Book Reviews and Unneccessary Commentary

Cate Noble, Dead Right, 2009

2009-04-01T22:22:13Z

It's not often Shannon McKenna shows up as a blurb on a novel's front cover so when I saw this one at the library along with her comment "Thrilling" I immediately picked it up. Plus, the cover is sexy.

Sadly, this was disappointing. I can see why McKenna liked it, and to be honest, it wasn't half bad, but since the relationship is told entirely in flashback and they don't actually show up in real time in the same room (not running away from each other) until about the last 20 pages of the book, well, you can see what my issue is. Plus, the hero has all these issues, which mysteriously get resolved within the span of one page and he is also apparently psychic, which was important in the first quarter of the book and then never gets mentioned again.

I will say that this book had a lot of potential and would have been better served if they had come in contact in person in the end of the first half of the book, or even slightly before, I would have really liked it. The hero has McKenna issues (aka that wonderful "in real life, we'd be talking restraining order") that I love. Okay, that sounded wierd, but maybe you understand. McKenna heroes are extreme bad boys and that's a wonderful thing to enjoy ONLY WITHIN THE CONFINES OF FICTION. Anyway, if the author had gotten the hero/heroine together sooner we could have seen a lot of the heroes issues in action which would have made this book so much better.

Also, either he's psychic and it's a major plot point, or he's not. One or the other. That was a real red herring for me and I started to get mad about it.

This would be an author, however, to keep an eye on. I think this is her first book. I would probably check out her next book to see if she improves since I think she has a McKenna quality that could be really great.

C+

AIG

2008-09-16T11:55:33Z

Who knew? I felt like I should say something about the whole AIG thing, but I'm torn between feeling bad for the people who work there and a little bit happy that the giant is stumbling. AIG is like the Microsoft of the insurance industry. Not in a good way. They are so much bigger than everyone else---I can't find a graph, but it's like AIG, then.......waaay down.....further down....keep going...oh, there's the second biggest company.

The bigger problem is, unfortunately, that AIG is tied up in every other insurance company out there. Without getting into too much insurance detail, either AIG reinsures another company, or the other company reinsures AIG. Reinsurance is like insurance for insurance companies--If AIG goes down--well, it could get VERY interesting.

Insurance professionals have been saying for at least a year that in the soft, weak insurance market that at least one seemingly stable company was going to go down--every year we lower premiums, and it just can't continue. I see lots of accounts where the premium for the account =100 (for example) and the losses for the prior year = 150. If you're bringing in 100, and paying out 150 every year--well, you can see what happens.

The fact that AM Best downgraded AIG is a BIG, BIG deal. I'll be watching the WSJ very carefully.

Do you need to worry about your personal insurance? No. You'll be fine. But isn't it interesting that after Eliot Spitzer did so much damage to AIG that the NY insurance commissioner is encouraging just the same behavior that Spitzer was litigating against? Hmm.

M

Book roundup

2008-09-13T00:36:17Z

Oh, I just don't have the energy to write individual reviews.

Death Angel, Linda Howard : Yay! This gives me hope that my favorite authors can have a slump and then come out with a good book. There's been lots of discussion that this is Howard's best book in a long time, and I have to agree. Howard writes great dangerous heroes, and Simon's up there with my favorites--a truly morally ambiguous man. I liked the heroine a lot too, I think she did a good job of making an unsympathetic person sympathetic. And unlike Blair, I didn't want to beat her to death with a bat. (Just hated that Howard character. Just hated her.) Yes, there's some stupid stuff in here, and no, this isn't as good as her best books, but a good read.

Catch of the Day, Kristin Higgins and Just One of the Guys, Kristin Higgins: Catch of the Day pissed me off. Both are romance novels written in first person, which is a frustrating POV a lot of the time. Definitely in the case of Catch of the Day. Especially since the hero didn't really make an appearance until about halfway into the book and he really didn't show up a lot after that! Just One of the Guys was much better, and I would recommend it. However, please note that whoever designed the covers and wrote the back blurbs clearly didn't read the books, because the dogs are random and not anything like the dogs in the actual books and the cover blurbs don't really match the novels either.

Scream for Me, Karen Rose: Another recommended book, this one a romantic suspense with serial killers and the usual horrific stuff that happens. It was okay. I just don't like these kind of books. At some point you just wonder how much more "original" an author writing about serial killers can be. I know they have to make their serial killers "more horrible" than anyone else's, but uck. I don't like that.

Uncommon Magic, Laura Kinsale: I don't know how I missed this one, but apparently I did. The thing I love and hate about Kinsale is that she doesn't feel a need to tie up all her loose ends and explain everything. I liked Faelan and Roddy, and especially Faelan (rowr), but I'm not going to pretend that the supernatural stuff was, well, um, well--okay, let's be honest. It was stupid. If you liked the plotline of My Sweet Folly, this is in the same vein. Without the letter writing.

Meredith

Politics

2008-09-04T02:27:50Z

E said something really funny about Sarah Palin today. I've been hung up on her 100% abstinence education thing since her daughter announced she was pregnant. E said, "well, if her daughter had had some sex education she would have known you weren't supposed to stick it there."

I thought that was pretty funny. Wasn't it Family Guy where Meg thought you could get pregnant if a guy stuck his penis in her ear?

Maybe that's what Bristol thought could make you pregnant. I know we are "supposed to leave the candidate's children out of the race" and lord knows 17 year olds have their own minds about things, but I do think her pregnancy--when you take into concideration Palin's aggressive abstinence policy--is fair game in that sense.

Here's hoping I didn't jump the gun on Kirsten's post--which will be ten times more awesome than mine. I just keep picturing Palin's discussion with her daughter ("didn't I tell you not to mess around with boys that way?" "Mom, I know, it just fell in there! I didn't know what to do!")

Contrast this with my mom's more liberal but far more effective method of "abstinence training", and I quote:
"M, if you have sex, use a condom. In fact, use two. Because with your luck, the condom won't work. And you will RUIN, I mean RUIN, your ENTIRE LIFE and the boy's life and the child's life and my life and your brothers life and everyone will be so horribly disappointed in you. Plus, it's going to hurt that first time. Like, a lot. Really, really bad."

Yeah, that was way more effective than "you're a bad person, and you'll get VD." I was a pretty old virgin when I decided to "get it over with". Palin had already popped out a couple kids by that age.

M

Oh, by the way

2008-09-01T22:58:50Z

Yes, I did find a job. Actually, I had four job offers. I took the one with no travel and the promise that I would be able to work with people I liked. Also, crazy money. I survived the first week. I had forgotten how political work can be--there was very little of it at my prior job. That's going to take some readjusting to.

Meredith

PL Nunn, Bloodraven, 2007

2008-09-01T20:18:20Z

This was something recommended on the following Smartbitches column:

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/pimp-your-fave/

This novel was recommended by Ann Somerville in her comment on M/M fiction. I sort of like Ann Somerville, not all her stuff appeals but she has a short story on her website called "Slipping Under" that I thought was a real "thinker" of a story. (That story was in my list of "should reads" but I'm not sure who rec'd it. Not totally worksafe, but the kind of story you'll spend some time thinking about afterwards. Some serious social commentary in that one.)

Anyway, I've gotten frustrated with the urban fantasy and romance that's been coming out lately and thought I'd try something new. Somerville talks about Nunn like she's the goddess of m/m fiction. While I wouldn't wholeheartedly agree, this novel was worth the $9 price tag for the ebook. I wouldn't normally pay that much, not after being so freaking pissed off at paying that for Sara McCarthy's Caine's Reckoning, which was as crappy an erotic novel as I've ever read, btw.

Anyway, to spare the delicate feelings of those who read my LJ who have zero interest in M/M romance--though technically I'd call this slash--I'm putting the LJ cut here:

Sommerville reviews Bloodraven on her review website, http://unique.logophilos.net/?s=bloodraven (title of her webpage makes this not worksafe) and I don't know that there's anything I can add, she's right to warn people about chapter one, it's cringeworthy and definitely sets the tone for the rest of the novel. If you can get past that, though, the book sucks you in and I read the entire massive monster thing in one sitting. I stayed up until midnight. I haven't done that since college when I first read Gabaldon. This is not a comfortable book, in fact I was distinctly uncomfortable with the non-consensual aspects of this novel but the story itself is strong enough that I was able to get past that. I think it helped that it's fantasy. I loved how she gave us only one pov for the first part of the novel and then all of a sudden, throws us into Bloodraven's perspective. Sure, Yhalen is a bit of a Mary Sue, but Bloodraven is a pretty bad-ass romance novel hero. You can't always tell what he's thinking, and for the first part of the book when we have no real idea of what is going on and only see through Yhalen's eyes, the novel is riveting. There's some stuff that makes no sense and some things that don't logically work, and frankly the sex is not what I would have imagined (it gets a bit boring) but like I said, it's interesting and different and I'll likely read the rest of her stuff when I get the chance. If you're really brave, and you're at home, you can check out Nunn's website, which has some really, um, interesting cartoon pictures of men getting it on. I may be scarred for life by the ones of Wolverine.

I'm just a novice when it comes to this kind of slash fiction, and clearly a babe in the woods when it comes to understanding the depth and breadth (snort) of what people can come up with. People have amazingly dirty minds. When it's good, it's like Bloodraven. When it's bad, well, you know. (shudder)

I'm giving this a B+ but be aware this is a 300 page single spaced adobe pdf file. I'm guessing that; would be about a 600 page book. Leave your weekend open. :-)

Acheron, Sherrilyn Kenyon, 2008

2008-08-25T00:11:15Z

I'm not Kenyon's biggest fan. A couple of the books I really liked (Night Play and Seize the Night) and a lot of the books fell into the "meh" or lower category (though the Penicula joke is still very memorable--from Valerian's book) but in general I'd pretty much given up on this series and hadn't read the last five or so books. But they had this one at the library and I admit to being interested in what was going to happen to Acheron, and why she needed like 700 pages to make it happen. I wanted to know if he ended up with that one chick from one of the other novels (I think she was one of Appolymi's handmaidens?) but no, he ends up with a human, though at least she's greek, right?

This was a slog, make no mistake. And it almost got thrown against the wall. Kenyon's always tried to put a lot of pop-culture refs in her stories and she always makes a big deal about Acheron being goth, but I always got the impression her interpretation of "goth" was someone who shopped a lot at Hot Topic and this book definitely confirms it.

Here's where I checked out completely and almost quit:

In one scene, Acheron sings a song to his woman. That song is written by Nickelback.

Yes, that is what I said. Nickelback. Once you stop crying with laughter at Kenyon's misguided attempt to make Acheron cool by having him sing a song from one of the fakest most poser-y rock bands ever, you can take a breath and reflect on the fact that Kenyon isn't even Canadian, so she doesn't have that excuse, either.

Anyway, the book is 3/4 Acheron's life history (picture Zsadist, only with gods) and 1/4 half-assed romance that is not really worth your time. Having said that, there were parts I enjoyed, especially the evolution of his relationship with the heifer goddess Artemis. I thought she did a good job with that. Disappointing was the realization that the series is not complete, which frankly, surprised me. Acheron's happily ever after should be the end of the series. I can't say I care about Nick's ass any more.

Borrow from the library if you have to--but you've been warned.

M

An update on the job hunt (comments eagerly requested)

2008-08-04T20:11:48Z

Ok, so as of this Thursday I will have been unemployed for two weeks. The LR is painted, the foyer is almost done, and there's been a lot of interviewing, otherwise I might have gotten more done at home.

I'm getting to the point where I'm feeling pressure, though. If this is anything like my last job hunt, I will get multiple offers. But what to do?

Company one: I interviewed with them last time and they made me an offer. I was concerned about the working environment and my boss, and the other opportunity was more interesting. Fast forward two years, and another interview. New department head, seems nice, has good reputation. Another manager from another office sat in and it was pretty much hate at first sight for me. Much discussion by that manager about how the company needs someone who is not going to throw a hissy fit and go behind people's backs when they are told they can't do something--hmm. Does this mean they have someone on staff like this or just let one go? I was also told that if you are the kind of person who likes the computer systems to actually work, you will hate it here. They don't write the type of business I enjoy, and that's a problem. Also they are about a twenty minute walk from the train station, making my commute each way over 1:15. Pluses: this company has a lot of turnover, so there's a chance to move up if you stick around. Also, really like some of the co-workers--I know them socially. I was told that the guy I hated LOVED me and they are doing the background check so my guess is that like last time, I will get an offer after just the one interview.

Company two: Start up that's only been doing business since May. Small office, I'd be the third person hired. Able to work from home at least part of the time; four weeks vacay to start. Really clicked with the other two employees and the guy who would be my boss. Challenge is that this is not the best time to start a business. I get the impression this company may not be around for long. Who knows. There will be a lot of pressure to write business, since I won't be inheriting everything--all from scratch. Completely paperless. I've had one interview, and two phone interviews, one with the head of the company, who said his boss was "disappointed" in the amount of business written by the new company. This would be an opportunity, if the company can stay afloat, to move up fast and get involved in the type of work I eventually want to do (product development and legal). The only thing is you'd really be fighting to stay in the game, and that the head of the company asked me what date my severance halted. I'm not sure why he asked that but it bothered me.

Company three: This is the job all my former collegues would like me to take. I met the CEO a few months ago and was really impressed with him. I clicked with the guy who would be my boss. The company has a great reputation. Here's the catch: I would be all by myself in the Chicago office. Most of the Chicago business is written out of somewhere else, but they feel like they need a face in Chicago to really ramp up their production. Also, the other people in the Chicago office--other departments--are so quiet. I didn't really click with them. Concerned I would be the odd man out both in Chicago and in regards to the full team in the other location. Lots of talk about how stable the company was, seems like I heard that before, from my prior employer. I'm well aware if they laid people off, as the newbie I'd be first to go. They are flying me out for another interview. Not paperless; but the company is going to be around a long time.

Company four: Came out of left field today, I have an interview on Wednesday. Good reputation, but has some questionable employees--who knows.

If you have any comments, I'd be glad for them. In this market it's hard to know where to go--everyone's struggling. I'm lucky to have so many choices--most companies haven't started laying off people and no one is leaving their jobs right now to try something new. I'm tempted to take the job that offers me the most $ and vacation and suck it up for a year or two, and hopefully then the market will have shifted to something better.

M

I can has job?

2008-07-18T18:06:41Z

So Thursday I came into work and was immediately laid off. The head of the office called me in, shut the door, and I saw the HR person and I exclaimed: Oh, crap.

Because "thank god" isn't really the right thing to say in that instance, right?

My employer was very generous, and E and I have been here before (multiple times) so we are totally prepared from a financial standpoint. Now it's just an issue of getting enthused about another job, and putting out the feelers to get one. Given that it has never taken me more than a month to get a new job in my field, I'm not so worried.

One of the pluses of getting let go as opposed to just changing jobs--everyone wants to help you find a new job, there's no resentment or disappointment in your leaving to go somewhere else.

Good news for you, though--Book Reviews forthcoming. I finally have time.

M

Another book meme

2008-06-27T14:23:11Z

I have literally had zero time to do anything lately. This is becoming a major problem, as evidenced by the spazzy way that Sullivan has been behaving (Ozzy's always confused, so that's nothing new). E's been out the door before 7, home at about 8 it seems (last night he came home at 9!). I leave at 7, home by 5:30, snarf down some grilled chicken and rice, out the door for spin class, home, shower, crash, the poor dogs. We're never home. Poor us. I hope this is not a portent of things to come.

P.S. Those who know, E's 39th b-day is today, please feel free to harass and/or drop him a Happy Birthday. I cannot BELIEVE my husband is 39. That is amazing. That just can't be right. Of course, he never looks his age. I did manage to find time to make cupcakes yesterday for said birthday which right now is a major accomplishment.

Anyway, megastoat did another book meme:

Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
3a) Strikethrough the books you HATE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them.

1 Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (I haven't read the last one.)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (Shocking, eh? But it's true.)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (i've read the first one)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (never even heard of this)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger(This is one of my favorite books of all time. I've probably read it 50 times, especially as a teen.)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (how the f??? did this book get on this list?)
~~20 Middlemarch - George Eliot~~ (I don't even have to read it to hate it.)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (Yeah, this isn't going to happen.)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Another book I don't see the point of reading)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (Love this series, read the whole bunch of them over and over again as a kid)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis(I read them all as a kid)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis(see above)
~~37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini~~ I do not get what is so awesome about this book. After I finished this, I thought that banging my head against the wall for two hours would have been less painful and less depressing.
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (I have mixed feelings about this one. Due to my background in Jp History, some stuff is accurate, other is waay off, and I'm offended that a guy wrote this book. Also by her obsession with the old dude, a plot that was CLEARLY written by a white man.)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
~~42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown~~ Um, barf.
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
~~44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving~~ Amazing. Only about 50 pages of stuff actually happening, the rest (300 plus pages) is just filler. Oh, wait--that's all of Irving's novels. I should know, I read too damn many of them before I figured thsi out.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (I love this book. I love all her books.)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
~~50 Atonement - Ian McEwan~~ I could not get through the first chapter. I tried. At least three times.
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
~~55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth~~ Another book I attempted but could never get past the first 50 pages or so.
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Dude, I have not one, but TWO copies of this at home in my TBR pile. Apparently, I'm going to read it.)
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (god, never could get past the first page of this one)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (I keep trying to read this, but never seem to get very far)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (E and I both read this this year as part of our "book reading together" thing
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (He's not as good as Tony Horowitz, but he seems to get so much more recognition, which is unfair. E would totally agree.)
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (Anything by Ishiguro is good, but combining English culture and Japanese writing? What a slow slog.)
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (Another book I read repeatedly as a kid.)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (this is on my book list for this year)
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

After I reviewed this list, I realized there weren't many here that I loved. What can I say? It's tough for me to love books that are depressing or "work" to read.

M

Moving to Friends and Private

2008-05-15T21:13:25Z

I discovered today by Googling my first and last name, that my Livejournal was the first returned result. Which bothers me. So I'm making it private/friends only. I don't understand how that works since my Name isn't anywhere on my livejournal!!

Something to think about....

M

Laura Kinsale, Flowers from the Storm, 1992

2007-06-12T22:07:03Z

In my opinion, this is the best romance novel written in the past 20 years. Bar none.

Basic Premise: Christian Langland, the Duke of Jervaulx, is one of those bad boys we love in historical romance novels. Dissolute, arrogant and brilliant, he is a mathematical genius with very little in moral fiber. His partner in geometry is an elderly, blind Quaker with a daughter who completely disapproves of everything Jervaulx is and stands for. But Archimedea (Maddy) Timms and her father are both shocked when the Duke dies just after a major presentation breaking the bounds of Euclidean Geometry. But Langland isn't dead. Far from it. When Maddy and her Father visit Cousin Edward, the head of one of the most progressive lunatic asylums in England, they are shocked to learn that Jervaulx is alive, but completely out of his mind. Or is he?

This is one of those books that is almost impossible to summarize for people who haven't read it, because like most of Kinsale's novels, the premise is so different and unusual it tends to come off in discussion as wierd. But Kinsale is the best writer in the business, in my opinion, because this is a perfect novel. There's not a single thing I'd change. I don't say that often.

If you haven't read this novel, I suppose I should warn you that Kinsale never actually comes out and states what happened to Jervaulx to turn him into a "lunatic". I recently recommended this novel to a friend and afterward she called me to ask if Jervaulx would ever be back to normal. Notwithstanding the fact that 1. she had finished the book 2. I don't know Jervaulx personally, so can't say what happened after the book ended and 3. He's an imaginary character, this was something that really worried her. That's a sign of a good book! She was not happy with my answer. I'm 95% positive that Jervaulx suffered a stroke. It's the only explanation for all of his symptoms and the results afterward.

One of the things I love best about this book is the way that Kinsale presents Jervaulx's ailment. You really get a feel for how his brain works and how he struggles with speech and understanding. It's very consistent and never, in my opinion, silly. I can only imagine that in that time period, people would think he was a lunatic, since they didn't know what a stroke was or even what it could do to a person's body and mind.

But you can't talk about Kinsale without talking about her prose. I really think she approaches literary fiction at times, and while I love the romance genre, I will say that the writing in general is not literary. That's fine with me. But Kinsale just writes so much better than everyone else.

You know it's something special from the very first line: He liked radical politics and had a fondness for chocolate.
Ahh. I just like to think about that line for a minute. Kinsale's given us a tremendous amount of character information with just two odd things Jervaulx enjoys.

Here's another example--the first time it appears that Jervaulx is capable of rational speech--at least to the outside world:

"Sine Function," she said again, rattling the paper.
He looked at the symbols. He knew what the series made, he understood its meaning--
And the revolving words fell, dropped into the cup, settling.
Sine Function.
Of course.
Sine Function. He gave a faint, bewildered chuckle. The candlelight guttered, casting pulsing shadows on her face as she knelt, prim cap, siren lashes, virtue, Miss.
He wet his lips. "Sine," he said hoarsely.
"Yes!"
"Yes." The word came explosively, as if he had to push it through, to break a wall. "Sine, yes."
She smiled. It was like morning in the shadows; it razed his heart; he found himself in love, in an agony of passion.
"Sine...func..tion," his beloved said.
Child, not child, silly prim, not child repeat...
"Secant," he grated. "Cosecant."
"No. Sine."
"Tangent. Cotangent. Angle." Easy. Mathematics, trigonometry. "Parallel axiom; congruence, co-planar lines, perpendicular lines." God, geometry was easy; why hadn't he remembered how easy? He tried something hard. He gripped the chains above his wrists, fighting to say it. "Ah.." It was so painful; he knew it, it just wouldn't come. "Ah...she. She. Cuzz-mad."
He loved her. He didn't want her ever to go away and leave him alone in this place.
She tilted her head qizzically. "Who?"
His open fingers barely brushed hers. He moved his hand to the limit of the chain and stroked his thumb gently up and down the side of her palm. He gazed into her eyes, trying to say it that way. Every word was agony to accomplish: cling twist slide away silvery fish grab--shove through the wall. "Name!" It burst out of him. "Name! She?" He gripped her hand, squeezed it once.
She smiled again. "Maddy."
Yes, that was it. Maddy. Maddygirl. Maddy. "Mm--" it came out, and he gritted his teeth in frustration.
"Maddy," she said.

And of course, there is her most famous line, the one we all trot out to prove that Kinsale is a cut above the rest--if you don't know it I'm not going to tell you, but I guarantee you'll know it when you read it. We all do.

This is a monster of a book, 533 pages and it's almost impossible to put down. While there isn't a lot of sex, there's plenty of angst, and the story itself is fascinating, Jervaulx's struggle and the challenges he faces living in a world that doesn't know what's wrong with him. By the end of the book, you know more about strokes and insane asylums and Quakers than you ever thought you'd learn from a romance, and the book leaves you with that ache in your chest that means you've really felt what the characters are feeling.

I can't gush enough. This has been my favorite romance novel since I first read it, and although I thought Kresley Cole's Hunger Like No Other pushed it off the top of the pile, after reading this novel again I have to say it is permanently esconced in that #1 spot.

Fantastic novel.
Grade: A+
If I could rate it higher, I would.

Jennifer Cruisie, Bet Me, 2004

2007-03-02T20:04:47Z

I'm a latecomer to the whole "Jennifer Cruisie" phenomenon. She kind of reminds me of JR Ward (not in subject matter, god, no) because the people who love her, really, really love her, and the people who hate her, well. You get the picture. Luckily Cruisie's fans are not as rabid as Ward's. (I had posted a fairly positive review of one of her books on Amazon with a few caveats and I actually got HATE MAIL as a result. A romance reviewer's blog recently reviewed the JR Ward book that comes out next month and she got like a hundred hate mail postings on her board. Woah.)

So, anyway, Cruisie's sort of known for having more normal sized heroines, and for taking fairy-tales and twisting them into her novels. I believe "Bet Me" is the whole Frog/Prince story. It's by far her best book.

Min is a woman of size, and an actuary--cautious by nature, except when it comes to shoes. Cal is gorgeous, completely unable to commit, and prone to taking bets he really shouldn't. Like the $10 he takes for getting Min to leave the bar with him. Or the $10 he gets for taking her out to lunch. Then there's that $10 grand....but I won't spoil that for you.

There are a lot of romance novels where the gorgeous guy looks at the heroine and immediately, his world changes. Not so, our Cal. That's one of the things I like so much about this book. He's interested but doesn't want to be, because she doesn't fit his "acceptable girlfriend" mold--Min's not stunningly gorgeous and thin. Min thinks he's gorgeous but she overhears "the bet", and she's no dummy. But the universe keeps putting them together, despite their best efforts to stay apart.

Normally in a romance novel, now the heroine would have some sort of illness or start working out, and suddenly become much thinner. This is not that book. In fact, the first time Cal really is attracted to Min is when she is eating fantastic food--"Look at ME that way," he thinks.

Of course, that's not to say Min's weight is ok with her, at least not in the beginning. "I'm on the no-fat Atkins diet," she says, to which Cal replies, "So then what can you eat?" because, that doesn't leave a lot of room for actual food. Min falls in love with chicken marsala from the restaurant of one of Cal's close friends--she tries to make it without oil, without flour, without butter. You can imagine the result.

Her mother's no help, and neither is her sister--having picked out the most unflattering bridesmaid's dress in existence (which her Mother orders several sizes too small because Min, of course, is going to lose weight, right?). I think the bridesmaid's dress thing has gotten pretty cliche, but I've been there, so I can relate.

When Cal offers her a brat at a makeshift picnic, she declines. He pesters:

"It's Saturday," Cal said. "Live a little."
"That's what you said Wednesday at Emilio's. I've already sinned this week."
"Saturday is the first day of the new week. Sin again."
Min bit her lip, and the breeze picked up again, rustling the trees and lifting the edge of her skirt, floating it closer to him.
"I brought you Diet Coke to compensate," he said, opening the cooler. "Also, this conversation is boring."
"Right. Sorry." She took the can he handed her and popped it open. "Really sorry. There's nothing more boring than talking about food. "
"No," Cal said, "Talking about food is great. Talking about not having food is boring."

Thank god. The voice of reason.

I won't spoil the end, but any book that features Krispie Kremes as a major player in a relationship HAS to be the good thing. Cruisie's characters act like REAL PEOPLE, something you don't see very often in romance novels. I suspect that's why many people don't like them. (I'm thinking of her novel "Welcome to Temptation," where the hero, Phin, often says things NO romance novel hero would ever say. Personally, I'd never date anyone who'd tell me to shut up, but that's just me.)

I don't like all her books, but this one, I like--there's growth and humor and a realistic ending, and good food.

Grade A-

P.S. If you're looking for full figured heroines and happy endings, try Cindy Meyer's Learning Curves, which is also a fun book that I enjoyed.

Kresley Cole, Hunger Like No Other, 2005

2006-11-14T16:36:54Z

This may in fact be my favorite romance novel of all time, kicking "Flowers from the Storm" off it's perch. And that book has been my favorite since college, so that's really saying something. This book never gets old.

Basic Premise: The king of the Lykae clan escapes 200-plus years of fiery torture when he smells his mate for the first time. Only catch: she's a half-vampire, half-Valkyrie who wants no part of him.

Oh, man. Lachlain. Wooo! The guy actually BREAKS off his LEG to get to Emmaline. Twelve hundred years without a scent of his mate, and when he smells her, he goes berserk. Thank god he has the power to regenerate that leg, but the author doesn't make it fast. In the beginning, he's absolutely crazed; two hundred years of dying in fire--and then coming back to life because of his immortality, only to be burned to death again--over and over again--would probably do that to a person. When I talk about Alpha Male Scots, Lachlain may be the Scot all others are only trying to imitate. He is smoldering.

Emmaline is one of my favorite heroines of all time, and I don't have many favorite heroines. Only in her early 70s (but looking 25 due to immortality), Emma is the child of a vampire and a valkyrie (Who just happens to be Helen of Troy--a nice twist). She was raised by the Vakyrie after her mother died and has no idea of the identity of her father--or even how the two of them got together. It should have been an impossibility. Despite being raised by warriors, she's an uncertain, virgin, scared thing: crying bloody tears at the thought of pain. Never even been kissed--her guardians think it's too dangerous for her--she might drink from another person. When Lachlain finds her, she's absolutely terrified. No big shock there. The idea of being a Lykae's mate? Absolutely unthinkable.

Lachlain is scary. Some of the Amazon reviews suggest that some readers find his behavior just short of rape. I disagree. He's exactly as he should be, and Emmaline's reaction is honest and real. Later in the book, one of the characters tells Emma that everything Lachlain does, it's to make her happy. She just has to tell him what he's done wrong, and how she feels about it--something she was never 100% clear about before.

Oh, one other thing: the sex is seriously, seriously hot. If you want to know what turns a woman on, this is that book. We won't laugh at you if you read it, we swear. Some of the hottest love scenes ever.

Grade: A: #1 book of all time for me! Pros: Great story, wonderful characters, and a hero that absolutely steams up the page. You won't forget the sex scenes for a long, long time. Emmaline's journey from frightened girl to powerful woman is fantastic. Cons: Frankly, there are none. Everything works for me in this book.

JR Ward's "Brotherhood" Books: A real gem of a series.

2006-10-18T21:07:32Z

Some of the people on a forum I've been frequenting in preparation for National Novel Writing Month have been discussing JR Ward lately. I hadn't realized how incredibly popular she is, despite only having authored three novels.

These books inspire a lot of passion in readers, myself included. And considering how many romance novels come out every year (a whole heck of a lot) that's really saying something.

I love the author picture on the back inside cover. Her innocent, white-bread demeanor is an amazing counterpoint to the content of these novels.

These are vampire books--no other supernatural critters involved, except for the lessers, which I will get to discussing later. These are vampires done thug-style, as if the undead were a bunch of massive, ripped, viciously macho men who wore only leather and listened only to rap music.

Doesn't bear much resemblance to Anne Rice's fancy-pants vampires, does it?

Oh, it's more complicated than that, and she clearly thought a lot about how she wanted her world to function, and how she would differentiate her vampires from all the others out there.

She does a good job of that. Some of her ideas are creative as all get-out. Her concept of "transition"--that vampires don't actually become, well, vampires, until they are around 25 years of age--is pretty clever, especially considering that her not-yet-vampires are asexual, scrawny man-boys that a 98-lb weakling could take down. The idea that vampires only drink from their own kind--I like that too.

Ward's vampires are morally questionable at best--which I love. The fact that recreational drug use is casually accepted in her novels is an interesting departure. (Call it what you will, but what they smoke is definitely the vampire version of marijuana.) Some of them drink a lot. Their sex lives are extreme, in some cases, disturbing. One of them is seriously into self-mutilation (or at least a good flogging by someone who cares).

But, oh, they're so damn cool. There's one scene in "Lover Eternal" where one of the characters pulls a tootsie pop out of his long leather coat and sticks it in his mouth.
The visual alone is wonderful--and the way she writes it, well, seems natural and very real.

A lot of what she writes feels very natural--their physical expressions, hand gestures, habitual motions--all ring true.

But…

As with all created worlds, there are issues. I personally HATE the names: Wrath, Rhage, Vishous, Phury, Zsadist, Tohrment.

I mean, really. I don't expect them to be named Bob, but still.

She also attempts to create a language for the vampires, which we see in phrases and individual words: some work, and some don't. The ones that work aren't based on anything but imagination. The ones that don’t: they are the words that "sort-of" sound like english, but are spelled differently (see names listed above for examples.)

Her use of the word "males" instead of men and "females" instead of women. It's a little jarring after a while.

Her villain plotline--and the villains themselves, called lessers (another word that I don't think works, simply because it is sort of an english word)--is excreable.

Sorry, JR Ward. I skip every chapter with these characters. They're just icky, and not in a fun way. And the sexual abuse angle of the Omega--it doesn't work, sorry.

And, oh, after reading the first book again, I realized that your male characters supposedly have NO body hair, but they still shave their faces. Huh?

I mentioned in an earlier post that JR Ward is starting to push the line with her use of "urban" slang. It's a tough thing to do, especially since it goes in and out of style so fast, it can make certain things feel dated.

What is fascinating to me, though, is that the first book started with an almost total focus on the love story. Her second book, was about half love story, 1/3 young vampire story, and 1/3 the pre-quel of "Lover Awakened". Her third book was evenly split between four or five different plotlines.

Wonder what the next one will be like.

Dark Lover: JR Ward
2005

Basic Premise: A reluctant vampire king fulfills the final wish of a murdered friend: to ease his half-human daughter through her vampire transition.

The introduction to JR Ward's world, this book deals mostly with setting the stage and telling the love story of Beth and Wrath. You get a taste of all the other vampires and start to invest emotionally in her tortured human cop, Butch--who is the star of the as-yet unreleased book coming next, by the way. Wrath and Beth are a good couple, not a lot of angst compared to many books: I felt this was a good book, but by no means the kind of book to obsess over.

4 out of 5: Vampire 101. Pros: Interesting characters, and Ward doesn't feel the need to explain herself all the time--you get to put the pieces together. Cons: Not as "hard" as the other books; see the other general criticisms above.

Lover Eternal: JR Ward
2006

Oh, she's bringing it on, now! Here's where I start to really get into her creation….

Basic Premise: A woman fighting life-threatening cancer enters an entirely new world after helping a teen who repeatedly calls in to the suicide hotline center she volunteers at. A vampire with a serious curse finds solace.

Oh, Rhage. How I would wax poetic on your wonderfulness as a romance novel hero. In my mind, you are Fabio at his most Fabio-ness, a stud among men.
(Ok, not everyone finds Fabio as good -looking as I do, but leave me my fantasy, please. And then scroll down to my earlier post on Fabio and go look at his painted covers from the 80s-90s, and join me in my Fabio love.)

Rhage is far from perfect, although his nickname is "Hollywood" for his "movie-star looks" (whatever that means). He's a sex addict. (and I don't mean that as a joke.) He's got a serious anger management problem. Occasionally, he turns into a man-eating dragon monster thingie.

I like Rhage so much that I accepted the fact that he breaks one of the cardinal rules of romance novels about 1/3 of the way through the book: I don't normally get past those sorts of things. I won't spoil it for you. You'll know when you read it.

I'm even going to go so far as to actually QUOTE parts of the book. I've got it bad for Rhage. His response to Mary when she worries about her ability to truly contribute emotionally to their relationship--he says (and this is not accurate, I'm sure) "Take everything. Take anything. But take SOMETHING." (aww.)

5 out of 5: A top ten romance novel for me. Pros: A seriously wrenching plotline, really scary relationship issues, and the introduction of John to the vampire universe. Cons: Ok, maybe the resolution doesn't work as well for me as it should. I'm willing to forgive and forget. For Rhage. But only for him.

Lover Awakened: JR Ward
2006

Oh, the paroxysms of joy people went into when this book came out! I have never seen so many people get so nuts about a book that they actually attack people who criticize it. (I made the mistake of posting a review on Amazon.com. Never again. I got fricking hate mail!)

Yeah, it's Laura Kinsale's "Shadow and the Star" all over again. I obsessed over that book when it came out, waaay back in 1991. It was my favorite book forever. So I guess I understand people thinking this is the best book of all time.

Why are we so obsessed with men who are sexually abused? What does that say about us? I mean, really?

Basic Premise: Well, this deserves a couple "basic premises", because it has two major plotlines. First, the love story: When an emotionally damaged vampire saves a woman who challenges his well-ordered, miserable life, he's forced to make a choice: continue dying inside, or let her in and allow himself to heal. The Second plotline: John finds a new family when the vampires bring him into their fold.

So, seriously, what's the deal? The deal is that in the two prior books, Zsadist is put out there as absolutely the scariest thing on two legs: even the vampires are afraid of him. As his brother Phury states, "He's not broken, he's ruined."

Well.

Yeah, this is completely heart-wrenching. The guy doesn't even have a name for his penis--he calls it "it" or "the thing". Sex--just the foreplay part--makes him vomit. (we saw that in the prior book, by the way.) He's a mess. Don't read it if you don't have a tissue handy. This is not a happy happy romantic story.

But John makes it all ok, because just when we think we can't take anymore of Z's pain, Ward gives us a chapter on John, and we can relax for a while. I love John--he'd better be getting a book of his own.

Be warned, though: Ward makes it clear in this book that she has no compunction about killing off beloved characters. Prepare yourself.

4 out of 5: I'm ducking right now, because someone is throwing things at me for not giving this a 5 out of 5. People are wacko about this book.
Pros: Heartwrenching romance, a great secondary plotline. Cons: I felt a little bit exploited at the end, to be honest. Maybe she took the sexual abuse angle just a little too far?

The next book is about Butch, the human, and Marissa, the former blood partner of Wrath--and it looks to be another great book. As long as there is more John, I'll be happy.

But JR Ward, couldn't you please have more Beth/Wrath and Mary/Rhage in your sequels? I felt like once their book was done, they just disappeared. It made me sad.

Happy reading

M