[library addict]

Originally Posted by copyrite

Oh dear... not a good reading week!

Yeah. Maybe I was too rough on the Helm series. But there were so many plot quibbles and character issues I had. I did really enjoy the romances in books 3 and 6.

Spoiler:

The heroes' father was the head of a biker gang so I knew the series would be a struggle for me.

But I loathed the heroines' father/uncle/foster-father and the way everyone treated him as Mr. Wonderful when he was such a lying

The Stephanie James/Jayne Castle books I've been reading this year are the remaining books in my print TBR pile. These are mostly old category (Candlelight Ecstasy Romance, Silhouette Desire, etc) books of hers that I had never got around to reading. I decided to go in published order. The oldest I had was 1980 and the book above was 1983. I still have about 14 more to go (including her two extra long single titles she wrote for Dell which are like 400 page tiny print monsters). These are all ones I've never read and kept getting buried in my TBR, by no means her entire backlist as I've read most of her backlist already. (I'll put my main issues in a spoiler)

Spoiler:

Now I am willing to let some things slide on the whole sexual politics front as these books are all at least thirty, most closer to forty years old and were progressive for their time. All of her heroines have always worked and been presented as smart and successful. But there are some where the hero's attitude just drives me batty and no amount of humor and love of the heroine can save them for me. It's not in every book, but many of them have had casual remarks about beating the heroine. Not just from the heroes, but the supporting characters and sometimes the heroine too. The very casualness of it is shocking, but I read a lot of this era when it actually was current and most authors had lines like this in their books. And while the heroes may talk of such crap they would never actually do it.

The one where the hero actually did spank the heroine as punishment for scaring him I threw against the wall and gave an F. But mostly it has been offhand comments and not really even a part of the hero's attitude. But some of her heroes it has been more integrated with their general attitude and those I usually dock at least a full letter grade or more.

These older categories are all strictly heroine POV. She obviously doesn't write this way anymore so I do try to give some stuff a pass and consider when they were written. They are still her voice, so there are parts I've liked in each book. It just depends on how frequently the problematic content occurs. Or more accurately how pervasive I felt it was in the story since I'm not tracking it on a spreadsheet or anything.

And of course, there are books where the plots and characters simply don't work as well as in others.

I am trying to get my entire print TBR completed. I thought I had done so last year when I read the rest of Carla Neggers' backlist. But I had forgotten I had put these JAK books on the shelf with the books of hers I had already read. This was back when my dog was a puppy and ate a library book. So I had put them on the shelf to be safe and though they were still on the TBR list I keep in Word it was a case of out-of-sight equals out-of-mind.

I wouldn't be reading these books if they weren't by a long-time favorite author, I would just DNF and move on. But as I said, her voice is still very much in evidence. So even if I ultimately give the book a D it still had some redeeming qualities/enjoyable parts. I'm just trying to rate them against the other books by the same author I've read and the general question of "how much did I enjoy this book?" as I do with all of the books I read. And from that aspect some of these just aren't as good. Add the problematic content and I've been ending up with a lot of Cs and Ds.