Marie August's Blog, page 18

Book Review: False Colours by Georgette Heyer

Review of Kindle Edition of a classic Regency comedy

False Colours by Georgette Heyer

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: March 1, 2008 (orignally 1963)
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Pages: 355 pages
Source: Purchased
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Georgette Heyer is the queen of Regency comedy of errors, and this story is one of her best. Twenty-four-year old Christopher (Kit) Fancot is the younger of two twin brothers, his twin Evelyn being the present Lord Denville, and his beautiful, affectionate, charming, forty-three-year old, widowed mother, Lady Denville, is the cause of all their troubles. She formed a marriage of convenience to their father when she was very young, and the very quality of scatter-brained vivacity that their father adored in her during courtship drove him mad during their marriage. All through their childhood the boys and their mother clung to each other in response to their father's distant, harsh coldness, and as they became teenagers and young adults, the twins became increasingly protective of their beloved mother.

Lady Denville has always been a leader of fashion, which constantly requires her to purchase new and extremely pricey clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, horses, carriages, and home decoration. She has also incessantly engaged in expensive, society pursuits such as high-stakes gambling in private homes with other aristocrats and throwing first-class parties (routs and balls), which requires having a really great chef at immense cost. Over the years she has piled up an enormous load of debt, including personal loans from male friends in the manner of "borrowing from Peter to pay Paul." She was too afraid to have her husband discharge all her debts before he died. As a result, she has been left with 20,000 pounds of debt and hounding creditors making her life a misery. As his father's successor, Evelyn feels it his duty to pay these debts--and wants to do so out of love for his mother. But the only way he can manage it is to marry a stable woman and give the appearance of being mature enough to manage his own properties so that his stodgy paternal uncle, who is the executor of his estate until Evelyn reaches thirty, will release Evelyn's inheritance into his own charge.

When Kit comes home unexpectedly from years abroad working in foreign service as a diplomat, he discovers his mother in great distress. Evelyn has been gone over a week and no one knows where he is. Lady Denville begs Kit to masquerade as his brother at a dinner party at the home of the young woman Evelyn made an offer of marriage to before he left town, Lady Denville's goddaughter, Cressy. It is of prime importance that Evelyn not stand up Cressy and embarrass her before her relations, particularly her gorgon of a grandmother, or the engagement will be off and Evelyn won't get his desperately needed inheritance.

There are few situations ripe for so much comic mayhem as mistaken identity, and when switched twins are the identities in question, so much the better. Heyer excels at creating comic characters with utterly unique voices, and the "pretty widget" that is Lady Denville is one of her most hilarious characters among dozens of truly memorable ones. She is a comically ironic antagonist in that she absolutely adores her sons but is so lovably thoughtless, she inadvertently causes them endless trouble.

The two foundations of any kind of story conflict, but especially comic conflict, are secrets and lies, and this story abounds with them. Kit is the straight man in a crazy, comic world, but he has a fine sense of the ridiculous which allows him to deal with the chaos his mother creates with amazing aplomb. One of the themes that I most enjoy, and which occur in almost every Heyer comic Regency, and definitely in this one, is that what makes the main romantic couple recognizable as made for each other is a shared sense of humor. It is also one of the main ways in which we are allowed to enjoy the humor of the book, by viewing the crazy characters around them through their eyes.

I have, over the years, collected all of Heyer's comic Regencies in paperback, and at this time I am collecting them once again as eBooks. This particular version, to my own eyes, read on my iPhone with a Kindle app, is quite good. I personally didn't spot any formatting errors and I am very happy with my purchase.

 
 

Book Review: The Billionaire Next Door by Jessica Bird

Review of the Kindle edition of an excellent short contemporary romance

The Billionaire Next Door by Jessica Bird

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: August 1, 2007
Publisher: Silhouette
Pages: 256 pages
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

This is a well-formatted, well designed Kindle book. It was a pleasure to read on that basis.

I hadn't read a short contemporary romance in a while when this book caught my eye while looking for something to read within the online, digital portion of my local public library. Once I checked out the book, it was a simple, two-click procedure to download a Kindle edition of this book through Amazon, and I had a full three weeks to read it. Hooray for the electronic publishing revolution!

Lizzie Bond is a 20-something nurse whose only relative is her mother, a sweet woman who is a brilliant artist but mentally incapable of supporting herself. Lizzie has also befriended her elderly landlord, who lives upstairs in the duplex she rents. When he suddenly dies, there is no one but her to try and track down his nearest relations. In the process, she calls his son, Wall Street billionaire Sean O'Banyon.

This book was written in 2007, before the huge market crash and subsequent social disgust at Wall Street bigshots like Sean, so this is kind of a period piece, if you will. But even if our recent Great Recession had never happened, it's not that easy to make a sympathetic character of a guy like Sean, who has spent years dedicating his life to cut-throat financial maneuvers in order to get increasingly wealthy. However, as these types of stories go, what makes it compelling is that Sean is a wounded soul who has a painful family secret he and his two brothers have never shared with anyone. As he spends time with Lizzie, while packing up his father's belongings in preparation for selling the house he grew up in, the walls Sean has erected around his heart and soul crumble in the face of his physical and emotional attraction to this very compassionate woman.

This book was meant to be the first in a trilogy telling the stories of Sean and his two brothers, and it is a huge loss to the fans of this talented author that Harlequin made the enormously dumb decision to not go forward with the author's contract to do these stories. Thus, all we have is this one, extremely well-written, contempory romance about the O'Banyon brothers.

Fortunately, this novel stands on its own without a cliffhanger ending of any kind, so it is well worth reading. Lizzy is an extremely sympathetic heroine, and the theme of the story, a harsh man redeemed by love, is a perennial favorite for romance fans everywhere.

 
 

Comic: Page 93

Page 93 of Marie August's webcomic, The Fox and The Firebird, has been posted.


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Book Review: Investigating the Hottie by Juli Alexander

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Book Review: Prince Joe by Suzanne Brockmann

Review of Kindle Edition, reissue of 1996 short contemporary romance

Prince Joe (Tall, Dark & Dangerous, Book 1) by Suzanne Brockmann

Reading Level: Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: May 1, 1996
Pages: 256 pages
Publisher: Silhouette
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

This is where it all started with Suzanne Brockmann's long history of writing exciting contemporary romance novels featuring sexy, Navy SEAL heroes.

In the midst of a well-earned leave, fishing off the coast of California with his friends, Navy SEAL Lieutenant Joe Catalanotto ("Joe Cat") is scooped up by a military chopper and rushed to a secret assignment in Washington, DC before he has a chance to clean up and change.

When Joe is presented to British PR consultant, Veronica St John, she is anything but impressed with the grungy, unshaven beach bum in front of her. He has been chosen to step in as a double for Prince Tedric of Ustanzia, whom he resembles to a striking degree, and complete the prince's goodwill tour of the USA, both to protect Tedric from an assassination plot and help catch the terrorists behind it.

Though he's intensely attracted to the stuffy but gorgeous Veronica, Joe is disgusted with the assignment because he loathes Tedric. Several years before, Tedric's stubborn, uncooperative egotism resulted in a member of the SEAL team Joe leads being seriously wounded during a mission to rescue Tedric from a firestorm in Baghdad. But Joe always puts country first, and he sets aside his personal animosity to follow his orders.

Veronica informs Joe that she will supervise his physical makeover and personally train him in Tedric's speech patterns and mannerisms, an enormous task that has to be accomplished in a mere three days. Veronica is highly doubtful it can be achieved, but Joe is confidently unconcerned, and his seemingly uncaring attitude outrages Veronica.

Managing the insufferably arrogant and demanding Tedric's tour has been a nightmare assignment that Veronica only agreed to because he's the brother of her best friend. But polishing the rough-hewn Navy SEAL into a reasonable imitation of a European monarch in such a short time period makes handling Tedric himself seem like a stroll in the park in comparison. Joe will need to be as talented as an Academy Award-winning actor to pull this off--and she'll need the skill of a Stanislavski, and the patience of a saint, to coach him.

I originally read this book when it first came out in 1996, 17 years ago. It is amazing how well it has stood the test of time. (Though also very sad that terrorism is such a continuing "torn from the headlines" source of plots in popular fiction.)

Joe is a marvelous hero, and Veronica is his match in backbone, intelligence and drive. Theirs is not an "insta-love," but grows gradually as they experience the revelation of each other's true character under adversity. The romance plot is emotionally intense, sexually exciting, and frequently extremely poignant. The action-adventure plot is thrilling. In particular, the climax of the book makes full use of Joe's bravery and prowess as a SEAL. Of all the SEAL books in this series, I think this climax is hands-down the most enthralling.

When I read this book this time around, it was in Kindle format, which is well laid out, formatted and edited.

It's not essential to read the 11 books in Brockmann's Tall, Dark and Dangerous series in order, but it greatly adds to one's enjoyment to do so. Each book sets up the book that immediately follows it, introducing the SEAL who will be the hero of the next book, along with pertinent backstory. This is the order in which this series was first released:

Prince Joe, originally published June 1996 Forever Blue, originally published October 1996 Frisco's Kid, originally published January 1997 Everyday, Average Jones, originally published August 1998 Harvard's Education, originally published October 1998 It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, originally published December 1998 The Admiral's Bride, originally published November 1999 Identity: Unknown, originally published January 2000 Get Lucky , originally published March 2000 Taylor's Temptation, originally published July 2001 Night Watch, originally published September 2003

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 5

Hero: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Action/Adventure Plot: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Stirring Up Trouble by Juli Alexander

YA paranormal chick lit with witches and magic potions

Stirring Up Trouble by Juli Alexander

Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: January 17, 2012
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Pages: 186 pages
Source: Purchased
Reviewed By:Kate McMurry

Fifteen-year-old Zoe and her mother are witches living in Knoxville, Tennessee. They are descended from a lineage of alchemists who were granted the gift of making magical potions from the ancient Greek god, Zeus. Unlike her mother and grandmother, who have no particular talent or interest in making potions, Zoe is a potions prodigy. Not only can she concoct classic, time-tested potions, but she experiments and develops new twists. Her magnum opus is devising multiple, viable substitutions for toad slime, a crucial-but-disgusting ingredient in thousands of potions.

Magical potions can do almost anything imaginable, including making someone rich, slender, recover from serious illness--or turn into a lovesick fool. There's one big catch, though: witches have to use their magic selflessly for others. If they employ it for their own personal benefit, there is a dangerous price to pay. The witch sprouts facial deformities commensurate in their eyesore quotient with the size of the witch's ill-gotten gains, and her health also suffers. In short, any witch foolhardy enough to continue long term with self-serving magic will eventually end up as an abysmally ugly corpse. Fortunately, there is an escape hatch from these terrible consequences. A witch who does a potion for herself can make restitution by performing good deeds.

Zoe's father is a brilliant, nuclear physicist and non-witch who doesn't believe entirely in magic, but over the years he has enthusiastically aided Zoe with her potion experiments, with the same tight protocols he utilizes for his own research at work. But her dear, dependable dad blew up their family, and his relationship with Zoe, a year ago when he dumped her mother for another woman. Not long ago her father's girlfriend dumped Dad as well. But instead of coming back to Mom, he has started dating someone else. And to Zoe's horror, it's someone she knows--the mother of one of her tenth-grade classmates, Jake.

Zoe has been secretly in love with Jake for years, to no avail, because until very recently, he was her best friend Anya's boyfriend. Suddenly, Anya drops Jake for another boy, but before Zoe has a chance to date Jake herself, the craziness of their parents' romance gets in the way.

Zoe is an extremely sympathetic heroine. I loved the way she uses her magic for others and her goals for her future life as a witch.

This is a terrific, paranormal, chick lit novel, with a fun romance between Zoe and Jake.

This isn't a comedy that merely offers an occasional smile to the reader. In fact, there are frequent laugh-out-loud moments generated by the need for Zoe and her mother, and later their visiting witch friends, to keep their magic secret from non-magical friends. The climax occurring on Halloween is wonderful, with tons of comic, magical mayhem.

All the threads of this story are tied up in a satisfying way at the end, but there is a strong setup for a sequel, and I for one cannot wait to read it.

This book is a "clean read," appropriate for readers as young as 11 or 12, but it is a clever enough story that all ages will enjoy it.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Chick Lit Plot: 5

Romance Plot: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Forget You by Parker Blue

A short story about Shade, the shadow demon

Forget You (Demon Underground Series) by Parker Blue

Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: April 10, 2013
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Pages: 31 pages
Source: Net Galley
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

This fascinating short story provides fans of the Demon Underground series with a chance to enter the point of view of Shade, the beautiful, sad shadow demon who has been the romantic interest of the series' heroine, Val, for three of the four books so far.

Shade is 16 at the time of this story, four years before the events of the first four books, in which Val is 18 and Shade is 20.

At the time of this story, Shade is known by his birth name, Shawn. He is living with his father and his twin sister Sharra. His father's nickname for Shawn is "Shadow Boy," and Sharra is his "Sunshine Girl," so called because of Shawn/Shade's melancholic nature and Sharra's sanguine disposition.

Their father is one-fourth shadow demon and the siblings are one-fourth shadow demon. A distinguishing trait of the shadow demon's appearance is swirling energy clouds obscures that their face. It only becomes visible if a non-shadow demon touches them, and ever since their mother ran off a while back, none of them have been able to see each other's faces.

Shade/Shawn and his family have always lived an isolated life because of their inability to blend in with regular humans, but since their mother left, life has been horribly lonely. Shade/Shawn is depressed and angry, and finally one day he can't take it anymore. He confronts his father, and their argument releasea his and his father's powers in a way that brings down disaster on their family.

Shade is one of my favorite characters in this exciting YA, urban-fantasy series, and Parker Blue has offered in this story a terrific opportunity to get to know him more deeply. His is a very tragic family history, and this story deepens even further my interest in Shade and his further adventures in this wonderful series.

These are the books so far in this series, with Forget You listed first because it is a prequel:

Forget You (Demon Underground Series, prequel)

Bite Me (Demon Underground, #1)

Try Me (Demon Underground, #2)

Fang Me (Demon Underground, #3)

Make Me (Demon Underground, #4)

Disclosure: I received a review copy of this book through Net Galley.

I rate this book as follows:

Hero: 5

Subcharacters: 5

Urban Fantasy Plot: 5

Fantasy World Building: 5

Writing: 5

Overall: 5

Book Review: Miser of Mayfair by Marion Chesney

Terrific, humorous, Regency novel

Miser of Mayfair (A House for the Season, #1) by Marion Chesney

Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: originally published in April 1987
Publisher: St Martins
Source: Purchased
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

This is the first of six books in the Regency-romance series, "A House for the Season." The complete series is:

The Miser of Mayfair, the First VolumePlain Jane, the Second VolumeThe Wicked Godmother, the Third VolumeRake's Progress, the Fourth VolumeThe Adventuress, the Fifth VolumeRainbird's Revenge, the Sixth Volume

This first book sets up the central core of this series. A group of servants, for various personal reasons, are miserably bound to their employment at Number 67 Clarges Street in London's Mayfair, a house notorious for being unlucky and haunted because a past owner, the Duke of Pelham, hung himself there, and a woman who lived there was murdered. The current extremely wealthy Duke of Pelham pays no attention to this property, leaving its disposition--including the salaries of the servants that go with it--completely at the discretion of Jonas Palmer, the duke's agent. Unfortunately, Palmer is a bully and an embezzler. He tells the duke he is paying good wages to the staff, but actually gives them barely enough money to survive on and pockets the difference. This constant state of poverty makes it impossible for them to fulfill their heart's desire, to buy an inn and run it as a group.

This plan feels quite workable to the staff because over the years they have banded together and formed a family of affiliation, headed by the 30-something butler, Rainbird, a former acrobat, magician and juggler. Rainbird is clever, kind and helpful to every decent person who comes into his orbit, not merely the staff, but tenants of the house.

The rest of the staff include a housekeeper named Mrs. Middleton, whose "Mrs." is an honorary title since she is a middle-aged spinster born to an impoverished curate; a brilliant chef who is a barbaric Scotsman named Angus MacGregor; a handsome, vain, and cowardly footman named Joseph; a chambermaid and skilled seamstress named Jenny; a beautiful, languorus, blond housemaid named Alice whom Rainbird frequently has to protect from lecherous guests; a sweet, innocent, teenage scullery maid named Lizzie, and the preteen pot boy, Dave, a former climbing boy whom Rainbird rescued from a cruel chimney sweep.

The staff of Number 67 Clarges Street are overjoyed when they hear they are to get tenants, only to learn that Mr. Roderick Sinclair, a middle-aged man with a beautiful, young ward named Fiona, is a terrible miser and refuses to entertain--depriving the staff of the "vails" (tips) which could augment their meager wages. But all is not as it seems with the presumably empty-headed Fiona, fortunately for the staff.

As always, this book, like all of Marion Chesney's Regencies, has a strong touch of the bizarre in its comedy, which can be quite startling to the uninitiated, and quite funny when you get used to it. Also, in spite of the many oddball events in her romances, Chesney does a great job of authentically portraying the Regency era, and her main characters are always sympathetic. In this series, the family of servants led by Rainbird are a terrific throughline linking it together. Every one of them, even vain Joseph, grows across the series, and each is lovable in his/her way. And the two lovers in this particular book are quite sympathetic. Finding out what Fiona is really like, compared to what everyone has always thought of her--until meeting Rainbird and crew--is an amazing experience.

I read this book as a Kindle edition. It is well formatted and edited, making it easy to read.

I rate this book as follows:

Heroine: 4

Hero: 4

Rainbird and Crew: 4

Historical World-Building: 5

Writing: 4

Romance Plot: 4

Comedy: 4

Overall: 4

Book Review: Bachelor Doctor by Barbara Boswell

Review of Kindle edition of a classic Barbara Boswell short-contemporary romance

Bachelor Doctor by Barbara Boswell

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: July 1, 2000
Publisher: Silhouette Desire
Pages: 192 pages
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Dr. Trey Weldon is a brilliant neurosurgeon who is hero-worshipped by everyone at his hospital but his primary surgical assistant, a talented scrub nurse named Callie Sheely, who actually teases the too-serious Dr. Trey about his fawning fans. Associating with Callie has gradually loosened up Trey over their months together, and he is extremely impressed with her skills as a nurse. She is so in tune with him during surgery that it is like she reads his mind. Callie has had a crush on Trey for most of the year they've worked together, but she comes from working-class roots and Trey is from a wealthy, aristocratic family. She assumes he sees her as beneath him. In truth, Trey is very attracted to her, but he considers a workplace romance a stupid move, and he never permits himself to make any kind of mistake, whether professional or personal.

This is a Kindle re-issue of a Harlequin short-contemporary romance published under the Silhouette Desire (SD) imprint in July, 2000. The Kindle edition is done well. It has no typos or formatting issues. I was able to check out this book from the online, digital portion of my local public library. Once I checked out the book, it was a simple, two-click procedure to download a Kindle edition of this book through Amazon, and I had a full three weeks to read it. I am a happy convert to the digital revolution!

In the 1980's and 1990's, I was a big fan of Barbara Boswell and read everything she wrote because she does a terrific job at adding clever touches of humor to her romance novels without ever resorting to slapstick. This book has many funny moments, though it doesn't include one of my favorite motifs of Boswell's work, quirky family members who lead the heroine on a wild dance and complicate her romance with the hero. I assume that wasn't made a part of this book because it is written mainly from the hero's point of view as part of an editorially created series about the Weldon Bachelors for "Man of the Month." This was a SD book from their monthly lineup written primarily from the hero's point of view. The various books in the Weldon Bachelors series were written by multiple romance authors and they followed the "story bible" created by the publisher, not the individual authors.

Even burdened with these heavy constraints, Boswell's trademark humor shines through. She also does a great job, as in all her romances, creating sensuality through emotional intensity rather than detailed descriptions of sexual acts. Though this book was part of a series, it has no cliffhanger, and can easily stand alone. Fans of Barbara Boswell, or fans of short-contemporary romance in general, will enjoy this terrific example of Boswell's work.

 
 

Book Review: Irresistible You by Barbara Boswell

Kindle reissue of a classic, Barbara Boswell, short, contemporary romance

Irresistible You by Barbara Boswell

Reading Level: Adult Romance
Release Date: December 1st 2000
Publisher: Silhouette Desire
Pages: 192 pages
Source: Library
Reviewed By: Kate McMurry

Disgraced political lobbyist and current bestselling author Luke Minteer is stuck serving on a jury for an irritating case of a man suing his ex-fianceé to get his ring back. The only thing making his time on the jury bearable is an attractive, unmarried, and very pregnant fellow juror named Brenna Morgan. Luke has never been serious about any woman before, and he's shocked to find himself having happily-ever-after thoughts about Brenna, a talented artist with a tragic past. This is a classic Barbara Boswell, short-contemporary romance from the Harlequin imprint, Silhouette Desire (SD). It was No. 1333, originally released December, 2000. The Kindle edition is well-edited and well-formatted.

This book is part of a series about the Minteer brothers written by Boswell for "Man of the Month," which was a special promotion by the editors of SD. Each month they would choose one book from their lineup to be written primarily from the hero's point of view.

In the 1980's and 1990's, I was a big fan of Barbara Boswell and read everything she wrote because she does a terrific job at adding clever touches of humor to her romance novels without ever resorting to slapstick. This book has many funny moments, the best in the book the moment that the heroine meets the hero's mother, sister and sister-in-law. Boswell does a great job in this book, as she does in all her romances, creating sensuality through emotional intensity rather than resorting to detailed descriptions of sexual acts. The author also handles with sensitivity and tact the effects on the heroine's present life of a horrible event in the heroine's childhood that it would be a spoiler for me to spell out.

Though this book was written as part of a series, it has no cliffhanger, and can easily stand alone. Fans of Barbara Boswell, or fans of short-contemporary romance in general, will enjoy this terrific example of Boswell's work.

I was able to check out this book from the online, digital portion of my local public library. Once I checked out the book, it was a simple, two-click procedure to download a Kindle edition of this book through Amazon, and I had a full three weeks to read it.