#CBR5 Book 145. "Proven Guilty" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 479 pages
Audio book length: 16 hrs, 16 mins
Rating: 4 stars

Harry Dresden is now one of the wardens of the White Council of wizards, and he's about as thrilled about it as many of the wizards on the council are about him being recruited. Harry's asked to look into rumours of black magic in the Chicago area, and his mentor, Ebenezer McCoy, also requests that he enquire with his faerie contacts about why the Fey Courts are refusing to involve themselves in the conflict with the Red Court of vampires, even after the vampires broke into faerie territories in the Nevernever.

Harry still owes Mab, the Winter Queen, two favours, and his dealings with the Fey never really turn out in his favour. Lily, the new Summer Lady (youngest of the three Summer Queens) owes him a favour, but neither she nor Fix, the Summer Knight, can directly answer Harry's questions, or aid him, due to a compulsion laid on them by Titania, the Summer Queen, who's not exactly one of Dresden's biggest fans. Getting the answers McCoy wants isn't going to be easy.

The possible black magic use he's been asked to investigate seems connected with mysterious attacks at a horror movie convention. Molly Carpenter, the teenage daughter of Harry's friend Michael, comes to him for help. Her boyfriend is the chief suspect after a man was viciously attacked in a bathroom, but claims he's innocent. Shortly after Harry arrives at the convention to investigate, a number of people are attacked by a seven foot tall assailant who looks just like the killer in the slasher flick recently screened. An assailant who dissolves into ectoplasm when hit with a power burst from Harry's staff. It becomes clear that the ghostly entities can take physical and deadly form, and they feed on fear. Harry needs  how Molly Carpenter and her friends are connected with the case, who is summoning the monsters, and how he can stop them before more people die.

I'm a sucker for the wicked faeries, and Butcher's faeries are always ambiguous and difficult to trust, no matter what side they're purportedly on. Hence I like the books involving Fay machinations more than the ones about White Council business. Here the two sort of intertwine, but neither are the central issues in the book. It was very nice to meet the Carpenter family again, and as there's always a substantial period between each of the Dresden Files books, Molly has grown up quite a bit since the last time Harry and the readers met her. Just because she's older doesn't necessarily mean that she's all that wise, though, and she clearly has a lot of developing left to do.

Michael is away on a mission for much of the book, but his wife Charity, always so very critical of Harry, plays an important part instead. It becomes clear why she's so very suspicious of Dresden, and worried about his involvement with her family, and she really gets a chance to shine. The book also sees Thomas finally move out of Harry's apartment, having apparently found a job and lodgings elsewhere, although he's being very mysterious about the whole thing. I really like Thomas as a character, and hope that he'll not become relegated back to being a minor supporting character, just because Harry gets his apartment to himself again.

#CBR5 Book 144. "Dead Beat" by Jim Butcher

Page count: 435 pages
Audio book length: 15 hrs, 14 mins
Rating: 4 stars

It's nearly Halloween (Harry's birthday) and Harry Dresden is less than thrilled to discover that his friend Police Lieutenant Karrin Murphy is going off to Hawaii with another man. He's even less thrilled when Mavra, an extremely powerful vampire of the Black Court, who he hoped they'd managed to kill in Blood Rites, turns out not to be dead and is blackmailing him with Murphy's involvement in the case unless he helps her. If Harry doesn't find something called the Word of Kemmler in three days, Mavra will make sure Murphy's career is ruined, and that she may very well face criminal charges because of aid she gave Harry on a mission against the Black Court vampires. Harry obviously can't let that happen, and so he has no choice but to agree to the vampire's demands.

Turns out the Word of Kemmler is a book, the last writings of a very powerful and very dangerous, now dead, necromancer and whoever possesses the book will gain access to terrible powers. Harry's not the only one looking for the Word. Three of Kemmler's former apprentices are in Chicago, wanting the to be the first to find the book and become the most powerful necromancer of them all. While Mavra claimed Harry wasn't allowed to tell anyone about his mission, over the course of the story, he is aided in his quest by his half-brother/current roommate Thomas, and polka obsessed forensic scientist Waldo Butters.

Hordes of zombies, wanton destruction of property, the possibility of Harry possibly getting a date with a cute bookstore clerk, a polka suit, Harry's awesome dog Mouse, evil necromancers, other wizards - some judgemental and disapproving of Harry, others charming and cool - are just some of the elements that make up this book. I'm now well and truly hooked on the series, and so glad I got an Audible account so I can keep listening to Marsters' excellent narration of them. It's nice to see Harry having friends and supporters, as he was a pretty uninteresting character as a loner in the first books. It's also been hinted for a while that Harry likes Murphy a bit more than just as friends, so him finally acknowledging that he was jealous about her going on holiday with someone else is a promising start. I also like that he doesn't spend too long brooding about it, though, but allows himself to flirt a bit with someone else. I can't really say what my favourite bit was in this book, because it would be a massive spoiler - but let's just say that I heartily approve of Harry's way of circumventing the White Council's laws about necromancy, it was a super awesome way to save the day.

#CBR5 Book 143. "Crash Into You" by Katie McGarry

Page count: 489 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer! Harlequin Teen granted me an ARC of this through NetGalley in return for a fair review.

This is the third in the series of books (both excellent) about troubled teens who become attracted to their seemingly complete opposite. Previous books' characters appear or are mentioned, but the book works fine on its own too. If you are interested in starting at the beginning, though, start with Pushing the Limits.

Isaiah Walker should be living in foster care, but is secretly living with his best friend Noah (the hero of Pushing the Limits, who's the only person he really feels close to. However, rent money is hard to come by and if they can't find enough cash, Noah will have to move into subsidised college housing, while Isaiah has to go back to the indifferent foster parents he was so relieved to escape. He agrees to drive a car in an illegal street race to get extra money, and that's where he first meets Rachel.

Rachel Young has the perfect life, on paper. She's from a wealthy family, goes to the most prestigious private school in the state, has several protective older brothers and anything she could ever ask for. Except she suffers from terrible anxiety attacks, which she keeps repressing and keeping secret, because her family mustn't know that she's sick. Her parents' oldest daughter died of cancer when she was twelve, and Rachel, her twin and their slightly older brother have known all their lives that they were basically only born because their mother wanted another girl. That means that it's Rachel's job to make sure their mother is happy, even if it means pretending that she's a frilly girly girl who loves shopping and dresses and spa treatments, when what she really wants to do is work on her Mustang and race it as fast as she can down back roads. Even if making her mother happy means speaking at cancer fundraisers about the sister she never even met, despite the fact that public speaking makes her so anxious she vomits and nearly faints. When she finally escapes and hears about a street race, she's excited, only to turn terrified when the police arrive.

Isaiah looks tough and has a number of visible tattoos and piercings, yet Rachel feels a strange calm around him, and he helps her away from the police. At school, Rachel is known as the sickly, anxious girl with brothers who would pummel any boy who came near her, so she even if she managed to drum up the courage to speak to a boy, she probably wouldn't get the chance. At social events, her brothers' friends will occasionally pity-dance with her, but she's never had a chance to be alone with a boy, let alone one as different from her as Isaiah.

Isaiah knows that someone as clean and innocent and wealthy as Rachel has no business being involved in illegal street racing, and certainly shouldn't ever come near someone like him. When Eric, the thug who runs the races is robbed by the two college guys who tipped Rachel off about the race, Isaiah tries to stay far away from her, to protect her from Eric's attentions. But Eric finds her anyway, and both their lives are in danger if they can't find five thousand dollars to pay him. Isaiah and Rachel need to work together to get the money, and their job is made more difficult as Eric would much rather they both stay in his debt, giving him power over both of them.

While Isaiah and Rachel seemingly come from different worlds, they also have a lot in common. Isaiah feels abandoned by his mother, after discovering she was released from jail over a year before she tried to get back in contact with him. He's lying to his school and foster care worker about where he's actually living, and working so hard to get a good education and secure a job which will give him a chance to escape the misery of his current situation.

Rachel can never truly be herself and desperately hides her panic attacks, to the point where they become a risk to her health, just so her parents and brothers don't have to worry about another sick, weak and helpless sister. She's Colleen's replacement, and can't be honest about her interest in cars and mechanics and racing. She has an agreement with her twin that she covers for him, and he covers for her, which is the only way she can escape and drive aimlessly late into the night. She certainly can't tell her family that Eric is threatening to hurt her and Isaiah in all sorts of creative ways if he doesn't get his money, even if it was her brother's friends who really got her in trouble in the first place.

The characters in McGarry's books are always seeming opposites, who while not falling in love at first glance, certainly feel a strong draw to the other almost instantly, and who because of deep emotional issues have trouble acting on their real feelings. Isaiah feels lost, alone and distrusts pretty much all authority figures, especially those in the foster care system. He had two people he could rely on in thick and thin, and had his heart broken when one of these, Beth, the abused niece of his foster parents, moved in with her much more reliable uncle and found love with a baseball player at her new school (see Dare You To). Most of the people who surround him are as damaged and emotionally scarred as he is, or into some pretty destructive and quite possibly even illegal. It also doesn't take him long to realise that while Rachel may live in a big house, with parents and overprotective brothers, she is terrified of them finding out about her extra-curricular activities and that she's making herself ill trying to keep up her perfect facade. He also discovers, that while she may see herself as weak, she constantly rejects his protective instincts and insists on fighting her own battles.

Written as McGarry's other books, in chapters where the POV alternates between Isaiah and Rachel, the narrative device lets us get to know both characters really well, and invest more strongly in their relationship and emotions. While the characters tend to fall for each other quickly, there are always some pretty substantial challenges in the way of the couples' happy endings, and in this book, it's the fact that Isaiah is a formerly drug using, tattooed and pierced mechanic with an ex-jailbird mother, who's had his faith in pretty much everyone taken away by the crappiness of the world, while Rachel has an overprotective family who either doesn't understand her or won't let her be who she really wants to be and has grown up never being able to surpass the perfection of her long dead sister. Her family would never accept Isaiah, even if he makes her feel safer and more special than anyone else in her life, and they would certainly not react well to hearing that she was being blackmailed by a violent thug with organised crime connections because she snuck out and illegally street raced.

The characters have to work to overcome their difficulties, and one of the reasons that I like McGarry's books so much is that you don't actually have to suspend your disbelief all that much. For all the neglectful, violent or just plain misguided adults out there who screw up their children emotionally, there are also foster care workers, teachers, guidance councilors, therapists and others who want to help and can be trusted, if the damaged kids will just extend some trust. It's clear that there are several more books coming, and I'm hopeful that while the next book is about Rachel's older brother West, I will get to see Isaiah's prickly friend Abby find her soul mate in one of the future books, because she really seems to need to find someone good to take care of her.

#CBR5 Book 142. "No Good Duke Goes Unpunished" by Sarah Maclean

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This is the third book in a series, and while romance novels are normally fine to read out of sequence, some of the really awesome developments in this book lose a lot if you haven't read the rest of the series. These books are top notch romance, so just do yourself a favour and start at the beginning with A Rogue by Any Other Name. And yes, I know the titles are spectacularly cheesy. I recently discovered in a podcast that these are MacLean's own puns, not anything imposed on her by the publishers. I don't know whether to be impressed or slightly worried about her.

The great hulking brute known as Temple also goes The Killer Duke. He is one of four disgraced members of the aristocracy who own luxury gambling club The Fallen Angel. When the rich and foolish have lost too much, and have no other recourse, they can fight Temple in the Angel's boxing ring. Should they win, all their losses will be restored. Not that anyone ever has, but it never stops them from trying. William Harrow, the Duke of Lamont, shunned by most of polite society because he is suspected of having killed his father's fiancee, is more than happy to take every beating coming, because he's honestly not entirely sure he doesn't deserve his moniker.

Twelve years earlier, he awoke with only the haziest memories of the night before, to discover that the bewitching beauty who'd invited him up to her room was Miss Mara Lowe, his father's sixteen-year-old child bride and soon to be the Duke's third wife. There was no sign of the bride, only him, naked in sheets soaked in blood. Never convicted as there wasn't a body, Temple was nonetheless driven from polite society, and survived in the less prosperous parts of town because of his boxing prowess. After a while, he teamed up with Michael Lawler, the Marquess of Bourne (hero of book one) to run dice games, until the two were nearly killed by street thugs not too happy with their business venture. They were saved by Chase, the mysterious founder of the Fallen Angel, and became part-owners in the club.

Now Christopher Lowe, Mara's brother keeps challenging Temple, wanting to fight him for the chance to reclaim his squandered fortunes. Temple keeps refusing, not wanting anything to do with anyone named Lowe. Walking home one evening, he is approached by a woman revealing herself to be Mara Lowe, who, desperate to escape her wedding, did an incredibly foolish thing twelve years ago, and has been in hiding ever since. She promises to come forward and tell the world that Temple is innocent, as long as he restores her brother's funds. Temple has been tormented for over a decade, because Mara made everyone believe he killed her. He's not going to be satisfied with mere absolution, he wants revenge.

Sarah MacLean keeps amazing me, with each new book, she does something new and exciting. Mara genuinely ruined Temple's life. For twelve years, she hid under an assumed name and let everyone keep on believing that the Marquess of Chapin, later Duke of Lamont, had brutally killed her and disposed of the body. Because she drugged him to carry out her disappearance, Temple has never really had a clear recollection of the evening in question himself, and with his brute strength and capacity for anger, occasionally doubted his own innocence. So he's quite righteously furious when she returns, not even particularly remorseful, trying to negotiate with him. Temple doesn't just want her to clear his name, he wants to humiliate her and make her suffer, as much as possible. We're entirely on Temple's side. Mara is clearly the villain of the piece here.

So how in the world do these two find their happy ending. There was clearly attraction between them, that fateful night twelve years ago, when Mara set her foolish escape plan in motion. Even through the anger Temple feels, he can't help but feel drawn towards her. It's also made clear, over the course of the story, that while Mara doesn't feel like she had a choice, and initially seems quite unconcerned for the immense suffering she's caused, she changes her mind the more time she spends with Temple. The fact that she was sixteen, inexperienced and desperate, and completely unaware of Temple's real identity when she set her plan in motion is also made obvious. In what may seem like a terrible cliche, she now runs an orphanage for young by-blows of the aristocracy, and the reason she needs her brother's debts cleared is because she gave her brother the orphanage's funds to manage, and he carelessly lost them too. If she can't get the money back, the young boys in her care will starve. She can't tell Temple the truth as he makes it very clear that nothing she says or does will sway him from his plan to see her utterly humiliated in the eyes of society.

Temple's business partners and their wives do make cameo appearances in the book, and while they are also deeply furious with Mara to begin with, they start changing their attitudes towards her when they realise that she seems to actually care for Temple, and wants to atone for her past actions. It's more common in romance that the hero is the dislikable scoundrel who needs to win the forgiveness of the heroine and her circle. Here it's the other way around, and it's a brave choice by MacLean. Mara has clearly been sticking her head in the sand, desperately trying not to think about the consequences her actions had. Temple is still a Duke after all, and wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. She's been constantly looking over her shoulder, terrified that someone would find her and unravel her secrets. She has to face ugly facts about herself, and her actions, and show herself to be a worthy partner to Temple. Over the course of the book, she's also able to make him see that while his reputation is not what it used to be, he has a lot of good things in his new life to be thankful for, and maybe polite society isn't all that great to be a welcome part of, after all.

Courtney Milan still has the edge, but Sarah MacLean is now neck and neck with her for the title of best historical romance writer out there right now. It's a well-known tradition that in series of romances, the most interesting character is saved for last. Here it's the founder of the Fallen Angel, Chase, who is left until the end, and after the final two pages of this book (which made my jaw figuratively fall to the floor and swear out loud into an empty living room, I was so blown away), I can honestly say that I will be on tenter-hook. It doesn't look like it'll be out until August of next year, but if the first three books in this series are anything to go by, Courtney Milan may have to kiss her crown good-bye.

#CBR5 Book 141. "The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch

Page count: 544 pages
Rating: 5 stars

In the city state of Camorr, a small group known as the Gentlemen Bastards work and plot and scheme to lure the valuables from gullible nobles. Their cons are always elaborate and intricate, and done in such a way that their victims are too embarrassed to tell anyone about it. Yet most of their peers in the criminal underworld of Camorr believe the Bastards to be petty thieves and pickpockets, nothing remarkable, but loyal and dependable in a fight.

Unfortunately for Locke Lamora, the leader of the little band, and his friends, their current victims start being suspicious of some of the stories they are told, and soon, the head of the secret police is preparing to finally catch the legendary bandit. As if that wasn't bad enough, someone else has discovered that Locke and his Gentlemen are much more successful criminals than they let on, and use this information to force Locke to help with an attempted power play against the current crime lord of Camorr, Capa Barsavi.

I first read The Lies of Locke Lamora over Easter in 2007, and was absolutely blown away by it. It was such a different take on what I believed epic fantasy must be like. Locke and his compatriots were such unashamed scoundrels, and had so much fun with their schemes. I've seen a lot of comparisons being made to Ocean's Eleven, and it's not difficult to see why. This is a heist book, and the gang believe themselves to be so much more clever than everyone around them. It makes it even more thrilling when it turns out that they are wrong, and someone may have outsmarted them. They may be in a whole heap of trouble, in fact. I read fast, with bated breath, to see how the story would be resolved.

Because it's been more than six years since I read the book, I'd forgotten a LOT of the intricate plotting. I'd forgotten the way Scott Lynch has with words and his wonderful world building. The descriptions of the city of Camorr, both its underworld and the wealthy areas. I remembered the camaraderie between Locke and his friends, and that their plans went a bit pear-shaped, but I hadn't remembered much of the details, and that made this re-read extra enjoyable. It's such a fun book, with twists and turns and genuine shocking moments. Some of it made me cry, some of it made me cheer, and bits made me almost queasy (Lynch doesn't shy away from his graphic description on occasion). The story of how Locke became a Gentleman Bastard and met his gang of thieves is told in flash back, in between the chapters with the main narrative. Yet Lynch has a way of showing how the early experiences made by our hero and his friends became useful learning for their present troubles, which means that both narratives are connected, and you never feel too annoyed at being taken away from something tense and dramatic in the present to read about things that happened long ago. I'm not doing a very good job of selling why this is an awesome book. If you like epic fantasy, just read it.

#CBR5 Book 140. "Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem and Other Things That Happened" by Allie Brosh

Page count: 369 pages
Rating: 5 stars

I knew I was going to love this book when I pre-ordered it several months ago. There was absolutely no question about it. There is barely a single thing Allie Brosh has ever posted on her website that I haven't absolutely adored (oh, the hours of my life that site stole when I first discovered it, thanks to a colleague telling me about the Alot.) Even when Allie didn't update as often any more, it was always a delight when there was something new. So many of the things she wrote about made it feel like she saw the world in exactly the same way I do. We both fear spiders, we both love procrastination on the internet, we both have a mentally challenged animal (one of my cats is a very dim light bulb indeed). Then she wrote about her depression, and it became clear why she wasn't updating her blog very often.

Her two blog entries about depression (both shared in this book as well as on her website) are among the truest and most recognisable things I have ever read. I was depressed during my final year of university, but after years of medication, seem to have had the luck of getting well again. I've experienced some of the things she shares in her stories. I can now show other people what it's like to live with my husband when he's having one of his rough spells, which he will keep having on and off for the rest of our lives, because he's never going to not be depressed, he's just going to be able to cope with it better during the stable periods. I've never met Allie, but I love her for this.

About half of the stuff in the book has already been on Allie's blog. I love her writing, so this was not a problem for me at all. There is also half a book full of new and amazing material, like her letters to her past selves, that had me laughing so hard my stomach hurt and I had trouble breathing. I have ordered the book as a Christmas present for several of my friends, and I wish I knew more people, just so I could gift them this book. It's a hilarious and wonderful book, which you will enjoy if you've enjoyed the stuff on her site. Just buy it already, to make sure she writes a follow-up. After all, I want the Alot in book form too.

#CBR5 Book 139. "Not Quite a Husband" by Sherry Thomas

Page count: 341 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Briony Asquith and Leo Marsden grew up on neighbouring estates. Leo loved Briony long before she was even aware of him as anything but the baby Marsden, youngest of four brothers. So when the brilliant, yet socially awkward lady physician proposed to outgoing, talented renaissance man Leo, he was elated, but no one else in society thought it would last. And it didn't. Growing increasingly more distant and cold from their wedding day, Briony starts to actually recoil from Leo's touch, and no matter how he tries to get her to open up, physically and emotionally, their marriage seems doomed. When Briony wakes up one morning with a stark white stripe through her dark hair, she files for an annulment.

Three years later, Leo shows up at Briony's medical clinic in a remote corner of India. Briony's sister has been writing both of them for years with melodramatic stories trying to push the two back together, but this time he's fairly certain she's not lying about Briony's father's health being in danger. Much of India is at the the brink of rebellion, and he feels it's his duty to get Briony back to England safely. Leo doesn't know exactly why their marriage failed, but he's convinced it must have been his fault, that he failed or mistreated her in some way.

Briony is not convinced her sister isn't lying once again, but she also knows that she would never forgive herself if her father dies and she did not try to return to his bedside. She reluctantly goes with Leo, uncomfortable in his presence, but with no other choice of escort. As the couple make their way through the rough Indian countryside, dealing with first Leo's malaria, then a violent and bloody native rebellion as they seek refuge in a nearby fort, they find that the three years apart may have allowed both of them to heal some of their hurts, and open up lines of communication to the other. Can they finally talk about all the things that made their all too brief marriage so miserable, and maybe begin to forgive each other and themselves?

Romances are mostly all about escapism, and the process of falling in love, and we rarely see past the HEA, or Happy For Now. Because of a shocking discovery, Briony was completely unable to trust Leo and started drawing away from him, beginning on the day of their marriage. They never got to Happily Ever After, their marriage just went from bad to worse to impossible to continue. Clearly always an intensely private and introverted person, Briony has difficulties forming attachments, even within her own family. Leo accepted her marriage proposal happily, but didn't really know the woman he married, just the idealised idea he'd made of her. As is the case in a lot of romances, there is a marked lack of clear communication between the heroine and hero, but in Not Quite a Husband it would never have been possible for Briony and Leo to have the honest conversations they needed to have to resolve their marital difficulties at the point where their marriage fell apart. Unlike in some books, where you just want to shake the protagonists and make them have a single conversation that would resolve everything, here there is no such easy fix.

Three years have given both of them time, to change and grow as people and while they may not have wanted to, to consider and gain some perspective of why they never managed to make their brief marriage successful. Both have travelled the world, hearing fanciful stories about what the other was up to from Briony's younger sister. Leo just wants to atone for whatever he must have done wrong to make Briony hate him so much in the past. Spending days in his presence, some of it nursing him back to health, Briony realises that the discovery she made shortly before she married him, no longer hurts her, and she no longer recoils from his touch. In fact, she craves it. The danger they find themselves in force them to finally be honest with one another, and they find a new and unaccustomed closeness, that should have been their when they wed.

This book is so good because it takes so many of the romance conventions and twists them. As in many of Thomas' other books, there is so much bitterness and pain between the couple. They have such enormous power to hurt the one they love, and frequently do. It's not an easy book to read, but as Leo and Briony start to actually open up to each other, instead of lashing out, and work to heal the damage they've previously done to one another, it feels more emotionally powerful than that of a lot of frothy romances with meet-cutes and humorous banter and a shiny fantasy version of what life really is. Most romance couples don't actually have to struggle with marital difficulties and really work to save their relationships. Yet when Briony and Leo finally do solve their troubles, they've truly earned their happiness, and it's probably more real because of their hardships.