Book Review: An Unforgettable Lady

What a unfulfilling book. I picked it up at Target while I was out of town and bored in my hotel room. It was the only book there that I cared to read, and since I've read some of J.R. Ward's books and thought they were alright, I gave it a shot.

I didn't even finish it. Just completely lost interest.

Book Review: Blue Smoke and Murder

Good news! Blue Smoke and Murder is classic Lowell and not the disappointing piles of poop The Wrong Hostage and Innocent as Sin were. This book is more on the scale of Always Time to Die (which I enjoyed).

It still centers around St. Kilda Consulting, which I think it totally weird, but whatever. The heroine, Jill, is a river guide who saves the life of a son of two St. Kilda operatives. In payment, his father tells her that if she ever needs help, to call him. Scarcely a month later, Jill's great-aunt dies in a suspicious fire, one of twelve family paintings is destroyed, and Jill's life is threatened. So she calls in her favor, and hottie operative Zach shows up to help her out.

The story really centers around the painting, and Lowell goes on and on about Western art. (If you've ever read an Elizabeth Lowell contemporary, you know how she tends to do that with art, jewels, minerals, etc.) But it isn't as boring as it usually is.

Also, there is real, genuine chemistry between Jill and Zach. That was something that was definitely missing in Innocent as Sin.

It was an entertaining read.

Book Review: Death Angel

Started off interesting.

Ended boring.

Too much internal contemplation by the characters.

Not enough dialogue.

Book Review: Shadow Dance

I can't quite figure out what it is about Julie Garwood that makes her historical novels so damn good and her contemporaries so awful. Really, it's kind of hard to believe that the same author writes both books. Often I've wondered if she has a ghost writer, especially after Murder List, which I thought was terrible. (A better question would be why I continue to not just read, but buy her books). The only thing that I can figure out is that her simplistic writing style comes across as charming in the historical arena but incomplete and asinine in the modern-day setting.

All her contemporaries (with the slight exception of Killjoy have been about members of the Buchanan family. This one is about a Buchanan daughter, Jordan (who was a character is Slow Burn) and a friend and colleague of the family, Noah Clayborne (who has showed up in many of the previous books). Fans of Garwood will recognize that the Buchanan's are descendants of the Buchanan clan that was featured in the historicals The Secret and, one of my all-time favorites, Ransom. And Noah is, of course, a descendant of the Clayborne brothers from For the Roses, One Pink Rose, One White Rose, One Red Rose, and Come the Spring.

The plot of this book is pretty stupid. Jordan goes to a small town in Texas to pick up some files for her friend's sister and somehow gets tangled up in a murder mystery. When she gets in trouble she calls her brother, an FBI agent, who's partner happens to be Noah. Her brother has to leave to get back to his pregnant wife, but he has Noah stay and help Jordan. And of course, romantic sparks fly.

First off, the mystery was boring. There was no reason for me to care about it. But what really bothers me about Garwood's contemporary writing is that she throws in a bunch of stuff that turns out to be irrelevant. For instance, the files Jordan went to fetch were notes from a history professor regarding Buchanan ancestors. I kept expecting for something relevant to come out of the notes, but it never did! I get the feeling that Garwood is leaving that for another book, but that's really unsatisfying for the readers of this book. I find that she does that a lot, puts in a lot of details about things that don't matter at all. That's part of why I am so dissatisfied with her contemporaries. That being said, Shadow Dance was infinitely better than Murder List, and I think it might have been better than Slow Burn, too.

Garwood's newest book is another historical, Shadow Music, and I was really excited about that. But from the reviews I'm seeing it's not a great book and is a disappointing return to historicals. Which makes me sad.

Lindsey's Grade: C-/D+

Book Review: High Noon

Another Nora Roberts book, another conflicted impression on my part. She's such a good writer, really one of, if not the, best in the business. Her books always keep my interest and are entertaining, but at the same time it's pretty rare that I have a strong reaction to one.

In this book the heroine is Pheobe, a hostage negotiator with the Savannah-Chatham PD. First of all, let me say that I have been to Savannah, and it didn't strike me as a huge city. Maybe I only saw the touristy parts, but I had a really hard time believing that there are enough hostage situations in Savannah to keep Pheobe employed on a full-time basis. And really hostage negotiating seems to be all she does with the police. Yet she supposedly works all the time. Anyway, I digress.

My beef with Pheobe is the same beef I have with most Roberts heroines. They project this image of infallibility to the world, and that really gets under my skin. Sure, I like an independant gal as much as the next person, but why do they all have to be so tough all the time. They always seem to have the answers and never seem to make mistakes. That bugs the hell out of me. Sure, there are moments of vulnerability that the heroines have to face, but after the moment is over they always seem to super-tough again. One of the things I liked most about Angels Fall was how the heroine was not perfect.

The hero, Duncan, was a pretty nice guy, but like I read in one review, he was too smooth for my tastes. He was a totally averagely-acting guy that I would definitely be attracted to in real life, but for some reason in my romance novels I like the heroes to be a little darker, a little more sullen. This guy was just too perfect in every single way.

Lindsey's Grade: B

Book Review: Ricochet

You know, as much as I love Sandra Brown's '80's genre romances, I haven't been too crazy about her recent mysteries, and here's why:

The characters are all the same, just with minor variations.

Her heroines almost all come across as ice queens to me! Ironically, the exception to that is the heroine from Chill Factor. But anyhoo, they're always rich, gorgeous, and aloof. BORING! (They really are. They're boring, no personality). I do like her heros, though, because they're alpha males and alpha males are hot.

In this book the hero is Duncan, a Savannah, GA, police detective. He gets into a verbal argument with a prominent local judge after the judge declares a mistrial in the case of a crime lord that Duncan desperately wants to see behind bars for good. Duncan goes to jail for 48 days on a contempt of court charge because of the argument. When he gets out he goes to a benefit with his partner and spots a cool, elegant, sexy blonde that turns him on at first sight. Turns out she's the judge's much younger wife! He says something sexual to her while drunk.

Cut to about a week later. Duncan and his partner get called to the judge's house because the wife, Elise, shot and killed an intruder in the middle of the night. She says self-defense, but was it really?

Duncan's attraction to Elise made me want to tear my hair out. It is really hopeless for me romantically, apparently. These books just keep reinforcing that men fall in love (in love, not lust) with women just because they're insanely hot. Duncan knew almost nothing about Elise, and he suspected her of murder, and he was obsessed with her sexually! I mean, that's a little far-fetched for me to believe, but okay, whatever, men like sex. But love? He thinks he falls in love with her after only the one encounter (the benefit) between them that was not related to the case! (Okay, so they talked about the case and then had sex once, but still). Elise never really redeemed herself to me, either. She stayed kind of dull all the way through. Where was her spark? Her energy? I never saw it. But lucky for her she can nab a terrific guy because she's got a great rack. So encouraging.

Lindsey's Grade: C+

Book Review: The Wrong Hostage

I have no complaints about The Wrong Hostage specifically. Elizabeth Lowell is one of my favorite romantic suspense authors and she's really good at crafting a phrase (okay, I'm trying to say that I like her writing style). But I do have a beef with a general theme that showed up in this book that often shows up in other and it just makes me so frustrated I'm going to rant about it.

I am so freakin' sick of heroines that are supposed to be smart, confident, strong women who marry complete losers! Unfailingly we're supposed to feel sorry for them or at least think that they're completely in the right. But most of the time I just end up wondering why they were dumb enough to hook up with such a total and complete slimeball to begin with. Sure, I know people do stupid things in the name of love, but romance authors always write about these ex-husbands like they have no redeeming qualities at all, and they've always been that way. It's so frustrating for me to admire a woman that would be so stupid as to (A) marry a guy like that, and (B) stay with him.

In The Wrong Hostage for example, the heroine is a federal district court judge that is so amazing and wonderful that she passed the bar at the age twenty-one. Please. Don't even get me started on that shit in romance novels. If you want to make you almost-forty year old heroine be a hotshot defense attorney when she had her kid sixteen years before, then turn her into a forty-something year old, okay? Don't bend the rules of logic. I'm supposed to believe that she went through college and law school by the age of twenty-one? Not gonna happen. There are not a plethora of Doogie Howsers in the world, yet they all seem to end up in romance novels. ANYWAY, back to the point. Grace, the heroine, was dating her future husband when she had a torrid weekend affair with the hero in the book. They parted ways soon afterwards, and she married her boyfriend and never told him that she wasn't sure that he was the father of the child she carried (don't worry, this is revealed very early on in the book). Turns out he wasn't, and needless to say, he was a little pissed. But she stayed married to him despite his MANY, MANY affairs for years afterwards. Oh, and he was always a shitty father to her son. WHY DIDN'T SHE JUST DIVORCE HIM? Instead she never tells her son the truth and her ex does some terrible things. I'm reading this thinking, She's an idiot. And, she has no right to be full of righteous indignation. What she did was pretty terrible and dishonest herself. The son's biological father, WHOM SHE NEVER TOLD, EITHER, accused her of using him for a stud then marrying a billionaire to be the kid's father. He was spot on! She was a loser! I like flawed heroines, but not immoral, dishonest ones! And I totally didn't feel sorry for her that she married a man she never loved because that was her own dumb choice. Am I too judgmental? Maybe, people do make mistakes, but I don't read romance novels to hear about those kinds of stupid-ass mistakes.

So please, romance writers, if you're going to put an ex-husband in the story, don't completely villianize him. It makes the heroine seem retarded for falling for such a loser in the first place. Linda Howard managed to have a perfectly nice and normal ex-husband for her heroine in Cry No More, so it can be done.

Book Review: Fear No Evil

I believe that when I reviewed See No Evil my chief complaint was the plot and not Ms. Brennan's writing. Well, I've read the sequel, and I've changed my mind. Fear No Evil had a much better plot, but I still had some major problems with it.

The general plot is that Lucy Kincaid, the eigthteen year old sister to the other siblings in this trilogy, is kidnapped by a sadistic psychopath who airs 48 hours of live video on the Internet for $25,000 of him and his cronies repeatedly raping and eventually murdering their abductees, all under the guise of "consensual porn." He has done this before, but he is some kind of computer genius and the FBI can't seem to nail him. But five years ago an FBI agent named Kate Donovan came very close to taking him down. After her partner and boyfriend were murdered by this guy, known only as "Trask," she comes under fire from the Bureau and goes into hiding, making it her life mission to find Trask and bring him down. So she writes a software program or something that alerts her each time her puts a new video on the web. When she sees Lucy's video come up, she notifies the one person she trusts in the FBI, who notifies the Kincaid family. Dillion Kincaid, a forensic psychologist, eventually tracks Kate down and convinces her to help him find Trask before Lucy is killed.

Okay, so that's an okay plot and all that, but a love story in the middle of all this horror?! Lucy is raped repeatedly by her captors, all on video for her brothers to see, and yet Dillion is still thinking, "Wow, Kate's pretty hot, I'd like to bang her." All right, all right, to be fair to Brennan, there is not acknowledgment of these romantic feelings until after the ordeal is over, but still. Come on. There was just nothing at all to base the attraction on until, suddenly, they were in bed together. But I suppose it could have been there, but they both just kept it under wraps. Yeah, that's definitely a fair assessment, but I just didn't feel it. Dillion's a psychologist and he falls for a woman that has some major issues? That's a little too "let me fix you" for me, even though he doesn't seem to try to do that. I'm a shallow person, what can I say, but I'd run from someone with that much baggage. Run far.

Also, Brennan introduced a Kincaid we've never seen before, Jack, who supposedly left the family twenty years before. But she never resolves anything with Jack or why he left and stayed away, and as far as I know, this was the last Kincaid book. Also, isn't it pretty much a rule of trilogies that the characters in the previous books get some mention? Connor from See No Evil gets a semi-promiment role, but where the hell is Julia? The woman he supposedly loves and wants to marry? She's a no-show when the sister of the man she loves is kidnapped? Seriously, her name was not mentioned once and I started to wonder if I was reading these books out of order (I wasn't).

Lindsey's Grade: C+

Book Review: See No Evil

Eh. That's how I feel about this book. Eh.

The heroine is a deputy district attorney named Julia Chandler. The hero is a private investigator named Connor Kincade. The two go back about five years, when Julia threatened to prosecute Connor if he refused to testify against his partner and other police officers. As a result, Connor testified and was essentially forced to resign from the police department because of his "betrayal." So there is little love lost between the two of them.

But when Julia's sixteen year-old neice is the prime suspect in the disturbing murder of her stepfather, Julia hires Connor to get to the bottom of the case.

I generally like romantic suspense because at least the female protagonists do something. They're usually always portrayed as smart and assertive, mainly because they're activity involved in getting to the bottom of the mystery. Don't get me wrong, Julia was no different. But even though I liked both Julia and Connor, and their relationship was enjoyable if not a little rushed, the mystery in this book was totally lame. For one, it was completely unbelievable for me. It was just too far-fetched and bizarre. And second, Brennan showed her cards way too early! There was almost nothing left to reveal at the end except the names of the people behind the crimes, and considering that they were characters that didn't show up at all throughout the course of the book until the big reveal, I didn't really care.

I think I will probably give Brennan another try, though, because I do like her voice and her characterizations. It was just the plot of this particular book that I didn't like.

Lindsey's Grade: B-/C+

One Sentence Book Reviews

I've read a lot of quick, paperback books since the last time I posted a real review. So this one is just going to serve the purpose of getting me caught up.

Prior Bad Acts - A good book with a sexy cop, but a telegraphed ending.


Merger of Fortunes - This book was as bad as the cover model's outfit.


No Safe Place - I liked the romance aspect, but could not have cared less about the mystery.


Dead Shot - It was nice to see a heroine that had some major flaws because it made her more believable, but the whole premise of the book was just too out-there.


Tongue in Chic - Well, this was not nearly as horrific as Trouble in High Heels, but still (as always with Dodd books), something just felt "off" about it.


And Then He Kissed Her - This historical romance actually lived up to the hype I had read about it.


Wrong Place, Wrong Time - As usual, Kane's hero and heroine are absolute paragons in every aspect of their lives, but the romance in this book was as boring as the mystery.


How to Abduct a Highland Lord - This book was incredibly simplistic, but for some reason, I still liked it.

Book Review: Run For Your Life

I wasn't crazy about this book. That's all I care to say.

Book Review: Into the Storm

I love, love, love Suzanne Brockmann. Love her. Sometimes the plots in her books aren't appealing to me, but her writing is just fun and her characters are always fantastic.

Brockmann writes about Navy SEALS, specifically the fictional Team Sixteen, and until I started reading her books I didn't know how hot Navy SEALS could be. For a while there in college I was slightly obsessed until I realized real SEALS are probably nothing like Brockmann's characters who are always smart, funny, and sensitive. Oh, and they always cry when the women in their lives try to dump them. They all seem kind of too good to be true, but then again, they're in the military and their wives and girlfriends probably never get to see them.

In this book the hero was again a SEAL from Team Sixteen, Mark Jenkins, a character who has been mentioned in a number of the prior books in the series. The heroine was named Lindsey (awesome!) and she worked for a private firm that was associate with the SEALS in a complicated way that I don't want to explain now. And since the plot doesn't really matter, I'm not going to waste the time to talk about it. But I will say that it was a better plot than some of her recent work.

Brockmann is fantastic because the relationships she writes about seem very real. The people are flawed, honest, confused, etc. And I like how her dialogue is something that would actually occur in real life. But best of all she's just funny. Jenkins's friend Izzy is hilarious, and even though it isn't laugh out loud, it's just fun to read.

Lindsey's Grade: A-

Book Review: Trouble In High Heels

I feel really bad about the review I'm about to do, but to be honest, I am once again disappointed by a Christina Dodd book. The reason is feel bad is that I think she's probably a very nice, very funny woman. I enjoy reading the blog she shares with other romance writers at http://squawkradio.blogspot.com. But I've yet to come across a book of hers that I've liked. A rationale question would be why do I keep buying them?

First off, her website improperly advertises this book as "cool suspense." Um, there was nothing suspenseful in this book. Kim's posting of the Jennifer Weiner quote was remarkably timely, because I think this book would aptly be categorized as "chick lit." I think of "chick lit" as books about young professional women that can't seem to get their romantic lives straightened out. And, they invariably end up involved in some ridiculous set of events that would never happen in real life. And they are totally clueless. That's my definition of "chick lit." That is not my definition of "cool suspense."

I'm a little peeved, too, by the cover of this book. They're trying to trick us by not letting on that it's chick lit. Chick lit is supposed to have covers like this:

See the jaunty cartoon characters? That's how you know what you're getting into.

Romantic suspense (when done right) is supposed to have covers like this:




I'm sorry if authors don't like the term "chick lit." But when they insult us by creating characters that are supposed to be smart but end up doing absolutely ridiculously stupid things, it's deserved.

Case in point - the heroine in this book was really sensitive to being called stupid because her absentee father used to call her stupid. So she went to law school and graduated top of her class and all that. But yet she still ended up engaged to a total loser who had a girlfriend on the side and impregnated and married the girlfriend before he broke off his engagement to the heroine. If she's so smart why didn't see that coming? And if she's so smart why did she put up with all the red-flags and jerkish behavior that he supposedly exhibited the whole time they were together? And if she's so smart why did she think she could break up a jewel robbery all on her own? And if she's so smart why did she talk to her boss of one day like she was the Queen of Sheba and he was her lowly servant?

I'm sick and tired of romance novelists thinking that readers are gullible enough to believe that their characters are smart just because they tell us they are, when everything the characters do points to the opposite conclusion. You can't just wipe away a book full of behavior with one sentence, okay? So don't try it.

Oh, and Roberto? Yeah, not a sexy name, even if he is an Italian Count. Remember Adam Sandler's dad in "The Waterboy"? His name was Roberto.

Lindsey's Grade: C

Book Review: Angels Fall

I'm always excited for Nora Roberts books to come out, and I bought this one the day after it was released. And while I do like her books a lot, she really is not a very versatile writer.

To begin with, her characters are almost essentially the same person from book to book, just with different names, occupations, and hometowns. Both the hero and the heroine are always smart and witty, and the women are so strong and independant that they don't want to accept any help from anyone. But of course the men always want to be the protector and get pissed when the women don't turn to them. To be honest, I get pissed, too. What's the point of being in a relationship with a person if you can't go to them when you have a problem?

And her writing never changes either. I really think that if you were to hand me a nameless, authorless book, I would be able to tell if it was a Nora Roberts book. The dialogue is the same in every book and I often wonder if that is the way Roberts and her friends talk to each other. I don't talk like that. It's hard to describe the style, but if you read enough of her books you'd notice it, too.

Anyway, on to the book review. Although the writing and the hero were stock Roberts, the heroine's character was actually a refreshing change. Instead of being so perfect that you'd hate her in real life if you were to meet her, Reece was neurotic, obsessive-compulsive, and extremely paranoid. To me that made her real, but at the same time I had a hard time accepting that a man who seems to have absolutely everything going for him and is probably a woman-magnet would really want to get involved with such a wack-job. It stretched the imagination somewhat, but romance novels are written by women for women so of course the men are sweet yet strong and all that.

As for the story, the heroine, Reece, moves to a small town in Wyoming and she's not there long before she witnesses a murder. Problem is, there's no evidence of the crime, no one goes missing who could be the victim, and her history of mental instability causes almost everyone in the town to think she made it up. Except the hero, Brody, of course. He's perfect and supportive at all time (a.k.a., a fictional male). Not the best plot Roberts has created, but not bad either. I thought I knew who the killer was about halfway through the room, but I was wrong. However, the instant she offered a teeny clue as to who the killer was, I knew. You read enough mysteries you start to hone in on little details the author mentions that are completely irrelevant unless they're going to pop up later on.

Lindsey's Grade: B

Book Battle!!! - Linda Howard

I recently read these two books by Linda Howard. Killing Time I bought used hardback for $2.50. Cover of Night I bought new hardback. I guess it evens out because while the latter was a disappointment, the former was pretty decent and entertaining.

Buying a Linda Howard book is kind of like playing the lottery. Sometimes you'll win big and sometimes you'll be pissed you spent the money. She's the author of one of my all-time favorite comtempory romance novels, Mr. Perfect, which is filled with likeable characters and witty, funny, smart dialogue. The campy To Die For is equally as delightful and fun. I've probably read each of those books at least ten times. And she can also write great emotional stories, like Cry No More. But every once in a while you get a real stinker, like Kiss Me While I Sleep. So after that bomb came out, I held off reading Killing Time because it dealt with possibly my least favorite romantic genre - time travel.

I HATE time travel stories, mainly because no matter how clever the author tries to be, it is NEVER, EVER credible. Every single time travel story on earth is riddled with flaws if it involves more than one instance of time travel. Diana Gabaldon's Outlander worked out okay because the heroine went back in time and stayed there. But if too many people start going back in forth, stuff is going to get screwed up. So I was a little surprised to find that I liked Killing Time. There were lots of flaws in the plot, but the characters were likeable and Howard spent enough time with them that their relationship was believable and enjoyable to observe.

I thought I would like Cover of Night more because it dealt with a small town in Idaho where a widow and a handyman live. Then one day some bad guys come to town, and like in the movie A History of Violence, the handyman saves the day and the widow finds out there's more to him than she thought. Unfortunately, everything about this story was ridiculous (assassins who take the small town hostage by blowing out the bridge, water, and power because they want a flash drive a tourist supposedly left there. Yeah, I'm not making that up). And Howard spent about half the book from the viewpoint of the bad guys who were completely uninteresting. I started to skip every scene that didn't have the protagonists in it, and I didn't miss anything. The end was nowhere close to neatly wrapped up. Everything bad just sort of disappeared when the townspeople refused to surrender. And the romance aspect was totally lame because Howard didn't spend enough time with the characters to make us like them.

So the clear winner of this battle was Killing Time, although it was nowhere near to reaching Howard's potential. She obviously has a talent for writing comic stories, so I really wish she would stick to them.

Lindsey's Grades:
Killing Time - B
Cover of Night - C-