The In Death Challenge

I used to read the In Death series. Then I stopped. Because to read book after book with (often) detailed descriptions of child abuse made me ask myself 'Are Eve's memories being written as a form of entertainment?' Ugh.

The second reason I stopped is that I read a couple of the In Death books where I thought Eve was totally wrong to punish the 'perps'. (The Icahn killers; her abusive stepmom's killer.) She has a much too 'black and white' view of crime. And it made her seem narrow-minded. (Which of course is why the author has to keep reminding the reader that Eve used to be a victim too.)

Chill by Stephanie Rowe

This is about the 10th time I have tried to write a review for this book. Which I read in about 2 days. That tells you its well written but extremely problematic.

I need to tell you. Everything the heroine believes in turns out to be true. But that doesn't make the book better; just worse. Also tbh the main couple who are initially presented as being an antiquities expert (her) and a bush pilot (him) actually turn out to be a couple of quite sordid low-lifes.

Another caution. The novel is chocabloc full of men owning and using weapons. With the result that a number of completely innocent people are terrorised and/or seriously injured.

I never realised that the antique jewellery business was so incredibly dirty. Or that a necklace and earing set could be worth half a billion dollars.

In theory the story contains adventure, exotic (cold) locations, romance and a happy ending. And there's a lot packed into quite a short novel.

Let's discuss the romance. Actually there's not much. It's more like a 'will to couple' on his part. I always take a step back when the author has the heroine admit she kissed 'countless others.' Because in theory that makes it about 10 times as hard to persuade the reader that the heroine is falling in love in the novel itself. (It's like sabotaging your own work.) Believe me. I never got persuaded that the heroine doesn't kiss or hump like you and I shake hands when we meet someone new. There is one big love scene towards the end of the book. It seemed to me that the heroine used her body to get the hero to disclose the whereabouts of the missing earings....and then she knowingly betrayed that knowledge to his enemies for some half baked scheme she decided upon without the hero's slightest consent. In the hope that 'everything would turn out all right.' Which it did. But only because its a piece of fiction.

The heroine turned out to be the daughter of a hooker. A hooker who kept her daughter hungry and dressed in hand-me-downs while she bought glamour wigs and short skirts for her trade. But of course. Daughter absolutely dotes on Mommy. Eventually Mommy gets a respectable job where she immediately falls for a guy. But when she tells the guy she used to be a hooker the guy dumps her. So Mommy goes straight back to the life...the rough life. And when she gets beat up by a john the daughter beats the guy to death. But the daughter, our 29 yo heroine, still dotes on her dead hooker Mommy. Because they were the 'best of friends'. In my book, the hooker Mom had an abusive relationship with her daughter. What's more the daughters fixation in finding a substitute father figure exactly mirrors the hooker Mommy's fixation in finding a respectable fiance to marry. But Ms 'PhD' Isabella couldn't see that. And in believing the loathsome Marcus Fie is a kindly caring old man Isabella goes to Alaska to ask Luke for help. But in actual fact Isabella is being sent to flush out Luke by the bad guys. Because they know he can't resist a beautiful body...and they also seem to know that Isabella isn't going to say 'No' to Luke. Jeez. I wonder how they came to that conclusion!

Terrible things happen to Isabella. She gets shot and doesn't go to get the wound treated. She gets pistol-whipped. Of all things. And about 2 hours later in the very next scene is humped by the hero. One of the bad guys cuts her gun wound with a knife in order to make her suffer. Two minutes later she's sitting on evil ol Marcus's lap twittering happily at the reconciliation between father and son. In fact. Isabella is a serial victim. Completely not in control of her own destiny. Bad enough she was emotionally blackmailed by her mom into committing murder. (Thank goodness the stupid woman died.) She was manipulated into going to Alaska. She allowed Marcus to pick her up in college. She is an employee who lives with her employer. And ever so slightly sociopathic. The expecting Roseanne being shot in front of her eyes produced a minimal emotional reaction on her part. She closed her eyes to the goings on in Marcus's house for 8 years.She can do that because she has no moral compass other than her own needs and wants. Totally another legacy from the hooker mom from hell. That's not my kind of heroine but I can see the potential appeal for other readers.

Before the final chapter I had grown to hate Isabella. For her stupid idolising of her hooker mom. And for the pain and destruction that followed in her wake once she arrived in Alaska. How did she come to locate Luke? Why didn't she have any conversation with herself about that maybe he had the right to remain lost to his Dad? What Isabella actually did was a gross invasion of Luke's privacy. After reading the final chapter I just felt guilty that I'd hated Isabella so much. I still didn't like her. I said to myself 'I need to reread this story to see Isabella in a different light.' But I couldn't bring myself to do that.

I liked the heroLuke/Adam for quite a while. He at least, had some idea of the violence and criminality of his former life. That is until he admitted he drunkenly shot some completely innocent interior decorator by mistake thinking that it was his father coming through the front door. And he admitted he was a violent robber on behalf of his father. In fact Luke's life as Adam, together with his bro's Nate, Zack and Leon is an excellent case study for stricter gun control. And poor ol innocent Anna got drawn into that cesspit and paid for it with her life. The vision of Marcus skipping off into the sunset left me feeling nauseated.

In the end Isabella and Luke probably deserve each other. No doubt in a couple of years he'll shoot her dead in a drunken row because she's decided to move some 'misunderstood' teenage crack addict into the house.

A ghastly couple. I felt so sorry for Cort. All the money in the world can't undo brain trauma. No way will he be able to go back to being a bush pilot.

Pass.

Disclaimer

Ok. I admit it. I'm one of those sorry reviewers who actually has to beeyouwhy all the novels they read.

So following recent experiences I'd like to publically ponder on the meaning of 'in stock.'

To me 'in stock' means...The book supplier receives an order (from me) on one day. The next day they package up the book(s). Then the day after that the merchandise gets shipped. Well that's how it used to be.

What 'in stock' does not mean is. T.E.N days after the order has been received the supplier still hasn't shipped the goods. To me. That is 'OUT of stock.' What's more. I don't like suppliers that don't tell the truth about whether a novel is in stock or not.

Looking forward to Loose Ends by Tara Janzen

The full title is Loose Ends: A Steele Street Novel.


So no nonsense about younger heroes and heroines anymore. They were all anonymous anyhow. Though they shouldn't have been because they all had good connections to 738. But that's what happens when you let a 'crit-club' write your novels for you.


Actually. I Can't Wait for this story. Although obviously, I'm going to have to seeing how it isn't published until August 2010!!! And then I'll cry. Because there is no doubt (in my mind anyway) that this will really be the last Steele Street novel. An excerpt is up on the authors website. J T staking out 738 to get Scout back. Plus being set up for his own obligatory romance. Cherie Hacker is around again. At one point I was sure she was being set up for a romance with Gabriel, Red Dog's brother.


I've been re-reading my absolute faves. Crazy Cool (probably the most sensuous romance I've ever read), Love and Sweet. All of which feature the totally weird relationship between Dylan and Skeeter. I love them both. And Supes and Katya. I'm thinking of going on a fanfiction site to rewrite Sweet. Basically having Royce going down a lot harder. With Dylan doing the damage. Royce got off too easy for all the pain he caused Dylan and Gillian. But I probably won't do that because I'm a person who enjoys reading a lot more than writing.


The real difference between the Loose series and the Steele series is that the latter had 'the starts of the major romances in one novel that was finished in another novel, 'a la Suzanne Brockman.' Nothing like that happened in the Loose series. A feature of both series was that a lot of time was supposedly spent inside the hero's head...with him usually obsessing about the heroine. People might say 'That's a girl writer pretending to know how a guy thinks for girl readers. Hur hur.' But I've decided it doesn't matter. From a reality point of view. I love my romances to be all about the 'shadows on a cave wall.' And Steele Street is stellar cave wall stuff.

6 Steele Street novels were turned out in about 2 years. So why recently are we faithful followers just getting one novel annually? I reckon the author is writing other books under a different name. Does anyone out there have a clue what the new pseudonym is?

Yours eternally grateful.....

Nauti Nights by Lora Leigh

For some reason I was hugely entertained by this novel.

The first reason was the mention of a ‘double cab black pickup.’ Just rolls off the tongue don’t it. I did a search on those words. Apparently Toyota make a model they call the ‘Intimidator.’ The inside is nice enough comfy but to be honest the ‘pickup’ part of it looked a tad small…barely enough to hold an average size hound dog. What I’d really like to know is..is it a gas-guzzler? Are there still people who drive vehicles like that without a thought to cost?

Another reason was the portrayal of the bad guy, Johnny Grace. You mean a guy can dress up as a woman, walk into a detention centre, and not be laughed out of the place?!! But all in all he was an excellent home-grown traitor. I seem to remember one of the mothers of the Mai-Lai soldiers wailing ‘I gave the army a good boy. They brought me back a killer.’ Well. Here. The army gets a twisted human being to begin with. Johnny is supposed to be intelligent, he owns a successful small business…yet he hatches a plan that involves slitting someone’s throat, selling nuclear missiles to potential tangos, keeping a million dollars all for himself, and staying safe in his small town. All because he hates James ‘Dawg’ MacKay, the hero of this story. To whom he is related to in some shirttail southern way. Plus. This is the first novel I have read that features 4 gay ex-soldiers. All young too. Not just ordinary soldiers but all ex special ops or snipers or some special specialism.

I also liked the way the story started. With the heroine Crista Ann simply an innocent person caught up in a warehouse shootout through no fault of her own. And from there the plot and the romance slowly unwind. I particularly liked that Crista had a fairly uneventful childhood and hadn’t been attacked or abused like so many heroines in borderline erotics. It was the hero Rowdy who had the difficult family relationships. But I wasn’t fooled. Rowdy had quite a bit of inherited wealth. So well done Crista Ann. Although I don’t usually comment on the details of a hot erotic romance readers might like to be aware that the ‘innocent’ heroine accepts anal on her first night with the drunken hero. And likes it too. But don’t let that put anyone off from reading the story. It ends with some really cute heartwarming dialogue between the main couple as they affirm their feelings for one another.

On the cautious side. Readers should be aware that the whole earthshattering plot takes place in a small Kentucky town in the middle of nowhere where there are some really strange and some really poisonous family relationships. Happily there was not much screaming melodramatics and absolutely no hysterics between the main couple. But yes, the hero and his ‘special forces’ friends still come across as lunkheads seeing how they let Johnny play them for far too long. I even liked the set-up for the next book in the series…obviously featuring Natches. But I wasn’t too taken by the glimpses of his intended, Greta Dane. Who actually undergoes a name change to Chayna in the Natches book.

Now we come to the tough part.

I admit to reading the first novel in the Nauti series, Nauti Boy. About 9 months ago. I couldn’t review it at the time I read it. I didn’t have enough mental strength for that. It’s not that it is a bad book. It’s just that you have to have a strong belief in the Goodness Of Mankind in order to take the relationships presented to you on the pages. A. very. Strong. belief.

Here goes. There is a guy in it called Ray. He is the father of the hero, Rowdy and also the stepfather of the heroine, Kelly. That’s fine. Kelly is never harmed by Ray or Rowdy in any way. Except of course adult Kelly and Rowdy are the main couple. But at one point in the story Ray wishes he had married Kelly’s mom before she married Kelly’s dad because then Kelly would really be his daughter. So where would that put the relationship between Kelly and Rowdy? What’s more, Ray seems to have been involved in a threesome with Kelly’s mom and dad on more than one occasion. I just thought ‘Yuk.’ Or even ‘Poor Kelly. What chance does she have of forming a normal relationship with anyone.’

And in the beginning Kelly comes under a lot of pressure to be part of a ménage with Rowdy and his two cousins. And yes, Kelly IS one of those erotic heroines who has nearly been brutalised. I read with all the fascination of watching a cobra sway in the sand. I was quite amazed when Kelly, after a few awkward encounters with the three guys actually chose to say no to the ménage and yes to just being involved with Rowdy. In fact it was the character of Kelly that kept me reading. Although a lot of what she did was to compensate Rowdy for not sharing. The constraints of the novel meant she had to put out but really, she should have been given more time to regain her confidence after quite a nasty experience with the bad guy, particularly by Rowdy who kept saying he wouldn’t rush her. But he did.

A big deal was made in the novel about how Rowdy and his two cousins, Dawg and Natches were these really ace ex-marines who would protect Kelly from her homicidal stalker. But again the lone stalker who turned out to be a total geek kept getting the better of Rowdy and his friends. In fact in the end it was Kelly who distracted the killer whilst Rowdy, Dawg and Natches could recover from all three having been laid out cold by this lone geek. That was just ridiculous. Because the geek had only brief mentions in the story I felt cheated by the plot. His character should have been depicted a little more in the novel. He wasn’t a ‘Mr Big,’ just another crazy inhabitant of a tiny southern town. Crazy but very sly and cunning.

The word I would use to describe Nauti Boy is ‘interesting.’

So there it is. Two reviews in one posting. A bargain really.

Breaking Loose by Tara Janzen

This novel came out end of July 2009. Last Sunday I looked it up on am.com and it had 2 reviews. One of them was Harriet's. That tells you all you need to know about this book. So you could stop reading here and now.

However. I bought the novel only after the disappointment of Dangerous Passion. And after all I was a Steele Street fan. So there's no stopping me...

The question is. Why did the Crazy series stop and the Loose series begin? At first I thought it was because the publishers thought the Steele Street guys were getting too old. They were all settling down, getting married...at last count, Superman had 3 kids with Katya.

So a new generation of SDF had to be found. And they came along. Guys and gals. Nice enough. But all completely anonymous. I didn't really like the South American settings either.

So suddenly we got Loose and Easy, the Johnny Ramos story which was such a weird tale. What with it all taking place in one night. And in that night Esme and Johnny were supposed to fall in love forever! How could you have a Johnny Ramos story without a Skeeter appearance? Never mind the fact that every crazy character within 10 km of Denver did in fact manage to feature in the story. Including the local gangbangers (who turned out to be nice boys really...I personally have big objections to criminals being made out to be community leaders...though not from personal experience...just the idea of bullies running the neighbourhood makes me shudder.) Of course with all the characters that were pile-driven into the plot there was very little room for character development of the main couple or their relationship. But maybe that is just a style of writing. After all Creed and Cody's book could be said to be similar. Except that it wasn't because that was the story where Dylan first showed Skeeter his feelings about her. (So it could be said to be written in the Brockman style...another feature that was dropped with the Loose series.)

The point I am making is that Ramos was a character from the Steele Street series. So already the Loose series is backsliding. But at least Ramos was a young guy so at some level the polka-dot style of writing was understandable. And the JT thread made a reappearance.

So now we come to Breaking Loose. Featuring Suzi Toussi. Who is Superman's age, twice divorced but still supposedly hot. I have nothing against older heroines. But they fall in love in a different way to a 20 year old. That must be true. And an author has to portray that for a romance to work. Surely. It just doesn't happen here.

The main reason for reading this story is to follow the JT thread. And to see how it all pans out. I might join a fanfiction site and continue the series myself…featuring only the SDF crew. No Smith or Dax. I like Zach though. Probably not even Creed or Kid. I wasn’t much taken with their stories either. I liked Red Dog though. And Travis, her bitch. btw Whatever happened to Cheryl and Red Dog’s brother, Gabriel? I felt sure they were being set up for a story of their own.

There are quite a number of plots going on in this book.

Let’s see…

There is a tango sleeper cell in Texas. Erich Warner knows who they are and will give that information to the US government in exchange for a magical statue called the Memphis Sphinx.

Dax Killian is in Paraguay to get the Memphis Sphinx for Warner on behalf of one bunch of US government good guys.

Suzi Toussi is also in Paraguay to get the Memphis Sphinx for another bunch of US spies.

But. Another bunch of US spies actually sent the Memphis Sphinx to Paraguay to flush out a rogue US spy called Conroy Farrell.

Farrell wants to kill Erich Warner because Warner funds the development and manufacture of some very very nasty psychopharmological drugs…..

…the same drugs that were used on Dylan Hart and Farrell himself. And yes. Dylan Hart is in Paraguy, with the SDF team, with orders to kill Conroy Farrell….who is probably J T Chronopolous….GEEZ! That’s the guy Superman named his first born son for.

Actually. My first Steele Street novel was Dylan’s story, Crazy Love, which was publicized as Skeeter’s story. At the time I originally read the book I thought it was a bit ick that the first time Skeet and Dylan got down to business he was actually spaced out on those nasty psychopharmalogical drugs. But I suppose without those drugs he would never have made any moves on Skeeter. I thought it was also a bit weird how Dylan kept going on about the age difference between him and Skeeter when she was about 21 and he was about 33. I figure that she was maybe originally written younger and the publishers changed her age up.

Anyway. I never thought then that those drugs were an ongoing thread. Says a lot for Dylan’s head strength that he was able to work his way out of drug dependence. Without much character change other that he allowed himself to fall in love. Because everyone else who has had those drugs had become completely changed in a totally murderous manner….J.T and Shoko step forward.

Who would have thought the J.T thread would turn so dark? Who would have thought Dylan’s experiences with Dr Souk in Indonesia would have an ending in Paraguay. ‘The world is indeed a village’ as Hillary once said.

I have read so much dnf dross recently. Maybe that’s why the story captured my interest. Also I knew where all the threads were coming from. Because I have read every single book in the series! However in the end I refrained from getting too excited because I suspected the ending would probably disappoint.

Thinking about the plot. I have no idea why anyone with any brains would send Suzi Tousi into a situation like that. The problem with having a heroine like Suzi is that the publisher will say ‘Oh but we must have a young person in the story.’ And so a completely irrelevant teen character is introduced. And we get detail about her back story, her looks, her attitude….all of it completely irrelevant to the story. We get the waste of space called Scout. When really the reader might want more of Suzi and Dax developing a relationship. Or in my case, more of Dylan and the SDF crew.

There’s nothing wrong with Suzi. She’s just not that interesting. That’s mainly because she and Dax don’t have enough pages…in their own book! Skeeter and Dylan were all over Crazy Love. No way could Suzi be an agent. She falls apart on viewing a dead body. Her only strategy to get info from a guy is to dress like a cheap hooker.

If I had written this story. I’d leave out Ponce, Jimmy Ruiz, the shakedown cops…the author is often putting in too many people in her novels. I understand that South America is full of very strange people…I don’t necessarily want to read about them all in the one novel. All I know about Paraguay is that this is the country that scared Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell when they were filming Miami Vice. And how many countries are there that don’t worship Hollywood movie stars? It’s the sort of place where women with independent attitude probably get kidnapped off the street in broad daylight. Suzi Toussi wouldn’t last one single minute in that place really.

I actually enjoy the simplicity of romances. One guy, one girl. And mostly told from the girl’s point of view. None of that here. This novel is told from nearly every characters pov. My poor brain can’t hardly keep track. And of course. Not enough Suzi and Dax. I'd have liked to have known more about how the death of Suzi's little girl precipitated her into risking her life for strangers. Suzi did have an interesting back-story...it was just left untold...in favour of endless uninteresting insights into the minds of people who appeared for only about 2 pages. (That just reminded me of how much I enjoyed Zach’s incredibly implausible story.) And as always there is so much time wasting running around for nothing. The reader is told quite early on that Con has the Sphinx. So why waste whole chapters on Suzi and Dax finding out for themselves the Sphinx is no longer at Berenger’s. I hate it when denouement action has to unfold in one single end chapter leaving no room for thread tie-ups. And I still didn’t see why twice-divorced Suzi fell for never-before-married Dax. Without even asking him if he swings both ways. (See what I mean about how older women behave?)

As always recently. The plot goes round and round in circles. Suzi and Dax looking for the Sphinx. And I realise that the book is just running out of pages. There just isn’t enough room for Warner to get killed by Con, for Shoko to get off her pills, for Suzi to get the Sphinx, or for its magic to be demonstrated. The Texas tango thread has also disappeared. The paranormal thread just peters out. It should have been edited out. Nothing explains why Warner wants to own the Sphinx. (Nothing that makes sense anyway.)

It’s stupid to give up reading a 400-page book at page 300. But I felt seriously tempted. Nothing was happening. There was no progression. The main couple were still looking for the statuette same as they were on page 40. And they’d only kissed once.

Another thread from Steele Street is how much they were into their weapons. I loved all that. Totally absent from Breaking Loose of course. Suddenly no-one's worried about america being destroyed by terrorist groups anymore. Is that down to the passage of time or have all those lost lives really done some good?

Anyone who's managed to read through my rambling review might as well read the book itself. Just to show solidarity with a working author.

And you know what else. From what I read of JT, I didn't like him either.

Having done nothing but complain and reminisce I wish to state that I will be reading the next book. Basically any mention of Dylan, Superman et al will keep this poor sap tapping out the numbers on her debit card. Can't blame ol' Suzi for trying hard.

Dangerous Passion by LMR v2

Some things need to be said...

First. This book is a total scam. Despite the title no way is it part of the 'Dangerous' series. As far as I know, both Dangerous Secrets and Dangerous Lover were original stories. There is nothing original about Dangerous Passion. It was published previously under the title 'Secluded' in 2003 as part of the Red Sage 'Secrets' anthology. So it was written before Midnight Man which is the story it most closely resembles (particularly in length)....except that MM is the better story even.

What I liked about DL, DS and even Woman on the Run was that as well as all the hotness all 3 books contained a mulitiplicity of fantastic themes. Like...great driving skills. Like...transforming a dying small town. Like...the human cost of mineral mining in a completely different country. Also. In each of the above novels the females do something heroic. Julia agreed to testify against a mobster; Caroline gave up normal living in order to nurse her brother; Charity also gave up her hopes and ambitions to care for elderly relatives but still didn't hesitate to risk her life to
gain incriminating evidence against a delusional russian gangster. Even Suzanne in MM makes a stand against a criminal. All of the above named females showed they knew Right from Wrong.

There is none of that in DP. Grace does nothing for anyone. In fact she brings death to her elderly sponsor. I'm particularly annoyed about the hero. Why is he presented as Drake when his name is in fact Viktor? So basically this is the story of a gangster and his unthinking (but talented) moll. That is very different from 99% of LMR's other erotic novels. Why does 'nice' Grace give up living legally so easily? There are arms dealers who sometimes feature in newspapers. They claim they are respectable businessmen. None of them seem to go in fear of their lives like Viktor. So just what has he done that is so terrible? I'm with another reviewer who questioned why Grace so readily accepted Viktor's affirmation that he'd never dealt in drugs. And anyway. There's equally horrible trades to drugs and arms going on in the world.

This story was probably retitled and brought out purely to cash in on the author's growing popularity. Unfortunately going by Lara Adrian, Laurell K and JR, I don't suppose it'll affect sales. But I mourn the passing of a talent that was able to transform a lightweight genre into something outstandingly pleasureable to read.

I'd have liked to have realised what was being perpetrated before I paid out dollars. So in my public service capacity, I am letting everyone else know. I thank you.