DNF
Title: Taken Beyond Temptation
Author: Cara Summers
Publication Info: Harlequin 2010
ISBN: 978-0373795512
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Since I’m reading on a Kindle I have no idea what page I’m on, but I’m estimating that I’m 1/10th of the way through this book, and I don’t want to continue. The WTFery is piled so high, I can’t see my way to the end.
Jillian Brightman purchased a big ol’ house with her sisters, and they’ve teamed up to turn it into an inn. Jillian, according to the cover synopsis, has a secret fantasy that comes to life when she meets Ian, who isn’t who he says he is. I was curious about this book from the synopsis, but the opening chapters were so completely barmy I had to stop reading. Behold, in convenient list formation, the reasons this book is receiving a DNF – did not finish.
1. Backstory introduction: the main character is talking to a ghost in the opening chapter, and telling the ghost all about herself, her sisters, her new hotel, her toenail fungus… no, not that last one. If you’re ever wondering how to reveal everything about yourself in two pages, try talking to a ghost. It seems to make one very chatty.
2. Ghost introduction: there’s a ghost! And she appears! In a Harlequin Blaze? I thought they were steamy, not steam-like diaphanous apparitions in mirrors.
3. Mystery door: the magic ghost who knows the heroine’s entire backstory because the heroine told her (and me) opens a magic hidden door.
4. But wait there’s more! A secret room with the hidden door contains a linen hatbox that’s full of envelopes. On the top is written, and I quote:
Fantasy Box: Choose carefully. The one you draw out will come true.
So Jillian pulls out an envelope, because, and I quote, “What could be the harm?” and is so freaked out by how close to her own fantasies the fortune in the envelope had been that she asks the ghost out loud what she’s doing with a hatbox full of fortunes in her secret room, and then she runs down the stairs.
If this were made into a movie, I have to ask, is there music that goes with “WTF?” What’s the soundtrack for that?
5. Introduce the hero: Over a year later since the hatbox ghost secret room envelope thingy, Jillian almost wrecks on a tight curve with an oil patch and the hero, Ian, sees her swerve and nearly crush her car. He gets out to make sure she’s ok… and is immediately seized by this crazy desire to kiss her. Dude. Did he hit his head?
6. More about the hero: he’s investigating the hotel that Jillian and her sisters own because someone had been playing potentially deadly pranks on the guests, but, and I quote:
After hearing [the story,] Ian had agreed with the hotel manager on three points. He was right to be concerned, it was too soon to tell if the incidents were related, and, therefore, too soon to worry the sisters.
I can handle ghosts, hidden rooms, secret boxes, and stuff in envelopes that comes true. But a whole mess of potentially damaging “accidents” befalling guests in a hotel, including a WIRE STRUNG ACROSS THE TOP OF THE STAIRCASE, and they don’t want to tell the owners because it might upset them? THAT I am not buying. I can handle any amount of woo-woo paranormal activity, but treating the heroine(s) as if they are too delicate to handle what is clearly a concerted effort to drive up their insurance premiums does not a hero make, nor does it create a romance I wish to read.
This book is available at Amazon.com, Book Depository, and Powells, and where Harlequin novels are sold.
My random thoughts….
1) One of these days, I’d like to the see the DNFs get finished by…someone.
2) That box brings back memories of one of the most retarded things ever to pop up in D&D, a deck of cards which cause a variety of (harmful enough to negate any benefit) things to happen to people who pulled one out.
@ehoyden Lynn Kurland rocks, ghosts and all. I usually shy away from books with NO sex in them, but I’d read one of hers any day.
When I was stuck in bed for months, a subscription to Netflix saved my sanity. And you don’t have to put your laptop on your lap for that. Crap, half the time you don’t even have to look at the screen. I revisited the 80’s.
@RebeccaJ
Ditto. I fell completely head over heels for Edward Mulhare in that series—I think that’s where I developed my thing for bearded men. And seafaring captains. And English accents. And… oh, well, anyone who doesn’t know what we’re talking about can just watch this:
For those unfamiliar with the series (spun off from the earlier also-lovely movie with Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney, which was itself based on the book by R.A. Dick a.k.a. Josephine Leslie), Mrs Muir is a widow sharing a house with the ghost of a sea captain. She can see him, but other people can’t.
The scenes in the video where they touch and almost kiss are from dream-sequence/time-shift episodes.
I keep this YouTube link handy for days when I need a little romance in my life 🙂
@meganb: I agree. Lynn Kurland does indeed rock. I’ll have to check out her ghost books now. At least I know ahead of time they aren’t DNF’s.
I’ve read numerous books that should have been DNF’s, but I just can’t stop! Read a really, really, bad one a few weeks ago. Should have been a DNF, but now the author is a DNR. (Do Not Read)
@ Scrin
Hey don’t be hating on the Deck-of-Many-Things. My group loved it, even though it cost us more than it helped us. Sometimes I think some of the books I read use that artifact and a table of random encounters for their plots.
think67 – no, thinking is too hard, I’ll just pull a card at random
@Karen – this is brilliant!
Har-dee-har-har! I laughed so hard I HAD to tell my 10-yr-old daughter why because she wouldn’t let it go. Then I had to tell her she can never say it at school. Good mom, huh. At school, but go ahead and use anywhere else.
It seems to me that the page number thing is at least partly a question of whether reading is perceived in individualistic or social terms. If you want to be able to talk about books with your friends, then you need page numbers, even if they are somewhat meaningless with respect to the technology you’re using to read the book.
GAH…. Just encountered a DNF of my own, a novel killed by two of my own pet peeves:
CONDESCENSION – A condescending hero or heroine, is a major DNF criterion.
AMUSEMENT – In romance novels there are still too many heroes who appear perpetually amused by the heroine, treating whatever she does like a joke.
I have no interest in reading a story based on the obvious lack of respect implied by these attitudes.
In what way does this story enrich my life? Reading about a card carrying member of the mysogynists’ club behaving like condescending ass and disrespectfully treating a woman like a joke is supposed to be enjoyable in some way?
It’s only going to be fun if he is somehow removed from the gene pool at an early stage of the story and replaced by a real man.
Sorry. Some that story pushed all the wrong buttons all at once.
@Ben P
I have just thrown my latest read against the wall for exactly this. You are so right! clap, clap Who thinks this is romantic? I can not even imagine ever feeling kindly to someone who has laughed in my face, no less romantic.
You know, I can’t think of a romance novel I DNF. If only because I often read them so fast. There’s a few I wish I never read, however.
Now there’s a couple of Stephen King books I didn’t even get past the first chapter – The Tommyknockers for one. And there was a novel that was suppose to be a bunch of famous detectives got together to try and figure out who killed Edwin Drood I got halfway through before giving up. Somehow Sherlock Holmes hanging out with Sam Spade just did not work for me. It would be like Harry Potter hanging around Harry Dresden. Both are wizards, both are named Harry, both are orphans, but somehow – they just could never mesh.
I’ve never met a Cara Summers book I have liked. That’s all.
@Ros: It seems to me that the page number thing is at least partly a question of whether reading is perceived in individualistic or social terms. If you want to be able to talk about books with your friends, then you need page numbers, even if they are somewhat meaningless with respect to the technology you’re using to read the book.
Meaningless? Not meaningless to this reader’s ereader. It’s not an either/or situation for me, but both social and individual (and probably anal). I like to know where I am in a book and how many pages I have left. Also like the ability to look up a page if someone says to check out a particular page. Not that it happens very often mind you. I wouldn’t have bought my nook if it didn’t have page functions. I didn’t realize the Kindle didn’t until Sarah mentioned it. I know that sometimes the font size changes the page numbers, meaning it might take you 3 page clicks to get though 1 paper page, but not always so with the epub and pdb formats. The font size I use usually keeps the pages correct.
I’d like a DNF tag for ereaders. Can’t fling it into the trash, or against the wall like paperbacks since that would get rather expensive. But I usually finish the DNF’s anyway. 🙂
Maybe we need more categories for those reading non-paper books to take the place of the DNF:
DNWTFBCTAIPG$4IACSNFWIS – Did Not Want To Finish But Compelled Too As I Paid Good Money For It And Can’t Stand Not Finishing What I Started
WTTAWBLiP2M – Wanted To Throw Against Wall But Love iPad Too Much
DNFASAS – Did Not Finish And Screamed At Screen
LWTL – Lost Will To Live
(I think I’m going to hell for saying this but I may as well own it)
WTF-alanch
Totaly OT but if eReaders are supposedly great for academics and texts but don’t have page numbers how do you write a citation? Your bibliography would read :
Smith, Jane, “Blah blah”, Nowhere Press, about an inch of black in the read-o-meter on my kindle, 2010.
and that’s not MLA style.
(I do apoligize that my every comment seems to be railing against ereaders I’m just trying to figure them out. Every point in their favour seems to get negated after I hear more about them)
Oh and this book sounds like it sucks, thanks for the warning.
I really like to point out the positives before I flesh out my irritations. I’ll start with the fact that I love hat boxes, they fascinate me almost as much as shoes. And the guy on the cover is super-hot. Meeeow. 🙂 But the part where I would have had to fling it against the wall is item # 4. So she pulls out a fate-card from the ghost’s bag of tricks and upon realizing it matches her fantasy, she runs from the room in disdain? That’s the WTF-alanche for me (thanks for the new term… love it)! Dude, if I found out one of my fantasies was FO SHO gonna come true, I’d be making a Brazilian Wax and a mani-pedi appt, and buying a new pair of CFMs… STAT!
@GoShawdy, your line: Evil Finger Pyramid of Contemplation
Thank you, it made my night.
keyword: bed32 . . . I have not, that’s just rumors.
I wish this review had come out first before my blogmate bought a Cara Summers Blaze book. I would’ve warned her on authors to watch out for not to buy! LOL The Defender is supposed to be a suspense, but it’s not really very suspenseful. There are other things I find exception to, but I’ll let my blogmate list them out in her review. She’s a much nicer person than I am, so I’m sure she’ll be gentle with her comments.
Anyway, thankfully, the book is a 2-in-1, and the 2nd book, Flyboy by Karen Foley, was actually good. I may have to search out more of her books, because finding any good Harlequin author is like finding a needle in a haystack and when you’ve found one, she’s like a gold mine. (Hope I used my cliches properly. LOL)
@Bianca I think I have that twins book, but haven’t read it yet. I was intrigued by the back summary, but now… I hope I’ve got the guts to pick it up. Thankfully, I got it for only 0.70 in one of the used bookstores.
Ben P: Co-signed, seconded, *applause* OMIGOD YES!
Can ya tell I agree?
I don’t want to read a romance when my overwhelming desire is to see the heroine (or really anyone) completely destroy the hero for being a smug, misogynistic asshole. That’s not a romance, that’s the prequel to a murder mystery.
@EbonyMcKenna : DNWTFBCTAIPG$4IACSNFWIS == Perfect for me. Thanks. Almost as long as that volcano name in Iceland. Definitely a cut and paste.
@Mary Frances: I do apoligize that my every comment seems to be railing against ereaders Not my comments about my ereader anyhow. Just surprised the Kindle doesn’t have page numbers. Not dissing it per se. My ereader has page numbers and I’m happy with it. Some people can apparently get by without them, but I can’t.
eReaders are supposedly great for academics and texts OT again, but I think someone is coming out with an ereader geared for academics soon. If you want more info, you can emai me privately so we don’t go off on a tangent. Sorry Sarah!! eferret 1 3 at g mail dot com