Basia's Bookshelf Book Reviews — Book reviews for the romantic, slightly snarky nerds in all of us

The Vespertine (The Vespertine #1)

March 3, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 3 Comments

By Saundra Mitchell

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Childrens
Publication Date: March 7, 2011
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Source: Netgalley

It’s the summer of 1889, and Amelia van den Broek is new to Baltimore and eager to take in all the pleasures the city has to offer. But her gaiety is interrupted by disturbing, dreamlike visions she has only at sunset—visions that offer glimpses of the future. Soon, friends and strangers alike call on Amelia to hear her prophecies. However, a forbidden romance with Nathaniel, an artist, threatens the new life Amelia is building in Baltimore. This enigmatic young man is keeping secrets of his own—still, Amelia finds herself irrepressibly drawn to him. When one of her darkest visions comes to pass, Amelia’s world is thrown into chaos. And those around her begin to wonder if she’s not the seer of dark portents, but the cause.

Goodreads Summary

This was another case of the cover being the first thing that lured me into looking at a book - I may have a thing for YAs with heroines in billowing dresses and long flowing hair. It didn’t hurt that upon actually paying attention to the words on the screen I saw that it was written by Mitchell, who wrote the fabulous Shadowed Summer. Like that story, the beauty of The Vespertine really lies in Mitchell’s lyrical prose - this book is a little depressing in most spots, frankly, but the way it’s told is just lovely.

It’s early 1889, and Amelia’s been sent by her brother to stay with her cousin’s family in Baltimore to see if she can be introduced to some proper men in hopes of finding a husband. She quickly becomes best friends with her cousin Zora and is sort of welcomed into her circle of friends and family – sort of. As the “country cousin” from Maine she’s a little ungainly, awkward and doesn’t necessarily fit in with the more urbane group. During one of their parties, she met a mysterious young artist named Nathaniel – called a Fourteenth, he’s someone that’s occasionally hired to even the number of guests at a party. Amelia’s drawn to the very unsuitable man – there’s no way her brother would allow him to meet her formally, much less court her, but Nathaniel kept showing up every time she thinks of him.

Amelia’s first vision was of Zora dancing with Thomas, the physician’s son she’s smitten with. When it happened exactly as Amelia saw, Zora started telling people, and soon the household was deluged with calling cards from people who wanted their fortunes told. When Amelia’s more ominous predictions started to come true – everyone that claimed to be her friend started to turn on her and treat her like a freak, except Nathaniel, who had more in common with her than she ever could have guessed.

The story is told in flashbacks, from Amelia’s present day autumn of 1889, back home in Maine, to her stay in Baltimore earlier that year. I have to admit, for the first full page I had no idea at all what I was reading. She’s rambling on like the mad woman her brother has her locked in the attic as. It’s also an adjustment to get used to Mitchell’s style of writing – it’s a little flowery, a little Victorian and a little overblown. Two chapters in, I was enchanted.

Amelia was really a typical girl for a good part of the story - she was on an adventure in Baltimore, learning to fit in with a new group of friends, meeting a new and sort of dangerous young man who would definitely be off-limits if she were at home. Her relationship with Nathaniel is a little dreamlike – his presence is almost always on the edge of her story with everyone else, almost as if it exists a little outside of it and when he reveals a secret about himself, how he and Amelia are somewhat alike, it explains why. There isn’t a lot of page time given to developing his character - there’s a moment when Amelia pops up unannounced on his doorstep and he looks a little shocked, I wondered if there was going to be a hidden wife in there – but when he is there with Amelia, he’s definitely dark and ardently romantic. No hidden wife, either.

As the number of people wanting readings from Amelia increased and her control over her visions started slipping and they started getting more deadly, I started to wonder how badly I wanted to finish. In the flashbacks, Amelia had given some indication of what she thought had happened, but she was a little hysterical about things and I had no idea if she was being literal or not. Reading it through is worth it though – getting through the terrible events that lead there is draining, but the ending is a shocker.

My Summary: Mitchell has taken what would have been an average story and elevated it with her elegant writing and the fascinating relationships between Amelia and Zora and Amelia and Nathaniel. My only gripes are that I wish Nathaniel had been less of a mystery and that the story hadn’t been so short – or at least that the ending hadn’t been as abrupt as it was, since I don’t think there’s going to be more to Amelia’s story. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series though - Springsweet will be released in early 2012 and will be set in the Victorian-era wild-west.

My Rating: B+

Filed Under: *B Rating, Paranormal, Reviews, Young Adult Tagged With: Saundra Mitchell

The Perfect Scandal

March 2, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf Leave a Comment

By Delilah Marvelle

Publisher: HQN
Publication Date: March 1, 2011
Genre: Historical Romance
Source: Netgalley

If there is any
thing Tristan Adam Hargrove, fourth Marquis of Moreland, has learned to avoid, it’s scandal. For the dark and dashing lord is not only an honorable gentleman who would never seduce a woman for his own gain, he is also the author of How to Avoid a Scandal, the infamous red book that has swept like wildfire through the better part of London society.

When a raven-haired beauty arrives as his new neighbor, he knows better than to succumb to the desire he feels. He knows little about her—only that she is high born, a protégé of the Crown and completely unsuitable for the base passions he hides from the world. If only he had never glimpsed the vulnerable beauty one fateful night. If only her lips were not so ravishingly red. If only it were not already too late to save her and himself from the untamed passion he is about to unleash in the name of love.

Goodreads Summary

This is the final book in Marvelle’s Scandal trio, stories all linked by that little red etiquette book, How to Avoid a Scandal. These were my first introductions to Marvelle, so I’m not sure what her style is with her other books, but she kept things provocative with these three. The first, Prelude to a Scandal, involved the suggestion of sexual addiction in Regency England among rakes; the second, Once Upon a Scandal, featured the main character’s time spent in paid servitude (sometimes sexual) in Italy to a rich man’s wife. The Perfect Scandal has one character who engages in cutting and the other is missing a leg and neck-deep in political intrigue. I don’t know why, but I thought this might be something just a little more sedate after the first two.

Banished to England for some reason she can’t fathom and told she’s going to have to marry, Countess Zosia Kwiatkowska has decided she’s going to marry someone who’ll help her further her political interests. Investigating her neighbor, she’s found he’s got a high enough seat in Parliament and is respected enough that he’ll do, so she sets about finding a way to introduce herself to him – for the unconventional Countess, it’s having an improper conversation with Tristan from her bedroom window one night as he stands below watching her. Tristan is intrigued – and scandalized – by Zosia.

When Tristan’s overprotective grandmother finds out he’s been seen talking to the mysterious Countess, she forbids him from seeing her, which only makes him determined to meet her formally. Zosia tells him about her desire to campaign on behalf of the Polish people using his Parliamentary seat and he finds out that she lost part of her leg; she finds out that Tristan isn’t the staid, passionless man she thought he was. Because of a tragedy in his past, he’d developed the habit of cutting himself with a razor – he constantly carried his razor case with him. Just when the two figured out they’re misfits that fit perfectly together, a big mess of Russian and Polish politics explodes and the story veers off into strange-land.

Marvelle does deep and disturbed very well. Tristan was the epitome of a leashed beast and when Zosia accepted him for what he was and didn’t condemn him for what he’d done to himself, she freed a darker, sexual side of him. He gave me shivers sometimes with the things he didn’t do with her – half of the things he said he was going to do to her or the things he imagined doing with her were more flamingly hot than if they’d actually taken place because of her (or his) reaction to them. As in the earlier two books, the chapters were led by quotes from How to Avoid a Scandal, although in this case, they were Tristan’s rough draft, occasionally containing expletives and a few suggestive comments that said more about him than the final version. The man has a way with words.

It would be an understatement to say I was surprised Marvelle chose to go with a one-legged crusading Polish Countess for her heroine. That’s not to say I didn’t like Zosia – she was wickedly flirtatious and it was a pleasure to read her banter with Tristan. Beyond the beginning of the story when she was pursuing Tristan though, things just happened to her. She stopped being a woman who did things and became a woman who went where she was led, even if it happened to be that most of the time she was forced to go by circumstances.

As a matter of personal taste, I think there are only so many obstacles that should be shoved in one book. Tristan’s cutting. Zosia’s missing leg. Tristan’s grandmother is agoraphobic. Zosia’s fervor for Polish rights. No fewer than six more within the last several chapters alone including my least favorite trope plus a deus ex machina as the cherry on top. I adored Tristan, I wanted to see him happy but I’d just about had it with the intrigue and silliness. There were serious issues here that Marvelle had given some insightful and intelligent voice to, just as she had in her earlier books, but they were hidden because of what felt like a loss of focus to me. Once Upon a Scandal worked so well for me because it chose one issue and the relationship; Prelude to a Scandal did roughly the same.

My Summary: Despite being what felt like an out of control rollercoaster by the end, there were elements of this book that kept redeeming it in spite of itself. Marvelle continues to fascinate me with her flawed characters and depth of research and she isn’t lacking in original ideas. If some of the politics and insanity at the end had been left out, this story would have been better for it though.

My Rating: B-

Filed Under: *B Rating, Historical Romance, Reviews Tagged With: Delilah Marvelle

Turn it On (Turner Twins #1)

February 28, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf Leave a Comment

By Vivian Arend

Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Publication Date: January 19, 2011
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Author

Pushing the sensual limits can set off all kinds of alarms…

Inheriting her grandmother’s home is a dream come true for web designer Maxine Turner. She’s looking forward to a little freedom from the constant demands of her beloved, crazy mob of a family. When vandals expose just how vulnerable she is living alone, she seeks help.

Ryan Claymore’s well-thought-out life was wrenched out from under him when responsibility for his special-needs stepbrother landed on his shoulders. Going from military man to business man hasn’t been easy. He counts himself lucky he’s found Maxine to trade his security-system knowledge for her website expertise. The red-hot chemistry that sizzles between them comes from out of the blue, and they both fight a losing battle to resist. Even the secret Ryan hides isn’t enough to keep Maxine from working her way into his heart-and his bed. But something else might tear them apart. Whoever seems determined to destroy her home, and her sanity along with it.

Warning: Realistic multiple orgasm sex scenes, men getting in touch with their emotions, brothers being-well-brothers, and a very tempting back-porch swing…you have been warned.

Goodreads Summary

Although both books completely stand alone, in the series timeline, this story technically comes after Turn it Up (Turner Twins #2), which was released earlier this month and is Maxine’s brother Max Junior’s story. They really don’t have to be read in order and you don’t necessarily have to read both, but I promise the whole experience is greatly enhanced if you do. The Turner family is terrific and since Max Junior and his wife Tasha appear here a little bit, their story will make sense and have some meaning if you do. Plus, it’s truly an awesome story – have Kleenex on hand.

Maxine “Max” Turner decided she needed a security system installed in her huge family home when vandals broke in and the new client for her brother’s company and her web design services is an expert in the field. Forget sparks – what was a flicker when they first met turned into fireworks by the time she and Ryan finished going over the security needs at her house later. Neither one plays any games – they start dating immediately, knowing starting an affair is going to happen soon. Their relationship is complicated by her huge family intruding (something similar happens in Turn it Up – it’s funny), his responsibility to his handicapped brother and the ongoing vandalism at her house.

This isn’t a story with a really intricate suspense plot or one with a huge, dark and evil secret (like a dead wife!) that you know will threaten to tear the couple apart. This is mostly a story about the happy developing relationship between Max and Ryan and the smaller, irritating and sometimes sad stuff that keeps happening to them that they have to deal with to keep themselves together. I really found the resolution to the vandalism issue a little annoying. Not because the plot itself was poorly done, but because I just thought it would be something more interesting. There’s a little flip from Turn it Up – Tasha was twelve years older than Max Junior there and here, Ryan is roughly the same amount older than Max.

I’m going to digress for a minute here. I’ve said that Lauren Dane is one of my favorite authors when it comes to writing women and Arend is one of my favorites when it comes to writing men. They’re not all the same – the ages, personalities and ah, bedroom activities, are all different, but they all have a certain something in common that’s harder to pin down. They always have good hearts, are decent men who treat people with respect and who not only know when they’re messing up, but admit it pretty quickly and do something about it. I’m not any kind of writer, so I don’t know what it takes to do all of that, I just know that when I pick up one of Arend’s books, I’m not going to get an asshole alpha hero who’ll deliberately say something nasty to the heroine to get her to go away for her own good or who’ll ever be less than a decent guy when he gets sexually involved with her.

Back to this story. I think my pockets are getting full of the guys I want to keep from the last several Arend books I’ve read now that I’ve added Ryan to them. He was a bundle of everything interesting - contrasted with Max’s innocence, his experience everywhere was exciting, from picking places to eat, to the bedroom. His grief over his brother’s accident and even his frustration about whether there’d be any sort of place for him in a life with Max really emphasized how much more mature he was than her (not sure if that was the idea, but it took me there). He tended to go a little overly-alpha on Max about the vandalism thing, but then she was a little too ditzy about it, so I balanced out the points there.

Since I read Turn it Up first, I already knew Max was ultra-sheltered by her enormous family and had also been treated pretty badly by her stinker of an ex-boyfriend. How badly was revealed eventually when she and Ryan were together and it was just achingly sad. The way she eventually bloomed around him was sweet and I liked that she kept a little of her sort of gawky innocence even to the end of the story. Max is one of those people that everyone in the family takes advantage of - last minute babysitter, bringing an extra casserole to the party - you know the one. While she wants to stop her family always dropping in on her, she’s a natural nurturer and this causes one bit of miscommunication between her and Ryan and a brief, nearly head-bangingly stupid moment. Her stubborn and sort of wide-eyed idiocy on the vandalism issue gave her a few more moments, but thankfully there were only a few of them.

I always seem to leave the sexy moment commentary to the end (sort of like dessert!). Ryan, being the alpha god that he is, brings it. He has to take it slow with Max because she’s been really messed up by the moron she dated before him, but it makes for some painfully hot scenes. I personally can’t believe I’m saying this, but I had one complaint – I sort of felt like Ryan was holding back. I have no idea why, but I thought he might get a little more..dirty. How..dirty of me.

My Summary: I’m a little bummed that Arend didn’t manage to dig up a hidden Turner triplet somewhere, I liked this duo of books so much. Ryan and Max’s relationship is sexy and complicated and full of family issues that made it fun to read. I wish it had been given a longer format (it was category rather than novel) because I think there were things that were rushed at the end and I’d have loved another chapter or two to see how a couple of issues worked out for Max and Ryan.

My Rating: B+

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

The Yearning

February 28, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf Leave a Comment

By Tina Donahue

Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Publication Date: December 14, 2010
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Purchased

To break this curse, they’ll have to turn the heat up. Way up.

Jasmine Dante prowls Key West’s nightlife, fighting a losing battle against a jealous rival’s curse that forces her to seek carnal pleasure, no matter the danger. Weakened from lack of sleep, driven by insatiable lust, she spots a man who stirs her desperate craving, and begins yet another dance of seduction. Except the dark stranger who returns her direct stare is no ordinary lover. Inside his powerful body lies a raw sexuality that just might be enough to break her curse. There’s only one way to find out: imprison him in her bed and feed on his passion.

Former U.S. Marshal Mike Stearn is many things, but he’s no woman’s sex slave. The deadly telekinetic power he ruthlessly suppresses comes alive again at Jasmine’s touch. Beneath her bold, potent sensuality he senses vulnerability and desperation. He may be in handcuffs, but she’s the one who’s enslaved. As Mike resurrects his power to free himself so he can find the curse’s source and defeat it, Jasmine revels in his masterful rule. Her ravenous yearning evolves into rapture as she surrenders to his hunger, her darkest needs—and the emotional connection that lies beyond. Unless the curse takes her life first…

Warning: Tons of steamy sex, smoldering passion and a to-die-for love story with a hot Alpha hero who finds himself imprisoned by one sultry and desperate babe.

Goodreads Summary

I periodically take stock of what’s in my TBR pile and when the compulsion hits to add to it, start getting obsessive-compulsive and think about what’s missing to make it balanced in case I get into a funk and want to read something different. In the case of my last shopping trip to Samhain, I realized I was out of the super hot stuff. This has “carnal” and “lust” all in the first paragraph, there’s a cop with telekinesis and voodoo tossed in there too – lots of ingredients for sexy right? It just never really gelled though. In a strange way, this story managed to be less than the sum of its many, many parts – it wasn’t a bad book, it just left me feeling like it should have been so much better.

Jasmine Dante’s singular mistake was in accepting a date from a man who was the object of a gypsy Wanderer’s unrequited obsession. The gypsy cursed her to always want men who wouldn’t want her and to waste away for sexual need of them. Now Jasmine trolls bars and other places trying to find men to lure to her bed to stay alive long enough to find the gypsy and get her to remove the curse. When she zeroes in on Mike, she’s upset because she likes him – something beyond just wanting sex from him, something that hasn’t happened before. She can’t afford not to take him home though, and she thinks that one night with him will be enough, but for some reason the curse hits her harder and she’s forced to keep Mike against his will, handcuffed to her bed with the help of her two sisters and a guy that lives with the three of them. Mike wants to help Jasmine break the curse, not just to free himself, but because he sees something vulnerable about her that calls to him, but he has to try to call up his dormant telekinetic abilities to get himself loose to do it.

There were things here that I liked, but so much that was confusing and left unexplained. Jasmine and Mike had great chemistry, even when she apparently wasn’t under the demands of the curse. I was astounded by his endless stamina, but suspension of anatomical belief is required for most erotica and I could do that since their scenes were hot and still actually tasteful. There was a single very brief m/f/m menage scene while Jasmine was heavily under the influence of the curse and ill – it was with Mike’s consent (no homosexual contact) and there was no romantic connection between Jasmine and the other party, although they were friends.

Mike was the single best part of the story and much of it was told from his perspective. Even though this all took part in just a handful of days, he came to care about Jasmine a lot and felt a lot of tenderness toward her, even after she locked him to her bed and her family pretty much told him he wasn’t leaving the house, period. However unrealistic it might have been to have developed feelings for her so quickly, his affection and concern for her were sweet and balanced nicely with the super hot erotic scenes.

There were simply too many other bits and pieces dropped into the story that were either left incomplete, not clearly described or just didn’t make a lot of sense for me to fully enjoy this. To go into too many of them would give away a lot of spoilers, but for one example of the plot clutter, Mike notices there are pictures on the wall that don’t match the faded frame shapes on the wallpaper. Jasmine gets sad about it and it turns out the sisters removed all family pictures so no one they brought to the house would be able to identify them. But, you’re having monkey sex with them for hours. I think they can remember you from that. The sisters also operate a dress-making business out of the house and at one point the two sisters have to deal with a client coming by for a fitting. Why on earth is either thing relevant? Normally those things would give the story some depth and character, but there’s so much else going on, the pretty large amount of space devoted to this kind of stuff should have been used for other things, in my opinion.

Jasmine alluded to a man or men that she’d brought back to the house that didn’t leave alive, I think. I say I think because I really don’t know – she pleaded with her sisters to let Mike go in the morning because he wasn’t like the others, he could be trusted, which implies that there were others who couldn’t be and weren’t let go. The gypsy is part of the Wanderers, a pretty fascinating group, if you’ve heard of them, but nothing at all is done with them. Zero. I don’t even know why they were brought up. I don’t know why Mike’s telekinesis was brought up either, but too much of that’s a spoiler.

My Summary: Like I said, this isn’t really a bad book. I didn’t hate it, but it was just middling for me. The erotica was well done which is in and of itself a win, but the promising plot failed under the mountain of incomplete, inexplicable details.

My Rating: C-

Filed Under: *C Rating, Contemporary/Romance, Reviews Tagged With: Tina Donahue

The Green-Eyed Demon (Sabina Kane #3)

February 23, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf Leave a Comment

By Jaye Wells

Publisher: Orbit
Publication Date: March 1, 2011
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Source: Netgalley

Things to do:
1. Rescue sister.
2. Murder grandmother.
3. Don’t upset the voodoo priestess.
The clock is ticking for Sabina Kane. Her sister has been kidnapped by her grandmother, the Dark Races are on the brink of war, and a mysterious order is manipulating everyone behind the scenes.
Working on information provided by an unlikely ally, Sabina and her trusty sidekicks–a sexy mage named Adam Lazarus and Giguhl, a Mischief demon–head to New Orleans to begin the hunt for her sister. Once there, they must contend with belligerent werewolves, magic-wielding vampires and–perhaps most frightening of all–humans.
But as much as Sabina is focused on surviving the present, the past won’t be ignored. Before she can save those she cares about most, she must save herself from the ghosts of her past.

Goodreads Summary

This is the third in the Sabina Kane series, following Red-Headed Stepchild and The Mage in Black about the half-mage, half-vampire. I’m really having mixed feelings about the series – while the characters have gotten much more interesting and the story here was more action-packed, layered and it seemed like Wells was having more fun writing it than the other two, it was also a bit confusing and I really wonder where she’s going. There are going to be some necessary spoilers from the first two books included in my review, but I’ll keep them as minimal as possible. This isn’t really a series you can pick up from book three or even book two, you have to go back and pick it up from the start.

In the wake of the Vampire attack on the Mage compound in New York and the kidnapping of her twin sister Maisie, Sabina, Adam and Giguhl deliver one of the three vampire Dominae, Tanith, to Queen Maeve of the Faeries as both a peace offering from the vampires in an effort to hold off war between the dark forces and a way to help find Maisie. Maeve orders Sabina, Adam and Giguhl to New Orleans to find the Caste of Nod and Domina Lavina - Sabina’s grandmother, who kidnapped Maisie to take revenge against Sabina – and kill her, no matter what. Lavina and the Caste plan on ambushing them with the help of something very big and most likely undefeatable.

Sabina is everything I loved from the first two books and more. It’s probably a little perverse of me, but I like it that gets itchy when she can’t kill things once in a while, or at least bash some heads in. She’s come a long way from Red-Headed Stepchild though, when she beat the snot out of Adam for ambushing her with the news that she had a sister. She’s willing to think about whether or not she wants to hunt down Lavina because of her own desire for personal revenge or because she loves Maisie. She still wants to murder the bitch – she just spends a little time trying to figure out why. Her relationship with Adam finally makes some progress too as she actually can see her own mortality – and his.

Giguhl might as well have his own offshoot series – he’s become more of a sidekick to Sabina and frankly, more entertaining and interesting than Adam (I know, bite my tongue). Whether he’s in his hairless cat form – complete with sweater and fuzzy boots – or in demon form with forked you-know-what, he’s both hilarious and kickass. There’s a scene when Sabina and Adam go out without him and when they come back, he’s sitting on the couch with their cross-dressing roommate and he wants to have a conversation about his feelings. In the middle of all the drama, he wanted to have a Dr. Phil moment – it was the funniest thing and classic Giguhl. He became very attached to one of the characters in this book – the cross-dresser, who turned out to be a changeling – so I wonder if she’ll be in the next book.

While I appreciate the fairly intricate world-building that’s been going on in the three books, it’s also a little frustrating. There’s a lot to keep straight – Maisie and Sabina have both been having visions that are supposed to be pretty meaningful and are to be kept track of. It looks like the Queen of Faeries is going to be the head honcho now, so at least that’ll be easy to remember, but there’s still the Mage Council, the Mage Oracle (Maisie) the various Mage guard/guilds, the werewolf packs that we already know of, the remaining vampire groups that now are disorganized, the remaining Domina Persephone (it was never explained where she was)…taking a deep breath.

Sabina is still trying to master her Chthulu magic, which is a blend of white and dark magic and still somewhat unexplained to her (and the reader). There are various prophecies floating around to keep track of and a lot of talk about Lilith and Cain – the biblical ones, who it turns out, were also the original vampires. It just seems like too much and I don’t know how many different forks you need to throw in the road.

My Summary: In the span of three books, Sabina has matured into a complex, compelling UF heroine worth following. The secondary characters and relationships are just as interesting, although a couple of them come close to taking over once in a while. This story has a lot of humor and a looser feel to it than the previous books – the climax was a little abrupt and a little too emotionally chain-yanking for my taste but this was still a hugely important book in the series.

My Rating: B

Filed Under: *B Rating, Reviews, Urban Fantasy Tagged With: Jaye Wells

Pushing Her Boundaries

February 22, 2011 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 5 Comments

By Julia Rachel Barrett

Publisher: Siren-Bookstrand, Inc.
Publication Date: February 21, 2011
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Author

Maggie is done with men. Flying to Minneapolis, she’s seated beside the type of man she always falls for. A sexy, arrogant alpha jerk. Mace Williams irritates the woman next to him. She’s so damn sexy, he doesn’t care. When their seatmate suffers a cardiac arrest, Maggie and Mace team up to save his life, but it’s too late. In Minneapolis, Maggie heads to a restaurant with her sister, only to find Mace waiting. Worse, she learns he’s the brother of her sister’s fiance. Stuck in her sister’s apartment with Mace, Maggie offers him one night of sex, anything goes. No obligations, no recriminations. Mace agrees…he wants more than Maggie’s body, he wants her heart. Thrown into a disastrous canoe trip, they must work together to survive. Maggie must face her demons and trust Mace with her life. Mace is determined to save her, regardless of what the future brings.

Goodreads Summary

I’ve been a fan of Julia’s since reading her stunning book, Come Back To Me – if you haven’t read it yet, go do it. Seriously. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate a couple of things about her writing: she’s fearless about genre-jumping and she’s got some of the most interesting life experiences that she can use as jump-off points for a story. This book in particular is based on an experience Julia and her husband had at the Boundary Waters region in Minnesota, when they were stuck with an ill-prepped guide who let them run out of food and got them lost. While that would have been enough to make me catatonic, fortunately she was made out of something a little stronger and the result is this sexy and often funny story with the added bonus of the gorgeous – and dangerous - Boundary Waters backdrop.

Maggie’s having an a, b, c or d type day so far, as in “pick one.” Which one is worse: a) being stuck in a crowded airport lounge for over an hour listening to an ass on a Bluetooth go on and on for more than an hour: b) finding out the ass – who is a doctor and has a very nice one – ass, that is – is headed to Minneapolis like she is: c) having their seatmate die mid-flight or d) finding out Dr. Gorgeous Nice Ass is really the brother of her future brother-in-law that she’s meeting in Minneapolis during her visit with her sister. She’s picking option e, all of the above.

Mace couldn’t be happier that he’s seeing Maggie again. He thought she was gorgeous at the airport and admired the way she handled the mid-air crisis. He decided some of her irritation with him was a natural nurse/doctor thing and whatever was left, he’d easily handle with his charm.

Thninking some blisteringly hot sex would get him out of her system, Maggie and Mace have a night of no-strings, no-holds barred passion that she tries to walk away from, not knowing that her sister and his brother have set them up together for four days of canoeing through Boundary Waters in Minnesota, alone except for two extremely incompetent (hilariously so) guides.

Maggie’s biggest obstacle to overcome isn’t getting out of Boundary Waters when she and Mace get left behind in the storm, it’s overcoming her distrust of men and learning to trust Mace with her heart. She’s been burned too often and too badly by smooth-talking handsome guys and she doesn’t believe in her own judgment anymore when it comes to her feelings beyond sex. I loved that she was allowed to be just as strong and capable as Mace was when it came to their physical situation and in a few cases, more so. She wasn’t afraid to be honest or vulnerable (or pee in the woods). The author made her a full, rich, three-dimensional woman.

Mace’s background was a little bit of a puzzle, which was a slight issue for me. There was a lot going on and this really was Maggie’s story so I didn’t put as much weight on it as I normally might. He was wonderfully written – just enough arrogance and confidence to be funny, and smart enough to know that he could trust Maggie’s capabilities. Sexy? Oh, yes. The doctor likes to be in charge.

We come to the portion of the review where I speak about the sexiness because I take one for the team that way and read those parts carefully. There was a lot of sexiness. And it was red-hot, indoors, outdoors and on one occasion, involved some dominance and the use of butter. I’m from the dairy state. I’m not sure we sanction the use of butter for that purpose, but at that point, I was all for it.

My Summary: This is a great example of different elements coming together to make a really good story. The emotional arc of a woman learning to trust herself again to love a good man, blended with the high adventure of a life and death struggle in the unforgiving wilderness had me glued to the pages of the story. The author’s obvious knowledge (and likely mastery) of the sport of canoeing and of the Boundary Waters region shines through and makes the story all that more enjoyable for its authenticity. This is definitely a recommend.

My Rating: A-