Ravished

Ravished- Amanda Quick
















Ravished- Amanda Quick
Bantam
Release Date: June 1, 1992 Reissued: December 23, 2009

Rating (Our of 5):
📚📚📚📚📚

Synopsis:From the cozy confines of a tiny seaside village to the glittering crush of the a fashionable London soiree comes an enthralling tale of a thoroughly mismatched couple . . . poised to discover the rapture of love.

There was no doubt about it. What Miss Harriet Pomeroy needed was a man. Someone powerful and clever who could help her rout the unscrupulous thieves who were using her beloved caves to hide their loot. But when Harriet summoned Gideon Westbrook, Viscount St. Justin, to her aid, she could not know that she was summoning the devil himself. . . . 

Dubbed the Beast of Blackthorne Hall for his scarred face and lecherous past, Gideon was strong and fierce and notoriously menacing. Yet Harriet could not find it in her heart to fear him. For in his tawny gaze she sensed a savage pain she longed to soothe . . . and a searing passion she yearned to answer. Now, caught up in the Beast’s clutches, Harriet must find a way to win his heart–and evade the deadly trap of a scheming villain who would see them parted for all time.

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One of Quick's older books, Ravished was reissued a few years ago and is still very much worth the read- despite the rather dramatic synopsis it's been given. It's the story of Harrier Pomeroy, an avid fossil collector who discovers that the caves she's been fossil hunting in are being used to store stolen goods.  Deciding it's the landholder's job to clear up the problem she summons Gideon Westbrook, Viscount St. Justin, to deal with it.  Gideon hasn't been back to his lands in Upper Biddleton in six years- not since his fiancé killed herself and he was blamed for it.  Harriet, new to the area, hasn't heard the story and after meeting Gideon, doesn't believe it.  Gideon is as surprised in her trust as he is that she isn't trying to trick him for money or his title.  But discovering that Harriet is exactly who she says she is doesn't help when the two of them are trapped in a compromising position and marriage is the only way out. Now the question is- can they get to the alter before the thieves (and Gideon's own enemies) kill them?

Ravished contains the classic wry humor of all Amanda Quick's books. Gideon especially, a man who no-one would expect to have a sense of humor, often gets some of the best lines- like the first time he sees Harriet's workroom with fossilized bones everywhere and thinks of it as "the cheerful little ante-room of hell".  He is a man who is beyond jaded.  Everyone, including his own parents, believe he raped and then abandoned his fiancé six years ago and since no one was interested in listening to his side of things, he stopped explaining.  Over time he stopped explaining anything and helped others to believe the absolute worst of him.  He cut himself off from family, Society, and as much of life as he could get away with and still manage his estates.  Harriet comes as a complete surprise to him: she isn't overawed by his rank, appalled by his facial scars, or afraid of his reputation.  She sees a man with a sense of honor, who can be trusted to do the right thing by people and his lands, and Gideon finds himself trying not to disappoint her.

Harriet is a wonderful, strong, and intelligent woman who is sure of herself and not afraid to assert her independence.  While at first she and Gideon seem like polar opposites, the more we get to know them the easier it is to see that they are perfect for each other.  They almost instantly respect each other and (usually) treat each other as equals.  The only real times that changes are when they are trying to protect each other- whether from thieves and smugglers or Society's harsh criticism. 

At its center, Ravished is a story about how sometimes finding out that another person believes the best in us allows us to see it in ourselves.  But it's also a story of how everyone, no matter how independent, needs other people.  And that other people- friends, and family, not just lovers, can make us stronger, and happier, than by standing alone.

Curious Minds

Curious Minds (Knight & Moon #1)- Janet Ivanovich & Phoef Sutton
Bantam
Release Date: August 16, 2016

Rating (out of 5):
📚📚

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

Synopsis: Emerson Knight is introverted, eccentric, and has little to no sense of social etiquette. Good thing he’s also brilliant, rich, and (some people might say) handsome, or he’d probably be homeless. Riley Moon has just graduated from Harvard Business and Harvard Law. Her aggressive Texas spitfire attitude has helped her land her dream job as a junior analyst with mega-bank Blane-Grunwald. At least Riley thought it was her dream job, until she is given her first assignment: babysitting Emerson Knight.
 
What starts off as an inquiry about missing bank funds in the Knight account leads to inquiries about a missing man, missing gold, and a life-and-death race across the country. Through the streets of Washington, D.C., and down into the underground vault of the Federal Reserve in New York City, an evil plan is exposed. A plan so sinister that only a megalomaniac could think it up, and only the unlikely duo of the irrepressibly charming Emerson Knight and the tenacious Riley Moon can stop it.

A new series by Stephanie Plum creator Janet Evanovich and co-writer Phoef Sutton introduces us to Riley Moon, a practical woman ready to save the world one bank account at a time.  Riley is full of common sense, a Texas approach to life, cars, and guns, and big dreams of success at one of the top banks in the world.  In other words, the exact opposite of Emerson Knight- a major client she gets stuck babysitting.  Emerson is a hard character to figure out.  Is he brilliant, on a higher Zen level of life, or a complete out-of-touch fruitcake?  If he was a supporting character in any of Evanovich's other books you'd know the answer right away.  But as one of the main characters of a book, he remains an enigma.  Riley is likable, a relatable blend of Stephanie Plum and Kate O'Hare who starts the book off convinced that her biggest problem is a mountain of student debt to Harvard.

I didn't find Emerson to be relatable, especially likable, or unlikeable.  I kept waiting for him to become a different kind of character- mostly, I think, because he's exactly the type who would be a secondary character in any other Evanovich book and I couldn't quite deal with him as a main character.  You never get a handle on him.  Will he become more tangible in future books? The intent is clearly that Emerson and Riley will develop into a will-they or won't-they couple with sparking chemistry.  I didn't detect any of that chemistry actually present in this book, but maybe Emerson is a different enough kind of character that it'll take a little longer to get there.

The mystery also took awhile to get there.  I found it disappointing.  I kept waiting for things to make more sense.  But it was just too grand scale and over the top for me to really get into.  Taking over the world, destabilizing the economy through the international gold supply.  Countries wanting their exact gold bricks back.  Millionaires wanting to see their gold bricks, millionaires hiding gold from each other, millionaires stealing even more gold and replacing it with fakes.  Unlike the simpler, usually crazy but understandable criminals Stephanie Plum deals with, I just couldn't find a way to wrap my mind around caring about the crimes Knight and Moon dealt with here.

In an unusual move for Evanovich, Curious Minds is a third person point of view, not told stream of conscious through Riley's point of view. We even get to see some scenes just among the bad guys.  I thought that worked really well, and look forward to seeing them use that style again in future books.

Overall, Curious Minds was a long book without much of a plan.  Riley and Emerson are clearly not investigators but find themselves investigating a plot on a global scale that never quite connected for me.  The book mostly consists of Emerson's plans (for life as well as investigating): walk into a situation and see what happens.  I'm like Riley- I kept waiting for the plan to take shape and become something more tangible than it ever does.  Not a great start to a new series, but considering Evanovich's abilities with other series I'll have to give this more than one book before I can declare it not worth following.           

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley for an honest review.