Harbaugh, Karen - Cupid trilogy

This is a trilogy of books centered around Psyche Hathaway, who grew up with Eros as her not-so-imaginary best friend. She calls him "Harry" due to mispronouncing "Eros" as a child, and together, they wreak havoc and sometimes romance in the love lives of the Hathaway siblings.

Cupid's Mistake - Cassandra Hathaway is a bluestocking invested in improving the lives of runaway boys. Lord Blytheland has sworn to never fall in love with someone like his wife again: she was a bluestocking whose radical notions about love led her to cheat on him and then die birthing another man's child.

Harbaugh notes on her website that she tried cramming in every single Regency stereotype possible, and oh yes, she does. I don't think she quite succeeds in making the book transcend the stereotypes; rather, it's sweet and cute enough that I can ignore the stereotypes. Psyche and Eros are rather annoying in this one, and I say this despite my fondness for annoying younger sisters. I also wanted more about the effects of Eros' arrows on people, which Harbaugh does address, but not quite to my satisfaction as far as I remember (I read this a few months ago).

Cupid's Darts - Kenneth Hathaway has just come home from war, and the only thing that's sustained him is the memory of his sweetheart Aimee Mattingly. But thanks to an arrow gone wrong, he seems more in love with her portrait and her memory than with the woman herself.

Psyche's a teenager in this one, which makes her a little less annoying, and I was very amused by the scene of random dart shooting in the midst of Almack's. Harbaugh also tackles the subjects of over-idealizing and PTSD in this book, although as usual, her touch is very light. Kenneth does have a lot of angst, but it doesn't show much in the book, and I especially like Aimee's growing frustration with his refusal to see who she actually is, as opposed to who he wants her to be.

Cupid's Kiss - The Greek gods are fading from this earth, and soon they'll disappear, unless Eros can find the reincarnation of his long-lost wife Psyche.

Psyche and Harry/Eros' book! Unsurprisingly, I liked this best of the bunch, probably because Harbaugh didn't have to cram the entire romance into 200 or so pages, thanks to having room in the previous two books to develop Psyche and Harry's relationship. There are no silly misunderstandings in this; Harry and Psyche talk fairly openly about the possibility of her being the reincarnation of Psyche, along with other issues. And as I'm very fond of friendship-turned-romance stories, I liked this a lot. I also liked the side plot regarding Artemis and her broken heart much more than I had anticipated. There's a fair amount of angst in here, but most of it understated and quickly resolved, and my favorite parts are probably how things are resolved without the characters acting stupid.

I do wish there had been a little more about Psyche getting used to the idea of being a reincarnation, not just Psyche Hathaway, though.



Overall, the three books are fairly slight but cute and non-offending, and I am very fond of the last book.

Yay!

Rachel and Yoon are safely here, despite being on I-5 for six years months hours. Rachel blames her lack of time sense on the car trip. I think I will blame it on the cows populating I-5.

I have successfully sicced So You Think You Can Dance on Yoon and Rachel, and this week's had a beautiful classical pas de deux; the quickstep aka the kiss of death; a Twilight-inspired vampire dance, which I thought was there specifically as a welcome to Yoon and Rachel; and a tinfoil alien/dinosaur with spikes on her head abduction mpreg dance, which made me change my mind about the prior welcome to Yoon and Rachel, since this must be the REAL welcome!

And now, we are about to watch Armageddon, which Rachel has introduced as having a spontaneously combusting priest in the first five minutes.

The back cover copy is [bracketed comments by me]:

The world's 10 most influential scientists are being mysteriously killed one by one [as one does. Pause. Burst into laughter for a minute straight] (via spontaneous combustion, lethal microwaves and other strange causes).

[Me: I guess by lethal microwaves they mean ray-gun-like things, but I keep picturing scientists bashing each other over the head with microwaves!

[Rachel: I thought it was a giant microwave that you stuffed people in!

[Me: Maybe they shove microwaves off tall buildings onto innocent scientist bystanders...]

One of the scientists, software prodigy Dr. Ken (Andy Lau [aka the reason Rachel Netflixed this), searches for clues to these bizarre deaths, only to see his fiancee apparently return from the dead. All indications point to the end of the world [as spontaneous combustion and returning from the dead so often does], and Dr. Ken may be the only one who can save humanity [from lethal microwaves. Via software].