Grade: B-

Hmm… I don’t know how to review this book. I wanted to like it, but at the same time, it really annoyed me. Could my love affair with P.C. Cast’s stuff be ending so quickly? I mean, I was in love with Goddess By Mistake and I adored Goddess of the Sea, but this one seriously irked me. The heroine, for one thing, is one serious Mary Sue type who is loved by all, even by frickin’ animals, that while reading this book, I was hearing “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” in the background. Jesus, am I really such a cynical bitch that while I was reading this book, I couldn’t keep a jaded smirk from twisting my lips? Help me, someone, help me. I want to like this book. I want to take a basket of flowers, stand in my balcony, and sprinkle its petals at the children playing below, instead of yelling “Shut the hell up, you little brats, I’m watching my stories!” I want to dance and frolic under the moonlight, humming “So This is Love”. I want to look up at the sky and see the stars dancing and sparkling brightly, without the haze of a smog. I want to be a Goddess, too! I don’t want to be the Grinch, I don’t! I’m telling you, I must be dead inside not to have fallen in love with this book. But I didn’t and I want to know why.
(more…)

Grade: C-

Oh, man, I had really enjoyed the P.C. Cast books I had previously read, so I was really looking forward to reading this book, especially since it is set in the same world as the very awesome Goddess By Mistake. In fact, the heroine of this story is the great-granddaughter of Lady Rhiannon neé Shannon, the heroine of Goddess By Mistake, and the prologue reveals that she’s half-centaur, half human, so I thought “dude, this is going to rock me, Amadeus.”. But that was not to be. In fact, I was really, really disappointed in this book and I think it actually broke my heart. The hero is one of those clichéd tortured types that one can usually find in Amanda Ashley or Carphathian romance novels (cue: gratuitous eye rolling) and the heroine is a bit of a twit. Add to that a kind of interesting, but ultimately boring side story starring the heroine’s human brother and some Healer chick, and really, this book ain’t all that. Sigh.

The heroine of this Luna offering by P.C. Cast is the eldest daughter of the Goddess Incarnate (or human conduit) of the Goddess Epona and a High Shaman centaur. Together, they rule Partholon, which is like a paradise type place where everyone is happy and sings songs under trees and watch rainbows and shit. A hundred years ago, Partholon was nearly torn apart by the invasion of the Fomorians, which are demon vampires with wings, but Rhiannon and the centaurs managed to defeat them and drive them out. If you’ve read the story, you might remember that Rhiannon’s dad, the MacCallan, was torn to pieces by these Fomorian suckers and killed. Because of this, the MacCallan Castle is rumored to be cursed and it has been abandoned for a hundred years. Our heroine, Lady Elphame, is believed to be Epona in the Flesh, so this means that she is the perfect amalgamation of human and centaur, and a truly exquisite being. In short, she is a hot chick with horsey legs (seriously, instead of feet, she’s got hooves) and a FREAK! Humans and centaurs alike have always treated her like a gift from Epona herself, but never as a real live girl, damn it. Elphame wants to be treated just like everyone else and for this to happen, she feels she must leave home and set out for MacCallan Castle, which she believes is her destiny. She will restore it to its former glory and she will be known as the greatest Chieftain evah!

So anyway, Elphame and her brother, a great warrior but completely human-looking, Coochie Coo (it’s actually Cuchulainn, but who wants to type that?) leave home for MacCallan Castle and here we see a bunch of scenes of Elphame realizing that the stupid stones of the castle can talk to her (she has never felt magic before) and Elphame getting to know the village girls and boys who will help her work on the castle. Here, we encounter a bunch of stock characters that we usually encounter in this type of stories, i.e. Brighid, the tough, gruff, but kind-hearted centaur; Brenna, the gentle, sweet-natured, but disfigured Healer; and Wynn, the buxom, happy-go-lucky, bawdy cook. If this were a movie, this is where we would have a montage of Elphame warily getting to know her rag-tag band of undesirables (natch!), then gradually warming up to them, Elphame and the women playing with water and bubbles as they clean the castle, Elphame gathering her confidence and invoking the Goddess Epona to bless the castle, and Elphame finally letting loose of her inhibitions and embracing her inner Goddess conduit self. All this, of course, is set to some folksy Celtic song with flutes and harps and shit. Or some fucking Enya song or something. There’s even a fucking world-wise, matchmaking ghost (the MacCallan) to serve as Elphame’s father-figure/guide type and an old centaur who is wise in the ways of reading stones and shit, who’s like her Mr. Miyagi. Whatever. I’m over it.

The “hero” is a half-human, half-Fomorian guy named Lochlan. Before we meet this guy, Coochie Coo tells Elphame that she will meet her lifemate (groan!) at MacCallan Castle, but for some reason, Coochie Coo can’t see his face in his visions, so this makes him nervous. Coochie Coo also tells Elphame that her life with this mate will be shadowed by pain and misery, yada-yada-yada, so from this we know that the “hero” will be some tortured, anguished type who can’t accept his true nature. Sure enough, Lochlan is mostly human, but is constantly tortured by the demon blood of his father, so we get a lot of “I love her, but I don’t deserve her” and “Oh, I’m a dirty, dirty demon and I will never find happiness” kind of whining. Jesus. Do me a favor, Lochlan, and kill yourself already.

Anyway, Lochlan’s human mother and the other mothers were raped by the Fomorians, and though human females don’t usually survive giving birth to Fomorian hybrid’s, Lochlan’s mother and the other mothers survive, and teach Lochlan and the others how to be more human. According to some prophecy, it is Elphame’s blood that will save him and the others from the Fomorian madness, but oh, he loves Elphame more than anything because she’s so pretty and so smart and so kind and so pure and for God’s sake, someone douse me in gasoline and set me on fire already! Jesus Christ, YOU SUCK, Lochlan, and on so many levels!

The “love story” between Lochlan and Elphame is nothing to write home about, either. He saves her from a wild boar, she strokes his wings, he gets turned on by her stroking his wings, they hand-fast, he’s afraid he’ll hurt her with his talons, they do the wild horsey dance, he drinks her blood, then he runs away, crying like a little bitch because he’s an animal and a demon and she’s so pure and beautiful and he doesn’t deserve her and he can’t sacrifice her to save his people and zzzzzzzzz…

There is a side love story between Coochie Coo and the disfigured Brenna, but it is stupid and boring, because all we get is Brenna whining and crying that Coochie Coo can’t possibly love her because she’s ugly and deformed and oh, there are so many pretty girls out there and he’s so handsome and heroic and smart and wonderful and OH SHUT THE FUCK UP, you stupid twat! Coochie Coo, on the other hand, is a Ken Doll type guy who falls in love with the whiny creature and he’s not sure what to do about because no one has ever said no to him before, but every time he approaches her, she runs away crying, with her stupid braids flying like Jan Brady. Anyway, he gets a wolf puppy (okay, so that part’s kind of cute) that they take care of together and they fall in love and run in a field of flowers while “Happy Together” by the Turtles play in the background. Or something. Whatever, I just vomited in my mouth while typing that.

‘Tis I, Coochie-Coo!

This book is just so tepid and kind of boring and trite, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that my honeymoon with Ms. P.C. Cast is over. There is still Goddess of Spring and Goddess of Light for me to read. Hopefully, those will be better than this book. I mean, this book is not terrible, but it’s not great, either. I just got so annoyed with Elphame and Lochlan and everyone else that I actually had to force myself to finish the book.

Elphame is an okay heroine; I understand what she’s trying to do with the MacCallan castle, what she wants to accomplish with her life, and I respect that. If this book had just been about Elphame finding herself and discovering that she, too, is magical deep inside (eye roll), I would have been okay with it. The hero, Lochlan, ruins it for me. He does nothing but whine and brood and he is so damned one-dimensional that he is boring instead of dark and delicious like Angel. If there had been a flash of wit, maybe some charm about him, I would have forgiven the whining, but THAT IS ALL HE DOES. Whatever, I’m over it.

Did I mention the shared dreams that these two have? How very Amanda Ashley. Thankfully, Ms. Cast doesn’t torture me with their italicized cheese.

There is one cool character in this book, though, and I look forward to reading her book. Her name is Brighid and she is a centaur and if the next book has some centaur sex, I would dig it, for sure. I’m all about centaur sex, man. Bring it on!

Grade: A

First she gives me mermaid sex, now it’s centaur sex. I’m telling ya, P.C. Cast is rapidly becoming one of my automatic buys. I can’t believe how much I loved this book. I devoured it one sitting and was very sorry when it ended. That hasn’t happened to me in months. Her characters, the dialogue, the world-building, the mythology… the fangirl inside me is just jumping up and down, squealing like a Japanese girl in pigtails and a schoolgirl uniform. I mean, as I was reading the book, I could actually see it like a movie in my head. There were smells and textures and colors and sounds! And the hero… oh, dear God, the hero. I haven’t drooled so much over a fictional character since Eloisa James’ Marquess of Bonnington. ClanFintan is just so good and courteous and clever and dashing… and so not a jerk. From the very first page where he shows up, he just kind of jumps out, larger than life. Oh, and Shannon, the heroine is not bad, either. Their love, their romance, their courtship… le sniff.

Okay, enough fangirl gushing: I’m grossing myself out. Our heroine is Shannon Parker, a thirty-five year old English teacher, who’s kind of bored with herself. She doesn’t have a boyfriend nor children, but was married once with a man she calls her “starter husband”. She seems happy with herself, but also has a fanciful mind, so she wouldn’t mind if there was a little magic in her life. She’s not one of those neurotic heroines who think their lives are not worth living if they don’t have a baby or if they never find their one true love. She’s a little lonely, so she goes on blind dates, but not really in a hurry to find Mr. Right. In fact, she seems the type who’ll go out and have a drink with Mr. Right Now without expecting anything to come out of it.

One day, she visits an out-of-the-way estate auction and encounters a little urn that she is instantly attracted to. The urn incites something in her that she dismisses as hot flashes and hallucinations, but finds herself unable to stop looking at it. As she looks closer, she notices that the image on the urn looks exactly like her, down from her vivid red hair to the star-shaped burn on her hand that she received when she was four years old in a pasta boiling accident. She is compelled to bid on the urn, no matter how much it freaks her out, and as soon as she wins it, she immediately leaves the estate and promptly gets into a horrible accident. When she wakes up, she is in a different world. Her body is her own and she feels exactly the same, but the woman who looks exactly like her best friend says she’s not who Shannon thinks she is, and baby, she’s got some ‘splainin’ to do.

What I immediately like about Shannon is that she’s clever and quick on her feet. When she first wakes up as Lady Rhiannon, High Priestess of the Goddess Epona (she and Shannon had switched bodies), she is suspicious of her surroundings, but asks the logical questions and forces herself to be open-minded to the answers. She doesn’t automatically embrace what Alanna—who is her best friend Suzannah in her world—tells her about her new world, but doesn’t dismiss it, either. She doesn’t panic and beg to be taken back like I would have done, but instead views it as an adventure. This girl is game for everything. She doesn’t even scream hysterically when Alana tells her that she is about to be married to a stranger and stays calm when she sees that her husband-to-be is a FRICKIN’ HORSE.

ClanFintan, our hero, is a centaur, a powerful Shaman, and the chieftain of his tribe. Because of his birth and social standing, it is his duty to marry Lady Rhiannon, Epona’s Chosen. When he first encounters her, she’s kind of a bitch to him because his horsy half freaks her out. He has also heard rumors—in this case, it turns out to be the truth—that his bride-to-be will sleep with anything with two legs. He has four. Because of this, he is wary of her, and resolves that he will not get emotionally involved with her.

On the day of their handfasting—which is a temporary marriage, just in case it doesn’t work out—he notices a change in her demeanor. Though she is still nervous around him, she is no longer outright mean to him. She looks at him with interest and does not shy away from his touch. He is a little confused by this because Rhiannon has made it clear in the past that she finds his appearance disgusting. Though he finds himself warming towards her, he reminds himself to be careful because she could just be toying with him. Unbeknown to him, Shannon is very attracted to him. She thinks he’s a little weird-looking, but she’s not disgusted by him and in fact, thinks he’s… kind of cool. Thus begins their courtship.

And what a courtship it is. These two dance around each other warily at first—much like boxers sizing each other up before a match—but they quickly form a makeshift trust for each other and set out to get to know each other. What I really like about these two is that they are friends first. They do not automatically jump each other’s bones. Everything starts out with quick glances, then little touches. What they feel for each other is not an instantaneous lust like in other romance novels where the two leads think of nothing but trying to fuck each other. It starts out as a small spark, then gradually increases into a flame that they feel in their souls. They laugh together, talk to each other, and most importantly, respect each other. Man, it is such a rare thing in romance novels nowadays that I will find two lead characters who actually enjoy each other’s company and don’t bicker like children, only to shove their tongues in each other’s throats when they’re tired of yakking. No, there are no petty squabbling or stupid misunderstandings between these two because THEY ACTUALLY SIT DOWN AND TALK TO EACH OTHER! Gasp, what a strange and nouveau notion.

One night, Shannon (who has a quirky ability to control her dreams in her world) has a strange dream where she floats outside of her body and flies over the towns and the villages of her new world. She ends up floating over Rhiannon’s father’s castle (incidentally, Rhiannon’s dad is a mirror image of her own) and watches as strange winged vampire-like creatures attack Rhiannon’s father’s people and kill Rhiannon’s father. When Shannon wakes up, Alanna tells her that it is not just a dream, but an actual real-time vision. As it turns out, astral projection is one of Rhiannon’s powers and what she had seen in her dream is actually happening. Like a true romance heroine (warning: this is a bit of a TSTL moment, but it actually moves the story forward, so I forgave it), she sneaks out of her castle without telling Alanna or ClanFintan to see for herself that Rhiannon’s dad is really dead and to give him a proper burial. I kind of rolled my eyes at this because what could she possibly do? She doesn’t know the lay of the land, doesn’t know what kind of creatures could be lurking in the dark, and it’s a whole different world for her. Stupid girl.

Fortunately, ClanFintan immediately catches up to her and rescues her, before she can get herself killed. This little adventure gives them an opportunity to have some bonding moments and there are some really cute scenes here, which is good because when they get to the castle, they find some pretty nasty shit. And I’m gonna go ahead and stop right here because it will be a damned shame if I ruined the story for ya.

Oh, but these two are awesome together. If you’re wondering how they have sex, let me tell you right now that there aren’t any grody bestiality scenes (so horse fucking enthusiasts, this ain’t for you). ClanFintan is a very powerful Shaman, remember? He can do whatever the hell he wants with his body. And boy, lemme tell ya, this kid has endurance and horsy stamina. But you know, it’s not the sex scenes that matter, alright? It’s the little kisses and the little looks they have for each other. It’s kind of like that electricity that Mulder and Scully had before the travesties that were seasons 7, 8, and 9. What’s awesome about Shannon and Clanfintan is that they’re partners. While ClanFintan is busy gathering troops and formulating military strategies to fight the beasties, Shannon stays out of the way—she reasons that she knows nothing about war—and finds something else to do that is equally worthy. And oh, it is. It really is. When it gets down to the crunch time, however, they pair up again and fight side by side with each other. You see, these two become so important to each other that they would rather die than leave other’s sides. Oh, man, that’s so sweet. I’m getting choked up just talking about it.

Centaurs are hot!

What makes this book really fun to read is Ms. Cast’s writing style. The story is told from Shannon’s first-person point of view, so we get Shannon’s very colorful commentary on everything. Ms. Cast gets crazy with the parenthetical asides at first (it interrupted the flow of her prose and became kind of annoy—aw, crap, she got me doing it now!), but she calms down as the story gets going and eases off. Anyway, the tone of the story is very engaging and Shannon is a hilarious storyteller. She’s not preachy or boring, nor does she indulge in the always pathetic does-he-love-me-oh-my-gosh-I-don’t-deserve- him bullshit. I think it’s because Shannon is older than most of the female characters I read about (I was reading a whole bunch of Regencies), but I’ve also read about female characters who are supposed to be in their forties, but act like they’re twelve. Shannon complains about her saggy boobs, lack of toilet paper, and a good moisturizer, but she doesn’t get all weird and neurotic about it. In fact, her character kind of reminded me of Diane Lane in Under the Tuscan Sun. She is graceful, secure in her own feminine power, and most importantly, confident in her own intelligence and abilities.

I definitely enjoyed reading this book and will have to read it again in the near future. Now where can I find a shape-shifting centaur of my very own?

Grade: C-

The heroine of this novella is a twenty one year old girl named Virginia Bennett, but she likes to be called Gina. When she was sixteen years old, she was in a freak motorcycle accident where she almost choked to death because her scarf got caught in the back tire of the motorcycle. AWESOME! Her voice box was crushed, so she now has a husky voice that made Kathleen Turner famous, but after a few surgeries to fix her throat, she also has a bunch of really ugly scars around her neck that she hides with well-placed ribbons and scarves. Gina comes from a family of money-grubbing, power-hungry sluts, so naturally, as a romance heroine, she is more subdued and a bit of a prude. To separate herself from her family, she becomes a children’s book illustrator, which irritates her mother to no end because she thinks it is a plebian endeavor. But Gina is not like her mother and sisters, damn it, she’s a sensitive artist! SHUT UP!

Anyway, because she’s desperate for love and attention, she gets a little drunk at one of her mother’s parties one night, and allows herself to get talked into having a little somethin’ somethin’ by a smooth operator who, as it turns out, is just setting it up so that his wife would walk in on him with another woman and divorce him. Bastard! Unable to defend herself because her throat clams up when she’s nervous, Gina is branded a slut and a scarlet woman by the woman’s family, and all the blame is put upon her shoulders. To get her out of the funk she’s in, her editor tells her of a private Fijian island where she could vacation for a while and concentrate on the novel she’s trying to write. Gina reluctantly goes and continues with her woe-is-me whining in a beachfront bungalow on an island paradise, shaking her fists at the heavens, crying out that she’s ugly and deformed and no one will ever love her because she’s a whiny crybaby and she’ll be alone forever. Or maybe she just paints and shit. Whatever.

The hero, Leonard Sterne, publishing magnate, is the brother of the woman who was married to the bastard who tricked Gina. Naturally, he thinks she’s evil incarnate and the biggest slut in the world, so he calls her a slut and a tramp and a hussy to her face EVERY CHANCE HE GETS. Seriously, this guy walks around with a giant chip on his shoulder and a surgically attached stick up his ass. He’s also kind of pissed because his evil ex-wife (is there any other kind?) just thrust upon him a sullen seven year old boy, who is deaf because of complications from the measles, and the little boy pretty much hates him because his evil ex-wife told the little boy a bunch of horror stories about him.

When he finds out that his poor handicapped son has been escaping to the other side of the island where Gina’s bungalow just happens to be, he flips out on a massive scale that would scare even Tom Sizemore for two reasons: 1) his son hates him and would rather hang out with the biggest slut in the universe 2) Gina is a slut! A HOMEWRECKING HUSSY! A money-grubbing, power-hungry whore like her mother and sisters! Never mind that Gina actually did his sister a favor by ruining her marriage to a selfish, greedy asshole. Would Leo have preferred that his sister stayed married to that prince of a guy? What a jerk. What pisses him off more is that he’s still attracted to Gina even though she’s a slut! a hussy! a tramp! because it only proves that Gina is using her sexiness and heady sensuality and woman powers to manipulate a prize like him.

When a plot contrivance in the form of a cyclone gets these two stuck together—Gina’s bungalow is destroyed—Leo blackmails her into staying in his mansion with him and his son. He thinks she’s a slut! a whore! a tramp! but for some reason, his son likes her and can’t stand to be apart from her, so Leo thinks he can use Gina as a bridge between him and his son. When Gina confesses to him that she is a children’s book illustrator and a budding novelist—with a male pseudonym, Borelli, whom Leo first believes is her lover—Leo pretty much laughs in her face because he’s an asshole. He treats he like shit at every turn, yells at her and humiliates her in front of his kid who idolizes Gina, and pretty much follows her around all brooding and creepy whenever she’s out with his kid.

Before he finds out about her accident, he also makes fun of her voice, thinking she’s just trying hard to sound sexy, and when he notices that she uses sign language to his deaf son, he thinks it’s just one of her schemes. THIS GUY IS UNBELIEVEABLE! He only becomes nice to her when he finds out the truth about the night he caught her with his former brother-in-law and that she was innocent all along. Also, she’s a virgin, and everyone knows that virgins are pure and free of sins and can do no wrong and therefore worthy of his love and attention. Jesus.

What freaks me out about all this is Gina is twenty-one years old, while Leo is thirty-five. He is fourteen years older than her, but he acts like a dumb jock from high school. Sure, Gina is a mopey little crybaby but she’s way more mature than he is. Meanwhile, Leo is a jerk, a chauvinist—no, make that misogynist—and just an all around hateful human being who doesn’t know how to deal with his deaf kid, so he’s a jerk to him, too. Jesus, if I were Gina, I would have castrated this bastard and hung him upside down, so that the blood from his own testicles would drip down to his face. I understand that his ex-wife was a cold, unfeeling, crazy bitch, but it just doesn’t explain the way he treats the people around him. He roars and yells and acts pretty much like a bear with a bruised paw, but there’s just nothing redeeming about him. He’s not a misunderstood prince like The Beast. He’s just a dick, period.

Another thing that pisses me off about this book is that all the women are either evil, scheming sluts or weak-minded, neurotic nutjobs! Gina’s mother and sisters are sluts, the little boy’s babysitter is a slut, while Leo’s sister and ex-wife are weak-minded, neurotic nutjobs. Near the end of the book, Leo’s evil ex-wife (SPOILER: she turns out to be NOT his ex-wife because Leo is a lying, cheating, hypocritical bastard) shows up to make trouble for Leo and Gina just because she can and oh, because she’s a woman, therefore very, very devilish. What is wrong with you, Susan Napier? Are you one of those women who hate other women and can’t stand to be friends with them? Did you write them this way so you can make Gina look more like a pure, virginal creature who is the only one deserving of Leo’s love? Good God, woman, who wants Leo’s love, anyway? He’s fucking crazy!

And don’t even get me started on the misplaced semi-colons. Someone get this woman a copy of Strunk & White, STAT!

The only thing that saves this book from a big fat F is the relationship between Gina and Leo’s emotionally wounded boy, Dominic. When we first meet Dominic, he is a very sullen, angry little boy, who is barely communicative. Through sign language and her drawings, Gina coaxes the little boy out of his shell. She speaks kindly to him, listens to him, and is very patient to him. These two have great rapport and chemistry. Their scenes together are touching and sad in some parts, funny and light-hearted in others, but always sincere. Gina really understands Dominic’s frustrations, but maybe because they’re closer together in age. Rimshot! Actually, Gina empathizes with him because after her accident, she couldn’t really speak, so she had to learn sign language and hung out with a lot of deaf kids. Gina knows what it’s like not to be able to communicate her thoughts and feelings, so when she tries to get close to Dominic, her efforts are genuine and heartfelt because she knows how he feels. I mean, these two are awesome together. Gina should have just run away with Dominic, adopted him, and had wacky adventures together. Eventually, maybe Gina and Dominic could go to the United States, where Gina could meet a nice, sensitive artist-type like in Seattle or something, and it would be a different book entirely, wouldn’t it?

Anyway, I really don’t know how to grade this book because I really, really liked the scenes with Gina and Dominic, but Leo is such an unreasonable, illogical, misogynistic, completely bat-shit crazy bastard, that he almost ruins this book for me. The horrible female stereotypes give this book such a fetid stench as well. Fuck Leo. Fuck Susan Napier for writing Gina as a too-nice, too-sweet, too-tragic Barbie Doll, just so she’s deserving of that fucktard Leo’s love. Gina and Dominic deserve better, damn it. Maybe if the two of them had accidentally stumbled upon a nice P.C. Cast hero, they would have been better off. The three of them could live happily ever after and trot blissfully towards the sunset (because the P.C. Cast hero is a centaur) and sing songs under a tree or something. If that had happened, then maybe I wouldn’t have gotten this ugly, dirty-sock feeling in my mouth after reading this book.

Grade: A-

I read this book when it was first published ten years ago. I was wee one, then, and thought that it was hot shit. I was utterly entranced by it. I was particularly fascinated by the hero, Gray Rouillard, a man ruled by his passions and sexual impulses, an erection with legs and arms, if you will. More on that later. I wanted to read this book again to see if it thrill me the way it did when I was a kid. It’s still hot stuff, I still devoured every page, but Jesus H. Monkey Crap, had the main villain always been so obvious? When I first read this book and found out who the villain was at the end, I was like “Whoa”. I was also sixteen and very naïve. I wanted to re-read it and see if there were any clues that would lead to a logical villain, but spank me in the ass and call me Susan, there are about a hundred! Was I just really kind of stupid before not to figure it out until the villain literally jumped out of the bushes, yelling “Ha ha, it was me all along! It was me!”? Man, I wouldn’t make a good detective at all!

Anyway, the heroine is Faith Devlin. When she was a little girl, her family was pretty much like Britney Spears’ trashy, skanky family, only without the money (and I mean WITHOUT the money), and they lived in a little shack in the woods owned by her mother’s married lover. Poor Faith: Her dad is a mean drunk, her two older brothers are stupid and also mean drunks, her mother is the town skank, her older sister seems intent on following her mother’s footsteps, and her baby brother, probably as a result of both of her parents and backwater ancestors PISSING IN THE GENE POOL, is mentally retarded. In this insane family unit, Faith is the only responsible one and pretty much serves as everyone’s slave and toilet. The one true joy and light in her sad, pathetic, suicide-inducing life is Gray Rouillard, the town’s golden boy, her mother’s married lover’s son, and the heir apparent of one of the wealthiest families in Louisiana. Faith has no illusions whatsoever that Gray will take one look at her, fall in love with her, and take her away from her family, because she believes that Gray is way too good for her. Gray, to her, is that one unattainable dream that she knows could never come true, but her life will be happier, anyway, because he exists and she can dream about him at the end of a particularly hellish day. Her family sucks, she lives in a shack, the entire town thinks they’re trash, but she has her dreams about Gray, and that is enough for her.

That’s so fucked up, seriously.

The hero, Gray Rouillard, doesn’t have the perfect life that everyone thinks he has. Sure, he’s the star of his college football team. Sure, his family is rich beyond everyone’s wildest dreams. Sure, he’s damn good-looking and has no problem attracting the ladies. None of that means anything, though, when his sister is crazy with weird daddy issues, his mother is a frigid, closed off, unemotional Ice Queen who has never hugged him, and his dad is fucking the biggest slut in town, and everyone knows it! When his father disappears one day, prompting his mentally unbalanced sister to attempt suicide (she does not succeed) and pushing his mother to have a nervous breakdown from which she never fully recovers, Gray naturally assumes that his father has run away with Faith’s mother, Renée, and goes on crazy berserker mode. Once a hedonistic bad boy type who had no worries other than who he’d fuck next, he now has to take over the reins of his family, as well as the family business. When Faith’s mother, Renée, disappears on the same night as his father, Faith’s family becomes the target for his rage. After dropping off his near-death sister at the hospital, he drives over to Faith’s shack with a bunch of cops and throws them out for squatting on Rouillard land. As he watches Faith try in vain to gather their meager belongings (her father and asshole brothers keep knocking them out of her arms, saying they’re not going anywhere), he realizes how hot she is in her nightgown (she is only fourteen… yuck!), and that the cops think she’s hot too. After all, she is the spitting image of her hot slut mother, has the same heady sensuality, but she’s pure and innocent, so it just makes her so much hotter. Again, yuck. Anyway, he succeeds in driving the Devlins out of town and tells them that if they ever return, they will regret it. Aww, Gray is so nice.

I have one word to say about this book: Wow. I mean, WOW. It’s cheesy, convoluted, and pretty much a soap opera, but goddamn, if it isn’t entertaining. It’s your classic white trash versus the richest family in town story, only the white trash family disappears after a few chapters, and the only one left is Faith Devlin, who returns to Prescott after 12 years because she’s rich now, too, and she’s got questions that need to be answered, damn it! Sure, her family is trash, but she thought they got the shitty end of the stick when they are forcibly removed from their home, especially after she finds out that her mother didn’t run away with Guy Rouillard, Gray’s father. She ran away, sure, but ran away by herself. Now that she has money and a successful business of her own, Faith believes that she can return to Prescott to live there, but only if she can clear her mother’s name. The second she arrives in town, however, Gray is immediately alerted by the town gossips, and he kicks her out of the motel where she is staying. Undaunted, Faith buys a house just outside of town, sets up shop, and begins investigating the night of Guy’s disappearance. She is still in love with Gray Rouillard, but thinks he’s being an unreasonable prick and there’s no way he can stop her. She’s a woman on a mission, damn it!

Speaking of pricks, Gray’s penis might as well have been a character in this story. Whenever Gray thinks of Faith, it twitches. Whenever he sees her, it gets hard. Whenever he touches her, whoooooooo! In this book, Gray does not have any scenes with Faith that we don’t find out what his penis thinks of the situation. Also, from the way Ms. Howard describes it, it sounds HUGE. Gray is described as a hot, delicious Creole dude who is rich and speaks French—and Lord knows I love me a man who can make love in French—but I want nothing to do with his battering ram… err, penis. I just don’t equate lovemaking with bruised ovaries. Maybe I’m talking crazy here, but that’s just me.

Anyway, Gray wants Faith very badly and whooooh boy, does he ever. He becomes obsessed with the color of her hair, the smell of her skin, the way she moves… I mean, whenever Gray thinks about her, it’s pretty hot stuff. He wants nothing more than to play house with her and get to the fizznuckin’, but he is torn between a rock and a hard place, and as he tells the family attorney, the rock is his family and the hard place… is in his pants. Oh, that Gray. He is so funny. Do you see what he did there, the rock is his family and the hard place is… um, ahem. Where was I? He wants to show Faith the magic of his penis over and over again, but his family is bat-shit crazy. His emotionally unstable sister is fucking the family lawyer because she sees him as a daddy figure and now that he is the one who takes care of her mother, she offers herself to him in exchange so that he won’t go away like daddy. Or some fucked up bullshit like that. And his mother? Has locked herself up in her room and refuses to come out because she is paranoid that the entire town is talking shit about her. Crazy!

When Faith starts receiving threatening notes and mutilated animals telling her to get the hell out of town (the notes, not the mutilated animals, because they’re dead and dead mutilated animals don’t talk. Even live ones.), she perseveres and continues with her investigation because she WILL NOT BE DRIVEN OUT OF TOWN AGAIN, damn it. Gray goes into his overprotective mode because he luuuuuurves Faith and wants to bone her a hundred times a day, so he starts stalking her, showing up wherever she goes (don’t you just love when romance heroes do this?). Now, I really like the relationship that develops between Faith and Gray they have lots of hot sex and each scene that they are together just oozes with chemistry (or maybe it’s STDs because Gray has fucked the entire female population of Louisiana). Gray begins to grudgingly respect Faith, especially the way she has made something out of herself against all odds. Faith, on the other hand, began her investigation intending to clear her mother’s name, but in the end, it becomes about finding out what happened to Gray’s father in order to give Gray closure… because she luuuurves him too!

There is also a cute, funny après-sex scene near the end that just absolutely tickled me and reminded me of those happy times that Felicity and Ben had, just laying in Felicity’s bed and laughing, in between scenes of Ben cheating on Felicity, Felicity cheating on Ben, Ben impregnating women fifteen years older than him, Ben going bat-shit worried about getting into med school, Ben cheating on Felicity some more (this time with the Pink Power Ranger), Felicity cheating on Ben some more, Felicity going back in time to choose Noel over Ben, Felicity returning to her previous time line to pick Ben over Noel, and Ben having issues with his recovering alcoholic dad (can you tell I’ve been watching Felicity reruns on WE?). Ah, good times. I’d still pick Ben over Noel any day, though.

Anyway, I like Faith. She is smart, ambitious, very likeable, and genuinely cares about Gray (though I think a lot of that is residual from her giant crush on him as a kid), but I don’t understand why she would want to return to a town that treated her entire family like shit. I mean, I DON’T GET IT. And I think that’s what weakens the story for me. I mean, she KNOWS that her mom didn’t run away with Gray’s dad, so what’s her investment in finding out what really happened to him? Besides, why would she even care if the whole town thinks her family is shit? She had a nice life in Dallas, owns a successful business, so I don’t understand why she would want to return. Is Faith a masochist? ‘Cause that would be hot. Especially if she and Gray had spanking and BDSM scenes like in Secretary. Sigh. I’m a perv.

Oh, and the villain thing? Jesus, how did I not know? I’m brain-damaged, seriously.

All and all, I had an awesome time re-reading this book. Gray is hot, Faith is hot, and they’re hot together. The drama of the families and the town (there ARE ramifications to Gray’s dad slutting it up with the married women in town) is just absolutely delicious. It’s lurid and dirty and cheesy, but it’s awesome. I mean, if Frank Miller ever wrote a romance novel, it would be something like this, but with a lot more leather, whores, booze, drugs, violence—okay, so it’s not like a Frank Miller graphic novel at all, but it’s still awesome. And dirty! Dude, HOW AWESOME would it be if Frank Miller wrote a romance novel?

Oh, and Gray? Call me! Let’s chat, baby, but keep your penis in your pants, mmkay? It scares the crap out of me.