Wednesday 30 April 2014

BOOK REVIEW (9): A Very Exclusive Engagement

Book Review:
A Very Exclusive Engagement


This would be my first Harlequin Desire.

I've always wanted to get around to picking one up, but I haven't. Until now.
Actually, I purposely went out of my way to get Andrea Laurence's sophomore novel with Desire because I read and loved her story on the official Harlequin/SYTYCW Sold! Blog.

A Very Exclusive Engagement is my first Harlequin Desire. I liked my choice introduction to this category line.

It start off with the elevator scene between heroine Francesca (yes! another Francesca) Orr and hero Liam Crowe.

As sexy as hellishly hot it was there was one part of that extended scene in the elevator I hated. During the height of her passion Francesca decides to take the one friggin’ water bottle they have as they roast in the elevator in the middle of an already 3-hour long power outage (did I mention they’re sitting ducks fifty floors above the main level? Well yeah.) and she pours the entirety of its contents over Liam’s head. You know to make it look sexier. When a few pages earlier she was trying to preserve it in case they, you know, start dying of thirst.

Francesca is sassy and Italian, and really sassy. She’s also extremely superstitious which to be honest is her (character’s) saving grace.  Otherwise I would have lost her to the zone-of-not-caring.  Liam also had some promising characteristics.  He was hella sure of himself, but then when I was beginning to suspect his perfection he reveals his totally normal fear of speaking in public.

The book has a lot of craziness.  It is a marriage of convenience trope *hint, hint* the title. What readers can expect:

*a whirlwind engagement-slash-wedding
*(not-so-sexy) kitchen counter sex scene
*a bevy of interesting secondary characters (A Very Exclusive Engagement is the 5th in a continuity series of six books published last spring/summer)
*a lesson in Italian superstitions

*one ruined wedding cake and no bridezilla in sight

My verdict:

✮.5

(3.5 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (8): How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents


Book Review:
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents


It took me a long time to get around to this book, and even longer to get to this review.  My apprehension of the experience was mostly because I thought I’d hate the story-telling.

Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is told from multiple perspectives, but the story is contained mostly (at least 98%) to the 6 members of the Garcia family.  Especially the four sisters (the aforementioned Garcia girls).

Detailing the history of the family’s move from the Dominican Republic (affectionately known as the Island) to the U.S. where the novel chronologically progresses backwards from the four sisters’ adulthood in America to their childhood on the Island.

I picked it up because I was looking for fictionalized immigrant tales.  I was once an immigrant myself, but I was a toddler when I arrived to Canada so I don’t remember my life outside my adopted country.

Overall I was pleased to be proven wrong.  This story is so much more than a tale of packing up, moving and adjusting to a foreign country.  Trust me. These girls lose more than their accents. Get your mind out of the gutter, now.

I don't mean that kind of loss--although sex is mentioned, I mean that the Garcia girls are taken from their home in Columbia, or the Island, and they are forced to start new lives in the U.S. It’s about love and heartbreak, sorrow and loss, and old and new families.

What I disliked:
*Yolanda (Yo, Joe, Yoyo) was an annoying narrator.  I don’t believe you have to like a narrator, only you have to be able to stand them long enough to understand what position they’re seeing things from. Yolanda was just, I don’t know, frustrating.
*I found the back-and-forth time leaps between the narrations could be jarring sometimes, even if the “chapters” were split up by different stories. So it was like a collection of short stories bundled together into a book.
*Pedophilia alert. Some random guy who saves them at some point early in their childhood basically loves screwing around with kids. Unfortunately I was in his mind for a few pages and I had to read through his appreciative eye over the Garcia girls (by this point they’re all well below the consent of age for sexual conduct).

What I liked:
*the distinction between the four girls’ voices—Carla, Sandra/Sandi, Yolanda (yes, yes. Even Yolanda) and Sofia/Fifi—so I never found myself confusing one character with another.
*the author’s choice of telling the story in smaller subjects/topics of the “chapters”. Like I said the book could be taken as a collection of shorter stories to build a bigger picture.
*the relationship dynamic between the family is extremely realistic. It has its ups and downs and I admire Alvarez’s touch here as an artist.

My verdict:

✮.5

(3.5 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (7): Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Translyvania, and Other States...

Book Review:
Lost States - True Stories of Texlahoma, Translyvania, and Other States That Never Made It

Phew. There we have it. The whole title.
I had this book on hold at my library, but I forgot about it. Not that it’s a forgetful book necessarily. Actually the topic makes sure of that at least for this reader.

In his book, author Michael J. Trinklein focuses on the “lost” states from U.S. state-making history.  You know ‘cause there’s a history for just about everything.

Tis book is published by Quirk Books. Why, you ask, am I telling you this?  Because this company is known for publishing funny, or at the least, quirky books. (Makes sense right?)

And Lost States is both funny and quirky. At the best it is an entertaining short way to pass time one boring afternoon.  It details the stories behind proposed states that might have been part of the U.S. with a few personal suppositions from the author added to this list. (I mean Albania as a state? Really?)

As far as historical accuracy goes, I have no way to vouch for any of the tales of the would-be states.  It didn’t bother me at all, but my dad read the book and he hated it because he saw no references to any of the claims Trinklein made.

Also the author’s tone is light-hearted, as if he were sitting across from his reaer and telling these tales over a late dinner.  So there’s the forewarning. Don’t go in expecting a more serious tone à la your history textbook.

He only problem I had was a few of the suppositions from the author’s part. I think the chapters on Albania and Wales/Scotland/England were unnecessary additions.  These felt more like hypotheses by Trinklein—especially with in the case of Albania—than legitimate statehood claims.

My verdict:



(4 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (6): Me and Miss M

Book Review:
Me & Miss M

Darn. Don't you hate when that happens.

Another first.  Me and Miss M is my first woman’s fiction read for 2014, which implies I do plan to read more this year.

The debut of author Jemma Forte, the story follows the first-person narrative of Francesca Massi, a wannabe actress with not a lot of talent.  At the beginning of the book Francesca comes to the realization after two decades that she just might not have a future cut out for her in Hollywood’s limelight.

So she settles for the second best thing: being a personal assistant to a Caroline, hither to fore know as Miss M (I’m totally saying this in a nasally tone. It’s all about the nasal.), B-grade actress.

Of course I could think of another B-word that describes Miss M.  To be honest, Francesca is a pitiful character in a pitiable situation.  Thankfully there’s a sexy Hollywood actor companion to Miss M’s actress status and a gangly love interest. Add a dash of sometimes riotous dialogue—I mean why does everything sound more dramatic in a British accent?—and the story is decent. A good enough read.

What I disliked:
*Francesca was a bit too much at times: too dramatic, too needy, too…Mary Sue-ish.
*the beginning was confusing as heck
*a little high strung—everything was over-the-top. But, my gosh, the ending was just eye-gouging awful. It was all wrapped up in a neat little bow with all of Francesca’s problem solved in a stone’s throw.
Oh piss off. Life doesn’t work that way, stupid book.

What I liked:
*Francesca’s boyfriend is a dear. And a vet!  Yay for animal lover hero. –showers with cats and dogs-
*the epilogue is the one time the book diverges from the 1st-person perspective from Francesca’s POV. Caroline (a.k.a. Miss M) narrates this end and it offers an insight to her main antagonism in the story.

My verdict:



(3 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (5): Murder Unmentionable (A Sweet Nothings Lingerie Mystery #1)


Book Review:
Murder Unmentionable


This is my second cozy murder mystery series, and I’m happy to report that I chose right.

Meg London’s first book of her Sweet Nothings Lingerie mystery series is (was?) a delight!

I loved the lingerie theme. It’s what draws me to the stories. Amidst the cooking-themed cozies Murder Unmentionable is a breath of fresh air!

Book 1 follows heroine Emma Taylor, a 29-year-old niece of the Sweet nothing shop owner.  A transplant from the world of New York fashion, Emma arrives with the small-term goal of assisting her beloved aunt with her down-and-under lingerie store. Returning to her small Tennessee town, Emma is carrying a lot of personal baggage (she just caught her boyfriend cheating) and while she figures small town is synonymous with boring but stable life, a murder throws a wrench into her plans for obscurity.

And when the murder happens right in her aunt’s shop well she needs to pull out her amateur sleuthing cap and sleuth away to prove her own and her aunt’s innocence.

Murder Unmentionable is an enjoyable read with a colourful secondary cast, steady pacing and snappy dialogue breaking apart any introspection (and annoyingly long food preparation descriptions—seriously I get that it’s the south and people love to cook fine southern food!).

That being said, there were some other reasons why it didn’t get a 5/5 for me.

I didn’t like that I knew the killer by page 50ish. It’s a whodunit, so it shouldn’t have been that easy.  I also didn’t enjoy the romance as much as I wanted to.  I loved the whole best friend’s older brother thing, but there wasn’t that spark between Emma, her love interest, Brian (who I keep spelling as “Brain”) and me.  Nada.

My verdict:


(4 stars)

BOOK REVIEW (4.5): The Sheikh's Disobedient Bride

WARNING: Cover not bus-reading appropriate.
Let me preface this review by first stating that I will now make it a point to avoid Presents novels starring a Sheikh hero.

And before I explain why, I also want to note that this was a book I started reading during the winter 2013 holidays (so end of December-ish) and I finished it around the beginning of January. (I have the exact date on GR, for anyone who's curious...) So this review is an EXTRA. It is not being counted as the 30 books I'd like to read in 2014. BONUS REVIEW.

Okay. Back to the actual reviewing:

Sheikh heroes. -shakes head-

Oh dear. Where do I begin?

I know that this "brand" of hero has a lot of fans, but I'm not convinced by it.

He's typically portrayed as grossly arrogant...and too often his looks are described as being "wild", or its synonym "untamed" and my all-time fav, "barbaric". Is this supposed to be endear me to the hero?

So a Sheikh hero is barbaric, wild, whatever--and yet he almost always surprises the heroine with how well educated he is: his English is superb, that's explained usually by his studying abroad (usually in Europe), and he's also a well-spring of Western and Eastern knowledge, oh! And don't forget: he's able to straddle the West and East border comfortably.

Excuse me but...WTF.

Okay, The Sheikh's Disobedient Bride starts with a kidnap, the heroine is taken and held captive by the so-called hero. For no good reason!

Well, to be fair, there is a reason near the beginning. The hero, Tair believes the heroine, Tally, is a spy for some enemies of his. She's not and she quickly establishes this early on. But NO, he decides to continue to hold her and since readers have privy to his thoughts (joy!) we learn he's falling in love with her.

In his stupid, twisted mind Tair gets the notion that she's better off with him. She begs and pleads to be sent away, but NO, she's his woman darnit!

Yeah, about that. Because Tair doesn't know her name to start with he calls her 'woman'. Even after she tells him to call her by her name, he keeps calling her woman. "Woman this" and "woman that" and "woman shaddap, I'm the man in your life now"--holy fudge.

By this point if you haven't already felt that this review is warning you AWAY from the book, please understand I'm trying to warn you AWAY from this book.

Now let me see what else did I absolutely abhor...oh right! The characters! Tair is a pompous ass who's self-assurance went south, waaaay south returning from its trip as an egomania-ism that made this reader want to throttle him at several points through the story. He forces, FORCES the heroine to marry him. I know I said this a few paragraphs ago but What. The. Hot Fudge.


There is nothing glamorous or sexy or romantic about bride kidnapping. It's sadly real and happening quite frequently in many parts of the world.
Tally isn't much better. The Harlequin Presents line focuses on portraying its heroines as a 21st-century populace, but I didn't get a sense of Tally being anything more than a TSTL heroine. Seriously she should have died countless amount of times. If this weren't a goshdarned romance I would have been hoping she did (though its genre label hardly stopped me from praying for each next page to be blank--like some printing complication would force me to stop reading this train wreck).  All of her runaway attempts lead to a near-death experience on her part and the hero's chance to "sparkle" as he swoops in to save her from the eviiiiiiiiil climate of his desert land.

Of course he locks her away in the harem of his beautiful, oasis-like palace in the middle of the desert where forced wedding preparations begins. There were so many times I felt like the author was trying to shove Tair and his diamond-in-the-rough personality down my throat, but I'm not a glutton for Alpha asshole heroes who prefer to wait out their marriages via Stockholm syndrome.

And Tally, oh Tally Tally Tally. You so daffy, girrrrrl.

She thinks that because she's falling in love with Tair that's okay. She rationalizes her captivity and often silences any internal conflict fighting against her kidnapper by having sex with him. Cause you know sex fixes everything right? Right?

Anyways I could go on and on and on...but I'm not going to.

I did laugh once in the book. There's a conversation closer to the start of the book right after Tair captures Tally and he still believes her to be a spy. They have this back-and-forth banter that made me cry from laughing so hard, mostly because it was humorous but also because it was intensely bizarre. It was also the point where my hope died of this being a good book.

So I'll sum it up this way:

Avoid this book if...

*you can't sympathize with bride kidnapping
*hate A-hole alpha heroes
*can't stand stupid heroines

Cool? Let's move on to the verdict.




(1 star)

BOOK REVIEW (4): The Twelve Olympians


TBH, I finished reading Charles Seltman's The Twelve Olympians nearly three months ago, but I'm posting this late.  (Actually I'm writing this now from the past.  Brought to you by ME from 3 days ago. hahaha... I crack myself up.)

Enough of my funny though, "on to the review!" Zeus says.

Badassery at the God level.
Unfortunately, this book wasn't badassery.  Or should I say fortunately.  It's informative, that's for sure, and I definitely expanded on my repository of--often useless--Greek mythology and all things concerning our favourite polytheistic pantheon.


The version of the book I borrowed from my school library didn't have this sexy man on it.  (This could possibly be because it was a hardcover version stripped of its cover.)  But it's the same book, although I can't attest to whether it's the same edition.

Cons:
Too much little details.  I don't particularly care for coinage or whose face is on what, and though I understand the book was originally published in the 1920s, it should have been more accessible.  At least this readers thinks so. It reads all right, but it's also a slow and tedious plodding through to the end.

Pros:
I really did learn a lot.  I especially loved the second chapter, the chapter dedicated to Aphrodite and the following chapter on Hephaestus (or Hephaistos, as its spelled in its variant in the book). Also there are some memorable phrases I personally stored away and interesting historical facts that made up for the majority of the boring filler information.

My verdict:


(3 stars)


BOOK REVIEW (3): Motive for Murder

Book Review:
Motive for Murder


This one is a definite favourite!  Carol J. Post’s Motive for Murder is a perfect blend of look-over-your-shoulder suspense and sweet, tension-filled romance.

As part of Harlequin’s inspirational romantic suspense line it should be equal parts romance and suspense, but that’s also a warning to any reader who might be expecting sexy bedroom times.  But this story doesn’t lack any of the emotion complication romances have.

More of a whydunit than a whodunit, the identity of the killer is revealed early on so don’t let that stop you from reading.

The pacing is steadily divided between the clues towards the whydunit mystery and the growing romance between Jess and Shane. Dialogue and introspection is well-balanced, and the whole story moved towards a natural climax (which I’m not sharing, so Go Read The Book).


All I disliked was Jess’ coldness towards her sister even in death and her reaction after one of the secondary characters, Lexi, experiences this really horrible event that causes her significantly understandable trauma.

My verdict:

✮.5



(4.5 stars)

Friday 25 April 2014

A Bad Book From the Soul (Big Dreams Blog Update #7)


It's that time again. On the last Friday of every month the Big Dream bloggers update their status on their goals. Hosted by authors Misha Gericke and Beth Fred, 19 participants have made a public pledge to fulfill their big, crazy goals together.

As a part of this monthly (but kinda really daily) blog hop, I'm trying to reach my goal of writing a million words. Only completed works count, so I'm sitting at a big fat goose egg, but as you can see the bar on the side is filling up with the tentative amount of my current WIPs.

In other news, I have this Write-o-Meter app and it has this cool feature where it offers quotes from authors about writing. Some of the quotes are 'meh', but others are pretty brilliant.

To be honest I didn't have a topic for this post until yesterday morning when I was plugging in my word count in said app and this quote popped up at the top: "A bad book is as much a labour to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author's soul."

It's from Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World among his other works. Of course Huxley had no problem with belting out a good book (as far as I'm concerned), but that''s not the point.

As a reader I come across both bad books and good books, or at least what I consider a distinction between bad and good. A good book is like a bad book, and vice versa, and the difference is one has good writing the other bad.

What am I going on about? I realize that I've been judging my own writing this way. All these years I've been wanting to finish a novel, and the only thing that's been stopping me is...myself.

Not time (I had/have plenty of that), not passion (again, I'm chock full of it), and not even skill (how would I know what I'm bad at? For the sake of plugging in a popular quote, here's Nora Roberts saying, "You can fix anything but a blank page". There's so much variants of this quote, but it sums it down. How can I judge my skill if I don't complete anything?)

Sidetracking here, but bare with me.
I think two of the most common questions an author is asked are:

1) Where do you get your ideas from? (Hint: Stephen King has the almighty answer to this one.)
2) How do you write a book?

This second one requires a REALLY elaborate formula. In the words of author Heather Brewer: "Butt + Chair = Productivity."



Although apparently there is a formula for successful, NYT-bestselling trends.
Since my last update day, I've decided to join the madness that is called Camp NaNoWriMo. My goal was a combined word count of 30K towards my current two projects, the Novella Fanfic and another project I'll talk more about in a later post. I'm on track with 5 days to go, I should hit my goal of 30K by April 30.

But I've been writing every day this month, and I'm absolutely proud of myself. It will be the first month this year that I've written consecutively. Very exciting.

If anyone asked how I did it, I wouldn't be able to explain. Why didn't I start writing back on New Years' Day when I made a promise to write every day this year? Why now?


Some things don't have an explanation.

If anything it might just be that I've learned to let go. To let myself write a bad book (or a good one). To write from the soul or the heart or wherever my passion is stored.

And as I started with a quote, I'll end this post with some more favourites I've come across during my pastime of stalking author vlogs/blogs/interviews, etc.



Kody Keplinger offers writing tips in her video for young writers--although I think the tips could be used by any interested writers. Scroll to 2:46 for Tip #5: "Don't give yourself a deadline"... at least for publication. You don't have control of publication, but you do have a control of whether you write.




Tough love @ 1:52 around from Jackson Pearce in this next video. "But saying 'What if I write a book and it isn't good before you've written the book is kind of like saying 'What if a year from now I'm eating dinner and it isn't delicious?"

And more non-video quotes.

"Sit your butt in the chair and write. Remember, writing is rewriting. Your first draft will be like smearing poop onto the screen of your computer. It will suck that bad. But go in and edit, edit, edit. Then once you've edited, edit some more!" - Anna Banks


"It’s not easy but it is exciting to consider the possibilities. It all starts with page one and ends 300 some pages later. Even if it’s a stinker, at least it’s an accomplishment that has a tangible result; a huge pile of paper with words you typed from your very own brain. No one else can do THAT for you. Then if you actually finish the damn thing and want to try to publish it, there are a whole new host of obstacles to overcome. Of course, if you never finish, you’ll never have to worry about any of that." - Lisa Medley

"I’d slave away over my first draft, finding just the right words, and six months later have some great-sounding chapters but no book. When I heard, “Dare to suck,” it was as liberating for me as, “Prolific writers don’t have clean houses.” Dare to suck. If we want to get the story on the page, that’s exactly what we need to do—turn off the internal editor and write, write, write. So what if it’s dreck. Dreck can be fixed." - Carol J. Post


"A book is crafted one sentence at a time. Don't worry about the last sentence in the manuscript--worry about the next sentence in the manuscript. You can deal with everything else later." - Chloe Neill

You know I just realized I could make a good book full of these quotes. Huh?