CBR14 Book 27: "Love on the Brain" by Ali Hazelwood

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Mind (Bee, as well as Ms. Hazelwood herself, is a neuroscientist and there's a whole lot of brain science happening in the book)

Bee Köningswasser, a young pink-haired neuroscientist, is offered pretty much her dream job on a NASA project and accepts joyfully. Her excitement is cut short when she realises that while she's the lead on the neuroscience part, her nemesis from grad school, Levi Ward, is the engineering lead on the same project. Nevertheless, Bee can feel herself wasting away in her current job, with a sexist boss and not exactly supportive colleagues, so off she goes with her surly gloom-cookie research assistant Rocio (think if April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation had a baby with Wednesday Addams). 

Bee is determined to do her best on the project and hopefully ignore Levi Ward as much as possible. Of course, while looking around the labs before the project has even officially started, she's saved from being crushed under a falling pile of boxes by whom else - Mr. Tall, Dark, Handsome, and apparently completely repelled by Bee (SPOILER - he very much does NOT hate Bee). Bee literally swoons (she has a problem maintaining blood pressure and seems to faint every time she gets stressed, scared, or overwhelmed). I think we can all see where this is going - even those of us who may never have picked up a romance novel ever before. If any of my readers actually have picked this as your very first romance novel - congratulations on taking the chance on something with such a vibrant, pepto-bismol pink cover. 

Now, where was I? Oh yes, Bee - the perky neuro-scientist who worships Marie Curie, and Levi, the brooding engineer who seems painfully awkward every time he's anywhere near Bee. They're co-leads on something called BLINK- a fancy helmet astronauts will use in space, where their brains can be stimulated while they wear it for better performance (or something, I am very much NOT a science person). To begin with, Bee finds obstacles at every turn, her lab isn't ready, her and Rocio's computers aren't working properly, e-mails and meeting invites keep going astray, but after finally getting deeply frustrated and yelling at Levi (who Bee is convinced is causing all the delays), but then overhearing him actually confronting the NASA boss on the subject, she finally seems able to get somewhere with the work. Bee starts to settle in, making friends (there's Kaylee, the bubbly NASA project manager - think Elle Woods in Legally Blonde and the charming head astronaut on the project, Guy), but still can't quite figure out what is going on with Levi.

As they start spending more time together, it becomes obvious to Bee that she may have been wrong about Levi and his antipathy toward her. Of course, Levi also seems to be of the opinion that Bee is married (having not heard the rather harrowing break-up story once Bee caught her fiancee with her then-best friend). While Bee is very much single, she also believes Levi to be attached, and the father of a child, for the first half of the book. Once all of those misunderstandings are out of the way, with their professional relationship working smoothly, they can finally face up to their romantic attraction to one another. 

I really liked The Love Hypothesis, Hazelwood's first novel. It's obvious that she really does know the science that is part of the plot in each of the books, and competent and ambitious protagonists are always fun to read about. However, there does seem to be a bit of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" in this book, with quite a few similarities in this and her debut, especially with regards to the heroes, their looks and the way they interact with the heroines (seemingly aloof and very disinterested in them, when in fact the exact opposite is the case). I haven't read any of Hazelwood's STEMinist novellas yet, so I don't know if all of her heroes are of the same mold, but I'm hoping that for her third novel, enjoyable as this was, she changes up the formula somewhat. I am 100% for clever ladies in STEM and the men who love them, but maybe have a different hero archetype next time? Short, dumpy blond guys need love too, Ms. Hazelwood. 

There's a good supporting cast in this and a lot of women supporting women. Bee anonymously runs the Twitter site "What would Marie Curie" do, where a lot of women in STEM can vent about the ways they are mistreated or overlooked in their fields, and Bee also has some great phone calls with her twin, who seems to be addicted to travel, supporting herself by tutoring rich children in the various locations. Rocio and Kaylee are both hilarious, Rocio in her morbid goth-sensibilities, while Kaylee is like a human ray of sunshine and cheer. 

I am very much looking forward to seeing what Ms. Hazelwood does next. As I mentioned, I hope it's in a slightly different vein from her first two novels, it's good to stretch your metaphorical wings, lady. I will probably check out the STEMinist novellas while I wait. 

Judging a book by its cover: As I mentioned further up in my review, this cover really is an extremely vivid pink, for the most part. I do like that on The Love Hypothesis, the cover was mainly blue with pink writing, while here it's pink with mostly blueish-green writing (like a dark teal). I'm still not a huge fan of the animated covers, but Ms. Hazelwood is lucky to have a talented cover artist, and the image of Levi carrying Bee (which happens multiple times in the story) is pretty darn adorable. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 24: "Ruby Fever" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 380 pages

Rating: 5 stars

CBR14 Bingo: New (could also have been used for Series - last in a series, and Mind - a lot of minds are manipulated by various powers throughout)

Spoiler warning! This book finishes off a bunch of storylines that started six books and a novella earlier in Burn for Me. It's technically the third book in a trilogy, but to fully get the emotional heft of the story, you should have read the whole series up until now. Besides, don't you like fun? Ilona Andrews writes the best paranormal fantasy on the market. If for some reason you just want to read Catalina's trilogy, the first book is Sapphire Flames. 

The book opens with the House Baylor taking a tour of the large estate that will be their new home. Thanks to the eccentricities of the former owner, there's a variety of places to stay, from impressive towers that appeal to Arabella and Leon, to small guest cottages where Bern and his girlfriend Runa, as well as Runa's younger siblings, can stay. There's ample room for their security forces, a space where grandma Frida can continue to work on her vehicles, and some lovely grounds, including a pool, not to mention a house where the head of House Baylor, Catalina, and her assassin fiancé can live away from the prying eyes of the rest of her family.

Six months later, Catalina and Alessandro find themselves with a very complicated situation on their hands. There's a very expensive spider on the loose in the Baylor compound, which needs to be found and returned to her owners. That's relatively simple compared to the fact that someone has very publically murdered the Speaker of the Texas assembly, which is likely to cause panic in the city. When trying to notify Catalina's boss, the Warden of Texas about this, Catalina and Alessandro discover that he has been gravely poisoned and may not recover. This elevates Catalina to acting Warden, a position the young woman had been hoping she wouldn't have to assume for years yet. As if that wasn't enough to deal with, a handsome, yet arrogant prince from the Russian Emperium shows up and complicates things by using his shapeshifting abilities to make the assassin warlord Arkan (the man Alessandro has sworn to kill to avenge his murdered father) think Catalina and the Baylors have access to one of his's closest allies, basically making it inevitable that the ruthless man will stop at nothing to kill Catalina, Alessandro, and the whole Baylor clan.

As I already mentioned, not only is this book the final volume in Catalina's trilogy, but it wraps up storylines that started as far back as Burn for Me, the first book about Nevada Baylor and Connor "Mad" Rogan. Since they are Catalina's sister and brother-in-law, Nevada and Connor obviously show up, but the writers have created a plausible reason for why the powerful couple can't really step in and help fight Arkan or solve the murder mystery, or which someone poisoned Linus Duncan and why. They nevertheless do get a pretty satisfying extended cameo, without taking up too much space in Catalina and Alessandro's final adventure. Several long-running mysteries that have occupied the imaginations of the Book-Devouring Horde (the self-styled name of Ilona Andrews' fans) for years and years now are finally given satisfying answers, and I didn't mind in the slightest that thanks to spending a lot of time on various fan sites on Goodreads and Facebook, none of the big reveals really came as a surprise.  

Because Catalina and Alessandro are a much more established couple in this book, some of the romance takes a backseat to the action and mystery plots. I didn't really mind this, as we got more than enough romance in Emerald Blaze and this book also seems to focus more on Catalina's growing powers and her learning to adapt to and control them. She's always had the ability to entice people to love her and do what she wants with her green wings, but she needs to learn to use her black wings and their accompanying sinister powers or risk losing control entirely during a very critical time. 

 

This book probably won't be a 5-star read for a lot of people. I've seen others complain about pacing problems and elements of the plot they didn't think worked so well, but to me, this book is a wonderful conclusion to a series I've been reading since 2014. As readers of my reviews will know, I'm an unashamed Ilona Andrews fangirl and would happily pay if they decided to publish and sell their shopping lists. So it's probably wise to take my rating with a grain of salt, but anyone who's read the earlier books and wondering if they stick the landing - yes, I would very much say they do. 

Judging a book by its cover: While I breathe a sigh of relief that the second trilogy in the Hidden Legacy series has had vastly better covers than the first one, I'm not exactly a big fan of this one. This is also the only book of the three where Catalina isn't at any point described as wearing the evening dress they've put the cover model in. I'm happy that they have the same two people on the cover for each of the three books. I like red, it's a great colour. Not super happy about the jazz hands or weird lightning suddenly streaming from the female model who's supposed to portray Catalina. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.