Penelope and Prince Charming by Jennifer Ashley **

I really enjoyed Jennifer Ashley's The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie and so downloaded to my Kindle app another Ashley book, either for cheap or for free. It's so unlike Madness that I had to consult Fantastic Fiction to be sure it was the same author and not just similar names.

OK, I get the whole "fairy tale" part, what with Prince Charming and all. There's even a fictional country where Prince Charming is Prince. And there's a prophecy that he will find the Nvengarian Princess in some small village in England, wearing the Nvengarian ring and lo and behold, there's Penelope's mother with the ring. Of course, she's too old for Charming (whatever his name is -lots of odd Nvengarian names) so she passes the ring on to practical Penelope. And of course, Penelope resists his charms because she's sooo so practical except when she is not resisting and they are boinking like bunnies ALMOST because if they do it before the Nvengarian rituals, they might break the prophecy.

I did read the whole story but sheesh, it was pretty silly and nothing like the prose and emotions in Madness. 2 stars.

Coming Undone by Susan Andersen **

Coming Undone by Susan Andersen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


AUDIO BOOK REVIEW When I read this in print - the 4th in a series that I had really liked - I rated it 2 stars. I thought it seemed too forced, the reactions of the characters not realistic, PJ's character especially being obnoxious. But I got this audiobook free at the library, so I decided to give it a try, since I usually like Susan Andersen's writing. Nicole Poole as narrator gets a sort of B+ on this one from me. She managed to infuse some realism into the story and raise it to 3 stars - hearing it in her voice, rather than just in my head, smoothed some of the reactions. It still felt forced, and Andersen's use of similes in this book got old after the first 4 or 5 dozen. I get it, that's supposed to be how southerners talk, right? (insert wry smile here)

Back to the narration: Poole was good, mostly, but she did have a few times where her pauses seemed to come in the wrong places, as if maybe she hadn't really read it before doing the recording and paused at the end of a page only to take back up on the next one. Her PJ voice was ok, her Jared voice pretty good, her Esme voice - well, minor character, so never mind; her Nell, Hank and Eddie voices all pretty mediocre - but consistent. She also narrated 2 of Rachel Gibson's Author Friends series, and I really liked her voice on those. Maybe she's better with better material!



My first read was in print, June, 2008. Here's that review:

Maybe I'm cursed. Maybe it's the moon.

I didn't much like Coming Undone. And I'm devastated to admit it.

Here I've been starting every one of my reviews of Andersen's books with Another Winner - but now, well, it ain't. And coming on the heels of my not much liking the latest Julia Quinn, it makes me question my very existence. Could it be me??

Coming Undone is the 4th installment in her Marine series, which was supposed to be a trilogy about these 3 former Marine buddies, Coop, Zach and John. Then Andersen decided to write the last one for John's brother-in-law Jared and his buddy PJ who appear in the third book.

I mentioned in that review that some time needed to go by because, after all, PJ was only 13 in that book. Andersen decided she could make it be 15 years that had passed, so the hero and heroine are fully grown up. Which makes it sometime in the future? Her note in the book admits she is using a known soap opera gimmick, where a child is born, then a year or so later, the child is a teenager.

She lost me at about page 20. First, we get a prologue putting Jared into the situation: PJ is now a country music star, and her recording company has hired Semper Fi Security to provide security for her on her upcoming tour. John, head of Semper Fi, chooses Jared to be the one. So now we know Jared is working for John, and that's about all we know.

Then we find PJ, who hasn't really disappeared as the tabloids are saying, but has just decided to take a road trip and hasn't checked in with anyone. PJ has just recently fired her manager - her no-good bitch of a mother - for embezzling, and the old lady is ratting her out to the press with a bunch of lies. I guess we're supposed to imagine the studio fell for the lies and that is why they hired Semper Fi, to keep PJ on the straight 'n' narrow. So, enter Jared. PJ is delighted to see him - it's been 15 years since their 2 week friendship on the streets of Denver, and they didn't keep up after that. Wait, wait, she's only delighted for a minute then she's pissed and the next thing you know, she's let the air out of his tires and split.

WTF?

OK, wait: here is the assignment: per John, "Wild Wind Records retained us to find your old friend Priscilla Jayne." Then he says: "...mission is going to be two-fold. First to locate... Then to accompany her on her tour to make sure she doesn't disappear again."

So, yeah, it sounds like they don't trust her. But I guess we're supposed to remember how she just reacts off the cuff before thinking, like she did at 13. Or something.

Anyway, whatever the reasoning, I didn't follow it. She does everything possible to shake Jared off her trail. And so there's this immediate antagonism. And I just didn't buy it - I didn't buy the way she immediately jumped into his arms when they first met either. I didn't find either reaction reasonable or credible.

Basically, for the first half of the book, he tries to be reasonable and professional with her, and she does everything she can to get him away or in trouble or whatever. She tells a hotel manager he's a stalker. She convinces a bartender to have the bouncer throw him out of a bar where she performs. She lets her band members think he's a nuisance.

He spends a lot of his time reminding himself he's a glacier - and that includes after they finally decide to act on their attraction (attraction? didn't see it coming, did ya?). He's a big cold glacier who - damn him - insists on providing his women with multiple orgasms before succumbing to his own. What a jerk, huh? Well PJ thinks so - because he's so cold and calculating.

She should read Loving Evangeline by Linda Howard if she thinks Jared was cold and calculating. He doesn't begin to reach the level of that hero.

Let's see - I kept plodding onward, thinking maybe, just maybe, I'd get more invested in their story. Andersen does her "we-don't-know-whose-POV-we're-dealing-with" tactic (as well as her including-hyphenated-phrases-to-a-new-level device) to introduce a fanatic. This one's going to show PJ some old tyme religion if she doesn't straighten up. So just when Jared decides his work is done, we get a warning from the psycho, and his job changes from watchdog to protector.

Then, let's see, yada yada yada, blah blah blah, oh yeah, the secondary romance. We have to out an ugly duckling. Nell is a song-writer/manager. They sure seem to have a tiny little crew - 2 musicians, Nell and PJ are it (oh and the bus driver). It seemed inadequate, using my theater background for comparison. Anyway, Nell is not thin, doesn't wear makeup and dresses blandly. And she has a crush on 1 of the 2 musicians. Of course, duh, he (Eddie) only dates young bimbos, and the other musician (Hank) is the one with the hots for her. So - let's take Nell shopping, and let's get her some better clothes and makeup so someone will notice her.

To be honest, I wanted Jared to make a sort of play for Nell. He did compliment her but maybe PJ would have been a leeeetle bit more aware if... OK, so Andersen didn't play the jealousy card. But I needed something to get me interested. Now we have our swan Nell - and Eddie asks her if she lost weight. This crushes the life out of her crush - meanwhile Hank is bowled over. One thing eventually leads to another and Hank and Nell finally get hot and heavy. Just to be sure, later in the story Eddie almost sees the light, asks her out and she turns him down. OK, whew, got that outta our systems, huh?

OK, where was I? Oh yeah. I gave up and went to bed, thinking maybe if I finished it today I'd be happier. The stalker is finally revealed through some sloppy PI work - really, Jared, what took you so long? And he makes a move at the one time Jared lets down his guard. Jared manages to rush in at the last minute, and in her frenzy PJ tells him she loves him.

Whoa. (like we didn't all expect this, even if there wasn't quite enough evidence to actually say we saw it coming). That brings his guard up. OH NO MR BILL! Jared can't trust anyone but the Marines and his family!! And especially not PJ who left him without a trace after their 2-week ordeal 15 years ago when she was 13!!!

And on top of all this inanery, what in the world does this phrase in the epilogue mean: "a brunette with pale skin, red lipstick and a striking white streak in her black hair" Hello - is she brunette "a person with dark (brown) hair" or is her hair black? (it's Ronnie, from Book 1, of course - it's black). Arg.

OK look, I can't give it 2 stars. Really, I just can't - can I? Because, I mean, maybe it's ME. Maybe it's because I bought it full price instead of swapping it on PBS. Maybe it's the phase of the moon (half). By the way, they both admit they love each other, and the epilogue is their wedding shower, in case there was any question of a HEA.

Cutting Loose by Susan Andersen **(*)

My first review of this book from 2008 was of the paperback, and it is the first in a trilogy, so now that I've read the second (the third hasn't been published and might not be) AND the audio of this one, I'm going to go ahead and give it a 3rd star to bring it to the "it's Ok but mediocre" level.

so here's the first review:
--------------------------------

arg. One of my favorite authors, and this new release is a stinker.

I think it's a combination of things that I really don't like:

(1) I don't like the voice of this book. Too... too much jargon, too much hard to follow banter that doesn't sound like people really talk. And jeez, this guy Dev - come'on - no guy thinks like this, do they??
2010 audio comment: the "voice" of the book is slightly easier to listen to, even if the narrator isn't that good.

(2) Forced - we're forced to read all this odd psychobabble about Jane the heroine and her parents and how because they're so dramatic, she's the complete opposite. We're forced into believing these 3 women are best friends forever - it's a trilogy of women thing. I have liked the 3-women premise before but this time I just don't get it. Which one was the "blond friend" anyway? Couldn't she have just referred to them by their names?
2010 audio comment: now that I have read the second book in the trilogy AND heard this audiobook, it really was easier to keep track of the women since I wasn't able to skim. The psychobabble was still reaching though.

(3) Oh puhleez, the villain! Give me a f*cking break. I skimmed most of his scenes.
2010 audio comment: still think the villain doesn't come across as a 3 dimensional, potentially real person - still too comic-book-ish for me, especially given this one doesn't have Andersen's great humor

(4) The storyline - the women inherit a mansion from a rich old woman? It just didn't ring true.
2010 audio comment: I still find this storyline implausible. But then, I read time travel, so I guess I'll go with the leap of faith.

There was more. Do Americans of Irish descent actually call their fathers "Da"? Maybe, but then their speech pattern was a little... Irish... too so were they actually Irish? Or just stereotypical?
2010 audio comment: the narrator - who wasn't great - did not give them any Irish accent and the "Da" seemed out of place. Aunt Eileen's brogue wasn't good either.

I started to give this 3 stars. I did in fact read the whole thing, after all. But then as I thought about it, I realized I. Did. Not. Like. It. (that is a direct reference to the book by the way.) So even though I've loved so many of Andersen's books, I just can't find it in me to like this one.

But it's worth a credit on PBS where some hapless fool, uh I mean some other member has it wishlisted. And hey - there's even a review there from someone who did like it. Go figure.

OK, I'll do a little bit of description.

Three women, friends from elementary school. Heroine: Jane - parents third-rate actors, overly dramatic, quasi-alcoholic. BFFs Ava and Poppy - one is blonde, one is red-headed, one is rich, one is Darma from Darma and Greg - but who can remember which is which? Not me.

Irish American family, 4 brothers running a construction business; 2 are married, 2 single; 1 is undergoing chemo, so our hero Devlin comes home from his usual life of sailing yachts overseas to help out the family business.

The women inherit a Seattle mansion. Jane is a junior curator at a museum that inherited jewels and clothing from same deceased. The 3 BFF women hire the Irish American fellows to renovate.

Dev and Jane have instant across-the-room chemistry, then have hot monkey sex, then - oh noes! - fall in love.

Meanwhile a really really evil bad guy steals things from the mansion.

OK, see where it is going? Neither do I.

2 stars.
-------
2010 Audio Comments - yeah, I can give it a qualified 3 stars, but the narrator wasn't great. She wasn't AWFUL but her reading was sing-songy, and her men's voices - especially considering how low her own voice as narrator is - were done as if they were teens in the middle of changing voices. She used a sort of hoarse sound for Dev, the hero. And I'm afraid she didn't give Andersen's attempt at sounding like 20-somethings (20+10 in this case) any credence - she just read it like she read the narration, so the excess of jargon fell flat. Didn't work in my head reading it; didn't work in my head hearing this narrator speak it. Maybe it calls for a 20-something who talks like that to read it.

thank goodness for free library downloads

Caine's Reckoning by Sarah McCarty **

I went back and forth in my head about the rating for this. I figure 3 stars is "eh, ok" but the more I thought about it, 3 stars is "I liked it" and I really didn't. I mean, I didn't hate it. I finished it. But I didn't really like it.

I got it on audio, and that may or may not have colored my rating. The narrator was ok - I'd give her 3 stars. She had a southern accent thing going on - I'm not sure I've listened to anything by her before, so I don't know if that's her normal speech pattern or something for the book. Everyone had a southern accent. That's ok, it was Texas (decades ago - not sure exactly of the era, but "long ago", 19th century. Even those of Indian blood had the southern accent. Go figure.

I knew McCarty's work is a little more raw and explicit than mainstream, although I wouldn't say it's "romantica" (romance + erotica) so much as just, well, more explicit. I was expecting that. Somehow, though, it became almost pedantic. Ok, we're gonna spread some lips here, and there's gonna be some juicy bits and "cream" and then he's gonna have to taste her and at this point, I'm thinking, get it over with and let's get back to the story. It wasn't really sexy - more like a primer in ways to describe foreplay and sex in books, with lots of words that quickly became icky triggers for me, even though in other books they don't bother me. OK, call it a pussy - a few times, maybe. But in every other sentence it started to give me an eye twitch.

The heroine Desi started out feisty and someone who could take care of herself, then when she got a little cleaned up, she was this weird prudish girl who had been raised rich with not a care in the world, and thought so many things were not proper. And here she'd been a captive of comancheros and then used as a whore for several months - talk about not proper. And then - spoiler alert - turns out she likes a little rough stuff after all, which seemed sort of weird since she'd been so abused for so long. I had a hard time keeping up.

Since it is the first book of the Hell's Eight, of course we had to meet the other 7 (Caine being #1) and their sweet feisty elderly female caretaker (yeah, she's younger than I am, so elderly, huh?) who keeps them all honest and cleaned up. And her man. And the dog. That all took a while.

I dunno, I listened to the whole thing, and decided the bad guys were really really evil and bad (boooo!! hisssss!) and the good guys were incredibly good (yay! whoo hoo!) in a sort of cartoony way. If you like erotic romance, fully described bodily fluids, butt seks and eye candy covers mixed with 19th century Texas Rangers, go git it. I'll save my audible.com credits, though, thank you very much.

Identity Unknown by Suzanne Brockmann **

First of all, I wrote almost the entire review, and then inadvertently closed the window before saving. Shit.

Second of all, I don't feel the book was worth rewriting the review. I'll just say this: after 7 books where Brockmann had me believing the characters were acting in accordance with their background experience and training, she finally slipped in a Waaay Too Stoopid To Live heroine. Here's what I wrote in a post on PBS forum:

So I'm reading along, enjoying the story. Oh No Mr. Bill - the bad guy is around the corner and he's got a gun!!! What does TSTL heroine do when SEAL hero says to get outta there? SHE STORMS THE VILLAIN WHO IS HOLDING THE UZI. And does she have any training in weapons, firearms, survival, rescue? No. She's a cowgirl and she can ride a horse.

Bang! Sigh. Bangbangbang. The first bang is the book on the wall. The last 3 are my head on the desk. But does that end it? NO. I pick the book up, and the villain makes them get in the truck and they drive far far away. All 3 get out, and while SEAL and villain fight, hero yells: Hey Heroine, get in the truck and get outta here! (note: they already called the sheriff, so if she would just LISTEN to the SEAL she could get him and direct Sheriff with gun to them) What does the TSTL heroine do? SHE GOES INTO THE WATER TO HELP THE SEAL.

Yes, you read that right. He's a SEAL and she thinks she can save him while he's fighting a UZI-toting villain IN THE WATER. This is the same heroine who, earlier in the book, was not able to save a small child clinging to a branch in the water.

I did finish the book. The hero has amnesia for most of the book and doesn't know he's a Navy SEAL. He goes to the address in his pocket, a dude ranch in New Mexico where he meets TSTL heroine Becca, Dude Ranch Manager, who tries to save him over and over, like he needs it. Meanwhile, the Team Ten Alpha group guys are looking for Mitch, the Gray Group member/SEAL who has gone missing with the load of plutonium he was using to lure the bad guys. Did Mitch become a turncoat and betray his country?? (no, silly, he has amnesia) All this while Mitch wonders, Am I a convicted felon/murderer/assassin?? (no, silly, you have amnesia but you're a hero Navy SEAL undercover) There's no mystery for us because, duh, we're being told both sides. The only mystery is, what was Brockmann thinking when she had this stoopid heroine try to save a Navy SEAL?

The plot just didn't work for me, and those TSTL moments had me so riled up I wanted to scream. But I still only "didn't like it" (2 stars) as opposed to 1 star/hated it/DNF. Grrrr.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen **

OK - this is a classic in the Romance field, actually written during the Regency period that so many favorite Romance novels take place.

It's also on the AAR Top 100 of 2007 (and other years as well), so it fell in my TBR list. I decided to listen to it in audio book form when my March audible.com credit became available. First, I looked at the free online websites for audio books - it is, after all, many years out of copyright at this point. The only one I found was read by a young woman in an American accent - a few seconds into it, I decided I'd rather pay. Then I went on Audible.com only to realize there are so many versions, I would have trouble deciding. I did 2 things: I looked for reviews that praised the narrators then did the sample listenings from 4 versions I picked from those, and basically I chose one at random, since I couldn't decide.

The version I chose - for anyone interested - was narrated by Josephine Bailey. I'm trying to decide if hers was a good narration or not. Frankly, it's hard to decide since the language is so obscure, and I had so much trouble following the story. Multiple negatives turned into possible positives. Things insinuated which I couldn't understand. I think Ms. Bailey probably did a good rendition. She did manage to use a different voice for most of the characters (her Jane and her Elizabeth seemed awfully similar - her Lydia mostly higher pitched and louder than Jane/Elizabeth - her male voices different from females).

The thing is, I could not figure out when it was that Mr. Darcy (whatever was his first name?) decided he was madly in love with Elizabeth. And I guess it's supposed to be ironic that the pride Mr Darcy is accused of is what kept Elizabeth from considering him anything other than... not worthy? A bad sort of fellow? Her pride, I mean, not his, is what kept her from... whatever.

Maybe if I had actually read the words, I could have spent more time allowing my brain to find the meaning of them. As they flowed into my brain in Ms. Bailey's voice, I found myself mostly frowning and wondering what the hell she just said.

So - did I dislike the recording, or the story? Unfortunately, they are at this moment the same. I have only the recording of the story to go by - and I did not like the mental calisthenics I had to go through to figure out what was being said. I guess I need the contemporary American translation to understand it.

So sue me. 2 stars.

A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons **

This is a book that's been in my TBR for a really long time - I don't know if my sister gave it to me or I picked it up at a library sale (not likely, from the description). It seems it was an Oprah Book Club pick at some time (or I thought I read that somewhere...)

From the blurb, I expected a love story, and from the opening I knew it wasn't going to be a romance since the heroine died of cancer. But somehow I never got it. I never saw the love story. OK, she married young, into a bad, abusive marriage, even though her upbringing was apparently solid and Dick-and-Jane. In her own words, it was her family's fault for never letting her make her own mistakes as a child (??) - not sure what that is about. The first husband died, and somehow that we are never privy to, she marries Jack who is 20 years her elder.

The story is first told, in first person, from each character's POV, back and forth. His after her death, hers just before. The last chapter is then from several POVs - the neighbor, the neighbor's daughter, Jack's. And it ended without any resolution for me. Plus I never even felt sad, not for Ruby, not for Jack. It just affected me like it was a 90 second story on the news: a woman, married to a man 20 years older, got cancer and died today, leaving him grieving.

So it was a 2-star read for me. I wasn't drawn into the story. I didn't care about the characters. OK - it does count for the Winter 2009 Challenge for my 2nd book that's been in the TBR a long time, though.

Finger Prints by Barbara Delinsky **

This one was the best of the 3 in the book but wasn't good. It's closer to Romance than the first 2, maybe it's a romantic suspense.

Robyn Hart/Carly Quinn is in the witness protection program. She has a new identity and a new life as Carly, the Boston school teacher, instead of Robyn, the Chicago investigative reporter who was the state's main witness in a big arson case.

In her new identity, she's constantly feeling alone and on the run til she meets new neighbor, lawyer Ryan Cornell, and falls in love with him. But of course, she can't tell him her real identity - or, well I guess she can but doesn't.

So they get to know each other, but she keeps her distance emotionally from him. Meanwhile, there's Sam, the US Marshal assigned to her case, and Sheila, her bodyguard in Chicago who decides to relocate to Boston and becomes her friend and sometimes bodyguard.

There's intrigue and suspense as - ok, a spoiler but it's ssoooo obvious you can't miss is - Sheila becomes a turncoat because she's never gotten what she deserved in life. Sheila concocts a plan to make it look as if Carly committed suicide, but bungles it, and dies in the process. And Carly and Ryan get their HEA.

Dang. This book just wasn't very good, and my whole reason for reading Delinsky was for a comfort read similar to Lake News and An Accidental Woman. 2 stars.

Within Reach by Barbara Delinksy **

This is the 2nd novel in the hardcover "3 complete novels" book. While it wasn't quite as bad as the first on (A Woman Betrayed), it did have the adultery hot button and wasn't much better a story.

The heroine, Danica, is trapped in a loveless marriage. She meets the hero Michael at the beach house she and her husband bought in Kennebunkport, a house she was hoping the 2 of them could get away to and rekindle the marriage. Yeah, well, the clues were all there - her husband was an in-the-closet gay politician using her as cover so he could get a big political appointment. She hated politics, having been raised in a political family where politics came before her. But she married this much older guy hoping to please Daddy. A recipe for imminent disaster, since Daddy will never approve of anything anyway.

Yada yada yada, Michael Buchanan is from a publishing family, whose patriarch hated Danica's father's politics and was vocal about it in his newspapers, just to make it more sinister. She and he fall deeply in love but she manages to keep it platonic until her husband refuses to divorce her. Then they go all the way and conduct a slightly clandestine affair. (roll eyes here)

I guess it was written in the 80s and that must be why it seemed so weird that she couldn't just divorce him? Or maybe it was the Daddy thing. Well, then she's tipped off about his sexuality and holds that up as her trump card.

There's some political and legal intrigue, not much, and then she gets her divorce and she and Michael live HEA.

It wasn't that great. 2 stars.

Thunder and Roses by Mary Jo Putney **

OK - I could consider this a 2.5, maybe even almost a 3 star read. But here's why I'm rating it 2 - it's on the AAR Top 100 of 2007, so I was expecting something good or at least better.

I can't compare it at all to how I feel about Lisa Kleypas' books - I mean, she's on the AAR list too, and I don't like her style, and I think I gave her books 3 stars (maybe 2). But this book - omigawd - the purple prose, the absolutes and melodrama from page 1 - omigawd!

It also wasn't a DNF like Stephanie Laurens' 2 books I (didn't) read. I felt obliged to keep going on this one, sort of like looking at a wreck, because I couldn't stop. To be honest, about 20 pages or so in, I actually thought it might end up being funny - you know, like all the exaggerations and such were going to be mocked later on.

But no.

The storyline rang familiar, although it was published in the early 90s so it's possible the one I'm thinking of with the half Rom/half aristocrat was written later. (also a series, cannot recall the author/title of that one though) Oh wait, I recognized a lot of the plot lines from (probably later) books.

Plain, prim, prudish spinster and Methodist minister's daughter Clare meets lusty half Gypsy Demon Earl Nicholas - he's widowed, and it's rumored he killed the first wife and slept with his grandfather's young wife, which killed his grandfather. Yeah, really.

There's a series (Fallen Angels) of which this is the first, but we meet the other fellows, one of whom owns the nearby mine. It's set in Wales, and the mine is a hazardous dangerous mess, in which young children toil and die. Ok, I am not mocking how horrible life was for poor people in Wales in the early 19th century, but my gawd the descriptions practically begged me to weep, wail and keen while reading. Oh, the misery! So Clare goes to Nicholas to ask his help. "Yes," he says, "if you will live with me as a Counterfeit Mistress for 3 months, which will ruin your reputation." He figures she'll run screaming and leave him alone.

Oh, no, the brave, fearless Clare takes the dare - her reputation can survive!!

So he spends a lot of time seducing her, and she resisting - but not wanting to resist. In fact, in one amorous embrace on the pool table, she ALMOST loses her virginity!! But does not, on a technicality only, because he didn't go all the way in..... Yeah there was bare skin to bare skin and some penetration and blood. I'd say her reputation was ruined!! But that's just me.

I think The Perils of Pauline was less melodramatic. Blah blah blah, we have dangerous mine with explosions, issues with parents, mysterious happenings, murderous former friends and inability to truly love. And Clare was a sanctimonious thing too, enough that I wondered if it qualified as Inspirational Romance. After all, once she decides she's actually in love with Nicholas, she has a religious conversion from non-believer to Seeing The Light and can pray again.

There are a couple of action scenes (the fire, the fight at the OK Corral... no, that's not it) with the whip that had me just shaking my head and thinking, oh no he did not.

I think this story could be considered Old Style writing, and I will try again with this author (there are 3 more on the AAR Top 100!!), but man-o-man this writing style is not my cup o'tea. 2 stars. Serial Challenge and AAR Top 100 Quest and no notable pets.

Mavreen by Claire Lorrimer **

This is an old-school, old-style historical romance - about 550 pages or so of angst and drama and purple prose that doesn't really offend but doesn't exactly make for the best read either. Mavreen (not Maureen) is the illegitimate daughter of a titled aristocrat and the governess of his 2 daughters. His wife is frigid and apparently hates men and sex, so he dallies until he meets his true love, who remains his mistress for the rest of his life (Clarrie). He doesn't know about his daughter because the governess runs away and only sends him a note on her deathbed about their child.

Mavreen is a curious mix of hoyden, wild-spirited child and gracious, loving and sensual young woman - not a mean bone in her body, independent and all things good. While her father doesn't ever publicly recognize her and indeed doesn't even tell her for years, he does act as a kindly uncle, making sure the family raising her has plenty of funds and resources. When she is about 15, she meets the Frenchman Gerard who holds her heart all her life. Unfortunately for both Mavreen and Gerard, Gerard must marry titled money, and so is betrothed to another woman. Mavreen has an offer from a friend of her father for her hand in marriage as well - a marriage that will bring her into society and allow her to live a good, respectable life with a man 3 times her age. Gerard, the bastard, asks her to promise NOT to do this - where the hell does he get off asking her that when he himself is betrothed to money?? He plans to make her his mistress, living the life of her father's Clarrie.

Mavreen decides to marry the old guy instead, thwarting Gerard - who meanwhile never did get around to marrying.

Then the 2 embark on a lot of years of one marrying then the other, so that every time they met they couldn't marry due to a previous engagement. The old guy dies, right before Gerard marries. Then Mavreen marries again, and Gerard's wife dies. What a tangled web, huh? And yes it gets close to 600 pages of this, racing about England and the continent after each other and taking on spouses and lovers to fill in between the 2 or 3 times they ever actually get together. Gawd it was frustrating. At one point it was almost like that play where the married man and married woman meet once a year at a summer cabin for a long-term, 1x a year affair - but Gerard misses the first meeting and Mavreen rebels by becoming a courtesan for a while.

If you like old style, purple prose and a couple that doesn't get together much, this is your book. Otherwise, stay away. 2 stars.

Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer **

I got this on audio book and it took me weeks to finish it - and it wasn't that great. 2 stars - way too confusing plot and annoying heroine and weird hero.

I'm not even going to bother with much of the plot - Agnes writes a cooking column entitled "Cranky Agnes" which reputation she lives up to by whacking boyfriends in the head with a cast iron skillet or stabbing them in the throat with forks. She has a best girlfriend whose daughter is getting married, and Agnes is hosting the wedding at her home. The Hitman has a shady past associated with many of Agnes' neighbors and friends - he's actually a government agent on the trail of a bad guy or girl. It's pretty danged confusing, with some Italian last names and an Irish-accented guy and a bad mother, and Agnes comes across as deranged, and true to Crusie-Mayer story crafting, a lot of people are murdered. In the end, the last deaths were truly mystifying and in my opinion, gratuitous and out of character.

Here Comes Santa Claus by Sandra Hill & 2 others **

This was an anthology/novel of sorts - the authors collaborated and each took 1 h/h couple, and each wrote a chapter, so it wasn't 3 separate stories but one long, boring story that I didn't like.

OK - it didn't work for me. At all. For one thing, waaaay too many clichés - in what they said, in what they did. The characters were 2 dimensional for me and the secondary characters came across as cardboard. The married-50-years couple - how many times did they have to remind us of that? Were we likely to forget since it was mentioned every time their names were invoked? The elderly sexed-up spinster doctors? Ick. And "thanks" for making one of the elderly folks be 50 - being 53, I really did NOT appreciate that!

But was the story good? No. OK - it's 3 best friend guys, all orphans from the same group home in Maine, now adults making their way to the wedding of their mentor George. Hey - how about fleshing out George a little? He's just now getting married, and yet he was an adult when these 35-year-old guys were kids? But no, we get nothing about George except each of the guys and one of the girls really looked up to him (but we don't ever learn exactly why - he helped them, but how?).

The heroines weren't particularly likable either. One was from the home town - wait, actually 2 were, but the guys only knew 1 - Reba - who is now the director of some old folks home, or something, that sends out Santas to visit homeless shelters at Christmas. The bus that drives them around is the only mode of transportation in the area so the fellows have to get on it to get to the home town where the marriage is. So we match up guy #1 with Reba - ok, they've always had a thing for each other and they acted on it as teens but then he left and didn't come back for some reason which I never figured out. Maybe it was in there - I was bored and skimmed a lot.

Guy #2 is a private detective looking for a woman who skipped bail, and miraculously he runs into her in the airport - unaware - and then figures it out and takes her along on the Santa bus. Well, she didn't skip bail, there was some other convoluted reason she was on the lam and he was being paid to find her. Lo and behold, they fall in love. Yeah, just like that. And she was really on the right side of the law. And she was a famous fashion designer too. Right.

Guy #3 is a former football player who was in a car accident and now walks with a cane, and it seems George fixed him up with Girl #3, who was also from their home town and also from a group home for orphans but the guys never knew her even though George did. Hmmm. Their tale was the worst of all.

And in the end the guys all proposed marriage. Right. Oh and they made it to the wedding and we still didn't get to meet George.

Did not like it. 2 stars.

Suddenly You by Lisa Kleypas **

What is it about me reading Lisa Kleypas? I just Do Not Get It with her popularity. It's not bad grammar, or TSTL heroines - I just was not interested in the story. At All.

I read for the feeling - I want to feel something: sorrow, anger, grief, happiness, lust, elation, despair, SOMETHING. "Bored" was not the feeling I was looking for but I'm afraid that is what I felt.

I read most of this book last night, and when I picked up the book today to finish it, could not even remember who the hero was or why she was planning to marry someone else. Yes, that's how NOT invested I was in this story.

And at the end, there's a marathon of sex - all of which I glossed over, blah blah blah, yada yada yada, because I just Did Not Care.

The plot, redux, virgin spinster bluestocking on the shelf author Amanda goes to a Madam (aka brothel owner) to hire a gigolo so she can lose her virginity on her 30th birthday. The scheming Madam sends a rascally rogue of a publisher Jack who has been wanting to sign the author. She doesn't confide why she is sending him, so he goes not knowing the Real Truth. Hah hah hah, isn't that an amusing conceit. Amanda lets on she thinks he is a gigolo, so he seduces her, and then lo and behold, they meet at a party and the cat is out of the bag: He's the Big Bad Rogue Publisher.

First, they get along like cats and dogs, but then they conduct an affair - sexual and business - and then for some reason, she ends it, and truthfully I cannot even remember why. He has emotional baggage about being the bastard son of an Earl or something, sent to a school for bastards where he was a leader of men, all of whom would now follow him anywhere. Not that they figure into the plot, when you get right down to it, so I'm not sure of the point of all that.

Well, she finally meets another man who asks her to marry him, and then... Come on, it's Romance, we know she has to end up with Jack, cuz he's the hero.

I really should just go ahead and give it 2 stars, cuz I didn't like it. OK, that's it, 2 stars, and I am NOT reading any more!!

The Mulberry Tree by Jude Deveraux **

Ahhh... Jude Deveraux - sometimes I love her stories and sometimes... I don't.

I didn't love this one. At all.

The story revolves around Lillian Manville who changes her identity to Bailey after her wealthy husband Jimmie dies and leaves her nothing except a pittance in funds and a run-down farm in Virginia. The billions he leaves to his older brother and sister whom he despised - in fact they get everything, including Bailey's clothes.

The mystery is why - and to be honest, now that I've finished, I don't have a clue why. OK, I know the mystery but I still don't get WHY.

For one thing, when one dies and leaves everything to his/her spouse of 15 or so years, how can anyone contest that and win? Especially when the deceased is a billionaire? So that doesn't seem to be the real reason.

OK set that aside and follow Bailey's journey to discover herself. She was married at 17 to a man some years older than she, somewhere between 9 and 15 years (the years don't all add up in the book...) older, who was on the road to being rich and famous. He plucked her out of a local state or county fair where she was the winner of a jam contest - she was overweight and had an awful crooked, broken nose, but somehow she was the love of his life in the few minutes they spent together before getting married that same day. Go figure.

From the flashbacks and memories Bailey has, we learn that Jimmie did indeed seem to really treasure and love her. But he also had affairs - or seemed to, I guess (same thing in her mind). He was also incredibly, abusively controlling - he kept her fat and ugly and hidden away on purpose, to keep her dependent on him. Then he died and suddenly she was lost. Her mother dead, her only other living relative was her estranged sister; she really had no friends, no one - except Jimmie's lawyer who helped set her up in the farm house.

Then we meet the odd characters of the little town in Virginia. Creepy odd. At first I thought maybe it was going to be a paranormal, since the first 2 women we meet don't seem to think the other one exists. However, it is just a family feud, and they are cousins who don't speak to each other although they are constantly together. They are 2 of the more normal people in town.

Then we spend time with Bailey who is trying to figure out what to do with her life and while doing so, she stumbles over some town secrets. What do the secrets have to do with her? Wellll - maybe there's a connection between this town and her dead husband? Maybe that's the reason he left the billions to his brother and sister and not her?

By the time we get to the turning point in the mystery, I needed a damn scorecard to follow the players. Frankly, I didn't care enough to bother to find paper and write down who was married to whom, who was sleeping with whom, who the parents were of various people. It was a case of a group of small town bullies with a secret that they did everything they could to cover up - and succeeded for years. Where Bailey fits into the story is what you learn when you get to the end. (well, she doesn't really fit in - how's that for a spoiler?)

Since it turns out Jimmie knew the secret all along, why didn't he do something about it while he was alive?? Why did he let his brother and sister get away with so much? Were we supposed to believe he was planning on doing it later or something? And the biggest mystery of all is - why did so many people write positive reviews about this??

There is a (mild) love interest in the story - Matt. Well. I dunno. He's just a local guy, related to but unaware of the town's secret. But it really isn't Matt and Bailey's story - it is more a story of the town, as uncovered by Bailey while she tries to get on her feet after being left destitute by her dead billionaire husband. There was very little romance in this book - I'm not even going to tag it romance. One reviewer mentioned that she feels Deveraux is good at writing about women who have come to crossroads in their lives - maybe that's what I missed about this book, it was about a turning point and not about romance at all. There were several turning points - Bailey's, after Jimmie's death; Jimmie's, when he left the small town and became a billionaire - it seemed every character (and there were a bunch of them) had a major crossroad issue.

I didn't hate it and I finished it, so it gets 2 stars.

Love Me Forever by Johanna Lindsey **

I read this book for the Readers of Romance Fall Challenge: Read a book by Johanna Lindsey.

I bought it used at Hastings for under $5 in hardcover - that's why I got this title (cheap, available).

I had never read any Johanna Lindsey before, so it was a good thing for me to do, I figured. After all, she is a New York Times Bestselling Author, it says so on the cover.

And I didn't like it. Now, I am thinking I could have given it 3 stars, in comparison to other stories I've rated 3 stars. The writing itself wasn't exactly bad - no glaring grammar issues, no continuity mistakes that I caught. The basic plotline, while nothing unique, wasn't bad. The characters didn't exactly annoy me. What is it that made me go with 2 stars instead of 3?

It's because she's a New York Times Bestselling Author with a boatload of fans out there, and I don't get it. I. Do. Not. Get. It. (that's contemporary-speak for emphasis). I found the story meandering around like it was the damned Mississippi River - a little curve here, a little curve there. The POV confused me - it was less like one of the characters reporting it, in 3rd person, and more like a golf commentator, whispering it from the side. I felt no emotions at all, not love, not hate, not anything, while reading this book. I want a story to get to me, to get under my skin and make me concerned for the characters - even knowing there will be a HEA, I want to worry how they could ever make it. And then when they do, I want to feel relieved that at last they made it over the obstacle, the big hurdle, and found their love. If it's humorous, I want to at least grin. If there's suspense, I want to wonder whodunit.

I kept looking for something quotable to illustrate what I mean, but I couldn't find anything in particular that would work out of context. I just followed the words and waited for them to move me and they did not.

The story is about Kimberly and Lachlan. It's obvious this is the sequel to another story (I didn't research it in advance) where Lachlan has fallen in love with Megan, who is now married and has a child with Devlin the Duke of something-or-other. Apparently, in Megan and Devlin's story, Megan was always in love with the Duke of Something-or-other but had never met him, and for some reason that you'll have to read the other story to learn, Devlin was slumming it as Megan's family's stable boy. (ah, the stable boy fantasy!) I guess Devlin as the Stable Boy ravishes Megan and elopes with her to Gretna Green, which is the closest town in Scotland where Brits can get married without whatever issues they face in England. And I guess on that trip, Lachlan stops them to rob them and kidnaps Megan.

So, it's over a year later, Megan and Devlin have their HEA, but poor Lachlan is still pining away for sweet Megan. In addition, we learn Lachlan is reduced to highway robbery because his stepmother stole all their money (over 100,000 pounds! wow!) and left after his father died. The highway robbery doesn't bring in enough cash to fund a clan, so Lachlan gets invited by his Aunt Margaret to someone's house to find a rich wife. Coincidentally, his Aunt Margaret is Devlin's Aunt Margaret by marriage, go figure, and now Lachlan is there in the house with his sweet Megan. His plan: to convince Megan they are soul mates and she must leave Devlin. (Mind you, Megan is not the heroine of this book.)

:rolleyes:

Kimberly is just coming out of one year of mourning for her beloved mother who passed on. Her father's a mean, cold, bitter fellow who Kimberly just tunes out. She is an only child, and her mother bequeathed a mighty sum to her. During her year of mourning, her betrothed couldn't wait for her because he had a lot of gambling debt, so he dumped her and married someone else rich. Now she's practically an old maid, and Papa has another wife for himself in mind who wants no competition. So Kimberly must wed and get out of the house. Papa asks Devlin to take on this project - so Kimberly is sent off to Megan and Devlin's to find a husband.

Can you guess what happens? Well, the basic plot is, Lachlan and Kimberly meet but don't like each other. Lachlan has eyes only for Megan, and Kimberly doesn't want to play second fiddle to another woman in her husband's eyes.

So why does Lachlan end up in Kimberly's bed, taking her virginity and ravishing her to a fare-thee-well somewhere near the middle of the story? I have no idea. Although it was vaguely explained as something to do with how much Kimberly drank, I just didn't buy it. It came totally out of the blue for me. So who does he want, Kimberly or Megan?? He still thinks he wants Megan at this point, and he was just doing what Kimberly wanted, a tumble. What? In what universe?

There's a bunch of twists and turns, mostly incredible (per the book jacket blurb, "outrageous" is the adjective). There are some other prospects for Kimberly - many of whom seemed really more suitable. Frankly I was rooting for James the widower to be her husband. Needless to say, Lachlan and Kimberly marry and then we have to suffer through even more of their weird story when they return home to Scotland. There's a woman there who's in love with Lachlan. What a bitch she was, and if that was supposed to be humorous, what she did to Kimberly and how she ended up where she did, then I must have lost my sense of humor somewhere. I thought what she did was horrifying.

What I learned from this story was that sometimes people think they are in love with someone but they aren't. It sorta shakes the whole foundation of my romance reading - does that mean that maybe Megan and Devlin aren't really in love and will eventually grow apart? What about all the other HEAs? Was Lachlan actually in love with Kimberly, or was that another trick? What about Nessa, are we sure she wasn't in love with Lachlan?

Oh - and if you are averse to this, I shall forewarn you there is a Secret Baby plot, but it isn't Kimberly's baby... And what it had to do with anything, I have no clue, just story filler for all I could tell. I think it was supposed to explain why a character was like he was, but really, can't a character just be grumpy without having been cuckolded as well?

So this story rates 2 stars for me because I really: Did. Not. Get. It. Who did love whom? Which was real love, and how did they know?? I feel sorta like the lyrics from that song from Chorus Line: I felt nothing. For this story, it's as if I started it expecting at least 3 stars, and it just dropped to 2.

Twin of Fire by Jude Deveraux **

Ok, now that I've read the companion book to Twin of Ice, I can definitely say it was a 2 star read.

I was so confuzzled by Twin of Ice that, to be fair, I gave it 3 stars, hoping that maybe reading Twin of Fire would clear it up and I'd at least find it average or mediocre.

Nope. I struggled and slogged and... ok, I finally ended up skimming just to get it over with, because I couldn't bring myself to DNF it. ("did not finish")

This is Blair's side of the story - how she managed to boink her twin sister's fiancé and marry him, then rewrite her personal history to be that she was always in love with him.

There were so many odd things in this story. For one thing, everyone in town always called both girls Blair Houston, since they were identical twins, one named Blair, one named Houston. However, the girls are now 21 and Blair has been living with relatives in Pennsylvania since she was 12. Uh, no one realized that it was only Houston living there all this time? Go figure. Mind you, this is even when they call her house where she is living with her husband - uh, they still can't tell which twin would be answering? What is it, a town of dolts?

Once again, there was weird dialogue where the response had nothing to do with the statement it was in reply to, over and over. As an example, Blair asks Lee, How often do you come here (to a cabin)? and Lee replies, Since I was a child. Hmmm. I'm thinking, and how does that quantify how often you come here, Lee?

Plus we had oodles of that obnoxious plot conceit where the heroine is determined to, no matter what, follow - or lead - the hero into every dangerous situation there is, because... well, because she said so. And the flip side of that is the hero insisting he'll tie her to the bed to keep her safe while putting himself in numerous dangerous situations, even though he's not an ex-Navy SEAL or undercover operative. Arg. Hate that.

Well, all in all, the story was bizarre, the characters odd, the writing so weird I found myself staring at the page wondering if it was a translation from a foreign language. A Bad Translation.

I'm not even going to elaborate any more on the plot - something about mines, lady doctors, twins (did I mention Blair already had a fiancé when she had sex with her sister's fiancé?), well too many different things were going on and...

2 stars. I've wasted enough time on this series.

Twin of Ice by Jude Deveraux **

What a truly odd book this was.

I sometimes really like Jude Deveraux's stories, and sometimes I really don't like them. But this one - well, I just found it truly odd.

First of all, it often seemed as if major chunks of information were missing. And - they were. See, this is 2 stories, Twin of Ice and Twin of Fire, taking place at the same time. The Ice Twin is Houston Chandler, always a lady. The Fire Twin is her identical twin sister, Blair Chandler, apparently the opposite. But I read Ice first, and felt a lot of the time like I was missing something.

This isn't the only instance of an author writing different books that take place at the same time. The most recent I've read is Julia Quinn's The Lost Duke of Wyndham/Mr Cavendish, I Presume. In fact, I am thinking maybe I picked up Ice/Fire from a discussion on books with this conceit.

OK - Houston's story is that she is the "good" twin. She has been in love with Dr. Leander Westfield for as long as she can recall, and has been engaged to him for years. In fact, their wedding is just around the corner, so the "evil" (? I guess - since I haven't read her story) twin Blair is in town for the wedding. Blair has become a doctor and was living... elsewhere.

The chain of events that led up to the twins deciding to switch places for an evening still has me baffled. Kane Taggert, the hero, was such a buffoon with such bad language and habits that I was convinced he was going to later "out" himself as just kidding. He somehow appeals to Houston to come to his house for dinner on an evening she has a date with Leander. Houston convinces Blair to go with Leander in her place, since Leander doesn't seem to be able to tell them apart (although Kane can?). Blair - I guess I'll learn more when I read Twin of Fire - manages to sleep with Leander even though up to this point Blair and Leander can barely have a civil conversation. Go figure, 1 week before the wedding and the sister sleeps with her future brother-in-law.

I can't resist letting the cat out of the bag about Kane - he wasn't kidding. He was as rough a hero as I've read about, and pretty obnoxious about it too. Because Blair slept with Leander, they were forced to marry (not sure who told on them though), and the next thing you know, Houston is planning a double wedding with her and Kane as couple #1 and Blair and Leander as couple #2. And if sleeping with her sister's fiancé (and then marrying him) wasn't enough, the Fire Twin bitch tried to switch grooms at the wedding as if no one would notice, theoretically to save Houston from being forced to marry the madman Kane. Maybe after I've read Blair's story I'll feel more empathy for her, but during this book I just wanted to bitch slap her. Hadn't it occurred to Blair that it didn't matter which twin stood where, the wedding license would have the right names??

The balance of the plot is just how Houston and Kane manage to find their HEA - he thinks she married him for money, and nothing she says changes his mind. She discovers he married her to get revenge on another character, and that's another obstacle they have to overcome. The whole thing was just weird enough, though, that I had trouble following.

There seemed to be odd jumps in dialog too, where one person would say something and the response would be so out of left field, I wondered if I skipped a page. Another oddity to me was the juxtaposition of humorous and macabre - lots of suicides and death in this story, surrounded by jokes and people making fun of each other. I Just Did Not Get It.

Sometimes I find a book has characters I dislike, or a story line that annoys me, or even bad grammar. I can't exactly pinpoint what it is about this book that baffled me so. I didn't really hate it as much as I think I should. Maybe reading Twin of Fire will allow me to understand them both better - or maybe I'll read it and decide I really did hate it [ETA: the decision is in: Did Not Like It]. After all, I want my emotions engaged, I want to feel something besides confused when I read, and confused is all I felt about Twin of Ice. Disgusted is was I felt after finishing Twin of Fire: disgust at having wasted a PBS credit or 2 (hopefully I got a deal on them) as well as several hours of reading.

The AAR Reviewer used 2 words in her review of this that I should have used: incoherent (as in, incoherent writing) and barbarian (as in Kane, the barbarian hero). Yep. I shoulda said that. She seemed to like Blair and Lee better, so maybe I'll like them too.

So for now, 3 stars because I can't honestly say I did not like it, I just don't know how I feel. Scratch that: now that I've finished Twin of Fire, I'm demoting it to 2 stars, Did Not Like It. I reserve 1 star for DNF or really hated it, and this didn't stir up that much emotion.

And dangit, it didn't even fall under any of my reading challenges!!

Without A Trace by Nora Roberts **

Finally I finished the series, and found Trace's story to be just as bad as Chantel's. It's the last of the O'Hurley series, book 4. Books 1-3 are each about 1 of the O'Hurley fraternal triplets, 3 girls who were raised by vaudevillians and performed in shows from early ages. Each went her own way - 1 to Broadway to star in a musical, 1 to Hollywood to become a major movie star, 1 married young and rich to a race car driver who died after a few years (the time frames in that story confused me a lot, trying to figure out how long he was in his son's lives based on what things were said about their relationship with the man, and how long he'd been dead and all that).

Trace is the older brother of the triplets, and he never wanted to be on stage - he wanted to travel, to see the world. His father wanted everyone to stay in the family show forever, so Trace had to steal away in the night with a couple hundred bucks Mom gave him to get away from them. Why later we are lead to believe he broke Mom's heart when it was she who convinced him to run, I dunno.

Now Trace is An Operative With An International Agency. For 12 years he's been secretly sneaking into various countries and performing nefarious deeds in the name of patriotism. He now fluently speaks several languages, to the point he can pass, for instance, as a Frenchman, and he has various covers he can use in lots of countries to get what he needs to fulfill his mission (should he choose to accept it). (Sorry, I have trouble with that fluency thing mainly because it's pretty hard to be fluent enough to pass as native after learning the language as an adult.) He is off-duty and on vacation in Mexico when a young Irish woman comes to him to beg him to help her free her hostage brother and niece, kidnapped by terrorists. Seems brother, heroine and their dad were working on a Serum to protect people from the effects of nuclear radiation, which in the wrong hands could precipitate the End Of The World As We Know It.

Uh, just a slight spoiler, the brother and the niece get freed. But meanwhile, we get a dose of that really incredible plot point: the heroine, who has no training at all in covert operations, gun usage, any sort of self-defense, insists on accompanying the hero to every single meeting and on every foray he makes into finding the hostages. Oh, right, yeah, that would be me - let me slow you down and get in your way even though I have no experience and you are a trained operative. I'd so be slapping her if I were him. In addition to her brother being held hostage as a stress-point for the heroine, she also believes her father liked brother best, so there are commitment issues on her side. On Trace's side, the commitment issues are about not having a home. I'm not sure why she doesn't believe him - he really didn't have a home, since he grew up on the road.

Because of the mediocre narration and stretched-beyond-the-limit credibility thing for me, I'm going with 2 measly stars.

Skin Deep by Nora Roberts **

This is the third book in the O'Hurley series, and I'm afraid it just gets worse and worse for me. I hated Chantel - I hated the narrator's voice for her (Ok, here's the positive - she kept the exact same voice for Chantel throughout all 4 books, so at least she was consistent.)

This one was sort of a suspense plot - there's a crazy stalker in Chantel's life that we got a hint of in 1 or both of the previous books. Of course, we mustn't share this info with the police or our family because they'd worry or something. And Chantel's a major movie star - so, not sure why not to involve the police, but there you are. Chantel finally shares the secret with her agent, who hires his friend Quinn as bodyguard/security. Quinn's an asshole from the word go - he was relentlessly sexist and called her some nickname from the word go (was it Angel? can't recall now) that was annoying. Maybe it was only annoying in the narrator's asshole voice she gave him. So, I hated his voice too. Not sure why I read the whole thing, to be honest.

I was surprised by the unveiling of the stalker's identity, although I did not fall for the one she tries to make you believe it is in a classic suspense re-direction attempt that failed for me. I did not feel the chemistry there between her and Quinn, and I felt the way they got together was completely contrived and unbelievable.

Bad narration or bad story? Maybe some of both, but I'm going with 2 stars - not up to my standards even for mediocre.