Naked in Death, J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts)

Boy, this didn't work for me at all. I can see where it'd work for someone else, but to me it read as creepy, creepy sexual fetishization and death fetishization. Someday I'd love to read a noir that doesn't involve a prostitute getting killed in the first chapter, but that day may not come for a while.

I couldn't take Eve seriously as a super-tough icy-cold detective because she slept with her suspect. Yeah, she had a gut feeling it wasn't him. And I couldn't enjoy him breaking down her barriers because he was a dick about it who didn't respect her privacy or her personal boundaries. Plus, Nora Roberts has always had a little bit of a POV problem; she jumps from his to hers in the middle of the goddamn scene, and I hate that. 

In the next-to-last chapter I was literally flipping the pages going, "Oh my god, I KNOW. There's another killer, he's going to break into her apartment, and the fucking cat scratches him, allowing her to fight for her life. IS THIS OVER YET?"

Grrrr, etc.

Grade: D

Originally posted 2008

Honest Illusions, Nora Roberts

Ugh, I hated this book, and that's even more disappointing because I've read others by her that were tolerable and even pretty okay. It's the kind of romantic plot where if only ANYONE involved would tell ANYONE ELSE THE TRUTH, then there would be, essentially, no problems and no plot anymore. Therefore, everyone has to lie all the way through. For example, the good guy gets blackmailed into fleeing the country, leaving behind his girlfriend, for 5 years. When he gets back, she won't tell him he has a kid, and she REFUSES to let him tell her where he's been and why. Oh, she'll sleep with him, but every time he starts to explain, she freaks out. WHAT? 

Even more indicative of my problems with this story, we get a nice scene of him losing his virginity at 15. It's a little creepy. But our heroine decides not to have sex until she's won the hero's heart over, at like, 23. Which doesn't even make sense, in retrospect, because it's a whole big thing in the book that someone has to point out to her that their arguing is "sparks flying" everywhere, at which point she seduces him. 

The worst part is, I kind of liked them both as kids. But then everything gets ruined. Characters are treated poorly, and act totally out of character to further the plot. No one will tell anyone the truth. A bad guy is introduced who could have perfectly logical reasons for disliking the main characters, but instead is a psychopath. Oh, and we're supposed to buy that some people who steal are bad, but our heroes are moral thieves. (I could write SO MUCH about how that would have worked in another story, but didn't here.)

Grade: F

Originally posted 2006

Rising Tides, and Inner Harbor, by Nora Roberts

Well, it's been years since I threw over the internet and television to just sit on my couch and read for 48 straight hours to get to the end of a series. My critiques are mostly superficial -- if I'd written it I'd have added more angst, or kept the same narrator through all three books, or not had EVERYONE propose on the last page of the book (as the ten-year old character said, "All you guys do is get married.") -- but the books are compulsively readable and totally enjoyable.

The second in the series set off all kids of anti-feminist alarms in my head, but the moral of the book turned out not to be "She has to let her giant manly boyfriend protect her and stop being so proud" and instead was "She has to tell her giant manly boyfriend to go fuck himself until he realizes that she is a grownup, too, and also SHE proposed, HA!" I didn't enjoy this one as much, but that's because true-love-since-childhood-with-mousy-women-and-damaged-men doesn't resonate with me as much as (book 1) fiery women going nose-to-nose with firey men, or (book 3) shy and unloved women find family and love. Speaking of which, the brother in book 3 was pretty meh and without character, but the woman was great; she went from being utterly irritating and frustrating to wonderful and sympathetic.

Rising Tides: Grade: C
Inner Harbor: Grade: B

originally posted 2006

Sea Swept, by Nora Roberts

This is a romance novel. It's a really good romance novel. 

It never once icked me out with weird gender-role stereotyping (except, okay, of course I got a little tired of all the "She was tall and gorgeous, with lips to die for..." narration). I think it might be because the main characters are three men, former foster children going back to take care of the new kid their foster-father had adopted before he was killed in a car accident. So there's lots of snotty teenagers with tragic pasts and boys punching each other to drown out all the wistful "Ain't small-town life the best?" stuff. (Been there. Done that. No, it's not.) I have only two complaints -- #1, sex just ain't like that. (He touches her, she has an orgasm. Seriously, that's it. He touches her, she comes. The end. The hell?) Second, the narration switches from character to character inside each scene, and it was confusing. 

Now I have to go buy the sequel so the quiet brother can hook up with the single-mom housekeeper. So good!

Grade B

originally posted 2006