Page 176 of 268

The Promise by Kristen Ashley

August 4, 2014 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: I had this one pre-ordered from Amazon and a few of my Twitter pals and I did a buddy read. (Except I was late starting so I played catch-up most of the time.)

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) Since his brother’s death, Benny Bianchi has been nursing his grudge against the woman he thinks led to his brother’s downfall. He does this to bury the feelings he has for Francesca Concetti, his brother’s girl. But when Frankie takes a bullet while on the run with Benny’s cousin’s woman, Benny has to face those feelings.

The problem is Frankie has decided she’s paid her penance. Penance she didn’t deserve to pay. She’s done with Benny and the Bianchi family. She’s starting a new life away from Chicago and her heartbreaking history.

Benny has decided differently.

But Frankie has more demons she’s battling. Demons Benny wants to help her face. But life has landed so many hard knocks on Frankie she’s terrified of believing in the promise of Benny Bianchi and the good life he’s offering.

Frankie’s new life leads her to The ‘Burg, where Benny has ties, and she finds she not only hasn’t succeeded in getting away, she doesn’t want to.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): Ordinarily, I’d expect I’d have some difficulty with the concept of a guy dating his dead brother’s ex-girlfriend – as a concept it doesn’t appeal to me much. But, I was sold on Frankie and Ben (I refuse to call him Benny – sorry, can’t do it) by the end of At Peace and Vinnie (the dead brother/ex) was kind of vague and amorphous but also not good for Frankie in many ways. So it didn’t faze me when that wasn’t an issue for most of the characters in this book. Frankie struggled with it for a while at the start of the story but no-one else did. Frankie and Ben so clearly belonged together, everyone was just happy it looked like it was happening.

July Round Up

August 2, 2014 / Kaetrin

Monthly Mini Review

Whisper Falls by Toni Blake – C I borrowed this book from the library after a recent DBSA podcast which mentioned that the heroine has Crohn’s Disease. Tessa Sheridan moved home to Destiny, Ohio some years earlier because she needed help due to her illness. Her mother lives close by and she has a part time job in a friend’s bookshop which allows her to work when she feels well but is very flexible if she’s unwell. She was an interior designer with a big Cincinnati firm but couldn’t keep up with the demands of her job. She has her own interior design business in Destiny but there’s little demand and she’s had no actual customers. Lucky Romo moves back home to Destiny after he took over at age 18. He didn’t plan to come back but he recently found out he has a son – the result of a one night stand some ten years earlier when he’d been (very briefly) in the area. There is little angst about the son and actually that was kind of refreshing. The big deal about Lucky is that he’s had a rough past. He was in an outlaw motorcycle gang for four years shortly after he left town and did some bad things. Part of the reason he stayed away was the potential for risk to his family.

It has all the ingredients of a cracking story but it was just okay for me. I admit I was kind of bored and I skimmed a lot of it. Tessa’s love for The Ellen Show was over the top and kind of nauseating. I liked a lot of the interaction between Lucky and Tessa and those were the bits where I read more closely. I did like that the book didn’t shy away from making the things Lucky did very bad things (they could still have been worse) and I liked that he had to work some things out with his family rather than being completely embraced as the prodigal son (though there was a bit of that). Crohn’s Disease wasn’t a huge focus in the story. Tessa has basically learned to manage it. She doesn’t want to be a burden and she doesn’t want people to define her by her disease so she prefers not to think about it. I liked how Lucky was happy to take care of her when she was ill and he had to push a bit to get her to allow that. I felt like she had a bit more balance by the end but I also think she had a relatively mild form of the disease. Some of the things which would have possibly changed my impression in that regard were glossed over – for instance, she had a limited diet but the story never disclosed what that actually looked like day to day.

Review at Dear Author

August 1, 2014 / Kaetrin

I’m at Dear Author today with a review of Between the Sheets by Molly O’Keefe. The bad news is that I’m sad I haven’t read this author before (even though I have some of her books on Mt. TBR). The good news is that I can read all of her backlist now. I sense a glom coming on.

Review at Dear Author

July 29, 2014 / Kaetrin

I’m over at Dear Author with a review of General Misconduct by LA Witt. About halfway through, I thought about DNFing. Maybe I should have.

The Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Grover Gardner

July 28, 2014 / Kaetrin

Why I read it: This is another from my personal stash. I was in the mood for a little more Miles Vorkosigan and it was the next one in the series (which I am trying to listen to in order).

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) [A Miles Vorkosigan Story] Miles infiltrates a prison camp at Dagoola IV, where he plots from within to free the prisoners. [Publisher’s Note: The Borders of Infinity was originally published as a stand-alone novella in the anthology Free Lancers in September 1987. It was then included in the novel Borders of Infinity (October 1989). For the novel, Ms. Bujold added a short “framing story” that tied the three novellas together by setting up each as a flashback that Miles experiences while recovering from bone-replacement surgery. Fictionwise is publishing these novellas separately, but we decided to leave in Ms. Bujold’s short framing story for those who may also wish to read the other two novellas (The Mountains of Mourning and Labyrinth).]

What worked for me (and what didn’t): In this full length audiobook, the author has created a “framing story” to join the three novellas together. Miles is recovering from bone replacement surgery and Ilyan, the spymaster, asks him about certain expenses he has incurred in some of his missions. A rival faction is using a bean counter who is dedicated to counting beans to stir up trouble for Count Aral Vorkosigan and unseat him from the Prime Ministership – Ilyan wants to learn everything about these missions so that he can nip trouble in the bud – even if Miles is resentful of the unsaid accusation of misappropriation.

The Mountains of Mourning

This novella takes place when Miles is only 20 and is on leave shortly after graduating from the Academy. A woman begs for justice for her murdered baby daughter and Count Aral Vorkosigan sends Miles in his stead to investigate the crime and mete out said justice. The baby was born with a hare lip and a cleft palate but was managing to feed well enough. Simple plastic surgery could have fixed the defect (should Hara have been able to access the treatment of course) but on Barrayar, birth defects are not tolerated well. It is particularly so in the remote villages where there is no good communication with the cities and where the people cling to old traditions. Miles is, of course, a “mutant” himself and his own life was threatened on the basis of his defect before he was even born (see Barrayar). Things are slowly changing on Barrayar but Aral wants Miles to sent a message that the killing of infants on the basis of a birth defect is NOT OKAY and will no longer be tolerated. Miles has to use his ingenuity (as always) to sort out the truth and in the process he has to win over people (as always) who judge him on the basis of his physical imperfections.