Dark Lover - J. R. Ward (Black Dagger Brotherhood #1)

Vampires are not my thing.  They never have been.  But there's a category for a vampire romance in the Unapologetic Romance Readers' 2017 reading challenge, so I perused the lists of vampire romances that people love, and Dark Lover basically topped them all.  And so off to the library I went.

This book is...interesting.  On one hand, the romance is mostly okay, so that's a plus.  On the other hand, everything else is so harebrained and way-out-there crazy that I couldn't help but giggle to myself the entire time I was reading this.  It starts on the very first page when the heroine's father, Darius, is trying to get one of his buddies to agree to help Beth (the heroine) through her upcoming change into a vampire, as she is unaware that she's half-vamp.  The buddy's name?  Wrath.  And there are more of them!  Tohrment.  Rhage.  Vishous.  Zsadist. These are really their names.  And of course they all dress in black leather and carry around an entire armory with them.  And they can teleport!  Yes.  It's true.  And they inhabit some vampire society in which females are kept out of sight, which is totally weird and very medieval.  Not cool.  And apparently vamps can only actually feed on each other for real nourishment, not humans?  But that doesn't make any sense.  (Yes, I'm talking about vampires making sense.)  Because then it's just kind of an endless circle of sucking on each others' wrists/necks/whatever, without any new nutrients actually entering the system?  How does that work?  So confusing.  So weird.  And Wrath is apparently blind but he never actually has any trouble seeing things except to cut up his meat at dinner(because vampires eat normal dinners, too).

But, as I mentioned, the romance is okay.  It's not great.  There are definitely still issues with it.  Like how Wrath is supposed to be the biggest, baddest vampire, but turns into a cuddly puppy as soon as Beth enters the picture.  And how Beth and Wrath fall in love pretty much the instant they lay eyes on each other, and instantly do the sexing.  Okay, I take it back, the romance wasn't really that good.  It had its moments, when the two of them were acting relatively normal, but the premise that their relationship is based on is just so weird that, the more that I think about it, the worse it seems in retrospect.  Like, Wrath was her dad's friend.  And he's like four hundred years old!  Why is it that beings that are centuries old are constantly falling in love with twenty-somethings?  That's just weird, y'all.  Talk about an age gap.  And Wrath acts like he's twenty-something, too, down to the way he dresses and talks, despite the fact that he's literally seen centuries go by.

Oh, and there's a subplot that revolves around a bunch of soulless and undead humans who study martial arts (yes, seriously) trying to kill all the vamps.  (Again--seriously.)

So, yeah. This book was hokey.  I enjoyed parts of it while actually reading it, but looking back on it, those parts are fading away fast, because the more I think about it the more outlandish and bizarre it all was, and I can't really say that it was good.  Overall, this reads like something a teenage goth would have written on Quizilla in the early 2000s, though this admittedly probably has better spelling and grammar and isn't written in the second person.  (Thank the stars for that.)

2 stars out of 5, and I feel like that might be me being generous.

A Kiss for Midwinter - Courtney Milan (Brothers Sinister #1.5)

Hallelujah, I have finished the category!  After having such a hard time finding a book that actually fit the "A Christmas romance" category for the Unapologetic Romance Readers' 2017 reading challenge (info here), I finally just went for this little novella by Courtney Milan.  I normally wouldn't use a novella to fulfill a category--full-length novels are much more my thing--but I was fed up of grabbing supposed Christmas romances and finding that they really were no such thing.  I figured I had done my due diligence in the novel department, and I really wanted to just move on.  That said, I knew I liked Courtney Milan, and I've heard from several people that her novellas are fire, so I figured it was a pretty safe bet.  And the description featured Christmas.  Heavily.

Which brings us to the story itself.  It starts with the hero, Jonas Grantham, silently watching as his elderly mentor examine a young woman who has been ruined and is now pregnant.  Jonas has doubts about the man's medical abilities, but has promised to stay silent--what he's really hoping to gain is the man's medical practice after he retires.  But he rather suspects that a concoction the man has prescribed for nausea is more likely a poison.  Between his doubts and his promise, though, he doesn't say anything, and leaves.

Fast forward ten years.  Jonas is now a doctor in his own right, and he's looking to marry someone, mainly so he can have a constant source of sex without risking disease.  To further his goals, he has compiled a list of the ten prettiest girls in town, hoping that one of them will agree to marry him.  But then there's Lydia Charingford, who would be number eleven on the list, and who also seems to--strangely--hate him.  Until he realizes that she's the girl he saw five years before, the one who was ruined, and she seems to think he's been judging her, making fun of her, and overall disliking her the entire time.  But Jonas doesn't dislike Lydia.  He likes her very much.  So he makes her a bet.  She'll go on three house calls to see patients with him, and if Lydia can't find a bright side to one of the situations, she'll have to kiss him.  If she can find the bright side--a specialty of hers--to all of them, then Jonas will have to never speak to her again.

This is a quick romance, being so closely focused around the Christmas season, but it's not an instant romance, which I liked.  Jonas' blunt honestly astonishes Lydia, but she's drawn to it, too, and appreciates that he gives her the truth.  And Jonas is in turn drawn not only to Lydia's looks, but also to her spirit, and he doesn't consider her to be "ruined" at all.  He's quite the burgeoning feminist, really, advocating (albeit on a small scale) for the sexual liberation of women.  And men.  Everyone.  Equality!  Huzzah.  It's a great little romance, and intertwined with it is Jonas' struggle with his father, who has failing health, some degree of dementia, and has also become something of a hoarder.  It's heartbreaking, but seeing Jonas' struggle and why he does it is so moving, and I think it added a nice dimension to this other than the main romance.

Overall, I was very happy with this.  I think it definitely could have been longer--seeing the romance drawn out more, and building up the subplots would have been nice--but it was a quick, enjoyable read.  One thing with short form in general is that the characters don't tend to develop much in and of themselves, though their relationships might, and I think that was a ding against it, but that was the only big thing.

4 stars out of 5.

Managed - Kristen Callihan (VIP #2)

Now let me tell you, this is a properly-done slow burn romance!  I thought Mariana Zapata was queen of the slow burn, and she is excellent, but this blew Kulti and The Wall of Winnipeg and Me out of the water.  Absolutely awesome.

So, Managed is the second book in the VIP series, but it's one of those series where you don't really have to read the other books--they give you some context, but you don't really need them.  That said, I did like the first book, Idol so I'd say give it a shot.  In this second volume, our hero is the manager of the hit band Kill John, Gabriel Scott.  And our heroine is Sophie Darling, a social media specialist headed to London for a job interview.  Sophie ends up in first class, much to her surprise, and next to Gabriel--who's very not happy about it and very surly and very afraid of flying.  Sophie distracts him throughout the flight through blowjob jokes and forced snuggling, thinking that they'll never see each other again...except, of course, it turns out she's interviewing for a position with Kill John.  And she's the one behind some rather nasty pictures of the band's lead, Jax, getting out a few years ago.  It's awkward.

Sophie and Gabriel are attracted to each other right away, but Gabriel doesn't get involved with people in the band, and Sophie is also determined to remain just friends.  Except a mean case of jet lag ends up in them not being able to sleep without each other.  So she moves into Gabriel's bus.  And they sleep.  And the limits start getting pushed, and jealousies rise up, and it's all just so delicious.  Just like with Idol, I found the conflicts realistic (for the most part) and the characters both believable and empathetic.  And Gabriel is British which of course is awesome.  There did seem to be some conflicts with the first book, though, particularly regarding the backstory of the band and how they got together--the story here seems distinctly different from the one Killian presented in Idol.

Still, I absolutely loved this book.  I devoured it in one sitting and can't wait for the others--and there should be at least three more!  Yaaaas.

5 stars out of 5.

Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor - Lisa Kleypas (Friday Harbor #1)

I picked this up in another attempt to fulfill the "Christmas romance" category for a reading challenge I'm doing.  It didn't work.  This was a much better book than my first attempt for that category, Debbie Macomber's Starry Night, but that didn't come as a surprise; I knew going into it that Lisa Kleypas was guaranteed to have a better offering.  However, there were only about 500 words in this book that actually contributed to the Christmas season at all, with the rest of the book taking place from around March through Thanksgiving.

The story follows Mark Nolan, who gains custody of his six-year-old niece Holly when her mother dies in a car accident.  Mark and his brother do their best with Holly but she refuses to speak, until one day when Maggie, the owner of a new toy store in town, coaxes words out of her once again.  Maggie and Mark are immediately attracted to each other, but hold back from entering into anything more than a tentative friendship.  Mark is also involved in a relationship with a girlfriend who lives in Seattle (I think), which is one of the reasons they hold back.  Good for them; cheaters are terrible.

Though this is a short book, it's also a slow burn because of the long span of time the story takes place over.  As with her historical romances, Kleypas does a wonderful job of building the relationship between the two characters.  Their every meeting has a spark that just builds and builds, and it's delicious to watch.  Friday Harbor is also a wonderful setting, and Kleypas does an amazing job of bringing the Pacific Northwest to life to someone like myself who has never been there.  Friday Harbor is a small town on a small island, where everyone knows everyone, and Kleypas shows both the downfalls to this--like how everyone knows everyone else's business--and the up sides--like how supportive the people can be of each other.

Overall, this is a short book, but it was really well-done; I just wish it had been a bit more on point with the whole "Christmas Eve" thing it promised.  If you've read Kleypas' historical romances before but haven't ventured into her contemporary offerings, I think this would a good place to start because of its length--long enough to develop, but not too long of a commitment if it doesn't work out.

4 stars out of 5.

Starry Night - Debbie Macomber

Ugh.  Let's get it out of the way right now: I did not like this book.  I picked it up for a romance reading challenge I'm doing, to fulfill the category of "A Christmas romance," but it didn't really end up fitting that, and I disliked it so much that I don't think I could bring myself to count it anyway.  But here's the thing: I wasn't excited about that category to begin with, because Christmas romances are pretty terrible as a general rule.  Why?  Because authors use "the magic of the holidays" as an excuse to have people fall in love instantaneously.  In this regard, Starry Night was no exception.

Heroine Carrie is a society page writer for a newspaper in Chicago, but she hates writing the society page.  She finally decides to quit, but her editor tells her that if she can get an interview with the reclusive writer Finn Dalton, she can have any writing assignment she wants.  She agrees and sets out to find him, accomplishing the task in about two days even though no one else has been able to find out anything about him.  So she whisks herself off to Alaska and she and Finn get stuck together in his cabin for about 36 hours, during which they share about 20 minutes of conversation and, of course, fall in love.  Blargh.

The writing in this is not good.  It's all tell and no show.  Despite it constantly being said how smart Carrie is, she decides that heeled boots (but it's a low heel!) and her pea coat are suitable wear for winter in Alaska.  And the Northern Lights made her fall in love!  And she spends half the book sighing, "Oh, Finn," or "Oh, Mom," or "Oh, Daddy," depending on who she's talking to.  Finn loves Carrie one second and then decides to drive her away the next.  Sophie is a great, though pushy, friend one minute, and then she's basically breaking up Finn and Carrie the next.  And the whole thing is just so sickly sweet that I spent most of my time rolling my eyes and nursing a sugar-induced toothache.  It's just...uuuuugh.

I would definitely not pick up something by this author again.  I'm going to give it 2 stars out of 5, but that's only because at least it didn't turn outright preachy (another favorite trope of Christmas romances; hello, non-religious people can enjoy the Christmas season, too) and it was, thankfully, short.  Oh, and as another reviewer said, I did like the dog.

Devil in Spring - Lisa Kleypas (Ravenels #3)

Devil in Spring was an easy pick for us Unapologetic Romance Readers to take on for our March group read.  (We'll also be reading These Broken Stars for our theme read, a sci-fi romance.)  Despite it being a series, many of us have read the preceding two, and for those of us who hadn't, historical romance series typically don't require that you read all the books to get the gist of what's going on.

Continuing on with the saga of the Ravenel family, Devil in Winter finally turns to the twin, namely Pandora.  And for the hero, we have Gabriel, who is the son of the main couple from Kleypas' earlier work Devil in Winter (hence the title).  Though Gabriel isn't much of a devil at all.  In fact, he's not much of anything at all, except boring as a brick and very occasionally controlling, which goes away in about five pages.

Gabriel and Pandora are thrown together when Pandora gets stuck in a settee in a secluded guest house at a ball, during an attempt to retrieve an earring a friend lost during a rendezvous.  Gabriel helps her get out of the settee's evil scrolls, but they're found together and Pandora is, of course, instantly compromised.  She doesn't want to marry him, though, because she wants to remain single so that she can retain full control of her burgeoning board game company, which she hopes to get going in the very near future.  Though her family says they'll support her in whatever decision she makes, they also encourage her to consider Gabriel's offer, and to that end the whole family decamps to the Challon (what a terrible last name!) family residence on the ocean, where our former couple Sebastian and Evie are also in residence.

Sebastian and Evie remain far more interesting than Pandora and Gabriel were.  Pandora was okay on her own, but Gabriel was bland, bland, bland.  There's a dance scene in which "love magic" may or may not have magically solved some balance problems Pandora has--I'm not entirely convinced it did, because Pandora seems to be able to largely compensate for her inner ear issues with sight (hence why they bother her most at night, when she can't see clearly) but some group members insist it was love magic, and it might have been; it's a bit ambiguous but either way it was pretty eye-roll worthy.  Of course one dance instantly persuades Pandora that yes, she can get married, even if it means losing her legal rights (which she would!) and so off she goes to the altar.  The plot then devolves into sex (elevated from making out) and a harebrained plot involving Pandora being targeted for assassination by a branch of the Fenian Brotherhood.  Yes.  That really happens.

Overall, this series isn't doing it for me.  I usually love Kleypas, but the first two books here were lackluster at best and boring at worst, and while I was hoping for improvement with one of the twins as a main character, that just didn't happen.  Luckily there's only one more book in this series until Kleypas can hopefully move on to something that will recapture her old magic from the Wallflowers days.

2 stars out of 5.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan

There was something charming about this title that made buy it.  It also might have had something to do with the fact that there's this tumblr post that makes the rounds of the Nano Participants (formerly known as NaNoWriMo) group on Facebook that complains that such a thing as a 24-hour bookstore doesn't exist.  (To which my response is, it does.  It's called the Kindle store/iBooks/etc.)  But it sat on my shelf for a while, quietly glowing (yes, glowing; those books on the cover glow in the dark) until I found myself in need a book to fit my reading challenge category of "A book with an eccentric character."  It worked out perfectly, because pretty much all of the characters in this book are eccentric!

The main character is Clay, who ends up working at the eponymous bookstore after stumbling across it during a walk.  Clay doesn't actually aspire to work at a bookstore, but he's been unemployed for a while after the bagel shop for which he was a graphic designer/web designer/social media marketer/etc. shut down.  In the bookstore, he finds himself selling a few books every now and then to random incomers, but more often loaning out books to strange repeat customers who have membership cards, and the books that go out on loan seem to be full of gibberish or code.  With a few strange friends, like Neel the guy who sells software to animate boobs better, or Matt the prop designer who's building a city in their living room, or Kat the Google employee who dreams of finding a way to live forever, Clay sets out to figure out what's going on, leading to a bigger mystery than he intended to find.

This book is a love letter to both books and technology.  This was so refreshing.  Another meme that goes around the Facebook group periodically is how people who read on Kindles or other e-readers aren't "real" readers.  (Also popular is one about how people who dogear book pages to mark their place are monsters.  I dogear each page with relish now.)  But the characters in this book don't see it that way.  They have a bookstore, but they have e-readers.  They have books of code and are reverent toward "old knowledge" but savor the computing possibilities of Google, Hadoop, and so on.  I loved this.  Believe it or not, books and technology can live in harmony!  Gasp!  They're not actually hunting each other to extinction!  Amazing!  Even the book-worshipping members of the Unbroken Spine realize this with relatively little influencing.

The mystery is also a great sort of mystery.  The hunt proclaims to be around the search for the secret to immortality, but there's little belief on Clay's behalf that immortality is something that can be attained in the literal sense.  I liked this, because it means that the story didn't go off the rails.  There was a mystery, but the sleuthing involved a middle-grade trilogy about singing dragons and an examination of technologies that most of us wouldn't have dreamed of, and a mysterious internet pirate who inserted himself into pirated copies of the Harry Potter books.  It's all very charming and, yes, very eccentric, but it works.  There are discussions of museum archives and of typefaces and it's so much quirkiness that it all just works together.  I think if Sloan had gone just a little bit farther in any direction, it would have been too much, but he held back to just the right degree to make this an enjoyable read.

Is it a bit farfetched at times?  Yes.  It is.  And I found myself a little bit unsure of how seriously to take some of it.  Does Google actually run this way?  I don't know, it just seems so weird, and yet, it is Google... But I still enjoyed it, and I think Sloan held the back from going too far in the immortality direction, instead choosing to make things figurative.  A very enjoyable read, and I'm glad I finally got to it.

4 stars out of 5.