A Season of Seduction

andrea — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

When critiquing a work, being meh is the worst feeling. If a book or a movie is bad, there is plenty to say. The same thing applies when it is wonderful. But when it is neither, it gets hard. What do you say? It was adequately plotted? The characters were pleasant?

A Season of Seduction by Jennifer Haymore falls into this category. Some parts of the novel were good, others bad, but overall, it just was. A romance novel set in 1827, the story follows Lady Rebecca Fisk, a young widow with a dark history, as she falls in and out of love with Jack Fulton, sailor rogue extraordinaire who also has a dark history. The novel opens with the two of them getting caught in bed together by her family, which is used to set up an entirely plausible plot. Events happen around Christmas, thus the name.

The characters are well-drawn and yes, pleasant. Lady Rebecca, or Becky as she’s known, is a level-headed, smart, interesting young woman with an entirely reasonable fear of commitment. I can honestly say she’s a good character, maybe one of the best female characters I’ve read in a while. She does some rash things, but for logical reasons. Jack Fulton, on the other hand, veers towards idealized character a bit too much. He’s a rough and tumble sailor, who knows how to keep house, is a generous lover and manages to save her on a few occasions. He is very close to being as real a person as Becky, which makes him a bit of a letdown. Did I mention Becky shoots him? And he admits he deserved it? Situations like that highlight the differences between the two of them. However, the other characters, and there are a lot of them, are not shown in particularly sharp focus, but they are not objectionable either. Just pleasant.

In the past, I’ve been guilty of pre-judging romance novels as less than novels, and not worth reading. But recently, I’ve realized that is unfair. Like any genre, there are standouts and disappointments. What strikes me is the feeling that, authors of romance novels seem to be reaching only for what’s good enough. Jennifer Haymore has flashes of brilliance and obvious talent, but she stopped at pleasant. I hope she reaches for more than A Season of Seduction. She can do it easily.

Written by: Taylor Rhodes, November 1st 2010

Dark Hunger

admin — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:16:00 +0000

By Rita Herron

Forever Publishing

Although this “paranormal romance” is the first of Rita Herron’s books that I’ve read, it’s the second in the Demonborn series. I expected something that was fresh, original, and erotic—boy, was I disappointed. The story line was, however, easy to follow. There were too many elements of this story that turned me off.

The lack of research that went into this story is appalling. Yes, we have demonic people like vampires and shape shifters; however, the backdrop for these characters is the real world. The author takes the lazy approach and as a result, creates many glaring guffaws that irritated the crap out of me. St. Louis, New Orleans’ oldest cemetery is mistakenly presented as only one of the oldest.

The most grating unchecked mistake is her constant referral to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as PTS (Post Traumatic Stress). The bad guy, a cartoon character named Zion, who reminded me of the bad guy “The Master” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, utilizes war veterans who have PTS in his bid to take over the world one American city at a time.

PTS is temporary and only lasts from weeks to a number of months—such a minor error wouldn’t matter, if she didn’t repeat it over and over, like her use of “innocent” to describe anybody who isn’t a demon. The author also references a fictional online PTSD group to tie the veterans’ legal names to the ring leader—yet the most popular PTSD online support group is anonymous—as are most—to protect sufferers’ identities.

Then there’s the premise of reporter Annabelle Armstrong hunting down Quinton Valtrez, the quintessential 'bad boy'. She easily tells police officials she’s a reporter and hey, they tell her anything she wants. By the way, our innocent heroine is pale skinned, blonde, and blue-eyed, like an angel. Bad boy Quinton, like his evil daddy Zion, has a dark complexion—no surprise there.

Another absurdity is the vulture element. An endangered species, these vultures—demons in disguise—start flying over each place that’s going to be bombed. Their numbers increase exponentially after killing innocents. Nobody seems to mind except for our innocent damsel and her brooding Dark Lord heartthrob. It creates a problem because the paranormal is purposely set within contemporary reality. I kept wondering why the army or the National Guard didn’t come in and shoot them all down—or why animal conservationists didn’t try to rescue the hungry birds.

I know—who cares about the plot and accuracy and believability, because it’s all about the sex scenes. The erotica is terrible—words like “pebbles” describe nipples and yes, in a ‘heated’ moment, the dreaded ‘penis’ appears. We also get lots of the hero jerking off, but oddly enough, no real descriptions of our heroine, unless you count “inside” her; it’s almost as if the author is uncomfortable describing the female body. Even with a threesome (two girls and the hero), it’s all about his dick. The sexual encounters are minimal and bland, yet the author continually refers to “wicked” longing and “wicked” dreaming and “wicked” lusting.

There is decent erotica out there, but you won’t find it in this book of clichés and boring sex. Inaccuracies and bland writing can be excused in this genre, but not the lackluster attempts at sex scenes.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, July 4th 2009