Friday, October 19, 2007

Some good books from 2007

I have read 39 books published in 2007 so far this year but I have only done reviews on about a third of them. So in an effort to catch up, here are some quickie reviews of the best of the rest.

The Abducted Heiress by Claire Thornton
This book takes place in the Restoration Era in 1666 during the Great Fire of London. The setting, characters, and attitudes felt realistic for the place and time. Although the book had it's faults I enjoyed reading about the fire and how it affected people. Jayne at DearAuthor wrote a more thorough review so click here if you want to know more. My grade: B-


Innocent in Death by J. D. Robb
Another solid and fascinating addition to this series. I love this series and I think my main motivation for reading them is to see how the relationship between Eve and Roarke develops. And every book seems to have some event or events that move their relationship forward and makes it stronger. IID is no different. When an old girlfriend of Roarke's comes into town and starts asking for 'favors', Eve doesn't know quite how to handle it. She is extremely jealous but wants to appear unconcerned. Deep down though her insecurities are twisting her in knots. Magdelina is stunningly beautiful and super smooth but Eve is suspicious and despises her on sight. Roarke seems oblivious at first and insulted at Eve's jealousy, but he is no dummy and my respect for him was raised another notch because he sees through Magdelina fairly quickly. Oh, and the homicide investigation in IID is another good one. A much-beloved young teacher at an exclusive private school is murdered and I was rather shocked when his murderer is finally revealed because I didn't see it (or refused to believe it). My grade: B+


Castle of the Wolf by Sandra Schwab
This book also had an unusual setting - a dark mysterious castle in the Black Forest of Germany. I'm not sure of the time period but it seemed like maybe 1820's or so. I cut my eyeteeth on dark gothics like Jane Eyre when I was a teenager and this book reminded me so much of them. The hero is dark and tortured and is hiding some secrets. The heroine is convinced someone is trying to kill her. Some spooky weird things happen and the hero is so enigmatic that I almost believed he was behind them. Anyway it was great fun.
My grade: B


Well, I'm running out of steam tonight so I'll make another post this weekend with some more quickie reviews.

3 comments:

Dev said...

A friend of mine has all the JD Robb books and has offered to lend them to me ~ I started the first one, but never really devoted any serious time to it ~ I definitely want to read the series at some point.

Sandra Schwab said...

Renée, thanks for blogging about Castle -- I'm so glad to hear you've enjoyed the book! :)

And you're right, the time is the 1820s, 1827 to be exact because I needed (wanted) a steamship on the Rhine and the first regularily operating service opened in that year.

Best wishes from Frankfurt!

ReneeW said...

Dev: I fell in love with Eve and Roarke in the first book, Naked in Death. Have read them all and I highly recommend them. That would be great if your friend could lend them to you. Try NID and if that doesn't get you hooked then you can pass up the rest.

Sandra: My review was rather short and didn't do justice to the book. Sorry about that. I was running out of energy last night. It was a very enjoyable read. Someday I'd love to get to Germany and play tourist. I want to see some castles!

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