Some book reviews
Jul. 8th, 2010 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrDespite being chronically ill and stuck at home in bed 90% of the time anyway, having a cold means I feel justified in being really lazy and self indulgent, and blowing off what few personal responsibilities I have. This is kind of an enjoyable change(*) (at least when it's a minor cold)
Anyway, romance reviews! The first three are regencies.
Mistress, Amanda Quick: A sensible young woman pretends to be the ex mistress of a known (and, as far as she knows, dead) rake in order to solve a mystery. But then he arrives back in town wondering who on earth she is...
This wasn't a bad book, but it felt a bit...simple? Flat? Not a lot of surprises or deep insights, but a nice fun story. Characters said "Bloody Hell" a lot.
Goddess of the Hunt, Tessa Dare: A feisty young girl wants to get a friend of her brother's to fall in love with her so practices on his other much more sensible and staid friend. To their mutual surprise they develop an Uncontrollable Passion for each other.
This was fun to start with but the end felt rather rushed and unfinished, and while I was convinced the two characters found each other attractive I wasn't convinced they'd make each other happy. All the Manly Animal Lust talk crossed the line into squick for me a bit as well. Nice cover though.
Viscount Vagabond, Loretta Chase: Sensible daughter of alcoholic wakes up drugged in brothel next to a wastrel...who goes on to rescue her and turn out not to be so bad after all (he's rather Ivan Vorpatril-ish). Quite sweet, a bit more Georgette Heyer-ish than the rest of her stuff. No sex scenes! (Yes, even despite the premise)
And now a contemporary:
"Fast Women", Jennifer Crusie: A 40 something recent divorcee gets a job at a detective agency and tries to figure out who she is and what she wants (and solves a mystery in the process, of course :)). Not as engaging as some of her stuff but very believable and likeable characters. My main issue is that since I never felt any doubt that the main couple would get together, my enjoyment was in seeing how they could create a balanced and healthy long term relationship and what would happen to all the other characters, but the ending was a bit neatly romance-novel-happily-ever-after-ish (The mystery aspect I felt was handled pretty well)
This was a nice change from the regencies, it actually felt like it was about real people and had something to say about human nature and relationships etc. Plus it had two things of the "Would be awesome but never happens" variety. SPOILERS:
(*)Less enjoyable is the knowledge that if I push myself at all I could plausibly stay sick for weeks or months
Anyway, romance reviews! The first three are regencies.
Mistress, Amanda Quick: A sensible young woman pretends to be the ex mistress of a known (and, as far as she knows, dead) rake in order to solve a mystery. But then he arrives back in town wondering who on earth she is...
This wasn't a bad book, but it felt a bit...simple? Flat? Not a lot of surprises or deep insights, but a nice fun story. Characters said "Bloody Hell" a lot.
Goddess of the Hunt, Tessa Dare: A feisty young girl wants to get a friend of her brother's to fall in love with her so practices on his other much more sensible and staid friend. To their mutual surprise they develop an Uncontrollable Passion for each other.
This was fun to start with but the end felt rather rushed and unfinished, and while I was convinced the two characters found each other attractive I wasn't convinced they'd make each other happy. All the Manly Animal Lust talk crossed the line into squick for me a bit as well. Nice cover though.
Viscount Vagabond, Loretta Chase: Sensible daughter of alcoholic wakes up drugged in brothel next to a wastrel...who goes on to rescue her and turn out not to be so bad after all (he's rather Ivan Vorpatril-ish). Quite sweet, a bit more Georgette Heyer-ish than the rest of her stuff. No sex scenes! (Yes, even despite the premise)
And now a contemporary:
"Fast Women", Jennifer Crusie: A 40 something recent divorcee gets a job at a detective agency and tries to figure out who she is and what she wants (and solves a mystery in the process, of course :)). Not as engaging as some of her stuff but very believable and likeable characters. My main issue is that since I never felt any doubt that the main couple would get together, my enjoyment was in seeing how they could create a balanced and healthy long term relationship and what would happen to all the other characters, but the ending was a bit neatly romance-novel-happily-ever-after-ish (The mystery aspect I felt was handled pretty well)
This was a nice change from the regencies, it actually felt like it was about real people and had something to say about human nature and relationships etc. Plus it had two things of the "Would be awesome but never happens" variety. SPOILERS:
I was thinking "Why are you ladies angsting about these annoying men when you could be with each other?" and then one of them SAID PRETTY MUCH THAT and then they made out! ...and then decided that sadly, no, they were straight. Still. And when they joked about a threesome with the third friend should All The Men In The World Die she said "I'd rather get back together with my ex girlfriend". Not 100% sure how I feel about them later pretending to have actually had sex in order to freak out the main character's ex and titillate the new love interest.
Plus a minor character is mentioned to be black in an off hand remark, which makes me feel more justified in casting random characters as POC/non-white in my head unless I have good reason not to.
END SPOILERSPlus a minor character is mentioned to be black in an off hand remark, which makes me feel more justified in casting random characters as POC/non-white in my head unless I have good reason not to.
(*)Less enjoyable is the knowledge that if I push myself at all I could plausibly stay sick for weeks or months
