#CBR7 Book 89: "Sweet Filthy Boy" by Christina Lauren

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Mia Holland goes to Las Vegas with her two best friends to celebrate her college graduation. Mia's dream was once to become a dancer, but a nasty car accident put a stop to that dream and now she's on track to fulfil her father's dream for her, which is fast track through a prestigious business school in Boston. He's even offered to help pay for her apartment there. This Vegas weekend is Mia's last chance to cut loose, and she sure does.

Mia is shy, almost painfully so, and after her accident, she barely spoke at all for a long time. Her two besties have learned to interpret her silences and body language, but are shocked to see that when Mia is with Ansel, the hot French attorney from the suite across from theirs, she opens up, flirting and becoming a regular chatter box. That Ansel has two good looking friends that Mia's two BFFs can hook up with is a pleasant bonus. Mia has one weekend to go wild, and Ansel was only supposed to be a one night stand. But when Mia wakes up the next morning, only barely able to walk from her truly epic night, to discover a wedding band on her finger, she's not sure what to do. Ansel hands her a letter over breakfast, a letter she wrote to herself the night before. Mia wrote herself a letter once before, after her accident, and it's one of the things that gave her the strength to go on. In her drunken letter from the night before, she confesses that she's the one who proposed and that she really wants to give the marriage a try. Ansel claims he promised he wouldn't agree to annul the marriage until after the summer and wants Mia to come back to Paris with him.

Harlow and Lola, Mia's friends, also got married and have no hesitations about getting annulments. Mia thinks going to Paris is completely crazy, but after returning home, and facing a whole summer living in the presence of her disapproving father, she decides to extend her wild weekend to a wild summer, takes the plunge and goes with Ansel. Of course, she gets her period on the plane, while wearing white jeans. Then she's struck down with a horrible flu, meaning her new husband has to hold her hair back while she's sick all over his fancy Paris apartment and spoon feed her until she regains her health. Finally waking up after a week of illness, Mia is struck by that fact that she married a complete stranger. Now she's far away from everyone she's ever known, trying to see if absolutely mind-blowing sex can be the beginning of a stable relationship.

At the end of July, NPR published their list of 100 swoon-worthy romances. Sweet Filthy Boy was included among the contemporary romances. It also made it to the final eight books of Dear Author and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books' March Madness tournament, which is where I first heard of the books. Along came my key word challenge for August, where this book fit right in. I was pretty much hooked from the get go.

I really liked Mia, and related to her shyness and insecurities. All her dreams were crushed along with her leg in that car accident and now she doesn't actually know what she wants with her life. Going to business school to please her father is clearly something she's deeply ambivalent about, but at least then he'll look at her with something other than disappointment. She's so clearly the sort of person who rarely, if ever, does something without considering all the alternatives first. So hooking up with Ansel, getting married and then deciding to stay married to him, following him to Paris to actually try to make the relationship worked was clearly going so completely out of her comfort zone, she might as well have left the galaxy. I loved her friendship with Harlow and Lola, who are clearly important supportive characters in her life and that even though they could have just been mentioned briefly as shameless sequel fodder, they are actualised characters, for all that they mainly speak to Mia over the phone for much of the book.

Ansel seemed to me to be a Greek god physically speaking and a bit like an adolescent puppy dog in personality at times. He's clearly extremely attractive, and being in his presence makes Mia feel enough at ease that she can really be herself. Unfortunately, since Mia isn't entirely sure yet who her real self is after the accident, having never taken the time to really settle down and think what she wants to do with herself, their time together isn't always smooth sailing. Extremely impulsive, Ansel pretty much just liked the idea of having Mia around when he got home in the evenings, ready and willing in his bed (or anywhere else in the apartment, they really don't seem to limit themselves to just the bedroom), not really considering how much time Mia has to spend alone when he's busy working. Up over his ears in a high-profile, extremely demanding lawsuit, Ansel spends a lot of time away from Mia, whose left to explore one of the most romantic cities in the world on her own.

Luckily, both Ansel and Mia acknowledge that a marriage is going to need work, and it's clear that they do a fair amount of talking and interacting. What I didn't like about the book is that this is just TOLD to me, not shown. Mia and Ansel have a LOT of sex. So much of it. In Las Vegas, in France. There's some awkwardness once Mia gets worried and self-conscious and overthinks things for a while, but they seem to work through that very fast. I get that the physical connection is what pretty much brought them together, and from Mia's internal monologue I understand that she and Ansel spent much of their first night together talking and that this also happens in Paris. It's just that when I'm not privy to the information that's exchanged during said conversations, I don't really see how their connection builds from the spectacular smexy times and I get annoyed and honestly, a bit bored.

I also thought, apart from his massive work load, Ansel seemed just a little bit too perfect. Sure, he's obsessively tidy, but he's also gorgeous, attentive, funny, generous, an amazing lover - you get the gist. Where were his flaws? About two thirds of the way through the book, one pretty major flaw is revealed, however, and it's a pretty impressive dark secret to have been harbouring. I very much admire the way Mia dealt with it, in a way that shows how much she develops over the course of the book and through her time with Ansel. While the ending may have been abrupt, it seemed pretty obvious that while Ansel and Mia's time as main characters is over, their story will continue as they pop up as supporting cast in Harlow and Lola's books. This is my first of Christina Lauren's books. They are apparently best friends who write highly successful romance novels together. Based on Mrs. Julien's reviews of their Beautiful Bastard series, I'm not sure they'll be something that appeals to me, but I will certainly be reading the rest of their Wild Seasons books, because I want to see all the characters get their HEAs.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 88: "Also Known As" by Robin Benway

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Margaret "Maggie" Silver learned to pick her first lock when she was barely past the toddler stage, which is unsurprising since both her parents and all their friends are spies. Maggie's father can tell her she's grounded in more than twenty languages, but she's never actually gone to school and rarely interacted with someone her own age. So when the Silver's current mission requires her to go to a fancy prep school in Manhattan, Maggie is actually more out of her depth than when her family had to flee Luxembourg in a hurry.  Now she has to wear a uniform and make friends, armed only on the knowledge she's acquired from countless books and TV shows.

Maggie's job is to get close to Jesse Oliver, whose father is about to publish a tell all article where Maggie's parents, Maggie herself and many they care about may have their true identities revealed. As this would be disastrous, time is of the essence. While Maggie might have twelve different passports and there is barely a lock or a safe she can't break into, she clearly has no idea how to talk to kids her own age. She's never been able to have real friends, as her family are constantly on the move, nor has she ever even thought about a life that doesn't involve deception and being a spy. She's a fish out of water in high school, struggling to fit in. Initially, she believes her target to be spoiled and arrogant, but as she gets closer to him, she has real trouble keeping herself detached and objective. Lying to her friends feels wrong, and the longer she works the case, the longer her instincts tell her that something is seriously up with the mission. But can a teenage girl tell her professional spy parents that she thinks they're being set up?

The fact that this is Maggie's first proper mission, where her parents have to take the back seat, actually just being her parents, is one of the things that creates tension in the book. It's clear that Maggie has a real gift when it comes to lock-picking and safe-cracking, but because of the life she's led, she's never actually been presented with or even considered any options to life as a spy. Only when Maggie actually has to explain her unusual upbringing (without revealing any specific details, naturally) to her new friends, does she realise how truly strange her life has been.

This was a fun book, with a fun protagonist. Roux, the girl she befriends at school, a former queen bee whose now ostracised because she slept with a friend's boyfriend and consequently lost her lofty position, is great. Wounded, sarcastic and initially quite self-centred, Roux provides Maggie with invaluable help in fitting into high school, even if she'll never exactly be popular hinging out with Roux. Jesse Oliver, whose file suggests he's a spoiled and attention-seeking rich kid, is actually bright, funny, vulnerable, as well as cute as heck, and it's perfectly believable that Maggie falls for him hard. While Maggie feels like a complete spaz every time she's near him, he seems to find her quite mysterious and intimidating. Their first date is absolutely adorable.

This book was perfectly fun entertainment and I liked Maggie, her friends, her parents and especially Angelo, the family friend who may or may not be an assassin. Teenage spy has to fit into high school seems like a great premise for a CW show, frankly, which I think I would actually watch. There's at least one more book in this series and I will be checking it out too.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 87: "When a Scot Ties the Knot" by Tessa Dare

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Shy and scientifically-minded Miss Madeline Gracechurch suffers from anxiety attacks and couldn't bear the thought of having to be out in society during the Season. So she comes up with a fictional suitor, a strapping and handsome Scotsman that she met on the beach in Brighton and who's unfortunately gone off to fight Napoleon. She keeps writing letters to the brave Captain Logan MacKenzie to keep up with the fiction that their feelings for one another are so strong that she couldn't possibly interact with other men and jilt her absentee beau. As the years go by, the letters become a diary of sorts for Madeline, where she confesses her hopes, fears and dreams and shares tales of her family and her scientific explorations. Her godfather even bequeaths her a castle in the Scottish highlands so she and her future husband will have somewhere to live when he returns from the war.

In time, Madeline is unable to continue her fiction, and kills off her fictional fiancee, going into deep mourning instead. She moves with her great aunt to the Scottish castle, content to go about her quiet life, tending to the tenants, using her artistic skills to make a living illustrating scientific papers. So imagine her surprise when a tall, handsome soldier appears on her doorstep, claiming he is Captain Logan MacKenzie, back from the war, ready to finally marry his sweetheart. He's read every single letter Madeline sent, and now her deceptions will allow him to secure a decent future for those of his men who don't have any other homes to return to. Madeline can't very well confess to all and sundry that she's been living a lie since she was a teenager, even accepting the inheritance of a castle as a result. Can she really marry a total stranger, just to protect her reputation?

With a lot of Tessa Dare's recent novels, you don't really have to suspend your disbelief as throw it out the window, waving at it as it flies away. She writes such frothy, witty, engaging romances that I can't bring myself to care if the premise or plot is preposterous. In Any Duchess Will Do we go along with the idea that a Dowager Duchess would be so desperate for grandchildren that she will happily let her son marry a tavern maid. In Romancing the Duke there is pretty much a fandom convention, complete with cosplayers, despite it being a Regency novel. In When a Scot Ties the Knot a retiring young lady believes that she's sending letters to a fictional recipient that will end up in a dead letter office, but that are actually received by a young Scottish recruit. Logan ignores the mockery and jeers from his fellow soldiers and works his way up to become the Captain the letters address him as, then travels to seek out the woman who wrote them.

Having been orphaned at an early age, Logan MacKenzie was taken in by a parson who raised him along his own sons, not so much out of charity as to make sure that he could send the orphan off to war and save his own children that fate. Years on the battlefield, starting out at the very bottom, fighting his way through the ranks and across Europe has scarred Logan both physically and emotionally. He received every single one of Madeline's letters, reading and memorising the words she never believed anyone would see. Daring to dream of her, even when she didn't know he existed, realising that she killed him off was a serious blow. So he has no compunctions using her for his own ends when he and his men need a place to settle after the war is over. The letters provide wonderful blackmail fodder, and Madeline has after all profited nicely from her deceit. He's destitute and feels deeply responsible for the men who are still with him, all scarred from the war in different ways. She's the mistress of a castle and lands in the Scottish highlands, independent and prosperous. That she's pretty and appears to have a bit of a temper is just a bonus.

Madeline feels she has no choice but to agree to Logan's demands that they marry, but she's hoping to steal her letters back from him before they actually consummate the union and make it legal. She's mortified that all her years of intimate confessions weren't just thrown away, but read over and over again - that her fictional suitor was a real flesh and blood man. And what a man he turned out to be - tall, handsome, brave and fierce (Anyone who tells me that Tessa Dare didn't model Logan on Sam Heughan's portrayal of Jamie Fraser in Outlander is a big fat LIAR). While shy and prone to panic attacks when in a crowd, Madeline isn't blind and the imposing Captain MacKenzie affects her in all sorts of ways. As her family actually believed her stories, sympathising deeply with her first with her separation and then with her apparent grief when they believed her fiancee died, she really can't bear the thought of disappointing them all with the truth to her schemes.

As she spends time with Logan, seeing him interact with his men, realising quickly that it's not just greed or some sort of twisted wish for revenge against a woman who unknowingly used him that's making him want marriage. Madeline's lands will provide a place for Logan's men to settle down, a chance for them to support themselves, maybe marry and start new families, having lost everything they had when off fighting for Britain in the war. Logan comes to realise that while he read all of her letters, facing the woman who wrote them is a very different thing. Because he also wanted those around him to believe his attachment to Madeline was real, not wanting his men to believe him faithless, he's been forced to stay celibate and loyal to a woman he'd never even met. He has years of unresolved sexual tension to work through, yet doesn't force himself on his new wife when she asks that they wait. He naturally uses everything he's got to try to make her desire him as much as he does her, with assorted (and hilarious advice) from his men.

I liked Logan and Madeline and their romance a lot. The supporting characters were really well established and while the premise for the story was crazy, it worked out very well. I liked how neither of them diminished the hopes and dreams of the other and how the complications of the romance were resolved. There is a sub-plot involving mating lobsters that we'll just quickly skip over, the less said about it the better. From the descriptions, it sounds like Madeline's work room would give me the willies, but it's always nice to have a nerdy heroines. According to Ms. Dare's website, both her next novella, due around Christmas, and her next full-length novel will feature the return of Spindle Cove characters. This makes me extremely happy.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

Yet another Reading Challenge: RIP X

It's that time of year again, when it gets darker and colder and the Readers Imbibing Peril (RIP) Reading Challenge kicks off. This is the tenth year (my third, I think), and this year the challenge is hosted over on The Estella Society. The challenge runs from September 1st to October 31st and while I may be a few days late in signing up for it, I've already read a bunch books in September that fit in with the challenge. As always the challenge is to read books that can be classified as mystery, suspense, thriller, dark fantasy, gothic, supernatural or anything sufficiently moody that seems to fit in with the genres above. You can go to the website to see the various levels of the challenge - I will, as always be doing all three Perils, because let's face it, the genres in question are pretty much what I read all year.

Let the autumnal reading begin!

Artwork credited to Abigail Larson. 

#CBR7 Book 86: "If I Fall" by Kate Noble

Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 3 stars

On the evening of her betrothal party, the duke Miss Sarah Forrester is set to marry, confesses that he is in love with another. Sarah is instantly named "the girl who lost a Duke" in society and prepares to become a complete social outcast. However, one of the leading ladies in society advises her to reinvent herself, and soon Sarah is known as "The Golden Lady", the glittering, carefree toast of the town. Not everyone is as happy about her drastic changes, though.

Sarah's childhood friend Lieutenant Jackson Fletcher is back in London as the ship he was serving on is too old to sail any longer. While he cools his heels, living with the Forresters, waiting to find out the final fate of his ship, he also determines to breach Sarah's glittering facade and see if there are any traces left of the trusting and adventurous girl he once knew. A truly outrageous scheme involving costumes, lurking in a cupboard and assumed identities leads to a passionate kiss, as well as Jackson being recruited to help solve a high-profile murder. The last thing he wants to do is keep secrets from Sarah, as secrets were what broke up her engagement with the Duke.

This was my first romance by Kate Noble, and I must admit, it was a bit of a hot mess. There were so many different story beats, and it seemed difficult to pin down what the story really wanted to be. There was Sarah's transformation to society "Mean Girl" in order to mask her heartbreak. There was Jackson's struggle to acknowledge that life as he'd known it might be over, and he'd have to get used to a civilian life. There was the preposterous scheme Jack hatched to re-awaken Sarah's sense of fun, which amounted to him disguising himself as "The Blue Raven", a masked spy having worked against the French during the Napoleonic wars, basically Sarah's childhood hero. Then there was the plot to uncover a murderer, which both Sarah and Jack eventually got involved in. Too many things happening, none of which felt like they were really properly committed to.

It didn't help that I couldn't really connect with Sarah. I felt bad that she was jilted, but she clearly didn't love her Duke all that much anyway. The social disgrace and fact that she was no longer going to be comfortably settled seemed to be more hurtful than the fact that her fiancee loved another. "The Golden Lady" is a self-centred bitch and I can't fault Jackson for wanting to make her stop being so dismissive of her sisters and behave better. What I couldn't really see was why he was so determined to "break her cover" or why he fell in love with her. Even when she admits that she behaved badly, she's still not very interesting.

From this book, I learned that after the Napoleonic wars, a huge number of naval officers in England were left without positions, as there simply weren't enough ships for them to serve on. I just didn't particularly care. Then there was the dumb scheme of Jack's, that turned into an elaborate murder investigation and the romance seemed to almost be forgotten.

I've bought a whole bunch of Kate Noble books in e-book sales in the past few years, so at some point I'm obviously going to read them. This is not the first book in the Blue Raven series. I started with this one because it fit in my Monthly Key Word Challenge. One of the books in the series is about Sarah's younger sister, whose hurt that her older sister is completely ruining her first season, and as I liked and sympathised with her a lot more than with the protagonists, I'm hoping that other Noble books engage me more than this one. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 85: "Crocodile on the Sandbank" by Elizabeth Peters

Page count: 262 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Intrepid Victorian spinster Amelia Peabody travels to Egypt after her father's death, determined to explore the world and see the treasures she's read about for so many years. On her way through Rome, she is forced to send her companion home, but meets a lovely young lady in distress, and they strike up an instant friendship. Evelyn Barton-Forbes is the granddaughter of an earl, seduced by a scoundrel and left destitute in Italy. Disowned by her grandfather, Evelyn is rather desperate, but the practical and pragmatic Amelia loves the idea of a protegee and insists they travel together. As their friendship develops, it's clear that Evelyn, with her quiet persuasion is able to subtly influence her new companion in positive ways as well.

In Egypt, the ladies make the acquaintance of the Emerson brothers, Walter and Radcliffe. While Walter and Evelyn pretty much instantly fall in love, the relationship between Amelia and Radcliffe is rather more turbulent. Of course, being a destitute and fallen woman, Evelyn believes that Walter is way too good for her. Amelia, naturally, has other ideas. When visiting the brothers at their archaeological dig, the ladies are intrigued by rumours of a curse and the dig site possibly being haunted by a vengeful mummy. While they are all educated individuals, as the accidents keep getting more and more serious, involving disappearances and near-death experiences, it's clear that someone needs to step in and solve the mystery, and who better than Amelia?

I first discovered Elizabeth Peters back in early 1999, when my best friend Lydia sent me this book as a belated Christmas present. She'd mentioned the series, I was curious and fell in love with Amelia in the very first chapter, if my memory doesn't deceive me. I'm a big fan of the Victorian lady sleuth, among them Lady Julia Grey and  Lady Emily Ashton, but Amelia Peabody was probably the first series I pretty much obsessively read my way through. In complete honesty, I haven't read the last few books in the series, as it does get derivative, repetitive and needlessly soapy and melodramatic as the books go on, but the earlier books are solid gold entertainment. After Narfna read and reviewed this recently, I started thinking about the books, and decided that since it must be at least a decade since I read this book, it was time for a re-read.

Obviously, since I had rated the book 5 stars, I remembered it being good. But I think I actually got even more out of it now, having aged a bit myself, and improved my grasp of the English language even more. I had completely forgotten just how clever the plotting is, how great and mutually empowering the friendship between Evelyn (who I had incorrectly remembered as a bit wet and useless - not at all the case) and Amelia is and obviously, how amazing the slow-burning romance between Peabody and her Emerson is. Anyone looking for lots of sexy times should check out Mr. Impossible by Loretta Chase instead (or you know - as well, as it's a wonderful romance), because this is a mystery first, romance second. There is some kissing, but Ms. Peters makes you wait for it. What you do get is feminist spinsters, girl power, archaeology, mystery, mummies, cranky bachelors, gentle flirting, dangerous schemes and a wonderful adventure. I'm so glad I re-visited Amelia's first book. Once all my books are unpacked and organised on my shelves, I may re-read the rest of the early series too.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR7 Book 84: "The Heart of Betrayal" by Mary E. Pearson

Page count: 480 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

This is the second book in the Remnant Chronicles, following directly on from The Kiss of Deception. It is impossible for me to review this without spoilers for the first book, hence, skip this if you're not caught up.

Princess Lia is a prisoner in Venda, surrounded by what she has been taught are violent and backward barbarians. Having accepted her feelings for Rafe, she may never have a proper chance to act on them, as they are both captives and the Komizar, the ruler of Venda, seems doubtful as to the use of either of his human prizes of war. Kaden, the Komizar's assassin doesn't want the girl he loves to be killed and argues that Lia's magical gift can be beneficial to the country. Rafe pretends to be a turn-cloak adviser to the Dalbreckian prince, claiming his master is just waiting for the King of Dalbreck to die so he can rule and make an alliance with Venda. Whether the Komizar allows Rafe to live because of this, or because he can be used as leverage to control Lia, is uncertain.

While initially seemingly unimpressed with his royal captive, the Komizar quickly changes his mind about her usefulness, to the worry of both Kaden and Rafe. As Lia is offered limited freedoms, she gradually discovers that all the stories she was told about Venda were lies, and the reason for the country's fierce raids is that the more powerful kingdoms of Dalbreck and Morrighan have brutalised the populace to the brink of devestation. The common people are strong, resilient and above all, in desperate need of hope. Additionally, Lia needs to decide if she can trust Kaden, the man sent to kill her, but who chose to spare her life instead, who is now arguing passionately for her survival. She also needs to examine whether her feelings for Rafe are still the same, having found out his true identity and had to confront all the lies he told her. Most of all, she needs to step extremely carefully, to survive the Komizar's manipulations long enough for her and Rafe to figure out a way to escape their captivity.

While Lia annoyed me for a lot of the first book, I'm completely on her side here and she has come such a long way from the spoiled and impetuous princess at the beginning of the story. Her entire world-view has been turned on its head, and she's forced to acknowledge that most of what she's known before has been lies told to keep her ignorant. While there are still traces of a love triangle, it's not really there on her part, she just needs some time to reconcile the knowledge that the man she fell in love with is not a lowly farmer, but the prince she was in fact betrothed to marry and ran away from. Yes, he lied to her about his true identity, but she did also run away from their wedding, forcing him to hunt her down. He gets himself taken prisoner with her, so as to stay close to her and does his best to reassure her that they will be rescued by his men. Kaden clearly loves Lia still, but I can't really fault Lia for using every advantage she has in trying to get free, even if it means manipulating a man who is risking his life and position to keep her alive.

While I found that some parts of the book still dragged a bit, and I found the Komizar a bit too moustache-twirly to be interesting, I am still enjoying the series. The tribal society of Venda was interesting, especially in contrast of what has been revealed of Morrighan and Dalbreck so far, as were the added revelations in the back story, gradually revealed in the ancient texts Lia carries with her. I'm very curious to see how the pseudo-medieval world in this series emerged from the remnants of a high technology civilisation. I'm assuming all will be made clear in the final part, when Lia, Rafe and Kaden are clearly in for a doozy of challenges after the final third of this book.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.