As luck would have it, she sobers up long enough to land a story that could jump-start her dead career. A notorious nightclub is getting torn down, and while digging up the parking lot they uncover a mass grave. Five skeletons, all female, all with their left ring fingers missing. Quick sleuthing determines the girls have been there for over 20 years, and Carson hits the ground running. The district attorney wants her help on the case, although the lead detective would rather get in bed with a pack of rabid raccoons. Carson’s journalistic instincts kick in, although the good story quickly turns into a nightmare.

Another girl is murdered, her fresh corpse found naked on a pier. She’s wearing a bridal veil and her ring finger is missing. Who is stalking the young women of Biloxi? And is this a copycat or a serial killer back from a 20-year vacation?

Haines has written an interesting novel, in that it defies genre classification. Certainly, it is a suspense novel, but there are other elements in play here that make for fascinating reading. Carson is a woman bent on self-destruction, but failing at it because she’s too smart. She wants to live more than she wants to die, even if she is unable and unwilling to admit it to herself. She has a complicated relationship with her mother and sister, is haunted by her daughter’s death, still in love with her ex-husband, but attractive and vulnerable enough to peak curiosity in other men. There’s the district attorney, and an old high school beau coming off a bad divorce vying for her attention.

That’s not to say we have a classic romantic suspense novel here. The romance is extremely light, and readers do not have an inkling of who the “hero” is supposed to be until the final chapter. No, this is more a women’s fiction novel with a gory serial killer thread running through it. It’s about Carson, her relationships, and her crawling out of the hole she put herself in. It’s about her interactions with interested men, her coworkers, and her family. It’s the crime story that wakes her up, and it’s the suspense that gets her moving in the right direction.

I could not put this book down. It had everything that I truly enjoy in genre fiction. An interesting suspense thread, damaged characters, and redemption at the end. Readers looking for romance will likely be disappointed, but suspense fans should find a lot to like here. There’s no indication that Haines plans to continue with a series featuring Carson Lynch, girl reporter, but here’s hoping she does. She’s an interesting, colorful character with plenty of baggage, a host of interesting secondary characters around her, and an intriguing, Southern gothic backdrop in which she gets to play. Please Ms. Haines, may I have some more?

You can learn more about Carolyn Haines here and buy Revenant here or here.

It was all those dukes and marquesses and earls and Ton and, you guessed it, Regency overload. Some would solve the problem with a good dollop of Medieval, but it turns out that while I like a good knight errant, I spent too much time worrying about hygiene and too little time worrying about the story. Also, see above re: overload. Too much of a good thing can make you want anything but that good thing.

But I keep coming back to historicals – a fictionalized version of the olden days is often preferable to current times. I am happy to announce that some of the best romance reading I’ve encountered in the past year has come from the historical realm. I’ve even dipped back into the intrigues of Almack’s (slowly, my dears, very slowly). What has been good for me is a crop of authors doing unusual things: new twists on old stories and new time periods to explore.

Bourne takes her place alongside such refreshing authors as Elizabeth Hoyt and Jeanne Westin in that she’s taking literary risks while offering a unique voice and perspective. Unlike those authors, who work in non-traditional (for romance) time periods, Bourne sets her story right smack in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars – that period of time we in the romance world refer to as the Regency. Yeah, you read that right: someone made the Regency new again.

Annique Villiers is a French spy. Known as the Fox Cub, she moves in the shadowy world of political intrigue with grace and wit – her youth allows her to take on various disguises. The daughter of another spy, she carries on the family tradition in a way that makes a mother proud. Her loyalty to her cause makes her formidable foe. And her secret skill gives her an advantage that no other French (or, I suppose, English spy) could possibly possess. But even when you’re working for the same cause, it doesn’t mean you don’t have various factions, and as the novel opens, Annique is being held prisoner by rival French spies because they believe she has information that they want for their own.

Man, spies. What are you gonna do?

Being held with her is an equally formidable hostage: Robert Grey, the British spymaster. Robert was caught while rescuing a member of his team, the clever, devil-may-care Adrian – a character who, in less talented hands, would have walked away with this book. Talk about your lucky day (if you’re a bad guy): three of your greatest enemies in one jail.

Well, you know what they say about luck. Bourne choreographs a jailbreak and escape with grace and wit. Annique, Robert, and Adrian work like a well-oiled team (are teams well-oiled, and if they are, do I really want to think these thoughts?). Oh wow, the confidence of this author. She fleshes out a scene like you can’t believe. Okay, you can believe because once you finish with my gushing review, you get to click on the links at the end and buy the book.

Oh, lucky, lucky you!

Now I fully admit that I am not, nor have I ever been, a spy. I like to think of myself more as a puppetmaster. And as such, I have very definite ideas of what makes for a good spy. I believe that Annique makes an excellent spy. In addition to all the worthy spy skills (fighting and slipping in and out of tight corners and whatnot), she never forgets the job. Even as she’s flirting and bantering and attracted to the enemy, she remains focused on her goal. In this case, it is making sure the so-called Albion plans – Napoleon’s plans for invading England – reach their destination.

On the flipside, Robert displays the same dedication to his job. He can flirt, he can make love (and, kids, I’m using that phrase in the broadest, most romantic sense), he can even change his voice to suit a new character, but he’s always about getting the job done. Even when he falls in love with the enemy. In a time of war, some things are bigger than the love of two people.

So where was I? Right, our heroes escape from jail. I think I also mentioned the attraction between Annique and Robert. This makes for a fast-paced introduction to the novel. Boom, boom, boom with lots of good detail that does stuff like develop plot and character. We know the conflicts (nice, multiple, not-easily-resolved conflicts right up front), we know the plot, we know the characters. I mean, there I am, worrying about how Annique is going to escape from the clutches of Robert – who has made his savior his prisoner, a famous French spy being an excellent trophy back home, especially since he believes her responsible for the death of English spies – when, oh boy, twist!

The kind of twist that makes you want to go back to the beginning of the book, start over, maybe see if you can catch the author out. Of course, that would delay moving forward with the rest of the story, and since it’s been so much joy to this point, going back feels so wrong. Better, I think, to trust this author. It’s not like you caught the twist anyway, despite the one very obvious clue that worked so seamlessly into the action that you never guessed.

I know, I know, tell you more, tell you more, tell you more. Darlings, if I could, I would. But I am that rare reviewer who practices love and kindness. If I were to divulge even a little bit of specificity, I will ruin your delight. I cannot do that to you. You must trust that I would not – two, three months later – be singing this novel’s praises without good reason.

For what it’s worth, the twist twists again and the pacing just keeps on moving forward. Essentially, our hero and heroine (and injured sidekick) are on the run. Road romance. But one is bent on bringing the French spy to England for justice and all that good stuff, while the other is bent on seeing her mission through to the end.

What Bourne does is create a series of impossible-to-resolve scenarios. How, you wonder, will they surmount this? Or that? Or this and that? Suffice to say that the adventure moves across the Channel at one point. Throughout it all, the characters change and change again, but always, it’s the goal.

I was reeled in by the dialogue as well. Bourne gives each of her major characters distinctive voices – from uber-agent Doyle’s overly broad countrified speech (though he’s well-known in spy circles as an educated man) to young agent Arian’s dandified insouciance. Grey’s cultured British agent contrasts with Annique’s Frenchness.

It is easy enough to do international speech badly. Most romance authors rely far too much on dialect (said dialect, I suspect, is used wrong far more often than it’s used right). This is why I cannot stand to read Scottish romances. All that dinna this, dinna that, it’s enough to drive me crazy.

True speech patterns come from the cadence of the words. It strikes me that I have known just enough Frenchwomen in my life to hear the rhythm of their English in Annique’s words. Rather than peppering speech with tried-and-true French phrases (how many mai ouis does it take to push a cliché over the cliff?), Bourne settles for English as her main language and uses speech patterns to connote her heroine’s nationality. Thus, the pacing and word choice used by Annique reinforces her nationality just as the precision of Robert’s speech reinforces his class. Bourne has a great ear for dialogue.

I think I might be in love.

I should note, for those who demand truth and justice, that this is not a perfect novel. I am not sure I’ve ever read a perfect novel (a perfect chapter, yes, but not a perfect novel). The twist that had me in rhapsodies, well, I thought the author’s out was a bit too neat, but then again, I’m not clever enough to have made the whole thing work in the first place. And Bourne uses her out to turn the novel around again later in the story.

So one person’s overly convenient conflict resolution is another’s entre into another scenario.

And I thought that toward the end, things went on a bit too long (this is the same complaint I have with Jeanne Westin’s books). There was point where I was ready to wrap it all up. Granted, there was a lot of plot to cover and Bourne kept mixing it up right to the end, but there was this sort of draggy, okay already sense as I began to feel like additional conflict was being added for sake of layering additional conflict (type that three times fast).

But, wow, what a debut novel! I plucked this one from a stack of “take these books, please” titles on Wendy’s kitchen table. I think she thought I was getting the raw end of the scavenger hunt. Au contraire! I don’t know what HelenKay took home that day, but I got the best of the lot.

Honest. Now we’re at the good part. You can find Joanna Bourne here (this is actually her blog, but if you act now, there's a post on the front page about her use of dialogue. I give and give and give). You can buy The Spymaster’s Lady here or here. You can thank me for introducing you to a great new book and author below. The reviewer’s code of ethics clearly states that accolades are the only currency of value we may accept.

Is this story true? Who knows? It could very well be entirely false. But there is a grain of truth in it. Love and money have a tendency to turn people stupid. This is where the heroine in Jennifer Apodaca’s latest romance comes in.

Into her life waltzes Luke Sterling. Ivy’s boss hired him as a personal assistant, but that’s not what he really is. Luke is actually the Urban Legend, a private investigator who specializes in stolen art. Over the years his reputation as a bad boy has grown to the point where the press hounds him and women call up Ivy’s radio show reportedly to discuss the fabulous sex they had with him. Think of him as Indian Jones meets Casanova.

Luke’s latest job is to track down the Jade Goddesses of Fertility and Virility, two statues reported to have mystical powers. The owner is getting ready to take the statues on a tour when they are stolen. She hires Luke to find them, and his trail leads straight to the radio station, Ivy and her hot-to-trot mother, Mallory, who has more sex than a sailor on shore leave.

Jennifer Apodaca writes “beach books.” They aren’t deep, they won’t change your life, but they can be very fun. If it’s a day of mental sunshine you want, this is your author. Extremely Hot has many of her trademarks – a likable heroine, hot steamy sex, and a light mystery with a few dead bodies tossed in. However, it’s not without problems that are sometimes hard to overlook.

I understood Ivy. This is a woman who has been badly burned and feels really stupid about it. Hey, most women have been there. Fallen for the wrong man and had their heart broken. Not all of us have been threatened with prison, but emotional betrayal is pretty universal. So even though she does come off as bitter, it’s easy to understand why she is that way.

Luke is another matter entirely. First, the Urban Legend stuff is particularly hard to swallow since one would think a man who makes his living on stealth would do just about anything to guard his privacy. He’s also straight out of central casting – shuffled between foster homes as a kid, a former Special Ops pilot who thinks it’s “all his fault” that his buddies died, and thinks he’s so unworthy of love that he refuses to get attached to a woman. Any romance reader worth their salt knows where this is going – he behaves like a jackass and says awful things to the heroine. Plus he has the annoying habit of calling her “princess” or “baby cakes” which just about drove me insane.

Ivy’s mother, Mallory, pretty much follows the same mold except she’s a woman who uses younger men for sex so she doesn’t have to get close to anyone. This is a woman who has had self-esteem issues since her Daddy kicked her out of the house and called her a slut. I can understand that, when you’re nineteen, single and pregnant, but she’s a grown up now. She has a daughter who loves her enough to keep bailing her pathetic butt out of trouble. I wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled and tell her to grow up already.

The mystery here is pretty good and it keeps the pages humming along. However, I found myself frustrated more than once by Luke and/or Mallory. Every conflict, every argument, every quibble I had with the story led back to these two characters. Ivy seems like a good kid, and lord knows I’m happy she got some great sex out of the deal, but I couldn’t help thinking for the majority of the story that she should have cut mommy off, told Luke to shove off and found herself a nice cowboy or Greek billionaire to settle down with.

You can learn more about Jennifer Apodaca here and buy this book here or here.

As bored and burned-out romance readers cringe at the thought of yet another vampire story, authors, perhaps told that paranormal remains hot, hot, hot, try to find new myths, new legends, new ways to extend the fortunes of their foreauthors.

Entering the fray is L.L. Foster with a new paranormal series. First up is Servant: The Awakening. L.L. Foster is a not-so-secret pseudonym for Lori Foster, leading me to wonder about the efficacy of the whole rebranding exercise when the publisher goes all out to make sure that the reader knows who really wrote the book.

Gaby lives in an apartment in a bad part of some anonymous city that has a large region filled with prostitutes and drug addicts and drunks and rotten people and the usual stuff that fills a bad part of town. This is fine with our heroine as she is constantly on the run from evil, even though she supposedly the one who is constantly kicking evil’s ass. Gaby awakes on her 21st birthday to a powerful message (delivered via the aforementioned headache) to go out and eliminate some more bad.

God, as we all know from history, is rarely clear with instructions. Gaby, thus, must wander the streets until she finds her evil. She’s guided by some divine sense, sure, but basically it’s a lot of hoping that she ends up at the right place at the right time. As our novel opens, she becomes distracted by some garden variety bums who try to get all sexy with her – her instinctively violent reaction brings her to the attention of handsome Detective Luther Cross.

Gaby doesn’t have time for the law, no sirree. She’s seeking evil and runs away. She ends up killing some secondary evil on her route, leading to more suspicion on the part of Luther, but she’s on a mission. Only the mission isn’t accomplished, and the rest of the book is about how she tries to stop this particular, unformed, unknown evil.

Gaby, whose mother died while giving birth to her during a lightning storm, fears storms. This is not well-explained nor fully developed (except in the romance novel context of allowing the hero and heroine to experience physical contact). She was raised in foster care. She found parenting, of a sort, from a priest. Said priest, who died of cancer, convinced Gaby that her talent for finding evil was a gift from God.

All of this makes Gaby paranoid and rootless and anti-social. She avoids all human emotion, doesn’t get involved, and we’re told she’s constantly changing locales to escape the bad stuff, though, to be honest, I didn’t really get a sense of that. Foster did a lot of telling me what kind of character she wanted Gaby to be, but Gaby simply didn’t conform.

In many ways, she’s your fairly typical romance novel loner. You know the type, life offers up one really bad traumatic experience and that leads to lifelong scars. Except for a few moments that seem to be genuine emotion, Foster really keeps it on the surface with Gaby. I couldn’t find anything in her that made me want to keep buying this series.

There is an unfortunate comparison to Eve Dallas courtesy of a cover quote from Elizabeth Lowell (who probably should retire from the quoting biz after this fiasco), the tough-as-nails heroine created by J.D. Robb. Gaby Cody is no Eve Dallas. Eve is faceted and specific. She’s an active participant in her life. Gaby is blank, unfocused. She waits for orders from God. In many ways, her puppet-like demeanor makes the creepy doll-like drawing on the book’s cover apropos.

I would be remiss if I didn’t dwell on Gaby’s wardrobe for a moment. She wears a typical mish-mash of jeans, t-shirts, and…flip-flops. I mean, this chick is running (very fast) through streets and woods. She’s stepping into icky stuff left and right. She’s kicking – and I mean literally kicking – bad guys around. Ever try to do a serious roundhouse while trying to keep your flip-flop on? I get that people find them to be comfortable, practical shoes, but they are not a great choice when it comes to this character. It’s like Foster is trying to make Gaby too quirky for this book.

Me? I found myself focusing way too much on Gaby’s footwear. Worrying that her shoe would fly off while she was walking through blood and guts. Wondering why in the world she wasn’t smart enough to get herself a real pair of shoes. I know that money’s tight and all, but good boots would be a tax write-off.

Before I get ahead of myself, let’s dispense with the rest of my always useful character analysis. Luther Cross is a detective. In my opinion, he’s the kind of detective who should be busted back to beat cop pronto, but nobody asked me and now it’s all official in a printed book. His fate is sealed. What else about Luther? Oh, right, he’s powerfully attracted to Gaby, despite her foul mouth, foul temper, penchant for violence, horrible clothes, undernourished physique, and whatnot. Also, he plays basketball with underprivileged youth.

The only other character of note (and this should be telling in and of itself) is Gaby’s landlord/literary agent, Morty. Morty is your stereotypical comic book geek. He is also, of course, in serious crush with Gaby, mostly for the same reasons noted under Luther.

But wait, there’s more! Morty inherited an underground comic book store from his mother. Gaby has discovered that she can exorcise her demons by turning her adventures into graphic novels. She mails her manuscripts to Morty (anonymously) and he in turn gets them published, sells them, and, well, you know how the publishing biz goes.

Yes, she’s a mad success!

The plot veers between the intangible evil that Gaby must fight and the budding romance between Gaby and Luther. As noted above, Luther isn’t much of a detective, so Gaby conveniently pulls together a bunch of clues (many from thin air) and sends him to detect. He does his duty, the great mystery is solved (with the villain named for the reader long before Gaby figures it out…what ever happened to the element of surprise?), and our heroes live to fight another day.

Foster actually had an interesting plot thing going on for a while there. All of the victims of evil (should I be capitalizing it, Evil?) have cancer. Gaby has issues with cancer. Cancer, she knows, is a living thing and unstoppable. Had Foster continued to examine the parallels between her Evil and cancer, maybe she could have made something of this story. She just doesn’t take it far enough to make it gel.

The relationship between Luther and Gaby is uncomfortable. There’s a, give or take, ten-year difference in their ages. But Gaby is such a…child. It should go without saying (but why let something pass when it can be discussed in great detail?) that she’s a virgin. Not just any virgin, but one of those virgins who – despite spending an unhealthy amount of time observing prostitutes at work (and you know what I mean) – doesn’t have a clue about oral sex. When she sees a couple in the act in an alley, it’s like the great mystery of life.

I really hate stupidity in characters, and lack of television and radio is no excuse. Heck, doing God’s work is no excuse. This character’s cluelessness does not jibe with her, well, character. Gaby comes off as dumb and clueless. Naïve beyond comfortable. Luther comes off like a father figure rather than lover. That makes their relationship icky, not sexy.

May-December romances make for an interesting fantasy…as long as December doesn’t seem like May’s daddy.

I am not entirely sure what was awakened in this novel. Sure, I know better than to take book titles seriously, but, uh, doesn’t awakening sort of portend, I dunno, something? Like a beginning? A new awareness? Gaby was already pretty much in a groove with her skills when the book began. Oh, I get it. She was sexually awakened. Except not so much. Given how this novel ended, Gaby is probably still trying to figure out how all her female parts work.

Trouble is, there wasn’t anything else to awaken, unless you count her lame-o friend Mort. He was all transformed into a geeky warrior-hero type at the end of the novel.

I think I mentioned, oh several reviews ago, how totally out the whole mysterious evil thing is. Authors have overdone the distant third person glimpses of the villain – hacking away at body parts, plotting with glee, spying and foiling to his or her heart’s content. And, if the entire mysterious villain thing is overdone, the switcheroo reveal that the bad guy is really a woman is running into dangerous territory as well; this is just a public service message, not a commentary on this particular novel. I am so sick of the careful language that walks in circles to avoid revealing a villain’s gender.

Authors, you are only fooling yourselves.

You know what? Spoilers be damned! I just lied to you; I wasn’t doing public service. Foster set up a novel with two potential villains. One is drawn as bad and uncaring. This one is what we like to call a red herring. The other is good and kind. In skillful hands, we believe the uncaring dude is the bad dude until the sheer evilness of the true bad dude is revealed. To do this without any sort of halfway decent character (or plot) development is the sign of an author who is not trading on cleverness. If I can spot the villain the first time he or she appears on the page, well, so can you.

Evil must be specific to be truly terrifying. A novel’s heroes need to be fighting something tangible. A major flaw throughout this novel is the lack of specificity. Why is this evil happening? Oh, it’s all made clear at the very end. Well, that’s just dandy. Make us suffer without a clue. No, dear authors, you must make your evil real to invest the reader in your story. What are the stakes for the hero, the heroine, the villain, mankind?

Foster came from the category romance world, and it shows here. Category, harkening back to the days of Joan Bryant and Alan Boon and a time when the books were sold many years after publication, avoids specificity. No brand names, no precision colors, no details that might date a work. Foster softens the edges of the world she builds to the point where it’s generic.

Drugged-out whores abound – are they speed freaks or heroin junkies? Both types are drugged out, but different characters. The street scene depicted in this novel is Hollywood-pristine, not gritty and evocative. Even the murders lack sharp detail. Maybe this is why Foster chose to set the story in an anonymous city. Makes avoiding concrete details that much easier.

And oh yeah, making God a major influence in the plot works is a great and novel approach – but Foster fails to make God a serious character. Had she shown that kind of bravery, this would be a different review. If Gaby is truly directed by God, then, well, show some divine intervention or something. Don’t tell me that God is pulling her strings. Make God a character. Be bold. Make me believe, if only for the course of this story.

Otherwise, you have a heroine who’s out there hacking up people based on her claims that they’re evil. We’re told that she can see their true selves, their demon faces, but I dunno. Gaby’s a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to her actions. She engages in violence without divine motivation. She acts on her own. How do I know she’s reliable?) There is no evidence that she’s getting messages from a good spirit. If you pay attention to the news, lots of serial killers claim that God is sending them instructions.

So while I like the idea of God doing his (or her or its) thing, I didn’t buy it as a plot device. Foster simply didn’t lay the foundation for me to believe in her heroine, her motivation, or her boss. I managed to finish this book thanks to a strong determination to remain on a treadmill for a full hour today; I won’t be buying the sequel.

You can find Lori Foster here. You can buy Servant: The Awakening here or here. You can, as always, agree or disagree in the comments section below.

You need variety in your reading diet.

So yeah, more strong, kick-ass heroines, but maybe not so much on the “create an entire line around an idea” approach. Bombshell should have been a sub-imprint or whatever they’re called. I liked most of the Bombshells I read, but, as we are about to discover, there were some misses in the bunch.

Let me say this upfront: I much preferred the in-flight magazine to this novel. There was also some great trivia that repeated every five questions or so.

This book is part of “The Madonna Key” series, which, as is my lifelong curse, I picked up mid-stream. I believe the sign of a good installment in any series is when the reader is instantly clear on the intricacies of the previous books while dropped into a new story of exciting proportions. The Madonna Key, which has the misfortune of hewing a little too close to the various conspiracies laid out in The DaVinci Code, posits that important, world-saving knowledge was hidden away by a strong cabal of women. Now, as the planet teeters on the edge of disaster, the spiritual/physical/metaphysical descendents of these early priestesses are brought together to find and decipher the secrets of the past and save the world.

It’s a great idea. And, as I noted, just another variation on the same conspiracy theories that propelled Dan Brown to the bestseller list. So yeah, I was looking for something new and exciting. In order to buy into this series, I needed to believe that I was getting something new and different. I got vagueness and confusion and not much in the way of great reading.

Do I sound cranky? Good. That’s exactly the mood I’m going for.

The novel begins when Nadia Bishop, a former MI-6 agent, sees an obituary of a woman who looks exactly like her. The woman was, coincidentally, murdered in the same town where Nadia had a torrid affair (leading to a secret baby!). As fate would have it, Nadia’s lover was a bad guy and his family was worse. She left town, pronto. Now, with her dead doppelganger out there, Nadia has no choice to return to the scene of her passion and investigate this mystery.

I mean, who wouldn’t? What else can you do when you encounter the improbability of a magazine obituary for a death in another country? If it’s not a planted clue, it’s a sign. I’m not going to suggest that this novel is a long series of coincidental encounters and clues, but that’s only because I know you can draw your own conclusions from thinly veiled sarcasm.

It is my opinion that the success or failure of so-called kick-ass heroines lies in their believability. If I were to go mano a mano with one these chicks, I need to know I’m going to lose. Maybe it’s the caffeine talking, but I could take Nadia. She’s some sort of former spy who apparently carried a gun (which she always calls her “9 mm”, leading me to suspect she had other favorite guns in varying metric measurements). Yet, as evidenced by the fact that stealth wasn’t her forte (unless there’s a new meaning of stealth that includes “always getting busted”), she wasn’t the sharpest spy on the block. Nor did she seem particularly adept at the hand-to-hand stuff.

I could take her. I mean, if I hadn’t taken a vow of non-violence against fictional characters.

Nadia quickly discovers that the dead woman is her long-lost sister. Said sister had worked diligently to uncover the secrets of the past, secrets that form the core of this series. I’m not going to read the other books in the series (see later in the review), so go ahead enlighten me: did this sister kick some serious intellectual butt in the other books? For my money, the dead sister was the interesting sister.

Scarlet (dead sister) was murdered because her discoveries and analysis put her on the path of the evil Adriano family. While alive, she figured it all out. Then she died, taking her brains and savvy with her. Sigh. Nadia is naturally compelled to continue her sister’s work – even though it is clearly dangerous. Did I mention that Nadia had a secret baby? I always wonder about heroines who endanger their lives – even heroines who are apparently well-trained in mortal combat – while their cute little kids wait at home.

I digress. Nadia’s work repeatedly places her in the path of Joshua Adriano, the man she knew as Antonio back when she was pretending to be a woman named Zoe. While the attraction remains strong, Nadia knows that she cannot allow herself to act on her hormones. Nor can she tell Joshua about his child. That would be bad. Sure, keeping the secret is unethical, but that’s okay because she knows that he’s evil, deep down inside.

I would like to note that Joshua’s evil character is largely a figment of Nadia’s imagination. This story does not reveal a particularly menacing man. If I can be so bold, he’s a fairly dull character. And Nadia comes off a bit twitish as she repeatedly runs away from the man. It’s like reading a game of chase. Presumably, the entire series exposes the dangers of the Adriano family. Mills simply doesn’t up the urgency or menace in this installment.

All of this means that I’m sure Joshua is a fine man and will make a great continuing character, but, boy, I have no clue what he’s about. Worse, I suspect neither does Nadia.

Nadia hopscotches between Saint-Tropez, Ireland, France, and even Pompeii, seeking out Scarlet’s posse, finding answers to a mystical mosaic of The Lady, the symbol of the Marians, who, for the purposes of shorthand, were the female equivalent of the Knights Templar (yeah, yeah, yeah, I don’t have time to get into the full story). For those who care about these things, Ireland is misty and dreamy, Saint-Tropez is seedy and dangerous, France is filled with guns and secret caves.

Nadia, for those who care, is the type of woman who has a private plane at her disposal (adoption by rich, connected parents has its benefits). Wherever the she needs to be, the magic plane takes her. I think I’ve talked about the urgency thing when it comes to ratcheting up tension. A great way to do this is to limit a character’s mobility. I mean, drain the plane’s fuel tank or something. Don’t let your on-the-edge-of-doom character fall victim to on-demand transportation.

What bothered me most about this story was the lack of specificity. Nadia’s career with the MI-6 – what, exactly, did she do? The Adriano’s evilness? Well, it seems that in a former book they unleashed some sort of deadly virus, but in this novel, there’s lots of chase, lots of innuendo, but nothing to make me feel like I should look over my shoulder when I walk outside.

Maybe this is a limitation of the first-person point-of-view, especially in a continuing series written by different authors. Nadia can only tell me what she knows – and since she only knows hearsay and evidence gleaned from reports, she is not the right character to build Adriano-related tension. Everyone was happy to tell me about the nefarious Adrianos, nobody really showed me. The family in this book is bad, but not end-of-the-world bad.

The Marians came off as a fairly generic goddess cult. I don’t know if this series was conceived before or after The DaVinci Code, but I do know that, love it or hate it, it lead to a lot of interest in historical females of the Biblical bent. You know, like women named Mary. So the name of this group is evocative of that novel. The hidden knowledge passed through the ages is also evocative that novel (which in all fairness was a fictionalized version of various “Mary”-based conspiracy theories).

I need more than a mysterious Lady who could save the world if a mosaic can be recreated. I need a specific, action-oriented, tangible link between the past and present. The barely-there paranormal element – Nadia and Scarlet are connected through flashbacks/visions/dreams/something to ancestors long gone – didn’t achieve that goal. I do like parallel storylines, but this one didn’t really add much to my reading experience. It lacked the necessary emotional connection that I needed.

If not that, then I need the thing that Dan Brown did right: he moved the story so fast that logic, plausibility, and even story development were irrelevant. Talk about Cheesy Poofs…

I suppose I can’t talk about this book without talking about the chick thing. In creating the Marians, the authors of this series naturally wrote a set of books with a strong core of women, and they then took the easy way with these women. They’re going to be best buds without a trace of conflict. Hate that. Just hate that. I am growing increasingly tired of the whole sister/solidarity thing.

Relationships between women come in very few flavors in romance novels these days. There is the whole heroine/evil other woman thing. You know how that rolls. Then there’s the group of friends who will see each other through thick and thin without a single negative comment. The women in these novels band together like a solid wall of saccharine. Instead of one character who is too good to be true, we are treated to a gang.

All of this lovely solidarity has the unfortunate side effect of defusing tension in the novel. Since Joshua as a bad guy is almost laughable, the other major characters in the novel need to carry the weight of conflict. Yet there they are, cavorting like they are of one mind. Novel by novel, new women will be collected and added to the cast of characters. They will be BFFs. It’s dull.

Mills tries to salvage the whole sisterhood sweetness by creating tension between Nadia and her long-time nanny/caretaker Olga, but instead of creating a compelling battle between the two characters, it’s all hand-wringing worry and lack of confrontation…right up to the happy ending.

Put another way, it’s all tell, no show. The edges of this story are very neat, honed to soft roundness. When the fate of the world is at stake, the reader needs to feel like each page, each scene, each chapter, each book ups the ante. There should be, at a bare minimum, breathless anticipation of the next book because you have to know that humanity, the planet, the universe, whatever will survive.

It is a bad thing when the reader finishes the book with a sigh of relief…that the ordeal is over. Despite the fact that I liked the concept of the series as presented, Jenna Mills worked very hard to make sure that I didn’t look for other books in this series.

You can find Jenna Mills here (okay, not really, no website). You can buy Veiled Legacy here or here. You can agree or disagree in the comments section below.

When Cathy turned in her contest review for Devour by Melina Morel and expressed some reservations about the book, we felt like we put Cathy in a difficult position. Then we realized Cathy wasn't complaining. She read. She reviewed. She wrote what she really felt. She was not nasty or personal. The book just didn't work for her. Simple. We admire that.

So, thanks to Cathy for being part of the contest and checking out Devour. Bigger thanks to her for keeping with the philosophy at the site.

First off, here is the blurb on the back cover: Set in modern-day New York City, Devour weaves a spellbinding tale about a woman who will journey into the heart of danger to fulfill her destiny…

The Hunter - She has one reason for coming to Manhattan. It is her fate. The latest in a long line of werewolf hunters, she has come for him.

The Werewolf - Dashing Pierre de Montfort has rarely had trouble hiding his cursed heritage. But now, with his secret about to be revealed, he is willing to do anything-and savage anyone-in order to stay alive.

The Vampire - Beautiful and intrepid Catherine Marais has no qualms about her destiny. Nothing will stop her from destroying the last Montfort werewolf-not even Ian Morgan, the two-hundred year old vampire whose electrifying touch could tempt Catherine to indulge in a
forbidden darkness from which she may never return.

We have human werewolf hunters, a vampire, a secret society, an evil werewolf, and it sounds like there is a good romance story going on here too, all the elements I look for when I grab a paranormal book. So what was it about this story that had me putting it aside half way through? Definitely, if you are looking for a sympathetic werewolf, you won't find that in Pierre. He is a savage killer, and we know this from the first time we meet him. In fact, those very descriptive killings bumped this story more into the horror category for me.

That left me anticipating a good romance story, and the author has actually given us two couples to care about, but the fact is I just never did. Both romance storylines fell flat for me when I couldn't feel any sexual or emotional connection between the lovers. Catherine comes across as cold, stiff and formal, and I just didn't see what the big attraction was for Ian, and therefore didn't care about where or how their relationship progressed.

There is whole other romantic storyline that involves another werewolf hunter, and a woman who ends up with ties to both Pierre and Ian, but again no real romance. I actually read right over the fact that they had become lovers, it was all handled in a couple of sentences.

I freely admit I am a paranormal romance junkie, and I wanted to care about these couples as we learn about their lives in this world that Melina has created, but neither the plot nor the characters ever really captured my interest. I could see that this story might appeal to those looking for more of a paranormal/horror/thriller storyline, but it just didn't work for me.

You can visit Melina here (sort of) and buy this book here and here.

Half-breed Texas Ranger, Jake McCain, is tracking the deadly William Harrison when his gang gets the jump on him. They beat him to a bloody pulp, but he is still alive – barely. With an early spring blizzard raging in the desolate west Texas countryside, Jake makes his way through the storm and passes out on Rachel Hudson’s front porch.

Rachel is the daughter of an El Paso prostitute. After her mother was murdered, she and her baby brother, Nathan, were taken in by a traveling preacher and his sickly wife. After the wife died, Rachel and Nathan part ways with the preacher and settle in Lucinda, Texas. The mining town needs a teacher, and Rachel is the most qualified person to fall in their lap.

She drags Jake into her cabin and nurses him back to health. In exchange, her reputation takes the beating of a lifetime. The wife of the town’s founder is a spiteful old hag, and despite the circumstances of his arrival, Jake spending days at the cabin of an unmarried woman is unseemly.

Problems arise immediately with the introduction of Rachel. Living out in the middle of nowhere, in an isolated cabin with her prepubescent brother, and she 1) faints at the smallest sight of blood 2) doesn’t know how to ride a horse and 3) hates guns and refuses to have one in her cabin. Where I come from we call this too stupid to live. The author does get around to explaining why Rachel is this way, but by then the first impression has been made. Frankly, it’s hard to believe that Rachel hadn’t managed to get herself raped, kidnapped or killed before Jake shows up on a her doorstep.

The conflict that propels the plot forward mainly revolves around Jake’s tracking of the outlaw gang and Rachel’s shunning by the good townspeople. Unfortunately it never carries much momentum, with the author flitting from one source of tension to the next. The conflict includes such things as an abandoned mine where Nathan discovers gold, to the Harrison gang, to Jake rescuing the gang’s young hostage, to Jake feelings he’s not good enough for Rachel, to Rachel believing her wanton feelings for Jake make her “just like” her mother, to Jake’s unfounded jealousy regarding Rachel, to the townsfolk treating Rachel like dirt, to the townsfolk treating Jake like dirt and the question of Nathan's parentage. As if this weren’t enough, there’s the lack of communication after Jake and Rachel have sex. She sure didn’t respond to his advances like a virgin – how was he supposed to know she was still “innocent?”

All of these dangling bits of conflict give the story an unfocused feel. There’s just too much crammed into the 300 pages, and even then the story feels too long at times. The entire book would have been better served had the author focused on a couple of sources of conflict, devoting page time to fleshing it out in more detail. The outlaw gang and William Harrison certainly would have been more than enough, but as is he just comes off as another one-dimensionally evil villain that smacks of convenience.

Touch Of Texas isn’t a complete washout, and the author shows promise with her writing ability. In particular, the opening chapter is well done and Jake is an interesting hero. Unfortunately, with the scattershot conflict and Rachel’s bad first impression, this debut is sometimes a slog. There’s promise though, and for now that’s enough to instill some hope in western romance fans.

You can learn more about Tracy Garrett here and purchase Touch Of Texas here and here.