This is an archive of my shorter book reviews and notes, which historically have been posted over at the 50 Book Challenge on LiveJournal, but which I’m starting to move over here. I’m posting them with altered date-stamps, but they might show up in my LiveJournal cross-post anyway. Bear with me, please.
Note: Many of these books also have full reviews available in the book review podcast (RSS).
#69:
The second in the Thursday Next series, and amusing.
#70:
Standard bodice-ripper romance novel.
#71:
#72:
A hard-to-get-into romance novel, cross-genre with suspense. It wasn’t terrible, but it was also not terrific, and I think that’s because the author tried too hard to give her “bombshell” (series theme) a flaw that just didn’t ring very true (insecurity about race/class issues).
#73:
An extremely entertaining and funny Regency romance about a fallen woman who, well, seduces the last of the Royal Four. The banter and humor between these two is magnificent– I see why the reviews on the book club site were so favorable about the comedy. I don’t generally read passages from romance novels aloud to my husband, but I actually did with this one because it was so adorable and witty.
#74:
Just finished this today– I decided not to be the last on my block to read a new book for a change! An amusing and entertaining book following Alexandra Barnaby and her on-again-off-again (usually “on? right now? right here?”) boyfriend, Sam Hooker, a NASCAR race team and unwitting (sometimes downright witless) sleuths. Cute, entertaining– not Stephanie Plum, but Barney has promise. Also, every paragraph where they’re not sleuthing, they’re eating junk food, which is just terribly amusing.
#75:
A very steamy “romance” novel in which the majority of the book is sex. Entertaining. Probably too short to carry the time-travel/witch’s curse story. Basically porn with plot.
#76:
A psychological thriller/romance/erotic novel. The premise is that every time the heroine has sex, her lover dies, and she has no idea why. Their deaths in no way diminish her insatiable sexual appetite, and she is caught between a very handsome lord and the police constable trying to bring her to justice. It was odd, because on the one hand, the premise was scientifically weak, at best. On the other hand, I can suspend disbelief to a point. On the third hand, this book made me cry. On the fourth hand (?) the point at which I cried was a moment of emotional honesty (the keystone to any good romance novel is the moment of emotional honesty between the hero and heroine) was between a man and his horse. At one point I wondered if the heroine would “plead the belly” to get out of jail, then realized that she would have no idea who the father was. Because, you know, her remorse was so great between dead lovers, she sometimes didn’t even have a change of clothes in between.
#77:
And now for something different– a book about full-time RVing. Very quick read, but a comprehensive overview of the full-time RV lifestyle. Pretty good little starter book. I read it in an evening.
I was vacationing in Costa Rica last week and managed to leave Janet Evanovich’s Two for the Dough on a bus in a traffic jam on the road to San Carlos. So now I’ll have to hunt down another copy so I can finish it!
#78:
A nice, fluffy time-travel Regency romance novel with a cute storyline, but nothing terribly challenging.
#79:
Another of the Francesca Cahill novels. This time, the intrepid heiress is out to solve a murder involving her brother’s mistress. But who cares? The intrepid heiress also furthers her sexual enlightenment in this racy cross-genre mystery/romance!