Leaving blogger, changing focus

I've decided to change the focus of my blog, and so I'm taking this chance to move off blogger and onto wordpress. You will find me at:

www.thedeadauthorsclub.wordpress.com

where I will be participating in a classics challenge, and blogging about classic books and other books that were published prior to the turn of *this* century.

I have made this decision for a number of reasons. Being featured on the "sidebar" of the STGRB site, along with the Emily Giffen debacle, is pretty much the last straw. I am not interested in continuing to blog about authors who are being currently published. There are a lot of people who are fulfilling that function, and things have just gotten too stroppy and scrappy. I really thought that by blogging primarily about trad pubbed authors, I had insulated myself from the cray-cray. If Emily Giffen can lose her ever-lovin'-mind, then anyone can. Plus, there are just far too many really shitty, derivative, and worthless books being published right now. I prefer to use whatever small voice I have in the reader community to highlight books that are a bit older, but still excellent reads, that aren't getting any attention from the reading community in spite of the fact that they deliver something wonderful.

I am participating in a challenge where I will be reading 50 classic books in the next five years. This challenge is hosted by theclassicsclubblog.wordpress.com, a really neat blog that brings together readers who are interested in classic literature.

Thanks!

Julia Spencer-Fleming

I had purchased the first of Julia Spencer-Fleming's Russ Van Alstyne/Clare Fergusson mystery series when it went on sale in February.




This sale was followed by the two subsequent books going on sale as well: A Fountain Full of Blood and Out of the Deep I Cry.






I enjoyed In The Bleak Midwinter, and thought it was a nice series starter, but it didn't galvanize me to read the second and third books. It wasn't until my mom mentioned how much she was enjoying them that I read book two, and then book 3. A Fountain Full of Blood was a good, solid mystery that continued the character development that began in the first book. The relationship between Russ and Clare develops as well, as they have very clearly fallen in love with one another. This is a forbidden love, because Russ is very much married, and both of them struggle with their attraction to one another, and the consequences of falling in love.  

In Out of the Deep I Cry, the series really hits it's stride. This is a split narrative, with part of the book taking place in the present, when the staff doctor for the Millers Kill free medical clinic disappears, and a woman who butted heads with him over the danger of vaccinating children, comes under suspicion. The other portion of the book takes place in the past, when the patron of the clinic was a small girl, having lost four siblings to a terribly virulent strain of diphtheria. Her father also disappears, and her mother goes on with the business of raising her, seeking to have him declared dead so she can officially be considered a widow. His disappearance was never solved.  

Once I got to book three, this series became something of an addiction for me. The mysteries are enjoyable, and well plotted, but the true delight of the series is in the characters of Russ Van Alstyne, Clare Fergusson, and Millers Kill itself. There are a number of secondary characters that are introduced along the way, including skinny Flynnie, or Kevin Flynn, the youngest of the officers at the MKPD, the sexton of St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Mr. Hadley, Hadley Knox, his granddaughter and erstwhile police officer, among others. Some big events occur in that fourth book, and I can't do plot summaries, or even really plot references, without adding a major spoiler alert. Therefore, I will confine myself to simply linking to books 4 through 7, in order, here:









Miller's Kill is a fascinating small community, and by book seven, the series is confronting serious and significant issues, including emotional infidelity, the intersection of faith and faithfulness, whether we, as a society, are doing an adequate job of supporting our combat veterans, the impact of a bad economy on small towns, and service to one's greater community. All in all, Julia Spencer-Fleming has written a wonderful series of mysteries. At the end of book 7, One Was A Soldier, we are left with a piece of good news for Russ and Clare, and with a long wait to book 8, which is projected to be released in April, 2013. While this is a long time to wait, there is every reason to believe that Ms. Spencer-Fleming won't let her fans down.

Unraveled by Courtney Milan

Unraveled by Courtney Milan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Unraveled by Courtney Milan: 4 1/2 stars

"Maybe he'd simply given himself a Miranda quota."

When Miranda Darling appears in a disguise and using a false name to testify untruthfully as a witness to a crime, Magistrate Turner, better known as Lord Justice, recognizes her. She had been a witness before him before, although not in a disguise. He follows her home, and they become intertwined - a young woman of dubious parentage and the brother of a duke.

Courtney Milan writes exceptional historical romances. Her style and characters are unique. Smite Turner is a deliciously damaged hero: a man of uncompromising integrity and attention to duty. He rejects sentiment as weakness, and feels that he is too damaged to deserve happiness. He lives in austere rooms, his life confined to the discharge of his duties as a magistrate in the criminal courts of Bristol. He does not indulge in second thoughts - his mind, once made up, is inalterable.

Miranda Darling, the heroine, is a headstrong young woman with a taste for dangerous men. She is not a young woman of his social class - the daughter of a pair of actors, she grew up in a theater troupe. The two of them agree that Miranda will become Turner's mistress for one month. For that month, he will provide for her, and then, at the end of the month, she will be paid a thousand pounds - a veritable fortune for a girl of her social class.

The interactions between these two main characters are wonderful. Miranda is irreverent, sarcastic, and not even slightly intimidated by Turner. She softens him, and makes him wonder if, maybe, he shouldn't demand more than the circumscribed, sterile life that he has been with satisfied with until he met her. She unflinchingly accepts every part of him, even the parts that are harsh, frightening, and unyielding.

This book was nominated for the RWA historical romance of the year, and it deserves the accolades it has received. The romance is bittersweet and compelling. It is interesting because it is set, not in London, amongst the ton, but in Bristol. And while Smite Turner is an aristocrat, he is no gentleman of leisure. It is beautifully written.

A few of my favorite quotes:

"So why was it that she heard "Miranda, darling," instead? Maybe he paused for emphasis. Maybe he paused to indicate a comma. Never had one little punctuation mark mattered so much."

"If this was magic, magic was tiring. It drained him until he was bone-weary, until all that was left was a deep, empty ache, and a desire to belong to someone else, if only for a few moments."

"You anchor me without holding me down. You frighten me without threatening my future. You're unflinchingly devoted. I love you."

Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas

Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What happens when inalterably headstrong falls in love with unrequitedly stubborn.

This was a sad book. That I really liked anyway.

When the book opens, in 1893, Gigi has just asked her husband, Camden, for a divorce. The two spouses haven't seen one another more than three times in the decade since they married. He lives in America, she resides in England. They are cordially estranged.

Private Arrangements flips between 1883, the past, and 1893, the present. The story truly begins when Camden and Gigi meet in 1883 shortly after her fiancé, the Duke of Tremaine, has unexpectedly died a mere two weeks before he was scheduled to wed her. Gigi is extraordinarily wealthy, with a tinge of common to her cash. Camden is extraordinarily well-bred, with a tinge of royalty to his pedigree. Attraction blossoms within moments of their meeting.

Gigi is a girl after my own heart. She is unabashedly wealthy and determined to make a good marriage. Her mother wants her to catch a duke, and she decided that the best way to accomplish this was not by charming him into a wedding. Rather, she bought up all of his debts prior to his death and blackmailed him into proposing. After he dies, she informs Camden, his heir and the new duke, that she will call those debts should he decline to take the place of her erstwhile, deceased, fiance. Camden declines, politely, because he has made a promise to one Theodora von Schweppenburg, a penniless singer.

Gigi is not the sort of girl who would let a little thing like a promise to the insipid Miss Schweppenburg stand in the way of something she wants, so she engages in a bit of light deception in an effort to persuade Camden to marry her. To her surprise, and dismay, she not only feels bad about the deception, she falls in love him. Deeply, devastatingly, irrevocably in love with him.

And, he falls equally in love with her. When he learns of her deception, shortly before the wedding, he plots an exquisite revenge. They would have one passionate night - their wedding night - and he would decamp from her side permanently.

What I loved about this book:

Ultimately, this is a book about second chances and maturity.

I loved Gigi. She was unapologetically lively and intelligent, with a passion for life. She loves her husband, but accepted that she had lost him through her own bad behavior, and accepted complete responsibility for her part in the schism. She didn't however, allow his repudiation of her to destroy her. She developed a full life for herself, using her financial solvency to benefit other young women who made poor choices in their youth. She has grown up considerably, and tries very hard not to
make the same mistake twice. In her zeal to avoid the mistakes of her youth, she very nearly makes an altogether new one.

I also loved the secondary romance between Gigi's mother and her neighbor. Oftentimes in these regency romances, the mother figure is a combination of ridiculous and irritating. The character development seems to frequently stop right where Jane Austen left it with Mrs. Bennett. Gigi's mom was, of course, an ambitious mama, but she was also bright and intellectual. A bit of a bluestocking, really. And the mature romance was lovely to behold.

I'm conflicted about Camden. He wasn't the kind of hero I was expecting, but he was the kind of hero that Gigi needed. His stubborness was a vice, though, and not a virtue, and it is because of his inflexibility that both he and Gigi were deprived of a full decade of happiness. There was a
poignancy to their HEA because it was delayed well beyond the time that the separation made sense.

Overall, this was a really good historical romance read. It was engaging and beautifully written, with an appealing heroine and a likeable hero.

View all my reviews

Callum and Harper by Fisher Amelie

Callum & Harper by Fisher Amelie
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The issues that made this book a one star read:

One-dimensional wish-fulfillment heroine. Harper was unflawed, perfect, so gorgeous that all of the men who encountered her immediately fell in love with her.

Seriously awkward writing, which causes disasters like this sentence: "Callum was as selfless a man could be and in a world where an attribute of that caliber was more rare than a pink diamond, I clutched him tightly to my heart, fully aware of just how priceless he undoubtedly was." The next time Ms. Amelie writes a book, she should put down the thesaurus. Because that sentence is INSANE, and it is one of many that are just as awful.

Totally unrealistic financial situations: in what world do two completely unskilled, homeless, and unemployed high school graduates in NYC manage to earn 5K in two weeks by grabbing odd jobs? Whether the author can do the math or not, I can. This is $1200 a week, which is a whopping 62K a year per character. Why would anyone ever get a college education or a job if they could make more than the average teacher by washing dishes under the table on an ad hoc basis. Let's not even talk about the ridiculous "wedding" that a bunch of (basically) strangers threw for our H & h, on their own dime, for no other reason than that they were pretty

Random tense changes within the same sentence, which led to this:  "Heat coursed through my arm and when he removes his hand, I felt a lacking I'd never known I could possess."

WARNING: THIS PART IS SPOILERIFIC

Two freaking years of being fake married. Two freaking years of being fake married. Two freaking years of being fake married. Yes, seriously. Totally in love with each other, yet living together in an unconsummated marriage for two years, afraid to admit their feelings for each other. I could've believed six months, but two years of unrequited, yearning, celibacy is just completely unrealistic and absurd.

Finally, as the piece de resistance, beautiful Harper is stalked by a serial killer who is also a former foster kid, in a story line that really just devolves this book into farce. He burns down their apartment. He murders a bunch of women who either share her name, her address, her hair color, or some other attribute, and when the police finally catch him after he nearly murders her in a library, they are so in-fucking-competent that he escapes by bashing one of them on the head and running away. And then, instead of issuing an APB for him, he blithely boards a plane with Harper and kidnaps her on her way to Seattle so she can confess her love to Callum. Then he hauls her all over Seattle, makes her dress up and pretend to love him, and then nearly beats her death. While she is hospitalized, he conveniently throws himself from a pier and his body washes up as she recuperates.

END SPOILERS

Ack.

When I bought this book, I was hoping for a simple, cute story about a pair of foster kids growing up and falling in love. What I got was a poorly written, unrealistic, absurd, wish-fulfillment, nonsense-filled pseudo-crime-drama.

Hot historicals for August

I'm planning on reading and reviewing some inexpensive historical romances in August. I just spent $25.00, and bought seven books:


 

This book is priced @ $3.99, and I have heard really good things about Sherry Thomas. The product description is quite intriguing - estranged husband and wife see one another again after many years.

 

Unraveled is $3.82. I have enjoyed everything I've read by Courtney Milan. We'll see how this one works out for me.

 

At 4.99, this was one of the two the most expensive books I bought. The description looked like so much fun, I couldn't resist it.

 

 I love Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels. At $4.99, this should be a good read for the price.

 

A full-length novel (405 pages) for .99 and the first book in Tessa Dare's Spindle Cove. She is a new author to me, so, here's hoping for a good read for the money.

 

This one was only $1.99. Another fun premise, with a young widow as the heroine. Hopefully a nice change from the classic debutante historical. And, finally:

 

For 3.99, this is the first in Hoyt's Princes trilogy. I enjoyed the first book of her Maiden Lane series, and I've heard really good things about this trilogy. All three books are reasonably priced @ $3.99.

So, there we are - for $25.00, a nice little stack of books. I'll probably sort through my kindle looking for some additional historical romances that have been sitting around for a while and give them a go as well.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First off, I love the cover. It's gorgeous, even on a computer screen, and is a nice change from the ubiquitous pretty girl in a ball gown which seems to be on about every third YA book being published these days. The drawing is fabulous, and really helped me to visualize how the Hartmann saw the world that she was building.

Second, the world building. Far be it from me to go all squealing fan girly, but dang it, this was some good world building. The richness is unbelievable, from philosophy to religion to music. I loved everything about the world of Goredd and the dragons and the dragon/human interaction.

Third, the richness of the characters. Seraphina is internally conflicted, and occasionally filled with self-loathing, which is her birthright. As the daughter of a dragon and a human, she is considered a freak, and an abomination by every one who knows about her parentage, right down to her own father. Her status of a half-breed, though, in a sense, is freeing. Her loyalties are not with one, nor the other, and she can choose who, and what, to believe in based upon what is right, not what is expected. Lucien Kiggs, her love interest, is almost always worthy of her regard. And how refreshing is it to have a Princess - Gisselda - who is not inane, who is not petty, and who is more than just a pretty face?

The first half of the book is a bit of a rough go, but the last half is a headlong rush to the finish. It's not that the first half is poorly paced, it just took me a while to warm up to the characters and to become so deeply engrossed in the story that it played itself out across my mind like actors on a stage.

Finally, the love story between Linn - Seraphina's mother - and Claude - her father - is almost unbearably poignant. I don't know if Hartman plans to write a prequel, or a story, that tells Linn's story, but I hope she does. Just the little bits and pieces that she gave her readers in this book, through Seraphina, about Linn and about her decision to leave behind her people because she fell in love with a human is so compelling that thinking about it hurts a little bit.

I really, really liked this book.