Nora Roberts Extravaganza
Gabriel's Angel
Lordy lordy lou. This is, uh. This is some early Nora Roberts all right.
Gabriel Bradley is driving back to his Colorado cabin in the middle of a snowstorm when he encounters an accident, er, as it happens. He pulls the driver, Laura Malone, out of the car, and is insta-attracted, as you do in romance novels. Laura, meanwhile, is very very pregnant and very very on the run from her former in-laws, though it takes her a while to explain it. Gabe isn't super keen on leaving her to die in the snow, so he takes her home with him. They fall in love and get married, Laura has the baby, and then they go home to San Francisco and deal with their issues, as well as Laura's former in-laws.
Good things: GABE'S MOTHER. Ahem. Amanda Bradley is a joy and her "u wanna GO BITCH" attitude toward Laura's former in-laws is just amazing. I love her. I want to read an entire book about Amanda fighting people. Laura and Gabe tend to talk their issues out like adults, which is nice. Laura is an abuse survivor and a very realistic portrayal of one.
Bad things: Gabe. For heaven's sake. Laura is an abuse survivor. Yelling at her not to compare you to her ex is NOT THE WAY TO HELP HER FEEL BETTER. Jeesh.
Overall, this is... this is certainly some early Nora Roberts. Resounding meh for me.
In the Garden Trilogy: Blue Dahlia, Black Rose, Red Lily
Okay, this is much more recent and frankly much better.
The In the Garden trilogy follows three women, Stella, Roz, and Hayley, as they attempt to deal with a ghost in Roz's house, run a business, and deal with the men they've fallen in love with, as well as raise their children (except Roz, whose kids are adults by now-- thankfully, since one of them is a romantic lead). The ghost is the main subplot, though In the Garden, Roz's garden business, is another one. We also get sort of prologues to each book, which tell the story of the ghost before she was a ghost, in more detail than the heroines can discover.
Anyway. Blue Dahlia is Stella's story, as she discovers the Harper Bride ghost, falls in love with Logan Kitridge, and realizes that the Harper Bride is a lot more dangerous than she's seemed. Black Rose follows Roz and her boyfriend, Mitch Carnegie, who's a genealogist she hired to find out more about the Harper Bride and try to identify her. This time the Bride is starting to lash out badly, and things get scary. Finally, Red Lily (which I think went on longer than it needed to) is Hayley's story, as the three women finally solve the mystery of the Harper Bride and Hayley falls in love with Roz's son Harper, who also falls in love with her and her daughter Lily. Adorable family times ensue.
So the trilogy is pretty fine. I liked Blue Dahlia, but Black Rose and Red Lily were both kind of meh. It seems like everyone in these books talks alike, with really similar word choice and sentence structures, even though they're all very different people. The story of the Harper Bride is pretty cool, but towards the end I was basically just reading for her. Also, the female characters comment on their breasts a lot more than I think women actually do...? IDK, it's strange. Still, if you're a Nora Roberts fan, and you like how she writes women being friends, this is probably a good trilogy for you.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/416486.html. Please comment over there if possible.