Mini-Reviews: You Can't Go Home Again

It's too soon to tell just yet, but I might (just might) be starting to crawl out of the slump that claimed part of June and all of July for me. This, obviously, includes blogging since you may have noticed the dust bunnies starting to gather in the corners around here. To that end I thought I would talk about two reads that probably didn't help matters in the slump department, a reread from my teenage years (that I should have left there) and a new book from an author well represented in my keeper stash that fell utterly flat.

Fun fact, I first read The Devil on Horseback by Victoria Holt for a book report in my World Literature class my senior year of high school.  I didn't remember much about it other than it was Holt's French Revolution book and like any teenager who sat at her mother's knee watching The Young & The Restless, I got sucked into the Soap Opera Drama Llama plot.  I thought it would be fun to relisten to it on audiobook and boy howdy, that old adage that you can't go home again certainly applies here.

Minella is the 18-year-old daughter of a single mother school teacher living a somewhat comfortable life thanks to the generosity of the nearby lord of the manor. Into this scene waltzes Charles-Auguste, a wickedly handsome French aristocrat whose daughter befriends Minella.  The Count is soon putting on the full court press with Minella.  Never mind he's married (the wife naturally dies under mysterious circumstances over the course of the story). Never mind he once "accidentally" killed a young boy in a drunken riding accident (he "adopted" the boy's twin brother - so truly he's a prince! 🙄).  Never mind the more Minella tries to throw cold water on the proceedings, the more he pursues.  Soon the Count's daughter gets herself in a spot of trouble and having no better options - Minella finds herself relocating to France to bail the chit out while falling deeper under the spell of the Count.  Oh, and minor detail that tensions are starting to bubble over in France and revolution is afoot.

Holt had a way of painting a scene with words and Davina Porter is an always reliable audiobook narrator. I liked the idea of this story but it features all the hallmarks that made old school Gothics rather annoying - namely the hero is a sack of human garbage while the heroine continually wrings her hands and makes excuses for him.  Naturally by the end of it nothing truly was ever his fault even though a leopard doesn't change his spot and he's still amazingly insufferable. Oh, and the French Revolution?  Thinly drawn with zero nuance. Better historical fiction has been written against this backdrop - this isn't anywhere near on the list.  I should have left this one to the recesses of fond teen memories.

Final Grade = D

Laura Lee Guhrke has three books in my keeper stash (Breathless, Conor's Way and To Dream Again). She's reliable with the angst and does a great job writing adversarial, bantering romantic couples.  It's been a dog's age since she's had a new book out, so I was super pumped to score an ARC of Bookshop Cinderella. 

Evie Harlow runs a small London bookshop specializing in rare books, with a small loyal clientele. She's got limited prospects, but has set her cap on a childhood friend who is (of course) an idiot who doesn't deserve her devotion and (of course) takes advantage of her at every turn. But Evie hadn't clued into that yet when I decided to give up on this story.

Anyway, through a series of circumstances, she meets Maximillian Shaw, Duke of Westbourne. Blah, blah, blah, stuff happens, and he convinces Evie to help him with a wager. He's going to turn her into the diamond of the Season and help her find a husband. She turns down his offer flat, until (of course) disaster strikes her bookshop and she has no choice in the matter.

Max had previously married for love, to a commoner who was crushed under the boot of the ton - ergo Max has vowed his next marriage will be purely transactional with a woman "of his class."  Evie is most definitely a commoner, vulnerable and lacking in self-confidence thanks to her experiences at finishing school and a cousin who won't let her forget them.

This is the kind of story I normally could go for. Upright heroine with vulnerable core, hero who gets blindsided despite his best attentions, and a Pygmalion theme to boot!  Unfortunately it all reads so horribly flat and dull.  There's no life in this story, in these characters.  It feels very much paint-by-numbers, like the author was simply going through the motions.  What we have here is a failure to launch.  I'd read a few chapters, put my Kindle down, and it would stay down for days - then days turned into weeks.  Once I hit 40% I realized two things: 1) I didn't care one jot about any of it and 2) this book was likely going to end up being the very definition of a C / Meh It's OK, I Guess? read - if it was lucky.  I took that as a sign it was time for me to move on and try to get my reading mojo back with something else in my ginormous TBR pile.

Final Grade = DNF

Library Loot Reviews: DNF Edition

Despite having a stupid amount of ARCs languishing on my Kindle, I can't seem to stop myself from checking out books from The Day Job.  Occupational hazard as it were.  Sometimes I read amazing books from work and sometimes - well, we get DNFs.  It's the joy of the library.  Trying books risk free y'all.  

First up is Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which I've seen many raves about and that I had on my "get to it eventually" list.  But I decided to move it up the queue when I found an ARC on the bookshelf we have in our staff break room.  Set in 1950s Mexico, our heroine Noemi is pretty, popular (our girl likes to attend parties), without a steady boyfriend but with plenty of young men willing to escort her to said parties. She's interested in continuing her education in anthropology, but of course this being the 1950s, her father is thinking she needs to settle down. But first he's sending Noemi to visit her recently married cousin, who has sent a troubling letter.  As in, unhinged sounding she may need to be treated in a sanitarium.  So Noemi heads off to the country, a creepy old house, her cousin who is "ill" and her cousin's creepy AF in-laws.

I've had to accept that it's not ethical to clone Simone St. James - and in my hunt for more Gothics I've read some dismal ones in recent memory.  This book isn't dismal - but it wasn't holding my attention.  It's slow. Really slow.  I got to page 120, another library hold came in, so I picked that up - it did hold my attention - and then I moved on to another book and well...there Mexican Gothic sat on my dining room table for a month still with the bookmark stuck on page 120.  And Wendy with no desire to pick it back up again.

I think this might be a It's Not You, It's Me thing.  Also I suspect this might work better for me on audio - so I've put myself on the long waitlist for that edition from work.  We'll see how I feel when my turn comes up in the queue.  I can't easily go back to books I've DNF'ed at a later date because by then they have the DNF Stink on the them and....well, we'll see.

Bethlehem by Karen Kelly had a cover that caught my eye and I decided it was time for another audiobook and wow, this book was not for me.  It's a timeslip novel, with one part of the story taking place in the 1920s about the wealthy Parrish and Collier families, who are basically in each others' pocket. The second timeline is set in the early 1960s and Joanna Collier has moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with her husband and two small children.  They live in the giant family home with her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law.  

I'll be honest, I was so not in the mood to read a book about snooty, privileged white people.  The 1920s storyline features characters with insipid nicknames like Sassy and Chap.  Then when the author starts to set up a love quadrangle between the two bothers of the Collier clan with the two sisters of the Parrish clan - well, I was done.  It's spoiled early on that Chap ends up dying young and I'm sure it's all terribly tragic and angsty but ugh - I don't care about Biff and Buffy or frankly what family secrets will come to light in the 1960s storyline.  

The other issue I had was that this is basically a wallpaper historical.  The only reason I know the early 1960s storyline takes place in the 1960s is because the author told me.  There's some mention of old-timey cars in the 1920s storyline and a passing mention of World War I - but other than that I got nothing.  The whole thing could have been taking place on the moon and read the same.

I got to the 40% mark and called it quits.  So long, farewell, bon voyage Biff and Buffy.

Mini-Reviews: A DNF, A What-Might-Have-Been, and Comfort Reading

I was bound and determined to continue my Maisey Yates glom but terrible timing and realizing too late I was full-up on sexually inexperienced heroines led me to DNF'ing Seduce Me, Cowboy at the 30% mark.  The heroine is a good-girl preacher's daughter who has finally realized that being good has gotten her nowhere in life - so she moves out of her parents' house, quits her secretarial job at Daddy's church, and goes to work for our hero, who is a gruff wrong-side-of-the-tracks sort who has built a construction empire.  She's Never-Been-Kissed Rose-Colored-Glasses, and he's Mr. Grumpy Jaded Cynic.  I just couldn't with this child.  In the wake of everything currently going on in the US (posterity for my blog archives: COVID-19, George Floyd's murder, civil unrest) I just...couldn't with this child.  Plus this was the third sexually inexperienced Yates heroine in a row I'd read and y'all...I just couldn't with this child. Certainly I've read and enjoyed plenty of books featuring Sunshine-y Heroines and Grumpy Heroes, but now is not the time. Her Sunshine-y privilege just made me want to smack her into next Tuesday.

Final Grade = DNF

The Ghosts of Eden Park: the Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America by Karen Abbott was an audiobook listen I picked up at The Day Job because I like Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction nonfiction books and this is another one of those "Trials of the Century" that have largely faded from American consciousness.  George Remus was a morally bankrupt pharmacist-turned-lawyer in Cincinnati, Ohio who turned Prohibition bootlegger.  He dumped his first wife, married Imogene (who worked in his office - because of course) and ultimately caught the attention of Mabel Walker Willebrandt, who was appointed Assistant US Attorney General under the less than squeaky clean Harding administration. Willebrandt, charged with enforcing Prohibition, had a real problem finding field agents who weren't corrupt, and she thought she'd found her man in Franklin Dodge.  Turns out? Not so much.  Dodge and Imogene entered into an affair while Remus was in prison.  When Remus got out of prison? That's when all hell broke loose.

Abbott had access to extensive court documents - which, fine.  The problem is she focuses on the least interesting guy in the room.  Remus is just like every other megalomaniac sociopath criminal gangster that came before him, and since.  Imogene and Dodge are the story here.  How exactly did these two really hook up? Did Imogene set her sights on Remus from the word go in order to take everything out from under him - or was she pushed into it, either by Dodge or with her just being completely fed up with Remus's abuse?  We'll never know.  I get that Abbott is working with the historical record available to her, which means my final impression is that what I really wanted was a historical fiction account of these characters - not so much nonfiction.

Final Grade = C

Back in late summer 2017 I decided to revisit Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone series. I made great progress in 2018, kept going in 2019, but stalled out when it was time to read While Other People Sleep, the 18th book in the series. Frankly, I got distracted by other books, and I recalled being meh about this one when I first read it.  Turns out my memory isn't completely shot.

Sharon, now with her own agency, finds out through her grapevine that a woman was impersonating her at a cocktail party.  What Sharon hopes was a harmless prank turns out to be much more sinister - this woman is handing out her business cards, having one-night-stands, stealing from said one-night-stands, committing credit card fraud, calling her friends and family, and even is audacious enough to break into Sharon's house.  

This book feels like Muller just didn't have enough to oomph-up the main mystery.  There's other threads here - namely efficient office manager Ted is acting completely out of character, and some added bits about various other cases the firm is working (one is a guy hiding financial assets ahead of a divorce, the other a guy who thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him).  Then there's Sharon's relationship drama - Hy is off to South America, not in contact just as Sharon's life is unraveling, and he's likely in danger.  It gives the book a very scattershot feel for the first half.  It's not until the second half, when Sharon loops in all her colleagues about the woman who is ruining her life and the focus lands firmly there that things smooth out.  Then it turns out to be a decent cat-and-mouse style read.

Not a favorite in this series but I desperately needed Competent Female Porn - and smart, female private detectives are my jam. They're 100% comfort reads for me.  Smart woman solves the mystery, saves the day and justice is served - I mean, what's not to love about that?

Final Grade = C+

#TBRChallenge 2019: Day Late and a Couple of Dollars Short

The Book: Morgan's Woman by Judith E. French

The Particulars: Historical western romance, Ballantine, 1999, Out of print, available in self-published digital edition

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Who knows at this point - seriously, this has been buried in the TBR for a ridiculously long period of time. My best guess?  It's a historical western and I enjoyed another novel by French when I reviewed it for TRR.  While in good shape, I can tell my print copy was bought used.

The Review: In my experience, historical romances hold up better over time than contemporaries because you're a lot less likely to run up against pop culture references that haven't aged well (there was a time when Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise were major heart throbs).  But that doesn't mean there aren't potential land mines lurking, which is exactly what happened with this book.  I was met with a cold bucket of ice water at the 30% mark and while I might have let such insult slide had I been reading a bodice ripper from 1978, in 1999 the genre really, really should have moved on.  Which is a shame, because the heroine is a legit widow in this book and 1999 we were still Buried In Virgin Heroines for the most part. Alas...

It's 1865, the War is finally over, and Tamsin MacGreggor's husband is blessedly dead. She isn't exactly mourning his loss.  However, when she finds out that her not-dearly departed hubby managed to squander everything her grandfather built, only leaving her with two prized thoroughbreds (one stallion, one mare) - she's even less sorry he's dead.  The lawyer thinks she's nuts, but she decides to take the two horses and head to California.  She can start a new life out west.

Original Cover

She lands in Sweetwater, Colorado for the night and when she goes to collect her horses from the livery in the morning she discovers they've been stolen.  She finds out who has them, but he's the brother of the town judge and...yeah.  She heads out to his place anyway only to interrupt an argument between the man and brother judge.  She sneaks back in the middle of the night to steal back her horses only to discover the man dead, shot in the back in his own barn.  It doesn't look good for her, so she takes her horses and hits the road.

Ash Morgan is a bounty hunter who has been tracking Tamsin because he thinks she's an outlaw's paramour.  Then he's hauled before the judge who tells him that she murdered his brother and asks Ash to track her down.  Which...he does.  She's innocent, he doesn't believe her, and we're off to the races.

Honestly, this was fine for a while.  The plot is kind of all over the place and there are instances where I felt like the author left out bread crumbs in the trail (the whole Tamsin being an outlaw's lady thing takes a while to circle around), but it was fine.  Then it slides south rather quickly starting in Chapter 9 and I never made it to Chapter 10.

Ash doesn't trust Tamsin to begin with, and when she beans him over the head with a log that doesn't endear her any further.  So needless to say, he's going to restrain her going forward.  She resists, they tussle, she throws a punch, he pins her to the ground and then we get these touching moments (imagine all the sarcasm in the world - like Wendy firing the sarcasm cannon):

Having her helpless beneath him shattered the barrier he prided himself on possessing.  He shuddered, caught in a sudden rush of primitive lust that any decent man should keep in check. In vain he tried to smother a devilish urge to lift Tamsin's skirts and drive himself between her warm, soft thighs. 

The woman scent of her filled his head. He knew he was stronger than she was. He could have her here and now. Maybe she even wanted him to do it. Ash groaned and swallowed the sour gorge that rose in his throat. 

Maybe he was no better than the scum he'd vowed to destroy - the outlaws who'd raped and murdered his wife.

GOLLY GEE, YA THINK?!?!?!?!  

A few paragraphs later our "hero" heads to the nearby stream to cool off:

The frigid water couldn't wash away his desire, but it did keep him from making a total bastard of himself. He glanced back at her to make certain she wasn't stalking him with a rock. "You pack a mean right," he said. 

Tamsin's freckles stood out starkly against milky white skin. "I'm sorry," she stammered. Fear was still evident in her expression. She looked at him as if she expected him to tear off her skirts. 

The hell of it was, he wanted to.

THE HEROINE IS OFFICIALLY FRIGHTENED OF THE HERO (because, OBVIOUSLY!!!) AND HE'S STILL THINKING ABOUT RAPING HER!!!!!!!!!!!

Nope. Nope, nope, nopity nope nope.  I hit that last line, closed the book and am moving on.  Life's too short, my TBR is too big, and short of Tamsin ramming a fork through his eye socket and lighting his pants on fire using a blow torch there is literally no redeeming this "hero" for me.

Final Grade = DNF 

Ranty Mini-Reviews: Take Me and Make Me

I've been "in-between" books for a couple of days now and feeling out of sorts since I'm not entirely sure what I'm in the mood for, so I went with two recent, short Dirty Bits by Tracy Wolff.  I've read Wolff before, and liked those books to varying degrees, and I figured reading short was a decent stop-gap in light of my wishy-washy-ness.  As they say, I chose poorly.

Take Me is the first book in a steamy shorts series centered around artists.  In this one the jackhole "hero" hires the heroine to pose for him.  He's some hot-shot iron sculptor, and she just lost her art school scholarship and needs the money.

I had to DNF this one at 28% (yes, I'm aware it's a 100 page novella...) because the hero made me feel murderous. In the first frickin' chapter, after the heroine walks into his studio, our "hero" muses to himself:

I don't have to have anything in common with the women I stick my dick in...but it doesn't hurt.

The fact that I didn't hurl my Kindle across the room just goes to show you my incredible act of restraint.  Not only that, I somehow kept reading. Why?  I don't know. I'm blaming it on the cold medicine I'm currently dosing myself with because I have a gnarly head cold.

Then we get the heroine's point of view in a following chapter and that's when a power differential comes into play that I really cannot get past:

In the end, I don't say anything - partly because I need this job and partly because there's nothing to say. Not really.  Not yet, when all I know about him is what I've read.

Yeah, no.  This sets off all sorts of warning bells for me.  But it's not the final nail in the coffin.  No, that comes when we're back to the hero's cesspool point-of-view:

It makes me want to punch that wall and keep punching it until the pain knocks out everything else - including the fact that I'm sitting here mooning after her like a little bitch right now.  Or a gigantic fucking wuss.

Conclusion: I don't think she's safe with him and he's a douchecanoe.  Excuse me while I go burn everything down.

Final Grade = DNF

Make Me is the second short in the series and I did manage to finish this one.  Oh, it's still terrible, but hey, I did finish it.

The heroine is the assistant curator at a gallery and the hero is her most favoritest photographer ever. He wants to tie her up (shibari: Japanese rope bondage) and photograph her.  She has to work in the business, so no.

The hero does fall hard and fast for the heroine, I'll give him that. But he doesn't take no for an answer which is so not cool that I want reach through my Kindle and throat punch him into next Tuesday.

"I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. If you don't want to pose for me, then I won't ask you to. If you don't want me to tie you up -"
"You won't tie me up?"
"I won't. But on that, I won't stop asking either."

Run gurl, you're in danger.

But, of course, she relents. BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE DOES.

"Okay. I won't take any photos of you," I tell her, though it kills me to say it. So much so that I have to quantify it. "Unless you want me to."
"I won't," she assures me.
We'll see about that. But I don't say that.

So yeah.  You know when all us "precious snowflakes" talk about consent in romance and how FRICKIN' IMPORTANT IT IS!  Yeah, this is NOT consent.  This is the hero thinking that he's eventually going to get the heroine to cave and do what he wants - which, OF COURSE, she eventually does do in the final chapter of the story.  But hey, it's OK because she has a rock hard orgasm so I'm what? Just supposed to ignore the fact that HE DOESN'T LISTEN TO HER?!?!?!  I can just picture this jackhole in between chapters wheedling her incessantly until she finally just throws up her hands and caves in, just so she can get a moment's peace.

You know what's sexy?  When men actually listen to women.

I just can't with domineering heroes right now. Unless they have the page count to repent or the heroine cuts him off at the knees - and that's not going to happen in a line as short as Carina's Dirty Bits.  I still don't know what I'm in the mood to read but sure as shootin' it isn't this.

Final Grade = D

Mini-Review Round-Up: Hurricane Hottie, Mostly Sunny, Weddings and Scrooge

Sometimes I feel like I have a lot to say about the books I read, and other times?  I just can't be arsed.  I've been on stretch of the latter lately, coupled with blogging ennui - which makes for a particularly deadly cocktail.  Plus, I just sort of feel like I've been very meh about everything I'm reading lately, but a girl's gotta prop up the flagging mojo, so it's time for a round of patented Wendy mini-reviews.

The Bridesmaid and the Hurricane by Kelly Maher - First the disclaimer that the author is a friend, we've presented together at conferences, and I beta read 2 (?) early versions of this book.  The hero is one of those impossibly good-looking men that women lose their minds over, but he's genuinely a very nice guy who only has eyes for the heroine.  The problem?  They had a one-night stand months ago and now they're working together.  She's been burned before by an office romance so is not keen to mix business with pleasure again.  Another added complication is that the heroine's boss is an evil piece-of-work.

The conflict of the heroine's Evil (and naturally, female) Boss is one I'm not a big fan of, but Maher chooses a wise course of action by creating a large cast of sympathetic and interesting secondary players living in the hero's and heroine's orbits.  In other words, while there are two women who put aggressive moves on the hero in this story, they're outnumbered by female characters who do not.  Also, it was just so nice to read about a hero who wasn't a massive Alpha jerk with a whole bunch of Mommy Didn't Love Me baggage.  Bonus points for a well-drawn Washington D.C. setting that doesn't rely on political shenanigans (because, Lord - I just can't right now).  Hard for me to grade given my relationship with the author - but taking that out of the equation?  Probably somewhere around a B-.

Mostly Sunny by Jamie Pope ended up being a DNF around the 40% mark.  It starts out great.  Abandoned by her mentally ill mother, Sunny was raised in the New York City foster care system.  She's now a social worker working on the official adoption of a young girl when the birth mother makes contact with the foster family.  She's afraid the mother will throw a wrench in the works, and goes to the hero who is a lawyer.  He doesn't have experience in the type of law she needs, but she won't take no (or excellent referrals) for an answer so...yeah.

The connection between the heroine and the young girl relies on an amazing coincidence that, I'm sorry, I ain't buying when the book is set in NEW YORK CITY!  The heroine propositioning the hero to try and get her way struck me as wildly out of character and the hero is a jerk.  He doesn't believe in love, proposes to his older, savvy businesswomen girlfriend like it's a business proposition, and she turns him down flat.  Naturally this makes the girlfriend "the problem" while the heroine is then painted with a "not like other girls" brush.  Yeah, I didn't like her, the plot strains, and I wanted him to burn in a pit of fire.  Life's too short and my TBR is too mammoth.

Best Man for the Wedding Planner by Donna Alward features my second least favorite bit of conflict after Fated Mates.  The heroine breaks up with her college sweetheart after she gets cancer that renders her infertile - and he's from this Big Family, naturally everyone is always talking about babies, and instead of talking to him she cuts him off so he won't stand by her only to end up resenting her.  They reunite some years later when she's the wedding planner for a wedding where he's the best man.

I have issues with "I can't give him his OWN children" plot lines for various and sundry reasons, but this is how much of a pro Alward is - I inhaled this book in one sitting.  Yes, it features all the crap about this conflict that I hate, but the heroine's Big Secret is out of the bag before the 50% mark, and the emotional fall-out of the second half gutted me in parts.  Also, I liked that the author actually addresses issues that so many authors ignore with conflict like this - namely that you don't need to squeeze a kid out of your birth canal to be maternal, that family is what you make it, and that just because you lack the lady parts doesn't make you less of a woman.  This is Alward's return to Harlequin Romance and it's like she took no time away at all.  It's very much not my thing, but I recognize that there's very good elements at work here.  My personal grade is probably somewhere in the C range - but readers who dig this sort of conflict will likely grade higher.  Also, something to note: there is definitely NO Miracle Baby Epilogue here.  The heroine no longer has a uterus - so, yeah.

Death of a Neighborhood Scrooge by Laura Levine is the 16th book in the Jaine Austen cozy mystery series.  I used to devour these books, but much like Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, the repetition of the various gags have become stale and I found the last book so offensive that I toyed with the idea of quitting cold turkey.  But, a series you've been invested in for 15 books is not a habit that's easy to break, and I got an ARC for this one so...

This time out Jaine and Lance are Christmas house-sitting in fabulous Bel Air, next door to a sour, cheap-skate former child star who turns up dead.  There's no lack of suspects, but the cops seem to be zeroing in on Jaine.  While the gags have grown stale, Levine returns to form with this book crafting a good mystery with plenty of suspects to choose from.  There's a backhanded slap to the romance genre here (because, of course there is - what the actual hell?!) that annoyed me and the ending is pretty abrupt, but it didn't make me frothing at the mouth angry like the last book, so win?  I guess?  Also, the final chapter is extremely intriguing but my gut tells me Levine will self-destruct the development off page when the next book comes out.  Which, mores the pity.  If she sees it through it may spice up the next entry past the usual, quickly growing tired, gags.  For fans only.  I'm waffling between a C+ and B-.

DNF Review: Falling Hard

I was in the audience when Falling Hard by Lexi Ryan won the RITA for Best Contemporary Romance: Long.  During her acceptance speech, something she said set off my "Ooooh, I love angst" alarm and literally, while siting in the audience, I hopped on my phone and downloaded this book from the library.

And now I'm DNF'ing it at 35%.  I just can't.  And I'm going to tell you why "I just can't."  So consider that your warning for Spoilers Ahoy!

I used to really love first person.  I was, after all, a mystery/suspense reader long before I "found" romance and that particular genre is laden with first person.  But, hand to God romance genre, STOP TRYING TO KILL MY LOVE OF FIRST PERSON!  Ahem.  Yep.  This is dueling first person point-of-view, alternating between hero and heroine.  And just for added kicks, WE ALSO GET FLASHBACKS!!!!  On top of that?  This is New Adult.  Look, I've been reading romance a long time (pretty constantly for 20+ years) and I like to think that just past 40 isn't all THAT old.  But god damn this book made me feel old.  Oh, and the characters pissed me off.  But more on that in a moment.

Emma Rothschild is a former child actress with a dark past.  I gave up before I found out what her Big Secret is, but I'm guessing it's some sort of sexual abuse/assault.  Anyway, her mother is, like, the worst, she's not acting anymore, and she's heading to Vegas with her BFF for a girl's weekend/bachelorette party (her BFF is getting married).  Anyway, her BFF hooks her up with a hot wardrobe and wig so nobody will recognize her.  Because even though she's out of acting, Emma is still a TMZ darling.

Keegan was a college football star, and just got picked up by an NFL team as a free agent (in other words: he's a making-league-minimum kind of player).  He also owns a bar back in his college town (or hometown or whatever - this is part of a series - blah, blah, blah it's all a rich tableau).  Anyway, he got a girl knocked up and now he's a Daddy.  He loves his daughter but couldn't make a relationship with her mother work because she fell for some hotshot quarterback (because of course she did).  Keegan seems nice, so I decide I hate her guts.  Anyway, he goes to Vegas for what's supposed to be a bachelor party for his buddy, but the buddy's woman (and friends!) tag along so it's turned into a couple's weekend thing.  That's when he spots Emma at a nightclub and cannot believe his eyes.  They had a "thing" 5 years ago before she dumped him like a hot potato - with no explanation.  And he's never gotten over her.

OK, so the set-up here has some promise, despite being book four in a series and laden with past couples.  Emma's got secrets, Keegan's got secrets and a complicated life, and we've got the ol' Reunited Lovers trope.  The writing style wasn't doing much for me, other than making me feel frackin' old, but whatever.  I mean, this did win a RITA, so roll with it Wendy.

Then we get to the first sex scene.  The morning after, our couple wakes up with their same secretive baggage with a side of added regrets.  However, they don't have much time to dwell on it since THE HEROINE'S FIANCE SHOWS UP AND KNOCKS ON THE HOTEL ROOM DOOR!

THAT'S RIGHT KIDS - OUR HEROINE IS ENGAGED TO ANOTHER DUDE!

No set-up.  No foreshadowing.  This little nugget is dropped like a fart in an elevator.

And just when you decide you want to yank her hair out by the roots for hurting Mr. Nice Guy hero?  Guess what?  The author drops the bombshell that Keegan was raised by a Con Man Daddy.  When Keegan "met" Emma 5 years ago?  Yeah, Keegan (all on his own) orchestrated the "meet cute" in order to meet Emma so HE COULD CON HER!!!!

Then, presumably, he falls in twu wuv and she breaks his fee-fees and five years later we get him boinking her in Vegas not knowing she's engaged.

I JUST CAN'T EVEN WITH THESE PEOPLE!!!!!

BURN IT ALL DOWN!!!!!!

And that's where I tapped out.  Between the dueling first-person (WITH FLASHBACKS!!!), coupled with two characters who wouldn't know honest it if bit them in the butt I'm beyond caring.  Done.  Done done donity done done.

Final Grade = DNF 

DNF Review: Hanover House

I wouldn't say I'm cheap, more like frugal.  Yes, audiobook sales are about the only corner of the publishing industry making money right now - but yeah...I don't buy audiobooks.  That's why Sweet Baby Jeebus gave us libraries.  The downside to getting all of your audiobooks from the library is that, you know, sometimes you have to wait.  My glom of Marcia Muller is temporarily on hold while I wait my turn for the next book in the series, so I thought I'd listen to Hanover House by Brenda Novak to pass the time.

Oh Wendy.  Foolish, foolish Wendy.

This is a prequel novella to the author's latest romantic suspense series.  Evelyn Talbott is a psychiatrist who specializes in psychopathy.  It's not the sort of thing you would think a gorgeous (because of course she is...) young woman would be interested in - but when she was a teenager her boyfriend murdered her friends and held her captive.  The kicker?  She coughed up her virginity to this guy.  Needless to say 30-something Evelyn doesn't date and doesn't have sex.  Instead she has convinced the government to build a high security prison/hospital/whatever to house and study psychopaths.  The lower 48 were, naturally, not receptive to this proposal, which is why Hanover House is being built in semi-isolated (there's a town nearby) Alaska.

I'll be honest, I wasn't madly in love with this story from the get-go but it was hovering somewhere in middling C territory and I still needed to pass the time before my next audiobook hold came in.  What moved this from Meh Territory into Hell No Territory was at about the halfway point when the heroine heads to Alaska.

The hunky local State Trooper, who was (naturally) against the proposal to house a bunch of psychopaths in his town's backyard, calls to report that the still-under-construction Hanover House has been vandalized.  He suggests that Evelyn may want to mingle with the townsfolk a bit more.  If she's less standoff-ish maybe they'll magically be OK with Hanover House being in the neighborhood.  So he takes her to the local bar where she proceeds to get drunk off her butt (because of course she does), dances with a bunch of the locals, and when she starts dancing with the cop, she starts rubbing up against him and sucking on his neck.

You know, the girl who doesn't date or have sex because she was victimized by a psychopath.  Dump a few drinks in her and she's like a co-ed at a frat party.  Anyway....

Our hero doesn't want to take advantage and hauls her drunk butt back to her house.  She confesses she had to leave her gun in the lower 48 because she didn't want to deal with the hassle of bringing it on the flight to Alaska.  He pours her into bed and then LEAVES HIS GUN ON THE NIGHTSTAND NEXT TO HER BED SO SHE'LL FEEL "SAFE."

WHEN SHE'S BORDERLINE BLACK-OUT DRUNK!!!!!

She wakes up in the morning, notices the gun and the events of the night before (including puking in the hero's truck - seriously) slowly come back.  Then she sees the note taped to her bedroom door "Don't shoot, I'm one of the good guys."

WT-ACTUAL-F?!?!?!

And that's when I was done.  I don't know what I was expecting here, but at the very least, a heroine with a background like this I was maybe expecting someone cool, methodical, analytical, with some vulnerable emotional baggage.  I was not expecting her to morph into a idiot damsel the moment she lands in Alaska, gets an eyeful of the hunky hero and bellyful of booze.

On the bright side, I can now weed the first book in this series out of my TBR because nope.  Nope, nope, nope.  I don't want to see these people ever again.

Final Grade = DNF

Mini-Review: Home to Wickham Falls

I have a devil of a time DNF'ing category romance.  I mean, they're short books, right?  Surely I can suck it up and stick with the story for 200-some measly pages and just finish it, can't I?  Well, no.  Sometimes that's just not possible - even in category romance.  I mean, first off - do you know how big just my category romance TBR is?  Second, as much as I love category romance, I've read a few that have been rage-inducing and I don't enjoy hate-reading, as a general rule. 

I'm happy to report that Home to Wickham Falls by Rochelle Alers is not rage-inducing.  No, it commits the other sin that will make me DNF a category romance:

It's boring.

Sawyer Middleton is a fabulously successful software engineer living in New York City.  He left small town Wickham Falls after a final falling out with his headstrong father and his visits home have been infrequent, much to the pursed-lipped annoyance of his mother and sister.  But Dad has had a heart attack and Sawyer realizes he cannot stay away any longer.

Jessica Calhoun is a single school teacher and BFF's with Sawyer's sister.  She's positively perfect in every way.  She's a dynamite teacher, a fabulous cook, and has an amazing vegetable garden.  She's the sort who shows up with a picnic basket full of food when someone in town has a crisis / medical emergency / relative to bury.  She's also the perfect hostess - because OF COURSE she is.

Look, I get that this is my baggage - but the whole shorthand of heroine being a fabulous cook/hostess/Mother Earth-type and OF COURSE the hero is attracted to her for those qualities - this tends to get on my last good nerve.  But I hate to cook, am as crafty as a rock, and hate gardening because eww, dirt and bugs.  And really, you know what a good hostess is?  Someone who makes sure my wine glass stays full.

Wait a minute, where was I?  Oh yeah...

Conflict?  What conflict?  There is literally NO conflict.  At least for the first 43% of the story which is where I'm giving up.  Basically what you're reading about is two people going about their daily lives - which hey, is true to life but boring as hell in fiction.  It just is.

I literally had the same reaction to this book that I did with my recent foray into Robyn Carr territory.  Like the Carr, this is very Small Town Cutesy and seems to be catering to the readers who WANT that sort of thing.  Look, I read cozy mysteries for a lot of years - so I get it.  But what's disappointing here is that Alers includes some serious underpinnings by way of character development and then just...doesn't do anything with it.  So what could have added richness and depth to the characters is just sort of left there, floating on the surface.

I was going to persevere and finish this because it's not bad, per se - but I was getting to the point where I was unmotivated to pick it up and turning to my audiobook TBR instead.  Yeah, time to move on.

Final Grade = DNF

Catching Up and Various Mini-Reviews

Oh hi there.  Yes, I have a blog.  A blog that I've ignored for over a week.  So what has Wendy been up to?  For one thing, work has been nutty.  I've been dealing with hiring new staff and contracts.  Both very important things, but it's made for long, mentally exhausting days at the office.

Then there's the fact that I finally bit the bullet and bought a FitBit.  Yes, I'm now officially one of The Borg.  So far it's been extremely helpful in holding me accountable.  It's made it easy for me to keep a food journal, track my exercise and smack me in the face with my inactivity during the work week (I sit a lot at my job, which I'm sure is slowly killing me....)

But I have managed to get some reading done - sort of.  I finally wrapped up a series I was neglecting and I got through two audiobooks.  Well, sort of.

You Belong to Me by Karen Rose was an audiobook I had to DNF at the 50% mark because I loathed the heroine.  She's a medical examiner and discovered a dead (and tortured) body on her regular morning run.  It's quickly determined that she was meant to find the body and that the killer is, for some reason, fixated on her.  Then more dead bodies start turning up.  There's a hunky homicide cop hero who is immediately captivated by her and the "romance" goes from zero to 60 in less than 12 hours.  The hero's boss is painted as this unreasonable jerk because he thinks the heroine is hiding something.  Gee, you don't say?

She's keeping secrets.  Some of them are just seriously stupid.  She's a musician.  Nobody can know that for some reason.  She plays the electric violin in a club she owns (while decked out in S&M-like gear because OF COURSE!) with her BFF (who does some weird act with whips - because OF COURSE!) and a defense attorney.  The hero follows her and finds out she's been keeping secrets and while they're having their first "love scene" against a back alley wall, the villain leaves another dead body in the heroine's car.

As if that weren't enough, the heroine justifies not being totally upfront with the cops because it's her private life and she wants to "keep something just for myself."

Yeah, I'm done.  Look cupcake - YOU'RE A MEDICAL EXAMINER!  You work with cops all the time.  Some mad man is out there torturing people to death, it's somehow linked to you, and YOU WANT TO KEEP SOMETHING JUST FOR YOURSELF?!?!?!?  This isn't your first rodeo. Buh bye.

Final Grade = DNF

Unlaced by the Outlaw by Michelle Willingham is the fourth and final book in the author's Secrets in Silk quartet for Amazon Montlake (Attention: Kindle Unlimited users...).  This series has mostly ranged from OK (the majority of the books) to Oh Man, That Was Really Good (the second book).  This book is Margaret's story, the sister who is wound so tight that you'll find diamonds if you follow her into the bathroom.  She's spent the entire series tap dancing around the hero, a totally unsuitable and way beneath her Scottish Highlander-type.

This is the sort of book that wraps up the series well, and is a pleasant distraction while reading, but doesn't have a lot of staying power.  The high points of this series has been Willingham's interesting premise, her not throwing out the history baby with the historical bathwater, and the world-building.  But I'll be honest - I think I prefer the author's medievals to when she ventures into Regency era.

Final Grade = C+

I first discovered Marcia Muller as a teenager, browsing the stacks at my local, small town library.  I'm feeling nostalgic, so decided to relisten to the first book in her Sharon McCone, private investigator series, Edwin of the Iron Shoes on audio.  This was first published in the late 1970s, and mostly holds up well - namely thanks to the McCone character, an independent young woman working and living in San Francisco.

What didn't hold up so well was the homicide cop character of Greg Marcus - who has particular ideas on a woman's role, and refers to Sharon by the incredibly offensive "nickname" Papoose (Sharon is of Native American heritage).  But, if I'm being totally honest - his character fits well within the landscape and era Muller was writing this book in - and guys like Greg Marcus still exist today so....yeah.

The mystery itself was engaging, and the book (on the short side) was a quick listen on audio.  Muller could have fleshed out the secondary characters a bit better, and it reads like a mystery from the late 1970s (stylistically speaking) - but I enjoyed the nostalgia trip.

Final Grade = B-

Mini-Reviews: Dukes and Black Ops

If you're predisposed to hate on all "light historical romance" you'll just want to waltz right past Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare.  Everything about this book will likely have you pulling your hair out and screaming into the abyss.  But if, like me, you believe there is such a thing as "good light historicals" and "soul-sucking kill me already light historicals" - well, this is one of the good ones.

Isolde Goodnight's father made a name for himself writing insipid romantic tales where "little Izzy" played a central role. Think of her like Christopher Robin.  Daddy has died unexpectedly leaving Izzy with nothing other than the goodwill of his many fans (who treat her like a little girl and not a grown spinster of 26) and she's down to her last pennies when she finds out her godfather has bequeathed her Gostley Castle.  One small problem - the castle has a resident, Ransome, the Duke of Rothbury.  Ransome was grievously injured in a duel gone wrong and has been hiding out (all Beast-like) in HIS castle.  So needless to say when Izzy shows up proclaiming the castle is rightly hers he's a might put out.

This is light, charming and achingly romantic in parts - but it helps to go into it with your Fairy Tale Glasses firmly in place.  This is one of those light historicals that take place in Regencyville, Romancelandia with no discernible sense of place (Regency? Early Victorian? I got whiffs of both).  There are some silly inclusions, like Izzy's pet ermine and her father's cosplaying fans.  There are even what I felt were references to The Princess Bride (the movie) and Star Wars (I'm not sure if these were intentional on the part of the author, but it's how I read them.  I could be wrong.)

Some of you are already probably reaching for the vodka, and if you are?  Just save yourself the time and inevitable annoyance by staying far, far away.

That said, there is some depth here - but it tends to reside within the characters' emotions, and their reactions to various situations.  These were the moments that stuck with me and had me happy sighing my way through the book.  Yes, it's silly - but it's a fairy tale wrapped up with a big ol' giant escapist bow.  A pink one.  With maybe some glitter on it.  If that sounds like the sort of thing that appeals you'll love this and beg for seconds.

Final Grade = B

Let me share with you some of the reasons I've enjoyed HelenKay Dimon's books in the past.  1) She writes good action/adventure plots 2) She writes really good, bantering dialogue and 3) She has a knack for writing secondary characters you desperately want follow-up books about.  So it pains me to say that Playing Dirty didn't work for me at all.  In fact I DNF'ed it at the 25% mark because I was bored and didn't care.

Ford works Black Ops for Alliance, a secretive undercover unit for MI6 and the CIA.  There's anywhere from 3 to 25 hot hunky guys running around in the first 7 chapters, all of them interchangeably hunky and hot, swearing when a operation goes south (which it does - twice in the first 7 chapters) and really, I don't care.  Some wunderkind scientist has invented some evil chemical thingie that some bad guy has stolen and Ford is leasing an apartment in the heroine's building, getting close to her, because she's wunderkind scientist's cousin.  He's naturally boning her every chance he gets and explains his constant travel and workaholic tendencies on a fictional IT job.

Shay is the heroine and basically her job in the first 7 chapters is to talk in innuendo with Ford, stay off page when he's out playing Black Ops stud with all those interchangeable hunky future heroes, and have sex with him when he is around.  Seriously.  Seven chapters, three sex scenes.  Oh wait, she does have a conversation with her uncle!  So she can do something else besides stand around and wait for the hero to bone her.

Here's the problem: I am a very heroine-centric romance reader.  If you're all about hot studly manly heroes because OMG THEY ARE SO HOT AND HUNKY!!!!! -  maybe you'll love this.  There is nothing in the first 25% to give me an inkling of why I should care about Shay and all Ford seems to do is feel guilty that he's deceiving her and get cranky about work.  Blah, blah, blah - whatever.

Here's the thing: I've enjoyed similar set-ups like this in the past.  Dimon's Harlequin Intrigues feature Black Ops-style military-like units with a bevy of hunky guys standing around and I really enjoyed those.  I think I know why - short word count = tighter pacing and plotting.  Here?  None of this was holding my attention and I was getting more unreasonably annoyed by the minute.  Having liked this author's work in the past (quite a bit!), I'm chalking this up to This Series Is Not My Jam.

Final Grade = DNF

All Aboard the DNF Boat

I strive to not write reviews that are too spoiler heavy, but in the case of DNF reviews I find that an impossible task.  I tend to DNF when the book takes what I see as the "wrong fork in the road," which generally means Spoiler Territory Ahoy.  So if you'd like to remain ignorant of spoilers for Deception Island, a debut romantic suspense novel by Brynn Kelly - this is your warning.

Spoilers Ahead Me Mateys!

I'm always on the lookout for compelling romantic suspense, so decided to take a chance on this debut novel.  It starts out promising enough but slides into Oh, Hella No territory for me the minute the heroine's Big Secret is exposed.

Holly Ryan is being paid to impersonate a pampered US Senator's daughter.  Seems Laura took it in her head to sail around the world and when Daddy said no, she went to the press anyway.  So the compromise is to have Holly sail the "rough bits" and in exchange she'll get money.  Holly just got out of prison, having been sent there by her con man boyfriend who threw her to the wolves to save his own skin.  She's needs the money to start over.

Instead Holly gets kidnapped by three goons, which is live streamed over the internet thanks to the yacht being outfitted with web cams.  Holly manages to take out two of the goons, but she cannot thwart Rafe Angelito, a French legionnaire / Black Ops-type hero who has to kidnap the heiress because A Bad Man has kidnapped his 9-year-old son.  The Bad Man is linked to Rafe's traumatic past as a child soldier in some third world country that's never named (at least during the 40% I read), so to have his son in the clutches of this guy is causing him to understandably freak out.

Rafe takes Holly to some remote tropical island that is apparently a secluded honeymoon destination to await instructions.  Once the Senator pays the ransom, presumably Rafe gets his kid back.  Of course what he doesn't know is that Holly isn't who he thinks she is - which she's not about to enlighten him about since hello?  She wants to stay alive.

OK, honestly?  The plot here is pretty far fetched - but this is romantic suspense, and a certain amount of over-the-top-ness should be expected.  I probably would have rolled with it all better if the plot wasn't so obvious.  Since Holly's kidnapping was live-streamed, what's to stop the Senator from "staging" a rescue, showing the world his daughter is OK and hanging Holly out to dry?  I'm not a bad guy and heck, it's what I would do - and it's the question I immediately started asking the minute Holly is kidnapped.  This thought never crosses Holly mind, until, of course, that's EXACTLY what happens.  And when Rafe finds out that Holly is an ex-con and not the Senator's daughter he snaps - and I snap right along with him.

In a rage, he grabs Holly and chokes her.  YES, CHOKES HER.  To the point where her survival instincts kick in and she "plays dead."  That's when our "hero" snaps out of it, cradles her in his arms and is all "Oh what have I done!"  Holly revives, they start baring their souls, Rafe comes up with a plan and Holly is all like, "I'm coming with you to rescue your kid."

Go back and reread that last paragraph.  If your jaw isn't hitting the floor yet - this should do it.  Rafe is all like, "Why do you want to help me, I just tried to choke you to death" (which is explained as sort of an "out of body" moment stemming from his horrific child soldier days).  And do you know what genius Holly says?  "But you didn't.  I don't believe you're capable of it."

HE JUST TRIED TO CHOKE YOU TO DEATH AND THE ONLY REASON HE STOPPED WAS BECAUSE YOU PLAYED DEAD AND YOU THINK HE'S NOT CAPABLE OF IT?!?!?!?!?!?

Done.  I was so done. I don't care how crappy a hero's childhood is - and yes, being a child soldier is beyond way crappy.  But I'm sorry.  There's no excuse for CHOKING THE HEROINE WHEN YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE HERO!  Which means now I'm immediately questioning his emotional and mental stability and quite frankly, her intelligence.  I don't want to read a romance about these people.  I want him under stringent psychiatric care and I want her hit by a bus.  For a heroine who has supposedly been a con woman and IN PRISON, her lack of self-preservation is flabbergasting.

No.  Just....no.  Deal me out.

Final Grade = DNF

Review: Wendy's War On Christmas

I made a promise to myself at the start of 2016 that I would give myself permission to DNF more - and that includes ARCs. A Christmas Seduction by Daire St. Denis is only the 10th book I’ve DNF’ed this year, which goes to show that I’m terrible with resolutions. And I almost didn’t give up on this. It is, after all, a category romance, and I’ve never been all that good with DNF’ing category (hey, it’s only 200 pages - why not just finish it and see if it gets better?). But at the 18% mark I came to the realization that I wanted to throat punch the couple - so yeah, DNF I did.

Jolie Duval is a journalist who, instead of spending the holidays with her family, has decided to celebrate Christmas at a remote Montana ranch. There she meets hunky handyman Thaddeus Knight and she gets a hankering to unwrap him for holidays.

A pretty standard set-up, so where does it go wrong? Thad gets off on the wrong foot right away when, after driving for an hour in terrible conditions, Jolie arrives at the ranch to be greeted by his three dogs. Dogs that go running up to strangers and proceed to jump all over them (one of the dogs is named “Humper” so that should give you an idea). Jolie is terrified of dogs (we find out later she was bit by one as a child) and that’s enough for Thad to jump to all sorts of conclusions.

Four things tipped him off to her city-girl status. Her designer clothes, her designer bag, her ridiculous footwear and her fear of animals.

BURN IT! BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!!! 

OK. Look. First off - lots of folks don’t care for dogs. Especially dogs that jackass heroes fail to train properly. Also living in the city does not equate to “fear of animals.” Lots of folks who live in urban areas have pets. Heck, I’ve lived in urban areas where people are allowed to keep their own dang chickens. And what, people who live in rural areas can’t wear designer clothes? Hello?! Online shopping, anyone?!?! 

Then there’s Jolie - who is the sort of brain-dead ninny who spies a hot tub at the ranch, a hot tub that is not private and in a public area and even though she didn’t pack a swimsuit hey, why not just strip down nekkid and hop right in. I mean, seriously Wendy - how else do you expect the hero to spy her hot nekkid-ness and go all warm for her form? /end sarcasm.

Then there’s the small matter of why Jolie is spending the holidays by herself, which was enough for me to roll my eyes so far back in my head I think they got stuck like that for about 5 minutes:

As theirs was an atheist household, Jolie’s parents did not approve of using the word Christmas. Instead they called it “the holiday,” “the twenty-fifth” - anything but “Christmas.”

So we’re just going to ignore the fact that early church leaders melded the story of Jesus’ nativity with existing pagan winter holidays and traditions (look it up). Brain-bleed inducing “War on Christmas” aside - winter holidays are not the exclusive domain of Christianity. Many other religions celebrate this time of year. Atheists celebrate this time of year. For many people it’s an opportunity to be with family and friends, reflect on the year soon to be past, and count our blessings. And what are Jolie’s Satanist parents doing when she calls to deliver the news she won’t be home for the holiday? They’re planning a family dinner. SHOCK! HORROR!

Since the heroine doesn't want to spend time with them, and their atheism is specifically called out as the reason "why" - what does this imply, exactly?  That somehow not believing in some way makes you an "undesirable" person whose own daughter doesn't want to be around you.  Seriously.  This is romance.  This is the best reason the author could come up with?  What happened to the old stand-by of Mom is judgemental and keeps pressuring the heroine to get married and pop out grandbabies?

Which brings us to the moment when Jolie begins her “real Christmas” adventures. Does she crack open a Bible? Does she find out where the nearest church is? No. Her, Thad, and the other guests go out to cut down a Christmas tree. Because, you know, Christmas trees featuring so prominently in the story of Jesus’s birth. Right after Mary laid that baby in the manger her and Joseph started stringing up tinsel in the animal stalls. (Grab your hip boots folks, the sarcasm is getting deep around here!).

And that was enough for me. I disliked Thad, his stupid assumptions and his dumb-as-bricks untrained dogs. I hated the assumption that unless you’re Christian that somehow the holiday season can have zero meaning to a person. My Kindle overfloweth so...

Final Grade = DNF

Mini-Reviews: Sheikhs and a DNF

Work has been busy, which means Wendy has been tired, which means Wendy is still limping along with her reading and not blogging a whole lot.  Plus I had to watch my Detroit Tigers not make the post-season.  Well, hey.  No more baseball to watch, so maybe I'll start reading again?  One can hope.  That said, I do have a few recent reads where I don't have a ton to say, so it's time for another round of mini-reviews!

The Widow and the Sheikh by Marguerite Kaye is the start of a new series and was a garden variety "It's OK" read for me.  It was a pleasant way to pass the time, but it didn't light a fire in me the way some of Kaye's other work has.

Julia Trevelyan is a botanist and widow now traveling in the middle of the Arabian desert fulfilling her husband's dying wish.  Complete his magnum opus on exotic plant species, see it published, and get him all the accolades he so richly deserves.  Julia is a skilled illustrator and while not a love match, she did share her husband's passion for the work.  But now she's stranded in the middle of an oasis after her feckless guides drug and rob her.  She's rescued by Azhar, a wealthy merchant passing through on his way home.  Turns out Azhar is a Prince, and with his estranged father's death is now the sheikh - a position he's conflicted about considering his father's last words to him involved disowning him.

Azhar wrestles with his past, family baggage, and expectation.  Julia wrestles with memories of an unhappy marriage (no abuse, more like disinterest) and completing the book.  They spend time together, fall in love, yada yada yada.

There was nothing overtly wrong with this story, I just wasn't entranced by it.  I generally like Kaye's work (the Armstrong Sisters series is especially strong), so I'll read the next book in the series.  I've seen other positive reviews so this is likely a "It's me, not you" sort of thing.  Final Grade = C+

 Never Seduce a Sheikh by Jackie Ashenden was a Kindle freebie that I downloaded based on author name recognition.  Many moons ago I was asking the Twitter hive for recent sheikh books, and Molly O'Keefe suggested another title in this series, but since I already had this one in the TBR I started here.

Lily Harkness is the newly minted CEO of Harkness Oil and has a lot to prove.  1) She's taking over for her father and 2) She's a girl.  She's visiting Sheikh Isma'il al Zahar's country in the hopes of securing their oil rights.  Isma'il has inherited the kingdom from his tyrannical father and has a lot to prove.  He needs to work out the best possible deal for his country and he's not convinced Lily Harkness is the woman for the job.

In a nutshell - ball-busting businesswoman trying to make everyone get over the fact she's a woman and a hero who felt like a bit of a throwback to me.  Very Alpha.  Very challenging.  A heroine who is supposedly tough (and a former Olympic swimmer to boot) but is vulnerable and still struggling with past event that haunts her (spoiler: not rape, but a sexual assault by a trusted adult).  I found this to be a very challenging read mostly because of the skewed power dynamics.  There were elements at play here that felt Old School Harlequin Presents in some ways.  Also I can totally see some readers being displeased by yet another portrayal of a "tough businesswoman" who really isn't all that much.  Then there's the ending.  While I appreciated that the author addressed ethical issues, the final resolution will likely displease some.

All that being said, this is the first book I've read in a while that really stuck with me in the respect that I thought about it afterward.  It had me puzzling over issues addressed, the authorial choices made, and I spun it around in my head for a couple days after.  This is, quite frankly, a minor miracle given the way my reading mood has been of late.  Certainly not for everybody, and my recommendation is really reserved, but I'm not sorry I read this.  Final Grade = B-

Magnate by Joanna Shupe is a book that was tailor made for me.  Gilded Age New York!  Robber barons!  A hero raised in Five Points!  This should have been Wendy Catnip.  And it was...until it wasn't.  Minor spoilers ahead.

Elizabeth Sloane is a blue-blooded miss with a head for stock trading.  The problem being that she's a woman, women can't trade on the exchange, and her brother would never hear of it.  She wants to open her own brokerage firm and goes to see Emmett Cavanaugh, steel magnate, and a man she thinks is her brother's friend (ha ha ha ha ha! Uh, no.) to propose a partnership.  A self-made man, Cavanaugh has a massive chip on his shoulder and Lizzy's proposal has him suspecting that maybe her brother's railroad isn't as healthy as it seems.  He sees this as an opportunity to take William Sloane down a few pegs.

So this sounds great, right?  A heroine bristling against society conventions, who wants to work, meeting her match in a ruthless self-made man who has an ax to grind with her brother.  The world-building is wonderful, Shupe paints the opulent excess of the Gilded Age marvelously and doesn't shy away from portraying her robber baron characters as ruthless and skirting the boundaries of fair business practices. Basically, they're jerks of the first order.  Hey, Carnegie did build a ton of libraries but he wasn't a nice guy either.

And then it all goes to heck in a hand-basket.  Lizzy and Emmett get caught in a compromising position and William basically blackmails Emmett into "doing right" by his sister.  Lizzy is shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU, that her brother thinks she needs to now marry Emmett (why should anyone care?) and is horrified when she finds out that blackmail was involved and that Emmett was "forced" to marry her and doesn't love her.

OH COME ON NOW!!!!!

Given how great I found the world-building to have this devolve into yet another historical romance featuring a heroine who has nary a care in the world when it comes to societal mores and who is determined to marry for twu wuv drove me batty.  The Sloane parents are dead - but Lizzy gets out in society.  She has a best girlfriend.  How could she think for one second that she couldn't NOT get married after being caught in a compromising situation?  Of course her brother would force the issue to protect her reputation.  As a woman YOUR REPUTATION IS ALL YOU HAD!!!  A passionate kiss in a private dining room?  Lizzy girl, you're basically a whore now.  She's never heard gossip about other society chits who "got into trouble?"  She never saw a "whore" get shunned by her former social circle?  Really?!?!?!  REALLY NOW!?!?!?!?!

I cannot express how much this irritated me.  It irritated me so much that even though I'm halfway through the book the thought of finishing it just irritates me even more.  For some this will seem like a silly thing to nit-pick over, but ugh - Wendy irritated!  Wendy smash!  There's a lot glowing reviews out there, so obviously I'm in the minority here - and Lord help me I'll likely try another book in this series to see how it goes because after all...Gilded Age New York.  I am nothing, if not predictable.  But seriously, what could have been.  Final Grade = DNF

Mini-Reviews: Cranky Wendy Being Cranky

This latest round of mini-reviews is where Wendy is going to show her figurative underpants.  I'll be honest - there's a certain segment of "literary fiction" I just don't get.  The You're Nothing Without an MFA and Let Me Write In Circles To Show You How Smart I Am segment of "literary fiction."

Which brings us to The Girls by Emma Cline.  This is debut novel by a young author who got some crazy-stupid advance ($2 million dollars. For a debut novel.)  It's getting glowing reviews all over the place.  Seriously, just Google it - I'm not linking to them all.  Everybody and their Dead Grandmother thinks this is the bestest book in the whole world and OMG IT'S MAGIC! 

The plot, in a nutshell, would be like if Charles Manson and Jim Jones had an illegitimate love child.  It follows a 14-year-old girl in Northern California who falls in with a cult.  I'm not sure how you make that boring enough to make me want to drive bamboo shoots underneath my fingernails, but there you go.  I got through over 3 hours of a 9 hour audiobook and was so bored out of my mind that the thought of getting in my car and listening to it during my commute had me thinking affectionately about inane DJ chatter.

Endless musings about complete nothingness, and dialogue?  Who needs dialogue?  (By far my biggest gripe with the literary fiction world is that dialogue is seen as some odious four-letter word.  You know how fun it is to read a NOVEL with close to zero dialogue?  Yeah, it blows.)

Since I slogged through the audio, I'm cribbing some examples of the writing from a GoodReads reviewer.  I did get to this part of the "story" and the only thing keeping my eyes from crossing was that I was driving. I can't cross my eyes and drive at the same time:

I ate in the blunt way I had as a child—a glut of spaghetti, mossed with cheese. The nothing jump of soda in my throat.

I tended to the in-between spaces of other people’s existences, working as a live-in aide. Cultivating a genteel invisibility in sexless clothes, my face blurred with the pleasant, ambiguous expression of a lawn ornament.

Now imagine page after endless page of that with close to zero dialogue to break it up.  And THIS is the latest "it" book everyone is raving about. 

The older I get the more I realize that I want a storyteller.  Give me a good story.  Engage me with interesting characters and dialogue.  Have a bloody point to what you're writing.  I was essentially 1/3 of the way through the book and I wanted to bang my head repeatedly against my car's steering wheel to JUST. MAKE. IT. STOP. ALREADY.

Philistine, thy name is Wendy - but I'll be over here reading a romance novel thankyouverymuch.

Final Grade = DNF

Kinsey and Me: Stories by Sue Grafton is a short story (duh) collection.  The first half of the book is a collection of stories featuring Grafton's female private detective character, Kinsey Milhone.  Like all short story collections, some of the stories are better than others.  If you're already a fan of Grafton's character and series - these stories will be marginally interesting.  It's like visiting an old friend.  That said, there's nothing terribly earth-shattering here.  Even as a Kinsey fan, I feel like had I never gotten around to this collection?  That would have been OK.  So basically....meh.

The second half of the collection are stories featuring "Kit Blue" and they're semi-autobiographical stories Grafton wrote after her mother died.  I know this is going to come out sounding cruel, your mother dying is no joke, but I feel like Grafton should have left the therapy writing in her desk drawer.  Again, it's endless pages of zero dialogue, musings about whatever, and the stories fail to hang together in any cohesive way (they jump around in time and space).  Frankly the whole thing came off as self-indulgent to me - which I know makes me sound like a horrible person - but whatever.  I'm sure a writer is going to write to cope with emotions, times of grief - I get that.  Doesn't mean they all have to be published.

Final Grade = C-

No Author Is Immune: Anatomy of a DNF

There are certain authors I read for very specific reasons.  I read Beverly Jenkins for her heroines.  She writes great heroines.  Smart, self-reliant, with a touch of sass.  Jenkins writes the sort of heroines who don't need a romance.  If a romance never came along, they'd be just fine.  No, they deserve a romance and as the reader you want to see them get their happy ending.

Work had Always And Forever on audio and despite my mental block of listening to romance, I thought I'd try it.  I was mostly enjoying it until...well, until the sex ruined everything.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Warning, warning! Thar Be Spoilers Ahoy!

Grace Atwood has been left at the altar.  Her mother died when she was young.  Her banker father valued that his daughter had a brain in her head and raised her to be independent.  In fact, after he passes, Grace has taken over running the bank.  Finally, at 30, she thinks she's found The One.  Only to have her groom throw her over at the altar when the wealthier woman he was pursuing agrees to marry him.  Grace then has to face the guests, return the wedding gifts, and deal with the inevitable talk that follows - but she does so with her head held high.  That said, when her cousin in Kansas asks her to coordinate finding some mail-order brides of good, quality backgrounds?  Grace goes all in.

Grace has no trouble finding the brides and decides that they will travel by wagon.  Jim Crow is now firmly entrenched and she can't risk the women traveling by train (where they would either have to travel in cattle cars, or be dumped out in the middle of nowhere by racist, unethical conductors).  It will take longer, but a wagon train seems the wiser course of action.  But she needs to hire a man to lead the wagon train and that's when she stumbles upon Jackson Blake, a Texan With a Past who is now living in a Chicago whorehouse.

This is all fairly straight forward.  Headstrong heroine, Alpha hero, wagon train heading west.  Sparks fly, banter exchanged, sexual tension you can see for miles.  Interesting characters and amusing exchanges (Grace's great-aunts are fantastic, as is a scene when secondary character Loreli Winters dispatches some bandits).  The plotting could have been tighter in some spots (Do I really care that Grace's ancestor was a pirate?  No.  No I do not.), but this was hovering somewhere around a B or B- for a good long while.

But then it happened.  The sex scene.

There actually wasn't anything wrong with the sex.  A little flowery, but again - I was listening to this on audio and I, admittedly, have a difficult time with someone reading me sex scenes.  No, it was the aftermath that landed this firmly in my I Cannot Be Bothered To Continue pile.

Jackson is all like, sure Grace I'm all for us burning up the sheets - but you'll have to marry me if you get pregnant because ain't no way I'm letting a child of mine be born without my name.  Of course they're getting all hot and heavy by this point and Grace is all like, "Whatever cowboy just do me already!!!!" and, you know, they do.  Then Jackson is all like, "Well now you have to marry me because you're carrying my child." 

That's right - they've literally just had sex.  The one time.  And Jackson, who obviously has delusions he's a Great Swami besides a cowboy, tells Grace she's now pregnant and that she will, in no uncertain terms, marry him.  Grace is naturally a little peeved by his high-handedness never mind that THEY DON'T KNOW FOR SURE IF SHE'S PREGNANT!!!!

I'm not kidding.  He pulls out and basically is all like, now we get married.  Grace resists, he threatens to wire her great-aunts, she's all like, you're a jerkface, he wires her aunts, they show up and say, "Honey you should marry that man."  Nevermind that NOBODY KNOWS IF GRACE IS EVEN PREGNANT!!!!  She hasn't even had a late period yet.  SERIOUSLY?!?!?!?!?!??!

I just couldn't deal anymore.  I think the objective was to show the reader that Jackson is a good, honorable man who wouldn't use the heroine for mere sexual gratification and then dispose of her cruelly.  Never mind that he agreed to take on the wagon train because he has plans to go back to Texas to avenge his father's murder.  He's going to railroad the heroine into marriage first THEN go off to Texas to possibly get himself killed.  His demanding marriage, him just immediately knowing she MUST be pregnant, all the while he has plans to leave the heroine behind while he's off to seek revenge - well, it annoyed me no end.   

We Had Sex One Time Ergo Of Course You MUST Be Pregnant Because I Am Strong And Virile With The World's Most Amazing Super Sperm!!!!!  Mwhahahahahaha!

And while I'm at it - the guy was living in a Chicago whorehouse.  I know since the dawn of time birth control has largely been an issue women have dealt with (and Grace, while 30, is a virgin...) - but dude.  He didn't pick up any pointers at all?  Of course he's a man - he probably couldn't be bothered.

So yeah. I'm out. I don't know if Grace is really pregnant and I don't know if Jackson ends up going to Texas after all but....ugh. I'm done caring.

Final Grade = DNF