Marching On (ha!)... TBR Challenge: March

Last month I mentioned brightening up this blog with something....more.  More posts, new pictures, something.  Alas, that hasn't happened since I've been spending more time on getting my guestroom/office ready for Mom's arrival next month.  Yes, folks, this time next month -- Mom will be my roommate.  Pray for me. 

However, I have stuck with the promise to myself that I'd stay with the TBR Challenge.  This month I think the theme was to catch up on a series.  Since it's been documented that finding particular books in my own TBR is like finding a pin in the Everglades, I chose to vary on the theme and just catch up on books by a favorite author of mine, Allison Brennan.  The Kill is the third in her Predator Thriller series, and before I read it, I honestly didn't know if I'd read any of the others (The Prey and The Hunt).  Funny thing, though: yesterday, while I was relocating the 2/3 of my TBR that's here in what used to be my office (soon to be Mom's bedroom) to a storage unit, I unearthed the first book, The Prey.  Ah well.

(image from www.barnesandnoble.com)

As the director of the FBI's Trace Evidence and Materials Analysis department, Olivia St. Martin has settled into a life where there are no surprises, no thrills and definitely no room for romance.  She's quite satisfied in her role, if not a bit lonely, which is better than opening up to people who may want to get to know her more.  That can only lead to disaster, especially when they find out that she still subconsciously blames herself for her elder sister's murder when they were kids.  They may have caught Brian Harrison Hall, and Olivia has attended each one of his parole hearings to ensure that he stays locked up, but Olivia still lives with the nightmare of the day Missy was taken in front of her own eyes and subsequently killed.

Olivia's comfort in her work comes to a screeching halt when the evidence against Hall is overturned and he becomes a free man.  As the only witness on the day Missy went missing, could it be possible that Olivia helped to put an innocent man away?

Seattle police detective Zack Travis lives for his job, and he's good at it.  Maybe that's why he's already survived one divorce and there aren't exactly any future Mrs. Travis contestants on the immediate horizon.  He cannot ignore the immense satisfaction of a case closed, but as he stares at the body of a nine-year-old girl who should be home in the care of her family, not being loaded up for transport to the morgue, his hackles raise at the thought that this was only going to get worse.  The obvious pleasure the killer had taken in doing ungodly things to this poor kid all but screamed that it wasn't his first, and there would definitely be more.  As the days go on and another body turns up, Zack knows that sleep is going to become a foreign word.      

Olivia's guilt complex forces her to start looking into other murders, solved and unsolved, who fit the same MO as Missy's, and what she finds is startling.  They span 13 years, across the country, with the most recent happening in Seattle.  Even if she has to give up a job that she loves, she knows what she's gotta do now -- find the real killer.  And so she boards a plane for Seattle, intent on finagling a way into the current investigation any way she can.  Posing as an FBI agent, not just the scientist she really is, Olivia makes Zack's acquaintance as they search for what is apparently the same killer in all of these murders.    

What follows is an oh-my-God-I've-got-to-get-Mom's-room-ready-but-this-just-another-page kinda read.  Yeah, I went there.  The Kill is why I love not only suspense, but romantic suspense, when it's done right.  Ramping the action and thriller aspect up with each page, while remaining true to the characters and letting us bleed just a little with every heartbreak or disappointment.  Olivia may want to come across as subtle, not drawing any attention, but her sense of doing the right thing is nearly her motto.  Ok, so she stretched it a bit about her role in the investigation that's brought her to Zack's doorstep -- but she did have field agent experience, so it wasn't a total lie. Zack may not be a totally by-the-books kinda guy, but he'll do what it takes to close a case.  And that's where Zack and Olivia make a strong couple.  But this killer is going to put them through their paces just a bit, stretch out their limitations, and damnit, they'll work for it.  He's just not ready to be caught yet.

I can't go on anymore.  I'll either wax poetic, or hyperventilate.  Best read of the month for me.  Well, except maybe for the book I finished this morning, but that's another post.         

TBR Challenge: February

This place needs sprucing up.  Or something.  I definitely need to do some updating on the sidebar, not to mention throwing a post or two up for something other than the TBR Challenge reviews I plan on sticking with.  I will do better, I will do better... 

But for now, I'll stick with smaller things -- keeping up-to-date with La Wendy's challenge.  February, our task or suggested reading was a book recommended by someone.  I chose The Taming of the Duke by Eloisa James, because I'm sure someone recommended it back in its heyday ('06) somewhere.  For those keeping score and absolutely MUST read in order, TTOTD is # 3 in the Essex Sisters series and the story of Imogen, a widow who has recently returned to her guardian's house in England.  The fact that aforementioned guardian, Rafe, the Duke of Holbrook, is nothing more than a drunkard does not derail him from his duty of keeping the Essex sisters in line.  His drunkenness has always bothered Imogen though, who can barely stand spirits, let alone dukes who live to drink. 

When she arrives at Holbrook Court however, she finds that Rafe has discovered that he has a half brother, Gabriel, and that they are in the beginning stages of planning a theatrical.  O_o  Of course there's some backstory for their reasons, but honestly they're lost in the deriding Imogen thrives in towards Rafe for wasting his life and physique to the bottle.  It's not long before Rafe gives up the booze for better living, and that's when the obscure theatrical becomes the vehicle for more than just luring Gabe's ex-lover (the mother of his child, and an up-and-coming actress in London) to Holbrook Court.  Honestly, I never did truly understand the reasons for Rafe and his guests desiring to put on a play, other than to lend credo to the weirdness of the aristocracy?

To wrap it all up in a nutshell, Imogen has decided to take a lover and fixates on Gabriel as the perfect candidate.  What Rafe lacks in manners, sex appeal and scintillating conversation, Gabe has in spades.  But that's before Rafe gives up liquor and poses as his brother for various liaisons with Imogen.  Even as Imogen continues seeing Gabe in secret - or so she thinks - it's not long before she starts seeing Rafe as something more than her tiresome guardian and looks at him through a woman's eyes.  Confused much?

And this is when I gave up on the rest of the story and started reading faster just to get it over with.  Don't get me wrong, I loved Rafe, especially the fact that Ms. James cast him as an alcoholic who gives booze up just for the sake of giving it up.  It wasn't so easy to like Imogen though.  She's almost cruel in some aspects, especially in her dealings with Rafe.  Or maybe it's because I look at alcoholism through different eyes.  My husband was an alcoholic, and he died from it.  It's easy to blame the alcoholic who cares nothing for his family and even mistreats them, but Rafe seemed to be a good guy.  He turned to the bottle after his beloved older brother died and didn't look back.  Of course, there is no good reason to drown yourself this way, and there's no excuse to became a boozehound.  Or maybe I have an injured view of the disease, and maybe that's what made me dislike Imogen so much.  Hell if I know.  And I didn't mean to drag all of this out in what's supposed to be a fun review, but it's still there in my opinion of the book.

All of that to say, The Taming of the Duke wasn't my most favorite book by Eloisa James, and that's hard to admit since I'm a fan.  Maybe in 10 years I can read it again and come up with a different opinion, but since I'm seriously needing to offload some books to make way for my mom moving in -- I don't see me doing that.                 

Fighting Back to My Groove, and that TBR Challenge

Yeah, I signed up for it again.  It seems I just totally disappeared off the face of Bloglandia last year.  Kinda just lost my touch for writing about anything and everything, and didn't have much to contribute.  But I did sign up for Wendy's TBR Challenge '13 again, and I'm going to do my best.

This month was an easy one -- short story, quickie, series, what-have-you.  It was so convenient that I was weeding my TBR last week and came across Bridget by Linda Lael Miller.  AND it just so happened to be the first in the Primrose Creek series, or at least that's what the front cover says.

Westerns aren't always the first era I gravitate to, but I'd almost forgotten what a word magician Miller is and why she was one of the authors that hooked me in the romance genre way back when.  Her husband, Mitch's, death in the Civil War had not only left Bridget McQuarry a widow, but now taxes have caused her to lose their home as well.  Having no choice but to move her son and sister to Primrose Creek and claim the land that was left to them by their grandfather.  It would be a hard battle: alone, in the middle of Indian territory, and with no solid roof over their head, but Bridget was determined to rebuild their future and make the land in Primrose Creek thrive.

Enter Trace Qualtrough, Bridget's childhood friend and the man she blames for her husband's death in the War.  He'd grown up with Mitch and Bridget and he'd promised Mitch he'd watch over Bridget and her son.  But she's not willing to capitulate and in less than agreeable to Trace's presence, although it's quite obvious that a man's strength and hard work is needed. But she can't ignore the softening of her heart as she watches Trace day in and day out, putting a roof on their small cabin, mentoring and teaching her son, and just stepping in where a man needed to.  Oh, it would be so easy to fall in love with him, but that'll never happen.

There's no tearing apart and critiquing a short story, or at least it's damned hard for me to do.  And, c'mon, it's Linda Lael Miller, an author I've respected for years.  What else is there to say that I loved this little quickie and am glad I came across it.  It kinda whet my appetite for some more westerns, and since I'm already in the midst of a reading binge -- we'll see what happens.  I still have Wendy's beloved Rock Creek Six to read.  Apparently I knew what I was doing when I bought it way back in 2000, but now I need to go TBR diving and see if I have the rest of the Primrose Creek series.  I think there's four.