Just Reviewed Two Romances at SBR

Folks, it’s Romance Saturday at Shiny Book Review (SBR), and I kept meaning to review two romances all month.

But time kept getting away from me, as it always does . . . then I looked up and realized, “Hey!  It’s nearly the New Year!  I still have these two romances hanging fire here.  What’s to do?”

So I reviewed them both tonight over at SBR.

This was quite a different thing for me, because the two novels, while both were romances in one way or another, were wildly different.   The first romance I reviewed is Sherry Thomas’ Victorian era TEMPTING THE BRIDE, book three in the Fitzhugh trilogy (and yes, I did review the other two books earlier this year, which you know if you’ve been reading my blogs).  I liked this novel far better than I liked either of the first two, mostly because I really liked the characters and felt the emotional resonance between them scanned the same way a real couple would if someone dropped into this same scenario (which is, of all things, the dreaded amnesia plot).

The second romance is Marie Lu’s young adult dystopian near-future LEGEND (say that three times fast).  This is Ms. Lu’s debut novel, and it’s a fast-paced thriller that still gets the emotional resonance right between our two teenage protagonists — June, from the military elite at the top of the economic scale, and Day, a fugitive from the “wrong side of the tracks” who is nevertheless extremely gifted in military matters.   Normally the two would never meet, but June’s brother is killed under highly suspicious circumstances, which throws the two together (mostly because the military elites running the place do their best to make it appear that Day killed June’s brother).

These may be the last reviews I do before the New Year — in fact, it’s highly likely that this is the case — so what better way to end 2012 than with two romances I really enjoyed?

I truly hope you’ll enjoy them, too — or that you’ll at least appreciate my reviews.  So have at, and in case I don’t get a chance to blog between now and then, Happy New Year to all . . . and to all a good night!