Entries Tagged '0.5 Stars' ↓
March 20th, 2010 — 0.5 Stars, Arabia/Middle East, Arranged/Forced Marriage, Book Review, Category, Contemporary, Estranged, Great Britain, Interracial, Kings, Princes, Sheiks, Chiefs, Mistaken Identity, S-U, Secret Baby, Sheik/Desert, The Arts, Travel
I found this book to be an absolutely awful read. It’s one of those romances that if your non-romance reading friend were to pick it up they could use just about everything in it to prove their point on why romance is garbage. No—seriously it’s true…
Lucy Benson is in debt up to her eyeballs. The bank has pulled out it’s financial backing for her plan to renovate Westbury and now she has to deal with creditors and contractors she’d already hired and had start working on the castle. When Kahl (just call me Kahl) shows up she assumes he’s one of them. He doesn’t correct her.
She tells him her sob story and how she plans to pay everyone back, never knowing he was the reason why the bank pulled out of their deal. Then he proceeds to take advantage of Lucy in what amounts to a one night stand. The next day he leaves her before she wakes up and leaves her with no way to contact him. He also leaves her pregnant because he’s a dumbass and chose not to use protection.
When Lucy unexpectedly runs into Kahl again in Abadan she’s surprised and amazed that he’s Sheikh Kahlil and also insanely worried he’s somehow found out about Edward. Very quickly he puts two and two together and jumps to the most illogical conclusion – Lucy must be a gold digging whore who planned it from the beginning! (Okay so not in those exact words, but the meaning was just the same.)
He forces her into marriage and Lucy proves how idiotic she truly is by feeling guilty that Kahlil never saw Edward go through a lot of his firsts. WHAT? Why? The guy is an irredeemable asshole who even now is threatening her with legal action to take away Edward, won’t let her leave his country, and still thinks she’s an immoral woman who is completely unacceptable as the future queen of his country. Feeling guilty over his irresponsible misbegotten behavior? Puh-lease.
The 180 flip in the last ten pages didn’t do anything to redeem Kahl in my mind.
Rating: 0.5 Stars
Buy: The Sheikh's Captive Bride
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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
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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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May 20th, 2009 — 0.5 Stars, Book Review, Contemporary, Erotica, G-I, United States of America
I’m going to start off and say that this was a Did Not Finish for me. If it was a print book I would have thrown it at the wall. My biggest problem is the heroine. I just don’t get her. I can’t wrap my mind around a person willing to be that submissive to somebody else especially when humiliation and degradation is involved. The heroine infuriated me to the point where I was ready to grab all the reading material I could find on feminism and start up a local chapter.
As for the sexual content, I was warned by the author, but still I wasn’t prepared. I like to think I’m fairly open-minded when it comes to BDSM and the whole kinky sex scene but I draw the line at urination (which is mentioned as something the couple did in the past). Additionally as a heterosexual woman I was not at all interested in reading about the heroine’s submission under a woman (not once but at least twice with hints of future contact with Dom Blade) because her husband wanted to see it done. All in all the content wasn’t even close to be erotic for me.
Warning: STRONG BDSM, spanking, rope bondage, group sex w/ a single female, F/F & M/F scenes, public sex, voyeurism, domination, submission, side characters telling tales of sex parties, feasts, a girl who is and just wants to be Cunt the dog, etc.
The blurb on the site makes you think you’re getting into a fun sexy story about a married couple looking to explore their sexual horizons. I thought I was in for "Leslie has no clue about the BDSM, Phillip her husband wants to try it out," but oh no-no…. not even close. Leslie and Phillip have been doing lots of BDSM and Leslie isn’t shocked she’s trained for it.
Meanwhile, readers get to enjoy a creepy pervert called Vincent. He’s strongly attracted to Leslie’s innocence as it were and wants to truly break her in all the way. He’s basically a stalker, identifiable to blinded (by a blindfold) Leslie by rank smell. I’m sure this comes to a head later but I couldn’t make myself read any further.
Rating: 0.5 Stars
Buy: Blind Seduction
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March 26th, 2009 — 0.5 Stars, Guest Reviews, J-L, Paranormal, Pilot, Survival
By: Cara Lynn, guest reviewer
I wasn't going to review this book, but figured, what the hey!
First, I didn't like the book.
Island Heat by Susan Kearney had a lot of possibilities. I figured it would have some military tones as the guy on the cover looks like he could be military.
He is, but he's from another planet.
OK, that could be seriously interesting. Sort of like time travel with a twist. After all, they are more advanced than us and had to travel a long time to get here.
But while the author maintains the fantasy with words she has made up, like 'quait' for the ability to mentally influence the actions of another, or like 'underfirst' to delineate all those who aren't Firstborn, the story is unpalatable in parts.
Cade Archer literally falls into the sea in front of Shara Weston's remote island retreat. His ship is destroyed, but he falls without a parachute and recovers faster than you'd expect. That is because he isn't strictly human. He is able to use this power to save himself and those that are with him as he is avoiding being murdered.
It's all tied into the story of the underfirsts needing salt to gain their strength. (She develops this nicely.) On his planet, only the Firstborn are given salt. This also gives them their quait which they use in horrific ways, basically enslaving the underfirsts. (You never see life on this planet, only as told by Cade as the story unfolds or as you see actions of his Firstborn brother, Jamal.)
Cade is shot down by Jamal who is dead set on killing him however he has to do it. Cade had thought his mission was secret, but somehow Jamal knew.
Throw in a psychic who has real powers to foresee the future, some of which can be changed by one's actions, and a reporter, and a volcano expert, and a security officer, and you have a story that could have been quite interesting.
But Jamal has a malicious streak a mile wide as is shown off page when he kills a Polynesian woman he has taken and 'trained' -- but not trained so well that she doesn't try to exhibit her individuality. The more troubling scenes are the sadistic ones involving mental (and physical) rape, torture and blood that he is capable of. And that he takes pleasure in it even though he already has the information he was seeking.
Of course Cade and Shara fall in love. Jamal is killed (I expected him to recover and the scene to go on). Cade finds he gains quait powers, even as Jamal's powers diminish slightly, but Cade is disturbed by his powers knowing how it corrupts the user, and asks that Shara kill him after his mission, if necessary. And the earth is saved.
There were huge sections of this book that I glossed over or went back to see what happened without taking it in.
I give it a 1/2 star. But for originality, it could be a 2. But I'd even take some of that away because of the troubling scenes. They make you think how you would be able to break a mind hold, or if you would be able to. Like hypnotism, is it not something that you could decide NOT to go under? Evidently not. Ugh.
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Originally posted 2008-11-26 09:52:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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March 22nd, 2009 — 0.5 Stars, Blackmail, Contemporary, Erotica, Guest Reviews, J-L, Journalism, Mistress or Courtesan, Plump/Endowed Heroine, Politician, United States of America
By: Sasha Muradali, guest reviewer
Jamaica Layne’s “A Capitol Affair” is a underdeveloped, ghastly excuse for erotic literature that glamorizes sloppy, whorish women as independent, strong and calculated.
As a person who rarely reads romance, let alone erotica-romance, I was unimpressed and, at times, disgusted.
I initially thought this would be the story to bring me over to the juicy-side: a PR-girl, a Washington scandal, romance and drama.
From the frigid sex that overtly describe bodily fluids, to plot holes, to random characters pulled out of a magician’s hat (like Dexter, the hero’s estranged relative), “A Capitol Affair” is lacking in more ways than one.
It’s a wonder one can get through reading the first 50-pages without rubbing their chin in confusion and speculation.
Not to mention the fact that I highly doubt most public relations professionals (and Ms. Layne get it right, in politics, it’s called public affairs) would stoop as low as to sleep with a magazine editor for their kinky, slob of a boss.
It’s a very possible, just not probable story.
The plot holes and lack of continuity start at the very beginning when the heroine, Jasmine, a frumpy, overweight public affairs director not only says she is under-sexed, but she implies she’s not the most outgoing of women in that department.
She proceeds to relieve herself in the bathroom thinking of a man, Rodney Doyle, our hero, that she’s never met.
Said man, and subject of her infatuation, agrees to have a meeting with Jasmine to discuss her boss, Sen. Grayle’s, indiscretions.
Jasmine proposes sex to Mr. Doyle – a little out of the ordinary and out of character for a woman sex deprived and seemingly shy, I would think.
During this same meeting, Doyle offers Jasmine a drink, of which she refuses claiming she doesn’t enjoy the stuff.
Yet, we see a few pages down the line, and a date with Doyle later, Jasmine chugging two cosmos like a first-week freshman, boozed-sorority girl, fainting, feeling light-headed and ready to spread eagle for a stranger.
And since when was eating meat off someone’s body, like a dog to its bowl, sexy?
Just as I started relishing the feeling of the meat on my skin, however, Rodney leaned over and began to nibble tiny bites of the fillet. The meat moved slightly with each bite he took, creating damp feathery sensations that sent warm prickles all over my belly. He ate slowly and deliberately to maximize the pleasure the food gave us. When it was finally gone, Rodney lapped up the ginger sauce that had adhered to my skin; making sure to spread it around with his tongue so I could get the most of the tingling sensations from the raw ginger root. A wonderful melty feeling headed straight for my pussy.
Needless to say, I laughed, then cringed and Ms. Layne, ‘melty’ isn’t a real word.
As the novel progressed, I began to wonder if Jasmine had any self-respect at all or if Ms. Layne was simply trying to appeal her novel of sloshing juices to men, rather than women.
I won’t touch the ginger sauce sending electric shots through her body theme. But I will say, better she just screwed a ginger root and called it a night. I was waiting for our heroine to roll over like a dog in heat and howl.
The novel speaks for itself, and if erotica tickles your fancy, perhaps check out Lora Leigh or something published by LitErotica.
I don’t think even the wickedly adventurous Miss_Figg (and all you fan fiction junkies out there know who I’m talking about) would approve of this capitol mess.
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February 1st, 2009 — 0.5 Stars, Book Review, Counts, Marquis, Viscounts, Estranged, Gambling, Great Britain, Historical Romance, J-L, Rape/Abuse, Scarred Hero, Suspense/Thriller
I have been reading The Price of Desire by Jo Goodman these last few days and at 200 pages in I knew it was going to be a disaster. This review contains a lot of spoilers so be warned. I think many readers will find it helpful to read the spoilers as the book is very dark and angsty when everything else about the book leads one to think it’s going to be a fun story. The back is titillating and gives no clue to what’s really inside the book. Real quick it goes something like this: Alastair has promised his sister Olivia to Griffin to pay off his gambling debts and both Olivia and Griffin take the biggest gamble on each other.
Before I learned more about the characters past I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. At 200 pages in they've shared one kiss. Overall it’s been very slow reading as the heroine is very withdrawn and so is the hero. While at 200 pages in it's no longer at the painful level to read and be witness to their story it certainly is not as engaging as it could be and there's already been a settling of a 1000 pound debt (mainly the brother handing Olivia over to the hero), attempted rape (by some drunk in the hell that came upon her room), a fire (that started during the attempted rape- she gets him in the end by nearly strangling him to death with a towel), and confrontation with the delinquent brother (after he fails to get the funds to release her from the hero's care). In any case, I can tell the hero cares somewhat, but the emotional exchange between the two is so dry that there's hardly any connection.
At 350 pages in, they’ve exchanged bodily fluids and words of love and we come to learn a lot about Olivia and this is where it gets me. I’m sorry but I read romances to enjoy myself and get a few moments to escape reality. Nothing about Olivia’s past is enjoyable. Beyond the attempted rape scene from before we learn that Olivia was raped in her past. As if that weren’t bad enough her father ‘played’ with her when she was younger than six years old a ‘touching’ game. When the nanny brought this to the attention of Olivia’s stepmother, Olivia gets sent to a boarding school for young girls where priests tortured the girls as punishment for small infractions by sitting/standing on seatless chairs. Somehow her father reaches the school to continue his sick game and rapes his daughter all part of his and a few other men’s game and setup involving carriages and gifts. Olivia between ages 6-12 was used and it only stopped because she started her menstruation cycle. The following is in her own words…
“I was not his only little girl, I knew that. But I also knew I was his favorite… He gave me to them, Griffin. He sent me to them when it pleased him to do so. To sit at their table while they played cards, to deal for them as I’d been taught, perform on command, and later… as any one of them was struck by a fancy… I was a present on some occasions… his marker on others.”
Needless to say this book has a rating of 0.5 Stars. I don’t know anyone who’d willing read any further once they got to that revelation. As for me I closed the book and started writing this post. It was too much trauma, perversion, and sickness of the mind to deal with and I certainly didn’t want to keep thinking about it. Hopefully Olivia wins happiness in the end, the girl clearly deserves it, but I just didn’t want to dwell on the matter any more. I blame the publishers for letting a novel like this hit the shelves.
Originally posted 2008-10-03 06:48:19. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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