Recent reading (some spoilers within for these books)

[annathepiper]

Children of the Storm, Elizabeth Peters: This is the latest in the Amelia Peabody series. I've heard people complain that the latter books don't quite live up to the earlier ones--that the classic chemistry between Amelia and Emerson has been kind of shoved aside as the younger generation of characters has grown up, and that Nefret and Ramses have become boring now that they're married. It's very true that the nature of the series has changed as the number of adults in the cast has grown... and, for that matter, as the world has changed around them. The impact of World War I on the series is undeniable, and I do miss Amelia being the focus of the action. It reduces the opportunity for her to let fly with her characteristic pithy quotes. But I also do still enjoy the latter books, and I enjoyed this one. The ending, in particular, made me laugh out loud as it hearkened back very, VERY nicely to the earliest books.



Die in Plain Sight, Elizabeth Lowell: As I have previously mentioned on my journal, Elizabeth Lowell is a bit of a guilty pleasure. I like her Rarities Unlimited series, and the related books about the Donovans--what can I say. ;) This book was mostly no exception to this trend, either. Decent little mystery/thriller, with the obligatory cast of handsome dashing hero, beautiful heroine who has had some prior sexual experience but who's never found sex exciting, smarmy rich people as the bad guys, etc. The one thing that really stood out for me in this particular addition to the Rarities and Donovans books was the presence of Susa Donovan in the cast; I REALLY liked her as a character, and I liked the glimpses of the relationship between her and her husband. They're mostly background characters to the other books, but the glimpses of them make them interesting enough that one wonders how THEIR story got started. And having Susa on camera in this book as a significant contributor to the plot was delightful.

The one minus was that in the big exciting climax when the vehicle the hero and heroine are driving gets its windshield shot out by the bad guy, we go straight from the windshield to the hero suddenly fainting at the wheel with a concussion. Don't get me wrong, it was an exciting scene, but a little corner in the back of my brain read that and went, "Now wait a minute--the windshield exploded, now the hero's passing out at the wheel? We're going from point A to point C here. We're going from Underpants straight to Profit without filling in step 2! What the heck hit his head?"

Am I getting too damned nitpicky about continuity here thanks to actively writing myself? Should I tell myself, "Anna, it's a romantic suspense novel, not a work of high lit-ra-cher. You should really just relax!" ;) Or would a continuity glitch like this annoy other readers? HrmMRmRmRmRmmm.



Dark Horse, by Tami Hoag: I've met books by Tami Hoag that I didn't like, but this wasn't one of them. Gripping, suspenseful, and it stretched character conventions in novels of its type in refreshingly different ways. I found the heroine of the novel simultaneously troubling and intriguing, as her backstory involves having been seriously injured in the line of duty (she's an ex-cop) and her face having been shattered and put back together by plastic surgery. She can't smile because the nerves in one whole side of her face are screwed up, and she's physically incapable of crying as well. And yet, she's far from unemotional--she just expresses herself in other ways. She's arguably the most kickass heroine Hoag has written to date. I like her.

She has the inevitable love interest. I can't quite call him a hero, as while he is significant to the plot and definitely serves the function of love interest, he's also distinctly second-tier to the heroine in terms of actions that actively drive the plot. That said, I liked him too, and I liked the spare, light treatment of the chemistry between him and the heroine; just enough to acknowledge that attraction was there. There's no sex, either on camera or off, which is a bit of a refreshing change as well--especially as Hoag does have actual romances in her early bibliography, and some of her earlier suspense novels have the romance between the leads as a bigger part of the plot. It's only a grace note here, but that's not a bad thing in the slightest.

The one minus here was one of the minor characters who kind of pissed me off. She's set up as a fat, lazy, ugly person who's jealous of the pretty, thin people around her; this jealousy motivates just about all of her actions, and while she does have one bit where she mentally flagellates herself for being pathetic, it's brief at best and she quickly retreats to the mindset that nothing that's wrong in her life is her fault. I can't decide whether she pisses me off because of her pettiness, or because of Hoag going the route of "the fat girl is jealous of the thin people around her, takes no responsibility for herself, and is a pathetic, petty person". The latter, I think. It's a cliche--and usually, Hoag is better than this. This bugged me enough to make me frown.