Monthly Mini Review
Soul Deep by Pamela Clare – C I usually love Pamela Clare’s romantic suspense books and I was excited to see this one release. However, I found this novella overly saccharin and the epilogue was far too cheesy for me and hit a few of my personal hot buttons.
On a more positive note, I was happy to see Janet Killeen again and I liked Jack West from previous books. Jack is 63 and therefore significantly older than the regular romance hero. Janet is 45 and that doesn’t seem the least bit old to me anymore – I’d have almost preferred her to be older actually (with the added bonus of no hot button epilogue because reasons). This is a novella and I expected the romance would be quick but even so I was not expecting the characters to acknowledge (if only to themselves) they were in love in mere days. That was too fast for me and took the book out of realistic and into fairytale for me. Perhaps if I had started the book that way I’d have been okay but I did not so… The beginning was strong but I’m afraid the author started to lose me at the point the L word was first mentioned. I did like that Janet was always competent, even when she was stuck in a ditch in her car in a blizzard, she had a space blanket to keep her warm. Perhaps Jack is unusually vigorous for a man of his age (who knows – when I get closer to that age myself I may well think back to this post and slap my past self upside the head) but I was prepared to go with it for the story.
I felt overly conscious of the message of the book and it did become a bit too cheesy for me I’m afraid. I prefer to get lost in a story rather than be aware of the authorial hand. I may be an outlier on this one – Katiebabs liked it a lot better than I did – her far more detailed review is here.
I am looking forward to the next full length I-Team novel – Seduction Game which is out in October I believe. I went to pre-order it and found I had already done so months ago – well done past Kaetrin!
Coming Soon
on Audio
A review of this book will be up soon at AudioGals.
Links
Here’s what you may have missed:
Tempting the Player by Kat Latham
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Helping Hand by Jay Northcote
Angel in Armani by Melanie Scott
Games of the Heart by Kristen Ashley, narrated by Rachel Fulginiti
at AudioGals
Carry Me Home by Rosalind James, narrated by Natalie Ross & Phil Gigante
A Stone in the Sea by AL Jackson, narrated by Sebastian York & Andi Arndt
Brown Eyed Girl by Lisa Kleypas, narrated by Brittany Pressley
at Dear Author
Protector for Hire by Tawna Fenske
The Spy Who Tamed Me by Kelly Hunter
Evening Storm by Anne Calhoun
Pamela Clare’s I-Team books are one of the few romantic suspense/military romance novels I can still stomach (although they are still full of the problematic elements that made me stop reading the sub-genre) but the novellas are so damn cheesy! And I see there’s an upcoming Christmas novella https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26183815-an-i-team-christmas That thing is going to kill us! LOL (I’m still reading it, tho). And I’m looking forward to Holly’s book, which I hear is the last I-Team book *sadness*
@Brie: I still enjoy romantic suspense but it’s a very hit and miss genre – the characters have to not do stupid things for me to buy into it and I’m much more sensitive to certain other issues such as the “white saviour”, etc.
I am indeed looking forward to Holly’s book – so much that I nearly pre-ordered it twice (as opposed to having actually pre-ordering it only once)! 😀
I expect the I-Team Christmas novella will have a lot of gun porn in it like the short “Beer Run”. I don’t have the American fascination for guns so some of that was completely lost on me.
@Kaetrin: OMG! The gun p0rn! PC is very into guns IRL, so I shouldn’t be so surprised, but GAH! That short was…. something. LOL Also, it should be the fascination for guns that *some* Americans have, but yeah… :-/
@Brie: #NotAllAmericans? 😀