Dear Mr. Verlander

Dearest Justin,
Last night was your night.  The night it finally happened.  You not only got your first major league hit, but you got two major league hits and came around to score your first run.

I know, those silly National League teams.  Making pitchers have at-bats.  It's cruel.  It's unusual.  I'm pretty sure it defies the Geneva Conventions.  And as interleague play has rolled around every year, you've had to toil away at the plate and encounter nothing but futility.  You've had to contend with reporters pestering you with "So, is this the game you think you'll get your first major league hit?"

Now I know you're a professional athlete.  I know you are THE Justin Verlander.  I know you must work very hard at your job.  But let us reflect for a moment on WHY you got those first two major league hits and scored your first run all in the same game.

A game played a San Diego.

A game that THE Super Librarian, along with the added punch of the Super-Parents just happened to be in attendance for.

That's right Justin.  Ma, Pa and most importantly - me, me, me - just might be your good luck hitting charm.  I mean, I know you're rumored to be dating Kate Upton, but honestly what does she have that I don't have?

Oh.

Yeah.

But was she ever RWA Librarian of the Year?  Can she create whole plots of Harlequin novels based on your teammates?  Oh sure, she may look OK in a bikini but really, what's more important to you?

Wait.  Don't answer that.

But hey, I was there Justin.  I was there for those two hits.  I think we both know that me being in the stands had everything to do with everything.  You know, just like in The Natural!

Just replace the hat with a tiara and add a cape.  You'll get the idea.

Sincerely,
SuperWendy

Reminder: TBR Challenge for April

For those of you participating in the 2014 TBR Challenge, this is a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, April 16.  This month's theme is Contemporary romance.  This one should be pretty easy, right?  However, remember - the themes are totally optional and are not required.  Maybe you're in the mood for a paranormal or historical?  Hey, that's OK!  It's not important what you read, just that you pull something (anything!) out of the TBR pile.

It's also not too late to sign up for this year's challenge.  For more details, please see the information page.

Digital Review: Every Part Of You: Takes Me

Megan Hart wraps up her first serial, Every Part of You, with this fifth and final installment, aptly titled Takes Me.  Like pretty much all of Hart's work, I quickly got hooked on the characters and became invested in them finally, blessedly, working their way into a committed relationship.  This one has been bumpy, thanks to a hero with serious Daddy Issues.

When last we saw Elliott, he was being an asshat to Simone.  Takes Me opens up with Simone wallowing.  She's hurt, she's wounded, she's a shell.  She made the colossal mistake of falling for Elliott, who has turned tail and run.  Her ex, who cannot bare to see her like this, thinks that what she needs is a sex club - and off she goes to get some release.  Meanwhile, Elliott has a run-in with Simone at their office building that leaves both of them battle scarred and wounded.  Then his past shows up on his doorstep one evening and Elliott has to face the cold, stark reality that the best thing he ever had in his life?  He threw away.  Is it too late for him and Simone?

I'll be honest - I didn't love this.  Mostly because I'm so over the sex club "thing."  I get why it's here, but I still wasn't in love with it.  Simone's ex thinks a "release" will do her good - and while the encounter is hot, and she gets off on it - it only temporarily fills the hole that Elliott's departure has left behind.  In other words, sex is great, sex is fun, but sometimes not even sex can fix everything that is making you feel "bad."

But still.  Sex club.  Blah.

Anyway, where this story does work is with Elliott's grovel.  This serial has mostly hinged on Elliott being screwed up emotional (oh boy, is he!) and him being a jackass.  For the most part, Simone holds her own with him.  She's emotionally "strong."  Her mistake is falling in love with him, and bless her heart - she doesn't make things easy for him when he tries to apologize.  He does a fair amount of begging and pleading, which well he should!

I did feel things were a little rushed at the end, but I'm not sure if that's because they were, or if I'm such a sadist I just wanted a lot more blood and angst on the page.  Also, by this point, I was pretty well invested in Simone and Elliott as "real people" (which I know they aren't - but Hart's characters have that effect on me) and just wanted to spend a lot more time with them.  This hasn't been my absolute favorite thing that Hart has ever written, but it was so very good and did what I want all serials to do - which is to hook me, propelling me through the installments with a sense of anticipation and urgency.

Final Grade = B-

Overall Grade For The Serial = B

Third And Long

As a librarian I get asked the question (a lot) of why people choose to read romance.  The fact is, there are a lot of reasons why, and far be it from me to try to tell anyone why I think they're reading what they're reading.  I mean, they could just be reading it because they like it.  When it comes to answering that question for category romance, I'm a bit more forthcoming.  The appeal of category, I think, is that the shorter word count means a strong, intense focus on the romance.  And really, at the end of the day, aren't we all reading romance novels because we want the romance?  Which is where Night Games by Lisa Marie Perry stumbles for me.  As a family drama?  It's good.  As a soap opera?  It's borderline great.  As a romance?  Um, not so much.

Even though Charlotte Blue has a complicated relationship with her parents she accepts a job offer with the NFL team, the Las Vegas Slayers, that they just purchased.  Charlotte is an athletic trainer and isn't afraid to stand-up for herself in a male-dominated workplace.  Standing in her way?  Nate Franco, also an athletic trainer, whose father used to own the franchise before the Blue family "swindled" it out from under him.  The corker?  Nate and Charlotte have met before, in a club, where the sparks going off between them almost led to them burning up the sheets.  So needless to say?  Between the coitus interruptus and the family dynamic, things are a little complicated between them.

The problem with this story has everything to do with the pacing.  As a romance, a category romance at that, it just doesn't work.  Nate and Charlotte spend little to no time together for the vast majority of the story - which is instead spent on world-building (OK, normally a good thing), a plethora of secondary characters, and drama that is only peripherally related to the romantic conflict.  What this story wants to be, and really should be, is a full-length, full-blown, family saga.  You know the kind - the disapproving parents, the kids eager to prove themselves, the various villains working behind the scenes, the family secrets, the exes that just won't stay gone - that kind of family drama.

There's just too much going on outside of the romance, which means when it comes to the romance?  Charlotte and Nate get lost in the shuffle.  Honestly I was much more interested in all that family drama stuff than I was in the romance, and for what is supposed to be a romance novel?  That's the kiss of death.

There were also a few hiccups with plot and characterization.  Nate comes off as an entitled prick on occasion because of the fact that he feels the Blue family swindled him out of his family birthright.  Um, OK.  Listen cupcake.  The franchise was your Dad's business.  How about taking that silver spoon out of your butt and getting your own damn life?  Then there's the fact that I'm supposed to believe that Charlotte's twenty-two year-old sister would be in charge of PR for an NFL team.  OK nepotism, but really?!?!?!  Finally there's the idea that the NFL commissioner's office wouldn't be all over the sale of a franchise.  Heck, even when that runs smoothly (and there are no accusations of dirty dealing) you can bet your bottom dollar they'd be up to their armpits in it.

This leaves me feeling OK, albeit disappointed.  There's a lot of stuff going on here and because of that I never felt like the romance was center stage.  However it does leave me curious.  What will the next book in the Blue Dynasty series be like?  Now that the author has laid a fair amount of groundwork - will the next story, featuring a disgruntled quarterback and one of Charlotte's sisters, have a stronger focus on the love story?  Will I get all of the drama plus a strong, focused romance?  Time will tell.

Final Grade = C

H&H: Unusual Historicals For April 2014

New month, new unusual historicals!  I've over at Heroes & Heartbreakers with a new shopping list.  Nice variety this month - including the 1920s, colonial Salem, Massachusetts and a bookseller hero who sounds kinda dreamy.

Head on over and check 'em out!

Digital Review: Every Part Of You: Taunts Me & Denies Me

As much as I love Megan Hart's books, I did have my doubts about how she would handle a serial.  I love serials, but honestly they're a different sort of writing.  Authors who excel at writing short, serials may be a good fit.  But I read Megan Hart's books almost exclusively for her characterizations.  She writes dynamite, fully-realized, flesh-and-blood characters.  And how is that going to translate to a fast moving serial format?  Turns out, pretty well.

Taunts Me is the third installment and Elliott comes to the realization that he can't stop thinking about Simone.  He's not looking for a permanent thing, he's terrible at relationships, but this woman has crawled under his skin and is driving him to distraction.  So he tells her, that yes - he wants to have steamy sexy times with her and then proceeds to lay out his ground rules.  Simone, for the most part, is highly amused and is ready to agree to Elliott's "demands" - just so long as her needs are being met as well.  And you know what?  It's going along swimmingly until Elliott breaks his own rules.  He gets jealous of Simone's former lover.

This is the installment that moves things forward by having Elliott stand his ground.  To stop running scared, which he basically was doing in the first two installments.  It's easy to see how he would be intrigued and scared of Simone all at the same time, and finally, blessedly, he's going to stop denying himself, and her, what could be a very fulfilling relationship - even if he doesn't want to call it that.

Final Grade = B

Denies Me is the fourth, and second to last, installment.  This is the entry where all the conflict finally comes to a head.  After his fit of jealousy in the last entry, Elliott has decided that maybe he and Simone should try dating.  Yeah, dating.  You know, dinner, dancing, drinks, maybe a show?  Dating.  It's pretty out of character for him, and Simone hasn't been on a "real" date in so long she thinks she might have forgotten how - but she genuinely likes Elliott.  As in, likes him likes him.  And that's her fatal mistake - because eventually everything Elliott said would happen?  Does.  He's an asshat and rips her heart to shreds.  Which sends Simone reeling and back to the one place where she knows she can seek comfort, even if it's only temporary.

Hart's genius as a writer has always been her characters.  She's so great with characters that when you get big, splashy, emotional angst from the plot you're left lying on the floor, gasping for breath, trying to stop the bleeding.  As in, you need to remind yourself that they're "made up" and "not real people."  The moment when all the conflict hits boiling point?  It literally sucks all the air out of the room.  It's bloody fantastic.

Final Grade = B+

The Returning Hero

I've read most of Soraya Lane's backlist and she's quickly become one of those authors where I never know what I'm going to get.  She's written books I've highly enjoyed, books that have made me angry and now with The Returning Hero, the dreaded "OK" read.  For the record, I hate writing "OK" reviews.  It's like trying to extract a tooth with a pair of pliers.  There's nothing inherently wrong with this story, per se.  There aren't elements in this story that I can point to and say "This is why I wasn't wild about it" - it's just.....OK.  Let's see if I can find my way out of this paper bag.

Jamie Mattheson has been a widow for six months.  Her soldier husband died in an explosion and she's now all alone, with only his now-retired bomb-detecting military dog, Bear, for company.  Knocking on her door is Brett Palmer, her husband's BFF, who was also injured in the same explosion.  He survived, with burns on his back that required skin grafts.  He's been putting off visiting Jamie, mostly because he's always had the hots for her.  But he promised Sam he'd look after her, and believe you me, he knows that Jamie is way off limits.  He may have met her before Sam, but once her and Sam hooked up?  He backed off in a major hurry.  Just because Sam is now dead doesn't change anything.  Or does it?

So that's pretty much the gist of it.  Jamie invites Brett to stay at her place because 1) she needs help with Bear 2) they've always been friends and 3) she's lonely in the now big, empty house.  Naturally Brett cannot say no, and then spends the rest of the book fighting his attraction for Jamie.  What I liked most here was that the author doesn't keep any "big secrets" percolating to the bitter end.  By the halfway point in the story Jamie has a pretty good idea of how Brett feels about her because, get this, he actually talks to her about it.  Jamie, in turn, is attracted to Brett and thinks they should explore these feelings.  Sam is gone.  Sam is dead.  And yes she loved him, but to keep on loving him and denying anything "new" to come into her life isn't going to bring him back.  The fly in the ointment?  Logan.  Another BFF who is fairly outraged by the idea that Brett would be horning in on Sam's girl. 

It's just....OK.  I think my problem is that for a long time I didn't feel a lot of chemistry and attraction between the couple.  The author tells me they have the hots for each other, but there's not a lot on the page to convince me of that fact.  The attraction does get stronger as the story gains some traction, but it's pretty light in the pants in the early going.

Also, and I know this is understandable, the ghost of Sam looms large and there are times it toes the line into "icky" territory for me.  I think if the chemistry between Jamie and Brett had been stronger, it wouldn't have bothered me so much.  But even in the mushy epilogue I kept getting this vibe that Jamie and Brett are a couple to keep Sam's memory alive and his death is something they have "in common" - as opposed to them being a couple on their own, in their own world, without Sam.  Yes, they both loved him - but in the end Sam shouldn't have anything to do with their relationship.  Sam is used too much as common ground for my tastes - and I'll be blunt, six months?  If the relationship between Jamie and Brett had been stronger (in other words, without Sam lurking around) I probably wouldn't have found six months jarring.  But as it was - it seemed way too soon.

So I'm probably nit-picking all of this to death, and I really think it's because this story didn't push me strongly on either end of my spectrum.  Mileage is going to vary here.  I can see some readers loving this story and slapping it with a bunch of A+++ ratings.  I, personally, didn't find it offensive in a way to illicit any strong loathing reactions, but again - what do I know?  In the end, it's a dreaded OK read for me.  The kind of book that immediately flies out of my memory once I've completed the epilogue.  Or makes me crazy wondering about why I didn't like it more.....

Final Grade = C+