Brockmann, Suzanne - Troubleshooters, vol. 01-06 overview
Thu, Feb. 17th, 2011 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceter(covers The Unsung Hero, The Defiant Hero, Over the Edge, Out of Control, Into the Night, and Gone Too Far. Individual book write ups to come.)
As previously noted, Suzanne Brockmann is very good at writing sensible, normal characters who do rational things like try to talk to each other instead of letting Big Misunderstandings fester. Her categories suffer a bit from this because she has to resort to some authorial gymnastics to create conflict, but her Troubleshooters series mainly solve this by a) having more than one couple per book, b) adding in external suspense plots, and c) giving people a lot of background angst. Normally I'm not a huge fan of any of these, except I tend to like most of her couples and the diversity she puts in, her background angst is much more realistic than normal romance background angst, and although sometimes I dislike her external suspense plots, sometimes they provide excellent tension without taking over too much of the romance (my usual complaint for romantic suspense).
Also, I've seen Brockmann recced just about everywhere, but I've avoided her for the longest time for two reasons. First, I tend not to read contemporaries that aren't paranormals because although you'd think the contemporary setting would give romance authors more room to play with, the books usually end up with the same old romance tropes in a setting in which I find them completely unpalatable, as opposed to only somewhat unpalatable. Second, I know the series is about US Navy SEALs. I have zero interest in Navy SEALs or in the US military, romantic suspense is my least favorite romance subgenre, and I feel Navy SEAL heroes are the perfect excuse for more-alpha-than-you heroes and lots of heroines in distress. Thankfully, this is not the case in this series, which I am devouring despite all the above qualms.
Instead, the best books so far are about people falling in love with each other while other things go on in their lives—sometimes action related, sometimes not. So far, all of them have one main romance, a secondary romance, and then a third romance that's a flashback from World War II. Sometimes the secondary romance is concluded in the book, but sometimes it's a set up to another book or plot. I was going to say I like it best when they're concluded in the book, but the way Brockmann has set up several of her later romances has really worked for me. I don't enjoy her categories as much because the length works again her; instead, I think with shorter page length but a longer stretch of time, Brockmann is very good at packing in a lot of emotional complication, just as in real life. I like that people sleep together with disastrous results, that there are actually good reasons for people not getting together (some of it being emotional stupidity, but acknowledged as such!), that I get the sense that these are people with pasts and lives and interests.
I'm also reading these books as genre romance, despite them being mainly shelved in the general fiction section, largely because those are the tropes I'm comparing them to. I have no idea how they read as non-romances or as thrillers, and would be curious as to people from those genre's impressions.
Race
This is possibly one of the best non-targeted romance series I've read dealing with race (by non-targeted, I mean shelved with all the other romances, not marketed as "African-American fiction" or whatnot). This is not to say it's perfect; in fact, I have a ton of qualms with the series, but it's still heads above almost everything else in the romance genre. First, there are actual people of color! And more than one! Some of them get to be the romantic leads! Some of them get to be the romantic leads in what are so far two of the primary couples of the series!
... it is so sad that this alone basically rockets Troubleshooters to the "best of in race" list for romances, but there you go.
First, my qualms, of which, as noted, I have many. 1) Alyssa is frequently described in the first few books as having mocha skin and being gorgeous because she is mixed race. 2) So far, there haven't been any intra-POC interracial romances. 3) As with most suspense books, the villains are frequently brown and non-USian. The third point is my biggest qualm, since Starbucks description and exotifying is annoying but more in the realm of eye-rolling for me, particularly when it's very clear that Alyssa Locke is kickass, clearly supposed to be a fan favorite and one of the main characters of tthe series, and that much of the Starbucks description drops later on. I also hope there will be intra-POC romance later on, but am willing to wait given that Brockmann seems to be actively trying most of the time.
The first book mostly manages to avoid the problem of brown terrorists, but books 2-6 have them in abundance, with bonus Muslim-bashing to boot. Brockmann has a very white feminist approach to Islam, with many PSAs about how awful Muslim people are for treating their women like that, blah blah blah. I appreciate that she created the fictional Central Asian country of Kazbekistan instead of using a real country for her terrorists, but I'm still irritated by how Kazbekistan is portrayed as the pit of the earth, dangerous to women, and all around terrible. Had the first book not been so promising, I probably would have stopped reading by book 3, which is set in Kazbekistan.
The really interesting thing is what happens in the books I assume she wrote post-9/11. Once you get to book 5, published in 2002, the setting is once again in the US, as it was in book 1, and here, although she has the usual Muslim terrorists, she does something a bit more interesting with them. (skip spoiler)
My other bit is when the setting is outside of the US, things get fairly headdesky in that usual suspense-in-brown-countries way. The thing that sets this series apart for me is that there are actual POC heroes and heroines, and that I think the latter books work more to have less of the US military in other countries and focuses less on terrorists? (I am a chapter in Flashpoint and already annoyed at the Kazbekistan setting. Does it get better? Are there any other books I should skip?)
Gender
I started reading Brockmann not for race, but for gender. Brockmann tends to like having emotional heroes who are head-over-heels in love with the heroines, and heroines who are fine with sex but shy away from emotional commitment for whatever reason. It gets a bit repetitive at times, but since this trope is so rare in the romance genre and since I love it so, I am willing to put up with A LOT of it. Unsurprisingly, the Troubleshoters books I like best are the ones that follow this format. Brockmann also seems to very much like giving her women a lot of angst. She gives the men angst too, particularly Sam, who I feel is Troubleshooters' version of fanMulder, but I like how often, the men's angst in the book is primarily about them worrying if the heroine loves them back or not, or if they should be going after the heroine or not, whereas the heroine's angst is frequently something like trying to deal with a hostage situation. I was particularly surprised by this, given that the series stars Navy SEALs, and although Brockmann says that her men are alpha heroes, I really don't agree. (This, by the way, is a BIG PLUS.)
There is a bit too much guy joking going on among the SEALs, particularly about women, and I still think Alyssa Locke should be a SEAL. Also, due to current US military regulations, most of the women are not SEALs for the obvious reasons, but Brockmann manages to make them kickass in her own way. Also, I really like that she comments on the lack of women in the Navy, particularly with Alyssa and Teri. Overall, her relationships tend to have much more equal dynamics than many romances I read, and I love that her men respect boundaries. The other thing she does that I didn't quite pick up on until later is that she flips the "heroine overcome by hero's sexiness and is betrayed by her own body" thing. It readds differently on men, and sometimes can go a bit too close to the consent line for me, but I love love love that her men are consistently undone by sex because they are so emotional about it, that the heroines usually use this to their advantage, and that the heroines are allowed to take charge during sex.
Brockmann also seems to have a thing for age differences, which I don't, but some of her books have a woman who is older than the man. The age differential is much smaller between the woman and the man when the woman is older than when the man is older, which I wish weren't the case, but I'm hoping we'll get more in later books. There have already been two heroines older than the heroes, one primary and one secondary (who I think will show up again), and that's already more than a lot of romances I read.
I do wish there were less heteronormativity and couple-dom and focus on babies, but there are less babies than usual, one main couple actually doesn't get married until much later, and I know the series is known for having a canonical gay romance in there.
Other cool bits
Despite my frequently being meh about the WWII flashbacks, I appreciate them because Brockmann uses them to have actual older people in her books. As in, not the usual romance trope of "She is forty and therefore very old!" but people who are in their seventies and eighties! I was a little disappointed the way the first book wrapped up, and I still wish we got to see the older characters having present-day romances, but dude. She has a seventy-year-old women being kickass in book 2. Other older women get to be kickass as well, but I just remember Eve best. There's an interesting thing in which she includes several age-related disabilities, from hearing loss to Alzheimer's, and I was a bit wary at first, because I didn't want all the older people to come to tragic ends due to their disabilities. Some of them struggle with it more than others, but the character undergoing some hearing loss gets to be awesomesauce in the end. Also, as mentioned, I wish we could see older characters falling in love when they're older, instead of just seeing it in flashbacks, but I love that she has more than one portrayal of happy older couples, that one of her older characters is black, that this means the characters have families and backgrounds. I also love that the older characters get to be romantic figures in their flashhbacks, and that several of them continue to be awesome in the present day as well.
In conclusion: I have qualms about many things, but the awesome bits so outweighed the qualms for me that I found these worth reading. (YMMV, of course.) My favorites so far are The Unsung Hero, Into the Night, and Gone Too Far. Over the Edge made me headdesk quite a few times with its portrayal of Kazbekistan, but it also sets up several plots that come to fruition later in the series. I've found it worth reading everything so far, but I may end up skipping books about characters or settings I dislike, and I think middle books are still skippable.
As previously noted, Suzanne Brockmann is very good at writing sensible, normal characters who do rational things like try to talk to each other instead of letting Big Misunderstandings fester. Her categories suffer a bit from this because she has to resort to some authorial gymnastics to create conflict, but her Troubleshooters series mainly solve this by a) having more than one couple per book, b) adding in external suspense plots, and c) giving people a lot of background angst. Normally I'm not a huge fan of any of these, except I tend to like most of her couples and the diversity she puts in, her background angst is much more realistic than normal romance background angst, and although sometimes I dislike her external suspense plots, sometimes they provide excellent tension without taking over too much of the romance (my usual complaint for romantic suspense).
Also, I've seen Brockmann recced just about everywhere, but I've avoided her for the longest time for two reasons. First, I tend not to read contemporaries that aren't paranormals because although you'd think the contemporary setting would give romance authors more room to play with, the books usually end up with the same old romance tropes in a setting in which I find them completely unpalatable, as opposed to only somewhat unpalatable. Second, I know the series is about US Navy SEALs. I have zero interest in Navy SEALs or in the US military, romantic suspense is my least favorite romance subgenre, and I feel Navy SEAL heroes are the perfect excuse for more-alpha-than-you heroes and lots of heroines in distress. Thankfully, this is not the case in this series, which I am devouring despite all the above qualms.
Instead, the best books so far are about people falling in love with each other while other things go on in their lives—sometimes action related, sometimes not. So far, all of them have one main romance, a secondary romance, and then a third romance that's a flashback from World War II. Sometimes the secondary romance is concluded in the book, but sometimes it's a set up to another book or plot. I was going to say I like it best when they're concluded in the book, but the way Brockmann has set up several of her later romances has really worked for me. I don't enjoy her categories as much because the length works again her; instead, I think with shorter page length but a longer stretch of time, Brockmann is very good at packing in a lot of emotional complication, just as in real life. I like that people sleep together with disastrous results, that there are actually good reasons for people not getting together (some of it being emotional stupidity, but acknowledged as such!), that I get the sense that these are people with pasts and lives and interests.
I'm also reading these books as genre romance, despite them being mainly shelved in the general fiction section, largely because those are the tropes I'm comparing them to. I have no idea how they read as non-romances or as thrillers, and would be curious as to people from those genre's impressions.
Race
This is possibly one of the best non-targeted romance series I've read dealing with race (by non-targeted, I mean shelved with all the other romances, not marketed as "African-American fiction" or whatnot). This is not to say it's perfect; in fact, I have a ton of qualms with the series, but it's still heads above almost everything else in the romance genre. First, there are actual people of color! And more than one! Some of them get to be the romantic leads! Some of them get to be the romantic leads in what are so far two of the primary couples of the series!
... it is so sad that this alone basically rockets Troubleshooters to the "best of in race" list for romances, but there you go.
First, my qualms, of which, as noted, I have many. 1) Alyssa is frequently described in the first few books as having mocha skin and being gorgeous because she is mixed race. 2) So far, there haven't been any intra-POC interracial romances. 3) As with most suspense books, the villains are frequently brown and non-USian. The third point is my biggest qualm, since Starbucks description and exotifying is annoying but more in the realm of eye-rolling for me, particularly when it's very clear that Alyssa Locke is kickass, clearly supposed to be a fan favorite and one of the main characters of tthe series, and that much of the Starbucks description drops later on. I also hope there will be intra-POC romance later on, but am willing to wait given that Brockmann seems to be actively trying most of the time.
The first book mostly manages to avoid the problem of brown terrorists, but books 2-6 have them in abundance, with bonus Muslim-bashing to boot. Brockmann has a very white feminist approach to Islam, with many PSAs about how awful Muslim people are for treating their women like that, blah blah blah. I appreciate that she created the fictional Central Asian country of Kazbekistan instead of using a real country for her terrorists, but I'm still irritated by how Kazbekistan is portrayed as the pit of the earth, dangerous to women, and all around terrible. Had the first book not been so promising, I probably would have stopped reading by book 3, which is set in Kazbekistan.
The really interesting thing is what happens in the books I assume she wrote post-9/11. Once you get to book 5, published in 2002, the setting is once again in the US, as it was in book 1, and here, although she has the usual Muslim terrorists, she does something a bit more interesting with them. (skip spoiler)
The set-up with Ibrahman as the red herring and Bob the blonde insurance salesman as the acatual terrorists was kind of awesome. I suspected part way through, but because I was reading a romance novel, I wasn't expecting Brockmann to actually go through with it; I've been disappointed by books too many times before. But she does! The PSA about racial profiling and Arab Americans not equating terrorists is anvilly, and I was annoyed by her portrayal of Ibrahman's Islam as well, but it was so far above and beyond what I had been expecting! Also, Ibrahman gets to be a love interest! A minor one, but dude, this is possibly the first time I've seen a non-sheikh West Asian guy as a love interest.
I especially like that Alyssa identifies herself as a black woman in book 6, as well as Sam having a black family. Again, it's a bit anvilly, especially Dot's letters to Walt, but OMG. She mentions the Tuskegee Airmen of WWII!! She mentions how many black families are actually mixed race! I'm really hoping there will be a black hero down the line, since that's sadly rare in non-AA romances. My other bit is when the setting is outside of the US, things get fairly headdesky in that usual suspense-in-brown-countries way. The thing that sets this series apart for me is that there are actual POC heroes and heroines, and that I think the latter books work more to have less of the US military in other countries and focuses less on terrorists? (I am a chapter in Flashpoint and already annoyed at the Kazbekistan setting. Does it get better? Are there any other books I should skip?)
Gender
I started reading Brockmann not for race, but for gender. Brockmann tends to like having emotional heroes who are head-over-heels in love with the heroines, and heroines who are fine with sex but shy away from emotional commitment for whatever reason. It gets a bit repetitive at times, but since this trope is so rare in the romance genre and since I love it so, I am willing to put up with A LOT of it. Unsurprisingly, the Troubleshoters books I like best are the ones that follow this format. Brockmann also seems to very much like giving her women a lot of angst. She gives the men angst too, particularly Sam, who I feel is Troubleshooters' version of fanMulder, but I like how often, the men's angst in the book is primarily about them worrying if the heroine loves them back or not, or if they should be going after the heroine or not, whereas the heroine's angst is frequently something like trying to deal with a hostage situation. I was particularly surprised by this, given that the series stars Navy SEALs, and although Brockmann says that her men are alpha heroes, I really don't agree. (This, by the way, is a BIG PLUS.)
There is a bit too much guy joking going on among the SEALs, particularly about women, and I still think Alyssa Locke should be a SEAL. Also, due to current US military regulations, most of the women are not SEALs for the obvious reasons, but Brockmann manages to make them kickass in her own way. Also, I really like that she comments on the lack of women in the Navy, particularly with Alyssa and Teri. Overall, her relationships tend to have much more equal dynamics than many romances I read, and I love that her men respect boundaries. The other thing she does that I didn't quite pick up on until later is that she flips the "heroine overcome by hero's sexiness and is betrayed by her own body" thing. It readds differently on men, and sometimes can go a bit too close to the consent line for me, but I love love love that her men are consistently undone by sex because they are so emotional about it, that the heroines usually use this to their advantage, and that the heroines are allowed to take charge during sex.
Brockmann also seems to have a thing for age differences, which I don't, but some of her books have a woman who is older than the man. The age differential is much smaller between the woman and the man when the woman is older than when the man is older, which I wish weren't the case, but I'm hoping we'll get more in later books. There have already been two heroines older than the heroes, one primary and one secondary (who I think will show up again), and that's already more than a lot of romances I read.
I do wish there were less heteronormativity and couple-dom and focus on babies, but there are less babies than usual, one main couple actually doesn't get married until much later, and I know the series is known for having a canonical gay romance in there.
Other cool bits
Despite my frequently being meh about the WWII flashbacks, I appreciate them because Brockmann uses them to have actual older people in her books. As in, not the usual romance trope of "She is forty and therefore very old!" but people who are in their seventies and eighties! I was a little disappointed the way the first book wrapped up, and I still wish we got to see the older characters having present-day romances, but dude. She has a seventy-year-old women being kickass in book 2. Other older women get to be kickass as well, but I just remember Eve best. There's an interesting thing in which she includes several age-related disabilities, from hearing loss to Alzheimer's, and I was a bit wary at first, because I didn't want all the older people to come to tragic ends due to their disabilities. Some of them struggle with it more than others, but the character undergoing some hearing loss gets to be awesomesauce in the end. Also, as mentioned, I wish we could see older characters falling in love when they're older, instead of just seeing it in flashbacks, but I love that she has more than one portrayal of happy older couples, that one of her older characters is black, that this means the characters have families and backgrounds. I also love that the older characters get to be romantic figures in their flashhbacks, and that several of them continue to be awesome in the present day as well.
In conclusion: I have qualms about many things, but the awesome bits so outweighed the qualms for me that I found these worth reading. (YMMV, of course.) My favorites so far are The Unsung Hero, Into the Night, and Gone Too Far. Over the Edge made me headdesk quite a few times with its portrayal of Kazbekistan, but it also sets up several plots that come to fruition later in the series. I've found it worth reading everything so far, but I may end up skipping books about characters or settings I dislike, and I think middle books are still skippable.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 03:02 am (UTC)I think I will, however, be avoiding the Kazbekistan book.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 03:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 04:16 am (UTC)Ahaha, Max Bhagat! I do think he's fairly whitewashed, but given that Max and Gina seem to be one of the big couples in the series, I was happy at least that he was POC.
The Kazbekistan bits are seriously headdesky!
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 03:08 am (UTC)No POC/POC relationships so far. She has one in her categories, _Harvard's Education_.
I love love love Jules, who will start his romantic plotline in #8 (the canonical gay romance).
The WWII flashbacks drop out in #7, I think.
I am way, way too tired to say anything substantive about these. But yeah, they're often uneven and qualm-making and yet they are ridiculously readable. And she often goes in directions that I suspect are really unpopular with her most vocal fans, which I think takes guts.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 04:18 am (UTC)I love Jules too! I kind of wish I love Alyssa more than I did; when she's awesome, she's really awesome, but I feel sometimes Brockmann smooths her edges down for the audience.
But yes to the unevenness and how readable they are (I started around last Wednesday, yeah...), and I find them more interesting as genre romances than I suspect I would as general fiction or as thrillers.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 12:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 09:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 04:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 12:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 03:50 am (UTC)(Thinking back, and I am not naming names because I think some of them appear in books you haven't read yet, as far as characters who are POC but not multiracial, I can think of one black supporting character who hasn't gotten his own book yet and one couple (not sure of man's background?) that also has not been a main or secondary plot romance. And one Latino main character whose family background isn't elaborated on too much but whose heritage is relevant to his characterization and plot.)
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 04:22 am (UTC)Although I stopped after Gone Too Far to write this up, and because Flashpoint is in Kazbekistan ARGH. I am also weirded out by most of the POC being multiracial characters, although that was why I liked Alyssa self-identifying herself as black (and Noah and Claire id-ing her as a sister). That said, I think Brockmann shoved that in after she had already made Alyssa have green eyes, haha. I feel Brockmann is a bit like Marjorie Liu in the predominance of multiracial characters and the lack of POC/POC main romances. I don't know... one the one hand, I ding them for that, but on the other, I feel they do have a lot of cool older women and POC being awesome, and OMG I wish that weren't so rare in romance that it automatically makes me go "!!!!!"
No worries about character spoilers... I have been reading the back covers of all them repeatedly to try and keep track of who gets their own book or not. Also, it seems like Jazz hasn't gotten a book yet. Or does he? This was mainly why I was watching out for more black heroes, since you'd think Jazz would be on the fast track to get his own book.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 04:32 am (UTC)I just googled and it looks like Vinh Murphy is half-black, half-Asian, so still multiracial but at least not part-white, like all the other multiracial POC? And his wife is a POC and/or mixed-race, though spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler.
Like Kate, I love love love Jules. Jules should totally have his own series, all to himself. Alas, I sort of hate his love interest.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 05:06 am (UTC)I also saw that Vinh got his book! Haha, she wrote a brief description of him and I immediately started reading all the back covers again.
I have actually not fallen for Jules yet, but he's only been in little bits of what I've read up to so far.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 12:59 pm (UTC)No Jazz book.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 03:52 am (UTC)That was the same book that featured date rape as a good thing, so generally speaking I have not been able to board the Brockmann train despite my high regard for her ability to write an action sequence.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 04:24 am (UTC)Also, I totally know the one you're talking about, and I still can't believe she got me to like date rape character, though it did take 6 books.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 12:37 pm (UTC)Given those narrative options, I couldn't fathom why she would go with the date rape option, and what's more, I had absolutely no sense that she was aware that was what she was describing. Which is a form of cluelessness I'm not willing to countenance.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 09:48 pm (UTC)Btw, just because I am curious, when you are talking about the hate-romance scenarios, are you mostly thinking of fic? I was just wondering because book 6 reminded me a lot of fanfic for reasons I can't quite articulate yet, possibly because of all the backstory in the other books or something.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 10:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Sat, Feb. 19th, 2011 05:55 am (UTC)... also, I almost feel romance novels would be better if there were more handcuffing involved.
... although actually, given the way the gender dynamics go, probably not.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 06:23 am (UTC)But ugh, the Kazbekistan stuff. Like you, I appreciated that she made up a country, but still. I had to laugh instead of scream in rage when in one of the books, one of the SEALs is recounting his tragic tale of woe in Afghanistan (or Kazbekistan, I honestly don't remember if I was just conflating the two in my head) where he tried to save this poor, mortally injured young Afghan woman named Yasmin. It threw me out of the story so badly, I nearly stopped reading. It was one of those moments where you realize an author has no conception that people like you exist as something other than a sad story. I had to basically forget that part of the book even existed, because otherwise all I could think was "why the fuck should I care about this dude's angsty romance? There but for the grace of God, that girl was me, that girl has my name, and she was summarily written off. Fuck you for thinking I should care about the rest of it."
IDK, I do appreciate that Brockmann makes an effort, as anvilicious as she can sometimes be. But stuff like that...ugh.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 06:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 06:57 am (UTC)Sadly, while I love the continuing plots in the later books, the romance/characters didn't suck me in quite as much, so I started reading them more as suspense rather than romance. But still enjoying them.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 09:52 pm (UTC)Hrm, good to know re: the later books... I am wanting to read more for Max and Gina and Jules, but I can't get into Flashpoint because the new characters bore me, it's set in Kazbekistan, and there seems to be too much manpain.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 02:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 09:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 10:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 09:46 pm (UTC)Into the Storm, the one with the serial killer and Lindsey, the Asian-American FBI agent, also is part of the set-up, as it introduces Tracy Shapiro, who in this book is a total mess but comes into her own later. Also I like it on its own terms - I like Lindsey and the serial killer's victims are struggling for agency in a situation in which they have nearly none. Warning: horrible serial killer stuff.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 09:55 pm (UTC)Argh, Nash and Tess... hrm. How much do you think I'll be skipping if I don't read Flashpoint? (The one introducing Nash and Tess set in Kazbekistan.) So far I cannot get past Nash's annoying manpain and the Kazbekistan setting and "Muslims are bad feminists!" Also, are there any other books I should avoid?
Asian-Am FBI agent awesome! I suspect if it is serial killer stuff done thriller style, I am probably okay with it (I read a lot of thrillers/suspense books when I grew up).
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 09:58 pm (UTC)I would avoid the ones set largely in Kazbekistan. There's also a couple that weren't objectionable but I just thought were forgettable. I'll have to look up titles, though.
(no subject)
Fri, Feb. 18th, 2011 10:03 pm (UTC)*is a terrible romance reader*
(no subject)
Sat, Feb. 19th, 2011 03:11 am (UTC)They have a lot of virtues, the ones you mention, but the SEALs became the deal-killer for me.
(no subject)
Sat, Feb. 19th, 2011 05:57 am (UTC)That said, the Navy SEAL bit is one of my least favorite parts, and I was hoping she was going to use a plot twist to lessen the presence of the US military in other countries and focus more on more normal suspense thriller romance thing, but I guess not =(.
(no subject)
Sat, Feb. 19th, 2011 08:07 pm (UTC)Me, I was genuinely heartbroken when Sam/Alyssa were broken up because Sam had had unprotected sex and now was a father-to-be.
I will say -- and this isn't Brockmann so much as a continuing trend in romances of the period -- I got heartily sick with the number of unplanned pregnancies. GET A CONDOM GUYS. This is why I stopped reading [damn, my memory is completely biting me: the one with all the football players. Google: Susan Elizabeth Phillips], where half the plots revolve around unplanned pregnancy, including one woman who raped a sleeping football player because she wanted a dumb baby. I am not kidding.
Those were id books, too.
(no subject)
Tue, Feb. 22nd, 2011 01:51 am (UTC)I am already getting sick of... not the unplanned pregnancies, but people deciding to do no-condom sex, and some of the fetishizing of no-condom sex bugs me.
The Kazbekistan stuff is SO FRUSTRATING because I can see her trying for racial diversity and going against Muslim bashing in other bits, but she doesn't quite seem aware enough.