Down to You by M. Leighton

Amazon recommended this to me because I bought everything Tammara Webber has written (you should definitely read all of her stuff, it’s pretty great).

The scorching tale of one girl, two brothers and a love triangle…that’s not.

Olivia Townsend is nothing special. She’s just a girl working her way through college so she can return home to help her father run his business. She’s determined not to be the second woman in his life to abandon him, even if it means putting her own life on hold. To Olivia, it’s clear what she must do. Plain and simple. Black and white.

But clear becomes complicated when she meets Cash and Nash Davenport. They’re brothers. Twins. Cash is everything she’s always wanted in a guy. He’s a dangerous, sexy bad boy who wants her in his bed at any cost. He turns her insides to mush and, with just one kiss, makes her forget why he’s no good for her.

Nash is everything she’s ever needed in a guy. He’s successful, responsible and intensely passionate. But he’s taken. Very taken, by none other than Marissa, Liv’s rich, beautiful cousin. That doesn’t stop Olivia from melting every time he looks at her, though. With just one touch, he makes her forget why they can never be together.

Black and white turns to shades of gray when Olivia discovers the boys are hiding something, something that should make her run as far and as fast as she can. But it’s too late to run. Olivia’s already involved. And in love. With both of them.

Both brothers make her heart tremble. Both brothers set her body on fire. 
She wants them both. And they want her.

How will she ever choose between them?

(via Goodreads)

Ignore the first 2 parts of the synopsis, just about everything that wasn’t related to the main characters fucking/thinking about fucking/trying to fuck was glossed over. And since it wasn’t erotica, a plot would have been nice. And since there wasn’t a plot, more than a token attempt at character development could have been made. Olivia never learns anything/grows up/has an epiphany/does anything but whine about how much she likes these boys/can never have these boys. And Cash/Nash are never developed beyond their super-secret secret, which didn’t even come into play until at least halfway through the book.

And hooray for manufactured conflict, Olivia’s ex-boyfriend was a bad boy and he hurt her feelings so she’s sworn off bad boys forever.  Yeah sure, having your heart broken sucks balls, but here’s a protip: just because a boy has tattoos doesn’t make him bad. BEING AN ASSHOLE WHO CHEATS ON HIS PREGNANT GIRLFRIEND makes him bad.  Also, guys in suits are not necessarily good guys either.

There were few terrible grammar/editing distractions and the story was well-paced (mostly). The author was definitely heavy-handed with the exclamation points and italics but that’s more a style issue than anything else (reading about people who are that excited! about! everything! was exhausting). I will admit that this was kind of compulsively readable; I almost missed my bus stop because I was reading. The dudes were super foxy and the sex scenes were pretty steamy. However, and this is a BIG however, the last quarter of the book takes a sharp turn from oh-this-is-mildly-entertaining to holy-shit-WTF. And then the epilogue crashes into now-this-is-a-suspense-novel-what-the-hell and surprise-there’s a-sequel!

Should you read this? If you like reading about people who are magnificent jerks and you’ve got a couple of free hours and don’t need to go to the dentist or something, sure. If the ending wasn’t so utterly bizarro, I’d have left off the caveat about the dentist. Regardless, I’m glad I borrowed this and didn’t use the last of the Amazon gift card I’ve been saving for a rainy day.

Down to You by M. Leighton

Series: As yet untitled

Next book in series: To be announced

P.O.V.: First person, present; alternating narrators

Language: Salty

Sexy business: Plenty and semi-graphic

Coming Undone by Lauren Dane

I would apologize for the long interval between this post and my last, but I’m not really all that sorry, I’ve had an eventful 7 months. But none of the two people who read this blog care to hear my personal woes (if you do, I LOVE TO SHARE [that is a lie but I do love to complain!]).

 “After his parents' death, Brody gave up a promising career to care for his family. Now, with his siblings grown, Brody owns his own business, and for the first time in years he's alone. Elise has come to Seattle with her daughter to find peace. After years as a world-famous ballerina-and trapped in a marriage gone bad-she's looking for neither love nor attention. But she finds both in the handsome, honest man who befriends her with no strings attached.

Brody and Elise discover in each other the wild, physical passion they need. But it'll take a shadow from Elise's past to make them look beyond what they need-to what they truly desire.

                  (via Goodreads)

The story is fine, it’s about more than just Brody and Elise fucking each other’s brains out. They’ve both been burned romantically, but they aren’t exclaiming “I will never love again” and there’s a sub-plot for some narrative tension. They don’t quite fall victim to insta-love but their relationship develops over a reasonable period of time. As a whole, the story is pretty  believable (except maybe for the legal what-have-you, but I’m not a lawyer, what do I know).

The major problem I had with this book is that these people talk a lot. Like, A LOT. No one can answer a question without explaining the shit out of it. It makes the flow of conversation really disjointed because when someone asks a question, the person answering answers the next 3 or 4 questions that might follow up. F’rex: 

“Where’s your little girl?” Brody asked

…

“She’s, um, out in the backyard. She’s doing this soccer day camp thing this summer and loving it. We set up a net so she’s kicking goals over and over. Which, well, let’s be honest, is awesome for me because it runs her down and there’s no three-hour battle to get her to sleep. She’s pretty high-energy.” She paused and laughed. “That’s a nice way of saying she’s hyper.”

That is WEIRD, you guys. “In the backyard, playing soccer” would have been a perfectly acceptable response.  And the sex talk is kind of out of control. I’m all for dirty-talk but by the middle of the book I was skimming the sex scenes because it all sounded more porn-sexy than actual-sex-sexy.

“Yeah. So fuck me. Come inside me before I die right here stuffed with you.”
 Oh. Well. He liked dirty talk too. Especially from her lips. Good god. “Pick up the pace then. Ride me hard so your tits jiggle.”*

Um, whut? Is there a camera in there? Personal preference, yadda yadda, but it’s all like that and I am not a fan.

So anyway, I guess it’s decent, I think it’s just that Lauren Dane’s writing style is very obvious. Despite what should be a least a little emotionally investing, I never felt connected to the characters. Everything seemed to happen just on the surface. On a positive note, all the people in this book sound foxy as hell. So that's something. Also, if you've read the previous entry in this series, you'll (probably?) be glad to see Erin, Todd, and Ben (nontraditional relationships, ftw!). 

This is the 3^rd book of Lauren Dane’s that I’ve read and they’re all very similar in style. If you don’t mind a lack of depth and you like really porn-y sex, by all means read this. Otherwise, go read some Megan Hart. (I feel a little bad about recommending one over the other because they seem to be friends IRL, but there you go.)

*this quote is from the end of the book, mostly because I didn't want to go searching for something that occurred earlier

Series: The Brown Siblings, book 2

Previous book in series: Laid Bare

Next book in series: Inside Out

P.O.V.: Third person

Language: Pretty darn dirty

Sexxxoring: A LOT

A Pirate's Love by Johanna Lindsey

Dear baby Jesus and all the little angels,

Thanks for letting me have been born in 198-you-know-when. I am very grateful that I was not alive pre-20^th century. Because even though things aren’t even close to perfect as regards rape/sexual assault, gender politics/performance, sexism, etc., they are slowly getting better (I am ever the optimist [this is a lie{sorry baby Jesus}]) When you consider that spousal rape wasn’t even considered to be rape before the 19^th century and wives were considered chattel and couldn’t own property in their own name and didn’t even have rights to their own children, shit doesn’t suck nearly as much now as it did in, let’s say, 1667 (where this book/mega-shit-storm-of-epic-proportions takes place). Homigod (sorry again), I don’t really know where to begin.

I know you give everyone in the whole world their ideas, so I figure you need a refresher. Here’s the plot summary (it’s not really a plot so much as a stinking sack of shit):

Bettina Verlaine is being sold into marriage (its 1667, that’s what they did) by her father. Her dad is some snotty French dude with a major attitude problem, but Bettina has been striving her whole life to make him love her (SPOILER ALERT: he’s not really her dad). Anyway, because it’s 1667 and women didn’t really have many choices, especially if you were 1. Rich 2. Super beautiful  (flowing silver-blonde hair, slim hips, breasts like ripe apples but no purple eyes [her eyes are blue or green depending on her emotional state, like a mood ring but with blood vessels]) 3. No, really, SUPER BEAUTIFUL. Bettina’s intended husband lives in the Caribbean so she has to sail from France to go meet him. She leaves her beloved Mama (who had an affair, because unhappy marriage, blah blah, hence her dad/not-her-dad) but takes her beloved nurse with her as a companion. Natch, because of the pretty, all the dudes on the ship want to bone her, one gets whipped for trying, Le Capitaine on another ship sees her from afar, goes MINE!, kidnaps her and lies to her about killing people to get her not to fight him while he rapes her. So! Of course she hates him, right, but he makes her feel all tingly in the nether-bits.  She tries to escape (she’s on a boat in the Atlantic Ocean, not a high probability of success) and cracks him one in the head with an I-forget-what. Some other dude thinks Le Capitaine is dead and decides that Bettina should be whipped until she is dead. But lo! Le Capitaine is not dead, only mildly concussed and uses the threat of whipping to keep Bettina compliant whilst he rapes her (repeatedly). Long story short: rape, rape, rape, reluctant desire, rape, rape, escape, revenge, reunion, Stockholm Syndrome, pregnancy, reluctant love, sword fight, revenge, reunion, marriage, baby, The End. (Whew! That was one alliterative sentence [not actually a sentence]).

Honestly, I’m not certain how I managed to finish this book. I’ve read other books that were not nearly as offensive to me and threw them away without a qualm. Maybe I was hoping that somehow it would not end the way I knew it was going to end (like with a timely miracle perhaps, you’re good at those). But no, it ended exactly the way I was afraid it was going to. And you know, even with all the rape, the worst part was all of the women who weren’t being raped kept telling Bettina that at least Tristan (Le Capitaine) wasn’t, like, really hurting her. He was just using her body. I just about lost my shit every time this was said.

I do have a sort-of sentimental fondness for Old Skool romance novels and will forgive them a lot that I wouldn't forgive in a modern novel, but this book crossed every line I have. And if the truly bad story wasn’t enough, it wasn’t even written well. Poor sentence structure, choppy dialogue, unclear timeline, cardboard characterization, I mean EVERYTHING that could suck, sucked.  

But anyway baby Jesus, I was half-afraid I would be struck blind by the sheer, overwhelming awfulness of this book. So thanks for saving me from that at least. But please find all the Johanna Lindsey books in the whole world and SET THEM ON FIRE (don't really do that, book burning is bad).

You're the best.

Sincerely,

Jae

Buy It . Borrow It . Skip It

A Pirate's Love by Johanna Lindsey

Girl From Mars by Julie Cohen

PLEASE NOTE MOST AMAZING COVER EVER

Okay, I made myself wait a few days to post this review so I could get over my squeeing and maybe write something that approaches objectivity. This was a mostly successful endeavor. Anyway, blue-haired socially awkward geek girl, comic books, romance, Star Trek? In the same book? It's like it was written just for me. And really, I must stress that the cover is one of the coolest covers I've ever seen. The only thing that could make it better is tentacles.

I'm grabbing the blurb from Amazon because I am feeling too lazy to sum this up myself. It's not wholly accurate but it's good enough.

"I, Philomena Desdemona Brown, do solemnly swear to forsake all romantic relationships . . ." It's not like the vow, made by Fil and her three nerdy male best friends, seemed much of a big deal at the time. Frankly, Fil wouldn't know romance if it hit her in the face, and with her real love being her artist job at Girl from Mars, the comic whose heroine has never had a love interest, she doesn't exactly mind being relationship-free anyway. Until her world is rocked to its core when one of her long-standing quartet and Girl from Mars herself both unexpectedly fall in love. Is it time to give in to temptation and finally fall in love?

I may be a bit biased because it was basically like reading about myself, except I'm not white, English, or an artist. And the blue hair, not since I was twenty. But the socially inept geeky girl bit? ABSOLUTELY. 

The tone of the whole story is mostly wistful, because Fil doesn't want to be alone but she is fighting her attraction to her nemesis (she didn't know he was her nemesis until way after they met). The writing style is really simple and lovely, no flowery nonsense. And the dialogue is great.

I would have liked to see more growth from Fil as a character because she was definitely lacking in the self-awareness department and had a bad case of pretend-it-doesn't-exist-itis, but she did eventually grow up/out a bit. Also, even though Dan (our nemesis/love interest) sounds awesomely hot and nice, he was a bit flat. A lot of the Fil/Dan interaction took place off-page and it left me a little doubtful of the romance. But maybe that's because everything is from Fil's POV and she doesn't really get it either. I don't care, I still love this book.

Final Reckoning

Read this: Yes, you should. As a matter of fact, I'm going to take my own advice and read it again tonight.

Buy It . Borrow It . Skip It

Girl From Mars by Julie Cohen
Series: n/a
P.O.V.: First person, past; single narrator
Language: I am pretty sure it was clean but honestly, my memory can't be trusted
Sexxxoring: Maybe two or three scenes with super vague naked business

The Many Sins of Lord Cameron by Jennifer Ashley (Check out those abs!)

So I mentioned in my August reading list that Jennifer Ashley writes really hot, emotional, beautiful romances. This is very, very true. A lot of what I like about the Mackensie series is that none of the ladies are virginal ingénues (at least at the point that we are introduced to them). Beth, Isabella, and Ainsley all have real sexual agency and that is both refreshing and rare in a historical romance. In many of the romance novels I’ve read, the sexually experienced women tend to be portrayed as man-eaters or evil bitchez who would sell their mamas for a dollar.  Also, the dudes, while very typical romance-dudes on the surface (unrepentant rake, profligate wastrel, general douche-canoe), have very real personalities and motivations.

Encapsulate This

When Ainsley Douglas, a lady-in-waiting for Queen Victoria, is caught sneaking around Lord Cameron Mackensie’s bedchamber (again) by none other than Lord Cameron himself, he decides to use the situation to seduce her (sort-of again). While Ainsley was only looking to recover some potentially embarrassing letters that have been stolen from the Queen, she knows that after their first meeting six years ago (wherein she was first caught sneaking around his room) she is dangerously susceptible to his wiles. And no matter how much she wants to succumb, she can’t afford to risk a scandal. Cameron is willing to lure her but he may end up caught in his own trap… (I don’t know how cover copy writers do this, it is so annoying)

Ruminate on That

So, the writing is lovely, the characters are sympathetic, the romance itself is (mostly) believable, and the sexy bits are steamy (Lord Cameron and his lady like the dirty talk). But what is best about this novel is the characterization of the main protagonists. Both Cameron and Ainsley have had some traumatic events in their lives that give them real emotional depth. Even though I thought Cameron was being weird with his “You are the only good thing ever, in the history of everything” attitude towards Ainsley (before they really came to know each other), the story just felt emotionally authentic.

What made TMSoLC intellectually interesting is a common theme turned sideways. While many authors have made use of the distressed damsel, this time it’s the dude who was the victim of domestic abuse and the wife who was the tormentor. I’m not fond of violence as a catalyst in a story, but I think that Jennifer Ashley managed to cover DV and what is essentially PTSD with real sensitivity. (The three Mackensie books to date feature Asperger’s, alcoholism, and domestic violence and the subjects are treated seriously and not sensationally.) 

The story isn’t perfect, there are a few sub-plots that distract from the romance and emotional connection, and the story wrapped a little too neatly. I also think that the portrayal of the first lady Cameron was heavy-handed. She was described as promiscuous, psychotic, violent, and then seemed to be suffering from post-partum depression. I would have liked a more nuanced view of her character because, but since it was the Cameron/Ainsley show I guess it made sense not to spend a lot of page space on tertiary characters.

Final Reckoning

Read this, yes, but even the happy bits are a little heavy. If you prefer light and fluffy romances, go read a Julia Quinn book.

The Many Sins of Lord Cameron, Highland Pleasures, Book 3

[Book 1: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackensie]

[Book 2: Lady Isabella’s Scandalous Marriage]

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Disclaimer: I may be more hyped about this book because I just finished The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian and it was GODAWFUL. Really, it was the sorriest-sack-of-shit book I’ve read since The Corrections. It’s on my list of Books I Hate A Lot (not a real thing, I just made that up). What the fuck, Chris Adrian? That was 600 pages of bullshit.

Anyway, in order to bleach my brain, I decided to read Attachments. It was exactly what I needed to stop hating the whole world. Romance, geeky boy, funny gal, movie jokes? Awesome. (Just FYI, I found this book through Dear Author.)

Encapsulate This

Best friends Beth and Jennifer work together at the Courier. Jennifer is terrified of starting a family with her husband Mitch and Beth is waiting for her long-time boyfriend to propose. They send each other long, extremely personal, funny emails even though it’s against company policy and they know that someone is watching. That someone is Lincoln, who hates that it’s his job to monitor the employees’ email. Even though he knows it’s wrong, he reads every email between Beth and Jennifer. And bit by bit, he finds himself falling in love with Beth.

Ruminate on That

First, allow me to say that reading someone’s email is totally creep-tastic. Lincoln was a genuinely nice guy and he struggled with the ethicality of what he was doing but in the end, he did the right thing by Beth. So, yay for that. Also, yay for him not actively trying to break up Beth and her tool of a boyfriend.

The whole story alternates between the Beth/Jennifer emails and Lincoln’s point-of-view. The emails between Beth and Jennifer are really endearing/funny/sad and I totally get why Lincoln fell in love with Beth. The fact the he fell in love with her before he ever saw her face made my stomach hurt (in a good this-is-so-romantic kind of way). And watching his transformation from a lonely, kind-of-lost, awkward, adorable geek to a hopeful, finding-his-way, slightly-less-awkward, adorable geek was wonderful. I especially enjoyed watching his perspective on himself change. I was less convinced of Beth’s feelings, but she wasn’t formally introduced until fairly late in the story so I didn’t feel like I understood her reaction to Lincoln.

Parts of the story are pretty damn sad, parts are pretty damn funny and as a whole, it just flowed well. It could have felt jerky and disjointed with the back and forth between Lincoln’s POV and the emails, but oddly, I found the switching to be less jarring than some novels with traditional POV changes.

Final Reckoning

I really, really enjoyed reading this. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I finished it in one sitting. It was just a lot of fun. Have I mentioned that this is a debut novel? It is. So it gets double points for being awesome. And it gets bonus points because the emails reminded me of the ones Danielle and I send each other. I love books that have genuine friendships between lady-characters and not just potential-rival-hate-fests. Read this? Definitely.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

pr0nz commin' @ ya like a beast in da nyte!!!1!!; or, what I've been up to

I can't explain the post title. I'm wacked out on cold medicine. That's really all I have.


I read Under The Dome. It was. Um. Here's our brief chat about it, because I don't think I want to talk about it anymore:

Dani:  Under The Dome? OK? A brief moment to congratulate myself on finishing a book that is something like 400,000 pages in less than a week. Then moving on to WTF WAS THAT?  I mean, it was kind of just … The Mist. With a dome instead of fog. And the inter-dimensional scary creatures being distant aliens instead of giant murderous insects, but like, the themes were the same. PEOPLE ARE CRAZY! Take away daily necessities and it’s like Lord of the Flies! I  get it (and fell off the couch in agony when The Mist was actually REFERENCED in the book – like, 1) shut up, and 2) I don’t know if that was a ballsy or stupid move to acknowledge that he is aware that these stories are almost identical)       I dunno. I think I just get more uncomfortable with Stephen King’s capacity for genuine human scum-ery as I age gracelessly. I dunno if he’s ratcheting it up as HE gets older, but it sure feels like it.       And it was way heavy handed on the rape/assault/grossness front. Like, thanks, I get it, small town dudes (and dudettes, really) are all disgusting excuses for human beings. But MAN do you love hanging out with them.       /end rant

Jae: See, I never read The Mist. I don't think I've finished more than 2 or 3 SK novels, including UtD. And I probably won't be reading any more either. I feel like my pop culture reading cred is shot, but I can live with that.        The wrap-up/conclusion just made me angry. Aliens? That's what we went with? And spoiled baby aliens to boot? Yeahno. He gets no more of my money. Not that I've ever actually paid for his books, but the principle, you see, there is one.

Dani:  The Stand is worth it. It’s like his Ulysses, or something. And Needful Things, thought stupidly titled, is also up there (I think I hate the word ‘needful’ because I don’t feel like it should exist, but this is neither here nor there.)           But yeah. I think I’m over him. It did take me nearly 20 years to get there, which is a pretty good run.

So there's that.


I also read these other two books, because I was like, OK, it's time to buckle down a read a bonafide bodice-tearing (or whatever-tearing equivalent) romance novel - enough of them have been thrown at me for free at the Kindle store, so I might as well give it a go. It has been, seriously, fifteen years since I've read a romance. They are just not my thing. And I don't know what kind of romances I read in my youth, because these two? Homg. 


These novels? These are porn. I mean, straight up. Someone order a pizza.


There is this one, first of all. There's like, a plot? I guess? But it is obscured by all the fucking. There is a LOT of fucking. All kinds! All rodeo/western style! Threesomes, BDSM, M/M, oral, anal (twice!), you name it, it is being done to someone in a cowboy hat. Vigorously. The language is mostly plain (I don't think the word 'tumescent' appears even once) which is pretty impressive, considering it's literally 200 pages of tits and cock. So, good job! And apparently this is a series. Which is hilarious to me. But OK! I guess why bother creating new characters all the time if they're only going to be fucking. If you want some free literary porn, this is the one for you.


Then there's this one, which is also entirely about fucking. I actually didn't finish this one, and I'm not really sure I plan on it. There's only so many times I can read the phrase "slick channel" before I just puke everywhere. Seriously! Who says that?! 
There is also some vague semblance of a plot, but it's pretty irrelevant. The main male character book is actually terrifying, in a stalker-y/OCD/serial killer kind of way, and I'm almost positive he's not supposed to be. The female character is all blown away by how 'protective' he is and she is just soooo turned on by his "caveman" behavior, and I'm all OMG GET A FUCKING RESTRAINING ORDER. 


IN ADDITION to those two wild rides, I read 13 Little Blue Envelopes, which I feel I shouldn't even be sullying by mentioning it in the same post as the above. It was precious! And GREAT. It deserves the full review treatment. I will get to it if Jae does not beat me to it.

Lord of Scoundrels

Lord of Scoundrels is the book that turned me back onto romance. I hadn’t read a romance novel in like, 13 years or something and now, thanks to Loretta Chase (no really, thank you Loretta Chase, I love you lots), I am HOOKED. It doesn’t hurt that with my handy Kindle, I can read romance novels and not feel embarrassed by the cover.* And believe me, it takes a lot to embarrass someone who’s used to wandering around with books that have dragons, elves, dwarves, and/or mystical ponies on the covers. Anyway, onto the summary!

Lord Dain is a wicked Marquess living in Paris. Jessica Trent is a spinsterish blue-stocking trying to get her brother away from Dain’s bad influence. Naturally, when Dain and Jessica meet, there is a whole lot of tingling in their nether bits. Dain is, as Jessica refers to him later, “the biggest whoremonger in Christendom” so this is to be expected because Jessica is a very, very pretty lady. Jessica, being a 28 year old spinster and single by her own choice, is appalled at being all lusty about Dain. They spend the first third of the book trying to out-maneuver each other. Then there is some smooching, some dancing, a BIG MISUNDERSTANDING, a marriage, a semi-annoying sub-plot, true love, The End. Plus, hot sexy-sex. Mostly it’s sexual tension between Jess and Dain, but there are a few sex scenes that are fairly frank (not quite explicit, but “breeding instrument” is used as a hilarious euphemism for cock).

Loretta Chase is a master of funny, witty, sarcastic dialogue that is just fun to read. She is also really good at character building, descriptive imagery, pacing, and all that other stuff that makes a book good. Of all her books, Lord of Scoundrels is one of my top two favorites. However, as much as I love this story, I am NOT a fan of the “This woman is awesome but all other women are cum dumpsters” trope. I know why it was used, and it worked (as much as something like that can work) within the confines of the story and the hero was mostly redeemed, but of all the tropes used in romance, it is one of my LEAST favorites.

All in all, this book is infinitely readable, even considering the occasional misstep.

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

*I understand why there are half-naked men and women (or M/M or W/W or M/W/M or W/M/W, whatever, to each their own) but sometimes, it really isn’t appropriate. For instance, there is tortured writhing on one of the covers for LoS and it really misrepresents the depth of the story. And I don’t mean the depth of its thrust. Zing!