The Officer Says I Do by Jeanette Murray

I'm at my local library with my spawn, encouraging them to do homework instead of read manga while I surreptitiously peruse the romance novels.  And while my standards are particularly low, I grab three books off the shelf.  I am always giving the girls a hard time for checking out too many books at once so I bring these three silly romances over to them and ask which one they think I should NOT check out.  Enraptured had this awesome male torso cover and the fantasy/myth stuff appeals to my fantasy reading children.  The cowboy novel Broken appeals because, well, cowboys.  But they both agree (which never happens) that The Officer Says I Do is the worst cover and probably one of the worst titles they had ever seen and I definitely should not read that one.  I am so amused by this interaction I bring all three home and can't help but start with the cheesiest looking one.

Yes, you guessed it.  I liked it.  I will admit that it's very likely that my expectations were low.  And the basic premise is pretty far fetched but I do have a small soft spot for military romances and neither character was too stupid to live and beyond the slightly shallow characterization (our heroine is chaotic and free spirited, which is represented almost entirely by her breezy multi-hued skirts) this was an enjoyable read.  I would read this author again.  So there children!

Yet again we have proof of the truth of "Don't judge a book by its cover."  Or "Take into account the cover and lower your expectations accordingly and you won't be disappointed."  Whatever.

Contemporary Military Romance 2012: 3.5 of 5 commune living hippies.

Pure Heat by M. L. Buchman

Apropos of my last post, here is a military offshoot; wild fire fighters book.  How do you describe fire fighters who fight wild fires?  This is just ripe for misplaced modifiers and I ain't no English teacher.

I like this book.  Carly is third generation forest firefighter and is down right prescient about how a forest fire is going to burn.  Steve was a smoke jumper who got injured and is returning to fire fighting in a new role. They are both amazingly capable and beautiful and they get together, what's not to like.  Also I feel like I am genuinely learning about an job/industry that I don't know a lot about and it's interesting.

Back to the trope discussion.  Normally in my romance I expect some sort of character or relationship arch to be a major part of the book but in this one the relationship arch is minor, (but not too stupid), and is replaced (in my opinion) by cool gadgets, death defying situations and amazingly able (in almost believable ways) characters saving lives.  I'm okay with this.  Which is clearly a bias because in almost any other setting (other than military-like) I wouldn't be.

I routinely dislike FBI/mafia/drug cartel books where the hero and heroine are on the run because the relationship isn't central enough.  Ugh.  What can I say, I guess I'm not a perfect reviewer.

Contemporary Militaryish Romance 2014: 4.5 out of 5 fixed wing spotters.

PS.  I was re-reading a bit of the book and to be fair, yes, I like the trope but this writing is also really good. "What the hell was he doing?  He didn't rescue women, and especially avoided weeping women.  But a rocking motion came from somewhere inside, like the motion of the living trees in a breeze."  

"Something About You" Julie James

Julie James can write a mean romance novel. Even given a sort of ridiculous "big misunderstanding" this book about an Assistant US Attorney heroine and a FBI hero is an enjoyable ride. He gets to be all protective and manly and she gets to be smart and brave. If you don't normally read contemporaries, you should make an exception for Julie James. It's light and funny and just right for summer.

Contemporary Romance 2010: 4.5 of 5 motions to adopt.

Olivia Gates "To Tame A Sheikh"

I will admit I am not a habitual Harlequin Desire reader and I have a bias against the shorter romance novel formats. But really, this book was terrible. It wasn't badly written if one isn't too picky about repetitive descriptions. But the reliance on all the hackneyed romance conventions, the magical sex that conveys all the protagonists never need to say to each other, the powerful sheikh and the "I've just been waiting for you to make my life meaningful" female character. These two don't have any relationship issues or personal issues to create a character arch. The heroine just needed to get the hero into bed to make him realize what he was missing.

I liked the cultural window dressing (literally mostly about clothes) but the only interesting character in the book was the brother who hates everyone because his first wife screwed him over. He was stereotypical but at least something was going on there other than unbelievable happiness, wealth and beauty. Geese.

Back to school.

Contempory Romance 2010: 1 of 5 fake jewels of state.

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.

Megan Hart 'Stranger'

Can I say that I loved a book if I skipped about 80 pages in the middle. I suppose if I'm worth my salt as a reviewer I'm going to have to analyze it. I will apologize slightly for the fact that my reading choices lately have felt like catch-up with the rest of romancelandia (or the small part of it I allow myself to follow so as not to neglect my family entirely.) I apologize only because as Jessica discussed lately, it feels like I'm just following and not really adding anything new or interesting to the romance review world out there. So here I go again with the "following" thing.

I love, love, love the premise of Stranger. The heroine has decided that she doesn't want to put out the effort for a real relationship (for a lot of reasons) and so has developed the habit of paying for her dates and her sex. She has a reliable service, she's had some reliable providers from that service so why mess with a good thing. But one night she mistakes Sam for her latest 'date' and the convenience of what she's doing comes into question. If she's doing this, it doesn't just take the place of a conventional relationship, it acts in many ways to prevent her from having a conventional relationship.

I skipped the Sam chasing her part. I have to guess that there were some important moments in there since the author is definitely a character driven writer/thinker. But I came back in where they get together and with the characters' discussions of their relationship, I didn't feel like I needed to go back to fill things in. Am I a very bad, bad, reader or should I conclude that the author could tighten up the book a bit. I suppose a little of both (like on most moral dilemmas I come down in the boring middle).

I read all the rest of the book, I loved them together, I loved the author's strong actualized woman throw ins and I liked Sam a lot. Their struggle felt basically realistic and I was glad they got together in the end. :) This author can write some awesome sex and the characters really jump off the page. If I had to nitpick, I'd say the character flaws are a little simple. Interesting and thought out, but what stops this from being a work of literature (which is not usually a standard I even bring up) besides the genre rules, is slightly simplistic character flaws. Overall, awesome book if you don't mind having to hide it from your kids.

Contemporary Erotic Novel 2009: 4.5 out of 5 embalmed bodies.

Curtis Sittenfeld 'American Wife'

This is Minerva's first Bodice Ripper Review, and she's more than a little nervous. All this blog stuff is new to her, and she's fairly certain she'll screw up the formatting. What's more, Heloise's trenchant brilliance is a tough act to follow. And finally, Minerva has a difficult confession to make in this particular setting .......... she really, truly does not like romance novels. Not at all.

Or does she?

Minerva has spent the past few days unabashedly wallowing in the voyeuristic pleasures of 'American Wife'. The book -- which Sittenfeld says she wrote in a frenzy of haste in order to release it during the 2008 Republican Convention -- is a fictionalized account of the life and marriage of former First Lady Laura Bush. It is simply overflowing with graphic, steamy, and occasionally sordid sex.

Graphic, sordid sex is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Laura Bush. But with this book, Sittenfeld takes on the question that troubled so many of us during the Bush years: how on earth did a modest, intelligent, thoughtful, well-read, liberal-leaning, pro-choice lady like Laura end up hitched to a guy like Dubya?

As the romance novelists knew all along, the answer apparently lies in a potent cocktail of true love and hot sex.

Each of the book's four sections is built upon actual events from Laura Bush's life, fleshed out with plenty of pure fiction, and set -- delightfully! -- in Wisconsin rather than Texas. The first section is by far the best. In it, the 17-year-old heroine (Alice Lindgren) accidentally runs a stop sign, causing the death of a classmate who is almost, but not quite, her boyfriend. In a few seconds of inattention and bad luck, the course of her life is changed forever. It's powerful stuff. Minerva is trying to avoid using the word "poignant" ..... but there it is.

The second section is also quite engaging, as Alice, now in her early 30s, is swept off her feet by the cocky, charming ne'er-do-well rich boy Charlie Blackwell. Her first encounter with his no-holds-barred family is unforgettable for many reasons, not least the limerick beginning "Nymphomaniacal Alice." Minerva would love to tell you the whole thing, but that would be a spoiler. Most of the hot sex scenes appear during this section.

From there, unfortunately, it's all downhill: alcoholism, bad behavior, evangelical Christianity, Republican politics, Karl Rove, and the war in Iraq. By the end, even though Alice has (unlike Laura) dared to publicly assert her personal views on a highly controversial issue, it feels like she is simply maundering on, alternately blaming and excusing herself for the path her life has taken. The hot sex has also dropped off considerably by this point in the book ... but Minerva supposes that's what happens when a romance novel loses its way and drags on for 30 years of marriage.

It's still a terrific read, and well worth your while. Especially that limerick.

Rating: 4 out of 5 toots of your own horn.

Sharon Sala "The Warrior"

This author is new to me but I see she's got lots of books out there. John Nightwalker is a Native American soldier who comes across Alicia Ponte while she's on the run from her father - an arms manufacturer. She overheard him talking about illegal arms deals and knows he'll stop at nothing to protect himself from being exposed.

There is some reincarnation/mysticism combined with pretty realistic action. The relationship between these two unfolds relatively slowly, which I liked, but the overall pace of the book does not put it squarely in the typical CIA/arms dealers/something blows up every three minutes genre. Again, I liked this about the book but if you are an action/plot junkie, this might annoy you.

Alisha is certainly on the "Oh my god I can't believe this is happening to me." side of the character spectrum but I liked her well enough to want John to get together with her. John is hard not to like, loyal, steady, deadly and hot.

I would definitely try another book from Sala.

Contemporary Romance 2009: 4 of 5 spanish conquistadors.

Lara Adrian "Midnight Awakening"

Do you think the hardest part of writing a series is coming up with the titles? Well, maybe not. The third book in the Midnight Breed Series is my favorite so far. I've decided I like my alpha hero's more inscrutably powerful and less woman hating (due to some terrible betrayal of course). Tegan fits the bill. He's cut off emotionally after the love of his young life was brutally abused and returned to him as a minion of a rival vampire.

Elise is similarly tortured after her son was lured into turning rogue by a drug propagated by a bad vampire. Her brother-in-law had to kill her son in front of her when he attempted to attack his own mom. Not fun. She has decided to leave the safety of the enclave she lives in and start killing the human minions of this bad vampire. Unbeknown to the Warriors, Elise has joined their little war against the rogues. Tegan is not amused that this unskilled breed-mate human woman has put herself in so much danger. And then, he's strangely attracted to her too, go figure!

I expected not to like Elise even if I was already caught up in Tegan story, so the surprise for me was how much Elise developed as a character. I liked the references to her attempt to train her body in prep for this undertaking, and her poise in Berlin. It all won me over. When Tegan finally gives in to his love for her, I believed she deserved it.

I've bought into the series, and enjoyed these characters more than the average duck.

Vampire Romance Series 2007: 4.5 of 5 crescent moon marks.

Lynsay Sands 'Single White Vampire'

I do like books with a sense of humor. And this book is funny. But (there's always a but according to my book club members. "Do you ever like the book?") the humor comes at the expense of the characters full development.

Kate is bossy in a cute little blond way, and Lucern is curmudgeony in a "why should I have to tolerate you hoi poloi" sort of way and they end up in very funny situations together (a few actually went over the top and weren't so funny). But while Lucern was changed-because-of-love in a nice, rather believable way, the humor got in the way of them actually establishing a real rapport.

As an aside, I also thought the lay out of vampirism was (too conveniently) not scary or dark at all. It was clever, and avoided all the issues of, you know, just how sexy would a man be if his body felt like cold marble. But it also lacked the power/darkness/forbidden-other lures that I fall for with the vampire thing.

Well written, cute, funny but in the end not much substance.

Vampire Contemporary Romance 2003: 3.5 of 5 black adder re-runs.

Gennita Low 'Virtually His'

I love the cover of this book. Really. I never look more than once at the cover of a romance, especially the historicals I normally read. So I'm going to break my 'only post the cover of 3.5's and above' rule.

I'm in a terrible rut of picking up a book, getting 1/3 through it than picking up something else. Thus my recent hiatus from posting. I also attempted to 'organize' my books the other day and make sure everything is appropriately posted on PBS. In the process I realized just how many books I have in my TBR pile. I think it shook my psychological foundations because I've been disoriented and disheveled ever since. Of course, if you asked my husband, I don't know that he would have noticed a change!

Virtually His; interesting concept. Covert operatives who can 'remote view,' and gain intelligence to support other operations. Helen is being trained to remote view in Virtual Reality . Her monitor is the hero in the story and of course, she doesn't know his identity (a construct I enjoyed) . I liked Helen, who wouldn't, she's spunky and the golden (girl) child in a basically man's world. The monitor is suitably intensely attracted to Helen. He's been in the game for years and is surprised by his own worry for her well-being. I bought into the attraction between them.

What I didn't like. Most of the first half of the book (really most of the book) is Helen ruminating on her place in COS, the operation, who has what secret agenda, etc. Either I'm not getting the implications of most of the exposition or the author is setting us up for a LOT of tie up revelations in later books, either way, badly set up for the reader. It felt rather half baked, like maybe the author knew what she was trying to convey but wasn't doing it very well. This is very distracting, to say the least.

Another beef, so to speak. No seriously, this is a very erotic book, but an orgasm every once in a while would have been appreciated. There's a lot of action in the end of the book, and I even went with the 'have to give you a paralyzing pill so you won't find out my identity' construct although it raised the feminist hairs on the back of my neck. But having this poor heroine half-way to orgasm through 90% of the book was cruel and unusual. Geese, give the poor girl a break.

Contemporary Covert Ops Romance 2007: 3 out of 5 checkered flags.

Pamela Clare 'Unlawful Contact'

This author writes highland romances as well? I'm not usually much for contemporaries, but I do have a soft spot for ex-military protector type hero's (are there any other contemp hero types? No, don't answer that, my TBR pile is daunting enough as it is).

Sophie is a journalist following the story of a convict who had a baby while in the big house. She's cleaned up, gotten paroled to a half-way house and is finally getting visitation rights when she breaks parole and takes off with the baby. Sophie has gotten to know this girl and smells something fishy, so when the girl's also imprisoned older brother contacts her for an interview, she agrees.

Marc Hunter actually knows Sophie, they had an encounter in high school (the one sex scene in the book I totally snorted at) that was good for both of them, and now that's he's desperate about his younger sister, he needs to use Sophie to break out of jail and find her.

The break-out scene/scenes are really amazingly believable, unlike the high school sex scene. The plot bogs down a bit in the second half but it's hard to argue too much, as it gives our couple a bit of time to get to know each other. I especially enjoyed these characters internal voices, which took Marc out of the ridiculously gorgeous, studly, wonderfully caring, self sacrificing, skilled at protection perfect man realm and put him in the ridiculously gorgeous, studly, wonderfully caring, self sacrificing, skilled at protection, perfect man who thinks badly of himself realm. Just enough of a shift for me to keep my romance novel fantasy bubble pretty much intact, thank you very much. And even if I did think, "Are you guys just going to uk like bunnies, or are you ever going to find his sister already?" the ukking was hawt. Okay, except for him bringing her vibrator into hiding with them. Whatever.

With the small exceptions of the aforementioned high school sex and the vibrator, this book was good. Really good. I liked it a lot. I'd say this was a step above most of the 'on the run, have to prove our innocence and solve the crime' contemps that I've read. I'm no expert in the field but there you have it.

Oh, and special bonus points for the bitchin' title and awesome cover.

Contemporary Intrigue Romance 2008: 4.5 of 5 soggy plan b pills.

Jennifer LaBrecque 'Yule Be Mine'

Kate was talking about taking on a Blaze Harlequin book so when I saw Yule Be Mine in my grocery store, I could not resist. Can I digress and tell you some one actually requested All Night With The Boss from me on Paper Book Swap. *snort*

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book. I've mentioned before the lower standards I hold for Harlequin's (without more exposure, I really can't say if this is deserved or not) and this book totally delivered. Giselle had the hots for her brother-in-law but never would have acted on it. Then her sister's marriage breaks up (sister cheated on hero, conveniently enough) and a couple of years later, Sam tracks Giselle (the journalist) down and gets himself assigned as her photographer. They head off to Sedona, AZ with the strangely uncontrollable sparks flying.

These are sort of like paint by numbers characters, not as complex as a real painting, but not badly done all around. Sam's sole mission in life seems to be fulfilling Giselle's every sexual fantasy, to wit he gets some help from a magical amulet. I could have done without the magic which was worked in pretty clunkily (hey, I love fantasy/magical books, this was just poor execution). But it certainly facilitated the sex that he had a direct report on her every sexual fantasy through said amulet. Strangely enough the fantasies were hotter than some of the actual sex depictions. Well, maybe not strangely enough. :)

Anyway, overall decent writing (mostly), quite decent characters, silly plot, lots of explicit sex and I finished it in one night. What's not to like.

Harlequin Blaze Contemporary Romance 2008: 4 out of 5 purple ribbed vibrators with a curved tip.

Crusie & Mayer 'Don't Look Down'

Clearly taking sociology is bad for my brain. (I feel compelled, as a brain surgery survivor, to point out that the last statement is a joke.) I was so intrigued by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer's website that I had to get their first collaboration, Don't Look Down. Let me start by saying, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

But what struck me was how I was not judging it by my typical romance novel standards. I think I was very entertained by the whole male vs female perspective/writing style thing. For example, I'm coming to realize that a successful romance novel for me generally involves a less than emotionally realistic male character. He needs to be smart and witty, sure, but he also needs to be (eventually) completely devoted to the heroine, whether he understands why he clearly needs her or not.

In this book, the hero is more emotionally realistically male, which fascinated me, but it didn't help me understand why he wants to be with Lucy (aside from physical attraction of course.) He's interested in Lucy, but why exactly? And truthfully if his attraction to Lucy is under question, why does she want him, other than the hero stuff. On the other hand, it's well written, decent plot, I liked the combat/survival stuff.

The sociology angle comes in that while I was reading this book, we were talking about classifications of people; why do we use the categories we do when describing someone? Gender, age, race, sexual orientation; and not, say, handedness or "ass man or breast man" for instance. That got a lot of chuckles from the men in the class. And I was reading an article about the 'hook up' scene on college campus's at the same time. This pattern of sexual contact first, relationship later, acknowledges human sexual needs but seems to be viewed differently by the two genders. Men appear to use it to satisfy sexual needs first, while allowing for the possibility that a relationship might develop, whereas women seem to use the pattern primarily to open the pathway for a relationship and secondarily to satisfy purely sexual needs.

So, why do young men engage in relationships? (And yes, I'm addressing the generic male, the group not the individual.) If being a husband and possibly a father is so dauntingly tied to being a good provider and heavy responsibility, and if young men are genuinely stymied when asked to look at their own emotional needs or to understand interpersonal relationships, why do they get involved with girls? Especially if they are in a social setting where sex is available without an emotional commitment. Really, this is a serious question.....

Oh, and back to the book, really liked it. Didn't love it. Contemporary Romance 2006: 4 of 5 Moot points.

Lauren Dane "Fire and Rain"

Um, wow. This was my first e-book. And my first book from Ellora's Cave. And my first book with a menage a trois. The phrase triple virgin definitely leaps to mind. Wow.......

Um, I'm sort of speechless and a bit mortified, so where to start? Laurent is the third highest ranking werewolf in the Cherchez Clan. Rain is a budding artist who is also the daughter of a crime boss out east. She ran away from her family and an arranged marriage and is in hiding in Seattle.

Laurent is an typical muscled alpha hero (although technically in the pack he'd be a Gamma hero). The interaction between the boys in this book reminded me both of the lame frat boys in college and the Vampires in JR Ward books, whom I found sort of endearing when with each other. Saving Laurent from being a complete jerk is this 'fated mate' phenomenon which makes him completely devoted to Rain's health and happiness.

I liked Rain's character, her independence but reasonable fear of her father's retribution struck me as realistic. I loved her first date outfit, where typically I skim over fashion descriptions. There were definite moments of awkward dialog, but most of it worked.

The sex. Well, Ellora's Cave publishes erotica, let's just say it was often, and quite explicit. And I won't be leaving a copy sitting on my desktop for my kids to accidently stumble upon. Yikes. Normally I would sort of evaluate aspects of the sexual representation in a romance novel but I'm out of my depth here. So to speak. I know you might not believe me but I haven't read enough erotica to be able to say this one's sex scenes were well written, this one's sex scenes weren't as good. So obviously I need to read more.

Paranormal Contemporary Romantica 2008: 3.5 of 5 angry jilted fiancees.

Disclaimer, rightly or wrongly I rated this book slightly higher than if it had been a full length mass market romance novel, sort of like I did with the Harlequin. I think it's in it's own category and while I don't know yet if all e-books are really well written, it's my guess they are not. Does that make sense?

Janet Evanovich 'Naughty Neighbor'

Fast, blindingly fast, whipped right along. Janet Evanovich is a new author for me and I really enjoyed how the book was so humorous, the plot moved right along, it's hard not to like a gorgeous down to earth but well dressed rich and famous screen writer type hero. If the heroine wasn't entirely fleshed out, and the pig mystery was solved a bit too simply, and the physical danger they seemed to be in evaporated from the story rather conveniently, and there wasn't much to the actual sex scenes, who am I to complain.

Oh right, I'm trying to be a reviewer here. Fast (did I mention that already) frivolous fun book. An afterdinner mint in the world of romance.

Contempory Romance Reprint 2008: 3.5 out of 5 stolen morning papers.

Natalie Anderson 'All Night Long with the Boss'

I'll be a monkey's uncle. (What does that mean anyway?) I just finished a book called All Night with the Boss which I got solely to make fun of, and it really wasn't half bad. No really. I've read a couple Harlequins, most recently from the Silhouette Nocturne series and they have always been horrendously written. Not so with All Night with the Boss. It ain't gonna win a Pulitzer but at some point I stopped snorting at the Boss/Temp thing and just enjoyed the book. That's saying a lot.

I didn't even throw it against the wall when she gets pregnant with twins! To get me to care and believe in these two's relationship within such a short book is something, I must say. Not that it is a great romance novel, she's sort of annoyingly damaged by a previous relationship with a boss, but it's a nice light decently written Harlequin. Something I thought I would never see. I apologize to all the good Harlequin novels out there for judging you all by your covers.

But I have to mention that my book has "Harlequin Presents Pregnant Mistresses" across the top! That's some cover!

Harlequin Contemporary Romance 2008: 3.5 out of 5 inappropriate office liaisons.

Esri Rose 'Bound To Love Her'

I did finish How Green Was My Valley but I'm not going to review it until my book club meets to discuss it. Otherwise they've already heard everything I have to say.

I zoomed through Bound To Love Her last night. It's about Erin, who takes a neighbor's dog for a walk and meets up with an injured elf in the woods. Somehow they become bound to each other and he needs her energy to stay alive. She gets tangled up in the elves battle against a dark elf.

Fun book, hard to not like the idea of Legolas suddenly needing you, and the heroine is very resourceful and cool. On the other hand, Mr. Elf is pretty much off stage-left for much of the book, while Erin worries about their future and deals with the stalking dark elf. And the 'world rules' are a little fuzzy. The source of the bond between these two is never explained, for instance. If you like 'paranormal-urban modern romance' this is an enjoyable light book. It did bug me that the cover model doesn't exactly have long silvery hair.

Paranormal Contemporary Romance 2008: 3.5 out of 5 New Age Earrings.

Deirdre Martin 'Just A Taste'

The long awaited, much anticipated, finally completed, review of Stewart's request, Just A Lick. There isn't all that much to say about this one, it's an enjoyable light read that's not badly written. The characters are likable, the plot isn't too silly and it's fun to imagine yourself as a chef. There is sexual tension between our two protagonists but not much action until near the end.

Things I didn't like. Our hero lost his wife a year ago. That strikes me as way too soon to jump into another 'love of your life' relationship. When our hero has a minor breakdown and can't take Vivi into his bedroom, she reacts with anger. I would be sad and depressed if that happened to me, but anger? I felt like the cute French heroine went from saucy to bitchy about two thirds of the way through the book. She didn't become completely unlikable, but it was jarring given the characterization up to that point. And **(slight spoiler)** why does she dump him? Overall pretty harmless.

Contemporary Romance 2008: 3.5 out of 5 apple tarts.