Entries Tagged '1 Star' ↓
March 12th, 2010 — 1 Star, Book Review, Counts, Marquis, Viscounts, Great Britain, Heiress, J-L, Marriage of Convenience, Plump/Endowed Heroine, Regency, Virgin Heroine
I had several issues with this novel. First, there is no chemistry between Ian and Hannah. They are bland. The whole love story is flat. Frankly, I hardly cared whether they liked each other or not let alone loved each other. When they reach the realization and eventual declaration of their love to one another it is unsatisfying and unbelievable.
The book started off slow and never took off. It plods along at a rate that makes snails look daredevil speeding machines. Ian is a Marquis in need money to pay off debts. Hannah wants to please her father by gaining social standing and forget a shallow lover. They agree to marry, an arrangement that suits them both and promise never to bring up the bargain again. Except they do. Every scene. No joke. This creates a pattern that gets old fast.
He’s bitter because he was sold to the highest bidder. It really irks him and yanks on his pride. She’s tired of being seen as a title grabbing, social ladder climbing, merely passable bride. She tries so hard not to give him any reason to be ashamed of her and always sees herself as failing.
The back of the novel promises Hannah to socialize with the ton and another man who wants to win Hannah’s heart. It’s very misleading as neither of these ever really happen. Sure, eventually Hannah meets the members of the ton but it’s not pleasant and they snub her. The man is actually the shallow cad who dumped her for better looking goods at the beginning of the novel. He’s hardly a blip on the radar for how long you have to wait for him to show up and how short he stays.
Rating: 1 Star
Buy: A Bride for His Convenience
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March 11th, 2010 — 1 Star, Blackmail, Book Review, Category, Duchess, Countess, Marchioness, Great Britain, M-O, Regency, Secret Agent, Thief, Widow or Widower
Constance Townley is the dowager duchess of Wellford. She is extremely beautiful and extremely poor. Now a widow, Constance remembers the comfortable life she had with her departed husband. He settled her well, but because of the naïve (re. halfwit lamebrain imbecile) nephew (also known as the new duke) is not honoring it and has actually used her home to pay Barton a gambling debt.
Barton is the evil entitled gentlemen (and I use the term lightly) wants Constance to be his mistress/whore and it striving to get that by any means possible. He does several things such as acquiring her home, blackmailing her with the jewels which she had to sell, and threatening to spread malicious gossip.
The hero in all this is Anthony de Portnay Smythe. He is really Eustace Smith (not that this matters in the slightest). He’s a thief which in other words is a spy for government. As a self-made wealthy man, he’s just seen the last of his brothers’ widows’ daughters (how much does that suck seriously) married and feels like something in lacking in his life that gives him purpose. He’s been secretly in love with Constance for a long time but when the government suspects that she’s helping Barton he plans to use her to get his man by any means possible.
The whole story was annoying and gave me very little enjoyment. The repetition of the same drama and its same lack of resolution got old very quickly. For the most part I just couldn’t get involved at all as quite simply, it just couldn’t hold my attention. The cover on the other hand is scrumptious and very pretty.
Rating: 1 Stars
Buy: A Wicked Liaison
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March 7th, 2010 — 1 Star, A-C, ARC, Erotica, Guest Reviews, LGBT, Paranormal, Supernatural
by Isabel G.,guest reviewer
The main character is a mortician named Jake Marshall who lost his partner and is searching for someone new with whom to share the rest of his life. It is difficult for him to find someone who measures up to his expectations and is also understanding about his profession. However, things start to get complicated when a voodoo priest resurrects a cadaver laying at the funeral home where Marshall works. The corpse, turned walking dead, known as Mark Hartner, is fouler as a person than any smell a zombie could eject. The pain he caused many people, both physically and emotionally, is why he was brought back to life to suffer.
I began reading this book without any bias that it’s a gay/zombie themed story, which is not what I’m normally used to reading. However, I was willing to try something new and looking forward to an exciting erotic experience nonetheless. Unfortunately, the author does nothing to excite me as a reader neither with the story nor the erotica. Despite the fact that there are only 200 pages to this ebook it was an uphill battle trying to finish reading it. In the end, I could not. I found it to be unrealistic, tasteless, and there were details that were unnecessary and off-putting.
At one point the main character has a never ending ejaculation, in a dream like state, while having an orgy with people that died years ago. Oh, did I mention that it’s painful and not fully enjoyable for our hero? Yeah, as a matter of fact, most of the sexual encounters in this book are not enjoyable for the characters. It was just a bit much, in a way you really don’t want in an erotic read.
Something else that bothered me was that the main character claims to be searching for someone worth spending the rest of his life with yet he sleeps with several men after finding a guy he feels that way about. He seems more interested in sex with everyone versus what the author wants you to believe about him. Another thing that was longer than it needed to be is that the main character goes on and on describing the color of someone’s eyes and you feel as though the author just wanted to bulk the story with more sentences rather than giving the story substance.
I liked the idea of a voodoo priest being the reason a zombie was walking. The idea was unique, yet, the rituals were not what a reader expects nor does it make that religion intriguing.
Disliked: Most of the book for multiple reasons including but not limited to descriptions of licking outie belly buttons, balls dropping, saliva drenched chest hair, dry sweat licking of underarms, sex obsessed hero, necrophilia, rape scenes, etc…
If you’re attracted to any of the above mentioned then I guess there really is something for everyone! Personally, I do not recommend this book to anyone, straight or gay.
Rating: 1 Stars
Buy: For the Love of the Dead: Gay Zombie Erotica
Publisher: Ravenous Romance
ISBN-13: 978-1-60777-312-2
Copyright 2009
Genre: Paranormal Erotic Romance
Page: 202
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January 8th, 2010 — 1 Star, A-C, ARC, Gentry, Great Britain, Medieval, Musician, Older Woman/Younger Man, Prostitute, Rape/Abuse, Scarred Hero, Secret Agent, Survival, Widow or Widower, Working with Land
I had a hard time getting through this novel. Not only is Widow’s Peak very unbelievable, but the writing is not engaging. Both of these problems could have been ignored if the sexual interaction between the main characters was hot. It wasn't.
Here is what I had issues with:
Lady Amye de Barnard doesn’t act like a medieval lady. She acts like the lowest of chambermaids or servants, doing jobs and taking care of things that should have been delegated.
First, she washes Laine’s body, stitches him up, and tends to him herself during his recovery. As a lady this would never happen. When he’s awake and on the mend, she washes him like a baby and the blanket is the only nod towards modesty.
Amye is a very modern woman in a time when it’s just not possible. She rides astride. She pays the king a tax to stay unmarried. Her late husband was way too forward thinking for the time period. He got the king to sign a contract to allow Amye to be the land holder and owner of their fiefdom. She too is overly forward thinking when it comes to the vassals, serfs, and servants. I have a hard time believing the men surrounding her would not try to advise her or take control away.
She also is still completely in love with her late husband. Thomas is mentioned way too often. There's no way. Besides that every mention shows how wonderful Thomas was to her, to their people, to the land, in bed, as a husband, as a lover, as a teacher, as a friend, and on and on.
As for the sex, here are a very few examples:
- Let her lips roam to his pouch sucked one of his round balls.
- I found it hard to believe she was "tight as the virgins he was given" after 7 childbirths. Come on - really? Really? REALLY?
- The anal sex with soap (I’m assuming its lye base considering the time period). Can we say, burning? Lye is corrosive and will degrade organic tissue.
Laine as a hero also had problems. He was a terrible troubadour. He was a prostitute turned assassin. As an assassin, I have my doubts. He becomes injured by fighting in the trees (of all places how did the fight happen in the trees—how did they both get up there?) then as the two are fighting and falling from the branches he manages to get on top and survive.
Rating: 1 Star
Buy: Widow's Peak
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December 15th, 2009 — 1 Star, Book Review, Dukes and Earls, Great Britain, Guardian/Ward, Mistaken Identity, Rogues and Rakehells, S-U, Scarred Hero, Victorian, Virgin Heroine
The cover is fantastic on this book. The color scheme is wonderful with gorgeous yellows, blues, and shades of brown. It was an impulse buy because of it. The back blurb was intriguing. That’s about the last truly good thing I can say about the novel.
The writing made me wince several times. I’m not a reader who will nitpick when it comes to phrases and objects in historicals, simply because outside of reading I don't have a background in the time period. That said, this book is filled with contemporary phrases that read very out of place. It started innocuously enough with ‘what a relief’ and fell apart from there with common curse wordage especially the jarring use of the word fuck.
I had no patience with the hero, Greyden Kane. The Duke of Ryeton is a scarred recluse determined to shun all of society in an effort to stay good. He was the worst sort of rakehell when he was younger and treated women abominably. One so much so she had him attacked. He's very good at getting in his own way and being too obtuse to notice. His change of heart at the end just didn't do it for me and left me vaguely bored.
Rose Danvers is practically a ward under Greyden’s care. When her father died he left her and her mother in a heap of debt and greatly diminished prospects. Rose knows she and her mother must be a burden on Kane but can’t do anything about it. She suspects he has feelings for her but she can’t get him to admit it. Their relationship takes off when she decides to seduce him at the beginning of the novel. I would say she's sheltered and should have no idea about this but she's been stealing her mother's Voluptuous magazine which publishes how-tos and erotica. It didn't seem very believable. Why would her mother have the magazine subscription when she remains in mourning?
Lady Margaret Devane was a virgin until Greyden Kane. She is the one society and Grey think most likely behind the attack, but there isn’t any proof. Is she determined to ruin Rose as she was?
Rating: 1 Star
Buy: When Seducing a Duke
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October 24th, 2009 — 0.5 Stars, 1 Star, Business, Category, Contemporary, Enemies, Gentry, Marriage of Convenience, Mexico, Rape/Abuse, V-Z, Virgin Heroine, Working with Land
I liked the other Violet Winspear so much that I picked this one up without a moment’s hesitation.
The story revolves around the Greek tale of Hades and Persephone. The hero is Don Diablo and the heroine is Persepha. A perfectly convenient match, but a delightful one nevertheless.
However that’s about the last good thing that I can say about this book. It’s definitely period as it was published in 1975 for the first time. Knowing it was period was really the only fact that kept me reading after they hero and heroine joined in a quick marriage of convenience.
The heroine wakes up from grief of her loved and recently departed guardian. She says it was a mistake to marry in such haste. Diablo refuses to let her go and what followed was the least romantic series of events.
She struggles. He overpowers. It’s not said in so many words but it’s clear it’s rape or at the very least an extremely forced seduction. He wears her out and then proceeds to “love her.”
The hero sums up their relationship quite succinctly when he tells her later in the novel he believes she didn’t cuckold him on his business trip despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
“I should hate to think that I had misjudged you after all, querida, and you were not so intrinsically virtuous that even a husband feels he is raping you each time he takes you in his arms. It isn’t a pretty word, is it? But to the point.” -- pg 155
Another Greek myth is mentioned and very nearly plays out in full. Don mentions reenacting out the story of Lucrenzia. I looked it up. The story of Lucrenzia is a story of a young wife who was raped in her own bed because the man threatened to do it anyway and then kill her and a slave and arrange their bodies to look like she’d committed adultery. Afterwards she confesses to her husband and family and then takes her own life.
The last ten pages (180-189) the heroine still is crying out how much she hates the hero, doesn’t love him, doesn’t like him, doesn’t want his kids, wishes he’d die, etc. He overhears her telling this to his grandmother and she realizes he’s heard. Off she runs and manages to run to the very spot where his mother committed suicide. He thinks she’s about to do the same – grabs her and hauls her back to her room. He explains about his brother’s death, his mother’s actions and in less than five pages she claims to have fallen in love with him.
It’s completely ridiculous and I closed the book miffed.
Rating: 0.5-1 Stars
Buy: The Devil's Darling
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October 17th, 2009 — 0.5 Stars, 1 Star, Book Review, Business, Divorced, Foster/Orphan, Historic America, M-O, Mistress or Courtesan, Older Woman/Younger Man, United States of America, Virgin Hero
When I was in the middle of Wild Oats by Pamela Morsi I had no strong feelings on it. It was neither good nor bad and looked to be shaping up to a solid two stars.
I did dislike all the words devoted to talk on disease. The hero was a mortician, but not inclined to it. He wanted to pass the business on to his partner. It was his partner that always talked about it – what happens to the ground with unsealed coffins, figuring out how people died based on his observations during the care of the body, etc. There was also a plague going through the territory and landed in the town. In the end it was entirely too much spent on sickness and death. Bah.
Then I began to notice after all the disease talk half of the pages were devoted to bringing together the hero’s horrible undeserving mother with his business partner. I began skipping those parts. She was completely irredeemable. The woman wanted nothing but to be crowned the biggest gossip in town. She started false rumors about the morality of the heroine until everyone in town thought her a common slut/whore. On top of that she was a smothering mother who whined and needled into getting more attention from her son and was not above guilt tripping the hero with the fact that she gave birth to him. Seriously, this lady was going to get a HEA? Double bah.
The hero and heroine when they got together were cute, but they can’t overcome the other aspects of the novel.
I finally gave up and put the book down when the preacher started to spread rumors about what he thought he saw at the heroine's house after a church service where he intended to and was on the verge of forcing heroine into a public confession of all her sinful immoral ways until more disease talk took over (both the novel and his sermon). Last and final bah + humbug!
Rating: 0.5-1 Star
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September 28th, 2009 — 1 Star, Arabia/Middle East, Book Review, Bride Stealing, Category, Comedy of Manners, Contemporary, Great Britain, Interracial, Kings, Princes, Sheiks, Chiefs, Mistaken Identity, Sheik/Desert, V-Z
How can I put this lightly? The novel was crap. How terrible? Really terrible. I could break down the awful for you (warning this is the whole plot and is full of spoilers):
Heroine to self: My brother is in prison and only the Sheik can help.
Hero to self: Next time my baby half-brother is getting his own wife.
Heroine and Hero lock eyes – every sane thought drops from head.
Heroine to self: I’m so hot and bothered.
Heroine aloud: You can’t do this to Andy!
Hero to self: I’m so hot and bothered. That apron is hot. She must be maid and lover to Andrew – so jealous.
Hero aloud: I can do what I want!
Insert massive make-out scene that gets interrupted by father.
Hero aloud: Meet me at my hotel at eight.
Later at hotel Hero and Heroine getting it on and right before anything good happens…
Heroine aloud: More!
Hero aloud: We have all night!
Heroine aloud: And for the rest of our married lives.
Hero freezes. All action stops.
Hero aloud: WTF?
Heroine aloud: But- but you told my father you wanted to marry me – that by marrying you, my brother would go free.
Heroine to self: Marrying you would be no hardship… meow.
Hero aloud: No I didn’t. My stupid moronic half-brother who’s going to be dumb enough to fly his helicopter into the sea in three chapters is going to marry you. I am the Sheik of the neighboring country and you’re a gold digging witch.
Which boils down to the Hero kidnapping Heroine upon arrival into his brother’s country for her ‘protection’ that then leads to the half-brother is dead news and of course this leads to the Hero saying, ‘Same deal. Marry me instead.’ Poor Heroine is confused but the sex clears her head and they decide to get married until she can’t go through with it unless he loves her (I totally thought it was going to be the whole I can’t have babies, because another neighboring sheik/wife couple showed up and the wife was pregnant). Hero tells Heroine he loves her. Heroine is happy, repeats the same sentiments. The end.
Honestly? Why are stories with Harlequin such a crap-shoot? Most times they’re just meh… average. Sometimes you get lucky and they’re great. However you’ll stumble upon one of these and are like WTF? Why am I still reading this BS? How did this get published?
Rating: 1 Star
Originally posted 2009-01-26 05:12:32. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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September 11th, 2009 — 1 Star, Africa, Book Review, Category, Contemporary, Estranged, Executive, Mistress or Courtesan, Rogues and Rakehells, S-U, Virgin Heroine
FYI: This is basically a rant review with spoilers.
Freya Addison once loved Zac Deverell with all her heart, but Zac was a billionaire playboy used to getting what he wanted when he wanted. After pursuing Freya, enticing her to first work as a stewardess on his yacht then seducing her into his bedroom he is both amused and bemused by how innocent she turned out to be. He persuades her to become his mistress and the little fool agrees. He breaks her heart three months later when she tells him that she's pregnant, by hotly denying it, calling her a two-timing gold digging whore and throwing her out of his penthouse.
Two years later Freya gets into a car wreck and her daughter Aimee is supposed to be in the care of Freya's grandmother. The grandmother is a heartless woman who only tolerated Freya in her life because of what the neighbors and little old bitties she hung out with would think. Freya's mother ran off years ago and hasn't been seen since and doesn't make an appearance in the book. The grandmother decides she's going on her world cruise, manages to find Zac Deverell at his London offices in the midst of a press conference and passes the baby along causing a scandal.
Zac is furious with Freya and the grandmother thinking they cooked this up on purpose. He doesn't blame the two year old baby and tries to temper his voice when he storms Freya's hospital room. He frogmarches Freya to do what he wants; which is to take her and Aimee to Monaco and getting a paternity test done so he can once and for all prove Freya the tramp that she is. Zac is highhanded, arrogant to the extreme, belligerent, and mean spirited. He takes great pleasure pursuing Freya for his pleasure while calling her names. Freya has no pride or self confidence and can't seem to ignore the passion he stirs in her blood. They have several intimate encounters, many leading to full blown sex.
When the child ends up being his he gives a two second apology and gets Freya to agree to marry him. We're about two thirds of the way through by now. This book is not that long... but of course he changes in the last like 3 pages, while appearing to exhibit no real changes.
From his side that we never see:
Doctors told him long ago he had 50% chance of holding the same gene. The disease wiped out his twin sisters before they were a year old. He vows never to have kids and gets a vasectomy. Then he finds out he's a daddy - is terrified but happy because his daughter hasn't shown signs of the disease his parents carried genes for. Goes to doctors and finds out there's a reliable test now to see if he carries the gene.
Meanwhile he wants to have sex with Freya all the time because he can't formulate his feelings and decides to show her by aggressively pursuing sex off and on (which she interprets as he wants me and now he doesn't all the while thinking in abject despair how is this ever going to work? and he's always intentionally hurtful and terse in his comments.)
Now we're at the end and he still hasn't got the results yet, but he suddenly can't go through with the wedding he insisted on. She thinks its because he doesn't want her and wants the woman who came up to her at a party and claimed to be his lover. Woman also said that whenever Zac told Freya he was working he was really with her playing.
When he hotly denies that Freya is all heartbroken AGAIN and tells him if he can't go through with until he tells her something she says she knows what it is and understands that he doesn't love her.
To which he then asks if she's an idiot (ok not really but still) and proceeds to finally open up and explain about the gene that he potentially was carrying and why he had a vasectomy in the first place yadda yadda and that he on some level knew he loved her which is why he was so furious when he thought she'd cheated on him two years ago with the street artist.
Kiss. Sex. Wedding. Epilogue. HEA.
I mean really what is this garbage? Don't read this.
Rating: 1 Star and only because sometimes the sex was decent.
Originally posted 2009-01-14 05:21:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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August 19th, 2009 — 1 Star, Book Review, Category, Counts, Marquis, Viscounts, Great Britain, M-O, Regency, Runaway, Travel, Writer
I have surprising little to say about this book. I really don't have anything extremely negative to point out against the story. Suffice it to say that this story did not capture me at all.
The writing style of The Viscount's Kiss
really left me feeling unconnected. That is not easily forgiven by me.
It's a shame really as I thought there were plenty of great plot elements in place. There was a well traveled but shy intellectual hero (which upon further reflection might have been part of the problem, it's hard to explain) and a mystery surrounding the heroine’s rapid departure from her previous position. I was almost certain of the reason behind her flight, but alas didn't stick around to find out.
I thought it was vaguely amusing that the hero's father was so certain of his son's non-interest in women as to worry about his sexuality but wouldn't read the book that the hero wrote on his travels and study of spiders which also apparently alluded to his sexual congress with native women of another country. Though this might not be so unsurprising as it seemed everyone in the novel knew of his book, his travels, and the scandal/gossip from his book but hadn't read it. That includes the heroine!
I tried to dig deeper into the book, but then thought who really wants to struggle like that? Not me! In the end I just wasn’t engaged and wound up closing the book on page 96. The book is 277 pages long.
Rating: 1 Star
Buy: The Viscount's Kiss
Buy on eHarlequin: The Viscount's Kiss
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June 24th, 2009 — 1 Star, Blind, Book Review, Contemporary, Cursed Lead, J-L, Older Woman/Younger Man, Paranormal, Supernatural, Teacher, United States of America, Writer
So far as a romance novel goes, Lucy Burns has the very broad requirements and none of the nuances. It ends happy. There is a guy. She ends up with him. The romance was nonexistent as no emotions or depth came across when I read it. The story primarily focuses on Lucy Burns finding salvation.
As a heroine, I wasn't particularly enchanted with her. I was unable to sympathize with Lucy past her little girl stage. She came across exactly as she thought of herself: shallow, empty, and not particularly kind or nice beyond the relationship with her neighbor, her neighbor's child, and Luke Marshall.
I suppose Lucy redeemed herself in the end, but I didn't really connect to those inner changes. She was obviously disenchanted with herself, her job working for the devil, and with people and life in general. There was no growth to her character.
Luke Marshall was vague as a hero. We learn he teaches creative writing at a university, is writing a manuscript based on his perception of Lucy Burns, and sings off key when drunk... oh and he's blind, which means he can't see the gorgeousness that is Lucy at all.
Things in the book that I didn't like at all:
- Lucy getting so wasted she urinated on herself in her hall closet during a Tupperware party. What romance novel could happen without that?
- Her pretty blasé attitude over an innocent man accidentally going to hell by walking down into her basement. If there was regret, it was a twinge and nothing more.
- Her blasé attitude over the coffee shop goth-girl (admittedly not the friendliest of people) finding herself going to hell by trying to escape the some unrobed KKK members by running down into the basement...
- Reading the lyrics/song titles of Teddy Nightingale and random excerpts from Luke's novel. One or the other happened in every chapter. It was overkill.
- The backdrop of two movies duking it out in theaters that also appeared every other chapter or so. The movies were Adoring JC (Jesus Christ) and Absolutely Adolf: What were you thinking?
Rating: 1 Stars
Buy: The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns
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April 16th, 2009 — 1 Star, 4 Stars, Book Review, Estranged, Farming, G-I, Gentry, Great Britain, Historical Romance, Mistress or Courtesan, Movie Reviews, Pregnant, Rape/Abuse, Rogues and Rakehells, Runaway, Secret Baby, Survival, Virgin Heroine
The movie: BBC 2008 v. staring Gemma Arterton, Eddie Redmayne, and Hans Matheson
I read this book in eighth grade at the urging of my English teacher who thought I would enjoy this book above all others he had offered up for students to read and on which to do a report. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Tess of D’Ubervilles was my first DNF (did not finish) ever. I learned how to speed read with this book. I learned out to read the bare minimum and still understand what was going on in the book.
I suppose it is meant to be one of the greatest love stories ever written but even watching the movie, a much condensed version, acted wonderfully makes me want to find the eight hundred plus page book and hurl it at a wall.
There is so much sadness in this story. Lots of spoilers; in fact I tell the whole story below:
Mr. D’Uberfield finds out he and his family are of noble blood and when things go badly on the farm sends Tess to speak with their rich relatives. Alec D’Ubervilles immediately lusts after her and offers her a position in his family’s home. At first opportunity he rapes her. Tess runs back home, pregnant from the event. The baby dies.
Tess goes off again to work as a dairy maid. There she meets Angel Clare and falls in love. He does too. They marry. He finds out about Alec and the baby and leaves her. For a year perhaps two I’m not quite sure but he stays away in South America.
Meanwhile Alec finds Tess again and pursues her like a dog after a bone. Tess writes to Angel begging his forgiveness and his help. Angel never got the letters but after surviving yellow fever goes back to England determined to find Tess. He searches and searches and follows Tess’ trail until finally he finds her as mistress/wife to the object of her downfall.
Tess tells Angel to go away and never return because she’s already dead. Brokenhearted all over again Tess turns and goes upstairs where after a confrontation with Alec she kills him with a bread knife. From there she runs to Angel’s side and tells him she’s murdered the man that has ruined her/them and now that she has can he forgive her and take her back. They run off together, find an empty home and for the first time he makes love to Tess.
When they are found by a servant they run off again. They stop at Stone Henge. Tess talks about dying. Tess begs him to take care of her family and marry her younger sister. He begs her not to ask this of him. They fall asleep.
Upon waking they are surrounded by law enforcement agents. There is no escape. The story ends Angel and her younger sister wait outside the city where the bell tolls Tess’ execution.
Book: 1 Stars because the story is completely terrible and angst driven. There’s no happiness to be found not even in Tess and Angel’s stolen moments.
Buy Book: Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Buy Audio Version: Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Mini-Series: 4 Stars… the acting, scenery, and script are all perfectly executed. Gemma makes a lovely Tess, you really feel for her. Eddie is perfect as Angel, beautiful, sweet, kind, loving. Alec could not have been betters played by anyone. Hans does a phenomenal job. He’s easy to despise; playing the entitled gentleman who thinks little beyond his own pleasures so adeptly.
Buy Mini-Series: Tess of the d'Urbervilles
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April 8th, 2009 — 1 Star, Acting, Contemporary, G-I, Guest Reviews, Journalism, United States of America
By: Cara Lynn, guest reviewer
Some Nerve by Jane Heller promised to be an interesting book, but it turned out to be less than I had hoped for.
The cover looked intriguing, but alas, the story could have been summed up in about 10 pages.
Plus it is quite dated, printed in 2006, and opening with Britney Spears pregnant with her first child. It shows how careful one should be in including various trivia, even if the book is about the fictional Ann Roth, who writes about celebrities.
When Roth's boss demands she go for the main man, the big get, Malcolm Goddard who refuses all interviews and thinks the worst of interviewers to the stars, she has every intention of being the killer journalist her boss expects.
Alas, she is afraid to fly. Goddard knows this too and says he will accept the interview only if she does it aboard his plane.
She can't do it.
She is fired and goes back to her family, where Goddard ends up hospitalized to avoid the paparazzi. She, in turn, decides to become a candy striper in order to get close to him and get a story.
Of course, they fall in love. Goddard doesn't recognize her. She doesn't tell him at all. He thinks she is honest. She wishes she were. Someone sends her story, not her. But all ends well in the end.
There is humor, some laughs out loud, but for the most part this book details again and again and again and...you get the idea...about her fear(s). I ended up skipping huge sections of it except for a sentence here and there.
And there are some decidedly unlikeable characters and situations in the book.
I give it a 1.
I will read at least one more of her books.
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Originally posted 2008-07-10 05:18:22. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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March 27th, 2009 — 1 Star, Amnesia, Book Review, Category, Great Britain, Historical Romance, M-O, Memory Loss
There are few books that I can’t finish reading. The Anonymous Miss Addams is one that list. Some books make you question how publishing companies work and this is one of them. In two words I can sum up the whole of the book: utter drivel. I have no idea how it got published or why somebody didn’t put a halt to production once the cover was done. The cover to this novel is by far the best thing about the book.
Pierre Standish is a male lead that you’d sooner laugh at then swoon at. Pierre is a fop, pure and simple. He carries a hanky and it’s scented. His diction is by far the worst aspect of his character. He talks like a pansy and acts like one in my opinion. Pierre is definitely a turn off.
Miss Addams is annoying for no other purpose than to be annoying. She lost her memory after taking a spill in the road. Lucky for her she managed to escape into the road when she did or she’d have been killed by her pursuer. Money is involved of course, but the exact reasons why killing her will make the two plotters rich is beyond me. I could not be bothered to find out.
Their first kiss was short and dispassionate with slightly witty dialog bracketing it. She can’t eat unless he’s not perfect and looks human and he can’t eat until he feels human. The plot should have picked up since this is about halfway through the book, but it didn’t. It tried and failed with the mother of her attacker (one of the two plotters) protects her in a shoe store from a man hell bent on kissing her (who is the same man who tried to kill her earlier.)
That ‘kind’ act is rewarded with an offer for the position of companion as Miss Addams thinks to use this woman to protect her from Pierre. But since Pierre is so unmanly in my opinion it’s hardly worth the effort to write it out let alone read.
Rating: 1 Star
Originally posted 2008-11-28 23:15:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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