The Lost Duke of Wyndham, Julia Quinn

Julia Quinn is reliable; most of the time I like her books just fine, and every now and then i really love or hate them. This one was "just fine." I should have loved the hero; he's a scoundrel! And a charmer! But mostly we are told how charming he is, while he comes off as obnoxious. (Loretta Chase writes much better "funny" dialogue; I get tired of being TOLD how funny someone is being. Make me laugh, writers, or shut up.) And the heroine mostly... Well. She stood around and put up with stuff. She wasn't sweet or tempermental or anything, as near as I can tell. She was pretty, and she disliked her job.

My incredulity was strained from the first scene; on her way home, Our Heroine is stopped by a highway robber (Our Hero) who is wearing a mask and robbing her employer, and yet somehow Our Heroine knows that he is a) handsome, b) charming, c) sexy and her one tru luv. She doesn't try to run away, or yell at him, or do anything, and he kisses her -- ewww, it's pretty non-consensual considering he's holding a gun to her back -- and then they are in LURVE, so when he turns out to be the missing duke and TROUBLED INSIDE they can have sexytimes.

Perfectly enjoyable very fast read. I will not remember a damn thing that happened in it next week.

Grade: C

His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik

queenitsy: "You're reading a book with a dragon on the cover. Is it 1996?"

The Napoleonic Wars, but this time as fought by dragons. What could be bad? I absolutely loved Temeraire, and the rest of the dragons; they were charming and funny and interesting and I kept stopping the book to announce things to Becky -- "This one captain is being MEAN to his dragon! I'm really upset!"

I wish the humans had been characterized as well; I got the end of the first book feeling giddy and happy, but without remembering the name of a single human character except the protagonist. And then in the second book there were lots of battles and people would die, and clearly I was expected to recognize their names, but I didn't. It probably had to do with how quickly I read them, but I wish there had been more exploration of the human characters.

Grade: B

The Archer's Tale, Vagabond, Heretic, by Bernard Cornwell

These books are fine. Lots of historical details about middle ages battles and weaponry and armor. A little obsessed with fighting and the gory details of how people die, and definitely light on female characters (the woman from the first two books just... vanishes. And two of Thomas's girlfriends die). I finished these because I am stubborn and I like to finish what I start, but ... I am left with a profound feeling of "meh."

If we're being honest, I spent the whole series comparing them to Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, and they just fell short in every possible way. I wish I could force everyone around here to read Dunnett, so I could flail at them properly about how amazing Lymond is. Wait, this isn't supposed to be about Francis, sorry, this review is supposed to be about Thomas. I think the fact that I would much rather discuss the other series says VOLUMES, though.

Grade: C

Black Sheep, by Georgette Heyer

This is SO LOVELY. I almost couldn't decide which storyline I liked better; Abby and Miles, who has no manners and doesn't give a damn about it, or Fanny and Oliver, who loves her desperately even though she says things like, "you are like a brother to me." And then he wishes he were her brother, so he could punch the young rake after her fortune in his nose.

My only complaint was that I got lost in the Regency English a couple of times, but mostly I was able to work out what they meant from context. Oh, and it could have been a hundred pages longer; that would have been fine with me.

Grade: B