Review of Diana Rowland's My Life as a White Trash Zombie

This book is seriously sick – and I LOVED it!!! I made a trip to Barnes and Noble yesterday and was totally psyched to find this book out a few days early, since it’s not supposed to come out until Tuesday.  I’m a huge fangirl of Diana Rowland’s Kara Gillian books, and My Life as a White Trash Zombie is a great start to a new series. This book rocked! I’ve never been a big fan of zombie fiction, but I love to read paranormal fiction set in the South, so this book seemed right up my alley, and it did not disappoint. The super cool cover by artist Daniel Dos Santos is just icing on the cake.

Angel Crawford is a self-described loser who finds herself in the emergency room after a drug overdose. When she’s released from the hospital, the nurses give her a sack of clothes and a small cooler, with an anonymous note that tells her to drink one bottle of what’s in the cooler every other day and informs her that she’s starting work as a van driver at the coroner’s office first thing in the morning. If she manages to keep the job, she’ll avoid jail time, which she’s eager to do since she’s currently on probation for possession of stolen property. It’s not until she’s at her new job the next day, assisting the pathologist in an autopsy, that she realizes that something is VERY wrong, because the smell of the cadaver’s brains make her stomach growl in hunger. Eventually she learns the truth – she’s a zombie and has to eat brains to survive. When headless corpses start showing up around town and the cops begin looking for a serial killer, Angel starts to wonder if she’s not the only zombie in town.

Diana Rowland’s experience as a cop and a morgue assistant give her a lot of material to draw on for her novels, and the yuck factor with the autopsies is high, which made this pretty appealing to my admittedly sophomoric sense of humor. “Ewww, gross!” was mentioned quite a few times while I was reading, that’s for sure. I love how Ms. Rowland describes the more tedious aspects of crime scene investigation and Angel’s surprise at how unlike crime scene investigation in real life is compared to shows on TV. She manages to make some seriously uncool realities interesting, and that’s because of her characters.

On the face of it, Angel Crawford should be an unappealing heroine. She’s a high school dropout, self-described white trash, a convicted felon, and a habitual drug user. But from the start she’s a character with whom you’ll empathize. The more we learn about her past, the more we realize that she’s had a rough time of it, and her growing pride in her new skills at her job have us rooting for her. She’s only 21, and it turns out that being made into a zombie is probably the best thing that’s ever happened to her. You get the sense that she hasn’t had many second chances up to this point, and you want to cheer for her as she starts to make some really mature decisions and gets her life turned around.

There are two important plot lines in the novel that’ll keep you turning the pages. The first has to do with Angel’s life as a zombie. We learn along with her all that entails while the secondary mystery about a serial killer who decapitates his victims unfolds. The growing number of murders has Angel worried since it could decrease her access to a ready food supply, but she also wonders if there’s a rogue zombie in town attacking people. Ms. Rowland seamlessly ties the two mysteries together and the ending resolves both in a way that I did not see coming.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough. The writing was tight without being sparse, the dialogue was funny and snarky, and the heroine was just the right mixture of vulnerability and toughness. The only downside to this book? Having to wait for the next in the series!

Some Great Reads from the Past Month

This month I’ve read a lot really great books, some of which are new releases and some only new to me. Here are a few short reviews of my favorite reads from this month. All of these books were either checked out of the library or purchased by yours truly.

Madeline Hunter’s Ravishing in Red This is the first of the Rarest Blooms series, and it’s an absolute winner. This is by far the best historical I’ve read in a long, long time, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. The heroine is Audrianna Kelmsleigh, whose father committed suicide when accused of negligence that led to barrels of unusable gunpowder reaching the troops fighting in France. Audrianna is determined to clear her father’s name, and when she spots a newspaper ad from someone calling himself Domino, she arranges to meet him to learn the truth. Unfortunately, Lord Sebastian Summerhays, who Audrianna believes hounded her father to death, also sees the ad and comes to confront Domino as well. The resulting scandal from their meeting requires the two to wed, and the two work to solve the mystery behind the faulty gunpowder. Both are reasonable, likeable people, and their romance is a delight to watch.

Julia Quinn’s Just Like Heaven If you’ve read any of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton novels, you are all too aware of the Smythe-Smith musicales. The Smythe-Smith girls are truly atrocious musicians, and the few exceptions among them with talent can’t be heard over the cacophony of the others. This novel features Lady Honoria Smythe-Smith and her brother’s best friend, Marcus Holroyd, the Earl of Chatteris. The two have known each other for years, and this novel is a sweet story of friends falling in love. Much time is given to Honoria’s relationship with the other Smythe-Smith girls “practicing” for the musicale, which is truly hilarious, since only some of the girls are aware of how awful their performances are. A bit too much time is spent on Marcus’ injury and Honoria’s nursing him to health, and there is very little conflict, but it is a light-hearted read worth the short time you will spend reading it.

Courtney Milan’s Proof by Seduction Don’t let the atrocious cover of this novel put you off. Ms. Milan’s first novel is not particularly accurate historically speaking, but it’s a charming fantasy and a truly enjoyable read. Jenny Keeble earns a living a “Madame Esmerelda” telling fortunes. One day Gareth Carhart, Marquess of Blakely, accompanies Jenny’s regular client, Ned, to his reading to confront her and expose her as a fraud. As Jenny and the Marquess spend more and more time together, they fall in love, and it’s painful to watch the socially awkward Marquess try to convince Jenny to become his mistress, truly the only socially acceptable way for the two of them to be together. Fortunately they find their happy-ever-after, and I’ve now added Ms. Milan to my list of must-read authors.

Candace Camp’s A Lady Never Tells (Willowmere #1) This romance has a few bumps, but it’s worth the time. The novel begins with the arrival of the four American Bascombe sisters in London. All four are named after flowers (Marigold/Mary, Rose, Lily, and Camellia), and they are there to throw themselves on the mercy of their maternal grandfather, the Earl of Stewkesbury, who disinherited their mother when she eloped with their father. Unfortunately, the old Earl has died, and the girls’ cousin Oliver is the new Earl. Thanks to the intervention of Sir Royce Winslow, the Earl’s step-brother, the girls are acquainted with the new Earl and he will provide for them to make their debuts among the ton. This novel focuses on the romance between Sir Royce and Mary. The best parts of the novel are the frequent misunderstandings caused by the American sisters, who have no clue how to comport themselves in high society.

Lynn Kurland’s One Magic Moment This is Ms. Kurland’s latest novel featuring the medieval DePiaget family. It’s a time travelling romance and typical of her style. If you’ve read any of the other novels, you’ll recognize the time travelling elements and some familiar characters from the 1240s, but that doesn’t detract from the story at all. Tess Alexander has just said goodbye to her sister, who has married Montgomery DePiaget and left her family in the present to live in the year 1241. Tess is currently living in a medieval castle in modern-day England, and she’s stunned when she drives into town to see the new mechanic and discovers that he looks exactly like her medieval brother-in-law. John DePiaget is Montgomery’s twin and has been living for the last few years in the present-day. Despite his best efforts, he and Tess fall in love and are faced with difficult decisions about where and “when” to live together. There’s a short mystery involved as well, but it’s truly secondary to the plot. I liked the book so much I’ve been catching up on Ms. Kurland’s backlist. Her books are definitely PG, so they make for good recommendations for the mothers and grandmothers looking for slightly less steamy romances.

Caitlin Kittredge’s Street Magic (Black London #1) This is the first book in the Black London series featuring Detective Pete Caldecott and anti-hero Jack Winter. A truly gritty urban fantasy with a stung-out junkie for a hero, Street Magic was intriguing and stunning in its world-building. At sixteen, Pete witnessed her older sister’s boyfriend Jack Winter get murdered by a demon, but years later she runs across him again while working a kidnapping case for the police. Ms. Kittredge’s use of punk rock and language in her dark version of London make this complex story with romance elements a pleasure to read.

Kim Harrison’s Dead Witch Walking (The Hollows #1) The beginning of the now long-running Hollows series was a bit rough to get into, but a few chapters in it really picks up and I couldn’t put it down after that. In a world where a bioengineered virus has killed off a lot of the human population and forced the exposure of Inderlanders (weres, vampires, witches, and others), Rachel Morgan is a bounty-hunter for Inderland Runner Services. She quits her crappy job for IS, striking out on her own with vampire partner Ivy and pixy Jenks. Her former boss puts out a contract on her, and the action of the novel revolves around her dodging assassination attempts while trying to bring in a big-time criminal in order to get the contract revoked. A solid start to what becomes a much stronger series, Dead Witch Walking is another urban fantasy well worth reading.

Review of Anne Stuart's Shameless

At first when I received Anne Stuart’s Shameless for review from the publisher, I thought her name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember reading any of her work. Surprise! Not only had I read another of her books, I actually reviewed it last month. Oops. She was one of the three writers of Dogs and Goddesses, which was super cute and lots of fun, so I was really excited to read this historical romance billed as dark and suspenseful. The tone in Shameless was definitely a lot darker than that of Dogs and Goddesses, and I should state up front that there is some violence against women and children, although thankfully the author does not describe it in detail. Ms. Stuart takes the familiar trope of rake meets do-gooder and falls in lust and adds some sinister elements to the mystery which the two must solve. There was a lot to like about this book, but this particular installment of this series fell a bit flat for me, for reasons I’ll go into below. First, here’s a bit about the plot.

At the start of the novel, Viscount Benedick Rohan has just returned to London after a year of mandatory mourning after the death of his second wife. Lest you, like Oscar Wilde, find it careless of him to have lost two wives, allow me to inform you that both died in childbirth. Since he needs an heir, he has come to London to search for a new wife, a proper dull wife who will look the other way as he slakes his lust upon loose women. The heroine, Lady Melisande “Charity” Carstairs is a thirty-year-old widow who is using her late husband’s fortune to house and reform former prostitutes, hence her nickname “Charity”. She is both innocent and strait-laced, not at all the sort to interest the rakish Viscount Rohan. But when one of her prostitutes is brutally attacked by an aristocratic secret society and another disappears, Melisande seeks out the Viscount to ask for his assistance in finding the woman. It turns out that the men in Viscount Rohan’s family have a long-standing association with the society – they founded it. While there was always plenty of debauchery to be found at the society’s meetings in the past, it seems that a new master has appeared, and the sexual encounters are no longer consensual. As the two work together to find the missing women, they cannot deny their mutual attraction, and Melisande has to decide if she’s willing to risk everything for an affair with the dangerous Benedick.

The trope of the rake who falls for the good but fascinating lady is familiar and a favorite of mine. Georgette Heyer’s Venetia is one of my favorite romance novels of all time, and the sheer number of romances featuring a sexually experienced man reformed by the love of a good woman proves the popularity of the reformed rake. Ms. Stuart does an outstanding job of portraying the attraction between the two seemingly disparate lovers, and you can easily understand the temptation for Melisande, given her inexperience. Also, the villain of the novel is deliciously evil and the various twists of the plot behind the missing women made for tense reading.

 While the novel is definitely not humorous overall, there are some moments that made me laugh. In a rather funny scene at the beginning of the book, Benedick sends for a prostitute who is known for her abilities with her mouth (ahem), not realizing that Violet has been taken in by Lady Melisande and is supposed to be reformed. Violet enjoys her former profession and makes her way to Viscount Rohan’s house, only to have Melisande burst in on the two of them just before anything really titillating happens. The Viscount assumes that the other woman is an abbess and makes lots of lewd comments, which shock, yes, SHOCK our innocent and well-meaning heroine. Later the poor woman is shocked again as the fallen women who live in Melisande’s house offer her lots of advice, most of which sails completely over her head. She has little of their experience, not having even seen a naked man despite being married and taking a lover. The scenes with the former prostitutes are lots of fun and provide some much needed comic relief from the tension throughout the novel.

There were only two things that prevent me from wholeheartedly suggesting this book. The first is the character of the hero, Benedick. He’s rather yummy in a sensual way, but I’m still not certain why he falls in love with Melisande. He doesn’t realize he’s done so until late in the book when someone informs him of the fact, but up until that point he really didn’t seem to be falling in love but rather in lust with Melisande. Other than his prowess in bed (which the prostitutes are more than happy to vouch for), I’m not sure why Melisande would want to be with him. He’s smug, conceited, and a bit of a jerk. He doesn’t show any signs of changing his character, other than his growing reluctance to seek out other women once he meets Melisande. Typically when the trope of the reformed rake is used, we gradually learn of his redeeming qualities (as happens with Sebastian in Lisa Kleypas’ Devil in Winter), but other than Benedick’s agreement to help Melisande find the missing woman, that is not the case here. Throughout the novel we’re reminded that he loved his first wife, Annis, who died in childbirth, but his actions don’t demonstrate that these events have changed him in any way. I was much more interested in Benedick’s younger brother, Brandon, who was seriously injured in the war in the Afghan and plays a role in the plot with the secret society. I hope that his story will be the next novel in the series, because there were several intriguing hints about a possible relationship with Mrs. Emma Cadbury, the former madam living in Melisande’s house.

The second complaint I have about the novel is fairly serious. At one point a young girl is stolen from Melisande’s house and everyone believes that she is going to be killed. Melisande’s behavior upon learning about the abduction borders on TSTL (too stupid to live). She decides to rescue the girl on her own and takes off to look for her. While her decision not to ask Benedick for help makes sense because he had been particularly cruel to her just prior to the incident, I have to wonder what she thought she could accomplish. Why she thought she’d be able to find the girl and free her on her own is beyond my comprehension. She just jumps in a carriage and goes, not considering that the men would be able to overpower her and had been assaulting women for months.  Not surprisingly, the members of the society catch her and subject her to a sexual assault, although it seems clear they stopped short of rape. But what really blew my mind was that as soon as Benedick finds her and she tells him about the assault, she begs him to make love to her, to erase the memory of the others’ hands on her body.  I don’t find it at all believable that a woman who’d been sexually assaulted would react in such a way immediately after the assault and with the men who had assaulted her nearby. Quite frankly, I found this scene offensive.

The scene after the assault pretty much spoiled the book for me. Until then, I had enjoyed the growing attraction between the hero and heroine, and the tension behind their attempts to prevent further abuse of women kept me turning the pages. Overall, Ms. Stuart’s writing is excellent – she’s descriptive in a way that makes the scenes come alive and the dialogue between the characters is witty and entertaining. For these reasons, I’m willing to give her next book (which I’m very much hoping is about Brandon Rohan) a try, despite my overwhelmingly negative reaction to the one scene late in the novel.

Review of Merrie DeStefano's Feast

I received this book for review from the publisher through NetGalley, and I have to admit that I’ve been putting off writing the review, because I have mixed feelings about the novel. In fact, I forced myself to read the book a second time, because I wasn’t sure I could do a fair review based solely on my first reading. I’m glad I read it a second time, because it definitely improved with a second reading. This book totally creeped me out (in a good way), and I think that’s one of the reasons it’s been so hard to write this review.

Feast is a fantasy novel with some romance elements, and it takes place in the small town of Ticonderoga Falls. The town clearly has secrets, and there is a sense of foreboding and menace as Halloween approaches. Madeline “Maddie” MacFadden is a graphic novelist known as Mad Mac, and after a nasty divorce, she’s returned to Ticonderoga Falls with her son Tucker to spend a few nights in the cabin she visited with her parents when she was a child. Since her divorce, she’s had a bad case of writer’s block, and she hopes that the change of scenery will inspire her to start writing again. Artists are frequently drawn to the town, but the reasons for the creative draw are less than innocent. The town’s protected (or is it cursed?) by a being named Ash, a Darkling. The Darklings feed off human dreams, and Halloween is the time of the Darklings’ harvest. To protect the humans, the Darklings’ laws prohibit them from gorging themselves on the humans’ dreams, which kills them and leaves their bodies as dried-up husks. With Halloween drawing near, members of Ash’s Darkling family arrive to feast during the Harvest, but after a century of protecting Ticonderoga Falls, Ash’s control of the town is beginning to be called into question by some very dangerous adversaries.

Ms. DeStefano does an amazing job of creating an ominous and sinister feel to the novel. In fact, I completely blame the novel’s creepiness for my difficulties reading it the first time, since I had to keep putting the book down because of the threatening atmosphere. I love how she juxtaposed Maddie’s innocent hikes through the sunlit forest with the shadows that hide the Darklings stalking her, because what should have been a relaxing vacation suddenly takes on menacing overtones. It’s clear from the start that Maddie is special, and her creative abilities attract the creatures that feed on dreams and fascinating Ash. There’s also the constant question of whether or not Ash is the town’s savior or demon. Has his 100 year stay in Ticonderoga Falls been a curse or has it provided protection for the town’s inhabitants? As the novel progresses, we learn more about the Darklings and their powers, providing much of the uncertainty over whether or not Ash is a hero. Also, Ash’s cousins Thane and River arrive for the Harvest, and it becomes clear that they do not intend to abide by the rules, pursuing and taunting their victims in the woods.  As the Harvest draws near, the tension between the Darklings and Maddie’s confusion about what is happening in the woods creates suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat, especially since the town’s children will be out trick-or-treating during the Darklings’ feast.

The fictional world created by Merrie DeStefano is a fascinating one, and she does a stellar job of drawing out the tension by gradually revealing information about Ash’s past and the Darklings’ nature through the eyes of different characters. The novel is narrated mainly from Maddie, Ash, and Thane’s points of view, with glimpses from other secondary characters. Unfortunately, this is not always successful. At times, I felt the information gained from the secondary characters was unnecessary. Eli Driscoll, the grandson of the man whose actions drew Ash’s curse, is an important character, but his point of view seems unnecessary, as do those of Joe Wimbledon (the Legend Keeper) and Sheriff Kyle. All three characters play roles in how the action develops, but instead of presenting their points of view, the author could have limited them to interaction with the main characters. The multiplicity of voices was a distraction, and I believe the space devoted to these secondary characters could have been used to develop Ash and Maddie’s characters and incipient romance. The one secondary character whose point of view I did enjoy was that of Elspeth, Ash’s half Darkling/half human teenage daughter. Her voice was my favorite among all the characters, because I felt it was strong and gave a great sense of Elspeth’s vulnerability, more so even than Maddie. At times Ash and Maddie seem a little two dimensional, and their romance seems a bit contrived. While the finale proves that Maddie is a strong creative force, able to interact with the Darklings in ways the other humans cannot, for most of the novel Ash’s attraction to Maddie seemed to be directly related to her creative energy, rather than, say, her personality or character. 

Ms. DeStefano is a gifted writer, able to create superbly creepy worlds rivaling that of any horror writer. If you are a fan of fantasy fiction, this would be a great addition to your library. However, if you are more interested in romance or character driven works, this might not be for you. Either way, I’m interested in seeing future novels from Ms. DeStefano. I’ll just make sure I read them with ALL the lights on.

Review of Lauren Dane’s Goddess with a Blade

I’m a big fan of author Lauren Dane’s writing. She’s a versatile author, having published in several different genres of romance, including contemporary, paranormal, urban fantasy, sci-fi/fantasy, and erotic romance. I haven’t read many of her erotic romances, but I love her contemporary Chase Brothers series and her paranormal de la Vega Cats and Cascadia Wolves series. She writes hot alpha heroes and steamy sex scenes, which is definitely a win-win for romance readers. So I was really excited when her urban fantasy Goddess with a Blade was released earlier this month and I received a copy for review from NetGalley. I couldn’t wait to read it! Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to my expectations.

The heroine of the novel, Rowan Summerwaite, should be a great urban fantasy lead. She’s intense, sexy, and the physical vessel to the Celtic Goddess Brigid. At the beginning of the novel, she’s just returned to Las Vegas after months away, defending her killing of the former vampire scion of the city. She is part of the Hunters Corporation, which polices the vampires and defends the unknowing humans against undead predators. Upon Rowan’s return to Las Vegas, she’s summoned to meet the new vampire scion in town, Clive Stewart. He is of course super hunky and really uptight, contrasting nicely with our brash heroine, and their sexual chemistry is off the chart. As a series of vicious murders are uncovered in the city, Rowan has to work with Clive to discover the vampire killing female junkies before the human authorities learn that vampires are in their midst.

Here are my problems with the novel. My first criticism is that the writing is uneven and at times awkward. At least twice when I was reading conversations between characters I had to stop, go back, and count lines to figure out who said what. The beginning was rough, and it made it really difficult to get into the novel. This is a shame, because as the novel progressed, the writing noticeably improved and I was drawn into the action.

I also didn’t like Roman very much until about halfway through the novel. Clive is portrayed as refined and Rowan is brash and bold, setting the two of them up for an intense attraction between opposites. Unfortunately, in her early conversations with Clive, Rowan goes out of her way to be vulgar and crude, in what is clearly an attempt to show her as strong and assertive but just makes her seem really immature. She claims to despise vampires, yet almost immediately has sex with Clive. The scenes where she interacts with the Goddess Brigid and her acolytes portray Rowan as soft and caring, a stark contrast to her abrupt and overly aggressive interactions with Clive. I think the intent was to show that the relationship between the two changes them both, softening Rowan’s harsh edges and relaxing Clive, but Rowan’s attitude in the beginning goes just a little too far. As the novel progresses, she becomes less vulgar and crude but remains assertive and strong. I think she could have been this way from the beginning without sacrificing any strength of character.

Despite the problems with the beginning of the novel, the plot is action-packed, and the mystery is intriguing. Once the writing began to flow better and Rowan became less worried about maintaining a tough image with the vamps and more concerned about finding the vamp serial killer, the novel improved considerably. I liked the world Ms. Dane created in this novel, and the way she introduced us to Rowan’s history was excellent. We learn about her training for her role as the vessel for the goddess and her vampire father figure, and the scenes with him are well done and show emotional complexity. While I haven’t seen any information on Ms. Dane’s webpage indicating that this is the beginning of a new series, it easily could be, since there were several elements of the story that would provide ample material to develop. Given the improvements of the second half, I would be interested in reading a second novel in this series, because I very much liked the fictional world and how the mystery was tied up in the end. Overall, the novel had some serious problems at the start that were resolved as it progressed.

Review of Lori Foster’s When You Dare

Yesterday I poked fun at book covers featuring dark-haired heroines in tight leather pants, and after a trip to the library this afternoon, I now have plenty of other types of book covers to laugh at or drool over. I was thrilled to find Lori Foster’s newest, When You Dare (Men Who Walk the Edge of Honor #1), at the library, and it has an appropriately drool-worthy cover. I’ve noticed that romantic suspense covers seem to feature men in jeans or cargo pants with no shirt on, and this cover features a gentleman who is in excellent shape. And I would never complain about the eye candy, but I have to think that any guy in the military or police/fire department has to laugh like crazy when he sees one of the alpha males featured on these covers. This Lori Foster cover is pretty darn sexy, but the guy’s wearing his gun holster and not wearing a shirt. Because Lord knows he needs to be both sexy AND have access to his gun at the same time, right? He’s also wearing sunglasses and the background is completely dark, which makes me want to start singing bad eighties tunes (“I wear my sunglasses at night…”). I actually prefer this cover to some others I’ve seen where the cover model doesn’t have a head, but truly, I can’t complain because, hello, hot guy on the cover! Yummy!

Dare MacIntosh, the hero of When You Dare, is one sexy mercenary, and the novel begins with his rescuing two women from human traffickers in Mexico. One of the women is his friend’s younger sister, but the other woman is a stranger. She’s drugged, and since she’s clearly been abused and is an American, Dare rescues her. When she wakes up, Molly Alexander tells Dare that she was abducted over nine days ago, and she’s not really sure why this happened to her. Molly is a novelist who writes romantic suspense, and her most recent book is about to become a motion picture, but other than a few disgruntled fans and an ex-fiancé, she’s not sure who could have arranged her abduction. Since Dare is clearly very good at what he does, she hires him to help her find the person behind her kidnapping. Despite the trauma Molly’s undergone, the two have quite the sexual chemistry, and Dare finds himself falling for our plucky heroine.

I don’t usually read romantic suspense, but I really like Lori Foster so I thought I’d give this series a go. Often in romantic suspense the relationship between the hero and heroine feels rushed, but that was not the case here. Molly and Dare are able to take things slowly and get to know one another, with the sexual relationship developing later in the book. I liked the interactions between the two of them, and it was fun seeing how Molly would work on her writing. I like how Ms. Foster gave us glimpses of the life of the writer, and it made Molly an interesting heroine. Dare and Molly definitely have sexual chemistry, but given the circumstances of their meeting, I found it completely believable that Dare would take his time with her. I also liked how Dare kept calling Molly on her pretense that everything was fine. He reassured her that she would have future breakdowns and needed to have them.

One criticism I have of the novel is that the secondary characters weren’t particularly interesting. In fact, I was more interested in Dare’s two dogs than the people in the story, but that probably won’t surprise anyone who knows me since I love dogs. There are a few brief scenes with Molly’s father, and one extended scene with Molly’s sister, Natalie, but these take place later in the book. In fact, we meet all the “suspects” in the second half of the book, which just seems a little too late. Dare finds it odd from the beginning that no one seems to be worried or looking for Molly, even though she’s been missing for nine days. Molly convinces Dare not to contact Natalie really early on, but her reasons for doing so were fairly weak. She doesn’t want to tell Natalie she’s okay, because she thinks Natalie will start calling around trying to discover who’s behind the kidnapping and thus place herself in danger. I found that to be somewhat specious, since Natalie’s a teacher, and therefore college educated. Surely if Molly explained the situation, Natalie wouldn’t do anything to endanger her sister.

Perhaps because we don’t get to meet the “suspects” until later in the novel, I felt the suspense suffered a bit from all the time spent developing the relationship between Dare and Molly. I can’t believe I’m complaining about that, because I definitely prefer when the characters gradually build a connection rather than instantly jump into bed together, but the anxiety definitely levels off when Dare takes Molly to his house/compound in Kentucky. At the beginning of the novel, Molly has just started to recover physically from her experiences, and immediately there’s a second attempt to kidnap her, which Dare easily foils. But after that, the intensity lessens and the focus of the novel is almost entirely on their interaction. When we finally meet the secondary characters, we slowly move towards a resolution of the mystery, but I have to admit that I had a pretty good idea of who was behind the kidnapping fairly early on. There’s definitely some fast-paced action at the very end, but again, there just wasn’t much tension there.

In short, this romantic suspense was long on the romance and short on the suspense. I liked the focus on the relationship, and it really didn’t bother me that the suspense was lacking, but if you are looking for a real page-turner, this might not be for you. Ms. Foster is releasing the three books of the series over the months of June, July, and August, so the second installment will be out shortly. As the cover features yet another bare-chested male, I’ll certainly be checking it out!

Comments on Leather Pants and Review of Janni Nell’s South of Salem

Lately I’ve been pondering trends in book covers, particularly Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance. Apparently all heroines for UF/PNR have long, dark hair that whips around in the breeze, while they stand around in super-duper tight leather pants, a bustier, and several strategically placed tattoos. I have to wonder how these women are able to fight in leather pants. Did none of them see that episode of Friends where Ross wears the tight leather pants, sweats in them, and then can’t get them back on because they’ve shrunk? That’s gotta create some embarrassing situations (and possible chafing) if you’re about to kick some werewolf/vampire/demon’s butt, and you’re waaaaay sweaty and your super cool-looking leather pants tighten up and your butt-kicking ability is seriously impaired. Also, they all wear stilettos. Really? I must have missed the class in school about how to walk in stilettos. I’m pretty sure they covered that topic while I was in band. So I can never be any sort of UF/PNR heroine, since I don’t have long dark hair, and if I did, I would NOT want it whipping around my face and sticking in my lip gloss, which is just gross. We’ve established that I missed the walking in stilettos class, and if you think I own leather pants, much less a bustier, you’re crazy. And how does one fight in a bustier? Wouldn’t it be safer to wear a bullet-proof vest and a sports bra that smooshes everything down so it doesn’t get in the way of your sword?  Clearly I’m not the target audience for these book covers.

So I was pleased when I saw that the cover of Janni Nell’s South of Salem (Allegra Fairweather Mystery #2) features a lovely red-head’s face. Granted, she’s wearing way more eyeliner than I would, but she can get away with it because she’s not buying groceries at Walmart in rural Ohio. Allegra is a paranormal investigator, and she’s returned to Salem to visit her mother and sister, only to discover her perfectly coiffed society mother desperate because Allegra’s stepfather is possessed. Since no one in Allegra’s family wants to admit that the paranormal exists, Allegra’s usually not the most popular member of the family, but when a cousin dies from sleepwalking and all signs point to possession, Allegra steps in to help.

I love gritty, dark PNR. This is not gritty. In fact, South of Salem is distinctly lighthearted (at one point Allegra sings Barry Manilow), but that was a nice change of pace for this reader. Allegra’s sister Lily and her mother are described as perfect society wives who find themselves frantically trying to save their husbands, Steven Richard Hampton the 32^nd and Steven Richard Hampton the 33^rd. Fortunately, Allegra has the help of Casper, her guardian angel, and her best friend Wanda, a witch, to help her find whoever is targeting the males of the Hampton family. Allegra isn’t like a lot of PNR heroines in appearance or disposition, but she does care about her family, and her sense of humor helps her deal with them.

I enjoyed the book, mostly because it was so humorous. The Hampton family was delightfully snooty, and their behavior once possessed was the complete opposite of how they would normally behave. The only criticism I have of the book is that Allegra’s rivalry with her sister seemed overdone. Both are adults, yet sometimes when Allegra would think about her sister, she went way past snarky and into indifferent and cruel. At one point Allegra’s actually surprised that she’s worried about her pregnant sister’s safety when Lily’s kidnapped by the villain, which seems a bit extreme to me. The book is somewhat light on the romance, since Allegra has a thing for her guardian angel, Casper, and acting on that attraction would mean that he couldn’t be her guardian angel anymore. However, I look forward to seeing how Ms. Nell resolves this issue in future additions to the series, because the light flirting between the two was fun to read. Allegra wasn’t the take-charge, kick butt type of heroine you often see in PNR, and that made her all the more appealing to me. If you’re looking for a fun, short PNR that’s on the lighter side, this would be a great choice. And frankly, the lack of a leather-clad, stiletto-wearing heroine on the cover was just icing on the cake.

I was provided an ARC of this book for review through NetGalley.