"Freak Show," by James St. James

The Protagonist: Billy Bloom - fashionista, drag queen, swamp princess, death goddess, vamp extraordinaire. No one can match his style! No one can top his audacious swagger! No one can grasp his effervescent and insane creativity!
The Rub: ...except his fellow students at his all-white, ultra-conservative, southern Florida prep school.

The Secondary Cast:

Flossie: Billy's father's housekeeper. Takes care of him, but also kind of loathes him. Makes decent pecan scotchies.

Mary Jane McAfferty: Billy's first real friend at Eisenhower Academy (whose name he initially mishears as "Blah Blah Blah"), and de facto leader of the "shadow" student body - those less-advantaged, less-attractive, different students who maintain a peaceful existence by hiding their existence.

Flip Kelly: The school's star quarterback who won a championship by doing a miraculous flip during the game - hence the nickname. In the school's eyes, he can do no wrong, so when he decides to publicly befriend Billy - the rest of the school has to do the same. But Flip's real home life might not be as charmed as everyone thinks.

Lynette Franz: The bitchy Mean Girl who wants to keep Tradition in the school curriculum and protect the pious, advantaged students from Billy's "Gay Agenda."

Bernie Balch: An ugly, particularly vicious school bully who targets Billy.

Clancy Duckett: An out-and-proud lesbian TV anchor who decides to help Billy broadcast his message "Tease hair! Not homos!"

The Word: I've been wanting to read this book for a pretty long time, but again, it was one of the Books I Want To Get At the Library that I just never got around to because I've Got All Of These Perfectly Good Books to Read Already.

Well, finally I just decided, to heck with it, and took out Freak Show for free (yay libraries!). I read this book in TWO DAYS. That is fast for me. Super-fast. Unbelievable how quickly I burned through this book - and it's all thanks to Billy Bloom, the unbelievably manic, energetic, creative, flawed, oblivious, spectacular and unreliable teenage narrator of the novel.

Billy Bloom is a drag queen - his brain fizzes and starts with splashes of fabulousness and colour. He's got a room full of costumes and wigs and spirit gum and surgical adhesive and make-up. The guy's gifted. But he's also a 17-year-old boy stuck in an extremely conservative swamp of a Florida town with his wealthy but neglectful father, after his alcoholic mother up and decided she couldn't handle him anymore.

But Billy's got gumption. He's got spirit. He's determined to make a sparkling Gucci purse out of this sow's ear of a situation and make the best impression possible at his new school, Dwight D. Eisenhower Academy. And he makes a splash - but in the WORST way. The white, blond, privileged, preppy students of Eisenhower Academy do not react well to Billy's particular brand of pizzazz (particularly when he makes his first appearance in a Vivienne Westwood pirate costume - "what's more masculine than a pirate?"). Poor Billy finds himself targeted, bullied and brutalized - until the torment goes way out of control and lands him in the hospital.

Recovering from his injuries, Billy makes a new ally - Flip Kelly, the school's champion quarterback and social paragon. Motivated by outrage (and not a little guilt at his own unwitting participation in the attack), Flip befriends Billy and brings him under his social wing, protecting Billy from the physical abuse if not the bigotry and hypocrisy that still pervades the student body. Even though he's been beaten down, however, Billy's not out - instead, his bottomless pit of imagination comes up with even more harebrained, brilliant, impulsive ideas on how to change things in his school for the better - for everyone, not just the powerful and privileged.

Billy is the reason I read this book in two days. His voice screams off the page, waving its arms and shaking its bedazzled booty. He's ALWAYS excited and ALWAYS thinking and ALWAYS creating, and his excitement is outrageously infectious. He's like the Anne Shirley of the 21st century. His narration is highly exaggerated and sometimes unreliable, but it gets the point across so powerfully. When he's happy, he's ECSTATIC, when he's miserable, HE'S IN A PIT OF DESPAIR, when he's in love, HE JUST WANTS TO BE A SPECK OF DUST SWIMMING AROUND IN THE OBJECT OF HIS AFFECTION'S LUNGS. He also uses a lot of capslock, but I digress.

Despite the exaggeration and satire and parody of the characters and the setting, the story feels so real - and it feels real BECAUSE of the exaggeration, because of the unbreakable current of sincerity in Billy's voice. When I was 17, I felt everything was SO ALL-ENCOMPASSING, I felt my bullies were SCREAMING VILE HARLOTS, my life could NOT BE CONTAINED IN MERE LOWERCASE LETTERS. Billy is such an amazing character and you feel for him so powerfully - even if you are scratching your head when he elects to be blind for an entire day because he simply MUST wear twelve pairs of fake eyelashes to complete his look.

I'm personally religious and one of the Biblical messages that's seen a lot of action in my upbringing is "when you have a torch, don't hide your light under a bushel." When you've got a gift, you don't hide it away, you don't build your mansion at the bottom of a hill (or in a swamp), you don't wear your sequined, intentionally-singed 1920s flapper dress only in your closet and nowhere else - you shine it for everyone. And Billy's such a bright, screaming, alive character that I can't understand how ANYONE would want to snuff that light out under a bushel.

Freak Show is a flaming gut-punch of a novel, very emotional, very personal, and fun as hell to read. It's searingly honest and completely fantastical. It wrung me out, frankly. It's exciting and fast-paced and zany and painfully, painfully funny. I highly recommend it.
A+

"Wickedly Charming," by Kristine Grayson

The Chick: Melvina, a.k.a. "Mellie." Unfairly lambasted by the Grimm brothers and popular fiction in general as the Evil Stepmother to Snow White, she's made it her life's work to reveal the truth about how horrible fairy tales really are
The Rub: Trouble is, nobody listens to her because she's loud and annoying and ignorant.

Dream Casting: Lindsay Price.

The Dude: Prince Charming. Cinderella dumped him, his father walks all over him, he gave up custody of his daughters, and he's balding and paunchy. Happily ever after hasn't really happened to him yet.
The Rub: He really, really likes this beautiful stepmother, but can he learn to love again with a glass slipper lodged in his scrotum?
Dream Casting: Adrian Pasdar.

The Plot:

Mellie: LIES! LIES! LIES ABOUT ME EVERYWHERE! LIES ARE WHEN WORDS ARE SAID THAT AREN'T TRUE. BOOKS ARE FULL OF WORDS - THEREFORE IT STANDS TO REASON THAT SOME OF THEM MUST BE UNTRUE - THEREFORE BOOKS ARE FULL OF LIES ABOUT ME AND I NEED TO BAN THEM. LOGIC!

Prince Charming: I find your complete lack of restraint, logic and intelligence so gosh darn pretty!

Mellie: OMG YOU'RE SO HOT, I IMMEDIATELY HATE YOU BECAUSE YOUR LIFE IS BETTER THAN MINE, ARGH ARGH LIFE IS UNFAIR, CRUEL FATE!

Prince Charming: Your constant use of capslock is so gosh darn pretty! You should write a book about your problems!

Mellie: WELL, OKAY, THAT'S A GREAT IDEA. EXCEPT - DO PEOPLE READ ACTUAL READ BOOKS? FOR FUN? EVEN IF THEIR STUPID TEACHERS AREN'T MAKING THEM DO IT FOR SCHOOL?

Prince Charming: .... maybe I'll write the book.

Mellie: OMG WHY HAVE YOU BEEN AVOIDING ME FOR MONTHS? IT MUST BE BECAUSE I'M A BITTER OLD HAG AND YOU'RE ALREADY TIRED OF ME!

Prince Charming: ... I was writing your book! And everyone loves it!

Mellie: OH.

Prince Charming: Except for my ex-wife Cinderella, who tried to use a spell to annul the existence of my children.

Mellie: OH NO.

Prince Charming: Oh don't worry - that problem was quickly solved a chapter later and off-screen by a just-introduced secondary character!

Mellie: OH. HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

Evil Bitch Ex

1 Ghostwritten Book

1 Schlubby, Sexist Romantic Rival

2 Poorly-Developed Stepchildren

1 Bestseller than Rips Off Wicked

The Word: I love fairy tales. This is no secret. I watch Disney. I read the Grimm tales. I like the colour and the magic and the trickery. And I love how the basic enjoyability of these stories can translate so easily into different kinds of retellings and interpretations. So you'd think something like Wickedly Charming would be right up my alley, right? Wrong.

I mean, it has a good concept. At first. Our heroine, Mellie, is a perpetually-outraged woman who's the leader of PETA - the People for the Ethical Treatment of Archetypes (ha ha - it's a tired old joke that only gets older). She's tired of the way those awful brothers Grimm told all these lies that have now become the basis for much of modern literature. And she should know - since she's doomed to go down in history as Snow White's Evil Stepmother.

Now, how did the Grimm brothers find out about the magical world of the Kingdoms all fairy tale characters live in? Why did they tell such obvious lies? Why did they add parts like the magic mirror or the huntsman? These things aren't even discussed.

And Mellie's solution to the centuries of untruths? Holding protests at bookfairs, screaming at bookbuyers, and calling for the banning of books. Because they are full of lies, you see.

The heroine wants to ban books. Yeah. Let that sink in.

Mellie's counterpart is Prince Charming. Well, one of them - Cinderella's Prince Charming. Still smarting from his divorce from Cinderella (and more on her wretched characterization in a minute), he's now working as a bookseller in The Greater World (a.k.a. The Real World), which gives him access to the bookfair. There he meets Mellie and we get the standard unpleasant scene where the Bitter Bitch heroine unloads all of her problems on him and makes a lot of baseless assumptions about how great his life must be.

The heroine is not only a Bitter Bitch, but she's possibly dumber than a box of Rapunzel's hair, since Prince Charming literally has to explain the concept of fiction to her. She doesn't understand how people can just make stuff up on the spot and put that into writing. Isn't that lying?

NO.

Prince Charming, despite being a rabid bibliophile, is somehow not repulsed by her clear disdain and ignorance of literature as a whole. Instead, she's the prettiest girl he's ever seen. So he decides to help her. He explains to Mellie that screaming at people like a demented self-righteous howler monkey is not the best way to change hearts and minds. Taking a moment to dump on the entire subgenre of paranormal romance, he shows how ugly nasty vampires changed their PR by getting people to write books where they are the tortured heroes. So perhaps Mellie should write a book that tells the story from her point of view - and he'll be super happy to help her write it.

So, the concept itself is a strong one - the idea that fairy tales oversimplified the complex family dynamics of certain characters - but the novel itself just does not follow through, and instead does the same thing the fairy tales did. It still tells a lazy, underdeveloped, oversimplified story, just with the villain-and-hero roles reversed. Oh, all the stepmothers were just overworked women in tough situations who just made a few mistakes, and all the princesses were spoiled, evil, clawing, envious bitches. How convenient.

There's also the laughable fact that while the protagonist CONSTANTLY RAGES about how older women are made into villains for fairytales, the only recognizable villain in Wickedly Charming IS AN OLDER WOMAN: a middle-aged Cinderella, who is cruelly shoehorned into the Completely Evil Murderous Ex Role. This book, whose heroine complains that fairy tales distort ideas about women, gives us a villain who literally tries to wish her children out of existence because she loves attention, money and the spotlight too much. One small step for Cinderella, one giant leap backwards for womankind.

This story could have had a perfectly decent, nuanced, subtle plot where Prince Charming and Cinderella divorced because they didn't really know each other - they were two dazed teenagers with stars in their eyes who got married after knowing each other for less than a day thanks to some preternaturally tiny footwear. It happens. That would have been a great plot point. But instead, the novel goes the cartoon route and makes Cinderella a monstrously selfish, unambiguously evil sociopath.

How am I supposed to like Mellie, either? She's rude, she's bitter, she's envious, and she's so. Effing. IGNORANT that I just couldn't stand her. She doesn't understand one thing about how the world works and is just so blindly hateful of any woman younger and prettier than her (which, hey, SOUNDS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE HER CHARACTER WAS IN THE ORIGINAL FAIRY TALE, HMMMMM). And nothing about her character is consistent. It turns out she secretly burned out her magic keeping Snow White alive, and kept it a secret from everyone - and yet she's spent centuries stewing in impotent rage about how people misconstrue her actions. You can't tell me that she doesn't care what anyone thinks - and then make her number one motivation to change what people think about her!

And what about Prince Charming? Talk about ruining the Beta model of heroes. He's not a Beta, he's - hmmm, what's the last letter of the Greek Alphabet? There's shy, and then there's just plain spineless. This quivering, flavourless Jell-O mould of a man is frightened of everything and pushed around by everyone and is constantly nervous and insecure (despite being breathtakingly handsome). He scurries to and fro so regularly I wondered if he was one of the mice turned into a footman by mistake. And believe me, if you've read my blog before, you know I have a particular tendre for shy Beta heroes. This hero, however, takes it a step too far. Several times while reading this novel I wanted to shout at him to nut up, take it like a man, and stop (literally!) running away from the heroine.

The story is simplistic, the conflict (where there is any - the greater part of this novel is internal moping/bitching, let's be honest) is contrived, and the protagonists are just completely unlikeable. Ultimately, Wickedly Charming calls the kettle black - it lashes out at all fairy tales for being distorted and misogynist and poorly told, and yet it doesn't try to rise above any of these tropes, either.
D

"A Lily Among Thorns," by Rose Lerner

The Chick: Lady Serena, a.k.a. "The Siren," a.k.a. "The Thorn." A former courtesan, her life's work is bound up in the hotel she now owns - until a close friend suddenly betrays her.The Rub: She may not want to admit it, but she'll need help to retain control of her hotel - and who better than the random dude who was indirectly responsible for her getting the hotel in the first place?Dream Casting: Downton Abbey's Michelle Dockery.

The Dude: Solomon Hathaway. Years ago, he recklessly gave away his entire quarterly allowance to a prostitute. Now he needs her help in recovering some stolen earrings.
The Rub: In the process, he realizes he's in love with her - but how can he convince her that he's the real deal?Dream Casting: Tom Hiddleston.

The Plot (some plot spoilers):

In the Past...

Serena: Do you want me to take your virginity?

Solomon: No thank you! HERE HAVE SOME FREE MONEY!

Present Day...Solomon: Will you help me find some stolen earrings?

Serena: Sure! No problem!

Rene, Marquis de Sacreval and Dirty French Spy: Bonjour! I've faked our marriage so I can steal your hotel for nefarious and not-to-be-spoken-of reasons!

Serena: THE HELL YOU ARE. I WILL TAKE YOU DOWN.

Solomon: And I'll help!

Serena: Wait, what?

Solomon: And I'll design pretty dresses for you! And stick up for you to your dad! And help uncover a secret network of spies and traitors for you! And step on the toes of men who are rude to you! And make you hot chocolate! And massage your feet!

Serena: HOW DOES SOMEONE AS NICE AS YOU PHYSICALLY EXIST?

Rene: OMG, does he have a brother?

Solomon: I do but he's dead and straight!

Elijah (Dead Brother): I'm not and I'm really not!

Rene: HOORAY! *plot foiled*

Solomon and Serena: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 French Frenemy

2 Stolen Earrings

1 Suspicious Fire

1 Very Bad Parent

1 Fortuitous Use of Hydrochloric Acid

1 Regency-Era Gay Bar

1 Faked Death

Several Sexy Spies

1 (Gay!) Secondary Romance (Between Sexy Spies)

The Word: Oh, Rose Lerner, you've done it again!

Rose Lerner SPLASHED (splashed, I tell you!) onto the Romance scene waaaaay back in 2010 with her debut novel, In For A Penny. I credit The Booksmugglers for pointing me and Rose Lerner in our respective directions, because it was a match made in heaven. In For a Penny surprised and delighted me with how it managed to create a sincere, lovely romance between complex characters without compromising the realism of the historical setting.

Rose Lerner takes the sophomore slump out to dinner and punches it in the face with A Lily Among Thorns, her long-awaited (and much-delayed) second book.

Lady Serena, prodigal daughter of a lord, used to be a whore, until a chance encounter with a nervous young man left her one hundred and twenty-five pounds richer. Serena turned that miracle money into an independent career as a successful courtesan, and then ultimately used those proceeds to purchase a sophisticated hotel, naming it the Ravenshaw Arms. Running the hotel is her joy and her pride and the last vestige of passion she allows herself.

So when she unexpectedly meets her mysterious benefactor when he asks for her help in locating some stolen earrings (her lady-of-the-night past left her with a bevy of useful underworld contacts), she sees it as the perfect way to repay his generosity without involving any unnecessary emotion.

Solomon Hathaway, a talented tailor, chemist, and dyer, has no idea this woman is the same prostitute to whom he recklessly gave his entire quarterly allowance so many years before - but he is drawn to her all the same.

Trouble arises in the form of Rene, the marquis of Sacreval, a dashing French aristocrat and Serena's business partner. Returning unexpectedly from the continent, he offers to buy out Serena's share in the Arms - but when she refuses, he produces expertly forged marriage lines that will be permit him, as her (il)legal husband, to take the Arms from her whether she wants to or not.

To Serena's surprise, Solomon offers to help her find a way to regain control of the Arms, and both find themselves drawn into a conspiracy involving French spies, English traitors, stolen rubies, secret doors, 19th-century gay bars, disapproving uncles, and expertly-tailored gowns.

One of the greatest joys in this book is that the hero and heroine don't begin the story with a reason to hate each other. A lot of other romances (even good ones), incite conflict right away by immediately putting the protagonists on opposite sides of a quarrel or problem. It's not necessarily a bad plot device, but it's used so frequently that it's just such a relief when we don't have romantic protagonists who immediately harbour the worst possible assumptions about each other.

Both Solomon and Serena have been shaped by being torn between two worlds. Serena was born an aristocrat, but sacrificed that status when she took on the world's oldest profession. She now uses underworld connections to survive in a world where a large number of the male haute ton can claim a "personal" connection to her. Solomon, meanwhile, is the offspring of an aristocratic woman who ran away with a Latin tutor. He has a Cambridge education from his disapproving Viscount uncle but prefers to work in trade with his (more lovingly disapproving) tailor uncle. In both cases, he's stuck somewhere in the middle.

But they both deal with such struggles differently, which is where their wonderful arguments and misunderstandings and interactions spring from. Righteous Beta Heroes and Dirty Heroines with Dirty Dealin's are my crack. Serena is such a magnificent heroine. Independent and strong-willed but practical - who believes she is cold and passionless until she meets the hero.

And what a hero! Solomon Hathaway is a prince among men. A prince among heroes! He cooks, he sews, he makes hot chocolate, he knows his way around a vial of hydrochloric acid, he has impeccable fashion sense, he's sweet and lovely and all that is good. He is wonderful. But he does have issues - he's only recently recovered from losing a twin brother in the war, the dashing and charming brother he always subconsciously compared himself to. And because of his mixed-class parentage he's always on the wrong side of someone's opinion - the aristos sneer that he's a commoner, and the plebs don't take him seriously.

The plot itself is darker and twistier than In For a Penny, but then again, I've always preferred those types of stories. Serena is such an evasive, closed-off, damaged character - who runs an inn that employs similarly evasive, closed-off and damaged characters. We learn new things about her in drip and drabs, because even from her point of view, she's close-mouthed. She's been used and abandoned by a lot of men in her day, which is why it takes a special one to win her heart - and even then, it take a good, long, delicious while to crack her shell.

But good things come to those who wait - and it's the same for Rose Lerner fans. We waited - and in the end, we were rewarded. While I don't particularly want to wait two years for her next book, I will if I have to.
A+

The Unwashed Blogger Masses: A Rant

I am AnimeJune.

And I am one of the unwashed blogger masses.

Let me explain. One of the most glorious things about the internet, is that is has given everyone a voice. Virtually anyone can start up a blog, give it a title, and start writing about whatever they please. Out of this has grown a thriving reviewer community - not just for books, but for about every product on the planet - plays, videogames, TV shows, movies, you name it.

Now, most artists and authors see bloggers as an untapped, budget-friendly goldmine. Give a few free ARCs away, have a reviewer give a positive review, and then another twelve bloggers will read that post and try the book themselves and realize they love it, and then that's twelve more reviews, with thirty bloggers reading those blogs and deciding to try the book themselves. And so on and so forth

The thing is, some authors have not learned how to deal with negative reviews. Writing takes an absurdly puffed-up sense of confidence - believe me, I've had it. So a scathing review out of nowhere can pop that bubble pretty damn fast, and some authors just can't cope. And, unfortunately, it is far easier to take out your rage on an "amateur" reviewer than it is a seasoned journalist who says the same thing.

There was an episode of Saturday Night Live recently, where Daniel Radcliffe plays an oblivious internet artist who "went to a school with no grades" and just assumes that everyone loves him. In the sketch, he attempts to draw Chinese calligraphy while simultaneously doing an Irish gig, and when he sits down, he blithely says, "I tried, and therefore no one can criticize me!"

I fear that there are a lot of authors who secretly feel that way - who feel, I actually wrote a BOOK, and therefore no one can criticize me! Who somehow believe that making it past the thorny tangle of agents and editors and slushpiles to join the ranks of the Printed Word renders one exempt from opinion. They have SURVIVED submissions. They have ENDURED revisions. Their experience with negativity is henceforth over, and they and their book lived happily ever after! I'm sorry, but that's not how it works.

Now, there have been quite a few kerfuffles recently in the YA and Romance communities about negative reviews, and I've even posted about the inevitable pattern these responses to negativity take. In a nutshell, these replies always follow along the same lines:

• "You're personally attacking me!"
• "You're a stupid loser poo-poo head who writes in her basement!"
• "How many books have YOU had published? Thought not!"
• "You're just jealous!"
• "You have no idea how much work goes into writing a book!"
• "All these other people on Amazon liked it!"
• "Nobody reads your blog anyway!"

But what I've recently taken the most exception towards is Maggie Steifvater's post about what makes a review a review. It starts off reasonably enough, stating that bloggers should never make reviews personal (as in, make personal remarks about the author - their sexuality, personal life, number of cats, education, etc. etc.). That is 100% correct.

But then she starts to veer off:

A review is an unbiased, careful look at a book — basically it is a little academic paper. It involves an itty-bitty thesis on your opinion of the book, surrounded by tiny supporting sentences describing the strengths and weaknesses of said book. Every month, dozens upon dozens of these reviews come out in professional journals. Because they're fair and thorough, they're prized and respected in the publishing world. Authors celebrate positive pro reviews. They sigh and learn from negative pro reviews. Publishing houses bend over backward to send review copies to these journals in time for a timely review, because good reviews can make or break a book's success with libraries and booksellers.

By now you'll have noticed the neat, little words she drops - "academic," "professional." Nice, clean, bland picket-fence words - so pretty and nice as they clearly separate "us" (the nose-picking, skinned-knee, orphan urchin bloggers) from "them" (the fair, thorough, prized and respected academic few, consuming their tea and cucumber sandwiches). And then, she goes on to condescendingly explain to us that we are not, in fact, true reviewers:

Let's talk about the negative "reviews" that authors have been lashing out at. They often involve animated gifs, swearing, and snark. They're often quite funny. But here's the thing, though. When a blogger writes a biased, hilarious, snarky rundown of a book they despised, he/ she is not writing a review. They are writing a post about a book. I'm not saying that bloggers shouldn't write biased, hilarious, snarky rundowns of books. I'm saying that those rundowns are not reviews. Bloggers who regularly write them cannot expect to garner the same respect and treatment from authors that pro reviewers or non-pro reviewers do. They can't expect authors to read their posts and learn something from them. And they cannot expect authors to not take it personally. They've made it personal.

You'll notice that this paragraph only mentions the negative blogger reviews as being "not reviews" - by the very nature of them being negative. No one ever takes issue with the "professionalism" of someone who writes a positive review. No one ever accuses them of being unqualified, or jealous, or tells them they write for a dinky little quarterly that nobody reads.

This post may be swaddled with reasonable-sounding rhetoric but at the heart of it is yet another author who reacts to negative reviewers by attacking their qualifications.

And have I mentioned how much I love it when authors accuse a book review of being biased? "How dare this reviewer express an opinion about a book in their book review! Opinions have no place in reviews!" A book review is the explanation of a bias - by reading the book, you become biased for or against, and a review is simply an explanation of how you got to that point.

Because of the Internet, everyone has a voice. But because anyone can do it, it allows people to diminish the voices of those they don't like. Just because we live in a society where everyone has the opportunity to perform a certain action, doesn't mean the action is meaningless.

Do you want to tell the new mother and her day-old infant that she's hasn't done anything that special? That literally billions of people, rich and poor, since the dawn of time have done the same thing a billion times over? Does that really diminish the importance? Or your child learning to read for the first time? Again - it's been done before. The vast majority of people in North America can already do it. That's not really an achievement or a special gift, now is it?

So I'm afraid author comments that the members of the blogger community are simply representatives of the unwashed, uneducated, common masses because we don't have the same literary gatekeepers doesn't hold a lot of water with me. We're the ones who do it for free. We're the ones who do it on top of our day jobs, in spite of our day jobs, staying up late, because we love it. Because we are passionate about books and reading. So who are you to say our voices don't matter - unless they say something that you like?

"The Broken Kingdoms," by N.K. Jemisin

The Protagonist: Oree Shoth. A blind artist with a powerful secret - she can see magic.
The Rub: Her ability to see magic - along with a secret untapped potential locked in her ability to paint - is dragged into the limelight when she rescues and harbours a mysterious man with a very dangerous past.

The Secondary Cast:

Shiny: A strange man Oree rescues from a muckbin. He glows at sunrise, and has the power to come back to life after dying - something he does with disturbing frequency. Also, the godlings in the city don't like him one bit.

Madding: Godling of Obligation, and Oree's ex-boyfriend. They share a romantic past rife with awkwardness.

Lil: Godling of Hunger - nasty, crazy, wants to eat you, but occasionally useful in dangerous situations.

Hado: The Master of Initiates for the New Lights, a dangerous heretical cult with eyes on Oree and her magical abilities, but he's hiding a secret card up his sleeve

Dateh: The leader of the New Lights - wants to use Oree's power to restore the world to the monotheistic dictatorship it used to be.

Fantasy Convention Checklist:
1 God In Disguise

1 Almost-But-Not-Quite God In Disguise

1 Thousand-Foot Drop, Mysteriously Survived

Several Resurrections

3 Accidental Disembowelments

1 Kindly Murder Attempt

1 Magic Power

1 Secret Heritage

The Word: WARNING - THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE PREVIOUS BOOK, THE HUNDRED THOUSAND KINGDOMS. Please do read that book, because it is awesome. But this review will be spoilery. You have been warned.
So in the first book of N.K. Jemisin's fantasy trilogy, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the author established a world that was formerly ruled by three gods - Itempas (Light/Order/Stasis), Nahadoth (Darkness/Chaos/Progress) and Enefa (Twilight/Balance). However, war erupted among the three, with Itempas killing Enefa and subjecting Nahadoth and their gaggle of godly children (known as godlings) to imprisonment and slavery for two thousand years. During that time, the Arameri (Itempas' chosen people) conquered the rest of the world and enforced the monotheistic worship of Order and Light, and if they met any resistance, well, those enslaved gods and godlings made pretty good weapons of mass destruction.

The heroine of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, however, managed to break the gods' bondage, releasing Nahadoth and all the godlings, fracturing the Arameri's stranglehold on the world, and devising a special punishment for Itempas.

On the day that happens, in a little village in a far away country, a blind girl named Oree Shoth discovers she has the ability to see magic - but nothing else. Inspired to abandon her backwater life and search for adventure, she moves to Shadow, the unique and colourful city that built itself around the roots of the World Tree that sprang up at the end of the last book.

Ten years later, the world is a very changed place, at least in Shadow. Itempas' dominion has been broken, and an unpredictable and lively new population of godlings walk the city, gathering new followers and pilgrims. Oree now works as a street artist, selling trinkets and souvenirs to Shadow's now-thriving tourist industry. Thanks to the new proliferation of magic and magical beings, she can see certain things, and it gives her a bit of an advantage over people who think she's completely blind.

Things get complicated when she discovers a dying man in her muckbin and takes him in. He dies several times over the course of his stay, coming back to life shortly thereafter, but otherwise he's as mortal as any man. On top of that, someone has discovered how to murder godlings, and a now-free Nahadoth threatens to obliterate the entire city of Shadow and everyone in it if the killer isn't brought to justice.

At its most basic, unadorned level, The Broken Kingdoms has a similar foundation to the previous novel - the story revolves around an underestimated, whip-smart woman of colour who finds her fate bound (very much against her will and better judgement) to a god who's fallen from grace. But the similarities end there. This novel does a great job of both creating its own story and examining its own themes while building on those established before.

The previous book showed how shallow and colourless a society can be when it abandons chaos and balance and focuses solely on order and light. This is contrasted by the vibrant, yet unpredictable and violent settings shown in this novel, which also examines how religious politics can exist in a world in which the gods are multiple and very present. There were quite a few darkly funny scenes where a god in disguise is forced to listen to the nonsensical blather his followers preach to excuse their heinous behaviour.

But, at the same time, the novel also examines what separates gods from humans. Just as she did in the first novel in this series, N.K. Jemisin nails the characterization of her immortal characters, drawing on myths and folklore. They can be capricious, jealous, vengeful, delighted - yet they have a billion years of experience and layers and ambiguity that render them too complex to define by human standards. Mild Spoilers --- I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Itempas, especially how he has to deal with the limitations of mortality and just how badly his celestial mistakes have caught up with him. Yes. This is "his" book the way Hundred Thousand was "Nahadoth's" book. Even though BOTH books are ACTUALLY about the two bad-ass women who put up with these idiots.

Simply put, The Broken Kingdoms works on all levels. It's a fantastic book on its own (and could even be read as a standalone, although the first book is too good to recommend doing that), it's an excellent follow-up to the first book, and it provides a wealth of new material and directions to go in for the third novel, Kingdom of Gods (which apparently centers around child-God Sieh, a.k.a. He Who Pulls The Cute Adorable Face While He Kicks You To Death).
A.

A Very Unfortunate DNF Review, "Demon Moon," by Meljean Brook

This is going to be a different review from my usual. Regular readers to my blog know that I very, very rarely DNF a book.

To me, a DNF doesn't necessarily mean the book is horrifically offensive or badly written. After all, I pushed all the way through Fool Me Once and Whitney, My Love.

Nowadays, though, I've started reading differently. I read slower than I would like (I'm sure everyone with a TBR thinks they read slower than they would like), so lately when I'm with books that are tiresome, I've found myself skimming. But I've never yet brought myself to DNF (Did Not Finish) a book.

Until this one, and it was a tough call, let me tell you.

I loved the previous book in this series, Demon Angel. I thought it had excellent world-building (the idea of angelic Guardians guarding the human race from demons and vampires), fantastic characters (Lilith is one of my favourite heroines ever), and a great love story.

Demon Moon, on the other hand, had a lot of stuff. Incredibly detailed, pointless, and probably unnecessary stuff. And two characters with really complicated and detailed magical backstories and less-developed actual, uh, human problems who have to make a romance in all of that.

So our hero is Colin. I loved him from his appearances in Demon Angel and in Meljean Brook's story "Falling for Anthony" from the otherwise-terrible Hot Spell anthology. So you'd think I'd like him here. Well, he's not bad, but ... he's a vampire, only he's a special vampire because he got turned by a nosferatu (a bald, creepy proto-vampire) instead of another vampire, and he's also special because his blood was tainted by a magic sword used to kill a dragon, and he's also super duper special because for some forgotten and doubtless complicated reason he is also capable of seeing into the Chaos realm whenever he looks at a mirror. And he also, like, spent a week in Chaos. For reasons. And this screwed him up, I think. Because of reasons.

And our heroine is Savi - a human girl who was practically raised by Hugh (the hero of Demon Angel) and her grandmother after her parents were murdered, so she also knows Colin by association. And she's also a brilliant computer programmer - who's secretly working for the government. For reasons. And when the novel opens, she actually gets mysterious superpowers after she uses computer wire, spit, and a mouthful of hellhound venom to take out a nosferatu who's smuggled his way onto her airplane. Yeah.

Oh, and she and Colin apparently spent a week in Caelum (the non-denominational version of Heaven for this book, it seems, although we still have Hell), something I did not at all remember from the previous books, and it was apparently a very emotionally contentious time for the both of them because they spend pages and pages hinting and circling around what happened instead of just out and telling us. ARGH!

From the first hundred and fifty pages I read, the external plot is that the nosferatu that were trapped in Chaos by the Good Guys in the last book due to some incredibly complicated shenanigans are now trying to escape, using other incredibly complicated shenanigans - calling for Savi, Colin, Hugh, Lilith, Selah and Michael to come up with EVEN MORE COMPLICATED SHENANIGANS to save the day.

At least that's what I got out of it. In my opinion, this novel was way, way, WAY too complicated for only the second book of a series. I constantly felt like I was missing something and that I had to keep up. I couldn't get involved with the story or invested in the characters because I was too busy trying to keep all the useless, unnecessary worldbuilding facts straight (what's the difference between a vampire's bloodlust and sex-lust? I HAVE NO CLUE but apparently it's really important in the early stages of the romance). There's Earth, Caelum, Hell and the Chaos Realm. There are vampires, nosferatu, Guardians, demons, hellhounds, werewolves, and wyrmwolves. Each with their own rules and special powers and this Guardian can teleport, but this Guardian can't and this demon can but only on Sundays, etc etc. etc.

After about a hundred and fifty pages, I gave up, exhausted. I didn't want to read anymore, I didn't care about the characters at all, the romance at this stage was just so one-note (Colin wants to get into Savi's pants but he has to do it in a douchey-seductive-vampire way because he doesn't want to reveal that he has feelings and Savi really doesn't want people to bite her but Colin is sexy so she'll let him). Just ... no. When I realized that reading this book had become a chore, and that there were 300 pages left, I just gave up. Life is short.

It reminded me of Marjorie Liu and her Dirk & Steele series, and how she's managed to have such a wonderful, detailed paranormal series while avoiding these very pitfalls. I was confused by Meljean Brook's second book (even after reading the first one and the "Falling for Anthony" short story), but I started what turned out to be the eighth in Marjorie M. Liu's series (The Wild Road, which has one of the best virgin heroes of all time) and loved the hell out of it.

Even so, giving up this book was difficult - I like the author herself, it wasn't badly written, there were a lot of original concepts throughout, and I'm sure I would have found the characters and their romance more interesting if the romance had been better incorporated into a streamlined paranormal plot instead of feeling like a distraction to the all-encompassing, overelaborate paranormal plot.

That being said, readers, have you read her other books? Are they still worth reading or will skipping Demon Moon leave me even more in the dark than I already am? Is The Iron Duke any good?

"Duke of Shadows," by Meredith Duran

The Chick: Emmaline Martin. When she barely survives a shipwreck that killed her parents, she discovers that the proper life they had planned for her is no longer the one she wants.
The Rub: It's not enough that she has to survive a ship going down and killing her entire family - but she also has to survive an Indian uprising too. Not a lot of room left for personal problems.
Dream Casting: Kate Winslet.

The Dude: Julian Sinclair. Raised by his Indian grandmother and eventually taken under the wing of his English duke grandfather, he is a child of two worlds - and trusted by neither.
The Rub: This especially sucks because he's the only one who seems to notice that unrest is brewing in the native population of India, unrest that inevitably boil over into violence.
Dream Casting: David Giuntoli.

The Plot:

Emma: Hey guys! I survived a shipwreck!

Evil Fiance: Awesome - and your fortune is completely intact?

Emma: And ... and my person is also intact.

Evil Fiance: I don't care so much about that.

Julian: Hey, maybe we should stop being mean to all the Indian people we're training in modern warfare and giving guns to.

All The British People: LOL NO.

Rebellion: *is had*

Julian: Quick, Emma, I love you!

Emma: I love you too!

Julian: Now stay in this secure location that has a reputation for being a fortress surrounded by people I trust!

Fortress: *broken into*

Emma: THIS IS ALL JULIAN'S FAULT! HE ABANDONED ME! WOE IS ME! NOW I HAVE A VIOLENT PAST!

Four Years Later

Julian: OMG, you're alive!

Emma: Yes, and I hate you now, for no reason, because this book isn't long enough as it is.

Julian: Wait what?

Emma: Also someone's trying to kill me. I'm also dead inside. Oh, and I hate you for leaving me to die.

Julian: Um, can't we just talk about this like regular people --

Emma: 'Fraid not. I must be deep and scarred and mysterious now. And also I hate you. You know, for failing to protect me from all physical harm whether it's caused by you or not.

Julian: EXCUSE ME I'M STILL GETTING OVER THE FACT THAT YOU'RE NOT DEAD AND YOU SOMEHOW NEGLECTED TO INFORM ME OF THIS.

Emma: This is the part where you rescue me.

Julian: And will this somehow get me magically forgiven for sins that I never actually committed that are really a product of your PTSD?

Emma: ... sure.

Julian: *rescues* HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Very Bad Fiance

1 Inconvenient Shipwreck

2 Inconveniently Dead Parents

1 Bloody Revolution

Several Violent Paintings

1 Intensely Interesting Secondary Character With a Dynamite Backstory Whose Novel Has Criminally Not Been Written Yet

1 Poisoned Dog

Several Unwittingly Secret Messages

The Word: When I first started reading Meredith Duran with Bound By Your Touch, I encountered a strange phenomenon where, objectively, I recognized that the writing was original and superior, the style was lyrical, the characters had layers; and yet, subjectively, I felt almost completely detached from the story.

I figured that maybe it was just a one-off, because a writing style like Meredith Duran's doesn't just turn up every day. So I picked up her contest-winning debut, Duke of Shadows, and found, to my dismay, that I felt the same way.

Detached. Uninvested. Even worse, when I stopped feeling apathetic, I felt annoyed - particularly with the dithering heroine.

The story begins in India in the 1850s, as young, wealthy Emma lives in the Residency and awaits her dismal future as the fiancee of a cartoonishly awful man named Marcus who is already hip-deep in an affair with another woman. Emma has no family in the country to run to - her parents perished very recently in a shipwreck that only Emma survived, and Emma's subsequent rescue by a ship full of rough-and-tumble sailors has left her reputation hanging by a thread.

She develops an odd friendship with Marcus' despised cousin Julian Sinclair, the Marquess of Holdensmoor. Despite his lofty English title, he is spurned by the British for his mixed blood (his mother was half-Indian) as well as his then-radical opinion that, Hey, Those Indian Blokes Don't Really Like British People Occupying Their Motherland and Might Eventually Be Inclined to Do Something About It. Emma, who survived the shipwreck that killed her parents to discover that a Proper English Life will inevitably smother her, finds solace with a fellow outcast.

And then a bloody and violent revolution happens, and Emma finds herself fleeing the city with Julian. During their flight, they share a few evasive conversations with each other and realize they're in love. Before they can go much further, however, Julian is forced to leave her at a secure location that ultimately ends up not being as secure as he thought it was, and the two are separated.

Cut to four years later. Emma has recovered from her truly traumatizing exodus from India by becoming an artist of gruesome and violent paintings about the atrocities wrought upon the natives by English soldiers. When a nobleman who shares her same opinion about the occupation of India persuades her to display her art, it finally brings her back into contact with Julian.

Unbeknownst to her, Julian has spent the last four years believing she was dead, so their reunion comes as something of a surprise to him. And here is where the novel roused me from my apathy - and dipped my opinion into dislike. Emma decides to guilt and blame Julian for things that could not possibly have been his fault, because she picked up Guilt Issues and a Mysterious Past (that's not mysterious since the reader finds out about it as it happens) in India and suddenly, this novel acquires a Big Misunderstanding and a Suspense Subplot when it had a perfectly suitable and realistic conflict already.

Here is where the novel falters. The book is essentially split into two parts - the first has an original setting, an interesting and historically relevant plot, and well-realized external and internal conflicts. The second has a conventional historical setting, a stretched Big Misunderstanding plot, a contrived Suspense Subplot, and a heroine who continues to engineer conflict beyond reasonable limits. The first half of this novel should have been a book on its own (and if you're interested in that sort of book, try Sherry Thomas' Not Quite a Husband), but as merely Part One, its effect is lessened by how rushed the development has to be.

And the second half of the novel is just run of the mill. Heroine guards her heart, hero has to seduce her, crazed madman forces hero to take care of heroine, heroine denies and discredits everything experienced hero says, mysterious past is revealed, et cetera and so on and so forth. In terms of its pacing, it reminded me vaguely of Carolyn Jewel's superior-in-all-ways Indiscreet - which also had the hero and heroine in an exotic setting falling in love in the first half of the novel before an evil villain turns it into an escape thriller.

Ultimately, Duke of Shadows is an uneven, disjointed, and inconsistent book. The heroine's Issues, while understandable, make her seem irrational and create more conflict than we need. The hero, despite telling instead of showing a rather colourful past, isn't incredibly interesting on his own. The writing is decent, and the descriptions of the setting are vivid and wonderful - but sadly, the story and the characters don't measure up.

For better versions of this novel, I would heartily suggest reading Thomas' Not Quite a Husband and Jewel's Indiscreet.
B-

2011: The Year In Review

Well, 2011 was an interesting year for me, both reading- and life-wise. The biggest change, of course, is that I finally moved out into my first apartment, and that affected my reading habits in a number of ways. Firstly - moving took a lot of time and planning, and left little time for reading. Secondly, carrying more than 300 books from my parents' house to my tiny apartment really put my reading and book-buying habits in perspective. Thirdly, I discovered Tumblr, which is the timesuck to end all timesucks.

Lastly, and this is the kicker - the apartment I ended up moving into is only twelve blocks away from where I work, so I've now been walking to and from work every day. It's nice. It's relaxing. And I save money because I only really take the bus to go to specific places like the mall or my parents' house for Sunday dinner.

But let me put this into perspective - I was raised in a suburb. I've more or less been taking public transportation to and from school/work/social life since I was seven years old. Waiting for the bus, taking the bus, transferring - that has essentially given me two times a day, every day, for the majority of my self-aware life that I can lose myself in a good book. That's not to say I don't read at other times, not at all - but suddenly not having those two times put a significant dent in my reading pace, and suddenly I had to find a time to read more. The result is that my reading slowed down considerably this past year, and I've only started bringing it back up to scratch recently.

....but I also got an XBox 360 for Christmas so who really knows at this point?

Anyhoo, all told, I only managed to review 38 novels, slightly less than half the number of books I read last year (79).

In writing news, I scrapped my fantasy romance The Duke of Snow and Apples, and have been rewriting it as a YA, tentatively titled Snow and Apples, and actually won NaNoWriMo for the first time because of it! A lot of people asked about the change, and really there are a lot of reasons, but mainly I did it because I actually feel a lot more comfortable reading YA. I have a young mindset, a young voice, and I'm still inexperienced in a lot of ways and I personally realized that by writing romance at this stage in my life, I was bound to wander into territory in which I have no personal experience and would have to rely on derivative writing.

But, despite my lower reading rate, I did manage to read a lot of very brilliant, as well as mind-meltingly terrible books this year. As I have done in Previous Year Round Ups, I'm basing my Best and Worst lists based on letter grade rather than number. My Best List is Comprised of all my A+ reviews, and anything that received a D+ or lower made it onto the Worst List.

ANIMEJUNE'S SIX BEST BOOKS OF 2011:

Your Scandalous Ways, by Loretta Chase. Romance. A+
It's really, really hard to go wrong with Loretta Chase. One of Chase's best features is her use of unconventional settings in her historical romances. This sumptuous novel takes place in Venice, as a jaded spy tracks down a notorious courtesan who's suspected of hiding letters that could unmask a traitor to England. Take a heroine who is entirely unashamed of her oldest (and highest paying!) profession and pair her with a hero who thought his spirit of adventure had all but died out, and what you get is a richly evocative, unconventional, and exotic romance.

A Lady Awakened, by Cecelia Grant. Romance. A+
And now we move on to the brilliant debut by Cecelia Grant. Her rigidly practical and controlled heroine also turns sex into a business venture, when she pays an irresponsible rake to have sex with her in the hopes of conceiving a false heir to prevent an actual scoundrel from inheriting her husband's estate. Her refusal to enjoy the act, however, forces the good-hearted and determined hero to take drastic romantic measures.

Indiscreet, by Carolyn Jewel. Romance. A+
Jewel also gives us an historical romance with an unconventional setting - when our heartbroken hero meets our ruined heroine in Turkey, only to end up having to rescue her from an evil pasha's harem. Lush detail, vibrant settings, and a meticulously developed hero and heroine make this a novel a true gem.

The Shadow and the Star, by Laura Kinsale. Romance. A+
Of course, my Best-Of List would be meaningless without a Laura Kinsale title on it. It seems that Exotic Settings were my ultimate kink this year - Chase gave me Venice, Jewel gave me Turkey, and here Kinsale gives us Hawaii - where our ninja-trained hero was raised before travelling to Victorian London to unexpectedly fall in love with a penniless seamstress. Yes, he's a ninja. With ninja powers. And secret babies and sharks and demon swords all factor into this story. Kinsale flawlessly combines outwardly weird story elements into a fascinating and entertaining whole.

Flowers from the Storm, by Laura Kinsale. Romance. A+
Yes, Laura Kinsale made my list twice. Surprised? You shouldn't be. Flowers is Kinsale's acknowledged masterpiece - a heartbreaking tale of an arrogant, brilliant mathematician Duke who is brought low by a stroke and deprived of his ability to produce and comprehend speech. He is rescued, in more ways than one, by a Quaker heroine who, while pious, is far from simple. A breathtaking novel.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Cathrynne M. Valente. YA. A+
Valente broke my heart with The Orphan's Tales, and she puts it back together again with this Victorian-influenced children's novel about an enterprising young girl who travels to fairyland and discovers it's not all fluffy, Disney cuteness. Uniquely lovely and horrifying as only the best children's fiction can be - because it's not a real adventure if you don't have the pants scared off you at least once.

Now, much like the Force, there was also a Dark Side to my reading experience this year. I've been quite sparing with my F grades on my blog - and this year, I gave out two. Without further ado, here are:

ANIMEJUNE'S TOP FIVE WORST NOVELS OF 2011

Tumbling Through Time, by Gwen Cready. Romance. D+
This hot mess of a novel messes with time travel, alternate histories, metafiction, Patrick O'Brien novels, Colin Firth, and fashionable shoes and completely fails to bind any of it together with any sort of logic or sense. Our heroine is apparently thinking of writing a novel, then gets transported - thanks to a Gypsy-cursed pair of shoes - back in time to deal with the irate hypothetical character of her hypothetical novel, who is simultaneously an historical figure in the middle of a war that is actually happening, while an unexplained entity possesses the heroine's body in the present and gives it a boob tattoo while simultaneously trying to have sex with a bunch of people. Confused yet?

Lord of Legends, by Susan Krinard. Romance. D
The hero is a unicorn who is transformed into a human man by an evil fairy prince in order to seduce a half-fairy woman into the fairy realm, but what really doesn't make sense about this ponderous, hypocritical and misogynist romance is how the hero manages to be so completely uninteresting while doing it. The author also clearly indicates to us who is the Heroine and who is the Villainess - the villainess is the woman who has a lot of consensual, enjoyable sex with a lot of people, whereas the heroine is the Pure Virgin who looks down on adulterers while having sex with a unicorn man while her husband is MIA. The moral of the story is, If You Have Sex and You're A Woman, You're Evil - Unless the Man Your Cuckholding Your Husband With Is A Unicorn.

Until You, by Judith McNaught. Romance. D
Another book in Judith McNaught's "Brain Injuries Make Romance Easy" series of insultingly twee, misogynist romances. A shapely redhead takes a blow to the head in front of a wealthy Earl who mistakes her for a highborn beauty, and her subsequent mental disabilities (particularly her inability to understand sex, ambition, or social rules) render her incredibly attractive to the hero. Until she actually remembers her own name - then she's tossed out on her ass as a "lying whore" and has to beg the jaded, woman-hating hero to take her back.

The Lady and the Libertine, by Bonnie Vanak. Romance. F
A helpful book for women who've been drugged, kidnapped, and either blackmailed or coerced into having sex with violent stalkers - it just means he's in love with you and it's up to you to change him into a better person! In this lovely novel, the hero steals a sacred jewel from a damaged heroine, threatens to take her to jail unless she has sex with him when she tries to steal it back, and then chloroforms her and ties her naked to a cathouse bed when she refuses to marry him. But it's because he's so tortured!

Whitney My Love, by Judith McNaught. Romance. F-
Yes, McNaught made it twice on my Worst List. Surprised? The ultimate in romance fail - where the heroine is just so stubborn, feisty and unconventional that the hero is simply forced to hit her, sexually assault her, and rape her in order to get her to see reason. And of course, when the hero discovers that his Perfectly Logical Reasons for treating the heroine like garbage are wrong - well, he's just Too Proud and Majestic to be Allowed to Apologize. Wrong and hateful on nearly every level. Whitney, My Love is my Worst Read of 2011. Congrats!

And now, the best of the rest:

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. YA. A-
Pros: Great social examination of media. Cons: So-so sci-fi worldbuilding.

A Dance with Dragons, by George R. R. Martin. Fantasy. A-
Pros: Vastly detailed world and characters. Cons: Slow pacing.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson. Fiction. A-
Pros: Lovely characters and English village setting. Cons: Bizarre ending.

Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage, by Jennifer Ashley. Romance. B+
Pros: Well-drawn characters and realistic romantic conflict. Cons: Completely unnecessary suspense subplot.

Lord Carew's Bride, by Mary Balogh. Romance. B+
Pros: A delicious Beta hero and a kickass ending. Cons: Low conflict.

A Summer to Remember, by Mary Balogh. Romance. B+
Pros: Great characters and character development, particularly the heroine. Cons: Slow pacing.

Room, by Emma Donaghue. Fiction. B+
Pros: Terrific premise, excellent use of limited/unreliable POV. Cons: Constant kid-speak can be irritating.

The American Heiress, by Daisy Goodwin. Fiction. B+
Pros: Lovely detail, lots of drama. Cons: Ending abrupt and somewhat unsatisfying.

Here On Earth, by Alice Hoffman. Fiction. B+
Pros: Great secondary characters, creative re-telling of Wuthering Heights. Cons: It's Wuthering Heights.

The House At Riverton, by Kate Morton. Fiction. B+
Pros: Great atmosphere, good upstairs-downstairs drama and historical detail. Cons: Some "surprise" plot points obviously telegraphed.

His At Night, by Sherry Thomas. Romance. B+
Pros: Gorgeous writing, laugh-out-loud comedy. Cons: Fake identity renders romance slightly unbelievable.

Dark Angel, by Mary Balogh. Romance. B
Pros: Interesting hero with a dark past. Cons: Uneven pacing and conflict.

Forbidden, by Jo Beverley. Romance. B
Pros: Virgin beta hero, interesting conflict. Cons: Too much inner whining.

The Summer of You, by Kate Noble. Romance. B
Pros: Excellent atmosphere and characterization. Cons: Flimsy plot.

One Night of Scandal, by Teresa Medeiros. Romance. B
Pros: Heroine is delightful beyond all reason. Cons: Hero is mopey beyond all reason.

Then He Kissed Me, by Christine Ridgway. Romance. B
Pros: Complex secondary romance. Cons: Shallow primary romance.

Bad to the Bone, by Jeri Smith-Ready. Urban Fantasy. B
Pros: Unique vampire worldbuilding. Cons: Doesn't work as a standalone.

I'm Not Her, by Janet Gurtler. YA. B-
Pros: Good emotional development, realistic depictions. Cons: Relentlessly depressing, manipulative plotting.

Something About You, by Julie James. Romance. B-
Pros: Strong heroine, some nice humour. Cons: Romance isn't memorable, mystery plot isn't really a mystery.

Talk of the Town, by Karen Hawkins. Romance. B-
Pros: Interesting story idea. Cons: Cheesy secondary characters and corny small town setting.

Immortal Champion, by Lisa Hendrix. Romance. C+
Pros: Good historical detail, good secondary characters. Cons: Contrived conflict, annoying anachronistic heroine.

The Duff, by Kody Keplinger. YA. C+
Pros: Good interaction between heroine and friends. Cons: Dickwad hero, major family problems glossed over unrealistically.

The Sharing Knife, Volume One: Beguilement, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Fantasy. C+
Pros: Interesting worldbuilding. Cons: Ridiculously low conflict and slack pacing.

To Ruin the Duke, by Debra Mullins. Romance. C+
Pros: Sensible protagonists. Cons: Cray-cray storyline.

Tangled Up In Love, by Heidi Betts. Romance. C
Pros: Some interesting protagonist interactions. Cons: Exaggerated conflict, too many Meddling Matchmakers.

Something Borrowed, by Emily Giffin. Chick Lit. C
Pros: Solid writing. Cons: Bitter, envious, passive heroine is a major drag, and conflict is lessened by the Major Bitchification of the romantic rival.

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire. Fiction. C
Pros: Well, it probably sounded like a good idea at the time. Cons: Pretentious, poorly-plotted, nonsensical "symbolic" bullshit.

The Dangers of Deceiving a Viscount, by Julia London. Romance. C-
Pros: Uh, the book fits easily into a purse. Cons: Starts conflicts but doesn't finish them, plot is flimsy, character development makes no sense.

"I'm Not Her," by Janet Gurtler

The Heroine: Tess Smith. A misunderstood teenage outcast with an insanely popular older sister who sucks up all their parents' attention. Stop me if you've heard this one before.
The Rub: The insanely popular older sister gets cancer, has an painful identity crisis, and their parents both decide to check out early from the Responsible Parenthood Hotel, leaving only Tess to try and make sense of things.

The Secondary Cast:
Kristina: A star athlete with a guaranteed future ahead of her - until she gets cancer and has to change her whole outlook on life.

Mr. and Mrs. "Parents of the Year" Smith: One's a boozy perfectionist, the other's a professor with a Ph.D in avoidance. Neither of them know how to handle their older daughter's cancer or how to nurture their younger daughter's genuine artistic talent.

Simon: A troubled senior with *~brooding problems~* who nevertheless befriends Tess in her hour of need.

Clark Trent: A Hot Nerd with an unfortunate-sounding name who also befriends Tess in her hour of need, in a much healthier and more productive way.

Jeremy: A younger kid with a serious crush on Kristina, and a past that brings him closer to her than any other boy.

YA Convention Checklist:

1 More Popular Sister

2 Unsupportive Parents

1 Evil Bitch Ex-BFF

1 Troubled Love Interest

1 Nerdy Love Interest

1 McGuffin Art Contest

1 Shocking and Yet Manipulative Character Death

The Word: If someone had explained to me, on paper, what this book was about and what happened throughout, I would never have read this book. I would have put it down without a second thought, believing that I would never enjoy anything so relentlessly depressing and only mildly hopeful at the end.

But then I would be wrong. Now, I didn't luuuurve this novel, but honestly, I was just so surprised that I kept wanting to read to the end that I thought I would point that out as notable.

Because a lot of bad stuff happens in this book. Like, tragedy after tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. It just piles on, over and over, with very little if any relief for any of the characters, particularly the protagonist, Tess.

Tess is a bit of an oddball. She's plagued with low self-esteem because her older sister Kristina is gorgeous, outrageously popular, and has an Olympic-sized volleyball dream that their mother supports 110%. Meanwhile, Tess is bony, red-haired, and neither of her parents believe her artistic aspirations will be anything more than a hobby. She's used to being invisible at school, ignored by all in favour of her more popular sister. Her only friend is a chubby, vindictive fellow outcast with whom she loves to snipe and bitch about their despised sisters.

But then Kristina gets The Cancer. And it sucks, big time. As she gets chemotherapy and starts fighting her illness, she drops off the social grid entirely and swears Tess to secrecy. No dice - it takes all of five seconds for the school to realize Kristina's missing and the only source they have for information is Tess. Soon, Tess becomes the most visible girl in school, as everyone from Kristina's volleyball friends to her sort-of, maybe boyfriend starts hanging around Tess to find out how Kristina is doing.

And Kristina gets worse. And their parents flip out - Tess' dad detaches from the family entirely, and her mom busies herself with wallpapering over all their real problems to try and make up for the fact that the future she's imagined for her daughter will never take place. It's pretty heavy stuff.

And I kept reading. There are breadcrumbs of hope, scattered here and there. They are pitiful and small, for the most part, until they slowly, eventually, form into a cohesive message. I think the point of the book is that the fact that Tess doesn't fly entirely, completely to pieces beneath the full pressure of shitful fate is supposed to be some kind of victory. Her parents break, and Kristina breaks, and the popular kids reveal whose side they're really on, and through this Tess learns to develop an identity separate from other peoples' approval, as she discovers how little she can trust those people in a tough situation. Which is a message that's as depressing as it is uplifting.

Ultimately, though, this book was kind of a mixed bag for me. While the dramatic, tragic parts were handled in a painful yet evocative manner, the positive bits were all over the place. We get a lot of different characters who aren't all fleshed out with the same amount of sensitivity and detail. Tess's spiteful friend, for instance, gets the short shrift, turning into a sour, one-note villain. I couldn't understand why they were friends in the first place. As well, some of the plot points come across as contrivances to force more pain or negative pressure on the heroine to see how she develops from it, only it doesn't develop in an organic way. A shocking character death near the end of the novel is brought in so clumsily and obviously that it's almost funny in how blatant it is, and that kind of ruined the effect and gave the novel a cancer-opera feel similar to a Lurlene McDaniel novel.

While it wasn't a terrible novel, I wouldn't read it again, nor would I know who to recommend it to. The gains to the heroine and the message of the novel itself are fairly standard, and seem paltry compared to the bleakness of the majority of the book. Perhaps teenagers and people who've struggled with cancer (or with a family member who had it) will get more out of this novel than I could. To me, it was like medicine: useful, well-made, but not a voluntarily enjoyable experience.
B-.

"A Lady Awakened," by Cecilia Grant

The Chick: Martha Russell. When her husband dies, she's left with nothing but an estate that will go to her despicable brother-in-law - unless she can produce an heir within the next nine months.
The Rub: Since her husband didn't do the job himself, she'll have to find someone who can, and the newly-arrived Theo seems as good a stud as any.
Dream Casting: Sophia Myles.

The Dude: Theophilus Mirkwood. A profligate rascal banished to the countryside to mend his ways, he'll have to prove his worth to his tenants and his father's steward if he wants to return to his high-flying ways in London.
The Rub: Associating with the forward-thinking, well-respected widow Russell does wonders for his reputation - and that's not even mentioning the 500 pounds she's paying him for sex!
Dream Casting: A younger Brad Pitt.

The Plot:Martha: I need a baby!

Theo: I need a project!

Martha: I'll pay you 500 pounds if we have sex!

Theo: YAY!

Martha: Hey hey hey! I'm not paying you for orgasms!

Theo: Wut.

Martha: You heard me. Babies only. None of that flimsy fun stuff.

Theo: Hey, I'm giving tenants new roofs.

Martha: Oh, really? New roofs? They'll have better shelter.

Theo: Oh yeah, they'll be much better off - and less water damage to the structure.

Martha: Oh, baby.

Theo: You like that, don't you? Improved living circumstances to the economically disadvantaged.

Martha: Keep going, don't stop!

Theo: And I'm going to build a dairy.

Martha: You BUILD that dairy!

Theo: And create a higher-quality product for a lower cost, creating an economic stimulus.

Martha: Oooh, keep stimulating that economy, right there....

Theo: I'm getting all RESPONSIBLE LANDOWNER up in here!

Martha: Wow. I'm totally pregnant now. Screw propriety, let's get married!

Theo: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist

1 Ho For Show

500 Pounds on the Dresser

Several Denied Orgasms

1 Nasty Rapist

1 Determined Pig

Several Unsatisfying Wheels of Cheese

1 Unsatisfying Husband (Deceased)

1 Upright and Religious Romantic Rival

The Word: Unless I come across a miraculous page-turner within the next sixteen days, this book is the best book I've read all year.

The author kindly offered me an ARC, and I accepted - but when the book arrived I kind of put it on my shelf and forgot about it.

Mea culpa. This is just one of those lovely, slow-burning, intricately written stories that manages to avoid NEARLY EVERY BURNING CLICHE I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE about historical romances.

Martha Russell needs a baby. Her husband is recently deceased, her brightest prospect is a position as a dependent in her brother's household, and Mr. Russell's entire estate will go to a slimeball of a brother with a vicious sexual reputation - unless Martha can convince people that Hubby Dearest took the time to pop a legitimate bun in her oven before riding out to break his neck.

Opportunity strikes when Theophilus Mirkwood arrives in town - an impossibly charming and promiscuous wastrel who has been stripped of his allowance and banished to the countryside by his father in order to mend his ways. He is shocked when the very prim Mrs. Russell very politely offers him 500 pounds to copulate with her once a day, every day, for a month - with the promise of 1500 more if their arrangement results in a boy she can pass off as Mr. Russell's posthumous heir.

Theo, who considers himself a thoughtful, thorough, and experienced lover (don't they all, though?), is even more shocked, however, at Martha's intentional and determined refusal to experience pleasure during the act, despite Theo's absolute best efforts. She'll have her cake, thank you, but she doesn't care to eat it, too.

Now, before you start thinking, Oh, she's one of *those* historical heroines. Another orgasmless widow? - keep reading. Martha is an exceptional, sensational, deeply moral, and uniquely wonderful character. She's a hen's tooth of an historical heroine who knows first hand about pleasure (if you catch my drift), but she's also witnessed the exploitation of women at the hands of men (both with her mother and her draining parade of pregnancies, and in the female tenants and servants she's responsible for). This knowledge has left her pathologically opposed to dependence of any kind.

For Theo, taking his pleasure without giving his partner any goes severely against his personal Rake Code, so when his many attempts to seduce her fail, he tries to please her in other ways - by talking to her, asking for her expertise and guidance on tending his estate, and studying ways to improve the lives of his tenants. To his surprise, not only does this work, but he starts enjoying it as well.

And oh, the protagonists. I loved them both equally, their idiosyncrasies and fears and motivations, and I love the fact that Cecilia Grant manages to create such wonderful characters without giving them some traumatizing or ridiculously momentous backstories to explain the way they act. Not that I don't like dramatic backstories, but it's refreshing to realize that one doesn't need to witness their parents die in a flaming carriage accident to become an interesting, flawed character.

Martha is a magnificent Swiss watch of a woman, precise, rigidly practical, controlled and well-ordered, with a strong sense of righteousness that sometimes goes a wee bit too far (honestly, deciding to provide a fake heir to jilt a guy based on sixteen-year-old rumours is the flimsiest part of the novel). However, as a result, she has severe social blind spots and is rather isolated from her community. But I adored her. She's strong and she's independent and aside from one iffy motivation ("this person allegedly raped an unknown woman sixteen years ago according to hearsay? I can't let him have his birthright!") she is a damn smart woman who knows how to survive in her environment.

Theo, meanwhile.... Mmmmm, Theo. He's a spoiled, lazy, charming, cheerful, thoroughly enjoyable rake who, even at the tender age of twenty-six, is starting to tire of no one taking him seriously or expecting much from him. Really, the only thing he's practiced or improved upon in his life is his skill at giving ladies Sexy HappyTimes, and Martha won't even let him do that. But as he tries getting her involved in his estate management in an effort to impress her, he starts making a difference and taking initiative, and finding something that he's actually good at. Reading how Theo grows up is just as wonderful as watching Martha loosen up.

What I love about the romance itself is that it develops almost entirely separate from sex. They knock boots within the first couple of chapters, and quickly establish that it's a businesslike arrangement between them (and is written as such). Almost all of their important interactions happen after sex, after the "duty" is fulfilled and they can relax enough to talk to each other.

The sex only becomes an act of pleasure after they fall in love with each other. Theo doesn't one day try some mysterious Far Eastern sex move and Martha doesn't magically discover her g-spot for the first time. Martha herself sets the perimeters of her sexual enjoyment - she doesn't want to surrender herself, sexually, to a man she doesn't admire and respect. And, without spoiling too much, she never does.
Thought-provoking, gorgeously written, flawlessly characterized, A Lady Awakened is a breathtaking debut from Cecilia Grant, who with her first book, proves herself worthy of the same bookshelf as Laura Kinsale, Mary Balogh, Sherry Thomas, Carolyn Jewel, Jo Goodman, and Judith Ivory.A+