The Spymaster's Lady by Joanna Bourne. OK, before I proceed to the review, I'm detouring for a small rant about book covers. I checked around on the Smart Bitches Trashy Books website for something to read on the plane, came up with three recommendations, and ended up with Spymaster's Lady, the only one my local Borders had in stock the day before I left for the trip. There were two versions of it--exactly the same novel, two different editions. One was a large trade paperback with a relatively subdued picture of a young woman in a tasteful Regency-era dress. It cost $15.00. The other was a small, "mass market" paperback with a picture of a man in standard regency romance hero garb, pulling his shirt off to display (of course) absolutely perfect pecs and abs. It cost $7.99. Why, oh why do they do this? It is already embarrassing enough to admit you're reading a romance novel, why the hell do they need to seal your doom by putting Fabio on the cover? [Aunt BeaN sighs in frustration.] But I bought the small one anyway. Even though it had a cover that was so embarrassing that I spent almost as much time trying to cover it up as I did reading it, and the larger page size and type size would have been much easier on my aging eyes, I am just too cheap to pay $15 for a paperback when exactly the same novel is sitting next to it for $8. So shoot me.
Ok, so on to the book. I made my way through security here at my local airport, sat down at the gate and started reading. Nine hours later, practically as we were descending toward my destination airport, I finished it. It is practically the perfect airplane read. I was completely mesmerized by it. In fact if it hadn't been for one fairly major flaw (which fortunately occurred early on so she had time to recover), I'd give it an A, maybe even an A+. The story is about two spies during the Napoleonic Wars. They are on opposite sides, of course--Annique is French and Grey is British-- but they become fascinated with each other and gradually begin to see things from the other's point of view. And of course they fall in love. Two strong, interesting characters who have a lot of baggage to work through. The ending is maybe not brilliant, but neatly done, so that the heroine maintains her integrity and all of southeastern England is saved. Phew. And still time to get home before dinner. j/k. The thing that bugged me is that Bourne goes out of her way to show how incredibly brilliant and intuitive Annique is during the first 50 pages-- most of which she spends as Grey's captive, frequently being carried around by him when she is...um... indisposed (I'm trying not to give away any plot secrets here). Then after she gets away from him, he finds her while he is in disguise (not much of one), and she doesn't recognize him. It has to be the dumbest plot twist I've read in a long time. They spend four days together and she doesn't figure it out until someone tells her. Like Lois Lane and Superman. How the hell could she not recognize him? Especially if she was such a brilliant spy. I almost quit reading. But I didn't really have another book to read, so I pressed on, and it ended up being worthwhile. Dumb interlude notwithstanding, I'd still give this one an A-. Although I have to say, I passed it on to my mom to read while I was there at her house, and she didn't like it. My mom actually writes romance novels, so presumably knows what she's talking about. She said the characters just didn't draw her in. So take my recommendation with a grain of salt.
Love in the Afternoon Kleypas. The last (fifth) of the Hathaway novels. I read the fourth one on my last plane flight, and it started out badly. Not to sound like a freshman english teacher (which I may be some day), but she spent about the first hundred pages of the fourth novel telling, not showing, as they say. There was almost no immediate action in the first third of the book. It did get better as it went along, though, and the last third or so was actually pretty good.
Love in the Afternoon is the opposite. It starts out really well. Beatrix, the youngest Hathaway, is now 23. She assumes the identity of one of her friends so that she can correspond with her friend's suitor who is off at war. Of course they fall in love through their correspondence, but the suitor doesn't realize he has been corresponding with someone else. Shades of Cyrano de Bergerac, of course, but it's well done and interesting and I was amazed that I had chanced upon two really good romance novels on the same trip. But about halfway through, it kind of starts to fall apart. She even introduces a new character and a major plot point about five pages before the end of the book. Seriously. If it were her first novel, I would have just chalked it up to inexperience and been more than happy to give her next novel another try. But Kleypas has written plenty of books. It wouldn't have taken much work to turn this into a really terrific read all the way through. It's still good, and it's still way better than the fourth one, but just not up to Kleypas' usual standards. On the plus side, unlike many other series, the appearances by the other Hathaway family members (who have been the stars of previous entires in the series) work really well rather than just being a chance to have a cameo appearance by a previous fan favorite. B
Unsung Hero, Suzanne Brockman. There are three romances interwoven in this story, two that take place in the present, and one that takes place during WWII via flashbacks. All three have interesting characters, but there's something about Brockmann's writing style that just doesn't work for me. I had no trouble staying absorbed, but I kept being disappointed with her lack of .........oh, how to say it... the plot is plenty interesting, but the the language she uses and the descriptive techniques are thoroughly pedestrian. Oddly, the relationship between the two main characters, a Navy SEAL and a pediatrician, is the least believable of the three romances. They've known each other since childhood, and apparently (and unbelievably) although they haven't seen each other in 16 years, they've each been carrying the torch for the other all this time. The second romance, between the SEAL's goth neice and a nerdy geek, is priceless, and well worth the price of the book. The third romance, a triangle between the SEAL's uncle, the pediatrician's father, and a Frenchwoman that takes place in occupied France during WWII, is well conceived but written without much depth. And the transitions between the present and the past are awful-- I think I could do better after my one semester of creative writing (not on any of the rest of it, just on the flashback transitions). It's a decent plane read because it's an interesting story and you want to see what happens. So she still gets a B. I'd read another one in this series (this is the first of a series of at least 8 or 9 novels) if I was on a plane, but I don't think I'd be interested otherwise.
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