Grade: B-

Dear Bam,

Am I a glutton for punishment? Some might definitely say so. Others might say I’m only an amateur since I’ve never subjected myself to LKH’s Anita Blake. But hey, I read every Sherrilyn Kenyon Dark-Hunter book except for the last two or three (I stopped keeping count). Why? Ummm… because I like to poke myself in the eye with a fork. I also realized that J. R. Ward did the whole alpha vampire-series with sex way better. But for some reason, when a series starts off right, I keep trying the next one… and the next one, always thinking that the author will find the brilliance, the plot turn, the characterization that grabbed me in the first place. Well, Anne Stuart is back! I can’t say that she’s back with all of the strength that drew me to Bastien in Black Ice, but this book was significantly more enjoyable than Cold As Ice.
(more…)

I gotta say, with all the hoopla about this book having a hero who had sex with both men and women to get the job done (so to speak), it wasn’t very exciting. I guess with all the rave reviews and stuff, I was expecting to be blown away, but I was really more underwhelmed more than anything. While I was fascinated by the hero who was as “cold as ice” and was able to control every facet of his emotional responses, I just had to roll my eyes over the Lex Luthor-like villain (and I’m a huge comic book fan) and the TSTL heroine. In the past, while I was blown away by Stuart’s heroes, I’ve never been impressed by any of her heroines. They’re either so naïve that they must have fallen off of a turnip truck or so freakishly stubborn that you have to wonder if they’re being deliberately obtuse for the sake of contrast. This particular heroine spends a good three-quarters of the book trying to escape from the hero (which was fair, because he was trying to kill her, after all), while putting herself and everyone else in danger, that I just really wanted to reach into the book and kill her myself. For someone who is supposed to be some smarty-pants lawyer, she is remarkably ignorant. To Stuart’s credit, she does attempt to give this particular heroine some backbone—in the past, some of her heroines have been wide-eyed ingénue types who run headlong towards danger—but someone should really let her know that “strong” doesn’t mean “bitch-face”. Add some low-grade James Bond shenanigans, a ridiculously evil villain, and sex scenes that were more fascinating (like a psychology experiment) than sexy, I was not blown away by this book at all.

(more…)

Grade: A-

(more…)

Grade: A-

I love drama in my romance novels. Not just sissy, sniffle-inducing drama, but heart-wrenching, gut-twisting trauma porn. I especially love drama that revolves around incestuous wealthy families sleeping with each other and fighting over money. Yes, I know, I know. I need help. One of my favorite re-reads is Shades of Twilight by Linda Howard because it has all the ingredients of the turgid, overwrought, melodramatic trash that I love so much. The most important element of such a story, of course, is the dark prodigal son come home to claim his inheritance. It is a requirement that he is angry, more than a little crazy, holds grudges like you wouldn’t believe, broods as much as he breathes, and the type of man that you’re not quite sure you can trust. He’s the kind of guy who’ll probably sneak into your bedroom in the middle of the night, ravish you, and slit your throat. The story also needs the head of the household–preferably a matriarch–wasting away from cancer or something; in the past, she and the hero have had major clashes, the biggest of which drives the hero away. For added drama, there must be greedy, grasping relatives who are forever plotting against the hero. They are completely useless, leech off the matriarch, and in between snorting coke, having sex with each other, and making insiduous plots against the hero, find the time to heap loads of abuse… on the heroine. The story wouldn’t be complete without the frail and beautiful martyr, who is technically part of the family, but is for all intents and purposes, an outsider (she’s either a second cousin or adopted). She takes care of the matriarch, endures the abuse of her relatives beautifully like Saint Bernadette, and gains the lust and obsession of the hero for her trouble. The two of them almost always have a past where the heroine was in love with the hero as a child and the hero makes out with her–a child–before he disappears. Well, this book has all of that and more… and boy, is it ever so delicious.
(more…)

Grade: A

Man, in the fifteen years I’ve been reading romance novels, I’ve never encountered a hero that disturbed me this much. Sure, I’ve come across heroes in the books that I’ve read when I just kind of had to pull back and say to myself, “Psyyyyyycho!” I mean, if a man followed you around for weeks, showed up wherever you just happened to be, proposed marriage to you within weeks of knowing him, and told you that he knows you’re the one because he can’t get an erection with another woman, would you call that normal behavior? No. The crazy thing is, our hero doesn’t do any of these things. Sure, he looks up the phone number of the heroine’s workplace, so he can call and ask her out, but enthusiasm is a good thing, right? Plus it shows that he’s resourceful. That’s not what disturbed me about this hero. If you’re a veteran romance reader, you’ve come across at least a thousand rakes and libertines and bad boys with so-called issues, but none of them will compare to David Carvelli. His issues aren’t even his own! He’s creepy, too intense for words, scared the ever-loving crap out of me, yet if you ask me, I’d still do him. I’m weird that way. And this book, you guys… it’s just so damned tense and scary and hot at the same time. I mean, I was literally at the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading it! Also, how about this cover, huh? What a gorgeous, gorgeous girl. I want to eat her up with a spoon.
(more…)