Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Dark of Night by Suzanne Brockmann

There has been so much angst and controversy over this book that I'm a little hesitant to wade into the fray. However, if I skip reviewing any book that's difficult to write about I'll never make my goal for the challenge, so here goes nothing.

I usually try not to give too much away when I write reviews. In this case all the major spoilers have been out for weeks so I'm not working that hard at avoiding them. Anyone who is spoiler free & wants to stay that way should just stop reading.



This is the 14th book in the Team Sixteen/Troubleshooters series and the wrap up to a 5 book story arc. Because of that I think it's inevitable that opinions about this book will depend to a large extent on the points of view people had going in. Here are mine:
  • I'm not a dedicated Sophia/Deck shipper. More than one of the couples in this series is rather dysfunctional, but to me Sophia and Deck always seemed a little extreme even by Brockmann standards. I was willing to be convinced, if that's where she had decided to go, but I don't feel like it's an automatic travesty for them not to be together.
  • I've always thought that Deck was a mess and needed to get over himself a bit, but I've also always liked him.
  • I'm a fan of Tess & Nash.
  • I've never liked Tracy.
  • I like Dave fine but I have long thought that someone needed to slap him and yell, "Snap out of it!" a la Cher in Moonstruck. The mopey martyr thing does no one any favors.
  • I have a mild dislike for Sophia. This is caused by two things. First, a knee jerk reaction to the fact that everyone treats her like she's the greatest thing ever. Second, compassion fatigue brought on by the endless revelations about all the terrible things that have happened to her. By the time this book gave us what I hope to God was the last of the story it felt like The Perils of Pauline.

The plot of Dark of Night has been described all over the place so I'll just say that the story has four main elements.

1. The suspense plot, which has the group attempting to figure out what is going on at the Agency, who wants Nash dead and why.

2. Tess & Nash's relationship issues

3. Sophia and Dave

4. Deck and Tracy

The suspense plot worked well for me. My graduate work focuses on national security issues so I'm familiar with the debate in the intelligence community about how much secrecy and compartmentalization are too much. They're vital up to a point, but taken to extremes they create dangerous loopholes and blind spots. The people who are most effected are often the least able to see when it's gone too far. I liked the fact that sorting it all out gave us a chance to see some of my favorite characters from past books.

I liked the way things were resolved for Tess and Nash. He didn't get over all his issues overnight, but they established a foundation that made it clear they'll be OK.

Now we come to the tougher part---the two new pairings.

I don't hate Sophia & Dave together, but I wasn't fully satisfied either. I think that Sophia's side of the equation basically made sense. Sometimes the guy you think you want isn't the guy you need. From her side it's a friends to lovers story and that's fine. My problem is with Dave. First, I'm not exactly sure how pre-Dark of Night Dave connects to SuperDave. More importantly, at the end of the story Sophia & Dave aren't a team. As far as Dave is concerned Sophia is still the goddess and he is her acolyte, the unworthy nerd who got lucky enough to have her love him. I really wanted better for him. I wanted him to realize his own value and have a relationship where he is an equal partner.

I think that would have been more likely if he had solved his problems with his smarts instead of morphing into SuperDave. I also think it would have been better if he had developed a more realistic view of Sophia. Her "clear the air" conversation with Deck was a perfect example of the fact that she has always seen herself more clearly than the rest of the characters seem to. When she was introduced she had layers and shades of gray, but over time all the adoration and "poor, brave, fragile Sophia" and the pining away for Deck left her portrayed as pretty one dimensional. It's tough to have an equal partnership under those circumstances. These issues could be dealt with in the future, but honestly they've already taken up enough story space so I'm not sure that I would actually want that. It should have been done in this book.

As for Deck and Tracy, I do hate that they ended up together. I didn't like Tracy before and on balance my opinion didn't change. In fact, there were a few things that made me dislike her more. Nonspoiler example: If my husband died and someone came into my house and washed the last clothes I would ever have that smelled like him I wouldn't thank her. I don't care how I seemed to be dealing with my grief, or with whom, she'd be lucky if I didn't yank off one of her limbs and beat her with the stump.

I never thought that Tracy was dumb exactly, just really careless and ditzy. That didn't make it any easier to believe in New! Improved! SmartTracy!, now with 40% less poor judgment. She didn't figure out that Nash was still alive because she was smart. She figured it out because, as the nosy neighbor, she had information that the others didn't have. I couldn't quite figure out where she got the gall to be upset because she thought she was the last to know. She's the receptionist. Not exactly a vital link in the "need to know" chain. I also don't see how her believing the most simplistic possible interpretation of The Secret is supposed to make me see her in a whole new light. She did some things that actually were smart, but she also did other things that were quite dumb. I ended up feeling like her characterization needed another trip through rewrite.

Irritation aside, the real issue is that I simply think Deck and Tracy are wrong for each other for reasons that have nothing to do with intelligence. Deck finally started to let go of his issues because Tracy accepted him. I really appreciated the fact that she was nonjudgmental about his kink. She judged him for everything else, but not for that. Truly sex positive attitudes are far more rare in mainstream romances than they should be so I give her full marks for that. Still, that doesn't mean that she & Deck are meant for each other. BDSM is part of who Deck is, while for Tracy it's a fun game to play. Neither of those attitudes is wrong, but they don't belong together over the long haul. Deck is actually making Tracy's old mistake by thinking good sex = love. Tracy is making a whole new mistake by thinking that not be considered an idiot = love.

I wish that Deck & Tracy were a "happy for now". Tracy is Deck's first honest sexual relationship and he's her first chance to be treated as an equal. That's great for both of them even if it isn't meant to last. It should be the relationship equivilent of a bike with training wheels. Deck can get comfortable with his kink and Tracy can figure out how adult relationships work. They could enjoy the experience and when it runs its course they could move on while staying friends. No trauma, no drama.

Unfortunately in Romancelandia once the mutual "I love yous" have been said the couple is pretty much carved in stone. That's too bad because Deck deserves more. While reading this I kept thinking of Joey Hill's story Natural Law, which features Mac and Violet. Mac is a total Alpha who is also a sexual submissive and Violet is the Dom who turns out to be his perfect match. Deck deserves a Violet and Tracy most definitely isn't it.


I have no idea what grade this all averages out to, so I'm not even going to try to assign one.

Monday, February 23, 2009

The Missing by Shiloh Walker

Taige Branch is a teenager with psychic abilities that allow her to find missing people, especially children. Because of her gift she has always felt like a freak and kept herself separate from most people. Losing her parents when she was 8 and being sent to live with an uncle who hates her abilities has only deepened her isolation. She is finally able to make a connection when Cullen Morgan saves her from an attack by some drunk local boys who are trying to rape her. Over the next several years Taige and Cullen's connection deepens and she begins to see a future for them.

All of that changes when Cullen's mother is murdered and Taige doesn't get a vision of the crime until it is too late to save her. Cullen blames Taige for his mother's death because she hides from her gift. He believes that if she were more open and less reactive she would have gotten the vision in time to save his mom. When Taige attempts to comfort him the two have a relationship ending fight. Twelve years pass and Taige is now working with the FBI and Cullen is a widowed father and author. He has followed Taige's career from a distance, but has no intention of ever contacting her again until his daughter Jillian is kidnapped. In desperation he goes to Taige for help and the two are forced to work together to save Jillian and stop a serial killer while dealing with the feelings they still have for each other.


The story is interesting and the writing created atmosphere very effectively, but it didn't break any new ground. If you've read other stories about psychics who solve crimes the major elements will be familiar. The way that Taige's gift works, the fact that Cullen is the right guy for her because she can't "read" him, the significance of Taige's dreams and the villain are all standard. That makes it sound like this book is rather pointless, but it isn't. I would have liked for it to be at least somewhat less formulaic, but the quality of the writing is good enough for it to be worth reading.

The one thing that I didn't like at all was the way that Jillian's mother was handled. She is essentially erased in a way that I thought was sort of cheap. I don't have children, but I think that if I was a mother this would have bothered me even more.

Grade: B-

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Body Language by Suzanne Brockmann

Clint McCade and Sandy Kirk met during grade school. Because they've known each other for so long they're extremely close, but they've never been anything more than friends. After escaping their difficult upbringing they chose very different paths. Sandy is settled in Phoenix, running her own company producing & directing commercials and trying to move up socially into a respectable life. Clint became a skilled cameraman and travels the world filming movies and documentaries. One day he realizes that he's no longer enjoying his transient life and that the only time he's truly happy is when he's with Sandy. He heads to Phoenix to tell her that he loves her, but finds that Sandy has fallen for another guy. He hates the idea of losing her, but he wants her to be happy so he offers to help her overcome her low self-esteem so that she can land her man. Sandy quickly realizes that Clint is the only man she wants but she keeps it to herself because she thinks he's only playing a game to help her out. For them to have their HEA one of them will have to risk the friendship by being honest.

This book made me realize that I enjoy friends to lovers stories more in theory than in practice. In theory f-to-l stories are about two people who know each other well, both good and bad, falling in love. The stakes are automatically high because the couple is risking not only romantic disappointment, but an important friendship. In practice they often center around a Make Over or a Big Misunderstanding, both of which I strongly dislike. Body Language is the later type of story, with elements of the former, and I found it quite frustrating. Most of Clint and Sandy's issues could have been settled if they had just had one honest conversation on about page 20. Instead, one contrived situation after another drags things out for 200 pages. Even after they admit their true feelings they're both still holding back key information, which drags things out even more. Brockmann's writing is solid and both Clint and Sandy are likable, but I lost interest in the drama long before it was resolved.

I always try to read and evaluate the book that an author actually wrote rather than comparing it to the one I wish she had written. In this case that was difficult. The issues that Clint and Sandy face in the last 50 pages were the ones that were interesting to me. I couldn't help thinking that I would far rather have read a whole book exploring the fact that no matter how close they are or how much they love each other these two people still face some real challenges.

Grade: C+

Tilt A Whirl by Chris Grabenstein

This is the first of the John Ceepak mysteries

John Ceepak is a former MP and Iraq war veteran who has recently joined the Sea Haven, New Jersey police force. John is a cop 24/7 and lives by The Code, "I will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do." His partner Danny Boyle is one of the part-timers hired by the SHPD to help deal with the summer tourists that create an annual population explosion in the community. Danny took the job mainly to impress college girls and he freely admits that he doesn't have a Code. In fact, his outlook is so far removed from John's that Danny doesn't recognize that The Code is the West Point cadet honor code and has nothing to do with the Boy Scouts. The only thing the two men have in common is a love of Bruce Springsteen which allows them to bridge communication gaps by referencing song lyrics. The routine of their lopsided partnership is disrupted when a wealthy local real estate developer is murdered in front of his teenage daughter. During the course of the investigation Danny is forced to reassess his view of police work, and of his partner.

This series is referred to as the John Ceepak mysteries, but the focus is really more on Danny. The books are told in first person from his point of view and, while information is revealed about John, Danny is the character who actually changes over the course of the story. From the very first page Danny's sarcastic, but affectionate observations about Sea Haven tell the reader a great deal about him. He has a strong, and very particular narrative voice. I enjoyed it, but people who have a low tolerance for snark probably won't. The mystery itself has interesting aspects, but the gist of the plot isn't particularly difficult to figure out. Still, the characters, setting and writing style were more than interesting enough to carry the book.

Grade: B+

Will I read the next book in the series? Yes. I'm definitely interested in finding out more about both John and Danny and seeing how their relationship evolves.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Double Down by Tess Hudson

Twelve Step programs have a saying, "the program works if you work the program." Skye McNally does not work the program. She's been gambling since she was eight years old and her mother died, leaving her bookie father to raise Skye alone. Three years ago she went on a bender and ended up in Vegas with her father's protege, Jimmy. The weekend started with a wedding and ended with Jimmy in the emergency room getting stitches. He went back to New York and Skye stayed in Vegas, got the marriage annulled and started trying to get a life away from gambling. After 3 years of attending Gambler's Anonymous meetings she has yet to get a 30 day chip. Her sponsor and best friend is T.D., a former pro football player whose gambling got him banned from the game. He loves Skye even though he knows she's trouble, but even his unconditional support can't help Skye follow the rules.

After the death of a friend Skye takes a road trip in the desert to clear her head. At a diner in the middle of nowhere she meets runaway quarterback Mark Shannon, who is all over the news for going AWOL before the Super Bowl. The attraction between Skye and Mark is fast and hot, but there's no way they can be an ordinary couple. Mark has a serious secret, and worse, football and gambling do not mix. Sorting out all their problems and getting to their HEA is a true long shot.


This book is realistic about addiction in the sense that for much of the book Skye is the least likable character, or at least the most frustrating. She attends GA meetings and desperately wants a 30 day chip, but she isn't really following any of the 12 steps. At one point I found myself wondering how it was possible that she never considered filling her time more productively by doing something radical like going to school so she could get a job that didn't involve breaking bones. Even after she has her epiphany she makes some very questionable decisions.

Still, I found myself rooting for her. Skye is tough and determined enough to keep at it until GA "takes" and she gets her life figured out. She's also loyal to all the people she loves, even when it would be easier not to be. In the end my main problem with the book was the romance. It's written in first person and has a style more common in chick lit, which created a couple of problems for me. First, Mark ends up being the least developed character, which made it tough for me to get fully invested in the HEA. Second, the epilogue tied everything up in an absolutely perfect package. This type of epilogue always makes me think that even the author knew she didn't fully sell the HEA in the book. So, I liked Double Down, but I didn't love it.


Grade: B- C-

Update: The more I think about this book the more bothered I am about a couple aspects of it.

First, there's an implication that if an addict just finds the right person to love s/he will lose the desire to pursue the addiction. I know that romances are all about the idea that love conquers all, but the reality is that it doesn't. Implying in any way that the right love cures the addictive impulse is really insulting to addicts and their loved ones. Tess' transformation isn't a total miracle cure, she still has to go to meetings, but it's way too close for comfort.

Second, the lack of character development for Mark really is a problem, mainly because what little we do find out about him is at odds with the things he does. We only learn two things about him. He has loved football his whole life and he is having a very serious problem with a gambling addict and a bookie. The idea that he would blithely throw away his football career to become involved with a gambling addict who is the daughter of a bookie just doesn't ring true.

This drops the book from a B- to a C-.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Surrender by Pamela Clare

This is the first book in the MacKinnon's Rangers trilogy, which takes place during the French & Indian War.

After Culloden what was left of the MacKinnon family left Scotland for the American colonies. As a result Iain MacKinnon and his brothers Morgan and Connor have spent most of their lives on the frontier and learned tracking and fighting skills that are second to none. Unfortunately for them British officer Lord William Wentworth discovers those skills and believes that he can use them to help win the war against the French. He knows that as Scottish Catholics they hate the English and won't fight voluntarily so he to sets them up on a murder charge to coerce them into cooperating. As the king's grandson Wentworth absolutely controls their fate, so to save his brothers Iain agrees to form a company of Rangers.

Lady Anne Burness Campbell has lived a life of luxury. Her father and most of his brothers were killed fighting for the British at Culloden and she and her mother were taken in by her only remaining uncle, Bain. Anne grew up treating Uncle Bain like a father, blissfully unaware that he had a very dark side. After her mother's death she learns the truth about him and attempts to run away. Bain has her thrown in jail on charges of theft and when Anne refuses to promise to keep his secrets he sends her to the colonies as an indentured servant. Lady Anne has no practical skills, but works hard to learn and avoid angering the abusive couple who purchased her indenture.

One day while Anne is in the barn the Abenaki attack the house and kill the family. Anne panics and runs away, but the warriors soon catch up with her, intending to rape and kill her also. Iain and the Rangers have been scouting in the area and come upon the scene. Because the Rangers are so valuable to the British Army they're under strict orders not to do anything that might give them away. This includes taking prisoners or intervening to save lives, even of British settlers. Iain is well aware that failing to follow orders could result in him being hanged on the trumped up murder charge, but in spite of the risk he can't bring himself to leave Anne to her fate. He sends the rest of the Rangers on so that they won't be held responsible for his actions and then rescues Anne and takes her with him to the fort that serves as their base. Iain and Anne quickly fall in love, but there are numerous obstacles between them.

Iain is trapped in the Rangers until the war is over. He doesn't feel that he can offer any woman a decent life while he is fighting, but he also doesn't think that it is honorable to ask anyone to wait for him when he has no way of knowing how long the war will last.

Iain and Anne are on opposite sides of the bitter conflict between Scotland and England.

Anne is still an indentured servant. Legally the death of the family that originally purchased her indenture simply means that it will be sold again. Anne is desperate to keep the secret and retain her freedom, even if it means lying to Iain.

Anne has met Lord Wentworth before and there's no telling what he will do if he remembers her.

I enjoyed this book. The setting is unusual and interesting. Iain is a classic Alpha, but Anne isn't a weakling. She does some things that made me scratch my head a bit, but she isn't TSTL. She adapts to her situation as well as anyone could be expected to, without becoming a total Mary Sue. Unfortunately, there is one Mary Sue-ish thing about her. All the good people love her and only the villains wish her ill. The Rangers have no reservations about her, even when they find out that she's a Campbell. Considering that all the Rangers are Scottish loyalists and only Iain is getting the benefit of sleeping with her you would think that someone would be bothered by it, but no one is.

There were some other issues as well. First, while Wentworth turns out to be more complex and nuanced than he first appears Uncle Bain unfortunately does not. He might as well grow a mustache and twirl it. Second, anyone with a low tolerance for what I think of as "Scottish speak" is likely to be unhappy. It's set in America but most of the main characters retain the brogue and there's plenty of didna and wi' and och and all the rest. Those things bothered me but my main problems were with two things that Iain does.

At one point one of the British soldiers at the fort attempts to rape Anne while Iain is out on a mission. When he returns the situation is explained to him in such a way that he thinks she voluntarily slept with Lord Wentworth. I considered his reaction unacceptable and the fact that Anne ends up being fine with it made me hate it even more.

The other problem is how Iain handles the issue of marriage. He's very worried about protecting Anne and any children they may have because it is quite likely that he will be killed in battle. Catholic marriages are not recognized under British law and any children born to such marriages are considered bastards. Add to that the fact that Anne is Protestant and Iain's insistence on taking dangerous risks in order for them to be married by a priest seems more stubborn, selfish and irresponsible than principled.

Over all I found the book an entertaining read whose chief virtue was the interesting setting.

Grade: B-

Sunday, February 15, 2009

If You Dare by Adrianne Byrd

Damian Black is a former art thief who was smart enough to retire before he got caught. He is enjoying a comfortable retirement in Atlanta when a former associate named Sean Lefonte offers him a chance to make one more score by stealing a group of paintings from a local museum. Damian misses the excitement of the old days so he agrees to consider it. His friend and partner, Jerome, doesn't think the job is a good idea. He doesn't want to push their luck, especially because a very determined former French detective is still following Damian, trying to prove that he was behind a string of art thefts in Europe. However, Jerome is paying alimony to 5 ex-wives so he's not in a position to take a firm stand against a plan that could make both men a lot of money.

Damian goes to check out the museum and while he's there he meets a young woman named Angel and is immediately attracted to her. It turns out she's about to start work as the museum's art director. That doesn't stop Damian from pursuing her or from continuing to consider doing the theft. However, as soon as he realizes that he's falling for Angel he goes to Sean and refuses the job because he isn't willing to betray her. Sean is desperate for the money from the theft, so Damian's refusal to participate in the robbery sets events in motion that bring all the threads of the story together.


This was a frustrating book for me. There were things about it that I liked. The suave, debonair thief with his own moral code is a classic anti-hero and Damian fills the bill nicely. Angel started out seeming like one of those overly sweet heroines, but she turned out to have hidden depths that saved her from being saccharine. As a couple they worked well together. Unfortunately, there were also things, both large and small, that I didn't like. In the end those things made it impossible for me to really enjoy the book.

The small things were sort of petty, but they still bothered me. I hate it when an author pushes something too far. In this case it was Damian's finances. He invested the money from his thefts and ended up a billionaire. If he had been a multi-millionaire I would have accepted it with no problem, but billionaire just seemed way over the top. I also had problems with the fact that there were several turns of phrase that were used incorrectly or in an odd way. For example, I've never heard anyone refer to Coca-Cola bottle glasses. It's just Coke bottle glasses. That might be a regional phrase, but other examples were just wrong. In the context in which it was used in this book, the phrase is exotic locations, not erotic locations. How did that not get caught in editing?

Ultimately those things wouldn't have mattered all that much if it weren't for the big problem---this book had a lot of coincidences. A lot. The situation wasn't improved by the fact that both of the bad guys are taken care of in a way that was much too convenient. I had one other serious problem. Angel has a connection to Sean. It was described in a way that allowed me to accept the idea that Angel tolerates things from him that I would never put up with from anyone. However, Sean ends up doing something to her that I honestly found totally unforgivable, but Angel just lets it go. She doesn't even struggle with it. It wasn't that it made me lose respect for Angel, it was more that it rang totally false.

I think the tone of the book was supposed to be sort of like the Thomas Crown Affair, which I enjoyed. Instead it ended up seeming ridiculous and contrived, which drained all the fun out of it.

Grade: D+ Not even close to being a DIK for me.

Driven by Eve Klein

Raina Bowen is a trucker racing to deliver food to a remote town in the Northern Waste. She needs to win the race in order to get the money she needs to protect her younger sister. After years of being drilled by her paranoid father Raina is very aware that in order to remain safe and have any chance of winning she needs to stay focused and mind her own business. In spite of her determination not get involved with other people's problems she can't resist saving Wizard when she sees him get into a fight that's sure to get him killed. Raina quickly figures out that there's something very odd about Wizard, but she's attracted to him any way. Soon the two are traveling together through difficult terrain facing rival truckers, ice pirates, rebels and one extremely scary guy with a grudge.


Driven is set at some unspecified point in the future, after the Second Noble War has killed a third of the global population and left a large part of the northern hemisphere a bleak, frozen waste. The global government is corrupt and small bands of rebels have taken up arms against it, but most people are just struggling to survive.

This book had a lot going for it. The action is engrossing and moves along at a brisk pace. Raina is a kickass heroine with a nicely developed soft side and Wizard is one of the most unique heroes I've read in a long time. They make an interesting couple, and their sex scenes are pretty hot. They have both had very difficult lives and I'm a total sucker for seeing people who have suffered finally get their HEA.

There were also problems with the book. The world building is interesting, but a bit vague. Anyone used to reading straight scifi is probably going to find it underdeveloped and a little frustrating. Because the world building was incomplete it was often difficult for me to figure out which information was significant and which wasn't.

In spite of those issues I found the book a fun, interesting read. I intend to pick up the sequel, Hidden, but this definitely wasn't a DIK for me.

Grade: B

Sunday, February 8, 2009

2009 TBR Challenge for February: Tangled Up In You by Rachel Gibson

February TBR Challenge: AAR DIKs

Truly Idaho is a small town where everyone pretty much knows everyone else's business. The one thing nobody in Truly knows is the full story of what happened between Loch and Rose Hennessy 29 years ago. The Hennessy men have been running their bar and proving irresistible to the local females since Prohibition and Loch was no exception. He was a charming womanizer and serial adulterer, but he always went home to Rose and she always ignored his indiscretions. Then Alice, a 24 year old with a taste for married men, took a job as his waitress and things rapidly got out of hand. The love triangle ended in tragedy when Rose shot Loch and Alice and then turned the gun on herself, leaving three innocent children orphaned.

Loch and Rose's son and daughter remained in Truly with their grandmother. She hated to deal with anything unpleasant so inside their home they rarely talked about what had happened to their parents and "that waitress". All the talk outside their home more than made up for it though. Meg and Mick's childhoods were tormented by the gossip that took years to die down. Mick escaped by joining the Army, but after 12 years away he returned to Truly to be near Meg, who is raising her son Travis on her own. He likes running Hennesey's and has even purchased a 2nd bar. However, he feels stuck and a bit suffocated by small town life and the fact that Meg seems to need him too much.

After the murders Alice's daughter Maddie was sent to live with her great-aunt. She was spared having to deal with the Truly gossip mill, but she still had plenty of pain. Instead of being raised by the mother who adored her she lived with a woman who preferred cats to children. Maddie ate to sooth her pain and ended up the "fat girl" who was teased and ostracized by her classmates. As an adult she is a successful writer of true crime books about serial killers. Both her past and her present have left her with serious trust issues.

After finding her mother's diaries Maddie becomes determined to write a book telling the full story of her murder and moves to Truly to do research. In order to get people to be honest with her she uses her pen name and doesn't tell anyone that she's Alice's daughter. When she meets Mick she doesn't want to like him, but can't help herself. She knows that she should tell him the whole story but she can't bring herself to do it. For his part Mick doesn't want to have anything to do with the author who is stirring up all the old gossip and threatening Meg's fragile emotional stability, but he can't stay away from her either. Soon the two are falling in love and Maddie has to reveal her secret and hope that she can make Mick understand why she has to write her book.


Those who have read Truly, Madly Yours, Gibson's previous novel set in Truly, need to know going in that this book has a very different tone. TMY is basically a comedy and Tangled Up In You is definitely not. That said, Gibson handles the serious subject matter well. Both Mick and Maddie have their flaws and good qualities and both of them have suffered terribly for things they didn't do. Neither one can fairly be painted as the bad guy and Gibson wisely doesn't take sides. When Maddie tells Mick who she is it's so easy to understand both of their points of view that the fight they have is just painful. Gibson shows real skill in creating believable growth for both characters that allows them to reunite without betraying their essential selves or sweeping the past under the rug.

Grade: A-

That said, this isn't a DIK for me. There were a couple of things about Maddie that I found really off-putting. For example, during sex with Mick she calls out another name. I was rather unreasonably weirded out by whose name it was (and no, it wasn't Loch).

Speaking of Loch, I also couldn't completely get past the idea that it really was a little icky for Maddie & Mick to be together. When he finds out who she is Mick immediately makes the connection to their respective parents and is horrified. Later he comes to the conclusion if they're really over the past it doesn't matter who their parents were. I see what he's saying, but it doesn't feel entirely true to me even though I really wanted them to get their HEA.

I freely admit that these are my issues and obviously plenty of other people don't share them. Still, I can't give DIK status to a romance that leaves me feeling vaguely uncomfortable with the couple.


I also read two other books from my TBR than were given DIK status. Neither of them were DIKs for me either. This isn't much of a surprise since I realized a while ago that my personal taste is not often in line with the reviewers at AAR and I no longer put things on my TBR based strictly on a DIK rating.

Driven

If You Dare

Crazy Hot by Tara Janzen

This is the first in the Steele Street series.

Regan McKinney followed in her grandfather's footsteps and became a paleontologist, but instead of working in the field with him she leads a very quiet life working in a museum. Her routine is disrupted when her grandfather goes missing and no one will believe that there's a problem. Everyone thinks he has gone off on a dig and simply forgotten to check in. Regan knows that his memory is going, but doesn't believe that he would stay out of touch for so long. He raised Regan and her sister Nikki after their parents were killed and he is very aware that they worry if he is out of touch. Regan checks his date book and finds a notation about a meeting in a small desert town so she decides to drive out and see if someone there knows her grandfather's whereabouts.

Quinn Younger is a former juvenile delinquent who made good. He went to college and then joined the Air Force, became a fighter pilot and was decorated for heroism. Now he works for an ultra-secret special ops group called SDF, which operates out of a garage in Denver. After being wounded during an investigation Quinn has been sent to the desert to hide out from the arms dealer who wants to kill him. Kid, another member of SDF, has been sent along to act as his back up.

When Quinn sees Regan he recognizes her immediately. One summer her grandfather took in a group of troubled boys as part of a juvenile court diversion program and used them as assistants on his dig. Quinn was one of those boys and it turned his life around. Regan was also part of the dig's crew and Quinn developed a crush on her. He has never forgotten the time he walked into her tent and accidentally saw her topless.

Bad guys follow Regan to town and Quinn & Kid quickly realize that her grandfather really is in trouble. They also realize that Regan & Nikki could be in danger from whoever is looking for him. Kid is sent to guard Nikki while Quinn and Regan try to figure out where her grandfather is and what his disappearance has to do with the shipment of dinosaur bones SDF found during their investigation. Attraction quickly heats up for both couples.

Pros:

Janzen has a fun, punchy writing style that keeps the action moving along at a brisk pace.

The involvement of the dinosaur bones gave the plot a bit of something that wasn't just the same old same old.

Quinn & Regan are both interesting and basically likable.


Cons:

The sex, while hot, is sort of ridiculous. Quinn & Regan get busy for the first time on the hood of Quinn's muscle car while it's idling. A car hood gets pretty hot when the engine is running so I couldn't figure out quite how that would work. I also couldn't stop thinking about how much gas those things burn and how environmentally irresponsible it was not to turn the car off. That is not the sort of thing I want to be thinking during a sex scene. It also made me wonder if it was setting things up for Quinn & Regan to run out of gas at some critical point later in the story (see Chekhov's gun). That was sort of distracting until they made it to SDF HQ and I realized that it wasn't going to happen.

The ridiculous didn't stop there. Doing it in the elevator at the SDF HQ made a bit more sense than the car hood, but when they had sex in a warehouse while hiding from the bad guys I sort of threw up my hands. That's one of my least favorite tropes because it's just nuts. Adrenaline can certainly make a person horny, but for folks who don't have a death wish that reaction normally doesn't kick in until the danger has passed.

The other major problem was Nikki. I did not like her at all. She's an artist and her attitude is that she's entitled to do pretty much anything if it helps her art. There's a guy that Nikki likes to use as a model. He is interested in Regan, but she doesn't return that interest. As payment for his modeling Nikki secretly takes salacious pictures of Regan and gives them to the guy. In other words she basically pimps out the sister who sacrificed to help raise her after their parents died. Nice.

And she's an equal opportunity user. When Kid shows up Nikki & the model are working. Her art is very sexual and she knows that it's making Kid a bit uncomfortable. She takes advantage of an unguarded moment to take his picture to use in a later art project, even though Kid has already expressly refused to model for her. When she & Kid get together he doesn't know that she did this and she doesn't tell him.

For me, taking away someone's ability to give informed consent is one of the worst things you can do, so I didn't buy the book's presentation of Nikki as a good kid who is just a little spoiled. Needless to say I had no interest in seeing Kid & Nikki get together, but the book spends almost as much time on them as on Quinn & Regan.

Grade: C-

Will I read the next book in the series?: Probably not. There are 5 more books in the Steele Street series and 4 books and counting in the follow-up Steele Street-Loose series. I don't think I liked this well enough to wade into that many books.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Santa Rey Firefighters Trilogy by Jill Shalvis

The novels Flashpoint and Flashback and the short story All He Wants for Christmas in the anthology Heating up the Holidays are all about firefighters in the beach town of Santa Rey.


Flashpoint: Firefighter Zach Thomas has a lot on his mind. Santa Rey is experiencing a rash of suspicious fires. Zach is convinced that there's a serial arsonist on the loose, but he can't get the department's arson investigator to take him seriously. He's also dealing with a powerful attraction to temporary EMT Brooke O'Brian. Zach isn't looking for anything permanent so the fact that Brooke will only be in town for a short time seems perfect. As time passes Zach has to consider the possibility that he's wrong about the fires and about his relationship with Brooke.

Flashback: Aiden Donnelly and Mackenzie Stafford had a brief, hot affair years ago but Aiden broke it off because he wasn't interested in commitment. Kenzie left town to pursue an acting career and Aiden hasn't seen her since. Now Kenzie's soap opera has been canceled and she's back in town to regroup and to clear her dead brother's name. Aiden regrets his past actions, but can he convince Kenzie to give him another chance while keeping her safe from the trouble she refuses to run away from?

All He Wants for Christmas: EMT Dustin Mauer has been in love with tough firefighter Cristina Lewis for a long time. They spent one hot night together, but Cristina insists that she has no interest in a repeat performance. All Dustin wants for Christmas is to convince her that she's wrong about that.

These stories worked much better for me than Shadow Hawk did, but I still just didn't love them. There is something about Ms. Shalvis' writing style that I can't connect with. I found myself nitpicking character motivations and plot points in ways that made it impossible to fully enjoy the reading experience. Unfortunately I can't even pinpoint the problem well enough to offer a critique that could be useful to other readers.

The one exception to that is the short story. I didn't enjoy it because I didn't care about the couple and couldn't root for their HEA. Dustin was fine, but Cristina was frustrating. I certainly understand someone with a difficult past being guarded and hard to get to know. However, for me Cristina crossed the line and was just mean. Other firefighters talked about how much everyone at the station cared about her and Dustin was sure he wanted to be with her, but I didn't really understand why. The things she did seemed less like quirks and more like nasty selfishness.


A note about the other 2 stories in Heating Up The Holidays:

Although written by other authors both of the stories are also set in Santa Rey.

My Grown-Up Christmas List by Jacquie D'Alessandro: Because of a bad experience in her past Toni Rizzo has no interest in having anything to do with firefighters. She also has no time for a relationship because she's putting all her energy into establishing her independence by making her florist shop a success. She has no intention of dating firefighter Brad Griffin no matter how hot he is. Brad has been interested in Toni for months and has no intention of giving up on her without a fight.

I liked this one. The characters were appealing and their conflict and its resolution were believable. The same can't be said for the last story.

Up on the Housetop by Jamie Sobrato: When Dr. Lorelei Gibson gets stuck on her roof without any pants on she's mortified when she's rescued by her former high school crush Ryan Quinn. Ryan treated her very badly in high school and Lorelei is determined to use his remorse to play him and dump him, just like he dumped her. After not having seen each other for years & years they have one conversation and have sex and they're in forever love. I didn't buy any of it for a second.

His Secret Past by Ellen Hartman

Anna is a documentary filmmaker obsessed with finding and telling the truth. She wants to complete one last important project before shutting down her production company and finds the subject she's looking for when the band Five Star hires her to film their comeback. Years ago, when the band was at the height of its fame, Anna's best friend Terri died in an accident on their tour bus. Anna was never satisfied with the explanation for the accident and hopes to use the current project to get answers to her lingering questions.

Mason Star is Five Star's former lead singer. His alcohol and drug use resulted in him being fired from the band after the bus accident. After getting sober he started a cohousing community called Mulligans to provide a supportive environment for other recovering addicts. All his energies go to running the community and being a single father to his 17 year old son Christian. All Mason wants is to have a nice, normal suburban life. Unfortunately some of the community's neighbors have decided that they don't want "undesirables" in their town and are trying to force Mulligans to close. At the same time he's dealing with serious problems at home. Christian is in a band and wants to drop out of high school to go on tour. Mason is terrified that Christian will go down the same road he took and absolutely forbids it, which creates painful conflict between them.

When Anna first approaches Mason for her project he refuses to talk to her but she makes him an offer he can't refuse. If he answers her questions about the accident Anna will make a promotional film that will help him change the neighbor's minds and save Mulligans. Mason fears what dredging up the past will cost him but his sense of responsibility for Mulligans and its residents leads him to agree.

This story had a lot going on, especially for a category. I was worried that some of the story's threads would be short-changed by the limited length. I was also concerned that I wouldn't be able to like Anna. Because she sees herself as seeking the truth she feels entitled to whatever information she wants and doesn't always consider the potential consequences. Personal space and privacy are important to me, so it's hard for me to warm up to a person who describes herself as an “unrepentant snooper”. I really liked Mason, but I knew that if I couldn't develop some sympathy for Anna it would be hard for me to invest in their relationship.

Fortunately Ellen Hartman is a skilled enough writer that I needn't have worried. She does a good job showing the motives of the key characters and allowing them to grow in believable ways. I also appreciated the insight she provided into cohousing, which is a form of community that I think is unfamiliar to most people. I'll definitely be seeking out more of her books.

Grade: A-

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Guarding Jane Doe by Harper Allen

Quinn is a mercenary haunted by loss and sure that his job will eventually get him killed. He has already survived death once with the help of a nun named Sister Bertille. When he recovered he tried to pay her, but she wouldn't accept any money. She did say that some day she would ask for a favor. One day Quinn receives a letter letting him know that she has died. Enclosed with the letter is a note from her asking Quinn to make good on the favor. She doesn't have a specific request, she simply tells him that he'll know what he needs to do.

After being in a car accident Jane Smith woke up in the hospital with amnesia. She has no idea who she is but she has a strong feeling that she does not want to talk to the police, so before anyone from the hospital can call them Jane sneaks out. She manages to get work off the books cleaning offices and is content to keep a low profile until strange things start happening to her. She becomes convinced that someone is stalking her and she needs help to figure out who and why.

She is referred to Sullivan Security and Investigations, but can't afford their fees so they send her to Quinn. Quinn thinks that Jane is trouble and initially wants nothing to do with her. He finally agrees to help after becoming convinced that he has received Sister Bertille's "sign". Working together Quinn & Jane have to solve the mystery of who Jane is and what she may have done before her accident.

I'm not a huge fan of amnesia stories, but this one was handled well and both Quinn and Jane were interesting characters. They had both suffered so much that it was easy to root for them to get their HEA.

There was one particular plot point that really bothered me though. Jane remembers the name of her former step brother before she remembers her own. At that point the logical thing to do would be to attempt to track him down. He has a very unusual name so it seems reasonable to think that there would be a good chance of finding him. Instead Jane and Quinn dismiss the possibility in favor of focusing on trying to identify Jane's stalker even though they haven't figured out who she really is. It felt like this decision was made strictly to drive the story in a particular direction rather than being a reasonable thing for the characters to do. Still, that didn't detract that much from my enjoyment of the story.

Grade: B

Taylor's Temptation by Suzanne Brockmann

I've been a Suzanne Brockmann fan for several years now and I've read most of her books. Somehow I managed to miss a few from the Tall, Dark & Dangerous series so I'm trying to catch up.

Bobby Taylor and Wes Skully are best friends and SEAL teammates. They're so close it sometimes seems that they can read each other's minds. The one secret that Taylor has kept is that for years he has been attracted to Wes's younger sister Coleen. Wes doesn't want any SEAL putting the moves on his baby sister and Tayler doesn't want to make Wes mad or put their friendship at risk.

Bobby is able to hide his feelings until Wes begs him to go to Boston and stop Coleen from going on a dangerous humanitarian trip to a country in the midst of a civil war. Wes would go himself, but he's been called out on a SEAL mission and is afraid he won't make it back before Coleen leaves the country. Taylor is on leave recovering from an injury, so he's available to go.

Bobby would normally avoid being alone with Coleen at all costs, but he knows her plan is dangerous and he's as anxious as Wes to stop her from going. He figures that Coleen sees him as an older brother, so as long as he can stop himself from making any really overt moves everything will be fine.

Unbeknownst to Bobby, Collen has been in love with him for years. She resents the fact that he and Wes are trying to dictate how she lives her life, but she still wants to be with him. She figures that she has no shot at a real relationship with him, but decides that she's willing to settle for good sex. Her previous sexual relationship was lousy and she doesn't want to miss the chance to get something better from a man she knows well and cares about. She propositions Bobby, he turns her down and explains why, she keeps pushing until he gives in and they sleep together. Once Coleen and Bobby have sex they also have the Big Misunderstanding, with each of them desperately in love but thinking that the other only wants a short term affair. Naturally Wes finds out they're sleeping together and pitches a fit. That creates tension when the SEALS end up accompanying the humanitarian mission to provide security and as an excuse to get into a country that would normally keep them out.


I really liked most of the books in this series, but unfortunately not this one. It may have been partially my mood at the time, but all 3 main characters totally rubbed me the wrong way. If it had been written by almost anyone other than Suzanne Brockmann I would have given up half way through. Because it was her I kept reading, expecting something to happen that would make me like at least one of the characters, but nothing did. The writing was fine, but the story wasn't enjoyable for me.

I think Coleen is supposed to come across as a strong, independent woman who knows what she wants and goes after it. I normally find that admirable but in this case she just seemed really pushy and disrespectful of Bobby's feelings. Yes, he wants her but he has his reasons for not wanting to act on that desire. Part of caring about someone is respecting their feelings even when you think they're being ridiculous. You can try to change someone's mind while still respecting their feelings. There was something about the way that Coleen handled things that just felt wrong to me. I kept thinking that if the positions were reversed and Bobby was pushing Coleen so hard after she had turned him down I'd stop reading the book. I have an aversion to double standards so I didn't like the fact that I was supposed to applaud Coleen for behavior that I would find distasteful coming from a man. (Yes, I know that there are plenty of romance novels where the hero acts like this, or worse. Those books tend to be DNFs for me.)

For his part, I think Bobby was supposed to seem like a nice guy in a difficult spot. To me he just seemed like a wishy washy mess. And Wes seemed like a total ass. My reaction may have something to do with the fact that I don't really understand this aspect of the Guy Code. If your friend is such a jerk that you're horrified at the thought of him dating your sister then why are you his friend? Conversely, if your friend thinks you're not good enough for his sister you might want to ask yourself why you're hanging around with him. I just don't get it.

It's been quite a while since I read most of the other books in this series so I can't remember if Wes was always written as sort of an ass. If not, readers who remembered the earlier books more clearly might have had a reserve of goodwill that softened things a bit. Since I didn't by the end I was half wishing that Wes would get killed by the revolutionaries.

It's hard for me to grade this one. The writing is a solid B, the characters are an F and the plot was pretty irrelevant. I guess that works out to about a C-/D+.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Strong Medicine by Olivia Gates

Calista St. James is a doctor who was fired from an organization similar to Doctors Without Borders and is now running her own organization with a few friends and a lot of contacts in the medical profession. She's happy running her own show, but her former bosses need her to come back to help with a critical mission.

That's all I know about the plot because I didn't make it very far into this one before I had to give up. The book is told in the 1st person and Ms Gates' writing style uses a lot of short, dramatic sentences. In my head I kept hearing Calista's inner narration as if it was being read by William Shatner as Captain Kirk, which was really bad. The dialogue wasn't any better. I feel confident that no actual human beings have ever had conversations that sounded like the ones in this book. Throw in the fact that Calista was a total Mary Sue and the book was just unreadable.

Grade: DNF

Shadow Hawk by Jill Shalvis

ATF agent JT Hawk is wounded during a bust gone horribly wrong and realizes that he was set up by someone in the agency. Fellow agent Abby Wells is also in danger, but won't believe JT, so he takes her hostage for her own safety. While on the run they have to stay hidden, figure out who is trying to kill them, protect JT's critically injured partner and deal with the long simmering attraction between them.

This book had serious problems right from the beginning. The scene where JT decides to handcuff himself to Abby didn't make sense. Having the two of them attached to each other made it far more likely that they were both going to end up dead, which is what JT was trying to avoid. It felt like something that happened purely to set up the rest of the plot, not an organic part of the story. That got the book off to a bad start, but it was far from the only nonsensical thing that happened.

JT's partner Logan is critically injured during the bust and has to be rushed to the hospital by helicopter. En route he's treated by a nurse named Callen. In spite of Logan's grave condition the two share a "moment" and once they arrive at the hospital Callen refuses to leave his side. How convenient that Logan's flight was apparently the end of her shift.

It's also convenient that Logan apparently has no family and no friends other than JT because Callen ends up being the only person with him. When JT calls Callen is the only one available carry out his instructions about hiding Logan from the killer. With no hesitation at all Callen starts moving Logan around the hospital and switching patients charts so that anyone looking for him will be unable to locate him. I have a couple of nurses in my family so I know a little about the job. No nurse would do that because A) a patient could receive the wrong treatment and B) when she gets caught she's going to get fired. Of course no nurse I've ever met would initiate sex in a hospital room with a critically injured patient either, so maybe Callen just went through a really unique training program.

Sadly, this was not the most irritating dumb thing in the book. That honor goes to the big confrontation scene. JT & Abby have broken Logan out of the hospital with Callen in tow and gone to track down the killer. JT goes charging off into the woods to capture him and needs back up. Who does he take with him? Logan. That's right, he chooses the man with the broken leg, concussion, cracked ribs and internal bleeding over the woman who is also a fully trained agent and happens to be completely healthy. Why does he do this totally idiotic thing? Because that's the only way to leave the 2 women alone at the car so that they can be captured by the killer and subsequently saved by the big strong men of course. Both TSTL and sexist---what a combo.

For me the term "wallbanger" is generally just an expression but in this case it took everything I had not to literally hurl the book across the room. That was too bad because I thought both JT & Abby were interesting characters. I just wish that I had met them in a much better book.

Grade: D

Dangerous Secrets by Lisa Marie Rice

I've gotten several very enthusiastic recommendations for books by Lisa Marie Rice from people whose taste is similar to mine. I didn't enjoy Midnight Man , but was told that I should try Dangerous Secrets before making up my mind about the author. Unfortunately it seems that Ms. Rice is not the author for me.

Nicholas Ireland is a former Delta Force operator, now working as a high-level undercover agent. His current cover is Nick Ames, a man who made a fortune on Wall Street and has retired to rural Vermont to contemplate his next move. He's actually in town tracking a Russian novelist and former political prisoner who is secretly an arms dealer/terrorist. (Imagine Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a member of the Russian mob plotting to detonate a dirty bomb.)

To get close to the Russian Nick has to first get close to the town librarian, Charity Prewitt. Charity has become friends with the Russian, unaware that he is obsessed with her because he believes her to be the reincarnation of his long dead lover, who was murdered by the Soviet secret police. Nick's attempts to remain professional and focused on the case start to fall apart when he developes an instant attraction to Charity.

All of that information was provided in the first 20 or so pages and at that point I was already thinking that there was a bit too much going on for my taste. It seemed like the book equivilent of what Tim Gunn refers to as "a whole lotta look". Unfortunatley things went down hill from there and as the story went on I found myself having major problems.

Both this book and Magic Man featured the Alpha male/little lady dynamic. I like a good Alpha as much as the next girl, but the little lady thing gets on my last nerve and this was a pretty exaggerated version. All the descriptions of Charity emphasized how small, delicate and dainty she was. During their first dinner date Nick was actually turned on by the fact that Charity was such a neat eater. When she dabbed her mouth with her napkin he thought to himself that it was unnecessary because she was so graceful she would never be sloppy enough to actually need a napkin. What is that about? Since when does needing a napkin make you some sort of unfeminine slob?

After their dinner Nick had to drive Charity home because the roads were icy and she didn't have snow tires on her car. Charity was supposedly a native of Vermont, the story took place in November and the weather was already bad. Why didn't she have snow tires? Either she wasn't half as smart as the book said she was, or it was a totally illogical plot point thrown in strictly so that Nick could do his Alpha thing and protect her by driving her home. Irritating either way. That was the point when I began to suspect that I wasn't going to finish the book. In my experience nitpicking something like snow tires is a pretty sure sign that a book just isn't working for me. Because I was still less than a quarter of the way through and I wanted to give the book a fair shot, I pushed on.

When they got to Charity's house Nick carried her to the door so that her boots wouldn't get dirty. Seriously?

They were so hot for each other that they headed straight to bed. At that point we learned that Nick thinks of his erection as a "blue steeler”. What? If the man's erection is blue he has a serious issue. The term "blue balls" is just an expression.

The book then hit one of my major pet peeves. They didn't have a condom, but decided that it wasn't a problem. Charity dismissed the possibility that Nick might have an STD because he "exuded health and strength". Because of course anyone with an STD is obviously going to look sick. Then Nick made the obligatory statement that he never, ever had unprotected sex and Charity was totally a special case. The fact that Charity wasn't on the pill was also dismissed because she was sure it was the wrong time of the month. TSTL. There are no words for how irritating I find all of that.

The next plot point had Nick finding out that he wasn't just pretending to be a millionaire. No, he had actually become a millionaire thanks to his best friend the billionaire genius investor who made it his life's mission to make Nick rich.

At that point I just gave up because there was nowhere that the book could go that would redeem it for me. Ms Rice is a competent writer, but I simply don't enjoy her characters or her plots.

Grade: DNF

Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives by Jim Sheeler

Jim Sheeler is a reporter for the Rocky Mountain News who has spent the last 7 years writing about the “war at home”. He has covered both deployments and homecomings for units stationed in Colarado. He has also reported on the funerals of those killed in action. For two years Sheeler followed a Casualty Assistance Officer named Major Steve Beck as he provided notification of soldiers' deaths and continued to provide support and assistance for as long as the families needed him. Final Salute tells the heartbreaking stories Sheeler learned during those years.

The book is fairly short, 280 pages including author's note, but Sheeler packs a large amount of information into the book's short chapters. He paints clear portraits of both the lost soldiers and those they left behind.

The book provides a much-needed window into the true cost of war, a window that is especially valuable given the lack of images of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Grade A