Cassidy proves her worth professionally again and again. Despite her skills, she is emotionally vulnerable because of twin tragUltimate badass heroine
Cassidy proves her worth professionally again and again. Despite her skills, she is emotionally vulnerable because of twin tragedies that struck on her 16th birthday: her mother abandoned the family for another man, and a classmate took advantage of her grief and disorientation.
Though this book has elements of romance and mystery, at its core this is a story of forgiveness, not only of others, but of ourselves. The message is strong, relevant, and important—if a bit heavy-handed in its delivery. ...more
I found this book had a very slow start, but once I slogged through the first few chapters, the pace picked up and by the end I had quite enjoyed the I found this book had a very slow start, but once I slogged through the first few chapters, the pace picked up and by the end I had quite enjoyed the ride. I have struggled to get into historicals for awhile, but this one felt fresh and unique for several reasons. First, the heroine, Annabelle, is not your typical society belle: she's a commoner, sexually experienced, a bluestocking scholar of Greek philosophy whose economic future is both bleak and uncertain. Second, the hero is the one afraid of ruining his reputation; as a leader of the Tory party and a favorite of Queen Victoria, his behavior must always be above reproach. Third, it turns out I'm a sucker for the I-love-you-but-I-won't-be-your-Mistress trope, provided the hero's reasons for not wanting to put a ring on it are noble enough (mere snobbery doesn't suffice). ...more
I picked this up on sale a few months ago when I saw it recommended by Smart Bitches Trashy Books. I'd only ever read one other Garwood romance (SavinI picked this up on sale a few months ago when I saw it recommended by Smart Bitches Trashy Books. I'd only ever read one other Garwood romance (Saving Grace, a Scottish medieval). When I opened this on my kindle this weekend and read the prologue (all about a Native American shaman's cryptic dream about a white mountain lion), my first thought was, "Oh, what have I gotten myself into?" I avoid that subcategory of historical romance that prominently feature Native Americans, because I find them... well, racist, honestly. There's no sense in beating around the bush.
However, A Lion's Lady was a pleasant surprise. Although this, like Saving Grace, is very much a wallpaper historical, Garwood at least did enough basic research into the culture and rituals of the Dakota Sioux to avoid being patently offensive. The heroine, Christina, was raised by the Dakota and very much loves her adoptive family, and so her attitude toward them and their customs is positive and respectful rather than sneeringly superior.
The premise of this story is really quite ridiculous, but that's actually a good thing if one is willing to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride. Christina's mother, Jessica, married the ruler of an obscure European nation (so obscure Garwood doesn't even bother to name it). Upon discovering that her prince was actually a cruel dictator and a cheating philanderer, she stole the crown jewels (intending to return the riches to the mistreated people of this unnamed country). Presumably unable to find a bank that could handle the jewels-for-cash transaction, Jessica buried the gems in her father's garden instead, then fled to America to get as far away from her husband before giving birth to their child. She eventually joined a wagon train heading west, but fled into the woods with baby Christina when the Dastardly Hubby murdered her traveling companions. There, she came upon a Sioux woman being raped by a Crow warrior, and she kills the Crow and she and Merry (the Sioux) (and their children, as Merry is also accompanied by her six-year-old son) winter together in an abandoned cabin in the woods until Jessica is either mauled to death by a bear or by her crazed ex (the story leaves some ambiguity on that point). Merry brings both children back to her people and raises Christina as her own child.
Fast-forward sixteen years: Christina has learned English (and French!) and gone to England with her evil aunt to fulfill some vague promise to her long-dead mother. She's armed with her mother's journal, so she knows Daddy is a Bad Guy, and we quickly learn that Christina has been left a fortune by her grandfather which will go to Daddy-Baddy unless Christina marries by her 19th birthday. Enter Lyon, who is a retired hitman for the Crown. He's the perfect protector for Christina, since he kills people for a living (but only if they deserve it!). They exchange humorous banter (made all the more entertaining by the fact that Christina has learned English but has no sense of idioms, so she takes everything literally in an Amelia Bedelia-esque way), noisy arguments that culminate with Christina cutting her hair in a mourning ritual, have lots of fairly vanilla sex, and then there's a big confrontation with Daddy-Baddy involving, of course, the stolen jewels.
Don't overthink it. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. ...more
Code Name Cassandra picks up right where When Lightning Strikes leaves off. Sixteen-year-old Jess has gotten the press off her back by telling the worCode Name Cassandra picks up right where When Lightning Strikes leaves off. Sixteen-year-old Jess has gotten the press off her back by telling the world her psychic ability to find missing people vanished as quickly as it had arrived, but the feds don't believe her: there's still a white van parked on her street, and she's sure they're bugging her calls. To escape this scrutiny (and also to avoid toiling away at her father's restaurant all summer), Jess takes a summer job as a counselor at a camp for musically gifted kids, but of course trouble follows her even into the wilds of Northern Indiana.
This book, and this series, is hardly groundbreaking, but I'm still entertained enough to keep reading the next book -- and Meg Cabot's poor grammar didn't bother me as much in this one (but maybe I'm just building up a tolerance for it). ...more
I put this series in my massive TBR queue a long, long time ago, when Sarah Wendell mentioned it on a DBSA podcast. I finally got around to starting tI put this series in my massive TBR queue a long, long time ago, when Sarah Wendell mentioned it on a DBSA podcast. I finally got around to starting the books on Sunday night, as my vacation was in its final hours. Today, Tuesday morning, I have finished books one and two and started book three, so I'll give Meg Cabot props for grabbing my attention.
Protagonist Jess is a high school sophomore who just wants a normal life, but she isn't normal: she has an anger management problem that keeps landing her in detention, a schizophrenic older brother who hears voices directing him to kill himself, and a mom who likes to make Jess wear home-made, matching mother-daughter "Little House on the Prairie" dresses. -And all of this before Jess gets struck by lightning and develops the ability to look at a picture of a missing person (like the kids on milk cartons), and when she wakes in the morning, she knows exactly where they are.
The story moves right along as Jess discovers her "gift" and quickly discovers its drawbacks. First, not all who are missing want to be found, which she learns when she accidentally turns in a milk carton kid who was actually on the run from an abusive father. Second, she wakes up in the morning knowing a person's location, but she doesn't necessarily know whether that location will turn up a living person or a body. Third, when word gets out of her skills, the media descends, and all of the hoopla drives her schizophrenic brother into having an episode that lands him back in the hospital (and of course Jess blames herself). Finally, the US Government wants Jess to use her powers to locate dangerous criminals and terrorists, and they don't necessarily mean to give Jess a choice in the matter.
On top of all this, there is a mild romantic element: Jess has a crush on Rob, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks. He is entirely inappropriate: a 'Grit' to Jess's 'Townie', two years older and on probation for an unspecified crime, and determined not to get involved with Jailbait Jess. But he proves himself very good to have around in a crisis.
One pet peeve I have to mention: When reading contemporary books written for and about high school girls, there's a superficiality and casual slangyness that one just has to expect, and that's fine. What isn't fine is the characters' use of 'gay' and 'retarded' to mean 'uncool.' Jess's best friend refers to Jess's prairie dresses as "gay outfits." To her credit, Jess immediately corrects her, pointing out that most gay people actually have very good fashion sense. However, a few pages later Jess herself describes school discipline as "kind of retarded" -- apparently without any sensitivity to the inappropriateness of that description, which is especially rich since the very reason she's in detention so often is that she gets into fights when anyone calls her older brother a retard.
Oh, and one other annoyance: Cabot's grammar sometimes sucks. The whole book is littered with sentence fragments and atrocious statements such as "It [my scar] hadn't faded hardly at all." I found this an entertaining read, but I had to take off my Grammar Police badge to do it. ...more
You ever watch an action adventure movie where things just keep coming at you -- car chases, explosions, daring escapes, near misses -- and you spend You ever watch an action adventure movie where things just keep coming at you -- car chases, explosions, daring escapes, near misses -- and you spend the whole movie on the edge of your seat, afraid to go to the restroom even though you badly need to pee (partly because the movie has your adrenaline pumping, partly because of that zillion-ounce soda you guzzled) because you don't want to miss anything? This book was like that, except I could put it down for potty breaks.
Set in and around Kansas in 1870, the story focuses on Cat O'Banyon, a legendary female bounty hunter who travels the west bringing outlaws to justice and seeking the villain who killed her husband (view spoiler)[ and raped her (hide spoiler)].
Cat learned most of what she knows about disguise from Alexi Romanov, an itinerant confidence man and playboy who was her lover in the dark days after her husband's murder. Alexi saved her sanity, but when she was strong enough, she left him because 1) he's a manwhore, and 2) she's a woman on a mission.
Cat's and Alexi's paths cross again when someone puts a bounty on Cat's head, and suddenly instead of hunting outlaws, Cat's on the run because every outlaw on the frontier is suddenly hunting her. This book is jam-packed with action--shoot-outs, narrow escapes, near-death experiences--and interspersed with flashbacks to the formative events that shaped both Cat's and Alexi's characters. (For Cat, this is her husband's murder, for Alexi, it is his time as a sniper in the Union Army and subsequent torment as a prisoner of war held in the Confederacy's most notorious prison.)
The romance element in this story is honestly a bit thin (I had a hard time believing Alexi reformed his manwhoring ways, or that Cat really cares that much if he does), but the plot is so exciting, who cares?...more
Catrina is a Domme. She's a long-time, respected member of her local BDSM club, the Den, she has plenty of play partners, and though she may occasionaCatrina is a Domme. She's a long-time, respected member of her local BDSM club, the Den, she has plenty of play partners, and though she may occasionally have some twinges about the lack of emotional connection in life, by and large she seems pretty content with her lot.
Damien is a Dom, in fact the Dom, the owner of the Den. In the early scenes narrated from his POV, he mentions that the Den doesn't have a lot of Dommes but that he has totes respect for those there are, and he'd never, ever, ever try to undermine their authority by treating them like subs ... but he has horny pants for Cat and he's The Dom, so... yeah.
He asks her to sub for him. She tells him to fuck off. He asks her pretty, pretty please (and says it'll make her a better domme when the experiment is over). She says fuck off (but starts to think, well, maybe....). He gets all masterful and sexy and shit, and her resolve weakens (because she's a girl, right, and all girls secretly want to be dominated, of course), and so she agrees to be his sub for two weeks.
Then, though she starts the two week experiment totally planning to go back to being the dominant when it's over, they predictably start to fall in lurve, and she starts to wake up to the glory of submission while Damien doesn't compromise at all (sometimes he thinks about how dickish he's being and how he really ought to be more decent, but then, somehow, he's all, nah), until by the end of the book she's not interested in dominating men anymore and he's the Best. Dom. Ever.
I had heard great things about this book, and mostly it lived up to the hype (and isn't that rare?). The heroine, Jessica Trent, is going down on my lI had heard great things about this book, and mostly it lived up to the hype (and isn't that rare?). The heroine, Jessica Trent, is going down on my list of all-time favorites: she's smart and snarky and able to take care of herself. The hero, Lord Dain, is a conscience-less rake who reforms over the course of this book. His reasons for being such as ass in the beginning are believable and sympathetic, and his reform doesn't happen overnight, so that's believable, too.
I loved the witty, sarcastic dialogue between the hero and heroine. I loved that Jessica was so honest, confronting misunderstandings and issues in the relationship with frank conversation. (So often romances let misunderstandings fester for the sake of dramatic conflict, when an honest conversation could clear everything up.) I love that she didn't let Dain walk all over her, but gave as good as she got (maybe even better).
Actually, I was loving just about everything about this book until about 80% of the way through it, when the plot moppet showed up: (view spoiler)[ (Dain's eight-year-old bastard son). (hide spoiler)] I like kids, but I don't generally like the 'plot moppet' trope -- where a long-lost child resurfaces suddenly, or the lovers take in a street urchin or other foundling. I just don't find these plots believable, because, no matter their tortured pasts or personal issues, these kids invariably clean up well and settle into their newly-priviledged lifestyles with remarkably little turmoil. Here, as is typical, the plot moppet arrives and is swiftly incorporated into the happily ever after, and I'd have liked the book better--found it pretty much flawless, actually--if that plot line had just been left out....more
As with Faefever, I'm struggling to review Dreamfever without spoilers. In the immortal words of REM, when Faefever left off, it was the end of the woAs with Faefever, I'm struggling to review Dreamfever without spoilers. In the immortal words of REM, when Faefever left off, it was the end of the world as we know it... and the heroine, MacKayla Lane, was decidedly not feeling fine. I thought, "Okay, this is as bad as things can possibly get, and the last two books will be devoted to the cleanup and restoration of the post-apocalyptic world and Mac's broken psyche."
More fool, me.
A good rule of thumb for this series: Just when you think it can't possibly get worse, it does.
That's not to say that there isn't a lot to enjoy about Dreamfever. With the help of sexy, mysterious (and yes, still a little bit douchenozzle-y, if you've been following my reviews, but definitely improving) Jericho Barrons, Mac does pull herself out of the wreckage of Faefever's closing chapters, heal her broken psyche, and come back stronger, tougher, and smarter than she was before.
She teams up with Dani and the Sidhe-seers to kick Fae ass, and along the way she learns more Fae lore and more about her own origins. There are moments of great tenderness--and, um, not at all tenderness, *ahem*--with Barrons, which readers will find delicous. I'm sure I'm not the only one who re-read chapters 4 and 5. *blushes* (Of course, Barrons could stop grabbing Mac by the throat during their arguments ANY time, pleaseandthankyou. He's still a tad too alph-hole for my tastes.)
In the end, though, we are once again left with more questions than answers, and there's another whopper of a cliffhanger. It's a good thing Shadowfever is more than twice as long as any of the preceding books, because Ms. Moning has some serious 'splaining to do! ...more
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