#CBR8 Book 134: "How Not to Let Go" by Emily Foster

Page count: 320 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is a direct continuation of part one of The Belhaven series, How Not to Fall, and while the reader is given enough context to understand what happened in the previous book, it will not make as much sense or have the emotional resonance for the reader unless you have read the first one. Seriously, these books are two halves of a whole story. Also, you will probably get spoilers for the first book in the series in this review. So maybe skip it until you've read part one. It's a really great start to a romance, and I promise you that the second part gives the story a satisfactory ending.

At the end of an extremely steamy month of physical intimacy, medical student Annabelle "Annie" Coffey can't help but fall in love with her intense lover, Dr. Charles Douglas, only to be told that due to the horrible abuse he watched his family go through at the hands of his father, and the extreme emotional strain this has had on him, Charles isn't capable of returning her feelings. Their arrangement was always meant to be one month of no strings attached sex, before they went their separate ways, remaining friends. Utterly heartbroken, Annie is in no fit state to maintain any sort of friendship. She leaves Charles without even saying goodbye and goes home to her parents, hurt and devastated, to slowly put herself back together. The couple meet briefly a month later, at Annie's best friend's wedding, and Charles is mortified at how much he has hurt her.

They don't have any contact or see each other for nearly a year. Having worked closely together for years before they started their sexual relationship, both deeply miss the company and professional input of the other. Annie keeps writing long e-mails to Charles, but never sends them. She knows he will be at a big conference in London, where she will be presenting, however, and having spent their time apart trying to come to grips with her feelings for him, and recalibrating them, so they might have a chance at a friendship, she reaches out and asks to meet Charles when they are both in England.

Back in London for the first time in four years, Charles also has to face his family again. His genius computer programmer brother and his long-suffering, abused mother. When the airport is closed down suddenly as Annie is due to fly back to the US, she ends up staying over at Charles' brother and gets to meet and see for herself just how monstrous his father actually is. She begins to see the challenges Charles struggles against and what is he fighting so desperately not to become.

While at least the first two thirds of How Not to Fall is all laughter, intimacy, getting to know each other better, the flutterings of infatuation and a LOT of smexy times, the last third shows that in the face of severe psychological damage, the love of a good woman and an amazing physical connection isn't enough to magically heal.

In How Not to Let Go both Annie and Charles have to change and redefine their relationship. Annie has to get over her initial heartbreak and figure out if her heart has lied to her, or if Charles is worth loving and keeping in her life, even if she can never be his partner. It takes her a year of processing and soul-searching before she's ready to consider a friendship with him, despite their continued physical attraction. Charles, on the other hand, is gutted that he ever caused Annie a moment of pain and has spent a year just trying to be worthy of her respect. Through a lot of gruelling therapy, he's started mapping out exactly how messed up his psyche is and how many protective layers there are, keeping him from being able to allow himself to get close to or trust anyone.

There is a LOT of pain in this book and several rounds of gruelling emotional exploration. It's quite clear that both Annie and Charles are better together than apart, but Charles has such a long way to go before he can return Annie's love and his family situation really is so very messed up. While the first book was told entirely from Annie's point of view, this one has more or less alternating chapters from Annie and Charles, so the reader gets to fully see inside Charles as he works his way up from the pit of despair, through the swamp and wasteland, up rage mountain to battle the metaphorical dragon, before he can begin to break down the walls surrounding his inner self.

With How Not to Fall, I had trouble putting the book down, and kept reading long after it was entirely sensible. I find Annie and Charles such incredibly compelling characters and kept wanting to read more about them. In this book, I occasionally had to take a break, though, as their emotional journey was absolutely exhausting to me. While the first book focuses mostly on Annie, the second book is probably more Charles'. We get to meet Charles' family, his anorexic little sister, who has no end of imagination games to parse out people's inner psyche; his extremely brilliant and sensitive younger brother, who seems to express himself best through piano playing; his lovely mother and see the joy they can share when Charles senior, Lord Belhaven is nowhere near them. We also get to see the contrast in Annie's home life with her incredibly loving and supportive parents.

The first book ends on a cliffhanger, when Annie leaves Charles. The second book begins at the same place. Neither book will be entirely satisfying without the other, they are really two halves of a whole story. While some romances get the couple together quickly and spend very little time actually having them get to know each other, the opposite has to be said for Emily Foster. By the end of the book, Annie and Charles have known each other for about four years, and have had their "Thing" for the best end of two. The course of their true love certainly doesn't run smooth, and there is a lot of pain to work through and a whole lot of metaphorical dragon slaying to do before they can have a chance at their HEA.

I have no idea if Foster intends to write any more about the younger Charles siblings, but based on their appearances in this book, I would absolutely love to see a book starring Charles' younger brother Simon as a hero, or his wounded but snarky younger sister Elizabeth as a heroine. Preferably both. I know that she primarily writes scientific non-fiction, but based on these two books, it would be a terrible shame if she didn't continue writing realistic and very satisfying romance as well.

And with this, I post my final book review of the year. Cannonball 9 starts on January 1st. Anyone interested in participating can sign up here.

Judging a book by its cover: How Not to Fall had a couple embracing and kissing in the rain, here the weather is a lot more sunny (possibly indicative of the brighter times faced by the couple towards the very end of the book). It may just be me, but the male cover model reminds me a lot of Ryan Gosling. Charles does not. I forget exactly how Annie is described in the book, but I'm pretty sure the female cover isn't a very good match for her. Nonetheless, it's a sweet and romantic book cover. Doesn't quite match the emotional turmoil of the contents, but there IS a happy ending, so maybe I'm just being overly critical.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 132: "One Fell Sweep" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 257 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the third book in The Innkeeper Chronicles and as such, this review may contain spoilers for previous books in the series. It's also a series that is best read in order, so if you are unfamiliar with the books, go start at the beginning, with Clean Sweep.

While Dina Demille may seem like a fairly ordinary young human woman, she is in fact an Innkeeper, and within the bounds of her inn, she is almost unbelievably powerful. Her broom is a deadly weapon. She can rearrange the rooms and gardens to suit any guest, she can open portals to other worlds and planets in the universe and she can mount a pretty comprehensive defence if someone is threatening the safety of her guests. The only permanent resident of her inn is the ruthless Caldenia, wanted across most of the known universe because of her many atrocities. There is also Dina's dog, Beast, who on the surface looks like a fluffy Shih Tzu, but may feature a lot more teeth than your normal dog. In her kitchen, Orro, her temperamental and brilliant Quillonian chef rules. He stays out of sight from the neighbours as he looks like a six-foot tall hedgehog.

Dina's chief concern is the comfort and safety of her guests, and making very sure that everyone in the quiet little place she lives doesn't realise that there is anything peculiar about the old Victorian building where she houses her other-worldly guests. She is still recovering from the strain of having hosted a large intergalactic peace summit and trying to figure out where exactly she stands with her handsome neighbour Sean (who also happens to be an alpha-strain alien werewolf who survived countless campaigns in a hostile environment that killed others of his kind pretty much instantly) when a particularly noisy and inconspicuous alien messenger brings word that her sister is in danger. Dina calls in favours where she can and soon she, Sean and Arland, a vampire warlord with whom she's had previous adventures are on their way to the universe's version of 19th Century vampire Australia to locate Dina's sister and her niece.

Maud, Dina's sister, is the widow of a disgraced vampire warlord and her daughter is half vampire. Once her idiot husband got himself killed, Maud and her child waged a six month revenge raid against the people who killed him, but Maud's at the end of her reserves when Dina and her twosome of powerful, very deadly men show up. While Maud has sworn off vampires forever, Arland is instantly smitten and does whatever he can to impress the extremely deadly lady, not to mention her semi-feral daughter. He even insists that he has to stay at Dina's inn for an unspecified amount of time, for an extended vacation. That he'll be close to the lovely Maud is probably just a side benefit.

Of course, having several highly trained warriors at her inn turns out to be good for Dina, as she ends offering asylum to an unusual alien, the Hiru, whose race has nearly been hunted to extinction by another, called the Draziri. They apparently ensure eternal salvation of their entire clan if they kill a Hiru. While helping the Hiru is almost certainly going to end badly, they offer her aid in locating her missing parents, something she cannot refuse, even if she didn't feel sympathy for their plight. Soon she has to use all her ingenuity and drain the inn's defences as they are facing an all-out assault from what is basically an alien gangster cartel who will stop at nothing to kill the Hiru and anyone else at Dina's inn.

Ilona Andrews started The Innkeeper Chronicles back in 2013 and has published each of the books in more or less weekly instalments on their website. They then take the finished product, clean it up, try to iron out any plot inconsistencies (which can easily sneak in as they are writing from week to week), add some scenes to make the story flow more smoothly, and self-published the results. This is the third book in the series, which by now has a small cast of recurring characters in addition to our heroine, Dina. As the series has progressed, the world-building gets more complex, the characters get more developed and the reader gets a clearer picture of where the authors may be going with this.

I always follow the story religiously while the authors post their instalments during the first part of the year, but enjoy re-reading the book when it's a finished product that they published. In One Fell Sweep, for instance, there is less violence and certainly a fairly PG ending, as the authors are aware that anyone can read the story when they come across it on their website. The book has an extended final chapter, where readers who want a more satisfying romantic ending with some decidedly more adult content should be happy with the result. There are also little scenes added throughout the book to help build Dina and Sean, and Maud and Arland's relationships. As a huge fan of Arland's since the first book, I was delighted to see them find him a suitable partner, as it's been obvious since book one that he didn't really have a chance with Dina.

While these books are somewhat less "meaty" and substantial than Ilona Andrews' other output, I still greatly appreciate what they are doing. There is no obligation to the fans to keep publishing stories for free throughout the year. Because these books are written in quick bursts from week to week, there may be less complex story and character development, but there tends to be a lot of breath-taking action. This instalment also had a truly heart-breaking chapter towards the end, which a lot off readers said beautifully captured the feel of truly crippling depression.

It makes me very happy to read that this book was number 2 on the New York Times E-book bestseller list, and 18th on the combined list the week after release, as well as number 2 on the Wall Street Journal's bestseller list I will buy anything the Andrews' publish, and their continued success brings me joy. I hope they continue the adventures of Dina and her inn for many years to come.

Judging a book by its cover: I know the authors hire an artist (I forget her name and was unable to find it in my quick Google search) to do the cover art and inside illustrations. While I'm not wild about Dina's cloak in this one, I like the little glimpse of her energy whip and her fairly casual outfit otherwise. I generally really like these covers and the artist's various character renderings inside the book. The one of Dina's sister Maud and her niece Helen is excellent.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 128: "Wild at Whiskey Creek" by Julie Anne Long

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Glory Hallelujah (yup, that's actually her name) Greenleaf is the only one in her family who's never broken the law or deviated from the straight and narrow. Unlike most of her other family members, who only seem to leave Hellcat Canyon to go to prison or when they die, Glory was going to become a star, using her songwriting and singing talent to make it big. Of course, then her brother Jonah was arrested for meth dealing and she had to use all her savings to help pay her mother's mortgage, and now she's still impatiently cooling her heels, trying to make ends meet by waitressing badly.

Deputy sheriff Eli Barlow has loved Glory since he was twelve years old, but any chance he had of winning her heart was crushed when he had to arrest her brother, his best friends, for meth dealing. He can't entirely understand what she's still doing in town, considering she had several demo tapes recorded and was all set to leave to get herself a music career. He hates that he had to break her heart (and his own) by arresting Jonah, and desperately wants to make things right between them. When Hollywood talent comes to town and takes notice of Glory's talent, Eli realises that the best way to win this woman's heart is to make sure she can leave Hellcat Canyon forever.

Julie Anne Long will always have some leeway with me, having written one of my favourite romances of all time, What I Did for a Duke. I can respect that she wants to try new things, having written historical novels for most of her career. I thought Wild at Whiskey Creek worked moderately better than her first attempt at contemporary romance, Hot in Hellcat Canyon, although she still has quite a way to go to reach the levels of quality or entertainment value of her best historicals. In her biographical information for this book, Long reveals that she herself wanted to become a rock star and did both singing and guitar playing, but writing became her career choice instead. She certainly seems to know what she's talking about with regards to songwriting and composing (I know nothing about guitar playing, and only barely learned to strum a few chords during whatever basic lessons they gave us in music class in secondary school). I will also give her this, the earworm indie hit that is referenced throughout the story ended up getting stuck in my head as I read the book, despite the fact that it was a fictional song, that I'd never heard. I still ended up reciting the catchy chorus in my head. So kudos to you for that, Ms. Long.

Couples who have loved one another since they were children can be a tricky thing to pull off, but Ms. Long manages pretty well here. Since Eli and Glory's brother Jonah were best friends and grew up inseparably together, it seems natural he would also have spent a lot of time with Glory during that time. It's established that neither Eli nor Glory are silently and celibately pining for the other, they both date and have other relationships, but share one scorching and very memorable kiss when they are both single. Sadly, this is just before the bit where Eli has to arrest Jonah and send him to prison for years, making the fiercely loyal Glory shun him like the plague. Eli hates that he had to hurt her, and hates the reckless Jonah quite a bit as well, for giving the law-abiding Eli no choice but to do his job.

After pretty much rudely telling everyone in town where to stick it before her brother got arrested, because she was getting out and becoming a big singing star, Glory has been forced to apologise to a lot of people and help support her widowed mother and assorted hard-up half-siblings by waitressing. The arrival of Hollywood TV crews, filming new historical prestige show, set during the California Gold Rush, also brings handsome television and movie actor Franco Francone to town. He pisses off Eli by joyriding his Porsche way above the speed limit through town, and making the moves on Glory, who is clearly the most interesting of all the single ladies in Hellcat Canyon. She's amused by his attention, but mainly flirts with him to make Eli jealous. Eli, on the other hand, has been set up with one of the makeup artists on the show, and tries his best to forget his impossible infatuation with Glory, who he's always known is meant for far better than him and the little mountain region they're from, no matter how lawless and hopeless most of her family members are.

Because they've grown up together, there is no need for Eli and Glory to get to know each other. They have a shared past and just need to get past the conflict caused when utterly decent and law-abiding Eli arrested Glory's beloved, but rather careless brother. It's quite clear that Glory has a lot of talent, and needs to get her chance to show the world. So they need to figure out how they can reconcile their romantic feelings for one another, when Eli doesn't really have any plans of leaving Hellcat Canyon, while Glory wants nothing more than to get away.

Having written eleven Regency novels set in the little English town of Pennyroyal Green, Julie Anne Long is good at creating a cozy setting for her books. The towns of Hellcat Canyon and Whiskey Creek clearly have their fair share of colourful supporting cast that help populate the stories, many of whom the reader was already introduced to in the first book in the series. You by no means need to have read the previous book to enjoy this one, but it's quite clear that several of the secondary characters here will feature more prominently in future books.

Sadly, while these books are perfectly entertaining as you're reading them, they're not very memorable. I read this at the beginning of December, and already I'm having trouble remembering specific details about the plot, except that Glory's younger half-brother and his clueless selfishness really annoyed me, plus there was a little too much of the romance plot that was Eli or Glory jealous of the other, but not actually talking to each other. Oh, and Ms. Long needs to realise that now that she's writing contemporary romances, she NEEDS to acknowledge that in the modern world, couples use some form of protection and talk about it before they fall into bed with one another. Really, it doesn't need to take up a lot of page space, but the fact that in both this and her previous contemporary, there is no talk of condoms, other contraceptives, the possibility of STDs or pregnancy. It's a minor point, but I saw it referenced in another review of this book as well, and I absolutely agree.

This book was on Kirkus Best of 2016 list of romances. They clearly have very different taste in romance from me, since the excellent The Hating Game wasn't even on the list, while several romances that I found entertaining, but really nothing special were represented. While this was a better contemporary than her previous one, Julie Anne Long will have to do better to truly impress me, and I'm not going to rush out and get her next book.

Judging a book by its cover: Woman in a denim miniskirt stands in a meadow with her back to the camera, holding an acoustic guitar over her shoulders. am assuming this is supposed to be Glory, but based on her description in the book, I don't think it fits her at all. She doesn't seem like the sort of person who would wear pink, for one thing. I'm also really annoyed by the askew "k" at the end of "Creek". I'm sure it's supposed to be playful and whimsical, but it just sets my teeth on edge.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 126: "Managed" by Kristen Callihan

Page count: 344 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Sophie Darling (sadly nowhere near as awesome as my favourite romance heroine with Darling as a surname) is on her way to a job interview in London and unexpectedly and happily finds herself upgraded to first class. Her joy is somewhat lessened when very handsome, but supremely grouchy Gabriel "Scottie" Scott is seated next to her, outraged that one of the two seats he's purchased has been allotted to someone. Nonetheless, cheerful and mischievous Sophie decides to try to crack handsome guy's crabby demeanour (at this point she doesn't know his name) by both flirting and teasing him and once she discovers that he's clearly deeply uncomfortable on planes, she does her best to distract him, so he doesn't have such a bad time of it.

Before they arrive in London, they discover that the interview Sophie is on her way to is as social media rep for the rock band Kill John, which Scottie manages. So indirectly, if she gets the job, he will become her boss. Obviously, he can't get involved with one of his employees, so any flirting between them has to stop right there. Once Sophie does meet the band, there is a brief conflict involving her paparazzi past, but she gets the job, and will now be going on the European tour with the band.

In "could only happen in a romance novel" plotting, both Sophie and Gabriel have trouble sleeping and it's making them both irritable and less than efficient. They discover, through plot contrivance that only when in the same bed can they get a good night's sleep. So Gabriel proposes that Sophie start sleeping in his bed, totally platonically, of course, even though everyone with eyes in their head can tell that both he and Sophie are absolutely gone for each other, and Scottie's famed iron control is about to crack every time some other guy so much as glances in Sophie's direction.

Emmalita, one of my fellow romance enthusiasts over on CBR, absolutely hated this book and Gabriel in particular. I can agree that Gabriel isn't the most likable of heroes, but I read him as a lot less emotionally manipulative and controlling than her. Like so many alphahole romance heroes, there are issues in his past that have led to him becoming an icy control freak and he's terrified of letting loose or letting anyone get close to him. He clearly has massive abandonment issues and believes that as long as he doesn't let anyone get close (be they a romantic interest or his friends/found family, the band and Brenna), he will never be left alone again. He also clearly has some serious anger issues that he takes out with no holds barred fights for money every so often. Does he behave like a stuck-up d*ck for a lot of the book? Yup. Did I see what Sophie saw in him? Nope, not really. Did I hate the book? Not even slightly.

Sophie is a lovely character and I liked that she was working hard to make up for a past in which her life choices both with regards to career and boyfriend made her do some pretty rotten things. The third act complication where her sleazy ex suddenly enters the picture again and creates tension between her and Gabriel felt incredibly unnecessary and made me roll my eyes. Still, I liked her, and this book passed the time just fine. Can I clearly remember the plot now, three weeks after reading the book? Nope. Do I regret paying money for it? Not really, as Callihan self-publishes these and I have very much enjoyed her Game On books enough that she gets a chance or two extra because of them.

It's a perfectly forgettable book. If you want to read a really good book involving a heroine surnamed Darling and a guy with a lot of control tendencies, read Courtney Milan's lovely Unraveled instead. Smite is a million times better in the hero department than Gabriel is. For better Callihan books, check out her Game On series. Based on this, I doubt I'll be paying any more money for future instalments of the VIP series, unless they are very reduced or free.

Judging a book by its cover: While the previous book in the series, Idol, had brighter, sharper colours on the covers, this one is in more muted pastels, showing what I'm assuming is supposed to be Gabriel sitting around waiting for the band to finish, or something? It's not a very exciting romance cover, but then again, neither was the first one in the series. Callihan is clearly not going for steaming covers for these self-published books.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 123: "Crooked Kingdom" by Leigh Bardugo

Page count: 560 pages
Audio book length: 18hrs
Rating: 4 stars

Spoiler warning! There will be some spoilers for Six of Crows and Ruin and Rising, the final book in Bardugo's Grisha trilogy in this review. There will also be some spoilers about the ending of this book, which means it's best to avoid this whole review until you've read both these excellent books (and possibly the Grisha trilogy as well.)

Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and left crippled by the kidnapping of a valuable team-member, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalites. A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets - a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of magic in the Grisha world. 

While they pulled off the impossible and managed to get out of the Fjerdan ice court alive, with the only possible source of the dangerous superdrug jurda parem in their custody, Kaz Brekker and his little band of outlaws didn't get to retire with their unbelievable wealth, celebrating their victory. The brilliant Kaz was in fact outsmarted and out-manoeuvred by the deceitful Councilman Van Eyck, and now his beloved Wraith has been abducted and the gang have less than a week to rescue her and orchestrate their revenge. If their previous mission was dangerous and hard to complete, this one is possibly going to be even harder. They have no money, no allies, there are a number of hostile parties trying to kill some or all of the group and time is running out.

The action of Crooked Kingdom takes the reader back to Ketterdam, where Kaz, Matthias, Nina, Jesper and Wylan have to work together against steep odds to outsmart Van Eyck and their other enemies, rescue Inej, make sure the only living source of jurda parem gets out of the city safely and finally get paid the money they were promised. As in Six of Crows, the action takes place over a short space of time and everything that could go wrong, seems to have turned against our heroes and heroines. These two books should ideally be read together, as they don't work seperately and the stories complement each other so well.

I bought this audiobook on Audible pretty much the second I'd finished Six of Crows, as I had to find out what happened immediately. The book is even longer than the first, and yet I listened to the whole thing in less than three days. In this book, Wylan also gets his own chapters, and his narrator on the audio didn't entirely work for me. It was especially the way he made Kaz sound (as in Wylan hearing Kaz talking). He made his sound far too nasal and high-pitched, like a strange parody version of Wallace Shawn doing Vizzini in The Princess Bride. It was distracting and took me out of the story a little bit.

I mostly really loved this book, and I especially loved the way it tied everything together with Bardugo's first trilogy with some very cool cameos. I must admit that I liked a certain privateer character a lot more in his appearance here than I did in the Grisha trilogy. He fit better, somehow. The one thing I didn't like was the choice Bardugo made close to the ending. I think the only reason she did it was to try to inject even more darkness and grittiness to the story, which really was not necessary if one considers how dark the books already go in depicting Kaz's past and how he lost his brother, Inej's separation from her family and forced prostitution, what Wylan discovers about his parents, Matthias' time in prison, how Nina had to survive in Ketterdam and so on. What she chooses to do in the final act of the story feels cheap and actually robs the story of something, and it made me absolutely furious.

Vague spoilers for Ruin and Rising and also this book. At the end of this book, a character is actually pretty much resurrected with magic, from the point of actual honest to god death, just so our heroine can have a happy ending of sorts. This storyline actually makes the huge sacrifice of said character mean a lot less and while it would have been a bit of a bummer ending for the book, it would have felt appropriate with what happens earlier in the plot. Instead we get a "everybody lives" situation, and the characters haven't actually sacrificed much of anything, they end up exactly where they'd be happiest.

I have a theory that Bardugo possibly regretted this ending somewhat, and therefore decided to prove that she could be ruthless and there could be personal loss and despite the character's saying of "No mourners, no funerals", she wanted them to have to say goodbye to one of their own. It's a very Joss Whedon-y move, offing one beloved cast member just so the others will be extra sad, and it annoyed me as much here as it tends to do in Whedon's work.

Bardugo's choice, which I think seriously takes away from my enjoyment of the book, makes me deduct one star from the total rating. Nonetheless, this is the end of an excellent duology and the promise that Bardugo showed in her first three books has developed even further into a great pair of books. As well as continuing the plotting and scheming with a new and different heist, all the romantic promise in the first book comes to fruition in this book, with three amazing couples, all of whom I loved to read about and spend time with. These characters are all, in their way, so damaged and broken, they have such pain in their pasts and need each other so very much. For characters so young, they have lived through so much pain. By the end, there is a promise of a better life for them, and I really hope that if Bardugo continues to write books from her Grishaverse, we meet some of them again in future instalments.

Judging a book by its cover: Another cover combining towering buildings and a dark and ominous crow. I don't really have another way of saying that I love these covers, so I'll just leave it at that.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 120: "Hold Me" by Courtney Milan

Page count: 303 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Maria Lopez runs a small niche blog where she imagines apocalyptic disaster scenarios and uses her comprehensive knowledge of science to figure out how to best try to avoid said scenarios. While it used to be just a hobby, and the blog wasn't widely read, recently it's getting a lot more visitors, and Maria has started getting actual job offers. She has kept her real identity closely guarded, so none of the people offering to hire her know that she's a woman, working towards her actuary degree. Maria doesn't really have a lot of friends or family around to support her. There's her roommate Tina, who is also her best friend, there's Angela, who's sometimes more of a chore than a support to Maria, there's her brother and there's her grandmother. She's cautious both professionally and emotionally, because she's been badly hurt in the past.

Jay na Thalang is utterly driven, and he knows he's a genius at what he does. He works hard, never slows down and expects the same kind of all-consuming passion for science from all those who work under him as well. He has a strained relationship with his parents, due to a tragedy in their past, and he barely has any friends, as they never seem to stick around once they realise he barely has time for them. Maria's brother is one of the few people who has still stuck around, and he tries to set Maria and Jay up. It is an absolute disaster. Jay misunderstands why Maria is initially there, and has judged her and found her a frivolous airhead before she has a chance to even speak much. While they both find the other physically attractive, it's pretty much hate at first sight.

What neither Maria nor Jay know, is that they already know each other. Jay is a huge fan of Maria's apocalypse blog, and they've been exchanging messages for nearly a year. Messages that have gone from polite conversation to develop into friendship and possibly even something more. These conversations, where both are hidden behind Internet user names, continue to get more flirtatious, even as Jay and Maria keep running into each other in real life and fanning the flames of their animosity towards one another. Are they ever going to discover the truth?

This is a romance novel. Of course they are going to find out! I was very worried about how Courtney Milan was going to handle it, because in the hands of a lesser author, this situation would be drawn-out and painful and involve lies and added complication. I needn't have worried. In her normal inimitable fashion, Ms. Milan defuses the situation quickly, and while Jay initially considers lying to Maria, once he realises who she really is, he instead confesses exactly who he is to her online, and how he know who she is. He does this, knowing that their many hateful exchanges over the past months may mean that Maria never wants to see him again. He nonetheless doesn't want to lie to her.

Courtney Milan has shown herself to be quite progressive in the past, with both lesbian and homosexual supporting characters in several of her historical novels. She's had inter-racial romances, and several of her heroines have had a scientific background. In this book, the heroine is a Latina trans woman, and the fact that she is trans is never made into a huge issue. The hero is a half-Chinese, half-Thai bisexual man, where again, it's not really made into a big deal that he used to have a boyfriend, now he doesn't. Milan clearly knows a lot about the sort of discrimination and treatment women in the STEM fields face and many of these issues are addressed over the course of this book.

Jay doesn't believe himself to be a sexist, judgemental jerk. He's a big believer in what intelligent and driven women can do, after all, his mother is one of the CEOs of massive tech company Cyclone (think Apple). Yet in his early encounters with Maria, he dismisses her intelligence immediately, because she likes to wear high heels, makeup and dress in pretty clothes. Because she has interests outside of science and likes to talk to her brother about pop culture and entertainment, she can't possibly have valid thoughts or theories science or more serious topics. Through several encounters, Maria makes him see that he is, in fact, very wrong in the way he treats women, even his female grad students, whom he claims to respect and treat equally to his male ones. Jay is deeply unpleasant in the early parts of this book. Frankly, Maria is also quite unpleasant right back at him. Those parts were hard to read and is the main reason why I'm deducting half a star from the rating of this book. Also because I thought the family drama surrounding Jay was a bit contrived, and I find it very strange that it hadn't been resolved way before this book started.

In his defence, even as he desperately wants to dismiss Maria as an airhead, Jay does listen to what she tells him and he does take a long hard look at himself and is unhappy with what he sees. He is already on his way to becoming a less misogynistic, judgemental person when he connects the various dots that have been slowly revealed in the conversations with his online BFF and they all point to Maria. If Jay hadn't taken active efforts to change, he wouldn't begin to be good enough for Maria, who is pretty amazing, even though she has hang-ups and abandonment issues galore.

As well as mostly writing extremely satisfying romances, be they historical or contemporary (there are, sadly, exceptions, I'm looking at you, Once Upon a Marquess and Talk Sweetly to Me), Milan is very good about establishing a believable and enjoyable supporting cast in all of her books. In some of the stories, I like the side characters more than the actual couple. In this book, she introduces us to the somewhat difficult Angela, one of Maria's former room mates, who doesn't seem to be as socially aware as she probably should be, and whose prize science project is a glow in the dark shark. On Milan's website, it is clear that Angela is the heroine in an upcoming novel in the series, and I very much look forward to that. We also get to see Tina and Blake from Trade Me from a new point of view, as well as Blake's foul-mouthed and formidable father, Adam. Maria's relationships with both her brother and her grandmother are very touching and the way her grandmother supported Maria, when her parents couldn't, was one of the many things that brought tears to my eyes while I read the book.

Courtney Milan is more often great than not, and this is one of her really good ones. She features very progressive characters without making their gender identities or sexual preferences in any way a massive part of the story, which is probably the best way to make sure that it becomes more accepted in the mainstream. That is not to say that this is not an important book. Luckily, it's also a very enjoyable and well-written book. For a list of recommendations to Milan's best works, do check out my fellow romance enthusiast, Mrs. Julien's blog.

Judging a book by its cover: I have in vain tried to find out whether the female cover model is actually trans, or whether they just found a Latina woman and figured it was good enough. Considering how progressive Milan, both in her writing and online, I would think she will have tried her best to actually get a trans woman to portray Maria. It's would be such an important step for trans visibility. Is this how I pictured the characters? Not really, but I don't mind, and compared to many of the edited wedding dress photos of Milan's historicals, it's a perfectly nice cover.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 119: "Rock Wedding" by Nalini Singh

Page count: 345 pages
Rating: 3 stars

OK, it's been nearly two months since I finished this, and it wasn't exactly the most memorable of romances to begin with. Let's see what I can still remember.

Sarah Smith, who never really had a very stable home life, hooks up with rock star Abe Bellamy and ends up pregnant. He wants to do right by her and marries her. She adores him, he seems to like their bedroom antics, but is closed off and withholding emotionally (although secretly, deep down, he clearly cares for her, he just can't express it - you know the drill). Also, he has an alcohol and substance abuse problem. When Sarah loses the baby, she is devastated, and worries that she'll lose Abe as well, but hopes that in time he will come to love her as much as she does him.

His addictions are a major problem, however, and when he becomes aggressive and verbally abusive one evening, basically saying that he's only keeping her around for the hot sex and the arm candy she provides at events, Sarah finally has enough. She packs her bags and leaves, only to discover that Abe doesn't seem interested in fighting to get her back. After a couple of months of wondering if he's going to come see her, she decides to go on a massive spending spree, maxing out all the credit cards he gave her, before filing for divorce.

Now, Sarah clearly knows how to pick them. She goes straight from her really rotten relationship with Abe into a rebound relationship with an older man who initially seems very caring and protective, but who gets increasingly more impatient and annoyed with her once she takes too long to grieve for their baby, who died shortly after birth and who eventually gets physically abusive when it's clear that she wants to try to make something of herself and get a business running, no longer needing to cling to him constantly for emotional support. He hits her publicly at a music festival where Abe's band is playing and the extended group of the Rock Kiss books take care of Sarah and make sure she's safe.

Abe is now sober and full of regret. He (rightfully) feels that he is partially responsible for driving Sarah into the arms of this nasty piece of work, and has always regretted the way he treated her when they were married. He not only wants to make amends, but starts a determined campaign to win her back. Can Sarah possibly risk her heart being broken once more, by letting him have a second chance?

The first third of the book or so covers Abe and Sarah's absolutely disastrous first marriage and Sarah's subsequent train wreck of a rebound relationship. By the time she meets Abe, his band mates (all of whom she never really connected with when she and Abe were first married) and their girlfriends again at the music festival where her current relationship comes to a dramatic end, she has worked hard and determinedly to process the grief of her dead son, and built a thriving independent business that she's very proud of. Because the complexes developed from her bad upbringing led her to make bad choices romantically, she has had to work to redefine who she is and what she wants, and is no longer the young, needy and impressionable woman who first fell for Abe.

She's learned the hard way that she can only ever count on herself, and while the chemistry between her and Abe is still sizzling, she cannot let herself forget just how much he hurt her, and what a rubbish husband he was first time around. Having gone trough rehab and stayed clean, Abe has also had to go several rounds with himself and knows that the way he treated Sarah before was abysmal. In his defence, he doesn't blame it all on the drink and the drugs, some of it was just emotional immaturity, as well. Having gotten the chance to reunite with her, and to really apologise and make up for his past misdeeds, and eventually maybe win her back becomes his one goal.

Sarah discovers, to her surprise, that all of Abe's band members are entirely on her side, even though she took Abe for all she could in the divorce. They were troubled by his addictions too, but didn't know how to intercede while they were having troubles. Their current girlfriends are all completely supportive of her and Sarah realises that she likes these very different women and is open to the idea of becoming friends with them. From having to manage entirely on her own (at least emotionally), she starts having a reliable network around her and while they all love Abe, they understand that Sarah forgiving him and re-considering a relationship with him is entirely her choice.

SPOILER! Of course, it turns out that while she's had trouble before, Sarah is clearly super fertile. She gets pregnant while ON THE PILL (I think there may have been a stomach bug involved that lessened the effect, but still) and wants to keep the baby. Abe obviously wants to be there for both her and the child, but they have negotiations to make before that can happen. Now, as someone who has tried unsuccessfully for years to get pregnant, and has so far gone through three unsuccessful IVF attempts (so broken not even modern science can help me conceive, I would make the worst romance heroine), this was pretty much just a slap in the face for me. For people without my fertility woes, this probably won't be as much of a big deal, but to me, it absolutely added to my general feelings of dissatisfaction with the book.

As well the story of Abe and Sarah's (spoiler) reconciliation, we get to see all the other couples (with the exception of Charlie and her T-Rex - who get hitched in New Zealand "off-screen") in the series get married over the course of this book. By the end of the story, all the couples are happily married.
This is, as far as I'm aware, the final book in Nalini Singh's Rock Kiss series. It certainly ties up all the ends neatly. A couple of the books are worthwhile entertainment, but on the whole, I would say that her paranormal books are way better and that there are so many better contemporary romance writers out there. I can see why she'd want to branch out and try new things, I just don't think this experiment has been that successful. 

Judging a book by its cover: Nalini Singh self-publishes these romances, and I would think that this (like the covers of the others in the series) are stock photos, in this case of an African American, clearly meant to be Abe, playing what looks like a grand piano. It's not exactly very exciting, but sometimes it's nice to get a change from the gleaming naked muscular chests that frequently adorn these covers. At least the image is appropriate to the action contained within.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 114: "Ruin and Rising" by Leigh Bardugo

Page count: 432 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the third book in the Grisha trilogy and therefore NOT the place to start reading. This review will contain at least some minor spoilers for the previous books in the series, and who starts a trilogy with the third book anyway? Go read from the beginning, starting with Shadow and Bone. This review will be here when you're caught up.

Alina is shadow of her former self, trapped in tunnels underground, "protected" by the zealous Apparat (former high priest of Ravka) and his devoted followers, who worship her as a living saint. She is unable to summon her powers, but has to put on a show for the crowds (aided by illusion and trickery) to placate the high priest. She drained herself completely in her last confrontation with the Darkling, intending to kill them both. Now what remains of Ravka's royal family may be dead, the Second Army is in tatters, and Alina and her tiny band of loyal friends have to figure out a way to get above ground and away from the religious fanatics.

Having confronted the Darkling twice, without having been able to best him, Alina is convinced that what will make the difference is a third amplifier, making her the most powerful Grisha since the legendary Morozova. They need to track down the elusive firebird of myth, and from poring over Morozova's old journals, they suspect they know where to begin looking. Alina also wants to ascertain whether Prince Nikolai and his parents survived after the Darkling's attack on the palace. Having been beaten twice, just makes Alina more determined that the next time they meet, she will defeat the Darkling once and for all. Little does she know that getting the third amplifier could end up costing her more dearly than she could ever have imagined.

As in a lot of trilogies, the first book introduces us to the characters and the world, the second brings our protagonists further into the story, but also brings them oh so low, so that they have to overcome all odds and make it to the end triumphantly. Alina is broken in body and spirit, having nearly drained herself trying to stop the Darkling at the end of the second book. She would have died if Mal hadn't insisted on carrying her away, aided by a handful of loyal Grisha, while Prince Nikolai did his best to rescue his parents and escape, so he could return and fight again at a later date. Hidden in an intricate network of caves far away from the Darkling's reach, Alina can't access her powers at all while she's so far underground. The Apparat would prefer a dead martyr to a living girl, and closely guards his precious figurehead, trying to make it impossible for her and her little band of followers to plot and scheme. Nonetheless, they manage to orchestrate an escape and having had time to heal during her stay underground, Alina is relieved to discover that her powers aren't actually lost.

In a series that has already explored some pretty dark themes, this book was the darkest of all. Alina is obsessed with finding the source of the third amplifier, even after discovering what the search did to Morozova all those years ago. The idea of all that power is incredibly alluring to her, even though she knows that it could make her tip over the edge into madness and corruption, turning her just as monstrous as the the Darkling. Having seen her willing to kill herself to stop the Darkling, Mal is no longer trying to keep his distance from her, instead doing his best to help and protect her. For a lot of the book, they are aided only by a ragtag group of Grisha, and the odds of their succeeding in a third confrontation with the centuries old sorcerer are so slim.

I was really impressed with the final quarter of this book, and where Bardugo took the story. I'm not sure she needed to go to the lengths she did to establish that yes, the Darkling is totes evil, so evil, you guys. The choices facing Alina and Mal towards the end are not easy ones, and the sacrifices required to ensure victory are staggering. Some might say that the very end is a bit of a cop-out (and all those people pissed off that Alina didn't end up with the Darkling should have their heads examined), but I felt that due to what came before, it was earned, and the epilogue was bitter-sweet.

While I'm totally on board with Alina as a heroine in this one and didn't actually feel Mal was a total waste of space in this one (he still ranks behind pretty much any of the others in the supporting cast), I am still baffled by much romantic attention she keeps attracting throughout the series. Made no sense to me, and I didn't think she had chemistry with either of them. As a character in her own right, she goes through a hell of a lot of challenges over the course of the trilogy and her personality develops a lot.

Based on this book, I would feel comfortable recommending the trilogy to others. I found the first book a bit hard to get into (and Alina alternately boring and unbearable), the second book was a lot more entertaining, while this was a thrilling conclusion, which did not go in the direction I was expecting. Having heard great things about Bardugo's new series, I now no longer feel I would be cheating in some way when I start it. It just seems right to read things in the correct order.

Judging a book by its cover: It seems fitting that the third and darkest book in the trilogy has a colour scheme evoking blood, fire and ashes. The firebird that Alina is searching throughout crowns the top of the book, while a dark city appears to be burning in the central image. I mentioned in my review of the previous book how much I love these covers. That bears repeating. They are very striking and I love how each of the books' titles give the reader a glimpse of what to expect.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 113: "Siege and Storm" by Leigh Bardugo

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the second book in a trilogy. I will be unable to review the book without possibly giving away spoilers for the first book in the series, Shadow and Bone. Which is obviously the one you should start with if you're interested in this series.

After the rather dramatic show-down with the Darkling at the end of the last book, Alina and Mal are on the run, trying to get as far away from Ravka as possible. Having to hide her Grisha powers and suppressing her abilities is making Alina frail and she feels constantly jealous of the attention Mal is getting from the women in the villages where they're hiding. Unfortunately, the Darkling escaped their last show-down relatively unhurt, and when he catches up to them, he reveals that he has new and even more terrifying powers. He uses Alina and Mal's affection towards one another to control both, threatening to hurt Alina if Mal doesn't find the legendary sea serpent legends say is required for a second amplifier for Alina, while he promises to kill Mal instantly unless Alina agrees to cooperate with him.

Lucky for the continued welfare of both of them, Mal manages to track the sea serpent in the allotted week, and as Alina is both elated at the thought of how her powers will be further strengthened with a new amplifier and terrified at what the Darkling might make her do, she and Mal are rescued by unexpected and unlikely new allies, who want to take them back to Ravka. Now that they are aware of what new and horrible things the Darkling is able to unleash in his quest for world domination, their privateer saviour hopes to persuade Alina to take control of the what remains of the Second Army and the Grisha still loyal to the Crown. With her two amplifiers, she's more powerful than ever, but she's also not sure she's up for the task she's facing. She doubts her sanity, as the Darkling appears to her, though no one else appears to see him. She needs to prove her strength to the remaining Grisha, nobles and the royal family. Most of the populace revere her as a living saint and believe she can save them from anything. All the while, she seems to be losing Mal, just when she needs him the most.

My biggest complaint about Shadow and Bone was that I really didn't like Alina very much. I frankly didn't connect much with any of the three most central characters. I found the supposed love triangle between Alina, the Darkling and Mal completely preposterous, mainly because I couldn't see what was possibly worth loving in Alina, Mal was an oblivious dude-bro who barely gave Alina the time of day, and then there's basically the nefarious villain, who really does not have many redeeming features. As far as I can tell, he's just a scheming megalomaniac, no hidden pain in his back story to make him even vaguely sympathetic.

In this book, Alina gets a lot more likable. Mal is still mostly a broody, self-involved, douchy waste of space. He appoints himself the captain of Alina's guard, and then passive-aggressively avoids her and makes her feel guilty because she's trying her best at near insurmountable odds to counter the Darkling's schemes to take over the kingdom. Because he's being such an erratic d*ck, Alina doesn't really feel she can tell him that the Darkling keeps showing up to torment her when she's alone. Another suitor for Alina's hand enters the field (because this non-descript little waif is clearly irresistible to all men, not just because she's extra specially magical, with unique and impressive powers) and I must admit, I found Nikolai charming, fun and clearly much too good for Alina. 

The younger of the two princes of Ravka wants Alina to lead what is left of the Second Army, taking control of the magically gifted Grisha who are left (many died or defected to the Darkling's side). He also hopes to persuade his older brother to renounce his claim to the throne, and offers to make Alina his queen. The powerful Sun Summoner, the country's best hope against the ravages of the Darkling and the beloved and charming younger prince would make a formidable ruling couple. Alina, of course, hates the burdens of power thrust upon her and mainly just wants to hide away somewhere with Mal. Then there's the added complication of the Apparat (the King's former head priest) having declared Alina a living saint. So many people literally worship her and think she can do anything and Alina is painfully aware that she is likely to let them all down once the Darkling musters his forces and attacks again.

The world building and magic system are fascinating and all the things I liked about the first book are just expanded upon here. Since I now actually liked the protagonist a lot more, plus this book had some pretty exciting action set pieces, the second book in the trilogy was a marked improvement. I remain entirely unconvinced by any of the attempted romances that Bardugo suggests, with what is now a love quadrangle just presenting three differently bad options for Alina. The Darkling - ancient sociopathic madman, intent on ruling the world at terrible cost. Nikolai - a prince and possibly future king, charming and adventurous, but also very calculated, but far too grand for little ol' Alina. Mal - sullen, brooding, jealous and uncommunicative. He's deeply protective of Alina in the beginning, but then gets aloof and behaves erratically for most of the book. I see zero chemistry between them and am still baffled as to why the author is trying so hard to make Alina irresistible.

It may have taken me the best end of two years between reading the first and the second book, but I'm properly invested in the story now, and want to see how Alina is going to solve the pickle she lands herself in at the end of this book.

Judging a book by its cover: A lot of YA fiction has less than great cover art. Leigh Bardugo's Grisha trilogy, on the other hand, have absolutely amazing covers. You can so clearly see the Russian influences in the story from the onion-domed towers in red, with the ominous nuances of grey showing the tensions in the story. The sea serpent that plays such an important part in the first part of the book is cleverly intertwined with the intricate font that makes up the title of the book (as the stag horns of the mythical being in the first book were central in the design of that cover). I absolutely love this design.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 110: "Do You Want to Start a Scandal?" by Tessa Dare

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Miss Charlotte Highwood, youngest sister of Minerva and Diana, is not really interested in marriage. She just wants to tour Europe with her best friend Delia Parkhurst, but after earning the moniker "The Desperate Debutante" after her mother literally flung her into the path of an eligible young nobleman (causing him to fall off his horse and three carriages to collide), convincing the ton that she's not a scheming fortune huntress is going to be more difficult. She knows full well that her extremely marriage-minded mama will do her utmost to force her together with Piers Brandon, Marquess of Granville, as much as possible, as he is the highest ranked peer at the house party they're at, hosted by the Parkhursts.

With the intention of assuring Lord Brandon that she has no designs on his title, Charlotte seeks out Piers in the library. She wants to make sure they arrange their schedules for the next two weeks to meet as little as possible, thereby saving Piers from having to deal with Mrs. Highwood's painful matchmaking. Being discovered alone with an eligible man would defeat the purpose of Charlotte's plan, however, so when another couple enters the library, Charlotte and Piers are forced to hide behind the heavy curtains, trying very hard to ignore the sounds of the unknown couple trysting on a desk nearby.

All their plans to protect Charlotte's reputation come to naught when the young son of the house (convinced that Piers was trying to murder Charlotte) starts recreating the sounds he overheard. Piers does the only honourable thing and promises to marry her, but Charlotte is having none of it. Both her sisters married for love (one to a viscount and the other to a blacksmith), and she wants the same thing. Even at the risk of her reputation, she's determined to refuse Piers' suit. Still, she needs to clear her name of scandal to convince the Parkhursts that she'll be a suitable travelling companion for her daughter, and sees no other solution but to track down the mystery lovers and make them confess to their amorous encounter, proving to everyone, leaving Piers and Charlotte in the clear.

Piers, a highly placed agent for the Crown, is at the house party to investigate Sir Vernon Parkhurst (Delia's father), who is up for a cushy diplomatic position and has some discrepancies in his finances. Piers has to prove whether Parkhurst is trustworthy, and was trying to snoop through paperwork when he was surprised by Charlotte in the library. He's certainly not looking for a wife and does not need distractions from his primary mission. Young, adventurous and impetuous Charlotte Highwood and her enquiring mind keeps muddling up his plans and he soon discovers that the initially unremarkable debutante is far more perceptive than most people suspect.

While Charlotte knew Piers Brandon was handsome from the moment they first met, she always believed him to be icily proper, a perfect gentleman. She's surprised to find that he has a lot of hidden depths. He can pick locks, has a wicked sense of humour and his kisses make her likely to forget her own name. The more time she spends in his company, the more convinced she becomes that he might actually make her a fine husband, if only love could enter the equation.

Charlotte is never going to settle for anything but a romantic match, no matter how lofty a title, how many stately homes, how influential a status and how much pin money she'd receive. She never came to the Parkhursts' house party to find a husband (no matter what her mother wanted), but to convince the parents of her dear friend Delia that she's a decent and proper companion for their daughter, enabling them to go off on adventures. While Diana is known as the really beautiful Highwood sister, and Minerva is the very clever one, Charlotte has more modest accomplishments, at least on a first look. Piers discovers that she's well-read, funny, loyal and inquisitive. She may be young (only 20), but she's not frivolous or silly.

Piers is older (I'm going to assume he's in his thirties, I don't think it's ever specified in the book) and has an excellent reputation as a diplomat. Only a very few know that he's in fact a spy and has been for most of his career. He's done some pretty dark things and therefore seems to believe himself unworthy of love and affection. His former fiancee got bored with waiting for him to actually marry her and ended up with his brother instead, and Piers knows that she's much better off that way.

While he had no plans of marrying before he arrived at the Parkhursts, Piers quickly determines that he would be mad to let Charlotte go. Despite her insistence on a love match (which true to about half of all broody romance heroes, he is convinced he can't offer her), he starts pursuing her in earnest and when charm, his wealth and seductive encounters don't seem to work, he is not afraid to play dirty to secure the match.

This book features references to Stephen King's The Gunslinger, Pride and Prejudice, the absolutely wonderful Hamilton, and quite understandably, James Bond. There is an absolutely hilarious scene involving Charlotte, her mother, a peach and an aubergine. It's witty and light-hearted, but while it was a perfectly entertaining read, it's not Tessa Dare at her very best. While Charlotte is delightful throughout, Piers' insistence that he's unworthy of her love because of his past is rather boring (as I pretty much always think it is). There is also Ms Dare's strange tendency to set love scenes outside, where anyone could chance upon the lovers at any point. Considering that they are at a house party, with a large amount of guests and probably scores of servants, Charlotte and Piers find themselves alone and unchaperoned a LOT.

This book fits into both Ms Dare's Spindle Cove AND Castles Ever After series, but you don't need to have read any of the previous books to enjoy it. It's not one of her best, nor is it one of her more forgettable ones either. I don't regret pre-ordering it, but hope Ms. Dare has something great up her sleeve for her next romance.

Judging a book by its cover: Based on the hair colour of the female cover model and the colour of her dress, I'm assuming this is supposed to be Charlotte and Piers, who clearly got a bit more undressed in the library than the scene in the book suggests. Considering how often the appearance of the cover models and the clothes they wear bear absolutely no resemblance to anything in the actual story, the fact that the lady is blond and wearing a colour described in the book is a plus. I could do without quite so much naked man-chest on my covers, but I've seen worse.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 106: "Magic Binds" by Ilona Andrews

Page count: 336 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is book nine in the Kate Daniels series. The penultimate book in the series, in fact. I will not be able to review this book without there being spoilers for earlier books. Don't read this if you're not all the way caught up. Do pick up the series if you like good Urban/Paranormal fantasy, though, it's pretty much the best out there at the moment.

 Private detective and supernatural powerhouse Kate Daniels is finally getting married to Curran Lennart, former Beast Lord of Atlanta. They ask Ronan, Black Vohlv of the Death god Chernobog to perform the ceremony, and he is beyond delighted, even after (or possibly because) he realises that he'll also have to tak on the role of wedding planner (seriously, after this book, I'd love to get a look at Ronan's Pinterest boards). Kate doesn't really see why the wedding can't just amount to people they care about showing up at a set date, they have some cake and get the deed done? Who cares about invitations, a fancy dress, cake, flowers or the like? Even being told by a number of different people that no, the wedding night is for the bride and groom, the wedding itself is for everyone else. Everyone who is anyone in Atlanta is going to want an invitation to this event and Kate and Curran can't half-ass it.

Kate has more pressing matters than her impending wedding to worry about. Her best friend, Andrea, alpha of the Bouda clan, is extremely pregnant, restless and freaking out because the baby might go loup at birth. If that happens, someone's going to have to put the baby down, and no one wants that.
Roland, Kate's ancient demi-god father, keeps challenging Kate's authority over Atlanta in all sorts of little ways, all while building a giant fortress just outside the area she's claimed as her own. Despite the friction, they still somehow seem to end up in seafood restaurants, having family dinners.

Now Roland has abducted Saiman, Kate's former ally. This is an insult he knows she cannot overlook. Kate needs to make a decision and the future is not looking bright. The Witch Oracle informs her that a massive battle is imminent, where the city will burn and people will suffer. Kate will suffer a terrible loss, and in every possible future the witches have seen, someone she loves, is killed by Roland. If she marries Curran, he dies. If she doesn't, the battle won't happen immediately, but her son will die instead. Naturally, neither option is acceptable to Kate and she is the only one with even the faintest chance to change the future, by doing something wholly unexpected and drastic. She's running out of time, and doesn't feel she can confide in Curran, the man she loves above everything.

While she's struggling with the knowledge that loss, death and warfare are looming in her future, Kate is also having to come to terms with her own growing powers, ever more tempted by her own dark side. She's getting snappish and impatient with those close to her and sees clearly that with each badly handled decision, she's more likely to becoming like her father. Initially, she stops herself from tapping into her dark side because she knows Curran, Julie or Derek (her chosen family) would disapprove, but she knows that she cannot define her choices on what others would think. She needs to find her own limits and moral centre, and resist being what either of her fathers, Voron or Roland, wanted her to be.

The Kate of the first book was alone, bitter and had very little to actually live for. Now Kate has friends, allies and a family who will stand with her, even through the upcoming inevitable battle. Paradoxically, she needs to become more powerful to defeat Roland once and for all, but the power could so easily corrupt her in the process. She needs to gain control of her raising powers before it changes her into someone unacceptable.

There are a number of little "side quests" for Kate to go on, to gather the resources she needs to implement her highly dangerous and rather unhinged plan. Curran is remarkably trusting throughout, even though Kate refuses to actually tell him much of what is going on or what she's working to prevent. He agrees to take some Guild mercenaries to Roland's castle to get Saiman back, while Kate creates a diversion elsewhere, trying to think outside the box in terms of recruiting support against her megalomaniac dad.

As a result, Kate and Curran are working apart for much of the book, but a number of minor supporting characters from former books show up to lend her a hand. In between Kate's frantic attempts to alter the unacceptable future(s), there is Roman, being excellent comic relief, arranging the wedding invitations, ambushing Kate with wedding dress fittings and cake samplings, to her immense (and very amusing) frustration. Without this lightness occasionally, the book would be pretty grim, with Kate's identity crisis taking the story to some dark places.

Just as Kate refuses to be Roland's idea of a compliant child, Julie, Kate's adoptive daughter, keeps on making decisions that deeply concern her parents. Due to the spell linking them, Kate cannot outright forbid Julie from spending time with Roland, even though she's terrified that he is manipulating the girl and in the initial stages of turning the young woman into his next warlord. Julie's first mother was no fool, though and Julie's past experiences means she has excellent instincts. She knows Kate and Curran need intel on Roland and that he can help her hone her magic skills to unprecedented new levels. She intends to use all of this to help her adoptive parents prevail in the end.

A new Kate Daniels book is among the highlights of my year and I made sure to clear my schedule (even though I have so much to do at work now) so that I could read the whole book in a day. The structure of Kate going on a number of mini quests before facing off against the "big bad" at the end made the story feel a bit like a video game, and while I liked it a lot, it still doesn't live up to the breathtaking awesomeness of book 7, Magic Breaks. This is the penultimate book in the series, there is indeed a battle, but the final confrontation will be in the next book. As such, the ending felt a bit incomplete, but the epilogue more than made up for it.

So much of this series has been about Kate finding a support network and she now has a true family, both made and found. There were several moments throughout the book that made me tear up, because of the moving events that took place. I read the epilogue with both tears in my eyes and a big grin in place. While Curran's gotten the last line for the last few books, this time the honour goes to Kate. Her announcement is by no means unexpected, and promises big things to come in the final book.

Judging a book by its cover: There have been some truly awful covers in this series (and for Ilona Andrews' books in general). I think they're on their sixth cover model for Kate at this point. In the grand scheme of things, I think this might be my favourite of the bunch. I love that Ilona actually insisted on Kate having some sort of flower embroidery on Kate's peasant blouse to reflect the Slavic traditions being woven through Kate's wedding ceremony. The model portraying Kate looks suitably fierce and ready to fight. I think (based on descriptions in the book) that her hair is a tad too long, but if book 10 has a cover half this good, I'll be very happy.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read 

#CBR8 Book 101: "A Scot in the Dark" by Sarah Maclean

Page count: 400 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Miss Lillian "Lily" Hargrove, is the orphaned daughter of a land steward and unwilling ward to the Duke of Warnick. Due to an odd and unbelievable series of events, her guardian, and then the next seventeen heirs to the title die in the course of about a fortnight, leaving a very distant claimant to the title, Alec Stuart, a belligerent Scotsman as the new Duke. He doesn't like England, and stays in Scotland for the next five years, not even aware that Lillian exists.

As such, Lily lives a comfortable, if extremely isolated and lonely life in one of the ducal residences in London. She's not of the aristocracy, nor is she a servant. She has no friends or family to support her, and so, when unscrupulous actor and artist Derek Hawkins encounters her walking in the park, woos her and flatters her and makes her feel special, it doesn't take all that much persuasion for him to get her to pose for a nude portrait. Of course, Lily believed no one would see the portrait but them. She also foolishly believed Hawkins would propose marriage to her. Instead, he announces at the opening of the Royal Exhibition that his masterpiece will be displayed to the public on the closing day of the exhibition. Lily, distraught and shocked, makes a very public scene, and what little respectable reputation she may have had, is ruined.

Alec Stuart, reluctant twenty-first Duke of Warnick, known in the gossip pages as "the diluted duke" arrives in London two weeks after his solicitor informs him that 1) he has a young lady as a ward and 2) said lady is the object of a huge scandal. Alec has a number of reasons for disliking England and the English and he also has a massive distrust for all beautiful women. Lily announces that the painting will be unveiled to all the world in ten days' time. She wants the money promised to her by her initial guardian, so she can go far away and reinvent herself, somewhere no one knows who Lillian Hargrove is.

Alec refuses to let her run and hide, and believes the solution is to get her married off to someone respectable, as soon as humanly possible. He bestows a massive dowry on her, and sets about trying to match her up with a suitable gentleman. Of course, he is fiercely jealous of any other man so much as looking in Lillian's general direction. Yet when everyone around him, Lily included, suggests that he may be the best candidate for the job, all his fears and insecurities rise to the surface. Lily may have given herself to an unscrupulous artist and is about to have her naked body displayed for all of London to see, but Alec still believes that he is unworthy of her hand and needs to find her someone better.

In her newest series, Scandal and Scoundrel, Sarah Maclean basically takes contemporary celebrity gossip scandals and interprets them through a historical lens. The first book in the series, The Rogue Not Taken, was seemingly her take on a Kardashian-like family of sisters hugely popular in the scandal press, whilst this book is her response to various leaked nude photos in recent years. Sadly, this isn't as interesting as Ms Maclean seems to think it is. I liked the previous book a lot more than a lot of my romance reading friends on the internet, even though the hero was a complete tool for most of the book. Alec Stuart, the Scotsman hero of this one, appeared briefly towards the end of said book, and both Sophie and her new husband, the Marquess of Eversley, appear in this book, along with Sophie's many Scandalous Talbot-sisters. There are also appearances by Duncan West from Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover, as well as his wife, who becomes one of Lily's new friends. I found most of the Talbot sisters annoying in the first book and didn't really like them all that much here (nor can I tell them apart), although it is nice that Lily finally makes some friends and gets to go out in society.

While the previous book in the series had some issues, this is even more of a hot mess. There are absolutely things I liked, Maclean excels at writing witty banter and the book made me laugh more than once. I genuinely like the title, which is certainly not always the case with Maclean's books. It discusses important feminist themes such as the nature of consent, victim blaming, slut shaming and how men in society are judged by a completely different standard to women. The eventual reveal of why Alec is so damned convinced that he's an uncivilised and uncouth brute, his dislike of the English, his distrust of beautiful women and his sense of unworthiness was an interesting twist on a common trope.

It still didn't make up for the fact that it got boring really quickly that Alec was bullheadedly determined to get Lily married off, yet insanely jealous of any other man so much as breathing in her vicinity. Starting with his mother, he's been told by women his entire life that he is too large, coarse, brutish and uncivilised. His mother eventually ran away from Scotland, and it seems more than one woman has treated Alec mostly like a glorified sex toy, good for nothing but a quick affair, but never anything more lasting. His internal monologue about how precious and exquisite she was, while he was brutish and unworthy still got on my nerves. I'm not really surprised that society at large sees him as a brute, when he literally tears doors of hinges and rampages around like a jealous madman for much of the book.

Lily keeps being described as devastatingly beautiful, but it has clearly not brought her any happiness and living holed up, isolated from polite society, without any chance to experience the world or make friends makes her a far too easy victim for Derek Hawkins. While waiting for the Diluted Duke to acknowledge her existence, she has dreamed of a season, of balls, dancing, marriage and children, and she has no wish to be forced into marriage in less than two weeks just to quell the gossip. Some of the behaviour she exhibits to drive suitors off is just bizarre, though, and the various madcap schemes that she and/or Alec devise to try to stop the painting from being displayed seem strange and out of place.

There is also an aspect of insta-love here, a trope I'm less than fond of. From figuratively hissing and spitting at each other during their first encounter, fewer than ten days pass before Lily and Alec are madly besotted with one another, ready to elope for Scotland to spend the rest of their days together. Would it really have hurt to have the story take place over a slightly longer span of time, say a month? It would have made the romance more believable, certainly.

I think there is only one more book left in this series, which seems to be going for celebrity divorce proceedings, with the eldest Talbot-sister, Seraphina, petitioning the House of Lords for divorce from her husband, the Duke of Haven (I severely doubt they'll end the book divorced). I desperately hope that it is better than the first two in the series, which keep going down in my estimation the more I think about them. Sarah Maclean has been removed from my auto-buy list and is quickly moving into the "only on sale" category, which is a shame, because I really love some of her earlier books.

Judging a book by its cover: Here we have another example of that baffling new romance cover trend, with the dresses with fabric that go on for miles and mile, but still inexplicably show most of the heroine's naked legs. Just in case you didn't figure out from the title of the book that it's about a Scotsman, the cover designer has helpfully added some tartan to the floor. I like the colour of the dress, it's pretty, but it is otherwise in no way period appropriate (for any period, really, this is made up historical clothing). I highly recommend you go to Goodreads to see the splashback cover though, where this exact romance cover is shown (presumably) as the scandalous painting (Worst. Nude. Portrait. Ever) in question, while the hero and heroine sort of smooch. It's hilarious.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR8 Book 100: "First Star I See Tonight" by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Piper Dove wants to become the best private detective in Chicago. First, though, she desperately needs to make enough to keep her agency afloat. Her over-protective dad, who didn't think it was appropriate for Piper to follow in his footsteps, left the agency to her greedy step-mum and Piper has spent every penny she had to buy it back, so she can run it herself. She's giving everything on her first job, trailing former quarterback for the Chicago Stars football team, now nightclub owner, Cooper Graham, but no matter what disguises she dons, he seems to be able to spot her instantly. She refuses to blow her cover, and claims to be his stalker, "not full-out barmy, just mildly...unhinged".

Cooper "Coop" Graham retired while at the top of his game, rather than risk injury from the sport he loved. Now he runs the successful Spiral, a hot new nightclub he's hoping he might be able to turn into a chain of clubs. He doesn't understand why this unusual young woman might be following him all the time, and once he discovers that she's a P.I, he naturally wants to know who hired her. Piper staunchly refuses, but tells him to keep a closer eye on his bar staff. Once he realises that she's completely correct and that at least one of his employees is stealing from him, he hires her on to discover if there are other discrepancies among the staff. As she works there, it becomes obvious that someone is out to get Coop, both by sabotaging his nightclub and possibly threatening his life, as well. Piper pretty much takes on the role as his bodyguard, determined to keep him safe, whether he wants it or not.

As Piper moves into one of the apartments over the nightclub (she needs to sublet her own place to make ends meet), and spends pretty much every night working in Spiral to monitor the staff, Coop grows to really like the determined detective. He sets out to seduce her, but quickly realises that he may be falling for her, faster than expected. Piper, raised by her father to be tough as nails, has always been taught that feelings are a weakness. She was raised to be a tomboy, and has never really had anything but casual relationships, as she pulls away before things get too emotional. How can he convince her that they have something worthwhile and keep her from running away, just as it's getting really good?

I read all of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Chicago Stars books over the summer in 2014 (Cannonball 6, for those paying attention). Some, I enjoyed a lot, like Match Me If You Can and Natural Born Charmer, whilst others I hated vehemently, like This Heart of Mine. This book is supposed to be book 8 in the series, but you really don't need to have read any of the earlier ones, and the connection to the Chicago Stars team is pretty tenuous. For those who have read the other books, there are cameos from former characters, like Phoebe Somerville Calebow from It Had to Be You. Heath and Annabelle from Match Me If You Can make more than one appearance and play a part in getting our couple towards their HEA.

This was a fun book, with some unusual minor storylines. Piper's elderly neighbour, Mrs Berkovitz, insists on hiring Piper for a stake out of the park where she is sure she saw her dead (and buried) husband. Piper is deeply uncomfortable taking the job, but after she spots a guy from a distance that looks a lot like the deceased Mr Berkovitz, she keeps on investigating the case to help her friend. She also befriends Jada, a teenager who lives in the other apartment over Spiral, who is involved in some sort of epic nerfgun battle with people at her new school. Then there's the Pakistani girl she insists that she and Coop rescue from indentured slavery to a Middle Eastern principality, which leads to a road trip to Canada, and later a very uncomfortable yacht trip and a snafu involving Coop's Superbowl ring.

After her mother died in a car accident while Piper was little, she was raised by her father, who paradoxically raised her to be both the son he never had, and tried to toughen her up as much as possible, by scorning any show of emotion as weak and pathetic, but also became deeply overprotective of her. She always wanted to join him in his P.I business, but was only really allowed to work behind a desk. Having finally bought the firm for herself, sadly after it was nearly run into the ground by mismanagement, Piper is nearly destitute, but determined to make the business successful again, so she can achive her lifelong dream. As her father raised her more or less as a boy, Piper is frequently more comfortable around guys, and has never really had any serious long-term relationships, preferring casual hook-ups with no strings attached. She only really gets antsy and nervous once it's quite clear to her that her feelings for Coop are much stronger and deeper than she's used to, and she's convinced they have no future together, as he's far too good for her.

Coop is originally from Kentucky, and came to Chicago to play football in the elites via Florida. He grew up on a farm, and loves to grow things, even though he lives in a penthouse apartment in Chicago. He has a lovely rooftop garden and grows fruits and vegetables that he happily donates to his friends. Like Piper, Coop lost his mother at a young age and was raised by his father, a Vietnam vet who suffered from PTSD. Unlike Piper, though, Coop never had any trouble connecting to his emotions and has never really been in a serious relationship because he never met the right woman, not because he fears commitment. They are both highly competitive, and can't stand to lose. This creates challenges when they disagree on things, but also means Coop is all the more determined to win Piper over once he acknowledges his love for her.

The final act of the book went a little bit off the rails, and the various threats to Coop and his nightclub were resolved in a way I felt was a bit out of left field. I am also not entirely sure that Coop's solution to Piper's relationship angst would work in real life, but am willing to suspend my disbelief since this is escapist literature, and romance is frequently larger than life. It was a fun, quick read. Not one of Phillips' very best of the ones I've read, but very far from the worst, either.

Judging a book by its cover: Initially, I thought this was a pretty bad cover and I certainly didn't like the chandelier or the little glimpse of curtain and thought they looked a bit tacky. Once I read the book, however, it's clear that the cover is referencing a very particular scene, making clear that it's not just a generic romance cover design, but a conscious choice from the cover designer. It's still not a cover I exactly love, but it's a lot less random than I initially thought.

Crossposted by Cannonball Read.