How to Catch a Wild Viscount, Tessa Dare

I was worried because a) this is a novella and b) this is Tessa Dare's first novella, which doesn't always bode well. (I picked up Julia Quinn's first book the other year, and it was nearly unreadable.) But this was a charming little story. I was worried that the hero was going to be too much of a jerk, bu the pulled it out in the end. I was worried that the heroine was going to be dumb, but she was not only as smart as I hoped, but also had some great backstory he didn't know about. Overall a charming little story, which avoids some of the super melodrama Dare goes for sometimes (maybe because it's only a novella).

Grade: B
#58 in 2016

Capturing the Silken Thief, Jeannie Lin

I LOVED THIS. A romance set in Tang Dynasty China, between a scholar studying for the civil service exams, and a woman who plays music for a troupe but who is pretending to be a courtesan? Oh man. They were both so likeable, and they were both so smart and into each other. My only complaint, as usual, is that this is a novella and not a novel, because I would have read a lot more of this. (Yes, I know, it's part of a series, and I will go get the rest of it, don't worry.)

Grade: B
#57 in 2016

The Corrupt Comte, Edie Harris

This is a DNF and I'm not counting it, but -- yikes, no. I made it three chapters, and there was just too much of a creepy power dynamic right off the bat -- tying up a stranger so you can finger bang her in a closet without telling her what you're doing or who you really are? No. Especially when he can feel her virginity (?? that is not how the hymen works) and just HAS to take it, after years of pretending to be homosexual to be a spy. No nope no no nope no.

DNF

The Queen of the Tearling, Erika Johansen

I know my goal for the month was NOT to buy any new books but JUST ONE isn't bad. And this one was on sale when I picked it up, it barely counts as a purchase!

This is fantasy -- our heroine is a princess who has been raised in a cabin in the woods because her uncle the Regent would kill her if he knew where she was. The Red Queen in the next country over would kill her, too. And so would the assassins who've been hired, and maybe a whole bunch of other people, including the soldiers who are supposed to be protecting her. When she claims her throne she finds out just how screwed up her country is, and she has a lot of difficult choices about how to fix it, when changing anything will mean inevitable war with the neighboring countries that have been preying on it in her absence.

This is a familiar story, but I still found it really interesting. I liked that the main character is a girl, and that her kingdom seems to have been ruled by lots of queens, good and bad. The main antagonist is a woman as well. I like that our heroine isn't beautiful or thin. She isn't a great swordswoman, but she has a very firm sense of right and wrong. She's driven by a need to be better than her mother -- I can't remember a lot of high fantasy where that's a driving character motivation. I liked that instead of a generic fantasy land this place was settled by the English and Americans after some kind of "crossing" that destroyed all their technology. It means historical references and books and religion can all be familiar. It also adds a vague dystopian element to the world, which I hope is explored more in later books. (On the other hand, some of the language is jarringly not fantasy; royals and nobles suddenly shouting "fuck you!" breaks the mood of the book a little.)

This is so compulsively readable that I wonder if it's YA -- if it is, there's a lot of fairly graphic sex going on, most of it creepy or non-consensual, and lots of referenced rape and murder. There are also a bunch of mysterious elements I want explained. Who is the evil spirit? What's the deal with The Fetch? Who is Kelsea's dad? I'm going to pick up the second one to read on summer vacation next month and I'll let you know.

Grade: B
#56 in 2016

The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets, Simon Singh

My favorite popular math writer is Simon Singh. He just makes it feel really understandable and accessible, even when he's writing a whole book on Fermat's Last Theorem. I took calculus in high school, and haven't thought much about math since then; I have only the vaguest idea what e or log mean anymore, I only vaguely ever understood limits and derivatives. But when I read his books I feel like I do, and that's awesome. He writes books that make me wish I'd taken math in college (and understood them).

This book doesn't have much math; he talks a lot about how smart all the Simpsons and Futurama writers are, how many math awards and papers they've published, and all the math jokes they've snuck into the shows. It's fun, it's a fast read, and there are math jokes scattered through it. I think this was a .99c kindle deal of the day a year ago, and I'm glad I bought it then.

Grade: B
#55 in 2016

Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe, Simon Winder

So on the one hand, I loved this book. The author is just plain old funny. He is wry and a often sarcastic, and there's a lot to mock about the poor Habsburgs, who had an empire but never really did much with it, and certainly weren't successful at much. In his introduction he promises to avoid talking about how one ethnic group is spicy, or another is cold, or another is always joyful and drinking, and I love that level of metacognition about history writing, especially when discussing Eastern Europe, where everyone is constantly trying to merge or differentiate themselves.

On the other hand, he constantly describes castles, or paintings, or suits of armor, or museum exhibits in a way that sounds hilarious, but I want to see it. There are almost no photographs, but the whole book is predicated on traveling from city to city and castle to castle. I spent a lot of time on my phone looking at google images, and it added a ton to the book. It needs both maps and photographs. Also, Winder talks about classical music as if we're all totally familiar with every Austrian (etc etc) composer. I like classical music, too, but it genuinely made me feel like he was condescending to me a little, and that made me like him less.

Grade: C
#54 in 2016

The Black Mountain, Rex Stout

Normally when the Nero Wolfe books go outside the standard formula I love it. This one, though, removed all the mystery elements and turned it into a travelogue. It ended up being "Archie and Wolfe go on an international adventure," which was so different that it threw me off. Because of a murder, Wolfe has to go home to Yugoslavia, and Archie goes with him. It's a lot of description of airplanes and hiking and boats, and almost no actual mystery.

Here's what I liked: I liked that Archie thinks about Lily Rowan four separate times. (Just get married.) I liked reading what it was like in Yugoslavia under the Tito regime. Archie was funny as always, although severely hampered by only speaking English, so he couldn't argue with anyone. I liked Wolfe's secret plan that comes to fruition in the last couple of paragraphs of the last page.

Otherwise.... eh. Not a lot happens except walking around the mountains.

Grade: C
#53 in 2016

The Golden Spiders, Rex Stout

I gasped out loud at a plot twist in this book. 22 books into the series I am pretty delighted that they can still surprise me this much. The villain, when they are revealed, turns out to be someone we haven't spent much time with, which sucked, but this is one where you really feel the murder victim and care about Wolfe solving the mystery.

Grade: B
#52 in 2016

Mad for Love, Elizabeth Essex

What an adorable novella. (I bet you can guess what my criticism will be already.) Our French heroine, who has escaped from the French Revolution with her father, is a heroine I haven't often encountered -- she's tiny and agreeable and doesn't argue with anyone or plot or scheme. She's funny and adorable and agreeable, but not a wide-eyed ingenue or a sheltered optimist. It's hard to describe; I really liked her, even though the first half of the book is mostly her saying "Yes, Papa," or "Please stop forging art, Papa."

Our hero, Rory, is Scottish. He's an art-fraud-discovery specialist. He says "ye" instead of you about a million times, and although he was charming and funny, too, that was pretty annoying.

Mignon (her nickname) comes from a family of art forgers; Rory catches forgers for a living. And it doesn't go at all where you think it's going to. She's precious but not dumb; he's enamored of her and not dumb either. Very very charming, even though a quarter of the book is spent in a closet together, kissing and touching and swooning.

But then, because it's a novella, it just ends. He's been lying about who he is; she finds out; she's fine with it; they agree to get married. At the beginning of the last scene she has a moment of "oh god, oh no!" and cold sweats, but then by the end of the same scene she's absolutely fine with marrying a man she was just monologuing that she really knows nothing about. Just... one more scene would have helped that a lot.

Grade: B
#51 in 2016

Hot in Hellcat Canyon, Julie Anne Long

I think my least favorite recurring character trope in any romance novel might be the super hot ex-girlfriend, who is unbelievably beautiful and confident, and floats back into Our Hero's life just as he's happy with his new girlfriend. She inevitably is naked or nearly-naked in a scene to give Our Heroine the wrong idea. She usually declares that she and the hero are getting back together, and no matter how many times he says no, she won't hear it. The hero stands around helplessly telling her damn it, NO, he doesn't want her anymore! but the plot conspires against him and he HAS to let her stay at his house. This usually facilitates a fight with the heroine who doesn't understand why he won't kick her out. And at the end, this super hot ex is usually embarrassed or humiliated, although sometimes she just sails off into the sunset with a new man-slash-victim.

I don't know. It doesn't do it for me. It's not a person I've ever met in real life, for one thing, and I don't think it's an interesting conflict to introduce. Either the heroine ought to believe the hero when he says nothing is going on (especially since The Ex is usually so blatantly horrible), or the hero really ought to just kick her out and take his new girlfriend's feelings into account. Either way it feels like manufactured drama, and I don't find it compelling.

This is a long intro to say that while I enjoyed the characters and the set up in this book, I got to 66%, realized there was no obvious Big Problem looming, and then sighed so hard when his ex showed up. Basically: J.T. is an actor, who used to be on a big hit show, but times have been rough lately. Now he's driving through gold rush country, getting ready for the show he hopes will be his big comeback. He also has a beautiful, terrifying ex. Britt is a waitress in Hellcat Canyon, who loves to bring dying plants back to life, and has a past she is running from. When J.T. shows up he hits on her immediately and she turns him down, because her ex has made her afraid of relationships. Then she decides she can sleep with him as long as it's just that. Then they basically move in together, having great sex and enjoying her adorable small-town life, even though they both know he'll go back to Hollywood shortly.

One thing that bugged me was Britt's constantly changing problems: first she can't be with anyone, she has to hide because of her ex. Then she can do sleeping with him, but not a relationship. Then, when his ex shows up, she's furious that he's with someone else, and won't admit that she needs him, but somehow the real problem is that since she left her abusive husband she's running from relationships. That's like... four different book's worth of reasons for a relationship not to work, and I found it to be just a little bit too much. J.T. meanwhile, is handsome and charming and wonderful, and his only real problem is that he can't say "love." That's it.

Anyway, then his beautiful ex shows up, and first it seems like Britt is mad that he's sleeping with her, and then she seems mad because his ex is so beautiful, and then she's mad that the paparazzi show them looking like they might canoodle. When he says he's tired of apologizing and he's not going to do it anymore, and then leaves, I couldn't figure out what Britt was still waiting for. (She was waiting for a Big Moment, that was kind of too cutesy for me.)

Okay, I didn't mean to recap the whole book. A lot of it's fun! It's very charming! I like the small town and I liked Britt and J.T. in the first half. It just... seemed like they could basically have been happy together, and drama had to be included, and it made them both seem kind of dumb and unlikable. "He's famous and she's not" is plenty of drama for a relationship, in my opinion, and the rest of it made me tired.

Grade: C
#50 in 2015