Delicious by Sherry Thomas *****

FIRST POSTED SEPT 12, 2008:
I have just finished this, and had to sit for a few moments just to let it simmer in my mind.

Then I started looking at what other people had to say. I cannot even fathom that anyone could not be completely in love with this book! I'm shocked. Stunned.

I'm thinking maybe I'm a fool for Cinderella stories, for one thing. I loved Julia Quinn's Bridgerton story with this theme, An Offer from A Gentleman. I also love the idea of his staying in love with her for so many years, not knowing her name or where she was.

And I'm just completely blown away with Sherry Thomas' writing. A little bit of googling had me realizing English isn't even her first language - she's a native of China who came to America at age 13. I am humbled by her incredible writing anyway, and even more knowing this.

The basic plot involves our heroine, Verity Durant, high born but disowned, who becomes a chef to support herself. Our hero, Stuart, was born a bastard to a titled gentleman, and inherits. So they are sort of the opposite one from the other.

Her cooking is described so vividly, so lushly, so sensually, that practically every meal is a metaphor for sex.

Stuart had an older brother, Bertie, who was briefly in love with Verity. Bertie, however, wouldn't lower himself to marry beneath him - and when she attempted to prove her true position so they could marry, the one person who knew the truth denied it. In revenge, she went to Stuart - but at the last minute, she found she could not admit her identity to him. They had one night together, where Stuart was so besotted he proposed, but she fled - and Stuart spent the next 10 years first trying to find her, then trying to get over her. Finally, he finds a woman he feels he can marry who will be his perfect wife and helpmate on his journey in politics to Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, Verity has stayed on as Bertie's chef even though their affair is long over. Keep in mind, Stuart does not realize that his Cinderella is the same woman as his brother's former lover and current chef. He and his brother haven't spoken in years. Bertie has a heart attack and dies - and Stuart inherits the manse and the servants including the chef.

Now Verity begins, almost unwittingly, her seduction of Stuart through food - just reading Stuart's POV when she is cooking was so ...... well, wonderful!

I also liked the secondary romance with Mr. Marsden - I won't say more because it's revealed so well that I want readers to discover it for themselves.

So many contributors to the AAR forum thread complained about "flashbacks" - Ms Thomas tells the stories simultaneously, of the time when Stuart and Verity meet for the first time and the "current time" 10 years later when they meet as employer/employee. She puts the date at the top of the chapter - sheesh, how hard is THAT to follow?? I love the way the pieces are revealed so slowly, so deliberately, so that the tension builds as you, the reader, learn more of the details. If the original meeting was all revealed in a prologue, you wouldn't be wondering, as you read, what would happen, or the whys and wherefores, and the mystery and intrigue would be lost. So I guess if you want a story spoonfed to you, don't read this one.

I was completely bowled over in love with this story about 2 pages in, and never stopped. I felt like I was in a trance, and Ms Thomas' exquisite details had me tasting, smelling, feeling everything as if I were not just reading it but living it.

It's DIK/Top Favorite for me, 5 stars, no questions asked.

ETA: I just finished the audio book version of the on May 5, 2009 - once again I fell in love with this story. The narrator, Virginia Leishman, is superb - her reading and her character voices are wonderful (Ok, I did have a tiny bit of trouble distinguishing her parts with Marsden and the fiancee and her parts with Verity and Stuart). She really put some serious oooomph into the reading of the food!! 5 stars again!

Night of Sin by Julia Ross ****

I got this book to read as the last in the Fall 2008 Reading Challenge: read a book because of its cover. I had asked for some help at PBS with this, and had narrowed my choice to 3 books, 2 of which had covers adorned with lovely naked male chests, and this one. As it turned out, the naked male chest covers were in series and not the first - and I'm a sort of stickler on series. This one has a lovely graphic of a garden with a butterfly, and it appealed to me, so - it was chosen.

It's my first book by this author, and now that I'm done, I may put her books in my Someday To Acquire pile, after I've glommed my current favorite authors and finished my large TBR pile from the recent library sale. It's the first in a 3-book series, with Jack's older brother Ryder and his cousin Guy the heroes of the next 2 books.

The basic plot involves a virginal, betrothed country miss (Anne) getting in over her head and inadvertently with a worldly, reckless gentleman (Jack).

Jack is the second son of a duke (St. George), and has been traveling the world, ostensibly looking for his place in it. During his travels, mostly Oriental - eastern Russia, China, India, the Himalayas - he has encountered a fossil, a dinosaur fang, that is being sought by a number of unsavory characters as well as (or including?) himself. The fang represents several things to both him and to the story: scientifically, it opens a world of new thought about the existance of such creatures and their bearing on the Creation story and the potential downfall of religion; spiritually, it seems to be possessed of magic and power, and was leaving a long line of deaths in its path. It's also seen as a dragon fossil, and Jack as a dragon slayer in the reputation of his ancestor, St. George the dragon slayer. For Jack, it represents the one thing that he needs, to trade to get what he prizes most of all: notes he kept to create a new map of China/Russia/India.

Anne is merely an unwitting pawn in his quest to recover the fang, because the sailor who possessed it hid it in her basket as she passed by, moments before he is murdered. Jack observes the switch, and attempts to retrieve the fossil from her. Unfortunately, Anne has already turned it over to her fiancé, coincidentally a naturalist/fossil hunter fellow. Because the fossil is now being sought for its magical powers by ruthless thieves and murderers, Anne's life is in danger until it is found and restored to... well, whoever is the rightful owner.

Jack manages to talk her into accompanying him to his ancestral home where he promises she'll be safe until he can regain the fossil and settle a score. On the way, however, they are forced to stop at a deserted gatekeeper's cottage and wait out a storm. Ah, the deserted gatekeeper's cottage in a storm conceit. Works like a charm every time - and because the only thing she can find to drink is plum brandy and also because Jack has been hit on the head, instead of her remaining a virgin, they have hot monkey sex. In addition to the deserted gatekeeper's cottage plotline, we have the curious virgin plotline: the "just show me what happens so I won't be surprised in my marriage bed with my fiancé" plot.

I truly almost gave up on the book at this point because it was such a stretch for a religious virgin to do this. OK, she did drink 3 glasses of brandy, but she just kept insisting he show her what is done in a marriage bed. I guess we are to buy into her innate sensuality that overpowered her lifelong religious training. Not to mention her lack of fidelity to her betrothed...

I'm glad I stuck with it because by the end, I was enjoying this author's way with words and her story-telling ability. I also found it a page turner as I wondered how in the world they would ever have their HEA if Jack couldn't give up his quest and wouldn't admit to himself his feelings for Anne. Plus there was the intrigue of the fossil, who would end up having it?

Oh, and it's got a notable pet: Horace the gray and white kitten, who plays a lovely part near the end.

Because I lost faith in the book and had to be talked back into it, I give it 4 stars - at the end it was worth the journey.

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.

Blue Bayou by JoAnn Ross ****

This is the first of a trilogy in a 3fer book I just got at Hastings new. I had the 3 books on my PBS reminder list because someone had posted positively about them. I was also interested in them because they take place in south Louisiana, which is where I spent my formative years (ages 2-15).

My father likes to say, in reference to his being transferred to south Louisiana in the late 50s, that it was his first foreign post. (We went on to live in south and central America.) Since I was pretty young when we moved from Texas, where my ancestors had been since the mid-19th century, I didn't have much to compare to at the time. I can now say, in all confidence, he had a good point - south Louisiana isn't like anywhere else, and that's for sure.

I'm pleased to say the author did manage to get the Cajun patois and the sense of living on the bayou pretty much right, if my own memory serves. I do have one minor quibble about her initial references to seeing weather "over the Gulf" because I'm not sure there's anyplace you can live in a plantation home, on the bayou, and also see the actual Gulf of Mexico. Even the geography of Louisiana is different from any other state - it's not long stretches of beach like Mississippi or Texas, but bayous and swamps draining into the river delta. Ok, minor quibble, it's just that I tried to imagine the setting and couldn't make the Gulf come into play.

But I do remember pirogues and people speaking English with French influence ("me, I'm gonna pass by the store"). It was all a mystery to me then why people talked so funny.

The author also slipped in a couple of French phrases I had to scratch my head about - I'm no French expert but I usually can read Cajun and French phrases in books with my limited French and Cajun background. Again, minor quibbles, but those are the kinds of things that jerk me out of stories, like some grammar mistakes and typos (see previous post).

In this story, Jack Callahan is of Cajun and Irish descent, and grew up in Blue Bayou as a sort of juvenile delinquent. Judge Dupree, a tough but fair fellow, sent Jack to juvenile detention to get him straightened out, and it apparently worked well enough. Jack learned a lot in his stay there and at age 18, had plans for a better future. Unfortunately, the judge's willful 17-year-old daughter Danielle had other plans for Jack and managed to convince him to act on their mutual chemistry, with some unplanned results. When Jack and Dani were discovered in the act by the local sheriff, the judge steps in and changes the course of both their lives, a sort of evil Gepetto.

First the judge convinces Jack to leave the parish for good by threatening to fire Jack's widowed mother, who is the judge's housekeeper. Soon after, when Dani reveals her pregnancy, he sends her to a home for unwed mothers, where he forces her to give up her child for adoption, except the infant dies. Then the judge arranges for Dani to marry an up and coming young politician, and move to Washington D.C. The fellow turns out to be a philandering good-for-nothing, leaves her (and their young son) for another woman and then is killed in a freak accident.

It's 13 years after Jack and Dani parted. Jack has returned to Blue Bayou after being an undercover DEA agent and is now a bestselling author. He managed to buy the Dupree family home, Beau Soleil, and is renovating it. But his past still haunts him.

After her husband's death, Dani and her son Matt have nothing - he managed to clean out their bank accounts and leave them with a pile of debt. She packs up what is left and heads back to Blue Bayou, thinking to introduce Matt to his grandfather and try to start her life over again. The plan includes picking the judge up when he's released from Angola where he's serving a 7 year sentence for bribery.

The story revolves around Dani and Jack having to resolve their differences, reveal their pasts and come to grips with the still-existing strong chemistry between them. By the way, if Big Mis/Secret Baby plots annoy you, skip this one, because it's key.

I enjoyed the story, mostly, although I did find Ms Ross uses an awful lot of similes, almost to the point where you wish she would just stick in a plain adjective or maybe just say what she means. Blood blossoming like a field of scarlet poppies. Eyes as red-veined as a Louisiana road map. Memories lingered like bits of Spanish moss clinging to a long-dead cypress. Maybe it's like spice - the right amount enhances the flavor, and, well, you go ahead and figure out your own simile for using too much spice, ok? Me, I think she used a tetch too much.

In all, I rank it 4 stars in my personal rating system. Plus, as a bonus, it fits a category in the Fall 2008 Reading Challenge, a title with a place in the name - whoo hoo!

Fall 2008 Reading Challenge

NOVEMBER 4: DONE!

I set myself a Reading Challenge Quest to read all the AAR Top 100 Romances for 2007 at some point during this year. I see a reading challenge as an arbitrary way to get some new books, new authors, new genres, under my belt. If so many people love them, I figured, then maybe I will too.

I had already read maybe 20 or so of the Top 100 when I started. I quickly learned that just because they're popular doesn't mean I will like them, and while I knocked back 6 Lisa Kleypas books, 4 from the 100, I learned I am not a fan of her writing style. I think trying 6 books was enough - so I scratched her other Top 100s off my TBR list. No point in wasting a day reading a book I am probably not going to enjoy.

I have now read just over 50 of the books on the list, and scratched off an additional 10 or so that I don't have much interest in reading. I ponder the "ethics" as it were of claiming I read all 100 if I don't read them all - maybe on a whim I will submit myself to the torture of reading those 10 just so I can truthfully say I did. Funny, huh? And if I do read them all? Should I make myself a t-shirt and a web banner?

Of course, I didn't make up Reading Challenges, and there are several people out there challenging themselves to read any number of books for various reasons. In fact, I joined a Shelfari Group called Readers of Romance Book Challenges just to see what other people are doing.

What this group does is set up a number of book challenges, including 3-month-long seasonal challenges. Each member chooses to read 5, 10 or 15 books based on a list of truly arbitrary descriptions (like read a book with a word starting with N in the title, for November). Many people seem to use it to whittle down their TBR mountains and/or to find new books to read.

I can't decide if I can bend to the whims of a pre-ordained list, or if maybe in my book-a-day reading I might read books that meet the list's requirements anyway. So, for my first joint challenge venture, I'll post the Fall Challenge List:

Books must be read between September 1 – November 30
1. Title that reminds you of a fairytale - The Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt *****
2. Book based on the cover Night of Sin by Julia Ross **** READ 11/4
3. Read a book that was read and reviewed on the blog in the Summer Book Challenge - The Secret Pearl by Mary Balogh 9/13 ***** (also on AAR Top 100) see review here
4. Read a book from a genre you have not read yet (or if you have read all genres, read from the genre you read the least) Remembrance by Jude Deveraux **** paranormal
5. Read a book that has an “N” word in the title for November Taming Natasha by Nora Roberts, READ 9/29 ****
6. Read an author that last name or first name starts with "S" for September - Delicious by Sherry Thomas READ 9/12 *****
7. Read a book by Johanna Lindsey - Love Me Forever - read 10/21 **
8. For Halloween…. Read a book that is "spooky" (ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mystery, suspense) Dark Fever by Karen Marie Moning, free podcast/audio book 9/21 ****
9. Title with an address or a place in it - Blue Bayou by JoAnn Ross, in a 3fer book with the other 2 titles, River Road and Magnolia Moon, Read 10/14 ****
10. Title that has a name in it - Falling for Rachel by Nora Roberts, Read 9/30 **** (also in this category, Taming Natasha by Nora Roberts, Without a Trace by Nora Roberts and Passion by Lisa Valdez)
11. Read a Series Book Beguiled by Lori Foster, 9/3 on audio (maybe 250 pages?) **** - I have Caught In The Act on audio, it's Delilah and Mick's story, after this one which is Dane and Angel's story
12. Read a Series Book The Velvet Promise by Jude Deveraux ****, first in the Velvet Series, read 9/5
13. Read a New (to you) author A Little Help From Above by Saralee Rosenberg ***, read 9/2
14. Title that has an animal in it - The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt, read 9/18 ***
15. Title that is 2 words Death Angel by Linda Howard *****, read 9/1

I originally hesitated to try to post titles I planned to read that fit the list right away - I had, at the time I wrote this post, 19 more days in the month during which I figured I would read at least 15 books currently in my TBR stack, and I wasn't sure I wanted to hold any back for September 1st... It was a dilemma (since resolved).

SEPTEMBER 18 UPDATE:
As you can see from the list, I've whittled away 9 of the categories, and have 1 in my TBR pile, and one on my ipod that I'm working on, with 4 categories not yet filled. I can pick up the Johanna Lindsey at Hastings (if it's still there), but will have to work on the other 3 after my trip to Egypt.

OCTOBER 5 UPDATE:
3 to go - I managed to knock 2 of them off in Egypt. I still need Johanna Lindsey, the book based on cover and the title with an address or place... Nothing in my TBR matches this.

OCTOBER 14 UPDATE:
At last, I bought a Johanna Lindsey on sale at Hastings for $4.49 in hard cover AND I managed to buy something I'd been considering that I now realize has a PLACE in the title (Blue Bayou, JoAnn Ross). Now to find SOMETHING I read because I liked the cover...

Falling For Rachel by Nora Roberts ****

This is the 2nd story in the Stanislaski book I got, and I read it last week while on vacation in Egypt. EEEk. I can't recall the plot but I did note that I gave it 4 stars. I'll have to go back to the blurb and maybe flip through the book to remind myself... Let's see, Rachel's the youngest, and... Shoot I can't even remember who the hero was!

This is why I blog my reviews - can't remember sh*t after about 24 hours!!

Taming Natasha by Nora Roberts ****

I actually got this in a 2-fer book with Falling for Rachel, to be my "book with a name in the title" category in the Fall Reading Challenge. I should be sticking to my TBR pile for these challenges!! I could possibly have used Passion by Lisa Valdez since the character's name is Passion; or I could have used Without A Trace, NR, which I had on audio book (Trace being the hero's name) - but no, I had to get another book!!

I took the book with me on vacation to Egypt. When does one have time to read on a vacation?? Well, there was the plane - I listened to an audio book. Layovers in airports - we found a Yotel in Amsterdam, and rented a room for the day to try to catch up on sleep. In the hotel while recuperating from being dragged all over Cairo by the guide - yep, started there. And finished on the Nile cruise, on the top deck while floating upstream past ancient ruins and new people living as their ancient ancestors did. Managed to take a couple of photos from there as well, between chapters. All in all, I listened to 5 audio books and read 2 books, if you count this one book as 2, on the 11-day trip.

This series is a 4-booker, with 2 sisters (Rachel/Natasha) and 2 brothers whose names escape me at the moment. The compilation put the sisters together even though their books are 1 and 3 in the series.

Natasha is living in a small town in West Virginia as a successful toy store owner who once dreamed of being a professional ballet dancer. She gave up that dream after a life-changing event, revealed in the end, which affects her ability to trust men. Her Ukrainian parents live in Brooklyn or maybe it was the Bronx - very loud, very close, very working class. They escaped from whatever was happening in Russia/Soviet Union to America when Natasha was 6, and she didn't learn to speak English til she was 8. It was even later when she learned to read and write it. She doesn't exactly have an accent, but a sort of speech pattern that apparently degrades when she is excited (angry, provoked, whatever) into revealing her Ukrainian background.

Our beloved beta hero is Dr. Spencer Kimball. He's a music professor/composer who is having composer block - no Navy SEAL or former cop-turned-operative here, just a mild-mannered musician looking for a good life. He's also a widower with a darling 6 year old daughter - they've just moved to the charming West Virginia small town where he will teach music at the local college. It's not really that relevant that his dead wife was a bitch who was going to leave him with the kid when she was killed in an accident. (I think - it has been a few days and several thousand miles since I read it.) I think it introduces potential trust issues for him and the kid. However, the kid loves Natasha from the first minute since she runs this cool toy store. He loves Natasha from the first minute because he's attracted to her.

Basically, Spence pursues Natasha relentlessly - but she has trust issues from a relationship-gone-bad during her professional dance career. Initially she assumes he's married since he has a kid, and so she hates him for coming on to her on their first meeting. The story has a fairly pure romance plot - no suspense, nobody's trying to kill anybody and that first misunderstanding is corrected quickly, so we don't spend too much time getting that explanation out. He wants her; she wants distance because she can't trust men. The only obstacles they have to overcome are within their own minds - can they each learn to trust and love again?

So even though my review is sorta flippant, I liked the story and give it 4 stars. I'm suffering from jet lag from my trip to Egypt and I think this review reflects that! I'm practically falling over from fatigue - maybe I'll wait to gather my thoughts on Falling for Rachel before writing that review. (I just re-read my trip journal to see if I mentioned it, and my notes say "I can't recall the plot fot it" but gave it 4 stars as well - go figure.)

I do plan to read the others in the series, although having just read the plot for Considering Kate at AAR, it sounds suspiciously like a rehash of the plot for Taming Natasha, complete with her being a dancer and also assuming the hero's still married becaues he has a kid and therefore being offended when he flirts with her. I just realized there are actually 6 (or more?) stories in the Stanislaski series - the 2 brothers get their books (books 2 and 4) and then 2 of the next generation get a book each. I have a ways to go!

Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning ****

OK, I did it, finished the free podcast audiobook of Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning before taking off on my trip tomorrow.

This is my first by KMM, although I know she has a big following both of the Fever series and her Highland romances. This is the first book in the Fever series, in which we are introduced to MacKayla aka Mac. Mac is 22 years old, living at home, taking a few classes, working as a bartender and enjoying her summer weekends at various lakes around town. The book opens with her sitting by the pool - her cell phone got dunked a few days earlier and she hasn't bothered to get a new one. She gets the call from the police on her parent's phone: her older sister Alena was studying abroad, in Ireland, when she was brutally murdered.

Mac isn't happy with how the case is being handled, so she heads over to Ireland to get her sister's effects and find out more about what happened. When she gets a new cell phone, before heading overseas, she picks up her messages and has one final, desperate message from Alena that makes no sense to her at all.

Once in Ireland, she is on a journey she never expected, into the world of the Fae.

In her quest, she stumbles into a bookstore called Barron's Books and Baubles, where she meets the owner Jerricho Barrons and his employee Fiona. It's apparent soon enough that both Jerricho and Fiona know what she is and what her powers are, but it isn't clear if they have powers of their own, or even what their relationship is...

Now, this is a fantasy subject I haven't done much reading in, so I had a little bit of a hard time keeping up (especially in audio) with the bad guys and their various forms. There was a hierarchy of fairies (or maybe they spelled it faeries), I believe 4 levels, with some good and some bad. If I understood it correctly, at the King/Queen/Prince/Princess level, good and bad looked alike. Mac and her sister were born sidhe-seers, pronounced "she-seers", meaning they could see the true forms of the fae even when regular people only saw the human form. They also had the status of... (sounded like: null?) which meant they could also freeze fae creatures.

Mac undergoes a transformation - a sort of Buffy the Vampire Slayer-type transformation - from pampered Southern belle to kick-ass Fae stomper in the course of the few weeks she is there. Her life is turned upside down and inside out and she learns that something much bigger than than the murder of her sister is at stake.

The book is about Mac's quest to uncover the whole truth behind her sister's gruesome murder and to learn what she really is - and since it's the first in the series, we only get so far. She learns that her sister had a boyfriend, whose description sounds suspiciously like Jerricho - not Irish, older, dashing, rich, handsome. Jerricho doesn't really develop a thing for Mac, though, and he seems to wonder who she is, so if he was the boyfriend, he's keeping it under wraps. He trots her out into underground worlds as if she's his woman in order to uncover who is good and who is bad. (wish I had a hard copy so I could see the spelling of the creatures...)

It was fun, action-packed and sorta spooky, although listening to it in 20-minute bursts with commentary on either end was not the same as listening to it in a regular audio book. It breaks up the tension to stop between each chapter. It isn't exactly romance, either, as the ending didn't qualify for HEA, and if Jerricho is meant to be the hero aka love interest, that isn't made clear. He does have a slightly out-of-character tender moment right at the end...

4 stars. If you want a copy, go to the Darkfever Podcast website.

The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt ***

This is the 2nd in the series, the first of which was The Raven Prince and the last The Serpent Prince.

Now - only Raven and Serpent made it to the AAR Top 100 and I'm in accord with that. I just didn't think Leopard was anywhere near as good as Raven.

The heroine is Georgina - but everyone calls her George. She's an Earl's sister, and she inherited a large estate from an aunt. She hired Harry Pye, the hero, to be the estate manager. Harry's a buddy of Edward from Raven - they are in the Agrarian Society together.

Right off the bat I'm getting confused by the heroine being called George.

Harry is a native of the region where the estate is located - in fact, his father was gamekeeper of the local magistrate and villain, Granville. Granville is buh buh buh bad to the bone. He's a womanizer, maybe even a rapist, and he hates his older son. He raised a younger son (Bennet) born to Harry's mother. In fact, it's even possible Harry is also his biological son. When Harry was 12, Granville horsewhipped Harry and his father, and Harry lost a finger to this treatment. So that sets up the bad feelings twixt Granville and Harry.

Now, there's sheep dying from poisoning and everyone blames Harry because... well, someone found a tiny carving near a dead sheep, and Harry carves tiny beasts. Not that that is actually evidence, but everyone starts gossiping about it anyway.

Then there's George's 15-year-old sister Violet - she thinks Harry did it. She also is in hiding from a man 10 years her elder who seduced her and is trying to blackmail her into marrying him cuz she's rich and he's in debt. This entire story line never did mesh into the main story line so I kept wondering what the point of it was... OK, so Harry ran into the guy once, but it didn't have anything to do with anything. Since Violet thinks Harry did it, why does she send George a hysterical note to tell her Granville had Harry arrested? I dunno. Didn't make any sense to me.

This story didn't flow nearly as easily as Raven did for me - I just did not make the leaps with the author this time. I never really felt that George had any feelings for Harry - she just kept showing up in his cottage but I never felt she was actually falling in love. It was more like she was just toying with him. He was not in her class, after all, which she made more than clear.

After I did think they had declared for each other and everything was ok, Harry is called away to a catastrophic and fatal fire - and he has to convince her not to come help. Somehow - this was really stupid in my opinion - she decides he is actually saying he doesn't want her in his life, which gives the author a chance to throw another obstacle in their path. As if they didn't already have to leap over tall buildings, now she has George run away from Harry and try to marry someone else. How she turned his telling her to stay away and not put herself in danger at the fire into a declaration that their relationship was over, I have no clue. None. And by this point, I was already not that engaged in the story, so I wanted to reach in and slap the twit.

Of course, it's romance, so it's not a spoiler to say he keeps her from marrying the other fellow - but the scene at the church was as out of left field as all the other scenes and story lines in the book as far as I was concerned. Let's see, we had poisoned sheep, a womanizing villain, a murdered woman, an extra kid, an Earl's sister boinking the hired help... and a lot of it got left unresolved - was Bennet now the Granville heir, or were they going to try to make Harry the Granville heir? Was anyone going to take care of Will (the extra kid) or what? Was Violet interested in Bennet?

Sorry, but it just didn't give me the warm fuzzies that I like to feel at the end of a good book. Mostly I was glad it was over and I didn't have to try to follow all the divergent threads anymore. So I'm going with ... well, if I gave fractions, it would be about 2.75, so I'll round up and go with 3 stars.

The Secret Pearl by Mary Balogh *****

This is a new-to-me author, although she's been publishing for over 20 years. She has 5 titles currently in the AAR Top 100 for 2007.

The book starts out with an emotional punch: a man picks up a prostitute outside Drury Lane Theater, and takes her to an inn. We learn, in the course of conduct of business, she's a virgin - and he's apparently a ruthless, heartless and violent cad. It's a shocking scene to observe as the reader.

Then, slowly, their story unfolds as we learn what drove her to sell her virtue, and what drove him to take it the way he did.

Adam is the Duke of Ridgeway - he's a scarred veteran of Waterloo, who returned a sort of war hero after being presumed dead for a year. His younger brother Thomas, no longer the Duke, leaves for parts unknown - and Adam marries Sybil, and they have a child, Pamela. But all is not right with their marriage. Although she was his sweetheart before he left for the war, after his presumed death she took up with Thomas and they had plans to wed. Assuming Adam drove Thomas away, she married Adam, reluctantly, but never forgave him. I'll leave it to your imagination why she felt compelled to marry at all...

Fleur was the daughter of a baron who died when she was 8. She was raised in the family of the next baron, her father's cousin. After that baron's death, his son Matthew is now Fleur's guardian, and in control of her finances, of her life. She wants to marry the local Reverend; Matthew obsessively wants her for himself. In a near-rape scene, she fights back - and Matthew's valet is killed accidentally. Matthew convinces her it was murder and she will hang - and to seal the deal, he claims she also stole family jewels. She flees to London, penniless and homeless, under an assumed name, with only one thing that belongs to her - her body.

We have two tortured souls here who find each other, under the worst possible circumstances. Redemption seems an impossible goal for both of them. In a fit of guilt over taking her virginity, Adam has his secretary locate Fleur and hire her as his daughter's governess, without her knowing it was him - until he shows up, several weeks later.

The story contains some serious hot buttons for romance: adultery, for one, on both Adam's and his wife's parts. For Adam, we learn it was just the once. For Sybil, numerous times, numerous men. Adam continues to try to find some common ground with her, for the sake of their daughter Pamela; for her part, Sybil is a weak, tortured, selfish woman who suffers from melancholy as well as a respiratory illness.

The relationship between Adam and Fleur develops slowly over the course of the book - Fleur is at first traumatized and revolted by him, but not, as he thinks, by his scars, but by their first encounter. His intentions, however, are noble, and he truly wants what is best for her. In her he finds the first true happiness - his "pearl" - that he has felt with a woman. Slowly, excrutiatingly so, their friendship develops into something more solid and lasting.

At one point during the book, I felt let down by the heroine's actions - she seemed to have run away from Matthew without even trying to get any help locally, and as it turns out, she did have people she could have turned to. But as the story went on, I was drawn more and more into the romance, even the utter bleakness of the situation, knowing Adam wouldn't do anything to jeopardize his daughter's or his wife's reputations. The tension, the anguish of the situation make the ending that much sweeter when the HEA finally comes to fruition.

So it went from a 4 star to a 5 star read for me by the end, and I've ticked another Top 100 off my list and have a long backlist of books by Ms Balogh to glom, once I get that TBR pile under control...

The Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt *****

Funny how the ending of a book can change your mind about ratings... I was a little put off in the near beginning, and thinking it was stretching my limits of credibility, then I just slid off the cliff into the story itself, and have just finished it, silly grin on my face.

What a superb hero was our Edward! He was gruff, and surly, and bad tempered and - frankly, soft as a marshmallow. And so much in love with the heroine Anna!!! Sigh...

Anywayssss, on to the review. I loved Edward! Oh wait, that's not a review!

OK - Anna is a widow in a country town, living with her mother-in-law and a young woman they are trying to train (unsuccessfully) to be a maid. She is about out of money, and goes looking for a job.

Edward is a widower whose wife died in childbirth - and an Earl of Swartingham - in need of 2 things: (1) a secretary and (2) a wife. The #1 need is the secretary because Edward has a lot of correspondence and a manuscript to transcribe, so he sends a servant to town to locate one. This is 1760, mind you, and a secretary would be male. His servant runs into Anna (literally) and she learns his mission and offers to do the job. Meanwhile, Edward heads to London to make arrangements to marry some virginal miss.

Edward is a rather forbidding fellow, with small pox scars on his face and body. His first wife found him rather ugly, a fact which hurt him at the time, and now he's a little, well, distant as a result. See, he was the only survivor of an epidemic of small pox during his teen years - he lost his parents and all his siblings. Over time, he has covered his pain of these losses and the reality of his appearance with this gruff, loud, scowling persona - one that Anna sees through rather quickly.

He also has a wonderful mongrel/mastiff dog that Anna takes to as quickly as she takes to Edward.

Anna realizes there is an attraction between them, but knows as well as Edward it can never be - for one thing, she is apparently barren, and Edward wants children. For another, there's a disparity between their stations in life. Edward decides to take out his sexual frustration with a visit to a well-known London brothel which, get this, sends their patrons bills. Being his secretary, Anna learns about this place and hatches a crazy plan.

It was the crazy plan that had me thinking, ???? and wondering how I felt about the book. However, the book, in addition to being fiction after all, has a running fairy tale at the beginning of each chapter, about The Raven Prince, a fellow who is cursed to be a Raven by day but a beautiful man at night. The "fairy-tale-ness" of it saved it for me! In addition to the excerpts in each chapter, the book itself is a player in the story as Anna discovers the book in Edward's library and attempts to read it. First Edward takes it back from her, but later he uses it to lure her to him.

OK Crazy Plan Spoiler Alert - Anna learns that sometimes even virtuous (appearing) women go to this brothel in disguise and take lovers, so she high tails it to London on Edward's heels, and gets a room and asks the Madam to send Edward to her while she wears a mask (and little else). And then the sparks fly.

After 2 nights of this joyous sexual abandon for both of them, she rushes back to their country village and tries to go on as if nothing has happened. Eventually, through some rather obscure clues, Edward realizes it was she who had made love with him in London, and determines they must marry. At first, he decides they must marry because he has compromised her. She leaves his employ, and then he realizes the hole she has left in his heart, and goes about - in his own gruff and scowling way - wooing her into his own heart. Not that it would take much, since she is smitten, but she holds out because she cannot give him children.

There are a couple of subplots with some intrigue and blackmailing going on - but the bottom line is, these 2 needed each other to heal their hearts. He is afraid to find out why she left him - does she hate his scars? Or just not love him? And she is afraid she cannot be the wife he needs. Oh it's so touching!

The characters were so much fun - even the villains were kind of silly and not at all scary. Davis, the valet, was a real hoot, and Jock the dog is now one of my favorite fictional dogs. I read a review somewhere that summed up the fairy tale story that ran in each chapter as some combination of Greek myths and something else. I guess my mythology education is sorely lacking - I didn't recognize the story for anything but a wonderful fairy tale that had as happy an ending as the The Raven Prince novel itself.

This is an AAR Top 100 pick, as is one of the others in the series, so I can check it off - I also listed it as my fairytale pick in the Fall 2008 reading challenge. Now on to The Leopard Prince and then The Serpent Prince and maybe even a full glom of this author! 5 stars.

Remembrance by Jude Deveraux ****

Another day, another book. Actually, I'm feeling a little flustered - somehow, I'm a day behind!!

Ok - Remembrance - it's a paranormal, I think - not really time travel, but a past life regression, except...

Romance writer Hayden Lane is obsessed with a hero she's created. She loses a real-life fiancé, time, friends - all while holed up creating this fellow. She isn't even really writing the book - she just accumulates hundreds and hundreds of pages of descriptions of Jamie, her medieval Scottish hero, who then becomes English, and then changes times...

Hayden consults therapists, friends, others trying to get over her obsession. Finally she finds herself in the office of Nora - a woman passing as an astrologist who is really a psychic. Nora is the real deal - and she knows things, reads Hayden's thoughts. Hayden decides that she'll listen to Nora's ideas only for the research value, so she can maybe write a book using the information. Truth is - she's fascinated by Nora's assertion that Hayden has a soul-mate that she has kept through the ages, but that she is destined not to meet again for 3 more lifetimes.

Given some details and ideas, Hayden is off on another tangent - researching about the woman who might have been her in a past life. Next thing she knows, and against Nora's advice, she undergoes hypnosis with a past-life regressionist - and finds herself in her past life's body in 1901. Her persona, Catherine, lets her in - and Hayden overpowers her. Catherine's husband, Adam Tavistock, is getting ready to divorce her and marry Fiona - as it turns out, Catherine's and Adam's marriage was never consummated because he is suffering from ED, but only with her. With other women, he's as virile as any romance novel hero, but the only one he loves is Catherine. Why are Catherine and Adam doomed even though they are in love and are true soul-mates? Why can they not realize their love? Hayden is desperate to find out the truth.

Once again a hypnotist comes into play - and Hayden is suddenly inside an infant as she is being born - in the mid 16th century.

Here is where the story of the soul-mates begins. Callasandra and Talis are born on the same day, at almost the same time, to 2 women. Talis' mother dies in birth after issuing a proclamation about them that joins the babies' fates; Callasandra's mother gives birth to yet another girl, and claims the boy as hers instead. In a tragic turn of events, she decides to have both children die in a fire - but their wet nurse and her husband run away with the children, and raise them together for 16 years as their own. Everyone at the castle believe the children are dead, until one day...

Their story is the key to Hayden's search for her soul-mate. Hayden's 20th century self doesn't emerge in Callie's life, but when the story of Talis and Callie ends, Hayden was witness to the fate and the curse that led to her current situation. When she returns to consciousness, it's to Catherine's body, not her own, and she still needs to solve the problem between Adam and Catherine before she can wake up as Hayden in 1994.

Truthfully, it was a good story but oh sooo frustrating. The continuing miscommunication between Talis and Callie about drove me nutz, which after reading this book was a very, very short trip. If I had to read one more scene where Talis did something to make Callie jealous, or where Talis had to remain true to Alida because of honor - sheeeeesh!!! I wanted to scream!

But I was touched by the end of the stories - for Talis and Callie, for Catherine and Adam - and then for Hayden and her soul-mate. 4 stars.

The Velvet Promise by Jude Deveraux ****

This is the first in the Velvet Series, about the 4 Montgomery brothers. This story is about Gavin, the eldest, and his marriage to Judith Revedoune.

Here's a shorty-type review. 4 stars - the story was good, but frankly Gavin will never make my "favorite hero" list. Maybe it's because it was published in 1981, maybe it's because Deveraux thinks 16 century men rape and beat women as a matter of course, but I was pretty much disgusted with his behavior towards Judith about 98% of the time. In spite of that, Deveraux tells such a good story that I stuck with it for Judith's sake, and liked the story. I hope his brothers will be more honorable in their own stories - already I like them much better than their brutish and disloyal adulterer/batterer brother. (hmmm, how could I like this book?? This is why I have this blog, to write my thoughts directly after reading so I'll remember why I felt the way I did - now I have another book in my head.)

Beguiled by Lori Foster ****

I downloaded this on audio - a recent release of the book that occurs before Caught In The Act, which I already had. This is Angel and Dane's story, with Mick from Caught In The Act as a teenager.

Dane Carter comes home to his family and the family business some 3-4 months after the death of his identical twin, Derek, to investigate. He's got it in his head his brother was murdered. Dane's a PI with his own firm - he left the family/business after his overbearing mother bought off his fiancée who was pregnant. The fiancée subsequently miscarried (or, he suspects, got an abortion) and he's been overcome with the guilt and the disgust of the situation. And now the guilt of not being there for his twin brother is a factor.

He's contacted by Angel who thinks he's Derek - she comes to his office because she needs his help. She's now a single mother - the child is Derek's, which comes as a shock to Dane. He plays along to learn what she knows of what happened. Apparently, Angel was a secretary in the records department of the business - Derek came on to her, and in one evening of passion*, impregnates her, steals documents from her in an act of corporate espionage, and later publicly dumps her. He expected her to abort the baby that resulted, and doesn't want to have anything to do with her. To top it all off, she didn't even find sex with him was all that great...

The attraction between Angel and Dane is instant, and Angel thinks over and over that something is different about Derek - he doesn't dress the same, he doesn't react to her the same - but for some weird reason she never knew Dane was Derek's identical twin, so she never suspects the truth. I mean, I got that she and Derek were never actually close, but she did know he had a brother. Well, that's explained because he had left the family under a cloud so they talked about him, but ...? I guess there weren't any family photos. Ok, whatever.

Angel needed Derek's help because she'd been receiving threatening letters and calls. She no longer works for the company - after her public embarrassment at Derek's hands, then the pregnancy, then a debilitating car accident, she can barely work enough to make ends meet. Dane immediately steps in - he buys her things for herself and the baby, and becomes a Sugar Daddy - which of course she hates because she is independent and feisty. The kind of help she needed was protection from the bad guy, but in her confusion over his reaction to her and their chemistry, she sorta neglects to mention all that at the beginning.

Once the relationship gets physical, Angel is confused even more because Dane is no Derek in that department! (makes ya wonder, though, doesn't it?*)

Meanwhile, over at the family business we meet Dane's overbearing mother and his sister Celia, affianced to Raymond. Raymond is being groomed to step in as CEO after Dane gets the company back on its feet. I'll just say that the narrator gives Raymond a smarmy voice which leads one to believe that maybe Celia doesn't have the catch of the season.

So, we gotta find Derek's killer and Angel's stalker - could it possibly be the same person?

The narrator on this book was slightly better than mediocre - her voice is pleasant, she does manage to have different voices for the characters and she was very consistent with them, even if I found both Raymond's and Mother's voices very obnoxious. That was probably deliberate, but came across almost more cartoony than realistic. It made me wonder every time Raymond spoke what was wrong with Celia that she even liked him. And there's a hint that Raymond wasn't fond of women either*... I also wish narrators wouldn't get breathy when reading intimate scenes - just a straight forward reading of what the author wrote has more impact, in my opinion and experience. Narrators should be required to listen to Kate Fleming and learn some tips - however, talent can't be learned!

My first reaction to the book is 3 stars, so I went back to see my rating for Caught In The Act - I gave it 4 stars. I feel about the same towards this one, with one exception - I loved the other narrator's voice for Mick. A Lot. The other narrator was male, and he dropped his voice a touch and gave it a little... depth, or something - I dunno, it was very sexy. The story affected me about the same, maybe it was a little hotter. So I guess I'll go with a notch above mediocre, which is 4 star territory.

* spoiler alert - as I said, it was an audio book, so I can't exactly go back and figure this out, but it's hinted that maybe Derek's problem with Angel was he preferred men to women in bed, and I finished the story not quite knowing if that was just an assertion by smarmy Raymond, or that is the conclusion one might come to considering Derek was apparently a dud in bed with Angel. Maybe if I had the book and could read the info he left for Angel again... Why he wanted her to abort the baby, though, is still a mystery, no matter what his sexuality, considering he was trying to protect her... and.... ok that part is confusing.

A Little Help From Above by Saralee Rosenberg ***

This is a book that was loaned to me by a friend. I let it sit in my TBR pile for months and months because I've been on a Romance novel binge and this is more Chick Lit.

That, of course, brings up the whole Women's Fiction thing - what is Romance? what is Chick Lit? What is strictly Women's Fiction?

Basically, Romance is a relationship story. There are several sub-genres off that, but a relationship (usually male/female - always m/f in my case) is center to the story. They meet, perhaps not the first time, and develop a love relationship during the course of the book, which ends with a strong possibility they will live happily ever after, together. There may be suspense, comedy, murder involved. It can take place any time, historical or contemporary.

In Chick Lit, from what I can gather, the story is centered around the woman's life, which usually does involve a man. She is single, career-oriented, and probably urban, and we learn the conflicts and obstacles in her life. And there's humor and, from what I understand, usually snarkiness in the writing style. It's (usually or always?) contemporary.

Ok - on to our story. This is the debut novel for author Saralee Rosenberg, written in 2003. It contains a thread about DES, a drug given to women for decades to prevent miscarriages that is now known to cause birth defects and cancer in the children and even grandchildren of the woman who took it. I don't know if Ms. Rosenberg or her family was affected, or if she just used it as a story line.

The Protagonist is Shelby - almost 40, single, a successful and driven journalist in Chicago. She is obnoxious. Rude. Mouthy. Snarky to the extreme. I wanted to reach into the book and slap her about 3 times per page. I kept putting the book down and asking myself if it was worth finishing. There isn't anything she does like: her job, her current boyfriend, past boyfriends, family members - no one is safe from her acid tongue.

Her younger sister calls her to tell her their father and stepmother have been in a near-fatal accident and are both at Death's door, and she tries to figure out a way to avoid going to their home, where she grew up, in New York. Apparently she has some issues: her mother died of cancer when she was 10, her father married the mother's sister (her aunt), her sister and the aunt's son grew up calling both parents Mommy and Daddy, and for some reason to be revealed, Shelby hasn't spoken to any family member in 2 years.

It gets even deeper - her mother's death from cancer spooked her to the point of never going to doctors or hospitals again (or rarely), partly because she blames the hospital and the doctor for her mother's death. Her mother was told it was nothing until it was too late for any treatment. And to cap it all off, her very best friend in the entire world was the boy next door, who moved away with his family the week after her mother died, and he was never heard from again - despite her efforts over the past almost-30 years to locate him. Keep in mind, she was 10 years old at the time.

The book takes on a number of issues, all of which Shelby mouths about but shoulders, in a number of twists that push credibility even for fiction. She is determined to remain single and childless, despite the pushiness of her family. However, her sister is a victim of the DES her mother took - and cannot bear children. She and her second husband push and push and push Shelby to consider being a surrogate mother for them - at age 38? For a neurotic sister with a husband who comes on to Shelby at every chance? Everyone around conspires to make Shelby feel guilty about saying no.

She's also convinced she will find her first love (from age 10?), the boy next door, and live happily ever after with him - she knows he is the only one for her. What, is she a vampire or werewolf who can only have one mate? Also unbelievable, as is how she eventually tracks him down.

The reason we are to believe all this is the Help From Above - Shelby's mother is meddling from the beyond to see that her daughters find happiness in life. So I guess the central theme is Mother's Love Overcomes All Obstacles. Including death.

To be perfectly honest, by the time the book ended, I was happy for her. Ms. Rosenberg's writing is good, and often funny - in spite of my dislike of her heroine, I found myself laughing out loud. And she did manage a romantic HEA for the ending as well, as incredible as it was. I still never got over how mean Shelby was to everyone - maybe it's a New York thing, people talking to each other like that, but it grated on my nerves to the point that I am begrudgingly giving it 3 stars. I didn't think someone who lived and acted and spoke like Shelby even deserved a HEA, especially since I was never convinced she redeemed herself or made a true turn-around in her attitude, but I did manage to like it somehow. Such is the power of good writing.

Death Angel by Linda Howard *****

I have this book on audio from audible.com - it's not my first Linda Howard on audio, but my first with Joyce Bean as narrator. I have to say right upfront that for the first several minutes I thought I would have to stop and read it instead. I found her narration stilted and unnatural - she over-enunciated so many words that I wasn't sure I could stand to listen to it for 10 hours.

However, Linda Howard is such an incredible story-teller that before long I was drawn into the story, and the nuances of Ms. Bean's awkward narration disappeared into the background. (shockingly, 3 of the 4 current reviews on audible.com noted how great this narrator was... ???) Well, Joyce Bean wasn't dreadful, like the narrator for the first of the Feehan Dark series, but she's no Anna Fields. Personally, if I was allowed to give professional criticism, I'd say lighten up on those T's and D's, and try to make the flow of the narration less stilted and more like natural speech. But who am I? Just another listener.

The story centers around the major theme of the redeeming power of love. The h/h are both anti-heroes - Drea is the mistress of a drug lord, Rafael, thinking she is using men to get what she needs by playing the bimbo; "the Assassin" is just that - a killer-for-hire. The Assassin demands that Rafael give him Drea in lieu of payment - just for one afternoon. Rafael agrees, and leaves Drea heartbroken and sick, feeling worthless and crushed that she meant so little to him. The Assassin manages to make her even more confused, however, in a 4-hour stint that completely breaks her down because she loses control and actually enjoys - no - craves him. Although by the end she is begging him to take her with him, he tells her "once was enough" - and leaves a completely shattered woman, desperate to change her life.

Drea isn't the bimbo everyone believes her to be, however, and she's always had a plan for taking care of herself as soon as she had gotten what she needed from Rafael. She leaves him the next day, and in the execution of her plan, also manages to steal a large amount of his money - a sort of "up yours" gesture. When he figures out he's been had, he hires the assassin to do his job: kill her.

At this point we learn the assassin's name: Simon. He doesn't accept the job right away - first he sees if he can track her down. He admires her courage and her ability to stay one step ahead of him. He was not sure whether he would have taken the job - or her life - if fate hadn't stepped in and taken it from her in an accident. Once he's convinced she's dead, he takes her ID and calls 911. Although he proves to Rafael she is dead, he hadn't accepted the job and so doesn't accept payment either.

But he can't seem to shake her from his life and decides to locate her grave. He needs closure. Instead, he's shocked to learn that Drea actually survived the accident.

Now going by her nickname Andie, she realizes that she was never the one in power or in control of her life as she had thought, but that she had allowed men to use her. Her near-death experience forces her to face the truth of her way of life. Now she needs to reclaim her life and seek redemption for her past. Although she still has the original $2 million she stole from Rafael, she decides to fly under the radar, with a job that pays cash, living on what she makes, and use the money some way that will bring her redemption.

Then Simon is revealed to her by a flash of lightning during a storm - he's been watching her. As the reader, we know he's been her guardian angel, but to Andie he's still the relentless assassin who has found her and plans to finish the job he started. Although he had never planned to reveal himself, once again divine intervention plays a role, and now the two of them must face both their fears. And Andie must find her redemption and reason for her second chance.

Well - I loved the suspense, the skillful story-telling, the powerful transformation Andie undergoes from feeling worthless to finding her power within, and especially Simon's own redemption, because he had so much further to go than she did. Rafael's ending almost caught me unaware - it seemed to come out of nowhere but then made perfect sense after it happened.

I would rate the narration 3 stars for mediocre. I can't blame Linda Howard for that, though, so Death Angel gets 5 stars from me.