Elizabeth Hoyt "Notorious Pleasures"

Meh.






















Historical Romance 2011: 3 of 5 English Follies.

Sadie Callahan "Lone Star Woman"

When I admitted to my kids that I choose this book cause I liked the cover they explained that you really shouldn't judge a book by it's cover because some really good books might have lame covers. Gotta love it.

Lone Star Woman is a book about Jude, the only child of a West Texas ranching dynasty who has spent her entire life making herself ready to inherit the ranch. The only time she rebelled against her father and grandfather was when they choose a fiance for her, and even then she dated him for six months before finally breaking it off. What she somehow fails to know is that there is no way in hell that her Dad and grandfather are going to leave the running of the ranch to her because she's a woman.

Brady just had a bad divorce (shallow cheating wife whose father makes his life hell in the courts) leaving him broke and worried about his nine year old son. He inherits a spread that's all run down that borders the much larger Circle C that Jude lives on. He hires on as a ranch hand to the Circle C and eventually gets offered the general manager job that Jude has been waiting for her whole life.

The writing is a bit clunky. The characters motivations are not always understandable. And the book sort of ends abruptly with a unnecessary near death and rescue. But, if you like the Texan fantasy life and the cowboy fantasy character, it's kind of fun. Not the best book, but definitely not the worst either.

Contemporary Texan Romance 2009: 3 of 5 Stallion Teasers.

PS. Since so many romance covers feature strategically placed swords and such I have to give a shout out for the awesomeness of the "Turquoise circle marks the spot" on this one.

Jennifer Crusie "Tell Me Lies"

You mom's of school age kids out there will know of what I speak when I say, May Has Hit. I used to think of May as a wonderful spring month of gardening and walking. Maybe hunting for morels and eating a lot of asparagus. But slowly over the last few years the end-of-school-year nature of May has come more and more front and center. Ah, enough excuses.

Tell Me Lies is about Maddie and C.L. and the small town of Frog Point Well, really it's about Maddie. We find Maddie cleaning out her husband's car and finding black lace panties under the seat. Since he cheated on her five years ago, she naturally jumps to certain conclusions and decides she really is going to leave him this time, she's tired of being the good girl in town, and she and her husband haven't loved or liked each other in a while anyway.

C.L. is the only other guy she "dated" in high school. He comes back into town to look into her husband's books as a favor to an old friend and gets thrown into a very strange kerfuffle with Maddie and her husband. Were there funny moments in the book, definitely BUT...there were a few too many moments where Maddie had to be Too Stupid To Live in order to further the plot. The plot really takes over the book and that might have been okay except it just didn't hang together well. And my other big complaint was C.L. He was a card board cut out character par excellence. His interactions with the daughter were the most interesting parts of his character and they were so damn perfect they made me snort. A puppy? Really?

If you aren't expecting much or reading to carefully this one is amusing.

Contemporary Romance 1998: 3 of 5 bags of money.

Laura Lee Guhrke 'Secret Desires of a Gentleman'

I have two exams next week so now is clearly the perfect time to read and review a few romance novels. :) Racy Romance Reviews has covered the seeming trend of obnoxious male commentary during sex, so I'd like to turn to the recent rise in rather long titles for romance novels. Am I being terribly bias when I let Julia Quinn get away with it because, well, she's so, you know, cool; but then have problems when it spreads from Kresley Cole to Edith Layton on to Laura Lee Guhrke? Truthfully I don't normally notice the title of these books but now that I have to type them into the titles of my blogs, well, I'm mildly annoyed.

What about the book? Yeah, yeah, don't get your knickers in a twist. (Don't you love that expression?) This is the third installment in the girl bachelor books from Guhrke, and I had almost the exact same reaction to this one as I did to The Wicked Ways of a Duke. Maria is the daughter of their cook and Philip and Lawrence are the sons of the Marquess of Kayne. When Lawrence imagines himself in love with her, Philip, the new Marquess, buys her off. Years later she is about to open a patiserrie when she finds that her perfect location is in a building owned by Philip.

All three of these books feature hero's who are less than likable. But unfortunately Philip is the least likable in many ways. Even so, I almost completely fell for his conversion, helped by the flashbacks he has and the sentimental plot device I won't reveal. But, strangely enough, his character falls apart for me in the emotional climax. This is so out of character for him I just couldn't buy it. *cringes in the bright light of reality* Maria isn't stupid exactly but instead of falling into the strong category for me, she falls into the angry category. Again, this is subtle, this isn't a terrible book, just not up to the initial promise of the characters of And Then He Kissed Her. So, read the first book, then if you have a lot of time on your hands, you can decide if you want to read the others. I'll buy her next book, but I'm kind of relieved this series is over.

Historical Romance 2008: 3 out of 5 chocolate tarts.

Loretta Chase 'Miss Wonderful'

Quick review of this one. I'm reading Chase's back stock slowly. And not too surprisingly this one wasn't quite up to snuff. Strong amusing early interactions, decent plot lay-out but the plot devolves into some kidnapping silliness, her father's delusions fade away, and the heroine has a major change of heart off screen with no real description of "why now?"

What did I like, smart funny main characters, and really, I loved the valet.

Historical Romance 2004: 3 out of 5 discreet coughs.

Kresley Cole 'Dark Desires After Dusk'

Smart Bitches already addressed the ridiculous title of this book so I'll get straight to the story.

Cadeon is the ne'er-do-well brother of a deposed demon king. He feels he's to blame for his brother losing the throne, of course. Now hundreds of years later it turns out that his fated mate is this century's Vessel. She is a Valkyrie who is fated to have her first born be the greatest warrior of the century. And whether he fights for good or evil is dependent on who the father is. Sooooo, an evil sorcerer wants her in exchange for the only sword that can kill the guy whose now on Cadeon's brother's throne. Are you still following this?

This is all explained in the first two chapters, and the rest of the book consists of their travels to said Evil Sorcerer's castle, escape from said castle and reunion after the destruction of said Evil Sorcerer. Cadeon, is basically a nice frat boy and Holly is an OCD uptight school teacher type. It isn't until she moves into a Valkyrie sorority house that I realized they were perfect for each other.

Really the writing is decent, the characters aren't horrible, some minor plot issues (like the Evil Sorcerer really isn't going to care that Cadeon slept with her, HELLO!). But the characters aren't amazing either. Light, slightly amusing, not terrible.

Paranormal Romance 2008: 3 out of 5 glass shattering Valkyrie shrieks.

Kimberly Logan 'Seduced By Sin'

Pet peeves, pet peeves.....Royce keeps calling Aimee 'mouse' and 'kitten.' I don't find this cute in the least. Lady Aimee is a retiring, rather plain, timid girl who was completely traumatized by witnessing her mother's murder ten years ago. She has mostly repressed the memories but lately she's dreaming of that night more often.

Royce is a friend of her father's who blew her off a year ago when she revealed her feelings for him after they had been friends for several years. He rejected her, not because she was eighteen and he is probably like 40 (okay, maybe 30) but because he has a darkness inside that causes everyone whom he loves to die. Very inconvenient I will admit.

Royce and Aimee are thrown back together when she becomes the target of an attempt on her life. Royce agrees to take her off to his 'end of the world' estate to protect her. You can't marry the chit because she'll get killed in some weird accident but you think it's smart to bring her to your house when there is an actual person out to kill her. What can I say.

In the end this book is pretty well written, the characters are certainly consistent, but the premise of their interaction; she thinks he couldn't want her, he thinks he must protect her from himself; is difficult to enjoy. I liked the fact that he is the one who is overcome by passion. Not terrible but not great either.

Historical Romance 2008: 3 of 5 murdering fiends.

Jayne Castle 'Silver Master'

Jayne Castle aka Jayne Ann Krentz aka Amanda Quick is a very good writer. She has a decent formula where the two protagonists team up to solve some sort of mystery/crime/murder. In this case the story is set in a future colony on another planet. The major change here is the psychic abilities that humans have developed on this planet.

If you like Castle's stories, this one's very acceptable but like many of her books, the romance, sexual tension and development of an attraction between the two main characters is lacking. The new world and the plot are distractingly entertaining, but that's not enough for me.

Paranormal Futuristic Romance 2007: 3 out of 5 stars.

Christina Dodd 'Touch of Darkness'

After enduring the last paranormal from Christina Dodd ,whose heroine was really terrible, I was Not going to read this one, I swear. But then Erin bought it and gave it to me. Well, it was free, what can I say.

And surprisingly I liked this one. I liked the hero a bit more and definitely liked the heroine a lot more. The story starts in Scotland, who doesn't like that...the plot was moving right along. Then bam (so to speak), it happened again. What is Christina Dodd doing with the forced sex scenes? "Don't." "No" she whispered and "Damn you. Get off!" I just don't know what to think about this. Can I condone this because the heroine is emotionally closed and trying to get away from the 'threat' of Rurik's love. Or do I think a guy who forces you to have sex with him to break down emotional barriers is just an idiot, and a sicko.

It was easier to ding the last book cause I didn't really like the H/H. What to do....what to do. Help me out here people!

Paranormal Romance 2007: 3 of 5 stars.

Jo Beverley 'Lady Beware'

Hmmm. This book starts slow, but quickly you begin to really like the characters, and like them being with each other. Then the last fourth of the book kind of falls apart. There are two big evil moments, there are plot tie-ups that are anticlimactic to say the least, all while the hero and heroine are apart no less.

I can't fault the writing, the characterization is good, the plot is, well, acceptable mostly. I'm going to put it more down to pacing. If you are a Jo Beverley fan, Darien is a wonderful hero and Thea is terrific as well and you could probably forgive the pacing to have another book related to the Rogues. But if not, this could be skipped.

Historical Romance 2007: 3 out of 5 stars

[Hero's nickname is Cave Canem: Beware the Dog]

Christine Feehan 'Safe Harbor'

I really wanted to like this book but I'm afraid Jonas is just too much of a jerk for me. He's portrayed as an overprotective special ops type but when it comes to Hannah, the very shy supermodel, he is just too obnoxious. In the first half of the book he yells at her constantly and if it weren't for their 'always meant to be together' status, I wouldn't believe that these two should be together at all.

Hannah is one of the Drake sisters (seven sisters of a seventh sister) and comes from a long line of magically gifted women. Hannah has a special affinity for controlling the wind, she is painfully shy, suffers from panic attacks and is a supermodel. Jonas has known the Drake sisters all his life, is like one of the family and doesn't want to get involved with Hannah to protect her from the bad guys he used to hunt when he was in special ops.

In the second half of the book, the plot gets going and Jonas gets less obnoxious so I can give this book a decent rating. If you enjoy this series, then you'll want to read this one, but otherwise, it's very skip-able.

Paranormal Romance 2007: 3 out of 5 stars.