Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Recent Reads

OK - I couldn't wait until morning.

Here are a couple of recent reads.

Cold as Ice by Anne Stuart
This one seems to be getting very mixed reviews! Jennifer B of I Just Finished Reading loved it! BAM didn't! Janine of Dear Author really liked it! KarenS didn't! Tara, once she found her glasses liked it.

My thoughts. I'm going to take the middle ground. I didn't think it was one of her best but it was OK. I started it, put it down and read another book I liked much better. Then I picked it up again and very shortly put it back down to read the next one I'm reviewing. I finally picked it up again and finished it this time.

I found Genevive annoying after a while. For the first part of the book, I liked her quite well. I thought she was rather plucky - a different sort from some of Ms. Stuart's other heroines. But then, after she was rescued and she kept trying to get away, I thought she lost a few bricks there. Trying to escape from Peter with no money, no car, wearing only black silk pajamas wasn't the work of the brightest toothpick in the log they were cut from. (we practiced similies in class tonight so bear with me). And I just didn't buy the fact that after one night of most excellent sex she was in LOVE. Absolute, love him forever, never gonna end LOVE. It was too drastic a change in too short a time. And I found Peter to be a slightly faded carbon copy of Bastien Toussaint from Black Ice. Mind you I liked him - I like all of her heroes. He just didn't pack the wallup that Bastien did though. And I kind of got the feeling he thought he was all that, when, well, really, he might have come close but didn't quite take the biggest stuffed animal at the fair prize.
The villian, Harry Van Dorn was a hoot though. I thought his plan of 7 was wacky enough, but when he kidnapped the orphans - well, that was certainly the top star on the Christmas tree.
So to sum it up, I'm glad I read this one. Everyone seems to be reading it and I hate to be the only one missing the pajama party. And she did a most excellent job of setting up her next book in Takashi O'Brien - waiting for that one already.

Grade 3 1/2 out of 5

I was going to do two books tonight, but it's almost 1:30 and I need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow so I will continue then.

'til later

9 comments:

Karen Scott said...

Hey Kristie, wasn't the part where Mr Evil kidnaps the children totally stupid?

Karen Scott said...

Incidentally, I think there may be pop-ups on your page, as my pop-up blocker just sent me an alert.

nath said...

Hey Kristie :)

I have those books (Black Ice and Cold as Ice) and I still haven't brought myself to read them :P Hopefully, soon :)

Tara Marie said...

If I gave out actual grades I'd give this one a B-, I chose to ignore how stupid Genevieve gets at times and Harry is completely over the top villain. I'm not sure it's fair to compare Bastien and Peter, Peter is a much lower key character, the ghost that blends.

Karen's right you are getting pop ups, my blocker beeps at me everytime I come on, I think it's part of the "poll" you set up, it starts to come up and then my blocker dumps it.

Kristie (J) said...

Karen: Yea - that part had me laughing. I wasn't sure if the author was serious or writing him totally tongue in cheek up until then. At that point, and after reading her interviews, I think she was laughing too while she was writing him. And how do I get rid of pop ups? I've noticed them too, but don't have a clue as too what to do with them.

Nath: I loved Black Ice and as for Cold as Ice, I still say read it if you like Black Ice. As you can see by the different reviews, some readers love this one and you might feel the same way too.

Tara: ahhhhh - so that's where it started. I guess I'll have to close it then for a while. And I knew this book wasn't going to be one of the better ones since I could very easily put it down.

Mailyn said...

LMAO I loved your similies. I had a suspicion this was along the lines of the TSTL heroine in Black Ice.

Kristie (J) said...

Mailyn: Thanks. I have a feeling I'll be sprinkling them around for a while until everyone is thinking "Stop! No! Not more similies from this nutball!"

Zeek: Black Ice is real good. And lots o people think CAS is too!

Lori said...

Interesting that you guys are talking about the TSTL heroine. I was mentioning in my review of Into the Fire that her heroines always teeter on the edge of TSTL, but that we forgive them because the heros are so amazing we can understand why they would do the dumbass things they do.

I suppose if you don't feel that way about Peter then you wouldn't forgive Genevieve for being TSTL.

Haven't brought myself to read this yet. It's been staring at me from the nightstand for over a week now.

Mailyn said...

Lori I don't know about that, I mean unless you are referring to you and Kristie and how you feel about her books.

I love Stuart and I LOVE her heroes but no amount of love for either will make me love a TSTL heroine. I liked the BI hero but the plot was fool of silly mistakes and holes the size of craters and the TSTL heroine was HORRIBLE. She really needed to die a slow death. LMAO.

Now Stuart does have books with good heroines but, IMO, BI and probably this one, ain't it.