Tag Archives: popular fiction

Hot Spell by Leigh, Walker, Brook

Posted on by
Reply

Oh dear. I bought Hot Spell on a whim, intrigued by the promise of ‘paranormal passion’. What I got were four rather tame novellas rife with cliched descriptions of sex with four perfect men.

In the first story, “The Countess’s Pleasure”, the heroine Georgiana DuBarry hooks up with an indentured demon, Sawai. Recently widowed, Georgiana hires Sawai to deflower her, because although she had positive feelings for her husband– theirs was a sexless marriage. Sawai is hot!hot!hot! and brings Georgiana to the pleasure of the title many times over…and in less time than it takes for you to say ‘multiple orgasms’, they’ve fallen in love.

In Leigh’s story, “The Breed Next Door”, Tarek Jordan is a member of the Feline Breed on an undercover stakeout. One might think he’s scouting for coffee and fresh-baked bread because he does quite a bit of drooling over the smells coming from his neighbour, Lyra’s, kitchen. There’s a convoluted plot, of course, but it turns out that Lyra is Tarek’s mate. So, there’s sex…and a happy ending.

In “Falling for Anthony” by Meljean Brook, a young doctor is granted the opportunity to come back from the dead as a Guardian, to help the sister of his childhood friend recover from a vampire’s bite. (And when he does recover, he’s one of those sweet vampire types, apparently.)

And finally, werewolves battle vampires in “The Blood Kiss” by Shiloh Walker. The prize, Julianna Capriet (um- obvious much? Why not call her Capulet – she may as well have been, the story is a total rip off of Shakespeare’s play) is the daughter of the Vampire King…but her heart belongs to Roman, the Wolf King. La la la.

Three of the women in these stories are virgins, ripe for the taking. The men are all perfect specimens. There are lots of sighs and moans and breaching of virgin tissue. I might have loved this book 20 years ago, but for my money fanfiction is a hundred times better.

A good book for the beach because you won’t be heartbroken if you leave it in the sand.

Breakheart Hill by Thomas H. Cook

Posted on by
Reply
“You’ll think you know who (and maybe you do) and you’ll think you know why (and I suppose it’s possible); but trust me, you won’t have guessed everything. “Breakheart Hill” is one of the best written and most marvelously crafted books I’ve read in a long, long time. It’s dark and it’s sad and it’s very, very good. Read it.” – Mystery NewsI picked up Thomas H. Cook’s 1995 novel Breakheart Hill at the second hand store. On the cover was the tagline “a mesmerizing tale of love and betrayal” and I thought, okay, good Sunday afternoon book and bought it. The opening line is one of the most intriguing I’ve read in recent memory: “This is the darkest story that I have ever heard, and all my life I have labored not to tell it.”

The narrator of this dark tale is Ben Wade, a respected doctor in Choctaw, Alabama. As a teenager, Ben grows to love the beautiful Kelli Troy who has moved to Choctaw from the north. It is 1962. The story expertly weaves Ben’s memories of high school with present day, dropping ominous clues about just what happened the afternoon Kelli’s battered body was discovered on Breakheart Hill.

I suppose in some ways, I’ve been spoiled by mystery/thriller/suspense novels which unfold at breakneck speed; I was often impatient reading this book. Sometimes it seemed to take forever to get anywhere, but ultimately that’s one of the book’s many charms.

Breakheart Hill is a leisurely southern gothic novel, filled with a real sense of place and time. The characters are interesting and flawed and I was 100% surprised by the ending, which wasn’t a cheat even though it felt like it should have been.

If you like an intelligent mystery that will break your heart, this is the book for you.

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

Posted on by
Reply

Everyone is raving about Kim Edwards’ book, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter. The Library Journal said “first time novelist Edwards  has written a heart-wrenching book, by turns light and dark, literary and suspenseful. A natural for book discussions groups; recommended.”

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter follows the lives of Dr. David Henry and his wife Norah at the beginning of their married lives. It is 1964 and Norah is pregnant. She delivers twins, a boy first and then a girl with Down syndrome. David makes the decision to keep the little girl a secret, handing her to his nurse, Caroline, with instructions to take her to an institution– not an uncommon thing for the time when babies born with Down weren’t expected to live long or healthy lives. This decision shapes all the characters in the book in unexpected and complicated ways.

I didn’t like the book, but I was in the minority when we discussed it at book club. The characters– all of them– are chilly people and it was very hard to find their emotional center. But not everyone agreed with me. Most of the women in my group felt enormously sorry for Norah, who didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to her daughter and who suffered enormously because of the secret her husband kept from her. The guilt of his decision haunted and shaped David, who already had some serious issues. Their marriage was irreparably damaged; Norah’s relationship with her son, Paul, was tentative.

The book was easily 100 pages too long.

Still, many people will love this book. Just not me.

The Jane Austen Book Club byKaren Joy Fowler

Posted on by
Reply

Karen Joy Fowler’s book is “a luxuriant pleasure! Karen Joy Fowler has written a novel that is rich and wonderful in all the ways I treasure. Smart, funny, full of robust characters and a wry wit that is uniquely her own. If I could eat this novel, I would.” Alice Sebold (author of The Lovely Bones)

I started The Jane Austen Book Club as soon as I finished The Myth of You and Me. Like Myth, this book was easy to read. Fowler’s prose is fresh and without pretense. Her skill as a writer is that she made each character spring from the page- even though there is nothing traditional in the way she tells their stories or in the way that these characters come together.

Joceyln, Sylvia, Bernadette, Prudie, Allegra and Grigg (a man) meet to discuss Jane Austen novels. Whether you have as deep and abiding a love for Austen’s work as these characters do hardly matters: you’ll grow very fond of the characters all on their own. Their personal histories, carefully chosen anecdotes, illustrate some of the very same observations Austen made about the people of her generation. And Fowler observes them with as much good natured affection as Austen observed her characters.

The Jane Austen Book Club does not have a beginning, middle and end and yet I felt as though I spent time in the company of compelling, funny, loving, special people. (And there were even a couple passing references to Buffy!)

The Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart

Posted on by
Reply

Library Journal said this book was “incandescently beautiful [with] passages about the challenges awaiting young women as they come of age. The story, filled with secrets and treasures, is a well executed, compelling look at attraction, love and trust.”

Poppycock, I say. Yes, this was my book club selection. You have no idea how I stress (in a good way) about which book to choose. The way our club is organized allows for each member to host once a year– meaning we choose the book, lead the discussion and feed everyone. So, with only one choice a year, you want to get it right. Well, I do.

The book I wanted to pick was Envy by Kathryn Harrison, but given that people were going to have to read it (partly at least) over the holidays, I thought it might be wiser to choose something a little less heavy. Which lead me to The Myth of You and Me.

The book is a light-weight look at the friendship between Cameron and Sonia, who meet the summer they are 15. Narrated by a soon-to-be-thirty Cameron, the novel traces– through flashbacks– their friendship, their personal histories, the men they love but I was never convinced of any of it and that may have to do with my lukewarm feelings about Cameron herself.

Early on in the book we learn that Cameron and Sonia have parted company. Some horrible event caused the unresolved rift in their friendship, but when Cameron’s employer Oliver Doucet dies, he leaves her with one last task: find Sonia. The rest of the book sees Cameron on a journey to find Sonia and deliver a mysterious package.

Despite my reservations, Stewart makes several observations about friendship and relationships which I thought were really interesting and which I hope will lead to some good discussion when my book club meets.  I have a feeling people will be divided on this one. As for me–I had a mostly tepid reaction to the book.