Category Archives: book reviews

La Vie en Roses Series: A Wish Upon Jasmine by Laura Florand

book review August 6, 2015 Leave a comment

This second book in Laura Florand’s La Vie en Roses contemporary romance series was not my favourite, but that in no way changes the fact that I will continue to buy everything she publishes, nor my strong recommendations for her novels. If nothing else, A Wish Upon Jasmine made me go and re-read a large portion of the preceding book Once Upon a Rose and that made me all smiley.

Damien Rosier, “the mean one”, is the glue that holds his family’s perfume business together. Working in the south of France among the rose, lavender, and jasmine fields, it falls to Damien to take care of the money that finances his family’s dreams. A blade of a man, he has a soft heart and a hard shell which rarely cracks, but six months ago it was shattered. Meeting, consummating their mutual attraction, and falling more than a little bit in love during an unintentional one night stand, the woman who snuck away comes back into his life when she receives a piece of his family history (a local perfume shop) as an inheritance. Damien’s Tante Colette has been doing this frequently of late and her gifts propel the action of the series.

Jasmin Bianchi, a top perfumer, may have had the Rosier shop fall into her lap, but it is exactly what she needs professionally and personally. She had an extremely tough year and although there was one possible bright spot, her intense night of emotional connection with Damien (which is not shared in enough detail before they jump to the more adventurous coitus), she panicked and fled. Essentially A Wish Upon Jasmine starts with The Big Misunderstanding that usually takes place much later in (hackneyed) romances and while I really liked the trope twist, the rest of novel didn’t work as well for me. Damien did everything short of setting himself on fire to make his intentions clear and she took forever to get it. Jasmin’s insistent obtuseness got very frustrating.

You can’t win them all and even with some bumps in A Wish Upon Jasmine, Laura Florand is still one of the best writers of contemporary romance publishing today. She is particularly good at portraying the intensity of emotional and sexual attraction, and I never get tired of her emotionally vulnerable heroes. Combined with the uber-romantic settings in Paris and the south of France, it’s a winning combination almost every time.

Addendum December 2015: After, presumably,  reading my mind and those of my fellow readers, Florand added a bonus prequel called Night Wish to the story that describes Damien and Jasmin’s first night together before the events of the novel unfold. It was wonderful and had that deliciously romantic tone that Florand excels at. If it had been included in the longer book, A Wish Upon Jasmine would have been a more successful novel.

Laura Florand’s Catalogue summarizes all of her books and happens to include one of my favourite romances off all time: The Chocolate Touch.

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

 

Liberating Lacey by Anne Calhoun

book review August 6, 2015 Leave a comment

At one point, I giggled and said, “This book is so much fun.”

I am working on a few books from NPR’s Happy Ever After: 100 Swoon-Worthy Romances and Liberating Lacey is one I selected from the erotic romance section. It was much better than another book in that group, The Lady’s Tutor, which I had the misfortune of reading about two years ago.

Lacey of the Liberating was married in her early twenties and spent many years bored with her sex life. Now 15 months out from her separation, and 3 months our from her official divorce, she is looking to make up for the sexy-fun-times she missed out on. Dressed up, she takes herself to the local hookup bar looking to get lucky. Hunter Anderson is 8 years her junior, a cop, and looking for fun of his own. As is the way of erotic romance, they start with a physical relationship and work backwards to intimacy and an emotional connection.

Simply an erotic romance done well, Liberating Lacey was a good read that acquitted itself successfully on its obligations. I liked the opposites attract characters; Lacey was 36, together, and emotionally mature. Hunter was outwardly laconic, but a good, sincere guy. There was no high drama, just two people surprised to find they have a connection that lasts despite their intentions.

I will look for more books by Anne Calhoun when I am in the mood for some fun escapism with a healthy dose of [insert funky bass line 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.

Marketing Beef by Rick Bettencourt

book review August 5, 2015 Leave a comment

Clearly, Marketing Beef is the winner for Title of the Year. All other books need not apply.

cover

From Amazon: Shy accountant, Evan McCormick, is conservative with his money and tough on his body, yet the decent nest egg he’s amassed, and the toned physique he’s formed isn’t enough to fulfill him. Evan’s starving for affection. As an introvert, bonding with others isn’t Evan’s best quality. When Dillon—an impeccable-dressed and debonair ad executive—joins the firm, Evan lets his guard down. An office scandal and sexually-overt billboards popping up all over New England bring the two together in this funny yet romantic tale.

Includes moments of pure hilarity, off-the-wall sex, and downright fun.

LIES, ALL LIES! Okay, not all, the plot summary is accurate; I meant the promises of hilarity, great sex, and fun.

Another romance with two men written by a man, so it’s off to a good start and, it bears repeating, the title is hilariously tongue-in-cheek, but unfortunately there is not a lot more going on here. I have a couple of notes:

  1. Do men actually refer to their private parts as “down there”? I know Evan does in the story, but I reject this reality and substitute my own.
  2. The book was kind of dull AND had too much plot.
  3. No man ever looked smoking hot in a teal suit. The best he did was rise above it.
  4. Evan has a birthmark that he is extremely self-conscious about and his acceptance of it is used to symbolize his growth in confidence. I understood what it was going for, but it felt shoehorned in.
  5. Meh.

 

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.

Dog Tags by Darryl Banner & Two Week Seduction by Kathy Lyons

book review August 5, 2015 Leave a comment

Dog Tags and Two Week Seduction each have the word Brazen in their publishing series name, so the reader should know what is about to happen. These romances feature young couples who knew each other as schoolchildren finding out there is more to their relationship when one of them returns home on leave from the military. The forced brevity of their time together, four and two weeks respectively, means they get busy quickly and commitment soon follows.

Dog Tags by Darryl Banner

Jesse is a music major plodding through his summer vacation when his neighbour Brandon arrives home for a month’s leave. Always leery of the taciturn and intense boy-next-door, Jesse is nonetheless immediately drawn to Brandon’s beautiful physique. When trading help with yard work for piano lessons, the men hook up and then spend their four weeks together getting it on and getting to know each other. The novella portrays mostly the former and essentially skips the latter.

Dog Tags is the first romance with two men I have read that was actually written by a man which was something I was looking for specifically. I have an impression that a lot of the M/M romances are written by and for women just as the M/F ones are. The writing here was nothing especially bad or good, it got the job done and had some nice moments, though there was very little by way of conversation between the leads. Brandon’s main purpose seemed to be to grunt and be intense while Jesse enjoyed it. Their four weeks end with Brandon returning to his work while the two of them await his next leave.

Two Week Seduction by Kathy Lyons

John O’Donnell has come home to his family for two weeks of reminders of why he left. He needs to help out his mother with her finances and living situation, and maybe have a little fun. When his well-to-do best friend’s little sister shows up looking even more tantalizing than ever, they hook up and things proceed from there. As with Dog Tags, they get busy early and often, building their desire for something more.

Two Week Seduction did its job adequately. John and Alea fall madly in love and rearrange their lives to be together. Alea comes from wealth and is wrestling with her family’s goals for her. John has no plans to leave the military, but reconsiders for her. The sexy elements felt a little forced and I never really cared about the characters as the plot and its elements felt clichéd in their execution.

New Adult romance recommendations can be found here.

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.

The Alphabet Game by Andie M. Long

book review August 4, 2015 Leave a comment

If it hadn’t been free, I would be so annoyed right now.

For the long plot summary of The Alphabet Game go to Amazon. Take your time, it’s a lot.

I will do my best to provide a short summary:

a. The love story is of the erotic romance ilk meaning that first comes sex then comes emotion. The protagonists decide to play a game (more on why below) in which they participate in some kind of congress based on proceeding through the alphabet, i.e. A is for Arousal, N is for Nookie, etc. When you read part b. of this section the answer to “Why did I finish this book?” is that I had to know what each of the letters stood for. I *may* have skipped ahead through the letters in my quest for all 26.

b. Stella and Gabe are also together because they are trying to take down her evil stepfather and his father who have business ties to sex clubs and pornography. Ostensibly, the alphabet game is to prepare Stella to infiltrate the clubs. When it looks like her father might not be quite the villain she supposed, Stella brings in a P.I. as well. From there, it descends into blackmail and psychopathology.

Seriously, that was the short version.

Here is a genuinely short version of my opinion: This book was really bad and the juxtaposition between the melodrama, the sexual adventures, and the nature of the villain was ridiculous.

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

Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy

book review August 4, 2015 1 Comment

Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy who have each published good new adult romances, collaborated on a new one called Him that manages to be enjoyable, well-written, and

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To be honest the

may have overshadowed the story a bit, but I can’t decide how much I mind.

Jamie Canning and Ryan (Wes) Wesley were best friends from the age of thirteen to eighteen after meeting at an elite hockey camp in Lake Placid. One night that last year, things got a little out of hand after a night of drinking and their friendship imploded. Canning never understood what had gone wrong to make Wes cut him out of his life. Four years later, after they meet again at a college hockey tournament, Wes tries to rekindle the lost friendship and ignore the fact that he has always loved Jamie, but good luck with that, Wes. For his part, Jamie has some unexpected feelings for Wes that he decides he needs to explore. They take summer jobs coaching at the hockey camp where they first met.

Jamie and Wes are both amiable, engaging characters, but they could have been more fleshed out.  Wes in particular is presented as a fun, insouciant guy, but this characterization is not followed up on. Jamie is simply a nice, grounded person from a good family. He’s really likeable, but it doesn’t make for much excitement,  but there was some compensating excitement for the reader. Having read a few romances featuring two men, I was really happy that neither of heroes was struggling with his sexuality. Often, like, almost always, there’s a moment of, “I’M GAY and I WANT to WHAT my FRIEND?!” and Him nicely sidesteps it and throws in a couple more clever little twists on standard tropes as well. Ultimately, the challenges Jamie and Wes face are of location and striking the right balance between with their new professional and personal post-college lives.

There is a second book with Wes and Jamie called Us.

Sarina Bowen’s The Ivy Years Series – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, buy the box set

Elle Kennedy:
The Deal – great
The Mistake – pretty good
The Score – no

New Adult romance recommendations can be found here.

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.

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A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev

book review July 27, 2015 1 Comment

I have read so very many historical romances set in 19th century England which is, admittedly, totally my jam. Trying to broaden my choices, and after being sent a fantastic NPR program link by a friend called Pop Culture Happy Hour: The Romance Novel Special, I was ready to expand my horizons. A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev was $2.99 on Amazon and gave me a window to a culture (Indian) different from my own in a contemporary setting.

That was a good start, but it’s two months later and I don’t really remember much about the book except some vague impressions. I’ll let Amazon help me out with the plot:

Mili Rathod hasn’t seen her husband in twenty years–not since she was promised to him at the age of four. Yet marriage has allowed Mili a freedom rarely given to girls in her village. Her grandmother has even allowed her to leave India and study in America for eight months, all to make her the perfect modern wife. Which is exactly what Mili longs to be–if her husband would just come and claim her. Bollywood’s favorite director, Samir Rathod, has come to Michigan to secure a divorce for his older brother. Persuading a naïve village girl to sign the papers should be easy for someone with Samir’s tabloid-famous charm. But Mili is neither a fool nor a gold-digger. Open-hearted yet complex, she’s trying to reconcile her independence with cherished traditions. And before he can stop himself, Samir is immersed in Mili’s life–cooking her dal and rotis, escorting her to her roommate’s elaborate Indian wedding, and wondering where his loyalties and happiness lie.

Amazon is bringing it’s A-game, even if I’m not.

I wanted to like Dev’s book and I enjoyed A Bollywood Affair  while reading it, quite a lot as I recall since Mili’s a pip, but it hasn’t left a lasting impression leading me to revisit it. Going back soon after my initial reading has been a pretty accurate litmus test for me of how much I genuinely appreciated a novel. Here’s what I remember about A Bollywood Affair: Mili is hurt early in the story and as Samir is the only one around, so he helps take care of her. She’s petite, he’s tall. She’s clumsy, he catches her.  She’s a victim of circumstance, he’s a tortured hero masquerading as a rake. He is smoking hot as is the way of romance – to which I say, “Brava” – and finds Mili irresistible. The action was a hodge-podge which is consistent with my extremely limited and therefore entirely invalid impression of Indian cinema based on one movie on an overnight flight to London, plus that kind of plotting is fairly typical for a lot of contemporary romances. So any guess that I make about Dev intentionally structuring it like a Bollywood film is likely wildly inaccurate, not to mention presumptuous, and I should remove it, but I want to keep it as review padding just in case I’m right.

That’s all I’ve got for now EXCEPT to say that if you know of any great romances featuring more diverse characters and cultures than one ordinarily finds in the genre, I welcome all recommendations. I’ve been looking and I will gladly l take suggestions for a starting point.

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 Winston Brothers Series: Truth or Beard by Penny Reid

book review July 25, 2015 1 Comment

Truth or Beard is the first book in the Winston Brothers contemporary romance series, but the Winston sister already had her turn in a book I liked better, Beauty and the Mustache.

Jessica: If I said the sky was blue you would say it was purple.
Duane: Sometimes the sky is purple. Right now it’s indigo, almost black. You can’t just make a unilateral statement that the sky is blue.

Ah, that’s the stuff. Banter gives me life. Penny Reid writes great banter, friendships, and familial relationships; unfortunately, in Truth or Beard, the romantic relationship didn’t really work. It got off to great and steamy start, but fizzled under the weight of comeheregoaway. Penny Reid writes great heroines and the men are so smitten, so I did want to like this book. I wanted to like it so much. This hero has a beard. Do you have any idea how much I love beards? Plus, every hero in this series has one. Heaven, I tell you. HEAVEN. Or it would be, if the narrative had held up.

The six  bearded Winston brothers, and their beardless sister have just lost their mother. Duane and Beau, the twins, run an automotive shop with Cletus, the unfortunately named, zen one. Duane has long had a hankering for the sheriff’s daughter, Jessica. She, in turn, has always had a crush on Beau. When Jessica moves back to her parents home in rural Tennessee to teach at the local high school and save money on rent in anticipation of setting out on a life of travel, Duane makes his long-awaited move and the two of them start to date, then take turns deciding the relationship can’t work. By the time they reached a consensus, I didn’t care any more. I even went off and read something else for a while when I lost interest in the story.

This makes the second Penny Reid book in a row I haven’t really liked and had too much vacillation on the part of the leads. The price will have to be right for me to read any more of her novels.

Penny Reid’s Catalogue gives an overview of her published works , some of which I recommend and some of which I dislike intensely.

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

Alex: A Cold Fury Hockey Novel by Sawyer Bennett

book review July 20, 2015 Leave a comment

Sawyer Bennett ‘s contemporary romance Alex: A Cold Fury Hockey Novel (Carolina Cold Fury Hockey Book 1) may deserve more of a review, but I didn’t like the novel and was, in fact, frequently vexed by it, so it’s getting the cursory treatment which, being honest, takes about the same amount of time, but it’s less taxing. To sum up: Laziness.

From Amazon: Hockey star Alexander Crossman has a reputation as a cold-hearted player on and off the rink. Pushed into the sport by an alcoholic father, Alex isn’t afraid to give fans the proverbial middle finger, relishing his role as the MVP they love to hate. Management, however, isn’t so amused. Now Alex has a choice: fix his public image through community service or ride the bench. As a social worker, Sutton Price is accustomed to difficult people—like Alex, who’s been assigned to help her create a drug-abuse awareness program for at-risk youth as part of the team’s effort to clean up his image. What she doesn’t expect is the arrogant smirk from his perfect lips to stir her most heated fantasies.

Dear Alex,

I don’t care about your private pain, if you are a public bastard.

Yours truly,
Me

Also –

1. Alex has an awful back-story, as is the way of both romance novels and life, but I don’t care. An explanation for your conduct is not an excuse. Alex is not a tortured hero, he is not a rake, he is a self-indulgent jerk. When the novel opens, he actually has a woman who shows up to service him and she is supposed to be pathetic because she wants a relationship with him. I don’t mind puck bunnies, I mind heroes who use people.

2. I may be over-thinking the maguffin, but can a hockey team’s management really force extremely successful and non-problematic (beyond a severe case of Head-Up-Tush) players into community service?

3. The characters were types more than people. Sutton’s type is Angel, Alex’s type is Poohead.

4. As the story progresses and Alex grows a soul, everyone has the world’s most painfully on-the-nose conversations about their relationships.

5. I didn’t find the character development believable, nor did I care about anybody.

6. I have no interest in the rest of this series. Pity.

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

Tall, Tatted, and Tempting and Smart, Sexy, and Secretive by Tammy Falkner

book review July 17, 2015 Leave a comment

Um. Almost? The first book in the Reed Brothers new adult romance series got me to buy the second, but I did not continue to the third. For those who like the type, the men in this family own a tattoo parlor and aren’t afraid of working out. They decorate people by day and work as bar bouncers by night.

This review will show a blatant disregard for spoiler etiquette.

Tall, Tatted, and Tempting

Kit (real name: Emily) is a subway busker in New York. Living in a homeless shelter, she meets Logan (again with the Logan) and he takes an instant shine to her. Missing her chance for a bed that night, she ends up crashing at his house with his 4 brothers first for just the one night and then staying for several more. As a thank you, she ingratiates herself by snow-whiting her way through their apartment. Logan and Kit fall for each other, she has a secret, and love wins, but at a distance thus requiring a follow-up novella.

One of five orphaned brothers living and running a business together, Logan has been deaf since the age of 13, but can speak, although he has refused to for years. Meeting Kit, he decides to start speaking when he realises that she is illiterate and can’t read the notes he would otherwise write. Kit is the runaway daughter of billionaires who think she is stupid because of a learning disability. Her father is insisting she marry a loathsome douchecanoe to help the family business hence Kit’s life on the lam.

Living under an assumed name lest her parents find her and drag her to the altar, Kit is unable to spend her family’s money, which, if I may? Fu*k off. First of all, an arranged marriage for business interests in 2014? No. Secondly, a wealthy young woman who is not a victim of abuse choosing to live on the streets is offensive to those fleeing abuse and impoverished people everywhere, especially given the epic turnaround her parents make in the story. Third, all that money and NO ONE could either help Kit with her learning disability or has given her any kind of support or counseling to deal with it? I don’t buy that for a second. Isn’t that what money is for? To throw at problems?  Despite Kit’s “challenges”, readers need not to worry as she’s a musical prodigy who plays guitar and sings. Her dreams are to win her father over and to attend Julliard – which is where she lands in book two and gives a performance to impress her father (OF COURSE) and leads me to one last question: I get that there are books on tape for her course work, but would someone with severe dyslexia be able to read music?

Kit and Logan’s family issues get in the way of their togetherness for a while. Kit sacrifices herself for Logan, a favour he returns in the next book, and they are on opposite coasts, but a couple, when the story closes with a reunion in sight.

Smart, Sexy, and Secretive

Facile, obvious, and trite.

The novella was shoehorned in for reasons I don’t understand, other than the cliffhanger at the end of book one trying to generate revenue.  The reader does get to meet the Kit’s parents, the aforementioned loathsome douchecanoe fiance who lives up to the hype, and several implausible things happen.

Follow up Reed Brothers stories are teased for The Brother with a Child, The Brother Who Wound Up in Jail, The Other Brother About Whom I Don’t Remember Much, and The Brother with Cancer, but I wasn’t really interested beyond Logan and Kit, and even that interest waned by the end of book two, so imagine how I feel about the rest of the series.

New Adult 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.