First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh

I've been waiting for the last book to come out before I delved into Balogh's latest series. She's been a bit disappointing to me lately, but I live in hope!

First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh
(2009, Regency Historical) 5/31/10
Grade: 3.5

When Viscount Lyngate arrives in their small village, Vanessa Huxtable Dew isn’t expecting her life to change. But soon she and her family are whisked away, as her younger brother has unexpectedly inherited an Earldom. Vanessa finds herself married to the viscount, her brother’s guardian - is it just to save her family, or is there more emotion involved?

This is the first book in a new Balogh series, and a lot of time is spent introducing the characters for the next four books. This takes away from the main romance between Elliott and Vanessa - but their romance doesn’t have a lot of conflict, so the time spent with other characters doesn’t detract much from the story. She thinks she’s plain but it determined to be happy anyway, he’s stuffy and afraid of love because his father was unfaithful - it all seems like a pale copy of Balogh’s other books. Vanessa, in particular, is very reminiscent of Christine in the much better Slightly Dangerous, but this book lacks the depth of emotion that that book had. (The most moving part of the book is Vanessa’s devotion to her first husband, who died young of consumption, but even that lacks some depth of feeling.) There’s nothing terribly wrong with this book - the characters are pleasant and the book is well written - but it just doesn’t bring anything new to this nice but familiar story. 3.5 - grading on the Balogh scale, since I know how much better her books can be.

There were things I really liked about this book, and I might have given a newer author more of a pass - but I know Balogh can take a familiar story and make it sing, and she just didn't do that here. So Balogh gets graded on a curve.

Broadway Nights by Seth Rudetsky

This was great fun. It tells the story of a part-time Broadway pianist who is now the music director of his first show - and all of his personal and professional dramas. I listened to the audio version and it was hilarious. It's read by the author (with guest appearances by lots of actors and actresses) and it's full of great dish about Broadway. It might have been a little too long in book form, but as an audio it was great. Very funny, and it made my commute fly by. Since this isn't a romance, I'm not going to give it an official rating, but I would highly recommend it to Broadway fans. (This is kind of an odd picture, but I bought the unabridged audio from Audible.)

Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb

Still a fan of the J.D. Robb books, although this one was not her best.

Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb
(2010, Futuristic Suspense) 5/22/2010
Grade: 3

The latest in the Eve/Roarke series. In this installment, the head of a computer game company is killed during a holo game, but how did it happen when he was alone in his apartment? And were his three business partners as close as they appeared to be?

This was one of the weaker entries in the series. The personal interactions between Eve and her friends were nice enough (I particularly liked Peabody in this one) but the case itself was dull. The three main suspects were barely distinguishable through most of the book, and the motive seemed to appear out of nowhere in the last 50 pages. Considering Roarke is supposed to be a computer genius, it seemed odd that no one even considered the method the killer used until almost the end of the book. (It seemed obvious to me in the first chapter). Usually I read the In Death books in a few hours, even the less interesting books in the series, but I found myself plodding through this one. It did improve in the last 100 pages or so, but overall, this one just fell short.

Multi-billionaire Roarke isn't exactly a realistic hero, but I had to laugh in this book when he mentions that he works on hologames in his spare time. In between working on cases with Eve and running half the businesses on the planet, presumably.

The Heart of Christmas (Anthology)

Seems a little odd to be reading a Christmas anthology while sitting by the pool in Florida (in May!) but somehow it worked.

The Heart of Christmas (Anthology)
(2009, Regency) 5/2/10
Grade: 3.5

Three stories: A Handful of Gold by Mary Balogh, A Season for Suitors by Nicola Cornick, This Wicked Gift by Courtney Milan. The first two are reprints, the third is new.

The Balogh story is a reprint, but it's still one of her most charming. The heroine, Verity Ewing has to become a mistress to save her sick sister. Julian Dare is planning a week of debauchery before an arranged marriage. But when they are stranded in the snow at Christmas, the find love. A little schmaltzy, but Balogh always gets me even when the story is as corny as this one.

The Cornick story is also a reprint, although I hadn't read it. It feels like an excerpt from a longer book. The heroine, Clara Davenport, has been in love with Sebastian Fleet for years, but he considers her just a friend. Finally she turns to him for advice, and he starts to see her in a new light. The characters were interesting, but it felt like a badly abridged version of a full length book - a lot of important details were missing.

The Milan story was well written and unusual, but it also felt somewhat contrived. The most interesting aspect was that the hero and heroine were not wealthy or titled. They were working people on the edge of poverty. The dialogue was also well written. However, the setup was odd. The heroine sleeps with the hero because he bought up her brothers debt.. but not really. At first they seem to be strangers, but then they act like they've been deeply in love for years. The story just felt unfinished, as if the author had to leave important parts out to fit it in the allotted page length. It definitely showed promise, but it didn't quite work for me.

Writing short stories is definitely an art, and most authors are not that good at it. Too many of them try to squeeze a full length book into short story length. And yet, I keep trying, because a good short story is so satisfying!

Always Valentine's Day by Kristin Hardy

Another vacation read - I read this one on the beach and in the jacuzzi tub. Such a great place to enjoy a good book!

Always Valentine's Day by Kristin Hardy (SSE 1952)
(2009, Contemporary Series) 5/1/10
Grade: 3.5

Larkin Hayes is on a cruise to Alaska to reconnect with her father after his latest divorce. But she keeps running into Christopher Trask, a goat farmer from Vermont, and his widowed aunt, Molly. After the cruise, they all meet again in Vermont - and Larkin finds that goats are more interesting than she'd expected.

This was a surprisingly fun and charming book. The characters were interesting and well written, and had more depth than you might expect. Even though the story was a bit predictable, the author does a good job with the two settings (the Alaskan cruise and the Vermont goat farm) and creates believable conflicts between the characters. The only negative was that a lot of secondary characters are shoehorned into the first section of the book, presumably because they appeared in previous stories. But they mostly disappear once the book gets going. Overall, an enjoyable read.

I debated whether to give this a higher grade, but it wasn't that memorable. A week later and I can barely remember it. But I enjoyed it while it lasted.

The Trouble with J.J. by Tami Hoag

I always pick some older books to take with me on the plane. This one kept me entertained on my trip to Florida.

The Trouble with J.J. by Tami Hoag
(1988, Contemporary Series) 4/28/10
Grade: 3

This is a reprint of an old Loveswept from the 80's. Genna Hastings is appalled when a tacky football player moves in next door, along with his collection of pink flamingos. But J.J. Hennessy turns out to be more interesting than she expected, and when he needs her help to gain custody of his adorable daughter, Genna starts to see J.J. in a new light.

This was a cute and charming book that worked well for the first two thirds, but fell apart in the last third. The hero and heroine had great chemistry, and their banter was fun and light hearted. The story was a bit cliched but for the first part of the book, it worked. However, the book lost its charm in the last section. Once the hero and heroine got together, the author throws in a bunch of silly misunderstandings to keep the story going, and unfortunately it let me feeling a bit disappointed.

It's amazing that the publisher was able to stretch this book into 320 pages. The print was huge! I guess you have to do something to make a skinny little Loveswept look like a full length book.