Inspired Analysis - Boneshaker Vs. Brady Bunch

I just might be cut out for this academic literary stuff after all. I was deeply inspired by Carolyn Crane's post today; inspired, and yes, readers, suspicious. Her attempt at mythbusting smacks a bit of protestething too much, don't you think? I was particularly skeptical at the Brady Bunch denial.

Now, I've really just gotten started on the League's February Challenge hosted at Literary Escapism, so I certainly can't speak to 99% of the Leaguer's books, but I have to say that while Boneshaker may not be outright derivative, it certainly shares some Jungian archetypes and literary conventions with the Brady Bunch Goes To Hawaii. It's just undeniable, and the more you look for the commonalities, the more you find. I made some rough notes of my own observations.

Draw your own conclusions.

League of Reluctant Adults Mini Challenge

Reviews for the Challenge

For my League reviews, click on the tag "League of Reluctant Adults" - this will show you everything I've talked about on these authors, whether it's part of Jackie's challenge or not.

PWND

The email account I use for this blog was hacked this morning. If I've ever sent you an email before, you probably got spam from me. I've reported it and changed my password; hopefully that will fix it.

APOLOGIES, and DON'T CLICK. It appears to only be an ad and not a virus, but I'm not clicking to find out.

Ooooo, YAY!

It's not like I actually know css or html. I have dinked with what I've got here enough to get the template looking pretty much how I want it, but every now and then I see a widget that I covet. But when I figure out how to get what I want? It makes me ridiculously happy.

Do you worry about your blogroll getting too long? I do. I have hesitated to add book blogs, usually ones that aren't really romance blogs, just because I didn't want that list to get too long and unwieldy.

And I know there are ways around that. I just didn't know what they were. Not too long ago I saw one that had a short list of blogs, but then the magic little clicky that says: "Show All." Perfect! I made a mental note to email the blog author to ask how to do it, but mental notes are not worth the paper they're written on...at least mine aren't, with apologies to Sam Goldwyn... huh, I thought it was Yogi Berra, go fig.. YOU SEE HOW I FORGET THINGS?? ... and so I promptly forgot to email AND also which blog I saw it on.

Today I was adding a new blog to my non-book roll, and LO AND BEHOLD IT'S THE SIMPLEST LITTLE BLOGGER CHECKBOX EVER!

Thanks, Blogger, I love it! And now I can grow my blogroll to ridiculous proportions. WIN-WIN.

Short Stuff

Some weeks run like a well-oiled machine. I'm reading good stuff, I have a review or two scheduled ahead of time, maybe something for a publisher plus something from my own list. Another one that I knock out in real time. Maybe a T-13 or a Lazy Post or a contest plug for variety.

Yeah, this is not one of those weeks.

Short Story Saturday is back here at Alpha Heroes for February, after taking its January turn at Literary Escapism. I've taken the bold step this week of rigging pre-populating Mr. Linky with a couple of anthology reviews that I noticed around, so if one of those belongs to you, I hope you'll a) forgive me b) check around on the other links and c) come back next Saturday with another one. As a fledgling meme, SSS is not getting a lot of lift. If you want it to stick around, your links are appreciated!

I have been trying with the short pieces this week. The lovely Book Smugglers pulled my name from the internet version of a hat and send me a faboo package of contemporary fiction, including several anthologies.


Hot for the Holidays
'Member this cover? Sure you do. I almost bought the book JUST for the cover. I mean. That spot right there by his thumb? Is one of my favorite spots-- and I don't like peppermint. I'm sayin'.

Anyway. The stories, right. *opens kitchen window* That's better. Where was I?

Yeah, so this is one of the books that the Smugglers sent me, and I am familiar with most of the authors. I started with Anya Bast, because I wasn't in the mood for Leigh's forced-mate/weird penis Breed stuff or Knight's kooky mages, and I liked Bast's offering for the What Happens In Vegas anthology a couple years ago quite a lot. And so far, Sweet Enchantment is OK. However, I, uh, have fallen asleep twice and gone onto different books, but I have come back to it and I do want to finish it. I've been pretty tired lately... but still. Fell asleep twice. That's the closest I've got to a review so far.




Wrapped In Seduction
You know, I don't review erotica. It's too hard for me to analyze what I like about it without giving a lot of context about what I like in bed, which is TMI. For you, and for me.

Fortunately, this particular anthology is more just piping hot romance than erotica, I think; in what I think of as true erotica, it's the exploration of sex and sexuality that is the center of the story. In this little trilogy, there is some serious steam but they really are love stories. Overall, three decent stories about three sisters finding love in their hometown. As a whole, the stories fall prey to the general weakness of a novella -- not much conflict and they read very fast, as in over before you hardly know what's happening. I found only one or two scenes truly scorching, but that might just be me. It's a small town Christmas theme, so that may factor into when-- or whether-- you'd be in the mood for it.



Blood Lite
OK, I'm not very far into this one but I'm loving it. I do not know if the title is a play on "Bud Lite," but I suspect so after sampling a few stories.

So I've been really trying to avoid paranormals for awhile. I feel really burned out on them and have been enjoying a stroll through historicals and contemps for the last month or so. I have a feeling that that break made these stories just that much more entertaining.

People have been telling me for awhile now that I need to try Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, and I finally believe them after reading Day Off, a scant 30-odd pages in which Harry finishes a [thinly disguised D&D game in which actual wizards and weres are playing wizardy, warrior-ish characters. A debate about how a magic firebomb spell would work possibly gives some insight to the author process of "how 'real' do I need to make this magic stuff, anyway," which I could easily see becoming one of those tangents that take a long time to come back from.

Ooo, speaking of tangents. Anyway, after the game, Harry encounters some teenage goth "Darth Wannabes" with Harry Potter accoutrements and a faux pipe bomb, an inept apprentice who keeps blowing up his basement lab, and a swarm of insect-sized magic parasites... all before he can go on his big date. It's mostly very funny, though you could see how some elements might turn more serious in a full-length story, and it really made me want to read more. Which is about the highest praise I can give a short story.

In other stories, Kelley Armstrong's Ungrateful Dead was a cute little character sketch of a necromancer who leverages her talents into seances and spiritualism shows that are mostly completely faked. I was enjoying the ride, but I felt like it ended too fast -- I was just getting into the world-building and the characters and BOOM, the end.

Following that act is a creepy story titled Mr. Bear, a bizarre imagining of what happens when a mild-mannered traveller is caught up in the orbit of an anthropomorphized, English-speaking, cigar-smoking, booze-guzzling Smokey the Bear. Complete with the hat. Oh yeah, and he's utterly sociopathic. Can a bear be a socio-path? Good question. Gitchyer black humor here (by Joe R. Lansdale).

Short Story Saturday: February Edition

Slacker

My Short review isn't ready yet. Hopefully later today or maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you've got one ready to go, by all means, hit it!

Crash Into Me, by Jill Sorenson -- Review

Easily Influenced

OK, I admit it. The fact that Ms. Sorenson stops by here regularly and leaves thoughtful, non-self-promoting comments probably has a lot to do with how her book got onto my radar. I spotted it last week at a favorite bookstore and that recognition undoubtedly made the difference between scooping it up and passing it by.

I've also been focusing on contemps and historicals these last few weeks. I think I'm a little burned out on paranormals and the modern California setting was appealing.

The Heroine
I absolutely adored the heroine of this book, Sonora Vasquez, a/k/a Sonny, alias Summer for this particular assignment. The scene where we are introduced to her is completely fabulous. I don't always go for the device of having a secondary or throw-away character's viewpoint for the intro, but Sorenson makes it work.

...he saw a premonition of his own defeat in those strange, light eyes, and Mitchell didn't have time to blink before Vasquez dropped him, with a blow to the temple so well-placed it was almost a caress.

An excruciating, debilitating caress.

What a great start!

I want to say more about Sonny's character, because it's one of the great strengths of this book. Sorenson builds her character up in complex layers, but in a way that I always feel like I know exactly what Sonny is doing and why. I really *feel* her internal conflict in a way that doesn't always happen when I'm reading. And maybe I'm deluding myself, because I'm never going to drop an FBI agent with an excruciating, debilitating caress, but in some ways I related to Sonny on a personal level-- we both tend to be analytical and deliberate; we make plans that do not account for emotional derailment, but then every now and then we embrace the crash (to belabor a metaphor) and accept the consequences with a certain stoicism.

The Plot
Crash Into Me starts with one count against it for me: it's a serial-killer plot. A creepy, Ted-Bundy-esque serial killer to boot. And there were a few points where I wished it wasn't. But the pacing and plotting didn't allow me time to dwell on it; I was too busy turning pages. And Sorenson manages something tricky: she plants enough information about the murders to built the tension -- we know he's a sick, dangerous, awful man-- and leaves the rest to the imagination -- which I kept a very tight rein on, thank you very much; but I could imagine that a different kind of reader could spiral it into some pretty cold horror.

Plotting, pacing, and tension is runaway success for this book (if I could come up with a surfing term that fit, I'd use it, but I grew up land-locked. Best I could do would be "hang ten..."). It's not a cast of thousands, but the secondary characters are vibrant and interesting and the whodunit aspect will have you mulling the possibilities. Sorenson nails the action scenes and furthermore manages them in a way that seems realistic. Sonny's a "kick-ass heroine" without requiring any superpowers and is realistically fallible.

The other kind of tension works really well too. The scenes between Sonny and Ben were excellent, and true to the characters. On the heat scale, whew. The love scenes show up just where they need to, and let's just say, yumm and leave it at that (I refer you to my rule about letting my kids, my mother, and the PTA read here, LOL).

Not Perfect
I did have a couple of minor problems, but nothing close to a dealbreaker. I thought Ben's character was a little flat, and given that he's "the world's most famous surfer," it seemed odd to me that he spent pretty much zero time surfing in the story. Inside his head, there were references to surfing terms, but it seemed a little bit labored to me. If you require an A+ hero to enjoy a romance, I'm not sure you'd find him here.

The story arc for Carly, Ben's daughter was something that worked OK for me while I was turning pages, but when I got to the end and looked back, I felt like it was resolved a little too easily -- we're introduced to her via a suicide attempt, and I'm not sure that was treated as seriously as it should have been. And while I liked the character of her boyfriend, James, and the way he interacted with the adult characters, I was a little put off by the teen romance.

This might be hypocrisy on my part, but I just really didn't want the physical details between them. I want to say "it wasn't necessary for the story," but to be honest that might not be true. I'm trying to imagine the book without those details, but it might be that without them James would not be as a rich a character.

I also found myself questioning some of the procedural stuff - like the fact that Sonny is put on the assignment alone. Don't FBI agents always work in pairs? If that's not true, then the whole universe of buddy movies just got jolted off its axis...

Bottom Line
Even with a little room for improvement, Crash Into Me is a really solid first novel with excellent bones. Sorenson has the chops for great characters, great plotting, and great tension, and I'm looking forward to reading more.

My Internet Ears are Burning

Does that even make any sense? Cathy over at Kittling: Books is talking about me today on her Scene of the Blog feature. Which is cute and original and you should check it out in general, not just because it happens to be about me today. :-)