**** Minor spoiler: I can't really talk about what I thought about the book without mentioning why Haven's marriage failed. Also spoiler for the love triangle in Sugar Daddy. ****
The Premise: Haven Travis is a heiress from a powerful Houston family. Haven wants to prove her independence and marries her boyfriend despite her father's threat to cut her off and his warnings that Nick is only interested in her wealth. When her marriage falls apart spectacularly, Haven comes back to Houston a changed person. She is starting to get back on her feet again when she runs into Hardy Cates, a brother's rival, and not one of her family's favorite people.
Thoughts: I was really engaged (I think the word I used was "raw") with what Haven had to go through in her marriage to Nick during the first part of the book. Kleypas obviously researched narcissistic personalities and domestic abuse and I felt like I was learning some things about boundaries and the way they are pushed in these situations. I hadn't considered the boundaries people trying to help also crossed, but I felt a lot of sympathy for some of Haven's family members when she told them not to get involved.
It felt quite believable that at first Nick was very attentive and loving, but as time went by and things did not go his way, he slowly changed and started blaming Haven for everything. The way he twisted things in his mind was disturbing and I hated his character, but I never felt annoyed at Haven for putting up with it because I also saw how he manipulated her.
Kleypas also does a good job in highlighting the narcissistic personality in the workplace as Haven is unlucky enough to meet another person with this type of personality there.
Then Haven and Hardy meet again, and in my mind it doesn't feel very long before they get pretty hot and heavy. Maybe I'm being very prim and proper here, but I think the book suffers because the physical is a large part of Hardy and Haven's relationship. Which conflicted with what I'd seen before: Haven flinching at her own brother's touches because she subconsciously associated men with her abuse. Not that it was easy for her to get physical with Hardy, but I would have found a longer courtship before the physical intimacy more believable. These two characters fit together well, with both their pasts making them flawed in just the right way for each other, but this discovery feels overshadowed by the sex. Of course, I prefer my romances to be slow moving anyway, and I haven't seen anyone else complain, so make of this what you will.
The secondary characters are mostly people from Haven's family, and we see a lot of her brother Gage and his wife Liberty, who have their own book, Sugar Daddy, but both books stand on their own. Usually I don't like seeing gratuitous visits from characters in past books, but in Blue-Eyed Devil it worked because they seemed to have a place in the plot and had meaningful interactions with the main couple. It's Gage and Liberty's wedding where Haven and Hardy first meet and they also help Haven when she wants to leave Nick, then with supporting her emotionally afterwards. Another brother, Jack, helps Haven out a lot too. He gets his book next (Smooth Talking Stranger), but there are also another brother who looks to be primed for his own book after that.
Overall: This is fiction that also tries to do some educating about narcissistic personalities and domestic abuse, and in this aspect the book does very well. In my mind however, it set up Haven's character in a way that the sex scenes brought the story down for me, but I am suspect I'm in the minority on this and in skimming past them. Otherwise, it was very well-written (particularly the first part. I was heavily involved with Haven's experiences in her marriage), had engaging characters so all in all, I thought it was very good.
Other reviews: Let's just say this book swept the board.
Book Binge gave it a 4.75 out of 5
The Book Smugglers - It got a 10
The Good, the Bad, and the Unread - gave it an A+
Ramblings on Romance - 5 out of 5, must read book of 2008
The Premise: This is a young adult version of adventure/romance in Regency England. Seventeen year old Lady Alexandra Stafford (aka Alex), daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Worthington and her two best friends Lady Vivian Markwell, daughter of the Marquess of Langford and Lady Eleanor Redburn, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Marlborough (aka Vivi and Ellie), are all coming out in one season. The three headstrong girls aren't really loving the idea of being paraded around in a marriage market, but things are made interesting when the girls stumble upon something suspicious regarding the death of the Earl of Blackmoor, who was the father of Alex's childhood friend Gavin.
Thoughts: There are a lot of young friendships in this book. Alex has her three brothers, William (Will), Nicolas (Nick) and Christopher (Kit), her lady's maid Eliza, her two best friends Vivi and Ellie, plus Gavin. All of them seem to get along very well, and they are all talented and striking according to the descriptions in the book. It's in their conversations that I thought the book's strong points lay: everyone is very articulate and well spoken, which fits with the time period and their upbringing in London society. It was nice to read conversations between teenagers where there's wit and proper manners.
The problem I had however was there were a lot of characters to take in and after a while some of them sort of blended in together. Alex's brothers seemed indistinguishable to me besides one being the oldest and one being the most tactless (can't remember who that was though). They had very small roles as just annoying older brothers who liked giving their sister a hard time and to give a male perspective on also hating having to deal with the marriage market. Vivi and Ellie also have very similar voices, and when the three girls spoke, I couldn't really tell them apart besides their names, because their personalities are so similar. I only know Ellie really likes to write and draw, while Vivi lost her mother and claims she's looking for "The One" but may have already found him and isn't telling. I'm not sure that most of these characters brought much to the story and I had the niggling feeling that all these characters were being set up for their own romances in later books. Besides that, they were very wholesome and supportive of each other here, which lends to some amusing conversation when they got together, but I wish they were a bit more distinguishable and maybe a bit more flawed. There were so many times that Alex felt proud of her friends and family and they were so perfect, I was starting to feel very guilty. Guilty of feeling like a hardened cynic and wondering whether it was just me.
Their flaws were pretty much their headstrong characters, which in this day is more of a strength. In Regency London however, it made me remember I was reading fiction. Even with strong wills and an interest in politics, I didn't find it believable when the girls started reciting facts about Napoleon to people at balls as proving they were well informed, or that Alex wouldn't be at all concerned about her reputation when she tells all her friends she was kissed and she wanted it to happen again. There needs to be a suspension of disbelief in these areas to enjoy the book and I couldn't quite muster it.
The best part of the book is Gavin. He's the one whose father has just died in what looks like an accident, but turns out to be more than that. I had a guess within the first few chapters as to who the villain was, because there just isn't anyone else to choose from, so the mystery in this book was very obvious, it's more of an addition to the romance between Gavin and Alex. Gavin reminded me a little of Mr. Knightley from Jane Austen's Emma. He's a childhood friend of the main character and sometimes he disapproves of Alex's behavior and tries to caution her in ways that just tick her off, but she also begins to realize her feelings for him aren't sisterly. Their scenes are the best ones in the book and luckily there are quite a few of them, though their relationship seemed to repeat itself - from normal to scorching and back again. Alex isn't an Emma in that she doesn't try to play Cupid, but she and her friends do get very curious, so in that regard, maybe there are similarities.
Overall: I was pimped this book by a couple of girls at BEA, and the author was so nice that I really wanted to like this book. Part of me cringes a little writing this review, but I have to be honest: this was not quite for me. I think it's one of those books I thought was just "OK", but others really loved it. I see a lot of glowing reviews online. For me, the best parts involve the romance and the conversations between characters, and it's still a quick, fun read but the plot is a little too predictable and the characters a little too wholesome for my tastes.
Other reviews (mostly positive):
Fantastic Book Review - 4 out of 5
Steph Su Reads - 3 out of 5 (and a review with similar thoughts as mine)
Pop Culture Junkie - 5 out of 5 (she was one of the people who recced it to me)
Tempting Persephone - cements my belief if you just view the book with a less jaded eye you'd like it more
Sharon Loves Books and Cats - she loved it too. Also pimped this book to me, especially Gavin.
There are 3 books I need to review and a few I have to finish reading, but what do I do? Join a couple of reading challenges. Usually I'm not one to join reading challenges but these two were too interesting for me to pass:
1) The Sookie Stackhouse Reading Challenge : Hosted at Beth Fish Reads, this one starts in July and the objective is to catch up with the Sookie Stackhouse books. I've read just book 1. For some reason or another I never picked up the rest but a couple of months ago I got up to book 6 I think. I just need to read them. This will make me do so. Then I can finally get around to watching the True Blood series, which I've been holding back on doing because I haven't read the books.
I'm looking at Stephanie's list of suggested movies and books. Is it sad I've read/watched many of these? :) Anyway, here's my 6 things:
- Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler - I read the first book, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict last year and enjoyed it so want to read this one too.
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Lost in Austen: Create your own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Webster - I found this at Powells!
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Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death, and the SATs by Paula Marantz Cohen - I live near Scarsdale so this one has been on my radar as one I wanted to read for a while now. This is my excuse.
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Persuasion - I've seen this movie (1995 with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds) about 3 times so far and it's one of netflix's watch instantly movies, so this is easy to put on. I may also watch the 2007 one with Rupert Penry Jones and Sally Hawkins again (only watched once which is weird).
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By a Lady by Amanda Elyot - this one has very mixed reviews so I'm going to try this one from the library
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Jane Austen Ruined My Life by Beth Pattilo - Also to be found in my library
Alternatives:
- The man who loved Jane Austen by Sally Smith O'Rourke
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Becoming Jane movie
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Love, Lies and Lizzie by Rosie Rushton
OK, I'm in Portland, Oregon right now, which is the reason for the lack of posts from me lately. I could go on about the horrible delays getting here through Chicago on friday or how the airline lost our luggage, but all is soothed by going to bookstores.
Powell's, the largest independent bookseller in the U.S, was one of my first stops here in Portland - this is the Powell's City of Books location. I will not lie, my heart did beat faster when I saw the Powell's sign. It's like falling in love. It takes over a whole city block, has 9 (big) rooms on 4 floors. THERE IS A MAP for goodness sakes. And a few information booths throughout the store which I suspect is for all those people who get lost. I spent a few hours in here, happy as a clam on Saturday and again today. It's in walking distance of my hotel. I've been really good though and haven't bought much. Just 2 books, 2 book bags, and a t-shirt. I also picked up free stuff - Powell's postcard, sticker, bookmark, newsletter, and map. I have plenty of time to go back (planning to get another t-shirt). If you spend $50 or more, they will ship the books back for you for free, which is good if you don't want to bring it back in your luggage.
There's a mix of new and used books all on the same shelves. The prices for used look like they're around about 60% of new books. The sf and fantasy sections are quite awesome (4+ big rows next to the horror section which was about a row and a half) and I noticed that romance had paranormal romances split into a separate series of shelves, but I thought for such a popular genre, the romance section was pretty small (2 rows).
There's a post in the "Gold Room" (genre fiction room) which has autographs of science fiction, fantasy, and horror authors who have visited Powell's. I took pictures of all sides (plus a couple of close ups - Neil Gaiman , Robin Hobb and Elizabeth Moon):
This one from Juno books looks promising. Embers by Laura Bickle:
"EMBERS
Truth burns. Unemployment, despair, anger—visible and invisible unrest feed the undercurrent of Detroit’s unease. Homes and businesses are increasingly invaded by phantoms and now, with the annual destruction of Devil’s Night approaching, a supernatural arsonist is setting blazes to summon a fiery ancient power that will leave the city in ashes. A sizzling debut from a red-hot new author.
By day, Anya Kalinczyk is an arson investigator in the Detroit Fire Department. At night—accompanied by her elemental familiar, a salamander named Sparky, and an eccentric group of ghost hunters—Anya pursues malicious spirits. The rarest form of psychic medium, a “Lantern,” Anya doesn’t allow spirits to communicate through her with the physical world like most mediums, she devours restless harmful souls and incinerates them. She’d like to get closer to Brian, a ghost-hunting techno-wiz, but a lifetime of those she loves getting hurt makes her hold back. Her two roles mesh when, on the trail of a serial firebug, she discovers an arsonist is attempting to use the fires to rouse Sirrush, a supremely powerful elemental, from the salt mine beneath the city of Detroit. Anya must capture the arsonist before Devil’s Night, when the spell will be complete and Sirrush will rise to raze the city. "
Sorry about the lateness of this. Very busy day today!
Winner of the Fire giveaway is SciFiGuy!! :)
Congratulations!!
I'm sending you an email for your mailing address.
For those who still want to enter to win a copy of Fire, there's another contest at REVIEWER X!
This is another one of those books where the cover caught my attention first, but the blurb made me really want to read it. Soon after I mentioning that I was eying the book, I met the author on twitter and she was nice enough to put me on the reviewer list. A cover flat came along with the ARC, and boy, the cover is gorgeous in real life (I gasped aloud when I saw it). It's matte with shiny symbols, and the colors look otherworldly. It's probably my favorite cover this year.
The Premise: Kara Gillian is Summoner - someone who has the ability to call demons from a parallel plane. She's been studying and training unbeknownst to the outside world under her mentor/aunt for ten years, and has gained enough skill to work without assistance. Kara's day job is equally important to her. She's a detective who has just been promoted from Property Crimes to the Violent Crimes Division at the Beaulac Police Department, just as their town's serial killer, the Symbol Man has reappeared. The Symbol Man dumped several bodies all over town before disappearing three years ago. All races, all ages. The only connection between the victims is that they are transients (so no one seems to care they are missing), and a the same symbol is found somewhere on all their bodies. Kara knows that the symbol has arcane significance, but she has no idea what it is. Ever since she saw the body of a victim when she was a beat cop, Kara has wanted in on this case. Now she's surprised to find she's the lead investigator and she finally has a chance to use her hidden abilities to catch the killer.
My Thoughts: I've been pleased this week to be reading books that had great pacing. It starts off with a bang:
"I could hear the intruder breaking into my house.
Unfortunately, it was in the same instant that the demon appeared before me."
In Mark of the Demon, something was always going on, and the movement of the story from one scene to the next was seamless. With Kara investigating murders, interacting with demons, hiding her identity as a summoner, and dealing with men in the police department and FBI, it was only reluctantly that I put the book down. If I didn't have other review deadlines, I'd have read this sooner, because the first page really hooked me. It's this kind of book that had me enthusiastically informing my husband what's going on despite him trying to sleep to concentrate something else.
The "About the Author" page says that Diana Rowland has worked in law enforcement as "a street cop, a detective, a computer forensics specialist, a crime scene investigator, and a morgue assistant". It shows in the writing. I found the scene with the medical examiner in the morgue fascinating (I did always wonder about bone dust. Suspicions confirmed), but the author's experience shows elsewhere as well. The way Kara handled herself with all the male testosterone in the police department amusing and admirable.
Kara's character is somewhat isolated. With her background as a summoner she has to be, so the list of secondary characters that Kara is familiar with is extremely sparse. The only person she feels close to is her aunt, but in Mark of the Demon Kara is introduced to an FBI agent and to the Demon Lord Rhyzkhal who I think will become more significant as the series progresses. I look forward to reading how things will turn out in later books and there is plenty of room for relationship growth.
Demons are a large part of the story, and Kara summons a few types into our world. Information about their society and how summoning works is dispersed to the reader in bits and pieces as things happen, and it's very absorbing stuff. What really fascinated me was the complex sense of honor that has such a huge part of their world. It's only this sense of honor that enables summoners to stay alive when they bring these creatures into our world, as long as they stay within the agreed upon rules.
The mystery of whodunit took me some time to figure out. I had my suspect about one quarter of the way through the book, but that was blown out of the water several pages later. It's only when a secondary character fills us in on some back story that I figured out who the Symbol Man was and by that time the book was mostly done. I found out earlier than Kara did, but it was believable that she wouldn't have figured it out by then, and the killer ensured she'd look in the wrong direction.
Overall: A very satisfying police procedural with demons and summoners thrown in. Kara Gillian is very human, despite her abilities, and it's nice to read an urban fantasy with this type of protagonist and where the case is the focus and magic is one of the tools to solve it. Recommended.
I've been trying to think of another author who writes police procedurals with supernatural elements and I came up with C.E. Murphy's Walker series. I certainly think if you are a fan of that series, you will enjoy this one.
This book will be released June 23rd, 2009.
Want to win a copy?
Bitten by books contest (ends 11:59pm PDT TODAY)
I Do Not Want to Wait, I Want the Book Now (comment answering the authors question for a chance to win. Not sure when this ends, so comment quickly)
On Twitter - @bantamspectra tweeted that if you reply to them with #spectra1000 you are entered to win one of 5 books (Mark of the Demon was just added to the list). US Only. Ends 5pm EST Wed 6/17
Other reviews:
The Book Smugglers (gave it a 7 - very good).
Lurv a la Mode (4.5 scoops. Reading her review I've discovered we share very similar opinions on this book)
This contest is now closed.
This is supposed to be the prequel companion to Graceling, which I haven't read yet.
Here's the blurb:
"It is not a peaceful time in the Dells.
Young King Nash clings to the throne, while rebel lords, in the north and south, build armies to unseat him. War is coming. The mountains and forests are filled with spies and thieves.
This is where Fire lives, a girl whose startling appearance is impossibly irresistible and who can control the minds of everyone around her.
Everyone...except Prince Brigan"
It looks good!
This book comes out in October in hardcover, but of course I'm giving an ARC away so you can get your hands on it early! The ARC is a trade paperback.
All you have to do to win it is send an email to janicu[AT]gmail[DOT]com with the title "Fire Giveaway". I will send the book outside the US, so anyone can enter. Not going to wait a week to draw the winner this time! You have till midnight Tuesday EST to enter.
I had a lot of entries for this contest - 51. Random.org picked contestant #10, and that is one of my international entries (cool) - Laura from Book girl of Mur-y-Castell !!
Congratulations Laura! I have your address so I'll be sending you the book soon.
Soulless caught my eye a couple of months ago when I saw the cover, but I really wanted to read it because of the blurb. When I found this book at BEA I was ALL over it, and with the number of entries for my Soulless giveaway, I wish I had more copies to give away, but alas I only have the one.
I was going to write this review and then shelve it till end of September, but a lot of copies of this were at BEA, so I expect reviews to show up pretty soon, and I've had a lot of people asking me how the book is!
Soulless comes out September 30th from Orbit books.
The Premise: Alexia Tarabotti is a spinster and twenty-six years old (she was officially put on the shelf at the early age of fifteen). The daughter of an Italian and well known for her modern sensibilities, headstrong personality, and interest in science, Alexia isn't the typical young Victorian lady. She has a long nose, dark Italian skin, and loves to eat (treacle tarts are a favorite). One night, Alexia attends a ball, and is dismayed to find that the host has provided NO refreshments. Taking matters into her own hands, she asks be served tea in the library. One thing leads to another and suddenly there's a dead vampire on the library floor and Alexia has to fake a faint. The agents of BUR, headed by Lord Maccon (an irritable, scruffy, Scottish werewolf) aren't fooled for a second, and she is asked questions regarding their investigation. Vampires and werewolves are appearing where they shouldn't be, and disappearing from where they should. Of course Alexia decides to do some investigating on her own, and drives Lord Maccon crazy in the process.
My Thoughts: Wow, this book was a lot of fun to read. The blurb is a spot-on indication of what you'll find in the book - tongue in cheek stuff, a heroine who is a force of nature, and a romance thrown in. The author calls the book an "urbane fantasy", and from what I can see there's an overlap of genres here. There are romantic elements, urban fantasy elements, a very Victorian setting, and a dash of Steampunk. I couldn't help mentally hearing the words in a proper English accent. First, no one here says "parasol", so I had to, and second because of the style of the language. There was even a nod to the old-fashioned in the way the chapters were titled ("Our Heroine Ignores Good Advice" is just one example). Along with the writing, there are a lot of references to fashions, manners and day to day life of the Victorian time period.
The world here is our own, but Great Britain has had supernatural help to conquer so much of the planet. There are werewolves, vampires, and ghosts, with similar traits to what I've seen in other urban fantasy (such as banding together under one Alpha or hive ruler), but the criteria for a human to change into a supernatural is something new. This time the amount of soul a person has is a factor. Only people with an excess of soul can survive the change, and supernatural creatures are rare. Alexia is even rarer, she has no soul. This makes her a preternatural, a person whose touch negates the supernatural completely. I don't think I've seen this before. I've read books where one character is immune to supernatural effects, but can't do what Alexia does. I like the idea.
The worldbuilding was well done and had enough complexity where I felt that while I was seeing and understanding a lot of it, there is still more to come, perhaps in later books. In particular I think the politics between the vampires, werewolves, and the crown has been touched upon but there is more to explore there.
There are a lot of amusing side characters in this book. Usually there's one or two side characters I kind of like, but here I liked a lot of them, though they are almost caricatures. The poor best friend with horrible taste in hideous, flamboyant, hats, the gay vampire with his baroque furnishings and coterie of foppish young men, the stoic and capable butler, the list goes on, but it works very well. It's a comedic ensemble cast (complete with straight men) that buttress our heroine and hero.
This book is also a romance. While this is Victorian England so no sex before marriage, there are serious shenanigans going on that are decidedly more modern than this era. Even knowing what a free spirit Alexia is, there are a few scenes where some artistic license takes place in terms of Alexia's reactions to her love interest. This was a slightly less believable part of Alexia's character, but we're reading a book with werewolves and vampires here, so I didn't dwell on it. The part that irritated me was the repetition of Alexia's "flaws" which she and her family were concerned about: that Italian nose, dark complexion, and inability to be controlled. I'd prefer Alexia to have been less repetitive in worrying about these silly things, thinking no one wants to marry someone like that.
Overall: This book is going to be popular. It's as fun as it looks, I promise you, and I love that this feels like something new. I wanted to pick it up as soon as possible whenever I had to put it down. There's plenty of action, sly wit, and romance going on to keep the pages turning and I will be reading the second book, Changeless.
There's an excerpt of Changeless at the back of Soulless, and I've already checked, but the release date hasn't been announced yet.
Links:
Video of Gail Carriger at BEA (filmed by Ron Hogan)
