I’ve been feeling a bit out of sorts with the romance market recently, so I’ve kept to the authors I enjoy and lines like the Harlequin category romances that I tend to enjoy. I write and read paranormal romance, but more and more, the ones I’ve been reading have gone into action/adventure and that’s not what I read them for. Historical romances have turned into complete fairy tales, with very little history in them. It took me a while to work out what was going on, but I’m getting there.

A couple of years ago, every agent and editor was looking for something called High Concept. It’s such a nebulous idea that it’s easy to get it wrong, because it seems to be different according to who tells it, but, basically, it’s an idea that can be described in one sentence, such as “Godzilla meets Cinderella, and Godzilla wins” or “Mr. and Mrs. Smith in the Regency.” (I’m not making one of those up). That kind of stuff. It’s led to books that are high on ideas, low on character and execution, and I think that’s what my problem with the romance market boils down to.

I’m a romance reader. I love a bit of difference, of excitement, of external plot, but not to the exclusion of the romance. I want that romance to be the centre of the action, not something that happens somewhere along the way. And I’m missing that. The concept is all very well, but I want more. I want a story that makes sense, one that gives the characters a chance to exist, to be themselves. Not one where they’re forced into action, where we don’t see the development of the romance, where we can believe that they are falling in love. More and more, it’s a succession of hot sex scenes with an “I love you” tagged on at the end.

The ancient Greeks had it right. In their tragedies, the tragedy arises from a flaw in the main character’s psyche, something he doesn’t believe or does wrong. He lies, and a whole series of actions arise from that. All external actions happen offstage. In Oedipus Rex, Jocasta dies offstage, Oedipus blinds himself offstage, because the point isn’t that part of the story, it’s the characters and how they react that’s important. In modern storytelling, it’s often the other way about. I wouldn’t have cared about Jocasta had I not learned to like her beforehand. Similarly, Oedipus isn’t just a badass warrior and great king, he’s a badass warrior with deep internal flaws and concerns that haunt him throughout his life. That’s what makes him really interesting.

Subsequent storytellers followed that convention, and in a play like Hamlet, everything is about character flaws, a succession of wrong choices and failures until the final action leads to a tragedic triumph – that is, Hamlet eventually wins, but at the cost of his own life. His flaws interact with the others in the play. So Claudius isn’t a completely bad man, but he falls in love with the wrong woman and behaves with a Machiavellian deviousness that eventually leads to his own undoing. He is also a good king (it’s in the first scene, that he’s doing the job well) and a loving husband.

I want that back in romance. I want a Maddy (Flowers From the Storm) who is brave enough to step outside her community, but whose inner narrow-mindedness won’t allow her to accept Christian’s solution for his problem. I want events to come from the inside. It’s how Jane Austen made a story about a set of perfectly ordinary sisters come to life, and it’s why we remember Charles Dickens’ characters years after we’ve closed the books. We imagine them having a life outside the books.

This is why I’m looking forward to the next Cecilia Grant book.  A Lady Awakened didn’t entirely work for me, but it’s still the most interesting debut I’ve read for years. It isn’t the beauty of her writing or the accuracy of her history, it’s because the action springs from the characters and not from outside them. It didn’t work for me because I didn’t like the heroine, but that, in one way, is a triumph because she made me believe in the heroine and have an opinion on her.

A writer like Linnea Sinclair writes rocket ships and cool weaponry, but she never forgets the characters. You don’t want goodies to triumph over baddies, you want that hero to win because you care about him. Games of Command remains one of my favourite books and the characters stay with me.

So please, less of the high concept. It’s resulted in some truly awful books and some extremely average ones. Let’s get back to the happy sigh on the last page, as the reader is given something satisfactory and heartfelt. Give me the romance back.

LynneC’s review of Darker After Midnight (Midnight Breed, Book 10) by Lara Adrian
Paranormal Romance published by Delacourte Press 24 Jan 11

I wanted this book because it’s Sterling Chase’s book, but while the first part keeps the reader on the edge of her seat, the second half descends into a big wtfkery, as Adrian sets the scene for what will probably be a new series. There will be spoilers in this review, however I’ll mark them for you, but the first part won’t have spoilers as such. However, we know certain things, and I don’t really consider them spoilers, such as this is a romance, so it has a HEA.

Sterling Chase is the hyper-controlled Breed male who joined the Order after giving up the Agency. Some of the best parts of this book are when Chase returns to his old Darkhaven and muses about his previous life, what he wanted and how he’d been mistaken. We actually get insights into his character and what makes him tick. But other parts of Chase’s character aren’t carried through properly. We know at the end of the last book that he has succumbed to bloodlust and so he’s doomed. He has to go cold turkey, or maybe he doesn’t, maybe he can just fight it. Bloodlust is described as an addiction, but Chase doesn’t behave like an addict. For one thing, he falls in love and puts that person above his addiction. Addicts don’t do that. It weakened that part of Chase’s character. And (spoiler) the resolution. What resolution? We just see lurve beating all, we don’t see him kicking his habit. It’s an important part of Chase’s character, until it stops being a part of his character. Until it’s not needed anymore to move the story forward. I want more about Chase and less about the badass villain.

Dragos has been the villain through the whole series. He has never been more than two-dimensional, and here he doesn’t disappoint in that respect. He’s a megalomaniac. While other megalomaniacs had quirks (Blofelt had a cat, Goldfinger had a third nipple), Dragos doesn’t even have that. He just wants to rule the world and is prepared to create chaos while he does so. Like a spoiled child wanting a toy, he doesn’t really know why he wants it or what he’ll do with it once he gets it.

As usual, we get destruction and mayhem, but some of the story threads lead nowhere and others come out of the blue. (spoiler alert). Atlantis? Really? And when Dragos dies, it’s over so fast and so easily, that you wonder why they bothered waiting so long. Dragos’s master plan is so ridiculously simple, I don’t know why he didn’t do it earlier, before the Order had a chance to fight him.

The heroine of this book is Tavia, who is more than she thinks she is at the start. And here’s another break with the rest of the rules of the series. I feel kind of cheated when I discovered what Tavia is, because, although the explanation is plausible, it negates some of the other earlier books. Tavia starts the book as an interesting character in an interesting job, but that dissipates as, before our eyes, she turns into a Mary Sue. Everybody loves her, except the villain, who wants her, and she makes everything all right. She cures addiction, she fights, she Saves The Day, and we are meant to believe that where a group of experienced warriors fail, a scheme that the aforesaid Blofelt could have spotted with one eye closed would succeed? At the end, she does something so stupid that I lost respect or interest for her.

Originality, this book has none. I don’t mind that so much as some readers. For instance, this series is about a bunch of otherworldly, vampiric badass warriors who all live together in a great big house and find their mates. Yep, definitely been there before, again and again for that matter, but the women are more proactive and interesting, and the writing is less simplistic than others in similar vein. What’s more, the characters, especially in the first three books, are far more involving, less ciphers, with motivations that make sense and story arcs that go somewhere. For me, the series started to fall apart when she turned Andreas Reichen into a totally different character for Ashes of Midnight, but I kept reading, hoping the series would turn. At some points, it did, but this last book is one of the weakest in the series, which is a real shame, as I loved Chase in the earlier books and I wanted to read about him, not some weird outer-space-meets-mythology mashup.

This story starts really well and I couldn’t stop reading, but at a certain point, it changed, and I just wanted to get to the end. Then I wish I hadn’t. Here followeth spoilers, but I’ll try not to make it too bad.

At one point toward the end, I groaned aloud. My daughter, who was in the same room, asked me what was wrong, and I said one word. “Atlantis.” She hasn’t read this series, didn’t know what I was reading, but she groaned, too. Oh dear. It’s like having a joker in the pack or playing a black two and then saying, “Oh, by the way, black twos are wild.” It came out of nowhere and it didn’t work. For that matter, the whole interpretation of dreams subplot didn’t work for me. I was tempted to skip, but I read, hoping it would come together at the end, but it didn’t.

The end of the book is one big Harlequin Presents ending. Couples cuddling and babies. Omg the babies! Sweet as sugar.

And the speech to the world? Absolutely unbelievable. I mean I didn’t believe it. It’s like a Godzilla film, with people rushing around screaming and school buses falling off high bridges, and the everything is all right, and “We’ll build a new world together.” Nu-uh. Not for this romance reader.

The book is a bit like a torn sock. All nicely knitted and working toward something interesting, and then lots of threads and tangles and an ending that doesn’t make sense.

Adrian has obviously set up a new series here, one that reads far more like urban fantasy, but I’m a romance reader. I want characters, their dilemmas and how they overcome them, drawing on resources inside themselves. I don’t want plot-heavy stories with characters who do as they are told. So this is where we part company, but the first three books of this series remain firmly on my keeper shelf.

Grade: C

Summary:

The climactic novel in Lara Adrian’s New York Times bestselling Midnight Breed series–and her hardcover debut–Darker After Midnight invites readers to enter a thrillingly sensual world where danger meets desire.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

LynneC’s review of  The Secret History of a Good Girl by Aimee Carson
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents  7 Feb 12

Aimee Carson is a new author to me, with two Mills and Boon/Harlequin books under her belt. I settled down for a good read, and on the whole I wasn’t disappointed.

Alyssa is an events planner, and she’s pitching for an important contract with the Samba Hotel. One thing I don’t understand is why these women with little experience get the big jobs in these books. What’s more, she has a secret, something she doesn’t tell prospective employers, but one, I would have imagined, that people in a position of trust must reveal. Why didn’t they know? But when she confesses to Pauolo later in the book, it comes as a complete surprise to him.

I know that realism isn’t a hallmark of Presents/Modern, but I do expect to be able to believe the setup. There are a few WTFs in this book, but I let them ride. The most successful of this line don’t depend on generalizations and vague explanations to tell the story, and while Pauolo and Alyssa are vividly drawn characters, some of the situations and internal thoughts I feel I’ve read before and didn’t really read like those of individuals.

Pauolo is the macho, tall, dark, handsome male who doesn’t believe in marriage. He’s been married before, and it ended badly. However, Pauolo loved his wife, and she divorced him to marry his brother. I don’t understand why, at thirty-three, Pauolo has given up. True, the loss of his wife six years before would have marked him, but he is young enough to consider another long-term affair, unless he is immature enough to think that once is it, and to do him justice, he is not the immature type. He left his father’s business and set up his own, leaving his brother in sole possession. He rides a Ducati and he never wears a suit and tie, though I wasn’t sure why. He just does. I’d have liked a little more background to give Pauolo more depth, but some factors of his personality are left hanging.

There is one scene that made me laugh aloud, when Pauolo gives Alyssa a chance to ride his motorbike. I’m assuming that the Ducati is one of the big ones, but it sounds more like the cute girly ones in this scene. I did enjoy imagining her on one of the beasts Ducati produces. I do ride motorbikes, and twisting the throttle will find you on your back on the ground, probably with a ton of metal on top of you, unless you know precisely what you’re doing. You don’t have your first motorbike lesson on one of those.

Pauolo is interesting, but he opens up to Alyssa a little too late in the book. I do like the way he treats her fairly, but the contrivances that keep her from being his employee are a little much, since she has an office in his hotel and works exclusively for him for most of the book. His stubbornness is irritating, but it is part of his character and probably meant to annoy.

There are some pleasant developments, not least when Alyssa decides to discover more about Pauolo’s first marriage. She does something I don’t like her doing, but in the process discovers that (gasp) Pauolo’s ex-wife isn’t a complete bitch and has a mind of her own. That I enjoyed. Alyssa annoys me sometimes, but she’s a bearable heroine, and she works hard for her happy ending.

The last scene doesn’t work for me at all, I’m afraid, but I’m venturing into spoiler territory here. I think I know what the author was trying to do, feature a facet of Pauolo’s personality that had proved significant to his character, but when he does the right thing, Alyssa responds with baffling stubbornness and that leads to another scene, which, let’s say, isn’t a bit romantic.

And the pop references drive me a bit nuts. They seem to be all the wrong things for my taste, and that is a risk you take when you use such references. Comparing the hero to Taylor Lautner doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t work for me a lot. I’m a David Bowie girl, George Clooney, even Brad Pitt, but no, not Lautner. Not even his chest does it for me (too much make up). And discussing a Lady Gaga concert as if I’d actually like to attend one—gah! Radiohead or nothing, I say. Constant comparisons until the book is about three-quarters overstrained the narrative a bit, without adding colour. While it’s nice to have modern references, in a year, maybe two, the book will be outdated (whereas Clooney and Radiohead will go on forever, lol!) Phones are always “cellular phones,” and not the more familiar “cell.” That might be an editorial decision, though. It did stop me once or twice.

The sex scenes are fairly standard, not too hot, and many are described in narrative or after the event. I wondered if Ms. Carson is comfortable with writing scenes at that level of heat, and euphemisms and the softer phrases are used in place of the more explicit. However, there’s no doubting that these two are into each other.

I did enjoy the read, but it isn’t a book that I’ll remember for too long. And please, (and this is addressed at the whole line, not just Ms. Carson) enough with the event planners already. We’re in a recession, so how many event planners can there be these days?

Grade: C+

Summary:

Play with fire…

Miami hotel tycoon Paulo Domingues knows that beneath his events planner’s southern priss, Alyssa Hunt is all sass. Little Miss Prim has Paulo’s inner rebel roaring to life – he’s determined to seduce the fire out from behind it!
And you might get burnt!

Tough-cookie Alyssa hasn’t fought tooth and nail to shake off her past to be blindsided by one smooth-talking boss. Until, punch-drunk with desire, she succumbs to temptation and realises what she’s been missing out on! But will Miami’s most wanted bachelor run when he discovers the real reason behind her good-girl façade…?

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of More than Perfect by Day Leclaire
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 7 Feb 12

I enjoyed this book, not quite as much as the first in the series, but it’s still a good, solid read. It is still more Desire than Presents/Modern, with the millionaire more human, a touch less alpha, and the heroine older and more independent minded. I enjoyed it despite the cute kid. I’m not a big fan of cute kids in romance novels.

After a one-night stand with his ex-girlfriend, she tells him she’s going back to his best friend, Geoff. Lucius thinks she’s a bitch, but she tells him he is just as bad and marries Geoff. They are killed in a train accident, leaving their small son in Lucius’s care.

Angie is Lucius’s PA, and secretly in love with him.

Get the setup? Read it before? Probably. But you haven’t read this book about this couple, and that’s what makes Day Leclaire special. While she uses stock plots, she doesn’t use stock characters.

I would love to write a series of books with the same beginning point and the same tropes but with different characters to see how they cope with it, and this, to a certain extent, is what she does.

Lucius finds the perfect PA, Angie, after consulting the program developed by Praetorius and his young assistant. Now he’s using the same program to find a wife, because he wants  someone for little Mikey and as a partner. Unbeknown to Praetorius, Angie and said assistant tweak the program a bit, so she appears to be the perfect wife candidate. I like that, instead of mooning around, she answers him back and she does something to get what she wants. So the conflict is set up. What will Lucius do when he discovers her tinkering?

Meantime, Angie and Lucius set about falling in love and fighting for custody of Mikey, when the baby’s grandparents sue. While feeling sorry for them, both Lucius and Angie are appalled by their cold, analytical nature. So they have another reason to stay together.

Lucius is bone-headed, powerful, strong, but he also has a sense of humour and the ability to laugh at himself. So I like him, and I could understand why Angie falls for him. Angie is fully aware of her folly in falling for him, but she won’t take too much from him and she will answer back, so I ended up liking her, too.

This is how to do a Desire right, and while it won’t shake the romance world to its foundation, it is a satisfying, enjoyable read. Together with Day Leclaire’s smooth, accomplished writing style, it makes for a pleasant hour or two.

Grade: B-

Summary:

When billionaire Lucius Devlin inherits his best friend’s child, he needs a wife. Preferably one who fulfills his every need. So he checks out the Pretorius Program, since it had once found him the perfect assistant.…
Angie Colter can’t understand who wouldn’t want to spend time with the sexy, caring and utterly compelling Lucius and darling baby Mikey. Then she discovers his goal. With a few tweaks to the program—and to her appearance—Angie will be the perfect wife! But what if Lucius finds out the truth about his nearly perfect fiancée?

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of Stud (Cat Star Chronicles, Book Eight) by Cheryl Brooks
Futuristic Romance published by Sourcebooks 7 Feb 12

I haven’t read any of the Cat Star Chronicles before, and I plunged right in with this book, Book Eight of the series. I had few problems picking up the world and the characters, and I enjoyed the read. However, it isn’t everything I hoped it would be. I was in the mood for something different and this book certainly delivered that for me, but even though I don’t read much SF or fantasy, some of the customs were familiar to me.

The hero, Tarq, is a cat-person, and he is good at sex. Very, very good, and it helps that he has—extras. Long blond hair and pointy ears don’t usually turn me on—even when it’s Legolas—but he did have some interesting quirks, like his inability to read the menu. Not to mention his Magic Peen. He’s a very wealthy whore, who no longer charges for his services. After his world was destroyed, he is doing his bit to increase the numbers of his kind. He thinks the only thing he is good at is sex, because he’s dyslexic. The word is never used, but from the first page it’s obvious what his problem is, when he admits he can’t read the menu. I like the way Tarq copes with his problem, and it does seem realistic – learning ways around confessing his problem and thinking of himself as stupid because of it, but I don’t like the way it’s left hanging, with Lucy realizing what it is but little else.

The heroine, Lucy, is a waitress when we first encounter her, and she works in her father’s diner alongside a down-to-earth alien cook and a hermaphrodite, who is too lightly drawn for my liking. The hermaphrodites were by far the most interesting aliens for me. The beginning reads like a waitress in a category romance, with the father who shouts a lot, a notebook, albeit an electronic one, and the diner atmosphere that would be worthy of anything in the USA. She doesn’t recognize Tarq at first, but realizes her mistake when she sees an ad on the TV for his services. He works in a brothel and has produced hundreds of children. With his race under threat, it’s his duty as well as his pleasure. I think Tarq’s character is a little thin. Apart from his magical, athletic peen, which seemed to produce gallons of lubrication and ejaculate, here called snard, which tastes of chocolate and cream – which is described in huge detail and often – I find Tarq a bit of a cipher. His motivations are a little too straightforward, for a person who has lost his homeworld.

Lucy is a tiny bit irritating. At first she is a Cinderella, straight out of the story, and she only decides to run away when she gets pregnant. Her pregnancy doesn’t impinge much on the story, apart from a bit of morning sickness, and most of the story is, in fact, a road novel. She and Tarq decide they can’t stay together, even when circumstances change, and I feel that conflict becomes progressively weaker as the story goes on, and less believable. It turns into a big misunderstanding before it’s finally resolved.

There isn’t a romance and courtship in this book. Tarq recognizes Lucy as his mate from page one, and Lucy is dazzled by this glamorous, famous creature, famed for his prowess with sex. I don’t know why she falls in love with him and I’m not entirely convinced that she does.

This is a light read, an amusing one rather than anything involving or angsty. One or two things niggled me from the start. Lucy? Really? This book is set thousands of years in the future and they’re still using American-style diners? Furthermore, some of the cultural references are closer to our time than they are to anything futuristic. Kentucky Fried Chicken and the diner culture, together with some inconsistencies in the world-building. No communicators clipped to belts? With the ubiquity of cellphones, I would have put them in, but then, the second half of the book wouldn’t have been possible.

However, this is a fun read and light read, one you don’t have to concentrate on to find out what a tflwt is, or how F’rty is related to the clan Yu’oki. One for the long flight or the train journey. Or, as I read it, a late-night read before going to sleep.

Grade: C

Summary:

Even for a Zetithian, Tarq Zulveidinoe’s sexual prowess is legendary. Believing it’s all he’s good for, Tarq sets out to perpetuate his threatened species by offering his services to women across the galaxy…

BUT ONE FORCE CAN BRING THEM TOGETHER…

Lucinda Force is the sensitive dark horse in a self-absorbed family, repeatedly told that no man will ever want such a plain woman. Lucy longs for romance, but is resigned to her loveless lot in life-until Tarq walks through the door of her father’s restaurant on Talus Five…

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of Reckless Night (Dangerous Trilogy, Book 3.5) by Lisa Marie Rice
Contemporary Romance ebook novella published by Avon 29 Nov 11

This story is an epilogue to a book by Rice, something I didn’t realize when I started to read it. It reads well as a standalone, and Rice is a competent storyteller, but I thought the story really needed to be in context to its novel.

Viktor (“Drake”) Drakovich and his wife Grace are living under new names and a new location. As far as the world is concerned, Drake died when his office complex exploded, but with a bit of plastic surgery and a lot of money, he’s been able to start his new life.

Grace gives Drake beautiful gifts that she’s made herself. Exquisite gifts, and her latest is a painting of his hand in front of a vase of flowers. This is described so beautifully that I wanted to see the painting, not just read about it. Strange how most artists in romance novels concentrate on traditional techniques and figurative images, but at least this painting sounds like an interesting one. I’ve read about paintings in romance novels that I’ve been glad I couldn’t see, the gaudy, sentimental kind of painting that I would gladly see on the top of a bonfire, but in few other places. Not so here. Grace does sound like a woman happy with her talent, capable of creating beautiful paintings and craft items and who loves her husband. I didn’t read that Grace was unhappy in her new life or that she regretted changing her lifestyle so drastically. That’s Drake, feeling guilty about dragging her away, not Grace.

Since this story is so short, it’s hard to discuss it without spoilers. Suffice it to say that Drake plans a surprise for her that goes somewhat awry, and the end of the story we’re wondering – what? Why? I’d have been much happier had the story ended with Grace and Drake learning to live their new life. The ending read like an intrusion, something that shouldn’t be there, that turns the whole situation on its head and means that they are left in the same slightly unsatisfactory position that they had at the beginning. There’s no progression, although there are moves towards it, and then something happens to stop it.

I do like Grace and Drake, and I can see where Rice is going with the main story. Drake is immensely wealthy, was an arms dealer with more money than he can count, and used to be surrounded by security stronger than any President. Grace is a free spirit, an artist who enjoys walks and her more relaxed lifestyle. The initial story must have been interesting, but now I’ve read the outcome, I can’t say I want to read it, because Drake and Grace are in a limbo of their own making, a well-protected beautiful island where they must exist, rather than progressing and getting on with their lives. Without that shock ending (don’t worry, it’s a romance, she doesn’t commit the ultimate sin of killing off her main characters!), it would have been more satisfactory and would have made for a happier ending. As it is, we’re left wondering – so what happens now?

My other problem is that half this book is a lengthy extract from the main book, the one I no longer want to read. I do think this story spoiled the main one for me. The story is 30 pages long, so there’s another 30 pages of extract and adverts. If you buy this book on Kindle, it’s currently $3.16, but if you buy it on B & N, it’s $0.99 – I don’t know why there’s a difference or why Amazon has allowed it, but I know which price I’d rather pay. Too expensive at $3.16, fine at $0.99

Note: While I do share a publisher with Lisa Marie Rice, this book isn’t published by our mutual publisher, and Lisa Marie is not a special friend, so I felt it was fine to review this.

Grade: D

Summary:

What do you give your beautiful wife when you’ve got all the money in the world but can’t spend it?
Victor “Drake” Drakovitch used to run a criminal empire, but he gave it all up for the woman he loves. Grace, an accomplished artist, abandoned the life she knew in order to be with the one man she could never live without.
Exiled to an island far from their former lives, the two stay safe from the watchful eyes of Drake’s many enemies. This Christmas, Drake wants to show Grace how much her sacrifice means. But what can he give a woman who shuns gold jewelry and diamonds, furs and expensive cars? Grace doesn’t want fancy things; she wants what Drake can give her—unquestioning devotion, fierce protection… and the best sex a woman has ever had.
Until terror strikes and Grace realizes that the best gift of all is a dangerous husband.

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of  The Petrov Proposal by Maisey Yates
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 24 Jan 12

Maisey Yates is one of my go-to authors and while she didn’t disappoint with this book, it isn’t as amazing as last year’s Highest Price to Pay. It is still a highly enjoyable read.

Madeleine is event planner for Aleksei Petrov’s highly successful jewellery company. He designs high-end jewellery, so prestigious presentations at luxury resorts and hotels is an important part of the job. She’s worked for him for a while, but hasn’t met him, although she’s seen his picture. He is, naturally, gorgeous. The story starts when they meet, and it’s a satisfactory “wow, you’re gorgeous” kind of meeting, but, of course, they don’t act on it. Yates does the stages of intimacy thing very well, increasing and teasing until the reader is really ready for them to get together.

Aleksei believes in love, but he doesn’t want it. His wife was killed in a car accident six years before, and he loved her to bits. Until she was in bits, so to speak. (sorry!) He has designed nothing for six years, but has used other designers and concentrated on the business side. I think there’s a slight problem here, because Aleksei is known as a brilliant designer of jewellery, and by his own admission later in the book, he wasn’t the tycoon he is now when his wife died, he was “getting there.” So how is he a brilliant designer? I suppose people could retrospectively love his work, but most designers have to keep current and that is very noticeable in jewellery. But he has designed a necklace, and it will be shown at the upcoming exhibition.

I think that’s my problem with the book. The background is drawn very lightly, and in some parts it doesn’t make sense, like the designer conundrum. When the necklace is shown, Madeleine wears it for him, and she’s hardly at the party five minutes before Aleksei drags her on the dance floor, then kisses her a lot, then drags her off to bed. It just doesn’t seem realistic to me, and the necklace is priceless, so taking it off and dropping it on the bedside table seems a bit nutso, too. I just can’t see it happening, even if the necklace belongs to Aleksei’s company. But it is for sale, it’s not a personal possession. It would be the centre of the show, and she’d be expected to show it off to the clients. Then it would be in the media. When she wrote about fashion in Highest Price To Pay, I got a real sense of the industry, although, of course, romanticised and simplified somewhat. (When I told my mother I wanted to go into the fashion industry, she said, “Over my dead body.”) I didn’t get the same sense in this book of the jewellery trade. For one thing, security is frightening. Every diamond has its own ID number, and the really expensive stuff is so rigidly controlled, it hardly gets an outing.

I think Aleksei is a little more in the usual mold. I do like the way he listens and understands Madeleine, but I have read his kind of hero a lot. He is powerful, from humble roots, is self-made, and the Russian side of him is drawn very lightly. A couple of endearments and references to Moscow. I’d have liked something a little more specific. Maybe not Moscow, maybe more of a Russian syntax, or reference to the gangsters who run much of Russia these days.

The heroine, Madeleine, is an interesting character, too. And a grown-up, which is something I really appreciate about Yates’s books, Madeleine is the daughter of wealthy parents who don’t care. She has a brother, Gage, who loves her, and Gage is considerably older than Maddy. I think she is more developed as a character, and something from her youth, discussed later in the book, is really heart-stopping. But she doesn’t repine, and even her later, and very public, affair with a married man is treated with stoicism. In fact, part of Maddy’s journey is to get over the way her lover deceived her and then left her to face the press on her own. I did enjoy this part, and it does account for most of the higher grade I gave the book. She has a lot to get over, but she does it with humour and without self-pity. Maddy doesn’t believe in love, and at first she’s happy to indulge in an affair, even if it is with her boss, but she comes to admit that she’s falling for him.

I don’t want to denigrate this book, as it’s a well-written, entertaining romance, but I would like a few more specifics. The hero is satisfyingly alpha, but not as well depicted as some of Yates’s other heroes. Still, I can’t deny I had a good time with this book.

Grade: B-

Summary

The first time Maddy Forrester heard her boss’s mesmerizing voice barking orders down the phone, she knew he was a force to be reckoned with. But nothing prepared her for the sight of Aleksei Petrov. He is the last thing Maddy needs, but the first thing she wants!

Aleksei is determined not to mix business with pleasure, but he struggles with the irresistible sparks his feisty secretary ignites in him—she’s a problem he does not want.

The proposed solution? One unforgettable night to fulfill their every wicked desire.

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of Once A Ferarra Wife by Sarah Morgan
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 24 Jan 12

Sarah Morgan is a great Mills and Boon writer. Her books contain real characters and fresh takes on the standard Mills and Boon tropes. I know I’m in for a good read when I pick up one of her books and this is no exception.

Laurel is flying into Sicily to attend her best friend’s wedding, but when she arrives at the airport, the passengers are asked to wait until a VIP has embarked. She looks out of the window to see some posh limousines and her soon-to-be ex-husband. The VIP is her.

A delicious beginning and from then on the book doesn’t let up. This is a reunited, second-chance story, but although the tropes are more than familiar, the treatment isn’t. Laurel and Cristiano have their specific problems and they concern them, nobody else. Cardboard characters don’t belong here, nor do situations that are just excuses for drama. What happened to these people is because of what they are, and the external events are triggers.

Cristiano never stopped loving Laurel, and he is the one with the emotional openness. He is also a workaholic, and after returning from college in his early twenties at his father’s death, he’s parlayed the company into a big multimillion concern. His brother, Santo, who is, I hope, the subject of an upcoming story, also has a lot to do with the company’s rebirth and continued prosperity.

Laurel left Cristiano after she lost their baby, and he only sent her a text to say he’d see her soon. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? But where I objected to the casual use of a stillbirth in Lynne Graham’s recent offering, Bride For Real, here this incident is given serious treatment and consideration. It’s the characters’ reaction to the event that starts them on the road to reunion, but only after a painful separation.

Cristiano didn’t realise that Laurel’s pains were serious, but his real problem was that he didn’t understand Laurel properly, or her needs. If he had, he would have recognised her cry for help and come immediately, but he didn’t. He comes from a loving, close family who have given him the confidence to display his feelings. Plus, he’s Italian.

Laurel is the opposite, coming from a childhood in care homes and foster homes, where she has learned to keep her emotions to herself. So when Cristiano demands affection, she can give it, but only up to a point. She doesn’t understand Cristiano, or rather, she doesn’t dare to. She’s no Cinderella, though, she has a successful fitness business, and although not as wealthy as her husband, she doesn’t need him.

The reversal of the roles works really well. While Cristiano is still a powerful alpha male, his ability to express his emotions acts in his favour. He is closer to himself, and he can reason, but in the case of his wife, he makes assumptions that, in reality, don’t work. The dazzling sexual attraction between them blinds them to their problems at first, and then it is too late.

#The story unfolds naturally and after one heartbreaking scene at the wedding, the story takes a turn, and they start to reconnect. Almost. Nearly, not quite. Morgan doles out the surprises and developments into a smooth, engrossing read that I didn’t want to put down until I’d finished it.

This is what a Modern/Presents book should be, the use of the standard tropes to examine and delve into character, to show us what happens when a standard external plot happens to a particular couple. So what Laurel will do wouldn’t be what Polly (from Ms. Morgan’s last book) would do in the same situation.

That’s the joy of it, and that’s why I look forward to each release from Sarah Morgan.

Grade: A

Summary:

For better…or for bedding? Laurel Ferrara wouldn’t know a happy ending if she fell over it – of course her whirlwind wedding was always going to end in disaster. But it wasn’t as simple as just walking away. From the moment she is summoned back to Sicily the shivers of unease set in… The command comes from legendary billionaire Cristiano Ferrara, the husband she can’t forget – but it might as well have come from the devil himself. The outrageously gorgeous Cristiano’s power is a potent reminder of this Sicilian dynasty’s unbreakable rule: once a Ferrara wife, always a Ferrara wife…

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of Nothing Short of Perfect by Day Leclaire
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 1 Nov 11

Day LeClaire is a great example of someone who has been writing for the Desire line for a very long time but manages to keep her characters and situations fresh and interesting. More than interesting. I love the hero and heroine in this book.

While many category writers are out of step with modern technology, writing about PDAs instead of smart phones, for instance, Day LeClaire’s geek hero knows his way around technology. True, he’s an engineer, but engineers have a great deal to do with tech these days. The deliciously named Justice has developed a computer program to help employers find the perfect employee for certain jobs, and he and his uncle have tweaked with the program to provide himself with the perfect wife.

He wants a wife partly for him and partly for his uncle, who suffers badly from agoraphobia and never leaves the house. After a car accident six months before, he realizes he needs someone in his life. When the emergency staff ask him who to contact, he has no one. His uncle can’t come because of his illness. He has a housekeeper, but he wants more. He wants children. Justice has no problem attracting women, but he spends most of his time in his remote house. However, he has to go to a conference.

This is where the story starts. Daisy is at the same hotel as Justice and recognizes his name. She’s there to sign the children’s’ books she’s written, but she gatecrashes the engineering conference. She doesn’t understand much of Justice’s speech, and while she recognizes that he’s done well since she last saw him, she doesn’t realize how much people idolize him. Justice is a star of the engineering world, and since his childhood in foster homes, he has made himself rich. He met Daisy in his last foster home and the two young people fell in love.

What Daisy doesn’t realize is why Justice walked away. I won’t spoil the reason, but suffice it to say it’s a really, really good reason. While I don’t usually believe in many of the reasons why a couple is separated, this one is perfectly believable, and although Daisy wasn’t at fault, the consequences of their affair hurt Justice badly. But he doesn’t recognize her and they spend the night together. His car accident caused him some amnesia, and although he doesn’t recognize her, he is drawn to her and they spend the night together. Then he recognizes her and boots her out.

Daisy arrives at his house with their child nineteen months later. Normally I’d object to that, too, but Daisy has done her best to contact Justice. Because of his remote address, and because he has instructed everyone that he doesn’t want to talk to her, she has resorted to setting a teenager and computer geek to find out where he is. They find a strange house. Daisy has brought the teenager, her housekeeper and the baby with her, and that is something else I shouldn’t like – a cute kid and a precocious teenager, as well as a loveable and capable housekeeper. But LeClaire makes them real people, albeit heightened ones.

She takes the reader, in this case me, on a journey, after making me care about her two leading characters. I read the book wanting Justice and Daisy to get together, understanding that they fill parts of each other’s personalities they would otherwise be missing. The book shows how people have to change and adapt if they want to love and be loved. Both Justice and Daisy have a way to go, but they set out with humour and courage to achieve it, and by the end of the story, I get what I haven’t had for some time – the happy sigh.

I wanted more Dantes, but the “perfect” story is obviously the first in a new series, where the program concocted by Justice’s uncle, with help from the teen terror, will form the basis. So far, so good. I’m happy.

Grade: B+

Summary:

First comes marriage—and Justice St. John has a plan. Using a foolproof equation, the brilliant scientist designs a program to find the perfect woman. But after a night of unexpected passion, he discovers that Daisy Marcellus is entirely the wrong woman—and it’s back to the drawing board.
But their passion has consequences…. And when Daisy—with little Noelle in tow—tracks him down, she brings life and color and chaos to his cold and orderly world. Their negotiations for the future are just starting when Daisy discovers he’s still searching for the perfect wife….

Read an excerpt.

I can’t say that 2011 was a classic reading year for me. So many train wrecks and meh books. But I read a lot, and even in a good year I’ll have something to celebrate.

Sooo, here we go.

The Good

Doukakis’s Apprentice by Sarah Morgan – a quirky heroine and a staid hero makes for an amusing book, but also a love story you can follow from start to marriage.

The Highest Price to Pay by Maisey Yates – an African hero and a scarred heroine. Lovely. The story wasn’t about his color. He was happy about that, and so was everyone around him. The heroine is a fashion designer with some bad burn scars. The story doesn’t make light of them, but a yummy hero and some good research made for an absorbing read.

Loose Ends by Tara Janzen – The wonderfully imperfect and implausible Steele Street boys end their series with this book. I have read them all, and loved every one, and this last book didn’t disappoint. I had such a good time with this series.

Too Proud to be Bought by Sharon Kendrick – I love that Kendrick takes risks. Not all her books work for me, but she works on a theme of sacrifice, and sometimes for my taste, the heroine gives up a bit too much. But this book was great, not least because the heroine doesn’t take all the crap the hero wants to shove her way. She fights back.

The Man She Loves to Hate by Kelly Hunter – a ski hut, a steaming affair between two people who really shouldn’t be together and a plot that just works.

The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton by Miranda Neville – my big historical discovery of the year. I hadn’t read Neville before, but I discovered a new-to-me author to love. I did enjoy this book, and I have a review copy of her next one, which I’m saving for when I’ve done something really good. It’s funny, accurate historically, and believable.

Silk is for Seduction by Loretta Chase – so good. Chase back on form. Her sassy and adult heroine is more than a match for her hero, who needs to grow up a bit before he’s worthy of her.

Inside by Brenda Novak – romance light, but an intriguing story about an insider working in a high-security prison and the deputy governor. Exciting, edge-of-your-seat stuff, and the other three in the series are great, too.

Shameless Playboy by Caitlin Crews – one of the Bad Blood books, notable for taking some chances with the Harlequin Presents usual fare. This one took typical tropes, the playboy and the southern belle with a past, and made it memorable, and a book I just dived into and didn’t stop until the end.

Front Page Affair by Mira Lyn Kelly – a traditional style Presents that does it right.

I just noticed – no paranormals this year, although I read a fair few. That’s a shame, because I love me some good paranormals.

The Bad

The Crown Affair by Lucy King – Such a shame, after a great debut this one read rushed and contrived, as if the characters were being crammed into a plot.

One Night in London by Caroline Linden – the strangest cover of the year, beating anything Harlequin put out, and characters I could never warm to.

Star Crossed Seduction by Jenny Brown – a diatribe about astrology masquerading as a historical novel. I have nothing against it, have even tried it myself a time or two, but I prefer my historicals without lectures. And without a brain-dead heroine.

The Marriage Betrayal by Lynne Graham – the kind of Modern Romance you don’t get very often these days. Just as well, really.

The Bed and the Bachelor by Tracy Anne Warren – repeated date rape by the heroine on the clueless, supposedly brilliant hero. She gets the inexperienced man drunk and drugged and has sex with him. But the villain is holding her family to ransom until she steals a cipher from the hero. So that’s all right then.

Guarding a Notorious Lady by Olivia Parker - I didn’t believe in the premise of this book for a minute, and the heroine was beyond irritating.

His Unknown Heir by Chantelle Shaw – secret baby of the worse kind. The mother thinks she has the right to keep her pregnancy secret, because the hero has humiliated her. Then she’s surprised when the hero is angry.

Taken by Desire by Lavinia Kent – I never felt connected to the characters and by the end (it was a dnf for me) the heroine was annoying me no end.

Meddling with a Millionaire by Cat Schield – clunky storytelling and characters I really didn’t like. They were the entitled kind.

Unworldly Secretary, Untamed Greek by Kim Lawrence — secretary/boss romances are a guilty pleasure for me. I know I shouldn’t like them, but I still seek them out. This had a “take your glasses off, Miss Smith – my, you’re beautiful” heroine who I immediately hated, and head-hopping that hurt my neck.

The meh

So many. That was my problem this year. I read a lot of forgettable, average books. I want authors to take a chance, even if it ultimately fails, and I am so heartily tired of the “high concept” book that ignores everything – characterization, plot, historical accuracy, logical plot development – in favor of the god High Concept. Stop it, already. Tell me about people and the problems they have to face in finding true love. I don’t care if he’s a Regency duke or a CIA agent, I want the romance.

LynneC’s review of Tool Belt Defender (Lawmen of Black Rock, Book 5) by Carla Cassidy
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Romantic Suspense 20 Dec 11

Occasionally I venture into romantic suspense territory, and this book is from that Harlequin line. And, in any case, how can I resist a book with the title Tool Belt Defender?

Unfortunately, I don’t share Cassidy’s tool belt fetish, even when Batman is wearing it, and the hero of this book is no Batman. He’s an ordinary guy, an ex-lawyer from Chicago who is setting up in the small town as what we in the UK would call an odd-job man. It isn’t the most obvious place for hero material (my odd-job man also worked as Captain Mayhem, a childrens’ entertainer, so I can say that my new shed was built by Captain Mayhem – there has to be a book in that!). In this book, the occupation gives the ex-lawyer a chance to develop his muscles so he can rescue the heroine from her dilemma.

The heroine is Brittany, who was the town’s deputy to her brother’s sherriff, but is now recovering from a trauma. I found it difficult to believe she could recover so quickly from a trauma that involved her getting kidnapped by a serial killer and kept confined for four months, while the baddie tormented her every day talking about what he was going to do to her. She is shown as jumpy, but she isn’t going to therapy, something I’d have thought her employer would have insisted on for quite a long time, and she doesn’t have many other symptoms. She was kidnapped from her car, for instance, but we see her pootling around quite happily in the story. She doesn’t like to go into town because people stare, and she’s lived as a virtual recluse since the attack. Considering how quickly she gets together with the hero, especially since he’s a stranger to her at the start of the story, her trauma seems to come and go, as the story demands.

Although the serial killer is dead, Brittany starts seeing signs that he’s around, such as a red balloon tied to her mailbox and a note pushed through her door which mysteriously disappears. Her brother the sheriff and everyone, except Alex, thinks it’s part of her trauma and dismiss it as her imagination. I find that somewhat hard to believe, too, considering one of the things the experts in serial killers always look for are copycat killers. Any sign would have been followed up, unless the sheriff is incompetent, and since he’s Brittany’s brother, I don’t think he’s meant to be. And if it is her imagination, then surely they would encourage her to see a shrink?

Alex has a daughter. He’s a widower, and one reason he’s moved to a small town is for the family infrastructure he can have there (the girl’s grandparents live in the town). Although he does explain why he’s given up lawyering for odd-jobbing to Brittany, I’m not sure I buy it. He seems somewhat without ambition and a bit directionless to me, although he’s perfectly happy building Brittany’s deck. Yes, she has a deck. Alex’s daughter is a moppet, a poppet, and she is infuriating. When events catch up with them later in the book, I found her Pollyanna attitude distinctly annoying, and I would have told her about death and taxes a lot earlier. It’s just me, I know, but I really don’t like it when cute kids show up in romances. They tend to bring the sugar level right up and provide a useful McGuffin for the author, which can lead to lazy writing.

The book is easy to read, and the events unfold as they should, apart from the “oh, let’s have sex” scene which I find a bit puzzling, as if it’s put in because, well, there has to be one somewhere. I’d have preferred it towards the end, perhaps when the heroine has gone through her ordeal and the hero wants to prove his love to her. It doesn’t seem to fit where it is. They are vaguely fancying each other, and then it’s, oh, well, we might as well, and there it is.

The weakest part of the story is the internal plot, which deals with the motivations and inner feelings of the characters. All too often the reader is told how the character is feeling and not shown it, or told the feeling and then the character made to act accordingly. The reasons that keep the hero and heroine apart are weak and not altogether convincing. The external plot works well, and if the internal motivations had matched that, it would have been a better read.

Grade: C

Summary:

“It’s party time.”That’s the “invitation” shoved under her door. It’s got Brittany Grayson fearing for her life…and her sanity. She’s sure the monster who once held her captive for months is dead, so why his chilling words in the note? His menacing face in the window? And why won’t anyone —even her lawmen brothers—believe that somehow he’s after her again?

Brittany just wants a normal, independent life in Black Rock. Romance is out of the question…although she’s okay as friends-with-benefits with Alex Crawford, her hunky, marriage-phobic contractor. Alex, a single dad, has his own good reasons not to fall for Brittany. But none of them matter when the race is on to find the killer who’s kidnapped her!

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

Other books in this series:

LynneC’s review of Carrying the Rancher’s Heir by Charlene Sands
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 3 May 11

They caught each other at a vulnerable time for them both, decided to forget the past and the future and spend the night together. A delicious premise for a romance novel, but sadly, one we only see in brief flashbacks. But for all that, the book didn’t disappoint, and we get to see Tagg and Callie together through the force of circumstance, and then falling in love, despite their determination not to.

Callie is the daughter of local rancher Hawk Sullivan, and when she finds she is pregnant with Tagg’s baby, she at first doesn’t tell him. However, she knows she will have to, she doesn’t make the idiotic mistake of playing with another person’s life (her unborn child). So she goes to tell Tagg, but ends up telling him that she’s working at the charitable facility that his brother, Clay, has opened. Tagg isn’t happy, and he doesn’t like his renewed attraction to Callie, but when he discovers she’s pregnant, he insists on marrying her.

Tagg has a troubled past (whoopee, I love a hero with a troubled past, as long as it doesn’t prove an excuse or a plot device). He is a cowboy (another whoopee in the Connolly household). Callie isn’t a shrinking virgin, she knew exactly what she was doing when she slept with Tagg and she doesn’t regret it (oh yeah). She also faces up to the consequences and so does Tagg.

They have what the romance book calls “chemistry.” In other words, they fancy the pants off each other, and they prove it very nicely indeed, once they marry, but they don’t trust each other. Callie is the daughter of Tagg’s biggest business rival, one who has snatched a contract from under Tagg’s nose recently. And yet they both try to put that aside. However, deep down, both know they’ll have to cope with that problem sooner or later.

Tagg was married before, and his wife died in an air crash after having an argument with Tagg. While he hasn’t blamed himself unnecessarily, he still blames himself for the way his marriage was heading and what he said to her. He vowed not to let another woman that close to him again, but he isn’t so stubborn that he doesn’t recognize sexual attraction and liking when it happens. He feels both for Callie.

I’m a bit disturbed to see Callie riding all over the place after she knew she was pregnant. I hadn’t got on the back of a horse since I was about eleven years old, and still when I got pregnant, my doctor insisted on telling me that I mustn’t, in any circumstances, ride a horse. I have no idea why, but I presume it’s the danger of being thrown. Even the best rider falls sometimes, and arguably the best are the ones that fall more often, because they might take chances a more cautious rider wouldn’t, but I didn’t see this ban in this book, although I’ve seen it in others. I did want Tagg to enforce the no riding thing, but he seemed unaware of the problem, as well.

I really enjoy the description of a modern ranch and the management involved, as well as Tagg’s other business ventures. It takes me to a world I never hoped to see until a few years ago, and it will perform that function for other readers, too. I just love me a man in chaps, a big hat, and an easy way of talking. So you might say I was already prepared to enjoy this book.

There is nothing groundbreaking about this Desire, but there doesn’t have to be. Sands takes well used themes and uses them to enhance and illustrate the characters of two likeable people who still have some things to learn about each other and themselves.

Grade: C+

Summary:

The passionate, impulsive evening Tagg Worth had spent in the arms of brown-eyed beauty Callie Sullivan was madness. Visions of their tryst still haunted him, but their one-night stand was a mistake the wealthy rancher swore he would not repeat. Hawk Sullivan’s daughter was strictly off-limits—especially since Hawk’s main goal in life was to put Tagg out of business.
Then, suddenly, there was a baby on the way. His baby. Tagg vowed to do the right thing, no matter what it cost him. But his inconvenient new bride tempted his solitary heart down a path a Worth didn’t dare follow….

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of Beyond The Darkness (Offspring Series, Book 5) by Jaime Rush
Paranormal Romance published by Avon 29 Nov 11

Petra is a girly-girl. She likes the Wizard of Oz, American Idol, and she’s training to be a beautician (called an esthetician here. Is there a difference? Pardon my ignorance!) In a previous entry in the series, she met and fell for Cheveyo , a part native American, part alien/paranormal being whose job is to chase down and capture the baddies that slip through the gaps between worlds. He is also in love with Petra, although she doesn’t know it. Cheveyo is a jaguar shapeshifter, which is pretty sexy all on its own.

At the beginning of the story, Pope, who was instrumental in saving Petra’s life in a previous book, needs help. He’s a renegade, and Cheveyo offers to help hide him until he’s used to our world and doesn’t need help anymore. But this puts Petra into danger. Two hunters from the other world are after him and they track him to her. Cheveyo wants Petra and she wants him, but Cheveyo is in psychic contact with his dead father Wayne (Wayne? Really? I kept seeing Wayne Rooney in my mind). Wayne pushes Cheveyo to keep up the good work, and he knows he has to, but he also knows he can’t bring Petra into his world. Pretty girly-girls don’t belong.

That’s about it, really, and hooray, I say. So many paranormal romances have pages and pages of rules and strange names you have to get used to. Not with this one. There are few odd words, and the ones that were there were explained adequately, so they didn’t wreck the flow of the story.

This isn’t a masterpiece, it isn’t a mind-blowing experience. What it is, is a damn good read. I had fun with this book. It’s a road book for a great part, with the baddies chasing our heroes and heroine, and the white-hats sometimes turning the tables. They drive through some wonderful scenery which is well evoked, and Cheveyo doesn’t live in a great big, dirty house with a bunch of comrades. He’s a loner, although he knows he’s not alone in his fight.

I like both hero and heroine in this book. At first, Petra seems like a bit of an airhead, but even at the beginning, there are touches that snagged my interest and made me want to leave on. Later, she gets more proactive and learns how to defend herself. And Cheveyo helps her, instead of automatically labeling her a weak woman to be protected. I like that, too, and that Petra doesn’t become an awesome warrior in leather boots and corset overnight. Or at all, come to that.

The sex is enough, although the long lead-up is a bit frustrating at times. There is a particularly disgusting villain and without going into spoiler territory, at one point I thought it’s going into unacceptable territory, but the scene turns around and it works out much better than I’d feared. Which, after all, is a writer’s job. I’m sorry to miss the falling in love part, and, in this instance, the book let me down. By the time I joined in the fun, that part was a done deal, and I wanted a bit more courtship and maybe a tad less yearning.

Cheveyo is stubborn and his insistence on Petra not staying with him gets a little bit annoying, especially after Las Vegas. But that apart, I like him. He respects her as a person, enjoys the touches of femininity she brings to him and his life. He listens to her, even though he might disagree with her. So, yes, for an enjoyable read, I can definitely recommend this one, and I will be looking for the others in the series now.

Grade: B

Summary:

They live ordinary lives, but they are extraordinary. They are the Offspring, children of a mysterious experiment gone awry—and they are in terrible danger.

Cheveyo: a name that stirs Petra like no other, reviving deep feelings of pleasure . . . and pain. Despite her rare psychic gifts, the beautiful half-human Offspring doesn’t know why the magnificent shapeshifter walked out of her life when the bond they shared was powerful . . . and intensely passionate.

But Cheveyo is not gone. From the shadows, he watches over his beloved, determined that the malevolent enemies he hunts with fang and claw will not invade her world. But now, suddenly, the stakes are getting higher—as an insidious evil plots the destruction of Petra’s race. Cheveyo can remain hidden no longer from the lover who completes him but could destroy him . . . if his own inner darkness doesn’t destroy her first.

Read an excerpt.

Other books in this series:

LynneC’s review of A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant
Historical Romance published by Bantam 27 Dec 11

I nearly DNF’d this book. The heroine is worthy, the hero isn’t and they get together because she wants a baby to save the estate from the Evil Heir. By page 100 I was starting to skip, which is never a good thing, but I decided to persevere and stop skipping. While I applaud the author for writing a detailed historical romance without cliché, and that’s no mean feat, I did find the heroine very hard to like.

This book purports to be a Regency, but to me it reads more like a Victorian, although the details about enclosure make it clear that it’s set in the earlier era. The morals, personal and societal, certainly seemed more Victorian in tone, but there was nothing that I could fault about it. Grant is comfortable in her era and works in a lot of detail to get it right. In a way, that detail was one of the factors that held me back. I want a romance, not details about the heroine’s personal living space, if you see what I mean. Most of these details have significance, but you don’t get to discover these until later in the book, so they do read a bit like a shopping list earlier.

However, it’s a beautifully written shopping list. Grant’s style is probably the best thing about this book. She does describe a lot of things in sometimes suffocating detail. But it is a pleasure to read such well-researched, well-described settings, especially in a historical romance, rather than in a textbook. But the prose and the descriptions are much livelier in a real textbook, Dan Cruickshank’s recent book, The Secret History of Georgian London, which is a fantastic read, and one I should really make the effort to review. Grant works hard to get the descriptions and atmosphere in the book, and her prose reminds me very much of a Pre-Raphaelite painting – very worthy, with so many things depicted in painstaking detail that the human eye can’t possibly take them all in. I guess I prefer the Impressionistic way of focusing in on the salient parts of the painting, or even the more dashing approach of a Gainsborough or a Reynolds. Lawrence and Winterhalter rather than Ingres and Zoffany. I don’t know. Grant’s prose is incredibly reminiscent of Judy Cuevas/Judith Ivory, so if you love her work, you’ll love this book. So similar, I’m almost suspicious that Judy had taken another new name! Though I doubt that’s the truth, this book isn’t a first book. It might be a first published book, but it’s too accomplished for the author not to have practiced a great deal.

The hero and heroine have a disconcerting habit of treating servants and workers as equals. Not just people in their care, but they talk to them as equals at times, and seem to expect the same response. That attitude is foreign and does stick out a bit, although I could accept it as part of the story. Both hero and heroine are incredibly naïve, which I think is part of the reason I think of this as more of a Victorian attitude. They didn’t know, although this can rarely be said of the Regency upper middle class. The structure of their local society seems very simple, but perhaps the local network of magistrates, social events, some of which couldn’t be ignored, and neighbourly behaviour so well described by Jane Austen doesn’t happen. A woman in mourning did have a certain leeway, but, again, Victorian society set much more store by such observances.

It’s interesting to read about this class, though for novels written in this period, I prefer books about people who could make a difference to society, but Theo and Martha certainly do their best.

This book has been the subject of some controversy, and since I don’t look at other reviews until I’ve written my own, I’m guessing it’s the initial plot and the character of the heroine. Martha’s unsatisfactory husband has left her childless, and she has a month to conceive before she has to leave the estate and become a dependent relative once more. I can’t say I bought the premise, because Martha is upright and moral enough to see this for the reprehensible act that it is. The heir is given the reputation of making free with the maids, and dark hints are given by one maid that it might be by force, an account Martha completely believes (told you she was naïve). That seems to me to be a bit of a plot device, giving Martha more “right” and less selfishness to do as she did. In fact, she is totally selfish, and when she first hears the news that she is to leave, all her thoughts are for herself. She has no sense of humour, no lightness of character, and although she pays lip service to duty and honour, what she does isn’t dutiful or honourable. In the only other book I could think of that has a similar plot, Jo Beverley’s Secrets of the Night, the heroine sets out to make an heir with the permission and connivance of her elderly husband, I found the heroine more interesting and the hero much sexier and more attractive. The reasons worked better for me in that book, even though the heroine technically commits adultery. The heroine in SotN was also more mature than Martha, who is only 21. I couldn’t understand her desperation. She could try again, at that age. All is not lost. Even with the revelations later in the book, it doesn’t entirely add up for me.

Theo starts the book as a man-about-town and a wastrel. He is rusticated and his allowance cut off, and he’s sent to a minor estate of his father’s to learn estate management. About time. He’s in his mid-twenties, and he should have been brought up knowing the things he learns in this book. The iniquity of enclosures and what it meant to the working man is well dealt with here, although the “Bread not Blood” riots aren’t there, and the rustic nature of the early industrial units not mentioned. The book takes the individual philanthropist attitude, which works in context. My problem with Theo, especially at the beginning, is that he doesn’t have a purpose – in fact, that’s his problem. He has no conflict, except that he wants his allowance back. Aimless, he agrees to provide Martha with her heir, for five hundred pounds. Her maid suggests that if the tactic works and Martha has a girl, she can either do a switch or “buy” a baby boy and say she had twins, as if such deceptions were normal. I don’t believe this was the case. Childbirth was a relatively public event, and it would have been very difficult to manage. Besides, it assumes that the British upper class is so morally deficient as to take such a course as normal, and that presumption doesn’t work well for me.

I have to give this book a B for the quality of the writing, but I would like to see a development in plotting and in pace in the next book, which I will be picking up if I can. Not to mention a more sympathetic heroine. One that only warms up later in the book doesn’t work enormously well for me and I had to work hard to retain my sympathy for both characters. But Grant is undoubtedly a new talent to historical romance, and I’m sure she will only be going onwards and upwards from here.

Grade: B

Summary:
Newly widowed and desperate to protect her estate and beloved servants from her malevolent brother-in-law, Martha Russell conceives a daring plan. Or rather, a daring plan to conceive. After all, if she has an heir on the way, her future will be secured. Forsaking all she knows of propriety, Martha approaches her neighbor, a London exile with a wicked reputation, and offers a strictly business proposition: a month of illicit interludes . . . for a fee.

Theophilus Mirkwood ought to be insulted. Should be appalled. But how can he resist this siren in widow’s weeds, whose offer is simply too outrageously tempting to decline? Determined she’ll get her money’s worth, Theo endeavors to awaken this shamefully neglected beauty to the pleasures of the flesh—only to find her dead set against taking any enjoyment in the scandalous bargain. Surely she can’t resist him forever. But could a lady’s sweet surrender open their hearts to the most unexpected arrival of all . . . love?

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of Say It With Diamonds by Lucy King
Contemporary Romance published by Mills and Boon Modern Romance 1 Jan 12

Lucy King has considerable talent as a writer, and her first book for Harlequin was fabulous. However, the subsequent ones are evidence that she hasn’t yet settled in properly. It is fascinating to see the development of a writer with this house, since their requirements are so stringent. I do have hopes that eventually Lucy King will become one of Harlequin’s stars. Or she could break out and join another house, writing the books with more open requirements.

In this one, the heroine is old for a Harlequin heroine, thirty-five, but she doesn’t always behave that way. But then, what thirty-five year old does? Bella has her own jewelry business, and a man visits her out of the blue to ask for her opinion on several pieces he produces from his pocket and tosses carelessly on the counter. Lucy examines them and realizes that despite their fabulous appearance, the stones in them are fake. She accompanies the man, Will, to a bank vault, and it’s here that she learns that her new client is a duke. He takes her to the vault and she spends time splitting the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Then a woman enters, a lovely blonde in fashionable clothing, and Will realizes that she has been taking the gems and replacing them with fakes.

I had a few problems with this beginning. First, if Bella is a jeweler and she knows her stuff, surely she’d recognized pieces from a great and famous collection? Second, Will wouldn’t be carrying the pieces in his pockets, because of the potential damage that would cause. They’d be in boxes, carefully packed. Third, I would have thought that she’d need some kind of security. The security at the bank vault seems worryingly lax, too. There is this lack of attention to external plot detail throughout, and sometimes I stopped and went “huh?” Like the time Bella is working on an emerald in a pendant. In a pendant? Surely the jeweler works on the gem before it’s set? And we didn’t hear if the jewel was an engraved cabochon or a faceted one, in which case she wouldn’t be cutting it in situ. Things like that kept recurring. I’d have liked a more authentic background and a bit more research. I know the background and setting are secondary considerations to the romance, but done properly they can enhance and add to the characters and the individuality of the story. I can’t help comparing this story to Day LeClaire’s Dante’s Inferno series, where the jewelry background has helped to make the series something really special.

The lovely blonde turns out to be Will’s aunt, who looks younger than she is, and she’s been selling the gems to make money to feed her internet bridge addiction. Bridge? Not poker or casino games? And the problem is easily solved. Will makes her promise not to do it again, and off she goes. The whole situation reeks of plot device, just something to bring the hero and heroine together and to hint at Will’s difficult background.

Bella is desperate to marry and have children. I wasn’t too keen on that aspect. While I could understand it, the desperation seems to indicate that she hasn’t thought of alternatives, like artificial insemination, asking for a donor, or even adopting. Is it marriage or children she wanted, and why? The motivation doen’t reflect on her behavior in the book, which starts with her bonking Will in the back of his chauffeured car and then lusting after him afterward. She confides in him that she wants a lasting relationship, and they part, only to come back together in uncontrollable lust later on.

Will is as thinly drawn as Bella. He has deep motivations for not wanting what Bella wants, but until later in the story, it seems like another contrivance, something taken out of the “how to write romance” textbook in the “provide a conflict” chapter. As a writer who sometimes finds that bit tricky herself, I do sympathise with Lucy King, but the conflict is a bolted-on one, provided because they need something to keep them apart. Although that’s better than providing a conflict from outside the relationship, I still find a disconnect between what the characters say they want and what they actually do. Will chases Bella, even when he knows she wants the thing he doesn’t, and she goes with him. When she states they would have a short, torrid affair, my heart sank a little, because this is a trope that is fast tiring me. “Let’s go at each other until it burns out.” The problem with it is that if they do that, and if they do burn out, there’s no story as far as a romance writer is concerned, so it’s one we know will end in a lasting relationship. There’s no danger there, no worry they’ll split.

But King can write. Her descriptions are excellent and she doesn’t often veer into purple territory. The sex is hot, and it’s nice to have the woman in charge for a change. Good that Bella carries condoms with her, as well as Will, although that does rather run counter to her wish for a lasting relationship. I would have liked more depth in both characters, more of the desperation in Bella, for instance. And a reason why she wants the whole caboodle instead of part of it. So a nice read, but needs more work, I think.

Grade:C-

Summary:

All that sparkles… At thirty-five, Bella might be an expert on diamonds – but she’s still missing a big fat one on the third finger of her left hand. However, at least she has her successful jewellery business – with very interesting new client William Cameron, AKA the Duke of Hawksley, no less! She’s expecting portly and chinless – but actually Will’s tall, dark and so distractingly good-looking it’s hard to concentrate on his jewels! More of a surprise: this weird chemistry between them is actually mutual. Urgent… And it catches them completely unawares in a black London taxi… All that glitters is not gold. All that sparkles isn’t diamond. All men who turn you on aren’t the real thing. But being cynical gets boring…maybe it’s time for Bella to throw caution to the winds…?

Read an excerpt.

I have some very sad news.

Sometimes the writing community can keep a secret. Quite a few of us have been praying for Penny Jordan, who was taken into hospital over Christmas.

Last night, the last day of 2011, Penny died. She had terminal cancer and she’d been ill for some time.

That’s the official announcement. I’m unutterably saddened by this news. I didn’t know Penny well, but she was a stalwart of the RNA, a great writer and an example to us all. She never lost her sense of humou, or her kindnes, or her amazing elegance. The last time I saw her was at a distance, when she gave a talk to the RNA conference. That was when I learned she was ill, when she arrived and left in short order, where she’d usually have lingered and chatted.

The first time I met her was at an RNA chapter meeting, a convivial lunch. I had one book out with a tiny epublisher, and I’d scraped membership. I still felt like an interloper. She held her hand out, shook mine. “Hello, I’m Penny Jordan.” I felt like an honest-to-goodness writer for the very first time.

The last time we had a good chat, she told me about her Internet village, where she played and wrote stories. She had high hopes for it. Penny was always looking forward. She was kind and chatty with everyone she met and always encouraged new authors, never lost her sense of the new and the exciting.

She wrote for the Mills and Boon Presents line all her career, the one whose bedrock is millionaires and secretaries. That was where she started and she was still writing for the line when she died. She worried about her deadlines in hospital.

She also had books with Mira and a series of family dramas. She wrote under another name, too, Annie Groves. She was Caroline Courtney, who wrote historical romances, and she was Lydia Hitchcock and Melinda Wright. She clocked up an amazing total of 251 books in her career.

Penny was a career author. She started work as a secretary and worked for a number of years, so she knew what that area of work was like before she gave it up to write full time. She started out in the seventies, and she moved with the times, first writing the waif secretary/brutal boss books, and then softening the characters as the readership demanded. She never lost sight of what her readers wanted, and they loved her for it. She has a new book out this month, The Reluctant Surrender.

She never responded to bad reviews or good ones, setting an example many writers, including myself, should remember more often. As well as her work with the RNA, she had her own writing group, where she mentored writers and introduced them to agents and publishers. That’s paying forward in a big way and something she didn’t have to do, but she loved doing it. She also did a lot of work with local charities.

She sold more than 70 million books in her career, worldwide.

Goodbye, Penny. We will miss you.

LynneC’s review of A Dangerous Infatuation by Chantelle Shaw
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents Extra 3 Jan 12 (M&B Modern – 1 Nov 11)

This is an old-style Modern Romance and is very much a book you can sink into for an hour or two’s pleasure. It’s a woman struggling with her life and a billionaire. Don’t expect anything revolutionary, but sometimes you need a break from revolution, and this book provides it.

Emma is a district nurse in Northumberland, and it’s snowing. She’s driving to the house of the last patient on her round, an old lady who lives in a large manor house on her own. She comes across a man who has just crashed his unsuitable but dashing car in the snow, and she gives him a lift. He turns out to be the grandson of the old lady, Rocco, an Italian and the chief exec of the car company that makes his flashy car.

So far so usual. It carries on in the same vein. While this isn’t an earth-shattering book, with one proviso it’s written in a clear, smooth style that makes the story easy and pleasant to read. Let’s get the problem over with. And this could well be my preference. It might not bother you. There’s a lot of POV transitions. A lot. I won’t call it head-hopping because that’s when you don’t know which character’s head you’re in and Shaw is skilful enough not to do that, but the reader is constantly moved from one head to another and back again. That does bother me, quite a lot, because you can’t go really deep and I’d rather not know what both characters are feeling in a scene. If the kind of thing exemplified in the passage below doesn’t concern you, then you’re good to go.

“ ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, closing the door and feeling a welcome blast of warm air from the car’s heater. It was only now sinking in that he was lucky not to have been injured in the crash, and that he could have faced a long, cold walk to find civilisation. ‘I was fortunate you were driving this way.’
Emma released the handbrake and carefully pulled away, her hands tightening on the steering wheel when she felt the car slide. She rammed the stiff gear lever into second gear, and tensed when her hand brushed against the man’s thigh. In the confines of the vehicle she was even more aware of his size.”

His thoughts, then hers, in two adjacent sentences. Then the narrative could easily move back to him again.

Now to the characters. I like that Emma is competent and, although struggling, good at her job. Not in abject poverty. Her small daughter is three, but she’s a precocious, annoying three who seems to be fully potty trained and speaks in complete sentences (not impossible, I admit). The child seems to be a five-year-old transposed into a three-year-old. I could have done without the child, who could have stepped out of a 1930’s “cute kid” movie.

Rocco doesn’t let it faze him. He gets on with seducing the sexy nurse after their meet cute, when she’s wrapped up so much she resembles a bowling ball. “Good for her,” I thought. Snowy Northumberland isn’t to be messed with. But does she have a Geordie accent, I want to know? In the version in my head, she did. “Why aye, Rocco, you gan canny!” would have fit rather well into the story and might have made the heroine a bit different. Rocco is pretty much your standard hero. But I happen to like the tall, strong, wealthy Italian type, so that’s okay by me. And Rocco isn’t too arrogant. On the whole he’s a likeable character.

There is a big misunderstanding at the beginning, where Rocco thinks Emma is too bossy and managing and Emma thinks Rocco is heartless because he left his aged grandmother to live alone (he employed help, but his grandmother fired her after finding her stealing). Since that all happens in the first three chapters, I don’t feel that’s much of a spoiler, and that’s why I didn’t mind this particular misunderstanding. Emma and Rocco talk, and explain themselves, and, lo and behold, they come to a better understanding of each other.

There is a secret in Emma’s past, again revealed to the reader early, that her husband, while a hero, was also a cheater in his marriage. So she’s understandably wary of handsome bastards who go from woman to woman. While many Moderns use the trope of the character’s past life affecting their present beliefs, this time it worked for me because the past is recent for Emma – to some extent she’s still hurting. So her reticence to accept Rocco as a lover is understandable.
And that’s the way to use Mills and Boon tropes. They are part of the story, they reveal the character and they’re not stretched to unbelievable levels or tedious levels. They’re not strained. When one problem ends, another begins, or is bounced off the first one. Their past lives affect both characters, but they’re intelligent enough to reason with themselves and deal with their problems. When they come to a mutual understanding, they deserve it, although Rocco does get stuck with the precocious kid, and he even wants more. Let’s hope they find some great nannies.

Grade: C

Summary:

Rocco D’Angelo doesn’t do needy women—and he certainly doesn’t do commitment! But the spark notorious playboy Rocco feels with his beloved grandmother’s nurse, Emma Marchant, is more than the usual thrill-of-the-chase adrenaline!

Never in her wildest dreams did cautious Emma imagine she would be swept from a sleepy English village to the exotic climes of the Italian Riviera—especially by a man as disreputable as Rocco.

Emma could be the one to tame the untamable—unless her infatuation is more dangerous than she imagined….

Read an excerpt.

Last year I made the resolution to find a new-to-me historical romance author to love. I signed up with NetGalley for the Avon historical releases and let rip. I read them. Remembering that in the past, covers were no indication of the book inside (anyone remember the original Fabio cover for “Flowers From The Storm”?) I sniggered at the endless parade of garishly coloured prom dresses and set to reading.

Well, I succeeded. I found one.

My criteria were very personal. I’m British (no, I hear you cry, you don’t say!) and I was brought up with my history. Learning it, breathing it, experiencing it every day. I went to a school that was set next to a twelfth-century gatehouse and took its name from the landmark. I lived in a house that was an amalgam of history – actually three houses knocked into one, clumsily in places, so that our kitchen was down a sloped passageway and our bathroom was down two steps from the rest of the house. I didn’t just know British history, I lived it. And I loved it, so I read and read and read.

Because I’m used to subtle differences of lifestyle and attitude, sometimes the characters in historicals read a lot more like twenty-first century Americans. It’s harder to pin this one down, but it’s an attitude, an emphasis on individuality and the right of a person to live his or her life the way he or she wants to. Other things, too. Difficult, but it’s just there.

The language, too, but I don’t entirely blame the author for that. What seems normal speech and syntax can come over as awkward and foreign-sounding, definitely not something a Brit would say, then or now. I write books with American characters, but I have American editors who go through them and point out things the average American would never say or do. It constantly amazes me that, even after ten years of studying, visiting, trying to immerse myself in the culture, I still get things wrong, and I can only be grateful to the editors who put me right. Who knew that Americans don’t have cafetieres, for instance? They have French presses.

So it’s not snobbery or entitlement or any other stupid thing that makes me wail about a book’s inaccuracy. I can’t unlearn what I know. Don’t get me wrong, if a book carries me away, if the characters burst off the page, then I’ll swallow a few nits and bits. Who cares, because nobody can get a book entirely right. However, I do ask that the author transports me to another age, another time, and lets me vicariously live another life. Not much to ask, is it?

Apparently, it is.

Some historicals use so few historical details that they can claim to be accurate historically, because they don’t actually go into details. So they could be set in the 1810s, the 1830s, or even later. Did it matter? Well, yes, because it meant the characters’ dilemmas weren’t in sharp focus. They were generic, like not being able to attract a man or failing after a season. Historically, if you were rich enough or well-connected enough, that didn’t matter.

And the Regency spies! There weren’t any, not in the way that the books describe them. The Napoleonic wars were largely military. The big thing about spies, all pre-Bond spies (yes, Bond, James Bond started the turnaround) was that they were emphatically not gentlemen. This is an era way before Realpolitik, and because a spy’s stock in trade was to lie and cheat and betray his friends, they were despised, not admired. Spies were not gentlemen. They were even kept separate from the other troops in the army, because the other men looked down on them and would victimize them. So a book about a spy in Regency times has a big hill to climb to make it believable. I tend to avoid them, but I’ve read one or two that worked, mainly because the heroes weren’t also aristocrats.

I love detail. Not so much that it swamps a story, but enough to give me a real feel for the time and place. For that matter, that goes whether it’s a historical or a contemporary or a paranormal. I like books that have an individual voice and stand out as different and special. A generic book about “the season,” that has obligatory mentions of Almack’s, and seven zillion young, dark, handsome dukes isn’t going to hold my interest. Nor is a book about a small town where everything is sweetness and light, for that matter.

I started to list the books I read this year, but it just got more and more depressing and it just read as horrid. Most of them are here, and a few are on ERWA, so you can look them up if you like. But I really, really wanted to find a new author to love. Every time I opened a new romance by a new-to-me author, I thought, “Perhaps this is the one. Perhaps this time I’ll get sucked in and I won’t be able to put this book down.” It happened once. Does that mean I’d wasted my time? By no means.

I got into American authored romance in the nineties, via writers like Jo Beverley, Mary Balogh, and Laura Kinsale, who all knew how to write a good book with great characters and still keep the historical details on the button. I wanted another one of those. Not too much to ask, you might say? Well, it seems so. The publishers are dumbing down, as if a reader of romance won’t notice or won’t care about the details. They fail to see that with the homogenisation of the history and the plot comes the homogenisation of the characters. Types rule now, as if being tall, dark, handsome and ruthless is all there is. I want something else, something that makes me remember characters. I read Julie Ann Long’s latest the other week and it almost made me weep. She has a lovely, frothy style, well suited to a light Regency romance, but there must have been a historical error on almost every page, some of them enough to make the most anti-historical reader’s eyes boggle. Faberge eggs in the 1810’s? Doesn’t anybody bother fact checking anymore? That book could have been stellar, but the lack of attention to detail, the whole premise (there were very few, if any, girls’ schools in that era) was so unbelievable, it dragged me away from the start of the story. I’ve been told that this book was probably not the best place to start, but with this book she lost my trust, that essential compact between author and reader that means the reader will go wherever the author takes her. I made so many notes, I nearly doubled the size of the file on my Kindle. It wasn’t that I was looking for things to crit, I was just so sad that this could have been a great read, and instead, the lack of attention to history dragged it down and out. I really thought I’d found my second author to love, but I don’t think I can go through that again.

And I’m so sorry. Not just for that, but because with every review, people think I’m too fussy (maybe I am), or setting myself up as an expert (you don’t have to be an expert to notice the errors in most of these books, really you don’t), or I’m jealous (I don’t need to be that, either). I’ve had emails and comments that accuse me of being all of those things. I just want a good historical romance, that’s all. I want to be able to sit back, open my ereader and know I’m in for a good book. Something like opening the latest Sarah Morgan, Nalini Singh, or Desiree Holt and relaxing with a contented sigh to enter somebody else’s world.

By all means, if you want to write a book about a vague era, distantly related to the Regency, do so, but don’t call it a historical. Call it something else, I don’t know, Regency fantasy or something. Authors are doing that with great effect in the steampunk genre, so why not? Just let me know that nobody, from the author to the editor to the publishing house, cares about the historical background and I’ll give it a go.

To give an example of what I mean, try reading a book about New York where the Empire State Building is free to all comers and the Metropolitan Museum is the same place as the one that gives the opera performances. Or a book about American history, where Apaches roam freely among fashionable New York society and everyone accepts it as normal. Would you feel insulted, amused, bewildered? None of the above?

When I opened Miranda Neville’s The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton, I’d almost despaired. I’d waded through masses of dreck, and some even more frustrating “nearly there” books, where something jerked me out of the narrative and made me unable to go on. But Neville delivered. She introduced characters I cared for, enjoyed and could believe in, and they lived in an era that I could recognise as the historical Regency. Believe me, that hasn’t always been the case. She put her characters in unusual but believable and highly enjoyable situations. They were individual and they stood out, so that I can still remember them, months after reading the book. I loved it, and I want more.

So there you have it, my year of reading dangerously. I’ll continue to read, hoping that someday a new author will appear who I can rave about, but I’ll also go back to my old favorites. If you think I’ve overlooked a really great author, please put her my way, and I’ll give her book a go.

Don’t forget, I won’t review books by friends without mentioning that in the review, and I don’t review books put out by publishers that I’m with. That’s so I avoid favouritism and keep myself as unbiased as possible. But if you’ve got it, let me know.

Thanks for listening, as that great transatlantic journalist, Alistair Cooke, used to say.

LynneC’s review of There’s Something About A Rebel by Anne Oliver
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents Extra 1 Jan 12 (M&B Riva Aug 11)

I picked this because of the hunk on the cover – so unlike Mills and Boon’s usual male models and so tempting! But inside, I found the same old story with a slight twist. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, just that I expected a little more.

It’s part of the Riva line and is supposed to be a little different. That’s the trouble. It is a Modern Romance, tweaked a little. The attitudes and the dilemmas are Modern/Presents all the way.

The difference? The hero was a navy man, a diver part of a special unit like the SEALS, but after he lost a young colleague, he retired from the Service. He blamed himself for losing the young man, because he was in charge of the operation, and he brooded a bit. But the conflict isn’t deep enough for me. Perhaps losing the young man was the final straw in a series of tough assignments, but we never hear about them. Many SEALS, or the equivalent, retire because they’re burned out after a series of operations. I’d have preferred something of that nature, as it makes for a richer backstory. But Blake doesn’t appear to be too jaded, apart from a few bad dreams. He sets to organizing Lissa’s life with enthusiasm, when they get over their initial problems. Yes, that’s right, Blake is wealthy. This is a Modern/Presents book, despite its sexy cover.

The problems are that Blake’s no-good father sold his houseboat twice – to Blake and to Lissa. Luckily, Blake also owns the nearby luxury house and a considerable fortune, because his mother was a wealthy woman. Another problem lightly touched on was that his mother spent more time with her charities than she did with Blake, a bit like Mrs. Jellyby in Bleak House, presumably, except that Mrs. Jellyby and her daughter were more surely drawn.

Lissa is straight out of the Modern/Presents line. She’s in her mid-twenties, she’s an interior designer who isn’t doing too well but has bags of talent, she’s beautiful, she’s been in love with Blake for years, since before he joined the navy. Her brother is Blake’s friend.

Blake sets out to help Lissa. The problem with the houseboat disappears quickly (literally), and Blake persuades Lissa that he should invest in her business. Then they sleep together, although they know it is wrong. He takes Lissa to parties and introduces her to his mother’s rich friends and she gets on fine, her business grows like Topsy.

I think that’s my problem with this book. None of the conflicts introduced seem to meet much. The houseboat, Blake’s nightmares, Lissa’s money troubles, all melt away. It’s a true fairytale story, and nothing goes deep enough to have any bite, to get the reader conflicted or involved. It would have been better had Blake’s nightmares been true fatigue syndrome or Lissa had been a rubbish interior designer. But she’s not, she’s brilliant, and everyone loves her work. So she would probably have succeeded eventually anyway without Blake’s help.

The Riva line isn’t working for me as a separate line because the books read like their origins – Cherish or Modern. I like the Moderns, and some of my favorite authors write for that line, including Anne Oliver, but this is presented more honestly in the US as a Harlequin Presents Extra, although the cover is in itself a spoiler. However, even as a Modern/Presents, I would have liked a little more.

All in all, this is a perfectly good book about a nice couple. But that’s also its problem. It’s too nice. So there’s really only one grade for it.

Grade: C

Summary:

Her fantasy man – in the flesh! Lissa Sanderson is at an all-time low – so why does her brother’s gorgeous, brooding best friend have to come back into her life now? Even worse, the teenage crush she once had on Blake Everett is back with a vengeance, despite his scandalous reputation and the fact the ex-Navy officer would clearly prefer to be left alone. Only now she’s a woman. And Blake’s not quite so immune to her as he makes out. There’s definitely something about a rebel – and Lissa’s going to enjoy finding out just what that ‘something’ might be!

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of On The First Night Of Christmas by Heidi Rice
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 29 Nov 11

I don’t do many seasonal reads, just a few, and this offering looked like a fun one. It didn’t disappoint. In an England being blown into the sea by gale force winds, this was just the book to sit indoors and cuddle up with a kitty and a fire. Nothing earth shattering, just well written and fun.

Heidi Rice is a “solid” write with excellent style, engaging characters and believable situations. She rarely gets the fuss that some Harlequin writers do, because she produces well-written books in time and on point. Because she is so good at writing the category romance, it’s easy to overlook her. You read the book, smile when you put it down, and then get on with your life. That’s what Harlequin is, at base, all about, and it’s one of the reasons the genre gets such an unfair battering from time to time.

Cassie is walking to the Tube in London when a car splashes her. She is annoyed enough to rip open the passenger door and yell at the driver, until she recognises him as someone she went to school with. Jace the Ace he was called then. Now he’s Jason Ryan, millionaire and New York resident, in London to conclude a deal on the company he made his name with.

The professional backgrounds of the two protagonists are lightly drawn and not very convincing, but the story isn’t about that, so pushing their careers into the background seems appropriate for such a feel-good book. It did add to the fairytale feel of the whole story.

Cassie was too young to date Jace at school, but she isn’t now. Jace comes from the regulation broken home, but one of the things I like about this story is that Jace doesn’t get the immediate cure from his instinctive recoil from anything involving revealing his feelings. There is a nice epilogue that copes with that.
Jace takes Cassie back to his hotel, and they are into each other like anybody’s business. The sex in this book is great, hot and believable and a touch wild, but still vanilla m/f. Far from bland, though.

Rice sets out two main problems for Jace and Cassie and spends the story exploring them. Jace lives in New York and Cassie lives in London. However, her career, as some kind of illustrator (told you the descriptions were vague!), isn’t too much of an impediment. Jace’s inability to get involved is a problem, and instead of walking all over her and then grovelling, Cassie helps him come to terms with his feelings. There is a very nice grovel scene, though, when the inevitable black moment is reached and passed.

Cassie has relationship issues, having dated two low-lifes in the past and even been engaged to one. There is a lot of the naïve to Cassie, although she claims to have gone to an inner London high school, a place where it’s very difficult to remain that naïve, but as I, said, Christmas fairy story.

The two set out to enjoy London in the festive season. Jace doesn’t do Christmas, but he’s not exactly a Scrooge. He just doesn’t do it. Cassie makes him, and even shows him that you can do Christmas shopping in Oxford Street in an hour, if you plan properly. That’s almost one fairytale too far for me, having scrambled through Selfridges and other shops just before Christmas, as queuing to pay can take that long, but okay, yes, you can just about do it. Though as an inveterate shopper/browser, it sounds a bit pointless to me!

The story flows well and is an effortless read, exactly what you need at this time of the year. Definitely a great read to get you in the mood when you take a break from wrapping presents!

Grade: B

Summary:

Cassie’s tips for the Perfect Christmas Fling!

1. ‘Tis the season to be daring: Find the perfect Mr. Right Now (extra points for a bad-boy-turned-billionaire) and be brave about getting him—even if that means jumping straight into sexy Jace Ryan’s car!

2. Enjoy the ride: Once you’ve chosen your man, get swept away by the moment! For once, Cassie’s determined to stop worrying about the future, but she must remember one thing…

3. This fling is just for Christmas: Jace Ryan’s a seasonal special. Do not start falling for him, Cassie, no matter how perfect the package or how much you’ve enjoyed unwrapping it.…

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of A Win-Win Proposition by Cat Schield
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Desire 4 Oct 11

This is a makeover/boss-secretary book, so be warned, it does have its problems. However, if you don’t take it too seriously, it’s a pleasant read, although some points made me a little uncomfortable.

Sebastian Case is attending a summit with his PA, Missy Ward, in Las Vegas. Missy has a makeover and decides to move on with her life, so Sebastian is shocked to find the sexy redhead under his previously dowdy assistant. Sebastian is a player and enjoys his bachelor status, but Missy turns the tables when she takes him to the roulette table and bets five thousand dollars on red. She wins, and she also wins a bet with Sebastian. She’s had the hots for him for years, and now she wants one night with him. She resigns, determined to leave her crush on her boss behind.

So my first doubtful moment is the “take your glasses off, Miss Smith.” I really dislike it when a man only notices his secretary after she’s had a makeover. So her intelligence, long service, and friendship means nothing? Not next to a day at the spa, a new haircut, and some new clothes. I went along with it, but Sebastian doesn’t ever give a reason why he never noticed Missy before, apart from the fact that he doesn’t mix business and pleasure, so only after Missy resigns is she fair game. I don’t buy that, or that he never noticed her in that way. She’s not a new employee, she’s worked for him for years.

Then, when they have sex, there is no mention of protection. Later in the story, there is a mention that they “used protection,” but in the scenes themselves, they don’t stop for the condom moment or even to discuss it. These days, what idiot has sex with someone who is a known player without even mentioning a condom? I don’t care how carried away you are, if you’re intelligent, as Missy is supposed to be, then you think about it. She might be inexperienced, but she isn’t stupid and she isn’t that naïve.

With a few tweaks, those aspects of the story could have been sorted out. But this isn’t a deep read and I don’t believe wholly in the characters. Sebastian doesn’t have a huge amount of depth, he works things out as he goes along, but his devotion to Missy is sweet, and I like the way he wants to take care of her and takes responsibility for her after they become an item.

Missy is an enigma. A dingbat in bed, a supposedly clever woman with an MBA out of it, we don’t really get to see the clever side of her. We do get to see her home life, after a development later in the story, and we learn that she’s a terrible cook and she can’t bake. Basically, an oven is an oven, whether it’s meatloaf or cake, so I didn’t get that part. Missy does what’s needed for the plot.

Sebastian’s father is described as interfering, and I don’t quite understand why he would want to stymie the deal Sebastian is working on in Las Vegas. I do understand that his father is regretting his retirement, and I would have liked a little more of the father and son relationship. It might have given Sebastian more depth.

Ms. Schield does have an easy, readable style, which drives the story along at quite a pace, but I wish she’d have put her skills to better use on characters with more depth and motivation. Something a little outside the norm, perhaps. I’m sure she can do it.

Grade: C-

Summary:

Sebastian Case relies on his irreplaceable assistant for everything. But since arriving in Vegas for a conference, mousy Missy Ward has transformed herself. From ordinary to ravishing. From modest and reserved to bold and sensual. And Sebastian, who’d barely noticed she was a woman, finds himself dazzled by her allure.Now she’s quitting and Sebastian will do anything to keep her. Including accepting her outrageous bet. One spin of the roulette wheel—black and she’ll stay…red and Sebastian owes her one night of passion. What can he lose, except maybe his heart?

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

LynneC’s review of His Christmas Acquisition by Cathy Williams
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 29 Nov 11

I have enjoyed Cathy Williams’ books in the past, but, sadly, this one isn’t one of them. Tired situations, tired characters no thicker than a sheet of paper, and a tired style make this a disappointing read.

Apart from his habit of wearing jeans to work, Ryan Sheppard is the usual type of Modern/Presents hero. He is powerful, wealthy, owns his own company—and the other stuff. He behaves in a conventional way, so making him a computer entrepreneur and getting him to wear jeans for work is only a thin disguise. He isn’t updated at all. This would have been fine, but Ryan behaves exactly as he is expected to by the reader, and there is really very little to say about him. He doesn’t stand out and he isn’t different. We have the standard supermodel-type girlfriend, except that Williams’ versions all seem to have hair down to their waists. Apart from that, they’re interchangeable, only there to compare to the wholesome heroine.

Jamie is a doormat of the first order, but at the beginning of the story she is running on empty. Her sister, a complete and utter bitch, is currently separated from her husband, a vet (not a veteran, an animal doctor) and the vet is the man Jamie used to work for before she came down to London to get away from him. Because she was quietly and desperately in love with him for years and she doesn’t think he noticed. No man is going to ignore that, unless he’s brain dead. She runs to London to get away from her sister marrying the vet. And meets Ryan.

Her sister makes Jamie ask people to Christmas dinner, including Ryan, and then Jamie does all the cooking while selfish people drink her wine and enjoy their day. It doesn’t say a lot for Jamie, who, after all, brought her sister up, that Jessica turns out to be such a dyed-in-the-wool, irredeemable bitch. What happens to Jessica in the end is so unbelievable that I nearly threw my Nook across the room.

Ryan and Jamie do the “this is only for two weeks” thing that is fast becoming one of my most unfavorite tropes in Harlequin-dom. Almost every author is using this artificial construct, and it is getting wearing. If an author who knows how to write interesting stories about real characters used it and added internal character pressures, then count me in, but when the hero just says it, for no real reason, or the heroine agrees to it, then it doesn’t work as well.

One of my big disconnects with this book is the head hopping. It’s a long time since I read head-hopping this wild and confusing in a published book. Unpublished authors do it all the time, and it’s one of the big things they are asked to change by critiquers. We’re told that you won’t get published if you head hop, and it’s true, most editors are very anti. Either Williams has earned her place because of her previous titles, or she has an editor who doesn’t care about this, or she doesn’t have an editor at all (this being Harlequin, I doubt that last bit). But during the first chapter, I started to mark the head hopping. After that, I didn’t bother. She changes points of view in the same sentence, so that at one point Ryan is thinking something about Jamie, and by the end of the sentence, the reader is in Jamie’s head. It’s only made worse by using a masculine-sounding name for the heroine, so, at first, it’s hard to remember if Jamie is the hero or if it’s Ryan.

A disappointing read, as if several tropes were jammed together, and a few characteristics added for effect.

Grade: D

Summary:

There’s only one item left on entrepreneur Ryan Sheppard’s Christmas list—something scandalous for his buttoned-up secretary…
It seems that disapproving Jamie Powell is the only woman that doesn’t fall at Ryan’s feet. Jamie is well aware of her boss’s heartbreaker reputation…fending off his discarded women is virtually part of her job description!
Ryan’s hoping a Christmas trip to the Caribbean will entice Jamie out of her pencil skirt and into the skimpiest of bikinis! And, with the boardroom transferred to the beach, surely there’s little harm in indulging in a little festive pleasure on the side…?

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of A Moment On The Lips by Kate Hardy
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 1 Nov 11

Kate Hardy is a great writer. Her style is easy to read but deceptively clever, so you don’t notice it until you think, “Hey, that’s good.” She brings her characters to life, and they’re not cut out of cardboard. They have characteristics and traits that make them determinedly individual. I always know I’m in for a great read when I pick up a Kate Hardy book.

A Moment on the Lips is no different. In this, Carenza has taken over the family ice-cream business in Naples, after her grandfather fell ill. Before this, she was a party girl, mainly in London, with little thought to anything else. But her grandparents brought her up, so she owes them. A shame she doesn’t have the experience to go with the job, but she is smart enough to know she needs a mentor. So she goes to Dante.

Dante owns a chain of restaurants, and although Carenza doesn’t know it, he owes her grandfather. Their businesses overlap, but aren’t in direct competition, so he sees her when she asks, do-me shoes and all. That’s where the story starts, with him cynically noticing her shoes. He remembers her from before, and he hates that he still wants her.

So follows one of the steamiest scenes I’ve ever read in a Presents, even though they don’t get to fourth base. They reconnect, and how!

The following story becomes inevitable, but they won’t consider anything permanent. Once the misunderstandings of the first part of the book are swiftly cleared up, and glory be, they actually sit down and talk about it – Dante agrees to mentor Carenza and they set out on the wild journey that will lead to their happy ending.

All Kate Hardy’s efforts are concentrated on the two main characters. That means that the supporting cast is often thinly drawn, although there are a few memorable cameos, such as Dante’s PA, that I enjoyed. And the plot isn’t her main forte. The two main characters enjoy each other very much, and most of the problems come from the outside, forcing them apart. The story of the problems with the ice cream business will be familiar to many Presents readers, and the conclusion won’t come as a surprise, since the villain is clearly telegraphed from the get-go. In fact, there is little tension in the book, but a delightful story of two people getting over their initial doubts about each other and falling in love.

Naples is nicely described, but Hardy ignores the terrible part of the city that any visitor can’t help but notice. The huge piles of garbage, for instance. And as the owner of ice cream parlors, Carenza would definitely be paying protection money. So this is an imaginary, idealized Naples. Perhaps putting in some of the real place might have added some interesting shades to the book. But I wouldn’t have sacrificed any of the luscious love scenes for that.

Read this for a charming love story that hits the spots well. Perhaps one day Kate Hardy will get her teeth into a full-length romance. I’ll be in the queue to buy it.

Grade: B+

Summary:

Dante Romano may be dark and delectable, but Carenza Tonielli will never sell him her family’s ice cream empire. Only she needs him—to help her learn how to run it! And when Dante looks at her as if she’s the next decadent sundae on the menu, even wary Carenza just can’t resist mixing business with a bowlful of pleasure.…Cue one red-hot fling that’s blowing her mind! But, unlike Carenza, her ice-cool Italian is adept at keeping his emotions well under wraps, so she decides to turn the tables on Dante and prove that sometimes living in the moment is sinfully good for you!

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of How the Marquess Was Won (Pennyroyal Green, Book 6) by Julie Anne Long
Historical Romance published by Avon 27 Dec 11

Julie Anne Long has a lovely, light style that lends itself well to historical fiction. It’s just a shame that it’s not a history I recognize (yes I know, here she goes again!) So seriously, if you don’t care about history and you can put up with the fantasy in this book, have no hesitation in picking this up. It’s part of the Pennyroyal Green series, but you don’t have to read the series in order, or at all, come to that. And I pray and hope that the final version is better than the ARC, because that made reading an adventurous experience.

First, the ARC. I had it sent to my Kindle from NetGalley. Mostly this leads to a pretty decent copy, but this copy is a disaster. Every chapter has an “nm” below the heading for no perceptible reason. The leading capital is separated from the rest of the text. The first chapter has indents for paragraphs, then they just stop. And then start again. It drove me demented after a while, but I kept on reading. And there are haphazard capitalization, too. “His Lordship,” where it refers to “the marquess” earlier in the paragraph.

The hero is Julian, usually known as Jules, the Marquess of Dryden (I can’t bring myself to call him the Marquess Dryden. That “of” makes a huge amount of difference). He is tall, dark and handsome, the leader of the ton. You know the deal. The heroine is Phoebe Vale, who is a schoolteacher at a girls’ school in Pennyroyal Green. She’s blonde, lively and answers back. I like both of them. Jules is a man who takes his responsibilities seriously, and Phoebe seems intelligent enough to cope with him.

They meet in the country, when Jules visits the local country house in order to give the once-over to a young lady he is thinking of marrying, Lisbeth. Phoebe’s family holds a parcel of land he wants, the last one his father sold off to pay his debts. Jules has bought them all back but this one. The young lady is charming, sweet and a product of her class. She is kind to Lisbeth but never sees her as her equal. She proves benevolent compared to what Lisbeth has in store, but to say what it is constitutes a spoiler, and, although that’s one of the best parts of the book, I’ll refrain.

But this is a Regency where Faberge has started making his eggs, a Regency where pound notes are in common circulation. Fireflies and crickets populate the countryside and gentlemen drive landaus. Gentlemen wear trousers, not pantaloons or breeches, and their shirts button down the front. Where they drink whiskey. Where a Marquess foregoes the proper title. Where they say “Bloody hell” and “bloody,” and sometimes they’ll stay “stuff it.” Where young ladies go to school. Where there appear to be a lot of Catholics about, and nobody questions it. Rosaries and maids called Mary Frances seem to be around everywhere. Where men drink in pubs and say “gotten.”

What’s wrong with this? Faberge made his first egg in 1885. Pound notes were very unusual until the Victorian era. Fireflies and crickets aren’t native to the UK. Landaus were a lady’s vehicle, much favored by widows (Queen Victoria was fond of them and the present Queen uses them on state occasions) and were not made for travel, merely for pottering about in town. The Cossack trouser was a particular style, heavily pleated at the top, narrow at the ankle and what’s described in this book isn’t the Cossack. Whisky (definitely not whiskey) was a product of the mid-Victorian era. Only the illegal stuff was available before, and it could be clear, not the caramel color we associate with it today. The rank of Earl and above, and definitely Marquess was styled “the Marquess of Dryden,” not “Marquess Dryden.” And a knight or baronet, someone with the title “Sir” is addressed by his first name, not his last. Harry Dildo would be “Sir Harry,” not “Sir Dildo.” The people in the story would definitely know this. “Bloody hell” as a curse wasn’t used until World War One, and “bloody” wasn’t just rude, it was vulgar. Crude and rude were allowed, but vulgar, no. My grandmother used to say it was “common” and this was a woman who used “bugger” regularly. Girls of good family didn’t go to school. Despite extensive searches, the only schools for girls in this period seem to be the charity schools for poorer girls, to give them a better start in life. There was no need to educate girls of good family and their upbringing was haphazard, to say the least. Catholics were still looked down on, even the Catholic peers, who lost out on a lot of privileges, including taking their seats in Parliament, because of their religion. There is more, but I stopped taking notes after a while.

The errors spoiled my enjoyment in what could have been a fun book. Likeable characters and an engaging plot should have meant hours of pleasant reading, but it didn’t. Almost every page contains something that made me go “huh?” and make a note (since I knew I was reading this book for review – I don’t usually make notes, I just give up and take the author off my reading list). One or two little slips? Okay, fine. Nobody’s perfect, but this number is close to insulting, both to the age and the reader. Is it considered not important enough? To many people it won’t be. But it will destroy some people’s enjoyment of what could have been a good read. It wrecked mine. I would have DNF’d the book after the third chapter were it not for the style and the characters, and the fact that I wanted to find that elusive new historical author to love. If you don’t care about the plethora of errors, then go ahead, because you’ll enjoy it. If you have any knowledge of the history of Britain, then maybe you’ll want to think again.

But always remember, this is the opinion of an Englishwoman, brought up with this history and taught to regard it as hers. So if you’re not, then you might love this froth of a book. I felt like I was kicking a meringue while I was writing this review, but I had to be fair and give my honest opinion. Never forget that it might very well not agree with yours.

Grade: C-

Summary:

Ruthless, cold, precise, Julian Spenser, Marquess Dryden, tolerates only the finest—in clothes, in horseflesh, in mistresses. And now he’s found the perfect bride, the one whose dowry will restore his family’s shattered legacy and bring him peace at last: the exquisite heiress Lisbeth Redmond.

She’s not afraid to play with fire…

But one unforgettable encounter with Lisbeth’s paid companion, Phoebe Vale, and the Marquess is undone: this quiet girl with the wicked smile and a wit to match is the first person to see through the icy façade to the fiery man beneath. But their irresistible attraction is a torment as sweet as it is dangerous: for surrendering to their desire could mean losing everything else they ever wanted.

No excerpt available.

LynneC’s review of  The Power and the Glory by Kimberly Lang
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Presents 2 Aug 11

There’s something vaguely disturbing about having a romance with a title from the Lord’s Prayer. Especially when that romance is most definitely not an Inspirational. I believe it also has something to do with the American Constitution, but I’m not sure. However, I think Jesus came first. To read that the heroine is a hippie type who doesn’t believe in marriage means the title is rendered fairly meaningless.

The heroine is Aspyn Breedlove, who I think was meant to be called Rowan. She is the daughter of conservation activists. She’s named after the mountain ash, which is why I say she’d have been better as Rowan, the alternate name for the mountain ash. She is a hippie in the loosest sense, with no real belief in the lifestyle. If this was portrayed differently, this could have worked really well, but as it is told, the hippie/activist is merely a veneer. Aspyn is an airhead, with no more passion for her beliefs than I have for little yappy dogs (sorry, I came off worst in an encounter with one the other day). She demonstrates no understanding for what being a hippie means or what working for a cause entails. It just provides her with a cute background and sets up the meet cute at the beginning, but it’s as thin as ice on a window and as durable. When her parents finally arrive on the scene, they have no compunction in using the Internet to keep in touch, although they’re conservationists. Masts in jungles, energy consumption? They condemn her for joining the campaign, instead of seeing her as an instrument for the cause. It just doesn’t gel.

The hero is Brady Marshall, one of the powerful Marshalls of Lang’s new series. While I give a cautious welcome to the idea of politics as a background, I’m not sure it works, because of the necessarily superficial treatment it has to receive as the background to a romance. Brady is the campaign manager to his father, Senator Marshall, and three weeks before the election, he’s run off his feet. Brady is a very busy man, he is attracted despite himself to Aspyn, and he starts an affair with her. Brady is the executive hero of many a Modern romance, but there’s not really anything to make him special. Transpose him to an office setting and he’d work just as well. And I think that’s why I had a disconnect with this book.

We are told Brady is intelligent and handsome, and we are told that Aspyn is sweet and trusting. Actually, in a political situation Aspyn is TSTL without the redeeming features of Gardener in Being There. And I don’t get the connect. We do get some sexy scenes, but more often than not, when they get to making love, we get a fade to black. After the undressing, the fondling, the foreplay, that comes across as cheating. We get the promise, but not the act.

The background is interesting, but not convincing. As we’re all learning so painfully, politics is a dirty business, where compromise is essential and beliefs are diluted to nothing. Politicians just don’t have the respect they used to, if they ever did at all. Although Aspyn’s parents do state the usual polemic about politics, the solution is seen as insultingly easy. I think the problem I have is that the backgrounds are used as the main conflict. There’s nothing inside, no deep disagreement of opinion that would drive this couple apart. They might have to compromise the way they live, but they are always going to be together, and the machinations have nothing to do with the great sex they share or the way they feel about each other. Or so we’re told. Politics is nothing if it’s not grey, and that might be another problem. The Modern Romance line works best when the moral decisions are more clear-cut. Although there is an attempt to give both sides a fair hearing, there isn’t the room to do more than skim the issues. Maybe, if a specific example had been cited, it would have worked better. Maybe, if Aspyn and Brady were more involving characters, it might have worked better. As it is, I got three quarters of the way through and realised that although the book is competently written and has a background that at least tries to go beyond the norm, it isn’t going to engage me and I actually didn’t care if Brady and Aspyn got together in a hippie commune or in the White House.

Grade: DNF

Summary:

Introducing The Marshalls… A rich, powerful family that mixes business, politics…and pleasure. If the U.S. had a royal family—this would be it!Any red-blooded woman would kill to be handcuffed to political hotshot Brady Marshall, but campaigner Aspyn Breedlove wants to raise awareness—not her own acute consciousness of those delicious, iron-hard muscles beneath Brady’s expensive suit.…

But in a shock move, she’s made a part of the Marshall re-election campaign.… Aspyn hopes she can dance with the devil and create change from within. But what chance does she have when that devil is sex-on-legs Brady Marshall—and as Christmas closes in, she wants to do considerably more than kiss him under the mistletoe…!

Read an excerpt.

LynneC’s review of Brazen by Margo Maguire
Historical Romance published by Avon 29 Nov 11

As I said in a previous review, there isn’t usually one reason to DNF a book, but more often than not it’s because the book doesn’t grab me. If I persevere and get to a third or more, then I could do a full DNF review, if I have something to say about it. A DNF isn’t always because it’s a terrible book. It could be because the book just didn’t do it for me, as in this case, but it might well do it for you. There’s no deep flaws, and the plots is interesting, but the authorial voice or the premise just didn’t take me away. So I’d say try it, get a sample and see if you like it. I got this book from NetGalley, and it occurred to me that if I could sample it, that might be a useful thing. I actually persevered past the first chapter, more to see if I could settle into the read. Sadly, I couldn’t.

The heroine is one of two daughters who were adopted by an earl when their grandfather and guardian, a duke, abandoned them after his son’s death. Yeah, I know. And that’s just the start of the complex plot that would have been worth concentrating on, had I cared. But I found the book a bit of a slog and I think the main problem is the pedestrian authorial voice. Which could be as much my problem as Margo Maguire’s. Sometimes an author’s voice just doesn’t work for a reader, and I fear that is the case in this book.

Because the heroine, although brought up in the bosom of society, has no clue about things that women would generally have known. A Regency lady who doesn’t know how to load and fire a pistol? A viscountess who lives in a cottage? That last throws me. In that era, a cottage was either a place to play, a la Marie Antoinette, or it was a hovel. Not a reasonably pleasant house with separate rooms. Okay, not so bad.

The hero is interesting. He’s the younger son of a viscount, so relatively low in the pecking order of the peerage. Goodie. And even though he’s a spy, he’s a believable one, having worked in the military, and he has one more assignment before he retires.

The heroine shoots him (a mere graze), but weapons were pretty erratic in those days, and even knowing about weapons, she could have done that. A niggle. Not important. Then she wants to stitch his wound, and in an age before penicillin, that could be dangerous, sealing in the infection. Whenever possible, wounds were left open so they could be cleaned frequently and allowed to heal from the inside out. The heroine has short hair and the hero hasn’t seen short hair before. Why not, when cropped hair was all the rage in the period? He was in the army, an officer, so surely he’d have set eyes on one or two fashionable women? Niggle followed on niggle, and the tone of the book is very much American (so, my US friends, it’s unlikely to bother you).

Words like “quit” for “leave” and the dreaded G word (“gotten”) make an appearance on the first page (to a modern Brit, “gotten” screams “American,” which in some circumstances is good, but not when it’s supposed to be a deep third point of view British Regency character). Maguire has a habit of “telling” instead of “showing,” which leads to a blander style. In an effort to avoid the purple, blandness ruled. They drank “whiskey” in an era when whisky was the equivalent to moonshine, and was as often clear as caramel coloured. In the end, I was just waiting for the next niggle to turn up. That’s always a sign that I’m not engaged with the book, because when a book catches me and drags me along, details are the last thing I worry about. So I gave up. I really wanted to like this one, but it just wasn’t doing it for me. It might for you.

Grade: DNF

Summary:

She will give him what he desires. But first, a small favor . . .

Lady Christina Fairhaven is devoted to her adoptive family—and most protective of her wayward brother.

So when battle-scarred and world-weary Captain Gavin Briggs arrives at her cottage bearing shocking news—that she is the granddaughter of an aged, bad-tempered duke— Christina is stunned . . . temporarily.

She will not meet the duke who abandoned her when she was a child; Gavin will not receive his significant—and much needed—reward. However, should the good Captain agree to help her locate and rescue her endangered sibling, then perhaps . . .

But with a fortune at stake, the road to London is paved with peril. Treachery awaits them . . . not to mention attraction, temptation, and a most unanticipated passion.

To regain his soul, to protect his lady, Gavin must be more than brave. To win his love, Christina must be positively . . .

Read an excerpt.

I have to start by wishing my US friends a happy Thanksgiving. I keep being asked if we celebrate it in the UK, and yes, in a way, we do – getting rid of a troublesome and difficult to administer colony with no obvious assets, other than somewhere to send the criminals and a nice source of cotton. Of course, when the oil came –

How wrong we were.

But without that split, the USA wouldn’t have become the vital, vibrant nation it is today, wouldn’t have developed in the same way.

But that apart, the original meaning of Thanksgiving is being overtaken by a new meaning – a way of joining with families and a time just to be thankful, for the things that we have and the things we don’t. I love that aspect. It’s so – American. And it’s wonderful.

Europeans tend not to celebrate, unless it’s a win at football, but even then, it’s as much to sneer at the opposition for losing than it is the favoured team for winning. It’s all about rivalry, not about the winning. Oh yes, we have this thing called sportsmanship, the gentlemanly (and gentlewomanly) side that means you have to smile and shake hands and not cause a fuss. That’s also a subtle way of saying, “Of course, it’s only a game, and it’s not important.” The French tend to spit and jeer when they lose, the Germans cry. The British hit people, or things, and then they get drunk, but they get drunk win or lose. (And Manchester United versus Bayern Munich is always a highlight of the sporting calendar, but then, so is Manchester United versus Manchester City.

But we don’t celebrate our national character, our military personnel, or our victories, and I’m not talking about in battle. We don’t have a day to reflect and to thank. My British friends would be squirming in their seats at the thought, and that’s a bit of a shame.

The British are ironic in the extreme. Every day we think or do something ironic or cynical, or both at the same time, and that comes naturally to us. Introducing our friends to other people, “Of course, he’s a right misery-guts” or “Be prepared for her dreadful fashion sense” comes naturally, and I’ve seen Americans balk at this, because they’d say, “She’s a great person,” or “you’ll love her.” That I really like. Cynicism can get a bit wearing sometimes. It feeds into the national psyche. We are quick to leap on mistakes, which in one way is good. In another way, we get Simon Cowell, who had gone so far from the reality he started with that he’s no longer interesting. He’s as scripted and rehearsed as any of his employees.

Mind you, on the subject of Simon Cowell and the X-Factor, Go, Josh Krajcik!

When I first started visiting the US, the friendliness and the welcome overwhelmed me. It still does. I’ve made friends who are as dear to me as some of the friends I have here at home, and that’s not to denigrate any party, it’s the truth. I’m not sure how much that is due to meeting other authors and not having to pretend anymore. I do care about what I write, and other writers understand, whatever their nationality. We can discuss fictional characters as passionately as w e like and know that the person we’re talking to will understand. But the hospitality is wonderful, the welcome delightful.

On the other hand, you kind of know that something is going on underneath. Brits tend to be honest, sometimes brutally so, and the “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” doesn’t work for us. It can work, but then the accusation of being a “bit of an American” creeps in. Saying “Have a nice day” with a sneer or an indifferent shrug, instead of leaving out the sentiment and just going with the sneer. Our diplomats excel at saying nothing while seeming to say something, but we have come a long way from the stiff upper lip of the nineteenth century. Or not. At least the hypocritical nationality and the jingoism is largely absent these days. I value honesty very highly, but I also value consideration. Don’t hit someone when they’re down.

Oh yes, and the British know how to party.

Having spent some time immersing myself in American TV and media, I can see a lot of differences. The news programs are more aggressive, the camera angles on the newsreaders a tiny bit closer, the cameras set a tiny bit higher. The colours are more vivid, the quality of the picture different. And the content is far more overly partisan than I’m used to. Or maybe I’m used to a certain partisanship that I don’t notice. I have no idea whether the media reflects the public psyche or creates it. I suspect it’s a bit of both, but since one major US network is run by a man who was originally Australian, and took nationality to suit his business interests, rather than in any sense of loyalty to a place, then it looks even more like a bit of both.

It’s subtle, but it’s there, and to be honest, I love it. I love the differences. That’s what keeps me coming back year after year, and why I love the friends I’ve made there. Why I love writing for the American market. That inner optimism, that Panglossian brightness that is so endearing and makes the Americans seem naïve to the average European. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The average American just sees things differently. We Europeans might be the naïve ones.

LynneC’s review of Classified (Colby Series, Book 46) by Debra Webb
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Intrigue 4 Oct 11

I picked up a copy of this book on NetGalley, and I’m really not sure why Harlequin chose to put this book up. It’s part of a series, and although the couple in the story play out their romance here, such as it is, the story is most definitely an ongoing one and doesn’t make for a satisfying individual read.

The story concerns an agency and a mysterious person who is no doubt getting the last book of the series to himself. To find out more about him, one of the agency owners, Lucas Camp, asks his goddaughter, Casey Manning, to investigate. Casey doesn’t work for the Colby Agency, she’s a CIA agent currently on probation for reckless behaviour, so she’s free to go to Mexico. Although she doesn’t use her agency credentials or her agency issue weapons, I’d have thought the Agency wouldn’t have approved of this.

I can’t say I warmed to Casey, I’m afraid. She is irritating in her take-charge-I-know-best attitude, and she doesn’t listen when Levi makes some suggestions, just goes her own way. We are told this, but I ended up on the Agency’s side.

Unknown to Lucas, his wife, Victoria, asks agent Levi Stark to investigate the lead, too. I found Levi a sympathetic character, although if he’s supposed to be the character in a frankly strange pose on the cover, he loses some votes right there.

So we have a basic Big Misunderstanding. Casey and Levi hook up fairly early in the book, but they won’t tell each other who they work for, so the basic suspicion goes on through the whole book and irritated me somewhat. Because it is a bit contrived and sometimes matters and sometimes doesn’t.

The adventure takes them through Mexico and they end up in a luxury hotel room in Acapulco. Which they take because the view is just right to target their quarry. Not because there’s a nice big bed there, which they don’t use at all, btw.

The romance is patchy and consists of a bit of lusting and a couple of kisses. At the start of the book there is little sexual tension, barely an awareness of each other, and then in one scene about half way through, they suddenly go into full lust mode, staring at each other and fancying each other like crazy. There is no below the waist touching and they never get close to sharing a bed. The end of the story is sudden and unpersuasive, but I can’t go into it without spoilers. But if you are looking for hot, then forget it. It’s not here. There is an inconsistency that doesn’t convince me that these two are meant to be together. I know critics sometimes complain about sex in inappropriate circumstances in other romantic suspense books, but really, I’d prefer that to this passionless on and off romance.

The style is also more descriptive and “telling,” rather than expository and “showing.” Take this sentence:

“Casey bolted forward and whacked him on the head with the beer bottle in her hand. Glass shattered on the floor.”

That tells you what happened, but not what it felt like to hit the unfortunate man on the head, if the impact jarred her arm, or if the glass cut the man, if there was blood, if he shouted. It doesn’t take the reader into the action, it doesn’t make you feel as if you’re there, experiencing it alongside Casey. So I read this with a sense of dissociation, as if I were watching from a distance. Not good for a romance book.

Plus, only part of the story is told in this book. I was constantly aware, from the flood of backstory at the beginning to the unsatisfactory ending, that this is wrenched from a series and isn’t a standalone. But this story isn’t enough to make me hunt out the rest of the series and discover who the mystery man is because I didn’t care enough.

Grade:

Summary: C-

Colby Agency investigator Levi Stark had been prepared for the worst when his boss sent him to find her agency’s deadliest enemy. But deep undercover in a Mexican mining outpost, Levi met danger from the unlikeliest source—an unknown blonde spitfire on the same trail.Casey Manning had been secretly sent by Levi’s boss’s husband. The benched CIA agent trusted no one and worked alone…until she and Levi found themselves outmanned and outgunned. Around her sexy new partner, Casey had a feeling that protecting her identity—and her heart—would prove tougher than keeping them safe from the Colbys’ most wanted.…

No excerpt available.

I’ve been testing quite a few recently, so I thought I’d show you how I got on. These are the free ones, because a) I’m a cheapskate and b) Why pay for something when you can get it legitimately for free?

So you won’t find Mantano in this list, because I haven’t taken the plunge yet. And I haven’t included the apps like Wattpad, which are primarily to obtain and read online content, although this category has been growing recently and will be worth perusing in a while. I’ve included Nook and Kindle apps, because you can read books on your device as well as online, and it’s primarily as a reader of internal content that I’ve reviewed them here.

These readers are for my rooted Nook Color. Now I love the basic Nook reader dearly, but rooting it (I use the CM7 mod method – basically you are rooting through your SD card and leaving the nook firmware well alone. It’s superb, but this post isn’t about that) means I don’t get regular access to the Nook program. Still, getting Angry Birds, solitaire, Dolphin Browser and all the wonderful things you can get on the Android market makes rooting well worth it. If I lived in the US and I had access to the Barnes and Noble store, I might think differently.

This is what I’ve discovered about the apps. I would love it if you’d discovered more apps or more ways of using the apps, because I daresay I’ve missed something in my wander around the Market to discover the ideal reader.

What I’d like in an ideal reader –

The ability to:
1.    Set my own fonts. I prefer to read with serif fonts, and some of them look better than others on the Nook, so I like to be able to change them. I’m not including altering the size of the font, because I haven’t found a reader yet that doesn’t do this.
2.    Set my own margins – I like almost edge-to-edge reading. Why waste all that space?
3.    Make notes – I do a lot of reviewing, and it’s much easier to make notes on the NC, as I can on my Kindle, and then call up the list when I’m done.
4.    Open the reader and be right at the page where I left off.
5.    Flip animation. It’s fun, okay? But it’s not essential.
6.    A nice bookshelf. I like a book cover and a blurb to tell you what it is. It’s a nice way to browse.
7.    CSS reading. This means that the book is rendered as it is supposed to be by the publisher. While they then dictate fonts, it does mean that you get to see the italics, bolds and chapter headings, as well as scene breaks, etc. This is most important to me when there are italics. I read a fair amount of paranormals, and it’s much, much easier to see telepathic speech if it’s italicized. Italics can also be a part of an author’s voice, and when it’s missing, it can jar a bit. Failing the CSS thing, then the rendering of bolds, italics etc. I want my italics.
8.    A way of reordering the bookshelves by at least title and author. I’d prefer options to sort by tag, read or not read, date published and date added to the device, but, well, a girl can dream. And a way of creating bookshelves of my own and categorizing them, as I can in my Kindle.
9.    Reading books from the internal device of the NC, so you can read offline. I keep my books in the NC itself, not on the SD card, so porting to the SD card is a bit of a pain, and then you have to keep it up to date. Since I still occasionally read using the original Nook firmware and the lovely reader there, the books have to be in the internal memory.
10.    The ability to dim the screen in the dark, especially by swiping the left hand side of the screen vertically (means I don’t have to leave the book to do it).
11.    A progress bar that tells me how much I’ve read and how far I have to go.

What I don’t care about:

1.    Fancy backgrounds and day/night modes. I always read black on white and dim the screen for night reading. And I don’t want to pretend that my Nook Color is an ancient tome.
2.    Syncing between devices. I have a Blackberry phone, a Kindle, a Kobo and a Nook Color which I’ve rooted to full Android. I don’t own an ithing. Well I do, but iTunes is a nightmare on a PC, so I don’t use them. None of these devices sync particularly easily, apart from the Kindle, so I don’t bother. I keep a central library on my PC and then port to the devices as I need them. I use Calibre with an extra column added for books I’ve read. I have Calibre installed on every computer I own and port my settings across, then plug in the devices and add new books and take read ones off it. Works for me. But for some people, syncing is a big deal.

So here’s what I’ve tried so far:

Aldiko Reader -
It has – 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11
It renders really well, that is, the print is nice and clear. Its bookshelf is pretty, and I believe you can categorise it, though I’ve never worked out how. It’s fairly fast. The two big downsides for me are that you can’t make notes, although you can share, using Evernote or Facebook (but I don’t want to share, and I’m not always online. If it could link to an internal notetaking program, that would work for me). And you have to import all your books to the SD card if you want to see them on your bookshelves. That is a major inconvenience for me. However, it does render books properly, with italics and bolds, and I usually use it as a backup, if a book goes a bit daft on me in another program. Or if I just want to read for pleasure.

Amazon Kindle -
2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11
I use this solely to read my Amazon books on because it uses a proprietary format, and everything else I use is epub. Amazon uses a locked form of mobipocket so it doesn’t play with other devices. However, you can read from your device without connecting, and you can download from your Amazon store to read offline. What you can’t do is read your NetGalley ARCs, if you’re a reviewer, because NetGalley only sends to your first device (not Kindle’s fault). I haven’t found a way of reordering the bookshelves, but they are nice. You can’t choose your own font, but it’s actually a pretty nice font so I don’t mind that so much. It’s smooth and it works, and I wish it read epub.

Anyview -
Not a clue. The interface is nice, but I’ve never been able to open a book in it.

Nook (the android one)
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11
Very much like the reader software, except it has flip animation, yay! The margins are too wide for me, and there’s no way I’ve discovered of making them narrower. And the cover art doesn’t show on my bookshelves, even if I do the Calibre thing (if you don’t now what I’m talking about, you re-convert within Calibre and that often solves the problem). Nook Color has to have the books in its own folder, which is irritating. The list of fonts you can use isn’t a full one, but it includes Georgia, so I’m good. But it renders really well, and I do use it sometimes. You can’t add shelves of your own, which is a pity.

Blio -
3, 5, 6, 7, 6, 9, 10, 11
This has some nice features and is worth considering. The shelf shows the book cover larger than most readers, so it’s very clear. I like the footer with the basic information and the extended footer, which you call up with a screen press. The options are limited, though, and you can’t set your own font and the default font is sans serif. And it leaves a space between paragraphs, which I really don’t like.

Bluefire reader -
I’ve just downloaded this one and I love the shelves on it, but I haven’t really played with it enough to comment significantly. I’d have to read a book or two on it before I can make up my mind.

Cool Reader -
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
If it will take it, this is my reader of choice. It renders italics and bold properly. It has a reasonable, though not pretty, bookshelf that you can reorder by several things, including tags, and it reads books from the internal memory of the Nook, so I don’t have to faff about importing. It can be temperamental with one or two books, I have no idea why, and that’s when I read on another app. It’s fast and smooth and it has so many options you could spend all your time playing with them. If you put a few ttf (true type fonts) on the SD card, it will let you choose the font you want. It renders well. It even has a battery indicator in the top bar.
I’d like a nicer bookshelf, the opportunity to create shelves of my own (so that I could, for instance, put the books I’ve read there, put the ARCs I really should be reading soon on their own shelf, etc.) and a real flip animation would be nice, too. But I’m sure they’ll come in time.

DNL reader -
I’ve only just started playing with this one, so I really don’t know what it can do yet. Anyone?

FBReader -
1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10,11
One of the oldest apps, and still a good one. Its big downfall, to me, is the inability to read italics and bolds. It really makes a difference. But the interface is smooth, it reads off your internal memory and you can at least make bookmarks. Some readers love this one because you can sort any which way, and that is pretty awesome. I would love it if it would just render the italics and get the note taking sorted out. The flip animation is the most fun you’ll have with a book without actually reading it. The way you can set different taps on different areas to do different things is cool, too.

Kobo -
I’ve only just downloaded this one. Anyone have any comments?

Moon+ Reader -
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
You can get this in a free version or a paid version, which has text to speech. This one is immensely frustrating, because it doesn’t render italics and bolds. The notetaking is great, the shelves really nice, and it reads from your internal memory. However, in the latest version, you can opt to go to publisher defaults, and voila, there are your italics and bolds! But the font is mandatory, and it’s hideous. And on publisher defaults it scrolls rather than page turns. It will read from internal memory, although if you want to see your books on the pretty bookshelves, covers and all, you have to import them to Moon’s shelves. This one is so close. Importing the books isn’t too bad, because once you’ve done it to the internal memory, there’s an import button on the shelf page, and it will update. Get that CSS rendering right, and this is the one for me. As it stands, Cool Reader does it better right now. Oh yes, and it loads each chapter separately, which means you have to wait for a second when you turn the page for it to load the chapter. Irritating, unless you have a device with limited memory, in which case it would be a positive asset. Another irritation is the touch screen. It’s not as accurate as other readers, at least not on the Nook Color it isn’t, and attempts to go back to the author file, for instance, will find you turning back a page or a chapter. I don’t use a stylus and I don’t particularly want to.

In conclusion – right now, Cool Reader does most of what I want in an ebook reader, but I’m always looking for something better!

LynneC’s review of A Vampire For Christmas by Laurie London, Michele Hauf, Caridad Pineiro & Alexis Morgan
Paranormal Romance published by HQN 18 Oct 11

Most anthologies are the curate’s egg kind of book, with good bits and bad bits or not-so-good bits. This is no exception, but on the whole it is a decent read and a nice introduction to the flood of seasonal books. There are four stories by authors established in the genre.

Enchanted by Blood by Laurie London

This story takes part in her world, one I hadn’t read before but I had no problems catching up on. It is a story complete in itself and is about Trace Westfalen and Charlotte Grant, who have met before, although Trace wipes Charlotte’s mind and she doesn’t remember their previous encounter. This sets up an interesting situation in which Trace remembers and Charlotte does not, so she is learning him from scratch. This is the kind of story where the big bad vampires share a house, the kind with chandeliers and antiques but go out hunting dressed in leather with fearsome weapons. You have been warned.

Trace is forced to step in when Charlotte is in danger, and this inevitably leads to their involvement again. I do think that the couple end up in bed too soon, considering Charlotte doesn’t know him from Adam at this point in the story, but this is a short, and it’s sometimes tricky to do that.

However, London does have one maddening habit which brings the story down for me. Every time the action heats up, she ends the scene on a cliffhanger, and then starts the next with a recap of what happened. That means the reader isn’t there and doesn’t experience it. It happens too many times, and it irritates me, and brings my grade down.

Grade: C

Summary:

All they want for Christmas is you -

It’s the time of year for twinkling lights on trees and kisses under the mistletoe. Yet the passing of another year means nothing to the stunning immortals who lurk in the shadows of the new-fallen snow.

And they don’t care if you’ve been naughty or nice.

Let four fanged lovers open your eyes to a passion you never dared to imagine. After all, there’s no place like home for the holidays and these dazzling vampires can’t wait for an invitation.

Read an excerpt. (scroll down)

Monsters Don’t Do Christmas by Michele Hauf

The hero in this story has only been a vampire for a year. He was a money man and had lots of it, until he was turned, and I’m still not sure why he gave it all up. He roamed the streets and fought werewolves, who, we are told, hate vampires. I don’t know why. The heroine is Olivia Adorata, a pop star who takes every Christmas off and lives in a small apartment on her own, celebrating the season. She thinks of herself as a monster because of her fame. So why didn’t anyone recognise her? That is only one problem I had with Olivia. I can see what Hauf was trying to do, have two people reconcile the monsters within themselves, but in neither case does the motivation and the conviction go through them deep enough for me to really understand why they feel that way. There is the possibility for some breathtaking moments, but they aren’t taken. I don’t feel I know Daniel at all, and Olivia is too sweet to be true. Neither character entirely works for me.

Grade: D

Summary:

Sexy singer, Olivia isn’t at all frightened by the vampire she finds fending off werewolves outside her door. Why should she be? She’s just as much a monster as he is. Daniel Harrison hasn’t been vampire long, but the monster he is does not do Christmas. That doesn’t keep him from trying to rescue another who could transform before the full moon—but can he do it and win Olivia’s heart with but a flash of fang and his desire for her to ‘sway with him’?

No excerpt available.

When Herald Angels Sing by Caridad Pineiro.

Although Pineiro’s recent full-length paranormal release didn’t quite do it for me, she is a considerably talented author with a great, smooth style and a willingness to tackle unusual situations.

This story takes place in 1931. The hero, Damien, is or was a rum-runner, and it is a century since he first met his love, Angelina. Their enemy, a demon called Pedro, tears them apart, or makes Damien make the wrong decisions, and they are torn apart again, only to be reborn to have another attempt at getting it right this time.

Although this story has a few of the vampire clichés, they are almost impossible to avoid in this genre, and it doesn’t stop me enjoying this story of everlasting love constantly thwarted. Angelina has a secret of her own, but when she is dumped on the beach, she is injured and needs Damien’s help. He tends to her, and they get together again, knowing that yet again, Pedro has the upper hand.

Of course, this is a romance, so you know it will work out, one way or another, but you don’t know how it will work out. Angelina and Damien are believable, interesting characters with the depth that a story of this length will allow.

Grade: B

Read an excerpt.

All I Want for Christmas by Alexis Morgan

The last story is, IMO, the best one. It is a sweet, poignant morsel of a Christmas tale and took me from beginning to end. I made fewest notes on this story because I wanted to enjoy the read and let the story take me away, which it does. The setup is simple, so little backstory is needed. Eagan is an undercover cop and vampire looking for some rogues. Della is a human woman who runs a diner, peopled, although she doesn’t know it, by supernatural beings as well as humans. Della likes Christmas and is determined to bring it to the people who frequent her diner. Despite his better nature, Eagan is strongly attracted to Della, and soon they begin an affair. Della is under threat and is put into danger, so Eagan has to find and rescue her.

Simple setup so the author can concentrate on the characters, something I really enjoy. The characters are believable, the setting well depicted, and I was just drawn into this one.

Grade: A

Read an excerpt.

Overall Grade: C