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

Handful of Stardust – Big Disappointment by Yvonne Whittal

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Yvonne Whittal writes romances with deliciously awful heroes we love to hate, plus a few good guys to leaven the mix. Handful of Stardust disappoints with a hero who alternates between blah, bland, bossy and icky. Quick synopsis of the plot first, then let’s look at why this left me cold.

Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

Samantha is 20 years old, quite lovely, lives with her widowed father and works as a typist. She is in love with Clive Wilmot, a very good looking, smooth talking charmer who wants two things: Sex and money. He’s not fussy, since Samantha has no money then she’s the target for an affair. Neither Sam’s dad nor her friend Gillian can stand Clive, they see he is using Sam and has no intention to marry her, and if they were to marry he would make her miserable with infidelity.

One evening Clive is being particularly importunate, wanting Sam to move in with him (he can’t afford a wife just now you see (which makes no sense)) and she excuses herself from the group to walk around the garden grounds of the posh hotel where they are eating. She runs into Brett who chats with her for a few minutes, wants her to go out with him the next evening. Sam is not thrilled with the invitation and declines. Brett is rich, much older and he definitely does not like Clive. She goes out anyway when Brett shows up at the door. Brett is manipulative.

They have a lovely evening and several more. Brett and Sam’s father spend quite a bit of time together and her dad approves of him. He proposes but Sam won’t even listen.

Clive has to go out of town for a few weeks and Sam wants to meet him at the airport when he returns. Brett offers to take her. They get to the airport quite early and Brett offers to take Sam up in his plane, promises to have her back in time to meet Clive, but he does not follow through. Instead Brett takes her to his somewhat remote farm, informs her that he and her father agreed that Sam should stay there until she can see reason about Clive and once more Brett proposes and once more Sam refuses.

Sam gets along with Aunt Emma and with Brett despite being furious with him for virtually kidnapping her. She attempts to escape twice and twice Brett forces her back to his home. Finally he makes a deal with her. If Brett can bring her proof that Clive is seeing another lady then she will marry him, if he cannot find proof then he will let her go. Foolishly Sam agrees. Of course Brett gets photographs of Clive with another lady, an apartment rented in the names of Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot and Sam marries him as promised.

Sam dreads the honeymoon but in fact they have a lovely time after Brett tells her he will wait for her. They get along once back home too, and although he makes it clear he wants more from her he does not push and Sam is reluctant to allow any intimacy. She’s got an idea that once she sleeps with Brett she won’t be able to not love him.

After two months Brett has a 2 week trip and gives Sam an ultimatum. He wants the complete marriage package and he expects her to reconcile herself to a sexual relationship on his return. Sam uses the two weeks to think carefully and clearly about him, about herself, about the future, about their marriage. She’s still not thrilled with being Brett’s wife but she knows she can fall in love with him if she lets herself. Once he gets home they do sleep together and Sam realizes she does in fact love Brett, that he’s pretty wonderful.

However, Sam does not know whether Brett loves her. He’s somewhat distant and once she gets pregnant doesn’t seem to find her enticing. Clive makes trouble, writes to Sam that Brett only married her because he needed an heir before 40 to keep his inheritance. Sam doesn’t tell Brett about the letter, makes herself miserable thinking about it. When she’s in the city by herself to shop for the baby’s nursery Clive shows up, tries to strong arm her into bed, Sam shoves him out.

When she gets home she finally asks Brett about Clive’s insinuations. They are partly true. If Brett does not have a child then his cousin’s son inherits, but only upon Brett’s death. Oh joy, kisses and HEA.

Why Doesn’t Handful of Stardust Work?

Brett is obnoxious, bossy, full of himself, not loving or warm towards Sam. He treats her more as a possession than as a beloved wife, a person. “Allow me to know what’s best for you.” is a typical Brett comment. (Time to get the big skillet out to smack him with!) There is no evidence that he cares for Sam. Wants to get her into his bed, yes. Wants to derail Clive, yes. Love? Honor? Trust? Respect? Not sure. Cherish, yes, but on his terms.

We learn at the end that Clive had chased Brett’s younger sister, got her pregnant, dumped her once he learned that Brett had zero intention to allow him to touch his sister’s money. Little sister deliberately ran her car off a cliff and Brett has a very good reason to hate Clive and to want to keep him from hurting another young girl.

Most of Whittal’s heroes are either deliciously awful (the yo-yo-ing hero in House of Mirrors), or just plain awful (The Devil’s Pawn) and a few are pretty nice (Where Seagulls Cry). This fellow in Stardust lacks any appeal.

Samantha seems colorless. She has enough spirit to attempt escape but she is easy for Brett to manipulate. She doesn’t have the common sense to see that Clive is a waste of air nor does she challenge Brett to explain why he obviously hates him. Sam isn’t a doormat, she is simply there, a body to push and pull and do things in the plot. Even her two weeks of self-examination seem disconnected from the character, it is simply something she does, not something she feels.

When she does decide she loves Brett she goes overboard, tells Aunt Emma that Brett has no flaws, lets herself be miserable because he doesn’t seem to love her, won’t ask him how he feels. She is more a nonentity than a lively character.

Clive is just a jerk. Aunt Emma is under Brett’s thumb and Sam’s father is a plot device.

There is a very big age gap; Sam is 20 and Brett is almost 40. Normally I read these and the age difference either doesn’t strike me as important or it is something that causes conflict. Handful of Stardust left me feeling eeewww. Brett calls Sam “child” especially before they marry, comments how small she is, how she is so beautiful, how she belongs to him. It made me feel as though he is attracted to young girls, knows that’s wrong, so sought out a lady who appears and is very young. Ick.

The book is boring with a doubtful romance and cheesy characters. The cover shows a very young girl smiling in front of a dark-haired man who looks like a smarmy casino operator. (I really did NOT LIKE this book!)

Overall

I had Handful of Stardust sitting around for months, read a page or two at a time, did not enjoy it.

2 Stars

I got my paperback copy from Thriftbooks. Amazon has it too here at this link.

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    His Mistress by Marriage by Lee Wilkinson

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    His Mistress by Marriage from Lee Wilkinson has a lousy title and a mediocre story. The main characters, Deborah and David, were engaged three years earlier before Deborah believed David was having an affair with her flat mate. She dumped him, claimed she wanted her fashion designer career more than him and left England for New York, all without asking David about it.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

    His Mistress by Marriage opens with Deborah and her new fiancé, her boss Gerald, driving through backroads England to visit her parents two weeks before their wedding. Deborah has not been home since she dumped David. Gerald is obnoxious, says right out that no one with any intelligence would live in a backwater like her folks do, and makes it clear he resents having to come over for the family visit. After all, Deborah must not be at all close to her family since she’s not been home and why should he have to waste time visiting unimportant people?

    Gerald’s nasty tone and comments disconcert Deborah as does the fact that no one in her family nor her New York friends think he’s a good match for her. Deborah dieted down to fashion model gauntness to catch Gerald’s eye and she lives a life full of high fashion to keep him. She has not slept with Gerald although she slept with David three years before.

    Gerald takes Deborah to California to see his parents the next week, and when they get back to New York he seems reluctant to take her home to her flat even though she is exhausted by the trip and asks him to skip dinner out. He takes her out anyway and drags his feet getting her home. We find the reason when she finally does return home.

    David is there, waiting impatiently for her. He tried to contact Deborah but when her office said she was out with Gerald, called him directly. Deborah’s brother Paul is badly injured from an accident, in a coma, his very pregnant wife had her baby a bit early, and the family needs Deborah to come home. She and Paul are close and they hope that she can reach him since his wife cannot spend much time with him. Deborah is furious that Gerald did not pass on the message. She informs David she would have been on the next flight had he told her.

    David uses his private jet to get them both back to England and to the hospital. Paul responds slightly when Deborah talks to him; even the tiny response gives hope. David takes her to the old family home where Paul and his family live now; David is staying there too. He makes lots of nasty comments about Deborah not caring, being hard, etc., etc., especially when Deborah asks who is running Paul’s company.

    Deborah is shocked to realize she still loves David, there is a lot of sexual chemistry between them too, and she figures that she probably cannot marry Gerald feeling as she does. But she’s not sure and intends to go home on the Friday, just in time for their wedding. Gerald is rather nasty on the phone, angry that she left him, angry that she had her friend call him, angry that she felt it necessary to go.

    Deborah is now leaning towards cancelling the wedding and wants to go back to New York to dump Gerald in person. David will have none of it. Instead of driving her to the airport as promised he takes her to the country house he bought when they had been engaged three years earlier. Now comes the blackmail. David is running Paul’s company and provided some interim financing to head off a take over. If Deborah leaves David will pull the plug. Deborah must stay in England as David’s mistress.

    Deborah doesn’t believe this since Paul’s wife is David’s sister, but she’s not going to chance a rebuff. And she wants to regain the love she and David had shared. Finally, after a couple days Deborah tells Paul the reason she dumped him. Claire, her best friend at the time said she was having an affair with David, was pregnant by him and Deborah saw her going into David’s room at Christmas and getting a great big embrace and kiss.

    David says nothing doing, he didn’t ever sleep with Claire, is not the dad and Claire staged the whole thing, threw herself at him and he threw her out but unfortunately Deborah was already back in her own room. He implores Deborah to trust him.

    They sleep together, David is loving but never says he loves her or forgives her. Deborah promises to never doubt him, to trust him. They go back to Paul’s house in London and Paul has to go out for a business meeting. By chance Deborah ends up in the same restaurant where she sees Claire with David, acting as intimately possessive as one can in a restaurant. Deborah goes for a very long walk in the freezing rain, decides David lied to her and that she’s leaving.

    She eventually gets back to Paul’s house where David gets her warm and puts her to bed. The next morning Deborah drops her bombshell. She knows David had and is still having an affair. David says OK, let’s go talk to Paul and tell him how awful I am.

    Oops. It was Paul who had the affair with Claire before he met his wife. He hadn’t told his wife for fear she would not forgive him and Claire has been blackmailing him since. Claire wants money for her son because neither her ex husband nor current lover will have the boy. Paul got the business in trouble trying to pay her off. Paul’s wife arrives and he tells her the whole sad story. His wife offers to adopt the little boy and David offers to talk to Claire’s sister who takes care of him.

    Deborah is sick. She doubted David and he’s pretty blunt that this was too much, he is done with her except for sex. She goes with him to Claire’s sister where they find the sister wants to adopt the little boy and is grateful when David offers to set up a small trust fund to help with the expenses. The little boy has brown eyes and both Paul and Claire have blue, thus the child is highly unlikely to be Paul’s son.

    David reiterates that he wants nothing from Deborah now except her body, they are done. She pleads with him, she promises never to doubt him again, tries to explain how damning it looked. Finally she gives up and starts to undress. David relents. She should not have to promise never to doubt, he should not give her any reason to. Kiss and Happy Ever After.

    Why Doesn’t His Mistress by Marriage Work?

    The ending does not satisfy. David goes from wanting to kick Deborah out to suddenly they are in love. Granted three years ago she was all-too-easily suspicious of him, but in her defense, the situation was suspicious and her supposed best friend was all-too-plausible. David made it easy for the wanna-be OW to plant seeds of doubt and suspicion.

    In the present time David made trouble for himself. He should have told Deborah that he was meeting with Claire and he could have asked her brother to explain the situation. Granted he is adamant that he never looked at Claire now or in the past but since he knows that Deborah has a wide jealous streak he could have avoided some trouble.

    Remember, David blackmails Deborah into staying with him, that is bound to anger her, and he never says anything about love. She never should have felt she had to promise never to doubt him, that’s a teenage thing, not what an adult does. Adults may doubt but they check and resolve, not have tantrums.

    Even those misunderstandings apart, this is not a satisfying story. The whole family is mixed up and it’s incredible that Paul was so eager to believe Claire’s son is his and never got a DNA test. David is all too eager to believe badly of Deborah the entire time and I was not feeling the love between them. I don’t give their happy-ever-after much chance.

    2 Stars

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    Cruel Conspiracy – by Helen Brooks, Revenge Romance Kinda Sorta

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    In Cruel Conspiracy Helen Brooks can’t make up her mind whether she has an office romance, a revenge romance, a travelogue, or a batter-her-down-with-overwork romance. It is not very successful.

    Normally I enjoy Helen Brooks’s romances; she writes quite well and her characters are engaging and the plots fun. This time she has a few fundamental flaws in her plot and the romance itself is not credible.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

    Aline Marcell’s 24 year old twin Tim embezzled from his employer, our hero Cord Lachoni who is in his late 30s. Knowing Cord and the police are on his trail Tim hides in Aline’s apartment while she is on vacation, and when she gets back Tim asks her to pick up some papers from his office. Of course Cord catches her, does not believe she was completely uninvolved, thinks she paid for her vacation with money she helped Tim steal. Aline is unable to prove she came by the funds honestly. (Plot Hole #1)

    Because Cord greatly values Aline’s uncle, a long term friend and employee, he will allow them to repay him by working for him however, where ever and whenever he wants, for room and board. He conscripts Aline, who is a school teacher, to go to the French town where he is setting up a new office and be his personal assistant and basically do all the dog work needed to get everything ready for Cord and his English employee contingent and the new French employees. (Plot Hole #2)

    Aline is working 50+ hours a week in very hot weather, presumably with no air conditioning, before Cord arrives, then once he comes she acts as his confidential assistant and translator setting up his new business. (Plot Hole #3)

    Cord’s French business partner has a glamorous daughter Claudia – and we all know what that means in a romance novel – yes, she had a short affair with Cord years ago and intends to pick it up again. Other Woman Claudia shows up uninvited at the office, makes nasty comments to Aline, hangs all over Cord, the usual OW tactics. Meanwhile, some of Aline’s coworkers act friendly and Cord takes great exception to this.

    There are the usual dinners, semi-seduction attempts, suggestive comments, more Claudia nastiness. Finally Cord holds an office get together barbeque at his enormous villa on the Mediterranean. At the barbeque Claudia tells Aline flat out that Cord and she are engaged. Aline walks away down the beach where Cord finds her, tells Aline that she danced with some friends solely to provoke him, that she knew “what it would do to him seeing other men touch her”. Aline asks Cord how can he try to make love to herself when he’s marrying Claudia? Cord does not deny the engagement.

    The next week a gloating, ecstatic Claudia and her father come to the office, and Cord calls in Aline. There is a document missing that someone cribbed from and handed to a competitor. Claudia is certain Aline is guilty and gloats that Cord will look like a fool when everyone finds out that a bit of a secretary did him in. Cord is gentle with Aline but she’s sure he blames her and blows up, tells him to stuff his job and leaves.

    Cord follows her home, tries to convince her to stay, threatens her and her brother, tries again to get her to sleep with him (he still hasn’t said whether he’s marrying Claudia), then gives her the funds for her fare back to London and tells her uncle and brother her flight so they can meet her. Later he calls to tell her that Claudia’s dad is hospitalized with a major heart attack and Claudia admitted to taking the document. (He still hasn’t said anything about marrying Claudia.) Aline tells Cord she loves him, and decides to get a long way away before he can find her.

    Aline goes to a small inn in Yorkshire. Cord follows her, admits he had known for months that she had nothing to do with the embezzlement, that he’s not marrying Claudia, that he loves Aline and wants to marry her, that he’s been too cowardly to admit it to himself or to her. Final words from Cord: ‘And then I will possess you, utterly, completely, until the earth melts and the only thing that matters to you is me.’

    Plot Holes

    Plot Hole #1: Aline does not need to prove her innocence, the court must prove her guilty. If she wants to avoid a court charge and prove it to Cord, she could do it. She got the vacation funds when an old friend repaid the money Aline had loaned her, but friend is on a cruise and cannot be reached. Even back in the 1990s, before ubiquitous cell phones one could communicate with a ship if one needed to.

    Plot Hole #2: Aline is smart, but she’s a school teacher with zero business experience. Yes, she can translate French to English, but can she do all the things a confidential personal assistant to a business leader like Cord? Later the story mentions that she’s typing with two fingers. (Note to the wise, learn to type, it’s a good skill, comes in handy.)

    Plot Hole #3: This is the big one. Aline is Cord’s confidential PA. She handles all sorts of private documents, must keep secrets, treat business matters and information in confidence. Yet Cord thinks she’s an embezzler. If he believes she is a crook then he wouldn’t put her in a position of trust.

    Characters

    I like Aline. She sticks up for herself, and even though she could have/should have told Cord to go jump in a lake, she loves her brother and allows Cord to pressure her into working for him. Aline works hard and learns fast and acts with great honor. She also does not sleep with Cord despite several seduction attempts and her own growing love.

    Cord is a jerk and a coward. He admits it at the end, he was too afraid to allow himself to love and he wanted to get to know Aline because she attracted him, and that’s why he pressured her to be his PA despite realizing she wouldn’t have helped Tim embezzle.

    The worst thing about Cord and the romance itself is that Cord sees it through what he wants, he needs, he fears. Even at the end it’s all about him possessing Aline. That is not love.

    Summary

    Even after Cord admits he loves Aline, he’s still focussed on himself and he’s still an obsessive, possessive jerk. It makes their romance unbelievable because I have to think Aline will wake up after a few months of glorious bedtime adventures and realize she goofed. Sometimes books with overly possessive heroes are fun to read, and I enjoy this up to the last chapter while I read it, but all the time the plot holes, age difference and Cord’s actions make me seriously doubt whether there is a happy ever after in Aline’s future. The last chapter, when Cord kinda sorta apologizes, disappoints me, especially the very end where he displays his possessive streak in full glory.

    2 Stars

    I got my E book copy of Cruel Conspiracy from Harlequin.com and you can read a Nook copy from Barnes and Noble or a Kindle version from Amazon. Or look for paperback copies on Amazon, eBay or used book sites.

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    Daring Deception – Harlequin Presents Romance by Amanda Browning

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    I do not like Daring Deception. The hero, Nathan, has known heroine Rachel for two years because she helps her grandfather and Nathan runs Grandpa’s bank. Nonetheless Nathan knows Rachel is a man eater with no morals who sleeps around because he witnessed Rachel steal another girl’s fiancé a year before he came to work for Grandpa. In truth the other girl is Rachel’s cousin, roommate and business partner and the fiancé is a fortune hunter. The cousin had agreed to let Rachel try to steal her guy because she did not believe he had been after her money. Nonetheless, Nathan is never wrong.

    Rachel is in love with Nathan, supposedly, although it’s hard to believe when they spend almost no time together. It turns out Nathan is in love with Rachel too, although he despises her and fights the attraction. Again, hard to believe.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Avoid Spoilers

    Grandpa needs someone go retrieve love letters his good friend had written to a dead aristocrat. The letters would hurt aristo’s wife and embarrass his family and Grandpa was good friends with both the lady and her lover. Lady’s nephew swiped the letters and is blackmailing her. (Yes, the plot is this dumb.) Will Nathan please whistle up a blonde bombshell and go get the letters while bombshell distracts the villain?

    Nathan doesn’t have a spare blonde in his pocket but, oh yes, Rachel! Rachel is blonde and gorgeous and of course, being a man eating slut can surely vamp the villain. Rachel protests but goes along with it. She nearly loses her temper when Nathan takes her aside to explain just why he knows she can do this little job and gets so mad she decides not to tell Nathan about her cousin. Nathan threatens to tell Grandpa about Rachel’s dark side and Rachel manages to not tell him that it was Gramps who sent her to extricate cousin.

    Nathan is lucky at cards and Villain loves to gamble for high stakes, so off to Tahoe we go, where Nathan engages Villain in card game while Rachel leans over him and pretends to be his lucky talisman. Villain invites Nathan to his house – oh, be sure to bring the blonde too – and off we trot. While Nathan gambles with Villain Rachel goes exploring and finds the letters in Villain’s bedside table. The next morning Rachel flirts while Nathan grabs the letters and we leave quickly, but not before Rachel and Nathan end up in bed together.

    The next day Nathan comes by Rachel’s apartment, meets cousin, realizes Rachel is not the vamp he thought. Explanations, I Love You, and Happy Ever After. Supposedly.

    Characters, Really?

    If this were real life if I were Rachel I’d avoid Nathan like poison. He only believes her not to be a slut/vamp/man eater after he talks to cousin. Despite knowing each other for two years, seeing her up close for a few days, sleeping together, Nathan still does not trust Rachel without third party proof. This is not a good way to start a life together.

    I don’t think Rachel loves Nathan either. She likes his body, she likes what she knows about his personality although she knows he doesn’t like her even before she learned what he thought about her. She is hurt by his nasty comments and accusations and angry and gleefully anticipates showing him the truth. She knows almost nothing about the man himself before their Tahoe weekend.

    And shall we look at Grandpa? A man who cheerfully sends his beloved granddaughter and well-liked and respected friend to tangle with a villain and all to prevent embarrassment to someone else?

    Nope, I do not buy that any of these people know what love is. Nathan and Rachel may be happy together, but it will blow up the first time Nathan has a breath of suspicion against Rachel, and she will never know where she truly stands with him. Nathan was able to sleep with a woman he claimed to despise, tell her the next morning it was a one night stand, not a relationship, who then claims later his is in love.

    Not only is the plot incredibly stupid the people and their motivations are inane, juvenile, and yes, stupid.

    Overall

    I finished this stupid story because I bought it and wanted to get to the end. It isn’t worth wasting your time and certainly do not waste your money.

    2 Stars

    I purchased my E copy on Harlequin.com and you can get Kindle E versions on Amazon. Look at Amazon and used book sites for paperback copies.

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    Devil Lover – Revenge Romance by Carole Mortimer

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    Oh my. This is bad. Unfortunately it is readable and almost compelling but it is not a story to enjoy. The plot centers on revenge, and it’s misplaced revenge at that, and the hero, Andreas (yes, he’s Greek so we have yet another stereotype), makes it clear that he does not and will not love the heroine Regan.

    Plot Synopsis – Click to Skip Spoilers

    Regan interviews for a job as a companion/governess to a young teen girl that turns out to be a smokescreen to get her to Andreas’s house in rural England. There he tells her that her father stole his wife and deliberately caused a car racing accident that left him blind in one eye. Therefore he’s going to marry Regan, get her pregnant, make her life hell, all to get his revenge on Regan’s dad who is now dead. (His ex wife is dead also but no one seems to care about that.)

    Andreas has been thorough and clever, having a young employee act as Regan’s boyfriend the last year or so, in order to keep her pure and untouched. Now she’s shoved into an upstairs room and Andreas threatens to rape her/make her his mistress, until she agrees to marry him. Regan is no pushover so she climbs out the drainpipe but Andreas sees her and she falls the last few feet. She’s hurt but not incapacitated, and he pressures her into marriage. (Her first mistake.)

    There is an interlude back in England where Regan goes to her aunt and uncle’s home, finds out they knew all about the accident and bad feelings, but not about Andreas’s revenge drive. Andreas meets her there and takes her semi-willingly to Greece. She’s starting to fall in love with him. (Her second mistake.)

    Andreas continually provokes her and then bullies her into apologizing for reacting with “disrespect”, i.e., treating him as he treats her. She apologizes each time. (Her third mistake.)

    He takes her to Greece and once she’s healed forcibly seduces/rapes her. Then he leaves with his secretary whom he implies is also his long term mistress.

    Regan and Helena, Andreas’s daughter, go to England where Regan goes to a friend’s wedding with Clive, the nice man Andreas had used to interview her initially. Regan is saying good-bye to Clive when Andreas walks in all puffed up with haughtiness and arrogance and conceit and makes nasty comments and jeers at Regan and Clive. Clive ignores the jeers and tells Andreas he’s misjudged his innocent wife. Andreas makes a snide comment about having made sure Regan is no innocent any longer. Clive leaves.

    Andreas admits he learned that the car crash that blinded him was truly an accident, not semi-deliberate attempted murder. He kinda sorta apologizes for seeking revenge on Regan but it’s obvious he’s not sorry a bit, more sorry for himself that he had made a mistake.

    He pushes at Regan about their one time intercourse, was it rape? She says no. (I guess because at the end she physically responded and enjoyed it. Still rape in my book.) Was it love? She says no, but then you told me it would not be love. It was hate. Andreas makes a big noise about he didn’t hate Regan, in fact he started to love her when she risked death to escape him. We have the great denouement, with both Andreas and Regan saying I Love You. Gag.

    Characters

    Regan may think she is in love with Andreas, but reading the story it’s clear that her mistakes in first agreeing to marry, then allowing him to browbeat her in accepting blame for his nasty behavior, then mistaking physical attraction for love is going to make for a long and unhappy marriage once she wakes up to the man she is stuck with.

    She should have refused marriage and if Andreas raped her, filed a police report. Perhaps Andreas could have talked his way out of a rape charge using the old “lovers’ tiff” dodge, but Regan would have been off the hook. Andreas threatens to follow her, drag her back if Regan attempts to escape before or after marriage, but there are laws against stalking. Andreas can make Regan’s life miserable trying to stay away from him but it’s a better misery than being stuck with a guy like him for life.

    Andreas taunts Regan, makes vicious comments, alternates between treating her as a nuisance he can barely tolerate and a sex toy, there solely to please him in bed. He never treats her as a person. There are many jerks and arrogant, obnoxious, self-satisfied mean males (I won’t call them men) in Harlequin Presents but this guy is one of the worst.

    I didn’t find either love at all convincing. If Andreas truly loved Regan he would not have forced her, not have continued to treat her like dirt, certainly would have treated her better or offered her an annulment once he learned he was mistaken to blame her father. If Regan loved Andreas she wouldn’t have been so cowed by him.

    Overall

    I liked Devil Lover the first time I read it, gave it 3 stars on Goodreads, but upon rereading must drop it to a very low 2 star rating. I don’t usually rate books as 1 star unless they are exceptionally lousy, or I don’t finish them or they are filthy. Devil Lover isn’t that bad nor is it smut so

    2 Stars.

    I got my copy from Harlequin.com and you can read it online for free at Archive.org. Amazon has it in E and paperback formats and it is available on used book sites and eBay.

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    Three Betty Neels Romances That Disappoint – The Fifth Day of Christmas, Saturday’s Child, Heaven Around the Corner

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    I enjoy most Betty Neels’ romance novels; she builds in warmth and happiness and of course all the stories have happy endings.  Here are three that disappointed me, all with implausible romances and nasty men.

    The Fifth Day of Christmas

    Neels wrote The Fifth Day of Christmas in 1971, making it one of her earliest novels, and it shows.  The plot is implausible (as are most but we can slide right over that when the stories are good) but the part that disturbed me is when heroine Julia makes a nasty comment about hero Ivo’s supposed semi-fiance Marcia.  He grabs Julia and shakes her until her teeth rattle – and then Julia thinks she is at fault but doesn’t want to apologize!  Even back 50 years ago this was wrong.

    2 Stars

    Saturday’s Child

    Neels usually provides us with likable characters.  The man may fight against loving the lady, but he is always polite and usually kind.  Not so with Saturday’s Child.  Here our hero, Professor Dominic van Wijkelen, doesn’t trust women and doesn’t want to believe Abigail can truly love him and doesn’t want to love her either.  The problem is that Dominic is mean, even cruel.

    While Abigail is in Holland, Dominic hires her to nurse a friend, then another friend, then to work in the hospital, but never actually pays her.  When she finally says something to him, only after making her own way back to England and only after he asks her to come back for yet another round of nursing, Dominic arranges her to get her money.  All well and good, but we expect people to learn from mistakes.  Dominic re-engages Abigail and once again does not pay her.  And once again she doesn’t say anything despite being penniless.

    Maybe he could forget once. But twice?  And she could be wary of asking for her wages once.  But twice?  To me this makes Dominic untrustworthy and unkind and even a little abusive.  And it makes Abigail a patsy.

    The rest of the plot and story are fine.  The conflict is Dominic’s distrust and unwillingness to believe in Abigail; he overhears something, jumps to conclusions and once more shoves Abigail (still unpaid) out of his life and out of Holland.  She doesn’t have any money and goes to live with a friend of a friend and takes a poorly paying job in a store before Dominic once more shows up and wafts her away with rapturous kisses.

    If I had been she I’d have demanded he pay me, then leave and inform him that he needed to get control of his distrust and get over himself, get off his high horse before he bothers to come see me yet again.  Even in 1973 I think most self-reliant ladies would have been a little less trusting.

    2 Stars

    Heaven Around the Corner

    Heaven Around the Corner has two romances, both unsatisfying.  Our primary romance is Louisa Evans, newly qualified nurse, falling in love with the unpleasant Simon Savage.  Simon is well-named.  The second involves Louisa’s patient, Simon’s sister, the alcoholic Claudia Savage and Lars, a banker.

    Both romances lack credibility.  Claudia and Lars barely know each other and Lars surely should be wary of hitching his life to an alcoholic wife.  Louisa and Simon also don’t spend much time together and Simon spends most of it being obnoxious and Louisa is self-righteous.  Ugh.

    Neels describes Norway with loving detail and as usual for her novels makes one want to visit and enjoy the breathtaking scenery and friendly people.

    This is one of the few Betty Neels novels I had a hard time finishing; it is boring with unlikable characters and unsatisfying plot and story.

    2 Stars  (It would be 1 star without the excellent setting.)

    Saving Paludis by Clayton Graham – Science Fiction I Could Not Finish

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    The publishers kindly provided my a complimentary copy of Saving Paludis to review through NetGalley but I simply cannot get past about 40% of the novel.  The characters and plot are all over the place, disorganized and incoherent, and not enjoyable.  I read to enjoy so this one is, sadly, a Did Not Finish.

    The basic plot is Earth has colonized Paludis and shoved the natives to a small peninsula.  Now the natives have managed to attack Earth (apparently it is the natives or some other unknown race from the same planet, it isn’t real clear at the 40% point) for revenge? freedom? (also not clear).  The human colonists meanwhile have discovered a sleeping pill that enables long hibernation without side effects, thus opening more of the galaxy to exploration and exploitation.  It’s not real clear yet why the sleeping pill and attacks on Earth are connected, or even whether they are connected; after reading so far I’d expect some hints that the novel is pulling together the disparate strands.

    There are three main characters per the blurb, but it isn’t entirely clear what the other characters are doing or why they are present.  The novel is uneven in narrative flow, pacing, character development and plot, and I cannot keep focused.  Please note that many of the Amazon reviews are 4 and 5 stars, so I may be the outlier.

    I am very sorry, but I cannot read any more.  There are far too many other books out there to enjoy.

    2 Stars

    Kill the Farm Boy by Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson; Unsuccessful Parody with Puns

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    I had such high hope for Kill the Farm Boy by Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson.  Hearne wrote the Iron Druid fantasy series and the recent A Plague of Giants (reviewed here) and this new novel is promoted as a “hilarious sendup of Chosen One narratives” full of “puns, flipped tropes”, cheese and a sassy goat.  Sounds like it’s going to be super funny good, or else really really bad.  Sadly it’s not good.

    The novel starts out with a map full of strange place names – Retchedde, Sullenne, Muffincrumb and Gobbleneck – which got me interested right away.  I love fantasy books that need maps.  The map was the best part.  The pixie with one blue sock shoots her arrow of Chosen-Oneness to our supposed hero, the Farm Boy.  Farm Boy decides he needs to rescue the princess in her rose brier infested castle, and Gus, the talking goat, decides to come too.  So far it’s a bit stupid, but OK.

    The novel follows the traditional quest narrative, where the fearless band of strangers coalesces into a group of friends, all working together to, to, to what?  Don’t know.  A couple of the band go to the witch to find a cure for the now-dead Farm Boy, the evil wizard visits the witch to steal her magic, the goat just wants to avoid the curry pot and the hunts lady is going because why not.

    Evil wizard can make bread; his hunts lady is a prime klutz; the bard looks more like a rabbit than a girl and the warrior maiden doesn’t much like wearing chain mail bikinis.  These types of silly points need a light touch to make them funny and keep the book rolling along, but the authors keep beating the same points over and over.  How many jokes about cold chain mail bikinis can you listen to?  And how many times can you read about the talking goat and his pellets?  Or the budding romance between warrior maiden and rabbit-maiden-bard?  Or the incredibly clumsy and not real smart hunts lady?

    The whole novel is like this.  A couple of the merry band die and the rest just keep going; in fact after the first one dies from poison mislabeled there isn’t even a pause.  He dies, they go.  The problem is that if you are parodying a quest then there must be some actual quest elements.

    Kill the Farm Boy was obnoxious with stupid innuendo and jokes that appeal to 13 year old boys.  The parody didn’t work well because everything was a parody; the quest was no quest, the wizard is no wizard, the evil witch is not evil, the nastiness in the mines of Moiria (oh sorry, the Catacombs of Yore) is all illusion.

    Kill the Farm Boy tries to be funny but it’s too pretentious and too asinine to make it work.

    2 Stars

    I received this for free in expectation of an honest review.

    Mini Reviews – Science Fiction Books from So-So to Really Bad

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    Remnants of Hope by Antoine Henderson, Science Fiction, Space Pirates

    Remnants of Hope< is a freebie from an author launching his new novel, Rogue Star.  Remnants of Hope uses the same characters.

    The main problem with this novel is the characters are lifeless.  We have the noble smuggler Taran, his friend?/lover?/second-in-command? former/current assassin Nadal-Ti, fearful alien technical genius Blurb and faithful android/ship’s computer Delta-811.  We never learn much about Nadal-Ti and the others are stock characters.

    Plot uses a pirate attack, indigenous people whom Delta-811 can somehow understand, a strange and never-described star system with lots of planets and cut off from all other star systems.  The story never really comes together.

    The writing is not bad but it’s also not very good.  I read it on vacation while dodging cold rain so managed to finish.  I will not look for further stories by this author.

    3 Stars

    Star Cat Origins by Andrew Mackay, Prequel Freebie for the Star Cat Series

    Star Cat is a cute, clean longer novella that author Andrew Mackay gives away to introduce us readers to his Star Cat Feline Space Opera.  It is cute and sweet, with a five year old Jamie and his cat.  Jamie’s dad dies at the beginning and his mom is heartbroken; Jamie is too young to fully appreciate death but he’s not happy either.

    The space program is desperate to find a way to respond to an unknown signal from Saturn, which may be a distress call, and notice that cats seem to respond to the message.  Jamie sees the ad asking cat owners to enter their cats in the Cat Trials, which is in Book 2, Star Cat: Infinity Claws

    Star Cat is well-written but not for me.  If I were pre teen I’d probably like it.

    3 Stars

    Lunacy on Omega Station: A Pulp Superhero Space Opera (The Shattered Cosmos Book 0) by Chucho Jones


    This is bad.  Really bad.  Ridiculous plot, ridiculous characters, poor writing, boring.

    1 Star

    Waning Chance (The School of Ancestral Guidance Saga) Book 1.5 by Thorn Osgood


    In all fairness I did not read the first book in this series nor did I finish this one.  It was written OK, just didn’t seem to go anywhere and was depressing to boot.  I was curious about the Ancestral Guidance stuff and the portals but not enough to keep reading when my books-to-read pile grows ever larger.

    2 Stars

    Star Warrior (Star Warrior Quadrilogy Book 1) by Isaac Hooke

    Star Warrior starts well but I had to quit about half through.  We have Tane, a farm boy who gets semi-kidnapped/semi-rescued by two people with unusual mental powers…  Wait.  This is familiar!

    Author Hooke brings in some unique twists.  He imagines a parallel but opposite universe that has all of our stuff but no people.  We can visit there, remove things, take them back to our universe, use them, and not affect them here.  The problem is the folks who live in this opposite universe attack on sight and some of them are equally advanced as the farm boy’s world.  Interesting concepts.

    I took this on vacation and simply lost interest.  First hero Tane acts dumber and dumber and more annoying by the moment.  I wanted to smack him upside the head and tell him to grow up!  The skill level nonsense is annoying too.  Apparently in Tane’s world one can purchase nanite injections to get new abilities or to augment existing abilities.  Tane is able to get injections that increase his dexterity and coordination, nice, huh?  Skill levels got boring about the third time, obnoxious by the seventh!

    2 Stars

    A Different Kind by Lauryn April

    A Different Kind has an unusual lead character, Payton Carlson, head cheerleader, prom queen, the in girl, at least until the little grey men abduct her.  Payton rekindles an old friendship with the loner kid across the street, Logan, and discovers the Grey’s interest in her is not benign.

    I got about half through A Different Kind and may go back and finish this one.  It is quite well written and author April develops Payton from a typical bratty popular kid into someone with more depth and character that I almost cared about.  It just didn’t quite tug my interest long enough.  Perhaps it’s a better read for a cozy winter evening.

     

    A Darker Shade of Magic – V. E. Schwab – A Gathering of Shadows, Disappointing Fantasy

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    A Darker Shade of Magic

    A Darker Shade of Magic is the first of three novels in a universe where there are four Londons – Grey London which is ours, Red London full of magic and life, White London where magic is dying and Black London where magic destroyed everything.  Black London is closed off and barred to keep the other worlds safe.  Such a fascinating premise, full of opportunity for good story telling!

    Author V. E. Schwab tells the story through Red London’s prince Rhy and his foster brother Kell, and their dynamics with the kings in Red, White and Grey London.  Kell is actually an Antari, a powerful magician able to use blood magic to pass from one London to another and chafes at being confined to London, to the forced fosterage with the the king and queen.  Kell and Rhy are close as brothers, as best friends, and this love combines with a sense of duty to keep Kell in line.

    Kell (and the other Antari, Holland from White London, possibly an enemy) are forbidden to bring people or items across from one London to another, and are forbidden to do more than pass letters from one monarch to another.  Kell rebels and secretly takes small collectibles across for himself and sometimes others.  Unfortunately the last item he takes, supposedly a letter, is actually a powerful artifact from Black London, sent to corrupt and destroy Red London.

    Had Schwab stayed within this boundary she would have had a powerful, compelling story.  What will Kell and Rhy do?  How will Holland revitalize his world of White London?  Can that world even be saved?  How do they push the Black London artifact back where it belongs?

    Kell, Rhy and Holland aren’t complete, 3-dimensional characters, but they are close, with a reasonable shot to develop into real people that we readers care about.  Unfortunately Schwab introduces Lila Bard from Grey London, orphaned thief and wanna-be adventurer and the story and characters go downhill from here.  I don’t like Lila.  She’s the character that we are supposed to identify with and root for but she’s shallow, foolish, selfish, uncaring.  She is tolerable in the first book, probably because she remains a stock character and plays a secondary role.

    A Gathering of Shadows

    I liked the story well enough to read most of the second novel in the series, A Gathering of Shadows, but finally gave up with about 50 pages to go in this second novel, skipped to the ending, then read only the ending of the third novel, A Conjuring of Light.  Lila is the main character in A Gathering of Shadows and I couldn’t stand her, and the other characters do not carry the story.

    The writing is OK, nothing great, with semi-decent dialogue and slow pacing.  Schwab spends most of A Gathering of Shadows with Lila on a privateer ship before she, her ship’s captain and Kell, all compete in magic games with the other three empires in the Red London world.  The real story is with Holland and his struggle in White London, which gets comparatively few pages.

    There are plot holes of course.  Normally if the story is good or the characters are real people we readers whiz right by the holes, notice but suspend disbelief.  This series isn’t that good and the plot holes stand out.  The most obvious is the difference between Grey and White London.

    Grey London never had much magic and now has virtually none, yet manages to thrive (more or less).  White London used to have magic which is fading and dwindling and the entire world is dying.  Why the difference?  Holland manages to bring some magic back to White London which regains some color and life, but the end of A Conjuring of Light suggests this too will fade, with only a whisper of hope for life.

    The series has overall high ratings on Amazon although several negative reviewers shared my dislike for Lila and the overall wooden writing.

    Overall I would rate Book 1, A Darker Shade of Magic, as 3+ stars.
    Book 2, A Gathering of Shadows, is 2 Stars and I didn’t read enough of Book 3 to rate it.