Category: Romance

amulet?

Posted on by Greig

Twisted Sisters

Jen Lancaster

Twisted SistersReagan is a success. She’s put her private practice as a Psychologist on hold to be a counsellor on a reality TV show.
Everything should be wonderful, indeed that’s what she tells herself, but instead of being happy, she’s a mess. She’s resentful of her sisters, failing to handle a break up and under pressure from the TV network to improve people’s lives in a single three hour session.
This is when the plot jumps into being a body swap story.
This is not a very good book. The lead character is oblivious and self-centred, her actions are insane and while I’m sure it’s meant to be funny most of the time it just never sparks into life.

Rating: C

denver?

Posted on by Greig

Fake Marrieds Meme

Waking Up Married

Mira Lyn Kelly

Waking Up MarriedMegan, in Las Vegas for a wedding gets drunk to deal with teasing over her decision to try artificial insemination. She wakes up the next morning with no memory, a terrible hangover and a new husband.
This new husband is looking for committed marriage without love and is very keen to stay married.
The rest of the book follows them after she agrees to a three month trial marriage.
This is easily the worst of these “fake married” novel(la)s.
The characters are selfish assholes or just plain jerks. The storyline runs on rails made of pure cliche and the dialogue – which aims for witty repartee – is excruciating and wooden.
In fact this one is so bad I’m instituting a new lowest rank just for it…

Rating: D

astronaut?

Posted on by Greig

Fake Marrieds Meme

I Married A Billionaire

Melanie Marchande

I Married A BillionaireA graphic designer with crushing debt agrees to marry her Billionaire boss so he can stay in the country.
She’s introduced to the high life and their whirlwind fake romance turns all to real for her.
After the wedding the story takes a strange diversion into mild BDSM as her new husband seems to run hot and cold for her.
The plot ends with the predictable admission that the ‘fake marrieds’ are actually in love with each other.
This is basically blooming awful.
I’ve read many better stories using this meme in fan fiction.

Rating: C-

masked?

Posted on by Greig

Fake Marrieds Meme

Married By Mistake

Abby Gaines

Married By MistakeSometimes Casey Greene has bad ideas.
Deciding to take part in a wedding reality show as a way to force your fiance to finally marry you is a bad idea.
Not checking that the fake marriage you agree to to save face after being jilted is actually a fake marriage is a really bad idea.
Finding herself married to an embattled TV exec and unable to annull until a Judge can look at the case she agrees to a pretend to be a happy couple to save face in his boardroom battles.
On the plus side she can escape from her needy and dependent family.
This is a Harlequin romance and it never rises above the level of mediocrity both in prose and plotting though I must admit to quite liking Casey.

Rating: C

lanny?

Posted on by Greig

Fake Marrieds Meme

I’ve recently become fascinated with the Fake Married meme in fan fiction. I don’t review fanfic on this blog even though I read quite a lot (several novels worth a year) because it’s so variable in quality. Recently I thought ‘Why not hunt down some original novels using the meme?’. As a result the next few entries on the blog are reviews of ‘fake married’ stories.

Strange Bedpersons

Jennifer Crusie

strange bedpersonsHippy chick do-gooder agrees to pretend to be engaged to her ex-boyfriend so he can land the client that will get him a partnership at his law firm.
The book’s strength is in it’s witty dialogue but the plotting is incredibly predictable and the characters are so self-centred they actively become annoying at times.
I’ve read another previous Crusie novel (Faking It) and this just isn’t as good.

Rating: B-

watch?

Posted on by Greig

The Secrets of Ghosts

Sarah Painter

the secrets of ghostsI was really looking forward to this book after seeing a lot of potential in the author’s first book (reviewed here in 2013 and 2014).
Unfortunately it has the heroine suddenly act stupidly in a way that’s out of character in order to service the plot.
This is absolutely guaranteed to pull me out of a story. It’s a personal pet hate and it seriously diminished my enjoyment of the book.
It was nice to go back to Pendleford and I enjoyed Katie becoming the lead character (though I don’t get why she’s calling herself a Harper when she’s a Moore in the first book).
I would love to see the author try writing an adventure in a more overtly fantastical universe. The small town romance stuff is nice but is seriously threatening to get repetitive now.
Totally worth a read though.

Rating: B-

camptown?

Posted on by Greig

Flat-Out Celeste

Jessica Park

Flat-Out CelesteThis is a sequel to Flat-Out Love which I read last year after picking up as a Kindle Daily Deal.
Here we find the little sister of the earlier book taking lead role as she deals with the trials of the final year of high school.
The author once again delivers a generic romance with clichéd characters but it’s also tremendously readable.
I can’t honestly say that it’s a good book but I did enjoy reading it.
One for teen romance junkies only I guess.

Rating: B-

nanette?

Posted on by Greig

The Language Of Spells

Sarah Painter

the language of spellsI first read this less than a year ago and quite enjoyed it. The author has since brought out a sequel. I read the first chapter of that book and decided that I’d best re-read this one first in order to be up to speed with the new novel.
My original review still stands – click on the link to see it.
I’m sure a review for the follow up will appear on the blog soon enough.

Rating: B

daphne?

Posted on by Greig

The Rosie Project

Graeme Simsion

The Rosie ProjectDon is a genetics professor. He’s a creature of schedules, rules and routines.
Though never explicitly stated he’s obviously somewhere on the high functioning end of the autistic spectrum.
After a disastrous date Don decides to initiate The Wife Project. A futile attempt to apply rationality to matters of the heart. His life and the book takes a turn for the screwball comedy when he meets Rosie and starts helping her identify her biological father.
This a fairly enjoyable romantic comedy that I picked up after seeing on sale cheaply in my local Tesco.
I felt that the portrayal of the inner mental workings of Don’s mind was a bit stereotypical and didn’t really feel authentic.
A decent little romance, worth reading if you have a fondness for screwball comedy.

Rating: B

cute?

Posted on by Greig

Attachments

Rainbow Rowell

attachmentsI read this because I really enjoyed Fangirl which is one of the best YA books I’ve read in ages.
This in contrast is a pretty mainstream romance novel.
It’s set in 1999 and it’s partly told through email exchanges. The conceit being that the protagonist works in the IT department of a newspaper with a strict email filter that he monitors for violations of policy.
Reading the emails between an editor and the film critic he falls for one of the two friends.
There’s something very creepy about the premise and it makes it hard to really believe the pretty straightforward way that things resolve.
Otherwise this is a very charming read. It’s nowhere near as good as Fangirl but certainly worth reading if you like a fluffy romance.

Rating: B+