Roderica Delamore is a nineteen-year woman with the ability to read the thoughts of other creatures, human and animal. She doesn't share her gift with those outside her immediate family, but others can tell there's something different about her. Because of the unease the ability causes and the toll it takes on her Roderica has already resigned herself to a life of isolation. She longs for a normal life, with a husband and children of her own, but knows that she's destined to be a spinster, cared for only by her parents and siblings. The only satisfaction she has in her life is using her ability to help her father with his horses. She has no reason to believe that will ever change until she meets Faelan Savigar.
Faelan is known as the Devil Earl. He's rumored to have murdered his father when he was a child and to have grown into a man who leaves ruined maidens and defeated dueling opponents in his wake. The rumors might normally have given Roderica pause if it hadn't been for a trait that mattered far more to her---she can't read Faelan at all. She sees this as her one chance for happiness and strikes a deal with him for a mutaully beneficial marriage. Roderica will get the family she wants and Farlan's remote estate will allow her to limit her exposure to the outside world. In exchange Faelan will get the money he needs to restore the estate, which has fallen into disrepair.
What Roderica doesn't know is that Faelan has been experiencing blackouts and fears that he may be losing his mind. There are hours and sometimes days that he can't remember and violence always seems to happen around the missing hours. As Roderica, and Faelan grow to know and care about each other Faelan feels unworthy of her love and tries to protect her from the darkness in his life. Roderica refuses to believe that Faelan is evil and struggles to help him discover what forces are at work in his life. Her efforts are complicated by both her brother, who is determined to save her from her husband whether she wants him to or not, and by Faelan's best friend, whose involvement in politics may cost them all their lives.
This book is set in the early 18th century. It opens in England, but the action quickly moves to Faelan's estate in Ireland. Given the set-up this story could easily have been cliched, but Kinsale's writing saves it from that. Both Roderica & Faelan were fully realized characters and their growing relationship held my attention. I did find it frustrating that they spent so much time floundering rather than simply talking with each other openly. I could understand why they each felt the need to keep secrets, but there were still a couple of times when I found myself thinking, “Oh for Pete's sake would you two just have a conversation already?” Fortunately it never went far enough to be a Big Misunderstanding, so it didn't effect my enjoyment of the book.
There were two things about the book that I really didn't enjoy though. First was the fact that we did not get to see the villain punished at the end of the book. It was implied, but didn't happen on screen. Given everything the person did to Faelan I will admit that I very much wanted to see the guilty party get the appropriate comeuppance. There's also an odd twist near the end of the book where the story veers farther into the paranormal than I expected, even given Roddy's mind-reading ability. The problem wasn't that the scene was poorly written, it's just that it felt out of place in a book billed as an historical rather than a paranormal.
Grade: B
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Sweet Release by Pamela Clare
Alex Kenleigh is a rich English shipbuilder. As the heir to the Kenleigh business and fortune he commands the family finances and he's responsible for his younger brother, Philip. For years Alex allowed Philip to do whatever he pleased and as a result his drinking and womanizing have gotten out of control. Alex is finally forced to cut him off, leaving him with only a minimal allowance until he behaves more responsibly. The night after he makes this decision Alex's coach is attacked and he's badly beaten. Another man's body is then substituted for his and Alex is sold into a 14 year indentured servitude and shipped to Virginia identified as a criminal named Cole Braden.
Cassie Blakewell is running her family's plantation alone. Her mother is dead, her younger brother is just a child and her father is suffering from mental problems brought on by the death of his wife. In 1730's Virginia it's incredibly difficult for a woman to manage by herself, but Cassie is determined to hold onto the the land until her brother comes of age and can take over. There are both creditors and rivals who would try to take over the plantation if they knew that Cassie's father was incompetent. In order to prevent that from happening Cassie has hidden her father in a small cabin in the nearby swamp and told everyone that he's traveling on business and has left her in charge while he's gone. If Cassie is unable to keep the plantation, or her story, going her family's holdings will be seized and sold to pay off debts, leaving her family with no home.
Cassie has very limited money, but she has to have more hands to so when a ship carrying slaves and bondsmen docks nearby she attends the sale. There she sees that one of the bondsman is obviously too ill to stand, let alone work, but the traders are still beating him in an attempt to force him to obey their orders. As an act of charity Cassie buys his indenture. She also buys a slave who befriended the sick man on the voyage. She assumes that the ill man will die, but once he's off the ship and receiving medical care he soon recovers his strength. His memory of how he came to be on the ship remains hazy and he's furious that people believe that he is a criminal named Cole. He insists that he is Alex Kenleigh, but has no way to prove it. Cassie agrees to allow him to send a letter to England, but while they're waiting for a response, which will take months to arrive, he will have to work.
Alex has no problem working. In fact he finds that he enjoys the physical labor far more than he had enjoyed being trapped in an office since the death of his father left him in charge of the family business. He can't be content though because he's drawn to Cassie and she still believes that he's a convicted despoiler of women. Cassie feels the attraction too, but doesn't know what to believe about Alex's identity. He doesn't act like a criminal, but with so much at stake she can't risk making a mistake. Still, it's difficult for Cassie to resist Alex when he proves kind to her and the people for whom she is responsible, and helpful with the running of the plantation.
Cassie would be willing to simply carry on while waiting for news from England, but her life is complicated by the attentions of a neighbor who wants to marry her and won't take no for an answer. Geoffrey is being pushed by his father, who wants the Blakewell land, and by his own lust for Cassie. He becomes jealous of Alex and schemes to get rid of him. Because of their positions in society neither Cassie nor Alex have the power to stop him and word of Alex's true identity may arrive too late to save him from Geoffrey's plot.
I liked both Alex and Cassie. I especially felt for Cassie's struggle to carry a huge burden on her own in a society that didn't recognize her abilities. There were some things that kept me from being able to fully enjoy Alex and Cassie's story though. This was Pamela Clare's debut novel and it had the kind of pacing problems that seem common in first novels. The middle of the book is a bit slow and then the end piles all sorts of problems one on top of the other. In fact there is so much drama that the end seems to go on and on. Those flaws weren't disastrous, but they did make other problems more noticeable.
Clare obviously researched the time period carefully and includes plenty of period detail. I was especially interested in the way she was able to point out that in certain ways indentured servants were actually treated worse than slaves. However, in spite of the historical detail, under the surface the book has a very modern sensibility. Men stay with their wives during childbirth. The good characters are kind to their slaves, who are happy with their lot. The bad characters beat their slaves and are thought badly of because of that. This reminded me why I tend to have problems with romances set in the pre-Civil War South. On one hand it's jarring when characters are anachronistically progressive. On the other hand I have no desire to read a book where the hero and/or heroine are happy slave owners. I understand the reality of that, but I don't want to deal with it in my romance fiction.
Grade: C+
As a result of my mixed feelings I'm not sure that I'll read the other two books in this trilogy: Carnal Gift, which is the story of Cassie's brother Jamie, and Ride the Fire, which features Alex & Cassie's son Nicholas.
Cassie Blakewell is running her family's plantation alone. Her mother is dead, her younger brother is just a child and her father is suffering from mental problems brought on by the death of his wife. In 1730's Virginia it's incredibly difficult for a woman to manage by herself, but Cassie is determined to hold onto the the land until her brother comes of age and can take over. There are both creditors and rivals who would try to take over the plantation if they knew that Cassie's father was incompetent. In order to prevent that from happening Cassie has hidden her father in a small cabin in the nearby swamp and told everyone that he's traveling on business and has left her in charge while he's gone. If Cassie is unable to keep the plantation, or her story, going her family's holdings will be seized and sold to pay off debts, leaving her family with no home.
Cassie has very limited money, but she has to have more hands to so when a ship carrying slaves and bondsmen docks nearby she attends the sale. There she sees that one of the bondsman is obviously too ill to stand, let alone work, but the traders are still beating him in an attempt to force him to obey their orders. As an act of charity Cassie buys his indenture. She also buys a slave who befriended the sick man on the voyage. She assumes that the ill man will die, but once he's off the ship and receiving medical care he soon recovers his strength. His memory of how he came to be on the ship remains hazy and he's furious that people believe that he is a criminal named Cole. He insists that he is Alex Kenleigh, but has no way to prove it. Cassie agrees to allow him to send a letter to England, but while they're waiting for a response, which will take months to arrive, he will have to work.
Alex has no problem working. In fact he finds that he enjoys the physical labor far more than he had enjoyed being trapped in an office since the death of his father left him in charge of the family business. He can't be content though because he's drawn to Cassie and she still believes that he's a convicted despoiler of women. Cassie feels the attraction too, but doesn't know what to believe about Alex's identity. He doesn't act like a criminal, but with so much at stake she can't risk making a mistake. Still, it's difficult for Cassie to resist Alex when he proves kind to her and the people for whom she is responsible, and helpful with the running of the plantation.
Cassie would be willing to simply carry on while waiting for news from England, but her life is complicated by the attentions of a neighbor who wants to marry her and won't take no for an answer. Geoffrey is being pushed by his father, who wants the Blakewell land, and by his own lust for Cassie. He becomes jealous of Alex and schemes to get rid of him. Because of their positions in society neither Cassie nor Alex have the power to stop him and word of Alex's true identity may arrive too late to save him from Geoffrey's plot.
I liked both Alex and Cassie. I especially felt for Cassie's struggle to carry a huge burden on her own in a society that didn't recognize her abilities. There were some things that kept me from being able to fully enjoy Alex and Cassie's story though. This was Pamela Clare's debut novel and it had the kind of pacing problems that seem common in first novels. The middle of the book is a bit slow and then the end piles all sorts of problems one on top of the other. In fact there is so much drama that the end seems to go on and on. Those flaws weren't disastrous, but they did make other problems more noticeable.
Clare obviously researched the time period carefully and includes plenty of period detail. I was especially interested in the way she was able to point out that in certain ways indentured servants were actually treated worse than slaves. However, in spite of the historical detail, under the surface the book has a very modern sensibility. Men stay with their wives during childbirth. The good characters are kind to their slaves, who are happy with their lot. The bad characters beat their slaves and are thought badly of because of that. This reminded me why I tend to have problems with romances set in the pre-Civil War South. On one hand it's jarring when characters are anachronistically progressive. On the other hand I have no desire to read a book where the hero and/or heroine are happy slave owners. I understand the reality of that, but I don't want to deal with it in my romance fiction.
Grade: C+
As a result of my mixed feelings I'm not sure that I'll read the other two books in this trilogy: Carnal Gift, which is the story of Cassie's brother Jamie, and Ride the Fire, which features Alex & Cassie's son Nicholas.
Gabriel's Ghost by Linnea Sinclair
After a decade piloting interstellar patrol ships, Captain Chasidah “Chaz” Bergren, was climbing the ladder of the Federated Fleet. Then she was accused of ignoring orders, leading to the deaths of 14 of her crew. She was convicted based on manufactured evidence and sentenced to life on Moabar, a remote prison planet from which no one ever escapes. Chaz has no idea who set her up and in her brutal new surroundings she has no time to try to figure it out. Things take a turn for the worse when she's forced to kill a guard in self-defense and she finds herself face to face with something even more frightening---a ghost from her past.
Gabriel Sullivan is a mercenary and smuggler who supposedly died two years ago. Instead he's on Moabar to rescue Chaz in exchange for her help getting to the bottom of a plot that threatens the Empire. Someone is secretly breeding jukors, vicious creatures that were outlawed years ago because they're uncontrollable. Gabriel needs Chaz to help him stop the practice before it decimates Imperial space. He has information that the secret lab is on Marker, Chaz's home planet, and he needs her knowledge to find and destroy the lab. The mission means putting their lives on the line, but Chaz figures that she has nothing to lose. She didn't count on the fact that Gabriel is far more than the charming criminal she always knew him to be. He has secrets he's afraid to share with anyone, but as the attraction between him and Chaz grows he finds himself wanting to try. Chaz finds that her growing feelings for Gabriel may place her in far greater danger than what she faces from the jukors or her unseen enemies.
This is the second book that I've read by Linnea Sinclair and I liked it as much as I liked the first. It deals with many of the same themes as Games of Command. There's an outsider who has to hide his difference and a heroine with whom he has a long running competitive relationship & who he secretly loves long before she loves him. There are also questions of trust, not only between the hero and heroine, but with the larger power structure.
This isn't merely a rehash of Games though. Gabriel and Chaz are interesting characters in their own right and they have a complicated relationship. Through most of their time together Gabriel insists on keeping his secrets and demands that Chaz not ask him any questions. That was understandable, but still unfair of him and Chaz was both willing to simply trust him and aggravated by the need to. That created a dynamic in their relationship that was compelling to read.
Grade: A-
Gabriel Sullivan is a mercenary and smuggler who supposedly died two years ago. Instead he's on Moabar to rescue Chaz in exchange for her help getting to the bottom of a plot that threatens the Empire. Someone is secretly breeding jukors, vicious creatures that were outlawed years ago because they're uncontrollable. Gabriel needs Chaz to help him stop the practice before it decimates Imperial space. He has information that the secret lab is on Marker, Chaz's home planet, and he needs her knowledge to find and destroy the lab. The mission means putting their lives on the line, but Chaz figures that she has nothing to lose. She didn't count on the fact that Gabriel is far more than the charming criminal she always knew him to be. He has secrets he's afraid to share with anyone, but as the attraction between him and Chaz grows he finds himself wanting to try. Chaz finds that her growing feelings for Gabriel may place her in far greater danger than what she faces from the jukors or her unseen enemies.
This is the second book that I've read by Linnea Sinclair and I liked it as much as I liked the first. It deals with many of the same themes as Games of Command. There's an outsider who has to hide his difference and a heroine with whom he has a long running competitive relationship & who he secretly loves long before she loves him. There are also questions of trust, not only between the hero and heroine, but with the larger power structure.
This isn't merely a rehash of Games though. Gabriel and Chaz are interesting characters in their own right and they have a complicated relationship. Through most of their time together Gabriel insists on keeping his secrets and demands that Chaz not ask him any questions. That was understandable, but still unfair of him and Chaz was both willing to simply trust him and aggravated by the need to. That created a dynamic in their relationship that was compelling to read.
Grade: A-
Exit Strategy by Kelley Armstrong
Nadia is a disgraced former cop who now runs a runs a lodge in rural Canada. She enjoys being an innkeeper, but the lodge isn't yet making enough money to support her. In order to make ends meet she works as a hitwoman for the Tommissini crime family. They pay well, don't lie to her and she knows that all the targets are bad guys. This allows Nadia to feel like she's still on the correct side of the moral line she was raised to believe in. Her only contact with other hitmen is with her mentor, a man she knows only by his professional name—-Jack.
When someone begins killing unconnected victims and leaving pages from the book Helter Skelter as a calling card the authorities suspect that the killer is a professional. The question is, why would a hitman kill so many seemingly random victims.? To get answers they begin arresting hitmen on any charges they can find, hoping to locate the killer or someone with information about him.
Jack realizes that this is very bad for business and asks Nadia to work with him and a small group of other hitmen to track down the killer and eliminate him before they all end up in jail. Nadia understands the stakes and feels like she owes Jack, so she agrees. In order to protect her real identity she takes the professional name Dee and travels around the country with Jack, working with other hitmen and using her rusty police skills to track down the killer.
The strength of this book is the characters. I have a certain fondness for stories about hitmen and I found both Nadia and Jack interesting. Not exactly likable, but interesting. Much more of Nadia's back story is revealed than Jack's and it paints a picture of a complex and difficult woman. For example, after the incident that cost Nadia her job most of her friends and family turned their backs on her and she resents that. Her anger would be reasonable if it weren't for the fact that the incident involved Nadia killing a suspect in cold blood. How did she expect people to react to that? Did she expect them to believe it was some sort of accident or mental breakdown? If so, she's expecting her loved ones to believe a lie, because she knows that isn't what happened. It's unclear if she's faulting them for not believing a lie or for not pretending to believe it, or for minding that she murdered someone and basically got away with it. The book seems to imply that Nadia herself isn't sure. That isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I found it interesting.
Unfortunately, the suspense plot was much less intriguing than the characters. The killer was pretty much who you would expect, his motivation was pretty much what you would expect and I didn't care much about any of it. As a result the book tended to drag. It's fairly long, and felt even longer because I never became absorbed enough by the story to read quickly.
Because I liked the characters I plan to read the follow up, Made to Be Broken. I'm willing to do that in part because, at least as of now, Armstrong doesn't seem to have any plans to write a longer series. If she does write more books about Nadia the plots will have to be much stronger for me to continue reading past the second book.
Grade: C
When someone begins killing unconnected victims and leaving pages from the book Helter Skelter as a calling card the authorities suspect that the killer is a professional. The question is, why would a hitman kill so many seemingly random victims.? To get answers they begin arresting hitmen on any charges they can find, hoping to locate the killer or someone with information about him.
Jack realizes that this is very bad for business and asks Nadia to work with him and a small group of other hitmen to track down the killer and eliminate him before they all end up in jail. Nadia understands the stakes and feels like she owes Jack, so she agrees. In order to protect her real identity she takes the professional name Dee and travels around the country with Jack, working with other hitmen and using her rusty police skills to track down the killer.
The strength of this book is the characters. I have a certain fondness for stories about hitmen and I found both Nadia and Jack interesting. Not exactly likable, but interesting. Much more of Nadia's back story is revealed than Jack's and it paints a picture of a complex and difficult woman. For example, after the incident that cost Nadia her job most of her friends and family turned their backs on her and she resents that. Her anger would be reasonable if it weren't for the fact that the incident involved Nadia killing a suspect in cold blood. How did she expect people to react to that? Did she expect them to believe it was some sort of accident or mental breakdown? If so, she's expecting her loved ones to believe a lie, because she knows that isn't what happened. It's unclear if she's faulting them for not believing a lie or for not pretending to believe it, or for minding that she murdered someone and basically got away with it. The book seems to imply that Nadia herself isn't sure. That isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I found it interesting.
Unfortunately, the suspense plot was much less intriguing than the characters. The killer was pretty much who you would expect, his motivation was pretty much what you would expect and I didn't care much about any of it. As a result the book tended to drag. It's fairly long, and felt even longer because I never became absorbed enough by the story to read quickly.
Because I liked the characters I plan to read the follow up, Made to Be Broken. I'm willing to do that in part because, at least as of now, Armstrong doesn't seem to have any plans to write a longer series. If she does write more books about Nadia the plots will have to be much stronger for me to continue reading past the second book.
Grade: C
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman
Tess Monaghan lost her job as a reporter when her newspaper downsized. Since then she's spent a lot of time feeling bad about the loss of her career, but has made no real effort to find another one. She pays her bills by working part time at her aunt's bookstore and doing free-lance research for an uncle who works as a mid-level state bureaucrat. The rest of her life is as much of a disaster as her career. She has few friends and her love life consists of the occasional booty call with an ex-boyfriend, who's cheating on his current girlfriend with Tess. The only real structure in Tess' life is her commitment to rowing every morning on the Patapsco river.
One day friend and fellow rower Darryl Paxton, aka Rock, asks for Tess' help tailing his fiance Ava. She's a lawyer with a prestigious local firm but Rock fears that her job isn't the only thing occupying her time. Tess feels bad about taking money from a friend, but she needs it to pay her bills and he's determined to pursue the investigation so she agrees to take the job. Tess soon has reason to believe that Rock's suspicions were correct and Ava is sleeping with her boss, Michael Abramowich. In an attempt to be kind Tess offers Ava a chance to come clean on her own, but instead of admitting to having an affair she tells Rock that Abramowich is sexually harassing her.
Abramowich has only been with the firm for a short time. Before that he had a private practice doing criminal defense. He was famous for his tacky commercials, which made him a running joke all over Baltimore. Numerous people had reason to hate him, but when he's murdered Darryl is the prime suspect and is soon under arrest. Tess' testimony could seriously hurt him at trial so his lawyer makes her part of his defense team so that her work will be covered by lawyer-client privilege. She's supposed to do only what she's told, but she can't stop herself from digging into Abramowich's past in an attempt to save her friend from going to prison.
This book had the obvious signs of being a first novel. The mystery was interesting, but the pacing was uneven and some parts of the plot didn't fully hang together. Worse, this was one of those frustrating books where the plot is driven by the failure of any of the characters to ask the obvious question about the crime. In this case the question was, "Why would a prestigious law firm with a high-end client base hire a man whose commercials are a local joke?" As a former reporter Tess should know what to ask about a story, so her failure to do so didn't exactly fill me with confidence in her future as an investigator.
I also found it somewhat difficult to sympathize with Rock because he was written in an inconsistent way that made it difficult to know who he was. He's presented as a big dumb jock—--too dumb to realize that his fiance is a lying user. Tess even compares him to Lenny from Of Mice & Men. The problem with that is that Rock's day job is as a medical researcher at John's Hopkins. His father wanted him to be a doctor, but that would have taken too much time away from rowing so he stuck with research. Not exactly a job for a dim bulb.
I also found Tess somewhat difficult to like. She lost her job two years ago and is still just drifting. If she were making an effort to figure out her future it would be different, but she's basically just living off the generosity of her family and feeling sorry for herself. I also hated that her relationship with her ex-boyfriend was such a cliché. He's the standard lousy guy she can't, or at least doesn't, resist who's cheating on his girlfriend with her. I'm not a fan of cheaters, so that lost Tess some major points.
Grade: C-
Will I read the next book in the series?: No. I didn't like this one well enough to add it to my list of series to follow.
One day friend and fellow rower Darryl Paxton, aka Rock, asks for Tess' help tailing his fiance Ava. She's a lawyer with a prestigious local firm but Rock fears that her job isn't the only thing occupying her time. Tess feels bad about taking money from a friend, but she needs it to pay her bills and he's determined to pursue the investigation so she agrees to take the job. Tess soon has reason to believe that Rock's suspicions were correct and Ava is sleeping with her boss, Michael Abramowich. In an attempt to be kind Tess offers Ava a chance to come clean on her own, but instead of admitting to having an affair she tells Rock that Abramowich is sexually harassing her.
Abramowich has only been with the firm for a short time. Before that he had a private practice doing criminal defense. He was famous for his tacky commercials, which made him a running joke all over Baltimore. Numerous people had reason to hate him, but when he's murdered Darryl is the prime suspect and is soon under arrest. Tess' testimony could seriously hurt him at trial so his lawyer makes her part of his defense team so that her work will be covered by lawyer-client privilege. She's supposed to do only what she's told, but she can't stop herself from digging into Abramowich's past in an attempt to save her friend from going to prison.
This book had the obvious signs of being a first novel. The mystery was interesting, but the pacing was uneven and some parts of the plot didn't fully hang together. Worse, this was one of those frustrating books where the plot is driven by the failure of any of the characters to ask the obvious question about the crime. In this case the question was, "Why would a prestigious law firm with a high-end client base hire a man whose commercials are a local joke?" As a former reporter Tess should know what to ask about a story, so her failure to do so didn't exactly fill me with confidence in her future as an investigator.
I also found it somewhat difficult to sympathize with Rock because he was written in an inconsistent way that made it difficult to know who he was. He's presented as a big dumb jock—--too dumb to realize that his fiance is a lying user. Tess even compares him to Lenny from Of Mice & Men. The problem with that is that Rock's day job is as a medical researcher at John's Hopkins. His father wanted him to be a doctor, but that would have taken too much time away from rowing so he stuck with research. Not exactly a job for a dim bulb.
I also found Tess somewhat difficult to like. She lost her job two years ago and is still just drifting. If she were making an effort to figure out her future it would be different, but she's basically just living off the generosity of her family and feeling sorry for herself. I also hated that her relationship with her ex-boyfriend was such a cliché. He's the standard lousy guy she can't, or at least doesn't, resist who's cheating on his girlfriend with her. I'm not a fan of cheaters, so that lost Tess some major points.
Grade: C-
Will I read the next book in the series?: No. I didn't like this one well enough to add it to my list of series to follow.
The Island by Heather Graham
While on a camping trip on Calliope Key with her brother and his daughter, Beth Anderson finds a skull in the woods. In order to avoid frightening her niece she hides it, planning to return for it later. There are other groups staying on the island and after talking with them Beth becomes suspicious of their motives for being there. She also becomes worried that the skull she found is tied to the apparent disappearance of a popular couple last seen on their yacht near the island several months ago. When Beth goes back to the woods the skull is gone and she becomes even more fearful of her fellow vacationers.
She's especially wary of Keith Henson, a scuba-diver visiting the island with two friends. Beth finds him attractive, but doesn't quite believe his claim that he and his friends are simply diving for fun. She's also concerned that their yacht seems more expensive than any of them could reasonably afford. Her fears make it impossible for her to relax and she's happy to return to her normal life and her job at the local yacht club. Her calm is disrupted when the people from the island start showing up at the club and mysterious occurrences lead Beth to fear that someone is targeting her. In order to keep herself and her family safe she'll have to figure out if Keith can be trusted to protect her or if he's actually a modern day pirate out to silence her for good.
This book sounded fun. After all, who doesn't love (fictional) pirates? Unfortunately it turned out to be a dud. The characters weren't engaging and the story was very frustrating. Fiction tends to rely on a certain amount of coincidence by necessity, but in this case it was ridiculous. There were only 2 or 3 characters that didn't end up being tied to the big plot in some way and one of them was a 14 year old girl. The crime was also a bit too much. There were simply too many elements for it to be at all believable. I was happy to play along with the sunken treasure and the pirates, but when a missing German weapon from World War II became part of the plot Graham lost me.
All in all this wasn't worth the time it took to read it.
Grade: D+
She's especially wary of Keith Henson, a scuba-diver visiting the island with two friends. Beth finds him attractive, but doesn't quite believe his claim that he and his friends are simply diving for fun. She's also concerned that their yacht seems more expensive than any of them could reasonably afford. Her fears make it impossible for her to relax and she's happy to return to her normal life and her job at the local yacht club. Her calm is disrupted when the people from the island start showing up at the club and mysterious occurrences lead Beth to fear that someone is targeting her. In order to keep herself and her family safe she'll have to figure out if Keith can be trusted to protect her or if he's actually a modern day pirate out to silence her for good.
This book sounded fun. After all, who doesn't love (fictional) pirates? Unfortunately it turned out to be a dud. The characters weren't engaging and the story was very frustrating. Fiction tends to rely on a certain amount of coincidence by necessity, but in this case it was ridiculous. There were only 2 or 3 characters that didn't end up being tied to the big plot in some way and one of them was a 14 year old girl. The crime was also a bit too much. There were simply too many elements for it to be at all believable. I was happy to play along with the sunken treasure and the pirates, but when a missing German weapon from World War II became part of the plot Graham lost me.
All in all this wasn't worth the time it took to read it.
Grade: D+
Unlawful Contact by Pamela Clare
This is book 3 in the I-Team series, following Extreme Exposure & Hard Evidence.
Sophie Alton's life is going well. She has fulfilled her childhood ambition to become a journalist and is now one of the I-Team's best investigative reporters. She also has a group of close friends that includes several of the I-Team's current and former members. Unfortunately her love life isn't going as well as her career. She has dated plenty of men, but never felt a real connection with any of them. At times she thinks wistfully of the one perfect night she had with Hunt, her high school crush and wishes that she could find that kind of magic again.
Sophie's lack of romantic prospects don't really bother her though, especially because her job keeps her too busy to worry about it. She's has been working on a piece about the plight of pregnant women in Colorado prisons. In the course of her research she became especially close to one inmate named Megan. Sophie is hopeful that Megan will be able turn her life around and have the chance to make a fresh start with her baby when she is released. Unfortunately on Megan's first visit with her child she takes the baby and goes on the run. Sophie is determined to find out where she has gone and why. As a result when she receives a message from Megan's brother, who is also in prison, Sophie jumps at that the chance to talk with him in hopes that he can tell her where Megan has gone. What Sophie doesn't realize is that Megan's brother is Hunt, her high school lover. He and Megan have different last names and she always referred to him simply as Marc.
Hunt's life after high school went very well for several years. He joined the army and served with distinction, and after leaving the service he joined the DEA. He made a home for himself and was finally able to reconnect with his half-sister, Megan. Then Megan accused his partner of being one of the men who abused her when she was in juvenile detention. When the man was killed Hunt was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
As a former DEA agent he's hated by the other inmates and because he's an accused cop-killer the guards feel the same way, so Hunt's life in prison is extremely difficult. He manages to tolerate it until he hears that his sister is on the run. He fears for her safety and is determined to find her and make sure that she's safe. In order to do that he'll have to break out of prison. He's counting on Sophie's reaction to seeing him to create an opening that he can use to make his escape.
Once Hunt makes his escape with Sophie in tow the two agree to work together to find Megan and her baby and figure out why she felt she had to run away. Their attraction to each other is as strong as ever, but Hunt knows that he has no future and can't offer Sophie anything beyond the moment. Sophie finds it hard to believe that Hunt is guilty of any crime, but she's fears that her heart is overpowering her reporters instincts. At the same time she's not sure she can bring herself to pass up a chance for even a little more of the magic she has never found with anyone else. As difficult as they are even those problems seem minor when the people who are after Megan threaten their lives and Hunt and Sophie start to fear that it may already be too late for Megan and her baby.
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the positive side the plot moves along very quickly and it held my attention. I also liked Hunt and Sophie and their interaction with each other. On the negative side Sophie does quite a few things that are extremely dumb. So dumb that if I had liked her even a tiny bit less I would have totally written her off for being TSTL. For example, when you're helping your lover, the escaped convict, and you want people to think that you've just gone off to be by yourself for a few days, getting caught on a pharmacy's surveillance video using your credit card to buy Plan B and condoms is not smart. Also, rule one when you get arrested is that no matter how innocent you are you need a lawyer. Rule two is not to say a word to the police until your lawyer gets there, even if one of the cops is the husband of your best friend. A smart reporter should know these things.
This sort of behavior seems to be a problem with the heroines in Clare's contemporaries. The second I-Team book was a DNF for me because the heroine, Tessa, was so dumb she made me nuts. I find this confusing and frustrating because the heroines of her historicals aren't stupid. I would enjoy the I-Team books more if the heroines were at least a bit smarter.
I also wish that the end of this book had felt a bit more realistic. I wanted Hunt & Sophie to have their HEA, but considering the reality of Hunt's situation the way things were wrapped up seemed far too good to be true. The total lack of realism pulled me out of the moment in a way that I really didn't like.
Grade: C
Sophie Alton's life is going well. She has fulfilled her childhood ambition to become a journalist and is now one of the I-Team's best investigative reporters. She also has a group of close friends that includes several of the I-Team's current and former members. Unfortunately her love life isn't going as well as her career. She has dated plenty of men, but never felt a real connection with any of them. At times she thinks wistfully of the one perfect night she had with Hunt, her high school crush and wishes that she could find that kind of magic again.
Sophie's lack of romantic prospects don't really bother her though, especially because her job keeps her too busy to worry about it. She's has been working on a piece about the plight of pregnant women in Colorado prisons. In the course of her research she became especially close to one inmate named Megan. Sophie is hopeful that Megan will be able turn her life around and have the chance to make a fresh start with her baby when she is released. Unfortunately on Megan's first visit with her child she takes the baby and goes on the run. Sophie is determined to find out where she has gone and why. As a result when she receives a message from Megan's brother, who is also in prison, Sophie jumps at that the chance to talk with him in hopes that he can tell her where Megan has gone. What Sophie doesn't realize is that Megan's brother is Hunt, her high school lover. He and Megan have different last names and she always referred to him simply as Marc.
Hunt's life after high school went very well for several years. He joined the army and served with distinction, and after leaving the service he joined the DEA. He made a home for himself and was finally able to reconnect with his half-sister, Megan. Then Megan accused his partner of being one of the men who abused her when she was in juvenile detention. When the man was killed Hunt was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
As a former DEA agent he's hated by the other inmates and because he's an accused cop-killer the guards feel the same way, so Hunt's life in prison is extremely difficult. He manages to tolerate it until he hears that his sister is on the run. He fears for her safety and is determined to find her and make sure that she's safe. In order to do that he'll have to break out of prison. He's counting on Sophie's reaction to seeing him to create an opening that he can use to make his escape.
Once Hunt makes his escape with Sophie in tow the two agree to work together to find Megan and her baby and figure out why she felt she had to run away. Their attraction to each other is as strong as ever, but Hunt knows that he has no future and can't offer Sophie anything beyond the moment. Sophie finds it hard to believe that Hunt is guilty of any crime, but she's fears that her heart is overpowering her reporters instincts. At the same time she's not sure she can bring herself to pass up a chance for even a little more of the magic she has never found with anyone else. As difficult as they are even those problems seem minor when the people who are after Megan threaten their lives and Hunt and Sophie start to fear that it may already be too late for Megan and her baby.
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the positive side the plot moves along very quickly and it held my attention. I also liked Hunt and Sophie and their interaction with each other. On the negative side Sophie does quite a few things that are extremely dumb. So dumb that if I had liked her even a tiny bit less I would have totally written her off for being TSTL. For example, when you're helping your lover, the escaped convict, and you want people to think that you've just gone off to be by yourself for a few days, getting caught on a pharmacy's surveillance video using your credit card to buy Plan B and condoms is not smart. Also, rule one when you get arrested is that no matter how innocent you are you need a lawyer. Rule two is not to say a word to the police until your lawyer gets there, even if one of the cops is the husband of your best friend. A smart reporter should know these things.
This sort of behavior seems to be a problem with the heroines in Clare's contemporaries. The second I-Team book was a DNF for me because the heroine, Tessa, was so dumb she made me nuts. I find this confusing and frustrating because the heroines of her historicals aren't stupid. I would enjoy the I-Team books more if the heroines were at least a bit smarter.
I also wish that the end of this book had felt a bit more realistic. I wanted Hunt & Sophie to have their HEA, but considering the reality of Hunt's situation the way things were wrapped up seemed far too good to be true. The total lack of realism pulled me out of the moment in a way that I really didn't like.
Grade: C
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