Rereadable Lines

Actually just one line:




It was not the first time she'd been kissed, yet it was. 



Devil's Bride, by Stephanie Laurens

Flashback

DAN SIMMONS

Synopsis from Goodreads: The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn't care: they're addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the best moments of their lives. After ex-detective Nick Bottom's wife died in a car accident, he went under the flash to be with her; he's lost his job, his teenage son, and his livelihood as a result.

Nick may be a lost soul but he's still a good cop, so he is hired to investigate the murder of a top governmental advisor's son. This flashback-addict becomes the one man who may be able to change the course of an entire nation turning away from the future to live in the past.

A provocative novel set in a future that seems scarily possible, FLASHBACK proves why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers.

Stats for my copy: Hardback, Large Print; Reagan Arthur Books; 2011

How acquired: Bought.

My thoughts: I bought this book at a library sale solely because I loved the cover, even though it is very much outside my usual reading genre. And it was good. It was interesting. At times it was a little tedious. And the last quarter of the book was enthralling, which bumped my rating up a star. I liked Nick Bottom, the flashback addicted ex-cop, despite the fact that he'd dumped his son and more or less forgotten about him. I liked Val, a tough kid on the outside, running with a flashgang, worrying his grandfather, hating his old man, vulnerable on the inside, missing his mom, hurt that his dad didn't even call him on his birthday. And the dystopian future setting is just realistic enough to imagine our world actually turning out this way.

Lovesong (Song, Book 1)

WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS INFORMATION THAT SOME MAY CONSIDER SPOILERS. 

VALERIE SHERWOOD

Synopsis from Goodreads: A sweet wild madness swept over Carolina Lightfoot at the sight of elegant Lord Thomas Angevine, reputed to be the most notorious rake in London. The proud Colonial beauty, graced with silvergold hair and flashing eyes, hoped to be his bride. Then, swept into a growing storm of scandal, she was banished to Virginia. Captured by buccaneers on the high seas, Carolina became the Silver Wench of the Caribbean...and the defiant prisoner of the infamous Kells, a brooding man with insolent charm andd a mysterious past.

On the island of Tortuga, where gentle winds caressed the perfumed nights and a lustrous moon whispered love's allure, Carolina must escape...to find Thomas again, and to flee Kells' passionate embrace, the rapturous temptation of his...LOVESONG.

Stats for my copy: Mass market paperback, Pocket Books, 1985.

How acquired: Through Book Mooch.

First line: Fitful shadows raced across the moon.

My thoughts: I was really excited to read this book after seeing some discussion about it on Facebook in a group I recently joined (Old School Romance Book Club, a wonderful group in case you’re interested!). Luckily I found a copy, and copies of the next two books in the trilogy, on Book Mooch (a wonderful book trading site, in case you’re interested!) and immediately requested all three books.

The beginning of LOVESONG was interesting, but nothing fantastic. I was even a little ho hum about it. But then Carolina is sent off to school in England, and it picked up. She meets Lord Thomas, a total wanker, and normally I’d be hating on their relationship and berating Carolina for being such a ninny. But, she was young, still a teenager, and young girls can’t always help but be ninnies about boys. And the author wrote her so well, her thoughts, her feelings, her actions, that very much liked her and felt for her.

But then again I knew from reading the back cover and from the FB group discussion that the real “hero” of this book would be Kells, the wild buccaneer who will capture her later in the book.

And then Carolina goes home with her roommate for the Christmas holidays, and meets Rye. And I REALLY liked him. And even though I knew that Kells is still to come along, I wanted her to forget about Lord Thomas and let Rye love her.

And then comes disgrace, and she is put on a ship back home to Virginia, only to run away and board another ship back to England, only to be captured by a Spanish ship, only to then be recaptured by the buccaneers. For a little while I even convinced myself that Kells was going to turn out to actually be Rye. But then Carolina, now calling herself Christabel, comes face to face with Kells, and the man wasn’t Rye, and there didn’t seem to be any chemistry between them, and he was not described physically or in any other manner the way the hero of a romance book should be described. And even though I knew Kells is the hero, I was very disappointed that, while she was certainly now safely away from the cad Thomas, she was also away from Rye.

But I sighed and pulled myself together, and settled in to see what would happen. And I became completely mesmerized and stayed up late two nights in a row to read, and at the end I was so frantic to find out what would happen next that my eyes kept trying to skip ahead of my brain, and when I finally finished the book, I had that wonderful sated and satisfied yet wanting more more more feeling that only a really good book (or a really good man) can give you.