Month: December 2011

Tricks of the Trade

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

I remember the smile spreading across my face the first time I read Cosa Nostradamus in Laura Anne Gilman’s Staying Dead. The inside joke is of the type that is “funny always”, because I’m still smiling every time I see it in the offshoot series, Paranormal Scene Investigations. The Cosa Nostradamus is never exactly translated, but I can make an educated guess. If the Cosa Nostra of Mafia fame is “Our Thing” then Cosa Nostradamus is “magic thing” or “magic family”. Considering the way that the Cosa sometimes acts in Gilman’s world, “magic Mafia” might be a valid interpretation.

Tricks of the Trade is Gilman’s third book in her Paranormal Scene Investigations series. This is an offshoot of her Retrievers series, and it is set in the same urban fantasy version of our world as that series. In fact, Wren Valere, the Retriever, appears very, very briefly in Tricks, and the events of the Retrievers series serve as background for the PSI series.

Bonita Torres is the lead point-of-view character in Tricks of the Trade. In Hard Magic, the first book in the series, we were introduced to Bonnie and the rest of the PUPIs. PUPI stands for Private Unaffiliated Paranormal Investigators. And yes, they do get called “puppies”. And pups.  Which makes their bosses, Ian Stosser and Ben Venec the “Big Dogs”. The PUPIs are all Talent, in other words, current users, in their 20s, with a special skill. Bonnie’s skill is detailed recall. It’s probable that all the PUPIs also have an incident in their past where the Cosa‘s lack of law enforcement failed them in some way. Bonnie’s father was murdered, and there was no system in place for evidence to be gathered and presented to a justice system. PUPI was created to be that unprejudiced evidence gathering organization.

The Cosa Nostradamus has three branches; Council, Lonejack and Fatae. Council are the high-muckety-mucks, with power, influence and organization. Lonejacks are exactly what they sound like, they each work alone, and they rather aggressively want to be left alone. Fatae are the non-humans; fauns, nymphs, dryads, minotaurs, demons, and everything in-between. Some of them can pass as human, some can’t, not even in New York City.

By the time Tricks of the Trade occurs, PUPI has been in business in NYC for a year. They are starting to get some regular clients, at least enough to pay the bills. The Mage Councils are starting to come to PUPI to solve cases for them, at least when things go really, really bad, and they have nothing left to lose. The Councils still believe that Council should solve Council problems, but it just isn’t working for them anymore. The Lonejacks are beginning to recognize that PUPI might be what they say they are, in service of the facts and nothing more, nothing less.

PUPI serves order. There is a Fatae who directly opposes this. There are always Tricksters in every myth system. Loki, Raven, Coyote, Anansi, and Hermes are all Trickster avatars. There is a Fatae known as “The Roblin” who comes to New York City to foment chaos. It’s hard for him at first. New York City is naturally chaotic, people mostly cope. Then he focuses on the PUPIs specifically, and all hell breaks loose. Not just with the cases they are working on, but with their lives.

Escape Rating A-: I was glad to have an excuse to re-visit Gilman’s world again. In spite of some of the bad stuff going down, this is a version of alternate history I wouldn’t mind living in, particularly if I were Talented. The idea that Ben Franklin was a mage is one I can’t get out of my head–in a really good way.

The characters are what make this series interesting. Each of the major characters is definitely an individual, and it’s someone I’d like to meet. Gilman conveys the joys and frustrations of team-building so well, how everyone pulls together and finds a fit in this new “thing” they all get consumed by, that joy you experience when you find a job that gives you purpose and not just a paycheck–even when it eats your life.

Hard Magic and Pack of Lies maintained a tight focus on Bonnie’s point-of-view. Not first-person-singular, but seeing the world from her perspective. It worked very well. Tricks of the Trade switched focus between Bonnie and Venec. There were reasons in the story for this, but the diffusion of focus lost something. I think it worked better when we stuck to Bonnie’s POV.

I want the next book now! I was not ready to leave this world when I finished Tricks of the Trade. So while I was glad I piled the first three books up and was able to have a two-day binge, I’m kind of sorry that the next book, Dragon Justice, won’t be available until Spring 2012.

And if you like urban fantasy and haven’t read the Retrievers series yet, give yourself a Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice present. Get Staying Dead and start now. The Cosa Nostradamus is waiting for you.

Honor Among Thieves

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Honor Among Thieves by David Chandler did not have a happy ending. It shouldn’t have. It had the absolutely correct ending. I sat stunned for several minutes after I finished, just gathering myself. Ness was a little more real to me than my own kitchen. Or wherever-the-hell-I-was when I finished. I was emotionally scraped raw by that point. I didn’t want to leave, but it was time for the book to end, for me to leave Ness, and well, anything else would be spoilers.

There is no honor among thieves. That’s what people say. That’s why that phrase has become such a truism, because such honor does not exist. Except that occasionally it does. There is another cliché that may apply here, the one about the exception proving the rule.

Honor Among Thieves is the final book in the Ancient Blades trilogy. In the first book, Den of Thieves, our thief and hero, Malden, snuck into the Free City of Ness like, well, like a thief in the night. In the second book, appropriately titled A Thief in the Night, Malden and his companions, the Knight-Errant Sir Croy, the witch Cythera, the dwarf Slag and the Barbarian Mörget, investigated the demon-lair under the mountains that protected the country of Skrae from the barbarians of the East. Unfortunately, in order to defeat the demon, they blew up the mountain. The whole mountain. Leaving civilized Skrae, including Malden’s home city, ripe for a good old barbarian scourging.

The companions believe that Mörget was trapped and killed in the explosion. He’s actually leading the barbarian horde. Sir Croy is serving the crown, because that’s what Knights always do, whether they think the crown is stupid or crazy or ill-advised or whatever. That leaves Malden and Cythera.

The thief and the witch return to Ness to discover that the rats have deserted the sinking ship. The rich have all left the city. The reasonably well-off or reasonably healthy and idealistic form an “Army of Free Men” under the Burgess, the leading noble. And that leaves the dregs of society. The only healthy people left are the thieves and the prostitutes. Malden’s people. And Cutbill, the head of the underground but extremely influential Thieves’ Guild has left town and left it all to Malden.  As presents go, Malden would rather find the Nessian equivalent of coal in his stocking. He doesn’t want to be in charge. But he knows he has to be.

And when it comes to the choice between saving their city or letting the barbarians run them over and kill them, the supposed dregs of society will band together, and there is honor to be found among thieves.

Escape Rating A: If you love sword and sorcery fantasy, run, don’t walk, to get yourself a copy of Den of Thieves and start reading the Ancient Blades. This is a series where you need to read the whole thing, and you won’t be sorry you did.  This is new-school type sword and sorcery, so the gods don’t intervene the way they used to in Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser‘s day. These gods are made in the images of men. I think that just makes their worship more powerful, but also much darker. There are no good choices here, just shades of grey. Anyone who likes Steven Brust’s Jhereg series but wishes it had an actual ending will love Ancient Blades. I know I did.

Demons who must not be named

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | About> reading

There’s a long-standing trope in fantasy of the evil that must not be named. Think of Voldemort in Harry Potter. Although if my name were Voldemort, I’d probably rather not be named, either. Why did he pick that? Wikipedia says it translates as “flee from death”. More like he was scared of death. I prefer the Discworld version of Death.

But I digress. Mostly because I feel like crap on toast.  Which returns me to my original reference of demons that should not be named.

Last week, I was talking with a friend about various rituals for handling who does what when either my husband or I has a cold. My friend apparently gets relegated to the spare bedroom whether he or his spouse is the sick party. This topic came up because my friend was, of course, currently under the weather. I was not.

I should never have discussed the subject. Now I’m sick. But germs can’t be transferred via email. The demon was invoked, and that’s all it took.

My household operates slightly differently. Whoever really can’t sleep moves elsewhere if necessary. But the excellent thing about iPads is that they generate their own light, so no more keeping the light on (and your partner awake) to read all night.

Having a cold is a great excuse to get lost in a good book (or two, or three). Also a good excuse to play video games. But I read endlessly. It does change my tastes. I want to be lost somewhere far away. I’ve finished the first two of Laura Anne Gilman’s Paranormal Scene Investigations books back to back and I’m ready to start Tricks of the Trade, which was on my list.

I have zero interest in romance books at the moment. But then, I have not very much interest in the real thing at the moment, either. A cold will do that to a person. On the other hand, one time I had a migraine and read the entire collected works of Amanda Quick in about three days. It gave a whole new meaning to that old Victorian instruction to newly married ladies to “lie back and think of England…”

Tomorrow will be better. At least, I sure hope so.

Ebook Review Central for Carina Press for November 2011

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Ebook Review Central> ebooks

It’s time to take a look at the Carina Press titles from November 2011. When Carina Press posted their November catalog on NetGalley, the whole list looked fairly yummy, and the reviews bear that out. Every title has at least four reviews. This is amazing! Carina published 18 titles in November, and Carina always has the shortest time from the end of the month for reviews to be generated. Clearly, I was not the only reviewer who thought their November list looked really, really good.

And as always, the September and October lists have been updated to include recently published reviews. So keep ’em coming.

This month’s featured books were easy to choose. Any time review numbers start going into double-digits, I sit up and take notice. That means a title has got lots of people not just talking, but reading.

So what were the big three titles in November?

Shona Husk’s Dark Vow was definitely a wow. Eleven reviews, including a TOP PICK! review from RT Book Reviews is enough to make anyone take a second look. For anyone who likes stories with a western flavor, or steampunk, or strong female leads, this book is a winner. There is a hint of science fiction/fantasy, but it’s more of a tease than hard core. It made a lot of reviewers think of the TV series Firefly, and that is not a bad thing by any means. RT Book Reviews made a comparison to True Grit. The blend works incredibly well. Shona Husk’s paranormal series starting with The Goblin King is very popular; this will be too.

For Toni Anderson’s Edge of Survival, thirteen turned out to be the lucky number of reviews this month. Even better, one of those thirteen was a feature review on USA Today‘s Happy Ever After blog. Edge of Survival is a romantic suspense story about damaged people in an unforgiving wilderness, trying to find ways to be strong past the broken places. It is an extremely good book, one that keeps the reader guessing until the end. The heroine of this tale is diabetic, and the author is donating 15% of her royalties to diabetes research. Readers of Nora Roberts suspense titles will love this one.

The third featured title is the second novella in Christine d’Abo’s Long Shots series. A Shot in the Dark was the third book this month to break that magic 10+ review number in November. A Shot in the Dark is an erotic novella with much more than a hint of BDSM. The Long Shots series features the Long siblings and their erotic adventures at an upscale local sex club, Maverick’s. Double Shot, the first book, was sister Sadie’s story. A Shot in the Dark leads sister Paige to her happy ever after. According to the reviewers, these stories are steaming hot, even hotter than the coffee served at the Long Family’s coffee shop. If you are looking for erotic stories that lead to a happily ever after, Christine d’Abo’s trilogy may be just the shot of espresso you are looking for. Pulled Long, the third book in the trilogy, just came out in December.

And that’s a wrap for this week. We’ll be back on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) with the Dreamspinner Press November titles.

Unacceptable Risk

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Unacceptable Risk by Jeanette Grey is a terrific read. It’s gritty, dark and almost has an urban fantasy feel to it in some ways, because there’s a mystery to be solved. But it’s not urban fantasy. Oh no. This is science fiction romance. Oh yes. A little cyberpunk, a little post-apocalypse, and absolutely, positively SFR.

Plix returns to consciousness the way she always does, battered, bruised and broken in an alley, surrounded by the scents of her own blood and burnt circuitry, half-blind with pain and with pieces of her memory wiped. She knows this has happened before. But this time is worse than usual. Her only hope is that whatever she found is worth this much damage.

Plix is mostly flesh and blood, but she has a few added cybernetic features. They’ve saved her life. They’ve aided her in her quest. She prays that she stashed whatever it was that she learned into those circuits before SynData found her. But there’s only one way to be sure. She has to go to the only person who can “tune”, repair and maintain her cybernetic parts and data circuits. His name is Edison. And Plix loves him. Which is why she keeps leaving him behind. Because her secret mission to bring down SynDate is going to get her killed some day. Probably sooner rather than later.

She knows that SynDate killed her father.

But if she doesn’t uncover the evidence that she is looking for, the poison that SynDate is spilling into the ecosystem will eventually kill everyone. It will just take longer.

Plix takes a suicide mission, thinking it will be the end, cutting all ties, but leaving one final message of love. He’s both angry and heartbroken. Edison loves Plix, and putting her back together only to have her come back broken again and again is killing him. This time he’s done.

But when Plix returns, nearly dead, he finds her last message, and they finally have a chance together. He knows all her secrets. Can Plix stop protecting him enough to include her lover in her quest to save humanity?

Escape Rating B+: The story ended and I was not a happy camper. It was too short. I want to know how things got so bad. This world is neat, in a really, really sucky way, as in I seriously would not want to live there, but I want to know more about how it got that way, and how Plix got to be Plix. Edison is a really cool guy, his job is fascinating. How do things work? I like these people, I want to know more. And what happens after? This world has gone so far down, I’m not sure that even getting SynDate out of the way solves a whole lot. I want part 2.

The Future is Fertile Ground: Unacceptable Risk Blog Tour and Giveaway

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blog tours> ebook giveaway

Today I’m pleased to host Jeanette Grey, who is touring the blogosphere to discuss her latest book, Unacceptable Risk, which I’ve also reviewed.  Jeanette is giving away one ebook copy of Unacceptable Risk.  To see how to get a chance to win, please read to the end of this post.

The Future is Fertile Ground

When someone says, “Science fiction,” what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Let
me guess: Aliens. Lasers. Star Trek. Am I right?

So many of our preconceptions about science fiction run along these lines, and it’s entirely too easy to dismiss the whole genre as being dress-up for boys. Brainiac heroes run around wielding phasers, shooting at little green men while flying starships. The potential for cheese is as infinite as the galaxy.

But so is the potential for real, human drama, intense emotion, and stirring, sexy love stories. It’s just far too often left untapped.

I’m here today to talk about futuristic romance. It’s not necessarily a genre I intended to write in, but considering my mother is a “Trekker” (Trekkies are so tacky – or so she tells me) and my husband knows the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by heart, maybe it was just a matter of time. I grew up surrounded with science fiction stories, and over the years, they became the norm for me. And I found that, in the right hands, they can be so much more than we typically expect them to be.

Futuristic romance can take a lot of different forms. Sure, there are the space operas that immediately spring to mind, but that’s really only the tip of the iceberg. All that’s required is a little bit of imagination and a lot of curiosity about what the future will hold.

For example, my most recent release, Unacceptable Risk, began with wondering how two things would evolve over the next half-century or so: A) the integration of technology into our lives, and B) the increasing consolidation of power among corporations. As far as technology goes, I imagined that, considering how people (myself included!) are constantly connected to the internet, it was only a matter of time before we began building connectivity into our brains. The main character of the story, Plix, has a number of cybernetic enhancements, including devices that improve her vision and her dexterity, as well as a dataport in the base of her spinal column and a satellite hookup that feeds directly into her mind. When looking at corporate greed, I imagined that businesses would become more and more intertwined and corrupt, until they would do anything – including poisoning an entire city – to cement their power and improve their profits.

For there, I had a world. A dark, gritty, high-tech backdrop against which to paint characters and relationships.

I think futuristic settings are incredibly fertile ones for romance. There are inherent questions about what will become of our humanity, and what is more human than love? In worlds where machines threaten to erode our control, or where extraterrestrials mingle with humans, what is more affirming of all that is good about humanity than our need for connection? To what lengths will we go to find that spark? What will we sacrifice to be with the ones we adore? How will we put technology to use to enhance our experience as lovers, care-takers and partners?

So the next time a futuristic romance finds its way into your hands, consider abandoning your preconceived notions and opening your mind. The worlds that will be opened to you just might surprise – and delight – you.

About Unacceptable Risk

Plix spends her lonely, gritty life trying to solve the mysteries her father left behind. Armed with a variety of cybernetic enhancements and a talent for getting into places she shouldn’t be, she searches for clues to his murder—and who’s responsible for poisoning her city.

Waking up on a street corner with her brain wiring fried to a crisp, she figures she must have gotten close this time. There’s only one man she trusts to pull her back from the brink: a tuner who can retrieve the evidence hidden deep in the recesses of her mind. A man she dares not let too close to her heart.

When Edison downloads a secret SynDate schematic from Plix’s burnt-out circuitry, he knows with dreadful finality that nothing—not even the fiery kiss he’s been holding back for years—will stop her from pursuing her quest past the point of insanity.

All he can do, as he helps her plan her final mission, is ease her pain, watch her back…and hope one of them doesn’t pay with their lives.

About Jeanette Grey

After brief, unsatisfying careers in advertising, teaching, computers, and homemaking, Jeanette Grey has returned to her two first loves: romance and writing.

When she isn’t writing, Jeanette enjoys making pottery, playing board games, and spending time with her husband and her pet frog. She lives, loves, and writes in North Carolina.

She is a member of Romance Writers of America and Carolina Romance Writers.

Giveaway

One lucky reader will get a copy of Unacceptable Risk in electronic format.  To enter, please make a comment on this post.  To make it fun, answer Jeanette’s rhetorical question: When someone says, “Science fiction,” what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?  The giveaway will be open until midnight EST on Thursday, December 22nd.  The winner will be randomly chosen from the commenters; only your first comment will count.

What’s on my (mostly virtual) nightstand? 12-17-11

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Virtual Nightstand

Your eyes do not deceive you. This virtual nightstand post is indeed coming to you on a Saturday. Why, you ask?

Because Sunday, December 18 Reading Reality is the host of the Unacceptable Risk blog tour. So it will be my pleasure to have a guest post from Jeanette Grey, the author of Unacceptable Risk, as well as a review of her excellent science fiction romance and a giveaway of one copy of the book.

And we’re still in the middle of moving. So the actual nightstand just got stripped to its essentials today. The virtual one is getting something of a workout. It’s hard to concentrate amid piles of boxes. My office has developed an echo. All the books that formerly lined my walls clearly had a major sound-dampening effect. The boxes, not so much.

I looked ahead to what reviews I have due the week of December 26 and nearly had a seizure. What was I thinking? Was I thinking?

I have five reviews slotted for books with publication dates of December 27. Merry Christmas!

Forever and a Day by Delilah Marvelle is the first book in her new Rumor series. I read and enjoyed her Scandal series, so I decided to give this one a try when I saw it on NetGalley.

Like a lot of readers, I’ve never forgotten the thrill of Maria V. Snyder’s first novel, Poison Study. It was marvelous. It was an utterly amazing fantasy romance, and then to find out that it was her first book, I was absolutely floored. But the sequels never quite recaptured that magic. But I keep hoping. Maybe Touch of Power will be the one. I got it from NetGalley in hopes that it will be.

Demon Lover by Juliet Dark sounded like an interesting “story within a story” when I saw it on NetGalley. A female professor at a remote upstate New York college is writing a book titled “The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers.” She thinks it’s folklore, but finds out it’s biography. I can’t wait to see how this one turns out.

I found Robin D. Owens’ Enchanted Again irresistible when I spotted in on NetGalley. I love the Celta books. I also enjoyed her Summoning series. Enchanted Again is the second book in her Mystic Circle series, after Enchanted No More, which was fun, but no Celta. We’ll see how this one goes.

I picked up The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees because of all the buzz about it. And when I say picked up, I mean that literally, I have a print galley from the publisher. I also have a egalley from NetGalley. Does the “so many books, so little time” cliché apply to multiple copies of the same book? It looks like a hybrid of virtual-reality, alternate history, steampunk and cyberpunk. I hope it’s half as wild and cool as the descriptions make it out to be.

From last week’s perils of Marlene, the question is, did I finish anything at all in the middle of packing and moving? The answer is a yes, but not a whole lot.

Unacceptable Risk, absolutely, positively yes. The review will be part of the blog tour post. Not finishing would have been unspeakably rude.

I’m about halfway through One Perfect Night. And it is perfectly the level of mind candy my brain can process in the middle of this moving mess. I expect to finish it and Lady Seductress’ Ball in time to review them early next week.

And speaking of a brain not properly processing, while the boxes have been flying, one of the things that has been randomly firing the synapses is reading challenges. I know, total non sequitur. Nevertheless, I’ll start posting my reading challenge entry posts this week in between everything else. I know I’m going to read the books anyway, so I might as well enter a few challenges for fun.

And I finally finished David Chandler’s Honor Among Thieves. That was so good. It does not have a happy ending. It has the ending it needs to have, but it is not happy. Bittersweet, definitely, but not happy. But excellent. I sat there stunned for several minutes after the last page, just taking it all in.

I just gacked. I have 8 more books scheduled for the week of January 1. And we have to unpack. Does anyone have a second brain I can attach?

Don’t forget to tune in on Sunday, December 18 for the Unacceptable Risk blog tour and giveaway!

And Monday, yes, Monday we’ll be back with another edition of Ebook Review Central featuring the Carina Press titles from November 2011.

 

Look at all the pretty covers…

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | books> bookselling

Perhaps I should have said, look at all the pretty colors. But then it sounds like I’m talking about drugs.

I’m talking about books. Maybe I am talking about drugs. At least my version of drugs.

We’re moving again. This weekend. Our new house is within walking distance of a pretty big Barnes & Noble. We had some time to kill today before we met the rental agent to get the keys. So we decided to kill time at B&N. I haven’t been to an actual, live, books-on-the-shelves bookstore since Jim Butcher’s Ghost Story signing at the end of July. That’s five months. There was a time in my life when that was unimaginable.

It has been so long I forgot how pretty bookstores are. I love how bright and shiny all the new books are on the shelves. Just seeing the displays of all the new stuff is surprisingly awesome if you’ve been away from it for a while.

Browsing the shelves is way, way, way more fun than browsing online. The covers are bigger, brighter and shinier in person. And there is something about the serendipity factor that still isn’t duplicated.

But I wasn’t tempted to buy anything. We still have 2,300 books. Print books. Dead tree books. Call them what you will. They will get packed tomorrow. We will have to unpack them again.

As much as I love to read, and as pretty as those books are in the store, books are a pain in the gluteus to unpack.  Wrong location, it’s usually my back that ends up hurting the most, not my butt.

I did not commit the cardinal sin of shopping in the store and then buying online. I could have, my iPad was in my arms. But that just seemed rude.

And there was one book I might have bought if it had been in the store. The Dreamer, by Lora Innes, is a graphic novel and it’s not available as an ebook. Probably with good reason. Even my iPad is not the best display for a graphic novel, and yes, I’ve read a few on it. But the store didn’t have it. As soon as we get settled, I’ll order it online.

What was I saying again about the pretty colors?

From Now Until Forever

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

From Now Until Forever by Sherry Gloag is a contemporary romance that blends the old school and the new. The heroine is very much a product of the here-and-now, but the plot belongs to an earlier time. It almost works.

The story begins with Liam Fitzwilliam Gasquet being shot at. At first, he thinks it’s just some trigger-happy idiots out in the woods, but then he comes to the reluctant conclusion that the insurgents trying to oust his father from the throne of their pocket-sized country on the Swiss border have finally found him. Liam has been travelling around the world for three years, trying to stay under the radar, and he’s finally been found. Since Liam is the third son, he’s been vainly hoping that his attempts to remain anonymous have been successful. It’s suddenly and painfully obvious to him that they haven’t.

Liam is in Scotland, and has been running a riding school for disabled children with his wife, Melanie, for the last six months. He thinks that Melanie doesn’t know he’s a prince. He doesn’t know that Melanie is the head of his security detail. She tailed him all over Europe. When he spotted her in a restaurant, the instant chemistry between them derailed both his normal “love ’em and leave ’em” nature and her duty to remain in the shadows.

When the bullets start flying and they have to escape their formerly secure home, the life they have built together falls apart. When the lies come crashing down, the walls come up between them. But can they find a way to be together, when everything they thought they had was built on deceit?

And will they live long enough to find out?

Escape Rating C+: I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the characters. Melanie and Liam are both interesting people. Mel raised herself up from nothing to be a security officer, and she’s good at her job. Even when she marries Liam, she never stops being his security chief, he just doesn’t know it. Liam isn’t a spoiled prince, he’s trying to be his own man, he just doesn’t go about it very well. But neither do a lot of people.  I had difficulty with the whole “secret prince of the tiny country” thing. That plot device seemed both too formulaic and unrealistic to me.  It tripped my “willing suspension of disbelief” alarm, and that alarm kept ringing.  Those are very few of those teeny, tiny countries left these days. Also, Liam trying to live anonymously in 21st century Europe is just not possible anymore, unless one seriously wants to live off the grid. And Liam clearly likes his horses and his plesaures. He couldn’t have expected to be anonymous.

I liked the characters, but the plot was thin, or not contemporary. I’ve seen this plot used in space opera, and it definitely works in that context. But not here and now, not anymore. Or just not for this reviewer.

December is NetGalley Month Too!

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> NetGalley

Unofficially, every month is NetGalley month at Reading Reality. Seriously, I’ve read five NetGalley books so far this month, and the month isn’t half over yet.

Officially, Vicky @ Books, Biscuits and Tea has declared December to be NetGalley Month. Fine by me. Emily @ Red House Books hosted NetGalley Month in April, July and October this year. It’s terrific to see another blogger show more NetGalley love.

Me, I’m still trying to figure out whether NetGalley is my supplier or my enabler, but that’s a whole other story. I just added four more books to my NetGalley queue this afternoon, and I only took one off. This is not good.

But it does mean I’ll have plenty left for the next NetGalley month, which is coming up in January 2012 at Red House Books. So no matter how many I read this month, I’m good to go for next month!

So many egalleys, so little time.