#TBRChallenge Review: A Bed of Spices

A Bed of Spices by Barbara Samuel
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion.

"I wish she had loved more wisely," Charles said heavily, looking away. "How could she love you, knowing how dangerous it was? How could you let her?"

September's TBRChallenge was “Lush Life”. I'm going back to NOT reading the back of books because this was the synopsis:
He filled her dreams with desperate longing...

The exquisite Frederica der Esslingen fled the castle to the herbalist's cottage. Rica could never give in to her father's wishes and marry the man her twin sister loved. Another man, a stranger, set her blood racing and understood her bold, searching heart. Yet he was denied her forever.

She set him afire with forbidden desire...

Son of a wealthy Strassburg merchant, and determined to become a physician, Solomon had come to study the herbalist's art. It was there, in a wild garden, that he first set eyes on Rica. Her golden-haired beauty and bold spirit bewitched him. As plague ravaged Europe, he struggled against his passion, risking his life for the woman he longed to hold in his arms forever on...A Bed of Spices.

Sounds “lush”, right? Y'all. Just, please be aware this book discusses/has antisemitism, rape of a child, physical abuse, and murder. I thought I'd get a purple prose heavy on the sexual tones and instead I just got HEAVY. It took me two weeks to finish this and it's about a month later that I'm sitting down to finally write some thoughts. I kind of wanted to forget this story but for readers that like some not oft discussed historical aspects in their historical fiction, I wanted to at least mention some things about this.

Throughout that summer, plague and pogroms raged through Germany.

It's Strassburg, Summer 1348, and we know what that means, the Black Plague is lurking around. True to form, no matter the time, people are frightened about a disease they don't understand and are blaming Jewish people for it, creating a dangerous atmosphere. So, of course, our FMC Rica, is falling in love with our MMC Solomon, a Jewish man studying medicine under the same midwife Rica goes to for herbs and medicines to help the people of her father's castle. Rica is also the twin sister of Etta, who is mute to just about everyone than Rica. When Etta was six, she was out walking with her mother when soldiers came and raped her mother to death and then raped Etta, leaving her unable to have children or have sex again. I told you, this book gets so dark. One of Rica's father's knights, Rudolf, wants to marry Rica and makes a deal with her father that he'll court her over the summer but if he still doesn't win her over, he still gets to marry her. Even though Etta seems to keep herself pretty distance from everyone, she likes Rudolf and this starts off Rica and Etta pretending to be each other at times to fool Rudolf. Rica thinks he'll eventually fall in love with Etta, not knowing how often Etta pretends to be her. Rudolf is very religious, growing more towards zealot as the story goes on and this causes him to see one of the sisters in his thoughts as a whore and generally just gets more erratic as they play with his mind by switching.

His eyes were grave when he looked at her, and weary beyond measure. "There is no force that can stop fear, liebling. Remember that."

The romance has that “trying to fight it but not too hard” back and forth between Rica and Solomon, as they both know her being a Lady and him being Jewish kind of forbids them to be together. There's also the added danger growing as the Plague gets closer and the danger for Jewish people grows because of antisemitism. It all comes to a head when Solomon's father finds out about their romance and he beats Solomon, trying to put fear into him about he's risking his life and the end of summer has Rudolf wanting to marry Rica. Solomon is told by his father that Rica died and leaves town, while Rica prepares to marry Rudolf thinking it's her way of saving Solomon, only to be drugged by Etta, who has also steadily grown more erratic, and takes Rica's place as Rudolf's bride. Because of the physical damage from the rape, Rudolf realizes he married the wrong sister and this causes him to strangle Etta to death.

We're at 50%. If you're still hanging in there, some comic relief:
His limbs trembled so violently he reached for a crotch of the tree to brace himself.
Romance, where even the tree crotches get action!

"It seems we are fated to meet, my lady. What are we to do?"

Rica's been miserably living at home as her once bestfriend father won't speak to her because he blames her for Etta's death, thinking Rica maneuvered it so Etta had to marry Rudolf. It takes the midwife straight talking the father to finally get him to see the truth. Meanwhile, Solomon ends up surviving the Plague, causing him to go back home and in his traveling ends up seeing Rudolf whipping himself because he has joined the flagellants (still doesn't feel like a justice enough ending for him to me). Once home, Solomon immediately runs into Rica, who pretends to be Etta but Solomon's not fooled but goes along with it for the moment. Once he is reunited with his father, all the antisemitism catches up with them and we get Solomon relaying this make you tear up story to Rica when he decides to finally go to her:
"My father pretended he would leave with me on Friday. I dressed as you see me now to travel. When the mob came to arrest us with the others, he screamed that I was trying to convert him." Solomon raised his eyes, unable to quell his grief. "He would not come with me. He screamed that he'd rather die a Jew than—" Overcome, Solomon bent his head. "And die he did."

With Rica's father also dying (a stroke), they decide that life's too short to be apart and get married. Their love doesn't solve antisemitism though, and they recognize the danger and decide to move to Cairo, where Solomon's ancestors originally moved from. It felt a little out of left field to me but maybe there was a historical movement by Jewish people at this time to Cairo that I'm not aware of. So, they get their HEA but my god, what a not make you particularly feel good love story, however, there was good historical context and feel if you're wanting a different time period historical romance, just be prepared for all those trigger warnings.

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#TBRChallenge Review: Heart of the West

Heart of the West by Penelope Williamson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion.

I started this a couple days before August 19, TBRChallenge day, and what a sweet summer child I was thinking I could finish it on time. First off, it's 700 some pages but pre-reading slump Whiskey could have done it! Slowly coming out of slumplandia Whiskey didn't have a hope, PLUS holy god was I not prepared for the encompassing this story was going to deliver. August's theme was Backlist Banger, I went to the ancient artifacts on my bookcase from the 1900s and picked an author I hadn't read since days of yore. I notoriously don't read the synopsis after I put a book on my tbr, no matter how many years it was shelved, but slump, so I flipped it over and read this was a historical set in the West and our female main character was going to lust after her brother-in-law. Sounds like a Backlist Banger! I went in expecting hot tension in the beginning and a husband getting trampled by buffalo by 20%. Y'all. What I got was a Louis L'Amour-esque epic but make it women's fiction and romance styled. This spanned 12 years (ok, after doing the math, this surprises me, would have said 30 years lol) and had a historical romance husband that lingered around late enough that when something does happen, you'd almost wish it hadn't.

"It's not a lot," her mother was saying in a strained whisper. "Not more than a hundred dollars. But it would be a good start for you, should you ever need to run away someday from this man you are running off with now."

This starts 1879 in Boston as seventeen year old Clementine is setting up to run-off with a cowboy. We get that pull you in with the sense of a little bit of danger as it's obvious Clementine fears her dad and with her mom coming in and quietly aiding her. There's some internal flashbacks by Clementine as she remembers her preacher father striking her and all around trying to smother her spirit and make her be who he thinks a girl/woman should be and observations by Clementine as she grew-up watching how her mother was around her father. When her mother hands Clementine her saved up money, your eyes are going to water because you'll think about hows/whys her mother didn't use the money to save herself. It's a common theme throughout this story, commentary on societal structures and how they benefit some and not others. It was mostly focused on speaking to sexism but out west where Clementine encounters Native Americans, fallen women, and different nationality mail order brides, there was some racism discussions too. There were a couple times I felt Clementine started to fall into the white savior role but there are numerous point-of-views in this story and all the characters I mentioned get pretty/decent full mini-stories played out to fruition that was pleasantly surprising.

Clementine Kennicutt looked back to the house, to the window of the room that had been hers for all of her life. A flickering light flashed once and was gone—her mother lifting a candle in a brief and lonely farewell.

When Clementine runs off with Gus McQueen, her cowboy she met on the Boston streets when he runs her over on a bike, we get more internal flashbacks to why she made this choice. With a fun historical tidbit we learn a maid in Clementine's house shared her five cent Wide Awake Library's Wild West series novels with her (there was a scene where Clem's father finds out and fires the maid where Clementine is crying saying “you're my friend” that made you hurt for her loneliness). So, Clem's a naive seventeen year old with allusions of what a wild west life will be like. Also, Gus is twenty-five and there was a cringe moment where he asks her age and makes a comment like “lord help me”, and if such age differences disturb you, well, there wouldn't be an ignoring that.

There ain't a man out here who wouldn't give his left ballock to be gettin' the cook, housekeeper, laundress, and all-round slave that you're gonna be to your man. Yup, slave and broodmare and bedmate all done up in the starchy trappings of an honest-to-God lady—Christ, the wonder of it stretches the mind." She hooted a laugh. "Dearie, you ain't only a rarity, you're a damned luxury!"

When Clem makes it to Gus' ranch in Montana, the rose colored glasses start to come off when she sees how rough the “town” and little cabin Gus' home is. And that he co-owns the ranch with his brother, Zach Rafferty. Which, when Clem first sees Zach he's looking like he walked off a Stetson's commercial, so, girl, same. There's that instant animosity between them that comes with sexual tension and not wanting/being able to act on and hating that you feel that way. Zach's constantly on her that she won't make it a year out there and that drives Clem even more to make it.

"I won't accept your different ways, Mr. McQueen. Not all of them."
A startled look came into his eyes; then his mouth tightened. "You will if I say you will."
"I won't."

With the years that this spans, you're going to be able to see and feel Clem's growth, her coming into her own. As she gets older and more experience seeing the world and mingling with people from all different walks of life, she starts to question things. Like, why can't she be friends with Hannah, the retired fallen lady who now owns the brothel? For his part, Gus is mostly blustering with his disapproval, they do have a blow out, but Clem's got a grit spirit and she always thinks back to how her father stifled her and she won't go back to the feeling.

"Oh, God, God, how could I have known, how could I have known? Up until that moment, you see, he was the closest thing I'd found to you."

Around 25% we get Clem and Zach cracking more under their attraction and it's that teeth gritting tense. You have that initial gut reaction of don't betray your husband and brother like that with the great layered character work of understanding why these two feel towards each other the way they do. Clem was too young to know herself, let alone who she could and want to love, and Zach has lived a life where he spent years not growing up with his brother and under the care of an awful father. Their personalities just go together better with both of them wanting to face the grit and Gus always turning away to not have to deal with the “hard” stuff. Clem's too strong for Gus and meets her match in Zach. It's not that Gus is necessarily “bad” but he's just not the right one for her, I appreciated the author not easy demonizing Gus, making this more taunt push and pull for the reader.

And she felt a rage at virtuous women like herself, who condemned their own kind for the things that were done to them by men.

Around 50% we jump to 1883 with Clem having given birth, a scene that binds her and Zach together even more and frays that rope that has them hanging on. There's also more of giving time to other side characters, Hannah and Zach have their own, sort-of, romance, Erlan the Chinese mail-order bride comes into the picture along with two brothers from Cornwall, and Gus and Zach's father makes some appearances, along with some other minor characters. There's dedicated time to their povs and stories.

"I always think of Montana as a he, for this is every bit a man's place, and you will hate him in the way that only a woman can hate a man. You will hate the wind and the dirt and the miserable cold winters, hate his harsh strength and his lawless, violent ways. And then one day you will realize that you have come to love him fiercely in the midst of all your hate. Love him in a way that only a woman can love a man..."

The setting was also huge in this, I wouldn't say it romanticizes American West pathos, but it did make me think of my own sod house ancestors and what those women endured. The characters and story show you the reality of how tough it was, child deaths, injuries, and the lack of rights but it also touches on the wrongness of how these settlers treated Native Americans and hunted food supplies to almost extinction for sport. It will get the conversations in your head going about they were gritty tough and they did awful things.

Zach's internal goodbye thoughts to Gus:
He thought sometimes that Gus was so stupid blind he couldn't track a fat sow through a snowdrift. He wanted to grab his brother by the scruff of his neck and shout into his face: You big, dumb son of a bitch. I want to fuck your wife. I eat, breathe, sleep, and fuck thoughts of fucking your wife, and if you weren't such a big, dumb son of a bitch you'd see it.

Zach's spoken goodbye to Clem:
"Clementine," he said, and her name came out of him broken and mangled. "My love for you won't stop with my leaving. Come an evenin' over the years, when you step outside your door and hear the wind blowing through the cottonwoods, that'll be me, thinking of you, whispering your name, and loving you."

Around 70% Zach realizes that rope is going to snap so in 1886, he leaves and we get more of Clem and Gus dynamics and trying to fit together when clearly Clem has just outgrown the marriage to him. But, circumstances being what they are, Clem makes it work and it's not to say there wasn't love between them, he just wasn't the best choice for her. There was also a quick little scene where the reader learns that Gus was aware of the reason for the tension between his wife and brother. I gasped, lol. But in true Gus character fashion, he just doesn't face it head on. Later on, Gus has this thought: “Sometimes he hated the strength he saw in her. Sometimes he thought he was married to a woman he didn't know, and didn't like.”
And I thought, bingo. “he hated the strength he saw in her.”

She looked from one dear friend to another. Saphronie, in her satin whore's dress, with her tears inked permanently on her face for all the world to see and shudder over. Erlan, in her blue quilted Oriental robe and English croquet sandals, with her homesick eyes. And Clementine... Clementine, looking so very Bostonian in a plain black muslin mourning dress with a high, stiff cleric collar, looking so very sad. How different we all are, Hannah thought. And yet how much the same, in all our woman's sorrows and fears and vulnerabilities. In all our woman's strengths, to have endured what we have.

I really liked the women bonding in this and it's clear in the story that they all needed each other and the different strengths each one brought to the table to survive the west. Also, as a little bonus, our Hannah gets an HEA with a younger man. There was also great heart hurting commentary on motherhood: She is all that I once had it in me to be, Clementine often thought, before my father and life beat it out of me. And she worried for her little girl's future. She wished she could wrap Sarah up against the pain that was coming as easily as she had bundled her up against the cold. For as sure as night ended even the sunniest of days, life would try to break her daughter's spirit. The world was cruel to little girls who didn't want to please, and to grown-up women who bravely spoke out and went their own way.

"It's hard, Clementine. Hard for a man to look into a woman's eyes and see love lookin' back at him. And to know that when she's lookin' at him, she's seeing not what he is, but what he ought to be."

Like I mentioned in the beginning, what you go in immediately wanting to happen, doesn't until around 80% and I was more sad than I thought I would be, kudos to the author. It's not until 1891 that Zach returns, four years after Gus is gone and seven years gone total. There's a period of feeling out between the two, both have grown even more and I think some fear of finally might be able to act on such deep feelings. The end also jammed in some economic and environmental plot that I felt intruded on Clem and Zach time in a way but also felt so timely with how the women are the ones to step up and initiate change, a women's march 1890s style.
So yeah, this story was a lot and the chunk of Clem and Zach's relationship is going to be individual character internal with the reader having to feel what is not said (I think the author accomplished it, I felt that fraying rope). If you're looking for a historical western romance that feels like an epic, willing to go on many journeys with different characters, and take the time to watch a character grow from naive seventeen to coming into her own, this would be one to hunt up.

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TBRChallenge Master Post

 

January  Still Here - Until the End by Juno Rushdon

(I read this in January but never got around to writing a review :/ 

Fit the theme as it was third in a series and I wanted to show that I was "Still Here" reading the series)

TBRChallenge Review: Summer Games

Summer Games by Elizabeth Lowell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.5 stars 

This month's TBRChallenge theme was Celebrations!, fighting a cold, I reached into my garage sale book boxes and pulled out Summer Games. The 1984 LA Olympics count for celebrations I say! This book had a couple of reoccurring themes that just about drove me batty because of how hammered on they were. Our main male character Cord grew-up around horses and was a rodeo bronco buster before Vietnam called and he constantly is given a “shaman's” voice as he works to get our female main character's horse, Devlin's Waterloo, to trust him. If I had read this on an electronic device, I'd have done a count on how many times it was used, since I only had a paperback, you'll have to take my conservative estimate of one million times. There was also the discussion of coming in from the cold, the whole underlining women warm the hearth and home for the men coming in from cold of protecting and providing, the “queen” and “solider” analogy became a lot in it's repetitiveness. 

She was a fool to be interested in a man who was like her father, so involved in his work that he lived his life at the end of an electronic leash. She had left that world behind once. She would never enter it again, no matter the lure. 

At it's essence, Summer Games was a romantic suspense where retirement landing you in the soft thighs of a younger woman who also comes with a hot stallion sounds like a good idea and we're all destined to marry our fathers. Raine grew-up with a father that did super secret American government work and she hated how his family always came a distant second, he's never even seen her ride in her equestrian competitions. This has soured her on men of a certain cut of cloth, so when she's, literally, knocked out of her shoes by Cord, he has his work cut out for him. Cord came off a bit...intense. But I've never ran point on security for the Olympics, so who am I too judge? When Raine's looking over the course she'll run during the competition, he thinks she's a “Cuban or Lebanese commando” terrorist setting bombs. Their “meet-cute” has sparks flying and Cord instantly knowing he wants her while Raine only sees her father and tries to put up her walls. I say try because, lol, she be rubbing all up and down this man. 

But she was so warm in his arms, and he was so cold inside. 

The first half really focused on their romance and the pushing and pulling of their attraction with not wanting to get emotionally involved, Raine not wanting to get involved with a man she'll come second to and Cord knowing he lives too secretive and dangerous of a life. I went back and forth if I thought this was overwritten with remnants of purple prose or if we're losing the recipes. Example: He wanted to take Raine down to the golden grass and make love to her until nothing else was real, no past or future, no rights or wrongs, nothing but sunset sliding into night, a man and woman alone, two lovers turning and twining and blending intimately, two flames burning as one in a world of crimson silence. 

Purple prose-y, can see the cringe but “nothing but sunset sliding into night” and “burning as one in a world of crimson silence.”. We're using our words!! But maybe we already had made rent and needed to settle down. 

He wanted to seduce her in more than a merely physical way. He wanted her to trust him. 

The later second half finally gives us a focus on Raine's equestrian trials and you'll learn about dressage, cross country racing, and jumping, which was interesting and I didn't think textbook-ed it to eye-glazing. The suspense part about the notorious “Barracuda” assassin that was hovering on the edges also comes to the forefront, sort of, when Cord's constantly called away to “monitor” and do super secret DIA anti-terrorism stuff. I wish we had gotten more with Raine and her family, we get a few scenes with her father (guy plays the lips zipped spy well, give her more info!) so that more resolution could have been had there.

“And you're an expert on love?” she said, her voice hard and dry. 

“No,” he said softly. “I'm an expert on dying. On not loving. On being lonely. On looking at castles from the outside. On finding a woman worth having and then watching her bar the gate against me because I'm just a soldier, not a king.” 

After all are protected (any violence of this kind is completely off page) and Raine wins her Olympic medal but Cord disappears, she ends up on a ranch in Arizona until her HEA choppers in. The repeated term use of shaman, queen, and soldier was super tiring but the backstory of how Cord grew-up around horses (family of Mesteñeros ) was brilliant because of how it then linked and gave a thread to him helping and connecting with her through her stallion, which was her family for all intents and purposes. The women providing warmth and succor for warrior men theme was meh, Cord wasn't the cardboard cut-out alpha man, he had layers and it didn't feel like a treatise on the ideal, but meh. 

“I don't believe it anymore. Tomorrow will come for us. When it does, I want it to be right. I want to know that I didn't take you off-balance and more than a little afraid. I'm good at taking people that way. Too good. It's part of my job. But not you,” said Cord, his voice deep, a river running through moonlight and darkness down to a warm sea. “I want you in a very special way, Raine. I can wait one more day for that. I've already waited a lifetime.” 

What stood out the most for me, was the touching and caressing between these two (let me Bat signal – washes her hair scene), they weren't just slot A slot B fucking, which, please, bring back caressing. There were more than one purple prose remnant scenes like this: Shirtless, barefoot, Cord rode the screaming blood-bay whirlwind. The man's muscles bunched and gleamed in the bright moonlight even as the stallion's did, two powerful, supremely conditioned males fighting for dominance. 

Obviously can read a little goofball out of context but in this story and the contextual moment, it's also put a capital on that W-riting. So while I had fun with some of the scenery chewing going on here, I'm not sure I'd recommend for this to be one to go back and visit, but I'll give it up to the “I can wait one more day, I've already waited a lifetime” to it all.

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TBRChallenge Review: Callista

Callista by Cordia Byers
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion. 

This month's TBRChallenge was “Back in my Day” and since I'm perpetually behind, I just dove into my garage sale box of books and looked for a publishing date that matched my birth year. I paid for my laziness. Let me save everyone some time, don't read this book, don't even feel you have to read my review, just click away and waste/save your time elsewhere. 

But, since I'm an informed decision reviewer who personalizes what worked and didn't work (ALL OF IT) for her personally, for inquiring minds..... 

There had been no one to protect her, and there would be no one. 

That quote is patently false, men come out of the woodwork for this empty vessel of a female main character. 

Anyway, our “young breasts” (I deserve something! for how many times I had to read these two words together) FMC is currently working to escape her Aunt Nesseilda (this name might be the only thing I liked) after her aunt betroths her to Lord Condor, an evil man old enough to be her grandfather. There was also the beating she took from her cousin Edwin when she refused to marry. In what starts off as the first of cliches/tropes (although 1983 so maybe more fresh?) Callista decides to hie off to the docks to pose as a cabin boy and get passage back to her home, Tallanton, in Scotland. She was with her aunt because her dad abandoned her after mother died and went off to search for fortune. 

“You won't escape, Callista, until I decide to let you go.” 

On the docks, Callista ends up with a man named Rawlings, they get drunk together and as first mate, he hires her to be cabin boy on his ship. Like me, Callista pays for just jumping in and the ship is going to America, not Scotland. The Captain, Corbin Wolfram is a woman hating, mommy issues from her leaving his dad for a Lord Condor (don't get exited for this plot weaving, it doesn't come into play until last 10%), psycho. We get the elements of her having to wash his back scene and her falling ill for him to realize she's a woman. From there he rapes her (I don't think dub-con can be rightfully argued here), Rawlings and Wolfram fight because Rawlings has, obviously fallen in love with her, Rawlings gets swept out to sea (I seriously almost laughed at how abrupt this was), a hurricane shipwrecks them, they boat to Georgia. 

Callista at this time has those “confusing” feelings of maybe she likes Wolfram, they sex on the beach, they fight, he leaves her, she now gets rescued by a Native American, Brave Fox, he falls in love with her, Wolfram finds her, Brave Fox leaves her to him, Wolfram beats her unconscious, they get to Savannah where a deal is struck that she'll be his mistress for six months. 

Callista also has “visions” and she “saw” her dad mining for gold. It's 1820s Georgia, Gold Rush!, so obviously he's going to be around. Things are seemingly going on track for Callista and Wolfram until he brings back a woman to be her lady's maid that he couldn't get it up for because his head was full of Callista and Callista gets jealous and breaks her promise to stay and leaves. She meets up with John Ross, who she met at a dinner with Wolfram and his business associates. Ross gets the hots for her! He takes her along with a Jim, a Scot who has fatherly feelings for her, to the gold panning area to try and find her dad. She bangs Ross trying to get over Wolfram. 

She meets up with her dad! Ross leaves for some reason but says will be back. Historically the 40 acre lottery is going on and guess who wins the lottery for Callista's dad's plot of land? But she's prego with the woman hating/beating/raping Wolfram. She at first plans on giving up baby after born but falls in love with it and Wolfram again when he shows up to take her dad's land. They talk, Wolfram says he'll sell the land to her dad but comes back beaten up because daddy mad. Callista goes out there to talk to her dad and finds him dead with his wife. She collapses. 

Brave Fox comes back into the picture to rescue her but her baby is stillborn. Brave Fox leaves the picture again. When Callista goes to check on her stepbros, she sees Wolfram and loses her shit calling him a murderer. He cries over the loss of their baby and leaves. 

“Callista, can you ever forgive me for the misery I have put you through?”

“FUCK NO.” You'd think this would be the answer given here, but it wasn't. Scot Jim comes back into the picture along with Ross to take Callista and her stepbros home to Tallanton in Scotland. Jim is a big ole' softy and he books passage on Wolfram's ship to get these two love birds back together, Callista believed him when he said Wolfram didn't kill her parents. On the ship Callista and Wolfram admit their love for one another (?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????), making Ross angry. 

Evil old man Condor comes back into the picture when Ross kidnaps Callista and her stepbros, Ross turns out to be Reaper, a man we saw Condor hire to find Callista (spoiler: he murdered her parents). Condor gets Callista to tell Wolfram she won't marry him. There's a shoot out between Reaper, Wolfram, and Condor. Callista and Wolfram live happily ever after with an epilogue that has Callista saying “Welcome home, my beloved.” to Wolfram when they make it to Tallanton (Screaming into the abyss) 

This was full of racism, physical and emotional abuse, sexual assault (the random trauma dump of the lady's maid talking about how her older brothers raped her?!?), and hopped from one over used romance genre element after the other. Callista was not a fully formed character and came off airy as one man after the other moved her from one situation to another. Because of the rape and beatings, it's not like I really wanted Callista and Wolfram to spend time together but they hardly do, there is no development to their romance (I feel sick even typing that word to describe anything between them). Numerous povs and side characters that felt empty and made situations feel dangling as some plot threads seemed to want to weave together but didn't quite come off cohesive and abruptly ended. Recycle this one, don't waste time reading it. 

*I almost forgot, John C. Calhoun, as vice president makes an extremely random quick appearance, in case that's a clincher for anyone

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TBRChallenge Review: Seize the Fire

Seize the Fire by Laura Kinsale
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tl;dr: Imperfect characters who made awful and heroic choices and a second half that was mostly about war PTSD 

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion. 

June's TBRChallenge theme was Road Trip, so I headed to my tbr feeling historical and glancing at reviews to see which ones had people talking about traveling. When I saw this Laura Kinsale's fit the bill, I happily jumped in. I read the first 50% of this in one sitting and then my reading mojo hit a major (for me) snag and I couldn't concentrate enough to read for five days straight. I'm mentioning this because I'm going to, mostly, blame my mojo, but I do also think the second half had some major pacing problems, just tough to parse from own issues. My brain can be a sieve, so that first half I raced through, EONS ago!, I guess I'm saying this review/talking about is going to probably read disjointed and foggy, enjoy! 

If you've read Kinsale before, you know you're in for an emotional ride. Sometimes it rips my guts out (The Prince of Midnight) and sometimes I get left on the dock watching the emotions drift away from me (Shadowheart). This one had my eyes filling up and at other times dry eyed wanting to skim, my scatterbrained undecided review, enjoy! 

"I loved you." Her voice trembled into a squeak. "I loved you…and you…betrayed me."

I'm going to start this with the author dedication, This book is dedicated to the combat veterans of Vietnam With respect, and love, and hope for healing. While you'll see the beginning of this from our lead Captain Sheridan Drake in the first half, your enjoyment of the whole second half is going to be if you remember this dedication and read it with the understanding that the story is now all about it. Your enjoyment is also going to hinge on if you want/can handle your leads being deliciously, frustratingly not perfect, because boy howdy do both Sheridan and Olympia fuck it all the way up numerous times. 

The hero she'd loved with all her being had not died. He'd simply never existed. 

The first half has Olympia, our sheltered princess of a small country but has lived all her life in England, setting out to meet her new neighbor, Sheridan. She's heard all about his bravery on his ship and wants to enlist him to use his contacts(???) to help her get to Rome. Why Rome you ask? She's going to appeal to the Pope to stop her betrothal to her uncle (I'd hurry my ass there too!). Her grandfather currently leads the country but he's old and the people have been grumbling for an overthrow to set up a democracy, which Olympia is fully for and plans to help happen. She is the completely young and naive do-gooder that knows the right destination but has no idea what it takes to get there. Readers know Sheridan isn't quite what the papers make him out to be and that he is completely destitute after his father who loved to pull pranks (incredibly dangerous and mean “jokes”) had him invest all his money in a train venture that went bankrupt. There's also the added connection that Sheridan's father's ex-mistress is/was Olympia's governess and tells Sheridan that his father's will gives him nothing, unless he does what she says to do(???). This leads to Sheridan offering marriage to Olympia to save her from her uncle, at ex-mistress' behest and somehow an English ambassador is also involved in telling Sheridan what to do, but she refuses having been poisoned by ex-mistress that she's too fat and unattractive. Sheridan decides to set-up his own plan and agrees to take Olympia to Rome, he sees how jewel rich she is, and then pretend to be kidnapped/killed by a secret assassin group that is after him(???) and steal her jewels riding richly off into the sunset, leaving her behind. 

He laughed bitterly. "God, they were idiots. They'd ask how many ships I'd sunk and how many men I'd killed hand to hand…as if I kept a damned running account. They always wanted to know how it felt…" His voice had begun to shake. "But I never told them. They didn't want to know the truth. Not really." 

It's a bit of a convoluted set-up, especially since Olympia's country drama winds up being like 10% of the story and doesn't come in at all until again at the end. By 20% we have them going on their road (ship) trip and then it's all on with them getting captured by pirates, shipwrecked, living on a island for months, saved, captured by pirates again, sold into slavery, and surviving a blood drunk mob. Late '80s historical romances aren't to be trifled with! There are dated terms in this and Sheridan's manservant/frenemy Mustafa is a bad characterization, so content warnings abounding again. While I enjoyed the meat of how the author allowed Sheridan and Olympia to make bad and wrong choices, they betray one other more than once, I could see how they would ultimately work together but I'm not sure I'd recommend this for the romance. I liked how Kinsale had Sheridan trying to warn Olympia off of him and how even though he thinks he's not worthy, Kinsale even has him do unworthy things (I'm not talking heinous things here), he always remained redeemable to me, which I think can be a good message. The juxtaposition of broken down tattered Sheridan and the bright shiny heroic younger captain that comes in later to be a romantic wedge between him and Olympia was perfect, especially since the shiny guy turned out to be under it all not so great, which YES, give us readers these emotions to wrestle with! The second half is more of a deep dive into how soldiers can be so lost after coming home from war. 

That she would not hate him. That she was glad he was on her side. That he could keep them safe without violence, without hurting anyone. He tried to believe those things. He repeated them to himself. But he was afraid. 

Sheridan is a broken man after all he had to survive. As the reader, it broke me how he was a boy who wanted to make music but after a “joke” by his father gone wrong, ends up on a ship in his preteens and is thrust into trying to survive war. I couldn't help thinking of all the current kids who just want to make music and instead have these awful circumstances thrust upon them; Kinsale did a really great job showing and articulating through Sheridan the scars such a life can leave. There was also an eye watering scene where Sheridan had finally let himself love Olympia only for her to betray him and oof, the emotions he went through here: 

He should have known. He should have realized. It had been so hard for him to believe it was happening. That she could come to know him for what he was, fully, and understand what he'd done by opening the circle of himself and including her. They'd fought together, survived together, shared the miseries and the laughter and the disasters, and each small morning victory of waking up alive. He'd thought that meant something. That was love, that was the only name he had to give it. Last night, when in the midst of his whining concern for his own skin she'd said she loved and trusted him, he'd been so certain of it. He would have died for her then, he would have killed every man on board to protect her—except this was civilization, not a battle, and all he'd been able to do was make some brainless joke to cover the raw surge of emotion and then retreat before he embarrassed himself beyond recovery. She loved him. It had been hard to believe that; it had gone against every instinct built up in years of solitude, but he'd convinced himself. Aye. And he was wrong. 

The love, the betrayal, the pain, just, the THE of it all! Meaty characters. 

"Princess." His voice had a plea in it. "Do you understand? I don't know why the world is like this; I don't know why we go out to fight something that's wrong—something so much bigger than we are, something that ought to be fought—and end up creating a thousand little horrors to stop a huge one. Slavery's wrong. Tyranny's wrong. You weren't stupid or naive or trivial to believe that. You're right. Maybe your revolution was right. You just…didn't understand how real it would be." 

The end has Olympia experiencing some trauma of her own and realizing her own naivety and a reveal for Sheridan that changes some things. This does end in an HEA but I felt a bit too rung out to have that high lovey dovey feeling for them, it's more of a gritty solemn one. The first half read fast for me but some convoluted set-up while the second half seemed to get lost and repetitive stagnate paced (could have been my no mojo brain!). However, if you remember that dedication and realize this whole story was a cover to talk about war induced PTSD you'll feel Sheridan's pain and probably think of the women and men in your own life who never fully make it back from war. These leads lied to each other, fought and survived together, were mean to each other, saved each other, and loved each other, they weren't perfect characters which honestly felt deliciously meaty to me at times. 

"I'm here," she said into his shoulder. "I'm here, and I love you. I love you no matter what."

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TBRChallenge Review: Evvie Drake Starts Over

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After all this time, he would wonder, why now? He wouldn’t know that, today exactly, Evvie had been with him for half her life. 

In continuing to limp my way to completing SuperWendy's TBRChallenge, I finally finished May's Older Couple theme book. Now, when I was looking for a book for this theme Evvie Drake was on numerous lists for older couples, it was at my local library, so I could use it for a bingo square for another game I'm playing, and it has been on my tbr for more than five years. Y'all, I think Evvie is in her early to late thirties and I'm guessing Dean is in the mid to late thirties range. Older couple. I feel like dust. Anywhooooooooo 

“I do think we should have a deal.” 

She looked at him expectantly. 

“You don’t ask me about baseball,” he said, “and I don’t ask you about your husband.” 

On the day that Evvie is packing her car to leave her highschool sweetheart husband, he gets into a car accident and dies. This leaves her as the “grieving” widow, stuck in a role that doesn't fit. I'd put this in the women's fiction with romance category and while I enjoyed Evvie and Dean's interactions and chemistry, it was all about that living in quiet desperation with a supposed golden boy who is emotionally and physically abusive. Exploring Evvie's character as she goes through life and interactions trying to maintain her composure, keeping up a facade that she not only can't physically or emotionally do anymore, she's learning that she doesn't need or should have to. I liked how the author showed the nefarious ways it's easy to slip into this role and dynamic, Evvie met her husband while still in highschool and felt “lucky” to be noticed by him, all the while learning (emotional abused) how to keep him happy at the expense of herself (She was the one, after all, who had graduated second in her class, right behind him, after tanking her math final because she knew how much it meant to him to be valedictorian.). Along with emotional abuse there are physical abuse content warnings, this shows how as their relationship went on and her husband felt more comfortable, the abuse was ramping up. Evvie didn't have the language or emotional maturity to fully understand what was happening to her, especially since her abuser was so apt at keeping it hidden and the culture of shame kept her quiet. It's what makes this story/book so important, giving space to talk out and name these abuses. 

They wouldn’t have believed that the reasons she rarely felt like dancing with him had to do with the way he was at home. She knew the way he sort of glowed for most people. She probably knew it better than anybody, because she’d traded away more than anybody in return for it. 

Dean did have his own issues, he got the yips during his major league pitching career, which ultimately ended it. Evvie's bestfriend Andy is friends with Dean and he pairs them together with Dean renting out an apartment in Evvie's house so he can get away from the spotlight. It's summer so I loved the baseball additive and enjoyed some of the baseball history and lore but the ending to this thread of his was kind of meh, which I guess is another life lesson but meh all the same. This took place over a year, so you could say their relationship was a slow burn and again, I enjoyed them together but not the main reason I gave this four stars. 

“Who knows you?” he asked. 

The other main relationship was Evvie and her bestfriend Andy and how by her not telling him the truth about her marriage made Andy feel not as close or as important to her as he felt she was to him. It's a great look/discussion in all the ways people work to hide themselves and keep up an image by trying to protect themselves emotionally but end up only hurting themselves more. Also, a great look at how friendships can change over time as romances enter the picture. This was languid at times, insightful, emotional, funny, sweet, and hurt so good. The way it showed and called out a particular form of hidden abuse and how Evvie eventually built up the strength to call it so and work to emotionally navigate through it, will make you want to donate a copy to every library.

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#TBRChallenge Review: Sweet Starfire

Sweet Starfire by Jayne Ann Krentz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.3 stars 

This month's TBRChallenge (I know, I know, late again!) theme was Location, Location, Location. I can't imagine I'm the only one who's first thought was, “Get me the hell off this planet.” So, with that desire, I dove into my boxes of books and found myself on the way to the Stanza Nine system! 

"What is it you want delivered?" 

Cidra cleared her throat. "Myself." 

We're in space, folks! With povs from both our mains, Cidra and Teague, readers join them as Cidra is looking to book passage to travel the system in search of an artifact that she thinks will alter her mind to biologically become a Harmonic. While Cidra was born on Clementia to Harmonic parents, she didn't get the gene. In this time and space, humans are divided into Harmonics, intellectually and emotionally advanced, and Wolves, basic normies. Cidra's studied the Harmonic ways but can never really be them, she feels emotions in a way that doesn't cause her to be catatonic for hours. As a trained archivist, who focused on the First Families of their civilization, she thinks there's a “Ghost” artifact that can help her alter her brain. Teague's a postman and she wants to book passage on his ship to take her around to the different planets to search for it. 

Teague Severance hadn't been quite what she had expected, and Cidra had been trying to adjust to that fact. 

It's a set-up for a road romance between opposites attract, except Cidra and Teague are more alike than they want to admit, Cidra can't stop feeling those debased normie lust feelings and Teague is more kind and protective of Cidra than a Wolf should be. 

His mouth came down on hers with the urgency of a man who was running toward the promise of safety in a wild and uncontrolled land. 

On the cramped ship, these two have plenty of time to get to know one another and I enjoyed their calm, sweet, and frustrated with each other at times chemistry. There was humor and heart to Cidra being a little naïve and Teague doing some underlining talk but Cidra also pleasantly surprises with staying out of Mary Sue and waif territory. Her background of feeling lonely with not fitting in on her planet and Teague having lost a brother who was a Harmonic deliver some depth to their emotional characterization and provide for a villain in the wings. The villain thread delivered some danger and action but this was more of a sedately paced romance that took time to lean into the scifi world-building (that, ok, slowed it down a bit too much at times for me), but I accepted it because this is the start of the series and I imagine it's all building for a purpose. 

He had forced the Wolf in her to the surface after she had spent years struggling to suppress that part of her nature. 

Around 60% Cidra and Teague can't fight their chemistry anymore (not so bad lowering yourself to be with us normies now is it, Cidra!?) and we start getting sex scenes. There's more lore added to their Ghost ancestors (they were cats??? need more on this STAT, lol) and we get the calmest third act breakup when Teague is scared Cidra would regret leaving Harmonics for him. Cidra Rainforest would never waver and we get our space HEA. This was fun and had some wildly interesting additives, the aforementioned Furries, Fred the rockrug dog?cat?, a Chekhov's mantis, and the mutie evil alien dinosaurs. Cidra and Teague had just enough depth to them to pull me in and were sweet with a dash of spice to have me enjoy the ride in Stanza Nine. 

“You’ll have to trust me to come back, just as I’ll have to trust you to be waiting."

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#TBRChallenge Review: The Rake

The Rake by Mary Jo Putney
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The nineteenth was TBRChallenge day, to give an idea of how busy I've been, I started this book like March 5th and just finished today. But, I got it done. Persistence, let us all move thusly. The month's theme was Rizz, and though it may seem amazing, I've never read The Rake by Mary Jo Putney, so I immediately thought of it, because rakes and rizz, am I right?! Y'all, I got the tired middle aged rake. Which, fine, lol. There was no syphilis (Yeah!) but there was alcoholism. This book was featured on a lot of All Time Bests lists back in the day and if you're going to pick it up now, I'd say take into consideration the first publishing date of 1989, to give it some of the import it deserves in how it connects alcoholism and disease, something that is widely more accepted in this day and age.

Ex. of his rizz:
With a horrid sense of discovery, Alys realized how charming Davenport could be with a sparkle in his light blue eyes and a wide smile that invited her to smile with him.

Ex. of her rizz:
"Good Lord, Lady Alys, your eyes don't match."
"Really?" she said with asperity. "I never noticed."
"Indoors the gray-green eye looks more or less like the brown one, but in this light the difference is striking," he said, ignoring her sarcasm. "A most unusual feature, but then, you are a most unusual woman."

I've read a few Putney's and recognized a lot of names in this, so consider this loosely set in a series but the “Despair of the Davenports” has just been misplaced as heir when a cousin appears. Reggie (pour one out for the heroes once named Reggie, as I don't think we'll have any for a long time) is in his late thirties and now that his uncle who had to take him in when his family died, has also passed on, he has lost his taste for trying to embarrass the family. His heir cousin isn't a bad guy and alerts him to the fact that he should have inherited his childhood home all along. So, world weary of London, Reggie decides to go visit his old home. There he finds a steward who looks exceptionally well in pantaloons, discovering a “Lady Alys” has been hiding her gender and running his estate.

Under the world-weary air were tolerance and intelligence that would be a credit to anyone. And he had the tiredest eyes she had ever seen.

With povs from Alys, readers are let in that she's been on the run from her father after she overheard her betrothal say he was only marrying her for her money and found her a “bossy long leg”. Her father wouldn't let her break the betrothal and years later she survived hiding out as a governess and now estate manager, who also is the guardian of a young woman and her two younger brothers. There's some tension at first with Alys wondering if Reggie will fire her out of hand and Reggie trying to fight his attraction to her.

In a way, they were opposite sides of the same coin: The rake and the reformer, both stubborn and proud. One a destroyer, one a builder. One a cynic, one a dreamer.

I was very busy this month but oof, I struggled with this one, it liked to ramble. I mean, we had a sheep washing scene, lol. Who was going on about wanting more historical details in their romance? Couldn't be meeeeeee! I was tempted at times to call this men's fiction for a little bit because of the struggling with wanting a drink, not wanting a drink and remembering his childhood issues Reggie, but that was at my more petty moments. Alys' issues with not feeling attractive take up a good amount of time too. Basically, Reggie doesn't want to live up to his reputation anymore (throughout the story you learn some undeserved there) and Alys needs to accept Reggie finds her attractive. There's two other side romances, numerous povs from secondary characters, and a villain arc that brings some danger. I don't know, I love you all and I know this is a favorite, but, eek, I was bored a good portion of this.

What really sheared my sheep (I mean this in a float my boat way, lol, was trying to stay on theme) in this was the 1989 issue tackling you could feel happening:

"I have only one more question at the moment. As an eager reformer, have you had everyone on the estate vaccinated against smallpox?"
Alys was startled. "No, I've encouraged vaccination, but some of the workers are very suspicious about 'newfangled ideas.' Only about half the people would agree to it, and I don't really have the authority to insist on something like that." In fact, she had railed, begged, and pleaded with the tenants, enraged by their pigheaded stubbornness.
"In that case, I will issue my first order." His gaze met hers, cold determination in the depths of his eyes. "Everyone who is not vaccinated within the next month will be dismissed and evicted. There will be no exceptions."

Reggie don't play, and neither should you.

"If her husband had assaulted another woman as he did her, he could have been convicted and jailed. But since she was his wife, beating her was perfectly legal, unless he actually murdered her. There was no possibility of divorce. Violence isn't enough to free a wife of her husband."

Say it with me, “No fault divorce”.

"Allie, sex is a very basic part of the human animal, and it's a great tragedy that men and women almost never talk freely about it. Respectable women are taught that ignorance and distaste are signs of refinement. Heaven knows how you survived that kind of upbringing with your passion intact, but don't ever be ashamed of what you are, or what you feel."

Ok, so this sexual freedom, we love! But also beware that the “slut” other woman was a hell of a drug trope in this publishing era and this book does not escape it.

And because I can't help myself:
He drew her into waltz position, one strong hand on her waist and the other clasping her gloved hand firmly. "Good girl," he said softly as they began dancing.

Romance, good girling since 1989!

He stared down at her, raw emotion in his eyes. "Could you bear it if he does disinherit you?"
"Yes," she said flatly. "Could you bear it if he doesn't?"
He let his breath out in an explosive sigh. "I don't know."

The end gives us Alys' true identity coming into the mix and Reggie not liking the idea that she is actually more wealthy than him and ok, maybe thinks he's not good enough for her. I can see how Reggie's struggle with alcoholism and linking it to a disease would feel more impactful in the original year this was published and there was a decent amount of time dedicated to showing him struggling and have setbacks before he realized how he just had to be abstinent (there was some slight give it over to God that I wasn't thrilled with but ymmv). For more modern reading sensibilities, there was even too many povs and side stories going on for me and it made it kind of boring and scattered. I was also getting frustrated with Alys “I'm tall and ugly”, like girl, he's thirsting hard and everyone sees it. I guess I can see how it felt impactful at the time but sorry to say, I can see why it's falling off newer Best of lists.

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#TBRChallenge Review: The Liar's Dice

The Liar's Dice by Jeannie Lin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 stars 

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion. 

“Who is he?” I asked Zhou Dan as we moved to where he’d left the carriage. 

“No one you should associate with,” he replied abruptly.

I took one final glance back over my shoulder at Gao. He stood still and tall in the middle of the street, watching me. It wasn’t long before his tall figure faded into the darkness. 

This month's TBRChallenge theme was “Previously, in romance” and I knew immediately this was my chance to return to The Pingkang Li Mysteries series. Remember when I lost my mind reading The Lotus Palace in 2022 for a TBRChallenge theme? I've been itching for the chance to read the rich girl and the boy from the wrong side of the tracks next in the series romance. I'm also a very, very behind book blogger and only remembered the third Wednesday of the month was today around 9pm last night, so while I knew I couldn't finish The Hidden Moon, I knew I could the novella prequel to it, The Liar's Dice.

I shouldn’t have wanted for anything, yet I wanted. I stared down at my hands and how soft and empty they were. I didn’t even know what I wanted. 

If you haven't read the previous two books in the series, Wei-wei is the rich sheltered sister of Huang (book 1) and Gao is the street kid who kind of works with/for Huang but also stabbed him once. When I found out these two were going to be paired up, I lost my mind, lol. This prequel would work to jump into the series here, as you get to know Wei-wei and Gao, previously secondary characters we got glimpses of. This novella delivered a mini murder mystery and a tantalizing look at the beginning of their romance. 

“Your brother pays me whenever he needs things done, Lady Bai. We are not friends.” 

Wei-wei is twenty-five and realizes she's a sheltered rich girl and is starting to itch against some of her restraints, while also realizing that she doesn't want to move out of her parent's home. She's created a niche where she helped her older brother Huang and now her younger brother study for the Imperial exams. This takes place in the Tang Dynasty China, so there was a wealth of new historical elements that will have you wanting to go down rabbit holes on. She has purpose but is starting to realize it feels for other people and not herself but she also has some freedom, she can get one of their servants, Zhou Dan, to keep secrets for her and her parents kind of let her do her thing. 

“You want me to stay away,” I said. 

“I want you to stay away.” 

Wei-wei doesn't want to marry and lose what she has at her home but her favorite tale, The Butterfly Lovers about Zhu and Liang, has her wondering if she could also dress like a male and experience life outside her home walls. She tests these limits one night by getting Zhou Dan to take her to Mingyu's (book 2) tea house and while she enjoys the conversation she gets to overhear, if not yet participate in, she also gets lost when trying to find Zhou Dan. In the alleyways she meets Gao and comes upon a murder victim. From here, we get a murder mystery that twists and weaves, involving Huang and gives Wei-wei opportunity to be in Gao's presence. 

I reached out to him, just my hand against his chest for no reason other than that I wanted to. Just so he’d know, and so I’d know, but this time it was Gao who moved away. 

This was all told from Wei-wei's pov but we get enough from her observations of Gao to know his feelings and how hard he's trying to repress them. Y'all, from the first time they meet and he puts his hand on the small of her back (screeching!) I was losing it for this couple. It's obvious Gao likes her, finds her actions and thoughts interesting and frustrating when they put her in danger and some of that she's the sun warming him and Wei-wei finds him intriguing in that he's supposed to be dangerous but why do I feel safe with him and why does he bring out a side of myself that I try to quiet. In case you didn't know, I'm goo for this kind of dynamic. They have a kiss but Wei-wei is too thrown by it to really react and Gao's insecurity has him thinking Wei-wei is probably doing a version of slumming. 

When I was around him, I could be fearless too. 

The murder mystery has Wei-wei land in danger and Huang and Gao have to come in to rescue. We do get a wrap-up to the who and why of the mystery, which was honestly pretty strong for a novella, but the romance is left drifted off for it to continue in the next book. Wei-wei and Gao both had a quiet intensity to them but also a sweet playfulness that I'm dying to read in their full story. If anyone wants to buddy read The Hidden Moon in March, let me know! This was a perfect appetizer novella and great if you wanted to jump into the series here (but don't, the first two books are so good!) 

A simple message, one without words that held all the promise in the world. It had been folded into the shape of a butterfly 

(Gao knows Wei-wei's favorite tale is the Butterfly Lovers!!! He's sending her a message he hasn't forgotten about her, at the end of this.)

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#TBRChallenge Review: A Cowboy to Remember

A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars 

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion. 

“Do you want me to put my hat back on?” 

He was joking, but she didn’t care. “Yes.” 

He chuckled a bit, then grabbed his cowboy hat off the hook near his bedroom door. He slipped it on his head, then climbed in the bed. 

Starting the year off with a late #TBRChallenge, how sooo unlike me. January's theme was New Year, Who Dis?, which I took to mean a new to me author. I've had this author on my tbr for a couple years now and when I was going through my books on my Kindle, well, the cover caught my eye you could say. 

This is an amnesia story, which on paper, I'm burnt out on but there was an interesting angle that drew me in as I got into the story (and no, it wasn't All due to the cowboy hat, lol). We start off with our female main character at an event where we learn Evie is a chef who won some reality tv competitions and is now co-hosting her own show, she's essentially made it. We get some clues that she's a bit tired, over worked, and is actually playing the game to save enough money to open her own restaurant. Things come to a crashing halt when someone she beat out on a competition show, ends up pushing her down a flight a stairs. Evie survives but has amnesia, she can't remember anything about herself. 

With some secondary character bestfriends and inner circle, Evie's emergency contact is called, a Jesse Pleasant, a rancher from Southern California. Readers have a little knowledge that Evie grew-up on this ranch with the Pleasant brothers when her grandmother had to take her when her parents died when she was a kid. Jesse is the oldest, Sam the youngest, and the one who keeps appearing in her spotty dreams, Zach. With povs from mainly Evie and Zach, but also some of the secondary characters, we get a well rounded look at how Evie had a crush on Zach and they fooled around as teenagers only to have a crushing break-up ten years ago and the two haven't talked since. 

With Evie's celebrity but memory loss, everyone thinks it's best to kind of hide Evie until she can recover, there's also some side worrying about how she ended up at the bottom of the stairs. Evie ends up leaving New York and going to stay at the Pleasant's ranch in SoCal. The interesting angle I talked about is how Evie and Zach are still essentially in a fight but Evie has no clue about it, so this leads to a different take on how they're going to work it out. Zach is pretty honest up front and tells her about it, he gives an apology and with Evie's memory loss, she's able to hear it, if not fully internalize it, because she's missing the blocking wall of pain and anger. Their forced proximity at the ranch has them spending time together with Evie physically attracted to Zach and having the lingering residue of emotionally having once been attached to him, some of her dreams work as mini flashbacks to moments they had growing up. 

Zach's family is very cautious about him and Evie being together but Zach see's this as his second chance and Evie is growing to like him, so they get together, with the looming, is Evie going to get her memory back and then be mad all over again. It takes until around the 80% mark for her to eventually remember all but by then, she and Zach have bonded again, so most of the work has been done, with a brief moment of Evie having to work through that past anger but equipped with Zach's apology. Zach does apologize again, when it's more meaningful for Evie and readers get more of how they were early twenties and Evie's grandmother was in Zach's ear about not holding her back career wise. It's all easy and understandable why they disconnected but also why it's now easy for them to fall into this second chance. 

I liked how the amnesia angle worked to deliver a different spin on a second chance forgiveness, I liked all the secondary characters who delivered (Miss Leona novella or supplement or something, give me more about this woman's life!) and have me anticipating their own books, I loved the cowboy hats, I did want more of the ranch but I have a feeling older brother Jesse may deliver that for me, I wanted a little more time spent together and developing Evie and Zach's new romance, I loved all the doggies running around, and I greatly enjoyed the friends and family relationship dynamics.

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TBRChallenge Review: Courting Catherine

Courting Catherine by Nora Roberts
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion. 

All he had to do was convince four sentimental women and their aunt to take the money and run. 

This month's TBRChallenge theme was “It came from the '90s!” and as that was the decade I came into reading romance, well, all I had to do was reach into a closet book box and see what I'd be reading. Courting Catherine is first in The Calhoun Women series by Nora Roberts, it's just shy of 200pgs and while, you know me, I have some grumbles about some aspects not being flushed out enough, there is something to be said for short, snappy contemporaries. 

This actually starts off with a Prologue in 1912 Bar Harbor, ME where a Mrs. Fergus Calhoun is out walking the cliffs with her children and comes upon an artist. There's zinging lust but, alas, she's married and with only a lingering glance back, she leaves the soulful eyed painter behind. For now. We then jump to Bar Harbor 1991 (extremely more current than 1912 could ever be, I can't bring myself to tag this historical, leave me alone) and are stranded with our main male character, Trenton St. James III as his BMW has broken down on the way to negotiate with four women and an aunt to convince them to sell their ancestral home so he can turn it into and fold it into his hotel business. The mechanic he tows his car to, C.C., turns out to be the youngest Calhoun sister Catherine, and she Does. Not. Want. To. Sell. 

She strode toward him until they were toe-to-toe and eye-to-eye. “I’m Catherine Colleen Calhoun. And I want you to keep your greedy hands off my house.”

I mentioned it in a reading update, but I love the clash of he's intrigued by her: “Get your butt back in your big, bad BMW and head back to Boston.” 

“A fascinating alliteration.” and she's annoyed by him: There was something arrogant about a maroon tie. Even his tie is getting under her skin! Classic. They're the oil and water big business rich boy and small-town mechanic in debt girl, but with that all important zing of attraction. I'm going to mention the page count again, it didn't lend itself to allowing too much filling out of Trent, we get that he's against marriage because his dad is on his fourth marriage, so he doesn't believe in all that love junk: Women were unstable, fickle creatures, and marriage was a bloodless kind of suicide. The ever present excuse, Daddy Drama. So while, he feels attraction, I mean, our boy was poetic waxing his butt off: He thought, foolishly, that he could feel the starlight on her skin, taste the moondust on her lips. He also gets scaredy pants when they're ready to get it on and C.C. lets it drop that not only is she a virgin, gasp!, she also LOVES him. The Horror. We get more of a complete character from C.C., having her family around, four sisters and aunt who raised them after their parents died, help to give different layers to her and I just felt like I ended up knowing her more.

Inside, Lilah smiled. “Why, he’s in love with her after all, but he’s too stupid to know it.” 

While these two are having some clash-offs, about to give into temptation, and then the running, there's also some of that trademark Roberts' paranormal. Remember 1912 Mrs. Calhoun? Apparently, she just casually haunts a tower in the house. As one does. Trenton St. James III finds himself attending a séance. As one does! During the séance, they feel a presence, specifically C.C. and Trenton, and an emerald and diamond necklace is brought up. They think it's hidden in the house somewhere, if it exists. This could save their money troubles, but, this is a series and we can't have all the answers in book one (there were also more flashbacks to 1912 to show a little more of the Mrs. and painter story progress but lingering questions there too). So with the necklace waiting in the wings somewhere, the sisters come to the conclusion that they are going to be forced to sell. Deciding that they should have a date before he leaves (a little ???), Trenton St. James III leaves himself open to the oldest attack in the book, The Revenge Dress. Our girl C.C. does not disappoint in a tight slinky red number slit up and plunged down to defeat the toughest of foes. Trenton St. James III has trouble breathing but Daddy Drama is also a tough force and he still ends up leaving. 

“You’re throwing away something—no, not throwing,” she corrected. “You’re politely handing back something you’ll never have again. What you’ve turned out of your life, Trent, would have been the best part of it.” 

A jump of three weeks and our waxing poet grows a heart of gold and comes up with a solution to the Calhoun women's woes (I feel like they should have thought this one up themselves?), he's going to front them the money to turn the west wing of the house into a hotel and have them live in the other part of the house. Trenton St. James III also breaks free from Daddy Drama and admits to himself that he loves C.C. and we get our I love yous and engagement. Like I said, there's something to be said for shorter and snappy and this hit the spot. Probably also because I liked the dynamic between the two, you could feel the attraction and ol' Trent was visibly the one struggling/a mess more, while C.C. put down her snarky fight first and accepted she loved him. Plus, we get some layered under the surface talk/scenes like this: 

“It’s warped.” She swallowed, hoping to smother the squeak in her voice.“Everything around here is warped or broken or about to disintegrate. I don’t know why you’d even consider buying it.” 

Her face was pale as water, Trent noted, making her eyes that much deeper. The panicked distress in them seemed more than a warped tower door warranted. “Doors can be repaired or replaced.” 

She's feeling for him but scared she's not good enough, so using the house in place, and he's all I got you. Sucker for such scenes, I tell you.

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#TBRChallenge Reading Update: 5%

I really am a sucker for the main character dynamic of he's intrigued "Get your butt back in your big, bad BMW and head back to Boston."

"A fascinating alliteration."

and he puts her back up, There was something arrogant about a maroon tie. I mean, this guy's tie is annoying her!😂

#TBRChallenge Review: The Master of Black Tower

The Master of Black Tower by Barbara Michaels
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

*This is a #TBRChallenge review, there will be spoilers, I don't spoil everything but enough, because I treat these reviews as a bookclub discussion. 

He walked like Satan through the wrath of heaven, with a long, free stride and arrogantly poised head; and I wondered how many years it would take to wipe that picture of him out of my mind. 

Y'all. I don't know. The theme for this month's TBRChallenge was Spooky/Gothic and while you could say this had some vibes of those characteristics, I'm going with UNHINGED for our word of the day. The pace and vibes were all over the place and just the general way the author wrote the characters and their actions? My modern self can only think of UNHINGED. 

In first person pov (my preferred pov in Gothics), readers are introduced to our heroine Damaris as she's at her father's funeral. It's 1853 and since her and her scholar father lived a bit hermit, there's really no one to turn to for eighteen year old Damaris. Her father didn't leave her quite enough to be independent and everyone is just expecting her to marry her father's heir and her cousin, Randall. Damaris does not like Randall, though. I have to say, my mind went places over how she thought about Randall but it's more that she just doesn't like him. Our “boldness of character” (Horrors!) Damaris was her father's secretary for years and so she sends out letters trying to find a job with some of her father's associates. I'm sure you can imagine how that goes and Darmaris has to slap some faces before she decides to go to one more interview, Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Master of Blacktower. 

Like any good master of a tower in a Gothic, Gavin is scarred, Across one side of his face, from brow to chin, ran a livid scar that puckered his flesh and distorted the shape of his mouth. Damaris is disturbed at first, but remember, boldness of character! And not wanting to marry cousin Randall, has her accepting the job to catalog and arrange his library in Scotland. Gavin mentions that a chaperon, an older, probably should go to a doctor for narcolepsy, lady will be there, along with his daughter, Annabelle. Gavin has this to say about his daughter: “The young lady is my daughter. She is an invalid, unable to walk. Because of her handicap she has been badly spoiled. She seems even younger than her sixteen years.” 

AND 

The girl hasn’t the brains of a gnat, and her character is no more pleasing. I was only trying to warn you what you can expect from the little idiot. Personally, I advise you to avoid her. I do.” 

Seems a bit harsh??? 

Damaris arrives at Gavin's home by the Cairngorm Mountains and we get some rainy, desolate Gothic vibes. Damaris notices that Gavin always wears these black silk gloves (spooooky), the help seems scraggly, there's an Angus who is around to be creepy, Annabelle and her maid are a-holes, and they "only use the west wing” of the house. If you're like me, you just yelled out that the wife who birthed the daughter Gavin is such a fan of and has not been mentioned, is in that east wing being crazy. 

You have to wait and see! 

Damaris, sort of, gets around to righting his library but mostly it seems that they go horse riding most days. There's some back and forth between the two that we get to “see” and for the most part Gavin is that his bark is worse than his bite hero character and he's more teasing under currents toward her. It was disappointing that we didn't get to see these two together as much as I wanted but that publishing date of 1966 is a killer. When they do have a moment of kissing, it's like the author wrote the words, finished the book, and then right before publishing, the kissing scenes got deleted. The scenes read as if the words were snatched right out, all left up to readers getting the context and having to imagining it happening. Anyway, there's a lightening storm that causes feelings to get heightened between Damaris and Gavin while they're fighting, a kiss (I'm 99.99% sure it happened!), and then Damaris is saying she loves Gavin. Readers have maybe seen them together four times (under ten at least!) at this point. 

Some of the unhinged comes from when Damaris meets the daughter and Annabelle acts like she can't leave the bed, every character Damaris talks to has a different opinion to how the daughter lost her ability to walk. The different stories also come flooding in when Damaris asks about Gavin's wife, pleurisy! childbirth! drowned! murdered! Every time reader's think they know, it's some other wild story that doesn't even seem necessary to add getting thrown out there. 

I forgot to say Davey the minstrel is also in the house. No, he's not really intricate to the story, but he's there! 

Gavin ends up leaving to go to Edinburgh for a while (to do Master things???) and Damaris is a girl after my own heart and gets to snooping. Disappointingly she doesn't really find anything other than Gavin needs an interior designer for a woman's touch. 

Davey the minstrel dies. 

A brother and sister, Sir Andrew and Lady Mary, decide to let a house in the neighborhood and start slinking around. Andrew makes a move on Damaris thinking she's Gavin's mistress, there's some slapping and then it becomes glaring apparent that he's after Annabelle but 18 yr old Damaris is 18 yr old-ing and above her head it goes. She's still wrapped up in loving Gavin but thinking he wants nothing to do with her, especially when Lady Mary comes into the picture because he seems captivated by her. Along with readers probably working out that Andrew wants the daughter, it's pretty obvious that Gavin likes Damaris but feels too old and scarred for her, he shows some jealously when Andrew is in the picture. 

Damaris walks in on the daughter trying to walk(?????). I guess Annabelle was never examined by a doctor and just has been laying in her bed for 14ish years(??????). Damaris feels like she should tell Gavin but shrugs it off because meh, no one likes the girl anyway. Unhinged 

Andrew wants to marry Annabelle! Damaris is Shocked! Gavin says NO. Damaris receives a note slid under her door: “I must talk to you tonight,” it began, without greeting. “But not in the house. Come to the Black Tower at once.” 

She automatically assumes it's from Gavin and gallivants off to the isolated, crumbling, old tower. Unhinged. Gothic par for the course. 

I'm sure this will shock all of you, but Damaris gets scared by someone there and as she's hanging, dangling over a ledge, she's grasping someone's wrist but they don't help and she falls. She ends up knocked out but waking up and managing to crawl in the dark and rain most the way back until she's discovered. She spends ten-ish days in bed with a fever. One of the biggest complaints I have about this book is how days are just skipped, the passage of time felt out of wack and ruined some of the story flow for me. 

We get the term “idiot content”. 

Half a star added to rating 

Damaris learns a reason to not fear Gavin when he reveals why he wears the black silk gloves, even though she was totally at least 65% sure he wasn't out to murder her. She adds stalking to snooping and catches Gavin and Lady Mary having a heated moment but before she can get more answers, cousin Randall arrives! 

They were almost of a height, although Randall was broader and thicker than the Master. The latter was dressed in his usual costume, kilt and hose, and jacket over a not too clean white shirt. He wore no cravat; his collar was open; and his hair was wet. If a stranger had been asked to decide which of the two was the heir to a great peerage, he would never have chosen Mr. Hamilton. 

The hero doesn't physically measure up to the challenger?!? Unhinged! 

Damaris seems to get some concrete information on the wife, she was lower class, Gavin married her against the wishes of his family, and it seems she started to make his life miserable when they didn't live as lavish as she thought they would. Does Damaris get this info from Gavin? Ahahahhhahhha, no. Creepy Angus. 

With Randall in the picture, Gavin gets more activated and we finally get some scenes of them together, with moments: I was crying by then, but they were tears of rage, and when he pulled me into his arms I tried to bite him. 

And 

His arms tightened. “Randall can’t have you. You belong to me. How do you like that, you fiery feminist?” 

Fiery Feminist. 

Half a star added to rating 

Andrew and Lady Mary are holding a ball! 

Gavin tries to get Damaris to agree to leave right after the ball. She thinks he doesn't love her and wants to foist her off on Randall. They're finally about to actually talk it out on a balcony at the ball when the stable hand Ian comes crawling out of the woods and tells them that Andrew has taken Annabelle and they're off to elope. It's all over within a few pages, because there's nothing this story likes to do more than skip right over events, and Annabelle shows why her dad speaks of her the way he does. Seriously, having a kid so unlikable and a parent who so blatantly doesn't like her, Damaris says some pretty dismissive stuff about her too, feels wild because modern publishing seems like it would never. Unhinged 

The elopement attempt might be over but the action isn't! The story really rushes from this point. We get a sword fight! Lamenting and moaning from Gavin when he didn't kill, only wounded, someone, and Damaris forced to leave. But Gavin seems to have some sort of plan, he alluded to it at the ball, and he sends Annabelle, Randall, Ian, a maid, and the narcolepsy lady with Damaris to Edinburgh. He also gives Damaris a package that he makes her promise to give to his lawyer in Edinburgh. 

They travel six hours before Damaris, is like, naw. And decides to leave, without telling anyone, IN A SNOW STORM (unhinged), that she is going back to Gavin. Ian catches up to her and they have a harrowing trip back, a horse dies, Ian severely hurts knee, they find shelter close to Gavin's home. Damaris sleeps a bit but then wakes up in the middle of the night and decides, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. She leaves in the dark snowy storm and climbs up an icy rocky cliff(?????) and then passes out as a shadowy form is coming toward her. 

She wakes to Gavin and they're hold up in the dungeon/basement of the crumbling tower. We get a declaration of love and finally get some, unhinged, answers 

SPOILERS

Lady Mary is Gavin's wife (it can't always be the east wing!) and Andrew is her lover. With Gavin being the heir to his old ailing brother, Lady Mary set up a plan to get Andrew to marry Annabelle (wedding your daughter to your lover, unhinged) and then have hired assassins (they were 'guests' at the ball) kill Gavin. Side killing Damaris has also been in the works 

END SPOILERS

Now that Damaris (and readers) know the score, Gavin and Damaris are on the run from assassins. Unhinged because to get to this point from where we started?? 

Creepy Angus pops up and we get an, unhinged feeling explanation that he was creepy because he thought he was the bastard son of Gavin's grandfather(????). 

Gavin has a life and death fight with a dog, a horse saves them, and people fall off a cliff. The end. 

I'm not exaggerating, I only thought I'd read abrupt endings before. Unhinged.

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