The Countess by Lynsay Sands (Madison Sisters, Book 1)
Light on plot, on character and on plausibility. And they make out next to a corpse.
The Countess was one of the first books I requested from NetGalley. In the process, I made some important discoveries:
1. DRM-protected NetGalley books expire 60 days after downloading.
2. It isn’t unusual for me to take me more than 60 days to review a book I’ve read.
3. Sony Reader’s note-taking feature is linked to the ebook file. When the ebook file expires, my notes are unreadable.
Technology sucks sometimes.
Luckily, I can still do this review, but it’ll be a little more general than usual. Except when I specifically mention making out next to the dead guy. More on that later.
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Wandergurl’s recommended reads from 2010 and a self-imposed challenge to conquer her TBR pile.
Book picks for 2010
The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne
Effectively the prequel to The Spymaster’s Lady, this equally wonderfully written novel is about ‘Maggie and Doyle’. Marguerite de Fleurignac, a French noblewoman, encounters William Doyle in her burnt out chateau. They both pretend to be people they are not, as she is trying to desperately smuggle out people during the revolution and he is an English spy looking for her father. The romance is lush and lovely, the spy plot moves around nicely, and I was kept captivated. Highly recommended.
Feet of the Chameleon by Ian Hawkey
This is a largely anecdotal history of modern African football and how it has shaped various countries’ political histories. I read this book during the football (soccer) world cup while in Africa so it was especially poignant. It explained a lot of things that were interesting to me, and would be interesting for anyone with an interest in Africa, its people and its history.
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HeartMate by Robin D. Owens (Celta's HeartMates, Book 1)
A well crafted book that will appeal to fans of Jayne Castle’s series. Just ignore the attack of the apostrophes.
Rand T’Ash is a member of one of the Great Families on the planet of Celta, colonised by the people of Earth many years ago during a search to find a suitable location to develop their psychic gifts. Formerly a street rat he is now a respected nobleman with a talent for shaping stones. He has crafted a necklace as a HeartGift, as is customary in their culture, for his HeartMate, the woman who is destined to be his. Danith Mallow walks into his shop one day and is drawn to the necklace, but after some alpha grunt-type discussion and a bit of chaos caused by other customers, she leaves, and T’Ash has to find her and somehow convince her that they are destined to be together. Thus the story and the apostrophes begin.
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Marry Me by Jo Goodman
Or: OMG, Wandergurl is alive.
I lost my phone. This is not an excuse as to why I have dropped off the face of the earth but anyway, this happened. Fortunately my contract was about to expire, so I could get a new phone that wouldn’t cost me too much. And so I ended up with an iPhone 4. What does this have to do with this book, you ask? Well, I downloaded the Amazon Kindle app. And this book was free! And recommended! And I ended up reading it. And that’s how I ended up resurrecting myself from the dead and suddenly writing a review.
Coleridge Monroe moves to Reidsville, Colorado with his sister to assume the position of town doctor. It’s a town of about 800 people, which I have to say, is possibly more than some towns in Australia now. When he accompanies one of the deputies to check on one of the outlying farms in the mountains he meets Judah Abbot, the local cranky ass, and what turns out to be his daughter, Rhyne, who due to the severity of her illness and the circumstances surrounding it has to be taken to town and ends up staying with him for a while. (Note that these are not just fluffy circumstances to make up the slimmest of reasons to get the heroine to have an excuse to stay with the hero. These are hardcore OMG, this is difficult kind of circumstances. When Goodman makes things difficult, she makes things difficult.) Eventually she becomes their housekeeper and you can see where this is going from there.
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Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey
The premise may stretch the imagination, but the conflicts and emotions in this book felt so real they made my heart ache.
When Keri Daniels’s boss finds out that Keri had been childhood sweethearts with ‘the most reclusive bestselling author since J. D. Salinger’, she’s given an ultimatum: dish the dirt or get the sack. Keri hasn’t seen Joe Kowalski in eighteen years, ever since she left him to pursue a career in the big city. So when he agrees to an interview if she goes camping with him and his family, she figures she can endure it to guarantee her promotion.
Joe was devastated when Keri left, and his heartbreak led to some serious alcohol abuse. But he feels some old sparks and thinks Keri might be open to one last fling. His twin sister, Terry, doesn’t think it’s a good idea and is determined to make Keri pay for what she did to his brother … and for some other grudges Terry has carried over from high school.
Exclusively Yours starts off with a very category romance feel, with Keri being coerced by both her boss and Joe into stepping outside her comfort zone and into a situation where she and Joe are forced to be in close proximity. But Stacey develops the story into a well crafted exploration of the issues that turn love into something unbearable and what it takes to repair broken relationships.
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Once Upon a Mattress by Kathleen O'Reilly
An endearing heroine makes up for an underwhelming hero in this fun, sexy story.
This novel revolves around Ben MacAllister, whose family owns MacAllister Beds, a mattress company, and Hilary Sinclair, who’s an executive at the firm. Let’s get my biases out of the way: every time I’m reminded of the mattress company—which is most of the time—I think of those dodgy Captain Snooze ads. Sexiness factor: zero.
Moving on.
Ben’s parents are in the middle of getting divorced, so he’s home to help out with the family business: ‘He’d never cared much about the company; his family was the reason he was here instead of completing number thirty-seven on his “list of things to do before I die”.’ But when his dad starts talking about selling the firm, Ben is determined to prove he has what it takes to keep the business in the family.
Hilary is getting over a seven-year relationship that went nowhere. She’s in a new city, having bought a charming new place (read: needs work), and the job at MacAllister Beds is a chance to prove she make it on her own two feet.
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Just Kiss Me by Kathleen O'Reilly
This hero-centric story is a little darker than O’Reilly’s previous novels, but with enough room to display the sexy humour I so love in her work.
The set-up of this novel is a little convoluted. Amanda Sedgewick is desperate to discourage the attentions of Avery Barrington, so she turns to his brother, Joe, to act as a decoy. When it becomes clear that Avery just won’t get the hint, Joe reluctantly agrees to help. Little does he know that Amanda’s always been, well, interested in him—but it doesn’t take him long to figure it out.
Meanwhile, Joe has feelings of inadequacy, having lived in his brother’s shadow all his life, and he can’t quite convince himself that he can give Amanda everything she needs.
The story is a little darker than O’Reilly’s previous novels, but there’s enough room to display the sexy humour I so love in her work.
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Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath (London's Greatest Lovers, Book 2)
A dramatic, heartbreaking Victorian romance between two slightly damaged people whose secrets are an obstacle to the kind of love they want and need.
Injured in body as well as in mind, Stephen Lyons is no longer the cheerful, skirt-chasing charmer he had been before the Crimean War. When Mercy Dawson, one of Florence Nightingale’s nurses at Scutari, shows up with an angry father and Stephen’s son, he has no choice but to marry her even though he can’t remember a single moment of their time together.
This is the second book of a series, but references to the previous book are fairly easy to follow. The story starts with a prologue to show Stephen pre-war; it’s a little slow but serves its purpose. I do wonder how Stephen managed to avoid getting sexually transmitted diseases with the repeated emphasis that Heath gives to his promiscuous ways.
Lorraine Heath’s Victorian romance paints a very bleak picture of war, and it’s to Heath’s credit that she doesn’t gloss over the suffering of soldiers. Interestingly, nurses were also frowned upon—I didn’t understand this at first, but apparently the fact that nurses are comfortable with undressing and bathing men was seen, at least by some in the Victorian era, as disreputable—-and Mercy pays a huge price for her desire to help in the battlefield.
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A Snowball's Chance by Nikki Rivers/A Christmas Carol by Kathleen O'Reilly
This humorous, sexy friends-to-lovers romantic comedy is an excellent debut in category romance.
I love the friends-to-lovers theme in romance, especially in category novels. During my deepest Mills & Boon addiction, this was my absolute favourite type of couple. Probably it was because I was in high school at the time.
Unlike your typical friends-to-lovers pairing, the couple in Kathleen O’Reilly’s first category romance don’t suffer from a lust imbalance (where one person has always harboured a secret crush on the other). Carol Martin has been best friends with Mike Fitzgerald since they were kids. Strictly platonic. She’s looking for someone more sophisticated; he’s not willing to risk the wrath of her mother by so much as thinking inappropriate thoughts.
But all it takes are some suggestive comments from Carol’s Aunt Eleanor to get those thoughts going. And once lust gets in the way of their friendship, Carol and Mike have to sort out what they’re willing to live with … and whom they can live without.
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Touched by Fire by Kathleen O'Reilly
I’m determined to review every Kathleen O’Reilly book in my shelf, starting with her debut into historical romance.* The writing shows promise, but lacks the subtlety of her later work.
* Update: Although O’Reilly wrote this novel first, based on publication dates this is actually her second novel. Her first published work of fiction is A Christmas Carol.
When I discovered Kathleen O’Reilly’s books, I went on a mission to track down her backlist. O’Reilly’s first work of fiction, Touched by Fire, is a Regency romance—the only historical romance she’s published so far—featuring a hero with a deep, dark secret, and a heroine who just won’t take no for an answer.
I know; it sounds a bit absurd. It kind of is a bit absurd.
Colin, Earl of Haverwood grew up with the shameful secret that his birth was a result of his mother’s rape in the hands of a convicted murderer. The circumstances of his birth, and his adoptive father’s certainty that Colin is afflicted with the same murderous lust, has driven him to avoid any real relationships with women.
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