The 100-Page Drop: "The Assassin's Curse," by Cassandra Rose Clarke

I was fairly excited to read this novel - it had a great cover, a fabulous premise, and lots of my blogger friends had read it. I figured it was the perfect thing to read on my Kobo while my mother and I vacationed at the Library Hotel in New York City (I saved my paper copy of Anne of Avonlea for take-off and landing).

Imagine my surprise when I found myself scrolling through Twitter and perusing articles on my phone in the Library Hotel's reading room rather than actually reading the book that I'd brought.

Yes, The Assassin's Curse is that boring and stupid.

So our heroine Pineapple - I'm sorry, Ananna - is the daughter of prominent pirates who is about to be married off to the son of other, equally-prominent pirates. All is well until Pineapple suddenly goes, "DO NOT WANT" and impulsively flees on a camel. Because why not?

Unfortunately, her ex-fiance's Pirate Parents are not pleased with her marriage-dodging camel shenanigans and send a Magical Assassin after her. Thankfully, the Magical Assassin (named Naji) is Terrible At His Job and almost gets bitten by a poisonous snake while attacking Pineapple. Thankfully, Pineapple is Terrible At Everything In General and kills the snake for no other reason than she's a Heroine and has to save the man trying to murder her because the plot wills it.

Unfortunately, this unleashes a curse which means Naji has to serve, protect, and remain in her vicinity at all times or else he feels excruciating pain. Which turns out to be super-convenient as Pineapple's Pirate In-Laws have sent other Magical Assassins after her, and some Evil Dudes from an Alternate Dimension are also after Naji for Reasons Unexplained. Oh, and this bitchy river witch whom Naji used to bone is also involved.

Everything's written in this dull, arbitrary style - "of course the heroine's a pirate, and of course this must happen because this is what Feisty Heroines Do" - and it doesn't help that the heroine is a moron. She cuts herself off from her entire family and way of life on a moment's whim then acts surprised that her actions have actual consequences. Flawed heroines are great and realistic and all, but I couldn't empathize with this aggressively idiotic scatterbrain for longer than 100 pages.

Her character didn't feel organic or well-realized - she came off like a checklist of Feisty Heroine Traits that had all been checked off at once. I felt the same way with Naji - he was just filling out his quota of Angsty Hero Traits (angsty scar? Check! Refusal to tell the heroine anything for her own good? Check! Bad manners? Check! Bitchy ex? Check!) The whole story seemed to run on cliches and aimed for all the major points in a Teen Fantasy Novel - oh look, here's the scene where the heroine dislikes the hero's ex and feels ugly by comparison; here's the scene where the hero refuses to tell the heroine the whole truth and this gets them both in trouble; oh look, the heroine has Super Special Magical Powers she never knew she had! ugh, again? By that point, I was tired of Ananna's quippy sarcastic narration and Naji's Brooding Scarred Angst, and had no real interest in following along with their adventures.

So I moved on to something else.

DNF

The 167-Page Drop: "The Postmistress," by Sarah Blake

So - why did I pick this book?

Good question. It had an oh-so-fancy literary-ficion title, and that so classy old-fashioned-looking cover, with its crinkled paper and faded, dried rose!

It lured me in with an interesting time period (1941) and a drama-proof setting (small town Massachusetts and London) and the promise of secrets and, presumably, a postmistress who does something interesting.

Ha! Lies.

The 40-year-old postmistress in question (whose name I have already forgotten) starts the book off in fantastically creepy form by going to her gyno to have him check her, uh, PO box and write a doctor's note declaring her virginity. She has a crush on Harry Vale, a regular visitor to the post office in their tiny town of Franklin, MA, and is convinced that all men prefer to have their women's hymen-status notarized.

Her doctor is royally creeped out by this, but her move inexplicably works. Hooray! This is the most original and interesting thing to happen in this whole novel!

In the same town, a young orphaned woman (whose name I've also forgotten!) moves in with her new husband, Will Fitch, who is the town's new doctor (not the virginity-officiating one). Unfortunately, thanks to Daddy Issues, Dr. Fitch has an incurable case of Mangst (Man-Angst) and when a patient dies in his care, he abandons his wife like a selfish asshole to volunteer his services to the victims of the London Blitz. In London. While his friendless, orphaned, pregnant wife is left to wallow in her misery back home. What a prince.

There he meets Frankie Bard, an American journalist in London who works for BBC radio, broadcasting stories of London's suffering across the Atlantic in an effort to galvanize the United States into joining World War II.

And that's about it. Although the historical details are well developed and the writing is gorgeous, there is little to no plot. I found myself halfway through the novel, still somehow convinced that I was reading the introduction, still waiting for the inciting incident to happen. By more than halfway through, all the events still seemed so unconnected, so unimportant, and so boring.

I wouldn't say it was a terrible novel (I did learn some new things about the Blitz, and how legitimately awful it must have been for the people living in London during it), but honestly, historical details and pretty words mean less than nothing if there isn't a solid plot or story to hang them on. Or at least a story that occurs before the 167 page mark.

Return to sender!
DNF

"Hope's Folly," by Linnea Sinclair (Bantam, 2009) - DNF Review

The Chick: Rya Bennton. A security officer aboard the Hope's Folly,  she's determined to protect its Admiral - Phillip Guthrie - from all threats - including a possible traitor on board.
The Rub: She's also idolized Phillip since she was nine years old, which makes objective thinking rather difficult.
Dream Casting: Christina Hendricks.

The Dude: Admiral Phillip Guthrie. In order to help the Alliance against the evil Empire, he has to transport an outdated, malfunctioning ship to a safe haven.
The Rub: He quickly falls for Rya, but he's worried that the age difference and the fact that she's his best friend's daughter will get in the way.
Dream Casting: George Clooney.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Silver Fox Hero
• 1 Curvy Heroine with Body Issues
• 1 Relationship-Aiding Pet
• 1 Serious Fire (Unsexy Variety)
• 1 Traitor
• 1 Mental Collapse
• 1,339,008 technical terms

The Word: I am a fan of detailed settings, where the environment comes to life because the author has clearly done her research. Unfortunately, with Linnea Sinclair, I've found you can have too much of a good thing.

While I read and enjoyed Games of Command by Sinclair, I was bored to tears by The Down Home Zombie Blues. The endless deluge of technobabble left me feeling lost and distanced me from the story and the emotional relationship.

I had the exact same reaction to Hope's Folly. I made it about 240 pages in before I had to start to skim. Phillip Guthrie is an Admiral of the Alliance - the band of space rebels who hope to overthrow the evil intergalactic Empire run by the dictatorial Tage. Unfortunately, the Alliance is short on pretty much everything - ships, guns, crew members - so Guthrie winds up with an outdated bucket of a starship, a dedicated but depleted skeleton crew, and orders to transport the ship to the protected dockyards of Ferrin.

One of Guthrie's crew members is Rya Bennton, a talented weapons expert whose father was killed in one of Tage's purges. While part of her hopes to avenge her father's death, another part of her is just happy to be working under Phillip Guthrie - her childhood hero and one of her father's best friends. She is ridiculously in love with Phillip, and has no idea that he soon comes to return her feelings. Unfortunately, there's a pesky 16-year age difference, the fact that Rya is Guthrie's inferior, and the problem of two separate space villains and a space traitor who want to either kill or capture Guthrie before he makes it to Ferrin.

Linnea Sinclair is an absolute master worldbuilder, and if you love and are experienced with military science fiction you will probably love this novel to pieces. If you are, um, more of a novice when it comes to sci-fi, this book may very well bore or confuse you.

Jargon. There's a lot of it, along with endless descriptions of military procedure, the ship's design, the different decks, the training of various crew members, and the technology used to control every little appliance on the ship. It's not enough for Phillip to give an order - the author also has to explain what his order means, his history with the crewmember he ordered, the science behind the technology ordered, and the various parts of the ship that the crewmember will pass or deal with in his quest to fulfil the order.

Frankly, I'm not sure how many of these details are ever relevant, and it's rarely entertaining. After two hundred pages muddling through confusing names and details, I only had the barest sketches of who the protagonists were. Guthrie is Old, has a Bum Leg, and is Stressed All the Time. Rya Thinks She's Fat, loves Fondling Guns, and thinks Guthrie is Hot Stuff. I never felt the story let me dig any deeper than that - there were too many details and schematics and technobabble sucking up air that would be better spent on the romance, which moves at an absolute snail's pace.

After about two hundred pages of determined reading, I realized that it was difficult to pick up where I left off because all the technobabble basically read the same to me, and that's when I realized I needed to back away. I skimmed to the end, but nothing really interesting happened.

I would hesitate to call this a bad novel or even a poorly-written one. It is extremely heavy in technobabble, but if you're familiar with science fiction this may very well not bother you as much as it did me. Bear in mind though, if you're not familiar with science fiction, this may not be the book to start with. Or end with. I'm not sure I'll be trying Linnea Sinclair again.
DNF

DNF Review: "Never Lie To A Lady," by Liz Carlyle

Liz Carlyle has always been a mixed bag for me - some of her books are simply exquisite, others enraged me, still others frustrated and puzzled me.

But none of them have ever bored me until this one - Never Lie To a Lady.

Lord Nash is a Brooding Angsty Alpha Male, who spends most of his free time moping about how He Doesn't Fit In, reminiscing about his moral corruption, and drinking alone in the dark. One night, at a party, he accosts a lady standing outside in the fresh air. The two share a passionate kiss and a fondle before the woman, horrified, turns and flees.

That same woman is the inexplicably-named Xanthia Neville, an enterprising lass newly settled in London after leaving her brother's plantation in Barbados who, thanks to a complicated backstory replete with Dead Parents, Slavery, Sex Addict Brothers and Evil Uncles, now runs a large and successful shipping company. While her ancestry guarantees her entry into the ton, she really has nothing in common with the aristocracy and is only attending the balls and soirees for the benefit of chaperoning her estranged young cousin Louisa at her come-out. She is embarrassed by how easily she fell for Lord Nash's charms and determines never to see or speak to him again.

Then the Major Plot steps in - two government officials approach Xanthia and her brother with a desperate request. It seems as if someone in Britain's aristocracy has been smuggling guns into Greece to support their revolution against the Turks, and the Home Office strongly suspects Lord Nash, who has maternal ties to Russia and Greece and an inherited enmity of the Turks. He also has an absurdly large fortune that comes from seemingly nowhere - normally this wouldn't bother the characters in a thinly-drawn historical but in this case it seems suspicious. They ask Xanthia to approach Nash as a representative of Neville Shipping and see if she can tempt him into asking to use her company to smuggle his guns.

Xanthia agrees - partly because it gives her a chance to see if she can do other things with Nash's guns (wink wink), and partly because she wants to get the intriguing man out of her system and uncovering his penchant for treason could be just the ticket.

I was actually quite surprised to find myself bored with this novel. On the surface, it had everything going for it - an extremely competent and unorthodox heroine, protagonists with incredibly detailed personal lives and connections, a fascinatingly detailed setting and a complex spy plot. Normally, I love these things, and actively seek them in historicals. Many lesser historicals eschew the finer details of the history because all they really want is a nice, nonspecific, but idealized romantic setting for a story that could really work in any time period.

However, in this case I thought the details hampered the story. Yes, there were details - pages and pages of them - until I found myself getting hopelessly confused by the family connections and step-family connections and secret backstories.

However, romances still do need an emotional core. A meticulously-described setting won't mean anything if I'm not invested enough in the characters to care about the story. For instance, I've never felt that Julia Quinn's historicals were very particular about setting or detail, but the characters' emotional journey kept me reading.  I didn't feel invested in the protagonists of this novel. Xanthia had promise (despite her tendency towards judginess), but Lord Nash just seemed like a blank slate with a lot of Angsty Characteristics tacked on. I couldn't figure out why he felt like such a loner or had to do such mopey sad things.

To the author's credit, I did make it about 200 pages in - because she does create a very detailed and well-realized setting and uses beautiful language and those deserve credit. But by the time I was halfway in, I kept daydreaming instead of reading, and kept thinking of reading something else, and I realized it was time to move on.

DNF

The 260-Page Drop and Skim: "Lord of Ice," by Gaelen Foley

I've had a bit of a weird reading experience with Gaelen Foley. Her debut novel, The Duke, was a marvel.

Her second novel, Lord of Fire (the one where our Spy Hero poses as a Sex Cult Leader and hosts orgies in a cave in his basement in order to learn state secrets), was cray-cray but still incredibly entertaining, with some good dialogue.

This third novel - had nothing. Nothing. It wasn't terrifyingly bad, but it offered absolutely nothing new, and it traded on tropes that were undeveloped.

The novel opens with a painfully obvious prologue that's meant to spell out the entire plot -  an Evil Viscount is going bankrupt, so he murders his alcoholic war veteran brother in order to get at the fortune of his illegitimate niece (the daughter of their older, deceased brother and his mistress). Unfortunately, the 50,000 pound inheritance is signed over to the girl's name, so the Evil Viscount will have to murder her, as well, to get his hands on the money.

An Evil Viscount wants to the kill the heroine - got that?

So the Sex Cult Spy guy from the previous book (Lucien)? Turns out he has a twin brother, Damien, who fought in the "real Army," so to speak, leading to their eventual falling out. Damien is suffering from some pretty severe PTSD, where dreams, loud noises, and bright lights can set him off and make him believe he is back in Spain. He's been hiding out at his newly-bestowed estate when he learns that a war buddy of his has been murdered, but not before he named Damien as the new guardian to his ward in his last will and testament.

Meanwhile, our plucky future murder victim heroine Miranda is currently studying Angst and Resentment at St. PedoBear's School for Molested Orphans. While she dreams of her neglected guardian riding up to take her away from the awful living conditions, she also secretly works as an actress with a local theatre troupe to save up money and an escape plan.

It is as an actress on the stage that Miranda first gains the attention of Damien, who has ridden over to collect his new ward but stopped to catch a show first. Damien supports local theatre, y'all! Damien is immediately attracted to the Hottest Woman in the Room (Miranda), and Miranda is immediately attracted to the Hottest Man in the Room (Damien). And I am bored with both of them.

Damien, who has been avoiding women and liquor since his last PTSD-induced mental episode in Lord of Fire, figures one quick bang can't hurt, and he waits outside the theatre to sexually harass and force a kiss on Miranda despite her repeated and vocal rejections. But she likes the kiss so it's okay!

However, at this point of the novel Miranda is an entertaining, intelligent, and saucy creature so she makes a break for it once Damien turns his back to summon the carriage. Unfortunately, she runs into a pack of suspiciously-organized thieves and vagrants. Damien rides to her rescue, but the conflict induces his PTSD (which is depicted in this novel as a kind of mental lycanthropy that Damien can sense coming and warn people away from), and he ends up throat-ripping a bunch of dudes to death with his bare hands, MacGruber-style. Miranda, showing admirable intelligence and restraint, runs like the dickens.

Then next day, Damien shows up at St. PedoBear's to pick up Miranda and is appalled to learn that a) the school won't take care of her anymore because she's failing the required courses of Being Molested and Being Young Enough For the Pedophile Reverend and b) she's the very same actress he ripped throats for the night before.

He adapts and agrees to take Miranda with him to meet his family, but Miranda's no longer willing to leave - she realizes that once she's gone, her young friend Amy will become the star pupil in the Being Molested course. She plays along with Damien until they arrive at a nearby inn and then attempts to flee back to the school, with the idea of snatching Amy and hieing off with the travelling theatre troupe.

Damien catches her, though, and forces the teary Miranda to confess her matriculation in Child Abuse. He storm the school in true Kick-Ass Hero fashion, busts the reverend and saves the kiddies - earning Miranda's love and admiration and effectively killing off the interesting aspects of her character.

See, before this, Miranda's quite an entertaining heroine. She's innocent without being naive, naughty without being childish. She handles situations practically and she shares some hilarious dialogue with Damien. However, once he brings down St. PedoBear's, the story rather explicitly transforms her into a different character entirely, as if by magic:

"She felt so strange. A quiet, womanly acquiescence settled over her with a willingness to set aside her childish ways; her tinselly, adolescent dreams of theatrical fame; and all her angry, headstrong willfulness. Instead, she would accept this strong, just man's rule, as though his very gentleness had already begun to tame her."

A more wall-banging paragraph I've never read. So, in one paragraph, Miranda gives up her dreams, career ambitions and cleverness in favour of the "more noble" ambition of Being Loved. Damien, after seeing only one performance, asserts that Miranda only acts so that she can confuse the applause with affection. You know, not because she's good at it (which she is), or because she enjoys it (which she does). Because The Man knows best.

Thus, in one paragraph, Miranda morphs from an interesting character in her own right into yet another Blankly Virtuous Heroine with No Self Esteem whose sole narrative purpose is to soak up the Hero's Dark Man Pain like a human Paper Towel of Lurve. In her new role as the Quicker Angst Picker-Upper, she basically spends the entire novel trying to get into Damian's pants while simultaneously believing she is unworthy to even pop the first button on his Lofty Aristocratic Fly.

The main obstacle, if you can call it that, is Damien's poorly-written and developed PTSD. At one point, Miranda tries to wake Damien up from a bad dream and he nearly strangles her to death. This, rather understandably, leaves Damien nervous about entering into a relationship. When Miranda asks Damien's bro Lucien for advice, this interchange happens:

[Miranda:] "But what happens if I approach him and he turns dangerous again? I told you what took place at the hotel. He could have killed me already."

"Stand up to him, girl," he said heartily.

Really, truly. If Damien, a 200-pound Alpha Male, tries to choke the life out of Miranda again, she should just stand up to him. Yes. That makes perfect sense.

And the rest of the book continues in this dreadfully boring and unoriginal fashion. It almost seems as if the author was working off a checklist of things that Have To Be In A Romance. The heroine marvels at all the luxury while feeling herself to be a poor, unloved orphan. The hero's family members are all unconditionally accepting. The heroine's ex shows up and makes an ass of himself for no reason and then disappears never to be seen again. The Evil Villain develops an unhealthy attraction to the heroine - again, for no real reason but to make him Even Eviler. Damien's PTSD magically disappears.

I gave up around page 260 when it wasn't even camp enough to be entertaining - it just felt rote. Skimming ahead, I was pleased to note I missed a last-minute conflict where Damien has to return to the front because Napoleon's escaped from Elba and Miranda whines about how selfish Damien is to choose his country's safety over her - the same last-minute conflict that occurred between the protagonists in the last book.

It wasn't only the fact that the novel was boring that made me frustrated - but the fact that all the overused tropes that bothered me in this book are so. Damn. Prevalent in romance. I've already whittled down most of my romance TBR to already-proven romance favourites and a very few interesting-looking new titles, but books like Lord of Ice almost make me want to give up on the whole genre.

DNF

"Ravishing in Red," by Madeline Hunter - the 100-Page Drop

I'm losing patience with a certain type of romance.

I like to call this, the "Baby's Day Out" romance.

In the "Baby's Day Out" romance, we have a screaming twit of a heroine who is described or defined by the following characteristics:

• Foot-Stomping
• Childlike looks or manner
• Overweening Sense of Completely Biased Self-Righteousness
• Inability to Recognize Danger
• No Law Enforcement Experience
• Incredibly Susceptible to Sexual Overtures
• Inability to Accept Rational Advice from the Hero
• Inexplicable Ignorance of Social Consequences

All of these traits are usually swept under the "Innocence" rug - she's just so pure! So untainted by the ghastly, cynical common sense and self-awareness of the real world! Or, if this romance is a contemporary, she's just "quirky" and "full of gumption."

In the "Baby's Day Out" romance, our innocent marshmallow duckling heroine is possessed by a passionate desire to solve a crime or right a wrong, which she goes about in a typically nonsensical, poorly-planned way that almost always lands her in danger. The Rational, Damaged Hero spends the novel tearing his hair out and desperately chasing after her to keep her from jumping off a cliff.

And in the process she accidentally solves the crime while at the same time her Sweet Maidenly Yet Passionate Virtue pulls the Rational, Damaged Hero back from the brink of Angstville.

That's essentially what I got from the first 100 pages of Ravishing In Red. The heroine, whose name has about six letters it does not need (Audrianna Kelmsleigh), starts the novel in a dark hotel room, unaccompanied, lying in wait for a shady man she's never met (nicknamed The Domino) who left a shadier notice in the Times about information that might help clear her father's name of the scandal that drove him to suicide.

Oh, and she also hasn't told any of her family or friends where she is, but that's okay, she brought a loaded pistol she stole from her BFF.

And that's when our hero (Lord Sebastian) shows up, looking for the same shady man he's never met. Lord Sebastian helped prosecute the case against Audrianna's father, the man whose alleged negligence sent faulty gunpowder to the front and doomed a platoon of English soldiers. Only Lord Sebastian is convinced it wasn't negligence, but a greater conspiracy.

Naturally when he arrives there's a case of Mistaken Identity, but not on Sebastian's part because it's pretty clear to him that Audrianna is about as sharp as a bowling ball dipped in marshmallow fluff.
The same Audrianna who cocks the hammer on the gun she has no idea how to use in order to look more threatening.

Thankfully, Audrianna is one of those irritating heroines who comes with an "Off" switch - her Erogenous Zones. Because she's just so pure and innocent that the most basic of sexual activities sends her into deep mental shock, she is quickly disarmed by an experienced kiss from Sebastian - until the real Domino shows up, Audrianna drops the gun, and accidentally shoots Sebastian in the arm. The gunshot brings all the boys to the yard and Audrianna is promptly compromised.

Audrianna flees to her cousin's Boarding House for Sequel-Baiting Heroines while Sebastian seeks advice from his Family of Angst and Sad Childhoods (crippled war hero brother? Check! Evil image-obsessed mum? Check!). Slowly Sebastian realizes he needs to offer marriage to save both their reputations - only Audrianna bullishly and selfishly refuses because she wants to make Sebastian look bad.

And this is where I tapped out.

I skimmed ahead, however - and was kind of surprised. The rest of the story gets kind of interesting. One of Audrianna's friends has a legitimate capital-S Secret and everyone (including the hero) demands she terminate their friendship, which leads to intriguing conflict. The mystery actually has a decent outcome. Some good drama. The heroine matures.

However, I don't regret DNF'ing it. Life is short. A novel has to start the way it means to go on and those first 100 pages were pretty awful. I shouldn't have to slog through a quarter of the book before it gets good.

DNF

"Throne of Glass," by Sarah J. Maas - the 100 Page Drop

I first became aware of this book through other bloggers, and then later at Book Expo America where it was hyped up and down the Javitz Center. Upon meeting the author herself at the Apocalypsies' party, she piqued my interest when she described her debut novel as a retelling of Cinderella, one where Cinderella is an assassin sent to the ball to kill the prince.

I love fairy tale retellings and I love epic fantasies with warrior heroines (I credit a timely introduction to Tamora Pierce in my teens for that one), but unfortunately, Throne of Glass strained my credibility to the point where I had to subject it to the 100 Page Drop (i.e. read the first 100 pages and if nothing's improved by then, junk it).

Our heroine, Celaena Sardothien, isn't just a good assassin - she's the World's Greatest Assassin. Before she could get around to making it official and buying the coffee mug, she was captured at seventeen and imprisoned in a death camp for a year. Unexpectedly, she is dragged from the salt mines and brought before none other than Dorian, the Crown Prince of Adarlan, who offers her a deal.

Apparently his dad (the King of Obviously Evil Imperialist Metaphoria) is looking for a Champion to do his kingly dirty work. Instead of having his Obviously Evil Imperialist HR Department put an ad out on Obviously Evil Imperialist Craigslist, the King read a copy of The Hunger Games and has decided to hold an incredibly elaborate and violent competition to fill the position instead. Prince Dorian thinks Celaena (with her years of World's Best Assassin Experience) would be an excellent candidate and promises that if she wins, she will be granted her freedom after four years of loyal service.

Now, Dorian's dad is Obviously Evil - take-over-the-world, burn-all-the-magic-books Evil. But Celaena's other option is staying in the salt mine death camp. And, I mean, c'mon - salt mines. So dehydrating. So bad for the skin. So Celaena accepts and is transported to the King's palace to train in the competition against a ragtag gaggle of criminals, mercenaries, thieves, assassins and sociopaths.

Thankfully, Celaena's entourage comes pre-equipped with a love triangle - Prince Dorian (Bachelor #1) likes long walks on the beach, dog breeding, flirting with court ladies, and morally struggling with the fact that his father is Obviously Evil. Captain Chaol Westfall (Bachelor #2), Dorian's BFF and captain of the royal guard, likes brooding, snarling, murmuring disapprovingly, and expressing his unrequited love in passionate unseen glances of longing. How do you pronounce that name, anyhow? Chowl? Chail? Cowl?

Now this would all be lovely drama gravy, but nothing in the first 100 pages of this novel made any sense. First of all, I found Celaena's character entirely implausible. We're told that she's an assassin - the world's BEST assassin! - and yet nothing about her worldview, her actions, or her behaviour fits this description. She spent a year of torture in a death camp and not three days later she's whining about the agony of wet shoes. We're told she was So Good at Secretly Assassinating People that only a select few know who she really is, and yet she whines and pouts that she has to hide her true skills during the competition to protect her identity - because she wants more attention.

What we're told about Celaena is completely different from what we're shown. We're told that Celaena killed twenty-three people with her bare hands and a pick axe during her one escape attempt from the death camp, and yet all I see is a whiny, childish, shortsighted, boastful heroine who still manages to be somewhat "innocent." When you tell me that a character has been killing people for money since they were eight years old, to the point of becoming the best at it, to the point of being thrown into a torture-jail for it - I get certain expectations of what that character should be like, and Celaena doesn't meet any of those. She reads more like a plucky, naive thief caught stealing a necklace from some rich lady's purse than a mass murderer who endured torture and slavery.

Moreover, the novel's plot seemed contrived and nonsensical to me. Why throw a complicated, expensive competition to choose your Champion? Why choose from among a group of thieves, mercenaries, and murderers instead of loyal knights and soldiers? Why host the competition and house these thieves, mercenaries and murderers in your own castle? And if you're the World's Best Assassin who's been brought out of a death camp and given weapons, why don't you cut a bloody path to freedom instead of staying to serve the man personally responsible for destroying your home country?

Skimming ahead did not resolve any of my problems with the story. We find out that Celaena loves candy, books and pretty dresses and hates the idea of puppies dying. Dorian and Chaol angst about how incongruously adorable and lovable the World's Best Assassin is and discreetly argue about who'll get to kiss her underneath the Fantasy Mistletoe Equivalent during their Fantasy Christmas Equivalent. Someone's butchering the competitors and stealing their organs. Magical ghosts factor in somewhere. Saving the World becomes a top priority, which only Celaena can do, etc. etc. drop it into Mount Doom, rinse and repeat.

Fantasy novels are supposed to make you believe in the unbelievable. Sadly, I found my sense of disbelief couldn't remain airborne with Throne of Glass - at least for longer than 100 pages.
DNF

Disagree? Still curious? You can purchase Throne of Glass here.

"The Heir," by Grace Burrowes - the 100 Page Drop

Another day, another DNF review. I was given this one at RWA last year and thought it sounded interesting - plus I'd been reading some pretty decent reviews on it.

And indeed, when I started to read it - I found the hero respectful and polite, the heroine respectful and polite (if a little snarky), and the book itself completely and utterly boring.

So I gave it the 100 Page Drop treatment - I decided to struggle on for 100 pages, and if the novel didn''t picked up by then, it would get the boot. Unfortunately, it didn't.

The novel got on my nerves almost immediately - firstly, the hero's name is Gayle, which only makes me think of historical romance author Gayle Callen. Gayle has recently become the heir to the Duke of Moreland after two of his brothers passed away (one from the war [I think] and the other from consumption). The ensuing maniacal pressure the Duke has placed on his two remaining legitimate sons to Impregnate Them Ladies has caused Gayle to hide in London during a summer heatwave while his brother Valentine pretends to be gayer than a picnic basket.

While staying at his new townhouse, Gayle tries to help a chambermaid whose blouse buttons have gotten caught on a grate (for reals) only to wind up with a serious concussion after his misunderstanding new housekeeper Mrs. Seaton bashes him over the head. Upon learning the truth, Anna Seaton is terribly contrite and spends the next hundred pages plying Gayle with lemonade, muffins, and cookies.

While drinking glass after glass of lemonade, Gayle and Anna share polite, respectful banter - generally involving Anna mildly reproaching him for being rude and Gayle mildly apologizing. With excruciating slowness - and all the while munching on an exquisitely-buttered muffin - Gayle then makes respectful, wordy overtures to Anna, mainly involving how much he'd like to munch on her exquisitely-buttered muffin. Anna mildly flutters about how that would be inappropriate, Gayle backs off, and they drink some more lemonade.

Things pick up slightly after Gayle's pre-impregnated mistress tries to trick Gayle into claiming paternity for her baby during a hilariously awkward sex scene, and she reveals Gayle's father arranged the scheme because he is that desperate for Gayle to marry and breed. This results in a very brief shouted argument between father and son and Gayle's slightly more insistent - yet still respectful and wordy! - seduction attempts on Anna.

In one hundred pages, Anna drinks about 4,382 glasses of lemonade and hints at possible sssssecrets exactly once. Gayle's Fake-Gay bro Valentine shows up, necessitating more muffins and lemonade and verbose, circular discussions between the brothers on whether or not it's kosher to bang the housekeeper.

By the 100-page mark, I did not want to read on. I wanted to pee.

Nothing about this book was especially terrible or offensive - Gayle and Anna are pretty reasonable people who like to talk through their issues. However, the plot was slower than molasses and so much of the narrative was sucked up by minutiae to the point where nothing substantial had happened 100 pages in.

Skimming ahead, I was inundated by reams and reams of verbose dialogue that revealed absolutely nothing. The Hot Bastard Brother of Gayle and Valentine shows up. Their awful dad yells some more. At the very end, Anna's secret past is revealed to involve a Secret Sister and an unwanted engagement to a Fortune-Hunting Turd. Anna then takes a bullet wound which no amount of lemonade will heal, but somehow a HEA happens.

Don't worry about me, though, as I am already off onto greener reading pastures.

DNF

"Scoundrel's Kiss," by Carrie Lofty

The Chick: Ada of Keyworth. After enduring terrible torture in England, opium was the only thing that soothed her nightmares to carry her through the night. Now, it's the only thing that'll get her through the day, too.
The Rub: When a patronizing, hypocritical but devastatingly sexy monk tries to help her with her addiction, can she overcome being wholly vulnerable with a man she barely knows?
Dream Casting: Felicia Day.

The Dude: Gavriel de Marqueda. A novice in the Order of Santiago, he is charged with helping a drug-addled, obviously fallen woman achieve salvation as his final task before taking holy orders.
The Rub: He needs to get into the Order, because he believes it's the only way to hide from his brutal past - but Ada is not going to make it easy on him, or his vows of chastity and pacifism.
Dream Casting: Tom Welling.

The Plot:

Gavriel: I really really want to get into the Order of Santiago so I'll stop wanting to kill people!

Evil Monk Master: Here! Cure this feisty, spirited girl of her opium addiction!

Ada: NO! NONONONONONONO...

Three Days Later..

Ada: No!

Gavriel: Don't you WANT to be cured of your addiction?

Ada: Not if it means being held hostage by condescending men of God! I won't take that lying down! However, if you're interested in what I WOULD take lying down...

Gavriel: SORRY NOPE VOW OF CHASTITY!

Suspicious Guards: Somebody order external conflict?

Gavriel: Crap! I need to defend you but I took a vow of pacifism!

Ada: Vow shmow!

Gavriel: GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME! *takes weapon, kills a bunch of people* Crap, now I have killer's remorse.

Ada: ...I think that's just regular remorse.

Gavriel: DO YOU WANT TO GET IT ON OR NOT?

Ada: Okay, okay...

Gavriel: Just let me self-flagellate first.

Ada: Wait what?

Evil Monk Master and His Henchman: Time for more evil!

Gavriel: Yeah, I'm done with this angst. More sword fighty killing goodness!

Bad Guys: *killed and be-handed*

Ada: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

1 Inconvenient Addiction

Several Sequel-Baiting Side Characters

1 Almost-Romantic Scene in a Flaming Bathhouse

Several Bouts of Self-Punishment

1 Evil Monk

1 Very Bad Dad

The Word: I honestly can't believe it.

Three books in a row.

Maybe DNFing that first one was like a gateway drug. Maybe making it easier on myself to put a book down when it's not entertaining has made me less tolerant of books that drag.

At least this book started interestingly enough - our heroine is Ada, the bitchtacular sister of Meg from Carrie Lofty's debut novel, What A Scoundrel Wants. The hero of the previous book (Will Scarlet) was responsible for Ada landing in a dungeon for fabricating false jewels, where she was later tortured by the villainous Sheriff. When Meg refused to renounce her relationship with Will, Ada cut Meg off and skedaddled to the Continent to make her own way.

Unfortunately, her own way led her down the treacherous path of opium addiction, and she winds up at a slave auction in a brothel in Spain to cover her debts. There, she is rescued by Gavriel, a novice who seeks to take holy orders with the Order of Santiago. His master, Pancheco, informs him that his final trial - the task that will determine his acceptance into the Order - is to bring Ada back to the path of righteousness.

Gavriel's life depends on that righteousness, for he's on the run from a dark, murderous past of his own and he believes acceptance into the Order will shield him from the enemies he made in his old life as a soldier as well as repress his own violent, vengeful urges. However, Ada refuses to be under any man's power ever again, and when Gavriel defends her against an oblivious and insensitive physician, they wind up kicked out of their shelter and they have to fend for themselves. This includes fighting off suspicious amounts of well-armed bandits and guards, leading them to discover they're both embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy of courtiers and kings.

It all sounds lovely and interesting on paper, but the pacing takes a nosedive after Ada and Gavriel are kicked out of the shelter. The fight scenes are overly wordy and lifeless, the protagonists' banter is flat and inconsistent, and the ultimate conspiracy is a McGuffin that doesn't require any emotional investment.

I found I couldn't connect to either character, and one of the reasons was the conflicting themes. Gavriel serves under three vows in the hopes of being accepted into the Order: obedience, chastity, and pacifism. Three vows that, quite honestly, aren't anything new or outrageous within holy orders, but for some reason Ada views them as especially egregious and horrid and spends most of the book tempting Gavriel to break them.

I wasn't bothered by Ada's opposition to the vow of chastity - Gavriel's a hot piece of half-Berber ass and taking a vow of chastity in a romance novel is like painting a bull's-eye on your junk with glow-in-the-dark paint. However, Ada continually links Gavriel's identity to one of violence - she's always saying that he isn't a monk. She sees him as a warrior, and believes his vows repress his true nature. Given how much her fear of violent men caused her to retreat from life and become addicted to opium, I couldn't understand her opposition to the hero's pacifism.

Ada's perspective is certainly limited and flawed, and that's okay, but Gavriel had reasons - entirely justified and admirable reasons - for giving up violence. I actually respected him more when I thought he was a hero who shunned combat. Nonetheless, he returns to it really easily. So violence is good?

However, fighting hurts Gavriel's soul and increases his mental anguish. So it's bad, now? Which is it? Is Gavriel suppressing his manly-man fighting spirit by abstaining from violence or is he saving himself from future hurt?

It honestly seemed like both a cop-out and a lost opportunity - one aspect of the book is how Gavriel's intelligence is constantly underestimated. It would have been interesting to watch Gavriel come up with cunning and strategic ways to defuse situations without resorting to violence. Instead we just read how easily he succumbs to temptation and picks up a sword again - all the while being incredibly mopey and angsty about it, and that's not interesting to read about at all.

Around page 209, I started skimming. Thankfully, it doesn't look like I missed much - there is a surprisingly large amount of sequel baiting in the final quarter of the book along with self-flagellation (!), the evil guys are evil, and Gavriel does the self-sacrificing thing and muddies the thematic waters even more by violently defeating the villains, only he doesn't do it AS violently as he would have a year ago. Progress?

I tried with this one, really, I did, but it looks like I've just had a run of terrible luck with books. This next book, however, I SWEAR I'll finish. You can hold me to it - with pitchforks and torches.
DNF

You can purchase "Scoundrel's Kiss" here.

"Tempted by His Kiss," by Tracy Anne Warren - the 100 Page Drop

The Word: As I discovered while reading Meljean Brook's Demon Moon, life's too short to read boring books (note the word choice - bad books can still be really entertaining!).

As it happens, I had a terrible first impression going in to Tempted By His Kiss. There was absolutely nothing about this book that stuck out as interesting or particularly original. It just seemed so tired and done before - and this was just in the first chapter. So I set myself a goal - I'll read the first 100 pages, and if the novel doesn't pick itself up from the Bare Minimum of Writing Effort by then, off to the secondhand bookstore it goes!

Well, here you are and here am I, and I'm already reading something different. But that doesn't mean you guys won't get a review.

Tempted By His Kiss is the first in Warren's series about a wa-ha-hacky English clan of Crazy Hot Angsty Dudes (and The Token Crazy Hot Sister). The language is the standard exaggerated, repetitive style that permits sweeping blanket descriptions without actually putting anything in detail - the perfect style for wallpaper historicals. Seriously, I wanted to take a red pen and scratch out every last appallingly redundant use of the words "feminine" and "masculine" as adjectives. We're romance readers - I think we can infer that the lady is ladylike and the man is manly. Move on, please.

Anyway, our hero is Cade Byron, and we know he's the hero because his presence allows me to scratch off the Hot Recluse, Empathy-Baiting War Injury, and Sad Spy Past squares on my Regency Hero Bingo Card.

He's drinking alone and brooding, having literally nothing better to do with his time, when our heroine barges into his house and demands his hospitality. I'm not exaggerating. It's the middle of a blizzard, there's no one around for miles, and her carriage has broken down so she basically calls him out for not bringing out the welcome mat to a total stranger. Cade eventually acquiesces (even though the heroine, Meg Amberley, is SUPER RUDE) because he's not a total ass, but he still intends to keep to himself.

But NO. Meg is not only SUPER RUDE, but SUPER INVASIVE and ENTITLED. Pretty soon, she's barging in on his privacy and criticizing his personal life and, within the FIRST DAY, starts making uninvited comments about Cade's hand-waved Angst-Device Alcoholism. I'm sorry, you do just DO NOT make comments about a person's addictions the first day after they've let you shack up in their house. I'm pretty sure Emily Post dedicated an entire page to that, somewhere.

And on top of having the standard "feisty marshmallow innocent" personality and a total lack of boundaries, Meg is described as a lithesome white-blond angel with gorgeous blue eyes and teeny-tiny hands. There are seriously too many words used to describe how tiny her hands are. I mean, it's alright to use it once when it's in a direct comparison to the hero's, but I mean, tiny hands don't seem hot to me - they just remind me of this:
So anyway, Meg beats Cade at chess and gets him to open up more and they make happytimes of the "told instead of shown" variety. Yawn.

Eventually things take a turn for the creepy when Cade slips on some ice and lands on his Injured Thigh of Angst and has to take some laudanum to get some sleep. Laudanum, unfortunately, gives him terrible Exposition Nightmares, where we learn his horrible past where his French peasant girlfriend was raped and murdered when his spy cover was blown.

Wow. Okay - that's some legitimately dark material Cade has to work through. I kind of get the reclusiveness and the hand-waved alcoholism - but then Meg RUINS IT.

Meg, SHE WHO HAS NO BOUNDARIES, hears him cry out and goes into his bedroom to investigate. While he's moaning in very obvious distress, Meg takes a moment to admire how sexy he is - you know, when he's writhing in the midst of narcotic-fuelled night terrors. So hot. Then she decides to calm him down by stroking and petting him.

WITH THESE.

At this point, Cade appears to come to, and almost immediately starts pawing her boobs. Meg knows this is completely inappropriate but Cade is apparently SO GOOD that even half-drunk and coming out of a coke dream he's too seductive for Meg to resist. Until he murmurs another girl's name - then Meg gets all hurt and realizes she doesn't want to date-rape him after all, and skedaddles.

Cade finds her hair ribbon in his bed the next morning, however, and concludes that two plus two makes semi-consensual sexytimes. They only have time for about half of One Incredibly Awkward Conversation before a Human Plot Device barges into Cade's house (LIKE, SERIOUSLY, CADE, DO YOU NEVER LOCK YOUR DOORS?) and spots the two of them and suddenly they must Fake an Engagement to save Meg's reputation, and of course faking an engagement absolutely requires Meg meet Cade's Sequel-Baiting Family.

And that was the 100-page mark. I very lightly skimmed the rest to see if anything else of note occurred - OF COURSE Cade's family is perfectly loving and inviting, because there have NEVER been ANY families who disagree on certain points, and of COURSE they love Meg TO PIECES, because there have never been wives who have been disliked by their in-laws in the history of time. Tracy Anne Warren steals feathers from the caps of Quinn, Ashley and Balogh by having an Older Brother Responsible Duke character doubtless reserved for the last novel in the series.

I mean, I get it, sort of - it's the "fantasy" element of romance where the heroine who has no family is adopted into a large, happy one. BUT - every other romance novel with a family does this. Every dynamic has been done before, none of this is original or captivating. This novel offers NOTHING new to the genre at all.

Eventually, an evil French spy returns to plague Cade, but no one believes Cade, his alcoholism is magically hand-waved away because he's got the love of a good woman and at one point Meg manages to stretch her itsy-bitsy digits around the trigger of a gun and shoot someone.

"Don't move or I'll shoot!"

Blah. No thanks. Again, the only scene that really got a rise out of me was the coke-dream scene, but other than that - it was just bad. And not even uniquely bad in an entertaining way - just bad and familiar enough to be annoying.

So I'm off to greener reading pastures!
DNF

Still curious? Purchase "Tempted By His Kiss" here.

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?