Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

Player’s Ultimatum by Koko Brown

I received a pitch for this book from the author, and was intrigued by the mix of elements she highlighted in her email: the multi-cultural characters, the use of European soccer clubs as a setting, and the interesting conflict with the heroine posing as the fiancée of her gay best friend while being attracted to his nemesis. I not only bought it but sent a message to Jane at DearAuthor, since she and I both enjoy sports-focused romances.

Alas, this book is poorly edited, suffers from an outright fear of commas, is confused as to how the characters names are spelled, and is published with a lack of formatting that neglected to mark changes in scene or point of view, which made reading downright confusing.

Most bothersome to me, the plot relies on stereotypes to a degree I found offensive. The portrayal of the gay characters turned me off entirely.

An Innocent in Paradise by Kate Carlisle

This book has it all, and by "all" I mean All The Cliches That Will Drive Me Nuts. Some of my recent ranting about cliches? Largely inspired by this book, I am sad to say.

The story starts out so cool, and I was anticipating something truly different and amazing. In the heroine, I got some of that. In the hero and the plot, I got All Of The Cliches. All of them. I am NOT KIDDING.

So please be aware, This Review Is Most Spoilery. I couldn't present the depth of amazing cliche without explaining them, so there is a LOT revealed. BE YE WARNED. 

Grace Farrell has come to the tropical resort on the island of Alleria under false pretenses: she's a scientist. A research scientist. A supremely brainy child prodigy holds-four-PhDs-that-she-earned-at-the-same-time when-did-she-sleep research scientist. Her research focuses on a specific type of spore that shares some microscopic traits with humans.

Grace needs more spores to study because the ones she has are not as robust as the ones on the island, plus there's some scuzzy guy back home who… read more »

Maharaja’s Mistress by Susan Stephens: A Dueling Review

I received an email from reader Maria, who told me about this book and said it was UNREAL in its bizarre badness. So of course I forwarded her description to RedHeadedGirl, who replied, and I quote, “WHAT IS THIS FUCKERY I NEED TO READ IT”.

Seriously, you guys. The official book description does NOT even TOUCH the crazysauce that floods this book. This is what it says:

Monte Carlo is abuzz with news that Ram Varindha—young, hot and royal—is without a co-driver for the biggest rally event of the year. Though it’s been years since she last saw him, Mia leaps at the chance to get up close with the maharaja!

With time to spare before he takes on more serious royal duties, bedding this beauty is top of Ram’s list. But Mia has long known Ram’s reputation. Is she just in for the hottest few nights of her life, or could her dream of finally taming Ram’s playboy ways become reality?

Maria’s description reveals much more, and is in all frank honesty ENTIRELY ACCURATE:

Majaraja’s Mistress features a… read more »

Reckless Pleasures by Tori Carrington: A Guest Rant Review by Nina

Every now and again I get irate email from readers who are absolutely hair-pulling livid about a book they just read. We romance readers take our book reading very personally, and if a book doesn’t live up to the expectations of a reader in the most basic of ways, there is fury like furies have never furied before. This is especially true when there’s infidelity, moral weakness, or a completely unhappy ending. Nina is PISSED about this book. She is IRATE. And she has a LOT to say about it. Behold: A Guest Rant Review.

Nina writes: Warning: This review is chock full of spoilers.

This book made me sick. And not only because the heroine of the story cheats on the hero, but because she’s cheating on a man who’s risking his life in a dangerous, scary place thousands of miles from home.

Don’t get me wrong— I’m not saying that infidelity can’t be addressed in an entertaining and intelligent way. Unfortunately, that’s not how it’s treated in Tori Carrington’s Reckless Pleasures.

Now this isn’t the first Harlequin Blaze I’ve read that featured a woman who cheats on her… read more »

Private Sessions by Tori Carrington

I will state upfront that I had an ulterior motive for reading this book. I read it for the anal.

Yup, you read that right. Blazing anal. Blazing the Hershey highway. Firing up the backdoor action. Hot poop chute lovin’. Avast me hearties, there be anal in this novel.

While at RT, I heard about this book from Andrew Schaeffer, who reviews the Blaze line for RT Book Reviews. You should have seen my face. I absolutely did not believe him. But no, there is anal. He even says so in his review.

I was hoping to like the story, because any time envelopes (and two-holes) are pushed, I’m curious. I’m all for boundary exploration and really, I didn’t go literary spelunking expecting to be entirely disappointed. But this is easily one of the most boring Blazes I’ve ever read. Even with the anal. Lackluster anal, can you imagine?  It was somewhat mildly disturbing thing, too, because of the reason for the posterior penetration, and because of the motivation of the hero to rise up and head for the rear (I’ll give… read more »

Scoundrel’s Captive by JoAnn DeLazzari: A Guest Review by RedHeadedGirl

You guys do understand that I read these primarily because I enjoy it, right?  I mean, some of them were “unpleasant” (Purity’s Passion, I am looking at you), some are off the hook (Forbidden Desires?  That’s you) and some are so wonderfully trashy I can’t help but adore them (Henley is my kryptonite).

For the most part, I enjoy it.  I think I have a very selective form of masochism.  And, in general, if I truly hate it, or it’s just not interesting enough to review, I won’t review it. This book is a bit different, though.  Because I did hate it, but there’s a facet here that I haven’t seen discussed a lot.

I blame Zoe Archer for this.  She put the cover of this book on her tumblr, with the caption “My books don’t look like this.” That, of course, is like waving a red flag at a bull and throwing him a china shop.  I HAD to read it. (Because I’m the bull, see?)  (…that sounds rather bad.) (Yes,… read more »

Passion’s Bold Fire by Rosalyn Alsobrook, a Guest Review by RedHeadedGirl

>RedHeadedGirl is back, this time with a review of a romance from so far back, and so far gone in the WTF department, she calls it “Love’s Passion’s Flaming Bag of Poo.” It was an epic adventure. In pain.

Most of the time, reviews are written after you have finished the book.  I admit for Season of the SunI started it before I even got the book delivered, but I’d read it so many times before, I could do that, and the hook wasn’t really that relevant to the specific book anyway.

This is not one of those reviews.

It’s really tempting to do this review just as transcripts of IMs and emails I sent while slogging through this bag of poo.  But that wouldn’t really cover all the shitasticness of this book.

The day after I started reading this book, I sent Sarah this email:

“Oh my god, Sarah.  Oh my god. 

I may have a bone fide “F” grade, old school 1992 romance.  It certainly falls into “I read this shit so you don’t have to.”  I think I’ve sprained… read more »

Embracing the Moonlight by Wayne Jordan

When I redid the re-captioning of Wayne Jordan’s book from the Uncyclopedia definition of romance, the book itself caught my eye. The synopsis sounded very interesting, so I ordered it.

Mason Sinclair is recovering from a terrible injury sustained in the line of duty when his mother tells him that the man the thought was his father was not, and that he has three brothers he never knew about. Lianne Thomas is undercover protecting a little boy and his mother. They’re both in Barbados. Could this potentially rock? It seemed to me that yes, oh yes, it could. Caribbean setting? Law enforcement protagonists? Multiple plots of family history, intrigue, suspense and pretending you are someone you’re not while discovering you’re someone else entirely?

Oh, yes yes yes.

Unfortunately the book itself didn’t live up to my expectations, and despite my attempts to keep reading, it never caught my attention. The clumsy development of characters, the klutzy plotting, and the narration undermined my anticipation of the plot itself to the point where I didn’t finish it.

An Enema, A Birthday Spanking, A Love Story by J G Knox

ToroHo sent me a link. It was very mean of her.

It was a link to the book you see pictured over there: An Enema, A Birthday Spanking, A Love Story. The title of the actual paperback seems to read “When the Jonquils Bloom Again: Book One,” but the Amazon.com title is all enemas and spanking. Is there a better way to catch people’s attention as they look for something to read? Spankings and poo? Sign me up!

No, wait, don’t. I downloaded the Kindle sample (Kindle: Nom nom..What?!) and, well, in the interest of complete honesty, I went to the ladies’ room to read it. Here is all you need to know about this book:

Gold Plated Garbage Truck by T.C. Allen

I paid $5 to read this book on my Blackberry, and took two Tylenol for the headache I got from reading on the tiny screen, and two more this morning for residual agony. I’m thinking that I might need some kind of counseling to recover from the utter badness that is this book, and that’s roughly, what, $80-100 an hour?

This was a very expensive mistake indeed, but when the Bitchery clamors for a review, I try to step up.

Even Hubby said, “You’re seriously reading that?”

I exacted revenge for his doubt by reading portions aloud, prompting the following responses:

“Oh, my God.”

“Please, please stop.”

If I had to describe this book in two words, those words would be: complete bonerdeath. This book will suck the sexy out of any known being, and leave any libido in the tri-state area dry and gasping. This book is the real reasons all those erotica novel vaginas are weeping.

Red Hawk’s Woman by Karen Kay

To entertain myself while reading this book—because God knows this book was not entertaining, or at least, not intentionally so—I found myself imagining what it’d be like if the various elements of Red Hawk’s Woman were represented by interpetive dancers. I saw it going something like this:

Dramatis Personae:
THE BOOK, represented by a person clad in a dollar-store Indian costume
THE PLOT, represented by a half-baked cake the size of a wading pool
GRAMMAR, represented by a man in a suit
DIALOGUE, represented by a giant ball of twine
MALAPROPISMS, represented by a woman wearing a bright pink spandex leotard covered in sequins and gold puffy paint

Scene:
A darkened stage, with a badly-painted backdrop of mountains and scrub. To the right of the stage is a big tub full of THE PLOT; off to the side is DIALOGUE, an end dangling seductively loose.

THE BOOK leaps out onto the darkened stage, spotlight trained solidly on it. It lets out a loud cry of anguish as it lands badly and breaks its ankle. This, however, does not prevent it from hobbling back on its feet; soon, it… read more »

Savage Moon by Cassie Edwards

Browser compatibility issues? GROWL!

Below is the text from the review of Cassie Edwards’ Savage Moon, with the comments in italics and not Javascript-enabled. So if you can’t read the entry with the Java comments, please enjoy below.

Savage Moon by Cassie Edwards

It’s awful. it’s just awful.

Does that sum it up enough? No? You want me to relive the story details for you, to put my brain through the egg beater one more time? I’m already mour stupidur for having read this stinker of a book. But fine.

About two or three weeks ago, anonymous packages started showing up on my porch every few days. Inside each one was a Cassie Edwards novel. Due to this absurdly generous person, I am now the proud owner of Savage Moon, Savage Hope and a few other savage titles that I’m not even going to get up out of this chair to go verify. There are five Savages currently living in my bookshelf. I have them isolated. No telling what contagion they might pass on to the other books.

I mentioned the arrival of these packages of poop in book form to Candy, who, if it were possible to do so over IM, snickered and professed innocence to any idea that Cassie Edwards might need to find a home on my poor bookshelf. Despite… read more »

Take Me by Lucy Monroe

Candy sent me this book in a box full of other books with the warning, “I’m sending you this because you have to read it. I can’t.”

If Candy can’t bring herself to read it, I’m in such deep trouble.

And yup, this book pretty much irritated the shit out of me right from the get-go.

Calantha, Duchess of Clairborne is the reclusive and quiet widow of what had to have been a right bastard of a husband. She was monstrously abused on an emotional and physical level by her late dickhead of a Duke, and he effectively isolated her from everyone who might have helped or befriended her.

Jared, Viscount Ravenswood (and how is THAT for typical “Animal + Item found in Nature” aristocratic title?) is asked by his childhood friend Mary to bring Mary’s daughter to Calantha.  After making this bizarre request, Mary dies. Jared would rather cut off several key parts of his anatomy than deal with Calantha, because Calantha’s late husband was responsible for Mary’s daughter. He raped Mary while she was a servant in his… read more »

Soulful Strut by Lynn Emery

I tried very hard to get through this book, but when I reached page 100 and still wanted to throttle the heroine, her mother, her roommates, and everyone else, I had to put it down. Between the frustrating and unreliable heroine and the wooden ancillary characters, I’d had enough.

The heroine, Monette Victor, has just been released from prison after new evidence of bribery and extortion in her prosecution revealed that she had been framed for the murder for which she was convicted. She’d maintained all along that she was innocent and set up, but because of her less-than-stellar lifestyle as a mistress and wayward parent, she was convicted with little effort, particularly after the district attorney pressured other witnesses to falsely implicate her. She wrote a book in jail and became famous because she spilled all the dirt on the district attorney who framed her, because by that time, he was the state Attorney General. The resulting scandal caused him to resign - and Monette to go free.

It was relatively easy to find all the backstory details that set… read more »