Nowhere Near Respectable, by Mary Jo Putney - Review

I am such a fan of Mary Jo Putney.  While I didn't like her foray into historical paranormal, her non-paranormals are almost always among my favorites.

Nowhere Near Respectable is no exception -- another winner in Putney's impressive catalog.  I think my favorite thing about this story is that it has so many of the things I love about "old skool" romance-- the things that made me fall in love with the genre-- AND all the best elements of "modern-day" historicals.

Old-Skool: exotic traditions, royalty, bi-racial heroine, brutal bad guys, split-second heart-pounding rescues, manacles, smugglers, high stakes adventure, heroine in detective mode side-by-side with the hero.

New-Skool: mutual seduction, inverted power imbalance (she is well-born but he is not), cleaner pacing, no "victims" in the relationship.

If you love historical romance with a bit of smuggling, Napoleonic intrigue, assassination plots, and class commentary, this is one you should pick up.  Some of Putney's books have less of a center-stage plot, and I love those too, those quieter, character-focused stories, but this one has a non-stop page-turning mystery plot speeding along next to the characters falling in love.

When the story opens, Kiri makes a classic old-skool impetuous hair-tossing mistake.  Grievously insulted by any standard, she rides out on her own on a too-far, too-late journey and falls victim to the afore-mentioned brutal bad guys.  In the process, she becomes entangled in a far-reaching plot of kings and traitors.

One of the key plot points here is Kiri's nose.  Although I'm sure it's a very pretty nose, since Kiri is beautiful in the way of romance heroines, I'm referring to a talent rather than appearance.  Like musicians with perfect pitch, there is similar olfactory talent, which makes that person a nose or a perfumer.  Kiri is able to isolate specific notes of scent and can even identify individuals once she's given them a good sniff.

Did that make you snicker?  I have to admit, I didn't find that premise to be all that believable, but hey, it certainly makes for a bit of a change of pace in the usual "find the spy" plot.  I know, actually, that this is a real "thing," that there are famous noses who are in great demand in the fragrance business.  I've even seen them once or twice in romance before (I want to say Judith Ivory had one?).  Using the talent to sniff out (heh) a criminal is a bit over the top, but hey, if you can't be over the top in a romance, when can you?

Like the first Lost Lord book, NNR features a bi-racial protagonist -- this time it's the heroine rather than the hero.  My first reaction is that it's pretty unrealistic to have these characters accepted by the ton, but then I remember that England was more liberal about race than the US.  To be honest, I don't really know.  Surely with all the military and economic activity of the British in India this sort of thing must have happened sometimes, so I decided to just go with it.  I would be very interested to see an article about historical examples of English/Indian mixed-race individuals in the aristocracy.

I have to say, I'm a sucker for a couple who knows/believes that they cannot make a marriage but decides to go for it anyway (maybe my hedonist roots are showing).  I've run into this sort of thing a couple of times lately, where one or the other or both of the couple explicitly thinks or says, "even if I can't have this forever, I will seize this day, this moment."  And that just appeals to me.


Around the Blogosphere
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As always, if you've reviewed this book and would like a link, just let me know by email or comments and I'll edit it in!

Defiant, by Kris Kennedy - Review

Best New (to me) Author This Year
It's true, I do adore a good medieval.  I just do, as I have previously documented.  For escapist fantasy, there's nothing quite like the romance of castles and kings, and chivalrous warriors with those long sexy swords.

And the romance shelves these days just don't have enough of them.  Particularly ones where no one turns into a wolf or sprouts fangs.  Not that I don't love my paranormals, but you know.  Sometimes you just need a good Knight.

Defiant is what AAR refers to as a "road romance" - most of the story takes place while the hero and heroine are traveling together. This is a great device for throwing them together in more intimacy than a usual relationship might encounter, and especially in an historical setting, where sleeping and eating and the actual travel are more primitive.

In Defiant, the hero and heroine are both chasing after a priest who has become something of a pawn in the political machinations of King John, who, as we in the 21st century all know, is one of Western history's Ultimate Bad Guys.  The hero's motives appear to be Bad, while the heroine seeks only to protect the priest.

As the story unfolds however, there are generous hints that Jamie Lost's badness is ambiguous, as are his motives.  This is my very favorite kind of hero, I think. (Also, has there been a better hero name, ever?  I think not.)

Narrative Voice
(Wow, that's a terrible subtitle.  But I can't think of what else to put there).  I haven't fallen in love with a narrative voice like this since my first Joanna Bourne experience.  Like Annique, Eva has a French sensibility, political acuity, and is surprisingly good in a fight, although she's not quite the ninja that Annique is.  Near the beginning:

[the priest says:]

"I would not hand you a flower from a garden. I will surely not give you what may be the most powerful bargaining chip in these negotiations. Who knows whom you might sell it to next?"

To his credit, the bishop's shiny face flushed a bright red. "So be it, Peter of London," he snapped. "Ever have you brought these things on yourself."

He reached for the door, but by then, Eva had completed her slow circling of the room and come up behind. She reached out, her blade up, and placed it against the front of his throat.

The bishop froze.

"Now hush," she murmured. "You have brought this on yourself."

Not exactly a Mary Sue!  Another reason I love medievals - they somehow lend themselves better to really intense drama than Regency or Victorian eras.  Life was more brutal, politics more precarious, and while medieval European women may in reality have been just as cloistered and limited as in later centuries, it's somehow more believable when their fictional counterparts throw off convention and really wade into the action.

Things That Blow My Mind
There is an absolutely amazing passage in the book that starts out: "The heart hangs over a pit.  Strung up like a sacrifice, it swings in the winds of the world..." and really, that little piece of prose, about four paragraphs long, almost stopped my own heart. I started to excerpt it here, but for the first time, I've decided not to pull out this choice bit because you, readers, deserve to come upon it in context and  have your own breath knocked out of you. It's not a plot spoiler, but I think it would be an experience spoiler.

That Paralysis Thing Again
I'm still struggling with the paralyzed perfectionism that I wrote about awhile back. Seriously, I started this review more than a month ago.  And I just got stuck, because I didn't want to fail to do it justice.  I don't know how to finish this review; how to put a nice conclusion on it and make the whole thing feel cohesive.  And then I didn't want to post about other books because I really thought I should finish this one first.  Auggh.

So even though this seems unfinished to me, I'm going to post it anyway.

Bottom Line
I loved this book, and I would recommend it to a) everyone; b) everyone, especially medieval fans; c) everyone, especially Joanne Bourne fans.

Legend of Michael, by Lisa Renee Jones - Review

Niche Marketing
Just when I think the number of sub-genres in romance has every possible angle covered, along comes another, even narrower one.  Lisa Renee Jones has kicked off a special-ops/military, paranormal, futuristic romance... and she's not the only one.  Readers who enjoy  Joss Ware's "Envy Chronicles", Jayne Ann Castle's Harmony series, Cindy Gerard and some of Lora Leigh's Elite Ops, and so on, will feel right at home here.

Jones' premise of genetically modified super-warriors is not unique in and of itself, but I really enjoyed her personal spin-- the windwalking talent is mysterious and sexy and dangerous and super-cool.  Love it.  Michael and Cassandra's world teeters on the brink of apocalypse, with the super-race bifurcated into Team Zodius, with the naked goal to rule the world and force ordinary, unmodified humans into slavery; and Team Renegade.  The thing that makes this series potentially Very Interesting is that Team Renegade is a long ways from white hats and rainbows.  Power struggles, loyalties, and betrayals abound, so if you enjoy political intrigue, this should be right up your alley.

Characters
While the redemption of Michael is a major theme, Legend  is more of a plot-driven story, in my opinion.  I never really bought into Michael's "badness" so the redemption was a bit less dramatic than it could have been, but this is a tough line to walk.  You can't make a hero too bad or the reader loses empathy.  Overall, I'd prefer an author to err on the side of "not quite that bad," as Jones perhaps does.  That line is highly individual though, so your take may differ.

Cassandra was an entirely adequate heroine, but more or less along for the ride and a bit of a Mary Sue if one were to be picky.  The villains are pretty much over the top evil, which leads me to...

World Building
I'm not always a fan of the military books, but I did like this one.  It starts out with a somewhat odd mix of the way-out paranormal and the mundane routine you might expect from a more realism-based contemp, but an early plot explosion sets the stage for the post-apocalyptic -- or more accurately, a pre-apocalyptic-- feel.  There is a sense throughout the story of a world on the edge of disaster, while Our Heroes struggle to contain and prevent the cataclysm.  The factions each live in something of a bunkered fortress while the rest of the world carries on more or less unaware.

Jones' Zodius world is consistent, creative, and compelling - it's a worthy scene-setter for a new paranormal romance series.  The foundation is laid and there are a number of interesting directions it could go.  This is another "fated mate" trope, and it doesn't really make any more sense to me than any of the others out there... but it's no worse, either.  There's a definite similarity to Leigh's Breeds in that lovemaking bilaterally "seals the deal" for the bond between them, changing both of them physiologically and emotionally/psychologically.  Personally, it's not a trope I dig that much but it's not the central focus here and didn't get in my way too much.

The one criticism I have about Jones' world is that the villains are too evil.  The genetic intervention takes a permutation that basically causes certain individuals to go insane, but I dunno.  I think it's less interesting than a "grayer" set-up.  Perhaps future books will have more nuance; I think she's left adequate loopholes and I hope she takes advantage of them.

Bottom Line
While I can't honestly say that this is the very best book I've read lately, I do think it's a well-written paranormal romance with strong plotting and world-building, and I would happily pick up Zodius #2: THE STORM THAT IS STERLING when it hits the shelves this November -- and that's really the acid test, isn't it?

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Wickedly Charming, by Kristine Grayson -- Review

Appealing, vulnerable characters
Who doesn't love a good fairy tale?  I'm convinced that my love of romance in general dates back to the stack of well-thumbed fairy tale books of my childhood -- Grimms, Anderson, and their descendants and variants.

I must say I struggled a little bit with this book in the beginning.  I don't think I've ever run into so many parentheticals and nested parentheticals in so few pages before:

It was going to be hot-- California, too-dry-to-tolerate, fifty-bottles-of-Gatorade hot-- but it wasn't hot yet. Still, she hoped she had on enough sunscreen (even if it did make her smell like a weird chemical coconut). She had her hands on her hips (which hadn't expanded [much] since she was a beautiful young girl, who caught the eye of every man) as she surveyed the stunningly large building in front of her...

The first couple of chapters are riddled with paragraphs like this, in both the heroine and the hero's viewpoint. My guess is that this sort of stylistic choice was employed to add the light-hearted, gossipy, "wacky" voice, in kind of a satiric version of an omniscient narrator, or a parent-to-child effect as though the story was being read aloud. I found it a little overdone/awkward, but it eased up relatively quickly.

Prince Charming
While this is really a story about the heroine, I found the hero's arc to be very appealing. He starts out feeling defeated and past his prime, divorced and powerless.  At times, this characterization even teeters toward unattractive, but his character progression saves him. In letting the people he loves shine on their own, this prince discovers true power, true magic.  Charming is one of the better-drawn beta heroes I've seen, re-imagining his strength from the shallow "sweep you off your feet and into the sunset" style hero to the kind of man who provides a bedrock and battles villains, but stays out of the spotlight most of the time.


StepHeroine
Stepmothers get a bad rap in fairytales, let's face it.  Really, "step-mother" is shorthand for "amoral greedy woman who comes to a bad end."  In this day and age of mixed families, it's time for an update.

I once read about a stepmother who listened to her stepchild relate a fond memory of something she'd shared with her mother.  The child mis-remembered; it was something that had happened with the stepmom.  But this particular biological mom was not the fairy-tale, loving, sadly deceased parent; she was alive and unwell and was not very capable of creating fond memories.  My friend, the stepmother, in one of the more selfless gestures I've ever heard of, said nothing, allowing the child to re-imagine that lovely memory with a woman who really, really didn't deserve it...because it made the child happy.

All this is by way of saying even the best stepmoms-- you know, the ones who don't lead the kids out into the woods and dump them, or make them pick cinders out of the fireplace ashes-- have it tough.  Grayson imagines a dark, intriguing backstory for this particular stepmother-- sometimes I was more interested in the backstory than the story-story.

The Story-Story
Frankly I'm always a little leery of a story where the main character is an author; frequently it feels a little too self-referential.  On the one hand, I can see how "telling her story" and the analog to the problematic (to the heroine) fairy tale genre makes it an obvious choice.  On the other, it's... a little obvious.  And a little self-referential. 

And if you're tired of bitter unsatisfied women being cast as the villain, don't look to this book for any major changes.  It seems that yesterday's Princess is today's Witch, with Charming's ex cast as the villain of the piece.

I thought the most interesting piece of the plot was the glimpse we got of the darker magics of the Kingdoms, but that element was a bit player at best.  Still, it served to play up Charming's brains and protectiveness, which helped balance his slightly over-done "geek" element, and there's a seed or two that might come back in other books in Grayson's fairy tale universe.

Bottom Line
Overall I enjoyed this character-driven story, mostly because it takes me back to my childhood enjoyment of fairy tales.  It's a story about second chances, and the message is a real one: you have to work for your happily-ever-after.  I thought it was uneven in places and sometimes felt like it was trying too hard; but it soon hit its stride and pulled together a readable reminisce with characters you'll root for.

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Note: a review copy was provided to me by Sourcebooks.

Review: Touch of a Thief, by Mia Marlowe

Release date: Tuesday April 26

First Sentence Hook:
"On any given day, someone writhed in exquisite pleasure at the home of the most sought after courtesan in Amjerat.  Unfortunately for Captain Greydon Quinn, on this day it wasn't him."

Wow, you have to admire that-- heat, humor, and an exotic setting all in two knockout sentences.  I mean, "writhed"-- that's a word with punch, you know?

Even better, this opening is a lovely kernel of Quinn's character and how he relates to the heroine, as you learn while it unfolds.

While Marlowe's story doesn't exceed typical genre boundaries for sex and violence, she makes a bold move by putting them both in the first five pages, and she doesn't mess around with tentative versions of either one.

Characters
One of the interesting aspects of this story is that Quinn retains a certain youthful idealism, though he is by no means innocent, while Viola is definitely more the pragmatist of the two.  I liked that neither of them were to one extreme or the other, but the tendencies were gender-reversed.  I had a sense that Quinn was supposed to be a tough guy, but he has an unexpected sweetness and generosity.

Now, Viola is a jewel thief.  There's just something about that trope (is it a trope?) that I enjoy.  I can think of a number of authors who've done this - Jane Feather, Alyssa Day, Shana Abe', Nora Roberts, and Meagan McKinney come to mind (and readers?  I just spent about an hour trying to dig McKinney's name out of 15 years' worth of my brain's archives.  I do this for you, mwah.)  There's a Robin-Hood flavor, as the victims are by definition wealthy, and I don't know, I just like reading about jewels, so sue me.  I found Viola to be daring, smart, and likable - great combination.

The Plot and the Paranormal
Although there's nothing lacking to the characters, I felt that this is more of a plot-driven story.  Marlowe has crafted a taut and twisty page-turner with surprises around every turn.  It's my favorite kind of thriller, with real suspense but not a lot of graphic torture or violence (although the villains meet bad ends, as is right and proper).

One common/recurring paranormal theme or "power" is psychometry, or the ability to "see" or understand things about an object by touching it. For whatever reason, it's a premise that particularly appeals to me, more than certain other recurring "gifts"-- somehow it just seems not only sort of plausible, but awfully useful, and interesting, and potentially dangerous.  Great story fodder with lots of potential directions.  In Touch of a Thief, Viola experiences the history of a jewel when it touches her skin-- she can "see" what has happened to other people who were touching the stone, and the stones also "speak" to her with unique resonances.  This is a great advantage to a jewel thief, as she can instantly tell the real thing from even the best fakes.  The other paranormal aspect of the story is the cursed jewel that they seek - a red diamond.  I like that there's a strong connection across the paranormal pieces.

I've noticed a number of books lately where the paranormal powers allow the characters to bypass certain genre routines - getting to know one another, misunderstandings, even the epiphany moment or question of "do I love him" or "does he love me" etc is sometimes just handed to the character rather than something that has to be learned, earned, or unfolded.  This can be OK if it leaves room for other interesting twists, and I think Marlowe accomplished that.  In this case, even though Viola got a shortcut to Quinn's secret from one of Quinn's personal gems, she still misinterpreted events, which led to conflict.  (I hope that makes sense...)

While the cursed-gem aspect of this story didn't appeal to me hugely, it was consistent and tight throughout the book and worked.  I just found it a bit over-the-top for a story where the paranormal wasn't exactly "out of the closet," and some of the physical evidence of it seemed like it might have raised more questions.


The Heat
Like Viola herself, the love scenes in this book are uninhibited, lush, and gorgeous.  I have a small quibble with Quinn using the Hindi anatomical words in his internal narrative-- this can be explained by the opening scene where we learn that he is a student with an exotic Indian teacher, but I can't help but think that an Englishman is going to think of his dick in English, foreign lessons notwithstanding.  Minor, though; and let's face it, no matter what word an author chooses to represent "vulva" or "vagina" or "penis" or "scrotum," it's not going to appeal to everyone.

Bottom Line
Touch of a Thief is great read - pick it up if you like historical in general, and especially if you're a bit tired of the standard Regency offering.  Marlowe delivers Victorian adventure, spice and romance in a tight paranormal package.

As Always--
If you have reviewed Touch of a Thief, feel free to leave a link and I'll edit it in.

_________

Disclosure: a review copy was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.