Category Archives: book review

Friends with Partial Benefits by Luke Young

book review October 19, 2015 Leave a comment

If this book was half as saucy and funny as it thinks it is, Luke Young could make a fortune. Wait. According to Amazon: Over 1.4 million eBooks downloaded! With the sixth and final book released, now is the time to start the hilarious and sexy Friends With Benefits series. Seriously? I’m going to go rethink my life. The book review proper will continue when I return.

[musical interlude]

From Amazon: Jillian Grayson is a disillusioned divorcée and best-selling romance novelist who suddenly can’t write a chapter without her hunky male heartthrob suffering ED, an STD, or even worse. Brian Nash is a tennis-obsessed college senior who’s unlucky in love and the roommate and best friend of Jillian’s son, Rob. When Rob brings Brian home for Spring Break, and Brian meets the surprisingly young and tennis passionate Jillian, their shared interest quickly develops into an intense mutual attraction. After nearly giving in to their feelings, they hatch a plan, while under the influence (of something more than just the perfect Miami night), to be Friends With Partial Benefits, complete with rules to define the boundaries. Will the lonely pair continue with this distinctive relationship, actually explore their desires, or discover all of it is a really bad idea?

Totally unsurprising spoiler: Yes, she’s 40, but he turns out to be 27.

I read a Danielle Steele novel, once. I think it was her, it might have been Jackie Collins. Whatever the awfulness was, I remember the “novel” as essentially a plot summary with clothing descriptions. Friends with Partial Benefits wasn’t that bad or as much of an offense to the stringing of words together, but it was simply some banter with a suggestion of naughtiness and glimpses of coitus. There was a framework of plot, rather than an actual narrative, and gestures of winking mischievousness in the characters’ exploits: Jillian and Brian find each other hot and desperately fight their attraction for a week or so. Jillian’s widowed friend is sex-crazed and boffing her way through the neighbourhood. There are sundry hijinks involving Jillian’s son and a young woman from college who both said son and Brian, our hero, are interested in. Co-eds claim to be both more and less experienced than they are and there are some questionable slut-shamey attitudes towards this. There’s mention of buttstuff that’s meant, I believe, to upgrade the playful wickedness angle, but Friends with Partial Benefits never committed fully to being either an erotic romp or a romance and therefore fell flat, a softcore pornographic movie in novel form.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Not You It’s Me by Julie Johnson

book review October 18, 2015 Leave a comment

Not You It’s Me started well with a playful tone, but Julie Johnson’s contemporary romance quickly descended into over-the-top plotting that gives Queen of Histrionica (and admitted personal guilty pleasure) Jennifer Ashley a run for her money.

Gemma Summers is in a boring relationship that she hopes to spice up with free courtside basketball tickets, but things go awry when she and jerkface land on the kisscam and he ignores her. Embarrassed, Gemma finds herself swept into a massive clinch by the gentleman sitting next to her. He’s ever so dreamy and just happens to be a reclusive billionaire recently returned from 5 years in self-exile. He’s warm for Gemma’s form, but tells her he doesn’t date. Charming, right? Great start and an excellent execution of a romance trope that should proceed apace. Groundwork laid, the plot makes a sharp left and careens towards crazy town. Gemma and Chase are talked about in the media, Gemma’s awful boyfriend becomes a meme, and faster than you can say, “too many plot elements”, or “the tone does not match the events contained herein”, EVERYTHING spirals out of control and Gemma’s life is subsumed by Chase’s business and family issues. There are:

  1. a mentally unstable cousin (and secret brother!) who resents Chase’s success and has violent, manipulative tendencies, such as murdering Chase’s favourite horse as a child and
  2. hiring a woman to “fall in love” with Chase during college so that the cousin can spy on Chase before she breaks his heart on command, but
  3. she remains obsessed with Chase and makes threatening phone calls to Gemma at the first hint of relationship and
  4. works with Gemma’s gormless ex-boyfriend who has transformed from a run-of-the-mill cheater into an enraged threat to her life who destroys Gemma’s apartment so that
  5. she has to move into Chase’s penthouse for her own protection and bring what can be salvaged from her apartment, although it’s him who makes this determination for her by hiring strangers to sort through her things and trash whatever is ruined.

Things ESCALATE from there, but you get the idea, and it all takes place over a matter of days and before Gemma and Chase have established a relationship beyond each thinking the other is fun to kiss. Gemma takes it all ludicrously in stride. What started as a charming meet cute, and despite a light touch in the writing, turns into two people fighting for their lives together, even though Gemma is the only one of the two main characters acting in a rational fashion. Chase is right, he is in no position to date – hence the title – and she should RUN AS FAR AND AS FAST AS SHE CAN preferably with government protection.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

The Wild Seasons Series: Sweet Filthy Boy, Dirty Rowdy Thing, and Dark Wild Night by Christina Lauren

book review October 15, 2015 Leave a comment

With the Wild Seasons series, the writing team known as Christina Lauren is hitting its stride. Stronger than the Beautiful series, each of these books features one of three childhood friends who have just finished university and are figuring out where their lives will go next. When a weekend in Vegas turns into three impulsive marriages, Mia, Harlow, and Lola react differently by staying married, getting it on then getting it annulled, and getting started on the annulment immediately. Lauren’s fun female friendships are included here, as well as the delicious men they write so well. As erotic romance, the Wild Series does not shy away from sex, but they strike a good balance with the sincere emotion necessary to make the stories work. As with the Beautiful Series, each couple has bedroom predilections that feature heavily in their sex life.

Sweet Filthy Boy (Ansel/Mia)

Mia spots Ansel across a crowded room and is instantly smitten, as is he. She had been on track for a dancing career before a terrible car accident, and having graduated with her Bachelors’ degree is staring down an MBA program she doesn’t want to attend, but has been cowed into by her domineering father. Her last hurrah weekend turns into a summer in Paris when she marries Ansel on impulse when their friends marry each other as well. “Half Adonis, half puppy,” and French, Ansel is absolutely adorable. Fun and impulsive, he encourages Mia to be with him for the summer; in fact, she made him promise not to get an annulment when they got married which he remembers, but she does not. A sensible woman, if a little lost, Mia rejects the suggestion of a summer in Paris before coming to her senses and showing up at the airport before the flight. They have a wonderful time, even if he is working constantly, until Ansel makes a big mess of things. Luckily, stupidity can be fixed with apologies and lessons learned, so these two crazy kids work things out.

Ansel was my favourite of the heroes, but this was not the best book in the series. Mia and Ansel’s courtship includes evenings of roleplay, but, while fun, they could have used more regular relationship building time. Sweet Filthy Boy is still very much a recommended read, as is the whole series, including my anticipated purchases of the entries that haven’t been published yet.

Dirty Rowdy Thing (Finn/Harlow)

This book as B and some light D, but neither S, nor M. Frankly, I found the love scenes boring. I get it. There was rope.  They both like it. Moving on.

Finn and Harlow married impulsively just like their friends, but after enjoying their wedding night, they sensibly divorced. There followed one more weekend together on Vancouver Island (when Finn resides) before Finn makes a trip to San Diego (Harlow’s stomping grounds) for business purposes. They reconnect at a party and find that they really enjoy each other. As with their friends Mia and Ansel (who pop up on the regular), they each have some information that should have been shared sooner rather than later and this causes the schism that leads to their inevitable reconciliation.

Dirty Rowdy Thing features great banter and Harlow is a take-no-prisoners pip.

Dark Wild Night (Oliver/Lola)

I’d say that Lola and Oliver are they sensible ones of the group of friends, but everyone is pretty grounded. Let’s say they are the quiet ones, stalwart and self-contained with a private wild edge. Oliver is Australian, Lola American, but, unlike their counterparts, they live in the same city.

Oliver is the protector type  – gentleman on the streets, wild man between the sheets – as well as the quintessential sexy nerd. He’s tall, he’s handsome and fit, he has floppy hair, he wears glasses, and he has just opened a comic book store. That sound you just heard is the sigh of a thousand fangirls finding their perfect romance hero. Sorry ladies, he’s taken. Oliver may have married Lola on a dare, but he started to fall for her immediately thereafter, so when Dark Wild Night opens, he is an absolute goner. She is oblivious to his affections, but not immune to his charms. Lola is very caught up in having her first graphic novel not only being published, but optioned for a movie as well. She’s flustered and overwhelmed and, in the way that life has of throwing everything at one all at once, this is when she decides to act on her Oliver crush. Things move fast and she gets overwhelmed, leading to a very awkward situation. Breaking up with your best friend and within a tight-knit circle of friends is the opposite of fun. Don’t worry, sweet, steady, surprisingly-loud-in-the-sack Oliver will help her figure things out as she finds the balance she needs.

I have pre-ordered the next Wild Seasons book Wicked Sexy Liar.

Sidebar: What is with all the slapping, bruising, and biting during coitus in these books? Do the authors realise how HARD one has to hit, squeeze, or bite to leave marks hours later? Ouch. Also, why does everyone have to SCREAM in ecstasy and do so loudly enough they can be heard from a great distance? What is up with that? We GET it. They are having sex, really hot, intense, mind-blowing sex. Pipe down.

Reviews of Christina Lauren’s Beautiful Series can be found here and here. A complete list of Christina Lauren’s catalogue can be found here.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Insatiable I and II by J.D. Hawkins

book review September 29, 2015 Leave a comment

Ladies and gentlemen, I have read about 400 romance novels and seen a lot of tropes, but Insatiable has done it. The hero of this book achieves CLICHE APOTHEOSIS. He is arrogance in human form, a vain, cocksure stereotype.

Insatiable II: Insatiabler was the obvious title for the second book in this duet and a missed opportunity on Amazon’s part, but I’ll still let them set the tone:

Lust-maker. Pleasure giver. Fantasy creator. I can blow your mind in five seconds flat — but trust me, you’ll want this to last all night.

There’s not a woman in the city who can resist me. Except one.

Now she’s got a proposition: Seven days. Every position. No strings attached.

She wants to know what she’s been missing.

Who am I to say no?

Hero Person lives in the most superificial city on earth, Los Angeles, and somehow raises the narcissism bar. Slutboy is perfect looking and clueless, a parody of a confident, successful man. He sends the heroine a picture of his abs while he works out. Faithless Jaden talks about women the way we worry men talk about us by reducing us to our body parts and manifest bangability. His best friend is a dudebro. They surf and choose which chicks on the beach they’re gonna bang. They do the same in bars, but only with the world’s choicest pieces of ass. All of the women stop whatever they are doing whenever Machismo Moron walks into a room, as well as a certain percentage of the men, one assumes. King Stud is the one every man wants to be and every woman wants to be with. Just ask him, he’ll tell you, and if you’re lucky, he’ll magnanimously choose to sleep with you. Tool Time is rich and glamourous, a celebrated architect who built his life up from nothing according to the three seconds of half-assed sympathetic backstory he shares.

Manwhore stops in his tracks when he sees Lizzie, but she’s not single. Don’t worry, the second she is, they get it on. He was about to share his Little Manwhore with another woman, but he casts that loser aside. Lizzie and Cologne Ad start to get busy on their host’s bed at a party because that is how classy grown-ass humans conduct themselves. Vainglorious Asshat is mesmerized by Lizzie and the way she can use him and leave. But wait. She wants something more and he’s fascinated, so the Reformation of a Rake and a Marriage of Convenience turns into the Pig Becomes a Person and Fuck Lessons. She can’t believe her luck. Preenboy is so amazing and he’s chosen her! He’s universally attractive, movie star handsome, and ripped. He even drives a Ferrari. (Red? “Do I look like an amateur?”)

Lizzie has just gotten out of a long-term relationship and wants to learn to be the world’s best lay so she can hold on to the next one. Not that the last one was worth keeping, but the story needed a dated, sexist cliche to latch onto to justify the temporary relationship. Douchecanoe is just the one to teach her the superficial skills she needs to please a man. When Lizzie meets a new guy, of course, he turns out to be all that is boring, traditional, and repressed. Because in all the world, there are only two men: the kind of guy who tosses your salad in a utility closet at a friend’s wedding to show up your ex and his new girlfriend (actual scene) and the beige guy in chinos. But wait. Lizzie’s magical ladyland becomes all Funky Jockstrap can think about. They’ve been together for three days of coitus, he’s managed to sabotage her new relationship, and now he wants a commitment. Can Lizzie trust Lounge Lizard? Can Boastful Beefcake be what she needs?

This story has been done well before. Many times. What those books have and these books lack is a sincere emotional connection for the leads to build on and, no, having relations slowly while  looking each other in the eye doesn’t count.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Bait by M. Mabie

book review September 27, 2015 Leave a comment

I HATED THIS BOOK AND ITS SO-CALLED CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE AND THE MAIN CHARACTERS ARE AWFUL, SELFISH PEOPLE AND I HATE THEM.

A man and woman meet when she is on the verge of getting engaged to her long-term, perfectly nice, boyfriend. Man and woman spark and decide to hook up. They go on with their lives and strike up an increasingly inappropriate, emotional infidelity based, long-distance quote friendship unquote. When they are in the same city they boff, then she goes back to her decent. loyal boyfriend. Then she gets engaged to said boyfriend, so she and the man have one last goodbye boff. Then the woman MARRIES her boyfriend, even after the man shows up on her wedding day begging her not to.  SHE STAYS MARRIED. Man and woman keep their distance until man’s mum dies and woman comes to secretly stay with and comfort him while still MARRIED to SOMEONE ELSE.

I stopped reading Bait about 80% of the way through and discovered that this bullshit continues for two more books – which I did not read – and, from what I previewed, the woman’s nice husband turns into a horrible person as well, I suspect as some sort of device meant to make it not so bad that the man and woman have behaved abominably and it FAILS MISERABLY. Theirs is not some tragic love, their bond defying convention and time. They are vile people indulging themselves at the expense of their ethical obligations as grown ups. Man comes off slightly better than woman, but not by much. Neither one is actually making a sincere effort to live honourably. Breaking up with your nice boyfriend is hard, but not complicated. Marrying him because it is sensible and practical is selfish and mean.

The only bright spot in this book was discovering that there is a cheesecake store in Seattle called “The Confectional” which may be the best bakery name I have ever heard other than the one I have called dibs on for myself: The Butter Tart.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas

book review September 15, 2015 Leave a comment

Again the Magic  has all of the trademark Kleypas smolder and charm, but a plotting issue which I feel gets in the way of the novel’s success and frustrated me again on my recent re-read; however, I have returned to the secondary plot several times as it has one of my favourite heroes and is, with The Heiress Effect, the historical romance for which I really wished a separate novella, or novel, had existed for the heroine’s sister.

Meeting as children, Lady Aline* Marsden and stable boy John McKenna were friends and then lovers (short of consummation) in their teens. Their secret was discovered and they were separated by her dastardly father. McKenna went to Brighton and, later, New York. Aline stayed home with her sister, Livia, and her brother, Marcus (of It Happened One Autumn).  In addition to the emotional blow of losing McKenna, Aline suffered a terrible accident which permanently disfigured her legs. At 31, she has never married and does not intend to. Livia, also unmarried, is still at home because her fiance died and she miscarried their child. First in a socially and then a self-imposed exile, Livia is just about ready to return to the land of the living.

With this set up, McKenna returns to the Marsden’s ancestral home. In the delicious manner of all Kleypas heroes, he is filthy rich, gorgeous, and sardonic; he also happens to be hell-bent on exacting revenge on Aline. You see, she pretended to reject him as beneath her to make him leave. McKenna’s plan is not a great one, just to “use her and leave her”, but the reader knows that these star-crossed lovers are going to get a second chance. The problem with Again The Magic  is that he’s just so grumpy and she’s so stubborn. Her friend actually, specifically, accurately describes McKenna as “sturm” and Aline as “drang”. While their denouement was absolutely swoon-worthy, this is Kleypas after all, they were an annoying couple; HOWEVER…

Traveling with McKenna to the Marsden house party is a blonde god of an affluent American, Gideon Shaw. Seductive, proudly louche, and complicated, he and Livia run into each other and the spark is instant. The amount of love story and chemistry that Kleypas gives them in their brief appearances slayed me. I adore Gideon. He is a high-functioning alcoholic who is aware of his problem, but unsure of what to do, or if he wants to or is, indeed, able to do anything about it. Kind and wry, Livia changes his perspective, not because she magically heals him, but because he realises how much more he can have, if he becomes healthy. I found his character incredibly charismatic and alluring in the way that an alcoholic can be only be in a romance (or Thin Man) novel. Livia and Gideon’s love story did yeoman’s work of helping me get through the main plot. They were so sweet together, without ever being overly so, that I found myself waiting for them to reappear and engage me in the story.

A complete summary of Lisa Kleypas’s catalogue, with recommendations, can be found here.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

*Aline – Being uncertain of the author’s intended pronunciation of this name is the pebble in the shoe of my reading experience of Again the Magic.

Ten Great Romance Novellas to Get You Started

book review September 14, 2015 Leave a comment

HISTORICAL Romance

  1. Ashley, Jennifer Scandal and the Duchess  – enjoyable
  2. Dare, Tessa The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr. Wright  – fantastic
  3. Dare, Tessa Beauty and the Blacksmith – fun, bring your willing suspension of disbelief
  4. Duran, Meredith Your Wicked Heart  – such fun
  5. Grant, Cecilia A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong – very good
  6. Hoyt, Elizabeth The Ice Princess – nice version of a common trope
  7. Milan, Courtney A Kiss for Midwinter  – CLASSIC as a novella and of the genre

CONTEMPORARY Romance

  1. Bowen, Sarina Blonde Date  – CLASSIC new adult, a perfect novella
  2. Richland, Anna His Road Home – contemporary, wounded soldier coming home

PARANORMAL Romance  – Not my cup of tea, but it could help you determine if it is yours.

  1. Cole, Kresley The Warlord Wants Forever – plenty of THUNDER SEX™!

I also have a ruthlessly streamlined recommendations list: So You Want to Read a (Historical) Romance.

Links to my reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Tigers and Devils by Sean Kennedy

book review September 10, 2015 Leave a comment

This is my first Australian romance, plus it’s about two men, neither of them are confused about their sexual preference, and it was written by a man. Huzzah!

From Amazon: The most important things in Simon Murray’s life are football, friends, and film—in that order. His friends despair of him ever meeting someone, but despite his loneliness, Simon is cautious about looking for more. Then his best friends drag him to a party, where he barges into a football conversation and ends up defending the honour of star forward Declan Tyler—unaware that the athlete is present. In that first awkward meeting, neither man has any idea they will change each other’s lives forever… But as Simon and Declan fumble toward a relationship, keeping Declan’s homosexuality a secret from well-meaning friends and an increasingly suspicious media becomes difficult. Nothing can stay hidden forever. Soon Declan will have to choose between the career he loves and the man he wants, and Simon has never been known to make things easy—for himself or for others.

Wry and self-deprecating, Simon narrates the story and is a funny and engaging hero. Tigers and Devils is more of a (very enjoyable) love story than a romance novel. Let me see if I can explain what I mean by that. I make no promises.

  1. Simon and Declan fall hard and fast.
  2. Their relationship is largely long distance in the early days. Declan plays for a football (Australian, obviously) team in Tasmania and Simon works in Melbourne.
  3. The reader is told a lot of the early relationship, but the swoony part is largely passed over.
  4. The bulk of the story focuses on the issues they face as a couple as opposed to anything that slows them down from becoming a couple.

Tigers and Devils’ supporting characters were well fleshed out and Simon and Declan felt like real people. Sean Kennedy is a really good and diverting writer, but I could have done with a little more romance. I started it with a sample, then I bought the book, but felt no need to continue on to the following two novels. Tigers and Devils succeeded as a novel about two people falling in love, but I was looking for more of a classic genre romance.

LGBT romance recommendations can be found here.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

A Piece of Cake by Mary Calmes

book review September 9, 2015 Leave a comment

This novella from the A Matter of Time series was a heightened reality ball of fluff that catches the two leads’ story in media res.

From Amazon: After years of domestic partnership, Jory Harcourt and Sam Kage are finally going to make it official in their home state of Illinois. It’s been a long and rocky road, and nothing—not disasters at work, not the weather, not a possible stalker, not even getting beat up and having to attend the ceremony looking like he just got mugged—will make Jory wait one more day to make an honest man of the love of his life.

A well-intentioned trouble magnet, Jory is kind of guy who things happened to. He and law enforcement official Sam have had a civil partnership and an out-of-state wedding, but now that marriage has become legal in their home state, they plan to marry again. They have two young children and are surrounded by a diverse group of friends and family. It’s a world in which billionaires and cops not only socialize, but also marry.

While Jory is busy being accident prone, Sam cleans up his messes and there is a subplot about something something stalked and/or killer on the loose which climaxes on their wedding day. I think if you were in the mood for some happy, pure escapism with a dose of adventure, this series might be for you. It wasn’t especially good, but it was kind of fun.

LGBT romance recommendations can be found here.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Libby’s London Merchant and One Good Turn by Carla Kelly

book review September 8, 2015 Leave a comment

Libby’s London Merchant and One Good Turn  are connected novels and more lovely, consistent, sincere stories from Carla Kelly. Clearly, I am going to read and find something to enjoy in every Regency romance novel in her catalog. This time, my attention was again captured by Kelly’s consistent strengths and minor imperfections (the enjoyable prose; the successful historical setting; her belief in the inherent goodness of people and its power to improve lives; her fascination with military history; and, her ability to create truly dastardly villains and then redeem them too easily), as well as the very first time I read a romance and wasn’t sure which man the heroine was going to end up with. Spoilers necessarily follow.

Libby’s London Merchant Continue reading →