got a nice, sensual historical in my your TBR.  Heck, even a Harlequin Presents or Blaze would fit the bill!

That said, remember the themes are completely and totally optional.   Maybe you're in the mood for a nice, sweet inspirational this month.  Or maybe the heat makes you blood-thirsty and you're in the mood for a murder mystery?  The themes aren't important - reading something that's been lying around neglected is the real goal.

And hey, and it's only August!  It's not too late to sign-up for the challenge and join in on the fun.   If you're interested, or just want to be a snoop, please check out the TBR Challenge 2012 information page.

Anatomy Of A DNF

It's the rare author that writes nothing but winners.  For one thing, authors are human and for another, readers are nut-jobs (and I mean that in the best possible way).  For every one of my favorite authors, I can think of at least one book that didn't work for me, personally.

I requested Thunder On The Plains by Rosanne Bittner from Netgalley.  This book was originally published in 1992, and Sourcebooks reissued it last month.  I read, reviewed, and really enjoyed another Bittner that Sourcebooks reissued earlier this year so naturally I was game to try this one.  After 130 pages, I finally decided to throw in the towel.

This book tells the story of Sunny Landers, a young, vibrant, gorgeous, young woman who is the apple of her Daddy's eye.  Bo Landers is All Rich And Powerful, and is currently gunning to get a railroad built linking the eastern and western half of the United States.

Maybe you've heard of it?  That little thing called the Transcontinental Railroad?

Anyhoodle, Daddy brings Sunny and one of his sons out west to see if the railroad is a feasible idea.  They need a scout, so hire Colt Travis, who is half-Cherokee and half-white.

A couple of things I tend to really like about Bittner's westerns is that she paints the landscape very well.  She doesn't sugarcoat the reality that living in the west would be a dangerous proposition.  She also does well with "outsider heroes."  Guys like Colt.  Also a good chunk of her backlist was written during an era when historical romance was pretty much the same thing as historical saga.  This particular book clocks in at over 500 pages, making it a unicorn in today's romance marketplace.

So why did I DNF it?  Well, contrary to popular opinion by those who are ignorant about the genre, romance has evolved over the years.  What was "in vogue" 20 years ago has either gone out of fashion or is totally repugnant to today's readers.  In the case of Thunder On The Plains, it's more of a matter of out of fashion.  Originally published in 1992, the story suffers from one of the more Mary Sue-ish heroines I've come across in sometime.  Sunny is the sort of character that sets my teeth on edge.  She's literally perfect.  She's charming, beautiful, graceful, yada yada yada.  Also, even though she's like 15 at the start of the story, she's also "smart" and has a head for business.  Her brothers think Daddy is insane, but Sunny is so devoted to him that she just KNOWS the railroad idea is super gee-whiz fantastic.  In turn Daddy dotes on Sunny to the point of creepiness.  He brings her out west, which is honestly a pretty dang dangerous place to bring a 15-year-old genteel girl, because he can't bare to leave her in Chicago while he's scoping out the feasibility of this railroad idea.  It's because he loved her mother, who died in childbirth, soooooo much....

Whatever dude, it just comes off as creepy.

Naturally Colt and Sunny get tingly around each other, but this being a Rosanne Bittner book, readers should know the path to happy ever after isn't cut and dry.  Sunny goes back to Chicago with Daddy, Colt stays out west and eventually marries.  What boggled my mind was that Colt literally meets his wife, marries her, has a kidlet and then that marriage is dissolved, in like one chapter!  Then there's this big war scene with Colt riding against the Pawnee (revenge dontcha know) that takes place entirely off-page!

It was like the author wanted to include more information about all of this extra stuff, but even in 1992 maybe her publisher was gun shy about a 700 page romance novel (pure speculation on my part).

Ultimately, that's the rub.  It felt like the author wanted to do more, and didn't (for whatever reason).  This leads to quite a bit of "telling" instead of "showing."  That, coupled with a heroine who is such a paragon of virtue that I wanted to bean her upside the head?  Who knows, maybe if I had stuck with it Sunny would have grown more three-dimensional and actually grown some faults - but I just....couldn't take it anymore.

Bittner is a good, solid writer and I'm happy to hear that Sourcebooks is releasing something new from her in 2013 (yippee!).  But yeah, this one just didn't do it for me.  I'll still go on recommending books like Wildest Dreams and Outlaw Hearts to readers, but this one?  Probably not so much....

Final Grade = DNF

Side note: I know I probably have a smattering of western fans that read this blog.  Anyone read this book back in the day (or recently)?  I'd love to hear your opinion in the comments!

On The Road And RWA Leftovers Update

I've got a new post over at Heroes & Heartbreakers, part of their Delicious Despair series.  This time around I'm talking about the emotionally angsty goodness that is My Fair Concubine by Jeannie Lin.

Why not head on over and take a gander?

+++++

In other news, I thought it might be fun (heck, at the very least blog filler) to give an update on the small mountain range of leftover Literacy Signing books I hauled away from RWA two weeks ago. 

The hardest part of the whole process, besides getting the books out of the convention center, was what to do with them once we had them in my library.  It took several volunteers, a few pages, and several staff members to get tables set up in our community room and then....unpack boxes.  We organized things loosely in alphabetical order by author last name.  The challenge was getting all the copies of whatever title grouped together so we knew exactly how many we had.

After taking one of everything to add to my library's collection, what happened with the rest of the books?  Well, our Friends of the Library took quite a few and ended up selling them.  This money, in turn, gets dumped back into my library for various projects and book buying.  Then we opened up the room to the other librarians in the system - of which we have over 30 branches. 

I have to say, the ones that really took advantage of the opportunity went hog wild.  One librarian, collecting books for two locations, hauled away eight boxes!  I do my best to routinely purchase paperbacks for the system, but given the way our budget has been for the last several years, I don't order as many titles as I should, and the number of copies tends to be ridiculously tiny.  A lot of our libraries still find themselves relying on donations to fill out their paperback collections, which sucks - but hey, you can't bleed a turnip.

This ginormous horde of books that dang near killed me and the rest of my coworkers (who I think I may owe donuts for life now) was like manna from Heaven.  A way to update and refresh our paperback collections that tend to get half-beat to death.  And did I mention that all the leftovers were fairly new releases?  The majority of what we got were 2012 releases, with a smattering of 2010 and 2011 items.

After a week of making the room available to the other librarians, this is what I have left to deal with:

Later this week I'll grab a volunteer and we'll start randomly throwing things in boxes.  Then I'll send out the call to the other librarians (Boxes!  I've got boxes!) and send them out to whomever wants them.  At this point these books just need to get gone - so I imagine these leftovers (titles we got a huge number of copies of) will end up in various Friends' book sales to benefit their respective libraries.

I'm not going to lie, this was a crap-ton of work.  A huge undertaking.  I never thought I'd say this, but I'm tired of looking at romance paperbacks.  But you know what?  If I could go back in time, I'd still yes to this offer.  The opportunity was just too amazing to say no to, and if you're a librarian who has the chance to take RWA up on this offer? 

Take it.

Digital Review: Men of Smithfield: Mark and Tony

Disclaimer: I know the author L.B. Gregg.  I would say we're somewhere between "friendly" and "friends."  She's not on my Christmas card list, and we don't exchange e-mails or text messages - but when I see her at conferences or she comes to SoCal, we hang out.  If I were ever taking a vacay in her neck of the woods?  I'd call her about getting together for lunch.  In short, I like her and, in turn, I think she likes me.

I have nothing against gay romance, it's just something that I thought wasn't necessarily for me.  Why?  Well, as pretty evident by the hordes of book reviews I've written online since 1999, I'm a very heroine-centric romance reader.  Very.  And gay romance?

Yeah, no vaginas.

This is obviously not a problem for a lot of readers, but it is one for me.  Or so I thought.  So what led me to trying a gay romance?  Education.  I'm a librarian.  I buy books for a living.  People like to read gay romance and, you know, I hate being completely ignorant on the subject. Since I know L.B. Gregg, I thought it would be fun to read Men of Smithfield: Mark and Tony, the first book in her recently reissued and re-edited series about the small New England town of Smithfield, and the hunky men that live there.

Mark Meehan is having a really bad day.  He comes home from work to find his boyfriend having sex, in their bed, with their very hairy and disgusting landlord.  This is, as one could imagine, a tad upsetting for Mark.  In response he heads to noon Ash Wednesday mass where Jamie is with his mother.  Before you can say "man scorned" Mark is grabbing the nearest Bible and beaning Jamie upside the head.

It is not one of Mark's finer moments, airing Jamie's dirty laundry in front of the entire congregation, but it goes from bad to infinitely worse when he realizes that not only did Jamie cheat - he also cleaned out Mark's bank accounts.  Naturally with assault and battery, along with theft going on, in steps the local law, Tony Gervase.

Tony is a couple of years older than Mark and is still working through a really bad year, a result of his father's death.  Mark has had a thing for Tony since the dawn of time, but after his advances were rebuffed when he was in high school, and Tony was in college, they've settled into friendship.  However little does Mark know is that Tony does have feelings for him, always has in fact.  It's just the timing has sucked.  The timing isn't much better now, but hey - at least Mark is now single.

The best way for me to describe this story is that it's chick lit, without any chicks.  Gregg tells her story in first person, which to my horror has always been a perceived no-no in romance circles.  I happen to adore first person to the point of wanting to have babies with it, and I love that Mark, while a confident person, is not above playing the man scorned.  He reacts strongly to Jamie's betrayal, in both good and bad ways, and naturally needs to clean up the mess in order to get on with his life.  These moments of petty revenge make for genuinely funny moments, like when Mark changes the password on Jamie's laptop to uradickhead.

Tony is....lickable I think is the word I'm looking for.  He's hot, he's hunky, he's rocking a uniform - it's just my dumb-ass luck he's gay (ladies, isn't that always the way?).  I loved that while he's in a confident position of authority in his professional life, he's more unsure of himself personally.  What he admires about Mark is how secure he is.  How accepting he is.  Tony watches his father die and knows that the old man goes to his grave thinking Tony being gay is something he'll eventually "out grow."

The secondary players are also quite wonderful in this story.  Despite my reservations on there not being a vagina in this romance, the author does include Mark's very pregnant sister.  Her scenes with Mark are really wonderful, and read like an actual brother/sister relationship.  I also liked that the town of Smithfield is a welcoming, accepting place.  Gregg has created a world where being gay isn't a political rallying point, it's not a "big deal."  It simply is who these men are.  They have lives.  They have families.  They have emotional baggage.  They also, just happen, to be gay. 

In the end I really enjoyed this story.  I liked Mark, which is a good thing given the first person narration, and I wanted to throw myself at Tony (Oh yeah, he's gay.  Damn.).  The sex scenes are spicy, although I'm not entirely sure I'd label them as erotic (unless you subscribe to the school of thought that all gay sex is erotic, which I don't).  Gregg wisely avoids huge sweeping declarations of true love, although the shared past and friendship between Mark and Tony certainly puts a positive spin on the Happy For Now ending.  This was a quick, enjoyable and fun read. I'm looking forward to return visits to Smithfield....

Final Grade = B

Note: This title was originally released as Gobsmacked by Aspen Mountain Press.  Carina Press has picked up the rights to the series and will be reissuing all the previous titles.

On The Road And Bookgasms

So what have I been doing since I obviously haven't been blogging?

First up, I've had a post go live over at Criminal Element.  I'm over there talking about Kill You Twice by Chelsea Cain, a book I was able to secure early to read after I said I'd blog about it.  I think I also might have offered up an ovary to get it early, but blessedly it didn't come to that.

Head on over and take a gander.

+++++

In other news, I'm getting nothing done at work that doesn't pertain to the small mountain of leftover RWA Literacy Signing books.  We spent all day Tuesday unpacking and on Wednesday some of the other librarians began rolling in.

G-ish through first part of M-ish

More M-ish through early part of R-ish

And I've had "greedy" librarians already roll in.  Heck, one librarian took 8 boxes worth - and we still have a TON!  Hoping another wave of locusts this afternoon puts another solid dent in the piles.