Overdue reviews
Dec. 30th, 2005 09:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksI meant to write reviews for several books over the holiday, but that didn't happen. Since the books are fading in my memory, I'll do a quick summary.
The Cinderella Rules by Donna Kauffman. Darby (short for Darmilla Beatrice) lives in Montana, where she runs the ranch she inherited from her maternal grandfather. Her father and sister live in DC, running some sort of international big business and participating in the social whirl, respectively. Her sister needs her to take her place to squire a potential business colleague of their father. Since Darby is no social butterfly, she goes to charm school before taking her sister's place for a week. On her arrival, Darby meets Shane Morgan, a man who has runaway from the family business and lived life mostly moving from place to place doing random jobs. His grandmother has died, leaving him in charge of the family empire. His plan was to dismantle the empire, since he was indifferent to it. The two have instant chemistry (which was hot to read about) and they keep bumping into each other in the small DC high society scene. There's a bit of suspense subplot: Stefan Bjornsen (the business contact) turns out to be related to Shane's family business and some shadiness ensues. The sudden appearance of spies and threats and Shane's sudden caring for a family history that he more or less disavowed for all of his life and the first 85% of the book were a little off-putting. The HEA was okay, but I finished the book thinking that eventually Shane would get itchy feet and disappear from Darby's ranch in Montana. And Darby's sister's story was left open, so there will probably be a sequel sometime soon. Grade: B-.
Her Sexiest Mistake by Jill Shalvis. Mia Appleby is an ad exec in LA, having escaped trailer life in Arkansas (I think). She meets Kevin McBride, teacher and mentor extraordinaire, a man who saves people, when he moves into her neighborhood. He's hot, but she only does one nighters, so after sex, she lies to him and to herself about how bad it was. Her niece, Hope, arrives on the run from trailer life herself. Most of the book is spent with Mia's life falling apart, professionally speaking, as she tries to adjust to having Hope around. Hope's visit keeps getting longer and longer, while Mia keeps hoping for a return to normalcy. Mia is a true control freak, which does not bother me, but she also seemed extremely shallow and not very likable. Kevin was more likable, but a bit of a doormat when it came to his brother, whom he was constantly bailing out of trouble. Probably would have graded this as a B-/C+, but the way Mia treated Kevin really bothered me. One night stands don't bother me, but the way she treated him after he told her she made him feel cheap did. This behavior bothers me in heroes (using heroines for sex only and ignoring what they say) and the role reversal didn't make it any more palatable. Grade: C.
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig . Reminded me of A.S. Byatt's Possession, in a superficial kind of way. Eloise Kelly is a doctoral student in England, working on her dissertation subject: masculinity and ego and spying in Napoleonic wars. Eloise is determined to learn the identity of The Pink Carnation, a British spy in the mold of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian. After rejection by other descendants of the other two spies, Eloise is granted access to the personal papers of the Selwick family (Richard Selwick was the Purple Gentian); she hopes to find clues about TPC's identity among the papers. The story is told in third person, in the present and the past, with snippets of letters and other correspondence. Colin Selwick, who wrote one of the more scathing rejections to her request for information, appears as she is reviewing documents. The vast majority of the story is the historical, with only brief returns to the present once Eloise has begun going through the papers. The book ends with the revelation of the name of the spy, but the futures of Eloise and Simon, as well as questions about other spies, are left dangling. The Masque of the Black Tulip is the follow up to Pink Carnation. I haven't read it yet, but the cover blurb makes it clear that two characters who fairly screamed for a book of their own are getting it. Grade: B+.
The Cinderella Rules by Donna Kauffman. Darby (short for Darmilla Beatrice) lives in Montana, where she runs the ranch she inherited from her maternal grandfather. Her father and sister live in DC, running some sort of international big business and participating in the social whirl, respectively. Her sister needs her to take her place to squire a potential business colleague of their father. Since Darby is no social butterfly, she goes to charm school before taking her sister's place for a week. On her arrival, Darby meets Shane Morgan, a man who has runaway from the family business and lived life mostly moving from place to place doing random jobs. His grandmother has died, leaving him in charge of the family empire. His plan was to dismantle the empire, since he was indifferent to it. The two have instant chemistry (which was hot to read about) and they keep bumping into each other in the small DC high society scene. There's a bit of suspense subplot: Stefan Bjornsen (the business contact) turns out to be related to Shane's family business and some shadiness ensues. The sudden appearance of spies and threats and Shane's sudden caring for a family history that he more or less disavowed for all of his life and the first 85% of the book were a little off-putting. The HEA was okay, but I finished the book thinking that eventually Shane would get itchy feet and disappear from Darby's ranch in Montana. And Darby's sister's story was left open, so there will probably be a sequel sometime soon. Grade: B-.
Her Sexiest Mistake by Jill Shalvis. Mia Appleby is an ad exec in LA, having escaped trailer life in Arkansas (I think). She meets Kevin McBride, teacher and mentor extraordinaire, a man who saves people, when he moves into her neighborhood. He's hot, but she only does one nighters, so after sex, she lies to him and to herself about how bad it was. Her niece, Hope, arrives on the run from trailer life herself. Most of the book is spent with Mia's life falling apart, professionally speaking, as she tries to adjust to having Hope around. Hope's visit keeps getting longer and longer, while Mia keeps hoping for a return to normalcy. Mia is a true control freak, which does not bother me, but she also seemed extremely shallow and not very likable. Kevin was more likable, but a bit of a doormat when it came to his brother, whom he was constantly bailing out of trouble. Probably would have graded this as a B-/C+, but the way Mia treated Kevin really bothered me. One night stands don't bother me, but the way she treated him after he told her she made him feel cheap did. This behavior bothers me in heroes (using heroines for sex only and ignoring what they say) and the role reversal didn't make it any more palatable. Grade: C.
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig . Reminded me of A.S. Byatt's Possession, in a superficial kind of way. Eloise Kelly is a doctoral student in England, working on her dissertation subject: masculinity and ego and spying in Napoleonic wars. Eloise is determined to learn the identity of The Pink Carnation, a British spy in the mold of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian. After rejection by other descendants of the other two spies, Eloise is granted access to the personal papers of the Selwick family (Richard Selwick was the Purple Gentian); she hopes to find clues about TPC's identity among the papers. The story is told in third person, in the present and the past, with snippets of letters and other correspondence. Colin Selwick, who wrote one of the more scathing rejections to her request for information, appears as she is reviewing documents. The vast majority of the story is the historical, with only brief returns to the present once Eloise has begun going through the papers. The book ends with the revelation of the name of the spy, but the futures of Eloise and Simon, as well as questions about other spies, are left dangling. The Masque of the Black Tulip is the follow up to Pink Carnation. I haven't read it yet, but the cover blurb makes it clear that two characters who fairly screamed for a book of their own are getting it. Grade: B+.
