This is the first Lindsay McKenna book I’ve read and I can already say it will not be the last.  It’s also the first book I downloaded through a neighbouring city’s library after getting myself a card, and has already confirmed that it’s the best $40 I ever spent.

The cover synopsis:

When Lieutenant Quinn Grayson reached the earthquake-ravaged L.A. Basin, he discovered devastation. But when he looked into survivor Kerry Chelton’s eyes, he saw hope. For the spirited deputy sheriff had single-handedly kept her community going–until Quinn and his dream team arrived. Now the weary beauty could share her load with Quinn. For the brave marine filled her with a new will to live. And once in his arms, she dreamed this brooding soldier would discover the will to love….

This isn’t the first book in the “Morgan’s Mercenaries: Ultimate Rescue” series, but at no time did I feel like I was missing out on information needed to understand the story and the characters.  Partly, this may be because of the nature of the plot.

The earthquake mentioned in the blurb is a monumental one, which took place about two weeks before the start of this story.  All the roads into the LA Basin have been destroyed, so the only way in or out is by helicopter.  The basin has been divided up into 21 areas, and Quinn’s task is to make contact and offer assistance to Kerry Chelton, the only surviving police officer in Area 5.

The worldbuilding here is fascinating.  McKenna constantly adds in descriptive details and reminders of exactly how large a disaster our heroes are dealing with.  Homes are damaged or unsafe, particularly as there are still aftershocks, and Quinn and Kelly mention seeing people sleeping under what little safe cover they can find, building fires to cook and stay warm.  When Quinn meets Kelly for the first time, she’s filthy (though naturally her beauty shines through the dirt), and trying to hold herself together for the others in the neighbourhood.  People are desperate for any food or water they can get, and urgently in need of medical care.  McKenna mentions the appearance of diseases like cholera and diptheria; diseases caused by drinking unsanitaty water and eating food that’s gone off.  Part of the plot concerns a gang known as Diablo, that is threatening and killing those who can still remain in their homes, stealing all the food and water they can find.

Of course one kind of has to wonder exactly how realistic it is, at first, considering the time frame.  But considering as of 2005  (from what I can tell from Wikipedia) there was a population of at least 12million people living in the area, part of that might be because it’s difficult to wrap one’s head around a disaster of that size.  Even with a significant number of people dead, there are still an overwhelming number that would need help.  And of course, while it may have been harder to believe that there wouldn’t be somehow be a massive evacuation plan in 2002 when the book was written, it’s a little easier to imagine now for anyone who remembers watching the nightly news footage in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

One of the things that also brings the world McKenna has created home are the reactions of the characters.  Kelly, who’s still in shock from seeing her co-workers killed when the sheriff’s department headquarters collapsed on them, and who’s managed to hold it together until Quinn and his fellow soldiers arrive and she nearly–but doesn’t–break down in tears.  Quinn, who acts as the eyes of the reader, repeatedly being surprised by the kind of devastation unknown to most people in North America.

Even better, Kelly and Quinn are equal partners, with a great deal of respect for each other once they get to know each other a little.  And when they do confess their feelings, they don’t automatically decide to get married, shock!  They decide that they need time to get to know each other more, particularly time outside the pressure cooker of the disaster area.  Holy shit, when was the last time you read that in a romance novel?

There are some quibbles I had, however.

The first major drawback–one the author might not have had much of a choice in–is that dealing with such a big event as a major element of the plot and using it as a series means that we barely scrape the surface of the larger events in this book.  Really, this series would have been perfect for a mass-market paperback, instead of being squished and chopped up into a series of categories.  Though perhaps it was part of her contract with Harlequin/Silhouette to do a number of series novels, or because there were a number of different couples and areas to cover, McKenna felt that separate instalments of a caegory series was the way to go, which I can see.

As a result of that, however, the part of the plot involving the Diablo gang feels a little tacked on; there’s only really one scene involving them while the rest of the time the characters just talk about the gang with the threat lurking in the background.  It mainly feels like the gang is mentioned as much as it is as an excuse for them to get military in that specific area before others, and the incident with the gang is the catalyst for the hero’s “OMG I love her” moment.  Other than that, it doesn’t take up much of the page count and isn’t resolved in this book; I’m hoping that there’s a big showdown in a later book in the series.

By the same token, it felt like once the leads of this book had all their interaction outside the disaster area, we didn’t get to see as much of what was happening and instead are told about it.  At the same time, this is the same part where some of the realism of the situation that I mentioned earlier comes in, though again it’s told, not shown.  Obviously in a work of this length, anything that doesn’t advance the leads’ romantic storyline has to be left out.

And one final quibble, that didn’t really have to do with the length of the book: Quinn’s initial ideas about women.  At first, Quinn was irking me with his ideas on women (at ene point early in the book we learn that he thinks women are “not especially handy or practical” and that nurturing is their best asset, which isn’t helpful in the Marine Corps) and on initally meeting Kerry he starts falling a little into the romance-cliche of judging every woman’s actions by the motivations of some heinous ex.  It’s actuially laid on pretty think in the first chapter and then…he just kind of changes his mind when he meets Kerry.  At first it’s the way she fits into his prejudices that attracts him to her (her maternal care for an orphaned child, for instance).  But it really never comes up as an issue between them–as I said earlier, they’re very much a team in the disaster area–and the change of heart, while there, is pretty quiet.  Because of that, I’m not sure why it’s something that’s emphasized in the first chapter to the extent that it is.

However all that being said, this was an enjoyable book and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series as well as McKenna’s other works.  This one gets a B from me.

This is one of the titles offered through the Harlequin Celebrates free downloads, and which I initally read when it was first offered, then didn’t read again until I decided to do this review.

Turns out there was a good reason for that.

But first, let’s look at the summary, shall we?  From the Harlequin Celebrates site:

DOWNTRODDEN SERVANT OR GRACIOUS LADY?

When Max, Earl Blakehurst, meets Verity he sees a downtrodden servant. He doesn’t recognize her as the daughter of a colonel under whom he used to serve, the girl he’d once helped years before. The life Verity’s now living is untenable. So he proposes a shocking solution—he will set her up as his mistress.

It’s only once that Verity’s finally agreed, once Max is beginning to lose his heart to her, that he discovers her true identity. Max is taken aback; he would never have suggested this lady become his mistress. Now, to avoid scandal, they’ll have to marry!

That blurb is really only the first third of the book; the rest is made up of Verity and Max working out the kinks of their marriage and the misunderstandings that come between them.  And oh, there’s a lot of those.

The two-thirds of the book that the blurb doesn’t cover is predominately histrionics on the part of the two leads.  On finding out who Verity is, naturally Max immediately assumes she’s a filthy lying whore trying to entrap him into marriage.  Of course!  She couldn’t possibly have hidden her identity for any reason involving her hideous, abusive relatives!

This is the first occasion where we see Verity’s “WOES, HE THINKS I’M A WHORE, I MUST SUFFER IN SILENCE” reaction.  Get used to it.  His comments about her dishonouring her father’s memory only give her more opportunity to angst about her father’s death was really all her fault, Max would never love her if he knew, wangst, wangst wangst.

Probably the best example of this is on their trip to London:

Wouldn’t any normal woman be trying to placate his fury and twist him around her little finger by now?  Not Miss Verity Scott, apparently.  She was indulging in a fit of the sulks and for the most part appeared to find the scenery on the opposite side of the curricle fascinating.

…

A movement beside him caught his attention.  Miss Scott was wiping her eye.  Wonderful!  Now she was going to cry at him.  Cynically he waited to hear the inevtiable sob.  And waited.

…

Her eyes were red and swollen, her chees stained with tears.   He could even see the marks where her underlip had ben gripped between her teeth. …[F]or how long had she sat there beside him, weeping silently?  …How did she intend to manipulate him if he couldn’t hear her?

From here on in it’s one giant muddle of Big Misunderstandings and idiotic feelings of responsibility turning everything into one giant mess.  Verity believes she’s responsible for her father committing suicide, Max is living up to a promise he made to his mother that, as his mother blamed him for the accident that ended Richard’s chances at an Army career, he would never marry, or never have children if he did marry, so the title would pass to Richard.

And then naturally when things go bad after each small reconciliation (which they inevitably do) Verity reads “he thinks I’m a whore” into every verbal misstep Max makes,  when Max eventually gets it through his head that she’s not a manipulative slut, he wangsts that he’s crushed her spirit and any possible love for him, woe.

Add in a preposterous plan by Verity to force Max to divorce her ( for his own sake, of course, for crying out loud) and an inheritance that her Evil Relatives were trying to hide from her and I was about ready to scream.

Verity occasionally shows a little gumption but more often tiptoes about meekly, pale and wan from not eating and feeling woeful.  Max is an asshole for the first half of the book and a wangsty idiot for the last half.  I might have liked either of them if they hadn’t waffled so goddamn much or if they’d stopped being idiots earlier and actually tried sorting out the misunderstandings,  but they do too much of the former and not enough of the latter.  Considering I read another of Rolls’ books around the same time–Lord Braybrook’s Penniless Bride–around the same time and liked it, this one was a disappointment.

If you like melodrama and characters that go through agonies, you may very well like this one, but if your patience for angsting without action wears thin rather quickly, then I’d hardly suggest even downloading it.

His Lady Mistress is available as a free download from Harlequin Celebrates.

Yeah, you heard me.  Ten FREE EBOOKS.  Even better, you can download them in both ePub and Mobipocket formats, and some readers can even text a number to download them to their phones (not sure about any geographic restrictions on that, though).

Head on over to www.everyonesreading.com to get the downloads.  I’ve got all ten and will likely be reviewing a lot of the titles in the coming weeks, as I am a brokeass reader who still needs to go to a neighbouring city and get an out-of-town library card so I can borrow their ebooks online.

Title: Manhunter
Author: Loreth Anne White
Series: Silhouette Romantic Suspense, November 2008
ISBN: 0373276079
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit I’m kind of biased to like this book to begin with as it TAKES PLACE IN CANADA, OMG.  Seriously, Harlequin, I’ve read two books set in Canada from you guys in the last couple years.  Can we get some more Can-Con up in here, already?  Are there no opportunities to have Canadian cops/ex-military/CEOs/playboys/cowboys/insert hero trope here?

Also, I’ll admit to a complete addiction slight bias for angsty law-enforcement types.  This may or may not have something to do with Jack Bauer being my TV boyfriend my being a fan of a few suspense/mystery series featuring that type.

So with that out in the open, let’s move on to what other people should like about the book, shall we?

RCMP Staff Sergeant Gabe Caruso hasn’t been the same since his fiancee was murdered by a serial killer he captured a year before.  Still dealing with the guilt and grief, he accepts a posting to the remote Yukon town of Black Arrow Falls, where he meets Silver Karvonen, expert tracker and owner of a hunting lodge.  Silver has her own emotional trauma that she’s still dealing with, but more importantly when it comes to the new Mountie in town, she has secrets to hide.  Secrets that might not stay that way for very long when the killer from Gabe’s past comes looking for revenge, and when Silver and Gabe realize there’s a strong attraction between them.

I initially found out about Manhunter from a review on Dear Author (which if course I can’t find to link now, will keep looking), and it was one of the first books I got as soon as the Reader arrived.  Holy damn, am I ever glad I did, because I literally could not put this one down. Tightly plotted, with interesting characters, it packs a pretty good punch for something that runs about 370 pages in the Sony ebook format.

The best part of the characters is the balance that White manages with them, the layers that give them life.  Gabe is haunted by his responsibility in what happened a year earlier, but doesn’t wallow in it.  Not only did he take the posting in Black Arrow Falls to get away from places that held memories for him, he also did it because of feelings of anger from that day that still linger, still scare him and make him unable to trust that he wouldn’t take it out on someone else if he stayed with the homicide squad down south.

Silver keeps many people at a distance, and Gabe in particular, but doesn’t tip over into bitchy to do so.  She holds back from him for reasons that are completely believable when we find them out, but not so much that we want her to just drop the attitude already and make with the snogging.  She’s strong, capable, and an expert in her field.

But even better is when the two characters come together.  From about mid-way through the book, they’re a team, equals, with their own strengths and weaknesses.  There are a couple cases where their stubborn pride gets in the way of doing what the person who knows their shit tells them to do, and while it sometimes starts heading toward TSTL territory (Gabe, when Silver tells you to back away from an angry bear, you back the fuck away), it never quite reaches it.  While a little annoying, it stays within the realm of “this is what a real, pigheaded person would do”.  Their arguments are resolved fairly quickly, and when Gabe finally learns Silver’s secret, he doesn’t shrug it off or condemn her off the bat.  And it’s a real secret with some possible consequences, not some pansy-ass secret that makes you roll your eyes.

White’s descriptions of the setting are also well done, evoking the setting in a way that allows the reader to see the setting and the action clearly in their mind’s eye.  She also uses it well to ramp up the tension, as a winter snowstorm traps the town’s inhabitants with the killer, cutting them off from the outside world.

And the tension, she does get ramped.  I was reading the climax on lunch at work and was very reluctant to turn off the reader and get back to work.  For a book with a shorter word count, the suspense plot is relatively straightforward, and most importantly, isn’t really separate from the romantic plot; each one drives the other.

Now okay, you’re probably wondering if I’m going to say anything negative at all about this book.  I mean come on, it can’t be perfect, right?  Well…it’s close?  I mean, like I said, there are a few spots where the romantic leads can do some things that verge on TSTL.  Probably thanks to the short word count, we don’t really get to see much of any of the other characters with any real depth, which would help if this is going to be a series (*makes beggy eyes*).  And okay, a little bit of the setup is, well, kinda like Nora Roberts’ Northern Lights (which I also loved).  Though the “cop with trauma moving to small town” is kind of a common trope to start with.

But other than that, seriously, love this book.  I reread it in preparation for the review and gobbled it up yet again.  I’d even recommend it to those who don’t usually like romantic suspense.  In case you couldn’t tell, I’m giving this one an A.

Now can we get some more Canadian boys over here, Harlequin?  I mean come on, we’re not all frozen wilderness.

Manhunter is available in print at Better World Books,  Amazon.com and as an ebook from Harlequin.

You know the kind, the ones that get sold in bookstores, big box stores, convenience stores, supermarkets…the kind that people tend to mean when they say “Harlequin” (though they could be a Silhouette, or a Mills & Boon…but then Harlequin owns those lines).  The little ones, the ones that change every month, providing so much material for reviewing.   I love them as they only take a couple hours to read, and as Wendy the Super Librarian says, they’re “all of the romance, none of the bullshit” (of course, can I find that quote now so I can link to it?  No, of course not).  I may review some longer romance novels occasionally, but for the most part it’ll be these wee things.

Also, as I’ll be buying/borrowing my own books, I’m going to go with what interests me.  Yes, that means that certain lines won’t be represented (paranormals, 99% of the Harlequin Presents line and others of its ilk), but I’m more than willing to have guest reviewers for those.

And as for those reviews, here’s the rating system I’m going with:

A – OMG LOVE.  Very few problems and minor ones at that, definitely keeping and rereading.
B – Pretty good.  A few things that bugged, but they’re somewhat believable and the problems were balanced by some good parts. Probably keep it to reread it once or twice before I get rid of it.
C – Meh.  Fun ride, but it had problems.  Not sorry I read it, really, but not a keeper.
D – Ugh, had some good elements but way outweighed by the problems.
F – OMG WTF ARE YOU SHITTING ME.  KILL IT.  KILL IT WITH FIRE.

Obviously there is a fair bit of wiggle room with this system, but then I’ll be going on to explain my reasons for the grade when I do the review.  And expect some snark.  I love romance novels, but really, some deserve the snarking, and I’m not going to play all happyfuzzy when I read something that sucks.

So there you have it; the blog’s mission statment as it were.  Hoping to jump right in and start with the reviews tomorrow, though don’t expect a regular posting schedule.  That’s going to depend on how much reading I can get done in a given week.  We’ll see how it goes.