Summary:
Lizzy is a cupcake baker in Salem, Massachusetts. Diesel is, well, Diesel. Operating in the same world as the holiday Plum series, Diesel is an Unmentionable, a human being who has some sort of magical powers. Diesel can unlock any door, and is apparently great in bed. He tells Lizzy that she's an Unmentionable too, someone who can identify mystical objects just by touching them. Diesel asks Lizzy to help him find a Stone that harnesses one of the seven deadly sins before his evil cousin, Wulf, finds it. Rounding out the cast of this new(ish) series is Glo, a wannabe witch who is far better at bungling spells than actually casting them, the object of a botched spell, Shirley, who speaks only in gobbledegook for most of the book (with laugh-out-loud-funny results!), Cat 7136, a shelter cat who seems to be Lizzy's Great Aunt Ophelia's cat, and Carl the monkey, whose antics can be seen first in Plum Spooky and who is really fond of flipping people off.
Thoughts:
It's nice to see Evanovich branching out a bit. Though, like Metro Girl, this book feels very much like Plum Lite. Lizzy is a different woman for sure, but it still feels a little like a Plum, especially with the added bonus of Diesel and Carl. I won't lie, though, it was nice to have some more Diesel, because he's just a fun character. It's interesting to see Stephanie Plum's fantasy-based world extended northward to Salem, for sure. Diesel does make references to his past in Trenton a few times, especially with respect to Carl. This book definitely had me giggling quite a bit. Particularly when spells start going wrong with Shirley and she tries in vain to get her point across. It's pretty spectacular. It even had Hubby laughing when I read it aloud, and he has just about the driest sense of humor I've ever come across.
Another fun one from Ms. Evanovich. Approved! I'll be moving on to Wicked Business soon, too. Woo hoo!
Book 8 of 50
Pages: 313
Genre: Mystery with a hint of fantasy and a tiny bit of romance. TINY bit.
Grade: A-/B+
Would I Recommend?: Sure. I do recommend reading Plum Spooky before, at least, to get the full appreciation of Carl (and Diesel), but it's not entirely necessary.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Body Check (Deirdre Martin)
Summary:
Janna MacNeil is the new publicist for the New York Blades, a hockey team filled to bursting with bad boys who have no qualms about tainting hockey's greatest prize, the Stanley Cup, to a strip club with them. Janna is hired to clean up after this and countless other messes. Ty Gallagher is the captain of the Blades, and has a stubborn streak wider than most. Janna needs to wrangle Ty and the rest of the Blades while they make another run for the Cup under the watchful eye of the Blades' parent company Kidco. Can Janna manage to get Ty and the Blades to play by Kidco's rules?
Thoughts:
I'm a big hockey fan. It's semi-recent, but I'm very enthusiastic about it nonetheless. When I found out there were a couple of romance series out there that were hockey-related, I was looking forward to getting into them. I started the Rachel Gibson series a while ago, and not in the right order (which I hate doing), and then found that Deirdre Martin has one too. I jumped right into getting the first of the Martin series, and was really excited. Note the word "was." It started out pretty okay, though you could see Janna was going to hook up with Ty from a mile away. But I pushed on. And then the first seduction scene started happening, and I thought, "No! This is too soon! It reads like a daydream! What are you doing?" But by that point, they were already doing it on the kitchen floor. Seriously, people? You know each other a month, and you're down and dirty on the floor? Seriously?? I tried to like the book. I WANTED to like it. The hockey talk reads like a fan wrote it, thank God. But the pacing was just WRONG. There's a quote on the front of the book from a Millie Criswell, who seems to have her own bestseller called "Mad about Mia," who is quoted as saying "Fun, fast-paced and sexy... a dazzling debut." Okay, I get the sexy, thanks to the overabundance of sex throughout. The fun is stretching it a bit. Janna agonizes about the relationship and that they need to keep it secret or she'll get fired. She agonizes about her best friend almost being raped by one of the players on the team. She agonizes about the asshole guy she works with who nearly forces her out of the job. She agonizes about not being good enough to actually HAVE her job in the first place. She agonizes about falling for Ty and him not returning her feelings. Oh, and there's hockey. I don't see the agonizing and whining as being "fun," but maybe Millie likes her main characters to constantly be in agony. The "fast-paced" part is completely accurate, though. It was so fast, that I didn't realize until at least two-thirds of the way through the book that we were looking at months and months of time between page 1 and page 325, not just a few weeks. Because Martin only notes the passage of time when she feels like it. She hardly shows that it's gone from October to December until suddenly there's a Christmas party. And a mere fifty pages later, it's suddenly April. And then it's June. Where has the time gone? I have no idea how long these two were actually together before they inevitably broke up (because every "good" romance novel has a break-up) and then finally get back together. And while the story is written from Janna's and Ty's point of view, you never get to really see what Ty's thinking because he fights his feelings at every turn. So the ending, which I won't be horrible and spoil, comes so out of left field, that you can't believe it's happened, and then there they are with the happily ever after. Since this is obviously a first novel for Martin, (I say obviously because the amateurish plot line screams "new writer!") I'm tempted to find book two, in the hopes that maybe she's gotten better. But it's hard to get myself around to the idea. This one was just HORRIBLY paced, and when something throws your mind out of the plot like this writing did, it's tough to get into reading more. Fingers crossed, Ms. Martin. You get one more shot.
Book 7 of 50
Pages: 325
Genre: romance, with a lot of hockey
Grade: C
Would I Recommend?: Meh. It's better hockey than the Gibson series, but far worse romance... Which is more important?
Janna MacNeil is the new publicist for the New York Blades, a hockey team filled to bursting with bad boys who have no qualms about tainting hockey's greatest prize, the Stanley Cup, to a strip club with them. Janna is hired to clean up after this and countless other messes. Ty Gallagher is the captain of the Blades, and has a stubborn streak wider than most. Janna needs to wrangle Ty and the rest of the Blades while they make another run for the Cup under the watchful eye of the Blades' parent company Kidco. Can Janna manage to get Ty and the Blades to play by Kidco's rules?
Thoughts:
I'm a big hockey fan. It's semi-recent, but I'm very enthusiastic about it nonetheless. When I found out there were a couple of romance series out there that were hockey-related, I was looking forward to getting into them. I started the Rachel Gibson series a while ago, and not in the right order (which I hate doing), and then found that Deirdre Martin has one too. I jumped right into getting the first of the Martin series, and was really excited. Note the word "was." It started out pretty okay, though you could see Janna was going to hook up with Ty from a mile away. But I pushed on. And then the first seduction scene started happening, and I thought, "No! This is too soon! It reads like a daydream! What are you doing?" But by that point, they were already doing it on the kitchen floor. Seriously, people? You know each other a month, and you're down and dirty on the floor? Seriously?? I tried to like the book. I WANTED to like it. The hockey talk reads like a fan wrote it, thank God. But the pacing was just WRONG. There's a quote on the front of the book from a Millie Criswell, who seems to have her own bestseller called "Mad about Mia," who is quoted as saying "Fun, fast-paced and sexy... a dazzling debut." Okay, I get the sexy, thanks to the overabundance of sex throughout. The fun is stretching it a bit. Janna agonizes about the relationship and that they need to keep it secret or she'll get fired. She agonizes about her best friend almost being raped by one of the players on the team. She agonizes about the asshole guy she works with who nearly forces her out of the job. She agonizes about not being good enough to actually HAVE her job in the first place. She agonizes about falling for Ty and him not returning her feelings. Oh, and there's hockey. I don't see the agonizing and whining as being "fun," but maybe Millie likes her main characters to constantly be in agony. The "fast-paced" part is completely accurate, though. It was so fast, that I didn't realize until at least two-thirds of the way through the book that we were looking at months and months of time between page 1 and page 325, not just a few weeks. Because Martin only notes the passage of time when she feels like it. She hardly shows that it's gone from October to December until suddenly there's a Christmas party. And a mere fifty pages later, it's suddenly April. And then it's June. Where has the time gone? I have no idea how long these two were actually together before they inevitably broke up (because every "good" romance novel has a break-up) and then finally get back together. And while the story is written from Janna's and Ty's point of view, you never get to really see what Ty's thinking because he fights his feelings at every turn. So the ending, which I won't be horrible and spoil, comes so out of left field, that you can't believe it's happened, and then there they are with the happily ever after. Since this is obviously a first novel for Martin, (I say obviously because the amateurish plot line screams "new writer!") I'm tempted to find book two, in the hopes that maybe she's gotten better. But it's hard to get myself around to the idea. This one was just HORRIBLY paced, and when something throws your mind out of the plot like this writing did, it's tough to get into reading more. Fingers crossed, Ms. Martin. You get one more shot.
Book 7 of 50
Pages: 325
Genre: romance, with a lot of hockey
Grade: C
Would I Recommend?: Meh. It's better hockey than the Gibson series, but far worse romance... Which is more important?
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Alfred Kropp: The Thirteenth Skull (Rick Yancey)
Summary:
Alfred Kropp is the descendant of Lancelot. Yes, that one. He's got a whole lot of money thanks to his late father. He's the Beloved of the Archangel, Michael. Oh, and his blood can heal anyone on Earth, except for himself. In the third book of the Kropp saga, Alfred has more people after him than ever before. There's the son of the man he killed so the man wouldn't kill him. There's the man that wants him only for his magical heal-everything blood. And there's the Company, who wants him to give back the Seal of Solomon, which he kept himself so no one else could use it. He faces betrayal at every turn, and in the places he least expects it. Will he survive, or will any of these murderous foes kill him? Again. (Yup, he's already died once.)
Thoughts:
Not bad, though it's getting a little more predictable. I think my least favorite part is the fact that Yancey has used the countdown clock as his vehicle for drama at least twice now, drawing out the endings of the last two books for an extra 5 pages both times (I read the first so long ago that I don't remember if it used this "plot device" as well) to draw out the conclusion of the story. It just feels like he's padding the page count more than anything else. If it weren't for this countdown, I think the page count would've been more like 292 or 293ish, rather than its stated 297. That doesn't even count the extra two to three pages he soaks up in having a blank page around the "change of scenery" type pages. Kropp goes from Knoxville, TN, to Helena, MO and there's just a page that says "Helena, Montana" with a blank page after it, and then the next is the beginning of the new chapter. Lazy padding of a book, Mr. Yancey. But I digress. I enjoyed the story, though not as much as the first two. It's a good, action-packed book geared mostly to a teenaged boy. (Kropp is 16.) It's just a little disturbing, though, that at sixteen, Kropp has become comfortable with the idea of killing someone. He does it with little remorse in the midst of this book, and it just about glosses over the fact that someone just died. Kropp's adrenaline is pumping too hard for him to feel anything, it seems, and then he never really goes back to the fact that he just killed the guy except to say that his replacement in the squad of people that are after him looks exactly like the murdered guy. Seriously disappointing. He's killed at least two people now, if not more that I can't recall, and he seems to only really feel bad about the first guy he had to off, and only because he was an Arthurian knight's descendant. Not really something you want a teenage boy to get used to, you know?
Book 6 of 50
Pages: 297 padded pages
Genre: Teen lit, action, and fantasy
Grade: B
Would I Recommend?: Good for a fanciful story, and lots of action, but the previous two were far better.
Alfred Kropp is the descendant of Lancelot. Yes, that one. He's got a whole lot of money thanks to his late father. He's the Beloved of the Archangel, Michael. Oh, and his blood can heal anyone on Earth, except for himself. In the third book of the Kropp saga, Alfred has more people after him than ever before. There's the son of the man he killed so the man wouldn't kill him. There's the man that wants him only for his magical heal-everything blood. And there's the Company, who wants him to give back the Seal of Solomon, which he kept himself so no one else could use it. He faces betrayal at every turn, and in the places he least expects it. Will he survive, or will any of these murderous foes kill him? Again. (Yup, he's already died once.)
Thoughts:
Not bad, though it's getting a little more predictable. I think my least favorite part is the fact that Yancey has used the countdown clock as his vehicle for drama at least twice now, drawing out the endings of the last two books for an extra 5 pages both times (I read the first so long ago that I don't remember if it used this "plot device" as well) to draw out the conclusion of the story. It just feels like he's padding the page count more than anything else. If it weren't for this countdown, I think the page count would've been more like 292 or 293ish, rather than its stated 297. That doesn't even count the extra two to three pages he soaks up in having a blank page around the "change of scenery" type pages. Kropp goes from Knoxville, TN, to Helena, MO and there's just a page that says "Helena, Montana" with a blank page after it, and then the next is the beginning of the new chapter. Lazy padding of a book, Mr. Yancey. But I digress. I enjoyed the story, though not as much as the first two. It's a good, action-packed book geared mostly to a teenaged boy. (Kropp is 16.) It's just a little disturbing, though, that at sixteen, Kropp has become comfortable with the idea of killing someone. He does it with little remorse in the midst of this book, and it just about glosses over the fact that someone just died. Kropp's adrenaline is pumping too hard for him to feel anything, it seems, and then he never really goes back to the fact that he just killed the guy except to say that his replacement in the squad of people that are after him looks exactly like the murdered guy. Seriously disappointing. He's killed at least two people now, if not more that I can't recall, and he seems to only really feel bad about the first guy he had to off, and only because he was an Arthurian knight's descendant. Not really something you want a teenage boy to get used to, you know?
Book 6 of 50
Pages: 297 padded pages
Genre: Teen lit, action, and fantasy
Grade: B
Would I Recommend?: Good for a fanciful story, and lots of action, but the previous two were far better.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Finger Lickin' Fifteen (Janet Evanovich)
Summary:
Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter not-so-extraordinaire, gets wrapped up into yet another murder investigation when Lula rushes into the bail bonds office exclaiming about having seen a man's head getting chopped off. She won't speak to any other cop but Joe Morelli, Steph's on-again-off-again honey, and forced Steph to call him, even though they were in the off-again stage. Turns out, the dead guy is the current Emeril/Guy Fieri/Gordon Ramsey-type in town for a big barbecue contest in Trenton. Lula decides that she's going to be the best person to try and find the guys that did it because she was an eyewitness, and the best way to do that is to enter the barbecue contest, and Stephanie has to help her. Oh, and Lula can't cook. Meanwhile, Ranger, the hottie that always has his eye on Stephanie, is having trouble at his super-high-tech security company, and wants Stephanie to help find where things are going wrong. Will Steph manage to juggle murder, barbecue, and Ranger, all at the same time? She usually does.
Thoughts:
Another fun one from Evanovich, as usual. She really has the right kind of voice for Stephanie, Lula, and most of her Jersey characters. There are very few times that she builds a character that doesn't read exactly the way he or she should. She's got the voice, the action, everything is perfectly built, and the story is always a fun time. I'll be sad to see the end of the series. Only a couple more books in this series.
Book 5 of 50
Pages: 352
Genre: Mystery, comedy, with a little romance.
Grade: A-/B+
Would I Recommend?: Yup, but start from the beginning. It's good for you.
Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter not-so-extraordinaire, gets wrapped up into yet another murder investigation when Lula rushes into the bail bonds office exclaiming about having seen a man's head getting chopped off. She won't speak to any other cop but Joe Morelli, Steph's on-again-off-again honey, and forced Steph to call him, even though they were in the off-again stage. Turns out, the dead guy is the current Emeril/Guy Fieri/Gordon Ramsey-type in town for a big barbecue contest in Trenton. Lula decides that she's going to be the best person to try and find the guys that did it because she was an eyewitness, and the best way to do that is to enter the barbecue contest, and Stephanie has to help her. Oh, and Lula can't cook. Meanwhile, Ranger, the hottie that always has his eye on Stephanie, is having trouble at his super-high-tech security company, and wants Stephanie to help find where things are going wrong. Will Steph manage to juggle murder, barbecue, and Ranger, all at the same time? She usually does.
Thoughts:
Another fun one from Evanovich, as usual. She really has the right kind of voice for Stephanie, Lula, and most of her Jersey characters. There are very few times that she builds a character that doesn't read exactly the way he or she should. She's got the voice, the action, everything is perfectly built, and the story is always a fun time. I'll be sad to see the end of the series. Only a couple more books in this series.
Book 5 of 50
Pages: 352
Genre: Mystery, comedy, with a little romance.
Grade: A-/B+
Would I Recommend?: Yup, but start from the beginning. It's good for you.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
True Love and Other Disasters (Rachel Gibson)
Summary:
Faith Duffy just lost her husband. Her eighty-one year old husband. And she's thirty. Yup. She's a former stripper turned Playboy centerfold, and suddenly, she's the owner of a NHL hockey team, thanks to Virgil, her dearly departed hubby. Here's the thing... She knows nothing about hockey. She wants to sell the team to her stepson, but Landon is such a prick, she can't stomach handing the team over to him, so now she's got to learn everything about hockey so she doesn't screw up the Chinooks. Tyson Savage (said "sah-vahge" for some dumb reason) is the Chinooks' new captain, only on the team for a little while after their last captain got into a horrific car crash and can no longer play. Ty is the kind of guy that always looks pissed off. He and Faith have to spend some extra time together thanks to a stupid ad campaign that he hates that puts the new captain and the new owner right in the center of the media storm. The trouble comes when they start spending more time together outside the arena...
Thoughts:
Not too bad. As a hockey fan who's still learning things, this was good. This is book four of a series that I've already read book five of- whoops!- and I enjoyed that one. I'm trying to get my hands on book one, but it's apparently lost in the mail. Lucky me. Most of the time, I loved the book. It's a little bit funny, and a lot of romantic tension, but there was one thing that really bugged me, nit-picky as it is. Gibson called the timed sections of the hockey game "frames." They're called periods, lady. As far as I can remember, she called it a period once. In three hundred and sixty-eight pages of story, she used the correct word ONCE. If you're going to write a book about hockey, that's something you should be damn sure to get right. If you Google "hockey frames," you get a bunch of ads for photo frames. Not talk about what happened in a frame of hockey. Nope. Ah, but here I go rambling again. The book is a light read, and other than the stupid "frame" business, it got most of the stuff about hockey right. Book five (Nothing But Trouble) is what helped me really get into hockey because it let me into the world a little more than just watching a game does, and this one is very similar in that respect. Sure, it's a cheesy romance novel. Expect the standard plot you find in every other romance. But the hockey elements make it more interesting. So if you're into hockey, or if you're trying to be for the benefit of a friend or significant other, read the series. It'll help your understanding more than you realize. I speak from experience.
Book 4 of 50
Pages: 368
Genre: Romance, plus hockey!
Grade: B+
Would I Recommend?: Sure! Especially if you're a hockey fan.
Faith Duffy just lost her husband. Her eighty-one year old husband. And she's thirty. Yup. She's a former stripper turned Playboy centerfold, and suddenly, she's the owner of a NHL hockey team, thanks to Virgil, her dearly departed hubby. Here's the thing... She knows nothing about hockey. She wants to sell the team to her stepson, but Landon is such a prick, she can't stomach handing the team over to him, so now she's got to learn everything about hockey so she doesn't screw up the Chinooks. Tyson Savage (said "sah-vahge" for some dumb reason) is the Chinooks' new captain, only on the team for a little while after their last captain got into a horrific car crash and can no longer play. Ty is the kind of guy that always looks pissed off. He and Faith have to spend some extra time together thanks to a stupid ad campaign that he hates that puts the new captain and the new owner right in the center of the media storm. The trouble comes when they start spending more time together outside the arena...
Thoughts:
Not too bad. As a hockey fan who's still learning things, this was good. This is book four of a series that I've already read book five of- whoops!- and I enjoyed that one. I'm trying to get my hands on book one, but it's apparently lost in the mail. Lucky me. Most of the time, I loved the book. It's a little bit funny, and a lot of romantic tension, but there was one thing that really bugged me, nit-picky as it is. Gibson called the timed sections of the hockey game "frames." They're called periods, lady. As far as I can remember, she called it a period once. In three hundred and sixty-eight pages of story, she used the correct word ONCE. If you're going to write a book about hockey, that's something you should be damn sure to get right. If you Google "hockey frames," you get a bunch of ads for photo frames. Not talk about what happened in a frame of hockey. Nope. Ah, but here I go rambling again. The book is a light read, and other than the stupid "frame" business, it got most of the stuff about hockey right. Book five (Nothing But Trouble) is what helped me really get into hockey because it let me into the world a little more than just watching a game does, and this one is very similar in that respect. Sure, it's a cheesy romance novel. Expect the standard plot you find in every other romance. But the hockey elements make it more interesting. So if you're into hockey, or if you're trying to be for the benefit of a friend or significant other, read the series. It'll help your understanding more than you realize. I speak from experience.
Book 4 of 50
Pages: 368
Genre: Romance, plus hockey!
Grade: B+
Would I Recommend?: Sure! Especially if you're a hockey fan.
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