Digital Review: The Gin Lovers #6: Hell Hath No Fury

The final installment of Jamie Brenner's The Gin Lovers is subtitled Hell Hath No Fury - and that is very apt.  This is the installment where the women get their revenge and the villain gets what's coming to him.

Her bootlegger lover Jake Larkin may want her to pack her bags and just leave, but Charlotte Delacorte knows that if she truly wants her freedom, she needs to make sure William pays the ultimate price for his secret life.  With the help of her sister-in-law Mae, Charlotte figures the way to rope in William is to use his foolish pride and obsessive-compulsive need for total control against him.  And it's not a half bad plan, except that Jake may inadvertently muck it all up.

I have really, really enjoyed this serial novel.  I have loved the soapy goodness.  I have loved all of the characters and their various naughty shenanigans.  The problem though is that a serialization is only as good as the final installment and this one has major problems.  Namely, it doesn't so much end as it does stop.

Look, I get it.  This is not a romance novel.  I can't expect everything to be all neat and tidy at the end.  But I am the sort of reader who tends to get annoyed when all my questions aren't answered.  When characters that I have followed, and grown to care about (even if it is in a warped and slightly cracked way) are left twisting in the breeze.  Oh sure, the villain is dealt with.  And even to a certain extent Mae rides off into the sunset.  But Jake, Charlotte, and Rafferty?  Hell, even Charlotte's parents?

OH MY LORD WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THEM?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

It just STOPS!

Excuse me a moment.....

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I need something.  Another installment.  An epilogue.  Something!  Anything!

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?

Sigh.

So where does this leave us?  Well, it leaves me torn.  As much as I was hooked on the first five installments, this final one really left me disappointed.  I mean, it ends in such a way that I feel like the author isn't done yet.  The story does not feel remotely finished.  And yet?

THIS IS THE FINAL INSTALLMENT!

Excuse me a moment.....

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I just.....

I need time.

Final Grade = D

Digital Review: The Gin Lovers #5: Dangerous Games

Jamie Brenner's fifth installment of The Gin Lovers: Dangerous Games immediately picks up where the bombshell ending in previous installment left off.

Now that Charlotte has discovered the Big Whopping Secret that her dear husband William has been keeping from her, she's now more determined than ever to find a way to leave him.  Unfortunately, just as her new resolve is kicking in, her bootleggin' lover, Jake Larkin, seems to be growing weary.  He thinks Charlotte should just up and leave William.  Run off with Jake and live happily-ever-after in Far, Far Away Land.  Charlotte is a bit more practical.  She knows that if she leaves William in such a manner she walks away with nothing.  No money, no security, and her "good name" in total ruin.  No, our girl needs a plan - and thanks to the grand opening of the Delacorte Library, and Amelia Astor's machinations, she just may have found one.

Meanwhile, good-time cocktail waitress-slash-hooker, Fiona Sparks realizes just how much she misses Mae, and now Mae is engaged to be married!  In turn, Mae realizes that her engagement to Jonathan Astor has had a lovely side benefit of making Fiona jealous and she really begins to turn up the heat.  Unfortunately everyone gets burned when a meddling gossip columnist discovers Mae's lesbian predilections and threatens to splash them all over the society pages.  What to do, what to do?

This entry in the serial does a very good job of bringing everything to a head and setting up the final installment, which promises to be quite the showdown.  I have a sinking suspicion that Charlotte is going to end up with the wrong man (What can I say?  I've got a thing for hunky Irish butlers), and I love how Mae has grown from rebellious petulant child to trying to get her way by playing within society rules.  I saw the Big Secret coming a mile away, but now I'm positively breathless to find out how the whole thing is going to be resolved.  Sixth and final installment.....here I come!

Final Grade = B

Digital Review: The Gin Lovers #4: Vice Or Virtue

The beautiful people behaving badly are back in The Gin Lovers: Vice Or Virtue, the fourth installment of Jamie Brenner's six-part serial novel.

After getting caught in a compromising situation, Charlotte finds herself having to toe the line with hubby William.  William has money that Charlotte has discovered she now very much needs, which means swallowing her pride and putting up with the jackass.  But her lover, the bootlegger Jake Larkin has big plans, with big ambitions, and has promised her that her days of suffering not-so-silently in her marriage should soon be over.

Meanwhile, rebellious Mae Delacorte is learning how to play the game.  She needs her inheritance, and for that she turns to Jonathan Astor, dour Amelia's party-boy cousin.  These two are a match made in Hangover Hell.  On one hand you admire their ingeniuity, while on the other you see disaster looming ahead.

Speaking of disasters - the Prohibition Agent lurking around Fiona is turning up the heat, and Fiona finds herself providing more services at Boom-Boom's club when the booze supply starts to get a little thin.  Charlotte finds herself spending some quality time with her butler, Rafferty, who is really starting to wear his heart on his sleeve.  Poor guy.  He's even got a sexy Irish accent and his mistress is all-hot-to-trot for some trouble-making bootlegger.  Oh Rafferty, she doesn't deserve you.  Might I suggest a not-so-mild-mannered librarian?

Things really heat up with this installment, with the bread-crumb trail the author has laid out starting to bear fruit.  Things end on a OK I Knew It Was Coming But Still, Oh No She Didn't! note, that will have readers sucked into the soapy shenanigans chomping at the bit for the next entry in the series.  Still hooked, still cannot stop reading, cannot wait to see how the author wraps it all up with just two installments left.

Final Grade = B

Digital Review: The Gin Lovers #3: Society Sinners

Jamie Brenner's The Gin Lovers keeps rolling on with installment three, Society Sinners.  When last we saw Charlotte Delacorte, she was falling hard and fast into the orbit of speak-easy bartender Jake Larkin.  Now, after a memorable night with Jake, her marriage to William becoming increasingly intolerable, Charlotte knows that she can't keep living the way she has.  So she convinces her continually annoyed husband to let her travel to Philadelphia to visit her parents.  Charlotte's plan is to gently break the news to them that she's thinking about leaving William, and let's be honest, to cry on her mother's shoulder.

However once she gets there she realizes that things with her parents are not well.  Oh sure, they're still living in the carriage house, having sold the family mansion years ago when Daddy's fortunes turned, but she hadn't realized things had gotten more precarious.   Charlotte ends her visit knowing one truth: she can never leave William.  Ever.  Money isn't buying her happiness, but it sure has hell can grease the wheels that she just found out are squeaking.

Further developments include Jake scratching together a new business deal in the hopes of being with his new lady love, Charlotte.  Fiona attracting the attention (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) of a Prohibition Agent working undercover, and Amelia Astor sharpening her claws, waiting in the wings to undermine Charlotte at every turn.

This installment does further things along nicely, although honestly it feels a little like a place-holder in some ways.  It's the entry where the characters turn a little introspective, and are looking for ways out of (or into) situations they either 1) want to be in or 2) are looking to escape.  Charlotte fancies herself in love with Jake, which I honestly don't see - but hey, good sex has been known to cloud the judgement of even the most sensible of women, and you can't entirely blame her because heck- if I were married to William I might fancy myself in love with a potted plant if it gave me any sort of affection.

I missed not having as much Mae in this installment, although I liked the fact that it now seems to be Charlotte and Mae Against The World.  Charlotte telling Mae to be smart, play the game, bide her time - that eventually her inheritance will come her way.  Although, naturally, William hasn't told Charlotte all of the stipulations of mama's will.  I also liked the development of Fiona and the Prohibition Agent, and I'm just about ready to have babies with Charlotte's butler, Rafferty.  That guy = awesome.

I'm still hooked.  I'm still loving the trashy, soapy shenanigans.  I'm dying to get started on the next entry in the serial.

Final Grade = B