The Taste of Innocence by Stephanie Laurens

***

He is a lord with a baseless aversion to love and she is the woman he loves but pretends he doesn’t and bores us to tears with his nonsensical behaviour.

This book is well written enough. There is subplot about railway speculation that kept me reading, but it is about 50% too long. That 50% is made up mostly of the aforesaid lord refusing to admit he is in love over and over. Also the villain of the piece is so overcome by how happy they are together that he…I can’t tell you, but it is sickening how romantic he is for a villain. Also the book is full of smug marrieds from previous books about the Cynster dynasty.

I’m going to try another one of her books and thats it.

genre: historical romance

read: 25/04/2008

Isabella / The English Witch by Loretta Chase

*****

Marvellous! Ok, so Isabella starts to drag a bit at the end. But look on this as one long book and it makes a lot more sense. The two stories are linked. The second is reminiscent of The Lion’s Daughter. An absolute bargain as a 2 for 1.

In the first, old maid Isabella falls refreshingly for both a rake and a handsome simpleton (that is the only way I can excuse his foolish behaviour in dragging out the plot to the end of the book). Funny and well written.

In the second, the rejected man from the previous book has learnt nothing and tries similar tactics on another girl. This time it works. Eventually. Better than the other book, perhaps because these characters are an example of what Loretta Chase has gone on to do very well with other bluestockings and rakes.

genre: historical romance

re-read: 25/04/08

Killing Time by Linda Howard

***

I can’t really tell you much about this one without giving it away. Theres some shenanigans about a buried time capsule and time travel. Linda Howard writes a good thrillery type thing and the sci-fi is well thought out…but everything works out too pat in the end. The sci-fi is sacrificed to the thriller and romance. For some reason I don’t care about the protagonists at all. Linda Howard books seem very variable in this respect – sometimes I love the people and sometimes I wish the killer would catch up with them and kill them off asap.

The thriller aspect made me finish it, but I nearly gave up.

genre: thriller sci-fi romance

read: 25/04/2008

Being a bad girl by Julie Cohen

*****

Another good one!

Shes a good girl pretending to be a bad girl, hes a psychiatrist pretending to be a biker. Apart from an unbelievable. family reconciliation this is a good book. Shes got genuine issues and hes just the man to help resolve them – if he can stop psychoanalysing himself first.

This is by way of a sequel to Featured Attraction, but the smug marrieds from the previous book are bearable enough. The snappy dialogue makes up for it.

genre: romance

read: 25/04/2008

Featured Attraction by Julie Cohen

*****

He owns a dilapidated cinema and shes the interior designer he betrayed at the Prom. When they met it was…the first book by Julie Cohen. Better written than you expect from a Mills and Boon. Its in the Modern Romance Extra series which means there is a ridiculous amount of sex considering the length of the book. Julie manages to fit an amazing amount of character development in the time left with a good deal of comedy dialogue. Maybe not really a five star book. Its the shock talking.

genre: romance

read: 25/04/2008

The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer

978-0099493730

Really very good book. A nice little murder, Pot loads of likely suspects. Very likeable hero and heroine with a pleasant romance thrown in.

Plot: Unpleasant mans fortunately early demise
Whimsical heroine all dewy eyes
Multiple suspects – motives no surprise
Pleasantly astute detective eventually sees through lies

Characters: Hero, Heroine, irascible victim – i do find it satisfying when nasty people are bumped off, multiple secondaries of varying degrees of annoya-bility (it’s a word now)

What to love: The set up is good. The murderer reasonably unexpected and the structure excellent.

What to loathe: Sometimes you don’t know whether to care more about the romance or the murder. On my dumber days ( of which there are many) I get a little bit frazzled by a split focus in a story. I think it is more a me thing than a story thing

Buy, Borrow or Bin: Buy – Really very good – and worth reading again even when you know who has done it.

If this book was a drink it would be: . A glass of iced milk. I love iced milk and often crave it so this is a good thing.

The gifts of Christmas by Mary Balogh et al

I can barely face reviewing this collection of short stories, it is so bad. Perhaps the name Merline Lovelace on the cover should have stopped me picking this up at the library altogether – it is practically diabolical in itself.

A handful of gold by Mary Balogh
** out of *****
She can write much better than this. Virginal showgirl shows rake meaning of Christmas. Makes you want to take up paganism.

A drop of frankincense by Merline Lovelace
* out of *****
Arranged marriage consumated by sneaky feisty wife, then they go to fight the Spanish and meet Queen Elizabeth I. Reads like a parody.

A touch of myrrh by Suzanne Barclay
** out of *****
Some interesting detail about the spice trade, however once again the heroine shows the hero the meaning of Christmas and makes us all sick with her feisty goodness. She would not have lasted 10 minutes in reality and the author cannot make us believe otherwise.

genre: historical romance

read: 12/4/8

Naughty Neighbor [Neighbour] by Janet Evanovich

**** out of *****

Fluff. This is part of series of re-issues of a short romances of a now more-famous author. Its lightweight with a lot of charm and demonstrates the quirky characters and snappy dialogue that she has written over and over again since. (perhaps too many times but we won’t go into that). Short and modern. The cover doesn’t really sum up the political intrigue central to the book though. And the title is a bit iffy too.

genre: romance

read: 12/4/8

The comeback kiss by Lani Diane Rich

*** out of *****

I should probably give this more stars, but the lead characters are such idiots they annoyed me the whole way through. It has a lot of similarities to Jennifer Crusie in terms of the writing style and elements of the plot, that I couldn’t help comparing it to Faking It (minor criminal going straight) and Tell Me Lies (lost love returns). Both of which are better. Its promising and passed the time pleasantly but I couldn’t love it, and with all the quirky small town atmostphere it is desperate for you to love it.

Genre: romance

Read: 12/4/8

Dates From Hell by Kim Harrison et al

This is a collection of short stories on the theme of bad dates with the supernatural. The blurb says “We’ve all [had] dreadful experiences that turned out to be uniquely memorable in the very worst way.” Well, this book is another of those dreadful experiences. Its awful to varying degrees throughout.

Undead in the garden of good and evil by Kim Harrison.
* out of *****
Lame! Vampire mythology messed about purely for plot purposes, not to say anything interesting. Demonstrates the main problem with the supernatural romance-ish genre – the author really doesn’t seem to understand either genre that well. To top it off, this is blatantly a filler between stories in a series, referring to characters and events outside the story to no purpose. Painful to read.

The Claire Switch Project by Lynsay Sands
** out of *****
Bearable. Especially after the last one. Its a bit sci-fi, but again science is pushed out the way whenever the author wants to have something happen in the plot. It is not possible to have any respect for the characters, they are such children. Pointless.

Chaotic by Kelley Armstrong *** out of *****
Ok, there was a bit of feeding in too much of an outside mythology for my liking but in this collection this story stands out like the light at the end of the tunnel. A half chaos demon that can find trouble runs into a werewolf and a reasonable plot ensues. The characters are interesting and likeable. Like a lot of supernatural romance this is heavily influenced by Buffy and written in first person. I wish people wouldn’t do that! First person is terribly hard to do well. I would read this author again.

Dead Man Dating by Lori Handeland
** out of *****
Back to the lame vampiric demons. And a lame virgin sub-plot to boot. The demons are more believable than the virgin. Also, again with the first person. Dear Author, you are not as good as Mary Stewart so no more of the thoughts of the sub-Buffy idiot protagonist!

Genre: Supernatural/sci-fi romance

Read: 12/4/8