Stranded With Her Ex by Jill Sorenson

This was the last book I read on vacation, and it turned out to be the best.

Stranded With Her Ex by Jill Sorenson (HRS 1654)
(2011, Contemporary Series)
Grade: 4

Two years after her divorce, Daniela Flores is trying to resume her career as a marine biologist. She plans to spend a few weeks on the isolated Fallon Islands, studying sea lions. She didn't expect to find her ex-husband Sean on the research team, studying sharks at the same location. Their marriage ended after a tragic accident, but they will have to work together on the island - especially after mysterious events put all of them in danger.

Although I'm not a huge romantic suspense fan, I enjoy it when it's done well, and it was done very well here, especially in the last half of the book. The author did a great job in depicting the isolated research station and the escalating danger as the book went on. She also combined the emotional story of Daniela and Sean's marriage with the suspense in a very nice way - often, books like this falter on one side or the other. The biggest problem was just that the book was too short - setting up the situation took almost half of the book, and there just weren't enough pages to really do the story justice. This could easily have been a full length novel. However, it was very well done and I found it an enjoyable read.

I'm not sure I would recommend reading this book at the beach - the story fit very well with the beach setting but it made me wary of sharks!

Unlocked by Courtney Milan

I have enjoyed reading Courtney Milan's internet postings, and I heard a lot of great things about this story, which evidently was her foray into self publishing. However, as with her previous short story, I found it somewhat lacking.

Unlocked by Courtney Milan
(2011, Regency Novella)
Grade: 3.5

Ten years after he tormented and teased Lady Elaine Warren, Evan Carleton, the Earl of Weston has returned to England to try and make things right. But Elaine is not so ready to forgive. She’s learned to live with the jokes and insults, but the experience has made her wary of anyone who seems too good to be true.

It’s hard to grade this novella, because it seemws like a book that was squeezed into a novella length. The premise was fascinating, but there was a lot of character, plot and relationship development to be crammed into a relatively small space. To the author’s credit, she was able to bring the characters to life in a small number of pages, but where she faltered was in their relationship. There just wasn’t enough space to explain why the hero and heroine were suddenly “in love” – and the last thing this short piece needed was a very lengthy love scene near the end. All in all, a noble experiment that didn’t quite work.

Short stories are difficult - I want to like them since they work so well with my limited time availability (and attention span) but it's very hard to find satisfying ones. I also tried It Happened One Season during my vacation and had many of the same issues with it.

The Naked King by Sally MacKenzie

I didn’t intend to read two books in a row with essentially the same plotline, but that’s a disadvantage of the Kindle – it’s much harder to read the “back cover” and pick what book you want to read next. This one was a slight improvement but still not great.

The Naked King by Sally MacKenzie
(2011, Regency Historical)
Grade: 3.5

When Lady Anne Marston is out walking her dog, she finds herself tangled up with Stephen Parker-Roth – and somehow they end up engaged. She is only in London to help her sister with her first season – at 27, Anne considers herself on the shelf, especially after a bad experience in the past – but Stephen is determined to find the real woman underneath the guarded exterior.

This had the makings of an excellent Regency – a rakish hero (with a great sense of humor), a wallflower heroine, a forced betrothal. However, as this is a Regency historical and not a Regency, the author included a lot more sexual content. Some of it was worthwhile – the heroine’s past was handled very well and added some depth to this fairly light story, and the love scenes were spicy, if a bit out of place at times. But I really didn’t need a minute-by-minute update on the status of the character’s… body parts. The author spent far too much time on the hero and heroine lusting after each other. After a while, it got tedious and repetitive and detracted from the story.

I read an email recently that called this phenomenon "Instant Lust Syndrome". Maybe it's to be expected in a book called The Naked King. However, it's infecting far too many books lately - I'm reading a Jade Lee book at the moment that has the same problem. It's hard to object without sounding prudish, but it takes away from the other elements of the book and gets very tedious after a while.

The Rake and the Wallflower by Allison Lane

Unfortunately, I didn't get as much reading done on my vacation as I wanted - I read a lot the first couple of days and then my rental house caught on fire, which took away some of my motivation! But I did get a few books in before I lost my hot tub access. :(

The Rake and the Wallflower by Allison Lane
(2001, Regency)
Grade: 3

Mary Seabrook is in town for her first Season, but she feels awkward and shy next to her vivacious sister Laura. But when she meets fellow bird watcher Lord Grayson, she feels that she has met a kindred spirit. Unfortunately, between Grayson’s mysterious accidents and Laura’s vindictive schemes, there is little time for Mary and Grayson to find romance.

I was hoping for an enjoyable Regency, but unfortunately, this one went off track, with more focus on the external plot than on the hero and heroine. The story started off well, even if the characters were somewhat familiar – the shy heroine, the hero with a mysterious past. But unfortunately, the author spent far too much time on outside influences, particularly Mary’s scheming sister, and not enough time on the relationship. The things that made the characters different and interesting – Mary’s caricatures, Grayson’s collection of wounded birds – were dropped so we could read one scene after another of Laura acting badly. I kept hoping the book would improve, because Allison Lane is a talented author, but in the end I was disappointed.

Allison Lane has a dark view of Regency society, which she sometimes uses to great effect, but here it just gave the book an oppressive feeling that didn’t help the story.

Married by June by Ellen Hartman

This has been a very slow summer for reading, but I brought a stack of books with me on my vacation and I plan to work my way through some of my TBR pile - even if my "virtual" TBR pile is getting to be almost as large as my paper one!

Married by June by Ellen Hartman (HSR 1711)
(2011, Contemporary Series)
Grade: 3.5

Jorie Burke and Cooper Murphy got engaged after only knowing each other a few months, so that her dying mother could plan her daughter's perfect wedding. But now both Jorie and Cooper are wondering if they did the right thing. They're about to call it off when a crisis in Cooper's political family puts them back together... at least temporarily.

I wanted to like this book more. It had a lot of great elements - a likeable hero and heroine, an interesting backstory for the heroine, an unusual backdrop of politics. But somehow it just felt a little... blah. On one hand, I felt like I was being dropped in the middle of a series since there were a lot of references to things that happened before the book started. (Actually, I don't think it is part of a series, which makes it more confusing.) On the other hand, I found myself checking to see how many pages were left, wondering when the "real" story would start. It just seemed to meander along when it needed more umph. It wasn't a bad book, just not one that made me want to keep turning the pages.

I really liked Ellen Hartman's first book so I'm hopeful that her other books are more interesting! I felt like there was a much more interesting story hiding in this book somewhere.