books

I never got into Richard Castle’s Derek Storm novels, because I try to avoid things that hit bestseller status–in no small part because I’ve had one too many instances of “bestseller” being code for “hamfisted writing”. Plus, there’s been all the media hype about how Castle’s such a ruggedly handsome jetsetter of an author, and the whole thing about him tagging along with the NYPD by way of the world’s longest publicity stunt to promote a new series, yeah yeah yeah blah blah blah but can the man actually write?

I had my doubts, I have to say, when I learned that the lead character of his shiny new series is named Nikki Heat. Let me emphasize that: Nikki Heat. Say what? C’mon, I thought that the romance genre was supposed to be the one with all the stupidly named characters. “Heat” isn’t even a name you’d see in romance novels. It’s more like something you’d see in badly executed porn.

If you can get past the godawful name for the character, you’ll get to a rather eye-rolling central personality concept for her: Nikki is the prototypical tough cop chick who really just wants to have a relationship and a life. Granted, she’s also got her share of being a competent detective going on, and she has plenty of reason to be devoted to her career. But did we really have to go down the route of “but what she really wants is a relationship?” And did this have to get more emphasis in her character development than the fact that she’s also got a lot invested in her career as a cop? While the book didn’t go overboard with this to the point that I wanted to smack it against a wall, it was still frustrating to see that kind of stereotypical portrayal for a lead female character. Nikki Heat is, I fear, no real match for Eve Dallas.

And, of course, Jameson Rook, our male lead, has “Marty Stu” written all over him. Having the love interest be a journalist tagging along with the NYPD was just not the right move, Mr. Castle, sorry; it’s like putting yourself into the story wearing glasses and a different jacket, and hoping nobody would notice.

Now, all this said? Aside from these big glaring flaws, the story’s actually not half bad. Despite her annoying name and central motivation, Nikki is a competent detective when the story lets her be, and she’s believable doing her job. Rook’s a Marty Stu, but at least he’s a likeable one, and I do have to admit that having a civilian involved with the police investigation does lend a feel to the reader of “really being there”. The murder mystery to be solved is decently suspenseful, and Castle’s prose, while never truly noteworthy, is nonetheless engaging and readable. Three stars.

Addendum: In case it’s not obvious, this review is written entirely in-character. If ABC can give us a novel from the Castle universe, I can review it as such! But I’ll also, out of character, give it an extra star just because the sheer fact that this novel exists makes me giggle and giggle. So the real ranking? Four stars!

‘s Rosemary and Rue, the first of her October Daye novels, introduces us to the half-human, half-fey October Daye, whose career as a detective and peaceable family life with her human lover and their child was shattered by a single magical spell. After spending fourteen years trapped in the form of a fish in a koi pond, Toby has wrestled her way back into the mortal world, only to find that her lover belives her to have run on him and their child, that her detective license has expired, and that both the mortal world and the fey have moved on without her. Toby’s willing to ignore both worlds as long as she must and focus instead on her survival–only the fey world isn’t going to let her go. Lady Evening Winterrose has been murdered. And moreover, her dying curse is compelling Toby to find her killer.

Rosemary and Rue doesn’t bring anything truly new to the urban fantasy table, but that’s okay. What it does bring is style and skill, and an unusual blending of creatures from multiple mythologies all existing together under the banner of “Faerie”. The book’s not without flaws; some of Toby’s actions through the plot seem unfocused, and the appearances of several characters are cursory at best, leading one to wonder whether their positions in the world at large will be better developed as the series progresses. All in all, though, it’s a good solid debut. Four stars.

This one I picked up entirely on the recommendation of a guest review at Smart Bitches Trashy Books, because a) it’s set in the Canadian north, and b) the hero is a Mountie. I’m a Due South fan, what can I say?

Anyway, we have a nice recipe for suspense here with our hero, Sergeant Gabriel Caruso, being deployed to the tiny Yukon town of Black Arrow Falls as their new RCMP officer. He’s running from the fallout of a case gone horribly, horribly wrong, wherein his beloved partner had been killed and he himself had been seriously wounded in the effort to catch a psychotic killer. And the Yukon, as far as he can tell, is as good a place as any to hide. Only there’s a local tracker, Silver Karvonen, who stirs his interest–and to their horror, the very killer Gabriel had put away has escaped and has followed him north to take him out. Gabriel and Silver must band together to protect themselves and the town, while confronting both their pasts.

As romance novels go, this one was fun. Points for a remote and unforgiving setting, and extra points for the heroine not being lily-white; she’s half-Finnish and half Black Arrow Gwitchin, which makes her stand out wonderfully for me against the usual run of English or American heroines I’m used to. She is an excellent heroine for the setting as well–not only because of her tracking skills, but also for how she had to deal with the incident of trauma in her past, a secret she doesn’t dare reveal to Gabriel lest she sacrifice her freedom.

And around all of this, the hunt for the escaped killer was suitably creepy and suspenseful. Four stars.

Legend Hunter was my first book bought off of Fictionwise on the strength of its blurb. I was unfamiliar with author Jennifer McKenzie, but thought “hey, romantic suspense involving Bigfoot. Sounds vaguely X-Files-y. I’m game!”

And yeah, that was about what I got. Kiera McConnel is the daughter of a man who grew famous hunting Bigfoot–but to her eternal shame, she caught him fabricating evidence of the creature’s existence. Now, she shuns anyone with any interest in hunting the creature, and indeed, much of the world in general. But paranormal investigator Ben Harmon is convinced she’s the only one who can help her prove for once and for all that the creature actually exists, and though it goes against her better judgment, Kiera agrees to help him.

Problem is, there’s a lot more going on in the surrounding wilderness, and someone’s willing to kill to keep their secrets.

This was a pleasant enough way to pass time, although I didn’t find the writing particularly smooth or notable, and there was a bit too much use of the F-word in the narrative for my taste; it felt out of place and jarring. Two stars.

The problem I always have with reading any kind of media tie-in novel is of course that if I’m not familiar with the source material, chances are high that I’m not going to know who any of the characters are going in, or what the setup of the world is supposed to be. But, that given, Doranna Durgin’s Ghost Whisperer novel Ghost Trap does a good job giving a newcomer reader just enough data to get the idea.

I’m a big fan of Durgin’s work. I prefer her fantasy novels, but was pleased to see here that even when playing in somebody else’s universe, she can still deliver a story with substance. Melinda Gordon, the “ghost whisperer” of the title, must track down why the children in her small town are all mysteriously falling into comas–and at the same time, what happened to the members of a deceased barbershop quartet who are following her around.

The ghostly characters, both the main ones driving the plot and periodic side characters that show up to aid Melinda in her seeking, are by far the stars of the action. Especially the quartet, who are awesome. By contrast, the flesh-and-blood regulars are almost inconsequential–at least to me as a reader; I figure that fans of the show will be better able to judge how well those characters are portrayed. I did like the chemistry Durgin had between Melinda and her husband Jim, though. Three stars.

The Folk of the Air is my first Peter Beagle book, and I certainly have been remiss in taking this long to get to him. And while I’m given to understand that this is considered to be one of his more flawed works, it’s nonetheless a lovely introduction to what the man can do with the written word.

There’s definite magic for me in this prose. Right out of the gate, I adored that the hero’s Volkswagen van was named Madame Schumann-Heink, that the vehicle was very definitely a “she”, and that she normally couldn’t make it to fifty miles an hour without a tailwind and two days’ advance notice. I loved the casual juxtaposition of a thinly-disguised SCA with actual magic; this made the whole thing play for me as less a fantasy novel per se and almost more as magic realism, which is not a bad thing. And I very much loved that the character Sia, the crux around which the action revolves, is not beautiful or young or even overtly desirable; she is, however, elemental and primal and very compelling. She is a pillar of stone against the sound and fury of young Aiffe and Nicholas Bonner.

In the midst of all of this, protagonist Joe Farrell is almost a nonentity. He’s likable enough, but he doesn’t so much as participate in the action as stumble across it, and he has very few points at which a choice or action of his is necessary to dictate how the plot will flow. As a result he has little character development. Much of what we find out about him as a character is simply because other characters keep telling him he’s like this or like that.

There are those who find the ending quite a bit of a mess. I’m not one of them; I followed the ending well enough. But because of Joe’s relative lack of active participation, I found it difficult to get really invested in what was going on. Also, it didn’t help that there was almost too much quirkiness in many of the side characters. It seemed like pretty much every single minor character was “colorful”, to the degree that after a while I couldn’t help but feel as though I kept getting hit with a barrage of characters going “look how quirky I am! Look how quirky I am! Aren’t I just QUIRKY?”

Still, though, all in all, worth my time. Three stars.