DNF Mini review: Lay it Down by Cara McKenna

FTC: Received for free at RT
I call this "The Book The Red Dirt Killed." It was fine. The characters were fine. The plot was okay. The setting was decent. But over and over again, McKenna described the soil out in BFE Nevada as "red." IT'S NOT RED.  It's an unrelenting grayish, alkaline brown. So over and over again, I had to shake that incredibly wrong mental image out of my head. Nevada isn't the reddish desert of the Southwest—at least not outside Las Vegas—and having that one detail that seemed so important to the hero be so wrong? It ruined a promising book. I put this down after reading halfway through and have zero desire to pick it up again. Bummer. In this case, I think choosing a specific, real location might have worked better. Maybe there is a spot in the middle of Nevada that's red, but I've driven across northern Nevada to Utah and from Reno to LA. I lived in Nevada for 7 years. It's brown.

DNF Review: Vampire Mine by Kerrelyn Sparks

Format: Mass Market
Pub Date: April 2011
Publisher: Avon
FTC: Received at RT 11

 I have really enjoyed this series in the past. There's quite a bit of humor, the characters are well done, and the writing is usually quite good. None of that is really missing from Vampire Mine, but this book just didn't work for me at all.

I probably should have realized going in that the angel romance wasn't going to work for me. I've read angel romances that have worked, but every one of those features angels as supernatural beings rather than spiritual ones. Not so here. In this book, Marielle the angel is every bit the angel of the Christian faith.

For someone who is not in the least bit religious—me— this book was way too full of religion and faith. And it might offend those on the opposite end of the spectrum, too, with the transformation of Marielle from a heavenly to an earthly creature.  For me, the religious references were way too prevalent, burying the romance beneath page after page of "heavenly host" information. I made it about halfway through before giving up.

My Grade: DNF

TBR Challenge: Saddled and Spurred by Lorelei James

Format: Trade paperback
Pub Date: March 2011
Publisher: Signet
Length: 328 pages
FTC: received at a signing at RT

Late again... but I have an excuse this time. I was on vacation with no access to the internet.

The theme this month was western, and since historical westerns are my least favorite genre, I picked a contemporary that I received at this year's RT Convention. I figured that it's better to whittle from the top, considering how many books I brought home from that trip that ended up languishing in the TBR.

I normally love Lorelei James. Her books are spicy, but always seem to have some excellent characters with real emotion, real problems... Despite what can often be wall to wall sex scenes, I'm never really tempted to skim.  Unfortunately, that was not the case with Saddled and Spurred.

I can't quite figure out what's wrong with this book, except to say that after reading 150 pages of it, I didn't care to read further. It's just completely uninteresting to me. No memorable characters, no real humor or emotion. Nothing to keep me reading further. Very unusual for this author. It could also be the different publisher, because all of the other ones I've read have been published with Samhain.

I'm not sure if that counts as having "read" the book, but I made it about halfway through before throwing in the DNF towel. But at least it's no longer hanging around the old TBR.

Review: All Night with a Rogue by Alexandra Hawkins

It's been a long time since I stumbled across a book I just couldn't finish. Sadly, this is one of those. I don't think I've read another romance with as many unappealing characters as inhabit this one. I'm a bit of a traditionalist with my historical romance, though, and this one just had a crass, modern feel to it. It was ugly in every sense of the word. Debauchery in excess--with cruelty mixed in. No thank you.

That's not to say the writing is necessarily bad, but for those, like me, who like to at least be able to *some* hint of humanity in their heroes--and some hint of brains in their heroines--this one failed with me.  I put it down permanently on page 84.

My Grade:
F/DNF