Unraveled by Courtney Milan

Unraveled by Courtney Milan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Unraveled by Courtney Milan: 4 1/2 stars

"Maybe he'd simply given himself a Miranda quota."

When Miranda Darling appears in a disguise and using a false name to testify untruthfully as a witness to a crime, Magistrate Turner, better known as Lord Justice, recognizes her. She had been a witness before him before, although not in a disguise. He follows her home, and they become intertwined - a young woman of dubious parentage and the brother of a duke.

Courtney Milan writes exceptional historical romances. Her style and characters are unique. Smite Turner is a deliciously damaged hero: a man of uncompromising integrity and attention to duty. He rejects sentiment as weakness, and feels that he is too damaged to deserve happiness. He lives in austere rooms, his life confined to the discharge of his duties as a magistrate in the criminal courts of Bristol. He does not indulge in second thoughts - his mind, once made up, is inalterable.

Miranda Darling, the heroine, is a headstrong young woman with a taste for dangerous men. She is not a young woman of his social class - the daughter of a pair of actors, she grew up in a theater troupe. The two of them agree that Miranda will become Turner's mistress for one month. For that month, he will provide for her, and then, at the end of the month, she will be paid a thousand pounds - a veritable fortune for a girl of her social class.

The interactions between these two main characters are wonderful. Miranda is irreverent, sarcastic, and not even slightly intimidated by Turner. She softens him, and makes him wonder if, maybe, he shouldn't demand more than the circumscribed, sterile life that he has been with satisfied with until he met her. She unflinchingly accepts every part of him, even the parts that are harsh, frightening, and unyielding.

This book was nominated for the RWA historical romance of the year, and it deserves the accolades it has received. The romance is bittersweet and compelling. It is interesting because it is set, not in London, amongst the ton, but in Bristol. And while Smite Turner is an aristocrat, he is no gentleman of leisure. It is beautifully written.

A few of my favorite quotes:

"So why was it that she heard "Miranda, darling," instead? Maybe he paused for emphasis. Maybe he paused to indicate a comma. Never had one little punctuation mark mattered so much."

"If this was magic, magic was tiring. It drained him until he was bone-weary, until all that was left was a deep, empty ache, and a desire to belong to someone else, if only for a few moments."

"You anchor me without holding me down. You frighten me without threatening my future. You're unflinchingly devoted. I love you."

Easy by Tammara Webber

Easy by Tammara Webber


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Tammara Webber consistently writes and publishes books that are high quality. There is no need to qualify the review of this, or, frankly, any, of her self-published books with a tag along the lines of "excellent for a self-published book." I've read all four of the books that she has published. They have attractive covers, and the prose inside of them is well-written, grammatically correct and largely error free. Kudos.

So, with that introduction, there are a few things that I want to say about this book, both about the romance and then, in a moment, about her realistic and sensitive exploration of the subject of college acquaintance sexual assault.

So, first, the romance. This book has been compared to Beautiful Disaster by some of my reader friends. This comparison does a disservice to this book. Easy is better than Beautiful Disaster. So, so, so much better.

I love Jacqueline. She is strong and intelligent and exhibits more than a little bit of backbone. She has a great deal of self-confidence, but even more importantly, she treats herself as though she is a worthy person. She is saddened by the break up of a long term relationship, and is appropriately emotive, but never does she devolve into a caricature of a heroine who wallows in self-pity by collapsing into a mass of self-indulgent drama. Fiction could use a lot more Jacquelines.

The romance is sweet and unfolds naturally. Lucas is a genuinely likeable guy, who treats Jacqueline with respect as their relationship develops. He is the kind of guy that, if you are the mother of a teenaged girl, you hope your daughter will meet when she gets to college. Hardworking, intelligent, unentitled, compassionate, and strong.

This book is worth reading for the romance.

It is, however, the backstory where Ms. Webber really shines. I have no idea what her personal experience includes, but, as a sexual assault prosecutor, I felt that her treatment of college acquaintance sexual assault was beautifully done.

There are only three things required for a rape to occur. A victim, an opportunity, and a rapist. All too often, even in fiction, writers treat rape, especially acquaintance rape, as though, somehow, non-rapists sort of accidentally commit it. This book, thankfully, takes a much more realistic, appropriate, non-victim blaming approach. It is empowering to young women who may have been the victim of this crime, while acknowledging that society, often, treats rape victims in a disparaging, irresponsible, and cruel manner. It is not uncommon for the community to rally around the rapist - the Buck's of the world - while treating the victim as though she has committed some sort of a crime by reporting that she was sexually assaulted.

I don't want to allow this review to digress into a public service announcement, but there is a reason that rape, and especially rape committed by an acquaintance, is an extremely underreported crime. Ms. Webber's book provides an explanation of that phenomenon in a way that is sensitive and well-done. I very much admire her for her treatment of this subject. If she makes one victim feel better - as though it isn't her fault - then she will have accomplished something truly remarkable with this story.

Overall, I'd give this book 4 1/2 stars, and would just say "thank you" to the author.

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire

I flippin' loved this book!




Spoiler-free plot summary of the awesomeness:

It is hard to do a plot summary of such awesomeness, because it will not do justice to McGuire's voice and cleverness. Essentially, the heroine, Verity Price, is a ballroom dancer slash cryptozoologist in modern New York City. The Price family is notorious amongst cryptozoologists (McGuire speak for monster hunter) because they abandoned The Covenant of St. George generations earlier, leaving behind their monster killing roots in favor of a more, shall we say, nuanced approach. The Price family doesn't kill on sight. They wait until the cryptid demonstrates that it is actively dangerous to humans before they exercise extreme prejudice in dealing with the threat.

Verity is living in New York City, under cover, in an effort to further her secret career in ballroom dancing. At the same time that a member of The Covenant, Dominic de Luca, appears in "her" city, and seems bent upon extinguishing as much sentient cryptid life as possible, female cryptids begin disappearing. And no one knows why. This central mystery requires Verity and Dominick to set aside their historic animosity to piece it all together.

Review:

I loved this book. I give very few five-star reviews -- the last one was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green -- but dang it, I loved this book. It is lighter than a lot of urban fantasy, and has certain qualities that feel almost manga-esque. When it comes out as a graphic novel, I will buy it. Please, Daw, release it as a graphic novel. Please.

The characters are great. Verity is smart, sassy and well-armed. She also has fantastic one liners, like:

"My name is Verity Price. I'm a cryptozoologist. And this is why I never get a goddamn date on a Saturday night."

and

"[m]y mother raised me never to contradict anyone who regularly carries grenades."

The voice is breezy, articulate and fun. There are lots of fun allusions to work out, and little pop culture references, like wikipedia and The Land of the Lost, that are a delight. It is well-written and well-edited. I laughed out loud reading this book, and cannot wait, absolutely cannot wait for the next book featuring Verity. This is the urban fantasy version of the Gilmore Girls. To me, that is high praise. I read a lot, and I am seldom this enthusiastic about a book. There was nothing I didn't love.

P.S.: I want to mack on Dominic. Seriously. He's hot.

Review: The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

Every once in a while, I find a book that I really, really fall in love with. This is one of those books. John Green is the real deal.



Having been sucked so deeply into this book that finishing it felt like coming up for air, I find that it has continued to weigh upon me many hours later. And, yes, this book made me bawl because it was so freaking sad and beautiful, and even though I could see the end coming, that didn't stop it from being freaking sad and beautiful.

There are some things about the book that are hard to swallow. The teenagers don't talk like real teenagers -- they talk like Rory Gilmore if she had terminal cancer. They talk the way we (and they) wish teenagers talked. But, this book is so good that I can forgive the author that little conceit.

There is little to say that hasn't already been said, and I am reviewing this book only because I swore that I would review every book I read in 2012. Nothing that I can say about The Fault in Our Stars will even begin to say what I want to say as well as John Green already said it. So, I'm going to inflict a few of my favorite quotes on the readers of this review and then I am going to yell at everyone reading this review to GO READ THIS BOOK. Because this John Green guy is totally the bomb. In a pile of dross, he is the gold.

"Sometimes people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them," I said, Isaac shot me a look. "Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That's what love is."

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."

and last

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/but in ourselves." Easy enough to say when you're a Roman nobleman (or Shakespeare!), but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.

Read this book. That is all.