Quick Review – A Faint Cold Fear – Karin Slaughter

If I lived in Grant County, Georgia, I’d run for my life. The place featured in A Faint Cold Fear (among other books) is like death, incorporated. How many times can any one character face rape, and attempted murder? I think I could buy all this murder and mayhem, if perhaps, the protagonists lived in a big city – or even a big town. But all this unexpected horror in one small town stretches my ability to suspend my disbelief. And despite being with these characters (wait it’s Lena, Lena, more Lena, and Jeffery and Sarah’s endless narrative) for a couple of books – I still don’t particularly like them.

Quick Review – How to Score – Robin Wells

Light and fluffy are all that come to mind when I think about How to Score. Hero with perfect six-pack abs and typical hero job (FBI agent), check. Sufficiently insecure heroine with a host of problems (crappy boss, soon to be evicted, insecure, clutzy), check. The BIG MISUNDERSTANDING, check. The tropes were out in full force, but I didn’t care a lick for the main characters. Sixty-eight year old Arlene and funky sister Chloe were far more interesting – too bad they didn’t have their own books.

Quick Review – Blue-Eyed Devil – Lisa Kleypas

Maybe there’s something to getting a book for free.  Over a year ago, Julia Quinn recommened a Kleypas book.  I bought it, hated it, and put it on paperbackswap.com as soon as I schlepped it back from my vacation in Europe.  I don’t like historical romance, chalked it up to that, and moved on.  Then during RWA Nationals last year, I got an autographed copy of Sugar Daddy.

I don’t remember seeking it out, but I imagine it was one of those situations where you want to get some books, and feel guilty for just walking by authors, so you get all the books offered in the room.  When my TBR pile was woefully low, I picked it up, and really enjoyed it.  What I liked about Sugar Daddy, and now Blue-Eyed Devil, were the ‘women’s fiction’ aspects of the books.  I liked having an extended backstory on the heroine.  It’s far better than typing ’she has some issues’ in a few words in chapter one.  Both books gave you a huge backstory that explained the character’s motivations.  Unfortunately, I think all that backstory skimps somewhat on the romance.  But if another pretty Kleypas cover came my way – I might just pick it up.

Very Quick Review – A Bride Worth Waiting For – Cara Colter

The review of A Bride Worth Waiting For at avidbookreader.com was far better than the book itself.  I found the review charming, the book, not so much.  I haven’t read a plain vanilla Silhouette category romance in years, and now I remember why.  They’re brief, not much depth, and not that good.  I keep hoping for more from category – and not getting it.  I should just give up category romance, don’t ya think?

Quick Review – Silver Falls – Anne Stuart

Sometimes I wish the time between receiving a book recommendation and actually reading the book wasn’t so long.  For the life of me, I can remember why I got Silver Falls, or more realistically who I have to blame for these last few hours of my life.

Let me get the problem with the book out in the open, right away.  The heroine is Too Stupid to Live.  Fiesty, world-traveller Rachel Middleton has a brush with death when her daughter’s best friend (of a few months) is murdered while they’re living in San Francisco.  So what does a concerned mother do, fall into the arms of a controlling man who can move them to a safe, small town in the Pacific Northwest, that has a college with classes that can finally challenge her mathematical genius daughter.  After all she’s only known him four months, marriage and adoption of her thirteen year old daughter sounds like a good idea.

Are you kidding me.  He prohibits meat, swearing, and make up.  And our TSTL heroine falls into line – after all – it’s all for her beloved daughter.  And no spoilers here: she’s married the killer she sought to leave behind.  And the killer’s next intended victim – dum, dum, dum – her daughter.

Yada, yada – inappropriately falls in love with brother in law – because if four months seemed like a rushed courtship, then two weeks is even better.  Finds out husband is killer, everyone waltzes off into the sunset . . . or rather specific to the rainy, dreary, Pacific Northwest – waltzes off into the sunlight.

I like a good hunt for a killer, and a good romance.  This book is another genre crosser that doesn’t work in either genre.  I’d definitely skip it.