Review: The Duchess Deal

The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Duchess Deal is sort-of a spin on the classic Beauty and the Beast tale, once handsome guy is now physically less handsome with accompanying ego and self-esteem issues, needs a wife. Hardworking, clever girl is in need of something, in this case the fee owed to her for work she did on the wedding dress of the Duke's bride-to-be who has jilted him.
Witty banter ensues.
I text my friend three pages in 'dude, you need to read this book, they just described a dress as looking like a unicorn vomited on it.'
She agreed that she must read this book.

One of the great things about this book is that the Duke isn't really in need of redemption, he's a good guy, just a cranky jackass dealt a hard hand who needs someone to challenge him and point out that a monster is what you make of yourself if you let other people tell you who you are. That being said, Emma is so out of his league, she's awesome and DOESN'T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS SHIT. She finds nice, interesting friends, a clever way of keeping up with her dressmaking skills, and isn't even put-off by the fact that all of her employees are way too invested in her love life.

I read this book in 2 days and did the classic past-one's-bedtime-but-must-finish-this maneuver. There are sexytimes, the first few are highly amusing, then I started to find them a bit boring as the witty banter was more interesting, but they were easy to skim.

Sweet book, great banter, I want to hang out and have tea with Emma's friends.

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Review: Heart of the Steal

Heart of the Steal by Avon Gale
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I adore Roan Parrish's first book in the 'In the Middle' series, it is so full of angst and cinnamon bun goodness, so I was hoping for more of that in this book. Failing that, perhaps some kind of cat and mouse heist courtship between the main characters, but no.

The start of the book sets-up a good framework for the courtship-through-heist via art theft, but sadly doesn't really follow through on that line. The theft acts as more of a example of how differently the two characters view the world.
And maybe that's the part that just didn't click with me, they do have to do a lot of work to figure out how to fit together, but I never got the dire feeling that it wasn't going to work out in the end. Heart of the Steal just doesn't have the same heart-ripping depth as Parrish's In The Middle. Now that's not to say that it wasn't a fun read, it was a fast, cute story with quite a bit of sexytimes thrown in with a goodly dash of pining, but I don't think I will be finding myself thinking about the characters any further than wondering if Amory cleans the cat's litter box or pays someone to do that.

I'm giving it three starts as it was an enjoyable read, but in the same way that watching House Hunters International is, you know at the end they are going to end up some place nice that you'll never be able to afford but it was still nice to see that rich people have bad taste in bathrooms too.

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Review: Murder on the Last Frontier

Murder on the Last Frontier by Cathy Pegau
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Set in a small frontier town in Alaska after the first Word War, Murder on the Last Frontier has a lot of really interesting aspects to it, but it just didn't make it over as few nit-picky things to land itself into 'really good' for me.

The writing was just a touch clunky for me, a lot of repetition of things, and a bit too much telling instead of showing from the main character Charlotte. At the start of the book there is quite a bit of her alluding to a traumatic incident in her past that as a reader you figure out pretty quickly. However, it takes forever for Charlotte to clearly say what it was which also happens at the same time as a rather graphic autopsy. The description of the autopsy caught me off guard, a cozy mystery this book isn't.

Charlotte's detective powers lag a bit behind the reader's which can be either a good or bad thing depending on how you prefer your mysteries to play out. she is an interesting character, and the town is an interesting setting, Pegau has a good start at building both up for future books in this one. But if you are looking for romance there is only a fleeting wink to it for the future.

Good first book, interesting setting and character, I might pick up the next book to see if Pegau is able to work out some of the weaknesses as well as flesh out the town.

SPOILERS BELOW***

I did like how Pegau wrote and treated the sex workers (the ones who survived), although I found the murder of one to be a overdone plot. Having that as the main mystery made it fairly easy to solve from the reader's perspective even with the waving of red herrings.


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Review: Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men

Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men by Molly Harper
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I haven't read the first book of this series, but I found that I didn't need to in order to be able to enjoy this one. Jane Jameson ex-librarian, current vampire, is a refreshing change from other urban fantasy vampires. Optimistic, snarky but not too snarky, still trying to get used to her new state of undead without delving too much into the realm of morose wistful sighs. The setting of small-ish town in the south where everyone is just slightly related and always ready for some kind of family fight/gossip is a great change too.

The romance element isn't that strong in this book, I'm guessing that most of the heavy emotional lifting for Jane was in the first book, and looks to be set-up for the third book. As such, it's a fast, amusing read. You will quickly figure out most of the plot points before they happen, but there's enough humor that I didn't mind sitting back and waiting for them to show up.


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Review: Choose the Sky

Choose the Sky by Elizabeth Cole
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was the first book by Cole that I have read, I liked the fact that it was set in 1141, a completely different time than we are used to seeing in 'historical' romances.

I found the beginning a bit hard to get through, it felt like the first two chapters were just a bit too much in the way of an info dump that could have been handled later in the story. I would have liked it to have started at chapter 2 to give a bit more suspense to Lady Domina's character. the pacing picks up once we get back to her castle.

The only main problem I had with the story was how the issue of consent was handled. Although probably accurate for the times, I had issues with how that part of the relationship started and how Sir Luc kept saying that he would respect her wishes and then still soft pushing them. Maybe I'm just overtly sensitive, but it made me start skimming those parts of the book as I didn't find the interactions enjoyable.

The mystery about who the trader is would have been solved much faster if everyone had stopped being so self-centered and just thought about it logically, so I actually found myself slightly sympathizing with the villain at the end.

Fast read, slightly irritating relationship, interesting setting that I wish had been expanded on a bit more.

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Review: How To Marry A Werewolf

How To Marry A Werewolf by Gail Carriger
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Carriger's introduction of novellas that give a little bit more backstory on some of the side characters found in her main novels has been a really interesting approach at giving the reader more of the characters. Sadly, the length of the novellas inherently limit that 'more' quite a bit. We don't get the full build-up and nuance of rumor and romance that is common in her longer novels.
I always find myself wishing for a little more, which I guess is both a good thing and a bad thing.

'How to Marry' gives us the backstory of Major Channing, but not until almost the very end of the story. His love interest Faith turns out to be a much more interesting character. An American geology fancier with a questionable reputation and thoroughly terrible parents. I would have really liked a longer novel about her, something that explains how is has been able to stay a kind, thoughtful person with her background. She has hints of a cunning nature that with a little bit more cynicism would make her a very formidable force. I am hoping that we'll see that part of her bloom in later books.

Biffy and Lyall do show up at one point and are awesome (I don't think that they could be anything else) and we get a few more hints of the personalities of the other pack members and possible characters that might show up in future books, but the story is mainly about Faith hunting Channing and Channing not quite getting it and FEELINGS. I was a little surprised how dim he was honesty when it sounded like he has spent the last 100 years meditating on his own emotional being in the hopes of suppressing it.

Faith's cousin is a darling character who I hopes shows up again, but we only get a few lines about the pack's babies. Basically, they are fine.

Fast read, a nice little snack for the Carriger fan who wants a bit of romance and high emotions.

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Review: Brightly Burning

Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received an advanced reading copy of this book from a friend, which is the only reason that I read it to be honest.

I'm not very into YA and have many, MANY, issues with Jane Eyre so I would not have picked up this book on my own. I'm glad that I did read it though. The world building is engaging and the Jane character, Stella, shows a lot more self agency than Eyre did, which was one of the things I didn't care for in that book.

Shortening the life expectancy of the society helped bolster the believably of the romance, as well as dropping the Rochester character, Hugo, age to 19. Having the main characters 17 and 19 gives a little bit of wiggle room when it comes to accepting some of the stupid behaviors and choices that they make. There is also less brooding and angst than in Eyre even though Hugo does his hardest to bring the drinking and mood swings. And perhaps that's the weakest part of this book, when Donne doubles down on the incorporation of scenes and plot points from Eyre. The party/parlor parts especially had me raising my eyebrow pointedly. Although Donne uses Hugo's rank as captain and employer as a way for him to get Stella to do what he wants, the fact that she does after showing so much backbone in other things made me irritated.

The secondary plots helped to take some of the edge off my annoyance, I felt like the science fiction and mystery parts would have gotten along nicely without the Eyre aspects if they needed to.

However, it still comes down to the same problem that Jane Eyre had, the heroine is more interesting than the hero and you just want her to go out and be her awesome self without him. Although the feeling I was left with at the end of this book was just mild eye-rolling at her as opposed to full-on book throwing that happened at the end of Eyre.

Engaging, fast read. Bogged down a little by the source material but the setting and tweaks to the plot were good.

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