Genre: Romance

Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter (Book Review)

Posted May 3, 2012 by Jana in Adult Fiction, Book Review / 4 Comments

Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter (Book Review)Me and Mr. Darcy by Alexandra Potter
Published by Ballantine Books on June 12, 2007
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
Source: Gift
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After a string of disastrous dates, Emily Albright decides she’s had it with modern-day love and would much rather curl up with Pride and Prejudice and spend her time with Mr. Darcy, the dashing, honorable, and passionate hero of Jane Austen’s classic. So when her best friend suggests a wild week of margaritas and men in Mexico with the girls, Emily abruptly flees to England on a guided tour of Jane Austen country instead. Far from inspiring romance, the company aboard the bus consists of a gaggle of little old ladies and one single man, Spike Hargreaves, a foul-tempered journalist writing an article on why the fictional Mr. Darcy has earned the title of Man Most Women Would Love to Date.

The last thing Emily expects to find on her excursion is a broodingly handsome man striding across a field, his damp shirt clinging to his chest. But that’s exactly what happens when she comes face-to-face with none other than Mr. Darcy himself. Suddenly, every woman’s fantasy becomes one woman’s reality. . . .

I love Jane Austen spin-offs. I think we’ve all figured this out by now. Because I love them so much, they can easily disappoint me at the same time, which is what happened here. This was on of those “meh” books, and actually the book that inspired my 3-Star rating explanation over on my sidebar. Sometimes that’s really the only word I can come up with when someone asks me how I liked a book.

1. It was a slow, basic, fluffy plot that was perfect for a leisurely day of summer reading. There was not a lot to it, and I got through it pretty quickly. This is not always a bad thing, as I enjoy having a lighter book to just enjoy every once in a while!

2. Emily’s gaggle of old lady friends were hilariously dramatic as they toured the English countryside.  Some of these women were fun to read about, and some of them bothered me a little. Some were just downright laugh-out-loud funny. They formed a pretty strong bond with Emily in the short amount of time they had, though, so I got to know and like them at about the same pace that Emily did. They were always concerned about her, and treated her like a granddaughter, which I thought was cute.

3. Mr. Darcy does make an appearance in the book a few times, but I didn’t like it very much. I’m not sure if it was a cut in the fabric of time, Emily’s mindless daydreams, or visions from a higher power, but the two of them had innocent encounters throughout the course of the book. Nobody saw him but Emily, so she was viewed as being a bit crazy whenever she mentioned seeing him. Seriously, why would you continue talking about meeting Mr. Darcy if nobody else saw him? I mean, does she want to come off as crazy?4. Mr. Darcy bugged me. He was not my Mr. Darcy, and came off as selfish and cocky. I think that’s why this book left me feeling “meh”. I love this guy, and I think the author of this book decided that people like him too much. I don’t have skewed views about men because of Mr. Darcy, but I do appreciate him and enjoy thinking about finding someone similar (thank you, BBC).  I left this book not liking Mr. Darcy, and I was not happy about that.

4. The writing was done well, and the story idea was cute. I was just not extremely fond of the execution or the characterization.

I recommend this to readers who enjoy Jane Austenesque novels, but don’t mind if Mr. Darcy is thrown under the bus a little!

Mr. Darcy Forever by Victoria Connelly (Book Review)

Posted March 19, 2012 by Jana in Adult Fiction, Book Review / 4 Comments

Mr. Darcy Forever by Victoria Connelly (Book Review)Mr. Darcy Forever by Victoria Connelly
Series: Austen Addicts #3
Also in this series: Dreaming of Mr. Darcy
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark on April 1, 2012
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Pages: 336
Source: Publisher (Netgalley)
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Sisters are forever...

Sisters Sarah and Mia Castle haven't spoken for three years but they're about to meet again at the Jane Austen Festival in Bath. But what was it that drove them apart and can the magic of Jane Austen help bring them back together again?

(While this is book #3 in a series, I contacted the author and she said each novel is a standalone, and they can be read out of order.)

I love, love, love Jane Austen spin-offs. I’ve read quite a few, including book #2 in this series, Dreaming of Mr. Darcy. While it was not my favorite book, it was definitely cute and worth the read. I was excited to read this next book. And look at that darling cover! While I did not enjoy it as much as Dreaming of Mr. Darcy, and it bothered me in a few places, this book ended up leaving me with a few warm fuzzies and a smile. As always, my main points are bolded. :)

1. The story is actually kind of boring until about 60% of the way through the book, when things pick up and really get interesting. We’ve got flashbacks to when the sisters parted ways mixed in with the present day at a Jane Austen festival in Bath. Most of the present-day scenes are combinations of 2 or 3 people talking about stuff, but it all happens in different places and at different times. I felt like I was reading the same story multiple times: Sarah talking to Lloyd, Mia talking to Gabe, and Mia talking to Shelley, not to mention what is going on in Sarah and Mia’s minds.Plus, we see it all happen in the flashback as well. It was a bit overkill for me. But then at 60%, things pick up and progress is made. The characters begin to open up and move forward, whereas before it was all talk of the past. The mood gets a bit lighter, and more enjoyable… even funny in some places.

2. Sarah bothers me a bit. She has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which is totally fine. I have it… my sister has it. It’s fine. But seriously. There is SO much OCD talk. Sarah and her love interest bond and essentially fall in love because they both have it. Everything Sarah does is “because of OCD.” It is talked about so much, that it ends up being another character in the book. We had Sarah, Lloyd, Mia, Shelley, Gabe, and Sarah’s OCD. I got tired of hearing about it.

The matter-of-fact, and sometimes sarcastic way that OCD was discussed made me feel like the disorder was made out to be something funny and quirky, not a serious thing. This story is written as if Sarah enjoys having it. She sits and talks about it, and laughs. She’s happy she has found someone else who suffers from it too. I was really bothered by it, and got to the point where I skimmed over all mentions of OCD. Maybe I’m just extra sensitive because I have struggled with this same thing for most of my life, but it just really rubbed me the wrong way.

3. I really disliked Sarah’s sister, Mia, and Mia’s friend, Shelley, in the beginning. They were obnoxious, self-centered and immature, throwing themselves at whoever, whenever they please. If someone is married, who cares? If someone is not interested, who cares? And then if they happen to see someone they dislike, they either hide in plain sight and act completely amazed when they are spotted, or they run away through the streets crying their eyes out and mentally channeling some Jane Austen character, asking for advice. Drama. Over the top drama. However, towards the end they both seem to grow up all of a sudden. We are given insights into Mia’s past, and we get to see Shelley as a very nurturing and concerned best friend. I ended up really liking both of them by the end. And Shelley’s dog, Bingley, is hilarious. I really love that dog, and his silly mannerisms and habits.

4. I really enjoyed the descriptions of the cute town of Bath. I would love to visit someday. The author put me right there in the middle of it all.

5. The present-day romance that both sisters experience after so much pain in their past is refreshing and sweet. Both girls have been through a lot, so I enjoyed reading about them falling in love. And I really like both guys, and kind of wish I had one too!

Overall, this was a cute little contemporary, sometimes cheesy, romance that took a while to get going, but ended up warming my heart. I did not love it as much as Dreaming of Mr. Darcy, but I still enjoyed it and think it was worth the read. This book focuses on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, so don’t be expecting a P&P spin-off based on the title! Now I need to go read the first one, A Weekend with Mr. Darcy!

The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum (Mini Book Review)

Posted March 18, 2012 by Jana in Book Review, Young Adult Fiction / 4 Comments

The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum (Mini Book Review)The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum
Series: The Hourglass Door #1
Published by Shadow Mountain on May 1, 2009
Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Format: Hardcover
Source: Purchased
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Abby's senior year of high school is going according to plan: good friends, cute boyfriend, and college applications in the mail. But when Dante Alexander, foreign-exchange student from Italy, steps into her life, he turns it upside down. He's mysterious, and interesting, and unlike anyone she's ever met before. Abby can't deny the growing attraction she feels for him. Nor can she deny the unusual things that seem to happen when Dante is around. Soon Abby finds herself drawn into a mystery whose roots reach into sixteenth-century Florence, and she uncovers a dangerous truth that threatens not only her future but the lives of those she loves.

Wow! I loved this book so much that I finished it in less than 24 hours. Lisa Mangum’s writing style is beautiful. I found myself re-reading passages because they were incredibly captivating and magical. She described everything in such intricate detail and left me feeling like I was actually there. The plot is extremely interesting and mysterious. It had the potential of being extremely confusing, but Lisa wrote it in a way that every detail was explained, leaving no stone left unturned. And her take on time and time travel is original and exciting. I loved reading about it.

Dante is a swoon-worthy love interest. I mean, he’s Italian… and he’s romantic, and he’s been around for quite a while. He’s got a very interesting past, including being Leonardo Da Vinci’s apprentice. His concern for Abby is sweet, not obsessive or stalkerish. The love story between the two of them is slow and believable, and beautiful. You can just feel them fall in love, and I savored every minute of it.

I really only have one complaint: several of the characters speak to Abby in Italian and there’s no translation anywhere. I had to have my laptop with me so I could translate the lines. Let me just say right now free internet translations frequently make no sense.

I read this series as the books came out. I was one of the first in line for this book, and each one in the series ends in quite a cliffhanger! Well, except for the last. Haha. All three books are out now, though, and all three are favorites of mine. This is one of my very favorite romance stories, and I definitely think you should read it if you’re looking for an exciting, romantic, time traveling story with a mysterious Italian inventor and the modern-day girl he sweeps off her feet. The world they explore together is unique, intriguing, a little dangerous, and utterly magical.

Truly, Madly, Deeply, You by Cecilia Robert (Book Review)

Posted March 10, 2012 by Jana in Adult Fiction, Book Review / 3 Comments

Truly, Madly, Deeply, You by Cecilia Robert (Book Review)Truly, Madly, Deeply, You by Cecilia Robert
Series: Truly Madly #1
Published by Inkspell Publishing on March 21, 2012
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Pages: 82
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher (Mail)
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Four days before Valentine’s Day, Liese Hansfeld is determined to shut the door to her house, as well as her heart, for her annual four days of mourning her one true love. Little does she know her best friend Freytag Meier is just as determined to keep her from her ritual. He’s ready to pick the lock to her apartment door and camp in her living room if that’s what it takes.

What Freytag isn’t prepared for is the surge of deep-rooted emotions he feels for Liese, but two things stand in his way: the grief and guilt she still clutches close to her heart, and a man who threatens to snatch Liese from under Frey’s watchful eye. Frey is determined to distract her into forgetting her pain. But is that enough to ease her grief, or help her see he can be more than her best friend?

I was intrigued by the summary of this book. I don’t have a ton to say about it, though. Haha. It was a bit diappointing, and there really was not much to it. It was just ok in my book. As always, my main points are bolded. :)

1. I’m not a huge fan of Liese. Every year she spends the four days before Valentine’s in a state of intense depression. She will see nobody. She lays in bed, has extreme nightmares, cries a lot, refuses to eat (and gets really weak), takes antidepressants that make her really weird, and relives past events over and over again. This year, Frey has decided to intervene and spend the whole time with her to help her through. Seriously. This girl has no personality, is extremely melodramatic, and really has no redeeming qualities. We find out about 90% of the way through exactly what happened to her, and it’s completely heartbreaking. It’s not something I can begin to comprehend. But really, I was tired of her self-destructive ways and was really hoping there was more to the book than that.

2. I got really tired of reading about how tiny and frail Liese is. Every time she showed a glimmer of sadness, Frey scooped her up/picked her up/set her on his lap/put his leg over her so she could not get up. Frey says she “weighs about as much as a kitten”. And “her tiny fingers” held on to his. She’s wounds like a little girl. If she’s sleepy, he carries her. If she’s medicated, he carries her. Honestly, this girl is not a china doll! I wish she had been portrayed as a strong woman who could go on with life. This, combined with her depression and self-destruction made me really annoyed. Yes, she went through something absolutely terrible. But those things are supposed to make us stronger! I wish we had been given a sense of hope. This book could have been inspirational, motivating, encouraging. It fell completely flat.

3. I wish Liese had some character development. It’s like there was no point to reading about her journey, because this journey never ended up taking us anywhere.

4. I’m not sure how I feel about Frey. There were times I thought he was way too good for her, and there were times he creeped me out a bit. He’s extremely sweet and attentive. He was there to comfort her and drag her out of her mopey time. He was very understanding and patient. If she had a nightmare, he was there to help her go back to sleep. I’d love a friend like that, whom I could depend on. But… he was also very smothering and would not let her make her own decisions. He forced his way in to her house when she just wanted to be alone. He treated her like a 5-year-old. He stood outside the door to her room and heard her having a nightmare, so he ran down to the front desk in his underwear and lied in order to get a key to her room so he could climb in bed with her. She woke up really confused. That’s creepy, and I hope no hotel I ever stay in just hands out random keys to random rooms to random people. Finally, he takes advantage of her during a painful time, daring her to kiss him because he thinks she can’t do a good job… and then saying he doesn’t mind if she kisses him for the wrong reasons. My. Gosh.

5. The story literally went nowhere. Luckily it was short, because nothing happened. I can’t even identify the story’s climax. There was a lot of repetition: lots of crying, nightmares, moping, re-hashing the past, etc. And nothing is really resolved. There was not even a real love story. It just ended where it began.

To sum things up: I really liked the idea of the story. I was hoping for a book that would portray a woman who had been through something terrible, but was picking up the pieces and learning to survive. However, I feel like I wasted my time on a story that went nowhere, taught me nothing, and left me worn out.

(Disclaimer: If anyone has gone through what Liese has gone through, I am in no way minimizing your pain. I feel awful for anyone who has suffered anything like this, and I can only imagine that it’s the worst thing to ever experience. I just got tired of reading about it over and over, with absolutely no character development and no real plot. I was just hoping for something more than what I was given.)

Gentlemen Prefer Nerds by Joan Kilby (Book Review)

Posted March 9, 2012 by Jana in Adult Fiction, Book Review / 6 Comments

Gentlemen Prefer Nerds by Joan Kilby (Book Review)Gentlemen Prefer Nerds by Joan Kilby
Published by Carina Press on March 12, 2012
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance, Suspense
Pages: 250
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher (Netgalley)
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Self-professed nerd Maddie Maloney is an expert on jewels. Jewel thieves are another matter entirely! So when a mysterious Englishman warns her that a thief known as The Chameleon is after the rare pink diamond on display in her aunt's shop, she tells herself it's just a joke. Even if she can't get Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome out of her mind...

But Fabian Montgomery doesn't give up easily. He's everywhere she goes, convinced the thief will strike. And when the diamond does go missing - and Maddie is suspected of stealing it - he whisks her away from the police and together they pursue The Chameleon.

Fabian plunges her into a glamorous world far from her humble workshop and transforms geeky Maddie into a sophisticated siren capable of espionage. Her mission: to seduce The Chameleon and steal back the diamond.

But Fabian isn't telling her everything - like who he works for, and why he's so interested in The Chameleon...

I love mysteries with a touch of suspense, and I could tell immediately from the description that I would enjoy this book. What surprised me the most, though, was the comedic element the author threw in. This book was so funny, in addition to being suspenseful and romantic. I had a lot of fun reading this, and am excited to share with you my favorite elements of the book! As always, my main points are bolded. :)

1. I love this title! I’m a total nerd, so I was immediately drawn in by the hilarious title, attractive gentleman, and the bright yellow.

2. The book surprised me by taking place in Australia! I’ve never read a book that took place there, so I really enjoyed all the descriptions of the scenery. Part of the book takes place in a resort town by the beach during the weekend of a sailboat gala. I loved reading about all the boats and the people. It sounded so quaint and romantic. I just loved it.

3. Maddie, a self-proclaimed nerd with a PhD in gemology (I believe? Or is it mineralogy?), is such a fun character. She really is the stereotypical nerd, with the eclectic non-sense of fashion and the gem smarts. Her nerdliness is interrupted by Fabian, an extremely attractive and mysterious Englishman who whisks her away to retrieve the stolen diamond, save her from jail, and protect her aunt’s reputation. Right at the beginning as they are running from the police, all she can think about is her sweet cat, and what will happen to it while she’s away. A girl after my own heart. Fabian turns her into a sexy glamazon, and she’s totally against it. She fights him every step of the way. He sends her to a day spa, and her account of the happenings there had me laughing out loud. She got burned in the sauna, almost drowned in the mineral pool, etc. The daunting task of seducing The Chameleon lies ahead of her, and she goes on and on about how impossible that will be. She even has to practice her seduction skills! Her spunk and quick wit created a really fun contrast to the serious businessman, Fabian.

4. I love it when the geeky girl nabs the attractive James Bond type. Fabian is totally the sexy, mysterious foreigner with a carefully concealed past and a lot of baggage. I love how he feels this need to put on a hardened facade, when in reality he’s laughing at Maddie and falling for her on the inside.You can tell he cares, but wishes he didn’t. She tugs at his heartstrings, and I think it’s so sweet to watch the inner turmoil he goes through as she pushes him outside his comfort zone.

5. The romance is a slow burn, and a minimal part of the story. It really was hate at first sight with these two. Fabian is a major inconvenience to Maddie, following her around, bothering her, making her do things she doesn’t want to do. Maddie is Fabian’s pain in the butt, but he needs an experienced and knowledgeable gemologist on his side in order to find and identify the diamond. As time pushes on, they begin to tolerate one another more and more, but it takes a while. No insta-love here! The romance was believable and sweet.

6. The suspense really grabs you. Fabian and Maddie are really good at getting into trouble. Running from the police… seeking out The Chameleon… intense sailboat rides… guns blazing… deserted islands… concealed identities. Luck is not on their side. This book is a major page-turner.

7. It’s the perfect blend of comedy, romance, and suspense. Plus it’s heartwarming. You’d think with all the stuff going on, you might not get a true sense of what makes the characters who they are. But you do! There are some tender moments with Maddie’s family and with Fabian’s family was well. And Maddie’s cat adds a lot, too. Maybe I’m just a softy for cats. I dunno. But I loved that amidst all the suspense and deception, we were given a sense of the moral fabric these characters possess. The emotion is there, and I liked that. It made the characters more relatable.

All in all, this book is fun and exciting, and I really enjoyed it. I would recommend it to anyone who loves a good romcom with some mystery mixed in. I’m definitely going to go and check out some more of Joan Kilby’s books. She’s got a ton of them!