Warrior Queen: the Story of Boudica, Celtic Queen - Alan Gold

** - I'm very fond of Celtic history in general, though I knew very little about this. Maybe my expectations were just too high, but it seemed like a very Phillippa Gregory sort of version of the story. Too much emphasis on sex and just not enough interesting story.

This had such potential to be exciting. The Celtic tribes uniting to fight off the repressive Roman regime. One woman with a vendetta and a grasp of Roman tactics leads a massive army against a seasoned Roman general. This is the stuff of high drama, or at least a stirring tragic story. And this really did try. But it failed.

First off the book takes over 250 pages to even get to the incident that transforms Romanized Boudica into the vengeance-driven queen known as Britannia. 250 pages of practically nothing happening. Except for plenty of sex - which is not only plentiful, but unnecessary to the focus of the story. In the first few scenes, for example, Boudica encounters a boy with whom she has a ridiculously stilted conversation about how often she has been 'entered' and he never shows up again.

That's not the only way the story wanders. The story runs through more than its fair share of Roman emperors as well, which certainly adds to the sordid sexual encounters. There seems to be little to no point to these except possibly as comparisons between the scheming Roman women and the more overt strength of Boudica. If that's the case, though, it certainly fails as well.

The good points of this book mostly involved the fight scenes. These were interesting and clever - I enjoyed seeing Boudica portrayed as smart, observant and competent but defeated by the lack of discipline amongst her men. Unfortunately even this is undermined by the 'inspirational speaker' style orations Boudica uses to unite the Celts after years of living fat on the Romans' patronage and ignoring the sufferings of other tribes. It just comes off as stilted and cheesy. I certainly wouldn't have followed her into battle.

Bottom line: The idea and the history is fascinating, and there is certainly room for literary license considering how little is known about Boudica. But find a different book about it. And please let me know if it was any good.

Private Confessions - Lori Borrill

**** - very steamy and a lot of fun. It even had some character development! Honestly, though, the steamy factor did it for me.

Logan Moore is a successful advertising executive, but he's extremely wary of dating anyone in the business since his ex-wife married him solely for the purposes of advancing her career. So Logan does his best to keep his interest in the rising star of the office, Trisha, purely professional - except when he's at home chatting with Scorpio online...

Trisha Bain has been fantasizing about her boss Logan for ages now, and recently she's been living out those intense sexual fantasies online through an astrology-based chat service. As her friends encourage her to drop the chats with Pisces and actually ask Logan out, Trisha finds clues that her online sex-buddy may actually be Logan himself.

I enjoyed this one a lot. The plot itself with perceived betrayals and the unfortunate similarities between Trisha and Logan's ex-wife are interesting, and the astrological signs the author picked seemed to fit well with the personalities. There was even a strong subplot with Trisha's best friend. But you all know that wasn't the good part about this.

The chats could easily have come across as sordid or lame, but Borrill avoided that nicely, and all of the sensual scenes from the book certainly sizzled for me. And for a Blaze that's really what counts. A winner for me!

One Good Turn by Carla Kelly

***1/2 - probably a really good read, but too much for me at the time

Plot: One Good Turn by Carla Kelly is the sequel to Libby's London Merchant (which I have not read), but it stands quite well on its own. Benedict Nesbitt, a duke had his heart broken when Libby turned down his advances for those of his very ordinary friend. But he is struggling manfully to come to terms with his disappointment. To take his mind off his troubles, he agrees to take his young niece Sophie to his country estate so that she doesn't contract the chicken pox that currently plagues her younger brother. But when Sophie is taken ill, Nez isn't sure that he can handle a sick child on his own. Luckily for him, he runs into Miss Liria Valencia and her young son Juan on the road. Although Nez first takes her to be nothing more than a camp follower, her competent manner soon impresses him enough to offer her a position managing his household.

As with most Carla Kelly books, the romance in this one does not come easily. The plot is very character-driven, and both characters have had horrifying experiences during the Napoleonic Wars that they must somehow come to grips with before they can acknowledge their feelings for each other. The characters are flawed, but very real, fundamentally decent human beings. And this is the true power of Carla Kelly's romances. Her heros and heroines are real people, no different (except historically) than the rest of us - and her romances are real relationships between them.

Despite these very strong points, this was a difficult book for me to read. The siege at Badajoz was a horrifying portion of history, and it is invariably difficult to deal with these kinds of atrocities. It was just too much to deal with after the book immediately before this one The Sleeping Dragon that involved a similar situation - and a poorly handled one. So I had turned to romance to avoid that kind of violence - which probably accounts for my less than enthusiastic response to this book. I'm planning on reading it again when I'm ready, but it was just too much for me this time around.

To Pleasure a Lady - Nicole Jordan

**1/2 - In all honesty, I wanted to like this so much more than I did. The series is called The Courtship Wars - I was expecting Benedick and Beatrice warring, and I thought that's what I was going to get given that the first scene involves Arabella threatening Marcus with one of his own foils… Sadly that was the last bit of spirit she apparently had left in her. There was no sparring, just your typical: you're a bastard…but the magic of your penis - it has bewitched all intelligence and willpower from my powerless bosom… Ick.

Marcus Pierce has just been named a most unconventional guardian. His three wards are quite grown up, and they have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the marriage mart. Quite the contrary, the young women seek emancipation from his guardianship in order to run a school. And Arabella Loring, the eldest, is willing to resort to almost anything to gain her independence, even a most unusual wager: Arabella and her sisters will gain their freedom if Arabella can resist Marcus' seduction for a few short weeks. And soon enough, those weeks don't seem so short at all.

I picked this one up on the strength of the first few scenes, in which Arabella invades Marcus' club and threatens her handsome young guardian with a fencing foil in order to gain her independence. Unfortunately that is the last sign of backbone. All of her feistiness seems to disappear once Marcus begins his 'seduction'. Arabella pines, she's constantly flustered, and she is completely unable to resist Marcus despite the high stakes for herself and her sisters. So Arabella ends up spineless while Marcus lorded the sexual prowess of his mighty penis over her.

I hate sex or relationships that are nothing but a power struggle, and I hate them even more when one party simply submits with a whimper because the other is just so good in bed (hence, the 'mighty penis' phenomenon). I was expecting fireworks and this just didn't deliver the bang. It probably wouldn't be bad for someone who doesn't detest this kind of plotline, but I just can't do seduction to win a wager.

I did like Marcus' friends and Arabella's sisters, though, and I've heard such good things about this author that I may try the others in the trilogy.

Interested in the others?

Book 1: To Pleasure a Lady

Book 2: To Bed a Beauty

Book 3: To Seduce a Bride

Book 4: To Romance a Charming Rogue

The Sleeping Dragon - Joel Rosenberg

** 1/2 - I like role-playing, I do. I think it's entertaining. I like the Order of the Stick webcomic. I like D&D based computer games. And the idea of real people being sucked into their D&D game seemed like it would be a lot of fun. It wasn't. There was barely any action, altogether too many attempts at artificial depth and character growth, and I personally found the role and portrayal of the girls in the book quite offensive.

At one of their weekly sessions, a college group of role-players find themselves transported into the world of their game and inhabiting the bodies of their characters. For some, such as the disabled James Michael, this is an unlooked-for boon. For others, like first-time gamer Andrea, a nightmare. Soon, however, the dangers of their new world are impressed upon them - a slight mistake, hesitation, or even falling back into their 20th century way of thinking for an instant can lead to torture and death. And the only way of escaping is to complete the quest and to work their way to the fabled Gate Between Worlds.

This was an okay read for the escapism, I guess, but there were just too many things that rubbed me the wrong way. The attempts at character development meant that every character (except for Andy who was 'accidentally' drawn in) has to have a deep underlying reason for wanting to role-play - nobody does it just because it's fun. For a fast-paced quest book, there's barely any action. They talk about how there were battles, there were fights, but aside from a glimpse at the fights in the Games, most of it is second-hand tales of the battles they go through or the horrors they've seen, and almost all of it is merely hinted at rather than expressed. Where are my REAL action scenes?

I thought the ending was rather weak, myself, and awfully self-help-y, but the main problem I had with the book was the way the characters treated the girls. Doria had a terrible past which is used to excuse her (supposed) promiscuity which makes everyone treat her like dirt. All the while Walter skips about merrily between the girls in the party, serving girls; all he can seem to talk about is when he's going to get laid next - and that's treated as if it's completely and utterly normal, unworthy of even mentioning. Talk about your double standards.

(GREATER SPOILER) And that's not even starting on the brutal gang rapes that befall the female characters, are mentioned in hints. But it turns out they were just a plot device so that there's something to wake the dragon? The problem is never actually dealt with other than from the men's "we feel guilty, we don't know what to do with you, why can't you just get over it, we're exasperated at your inability to function after fifteen men raped you repeatedly for several hours". HONESTLY? I know this wasn't meant to be feminist or anything. I know it was the 80s. I know it's been hailed as 'realism' - what would actually happen in a world like this. But they get no revenge, we get no description of their tormentors painful deaths, and it comes off seeming like nothing more than a plot device - and an offensive one at that. Ew. Just ew.

Belle of Portman Square - Clarice Peters

***1/2 - This was one of my first romance novels, and my very first historical. I found it when I was about 12 in a box of my mother's, and it's stuck with me ever since. Years later I still remembered the heroine dropping volumes of Shakespeare on the hero slumbering on the couch; the crazy inventor who tends to explode things in the house... It's good, sweet fun, and I still enjoy it.

Miss Diantha Atwood was only too happy to see her brother wed to an heiress to help him settle his gambling debts, but she was less than pleased to see his friend Devlin at the wedding. She was convinced that Devlin was the source of her brother's financial troubles and therefore took an immediate dislike to him - before even meeting him. But with Andrew gone and Devlin charged with looking after his bluestocking sister, Devlin finds himself at her Open House more and more often - and not only for the delicious lobster patties. More and more Devlin wants to protect Diantha for his own sake as well as for Andrew's.

This was a sweet story with some very funny moments. One of the first romance stories I read that was any good, I have a bit of a nostalgic soft spot for this one - particularly the funny scenes I remembered even ten years later. My favorites include when Diantha and several volumes of Shakespeare plummet from her library stairs onto the Viscount who is sleeping on her couch. All told, this is sweet. It feels a little like a book in a series, but I don' t know that there are any prior connected books.

There's a lot going on here, probably more than there should be, so nobody really gets quite the amount of depth I would have liked. The many side stories with the inventor, the young innocent from Topping Green and Devlin's mistress can get to be a bit much. It's a bit of Emma, a bit of Sense and Sensibility, and who knows what else all rolled up into a Misunderstanding - but not one that lasts throughout the book. Diantha is clever, feisty, and fun. Devlin is charming, funny and utterly smitten. I'll probably be keeping this one for the nostalgia factor. I wouldn't recommend people immediately run out and buy it, but if you happen across it at a yard sale or something, it's worth looking into - for the lobster patties at least.