Otherwise Engaged by Suzanne Brockmann ***

Otherwise Engaged by Suzanne Brockmann

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The third of the Sunrise Key trilogy, it was pretty much just "ok" although it was interesting to have a book address issues of dealing with a hearing-impaired child, and the relationship of the child to the story. I thought our heroine was a bit more stubborn than necessary about almost everything, so that was annoying for me. And, ok, I read time travel so why finding the whole paparazzi element unrealistic I'm not sure! Unfortunately it was necessary to drive the plot, and I had a hard time buying it and their ways of dealing with it.

The narration by Susan Boyce was slightly over a 3 star - she didn't differentiate much between the hero/heroine voices, although it was easy enough to tell who was whom. I wouldn't avoid her but wouldn't seek her out either - not inspiring, but not annoying either.

This story deals with Sunrise Key's Billionaire Preston Seaholm, Fantasy Man Magazine's Most Eligible Bachelor. Yes, that one attribute makes reporters from all over the globe stream to the tiny town of Sunrise Key to follow his every move and catches him in clinch with new resident Molly Cassidy.

Molly is the widow of some famous writer who didn't really love her enough, we learn as the story goes along. They had a child, now 10 years old, with an unnamed degenerative hearing loss syndrome - a loss that will produce profound deafness by the time the kid is 20. Preston wants to buy the dilapidated mansion Molly has inherited, and therefore makes several increasingly large offers, and stubborn Molly turns them all down: she wants to remodel it and turn it into a B&B, even though she has no resources of her own (aka $) to do this.

To get the paparazzi to leave them alone, they somehow decide to pretend to be engaged. Unfortunately, not only does it just get the paparazzi more involved, they both feel the SoulMateElectricity in each other's company, so... blah blah blah, "let me give you all the money in the world and also let's boink" he says, "money can't buy me love even though my body wants to boink you" she says. They dance, literally, emotionally and physically, around the issues and then HEA. 3 stars, max.

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Kiss and Tell by Suzanne Brockmann ***

Kiss and Tell (Sunrise Key Trilogy, #1) by Suzanne Brockmann

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a fairly quick listen, and the narrator, Susan Boyce, is good, if you don't mind her not-exactly-English-accent she gives the British hero. I'd already read the second in the series, because it was released earlier. It's sort of early-Brockmann, and is a little different from her later series like Troubleshooters both in tone and plot. The whole fiance thing got on my nerves, and there's a scene where I thought the heroine was going to be the death of the dang horse while she threw a hissy fit. I was actually yelling THE HORSE! THE HORSE! while I drove! Still, I liked it.

Plot setup: girl returns to childhood home for the holidays where her brother and his best friend are; she's always fought with his best friend; she has a meaningless life with a fiance she doesn't love in NYC; you fill in the plot here.



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Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie *****

Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Another book I'd already read and enjoyed that I had to hear on audio! It's like comfort food, macaroni & cheese - you know you'll enjoy it and feel good at the end. Narrator Madison Vaughn brings a nice, cynical tone to the characters that fits them to a t. It's an "opposites attract" sort of theme, along the lines of Dharma and Greg - she was raised in a commune and works at nonprofits, he's a Yale-educated lawyer trying to make partner. It's filled with Crusie's trademark witty banter, and Vaughn made me laugh out loud with Nick's secretary Christine's dialogue. There's some slight intrigue, a tiny mystery, but nobody dies - just some fun characterizations and a zany story. Yes! a reason to keep reading.

Below is my original review of the print book, a couple of years back.

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I finished this late last night - and felt a pretty good 5-star glow after it was over. Of course, now in the light of day, it seems a little different, so I'm thinking it was more like a 4.5...

The basic plot is a sort of Dharma and Greg relationship except that in this case Tess isn't nearly as open-minded and happy as Dharma. I find Nick to be a lot like Greg though - besotted (a besotted hero?) with Tess, and sticking to his own principals while being really more open-minded than Tess about their differences.

She was raised on a commune by hippie parents. She continues their traditions by working as a teacher at a nonprofit foundation that runs a tutoring program for disadvantaged children, and also by protesting the ills of the world, and in general trying to fix everyone and everything. Living according to her principals, she shops at thrift stores, lives in a low-income area and in general you get the idea she's trying to minimize her footprint on the world.

Nick was raised in a middle-class, blue-collar family, but attended an Ivy League law school and is now a Republican lawyer hoping to make partner in a small family law firm, of which he is not family. He's ambitious but actually not in a cut-throat way. I think is says volumes about his scruples that he refused to make love with her in a public parking lot because it's against the law! OK, so it also shows him to be a little straight-laced and maybe even stuffy - but he is a lawyer, after all, so not breaking the law seems like a good idea - especially when he points out his bedroom was less than 10 minutes away. And it speaks volumes for her that, after he refused the car and suggested the bedroom, she refused him altogether. She's not really as open-minded and liberal as she thinks she is.

The verbal sparring in the book was pretty funny - I laughed out loud several times during the short read (about 250 pp) at the antics. Nick has a dilemma - a famous author the firm is wooing has specifically asked the lawyers to attend a weekend house party with spouses, and neither Nick nor his buddy Park are married. He goes to Tess - even though now they are no longer dating - and asks her to do this for him as a favor, and to get Park a date too. Tess is truly conflicted - her body is trying to override her mind about Nick, and she is really attracted to him. She keeps trying to tell herself their relationship cannot work because they are so diametrically opposed on so many issues, but she likes him as a friend so she obliges and goes, along with her best friend Gina.

Tess finds herself giving in to Nick on several issues - one of them is her trying to run everyone's lives. After the weekend, Park and Gina start a relationship, but Park is too lily-livered to stand up to his father and continues to show up at family affairs with a different woman, one his parents hope he'll marry. After he leaves Corinne, he heads to Gina - but he doesn't let either woman know. Tess would normally have told Gina, but for Nick she butts out - an action that later comes back to bite her.

Tess has a hard time realizing what is truly in her core values that she must do for herself, and what are the issues she can bend or compromise on where Nick and others are concerned. Nick is more sure of himself, although he does lean on his Superwoman secretary Christine for help - and she is the true hero in the book, in my eyes!! She is the one who finally makes the difference for the two of them.

It was a fun story and a great ending. If you are looking for short, hot, funny - this is it. 5 stars.

Kiss of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning ****

Kiss of the Highlander by Karen Marie Moning

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I had read book one in this series by audio back in March of this year, and decided it was ok, but not worth pursuing. I have read many reviews praising Phil Gigante as narrator, especially on this book, so I indulged when it came up for sale at Audible.com.

I like Gigante's voice well enough, although I agree with those who wish he would stop using his odd falsetto for women's voices. His Scots accent for the hero is good, his voice basso and yummy, but why did it sound as if some of the characters were Irish? And why did Gwen sometimes have almost a Scots accent? I think he's a little bit inconsistent with his voices. I think if I was enjoying the story more I wouldn't have nitpicked.

Moning's style of writing this series is somewhat reminiscent of Sandra Hill's humor - sort of over-the-top, almost a parody of romance that I think takes a certain mood to appreciate. Sometimes I do, sometimes I think "enough already". I made it to the end, I had a laugh or two, and I think I'm done with Moning's Highlanders now.



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Veil of Night by Linda Howard - the audio version ***

Veil of Night: A Novel by Linda Howard

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The 3-star review is for the AUDIO of the book, since I might have liked it even more in print but the narration was so inconsistent and sometimes awful. Clarinda Ross (the narrator) might be a good actor - her character voices are good - but either she just cannot read books out loud or she had very, very bad direction. Her narration (the stuff between the good character voices) was sing-songy with odd, disconcerting short pauses. I forged ahead with the audiobook anyway, but I think I need to read it in print now to really appreciate it. Her narration earned maybe 1 1/2 or 2 stars, but since the story seemed good, I'll go with 3.

The story was a familiar theme with me, since I'm just now reading the end of Nora Roberts' Bride series - Jaclyn is a wedding planner! She's in business with her mother, and she's dealing with the Bridezilla to end all Bridezillas - a young woman who has managed to pretty much piss off everyone in her path. She's not just wishy-washy - she's mean! Everyone was probably imagining inventive ways to off her when she actually gets offed - with kabob skewers. With kabobs still on them. Ewwww.

The detective on the case is our hero, Eric, who coincidentally had a memorable one-night-stand with Jaclyn the night before the murder. Small town. This sorta puts some distance between Jaclyn and Eric - she's thinking, how could he accuse me of murder? and he's thinking, how can I get her back into bed?

There was a nice cast of characters - the other women working the business, a couple of funny wedding scenarios that I think will be funnier when I read them to myself.

People, this is LINDA HOWARD - her books deserve the best! I have to repeat what I read on Audible.com: Was Joyce Bean busy??



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Faking It by Jennifer Crusie *****

The audio book of this is narrated by Aasne Vigesaa, who also narrated Welcome To Temptation - and she is good! It was just as much fun in audio 2 years later, and I probably laughed even more to hear the lines spoken out loud. Highly recommended! The review from November 2008 of the book:
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What a romp! First of all, I had no idea that this was a sequel of sorts to Welcome To Temptation - the hero is Sophie's brother Davy Dempsey, con man extraordinaire. So that was a welcome surprise. And it also featured Clea from the same book - you know, the porn star who dragged Sophie and Amy to Temptation to make her video there.

The book features 2 families involved in deception - in addition to the Dempseys, there's the Goodnights. The Goodnight family has been involved in art galleries, art, painting - and forgeries - for centuries. Now they run an art gallery in Columbus, Ohio, but it's not doing so well, so Tilda (the actual heroine of the book although there are a ton of characters/family members) helps make ends meet by painting murals - more forgeries, usually, of famous paintings.

Tilda and Davy meet in Clea's closet one night: Davy's there to hack into Clea's computer to get back the $3 million his money manager embezzled from him and gave to Clea, Tilda's there to steal a painting inadvertently sold to Clea that is a forgery Tilda painted. Davy doesn't get his money and they almost get caught, so he sends her home with a promise to get the painting for her. Of course, he hasn't yet revealed his name or even his face to her at this point, although they've shared some hot kissing in the closet...

I don't think I can even begin to describe the lunacy that makes up this plot! It was a laugh-a-minute as we meet all the characters: Tilda's sister Eve, who is also alter-ego Louise - who works at a gay nightclub with her ex-husband Andrew and father of their teenage daughter Nadine; Andrew's current love, Jeff who is a lawyer; Gwen Goodnight, the matriarch who works Double Crostic puzzles and runs the gallery; Clea and her latest mark, Mason, who is actually more interested in Gwen; Ford, the hit man hired to kill Davy; Simon, Davy's partner-in-crime; and of course, Steve the dachsund aka Notable Pet. Oh, and Thomas-the-caterer and Davy's father, Michael Dempsey... well the list goes on and on, as we follow the trials and tribulations of keeping the forgeries and cons secret.

It was fast paced and filled with hysterical lines and innuendos and music titles and people who weren't what you thought and weren't where you thought - I found myself going back a page or 2 more than once to follow a reference I missed as I read. In the midst of all this, Davy and Tilda grew a real relationship - good thing, since they were sleeping together every night - that was touching and fun and all things good. They even get a nice HEA, no faking.

5 stars - it's a longer book (400+ pp) but a fast read nonetheless, as long as you are paying attention!