In Which I Review Explosive by Beth Kery

The first thing I said when I finally put this book down was “Hmmmmm.” And honestly, now, almost twenty-four hours after finishing, I’m still not quite sure what I think of it. I certainly think that the review that initially prompted me to read it (posted on DearAuthor.com) is fair. But I have a little more I would like to add.

I’m going to have to break this down, because it’s the only way I’m going to be able to fully articulate my feelings.

THINGS I LIKED ABOUT THIS BOOK:
I really, really like the heroine. The amount of trouble I have had recently, trying to find a heroine who is neither ridiculously dumb or fantastically annoying, Dr. Sophie Gable was a lovely change of pace. She was capable, smart, and reasonably resourceful. While she was definitely the submissive partner in her sexual exploits with Thomas Nicasio, she was in no way overpowered in other aspects of their interaction. There were plenty of moments where she could have gone all TSTL, but she resisted, and I really appreciate that.

I liked the plot. I liked that Thomas and Sophie had been exchanging covert glances and flirty exchanges for quite some time before he showed up on the dock of her lakeside vacation home with no memory of the preceding twenty-four hours.

I like that this memory lapse at once complicates their initial romantic encounters and is resolved reasonably and without heavy-handed, unlikely explanation.

THINGS I DISLIKED ABOUT THIS BOOK:
The advancement of the plot. The fact that Thomas’ adoptive father was under investigation for being the mafia ringleader in Chicago, Thomas’ actions and reactions to the events unfolding around him, and the reasons he shows up at Sophie’s to begin with are all very, very interesting and make for a compelling story.

My problem arises from the fact that the middle quarters of the book are painfully repetitive. Thomas wants Sophie. Sophie wants Thomas. Thomas and Sophie have kinky sex, after which Thomas starts to question the reasons he’s there, and he leaves on a walk (car ride, run, etc.) Thomas comes back. Thomas wants Sophie. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Jane at Dear Author compliments the author on the lack of repetitiveness in the sex scenes, and I have to say that I agree. There is a lot of sex, and none of it feels warmed over or boring (in fact, if nothing else, the sex is the exact opposite of boring). But at a certain point the sex starts to seriously impede the story, or at least gets in the way of what could have been a really excellent romantic suspense novel.

Also, I didn’t really like Thomas. He’s all head-trauma’d and tormented-with-good-reason, and so I totally understand and accept that he was kind of a douchebag. The lack of easement into or out of the story, though, meant that I didn’t really get to know him as a real-life person, which makes their abrupt HEA even abrupter.

Overall this was a good book, worth reading, but not worth keeping on The Shelf. I think I would have liked it better as a novella, but that is neither here nor there. Will certainly keep an eye out for Beth Kery in the future.

In Which We Introduce Monday Menu Mayhem

Greetings, salutations, and the Happiest of New Years!

If you're anything like me, you've spent the last two weeks celebrating, recovering, sleeping, celebrating, and recovering again.  And also, admiring some pretty badass Christmas presents.

But you probably didn't spend two weeks trying to come up with an awesome new regular blog feature that would a) be awesome and b) add to the awesomeness of this blog.  Or I don't know, maybe you did.  Recommendations may be left in the Comments section.

Firstly and foremostly, we have a new look (hooray...?) and you'll notice handy dandy labels at the bottom of all of the posts.  Want to see all of our reviews?  Want to read posts from back in the day when we didn't know what we were doing?  Want to verify that we continue to not know our ass from our elbow?  Look no further.

NOW THEN.  When I'm not reading or writing or running around like a lunatic, I like to cook.  I like to cook a lot.  I got a new KitchenAid, a new All-Clad frying pan, and a new Star Wars apron for Christmas (AHHHHH!) in addition to the joint, couple-y purchase of a Dutch oven with a certain Boy Scout.

Needless to say, there is a lot of cooking in my future.

What I also got though, was the newest Nigella Lawson tome, Nigella Kitchen: Recipes From the Heart of the Home.  I love this book.  I love the obscene way she writes (I mean, really... she writes cooking like Kresley Cole writes sex), I love that she totally contradicts herself (recipe calls for boneless chops, recipe introduction says she herself uses bone-in all the time...), and I love that the recipes are fabulously do-able, without excessively weird ingredients or overly fussy health stipulations.

This is the way I like to cook.

So Boy Scout looks through the book (Since we're at a commitment level where it's what... one-fourth his anyway?  Still mostly mine, but living in his house so... yeah.  "Ours.") and decides that he loves it too.  And that "we" need to make all of the recipes, Julie & Julia style.

And for those wondering, by "we" he means: "mostly you."  Meaning me.

And I think this is not a bad idea.

SO.  Every Monday morning, we shall have a report on the Menu Mayhem that ensued over the weekend or the previous week.  I'll review the recipe, the ease, the deliciousness, and the mayhem.  Because yes.  When I cook, there is mayhem.

What better way to kick off the experiment than on a cold January Sunday, with a recipe that uses both the new frying pan and the new Dutch oven?  I can think of nothing more appropriate.  So into the oven went the Pork and Apple Hotpot, a glorious amalgamation of apples, onions, bacon (which to me always indicates a winning recipe), pork chops, and apple roux-thingy that came out three hours later as the perfect Sunday meal (with leftovers!)

This first time I tried hard to stick to the recipe (not a strong suit of mine unless baking), but next time we have definite additions in mind.  Like mustard in the roux.  And a little cognac "for flavor."  And definitely more sear-age on the pork chops.  Definitely.

OK then.  New feature... featured.  Boy Scout, perhaps you'd like to comment on the leftovers...?

In Which I Take the Rest of the Year Off.

Dear Friends,
As I'm sure is the case with all of you, things have been out of control for me in the past few weeks, and it doesn't look like it's going to let up any time soon.

I sat down to write a Thoroughly Obsessed post last Thursday and it was... bad. Because I've got nothing.

So, I've decided take the rest of the year off. I'm going to come back relaxed and refreshed (and having read at least two books) the first week in January. I'm even planning another weekly staple column to go along with Thoroughly Obsessed. Aren't you excited?

As consolation I leave you with the following oh-holy-hell-badass videos. Their awesomeness cannot be overstated.

May you have a Merry Christmas, Festivus, whatever. And may 2011 bring you nothing but good health and happiness.

See you next year!

In Which Lady Liberty Goes Out on a Limb.

By popular demand, this week I am proud (and thrilled because it's less work for me!) to welcome La Laliberte back to the floor. And since I'm not Obsessed with anything today except Christmas card writing, baking, and people-I-just-remembered-I-need-to-get-presents-for, this post shall alternately be called In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Likes to Delegate.

Madame, if you please:

Having hungrily eaten up any romance novel Kate Jones has been kind enough to throw my way, I thought maybe, just maybe, I was ready to select my own. And staring down the Paperback Section of the Local Library (a daunting task for a green young romance reader like myself) I finally settled on Not Quite a Lady by Loretta Chase. The name popped out because she was recommended on Amazon when I was trying to find out how to buy every. single. thing. Joanna Bourne has ever written. (see A Spymaster's Lady, which I may never return, by the way... okay I will, but only because I know there's a special corner of hell reserved for people who don't return borrowed books) Another historical by Loretta Chase is also one of the few historical romances graded higher than said fantastic novel by Bourne, so I checked out this book with high hopes.

The first twenty pages did NOT inspire much confidence. Here's a writer who knows how to play with tension and the fast-paced, later parts of a book, but spits out exposition like it's bitter medicine. Firstly, she starts Chapter One: "The trouble with Darius Carsington was, he had no heart." That sentence had so much promise (HELLO! That name!) and then you conclude it with a bald-faced lie. I know damn well you're going to make him the lovingest, most caring creature on the earth by page 60... And then, the whole first chapter was spent delving into the complex he'd developed as a result of intimidating talks with his father who doesn't see the merits of his accomplished science career and how hard it is to be the youngest of five highly accomplished older brothers. If he was really the churlish rake that she wants us to believe he is, than he wouldn't care about all that, or at least, we wouldn't know he did until they start falling in love and she realizes he's only a rake because he has these deep-seated emotional problems that need to be resolved. (That ladies and gentlemen, is a mild Lady Liberty rant.)

Even while Lady Charlotte appears to be a smart and admirable heroine adept at rejecting husbands without anyone noticing, much of the plot is advanced by her falling on her face. Not just once and not awe-inspiring, to be sure. Some fun themes, a painstakingly obvious plot twist (another tension-builder-that-wasn't) and a mostly emotionally satisfying relationship make it fun enough to read once you get past the awkward beginning, but I don't know what this says for Last Night's Scandal aka My First Romance Purchase Ever. Let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

In Which I Maya Banks Messes With My Sleeping Habits. Again.

I should have spent last night going to bed early, as I am fighting off this truly awesome December sinus/cold thing that everyone seems to be passing around.

But, no. Instead the second Maya Banks KGI novel was delivered to the house, and once again crackaliciousness trumps sleep. And I don't really know why I'm surprised by that.

Sam Kelly has been moping around since his last mission to Mexico, where he had a thing with a local waitress possessed of the Magic Hoo-Hoo. He had been down there to take out a local arms dealer at the request of the CIA, but got slightly distracted by a pretty-little-blond (as you do) until the metaphorical shit hit the metaphorical fan.

So when Sophie shows up, knocked up and half-drowned floating next to the dock at the back of Sam's property, he and his brothers are pretty suspicious (as you would be), despite the fact that every alpha particle in Sam's body is screaming "mine." He also says it out loud on a couple of occasions, just to clarify things for his brothers.

Sophie is (of course) the daughter of the aforementioned arms dealer who had been sent to distract Sam from his mission (of course) but she herself had Other Motives (of course). And I don't want to get too spoilery when it comes to Sophie's actions post-Mexican-coital-glow with Sam, but let's just say it's not entirely unreasonable for her to show up when and where she does.

I really liked this book as much as one can like a crackalicious book of such calibre. Great sex, chest-thumping alpha-male, resourceful (if slightly vague) heroine. More sexy brother action. More "no one messes with the Kellys" speechifying. There were only a couple of moments (mostly involving mercenaries and pep talks) that had me cringing into my down comforter.

My main complaint about this book would be that once again, everything is half-baked. We're asked to take a lot of things at face-value (Sophie's rough life with her dad, her relationship with Sam, his lingering feelings for her after leaving Mexico) that it would have been better to experience. For example, we find out the really awful thing Sophie's dad did to her mom in the last third of the book, and his actual motives for doing it (way, way different than what Sophie had assumed) even later than that. Couldn't Sophie have reflected on this before she told Sam about it? For most of the book we're expected to believe that her issues with her dad are Bad, without ever hearing what exactly they are.

(And PS- remember my beef about Rachel's abduction being cleared up a little too quickly in the last book? Wouldn't it have been fun for the arms dealer to be responsible for her captivity? To carry over to this book? No? Oh. OK.)

(PPS- Looking back at my last review, I see that once again Maya Banks saves the day after a disastrous DNF. Maybe book crack is the cure for intense disappointment? Like comfort food? Very, very interesting.)

Anyway I'm still excited for the third book coming out in March. I'll be hoping for a DNF and a quiet work week around March 7.

In Which I DNF a Pamela Clare

My plausibility limit is not easily tested. I read paranormals for goodness sake, the most recent of which involved a witch falling in love with a vampire/demon hybrid on an alternate plane of existence. Imagination? Yeah, I’ve got it.

I want to stress this at the outset, because when I tell you that it was sheer implausibility (and boredom, and annoyance, and the aforementioned Too Stupid to Live heroine...) that made me stop reading Pamela Clare’s Hard Evidence, I want you to know what that really means.

Earlier this year I read Clare’s most recent book in the Denver I-Team series, and I really enjoyed it. So when I found some of the previous books in the series over the weekend, I was pumped.

I even ditched my historical romance kick to read this one.

But pretty much from the first chapter, I was done.

Tessa Novak is an investigative reporter on the aforementioned Denver I-Team (for the Denver Independent). As soon as the book opens, Tessa’s caffeine addiction leads her to witness a murder. I know she has a caffeine addiction both because Clare tells us outright, and because just about every “new scene” is marked by Tessa drinking a latte, being offered a latte, or calculating the number of shots she is going to request in her next latte.

Peripheral to the murder that Tessa witnesses is Julian Darcangelo (Gangsta Name: Dark Angel. I only wish I was making that up). He’s been running an undercover operation to take down a sex trafficking ring, and the murder Tessa sees is of a runaway sex slave seeking help.

Tessa sees Darcangelo lurking outside the crime scene, and because he was wearing a leather jacket like the shooter, she assumes he’s the murderer (“Wha?” you ask. “Yup,” I say). When he stalks her to the hospital where she hopes to interview the only other witness to the crime, she freaks because she thinks the murderer has come back to find her.

I briefly touch on this in my TSTL post, but I want to emphasize it again, because I’m pretty sure that if I ran into a the man I thought was a murderer (never mind that I’m not sure I would have made that big a leap anyway...), I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t make out with him three minutes after he dragged me into a supply closet. Especially after he has confirmed that he knows my entire life story in the most creepy-stalkery way possible. And especially when there’s no lead-up to his grabbing me and kissing me. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s called assault.

And again, I’m pretty sure that’s when I’d kick him in the balls.

So for the entire sexual chemistry of this couple to be based on that single encounter is really stretching it for me. And it’s not even like their next encounter hits the reset button, where everyone gets in a room and he apologizes and it’s all some semblance of cool. The next time they see each other he arrests her. Not even a little bit, like as a warning not to get involved in the investigation. He has her booked, photographed, fingerprinted, and thrown in a cell.

Would you be lusting after that guy? Because I’m pretty sure I’d actually hate him.

To me, Tessa’s entire attraction to Darcangelo encapsulates her TSTL-itude. She also wanders into gang territory and asks to see the head gangstas. At night. Without really knowing how to use her gun. She keeps wandering around crime scenes and doing her own investigating, even after she has been advised not to by just about everyone, including the Chief of Police.

Let’s not get in to her “friends,” who are all so obsessed by the fact that a man kissed her that none of them are pointing out that she needs to file charges. Oh, and her long-lost mother showed up just after she’s been assaulted again-- not by the hero this time, this time by an actual (?!) bad guy-- and just before I decided to peace out of this entire endeavor.

Not to mention that Darcangelo’s investigation into sex trafficking, including women sold into sexual slavery and pedophiliac porn (which he has to pretend to like while undercover) does not exactly make for an easy turnaround into sexy time. I don’t want to hear about how he wants to jump the heroine just after I’ve read about how he’s disgusted by what he’s seeing on the job. No dice.

So... yeah. Back to the historical romances!!

In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Finds a Too Stupid to Live Heroine.

I think I have written about this before, so if you’re bored of this topic I apologize in advance. I’m reading a new book this week (a new book whose purchase was fully supervised and semi-endorsed by the Scout Master), and the heroine is Too Stupid to Live (TSTL).

I’m not going to get into the major plot of the book, or even tell you the title, the name of the author, etc. The review will be ready for next week. All I want to talk about, for a moment, is when a heroine is so dumb you want to punch her in the face.

And then stop reading the book about her.

So far, I have read up to page 53. That’s right, the heroine is so mind-blowingly dumb I want to lure her into a darkened alley and smash her head in with a frying pan already. If only because it would be so easy. On page 53.

Let’s do bullet points, “You Might Be a Redneck” style.

*If you witness a murder and think you have been identified as a key witness by the murderer, but don’t request police protection, you might be TSTL.

*If you are a newspaper reporter and witness a murder and think it’s a great idea to write a first-hand account of the event (including description of the guy you think made you!) to be published on the front page of the paper, you might be TSTL.

*If the Chief of Police comes to you and tells you that you’re a dumbass for writing your eyewitness account of the crime because now your life is in danger, and you hide behind the first amendment to continue writing about it anyway, you might be TSTL.

*If after the Chief of Police tells you you’re a dumbass you go to the hospital to question the only other witness to the murder to ask him about why someone might want to murder you now, you might be TSTL.

*If you run in to the man you think is the murderer in a hospital corridor and do not immediately scream bloody murder, you might be TSTL.

*If that man kisses you to shut you up (!!) after dragging you into a closet while acting extremely sketchy (!!) and not only do you not kick him in the nads, but you can’t stop thinking about him in a lusty way afterwards, you might be TSTL.

*If after the Chief of Police and Sketchy Kissy Dude (undercover agent, natch) tell you your life is in danger, you decide to go to the neighborhood where the shooting took place and knock on doors to dig up more information, YOU MIGHT BE TSTL.

I’m really disappointed by this, because I read a previous book by this author (same series) and while the heroine was no shining beacon of common sense, she most definitely was not as dumb as this bitch.

Now that that’s off my chest, I feel a lot better. And I hope you do too.

Aren’t you excited for this book review????