Review: Devil's Cut

I'm old enough to remember when J.R. Ward first launched her Black Dagger Brotherhood series and each new installment was Must Read TV uh, Reads.  It was all anybody talked about in Romancelandia for weeks months on end.  I never got hooked on the series for a myriad of reasons that I won't bore you with (OK, fine if you insist - the weak-as-tea-strained-through-a-sock heroines, the completely inane dialogue, the Scribe Virgin thing that made no sense....), but when I first heard about her new Bourbon Kings series - I couldn't help myself.  I am, without a doubt, completely and hopelessly addicted to soap operas.  I'm largely a recovering addict.  I've given up the hard liquor of daytime soaps, but I'm still drinking the wine of prime time (I don't care what anybody says - Game of Thrones is TOTALLY a soap opera).  But given my less than sterling opinion of Ward's BDB books, I approached this new contemporary series a bit wary.  And then, just like listening to a BDB fan justify her need for a fix, there I was hooked on Ward's brand of Southern-Fried Soapy Shenanigans.  "Yes, the books are problematic but...but...but...."  

Devil's Cut is the third and final book in the trilogy and God bless her, Ward manages to wrap up the entire train wreck (no small feat) and leave me with the satisfying, refreshed feeling of a particularly well mixed mint julep.

Warning: There will be spoilers for the first two books in this series.

Last we saw the Bradford-Baldwine clan Lane was trying to divorce his trophy wife who was carrying his father's baby so he could be with his One True Love, gardener Lizzie; Gin had just gotten married to the abusive Richard Pforde and was concealing the fact that her 16-year-old daughter Amelia was the product of her never-on-always-off affair with lawyer Samuel T. Lodge; Edward, broken by a South American kidnapping his Daddy arranged was cooling his heels in jail after confessing to killing the man; Sutton Smythe, CEO of her family's company was still pining for Edward; Lane's friend Jeff was trying to save the Bradford Bourbon Company from the shambles the not-dearly-departed William Baldwine left it in; and Miss Aurora, (there's no nice way to put this - the most blatant Mammy character I've ever read) was lying in a hospital bed dying from an aggressive form of cancer.

So yeah, train wreck.

And yet, somehow, Ward makes it all work.  It's not always pretty (like the resolution to the Lane's soon-to-be-ex knocked up by his Daddy story line) and the problematic elements somehow manage to get more problematic (seriously, Miss Aurora...), but darn it all if I even wasn't happy that things work out OK for Gin in the end (OMG, that woman - seriously).  The whole series is one giant Oh No He/She Didn't! after another.

And yet, it's shocking to me that this series hasn't done better.  With each new book I kept hearing that the sales weren't as robust as the publisher was hoping for - to which my theory is that they weren't marketing correctly.  When the first book appeared I think a lot of Ward fans (especially the lapsed ones...) were hoping she was returning to her contemporary romance roots.  And while there are romances here (everybody ends up paired off in the end), it's not the series' strong suit.  Also, Ward doesn't follow an individual sibling with each new installment (there isn't a Lane book, then an Edward book, then a Gin book etc.).  This is straight-up family drama for the Dallas and Dynasty set. It's 1980s-like glamour reading the likes we haven't seen since Judith Krantz.

Folks, this is whole series is beach reading.  I mean, truly - beach reading.  Not like when those sad sacks who, when you ask them to recommend you a beach read, suggest you pick up Jane Austen (seriously, who does that?!  I'm sorry, when I go to the beach I want Jackie Collins.  Darcy can go hang.)

And that's where publishing missed the boat.  Because I am not the only one.  I am not the only one who grew up at my mother's knee watching soaps and got through college on a wing, a prayer, and a healthy heaping helping of Melrose Place.  That's who this series is speaking too.  Yes, it's got issues. Frankly, it's got a whole host of them.  But if you're going to ask me if I care?  Yeah, I don't.  I'm going to sit over here and hope that Ward decides to write The Bourbon Kings: The Next Generation.

Final Grade = B

Sugar Withdrawal & Mini-Reviews

Remember when Wendy used to blog regularly?  Ah, yes.  The Good Old Days.  To condense this down to a few words without (too much) whining: work = busy, current US political climate = dumpster fire, some of my social media = #willfulignorance + #readabookalready.  Add to this that at the start of 2017 I made a pact with myself to take better care of my health.  This has led to a slew of doctor appointments - the first of which was a physical where my blood work showed I have "borderline" high cholesterol and a Vitamin D deficiency.

So, cholesterol.  Not really surprising since I have the sophisticated palate of a 13-year-old boy.  This means I am seriously watching what I eat.  No fast food (none), exercising a lot more, and trying to curb my refined sugar intake in the hopes of dropping some weight.  This last one has been...hard.  I can't remember the last piece of chocolate I had which should tell you what sort of mood I've been in.  The a-lot-less-sugar thing coupled with current events?  The good news is I haven't seriously hurt anyone.  Yet, anyway.

And how the heck do you live in one of the sunniest areas in the world and have a Vitamin D deficiency?!?!  Oh yeah, go to work in the dark.  Come home in the dark.  The whole see-through Irish complexion and I hear skin cancer sucks thing.  Sigh.  Follow-up appointment with the doc this week.  I'm on Week 2 with zero refined sugar junk food.  He'll be lucky if I don't stab him with a pencil.

+++++

My reading has been almost non-existent but I have finished two books in recent memory.  I finally listened to The Angel's Share by J.R. Ward, the second book in her trashy soap opera Bourbon Kings series.  The (supposed) trilogy follows the trial and tribulations of the Bradford clan, a family dynasty that built their fortune in Kentucky bourbon.  Once I let-go of the fact that the first book didn't work as a romance, the recovering soap opera addict in me loved every naughty minute of it.  

This installment felt very much like a "placeholder" or "set-up" book.  For reader's expecting a lot of Edward in this book (and I was one of them) - don't hold your breath.  He's in here - but it's basically a continuation of Lane, Lizzie, Gin's self-destruction with some of Edward's various secrets tossed in for flavor.  We finally meet the Bradford matriarch in this book, Gin's "secret baby" (OK, teenager) Amelia shows up, and wild child brother Maxwell returns.  The characterizations are still board as heck with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and I could have done without all the Lane/Lizzie kissie-face nonsense (yes, they're a couple now - they're so in lurve - we get it already!)

I've heard this is only supposed to be a trilogy, but there's a lot left to tie up here.  Lane's still got to extricate himself from Wife #1, there's Daddy Bradford's murder, Edward's messed up love life, their drug-addicted mother, the cluster that is Gin's personal life, and Maxwell's mysterious return. There's a lot still hanging up in the air.  I'm enjoying this series, but I'll be honest, if Ward pulls a Karen Marie Moning or Sylvia Day and stretches out this series past the "original plan" of a trilogy? I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about that.

Final Grade = B

+++++

It took me the better part of a month to get through Dark Fissures by Matt Coyle, not because it was bad - but more likely it was my mood.  I thought I was in the mood for "dark," but perhaps not?  Anyway, this is the third book in a series about Rick Cahill, a former cop suspected by nearly everyone of murdering his wife.  Now a private investigator, Rick is barely eking out a living (the bank is thisclose to foreclosing on his house) when Brianne Colton hires him.  The cops say that her estranged husband, a former Navy SEAL turned cop, committed suicide.  Brianne doesn't buy it.  Rick's not sure he does either, but the fact that the dead man worked for the La Jolla Police Department, whose chief is, at best, corrupt and, at worst, gunning for Rick, complicates matters.

This series very much fits the mold of California crime noir.  The archetype of a lone hero (almost anti-hero) fighting a corrupt system has been around forever for a reason.  For the first half of this story I was ready to declare it stood alone from the "series baggage" well - but that ultimately changes.  Events in the preceding book definitely come into play, so starting the series here will put newcomers at a disadvantage.  I liked the suspense angle, but had a harder time with the pacing.  By the time I got to around 80% on my Kindle I was thinking, "Wow, he's going to need to wrap this up quick or else it's Cliffhanger Ahoy!"  I'm happy to report there's no cliffhanger, but the result is a rushed, almost mad-cap ending, and the world's most jarring epilogue.  I felt a bit hungover after it all.  The author wraps up some dangling threads (namely the police chief bent on bringing down Rick) but it's dashed off in a few sentences.  It felt really fast, especially after the deliberate pace set forth during the first 80% of the book.  I enjoyed it, as I do most lone wolf noir novels, but the ending really brought it down a notch.  I've enjoyed this series to date, but this one was weaker than the first two books.

Final Grade = B-

Review: The Bourbon Kings

Over the years I've heard countless stories from romance readers on how they discovered the genre - and 9 times out of 10 it involves the ubquitous grocery sack of Harlequins they found in their 1) Mom's closet 2) Grandma's closet or 3) in the house of the woman they used to babysit for.  This, sadly, did not happen for me during my wee impressionable pre-Super Librarian days.  No.  Mom and Grandma didn't read romance novels.  They watched soap operas.

My God-fearing grandmother who used to scold me for using words like "hell" and "damn" would let me watch Dallas with her.  For those of you who watched that soap too?  Yeah, I know.  Grandma was warped.  Mom has been watching The Young and the Restless since it debuted on television.  My way of unwinding in college was watching four daytime soaps (Y&R, The Bold and the Beautiful, One Life to Live, General Hospital) not to mention this was the era of Melrose Place.  Seriously, it's amazing I managed to graduate.

So trust me when I say Wendy knows her soaps.  And while I've cut the cord on Daytime Drama, I'm still keenly susceptible to soapy goodness when it creeps into genre reading.  Despite not really "getting" the whole Black Dagger Brotherhood "thing" (I can't get past the craptastic dialogue that Ward writes in those books - but to each her own...), I read the description of The Bourbon Kings and was sunk.

Folks, I'm here to tell you - it's like Dynasty and Dallas had a baby and then decided to get that baby hooked on meth.  It's that over the top.  It's that soapy.  OMG, it's the trashiest trashtastic trash I've read in a dog's age.  And I mostly mean that as a compliment.

The trick to this book is to not expect any sort of compelling contemporary romance.  I think I was at first, and it was a hurdle I needed to get over.  The Bradford family is insanely wealthy, an American dynasty that made their fortune in Kentucky bourbon.  The family is a mess, a mother living in a drug-induced haze, an abusive father, a wounded/scarred/drunkard older brother, a spoiled princess of a daughter, another son who has literally vanished off the face of the Earth and our hero - prodigal son Lane who comes home to take care of old business - namely divorcing his trophy wife and picking up with his One True Love, head estate gardener, Lizzie King.

That's right, the hero is married.  He's also the sort of hero that everyone seems to keep making excuses for - including our heroine.  Nothing is ever really his fault.  Granted he gets railroaded into his marriage....but still.  Lizzie is our martyr, Lane is the golden boy - if you've watched one soap opera you know exactly where this is going.  As I said, as a romance this one isn't firing on all cylinders.  I mean, THE HERO IS MARRIED TO SOMEONE ELSE!

Where the book does excel is the family drama.  The reader spends just as much time with brooding wounded older brother Edward, and spoiled princess with a haunted past, Gin.  There's back-stabbing, double-dealing, and generally loathsome people doing loathsome things and yet I. Couldn't. Look. Away.

Is this subtle?  Hardly.  Everything here is broad-strokes.  It's about as subtle as the BDB books, which is to say sort of like a chainsaw.  Or like a jackhammer going off outside your bedroom window at 3AM.  On a school night.  Every single female character in this book, outside of the heroine, is vile to the point where I seriously began to wonder if Ward hates women.  They're all botoxed and blonde and evil and/or blackmailing a man because they're pregnant with his baby.  The old Romancelandia trick of making every other uterus look like the devil so that the heroine will look like Mother Mary standing next to them.  There's also some extremely problematic elements like an elderly woman of color who is basically portrayed like a cross between Mammy and Aunt Jemima (she's a cook who Lane views as a mother figure) and when one of the characters finds herself tossed in jail she's horrified that one of the prostitutes might "cough AIDS on her."

Um, yeah.

Eventually Lane and Lizzie get their happy ending - sort of.  I mean, it's hard to say because the Family Drama ramps up to 10,000th degree by the final chapter.  Gin finds herself tied up with a vile man (spoiler w/trigger warning: he rapes her after she agrees to marry him - seriously, this book!) and looking at the description of the next book, it seems Edward is heading into Love Triangle territory. Oh and did I mention there's a secret baby?  Yeah, there's one of those too.  I'm beginning to wonder if the long lost brother, Maxwell, will show up in the shower one morning and tell us all it was just a dream.

So where does this leave me?  Hungover with no idea how to grade this one.

Recovering Soap Opera Addict Wendy Grade = A++++++++ SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Jaded Wendy With a Hangover Grade = Uh, a C?  Honestly, I have no idea.