Brenda Joyce's The Promise

I requested Brenda Joyce’s The Promise from my local library because it was recommended in Fresh Fiction’s October Books Not to Miss.  Yeah, I fell for the advertising. Do these people even read these books before recommending them?

To the best of my knowledge this is the first Joyce I’ve ever read, and I had no idea this is the 8^th(!!) in “The de Warenne Dynasty” Series. Now, if you know me you know I’m a stickler when it comes to series, I generally feel compelled to read the entire series (in order) even if there’s just one that’s caught my fancy, I don’t see myself having that problem with this one (though I am marginally intrigued by the character she’s apparently set up for the next one).

So, this book claims to be a romance. The cover is all embarrassingly never-read-outside-the-house-romance-y, and my library kindly added their little heart romance sticker in case there was still any question of classification... and yet until literally the last chapter I wasn’t sure this couple was even likeable, let alone romance novel worthy.

It’s about a sea captain (the schooner on the cover serves as your warning for that, either that or the girl on the cover is sitting on the edge of a tempestuous bathtub with a very realistic tub toy ship, either way) he’s gorgeous and ridiculously wealthy (of course) and a serious man whore (who isn’t in romance novels?) and through a series of horribly contrived events he ends up married to the girl he believed from childhood he was destined to marry... and is all pissed off about it.

So angry sea captain guy, we’ll call him Alexi, since that was his name (though in a typo the book does call him Alexis at one point), up and leaves for the sea directly from his wedding... yes, no consummation, not even a kiss before or after the one little “you may now kiss the bride” one, for serious, the infuriating man up and leaves the poor girl for SIX FREAKIN’ YEARS...

So, we’re about a third of the way through the book when we discover that during the SIX FREAKIN’ YEARS Alexi has been gallivanting around the globe, his wife Elysse has been in London cultivating the image of being blissfully happy in her marriage, so blissfully happy she’s been getting down and dirty with a wide variety of men... but wait, she’s still a virgin... you mean she’s been telling people that she’s so stinkin’ happy to be married to ole what’s his name that she has to share that happiness by being a dirty dirty trollop? For reals?

So, Alexi comes back, somehow knowing about his wife being a dirty whore, and yet not knowing that she lives in London, the hometown of dirty whoriness? Uh huh. BTW, man whore is still hooking up with everything on two legs, but acknowledges the double standard, so it’s okay.

I’m going to fast forward here... there is way too much glaring and posturing in this book, I was starting to root for someone to get run over/shot/drown/thrown from a horse... anything to put me out of my misery. These people don’t hook up until well over three quarters of the way through the book... and he’s too drunk to remember it and thinks he raped her... and is still pissed off at her... and he leaves... for China... for like a year.

This is the point where the book actually gets interesting... yeah, just after page 300. The events from here until the rest of the book are actually good story telling. While the hero and heroine don’t really meet up again until like the last chapter, maybe that’s a blessing in disguise, as I said they are a bit obnoxious when facing off. There’s adventure ahoy on the high seas- pirates, stereotypical African “savages,” squicky slave traders... if Joyce could have spread this part of the book out longer and cut down the “you’re a dirty whore who trapped me into marriage”/“you don’t love me, and no I didn’t” diatribe to a chapter or even two it would be immensely more enjoyable.

Read it, don’t read it, if you do read it, skim most of it and start in on the conveniently placed “Part Three” header on page 303.               

The Land of Frustration

I’m still mired in schoolwork craziness... so here’s a quick multi-review I’m going to call “The Land of Frustration,” these are books that were nearly insanity inducing just to finish for one reason or another (and yes, I did finish them all):

     1.      Alan Deniro’s Total Oblivion, More or Less: This had the makings of an awesome book... part teenage girl coming of age, part entirely wacky post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure, and part maybe-time-travel-but-that’s-never-really-explained... yeah. There’s a little something for everyone in this book. The one thing that’s lacking: quotation marks. Seriously. You want a quote... in quotes? Not gonna find it here. Frustration, thy name is Deniro. Oy. I made myself finish this book, I had to suspend my brain and just read the words and let it all come together in pieces, but I finished it. Not cool. I checked this one out from my local library.       

      

    2.  Christopher Moore’s Bite Me: I have been waiting for the next Christopher Moore book to come out for like forever, I love all of his other books, but not this one. I was annoyed by Abby in the other books her character appears in, especially You Suck, but will admit to finding her marginally entertaining as an ancillary character... I really didn’t need an entire book devoted to her nonsensical ramblings. More Emperor and his dogs... less Abby Normal. K? Thanks. I bought this book from Barnes and Noble for my Nook(ie).

     3.      Karen Kelley’s Double Dating with the Dead: While I will admit this was a pretty darn funny story, I would like to recommend a thesaurus. If the characters in this book used the same words to describe the EXACT SAME THING one more time, I was fairly certain my brain was going to explode. Instead of being a work of humorous art, it comes across more like an adolescent got really lucky with an interesting plot, but was lacking the skill to make magic. I bought this book from Barnes and Noble for my Nook(ie)... on sale. Woot.

Since I have No Time...

Since I'm in the middle of midterms and have almost no time to eat or sleep, I decided to share this interesting article (and some quick experimentation) with you. I saw this link: Putting the Page 99 test to the, er, test | Books | The Guardian over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and got curious.

So I put a few books sitting around my shelves to the test:

Rebecca Brandewyne’s Jacaranda Tree (mass market paperback): Page 99 actually gives the reader a rare lighthearted moment in this book. Could be very misleading.
Dakota Cassidy’s My Way to Hell (trade paperback): Page 99 is HILARIOUS, a great taste of the entire book.
Michael Crichton’s Congo (hardback): Page 99 reads like a technical manual for the book, it discusses laser technology... boring. And this is one of my favorite books of all time.
Patrick Neate’s City of Tiny Lights (trade paperback): Page 99 is a scene that utterly personifies the entire book, if I hadn’t read it before it would have told me exactly what to expect.
Teresa Medeiros The Devil Wears Plaid (mass market paperback): Page 99 is literally a summary of the adventure of this story, while any aspect of the romance is absent, it would definitely tell the reader what to expect from this “travel” tale.

From my quick test of books I’ve already read, this test seems much more accurate for trade paper backs than mass market, probably because trade paperbacks are bigger and thus have shorter page counts you’re further along in the story at page 99 in a trade paperback than in a mass market paperback.

Try it out. What do you think? I don’t think I’ll be trying this with books I haven’t read any time soon, I’m a purist and get frustrated with the book blurbs that ruin too much of the story, it would kill me to know what to expect on page 99.

Happy Reading!

Update: I got an e-mail from Marshal Zeringue who let me know that over at his blog, the aptly named, Page 99 Test they've been putting this to the test since 2007... very interesting stuff.