A little leery to read this as past JS reads delved a little too much into the breeder deal and I can only handle so much sperm. This is more a revengA little leery to read this as past JS reads delved a little too much into the breeder deal and I can only handle so much sperm. This is more a revenge story....let me clarify, this IS a revenge story. It was much more fun than the others I've read.
Alyssa aka Psycho-heroine finds her fiancé having sex with her best friend's little sister and doesn't pass go or collect her $200 on her quest to take revenge on the world. For starters, she burns her mattress the proceeds from there.
It was a lot of fun at first, but after a while the ongoing revenge was just exhausting. Along the way she marries a billionaire who is quite indulgent of her insanity revenge plans. She gets a new closet of clothes, heirloom jewelry and a Grace Kelly inspired wedding dress. I need a billionaire.
The plot goes a little wonky at times, and several characters are introduced in the epilogue I had no idea who they were but apparently belong in the Lyon series.
I do mention one issue that I consider triggering. Yes, there is cheating and cheating is discussed incessantly, but the trigger issue is that one of the characters slaps her baby. Its not detailed but the fact that it happened was disturbing to me at least....more
Not a fan of shifter romances because the heroines are usually such bloodless victims that suffer with the nobody likes me and going into the garden tNot a fan of shifter romances because the heroines are usually such bloodless victims that suffer with the nobody likes me and going into the garden to eat worms syndrome, but this was a lot of fun, kind of a Buffy the Wolf Shifter and her Scoobie gang romance.
The heroine is a take no prisoners Alpha female and is moon mated to the jerky Alpha son day. First day at school and she is promptly rejected. She doesn't curl up in a ball, well she does for a few minutes, but bounces back pretty quickly and makes it clear there are NO DO OVERS.
Alpha mate doesn't take it well as he wants his cake and eat it too. A new H steps in that's nice and hunky with secrets of his own. There are the usual Mean Girls that really don't understand who they are messing with.
There's lots of action that's easy to visualize, and she's supported by a very nice family unlike many a heroine in romance. Her brother is an especial plus as he's charming, knows it, and is out to snag his own wolf, a male wolf in his case, but has his sister's back no matter what.
It's a YA setting but not a YA book with all the sex. I know high schoolers have sex, but I'm old and it makes me uncomfortable. The author does mention in the forward of her second book that most characters are of age then kinda negates that when she says that the one who isn't is mature for his age because he's a shifter....more
This was surprisingly good. A rare FB rec gone good.
I'm not one for shifter romances, but this was fun and well done. I'm going back in time and readiThis was surprisingly good. A rare FB rec gone good.
I'm not one for shifter romances, but this was fun and well done. I'm going back in time and reading Teague's Breeder as well, and I get the feeling there are more than a few plot coincidences: male rejects his mate, another steps in for HEA.
This book started with the same ole slut shaming and a sad little heroine, and my heart sank a little. Again? The h's mate has rejected her, who knows why, for Puta Perro. Why do the slutty girls alway call the nice ones ho's? Anyhoo, Puta Perro is the H's mate but has rejected him and he's sad. So sad he's going to make PP jealous by dating the human genius that happens to be PP's new boyfriend's mate. Jokes on PP as the H falls for the human genius. Ironically, the book's character development of the H and h as well as the heroine's humor and personality improved over the course of the book, and by the end I was laughing, in a good way, at their antics. H is besotted with his new catch and makes no bones about it. It was refreshing to read a romance where the two characters are actually likable and like each other.
More points for a well developed and imaginative Puerto Rican myth that explains why this human can be a wolf's mate and a Luna....more
Ibbotson has a quirky writing style and it really flows in The Secret of Platform 13. I listened to the audio this time so I don't have any quotes to give, but on more than one occasion I just laughed out loud. My favorite quote of all times is from A Company of Swans and the description of the horrible Aunt, aunt who has a box in her room labeled “Louise Morton ....kept in her bedroom a labeled "String too short to tie."
Here we have a lost prince in London stolen from a magic island. This story is what happens with an ogre, a troll, a few and hag come to the rescue.
Ig you like Harry Potter there will be than a few similarities. This one came first. I do have to say that Raymond Throttle out-Dursleys the Dursleys.
Highly recommend for fantasy lovers, Harry Potter fans, children literature, and simply good writing. The audio was very well done as well. ...more
I love it when an author knows her romance tropes, and here both the author and the heroine embrace a fundamental: the fake relationship.
Anyway, they’I love it when an author knows her romance tropes, and here both the author and the heroine embrace a fundamental: the fake relationship.
Anyway, they’ve suggested that you . . . sort of pretend that . . .” He trailed off and bit his lip.
It was so sexy I very nearly jumped him. I swore I could feel my ovaries convulse. Then, understanding dawned and my eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Omigod!” I shouted, leaping from my beanbag and pointing an excited finger at him. “You want me to be your fake fiancée!” I was jumping up and down on the spot now. “I knew reading all those bad romance novels would pay off one day.”
“Woah, woah, woah!” Barclay said, leaping to his feet with both hands going up in protest, but I was on too much of a roll to notice. “I never said–”
“You’ll buy me a tonne of expensive clothes and other bollocks. I’ll pretend to object ’cause, you know, morals. Er, by the way – spoiler alert – I take the clothes. All the clothes. Got me?”
This is manic pixie girl heroine unbuttons the buttoned up hero plot. For the most part, he's a pretty decent guy, and it's the heroine who puts the brakes on because he is a RISING star in British politics and she is a chaotic force of nature. I can't help but think the Hugh Grant PM story from Love, Actually was inspiration which was a hell of a lot more fun than watching Severus Snape making Professor Trelawney cry.
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Anyhoo, the H hires the heroine to help his HIV brother get out of his slump. Manic pixie girls are hard to write as too often they come across as utter idiots, too cutesy for words and fall into the I just don't know why other girls don't like me as their specialness devolves into eating meat not salad or not wearing makeup. Heroine has real friends and is only occasionally irritating....more
Hysterical and as much a slice of small town life where generations of friends and family are there to breathe down your neck and tattle to your motheHysterical and as much a slice of small town life where generations of friends and family are there to breathe down your neck and tattle to your mother as a depiction of the South, South with a capital S.
Gayden Metcalfe’s writing is smart, painfully and hysterically snarky, and on the nose for the social niceties about the one dark ceremony everyone experiences. I remember being dismayed when my mom died and her contemporaries showed up with deli platters. Didn’t they know they were supposed to bring casseroles made with one form of Campbell’s cream of fill in the blank soup?
This book provides the proper funeral etiquette, sincere or not, as well as some standard and non-standard funeral recipes.
Kind of a nostalgia read for me reminding me of some of my grandmothers and mom's idiosyncrasies and hissy fits about living in their small town (Anthony, Texas): the ongoing feud over my grandmother's best friend making a disturbing play for my grandmother's maid. Territorial issues abounded that somehow neglected the fact that said house cleaner had a mind of her own. The crushed plastic glass of '72 that was never resolved.
Then there was the epic Eggnog Orgy of 1947. My dad, an ex WWII Marine, and his less than beloved FIL, spiked the egg nog with so much rum and brandy that one guest had to crawl home and a lot of Methodists were very disgruntled as they fell for the the alcohol evaporates.
The author has written two other books, one on the perfect wedding and one being the perfect mother.
Forget the non-fiction stuff and write us some fun fiction please!...more
I wanted to give the series another chance since my review of Easy was a teensy harsh, although I feel deservedly so. Some of my GF friends liked thisI wanted to give the series another chance since my review of Easy was a teensy harsh, although I feel deservedly so. Some of my GF friends liked this one, so here we go.
It's hard to believe this is the same author and same series. Shooter isn't exactly Prince Charming, but other than asking the heroine some tough questions he doesn't debase her and cast aspersions on her character or sexuality. Well, not too much.
The heroine undergoes a personality transplant from quiet victim to a perkier, Southern gourmet that all the guys love. She skips over being a precious little Princess that other women just don't get thank goodness, and the banter is fun with the H and his posse of alpha males. Not sure how it all changed, but I'm not going to question an author making a character more interesting.
More humor than I expected as he succumbs to her charms totally against his will from buying her a deaf cat to allowing her into his circle of friends as a pal way before they sex it up.
There is an evil OW, and, wow, what a mouth on her. She's so bad one of his alpha male friends gets disgusted. [image]
Turns out her backstory is intense and she takes the Royal Family approach (cough, cough) Never explain. Never complain....more
Yay, this was so much fun and how nice is it to write that. Lucy Score has been sporadic for me, but this one worked!
The not so good:
Way too much repYay, this was so much fun and how nice is it to write that. Lucy Score has been sporadic for me, but this one worked!
The not so good:
Way too much repetition on the push-pull slow burn attraction. I don’t need the H and h to fall in bed right away, and actually prefer a little delay, but much too much I hate you. I want you... The couple needed to grow well before it happened.
Not enough on-page villainy from the evil dad, and correspondingly not enough on-page retribution.
The very good:
Grade A+ banter and wit that sparkled. Absolutely wonderful and I laughed out loud a couple of times.
Mature H and h. He’s 45 and she’s 39. I know, shocking. If this were a Harlequin, they would be grandparents and using walkers.
Friends that actually act like friends.
Minimal slut shaming. The heroine doesn’t parade around like a very special princess that doesn’t understand why guys like her so much and girls don’t like her because she likes to eat and not wear makeup.
A “grumpy” hero that is actually funny, and when it comes down to it, heartbreakingly sweet and head over heels. Don’t worry, he makes up for it by hellaciously stupid.
After being hellaciously stupid, his apology and grovel were fairly epic....more
Kind of old school romantic insta love, really INSTA LOVE, between a charming and smart h and her not very charming but doting Scottish H. Bare hairy Kind of old school romantic insta love, really INSTA LOVE, between a charming and smart h and her not very charming but doting Scottish H. Bare hairy knees can be a good thing. Poor H, he doesn't know he dotes on her but can't help himself.
What can else can I say that others haven't? Banter, the h continuously getting one over on the H in a loving but funny way, and a nice suspense plot tossed in make this 4 stars.
As Ivy H said, the fate of poor Gilly was horrible and points off for that....more
Goodread Friend's recommendations or Facebook recommendations What should I doooooo?
I've seen Julie Garwood's n[image] Yippee, Romance with a capital R!
Goodread Friend's recommendations or Facebook recommendations What should I doooooo?
I've seen Julie Garwood's name on many lists and have ignored it and put off reading her books just like I held off reading Eyes of Silver, Eyes of Gold at one time. Boy, was I wrong with both!
Christina and Lyon are both wonderful characters and their romance is all a romance should be. Rather than creating dwama for drama's sake and saddling the reader with a naval gazing hero that hurts the heroine in order not to hurt (cheating, OW, mean and other emo-actions) he simply stamps and shouts and chases her around the castle for a little loving. Not really but he's too arrogant to chase her around the kitchen. If he were the kind of hero to cheat which he isn't, it would be amusing to see Christina hone her knife and take a page from Dolly P, and our hero would be walking funny for an eternity. [image]
So many other reviews do justice so I'll just finish off and say I only wish we had seen more of her upbringing with Merry and Black Eagle. I would love the stare off between Lyon and Black Eagle.
This is for readers who want... - an intelligent heroine with a spine of steel - a smitten alpha hero - external drama and angst - an evil OW comeuppance in the form of running in fear from her life from the dainty heroine with a knife on her stocking...more
The "Barfarama" tag is literal...way too much vomiting. It reminded me of Knives Out where the vomiting is such a presence it should have been listed The "Barfarama" tag is literal...way too much vomiting. It reminded me of Knives Out where the vomiting is such a presence it should have been listed under Cast of Characters.
That's not the real issue, it's that despite some nice 3-4 star banter and a fresh voice from a fairly likable heroine it gets derailed by the H and h. H is strong, silent type and very, very good at distancing himself except when he want to have sex so little voice from him at all. They reminded me of Sandy and Danny (Grease reference) and their massive Failure to Communicate or get it wrong.
These two!!!!! The H is older and a Master and Commander of the business world and acts like, well, Danny. Hey, his character's name is even Danny! They finally have sex, but he doesn't call her for three days then tells her to grow up when she gets upset. H goes radio silent a lot as h continues to misconstrue actions without clarifying them. The back and forth was exhausting.
If these two had been a little less high school I would have rated higher....more
Sexy, fast paced enemies to lover story. The hero is a total stinker to the heroine, but he comes through when it counts.
What's annoying? Drain (RainSexy, fast paced enemies to lover story. The hero is a total stinker to the heroine, but he comes through when it counts.
What's annoying? Drain (Rain and Dane) the couple from The Sterling Boys derail this poor power couple's romance by once again making it all about them. Kode (these names!!) could never, ever love Tria when he's hung up on me! [image]
And who could be snarky when poor C.M. Owens died last year. The The Mindf*ck Series which was incredibly flawed but kept me up to 3:00 am and I am not a serial killer fan was written under her pen name, S.T. Abby.
Only 37 when she died. RIP and thanks for the entertaining books....more
This was a kick in the pants. This one is for all the readers that despair over doormats that take the cheaters back once they’ve had their fun.
The heThis was a kick in the pants. This one is for all the readers that despair over doormats that take the cheaters back once they’ve had their fun.
The heroine is a take no prisoners, practical woman who ditches Harold, her cheating husband, the minute he tells her he has a new woman in his life. She does the unthinkable and leaves him and her twins behind. I had a hard time with her leaving the kids behind, but given her rationale in the long term it makes sense, but only in a fictional world. (view spoiler)[The h had no father figure when she was growing up and wants to make sure that her soon to be ex steps up to the plate for his children instead of becoming even more of an MIA fun dad than he is already. In fictional theory, this works but in reality I doubt it. (hide spoiler)]
The twins, especially the daughter, was more than a chip off the maternal block. In fact she downright scares her father, and has the bimbo girlfriend sized up immediately.
Tonya was looking at Jillian as if she was wondering what her head would look like mounted on a wall.
The OW comes from a long line of gold diggers and is pretty funny. She’s horrified that the heroine hasn’t followed the party line and stayed home with the kids and lick her wounds.
Jillian looked at the sleeping Harold and promised to be the best wife and mother she knew how. If possible, she would make Harold happy until the day they divorced…
The heroine’s new man kicks in very early and must have HP Greek tycoon ancestry somewhere as he figures some man must be funding her and her little red convertible. Please stop with this authors everywhere as I refuse to believe that men actually think this crap. He snaps out of it, but it’s a good thing he’s pretty as I could never warm up to him after that.
Not a pefect book, but an incredibly entertaining and refreshing approach to the whole cheating issue that runs rampant through Romanceland. The author needs a proofreader last week. It’s not Marylynn Monroe, numerous spelling errors, mixed up pronouns and one sentence actually started with a comma....more
This was rocking along with as a rom-com with 4 star, laughing out loud banter when suddenly the gods of Ellora Cave descended at 55% with some raunchThis was rocking along with as a rom-com with 4 star, laughing out loud banter when suddenly the gods of Ellora Cave descended at 55% with some raunchy porn moves. If this had been a book called Crank or Seven Minutes of Sin I wouldn’t be surprised but this was a little startling.
Marley is back in her hometown feeling like a loser after losing her job, her boyfriend and her money. Her only option is to coach the girls’s soccer team and be the gym teacher as well as overcome the great, big mystery surrounding her high school homecoming. Sooner or later she runs into her high school nemesis now a Happy Homemaker Blonde Barbie married to her ex, the bad boy turned best teacher ever, and others. The inner dialogue was pretty snappy, and her interaction with her snotty teenage soccer team pretty good, but she would be fired in the real world.
I watched that damn Lisabeth with her curly ponytail hip check Rachel after the play, sending the much smaller girl to the ground.
“You!” I shouted.
“Me?” Lisabeth pointed to herself innocently.
“Laps.” I hooked my thumb over my shoulder, mentally switching her from first string to bench warmer for the first game.
“For what?” She crossed her arms over her chest, challenging me.
“For being a shitty team player and having a craptastic attitude. Newsflash, you want to act like a jerk, do it at home to your parents who made you this way. Now, run.” The rest of the team was staring at me openmouthed as Lisabeth lumbered off under a cloud of rage. Damn. That felt good. Really good. I felt like I’d finally stood up to my own bullies.”
************************ “This is also the part where I’m going to tell you I really, really want a win tonight. Coach Vince and half of the boys team is here ready to watch us implode. I don’t want to give them the pleasure. So I’m asking you, selfishly, unfairly, to do your very best out there tonight so I can rub this in his face. Make me look good tonight, and I won’t make anyone run tomorrow.”
Ultimately it dropped to three stars as the story wanders too much, gets bogged down into the same issues, and the heroine moves into mega-Mary Sue savior mode....more
This is a romantic-suspense lite about the discovery of a new book of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the exra secret plot of International bad guys set on fThis is a romantic-suspense lite about the discovery of a new book of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the exra secret plot of International bad guys set on finding it.
It’s a fun story where the intrepid heroine has two beaux to choose from: a tall, dark and secretive type and the scruffier academic archaeologist. [image] [image]
It’s kind of a caper film set in the Holy Land circa 1969 with shades of Agatha Christie. A complete set of international travelers from a British widow, a Catholic priest, a honeymooning French couple, a well-known diplomat and others tour through Lebanon and Israel.
The most notable thing is how dated the story is:
Beirut is the jewel of the crown and the happening place in the late 1960s. [image]
Casual mentions of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
The heroine wears a slip. That alone dates it as much as anything.
Another fun story from Elizabeth Peters with a travelogue through the main sites of the Holy Land....more
This was both enraging and very entertaining for the exact same reason. The author gives lots, LOTS, of inner dialoogue from the POV of the cheating hThis was both enraging and very entertaining for the exact same reason. The author gives lots, LOTS, of inner dialoogue from the POV of the cheating husband and his incredibly entitled young fling. The wife's POV is in there too, but her POV has been done before by plenty of other books. I’m not a fan of cheating books, and am not sure where the rec came from so I’ll just blame it on Facebook again.
Stimson does a good job of showing how easy it is for the incredibly stupid husband to fall into the affair and completely implode his, his wife’s, and his three daughters’ lives. He’s unable to figure out how he got locked in a flat with a woman he has nothing in common with but sex. Go figure. He's a divorce attorney by the way, and one flashback has him pontificating on the errors that wives make when the find out a spouse has cheated. Oh the irony.
The OW, wow the OW, isn’t a my-feelings-overwhelmed-me kind of OW, but a sexual predator that creates a persona for the wife to make it easy to go after a married man. As a wife, it was frustrating but enlightening to read the justifications a woman could or would make to go after a married man. The wife has let herself go. There’s no passion anymore. They’ve grown apart and she lives for the children anyway. Contrary to the OW’s thoughts, she really wasn’t doing the wife any favors by taking the husband. And, no I don't blame OW in these scenarios. I blame both.
What turned this into a 3 star as opposed to just letting this go by with no review was the children. The evil, evil daughters that undermine the rosy, romantic sexfest the husband and OW are in. The ugly reality of children is jarring for the OW and was incredibly funny. Sabotages included ruining her sofa, ruining her suede jacket, ruining her new pumps and in general ruining custody weekends to the point they are a living hell, and the OW wonders, highly offended, how the wife has managed to manipulate them. As I said the entitlement with the OW is huge. I don’t think youth is an excuse.
The wife has a buddy of her own, but bottom line the marriage wins as does the hero. His fling is flung and probably out of his system and he gets his family back, But not his happy family. Plus I'd like to think that now that his older daughter has flexed her muscles for evil, that daddy may have to get his comeuppance at home.
No HEA feeling to this one.
P.S. The daughters remind me a little of the children that sabotage the relationship in the old movie, The Battle of the Villa Fiorita based on Rumor Goden's The Battle of the Villa Fiorita. In that story, it's the wife that leaves for an Italian lover until reality and their children show up to puncture their balloon....more
I would say that Jaqueline Kirby is the quintessential Peters heroine, sarcastic, intelligent, a man magnA four star re-read (or in this case listen).
I would say that Jaqueline Kirby is the quintessential Peters heroine, sarcastic, intelligent, a man magnet, a little full of herself, and then I read an Amelia Peabody or Vicki Bliss and I change my mind because that is the best Peters heroine.
Die for Love is kind of a satire on the boom of the romance genre in the 80s, but the subject is so far out there it’s hard to tell if she is satirizing the romance industry or simply portraying it as it was. This 80s Romance era boom is not to be confused by the current boom in the romance genre as the subgenres are very different. Peters nails every category from the Sweet Sixteen to the Pre-Historic (The Clan of the Cave Bear) to bodice rippers.
I highly recommend the book especially if you love romance but keep a skeptical eye on the genre.
Excerpt within an excerpt: From the fixed smiles on the faces of the two editors Jacqueline deduced that they were being poisonously polite to one another, and she wondered if their antagonism had anything to do with the fact that Windblown’s most recent hit had featured a Neanderthal hero and a Cro-Magnon heroine. (“From our joining, Fleet Gazelle, will come a new people.”) Maybe, Jacqueline mused, I can change my setting from fifteenth-century France to the Middle Paleolithic. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Stone axes instead of swords, a lake village on stilts instead of a castle. The villain could be a wicked medicine man….
Peters provides several made up excerpts of different genres that are hysterical and not that far off the bat.
PLOT: In need of a tax write off that even the fascist at the IRS will understand, her words not mine, Jacqueline heads to New York and a Romance Writers Convention. While there she is enthralled with the schlock and the opportunity to make some money. How hard would it be to write a romance novel?
A murder occurs, of course, and things happen with a variety of crazy characters. This is a character driven story and that’s where the fun lies. For starters there is JK is the mature heroine/detective then a sardonic detective, a charming Professor, a faux male mystery writer backed by ghost writers, a gorgeous romance author in peril, a hamfisted agent, an intrepid reporter and a superfan to name just a few.
Along the way, JK probably enjoys the drama more than she feels she should as two people end up dead, but she solves the mystery as well as capturing hearts along the way. Male hearts.
The stage and some of the characters.
Romance convention [image]
A beautiful heroine/author? [image]
A Zenda-like faux male author that is secretly a wannabe teacher [image]
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