TBR Challenge 2012: Pippa And The Mysterious Maze

The Book:  Nobody's Hero by Carrie Alexander (Sigh, web site is grossly out of date)

The Particulars: Harlequin SuperRomance #1504; 2008; Out of print, Available digitally; Part of connected duet that includes the excellent A Holiday Romance.

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  Carrie Alexander is an autobuy for me in the HSR line. 

The Review:  Sean Raffety is a Massachusetts state trooper looking for a little solitude.  Recovering from a gun shot wound from a traffic stop gone bad, he answers an ad for a home-swap vacation.  Alice Potter is living it up at his parents' condo in Arizona, and he's hanging out at her cozy cabin on tiny Osprey Island (off the coast of Maine).  His plan is to lay low and lick his wounds.  In other words, be a hermit.  He didn't plan on a pint-sized 10-year-old, obsessed with Trixie Belden, dogging his heels.  And he sure as hell didn't plan on finding her mother so dang attractive either.

Connie Bradford is working on the island.  A master gardener, she's restoring an overgrown garden maze for some wealthy island residents.  Her husband, Phil, died from leukemia three years ago and she's still trying to find ways to reach out to their daughter, Pippa.  Pippa is inquisitive, precocious, and independent.  She clings to her old Trixie Belden books because it was something she shared with her father.  But now that fascination with Trixie has her gallivanting off, inventing "mysteries," and sticking her nose in places where it most certainly does not belong.  She was hoping this trip to the island would distract Pippa away from fictional mysteries, and instead she ends up roping in Sean Rafferty.

This is an interesting read, charmingly cozy and a bit of a love letter to all the little girls out there who fell hard for the "girl sleuth" books.  I myself was a bit enamored with Nancy Drew as a tween, and even though I didn't own a pair of binoculars or keep a notebook filled with "curious observations" - I could see my love of puzzles and mysteries reflected back at me in Pippa.  The author even gives the girl a little mystery to unravel, complete with overheard conversations, secret meetings, and spooky fog rolling in.  It's gives Pippa's world a Gothic feel without, you know, really being a Gothic.

That said, as much as I liked the story and the characters, the romance here lacks some sizzle.  Yes, this one is G-rated, but G-rated books still need to "sizzle" for me even if it's only "tension."  Sean and Connie are nice people.  Good, solid people who deserve some happiness.  However, their romance lacks any real sense of urgency.  Sean has plenty of baggage (the shooting, an ex and a teenage son) but it's baggage that doesn't really seem to haunt him.  He doesn't brood.  Which on one hand is good.  Nothing worse than a mopey hero.  But on the other it's not-so-good since it means there's not a lot of emotional tension between our romantic couple. 

Most of the conflict to this story centers around Pippa getting into various scrapes, and then during the second half, Sean's kid shows up.  Mostly it's about the kids, and should Sean and Connie even try to start seeing each other.  Is the timing all wrong?  Which hey, is amazingly true to life, but not always the most exciting conflict to read about.

I'm going to be honest though, I read this book in a day.  Which at the state my reading mojo is in right now (somewhere around Siberia), is nothing to sneeze at.  Also, while I generally have a low tolerance for precocious kidlets getting into various shenanigans, the whole Trixie Belden angle charmed the hell out of me.  I think I'll hang on to this one for my Mom to read when she visits me in a couple of months.  It didn't light my world on fire, but it's cute....in a good way.

Final Grade = B-

TBR Challenge 2010: Welcome To Pleasantville

The Book: A Town Called Christmas by Carrie Alexander

The Particulars: Harlequin SuperRomance #1455, 2007, Out of Print. However, it is available to purchase digitally.

Why Was It In The Bat Cave TBR?: Carrie Alexander is an autobuy for me in the HSR line. Also, it's a Christmas story. I'm a sucker for a Christmas story - which I'm beginning to think the diabolical minds at Harlequin headquarters are all too aware of.

The Review: Michael Kavanaugh is a Navy pilot who has just received a Dear John letter from his fiancee. His BFF hates to think of his freshly-jilted buddy alone, over the holidays no less, and talks Michael into coming home with him to Christmas, Michigan (yes, this town does exist). Once there he meets Nicky's sister Meredith "Merry" York. Michael falls hook, line and sinker. He's so dazzled that he fails to notice, at first, that she's 5 months pregnant.

Merry had a great job, great condo and who she thought was a great boyfriend in Chicago. Then she ends up preggo and it all goes to Hell. When her father takes sick, Merry comes home to tiny, claustrophobic Christmas to take over the family tree farm. She has resigned herself to being alone. To raising her baby alone. And then Michael shows up, making her heart go pitter-patter. But he's only on leave for a week, and, oh yeah, she's pregnant. Michael doesn't strike her as the kind of guy to sign up for that kind of commitment after one week.

One thing I like about many of Alexander's Supers is that she uses Michigan's Upper Penisula as a setting. You've got beautiful scenery, good local color, plenty of characters, and she's from the area - so she writes it with authenticity. However in this case, I felt like I was reading a love letter to the U.P moreso than a romance between hero and heroine. Plenty of time is spent on the town of Christmas and the "local color" that is the holiday celebrations. Likewise, this is a big, involved family-type story. The HSR line is great because the stories are longer, so authors can toss in some secondary characters and subplots. But here it felt like too much. You've got brother Nicky, his wife, and their kids. You have 20-year-old sister Noelle and her boyfriend. You have Mom and Dad. You have a cantankerous aunt. There's also a secondary romance between the local fix-it repair woman and a shy, bashful writer. Between all those people and the Christmas goo-ga, Merry and Michael felt a little lost in the shuffle.

This is also one of those Small Town = Goody Goodness type stories. Which is fine. Really. But one thing I learned? These types of stories tend to work a lot better for me if there's a wee bit of angst in the proceedings, and this whole romance felt a little too easy to me. Yes, even with Merry being knocked up by another man. Yes, even with Michael being on the rebound. It should have been more angst-y, but wasn't. Even when Michael is debating about spending time with Merry, he does anyway. He pays lip-service to not getting too close, but then these two keep hanging out together. And they fall into their relationship like slipping on that ratty old pair of slippers you keep around because dang, they're so darn comfortable.

None of this makes this a bad book - just sort of ho-hum. It's certainly pleasant, and these are nice enough folks. Sure I was flummoxed why Merry wanted to keep the identity of the Baby Daddy under wraps from her family (even though it's obvious!) and sure it irritated that her mother was supposedly "scandalized" by her unmarried daughter's pregnancy even though Merry is thirty-frickin-six years old. But whatever. When you're born, raised and die in a small town - never leaving said town - scandals can be stuck in the 1950s.

Where does that leave me? Well, this story is just sort of there. If you're a reader looking for a simple, uncomplicated romance with that cozy small town vibe? This one just might do it for you. Sometimes you just need a read like that. No vampire lurking behind dark corners. No serial killers waiting in the bushes. That said, this one didn't really light a fire under me either way (no, OMG LURVE! and no, OMG BLEEDING EYES!). So yeah. Sorta there.

Final Grade = C

Free Book Friday

I used to order quite a few of my Dead Tree Harlequins via their web site, and when I did - I always tried to order on Fridays because of their weekly free book offer. I've since gone digital for my Harlequin fix, but I still love to check out their Freebie Friday deals because....well, just because.

Today, October 30, the free book is none other than A Holiday Romance by Carrie Alexander. I reviewed this book earlier this summer for TGTBTU, giving it a B+. Making it one of the better books I've read this year.

Yes, I know the people on the front cover look like creepy plastic Stepford people - but this is exactly the kind of book I like to chuck at people who like to tell me (in a haughty, snotty tone no less) that all Harlequins have secret babies in them.

This little gem of a romance has no tycoons, no babies (secret or otherwise), no precocious toddlers, no amnesia, no whiff of pregnancy anywhere within the pages, and no cowboys. It's a nice, solid romance between two grown adults. Seriously. It's great.

So if you're thinking of putting together a Harlequin order anyway - why not do it today and get this lovely little book?