Review: The Importance of Being Wicked

*I've been off being all medical again, because everyone needs a hobby and reviewing books doesn't have the same flair as recreational use of anesthesia. 

Oh Miranda Neville. We should be a perfect match and yet I find myself turning you away. I admire you so. While I was reading The Importance of Being Wicked I found myself thinking how well done it was, what a refreshing idea this or that aspect of the story was. It was so polite. I didn't want to leap into the pages and shake a bitch or weep into a cotton hankie while urging them to value themselves more. It was all the admiration in the world and none of the emotional passion. This means it's not you, it's me? Or something?

Doesn't help. Let's move on. Your cover is eye catching. I hate it. It's got this shade of dyed red hair seen clutching early bird special menus coupled with a red and rust palette straight out of fall. Her tomato red dress, the crimson chaise, it's a big yawn. The title is fine. I totally want a gig naming Avon romances, except I don't drink. Avon titles are the things you come up with after a long night of partying, the punchy humor that begs for high fives. But they work. They move books and they're memorable.

The Importance of Being Wicked has nothing to do with Oscar Wilde slash (sigh) and everything to do with a Duke. (Can we just move on to pretend kings? All these dukes. I expect Julia Quinn's next book to be You Only Duke Twice featuring a widowed duchess choosing from six lovely dukes. Maybe she's been widowed twice but runs away with an earl. Crazy stuff. Or wait, it could be The Duke Of The Month Club! Our heroine has one year to choose from an assortment of dukes reaching their majorities! A free YA suggestion. It's a gift. Holidays. You know.) Thomas The Duke comes from a long line of men who marry rich women. His dad screwed that up, so Thomas wants to get back on track. Caroline is the completely broke widow housing his teenage bag of cash. Enter hijinks.

Actually there are hardly any hijinks. Neville does a great job with Caroline. Impetuous and bad with finances, she's the girl who never wants to leave the party. As long as she's hosting, people love her. With the food and wine on offer the artistic community she adores will fill the silent corners of her home. Caro wants to have fun and forget when the bill collectors come round. She's always one step ahead and two bits short. Mostly this is her ex husband's fault. Disappointing, but it's a time honored truth that a widow in want of finances is rarely to blame. Thomas The Duke is super interested in family honor, almost as much as he is in refilling the family coffers. When the bright and beautiful butterfly of Caroline crosses his path he wants to forget everything and follow her.

It's a classic set up. Neville gets deeper into the motivations and causes of the characters than most authors bother with. Caroline is alternately frustrating and delightful. Thomas is a little less clearly drawn but he's a character that can't communicate emotionally so there's that. Problems are generally addressed and worked out leaving the conflict one of putting two lives together, not finding authorial reasons to keep them apart. What kept me from connecting to The Importance of Being Wicked was the sheer amount of sequel bait it held. Here is a character, here is a ton of background, here is a different character. Rinse and repeat. So many side threads are left unresolved. I got tired of waiting for a player to factor in a meaningful way or have their own storyline summed up. The canvas felt too infinite, the players too multiple. This one is a friend but also a nemesis, an enemy but also maybe a relative, a thief but also maybe.... my patience wore out. Tell the story you are telling me. Don't lay the case for a different one. I stop caring about what we have when I'm constantly told what I'm getting. The product placement may be skillful, but it's not necessary to the tale.

Overall, my admiration for The Importance of Being Wicked overpowered my weary rejection of it's chorus line. If you like Tessa Dare or Julie Anne Long I think Miranda Neville will fit the bill nicely.

Review: A Rogue By Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean

Bodices are ripped in the making of this novel.

I am not even kidding. It's like an internet video as our hero channels The Incredible Hulk and rips not one but two articles of clothing off the heroine. The first time she is shocked. (As are we. Didn't bodice ripping go out with the 80's? She is bundled up in winter wear. Has the author ever tried to rip a few layers of wool apart, even with well sewn buttons being the focus? And a nightgown - get one, put it on, ask someone to grab the front edges and give it a tear. Then wait a really, really, really long time. Eventually they might get it, but unless you perforated it in advance it's not the quick one two move popular imagination paints it. Ok, I might have just damaged a cheap shirt from Target giving it the college try, but that was on the seam. Does our heroine have front seams on all her attire?) The second time she sort of digs it. Penelope, she's not big on the self preservation.

It's fitting that the focus of this cover is the heroine. She is the redemption of the book (until she isn't) and the primary reason I'd recommend it as a read. While there is a bit of late in book ass covering (Early on Penelope seems unconcerned at the thought of her father dying while she is unwed despite having a Boy Next Door example of what happens when your parents die on you. Late in the book she's yelling about how her father could have died while she was unwed and how could anyone think she hadn't considered that? Y'know, that sort of thing.) overall Penelope is the awesome kind of heroine I'd like to see more. She's not that into trading her self worth for male approval, she has interests and goals, she doesn't lie to herself, she faces reality and she makes the best of whatever life hands her. We could totally do lunch. Toward the end it all goes a bit ass over teakettle as everyone falls in love with her and she shows an astonishing propensity for beginner's luck when it comes to gambling, but hey. While it's good it's great. If you're going to read A Rogue By Any Other Name, read it for the heroine.

The hero is an immature ass. But he has some really cool artwork. Actually, I'm not sure why he has the really cool artwork. He's a gambling addict who is a partner in a gaming club that boasts a multi level two way stained glass window of Lucifer. The club itself I'd totally check out if it had live music instead of gambling. It's all about the glossy woods and the saturated colors with the bold graphics of damnation pulsing through the party. I think he has the really cool artwork to make you interested in the club and to stop you from thinking about why he owns part of it. The guy who really owns it is said (late in the book) to have plucked Bourne off the streets to run his games and tell him the ways of the aristos, yet early in the book Bourne just seems to be good at bitching about his life. Bourne makes a point of being ignorant about the aristo world, while the dude who plucked him off the street knows all about it. It's inconsistent. What do you expect when your hero is a a gambling addict who lost everything in a game of 21 yet spends his life obsessed with revenge while taking everything from other gambling addicts? They are losing their estates because they are weak, foolish addicts and he lost his estate because his guardian was a big meanie that cheated him. (The cheating allegation comes quite late in the book and is part of the effort to villainize the villain so you'll get over Bourne being a whiny bitch.)

Right, so Bourne loses it all gambling, makes it all back gambling, and focuses his life on penalizing the dude he lost it to. (Oh Hello, Self Awareness. Table for none?) His childhood sweetheart Penelope (star of an earlier book as well) is languishing at home when her father makes her the new holder of Bourne's land (which he got while gambling despite our villain having previously refused all offers for it) and suggests she get married already. Penelope goes for a melancholic walk in the woods in the middle of the night while it snows (as you do) and Bourne appears to rip her dress in half. Rather than just, you know, ask Penelope to marry him he's devised this ginormous plan of entrapment and artifice so he can get on with the revenging already. Their dynamic is a weird hybrid of abusive and tedious. I totally believe they will stay together forever and be drama queens into eternity but I think Bourne is right when he says Penelope deserves so much more. I also believe her when she says he's all she wants. Life has stripped the self worth off her enough for her to think he's a good catch.

Everything about this book would have been improved by the villain not being a villain. If the big denouncement scene had ended with the villain saying "Well Bourne, you were stupid as the day is long and therefore bound to lose it to someone. As your guardian who better to ensure your assets remained intact until you got some damn sense? And so what if I adopted a kid? I should leave my brother's son to a life of grinding poverty and shame? What kind of man does that make me? Glad you grew a pair, here's your stuff back." But no, he's an evil scheming woman smacking bad guy who wronged our poor self pitying Bourne. Let's all hold Bourne's hand while he cries. Again. Bourne could have been a compelling hero. His hitting bottom as an addict, his walking away from his life and his love, his reinvention from the ashes using the very thing that destroyed him - all the bones of epic greatness are here. For me, greatness goes unrealized.

Yet I didn't hate the book. I loved the lush descriptions. I loved the sense of place (if not time). I loved the family dynamics and the internal conflicts of Penelope as she struggled to rebuild her sense of self over and again. I stayed in the story even as I wished for a sudden change of hero. The constant rehashes of events already known to me were brushed aside. I forgave the blatant sequel bait as little hooks were dangled for future tales, tidbits barely relevant to the events at hand. I accepted yet another world where everyone goes by one name like Madonna. No one has a near death experience, although Penelope does have stupidly unlikely beginner's luck at any game of chance she sets her mind to. Overall there was plenty to like about A Rogue By Any Other Name. I just needed more than a late book revelation of What Is Really Important to buy Bourne as a guy worth wanting.

Review: Once Upon A Winter's Eve by Tessa Dare

Although I didn't really love it, I happily recommend Once Upon A Winter's Eve. Tessa Dare is an author I keep having suggested to me. Like Miranda Neville, once I sampled her I realized she wasn't for me. Readers who love Tessa Dare absolutely adore her and I certainly see why. This short and currently crazy cheap novella shows off her strengths. (Avon is publishing her Spindle Cove series but the novella is from Samhain.) Serving more as an introduction to her Spindle Cove concept than an isolated tale, Dare is obviously working on a world populated by unconventional heroines and quirky side characters. (This is not my row so I rarely hoe it.)

Through the eyes of Violet Winterbottom (really) we view the residents of Spindle Cove. In short time we meet a pair of twins (one an amputee) a female medic, a family running a general store despite their useless and abusive father, a famous arms manufacturer and, well, other people. (We meet a lot of people.) We also learn about Spindle Cove. Believed from the outside to be a place for ruined girls to knit cat covers, it's actually a female empowerment camp. Or something. It's very small town feisty, our Spindle Cove. If you like that sort of thing you will really like it.  If you don't, you'll appreciate the care she's taken for consistency of character and place. As a short, Once Upon A Winter's Eve didn't totally work for me. I appreciated it far more than I enjoyed it, but that's not to it's detriment. This is an excellent way to sample Tessa Dare without ponying up the Agency entry fee. 

Review: One Night In London by Caroline Linden

* Teal is the new pink.


One Night In London might have the WTF cover of the year. From the pearls draped just so in her cleavage to the frankly awkward pose, this is a cover Anonymous would use. Perhaps we should have a contest - what activity is our heroine engaged in? It's obviously less than enjoyable - look at her face. She's not quite certain she wants to move forward with whatever it she's currently doing. I tried the pose and considered the options. It wasn't a pretty assortment.

One Night In London was my first Caroline Linden read, or at least the first that I can recall. This one is definitely a Mixed Bag, but the book has good bones.  (Courtney Milan did the bigamous father better.) Linden is stretching her resolution over several books, a tactic I find annoying. Story points arcing through several books is fine, but there has to be enough advancement for reader satisfaction. (Alternatively, the heroine's custody plot is exceptionally well done and fully resolved.)

I like Francesca. She's a bit of a user, but that's ok. (Francesca has a friend without benefits. She leans on him heavily, hangs with him constantly, then gets irritated that he loves her.) She's got a serious temper and flirts with social ruin (A woman planning a custody fight!) but she's fair. Her frustration in the face of the twin obstacles of social class and gender are understandable. Anyone who has ever been helpless in a custodial situation would relate. Edward is the family fixer. You know the one, thinks he controls it all, pretends his ducks are neatly aligned, the whole time frantic not to drop any of the things he's juggling. His older brother is the drunken party animal, his younger the man of action type. Edward makes sure the bills are covered. He is all about understanding, until his fiancee defies his comprehension. I liked him too.

So here we have sympathetic adult characters engaged in high stakes situations (gaining custody of a child, proving their legitimacy and saving their family home) but ultimately end up with a hot and cold read. I'm pretty open about being a skimmer. It's a rare sex scene I will read. One Night In London is not weighed down with sex, but when it arrives it's a story stopper. They thud onto the page and seem to last forever. Skimming, I was thrown out of the story wondering how much longer they'd be going at it. This wasn't the rare book I read every page of, but I'd expected it to be. I still think One Night In London is worth the time, but the twin flaws of extended climaxes and lack of primary plot satisfaction keep me from loving it. My TBR Lindens have moved to the front of the stack, I like her willingness to embrace flawed heroines.