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Fangin’n’Bangin’™ – Dark Desires After Dusk & Kiss of a Demon King from Kresley Cole’s The Immortals After Dark Series

book review July 31, 2013 Leave a comment

[clapping twice and pushing back from the Kindle]

I’m out. I just can’t with Kresley Cole for one more second. Thank you again to Malin and Alexis for the free books. Maybe even a thank you to Kresley Cole for some of the THUNDER SEX™, but my sojourn in paranormal romance is at an end. This is going to be a smush review. If you add up the portions of the Immortals After Dark series novels Dark Desires After Dusk andKiss of a Demon King that I actually got through, it equals more than one book, but less than two.

I’m not even going to bother with plot summaries. They’re always the same, only the kind of  immortal creatures changes. The beings in Desires After Dusk andKiss of a Demon King are brothers. One of them is a deposed King, the other is his heir. Deposed King’s mate is a sorceress. Brother Heir’s mate is a Ph.D. student and unbeknownst-to-herself Valkyrie halfling and mystical Vessel. I know.The brothers are rage demons with horns that straighten when stimulated and skin that flushes red, I think it was red, when strongly aroused. The demons doona “mate” like Cole’s absurd Scots-brogue-spouting werewolves; or get “blooded” by their “Bride” like her Estonian “I vant to suck your blud” vampires; they “attempt” their prospective mate. That means bang. They have to bang their prospective mate to confirm she is The One.  Said demon’s bite immobilizes his beloved during the final portions of the rather intense consummation. It’s a whole fangy-roofie-banging thing. Always with the fanging, biting, and banging in these books. “Fangin’n’Bangin’™”. There’s an apt sobriquet for paranormal romance…

IMMORTALS AFTER DARK:
COME FOR THE FANGIN’N’BANGIN’™, STAY FOR THE THUNDER SEX™!

What I Actually Enjoyed About This Series:

  • Kresley Cole has impressive organizational skills. These intersecting novels had to have been plotted out well in advance and have potential for an endless series. This is evidence of a keen marketing intellect. Kudos for that.
  • The writing style is consistently flip and breezy. It goes well with the general ridiculousness of the stories. The pop culture references in the midst of hand-to-hand combat can be a bit jarring, but overall it works.
  • I am not good at allowing people to take care of me, so I can appreciate the appeal of a great big, protective hero in one’s escapist literature. The dominance/submission aspects not so much.
  • In a reversal of the stereotypical man dragged to the altar, it is consistently the women who resist a long-term relationship. The hero’s reaction is always simply “MINE.” The heroine’s reaction is “Not so fast, caveman. I want to be sure you are worthy of me”.

My Qualms:

a. Each successive novel upped the ante on the scarring backstory. Cole started pretty high up on the trauma scale and the glimpses I’ve seen of later books tell me it manages to get worse. The phrase “blood slave” went by. [shudder]

b. The heroine/hero height differences are farcical and completely impractical. Each of the women is tiny. The men are all at least 6’6″ and the demons are almost 7′ tall.

c. The women in these books are powerful illusory beings, but they can also be pretty vapid. Sure, she’s an immortal who can gut you like a fish, but what woman doesn’t want a rich guy to take her shopping? Amiright, ladies?  The Valkyrie characters are particularly discomfiting, living life as an endless slumber party. They are catty, extremely acquisitive, and can be easily distracted by jewelry even during battle.

d. The immortals are frozen in age at the height of their power. For the men, this seems to be consistently in their mid-thirties. For the women, it’s twenty-five at the latest. If the men are meant to be uber-masculine, what does this say about their female counterparts? Best to change over while everything is still perky in a bikini, I guess. The women’s sexuality is also problematic. They are adults in full and healthy possession of their sexuality, but while they are active partners in the THUNDER SEX™, the narration always clarifies at some point that the women have had few partners because, hey, they’re not sluts. Heaven forfend, they should have THUNDER SEX™ notches on their bedpost. Even in a Fangin’n’Bangin’™ book, sexual empowerment is conditional.

e. There is a clear indication that the couples will be frozen in the wild sex honeymoon phase for all time. Is that necessarily a good thing? It all seems like an immature fantasy of a relationship: He’s big and strong and loves my ass, plus he buys me shiney things, and he’s a great lay. I’m the luckiest immortal in the world!

But who am I to judge, if that’s what someone wants when reading for escapist entertainment? It’s pure snobbery on my part. The main differences between this and the romance I normally read is the more primal nature of the character types and pair bond. If Fangin’n’Bangin’™ is what you enjoy, have at it. I’ll be over there in 19th century England with men whose horns are strictly metaphorical.

August 23, 2022: Here’s the thing – I have reread Dark Desires After Dusk more than once or twice. It’s a hot, silly tome of guilty pleasure and has one of my favourite lines in romance with “Holls, I’m a demon; I’m not a tool.”

The (Shameful) Tally and reviews for other books in the series: The Warlord Wants Forever; A Hunger Like No Other; No Rest for the Wicked; Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night; Dark Needs at Night’s Edge; Dark Desires After Dusk; Kiss of a Demon King; Deep Kiss of Winter; Pleasure of a Dark Prince; Demon from the Dark; Dreams of a Dark Warrior; Lothaire; MacRieve; Shadow’s Claim.

The Immortals After Dark Series: A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole

book review July 30, 2013 Leave a comment

Kresley Cole’s apparent thought process for the paranormal romance A Hunger Like No Other –

“You know what’s vile fun? Opening with an assault! A deranged man (werewolf) will sense a woman (vampire), decide she is his mate, chase and tackle her when she tries to flee, and then hold her against her will in a hotel room that he will slowly destroy. He will refer to her as “it” in his head and insult her for not being the mate he imagined. Although her abject terror is an inconvenience, and in spite of her offensive nature, he initiates a physical relationship. Alone and defenseless in a foreign country, she’ll find herself becoming aroused when he rips off her clothes and paws her. After insisting she share his bed, he can wake her up with a sexual assault. She will fight only because she is confused by her arousal. When she tries to escape, he’ll stop her. To encourage him to be gentle, she’ll threaten to harm herself. To make himself more attractive to her, he’ll use her credit cards to buy himself whatever he wants. When her family calls, she will lie, say she is fine, and then leave with him. [fanning self] That is so hot!”

Two things about this abduction and seduction plot, Ms. Cole:

a. FUCK
b. YOU.

It does get less rage-inducing from there, but since “there” is a revenge fantasy set up and the heroine never gets around to curb stomping the hero, the so-called improvement is the most “relative” ever of the “all things being” variety. The relationship remains abusive. He needs her. He just wants to be close to her. He’s in so much pain. He’s been through so much. He’d never hurt her, you know, except all those times he tries to manipulate or control her.

What happened to the silly, sexy fun? The popularity of Cole’s campy Immortals After Dark series is built on silly, sexy fun. More importantly, even with outdated gender stereotypes, the immortal heroines are badass powerhouses. Is this book intended to tap into a predilection that simply doesn’t work for me? Because this is a terrified 105 pound, 5’2″, young woman alone with an unhinged 250 pound, 6’6″ man putting his hands on her with coerced consent. This is that abusive-relationship-masquerading-as-a-love-story plot people complain about with Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey, isn’t it? The heroine actually tells herself she doesn’t have Stockholm Syndrome, then admits she does, then denies it because she is getting something she wants out of the relationship. The American Psychological Association would like a word.

Once things got back to the usual ridiculousness one looks to the Immortals After Dark series for, the plot proceeded with Cole’s standard hijinks and violently intense THUNDER SEX™scenes, and, yes, because the hero is a werewolf, the THUNDER SEX™ is indeed doggy style, emphatically so.

I was so bent out of shape and offended by the opening chapters that I finished the book strictly for the sake of Cannonball Read honesty and to plot my spiteful review. The (Shameful) Tally suddenly feels a lot less ignominious.

Reviews for other books in the series: The Warlord Wants Forever ; A Hunger Like No Other; No Rest for the Wicked; Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night; Dark Needs at Night’s Edge; Dark Desires After Dusk; Kiss of a Demon King; Deep Kiss of Winter; Pleasure of a Dark Prince; Demon from the Dark; Dreams of a Dark Warrior; Lothaire; MacRieve; Shadow’s Claim.

THUNDER SEX™ Edition – Kresley Cole’s Immortals After Dark Series

book review July 22, 2013 Leave a comment

Thank you to Alexis for giving me two of Kresley Cole’s paranormal romance books. I hope I can do justice to their supreme, but occasionally kind of delicious, silliness. In a genre of guilty pleasures, they are the guiltiest.

The Immortals After Dark books can be read as standalone novels, but the stories and characters overlap. In this “Lore” world, fairy tales are real, vampires are considered vulgar, and there is an escalating war between Things That Go Bump in the Night, plus everyone stays young forever and no one ever gets fat. The series has a fun but odd juxtaposition of quippy writing and immortal beings acting all mythical’n’shit. Additional novels are published with metronomic regularity, but this is the current series list (reviewed books are in bold): The Warlord Wants Forever ; A Hunger Like No Other; No Rest for the Wicked; Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night; Dark Needs at Night’s Edge; Dark Desires After Dusk; Kiss of a Demon King; Deep Kiss of Winter ; Pleasure of a Dark Prince; Demon from the Dark; Dreams of a Dark Warrior; Lothaire; MacRieve, Shadow’s Claim.

Plot Summary (All): Boy mythical creature meets girl mythical creature. Sexual attraction supernova. Reluctance and/or hindrance. Comeheregoaway. Adventure. Comeheregoaway. Unite to resolve challenges. Comeheregoaway. THUNDER SEX™. THUNDER SEX™. Resolution. Marriage.

“What is THUNDER SEX™?”, you ask. Even with an embarrassingly high historical romance total, nothing had prepared me for the violently intense sex scenes in Kresley Cole’s books. Immortality imbues one with an orgasm tripwire. At the slightest contact, both participants are arching, gasping, pulsing, clenching, trembling, moaning, pumping, biting, sighing, throbbing, throwing his or her head back to roar at the ceiling, and d. ALL OF THE ABOVE. That, dear reader, is THUNDER SEX™.

Male Bumps in the Night: The men are all Alpha males. So far, every one is at least 6’6″ tall with black hair, an insanely muscular physique, preternatural strength, and intimidatingly height-proportionate wedding tackle. They are protective, steadfast, possessive, and besotted. The imprinting process ensures intense attraction and loyalty.

Female Bumps in the Night: The women are generally Alpha females, strong and intelligent, powerful, headstrong, and don’t take any guff. They quietly adore their mate’s ferocity. Physically they are all petite curvy allure. They are also frozen in youth and frankly young in their demeanor. The Valkyrie characters in particular seem trapped in an endless slumber party.

Kresley Cole’s writing style is distinctly flip and this what saves the books from utter ridiculousness. Well, it doesn’t exactly save them from it, but at least it feels like the author is in on the joke. These are the highest quality, most magnificent novelized Velveeta you will ever encounter, fun and completely disposable. No one is going to be writing a Master’s thesis on the gender roles in Immortals After Dark anytime soon, but if they were… I’ll save those for the next set of reviews. Malin has said she’ll to set me up with more books from the series.

If you’re the kind of person who wants to know the actual plotline of each book, they are summarized below.

No Rest for the Wicked (Vampire/Valkyrie)

The Wroth family consists of 4 brothers: Nikolai, Murdoch, Sebastian, and Conrad. In each book, Cole describes them as having an “Estonian” accent. I am convinced they sound like Dracula and are all “Ve vant to suck your blud.” The Wroths were fearsome warriors when mortal, so fearsome they impressed the Bump creatures even before they died. Nikolai and Murdoch were turned voluntarily, Sebastian and Conrad were not and are still pissed off three hundred years later. This book is Sebastian’s. In romance, being a Sebastian is a lot of pressure. There have been some pretty epic Sebastians. Classic Sebastians. Mr. Wroth is not one of those, although he is quite scholarly and gentlemanly.

Sebastian is “blooded” by a Valkyrie named Kaderin the Coldhearted. She’s a vengeance wielder with a predilection for killing vampires and as such not happy about her prospective mate. He does his best to win her over by competing with her in the Lore version of The Amazing Race (verbatim, people, that’s how it is described) called The Talisman Hie. In the process, there is fighting with sharks, traversing a lava flow, some quality time with a nest of basilisks, and, of course, THUNDER SEX™.

Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night (Werewolf/Witch)

If Sebastian Wroth is an Alpha male, Bowen MacRieve is an ALPHA male and, drum roll please, MY FIRST WEREWOLF. Oh sure, I’ve read some M/M shape-shifter novellas, but this is my first official lycanthrope [shiver of joy]. The story overlaps with the preceding one by starting out with The Talisman Hie, but veers off from there. It’s the kind of book that uses the word “magick” a lot.

Mariketa is a young witch still learning to manage her gifts. When the book opens, she is wearing a red cloak to disguise herself because, you see, she is Red Riding Hood and MacRieve is the Big Bad Wolf. Mariketa is destined to be the most powerful witch in the world once she stops blowing stuff up and crosses over to become an immortal. Bowen MacRieve is competing against her in the Talisman Hie because the grand prize is a key which can temporarily turn back time. Bowen lost his mate 180 years ago and is still bereft and very grumpy. He’s quite annoyed to discover his profound attraction to Mariketa. The book drags out the comeheregoaway, but was fun.

Cheesey Detail A: Bowen is Scottish and every time he says “do not”, Cole writes it as “doona”. Sublime.
Cheesey Detail B: Bowen has was it described as a “thumb claw”. Ew. Unless he is a classical guitarist, otherwise, EW!

Dark Needs at Night’s Edge (Vampire/Phantom)

Conrad is the Wroth brother who has partaken of human blood. In this world, that means he has slowly become insane by absorbing the memories of his victims. His brothers kidnap and incarcerate him in an abandoned manor hoping to tame his bloodlust. He’s large, strong, and miffed. The manor is  occupied by Neomi Laress, the ghost of a murdered prima ballerina. Conrad is the first person to be able to see and hear her in 80 years. Because they cannot touch, their preliminary interactions are kind of like ghostly Skype sex. When Neomi finds a way to assume corporeal form, THUNDER SEX™ and hijinks ensue.

Deep Kiss of Winter (Vampire/Valkyrie)

Murdoch Wroth vants to suck your blud and has a way with the ladies. He is blooded by Dany the Ice Maiden, a Valkyrie who is also literally an ice queen. In addition to the usual “I hate vampires” party line, Murdoch cannot touch Dany without hurting her due to their differences in body temperature. I know. There is actual dry humping. DRY. HUMPING. In a romance novel. When you write this many novels about fated mated being kept apart by [insert specious reasoning and/or convenient inter-species challenge here], you have to think of new and exciting ways to create distance, but it was dull and not exactly THUNDER SEX™-Y.

The Brothers Sinister Series: The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan

book review July 17, 2013 Leave a comment

If you want to try a historical romance, I recommend Courtney Milan’s books the most highly, but not this particular one. Nobody’s perfect and it does open splendidly…

Miss Jane Fairfield has a number of problems, but they can be boiled down to the fact that she a. is very wealthy and therefore marriageable and b. has a younger sister she needs to protect from a rather dim and unscrupulous uncle. In order to avoid marriage and protect her sister, but still give the impression she is trying to find a husband, Jane takes it upon herself to be available but undesirable. It is quite a balancing act. She must repel suitors, but not openly reject them. To accomplish this, she is meticulously awful: loud, ill-mannered, horrifically but seemingly unintentionally impolite, and hideously upholstered in garish clothing.

The Heiress Effect novel begins strongly. It is fremdschämen in chapter form.  Jane is doing her best to be inappropriate and seemingly oblivious to the mocking laughter behind her back. She attends a dinner party and meets Oliver Marshall, an ambitious young man of equally questionable background who simply refuses to participate in unkindness toward Jane, even when given the opportunity to gain his own political ends if he helps put the bright and brave upstart “in her place”.

My reaction to the novel is a disappointed, “Oh, dear”. Courtney Milan is the very best writer currently publishing in historical romance. The. Very. Best. But The Heiress Effect is a bit of a mess. A very well-written and compelling mess, but a mess with structural and character issues nonetheless. It feels like a fabulous novella that other story lines have been slotted into, or perhaps one that simply got away from the author. The extra plot lines were interesting, and the one for Jane’s sister could have been a lovely novella in and of itself, but they didn’t coalesce successfully. The lead characters were kept apart for too long and Jane behaved in a way that contradicted her earlier actions. I was actually gaping whathefu*kingly at my Kindle.

Such is my faith in Courtney Milan’s writing ability that I  went back and re-read portions of The Heiress Effect, hoping the problem was how quickly I had read it. I came to the same conclusions, but assume Milan could have resolved the problems, if she had more time. I suspect that the publishing schedule that many romance authors keep to of one book every six to nine months and her promised publication date was the real issue here.

Courtney Milan is fascinated by medical history and it always makes for interesting and galling story developments, in this case with themes of women’s rights and personal empowerment. Also, she deserves some sort of award for writing stories that take place in neither London nor Bath, the two default locations for all nineteenth century historical romance.

A complete summary of Courtney Milan’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 which includes the aforementioned observations.

 

The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon

book review July 17, 2013 Leave a comment

*OUTLANDER SPOILERS* BUT ONLY IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED VOYAGER  *OUTLANDER SPOILERS*

Continue reading →

Once a Duchess by Elizabeth Boyce

book review July 10, 2013 Leave a comment

Short version: Don’t bother.

Long version: Damn Kindle with their free samples and $1.99 historical romance novels. I am nigh on powerless to resist. I’m not technically powerless, rather I make no effort to resist. Two decent opening chapters and I think “Oh, what the heck?”. They use my indolence against me. It’s how this happened.

Isabelle Fairfax is the former wife of the Marshal Lockwood, Duke of Monthwaite. She was wrongfully accused of infidelity by her particularly awful mother-in-law and ceremoniously divorced then cut off without a penny by both her former husband and her own family. Desperate, she is working as a cook at the local posting inn when her ex-husband stops there for a meal. Necessary repetition: Isabelle is working as a cook. Isabelle, a former duchess and current genteelly impoverished lady a. knows how to cook well enough to do so for groups of people and b. is doing MANUAL LABOUR. Later in the story, she volunteers to cook for 30 people at the Duke’s estate, but starting from scratch as no preparations to feed said 30 people have been made in a manor house with a huge staff anticipating a large group of guests. Isabelle draws on the memory of her French mother’s cookbooks to help her because if there was one thing the English were known for during the Napoleonic Wars, it was their love of all things French. To be fair to the author, being half-French is one of her mother-in-law’s many reasons for despising Isabelle.

Anyway… Marshall is still drawn to Isabelle, even in her mob-cap and cook’s apron, as he has not been to any woman before of since. He writes to Isabelle’s brother and ducally encourages him to take his sister back. Her brother does and decides that the solution to everyone’s problems is to get Isabelle married off immediately, sooner if possible. Hijinks ensue.

I did a lot of eye rolling and accusing the novel of having a lower than average IQ:

  • There is a multi-tasking subplot provided by a dead pregnant horse (and her foal). Marshall is a botanist in the way of wealthy people with time on their hands. When he was 9, or maybe 15, he made a berry concoction to help the labouring horse, but it had the opposite effect. Every time I thought this sub-plot was out, the author pulled it back in.
  • Marshall’s mum is a bitch of the first water. She goes unpunished. None of the villains are effectively punished even though there are some truly awful people in this book. Has Elizabeth Boyce never heard the following Oscar Wilde quote:”The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily, that is what Fiction means.” It’s a romance novel! Smite some fu*kers!
  • TSTL (too stupid to live) is an expression in the romance vernacular describing a heroine who acts like an idiot. Once a Duchess has the distinction of being a novel in which BOTH the hero AND the heroine are TSTL. The events before the story starts qualify as Y&S (young and stupid), but both characters grow to maturity and full possession of their respective idiocies.

Much like my experience of reading the book and skipping through chapters, I can’t muster the energy to continue with this review. Could you please just go back and read the “Short Version” again?

The Pennyroyal Green Series: It Happened One Midnight by Julie Anne Long

book review June 26, 2013 Leave a comment

This is the part I wrote before I read the book which is, as one might expect should one be paying attention to both me and such things, a historical romance novel and which, as one might expect of someone who often takes longer to write the reviews than read the book, has been copiously revised since.

It Happened One Midnight is a new release from someone on my autobuy list and as such makes me very, very happy.  There are authors for whom I will pay full price and whose books I order in advance for Kindle. In order of quality with one being “magnificent” and 5 being “You show promise, Caroline,”, and no one being anything less than very good indeed, they are:

  1. The Monarch, Courtney Milan, who happens to have a book coming out on July 15th.
  2. Julie Anne Long – DING! DING! DING!
  3. Tessa Dare released a delightful book two weeks ago called Any Duchess Will Do
  4. Sarah MacLean whose next book comes out in November.
  5. Caroline Linden who has a new book out on July 30th.

This is the part I wrote while reading the book…

Julie Anne Long is the second best author in historical romance and while that may seem like damning with faint praise, the simple fact is that Courtney Milan is genre-defyingly good; HOWEVER, to give credit where it is due, Julie Anne Long is an extremely clever writer and is actually funnier than Milan. She creates entertaining conversation, well-rounded characters, and magnificent smolder. Her current series, which will be at least 10 books if I am adding correctly, is built around the fictional Sussex town of Pennyroyal Green and features the Eversea and Redmond families. This time it is Jonathon Redmond’s turn and, to be honest, I wasn’t that excited about his story. He hadn’t made much of an impression in previous appearances. I. Was. Wrong. I’m 25% of the way through It Happened One Midnight and it is laugh out loud funny.

Thomasina (which is apparently not pronounced Tamsin as I had been gulled into believing and I still think I’m right) “Tommy” de Ballesteros is the illegitimate daughter of a displaced Spanish princess or some such. I’m not really clear on that yet. She moves within Society, but is not precisely of it. She supports herself and does good works of the more than slightly dangerous variety. Confident, rich and rakish Jonathon Redmond is the youngest of four children and his controlling and obscenely wealthy father is about to cut him off without a penny. It’s something Isaiah Redmond does quite often: cuts children off, drives them away, and forbids their delightful, but inappropriate, wives entry to the family homes. Things of that nature. In this case, Jonathon has shown some prowess with investments, although he is between profits at present, and hoped his father would help him invest in a colour printing press, the first of its kind in England. Isaiah says, “No. I want you to get married in the next six months to an appropriate rich woman with a title or lose your inheritance. Your mother will put it about that you are available. I’m cutting off your allowance.” Now Jonathon needs an investor and/or a suitable wife. Tommy needs to create some security for herself and would very much appreciate it if people would stop assuming that she is a courtesan.

Back to reading, but first something for you to do while you are waiting. I have reviewed two of Long’s books and I recommend both of them very highly: A Notorious Countess Confesses and What I Did for a Duke which is a classic.

After devouring It Happened One Midnight –

Julie Anne Long’s best work features truly swoonworthy heroes and vibrant heroines. Jonathon and Tommy are great both together and individually.  Long gives them time to grow and opportunities for the reader to see how they fit together.This was an engaging, winsome and satisfying read. The subplots involve poignant exploration of nineteenth century social issues and the nature of family. Long continues to be in great form and avoided the twee pitfalls of her last book, but not all of the editing issues which is a very minor quibble.  I emphatically recommend It Happened One Midnight.

A complete summary of Julie Anne Long’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 which includes the aforementioned observations.

An Introduction to Pleasure: Mistress Matchmaker by Jess Michaels

book review June 12, 2013 Leave a comment

Given a title like An Introduction to Pleasure: Mistress Matchmaker, you should not be surprised to learn that Jess Michaels’ book falls into the “romantica” historical romance category which means it’s reasonably tame erotica with a love story thrown in to keep things on the straight and narrow. It was free for Kindle, I read it quickly, and I wasn’t going to review it, but the heroine’s name beckoned:

LYSANDRA

Were I the kind of person to make egregious use of multiple exclamation points, that name would warrant just such a display. What’s more, I kept misreading “Lysandra” as “Lysistrata” thus adding piquancy my romantica experience.  As for the hero, I track the men’s names on The (Shameful) Tally and I’d like to show you something:

Simon – 7: I’ve updated the totals many times.  Simon always wins.
Michael – 5: Meh.; Alex/Alexander – 5: Seems fair.
Robert – 5: Seriously? And not a Bob or a Rob in the bunch.
Charles – 4: Including a rather charming Charlie.
Colin – 4: Tessa Dare has the best one, just ask Malin.
Harry – 4: Plus 2 Henries.
Sebastian – 4: Sebastian is the quintessential rake name.
William – 4: Will never Bill.
Gareth/Ian – 3, Jackson – 3: Yet I could not name one of the books off the top of my head.
Julian – 3: I prefer this spelling, Lucien – 3: THREE!
Marcus – 3: I would have thought there would be more.

Also: Gideon, Griffin, Jonas, Rafe, Tristan, Vere – 2; plus, a Cyrus, a Wulfric, and a SMITE!

Why did I bring this up? Because, somehow, this is the first ANDREW and I find that interesting. Mind you, his brother calls him “Drew” because “Andy” isn’t going to cut it on the Testosterone and a Y Chromosome Registry of Manly Names.

Andrew is Viscount Callis (not to worry though, he isn’t) whose beloved wife died three years ago and he is still grieving. Lysandra Keates is an impoverished lady with an ailing mother, abusive moustache-twirling relatives, and no reference to help her find work in household service. As a last resort, she approaches Vivien, a former courtesan, for help being matched with a “Protector”. Lysandra is wholly inexperienced (how quickly things change), so Vivien chooses Andrew because while he is not in the market for a mistress, she feels Lysandra can help him to, quite literally, come out of mourning.

It is lust at first sight.

Pointless time constraints being common in romance, their relationship duration is set for one month during which Andrew will act as Protector and Lysandra will learn the ways of Mistressin’. The woman used as payment of debt/or turning to a “life of sin” out of desperation is, for better or worse, a standard romance trope, and I should make it clear that the woman is always a willing sexual participant, and that her sojourn in the Land of Euphemistic Prostitution is usually brief. What sets romantica apart from a standard romance is the reversal of the First Comes Affection Then Comes Consummation structure, and focusing on the sexual elements over the emotional bonding elements, or by replacing them therewith as was the case here.

As expected, although it is neither particularly romantic, nor especially erotic, An Introduction to Pleasure: Mistress Matchmaker does have more than the average amount of detail and level of creativity in the love scenes. Jess Michaels gets a gold star on her romantica report card for putting a check in each activity box. She doesn’t get one for the sequencing of the sex scenes/love story though, and there are a lot of authors who make similar mistakes. In this case it’s romantica, but even in standard issue historical romance, the writers sometimes fumble in terms of timing. If one is following a checklist, and this story reads like one is, shouldn’t one put a little thought into progression as well? On the Lisa Kleypas Suddenly You scale of one to six raspberries, with six being a sequencing misstep on par with the scale’s namesake, “He’s doing that NOW?!” and one being a Georgette Heyer novel, I would give An Introduction to Pleasure four raspberries. I’d say the plot organization had a negative effect on the reading experience, but since I had profoundly low expectations that really wasn’t possible and it resulted in eye-rolling more than a let down. Other than that, the writing was perfectly serviceable, if unromantic(a), which is likely not the enthusiastic endorsement the writer was looking for.

Spindle Cove Series: Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare

book review June 12, 2013 Leave a comment

Desperate for grandchildren and a Dower House, Her Grace the Duchess of Halford has gone to the trouble of drugging her son, Griffin York, His Grace the Duke of Halford, and bringing him to Spindle Cove. Familiar to Tessa Dare readers as the setting of her current series, it’s a convenient location for duchess hunting, rife with eligible young ladies who don’t fit into Society for one reason or another. Her Grace insists that her son pick somebody, ANYBODY, and she will mold a Duchess out of the woman. Griff, vexed and still half-lit, picks the barmaid, Pauline Simms, to irk his mother, and because the little voice inside him whispers, “Her. I’ll take her.” Pauline is an astute, purposeful, and engaging woman with a challenging home life. Griff offers her an obscene amount of money to humour his mother and fail spectacularly at “duchess training”.

I’ve written before about the two basic heroes in historical romance novels: The Rake and The Protector. This may be the first novel I’ve ever read in which a character readers met as a Rake in an earlier story is reintroduced later in the midst of transforming himself into a Protector. When Tessa Dare’s readers first met Griff in A Week to Be Wicked, he was a dissipated, dissolute, hedonistic sybarite. He fit a lot into a couple of pages. His Grace wasn’t exactly hero material, but that was Dare’s challenge. You have to bring them low to build them up. Griff had been brought very low indeed before the story began and, I have to say, I don’t think I’ve seen an unapologetic rake so completely redeemed since Sebastian St. Vincent took a bullet for Evie Jenner in The Devil in Winter.

Any Duchess Will Do is a very good historical romance: clever, sweet, sexy, and, yes, romantic. Tessa Dare’s books are always a great deal of fun and often more than slightly implausible. My review of her recent novella, Beauty and the Blacksmith, included my thoughts on the willing suspension of disbelief in romance in general and with this writer in particular. Dare pulls the story off much more successfully in this case because, frankly, the hero is a Duke and rich as Croesus, and because Dare takes a romance trope and gives it enough of a twist to make it sufficiently crediblesque to maintain the illusion. For readers of the series, she has some savvy reincorporation, which was absolutely necessary to keep the willing suspension of disbelief going, although she was less successful in bringing back her most popular characters from A Week to Be Wicked and That Other Book I Didn’t Like as Much.

Reviewer’s Note: I sincerely hope that someone somewhere in the romance sub-culture is making a list of all the things Dare’s heroes compare their telltale masculine firmness to. She has a particular gift for wry metaphor in this area.

A complete summary of Tessa Dare’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 which includes the aforementioned observations.

 

The Immortals After Dark Series: The Warlord Wants Forever by Kresley Cole

book review June 5, 2013 1 Comment

If you whisper the title, it sounds even better.

warlord

Just when I thought my preferred reading material couldn’t possibly be more silly, my brain pointed out, “You’ve never really given paranormal romance a shot”. Kresley Cole is a very big name in the genre. She has a huge following. She has dozens of books. She has copious high ratings on Amazon. I have a Kindle. I have 99 cents. The Warlord Wants Forever was worth each and every one of them because Nikolai Wroth is a vampire and Myst the Coveted is, I am not making this up, a Valkyrie. They meet cute.

A prequel to Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, The Warlord Wants Forever is set in an unseen world populated by illusory creatures familiar from mythology and Things That Go Bump in the Night. There may also be shape-shifters. I’m not sure. Until last night, my main romance concern was historically-accurate frocks and then suddenly it was all fangs, blood, and violently intense love scenes that I’ve decided to christen “THUNDER SEX™”. There is some sort of internecine war between the Myth/Bump factions and Nikolai the hot vampire warlord gets “blooded” (imprinted) by the tempestuous Valkyrie, Myst the Coveted. It’s a mating system requiring, to put it delicately, initial release exclusivity, so when Myst escapes Nikolai before the THUNDER SEX™ consummation devoutly to be wished, he must chase his Valkyrie down to relieve his eternal blue balls. It takes him five years. Then he has to convince her to shack up with him, a lesser immortal being. There is a magical waist chain involved.

The novella was fun and the first time I’ve heard of a story that did involve a Valkyrie and didn’t involve Richard Wagner. The THUNDER SEX™ was hot and plentiful, if a trifle “red in tooth and claw” for my tastes. There is clearly a huge audience for paranormal romance and I could go on about what tastes or appetites this kind of fiction appeals to, but I think it all comes down, almost literally because of the vampires, to à chacun son goût.  If I ever have qualms about the nature of The (Shameful) Tally’s contents, I now know it could be worse, if not quite so deliciously ridiculous.

After reading The Warlord Wants Forever,  I tried another work from Cole’s Immortals After Dark series, Lothaire, about an ancient vampire finding love with a blue-collar mortal (which is apparently totally declassé and galling). It was even redder in tooth and claw than The Warlord Wants Forever  and included a THUNDER SEX™ scene which can be imagined as biting a sausage longways for a protracted period of time. Sex? Sure. Blood. Useful. Sex and blood? I’m out thus ended my paranormal romance experiment.

… or I was until being given more Kresley Cole books by Malin and Alexis. I’M NOT MADE OF STONE! As a result, I have reviewed the following linked books from the series as well A Hunger Like No Other; No Rest for the Wicked; Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night; Dark Needs at Night’s Edge; Dark Desires After Dusk; Kiss of a Demon King; Deep Kiss of Winter; Pleasure of a Dark Prince; Demon from the Dark; Dreams of a Dark Warrior; Lothaire; MacRieve; Shadow’s Claim.