#AudioBookReview: To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X Chang

#AudioBookReview: To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X ChangTo Gaze Upon Wicked Gods (Gods Beyond the Skies, #1) by Molly X. Chang
Narrator: Natalie Naudus
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss, supplied by publisher via Libro.fm
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: coming of age, dystopian, epic fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, space opera
Series: Gods Beyond the Skies #1
Pages: 368
Length: 10 hours and 41 minutes
Published by Del Rey, Random House Audio on April 16, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

She has power over death. He has power over her. When two enemies strike a dangerous bargain, will they end a war . . . or ignite one?
Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen.
Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe.
When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence.
Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?

My Review:

I picked this up because I had the opportunity to get the audiobook from Libro.fm, saw that the narrator, Natalie Naudus, is one of my faves, looked at the summary and thought to myself that this had terrific possibilities and figured I’d be in for a decent if not outright excellent listening/reading time.

It was not to be. It was not to be so hard that I bailed on the audio at the 30% mark and it’s not the narrator’s fault. Really, truly, seriously, it’s not her fault. Natalie Naudus, as always, does a great job with the first person perspective of a protagonist who is expected to be kickass or at least grow into that role. (In this case, it may have been a bit too good of a job, as it felt like I was right there with her in a story where I’d have much preferred to be at a remove or ten.)

That decent to excellent time is not what I got. What I got for that first 30% felt like torture porn, and experiencing that neverending torment from inside the character’s own head was literally more than I could take. To the point where, if you’ve followed my comments about the book I flailed and bailed on that set nearly a whole week of reviews off-kilter, you’ve found it. This was it.

And damn was I surprised about that.

So I flailed, and bailed – also ranted and raved (not in a good way) – but in the end I finished in text. Because when I looked at the text to see where I stopped the audio, to figure out if the situation got redeemed at all, I learned that in the very next sentence – which of course I couldn’t see in the audio – the thing that nearly made me turn this book into a wallbanger in spite of a) the potential for having to replace my iphone and b) I was driving – didn’t actually happen.

Not that the character and I hadn’t already been tortured plenty at that point. But it was enough to bring me back if only to find out whether the situation got better – or worse.

The answer, as it turned out, was both.

Escape Rating D: If The Poppy War and Babel had an ugly, squalling bookbaby, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods would be it. I loved The Poppy War, but had deeply serious issues with Babel which pretty much sums up my feelings about To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods in a desicated, unsightly, possibly even poisonous nutshell.

And that requires some explanation. Possibly a whole lot of it.

This story sits uneasily on a whole lot of crossing points. It’s right on the border between YA and Adult AND it’s at the intersection of historical fantasy with science fiction as well as at least hinting at being a romantasy – which it absolutely is not in spite of those hints in the blurb – even as it turns out to be post-apocalyptic and utterly dystopian in ways that are not hinted at anywhere at all.

And it’s torture porn. By that I mean that the entire first third of the story focuses on a protagonist whose entire life seems to be made of various axes on which she is ground, tortured and punished.

She’s female in a society that makes her property of the male head of household – in a line where those men squandered the family fortune on gambling and drugs one after another. She has magic powers that make her a target for people who want to use her gifts until those gifts use her up – and people who want to destroy her where she stands for a gift that many deem anathema.

Her entire world is under the boot heel of an overwhelming empire – in this I believe the story is intended to reference the Opium Wars and their oppressors are intended to stand in for the British Empire even if they are called Romans.

That her sister is addicted to a substance named “Opian”, provided by the Romans and engineered by the Romans to bring their society down even faster adds to that resemblance as well as to the protagonist’s torture.

That she’s 19, her sister’s and her grandmother’s only real support, and that her cultural conditioning has her blaming herself for everything wrong in their lives – including the invasion by the Romans before she was even born – is just terrible icing on an already unsightly cake overflowing with oppression and self-flagellation.

Ruying, her family and her whole entire world are in deep, deep trouble with no way out that anyone can see. I got that. I got that LONG before the story didn’t so much come out of the mire as it did finally start sloshing through the muck to the even more epically fucked up political shenanigans that are at the heart of everything that’s gone wrong for Ruying’s people.

Once the story finally, FINALLY started to reveal what was really happening and why and how, the situation got more interesting even as Ruying wallowed even more deeply in her personal angst and kept right on torturing herself every literally bloody step of the way.

At the very, very end, after all the blood and gore and guts and not very much plot movement forward, the story finally shows a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel, reveals that the light is an oncoming train, and at least displays a glimmer of a hint of action in this book’s sequel, titled either Immortal the Blood or  To Kill a Monstrous Prince, which will be coming out this time net year.

This reader, at least, has no plans to be there for it. I’ve been tormented enough. Your reading mileage (and/or listening mileage) may vary.

#BookReview: Space Holes: First Transmission by B.R. Louis

#BookReview: Space Holes: First Transmission by B.R. LouisSpace Holes (First Transmission, #1) by B.R. Louis
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: farce, humor, parody, satire, science fiction, space opera
Series: Space Holes #1
Pages: 302
Published by CamCat Books on March 26, 2024
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
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Saving an alien planet is nothing compared to meeting your sales quota. Marcus Aimond, untrained tag-along aboard humanity's first intergalactic exploratory commerce vessel, has a singular sell off-brand misprinted merchandise. When the rookie and his crew encounter the Nerelkor, a frog-like civilization, he is thrust head-first into an alien civil war. The opposing factions, Rejault and Dinasc, are stuck in an ill-fated feud driven by deep-rooted ineptitude. To avoid the planet’s total annihilation and establish a local sales office, Aimond and the crew must survive arena combat, reshape the very structure of the planet, establish world peace, and stay alive―for the sake of positive branding, of course.

My Review:

I’m writing this review because I desperately need to get this book out of my head. Which means that, fair warning and abandon all hope ye who enter here, this is going to be an absolute RANT of a review.

Which is really too bad because it had a lot of potential. It’s just that all that potential turned out to be added cereal filler.

I mean that literally. You’ll see.

At first, I thought the title was a pun, that ‘Space Holes’ was meant to be a play on ‘Ass Holes’ without literally giving the book the title ‘Ass Holes’. Having read it, I think that would have been a better book.

Instead, the ‘Space Holes’ of the title are wormholes, or at least one stable wormhole near Jupiter. The reason that those wormholes are not officially called wormholes in any of the promotional or merchandising brochures created by the company that owns the trademark on the term ‘Space Holes’ is that ‘wormhole’ is a word in common parlance that can’t be trademarked.

At that point, the joke was still funny but was starting to wear a bit thin. You’re wondering what the joke was, right?

The joke was that this is set in a not-too-far-distant future where a cereal company that makes really bad but ridiculously addictive cereal has taken over the entire world (except for Florida which is also part of the joke) and is desperate to find new markets for their terrible cereal and all of the cheap tchotchkes they use to market their terrible cereal and that the terrible cereal is intended to market. Yes, it’s the circle of advertising life, and yes, it really happens and yes it can be funny.

Which leads to the building of a spaceship intended to traverse that ‘Space Hole’ to another galaxy in order to set up new branch offices and sell yet more cereal and all of the many, many toys and other cheap products that fund the company’s executive offices and, at this point, the entire world government.

And it kind of was, up to a point of saturation.

Where the joke started to get thin, at least for this reader, was the point where the crew of the ship got trained, not even in simulators, but through a limited series of a mere EIGHT 45-minute point-and-click web-based training videos. It’s not a surprise that they crash-land on the first planet they find, it’s more of a surprise that they don’t crash into the sides of the wormhole.

Don’t even think that the ship has safety protocols designed to prevent such an occurrence, because it doesn’t. Have safety protocols, that is. Safety was sacrificed for cost-cutting and/or greater merchandising opportunities at every single instance. It’s both amazing that the GP Gallant flies at all AND that anyone on its crew is capable of flying her.

The whole thing lost me when a promotional advertisement interrupted the middle of a red-alert klaxon, not just once but every 30 seconds or so. Once was sorta/kinda funny. Multiple iterations wore the joke of the whole entire thing down to a nubbin and yeeted it into a black hole. Not a space hole, but a black hole of utter destruction.

And yet, in spite of everything, surprising everyone including this reader, the crew of the GP Gallant managed to find a planet filled with beings who seemed to be even less capable then they were, and saved them from their own inability to make any sense by ending their civil war.

Escape Rating D: That’s a misnomer, because I didn’t escape at all and still haven’t, dammit. I can’t get this thing out of my head no matter how much I try.

The worst part is that the ideas at the heart of this thing aren’t bad. There’s the germ of a good story here, possibly more than one, that might have worked IF this had been a series of short stories instead.

Howsomever, what this book turned out to be is a bad combination of the awesome book Redshirts and the movie Office Space. Possibly with a bit of the book Mickey7 thrown in if Mickey had less assigned functionality and no ability to acquire any.

(The erstwhile protagonist of this farce is the child of one of the corporate bigwigs who gets literally thrown onto the ship at the last minute because daddy dearest is certain the boy is useless. He isn’t really, but he sort of is, and he wants to be useful and a hero so bad, and he’s very earnest but completely unqualified and again, this had potential, but by that point the joke had been stretched way too thin and kept getting, well, thinner to the point of utter transparency.)

Leading to my ultimate conclusion that those seeming progenitors of Space Holes, all of which were very good of their type – absolutely do not belong together. Well, maybe Mickey7 and Redshirts together might be good, but the dysfunctionality of Office Space just doesn’t belong here – particularly not with added corporate shills, obsessive rule-pushers and over-the-top merchandising shenanigans.

There’s plenty of room for satire, parody and even outright farce in all of the above. But all at once just proves the rule that too much of a good thing is often NOT wonderful at all.

Review: The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle

Review: The Way Home by Peter S. BeagleThe Way Home: Two Novellas from the World of The Last Unicorn (The Last Unicorn) by Peter S. Beagle
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy
Series: Last Unicorn #2
Pages: 208
Published by Ace on April 4, 2023
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBetter World Books
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One brand-new, long-awaited novella, and one Hugo and Nebula award winning novella, both featuring characters from the beloved classic The Last Unicorn, from renowned fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle.
Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn is one of fantasy's most beloved classics, with millions of copies in print worldwide.
Beagle's long-awaited return to the world of that novel came with "Two Hearts," which garnered Hugo and Nebula awards in 2006, and continued the stories of the unicorn, Molly Grue, and Schmendrick the Magician from the point of view of a young girl named Sooz.
In this volume, Peter S. Beagle also presents for the first time "Sooz," a novella that sees the narrator of "Two Hearts," all grown up and with a perilous journey ahead of her, in a tender meditation on love, loss, and finding your true self.

My Review:

I picked up The Way Home because I absolutely adored The Last Unicorn when I finally read it for the very first time back in January. So I had high hopes for The Way Home. Very, very high.

Those hopes were, unfortunately, only partially met, and I’m more than a bit sad about that.

The Way Home is not a single story as The Last Unicorn was, although it is set in the same world. Rather, this is two stories, the previously published Hugo Award winning novelette, “Two Hearts”, and the new and more recently written novella “Sooz”.

Sooz is the protagonist of both stories. In “Two Hearts”, she’s a nine-year-old girl, but by the time of her own story, she’s seventeen and on her first solo adventure as part of her passage into adulthood.

I have a lot, and a lot of good things, to say about “Two Hearts”, but less and not so much about “Sooz”. So I’m going to start at the end, with “Sooz”.

As a story – as opposed to the character – “Sooz” did not work for me. While I was not expecting a happy ending, as this world tends toward bittersweet on the happiness scale, I was expecting this story to feel like it was part of the continuum from The Last Unicorn through “Two Hearts”, which features Sooz as a child, to Sooz’ own story.

But it didn’t.

It’s very much a coming of age and finding your identity story, and a story about learning that your parents – and yourself – are not exactly who you thought either you or they were, and dealing with that knowledge. It’s also a quest story, as Sooz takes herself off to the Fae Lands to find the lost sister that she never knew she had.

As a story, it felt like the themes had been dealt with before – and dealt with better. Beginning Sooz’ journey with a gratuitous – but at least not overly graphic – rape scene did not endear me to the rest of the story. Sooz was already experiencing plenty of angst, her rape read like piling on for no good reason except that she was a lone female and had to experience all the dangers of that state possible.

I’m up on a soapbox, I know. Because it just felt like sloppy storytelling. There is the potential for plenty of angst in the female experience, even in fantasy, without raping the audience surrogate. (I’ll climb down now before the soapbox gets any taller.)

I dragged myself through “Sooz” in the hopes that it would get better. I’m not sure whether I didn’t feel like it did or just couldn’t get the awful taste out of my mouth (so to speak)

But I want to end this review on a higher note than I started, so let’s switch to the book’s opening story, the award-winning “Two Hearts”.

Where “Sooz” read as if it was barely connected to the world of The Last Unicorn, “Two Hearts” read like a combination of coda and swan song to the beloved classic. It’s the ending that the reader knows was out there, somewhere, at the end of The Last Unicorn, both dreaded and inevitable and so, so right.

Young Sooz’ village is being ravaged by a griffin who has graduated from taking sheep and goats to snatching children. The king has sent increasing numbers of men at arms to slay the griffin, but to no avail. Sooz runs away to fetch the king himself to take care of her people, who are, of course, his people. Along the way she runs into Schmendrick the Magician and his partner, Molly Grue. It’s been a LONG time since Schmendrick and Molly have been to the castle to see their friend, King Lir, so they decide to escort Sooz on her way.

The years that have passed lightly over the magician and his partner have not been kind to the purely human King Lir, and neither has Lir’s lifelong devotion to the unicorn Amalthea. But he rouses himself for one last quest, one last job that he knows is his and his alone. He goes with his friends, and Sooz, to slay the griffin.

“Two Hearts” is a beautiful story because it fits right into the world of The Last Unicorn with all of its lyrical language and utter heartbreak, and sits right on top of the pillar of “don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”.

I got a little weepy anyway. The ending is the right ending, the necessary ending. It’s the perfect swan song for an immortal hero in a mortal’s body.

In short, “Two Hearts” is a marvelous, if heartbreaking ending for the beloved classic, The Last Unicorn. “Sooz” read like more of an afterthought, or an attempt to get the lightning back in the bottle one last time.

So the Escape Ratings on this book are very much split. “Sooz” was a dragging D of a read, while “Two Hearts” was a tear-spattered A+.

Review: Babel by R.F. Kuang

Review: Babel by R.F. KuangBabel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang
Narrator: Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Billie Fulford-Brown
Format: audiobook, eARC
Source: purchased from Audible, supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, large print, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, historical fantasy
Pages: 545
Length: 21 hours and 46 minutes
Published by Harper Voyager on August 23, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

A novel that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.
Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

My Review:

What if Britain’s “Imperial Century” had been powered, not just by the economic expansion that resulted from a combination of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution, the previous century’s legacy of colonialism and imperialism AND the supremacy of the high seas, but was also bolstered and even increased by magic?

And it seemingly changed little to nothing about much of anything important except to make the evils of colonialism and imperialism and bigotry even more obvious, odious and offensive than they already were and still are?

That’s Babel in a nutshell, at least in this reader’s opinion, which means that this is not going to be a kind review.

Rather, it’s going to be an extremely frustrated one. This book had so much promise and so much potential, but the longer I read and/or listened, the more I felt that it squandered all of that and then some.

I know I really need to explain all of that, and I’ll try. Keeping this from becoming an outright rant at points is probably going to be impossible. You have been warned.

At first, and for a rather long time thereafter, the story focuses on Robin Swift, who was required to pick up a ‘suitably’ English name at the age of 11 when his English ‘parent’ – although sperm donor is a much better description – quite literally plucked him out of the bed where Robin was dying of cholera right next to the corpse of his dead mother. In Canton, China. Robin, half-Chinese and half-English, is pretty much groomed from that day forward to present the appearance and manner of a perfect little English gentleman while constantly holding onto the truth that he exists in two worlds and is at home in neither.

But that truth is essential, because what Robin was literally born and bred for was to become a Chinese translator at Babel, the language institute at Oxford University where his now-guardian (not father, never father) is a professor. Babel is the place where the empire is expanded, and Robin is expected to be  ever so grateful to have been rescued from death in his homeland that he should never question that the whole purpose of his existence is to assist Britain in subjugating that homeland while never even making a token protest for the daily micro- and often macroaggressions he faces for being part Chinese.

He’s been groomed to martyr himself on the altar of an empire that intends to sacrifice him to make his own people virtual slaves. Also quite literally, as he’s supposed to help his guardian and the empire smooth over the situation between Britain and China in the run up to the First Opium War. A situation that Britain deliberately created and exacerbated in order to have a pretext for that war.

It’s at the point when Robin finally admits the depths to which his guardian and the institution that he loves so dearly are willing to sink that Robin finally goes off the rails and starts doing something about all of it. And gets to fulfill what seems to be a lifelong desire to escape the whole thing through martyrdom.

Robin’s entire story can be summed up all too well in this exchange, about 2/3rds of the way through this excruciating long story, between Robin and his best friend Ramy.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ [said Ramy]
‘You’ve been saying that a lot.’ [replied Robin]
‘You’ve been ridiculous a lot.’ [Ramy rejoined]

And that’s the truth of it. Robin is ridiculous a lot and not in any way that’s funny.

Babel, through Robin’s eyes, builds a painstakingly detailed portrait of life among the “Babblers” – right before it tears it all down. But some of the pain that’s taken is on the part of the reader as there are plenty of times when you just want to yell at Robin and his cohort to “Get on with it!”

Something that I waited for through the entire book, but even when it does finally happen, it still takes such a long way about it that while the story ends, the ending is so equivocal that it doesn’t satisfy at all.

Escape Rating D: Because I didn’t. Escape, that is. I listened to about an hour of this thing every day for three weeks and came home and ranted and fumed for the rest of the day.

(The narrators did a fine job, which carried me through well past the point where I would have DNF’ed if I’d been reading. Sometimes a great reader can overcome a mediocre book but that task would have been too herculean for a normal human in this particular case.)

I have to admit that the magic system is utterly fascinating, as are the early stages of Robin’s journey, while the treatment he received from his guardian is generally neglectful at best and occasionally downright cruel, we see things through Robin’s eyes and he’s literally groomed to ignore and bury the offensive things he experiences. He does enjoy his studies and the whole world of learning that he’s been dropped into, and it’s easy to get caught up in his general pleasure even when specific incidents are beyond the pale.

The magic system relies on translation, specifically the bits that the act of translation occludes, obscures or ignores in an attempt to reach roughly similar meanings. It literally draws its magic from the things that are ‘lost in translation’, and requires the ability to hold the fullness of both languages in one’s head at the same time. To make magic, one has to be able to dream in both languages in order to know fully what the two disparate meanings are and make the variances between them manifest.

That the British Empire uses the pre-eminence of its Babel scholars to translate everything that passes through their hands in a way that favors themselves above all others and to such a degree that it is detrimental to others is not a surprise. Rather it takes the concept that ‘history is written by the victors’ and carries it out to its ultimate degree, that the ability to write the history actually makes the victors.

But all of that is background that becomes foreground as Robin and his group of friends are expected to not just participate in it but outright facilitate the subjugation of their own people through its use.

Because Robin is not alone in his training and education at Babel. He is part of a cohort of four scholars; Ramiz Rafi “Ramy” Mirza from Kolkata, Victoire Desgraves from Haiti by way of France, and Letitia “Letty” Price, the lone white person in their group. The person who, in nearly four years of close, loving friendship, never manages to grasp that her friends’ experience of Britain and the world it rules is vastly different from her own.

And that they might resent her for her willful blindness and pigheaded obstinacy. She’s not really one of them, and everyone is pretending. That no one ever truly blows up the whole thing in spite of extreme provocation by Letty at every imaginable turn means that the rest of the group, particularly Victoire who has to room with her, must have the patience of an entire choir of saints. That they must work together is a fact of life, that they never try to explain the facts of life to her until nearly the end makes their relationship frequently intolerable while being codependent at the same time.

A reviewer referred to the book as “Authorial Filibustering” and that feels right. There are plenty of points to be made here. Colonialism and Imperialism are evils in the world. Both outright in their practice and in the sense that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” As a reader, I get it. I agree with it. And I felt like I was being bludgeoned with it from very nearly the beginning to the bitter end.

In a work of historical fantasy, particularly one that cleaved so close to this period, those evils would be impossible to ignore and no reader should expect them to be ignored. But Babel is fiction, which means I also went into it expecting a story to be told that would captivate me – and in this particular case captivate me every bit as much as the author’s Poppy War series – which managed to deal with many of the same themes while still telling a fascinating, fantastic and compelling story.

For this reader, Babel turned out to be none of the above. Based on the reviews and ratings, clearly there are a lot of people who loved it. I’m disappointed not to be among them, but I’m just not.

Review: The It Girl by Ruth Ware

Review: The It Girl by Ruth WareThe It Girl by Ruth Ware
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: mystery, suspense, thriller
Pages: 432
Published by Gallery/Scout Press on July 12, 2022
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One returns with an unputdownable mystery following a woman on the search for answers a decade after her friend’s murder.
April Clarke-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.
Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead.
Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…including a murder.

My Review:

Elinor Glyn, inventor of the “It Girl”

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed A Dress of Violet Taffeta by Tessa Arlen. That marvelous book is a fictionalized biography of the English couturier Lucy Duff-Gordon. It shouldn’t link to this book at all, but it does. Lucy’s sister, the novelist Elinor Glyn, created the concept of the “It Girl” embodied, at least on the surface, by April Clarke-Cliveden, whose murder lies at the center of this book I’m honestly struggling with here today.

It was a hit with my reading group, which is what made me pick it up. But just like last week’s Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen, in spite of that recommendation, it just didn’t work for me. As this book – like that one – has already been reviewed and summarized by oodles of readers, I’m just going to get into why I think it did not work for this reader in particular and let you be the judge of whether those reasons will apply to your reading or not.

Because this is a thriller, it starts in a place where the tension is supposed to already be ratcheted up. But, and again because it’s a thriller, the way in which that tension is created cuts it as well.

In the past, which we see in flashbacks, Hannah Jones was a student at a prestigious college at Oxford. Her suite-mate and “best” friend was the “It Girl” of the title, April Clarke-Cliveden. April was murdered, Hannah discovered her body, and its Hannah’s testimony that put the nails in the killer’s coffin during the police investigation and at his trial.

But it’s ten years later when the reader enters the story, and April’s killer has just died in prison, still insisting that he’s innocent of the crime. Whether he was or not, his death certainly brings all the vultures of the press out again, trying to ambush Hannah for a sound bite.

Including one reporter who is absolutely convinced that the police – and by extension Hannah – pinned the blame on the wrong man.

And that’s where the tension started draining out of the story for me. If the police had the right man in jail, there wouldn’t be a story. Therefore, they must have had the wrong man, meaning Hannah made a terrible mistake that is about to unravel.

Leaving me certain that sooner or later it would all be revealed and just waiting for the story to get on with it.

It didn’t help that Hannah is not and was not a strong enough personality to carry this story that she is irrevocably pinned to like a moth displayed on a card. Because Hannah was the pale moth, while April was the butterfly.

And both are shallow but at least April is vivid where Hannah is anything but.

The story twists backwards and forwards in time, so we get to witness the barely post-adolescent posturing of April, her hangers on and Hannah, leading up to that fateful moment when April is killed and Hannah is left to pick up the pieces of her shattered world.

And to pick up the not-so-shattered pieces of April’s ex-boyfriend, who Hannah later marries. When this story opens, Hannah and her husband Will should be celebrating that they have a baby on the way, but Hannah gets herself involved in re-opening the case of the man she helped convict of April’s murder, leaving her angsting over the past and her terrible mistake.

I didn’t find myself captured by any of the characters. Hannah seems to still be stuck in passivity. April may have been the victim of the murder, but she had so many victims herself along her way that it ends up not being all that much of question why she was murdered, only a question of which of her victims finally got up the courage to do the deed if it wasn’t the man who was convicted for it.

Something I found extremely problematic along that way was just how that wrong person got convicted and the way that false conviction is treated by Hannah once she realizes the truth – or at least her first version of that truth.

John Neville, however wrongful his conviction for April’s murder, was not innocent. He was the one of the porters at Hannah’s and April’s college and did use his position and his access to the grounds to stalk and harass many of the female students, including both Hannah and April. He wasn’t just awkward and a poor communicator. He set out to harass young women and he did so with impunity, as he was adept at making them feel creeped on – because they were – while never quite doing anything that was unequivocally obvious. He used the way that girls are socialized to be polite and not cause trouble to his advantage. He was not harmless in the least – he just wasn’t a murderer.

The defense that “he’s just awkward” has often been used in geek spaces to defend men who may be awkward but are trading on that awkwardness to ignore boundaries and refuse to take “no” for an answer with the claim that the “no” wasn’t clear or emphatic enough. It seemed cheap to use that as a way to defend a sexual predator who may not have been a killer but was never innocent, diminishing something that is a very real problem.

Everything about the conviction does make the reader wonder what the police were doing as all this was going on. It was not April’s responsibility to conduct the entire investigation and it’s not her fault if the police weren’t thorough enough doing their jobs.

(Once upon a time, Oxford’s Thames Valley Police Department was the province of the brilliant Detective Chief Inspector Endeavor Morse in the series of mysteries by Colin Dexter. Morse would be ashamed of their handling of this case.)

Many readers found the twists and turns in this case compelling. I didn’t like Hannah enough to get caught up in her angst – and I didn’t care for April nearly enough to be that invested in discovering who killed her. The police don’t seem to have done their jobs in the beginning, and the reporter who re-opens the case doesn’t seem to have ever learned the difference between assumptions and red herrings. It’s not that he was wrong in the end, it’s that the reasons for his compulsions in that regard don’t hold up to any examination. Then again, even a stopped clock is right twice a day – I’m just not all that interested in watching it.

Especially as the way that the story opens begged the central question. If the right man was convicted, there would be no story. Since there’s a story, they got it wrong. (It is possible to get around this conundrum – The Jigsaw Man by Nadine Matheson does extremely well – but it was obvious early on that just wasn’t the case here.) That Hannah takes the blame for that wrong all onto herself – and then proceeds to keep getting it even more wrong – just did not a compelling mystery make.

At least not for me. Your reading mileage may vary, as it certainly has for others. Escape Rating D

Review: Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen by Annabel Abbs

Review: Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen by Annabel AbbsMiss Eliza's English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship by Annabel Abbs
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical fiction
Pages: 400
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks on October 26, 2021
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.orgBetter World Books
Goodreads

In a novel perfect for fans of Hazel Gaynor’s A Memory of Violets and upstairs-downstairs stories, Annabel Abbs, the award-winning author of The Joyce Girl, returns with the brilliant real-life story of Eliza Acton and her assistant as they revolutionized British cooking and cookbooks around the world.
Before Mrs. Beeton and well before Julia Child, there was Eliza Acton, who changed the course of cookery writing forever.
England 1837. Victorian London is awash with exciting new ingredients from spices to exotic fruits, but Eliza Acton has no desire to spend her days in the kitchen. Determined to be a poet and shamed by the suggestion she write a cookery book instead, she at first refuses to even consider the task. But then her father is forced to flee the country for bankruptcy, shaming the family while leaving them in genteel poverty. As a woman, Eliza has few options, so she methodically collects recipes while teaching herself the mysteries of the kitchen. And to her surprise, she discovers she is not only talented at cooking—she loves it.
To assist her, she hires seventeen-year-old Ann Kirby, the impoverished daughter of a war-injured father and a mother losing her grip on reality. Under Eliza’s tutelage, Ann learns about poetry, cookery, and love, while unravelling a mystery in her mistress’s past. Through the art of food, Eliza and Ann develop an unusual friendship and break the mold of traditional cookbooks by adding elegant descriptions and ingredient lists, that are still used today.
Told in alternate voices, this is an amazing novel of female friendship, the ensuring struggle for freedom, the quiet joy of cookery, and the place of food in creativity all while bringing Eliza Acton out of the archives and back into the public eye. 

My Review:

This was not the book I intended to read for today – and I’m kind of sorry that I changed my mind about that.

Yesterday’s book was excellent – compelling and riveting albeit a bit stomach-churning (OMG I just realized the irony of that – all things now considered!) but I just wasn’t up for another adrenaline-producing title in the book hangover. (Hair of the dog may work for drink hangovers but for book hangovers not so much.)

There are absolute bushel-baskets full of good reviews for Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen, including among my reading circle. Because publication was delayed last year it’s been on my TBR pile for a while but I never got a round tuit. This seemed like a good opportunity to rectify that situation.

I expected to enjoy this. I love English history, I very much like stories about women’s friendships that don’t have to end in marriage, and the idea that this was a fictionalized life of a real woman who really did achieve rather a lot was appealing.

Instead, it was a book that seemed tailor-made to screech like chalk on the blackboard that contained pretty much all of my buttons.

Let me explain…

First, Eliza Acton was a real person who really did write what became a landmark cookbook. If you’ve ever looked at a recipe – EVER – you’ve seen the results of her work as she was the first cookbook author to include a comprehensive list of the ingredients – including precise measurements! – for her recipes as well as an approximation of the time it would take to make the recipe including preparation time.

If you’ve ever attempted to recreate an old family recipe, where the measurements go something like “a pinch of this”, “a handful of that”, “a bit of this other thing”, etc., etc. – before Acton’s Modern Cookery in All Its Branches, (later editions published as Modern Cookery for Private Families), all recipes were written just like that, only in narrative form without the list of ingredients. One had to parse out what one needed to make the dish by reading through the recipe over and over until one was certain one had everything.

But important doesn’t necessarily mean interesting. Or maybe it’s just that this fictionalization of her life didn’t pick up the interesting bits.

It was an interesting idea to tell Acton’s story in alternating perspectives. Acton’s own rather obsessive and self-centered viewpoint alternates with that of her unknown and unsung assistant, Ann Kirby. (I do not believe Kirby existed as a singular character. She may be an amalgam of several unnamed assistants – because there must have been some – or she may be entirely imaginary, a cipher on whom can be pinned a whole lot of noblesse oblige and quite a few social issues that Acton may or may not have engaged with in her own life.)

Acton was rather firmly middle class, having been raised as a gentlewoman before her father went bankrupt. Kirby grew up in poverty, in a life of few or no choices, often not certain where her next meal was coming from, with her dad a wounded war veteran drowning in alcohol as her mother descends into dementia in a world where there’s no help for either.

It’s not that Acton and Kirby could not have developed a friendship, but in the book we have they are generally talking past each other. Acton can’t envision that Kirby has not had any of the advantages she has had, while Kirby sees Acton as being rich as Croesus if only because of the amount of food she is able to waste in her cooking experiments.

The book hints at a romance between the two but never resolves the issue in either direction. It just dangles like the “sausage and chestnuts” that one of the Acton’s boarding house’s more disgusting male guests regularly displays under the dining table to whichever serving girl can be bullied into picking things up from under said table.

Because one of the themes of this story is just how little agency women have in their own lives. Acton is under her mother’s overbearing, over-critical, over-complaining thumb because she never married, while Kirby is under every thumb she encounters because she’s poor. Acton’s obsession with her own ambitions leaves her blind to their commonality.

But OMG her mother is the kind of character who makes Lizzie Bennett’s ambitious mother look like a saint in comparison. (In case you’re wondering – no, I didn’t like her either.)

I’m flailing a bit. I wanted so very much to like this book. It just fell flat for me in every instance where it didn’t make me want to throw it across the room. (I read on an iPad. I resist the temptation to wallbang a book at all costs – because costs. And I was still sorely tempted.)

Acton isn’t nearly as compelling as her cookbook. We don’t even get enough details of all the food she’s experimenting with to salivate over it. One should come out of reading a book like this hungry – and I wasn’t at all. Acton is much too self-absorbed to be friends with anyone, let alone her assistant. Her mother is a horror and so is their relationship. Both women get, honestly, shat upon at every turn.

The language is stilted, the relationships that do seem to exist don’t come to any point unless it’s a terrible one. Too many things – like the possible flirtation between Acton and Kirby or the sudden introduction of Acton’s rumored but not proven daughter all seem to hang over the mantlepiece like an entire arsenal of Chekhov’s Guns.

There are a LOT of people who really seem to have enjoyed this book. I so wasn’t one of them that I can’t even.

Escape Rating D: I have to say that I didn’t escape at all. This story had so much possibility in it and for this reader at least it was entirely wasted. Obviously it wasn’t for me. But it clearly was for lots of readers. Look at the reviews and decide for yourself.

Guest Review: Sworn to Forget by Maria Imbalzano

Guest Review: Sworn to Forget by Maria ImbalzanoSworn to Forget by Maria Imbalzano
Format: ebook
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: contemporary romance
Series: Sworn Sisters #1
Pages: 340
Published by Wild Rose Press on July 18th 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKobo
Goodreads

By all appearances, Nicki Reading is a star. PR director at a major music label, Nicki is sharp, successful, independent, and confidently calls the shots. She dates whom she wants, when she wants, with no strings attached. But beneath that shine, loneliness flickers. Events from her past prove love leads only to pain. Commitment is not an option.

Until Dex Hanover, a classy, principled, and prosperous CPA, enters the picture. Undeterred by his unhappy childhood, he has an amazing capacity to be both caring and generous, giving his free time as a mentor for a child from the projects. Dex wears his paternal yearnings on his sleeve, and he is at a point in his life where commitment is the only option.

Despite their opposing views, Nicki and Dex ignite each other. But will events from their pasts ruin their challenging relationship and prevent them from experiencing everlasting love?

Guest review by Amy:

I’m in the habit of saying nice things about books, even books that other reviewers might find questionable; sometimes, however…well, this time, about the nicest things I can say about this one is that I didn’t spot many typos, and I feel accomplished from actually getting to the end. Reader beware: I’m gonna bring the snark out for this one.

Nicki Reading is on a cruise with her soon-to-be-ex, and meets Dex Hanover, also on the cruise with his soon-to-be-ex. Okay, that sounds like nice spicy fare from the get-go, although both of them are happy to explain at tedious length why they are on a cruise with this other person, and their reasons for dumping their exes are perfectly viable. Because they don’t have any real private space, they hold off on the steamy bits until they return home – convenient, isn’t it, that the two lovebirds live in the same city, not at all far from each other? This would have been a short story, otherwise. Come to think of it, that might have been a mercy, really.

They start seeing each other, the sex is magnificent, things are ticking along pretty well, until abruptly, they aren’t. Dex proposes, and she turns him down flat. You see, Dex wants kids, and Nicki just doesn’t.

Escape Rating: D+: We spend fully half of a way-too-long book exploring why there is this disconnect–Dex wants a big family, and to be the father of several kids, because his father abandoned him and his family when Dex was a youngling (huh?). Nicki was a teen parent, who gave her baby up for adoption, and cannot – CANNOT, I TELLS YA – tolerate being around kids, knowing what a crappy parent she was to her own child by giving him up (again, I say, “huh?”)  I mean, I get why those things in their past hurt them, I really do. But both of them are letting it drive their personalities in weird directions, and they’re not even bothering to tell each other. If they would just communicate with each other, so they could understand each other better, but no, both of these folks are way, way too self-centered, almost to the point of narcissism, and way too determined to make themselves miserable over something that happened ages ago. At many points in the front half of the book, I almost gave up. These characters are nothing at all that I can identify with.

52% in (according to my book reader app), we hit on something resembling some plot:  Turns out that the child Nicki gave up fourteen years ago is not all that far away after all. He was adopted by one of her best gal-pal Denise’s brother-in-law and his wife, who were raising him fine until they were killed in an auto accident. The gal-pal and her husband now have Bobby with them, and are looking to adopt him.  But (PLOT TWIST!) he turns up with leukemia. So another gal-pal, Sam, an attorney, works to get at the real birth records, so they can maybe find a bone marrow donor for the boy.

You can probably write the next chapter or two, can’t you? Sam shows up at Nicki’s office to break the news to her, there’s a fit pitched, drama drama drama. And we know who the father is – Michael, who was “just a friend” to Nicki way back when (grin grin wink wink nudge nudge), and disappeared right as they got out of high school, never to be seen again (my eyes are rolling up in my head here) until recently…when he’s involved with Sam.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Through this whole hot mess, Nicki is still pining over Dex, but nope-not-havin’-kids-and-that’s-what-he-wants…until she starts to come around to the idea of maybe possibly…so she hits him up.  Yep, he’s still interested. (PLOT TWIST!) and she gets pregnant.  So they’re gonna get married, happily-ever-after, gosh I’ll try my best even though I’m not keen on kids, all for you, baby.

(PLOT TWIST!) Until she miscarries.  And dumps poor Dex, right before the wedding.  It takes us a couple more really contrived twists and turns to get to a happy ending. But for me, the happy ending was not the honeymoon in Bermuda, but simply finishing this one and seeing THE END.

Other people have given this book good reviews, in several venues, and I had truly hoped for better.  It’s the first in a series about these four friends, the Sworn Sisters, but right now, I just can’t wrap my head around reading the second one (Sworn to Remember), which was recently released.

Review: Duchess by Deception by Marie Force

Review: Duchess by Deception by Marie ForceDuchess by Deception (Gilded, #1) by Marie Force
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: historical romance
Series: Gilded #1
Pages: 320
Published by Zebra on January 29, 2019
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

In New York Times bestselling author Marie Force's dazzling historical romance debut, the clock is ticking for a wealthy Duke who must marry by his thirtieth birthday—or lose his title...

Derek Egan, the dashing Duke of Westwood, is well aware of his looming deadline. But weary of tiresome debutantes, he seeks a respite at his country home in Essex—and encounters a man digging on his property. Except he's not a man. He's a very lovely woman. Who suddenly faints at his feet.

Catherine McCabe's disdain for the aristocracy has already led her to flee an arranged marriage with a boorish Viscount. The last thing she wants is to be waylaid in a Duke's home. Yet, she is compelled to stay by the handsome, thoughtful man who introduces himself as the Duke's estate manager.

Derek realizes two things immediately: he is captivated by her delicate beauty, and to figure out what she was up to, Catherine must not know he is the Duke. But as they fall passionately in love, Derek's lie spins out of control. Will their bond survive his deception, not to mention the scorned Viscount's pursuit? Most important, can Catherine fall in love all over again—this time with the Duke?

My Review:

I finished Duchess by Deception feeling sadly disappointed. I wondered if it might be me, that this might be a genre that just didn’t work for me anymore. Because I expected a whole lot better from the author of the Fatal romantic suspense series.

Then I looked at some of the other reviews on Goodreads and discovered that I am far from alone in my feelings. Which leaves me feeling better about the other historical romances in my virtually towering TBR pile – but somewhat at a loss for words about this book.

Duchess by Deception is a historical romance that includes an extended ride on the “Troperville Trolley”. There are enough all-too-common tropes and cliches packed into this book for three stories – and it might have been better if it had been three separate stories.

Because there are three stories here. The first is the one about the Duke of Westwood and his nuptial deadline. If he doesn’t marry by the day of his 30th birthday he’ll be forced to relinquish the title in favor of his nasty, greedy, grasping uncle. And his birthday is at the end of the week as the story begins.

So of course he runs off to his country estate instead of staying in London to find a bride. He discovers a young man digging holes at his estate who is immediately revealed to be not merely female but actually a damsel in distress who is on the run from a fate worse than death.

Yes, my eyes are rolling.

That they fall instantly in love is, of course, a given.

Then the misunderstandammits start rolling in. Because he doesn’t tell her he’s a duke since she hates the aristocracy, even though she is part of it. And he doesn’t tell her he has to marry by the end of the week because, well, he’s already lying to her about being the duke’s estate manager instead of the duke himself.

So when the dastardly villain her father has literally sold her to starts investigating the area around the duke’s estate, he whisks her away to Gretna Green for a hasty marriage over the anvil.

Then the same thing nearly happens to her sister. And that’s not the half of it.

Escape Rating D+: I haven’t dragged the D+ out in a while. I didn’t so much finish this book as skim it to see how it ended. Because there is a third plot thread that is even crazier than the first two.

There’s a whole lot of insta-love going on here, well past the point where it’s believable or even plausible. Not only does the duke fall instantly for his future duchess when she faints in his arms, but then his cousin falls equally precipitously for her sister across a crowded ballroom.

Really? The family seems prone to falling sickness, or possibly insanity.

We don’t have a chance to see either relationship actually develop. What we do get is a lot of sex scenes substituting for the development of the romance. I like a good sex scene as much as the next romance reader, but porn-without-plot is not a substitute for an actual plot. YMMV.

The villains of the piece were both caricatures, and yes, there are two. One is a leering pig of a villain, and the other is a greedy, grasping, murderous villain. Who have no relationship to each other. Which stretches the long arm of coincidence a bit too long for a single book.

And both women forgive their father for selling them to the leering pig WAY too easily.

This story had promise. Actually, it had multiple promises. It just didn’t live up to any of them.

Review: Want Me Cowboy by Maisey Yates

Review: Want Me Cowboy by Maisey YatesWant Me, Cowboy (Copper Ridge: Desire, #5) by Maisey Yates
Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: contemporary romance
Series: Copper Ridge: Desire #5
Pages: 217
Published by Harlequin Desire on November 6, 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Her rancher boss is looking for the perfect wife...and she wants the job!

Poppy Sinclair kept her feelings for Isaiah Grayson secret for a decade. When her infuriatingly gorgeous Stetson-wearing boss enlists her help in finding him a convenient wife, she threatens to quit. Until Isaiah counters with an interesting proposal: Why doesn't she marry him? Can she say yes to sharing his life and his bed, but not his heart?

My Review:

As much as I usually love this author, this particular book reminded me why I generally leave the category romance reviews in the hands of my friend and (not nearly frequent enough) guest reviewer Amy Daltry. (She loved Hold Me, Cowboy, a previous book in this very series)

Because as much as I usually love this author, this particular book made me want to throw it against the wall. I don’t have this reaction often because my iPad is just too damn expensive to treat that way.

Let’s just say that Want Me Cowboy is not exactly a contemporary romance for the #MeToo era.

And that’s just for starters.

Except that, for starters, I really liked the setup of the story. I like a good friends to lovers romance. I also like a good lusting after the boss romance. And the opening of the story was hilarious – it reminded me of all those fake ads for a wife or a husband where the previous candidate had an impossible condition – or at least impossible for most respondents. You know the kind, the ones that usually end with the woman keeping her cats or the man keeping his cabin. Or in the case of this particular ad, Isaiah Grayson starts out by saying he’s keeping his beard.

And telling the assistant who has been in love with him for a decade that she’s the one who will be interviewing any prospective candidates. The possibilities for humor are endless. And I wish the story had gone there. Or pretty much anywhere else instead of where it actually went.

Not that I didn’t hope that they would get together, because I initially did. Until I didn’t.

Let me explain…

The first thing to understand about Isaiah Grayson is that he seems to be somewhere on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. Not that it has ever been officially diagnosed, but both he and his family are more than aware that Isaiah has never had any skills in processing what other people are thinking or feeling. And he uses that lack of awareness as an excuse to be an asshole.

He’s usually not mean, or at least not mean per se. But he has decided that he is usually right, and when someone tells him something that he doesn’t want to hear or that he thinks is wrong, he overrides everything they say and everything they do, leaving them no choice but to either go along or walk away – and he makes it incredibly difficult to walk away.

As he finally realizes late (too late) in the story, he did give Poppy a choice. However, he has the financial power to restrict that choice to the point where the least bad option is the one that he wants. It’s not necessarily that she wants what he has decided is best, just that all of the other choices are so horrible that it might as well be no choice at all.

Things in this story begin going pear-shaped when Poppy Sinclair finally snaps back at Isaiah about giving her the job of interviewing his wife candidates. She’s fed up with his hunt for a convenient wife who will be the equivalent of her, just at home. And with sex. Otherwise, he IS looking for her clone.

He gets the bright idea that he can have his cake and eat it too by just marrying Poppy. This could have been a great story, but the problem is the way that Isaiah goes about it. Once he’s kissed her and discovered that they have AMAZING chemistry together, he decides that no one else by Poppy will do, takes over her life and NEVER listens to any of her objections or concerns.

Including the concern she never gets a chance to raise. Their sexual relationship has the definite aura of him pushing her boundaries until she “realizes” that she really didn’t want to say no in the first place. The way this feeds into the whole narrative of “no means yes” that men fall back on when consent is forced or withdrawn made me grit my teeth.

That he, in spite of his own internal dialog about his sexual experiences, can’t be bothered to use a condom is just plain wrong. She’s a virgin, so the idea that she wasn’t remotely prepared to have sex with anyone isn’t surprising. That he doesn’t seem to even think about protecting her from either pregnancy or any consequences of his past is selfish and thoughtless, to say the least..

That she becomes pregnant from her first sexual experience is part of the story. Because it becomes yet another way that he takes her choices away from her.

You’re thinking that she can raise the child alone, that in the 21st century pregnancy does not equal a choice between marriage and eternal shame and damnation. And you’re right.

But, and in this case it is a huge gigantic butt, he has decided that marriage between them is the right thing to do. Because for him, it provides him with the perfect, stable family that he has decided that he needs.

So when Poppy tries to back out of the engagement he has pretty much coerced her into, he informs her that if she doesn’t marry him he will fight her for full custody, and that with his money and his resources, he will win. And he’s right about that. So when she won’t do what he wants, he makes all her other choices so horrible that she has no real choice.

For me the whole story was like that. He has decided what he wants, so he takes over her life. She has doubts and tries to back away, or at least to slow things down. He rides roughshod over her. Over and over again.

Her answer to his behavior is to just love him more. And to give him more. His mother convinces her that a successful marriage is one where she gives everything and eventually he will see what’s right in front of him. This sounds like the kind of advice that abused spouses receive.

Ironically, it is not the kind of marriage his parents actually have, so there’s an element of “do as I say and not as I do” involved along with the guilt trip.

He does eventually figure out just how big an asshole he’s been, and he does seem to learn just a bit of his lesson. But I’m not nearly convinced that he’s learned enough of a lesson, or grovelled nearly enough, to get past the “if you don’t marry me I’ll take your child away” threat.

Escape Rating D+: It’s been a long time since I’ve dragged out the D+ rating, and this book wasn’t nearly as much fun as the last time I did. But I did finish the damn thing, and that’s what puts it into this category. There was the germ of a good story in here, but it just derailed for me into questionably consenting assholishness.

I could go on (and on and ON) but I’ve ranted long enough.

I still love this author, and will pick up her next book that is NOT a category romance. (In fact, I already have an ARC) But if there are any future books in the Copper Ridge: Desire category series, I’ll leave them to Amy.

Cass Rant on Demand: Wild Embrace by Nalini Singh

Cass Rant on Demand: Wild Embrace by Nalini SinghWild Embrace (Psy-Changeling, #15.5) by Nalini Singh
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Psy-Changeling #15.5
Pages: 400
Published by Berkley on August 23rd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

The “alpha author of paranormal romance”* presents a stunningly sensual collection of four all-new Psy-Changeling novellas, in which taboos are broken, boundaries are crossed, and instincts prove irresistible...

Echo of Silence
In a deep-sea station, Tazia Nerif has found her life’s work as an engineer, keeping things running smoothly. But she wants nothing more than to break down the barrier of silence between her and her telekinetic Psy station commander...

Dorian
A changeling who can never shift lives a life of quiet frustration—until he learns how to let his leopard come out and play...

Partners in Persuasion
Still raw from being burned by a dominant female, wolf changeling Felix will never again risk being a plaything. But for dominant leopard Dezi, he’s the most fascinating man she’s ever met. She just has to convince this gun-shy wolf that he can trust the dangerous cat who wants to take a slow, sexy bite out of him…

Flirtation of Fate
Seven years ago, Kenji broke Garnet’s heart. Now the wolf packmates have to investigate the shocking murder of one of their own. And the more Kenji sees of the woman Garnet has become, the deeper he begins to fall once more. But even his primal instincts are no match for the dark secret he carries...
*Booklist, starred review

Hello again! Long time, no see. Who’s up for a Cass Rant On Demand™? Clearly the person who baited me with another dip into the Psy-Changeling world. An anthology this time. Be warned, there shall be spoilers and snark ahead.

Anyone want to place bets on how many stories involve a psychic woman being saved by the mighty powers of the changeling cock?

Echo of Silence: Now wait just a moment here. What atrocity is this? A poor woman being left alone in the world to fend off the attentions of this nightmarish man-creature that respects her culture. Be warned, the following exchange may shock you.

“I can’t discard who I am like it’s an old coat.”

“I understand,” Stefan said, having already guessed at Tazia’s value system after so carefully noting every single thing about her in the year they’d worked together. “Your cultural mores are no more or less irrational than the protocol under which my people are conditioned.”

To add insult to injury, he takes this a step further by valuing her talents as an engineer.

“Your skills are necessary.”

Typical Psy. Without exposure to Changeling packs, he hasn’t yet learned that it is his job to threaten his crush (Lucas), violate her bodily autonomy (Vaughn), belittle her life choices (Clay), and piss all over her loyalty to her family (Dorian). Though I guess the latter isn’t necessary since her brother seems to have missed out on the Riley Kincaid Lecture Series: Your Sister’s Vagina is Your Property. 

Of course he’s a former Arrow. Apparently the only school on this planet that teaches how to respect women is the one with a regular torture regimen.

“No grease streaks for once,” she said, nervous.

“I have a confession.” He rose from the bed. “I only used to say that to have an excuse to speak to you. Sometimes you didn’t have grease on your face. I lied.”

Stefan, Stefan, Stefan. Pick up the phone, and give DarkRiver a call. Nate will be happy to explain to you how to infantilize the woman you are romantically interested in. Then you won’t need to worry about conversational icebreakers. (+)

Dorian. This entry is an absolute joke. It’s basically deleted scenes from prior novels, loosely compiled and told from the POV of one racist misogynist fucktard.

Anyone interested in the first time Clay met the pack? Or want to see Dorian briefly interact with the sister that was fridged before the first book? Maybe you want to know how Lucas feels about Dorian being able to shift? Anyone? Bueller? (-)

Partners in Persuasion: Here we have a recently retired supermodel, who is really into fashion and flowers, but just can’t seem to relate to women. In fact, he is so shy around them that he refuses to even make eye contact. Thankfully he has no trouble whatsoever relating to or engaging with men, so when a butch woman puts the moves on him, he tentatively agrees to give it a shot. She’s mannish enough for it to work out.

She tried to shift closer, was stopped by the way they were seated, his upper body twisted to meet her kiss. Placing her hand on his throat,  she—

He wasn’t there any longer, having jerked away to the other side of the trunk. Reeling, she tried to think what she’d done,

I hate to break it to you Dezi, but you didn’t do anything wrong. He freaked out as soon as you got close enough for him to realize you didn’t have a cock.

We’re 15 books into this series, and there hasn’t been one single queer-identified character. All we get is a shy,flower-arranging fashion model who, contrary to pages of internal monologue about how it’ll never work, deciding to hook up with Idgie Threadgoode. Give me a fucking break. Is there an previous entry in the series I missed that covers how the Psy discovered the “gay gene” and managed to suppress it from appearing in the population? (-)

Flirtation of Fate: One self-centered man baby, who firmly believes his feelings outweigh those of any and all females in his life. They will get over their shit. He is the only one who can wallow.

“You knew how awful she was to me, how she made my life a living hell, and you not only took her to prom, you dated her for a year!”

A befuddled expression on his face. “I know you two didn’t like each other, but I thought it was, you know, girl stuff.”

Let that be a lesson to all you menfolk out there. It is completely acceptable to bang a hot bully, even as she is emotionally tormenting your best friend. Teenage girls aren’t at all prone to depression and suicide in situations like this. It’s just girl stuff. Feel free to ignore it.

wild-embrace-uk-editionThe – ahem – romance between these two only appears to deepen with time. After man baby gets his jollies plowing her nemesis, he leads her on, ditches her at her birthday party to bang another girl, spends years tormenting her professionally, and ultimately decides for her that her only purpose in life is to breed. Because yeah. That is how you demonstrate your love for your true mate. Fuck this noise. (-)

In sum, only bother with the first story.

Before I move on to the grading, I need to spend just one moment addressing the cover-shaped elephant in the room. What is with the US covers?! The US cover screams P-O-R-N. Which it really isn’t. There is sex in every story, but it’s only painful when the author is forcing two clearly queer characters into a hetero-normative relationship. If you decide to buy this anthology for the first story, order it from the UK. Even man-baby’s pink hair is preferable to Mr. Nipples.

Escape Rating: D for Down With the Douchebaggery!

 

Marlene’s Notes: Cass is absolutely right about the UK vs. US covers. I always hate the US covers. The UK covers are always lots better.

Howsomever, much as I agree about the covers, I disagree about the series in general and this book in particular. For a considerably more positive take on Wild Embrace, check out my joint review with E over at The Book Pushers.