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

Caribbean Encounter Kay Thorpe Harlequin Presents

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Kay Thorpe writes with plenty of verve and imagination, she combines setting and plot and character with good pacing and writing to create novels I almost always love to read. Caribbean Encounter is very good but I had a hard time liking the people and the revenge element.

Alex had almost been in love with Ian when he told her he was married; she, shocked and only wanting to get away, joined the ship Andromeda as a singer to escape. Clay is the cruise director and is Ian’s brother in law and he knows all about Alex. Except he doesn’t know, not the truth. He thinks Alex is one step up from a tramp and out to catch a rich husband. He warns her off the crew and warns her off the kind, older man who spends time with her. Clay sets himself up as the all-in-one arbiter, determined to punish Alex for chasing his brother-in-law.

The weakest part of the story is that Alex falls hard for Clay almost immediately, realizing how she feels when Clay’s attitude badly hurts her. Anyone would want to clear their name in this situation, especially with a nominal boss, but Alex doesn’t tell Clay anything, wanting him to realize based on her actions that she’s not a man chaser.

I have a very hard time with the whole you’re-a-bad-person-so-I’m-going-to-punish-you schtick. Sure Clay can judge Alex, although it’s a weakness to judge based solely on second hand accusations, but to be so self-righteous to think it’s his job to hold her accountable? I don’t get it. It’s normal to want someone will reap what they sow but it’s wrong to take delight in it or to be the instrument of vengeance oneself.

The romance is a bit weak. It just happened. Both characters are attracted to each other even though neither wants to be, and most of their interactions are each trying to get by the other. I didn’t feel love building as much as physical attraction compounded with being frustrated with themselves for caring about someone they distrust.

Minor characters range from barely there to also well-developed, with the exception of Clay’s sister, a self-entitled, vindictive brat stock character. Glenn, the older man who spends time with Alex (leading Clay to assume Alex is after a rich husband. Sigh.) gets short shrift. Alex sees him as delightful but someone who truly wants their dead wife or facsimile, and not someone that she would want to marry. Pretty insightful and a good plot device to use a foil to Clay to show Alex’s judgement and integrity.

It’s a tribute to Kay Thorpe’s skill building characters, setting and plot that we can read right through events we don’t like and still enjoy the story.

Thorpe set the cruise in the Caribbean, hopping from one port to another, islands and Venezuela’s capital Caracas, and Alex goes on several shore jaunts telling us about the magnificent beaches and hills and scenery. I enjoyed reading about places I’m not likely to visit. Thorpe shows us these through Alex’s eyes and we experience the sunny beaches and the Caracas hills through her vivid observations.

Overall Caribbean Encounter is a good book, I enjoyed reading it although the romance itself is somewhat lacking. The setting and good character development compensate, making this a strong

3 Stars.

I purchase my paperback copy in a lot on eBay and you might look there or on Thriftbooks as well as Amazon for used copies. There isn’t an E version other than the pdf available on Archive.org.

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One Stolen Moment – Rosemary Hammond Harlequin Presents

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I’m not sure how One Stolen Moment got into the Harlequin Presents imprint because nothing much happens and the romance is barely there. Claudia is at her brother’s home recovering from a serious car crash that left her unable to walk before months of intensive therapy. She had been a prima ballerina until the accident and now she can never dance again; she limps. Julian is an widower artist living near her brother’s home and has a daughter.

Claudia and Julian are immensely attracted to each other but he is emotionally crippled from his wife’s death in a car crash and not willing to consider any long term commitment to a woman who is crippled physically. In fact he rejects Claudia.

The story proceeds along with Claudia making friends with Julian’s daughter, while a former co-worker at her dance company drives up to Seattle to court her. (Just once I’d like the nice guy to win and not the jerk.) Julian and Claudia try to avoid each other but finally they end up in bed together, leading Claudia to see a future together for oh, about 5 minutes. She walks out of the bedroom into the kitchen to find Julian and his voluptuous agent Sharon together and obviously more than fond of each other. Of course eventually they get the problems cleared up, the hopeful other man and other woman disappear and Julian and Claudia plan to marry.

One Stolen Moment is SLOW. Glacial. Ponderous. Boring. I didn’t much see any reason for the two people to fall in love, much less fall into bed and then marry, nor is the plot at all interesting. Romance and characters are not compelling.

Author Rosemary Hammond makes her settings come alive (too bad the characters don’t) and we can almost feel the grassy farmland on the San Juan island, see the foggy mornings. She writes good descriptions of people and how they act, how they dress, she just doesn’t have a good set of characters or plot to work with here.

Overall One Stolen Moment is 2 Stars, readable but nothing at all special and nothing to make me want to reread it.

I purchased my paperback copy on eBay, where you will usually find copies of this author’s novels, and it is also available on Amazon and Thriftbooks in paperback format.

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Bittersweet Revenge Rosemary Hammond Harlequin Presents

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Yes, another revenge romance. And this revenge is particularly stupid, which is a shame because the rest of the story is quite good. Ten years ago Val and David had been high school best buddies, dating and falling in love. The year she was a senior, Val’s parents died in a drunk driving car crash and Val left the small California town to live near Seattle with her aunt. Val knew David drank too and had become concerned with it, and after her parents died she was unwilling to continue in any romance with David.

Now, 10 years on, Val is back for her high school reunion and has a good heart to heart with David before he leaves the party, drinks and dies in a car accident. David’s brother Michael, a successful cardiologist, blames Val for this because she broke David’s heart 10 years ago. Oh, give me a break! What sort of brother would expect any 17 year old girl to remain in love once she moves away after her folks die and she doesn’t see the guy any more? And what sort of brother would blame her for dumping the guy when he consistently drinks too much, especially when her folks died due to drinking? And who would be anything but glad that his alcoholic 17 year old brother wasn’t planning marriage??

But Michael did blame Val. It was her fault David drank for the last 10 years, and obviously she must have upset him so much at the reunion that he drove off drunk. Clearly Val is responsible and clearly she must PAY!

The whole revenge thing makes no sense whatsoever. It’s a darn shame Hammond included it because it detracts from an otherwise solid romance.

Val and Michael have chemistry plus similar interest plus genuine liking going for them, and Michael decides to forego his seduction/dump revenge but unfortunately for them both, Val finds out his plans after they sleep together and before he tells her that he’s moving to Seattle where she lives. Val can’t quite believe that he intended to tell her and based on his earlier accusations figures he is lying now and had planned revenge all along.

Incidentally, what is with the whole seduction-as-revenge thing anyway?? Does it make any sense to you that a guy who believes he’s top of the walk and perfectly positioned to be judge, jury and executioner, would decide that he wants to sleep with a woman he despises? No? It doesn’t make sense to me either. Plus the idea of turning lovemaking into punishment is icky.

Hammond creates good characters including Val’s best friend and employee, and the Other Woman and Other Man, neither of whom have much to do with the story aside from causing worry and concern. The dialogue is good and Hammond uses dialogue with internal musings to move the story along and give us glimpses of Val’s feelings and hurt. She tells the story entirely from Val’s point of view so we see MIchael only as Val sees him, an ever-evolving portrait.

Hammond writes reasonably well. I had a hard time getting through this novel but that’s because I couldn’t get past the idiocy of wanting revenge for a high school romance gone bad, especially when there were excellent reasons for the romance to end and it wasn’t Michael’s romance anyway. The pacing is a little slow and there isn’t a ton of plot here.

Overall Bittersweet Revenge is good, a solid entry in the Harlequin Presents Romantic Revenge category, but it’s not great and I found it slow. Let’s be generous and round up to

3 Stars.

I got my copy from eBay, where you often can find Harlequins in good condiiton, and Thriftbooks and Amazon both have the print version. Bittersweet Revenge is not available now in E format. I didn’t see it on Archive.org.

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Bought for Marriage Harlequin Presesnts Romance by Margaret Mayo

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This is not a good book. The writing style is juvenile with go-nowhere dialogue and short, choppy sentences and little to no description, no setting and poor characterization. I did not believe the romance.

The novel has a lot of sex scenes and some are explicit. Outside of sleeping together the hero and heroine have little connection – there is a mention of her enjoying his company but that’s it – and there is virtually no sense of them becoming a family or caring about each other.

The plot is Harlequin Presents goofy la-la. She’s half Greek, half English and her Greek dad used devious methods to keep her with him while growing up. Now she’s grown up and still lives with Dad and works for him too, even though she knows he’s a pretty bad egg, mean and selfish to the bone. Good ol’ dad is going bankrupt so like any good smart dad sends his gorgeous virginal daughter to ask his dearest enemy for a bazillion dollars (or Euros as the case may be) and just as any dear enemy would do, our hero takes one look at gorgeous lady and says sure thing, sweetums, but you gotta marry me too. One thing progresses after another, all in this same vein.

So the story lacks any depth or believablility, the characters are 2-dimensional at best, there’s too much kissing and not enough caring, we never see or read much about the lovely Greek locations (aside from noting gardens exist) and the writing style is aimed at mid teens. Other than that this is a lovely novel.

So why am I reviewing it when I’ve a stack of others that I’ve left high marks on Good reads? For one thing I almost liked this the first time I read it, about 6 months ago, and gave it 3 stars on Goodreads, which is funny because I recalled it as not good at all and have avoided Margaret Mayo ever since. For another, Bought for Marriage is part of the Forced to Marry Harlequin E book bundle which I purchased and I try to review what I buy. (I’m behind over 60 books but who’s counting.)

I recommend you avoid this novel unless you are really tired and really bored and just want something fluffy to keep you going for a couple of hours.

2 Stars / 1+ Star

I read this first as a standalone pdf on Archive.org. Amazon has the Forced to Marry bundle in Kindle and the standalone novel Bought for Marriage is available on Kindle or, more expensively, in hardback or paperback.

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Taken Over by Penny Jordan

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I like books about people, books that have an emotional connection among the characters and to me. Too often romance novels are sex scenes draped with a thin plot and characters who don’t feel real. I finished Betty Neels’ romances and have looked for more romance authors who create people to care about.

Taken Over is the first Penny Jordan novel I read and the reason I am reading my way through our library’s digital editions of her books. She is unlike Betty Neels in many ways, writing much racier stories with far more emotional turmoil and many of her heroines are fearful and unwilling to take a venture. However some Jordan novels are quite good, rich in emotional content and with the same sense of immediacy and presence that I love in Betty Neels.

Taken Over tells us about Cassie, a brilliant lady who used her math skills and imagination to write top computer games (this takes place over 30 years ago so the terminology differs) and leveraged this into a small, innovative and profitable company. Now she fears her firm is ripe for a takeover. (We aren’t told why/how someone could take it over without her consent but then Taken Over is a romance, not a business text.)

Joel Howard approaches Cassie with a buyout offer and a lot of attitude. He is rich, good looking and used to beautiful ladies wanting him and Cassie wears drab clothes and hunches. He’s snarky and scary so Cassie rejects Joel’s offer and in fact looks for an alliance with a rival firm, whose owner just happens to have an unmarried son willing to marry Cassie in order to secure her company. Not wanting his company to fall to number 3 in the games industry, Joel kidnaps Cassie and forces her to marry him.

Things proceed with plenty of tension as Cassie and Joel fight their own physical and emotional attraction to each other. There are plenty of conflicts. Cassie and Joel don’t want to fall in love, don’t even want to like each other. Joel is insulting and crude yet somehow still caring and Cassie’s danger bells aren’t enough to warn her to keep away. We readers get to follow along and it is an enjoyable ride.

The turning point is Joel’s estranged mother shows up and sweeps Cassie back with her to Florence, where mom plays fairy godmother and teaches Cassie how to dress and present herself. Turns out that Cassie looks pretty good when she’s not wearing beige or hunching! Joel arrives under pretext of stepdad’s birthday party and takes Cassie home. He wants her to hostess a cocktail party for him. Hmmm.

Joel comes home with a migrane and Cassie helps him with it and then end up making love. Like most Penny Jordan heroines she’s too unsure of herself to believe Joel actually meant to make love with her or that he cares about her or wants her. And also like most PJ heroines she’s too proud to hear Joel say anything demeaning and she plows ahead, telling him she didn’t mean anything, blah blah blah. Both are miserable and once the cocktail party makes it clear that Joel no longer has to worry about financing Cassie decides to leave before he kicks her out.

Once more mom-in-law makes a fortuitious appearance and plays good fairy and finally Cassie and Joel fess up to themselves and to each other.

On the good side Taken Over has:

  • Strong characters who are most appealing and likeable
  • A heroine who is extremely smart and uses her brains to help herself
  • A believable and flawed hero
  • Enjoyable side characters, especially good fairy mom-in-law
  • A bit of a Cinderella flavor which I am a sucker for
  • A marriage of convenience that plays off against a strong, but unacknowledged sexual attraction. (I love love love MOC novels with tension between the spouses.)
  • Beautiful descriptions of settings in English country home, London and Florence
  • A great kidnapping move
  • Excellent, believable romance

On the down side Taken Over has a heroine whose tortuous lack of confidence got a bit annoying to read about and who’s awfully quick to get her licks in first after they sleep together. (This by the way is a standard Penny Jordan moment, which I didn’t know until I read more of her books.)

4 Stars

Taken Over is available in E format on Kindle and via Glose from Harlequin. Amazon and Thriftbooks have the paperback version and you can read it for free on Archive.org

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The Forced Marriage by Sara Craven – Revenge Romance

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The Forced Marriage features an outstanding romance between Flora and Marco plus some funny lines, lots of emotion, a wonderful grovel and good side characters. The downside is that this is a revenge romance although neither we nor Flora realize it until about two-thirds through the story.

Marco is rich and drop dead sexy gorgeous and he just rescued Flora from a mugger. Things proceed from here…

Flora is engaged to nice, safe Christopher but she’s starting to wonder whether this is a good idea. You see, Flora is not particularly attracted to Chris and manages to avoid sleeping with him despite him pressing her. Flora’s best friend Hester chides her and challenges her to think this through: Should she marry a man she’s lukewarm about? A man whose main attraction is safety and security? Plus Chris hasn’t been quite the same since he returned from a Caribbean holiday.

On the other hand Flora’s mom likes Chris and Flora’s sister wants her obnoxious son to wear a page boy suit and be a ring bearer at the wedding. And Chris claims to want to marry her. What’s a girl to do?

Answer: Sleep with the warm and loving guy who beat off a mugger. Then run off to Italy with him and live in his spiffy country home, send Chris back his ring, tell Mom and sis to tough it out. Things proceed some more. Now Flora and – apparently Marco – are deeply in love and Flora is sexually entranced by him and thanking her stars she didn’t marry Chris.

Dum-da-dum-dum. Marco goes away for business, leaving Flora behind, ripe for his godmother’s nephew to wreck nasty mischief. Godmom’s evil nephew drags Flora off to see the godmother – who is the evil fairy, not the good one – and godmother informs Flora the whole thing was a set up. Marco was taking revenge on Chris and incidentally on Flora because Chris had a fling with godmother’s niece Ottavia with whom Marco had been engaged and left the niece miserable, high and dry. Marco didn’t give a rip about losing Ottavia but his godmother nagged him and nagged him to seek revenge.

Here’s where this great romance leaves me cold. I can dimly see why someone – preferably Ottavia herself or possibly her brother – might want payback from Chris for leading her on, promising marriage then disappearing – but at what point does this affect Marco? Instead of telling Ottavia to grow up, that holiday flings are notoriously short of permanence, to be responsible for her own behavior, Marco agrees to go along with the scheme.

It gets even sicker. Flora had been engaged to Chris when Chris was flinging with Ottavia, and that makes Flora the injured party, not Ottavia. But no! Ottavia is injured because Chris preferred Flora. Cockeyed logic to me. Dopey.

GRRR! At this point I’d seriously consider taking Marco and tossing him over the villa wall! Flora comes close. Evil godmother has a nice plane ticket for Flora – after all she doesn’t really want to stick around and talk to Marco before decamping in high dungeon, does she? – and Flora goes back to London, to fatigue and yep, morning sickness.

Flora truly loves Marco and even after discovering his rat-ness longs to be with him, misses him, would happily go back, but she believed Bad Godmother’s unsaid story too, that Marco never loved her. In fact Marco did and does still love her and comes for Flora, to ask her to marry him. In fact he says he was coming back to his villa to fess up and offer marriage the afternoon evil godmom spilled the beans. Flora tells him off and kicks him out, but not to fear, the proverbial phone call plot twist intervenes and Marco learns he’s a daddy-to-be. Now he insists on marriage, thus the title, The Forced Marriage.

Flora goes along with it, heart broken by Marco’s deception and miserable. She adopts a stray mutt, leading to more lighthearted moments that lift our spirits (and Flora’s) during this time of sadness and mourning for lost love.

Since this is a Harlequin our happy-ever-after is guaranteed – good! – and eventually both spouses learn to trust each other and in their love.

What I liked:

  • Flora is strong-willed, perfectly happy to ignore Chris and her family, (even sister with the pageboy suit) and willing to cope with single parenthood if need be.
  • Flora truly loves Marco, Marco truly loves Flora; the romance is real.
  • Sara Craven includes lovely descriptions of the Italian setting along with the grittier London flats.
  • Marco grovel is sincere and heartfelt.
  • Evil Godmother doesn’t come to a sticky end but she does get turned out of Marco’s island and life
  • The emotions are strong and feel real and Sara Craven builds a sense of immediacy, it is as though we are there, participating, not watching.
  • There are some funny moments. I love how Flora’s stuck up sister whines about who will pay for the pageboy suit that Flora never wanted to see anyone wear, much less her obnoxious nephew.
  • Flora’s best friend Hester is great. Sara Craven uses dialogue between the two to explain some events and thoughts but Hester is a character all her own, not a plot device.

What I don’t like:

  • Did I mention this is partly a revenge plot? OK, it is a revenge-that-backfired plot, but still. I detest this revenge stuff and I don’t see how it can motivate such behavior.
  • Flora never points out to Marco or anyone else that she is the injured party – twice in fact – not Ottavia.
  • Flora flees Italy without talking to Marco because she believes the nasty stuff from evil godmom.

4 Stars. Would be close to 5 stars if not for the ridiculous revenge motivation.

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Amazon has The Forced Marriage in print version as does Thriftbooks and Archive.org has the pdf of the book.

Dark Remembrance by Daphne Clair

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Daphne Clair always writes novels with plenty of emotion, connecting readers to her story as she develops connections among the characters. From reviews on Goodreads, readers either love Dark Remembrance or hate it, some citing the thread of violence that underlies Logan’s pursuit of Raina as a reason to hate the story and others citing Raina’s deliberate denial of any feelings for Logan as a reason to dislike her and the book. I liked it quite a bit despite both.

Logan’s best friend, Perry, had left Raina a widow with small child when he took one too many chances when flying. Perry always expected Logan to take care of Raina in his absence, despite knowing that Logan was fiercely attracted to Raina. Now with Perry gone Logan is taking steps to make Raina his wife, and finally Raina accepts after sitting up all night with son Danny who’s sick with whooping cough. (??? We’ve had vaccinations for whooping cough for years! But this is Harlequin where medical facts don’t always drive the story.) Anyway the little boy is sick all night, Riana is exhausted and she knows Logan is right when he insists that both Raina and Danny need him.

The rest of the story is how Raina deals with her own, long-suppressed desire for Logan, how she comes to love him and how she eventually forces them both to admit to love.

There is some light violence in Dark Remembrance. Logan is forceful and pushes Raina into marriage and on their wedding night he goes ahead even when she does turns off after he says something stupid. Later he admits he thought about forcing her, but decided that he couldn’t live with himself if he raped her. He’s a man who’s been in love with someone unattainable – his best friend’s wife – for four years and he’s nearly desperate with longing and wanting, and her constant rejection is tearing him apart.

Raina is attracted to Logan, but she’s scared to admit that she was attracted even when her husband was alive, and cloaked it behind animosity. Logan said it best, that he hated that she was so loyal to her dead husband but he honored her for it too. She decides to marry Logan for her son’s benefit, reluctant to admit she wants to marry him for herself too. Raina is torn between loyalty to her dead husband, love for her son, attraction and caring for Logan.

Over the course of a couple months of marriage Logan courts Raina, softly and steadily convincing her to give him and their feelings for each other a chance. She decides to go see him at work and have it out in the open, but when she arrives Raina can see Logan and his secretary Angela embrace through the frosted glass door. Of course she runs back to the car and tears away, earning a speeding ticket. After that Raina is colder and less caring, less open, and when she hears Logan and Angela at a party she assumes they are having an affair. She is hurt and angry and that helps her realize that yes, she loves Logan. But now she thinks he stopped loving her.

Raina’s young son Danny is part of the glue that tugs them together since they have to be friends in front of him, and of course, both adults love the boy. The two are committed to staying together, keep stumbling towards some sort of emotional rendezvous, and eventually reach their loving happiness.

Daphne Clair writes with so much love for her New Zealand countryside and cities that it makes me want to go there. Dark Remembrance is less of a travelogue than some of her novels; this time she shows us a few places, quiet lakes, lovely beaches, busy cities, mountains, although without the loving detail she provides in other novels.

4 Stars

I read this in on Archive.org and Amazon and Thriftbooks both have paperback copies available as of mid-November 2020.

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