Pride and Pleasure by Sylvia Day

Jasper is a thief taker and alpha hero par excellance.  Eliza is (for want of a more subtle term) almost an aspberger'ish heir to an Earl in a family of eccentrics.  She hires Jasper to protect her from coincidental accidents that are occurring with increasing frequency and for that he must pretend to be her suitor.  When she meets him she attempts to NOT hire him because he is clearly too beautiful and muscle bound to be the sort of man she would allow to court her.  But he insists.

The plot gets dragged out just a little too long but I hardly cared with these two beautifully written characters to pass the time.  The sex is terrific.

I had not read Sylvia Day before so it's always a pleasure to find a new terrific author.

Regency Historical 2012: 4.5 of 5 horticultural experiments.

Mad About the Earl

This is the second book I've tried by Christina Brooke; both were part of the Ministry of Marriage series. Yawn.

A Rout not a Ball.

Has it just been too long since I reviewed books, that I'm struggling to put my finger on what I didn't like?  Too much exposition?

I think the heart of the matter may be the premise of the series. I will admit that I did not read the first book in the series (maybe). So the principle supporting characters, if you follow me, may have been more engagingly developed that they have been in the books I've read (I doubt it).

Basically there is a cold Duke who seems to have twenty or thirty wards and he meets with other controlling English types to scheme marriage alliances.

If I had any interest in these people's power plays this might be okay, but I don't. Beyond that you are left with two people who have been betrothed by someone else and they accidentally fall madly in love. Again in the hands of an amazing characterizer, maybe this could work.

The writing is fine, the sex is fine, the plots are okay. You get the picture. Meh.

Historical Romance 2012: 2 of 5 terrible nicknames.

Blogger has seemingly stopped being completely possessed and allowed me to re-create this post from scratch.  My time tested "I'll let it rest" method with computers works again!

The Thousand Names by Django Wexler

So despite being in a "smart" book group I still manage to avoid non-romance books, not quite like the plague, but maybe like changing my sheets.  I read "real" books when my mind gets too sweaty and grungy and I have trouble sleeping.  Oh, maybe that was too much personal information.  (Seriously, how do people change their sheets more than once a month?  It's so much work.)

But I did just finish a book that I picked up solely for the cover. The Thousand Names.  By reading the cover I know it is flintlock fantasy.  I didn't know that was a thing but apparently it is.  A thing.  Basically it's vaguely based on earth history, around Napoleon time frame with accompanying technology but it's a fantasy world with different country names and religions and some magic thrown in for fun.

It's quite long and if you don't think you will enjoy military campaigns, it's not for you.  We follow several characters jumping between them with each chapter and like most of those types of books the coincidences as the threads of the story begin to intertwine did once make me roll my eyes.  But beyond that the characters are great, there were several plot twists that I did not see coming and the strategy of the military campaign was pretty fascinating.  Big thumbs up from me.

Flintlock Fantasy 2013: 4.5 of 5 form square evolutions.

Blogging Again

I might be back.  I recently read a blog post by Jessica at RRR about taking a hiatus from blogging.  She has always amazed me with her ability to read for pleasure, blog intelligently, have a family life and hold a job all at the same time.  When I was blogging I was a stay at home mom with school age kids and while that is not the bon bon eating life it sounds, it's also not the same as being a neurosurgeon and a parent and the mayor of a small Alaskan town either.

Where was I.  Oh, blogging took a lot of my time and my life in the last few years needed all my attention.  I returned to school, my daughter had cancer (twice), I got divorced.  You know, had a couple of things going on.  But right now I am putting in time in a not awesome job with promise of a better one in the future.  My daughter finished her (second) treatment for leukemia and both my kids are old enough to only need intermittent yelling at, not continuous.  So....

And the reason I started blogging still exists.  I have a really hard time when I am standing in book stores remembering if that author whose name I've seen a ton falls into the "Bleck!  Run Away." category or the "Oh yeah, that book had promise" category.

So now that I have found the password to my account :) I'll see if I can't throw a couple reviews and things up here.

Why a kitten?  Cause they're cute.  Duh.

Trouble at the Wedding by Laura Lee Guhrke

Just a quick peek a boo appearance, in case anyone is watching. I did manage to read a romance novel (actually I've read several, reading still beats blogging, I mean really people). I have liked Ms. Guhrke's books since And Then He Kissed Her which made me laugh out loud. Since then my reactions have been up and down but she's still an auto-buy.

Annabelle is from backwater Mississippi and the last thing she wants is true love. She's looking for a friendly business arrangement that will give her entree into society.

Trouble at the Wedding felt pedestrian at the beginning and the parallels with Titanic were downright annoying, but beyond that it met basic requirements for the first half, liked the heroine, liked the hero, only snorted once or maybe twice at the unlikeliness of it all. But at the halfway point there is a plot twist that I have to give full kudos to. Not that clever plot twists should carry an entire book, but this one got me through until the fun interactions of our couple fully distracted me from my everyday life.

Overall nice book, good characters, light on sex, but you know, that has it's place too.

Historical Romance 2012: 3.5 of 5 jugs of moonshine slung over your forearm.