Sunday, August 16, 2009

Drive-bys

Quick run through of titles read the past couple weeks:

I’ve read too many books to sit down and review a single one – I can’t seem to put enough thoughts together for a long review, but can say definitively which I loved, liked, and were meh reads.

One Week as Lovers by Victoria Dahl: In a word – wow. Loved this book. Nick was an amazing hero. Wounded emotionally; and even at the end, he wasn’t completely healed, but you just knew he wanted to be healed by Cynthia. Cyn was the perfect mate for him. She wasn’t fooled by his devil-may-care happy attitude, even though it’s who she knew growing up. She saw beneath the external charm to the wounded teenage boy beneath and wasn’t put off by him. Loved him unconditionally. I loved that their money situation wasn’t miraculously fixed at the end, either. Just a fantastic read. I must pick up its predecessor, A Rake’s Guide to Pleasure.

Daring Time by Beth Kery: Another wonderfully sensual read from Kery. Brave in its ideas of the potential for reincarnation and not just time travel, but travel across the time-space continuum. Abandon your sense of science and need for logic, and open yourself up to the grand potential of the unknown, and this love story is fabulous. Throw in Kery’s rich sensual D/s love scenes, and this is a great book. Given everything I know of Sweet Restraint, though, I believe I’m going to pass on it and wait for the next one.

Talk Me Down by Victoria Dahl: This was a very cute read. Definitely doesn’t have the depth that her historical did, but I still really, really enjoyed it. Molly and Ben were terrific. Great banter. Wonderful connection between the hero and heroine. And I loved the scenes with Molly, Lori, and Helen – it’s always wonderful to see strong friendships among women.

Start Me Up by Victoria Dahl: I didn’t enjoy this one as much as Talk Me Down. Although all the elements were there, I never truly felt the real love connection between Lori and Quinn. The witty banter was there, the friendships were there, but I think that the nature of each of the loner personalities of Lori and Quinn perhaps made it more difficult for me to connect. Or perhaps, I just didn’t care for it as much *shrugging*.

The Club by Sharon Page: Ok. Interesting premise. I’ve read hundreds of historicals that have had “clubs” that have shown the seedy side of the ton, but never have I read one where a club so outlandishly celebrated orgies among married couples. Yet at the same time seemed to objectify and victimize the very women that theoretically chose to participate. At the heart of this book is a widow who was so mistreated by her husband and a man who is hiding some terrible secrets from his family. Together, they are trying to find his sister, who has vanished from this club. Parts were very good, and parts were tremendously clichéd, and I admit that I guessed the bad guy long before it was revealed. Where this book excelled was when it focused on the relationship between the hero and heroine. I would read another from Page if I thought it would narrow the focus more onto the main couple.

Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare: Absolutely loved this one. I loved watching Lucy grow up from practically demanding that Toby was the man for her, to desperately loving Jeremy. Jeremy was an absolutely fantastic hero. Loved him from head to toe. I’ve heard other reviewers criticize Lucy’s character for perseverating on wanting to capture Toby, but I didn’t feel that at all. She grew and acknowledged her feelings for Jeremy, and clung to Toby as a defense mechanism. Dare’s writing is beautiful, her prose breathtaking. And can the woman write a love scene. Wardrobe, anyone? Cannot wait to read the 2nd in this series – Surrender of a Siren.

9 comments:

  1. I need to try Victoria Dahl. I've got To Tempt A Scotsman in the TBR pile. Adding One Week as Lovers to the buy list.

    Love the drive-by. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lori!

    I just finished the Tessa Dare and and loved it! It was one of the best books I've read all year. I loved Jemmy! And I thought that Lucy was great! I loved her "go get 'em" attitude about everything. And I even loved that she never turned down a dare!! And the love scenes....well the steam was coming off the pages!! Great, Great book!!

    I liked that Victoria Dahl's very much as well. I follow her on twitter and she is funny so I thought I would try her books and they are as funny as she is! I haven't read the historical. It's in my TBR.

    Great Drive-bys! Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm so glad you decided to do a drive-by!! Seriously, reviews are fun, but it's knowing whether someone liked or didn't enjoy the book that's important to me :)

    Now, I'm even less inclined to pick up Start Me Up, sigh.

    I have Goddess of the Hunt in my TBR pile. Need to pick it up soon!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Lot of comments on Goddess of the Hunt...I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that one (out of blogland for more than a week and can't recall any buzz for it).

    And Dahl is soooo on my TBR list.

    Going to have to do a drive-by myself...get back into the groove.

    Thanks Lori - for the reviews (I'm craving them) and for posting, LOL

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've got the Tessa Dare in my tbr as well. She had a lot of buzz at RWA. I've been debating about reading Beth Kery. Your review is pretty convincing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Leslie, the Dahl contemps are funny, and the historical was breathtakingly beautiful.

    Nik, you will absolutely love the Dahl historical. It's apparently the 2nd one, but I know you won't care either. I'm going back to pick up the first one.

    Nathie, definitely read GoTH. I'm really interested to know what you think. We don't always love the same books, interestingly.

    JB, know you've been busy. Vacationing is hard work (hear my bitter jealousy?).

    Rosie, I also loved Kery's Wicked Burn. I think it was lolling around in one of the trades at one of the blogger get-togethers. hmmm.... I know you, and I'm telling you not to start with the current release - Sweet Restraint. Read one of these two.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You and I have already exchanged words on how much we both loved Tessa Dare's Goddess of the Hunt. I'm fairly certain it will be battling for first place among my favorite books of 2009.

    I have Page's The Club on my TBR and hadn't really heard much about it so I'm glad to get your assessment. It will help me with my expectations going in.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Lori
    I don't even know if you'll see this but I'm a huge Beth kery fan.
    I love all her books. May I suggest
    that you give Sweet Restraint a try? I actually took longer than normal to read it because some of the passages were so beautiful I kept rereading them. I actually kept bookmarks throughout parts of the book. It was amazing to have a contrast of such beautiful prose with the suspenseful plot. I have read reviews on it but they harp on Dom being such an alpha male & miss the rest.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Mary! I may yet get to Sweet Restraint, but I've heard the hero is a dom just to be dominant rather than for a typical D/s relationship and that isn't my thing. I've enjoyed the other Kery books I've read though, so will be pickimg up more. Thanks for stopping by! Hope you'll come back :)

    ReplyDelete

Have you read it? What do you think?

Related Posts with Thumbnails