Let me start on a positive note: although I didn’t like this book, there were things I liked about Ms Tenorio’s writing. There is an energy to her prose that is appealing, and she is funny (always helpful when you write romantic comedies). However, for me, this book just didn’t work: the story was weak and I didn’t believe in the two main characters.

The Plot

Travis and Vetta are research scientists who have known each other since college. They are ‘best enemies’. You know the kind: they bicker and fight all the time but there’s a strong underlying friendship. They share lab space and have neighbouring apartments. Vetta is researching whether men are driven by sex or money and Travis is researching the effect of hormones on ovarian cancer.

Vetta comes from a phenomenally wealthy family. Her father owns a huge pharmaceutical company and her mother is a Swedish actress and all-round sexpot. Vetta lives with her ‘nanny’, Jade, a manipulative mother-hen. Travis, by contrast, comes from an ordinary background and has recently run out of research money.

At the start of the book, we learn that Vetta is gathering questionnaires from potential subjects. To annoy her, Travis submits one with snarky answers and obscene cartoons. We learn that Vetta intends to select a candidate from the questionnaire respondents and offer him a million dollars if he will agree to have no sex for a year. The candidate in question will have to give regular sperm samples and keep a diary.

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Grade: D+

My TBR pile is not in fact one single pile but lots of little piles. Amongst others, I have an “immediate TBR” pile of books I’m dying to read, a “worthy TBR” pile of books I feel I should read and “suck-it-and-see TBR” pile of books I’ve picked up without knowing who the author is just to see what they’re like. Manhandling, by Karen Anders was in my suck-it-and-see pile. I obviously bought it (oooh - two years ago!) cos it was a ’special price’ book but have never gotten round to reading it. Till now.

The Cover

….is dark. Not atmospheric-dark. Not deep-and-angsty dark. Just so fucking dark that I can’t actually make anything out except the weird green streak in the female model’s hair.

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Grade: D

Jane at Dear Author did a post recently ‘coming out’ as a lover of category romance. It was one of those posts that hit a nerve, generating a lot of comments. Readers were falling over themselves (myself included) to ‘fess up and wax lyrical over their favourite authors.

I’ve got about 20 Harlequins on my Keeper Shelf. Most of these are great books but a few are the equivalent emotional porn. Cheap thrills with no troublesome character development to hold up the action. Give me immediate angst, an alpha hero acting like a cockhead and a huge grovelling apology at the end and I’m in heaven.

An author who does this well is Julia James. In the past, I’ve liked her books, but her latest offering, Bedded, or Wedded? is disappointing to say the least.

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[Reviews by Annie Dean]

Dear John

Grade: C-

Dane Harley was poor white trash wrapped in Goth girl giftwrap. John Stratton lived in a big Victorian house on the hill. In their misspent youth, they ran wild together. Ten years ago, she left him in the lurch because of some crazy shit John’s daddy said about her ruining John’s future. Okay, so maybe I can buy she would be that simpleminded as a teenager. At 17, I bought into some pretty dramatic shit. So she takes off and cuts ties to her hometown of Chatham Village.

Now she’s back for the high school reunion and she hasn’t seen her best friend Roxy in all those years. They haven’t spoken either. Instead of calling her a thoughtless bitch and slamming the door on her, Roxy invites Dane in for some heavy drinking and girl bonding. They relive old times and go through the yearbook together. Read an old love letter John sent Dane. Of course they decide Dane should look John up and make amends for…yep, you guessed it. Writing him a ‘dear John’ letter.

Ms. Kent’s writing style in this story doesn’t rock my world, but it doesn’t annoy me either, although it occasionally veers toward the purple. On page 23, the heroine “practically screamed at him” and then at the bottom “she screamed at him, trembling with self-hatred”. That’s a little florid for my tastes.

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[Review by Annie Dean]

Grade: D

I think Confessions of a Serial Bitch is supposed to be a chick lit series of connected novellas because despite the warning that this title contains graphic sexual material and isn’t meant to be read by anyone under 18, there was no hot boinking. Talk about false advertising. Shit, I got more action when Brian Wheatley felt up my booblet in the 8th grade.

Instead, we receive a short glimpse into Hadley’s life. She’s 28 and about to divorce a douchebag named Glen, who apparently married her for her money and then proceeded to cheat on her egregiously. Glen isn’t about to let her go easily, though, and Hadley is dumb enough to agree to one last date with him, where he takes out to a desolate location on a “picnic” and then when she won’t succumb to his manly charms, he proceeds to bruise her arms and shoulders, knock her into a tree and then abandon her to walk seven miles back to town.

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