Book Reviews

Moonlight in the Morning

Moonlight-in-the-Morning

Moonlight in the Morning By: Jude Deveraux

Plot:

Sparks are flying between Jecca Layton and Dr. Tristan Aldredge. At the urging of her dear friend Kim, Jecca put the ruthless New York City art world on hold to spend the summer pursuing her passion for painting while enjoying Edilean’s tightly knit artistic community. For years, Kim’s cousin Tris — the town’s handsome and dedicated doctor — felt a deep connection to Kim’s college “sister” Jecca, though they had met only once before. Now, Jecca is swept off her feet by this strong, sensitive man in a summer of sensual delights. But when long shadows announce Jecca’s return to “real life” and the big city, the lovers must decide: Can they survive the distance? And who will sacrifice the life they’ve created for themselves to be together?

Review:

I think Jude Deveraux might be a pantser when it comes to writing. Every now and then she’ll write something and then a page later write something that has to explain what she’d previously written away. Personally I would have edited it out, but then it might not have worked without it, not sure.

Even with that I really liked this book. So happy that I’ve got her back in my life. Already looking forward to reading the next book, though hopefully I don’t end up staying up until four am reading it.

Her men tend to be a bit unrealistic but I don’t read romance for realism. I did want to scream the word compromise at her couple, that happens a lot for me though.

4/5

True Love

truelove

True Love (Nantucket Bride Trilogy): By Jude Deveraux

Plot:

Set on the magical Massachusetts island, True Love introduces characters from a new generation of Montgomery-Taggerts, the beloved family from Deveraux’s classic novels. Just as Alix Madsen is finishing up architectural school, Adelaide Kingsley dies and wills her, for one year, the use of a charming nineteenth-century Nantucket house. The elderly woman’s relationship to the Madsen family is a mystery to the spirited Alix—fresh from a romantic breakup—but for reasons of her own Alix accepts the quirky bequest, in part because it gives her time to plan her best friend’s storybook wedding. But unseen forces move behind the scenes, creaking Kingsley House’s ancient floorboards. It seems that Adelaide Kingsley had a rather specific task for Alix: to solve the strange disappearance of one of the Kingsley women, Valentina, more than two hundred years ago. If that wasn’t troubling enough, Alix must deal with the arrogant (and extremely good-looking) architect Jared Montgomery, who is living in the property’s guesthouse. Unbeknown to Alix, Jared has been charged with looking after her while she lives on the island—an easy task for him, considering the undeniable chemistry between the two. But Jared harbors secrets of his own, which, if revealed, may drive a wedge between the pair. With a glorious Nantucket wedding on the horizon, sparks fly, and the ghosts of the past begin to reveal themselves—some of them literally. Finding their lives inextricably entwined with the turbulent fortunes of their ancestors, Alix and Jared discover that only by righting the wrongs of the past can they hope to be together

Review:

I almost didn’t make it out of the prologue. I thought she made the men say things in a way no man would ever speak. Then she threw me a curveball and I was back in the game.

Overall I like the story and I’m looking forward to the sequel. I did think her men were a little bit too feminine in how they spoke, but I could have just read too much Eve Langlais and Kristen Ashley.

I was actually really happy with this book. The last two Jude Deveraux books I read (Secrets and Lavender Morning) I really didn’t like, which made me sad because I love Jude Deveraux. I was afraid she’d entered a new phase in her writing that I was really not going to like, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case now.

It did surprise me that she’s doing a trilogy because I only remembered one other one she’d written and it wasn’t like a normal romance trilogy. Looking at her bibliography I saw that she wrote another trilogy fairly recently so I guess it’s her new way to do things. Nora Roberts has worked this way for a while so maybe she decided to try her hand at it.

I’m happy to see Deveraux back to writing the romance I love her for and I’m really looking forward to book two.

3.75/5

Steelheart

steelheart

Steelheart (Reckoners #1) By: Brandon Sanderson

Plot:

There are no heroes. Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills. Nobody fights the Epics… nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them. And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning—and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience. He’s seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

Review:

Why do people feel the need to kill babies in books? It kills me. The book would have to be the most poorly book ever written and still I would probably cry. This book was obviously not poorly written and even though it’s done at the very beginning and just sort of offhand I still boohooed.

Totally not a world of superheroes I would want to live in, incredibly dark though not quite as depressing as I thought it would be. I must have been in a good mood because thinking back it’s a pretty depressing book.

Makes me sad that all the Epics are basically evil.

Loved the twist at the end, though I did call one of the things Sanderson did. Still loved it. Really looking forward to the next book, wish it was out now so I could read it and then demand the next book.

5/5

Red and Her Wolf

Red and her wolf

Red and Her Wolf (Kingdom #3) By: Marie Hall

Plot:

Long ago there lived a beautiful child. Her name was Violet. Fair of skin, with blonde hair and large blue eyes. Born of wild magic, she was a woman with a child’s heart. Innocent and lovely, but not at all what she seemed–you see Violet went by another name: The Heartsong. She was the child of fairy magic, the physical manifestation of all fae kinds unbridled power. Cosseted and pampered, she grew up in isolation, never knowing who she really was, or why there were those who’d seek to harm her. Ewan of the Blackfoot Clan is a wolf with a problem. He’s been sent to kill the Heartsong, but the moment he lays eyes on the blonde beauty he knows he’ll defy the evil fae he works for to claim Violet as his own. This is the tale of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, as it really happened…

Review:

Red and Ewan’s story was a bit more complicated than the other bad boys, so far. They met, he mated, she was whisked away for four hundred years. Things were a bit awkward at first and sometimes confusing, for me as much as for the characters. I think there was a lot going on all at once and it just wasn’t clicking with me.

A good book, but not her best. Red was supposed to be evil, kind of, but not really. It was weird. Still reading the rest of the series but I hope they’re more like the first two.

3/5

Fat Vampire

fat vampire

Fat Vampire By Johnny B. Truant

Plot:

When overweight treadmill salesman Reginald Baskin finally meets a co-worker who doesn’t make fun of him, it’s just his own bad luck that tech guy Maurice turns out to be a thousand-year-old vampire. And when Maurice turns Reginald to save his life, it’s just Reginald’s own further bad luck that he wakes up to discover he’s become the slowest, weakest, most out-of-shape vampire ever born, doomed to “heal” to his corpulent self for all of eternity. As Reginald struggles with the downsides of being a fat vampire — too slow to catch people to feed on, mocked by those he tries to glamour, assaulted by his intended prey and left for undead — he discovers in himself rare powers that few vampires have… and just in time too, because the Vampire Council might just want his head for being an inferior representative of their race. Fat Vampire is the story of an unlikely hero who, after having an imperfect eternity shoved into his grease-stained hands, must learn to turn the afterlife’s lemons into tasty lemon danishes.

Review:

I stayed up way too late reading this book. It’s actually been a while since I’ve stayed up quiet that late. I naturally regretted it in the morning but I just couldn’t stop reading.

There was a part involving a child where I was concerned about the direction the story was going but it all worked out and wasn’t creepy or horrible in any way. Though I didn’t understand why, at the end, they didn’t explain why the mother just let her child disappear for a couple weeks. Maybe I missed the explanation, it was super late.

4/5