Help! Either I have no life or I read/skim too fast - two Julie James books in one day! Truth is, both - I don't have a life and I loved these books so much, I couldn't read fast enough!!
This one is related to Something About You by characters, making it Book #2 in a series of sorts - the hero and heroine from the first book playing minor character roles. Plus, YAY! there is an excerpt from Book #3 and the hero is Kyle! Oh wait, plot:
No lawyers! ::Shock:: Hero is FBI undercover agent Nick McCall, masquerading as Nick Stanton, aka Tall, Dark and Smoldering date of heiress and wine store owner Jordan Rhodes. It's slightly complicated: Jordan's twin brother Kyle shut down Twitter with a DoS attack and is now in prison as a result; FBI needs to get into a classy party that Jordan is invited to, so they offer to reduce Kyle's sentence if she lets an FBI agent accompany her. And it's related to the plot of Book #1 with original bad guy Roberto Martino, now behind bars.
The H/H don't know each other before she is brought into the FBI, so they don't have a We Hate Each Other history, but they manage to annoy each other a little anyway. She's the daughter of a man who made it big in the computer industry - as in, Billionaire - while he's from a slightly lower class Brooklyn background, so there is the element of Not Exactly Made for Each Other.
And Ms. James is ramping up the heat in her books big time. Big. Time. Jordan and Nick start out with sexual innuendos early on, and the chemistry is thick and there is no pussy-footing around. She paints a really terrific character portrait - both characters are smart, sassy and well developed by her prose. It's funny to me that I can sorta see them and experience what they are feeling from their thoughts, but I don't actually have faces for them. But I like them both very much!
She's also ramping up the suspense/thriller plot - not that the reader doesn't know who the bad guys are, they do - but still, having the bad guys get badder does also ramp up the adrenaline while reading. I like it! No, I love it! 5 stars
Showing posts with label suspense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suspense. Show all posts
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Mercy by Julie Garwood, ****
The second book in the Buchanan-Renard series, this one features Justice Dept attorney Theo Buchanan and brilliant backwater surgeon Michelle Renard. Another of those backwater-bayou Louisiana towns is the setting.
Buchanan is in New Orleans giving a speech when his appendix ruptures, and speech-attendee Dr Renard rushes him to the hospital and saves his life. When her father asks him to come to Bowen, Louisiana to go fishing, he is intrigued with Michelle enough to take him up on it.
That's merely the setup for the romance behind the thriller. As it turns out, Michelle was supposed to have received some very damning evidence against 4 white-collar thieves in a special delivery envelope, but dropped the envelope unopened in the hospital to attend to an emergency. The thieves hired Monk, a hitman, to get the envelope and take her out before she could turn the evidence over to the police. They didn't count on a Justice dept employee and his FBI friend Noah Clayborne to be in Bowen with Michelle and her father as well.
I found it to be a fairly exciting and entertaining read - I knew who (most of) the characters were, so there wasn't really a mystery. And Theo was pretty much one of my favorite types of characters, the besotted hero. 4 stars.
Buchanan is in New Orleans giving a speech when his appendix ruptures, and speech-attendee Dr Renard rushes him to the hospital and saves his life. When her father asks him to come to Bowen, Louisiana to go fishing, he is intrigued with Michelle enough to take him up on it.
That's merely the setup for the romance behind the thriller. As it turns out, Michelle was supposed to have received some very damning evidence against 4 white-collar thieves in a special delivery envelope, but dropped the envelope unopened in the hospital to attend to an emergency. The thieves hired Monk, a hitman, to get the envelope and take her out before she could turn the evidence over to the police. They didn't count on a Justice dept employee and his FBI friend Noah Clayborne to be in Bowen with Michelle and her father as well.
I found it to be a fairly exciting and entertaining read - I knew who (most of) the characters were, so there wasn't really a mystery. And Theo was pretty much one of my favorite types of characters, the besotted hero. 4 stars.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Money, Honey by Susan Sey ****
Finally finished this - it may have been the only print book in January (actually it was the fourth, but who's counting?)! I have been knitting so much and listening to audiobooks well into the night, so that by the time I go to bed I'm too tired to read more than a few pages, and that makes it hard to keep up with the story.
This is a contemporary Good Girl Cop/Bad Boy Thief romantic suspense - the heroine is FBI Special Agent Liz Brynn, a by-the-book woman who met up with Patrick O'Connor years back when he turned himself in to save his sister. Patrick came from a long line of thieves - all in the family - and to keep from going to jail, spent some time working for the FBI as an informant to Liz. He's back - several years later - and it's not clear to Liz or the FBI whether it's really to help his sister with a counterfeiting problem or to hook up with an old crime buddy and pull another heist. The FBI reels him in to help on the counterfeiting scheme, hoping to catch him with the other bad guy as well.
The old sparks between Liz and Patrick are back - and Patrick pushes Liz hard to give in. Except when she does, he's suspicious. Is she using him or does she really want him?
There's a slight taste of Eve Dallas and Roarke here (In Death): Liz is the polyester-suit wearing hardass, and Patrick the rich and debonair former thief. Sey's writing is almost old-time-film-noir, with Liz as the private eye and Patrick the femme fatale. Everything seems fast paced, and exaggerated - "fury buzzed in her ears like a swarm of killer bees" "Self-disgust dripped cold and slippery into her gut", and Patrick calls her "Liz. Darling." every time he speaks to her. I could imagine it being narrated by a Humphrey Bogart style voice.
I liked it pretty well, 4 stars, and I think I'd have liked it even better if I got to read it in 3 or 4 sittings instead of 20 pages a night for 2 weeks!
This is a contemporary Good Girl Cop/Bad Boy Thief romantic suspense - the heroine is FBI Special Agent Liz Brynn, a by-the-book woman who met up with Patrick O'Connor years back when he turned himself in to save his sister. Patrick came from a long line of thieves - all in the family - and to keep from going to jail, spent some time working for the FBI as an informant to Liz. He's back - several years later - and it's not clear to Liz or the FBI whether it's really to help his sister with a counterfeiting problem or to hook up with an old crime buddy and pull another heist. The FBI reels him in to help on the counterfeiting scheme, hoping to catch him with the other bad guy as well.
The old sparks between Liz and Patrick are back - and Patrick pushes Liz hard to give in. Except when she does, he's suspicious. Is she using him or does she really want him?
There's a slight taste of Eve Dallas and Roarke here (In Death): Liz is the polyester-suit wearing hardass, and Patrick the rich and debonair former thief. Sey's writing is almost old-time-film-noir, with Liz as the private eye and Patrick the femme fatale. Everything seems fast paced, and exaggerated - "fury buzzed in her ears like a swarm of killer bees" "Self-disgust dripped cold and slippery into her gut", and Patrick calls her "Liz. Darling." every time he speaks to her. I could imagine it being narrated by a Humphrey Bogart style voice.
I liked it pretty well, 4 stars, and I think I'd have liked it even better if I got to read it in 3 or 4 sittings instead of 20 pages a night for 2 weeks!
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Trouble in High Heels by Christina Dodd ****
Trouble in High Heels by Christina DoddMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a fun romp! It's the first in the Fortune Hunter series, and I read #3 first, and found it just ok. The genre must be suspenseful romantic comedy because it had moments of each.
Brandi had just moved to Chicago - in the winter - to be closer to her fiance Alan. She also just got a job with a prestigious law firm in Chicago, which she would start in just a few days. While having trouble getting settled in, what with frozen water pipes and a mistake in her furniture order, she received a call from Alan: he'd just gotten married in Las Vegas. In revenge, she pawned the engagement ring and spent it all on getting ready for a big charity ball she would now be attending alone. The revenge plan: pick up a man and spend the night forgetting all about Alan.
Roberto was that man: an Italian count rumored to be an international jewel thief. He was perfect except for one small detail she learned on her first day at work: she was his lawyer.
The narrator is Amanda Ronconi, a new-to-me narrator with 19 listings at audible.com. I liked her regular reading voice and her female characters a lot, her male voices and especially her Italian-accented male voices somewhat less. The gravelly/throaty voices and not-very-authentic foreign accents didn't work for me very well.
I think this story has the absolute best grovel scene I've ever read, and the last 20 minutes or so were pretty funny as I imagined what the scene looked like.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Infamous by Suzanne Brockmann ***
I got this on audio, thinking it was perhaps a re-release of an older book (seems I read something online that implied that?) But when the year 2010 was mentioned in the book, I decided it must be a new book - and sure enough, it is.
I have also been reading, for a while, about all the former Brockmann fans who haven't forgiven her for a few things, one of which was in the Troubleshooters series when she paired up a hero and heroine that everyone was disappointed about. There had been 2 men and 1 woman sorta dancing around getting together as background characters in several books, and when the book for that woman was written, well, a lotta folks just didn't like who ended up being her hero. Personally, I didn't care. I liked that book as well as the others in the series, and plan to keep reading them.
And then there's the folks that feel she pushes her own "political" agenda about gay rights in her book. I'm not sure what she says is what I would consider "political" but yeah, she has an ongoing gay character who got his own book and his own hero in Troubleshooters, and uses some ink to speak out for gay rights through the characters.
My own opinion is that Brockmann writes well, her mystery-thriller-SEAL stories make great reading, and I've been happy with the audiobooks too, even when she uses 2 narrators, one of whom is Patrick Lawlor.
Now my opinion about the audiobook of Infamous.
She does spend a leeetle too much time ramming her gay rights agenda down our throats. I hadn't really noticed it before, but I think even if I hadn't read that (and not agreed until this book) I would have been aware. One gay character with one monologue about gay rights are ok is fine. Hell, 20 gay characters and one monologue about gays are ok is fine. But that second riff on how it's ok to be gay, and "I knew this guy.... blah blah blah and he's gay and"... I got it. I. Get. It. OK OK OK!! That's #1.
This story uses a made-up historical event that vaguely smacks of the shoot out at the OK Corral. It's supposed to be something all children are taught about in school, and everyone knows how the sheriff was this incredible hero who killed 7 in one blow, but his wife was abducted and murdered anyway, poor fellow. Then there's the Bad-to-the-Bone Bad Guy who is bad bad bad (booooo!) Kid Gallagher, the murderer. Our heroine, Allison Carter - historian - has written at least one book about the Shining White Hatted Sheriff and his nemesis (boooooo!) Kid Gallagher, and is now serving as historical accuracy consultant on the set of the umpteenth movie about this subject.
OK, here's my problem #2 - Allison. She's this HISTORY PROFESSOR who really, really hates the Bad Guy. She's not the least bit objective about this story. Her facts do not seem to come from original documents and her research came across as shoddy.
Let's meet our Hero - AJ Gallagher. Gallagher. Yes, turns out he's the great-grandson of Kid. Kid died at the ripe old age of 101, when AJ was 10. AJ lost his dad in Vietnam. AJ served his country in Afghanistan or Iraq, where PTSD turned him into an alcoholic who left the service with a mental discharge. Then he starts seeing Kid as a ghost, a ghost who sends him to Jubilation Arizona to change Allison's mind about her book. Because as it turns out, she has the facts wrong - the Sheriff was Bad, and Kid was the True Hero at the shoot out.
Here comes my problems #3 and #4 - the narrators. First: I did like Lawlor in her other books, and he was ok in this one. Kid speaks in 1st person POV - which usually works for me. But Lawlor used the same exact voice for both Kid and AJ, so I had to listen hard - if he used "I" then it was Kid, otherwise it was AJ. Very, very confusing. And his other voices - well, the gay character had affected speech, the stereotypical lisp. Both narrators used that affectation. Hmm. And the female narrator spoke like she was on speed. At one point I wondered if I had accidentally turned on the 2X speed function. Then there was her Minny Mouse on helium voice at the beginning. (were they paying her by the word?? I don't think I can even talk that fast!)
There was some mention (from Allison's point of view) that AJ had a slight Western drawl - and she used it at first, but Lawlor never did. It was as if all he had was 2 voices - his regular voice and his gravelly voice. Lawlor's voice doesn't quite capture tall, dark and handsome for me - his pitch is a couple of notes too high for me, but truly in the TSS I thought he was great at capturing the thrill and excitement of those dangerous adventures. Not so in Infamous.
OK - you have to take a leap of faith and go with the ghost part. AJ can see and hear him, but no one else can. Was it his PTSD? His alcoholism? Or a true ghost? Her world-building for ghosts was not exactly convincing but I went along anyway. When the ghost touched people, they felt a sort of cold shock. The ghost was able to zoom around and solve all the problems. And at the end, when he... well, spoiler territory. Very Deus Ex Machina.
There were too many plot contrivances for me. The bad guys were 2 dimensional, the actor on drugs with a keeper seemed overdone and unrealistic, the FBI couple too... something, the stupid movie set details didn't ring true for me. And Allison was a bitch - she seduces AJ, although it wasn't as subtle as seduction - she JUMPS AJ then accuses him of lying to her and such. Sheesh. His POV told us he was going slow; her POV told us she was instantly hot to trot. So why is she getting mad at him as if he forced her?
Brockmann, however, still managed to make it a story I had to finish and even enjoyed a few scenes in - I really do like her writing voice, even if I rolled my eyes several times over the details that just didn't add up for me. That's why, in spite of my having so many issues with the story and with the narration, I have to give it a 3 - mediocre, but I didn't dislike it.
I have also been reading, for a while, about all the former Brockmann fans who haven't forgiven her for a few things, one of which was in the Troubleshooters series when she paired up a hero and heroine that everyone was disappointed about. There had been 2 men and 1 woman sorta dancing around getting together as background characters in several books, and when the book for that woman was written, well, a lotta folks just didn't like who ended up being her hero. Personally, I didn't care. I liked that book as well as the others in the series, and plan to keep reading them.
And then there's the folks that feel she pushes her own "political" agenda about gay rights in her book. I'm not sure what she says is what I would consider "political" but yeah, she has an ongoing gay character who got his own book and his own hero in Troubleshooters, and uses some ink to speak out for gay rights through the characters.
My own opinion is that Brockmann writes well, her mystery-thriller-SEAL stories make great reading, and I've been happy with the audiobooks too, even when she uses 2 narrators, one of whom is Patrick Lawlor.
Now my opinion about the audiobook of Infamous.
She does spend a leeetle too much time ramming her gay rights agenda down our throats. I hadn't really noticed it before, but I think even if I hadn't read that (and not agreed until this book) I would have been aware. One gay character with one monologue about gay rights are ok is fine. Hell, 20 gay characters and one monologue about gays are ok is fine. But that second riff on how it's ok to be gay, and "I knew this guy.... blah blah blah and he's gay and"... I got it. I. Get. It. OK OK OK!! That's #1.
This story uses a made-up historical event that vaguely smacks of the shoot out at the OK Corral. It's supposed to be something all children are taught about in school, and everyone knows how the sheriff was this incredible hero who killed 7 in one blow, but his wife was abducted and murdered anyway, poor fellow. Then there's the Bad-to-the-Bone Bad Guy who is bad bad bad (booooo!) Kid Gallagher, the murderer. Our heroine, Allison Carter - historian - has written at least one book about the Shining White Hatted Sheriff and his nemesis (boooooo!) Kid Gallagher, and is now serving as historical accuracy consultant on the set of the umpteenth movie about this subject.
OK, here's my problem #2 - Allison. She's this HISTORY PROFESSOR who really, really hates the Bad Guy. She's not the least bit objective about this story. Her facts do not seem to come from original documents and her research came across as shoddy.
Let's meet our Hero - AJ Gallagher. Gallagher. Yes, turns out he's the great-grandson of Kid. Kid died at the ripe old age of 101, when AJ was 10. AJ lost his dad in Vietnam. AJ served his country in Afghanistan or Iraq, where PTSD turned him into an alcoholic who left the service with a mental discharge. Then he starts seeing Kid as a ghost, a ghost who sends him to Jubilation Arizona to change Allison's mind about her book. Because as it turns out, she has the facts wrong - the Sheriff was Bad, and Kid was the True Hero at the shoot out.
Here comes my problems #3 and #4 - the narrators. First: I did like Lawlor in her other books, and he was ok in this one. Kid speaks in 1st person POV - which usually works for me. But Lawlor used the same exact voice for both Kid and AJ, so I had to listen hard - if he used "I" then it was Kid, otherwise it was AJ. Very, very confusing. And his other voices - well, the gay character had affected speech, the stereotypical lisp. Both narrators used that affectation. Hmm. And the female narrator spoke like she was on speed. At one point I wondered if I had accidentally turned on the 2X speed function. Then there was her Minny Mouse on helium voice at the beginning. (were they paying her by the word?? I don't think I can even talk that fast!)
There was some mention (from Allison's point of view) that AJ had a slight Western drawl - and she used it at first, but Lawlor never did. It was as if all he had was 2 voices - his regular voice and his gravelly voice. Lawlor's voice doesn't quite capture tall, dark and handsome for me - his pitch is a couple of notes too high for me, but truly in the TSS I thought he was great at capturing the thrill and excitement of those dangerous adventures. Not so in Infamous.
OK - you have to take a leap of faith and go with the ghost part. AJ can see and hear him, but no one else can. Was it his PTSD? His alcoholism? Or a true ghost? Her world-building for ghosts was not exactly convincing but I went along anyway. When the ghost touched people, they felt a sort of cold shock. The ghost was able to zoom around and solve all the problems. And at the end, when he... well, spoiler territory. Very Deus Ex Machina.
There were too many plot contrivances for me. The bad guys were 2 dimensional, the actor on drugs with a keeper seemed overdone and unrealistic, the FBI couple too... something, the stupid movie set details didn't ring true for me. And Allison was a bitch - she seduces AJ, although it wasn't as subtle as seduction - she JUMPS AJ then accuses him of lying to her and such. Sheesh. His POV told us he was going slow; her POV told us she was instantly hot to trot. So why is she getting mad at him as if he forced her?
Brockmann, however, still managed to make it a story I had to finish and even enjoyed a few scenes in - I really do like her writing voice, even if I rolled my eyes several times over the details that just didn't add up for me. That's why, in spite of my having so many issues with the story and with the narration, I have to give it a 3 - mediocre, but I didn't dislike it.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Strangers in the Night by Linda Howard ***
This is 3 short stories (novellas?) written by LH in the 1990s but only recently released by audible.com in audio, narrator Laural Merlington.
I guess the first story should have alerted me that this wasn't going to be as good as I'd hoped. Generally, I'm a big LH fan - my absolute favorite book right now is To Die For, and among my top favorites are After The Night, Death Angel - oh, too many to count. But hey, there are a couple of duds, and now I can add these three stories to that list. Yeah, I rated them 3 stars, because, I don't know, I didn't hate them, just... blah.
I can't even recall the first story now, and I only started the audiobook yesterday. All three have a strange man coming into the lives of our heroines in mysterious ways and falling madly in love within about 2 minutes, then pledging loyalty to death do they part before 24 hours. The first one was something about the 2 of them having known each other forever, literally, then dreaming about each other, then meeting each other in real life/today. The narrator got so caught up in the story, her drama was way over the top and I wanted to ask her to calm down and lower her voice.
The other 2 didn't seem to have... wait, no - I started to say no paranormal element, but no, story #2 did have a woman who could see auras and also had a sort of vision thing happening too. And that living off the land thing in Alabama, no electricity and all that? Sorry, but it's hot as hell and humid too, and so I just couldn't buy that one either. Oh, they are thrown together on an island and the bad guy takes their boats, so what the hey, they boink all night.
The last one, the heroine takes in the frozen stranger, warms him with her body heat then, what the hey, they boink all night. But - oh - noes - could he be a murderer? You'll have to read it to find out. Naw, I won't put you through it: spoiler, no, he's not the murderer, but because they boinked all night she thinks she's probably pregnant, and he's so happy he proposes right then and there.
3 stars for the narrator cuz she wasn't as hysterical in the last 2 stories.
But I recommend skipping it or getting it from your local library.
I guess the first story should have alerted me that this wasn't going to be as good as I'd hoped. Generally, I'm a big LH fan - my absolute favorite book right now is To Die For, and among my top favorites are After The Night, Death Angel - oh, too many to count. But hey, there are a couple of duds, and now I can add these three stories to that list. Yeah, I rated them 3 stars, because, I don't know, I didn't hate them, just... blah.
I can't even recall the first story now, and I only started the audiobook yesterday. All three have a strange man coming into the lives of our heroines in mysterious ways and falling madly in love within about 2 minutes, then pledging loyalty to death do they part before 24 hours. The first one was something about the 2 of them having known each other forever, literally, then dreaming about each other, then meeting each other in real life/today. The narrator got so caught up in the story, her drama was way over the top and I wanted to ask her to calm down and lower her voice.
The other 2 didn't seem to have... wait, no - I started to say no paranormal element, but no, story #2 did have a woman who could see auras and also had a sort of vision thing happening too. And that living off the land thing in Alabama, no electricity and all that? Sorry, but it's hot as hell and humid too, and so I just couldn't buy that one either. Oh, they are thrown together on an island and the bad guy takes their boats, so what the hey, they boink all night.
The last one, the heroine takes in the frozen stranger, warms him with her body heat then, what the hey, they boink all night. But - oh - noes - could he be a murderer? You'll have to read it to find out. Naw, I won't put you through it: spoiler, no, he's not the murderer, but because they boinked all night she thinks she's probably pregnant, and he's so happy he proposes right then and there.
3 stars for the narrator cuz she wasn't as hysterical in the last 2 stories.
But I recommend skipping it or getting it from your local library.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Naked Edge by Pamela Clare ****
wow - I think this might be the first time I started and finished 2 books in one day! (ok, I'm 30 minutes into the next day, but if I'd started reading earlier...)
This is actually the 4th book in the I-Team series and - gasp! - I haven't read books 1-3 yet. I wanted to - but I had a Barnes & Noble gift card, and they only had this one, so... I'd been meaning to do a Pamela Clare glom after reading 2 others (different series) so I figured I would just go ahead.
This is a contemporary, and it didn't take long for me to pick up that the I-Team of the series is a journalistic team, not a Navy SEAL or similar. The heroine, Kat, is one of the journalists, and her background is Navajo. She grew up on the rez in Arizona, but has left to make a living in Denver. As it turns out, her father was not Navajo and was not married to her mother, something that shamed her mother so much she never accepted her, and she was raised by her grandmother.
The hero is Gabe, who apparently appeared in earlier books. Gabe is a Mountain Parks ranger, and a "rock climbing god". After the prologue, we meet Gabe doing what he figures he does best - boinking and leaving a woman. He's not the marrying kind. (well, what contemporary hero is?) Kat and Gabe first meet when she falls into his life - literally, because she fell off a cliff he was climbing. They meet again when he is called to the scene of what appears to be a crime, only to see her being dragged out of a sweat lodge by her hair. Some local cop has decided the religious ceremony is breaking some local law.
Kat decides to follow up on the issue, writing a story about the Indian protest that follows, and pointing out the various laws already in place to protect Native Americans and their religious freedom. But that move gets her some death threats, and is soon followed by the suspicious death of one of the Indian elders. Clearly, something is rotten in Denver...
Kat has already told Gabe that she is a virgin and plans to wait until she meets her Other Half (aka soulmate) and gets married. She is not going to be one of his conquests. He lets her know right off the bat, though, that he's interested but not the marrying kind. (oh yeah, and as I said, what contemporary hero is?) But the two of them are thrown together in the mystery of who is behind the death of the elder when someone takes shots at them while they investigate.
We follow the 2 of them (with their buddies from earlier stories) through the investigation and mystery until they are forced to hide out in the mountains near Vail in a small cabin, while their buddies and the police try to find the killer.
I enjoyed the story very much, and at one point I was close to tears, thinking the author might have actually gone too far and killed one of the characters... And I gasped with shock near the end at what did happen. But at the end, I confess the epilogue just went on and on and made this particular happily ever after too sweet for even my taste. OK, everyone who needed being saved was saved, and the only character who dies was a bad guy - alright? (sorry, spoilerish) And they each confessed to loving the other. I didn't need another couple of dozen pages of the next year, as cloyingly cute as it was. Really.
It wasn't going to be a 5-star anyway, even as much as I liked the story and the characters. But it almost slipped to a 3... (oh, and my copy had about 4 almost blank pages! sheesh! I ended up reading them from the Look Inside page at Amazon!)
This is actually the 4th book in the I-Team series and - gasp! - I haven't read books 1-3 yet. I wanted to - but I had a Barnes & Noble gift card, and they only had this one, so... I'd been meaning to do a Pamela Clare glom after reading 2 others (different series) so I figured I would just go ahead.
This is a contemporary, and it didn't take long for me to pick up that the I-Team of the series is a journalistic team, not a Navy SEAL or similar. The heroine, Kat, is one of the journalists, and her background is Navajo. She grew up on the rez in Arizona, but has left to make a living in Denver. As it turns out, her father was not Navajo and was not married to her mother, something that shamed her mother so much she never accepted her, and she was raised by her grandmother.
The hero is Gabe, who apparently appeared in earlier books. Gabe is a Mountain Parks ranger, and a "rock climbing god". After the prologue, we meet Gabe doing what he figures he does best - boinking and leaving a woman. He's not the marrying kind. (well, what contemporary hero is?) Kat and Gabe first meet when she falls into his life - literally, because she fell off a cliff he was climbing. They meet again when he is called to the scene of what appears to be a crime, only to see her being dragged out of a sweat lodge by her hair. Some local cop has decided the religious ceremony is breaking some local law.
Kat decides to follow up on the issue, writing a story about the Indian protest that follows, and pointing out the various laws already in place to protect Native Americans and their religious freedom. But that move gets her some death threats, and is soon followed by the suspicious death of one of the Indian elders. Clearly, something is rotten in Denver...
Kat has already told Gabe that she is a virgin and plans to wait until she meets her Other Half (aka soulmate) and gets married. She is not going to be one of his conquests. He lets her know right off the bat, though, that he's interested but not the marrying kind. (oh yeah, and as I said, what contemporary hero is?) But the two of them are thrown together in the mystery of who is behind the death of the elder when someone takes shots at them while they investigate.
We follow the 2 of them (with their buddies from earlier stories) through the investigation and mystery until they are forced to hide out in the mountains near Vail in a small cabin, while their buddies and the police try to find the killer.
I enjoyed the story very much, and at one point I was close to tears, thinking the author might have actually gone too far and killed one of the characters... And I gasped with shock near the end at what did happen. But at the end, I confess the epilogue just went on and on and made this particular happily ever after too sweet for even my taste. OK, everyone who needed being saved was saved, and the only character who dies was a bad guy - alright? (sorry, spoilerish) And they each confessed to loving the other. I didn't need another couple of dozen pages of the next year, as cloyingly cute as it was. Really.
It wasn't going to be a 5-star anyway, even as much as I liked the story and the characters. But it almost slipped to a 3... (oh, and my copy had about 4 almost blank pages! sheesh! I ended up reading them from the Look Inside page at Amazon!)
Saturday, July 3, 2010
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson ****
I got this audio book on recommendation from my sister. It's the first in the series by Stieg Larsson, a Swedish author who unfortunately died before finishing the series. In it we are introduced to a large, rather confusing cast of characters. (Made more confusing by the similarity of names, all Swedish of course)
Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist and editor of The Millennium, a monthly magazine. He is sent to jail for libel over an article he has written about the Wennerstromm affair - a large, international financial fraud scheme. Even though the court found his article libelous, he knows he is on to something bigger and scandalous, and he doesn't want to give up on the research. After he is released from prison, he is hired by an elderly gentleman who wants Mikael to find out the truth about the disappearance of his niece Harriet decades before. Vanger promises to help him with the Wennerstromm research as an incentive.
Meanwhile, and my memory is a little clouded, somehow Milton Security becomes involved and Armansky, the director of the firm, uses his best researcher, Lisbeth Salander, to do background research on Blomqvist. (Oh yeah, I just remembered - Vanger hired Milton Security to do a background check on Blomqvist!) Lisbeth is the title character in all 3 of the novels in the series - she's young, extremely intelligent with incredible hacking skills and resources, extremely anti-social and had a horrendous childhood. She was institutionalized as a teen, and is still considered mentally ill and must report to a guardian. Blomqvist and Salander manage to meet (again, cloudy recall) and she helps him in his research, both on the Wennerstromm issue and finding what happened to Harriet, who was presumed murdered.
It's an extremely engaging set of mysteries that takes Mikael on a rather wild ride, uncovering shocking and rather gory family secrets along the way. Salander herself isn't truly revealed until the last part of the book, when she uses sleuthing methods to bring down Wennerstrom, almost just because she can.
The narrator is the wonderful Simon Vance, who appears to be able to pronounce just about anything, and brings a completely different (British Isles) accent to all the Swedish characters, as well as other accents to characters like Armansky. Except for keeping up with all those names, it's easy to follow Vance's narration as a result. Just when you think the mystery has been solved - the plot thickens to mud, and you are off again on another journey!
I'm now about 1/3 of the way through book 3, and it gets easier and easier to keep up with the characters, but harder and harder to follow the intricate web of the mystery! In fact, I was slack-jawed at the part I listened to last night - it came out of nowhere, and although earlier I had thought it could happen, how it happened was a complete shock! I can't say for sure until I'm finished, but it seems there is one underlying mystery across all the books that have nothing to do with Harriet Vanger or the Wennerstrom affair.
My sister commented that after she finished book 3, she was sorry to see it end and she would miss Salander. I'll have to comment on that after I'm done, since I have so much more to go!
It's a great 4 star read for me, a mystery/thriller/suspense type book.
Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist and editor of The Millennium, a monthly magazine. He is sent to jail for libel over an article he has written about the Wennerstromm affair - a large, international financial fraud scheme. Even though the court found his article libelous, he knows he is on to something bigger and scandalous, and he doesn't want to give up on the research. After he is released from prison, he is hired by an elderly gentleman who wants Mikael to find out the truth about the disappearance of his niece Harriet decades before. Vanger promises to help him with the Wennerstromm research as an incentive.
Meanwhile, and my memory is a little clouded, somehow Milton Security becomes involved and Armansky, the director of the firm, uses his best researcher, Lisbeth Salander, to do background research on Blomqvist. (Oh yeah, I just remembered - Vanger hired Milton Security to do a background check on Blomqvist!) Lisbeth is the title character in all 3 of the novels in the series - she's young, extremely intelligent with incredible hacking skills and resources, extremely anti-social and had a horrendous childhood. She was institutionalized as a teen, and is still considered mentally ill and must report to a guardian. Blomqvist and Salander manage to meet (again, cloudy recall) and she helps him in his research, both on the Wennerstromm issue and finding what happened to Harriet, who was presumed murdered.
It's an extremely engaging set of mysteries that takes Mikael on a rather wild ride, uncovering shocking and rather gory family secrets along the way. Salander herself isn't truly revealed until the last part of the book, when she uses sleuthing methods to bring down Wennerstrom, almost just because she can.
The narrator is the wonderful Simon Vance, who appears to be able to pronounce just about anything, and brings a completely different (British Isles) accent to all the Swedish characters, as well as other accents to characters like Armansky. Except for keeping up with all those names, it's easy to follow Vance's narration as a result. Just when you think the mystery has been solved - the plot thickens to mud, and you are off again on another journey!
I'm now about 1/3 of the way through book 3, and it gets easier and easier to keep up with the characters, but harder and harder to follow the intricate web of the mystery! In fact, I was slack-jawed at the part I listened to last night - it came out of nowhere, and although earlier I had thought it could happen, how it happened was a complete shock! I can't say for sure until I'm finished, but it seems there is one underlying mystery across all the books that have nothing to do with Harriet Vanger or the Wennerstrom affair.
My sister commented that after she finished book 3, she was sorry to see it end and she would miss Salander. I'll have to comment on that after I'm done, since I have so much more to go!
It's a great 4 star read for me, a mystery/thriller/suspense type book.
Monday, April 12, 2010
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell *****
Wow - what a weird, twisting, convoluted, powerful, confusing, emotional, fascinating book!! A friend recommended this to me after I told her about Still Alice, which I had recently read (fiction written from the POV of a woman with Alzheimer's). I got it (free!) from the library on audio/download.
I think reading this book must have been incredibly hard to follow, because the author uses the POV of Esme as a child, Esme as an adult, Iris in current time, Iris in current time remembering past occurrences, and Kitty, from her demented and aged self remembering things from the past - all without much in the way of clues when the POV changes. The narrator, Anne Flosnik, was superb - rich Scottish accents in voices that portrayed all the POVs beautifully, so that following it was easy once you'd picked up on the different tone and timbre she used for each character.
It's a psychological thriller, a mystery of where Esme has been for the past 60 years, and why. But she hasn't actually disappeared - she has been in Cauldstone Hospital, a mental asylum, since she was 16. When the story starts, we hear from Esme as a child in India, growing up with her older sister Kitty. The story from Iris's point of view is current time - she's in an affair with a married man, running a resale shop, living a sort of oddly normal life. Because she is the only other living relative of Kitty, her grandmother, she must deal with Esme, her great-aunt of whom she had no prior knowledge, because Cauldstone Hospital is being closed. Iris visits her grandmother - now too far into dementia to even recognize Iris - and the grandmother, in her own world, remembering only things long past and even then, only in fits and starts - confirms Esme's relationship.
Iris originally plans to take Esme to a half-way house of sorts until a better facility can be found, but finds she cannot leave her in the horrible place they have sent her to stay.
But it isn't so much about where any of the women are physically. It's about where they are emotionally, mentally, and what is going on in their minds as they each deal with their lives and the choices that they have had made for them.
It was almost like watching a wreck in slow motion - I sensed where it was going, and wanted to turn away but couldn't. When all the truths were finally revealed, and the last inevitable action was in sight, I felt like I was left to deal with the emotional aftermath which is not really spelled out, but left for the reader's imagination.
Highly recommended - especially in audio. 5 stars
I think reading this book must have been incredibly hard to follow, because the author uses the POV of Esme as a child, Esme as an adult, Iris in current time, Iris in current time remembering past occurrences, and Kitty, from her demented and aged self remembering things from the past - all without much in the way of clues when the POV changes. The narrator, Anne Flosnik, was superb - rich Scottish accents in voices that portrayed all the POVs beautifully, so that following it was easy once you'd picked up on the different tone and timbre she used for each character.
It's a psychological thriller, a mystery of where Esme has been for the past 60 years, and why. But she hasn't actually disappeared - she has been in Cauldstone Hospital, a mental asylum, since she was 16. When the story starts, we hear from Esme as a child in India, growing up with her older sister Kitty. The story from Iris's point of view is current time - she's in an affair with a married man, running a resale shop, living a sort of oddly normal life. Because she is the only other living relative of Kitty, her grandmother, she must deal with Esme, her great-aunt of whom she had no prior knowledge, because Cauldstone Hospital is being closed. Iris visits her grandmother - now too far into dementia to even recognize Iris - and the grandmother, in her own world, remembering only things long past and even then, only in fits and starts - confirms Esme's relationship.
Iris originally plans to take Esme to a half-way house of sorts until a better facility can be found, but finds she cannot leave her in the horrible place they have sent her to stay.
But it isn't so much about where any of the women are physically. It's about where they are emotionally, mentally, and what is going on in their minds as they each deal with their lives and the choices that they have had made for them.
It was almost like watching a wreck in slow motion - I sensed where it was going, and wanted to turn away but couldn't. When all the truths were finally revealed, and the last inevitable action was in sight, I felt like I was left to deal with the emotional aftermath which is not really spelled out, but left for the reader's imagination.
Highly recommended - especially in audio. 5 stars
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Freefall by Joann Ross ***
My first experience with author Joann Ross was a Louisiana bayou series (Blue Bayou and the Callahan Brothers) and I liked them. However, I didn't read any more by her until a new release came up, I believe it was #3 or #4 in a series, and it sounded good. I got the new release but never read it as I prefer to read series in order and I was moving and...
I downloaded Freefall, the #1 in this series, from audible.com and finally got around to listening to it this weekend. It was pretty good and maybe I'll get around to reading or listening to the rest of them, eventually.
This is the High Risk series, and Freefall's hero is a Navy SEAL (surprise, surprise) who left the service and is picking up the pieces of his life after a particularly bad clusterfuck in Afghanistan where most of his team - not just a SEAL team, but Rangers and Marines too - were killed. Zach's back in his hometown of Swann Island, South Carolina.
Our lovely heroine is also a quasi-resident, or former resident of Swann Island - Sabrina Swann, as it happens. Her father and mother were artsy types who traveled the world, leaving Sabrina in hotels and boarding schools all over Europe, and her grandmother's home on Swann Island, Swannsea (spelling?) is really the only place she considered home. She spent a few summers there, and during her pivotal teen years had the biggest crush on Zach. She had a terrific job, running a fabulous hotel in Florence, Italy, when BOOM a terrorist blows up the hotel, and Sabrina decides to take a hiatus and return to her roots to recover mentally. Unfortunately, her grandmother died a few months earlier and Sabrina comes back to take care of the estate.
In the midst of all this, some unnamed horrible serial killer is keeping young women caged somewhere and after treating them as slaves, murders them and moves on to the next one.
There's a secondary romance going on - best friends both to each other growing up and to Zach and Sabrina, Tatiana and Nate (he's former Marine and the sheriff now) are an ongoing romance during the story. Some of these plot points were so incredibly similar to a book I'm reading on my iPhone/kindle and another book I just read that I kept getting confused - the new sheriff being the son of the old sheriff, SEALS, girls being raised by grandmothers, all that!!
Frankly, I think authors should be more careful about names in their stories - Zach, Nate, Quinn, John - those names all ran together in my head, and I spent a fair amount of time wondering which was which while I listened. You can't really reference back during audio books to see which character said what.
It's a murder mystery background to a finding-love-again romance foreground. There's immediate chemistry between Zach and Sabrina, now that she's no longer jailbait. He's the contractor working on her grandmother's historical old home, and there's that SEAL thing going on, and his best friend the sheriff is involved, and, well, they find peace, love and the killer at the end.
The narrator was ok - she did voices well, and managed to get a different voice going for each character, but she did have an odd quirk or 2 that kept her from really being great. For one thing, those syrupy southern accents on everyone tired me out after a while. Everyone except of course Sabrina who did not grow up around there. The narrator, in my opinion, needed to stop emphasizing the letter T so much and to enunciate her vowels a little better. The words "during" and "enduring" sounded like "doring" and "endoring", as a fer instance. Those things can really mess up a good story for me - the narrator can make an OK book fabulous and a fabulous book just OK. That being said, I think the book was probably just OK even if Barbara Rosenblat had read it to me. Somehow that old hack of bringing in a second characer with murder on his mind to confuse you about who the real murderer wasn't very refreshing. The minute that fellow's motive was revealed, it was obvious he wasn't the serial killer, but just another character out for revenge.
So *** three stars for a much-used plot, much-used characters, confusing names and an OK narrator.
I downloaded Freefall, the #1 in this series, from audible.com and finally got around to listening to it this weekend. It was pretty good and maybe I'll get around to reading or listening to the rest of them, eventually.
This is the High Risk series, and Freefall's hero is a Navy SEAL (surprise, surprise) who left the service and is picking up the pieces of his life after a particularly bad clusterfuck in Afghanistan where most of his team - not just a SEAL team, but Rangers and Marines too - were killed. Zach's back in his hometown of Swann Island, South Carolina.
Our lovely heroine is also a quasi-resident, or former resident of Swann Island - Sabrina Swann, as it happens. Her father and mother were artsy types who traveled the world, leaving Sabrina in hotels and boarding schools all over Europe, and her grandmother's home on Swann Island, Swannsea (spelling?) is really the only place she considered home. She spent a few summers there, and during her pivotal teen years had the biggest crush on Zach. She had a terrific job, running a fabulous hotel in Florence, Italy, when BOOM a terrorist blows up the hotel, and Sabrina decides to take a hiatus and return to her roots to recover mentally. Unfortunately, her grandmother died a few months earlier and Sabrina comes back to take care of the estate.
In the midst of all this, some unnamed horrible serial killer is keeping young women caged somewhere and after treating them as slaves, murders them and moves on to the next one.
There's a secondary romance going on - best friends both to each other growing up and to Zach and Sabrina, Tatiana and Nate (he's former Marine and the sheriff now) are an ongoing romance during the story. Some of these plot points were so incredibly similar to a book I'm reading on my iPhone/kindle and another book I just read that I kept getting confused - the new sheriff being the son of the old sheriff, SEALS, girls being raised by grandmothers, all that!!
Frankly, I think authors should be more careful about names in their stories - Zach, Nate, Quinn, John - those names all ran together in my head, and I spent a fair amount of time wondering which was which while I listened. You can't really reference back during audio books to see which character said what.
It's a murder mystery background to a finding-love-again romance foreground. There's immediate chemistry between Zach and Sabrina, now that she's no longer jailbait. He's the contractor working on her grandmother's historical old home, and there's that SEAL thing going on, and his best friend the sheriff is involved, and, well, they find peace, love and the killer at the end.
The narrator was ok - she did voices well, and managed to get a different voice going for each character, but she did have an odd quirk or 2 that kept her from really being great. For one thing, those syrupy southern accents on everyone tired me out after a while. Everyone except of course Sabrina who did not grow up around there. The narrator, in my opinion, needed to stop emphasizing the letter T so much and to enunciate her vowels a little better. The words "during" and "enduring" sounded like "doring" and "endoring", as a fer instance. Those things can really mess up a good story for me - the narrator can make an OK book fabulous and a fabulous book just OK. That being said, I think the book was probably just OK even if Barbara Rosenblat had read it to me. Somehow that old hack of bringing in a second characer with murder on his mind to confuse you about who the real murderer wasn't very refreshing. The minute that fellow's motive was revealed, it was obvious he wasn't the serial killer, but just another character out for revenge.
So *** three stars for a much-used plot, much-used characters, confusing names and an OK narrator.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Hot Pursuit by Suzanne Brockmann *****
I've been a Troubleshooter (TSS) fan since I picked up a book (not the first in the series) on the used book table, and have read them all - last 2 or maybe 3 on audio. I love the way the audio is done for the series: a woman reads all the sections written from a female point of view, and a man reads all the male pov. Brockmann uses several characters' pov to illustrate the story, including, like Linda Howard, the unknown perp's. The narrators are great, too - at the top of my list of great narrators.
If you don't know Brockmann or the TSSeries, you need to know she bases the books around a loosely knit group of men who started out as a SEAL team, and the women (who can't be SEALS) and as the series grew, added a couple of FBI agents, a local law enforcement officer or 2, and various other military and law-enforcement men and women. Each book generally focuses on one couple, with at least 1 other secondary romance, but the plot itself is not about the relationship as much as it is about solving a crime or facing a war/battle and how the characters react to it and to each other. At the beginning of the series, some of the secondary romances involved older couples - from and/or during World War II as flashbacks, and how they were faring now.
It's so layered - characters situations changing, characters being added, that while it might be possible to read as a stand-alone and not know all the characters, I like much more that it's more like an extended family. When she brings up inviting Rick Alvarez and his wife Annie, you remember them from Florida where Rick was local law involved in finding Sam's first wife and daughter. Many of the characters are now involved in a personal security firm called Troubleshooters, while others are still SEALS and FBI agents. They marry, they have kids, they live dangerous lives, they have great friendships - yeah, that would be my life in my dreams!!
In Hot Pursuit, an old nemesis from an earlier story reappears - The Dentist, known for viciously butchering his victims to death and taking their teeth. He's got a thing for Alyssa Locke, and he has a brilliant plan to seduce her to him by revealing himself for the first time in 2 years, knowing she'll be on the case, so he can kill her. Alyssa gets called by Savannah to come help a friend, a local politician who has received some threats. Alyssa takes Sam and baby Ash on site, and Jules joins them, bringing Robin. A number of other familiar characters are there - Dan Gillman, Izzy - yeah, child bride Eden gone, but Izzy still loves her, and some others. Dan takes the secondary romance this time - seducing the politician's best friend and office manager Jen. Everybody figures it's a good 2-week vacation, giving a politician some defense lessons and installing some security.
Lots of clues and characters and incidences are thrown in to keep you on the edge of your seat, and maybe someone else figured out the identity of The Dentist early on, but I sure didn't - in fact, that final scene even had me wondering if I was wrong, even though it was pretty clear who it was. Alyssa's Spidey senses were all out of whack - I guess having a baby will do that even to SuperWoman. Alyssa's the most kickass Troubleshooter female character there is, so when even she is fooled... yeah, her ol' cowboy Sam has to do a little CaveMan near the end (his favorite role, I think - especially since he's being such a good daddy). We got a little bit of the old Sam-and-Alyssa chemistry in bed too. Whew - nuff said. When they hated each other, though, there was a lot more tension.
Brockmann lets Dan be a complete asshole to Jen - he's so manipulative I was rolling my eyes. Was he always that way? I have a plan to go back and re-read the whole series some day anyway, so I'll find out then. He works Jen into letting him be her 2-week boyfriend, no strings attached, while everyone is still in the "this security job is going to be a vacation" mode, before anyone realizes there's a serial murderer involved. She lets herself fall, hook - line - and sinker - even while her brain is saying "don't go into the basement alone!!" (wait, that's a horror movie)
Then the adrenaline starts pumping - and, well it's another great one in the series! It was great to catch up on all the characters, even just the brief mentions (I wondered if the mentions got paid less than the main characters...) Except for the identity of The Dentist and locating all his victims, nothing is resolved in the story. Jen rejects Dan; we don't hear about Ken Carmody's health; Savannah wasn't brought up again; Alyssa and Sam are still together and we don't learn if she'll go on the President's team to Afghanistan; ditto Jules and Robin (with Jules tagged for the same team). Ok, just wait for the next book!
5 stars - audio book
If you don't know Brockmann or the TSSeries, you need to know she bases the books around a loosely knit group of men who started out as a SEAL team, and the women (who can't be SEALS) and as the series grew, added a couple of FBI agents, a local law enforcement officer or 2, and various other military and law-enforcement men and women. Each book generally focuses on one couple, with at least 1 other secondary romance, but the plot itself is not about the relationship as much as it is about solving a crime or facing a war/battle and how the characters react to it and to each other. At the beginning of the series, some of the secondary romances involved older couples - from and/or during World War II as flashbacks, and how they were faring now.
It's so layered - characters situations changing, characters being added, that while it might be possible to read as a stand-alone and not know all the characters, I like much more that it's more like an extended family. When she brings up inviting Rick Alvarez and his wife Annie, you remember them from Florida where Rick was local law involved in finding Sam's first wife and daughter. Many of the characters are now involved in a personal security firm called Troubleshooters, while others are still SEALS and FBI agents. They marry, they have kids, they live dangerous lives, they have great friendships - yeah, that would be my life in my dreams!!
In Hot Pursuit, an old nemesis from an earlier story reappears - The Dentist, known for viciously butchering his victims to death and taking their teeth. He's got a thing for Alyssa Locke, and he has a brilliant plan to seduce her to him by revealing himself for the first time in 2 years, knowing she'll be on the case, so he can kill her. Alyssa gets called by Savannah to come help a friend, a local politician who has received some threats. Alyssa takes Sam and baby Ash on site, and Jules joins them, bringing Robin. A number of other familiar characters are there - Dan Gillman, Izzy - yeah, child bride Eden gone, but Izzy still loves her, and some others. Dan takes the secondary romance this time - seducing the politician's best friend and office manager Jen. Everybody figures it's a good 2-week vacation, giving a politician some defense lessons and installing some security.
Lots of clues and characters and incidences are thrown in to keep you on the edge of your seat, and maybe someone else figured out the identity of The Dentist early on, but I sure didn't - in fact, that final scene even had me wondering if I was wrong, even though it was pretty clear who it was. Alyssa's Spidey senses were all out of whack - I guess having a baby will do that even to SuperWoman. Alyssa's the most kickass Troubleshooter female character there is, so when even she is fooled... yeah, her ol' cowboy Sam has to do a little CaveMan near the end (his favorite role, I think - especially since he's being such a good daddy). We got a little bit of the old Sam-and-Alyssa chemistry in bed too. Whew - nuff said. When they hated each other, though, there was a lot more tension.
Brockmann lets Dan be a complete asshole to Jen - he's so manipulative I was rolling my eyes. Was he always that way? I have a plan to go back and re-read the whole series some day anyway, so I'll find out then. He works Jen into letting him be her 2-week boyfriend, no strings attached, while everyone is still in the "this security job is going to be a vacation" mode, before anyone realizes there's a serial murderer involved. She lets herself fall, hook - line - and sinker - even while her brain is saying "don't go into the basement alone!!" (wait, that's a horror movie)
Then the adrenaline starts pumping - and, well it's another great one in the series! It was great to catch up on all the characters, even just the brief mentions (I wondered if the mentions got paid less than the main characters...) Except for the identity of The Dentist and locating all his victims, nothing is resolved in the story. Jen rejects Dan; we don't hear about Ken Carmody's health; Savannah wasn't brought up again; Alyssa and Sam are still together and we don't learn if she'll go on the President's team to Afghanistan; ditto Jules and Robin (with Jules tagged for the same team). Ok, just wait for the next book!
5 stars - audio book
Thursday, May 21, 2009
High Noon by Nora Roberts ****
Nora Roberts does stories with beta heroes and kickass heroines better than just about every romance writer, and High Noon is one! Phoebe MacNamara is a police hostage negotiator - a career she sought out after having spent some years as a child fearing her abusive alcoholic step-father, and then being held hostage by him. The negotiator in that hostage situation, Dave, is now her boss and a beloved mentor that she views as the closest thing she's had as a father figure.
Duncan Swift, the beta hero guy, is a multi-millionaire - he got that way from winning the lottery! He now owns a lot of properties and businesses - and one of his employees is talked out of jumping off the roof by Phoebe. He decides he wants to get to know more about this spitfire woman!
As they get to know each other, the reader learns about Phoebe's highly dysfunctional family - her agoraphobic mother, her deceased aunt Bess who left her house to Phoebe with some weird twists that make it impossible for Phoebe to live anywhere else (she hates this house). Plus, there's someone tormenting Phoebe - leaving dead animals on her doorstep. Could it be that misogynist cop Phoebe suspended from the force, or is there someone even more twisted out to sabotage Phoebe's career, her family, maybe even her life? Duncan is there for her - he stands behind her, supporting her decisions (with only a couple of well-written arguments during the course of their courtship over what his position is).
The suspense is well done, and there's some seriously gory moments - if you have a weak stomach for reading suspense and murder, you might want to stay away from High Noon. There are references to the movie High Noon - the suspect calls himself Cooper (Gary Cooper) and the final showdown happens at noon, plus he whistles the theme song as he watches Phoebe from afar.
Susan Ericksen is a good narrator - she manages to create good character voices (ok, her Carly voice was kinda whiny) and keep the story moving forward with a lot of excitement and interest. All in all, it was a solid 4 star listen.
Duncan Swift, the beta hero guy, is a multi-millionaire - he got that way from winning the lottery! He now owns a lot of properties and businesses - and one of his employees is talked out of jumping off the roof by Phoebe. He decides he wants to get to know more about this spitfire woman!
As they get to know each other, the reader learns about Phoebe's highly dysfunctional family - her agoraphobic mother, her deceased aunt Bess who left her house to Phoebe with some weird twists that make it impossible for Phoebe to live anywhere else (she hates this house). Plus, there's someone tormenting Phoebe - leaving dead animals on her doorstep. Could it be that misogynist cop Phoebe suspended from the force, or is there someone even more twisted out to sabotage Phoebe's career, her family, maybe even her life? Duncan is there for her - he stands behind her, supporting her decisions (with only a couple of well-written arguments during the course of their courtship over what his position is).
The suspense is well done, and there's some seriously gory moments - if you have a weak stomach for reading suspense and murder, you might want to stay away from High Noon. There are references to the movie High Noon - the suspect calls himself Cooper (Gary Cooper) and the final showdown happens at noon, plus he whistles the theme song as he watches Phoebe from afar.
Susan Ericksen is a good narrator - she manages to create good character voices (ok, her Carly voice was kinda whiny) and keep the story moving forward with a lot of excitement and interest. All in all, it was a solid 4 star listen.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Night Watch by Suzanne Brockmann ****
Finally! I'm done with Tall, Dark and Dangerous, ending with Wes's story.
It was slightly better than Bobby's story, but once again a SEAL is attracted to a sister, and tries to keep his distance. The 2 twists on the "can't boink a SEAL's sister" theme are that it's a sister-in-LAW, and he has a major crush on another SEAL's wife too, so he's conflicted.
Wes has always had a thing for Lana Quinn, "the mighty" Quinn's wife. And Mighty Quinn is a cheater to boot - he's always out hounddogging with the single guys, picking up chicks in bars and pretty much being an asshole. In fact, Lana actually says to Wes she figures if anything happened to Quinn, she and Wes would get together.
So when he goes on a blind date with Brittany, it's just as a favor to Melody and Cowboy. But hey - Brittany GETS him. She understands him. And there's some major chemistry going on too. OK, another conflict is Brittany's adopted, college-age son - only this kid's great, and he wants Wes in his mom's life, so it isn't really a conflict.
And the blurb on the back gives away another conflict point - because suddenly Lana is free. That actually happens right at the end, and once again doesn't actually present much of a conflict. It's just Wes's insecurities and Brittany's mixed messages that keep them apart. When yet another conflict pops up - which truly comes out of the blue for me - Wes steps in with his SEALs to save the day and the woman.
At least Brittany has the presence of mind to actually follow Wes's orders to save herself when that comes up, instead of charging some UZI-toting terrorist like that other TSTL heroine. 4 stars, and it's a Serial Readers Challenge submission too.
It was slightly better than Bobby's story, but once again a SEAL is attracted to a sister, and tries to keep his distance. The 2 twists on the "can't boink a SEAL's sister" theme are that it's a sister-in-LAW, and he has a major crush on another SEAL's wife too, so he's conflicted.
Wes has always had a thing for Lana Quinn, "the mighty" Quinn's wife. And Mighty Quinn is a cheater to boot - he's always out hounddogging with the single guys, picking up chicks in bars and pretty much being an asshole. In fact, Lana actually says to Wes she figures if anything happened to Quinn, she and Wes would get together.
So when he goes on a blind date with Brittany, it's just as a favor to Melody and Cowboy. But hey - Brittany GETS him. She understands him. And there's some major chemistry going on too. OK, another conflict is Brittany's adopted, college-age son - only this kid's great, and he wants Wes in his mom's life, so it isn't really a conflict.
And the blurb on the back gives away another conflict point - because suddenly Lana is free. That actually happens right at the end, and once again doesn't actually present much of a conflict. It's just Wes's insecurities and Brittany's mixed messages that keep them apart. When yet another conflict pops up - which truly comes out of the blue for me - Wes steps in with his SEALs to save the day and the woman.
At least Brittany has the presence of mind to actually follow Wes's orders to save herself when that comes up, instead of charging some UZI-toting terrorist like that other TSTL heroine. 4 stars, and it's a Serial Readers Challenge submission too.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Taylor's Temptation by Suzanne Brockmann ***
OK, as the Tall, Dark and Dangerous series winds down, well... it's running out of steam. Whether that's just my opinion reading them so close together, or it's a fact the author just can't keep this series interesting, I'm not sure.
Remember Bobby and Wes? Wes and Bobby? The "twin" SEALs, only 1 is short and wiry (Wes), and the other is huge and muscular (Bobby)? Mutt and Jeff. Ren and Stimpy.
Basically, Bobby Taylor has had the hots for his best buddy's little sister Colleen since he met her when she was about 18. OK, he first met her younger, but it was when she was of legal age that he really got it bad for her. But he's several years older, and she's his best buddy's little sister! Off limits! (why? I dunno, I never had a brother so I never experienced this.)
And - guess what - she's always had the hots for him too! She's a left wing liberal do-gooder in law school, and she's hooked up with a group going to Turgeria (yeah, Brockmann has this thing about making up countries filled with dangerous terrorists) to help orphans. Since Wes is going "wheels up" on a mission, and Bobby is recuperating from gunshot wounds and can't go, Wes insists on Bobby's going to stop Colleen.
Let's see if you, the reader, can just write this story for Ms Brockmann and save her the trouble. (Too late, it's already published...) But you can save yourself some time - Bobby goes to Colleen, Colleen's too stubborn/stupid to back out of going to a dangerous country where terrorists are teeming and shooting everything that seems to be American. Plus she's pushy and since Wes isn't around, she throws herself at Bobby constantly. Friend that he is, he manages to avoid her passes for several pages then gives in, and then... yada yada yada, boink, boink, boink, Wes comes back and fists fly, they all go to Turgeria together, something something something, wedding bells.
3 stars for average, Serial Readers Challenge...
Remember Bobby and Wes? Wes and Bobby? The "twin" SEALs, only 1 is short and wiry (Wes), and the other is huge and muscular (Bobby)? Mutt and Jeff. Ren and Stimpy.
Basically, Bobby Taylor has had the hots for his best buddy's little sister Colleen since he met her when she was about 18. OK, he first met her younger, but it was when she was of legal age that he really got it bad for her. But he's several years older, and she's his best buddy's little sister! Off limits! (why? I dunno, I never had a brother so I never experienced this.)
And - guess what - she's always had the hots for him too! She's a left wing liberal do-gooder in law school, and she's hooked up with a group going to Turgeria (yeah, Brockmann has this thing about making up countries filled with dangerous terrorists) to help orphans. Since Wes is going "wheels up" on a mission, and Bobby is recuperating from gunshot wounds and can't go, Wes insists on Bobby's going to stop Colleen.
Let's see if you, the reader, can just write this story for Ms Brockmann and save her the trouble. (Too late, it's already published...) But you can save yourself some time - Bobby goes to Colleen, Colleen's too stubborn/stupid to back out of going to a dangerous country where terrorists are teeming and shooting everything that seems to be American. Plus she's pushy and since Wes isn't around, she throws herself at Bobby constantly. Friend that he is, he manages to avoid her passes for several pages then gives in, and then... yada yada yada, boink, boink, boink, Wes comes back and fists fly, they all go to Turgeria together, something something something, wedding bells.
3 stars for average, Serial Readers Challenge...
Friday, April 17, 2009
The Admiral's Bride by Suzanne Brockmann *****
This is book 7 in the Tall, Dark and Dangerous series - and it's another great story! This contains a spoiler for book 6... the hero is Jake Robinson! Jake was supposedly assassinated in book 6, although you learn at the end that he didn't actually die.
Jake was Crash's sort of substitute father - Jake and his SO, Daisy, helped raise Crash. Jake was also a SEAL during the Vietnam war, and through his heroic efforts, saved hundreds of American soldiers' lives - including Matthew Lange, who was left to die with several other severely wounded Marines. Matthew's daughter Zoe was conceived after he returned from the war - and today (in the book) she's 29, and a secret agent specializing in biological warfare.
Zoe is called in to consult on a special, supersecret Gray Group mission: a crazy white separatist group in Montana has stolen 6 canisters of an incredibly potent and dangerous substance from the government testing labs and have it within the walls of their compound. The plan: Jake and Zoe will go into the compound as husband and wife, with Jake's cover being that he's running from the government and has a lot of secrets to share with the group. They will get the dangerous powder and save the day.
Most of the story - in spite of its interesting premise - actually revolves around Jake's and Zoe's attraction. It's been 3 years since Daisy, the love of Jake's life, died, but face it - Jake is in his 50s and obviously old enough to be Zoe's father! But Zoe's been attracted to the war hero forever - she's read his biography, heard the stories and alway thought he was wonderful. Then when they meet, she realizes he's also shockingly handsome and buff to boot.
I found Brockmann's characterization of Zoe as a remarkably intelligent heroine, capable of holding her own and knowing what she wants, as credible and refreshing. Credible heroines are something I've remarked on in my last few reviews - to me, as long as the author has shown me the heroine has the background and personality to match her actions, I'm satisfied. It's when the heroine is some desk jockey wearing stilettos who wants to protect the highly trained superman cop from danger that I start rolling my eyes!
The plot was interesting and credible as well, ok, except for that part about following all the video cameras around the compound - is that really possible?? We got to hear a little bit more about Lucky (Brockmann considers books 7-9 all part of Lucky's story) and the others: Joe Cat, Harvard, Blue, Cowboy, Wes, and there was suspense and even grief when the team all believes Zoe has been killed. Hey, it's romance, no romance author kills the heroine at the end!!
So - it's a 5 star read for me, and it's in my Serial Readers Challenge to boot.
Jake was Crash's sort of substitute father - Jake and his SO, Daisy, helped raise Crash. Jake was also a SEAL during the Vietnam war, and through his heroic efforts, saved hundreds of American soldiers' lives - including Matthew Lange, who was left to die with several other severely wounded Marines. Matthew's daughter Zoe was conceived after he returned from the war - and today (in the book) she's 29, and a secret agent specializing in biological warfare.
Zoe is called in to consult on a special, supersecret Gray Group mission: a crazy white separatist group in Montana has stolen 6 canisters of an incredibly potent and dangerous substance from the government testing labs and have it within the walls of their compound. The plan: Jake and Zoe will go into the compound as husband and wife, with Jake's cover being that he's running from the government and has a lot of secrets to share with the group. They will get the dangerous powder and save the day.
Most of the story - in spite of its interesting premise - actually revolves around Jake's and Zoe's attraction. It's been 3 years since Daisy, the love of Jake's life, died, but face it - Jake is in his 50s and obviously old enough to be Zoe's father! But Zoe's been attracted to the war hero forever - she's read his biography, heard the stories and alway thought he was wonderful. Then when they meet, she realizes he's also shockingly handsome and buff to boot.
I found Brockmann's characterization of Zoe as a remarkably intelligent heroine, capable of holding her own and knowing what she wants, as credible and refreshing. Credible heroines are something I've remarked on in my last few reviews - to me, as long as the author has shown me the heroine has the background and personality to match her actions, I'm satisfied. It's when the heroine is some desk jockey wearing stilettos who wants to protect the highly trained superman cop from danger that I start rolling my eyes!
The plot was interesting and credible as well, ok, except for that part about following all the video cameras around the compound - is that really possible?? We got to hear a little bit more about Lucky (Brockmann considers books 7-9 all part of Lucky's story) and the others: Joe Cat, Harvard, Blue, Cowboy, Wes, and there was suspense and even grief when the team all believes Zoe has been killed. Hey, it's romance, no romance author kills the heroine at the end!!
So - it's a 5 star read for me, and it's in my Serial Readers Challenge to boot.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Hawken's Heart by Suzanne Brockmann *****
This is book 6 in the Tall, Dark and Dangerous series - it was originally titled It Came Upon A Midnight Clear when it was released (I read the version with this title). This one stars Billy "Crash" Hawken, the SEAL who filled in for Frisco after his accident. He wasn't originally a member of Team Ten's Alpha Squad - he was on Team Twelve.
As a child, Crash spent his summers with his mother's cousin Daisy and her long-time SO, Jake Robinson, a Navy Admiral. Because his own mother had died, and his father sent him to boarding school and summer camp rather than raise him himself, Crash always felt that Daisy and Jake were more like parents.
Nell Burns is Daisy's personal assistant, and when Daisy is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, she is tapped to go tell Crash in person. She and Crash have met several times, and although she's always been attracted to him, he has never so much as acknowledged her with more than a few words. They both end up living with Jake and Daisy in Daisy's last month, and at her death, they give in to their mutual attraction and passion with one night - which Crash attributes more to seeking comfort and grieving than anything else, and he considers it over and done.
What we have here is a very well drawn character: Crash has developed a very strong coping mechanism against opening his heart to anyone, ever. He has learned to detach himself emotionally - which works well for his job, and he even uses his job to hide his heart. It's obvious to him he can't ever get emotionally involved because he has to travel so much for his job.
Nell has also developed similar coping mechanisms, but as she watches her boss and mentor die, she realizes that sometimes you have to open up, reach out and ask for what you want. So she is more forthright with Crash about her feelings for him - but is still spurned.
When, one year after Daisy's death, Crash is involved in an ambush that results in Jake's assassination and is consequently framed for killing Jake, Nell comes forward again. She feels that she knows Crash well enough to know he would never harm Jake, much less be involved in a conspiracy to kill him. So she puts all her will and strength to helping him - even though he doesn't want her to. It's not just him protecting his heart, though - he's concerned that Nell is now a target of the person behind the conspiracy and cover-up.
There really wasn't anything about this book I didn't like - it's another tight story, with well-developed characters, and a strong, determined and still credible heroine. Nell may be just a personal assistant, but she had access to big-time contacts through Daisy and Jake that helped her. And this story has more than one happy ending, as well. So I'm going with 5 stars - and it's a series for my Serial Readers Challenge.
As a child, Crash spent his summers with his mother's cousin Daisy and her long-time SO, Jake Robinson, a Navy Admiral. Because his own mother had died, and his father sent him to boarding school and summer camp rather than raise him himself, Crash always felt that Daisy and Jake were more like parents.
Nell Burns is Daisy's personal assistant, and when Daisy is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, she is tapped to go tell Crash in person. She and Crash have met several times, and although she's always been attracted to him, he has never so much as acknowledged her with more than a few words. They both end up living with Jake and Daisy in Daisy's last month, and at her death, they give in to their mutual attraction and passion with one night - which Crash attributes more to seeking comfort and grieving than anything else, and he considers it over and done.
What we have here is a very well drawn character: Crash has developed a very strong coping mechanism against opening his heart to anyone, ever. He has learned to detach himself emotionally - which works well for his job, and he even uses his job to hide his heart. It's obvious to him he can't ever get emotionally involved because he has to travel so much for his job.
Nell has also developed similar coping mechanisms, but as she watches her boss and mentor die, she realizes that sometimes you have to open up, reach out and ask for what you want. So she is more forthright with Crash about her feelings for him - but is still spurned.
When, one year after Daisy's death, Crash is involved in an ambush that results in Jake's assassination and is consequently framed for killing Jake, Nell comes forward again. She feels that she knows Crash well enough to know he would never harm Jake, much less be involved in a conspiracy to kill him. So she puts all her will and strength to helping him - even though he doesn't want her to. It's not just him protecting his heart, though - he's concerned that Nell is now a target of the person behind the conspiracy and cover-up.
There really wasn't anything about this book I didn't like - it's another tight story, with well-developed characters, and a strong, determined and still credible heroine. Nell may be just a personal assistant, but she had access to big-time contacts through Daisy and Jake that helped her. And this story has more than one happy ending, as well. So I'm going with 5 stars - and it's a series for my Serial Readers Challenge.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Heartbreaker by Julie Garwood ***
This might be the first non-historical Garwood wrote - it's definitely the first I've read of hers, and I liked it ok, so it got 3 stars from me. The style was vastly different from her historicals, and it really was more a murder mystery/suspense than a romance.
Father Tom hears a confession that chills him in spite of the oppressive summer heat: a parishioner that he doesn't recognize confesses that he's planning to kill Tom's sister Laurant, the way he killed another woman, slowly and with a lot of pain. Laurant and Tom were separated for most of their childhood after their parents died - Tom moved in with a family friend in Boston, while Laurant lived with their grandfather (somewhere in Europe, I guess) and after his death, in a boarding school in Switzerland.
Laurant is now living in Tom's adopted home in small town Iowa, and has ingratiated herself with most of the small town community with her volunteering and good deeds. However, she hasn't had much luck with men - enough bad luck, in fact, to get the notice of the local gossip/society columnist, who has even written fake relationships made and broken in her column, mainly to embarrass Laurant. Laurant has never met Nick, Tom's best friend and now an FBI superagent - not until Tom calls him about the confession. (This is kinda odd, since she apparently knows all of Nick's siblings...)
The rest of the book is spent trying to catch the alleged serial killer, whose POV is also told from time to time. He's (theoretically) obsessed with Laurant, so as a ruse to catch him, Nick and Laurant play newly-affianced lovers to draw him in. Of course, while they are doing this, they are also wildly attracted to each other, making the sting operation a little sticky.
Here's what I liked: there was some suspense, and the story did keep me guessing til the end.
Here's what I didn't particularly like:
(a) the small town characters - too "stock", too stereotypical. I'm having a hard time buying the society columnist who prints notices of false engagements, and chases people down the sidewalk. The nosy elderly sisters - ok, they were slightly better than the columnist, but still...
(b) the style of writing wasn't particularly... well, tight is the word that comes to mind. I just found it not that ... pleasing I guess. At some points it was almost too simple, and while the main characters were credible, I just didn't get emotionally involved.
Garwood threw in a lot of ringers and misdirection that were pretty obvious (even though I didn't guess the actual perp until almost at the end). One of the misdirections was way over the top, too, and I think there were some details that needed some 'splaining on that misdirection, like how the actual perp was watching her in an earlier scene after the misdirection was revealed. But I wasn't interested enough to go back to that scene and read it again for clues.
It's the first in a fairly long series - so it fits my Serial Readers Challenge, but nothing else.
Father Tom hears a confession that chills him in spite of the oppressive summer heat: a parishioner that he doesn't recognize confesses that he's planning to kill Tom's sister Laurant, the way he killed another woman, slowly and with a lot of pain. Laurant and Tom were separated for most of their childhood after their parents died - Tom moved in with a family friend in Boston, while Laurant lived with their grandfather (somewhere in Europe, I guess) and after his death, in a boarding school in Switzerland.
Laurant is now living in Tom's adopted home in small town Iowa, and has ingratiated herself with most of the small town community with her volunteering and good deeds. However, she hasn't had much luck with men - enough bad luck, in fact, to get the notice of the local gossip/society columnist, who has even written fake relationships made and broken in her column, mainly to embarrass Laurant. Laurant has never met Nick, Tom's best friend and now an FBI superagent - not until Tom calls him about the confession. (This is kinda odd, since she apparently knows all of Nick's siblings...)
The rest of the book is spent trying to catch the alleged serial killer, whose POV is also told from time to time. He's (theoretically) obsessed with Laurant, so as a ruse to catch him, Nick and Laurant play newly-affianced lovers to draw him in. Of course, while they are doing this, they are also wildly attracted to each other, making the sting operation a little sticky.
Here's what I liked: there was some suspense, and the story did keep me guessing til the end.
Here's what I didn't particularly like:
(a) the small town characters - too "stock", too stereotypical. I'm having a hard time buying the society columnist who prints notices of false engagements, and chases people down the sidewalk. The nosy elderly sisters - ok, they were slightly better than the columnist, but still...
(b) the style of writing wasn't particularly... well, tight is the word that comes to mind. I just found it not that ... pleasing I guess. At some points it was almost too simple, and while the main characters were credible, I just didn't get emotionally involved.
Garwood threw in a lot of ringers and misdirection that were pretty obvious (even though I didn't guess the actual perp until almost at the end). One of the misdirections was way over the top, too, and I think there were some details that needed some 'splaining on that misdirection, like how the actual perp was watching her in an earlier scene after the misdirection was revealed. But I wasn't interested enough to go back to that scene and read it again for clues.
It's the first in a fairly long series - so it fits my Serial Readers Challenge, but nothing else.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon ****
This is a set of 3 novellas, unrelated, that feature Lord John Gray. Lord John was a minor character in the Outlander series - first, at age 16, he tries to kill Jamie in a minor skirmish several months before Culloden, but is released. Later, he's the head of the prison Jamie spends several years in after turning himself in 7 years after Culloden.
All three are murder mysteries, set in the 1750s, during some war or another (sorry, my European history isn't that well developed) - Lord John is a major, serving in Prussia, France and England during the period the stories take place. He plays detective to the crimes - sort of NCIS-ish, I guess, since he's not actually the police, military or otherwise.
The first story is Lord John and the Hellfire Club - he pursues the murderer of a young British army officer, and is taken into the Hellfire Club where the murderer is revealed - and killed by his fellow officer, the same fellow who was the head of the Scottish prison before he arrived whose name now escapes me. Since it's an audio book, I can't go back and look it up - but this fellow appears in all 3.
The second is Lord John and the Succubus - another murder mystery, but this time the rumor is a succubus is involved. There's lots of quasi-paranormal activity that seems to give credence to the rumor.
The 3rd story is Lord John and the Haunted Soldier - Lord John and several others are wounded, and some killed, by exploding cannons, and it's no accident, as Lord John sets out to prove.
It's no secret that Lord John is gay - that is, to the reader it's no secret. However, it was a fairly major crime to be a sodomite in the army, so John and his fellow sodomites have to keep their activities and proclivities very hush-hush. It's not really germane to the stories except to explain some of the goings on. John himself is not particularly sexually active, especially in these novellas - and it's also made clear that he's still in love with Jamie, even though he rarely sees him during this time period (and of course Jamie has threatened to kill him if he even touches him, so his feelings are in no way returned). There are some recurring characters in the stories from the other Lord John books as well that you won't recognize unless you've read them all.
The narrator is good - the stories are entertaining and each mystery remains so for quite a while - Gabaldon is clever about that sort of thing. 4 stars.
All three are murder mysteries, set in the 1750s, during some war or another (sorry, my European history isn't that well developed) - Lord John is a major, serving in Prussia, France and England during the period the stories take place. He plays detective to the crimes - sort of NCIS-ish, I guess, since he's not actually the police, military or otherwise.
The first story is Lord John and the Hellfire Club - he pursues the murderer of a young British army officer, and is taken into the Hellfire Club where the murderer is revealed - and killed by his fellow officer, the same fellow who was the head of the Scottish prison before he arrived whose name now escapes me. Since it's an audio book, I can't go back and look it up - but this fellow appears in all 3.
The second is Lord John and the Succubus - another murder mystery, but this time the rumor is a succubus is involved. There's lots of quasi-paranormal activity that seems to give credence to the rumor.
The 3rd story is Lord John and the Haunted Soldier - Lord John and several others are wounded, and some killed, by exploding cannons, and it's no accident, as Lord John sets out to prove.
It's no secret that Lord John is gay - that is, to the reader it's no secret. However, it was a fairly major crime to be a sodomite in the army, so John and his fellow sodomites have to keep their activities and proclivities very hush-hush. It's not really germane to the stories except to explain some of the goings on. John himself is not particularly sexually active, especially in these novellas - and it's also made clear that he's still in love with Jamie, even though he rarely sees him during this time period (and of course Jamie has threatened to kill him if he even touches him, so his feelings are in no way returned). There are some recurring characters in the stories from the other Lord John books as well that you won't recognize unless you've read them all.
The narrator is good - the stories are entertaining and each mystery remains so for quite a while - Gabaldon is clever about that sort of thing. 4 stars.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Harvard's Education by Suzanne Brockmann ****
This is the next in the Tall, Dark and Dangerous series (maybe #5?) - this one features Senior Chief Daryl "Harvard" Becker of the SEALs Team Ten Alpha Squad. The SEALs are still messing around with the FInCOM group who is attempting to get some of their agents trained to work with the SEALs. This sorta pisses the SEALs off - after all, they did their BUD/S training and Hell Week and all to get where they are - why should some other agents come in with a rule book saying they can only train 10 hours a day for a few weeks and be the equals??
Then they send 4 agents who don't even get along (and team is a very important concept to SEALs), including a woman. OK, this woman, while only 5'1", is their best marksman, but still!! Women in combat? No f-ing way!
Except this woman, P. J. Richards - who is not only a woman but also African American - carries a tiny chip on her shoulder about her treatment, not just from the SEALs but from her own co-workers, the "finks". She's out to prove she's their equal in every way. And that no way is she at all attracted to the hunky, the gorgeous, the smart Harvard. No way in hell.
OK, yeah, she's attracted. And so is he. But, hey, they can keep it buttoned down and just be friends, right? (after a lot of circling and growling, that is.)
First, Harvard needs to re-assess his own opinions of women in general, and women in combat situations in particular. Maybe the SEALs won't let them join - for potentially valid reasons - but FInCOM does, so she's got every right to have this training op!
But P. J. needs to do some re-assessing of her own abilities, limits and attitude (in my opinion). Yeah, ya gotta be "out there" to get noticed when you're a short, AA woman in a big man's field. But there's "out there" and there's "Out There". For one thing, she hasn't been true to herself - she orders beer when she wants iced tea, because the men would drink beer (and Harvard drinks iced tea...) OK yeah, he can get away with it, she thinks. Personally, if she were a real person and asked my advice, I'd say be true to yourself and do what you want. But that's just me.
It takes a training-op-turned-true-life-suspense for the two of them to reconcile their conflicting emotions and opinions. I still think, superior marksmanship or not, short women without special SEAL-type training are nutz to insist on going in to help in dangerous terrorist situations, but hey, it's fiction and it's only up to the author who lives and who dies - and in a romance, the heroine doesn't die, ok?
I'm enjoying the series - I like continuing series like these that let you keep up with all the characters. I also think Brockmann is a superb storyteller - her situations and their resolutions ring true enough for me to feel the suspense. 4 stars, Serial Reader's Challenge.
Then they send 4 agents who don't even get along (and team is a very important concept to SEALs), including a woman. OK, this woman, while only 5'1", is their best marksman, but still!! Women in combat? No f-ing way!
Except this woman, P. J. Richards - who is not only a woman but also African American - carries a tiny chip on her shoulder about her treatment, not just from the SEALs but from her own co-workers, the "finks". She's out to prove she's their equal in every way. And that no way is she at all attracted to the hunky, the gorgeous, the smart Harvard. No way in hell.
OK, yeah, she's attracted. And so is he. But, hey, they can keep it buttoned down and just be friends, right? (after a lot of circling and growling, that is.)
First, Harvard needs to re-assess his own opinions of women in general, and women in combat situations in particular. Maybe the SEALs won't let them join - for potentially valid reasons - but FInCOM does, so she's got every right to have this training op!
But P. J. needs to do some re-assessing of her own abilities, limits and attitude (in my opinion). Yeah, ya gotta be "out there" to get noticed when you're a short, AA woman in a big man's field. But there's "out there" and there's "Out There". For one thing, she hasn't been true to herself - she orders beer when she wants iced tea, because the men would drink beer (and Harvard drinks iced tea...) OK yeah, he can get away with it, she thinks. Personally, if she were a real person and asked my advice, I'd say be true to yourself and do what you want. But that's just me.
It takes a training-op-turned-true-life-suspense for the two of them to reconcile their conflicting emotions and opinions. I still think, superior marksmanship or not, short women without special SEAL-type training are nutz to insist on going in to help in dangerous terrorist situations, but hey, it's fiction and it's only up to the author who lives and who dies - and in a romance, the heroine doesn't die, ok?
I'm enjoying the series - I like continuing series like these that let you keep up with all the characters. I also think Brockmann is a superb storyteller - her situations and their resolutions ring true enough for me to feel the suspense. 4 stars, Serial Reader's Challenge.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Birthright by Nora Roberts *****
Ahhh, now this is why I read romance! This was a great story, full of suspense, full of wonderful characters, and a joy to read. When La Nora is on, she is really really good!!
The story centers around an archeologist brought in when a developer unearths multi-thousand year old bones while building homes in a new neighborhood. The local historical society, working against the builder and the development, hires the archeology team, and Dr. Callie Dunbrook is one of the best in her field. Her ex-husband Jake is also one of the tops - and although their divorce was anything but amicable, her boss brings him on anyway.
There's another story here as well - one family in the area had their infant daughter stolen from them, and the girl was never found. Her older brother, Doug, has lived with the guilt and the breakup of his parents' marriage, and coped as an adult by traveling - staying on the road as part of his job. When he's in town, he stays in the apartment over his grandfather's used book store.
Lana is the local lawyer - a young widow with a son, she moved there after her husband was killed, to start her life over. Lana's also involved with the historical society, and has done a lot of background work on keeping the developer from continuing his work.
When Callie's face shows up on the news, talking about the antiquities and bones being unearthed in town, Doug's mother thinks she recognizes her - that she might be the stolen daughter.
So, while the archeological team is digging up the past - measured in thousands of years - Callie is working on her own past. Was she adopted? Was she the stolen child? Who was behind it, and are they still in business. Blood tests prove the inevitable: yes, she is the biological daughter and sister of the Cullens. And another part of her past, her relationship with Jake, is also analyzed and measured, as both go over the mistakes of the past and deal with their continuing attraction.
Meanwhile, Lana puts the move on Doug - in a big way. She has to convince him to ask her out, more than once, because he's not much into relationships - at least, not at first. It doesn't take him long to realize he's falling in love with her and with her son as well.
The third romance in the book is between Doug and Callie's mother and father, who divorced years ago but are brought together when they realize Callie is their lost daughter Jessica.
But someone doesn't want them uncovering the past - not the old bones and not the whereabouts and identity of those involved in the child-stealing ring either. So that leads to some threats, some vandalism - and 2 murders.
All in all, I really enjoyed reading this story, and I kinda wasn't expecting to! There was just enough suspense, and so much about all the characters, to make it a real page-turner. Not only was I interested in the suspenseful whodunit part, but I liked watching Doug make a 180 degree turn in his feelings, and the Cullens trying to resolve their differences, as well as Callie and Jake struggling to find a balance in their lives. I didn't guess whodunit before it was revealed - and the ending had a fun surprise in it too.
5 stars!
The story centers around an archeologist brought in when a developer unearths multi-thousand year old bones while building homes in a new neighborhood. The local historical society, working against the builder and the development, hires the archeology team, and Dr. Callie Dunbrook is one of the best in her field. Her ex-husband Jake is also one of the tops - and although their divorce was anything but amicable, her boss brings him on anyway.
There's another story here as well - one family in the area had their infant daughter stolen from them, and the girl was never found. Her older brother, Doug, has lived with the guilt and the breakup of his parents' marriage, and coped as an adult by traveling - staying on the road as part of his job. When he's in town, he stays in the apartment over his grandfather's used book store.
Lana is the local lawyer - a young widow with a son, she moved there after her husband was killed, to start her life over. Lana's also involved with the historical society, and has done a lot of background work on keeping the developer from continuing his work.
When Callie's face shows up on the news, talking about the antiquities and bones being unearthed in town, Doug's mother thinks she recognizes her - that she might be the stolen daughter.
So, while the archeological team is digging up the past - measured in thousands of years - Callie is working on her own past. Was she adopted? Was she the stolen child? Who was behind it, and are they still in business. Blood tests prove the inevitable: yes, she is the biological daughter and sister of the Cullens. And another part of her past, her relationship with Jake, is also analyzed and measured, as both go over the mistakes of the past and deal with their continuing attraction.
Meanwhile, Lana puts the move on Doug - in a big way. She has to convince him to ask her out, more than once, because he's not much into relationships - at least, not at first. It doesn't take him long to realize he's falling in love with her and with her son as well.
The third romance in the book is between Doug and Callie's mother and father, who divorced years ago but are brought together when they realize Callie is their lost daughter Jessica.
But someone doesn't want them uncovering the past - not the old bones and not the whereabouts and identity of those involved in the child-stealing ring either. So that leads to some threats, some vandalism - and 2 murders.
All in all, I really enjoyed reading this story, and I kinda wasn't expecting to! There was just enough suspense, and so much about all the characters, to make it a real page-turner. Not only was I interested in the suspenseful whodunit part, but I liked watching Doug make a 180 degree turn in his feelings, and the Cullens trying to resolve their differences, as well as Callie and Jake struggling to find a balance in their lives. I didn't guess whodunit before it was revealed - and the ending had a fun surprise in it too.
5 stars!
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