Special note for fans: Julia Quinn will be a keynote speaker at the 2013 Romance Writers of Australia conference at Fremantle in August. Click here for more details.

Actual text message from the year 2000:

BFF: Wandergurl! Anthony Bridgerton is getting married. We have to get The Viscount Who Loved Me.

Me (Thinking, Who the fuck is… ohhhhhhhhhhh.): Yes! Of course! We have to get someone to bring it from America.

Back in the early 00s when I was growing up in the Philippines, you didn’t get books on time and the bigger independent bookstores didn’t really exist yet. It’s easier to get things now, but back then, your best chance for immediate access during a release date was to have someone vacationing in America to bring it back to you. After reading The Duke and I in a rental book club called ‘The Armchair Reader’ (and buying the book when the book club closed down) I was determined to get the rest of the series.

Aside from the actual stories of the books, obtaining them involved their own stories. I had one of our clients, a big, burly bearded Texan bring one back for me from Austin. My managing director brought back my Amazon order with a Bridgerton and The Lord of the Rings, extended edition. My giant elfish geek of a friend went to a bookstore and never let me hear the end of it after he had to ask for Romancing Mr. Bridgerton. (He also very nicely climbed a ladder and alphabetised my romance novels at my request. Thank you, dear.) Another was brought back by a Goth friend from San Francisco, who also happened to read romances and thought Sir Phillip with Love wasn’t bad—except the title sucked.

Eight books and a few spin-offs later, the series finally ended (and I moved to Australia). People couldn’t get enough of the Bridgertons, with their witty repartee and the sense of humour with which Julia Quinn traditionally infuses her books. And of course, everyone wanted to know what would happen next! So Quinn started releasing second epilogues in ebook format—that is, the epilogue after the one in the book where they all end up having babies and such. This book is a compilation, in print, of all of the second epilogues, plus three new epilogues.

I devoured it during my lunch break at work (and beyond—sneaky, sneaky!).

The second epilogues are filled with the Bridgertons’ trademark sweetness, comedy, mishaps, wit and the relationships that bring the characters together and ultimately make this one of the best series I’ve ever read. My favorite epilogues were (in no particular order): Francesca’s—she finally gets what she’s always wanted; Eloise’s—largely because it’s narrated by her stepdaughter and is utterly comedic; Penelope and Colin’s—really, they are great; and Hyacinth’s—even if she is the character I most dislike, because she finally gets her comeuppance in having a daughter exactly like her.

Yay or nay?

This is for anyone who, like me, misses the Bridgertons and sometimes wishes there were more stories to go around. If you haven’t read the series, I suggest you go and pick it up now. It’s funny, delightful, and really one of the perfect introductions to historical romance.

Side note: I challenge my fellow Book Thingo reviewers to review their favorite Bridgerton novel and post it! Let’s do it! Whether or not this will happen is another story.)

An advanced reading copy of this book was generously provided by Avon via Edelweiss.

Who might enjoy it: Fans of the Bridgertons series

Who might not enjoy it: Readers who hate epilogues

Title: The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After (excerpt)
Series: The Bridgertons (epilogues)
Author: Julia Quinn
Publisher: Little Brown (UK), Avon (USA)

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Fishpond | Romance Direct | Other
EBOOKS:  eBooks.com | Kindle UK | Kindle US
WORLDWIDE: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository | Library

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Probationary Constable Peter Grant works for the Metropolitan Police Force and is the kind of mediocre that we all are sometimes, but don’t really want to admit. He’s smart, he can handle himself, but he needs an extra little push to get somewhere sometimes. He also wants to do something significant with his life but can’t seem to figure out what, and his boss seems to think he’s destined for a life of paperwork.

That is, until one night when, after being called to the scene, he interviews a witness who happens to be dead. Suddenly, he’s a detective constable working for a special branch of the police that previously had only one member. He’s also the first trainee apprentice wizard in Britain in fifty years. Oh, and he has to find out who killed that guy.

Creative, funny and very real, Peter Grant could be your friend, the blokey jokester that you hang out and have a beer with. He’s the kind of person who sometimes fumbles and could use a good woman to keep his head on straight (there is one, kind of). He’s a good guy; it just so happens that weird things keep happening to him.

This book, the first of a thoroughly entertaining series, shows us how Peter stumbles into the use of magic and finally finds his feet, solving a mystery (and developing his skills at coming up with witticisms) in the process. I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed this series, with its comedic interludes, rich characterisation and inventive world building. It could have been just another urban fantasy series with everything under the sun, but author Ben Aaronovitch brings elements of the story together in a neat, original little package.

This book is a love story for London. The city is a character in itself, and the author populates the story with anecdotes on its history and geography. As Peter makes his way through London, so do we, and I loved exploring with him. (I could have used a map sometimes, though.) This is the kind of book I might reread as a pick-me-up. It’s fun and funny, and even if there are sad bits, they keep you wanting to find out more.

Bonus bits for Whovians: Aaronovitch used to write for Doctor Who, so every now and then, there’s a Doctor Who reference. It doesn’t affect the story and is often just a one-liner, but if you’re a Whovian, it’s another thing to make you smile.

Yay or nay?

This is my favourite new series. If you are looking for something original, witty and fun, this is the book for you. Also, there are not many urban fantasy books with male protagonists, and this stands out by being one of the funny ones.

Who might enjoy it: Readers who liked Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series or Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

Who might not enjoy it: People who don’t like London

This book is published in the US with the title Midnight Riot.

Title: Rivers of London
Series: Rivers of London (Book 1)
Author: Ben Aaronovitch
Publisher: Gollancz

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Fishpond | Galaxy | Other
EBOOKS: Books On Board | Booku | Diesel | eBooks.com | Kindle UK | Kindle US
WORLDWIDE: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository | Library

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Book Thingo blurbed on Helene Young’s next book

The cover for Australian romantic suspense author Helene Young’s next release, Half Moon Bay, has been released. It sports a quote from Book Thingo! Her previous release, Burning Lies, has also been given a new cover. I do love the redesign—and not just because we’re on the front cover in the next one. :D Half Moon Bay comes out May 22. You can pre-order it for Kindle, or pick up a copy at your favourite bookshop soon.

April Romance Buzz

The April edition of Booktopia’s Romance Buzz is up, and this month’s feature author is ARRA award winner Kylie Griffin. The newsletter includes my thoughts on Griffin’s third Light Blade book, Allegiance Sworn, as well as the book everyone is talking about—Lover At Last. Other feature books include Dark Embrace by Lexxie Couper and The Devil’s Heart by Cathy Maxwell.

Kylie Chan signing and pre-release sale

Galaxy is hosting a signing by Australian fantasy author Kylie Chan and illustrator Queenie Chan, on Tuesday, April 16, at 12.30pm. Fans can pick up Chan’s new release, Dark Serpent, for one day only as a special pre-release exclusive–three weeks earlier than everyone else. This book is the first in Chan’s Celestial Battle trilogy. You can also pre-order online or via phone if you can’t make it on Tuesday but would like a signed copy.

Video chats with RITA finalists

The Romance Writers of America is running a series of video chats  with finalists for their annual RITA awards. There are 11 sessions planned until the awards night. Anyone can attend the online event, but only first 1000 RSVPs will be able to actively participate in each session. The first one starts today at 10am AEST. Click here for the schedule and registration links.

Paranormal book club

Galaxy Bookshop’s next paranormal romance book club is on Thursday, May 2. The topic, tentatively, is the representation of women in paranormal romance. This should be a fab discussion, particularly as the group has a lot of female readers. Contact Galaxy for more details.

RWA conference spotlight

If you’re coming to the Romance Writers of Australia conference at Fremantle in August, check out the spotlight on the RWA blog for Kat’s panel with Sarah Wendell and Kate Cuthbert. Hope to see some of you there!

Romance panels at the Sydney Writers’ Festival

The program for this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival has been announced, and romance readers have scored one panel, The spirit of romance. Sort of.

What styles of romance writing are people reading today and how do writers approach the element of romance differently in their books? Suzy Duffy (Wellesley Wives), Kate Forsyth (The Wild Girl) and Rachael Treasure (The Farmer’s Wife) discuss the world’s most popular literary genre with Amanda Hooton (author of Finding Mr Darcy).

Romance genre readers will note that none of these writers actually write within the genre. But, as @VaVeros point out, it’s an improvement in previous years because it at least lacks the condescending tone of previous romance-related panels at SWD.

Jane Austen fans might also be interested in the Pride and Prejudice panel. I’ll be expecting a discussion around The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, so don’t disappoint me, people!

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Kalder Mar grew up in the Mire, a swamp in just about the dodgiest part of the Edge, a land between the Broken (that would be our world) and the Weird (that would be a magic world, part-Faerie, part Renaissance-y steampunk fantasy). He’s a liar, thief and sometime spy who is really, really good with a sword and has an uncanny (magical) ability to make things happen if you bet him they can’t.

Audrey Callahan is the daughter of a con artist. Bitter and battered by the life her family taught her to live, she’s tried to keep on the straight and narrow, getting a real job in the Broken and taking care of herself. Her father persuades her to do one last con, and if she does, he’ll stay out of her life forever.

Tasked with retrieving the item that Audrey’s family stole, Kalder and Audrey cross paths and find themselves working together to make things right, with all the adventures that come with it.

Despite my rave review for book one in the series, book two languished on my TBR for two and a half years before I picked it up. I then promptly called Galaxy Books and made them ship me the rest of the series while I lay in bed languishing from illness. This is book three.

Fate’s Edge reminded me why I love Ilona Andrews. It’s filled with rich world building and engaging characters, and I devoured this book in one night despite drinking codeine-laced cough medication. I loved Kalder and his wise-cracking, devil-may-care-but-actually-I-have-depth personality. He reminded me very much of Silk from the Belgariad, one of my favourite fantasy series from childhood. While Audrey isn’t my favourite heroine in this series, I also liked her—she was ballsy without being over the top and she could admit when she was wrong, why she was wrong, and face her demons without drama and fanfare. She was more than a match for Kalder—their banter is entertaining and smile-inducing.

One of things I like about Andrews’ writing is that their (Ilona Andrews is a husband and wife team) characters are always distinct. You don’t get your average cookie-cutter, kick-arse heroine four times in four different books—it is a different person every time, as is the hero. And I like that. I like their personalities and character development. I also like that although they have cameos in each other’s books for continuity purposes, they don’t take over and are actually used to further the story along.

I love the secondary characters in all the books, most particularly the kids, George and Jack, Gaston and even Lark/Sophie. I can’t wait to read about them in the future, if that ever happens, because Andrews has ended this series with four books. (I hope it is just for now!) So you have the added bonus of, OMG a series that actually finishes!

In their blog ,the authors mention that when they pitched the Edge series to the publishers, they thought it was something they couldn’t describe. Sort of urban fantasy, some romance, and they had difficulty explaining what it was and where it fit: ‘Everybody likes it, nobody is 100% sure what it is.’ I tend to agree. I find this series quite unique in its setting and, although there are familiar elements, there is something quite distinct about the series as a whole, just as every character in the novel is distinct from each other. I really enjoyed this difference, and found that it enhanced the story-telling.

Yay or nay?

Highly recommended, but you really should start from the beginning (On The Edge). All the books are connected and although this can stand alone, you might feel that you’re missing something. Plus, you’ll want to go back and read everyone’s stories anyway.

Who might enjoy it: Readers looking for a unique, character-driven series

Who might not enjoy it: Readers who need vampires in their paranormal romance

Title: Fate’s Edge (excerpt)
Series: The Edge (Book 3)
Author: Ilona Andrews
Publisher: Ace

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Fishpond | Galaxy | Other
EBOOKS: Booku | Diesel | eBooks.com | Kindle UK | Kindle US
WORLDWIDE: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository | Library

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The updates include information up to and including Tohr’s book. Note that the cheat sheets have not been updated to include information from Lover At Last to avoid accidentally spoiling readers who have not yet had a chance to read the book.

We have also created dedicated pages for the cheat sheets. You should be able to see the pages from the black menu bar at the top of this screen. If you hover your mouse above the ‘BDB’ menu item, you should automatically see a list of subpages below it. (Let me know if this doesn’t work for you!)

Whenever we update or add information about the BDB, we will update the pages and then post a summary of the updates to make sure you don’t miss out on the info! So if you have links to the old cheat sheets, please update them to point to the overview page here. This page has a link to all the cheat sheets, reviews pre-release spoilers and other related posts about the BDB.

We hope you’ll find this new structure easier to use, and a huge THANK YOU to Decadence for the updates!

And now, here are the latest updates to the cheat sheets:

Significant changes

Significant changes were made to the following pages, so click on the links to check out what’s been happening to these characters:

• Payne (includes Manny)
• Tohr and No’One
• Qhuay (includes Saxton)
• Supporting characters (includes Assail, Layla)
• Antagonists

Wrath

Xcor stirs up the glymera against Wrath and he spends the next few months visiting the heads of the six founding bloodlines to reassure them of their safety under the Brotherhood, but when he visits Assail, despite the security set up by both parties, Wrath was shot through the neck and survived, thanks to Tohr getting him out (with Lassiter’s help) and performing a life-saving tracheotomy to bypass the bullet lodged in his neck, and Qhuinn fighting Xcor long enough to give them the chance to escape.

Butch

Marissa loves that Butch is always a gentlemale towards her, never complaining about her long hours or stress caused by running Safe Place, where she is the head of her own little family and controls every aspect of its running. She will soon build a new wing financed by the sale of Wellsie’s jewellery.

Vishous

V was in his forge working on a black dagger when Tohr came to collect the silver urn wrapped in a velvet bag and tied with a bow that contained Wellsie’s ashes. I thought the dagger might be for Qhuinn, but he gave Tohr a set for the Fade ceremony.

Phury

Phury escorted Layla into the training room to protect her from Throe as she feeds him. He went overboard in the protection department by letting her believe Throe is an honourable warrior who serves his race every night. This bit Layla in the arse when Throe summoned her to feed Xcor, for whom she felt attraction before she learned that he was really her enemy.

Rehv

Rehv is still the Princeps Council leahdyre, but is known to be pro-Wrath. He uses his position to slow down the Band of Bastards’ progress in undermining Wrath, but his council uses the loophole of an ‘informal’ gathering to meet and talk treason behind his back.

JM and Xhex

A few days after their mating ceremony, JM saw Xhex get injured in a fight with a lesser, so he started inserting himself into her battles. She was pissed and kept on fighting. They argued over her fighting, she thinks it’s because she’s female, but JM signed that her “stupidity” in continuing to fight while injured puts others in danger. He didn’t realise that everyone was watching him sign that to her.

No’One is trying to build a relationship with Xhex, but Xhex feels that her mother is afraid of her because she is a symphath.

Lassiter

Lassiter is a fallen angel who was condemned to the In Between since he caused the Black Plague that decimated a third of the human population in central Europe and his last chance for freedom is to ensure that Tohr can move on freeing himself and Wellsie (and their young) from the In Between. So like it or not, he must move in with the Brotherhood. His scenes in the mansion are often quite amusing because Lassiter is just a little bit too metrosexual to belong. He loves chick flicks and trashy reality and talk shows, like Maury Povitch.

Lassiter doesn’t really have much feeling for others and leaped at the assignment he was offered without bothering to learn what was required because it was his one chance out of the In Between. He just thought he had to save Tohr’s life and get him fighting again, but since he was still stuck, he knew there had to be more. He has visions of Wellsie and the young turning still, grey and distant, which are very bad signs.

Trez

Trez uses the surname Latimer for the humans, so presumably iAm does as well. He feeds and fucks at work, but never from the same female or woman twice.

Blay and Saxton

Blay sometimes resents Layla for her connection to Qhuinn, despite his relationship with Saxton, who he finds to be a complete contrast to Qhuinn—refined, good sense of humour, well-dressed, uncomplicated and unjealous.

After Qhuinn fought Xcor, Saxton suggested to Blay that he should speak up about Qhuinn’s heroism to the king, knowing Blay still loves his cousin. Once he got the go-ahead, he started his research to rewrite the laws preventing Qhuinn becoming a Brother.

Xcor

Xcor is slowly becoming less of a machine since learning of the Bloodletter’s lie, even to the point of wishing he had a handsome face so that he wouldn’t keep repulsing whores.

Throe

Xcor trained him to be a fighter, and although he lost his first fights with the other bastards, they saw him immediately and innately fall into battle stance and pick up moves, learning more in that first night than many soldiers do after years in the camp. He believes he owes Xcor an eternal debt of service and also stays because he feels that he and the other bastards are committed to each other.

The Brotherhood

There used to be twenty to thirty Brothers at a time, but as of the end of Lover Reborn, there were only seven Brothers including the king (who no longer fights) and the Primale, who is now fighting for the first time in history. Although they are not actually Brothers, John Matthew, his ahstrux notrum (bodyguard) Qhuinn, Blaylock, Xhex and Payne have joined the war.

World building — Needing, civil unrest, Safe Place 

A female’s needing can also bring on the needing in other females within proximity.

Xcor’s letters to the six founding bloodlines and Rehvenge (as leahdyre) have the stuffed shirts secretly talking about revolution after Rehv denies the Band of Bastards a reaction or the chance to speak to the Council. All but Assail align themselves with Xcor. Assail claims to be a neutral businessman but not standing with Xcor has earned him a powerful enemy.

Marissa loves that Butch is always a gentlemale towards her, never complaining about her long hours or stress caused by running Safe Place, where she is the head of her own little family and controls every aspect of its running.

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Amazon is undeterred in its path to world domination, announcing its plan to acquire Goodreads, in what is sure to be a blow for readers who loved Goodreads precisely because it’s not affiliated with major players in the book industry. The deal is expected to close by June 2013.

Do I care? Maybe.

The thing is, Goodreads isn’t exactly the haven for readers that some think it is. There have been appalling reports and evidence of threatening behaviour on Goodreads that, I feel, Goodreads has failed to properly address or manage. In many ways, I’ve come to feel that Goodreads values authors more than they do readers. I use Goodreads as a reading journal, to ensure I don’t buy duplicate books, and to record reviews posted on Book Thingo. That’s about it. Rarely do I participate in Goodreads socially, and when I do, it’s almost always with readers I already have a relationship with via Twitter or through blogs.

Amazon’s acquisition of what I consider more of a tool than a community is therefore interesting because I’d like the tool not to break or do a worse job than it did before, but that’s about as passionate as I can manage to feel on the subject. Your mileage may vary.

What might happen to Goodreads in the future?

TechCrunch has a summary of the potential direction that Amazon might want to take Goodreads, and the two key areas seem to be around Kindle integration and improved algorithms for book recommendations. It’s too soon to tell if Amazon will screw around with the user-facing design of Goodreads to align it more tightly to the Amazon shop, but according to Forbes, doing so may not be in Amazon’s best interests, at least in the near future:

Obviously, Amazon would rather not send potential book buyers to its competitors. But with a new anti-trust lawsuit accusing it (and the six biggest publishers) of wielding too much control over the e-book market, this isn’t the time to be seen as acting like a monopoly.

Dear Author also predicts that not much will change, based on what we’ve seen so far with Book Depository and Abe Books, but that we’ll see a tighter coupling between Goodreads and the Amazon shop—not noticeable enough to annoy us (hopefully), but prominent enough to give Amazon an advantage over its competitors.

With Amazon already owning Shelfari, this leaves LibraryThing as one of the few alternatives for readers who prefer to keep their data away from Amazon. This post by LibraryThing creator Tim Spalding explains why, despite the fact that Amazon also has an indirect stake in this venture.

Is there anything Amazon doesn’t touch?

Spalding comments that:

Amazon/Goodreads realigns friends and enemies. Publishers are desperate to find a way out of the Amazon trap—needing Amazon, but also competing more and more with Amazon’s own publishing operations, and finding their individual and collective power declining as Amazon’s grows. As I read it, funding Bookish was one attempt to get out of this trap. The independence of Goodreads suited them too. Now that Goodreads is just Amazon, the time and money publishers spend on Goodreads is like everything else they do with Amazon—good in the short term, but suffocating them in the long-term.

In this opinion piece at the The Digital Reader, some publishers have only themselves to blame for trying to compete with Goodreads rather than taking the opportunity to acquire Goodreads a few years ago, for a much more modest sum than Amazon will be paying (estimated at around $150 million). The Digital Reader article is scathing in its criticism, which basically amounts to three big publishers lacking any understanding of how social media works.

What are the alternatives?

If Amazon’s acquisition of Goodreads leaves a bad taste in your mouth, here are some alternatives that you might like to try:

LibraryThing — LibraryThing is the most likely haven for people moving away from Goodreads. Although Amazon has a stake in the company, it does not have a controlling interest. The biggest downside is that you can only add 200 books before you have to pay a subscription fee. It’s fairly inexpensive, though, at $10 per year or $25 for life. To take advantage of Goodreads defectors, they currently have an offer to waive the first year’s fee, but you need to hurry, because it expires March 31 (US time).

weRead — This was the first personal online library I used, back when it was just a Facebook app. I think I left weRead because it moved out of Facebook and I decided to go with Goodreads instead, and it also doesn’t have an export function, which means there’s no way to get your library out of weReads easily if you decide to try a different product in the future.

The Reading Room — The Reading Room is an Australian-based company, and its interface is clean and attractive. The downside is that the catalogue is nowhere near as extensive as Goodreads’—not even for Australian books. It doesn’t allow readers to add to the catalogue—new titles and covers have to be uploaded by the RR team—and there are no apps for mobile devices.

Riffle — I was recently sent an invitation to try Riffle, but I couldn’t take up the offer because it requires logging in using a Facebook account. I’m told, however, that Twitter integration is coming, so I’ll have more to say when that’s available. It sounds like this one is aimed more at people with an interest in promoting their book recommendations via social media—so authors, publishers and possible reviewers, rather than readers per se.

Dear Author also has a list of potential alternatives to Goodreads.

Are you looking for a Goodreads alternative? Which ones are you considering?

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Black Dagger Brotherhood author J. R. Ward posted this video on her Facebook page from the Cincinnati signing confirming that the next book in the series will be called The King and definitely isn’t going to be about Xcor. It will be about Wrath and Beth having a baby.

Ward has hinted in the past that there were going to be novellas for Wrath and Beth as well as Rhage and Mary and their journeys to parenthood. With Lover at Last beginning its life as a novella, it looks like we may be able to hope for full-length novels for both couples, especially since she’s hoping to return to each couple by giving them their own books again.

The King will be released in around a year’s time in the US spring 2014.

Official spoilers from the signing were posted on Ward’s Facebook page here and it’s given us a lot to speculate on.

Click here for a round-up of all BDB-related posts on Book Thingo.

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Anne Gracie is nominated in the Historical Romance category for Bride By Mistake, published by Berkley. Barbara Hannay is nominated in the Contemporary Single Title Romance category for her rural Australian romance Zoe’s Muster, published by the Michael Joseph.  Bronwyn Parry is nominated in Romantic Suspense category for Dead Heat, published by Hachette Australia. Category romance author Lilian Darcy is nominated in the Short Contemporary Series Romance category for A Marriage Worth Fighting For, published under Harlequin’s Special Edition imprint. (In Australia, this story is published under the Cherish imprint in a special 3-in-1 edition.)

A RITA award is the romance equivalent of the Oscar, and having four local authors in the running is an excellent achievement. Hannay and Parry’s nominations are particularly exciting as the books are both set in rural Australia and published locally.

For the Golden Heart awards, given to unpublished manuscripts, Australian writer Chris Taylor is nominated in the Romantic Suspense category for The Predator.

You can view the full list of RITA and Golden Heart finalists on the RWA website. The winners will be announced on July 20 at the 2013 RWA Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Click here for a round-up of all BDB-related posts on Book Thingo.

This is the book that most Black Dagger Brotherhood fans have been eagerly anticipating ever since the Butch/V bromance turned out to be strictly platonic (if you ignore the occasional voyeurism and ambiguous moments of male bonding). I’m going to try and do this with as few spoilers are possible, but I can’t guarantee not to let details slip, so consider yourself warned.

Blaylock and Qhuinn have been best of friends even before they transitioned (the BDB vampire equivalent of puberty), but between Qhuinn’s indiscriminate and rampant sexcapades, and Blaylock’s homosexuality and unrequited love for his best mate, it’s really all they can do to be in the same room without descending into the sort of delicious angst that has made this series so addictive. Bad timing and some ill-chosen words have led them to believe that their more-than-friends feelings will never be returned by the other.

Qhuinn and Layla are expecting a baby, and Blay is in a committed relationship with Saxton, but they’re all living in the Brotherhood mansion, and they keep running into each other. At the gym. Half naked. With bulging biceps. And rampant and spontaneous erections. (People prone to stiffies shouldn’t really be going commando.) As you do. In one of my favourite scenes—because, come on, how cracktastic is this?—Blay finds the Room of Requirement and indulges his wanksting in a spectacular way. (This is what happens when boys don’t go through puberty in the usual way.)

Blay is probably one of the most well-adjusted BDB characters, so it’s Qhuinn who has to undergo a big emotional journey in this book. In typical BDB fashion, he is filled with self-loathing, mostly over things over which he has no control. Qhuinn’s issues stem from his family’s rejection of him, to the point where his brother was involved in bashing him up almost to death. His desire for a traditional family, to be a father, and his inability to reconcile this dream with a possible relationship with Blay is the biggest hurdle in their relationship.

As far as conflicts go, it’s pretty tenuous, especially when one considers that almost everyone in the BDB—from Wrath to the lowest lesser—suffers from a crisis of self-worth. This isn’t one of the things I love about the BDB, and this book delivers self-esteem issues in a big way, across different characters—more on that soon. It’s also not a conflict that is easily sustained in a 600-page book, so it’s not surprising that author J. R. Ward spends a fair bit of time developing two separate subplots—one involving drug dealer Assail, and one involving Trez—and the continuing subplot around the Band of Bastards.

Assail’s storyline is creepy in a BDB kind of way, which almost certainly means he’ll get his own book and soon. Ward sets him up with a potential heroine, who is probably one of the more assertive and independent female characters in the BDB word, aside from Xhex. Although I can see how the sparks between them could appeal to readers, their interactions are too stalkerish for me to enjoy.

Trez suffers from man-whorishness, a common BDB syndrome, which leads him to sleep with a lot of human women and, because they were willing to have casual sex, see them as fast-moving consumer goods. Ward tries to put some kind of emotional context around this, but hey, I’m on the side of the humans. He’s in an arranged marriage with royalty, but he refuses to go home and honour the commitment. He’s also set up for his own romance when he gets that whoa feeling upon setting eyes on a certain woman. We love the whoa feeling, no matter how inconvenient it is or how much of a man-whore he is. Right? I’m mildly interested in Trez but I dislike what Ward, through Trez, implies about women who sleep around, and it’s not the first time she’s done it. It may be through the characters’ eyes, but it’s an awful message about how to treat women and I find myself less and less tolerant of it in romance as time goes by.

Layla gets her own subplot with the dreaded Xcor, who…actually somewhat redeems himself in this book. Layla develops a backbone, although it’s mostly spurred by her love for her foetus, so I’m not sure it’s much of a feminist statement, but considering where she started, it’s still something. The love angst between this couple is fabulous—if you can ignore the usual self-loathing—but there are aspects of this subplot that will no doubt grate on readers.

Also, at the rate we’re going, there will be no bad guys left. And if you’re at all sensitive to the way in which women are portrayed and treated in romance, this is not the book for you. They are all there only to serve the male characters’ story arcs.

What about Qhuinn and Blay? I hear you screaming at your screen. You see how frustrating that was? It’s a bit like that in Lover At Last, with the secondary plots and characters taking up precious pages when all we really want is to see Qhuay in action. And the action? It’s pretty hot. One of my biggest concerns with this book is whether or not Ward will treat the m/m romance as well and as explicitly as she does her m/f couples. The answer is yes, it’s explicit…but not without problems.

The sexual dynamic between Qhuinn and Blay starts off fairly aggressively, and although in theory this makes for hot, furniture-moving, lamp-breaking, omg-what-are-you-waiting-for sex, as Kaetrin mentions her review, gay penetrative sex really requires le lhube (thank you, Kaetrin, for the new glossary entry!). This didn’t bother me as much, because there’s no lube in Ward’s m/f scenes either and some of them go on for ages and, well, chafing much? But some of the sex in this book was borderline violent—let’s say very passionate—so yes, lube would have been much more realistic. I chalked this down to the fact that vampires heal easily, so it should work itself out in the end, but there is, I think, a danger that readers will find the sex fetishised. To be fair to Ward, this happens in her other books, too—the BDSM in Vishous’s book, for example—so I can’t say it was unexpected. I also note the lack of rimming or fingers. All oral play was penis-oriented. Everything else was glossed over.

There are two more issues that m/m romance readers may find troublesome. The first is Qhuinn’s so-called virginity—meaning he’s never been the recipient of penetrative anal sex. Really? Slutty Qhuinn is a virgin? It’s the m/m equivalent of the technical virgin heroine—widowed but still a virgin, surrogate mum but still a virgin, had sexual relations but technically a virgin, etc. The second is Qhuinn’s inability to admit being gay or bisexual or, until the book’s resolution, admit to being in an m/m relationship. I felt this would have made for a much more interesting conflict than whoa-is-me-my-best-friend-doesn’t-love-me, which is what it was for most of the book.

Still, the wanksting (a term that Jen helped brainstorm with me) is a sight to behold. There isn’t as much tenderness as readers might hope for, and no almost-threesomes, which, let’s face it, Ward does extremely well. There is a shared feeding scene, and we all know what happens in those. (Incidentally, the Band of Bastards has one, too, and it’s a porntastic orgy.) Ward revisits Qhuinn’s history, and his past slutty behaviour is re-examined through the prism of true lurve—he had sex with everyone but Blay to keep him distant, and Blay participated to keep Qhuinn close. Well, oookay then! The two men also have very active and explicit fantasy lives, which plays out very well for us readers. That said, and although the sex scenes are on par with the other BDB books, the story is almost an anti-climax—the tension between Qhuinn and Blay was far more interesting in previous books. The last line of the book is pure romance, though, and at the risk of sounding daggy, it ends on a very sweet note.

Ward’s prose still exhibits her tendency to misuse punctuation—the question marks seem to have boycotted this book—and exaggerate to the point where it actually affects the narrative point of view. When a character thinks about ‘a human male the size of an amusement park’, the embellishment and hyperbole serve to take the reader out of close third person and into the author’s own perspective.

When it comes to world building, the best advice I can give is to forget keeping track of canon and just accept the fact that all of Ward’s rules are made to be broken. All of them. Even the ones that are supposed to end in death. Except they don’t. There are big plot twists in this story, and you won’t see them coming, because you’re still expecting the books to make sense.

I closed this book with a sigh and an ‘aww’, despite any issues I may have had with the story. And that, I think, speaks for itself.  I’m tempted to read the next book even though I said I wouldn’t do it. I wish Ward had spun off the series at the point where she introduced the Band of Bastards. It just feels like there’s no end in sight now.

Yay or nay?

This book isn’t perfect by any means, but I can’t help but celebrate that we’re finally getting an m/m romance by a mainstream author through a mainstream publisher for a mainstream audience. I thought I could read this book and say goodbye to the BDB forever, but now I’m not sure I can do it. This book will either allow you to exit the BDB world satisfied…or suck you right back in with a vengeance. The crack is back.

Who might enjoy it: Qhuay tragics

Who might not enjoy it: Homophobes

An advance reading copy of this book was generously provided by Hachette Australia.

Title: Lover At Last
Series: Black Dagger Brotherhood (Book 11)
Author: J. R. Ward
Publisher: Piatkus

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Fishpond | Galaxy | Romance Direct | Other
EBOOKS: Kindle UK | Kindle US
WORLDWIDE: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository | Library

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I am now hooked on a new series, the Clockwork Agents by Kate Cross, and I’m cheating a bit and doing a two-in-one review, largely because what I liked in both books was the same. (I blame Mirna of Rendezvous books for another excellent recommendation.)

This steampunk series is set in Victorian England and is filled with interesting inventions, gadgets and robotics—Cross does a good job of integrating corsets, guns and gadgets. I especially liked the world building and the combination of steampunk and spy vs spy plot. I wouldn’t say it’s entirely historically accurate—they say fuck and shite!—but as this is a steampunk novel, I expected the authors to take some liberties.

Heart of Brass features Lady Arden Grey, whose husband Luke disappears on a mission for the Wardens of the Realm, a covert organisation created to protect the British Empire. Seven years later, an assassin is sent to kill her in retribution for her killing of a Company agent (their rival spy organisation) and she recognizes him as her husband, who has no memory of who she is or any of his past. Arden is a strong, very resourceful heroine, who never lost faith in her husband, Luke, who starts off being a bit of a prick before he gets his memory back.

There’s also a side plot with Arden helping out Scotland Yard in investigations using her special gadgets—she’s an inventor—and solving a mystery as to who is murdering young girls. I don’t think this side plot was necessary, though, and in some ways it detracted from the main story of Arden and Luke figuring out who brainwashed him and trying to help him get back his memories. That story was meaty enough to not need a distraction. There are also a few things I found a bit convenient—like how they have a master surgeon who has a magic elixir that can fix everything, but we don’t know what it is. I hope that’s explained when she gets her own novel.

Touch of Steel features Claire Brooks, who works for the Company. Her brother, also a spy, was killed in the line of duty, and the Company doesn’t care enough to investigate. Claire swears revenge and in the process gets caught by the Wardens. She then has to team up with Alistair Payne, Earl of Woford, to catch the guy who killed her brother along with the Doctor who brainwashed Luke in the first book.

I liked Claire better as a heroine because she was slightly more kick-arse, and I could somehow relate to her better. The plotting in this book is tighter, and while the previous book is more gadget-y, this book is more adventure-filled, with the characters travelling in a submersible, a cruise ship, a dirigible and, well, just running around a lot.

However, I have to mention three peevish things that I didn’t like about this book:

1. The hero has had enhancements done to make him a better spy. He can see in the dark, so his eyes glow in the dark when the lights are out, freaking the heroine out even though she knew he’d been enhanced. How can you have sex without being creeped out?

2. The heroine acts in Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the author refers to her character as Tatiana, when it is actually Titania. That’s poor editing. She’s meant to be a Shakespearean actress who doesn’t like Shakespeare. It’s not a typo if you keep saying it.

3. The hero—this is a minor spoiler, but it’s a romance novel so we expect them to get married—proposes in climax. Like when he’s having his moment. Inside her. The whole proposal while you’re having sex thing is a pet peeve for me as it is, and really with all their mega-sex (this is romance, and every love scene is mega-supercalifragelisticexpialidocious-explosive sex) I don’t know how he’d have the brains to say that, and how she’d have the brains to hear it and accept. (With matching glowing eyes!)

Yay or nay?

All in all I really love this series, and can’t wait for the next book. It’s exciting, fast-paced and humurous and very, very sexy. I would recommend it for anyone looking for a fresh and new adventure. (Thanks, Mirna!)

Who might enjoy it: Readers looking for a new adventure

Who might not enjoy it: Sticklers for historical accuracy

Title: Heart of Brass (excerpt) and Touch of Steel
Series: Clockwork Agents (Books 1 and 2)
Author: Kate Cross
Publisher: Signet Eclipse

AUSTRALIA: Booktopia | Fishpond | Galaxy | Romance Direct | Other
EBOOKS: Books On Board | Booku | Diesel | eBooks.com | Kindle UK | Kindle US
WORLDWIDE: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository | Library

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