I’m sitting here shaking my head at the fact that I’ve some how, some way managed to have not read any of your books. Up til now that is. And this one I read with no blurb to lure me or lead me on. Just your rep and the fact that [...]]]> Dear Ms Kinsella,

I’m sitting here shaking my head at the fact that I’ve some how, some way managed to have not read any of your books. Up til now that is. And this one I read with no blurb to lure me or lead me on. Just your rep and the fact that – as mentioned in the first sentence – yours is a name missing on my “I’ve tried this author” list. After finishing “I’ve Got Your Number,” I agree with your publisher that I lost myself in the story and – throwing this bit in myself – didn’t want it to end.

Poppy Wyatt is frantic. At a luncheon “do” with her bridesmaids and wedding planner, her family heirloom “worth a bloody fortune” engagement ring has gone missing. As she drives the hotel staff mental and sends out a flood of phone texts, her day is capped off when her phone is snatched out of her hand by a drive by thief. Staggering back inside the hotel, she notices a phone tossed in the rubbish bin – a perfectly good phone and once something is thrown away it’s fair game, right? Picking it up Poppy quickly transfers her life to it in the form of her contact list after which she sends out the number to everyone searching for her ring. When the man whose business PA the phone belong(s)(ed) – tense depends on whom you’re talking to – realizes Poppy has it, he wants it back – company property, you know. Poppy quickly spins a deal. She’ll keep the phone for a day until she can replace her own and in the meantime, she’ll forward any texts that are sent to Sam – the businessman – via his now defunct PA. Since Poppy scoots out of the hotel before Sam can do anything, he’s forced to go along.

As texts and phone calls start pouring in, and Poppy begins scrolling back to discover the origins of all these threads in Sam’s life, she can’t help but begin to become involved – it’s just the helpful – okay, slightly nosey – way she is. And honestly she’s doing him a favor to respond to the third or fourth requests some people have sent him. Can the man never answer these? Before long, Poppy thinks she knows as much about Sam as she does about herself. Or does she? Corporate hijinks, pre-wedding jitters and a ton of text messages later will Poppy be walking down the aisle towards the man she thought she would be?

When handed a Chick Lit book, I’ve realized my resistance is pretty much futile. It’s like leaving dark chocolate in front of me and thinking I’m not going to at least sample it. Ain’t gonna happen. Still, even though I’m helpless about starting to read one of them, the story and characters had better grab my attention and interest quickly. And I want something beyond the standard ditzy heroine in London with a crap job who makes a prat of herself.

Poppy’s lost engagement ring accounts for her hyperventilation state and neatly sets up the plot which, I’ll admit, has to be swallowed whole in order for the story to keep going. Sam is a very important businessman but it’s quickly revealed he’s also a nice guy as shown when he helps Poppy ace the intellectual Scrabble game she has to play with her brainiac future in-laws and fiance – via the phone of course. And, in a scene that had me busting out laughing, he helps her get a copy of The Ring made in order to buy her some more time before fessing up. I hope he eventually manages to redeem himself in the eyes of the jewelry store assistants.

Meanwhile, Poppy’s efforts on Sam’s behalf do cross the line a time or four but to her credit, from what she can see about it, she really does feel she’s helping Sam at his workplace. This is followed by Sam helping her build her self confidence as he reminds her that she’s just as important as her famous to-be in-laws and that she does great work at the job she loves helping make people feel better. There’s depth here and I can see both Sam and Poppy growing and becoming better because of the other. They work well together, talk to each other and laugh as well. They see the value in each other and help show that to others as hilariously depicted in the finale wedding fiasco. Those last 40 pages had me on the edge of my seat to see how it would get to where I knew it had to go while simultaneously laughing almost the whole way. No doubt about it, Poppy’s near wedding will be a viral sensation. Poor Reverend Fox will probably need a few swigs from a bottle of something potent to get over the shock. Not since the last wedding in “4 Weddings and a Funeral” have I laughed this hard.

It’s obviously taken me far too long to read one of your books but it’s something I’ve finally corrected. And you can bet that in the future I’ll be queuing up as soon as the new one is available. B+

~Jayne

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Historical:

With the buzz over The Hunger Games trilogy, YA dystopian novels are hotter than ever right now – even an infrequent YA reader like myself knows that. I’ll admit to being party to the general enthusiasm. I like dystopian novels in general (at least in theory; in practice I’m careful about which ones I [...]]]> Dear Ms. Baggott,

With the buzz over The Hunger Games trilogy, YA dystopian novels are hotter than ever right now – even an infrequent YA reader like myself knows that. I’ll admit to being party to the general enthusiasm. I like dystopian novels in general (at least in theory; in practice I’m careful about which ones I read, because some of them are just too grim for me). But YA seems particularly suited to dystopian themes, perhaps because depressing subjects can be a little less so when seen through the eyes of the young, who may have more resiliency and less to lose than older protagonists. I also think that even at my age I retain a certain visceral thrill at the idea of being young and suddenly unconstrained by the rules that govern society (of course, the characters in these novels often face other, more difficult challenges). In addition to really liking The Hunger Games trilogy, several years ago I read and loved How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, which was a rather low-tech and straight-forward story with dystopian themes. So I’m always on the lookout for similar books.

 Pure definitely had some similarity to The Hunger Games; less so to How I Live Now, in that the post-apocalyptic world of Pure is definitely more science-fictiony than those two books. Some of the creatures created by the apocalyptic event (called “the Detonations” in Pure) almost seem supernatural to me, though there’s no suggestion that they are not the natural result of what happened. It’s just that they seemed so fantastical to me and the science behind them is never explained, which leaves me wondering how they came to be. (The author’s note at the end suggests that she did do some research with nanotechnology experts, but since I didn’t read that until I was done with the book, it didn’t really help me.)

Anyway…Pure begins by introducing the reader to Pressia Belze, a 15-going-on-16-year-old (more on this in a moment). She lives with her grandfather in the burned-out husk of former barbershop. Some time (perhaps a decade) before, the Detonations occurred; the Detonations appear to have been some sort of bomb or bombs, as the name would suggest. Apparently similar in scale to an atomic bomb, the Detonations cause a specific and horrifying sort of damage. Many are killed, and the survivors exist in poverty and misery. Well, some of the survivors. An unspecified number had escaped before the Detonations to a planned artificial community called the Dome. Those within the Dome are safe from the Detonations and continue their lives in a rigidly controlled and sterile environment, waiting for the day that the Earth will be renewed and they can rejoin their brethren outside in the real world.

Pressia’s age is an issue because 16 year olds are compelled to report to the OSR, a sort of militia that controls what’s left of society. Children taken by the OSR are forced to either become OSR killers or used as target practice for other OSR recruits. Pressia and her grandfather must make a decision about whether to try to evade the OSR (which would mean certain death if she were caught) or not.

Meanwhile, within the Dome, a teenage boy named Partridge is beginning to awaken to some truths about his past. His father, Willux, is a high muckity-muck in Dome society, a scientist who was one of the chief architects of the Dome. Partridge’s mother supposedly died in the Detonations, and his older brother, the golden boy Sedge, committed suicide. Partridge is a disappointment to his father in part because he is resistant to “coding”, the genetic manipulation that the scientists within the Dome use to create super-soldiers.

The world of Pure feels artificial, or at least incomplete. It’s unclear what happened to the rest of the world, and it’s hard to get a sense of exactly how big the world the characters inhabit is. How big is the Dome – the size of a small city? A large city? Bigger? Smaller? I had no idea, and that bothered me. The scale of the world outside the Dome is similarly vague, and there is no mention of what happened to the rest of the world. (Come to think of it, was that ever addressed in The Hunger Games? Now that’s bothering me….)

The inauthenticity problem kept cropping up for me. One of the central conceits of Pure is that those left outside the Dome during the Detonations were altered by them in strange ways, usually involving having inanimate or animate objects fused to their bodies. In Pressia’s case, it’s a doll’s head in place of (or over? I was never clear on this) one of her hands. Her grandfather has a fan lodged in his throat. Another teen, Bradwell, has birds fused into his back, birds that somehow remain alive enough to occasionally flutter their wings, though they don’t seem to eat or poop or caw or do anything else that birds do. A third character has his younger brother fused to his back; in that case, the brother does eat, and talk, though he appears to be mentally retarded or brain-damaged.

The concept was intriguing, but it didn’t hold up to scrutiny much. I don’t know if my problem was that I’m too scientifically minded or not scientifically minded enough. I kept wondering, in the case of fusing with non-sentient objects, how the objects didn’t end up causing infections. In the case of, say, the birds on Bradwell’s back, I was even more confused. Were they somehow parasitically living off Bradwell? How would that work? Wouldn’t their life span be different from his, and if so, would their deaths effect his health? There is a suggestion at one point that the detonations were of some sort of weapon that changed the people and objects outside on a molecular level – at least that was how I understood it. But it was so beyond my understanding of the way things work that it almost seemed to be more magic than science involved. I couldn’t help but feel that the author was more moved by a cool-sounding concept – a doll head for a hand! birds that flutter their wings imbedded in one’s back! – than that she was really working from a well-thought out theory about the world she was creating. Again, maybe this is all explained by nanotechnology; I really wouldn’t know (that’s putting it mildly; my knowledge of nanotechnology begins and ends with my ability to spell the word). But I wished there was more detail – I even would’ve accepted an info dump – that put the strange mutations caused by the Detonations in some sort of context I could begin to understand.

As I mentioned, the Detonations happened about a decade before the book begins, but in some ways the time feels shorter than that. I would have expected that more of a civilization would have emerged; things on the outside are pretty chaotic, and everyone just seems to accept that. Now, it may be that there is manipulation from inside the Dome to keep things that way (I hope I’m not giving too much away by suggesting that the architects of the Dome aren’t exactly benevolent), but that’s just a guess; it’s not something that’s suggested in the text. There is a market of sorts that Pressia barters at, proving I guess that commerce is the hardest thing to kill, but no schools or organized workforce (beyond the OSR) seemed to exist. I can’t say I know how people would react after an apocalyptic event that destroyed society, but I feel like there would be some effort to approximate normalcy, even if it was a harrowing and miserable facsimile of it.

Pure definitely contains some not-so-subtle political messages – not ones I disagreed with, but they may bug some readers. Society was obviously somewhat troubled before the Detonations – there are mentions of the asylums and prisons being full, for one thing. The prevailing thought within in the Dome seems to be that a lack of “civility” and “purity” were the main problems that plagued society, but their definitions of such concepts are a little twisted. There’s a heavy dose of eugenics in the notion of being “pure”, though the term is also used by those on the outside to denote those within the Dome, who avoided being physically marred by the Detonations as apparently everyone outside was. Also, Dome society is depicted as pretty rigidly old-fashioned in regards to gender roles: the boys train to be soldiers and the girls are expected to see their highest calling as mothers.

In addition to being somewhat flummoxed by the scale of the society depicted in Pure, I was confused by the idea that those within the Dome would anxiously anticipate the day that they could rejoin the outside world – a world that supposedly would be reborn and renewed at some future point. Again, only going by my own hazy scientific understanding of the weapons used in the Detonations, and using the still-present manifestations of the damage they wrought – omnipresent ash and mutations – as a reference point, I wouldn’t think that rebirth and renewal would be happening in anyone’s lifetime, or their children’s, or their children’s children’s children’s, if you get my drift.  What I’m saying is, I don’t really understand anyone within the Dome being emotionally invested in the day that Dome folk would once again walk in the sunshine, since it seemed like it could be hundreds and hundreds of years off.

That’s before you even get to the “meltlands” of destroyed neighborhoods, the periodic “death sprees”, and the dust monsters – terrifying (though again somewhat biologically improbable) creatures that rise up and devour unwary humans. Granted, those within the Dome don’t necessarily know the reality of life on the outside, though they know it’s not good (presumably, they are told just enough horror stories to discourage them from thinking of trying to get out and see for themselves). But still, it feels like this idea – that the Detonations were done to scrub the Earth of all its unsavory elements, allowing for a fresh start at some point in the future – is an interesting one that is just not that well thought out.

There’s a lot going on in Pure – a lot of the stuff that happens later in the book is probably too spoilery to even allude to. There are several significant characters besides Pressia and Partridge: Bradwell, a young man who has escaped the OSR’s notice and lives outside even the marginal society that exists outside; Lyda, a Dome girl whose involvement with Partridge ends up costing her a lot, but which also opens her eyes to the reality of life both in and outside; and El Capitan, an OSR commander who comes to have divided loyalties as the story progresses.

Pressia and Partridge, for all that they are the leads, aren’t really the characters who interested me the most in the story. For all the strangeness of the world, they feel like fairly conventional characters. So too was Bradwell. I actually found Lyda and El Capitan the most interesting. Lyda really has her world turned upside in Pure - actually, all the main characters do, with the possible exception of Bradwell. I’m not sure why I found her more interesting that Pressia – maybe because, having more, she gave up much more when she accepted that everything she knew was a lie. El Capitan is in some way’s Lyda’s opposite, though he also has been led to believe things about life in and outside the Dome that aren’t true. But rather than being kept in innocence, he’s been fashioned into something hard and cold – which makes the strong spark of humanity beneath the tough surface all the more appealing.

Something I should probably note:  the story is told in first person present tense.  I found this distracting at first but quickly got used to it. I do know that some readers are picky about such things, though.

Ultimately, Pure was a bit of a mish-mash for me: a lot of good ideas that felt like they were better in concept than execution, some characters that didn’t interest me very much and some that interested me a lot, and a plot that was crammed full. The last half or third (with all the spoilery developments) was fast-paced and kept me absorbed, and I’m interested enough to want to check out the next book in the series. My grade: B-.

Best regards,

Jennie

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Kate Rothwell, [...]]]> Linda H emailed me today to let me know she stumbled across a group of people (possibly the work of just one person masquerading as many) republishing works that appear to be copies of others’ legitimate work. Three examples include Kate Rothwell’s Something to Cherish, Rebecca Abbott Miller’s Save Me, Payton Lee’s, Novo Arkhangel’Sk.

Kate Rothwell, Someone to Cherish:

The death of Callie Scott’s fashionable father left her with nothing—except an inquisitive mind not even her grandmother’s puritanical upbringing could quash. An adventurous spirit doesn’t get her much in New York City, however, except an abysmal position as a ladies maid.

Things are looking up when she lands a trial job in a “special” library. Her benefactor’s offer of wine before noon should have signaled something amiss—not to mention the heated text she’s asked to translate. The more she reads, the more wine she needs to cool her blush.

Detective Cutter can’t quite place the tipsy young woman he encounters in a notorious brothel, but when she plants a dizzying kiss on his lips, he’s sure she doesn’t belong there. The resulting scandal of the police raid leaves Callie on the street, and Cutter feels responsible for her welfare.

Despite the cruel knowledge that he will never be part of her world, Cutter impulsively offers her a job in his home, where she turns out to possess more than the face of an angel. She has an irresistible, innocent sensuality—and an insatiable curiosity that could bring her one step too close to a murderer.

versus Bad Luck Loves Me:

A full-length gaslight historical romance set in 1884 New York City.

Innocent Callie Scott lived a sheltered life until she is trapped in a raid on a house of ill-repute. That’s only the start of her run of bad-luck. Two days later, she must turn to help from the same detective who has already witnessed her at her worst: tipsy and behaving like a fool. Officer Cutter doesn’t need the complication of a well-bred innocent in his life, but he still finds himself offering her a job. He discovers he must now act as protector to the same young lady he desires–and who wants him.

Rebecca Abbott Miller, Save Me:

There was nothing exciting about Crossdale, North Carolina. For Hannah Doherty, that was a good thing. After twenty-one years of unpredictability, sadness and disappointment, she needed boring. A serious illness kept her close to home, and she believed that’s where she would live and die — alone in that small town.

Max Fitzgerald was living a dream as a member of the hottest “boyband” in the history of the world. He had it all, including a hole in his heart that he couldn’t fill with fame, fortune, women and parties.

When Max finds himself stranded in Crossdale, it’s the beginning of an adventure that neither he or Hannah are prepared for.

Can true love grow from a one night stand between strangers? And will it be enough to save them form the forces that threaten to tear them apart?

The Quintessential Series Continues…

versus A New Love:

Out of Control… There was nothing exciting about Crossdale, North Carolina. For Hannah Doherty, that was a good thing. After twenty-one years of unpredictability, sadness and disappointment, she needed boring. A serious illness kept her close to home, and she believed that’s where she would live and die — alone in that small town.

Max Fitzgerald was living a dream as a member of the hottest “boyband” in the history of the world. He had it all, including a hole in his heart that he couldn’t fill with fame, fortune, women and parties.

When Max finds himself stranded in Crossdale, it’s the beginning of an adventure that neither he or Hannah are prepared for.

You get the picture.  There are various author names, but the name of the editor “Kevin Peters” appears to repeat. I’d recommend any self published author (because those appear to be the target) check this out.

*****

In good news, there are a couple of really good deals.

• Fade to Midnight by Shannon McKenna * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Standing in the Shadows by Shannon McKenna * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Out of Control by Shannon McKenna * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Edge of Midnight by Shannon McKenna * $0.99 * A | BN | K | S

Robyn Carr’s first four Virgin River books have been released in a bundle. Amazon has the four books priced at $8.83 and BN at $9.98.  At Fictionwise the price is $ 19.95 | $16.96 (club) and there is a 60% off coupon code (021012) for Fictionwise. At Harlequin, the price is $17.96. You can use coupon code SAVE10AFFO at Checkout Ebooks only, until 3/31/2012. for 10% off.  Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | HQN | All Romance eBooks | Fictionwise

I’ll confess that I had become disenchanted with your work. The grown up hookers with a heart of gold series followed by two dark and somewhat unromantic stories made me gun shy. But a free book of an author I’ve liked in the past? I can’t resist at least giving it a [...]]]> Dear Ms. Haynes:

I’ll confess that I had become disenchanted with your work. The grown up hookers with a heart of gold series followed by two dark and somewhat unromantic stories made me gun shy. But a free book of an author I’ve liked in the past? I can’t resist at least giving it a try and I am glad that I did.

Rachel Delaney is a newly divorced single mom sharing custody of two teen boys with her ex husband. Before her divorce, she was a homemaker. Now she is working at a receptionist for a local company but her small salary doesn’t allow her for many extras even with her ex picking up the tab for the mortgage. Her eldest, Nathan, is playing Rachel against his father like a pro, starting to hang out with a bad crowd, and acting perpetually angry. Rachel would like something just for herself and while a lover would be nice, she’d settled for a vibrator.

Rand Torvik is a believer in the law of attraction or perhaps the universe reshaping things that were meant to be. He sees Rachel three random times – at a grocery store, outside a sex store where Rachel bought her vibrator, and in a local coffee shop – before approaching her with his interest. Rachel isn’t looking for a relationship but she wouldn’t mind calling on Rand for a little adult time. This suits Rand just fine.

In some ways, Rand and Rachel’s sexual interaction is much like a courtship. Even in this erotic book, their first encounter is relatively chaste, at least between the two. Rand’s neighbors are exhibitionists and Rand essentially sets up a first date atmosphere with wine on his upper balcony and a cinematic view of the neighbor’s hot tub antics. Every encounter that Rand and Rachel experience explore a few more fantasies from video taping themselves to participating in some exhibitionism themselves. Inevitably their physical connection brings them emotionally close. Rachel and Rand’s relationship is put on hold when she discovers that Rand is her son’s new principal, a man that her son hates.

As Rachel becomes more sexually adventurous with the encouragement of Rand, she gains confidence at work with the encouragement of a co worker. I felt that Rachel was blossoming into the person she could have been, not because she had a job and a lover, but because she began to identify herself as an individual and it was through those two vehicles that this came about. I enjoyed her recognizing that her skills as a mother translated into managing fractious co workers.

The one weakness in the story was Rand. The story could have been written in the first person because despite scenes from Rand’s point of view, he remained much of a mystery. He had little character movement and everything he did was exactly right. He knew exactly how to nudge Rachel into loosening her inhibitions, guessing exactly what would turn her on. He was able to turn her son around with exactly the right methods. I found him too good to be true and in many ways a flat character. I was also puzzled by his mantra that the laws of attraction bound his actions. The way he conducted his life didn’t seem as metaphysical as his philosophies would indicate.

The ex husband storyline was fairly predictable and while it was used to propel Rachel’s storyline and exhibit her newfound personal strength, I didn’t find the ex husband’s actions particularly believable which worked to lessen the tension that I believe it was supposed to present.

I did love the subtle sex positive, pro woman message in the story. A repeated mantra is that Rachel deserves to have it all. She deserves to be viewed as a good mother, an upstanding member of her community, and most of all, she deserves to have great sex. Rand is happy to stand by her side to make sure all of those things come to fruition, particularly the great sex part. It seems that full length erotic romances are a wasteland of late so The Principal’s Office, even at the trade paperback price, might be worth it. B-

Best regards,

Jane

***

New York City, Manhattan, somewhere between So-Ho and Hell’s Kitchen: What are the chances of not only [...]]]> Welcome to First Page Saturday. Individual authors anonymously send a first page read and critiqued by the Dear Author community of authors, readers and industry others. Anyone is welcome to comment. You may comment anonymously.

***

New York City, Manhattan, somewhere between So-Ho and Hell’s Kitchen: What are the chances of not only finding yourself face to face with another Irishman, but one who is nearly twenty years your senior and you’re inexplicably drawn to each other as if wielded by fate?

Chapter 1

Bronwyn awoke and found herself trapped in a carcass of ripped and crunched metal. She blinked rapidly and tried to wipe broken glass from her hair. Flustered, she tried to maneuver around to see if she could somehow get free. She felt the warmth of fresh blood as it ran down the side of her face. Her breath was deep yet calm. Rain beat down in the pitch dark of night; the droplets echoed like pinging thunder and silenced any other sound until she heard footsteps slowly overtake the downpour. Heavy. Echoed. She didn’t move. She covered her mouth to subdue a yelp that would turn into a blood curdling scream. A strong weathered hand grabbed at her ankle and yanked hard on her leg to pull her from the wreckage.

“I’m not done with you yet!” the graveled voice howled. Bronwyn kicked back with her other foot to fend off the attacker. She desperately tried to find another way out. “Come here bitch!” She kicked back harder and clawed her way through a hole. She scrambled to her feet and began to run again when the man tackled her to the ground. He bashed his fist into her face. She could taste the blood as it filled her mouth. “You’re pretty,” he smiled.

His teeth were crooked and black. Spittle gathered at the corners of his mouth. “Stop it,” Bronwyn whimpered. He reached behind his back and pulled around a silver blade. Bronwyn began to cry. “Shh, don’t cry,” he wiped a tear from her cheek as it mixed with rain. “It won’t hurt, for long.”

“No!” Bronwyn shot up in her bed, beads of sweat ran down her forehead and chest. Sheets mangled and wrapped around her feet. Her phone vibrated against the night stand. Bronwyn rubbed her eyes, “Hello?”

“Bronwyn good morning,” Detective McDonald said cheerfully.

Bronwyn yawned as she sat up. “I’m tired of this. Every year you call. Every year I look at another hundred mug shots. It’s been ten years. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“I told you I wasn’t going to give up on this. I know something will pop out and happen for us. All I’m asking for is a few hours.”

“No, all you’re asking for is for me to relive it over and over again. I can’t move on if you won’t let me let it go.”

“Promise me you’ll-”

“I’m not promising anything. I have to get ready for work; I’ll call you next week.” Bronwyn put the phone back on her nightstand and proceeded to prepare for the day ahead.

Once Bronwyn jumped out of bed and got herself into the shower. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her pale blue eyes were puffy as they stared back. She had unblemished ivory skin, straight long light brown hair and was taller than the average sized woman, an easy five foot ten inches.

She applied some face moisturizer as she began primping for the day. As she reached for the toothbrush, she knocked over the toothpaste and sent her hair brush to the floor onto her foot. “Goddamn it! Ow,” she rubbed the top of one foot with the other. As she brushed her teeth she ran into her closet to quickly throw an outfit together.

She pulled a long black wool skirt off its hangar and snagged a dark red, long sleeve scoop neck top to go with it. She ran back to the sink, spit out the toothpaste and picked up the brush to comb out her hair and part it in the middle. She glanced at the clock; it screamed 9:15 back at her. “Shit, shit, shit.” She got dressed took one last glance in the mirror, seized her bag and coat and flew out her apartment door.

She hustled down 7th Street and doing her best to keep from running into other people. Her cell phone began to ring. She tried to dig through her purse to find it and in doing so poked her finger on an uncovered pen. She quickly yanked her hand out and gave a quick suck to it. Her phone continued its persistence and beckoned her again. She pulled herself up against the outside wall of her favorite coffee shop, forced her bag open and began to rummage through all her junk and finally found the phone. “I’ve got to get myself a smaller bag,” she uttered under her breath as she clicked the answer button.

“Bronwyn, where are you?” Adam, Bronwyn’s colleague, asked with a thick, gruff voice.

“I know, Adam. I’m sorry. I had a wicked night’s sleep and must have accidentally turned off my alarm or something.”

“He’s waiting,” Adam continued. “I know you’re in charge of this one so you have to be here to oversee the transfer. He was adamant,” he chided.

“Look, I’m on my way. Tell Mr. Seeley I will absolutely make sure all the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed.” She paused and in that split second as she looked up time came to an utter standstill, at least for her. She locked eyes with a man.

He was tall, maybe six foot or more, Bronwyn couldn’t tell in the brief encounter. He had a creased brow deep in thought that vanished as he shot back a glance and smiled. Those eyes, she thought to herself. Bright blue and would have seemed average on any man, but not on him. He had short brown hair that was slightly grayed on the sides and a lean physique. His hands were huddled in the pockets of his coat. Must have forgotten his gloves. She completely drifted from her phone conversation.

“Bronwyn? You there?” Adam nudged. She looked away for a split second and lost sight of the gentleman.

This book was not what I expected when I picked it up. In fact, I’d even venture so far as to offer a caption.

Heat is probably the best independently published book I have read, and one of the best books I have read in a long while. It is also [...]]]> Dear Ms. Smith,

This book was not what I expected when I picked it up. In fact, I’d even venture so far as to offer a caption.

Heat is probably the best independently published book I have read, and one of the best books I have read in a long while. It is also one of the most graphic, and most disturbing books I have read in a long while. When I finished this book, I told a friend about it and she said it sounded awful. On paper, it does sound awful, but it was a truly compelling read and I could not put it down. I mainlined this book as if I were a junkie and this was my fix. I debated about reviewing it, since it is not the standard Dear Author sort of book. But the bottom line is that I want to talk about this book with other people, so here’s the review.

Warning – if you are easily triggered, this is most definitely not the book for you. Move along.

I stumbled upon this book on Amazon, but I’m not sure how. Perhaps someone mentioned it on a villainous hero thread. Someone said it was the most unique and different romance they had read in a very long time, and that was all it took for me to purchase despite the hefty cover price. This review will probably end up rather long, so fair warning.

Heat does not fall into my regular reading category. It’s about two sets of alien men. One is an escaped drug dealer and criminal who is hiding out on earth. The other is the stiff and proper interplanetary cop who is chasing him. They are both the heroes, and over the course of this very long book, they both fall in love with their respective females. This is definitely a romance. A bizarre one, but ultimately with a happy ending for both parties.

The book starts out with Kanetus, aka Kane. Kane is a Jotan interplanetary pirate who has been sentenced to life in prison for any number of crimes. He escapes and heads to earth. Earth is full of humans, and the Jotan treat them like pets, sex toys, and slaves. Sometimes all of the above. Another interesting thing about humans is that they produce a chemical called dopamine that can be harvested from their brains. From this chemical, an illegal drug called Vahst can be made. Vahst is in high demand and Kane is broke, so he has a plan. Go to earth, harvest humans to make Vahst, and return to his life of space piracy a rich man. When Kane gets to earth, his plans are quickly turned upside down. It is summer on earth, and heat makes Jotans go into heat – they must have sex on a regular basis or else they are in intense pain and become ill. Kane doesn’t have time for this, so he decides he will steal himself a human. After grabbing and raping the first woman he runs across, he is perplexed when she runs away and kills herself. So he gets another human, and this time reminds himself to be more careful.

The new human female is named Raven, and she’s an eighteen year old street prostitute who loves drugs and living wild. She’s terrified of Kane and how brutally he treats her, as any woman in her right mind would be. What Raven wants isn’t a factor in the first half of the story. She is Kane’s to use as he wishes, and gradually she begins to help him with his harvesting of other humans for the Vahst, which is just as graphic and awful as it sounds.

Tagen is the interplanetary cop who has come to earth to find Kane and bring him back to justice. He’s afflicted by the same situation as Kane – the heat of summer makes him need sex intensely, but he refuses to give in to it. Tagen accidentally kills a human with his blaster and he is horrified that he is so careless with human life. Suffering from the elements, Tagen collapses on the doorstep of Daria, a human woman who is a recluse. Daria takes him in despite his fearsome appearance and his strangeness, and she helps him recover and later assists him in his hunt for Kane.

The story is a very interesting dichotomy about two men who could not be more different, but are both influenced by their late fathers, and you layer this in beautifully. Kane remembers his dead father with fondness, for all that his father was a murderer and pirate who taught Kane to be just like him. Tagen was adopted by a man that served as his father, but he never felt affection or love, merely duty, and this influences the man he has become. It’s a very interesting nuance to a story that on the surface sounds coarse, violent, and a little weird.

Though we are given dueling storylines, the ‘romance’ between Kane and Raven is the more compelling of the two storylines. It’s interesting to note that Kane is a villain, but over the course of the story, he is not reformed from his wicked ways in the slightest. He remains a rebellious killer on the first page and the last. Nor does Raven, his love interest, change from her hedonist ways. Rather, the characters change by being together, and change in how they perceive each other. Raven begins to assist Kane with his Vahst collecting, and Kane begins to appreciate how smart and clever and cautious she is. Raven, for her part, begins to understand Kane’s cues and how he functions, and learns how to show him that she is a worthwhile partner. While their story starts out with a very Stockholm-Syndrome vibe to it, it progresses to something else, and by the end of the book, Raven is very much an equal partner to Kane, and the last scene of the book had me thrilled to my bones at how far Raven had come.

Tagen and Daria have a much sweeter, more traditional romance. Tagen is worried about hurting Daria, who has clearly been damaged in the past. In addition, Jotan women are the ones that are aggressors in the relationship, and since Daria does not make a move on him, he simply waits for her to indicate that she wants him. This takes a very, very long time since Daria has been hurt in the past. Tagen is obsessed with his police-work, and he appreciates Daria’s clever mind as she begins to help him track down Kane. In turn, Daria is attracted to Tagen, but she is afraid of letting someone into her safe, protected life and being hurt all over again. Their relationship is much slower to develop, but is a nice counterpoint to the violence of Kane and Raven’s relationship, and when they finally get together, the reader knows it is because they have come to a genuine understanding and mutual desire.

This is dubbed as ‘erotic horror’ by the author, and while I don’t think it’s really a horror novel, the erotic tag is very key. Kane rapes multiple people throughout the book, including the heroine. Raven herself is passed around and forced to service other men and sometimes other women, all upon Kane’s whim. There is lots of extreme violence and Raven is manhandled for the first section of the book to the point that I was very uncomfortable with some of the scenarios. I’m not a fan of rape in novels. Usually that is the first thing that will make a book hit the wall. Yet I kept reading this, and I found myself still hoping that Kane and Raven would have a happy ending by the end of the book. I’m not sure what that says about me.

Despite the violent storyline, there are some genuinely touching moments between each couple, and some very funny ones. The conclusions that Tagen comes to as he tries to figure out earth culture by watching TV are quite funny, as well as the scene in the sex shop.

I would be remiss without pointing out that this book is very long.  The page count is not listed on the Amazon page, but clicking over to the paper copy shows that it’s over 600 pages long, which sounds about right. Yet the book does not feel dragged out or change plots halfway through (unlike your other book, Olivia, which I bailed out on at 40%) and the story never loses its momentum. I was actually sad to see the book end and immediately looked for other reads similar to Heat, because I wanted to return to that enjoyable intensity your writing brings.

Overall, Heat was an uncomfortable read at times but a riveting one the entire story. I am struggling with the grade to give this book. The writing and intensity that I felt while reading it mark this into A+ territory, and I am stingy with my grades. I haven’t felt quite so caught up in a book in a very long time. Yet if I were taking off marks for awful things depicted in the story, I’d have to mark it right back down to an F grade, because there are a lot of reprehensible things done and committed by one of the heroes. Kane is not nice. He does not become nice. He is not reformed into a kinder, gentler Kane by the end of the story. If you are interested in villain heroes, this is definitely a book to get. If not, you should pass this one on by because you will regret every dollar you spend.

I do feel as if this sort of book was the reason I read indie books. I’m constantly hoping for that one read that will probably never be published by a mainstream publisher, yet is intense and consuming and surpasses all my skeptical misgivings. The happy ending for both couples cinched this for me, since I was worried that it could not possibly end well. And yet, you pulled it off.  I have to give this a very enthusiastic B+/A- and hope that others pick it up so they can tell me if I have lost my mind with my affection for this book.

All best,

January

PS – Your website is awful and your book covers almost as bad.

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | All Romance eBooks

Perhaps libraries [...]]]> News

Penguin has severed all ties with Overdrive which means that there will no longer be any titles from Penguin available for library loan in digital format. The parties are negotiating terms in which books that the libraries have already purchased can be lent but no agreement has been forthcoming. Chilling, isn’t it?

Perhaps libraries won’t need an agreement from the publishers in the future depending on the outcome of the ReDigi lawsuit. ReDigi is a company that allows the resale of mp3s. Capital Records sued for an injunction to shut down the site and the judge has denied that preliminary motion. The case will proceed to trial on the issues of fair use and the bounds of the first sale doctrine. The outcome of the ReDigi case, depending on how far up the ladder the appeal process goes (and I suspect it will go all the way to the Supreme Court if the case is not settled), may define the boundaries of ownership of digital products.

One librarian has posted a sign indicating that the reason certain content is not available to patrons is the result of decisions made by publishers. I hope more libraries post signs like this. The problem with the Big 6 publisher’s decisions is that a) it does not deter digital growth; b) it drives consumers to non big 6 content; c) it could increase piracy and d) it cedes more ground to Amazon.

Publishers Lunch goes into more detail about how publishers want to increase the fiction for digital lending including making the patron go to the library to borrow a digital book and requiring Kindle users to download lends to their computer and transfer the book to the device via a USB cable.  It’s a free article.

Today is the last day to register a comment or a suggestion for the next set of DMCA Exemptions. Every two years the Registrar of the Copyright Office issues exemptions to the DMCA.  Two years ago, the Registrar allowed jailbreaking and DRM stripping of ebooks in limited cases.  Here are the proposed exemptions.

Indigo sold Kobo to a Japanese company and is now suffering decreased profits. The president has resigned. One reason given for the declining profits was the low margin in print book sales and increased sales of low margin ereaders.

Indigo CEO Heather Reisman attributed reduced profits to “lower gross margins as a result of increased promotionaldiscounts to drive print sales and increased sales of low margin e-readers.”

Sarah Wendell has a hilarious blog post interpreting the future from futuristic romance covers. Spoiler: We all ride unicorns.

Deals

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“He rode a blazing saddle, he wore a shining star. His job to offer battle to bad men near and far. He conquered fear and he conquered hate. He turned dark night into day. He made his blazing saddle a torch to light the way.”

It’s been a [...]]]> Blazing Saddles (1974)
Genre: Comedy/Spoof
Grade: A-

“He rode a blazing saddle, he wore a shining star.
His job to offer battle to bad men near and far.
He conquered fear and he conquered hate.
He turned dark night into day.
He made his blazing saddle a torch to light the way.”

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a bromance so here goes with one of the funniest movies from Mel Brooks. Not only is it an homage/spoof of the great Western classics but it’s also a social commentary on race relations of the time. A comedy with layers. The first time I saw it was in its 1975 summer re release in theaters and, to be honest, most of it went right over my head. I still thought it was funny then but with age and movie watching experience, I can understand a bit better what Mel Brooks was trying to do with it.

Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman), the crooked Assistant to the crooked Territorial Governor William Lepetomane (Mel Brooks), wants some land to sell to the railroad. The only problem is it’s currently owned by the citizens of the peaceful town of Rock Ridge (all with the last name of Johnson). He schemes to send his hired thug Taggert (Slim Pickens) and his band on a No 6 – where they go tearing into town awhooping and ahollering and ashooting everything. When this fails to send the townsfolk fleeing, he maneuvers the Gov into appointing a black sheriff, Bart (Cleavon Little), to replace the one Taggert and the boys shot. But along with his deputy, Jim the Waco Kid (Gene Wilder), Bart settles into town and begins to slowly win the town over. Undeterred, Lamarr then sends Mongo – who is more of a what rather than a who – against the town but Bart soon tames Mongo thus earning his devotion. Well if the Beast didn’t work, maybe Beauty in the form of Lili Von Shtupp (Madeline Kahn) will be able to bring Bart to his knees. Bart, however, turns the tables on Lili after a night of hot lovin’. But Hedley is supremely greedy and keeps trying. Can the townspeople pull together, overcome their prejudices, give Bart the 24 hours he asks for to devise a brilliant plan to save the town – after all, they’d give it to Randolph Scott – and prevail?

The poster for the movie has the line “Never give a saga an even break” and this one doesn’t. Is it vulgar? Does it offend most ethnic/social/whatever groups? “You bet your ass!” The film gleefully skewers a lot about the Western genre – the cavalry escapes but little else. The references to bits and pieces of famous westerns come thick and fast but the film is still funny even if you don’t catch all this. It’s also chock full of anachronisms including Cole Porter songs, Count Basie and his Orchestra, Boris the medieval executioner, Hedy Lamarr jokes, mentions of Academy Award nominations, German storm troopers and a tollbooth with flashing electrical lights. It was un PC before PC even existed. It goes for shameless laughs and usually succeeds including more than once when the actors break the “fourth wall” to address the audience directly plus the ending which shows that the whole thing is just a movie. The not-to-be-missed campfire scene is movie making history.

Blazing Saddles is also a powerful commentary on race. Sort of like the original Star Trek of a few years prior, it uses a different setting – in this case the historic west of a hundred years ago instead of the far distant SF future – to shine a spotlight on current social situations. I think most people will already know that there are offensive racial slurs used in the film but they are words which would have been commonly used in the historic time period and I think Brooks deliberately employs them to make a point. Plus, it’s the white characters – the common clay of the new west, you know … morons – who are portrayed as racist while every other POC – including the Indians/NA – isn’t. Could the film be remade today? I have my doubts.

But beyond all this, the film is LOL funny. Bart is the dazzling urbanite in the sophisticated Gucci ensemble. Jim has “probably killed more men than Cecille B DeMille.” Hedley Lamarr uses his tongue “prettier than a $20 whore.” Mongo is “only pawn in game of life.” Lili the “Teutonic Titwillow” flatly announces that “everything below the waist is kaput.” Honestly I’ve never gotten tired of rewatching the entire film and probably never will. It’s that great. Sure the plot is off the rails – so to speak – from almost the beginning and the ending certainly takes it beyond even that. But the writing is brilliant, the casting is fabulous and it’s totally quotable. And those elements are what helps make a movie for me.

~Jayne

I’ve been remiss in not reviewing these books. I recommended them in November, but then the end of the semester and the holidays and then the beginning of the semester and and and…caught up with me. But I’ve been dipping into them again and again through the last few months when I needed [...]]]> Dear Ms. Haimowitz.

I’ve been remiss in not reviewing these books. I recommended them in November, but then the end of the semester and the holidays and then the beginning of the semester and and and…caught up with me. But I’ve been dipping into them again and again through the last few months when I needed to cleanse my palate from other books.

Nicky Avery is a TV star who is rehearsing for a Broadway show. He meets Devon Turner, film star and all around amazing actor. They connect instantly, Nicky feeling Devon’s dominance, Devon reacting to Nicky’s submissiveness. But this isn’t a touchy-feely story. This is pure D/s with intense sadomasochistic overtones. Devon doesn’t let Nicky get away with anything, either physically or emotionally. The first book, Master Class, shows Nicky and Devon’s meeting and the start of their relationship. SUBlime (really on that title?! Please trust your readers to Get It without the hokey capitals!) is a serious of short vignettes, mostly (really great) wank material more than anything else, that reveals scenes in their daily life, but that doesn’t really forward their relationship.

Devon and Nicky meet at a dinner with friends. I love this. I love that they don’t meet at a Kinky Klub of Kinkiness. They meet like other normal people do. And they’re drawn to each other through mutual attraction rather than some ridiculous set up. The book definitely has a lot of “All-Knowing All-Seeing Dom Who Knows What’s Right for the Misguided Little Submissive”-itis to go around. Devon recognizes that Nicky’s submissive, that he’s deeply masochistic, that he’s utterly fucked up. And he knows just what Nicky needs. Of course. (Honestly, just once, I’d like to read a book with a fucked up Dom and a has-it-together sub who saves him/her.) But if that’s going to be the point of the book, it’s very well done. Brilliantly done, even.

Devon takes care of Nicky. He knows what Nicky needs and he gives it to him. And as physically excruciating as their play can be, both for them and for the reader, depending on the reader’s squick levels, it’s possible to see Devon’s care for Nicky all the way through the book.

As an example of the physical and emotional intensity of the book:

Devon retrieved his crop. He wasn’t usually such a one-toy man, but he needed precision tonight without too much bite. He thwapped it lightly against Nicky’s testicles. Stretched and weighted as they were, even a light touch was painful; Nicky grunted, stumbled, fell. The rigging caught him, and he scrambled back to his feet and forced his limbs back to their straining stance. Devon rewarded this by striking Nicky’s nuts again, upping the force a bit. Perhaps expecting it this time, Nicky kept his feet.

“Now, I do believe we were having a conversation. Tell me what I’m doing.”

Another strike. Nicky gasped.

“You’re cropping my nuts, sir.” Again, and Nicky lifted one foot but quickly put it back, gasping out, “Fuck, it hurts.”

Devon knelt down to add a second weight to the leather cord, stretching Nicky’s sack a little more. He let it go carefully, stroking one sweat-damp thigh as he released the weight. Nicky’s whimper went straight to Devon’s cock, but he ignored it. Right now, his boy demanded all his focus.

Devon picked up the crop again and rubbed it against the stretched skin of Nicky’s scrotum, then slapped it lightly, several times in succession, until Nicky danced away. “Hold still,” Devon warned, grabbing him by the rigging to keep him in place and resuming his tapping with the crop.

It was impressive that Nicky remembered to speak through this treatment. He gritted out, “Tapping my balls, sir,” through increasingly heavy breaths that became grunts, then cries: Devon’s cue to stop. Devon smoothed over the hot skin with his thumb, gave Nicky’s half-hard cock a few quick pumps.

“And I suppose you know what my next question’s going to be.”

Chest heaving, limbs quaking, Nicky said nothing as Devon worked his erection. Finally, he shook his head, looking contrite and a little frightened. A drop of sweat flew from his chin and plopped to the floor.

Good. Nicky was moving beyond the ability to parse every little thing, moving beyond control and into true subspace. Devon added another weight, and another.

“How do you feel, Nicky?”

“Hurts,” he panted.

“How you feel, Nicky, not how it feels. That’s five.”

This book is not for the faint of heart. It shows an intensely physical and deeply emotional relationship between a sadist and a masochist, between a Dom and a sub, that has some necessary suspension of disbelief (do people REALLY play that hard — especially emotionally — with each other right away?), but is otherwise beautiful, brilliant, and if you like that sort of this, deeply arousing.

Grade: B+

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SUBlime, on the other hand, is a series of vignettes that seems to lose sight of the fact that Devon and Nicky are people. In these stories, ever-in-control Dom and bratty sub are thrown in with various kinks (medical play, knives, cross-dressing, isolation, mummification). And while the individual stories stay true to Devon and Nicky’s personalities, and while the stories are arousing if it hits the reader’s kink buttons, and while they’re very well-written, Devon and Nicky are no longer actors with real lives. They’re just posable kink dolls you brought out whenever some nifty new kink caught your fancy.

Which is not to say they’re not fun, but I doubt very much that an A-list film actor can bring his A-list stage and TV actor boyfriend to a huge party, no matter how “private,” and parade him around in pony-play gear without having to worry about it getting out to the press. No matter how much you trust other people in the lifestyle, stardom is still fraught with blackmailers and paparazzi, and I just missed the real lives of Devon and Nicky amidst the kinkiness.

I feel like I’m hammering these stories for not being something they never tried to be, and I REALLY hate it when people do that. I *think* they were written first, precisely AS wankable shorts, and Master Class was written to show how Devon and Nicky got together. But however they were written, they were published as a stand-alone story and some sequel shorts, so that’s how I read them. And with that in mind, the posable kink doll thing bothered me, as much as I enjoyed the individual stories themselves. They were more erotica than romance. Brilliantly GOOD erotica, with each short having an emotional arc of its own, which is SO important, but erotica, not romance, nonetheless. As erotica, I’d give it another B+. But as romance:

Grade: C+

Best regards,
-Sarah

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo | All Romance eBooks

But while this story is being billed as romance vs. crime fiction, it seems like there could be a digital [...]]]> In the UK, romance checkouts at the library are being overtaken by crime fiction titles.  Does that mean that the interest in romance books is declining? Melville House wonders if, instead, readers are going digital.

But while this story is being billed as romance vs. crime fiction, it seems like there could be a digital subtext. Much has been made of the migration of the mass market, especially romance genre readers, to the digital platform. Cheap, fast, and perhaps the allure of being anonymous are the key contributors to this fundamental shift in preference among romance readers.

There has been a lot of subtext in these reports that romance readers are flocking to digital because of the anonymity which isn’t supported by any actual data. Just a few anectdotes and supposition.  In looking at the past data collected, avid readers moved to the digital platform first.  Avid readers. Not just chicks embarrassed by the man titty covers.

******

The division between Harlequin and Mills & Boon is very confusing for me but the big news across the pond is that M&B is experimenting in ebook shorts.

M&B is releasing ten original e-book only shorts for Valentine’s Day, to be priced at £1.99. The seven novellas, all by established M&B authors, and published on 14th February itself, will be His Darling Valentine by Carole Mortimer, The Billionaire’s Blind Date by Jessica Hart, The Bridesmaid’s Proposal by Rebecca Winters, The Ordinary King by Nina Harrington, Chosen as the Sheikh’s Wife by Liz Fielding,Their Baby Bond by Amy Andrews, The Governess and the Earl by Ann Lethbridge, Italian Boss, Housekeeper Mistress by Kate Hewitt, The Reluctant Queen by Caitlin Crews, and The Count’s Secret Child by Jennie Lucas. The e-books will be available across all digital formats and devices.

The price seem really high considering that Piatkus is putting out digital releases of full length books for £2.99.

******

Goodreader has floated a rumor that Amazon is thinking about opening retail stores. Nearly every other news source has picked it up.  Let me be the latest bandwagoner.

Seattle is where Amazon’s main headquarters is based and is known as a fairly tech savvy market. It is a perfect launch location to get some hands on experience in the retail sphere. A source has told us that they are not looking to launch a huge store with thousands of square feet. Instead they are going the boutique route and stocking the shelves with only high margin and high-end items. Their intention is to mainly hustle their entire line of Kindle e-Readers and the Kindle Fire. They also will be stocking a ton of accessories such as cases, screen protectors, and USB adapters.

The biggest issue, as Goodreader points out, is the one of sales tax.  Amazon has fought paying local sales tax, lobbying for a federal sales tax law.

*****

John Bergmayer argues that Barnes & Noble’s refusal to carry Amazon published books is good for all of us because it helps to support the nook platform. Amazon cannot be allowed to operate in a vacuum, the only player in publishing.

I’m glad Barnes & Noble is at least trying to keep ebook distribution competitive. Now that most digital music is sold DRM-free and from more than one source, people can purchase music from Amazon, Apple, and artists and labels directly, shopping around for a good price and without worrying about lock-in. We only have this competitive marketplace because labels saw that an Apple-dominated future wasn’t in their best interest. Publishers and many writers see that an Amazon-dominated future isn’t in their interest, either, but they’ve haven’t done much to actually counter it. (Of course, an Amazon-dominated future might be better for writers than the status quo—but I’m comparing it to an imaginary competitive future.)

You know what else would help ameliorate Amazon’s lock on digital publishing? Removal of DRM.

******

Sally Clement is from Ireland but she is reaching readers worldwide. For a brief moment, her book “Bound to Love” was number one on Amazon’s romance bestseller list.  Clement put her book for free:

Over two days, 31 December and 1 January, 19,000 readers opted to download “Bound to Love” free of charge. “Most of these were in the USA,” she told the Leader this week

….

Following the free download, the Kildare author was more than pleasantly surprised to find that around 2,200 copies of Bound to Love were sold.

The publicity of the free downloads has led to some of her other books seeing a ten-fold increase in sales.

Just thought this was an interesting datapoint that 19,000 downloads led to 2,200 sales.

******

I’ve been listening to more audio books and so have been spending more time at Audible. This week they are having a $4.95 deal on the first of various series. Audible.com Link. Sample titles include Secrets of a Summer’s Night by Lisa Kleypas, Soulless by Gail Carriger, First Grave on the Right by Darynda Jones (narrated by Lorelie King), Spider’s Bite by Jennifer Estep, The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter, Night Pleasures by Sherrilyn Kenyon, Virgin River by Robyn Carr, Kiss at Midnight by Lara Adrian, Storm Born by Richelle Mead, Ruthless by Anne Stuart, Cast in Shadow by Michelle Sagara, Naked in Death by J.D. Robb.  There are 50 romance titles included in the sale.

Avon is having special pricing for Rachel Gibson books.

• True Love and Other Disasters by Rachel Gibson * $5.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Nothing But Trouble by Rachel Gibson * $5.99 * A | BN | K | S
• True Confessions by Rachel Gibson * $5.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Sex, Lies and Online Dating by Rachel Gibson * $5.99 * A | BN | K | S
• I’m in No Mood for Love by Rachel Gibson * $5.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Tangled Up in You by Rachel Gibson * $5.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Not Another Bad Date by Rachel Gibson * $5.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Lola Carlyle Reveals All by Rachel Gibson * $5.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Any Man of Mine by Rachel Gibson * $4.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Simply Irresistible by Rachel Gibson * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
• It Must Be Love by Rachel Gibson * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
• See Jane Score by Rachel Gibson * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
• The Trouble with Valentine’s Day by Rachel Gibson * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Truly Madly Yours by Rachel Gibson * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S
• Daisy’s Back in Town by Rachel Gibson * $3.99 * A | BN | K | S

In the teaser for your book, Still Hot for You, your publisher Lyrical Press, describes it thusly:

Want to get your man talking?  Give him booty!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. And Shay LaCosta is pretty desperate. She’s wrecked her blissful marriage of five years by demanding she and her husband [...]]]> Dear Ms. Escalera,

In the teaser for your book, Still Hot for You, your publisher Lyrical Press, describes it thusly:

Want to get your man talking?  Give him booty!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. And Shay LaCosta is pretty desperate. She’s wrecked her blissful marriage of five years by demanding she and her husband Dylan have a baby. What the hell was she thinking? She knows she was wrong and she’s ready to set things right, if only Dylan will let her. Bet he can’t shun her Booty Camp offer: delicious, white-hot sex in exchange for what’s going on inside his brain.

My curiosity was peaked. I wondered if perhaps you’d offer up an interesting tale of a couple dealing with the stress of trying to have a baby or with the stress that comes when, in a committed relationship, one person’s vision for a shared future isn’t the same as the other’s. I should have paid more attention to the fact that your blurb used the word “booty” twice in less than two paragraphs. Your book is mostly about the varied ways Shay and Dylan have sex in their upscale house. It wasn’t very interesting or, to me, erotic.

I, like you (according to your biography), am married with kids. Like your heroine, Shay, I was once twenty-nine and hell-bent on having a baby. I mention my own experience because I found Shay’s desire to have a baby pretty normal. I think many couples, after several years together, do begin to think about having kids. (About 75% of American women have had at least one child.)  And let’s be honest, the older a woman is, the less easy it is for her to conceive. (Fertility starts to decline for women from about the age of 30, dropping down more steeply from the age of 35.)  So, to me, Shay’s desire seemed pretty sane.

That’s not to say I didn’t empathize with Dylan’s lack of interest in a baby. He’s dug himself out of poverty, works really hard, and isn’t sure he’s financially ready to take on the responsibility of a child. Kids are expensive—in 2011, the average cost for raising a kid in the USA from birth to 18 (this excludes college) was just under $200,000. Having a baby is a life changer.

Dylan’s and Shay’s predicament is one that many couples (of all stripes) face. I wish you’d written more about it. Frankly, I couldn’t understand why Shay suddenly decides she’s crazy to want to get pregnant. When your book begins, Shay and Dylan are almost completely estranged. They don’t talk, haven’t had sex in five months, and each thinks the other may be ready to call it quits. Apparently, Shay had gotten angry at Dylan because he wouldn’t back her baby plans and told him to stay the hell away from her. OK. That’s a fight I can see—I couldn’t, however, see why he’d actually done it for five months or why she’d let him. The two love each other, are super hot for each other, and yet somehow, none of that is in play when the novel begins.

Then, Shay, after an erotic dream about her first kiss with Dylan, decides Booty Camp—a planned week of seduction—is just the thing her marriage needs to get the, um, channels open again in her marriage. She starts by wearing a see through tank top and cutoffs to greet Dylan when he comes home that night, serves him a home-cooked meal on their nice china, and after “slicking her tongue across that full bottom lip, she tormented him with the sexiest I-want-you eyes he’d ever seen,” and asks him to jump her bones. Which he is beyond thrilled to do.

You don’t describe their make-up sex or the conversation they had after it.  Had they talked about all the sex and conversation they haven’t been having? Or did they just shag in silence? I was again lost.

Over the next week, Shay keeps up her seduction campaign; the two have sex in the shower, hot tub, in bed, and on the kitchen counter. It’s clear they live in a very nice home—Shay’s got a good job with a banking company; Dylan’s construction business is going well—and, I have to say, all the descriptions of their home’s accoutrements distracted me from their mildly-hot sex. It’s hard to take seriously a sex scene set in “Their deluxe kitchen” which “flickered with amber candlelight that danced off the stainless steel appliances.”

By the end of your brief novel (my pdf was 78 pages long), Shay and Dylan have had a few short talks about the baby thing. Dylan has acknowledged he’s kinda crazy about money (he hates that Shay’s wealthy dad has always made him feel professionally and financially inadequate) and that, at some point, a baby or few would be fine. Shay has decided she’s unwilling to give up working yet and, given that she wants to be a stay-at-home mom for at the least her children’s early years, she’s not interested getting pregnant at this point in her life. The two now have the same vague family plan and, thanks to all that booty and those few chats, are again wonderfully connected emotionally and sexually.

If there’s a lesson in your book, it certainly isn’t that solving tough issues in a marriage takes work. What I got out of your book was that hot sex can help couples come together (in more ways than one.) And that’s totally true. But more booty isn’t, even with a man as well-built as Dylan, a magic wand. Figuring out how to balance work and family and struggling with the issues around fertility are challenges that need more than coitus, cunnilingus, and a few chats. It irked me you raised such serious issues and then dismissed them so casually.

Your book is not all bad, however. There are elements that are well-done. You do a great job of making your characters distinctive—I really liked Dylan’s brother, cousin and aunt and could visualize the three of them, as well as Dylan and Shay clearly. You made Dylan’s love for Shay very believable—almost more so than hers which seemed to be substantially fueled by how sexy she finds him. You write cogently and clearly about Dylan’s and Shay’s jobs—I could see how they spent their time at work and why they loved what they did. Lastly, I enjoyed your enthusiasm for Shay’s and Dylan’s sexy marriage. So often romance novels have all the hotness happening before a couple weds—it was nice to see matrimony as a venue for spicy sex.

I would suggest, however, that next time you pen a tale of true love, you pay a bit more attention to the details of your prose. I’d have liked your writing more had you expanded your vocabulary—you use the same words over and over—and had you paid more attention to consistency. (Characters’ placements, dress, and moods were often discontinuous.)

You write, in a blurb at the end of your book, you hope readers will go to your website and find more “Stories that will hopefully touch your emotions, ignite your passion, infuse you with the belief that true love conquers all.”  Still Hot for You did none of those things for me. It did however remind me that steamy sex in marriage is a damn good thing.

Sincerely,

Dabney

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I first encountered your debut novel on NetGalley. I admit I’ve always been fond of historical YA, especially if there’s a paranormal flavor. Your book sounded like the ticket. It was a nice change of pace from the urban fantasies and dystopians overwhelming the genre right now. The unique setting was just [...]]]> Dear Ms. Bridges,

I first encountered your debut novel on NetGalley. I admit I’ve always been fond of historical YA, especially if there’s a paranormal flavor. Your book sounded like the ticket. It was a nice change of pace from the urban fantasies and dystopians overwhelming the genre right now. The unique setting was just icing on the cake.

Katerina Alexandrovna is a young aristocrat in late 19th century Russia. She’s expected to marry rich and marry well and thus, is attending finishing school. The very idea is sheer torture to her. She hates the balls, which she considers to be meat markets. In fact, she’d much rather spend her time studying medical textbooks. Katerina dreams of becoming a doctor even though the profession is considered absolutely out of the question for a woman. Especially a noble one, because what suitable husband would allow his bride to do something so pedestrian as treat the sick and poor?

But Katerina has one little secret: she can raise the dead. Some people would consider it a gift. She thinks it’s a curse and has kept her ability hidden from everyone. After all, it’s abnormal and she doesn’t want to be viewed as a monster. Unfortunately, her gift is discovered and soon Katerina finds herself embroiled in a political conflict between the supernatural forces that rule Russia.

I really enjoyed Katerina as a protagonist, but I admit I have a weakness for heroines who love science. I thought it was a good choice, however, given that this time period in Russia is one characterized by superstition and folk belief. Katerina’s mother depends on her tarot cards and routinely holds séances. In fact, it was at one of these séances that Katerina accidentally discovered that she was a necromancer. But she loves science and the advances in modern medicine. There’s already conflict between her career aspirations and her class. To toss in her ability, which drags her back into old world beliefs is great.

One thing I did have a little trouble following was how the supernatural world overlapped with the Russian court. In this world, the Light and Dark faerie courts battle it out in a political dance of power. Some families are aligned with the Light Court (like the tsar) and others are aligned with the Dark Court. Katerina is, I believe, aligned with the Dark Court due to her family’s social circles. It’d make sense considering the fact that she is a necromancer. But on top of that, there are werewolves (I thought it fairly obvious who the werewolves were) and vampires. So many different kinds of vampires, I lost track of who was important, how, and why. At times, it was a little tough to figure out which characters were allies based on their family ties and which were enemies based on their supernatural ones.

I thought the plotline involving Katerina trying to find a way out of the Montenegro family’s schemes was interesting. After all, who wants to become the sacrifice to make a new living vampire? Certainly not me. On the other hand, I thought the romantic subplot was poorly executed. It was fairly obvious who Katerina would ultimately fall in love with, given the fact that one of the potential suitors is Evil with a capital E. But even though I knew and expected it, I needed something more to go on. It seemed like Katerina went from arguing with and disliking him to realizing she was madly in love in a snap. That transition phase between the two states didn’t entirely come through, in my opinion.

While the ending was a little too heavy-handed in setting up the sequel, I really enjoyed Katerina as a heroine. I’m a big fan of characters that love their family and do everything to protect them, even if it’s a mistake by our standards. I’m interested to see how future books balance her career aspirations, burgeoning powers, and new obligations so I’m definitely on-board for the continuation. B-

My regards,

Jia

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Skirmish by Michelle West This is the latest in West’s fantasy cycle and the first in a long time that got me extremely excited about events in this world. That’s mostly because this is the [...]]]> It’s a new year! That said, I feel like I haven’t done a whole lot of reading this month. Hmm.

Skirmish by Michelle West
This is the latest in West’s fantasy cycle and the first in a long time that got me extremely excited about events in this world. That’s mostly because this is the first installment since Sun Sword ended that takes place in the present time. No more flashbacks, no more expanding the past. Good read and got me excited about the world again. (Full review here.)

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The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges
Is it just me or are there more books coming out recently set in Russia? Maybe I’m imagining things. Anyway, neat concept. The protagonist is a young duchess who wants to forego marrying well and become a doctor. That’s already a problem but in addition, she happens to be a necromancer. Oops. The worldbuilding was rather muddled and the romantic subplot needed better execution. The book had good potential but the reality was still rough around the edges. Review to come.

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Fracture by Megan Miranda
Neat book. I assumed this was going to be another YA paranormal and technically, it is that but it’s not really at all. This is essentially the story of a girl who went through a traumatic life event and has to pick up the pieces of her life after. What I liked best was how this one event revealed all these little cracks and fissures in her existing relationships. I enjoyed this one quite a bit. (Full review here.)

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Firelight by Kristin Callihan
I’d been hearing lots of good things about this one so I was excited to pick this up. I don’t know if my hopes and expectations were raised but I was rather meh about it overall. I didn’t care for the romantic storyline (the couple lies to each other for most of the book) and the worldbuilding drove me nuts because it made no sense. Or maybe it was just nonexistent. I’m not sure. I also thought the hero’s secret was kept for the sole purpose of plot contrivance because the actual reveal was anticlimactic. (Full review here.)

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Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
A Robin Hood retelling. This takes the angle that history and folklore muddled “the truth” and that Maid Marian and Will Scarlet were the same person. So-so. I know there are die-hard Robin Hood fans out there so maybe they’ll be more wowed by this one than me. Review to come.

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Right now, I’m in between books, trying to decide what to pick next. Maybe I’ll read something that I don’t plan to review! Good grief, what was up with that?

So what are you guys reading? Any books you’re looking forward to in 2012?

I read book one in the series and didn’t love it so I skipped the second, but I think you may have hauled me back into the fold with this one. The two characters are at daggers drawn (to use an old fashioned phrase) because the hero is destined to be a [...]]]> Dear Ms. Wright:

I read book one in the series and didn’t love it so I skipped the second, but I think you may have hauled me back into the fold with this one. The two characters are at daggers drawn (to use an old fashioned phrase) because the hero is destined to be a Breed Male which means he can have no mate. The heroine has no mate either but has faked a mate sign through a tattoo of sorts with another vampire who had lost his true mate.

There is a lot going on here with mutores (shapeshifting vampires), lost mates, Breed Males, veannas, and so forth. Rant on – I think that there are a number of made up words that you use to imbue ambience but seem completely unnecessary. This isn’t a problem unique to your book but an epidemic in paranormal romances. For instance, why virgini for virgin but not principessa instead of princess. Or why use flash to describe vampires moving from one location to another instantly instead of flashini or some made up noun for any other random noun. It’s one thing to use made up terms to describe nouns/verbs that are specific to the world that you are creating. That seems like real worldbuilding. It’s another thing to use special made up terms for random nouns or verbs that you pick and choose. That seems like hokey and ineffective worldbuilding. – Rant off.

Back to the book. Bronwyn Kettler, a genetic scientist studying the Breeding Male phenomenon, accidentally fed from Lucian Roman but that one bite has bound her too him more securely than any human bonds. “In consuming his blood she had consumed his very soul and now—every day, every moment he existed, she moved inside him, her unending hunger deafening as she searched and slithered through his veins, circled his muscles, squeezed until his brain threatened to explode.” Neither of them want this which is what makes this mate book different. Bronwyn intends to proceed with the Veracou, a binding ceremony with another vampire. Lucien has only two choices, to “fuck her or kill her.” Sex with Bronwyn would turn Lucian into a “Breeding Male” which is essentially a vampire who does nothing but rut “a rutting animal with no conscience, no control, only a hunger to claim.” Killing her, well, obviously, that’s not a solution either. Regardless of the Sophie’s Choice presented, Lucian’s blood drives him to essentially stalk Bronwyn.

Brownyn feels Lucian too and has chosen to go through with the Veracou in hopes that the mating ceremony with another vampire will break the compulsion and need she has for Lucian. Yet the Veracou with her good friend, Synjon Wise, does not have the desired effect. Synjon goes into the bonding ceremony willingly because his heart died when his true mate’s life was extinguished.

The stakes are sufficiently high for me from the very opening of the book. When the book focuses on this struggle to not mate, it is at its best. The emotion rings true and is further heightened when Bronwyn and Lucian begin to have tender feelings toward each other and want to consummate their relationship but cannot because of the threat of Lucian turning into a Breeding Male. Knowing that the story ends happily diminishes some of the tension but what keeps the pages turning is guessing what will solve the Breeding Male problem. Sadly, I felt that the answer was a cop out, very Andromeda Strain, if you will.

Where the book falls off the rails is its tendency toward overdramatization, even though that is another hallmark of PNR. I do feel that there is a need to either go big or go home in paranormals, but sometimes it can be taken too far. The description of Synjon is a perfect example.

. Nicknamed the ghost, the only vampire paven to ever serve as both an elite Special Forces officer in his native Britain and as an American Navy SEAL regarded his current existence as a spy, an assassin, and a bounty hunter for the Eternal Order as bloody perfection

It is not enough for Synjon Wise (which somehow changed into Samwise in my head) to excel in country’s elite military arm, but two country’s. Why stop at two? Why not have him be part of every elite military arm? What kind of slacker is he?

Another part of the story focuses on Cruen, a mad vampire scientist who has been creating mutores. (If this reminds people of Lara Adrian’s stories, it did me as well). Cruen abduct Bronwyn in order to lure Lucian to him. The two will breed and Cruen will embark on the next step of his King of the World plan.

Despite the villain, the questionable made up word choice, and unnecessary over the top descriptions, I found the story angsty and compelling with just the right amount of humor. Lucian and Synjon’s testosterone (or testesteroni?) driven fights made me smirk. Don’t we all love a good alpha male throw down? (I always envision them wrestling in jello and accidentally touching each other, don’t you?)

“Blood!” Lucian said the word, rising from his seat and pointing at Synjon.

“What the hell are you doing?” Synjon asked. Shooting his gaze around the room, he demanded, “What the hell is he doing?”

Nicholas shrugged. “It’s not always clear.”

“You and Bronwyn have mated,” Lucian said, his tone threaded with disgust. “Have had your Veracou.”

“Yes. Do you have a point, or are you just reminding yourself that I am Bron’s mate?”

Lucian ignored the barb. “You should be able to find her, track her, know where her blood is. Isn’t that right, Alexander?”

Alexander nodded, his eyes suddenly graying over with thought. “It is.”

“There’s no need for any of this,” Lucian said, his voice rising, his fangs dropping. “Let’s go. Let’s go and get her.”

But Synjon didn’t move. “Stay where you are, Frosty. I haven’t taken her blood. She was nicked from me before we could have our consummation, both in blood and in body.”

Despite the problems, I was engaged the entire time and I certainly want to read more about poor Synjon and the mutores. The story was very sexy and that aspect of the book worked well. New readers likely could start with this entry into the series. I didn’t read book two and I barely recall book one. While “Eternal Captive” doesn’t break new ground, the emotional strength of the story elevated this above other paranormals I’ve read of late. C+

Best regards,

Jane

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Best regards.

Anyone who listens to the podcasts will know that I (and Sarah Wendell) are huge fans of werewolf books, particularly those that involve a pack dynamic. I was so excited to read this story. The promotional materials refers to the heroine being an Alpha and a “strong leader.”  Apparently being a strong [...]]]> Dear Ms. Reus:

Anyone who listens to the podcasts will know that I (and Sarah Wendell) are huge fans of werewolf books, particularly those that involve a pack dynamic. I was so excited to read this story. The promotional materials refers to the heroine being an Alpha and a “strong leader.”  Apparently being a strong female alpha means finding the right male warrior alpha to take care of yourself and your packmates because you are too weak in all areas to take care of yourself.

Alpha Instinct is about this poor pack of she wolves who are left alone after all the men (and pregnant women) in the pack were poisoned. Connor Armstrong, a shifter from the heroine’s past returns with a new pack of his own, all warrior caste and alpha males to join with the women’s pack because the women can’t protect themselves. Not only can the she wolves not defend themselves, but they CANNOT EVEN PROVIDE FOR THEMSELVES.  Yes, this set the table for the entire book.

“At least we know him and his brother, and if the Councili has officially recognized them it means they have the financial wherewithal to support all of us”

This is said by the “strong” female warrior to her cousin.  *weeps* They can’t even financially support themselves, you guys. Not only can the chicks not protect themselves nor can they provide for themselves, they are also the last to know if they are “mates.”

She was a smart-ass. Absolutely perfect. And he was absolutely screwed, because she was human. Matings between shifters and humans weren’t exactly accepted in all circles. On either side. For all he knew, she hated his kind anyway. His inner wolf didn’t care, though. It recognized her on a primal level. When he’d been barely seven, he’d asked his father how he’d known his mother was his intended mate. His father’s green eyes had sparkled as he’d explained that some shifters knew immediately but most didn’t. And males almost always knew before females did.

The women were so dense, apparently not being able to tell that the males were wanting to have sex with them. I guess this is consistent with the portrayal of the women not being able to even financially care for themselves.

After he’d gotten back from the bank, he’d been putting out fires between his guys and Ana’s packmates. Small, unavoidable spats that were based more on sexual frustration than anything else. The females didn’t seem to realize it, but he could see it clearly. Most of his guys had been lone shifters, roaming the globe for decades or longer until he and his brother had convinced them to settle down. Now that they were on a ranch full of single, beautiful wolves, they wanted to mate in a bad way. Their most primal instincts were kicking in and wanted release.

and

She stared at him, waiting and wanting him to do something to ease the ache she felt inside. She briefly thought about asking him why he’d left, but bit the question back. Maybe there had been someone else. That thought stung impossibly deep and she didn’t want to hear the answer. If she pushed harder and he told her there had been another female . . . that would be worse than not knowing. With his hard length pressing against her abdomen and distracting the hell out of her, it was hard to think of anything other than what he would look like naked. Yes, she wanted to keep some control, but she was also a female and wanted him to want her as much as she did him.

So in sum females don’t know about sexual tension. And because she was female she wants to be wanted. Unlike males.

The basic plot in this book is that  Analena Cordona is the head of her pack, a pack that has had all its male members killed.  Ana and her pack live on a ranch but recently have been subject to increasing vandalism from a male alpha who wants Ana and her girls to assimilate into his pack.  Ana’s solution is to find another alpha male group who is more amenable than her neighbor Taggart.  Ana is an alpha wolf but she isn’t strong enough to defeat Taggart (and apparently she isn’t a good enough fighter to take down someone who has more strength than her).

Taggart plays a classic villain character.  A trill of the keyboard should accompany his every entrance on stage.  He grabs his crotch in the first scene:  ”He shrugged and had the nerve to grab himself. ‘I wanted the exercise. Besides, you should get to see what’s going to be yours soon.’”  He threatens violence even though we are told Pack violence against female wolves was rare.  He calls her a bitch (is that really an insult to a werewolf?) and turns tail and runs when he spots a stronger alpha male.

Connor Armstrong appears with his brother Liam and a whole host of alpha males ready to defend Ana’s pack and mate with them.  When Conor had disappeared from Ana’s life, she wondered why. In keeping with the obvious and unoriginal nature of the story, it was because Ana’s father didn’t think he was a fit mate for Ana and so Connor ran off.  He’s back and with a pack of his own, he has something to offer because while Ana and three of her cousins and sisters are alphas they are not Alphas.

Even the thought of one of her sisters at his mercy made her see red. “We might be alphas,” She gestured to the four of them at the table, “but none of us are Alphas and certainly not of the warrior class.”

All true Alphas were also warriors, though warriors weren’t always Alphas. They were just damn good fighters. Warrior shifters were so different from the rest of the population. Bigger in human and shifted form, they seemed to be born with slightly different DNA, even from their shifter counterparts. They embraced their animal side a lot more than their human one. It’s what made them the protectors of the rest of their kind. Ana might hate it and crave complete independence from outsiders, but she wasn’t an idiot. She wasn’t an Alpha or a warrior, and if it came down to it, it was better to embrace someone like Connor as pack Alpha than an unknown.

I guess in this world only the men are born with a warrior shifter gene? She’s only an alpha, lowercase “a” as are all her fellow she wolves. In sum, the worldbuilding includes alphas, Alphas, Warrior caste Alphas, and betas. There is additional external tension provided by vamps and weres coming out  of hiding about 40 years ago.  They are viewed with suspicion by the human populace. This is supposed to add a layer of external tension by bringing the human police to their doorstep for perceived problems but instead it read like a retread of other paranormal worlds.

I didn’t find the world building to be all that consistent either. Ana complains that the North American Council won’t pay attention to their little tribe of female wolves, but obviously the female wolves were important enough to have two Alphas ready to go to battle over them. If female wolves were important yet viewed as weak and ineffective (which they were), then it made sense that the North American Council would award them to some Pack that they wanted to elevate in power instead of leaving them to flounder and possibly die out.

Ana and Connor renew their past acquaintance, fight off the bad guys, and prepare for all the girls to be nicely matched up with the boys.   The world building was  uninspired.  There was no tension, either suspenseful, emotional, or sexual, and the depiction of these poor little she wolves who couldn’t even financially care for themselves was depressing.  D

Best regards,

Jane

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One of the first AAR DIK books I ever read was one of yours: “Walking After Midnight.” Now here I am, years later, reading another “walking” book that involves a hero and heroine on the run and trying to stay alive. My questions for myself as I started the book were will [...]]]> Dear Ms. Robards:

One of the first AAR DIK books I ever read was one of yours: “Walking After Midnight.” Now here I am, years later, reading another “walking” book that involves a hero and heroine on the run and trying to stay alive. My questions for myself as I started the book were will the romance work, will the suspense work and how will I feel about the thief hero when all is said and done. The answers are yes, partly, and ultimately it’s a cop out.

“For years after witnessing the murder of her mother, Micayla “Mick” Lange has been forced to relive the horrific events of her dreams, often causing her to sleepwalk. Now a Detroit cop, and stinging from a recent breakup, Mick has arrived early to housesit during the holidays for the wealthy father of her longtime best friend. When she catches Jason Davis in the act of stealing a large sum from the home safe, Mick finds herself embroiled in a crime so explosive it could cost both of them their lives. Although their attraction to each other is palpable, as natural adversaries their only common ground is mutual distrust – and the fact that the same killers are now hunting them both. Sparks fly and passions flare as Mick and Jason run for their lives, knowing that teaming up is the only chance they have to survive.”

The book gets off to a quick start with a throw down that shows Mick and Jason just how evenly matched they are. Mick might be littler but she can put a hurting on anyone stupid enough to discount her in a fight. But when proof of a horrific crime stares her in the face and she realizes that her knowledge is known, she has no choice but to flee with this crook she just caught red handed. This is one of the better set ups that forces the bickering hero and heroine on the road together that I’ve read. In a flash, Mick’s whole world is flipped and it’s she who does the most to get them away from the henchmen – something that I truly enjoyed. She doesn’t want to do this but once she makes up her mind, she’s the one leading the charge. I did wonder how she’d managed to remain in total denial about the true nature of the main villain, though. That must have taken some mental hoop jumping of major proportions.

The race away from the killers is one of the best parts of the book. There’s enough trash talking to keep the tension between Mick and Jason wound tight plus a little sexual frisson which – thank God – doesn’t lead to inappropriately timed boinking. Several thugs are still after them, forcing our lead characters through the bitterly cold, snowy night, just barely missing being caught time and again. But caught I knew they’d eventually have to be and it’s done realistically and due to the fact that Mick is a cop with ingrained instincts. Makes sense. Yet, I also think most people will see the twist coming that brings Mick and Jason into the hands of the baddies.

That entire scene is cool and I sat riveted to see how they’d escape from handcuffs, several men who weren’t going to hesitate to kill them, and through a steel reinforced door. Jason’s calm under pressure is a joy to see and his humor in the setting of a large percentage of the DPD being hot on their tails needles Mick in a way that had me laughing.

Now, this is the point where the suspense stuff begins to go pear shaped. I’m willing to go along with how you get these two out of Detroit. I can also accept the sweet little set up Jason and his cronies have going. And the explosion of Happy Boinking between Jason and Mick is inevitable given the sparks that are being struck between them. I can also trust Jason’s realization of how much Mick means to him and not just because of the hot lovin’. She’s more than that to him and given the life or death situations that they’ve gotten into and out of, I think they know each other and their feelings pretty well by this time. But…but…I did some serious eye rolling from here on out about the suspense.

The baddies had to make a return if only because they hadn’t been dealt with. Suddenly Mick lying to Jason about what she did was alright. And given Jason’s history – he only robs from crooks so that makes it all okay – he still has contacts in a Big Government Agency who are deliriously happy to help them out when it’s discovered that Mick is being blackmailed by the killers to return to Detroit – in a way that makes me wonder why none of these smart people realized it was a given it would happen this way. And everything that could go wrong does go wrong yet – booyah! – it’s Mick who mainly saves the day.

I gotta say that I have serious doubts about the rainbow happy ending. No one is going to discover where Jason lives by following him or – later – Mick back to the Bat Cave? No associates of the villain will make trouble for the rest of Mick’s family? She’s going to be okay living with a thief who, at the end of the day, has no plans to quit? But, that’s right, he’s a Disney thief who only steals from crooks so I guess she can accept that. I suppose she won’t be tied up for ages taking part in the trial of the villain or his minions either. It’s off to Jason’s sunny little hideout to put cracks in the wall plaster and shock the iguana.

After how good lots of the previous parts of the book are I hated to see it all go wonky at the end. Sigh.

~Jayne

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