"Texas Gothic," by Rosemary Clement-Moore

I was a bit ashamed to pick this novel up from my shelf, only to realize it was an ARC dated back to 2011. Oops. I was busy, okay!

Amy Goodnight is the one non-witchy girl in a family full of witches and so she's made it her job to keep her kooky female relatives from letting their various magical cats out of their respective magical bags. Even though her own sister, Phin, could give two bagged-cat farts about the secrecy of her witchcraft-related experiments.

Anyhoo, Amy and Phin are spending the summer taking care of their Aunt Hyacinth's farm (she's a botanical soap witch, for reals), when Amy runs afoul of the Hot Cowboy Neighbour, Ben McCulloch. Rumours of a ghost on his property have been hurting his family business (especially after a few of his workers are mysteriously injured on the job) so of course he blames the witchy Goodnight family for spreading those rumours.

The only problem? Amy spots a real ghost, and when her paranormal encounter coincides with the discovery of human remains on the McCulloch land, she realizes all the weird accidents that have been happening to Ben's workers might not be so accidental. She just has to convince Ben the ghost is real, and enlist her witch sister's magical help, all the while trying to hide the fact that magic is real.

While this novel was charmingly written (Amy has a hilariously cynical narrative voice), it turned out to be lighter than expected. In several ways. First of all, the story is not as dark as the description led me to believe. It's very much in the Nancy Drew/Scooby Doo vein of Meddling Kids vs. Incompetent Adults. Secondly, for a novel whose protagonist is from a family of witches, there's not that much magic in it. There's a potion or two, one hilarious scene with a magical bottle of shampoo, and a ghost-detecting machine that Phin builds, but the fantasy in this story is strangely absent and doesn't really affect the plot. Most of the plot happens due to non-magical teenage detective work, which was a bit of a let down.

It's not terribly written, and the pacing is decent, but the back cover copy promises a story that the novel just doesn't deliver. It's light-hearted fluff, so if that's your thing, go ahead.

Do Not Read If: You expect an actually dark and gothic novel; you're looking for an explicitly magical plot involving spells; you hate Hot Teen Cowboys; you hate dogs; you hate ghosts; you hate goats; you hate storylines that hinge on someone hearing "goats" when the speaker meant "ghosts."

C

"The Game and the Governess," by Kate Noble

The Chick: Phoebe Baker. A former debutante forced into servitude when her father was swindled of his life savings by a con artist the Earl of Ashby refused to prosecute.
The Rub: Now she lives as a governess, in the very house where the Earl is visiting. Will her hatred rise up to consume her?
Dream Casting: Chloe Sevigny.

The Dude: Lucky Ned, Earl of Ashby. He thinks he has it all because he's an awesome person, but his best friend thinks it's because he's a privileged asshat. Naturally, he decides to make a wager at it, switching places with his secretary friend.
The Rub: Being a secretary is hard. Who knew?
Dream Casting: James McAvoy.

The Plot:

Ned: What?! Are you really saying the reason everyone loves me, caters to my every need, and waits on me is because I have money and power?

THE ENTIRE WORLD: YES.

Ned: Oh. Be my wife?

Phoebe: Despite my 5-year-long hatred of you and disgust for privileged aristocrats and the fact that you literally lied to me about everything, I inexplicably agree!

Ned: HOORAY!

Phoebe: ...hmm, maybe it's because of all your money and power.

Ned: DAMMIT.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Asshat Hero
• 2 Sequel-Baiting Dudebros
• 1 Desperate Sequel-Baiting Countess Who Gives Us NO CLOSURE AT ALL
• 1 Poisoned Blackberry Tart
• 1 Random Murder Attempt

The Word: Okay, so I kind of fell off the Kate Noble fan wagon after the awful Follow My Lead. Revealed is still one of my favourite romances, but the rest of her novels never really lived up to the perfection of that one. However, I was quite intrigued by the plot of The Game and the Governess and thought I'd give her another try.

Lucky Ned, Earl of Ashby, has it all - he's one of the wealthiest men in the country, he's handsome, healthy, and a sure hand at cards. However, when his best friend/war buddy/secretary John Turner calls him on his privilege, Ned gets all butthurt. Turner, who has been pleading with Ned for years to lend him the money to help his family's mill, says the only reason Ned is "lucky" is because he's an earl. Ned, who's refused to lend Turner the money because ... mills are boring and working for a living is stupid, believes it's his naturally cheerful disposition that grants him Lady Luck's favour, and John has only his sourpuss personality to blame for his own misfortunes. Yeah.

Turner decides to turn it into a wager. The two are headed to a small English village neither has visited in decades to sell off Ned's mother's property. Turner proposes they switch places - Turner will pose as the earl, and Ned as the secretary - for two weeks, and in that time Ned has to win the romantic favour of a noble lady in spite of his "lowly" status. If Turner wins, Ned owes him 5000 pounds. If Ned wins, Turner loses his family mill. Yup - Ned's the hero of this novel.

They arrive at the house, and Ned's eye is caught by the whippet-thin, stern-faced governess of his host's children. Unbeknownst to him, this governess, Phoebe Baker, harbours a deep grudge against the Earl of Ashby. Years ago, Ned discovered his previous secretary was embezzling from him and he chose to cover it up rather than lose face, leaving the thief free to swindle Phoebe's father of his inheritance and drive him to suicide. Phoebe's reconciled herself to her reduced circumstances but she wants nothing to do with anyone associated with the Ashby house.

So, what was good about this novel? Noble does an excellent job examining privilege. Ned is an ass, and the narrative both acknowledges and commits to this and uses it to develop his character. Ned thinks the wager will be easy, he'll just use his abundant charm on the ladies, but his tried-and-tested moves blow up in his face - and the narrative doesn't only imply his earldom made womenfolk more receptive. It also suggests his high station could have scared women who would ordinarily have resisted his advances. I loved that aspect, and I loved that Ned had to really start thinking about consent and willingness and the enjoyment of his partners.

So what didn't I like? Pretty much everything else. Phoebe's an impractical Mary Sue who turns down an offer for five hundred pounds because she's become a "better person" in poverty than she was as a sheltered gentleman's daughter. Um, it's money - not a time machine. You're not magically going to turn back into a Terrible Person the moment you float above the poverty line. I also didn't buy her romance with Ned at all - it happens far too quickly, with almost no real development, and it skirts most of the thorny issues that ought to keep them apart.

More than anything, however, I hated this novel's pacing. Was it written under a really strict deadline? This novel reads like it was taken out of the oven fifteen minutes too early, still raw in the middle. The ending is laughably rushed - it introduces a murder plot that's barely solved a few pages later, we don't get to see anyone's reactions to Ned and Turner's switcharoo, and Phoebe overcomes her five-year-grudge and the horror of being lied to within the span of one page. Even more egregious, the secondary romance between Turner and a desperate countess, a romance that took up precious time that the primary romance sorely needed, turns out to be a ridiculously blatant cocktease for the sequel.

This novel is nothing but build up until a shoddy last-minute resolution.
C

"Lady of Persuasion," by Tessa Dare

The Chick: Isabel Grayson. Her greatest desire is to marry a powerful lord and become a "lady of influence" who changes the world with her charity and good works.
The Rub: The man she falls for is a mere baronet, and a lazy one at that. Nothing a novel's worth of nagging won't fix!
Dream Casting: Minka Kelly.

The Dude: Sir Toby Aldridge. Still recovering from the emotional pain of being jilted, he seduces the sister of his enemy and winds up falling for her instead.
The Rub: Toby distrusts his ability to keep women happy - how can he make sure this wife doesn't desert him like his fiancee did?
Dream Casting: Tom Hiddleston.

The Plot:

Toby: Hey there, pretty lady....

Isabel: OH HAI DO YOU HAVE POWER AND MONEY I CAN EXPLOIT?

Toby: Uh, no...

Isabel: BORED NOW - I MUST FLEE! A THREE-LEGGED PUPPY IS IN PERIL!

Toby: *manly wiles* Let's randomly get married!

Isabel: I RANDOMLY AND UNCHARACTERISTICALLY ACCEPT!

Toby: Awesome.

Isabel: BEE TEE DUBS, WE CAN'T HAVE SUGAR OR FANCY CLOTHES OR DO ANY FUN THINGS BECAUSE ORPHANS.

Toby: Couldn't we talk this out...

Isabel: YOU COULD HAVE SAVED THREE ONE-EYED CHIMNEY SWEEPS SINCE YOU STARTED THAT FRIVOLOUS, EXPLOITATIVE SENTENCE, YOU HEARTLESS FIEND!

Toby: But....

Isabel: BTW YOU'RE RUNNING FOR PARLIAMENT.

Toby: But -

Isabel: ORPHANS, TOBY. ORPHANS. THINK OF THE ORPHANS. THINK OF ME HAVING THE MONEY AND ACCLAIM AND ATTENTION TO CURE MY DEEP-SEATED PARENTAL ISSUES HELP THOSE POOR, STARVING ORPHANS.

Toby: OMG, fine, I'll do it, just shut up already!

ISABEL: HOORAY WE ARE HAPPY IN LOVE!

Toby: .......yay.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Lazy Beta Hero
• 1 Self-Involved Martyr Heroine
• Crazy Mama Drama
• 1 Failed Attempt at Election Rigging
• Several gun-toting thugs
• 1 Personal Sugar Boycott
• 1 Secondary Romance (Gray's bro Joss and Hetta the prickly country doctor)

The Word: Our hero, Sir Toby, is in a snit over his fiancee, Sophia, jilting him to marry a glorified pirate who is now the toast of the Ton (the events of Surrender of a Siren). Even worse - Toby's reputation was ruined by her flight when an anonymous caricaturist drew a series of cartoons depicting Toby as a degenerate rake who frightened Sophia off, and that's the version most of Society now believes.

When he sees a gorgeous woman dancing with that same glorified pirate (Benedict Grayson), Toby swoops in and puts the moves on her, only to find out she's Isabel Grayson, Benedict's sister. He toys with her a bit - although he quickly gives up on designs to seduce her in revenge, because he's not an asshole - but winds up impulsively proposing marriage. To his surprise, Isabel excepts.

Toby's a sweetheart. He's a gadfly layabout beta male who's still suffering from crippling insecurity over Sophia's jilting. He's determined to make his engagement and eventual marriage to Isabel work, if only to prove that he can win a woman without losing her. In the process, he makes a lot of promises he doesn't really mean, promises that come back to bite him in the ass once he realizes he's actually in love with Isabel and disappointing her is no longer an option.

The only problem? Isabel is a selfish, sanctimonious, insufferable little martyr who'll only marry a man in (or planning to run for) Parliament - so she can use him as a tool to further her own designs. Her devotion to charities and Righteous Works borders on obsession (she can't eat sugar without thinking of the slaaaaves! The slaaaaves!), she has very little regard for the feelings of the people around her, and she'll piously condemn anything that doesn't have a strictly utilitarian use as being a Frivolous Sin Bought with the Blood of Innocents. Flavoured ice is a sin! Walking sticks are a sin! The Elgin Marbles are a sin! You could have helped starving orphans with that money! 

Isabel's unpleasantness would have been easier to take if the novel had been even a little self-aware of what a self-righteous, mercenary, hypocritical pill she is. She's appalled once she discovers Toby is "not a lord, but a sir." Once they're married, she pushes Toby into running for Parliament so that she can become a "lady of influence." It never occurs to her to ask or care if Toby actually wants to be an MP.

Isabel is a Righteous Activist whose motives are entirely self-serving - she cuddles consumptive orphans to escape the shame of her Crazy Slutty Parents. And had the novel actually examined this aspect of her, I might have sympathized.

But instead, the novel paints Isabel as this Paragon of Innocence, Nobility, and Virtue and Toby spends the rest of the book proving he's "worthy" of her. Toby eventually surrenders and becomes an MP - and it's definitely a capitulation, he still expresses no talent or interest in politics - instead of discovering his own passion. Isabel compromises nothing in her relationship with Toby. It's not really an equal relationship, so it didn't really work.

Man, I could have sponsored a Third World Child for months on the money I spent on this book! Months!
C

"This is W.A.R.," by Lisa Roecker and Laura Roecker (SoHo Teen, 2013)

The Protagonists:

Madge: When her sister is murdered by a member of the privileged Gregory family, she decides then and there that she'll do whatever it takes to make the Gregorys pay. And she won't let anything, or anyone, stand in her way.

Rose: As the daughter of the Club's event planner, she's always been treated as a member of "the help." When the only girl who treated her decently is murdered, she volunteers to help Madge and her friends serve the Gregorys their just desserts.

Sloane: A shy girl who's had to cheat and lie to hide the fact that, well, she's dumb as a post. But she's not too dumb to help concoct a revenge plan against the Gregorys.

Lina: With neglectful parents, tattoos and an uncertain sexuality to boot, she's definitely the "troubled" member of the revenge group.

The Secondary Cast:

Willa: A kind-hearted free-spirit whose death by drowning was passed off as an accident, despite being a champion swimmer.

James Gregory: The pampered and favoured grandson of the Club patriarch, James can get away with anything. But did he really get away with murder?

Trip Gregory: James' twin brother and the family's black sheep.

The Captain: The club's lecherous, crazy-wealthy, and untouchable social king. Cross him, and you might find yourself fired, evicted, or deported!

Angst Checklist

• Revenge
• Privileged White Dudes
• Teenage Sexuality
• Accepting that You're Stupid
• Alcoholism
• General Insanity
• Date Rape

The Word: At the Hawthorne Lake Country Club, money can buy you whatever you want - even a get out of jail free card. Everyone at the Club saw golden boy James Gregory get into a boat with Willa Ames-Rowan - and come back alone. It doesn't take much to put two and two together when Willa's drowned corpse is dragged out of the lake a few hours later.

But no one messes with the ultra-rich, ultra-powerful Gregory family, headed by the Captain. Witnesses are paid off or driven off and everyone is eager to forget and go back to their tennis games and martinis.

Except for four girls - Rose, Lina, Sloane and Willa's sister Madge. All four of them had a special connection to the free-spirited Willa and share a burning desire to finally give the Gregorys what they deserve: much needed revenge. They just have to come up with a plan, and figure out what really happened that night.

Perhaps my reaction to This is W.A.R. is a little unfair - after all, it's impossible for me these days to read a teen revenge story without comparing it to the sublime Burn for Burn series. But This Is W.A.R. was just a sloppy, unpleasant, and disconnected read.

Firstly, there is a thin line between a flawed character and an unlikeable character, and all four girls toe that line. The novel never digs much deeper into their issues than the average episode of Degrassi, so we don't get the nuance and humanity behind their flaws - we just get their flaws. Rose is too pathetic to take seriously, Lina is cruel (and a racist), Sloane's whole deal is that she's a rare "dumb Asian," and Madge is a borderline murderous sociopath. Oh, and every single parental figure is a colossal failure. According to this book, being rich automatically makes you a terrible person incapable of empathizing with other human beings. That's pretty much the extent of this novel's exploration of class distinction.

The plot is also unevenly structured and aimless. None of the girls' revenge plans take much brainpower, nor are they very effective. Their actions don't have realistic consequences. And the book sets up so many plot threads that it doesn't pay off - a waitress refuses a Gregory bribe, and yet nothing happens to her until she randomly becomes a villain; one of our heroines is date raped, and this event is never referred to again; the Gregory brothers have a tragic past which fuels the murderer's entire motive, and yet we never learn what that past is.

The book's theme is also confusing, if not outright hypocritical. This is WAR is all about privilege, and how easily the wealthy can get away with reprehensible behaviour. And yet, apart from Rose, our protagonists are all wealthy and privileged - and get away with some pretty reprehensible behaviour! Sure, none of them are as wealthy as the Gregorys, but their perspectives still come from within the Bubble. There's a couple of token maid characters who help out the girls, but they only get a few appearances, and apart from one brief scene of shallow introspection, none of the girls pause to reflect on how hideously rude and entitled they are to the Club staff.

In Burn for Burn, we did have one privileged character (Lillia), but her perspective was countered by the different points of view from the lower-class Kat and the socially-outcast Mary. In WAR, the novel's perspective is overwhelmingly privileged, three-fourths of it coming from angry Poor Little Rich Girls who steal their daddies' money to act outside the law. Colour me unimpressed.

There is literally nothing that This is WAR does that Burn for Burn doesn't do better. Read that book instead!
C

"Just Like Fate," by Cat Patrick and Suzanne Young (SimonTEEN, 2013)

The Protagonist: Caroline, a 17-year-old girl who's lived with her grandmother for five years, ever since her parents' vicious divorce.
Her Angst: When her grandmother has a stroke, Caroline has to make a choice - should she stay until the bitter end, or shake it off and spend a few hours unwinding for herself?

Secondary Characters:

Simone: Caroline's BFF, who asks Caroline to go to a party with her three days after her grandmother's stroke. Depending on whether Caroline goes or stays, their relationship encounters a few hurdles.

Natalie: Caroline's estranged older sister, with whom Caroline's always felt at odds.

Teddy: Caroline's understanding older brother, who lives at the nearby Clinton College dorms.

Joel: Caroline's longtime crush - in the "Stay" universe, he comforts her in her grief and the two start a relationship.

Chris: A cute college boy Caroline meets at a party in the "Go" universe on the night her Gram dies.

Angst Checklist:

• Grief
• Guilt
• Broken Families
• Virginity, and the Unsatisfying Relinquishment Thereof
• Pretentious Music
• Fate versus Free Will

The Word: Just Like Fate (which was a lovely gift from the SimonTEEN Blogger Party at BEA) is the perfect example of a fantastic premise utterly wasted.

17-year-old Caroline is horrified when her grandmother, with whom she's been living for the last five years, has a stroke. Her body already weakened by a recent bout with cancer, Gram isn't long for this world. After spending three days by her bedside with her various family members, Caroline gets a call from her best friend Simone, imploring her to take some time for herself to relax at a party. Does Caroline stay with her Gram, or does she go out to try and unwind?

Actually, she does both. The narrative gives us two alternate stories - what would have happened had Caroline stayed and heard her Gram's last words, and what would have happened had she gone to the party and missed her grandmother's death entirely. 

The novel hints at some interesting consequences - in the "Stay" universe, Caroline achieves a shaky reconciliation with her estranged sister Natalie and the two renew their relationship. In the "Go" universe, a guilt-ridden Caroline abandons her family and nearly ruins her friendship with Simone thanks to misplaced resentment. 

And yet, the novel never goes further with the idea of these two paths diverging in a wood. There really are no real, solid consequences to Caroline's actions that separate the "Stay" from the "Go" universes. It's a cheat, really - Caroline never really loses or gains anything significant by her decision to go or stay. She miraculously makes peace with every character in both universes by novel's end and even winds up with the same love interest in the 11th hour, which seemed like a huge cop-out. 

The premise seems to be mainly an attempt to shoehorn in two YA romances as Caroline courts a different boy in each universe - the hipster longtime-crush Joel in "Stay," and goofy college student Chris in "Go" - while ultimately winding up with her Twu Wuv in both versions.

It doesn't help that our main character is a mopey, selfish, and thoroughly unsympathetic drip. Yes, in both universes she's grieving the loss of someone very important to her, and teenagers are not known for their emotional intelligence. However, I cringed at her utter self-absorption and how she acts like she's the only one grieving Gram's death. She holds everyone around her to an unfair standard but demands special treatment because her pain is more important. 

She's particularly egregious in the "Go" universe, in which she abandons her mother (whose own mother just died) to live with a father she's never spoken one word to in five years, and proceeds to ignore all her calls for months. And none of these decisions come with any permanent consequences, which only contributed to the novel's unrealistic tone. You can't just treat someone like that and have your relationship proceed as if nothing's happened.

Caroline is also pretty passive and doesn't solve a lot of her internal conflicts by herself because the narrative conveniently drops some easy solution into her lap at every opportunity. So instead, most of the conflicts come from some Random Stereotypical Cheerleader Villains (for reals) and a Big Misunderstanding that's only a misunderstanding because the heroine is a complete moron. 

The premise promised an interesting story about how much a single decision can alter your life and your relationships with the people around you. Instead this novel's ultimate message seems to be that your actions don't matter because life will just magically fix everything for you. In a world where every decision counts, I recommend the universe where You Don't Read This Book.

C

"Forever and a Day," by Jill Shalvis (Forever, 2012)

My review for my first Jill Shalvis book, Forever and a Day, is now live at the Smart Bitches Blog. Check it out if you're interested!

"The Son," by Philipp Meyer (Ecco, 2013)

The Protagonists:

Eli McCullough: A young boy in 1850s Texas who is captured and then adopted by a Comanche tribe.

Peter McCullough: A member of a prominent ranch family who grows increasingly troubled by his town's anti-Mexican sentiment.

Jeannie McCullough: A young heiress who learns to reject the gender conventions of her time to become a successful oil magnate.

The Word: This was a weird book for me to read. It was a gift from my Amazing Roommate Emily from BEA, part of the goodie bag she received from the Harper Collins party. It sounded like a multigenerational Southern story (which intrigued me), and got an A review in Entertainment Weekly.

The most positive thing I can say about The Son is that it was just interesting enough for me to keep reading, and it taught me a bit about Texas and Native American history. For the most part, however, I was only mildly entertained.

The novel's divided between three different members of the same family over three different time periods, as they try three different methods of amassing wealth. Eli, in the 1860s, is adopted by the same Comanche tribe who butchered his family and burned his homestead. He grows into a ruthlessly practical businessman who learns that every thing anyone owns has to be stolen from someone else.

His son, Peter, runs the now-successful family's cattle ranch in 1915, until some missing cattle give his relatives and countrymen the excuse to murder the neighbouring Mexican landowners and acquire their land. Only Peter seems to recognize the hideousness of what they did, and when he winds up falling in love with the one remaining survivor of the massacre, he has to decide between his family and his morals.

Finally, we have Peter's great-niece Jeannie, the remaining McCullough heir who helps bring the Cullough family into the oil age, defying the conventions imposed on her gender to do so - but at great personal cost as well.

Eli's storyline was interesting, but Peter's was highly repetitive - full of constant self-recriminations and angst at the bloodthirstiness of his peers. Jeannie's was yet another example of Sad, Unsatisfied Rich People Fiction. Honestly, all three characters are so cold and detached, it was difficult to feel invested in any of them. I learned a little bit more about oil, cows, Indians, and why Texans hate Mexico - but about the characters themselves, I feel I learned little.

The description of the setting was vivid, and the history of the area was fascinating (especially when filtered through the McCulloughs' cynical points of view), but without relateable characters, I turned the final page without really feeling like I'd acquired anything worthwhile.
C

"Rosemary and Rue," by Seanan McGuire

The Protagonist: October "Toby" Daye. A private eye and a Knight in the service of Duke Sylvester of Shadowed Hills in a world where the human and faerie realms intersect. She's trying to rescue his kidnapped wife and daughter when she is captured and turned into a goldfish.
Her Angst: Returned to human form after fourteen years, she lives a miserable, despairing existence separated from the faerie friends she shuns and the human fiancé and daughter who reject her.

The Secondary Cast:

Devin: A former lover who works as a sexually exploitative Fagin to a house of changeling runaways. Toby inexplicably still finds him attractive.

Tybalt: A Cait Sidhe - a powerful faerie who is the King of Cats. He of course "hates" Toby, which means they will be hooking up soon in a couple of books. Take my advice and think of him as played by Matthew Goode.

Connor: A selkie who was Toby's first fumbling teenage love, before he went and married the batpoop insane Rayseline. He still totally wants to hook up with Toby, though. His marriage is only political.

Sylvester: The powerful Duke of Shadowed Hills and Toby's liege. Genuinely cares for Toby, even after she rejects the faerie world.

Luna: Sylvester's awesome wife, who still loves and adores Toby like a daughter despite how Toby failed to rescue her and Rayseline.

Rayseline: Sylvester and Luna's daughter who has been rendered extremely unpleasant and also Batpoop Insane by her kidnapping fourteen years ago. Is married to Connor.

Urban Fantasy Convention Checklist:

• 1 Smart-Alecky Loner Heroine with a Sad Past
• 3 Variously Magical Love Interests
• 14 Years as a Goldfish
• 1 Estranged Daughter
• 1 Estranged and now Batpoop Insane Daughter
• 2 Adorably Street-Tough Orphans

The Word: This review is probably going to be a little unfair.

Why? Because ultimately, I don't like Urban Fantasy. There, I've said it. I've read a few urban fantasy titles over the years, mostly for my work with The Green Man Review, but I never really found myself connecting with any one title. In fact, the only series I remember reading more than one book of was Kelly Armstrong's Women of the Underworld series - and that may have been because I got the first six books for free because I worked for Chapters at the time.

Now, at first I simply thought that I just needed to find the right author, the one with the perfect writing style to suck me in.

I tried Patricia Griggs. I tried Lilith Saintcrow. I tried Karen Marie Moning. I tried Kelly Armstrong. And now I've tried Seanan McGuire.

But the fact of the matter is - the genre is not my cup of tea. Not that it's a bad genre, just that the tropes common to the genre are ones that simply do not connect with me. I find the Smart-Alecky Loner Heroines who are always popping cutesy one-liners boring and interchangeable. I prefer emotional stories with gorgeous language over action-heavy stories with minimalist language. I don't like thrillers or romantic suspense either - for similar reasons. 

And I honestly get annoyed with and exhausted by stories where the heroine is constantly getting hurt and accumulating layers upon layers of injuries until they're one tumble away from a full-body cast by the climax of the book - and they're miraculously fine by the next book because MAGIC. 

So - Rosemary and Rue. It came so highly recommended by a lot of respected sources, but I felt the same way reading as I have every other Urban Fantasy I've tried. Bored. Annoyed. Uninvested.

October "Toby" Daye is a changeling (half faerie, half human) private eye who has an adorable daughter and a loving fiancé and is just TWO DAYS AWAY FROM RETIREMENT so of course she's caught by the two evil faeries she's been tailing and is turned into a goldfish (for reals). 

Fourteen years later, the spell dissolves and she returns to a world where her life, as she's known it, is over. Her fiancé and (now grown) daughter believe she ran out on them and want nothing to do with her. She has no identity and no way to hold down a mortal job. Hurt and despairing, she turns her back on the faerie world and her friends and lieges within it, refusing to deal with the community that ruined her life.

That is, until an old faerie friend of hers, Evening Winterrose, is brutally murdered - but not before leaving Toby a voicemail. Listening to it puts a curse on Toby that forces her to hunt down and discover Evening's killers - with magically fatal consequences if she doesn't comply. 

Props to Seanan McGuire - the worldbuilding for Rosemary and Rue is amazing. I loved the idea of faeries living in the real world and having their own fiefdoms and queendoms and territory wars. The idea of Toby having a liege to report to, and authorities and rituals to kowtow to while doing her job was interesting. 

However, the story itself and the characters within it are less interesting. Toby is rather frighteningly obtuse for a private eye - it takes her the entire book to realize the old flame who pimped and continues to pimp teenage runaways is evil. Shocker, right? And of course we have a bunch of Bad Boy Love interests who leave little to no impact - the Cat King dude is my favourite but we don't see a lot of him, the Seal Boy is a married chump, and as for Devin - oh, right. HE'S A FUCKING PIMP OF TEENAGE RUNAWAYS. And Toby is TOTALLY FINE with that. 

There were good elements - again, the worldbuilding was interesting and I liked some of the secondary characters, but the basic elements of Urban Fantasy were a huge turn off. 

If you're like me and don't care for Urban Fantasy - Rosemary and Rue is not going to change your mind. If you do like Urban Fantasy, you may wish to read another person's reviews and get a second opinion from a reader who appreciates the genre more than I do.

C

"Follow My Lead," by Kate Noble

The Chick: Winnifred Crane. A noted scholar, she published many well-received works under a male pseudonym, and hopes that revealing her secret will grant her membership to the Royal Historical Society.
The Rub: No one believes her claims of genius - so naturally going on an ill-planned, hair-brained wild goose chase will convince them!
Dream Casting: Laura Carmichael.

The Dude: Jason Cummings, Duke of Rayne. His life is all perfectly planned as a responsible duke. Now all he needs is a wife.
The Rub: Nothing like having to babysit a Mad Scholarly Heroine to remind one of how important responsibility is!
Dream Casting: Eddie Redmayne.

The Plot: 

Jason: Here I am, just minding my own business. I can't wait to live my perfectly ordinary, uninterrupted life!

Winn: HEY Y'ALL, I WANT TO JOIN YOUR BOYS' HISTORY CLUB BECAUSE I'M SO SMART. I'M C.M. MARKS.

The Historical Society: Pics or it didn't happen.

Winn: CURSES! WELL I'LL JUST GO TO SWITZERLAND AND DISCOVER SUPER MYSTERIOUS ART-HISTORY THINGS!

Society: Deal! Jason, make sure she doesn't kill herself.

Jason: Sure, but she seems like a perfectly ordinary person to me -

Winn: LOL JK I'M GOING TO GERMANY INSTEAD.

Jason: By yourself? ARE YOU CRAZY?

Winn: NO, I'M THIRTY, WHICH IMMEDIATELY MAKES ME TOO DECREPIT TO ASSAULT AND RAPE.

Jason: You are a moron - and I am inexplicably turned on by that! Let's go!

Winn: FIRST LET'S DITCH ALL OUR MONEY AND LUGGAGE!

Jason: What?

Winn: THEN WE'LL TRY TO STEAL A CARRIAGE RIDE AND YOU'LL GET YOUR ASS KICKED.

Jason: Now hold on just a minu--

Winn: NOW I'M GOING TO SELF-RIGHTEOUSLY SLAP YOU FOR NOT ACKNOWLEDGING MY INNATE ADVENTUROUS WOMANHOOD.

Jason: OMG, woman, will you slow the fuck down--

Winn: SEX PLEASE.

Jason: Well, okay --

Winn: THAT WAS AN AWESOME EXPERIENCE IN WHICH I HAD NO EMOTIONAL INVOLVEMENT. THANKS.

Jason: You're kind of a sociopath.

Winn: WHAT WAS THAT?

Jason: Nothing. Oh look, it's your cousin George.

George: 'Sup. I'm evil now. *is defeated*

Jason: I'm going to nobly step out of your life now, so you won't lose your independence.

Winn: THANKS! THAT'S SUPER-NICE OF YOU.

Jason: Wait, what? No! That was a bluff! You were supposed to realize you loved me all along!

Winn: OH WELL I'M ACTUALLY INCAPABLE OF RESPONDING TO HUMAN EMOTION.

Jason: So you are a sociopath.

Winn: AND YOU'RE STILL INEXPLICABLY TURNED ON BY THAT.

Jason: True. Let's get married!

Winn: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 TSTL Heroine
• 1 Red-Headed Hero! 
• 1 Awful Cousin
• 1 Drunk Aunt
• 1 Nervous Tick (Locket-Pulling)
• 1 Inconveniently Deceased Parent
• 1 Inconvenient Inheritance
• 3 Gold-Digging Ho's

The Word: Have you ever read one book that is just so glorious and amazing, that you keep reading the author's newer books, even as none of them quite manage to measure up?

Follow My Lead, as it turns out, is this sort of disappointing book. Its hero, Jason Cummings, Duke of Rayne, was a royal Asshat in the previous novel. Fortunately, five years hence, he has matured considerably into a responsible chap who is still somewhat uncertain about his future prospects beyond Being Dukely and Marrying a Sensible Girl.

While on the way to the Royal Historical Society (of which he is a member), Jason literally runs into our heroine, Winnifred Crane, who is also determined to enter the Society's hallowed halls and claim membership, on the basis that she is the author of a series of brilliantly-received historical papers written underneath a male pseudonym.

When her controlling cousin George influences the Society against her, she makes a wager with the Society and her cousin involving her ability to prove the provenance of one of the Society's famous paintings by travelling to Switzerland. Jason is asked by Lord Forrester, the President of the Society, to escort Winnifred to her ship to Calais to ensure that no one tries to sabotage her before she leaves England. The errand goes smoothly - until Jason spots Winnifred abandoning her cousin and her chaperone to board a different boat. He boards the ship to find out what's going on,  is bonked on the head by an overenthusiastic sailor, and wakes up on a ship bound for Germany instead.

As it turns out, Winn's letters of proof are actually in Nuremberg - she just told everyone they were in Switzerland in order to throw off pursuit. Jason is understandably outraged at Winn's deception and utter foolishness - but some part of him still feels an irresistible urge to protect her and see her wager through to the end. And so begins their roadtrip romance.

So, here is my MAIN problem with this story - it's a Baby's Day Out Romance. As explained in my review of Ravishing in Red, a Baby's Day Out Romance is when an infantalized and ignorant heroine is released from her bubble and inflicted upon the Real World, and our hero spends the entire book frantically following her to keep her from killing herself out of sheer stupidity.

Winn is that infantalized and ignorant heroine. Don't believe me? Let me list the ways:

• She is continually described as a "little sparrow" because of her comically petite stature
• The speech tags most associated with her dialogue are "squeaked" and "huffed"
• She intended to go to Germany, BY HERSELF, knowing only written Renaissance German
• She believes herself immune to Social Ruin, Rape, Exploitation, or any of the possible consequences of travelling female and alone in 19th century Europe because she's reached the haggard old age of Thirty
• Is partly in this mess because she's spent fifteen years being too much of a ninny to tell her cousin George she doesn't want to marry him
• In protecting her, the hero receives a concussion, is robbed of his money, is effectively abducted, gets punched in the gut, nearly starves, nearly freezes to death, and contracts dysentery. I'm dead serious.

Our entirely unsympathetic, blithering idiot heroine larks about Europe, determined to "have an adventure" after spending thirty years in a library - but her "adventures" involve making Ridiculously Stupid Decisions (like fleeing one city with neither their money nor their luggage) that the hero has to clean up after. She's also disturbingly cold, oblivious, and selfish - she cannot comprehend that her actions have consequences for other people, and fails to comprehend the feelings of others. For example, Jason is kidnapped, assaulted, and robbed because of her deception with the boat, and Winn whines about how he fails to see "her side" of the situation. 

I appreciate the attempt to depict an unconventional Regency setting (Germany and Austria), and the plot itself is interesting (if a little top-heavy and complicated) - but when the plot revolves around the heroine being a Complete Moron that the Wise, Exasperated Hero has to babysit, I lose all interest.

C

"To Catch a Bride," by Anne Gracie

The Chick: Ayisha Machabeli Cleeve. After living on the streets of Cairo for six years before being found by the hero, she should jump at the chance to go to England and live in comfort as the long-lost granddaughter of Lady Cleeve. Shouldn't she?
The Rub: She's actually Lady Cleeve's illegitimate granddaughter - the legitimate one legitimately died years ago.
Dream Casting: Jennifer Lawrence.

The Dude: Lord Rafe Ramsey. When he learns just how unimportant he is in his brother's plans for the earldom's succession, he decides to fly off on a wild goose chase to find a long-lost aristocrat's daughter.
The Rub: Once he finds her, he starts imagining he might actually have a future with her - but will she take a reckless layabout like him?
Dream Casting: Matt Bomer.

The Plot:

Hero's Brother: Hey, hurry up and father my children with this special lady I handpicked for you so that my barren wife and I can take them away from you and raise them ourselves!

Rafe: Oh, yeah, I would, except it's five minutes to Run Away to Egypt o'Clock. *flees*

Ayisha: Oh no, an Englishman's showing an old picture of me! Better steal it back! *is caught*

Rafe: Yay! Come to England with me!

Ayisha: No.

Rafe: But we have cookies! ...and no thugs who are still hunting you in order to sell you into white slavery.

Ayisha: Okay, deal. Let's just get on this boat with no more drama, shall we?

Rafe: Crap! I've got the plague!

Ayisha: *nurses back to health*

Rafe: Crap! Pirates!

Ayisha and Rafe: *murder a huge-ass amount of pirates*

Rafe: Crap! Your grandma found out you're the daughter of her son's slave-mistress and she doesn't want you anymore!

Ayisha: *runs away*

Grandma: Just kidding!

Rafe: *finds Ayisha* Caught you, again!

Ayisha and Rafe: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Cross-Dressing Heroine
• 1 Very Bad Dad (Deceased)
• 1 Slightly Less Bad Brother
• 1 Barren BFF 
• 1 Barren Sister in Law
• 1 Barren Baby BFF Epilogue (of course)
• 0 Barren Baby Sister-In-Law Epilogues
• 1 Deadly Fever (Unsexy Variety)
• Several Snooty British People
• 1 Relationship-Aiding Pet
• 1 Plucky Relationship-Aiding Foster Child
• 1 Gold-Digging Teacher
• 1 Morally Ambiguous Grandma
• 1 Pirate Attack

The Word: To Catch a Bride starts out on a strong, if slightly contrived note - our hero, Rafe Ramsey, is the younger brother to the Earl of Axebridge. After ten years of marriage, his brother has been unable to sire an heir, and so Rafe is expected to settle, marry, and perform that task for him. Instead, Rafe decides to embark on a Random Quest on behalf of one of his Granny's old friends rather than face his impending responsibilities.

The quest is this: years ago, old Lady Cleeve's son hied off to Egypt with his wife and daughter, where they apparently all died of plague. However, evidence (and a sketch of a young girl) has surfaced indicating that his young daughter Alicia might still be alive somewhere. Rafe's mission, should he choose to accept it, is to head to Cairo and find this girl - who hopefully hasn't been sold into slavery yet.

The good news is, the girl in the picture, who goes by the name Ayisha, is not a slave. The bad news? She's had to live on the streets for six years and has a much-deserved yearly subscription of Trust Issues to show for it. When her parents both died of plague when she was thirteen, opportunistic robbers broke into their house in order to find Ayisha and sell her on the slave market. She's spent the past six years disguised as a boy in order to hide from them - and, okay, so while I don't really understand why the same street thugs would keep looking for One Random White Girl for six years, I do get how living as a boy on the streets of 19th-century Cairo was probably safer than doing it Single Lady-style.

Rafe and Ayisha eventually meet - but neither is what the other expects. To Ayisha's surprise, Rafe is not a vulgar white slaver looking to buy and sell flesh. To Rafe's befuddlement, Ayisha refuses to come to England with him, even when he promises that nothing but wealth and comfort and a loving grandmother await her.

When Ayisha's true gender comes to light - and the thugs who've (inexplicably) hunted her for six years discover who she is, she has no choice but to accompany Rafe to England, even though she's still hiding a secret that could destroy her future and her budding relationship with Rafe.

As I've said, the novel starts out strong. Ayisha's no fool - she's an excellent tough heroine with a strong practical streak, and Rafe's interesting enough despite his questionable motivations at the beginning of the novel. Sadly, most of this goodness leaches away as the book progresses.

The story sails away from everything that's unique about it around the same time Rafe and Ayisha's boat sails away from Cairo. Gone are the interesting side characters like street-thief Ali and lusty surrogate mother Laila. Gone are the interesting gender and character dynamics. Rafe settles into the Unintentionally Insulting Male Who Doesn't Understand Why He Needs To Express His Feelings role like he was born to it, and street-smart, cynical Ayisha morphs into the Ever So Slightly Unconventional But Giggly Innocent Who Is Loved By All heroine without so much as a whimper of protest. And of course we have to have a Relationship-Aiding Kitten and some Snooty British People to make this as blandly similar to every other historical romance as we can possibly make it.

To Catch a Bride isn't terrible, but it isn't terribly interesting, either. The hero and heroine aren't particularly memorable and their adventures leave little impact. There aren't any real villains with understandable motivations. Everything seems rote and predetermined - sure, romance novels follow a formula, but the best writers can work with the formula's strengths by employing strong characterization, sharp dialogue, and evocative writing to ensure that even though the destination is a foregone conclusion, the journey is still entertaining.

And, well, the only things that really stand out in this story are the troubling depictions of barren women. There are two infertile characters in this novel - Ayisha's surrogate mother Laila whose husband divorced her for barrenness, and Rafe's sister-in-law who has been unable to produce an heir to the earldom in ten years.

Laila is actually quite an interesting character at first - an open and earthy woman who misses a "good man between her thighs" and deals with her childlessness by taking in stray orphans and generally being a decent person to everybody. She eventually marries an Englishman who's "gone native," and it's lovely - until you find out a few years later she - supposedly just by magic - had three kids with him, including twins. This bothers me for a number of reasons - mainly because, early on in the book, she's portrayed as a character who has made her own destiny and built her own family from the people she cares for. Magically giving her biological children at the end of the novel promotes the very troubling idea that adopted and foster children are somehow just not perfect enough for the HEA - no, she has to have "real" children and then her life is rainbows and cherries!

Similarly, Rafe's sister-in-law is depicted as so desperate for a child that she almost tried kidnapping a village baby, so her husband "got worried." It was at his wife's urging that he made the bargain with Rafe's prospective fiancee that any children of their marriage would be turned over to him and his wife. The novel also places an unnecessary and frankly offensive focus on how plain and "horsefaced" the earl's wife is, with the hero referring to her as "horsey" more than once. Why did the novel have to call attention to her physical looks and emphasize how plain she was? To me, it seemed like an attempt to show just how much a "failure" she was as a woman - unable to have kids and ugly to boot - and how "amazing" the earl was for continuing to remain loyal to such an incomplete picture of femininity.

These final scenes left a bad taste in my mouth, with the idea that children (that is, biological children) are so fundamental to a woman's mental health and happiness that one cannot have a true HEA without them and their lack can lead to immoral decisions.

Despite the strong start, original setting, and (initially) original heroine, this novel doesn't quite measure up.
C

"Warm Bodies," by Isaac Marion

The Protagonist: R. A zombie who lives in an abandoned airport, he wonders wistfully if this is all he has to look forward to in the undeath - until he has the opportunity to rescue a human girl from being eaten.
His Angst: Um, he's a zombie. Not a lot of positives there. Also, the girl? He totally ate her boyfriend.

The Secondary Cast:

Julie Grigio: The daughter of the General of the local fortress-city of surviving humans, she is rescued by R and finds time to examine just how flawed humanity's survival strategy really is.

Perry: Julie's boyfriend, who is killed and eaten by R - although he continues to live on in R's head as R absorbs his memories.

Nora Greene: Julie's best friend, who helps out Julie and R as they try to convince others of the possibility of a cure for the zombie virus.

General Grigio: Julie's rigid and unstable father who will defend humanity at any cost - even though he ultimately believes humanity is beyond saving.

M: R's zombie friend who also slowly evolves thanks to Julie's influence.

Angst Checklist:

• Being undead
• Daddy Issues
• The meaning of life
• The difference between surviving and living
• My Boyfriend Was Suicidal So Eating Him Was Totally Okay
• Every problem can be solved with the Power of Love

The Word: I decided to pick up this book when I saw the trailer for the upcoming film, which made it sound charming and original. A zombie romance? How droll!

Sadly, while the novel is beautifully written, it is also bleak, dull, poorly-developed, and is - essentially - a retelling of WALL-E, but with zombies.

R is a youngish zombie who's in better shape then most. He shuffles and groans around an abandoned airport, occasionally making raids with his zombie compatriots to catch and eat the living humans foolish enough to venture out of their fortified shelters.

The zombies have even formed a sort of society - with emaciated elders known as Boneys who marry zombies, allocate zombie children to worthy couples, hold primitive religious services, and violently defend the status quo. 

Poor R is slightly different from the other zombies in that he has a brain and is capable of higher reasoning - even if he's almost incapable of expressing it beyond a few groaned syllables. When he and his friends go on a raiding party and he bites into the brain of a young man named Perry, he absorbs the boy's memories, particularly those of his girlfriend, Julie.

When R realizes that Julie is also present at this raid, he protects her by covering her in zombie blood and takes her to his makeshift shelter in a jet at the airport. There, he gets to know her better - not only by communicating with her in his limited way, but also through Perry's memories as he secretly continues to eat the remaining pieces of his brain. 

Through Perry's memories we learn that the human race is not in good shape. Thanks to the zombie curse/plague that took over the world, humanity has shrunk itself to fit small, fortified lives - surviving, but at a high cost as many have felt forced to jettison "needless" activities like art and personal expression in order to serve the greater good of just getting through the day.

But as R and Julie's mysterious connection seems to indicate a natural cure to the zombie plague is indeed possible (although that cure is veeeery vaguely developed), many of the humans have become too hardened and jaded to consider taking the risk to live instead of only survive.

So. This novel.

I could tell it was trying to convey some sort of deep message, but it failed in its execution because it stayed too damn vague to be interesting. Humanity apparently ruined itself and somehow created this plague (curse? Evil spell? NOBODY KNOWS) by becoming too - arrogant? Greedy? Apathetic? The narrative waves its hands around humanity's "badness" in a hipsterish way without really getting into it and giving it an actual reason.

Honestly, Marion does a better job demonstrating how humanity is currently killing itself in the present - buying more time to live by abandoning the very things that make life worth living - than he does with his rather pretentious jabs at humanity's unworthy past.

And then the whole problem is solved with the Power of Love. I'm not even kidding. Just like the Celine Dion song!

Warm Bodies turned out to be the type of novel I really dislike - one that takes a science-fictional or fantasy plot and uses it to tell a greater literary message, but without developing the science fictional/fantasy aspects into consistent elements of the story. It's the same problem I had with Gregory Maguire's Wicked. 

You cannot make a zombie story, and then base the origins of the zombie curse (and its cure) on a metaphor. THAT MAKES NO SENSE. You don't get cancer by not appreciating life enough, and you can't cure disease with The Power Of Love - unless you clearly develop your fantasy elements to indicate this. But everything else about Warm Bodies is based on a hard type of reality - with heavily described passages about humanity's struggle to survive, the mental toll on the survivors, the intricate and interesting societies that both humans and zombies have built out of the ashes of the apocalypse.

And then the novel indicates these well-depicted, realistic and sympathetic problems would all be solved if we just Loved Life More. What the hell?

It wouldn't have been at all difficult to create a developed fantasy aspect around the novel, with its own internal consistency and logic, that would have achieved the same message without compromising the reality of the narrative. Fantasy authors do it all the time! Just read Left Hand of Darkness - it conveyed a powerful message about gender, while still having a well-realized science fictional world that was interesting and made sense.

That being said, Marion's novel does have some lovely language, and I appreciated where he was trying to go with it. I still might see the movie (although I'm very concerned that they whitewashed a character by casting a white actress as Nora), but for the book? I recommend a single shot - straight to the brain.
C

You can purchase Warm Bodies: A Novel here.

"The Virgin Cure," by Ami McKay

The Protagonist: Moth "Ada" Fenwick. Born in the slums of New York City, she longs for a life of luxury, ease, and comfort. But how far is she willing to go to achieve that? When she's 12-years-old?

The Secondary Cast:

Dr. Sadie: A female physician who treats the members of Miss Everett's brothel, but once Moth arrives, she fears she is enabling the lifestyle more than protecting the victims of it.

Mae: A young courtesan-in-training who recruits Moth into the service of Miss Everett's brothel. While ostensibly in Miss Everett's employ, she's not averse to making a little something on the side.

Alice: A naive fellow courtesan-trainee who befriends Moth, even as Moth worries about Alice's dreams of finding true love and marriage in the service of a brothel.

Cadet: The young man-of-all-work for Miss Everett's brothel - both Alice and Moth have crushes on him.

Mrs. Wentworth: Moth's first employer, to whom she's sold as a ladies' maid by her mother. Kept a virtual prisoner in her own home for "embarrassing" her husband, she has since gone insane and cruelly abuses Moth.

Mr. Wentworth: Mrs. Wentworth's absent husband, whom Moth runs into at the brothel. While she initially sees this as an opportunity to revenge herself upon his hateful wife, her schemes go predictably awry.

Mr. Dink: The kindly owner of a carnival sideshow who offers Moth part-time employment as a display girl while she's training at Miss Everett's.

Theme Checklist:

• Poverty
• Prostitution
• Gender Roles
• Talking Trees
• Sexuality
• The Concept of Virginal Purity

The Word: This was a book I had originally decided I wasn't going to review - why? Because I really didn't know how to. The Virgin Cure is a superficially entertaining novel with some interesting period detail and lovely writing, but little to no plot structure. Even by the end of the novel, I couldn't figure out what the book was trying to say.

I picked this one up primarily because I really enjoyed McKay's debut, The Birth House, when I read it in university. The Birth House was a deft novel exploring gender roles and the importance of childbirth  in early 20th century Newfoundland when a male obstetrician declares war against the local midwives. 

I was expecting similarly awesome feminist themes in The Virgin Cure, especially since the author reveals she based one of the characters, Dr. Sadie, on her own great-great-grandmother.

Our main character is Moth, the 12-year-old daughter of a Gypsy fortuneteller who lives in the slums of New York City in the 1870s. She and her mother live in abject poverty, which leads Moth to decide that she will do anything it takes to garner a life that has a featherbed, a roaring fire in the grate, and two pug dogs at her feet. As the narrative indicates, slum-child Moth is no innocent to the ways in which women are used and abused, so her willingness to do "anything it takes" has a larger scope than one initially thinks.

Before she can properly formulate any plans to run away to make this fortune, her mother abruptly sells her into the service of a wealthy recluse named Mrs. Wentworth. Her mother's choice doesn't seem entirely cruel: as a lady's maid, Moth will have decent food and shelter as well as regular wages. Unfortunately, Mrs. Wentworth is also completely insane and monstrously abusive. When Mrs. Wentworth's punishments culminate in coming after Moth with a pair of shears, Moth escapes with the help of the butler and a stolen piece of Mrs. Wentworth's jewellery. 

Unfortunately, she arrives back at her old house to find that her mother has already left for parts unknown, leaving Moth to fend for herself. After spending some time begging and (unsuccessfully) thieving, she is eventually befriended by a pretty, well-dressed girl named Mae, a recruiter for Miss Everett's Infant School, an exclusive, high-class brothel. Moth sees this as her ticket to obtaining that feather-bed-and-pug-dog life she's always wanted, even though her misgivings grow as her training proceeds. 

The Virgin Cure serves as an examination of the types of employment women took to survive by themselves in the 1870s. Through Moth's eyes, we see women as fortunetellers, beggars, shoplifters, bakery assistants, hot corn girls, maids, cooks, prostitutes, courtesans, and sideshow acts, with Dr. Sadie standing at the very apex as a successful woman doctor, and she is still shunned by high society and her wealthy family for her choice of profession. 

While the period detail and the examination of courtesan life is fascinating and highly entertaining, the novel really has no plot other than Moth's eventual realization that, hey, prostitution is a pretty nasty business, maybe I should earn my living elsewhere. After that Captain Obvious Epiphany, the ending is a disappointing cop-out that conveniently does away with the usual consequences that would follow Moth's actions, leading to some inexplicable and contrived developments that serve to give Moth a picture-perfect happy ending that makes absolutely no sense. 

It also muddles the general themes. McKay perhaps does too good a job describing the grinding despair of slum life and the hopeless state of female employment versus the risky-but-regulated luxury of courtesan life, so Moth's eventual decision to reject prostitution seemed unrealistic. McKay spends most of the book describing how these women had to get these sorts of jobs because they didn't have any other choices, because society didn't give them any other options, because the alternative to working was starvation and death. In the scenes where Dr. Sadie tries to talk Moth out of prostitution, even Dr. Sadie has to acknowledge that the other options available to Moth (workhouses, charity boarding houses) cannot compare to what the brothel offers.

Moth actually choosing the possible eventuality of starvation and death over prostitution seemed a curiously old-fashioned idea, the idea that death is preferable to the loss of physical innocence. And the novel cops out of even that  - she miraculously obtains outrageously successful non-whorish employment afterwards as the inconceivable cherry on top of the Implausible Sundae. Moth is depicted as morally superior to the girls who choose to make their living as courtesans - but that message is undermined by the fact that Moth, thanks to the Magic of Plot Contrivance, has an Honest and Unrealistically Lucrative Job waiting in the wings for her. 

Those other girls at Miss Everett's, or the hot corn girls, or the professional housebreakers or the put-upon maids, none of them have the option to join Mr. Dink's travelling circus (for reals) - so why are they seen as Less Special than Moth? Again, the ending of this novel seemed incredibly old-fashioned - old-fashioned in the literary sense, following the tradition of 19th century novels where the heroine who chooses Pious Poverty over Sinful Luxury has her virtue rewarded by the narrative with a miraculous job, or a lost-lost relative come to claim her, or a forgotten fortune to keep her in non-slutty linens for the rest of her days. 

The surprising appearance of such fairy-tale morals in an otherwise soberly realistic novel surprised me, and weakened the novel's ultimate impact.

C

You can purchase The Virgin Cure (not THAT way, you pervs!) here.

"The World According to Garp," by John Irving

The Protagonist: T.S. Garp. Raised by an independent-thinking single mother, he wants to be a successful writer when he grows up.
His Angst: Well, he becomes a writer, and his works are published, but what is the nature of success? And how does his writing affect the rest of his life?

Secondary Cast:

Jenny Fields: Garp's mother. An asexual with no comprehending of lust and no patience for social or sexual norms, she cuts her own unique path through life, child rearing, and writing - and becomes revered as a noted feminist because of it.


Helen Holm: Garp's wife. A talented English professor, she loves Garp, even as she sometimes wonders if she plays second place to fiction in Garp's heart.

John Wolf: Garp's publisher - respects his work, even as he sometimes has to play dirty tricks in order to sell it successfully.

Roberta Muldoon: Formerly a football player for the Philadelphia Eagles, this transgender woman tracks down Jenny Fields thanks to her feminist reputation and becomes one of Jenny and Garp's closest friends.

Ellen James: A young girl whose rape and disfigurement as a child sparked a controversial and fanatical feminist movement. A fan of Jenny Fields' work and Garp's writing, she wants to be a writer, too.

The Word: I'm sorry I've been away from the blog so long - I've been reading a book.

A very long book.

A very long and ultimately boring book. I picked this one up because it's the favourite book of a friend of mine, and the next choice for our book club.

Essentially, The World According to Garp is a bildungsroman - a coming-of-age story or fictional biography of a single protagonist (who, frequently, grows into an artist). David Copperfield by Charles Dickens is one. Jane Eyre might even be one, since the novel follows her through her abusive childhood and her years at school before she even meets her Mr. Rochester.

Bildungsromans are, I've found, large on character development and short on plot, but, as a linear recounting of a life, this is more or less expected. The story tends to be rambling and episodic, everything eventually leading to the character's success or death (or both!).

Now, if I love or relate to the protagonist of a bildungsroman, I love the novel (hence why David Copperfield and Jane Eyre are among my favourite books). If I don't love the protagonist, or if I'm apathetic - I don't.

Such is the case with The World According to Garp. The novel recounts the conception, birth, and life of T.S. Garp, the artistically-inclined son of an asexual feminist nurse who conceived him with the dying, lobotomized technical sergeant under her care. The novel follows Garp as he studies at the prestigious Steering School (where his mother is the nurse), takes up wrestling, travels to Austria, and explores and develops his desire to write and be a writer.

The novel does explore some fascinating general themes - I struggled through the periods detailing Garp's writer's block at the same time I was struggling with my own. I liked how his stories and novels all came with a powerful autobiographical influence, to the point where his wife, Helen, flat-out refuses to read any more of his novels because she can't bear to see how much of their life he's put into the pages. Reading up on John Irving on Wikipedia, this in itself seems to be pulled from Irving's own life and writing style, as several elements in his life appear in Garp and his other novels (for instance, like Garp, John Irving never met his own father, who died during World War II).

I also appreciated the exploration of feminism and gender roles, with all their advantages and disadvantages. Jenny Fields, Garp's mother, never identifies herself as a feminist until other women do after reading her autobiography, and the women's movement that rallies around her is as powerful and inspiring as it is narrow-minded and short sighted. Perhaps the scene that best indicates this is Jenny's eventual funeral, from which Garp is barred because it's women-only. Thus Garp has to dress in drag in order to infiltrate his own mother's memorial service, and the reactions to his unmasking reveal so many of the different approaches to feminism, both positive and negative.

As well, I loved how Garp essentially lives unselfconsciously as a househusband who cleans house, cooks meals, and raises his children while his wife Helen goes out everyday to work. This is never a source of angst for him, and believe me, Garp has many opportunities to angst in this enormously long book.

Finally, I adored the character of Roberta Muldoon, a transgender woman who used to play professional football for the Philadelphia Eagles and becomes Garp's closest friend. She embodies an essential conflict of gender - she identifies as female, even as she worries that some of her proclivities, impulses, and actions (particularly when it comes to using her impressive brute force to defend Garp and his friends on a number of occasions) are too male.

That being said, the writing style completely put me off. It's written in a very "telling" style, from an omniscient, future narrator. It reads like commentary, not description. As a result, I felt like I was hearing everything secondhand, like I was kept at a distance from the story while someone else made all the observations for me. Because of this, I never felt particularly invested in any of the events or characters, and by the 356th page, I just wanted the book to be done. Reading can truly be a tedious exercise when you don't particularly care about the characters or what happens to them.

I finished for the sake of Book Club (and to maintain my standing as the Only Member Who's Read Every Pick), but by the end of the novel, I was relieved. In a sense, The World According to Garp is very much like experiencing someone else's life - it's long, convoluted and detailed, and intermittently fascinating, but every interesting event is heavily couched in the tedious everyday minutia of living.
C

"Not Proper Enough," by Carolyn Jewel

The Chick: Eugenia Bryant. Back in town to help an awkward but brilliant family friend succeed at the Marriage Mart, she has the misfortune to run into Fenris, the man who almost convinced her beloved (and now sadly deceased) husband to throw her over.
The Rub: Fenris now claims an affection for her - but can the still-grieving Eugenia bring herself to love anyone at all, much less her worst enemy?

Dream Casting: Sophia Myles. 

The Dude: Grenville Foxman Talbot, Marquis of Fenris, a.k.a. "Fenris," a.k.a. "Fox." When he was young, proud, and stupid, he spurned Eugenia and ruined his friendship with Robert Bryant when he married her instead.
The Rub: Now he must fight against two overwhelming obstacles: Eugenia's understandable hatred for him and her love for her dead husband.

Dream Casting: Richard Armitage. 

The Plot:

Fenris: I love you!

Eugenia: I hate you!

Fenris: Does that mean we can't have sex?

Eugenia: Of course not!

Fenris and Eugenia: *SexyTimes*

Eugenia: Still hate you.

Fenris and Eugenia: *SexyTimes*

Eugenia: How many pages until the end of the book?

Fenris: Five.

Eugenia: ... okay I guess this means I love you.

Fenris: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Unfortunately Dead Husband
• 1 Bitter Feud
• 1 Magical Gypsy Medallion
• 1 Prophetic Dream
• 1 Secondary Romance of Plant Lovers
• 1 Redundantly-Mirrored Sex Room

The Word: A few days before I started reading this novel (very kindly sent to me in ARC format by Carolyn Jewel), I had a conversation with Kate Elliott on Twitter about books that are "bad" versus books that simply aren't to the reviewer's taste, and how certain types of reviews can conflate the two. Certainly, terribly-written books aren't to anyone's taste, but one can dislike something without it making the book inferior.

I thought of this while reading Not Proper Enough, the second book in Jewel's newest historical series, the sequel to Not Wicked Enough. Is it badly-written? No.

Is it at all to my taste? Unfortunately, no.

Eugenia Bryant is returning to British society after the death of her beloved (truly beloved) husband, Robert, to ensure her young, clumsy friend Hester makes a good match. Unfortunately, she runs into her worst enemy - the Marquis of Fenris. Nothing surprises her more than when the despised Marquis defends Hester from a vocal bully at a social gathering - until Fenris confronts Eugenia and informs her that he'd like to be better acquainted.

It takes a rather absurdly long time to discover just why Eugenia hates Fenris so very badly and by the time we find out, it seems rather silly after such enormous build-up. As a younger man, Fenris fell in love with Eugenia but didn't pursue her because he believed she was too far beneath him, the son and heir of a duke. When his best friend Robert fell in love with Eugenia and courted her instead, Fenris did everything in his power to try and talk Robert out of the unequal match. He ended up humiliating Eugenia and destroying his friendship with Robert as a result.

Older and far wiser, Fenris desires another chance to win over the love of his life - but can Eugenia overcome her hatred for him?

The set-up sounds rather similar to Jewel's earlier novel, Scandal, where the hero begins the novel in love with the guarded, widowed heroine and spends the entire novel wearing her down. And indeed, Not Proper Enough is really one long, loooong physical seduction as Fenris and Eugenia begin an affair while he tries to win her heart in the bargain.

Here is where the "cup of terrible tea" versus "just not my cup of tea" concept comes in. The physical seduction and internal wrangling make up the entire novel, and there is little to no plot other than  Fenris' vague "Win Eugenia's Heart Through Great Sex" plan, and I found myself completely and utterly bored out of my mind. I found the endless physical descriptions and superficial banter dull. Other than the characters' Immediate Concerns (such as Fenris' love of Eugenia and Eugenia's grief from the death of her husband), the story doesn't delve very deeply into the lives and backstories of either character. Nothing really happens in this story and I found myself skimming after 170 pages.

Like Scandal, the romantic progression basically involves the hero begging over and over until at the very last minute the heroine says yes. But in Scandal, the novel explored the characters, their backstories, their non-sexual passions and interests, who they were as people, whereas Not Proper Enough just seemed to skim the surface. In Scandal, their seductions, interactions and dialogue had more meaning and depth because I understood the characters better.

That being said, Not Proper Enough has gorgeous writing and description and an excellent grasp of setting. If one is a fan of erotic long seduction stories, then Not Proper Enough is definitely a superior example. If one is like me, however, someone who is easily bored by sex scenes and prefers more drama, excitement, and intricate character development, then I would suggest you skip this one.
C

Interested? Purchase Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance) here.

"Crazy For Love," by Victoria Dahl

The Chick: Chloe Turner. An ordinary accountant who just wants to relax at a secluded resort after her fiance took "getting cold feet" to a desperate extreme and turned her into a media laughingstock.
The Rub: There she meets the delicious Max Sullivan, but what will he think when he realizes she's America's Most Infamous Bridezilla?
Dream Casting: Natalie Portman.


The Dude: Max Sullivan. A famous treasure hunter who's more than ready for a little R and R - provided there are no women involved.
The Rub: He runs into Chloe and instantly likes her - but what will happen when his anxiety disorder becomes too much for him?
Dream Casting: Josh Holloway.


The Plot: 


Chloe: Time for a vacation! Without paparazzi!

Max: Time for a vacation! Without ladies! Crap! That totally sexy, desirable woman is lighting an unsafe fire! I MUST RESCUE HER!

Chloe: Excuse me?

Max: WE SHOULD BONE! I mean we should date FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY because you're adorable!

Chloe: Wow, you have a problem...

Max: CURSES! MY MASTERFUL DISGUISE HAS BEEN FOILED!

Chloe: ... but I find that so cute!

Max: Oh. AWESOME!

*super super EXTRA super safe sex ensues*

Paparazzi: Hey look! Chloe! Chloe! What's it like having photographers show up to reveal you're the Bridezilla and provide some much needed romantic conflict?

Max: Oh HELL no. I'm out.

Chloe: Oh no!

Max: Wait, no, I'm back in.

Chloe: I'm not a puppy you know, I don't need to be rescued...

Max: Well then I'm out again! Exit stage right!

Chloe: ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME?!

Jenn, the Pathetic Best Friend Who Cries During: BEE TEE DUBS I KNEW YOUR FIANCE CHEATED AND DIDN'T TELL YOU BECAUSE OF MY PATHETIC MAN ISSUES!

Chloe: Stop the crazy train! I want to get off!

Max: Hey, s'up! I'm back again!

Chloe: Let's make a deal - you stick around for longer than five seconds and I'll give you an HEA.

Max: DEAL!

Chloe: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Untreated Anxiety Disorder
• 1 Secretly Guilty Friend
• 1 Really Unsafe Fire
• 1 Evil Ex
• 1 Secondary Romance (between Hero's Brother and Secretly Guilty Friend)
• 1 Instance of Crying During Sex (Unsexy Variety)
• Several Paparazzi
• 1 Bitchy Cousin

The Word: Chloe Turner should have been on her honeymoon. However, instead of helping her with their wedding plans, her spineless old-money fiance tried to fake his own death to get out of marrying her, and when he was caught, he vilified Chloe in front of the press to take the blame off himself.
 
Now Chloe's possessions are crammed into a tiny apartment, she's followed by paparazzi wherever she goes, and her face is plastered across every tabloid and internet gossip site under the caption "psychotic bridezilla." Her best friend Jenn hopes that taking Chloe to a remote island resort off the coast of Virgina will give her enough privacy to relax in the weeks leading up to her fiance's trial for fraud.

While there, she meets Max Sullivan, a marine treasure hunter (for reals) who's on holiday with his recently-divorced brother Elliott. Max has a reputation for wild ways and wild women, and he takes an immediate interest in Chloe as she and Jenn start a bonfire on the beach.

Unbeknownst to Chloe, his brother, or anyone in his life, Max suffers from an undiagnosed and untreated anxiety disorder similar to OCD that compels him to take responsibility for everyone around him. Everyone. Literally everyone - with friends, family, complete strangers, he becomes hyper-aware of every possible thing that could go wrong and is compelled to go in and control the situation to his satisfaction. And because people (for some strange reason) don't like being ordered around by a Stranger Creeper Whom They've Never Met, Max has carefully cultivated a charming personality that allows him to manipulate people into safer situations with no one the wiser.

This also influences his relationships - leading to an unerring tendency to date needy, dramatic girls out of a desire to "fix" them. How lovely.

Anyway, Max is tired. Exhausted. The stress of physically worrying about everyone he comes into contact with is killing him - albeit not enough to seek therapy or medication (more on that later). His solution is simple: isolation and celibacy. That is, until he sees two hot ladies trying to build a fire. A fire that is dangerously close to dry, combustible seagrass. He starts flirting with Chloe in order to maintain fire safety, and is compelled to invite himself on their diving trip when he learns Chloe hired a diving instructor from a grocery store. In the process, he finds he really likes Chloe, but he mentally cannot handle another relationship so he's stuck fighting his attraction and his desire to shield Chloe from drowning and sunburn and shark attacks and the bends.

Chloe, at first, just thinks Max is super-interested, but she figures out his problem quickly enough once he tries to seduce her out of skinny-dipping at night, and she calls him on it. Max is shocked - no one's been able to see through his charming disguise to the controlling nervous wreck he really is - but he's also relieved to find someone he doesn't have to hide from. What will happen, though, once Max finds out that Chloe is America's Most Infamous Bridezilla?

My biggest problem with Crazy For Love was the fact that, for a novel that has the word "Crazy" in its title and a hero who suffers from a severe anxiety disorder, the story never deals with the mental health implications or possible treatments for Max's problem. The author goes to extreme lengths to demonstrate how stressful Max's condition is - he's mentally incapable of relaxing around other people, regardless of the situation. He's continually worrying about fire alarms and how close someone's standing to a railing and the diseases you can get from bugs. The reader gets to see first hand how desperately unhappy he is.

And yet the idea of going to therapy or getting treatment for this problem never comes up. Max never even thinks about it. No one suggests it. Chloe, in fact, treats it like a cute foible, just another wacky part of his personality. This bothered me for three reasons:

1. I dislike the implication that A Good, Understanding Woman is a suitable treatment in and of itself
2. I really dislike the implication that Real Men should just put up with an anxiety disorder (in the hero's case, for more than 30 years!) instead of seeking treatment, and 
3. I don't buy that the heroine would rather live ever after in near-isolation with the hero than encourage him get treatment. That just seems so incredibly irresponsible and short-sighted, a Band-Aid solution.

The third reason really got to me, especially considering Chloe's personality and past. Thanks to her cowardly fiance, she had to spend an entire month cut off from her regular life and the people she cares about because of the scalding media attention. She describes in detail how trapped and alone she feels - so why would she agree to a restrictive, lonely existence in order to sooth Max's issues rather than actually dealing with them?
 
As well, I found the romantic conflict really confusing, especially once Max finds out about Chloe's Bridezilla reputation and Chloe realizes how Max gravitates towards needy women because he feels responsible for them. Max loves her, but he doesn't want her to need him, because then he'll only love her because he needs her to need him? Chloe needs Max, but she doesn't want him to stay because she needs him, she wants him to stay because he needs her? What?   

There's also a rather drippy secondary romance between Chloe's Secretly Guilty best friend Jenn and Max's brother Elliott, some sex scenes that really didn't contribute enough to the story this time around (something that Victoria Dahl's usually really awesome at), and I thought the ending was a little too pat for me (especially considering the paparazzi).

Despite solid writing and some hilarious dialogue ("Holy ass cheeks, Batman!"), I wasn't crazy for Crazy for Love. 
C

You can purchase Crazy for Love here.