Review: Tempest's Legacy by Nicole Peeler

Book Blurb:  Jane True has become proficient in basic magics, confident in herself and her abilities, and happily rooted in Rockabill. Her life is still divided between her supernatural brethren and her human friends and family, but it’s a division she maintains with very little trouble.

Everything changes, however, when Anyan brings Jane news that will force her to confront her dichotomized existence – supernatural females are being murdered, or have simply disappeared.

Jane and Anyan must embark on a desperate search to find out who is abducting these women, and how Jane can be protected from them. Aiding them is Jane’s former flame, Ryu. But can his stated motivations be trusted? And who are the mysterious figures dogging Jane’s and Anyan’s footsteps if not minions of Jarl?

Eventually, the trio stumble upon a secret so huge that it threatens to disrupt the tenuous traditions keeping humanity safe from the supernatural community that has, up until now, been content to lurk in the shadows.

Will they uncover the truth in time to save Jane’s friends? And just how far will Jarl go to protect his secrets?

My Thoughts:

I loved it. You need to read it. That is all.








Oh, you want more detail than that? Fine, be picky. :P

     Tempest's Legacy picks up several months after the end of book two, Tracking the Tempest. Jane is learning how to use her magic offensively. She has made friends with the other supernaturals in Rockbill and has achieved some contentment in her life. Life is going pretty well over all for Jane so naturally she gets bad news. Supernatural females are disappearing, even dying and Anyan is investigating. Jane gets involved and so does Ryu and some of his associates. Sadly, Caleb isn't around much in this story but Peeler assured me on Twitter that we'd see more of him *grin* in the next book. However, we do see more of Julian. He gets more attention in this book and also acts as a spotlight for the halflings, who play a major part in this book. The new halflings (most of them) are strong, smart, sassy women who intimidate Jane at first, but then she gets to know them. I hope we will see more of them.

     Peeler takes us deeper into the supernatural world, it's politics and culture. It's a fascinating world and we see up close how some of them live, especially the halflings. Jane, and the reader, learn more about the supernatural world. The Borderlands was a fascinating place, particularly it's relationship with the larger supernatural community.

     Jane's growth, emotionally and magically, continues in this book. That growth is something I appreciate about this series. Peeler has no qualms about changing things up and keeping the pace moving. There's no chance for anyone or anything to get stale. Despite the fast pace of the series, character development and growth are not forsaken. Since the book is told on first person, we see Jane's thoughts and to a lesser extent her feelings. We see, and feel, her frustration with the Alfar, the murders, her relationship with Ryu, and we see her growing determination to do whatever she has to in order to protect her human family and friends, and her less powerful supernatural ones too. She does what she thinks is necessary, even when it terrifies her but also listens, usually, to her friends. She can be a rush in headlong first girl but she learns and listens, and speaks up for herself.

     This book is darker, grittier, with more of an edge. This magical world is not all lightness, butterflies and tea cakes. Like ours, there's violence, corruption, politics, etc. But there's humor, love, loyalty, friendship, and of course, Jane's ever talkative libido. Still, it's clear that Peeler is moving this into a darker direction, and Jane also. I can't wait to see what happens next.

  **Note: the version I read was a galley, not a final copy and it contained numerous typos, misspellings, and half-finished sentences. Presumably, these were found and fixed before it went to print. I hope so, because they kept taking me out of the story, especially where the wrong word was clearly used, changing the meaning of the sentence.**  

Publisher:   Orbit                                                 Release date: January 1, 2011

More Info: goodreads                                          Series: #3 in The Jane True series


This book was provided by NetGalley as an eARC.

Review: Hunger Aroused by Dee Carney

Book Blurb:  Jasmine is sick in bed when a sexy stranger breaks in and reveals she's suffering an irreversible case of vampirism. And because her turning wasn't approved by the Council, he must kill her once the transition is complete. In the meantime, the executioner offers to ease her torment with chocolate, hot peppers or sexual release. Fortunately for them both, Jasmine's kitchen is bare...

Corin's honor demands he do his duty, but he cannot execute the lovely woman while any part of her humanity remains. He must also find-and kill-her sire. Jasmine denies ever having contact with a vampire, causing Corin to question the justice of his orders. Sensing his hesitation, the Council dispatches another executioner, forcing the pair to make a run for it. 

Every hour they spend together-every sensual encounter they share-finds them growing closer. Now Corin will have to choose: kill the woman he loves, or go against everything he believes to set her free.

My thoughts: The first paragraph of the book blurb caught me eye and had me laughing out loud in the library. I knew I had to read this story. Unfortunately, the story did not meet my expectations. The blurb starts out humorous and then gets serious. The book starts out serious and stays there. There is little humor in the story; the story itself does progress in the fashion described by the blurb so that was accurate but I expected humor and also heat.  I got neither.

I have to say that Carney's writing style really put me off. It's choppy, full of sentence fragements. One paragraph will consist of nothing but one sentence fragment after another, making it difficult, for me anyway, to read and to follow. It really disrupted the flow of the story; I would find myself mentally re-writing fragments or whole paragraphs into something that made sense. Then there would be passages that were grammatically fine but just didn't hold my attention. Over the course of five days, I would constantly pick it up and put it down; finishing the story was a struggle for me. The last quarter of the story, approximately, was when I got involved and I finished that in one sitting.

That last bit is when the excrement hits the fan and the action really begins. Up until then, I was having a hard time really caring what happened, if Jasmine lived, if they had a HEA, etc. I liked the ending, it was a mix of predictable and surprising.

We get several scenes of Corin in the past, before and after he becomes a vampire. I liked him in those scenes and I felt for him but whenever the action shifted back to the present, he became stiff, a cardboard character. Jasmine seems like she could be your next door neighbor, she comes across as likable but I could never quite connect to her. I think the story length was part of the problem; Carney needed more time to develop the characters and make them less cardboard.  Instead, they are stock characters - Jasmine is the workaholic adult orphan too busy to make friends or have a life, and that hasn't changed by story's end. Corin is the brooding, alpha male scarred by his past. We do see some slight change in him, but not enough. In addition, it wasn't explained to my satisfaction why Jasmine needed to be executed simply because she was turned vampire without the ruling council's permission. I understood going after her sire, the vampire who turned her, but no reasonable explanation was given for the council's decree to kill the innocent progeny.

I mentioned earlier that I never felt the heat between Jasmine and Corin. They have plenty of scenes where they make out or have sex but to me, it was all insert Tab A into Slot B. The erotic scenes just didn't feel erotic to me, and that's a fairly large component of the novella.

The story has promise but Carney fails to deliver.

Publisher: Carina Press

Release Date: Nov. 8th, 2010

This review was first published at Book Lovers Inc. I received this as an e-galley from NetGalley.

Review: Always the Baker Never the Bride

                                 
     Book Blurb: They say you can't have your cake and eat it too. But who would want a cake they couldn't eat?

Just ask Emma Rae Travis about that. She's a baker of confections who is diabetic and can't enjoy them. When Emma meets Jackson Drake, the escapee from Corporate America who is starting a wedding destination hotel to fulfill a dream that belonged to someone else, this twosome and their crazy family ties bring new meaning to the term "family circus." The Atlanta social scene will never be the same!

     My Thoughts: I had never heard of Ms. Bricker before nor of the publisher, Abingdon Press, but when I read the story synopsis it sounded interesting. It's a straight up contemporary romance. There's no mystery or suspense, nothing paranormal or mythological, not even any sex. That seems to be an increasingly rare story in the romance genre these days. What I didn't realize is that Abingdon Press is a Christian Publisher, which certainly explains why it's a "regular" romance, hold the sex. I have no problem with the lack of sex; I enjoy stories both with and without, as long as they are well done. I wasn't entirely comfortable with the amount of religion in the story.

     To be fair, the amount of the story talking about God, Jesus, salvation, etc was maybe 5-10 pages in a 300 page book and it fits in with the story. But, maybe because I was not prepared for it, I felt very uncomfortable with it. That aside, the story is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon or evening,

     The characters were all very likable, and felt real, for the most part. Bricker did have trouble at times fleshing out some of the secondary characters, particularly the ones who she tried to pass off as being difficult.. Jackon's sisters are supposed to be overbearing and  terrifying, we are told this repeatedly, but we don't really see it except for small glimpses. The same is true of Emma's parents: separated for 15+ years, supposedly fireworks go off when they are in a room together, and chaos will reign. We never see that nor do we see why Emma is so uncomfortable with them. I could never buy into their supposed marital problems or allegedly overwhelming personalities.

     The other disappointment for me was the Southern setting. I don't know if Bricker has lived in the South or if she spent any time in Atlanta researching the city, but the story could really be set pretty much anywhere. There's very little in the way of Southern flavor or details specific to Atlanta. One detail that she does get right is Atlanta's love of the phrase "peachtree". I spent 3 days in Atlanta on a business trip several years ago and I swear, every other street name had "peachtree" in it and so did numerous businesses, eateries, etc. My colleagues and I joked about for weeks afterward. Sadly, one thing that she gets very wrong is the accent. Most of the time, she ignores it and doesn't try for it (a good choice really since it's very hard to accurately write a regional accent or dialect) but once in a while she remembers that the story is  set in the South and throws in a word that's is supposed to be a Southernism, We know this because they are always italicized. I lived 6 years in Virginia and have relatives scattered throughout the South; it would have been better if she ignored the accent or, instead of writing it, described it. For instance, instead of writing bruthah, she could have written it normally and added a description along the lines of "Norma drew out her words, softening and lengthening her syllables."

     Bricker takes her time developing the relationship and the romanced between Emma and Jackson and their doubts and hesitations ring true. It's not all roses and moonbeams but neither is it one trial after another. Bricker manages to avoid many of the genre cliches which makes for a very pleasant read.  I liked that Emma had a backbone even while she had her doubts and worries, and that Jackson was not a dominant, "alpha" male but just your garden variety male, juggling love, life, work and family. There's no big crises, a few minor ones, including an aunt of Emma's who has developed Alzheimer's. The scenes with Aunt Sophie are mostly humorous, with an undertone of sadness, and add depth to Emma's character.

In all, it's a pleasant, light romance.


Publisher: Abingdon Press
Release Date: September 1st, 2010


This story was provided as an e-arc from NetGalley.  

Review: One Wicked Sin by Nicola Cornick

Book Blurb:

Once the toast of the ton, Lottie Cummings is now notorious for being divorced—and without a penny. Shunned by society, the destitute beauty is lured to become a Covent Garden courtesan. But after refusing to oblige her customers, Lottie’s about to be turned out onto the streets. Until a dangerous rake saves her with a scandalous offer.

Publisher: HQN books
Release Date: October 26, 2010


This review first appeared at The Book Lovers Inc. The book was provided as an e-galley from NetGalley.

The illegitimate son of a duke, Ethan Ryder rose to the ranks of Napoleon’s most trusted cavalry officer—until his capture landed him in England as a prisoner of war. Now on parole, Ethan is planning his most audacious coup yet. But he needs to create a spectacular diversion. Having infamous Lottie as his mistress will lull everyone into thinking he’s busily bedding her instead of plotting deadly treason. Yet their business decision ignites a passionate relationship. And their unexpected bond may scandalize even these two wicked souls…

My Thoughts:    

This is the second book in a trilogy, Scandalous Women of the Ton, which I didn't realize when I picked it up. Happily, my ignorance was not detrimental to reading or enjoying the book. It pretty well stands alone, the ties between the books are fairly loose. The leads from the first book,  Whisper of Scandal, make a brief appearance at the very end of this book and the events in that book appear not to be essential to the second book. 

This book is set during the Napoleonic War and the war is important to the story. providing the motivation for much of behavior of the male lead, Ethan Ryder, and the reason that Ethan and Lottie get together. It's central to the story but I'll get back to that.

Lottie is a divorced woman, which was not a common event in England in those days, and the fact of the divorce is scandalous in itself. Add in the events that led up to her divorce and she finds herself outcast from her family and osctracized by the Ton, England's upper class society.

Lottie married at seventeen, hoping for security, freedom from financial worries, and love. Her father abandoned her family when she was six years old and her family endured severe financial difficulties as a result. She got the first two wishes but not the last. On her wedding night her new husband informs her that they will not be sleeping together, ever, but she can have affairs provided that she is discreet about it. They live like this for about 15 years and then Lottie goes too far. He kicks her out and divorces her, leaving her penniless, friendless, and homeless. She ends up working in a whore house where her she finds that both her self-confidence and her sexual skills have deserted her. She's on the verge of being fired when Ethan arrives and offers to hire her as his mistress.

Ethan is the illegitimate son of an English Duke and an Irish circus performer. He was removed from his mother's care at the age of five and taken to live with his father and stepmother. Neither his father nor stepmother ever had much use for him, but his elder (by about 3 months) half-brother is his friend. He grew up feeling an outsider, unwanted by most of his father's family and with anti-British feelings. He runs away at fifteen, tired of being slighted, ignored and treated as lesser. For reasons I was never clear on, he signed on with the French and joined their army. At nineteen he has an affair with a French aristocrat which results in a son that he leaves behind, certain that the boy's mother can give him a better life.

Fast forward 18 yeasrs and Ethan has been captured by the British, as has his son, Arland. Arland ran away when he was fifteen, just like dear old dad, and, lying about his age, joined the French army. Arland is thrown into a jail while his father is given parole in the same town as his son's jail. It's a small country town, with, as Lottie complains repeatedly, noting to do. Ethan is forbidden from seeing or having any contact with his son. As you might imagine, Arland's captivity is all the restraint necessary to hold him and, provided he meets certain conditions, he lives a fairly normal life: a room of his own at an inn, dinner with his fellow captive officers or even at the houses of some of the local gentry, the occasional authorized trip to London.

Ethan and Lottie reach an agreement: Lottie will be Ethan's very visible, notorious mistress and Ethan will provide her with a cottage, a brand new, fashionable wardrobe, and a generous allowance. You may have already guessed that Ethan wants Lottie for more than her talents in the bedroom; she provides cover while he plots escape. Lottie wants nothing more than to return to the Ton and be rich.

I enjoyed watching the two of them negotiate their arrangement, get to know each other, and learn each others boundaries. Both are emotionally shut off, believing themselves unworthy of being loved and incapable of giving love. Cornick develops their emotional relationship over time and we see into both Lottie's and Ethan's hearts and minds. She does use a couple of cliches that particularly irritated me: the first time that Lottie and Ethan have sex, Lottie falls in love and Ethan discovers that he has tender feelings for his new mistress. That was some incredible sex! Another device that I found irritating was the number of problems between them that could have been solved or prevented by talking, communicating with each other. Now, to some extent, that's to be expected, given their experiences and the arrangement between them. Still, it did get irritating.

There were twists and turns that I didn't see coming, and a few that I saw right off, but overall the story is well plotted and there is some well-done characterization. The story ultimately sucked it in and kept me engaged.

Review: ABC is for Circus by Patrick Hruby

Book Blurb: ABC IS FOR CIRCUS celebrates the colorful and festive world of the circus through each letter of the alphabet. Young children will enjoy memorizing letters and words like A is for Acrobats, B is for Big Top, and C is for Calliope in this imaginative chunky board book. ABC IS FOR CIRCUS is an awesome addition to our artist-centric line of ABC books and is sure to delight and audience of children and adults alike.

Los Angeles-based illustrator Patrick Hruby grew up in a log cabin within an Idaho forest. As a young boy he dreamt of running away to join the circus and become a trapeze artist. Eventually, however, he grew up to study math and physics before attending the renowned Art Center College of Design and pursuing a career as an illustrator. His interest in the geometry of nature is central to his work. Influenced by artists and designers such as Charley Harper, Paul Rand, and Mary Blair, Hruby has gone on to develop his own stunning and modern aesthetic. Hruby's clients include The New York Times Magazine, Playboy Jazz Festival, Varsity Pictures, and Brand New School. CMYK Magazine recently named him one of their Top 100 New Creatives.


My thoughts:  ABC is for Circus has gorgeous artwork: the colors are luminous and the shapes are fluid. Hruby has an exquisite eye for detail. If the book was meant to be an art book, it would succeed wonderfully. Unfortunately, it's designed and marketed as a children's alphabet book.

The target age group is 1-3 year olds,  but developmentally, the book fails to meet their needs. The pictures are overly busy, with too much detail. Some of the pictures are so stylized that the item intended to represent the letter is barely recognizable. Hruby does do a nice job of using both familiar and unfamiliar items but again, some are so stylized that the page fails to adequately represent the letter. The calliope especially is a mess, a gorgeous mess,  but few children will make the connection between the item depicted and the real item if they have seen one. Moreover, it is standard, and developmentally beneficial, to include both the lowercase and uppercase form of each letter but Hruby uses only uppercase. All of the text is uppercase only.

Some children will undoubtedly enjoy the book, it is pleasing to look at but as an alphabet book, it fails.

NOTE: I have taught toddlers for 17 years and am a trained early childhood educator. This review is written from the perspective of an educator.

Publisher: AMMO Books
Release Date: 11/15/2010 

This book was provided by NetGalley as an eARC.

Review: 1022 Evergreen Place by Debbie Macomber

Book Blurb: Dear Reader: 

Guess what? I’m falling in love! With Mack McAfee. 

My baby daughter, Noelle, and I have been living next door to Mack since the spring. I’m still a little wary about our relationship, since I haven’t always made good decisions when it comes to men. My baby’s father, David Rhodes, is testament to that. I’m so worried he might sue for custody. 

In the meantime, the World War II letters I found are a wonderful distraction. Both Mack and I are trying to learn what happened to the soldier who wrote them and the woman he loved. 

Come by sometime for a glass of iced tea and I’ll show you the letters. Plus I’ll tell you the latest about Grace and Olivia, my brother Linc and his wife, Lori (who tied the knot about 5 minutes after they met!), and all our other mutual friends. Oh, and maybe Mack can join us… 

- Mary Jo Wyse

My Thoughts: 

While she's not one of my favorite authors,  I've read some Debbie Macomber book over the years. She has a homey, cozy style which can occasionally become cloying. This book mostly manages to avoid that.  It does have other problems, which I'll get to in a minute.

This book is #10 in her Cedar Cove series. Cedar Cove is a small town on the ocean in Washington State. There's a set cast of characters with one new character introduced in each book. Each book has a central couple but also has multiple secondary couples and plots. Unfortunately, it's reached the point now where there are so many characters, couples, plots and subplots that you need a map and a guidebook to keep track of them all.

The nominal main couple of this book is Mack McAfee and Mary Jo Wyse. However, Macomber abandons them for chapters at a time in order to give page time to all of the other characters. The viewpoint constantly changes, shifting each chapter to a new character, told in third person present. Some people find the constant perspective shift difficult or annoying to read; it's unquestionably hard for an author to pull off. Macomber is mildly successful; again, there's so much jumping around that at times the book is a jumble.

For instance, we see two minor characters, Christie and James, early on in the book then they disappear for almost 200 pages. When they reappeared in the story, I was confused as to who they were. I had to go back and read the character guide at the beginning of the book to refresh my memory. As a result of the constant jumping, the book is overstuffed with characters and plots, it's erratic, and there is no flow to the story. Additionally, ten books in, it reads less like a romance novel and more like a soap opera. 

Macomber does a good job of creating likable, yet fallible characters.  They feel real and the situations she puts them in are fairly realistic, despite the overall soap opera feel to the book. I liked Mary Jo and could relate to her, but Mack was harder for me. When the book begins, Mack has already (in prior books) lied several times to Mary Jo and he does it again. Now, lying is not unusual in real life, but it gave me a bad impression of him that never quite went away. Naturally, Mary Jo has trust issues resulting from her relationship with her daughter's father. You see where this is going, right? They eventually work out the trust issue but then Mary Jo believes that Mack, who proposes several times in this book and did at least once prior to this book, only wants to marry her so he can be a daddy to baby Noelle. Frankly, I believed it myself at times. I was actually more intrigued by Linc and Lori's story and hope that they get their own.book.

Overall, this book was ok but had potential to be so much more. Unless you are a devoted fan of this series or her books, don't bother with this one.

Publisher: Mira

This book was provided by NetGalley as an eARC.This review originally appeared at  Book Lovers Inc.

Review: "B is for Bufflehead" by Steve Hutchcraft

 “B is for Bufflehead”  photographs and text by Steve Hutchcraft.

         Book blurb: Take a flight through the ABC's with a flock of fun feathered friends.  Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Blue-footed Boobies, loons, cuckoos, and many other fascinating birds introduce little ones to the alphabet. Eye-catching and humorous photographs combine with fun facts to entertain and educate inquisitive young minds about the wonderful world of birds.

     Review: “B is for Bufflehead” is an entertaining look at birds. The author, who also took the photographs, manages to write text that doesn't talk down to it's readers while being appropriate for a wide range of young readers. The photographs are colorful and engaging, and the page artwork is color-keyed to each picture. So, if the predominant color in the photo is blue, then the page background is a  matching shade.

    The layout allows for a range of abilities and ages. The first portion is your typical alphabet book layout of a picture, some text, and and the letter plus a word that it starts with. These pages are simple enough to engage and hold the younger readers while the second portion  has a section containing an identification game, and additional facts about the birds in the book which older readers will find interesting.

    The artwork in this book is very well done and one of the books strong points. Another strength is the subjects of the pictures themselves. Each letter is represented by at least two different species of birds and many of the birds will be new to the readers. Hutchcraft mixes familiar and unfamiliar birds, making sure that each one has something unusual or interesting about it. In his own words, “The showcased birds have a mix of fun names, fascinating personalities, and unique behaviors.”

    The alphabet portion of the book, however, is weak. Hutchcraft is so focused on the birds that connecting them to the alphabet is only given cursory attention. The focus letter of each page is only highlighted once and only in it's uppercase form. Despite this, it does work as an alphabet book and it definitely works as an introduction to birds.

 Publisher: PhotoHutch Press

  Age Range: pre-school through third grade

This book was received as a free galley from NetGalley.