½~~~~ (0.5/5)

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Note: Surprise! Have our Surprise Monday Romance Review Extravaganza Review #1.
These are all short reviews previously posted on GoodReads.com, re-written and expanded a little for our first Random Review Extravaganza.

I started reading this contemporary romance novel about the love of a rescue-dog trainer and a ranger to expand my education on romance novels, a genre which I’ve been determined to unravel. It was possibly the very worst place to start, unless one likes groans with her lols.

Gosh, what drivel.

Let me give you an example, which I think beautifully and succinctly captures the main problem:

John showed her the other kids and then photos of his entire family, telling funny stories from childhood. Melody found herself laughing along with him.

John North was a pretty fun guy.

He was a pretty fun guy.

Somehow I still managed to loathe him. Perhaps this is just me. The hero in the very first romance I ever read, The Wicked Ways of a Duke by Laura Lee Guhrke, was ridiculous, but this guy is so red-white-and-blue that, it must be admitted, it makes me want to barf. To each her own, though, so if you like your men ex-military with rippling muscles and conservative values, it’s not my place to judge.

However, it IS my place to judge plain bad writing. Ms Goodnight may well have had her Romance Writing 101 course. There is the past trauma, the trust issue and the irresistable pull the couple feel towards each other, there are the heroine’s unlikely eyes and strange beauty and the hero’s rippling muscles. The first kiss, the first (however abortive) sexing and the perilous situation all occur on cue. What the author lacks is a grasp of descriptive language and the art of suggesting rather than telling. John and Melody laugh together, but we don’t get to get in on the joke.

To further compare Goodnight and Guhrke, who I’m beginning to think of as the best of all the romance authors I’ve read (which admittedly is not saying much), both authors over-use the word “masculine”, but where Laura Lee Guhrke overused “golden masculine beauty” and “luscious”, Linda Goodnight overuses “sexy”. That should tell you something. Also, her heroine has silvery eyes with gold flecks, which the hero notices from across the room. Because you can so see a person’s eye colour from across the room, and her eyes could never be something as ordinary as “grey”.

This was one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I know popular fiction isn’t supposed to be high art, but this is just ridiculous.

½~~~~ (0.5/5)

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Note: This is a repost of a review previously posted on GoodReads.com. I know I promised not to do that, but I decided to post it to make up for the short Google Wave review.

Short review: Sea-going Marty Stu copies the Harry Potter format into a fantasy setting that might be called imaginative by a gifted liar, but is mostly just unlikely.

Longer review follows.

Plot: Halcyon Blithe joins the Arcanian navy on a dragonship of the line and excels. Eventually also makes one bad blunder, is forgiven, beats a villain and rescues the ship.

In my experience our hero is the worst case of unlikely excellence in a character since the Scarlet Pimpernel, and noticeably less funny and charming. His special talents and Marty Stu traits, let me show you them: he has red eyes (from demonic blood), is the seventh son of a seventh son (which makes his magic better), is a late bloomer (makes his magic better) and a dragon-speaker (rare magical talent) and a rope speaker (rare magical talent), knows the Articles of War by heart, is a Blithe (almost all his family are naval officers), is unusually tall and strong for a 16-year old, beat the marine champion in their very first bout, beat the blast-pike Navy champion first time he (Halcyon) ever handled the weapon (though using it the way he did, according to said champion, usually takes years of study), was the aimer of the only blast-tube (cannon) crew to hit the target in his first practice… Should I go on?

The book wasn’t even well-written. Not only does the formula greatly resemble the Harry Potter books – lessons in sea-going life acquiant the reader with the fantasy world, and then there is a puzzle and a dangerous situation – the phrasing is straight out of badfic. “His father was gone, but his spirit lived on in Halcyon.” Honey, WE DON’T CARE. We don’t know his father. His father was never in the book. Halcyon also talks to himself, aloud; the spy is absurdly easy to spot, and everybody laughs at each other’s horrendously bad jokes. And I won’t even go into how they sugarcoat extreme cruelty towards dragons.

Avoid this book, it’s a waste of your time. I have read worse, but honestly not that many.