Persy -- The Highlander's Touch by Karen Marie Moning

Here's the thing, Karen Marie Moning: you write a story in which time travel plays a significant part, and I'm GONNA be harsh.

This is actually the third book in Karen Marie Moning's historical romance Highlander series, but you don't have to read them in order, so don't worry about spoilers for other books. However, if you don't know the standard plot to a romance novel and/or don't mind discovering one or two minor plot surprises, you might not want to read this review.

Lisa Stone is working two jobs, struggling to support her cancer-ridden mother. Her father died long ago, and now she's all Catherine, her mother, has. She works as a night maid for a museum, and one night she happens upon a mysterious artifact and... well, touches it. She is instantly transported back in time to the Scottish highlands... where she comes face to face with Circenn Brodie, a deadly man who is a stickler for rules. But will his unquenchable love for Lisa cause him to break . . . every . . . single . . . rule?

Sorry, I get super dramatic when I review romance novels. Dunno why.

Let's start way back in the Prologue. Circenn curses a flask so that once it is touched it will be transported back to him, effectively returning the lost flask. Unfortunately, it will also return whoever touches the flask. Adam gets pissy and makes Circen swear to kill the bearer of the flask to protect all the secrets, or whatever. After a lot of arguing, Circenn makes the oath. But here's the thing: Circenn swears to kill the MAN who touches the flask. MAN. MALE. Guess who brings the flask? Right. A woman. I totally expected this to be the loophole. And it would've worked SO WELL because Adam knew who would pick up the flask, and Adam didn't actually want her dead, and even if Circenn forgot he said man, Adam could've been all, "Remember, you swore to kill the MAN. AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA."

But that's not what happened. Oh well.

Moving on. I don't see what the big deal is about Circenn being immortal. I mean, yeah, I get not wanting to curse anyone else with immortality, but still. Do you have any idea how much trouble would've been saved by him just spilling the beans? "Oh, Lisa, your mother is going to die alone in the future? WAIT, I'm IMMORTAL. I promise to seek her out and take care of her. Heck, I'll even throw my sexy bod into the equation."

But that solution never occurred to anyone. Whatever.

Moving on. Perhaps this is a small detail, but it seriously bugs me. The longer Lisa spends in the past, the more upset she gets because every day she spends there is a day her mother is alone. But... she's not on another planet. She's in the past. So if she were to find some sort of way to time travel... she could just travel back to the moment she left.

But maybe I'm just being nitpicky about time travel.

But now that we're on the subject, the ending. Oh. my. gosh. the. ending. Romance novels are notorious for magical, happily ever afters, but THIS? SERIOUSLY? You are taking it TOO FAR, here! You can't just DO THAT.

There are also some absolutely random parts that I don't understand. There's the stereotypical best friend Ruby, who gets left behind in the modern day world. She has a total of two scenes, and afterwards she's sometimes referenced but never more than to explain away bits of knowledge or clothing that Lisa possesses. There is never any sign that Lisa misses her best friend. But this isn't a major issue.

What strikes me as REALLY odd is the redhead who snubs Duncan. I mean, what the crap? She and her brother hint at some malicious intent and there's the insinuation that they're even lying about their names. Moning goes into such detail about her appearance and the scene seems so dadgummed important... and then she disappears completely. Maybe it's a reference to another book in the series? I don't know. But it's just plain weird.

And my final irritation... the first time Circenn sees her in her undies, she says that he caught her in the one fancy pair of underpants she happens to own: a set of lacy lavender lingerie. The ONE pair she owns. But then at the very end, she rushes to get dressed and we find out later that she is now wearing a set of lacy PINK lingerie. What.

Oh wait. Of course. Of COURSE she'd have more lacy lingerie, because THEY CHANGED THE EFFING FUTURE. Naturally, that would result in her having more pairs of flirty underpants.

All that aside... I mean, the characters weren't bad. I guess. I didn't think the book was too awful until I started writing a review of it. Let's be honest, this isn't much of a review... more like a rant. But I can't think of anything so awe-inspiringly brilliant that it would make up for all of my little pet peeves that showed up in the book. I swear, when I was actually reading it, it wasn't awful.

But she messed with time travel. How can you expect me to not be harsh?

--Persy

You might like this if you: just really like historical romances; like time travel, but don't like it when it's complicated; have an afternoon to kill and don't want anything serious; or if you work as a night maid in a museum and wonder what would happen if you inspected all the artifacts yourself. That's right, bad stuff would happen. Don't do it.

Arty -- Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Let's get the new year (or the closest chronological thing to it) of reviews started off with a bang - in other words, a rant!

Aislinn (don't ask me how to pronounce it - I'm not proficient in Irish or Celtic or Gaelic or whatever it is pronunciation - I'm guessing like Ashlyn because her nickname is Ash) has the Sight - in other words, she can see faeries.  She pretends she doesn't see them because they don't know she can, and she doesn't want them or other humans to know of her ability.  But poor Aislinn is tormented by this knowledge and her entire existence seems to be one of victimization and misery at hiding her true self.

But hark!  A hot faerie approaches!  Seriously, he is hot - he's Keenan, the faerie Summer King.  And he thinks Aislinn is destined to be his Summer Queen.  Because of a 'feeling' and 'dreams' that have apparently gotten a lot of other girls kicked out in the cold - in other words, reduced to miserable Winter Girls, each successive Winter Girl having the duty of warning Keenan's next victim not to trust him.

Cue a tug-of-war between Aislinn, Keenan, Donia (the current Winter Girl who's still in love with Keenan), and Berea (I think her name is Berea), Keenan's mother and the current wicked Winter Queen.  It's not as dramatic as it sounds - mostly it's just Aislinn running away and being blah and hiding out at totally-not-her-boyfriend Seth's house.  And Keenan moping.  And Donia moping.  And Berea plotting.

I do have to say that it started out really good.  I was interested.  I was hopeful for something more interesting than your typical YA paranormal romance.  Seth, despite being in high school, lives alone, drinks tea, has tons of piercings, and keeps a boa constrictor.  He was cool at first.  Original.  Aislinn was moderately interesting and not too whiny.  Donia and Keenan had good personalities.

At first.

Oh good story of faeries and intrigue and Court angst.  You disappeared into a pile of teen angst, shaky characterization, and an exponentially growing number of wearisome plot devices.

The characters started to dissolve about a third of the way through.  There's a feeling you get when you have a firm grasp on a character, who they are and how they work.  None of the characters ever got that feeling - or, if they had it, it was for a few short chapters and then they lost it.  The only character who was halfway consistent was Berea, and that was because she was a cackling villainess who was there to hurt people and enjoy doing it for no particular reason.

There was one plot twist that I didn't see coming and that I appreciated - it would give away major spoilers if I wrote it out, but let's just say Marr didn't fall into the tired old love triangle bit, at least not fully.  It was just that by the time came to unleash the plot twist, I just didn't give a rip.  Everyone was boring.  Not unlikeable, per se, but just... blah.  Who cares that some faerie-human lady loves some faerie dude who wants some human girl who loves some mortal guy and they're all trying to be killed by some evil faerie queen?  Marr gave me no reason to care.

The prose was nice, there were regular sprinklings of originality, and the cover is absolutely gorgeous, but there's just not enough good here to warrant a recommendation.  In the end, the execution of the story is just as bland as the cover is beautiful.