The Innocent, Bertrice Small

This book had such an interesting and suspenseful plot that I kept reading despite many 8-10 page smutty interludes that were sprinkled throughout. The only good thing with ickiness that is that rampant is that it is easy to skip them when they are so long and drawn out. And the historical time period, characters, and plot were intriguing enough to me to make up for having to avoid some raunch.

Lead Me On, Victoria Dahl

Primal attraction is a big red flag to prim and proper office manager, Jane Morgan. After a rough childhood with a mother who liked her men in prison jumpsuit orange, Jane changed her name, her look and her taste for bad boys. So why is she lusting for William Chase with his tattoo-covered biceps, steel-toed boots and unadulterated sex appeal? The man blows things up for a living!

She gives herself one explosive, fantasy-filled night with Chase. The next day, it’s back to plain Jane and safe men.But when her beloved brother becomes a murder suspect, and her lawyer ex-boyfriend won’t help, Jane turns to Chase. And she discovers a man who’s been around the block knows a thing or two about uncovering all kinds of truths.

I bought this in yet another January depression fueled spree over the weekend and have to say I was disappointed with it. I didn't realize that it was one of those romance novels. The kind where you turn what feels like 10 pages and the characters are still infornicato. I liked the main character, Jane, but this just isn't the type of book for me. Also the cover is cute.

Sleeping with the Fishes, Mary Janice Davidson

Fred is a mermaid. But stop right there. Whatever image you're thinking of right now, forget it. Fred is not blonde. She's not buxom. And she's definitely not perky. In fact, Fred can be downright cranky. And it doesn't help matters that her hair is ocean colored.
Being a mermaid does help Fred when she works at the New England Aquarium. But, needless to say, it's there that she gets involved in something fishy. Weird levels of toxins have been found in the local water. A gorgeous marine biologist wants her help investigating. So does her mer-person ruler, the High Prince of the Black Sea. You'd think it would be easy for a mermaid to get to the bottom of things. Think again...

I've always had more than a passing interest in mermaids. Most likely fostered by repeated (and embarrassingly heart felt) singalongs of this as a child:





SO GOOD!

And then there's the painfully awesome stage version of this put on by some local 4-6 year olds that I alternated giggling and getting misty eyed through: "You. Will. Not. Be. A. Pawt. Of. His. Wolwd. Awiel!"

Finally, having my hilariously-mermaid (and merman)-obsessed kindergarten student a few years back solidified the fondness in my heart for mermaids.

So when I saw this book I thought I should give it a try in spite of the ridiculous cover art. The prettier cover on the left is from the UK, of course. I do like the glittery tail on the US cover but the rest of it is icky.

As are some parts of the story. It is a little too vulgar in a few spots for my taste but overall I did enjoy this fluffy story. It was pretty funny and I liked the love triangle that closes the story. This is definitely a silly book but it was very relaxing for me after another week of bad-seed-children-induced-depression. I'm glad the library has the other two books in this series.

Bitten, Kelley Armstrong

"Elena Michaels is the world's only female werewolf. And she's tired of it. Tired of a life spent hiding and protecting, a life where her most important job is hunting down rogue werewolves. Tired of a world that not only accepts the worst in her— her temper, her violence—but requires it. Worst of all, she realizes she's growing content with that life, with being that person.

So she left the Pack and returned to Toronto where she's trying to live as a human. When the Pack leader calls asking for her help fighting a sudden uprising, she only agrees because she owes him. Once this is over, she'll be squared with the Pack and free to live life as a human. Which is what she wants. Really."

So I really, really like Kelley Armstrong's YA series, The Darkest Powers. Like really embarassingly like them. I reread them a lot last year and I have a teensy bit of a book crush on Derek the werewolf. So I can't wait until the next book in the series comes out this spring. In the mean time I thought I would try out one of Kelley's books for grownups that she wrote before she started the YA series.

Bitten reminds me of Cry Wolf. They seem to be in the same genre of sci-fi/supernatural romance/adventure that come with covers that embarrass me and that I haven't really read much of. Just as I am fully aware that not everyone can love and adore YA or chicklit fluff or cozy mysteries like I do, I'm realizing that this genre might just not be a good fit for me. So it's not that I think Bitten or Cry Wolf for that matter are poorly written or lame books. I just don't think I'm into this sort of thing.

For various reasons, I had a hard time finishing this book but I did start to enjoy it more in the last 30 pages or so when the romance picked up. Basically I like every story better when there is romance involved so that makes sense. The parts describing Clay researching Christmas to give Elena a perfect holiday were pretty cute. I am also a big wuss so I had to skim the parts describing the creepy criminal werewolves (really gross!) and there are several smutty passages of werewolf love included that were a little earthy to my mind.

Mostly reading the book made me wish I was reading The Summoning or The Awakening or even better, The Reckoning!

Improper English, Katie MacAlister

This was a cute and implausible romantic story. I liked that it was set in London and there were a few funny moments. Mostly I was just waiting for the main characters to get together which they did in a predictable smut fest. The characters in this are not very believable but I can be forgiving when a book takes me just over an hour to read and successfully distracts me from my back and its mysterious injury.

She Went All The Way, Meg Cabot

I was drawn into this book by the shiny sequiny sandal on the front cover and my current thralldom to Meg Cabot. I really do want to know how she produces so many books… mostly because I am jealous. As an avid reader of fluff it is comforting to me that there are so many more Meg Cabot titles out there for me to read in the bathtub.

I really liked the story line in this one but since it is a Meg Cabot for grownups title it had some smuttiness that I could have done without. Overall a cute, suspenseful, beachy, romantic book (I’m throwing as many vague adjectives as possible in there).

Swoon, Nina Malkin

This was well written and had a very clever idea at the center of its plot that I really wanted to figure out. I stayed in bathtub turning into a prune for a good 2 1/2 hours because I didn't want to put it down. In the end I was satisfied with the ending but not so much with the execution. The writing had a lot of watered down smut in it for a book marketed to teens. So if you could delete the skankiness I would like this one a whole lot more.

The Vampire Diaries, L. J. Smith

I heard about this series when I saw a trailer for the upcoming tv show based on the books. I bought them and read them all but I can't say that I would recommend them to anyone. Even someone with a high threshold for formulaic writing, flat characters, and a heavy dose of faux-occult-creepiness oooooOOOOOooooooOOOOOO (imagine that in my best ghost voice) would get tired after a bit. I liked the first book the best and they go downhill from there. I just kept thinking if Elena is so magical and special why can't the fight just end. The solution to every problem is Elena developing a magical new power that if she had just had in the first place would have prevented all the problems. None of the books give any closure to the storylines; just a temporary calming down. There is always a new creepy supernatural danger out there. I really didn't like that it was neverending. After a while it just feels like the author is looking to make money not to tell a story (I think that is author code for "please buy my next book!"). When I read that the most recent volume in the story was written in the wake of Twimania after a near 10 year hiatus I had that hypothesis confirmed. I came incredibly close to not reading the last one. The books do really start to drag but I am pretty compulsive about finishing things that I start reading (especially things that I spent money on).

Accidentally Dead, Dakota Cassidy

All by my lonesome for much too long over the weekend I read this on Sunday afternoon. I liked the continuation of the characters from the The Accidental Werewolf but I felt like there was more skankiness in this one. There was skankiness in the first book but it was easier to just "la, la, la, turn the page" without really reading the icky details. Icky details stood out more in this one but I still enjoyed the characters and the clever storyline. I just wish that these stories could have been written without the ick. But I realize the ick is what some people are reading them for, I'm just not that reader. Also I love the covers and think they are very cute. Clearly an important factor in loneliness inspired weekend chick lit reading.

The Accidental Werewolf, Dakota Cassidy

This was fluffy and fun and good to read at the end of a day when a little girl in my class accidentally dumped a container of watered down glitter glue all over me and I got to spend the whole day at school with dried glue covering one side of my pants and into my shoe. Not much else to say.

A Reliable Wife, Robert Goolrick

I first read about this on the Library Things Early Reviewers page and then kept seeing it compared to Wuthering Heights & Rebecca. That was enough to make me want to read it. I went into it expecting shades of gothic novels with some romance thrown in. What I got was mostly characters thinking about sex, wishing they were having sex, or actually having sex. Which just isn't what I want to read about.

Things I liked: the cover design, the premise (I'm always interested in mail order bride stories), and the following quote:

"Love and money. She could not believe that her life, as barren and as aimless as it had been, would end without either love or money. She could not, would not accept that as a fact, because to accept it now would mean that the end had already come and gone.

She was determined, cold as steel. She would not live without at least some portion of the two things she knew were necessary as a minimum to sustain life. She had spent her years believing that they would come, in time. She believed an angel would come down from heaven and bless her with riches as she had been blessed with beauty. She believed in the miraculous. Or she had, until she reached an age when, all of a sudden, she realized that the life she was living was, in fact, her life." (p.19)

Overall I was disappointed in this book but I think it was because I went in with such high expectations. Comparisons to Wuthering Heights and Rebecca are way over the top for this one. I was also reminded of The Thirteenth Tale which I did enjoy tremendously. The Thirteenth Tale fulfilled my expectations and the many gothic comparisons it received in reviews. I wonder if there are any other modern gothic books out there that aren't super creep/graphic/etc.

Outlander, Diana Gabaldon

What can I say about this- Outlander is a book that I love to hate; a book that I end up despising myself for reading (which is not what I'm looking for in recreational reading).

I first read Outlander a few summers ago after seeing it mentioned on a Catholic blog (seriously!). I got it from the library and had no idea what I was getting into (skank-wise and lame-wise) and then bought & read the entire series compusively with that Twilight-esque need to know how things end. The problem is (besides the skank fest) is that the books get more and more ridiculous as the (thousands) of pages keep flying by. In fact, I think Diana Gabaldon is still writing this series as I type this.

I got so angry when the story took a massive turn for the stupid that I gave all my books to Goodwill. Then a year later Outlander popped back into my mind (I'd had a cooling off period I guess) so I rebought a copy. Then the same thing happened again. I was disgusted with myself (and with Diana Gabaldon) and threw the book away. Well guess what I bought over the weekend... my 3rd copy of Outlander.

At least now I have learned my lesson- yes the book is completely lame but I'm not throwing it away! I will not add to Diana Gabaldon's massive royalties. Truly the Outlander series is like Twilight for the middle aged only grosser. Except that deep down I like Twilight and it doesn't make me feel bad about myself (just silly and in touch with my inner 13 year old) which I can't say about Outlander. So for now I will just stow my copy and try to develop more high brow tastes.