April Minireviews – Part 1

I didn’t read as many books in April so I’m sure that means I’m going to get caught up, right?  LOL

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough.  Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it!  Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up.  For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.

A Dance With the Fae Prince by Elise Kova – 4*

//published 2021//

I read the first book in the Married to Magic series, A Deal With the Elf King, for the traveling book club and found it surprisingly enjoyable.  The books are set in the same world but don’t really overlap very much, so they can be read independently.  I liked this one even better, actually, because I found the main characters more likable.  While not my new all-time favorites, these books were really enjoyable romantic fantasy.

The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers – 3*

//published 1903//

This is one of those classics that is considered so because of the way that it created a new subgenre.  A sort of spy-thriller, when it was published this book was a bit controversial because of the way it pointed out weaknesses in Britain’s naval defense.  However, I really struggled with this book because I was reading it as an ebook, which did NOT include the original story’s charts and maps!  These were referred to regularly throughout the text, and half the story is the main characters exploring these complicated channels, bays, inlets, rivers, etc. so not being able to visually reference the charts made the story confusing and also someone boring.  This wasn’t a book that was big on the action anyway, but I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if, when the text told me to refer to a chart, I could have actually done so.

Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery – 4*

//published 1910//

This was a buddy read with the Kindred Spirits group on Litsy, and a reread for me, as most Montgomery books are.  This has never been a particular favorite of mine.  It’s perfectly pleasant but not magical, and I’ve never been completely comfortable with the romance, because Kilmeny has been so incredibly isolated her entire life and then just falls in love with the first decent guy she meets and it feels a little weird.  One of the other members of the group said this story seemed like something Anne and her friends would have written for their Story Club, and that cracked me up because it’s SO true.  This one is just a little too melodramatic.

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow – 3.5*

//published 2020//

There are some books that I read a chapter-a-day and that keeps me plugging away at them when I honestly may have not finished them if I had just been reading them straight through, and this was one of them.  This story focuses on the “forgotten” sister in P&P, Mary.  There was a LOT of time spent on Mary being miserable and sad and people being mean to her and her feeling rejected – it just went on and on and on.  While Mary’s character growth seemed natural and good, some of the other characters were uneven, especially Charlotte.  The concluding drama also dragged out way longer than it needed to.  So, basically, a pretty good read that needed about a hundred pages edited out haha

I’ll Take Forever by Barbara McMahon – 2*

//published 1988//

This one was pretty bad, although I’ll admit I somewhat softened my attitude when I realized it was published in 1988.  This was a free Kindle book from back in the day, and the entire story is about an undercover federal agent trying to find out where illegal marijuana is being grown and he has to stay with a civilian – literally NONE of it felt remotely realistic haha  There are several instances where Kyle just assumes Jenny is going to be doing this cooking/cleaning/laundry that felt really awkward because he’s literally just mooching off of her.  Jenny herself was honestly kind of stupid and always did stupid things that miraculously would turn out to be the right thing.  For some reason, McMahon decided Jenny should be a widow at the age of 25 (her husband died in a car wreck a year earlier) – I have no idea why she needed to be a widow, I guess so the agent could be “her husband’s cousin” but it just felt awkward, especially since we are told a lot that they had a really lovely marriage but Jenny is totally over it!  After a year!  Woohoo!  Like I realize everyone has a different grieving process, but I’m still not over my grandma dying in 2009 so I didn’t find it particularly convincing that Jenny is basically like, “Oh yeah, I was married, I remember that guy!  He was cool!”  The attitude towards marijuana in this story is definitely very 80s.  I’m not here to advocate marijuana usage, but I also truly don’t think smoking a joint will immediately lead you down the path of hard drugs for life.  This was a super short book so I skimmed a lot of it just so I could be amazed at how it made no sense.  Sometimes it’s fun to get a little hate-reading in!

‘Love Inspired’ // Part 5

A while back my great-aunt passed away, and somehow my grandpa ended up with two boxes full of books.  Almost all of them are ‘inspirational’ romances published by Harlequin as ‘Love Inspired’.  At one point (not sure if you still can) you could subscribe and have a new book mailed to you every month.  Aunt Darby did just that, and now I’m in possession of somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 or so of these ‘Love Inspired’ titles.  Most of them are pretty cheesy but alright for a one-time fluff read.  I’m sure that I’ll binge through some of them periodically.  They’re perfect to grab out of the crate when I’m just looking for a quick, no-brainer book.  However, most of them will probably end up exiting this house after that one-time read, because they just aren’t worth the shelf space to me.  So if there’s one that sounds especially appealing to you… let me know, and I’ll be quite happy to mail you a gift!  ;-)

I guess the real question is – why do I keep reading these??  I can’t seem to help it.  Somehow, I feel like I owe it to Aunt Darby!  This  batch of five was just as mediocre as the rest, although I’m getting better at just DNFing the really terrible ones.  :-D

Cattleman’s Courtship by Carolyne Aarsen

This one wasn’t too bad, with a likable pair of main characters.  Cara and Nicholas were engaged a few years ago and broke things off due to some misunderstandings.  Now their best friends are getting married, so Cara and Nick are back together for the wedding planning.  All in all, this would have been a pretty decent story, except it went off the rails at the end – Cara is a veterinarian and is trying to decide whether or not she wants to join her uncle’s practice.  In the meantime, her uncle has hired this other guy… who kind of turns out to be arbitrarily a terrible person??  He felt like this really random evil villain who swoops in and decides that Nick’s entire herd has TB and has to be slaughtered.  It just felt like there should have been a lot more research done before making that kind of decision, and the whole thing felt superfluous to the story which was otherwise basically finished.  Still, 3.5/5 for what was overall not a bad story.

Fresh-Start Family by Lisa Mondello

This is one of those tales where there is an emotionally wounded man who meets a sweet widow and her son.  All in all, I really liked Tag and Jenna, but felt like their relationship was really choppy.  Another 3.5/5 for a decent story.

Their First Noel by Annie Jones

DNF.  Not even sure why exactly.  Just boring.  I skimmed the rest to see what happened.

The Marine’s Baby by Deb Kastner

DNF.  This actually seemed like one I should enjoy, where a dude inherits a baby and needs help taking care of it, but I was immediately put off by Nathan’s family, and there were already these huge jumps in logic in just the first couple of chapters.  (e.g. the baby is running a really high fever and instead of “rush her to the hospital,” Jesse is like, “oh, let’s just try to bring her fever down ourselves” – huh??)

Rocky Point Reunion by Barbara McMahon

Not a bad little story, although sometimes it really just felt like these two needed to sit down and talk.  I understood why Marcie was wary of Zack, but it felt like that part just went on and on.  Like did she really think he couldn’t change at all in ten years?!  3/5 for a story that was alright for a one-time read.