Two more romance reviews (not Loretta Chase)

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Bound by your touch: Meredith Duran

I read it based on this review:

BLUESTOCKING: And now to give a speech to the archaeological society. What a fine day this is, to be sure! Finally some appreciation for the scholarly lady.
RAKE: Daddy, I have your artefact! Look, look, I came all this way to rub it in your face-
BLUESTOCKING: Hem hem.
RAKE: -lots of people here, wonder what that's about, anyway, the important thing is that I HATE MY DADDY and-
BLUESTOCKING: Please sit your rake ass and your daddy issues THE HELL DOWN.
RAKE: ... Wut?
BLUESTOCKING: Also your artefact is an obvious fake.

and it was pretty much what I'd hoped for. Lost steam a little by the end.

Bet Me: Jennifer Crusie

THe heroine is an overweight actuary. And there's a queer character who ISN'T AN EVIL BISEXUAL. She's fairly minor and sadly didn't get together with any of the other cast members (I found myself slashing her with the heroine for a second before I remembered what kind of book I was reading(*)) But still.

Oh! And though the hero encourages the heroine to stop worrying about her weight and eat lots of doughnuts and chicken marsala (by the end of the book, I had to go make some chicken marsala for myself it sounded so tasty) the "Everyone should eat cake" moral is tempered by a minor character who has a genuine intolerance to sugar. Just to prove that this book really was written for me specifically :)

Like Loretta Chase, Jennifer Crusie clearly likes all her characters, and she's a good enough writer that I really want to see them all happy, and then they are! Yay! The end of this was one a was a bit too neat, there's even an epilogue which gives a happy ending to EVERY CHARACTER. But it was still a really enjoyable read.

(*)Part of me thought about fic then thought "Who wants femslash about the heroine of a het romance?". And then remembered I saw Jennifer Crusie mentioned in a Yuletide letter and found fic for a story of hers I haven't read yet oooh.