Crazy Sweet by Tara Janzen

Ok. Gillian was tortured by being injected with a painful experimental drug. But. As the evil bad guy, Tony Royce, so fondly remembers, Dylan suffered worse when he was captured by Hamzah Negara. And did Dylan come back to Steele Street thirsting for vengeance. No. He came back ready for love. For Skeeter.

Unlike Red Dog. I do remember Gillian Shore. Seeing how she did her best to miserify Dylan and Skeeter’s Crazy Love with her blame-filled memories of publishing, marriage and divorce in academia. She read as a somewhat bitter woman working a going nowhere administrative gofer job for a supposed passed over General. Personally. I consider that Red Dog is actually leading a much more interesting life since her torture. Living with nice guys, great job, physically healthier, inspiring love-life. So really. The only reason for her to be angry with Royce is that he let the amoral part of her psyche out into the open. You know. The part of her that lets her cheat on her man and then try to justify it in the name of vengeance. The part of her that wouldn’t hesitate to flush the Steele Street guys, wives and cute babies down the crapper, all in the name of righteous retribution. Gillian Shore had absolutely no self-esteem. Now Red Dog’s got attitude in spades. What’s she got to belly-ache about? Dylan should have taken her to one side and they could have talked both their experiences through in a supportive manner. I don’t blame other readers for disliking Gillian. I think they are right.

There is still one reason for liking Red Dog. In the man's world of sniperdom, the author allows her to get seriously wounded. Despite her supposed near-legendary hunting and shooting abilities. How typical. But I suppose that’s what had to happen for her to redeem herself. Didn’t work for me though. She just became a huge liability for the SDF in the middle of a mission. Still. Skeeter better realise she’s got a snowball in hells chance of being assigned to an operation.

Crazy Sweet is brilliantly put together though. At the end of chapter 2 I was gob-smacked when the author shut the reader out of Gillian and Travis’s intimate encounter. Fortunately we rejoined them later. And missed nothing. Unusually there are some steaming hot scenes near the beginning of the story. Makes a nice change for the series. In the meantime we got to meet Royce. What a great invention he was. The subsequent bad-guys in this series are pale shadows on a cave wall compared to Royce. What a shame he didn’t get to place Skeeter in danger. Seeing how he hated her so much more than Red Dog. I would love to have seen Dylan in stone-killer mode.

I’m totally used to the style of this genre now. So I had no problems with the Honey and Smith interludes. Poor Travis. He’s a lap-dog for Gillian. I suppose I’m witnessing an attempt at a bdsm relationship for a couple of the Steele Street crew. Like many readers. I find it just plain weird and totally non aspirational. Basically. The psychopharmaceuticals turned Gillian into a user..of people. But she always had it in her. Travis should just let her go. Until then their HEA is more a case of a work in progress. Gillian needs to make amends to 738 Steele Street. The novel should have ended with Dylan at last getting it on with Skeeter in her shiny red spike-heels.

Did I say I was giving up this series? What a liar I am. So much looking forward to Johnny and Esmee’s story. But November 2008!!?? (Sigh) Another year of life gone.

btw Why have Cody and expecially Kat totally disappeared from the series? I'd love to read some more about them.

Cutting Loose by Tara Janzen v2

Simple plot, multilayered relationships. I had to read it a couple of times before I really appreciated how wonderful this novel is.

I loved how the strands dovetailed together. The final showdown scene was brilliantly done. Tense, exciting, clever and it almost ended in tragedy.

The relationship between the main couple isn't really about true love. But so what? Both are adults and if they only make each other happy for a few years, it doesn't mean their feelings for each other are less intense.

I loved the road-trip part of the plot. Lily and Zach are the good guys but for a while they are portrayed like they were some kind of killer-couple on the run through the open spaces of New Mexico.

But most of all I like the world the author has created. A fantasy spy world that references bang up to date current affairs. I also appreciate the research done on custom cars, custom computers and weapons. A quirk of this series is that many action scenes take place out-of-story. That's why the series remains firmly in the women's market. Although this particular novel has some great little insights into the workings of the mind of a guy. And the writing style is wonderful too. Sometimes it fools the reader into believing this is a lightweight series.

Subtle and very entertaining.

Let's face it though. Zach should have taken a plane straight to DC. What kind of an op would drive such a highly distinctive auto on a mission. But these are minors.

Cutting Loose by Tara Janzen

I read this book and thought to myself: "What a Wasted Opportunity." Basic problem for me. As always. Too many threads to the plot and while they all tie together nicely towards the end of the novel, they take too much time away from the main couple, Zach and Lily, who end up being bit players in their own story. Which is a shame really. Because as a reader I liked them both. Despite the fact that Zach has still-born hots for Skeeter and smouldering embers for Jewel. Lily didn't seem to notice. Which is surprising seeing how her ex cheated on her.

Up front. This is about recovering a macrame bracelet woven with the electronic key to a Very Important encrypted file on a hard-drive somewhere. Lily has the bracelet. Zach gets it from her. Simple as that. The big showdown scene was very well done. Tons of tension, excitement and near tragedy. But it was over and done with very quickly...too quickly really.

Essentially this is a road trip novel. And how interesting can such an animal be in today's age of GPS and cell-phones? I suppose that's what the author thought and that's why she put all those other subplots. Takes a lot of guts to include black ops in Pakistan and give serious mention to yellowcake! However I personally would have appreciated longer spent with the main couple, apart and together. On the road, in the car and on the bed. Just to show I'm not totally stupid I will ask; 'Ever heard of air travel? Like are there no flights from Albuquerque that could get to Denver in under six hours?' I don't know what some reviewers are complaining about. Out of the Steele Street crew, we only got to meet Dylan, Skeeter and Honey. Not enough as far as I'm concerned. More Kat and Superman for me please. I also note that the couples have stopped getting married since Crazy Love. Presumably they're all co-habiting. Which is a shame. Thank the lord no divorces though.

I'd like to say that this reader doesn't really want to know about the personal relationships of the baddies, not least because this particular author makes them too similar to the good-guys. Yes. That is a failing. In fact Zach makes a very strange speech to Lily in which he describes all the characteristics of an evil gun-for-hire. And I thought: "But Zach. That is exactly like you." I didn't like the fact that in his former incarnation Zach was a drug-exporter. But I have come across other authors who use this same trick. The idea is that the drugs which Zach supplied were always intercepted by the DEA way down the line. How long would Zach have lasted if that had really happened? Certainly not the 8 years he lived as Alejandro Campos. Somebody would have offed Zach long ago. That theme could have been explored a little more in the book.

Next up is Crazy Sweet. Gillian's story. Already I can see why some readers didn't like her. Basically she pimped herself out for a while. In her Red Dog mode. Vengeance is pointless when it involves loss of self-respect. So Tony Royce won twice over. Despite the fact that he's dead. Not that Gillian has the moral compass to feel any of that. After that. I'll give the Crazy Series and its shirt-tail cousin, the Loose series a rest. Not Enough Meat Mother. (Otherwise known as 'you have to wait ages for the rumpy-pumpy which doesn't show up until the final third of the book' syndrome. And feels more like hot sex than hot love.)

Finally. It's such a shame there is so little buzz about this series. Because the author is actually a supremely talented writer. When I read a series by one author I only expect one of the books to be great. The remainder so so. Crazy Cool was my utterly favorite. I could go on about Kat's vulnerability for hours... The first novel I read was Skeeter's story, Crazy Love. That turned me on to the author's style. I also totally loved the Skeeter part of Crazy Wild. So even though I criticize, I'm more than satisfied with my cash outlay. Crazy Cool will definitely accompany me to a desert isle, outer space or the slammer. Should such situations ever arise. I will absolutely demand to be buried with Cold As Ice and Crazy Cool together.

Born In Death by J D Robb

Highly enjoyable. Especially the first half. When Roarke gets upset that his good name has been impugned (ha!) and asks Eve to give up a case. The way Eve gets round him is wonderful. Lovely shower scene. I even quite enjoyed the murder mystery. Although it goes without saying that I didn’t have a clue where Eve got her clues from. And I wasn’t convinced that ten annual illegal adoptions could fund the lifestyles of the main perps. I liked the little reminder in this book that however much Eve may deny it, she is the wife of a billionaire and has a lot more cash available to spend than the average joe. Eve should have volunteered to reimburse Delia for the baby-shower gifts before Delia reminded her to do so. Eve meets surprisingly little resentment about her income level. I like to see her deal with difficulties in her personal life.

Unfortunately. The second half of the book is almost completely given over to babies, babies, babies and Mavis. I have never liked the character of Mavis. One of those ghastly over-bright and bubbly pain-in-the-butts. I don’t even much like Peabody. Or Nadine. All of them seem to owe their success to either Eve or Roarke. Why are they so reliant on the friendship of yes-people? But that’s just my opinion and I know I’m in a minority. I even understand that the success of authors like Jodi Picoult mean that other authors are under pressure to incorporate children into their story-lines.

Anyway. Another very good effort by J. D.

Memories In Death by J D Robb

I quite enjoyed this. One reason being that for a change Roarke is allowed to show his nasty side...to Trudy...who turns into the victim of murder a few pages later. The more boring In Death books are all those where Roarke is turned into some kind of opinionless crutch for his wife. Which is most of them nowadays. Also. Eve shows her selfish side and then has to apologise to her husband. I enjoyed that too.

Towards the end of the book, the perp, Marnie calls Eve a hypocrite. I agree with her. Eve says that she would have prefered that sadistic foster mom, Trudy, should have been tried for her child abuse crimes and then put in a cage for many many years. But who would have the guts to see that justice was done? Not Eve. She had shut Trudy out of her mind and turned into a cowardly pussy the first time she saw her in her adult life. Yet Marnie, another abused foster kid had the balls to hand out vengeance and then had to suffer Eve at her sermonising, insufferably moralising worst. The case of Trudy's death should have been left unsolved and quietly closed.

In any case. This is a prime example of a crime some police forces categorise as 'no humans involved.' That is, one felon committing a crime upon another felon. Why a fairly decent human being such as Eve feels any personal attachment to Trudy is beyond my understanding.

Despite all that. Like I said I enjoyed this novel. Mainly because there are lots of scenes between Roarke and Eve. One relationship that continues to ring false however, is the one between Eve and Summerset. There really is no need for Eve to be so constantly abusive to Sommerset, who is essentially a well-loved servant. Sometimes it seems that she's bullying him. Seeing how she's married to his employer. By now all the readers realise that if it came to a choice between Summerset and Eve, Roarke would choose his wife every time.

Second Sight by Amanda Quick

What can I say? The written equivalent of muzak. It exists, its inoffensive and for a while it permeated my brain. I felt absolutely no emotions of any kind while reading it. No enjoyment, my ears didn't glow. Neither did I throw it at the wall. Obviously I didn't hate it either. What I did feel was security. Total security. This book is formula writing at its most mundane.

Amanda Quick used to write lovely romances about fairly interesting couples. I find it hard to believe it's the same person writing this wordy, boring dross. Has she franchised her name out to various anonymous authors who are kept on a very tight chain by the publishing house? What's with this crummy theme of mesmerism that keeps appearing in novel after novel. Is she grateful to the hypnotist who enabled her to give up smoking? Has her husband left her after 50 years of marriage?

Anyway. Second Sight isn't bad. Other than it makes no sense. But it is shoddily plotted. Seeing how the much vaunted psychic abilities of the hero completely desert him during possibly the only crucial moment in the novel.

At least the heroine, Venetia, doesn't dress as weird nor is she as nit-pickingly argumentative as some of Quicks previous lead females. But she does stay true to form in that she is a 28-yo who behaves like a 58-yo.

One of the things that lets the story down is the frequent references to the 'police.' In 19 century London? I don't think so.

I turned over page after page convinced that soon Something Would Happen. And it does. But not until about page 378 of a 400 page novel. The middle and the end of this story are basically squeezed into the final two, still uninteresting, chapters. Cunningly. The first chapter is actually quite good. With the start of the relationship between the main couple and the start of the mystery. But then nothing happens for chapter after chapter. I'm not even sure what the original formula was supposed to do to young Mr Stillings. Though I did get that he needed the box to find the cure to the slow-acting poison. Couldn't Rosalind Flemming tell that her lover 'old Lord Ackroyd' was actually a much younger man? Wouldn't he have made a far more suitable blackmail victim? It still didn't make sense that she totally hated Venetia.

For diehard fans. Plus those readers who need a short rest from Lora Leigh's bump and grind. And get it from a library. Don't bother to buy.

Upon the Midnight Clear by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Don’t be fooled by the gorgeous male on the cover. This is a horrible horrible nasty book featuring a rich whiney supremely self-centered small-minded jerk who thinks because he hands out money to his friends and relatives they should give him their undying love, gratitude and loyalty. And then hates them and the world in general when they don’t. News flash. When I get my salary every month it does not mean I love the corporation I work for nor am I particularly grateful for it.

The jerk’s name is Aidan. He’s about 100 times worse than an 80s Lowell hero. Aidan’s brother Donnie is in jail for lying to the tabloids about Aidan.!! (That could only happen to one of life’s serial losers.) So what does Aidan want to do? He sets out to kill Donnie. But will he end up in jail. Like hell. Because he’s a multi-multi millionaire. But the reader’s sympathies are supposed to lie with rich Aidan. There’s an absolute ton of this kind of stuff in the novel;

"(Aidan) was so tired of people playing him, using him to get what they wanted, then casting him aside the minute they got what they wanted."

Tons and tons of how Aidan is the only loyal, good, sincere person in the world. You know. This type of thing happens to many non-rich people in life too. I’ve had friends cry on my shoulder about how their partners or bosses have used them for money, career advancement. Sure they are hurt. But they get over it and on with their lives. To obsess about each bad life experience and plot vengeance or death is the type of thing only a social misfit or weirdo would do. Like postal killers or Klebold. People who can’t take not being the centre of the universe. People who resent other people being happy without them. And that’s the hero of this book!! Which is supposed to be a vampire action-romance.

But why am I complaining? I rumbled this author long ago. She puts her bad life-experiences in her novels, churns them through some kind of ‘this is how it should have been’ machine in her brain. And then foists them on her readers. But it just shows how narrow-minded and self-obsessed she’s become. Which is just like some rich people who believe that ordinary citizens should show them some kind of deference for the single fact that they are rich. I’m going to be even ruder. I used to work in special-ed. Believe me. The lack of ability to see any point of view other than their own is very much a characteristic of this client group.

So why did I pick up the book? Basically I forgot about the immature revenge fantasies the author often writes and just thought ‘greek gods and goddesses plus vampires plus good romance.’ I should have thought ‘petty trailer park mind-set.’ At least I just got it from the library. And the cover was very nice.

dnf.

I know that the author has a whole bunch of loyal fans. I leave it to one of them to write a glowing review.