30 June 2011

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday is Inspired.

This is a couple of weeks old, but the sentiments and the general inspirationality of it all are still resonating with me.  Team CoCo fo' sho'.


28 June 2011

In Which I Review Two (Yes, TWO!) Erin McCarthy's

I’m reviewing these two books together because I read them back-to-back, they belong to the same series, and because I’m not sure I could come up with a substantial review for either of them individually.

Also, because it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want. Ha.

Erin McCarthy’s Fast Track novels have been celebrated in romance forums for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that they are contemporary, present-day novels that do not feature vampires, werewolves, succubi, or alternate dimensions.

They also follow a group of racecar drivers, which is fairly unique. And let me say, that after reading these books, I am much less likely to complain should Boy Scout take it into his head to start watching Cup racing.

Hot Finish is the story of Suzanne and Ryder, the divorced-couple-who-can’t-seem-to-shake-each-other who have been lynch-pinning the previous two books. Suz up and left one day, Ryder’s not really sure why, and now they’re divorced. They're sort-of friendly, only not. Sort-of. Only it turns out that they’re not divorced because Ryder never showed up for his court date.

How convenient.

The book mainly focuses on the reconciliation and reformation of their relationship, beginning with the discovery of their still-marriage, and culminating in lots of dirty sex. Wa-hoo.

My main problem with this book is that I didn’t particularly like either Ryder or Suzanne. They were obviously in love with each other for the entirety of their “divorce,” and the fact that it took until the end of the goddamn book for them to have an honest conversation brought both of them in to seriously TSTL territory. And while I’m glad that (SPOILER ALERT) they ended up preggers in the end, I have to say that if being less than 12 hours late in taking your Pill is that dangerous, we’re all in serious trouble.

In the end, I was glad they were back together, but Suzanne’s continual lack of clear direction in her life was still a little staggering (Law school? Just like that allofasudden?) and Ryder’s simple (though sweet) declaration of love made it a little “whydidIhavetoread291pagestogethere?”

The Chase, on the other hand, was much better for me. Evan Monroe (brother of the oh-so-yummy Elec) holds a grudge against rookie girl driver Kendall Holbrook for breaking his heart when he was nineteen. She holds a grudge against him for making fun of her driving aspirations, causing her to dump him.

The beautiful thing is that they have an honest conversation pretty much first thing in the book, and by page 57 they’re humping on the hood of her car. Hawt.

It takes them a while (but not as long as you’d think!) to figure out what they’re doing together, what it means for their careers, etc. But in the end they are both honest and communicative and they make it work.

If I had to name a problem I have with The Chase, it’s that it’s dangerously close to re-hashed territory. Skittish and emotionally distant female? Original, except we’ve seen it already (and been annoyed by it) in Suzanne. Slightly troubled, former manwhore driver? That would by Ty McCordle. Slutfest pregnancy scare as a result of former manwhoredom? Yeah. That was in the book about Evan’s brother, Elec.

Slow Ride, out this coming October, features Kendall’s friend, racing gossip-blogger Tuesday Jones and some dude I’ve never heard of before. If two virtual-unknowns means fresh story, I’m totally down.


27 June 2011

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Apologizes

It is with a thousand apologies that I beg your forgiveness for the lack of Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday last week.  You may or may not know that I was travelling, and quite honestly, Thursday came and went without my even thinking about this blog.  Sacrilege, darling.

At any rate, I've still got a buttload of reviews up my sleeve AND I COOKED THIS WEEKEND.  Somehow.  I cooked.

It was way simple, too.  Basically Gwyneth told me to cook up some soy sauce, honey, mirin (Substitute with sake?  Yeah, sure!), ginger (Which you should not lose in the bottom of your Whole Foods bag), and cilantro (Which you should not ignore, because you're "one of those people" who can't even look at cilantro without getting squicked).  Once that's all cool, she told me to marinate some salmon in it.

Presto.

I liked this recipe, though I think I would have liked it better if we had let the salmon marinate longer (than an hour).  The honey makes sure everything gets a little crispy under the broiler, and all of the flavors blend perfectly with the salmon.  I do recommend boiling the marinade down afterward to make a sauce, but I do not recommend boiling it down to the point that it turns into a preliminary version of tar.  Like I did.

We've been experimenting with a lot of marinades lately (to dress up my constant servings of protein), and while this was not my favorite, I think it has a lot of potential, and I would like to play with it some more.  I would also like to try it on the grill (As opposed to in the broiler, per the recipe and our own cooking limitations) but that will have to wait for another time.

Up next?  Reviews like you've never seen them before!!

22 June 2011

In Which I Finally Review Kresley Cole's Latest

It has taken me a while to read Kresley Cole’s newest book, Dreams of a Dark Warrior, thanks to the Great Paranormal Detox of 2011.

As you may or may not know, I have spent a lot time over the life of this blog contemplating my love affair with the Immortals After Dark Series, and whether or not I was going to continue said affair after a certain point.

Dark Warrior, Regin’s entry into the saga, was surprising to me in that it left me wanting more, more, more.

Since the Immortals’ inception, we’ve heard about Regin the Radiant, her glowing skin, her drugging kiss, and the fact that she has been pursued through time by Aidan the Fierce, a Berserker she kissed so far back that there’s not even a year attached to the date. Aidan died almost immediately upon the consummation of their relationship (back in the day), but has been reincarnated three times since.

When he comes back, he knows only that being with other women does not feel right (to the point that one of the incarnations belonged to a monastic order), and he is always a renowned warrior. Regin recognizes him by general feeling and then by looking in his eyes (as he is always drawn to her). He always remembers their history when she kisses him, and he always dies within hours of consummating their romance.

Smash cut to: present day Hell Island, where The Initiative (I mean, The Order) is holding the Immortals prisoner for experimentation, interrogation, and eventual execution. Declan Chase, drugged-up head of the facility, is drawn particularly to Regin the Radiant, the first Valkyrie ever brought in to the facility. Of course, Regin takes one look at the Immortal-hating asshole of a warden and recognizes the newest version of her long-lost love.

To pretend that this is even close to the summary of this 515 page book is laughable. Because it is the ninth book in the series and the last several have been taking place practically simultaneously, there are a lot of loose ends and overlaps and callbacks and criss-crossings. I had forgotten that Lucia ditched Regin to go kill Cruach with Garreth in Pleasure of a Dark Prince, and that Carrow had watched in horror as Regin was brought back from her vivisection (yes, it’s as nasty as it sounds) in Demon From the Dark. And that Lothaire, Enemy of Old and nemesis of our girl Nucking Futs Nix, has been running around in the background of all of three books.

(Note to self: time for an IAD re-read marathon. Will probably hold off though, until we’re ready for Lothaire’s book next year)

I was intrigued by Declan and the fact that he kept his natural (but unknown to him) Berserker tendencies at bay with heavy doses of opiates and sedatives. He hasn’t had sex in years, not just because of the serious drugs he’s on, but because every time he does, he feels so ill he cannot bring himself to finish. It feels wrong. For a while, I really thought it would be better if this incarnation of Aidan died, and Regin waited to get a fresh start to find a way to break the curse with the next guy. Declan is seriously damaged, and even the Immortals can’t blame him for his treatment of them when they find out what some Neoptras did to him and his family in the past. However, in the end it was very clear that Declan was the best version of Aidan for our girl Regin. They were bound by the whole (slightly unclear) Berserker matehood thing, but they also came to a real understanding of one another, and I definitely bought them together, despite all of the truly awful things that had happened to them along the way.

I didn’t think I would like Regin As Heroine, but reading her story was rather like going out for drinks with a friend of a friend that you never really thought you’d be friends with yourself. Running around threatening the heroes in other stories, acting nutso during Talisman’s Hies, being a party-hardy NOLA girl is not all there is to this picture. I knew she had spent a lot of time trying to flee Aidan’s newest incarnation (even before she knew exactly who it was), and I thought it was because she wasn’t really in to him. Not so. Rather it was because she had lost him so many times she didn’t know if she could take it again. And I never would have known that had I skipped out on drinks. Or rather, her story.

Next up in the series is a book about Lothaire (How intrigued are we to read a book about The Bad Guy? SO INTRIGUED!), and apparently Nix is up after that. I would say I’m skeptical, but who am I kidding? I’m ready for more, however Kresley Cole wants to deliver it.

20 June 2011

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Hot

Greetings mayhem-ers, from sunny, hot as hell Phoenix. Yep, that's right, we're on the road this week, and I've already begun to regret my books-for-forced-reading choices. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll get over it.

In the meantime, we cooked! Somehow, in the midst of a truly insane Father's Day weekend (Yay Dad and Granddads Jones!), I made Chilled Cucumber Soup for dinner.

And boy, would Boy Scout appreciate it if I never made such a thing, like, ever again.

It's not that it was bad, it was just not really anywhere in the vicinity of good. Something about cucumbers and a whole mess of onions (red, scallions) seemed like just the right thing, but then turned out not to be.

Full disclosure: I used fat free dairy products in the making of this soup (Greek yogurt and half & half), and left out the dill, mostly because I couldn't find any anywhere. Granted, I didn't try too hard because it's not my favorite thing in the world, but nonetheless, if I had found some, I would have used it.

Anyway, you're supposed to stick 2 cucumbers, a red onion, 6 scallions, the yogurt and the half & half in the blender. Which I did. Then I added the lemon juice as required before serving. I did not garnish with shrimp because I did not feel it was necessary. It was just the two of us, after all, but I suspect this is half of Boy Scout's problem. If only because he told to me outright that that was part of his problem.

I really did take a picture if the soup, but right now it requires more effort than I have to expend to figure out how to get that picture from the gallery in my phone to this blog entry right here. It is a shockingly difficult task.

Voila. Monday? Check. Menu? Check. Mayhem? Check. Stay cool out there.

16 June 2011

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Revisits Some Old Promises

Remember a long-ass time ago when I told you I would come back to the "other things" I liked about Elizabeth Hoyt's Legend of the Four Soldiers Series?

Well, gather 'round, children.  It's time.

The first book in the Four Soldiers series begins with a prologue that, well... begins the story of the Four Soldiers.  You with me?  Emeline, the heroine of To Taste Temptation, was read The Legend of the Four Soldiers by her nanny when she was younger.  The nanny was Prussian and the book that she read from was in Prussian (?), and Emeline wants the book translated.  Melisande, the heroine of the To Seduce a Sinner, can translate the thing.  Helen of To Beguile a Beast has lovely penmanship and transcribes the thing.  Oh, and it just so happens that Beatrice of To Desire a Devil knows how to bind books.  Just sayin'.

So each of our Four Soldiers' tales is accompanied by a "fictional" Four Soldiers tale.  Before each chapter is a little piece of the fairy-tale story, and each epilogue wraps everything together, finishing the sub-story and illuminating the grander theme within our novel.

Iron Heart, Laughing Jack, Truth Teller, and Longsword each fight their own mythic battles for the princesses they love (Solace, Surcrease, Sympathy, and Serenity, respectively).  Obviously the tales feature parallel obstacles to those faced by our Soldiers, and the princesses represent what our heroines give them.

While the whole "each heroine has a part to play" thing is a little much, I do like this common thread for the women throughout all of the stories.  The men have their war, and the women have these tales, and to be honest, they don't really have much interaction with one another from one book to the next.  It is their only real connection.  At the end of To Desire a Devil, the unveiling of the books that Beatrice has bound is quite interesting, because it really gives the reader a sense of how much these women have bonded, if unknowingly.

The other thing I want to mention is the time period in which these books take place.  In my mind (and quite generally speaking) there are three time periods of historical romance novels- Medieval, Regency and Victorian/American West.  The Legend of the Four Soldiers takes place about six years after the end of the French and Indian War, which places it squarely in the Colonial period.  I had to keep reminding myself to picture corsets and powdered wigs rather than empire waists and Hessian boots.  Very strange.  But very cool.  It was refreshing to read something different.  And for that reason alone this is a series worth checking out.

15 June 2011

In Which I Review Breaking Point by Pamela Clare

So hiatus is pretty awesome for things like reading books. Reading lots of books, even. Reading books like Breaking Point by Pamela Clare.

This is yet another entry in the I-Team investigators series, of which I’ve already reviewed a couple of books. This one follows New Orleans belle Natalie Benoit, who pretty much from the first sentence of the book is in seriously deep trouble. While away at a conference in Mexico, she finds herself in the middle of a murderous rampage by a local cartel, is then kidnapped by said cartel, and is hauled off to be murdered herself, probably following some pretty horrific torture.

Sucks to be her.

But it also sucks to be Zach McBride, US Marshall, who finds himself in the custody of the aforementioned cartel because they think he stole a shipment of cocaine from them. He’s already been undergoing intensive torture for about six days before Natalie is thrown into the cell next to him.

Natalie and Zach manage to work together to escape the cartel, make their way through Mexico (at great peril), cross the US/Mexico border (at great peril), and then finally make their endangered way back to Denver to investigate the suspicious circumstances of Natalie’s capture. Hot sex, lots of “this is not a serious relationship” talk, and “oh why can’t this be a serious relationship?” thoughts abound.

Overall this was a solid contemporary with lots of characters we already know, lots of awesome and not-so-awesome happenings, and a fine romance (even if Zach does go from “I can’t do this” to “I must do this” rather quickly).

I did have a couple of issues. Natalie has been noted as a mysterious figure in the I-Team, coming to Denver after Katrina and never talking about her past. It turns out that during the hurricane she was locked in a morgue locker by a sociopath. And then, after she was rescued, her parents and her fiance were killed in a car accident on the way to get her.

Now look, it makes sense for Natalie to have no one waiting for her return from this ordeal. And I’m totally down with a character who has tragedy in his or her past. But all of those things had to happen to her? Really? OK. Even if we accept that all of those things had to happen, did they have to happen all in the same day? Like, her trauma couldn’t have been the storm on Monday? Then the locker thing on Tuesday? And the simultaneous death of everyone she loves on Wednesday? (Which by the way, she has to own no matter what-- they were coming to see her).

It just seemed like overkill.

On the other hand, I do have to appreciate Clare’s courage (and yes, it is courage) in allowing sometimes bad things to happen to her characters. In Naked Edge, Gabe loses part of his leg trying to save the woman he loves. In Breaking Point, Darcangelo mentions that Tessa is not doing well because she had a miscarriage a couple of months ago, and is suffering the difficult beginnings of a new pregnancy. Later, in the book’s climax, (SPOILER?) Darcangelo’s thumb is severed during the conflict. This lends a weight of realism to the stories, and a feeling that there could be consequences for the characters.

I think a lot of authors (ahem) would be afraid to have bad things happen to their characters, both because of their own feelings toward them and because of fan reaction. I’m not saying that I would love it if the characters died, and despite my issues with Tessa and Darcangelo’s story (see: DNF), I’m sorry to hear both about her miscarriage and his thumb. But in the end it makes them feel more like real-life people, and to me that's the mark of a solid book, and a solid series.

13 June 2011

In Which Monday Menu Mayhem Comes Back With a Vengeance.

Friends, blog-ees, countrymen.

First if all, thank you for your epic amounts of patience with my absentee-ism.  It's been a long-ass two weeks (Two out of the last three Mondays I have dined at the Legal Seafood at Logan Airport.  And those are not the only two times I have been to Logan in the past two weeks).  I had intended to be back in full-force last week, but this was one of those "vacations" that doubles as the exact polar opposite of a vacation, and I'm afraid I had to spend all of my spare time last week sleeping, decompressing and... reading :)

Yes, I have five book reviews in my back pocket.  No, I'm not going to break them out right now.

NOT ON MONDAY MENU MAYHEM!!

So.  As we bust through the first half of 2011 (holyhellhowdidthathappen?) we bust through MMM paradigms.  We are not a Nigella-only establishment any longer.  We still heart Nigella, and we will still cook from Nigella Kitchen like nobody's business.  But enough of this self-limiting nonsense, yes?

This weekend was filled with cooking and cooking and more cooking, which is a little shocking, because I'm on this new diet (I promise not to mention this excessively... I can really think of nothing more boring than that... I'm also not an advertising campaign for anything except books, so I'm not going to name the diet.  I'll just say it's working).  ANYWAY, I'm on this new diet, and I basically can eat... chicken.  So this cooking thing was surprising and heartening, given that I was afeared the MMM would have to go away for a while.

I made kale chips.  Dude, I don't even know what came over me.  I've been hearing a lot about them recently, and then a friend on Facebook made them and posted about it, and basically my thought process was "If someone I know in real-life is making them and it's not only the food of my faux-BFF Gwyneth Paltrow, I must be able to make them too."  In other words, it became less an ambrosia, and more of a mortal food.

It was super easy too!  Tear up some kale.  Toss with olive oil.  Roast for about 10 minutes at 400.  Also, use considerably less salt than I did.  Potato chips these were not, but as far as toasted leafy greens go, they got thumbs up from none other than a seriously skeptical Boy Scout.  After announcing that they were just "aiight," he proceeded to keep stealing pieces out of the bowl while lecturing me on the fact that I was removing them from Scout Camp to my office for the week.  I'll take that as a "like."

There was also the traditional roasting of the tomatoes, which is truly one of the great seasonal ironies.  Must roast fresh tomatoes.  When are tomatoes the best?  In the broiling summer sun!  How do we roast tomatoes?  By turning on the oven for HOURS at a time.  This is also a Gwyneth recipe: more chopping, more tossing with the olive oil (also salt and pepper), and then thrown on a cookie sheet face up for about 3 hours on 275.  Voila.  I really try to save these for things... salads, sauces, soups... but then I just eat them out of the bowl in about 10 minutes.  They're that awesome.

That's not all we made this weekend, but that's about all I'm prepared to sum-up for the time being.  My hands are out of practice with all of this typing...

Happy Monday, everyone.  And thanks for having me back.

7 June 2011

In Which I Review To Desire a Devil by Elizabeth Hoyt

Yes yes yes.  I have finished the final installment of Elizabeth Hoyt's Legend of the Four Soldiers series.

And I may or may not have ordered the books in her next series.  Let's not talk about that right now.

SPOILER McSPOILER WARNING ABOUT SPOILERS.  This review contains information about the ending of the Four Soldiers series and details that you may or may not want to be a surprise.  The book is two years old, though, and you can get most of the spoilerage by reading the book description.  Consider yourself warned.

So throughout the Legend of the Four Soldiers there have really only been three soldiers that we're aware of.  There's Samuel Hartley, Lord Vale, and Alistair Munroe.  "Who," we think to ourselves, "Can the fourth book possibly be about?"

How about Reynaud St. Aubyn, the very reason Samuel Hartley comes to England to seek out his Emmeline in book one (you'll recall, perhaps, that Reynaud is her brother), the thought of whom torments the Spinners Falls survivors the most.  Lord Vale especially, has vivid memories of his childhood friend being crucified and burned alive.

Which is a slight problem.  In all three previous books, the three men speak with black-and-white certainty about the fact that they saw Reynaud crucified and burned alive (after he was tortured).  There's no hesitation.  They saw him.  Until book four, when they saw a man whose face had already been burned beyond recognition, a man they had been told was Reynaud.

I don't have a problem with this.  I want a book Reynaud, and I want everything to come together.  I just need to say that there's a definite weakness in the thread.

Reynaud was indeed taken hostage by the natives in the Spinners Falls incident, was indeed dragged off to be a slave (with potential to be crucified later on) but managed, through sheer force of luck, to just get tortured a lot.  He eventually escapes captivity and manages to get home, only to stumble directly into the new Earl of Blanchard's political tea.

The new Earl is a distant cousin of Reynaud's who inherited the title after Reynaud's father died (following Reynaud's supposed fatality on the American frontier).  He now lives in the Blanchard townhouse with his lovely niece, Beatrice.

Because of course he has a lovely niece named Beatrice.  And of course Beatrice has spent so much time gazing longingly at the portrait of Reynaud in the study that she knows exactly who he is when he bursts into the party, all hairy and emaciated.  And of course the two become enamored of each other pretty instantly.

Their relationship is a lot rawer than the others, because Reynaud himself is rawer- just barely this side of civilized after having spent so long fending for himself in the wilderness.  I would classify this as the most "traditional" romance of the four.  Beatrice is all virginal and headstrong, and Reynaud is all chest-thumpy-while-growling "mine."  All the time.  This is not a bad thing (I do like me some chest-thumping), but I do find it surprising, considering how "real" and "different" the relationships were in the previous three books.

Reynaud's return triggers a series of events that culminates in the discovery of the traitor who sold them out at Spinners Falls.  I'm not going to spoil this, but it's because I almost don't care.  I mean, I do care.  I invested time in these books and I enjoyed the hell out of them.  But to me the point isn't who committed this fictional crime.  It's about the characters and how they fit and come together.  It's about new and different characters and stories, and it's about the fact that I have a new auto-buy historical author.

I have more to say about this series, but I'm going to save it for an Obsessed.  Be prepared.