More Books than Time

Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Evidence of Sin – English Romance by Catherine George

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Ever since I finished reading all Betty Neels’ romance novels I’ve been looking for another author whose books I could enjoy as much as I have the great Betty’s. Catherine George writes novels quite different from Betty’s; there are no rich Dutch doctors; the girls are independent; the protagonists sleep together, usually before marriage and the characters all assume this is normal. More important are the similarities. Both authors create characters that feel real, with immediate situations that are personal, not remote (even when unlikely), and both use setting, food and clothes to enhance their stories.

Evidence of Sin sounds terrible and the cover doesn’t help, does it? It is actually one of the best of the 8 Catherine George novels I read in the last week or two. Chloe Lawrence is gorgeous, tall, red hair, lovely figure, great bone structure; in fact she worked as a top model for several years. Now she’s living at home in the country while working as a PA for a pharmaceutical firm. Piers Audley is very successful lawyer, well-known for defending high-profile clients.

Piers finds Chloe grief stricken outside her home on New Years eve when she finally accepts her love is futile at the double engagement party for her brother and sister. Piers is intrigued although it’s too dark to see her, then gobsmacked when he meets her later indoors. He is determined to sleep with her, eventually admitting he wants more, he wants to marry her. Things go swimmingly for a while, until her sister’s wedding when Piers finds Chloe locked in the arms of her love and he also doesn’t know that Chloe was struggling to get away and that she now realizes she loves Piers.

This is the conflict. Will Piers eventually listen to Chloe? Possibly not. Things get straightened out pretty fast when a kidnapper grabs Chloe for ransom. (Yes, the plot is far fetched. Relax.) Chloe rescues herself. Tears, kisses, declarations of love, peace offerings ensue.

Given the plot’s silliness why did I like this so much? (Yes, Betty Neels’ novels often have silly plots too. Most romance novels do.) I’m not sure exactly but here’s a short list:

  • Chloe is independent. She’s no one’s doormat and she’s mightily offended when Piers acts like he owns her.
  • Chloe feels like someone I could like, despite her figure and looks!
  • Piers is a bit too pushy in terms of expecting sexual relations for my taste, but he cares about Chloe and shows her he is attracted to more than her looks.
  • I like the family dynamics. Even the hero-worship for the big stepbrother feels real.
  • Chloe views her modelling work as just that, a job, and is delighted to leave it when she has saved enough money. She never let her celebrity affect her common sense.
  • Author George put the situations and people together in a way that we care about them. Somehow they feel right in front of me, not something distant I’m viewing on a stage. I don’t know exactly how some authors do this, but if you pay attention to books you like vs. those you don’t, I expect you’ll see the same thing. Successful books put the people right there with you.

Evidence of Sin is a romance novel, meant to entertain. It’s written well and as noted the characters are quite well done as are the settings and accouterments.

4 Stars

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After Glow – Paranormal Romance from Jayne Castle aka Jayne Krentz

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Jayne Castle wrote After Glow as an immediate sequel to After Dark, both taking place on the planet Harmony in the alien cities that overflow with psi and para energy. After Dark can stand alone although it’s best to read After Glow second to understand the back story and setting.

Once again Lydia Smith finds a dead body, this time Professor Maltby a washed up para archaeologist turned drug addict. Professor Maltby told Lydia he had information about her lost weekend, but the only clue Lydia and her lover Emmett London could find is an old article about a student who also got lost in the catacombs.

There are several sex scenes, about 2-3 pages long, no blasphemy and virtually no vulgarity. Overall I recommend this if you enjoy romance/suspense set in unique worlds.

There are two main plots, Lydia digging into whatever Maltby wanted her to know, and Lydia intervening to keep Emmett from being challenged to a ghost hunter duel. Just as I found with After Dark, the plots and characters in After Glow and the other Harmony novels tend to blur together. The books are entertaining because Castle did a wonderful job building her world of Harmony.

4 Stars

After Dark – Paranormal Suspense by Jayne Castle aka Jayne Krentz

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Jayne Krentz creates an entire world, Harmony, in the novels she writes as Jayne Castle. Harmony is a different planet, one that has been cut off from Earth for 200 years, and one that is full of psi-drenched alien artifacts.

Lydia Smith is a para-archaeologist who was forced from her university position after having spent a weekend lost underground in the disorienting and terrifying alien catacombs. She isn’t crazy or unstable although most people who get lost in the catacombs that never recover. Lydia now works as the curator at a 3rd rate museum, Shrimpton’s House of Ancient Horrors. After Dark begins when Lydia finds a semi-friendly rival Chester Brady dead in an alien sarcophagus while meeting her new client, Emmett London.

The novel has many twists and turns with an intricate plot and subplots, and engaging characters. I find I can’t recall the plot after a few weeks and the characters tend to merge into Krentz/Castle’s generic para-powerful romance leads. The real winner is Harmony; we can almost see and feel the green glowing dead cities above and below ground.

Lydia and Emmett both distrust the other. Lydia distrusts Guild ghost hunters and Emmett thinks Lydia may be involved in his nephew’s disappearance. They must work together to stay alive, to find his nephew and to find who killed Chester and why. After Dark explores how each responds to the other, first with almost overwhelming sexual attraction, then with respect and liking and trust.

After Dark has some semi-explicit sex scenes, almost no vulgarity and no blasphemy. Each sex scene lasts about 3 pages so readers can skip through if they so choose.

I read After Dark about every 3 years or so. The plot tends to slip out of my mind rather quickly as do the individual characters. But I always remember the alien city. Harmony is fascinating.

4 Stars

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Endurance: The Complete Series by A. C. Spahn

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I did not expect to like Endurance: The Complete Series based on the Amazon blurb: “A disrespected ship, exiled to lonely patrol in the dark corners of the solar system. A crew of screw-ups, written off by the entire fleet. They’re about to change everything.”

Doesn’t that sound awful? Just like so many other really really space opera wanna-be novels? Actually Endurance was pretty easy to read and I mostly enjoyed it. As with almost all space opera you have to breeze right past the obvious plot holes and go along for the ride, enjoy the book for what it is and not expect either a science treatise or great literature.

Endurance is the name of the space ship and the story is the complete series because author Spahn wrote this as a set of vignettes, more like television episodes, each focusing on one or two of the quirky characters and each more or less resolving the situation within the episode. The format works because there are ongoing plot points that tie the individual stories together.

Overall I liked Endurance. It is a very fast read – think two hours or so – and I was glad it was free via Book Bub. The humor is inherent in the story and the characters, not forced ha-ha stuff. The Kindle version has a preview for Enchantress Under Cover by the same author which looks quite different and possibly worth checking out.

3 Stars

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The Fold by Peter Clines – Science Fiction Done Right

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Peter Clines takes a fascinating idea – instantaneous travel – adds a background setting of creeping dread, likable  characters, good dialogue and writing to make a fun novel, The Fold.  Lead character Mike Erikson teaches high school English but he’s not your typical teacher.  He’s brilliant and remembers everything, everything he ever saw, read, heard, felt, thought.

Mike’s old friend in DARPA asks him to check out a group DARPA funds that seemingly has incredible success, yet is frustratingly unwilling to take more steps or widen their discovery.  This friend wants to use the technology, called the Fold, to revolutionize travel if it works, or to stop the research funding if it does not.  Everyone says the Fold works, that it is perfectly safe.  Yet everyone on the project is uneasy and one previous investigator came out of his trip somewhat changed.

Mike learns the Fold actually doesn’t move you from point A to point B, but exchanges you with someone else in a very close alternate reality.  Oops.  And sometimes, if there are more people around, the alternate reality is not close at all.  After one researcher comes through the Fold with radiation burns that are at least a year old, the science team comes clean about what they have and how they developed it.  It is true Mad Science, based on the metaphysical ramblings and equations of a Victorian fruitcake.

Now Mike has a problem, because the Fold isn’t shutting down.  And it isn’t connecting anywhere benign either.

The plot is excellent.  We learn more about the characters throughout the story and author Peter Clines does a very good job with creating characters that we can relate to.  The primary hero, Mike, is amazingly smart, in fact a little too brilliant to be completely believable.  He comes in from outside the project, armed with his eidetic memory  and pattern skills and quickly understands the project.  It takes him some time and some inexplicable happenings to see the most likely rationale, an alternate world.  Once he does it’s obvious to everyone that the Fold offers great promise and even greater threat.

I did have a little problem visualizing the setting.  The scientists built the fold in a concrete building with several rooms.  The action takes place in a few of those rooms and in a couple of the alternate worlds.  It was the building that I had a hard time visualizing, but that is minor quibble.  (How exciting is a concrete building?)

Overall The Fold is entertaining, an enjoyable fast read.

4 Stars

Polar Vortex – Suspense in the Bitter Cold by Matthew Mather

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After the first few pages of Polar Vortex I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep reading.  A passenger plane has crashed somewhere in the Arctic and the National Transportation Safety Board has nothing to go on.  No transponder signals, no broadcasts, no mayday, no locator transmissions.  “So a Boeing 777 with three hundred seventy-eight souls disappears over the North Pole and all we have is that?”  “That” is a journal handwritten by a passenger, Mitch Matthews.  I dreaded reading how Mitch and the rest ended up dead, lost in a sea of ice.

I did keep reading and got caught up with Mitch, his 5 year old daughter Lily, and the other passengers.  They survive the crash, but are in the Arctic with summer clothes, minimal food and water, no heat or power.  The cover shows Mitch and Lily looking at a blaze of color and light.  Did the passengers disappear into some fantasy or science fiction rip in space?  Did they all starve and freeze?  Somehow Mitch’s journal survives, did Mitch or Lily or anyone else make it?

Author Mather has created a compelling story of love, hardship, endurance, all while we readers believe most end up dead.  Somehow the story and the people reach in and grabbed me, kept me reading despite dreading the end.  The characters tell the story in how they act and how they work together to survive, how Mitch works to keep Lily and young boy Jang alive, how they eventually end the story.

There is a villain and there is a reason.  I guessed right on the reason and had no idea about the villain.  Mather made him credible to his victims and to us readers all the way through his novel.  Excellent job of developing a compelling, addictive story.

Pacing Problem

The writing is good, with a few pacing problems and some confusing motivations.  About 35% of the way through the book drags for a bit, as not much is happening and the passengers have not yet coalesced.  This slow spot doesn’t last long, and ends when we hit the next problem, the confusing section.

Less-Believable Plot Points

Some erstwhile rescuers reach the plane, give out warm survival suits, even child size ones to the two kids, and some food.  No one is quite sure about these newcomers as they claim to be Finnish marines, but the passengers know they aren’t anywhere near Finland and the others don’t seem to be speaking Finnish.  It doesn’t add up but everyone is exhausted, cold and hungry and isn’t about to look a gift rescue in the teeth.  At least not until the rescuers start shooting.  All the surviving passengers jump into one of the rescue Zodiac boats and leave.  That is the hinge point of the story and I didn’t buy it.

Granted no one is thinking clearly, even so, it’s hard to see why people starving in the middle of the Arctic would leave rescuers to hop in a tiny boat to seek their own way home.  The rescuers indeed seem untrustworthy and make everyone uneasy, but if they were simply going to kill everyone, then why not do it immediately, not feed and clothe them first.  In any case the passengers do agree on a path and proceed.

The other unbelievable point is that Mitch was able to use a pen to record his journal right to the end, in blinding snow and wind, in 50 below weather.

Summary

It is because the people are so compelling in their never-ending drive to survive the crash, to get home, to save the children that Polar Vortex will stay in my head for a long time.

4-5 Stars

A Spanish Honeymoon, Romance by Anne Weale

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I’ve been looking for romance authors who write books with interesting characters and a sense of immediacy and warmth, similar to my favorite Betty Neels. Anne Weale is another English author who wrote novels published from 1955 to about 2000, and like Betty Neels had a separate, successful career. Anne Weale is the pseudonym for Jay Blakeney, a reporter who also wrote as Andrea Blake. The first romance I read by her, A Marriage Has Been Arranged, was OK so I got a few of her other novels.

A Spanish Honeymoon features a likable leading lady, Liz, and her new neighbor, the glamorous reporter Cam. Liz is a widow. She married very young and her husband has been dead for 4 years; now she lives in a small Spanish town and earns her living as a needlework designer. Cam is about ready to settle down and finds Liz delightful.

A Spanish Honeymoon has some good points: The descriptions of small Spanish towns feels real and attractive, Liz is independent in mind and approach. On the less appealing side Cam gives a couple lectures about current social views, e.g., shouldn’t spend money on this or that but give to the poor, atheist, water policies. Even one of these is a bit jarring in a romance.

Liz had 13 years of unenjoyable lovemaking in her first marriage and this causes the main conflict in the novel, will she be able to have a satisfying physical relationship with her new husband.

My biggest issue with this novel is the focus on sex and the expectation that people should sleep together before marriage. Our heroine feels there is something wrong with her that she is not sleeping around. Look, just because many, or even most people, do sleep together before marriage does not mean it is right, wise or required.

Nonetheless, I did finish the novel and found it worth 3 Stars. Be aware there are some semi-explicit scenes.

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Mission: Nemesis (Survival Wars Book 7) By Anthony James

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Mission: Nemisis is the final book in James’ Survival series, a story about humans fighting for their lives against two advanced alien races. Captain James Duggan has helped humans make peace and ally with the first race, the Ghasts. Now he leads the joint effort against the far deadlier threat, the Dreamers.

Captain Duggan leads because he is effective. His superiors continue to throw ever-harder missions at him, and this one is the hardest and riskiest yet. Captain Duggan is to destroy the wormhole that allows the Dreamers to access our territories.

As is true with all 7 books in this series the novel is short, 276 pages, and a very fast read. It took me less than 3 hours to get through Mission: Nemisis. I would have far preferred the author to combine the 7 novels into 4 or 5. The very first novel in the Survival series stands alone but none of the others are self-contained. Each flows into the next with almost no segue pieces that would anchor readers who might have a lag between novels and need a bit of reminding of the preceding story.

Book 7 has a little more character development than do books 2-6, but read this for the plot and excitement.

4 Stars

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Guns of the Valpian (Survival Wars Book 6) by Anthony James

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This series remains a lot of fun, very fast paced with action-packed plots, even while it gets a bit less plausible with each installment. None the less, Guns of the Valpian has a great deal of appeal. It moves so fast that we can glide right over the impossible bits.

Captain John Duggan is trapped beyond the wormhole with his ship Crimson destroyed. He vows to his crew to bring them home. He organizes the crew to steal a Dreamer warship, manages to figure out how to work it, then manages to get past the blockading Dreamers and get back home.

If we want to poke holes in this there are plenty. Could a crew figure out an alien warship fast enough and well enough to fight off several enemy ships? Could the humans now on the alien ship, back in our home space, be able to send a message to their leadership? How would they know where to send such as message when the alien ship would not have our planets’ communication coordinates? And so on. It’s a tribute to author James’ style and ability that we don’t toss the book aside when we hit some of these less-viable plot points. Instead I kept reading and immediately purchased book 7 when finished.

4 Stars

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Terminus Gate (Survival Wars Book 5) by Anthony James

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You could read Terminus Gate and think author Anthony James really went overboard on this one, that he hit the point of scientific impossibility, that the story is imploding. Or you could read the story as a story, not as a scientific treatise, and enjoy the world building, characters and sheer deluge of action. Do the second. Read and enjoy.

The murderous Dreamer aliens invade humanity and Ghast space via the Helius Blackstar, a wormhole that leads from Dreamer territory to ours. Neither the Ghast nor humans understand the wormhole or know where the other side is located in our galaxy, but both do know that they are fighting a defensive war against a much-advanced enemy. The human Confederation and the Ghast agree to send a joint expedition through the wormhole to scout Dreamer space. Of course our favorite hero and crew get the assignment.

As with the prior novels there are enormous plot holes. For example, how likely is it that we could figure out how to run an enemy warship? Or even bigger question, how could we transit a wormhole??

Nevertheless, try to ignore these impossible points and enjoy the read. Terminus Gate is as entertaining as all the prior novels and it has ratchets up the suspense and derring-do. If Captain Duggan and his crew do not succeed then the Dreamers will keep destroying whatever planets they choose for their minerals, whether someone lives there or not. And several of the Ghast and human planets have large, enticing mineral deposits that make them ideal targets for the Dreamers.

4 Stars

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