Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Touch of Power by Maria V. Snyder

As a fantasy novel in general, Touch of Power is great.  As a romance, or even as a fantasy novel with romantic elements, it goes horribly wrong.

Touch of Power is the story of Avery.  She is a Healer, a woman who is able to heal people by touching them.  When she does this, her own body takes on the illness or wounds of the sick or injured person, but because Healers are able to recover at a much faster rate than other people, they are usually (but not always) able to survive the process. 

When a plague struck the Fifteen Realms, killing millions of people, the Healers were unable to treat it without dying.  They were blamed for the plague, hunted down, and killed.  To the best of her knowledge, Avery is the last surviving Healer.

Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn

Jenna Starborn is an inventive science fiction take on the Jane Eyre story.  This book is well worth reading for the creative concept even though the romance never quite gels.

Since Jenna is a fairly straightforward retelling of Jane Eyre (with Jenna being Jane, Mr. Ravensbeck being Mr. Rochester, etc), I'm assuming in this review that you have already read Jane Eyre and am dishing out SPOILERS with wild abandon. 

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ JANE EYRE, STOP READING THIS and for the love of God, go read it.  Best book ever.  You'll love it. 

If you have read Jane Eyre, then nothing in this book will surprise you, plot-wise - it parallels the Jane Eyre story very closely.

The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After by Julia Quinn

The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After costs $9 at Barnes and Noble.  That's the sale price.  And you know what really burns me up?  The ending of Violet in Bloom, the very novella that I bought the damn book for, was a total let down.  I am so annoyed.

By now I've read so many books about the Bridgertons and their friends and their thirteenth cousins three times removed that they all blend together.  I remember liking all the books, but I'll be darned if I can remember what happened to which Bridgerton.  But I always have fond thoughts for Violet, the mother of all these crazy people.  I bought this book, which contains mostly previously published material, with one goal:  to find out what finally happened to Violet Bridgerton, best Regency Mom ever.  I can't explain how I feel about her story without spoilers, so watch out.

Wolf Nip by Vivian Arend

I'm looking at the shifter genre like a swim-starved beachgoer who is pretty sure the ocean is too cold to go in, but dips a toe anyway. I kind of miss the paranormal genre, especially shifters. I don't love the insta-love and the fated pair mating with the twitching cocks, but I've read most paranormal romance from the perspective that it explores our relationship with rage, out of control anger, and fear, especially of the internal and external "other."

When we - especially women - lose our shit and get angry, it's not ok. Shame and chastisement follow. But if a shifter loses his or her shit, goes cat or wolf or bear or cougar or wombat, well, that's nature. Some of my favorite paranormal shifter romances explore without flinching the idea that there's this insatiable angry beast inside that has to be tamed or controlled or in some way balanced.

Since I was… read more »

Nightfire by Lisa Marie Rice

Susan's guest review made me wonder if maybe this book would work for me. The fact that I didn't like it and didn't finish it is entirely my fault. I should have known better. I was made more curious by the solid reviews on GoodReads, and the number of people who say that Rice is among their "crack" authors. Also, it was on sale very recently for $1.99.

But I should have known that despite all those things combining to tempt me, this was not a book I would enjoy. All the signs were there, and I ignored them. This DNF is my fault, but I also read enough to understand Rice's crack appeal. So while this is a DNF review, if you like romantic suspense with a lot of overt sexual tension, extreme alpha males, and some up and down over the top emotional tempo, you might really like this book.

For me, the over sexed alpha male… read more »

Be Mine: by Jennifer Crusie, Victoria Dahl, and Shannon Stacey:  A Guest Review by CarrieS

Be Mine is a Harlequin anthology containing three novellas.  The one by Jennifer Crusie (Sizzle) is a re-release and Too Fast to Fall (by Victoria Dahl) and Alone With You (by Shannon Stacey), are new.

Since the plots are lighter than air, I shall sum them up in just one run-on sentence each, followed by a mini-review of each story:

Sizzle:  Marketing Executive falls for the new guy who oversees her budget. Too Fast to Fall:  Chronic speeder falls for the cop who always pulls her over. Alone With You:  One night of sex plus lost phone number plus meeting again and working together in an isolated location equals true love.

Heart of Danger by Lisa Marie Rice - A Guest Review by Susan

Back in September, Susan contacted me about a Carla Kelly book she had reviewed. She emailed me again recently about her discovery that sometimes, paranormal elements in a contemporary romantic suspense novel can work. Here's her review of how and why that's true for her.

I discovered Lisa Marie Rice when I started to read hotter romances and she quickly became a favorite. I adore her earlier books, like the Midnight series, and her single titles. But her books have gotten a bit formulaic recently: super alpha ex-military heroes who have instalove for the less experienced and/or damaged heroines, heroes that protect the heroines at all costs, and hot sex with behavior and descriptions that are often repeated from book to book. However LMR remains my reading crack. The books are fast-paced and I look forward to the next one, always. I figured the first book in the new Ghost Ops series would be more of the same. When I realized that Heart of… read more »

Sealed with a Curse by Cecy Robson

This book has a plot like a Jack Russell Terrier on crack jellybeans. Bounce bounce bounce! It zooms from event to event, gory bloody scene to battle to a shower at home to more action. ZOOM! BOUNCE! It's kind of manic.

But it also has guffaw-moments of silly, goofy humor. The silly humor of the prose fits the story in a way that made me laugh hard at some scenes. It might give you whiplash, the way moments of drama are deflated with sarcasm, since it moves the tone of the story back and forth from Moment of Loss and Sadness to Moment of Wait, That Was Kinda Funny.

Also, before I move on to the plot summary, take a close look at the cover: notice her fingers are tapered into claws? That's kinda cool - and fits the story, both in… read more »

All He Ever Dreamed by Shannon Stacey

While the Kowalski novels are rapidly becoming comfort re-reads for me, especially the first and third ones, and while I'm always happy to go visit all the characters and see that they retain as much personality as they had in their own novels, this book ended up being more of a visit for the sake of everyone else. I didn't keep reading because I was transfixed and drawn to the lead characters. There wasn't anything wrong with them, and I liked them both just fine, but they didn't have the bursting personality and humor of the other characters in the series. Despite the build-up of Josh's story, the focus on his and Katie's relationship didn't live up to my expectations.

If you ask me how this book was, I'd probably make a baby fishmouth face for a few minutes and then say, "It was pretty good, but it was sad." And I mean that exactly: the atmosphere, the spirit of the story, was so sad to me. My impression of it after I finished is maudlin, regretful, and sad.

Dirty Minds by Kayt Sukel: A Guest Review by Carrie S

"Dirty Minds:  How Our Brains Influence Love, Sex, and Relationships" is a nice, basic, but fairly comprehensive overview of the latest scientific information about love and sex.

It's not very exciting - for a fun, ribald take on the topic I highly recommend Bonk, reviewed here previously.  For a more detailed look at the topic, I recommend Love, Sex and the Brain, also reviewed here.  Dirty Minds is essentially a summary of all the info you can find in Love, Sex, and the Brain but with a slightly more conversational and personal approach.

A Clockwork Christmas: A Steampunk Christmas Anthology - A Guest Review by CarrieS

Back in 2011, Carina Press released A Clockwork Christmas:  A Steampunk Christmas Anthology.  This anthology contains Crime Wave in a Corset by Stacy Gail, This Winter Heart by PG Forte, Wanted: One Scoundrel by Jenny Schwartz, and Far from Broken by JK Coi.

I was surprised that there isn't that much talk of Christmas (or any other holiday) in the novellas.  Crime Wave is the most Christmas-y book, with This Winter Heart coming in second.  The other two books keep Christmas strictly in the background.  I was also surprised at how little steampunk is actually in the books - generally the authors picked one steampunk element to focus on instead of creating a fully developed steampunk world.  All of these novellas are available for sale separately. 

I assigned an average grade of C to the collection as a whole, but the entries varied widely in quality.  Here's the breakdown by novella:

All Roads Lead to Austen by Amy Elizabeth Smith:  A Guest Review by CarrieS

All Roads Lead to Austen:  A Yearlong Journey With Jane is a fun, thoughtful, and entertaining memoir by Amy Elizabeth Smith.  Amy spent a year travelling through Latin America.  In each country she visited, she led or attended a book club meeting about one of Jane Austen's novels. (SB Sarah: And since today, as Carrie noted in an email today, is Jane Austen's birthday, this seemed like a good date to talk about this book.)

She had two primary questions:

1.  Do the novels of Austen resonate with contemporary Latin American readers?

2.  Who is/are the Austen(s) of Latin America?

Waltz With a Stranger by Pamela Sherwood

I first learned about this book over the summer - at RWA, in fact - when I had breakfast with Danielle Jackson and Beth Caskie, publicists at Sourcebooks. They were both very excited about this book. (Aside: is it me, or does the woman in the cover look a LOT like Britney Spears?)

I wish my reaction had been similar, as the premise gave me all the curiosity and eagerness to read it: Aurelia Newbold is a very wealthy American heiress, and a formerly-identical twin. Due to a carriage accident, she has a limp and a scar on her face, and during her season in London, her sister Amy is the one who receives all the attention. Aurelia is not as popular and not enjoying her physical and emotional discomfort. One night at a ball, she takes a quiet moment in the conservatory when she's discovered by James Trelawney. He asks her to dance, and… read more »

Tempest in Time by Eugenia Riley

So after we tore apart Fabio’s Viking, I decided to see what his ghostwriter, Eugenia Riley, could do when not hampered by Fabio’s weird cholesterol fetish.  The result was… not pretty. 

But I couldn’t do this review on my own, so I called in some help.

Jeremy Renner.  BECAUSE HIS FACE.

You’re WELCOME, Bitchery.

All He Ever Desired by Shannon Stacey

I've been trying to figure out how to review this book since I finished it. It's going to be difficult to avoid spoilers or a frank discussion of the end of the book, which is the part I had the most problems with, so I'm going to divide this review into two parts. Part the first: spoiler free, and excitingly vague. Part the second, marked by a big ol' line, will be more frank and specific, and muchly whited out.

If you're reading this on an RSS reader, BE YE WARNED.

All He Ever Desired is the second book in a second trilogy about the Kowalski family. This branch of the family lives in Whitford, Maine, and three brothers and one sister are focused during the trilogy on repairing a family lodge to try to bring new customers to visit the lodge and the nearby town. Ryan, the brother who owns a custom building company in Brookline, MA,… read more »