Basia's Bookshelf Book Reviews — YA with a dash of adult, a bit of nerd and a lot of swooning

Rising, Freestyle (Xtreme Adventures #2)

July 5, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 2 Comments

By Vivian Arend

Publisher: Samhain Publishing Ltd.
Publication Date: July 5, 2011
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Author

Melanie Dixon’s body may have recovered from a horrific climbing accident, but her nerve is long gone. So is the natural enthusiasm for life she took for granted. Tired of being scared, beyond ready to conquer her fears, she pulls up stakes and moves to her brother’s new hometown to start over. Her first step is the most terrifying—to tackle the wall at the local climbing center.

Derrick James is mesmerized by Melanie’s dark beauty, and equally impressed with her climbing abilities and determination. Watching her retune rusty skills spurs a desire to partner with her—on and off the ropes. Melanie’s a compelling mix of wit, sensuality and vulnerability, and it’s his delicious task to convince her the scars on her body are no match for the heat rising between them.

Then a man from Melanie’s past shows up, pushing their relationship to the edge. Nathan King wants photographs for a “where are they now” series, but his side agenda is more personal in nature. A proposal that brings her out of her sensual shell and onto a precarious sexual ledge. Where trust is crucial…and too easily shattered.

Goodreads Summary

One slip of a rope, one safety failure and Melanie Dixon’s life as she knew it was gone. Once a confident rock climber, she’s scarred physically and mentally – years later she’s still locked in a box of fear. Taking a class at Derrick James’ climbing center is going to be her first step back to scaling something bigger than a set of stairs and the longer she works with the gorgeous instructor, scaling him is starting to look pretty good too. Holding her back are those lingering scars that seem to get bigger the closer she gets to him.

While the view from under Melanie as she’s relearning to climb is pretty fine, Derrick much prefers the one he gets when they’re face to face. She moves him – her courage, her beauty and her passion and the scars on her body are less than nothing to him. With Derrick, Melanie finally feels beautiful.

Her calm, happy life with Derrick and acceptance of her scars is torn away from her with the arrival of her old friend Nathan. He’s a photojournalist working for a big magazine and has supposedly shown up to work with her. He’s also an old crush of Melanie’s – a crush that hasn’t gone away – and he’s making it clear the feeling’s mutual. Derrick knows. He’s making it clear that Melanie’s his, but he’s not discouraging Nathan either even when he asks for a kind of trust from her that she’s only given to Derrick.

Well. I suppose I can get a couple of things out of the way before I start trying to make some sense in my thoughts in the review. I love Vivian Arend’s books in so many ways I just keep losing count. I own them all, I reread them all. I love the guys, I love the storylines and I usually end up sniffling through parts of the stories. Secondly, after I read Falling, Freestyle, I’d pretty much decided that Kane was my favorite male character Arend had written. Kane can move to the back of the bus. Derrick’s sitting with me in the front, sorry. Okay, on to the review.

Just from what tiny bits I’ve gathered of the author’s own odd habit of spending time outdoors in cold places where insects and animals live, doing things that involve rocks, water and snow, I’m sure she’s done her research well on the subject of rock climbing and it shows. Without being technically showy, I love that the characters know what they’re doing and the writing is confident. I shudder to think I’ll ever have to know what to do when someone yells “belay,” at me, but it would be handy to know how to make one of those hanging sex harness things if I find myself in a climbing center with a gorgeous instructor (never).

I could easily imagine the story could happen to any climber who’d suffered a bad fall. I liked that Melanie was just allowed to be - the story was really driven by Derrick and the majority of it seemed to be told from his perspective. Her internal story was more about feeling inadequate but the external was seeing how beautiful she was and of finding ways to show her and make her see it.

I think the worst that can be said about Derrick is that he didn’t ever really get irritated with Melanie which probably puts him on the border of being too perfect. He knew most of what he felt about her soon enough that he started making decisions about how to help her. I really loved being in his head seeing Melanie – his possessiveness, deep concern for her and appreciation of every bit of her had me alternating between shivering and sniffling. He’s smoking hot in bed (and in that climbing center harness) with Melanie. Rather than devote an entire paragraph to the sizzle this time that I need to start up my fan, I’ll just promise you that it’s gulp-worthy.

I had some mixed feelings about Nathan. I didn’t like him that much when he first showed up since I thought he was messing with Derrick and Melanie’s relationship. As things progressed and Derrick’s feelings became clear, I felt better. By the end I was left feeling somewhat fondly of him, although I’m still not sure I like him.

In Falling, Freestyle there was a committed menage relationship and I had a couple of people ask me if there would be some sort of menage involved in this story because of the blurb. I don’t usually go into to much detail but I was asked about it and thought I’d just include some spoiler behind white text.

Derrick asks Nathan to be the third once with Melanie but his participation is extremely limited, brief and he doesn’t get to, uh, fully enjoy himself with Derrick and Melanie in the flesh but as a voyeur. One final scene starts when he photographs Derrick and Melanie in a climbing encounter that turns sexual – his role is strictly limited to voyeurism.

I didn’t want to end this review without mentioning that Jack, Kane – who’s Melanie’s brother – and Dara from Falling, Freestyle, also make appearances here. It’s been about eight months since their story and there’s some fun and interesting perspective on how their relationship is going. It was a great addition and I loved it.

My Summary: While it would have been improbable that I wouldn’t have liked any Vivian Arend book anyway, I can easily say that this is wonderful and fully deserves the grade it gets on its own merit regardless of the author. The technical details were nice and it was a treat seeing the characters from the last book but what won me was that Derrick was big-hearted and wildly romantic, a hero worth the Kleenex pile in my lap and the happily ever after made me smile.

My Rating: A

*Both Falling, Freestyle and Rising, Freestyle are going to be published together in print, with an anticipated release next summer.
*There will be 2 more books in the Xtreme Adventures series, the next one will involve ocean kayaking (my note: shudder – fish and stuff)

Filed Under: *A Rating, Contemporary/Romance, Reviews Tagged With: Vivian Arend

Dark Awakening (Dark Dynasties #1)

July 3, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 2 Comments

By Kendra Leigh Castle

Publisher: Forever
Publication Date: July 1, 2011
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Source: Netgalley

For centuries, shapeshifting vampire Tynan MacGillivray has prowled the night as an outcast, valued only for his ferocious hunting skills. When a feud among the immortals escalates into all-out war, he is ordered by his ruthless queen to locate a Seer-a human woman with a special gift-who can secure victory for their clan. Ty’s search leads him to a quiet New England town, but once he has the Seer in his grasp, her touch awakens within him a hunger like he’s never known . . .

Lily Quinn has always been different. Since childhood, she’s had vivid nightmares and an eerie sixth sense. When a sexy, silver-eyed stranger demands her help, Lily plunges into a new world of danger and sensuality. With Ty, she discovers sizzling passions she cannot deny and powers she cannot control. Soon, it is clear that Lily is much more than a Seer-she holds the key to ancient secrets and unthinkable destruction. But will a vampire’s vow of eternal protection stop these evil forces . . . or unleash her dark destiny?

Goodreads Summary

Someone’s placed a curse on the highblood Ptolemy vampire clan that’s killing them off bit by bit and their queen has a good idea who it is. Arsinoe wants proof and for that she needs a Seer to confirm exactly who’s doing it and where. She’s sent her best hunter out to find one -Ty MacGillivray, a lowblood Cait Sith – but he’s not the only one looking. Rival highblood clan Dracul is also trying to find the Seer, but their motives are a little more sinister.

Lily Quinn is living a relatively normal life as a professor when she catches the handsome Ty following her after her latest ghost hunting excursion. She’s attracted until he starts in on the whole nutty Seer-vampire business, but right around the time some of the bad guys come to grab her, she decides Ty might be telling the truth and at least be able to protect her. As they drive west, Lily wrestles some of his story from him and learns about the vicious caste system among the vampires. Already seriously in lust with him, she loses her heart somewhere along the way too. The only problem is Ty – he’s declared her untouchable no matter what his feelings are.

Ty is loyal to one person: the queen of the Ptolemy, whether he likes it or not. She saved his life and he’ll spend his in servitude to her now. He has strong feelings for Lily – feelings that deepen the closer they get to Chicago and the queen – but he knows what his duty is just as clearly as he knows what Lily’s fate is as soon as she’s done with the job she’s destined to do. There’s just one thing holding him back from handing her over right away though. Each vampire house has its own mark and its members wear it. Ty wears the Cait Sith symbol and when he agreed to serve the House of Ptolemy, their mark was placed within it. Lily bears a mark no one has ever seen before, something no Seer should have.

This was a book that I had to really make myself stick with for the first quarter before I began to enjoy it. I didn’t have any problem following the storyline, but Ty was just such a stone that he made it difficult to even imagine any romance with Lily.

The world building was the best part of the book. I loved the set-up of the houses and even the caste system – the author included a nice glossary of each house, their leader, origins, strongholds and type of power at the beginning of the book which I thought was a really handy place for it. The members of each house are all easily physically identifiable as well, from the snobby Ptolemy to the eerie, creepy Grigori and the dangerous, simple Cait Sith. Without an excess of infodumping, the awful effects of the caste system are shown as well as the origins and evils of the houses. It would be an understatement to say the story is full of interesting sequel bait.

The one place I really didn’t connect with though was the romance between Lily and Ty. I understood why she was off-limits for him while he was taking her to the Ptolemy queen and when they were free to be with each other, they had some well-written steamy scenes. I liked Lily a lot – she was warm and compassionate and desperately wanted to help free the Cait Sith. She had a great wry sense of humor and despite being tossed into a really rotten and weird situation, kept looking for ways to help everyone else.

I never really got much of any emotional reaction to Ty though. Even though I could sympathize with the reasons for his initial sense of loyalty to the Ptolemy queen, he continued to turn his back on his Cait Sith brethren and even Lily for so much longer than he should have that it left a bad taste in my mouth. He felt cold to me rather than just solitary or the strong silent type. By the end of the story I did feel some emotion from him but it seemed motivated by shame and the desire to do the right thing more than any great passion. He wasn’t a horrible character – he fought hard to protect Lily whenever she was in danger and there were glimpses that he wasn’t always so closed off – but he had some major self-esteem issues that contributed to his disconnect that made it hard for me to like him as much as I wanted.

My Summary: Like any first book in a series, this seemed to be mostly about the world building and less about the romance. I liked the way the story ended with the arrangement of the houses and the relationship between Ty and Lily. I wouldn’t necessarily pick this up for the romance. The hero is more flawed than I liked for longer than I wanted but the action is very good and the writing is excellent. One of the characters introduced is the lead in the next book, Midnight Reckoning which has an anticipated release in January of 2012. Given the way this book ended and the character, I’d expect that book to read a bit more like a paranormal romance.

My Rating: B-

Filed Under: *B Rating, Paranormal Romance, Reviews Tagged With: Kendra Leigh Castle

Summer’s Crossing (Iron Fey #3.5)

June 29, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 5 Comments

By Julie Kagawa

Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication Date: June 1, 2011
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Source: Publisher

A Midsummer’s Nightmare? Robin Goodfellow. Puck. Summer Court prankster, King Oberon’s right hand, bane of many a faery queen’s existence—and secret friend to Prince Ash of the Winter Court. Until one girl’s death came between them, and another girl stole both their hearts.

Now Ash has granted one favor too many and someone’s come to collect, forcing the prince to a place he cannot go without Puck’s help—into the heart of the Summer Court. And Puck faces the ultimate choice—betray Ash and possibly win the girl they both love, or help his former friend turned bitter enemy pull off a deception that no true faery prankster could possibly resist.

Goodreads Summary

Having just left Meghan behind, Ash and Puck are searching for Grimalkin, the enigmatic cat that’s popped in and out to help them all whenever they’ve needed it on their journey. As they’re about to begin, they’re interrupted by Leanansidhe, Queen of the Exiles, who’s come to collect on the bargain she made with Ash. She wants him to sneak into the Summer Court and retrieve something Queen Titania stole from her. It should be a task impossible for a Winter Prince but he’s with Puck, a powerful Summer fae who loves nothing more than to make trouble for his Queen.

The long-troubled relationship between Ash and Puck had worsened when both fell in love with Meghan, but a truce had been called while they tried to find a way to help her. On their way to the Summer Court, Puck is unexpectedly offered the chance to force Meghan’s decision. He’s been given a choice – betray Ash and win her by default or ignore the offer and let Meghan decide.

I’ve really grown to love this series. The first book hooked me because it was so wildly imaginative and while pieces of individual books didn’t work for me, as a whole, it’s been an amazing journey.

I didn’t care much for the first novella because it seemed a little out of place with the characters acting oddly. Summer’s Crossing is completely different. It has a sweet, melancholy feeling to it that reflects the way The Iron Queen ended. Ash is a little more brooding and quiet and while Puck plays the irreverent fool like he always has, there’s an undertone of sadness. This trip to the Summer Court is a perfect way to force them to work together, argue and get back some of their comfortable animosity and rivalry. Puck and Ash just aren’t the same unless they’re at each other’s throats.

The one way that this is like Winter’s Passage is that there’s no resolution to anything. It’s just a little side journey on the way to something else. In this case, it’s the final book in the series - The Iron Knight (Iron Fey #4) is set to be released October 25, 2011 and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

My Summary: The adventure of sneaking into the Summer Court was fun but what won me were the emotions Kagawa wrung out of Ash and Puck and how familiar the characters felt in such a small space. Read all the books in order and then read this one to get the maximum effect.

My Rating: B+

Filed Under: *B Rating, Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult Tagged With: Julie Kagawa

Dark Descendant (Descendants #1)

June 28, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 6 Comments

By Jenna Black

Publication Date: April 11, 2011
Publisher: Pocket
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Source: Publisher

Nikki Glass can track down any man. But when her latest client turns out to be a true descendant of Hades, Nikki now discovers she can’t die. . . .

Crazy as it sounds, Nikki’s manhunting skills are literally god-given. She’s a living, breathing descendant of Artemis who has stepped right into a trap set by the children of the gods. Nikki’s new “friends” include a descendant of Eros, who uses sex as a weapon; a descendant of Loki, whose tricks are no laughing matter; and a half-mad descendant of Kali who thinks she’s a spy.

But most powerful of all are the Olympians, a rival clan of immortals seeking to destroy all Descendants who refuse to bow down to them. In the eternal battle of good god/bad god, Nikki would make a divine weapon. But if they think she’ll surrender without a fight, the gods must be crazy. . . .

Goodreads Summary

It all started simply enough when P.I. Nikki Glass’ client Emmitt Cartwright called her to meet him at the headquarters of the cult he believed was holding his girlfriend Maggie. He’d hired Nikki to locate her and she had, but now he said Maggie had contacted him and wanted out and for some reason he wanted Nikki there to “witness” it in case things went wrong. Things went very wrong when she hit and killed Emmitt with her car inside the compound and from wrong to very, very bad when the welcoming committee assumed she meant to murder him.

Injured and threatened, Nikki finds out that she’s a Descendant of the goddess Artemis and the “cult” Maggie is a part of is really a group of other immortal Descendants called the Liberi. Emmitt was one of them and when Nikki killed him, she “stole” his immortality for herself, earning the particular hatred of his close friend Jamaal. No one believes her when she swears Emmitt’s death wasn’t her fault and not willing to wait around and be executed, Nikki escapes only to be found by a second, more sinister group of Descendants called the Olympians.

With her particular goddess talent of being able to hunt, the Olympians want her to chase down stray Descendants to face punishment and they’re willing to twist Nikki’s arm hard to get her to do their dirty work. The Liberi also want Nikki to find something, but they don’t trust her and every minute she spends with them she’ll need to watch her back because at least one of them has warned her that she’s a dead woman if they find out she hasn’t been honest with them.

This isn’t the most complex gods and goddesses/mythology-based book I’ve read this year and yet it’s the best, in some part because of it. I loved that there weren’t big pockets of infodump and that each Descendant’s power was straightforward and related to their god or goddess. It was refreshing that when Nikki became immortal, it didn’t come with the Artemis instruction manual. The setup of the two groups is also pretty clear and the reasons they don’t get along are spelled out. The Liberi may be the good guys but they’re not sunshine and light. Their leader Anderson is an enigma. No one knows exactly what he is, but he’s powerful and uses a strong, intimidating hand to rule the house. Jamaal’s a Descendant of Kali, a god of Death, and he’d love to see Nikki dead for what happened to Emmitt.

There were so many things I liked about Nikki in addition to her not being insta-supergirl. She wasn’t as much of a smart ass as a lot of UF heroines but she stayed wonderfully suspicious of everyone who wouldn’t trust her even if she felt a twinge of conscience when she had to hurt them. I usually feel pretty let down if there’s no romance of any kind for my heroine in a book, but I was okay that there wasn’t any here. She had a little bit of a connection with the cranky Jamaal that might go somewhere eventually but I also thought she had something twitchy happening with Anderson. In either case I would have thought it weird if anything had happened considering how much distrust there was in the story.

There was one part of the story that might have dragged the rating down if it had taken up even slightly more space than it did. Nikki was adopted by the Glass family and has an older sister, Steph. Steph is the quintessential princess, rich and blonde, bubbly and attracts men like flies to honey, everything Nikki would be jealous of if only she weren’t such a gosh golly darn sweet woman with a heart of gold. Of course the Olympians want to use her as leverage to get Nikki to work for them and when Anderson puts protection on Steph, it ends up being Blake, the Descendant of Eros and of course, Steph and Blake have insta-google eyes for each other, the twu wuv kind. There are more spoilery things that happen that kept my sweet tooth from falling out entirely, but that really was more than enough.

My Summary: I was very happy to have picked this up even though I was a little leery because of the mythology theme that I’d been burned by lately. It’s a pretty straightforward take with a fairly no-frills heroine and doesn’t require a flow chart and a clothesline to suspend your belief. There’s enough violence to remind you that you’re not reading YA, and some of it’s pretty gruesome – a beheading and a stiletto in the eye are just two examples – and the action picks up midway through the book and keeps up a quick pace to the end. Things wrap up nicely – there’s no cliffhanger for anyone who wants to read this as a standalone but there are a few unanswered questions to be carried over into the next story. The second book in the series, Deadly Descendant, is scheduled for release in March of 2012 and I hope the series extends past that.

My Rating: A-

Filed Under: *A Rating, Reviews, Urban Fantasy Tagged With: Jenna Black

Shameless (The House of Rohan #4)

June 26, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf Leave a Comment

By Anne Stuart

Publisher: Mira
Publication Date: June 28, 2011
Genre: Historical Romance
Source: Netgalley

A long string of tragic loves haunts Viscount Benedick Francis Alistair Rohan. Cool and cynical, he’s weary of life’s fickle games and wants a prim and proper wife he can ignore while indulging his sensual appetites.

Lady Melisande Carstairs is nothing less than a tornado storming into Benedick’s measured life. Possessed of boundless energy and the soul of a reformer, Melisande always conquers, whether it’s saving the souls of soiled doves or seducing the man she’s inconveniently fallen for. When she informs Benedick that his brother’s newly revived Heavenly Host has graduated from simple carnal debauchery to sadistic violence, he’s compelled to investigate, undercover. Under those covers, however, is Melisande herself, playing a dangerous game in the name of justice.

And the Heavenly Host has just seen her hand, and more…

Goodreads Summary

Both Lady Melisande Carstairs and Lord Benedick Rohan are on missions. Melisande is on a crusade to rescue and reform prostitutes and has turned her late husband’s giant townhouse into a group home for her soiled doves. Benedick has decided it’s time to find his third – hopefully last – wife, a plump mousy sort who’ll give him an heir and a spare and then fade into the wallpaper while he continues his lifestyle of debauchery. Their missions collide when Benedick sends for one of his past favorites for a brief encounter – she’s living with Melisande now but she hasn’t quite lost her enthusiasm for her previous profession. Benedick hasn’t even had a chance to undo his buttons before Melisande bursts in to drag her charge away, and mistaking her for Violet’s madame, he makes an outrageous proposal before she storms out with his entertainment in tow.

Sooner than either would like, Benedick and Melisande end up together again when she comes to him for help. Girls have come to her house beaten and raped, telling her the presumed defunct Heavenly Host – a secretive club where the very rich engage in all sorts of sexual practices – has been reassembled. The girls have told Melisande that acts with children at the club are no longer consensual and it’s turned dark and violent and now a girl is missing. Benedick’s ancestors were the founders of the club and Melisande goes to him for help in finding the girl. He’s not particularly willing – not only does he not believe her, he’s not all that eager to spend any time with the tart-tongued, disagreeable Melisande – but she makes enough of a nuisance of herself that he’s forced to.

Despite being unable to shake her off during the investigation, Benedick is forced to admit that even if Melisande is maddening, he’s attracted to her and she’s begun to realize that maybe there’s a reason women enjoy sex with the right partner and Benedick might be just the right partner for her.

I love, love this series. I feel like I’ve been waiting ages for this book, although it’s only been eight months since Breathless, the last book in the series, had been released. For just a small bit of background on the way the series has worked up until this point: the first book in the series is Ruthless, Francis (Rohan) and Elinor’s story. The second is Reckless, which is Francis and Elinor’s son Adrian (Rohan) and Charlotte’s story. The third is Breathless, which is Adrian and Charlotte’s daughter Miranda (Rohan) and Lucien’s story. Normally, this would have been Miranda and Lucian’s child’s story, but then it would have lost the Rohan line I suppose, since the child would have Lucian’s last name. The end of that long, convoluted paragraph is to explain that Shameless is the story of Miranda’s older brother Benedick Rohan, who appeared briefly in Breathless which took place about ten years earlier than this story.

This is probably the most classically “historical romance” of all four Rohan books. There’s a dashing rakish hero who’s been unlucky in love and now is looking only to marry someone he won’t care about, an older spunky widow who’s devoted herself to some controversial charity and there’s a dangerous mystery that’s uniting them long enough that they’ll realize they’re a good match. Of course the others had the same bare bones classic plots too, but Stuart took them to another level by making her heroes completely dastardly and putting her heroines in truly awful conditions. To varying degrees of success, she also had secondary romances. Neither of those are present here and it made for a little blander reading than I was expecting.

When Benedick first appeared in Breathless, he was married to Annis, his first wife whom he loved very much. She died in childbirth, as did his second wife, which had contributed to his reasons for wanting nothing more than a sturdy broodmare of a wife to drop a couple of babies and then just leave him alone. Unlike Francis and Adrian, he was never written with any sexual darkness and he wasn’t forceful about anything. Unlike Lucien, he wasn’t particularly evil although he said cruel things when he wanted to make Melisande leave him alone. He was very sexy and smooth and he had a very well-developed conscience.

Melisande – who was nicknamed “Charity” in a not-altogether friendly way – was a bit of a combination of the heroines of the previous Rohan books. She was a little “off the shelf” because of her age (30) but still mostly sexually innocent. She was a champion of the less-fortunate, smart and a little dowdy – a fixer-upper for a Rohan. What set Melisande apart was her tendency to argue about everything, although Benedick contributed his fair amount. They didn’t banter much, they out and out argued. I liked her more toward the end of the book and when she was with her “gaggle” and best friend Emma. She was softer and her gentle, sometimes insecure side came out.

While there wasn’t a secondary romance developed in Shameless, there were some other important things happening. Benedick’s brother Brandon who’d last been seen as a happy carefree man is now a scarred and disfigured wreck, thanks to the Afghan War. He’s been staggering around Benedick’s townhouse for two months drunk, likely drugged and certainly up to something very bad. He has a connection to Emma from when he was immediately brought in injured from the war.

There’s also a really wonderful, funny little storyline with Benedick’s sister Miranda and her husband Lucien. She’s as delightful as ever and I love how her relationship Lucien turned out – and Benedick hates him just as much as he always did, which is equally hilarious. When Breathless ended, I was disappointed. He was so incredibly evil for nearly the entire book that his redemption felt as brief as a blink. This little look at their marriage completely satisfied me. I’m also happy that at the end of Shameless there’s a tiny epilogue – it’s completely appropriate given the storyline and after I read it I realized if it had been left off, the book would have felt incomplete.

My Summary: It’s difficult to rate this book without comparing it to the others in the series because while it wasn’t the worst, it wasn’t close to the best either and there’s not a lot of wiggle room in between. Technically compared to other historicals, this is a fine book – Stuart is a great author who can make dialogue snap and write steamy sex scenes without ever being graphic and she’s done that here. I wasn’t always in love with Melisande and Benedick, but I could see why they’d fall in love with each other. My problem with the story was that I was comparing it to the other House of Rohan books and I found it a little lukewarm – whether it’s good or bad, Stuart is famous for her dark, seemingly irredeemable heroes and Benedick never was that for me. I wasn’t really that surprised when he and Melisande fell in love and I never even needed a grovel scene – sacrilege in a Stuart romance.

My Rating: C+

Filed Under: *C Rating, Historical Romance, Reviews Tagged With: Anne Stuart

The Day Before

June 21, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 3 Comments

By Lisa Schroeder

Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publication Date: June 28, 2011
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Source: Publisher

Amber’s life is spinning out of control. All she wants is to turn up the volume on her iPod until all of the demands of family and friends fade away. So she sneaks off to the beach to spend a day by herself.Then Amber meets Cade. Their attraction is instant, and Amber can tell he’s also looking for an escape. Together they decide to share a perfect day: no pasts, no fears, no regrets.

The more time that Amber spends with Cade, the more she’s drawn to him. And the more she’s troubled by his darkness. Because Cade’s not just living in the now—he’s living each moment like it’s his last.

Goodreads Summary

The day before her life will change forever, Amber decides to run away and spend the time alone, not thinking about anything more than the moment. Not long after she arrives at the beach, she meets Cade, a boy who’s come there for the same reason – he has his own life-altering path to take the next day and he’d like to spend this day just pretending nothing else exists. The two spend the entire day together at the beach, discovering how many things they have in common and as they gradually reveal their secrets to each other, falling in love.

I found myself really struggling to get through this despite its remarkably short length. The entire book is written in free-form verse style, interspersed with short letters to and from Amber. I was reading this on my Nook and with each double-spaced short line taking up an average of half of the screen – there were 320 total pages – I was able to read this in about an hour or so. It may be physically easier to read in paperback form because you won’t be flipping pages so often, but that’s only one of the problems I had.

I don’t have anything against stories told in verse form. I think when written well they can be emotionally stirring, evocative and memorable. I give credit to the author for trying to tell her stories in such a unique way (her three earlier books, Far From You, Chasing Brooklyn, and I Heart You, You Haunt Me are also told in verse) and there’s a dreamy disconnected feeling to this that seems to suit Amber’s mood. That disconnect extends to the story though – the verse isn’t linear long enough to ever delve that deeply into anything. Rather than feeling like a strong, brave way to tell the story, the use of verse felt more like a way to write the story without having to do the dirty work of going all the way to the bones of the characters.

At this point it’s probably a bit like piling on, but while I really was irritated with the style of writing and was thinking often that I’d wished the author would have taken some time and written this like a novel, I probably still wouldn’t have loved it although I’d have had less to gripe about. Amber’s situation that she was running from was one of those “ripped from the headlines” type. You’d think that would be enough for one story but Cade’s was one suitable for a made for television movie. Toss in their insta-love, a romantic day at the beach, constant lyric and movie references and comparisons to their situations – are you imagining a soundtrack yet? I love happily-ever-afters and romance but this was over the top even for me. What teenage guy in 2011 knows about the scenes from a John Cusak movie from the 80′s that I’m pretty sure isn’t a cult classic?

My Summary: This book was fraught with problems for me from its style to the overabundance of drama in a relatively shallow story. I kept seeing flashes of good things that made me wish for more – a lovely turn of phrase, a hint of a story twist – but then I’d turn the page and it would vanish. At the end, this felt more like the outline of a script for an ABC Family movie of the week than a book.

My Rating: D+