TBR Challenge: SANTA, BABY, by Jennifer Cruise and others

The topic of this month is Holiday Themes (Christmas, Valentine's Day, any holiday!)

Published: Nov-2006

Genre: Contemporary

My Rating: 5-1-2 stars

In December we have to choose something related to Holiday. And as it’s December an obvious book was this Christmas anthology.

It was in my TBR pile because, as I have already written here, Jennifer Crusie is one of my favourite authors. And step by step, little by little, I’m trying to read all her backlist.

OK. Disclaimer. I’m not a very Christmas person. I enjoy the holidays, of course, and drinking and eating, and children & husband not going to school/work –remember, in Spain Christmas goes more or less from 22^nd December up to 7^th January, so I’m talking about a fortnight here. But these are stressful times –the gifts, who is going to host the party, the relatives you didn’t want to see –or they didn’t want to see you- in the whole year so why have I got to smile at them now and pretend we care for each other when we don’t? I’m one of those people lucky enough to have a job that can make me work at Christmas times so I’ve got the perfect excuse to avoid people I don’t want to be with. And apart from that, my significant other and I prefer to travel with the children if I can manage a few job-free days. So if I have to get social, I prefer to share my good and jolly times with those wonderful people that have been with us in the hard times. And this has been a bad year for us, I can tell you.

So, I bought this Christmas anthology and let the dust settle over it, because –I’m just not a Christmas person. Thanks to the TBR Challenge, I took it from the pile and hello! I loved the Jennifer Crusie’s story, ‘Hot Toy’. I’ve seen that this story won the 2006 All About Romance Reader Award in the Best Short Story category, and I can tell you, it deserved it.

It was a funny and quick read; I just fell in love with the characters. It’s about a young woman, Trudy, who is desperately seeking for ‘the toy’ of that year. If you have children you know what that means –looking for it everywhere, asking family and friends to look for it in their owns towns, going crazy over the Internet searching for a place that can send it to you on time... Here that toy is a MacGuffin –literally, that’s its name. And of course, it acts like one, as the thing everybody is looking for, and you cannot care less for it, but for the things they do and think and feel in order to get it.

So here we’ve got a very courageous Trudy. Her sister and her nephew are coping with the disappearance of the husband & father –who went away to the Caribbean with the young nanny. Trudy feels she is the one who has to give them a real Christmas, so she will do whatever is necessary to find this damned MacGuffin and she does not give a shit if the whole CIA or FBI or NSA or anyone else wants it too.

Not even Nolan, that sexy man who went away with Trudy a couple of times and then did not call her again. When she finds him in a store looking for the same toy, she thinks she’s over it –but she isn´t. He wants the toy and a second chance with Trudy. He’s so sorry he didn’t call.

‘Work got crazy’ –he said.

“You’re a literature professor,” Trudy said. “Chinese literature. How can that get craz-“

There were moments of laughing out loud, because Trudy is a real no-nonsense woman, and she needs the toy. And how this ends up being as the blurb says ... Mayhem ensues under the mistletoe as a determined shopper grabs the very last hot toy action figure off the shelf, only to find herself plunged into the middle of a real-life spy game--in the arms of a sexy secret agent... Well, I’m not going to tell you, you just have to buy it.

This Crusie’s story is exactly what a novella should be. It’s got the rhythm, the short but accurate development of characters, they know each other before the story begins so their happy ending is believable, it’s funny, and you cannot stop reading until the very end. Who can expect anything better in this format? That’s a 5 stars novella for me.

If you want to read it, you’re fortunate, as I’ve seen that this story can be bought in Kindle now separately.

So you don’t have to buy the old book –as I did- and read the other two stories. I didn’t like them. They are not worth the price. Both of them are office romances, so if that’s your catnip, then these could be for you. Both of them have been written by authors I had never read before, and although it’s very unfair to judge anybody from just one book -moreover, a season novella-, there was nothing in those stories that made me curious to try anything else by these authors.

Lori Foster wrote ‘Christmas Bonus’ a story that had previously appeared in All I Want for Christmas in 2000. Maggie is the very young owner of the firm, which she has inherited from her father. And Eric was her late father’s right hand. Eric expected to get the firm when the father died but it passed to Maggie so Eric does not want anybody to think he would marry for money therefore he feigns a disinterest towards the firm and the girl that he is far from feeling. The thing is, they both have been lusting for each other for many years -Six? Seven? A decade? But of course, none of them has done anything about it. Considering they met when she was sixteen and he was close to thirty, well, I just ground my teeth - I just couldn’t stand it. I was thinking about my children and someone from my office and I said no way! I’d go for their eyes; I wouldn’t leave the firm to the girl in order to let her have the man she wants. Apart from that it was quite a boring story because there was nothing else but both of them wanting each other. And that made me think about my personal tastes. I usually favour romances with something else, apart from the love story. I need something to drive the plot forward. There was nothing here. Add a very contrived lost paper and a cheesy end and voilà, this is what I rate as a 1 star story.

Carly Phillips wrote ‘Naughty Under the Mistletoe’ a story that had previously appeared in Naughty or Nice? in 2001. Another office romance. Toni wants Stephan. Both of them work for the same firm. But under the mistletoe, she ends kissing Maxwell, Stephan’s twin. And she can tell both of them apart just from that kiss because that’s what happens in Romanceland, if you are a twin and there’s only one girl who can tell you apart from your brother, then she’s the one. And that’s it, I forgot the rest of the story. I have read this book a week ago and I just don’t remember how the rest of it goes! So I guess that makes this story quite forgettable. I just know that I liked it a little bit more that the Lori Foster’s story so that’s why I put a 2 stars rating.

This is the last TBR Challenge of this year. It’s been a little bit difficult writing all these reviews in my broken English. But I’m ready to keep on doing the same next year. Because it’s fun, you know. I would recommend anyone to try it. Hope to see you next year.

TBR Challenge: A FASHIONABLE INDULGENCE, by KJ Charles

I read this story in my kindle

The topic of this month is It's All About The Hype (a book or author that got everybody talking)

Published: 2015

Genre: Historical

My Rating: 4 stars

In November we have to choose something everybody is talking about.

It was in my TBR pile because, since I discovered KJ Charles with Think of England, I’m trying to read everything she’s written. I’ve already finished her Charm of Magpies series and wanted to follow with this Regency-set story.

This is the first novel of a new series. So there are many secondary characters that you know are sequel bait. But don’t worry, there’s no cliff-hanger that makes you think you have to buy the following one.

These gentlemen belong to a group, the Ricardians, young men of good families protected by Richard, who has recently discovered he’s got a cousin, Harry Vane. Harry’s the product of a misalliance between a man of a good family and a politically radical woman. They had to flee England when Harry was twelve, and then he came back alone to live with Silas, a friend of his parents, another radical who writes and prints subversive pamphlets.

Harry could be the heir to a fortune. He leaves that radical environment in which he has been raised. In order to be accepted by the ton, Harry has to learn how to behave, how to dress, and not only that, but he’s also to be married to a suitable girl.

Julius Norreys, a Waterloo veteran who is a real dandy, the perfect gentleman wonderfully dressed in amazing waistcoats, takes Harry under his wing and tries to teach him everything he needs to know.

Harry is attracted to Julius as soon as he sees him. He has had experiences with men before, so this is a matter in which Harry can teach Julius. Julius suffered a terrible loss four years ago and his heart is kind of frozen. He rejects real intimacy and is used to only casual relationships. His only aim in the world seems to be how to find the more flamboyant waistcoats in London Regency.

They discover their mutual attraction, and soon became lovers. It is understood that as soon as Harry engages with a woman, their liaison would end.

Harry didn’t like poverty, so it looks like he doesn’t care if he has to become a society dandy and marry and keep quiet about his radical past in order to be a rich man.

Julius, on the other hand, falls for Harry and allows himself to feel alive again. Harry teaches him how to be happy. He knows what’s best for Harry, but will he have the strength to ignore his own feelings?

All this happens in the midst of one of the darkest episodes in the social history of England –the Peterloo Massacre, in which the cavalry charged into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators that had gathered to demand the reform of parliamentary representation so that the city of Manchester could have a seat in Parliament. And that’s when Harry realizes that he’s got a political conscience, after all.

I can’t sit in drawing rooms listening to rich men talk about the bravery of cavalry trampling unarmed women underfoot in order to keep Manchester from having a member of Parliament.

A little bit more about these problems of suffrage in the Regency times can be read in Rose Lerner’s Sweet Disorder.

That’s what I loved most about this book -the historical setting. It gives you a more realistic idea of what the Regency times were than your average romance.

People are starving in the streets. No work, no bread, no voice. And we’re told that’s the way of things, that there’s no need for reform because the country is best served by the old order.

As KJ Charles puts in her webpage: ‘Society of Gentlemen is set at a time of incredible privilege for the few and social turmoil for the many. Regency England is torn by war, poverty and social unrest, ruled by a draconian government. People are starving, rioting, rebelling. But the aristocrats dance on, in their glittering existence of balls, gambling, silks and scandal…’ Just the kind of historical that I love, one in which romance does not prevent the author from describing those times in realistic terms.

Apart from that interesting setting, it’s got that wonderful KJ Charles style that kept my eyes glued to the page. I couldn’t stop reading until I finished it. The sex scenes were explicit, which makes this book only suitable for adults. And they add to the story, mainly in the development of Julius’ character.

Why does it not deserve my five stars? I’m not very sure. I think it was because of the main characters. I didn’t love them, I didn’t feel emotionally involved in their predicaments, I’m not sure I would be interested in meeting them at all. Perhaps too many mentions of waistcoats and embroidery?

Anyway, thank you very much, Ms Charles, for writing these books. I still haven’t found one book of yours that I didn’t like.

Why was this book chosen for this month? It’s been a difficult month. Everybody usually talks about recent books, and I don’t have many novelties in my TBR pile. I asked myself which books were talked about this year, either in the English blogosphere or the Spanish one, but none of them was in my kindle. So I told myself ‘let’s talk about something new’ that perhaps people will talk about soon. This book was published in August, I think, and got a DIK A review in All About Romance. Moreover, it was one of the 31 ‘awesome’ queer romances Alexis Hall thinks we should read. Sooner or later, everybody will be talking about KJ Charles and her wonderful books. I think.

TBR Challenge: TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, by Suzanne Brockamnn

The topic of this month is Paranormal or romantic suspense

Published: 1997

Genre: Romantic suspense/Time Travel

My Rating: 3 stars

In October we have to choose something belonging either to the paranormal genre or a romantic suspense, and I think this book is both things at the same time.

It was in my TBR pile because, as I have already written here, I like Suzanne Brockmann’s books. She is –or, at least, she’s been- quite a prolific writer, so there are many books of hers out there. And although I’m trying to read them all there are still quite a few in my TBR pile.

This book is a strange mixture of romantic suspense and a Time Travel story. One night the heroine, Maggie Winthrop, finds a strange naked man in her backyard. He’s attractive and seems to know her. Of course, when he says he comes from the future, she can’t believe him.

Charles ‘Chuck’ Della Croce is a scientist and tells her that he had created a machine to time travel. But there was a problem with that device and therefore he has come from the future in order to convince his younger self, Charles Della Croce, not to keep on investigating in that line of work that would lead him eventually to discover how to travel in time. He is not going to do it himself, but wants to use this young woman, because he is in love with her. Rather, he was going to be in love in the future, and he thinks young Charles is going to fall for her.

A little bit complex, isn’t it?

All these time travel stories can make you crazy if you think too much.

Suzanne Brockmann does something very clever, which is put a name to the ‘older’ Charles –she calls him Chuck-, and then another one for ‘younger’ Charles –Charles or Charlie. Therefore you know when the heroine is with one or the other.

So Maggie falls for this stranger that comes from the future, and he loves her as well. As a matter of fact, he’s been wanting and loving her for seven years. At the same time, she feels this attraction towards the young Charlie. He also finds her very attractive but of course knowing her just for a few days, he’s not in love with her. So it will not be easy for him to forget his great aim in life which is this thing about time travel. Moreover, if Maggie convinces him to stop investigating that, Chuck would have never gone to the past and she will loose him forever.

That’s the paranormal part of the story –the time travel.

But there is also romantic suspense. Because Chuck is not the only one who comes from the future. Just on cue a group of villains that do terrible thing in the future, wants to be sure that Chuck is unsuccessful because they want to use his time travel machine. Therefore Chuck and Maggie have –first- to survive and –then- convince young Charles to stop investigating. The good thing is that Chuck, being a Suzanne Brockmann hero, has this Navy SEAL training, so he’s a resourceful man.

There’s something original in this book because Maggie falls in love with Chuck but at the same time feels this attraction toward the Charlie of her time. So in a sense she falls in love with two men, but two men that are the same man - only in different ages.

It’s written in that fabulous Brockmann’s style that keeps you with your eyes glued to the page. It doesn’t matter that is complicated, or you don’t understand it or sometimes sound like pure crazysauce. You just have to keep on reading.

So I would recommend it, because it’s very entertaining. But don't expect anything magical or unforgettable.

TBR Challenge: THAT SCANDALOUS SUMMER, by Meredith Duran

The topic of this month is Historical

Published: 2013

Genre: Historical Romance

 / Victorian times

My Rating: 4 stars

In September we have to look for a historical novel.

I bought this book with Your Wicked Heart, as I enjoyed a lot the two books written by Meredith Duran that I read for my AAR Top 100 Challenge. But while I enjoyed This Wicked Heart, it was nothing special so I didn’t read That Scandalous Summer afterwards, and it languished in my TBR pile. When Fool Me Twice won the RITA in July, I wanted to read it so – I had to read this first. In the end, I read That Scandalous Summer and Fool Me Twice, back to back.

I enjoyed both of them. They are four-star books for me. But I preferred to review this one for my September TBR Challenge, as it’s a book that got none of the critical applause that Fool Me Twice got.

This is the story of Michael de Grey, a doctor with a hospital for poor people. As he’s noble, young, charming and very attractive, the ton just loves him. His brother, the duke of Marwick –the main character in Fool Me Twice- is desperate and a little bit crazy, so in this frame of mind he tells his brother that he has to marry a girl he can approve; otherwise, Michael will be left with no money and of course Alastair will close his beloved hospital.

Michael then leaves London, thinking that this way his brother will react and begin his recovery. He goes as far as Cornwall, where he will live as a rural doctor. One day he finds a very drunk lady in his rose bushes. It’s Elizabeth Chudderley, a famous beauty who is, more or less, ‘the lady of the manor’ in that place. This thing about a famous beauty reminded me of Evelyn Nesbit a women whose face was everywhere, in newspapers and magazines, and even in souvenir items, at the beginning of the 20^th century, and inspired L. M. Montgomery the face of her beloved character Anne Greengables. So Liza had that face for me.

It’s lust at first sight. They flirt all the time, but when they know each other better, they also fall for the person inside. None of them say a word about certain things. Michael does not say that his brother is a duke and that he has no intention of staying in Cornwall more than a short time, until his brother comes to his senses. And Liza does not tell him that no matter what appearances can suggest, she’s broken and she needs money. So she’s trying to catch a rich husband.

Part of the suspense of the novel comes from those things they ignore about the other. But in the end knowing them does not change anything. Michael’s low income as a doctor is useless for Liza, because she needs money not only for herself but also–in a very medieval and paternalistic way- of those workers that depend on her.

It’s set mainly in Cornwall, and in Liza’s house, when there’s a party of scandalous socialites, as Liza herself. She hopes to find her rich second husband in that party. It’s not a very original setting but, at least, we are far from London, the Regency and ball rooms.

The most attractive part of this story was the emotional and sexual tension between Michael and Liza. The greatest eroticism lies in moments of little gestures –a touch, a kiss, a desperate embrace. But there’s also explicit sex in this novel, very emotionally charged, because they always think it’s the last one. First ‘let’s do it just once’; then, ‘this is the end, let’s make it just one time more’. And so on.

It’s particularly intriguing to see how their mental processes evolve. What they feel and think when they meet, about themselves and the other, and how those thoughts and feelings evolve.

Michael’s parents were an awful and embittered couple. Therefore, he thinks that marriage is the end of love – until he meets Liza. On the other hand, Liza had a perfect example of marital bliss in her parents, so she knows that happiness can exist in a married couple. But then she married and hers was not a happy marriage, and then she had a lover that was a jerk, and now, well, she needs money so love is not her number one priority.

Their problems are real, and they cannot be solved just by saying ‘I love you’. And you cannot forget the social aspect of the whole thing. A misalliance could damage not only the couple but all the family, as Cecilia Grant explained so beautifully in A Gentleman Undone. The conflict is so real, so well-constructed along the novel, that the way it is solved, in the end, in a vaudeville tone, is a little bit anticlimactic. I will say nothing more about it, because –spoiler.

This was a novel that I could not put down until I ended it. It was with me less than twenty four hours. The characters sounded very real to me. Liza was more interesting and complex. She has these financial problems and that awful lover to deal with. But I think there’s something more important for her to get over. Her mother died a year before the beginning of this novel, and Liza’s always hearing her in her mind, her mother judging what Liza’s doing with her life. Her sadness is shown in little details like Liza not being able to go to her mother’s grave.

I think this could have been a darker novel, because many issues are not explored, for instance, Liza’s previous unhappy marriage or her drinking problem. But the author prefers to give these two people a great capacity for joy and to enjoy life as it comes.

In her webpage, Meredith Duran says that this was the first book she had written

‘(I hesitantly admit) that actually made me both laugh and cry when proofreading various scenes in the copyedited manuscript’.

This is the Spanish translation I've read

Cover art: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial/

Yolanda Artola

Cover picture: © Malgorzata Maj / Trevillion Images

Yes, I was so involved in the emotions of the characters that there was a moment in which I got a lump in my throat, in a way quite close to the emotional reaction I have to certain Balogh’s books.

I’m not sure why this book didn’t get A grade reviews, as I liked it more that the rest of her books, but The Duke of Shadows. Certainly, I liked a little bit more than Fool Me Twice, for instance. I love character-driven stories when those characters interest me. And I’d rather read about a mature woman with a past than about feisty virgins.

I’ve read this book in a very good Spanish translation, not in English. The last three Duran’s translated books, Your Wicked Heart, That Scandalous Summer and Fool Me Twice have been published by a publishing house (belonging to the Peguin Random House Group) and a translator that respect the quality of Meredith Duran’s prose. We are lucky, then, because that did not happened with The Duke of Shadows or Bound by your Touch, that were published by a different set of publishing house and translator. They -how can I say this without offending anyone? -, they just did not do justice to Meredith Duran’s literary style.

So Meredith Duran is now a really auto-buy novelist for me. One author of the group that I label as ‘Newest Historical Novel’, besides people like Cecilia Grant, Courtney Milan or Rose Lerner. A group I define as opposed both to Old Skool (bodice rippers and alphaholes) and the New School of Julia Quinn, Tessa Dare and the likes, who are charming, light and completely void of any relation to the hardships of life.

NB I loved this book so much that I couldn’t wait and translated –more or less- my English review and posted the Spanish review before this TBR Challenge, in order for people to buy this book that they can still find in mortar & brick bookshops.