2018: Numbers and Highlights

I'm always a little bit slow with these round-up posts, but for those of you who are interested, here is a 2018 lookback.  In total, I read (or attempted) 108 titles in 2018, although I'm not the best record-keeper so there may be a few physical books in there that didn't get counted.

The Breakdown: 

• Novellas: 4
• DNF: 11
• Total bookclub reads: 14 (3 DNF)
• Podcast reads: 11 
• Reads for RT reviews (RIP, RT Book Reviews ): 7
• Books by authors of color: 17
• Nonfiction on audio: 3
• Nonfiction ebooks: 2

Some highlights:

• I discovered Elizabeth Vaughan's Warlands series and it was amazing. Definitely my favorite binge of the year. 
• Lexi C. Foss's Immortal Curse series.  Complex world building, cool magical powers, old enemies and shifting alliances -- you never know who to trust in this series and the plot twists are Machiavellian. 
• Jeffe Kennedy makes regular appearances in my reading. 2018 was a particularly prolific year for her and features some really lovely additions to her portfolio. 
• A nonfiction title blew me away this year!  Please immediately acquire The Order Of Time by Carlos Rovelli, specifically the audio version, narrated by none other than Benedict Cumberbatch. I promise you it is a mind-bending experience.
• Tiffany Reisz' The Red. Beautiful, haunting, erotic, and a little disturbing. This is her best work yet, IMO.
• I'm pleased with the percentage of authors of color that made it into my reading this year. I've said a number of times over the life of this blog that I miss the "globe trotting" historical romances of old-skool days, though often part and parcel with a lot of problematic content.  It turns out that getting some fresh perspectives and new settings is as easy as seeking out more diversity in the authors I'm reading. Worth the effort.

Lowlights:

• Anne Bishop's Others series -- quite the disappointment, although it started out strong. Have a listen to our podcast series for more details (while the books disappointed, the podcast will not!) (Written in Red, Murder of Crows, Vision in Silver, Marked in Flesh, Etched in Bone)
• Several of my bookclub reads were DNFs. This isn't really surprising. The bookclub I belong to through work rotates through all different genres and it turns out that I know my preferences pretty well -- there's a reason I don't read much lit-fic.  I'm giving them a good try, because 1) I enjoy the conversation; 2) it's a good brain-stretch exercise; and 3) every now and then I find a really awesome one that I would otherwise not have tried. So I'm pretty happy with finishing 10 out of 12 titles.  The third DNF was from my romance bookclub and was mainly due to health issues. Although it is true that the book wasn't exactly my cup of tea, I probably would've finished it if it hadn't landed in the midst of a flurry of doctor visits.
• I was sad to see the end of RT Book Reviews. I had been reviewing for them for about three years, and very much enjoyed the conferences in the years I was able to go. I won't be able to try out the BookLoversCon this year, but if the feedback is good, maybe next year.

Looking forward:  

• On the Blog: I have a few modest blog goals this year. I'd like to post a minimum of two reviews a month, and get back in the habit of a weekly reading roundup.  I'm making an effort to read the physical books that are on my shelves. 
• If you enjoy Twitter, please keep an eye out for my live-tweets, usually tagged with #amreading. I try to remember the #bkbrk (book break) tag as well.
• Finally, I'm very much enjoying my role as guest-podcaster with Tamara at Shelf Addiction. We are continuing the #3bloggers1series read-alongs (I'm super excited about the series that we'll be starting after the 3rd title in the Grisha trilogy), and I'm doing some mini-reviews in the new "Shelf Byte" feature that Tamara kicked off this year.  So if podcasts are your jam, please check this one out. 

Sunday Soup - June 21

In The Soup This Week... Alisha Rai, Katee Robert, Tiffany Reisz

Soup Dish:  on my mind
✽Not a lot of topical stuff for me this week, mostly just reading, reading, reading.  I do hope to kick off a series featuring the Reading Until Dawn conference and authors.  Look for that to debut on Thursdays.

What I'm reading
I guess it must be summer, because the majority of what I've been reading lately is hot, hot, hot.

✽I saw a passing deal for Alisha Rai's Glutton for Pleasure, and I really enjoyed it.  I don't normally go for twins in menage, so I'm kinda glad I didn't know that was the premise--this one managed not to squick me at all on that point, which is not a given.  The heroine has this perfect balance of sweet shyness, and yet sticks up for herself when it's important and doesn't take any nonsense from either of her partners. Also, I think there should be some sort of important industry award for the use of "turgid flesh" in the opening paragraph.

✽Katee Robert's Protecting Fate was also a total win. I've read a number of the kidnapped-for-her-own-protection tropes lately, and it's very rare that they work for me. This one was not a kidnapping, but it was still not exactly the heroine's preference. She did reluctantly agree to go along with escaping to a secure location, alone with a hunky bodyguard, and hijinks-- delightful, dirty hijinks-- ensue. This one hit all the right notes for me.

✽I downloaded Tiffany Reisz' The Virgin a little while ago, and finished it this past week. This series is just a super-reliable read for me -- always enjoyable. What I liked about this particular book is that some of the relationships that were originally presented as more or less easy-come, easy-go hookups gained a bit more emotional resonance in the flashbacks, and as a reader you start to understand how the characters have been shaped by all these experiences. I really liked it.

✽I finished up the Karina Bliss What the Librarian Did. Meh. It wasn't terrible, but I just didn't buy the characters and never found myself engaged.

Sunday Soup - March 8

Sunday Soup is... Girl Scout cookies, Shiloh Walker's backlist, lots of series catching up...

Soup Dish:  on my mind this week
✽So March may mean shamrocks and green beer to some of you, but at my house it's all about the Girl Scout cookies.  For the past 6 or 7 years, I've been the troop cookie mom for an enormous "super troop" of more than 30 girls.  Thankfully, starting last year, we've figured a way to split it up so it's gotten a bit easier.  Still, it's pretty much eating my brain.


What I'm reading
I haven't done a Soup in so long!  I have a HUGE backlog...actually, it's been so long, let's not even talk about catching up.  Let's just talk about lately. 
 
✽I spent quite a few evenings during the holidays catching up on Shiloh Walker's The Hunters series.  I had actually read one or two of the later ones but I hadn't realized that the first ones were mostly novellas and mostly more erotica than PNR.  Lately I'm finding that novellas and shorts are suiting me very nicely.  It probably means bad things about my attention span and brain function, but in the meantime, I am liking shorter pieces more than ever lately.  These definitely follow a distinct pattern, but as it turns out, I like the pattern so I pretty much inhaled these.  I was sorry to come to the end.

✽After enjoying The Master so much by Kresley Cole, I nabbed The Professional, which was handily on sale at the time (I love this trend of discounting book one in a series, it's so smart, and it hooks me EVERY TIME.) The Professional was, if possible, even hotter than The Master, although I will say the hero made me want to smack him around a little bit. If you don't like controlling alphas, this one might strike a wrong note for you, but the sex scenes burned up the page.


✽Quite a lot of my reading over the past few months involved series that I've already talked about here and still adore -- Tiffany Reisz' The King, Moira Rogers' Crossroads (Arcana #2), Chloe Neill's last two Chicagoland Vampires series (I gotta get me that new one set in NOLA), and tons more.  I would like to publish this while it's still Sunday in my timezone, so I'll have to come back later and talk about some of my reading detours.

Outlander Watch... Och. I canna wait for the RETURN of Jamie and Claire onscreen.

This was pretty cool:

 

Sunday Soup - July 27

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  on my mind this week...
✽I've been on vacation in small-town mid-America, and it's been a low-tech kind of week.  I know that a huge chunk of my book community is at RWA but I have not been following  much of the goings-on, except:

✽Carolyn Crane won a RITA!  I'm so happy for her.  She was one of the first book bloggers to befriend me and Alpha Heroes when I got started, and I will never stop laughing at The Unfeasibly Tall Greek Billionaire's Blackmailed Martyr-Complex Secretary Mistress Bride. Her fiction is still characterized by that same quirky humor and fresh imagination.

✽If you are a lover of 80s pop culture, you might enjoy Tiffany Reisz's latest freebie: Erotic Charles In Charge fan-fic. When you stop giggling, you should read it and bring ice.


What I'm reading

✽My big project this week was a re-read of Outlander.  Although I consider myself a fan, and regularly list this title as one of my all-time favorite books, I've never been much of a re-reader and this was only my second time through it. I have to say it holds up as well as anything I've ever read.  I remember when it came out, it wasn't always easy to find it in the bookstore -- I have seen it shelved in romance, sci-fi-fantasy, and general fiction.  And I feel that's really true: it defies genre conventions.  What struck me the most about it was the precarious position they found themselves in at the end of the book -- truly a "happily for now".   After turning the last page and taking a few deep breaths, I remembered that there are another nearly 7000 pages published of Jamie and Claire's story (setting aside the Lord John books and other shorter works), and felt reassured, but in the midst of this story, even knowing that things eventually turn out more or less ok, I was completely immersed in the ups and downs of this roller-coaster book. I loved it all over again.

✽A Good Debutante's Guide to Ruin, by Sophie Jordan (ARC). Releases this Tuesday; a solid Regency for which I owe a real review. A nicely constructed situation, likeable characters, and good chemistry. I loved the erotic tension and the villainy was kicked up a notch in a good way. My one nitpick is that the language sometimes sounded too contemporary to my ear, especially one of the key secondary characters.

✽Going Under by Jeffe Kennedy. Absolutely loved the premise here and the heroine. This is an erotic romance and they do get up to some fetishy hijinks; you may want to kick the air conditioning up before you dig into this one.  I sort of felt that the ending was a bit rushed and that she forgave him a bit too easily, but I really loved the tech element here. (Kennedy's inspiration was a true story that made a huge impression on me as well when it broke). You'll have to decide if a ginger-flavored Tom Hiddleston-esque hero is a plus for you.

✽Wild Card, by Moira Rogers - this was a quick paranormal read, fairly hot, though I personally wouldn't peg it as erotica. In a post-apocalyptic future that resembles the nineteenth century west with wolf shifters, a lone female rancher finally meets her match.  I liked it and will probably read on in the series.

✽Razing Kayne, by Julianne Reeves. I went to this contemp cop-romance as a "something completely different" follow-up to Outlander. So it had a tough act to follow.  I'm not really sure what made me pick this one up-- random Twitter mention? Kindle freebie? Something like that. I have mixed reactions - I thought the suspense plot was really good - tight, unusual, a couple of crazy twists; and I liked the love scenes too.  Characterization wasn't quite up to par, IMO; there was just a real lot internal angsty descriptive narrative to tell me what was going on with the main characters.  Still, this is the sort of thing that can get better as a writer gains experience, so I might pick up another title.  The small (ish) town had an interesting population of secondary characters, too.  Has promise.

That's all for this week's soup.  Hope you're having a delightful summer.

Sunday Soup - July 6

Sunday Soup is... a little of this, a little of that, not too much work, and hopefully a tasty result.

Soup Dish:  this week I'm dishing about Seattle bookstores...

✽So my big book news of the week was the Diana Gabaldon signing that happened in Seattle.  Over 600 people attended. She was an absolutely delightful speaker, and the Forest Park Third Place Books did a wonderful job accommodating a HUGE number of fans on an unseasonably hot day. If you have a chance to hear her speak I highly recommend it-- but only if you like hearing slightly off-color stories about Scotsmen in (and out) of kilts. I am so looking forward to the Starz production of Outlander this August, and getting a chance at a fan-girl moment was a great way to increase the anticipation:

✽On a side note, Third Place Books has an extensive Romance collection, easily rivaling the local Barnes & Noble stores and my late lamented Redmond Borders {moment of silence, please}.  If you've been reading along at Alpha Heroes since the very beginning, you may remember this very early rant about indie bookstores and romance, specifically Elliott Bay Books, the best-known Seattle indie.

I had this brief interaction on Twitter recently, and decided to give EBB another chance:

Promising, right?

So yesterday, the kids and I made an outing of it, and hit Elliott Bay Books along with other nearby destinations: Molly Moon ice cream, Everyday Music, and the Ghost Gallery.  My kids found plenty of books to tempt them in the huge children and young adult sections, but the romance section was a bit less prominent.  Here's what the Fiction section looks like:

 

Nice space, isn't it? It's beautiful, really, a lovely place for a bibliophile to hang out in.  I compressed the photo (and it was already a little hazy, the lighting was tricky), but if you have a very sharp eye you might see placards directing you to Fiction, Science Fiction, and Mystery, but where's the romance?

Oh. Here it is.

Oh, not that WHOLE case, silly.  Just the bottom three shelves. The two shelves above it are erotic romance.  There are two more shelves above THAT for, I believe, fiction overrun/overstocks. No placard.  At a generous guess, I'd say half the titles were classic romances from the 90s. Crusie, Garfield, Devereaux, McNaught.  Good picks, but not exactly current. The other half were recent releases, across a fair spectrum of historical and contemporary. So, um, "growing." OK. It's bigger than it was in 2008, when it was ZERO. So... sure.  That's growth.  However, I'd say there's a long way to go before Elliott Bay Books convinces me that it wants my business.  In the meantime, I'll be at Barnes & Noble.  Or Amazon. Or Third Place Books.

What I'm reading

✽Downloaded and devoured The Saint, by Tiffany Reisz. I really enjoyed the story, as I do most all of Reisz' work, but I will say -- a lot of the material has already been told from other points of view, I think mostly from The Mistress (don't quote me though, they're starting to blur.)  The flashbacks to Nora and Soren's early days are interspersed with a present-day lover that has a bit of a squick factor.  It mostly didn't bother me, because fiction, but I could've done without it. It feels like Nora cannot relate to anyone unless she's banging them, and that's starting to feel kind of icky. Not to be overly critical though -- there was plenty to like. I particularly liked Nora and Soren's discussions of sex and theology. I think Reisz managed to show the electric connection between the 15-year-old Eleanor and the 29-year-old priest without making it ugly, and that is not easy. Reisz does witty, innuendo-laden banter very well, and I loved how that worked with the cold, serious, uber-self-controlled Soren.

✽I finished The Windflower, and I'm hoping to post some thoughts on it later this week.

✽The Bastard, by Inez Kelley. I picked this up after a random tweet from Mandi, and liked it quite a bit. It's the first in a paranormal series about angels and their fight with Satan himself for supremacy.  The world-building is quite complex, and involves super-good-guys from the historical rolls, but also -- unexpectedly -- some super-bad guys too, who are fighting for personal redemption as well as all of humankind. The theory is that when you've got to fight some ultimate evil, it couldn't hurt to have some warriors who aren't above getting down and dirty.  I will say that my eyebrows went up a little bit on learning who these "heroes" were, and I felt like their human sins were sort of waved away with a bit of "hey, that was then, and I'm really sorry," and also, "oh, you know how history exaggerates," but I'm willing to wait and see how their individual stories go.

✽Heavy Metal Heart, by Nico Rosso. This was another author I wanted to stalk, er, I mean, familiarize myself with before RT.  While I won't say this novella blew me away completely, I did like the world setup and the author's description of the actual magic that is created by the characters' music was incredible. Book 2 came out in March, and I might just pick it up. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a satyr rock star.

Outlander Watch... Och. I canna wait for Jamie and Claire onscreen.

✽Watch the latest trailer (for Australian TV) here: Den of Geek

✽And a bit of a behind the scenes video at Cinema Blend

__________________________
That's it for this week -- hope you had a spectacular 4th, if you go in for that sort of thing, and that one way or another, your July is off to a good start.

The Angel, by Tiffany Reisz - Review

Cover art obtained from publishers' website

Information: 
Author: Tiffany Reisz
Publisher: Harlequin
Imprint: Mira
Series Name: The Original Sinners
Reviewing: Advanced Uncorrected e-Proof provided by publisher (please note that the quotes I have pulled may differ from those in the final edition)

The Blurb

No safe word can protect the heart...
Infamous erotica author and accomplished dominatrix Nora Sutherlin is doing something utterly out of character: hiding. While her longtime lover, Søren–whose fetishes, if exposed, would be his ruin–is under scrutiny pending a major promotion, Nora’s lying low and away from temptation in the lap of luxury.

Her host, the wealthy and uninhibited Griffin Fiske, is thrilled to have Nora stay at his country estate, especially once he meets her traveling companion. Young, inexperienced and angelically beautiful, Michael has become Nora’s protégé, and this summer with Griffin is going to be his training, where the hazing never ends.

But while her flesh is willing, Nora’s mind is wandering. To thoughts of Søren, her master, under investigation by a journalist with an ax to grind. And to another man from Nora’s past, whose hold on her is less bruising, but whose secrets are no less painful. It’s a summer that will prove the old adage: love hurts.

So, I read The Siren from Reisz earlier this year without much of a preconceived notion - I just knew that it didn't have a Happily Ever After and that one of my favorite bloggers really really liked it.  I would not really have pegged it in the erotica category, even, and said something to that effect in my review.  More that there were some erotic moments, and lots of sexual tension... but I didn't see it in that category.

Since that time, I've fangirled all over Reisz on Twitter and read some of the short stories about various characters in the world of The Siren and The Angel, and maybe I just had my expectations set differently, but yeah, The Angel totally read as erotica to me.

The Short Answer
I liked this book a lot.  It's a fun, sexy read, with a few character twists that surprised me.  I like a good Machiavellian character, who's always one step ahead of the crowd.  I felt like Angel was less of a breakout book than Siren and fit more easily into genre expectations.  Perhaps less challenging to the reader.  For those looking for a sweet, satisfying romance, they'll find that too, but perhaps not where expected.  A favorite quote:

The sound of falling water roused Michael from his sleep.  Rain pelted the roof above him and the window next to him.  Usually he loved the sound of rain, especially a morning rain in the summer.  But now his first thought upon waking was of Griffin on his motorcycle, wet roads and screeching tires.

So this is love, he decided. Love was fucking terrifying.

The Series
Have you ever been part of a crowd, at school or at a job, where everyone was so tight-knit that when you broke up with one partner, you kind of ended up with someone else in the same crowd, who maybe was going with your best friend the month before, and then there was gossiping, and who's with who this week, and it either implodes into a huge mess or you end up with some of the best friends you could ever imagine?  This is the kind of world that Reisz is constructing in her Original Sinners series.  As a series concept, I think it's somewhat unique-- it seems that each player will get a book that's more or less focused on him or her, but it doesn't look like we can necessarily expect a Happily Ever After in each one.  It's a bit more open-ended than the usual romance series, and more of an ensemble cast.  I like it.

Some Stuff
I don't get Wes.  Maybe I will eventually, but I don't right now.  I don't really get Nora's obsession with him, and it does feel like an obsession rather than a love story.  Hrm.

There's one scene that involves blood play.  It raised my eyebrows a little, and was an interesting reveal into the relationship... but some may find it off-putting.

Stuff I Liked
Beyond the sexy sexy-times, I like the way the plot twisted and turned.  I was surprised a number of times, which is always fun.  There are a couple of threads in this book - Michael's coming of age and falling in love; and a reporter's investigation of Søren pending his promotion to Bishop.  In between, we see the friendship between Nora and Griffin, and the role that Søren plays with them all. Of all the threads, I think that only Michael's love story really satisfies the strict definition of story, as I recall from my limited literary training: "in which a character undergoes a significant change." Which makes sense, given the title.

But the other threads are more about enhancing what we know about about the ensemble cast, in particular, Nora and Søren. It's a different kind of world-building.  In  a sense, the backdrop of this story is Søren's biography, pieced together mosaic-style from bits contributed from all the different characters.  His character begins to take shape for the reader through the eyes of Griffin, Michael, and the reporter, while we get a little bit more insight to Nora and his history. At the end of The Siren, I didn't understand why Nora was going back to Søren, but I also thought that was deliberate on the part of the author.  She could have made me see it, but chose not to; it's part of the "series arc," I think.  I feel that Søren as a character is still incomplete for me, still shadowy and mysterious and somewhat one-dimensional, but I'm willing to live with that for now.

Stuff That Made Me Think
"BDSM" is an alphabet soup, really.  Bondage/ Domination/ Submission/ Sadism/ Masochism.  That double-S is a tricky one.

Without delving too uncomfortably into my own predilections, I will share that I've read pretty widely in the BDSM category, lonnnnnnnnnng before the 50 Shades phenomenon.  Like, more than 20 years long.  I certainly don't claim to have read everything out there, especially these days (who could keep up? erotica is positively BOOMING --or should I say banging?-- with the advent of e-reading).  But something that stands out to me - I have rarely seen a story with a sympathetic sadist. Dominants, yes, but there's an important difference.  Doms are usually portrayed as motivated and excited by the power exchange, by the trust handed to them, and by an atavistic possessive desire.  Much of it stops short of the psychology of inflicting pain.

It's hard to feel good about a character who gets off on causing pain to someone else. A masochist craves pain. There are some physiological explanations for this: endorphins, variance in sensitivity thresholds. Much of BDSM erotica has a way of downplaying the fact that it's actually pain, and not just acute pleasure involved.  But it seems to me that the eroticism of sadism is purely psychological, and it's just hard to wrap my head around it without judgment.  I'm trying though.

I think this is what makes Søren controversial.  I'm finding myself rethinking some comfortable ruts, and it's a pretty rare author that can do that.

The Siren, by Tiffany Reisz - Review

**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS** 

I'm sorry, there's just no way to discuss this book without talking about how it ends. If you don't want to be spoilered, and you haven't read the book, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT. It does contain some elements that may be disturbing, including extreme BDSM, underage/teen participants, and a sexually active Catholic priest.

Published by Harlequin MIRA

Publication Date: Kindle - available now; Paperback on July 24

Edition Reviewed: electronic ARC from NetGalley

The first time I ran into the concept of meta-fiction, I was absolutely fascinated.  I was taking a creative writing class, and the prof had us read a different short story each week which illustrated a different element of fiction.

For the notion of point of view, with an unreliable-narrator bonus, we read Robert Coover's "The Babysitter".  It blew my mind like Pulp Fiction blew everyone's mind when it came out.

So I kind of love a good metafiction experience, which is how I would describe The Siren.  There are multiple layers of story here, both literally and literarily*, with multiple frames that echo and reflect in a completely elegant way.  The Siren is, at the most literal level, about an editor and an author working together to revise a novel for publication.  So the layers of story include the one by Reisz, which I downloaded, the one that Nora (the main character) is writing with Zach as the editor, and Nora's own backstory, which her work-in-progress references.

It's a little bit like that cereal box from the '70s that showed a kid holding a cereal box, with himself on the smaller one (and so on), only if the repeated image is a video that's continuously changing--it's a little dizzying but worth the ride.  As you read Reisz's story, Nora's work-in-progress changes, as does the affair that it's based on.  It's sort of a literary kaleidoscope.

If that sounds confusing, it's because I'm not nearly as good at explaining it as Reisz is at writing it.  It's not confusing to read - the structure of this story has an elegance of architecture that you can't help but admire.

Its first line draws Zach in, just as it did me.

"I don't want to write this story any more than you want to read it."

Zach didn't want to read the novel because he thought it was a romance.  I didn't know if I'd like because I knew it wasn't a romance.  It's really almost a puzzle - it's romantic, but not a romance.  There are some erotic and intensely sexual scenes, but I didn't find it to be a particularly erotic book (at least, not as a whole.  There were definitely a couple of ice-bucket-worthy scenes).  The protagonists find their Happily Ever Afters, or the potential for such, but not with each other.  See?  All the elements, yet it breaks all the rules.

I'm toying with the idea that Zach's experience with Nora is a metaphor for the experience that readers** of romance have with the genre itself:  He is embarrassed by her, considers himself "better" than her, but is compelled by her ability to touch his emotions and his sensuality.  He's surprised by her brains.  He doesn't expect to be attracted but he is, intensely.  He visits an exotic fantasy world, discovers new things about himself and releases a few things that were locked away down deep.  Then, in the end, he goes back to his real-life relationship, feeling more ready to connect emotionally, more forgiving of his past sins, and with a few new ideas to explore with his wife.

I really felt completely satisfied with Zach's character arc.  His interlude with Nora, his story, was a gift to him.  He started out pretty unlikeable and unhappy and Nora helped him find his way back to what he needed.  Some may interpret his journey as being about control, but I think the layer under that is forgiveness - Nora helps him forgive himself.

Nora's story is more complicated and less tidy.  She is the catalyst in the middle of three men, three affairs that are all wildly inappropriate for various reasons.  She is telling all their stories and directing the action.  The way things end with Wesley is heartbreaking and inevitable and excruciating and beautifully written.

As for her relationship with Soren... I don't know if I can fit that into my metaphor.  It doesn't feel like an HEA.  Perhaps I'm more naive about BDSM than I would've thought--and more judgmental than I had thought--but a session shouldn't land anyone in the ER.  I can't like that.  I think that Reisz could have made me like Soren more, made me understand why Nora loves him, but she didn't.

There's a thread running through the book about hurting each other.  There's a lot of "hurts-so-good" consensual pain in this story, but also, people hurt each other all the time: lovers hurt each other when it's the last thing they want.  There's the idea that people need to be hurt, need to inflict hurt, in order to forgive themselves or others.  A very Catholic notion; perhaps that explains Reisz's decision to make the chief sadist of the story a priest.  Early in the book Nora surprises Zach:

"Excuse me," Zach began, trying to regain control of this conversation, "but didn't I repeatedly insult you this morning?"

"Your kvetching was very fetching. I like men who are mean to me. I trust them more."

She says things like this all the time, flippantly, but when we get to the end and see what her choices are, it seems that every flip comment was deadly true.  I honestly don't know what to make of this but it seems particularly dark to me, beyond the parameters of even her own community. The way she hurts Wesley feels like it had to happen, that there is some healing in there; my sense is that Wesley will be better off in the long run because she breaks it off with him.  Going back to Soren, though, I don't know.  It's consistent with her character, but I wish she hadn't.  I wish her character arc ended by breaking with him.  I feel like Reisz is maybe hurting me, with this ending, in one final meta-literary act. And....

...

and like Nora... I like it. Hit me again, Ms. Reisz.



___
*spell-check informs me that "literarily" is not word.  But it should be.  And this is the internet, so, it's a word now.  Because I say so.

**not ALL readers, of course; there is no one experience.  But I think it's valid for a general case.

Around the Blogosphere
Mandi at Smexy Books, made me want to read it.
A Buckeye Girl Reads
Tez Miller
Good Choice Reading

There are quite a few reviews out there, so have a look for yourself if you've got favorite reviewers.  As always, if you have reviewed this book please feel free to leave your link in comments.