Year In Review 2012: TBR Challenge Reads

This year marked the third year I completed, and second year I hosted, the TBR Challenge.  This reading challenge has been kicking around online for a good number of years, and since I need all the help I can get with my TBR, I took over hosting duties in 2011 when Keishon decided she wanted to "retire."  Since I do host, I do my darnedest to complete the challenge every month.  Also, while I tell the participants that the themes are optional, since I'm the host I try to stick with them every month.  Honestly, with as large as my TBR is, finding something (anything!) to fit the themes isn't exactly a tall order.

Here's a rehash of what I read, the great, the good, and the not-so-good.

Title links will take you to full reviews.

January - Category romance - Family At Stake by Molly O'Keefe (2006), Grade = B-

• Classic, angsty, reunited friends-to-lovers story within the Harlequin SuperRomance universe.  The romance is good, but it was the other plot elements that I was actually the most invested in.

February - Recommended Read (something recommended by a fellow reader)  - Conor's Way by Laura Lee Guhrke (1996), Grade = A

• A real keeper of a read, an American-set historical romance featuring a wounded Irish hero and a spinster southern belle heroine.

March - Series Catch-Up (pick a book from a series you're behind on) - Nobody's Hero by Carrie Alexander (2008), Grade = B-

• A cute SuperRomance featuring a single mom, wounded cop hero, and a plucky young girl obsessed with Trixie Belden books.  It was a pleasant G-rated read, but the romance was a little thin in spots (and no, not because of the "no sex" thing.....)

April - New-To-You Author   - The Edge of Night by Jill Sorenson (2011), Grade = B

• A really good romantic suspense book featuring a clean-cut cop and a heroine from the wrong side of the tracks. 

May - Old School (Publication date prior to 2000)  - Jackson Rule by Dinah McCall (1996), Grade = D+

• A smooth writing style couldn't carry this contemporary romance that was completely devoid of anything resembling reality.

June - Western (Contemporary or historical) - High Country Bride by Jillian Hart (2008), Grade = C+

• A readable inspirational historical western romance with Hart's trademark angst.  Unfortunately I found myself worn down by the exceedingly tolerant heroine who never got angry about anything.

July - How Did This Get Here? (a book you can't remember how/why you put in your TBR!) or Free Pick  - The Lightkeeper's Woman by Mary Burton (2004), Grade = B-

• Typical Burton historical read for me.  Which is to say that it was pleasant while I was reading it, but I don't have a lot of recall with it.  One minor bugaboo on this one is a hero who doesn't open a box he inherits from the heroine's dead father until the end of the book (cripes I hate when characters do things like that - it's just not believable!)

August - Steamy reads (Erotic romance, erotica, something spicy!) - Sweet Temptation by Maya Banks (2010), Grade = D

• BDSM.  'Nuf said.  OK, maybe not - I feel a rant coming on.....  Character motivation that defied logic.  Female characters in danger from a crazed stalker who have time to get together and gab about how amazing their sex lives are.  A hero who can't have a "relationship" with the heroine because she's his dead BFF's "little sister" - but it's totally kosher to have "just sex" with her and arrange a gang-bang for her with three other guys.  Ack! And a whole passel of men who kept calling the women in the story "baby," "honey," "sweetie," or "Angel."  It was condescending as hell and I kept hoping the crazed stalker would show up with an Uzi.  Breathe Wendy, breathe.....

September - Other genre besides romance - The More The Terrier by Linda O. Johnston (2011), Grade = C

• A cozy mystery that got lost under the "hook."  I don't care about the heroine's work as an animal rescuer!  I care about who killed the dead person!

October - Paranormal or romantic suspense - The Missing Twin by Rita Herron (2011), Grade = D-

• A mess of a read.  Paranormal elements with absolutely no subtlety.  A suspense thread that didn't make any sense.  And cliches!  Oh Lord the cliches! (The hero is Native American SO OF COURSE he has a "sixth sense", a teeth-grinding plot moppet etc. etc. etc.).

November - All About The Hype (a book that created such chatter that it was inescapable) - The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne (2008), Grade = C

• Wonderful writing, but a plot device regarding the heroine that didn't work for me and the double standard in her actions compared to the hero's when they're both spies?  Yeah, it bothered me.

December - Holiday themes - Home For Christmas by Carrie Weaver (2005), Grade = B-

• A nice SuperRomance read with just the right amount of "Christmas stuff" thrown in the mix.  A heroine who meets her match with a hero who, in theory, should be totally ill-suited for her.

One A (yippee!) and five B (double yippee!) is very, very good.  But ugh, the other six months?  Filled up with three C and three D.  Given the sheer number of books I have in my TBR, those grades are probably a reasonable spread - but still?  Nobody likes to think about the potential dud reads they have lurking in their TBR pile.  On the bright side, all these books are now read, out of the TBR, and no longer contributing to my crushing TBR Guilt.  Which, after all, is really the goal of this challenge for me.

I am once again hosting the challenge for 2013, and I really cannot stress enough how much I enjoy the gig.  I think all romance readers share the common goal of taming their respective TBR piles.  This challenge is a fun, easy way to force your hand into actually, uh - doing something about the "problem."  Would you like to sign on for 2013?  More details can be found here, and you can either drop me an e-mail or leave me a comment on this post.

And so ends my recap(s) of my reading year that was 2012.  Now, on to 2013!

TBR Challenge 2012: Home For Christmas

The Book: Home For Christmas by Carrie Weaver

The Particulars: Harlequin SuperRomance #1311, 2005, Out of print, Available digitally, Connected to previous book, The Secret Wife (which I naturally have somewhere in the TBR ::sigh::)  

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  Probably for the same reason a lot of random category romances are - I liked the sound of the back cover blurb.  I do know I picked this one up at a used bookstore that has since closed up shop.

The Review:  Nancy McGuire moved to upstate New York looking for a fresh start.  Not only was her husband murdered, but she also found out he was a bigamist.  To add insult to injury?  Nancy desperately wanted a child, she never conceived with her husband, but he did manage to knock up The Other Wife.  So she decides to adopt a little girl from Russia, willingly becoming a single parent much to her mother's disapproval.  It's hard, but she adores Ana and they've built a good life together.  What she does not need is a man in her life, especially a slick-talking, snake-charming ladies' man like Beau Stanton.

Beau is also fairly new to town, and is now flying solo with his troubled 14-year-old daughter, Rachel.  Having been married three (yes, three!) times, Ex-Wife #1 shows up one day, dumps Rachel in his lap and essentially says, "I raised her the first 14 years, you can deal with the next four."  Naturally this kind of upheaval has led to Rachel acting out and Beau's not exactly good at dealing with conflict.  Nancy and Beau end up meeting at a single parents support group and much to their chagrin, end up being paired off as "buddies."

It has been many, many months since I've read a SuperRomance and while this one wasn't perfect, it was a solid read.  There's a lot of baggage here for our couple to deal with.  Beau is one of those guys that seems like all surface, but he really does have hidden depths.  The reason he hides that from the world has to do with various family dynamics (having parents who doted on his "perfect" baby brother....) and Nancy has to learn that a lot of Beau's slick talk is almost like a defense mechanism.  In turn, Nancy has major Daddy Issues, which are at the root of why her first marriage was such a disaster.  Daddy abandoned her, her first husband married another woman while still married to her, and now she finds herself attracted to a guy with three failed marriages under his belt?  Yeah, she's unthrilled.

The stuff with Rachel is fleshed out fairly well.  She comes off as a believable, confused teenage girl.  Poor kid.  Her Mom essentially dumps her off with no explanation and her Dad, up until this new arrangement, was basically a Good Time Charlie who breezed in and out of her life.  Ana is a typical Romance Novel Land toddler, which is to say kind of a plot moppet.  But she's not overly annoying.

The Christmas theme is a very light touch, so if you're normally not wild about Christmas reads, this is a book that doesn't beat you over the head with the holiday.  I also liked that not everything is wrapped up neat and tidy in the end.  Yes, our couple gets together, but just like in real life some elements of their pasts don't magically morph into Sunshine Happiness just because they've fallen in love - most notably, Nancy's relationship with her absent father is still complicated.  The writing is a little uneven in spots, and sometimes I wondered exactly how/when/why Nancy and Beau got hooked on each other - but it's a quick pleasant read pairing up a couple that should be all wrong for each other, but happily are just right.

Final Grade = B-

Reminder: TBR Challenge For December 2012

For those of you participating in the 2012 TBR Challenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, December 19.  Yes, it's here folks - the end of 2012 and the last month of this year's challenge!

The theme this month is Holidays.  I know readers who would rather gut themselves than read Christmas romances, so for the sake of this challenge - any holiday will do!  As for me?  I'll probably be going with a Christmas-theme since I'm a total sucker for those.  Yes, I would be the reason we all get inundated with "those books" this time of year.  But remember, if the theme doesn't appeal or you don't have anything that applies in your TBR?  Hey, it's all good!  Just read something else.  The themes are merely suggestions in your quest to get a long-neglected book out of your unread pile.

And now?  We look forward to the 2013 TBR Challenge!  For more information, and details on how you can sign up - please visit the information page.

TBR Challenge 2012: Spy Vs. Spy

The Book:  The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne

The Particulars: Historical romance, Berkley, 2008, In Print, First book in a series

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: It got raves when it first came out, and while I cannot distinctly recall, I'm pretty sure I bought this new (most likely at Borders ::sob::).  Also, I've met Bourne in "real life" and she's a lovely, lovely woman.  Hopefully she's still talk to me when we run into each other at conferences.

The Review:  Here I go again, showing my philistine underpants.

Annique Villiers was raised by revolutionary parents and spent her entire life spying for the French.  She now finds herself sharing a dungeon with some British spies, having all been ensnared by the odious Leblanc.  Leblanc wants some super-sekrit plans he thinks Annique has, and she's not about to stick around while he concocts ways to extract that information from her.  So she comes up with an escape plan, and in the process rescues two British spies, one of whom is Robert Grey.  When she finds out exactly who she rescued?  Yeah, she regrets the decision.

Robert also thinks that Annique has these plans that Leblanc is so hot for, and he also thinks she's responsible for a British mission that went horribly wrong.  So he wants to bring her back to England, along with her secrets, to aid their cause.  Of course he doesn't quite realize how difficult that's going to be, considering there are men after Annique who want her dead, but also Annique herself, who earned her reputation the old fashioned way - she's a damn good spy and keeps trying to escape.

It's going to be hard to talk about my issues with this story while remaining spoiler-free but I'm going to endeavor to do so.  Annique is at somewhat of a disadvantage early in the book, yet she is still somehow capable of being Badass Ninja Super Spy.  This was hard enough for me to swallow, but then later in the story, when there isn't that disadvantage anymore?  Yeah, it's then that she finds herself easily duped by Grey.  Suuuuuure.  In  other words?  I didn't believe any of it.

The other problem is the same one I have with all romances featuring spy characters.  They're spies and relationships, in order to work, need a modicum of trust.  I'm not exactly sure how, when or why Grey and Annique fall in love, but once they do I have a hard time picturing them settling into happy-ever-bliss before one of them guts the other while they sleep.  They're professional liars and connivers.  It's hard to imagine that as a solid relationship foundation.  But that's my bugaboo, not so much any fault of this particular story.

So if I had these issues, why do so many other readers love this book?  Well, I think I know.  For one, Bourne can write and the prose is very, very good.  Also, the history is really very good.  It's been ages since I've read a Regency with a continental flavor that actually developed the "continent stuff" so well.  Most notably, the fall-out of the French Revolution and Napoleon's rise to power.

Then there is the fact that Annique and Grey are essentially two sides of the same coin.  They're mostly equals, although this is where I had more issues.  Namely, Annique may be a spy but she's 1) a virgin and 2) doesn't kill people.  It smacks of the double-standard in some romance circles where the hero can be despicable and readers will still luuuuurve him, while the heroine can't be "too bad" or else readers will hate her and find her "unsympathetic."  So yeah, she's a spy but it's OK - she doesn't kill people and Grey is her first lover!  It's totally kosher - you're allowed to like her!

Bah humbug.

But I'm probably reading too much into all that - so chalk it up to Wendy needing to get a life.

So where does that leave us?  Well, I'm glad I read it, but it didn't exactly light my world on fire.  It also didn't make me want to drop everything and read the other books in this series - although I'm not weeding them out of my TBR pile either.  The very definition of an "OK" read for me.

Final Grade = C

TBR Challenge 2012: Subtle, Like A Chainsaw

So that's why she looks so sad.....

The Book: The Missing Twin by Rita Herron

The Particulars:  Romantic suspense, Harlequin Intrigue, 2011, Part of Series, Out of Print, Available Digitally

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  As is the case with all random category romances in my TBR, I picked this one up at a conference - RWA 2011 in New York City (or as I like to call it, Wendy's Librarian Of The Year Year).

The Review:  Oh man, this was just....not good.

Caleb Walker works for Guardian Angel Investigations, which specializes in finding missing children.  He's part Native American, which in Romance Novel Land automatically means he has a "sixth sense."  He's also a Romance Novel Hero, which automatically means he was a wounded past and a dead wife he still mourns.

Yada yada yada.

Enter stage left, Madelyn Andrews whose five-year-old daughter, Sara, keeps having nightmares about her twin-sister, Cissy.  Cissy and her mommy are in danger from a "bad man."  The fly in the ointment?  Cissy didn't survive childbirth.  Now it turns out that the doctor who delivered Cissy and Sara was in on a baby-selling illegal adoption scam.  Could it be?  Could Cissy still be alive?  And is she really in danger?

Things get off on the wrong foot right away thanks to Sara who is straight out of Romance Novel Land Plot Moppet Central Casting.  Here's an example of what I waded through every time the kid appeared on page:

"You gots an Indian name?" Sara asked in a whisper.

Caleb nodded.  "Firewalker."

Sara's eyes widened.  "You walks on fire?  Does it hurt?"

So the kid is smart enough to know about Indian names, yet dippy enough to take them literally?

Seriously. Just. Shoot. Me. Now.

The rest of the dialogue is just as stilted and mind-numbing, and in no way aided by paranormal elements that have all the subtlety of a chainsaw.  My favorite was when Caleb's "abilities" come to light.  Madelyn and Caleb are at Cissy's "grave," waiting for the casket to be exhumed....

Caleb was there, kneeling with his hand on Cissy's grave.  His dark skin had drained of color, and an odd mixture of grief and pain marred his face....

Fast forward a page or so....

"What were you doing at Cissy's grave?"  Suspicion flared in her eyes.  "Do you have some kind of psychic ability that you didn't mention?  Is that why you believed Sara?  Could you see inside the grave?"

OK, seriously?!?!  Who makes that kind of leap right out of the gate?  Oh, the hunky Native American guy looks pale and he's touching a gravestone.  Ergo, HE MUST HAVE PSYCHIC ABILITIES!!!!!

Dude.  Here's a thought, maybe he just ate some bad Thai food for lunch and he's feeling nauseous.  Did you ever think of that? 

And while I'm at it, what self-respecting baby snatcher keeps the same name for the kid that the birth mother gave it?  What, did The Evil Doctor show up at their door and say, "Here's the baby you wanted to adopt and oh, by the way, her name is Cissy.  I just went ahead and took the liberty of naming the kid for you."

I would have slapped this book with an F except for two factors: 1) I've read worse and 2) I loved how the author handled The Condom Moment.  The couple is all ready to do the deed and the hero stops because he doesn't have a condom.  He tells the heroine that he wants "to do right" by her.  Thank you Lord!  No throwaway conversations of "I'm on the Pill" or "I'm clean baby, you can trust me.  Do I look like I have a scorching case of herpes?"  Oh, and in case you're curious?  They were at the heroine's house and SHE had some condoms.  A heroine!  With condoms!  OK, so her Mom bought them for her hoping she'd start dating again, but still!  A ROMANCE NOVEL HEROINE WHO HAS HER OWN CONDOMS!!!!

But honestly, that was it for me.  The Condom Moment.  The one bright shining light.....

Final Grade = D-

TBR Challenge 2012: The More The Terrier

The Book: The More The Terrier by Linda O. Johnston

The Particulars: Cozy Mystery, Berkley Prime Crime, 2011, Book 2 in series, In Print

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  I was at an RWA local chapter meeting and the author was signing copies of this.  I wasn't going to buy one, but then I read the back cover blurb and noticed the murder suspect's name was Mamie (that's Mame-eee, not Mammy) and that just so happened to be my grandmother's name.  Yes folks, I'm this easy.  Impulse buy ahoy!

The Review:  Lauren Vancouver runs an animal rescue shelter in southern California.  After a divorce that left her wounded, she started volunteering at a shelter run by Mamie Spelling, a woman who would turn out to be a mentor.  When a local pet store chain announces their plans to open up their own rescue?  Lauren wows them with her business plan, and gets the job.  The problem?  Mamie wanted that job.  So the two had a falling out of sorts, and haven't spoken to each other in years.  That is until Lauren gets a very strange phone call from Mamie.  It's strange enough that Lauren drives across town to her old friend's shelter and what she discovers shocks her.

Mamie has become an animal hoarder!  Determined to help, Lauren calls the local authorities and during the rush to get the animals out Bethany Urber shows up.  The former head of a cosmetics empire, she sold her company and now devotes her time to her own animal rescue, as well as a network she founded called Pet Shelters Together.  The idea is for the local shelters to work together, share resources, yada yada yada.  The problem is Bethany, who is a media whore of the highest order and is about as warm and fuzzy as a rattlesnake.  She'd been strong-arming Mamie to join the network, threatening exposure of her hording if she didn't. 

Uppermost in Lauren's mind is saving the animals and getting help for her old friend.  She doesn't know who this new Mamie is, but she can't ignore the fact that the woman helped her out when she was at a low ebb, post divorce. However things get more complicated when Lauren gets another hysterical phone call from Mamie.  Turns out she stopped by Bethany's place and found the woman dead.  Oh, and Mamie's fingerprints?  Happen to be on the gun that did the deed.

I cut my reading teeth on cozy mysteries and still have a soft spot for them.  The problem is either my tastes have radically changed or the de-evolution of the sub genre is starting to get to me.  Cozies have come to rely very heavily on "hooks."  It's apparently not enough to just have a lighter-toned mystery these days with minimal blood and guts.  No, you need a gimmick.  Magical cats, knitting, baking, vintage fashion, underwater basket-weaving, etc.  The problem is that it is easy for these "hooks" to overwhelm what should be the focus of the story - the puzzle of solving the mystery.  And if, as the reader, you're not madly in love with whatever the "hook" is?  You're in for a ho-hum read.

Which is exactly what happened to me here.  There's a lot of animal stuff here.  Lots of stuff about rescuing and finding adopted homes and Lauren making home visits and finding animals abandoned on the doorstep of her shelter and what's going to happen to the animals that were recovered at Mamie's and.....

I don't care!

I want to care about the dead body.  Who killed Bethany?  But it's buried under a lot of other stuff that I was personally not interested in.  I wasn't reading this book to learn about animal rescue organizations.  I was reading this book for a light mystery.

So what does this mean?  Well, it means that unless it directly involved the mystery-solving I pretty much skimmed large chunks of this book.  I just wasn't into it.  But that doesn't mean that some other reader might not be into it.  It's just that I am, admittedly, not a hardcore animal person.  I like doggies.  I like kitties.  But I also am not volunteering my time and money towards animal causes.  If you are?  This may be just the read for you.  Johnston has created a heroine who is obviously passionate about her job.  Who loves animals and loves to work at finding homes for them.  I simply wasn't invested in this aspect of the story.  And because it takes up a large chunk of the book?  It meant I wasn't really all that invested in the rest of the goings-on either.  There's a pleasant read here, and I did zip through it in a day, but I now know enough to say this just ain't my cup of tea.  One is enough, I'm out.

Grade = C

Reminder: TBR Challenge For September

For those of you participating in the 2012 TBR Challenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, September 19. 

The theme this month is Other Genre Besides Romance.  I know, I know.  Y'all are suffering because Wendy also reads mystery/suspense.  If you're one of those souls who only reads romance?  Remember, the themes are totally optional!  Treat this as a "free pick" month and grab a neglected romance out of your pile.  The themes aren't important - reading something that's been lying around neglected is the real goal.

Wow, I can't believe it's September already?  Only four months left to the challenge for this year.  For a list of all of this year's participants, be sure to check out the TBR Challenge 2012 Information Page.

TBR Challenge 2012: Emotional Accountability

The Book:  Sweet Temptation by Maya Banks

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

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

Danger, danger thar be minor spoilers ahoy matey!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Final Grade = D

TBR Challenge 2012: The Lightkeeper's Woman

The Book: The Lightkeeper's Woman by Mary Burton

The Particulars: Historical romance, Harlequin Historical #693, 2004, Out of Print, Available in Digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  I've read Mary Burton's historicals before and I'm a sucker for lighthouse settings. 

The Review:  Alanna Patterson has come to the god-forsaken coastal town of Easton, North Carolina to close the door on her past forever.  She was once madly, passionately in love with Caleb Pitt, a captain on one of her father's finest ships.  They had plans to marry, and were already lovers.  Then on his last voyage before their wedding there is a terrible accident.  The ship goes down, men die, but Caleb survives.  What follows is an inquest, and accusations that Caleb and his crew were incompetent.  It's now two years later and Alanna's life is very different.  Her father has committed suicide, the family finances are in ruins, all of their so-called "friends" won't receive her and she's on the verge of accepting a marriage proposal from another man.  But first she must deliver a wooden box that her father bequeathed to Caleb - a box Caleb has already sent back (with a scathing note, naturally) once.

Caleb is now the lighthouse keeper, a hermit who only comes into town when absolutely necessary.  A storm is blowing in, he looks out and spots a boat.  He recognizes the local idiot at the helm and catches his breath when he sees the woman.  Could it be?  No, it possibly can't be.  Alanna?  What the holy heck is she doing there?  Naturally he rescues her, but continued gnarly weather means he's stuck with her, alone, on his island until the waters calm. 

There are a number of elements I really enjoyed about this story.  I liked that Caleb and Alanna had already been lovers.  I liked that Alanna is impulsive, and not the sort of woman to back down from a fight.  I also really appreciated that she's halfway to knowing something was rotten in Denmark before arriving on Caleb's doorstep.  She arrives in Easton on the pretense of giving him the box, but truly she's there to get some answers.  She once lived the life of a well-to-do pampered daughter, but the last couple of years have drastically altered her fortunes.  She's different, her life is different, so when the truth comes tumbling out she doesn't automatically scream at Caleb that he's lying.

This story runs a little hot and cold for me though when it comes to Caleb.  At first he's portrayed as the local hermit.  A man who has shut himself off from everybody.  Then he's determined to have Alanna back in his life.  Then he heads into town and everybody loves him, he interacts with everybody like he's the unofficial town mayor, and then he morphs back into wanting to send Alanna away for "her own good."  He's not a terribly consistent fellow, but hey - he's a hunky loner with a badass facial scar.  Guys working with less than that have made credible romance heroes.

The story itself moves along at a fairly smooth clip, although pretty much all of the conflict hinges on Alanna and Caleb being too proud and stupid to have talked to each other back when his boat sank.  There's also the letters he wrote to her that she naturally didn't read and the box from her father that Caleb refuses to open.  I'll be honest, I tend to hate plot devices like this because they are utterly unbelievable to me.  Seriously, who doesn't open letters, especially when they are addressed to them?  And cripes Caleb - even Brad Pitt wants to know "What's in the box?!?!"  And Morgan Freeman opened it!

In the author's dedication she thanks her critique partners, one of whom is Cathy Maxwell.  What I find interesting is that how I feel about Maxwell's historicals is exactly how I feel about Burton's.  They're easy reading, they go down smooth like a really nice dessert wine, I enjoy them while I'm reading them, but a day later?  Yeah, I have no recall.  None.  They're chocolate chip cookie reads.  They're a great snack, quite tasty, but it's not like a steak dinner at a five star restaurant.  They're not the sort of reads that stick with me for days, weeks, months after the experience.  Which means it's probably a good thing I'm blogging about this book, because other than the lighthouse aspect, I'm not sure how much I'll recall down the road.

In the end this was a nice, pleasant diversion.  I liked the story, I liked the characters, and I loved the setting.  Sure, it didn't rock my world and I'm not in a swoon over it - but it was a pleasant, leisurely experience that kept me entertained for a couple of days.  There are times in my life when I just need a book like this one.  Which is why I keep some Mary Burton historicals lying around in the TBR.  Break glass in case of emergency.

Final Grade = B-

TBR Challenge 2012: Anger Management

The Book: High Country Bride by Jillian Hart

The Particulars: Inspirational historical western romance, Love Inspired Historical, 2008, Out of Print, Available Digitally, Book two in connected duet.

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  I picked this one up at RWA 2008 (uh, San Francisco?).  Plus, I tend to like Jillian Hart's books.

The Review:  Joanna Nelson's life has been one big trial after another.  After her no-good drunken husband dies, she takes her two small children to live with her father.  He's not much of a prize either, and when he takes sick, Joanna writes her half-brother begging for help.  Now their father is dead, and Joanna is hoping that Lee can hold off the banker and debt collectors with the same ease Daddy did.  She's in for a shock though when Lee declares that he had no intention of keeping the farm and has sold it back to the bank.  Oh, and by the way, she and her two kids need to get the hell out before nightfall.

Aidan McKaslin finds Joanna Nelson and her two small children living out of a wagon, and squatting on his land.  He can't very well leave them there, and the idea that this woman has, literally, no place to go and no one to help ease her burden turns his stomach.  He offers her the use of an old shanty cabin he has on his land, just for the night of course.  Until she can decide what she's going to do.

What I tend to love about Hart's historicals is that she really slathers on the angst, but still manages to make it feel authentic.  In other words, not over the top.  Yes, Joanna has had a hard life, but nothing that befalls her is so extraordinary that it couldn't have happened to women living in the 19th century.  She's been at the mercy of useless men her whole life, and while Aidan does scare her, at first, she quickly realizes that he's not just any man.  He's the man.  However, as much as she's starting to care for him, she knows that he is unable to return her feelings.  He's already buried the love of his life, along with their infant son.  While his faith is still strong, he fears his heart is dead.

The emotional turmoil in this story is really gut-wrenching.  Joanna has gumption, and is the sort of woman who would go to hell and back if it meant providing stability for her kids.  Aidan is a man who was so desperately in love with his late wife, that her death literally shattered him.  It's an amazing amount of internal baggage in this story, and the author makes her characters walk over miles of broken glass while lugging it around.

Unfortunately the longer the story goes on, that baggage gets heavier.  It also begins to wear on the reader how exorbitantly tolerant Joanna is.  Aidan isn't outright cruel.  He doesn't beat her.  He doesn't abuse her.  But his belief that he simply cannot love her and her refusal to confront him on his bullshit began to make me very angry.  Joanna feels it's her fault for making Aidan relive his pain.  Joanna thinks that if she lessens his burden, if she waits him out, if she's patient, he'll come around.  In the meantime he avoids her and avoids her children - both of whom worship him.

I wanted her angry.  I wanted her so angry that she'd damn God to hell, get in Aidan's face, and tell him what a moron he was being.  I wanted a confrontation.  Instead we get Aidan wandering off to contemplate if Joanna and the kids coming into his life were all part of "God's plan."  Ok, fine.  That might be all well and good - but would it have killed God to let Joanna find a little backbone and rip Aidan a new one in the process?

This is a hard book for me to wrap up into a final grade.  It starts off like gang-busters, and I loved the angst.  But the lack of a real confrontation at the end, plus the fact that I got a little bored with hearing how awesome of a cook Joanna was, started to wear on me.  There's also the small matter of there not being a love scene in this book.  Yes, I'm well aware this is an inspirational.  I also do not need sex scenes in my romances.  But in this one?  I do.  Why?  Because Aidan's complete unwillingness to let go of the past for pretty much the WHOLE book makes it hard for me to believe that finally, in the last chapter, he's suddenly willing too.  That after, for the WHOLE book, he's held fast with his I'll-Never-Love-Again idiocy, suddenly in the last chapter he admits his feelings and I'm supposed to believe everything will be just dandy?  A love scene, even a vaguely-drawn G-rated one, would have gone a long way in showing that Aidan is ready to move on, be the husband and father that Joanna and the kids deserve.

So yeah, I got angry.  I got angry that Joanna didn't get angry.  But, I'll be honest, this book sucked me in to the point where I read it in a day.  And considering I DNF'ed one book, and chucked aside two others, before settling on this one?  As angry as I was, we're not talking anywhere near hate.

Final Grade = C+

TBR Challenge 2012: Wendy Makes Fangirls Cry, Again

The Book: Jackson Rule by Dinah McCall (AKA Sharon Sala)

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harpercollins, 1996, in print and available in digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR: Lots of online readers I "know" have gushed over this book, so when it was reprinted some years back I picked up a copy - brand spankin' new thankyouverymuch.

Danger, danger, thar be spoilers ahoy mateys!

The Review: A criticism I sometimes see for contemporary romance is that it doesn't operate in anything resembling "our reality."  That's exactly what I thought of while reading this book.  The title is taken from the hero's name, and I suspect I'm supposed to be won over by his sheer hottie-hotness.  The fact that he has long hair and rides a Harley is somehow supposed to make up for the fact that the story takes place in La La Fantasy Land.  But more on that in a minute....

Andrew Jackson Rule was sent to prison at 16 for killing his abusive a-hole father.  Oh, and yes - he did it.  He confessed to it even.  His time served, he's now a free man - although he's discovering life on the outside isn't very welcoming.  After being dismissed everywhere, he lands a job at Rebecca Hill's nursery (as in greenhouses, plants and such).  He met Rebecca some days earlier, after he fixed her broken down truck.  A preacher's daughter, Rebecca is constantly thwarting Daddy's attempts to marry her off, and she hires Jackson on the spot - even though she knows he's an ex-con who did time for murder.  You see, our girl took those Bible lessons about redemption and "judge not" to heart - much to her father's horror that his baby girl has hired a killer.

Oh boy, where to begin.  First off, it's hard to take a book seriously when our ex-con hero just leaves prison without so much as a by-your-leave.  Apparently in New Orleans ex-cons don't need to worry about silly things like parole officers and/or halfway houses ::headdesk::.

Then there's Rebecca who is so goody-goody that she doesn't bat an eye when hiring Jackson.  Or sure, he fixed her truck and saved her from walking out into traffic (don't ask) - but he's very upfront about the whole Went To Prison For Murdering My Daddy thing.  Now ladies, if someone told you something like this - what would you do?  Maybe it's the librarian in me, but I'd be off to the search the Internet to dig up the dirt.  Granted, let's give Rebecca the benefit of the doubt - this was 1996.  Maybe she doesn't have a home computer hooked up to AOL or Compuserve.  Still, she lives in New-frickin'-Orleans!  The thought doesn't cross her tiny pea brain to head to the public library and search back issues of the newspaper(s) on microfilm?  I mean, really sweetheart?  Really?!?!?!  It's like the brain-dead heroine in historical romances who doesn't read the letter that would explain everything - and instead hangs on to it, unopened, until the final chapter when she finally does read it and she learns that the hero really didn't abandon her pregnant and penniless but was instead shanghaied.   

Seriously, who doesn't open the letter?!??!?!?!

Uh, sorry.  Where was I?  Oh yeah....

Things move along at a decent clip, with Jackson and Rebecca finally succumbing to their attraction.  Then we get into Big Secret conflict.  The Big Secret Jackson is keeping from Rebecca?  He has a sister in a mental hospital.  Of course this really shouldn't have been a Big Secret because Jackson keeps having nightmares about his sister covered in their Daddy's blood.  Which means she was there when Jackson killed their father.  What, the cops didn't mention that in their police report?  And since Jackson confessed, I'm to believe no reporter/journalist let that bit of news leak for public consumption?  Of course since Rebecca lacks any curiosity or survival instincts whatsoever - we already know she didn't go to the local library.

Further developments include Jackson turning into a Poetry Spouting Care Bear once he gets laid (sadly, not a virgin hero since he got rid of that pesky nuisance at age 15...) and somehow managing to get a volunteer job at a homeless shelter working with at-risk kids.  Seriously, I know these organizations are hard-up for help - but an ex-con who admits to killing his father?  Really?!?!?  That just smacks of a lawsuit waiting to happen, even back in 1996.

The final straw for me was with the ending when the author takes the one unique element to this story, back-tracks on it, and undoes it all.  OK, yeah - I saw it coming a mile away (blame it on too many mystery novels and Law & Order episodes), but it was still disappointing to see the one unique element of this story completely unraveled for the sake of making the happy ending more palpable.  \start spoiler Because you know, we can't have the ex-con hero actually be guilty of the crime he did time for.  Never mind that much is made over the fact that Dead Daddy is a raging, colossal, abusive dill-hole.  Killing in self-defense might turn some readers off, so let's neuter the hero by having him take the fall, plus rescue every secondary character that comes on the scene from certain doom, all while morphing into a Poetry Spouting Care Bear.  /end spoiler

Sorry folks, I partly get it on the whole Wounded Hero level - but that's really about it for me.  There just wasn't enough on the page here to make me look past all the problems I had.  However, the writing does flow and I read this story at a fairly good clip.  If you can look past the complete and total lack of reality, this isn't necessarily a "bad" read.  After all, Jackson does have long hair and rides a Harley.

Final Grade = D+

Reminder: TBR Challenge for May

For those of you participating in the 2012 TBR Challenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, May 16. 

The theme this month is Old School.  Basically any book that is in your TBR that was published prior to 2000.  As scary as this is to admit - 2000 was 12 years ago.  Already.  Geez.

Remember, the themes are completely and totally optional.  If you are not a freak like me and do not have any "old" books in your TBR?  Hey, that's cool.  Just randomly pick something from the pile and dig in.  The themes aren't important - reading something that's been lying around neglected is the real goal.

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

TBR Challenge 2012: No Temas A La Muerte

The Book: The Edge of Night by Jill Sorenson

The Particulars: Romantic suspense, Bantam Dell, 2011, In Print

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  While Jill Sorenson is a relatively local author for me, the initial reason why I picked up this book is because the back cover blurb intrigued me.

The Review:  I tend to be very critical of romantic suspense.  Chalk it up to cutting my teeth on mysteries as a teenager.  I'm fine when the romance gets a bit of the short-shift, but the suspense?  Yeah, I tend to get cranky.  Which is actually my biggest gripe with this sub genre.  Too often it tends to operate in a world I don't recognize.  While I can swallow some fantasy elements in contemporaries and historicals - I tend to like my suspense gritty.  And happy day, the author gives me gritty.  She gives me more than enough of it in fact - so much that I think not all romance readers will be as enthralled with this story as I was (mores the pity).

April Ortiz is a young single mother barely scrapping by in Chula Vista, California.  Jenny's daddy (whom she never married - thank the good Lord) is in prison and she does not mourn his absence.  She's working nights in a sleazy nightclub where her uniform is beyond skimpy, and taking college classes to get her degree in social work.  She's stretched beyond thin already, and now it appears she's going to finally have to cut off her mother, whose growing drug problem is getting to be....well....a problem.  This is not a woman who needs more on her plate - but that's what she gets when one of her coworkers is found murdered - raped and strangled - in known gang territory.

Noah Young is a clean cut kid from northern California, raised in a conservative religious family.  The fact that he's now a cop and living in Chula Vista (of all places) is a bit of a shock to his parents - but he wants to make a difference and feels working on the gang unit in this hard area is where he can do the most good.  It's his instincts and observational skills that lead him to the body of a murdered young woman.  Ambitious, and with an eye on moving his way into the homicide unit, he's enthusiastic when the lead detective asks him and his partner to do some follow-up work on the victim.  Which leads him to the nightclub where the victim worked, and April Ortiz. 

Besides the growing attraction between April and Noah, coupled with the conflict that they are really, really from two different worlds - the author also tosses in a secondary romance (of sorts) when Noah's 19-year-old sister drops out of her Christian college and shows up at his front door.  Naturally she falls for an entirely unsuitable young man, who has extremely close ties (platonic, naturally) with April. 

Once I sat down to start this book I practically inhaled it.  The author does a very nice job setting her stage, giving readers wonderful descriptions of the neighborhood - complete with gangs, drugs, and graffiti.  It's easy to understand, growing up as she did, why April wouldn't fall all over her attraction for Noah.  In fact she's extremely guarded and closed off.  Noah is open, earnest, ambitious, and completely gob-smacked by April.  So much so that he can barely keep his eyes off of her when he first arrives at the club.  The secondary romance is also nicely well drawn, adding more conflict to the story because it almost has that "forbidden" quality to it.  Noah's sister is young, sheltered, a touch naive - and not only lands herself in some trouble, but learns that her knight in shining armor is a well-known gang member - April's sort-of brother-in-law, Eric.

The whole time I was reading this book I found myself more than excited by the possibility that it would be fantastic for Lil' Sis' high school English classroom.  It's a neighborhood her students would recognize, with a young twenty-something single mother heroine whose baby daddy is in prison.  And then I got to the sex scenes.  Whoa doggie!  Totally not PG-rated, that's for dang sure.  Although it might be good for the girls to learn that it's OK to expect your man to not be a selfish lover (if ya know what I mean).  Plus, dude - I'm really glad April has more than one screaming orgasm because girlfriend sure deserved them all.

So we have a well-fleshed out suspense thread, interesting characters, operating within a world that isn't Pollyanna white-wash.  And that's kind of where the author gets stuck.  It's not a Pollyanna world she has created, and therefore you have a bit of a bittersweet ending.  The bad guy does get caught, Noah and April do live happily-ever-after - but not everything about this ending is puppy dogs, gum drops and rainbows.  It's just....not.  And that may be an issue for some readers.  I actually appreciated it, because the author "keeps it real."  But if you're a reader who needs everything to be sunny, happy, and tied up in a pretty pink bow at the end?  Yeah, don't say I didn't warn you.

In the end, I really enjoyed this story.  It does have some issues that all romantic suspense novels seem to have (the monologing villain, not enough red herrings for my liking) - but it's exciting, it's highly readable, and has a lot of the elements I like to see in this sub genre but don't always get.   It's also the kind of book I would love to see a sequel for - so go out and buy lots of copies so the author gets a contract to do so.

Final Grade = B

Note: Yes, I live in SoCal and yes, my Spanish is truly terrible.  If the title of this blog post is broken-Spanish Spanish, it's all my fault.  Well, and Google's.

Reminder: TBR Challenge For April

For those of you participating in the 2012 TBR Challenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, April 18. 

The theme this month is New-To-You Author.  That's right, an author that you have never read before.  This one is always fun since it means you can go totally obscure (that author who was a One Book Wonder) or you can finally try that author everybody else has been raving about (What do you mean you haven't read Author X yet?!)

Remember, the themes are completely and totally optional.  If you're not in the mood, feel free to go off the beaten path.  The themes aren't nearly as "important" as digging some long neglected book out of your TBR pile.

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

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-

Reminder: TBR Challenge For March

For those of you participating in the 2012 TBR Challenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, March 21. 

The theme this month is Series Catch-Up.  Time to pull out a book that is part of a series that you need to "catch-up" on. I figure I have about 359 possibilities sitting in my TBR alone!

Remember, the themes are completely and totally optional.  If you're not in the mood, or heck - you ignore recommendations entirely, feel free to go off the beaten path.  The themes aren't nearly as "important" as digging some long neglected book out of your TBR pile.

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

TBR Challenge 2012: Luck O' The Irish

The Book: Conor's Way by Laura Lee Guhrke

The Particulars: Historical romance, Harper Monogram, 1996, out of print and going for exorbitant prices used (in paper) - but oh happy day!  It's now available in digital and the author is currently offering it to readers for the ridiculously awesome price of 99 cents. (ETA 2/19/12: Looks like the 99 cent price offer is now kaput).

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  Breathless by Laura Lee Guhrke is (to date) my favorite romance novel of all time.  Period.  After I read that book and loved it, I set about finding her backlist.  At the time finding that backlist required nothing short of offering up one of my organs on the black market (I'm kidding, but seriously - it took me a hella long time).  When KristieJ found out I had this book, and it had been languishing in my TBR for years - she started nagging her campaign of terror to get me to finally read the damn thing.  And it only took her about four years.  It's not you Kristie - it's me.  I am not a normal person.

The Review:  For those of you who know nothing about KristieJ - let me give you a quick lesson.  Kristie is a very hero-centric romance reader.  She also is a complete, unrepentant sucker for wounded heroes.  The more screwed up they are, the more she loves them.  Conor's Way is textbook KristieJ cat nip.  Conor Branigan is about as tortured as they come, and wouldn't you know it?  He's Irish.  It's a shock I was able to resist this book for so long.

Since coming to America, Conor has been making a living as a boxer.  It allows him to keep moving, gives him a certain measure of freedom, and glory be - he's actually pretty good at it.  However his luck runs out one night in a backwater Louisiana town.  He's asked to take the fall when the numbers come in and it's discovered the promoter will lose money if Conor wins.  Being...well, Irish - Conor doesn't take the fall and gets the snot kicked out of him by hired goons for his insolence.

Olivia Maitland is desperate to save her family farm.  Her mother dead, her brothers taken by Gettysburg, and her drunken father finally succumbing thanks to a fall from a ladder, it's all she and her three adopted daughters have left.  She's been advertising for a farm hand, but has had no luck since all she has to offer is room and board.  She needs to bring in her peach crop if she has any hope of staying afloat.  The problem is she can't do it all by herself, and the villain of the story is pressuring her to sell.  He wants to build a railroad, and her orchard is inconveniently in the way.  But Olivia cannot bear the thought.  So she prays to God to send her a man.  What she gets?  A beaten-nearly-to-death Conor Branigan lying in the middle of a country road.  She probably should have been more specific with God.....

This is one of those books where it's All About The Hero.  Conor is, simply, one of the more memorable heroes I've read about in a long time.  Also, I'll be honest - I was pretty much sunk the moment Guhrke starts giving us the back-story.  The minute the "Irish stuff" started creeping in - Conor surviving the famine (barely), his Fenian ties, his stint in prison - I was sunk.  Blame it on the four years I spent as an impressionable college undergrad slogging my way through the "high points" of British/Irish relations in the 19th century.  This was good stuff.  Really compelling, and it didn't hurt that Guhrke did her research.

When you have a character like Conor it's easy for the rest of cast to get a little lost.  That does happen somewhat here.  Conor is like a Black Hole Of Swooning Awesomeness.  However, Olivia does hold her own fairly well.  She's firmly on the shelf, pushing thirty and never been kissed.  What potential beaux her drunken father didn't run off, the Civil War dealt with.  After the war, what men returned home took one look around and promptly headed west thinking that surely had to be better.  She's lonely, but she has the girls.  She doesn't really know what she's missing until Conor shows up, and her various female parts kick into overdrive.

The fly in the ointment besides Conor's desire for "freedom," his haunted past, and his belief that he's "no good," is the villain.  The man who wants Olivia's land?  Yeah, the very boxing promoter that Conor ticked off.  And now Conor is sitting on the land that he's been trying to push Olivia off of for four years.  Why has it taken so long?  Well, she keeps saying no, and their shared past together has had him hesitant (until now) to up the ante.

It's hard for me to convey in words how great I thought this story was.  Sometimes with wounded heroes I can lose patience as a reader.  I want to smack them upside the head and holler, "Oh get over it already!"  But it's hard to do that with Conor.  Probably because I know the history.  Also the author gives you just enough horrifying detail to make your skin crawl (also to want to punch the next English Duke in the face that wanders into Romancelandia).  Olivia is a nice enough girl, but she doesn't really fully step up to the plate for me until the second half.  There's nothing ever "wrong" with her, just that being in Conor's orbit can be a tough act to follow.  The three orphan girls that live with Olivia?  Add just enough to the story to keep pricking at Conor's conscience, and slowly transform him into a man that finally has to admit he truly does give a damn.

This is a post Civil War story (1871) set in a the Deep South, and I know some readers who will not touch these with a 50 foot pole.  Guhrke avoids a huge discussion on slavery and the southern "way of life" - but details it just enough to explore Olivia's character.  How she feels isolated, alone, and, to a certain extent, cheated. It also exposes the lies and myths she was raised on.  The moment the slaves leave she knows - the white grown-ups were wrong.  Blacks weren't slaves because they "liked" it.

The way this book ends is very interesting.  There is a bit of grand-standing, a few fireworks, but it's never overblown.  And pushing the buttons behind the curtain?  Let's just say this story has it's own Wizard of Oz.  It's really clever, with subtle manipulations and games being played backstage.

There's a lot to like here.  It's not my favorite of Guhrke's early work (nothing can replace Breathless, and To Dream Again is nearly as splendid), but that's sort of like saying chocolate ice cream is somehow inferior to chocolate cake.  Heck, we're still talking chocolate!  I'm glad I finally read this.  I'm glad Kristie is relentless and kept after me every single year I would see her at RWA ("Have you read Conor's Way yet Wendy?"  "Uh, no."  "Wendy, Wendy, Wendy!").  I didn't want to put it down.  I started to resent the fact that I have to work for a living (damn Greek tycoons, I'm certainly as good as any of those Harlequin Presents heroines!) and couldn't devote a large block of time to doing nothing but inhaling this story.  It's lovely and I want to read it all over again.

Final Grade = A

Sidenote: And lest you think poor KristieJ is done nagging scolding me about books unread in my TBR?  Never fear.  I've still got Jackson Rule lying around here somewhere.....

Reminder: TBR Challenge For February

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

The theme this month is Recommended Read.  Any book that's sitting in your TBR because someone (be it a friend, relative, blogger...) recommended it.

Remember, the themes are completely and totally optional.  If you're not in the mood, or heck - you ignore recommendations entirely, feel free to go off the beaten path.  The themes aren't nearly as "important" as digging some long neglected book out of your TBR pile.

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

TBR Challenge 2012: Family At Stake

The Book: Family at Stake by Molly O'Keefe

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin SuperRomance #1365, 2006, First book in duet (book two = His Best Friend's Baby), Out of Print, Available In Digital 

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: Well, I can tell you I bought it at a local used bookstore that has since closed up shop - so my guess is I read a description somewhere and it sounded good.  This particular book did win Best Category Romance in AAR's annual reader's poll in 2007 - so that might be the reason too.

The Review:  After falling totally in love with a Molly O'Keefe Super last year, I immediately pulled out the giant Rubbermaid tote I have wedged in a storage closet where I house my print collection of category romance.  The mission?  See if I have any other books by this author collecting dust in the mountain range.  And sure enough, I did - including this one which happens to be the first story she wrote for SuperRomance.

Rachel Filmore and Mac Edwards were BFFs in high school.  Before you can say This Isn't Going To End Well, the two succumb to their teenage hormones and have sex the night of their graduation.  Mac has been hopelessly in love with Rachel forever, but she has one mission - and that's to get the hell out of her tiny hometown and as far away from her father, who beats on her, and her mother, who enables Daddy's drinking.  Having sex with Mac doesn't change that mission, although he foolishly hopes that it might.

Fast forward many years later, and Rachel is a social worker who hasn't strayed far from her hometown (a scant 30-odd miles away in fact).  There's been a retirement higher up the food chain, which means cases are getting shuffled among existing staff.  That's when Rachel sees Mac Edwards' name on a folder with a scary red flag on it.  Seems Mac is having issues with his 12-year-old daughter, Amanda.  Serious enough issues that the guy who just retired?  Yeah, made a notation that maybe it was time for Amanda to be removed from the home.  Rachel cannot reconcile this Mac in the file with the Mac she grew up with - so she volunteers to take the case, without telling her new superior that there just might be a teensy conflict of interest.

Mac is floored to see Rachel standing on his doorstep.  Her leaving broke his heart.  When he learns she's their new case worker?  He doesn't know what to think.  This new Rachel - this Rachel who is aloof, cold, and acts like they have no history really depresses him.  However, he loves his daughter, and he's desperate to find out what has been troubling her.  She seemed to handle her mother's death fairly OK (considering), so why now, many months after the fact, is she falling apart?

I generally look to Supers to get my emotional angsty fix, and this story is pretty much textbook.  Mac and Rachel have a lot of baggage, mostly because as 18-year-old kids they were too stupid to talk to each other.  Also, it's easy to understand Rachel's desire to get the heck out of Dodge given how craptastic her family life was.  She couldn't be bothered to think about the people around her (Mac, her brother) who would be effected by her leaving.  All she knew was that 1) this is a bad place and 2) anyplace else has to be better.

I found myself enjoying this book, but for all the other reasons besides the romance - which honestly was incidental for me.  I was intrigued by Amanda.  What was she hiding?  What was slowly eating away at her?  I also found myself terribly interested in Rachel's past.  Was she going to stop running from it?  Was she finally going to take the steps to address the toxic sludge in her life that she was pushing to the side?

The romance is rather heavy, given the past that Mac and Rachel share.  They have a tendency to say things to each other that are rather hurtful.  I did find Mac's response to Rachel rather Pavlovian after they finally hit the sheets (when we first had sex she left ergo now that we've had sex a second time she'll leave again) - and I also found myself feeling really sorry for Mac's dead wife.  She was a pretty, popular girl who wanted Mac but found herself competing with the fact that he was in love with Rachel.  Naturally this eventually wears on her, and while I won't necessarily say the author demonizes her for it - I can see how some readers would feel that she does.

So where does that leave us?  Well, this was a strong read with many enjoyable elements to it.  I also really appreciated that the author addressed the ethical issues concerning Rachel's job and her history with Mac - when in many other romances one would see an issue like this swept under the rug entirely.  While I didn't love it and want to have babies with it - if it had been my first introduction to O'Keefe's writing?  Yeah, she would have landed on my Check Out Her Next Release list.  As it is, I've now gone back and ordered her backlist titles that I didn't already have buried in the TBR.  So much for this challenge being about making progress with my hording....

Final Grade = B-

Reminder: TBR Challenge For January 2012

For those of you participating in the 2012 TBR Challenge, a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, January 18. 

The theme this month is Category Romance.  You know, one of those cute little books with the dippy titles.

Remember, the themes are completely and totally optional.  If you're not much for category romance, or heck - you just don't feel like reading one this month, that's totally cool!  The themes aren't nearly as "important" as digging some long neglected book out of your TBR pile.

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