Review Mashup!

I have been so out of the loop over the past week and a half! Sorry for going totally MIA on everyone. My profs decided it would be a wonderful week to slam everyone with tons of material. I haven't even been checking my blogger feed :p I did somehow manage to squeeze in some reading, so to make up for my disappearance I'm just posting a sort of review mash up of what I was up to.  And Happy Belated V-Day everyone!

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean

I’ve heard great things about this series, and with the final installment coming out fairly soon, I decided to check this out of my local library. While I did enjoy it immensely, I didn’t feel it lived up to all the hype.

I think my biggest problem with the book was Callie’s complete and total disregard for her personal safety and well being. She was an intelligent female, but then she would do things (like sneaking around at night alone) that made me wonder where all that good sense had gone. It was so unrealistic that nothing bad happened to her, and that kept pulling me out of the story. (Not that I wanted something bad to happen! I just wanted her to take care of herself.) Also some of the situations seemed too contrived to me, such as Ralston ALWAYS being where she happens to sneak off to. London wasn’t that small of a place.

The second half of the book was much better to me. I felt like that was where Callie really began to come out of her shell. It was especially fun when items on her list began to be completed in unexpected ways. Despite my complaints, I did enjoy the book in the end and think it deserves 4 stars.

Nine Rules to Break sets up well for the rest of the series, in particular Juliana’s book (the one which is going to be released soon). She was a fun character, and the tension has already been set up between her and the Duke of Leighton. I don’t know if this is furthered in the next book in the series, but I hope to read it soon to find out.

The Truth About Lord Stoneville by Sabrina Jeffries

Like with Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, the release of a book spurred me to go back and start a series. Also, I’m a big fan of Sabrina Jeffries, in particular her Heiress series. She’s my go to author for a light, fun, historical read.

While The Truth About Lord Stoneville had all the elements of Jeffries’ style that I love, the book just didn’t work for me. Almost all of my issues can be isolated to Oliver. He seemed to have some real problems in the logic department. Because he was torn apart as a child watching his parents fight because of his father’s infidelities, he believes a marriage with children should be faithful. However, later he refuses to promise fidelity because it’s “just not in his nature”, but is still ok with getting hitch and having kids. Wtf? For most of the book I just found him annoying. He clearly believes everything his father did was wrong, but is so busy repeating those mistakes (often hurting Maria in the process) that he just came off as a hypocrite to me. Even if it’s unintentional, he’s constantly rubbing in her face how much of a womanizer he is.

I did like Maria very much. She wasn’t weak willed and was very resilient. Her cousin Freddy was a great addition too, even if he was rather two dimensional. 3 stars, and I can’t wait to read more of this series.

A Pirate’s Possession by Michelle Beattie

I’m not the biggest fan of pirate romances, but when I do go for them, I generally need them to be the over the top swashbuckling type, not the sappy, humorous secondary character type. This just wasn’t the sort of book for me.

I found Vincent, Nate’s second mate, to be a very distracting character. A dwarf pirate who was trying to prove his manhood was one thing, but he was so gabby and “get in touch with your emotions” that it got annoying and clashed with being a pirate.

I felt like a lot of Nate and Claire’s Big Misunderstandings could have been more easily resolved. It was utterly obvious that they were not on the same page about why they were mad at each other, and I felt like one of them would have said something revealing while they were busy sniping at each other. However, the dialog was carefully crafted to keep them both in the dark until the Big Reveal could later be used as a plot point.

I enjoyed the action scenes though. They were well written and propelled the plot forward while it lagged romantically. The fight scenes were some of the best I’ve read in a romance novel. I kind of wish they had been attacked more. 2 out of 5 stars.