Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

RITA Reader Challenge Review: The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig

Abby reviewed this book for the RITA® Reader Challenge, and she had nearly the same reaction as Emily.

Plot Summary: Arabella Dempsey’s dear friend Jane Austen warned her against teaching. But Miss Climpson’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies seems the perfect place for Arabella to claim her independence while keeping an eye on her younger sisters nearby. Just before Christmas, she accepts a position at the quiet girls’ school in Bath, expecting to face nothing more exciting than conducting the annual Christmas recital. She hardly imagines coming face to face with French aristocrats and international spies…

Reginald “Turnip” Fitzhugh-often mistaken for the elusive spy known as the Pink Carnation- has blundered into danger before. But when he blunders into Miss Arabella Dempsey, it never occurs to him that she might be trouble. When Turnip and Arabella stumble upon a beautifully wrapped Christmas pudding with a cryptic message written in French, “Meet me at Farley… read more »

RITA Reader Challenge Review: On Folly Beach by Karen White

Lindlee is back, kicking ass and writing reviews for the RITA® Reader Challenge for one book in each category. This book was nominated in the Strong Romantic Elements category.

Plot summary: Folly Beach, South Carolina, has survived despite hurricanes and war. But it’s the personal battles of Folly Beach’s residents that have left the most scars, and why a young widow has been beckoned there to heal her own… To most people, Folly Beach is simply the last barrier island before reaching the great Atlantic. To some, it’s a sanctuary for lost souls, which is why Emmy Hamilton’s mother encourages her to buy the local book store, Folly’s Finds, hoping it will distract Emmy from the loss of her husband. Emmy is at first resistant. So much has already changed. But after finding love letters and an image of a beautiful bottle tree in a box of used books from Folly’s Finds, she decides to take… read more »

RITA Reader Challenge Review: The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig

Emily also reviewed this book for the RITA® Reader Challenge, and like a reviewer who I’ll publish soon, wished for a little more steam.

Plot Summary: Arabella Dempsey’s dear friend Jane Austen warned her against teaching. But Miss Climpson’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies seems the perfect place for Arabella to claim her independence while keeping an eye on her younger sisters nearby. Just before Christmas, she accepts a position at the quiet girls’ school in Bath, expecting to face nothing more exciting than conducting the annual Christmas recital. She hardly imagines coming face to face with French aristocrats and international spies…

Reginald “Turnip” Fitzhugh-often mistaken for the elusive spy known as the Pink Carnation- has blundered into danger before. But when he blunders into Miss Arabella Dempsey, it never occurs to him that she might be trouble. When Turnip and Arabella stumble upon a beautifully wrapped Christmas… read more »

RITA Reader Challenge Review: Welcome to Harmony by Jodi Thomas

F. chose to read this novel for the RITA® Reader Challenge, but after picking it at random she found it had a lot of plot elements she doesn’t like, but that the writing was strong enough that she kept going.

The plot summary: Sixteen-year-old runaway Reagan has always wanted a place to belong. She’s never had a real home of her own, but perhaps she could borrow someone else’s. Under an assumed name and identity, she moves to Harmony, Texas, but keeps her distance from the welcoming townsfolk. Until prairie fires threaten Harmony-and Reagan learns the true meaning of family, friends, and home.

And now, F’s review:

RITA Reader Challenge Review: Open Country by Kaki Warner

Yes, yes, there was a word-count limit to the RITA® Reader Challenge reviews, but sometimes they’re so funny I have to include the whole thing. Behold, K. Smith’s review of Kaki Warner’s Open Country.

I’m not a very discriminating reader.  I average 6 romances a week, and my reaction to pretty much all of them is ‘Lovely. Next?’  But I adore the reviews on this site, which have led me to a great many fantastic authors, so I shall try to be a bit more helpful.

Kaki Warner’s Open Country starts off in 1871 in Georgia.  Our Heroine Molly has come to see her sister.  The sister’s weak, abusive husband has kept her from sending for Molly, and now the sister is dying.  Before she does, she begs Molly to take her children (fruit of a previous union with a more satisfactory sperm donor).  This features such charmingly underwritten prose as:

“Keep babies…safe.  Promise me…Sister.”

Weeping… read more »

The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton - A Guest Review by Carrie S.

It could have been worse.

When people ask me if I’m “Into Star Wars”, I say, “Yes, absolutely”.  But when I say “Star Wars”, I mean, “Star Wars:  A New Hope”, “The Empire Strikes Back”, and “Return of the Jedi”.  I saw the first two prequels but am convinced they were a hallucination brought on by bad popcorn.  I’ve never seen the Clone Wars.  And I’ve never read a Star Wars novel.  But for you, dear bitches, I braved the novelization world to review The Courtship of Princess Leia.  I figured a novel about Han and Leia’s romance would either be the best thing since hyperdrive or the worst thing since Jabba the Hut’s personal appearance.  Turns out I was wrong on both counts.  This novel wasn’t irredeemable.  It had good action sequences, a fast pace, and a few hilarious moments.  But, as a romance novel, it was a big fail, because the most critical component – believable, well-developed, exciting romance - was absent.

To be honest, I’m grading this novel pretty harshly, mostly because it dangled so much potential in front of me and then whisked it away.  At the… read more »

Adventure Lover by Charlene Teglia

I bought this book after Jill Myles tweeted about it, and it reminded me that novellas, when you are supremely busy and would love to finish a story in one evening but don’t have the time, can be awesome part of the romance reading habit. They’re sort of like the dark chocolate in the dietary pyramid of romance: not a constant but excellent to add, and kinda good for you, too.

Jill runs a travel agency, and she’s noticed a sharp decline in luxury travel packages, the kind she specialized in. When research and analysis reveals the new trend in adventure vacations, which aren’t her cup of tea in the least, she puts on her big girl panties, gears up with a very specific list from her survival expert guide, and heads off to a three-day hike around some mountain lakes to experience the tour for herself, and take pictures so she can build a travel package around the trip and sell it to her potential customers.

Ryan is her guide, and from the moment they meet (ha ha ha I just typo’d “meat” SNRK) they’re supremely attracted to one another.… read more »

Love on the Rocks by Pamela Yaye

I have been monster busy and therefore craving Harlequins for reading - but this one I couldn’t get through, no matter how many times I told myself that maybe after a few more pages the book would pick up and get better. I had to stop about halfway through.

Tangela and Warrick were together for seven years before a messy and painful breakup, one that they’ve apparently never talked about. When Tangela shows up on the cover of People magazine’s weight loss issue, showing off a very trim and a very sexy confident new self, she and Warrick find themselves in each other’s worlds again, and find a second chance to fix what went wrong.

Unfortunately, a whole mess of a lot went wrong before I even got to the middle of the book.

An Unlikely Setup by Margaret Watson

Sometimes, a romance is like a souffle. It’s all delicate and airy: there’s some fat and egg white for structure, and it’s sweet and light, and it can be satisfying, if not the most rib-sticking, satisfying thing you’ve ever eaten. But sometimes, because it’s a souffle, one little thing will break it, and the whole puffy thing that until that moment was fun and simple and pleasing will collapse while you stare in horror because there is NO WAY THAT JUST HAPPENED.

An Unlikely Setup was following the path of one of my new favorite forms of category romance plot: girl returns to small rural town and finds community, home, and a really hot guy with a supremely excellent bum. Hot Bum is Quinn, who runs the local pub, and returning girl is Maddie, who has recently inherited the local pub building and a house from her godfather. She’s in deep financial trouble after losing her job as a reporter because she thought flipping houses would work as a way to earn money quickly - even borrowing money from her best friend’s IRA - and when the bottom fell out of the housing… read more »

Lessons From a Scarlet Lady by Emma Wildes

Lessons from a Scarlet Lady is a romance that features protagonists in a rather different way. Brianna is a newlywed duchess who wants a more passionate marriage. She finds a used copy of Lady Rothburg’s Advice, a book so salacious and so frank in its discussion of sex and sexual power that it was banned - so Brianna promptly brings it home to read so she can try to seduce her husband and crank the homefires to burning hot damn. The Duke, Colton (Colton? Is that really a historical English name?), is shocked to his dukely toes by his wife’s bedroom behavior, and finds himself fascinated by his bride when he’d expected to go back to his pre-marital routine of work, work, a little more work, and additional work. Meanwhile, among Brianna’s friends is a young woman named Rebecca, who has it mighty big and bad for Colton’s brother, Robert. Robert has a bit of a reputation, and has no idea Rebecca exists, but that doesn’t stop her from turning down several marriage proposals last season, much to her parents’ displeasure.

I loved that the narrative featured both an unmarried couple… read more »

Accidental Cinderella by Nancy Robards Thompson

Lindsay Bingham is a small town girl who finds herself in St. Michel, a small European country similar to Monaco, as a bridesmaid to her friend Sophie, who is marring the crown prince of said country. At the wedding, she meets the gaze of one hot celebrity chef, Carlos Montigo, and the attraction is immediate. As Carlos goes off to fetch champagne for them both after a short but charged conversation on the balcony, another man, a television producer, asks her to dance and drops an amazing opportunity in her lap: television show hostess for his newly-purchased cooking network. Sophie, the princess of the previous book in this series, has pulled some strings for her best friend.

Lindsay used to be in television. Now she’s a receptionist at a job she assures herself is important, and she doesn’t want to get back into the television life, especially after it (ominous moment ahead) cost her so much in the past. But upon realizing that her job really isn’t all that (heads up! rapid change of priority and plot and understanding of the main character!) she turns the car around (she’s… read more »

Manhunter by Loreth Anne White: A Guest Review by Test Driver Karen

Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I’m kind of biased to like this book to begin with as it TAKES PLACE IN CANADA, OMG.  Seriously, Harlequin, I’ve read two books set in Canada from you guys in the last couple years.  Can we get some more Can-Con up in here, already?  Are there no opportunities to have Canadian cops/ex-military/CEOs/playboys/cowboys/insert hero trope here?

Also, I’ll admit to a

complete addiction

slight bias for angsty law-enforcement types.  This may or may not have something to do with

Jack Bauer being my TV boyfriend

my being a fan of a few suspense/mystery series featuring that type.

So with that out in the open, let’s move on to what other people should like about the book, shall we?

RCMP Staff Sergeant Gabe Caruso hasn’t been the same since his fiancee was murdered by a serial killer he captured a year before.  Still dealing with the guilt and grief, he accepts a posting to the remote Yukon town of Black Arrow Falls, where he meets Silver Karvonen, expert tracker and owner of a hunting lodge.  Silver has her own emotional trauma that… read more »

Bound to Please by Hope Tarr - Test Driver Review

Test Driver Hapax purchased this book from the Harlequin bookstore as “part of a historical bundle that I wanted to read for the other authors.” Hapax asks that I let y’all know the review is spoilerific, so proceed with caution.

This was my first experiencing in actually sitting down and trying to READ an e-book.

Dear Saint-Jerome-and-his-slavering-lions, just drool me to death Right Now.  The pain…

And I can’t blame the Sony for this one.  I’m fairly certain, in fact, that the e-reader is the only reason I kept paging through, because I wanted to read the next book in this Blazing Bundle, and Sony, in its generosity, didn’t provide me the option of jumping around the table of contents.  So flick through I did, 700 pages of engorged print for my aged and increasingly baffled eyeballs.

The opening had some promise, actually. Our barely pubescent Heroine, Brianna MacLeod, the feisty tomboy with the obligatory untamed red hair and flashing green eyes, has a veritably unique Meet Cute with an even younger hero, lanky dark-haired grey-eyed Ewan Fraser, who admired the vigorous manner in which she relieved her bladder in… read more »

Talking With the Dead by Shiloh Walker

This was a free Kindle download from Sam Hain (distant cousin to Sam Adams) and since it was three dots long (the length of a book on the Kindle is depicted by a series of dots beneath the title in the contents section of the device) I figured it would be a quick read for me.

Let me say outright: there were a lot things that frustrated me about this story, but Shiloh Walker’s writing is not one of them. Despite the elements that I’ll get to in a moment, I’ll be looking for Walker’s books in the future because her writing is SOLID. The narrative voice was unique and inviting, and often underscored the subtle language differences between the hero (a Southern man) and the heroine (an Indiana sheriff). The plot was tight, with growing and ebbing tension.

Caught Running by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux

I received an email from a reader who said, “I am interested in you reviewing a personal favorite of mine…. I’m eager to hear your thoughts about a book that, in a very short time, I’ve come to love.” Such a simple endorsement caught my attention, and I read it in a marathon session that ended with me straddling a running treadmill, unable to accept that I’d clicked “next page” and there WAS NO NEXT PAGE. It was over! And I was left with no more of a wonderfully sweet (in a good way) romance, though I was consoled by a hefty dose of “Just finished a good romance euphoria.”

Caught Running is a gay romance (it’s also pretty and witty). In a nutshell (hur): science geek with big giant brain reconnects with laid back PE teacher who coaches high school baseball team. Science geek + sports jock + zesty attraction = WIN!

The longer version: Brandon teaches science at the Georgia high school he attended as a kid. Jake was in Brandon’s class, was an all-star athlete, and has also returned to that same high school as the PE teacher and… read more »