Category: C reviews (Page 19 of 20)

Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood

July 11, 2012 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I picked this up from NetGalley because the blurb looked interesting.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) When FBI agent Grayson Kincaid first encounters Olivia MacKenzie, she makes quite an impression. The beautiful, tough, young attorney has stumbled into the middle of an FBI sting operation and has reduced it to chaos. Months of surveillance and careful planning down the drain, Kincaid’s partner is furious and lets Olivia know that she’s ticked off the wrong guy. After all, he’s FBI.Olivia isn’t intimidated by his partner’s bullying because she’s something even scarier…she’s IRS. And working for the IRS isn’t for the faint of heart. She’s on the trail of an elaborate Ponzi scheme, one that threatens to ruin the lives of naive and unsuspecting victims, and one she has personal reasons to be angry about. But after she asks questions of the wrong people, her life is suddenly endangered. She’s accustomed to fighting for the underdog but being vulnerable herself is a very different story. Smart enough to know when to call for reinforcements, she contacts Grayson Kincaid.Together they make an excellent team to fight corruption but Olivia is also fighting the immediate and intense attraction she feels for Agent Kincaid, and that may be a battle she is bound to lose.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): The blurb is a little misleading. Olivia does work for the IRS and she also does some child advocacy on the side (she’s a lawyer) but the Ponzi scheme reference is a reference to a personal investigation she’s doing outside of both those activities. She’s investigating her father. And, she doesn’t contact Grayson – he comes to her.

When Grayson and Olivia first meet (she’s having a job interview because of potential cutbacks at the IRS), she is threatened by the interviewer (Jorguson) and his bodyguard (Martin) – they are dodgy as all get out (Olivia hasn’t had time to research – I appreciated she was smart and usually would) and suspect she is an FBI agent wearing a wire. When Olivia is shot a couple of months later, Grayson and his partner Ronan (not the partner the blurb talks of, a different one) investigate the possible connection and investigate Jorguson and Martin. as well as Olivia’s father and his lawyer, Simmons, (who has also been threatening Olivia).

All the bad guys in this book are very very bad. And there are a lot of them. There are no redeeming characteristics and their evil sometimes came across as a caricature. Olivia’s father is charismatic and evil and one dimensional. Olivia’s mother, sister and brother-in-law are heinous – unbelievably selfish and self-absorbed. These three crossed the caricature line early and never quite made it back.

Thankfully, Olivia has some non-heinous people in her life too. When she was a child, she had some form of (unspecified) cancer and was involved in some kind of (also unspecified) experimental treatment (which sounded horrendous but it seems to have worked). She was isolated and then merely hospitalised with 3 other girls with the same disease – Jane, Collins and Sam and they are her surrogate sisters and best friends. I enjoyed the banter between the girls.

There is a subplot involving Jane and her brother Logan which could have been left out I feel. There is a large cast of characters in this book and the consequences/fallout of the story involving Jane was left largely unexplored here due to (I assume) lack of space. Still, I suspect that Jane will get her own book and maybe those issues will be dealt with there.

As for Grayson, he ran a bit hot and cold for me. There were times when I loved him and there were other times where he skirted right up to the jerk line (and sometimes crossed over). He could be very overbearing and demanding and got really angry really fast – while I didn’t think that was ever a threat to Olivia, I can’t imagine it being comfortable to be around. Grayson is also a little too good to be true – he’s a trust fund baby who works super hard for the FBI, renovating and flipping buildings in his spare time. He also takes on custody of his 9 year old nephew Henry during the book and he’s a devoted “dad”.

Grayson and Olivia have an instant connection but at the beginning they spent long periods apart – Grayson doesn’t call for 2 months after their first kiss and, seemingly, he only turns up because she’s been shot. There didn’t seem to be any conversation between the two where the reason for his absence (he took on custody of Henry) was discussed and I ended up feeling that Olivia caved too soon because she didn’t make him grovel. Then again, she’d been shot so maybe she had other things on her mind! 🙂 The breaks between them in their early relationship had the effect, for me, of making the story appear episodic.

As the book progresses, Grayson finds it increasingly more difficult to stay away from Olivia. I’m sure there is potential professional trouble for him with him dating a witness/victim of crime but that wasn’t really explored beyond letting Ronan take the lead in the investigation and Grayson saying he should stay away (but then not).

Olivia, having seen (via her friends’ families, not her own) the devastation life threatening illness caused, is reluctant to commit to a permanent relationship – she believes she cannot have a HEA, thinking that one day the cancer will come back. This was a really interesting aspect to the story and I wish it had been explored a little more. In the end, she changed her mind (it is a romance, so of course she does) but I wasn’t quite convinced of the why of it.

There were some amusing moments in the book – I had a bit of a chuckle when Olivia compares Grayson to a modern day Bruce Wayne and asks if he has a batmobile in his garage (he says it’s in the bat cave of course) and Olivia’s tormenting of Grayson with a popsicle. The scene where both Collins (who’s about to start FBI training) meets Ronan (who is gobsmacked) and both girls are (inadvertently) tormenting the guys by sucking on their popsicles was pretty funny.

Grayson and Olivia had definite chemistry. While the book is not terribly explicit, they certainly smoked up the sheets.

What else? This was a book that I enjoyed well enough when I was reading – it certainly was readable and I read it in only 2 or 3 evenings, but when I thought back on it, I could see more flaws than story highs. I wanted to like it more than I did but in the end, it didn’t really satisfy. Then again, I think I might be super picky with my Romantic Suspense, so YMMV.

Grade: C-

Hell on Wheels by Julie Ann Walker

June 17, 2012 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: Jane from Dear Author tweeted the other day that she was enjoying In Rides Trouble, the second book in this series. I requested it and this one from NetGalley. Of course, being me, I started on book 1.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) He’s the bad boy she’s always wanted…

Nate “Ghost” Weller has loved Ali Morgan nearly half his life. But he’s done something so heinous he’s convinced she’ll never forgive him if she discovers the truth, so he keeps his feelings and his secrets to himself. Then she blows into town with a mother lode of bad guys on her tail and Nate can’t deny she’s in serious trouble. Unfortunately, he’s the only one who can help her.

She’s the good girl he’s kept at arm’s length…

Ali knows Nate as the most solemn, aloof man on the planet. Sadly, he’s also the sexiest. For years she’s avoided him, unable to stomach his dark scowls and brooding silences… especially when she secretly yearns for his touch. Now she must rely on him to save her from the malevolent shadows ghosting her every move. When the bullets explode, so does their passion. But can love really conquer all? Or are some things just too terrible to forgive?

What worked for me (and what didn’t): This is a fast paced, spec-ops group types series, very much in the vein of Tara Janzen’s Steele Street (Crazy) series (except with bikes not cars) or Cindy Gerard’s BOI’s. Lots of over the top alpha male action – both romantically and in terms of plot. A certain suspension of disbelief is required to buy into the super seekrit spec-ops group disguised as a custom bike facility, but really, if you’re not prepared for that, why would you even pick up the book?

The book starts off when Nate delivers the news to Ali of her brother Grigg’s death. Because they are spec-ops of course, he can’t tell her the truth about the circumstances. Nate is haunted by the death because (and I don’t think this is a spoiler as it’s revealed fairly early on) he was the one who had to finally put a merciful end to Grigg’s life after some horrific torture meant the choices were only between a long, agonising death or a quick one at the hands of his best friend. Nate doesn’t believe that Ali, if she knew the truth, could ever forgive him for that and he cannot forgive himself. Essentially that is the main internal conflict between the two.

The external conflict is around Ali being followed, her place being broken into and being mugged – someone is looking for something from her – she believes (correctly) that it’s linked to Grigg’s mysterious work (she knows he’s not just a custom bike specialist) and goes to Black Knight Inc for aid, where she meets up with Nate and the rest of the team. There follows a road trip, hit men and plenty of explosions, with a couple of steamy interludes until the villain gets his comeuppance and the man gets the girl.

Some of the writing didn’t ring true to me. This for instance from Nate:

It just didn’t seem right. A day like this. So sunny, so bright. Didn’t the world know it’d lost one of its greatest men? Didn’t its molten heart bleed?

But then, there were lines like this, which felt much more realistic

Unmentionables?

Whoever came up with that ridiculous term? Underwear that fantastic deserved to be mentioned on a regular basis.

When Nate was being himself and not trying to wax lyrical, he was a pretty funny guy:

“So that’s why you’ve been acting so…so surly and disagreeable all these years?” she asked in disbelief. “Because you want me?”

Surly and disagreeable? He hadn’t been surly and disagreeable. He’d been noble and honorable. Jesus. Couldn’t she tell the friggin’ difference?

The problem was, that because Nate has been so “surly and disagreeable all these years”, they don’t really know each other well. Until the book starts (and most of it takes place in about 48 hours) she’s never heard Nate laugh and rarely seen him smile. So, it was a little hard to buy that what was between them was true and deep and lasting – they certainly have combustible chemistry but I can’t say I had confidence by the end of the book that they had a deep bond beyond the physical.

Wow. Those two sure had it bad.

Ghost practically lifted a leg and pissed on Ali anytime she walked in the room, and Ali got all doe-eyed and flushed the minute Ghost looked at her.

Nate drops his “g”s quite often but not terribly consistently and his habit of weird word contractions didn’t work that well for me –

“What’r’ya doin’ here?” he asked again. The man had the strangest way of making contractions out of multiple words.

partly because it was inconsistent and partly because it made the text harder to read.

Ali is a kindergarten teacher. Yes. That’s right. Kindergarten teacher with alpha male Spec-Ops type. It is a cliche and it’s not helped by her habit of not swearing and saying things (even to herself) like “h-e-double hockey sticks” and “crimeny“. She also pukes a lot. That’s her stress reaction. Seriously, she vomits all over the place. It isn’t very sexy but it is unforgettable, as quirks go.

The villain is fairly one dimensional and not all that bright – which did make me wonder how he could have caused quite so much damage without getting caught previously. What I did really like though was the character of Dagan Zoelner. He’s been following Ali for three months trying to locate some information, thinking he’s on team white hat – but then he begins to wonder. I really liked how this character was introduced and I’m looking forward to more from him.

The chemistry between Nate and Ali was smoking and the sex scenes were well written and steamy. There were parts of the story that were fun and cool and sexy and other parts which felt too cliched and over the top. Ali ventured perilously close to TSTL territory a few times and I got the impression that some things were there because the plot required them rather than that they made a lot of sense otherwise (eg, Ali accompanying Nate to Jacksonville). Her website says this is Ms. Walker’s debut and for a first book, it’s pretty good.

What else? A reasonable amount of the story is devoted to the unwanted attraction shared by Frank “Boss” Knight and Rebecca “Rebel” Reichart. There is a 13 year age gap and Frank is desperate to protect her from his bad old self. These two feature in In Rides Trouble and I’m looking forward to seeing Frank brought to his knees by love. Rebel is kickass and reminds me a bit of Skeeter from Janzen’s Steele Street series.

There’s plenty of sexy guys on sexy bikes and I think Cindy Gerard and Tara Janzen fans will get a kick out of this series.

Grade: C+

Sweet Addiction by Maya Banks

April 14, 2012 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I’ve read all the other books in the series and I wanted to read Cole’s story. Isn’t the cover pretty?

What it’s about: (blurb from Goodreads) He awakened a need within her…

Cole is successful beyond his dreams. He can have any woman he wants, but there’s only one he can’t stop thinking about. His childhood sweetheart, Renita. He’s never forgotten his first taste of innocent love and the desire that consumed them—or the pain he brought upon her…

But now she belongs to another…

Her long ago brush with submission awakened a longing in Ren that drove her to walk the darker edge of desire. She’s become a beautiful woman at ease with her sexuality and unapologetic about her need for a dominant man. When Cole finds her again, he’s gutted that she belongs to another. Ren’s current master agrees to give her to Cole for a short time, but then she must return to his keeping. And though Cole agrees to this bargain, he knows he will never be able to let Ren go again…

Before I start: I follow Maya Banks on Twitter and Facebook and she seems, from her interactions there, to be a very nice lady. A number of my Twitter friends (or, as my 9 year old calls them “Tweet Pals”) appear to actually be pretty good friends with her. It makes it harder then, to write a review which is mostly negative.
A while ago, I decided to challenge myself to review everything I read – that way, I couldn’t, to use an Australian phrase, “pike out” (a reference to backing out due to cowardice) and only review books I liked. As a reader myself, I appreciate reading reviews from places that have both positive and negative reviews – that way I feel I can better trust the reviewer to give me his/her honest opinion (especially important with the sock puppetry which goes on occasionally and Fiverr selling Amazon reviews). I thought, if my goal is to be credible to my audience (however small it may be), I needed to show what I liked and what I didn’t and why.

So, this is a (mostly) negative review. I’m sad about that because I wanted to like the book. I could still have skated on by and written a very brief review in my monthly reads post, but I found I actually had a lot to say about this one, so I’m sucking it up and telling it how I see it.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): There is a certain level of suspension of disbelief one willingly entertains when reading any work of fiction. I knew going in that there would be a 24/7 D/s relationship and there would likely be at least some kind of menage scene and there would be the elite sex club (do they exist outside of fiction?). I was prepared for that; on board even. But, a story has to be internally consistent for me to be successful in that suspension of disbelief. I need to understand the motivation of the character – particularly when there is something outside the norm about a character or situation. What I found in this story is that there was a certain dissonance to the characterisation which made it difficult for me to immerse myself into the fantasy of the book.For example, Lucas likes to watch his women with someone else but he has never done so with Ren in the year they have been together. While he is not averse to “sharing his woman” he prefers privacy and dislikes public exhibitionism. Ren and he discuss it and she says she’s not into it either. But then, they go to his nightclub (normal nightclub, not a sex club) and he allows/instructs her to dance with 3 men (he knows the men but to Ren they are almost strangers). Lucas joins them on the very public dance floor and proceeds to redefine the term “dirty dancing”. Then, while Lucas is behind her, one of the men lifts her top and fondles and licks her breasts (on instructions from Lucas) while Lucas fingers her and then the other man does that too. Oh boy. That seems pretty public to me. I’ve read (and enjoyed) exhibitionist erotic romances before. But this seemed inconsistent with what I’d understood of both characters beforehand.

Cole apparently, doesn’t like to share (although, he seemed happy enough sharing Angelina with Micah in Sweet Temptation). But, that doesn’t stop him from doing just that on the boat. Again, Ren is having sex with men who are strangers to her. In fact, Cole himself only knew the Captain by way of referral from the friend who owned the boat. Those confronting scenes, while erotic, were not romantic. And, they made me question what I knew of Cole.

Then there’s Ren. We’re told she’s strong, self-confident and secure in herself. But it seemed that she was only strong, self-confident and secure if she was being given direction and discipline from her Dominant. Now, this might be on me. I know very little about the BDSM scene but this, I didn’t get. I had a bit of trouble understanding her needs and motivations. She’s only strong when someone else is telling her what to do? While others may get this, for me, this aspect was insufficiently explained. I was told she was strong, but to me, she very often looked weak and scared and needy.

As to the BDSM itself, toward the beginning of the book there’s this:

She moaned softly. With another man, that might have gotten her into trouble. But Lucas loved to hear her sounds of passion. He liked to know he pleased her even though her purpose was to please him.

but then later,

“… Even if he respects nothing else in the world, he must respect the woman in his care. It’s his sworn duty to protect, honor and cherish his submissive. To take care of her and provide a safe haven. Someone who would put his own needs above his woman’s is no man.” (my emphasis)

Even though other D/s books I’ve read agree generally with the latter sentiment, I felt that there was a lack of clarity about it in this book.

And, um, sworn duty? Really?

In print, this is a trade paperback book. I could have bought the paper version from the Book Depository for about $16AUD (as for what it may have cost me to buy it in Australia – if I could even do so, let’s not even go there). As it was, I bought the kindle version from Amazon for $9.69. So, it’s not a cheap book. In any event, expected it to be of high quality, particularly as regards to editing. Alas.

By about page 50, I was noting what I felt were clunky sentence structure and odd word choices. Some of the conversations felt like they were there more to give the reader information rather than being more organic from the characters. Some of the characters said things that I found it difficult to accept people would actually say. It didn’t seem realistic or consistent to me in the context of the book and I found it jarring.

Here are some examples (from various parts of the book) of what I mean:

Lucas chose the meeting to happen at Cole’s offices.

(why not “Lucas decided to meet at Cole’s office”?)

“I would be lying if I said I had any confidence of knowing how she’ll choose either way.”

“You’re giving me a primer to seducing the woman you care about away from you. You’re bitingly possessive one minute and lazily accepting the next.” (my emphasis)

It’s not all about you as a lot of people would assume a relationship where dominance is a factor would be about your needs and wants above all else.

I read this sentence 3 or 4 times before I mentally added a full stop after the first “you” to make it make sense to me.

At one point Cole says “If I have my way, you’ll have her no longer.” Which would have been fine if he usually spoke that way. But he didn’t. So when he started with the formal speech, it was jarring. The phrasing may have fit well in the narrative but not so much in dialogue.

Then I started wondering if I was just being picky. Probably by then I was, but, while I was reading it, I was noticing it. Which tells me, at the very least that I was not engaged in the story. If I’m mentally re-writing sentences, that’s not a good sign. But then, I am a details person (Chris often tells me I’m too harsh!)

Also, there were some strange words in odd places which I think were mistakes. Like this:

He kissed her with savagery that seemed pint up to now and was suddenly released in a violent storm.

and this

It was a hell of a note when a man’s life changed in the space of a few moments over a chance meeting.

It was a hell of a note and two days ago he’d have said that nothing on earth would keep him and Ren apart.

Because it appeared twice in the book in the same context, I actually asked on Twitter whether this was a US turn of phrase that I was just not familiar with. It seems not.

And then there was this

He could see right into the heart of her, which was why he was treating her with kids’ gloves.

It’s kid gloves. Made of kidskin (baby goat), not belonging to children. I’m sure Ms. Banks knows this but it was just one too many editing errors for me.

There was a scene later in the book where Ren was tied by both hands and both feet to four portable poles (we were told they were heavy but they were moved two at a time by Lucas). It struck me as inherently unsafe – what if she flinched or jerked and pulled one of the poles down on top of her?

Partly because I don’t know much about BDSM or 24/7 D/s relationships, I let it pass that Lucas made the decision unilaterally to “give” Ren to Cole for 2 weeks. Ordinarily I would have thought he was a bit of a tool, but hey, maybe that’s how those relationships are supposed to work (clearly I would be very bad at such a relationship!). Later in the book though, both Cole and Lucas are having a conversation where they basically say that they’re both assholes because both of them made unilateral decisions for Ren and that the “final” decision had to be hers. But then, they totally ignored their resolve and went ahead and sprung something on her again!! I appreciated when Ren went off the deep end at them – I still think she let them off too easy.

Essentially this is a love triangle. I don’t think it’s difficult to intuit what solution is arrived at, but I won’t give it away here. Because of that, this bit might sound vague. The resolution between Cole/Ren and Lucas/Ren had significant pitfalls. The story acknowledged that but unfortunately I didn’t see the relevant parties (being mysterious here) working on those issues. I was told it was hard but it had been accomplished. To be honest, that part of the story probably held the greater interest for me. I was very interested in knowing exactly how it worked out. Even though I was told it had, I found it difficult to picture and so I’m not sure I totally bought the “happy ending” (being mysterious again).

What else? It wasn’t all bad. The story was split into 3 parts, Lucas, Cole and Ren. I felt the Lucas part was the “clunkiest” but things picked up a bit by the middle third of the book. By the end of the book, while I was noticing some strange word placement (see above) I was actually thinking more about the characters and how things were going to work out and Ren’s safety and well being. I guess that tells me that for the first part, I wasn’t really engaged, but by the middle third that had changed.

I did find some of the sex scenes fairly confronting. (I did in Micah’s book too.) I don’t think it’s romantic (it may be erotic, but not romantic, at least not to me) for a Dom to let strangers have sex with his submissive. In Sweet Surrender (which remains my favourite of the series), Faith had specifically said to Grey that she had had a fantasy about a threesome and he gave it to her; with Micah – someone she knew and trusted. The other thing about that book was that Faith and Grey had a clear discussion early on about to what level Faith wanted to be dominated in a relationship (it was more that she wanted to be “taken care of” and cossetted rather than dominated 24/7, although there was some D/s in their sex play). That all made sense to me. It was explained in the story and I understood it, in context. I can’t say the same here. I felt off balance when it came to the relationship dynamic between Ren/Cole and Ren/Lucas and that hindered my enjoyment of the book. Again, that could be on me. YMMV.

It was also nice to have a half-Korean heroine, although not very much was made of her ethnicity.

The sex scenes, particularly where no strangers were involved, were smokin’ – although there was one where Ren was basically on her head which was, um, different.

Then, there were also lines like this, which I loved:

“I can’t be the better man here because I’m only better if I’m with you.”

*sigh*

One thing I didn’t mind was that there wasn’t a lot of the “sweet girls” in the book. They didn’t need to be there to tell this story. I hear that there have been some complaints from people who thought that because it was a “sweet” book it would have a reunion of all the previous MC’s. I don’t mind when a previous character appears in the story, but they have to have something to do for it to make sense to me.

And, by the way: what happened to Ren’s collar?

Grade: C- (and edging perilously close to D territory)

Plenty of other people liked this book better than I did. Mandi at Smexy Books gave it a B.

Teach Me by Cassandra Dean

April 13, 2012 / Kaetrin

Grade: C-

My full review is up over at the ARRA blog here.

Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann, narrated by Patrick Lawlor and Melanie Ewbank

April 10, 2012 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I’m a big fan of Suzanne Brockmann’s books. Although I credit Sarah Frantz from Dear Author, it was probably Ms. Brockmann that introduced me to m/m romance. I admit I wasn’t super enthusiastic about her move to PNR – mainly because it meant I wouldn’t be getting any more of her more traditional RS for a good long while, if ever. I have mixed feelings about the book but I’m not really sure it has all that much to do with the genre change.

What it’s about: The plot is somewhat complicated but I’ll do my best to summarise and introduce the main characters (of which there are 7 – that’s right there are 7 POV characters in this story and 3 romantic storylines). So, here goes.

The book is set in the not to distant (maybe 35ish years) future where the government, law enforcement and most other services have been privatised. Unemployment is high and poverty rampant. Various scientific types around the world are studying something called “neural integration” whereby some people naturally have the ability to integrate their neural pathways more efficiently than others and those people train to enhance their talents. The science is not widely accepted by the government, the authorities or the public. “Normal” people are called “Less Thans” or “Fractions” and their neural integration is about 10%. A “Greater Than” (not, in my opinion the most interesting or exciting name for a group of super hero types) may have 30% or more neural integration.

The Obermeier Institute (OI) in Boston is devoted to the study of neural integration – the Obermeier of the name is completely absent from the story even though she “runs” the institute. I guess she will appear in future books (?). Joseph Bach runs the institute on her behalf day to day. He is a 72% greater than. Michelle “Mac” Mackenzie is a “50′ and so is hottie Stephen Diaz. Elliot Zerkowski (I may have the spelling wrong – I haven’t seen the name in print) is a Fraction but he is a science geek who works at OI and assists with the training and research. The Greater Thans have various “super powers” in varying degrees of strength and control, ranging from self healing, telekinesis, telepathy, prescience, thought projection, flying, shielding, super strength – sort of like X-Men.

A new drug is on the black market. Known as Destiny, it mimic the effects of high neural integration but is instantly addictive. There is also a nasty side effect – which while inevitable, is unpredictable – known as “Jokering” (the name comes from the Batman comics). Joseph, Mac and Diaz help the Boston PD take down jokers and try and detox them from Destiny but, so far they have had no success in the latter endeavour. The makers of Destiny (known as “The Organisation”) harvest some of the ingredients from the endocrine system of pubescent girls with Potential to be Greater Thans – they keep them in a state of intense fear to increase the particular hormones they need to produce the drug.

13 year old Nika (again with the spelling) Taylor goes missing and her sister Anna, is approached by Bach to assist. Nika had recently been identified as a Potential by OI and he believes she’s been kidnapped by the Organisation.

Our final other main character is Shane Laughlin – a former Navy SEAL who has been blacklisted (and really, the overuse of the word blacklisted in this book! It got old early and often) has been offered a place at OI as he has been identified as a Potential with 17% natural integration.

The basic story from there is that the OI people and Anna try to find and rescue Nika.

Diaz and Elliot are gay and they get together (couple 1), Shane and Mac get together (couple 2) and Bach and Anna have a thing also (couple 3) and then there’s Nika. And, we have POV from all of them. Melanie Ewbank reads the parts of the book which are from a female POV and Patrick Lawlor reads the male POV – as there are 4 male MC’s he gets slightly more of the air time, which, IMO, was a good thing.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): This is a big book. It is over 18 hours on audio; the standard audiobook runs to about 11ish hours. However, it takes place over only 3 days. That’s right, 3 days. The Greater Thans don’t sleep much, so there’s more useful hours in a day for them, but still, it’s only 3 days. Shane and Mac meet on day 1, as do Bach and Anna. Diaz and Elliot have known each other for 7 years but not well (Diaz has kept himself from forming any deep friendships) and they hook up on day 1. By day 3 we are supposed to accept that we have 2/3 HEA’s. Bach and Anna’s story is unfinished at the end and this was most unsatisfying. (I suppose that is mildly spoilerish but it’s the sort of thing I’d want to know).

The beginning of the book was very promising. Mac’s “special power” is empathy and part of that is that she can ramp up her pheromones and her sexual attractiveness to those who are attracted to women and influence people that way. The problem with that is that she never believes that anyone is attracted to her for her own sake – she thinks it’s just because of her super power. She and Shane went round and round with this but I’m not sure it was ever fully resolved, at least, not in any neat kind of way, which was a bit disappointing.

Diaz and Elliot had such a promising start, but going from never having touched at all and only speaking on a professional level to “I love you, let’s get married” in less than 48 hours was too much for me. There wasn’t anything keeping this couple apart for most of the book and the relationship lacked tension after about the first third of the story.

There were also parts of the dialogue which didn’t ring true to me. This was the case with both Diaz and Shane actually – sometimes when they spoke it sounded like something a woman would want to hear but not necessarily something a man would actually say. At least to me. That’s a fairly small niggle though.

Anna and Bach’s story will no doubt be resolved over the next or subsequent books but I found it really frustrating that there was something of a cliffhanger as to their relationship. Thinking on it now, I should have known better – Brockmann is notorious for putting her secondary characters through the wringer and making them work for their HEA (Sam and Alyssa anyone?). I guess the thing for me was that in the Troubleshooters books I was always clear on who were the main characters and who were the secondary ones and I was clear that I could expect an HEA for the MC’s but not the others. However, Anna and Bach were much more than secondary characters for me in this book. It really felt like there were 6 MC’s with Nika coming up very strongly in 7th place. Still, maybe that one gets blamed on me. 🙂

The ending overall, was, I felt, somewhat rushed. I don’t want to give away major spoilers but something happens to Elliot and Shane which isn’t really explained and the tension of the situation kind of fizzles. Perhaps this will be addressed in future books?

The story was entertaining enough and when I was listening, for the most part, I enjoyed it. However, when I stopped listening and started thinking about it, things became a little unstuck. The really short time frame did my head in. I just didn’t believe the 2 HEA’s were for real. HFN’s sure, but forever? Um, no.

As for the super powers thing, well, that was mostly okay – it was certainly different from what’s around in PNR right now, that I know of anyway, but some of it did seem a little… silly. For example, when a joker was flying and breathing fire. That stretched my credulity just a little too thin. The one aspect of the Greater Thans that I had a little bit of trouble with – and only because I had difficulty getting my own head around it rather than how it was written – was the stuff that was done in dreams – Bach, in particular would share dreams with Anna and they would visit places and do things in the dream which of course were not real but they were kind of real and then my head asploded.

I will have to get the next one because I want to know what the deal is with Anna and Bach and see how Mac and Shane are going after, you know, day 4.

What else? Patrick Lawlor has been narrating Brockmann books for a while now and I quite enjoy his narration. He gets the Brockmann style and he has a reasonable range. When he was doing the girly squeals it got a bit much, but mostly, I very much enjoyed his narration. The good news was the he narrated all of the Diaz/Elliot storyline.

I didn’t enjoy Melanie Ewbank’s narration as much. It was just okay. She sounded too strident to my ear. Mac was pretty bitchy anyway and it’s possible that in print I would have found her a little on the unlikeable side regardless, but the narration didn’t help. Also, when she was narrating where a character was calling out for another character, it sounded more like the voice you’d hear in a ghost story which was a bit, um, weird. There really wasn’t any difference between her voice for Shane and her voice for Mac and it was difficult to differentiate between the two characters. I didn’t have that problem with Patrick Lawlor’s narration though.

The other thing I’ll add is that this book is not for the squeamish. If violence against young women is not your thing (think 12-14 year old girls), then maybe this is not the book for you. The Organisation kidnaps the girls and keeps them terrified. They want them to be in pain and fearful. Those bits are kind of full on.

The book was eminently listenable but I can’t say that it ranked up there in my favourite Brockmann stories. It’s possible the series will improve over time (I’m not sure how many books are planned for it). I think it may well have been a better book if one of the romances had’ve been deleted or otherwise only hinted at and the extra page time used to put more actual time into the story so that it went for longer than 3 days. I liked it but there were things that bothered me in the story and the narration and I can’t say I loved it. The ending felt rushed and managed to drop a brand new problem into the mix which was left unresolved (on purpose) and that’s not my favourite either.

It seems to be getting great reviews (at least the print version is) on Goodreads, so maybe I’m an outlier – it wouldn’t be the first time, 🙂

Grade: C (with a C- for the dissatisfying and incomplete ending).

Lovegames by M. Jules Aedin

March 8, 2012 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: After reading the wonderful Paper Planes, I was keen to try and repeat the experience with the next book in this (extremely loosely linked) series.What it’s about: Rockstar Keith Black and actor Adam Cruce are lovers who invite a third occasionally for a bit of fun. Their respective careers keep them apart and their arrangement is that they can have sex with other people, just be safe. Part of the arrangement comes out of Keith’s bipolar disorder (disclaimer- I accepted that this was what Keith needed in the context of the book but I don’t necessarily think that all people with bipolar disorder would feel the same way). At Charlotte’s Pride concert/fair/thingy, both Adam and Keith separately meet up with Sebastian Keane, a 21 year old college student who is slight and short and wears glitter eye makeup. Both Adam and Keith are smitten and they invite Sebastian (Baz) back to their hotel for sex. After spending all night and the next day with Baz, Adam and Keith are eager to repeat the experience, even though none of their thirds have ever been invited back. Baz visits Keith and Adam in LA and they spend a few days together but are outed by the media which creates problems for all three. All three want the relationship to continue permanently but all three have their own fears about coming out and saying so.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): It’s a hot story – there’s plenty of sex and it is very well written. Each of the three men have distinct personalities and I was able to distinguish between them fairly easily fairly quickly.

Keith’s mental illness is described, from his point of view, as colours – the blackness moving in, a smile from Adam maybe causing a rush of purple, a high from performing a fireworks of gold and silver sparks for example. It was a very effective and lyrical way of describing his emotions. Keith is vulnerable. He worries that he’s too needy for Adam. He worries that his feelings for Baz will push Adam away or make Adam feel bad. He’s desperately in love with Adam (and later Baz also) but he’s very frightened of getting any treatment for his mental illness because his manager has warned him it is a career killer.

Adam is worried about Keith all the time. He is also desperately in love and he worries all the time that Keith will lose it and hurt himself or someone else. He’s worried that he’s older than Keith and a lot (but I didn’t catch how much) older than Baz.

Baz is a little more straight forward – he’s interested in both men from the start but worries about intruding on their long term relationship.

Unfortunately, these issues weren’t canvassed anywhere near enough in the book. Here’s what I noted on my Reader immediately when I finished reading last night: “BOO! Ending way to abrupt! HISS!! On the positive, I was totally caught up with the story and the characters . On the negative, the story WAS NOT FINISHED.” Literally, I went to press the next page button and there was no more book!! Argh!!

Keith’s vulnerability, Adam’s worries, Baz’s concerns and what would happen with his school and career – these things were all mostly unexplored and left hanging. Would Keith change managers? How does his treatment go? Too many questions!! The last sex scene was particularly unsatisfying. It needed another 50 or 100 pages to finish the story.

There’s also a stalker-ish subplot which didn’t really add to the story and could have been left out.

What else? If I’m lucky, there will be a sequel and the things which were missing for me can be explored but as it was, I’m struggling to grade this book now. It would be a B+ for what book there was but the ending (or lack of it) was closer to a D. Honestly, I was so caught up in the story (which is a good thing) that the lack of closure was a big deal for me. Overall, therefore, I’m going to go with a C/C+.

Grade: C/C+.