CBR17 Book 12: "Deep End" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 464 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Buzzword Title Challenge 25: Water words

Warning! Mild spoilers for some plot points later in the review. 

Scarlett Vandermeer is struggling, both with her academic subjects at Stanford and her diving. While physically fully recovered from a bad accident a year ago, Scarlett has a block that prevents her from even attempting the type of dive that had her hospitalised and having to go through several surgeries to fix her broken body. She needs to get her grades up if she wants to get into med school, and she has reluctantly agreed to go to therapy to see if she can get past the mental block that is hindering her diving but doesn't really feel as if it's working. 

Lucas Blomquist is a world champion swimmer and has won multiple Olympic medals. He's one of Stanford's top aquatic athletes and the loyal boyfriend of Scarlett's diving teammate Penelope. When Lucas and Penelope quietly break up, however, Penelope drunkenly suggests that Lucas and Scarlett hook up, because "they're into the same thing", BDSM. While Lucas is apparently a great, loyal and caring boyfriend, sexually he and Penelope just aren't compatible, because Pen isn't into kink at all. Scarlett, however, is. After a few weeks of extreme awkwardness around both Pen and Lucas, she and Lucas actually communicate and discover that their kinks seem to be extremely well-matched. Scarlett is wary about starting anything with her friend's ex, but once she and Lucas spend more time together, she can't really help herself, and they agree on a mutually beneficial arrangement. 

For reasons known best to herself, Pen doesn't really want to publically break up with Lucas, so Scarlett and Lucas can't really be public with their hook-ups. Soon they are nevertheless spending a lot of time together, working for the same professor on a biology project, and getting more and more obsessed with one another. Scarlett's history with PTSD and her self-esteem issues make it difficult for her to trust anyone. Her growing friendship with Penelope also makes her unsure about her relationship with Lucas, are they really as over each other as they claim?

I understand that Ali Hazelwood's books aren't for everyone and that her writing style can be annoying. By now, it's becoming obvious that to me, her writing works perfectly for me, and with each new thing she publishes, I like her even more. I also love that as she becomes more successful as a writer, she publishes stories she's clearly wanted to write for a long time. She gets criticised for writing the same story over and over, and yes, she does have a tendency to feature huge, hulking guys and vulnerable petite heroines. Would I love for her to have a towering, Amazonian heroine and a short king hero in the future? Absolutely. But she's been changing up her formula more and more. In the last two years, she's written YA, and paranormal romance (book 2 is out in October!) and exploration of kink is getting more prominent in some of her books. I've seen some people say this is her best book to date, but I still think I prefer Not in Love and Love, Theoretically. Part of that is because Scarlett and Lucas both felt so young (this is definitely New Adult) and part of it is because of Penelope. 

Over on Threads, the algorithm has clearly realised that I like Ali Hazelwood, so I see a lot of posts about her writing, especially this new book. Penelope is clearly a divisive character, and without spoiling too much, her actions towards the end of the book are objectively shitty towards both Scarlett and Lucas. A lot of people seem to think that what she does is unforgivable and to some, her mere presence in the book, apparently ruined it for them. I liked that Hazelwood introduced a close female friendship between two characters who were both rather messed up (Scarlett and Penelope both have their issues), and as a result, mistakes were eventually made. 

I think that over the course of the story, some of Penelope's demands on both Scarlett and Lucas' time were a bit unreasonable, and personally, I would have told her to bugger off occasionally, but as they are written, that is not something Scarlett or Lucas would do. Scarlett's choice to eventually forgive Penelope is one of the things that made me like this book more. Female characters so easily fall into archetypes. The bitchy, sabotaging ex is such a stereotype in a lot of romances. Penelope is so much more than that. She is genuinely a great and supportive friend to Scarlett. She's happy that Scarlett and Lucas find a connection she wasn't able to have with him. When a series of events mean that her life is less than great, she says and does some pretty awful things. Does that mean that she's an utterly irredeemable character? Once again, these characters are young. They are in their early 20s, only starting out in life. I respect and like Hazelwood more for including a complicated friendship dynamic in the book and for letting Penelope be more multi-faceted than the standard jealous ex-girlfriend trope.

Scarlett is another of Hazelwood's vulnerable and skittish heroines. Because she used to be effortlessly good at a lot of things, like professional diving and academia, it's very difficult for her to adapt to life becoming more challenging. She has PTSD from the behaviour of her emotionally abusive and controlling father, which makes her very uneasy around most men. She has a great relationship with her stepmother, who is an important part of the great supporting cast of this novel. Scarlett doesn't really believe she deserves good things, so in her mind, her relationship with her perfect boyfriend specimen Lucas Blomquist is never going to be a lasting thing. Their hook-ups are only supposed to be temporary, and as she keeps catching deeper feelings, she struggles to accept them and own up to them.

Thankfully, Lucas really does seem to be the perfect man, almost annoyingly so. I really would have liked for him to have some sort of flaw, but no, he's understanding, and supportive, if a bit of a perfectionist, and from the descriptions of him, he looks like a mix between Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Phelps. I don't think Hazelwood has written a single book where the hero doesn't fall first, and that is also the case here. Because Lucas is also more emotionally mature, he is able to acknowledge his own feelings, while patiently waiting for Scarlett to catch up, giving her time and space to join him in being head over heels.

Lucas is also Swedish. The previous time I read a novel with a Swedish protagonist, Olivia Dade's Ship Wrecked, one recurring term of endearment drove me nuts and it annoyed me enough that I couldn't rate the book more than 4 stars. In this, there are some uses of Swedish, but they are actually accurate and suitable for the situation, so I wasn't bothered by them. The way Hazelwood describes Lucas and his brothers and the place they come from felt authentic to me as a Scandinavian. I suspect that the audiobook will be harder for me to get through, though, unless they have an actual Swede narrating Lucas' parts. 

As far as I can tell, not in any way being into kinky stuff (happily Asexual and celibate, over here), all the BDSM stuff covered in this book, from Lucas and Scarlett's lists when they compare what they are into, and throughout their relationship, is very respectfully and accurately described. The spice level seems to be getting a bit higher with each new Hazelwood, but I still think that a lot of readers would find this relatively mild, comparatively speaking. It's certainly not anything like, say, Christina Lauren's early romances (they've gone a lot more tame now) or anything by Kit Rocha, or Katee Robert. 

Judging a book by its cover: If my Threads feed is anything to go by, a lot of people have been clutching their pearls over the level of spice/smut in this book. With a cover like this, what are you expecting? Those are clearly not the hands of people who are just waving at each other. Personally, I love that there are no people on the cover, that way I'm free to picture the characters exactly as I want inside my head. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 52: "Kushiel's Dart" by Jacqueline Carey

Page count: 1040 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: Sex (the protagonist is a god-touched masochist courtesan spy)

Kushiel's Dart is the first novel in the Kushiel's Legacy series, which came to number six books in total. Jacqueline Carey also wrote an additional trilogy in her Terre D'Ange universe, and over the course of all of her books, pretty much explored every continent in her alternate-history fantasy world. This first book is set in an alternate historical version of Europe, set at about Renaissance times, or somewhat earlier, although the descriptions of the Skaldi society (Vikings) and the Albans (the Celts and Picts) clearly being from more medieval times. 

Our protagonists come from Terre D'Ange, which is located where our France would be. In this Universe, Jesus died on the cross and his blood, mingled with the tears of Mary Magdalene, fell to Earth, who gave birth to a new deity, Elua. Not acknowledged by the Yeshuite god, Elua went wandering the world in company with a number of angels who felt compelled to go with him. Eventually, Elua and his angelic companions came to the land that would become Terre D'Ange and settled there. Elua's main decree to all of his followers was "Love as thou wilt", and because of this, any sexual act is seen as holy by the D'Angelines. It also means that non-consensual sex of any kind is not only a crime, it's literal heresy. 

Phédre, our unlikely heroine, is the orphaned daughter of a courtesan, who is taken into the household of a mysterious nobleman. She is trained not only in the sexual arts, as a courtesan herself, but taught to watch, listen, observe, and reflect, and her patron, Anafiel Delauney, wants her and his other protegée, Alcuin, to spy for him and ferret out secrets among the nobility who have assignations with them, for reasons he refuses to reveal to them. Phédre has not only sworn herself to the service of Namaah, the goddess of pleasure but is utterly unique in her generation as someone marked by the stern god of punishment, Kushiel. She experiences sexual pleasure through pain, often the more extreme the better, and that makes her a valuable tool for Delauney to ferret out secrets. Both Phédre and Alcuin feel a strong debt of gratitude towards Delauney and therefore serve him with absolute loyalty, but as Phédre gets older, she can't help but wonder what conspiracy her patron is actually trying to uncover. Unfortunately, by the time she figures out the entire truth, she's also unearthed a conspiracy against the Crown itself and needs to be removed.

Since this book is more than twenty years old (originally published in 2001), anyone who wants to can find detailed plot summaries online. I don't really want to reveal too much of the plot, because part of the joys of this book is discovering it all for yourself. In a recent interview, the author herself described the book as "Kinky, but feminist! Epic fantasy, but alternate history! Tattoos! Slow-burn romance! Cool fight choreography! Subversive theology! Big battle scenes! Lyrical prose for readers who love words like ‘ormulu’ and ‘incarnadine!’" So if you think that might be something for you, you should absolutely consider giving it a chance. I hadn't read the book for more than a decade (probably closer to fifteen years by now) and was very happy to discover that it still absolutely holds up as well as it did in my memory, and still very much deserves its place as one of my favourite fantasy novels. I had forgotten just how slow it is to get started, but on the other hand, when the action finally kicks off at about the 40% mark, it doesn't slow down until the very last chapters and some of the action leaves you absolutely breathless. 

I first discovered this book back in 2004. I bought my mass-market paperback copy in Barnes and Noble on Union Square in New York while visiting my BFF Lydia. So it felt extra special to be re-reading it while I was visiting her and her husband now in their house in Vermont. The reason I remember so very clearly when and where I was when I first got this book is not only because it was unlike any fantasy I had read up until that point, pretty much, and it completely engrossed me, but also because the copy of the book that I bought had a misprint, where about halfway through, in possibly the most tense and dramatic section of the whole book (and that's saying something), about 70 pages of the book were missing. There was just a repeat of the previous 70 pages instead. I can promise you that it was a terrible place to suddenly be ripped out of the story, and I had to rush back to the bookstore the next day and secure myself another copy (which thankfully did not have the misprint), so I could see if my beloved protagonists survived their desperate trek through the icy northern wastes (if you've read the book, you know which bit I'm referring to). 

I decided to re-read this now because Jacqueline Carey published her companion novel Cassiel's Servant at the start of August, where we get to know Phédre's unfailingly loyal (if initially deeply disapproving) companion Jocelin Verruil a lot better. Not only do we get to see the events of Kushiel's Dart from his POV, but we also find out about his life before he gave his vow to protect and serve Phédre, no matter what. Unlike E.L. James and Stephanie Meyer, who also wrote POV novels from "the other side", this doesn't feel like a cynical cash grab to me. For one thing, Carey waited more than 20 years after publishing her original novel to do this, and Joscelin's book comes out 12 years after the last book Carey published in her Terre D'Ange universe. She's written a lot of other things in the interim, and I don't think she'd write and publish this companion novel if she didn't feel like it could shed new light on her already cult classic novel. 

It also pleases me that this book happened to become my 52nd review of the year. It feels good to Cannonball on a really excellent novel. 

Judging a book by its cover: In the decades since the novel first came out, it's had many different covers, but this is pretty much the original one. It was recently re-published with some gorgeous UK covers, that I'm going to have to resist buying (I already have the entire original trilogy, I don't need new copies). I know it's probably irrational, but I hate that the illustrated Phédre has bangs - why did anyone think that was a good idea? Phédre is supposed to be absolutely gorgeous (apparently nearly all D'Angelines are near-perfect specimens), and based on the historical setting this is supposed to take place in, that hairstyle feels very out of place.  

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 112: "How Not to Fall" by Emily Foster

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Annabelle "Annie" Coffey is writing her final thesis and with only a few weeks left of term, she propositions her adviser, the postdoctoral fellow at her lab, Dr. Charles Douglas, because she believes they have "A Thing". In a truly embarrassing and painfully awkward scene, handsome British guy Charles gently turns her down, because he is her boss and it would be massively inappropriate for him to sleep with her. Annie is convinced she's not wrong about the chemistry between them, and that she's not misreading the signals between them. She's hoping that were she no longer Charles' student, the situation would be different. So she refuses to give up hope entirely. She will have a month after she graduates, before she goes off to New York to go to medical school and she's determined to spend them with Charles.

Charles agrees, so long as Annie is well and truly no longer his student, they can explore their "Thing". He's initially a bit daunted by the prospect that Annie's a virgin, and a very inexperienced one (in practise, not in theory) at that. With the understanding that their affair is only to last a month and with the goal that when they go their separate ways, they will remain friends, Charles and Annie begin to explore their attraction to one another. Because Annie has never had any sort of sexual encounter with another person before, Charles insists on them spending a whole day on each of the four "bases", before they do the deed, so to speak. He takes his responsibilities as Annie's first lover very seriously, making sure to teach her everything she wants to know about sex, while still being careful to respect her boundaries, even when she's sometimes eager to push them further than before.

Their affair becomes more than a meeting of bodies, it also becomes a meeting of minds, with the two of them being entirely honest about their interests, hopes and fears. That is, Annie is completely truthful and open as a book. As the weeks pass, and Annie grows more attached with every hour spent in Charles' company, it becomes clear that he has not revealed everything about himself and that there is darkness in his past that looks likely to create major hurdles for their joint future.

Before you read any further, it is important that I mention that this book ends on a cliffhanger! There is NO Happily Ever After at the closing of this book. There is a second part, How Not to Let Go coming out in December, and on her blog as Emily Foster, the author suggests that if waiting is a problem, you wait to read the duology until both parts are out. Ms Foster, who also writes non-fiction scientific books under the name Emily Nagoski. She explains on her science blog that she wrote these novels as a response to reading (and being deeply disappointed) by 50 Shades of Grey. She loves romance because it's pro-woman, pro-sex, pro-pleasure and full of happy endings. Ms Foster/Nagoski felt that E.L. James' book failed at all of those things and really felt betrayed by it.

As a result, Ms. Nagoski set out to write a romance with a virgin college senior (she's 22) experiencing her sexual awakening with an older (he's 26), more experienced, powerful man who treats her with dignity, respect and affection. She calls it a feminist, sex-positive, science-driven erotic romance. Because she normally writes science non-fiction, she was unsure whether she needed a different agent to represent her, but she got the books sold under the name Emily Foster and How Not to Fall is the first part.

There is really a lot of sex in this book. This is very much on the erotica scale of romance, where there are a lot of smexy times, described in a LOT of detail. There are BDSM elements, but I think, as far as these things go, they are fairly light (I have not read a lot of that sub-genre of romance). I still felt that there was a good portion of the book with the characters getting to know each other, and where the reader got to know each of the protagonists, seeing how they could work as a couple.

Both Annie and Charles are huge nerds and there is a fair amount of the book devoted to science and the pursuit thereof. As opposed to a lot of romance, where the prose is very purple, all the body parts are referred to in very scientific names, which I thought made a nice change. I know very little about the field that Annie and Charles are working in, but didn't feel that the scientific parts detracted from the steamy smexy times. Annie is a wonderful narrator, and frequently says and does embarrassing things. To me, she seems extremely open-minded and adventurous in the bedroom, considering she's a virgin, Charles is always the one putting on the breaks. Of course, I have no idea what college era women get up to these days, based on a lot of New Adult, they are certainly getting a lot more action than I ever did.

About two thirds of the way through, the book changes in tone, and becomes a lot darker and more serious, as the secrets of Charles' past are uncovered and it becomes clear that the couple are in for a hard time before they (hopefully, I'll be cranky otherwise) reach their HEA at the end of the next book. Again, because the author seems to have a scientific basis behind the angsty reasons that Charles and Annie will not just have sunshine, puppies and rainbows in their lives, it felt a lot less bothersome to me than in a lot of these novels. There was a very believable theoretical explanation for his behaviour, and I'm looking forward to how the author is going to solve the problems she has thrown in the couple's way.

I liked this a lot, and as it's already October, I'm not too annoyed about the wait for the next book. If cliffhanger endings are a problem for you - wait another few months and read both books at the same time. I will be eagerly awaiting the second instalment.

Judging a book by its cover: A couple kissing passionately in the rain. A perfectly good cover for a romance - except for that pesky (but oh so common) fact that at no point does this scene feature in the novel. I know I'm picky and that it's a silly thing to get annoyed about, but I still am. Annoyed, that it. There are lots of delightful scenes to choose from. Quite a few that don't even involve smexy times. Why not pick one of those?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.