Alice's Review: I Only Have Eyes For You

Author: Bella Andre
Series: Yes (Sullivan Series, Book #4)
Publication Date: December 22, 2013
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Pages: 384
Obtained: Purchased
Genre: Romance - Contemporary
Rating: 3/5
Bottom Line: A sexy good time.
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Summary:  Sophie Sullivan fell head over heels for Jake McCann at the age of five. Twenty years later, the notorious bad boy still sees her as the "nice" Sullivan twin. When they both get caught up in the magic of the first Sullivan wedding, she knows it's time to make him see her for who she truly is…the woman who will love him forever.  Jake has always been a magnet for women, but the only woman he really wants is the one he can never have. Not only is Sophie his best friend's off-limits sister…he can't risk letting her get close enough to discover his deeply hidden secret.  But when Sophie appears on his doorstep, Jake's every fantasy comes to life, and he doesn't have a hope of taking his eyes, or hands, off her. Jake knows loving Sophie isn't the right thing to do, but one look at her and he knows he can't possibly resist. ~powells.com

Review:  I Only Have Eyes for You is the fourth installment in Bella Andre’s Sullivan Series.  The novel begins with the (spoiler alert) wedding of Chase and Chloe, the love-struck couple from the first book in the series.   This time we get to enjoy the love story of younger sister Sophie’s unrequited love for bad boy and family friend Jake McCann.  What ensues is an incredibly sexy journey where two polar opposites hopefully fall in love even though he thinks he is totally wrong for her because she’s way too good for him.  And of course, she’s been totally lovesick for him even since she was five years old.

I feel pretty neutral about both characters.  Sophie is the sweet girl, nicknamed Nice by her family because she’s well nice.  She’s a librarian, brainy, smart, and sexy in that girl next-door kind of way.  Jack is the tattooed bad boy who owns a chain of Irish pubs.  He’s handsome, dangerous, and thinks love is for the birds. 

Here’s the truth, this novel drove me a bit nuts in how totally unrealistic it is.  I didn’t see how these two could fit.  The more I read, the less believable it became.  A good novel should have a sense of realism to it.  I should be able to see these characters as real people.  I didn’t do that with this novel.  Not even close.  Yet what completely caught me off guard is that I cried at the end.  Yes, I cried.  I didn’t have any feelings towards Sophie and Jake, I wanted a resolution and wasn’t expecting much.  Yet there I was, frantically turning pages at the end waiting to find out what happened with tears streaming down my face.  I’d like to blame it on PMS or something like that, but the truth is I can’t.  It really got me.  And that is the beauty about books, just when you think you have it all figured out, a masterful storyteller kicks you in the gut and pulls at your heartstrings.  It wasn’t expected and I appreciated it.

There are plenty of cameos from the Sullivan clan.  I really enjoy spending time with past characters.  I love when authors remember to actively include them instead of only mentioning them in passing. 

Overall, I enjoyed it. I still think it could benefit from a good dose of realism but then again, it’s a novel. The author has a right to suspend all logic. It’s also a romance and we all know logic has no place in love either.

Alice’s The Look of Love review here.

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Julie's Review: The Wife, The Maid, and the Mistress

Author: Ariel Lawhon
Series: No
Publication Date: January 28, 2014
Publisher: Doubleday
Pages: 320
Obtained: publisher
Genre: historical fiction
Rating: 4
Bottom Line: Fiction blended well with fact in this historical mystery.
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Summary: A tantalizing reimagining of a scandalous mystery that rocked the nation in 1930—Justice Joseph Crater's infamous disappearance—as seen through the eyes of the three women who knew him best. They say behind every great man, there's a woman. In this case, there are three. Stella Crater, the judge's wife, is the picture of propriety draped in long pearls and the latest Chanel. Ritzi, a leggy showgirl with Broadway aspirations, thinks moonlighting in the judge's bed is the quickest way off the chorus line. Maria Simon, the dutiful maid, has the judge to thank for her husband's recent promotion to detective in the NYPD. Meanwhile, Crater is equally indebted to Tammany Hall leaders and the city's most notorious gangster, Owney "The Killer" Madden. On a sultry summer night, as rumors circulate about the judge's involvement in wide-scale political corruption, the Honorable Joseph Crater steps into a cab and disappears without a trace. Or does he? After 39 years of necessary duplicity, Stella Crater is finally ready to reveal what she knows. Sliding into a plush leather banquette at Club Abbey, the site of many absinthe-soaked affairs and the judge's favorite watering hole back in the day, Stella orders two whiskeys on the rocks—one for her and one in honor of her missing husband. Stirring the ice cubes in the lowball glass, Stella begins to tell a tale—of greed, lust, and deceit. As the novel unfolds and the women slyly break out of their prescribed roles, it becomes clear that each knows more than she has initially let on. With a layered intensity and prose as effervescent as the bubbly that flows every night, The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress is a wickedly entertaining historical mystery that will transport readers to a bygone era with tipsy spins through subterranean jazz clubs and backstage dressing rooms. But beneath the Art Deco skyline and amid the intoxicating smell of smoke and whiskey, the question of why Judge Crater disappeared lingers seductively until a twist in the very last pages. ~powells.com

Review:The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress is an intriguing look a mysterious disappearance of a NYC judge during the heydays of the 1930s. I had no clue that this unsolved mystery existed, which is why is sucked me in. I thoroughly enjoyed how Ms. Lawhon told the story from 3 very different women's points of view. Their lives are intertwined because of the Judge. Each one has a different role in his life. Each one of them have their own secrets and sorrows.

For me, the most complex character was Ritzi, the mistress. She was the most well-rounded of the 3. I understand why she made the choices she did. I felt her dreams and her sorrows. I rooted for her from beginning to the end. I wondered how she was going to get out her situation with Madden. It didn't take her long to realize that her dreams weren't worth the cost of her soul.

I empathized with Maria and her plight but I wasn't overly convinced why she was so involved in the  story. Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that she was married to the Detective investigating Judge Crater's disappearance. Stella should have had my sympathy but she wasn't very likable. She was all about keeping up appearances. She was more concerned with how she looked in public and her welfare that what really happened to her husband. She wanted to maintain her lifestyle at all costs.

Ms. Lawhon builds the story methodically and keeps you engaged by switching the point of view. We get to know Judge Crater through each of these women. Let's just say that when he disappears I wasn't overly upset. Much of the story is about the aftermath and behaviors of those surrounding Judge Crater. No one is beyond suspicion; no one is innocent.

If you enjoy reading historical fiction and enjoy a good unsolved mystery then pick up Ms. Lawhon's The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress . I definitely look forward to her next novel.

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Jenn's Review: Wake

Author: Dana Faletti
Series: Whisper trilogy, #2
Publication Date: January 21, 2014
Publisher: Createspace
Pages: 290
Obtained: publicist
Genre: YA, Urban Fantasy
Rating: 2.75/5
Bottom Line: Touched By an Angel meets Buffy
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Blurb: Fans of The Mortal Instruments and Fallen will love the second book in Dana Faletti's Whisper trilogy! When 16-year-old Callie Evans learned she was more than your everyday suburban teen, everything changed. One minute she was a typical high school student, the next, a demon-slayer extraordinaire. As a newly discovered Arc angel from heaven, Callie’s destiny is to fight the Darks that prey on human teens. 
But when Callie meets Romuel, one of the most powerful angels of all time, her reality is shaken once again. Romuel will force her to become what she was meant to be, but will her boyfriend, fellow Arc, Joshua, be able to set his pride aside? He doesn’t appreciate Callie’s attentiveness toward the older, wiser immortal Romuel. Joshua found her first. And he’s not willing to share. 
Is it Callie’s highly active imagination or does the Dark population seem to be multiplying exponentially in her world at an alarming rate? Newsflash: She’s not imagining things. They’re everywhere. And she’s got to find a way to stop them before it’s too late.
Join Silas, Jules, Jixer and the rest of the immortal crew in a story that will wake up the world to the war that’s been raging since the beginning of time, a war in which whispers are the deadliest weapons of all.

Review:  With the huge billing "fans of The Mortal Instruments and Fallen will love" I expected big things from this series.  It did not deliver.  However, I can say that I liked Wake much better than the first book in the series, Whisper.


I had a hard time getting into this series, because I kept tripping over the writing.  Every author has their own style of writing, and I rarely comment on such things, but when their style disrupts what it is they are trying to convey, it is frustrating.  It's not that Dana Faletti's writing style was choppy so much as full of hiccups.  I don't mind metaphors when they are smoothly incorporated, but here I felt bashed over the head with them.

I found myself continually tripping over the dialogue.  Having her characters replace the words 'hell' and 'shit' with 'hello' and 'shugar' was meant to be endearing but wasn't.  Also one of the Micro Angels has an accent that is phonetically forced on the reader, which is a tricky thing to pull off; I kept stopping to match the accent on the page to the one in my head.  Also, Ms. Faletti uses a plethora of causal Biblical references, sometimes without purpose, that I wish she'd really owned and expanded upon.  It gave the plot a lack of depth.

Unfortunately, I felt no attachment to any of the characters.  They are all two dimensional at best with no humor or darkness.  The characters don't struggle; nothing is complicated.  There is supposed to be romantic confusion in the novel but it is resolved before it begins so it comes off as merely a plot device.  Occasionally, Ms. Faletti switches the point of view from Callie to Josh for entire chapters.  I didn't feel like this was necessary to the story as it is often a present tense version of what is then told to us by Callie in the past tense.

However, Wake gets to the heart of the story.  The premise is intriguing and Ms. Faletti is starting to put it all together.  The big conflict has presented itself, and though it is still underdeveloped, it held my attention.  While parts of it were slightly predictable, there were definitely enough  twists and turns to make it interesting.

With a good editor and some further development, I think this series would make a fine middle grade read.  By the end of this novel, I found myself starting to invest in the characters and where they are headed.  Unfortunately, it is a little too late for me.

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Children's Corner: Greek Myths and Legends

I don't know how many Kindergartners go to their librarians and ask for books on Myths, but mine does.  We are on a Percy Jackson kick in our house (Kidlet loves the movies) which started me re-reading all the Rick Riordan books, and had Kidlet looking for something age appropriate to satisfy her thirst for more as well.

The school librarian sent her home with this, and we love it.  It is five different legends with fabulous illustrations.  The retellings are true to the originals without being too graphic or bawdy.  It would be lovely if there were an entire collection of these exploring all the different legends --but we will definitely be seeking out Anthony Masters's Roman Myths to continue our journey.

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Julie's Review: The Secret of Magic

Author: Deborah Johnson
Series: No
Publication Date: January 21, 2014
Publisher: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam
Pages: 416
Obtained: publisher
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 3.5/5
Bottom Line: Interesting story but nothing we haven't read before  
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Summary: In 1946, a young female attorney from New York City attempts the impossible: attaining justice for a black man in the Deep South. Regina Robichard works for Thurgood Marshall, who receives an unusual letter asking the NAACP to investigate the murder of a returning black war hero. It is signed by M. P. Calhoun, the most reclusive author in the country. As a child, Regina was captivated by Calhouns The Secret of Magic, a novel in which white and black children played together in a magical forest. Once down in Mississippi, Regina finds that nothing in the South is as it seems. She must navigate the muddy waters of racism, relationships, and her own tragic past. The Secret of Magic brilliantly explores the power of stories and those who tell them. ~powells.com

Review: The Secret of Magic starts off with getting you riled up and very pissed off because of what happens right in the beginning of the book. You want justice and you do want revenge but at what cost?

Unfortunately after the beginning of the book, it meanders. It takes it's slow southern time getting to the climax of the story. And it doesn't end up being a murder mystery as I thought it would be after reading the prologue. It is more a story of relationships between whites and blacks in a small town in Mississippi. It's how everyone knows the truth but no one cares to acknowledge it until they are forced to. Did it make my blood boil? Absolutely. Was it enlightening? I don't know. Perhaps I did learn a little more about Legal Fund and how our black veterans were treated up until their return from WWII.

The most interesting part of the novel, was the book inside it, The Secret of Magic. How much of what is in that book is true? What happened to the kids in the book? Are they the adults Regina is working with now?

I'm not so sure sending a single black female to backwoods Mississippi in the 1940s was the most brilliant thing that happened in this book. There were times when I feared for her life. She was in a strange place and out of place. She didn't know how to act. While there was still racism in NYC, the races kept to themselves. In Mississippi, they are entwined. Their lives are so immersed with each other, that their histories are connected. This was perhaps what startled me the most reading the novel. The fact that these adults had grown up together, doing the same things for a long time and when they reached a certain age, they were separated. That's when hate started to take hold.

If you enjoy books about the south and race relations than perhaps this is the book for you. I liked it but I didn't love it. The reveal came to quickly for me and there were other aspects that I wanted to learn about but didn't.

Thanks to Amy Einhorn books for the ARC of the novel.

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Julie's Review: The Vanishing

Author: Wendy Webb
Series: No
Publication Date: January 21, 2014
Publisher: Hyperion
Pages: 304
Obtained: publisher
Genre: Horror
Rating: 5
Bottom Line: Spooky on so many levels.
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Summary: Recently widowed and rendered penniless by her Ponzi-scheming husband, Julia Bishop is eager to start anew. So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired . . . and who the world believes is dead. When she arrives at the Sinclairs' enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her "too-good-to-be-true" position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls. ~amazon.com

Review: I had read Wendy Webb's The Tale of Halcyon Crane a couple years ago and loved it. So when I read the summary for The Vanishing, I knew I couldn't pass it up. I'm so glad I got an early copy of this one. Ms. Webb has created a truly gothic atmosphere with Havenswood and the strange goings-ons in the mansion.

Of course Havenswood is a character in itself; it's eerie, dark, huge and old. Of course you are going to hear things and perhaps see things. It is really Amaris, Julia, Adrian and Drew that make the book for me. It is the intricaies of how they build their relationships that intrigue me. Amaris is perhaps the most intriguing of them all. A world-renowed, best-selling author who has been in hiding for 10 years. What happened in her life that made her want to vanish?

We quickly know why Julia would want to leave her current life. It's understandable that she would want that to go away. So I can't say I blamed her for jumping for the offer from Adrian Sinclair. Her motives aren't the ones I question. Throughout the book it is Adrian's motives that I constantly am evalutating. Also, as dreamy as Drew is, I wondered what his motives were as well. As for Amaris, I figured she was just lonely and needed companionship and maybe she was a little less lucid than previous years.

What Ms. Webb does an excellent job of is keeping you wondering throughout the novel. She writes in such a way that you get chills up your spine with regular frequency. She writes Havenwood so well that you feel like you are there walking the halls. You feel the cold of the snow storm, the chill of the ghosts and the warmth of the fires. I don't like to be scared but I do like to be spooked; and spooked I was. I felt what Julia was feeling. The depth of her unease towards the end of the book was my unease.

I still have The Fate of Mercy Alban to read and it will be read sooner rather than later. If you haven't read Wendy Webb before, The Vanishing is a fantastic place to start.

Thank you to Hyperion Books for my copy of the novel.


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