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are taken from books I myself love, and heartily recommend you should read. Every month readers can post comments below the current review – it’s my own Book Club! Please feel free to join in and do check the archives!
~ Eloisa

 

 

Nobody’s Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

April 2009

~buy this book~ 

I still remember discovering Susan Elizabeth Phillips – which happened to me, oddly enough, through an English bookstore in Florence, Italy. This was years ago. It was early evening and hot as the blazes (that was before my husband and I succumbed to installing air conditioning in his mother’s Italian apartment). So I was lying on a hot couch, drinking a gin-and-tonic, and reading SEP. And laughing. I laughed so hard that I fell off the couch and my husband accused me of drinking too much, thereby instigating a marital quarrel…

He was so wrong! I was drunk on one-liners and It Had to Be You. It’s still my sentimental favorite, but I have to say that plot-wise, Nobody’s Baby but Mine is the best. The heroine is a genius physics professor, Dr. Jane Darlington, who desperately wants a baby – but she absolutely does not want that baby to end up a genius like herself (as she spent her childhood and adolescence left out of children’s games and viewed as a weirdo). Now my take on this is that if I were a genius, I would roll with the punches… but hey, obviously this is one of those “don’t grouch until you’ve walked a mile in her shoes” kind of thing. So Jane decides to get pregnant – with someone stupid. That’s right: stupid.

Here’s where pop culture and genius collide: from the point of view of academics (and as an academic myself, I can assure you that this is pretty much true), where does one find a population of men who exhibit reckless disregard for life and limb, thereby signaling a marked lack of intelligence? On the football field, of course!

So Jane ends up a “special present” to Cal Bonner, the Chicago Stars’ top quarterback. At first things don’t exactly work out. Cal thinks Jane is (ahem) a good-time girl, and Jane’s skills in that area aren’t exactly top-notch. But one thing leads to another, and Jane gets exactly what she wants.

You’d think a genius would know that life is never easy. That actions have consequences, etc. But no… anyway, Jane and Cal end up together, fighting and making love. It’s hard for Jane to accept Cal’s degrees, once she learns of them…even harder for Cal to accept Jane’s stubborn, brilliant nature.

This is a wildly funny novel – don’t miss it! Make yourself a gin-and-tonic, warn your husband beforehand, and throw yourself on a couch.

By Eloisa Posted in Contemporary Comments (10)

 

Just One of the Guys by Kristan Higgins

March 2009

~buy this book~

I have to admit it. I love wallflowers. I think it’s the memory of a painful prom night sitting at the edge of the gym while couples circled the room to Stairway to Heaven, the girls with their arms limply around their partners’ necks. Since my date is now Out, I don’t count this as much of a personal failure (that’s my story and I’m keeping to it!).

But still…those charming memories mean that I have a huge fondness for a girl who isn’t circling the room in the arms of the football hero. And if she’s snappy and funny about being rejected – well, then I adore her. Just One of the Guys opens when Chastity O’Neill is being dumped. She’s also choking on a stuffed mushroom, but even after that little problem is solved, the conversation doesn’t go too well. She makes the mistake of asking the little creep why (any girlfriend could have steered her away from that question). His answer isn’t welcome: “I just don’t find you attractive enough…with shoulders like those, you could find work down on the docks.” By the time it turns out that she gave him a piggy ride for over a mile and a half, any reader knows that Chastity is seriously challenged in the feminine category. Although, thank goodness, she gives as good as she gets: “I think you need to bathe more often, Jason. This whole Seattle-grunge-patchouli thing is so 1990s.”

She ends up in the bar, nursing a Scorpion Bowl and a grievance, when along comes Trevor (“neither skinny nor pale, but brawny and chocolate-eyed and irresistible”). Unfortunately, another Scorpion Bowl leads to a hilarious conversation during which Chastity tries to get Trevor to admit that he finds her attractive – because otherwise he wouldn’t have slept with her all those years ago. This could be maudlin or depressing, but Chastity is such a funny, unique girl that I simply got swept along for the ride. After Trevor politely declines to answer, and a nice lesbian sends her a drink, she decides it’s time for a change. She needs to fall in love. Fast.
There are so many paranormal heroes out there these days (what man doesn’t have leopard spots or the ability to growl in the night?) that it’s incredibly refreshing to dive into a straight contemporary. Chastity makes a lovely Every-Woman, especially when a perfect doctor falls in love with her and Trevor tells her that he can’t leave his perfect girlfriend for her, even though they have the best crazy sex ever…

Don’t miss this book if you love Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Elizabeth Bevarly and Rachel Gibson. There’s another great contemp writer in town!

By Eloisa Posted in Contemporary Comments (7)

 

So Enchanting by Connie Brockway

February 2009

~buy this book~So Enchanting is one of the most original romances I’ve read in years – and I say that with full recognizition that originality is a fraught concept in romance. People often think that a newly published romance is just a cookie-cutter version of a previously published romance. “Marriage of convenience?” they scoff. “That old plot!”

Well, the truth is that there aren’t that many plots in the world. They’re all old – as Shakespeare understood. He took all but three of his plots from published work: Romeo and Juliet copies its plot from a poem of the same title; Hamlet was taken from a play that we know only know as the Ur-Hamlet (though we know that there was a ghost running around under the stage yelling about revenge).

Within the boundary of plot, a book can be fantastically original – or stunningly unoriginal. So Enchanting is one of those books which negotiates fresh territory, and does it with wit. The book opens with Lord Greyson Sheffield, who is exposing yet another fraudulent “spiritualist.” Sheffield absolutely loathes spiritualists, since his father went bankrupt chasing after spiritualist after spiritualist who promised to “talk” to Greyson’s dead half-sister. So he rips off the table-cloth and exposes Mr. Brown playing a “spirit” violin with his naked toes while his wife supposedly contacts the afterlife.

The novel then jumps forward to the widowed Mrs. Brown (our heroine, Francesca, or Fanny) who is now living in Scotland as guardian to an orphaned young girl. And that girl has been accused of witchcraft. More importantly, Fanny still hasn’t learned how to control her own magical powers – and when Greyson shows up in Scotland to investigate the situation, things go haywire quickly.

Greyson and Fanny instantly recognize each other. Their conversations have the sophisticated, desirous snappiness of old Katherine Hepburn movies. Utterly delicious! At the same time, Fanny’s gift is nothing you would expect. She can’t even really prove to Greyson that she has it – because she’s not in control of its manifestation. Plus, Greyson’s young relative falls instantly in love with Fanny’s young ward, who likes to boast about her witchy powers (she has none), and ends up complicating everything.

This is a ravishing, funny story about people who are diametrically opposed, and yet absolutely suited for each other. The plot swirls around them, but it is really Greyson and Fanny who stand out in my mind as utterly original, interesting and lovable characters. Don’t miss this book!

By Eloisa Posted in Paranormal, Historical Comments (1)

 

To Sin With a Stranger by Kathryn Caskie

December 2008

~buy this book~

I absolutely love plots that spring from cruel parents: don’t ask me why. My parents were deeply loving and wouldn’t have dreamed of casting me out into a rainy night with no money and harsh words. More the opposite, now that I think of all those nights when my mother waited up when I was (ahem) a wee bit late on my curfew.

But I spent my childhood reading and rereading stories of parental harshness anyway—or at least, parental abandonment. The Box Car Children! And what about The Little Princess, the archetypal story of the mean, cold world?

As I grew older, I moved on to romances with the same plot. Barbara Cartland absolutely adored stories of nasty parents (and/or stepmothers) casting beautiful young ladies into the dark night. I would shudder deliciously as Cartland’s young heroine (generally dressed as a boy) faced starvation and worse on the street of Paris. Or London. Or wherever.

So it’s doubly fun to have discovered a novel in the same vein: Kathryn Caskie’s wonderful Seven Sins series. To Sin with a Stranger opens up with a nasty old man throwing his seven children into a cold and rainy night. He’s a bitter alcoholic who suddenly woke up and realized that his children were the talk of Scotland, due to embodying each and every sin. So out they go, off to London where they’re supposed to support themselves.

Sterling, the Marquess of Blackburn, manages to earn some money in professional fights. But then he figures out a better way to make money, involving marrying the altogether delectable Isobel Carington. But she wants nothing to do with him. Absolutely nothing!

Yet Sterling is so delicious (and her dad isn’t the nicest man either), and after a while Sterling manages to wear her down. But Sterling’s sin is greed, and he keeps a secret from her that will break her heart—and his – if he doesn’t learn to trade a lust for money for a lust for Isobel.

This is a hugely fun novel: the appeal of reading about nasty parents comes from the satisfaction of seeing the child finally make his or her own way in the world. This romance brings with it that particular readerly pleasure as well as the pleasures of a sexy, fun romantic romp. I’m already looking forward to the next deadly sin!

By Eloisa Posted in Historical Comments (2)

 

Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton

November 2008

~ buy this book ~

I adored this book even though it’s all about things that I can’t do. I can’t throw a magic spell, for one thing. I can’t knit. My mother didn’t leave me a magic basket of yarn. I don’t even have three cats. But I was utterly charmed by Chloe Hobbs, the heroine of Casting Spells. She can do it all - and she ends up with a sexy cop as well.

The premise of the novel is that Salem has a counterpart:  the sweet little Vermont town of Sugar Maple, which happens to be laid out on exactly the same grid as Salem. And happens to be chock full of all the magic beings who got pushed out right around when Salem got famous. Why don’t we know about them? Because the town has a spell cast on it that keeps everyone safe (not to mention beautiful). The problem is that the spell is wearing thin, and when a tourist is murdered right on their own lake, everyone in town realizes that their protective magic is failing.

Whose fault is that? Chloe’s. She’s a dud, a wand without a spark, a squib in Harry Potter lingo. She’s supposed to be the magical heart of the village, and even more crucially, she’s supposed to give birth to a girl child. But how can she do that? She can’t bring a human into town, and the only magical men she meets are covered with warts. Everyone wants her to find a mate, because it’s her only chance to discover her magical powers (if she has any) - but a half-way decent man refuses to show up, even given blind dates with “six feet two inches of pure wizardry” and the like.

Does that sound familiar? Chloe is a chick lit heroine caught in a paranormal. Not only is she in the classical chick lit situation of being thirty and desperate, but when she finds a man, he’s oblivious - on several fronts. Luke, the cop assigned to solve Sugar Maple’s murder, is about as hard-headed and unimaginative as they come. He can be knee deep in fairy dust, and rather than strap on Ghost Busters gear and get to work, he just keeps blindly walking through clouds of purple glitter.

Chick lit novels generally involve a girl who desperately wants what she can’t have:  a thinner waistline, a bigger paycheck, and a sexy handyman. Casting Spells presents precisely that, in chick lit’s rueful, funny voice:  “I wanted…the whole big fat dream life every thirty-year-old single girl with cats wanted:  the husband, the kids, the Golden Retriever, the house with the white picket fence.” Chloe wants normal - and that’s impossible.

Naturally, when her magic finally kicks in (with help from some hot kisses from Luke), it takes on a chick lit exuberance:  the silverware starts mating with the utensils, the cats start looking like the Beatles on the Abbey Road cover, and the dish clothes all throw themselves in the fire. You get the picture.

If you share the same slightly worn affection for chick lits that I do - which means that I really liked reading Bridget Jones, back in the day - then don’t miss this book. The magical twist makes the genre fresh, sweet and funny again.

By Eloisa Posted in Paranormal Comments (13)

 

 

 

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