Category Archives: books/book review

The Heiress Effect

Book Review of The Heiress Effect (Brothers Sinister #2), by Courtney Milan

The Heiress EffectI borrowed The Heiress Effect, by Courtney Milan, from my local library. I reviewed book one of The Brothers Sinister series here.

Description from Goodreads:
Miss Jane Fairfield can’t do anything right. When she’s in company, she always says the wrong thing—and rather too much of it. No matter how costly they are, her gowns fall on the unfortunate side of fashion. Even her immense dowry can’t save her from being an object of derision.

And that’s precisely what she wants. She’ll do anything, even risk humiliation, if it means she can stay unmarried and keep her sister safe.

Mr. Oliver Marshall has to do everything right. He’s the bastard son of a duke, raised in humble circumstances—and he intends to give voice and power to the common people. If he makes one false step, he’ll never get the chance to accomplish anything. He doesn’t need to come to the rescue of the wrong woman. He certainly doesn’t need to fall in love with her. But there’s something about the lovely, courageous Jane that he can’t resist…even though it could mean the ruin of them both.

Review:
Everyone seems to have loved this book. I just…didn’t. Objectively I can say it was well written. The characters were pleasantly flawed. A number of different threads wove together, there at the end. The book is well written, but I just didn’t particularly like it. I thought Jane went from strong and confident to lost and confused and back again too abruptly without enough reason for her changes. I thought the happy ending was too sappy. I didn’t love the characters. I liked them well enough, but didn’t love them enough to care about them. For me, this book really was just ok.

The Whipping Club

Book Review of The Whipping Club, by Deborah Henry

The whipping clubI won a copy of The Whipping Boy, by Deborah Henry.

Description from Goodreads:
The Whipping Club explores the sacrificial secrets we keep to protect our loved ones and the impact that uncovered secrets have on marriage, family and society. Both a wrenching family drama and a harrowing suspense story, it chronicles an interfaith couple’s attempt in 1960’s Ireland to save their son from corrupt institutions.

Review:
I won a copy of this book a long time ago, but put off reading it because it looked like it was going to be so heavy. It turned out not to be what I thought, but I’m not sure it was better. This is a hard on to review objectively because I just so strongly disliked it. Everything in this book is grim, even the theoretically happy(ish) ending. It’s all people feeling miserable and being miserable to each-other, especially those in position of authority, and all of that misery is offloaded onto the shoulders of a blameless 11-year-old boy. Even the kind characters are often complacent in horrendous abuses. I felt bad when I finished this book and I do not enjoy that experience.

I can say that I had trouble with the points of view. It stared centered solely on Marian and remained so long enough that I settled into the single POV, but then another one popped up and then another and another until we had an omniscient narrator. But it felt willy-nilly. I also sometimes had trouble telling what was meant to be current and what was memory or flashback.

And honestly, I just didn’t particularly like any of the characters. I appreciated that Marian was educated and taught by her father to think for herself and be proud of her differences, something you don’t see in a lot of mid-60s female characters, but I didn’t relate to her. The only ones I came close to caring about were Adrian and Peter and they were brutalized. Peter especially, I felt he was little more than Henry’s whipping boy, like she wanted this horrible thing to happen but didn’t want to irrevocably contaminate her sympathetic character.

Then, it finished with this rousing declaration to protect the innocent and fight the good fight with a strength of will I didn’t sense in any of the characters up that point. In the end, those who actually enjoy depressing book club books this may enjoy this. But it wasn’t a winner for me.

Book Review of On the Accidental Wings of Dragons (The Dragons of Eternity #1), by Julie Wetzel

On the Accidental Wings of Dragons I picked up a copy of On the Accidental Wings of Dragons, by Julie Wetzel, when it was free on Amazon. (It was still/again free at the time of posting.)

Description from Goodreads:
When Michael Duncan is sent to investigate the disappearance of several dragon subjects, he finds himself in a bind. Locked in a dungeon, his only hope lies wrapped in a bundle of cloth tossed at his feet. One kiss and his life is changed forever. Hunted by his own people for crimes he didn’t commit, Michael has to learn a whole new life at the hands of a beautiful woman. Can she help him clear his name, or will just being in her presence get him sentenced to death?

Carissa Markel doesn’t know who this man chained to the wall is, but he’s her only chance for escape. She has power, but, born without a voice, she lacks the means to wield it. One choice, made in desperation, sends them running for his life. Does she have the strength to help him clear his name? And what will her brother, the King of Dragons, do if he finds out what she’s done? That’s immaterial, the real question is… can she keep her hands off him long enough to find out?

Review:
I went into this pretty much just thinking, “DRAGONS!” I love dragons, but that wasn’t enough to carry it through. The book is fluffy and  I can’t say I hated it, but it is pretty flimsy in the plot, development, character and world departments. A lot of questions are left unanswered. Characters are introduced and then disappear when they’re not needed anymore. Most of the events are little more than a sketched out structure to hang the ‘romance’ on. The villain is a shadow, you never really even meet him. None of the side characters have any depth and the main ones have very, very little. It had a few cute bits, but that’s just not enough to make a book worth reading.