I've been a fan of historical romance as long as I can remember. Usually I go for the glamorous regency era, but this time I decided to try something new. The Loner rises above any expectations that I thought I had. Logan and Caroline take emotions on an adventurous route to romance. March intrigues with danger, tempts with passion and captures hearts with a whirlwind of emotion. I may just have to rethink my stand on western historical romance.

I didn't post about The Eyre Affair a couple of months ago when I listened to it, because I just didn't know what to say about it. I was hoping that a second book would help. I'm not sure it did.

Let's just start with the Publisher's Summary (because there's just no way I could do justice to this book):

The second installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England—from the author of Early Riser.

The inventive, exuberant, and totally original literary fun that began with The Eyre Affair continues with New York Times bestselling author Jasper Fforde’s magnificent second adventure starring the resourceful, fearless literary sleuth Thursday Next. When Landen, the love of her life, is eradicated by the corrupt multinational Goliath Corporation, Thursday must moonlight as a Prose Resource Operative of Jurisfiction—the police force inside the BookWorld. She is apprenticed to the man-hating Miss Havisham from Dickens’s Great Expectations, who grudgingly shows Thursday the ropes. And she gains just enough skill to get herself in a real mess entering the pages of Poe’s “The Raven.” What she really wants is to get Landen back. But this latest mission is not without further complications.

Along with jumping into the works of Kafka and Austen, and even Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Thursday finds herself the target of a series of potentially lethal coincidences, the authenticator of a newly discovered play by the Bard himself, and the only one who can prevent an unidentifiable pink sludge from engulfing all life on Earth. It’s another genre-bending blend of crime fiction, fantasy, and top-drawer literary entertainment for fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse.

There's simply too much going on. This is Douglas Adams (mostly the Dirk Gentley novels) meets Terry Pratchett meets Doctor Who meets . . . something else, but it's not just those elements -- it's those influences without restraint (not that any of those are known for their restraint). It's just too zany ,too strange, too unmoored from reality.

There's cloning to bring back extinct species, time travel, vampires, werewolves, interacting with fictional characters, rabid literary fans, characters walking into novels/other written materials to rewrite them, travel, or just to meet with someone else -- and that's just scratching the surface.

I realize that this is tantamount to complaining that there's too much of a good thing, and I recently talked about what a foolish complaint that is. But this is different, somehow. The sheer amount of ways that reality can be rewritten/rebooted/changed in this series is hard to contemplate, and seems like too easy for a writer to use to get out of whatever corner they paint themselves into. One of the best emotional moments of this book -- is ruined, simply ruined by time travel unmaking it just a few minutes later.

Emily Gray's narration is probably the saving grace of this audiobook -- I'm not sure I'd have rated this as high as I did without it. Her ability to sound sane when delivering this ridiculous text (I mean that as a compliment) makes it all seem plausible.

I enjoyed it -- but almost in spite of itself. I can't see me coming back for more. I do see why these books have a following -- sort of. But I've got to bail.

Series: The Split Worlds #5

*Mild spoilers but nothing that isn't hinted at earlier in the series*

This was the last installment in the Split Worlds series and it was great! The Split Worlds is an urban fantasy series that features Cathy, a woman who grew up in the Nether (a kind of pocket dimension that divides our world, Mundanus, from the world of the Fae) under the patronage of the Fae. She wasn't keen on spending the rest of her days under the yoke of this ultra-conservative society (people don't age in the Nether, so the people in charge were born hundreds of years ago), so she arranges to go to university and then runs away.

The series starts off with her being dragged backed to her family kicking and screaming to be married off, and as the series progresses she tries to find avenues to be a force for change from within. This book starts off with her having run away from her husband and her learning more about sorcery (note: the sorcerers in this universe are pretty awesome but are also major dickwads) and then she finds herself in a position with the possibility of burning the whole thing down. Should she help merge the Fae reality with the mundane world and would this essentially mean condemning the people who have lived in the Nether with the expectation of living more or less indefinitely to death by eventual old age?

Well, read to find out. I definitely recommend this series. I shall have to pick up the last three books in audio so that I can enjoy them again on a reread.

Previous updates:

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Review of fourth book

Review of third book

Review of second book audiobook

Review of first book audiobook

Review of second book

Review of first book

When You Got A Good Thing by Kait Nolan is a fairly short read, perfect for those with limited time for reading.  Ms Nolan has delivered a well-written book.  The characters are realistic and lovable.  Kennedy and Xander's story is full of drama, suspense, humor and spice.  I enjoyed reading When You Got A Good Thing and look forward to reading more from Kait Nolan in the future.  When You Got A Good Thing is book 1 of The Misfit Inn Series but can be read as a standalone.  This is a complete book, not a cliff-hanger.