Reviews with TLC

The Dragon's Lady by Joanne Pence is a love story, but it's more than a love story. Pence delves into Chinese American cultural relations in 1906 San Francisco. She immerses the reader into the vast differences in the lives of the white population and the Chinese population through the lives of Ruth Greer and Li Hanlin while demonstrating how people themselves tend to be very similar regardless of culture. When Ruth meets Hanlin, she feels an immediate attraction that leads her to look for reasons to return to the Li household. She becomes an English tutor for the Li family much to her father's dismay and confusion. Ruth's father works hard to separate her from Hanlin as Hanlin fights his attraction to Ruth. Pence's exploration of the culture of Chinatown is at once interesting, engaging, and discomforting. Pence pulls the reader into a world filled with drugs, sex, and violence seen from multiple angles. Her writing depicts the world in which the characters live w...

E mbrace (The Gryphon Series) by Stacey Rourke continues the mission of the Garrett siblings to save the world from evil. Celeste struggles with her role as the Conduit and how to live a normal life with such a calling. Kendall and Gabe seem to balance life and their supernatural duties better than Celeste. Celeste's sarcasm keeps the reader on the edge of a giggle through much of the book and keeps the serious moments in check. At times Celeste's naivete will frustrate the reader even though the reader understands why she so desperately wants to believe in the good she thinks she sees even in the bad guys. Rourke's storytelling makes the reader want the bad guys to be telling Celeste the truth even when every instinct screams they're not. Rourke even manages to inject a healthy dose of humor into the fight scenes leaving the reader on the edge but smiling at the same time.   Embrace is a fun, fast read that leaves the reader begging for more.