Wanna Get Lucky? by Deborah Coonts: I actually read about this on a book blog a couple of weeks ago, and it sounded so good that I had to go find it on our next trip to the library. The heroine, Lucky, is smart and funny, and though she has her moments of introspection, she has a healthy self-esteem. Her family and friend connections, as well as the Las Vegas setting, make for some amusing situations. She's a quick thinker and handles her responsibilities at the casino solidly. Two thumbs up. My only problem with this book? In two different places, the word discreet was replaced by discrete. Those words do NOT mean the same thing. One passage that I thought was especially funny? "Truth be told, I'd been feeling an attraction to almost any male who could walk and talk without drooling on himself. I realized I was in trouble when the gardener, who was married with eight kids and knew four words of English - one of them being "fuck" (which he used with relish) - started looking hot to me." As a woman of a certain age, I resemble that remark. Every Spring. Thank goodness for ironclad self-control. lol Of note: The Big Boss is never referred to by his actual name until nearly the end of the book, during a series of scenes in the hospital.
Undead and Unfinished by MaryJanice Davidson: This book was a big ball of WTF for me. I kept waiting for a point to be made. It wasn't. The ending, for anyone who's read others of this particular series, was a huge WTF? and kinda turned me off reading any of the rest of it. One glaring oddity: Satan talks about an interaction with Jesus, where he'd declined to join her, saying, "Yes indeed. He told me he'd pray for me. He quoted Scripture to me; how dull." This struck me as totally off because when Jesus was alive, assuming he was a person alive about 2000 years ago, the Scriptures, as such, had not been written, so how could he quote them? I think that's the kind of question that made them ask me to stop going to church when I was a teenager. lol
The Penalty Box by Deirdre Martin: Another in a series of friends and family members in NYC getting involved with hockey players. This time, it's Paul van Dorn, who was a peripheral character in an earlier book, getting involved with Katie Fisher, a girl from high school. This was an enjoyable book, with plenty of hockey references, as well as visits with prominent characters from previous books. Ms. Martin does do characters very well. Thumbs up. Disappointments - mistakes that should have been caught by an editor - a reference to something carrying cache, which should have been cachet. Cache, as far as I can remember is a computer term, and has nothing to do with something giving a young boy a little lift in his peers' eyes. Another was a glaring improper use of the past tense of the word "lay." A third reference was to an addict's litany of terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad things about herself, used to illicit sympathy. Obviously, that should have been elicit. And, the resolution to the relationship came in the last three to five pages of the book and was entirely too easy. I love you. I love you, too. Let's live happily ever after. Gag me. Maybe she's planning to use the next few steps in Paul and Katie's relationship in her next book (if it's not already out), and so didn't want to spoil it, but it was a total letdown of an ending.
Wanna Get Lucky?
Undead and Unfinished (Queen Betsy, Book 9)
The Penalty Box (New York Blades)
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