Sakura of DOOM

This is book three of Ross' Wyldshay trilogy, which I apparently read book 2 of way back when.

Sarah Callaway is searching for her missing cousin Rachel, and she believes that Guy Devoran is the only person who can help her find her cousin. Unfortunately, though Guy has his own reasons for looking for Rachel, he can't tell Sarah them, which is kind of a problem when he starts to fall in love with her.

First: yay for the heroine not having unblemished ivory/porcelain/alabaster/cream/etc skin and having lots and lots and lots of freckles!

That said, I didn't get much of the heroine's personality, and although she's interested in botany and it plays a minor role throughout the book, it felt more slapped on than an integral part of her personality. Guy I did like, despite the Big Secret, and I could actually understand why he didn't divulge Big Secret right and the start and why he kept keeping it secret. Also, amazingly, he seems to be a fairly nice guy, and when he is a jerk, he usually owns up to it and apologizes later.

There's also a nice role reversal when Guy thinks Sarah sleeping with him means she loves him and will marry him.

Other than that, I read this two days ago and have already forgotten most of it. Oh! Wait, no. I remember I was extremely annoyed by the sequelitis; Guy is bosom buddies with the heroes of the previous two books and they go around swearing they will risk their lives for each other, and although the heroine of the first book thankfully doesn't show up (she's off having a baby of course), Miracle does. Alas, much as I love female friendships, I hate the whole "I have never met you before but since you are the heroine of the next book, I am certain we will get along swimmingly and will promise you things despite having known your love interest for many more years and not having any reason beyond heroine-of-book to trust you."

Overall, the prose and the hero is above average for most romances, but I ended up feeling like this was on the blah side of okay.

I don't think I remember half the plot points of these -- I finished them a while ago, but figured I'd wait and read all her books before posting. Well, a month or so later, I am still reading... Thus goes the story of my life.

The Seduction: Obviously, the old seduction plot. Unsurprisingly, Alden Granville-Strachan loses a bet, and in order to not lose all his money and thus bankrupt everyone who lives on his estate, he agrees to a bet to seduce the notoriously cold widow Juliet Seton. Luckily, no matter how dumb, I tend to like this plot.

Also, I couldn't help liking it because Alden is such an affable rake. I am in general not very fond of alpha rakes. Plus, the seduction was enjoyable (and sexy) to read about because it was mental -- Alden seduces Juliet into playing chess games with him at midnight, into watching him strip his shirt off to harvest her fields, to enjoy herself. And I like Juliet, because she is one of those cold, mean heroines that everyone else hates ;). Plus, Georgian era! Visions of The Scarlet Pimpernel danace in my head...

I found the latter part of the plot a little to labyrinthian and melodramatic for me in that sort of Kinsalian fashion, but the journey there was quite fun.

Illusion: I swear, I was willing to give this one benefit of the doubt, despite the entire heroine-trained-in-Indian-harem thing. And it was going along all right, and then everything sort of went haywire. I give kudos for having non-orgasmic sex and for psychologically interesting sex. I don't know. I didn't much like Frances (said heroine) because she felt so passive to me, and that the passivity was supposedly a cultural part of her learned from India (blah blah meditation blah blah, sorry). I think it was the whole "let me show you inner peace via these mystical Eastern methods" thing. Also, I figured out the villain very early on in the game, and I still don't quite see how the plot holds together, given the disrepency between the beginning and the end.

To be honest, most of my issues in the book stem from the heroine and the Eastern thing, or the combination thereof. It probably would have been a very good book without that...

Flowers Under Ice: I liked this better that Illusion. Dominic's a bit more of a raffish rake than Nigel from Illusion, although not by much. Angsty heroes, both of them. It's also got the seduction thing going for it, plus the hero falling in love with cold and angsty heroine. Mostly I liked this better than Illusion because I liked Catriona better than Frances. Like the other two, the plot of this one is entirely on crack, especially after the plot twist. Hrm. I just don't remember that much of this one...