Review: Prince of Ravenscar by Catherine Coulter

The Prince of Ravenscar by Catherine Coulter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Catherine Coulter has always been a favorite romance writer of mine so I was really excited about getting my hands on this book. It was an uncorrected proof copy, which might explain why I felt like the book was still rather unpolished.


The characters in this book are fun and larger than life, although I was confused in the beginning about who liked who, since there are two main couples featured in the book and they got pretty mixed up before everyone finally sorted themselves out. There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, which is Ms. Coulter's specialty, especially with one of the characters pretending to be a vampire.


Although the characters are a lot of fun, I was not blown away by the plot. It was rather standard, with the hero swearing never to get involved with another woman after a tragic end with his first wife, and all the secrets behind it all. But of course this does not stop his family from pushing him to marry, or from him being smitten with the heroine.


There were also times during the book when I was not sure whose perspective I was reading from but that was probably due to the unpolished nature of the book.


Fans of Catherine Coulter will enjoy the book, especially with the history of the Sherbrooke family behind it, and the characters are a lot of fun. Although I was not impressed by the book, I was still entertained.



I received my copy of this book through the Goodreads Giveaway.


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Return to blogging

I am finally settled in law school - in my last year, this is so ridiculous - so I've decided to revive this blog. I miss rambling about the books I've read and I'm looking forward to reviewing my best and worst reads.

I've read some interesting books that I'm going to enjoy punching out a blog for so look out for those in the coming weeks.

When you just want to smash something and scream

I'm going through finals and my personal life is...a little strange right now. I don't know when I'm going to find time to read and write a review anytime soon. We'll see!

Hotel Iris; Brightly Woven; Nightlife....All in one day.

I was on a roll yesterday and managed to knock out three books before bedtime. I am actually very impressed with myself. (Well, no, not really.)

Hotel Iris is my first Yoko Ogawa novel. I say first because it certainly is not going to be my last. (Is that too hammy?) Although Ogawa has been writing since 1988, only three of her works have been translated into English, the most recent being Hotel Iris.

The inside flap of the novel describes the book as being a twisted romance between a seventeen year old girl and a middle aged man, set in a seaside resort in Japan. Mari is a timid girl who hates herself; the translator is a repressed man who needs to control the world around him. Together they satisfy the dark and painful needs that each of them hide from the rest of the world.

Hotel Iris is not a happy novel. Mari and the translator are both broken in deeply disturbing ways and their union is not a healthy one. This is probably why I enjoyed it so much. Ogawa's writing is smooth and spare, leaving enough room for the reader to read between the lines and come to their own conclusions about the motivations of the characters as they move through the quiet drama of Mari's secret relationship with the translator. It is actually the scarcity of words used that make the novel so powerful - Ogawa does not feel the need to go into long descriptions about Mari and the translator's relationship to get across the fact that it's intense and dark.

After finishing up Hotel Iris, I picked up Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken. Completely different from Hotel Iris, Brightly Woven is a fantasy novel with magic, dragons and stopping a war. Sydelle is a weaver from a town on the outskirts of the country of Palmarta who is forced to become the assistant of North, a young wizard who came to her town to warn of coming enemy forces. They spend two months together traveling across the country trying to reach the wizard stronghold to warn of treachery. 

During those two months, they somehow fall in love with each other. The only problem is that we miss out on a big chunk of those two months. Bracken just sort of skims over it and says "Ta-da! It's been a month and a half since they left Sydelle's town." Then you're left thinking "What happened during all that time?" I felt that this was a serious weakness in the story. I was left wondering if the story was an adventure story or a romance - or a nice blend of both. It felt like Bracken was trying to do both but fell short. She gave us a little bit of adventure, a little bit of romance, and we're left wanting because she only skimmed the possibilities. She doesn't delve deeply into either aspect and it's rather unsatisfying.

Otherwise, Brightly Woven was an interesting coming-of-age story as Sydelle is forced to grow up after leaving her small town to accompany a wizard to the other side of the world. I also like the glimpse of the world Bracken has built and if she decides to write another novel set in this world, I'll definitely buy a copy. I just hope she works on fleshing out her story and characters better.

The final book I read yesterday was Nightlife by Rob Thurman. Now, I've been working on this novel for the longest time. This is something like when I was struggling with the Cassandra Palmer series by Karen Chance: I pick it up, I put it down. Wander away. A few months pass. I pick it up again. But after finishing up the book, I find myself wanting more.

Nightlife is the first of the Cal Leandros series.  Cal and his older brother Niko are on the run from Cal's father - they're half brothers - who is not human and bent on capturing Cal for some nefarious business. While Cal is only half human, Niko is all human - but you wouldn't be able to tell. Niko is scarily disciplined and has made it his life's mission to protect his little brother from all things that go bump in the night. This means Niko is a walking weapon despite the fact that he is very mortal. That is not to say Cal is defenseless. Both brothers can dish out a lot of pain to the supernatural creatures that pop up every once in a while. But Niko is just better at it than Cal.

I don't know why it was so difficult for me to get through Nightlife but I finally finished it after months and months of slowly going through it and I find myself actually enjoying the characters and the gritty world the story is set in. I can't wait to go to the bookstore and pick up the next copy. This might be because the boys are pretty and the action is good. The only problem I have with Thurman's voice is that, well, she's trying to channel a teenage boy and sometimes it feels rather over done. This might be why I had such a difficult time trying to finish it.

But now that I've been drawn into this world, I find myself unable to pull away. There are four - five? - other books in the series so I'll definitely have plenty of books to gush over Cal and Niko because they have definitely grown on me.

I have managed to finish three books out of my immense to-be-read (TBR) pile. And although I do feel sort of accomplished, when I look at my TBR pile all I can think is "Damn, barely made a dent."

So look forward to many more rambling reviews of books I have read as I continue this little mission of mine to read everything I can get my hands on.

Beastly the Movie: Trailer

I mentioned in my blog about Alex Flinn's Beastly that there was a movie coming out.

Well, here's the trailer!

Alien Huntress Series by Gena Showalter

Gena Showalter's writing is hit or miss for me. Sometimes she gets it so right, other times I'm wondering why I just spent money on one of her books. You can say I have a rather difficult relationship with Ms. Showalter's writing. 

The Alien Huntress series is where she gets it right. I'm not a big fan of sci-fi novels - romantic or otherwise - but I can't seem to stop myself from devouring this series. The writing is pretty smooth - sometimes Showalter can be rather obnoxious in her attempt to relate to the every day woman - and the characters are tons of fun. The interactions between alien and human, aggressive and passive, is fascinating and keeps you reading just to see what they're going to do to each other next. There's even a plot line that threads its way through the entire series, leading you to wonder what's going to happen next.

In the Alien Huntress series, aliens landed on Earth 80 years ago - give or take - which resulted in a war between humans and aliens. After the war was over, the two species formed a truce. But this does not mean aliens have the same rights as humans on Earth. For example, aliens do not have the right to a trial, so any hostile alien is immediately and permanently eliminated - for the safety of humans, of course. The ones who perform this rather grisly task is A.I.R. - a government agency devoted to containing any alien threats on Earth.

Set against this background is a cast of fascinating characters who struggle with the differences between human and alien while trying to save the world. This series just draws you and I highly recommend it for anyone who likes action and inter-species romance. After all, we've had vampires, werewolves, fairies, and demons already!

So busy I could cry

I have not been able to get much reading done recently. School has really picked up and I find myself staying up late into the night preparing for this project, or writing a paper for that class. It's rather overwhelming and sadly has not left me much time to indulge in any sort of leisure reading.

For anyone who has ever considered going to law school, please be aware that it is an immensely time consuming, stressful, anxiety-ridden career choice that will leave you traumatized for life. There are so many attorneys out there with a drug or alcohol problem, very likely because of law school.