The Wine Is Missing a Backbone

I love the premise of Syrah, a gay romance in which the owner of a wine store and a restaurant manager get together.  And the cover to the novel is lovely.  I just wish a reader didn't have to go through page after page of the manager acting like a scared kid who was willing to knuckle under to abuse for no good reason.

Romances, at least for me, are about strength and courage.  Doesn't it take both for people to unwrap their hearts and put them in their hands for someone else?  When someone says, "I love you," isn't the person taking a leap of faith that the recipient of the declaration won't stomp all over the heart and fling to back to the declarer?

So reading a romance in which one of the protagonists refuses to stand up for himself when it's within his power to do so is off-putting for me.  I understand if the protagonist has undergone years of abuse and needs a hand getting out from under that abuse.  But when the protagonist is an adult male who knows he's being offered verbal abuse and does nothing to change his life (get away from the abuser) and then ignores the help of his friends and potential lover, then my sympathies wane.

Syrah had so much potential.  In fact I haven't seen any other gay romances set around the wine world.  I just wish the book's protagonist lived up to its heady promise.

Past Love Emerges

My review of On Lavender Lane by JoAnn Ross is posted on AAR today.  My husband and I just got back from a mini-vacation to the northern California redwoods and coast, and I was reminded of the rugged coastal conditions when I read this book.

I was also reminded of the proliferation of cooks and upscale eateries.  We stayed at Raymond's Bakery which not only is an eating place but also has a few cabins on the grounds.  Mark and Elizabeth, we hear, are wonderful hosts, but I don't think they were expecting us.

A redwood branch had just fallen on the bakery, so it was closed until the beginning of March 2012.  Consequently, Mark was really focused on getting it back on its feet.  This was fine with us since we'd gotten away not to make new friends but to be alone.

All of this--the redwood damage and the wind-swept loneliness of the beach--reminded me of On Lavender Lane, not because of anything overt, but just because of the mood of the book.  If long stretches of beach and time to reflect are your cup of tea (and the fantastic Mr. Trumbleys Tea Shop is near Raymond's), then give On Lavender Lane a try.

One Book Discussed

Last week Leigh asked me if I'd agree to write a Pandora's Box dialog review with her for AAR.  She'd just finished reading Deliciously Sinful and thought that since I'd favorably reviewed Too Hot to Touch that I'd like Sinful.  Since she didn't like the book much, she thought we could have a rousing dialog about it.

When I first saw the cover as I was getting a review copy of the book, I confused it with the cover for Beauty Dates the Beast which I'd enjoyed and for which I'd written a DIK review.  You can imagine my surprise when I discovered my mistake.

After reading the book, I realized that I agreed with Leigh's assessment of it, so we were in a quandary: Should we write a Pandora's Box or not?  In the end, we decided to write the dialog since there were so many places where we differed on what we liked and mostly disliked about the book.

Leigh was right about one thing, however.  Deliciously Sinful is the type of book that I like: hot bad-boy chefs, the girls who open the guys' eyes and hearts, and glorious descriptions of food.  What's not to like?  I just wish Deliciously Sinful had delivered.  I was really hungry for some take-out.