Trolls in the Hamptons by Celia Jerome

Someone at DAW accidentally put "Fantasy" on the spine of this book instead of "Romance."

How can you tell a paranormal romance from an urban fantasy? It's easy. If the (already weak) plot screeches to a complete halt so the main characters can have hawt sex for about 50 pages, it's a romance.

Willow Tate (who goes by Willy, geez) makes a living writing and illustrating graphic novels. One day she comes up with a new idea, a superhero who's a troll. She sketches him, and a real-life troll appears in the street outside her apartment, causing chaos even though no one can actually see him--no one but Willy. It turns out that Willy is a particularly special snowflake, someone who can visualize beings from an alternate world called Unity. She has to help the Department of Unexplained Events--and specifically hot Agent Grant--save a kidnapped boy who may hold the key to something or another. I wasn't really clear on what the boy was supposed to be able to do. It didn't really matter anyway. The plot was just a vehicle to get Willy together with Agent Grant so they can have arguments and sex. As far as I can tell, the only reason the kidnapped boy was in the plot was so that Willy could feel all maternal, because she wants babies.

I really disliked this book. Willy comes across as whiny, neurotic, and needy. She hardly does anything to forward the plot. She claims she's imaginative because she's a writer, but here's what she does when she sees the troll: freaks out and calls her boyfriend to whine that he should drop everything and come reassure her. Then she spends more than half of the book disbelieving that the troll is real, even after seeing him repeatedly. She does not do what any artist would instantly do in this situation, which would be to think "Can I do this twice?" and then start drawing, I don't know, unicorns or something.

Thin as the plot is, the characterization is even thinner. All the characters act alike and dialogue is oddly stilted--Celia Jerome doesn't seem to like using contractions. Willy actually started out as a reasonably interesting person and I had hopes that she'd lose the neediness and grow a spine during the book. But she actually gets worse over the course of the book, until I grew to actively hate her. I didn't like Agent Grant either. He's bland, never makes a mistake, and keeps having to rescue (and then sexxor) Willy.

Willy claims to know karate. I guess that's why she clonks a housebreaker over the head with a vase--only it's not a housebreaker, it's Agent Grant! And she just got out of the jacuzzi and forgot to tie her robe closed, which I totally always forget to do when I'm about to confront a burglar. So Agent Grant has to make mad hot love to her for a couple of chapters.

But you know what I hated the most about this book (and that's saying a lot)? Way early in the book, when Willy is still being neurotic that her then-boyfriend won't hurry over to hold her after the shock she's had of seeing a troll kick over a fire hydrant, a cop comes to take her statement. The cop is the only character in the book I actually liked, a genuinely nice guy called Van that Willy is instantly attracted to. He's a black man and Willy is white, so I was hopeful that the book would actually have an interracial romance. But a chapter or two later, white man Agent Grant shows up and is even hotter than Van (that's another clue that you're reading a romance: each male character is hotter than the one before), and Willy instantly forgets Van exists. He drops out of the plot pretty much entirely. Because Agent Grant is BRITISH and has a TITLE. He's a LORD. Also he and Willy are FATED to be together.

The troll doesn't do much either. Man, this was a bad book.

B&N link

What's a Ghoul to Do? by Victoria Laurie

I hesitate to tag this 'mystery' because the plot is so weak that I guessed the murderer halfway through (seriously, just halfway through) and knew why that character had done it three-quarters of the way through (with the exception of one tiny plot twist that was set up properly with a clue I'd forgotten about--the only good part of the plot). The other half of the mystery is just as obvious.

I'm not even sure this was meant to be a mystery. It's a lot closer to paranormal romance, which would explain why the mystery is given so little attention. It would also explain why I hated the love interest so much, since I've never read a single paranormal romance (or just plain romance) where I didn't loathe one or both of the main characters.

It's too bad about the plot (and the clumsy writing), because the set-up is great. M.J. Holliday is a psychic medium who lives in Boston* and works as a professional ghost-buster along with her computer hacker partner, Gilley-the-gay-sidekick. When Dr. Steven Sable hires them to investigate his recently deceased grandfather's hunting lodge, where strange things have been happening, M.J. has no idea that she's walking into a house full of old secrets--and a few new ones.

There are a lot of problems with this book beyond the plot. I liked Gilley, but halfway through he's conveniently put out of action and hardly appears in the rest of the book except to do some "hacking," and even then M.J. and Steven Sable find out almost all the same information Gilley does (thanks to a lot of coincidences and some breaking and entering). They also withhold information from Gilley for no reason that I could see. M.J.'s and Gilley's friendship has no depth beyond cheering each other on when it comes to picking up men. And while M.J. starts out as a strong character, she has that annoying weakness of paranormal romance heroines: her strength evaporates when a big strong man shows up. Steven Sable is an asshole, but she thinks he's hot so she forgives him for being patronizing, demanding, controlling, and secretive. Oh, and Steven Sable's difficulty with English words and idioms is annoying rather than funny.

The ending was the worst ending in any mystery I've ever read. Seriously, it was so bad I couldn't believe the editor okayed it. It's doesn't even make sense. Up until the ending, I was willing to put up with everything else because the parts with the ghosts are kind of interesting, but now this book is going to the used book store.

*of course she lives in Boston. What the hell? Are all books now set in Boston by law?

B&N link

The Sevenfold Spell by Tia Nevitt

I'm a little diffident about writing this review, since the author, Tia Nevitt, is a fellow book blogger whose reviews have introduced me to lots of lovely books over the last couple of years. I almost decided to not review her book at all--but that seems like a cop-out, and particularly unfair to her since it's not like I didn't like the book.

So I'm reviewing The Sevenfold Spell, which was released this week as an ebook. Many (if not most) of my problems with the book have nothing to do with the writing--which is good--and everything to do with how it's marketed. The publisher has it listed as fantasy. It's actually a romance, which is not a genre I read very often and not one I enjoy particularly. As my sister-in-law says about my mom's habit of tossing candy in with her movie popcorn, "Ugh, think popcorn, get Junior Mint." I expected a fantasy and was disappointed. But that's not the author's fault.

The Sevenfold Spell is about Talia, a plain young woman who lives with her mother. They're spinsters--in the original meaning, that is, since they spin fiber into thread for a living. Talia knows she's plain, but she doesn't mind too much since her homely friend William has already asked her to marry him. Unfortunately, the newborn princess of the realm has been cursed by a fairy: when she reaches 16, she'll prick her finger on a spindle and fall into a hundred years of sleep. All the spinning wheels in the realm are destroyed, which ruins Talia's future. Her dowry goes to buy food now that her mother has no income, and William's father ships him off to a monastery to become a monk.

This is a fascinating opening, and I was eager to find out how the lack of spinning wheels would affect the world. In two words: it doesn't. This book (novella, rather--it's pretty short) is not a fantasy, so the fantasy world is only a vehicle for the romance between Talia and William. That's fine, if you reached into the popcorn bag expecting to get a Junior Mint. I was left hungry for worldbuilding which didn't come.

My main problem, though, was with Talia. The only time she showed any gumption was when she wanted to seduce a man, which she did a lot. (I liked her mother, who decides to build a spinning wheel in secret and sell the resulting thread as an expensive 'import.') Talia's entire existence is wrapped up in men: William, who is lost to her; the older man she seduces; the affairs she has over the years. I found her shallow, passive, and remarkably empty emotionally. I couldn't root for her because there was nothing there to root for.

I've read over what I've written so far, and I see that this review is coming off as really negative. I was afraid of that. I just can't evaluate a genre of book I don't read. Again, the writing is solid, and the plot is interesting (despite some motivational issues that felt like plot holes to me, since I'm intensely plot-driven). I liked the ending--especially what Talia's mother does, which almost had me cheering out loud.

One last gripe, though, and this one I can't blame on the genre. The author does not know anything about spinning. I've been a spinner myself for something like 15 years now, and every single time spinning came up in the story, it was handled wrong. First problem: 'modern' spinning wheels--you know, the ones without sharp spindles--were invented in something like the 12th century, although they remained in common use up to the industrial revolution. They're usually called walking wheels or great wheels and they are very big. Talia describes the wheel itself as being about two feet across, which is about half the size of a walking wheel but a common size for a modern wheel--again, the ones without sharp spindles. Second problem: Talia's mother and one other woman on their street are the only spinners in the area, and competed originally since the town wasn't really big enough for two spinners. *boggle* Before the industrial revolution, every single household had a spinning wheel. Spinning is a time-consuming, laborious process. For every hour a weaver works on a piece of cloth, spinners have put in approximately 30 hours of work making the thread the weaver uses. Third problem: If you don't have a spinning wheel of any kind, out of necessity people will go back to the older methods of spinning, which are varied but simple. All you need is a stick (not sharpened!) with a weight on one end and a notch in the other, and you can spin all day long without worrying about any princesses getting hurt. Fourth problem: Spinning wheels are not noisy. They make a soft whirring sound and can squeak a little, but it's never very loud--certainly not loud enough to be heard outside a house unless the wheel is right next to an open window and it's a very quiet day, and even then you'd have to be really close.

Okay, sorry, I'm done preaching about my hobby. If you like romance at all, definitely give this one a try. It's a charming little story with an interesting setting. I definitely hope Tia Nevitt writes a fantasy with romantic elements (instead of the other way around) next, because I'd love to see what she does with it.

link to publisher Carina Press

Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch by B.J. Daniels

I wasn't even going to admit to reading this book, but I can't avoid it. Lertulo's snowed in without internet access, Jackie's reading something she's already told me she won't review, and I haven't finished a book since Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch by B.J. Daniels. It's not just a Harlequin Intrigue book, it's the one Harlequin chose to give away free to get people hooked on the line.

Where to start? Well, first of all, I'm not a big reader of romance and this was, in fact, the first category romance I'd ever read. I'm also a bit hampered in my review because after finishing the book I, um, *mumbles*useditforkindlinginthefireweweresnowedin*mumbles* and I can't remember the main characters' names. I remember the guy's dad's name was Brick Savage, which is just barely one step above Beef Hardslab, but the other names have just drifted out of my head.

The plot was pretty good. The mystery was interesting, I didn't guess the murderer, and the pacing was brisk. The two main characters were bland but pleasant. I didn't really care that much if they got together in the end, but I was mildly pleased when they did. The writing--well, I'll just gently say that I got a lot of good laughs out of the book that may not have been intended, but laughing is always good, right?