some light summer reading
Jul. 7th, 2005 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyHere, I review Dimestore Magic by Kelley Armstrong and Offspring by Steven Harper. They're both books you could read on the beach, if you're into that sort of thing.
Dimestore Magic by Kelley Armstrong is another in her suite of books, Women of the Otherworld. I hesitate to call it a series, since it doesn't exactly follow the same characters. I had read the previous books in the suite, Bitten and Stolen. I couldn't put them down, but I found them extremely unsatisfying. Like junk food. It pissed me off that the main character acted like a twit most of the time - which is why I don't read much in the romance category.
Happily, Paige Winterbourne, the heroine of this novel, does NOT act like a twit. So, I feel this was much better than the other two on that basis alone. But it's possible that Armstrong is becoming slightly less predictable in terms of plot, as well, which is really nice. And she's let go of the need for her heroines to have a love/hate relationship with the guys they're involved with, which is the other thing I can't stand about romance novels. So it's all good. This gives me new interest in reading the two newer books in the series. Up until now, whenever I've read one of her books, I haven't wanted to read one again for a while.
Oddly, one of my favorite things about this book was the mother-daughter relationship between Paige and her ward Savannah. I felt that was very well-written, and convincing without being trite.
Offspring by Steven Harper is the latest in the Silent Empire series, which I've been gobbling up since I first encountered them this spring. To be honest, I didn't like it as much as the other books in the series. A lot of the plot devices seemed just a bit too convenient. "Oh, no, we can't tell anybody where the bad guy is! We need time to let him wreak his evil plot - I mean, to figure out what he's doing!" Also, the child-custody case towards the end of the book I found completely unconvincing. A whole court case where the well-being of the children is never even mentioned? (Not a spoiler, as it mentions it on the cover.) I'll keep reading them, if he keeps writing them, but I feel a bit let down.
Dimestore Magic by Kelley Armstrong is another in her suite of books, Women of the Otherworld. I hesitate to call it a series, since it doesn't exactly follow the same characters. I had read the previous books in the suite, Bitten and Stolen. I couldn't put them down, but I found them extremely unsatisfying. Like junk food. It pissed me off that the main character acted like a twit most of the time - which is why I don't read much in the romance category.
Happily, Paige Winterbourne, the heroine of this novel, does NOT act like a twit. So, I feel this was much better than the other two on that basis alone. But it's possible that Armstrong is becoming slightly less predictable in terms of plot, as well, which is really nice. And she's let go of the need for her heroines to have a love/hate relationship with the guys they're involved with, which is the other thing I can't stand about romance novels. So it's all good. This gives me new interest in reading the two newer books in the series. Up until now, whenever I've read one of her books, I haven't wanted to read one again for a while.
Oddly, one of my favorite things about this book was the mother-daughter relationship between Paige and her ward Savannah. I felt that was very well-written, and convincing without being trite.
Offspring by Steven Harper is the latest in the Silent Empire series, which I've been gobbling up since I first encountered them this spring. To be honest, I didn't like it as much as the other books in the series. A lot of the plot devices seemed just a bit too convenient. "Oh, no, we can't tell anybody where the bad guy is! We need time to let him wreak his evil plot - I mean, to figure out what he's doing!" Also, the child-custody case towards the end of the book I found completely unconvincing. A whole court case where the well-being of the children is never even mentioned? (Not a spoiler, as it mentions it on the cover.) I'll keep reading them, if he keeps writing them, but I feel a bit let down.
