Two Psy, each damaged in different ways. Ill-fated lovers. An emotionally repressed virgin hero who moves the earth for his true love. And all the feels. The feels! This one is definitely a keeper.
Before we start, let’s get this out of the way: I’m not going to tell you explicitly who the Ghost is in this review, but it might be guessable. Also, we don’t have a spoiler filter in the comments, so if you haven’t read the book, I’d suggest avoiding the comments until you do.
If there’s any criticism I could level at the last few Psy-Changeling books, it would be that the romances tended to be overshadowed by the worldbuilding. It’s clear that New Zealand author* Nalini Singh has been building up to some big revelations, and many of them culminate in Heart Of Obsidian.
* In true Aussie fashion, I propose claiming her for our own. It’s a long-standing tradition. We have precendents—the pavlova, Phar Lap, Keith Urban. And now Nalini Singh. Let’s start the rumour today and make it happen.
Kaleb Krychek has always been billed as the ruthless Councillor who has had no compunction in assassinating those who stand in his way, but as the series progressed it’s clear that he has his own agenda, which might not align with my first impression of him. (Jane at Dear Author posted this awesome cheat sheet on what we know of Kaleb up to Kiss of Snow.) After seven years, two week and two days, Kaleb has finally found the woman he has been searching for.
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A beautifully written, subtle, angsty story by one of the best writers of modern category romance. My first keeper for 2013.
This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.
Evie Jones and her business partner, Max, need additional funding for a project that could make their careers. When they attempt to enter a marriage of convenience in order to gain access to Max’s trust fund, they’re faced with a very big inconvenience—Max’s brother and Evie’s ex-lover. Eleven years ago, Evie and Logan had a week-long affair that ended in heartbreak. The sex was too rough, she was too inexperienced, and they were both too consumed by passion to take care of themselves and each other.
There’s no denying the chemistry that still exists between Evie and Logan. Logan wants nothing to do with her—his memory of their affair is steeped in shame and self-loathing. Evie knows that they’re different people now. She’s had eleven years to come to terms with the affair, and to understand her needs and boundaries. Evie is convinced there could be a way for them to find happiness together, but to do that she will have to convince Logan to give their relationship another chance.
This book, one of the launch titles for Harlequin’s new KISS line, is my first keeper for the year.
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Keeper. New auto-buy author. Need I say more?
This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.
Most of the books I read nowadays are romance, so it’s not often that I find a one that makes me feel like I’m reading something new in the genre. Until a book like Grease Monkey Jive reminds me that, yes, this genre is more than capable of surprising me in all the right ways.
Grease Monkey Jive opens with ballroom dancing instructor and performer Alex Gibson having a bit of a moment with dance partner Dan Maddox, and as I read the first chapter, I settled down for a lovely, comfortable read. Little did I know.
It turns out that this is only a teaser, and the story flashes back to introduce the characters and the plot. We see Dan and his mates—Mitch, Fluke and Ant—going through a typical Friday night, drinking at a club and picking up chicks. Dan is the babe magnet who leaves with the most beautiful woman but is hard-pressed to remember her name the morning after. It’s an aimless existence, and he begins to question if there’s more to life than picking up random girls, surfing with his best mates and working at McMurty’s garage—particularly when he finds himself in strife after making out with Fluke’s younger sister.
Meanwhile, Alex decides to enter the Australasian Dance Theatre Championship, despite feeling resistance from her mother and her boyfriend, in part because she loves to dance but also because she could really do with the prize money. Due to what she perceives to be her mother’s issues relating to having been a single mum, Alex feels pressure to put away her dancing shoes to pursue a career in business and settle down with her stable and financially secure boyfriend.
It takes a while for Alex and Dan’s stories to converge and come back to where it began in the book, but it’s a fabulous journey—more so Dan’s than Alex’s, to be honest. Although the supporting characters around Alex sometimes surprised me, Alex herself rarely did; her issues are familiar in the world of romance. In contrast, Australian author Ainslie Paton displays an affinity for Dan’s voice and Dan’s world that had me completely wrapped up in his story.
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Heart Of The Desert by Carol Marinelli
A beautifully written story—the sheikh romance for readers who hate sheikh romances. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read in the Mills & Boon Sexy line.
This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.
I’ve never reviewed a Carol Marinelli book, but I’ve tried the author’s work twice; both times were DNF, and I didn’t pick up another one of hers again until I started reading Heart Of The Desert, a sequel to her 2009 M&B Medical, Secret Sheikh, Secret Baby. It’s an absolute keeper.
Georgie Anderson almost had a one-night stand with her brother-in-law, Prince Ibrahim Zaraq, but she turned him down at the last minute and harsh words were exchanged. So when they end up back at Zaraq at the same time, it’s all they can do to be civil to each other.
A series of events finds them stranded in the desert—the desert that haunts Ibrahim and seduces Georgie. But Ibrahim is the third prince of Zaraq, and he’s bound by rules and customs that will never accept Georgie in his life even though each of them knows they may never find anyone else who will understand and accept them so completely.
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Red-Hot Renegade by Kelly Hunter (The Bennetts, Book 5)
This RITA-nominated book is sexy, angsty and deeply moving—everything we love about modern category romance. Oh, and the heroine? She’s the tycoon. This one’s a keeper.
You may have noticed that I’m in the middle of a Kelly Hunter glom. How I missed this awesome Aussie author boggles my mind, but Red-Hot Renegade (published in the US as Her Singapore Fling) is the book that made me first try Hunter’s work. Nominated for this year’s RITA awards, the book also features an Asian heroine with an Australian hero.
The back story for this novel is set up in the previous books of the series, which features the romances of Jacob Bennett’s siblings. Jacob’s estranged wife Jianne is being stalked and, having run out of options, she reluctantly comes to him for help.
Jacob is a martial arts champion who runs his dojo in Singapore. For reasons neither he nor Jianne want to acknowledge, they’re still officially married even though Jianne walked out on the marriage twelve years ago. What makes this reunion story different is that neither of them blame the other—instead, they remind each other of the guilt they feel about not having fought hard enough to save their relationship.
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Sometimes you find a book impossible to put down, not because of what it says about the world, but because of what it knows about you. Affection is that kind of book.
In Affection, Krissy Kneen intersperses past and present in brief but intense vignettes that readers of her blog, Furious Vaginas, may recognise. And yet the story flows—and does so lyrically, beautifully and at times enigmatically.
It begins with a playful tease—Kneen is bound, at her own request, in the middle of an otherwise perfectly domestic Sunday morning. ‘And that was just the sex part,’ she breaks off cheekily.
Kneen describes her childhood in Blacktown (NSW) and her teen years in Gladstone (Qld) almost always framed against the discovery of sexual pleasure—lying on the carpet, in a crawl space under the house, under her grandfather’s desk, on the beach—and her memories burst with texture.
When she leaves home to study in Brisbane, Kneen’s sexual exploration becomes more uninhibited and more complicated.
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This is a book to be sped through, then read again and savoured and, when it’s tattered and the pages are curling, passed on to your kids.
This is the Melina Marchetta I thought I wouldn’t finish.
The story begins with a shocking scene of children trapped in a car wreck on the Jellicoe Road. But this isn’t the main story.
Twenty-two years later, Taylor Markham is elected to lead Jellicoe School in the annual territory wars against the Townies from the local public school, and the Cadets, who camp out in town for the summer holidays.
But Taylor has other things to worry about. Her dreams are filled by a boy in a tree who whispers in her ear. Hannah, the closest person she has to a mother, has mysteriously disappeared, and Taylor’s teetering on the brink of a breakdown—or worse.
What happened to the kids in the car accident and the boy on the bike who came along to save them? And what do they have to do with Taylor?
I was so confused, I killed a fairy before I even reached page 50.
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A Victorian romance that doesn’t pull a fast one on the reader. It’s a shame we get only one book a year in this series.
Lord Cameron Mackenzie has been a bachelor ever since his psycho first wife died and has raised his son with the help of his brothers and the women who have married into their family. He’s known for his talent with training race horses, and, of course, for his reputation with women.
Ainsley Douglas is a widowed lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria (yes, it’s not a Regency!) and a good friend of one of the Mackenzie wives’. She’s been sent to their house party to retrieve incriminating letters that are being used to blackmail the queen. She’s encountered Cameron before—in smouldering but unfulfilled circumstances—and finds herself caught up with him again in her attempt to retrieve the letters.
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I’ve made up my mind. This is my favourite Melina Marchetta book. If my house caught fire, I’d probably grab it on the way out.
We have a signed copy of The Piper’s Son to give away. We’ll post details of the giveaway this week, so watch this space!
Last year I declared Saving Francesca as my favourite young adult book, but that’s not totally accurate. It’s my favourite teen novel. The Piper’s Son is a little more grown-up, and in this book, Melina Marchetta moves more firmly into young adult territory.
I was crying before I got to the end of chapter one, right through to the end, and I loved every minute of it.
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Heartless by Gail Carriger (Parasol Protectorate, Book 4)
The latest instalment of the Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series proves that some things can get even better with time.
Alexia Maccon (nee Tarrabotti) has got herself into trouble again. Aside from the ‘infant inconvenience’ that has led to everyone trying to kill her—featuring, this time around, zombie, semi-mechanised porcupines—she has to solve a plot to assassinate the Queen. All while waddling about, moving, investigating her husband’s past, fussing over members of the pack and having tea.
This latest instalment of the Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series proves that some things can get even better with time. This book was just as witty and compelling as the others—I read it at every possible moment—and even more creative. (The porcupines were totally original.) Alexia, despite being preggers and totally dependent on her parasol, hunky werewolves and her unflappable butler to prop her up, still manages to save the day and pop out a baby besides. (Yes, the progeny makes its appearance in this one, which is not a spoiler since you can tell that from the size of her in chapter one.)
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