Short Reviews: New Release Paranormals, Romantic Suspense, Erotic Romance, Cozy Mystery

Talk about a disappointing group of books.  YEESH!  Not one really good one in the whole lot!

• Title: Accidentally Catty
  
• Author:  Dakota Cassidy
• Type:  Humorous paranormal romance series
• Genre:  A vet gets infected my a mountain lion that’s really a shifter and must deal with the paranormal reality
• Sub-genre:  Normal human gets involved with vamps and shifters and an insane scientist
• My Grade: C  (3.0*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel – about 100,000+ $8.50-10 with list of $15.00
• Where Available:  Available at most bookstores
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased from online bookstore

Book Review: Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich – A Book to Skip

My fall trip up to New England was lots of fun and pretty colorful, though not as nice good as many years.  The lack of rain this summer caused a lot of trees to just drop their leaves early with little or no color and there were fewer bright reds and oranges than usual, but who can complain about a prime few days in New England?  Took a trip over to Fort Ticonderoga at the foot of Lake Champlain in the Adirondacks, and then a drive along the western shore of Lake George on down through the Green Mountains and back into the Berkshires.  Beautiful day and warmer than usual.  Fort Ti closes for the season the third week of October, so we were surprised by the number of visitors for a mid-week stop.  If you find yourself in the area, take the time to go to the top of Fort Defiance for the view just a bit from the entrance of Fort Ti accessed by local roads in the small town of Ticonderoga.  If the hike from the parking area is a bit much, stop at the pull out on the way down.  Amazing views from Lake Champlain in the north, to the Green Mountains in the east, on down Hudson River Valley south to Lake George.

Of course I was busy reading too.  I’ll review those books later with some other paranormals, but I did read a book I knew would require very little in the way of active braincells - Sizzling Sixteen.  The book is part of that reading challenge swap I’m participating in on Paperback Swap.  Janet Evanovich must have slept thru writing this one.

• Title: Sizzling Sixteen
  
• Author:  Janet Evanovich
• Type:  Mystery series
• Genre:  Stephanie Plum #16; hapless bounty hunter creates chaos
• Sub-genre:  Where’s the mystery?
• My Grade: D (2*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel barely 80,000 words for $27.99 with 40%+ discounts available
• Where Available:  book available at any bookstore
• FTC Disclosure:  rec’d book through online book swapping site

Two Mystery Reviews: Paranormal Mystery and Cozy from a New Author

• Showdown in Mudbug
  
• Author:  Jana Deleon
• Type:  Paranormal romantic mystery
• Genre:  Cozy style paranormal set in Louisiana; final in Ghost-in-law series
• Sub-genre: Former under cover FBI agent living as a psychic tries to get cops on right trail of a child abductions
• My Grade: C (3.0*)
  
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full novel; 80,000+ words for $7.99; some discounts available
• Where Available:  book available wherever books are sold
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased book from online bookseller website

And Still MORE Super Short Reviews – Assorted Genres

Yes, there are still MORE reviews of urban fantasy, paranormal romance, mystery, and erotic romance to get through.  So here we go again!

• Title: Quick Study
  
• Author:  Maggie Barbieri
• Type:  Mystery
• Genre: Amateur sleuth college professor
• Sub-genre:  Professor with cop boyfriend steps on law enforcement toes
• My Grade: B-  (3.8*)
• Rating:  PG-13
• Length and price:  Full length novel; about 80,000+ words for $6.99
• Where Available:  book available at at any book store; 4-for-3 program on Amazon
• FTC Disclosure:  purchased hardcover book from online bookstore

This third installment in the Alison Bergeron series is an entertaining read.  Alison is late thirties, divorced from a ‘serial philanderer’, and college literature professor with an indomitable curiosity and a talent for finding trouble.  Written in the first person, Alison is a likable character who realizes that age is no barrier to her acting like an idiot.  Her ‘boyfriend’, divorced police detective Bobby Crawford, could decide she’s more trouble than she’s worth.  Her childhood friend, now a priest, keeps hoping she’ll get interested in his too handsome brother, and best friend Max is a drop dead gorgeous TV personality married to Bobby’s caveman like partner.

Alison is working her community service hours at a soup kitchen where an extended Latino comes once a week for a family dinner.  She hires the father and his nephew to do some painting in her house in Dobbs Ferry.  When the nephew turns up dead on a piece of land in Brooklyn that’s being developed by a former boyfriend of Max’s, Maggie gets involved in trying to find out what really happened.  The action just keeps moving and the plot has plenty of surprises, so settle in and enjoy.

The verve is fun and interesting.  Though some characters are ‘central casting’, it’s kind of hard not to get interested in Alison and her chaotic approach to life in general.  Fans of amateur sleuths can enjoy a fun read.  Good summer choice!

Book Review: Finger Lickin’ Fifteen by Janet Evanovich

Well, I’m back from vacation and I’m starting on my reviews while reading some of the new ebooks from Samhain.  The leaves were nice, not great, but I’m spoiled.  Anyway, it was good reading in the evening – and on Sunday with all the rain and SNOW down around Blandford and Lee and Massachusetts.  In a few days I’ll be at Authors After Dark – the paranormal romance authors soiree being held in Suffern, NY.  I’ll keep you posted.  In the meantime, let’s get the reviews started.

• Title: Finger Lickin’ Fifteen
• Author: Janet Evanovich
• Type: Humorous mystery
• Genre: Inept female sleuth; series
• Sub-genre: Stephanie Plum
• My Grade: D (2*)
• Rating: PG-13
• Where Available: Everywhere books are sold, your local library and used bookstores
• FTC Disclosure: This book was acquired through a free online book swapping service

Back in 1994, romance novelist Janet Evanovich changed the mystery genre by launching Stephanie Plum’s adventures in bond enforcement and amateur sleuthing in Trenton, New Jersey – the world’s least exotic local.  What was to become the trademark humor and zany antics weren’t as stressed there, but the bones were laid and both Morelli and Ranger debuted with Lula, Connie, and Grandma Mauser – all interwoven with a worthwhile mystery.  Through the next 4 books the quality just got better and better and Stephanie Plum would launch an entire genre of inept amateur sleuths still being copied today, from Kate Collins to Victoria Laurie to Kyra Davis, the winning formula has been cloned with varying degrees of success.  After Seven-Up, something happened.  Evanovich lost the mystery and focused on the antics more and more with each successive book.  It didn’t matter to sales, but it matters to the fans.  I struggled through To the Nines, the truly awful Ten Big Ones and Eleven on Top.  Twelve Sharp and Lean Mean Thirteen partly redeemed the series then Fearless Fourteen was so bad I decided to not buy the next book when it was released.  It was hard, but I stuck to my guns and waited till I could get it through an online book swapping service.  Damn, am I glad I didn’t pay for this book!

BOOK REVIEW: Killing Bridezilla by Laura Levine

• Title: Killing Bridezilla
• Author: Laura Levine
• Type: Chick Lit
• Genre: Mystery
• Sub-genre: Amateur sleuth
• My Grade: C+  (3.5*)
• Rating: PG
• Warnings: none

Laura Levine writes the Jaine Austen mystery series featuring writer for hire, Jaine Austen. She does ads, resumes and whatever else comes her way to make ends meet in Hollywood. Levine herself is a former comedy writer and it shows in the timing and style of the humor of her books. Here she gets to mine the humor of the painful high school years when Jaine is called by her personal HS nightmare, Patti Devane, and offered a very badly need $3,000 for writing her wedding vows – a rewrite of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet a la Friends. Re-write Shakespeare? Jaine really wants to say, “Hell NO!”, but the reality of her bank account has her mouth saying, “Of course!”

Jaine is optimistic that class bitch Pattie has become a civilized human being. The maid that answers the door quickly puts that hope to rest by saying, “Another one?” Sure enough, Pattie still has the charm of a pit viper and an uncanny sense for a person’s weak spot. In addition to Jaine, she has 2 classmates as her attendants, Denise and Cheryl (Cheryl gets thrown out for being ‘fat’ and Pattie hires an actress to replace her), another is acting as caterer (Veronica), and she’s marrying yet another classmate, Dickie Potter, whose marriage – to yet another classmate, Normalynne – she broke up when the two got reacquainted at the class reunion. She wants the ‘lamb less lamb-y’, the shrimp ‘less fishy’ and the roses more ‘rose-y’. Pattie is the archetype liposuctioned, bust enhanced, self adsorbed Bel Air bitch. One wonders how she lived so long without someone shoving her off a cliff.

BOOK REVIEW: Charmed and Dangerous by Toni McGee Causey

Fans of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum pay attention, you have another screwball mystery to choose from in Charmed and Dangerous. Originally published in May 2007 as Bobby Faye’s Very (very, very, very) Bad Day by St. Martin’s Griffin in trade paperback, it has been re-titled and published in mass market paperback this month. Two additional books will be published later this year.

This is the first book by author Toni McGee Causey, a native of Louisiana and resident of Baton Rouge, who sets her tale in Louisiana bayou country around Lake Charles where tales of Jean Laffite and his buried treasure entice treasure hunters to this day. Bobby Faye grew up on them and dug more than her fair share of holes, but now all she wants is a day without problems. Lake Charles Contraband Day is the hottest event in town and Bobby Faye is the Queen, like her mother was before her, but there’s a hitch in the plan – a bigger one than her flooded trailer. Her useless brother failed to fix the water line to her washer and her trailer is sinking as the pipe fountains gallons out onto her floor. Her niece Stacey, staying with her while her sister Lori Ann is in court ordered rehab for her drinking problem, is more interested in the indoor pool than bailing it out, her electric is off because her check bounced, and the Child Services woman is due before the parade to see if she is a fit temporary guardian for her niece. Then things go really downhill.

BOOK REVIEW: A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen

If Rhys Bowen was a dancer, she’d be Fred Astaire. Her writing is effortless grace that makes everything around shine with glamor and class. It’s amazing really, how easily you’re drawn into the world and the characters that populate 1932 London – Britain’s upper crust, especially the ne’er do well ones used to living well and suddenly unable to do so on their own due to the depression. From the first page you’re lost in vaguely decadent pre-war London seen through the eyes of the still innocent, observant, increasingly less naïve Lady Georgiana Rannoch.

A Royal Pain is the second book in Bowen’s new Her Royal Spyness series and it’s even better than the first. Not only is there more of a mystery, but Ms Bowen dances Georgie through a tale filled with Noel Coward characters – not to mention a cameo appearance by Mr Coward himself – mixing fictional with real people easily and with her usual attention to detail. Bits of history, like the relationship between Prince George, later the Duke of Kent, and Noel Coward, the communist and fascist party conflicts, and most importantly, the infatuation of her cousin David – know to the world as Edward the VIII – with a notorious American woman, Wallis Simpson.

BOOK REVIEW: Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen

Rhys Bowen is an Agatha Award winner for her Molly Murphy historical mysteries and also writes the Constable Evans series, both period mystery series.  With Her Royal Spyness she tackles a different time period, the early 1930’s, and very upper class – impoverished royalty.  The story is told in the first person by Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie, known as Georgie, is the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and 34^th in line for the throne, making her a very minor royal, but a royal nonetheless.  The Great Depression has hit Europe as hard as the US and bread lines and soup kitchens are a common sight.  Georgie’s older half-brother, Binky, the current Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch has even more financial troubles having the estate decimated by the combined effects of gambling losses by his father, the stock market crash and the death duties on his inheritance.

While sitting on the loo, Georgie overhears Binky and his wife, Fig, discussing a request from Her Majesty, Queen Mary, to entertain Prince Sigfried.  They haven’t the money and frankly don’t want the visitors.  It’s still snowing in Scotland and there just isn’t any way to entertain them with the usual activities like hunting.  The real reason for the visit is to try and get Georgie married off to someone of the right social station.  Knowing full well what the goal is, Georgie, who has no funds of her own, decides to do a bunk to London under the pretense of helping a friend with their wedding.