License to Love by Gina Robinson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Before reading this, know two things:
1. Spoilers abound.
Spoilers abound because I would not recommend this book to anyone I care about, and by “care about” I mean anyone with human eyes to read a book and human arms to hold a book in front of said eyes.
2. Please know that I went in fully aware that I am thoroughly not the audience for this book. I expected I wouldn’t enjoy it on any level whatsoever. So if you typically enjoy this sort of book, please know that my review is the opinion of someone for whom this book was not written. Don’t let my disenjoyment ruin your enjoyment. I’m not bashing you for enjoying something you enjoy. Probably.
On with the show…
How did I end up reading this?
That’s the first question you’d be asking if you knew anything about me whatsoever. Here, I’ll prove it. One thing about me, I would never read a book like this, ever, for any reason. See? Now that you know this one thing about me, you’d probably be asking why I would ever read this book.
There’s a perfectly logical answer. Of sorts.
A friend who reads romance came across this book’s description in a trade magazine, and upon reading felt that I would hate it like poison. Yes, I got a laugh from the description, mostly due to the fact that the book is about a Vegas magician named Rock Powers (!) who becomes embroiled in some sort of CIA nonsense for some reason.
By the way, this review is also a drinking game. Every time I say the phrase “for some reason” feel free to tip one back. A lot of stuff happens in this book “for some reason”. Not “no reason”, but “some”. There are reasons for everything that happens, but most of them I just can’t.
So this friend went ahead and put in an interlibrary loan request for me. This could be embarrassing to someone who could be embarrassed by such a thing. I wasn’t. Until the interlibrary loan department mentioned that they wouldn’t be able to get the book on loan, so they would just go ahead and purchase it, adding it to the collection. They were also kind enough to put me at the top of the request list. A couple weeks later I was holding a shiny new library copy of License To Love.
If you’re ever in Northern Colorado and check out this debookle (my new word combining “debacle” and “book”), You’reWelcome/I’mSorryForWhatI’veDone.
Let’s get to it.
The book opens with Vegas magician Rock Powers.
Stop. Already, already we have to stop.
His name is fucking Rock Powers.
You know what? Fine. I’m along for the ride here. Fine.
At one of his Vegas magic shows, Rock Powers…can we call him something else? I feel so silly typing Rock Powers. How about Maximum Cornelius Overdrive? Slade Piledriver? Jack Hammer, esq.? No?
At one of his Vegas magic shows, Rock Powers performs an illusion that causes his wife of about a day, Lani Torres, to disappear. Much to the chapping of his finely-toned magician/bodybuilder/secret agent/doctor ass, she ACTUALLY disappears and he can’t find her.
Cut to the chase, turns out she was a secret agent and for some reason (drink!) she picked right then to run off and stop the Hoover Dam from being blown up. We’ve all been there. I remember my last girlfriend vanished for a few days to save the Empire State Building, not to mention the times she was only gone a few hours rescuing some of our nation’s lesser landmarks, The Hancock Building, stuff at Yellowstone that’s not Old Faithful, these sorts of things.
So Lani disappears for a couple years before she returns and reveals that she was a secret agent all along. Oh, and her name isn’t Lani Torres like she said. It’s Lani Silkwater.
Yes, Lani Torres is the name she used to be a MAGICIAN’S ASSISTANT while Lani Silkwater WAS HER REAL NAME.
Oh, and while we’re on the topic of names, during her vanishing she gave birth to Rock’s baby. Who she named Stone because why the fuck not? Stone Powers. Christ.
Now you might be asking, why would she keep Rock’s baby a secret? And why wouldn’t she just come back after she finished this Dam Caper (her term, hand to god, CAPER)?
Here’s something I’ve learned about the way to read this book. If you ask a bunch of questions, we’ll be here all goddamn night. Just say that for some reason (drink!) she couldn’t come back and we’ll call it good.
So the new question we shouldn’t be asking, Why is Lani back now?
Well, that one has an answer. Although it starts with “for some reason.”
For some reason (drink!) the CIA or whoever the fuck it is needs Rock Powers. I think it might be some other cute organization. I don’t know. We’re saying CIA because you know what that is and I know what that is and there’s just too much to explain. Anyway, the CIA needs Rock Powers because…and I’m going to do my best here.
If you haven’t been faithfully drinking up to now, I’d suggest you catch up.
The CIA has uncovered a plot by the evil organization known as RIOT to infiltrate Area 51. They plan to use a magic trick to spook attendees of a UFO watchers’ festival thingy, which will cause them to storm the gates of Area 51 in a panic for some reason, and then for some reason this will allow RIOT access to Area 51. The magic trick in question is none other than Outlandish Marauders, a trick conceived by none other than Rock Powers. The CIA’s plan is for Rock Powers to beat RIOT to the punch, perform the trick himself, and once he reveals it was only an illusion the panic will subside and everyone will be cool.
This is the CIA’s plan to stop someone from entering their top secret facility, which has no fences, locks, or anything like that. Rather than go ahead and put a barrel bolt on the door, our best bet is to pull off some sort of bizarre magic act before a secret terrorist organization can do so. This is where we are.
I locked myself out of my apartment a few nights ago and had to ask the on-site manager to let me back in. This is for a pathetic man’s apartment that contains exactly zero government secrets. My apartment is more secure than a government base. If someone wanted to break in to my apartment, I would suggest hard-kicking the door until it fell over. Maybe break a window. What I would not suggest is hosting a block party, panicking the guests by way of insane magic trick, and hoping they’ll freak out in a very specific way that causes them to break down my door. Of ways to break into something, this would never occur to me, and if it did I would check into a hospital immediately for some sort of brain scan. Because a part is either missing or I have an extra part or somehow a snail got in there and is activating shit with his slime trail. I don’t know WHAT is wrong, but I know THAT something’s wrong.
At this point, for some reason (!) Lani has to go undercover, sort of, and get in good with the magician hired by RIOT to perform Outlandish Marauders. Who just so happens to be Rock Powers’ nemesis, Sol. Rock and Sol were buddies from magic school days, a friendship which Rock figured cemented after Sol saved Rock’s life. During an attempt at a trick to escape from a straight jacket while water skiing, Rock fell into the water and was sinking. Luckily, Sol saved Rock by catching him with a grappling hook somehow and dragging him back above water. The grappling hook left a scar on Rock’s thigh, and afterward this is where he got his first of many tattoos, the text Expect the Unexpected.
This is what I’m saying. How the fuck am I supposed to get through this? Everything that happens, there are 500 little things that make me stop and think, Wait, the fuck….?
Which is why, at this point, I decided it was time for shit to get real.
+WINE INTERLUDE+
I’m not a romance reader, but I figured that when in Rome(mance), drink wine and take a bubble bath.
Step one was purchasing wine.
I’m not exactly a wine connoisseur. In fact, most of my wine experience comes from a single evening when some charitable friends agreed to help school me in the finer things. The night ended with me drunkenly calling my sister who lives on the east coast to ask her to take us to Taco Bell. Finer things indeed.
I couldn’t give you any reason for picking this bottle other than it came down to a decision between this one or one called Little Black Dress. I was too embarrassed to buy Little Black Dress for purposes of drinking in the bath and reading a romance novel. So good news, I have one small shred of pride remaining at the very least.
I’m told that I pour inappropriately large glasses of wine. Which must be true because, by my count, an entire bottle only contains two glasses. This is something I’d put in the category of willful ignorance. I don’t know what the right amount is, and frankly I think it’s to my benefit.
I also made an attempt to buy bonbons. The problem was that I don’t know what bonbons actually are. I checked the freezer section, no dice, so I gave up and went home to set the scene.
Lavender Candle
Bubble Bath, which I have a question about, by the way. 
What’s the average fill time on a bath tub? Because mine seems to take about 3 hours. I’m not kidding. I’m pretty sure it would be faster to hire an old-timey innkeeper lady to boil water in a huge pot on the stove and dump it in. I think people might take more baths if the fill time was not measured in phases of the moon. There should be some faster way to take care of this. I’m not kidding, I seriously considered filling glasses in the sink and bringing them to the bath tub. However, I just figured I could get a head start on this wine. So I had tasks to keep me busy.
And we’re ready.
The next section of the book pretty much flew by. I read until it got to where I was squinting and not really sure what was going on anymore. Which wasn’t all that different from before, just drunker. I can’t really read all that well drunk, but I found that this wasn’t a big problem in this case. At least, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on any enjoyment. And any time I can do an activity at the same level while being drunk, I can say two things:
1. This activity is dumb (see: dancing).
2. If I ever do this again, I will plan on drunk (see: also dancing).
I don’t really want to go through this entire book blow-by-blow because I just can’t. A lot of it was, “Here’s the plan” and then a second scene where we saw the plan executed exactly as planned. I can’t think of a more effective way to take the fun out of a situation. Plan it out carefully, then have it go according to plan.
So rather than go through everything in order, I’ll just pull out a few snippets that I felt really explain things better than the entirety of the text ever could.
Scene: The Poker Game
At one point Rock Powers is watching another secret agent’s back while this agent participates in a poker game. Powers is banned, of course, because he wins too much. In addition to being an expert magician, Rock Powers also has the following skills:
-Expert lip reader
-Water skier
-Escape Artist
-Can hold breath for 7 minutes
-Face reader
-Expert at sex
-Uncanny powers of observation
-Doctor
-Junior High Rope Climbing Champion
-Spitball shooter
Yes, spitballs play a part during this poker game. An enemy spy sneaks in a gun disguised as a stylus. Which would sound bizarre if Rock Powers weren’t already sporting a single-shot pistol disguised to look like his thumb. Yes, a fake thumb that slips over his real thumb and is a pistol somehow. I don’t know if there are any normal guns in this book, but I do know that Powers is also given a six-shot pistol that is disguised as a magic wand. Whether this is a horrible pistol and passable wand or a passable pistol and horrible wand I don’t know. It’s best not to ask too many questions because the later appearance of a rocket launcher equipped with a bayonet will just blow your mind right through your face.
Anyway, we’re playing this high stakes poker game. Now, I have a problem with poker games in narratives. Because that’s boring. I get it inasmuch as you want some physical business for your characters, but christ, what have we ever learned about a character from a poker game? Oh, James Bond is a slick motherfucker? I had no idea. And also, who gives a shit? It’s not like James Bond is going to lose a poker game and have to kill and eat his dog for Christmas dinner. No, he walks away from the table in his suit and bangs some exotic lady.
So poker stuff irks me to begin with. But somehow we have an EVEN MORE BORING version of poker where Rock Powers can’t play, so he writes down the moves he WOULD HAVE made if he were in another player’s shoes.
Riveting. Electrifying. We’ve gone from a card game, which I already abhor, to a hypothetical version of a made-up card game that I don’t care about in the first place.
At any rate, the game is interrupted when a thug puts the stylus gun in one player’s back. Powers, of course, notices this because his magician’s eye gives him uncanny powers of observation. But because he can’t interrupt the game with his thumb gun, he elects to shoot the thug with a spitball, which causes him to drop the stylus and everything’s cool.
Scene: Limo Sex
When we finally get some sex in this book, it’s in the back of a limo where Rock Powers blew off a smoke bomb so that the paparazzi couldn’t get pictures of him and Lani.
Apparently, in the reality of this book, if we’re going to call it that, magicians are the hottest celebs in town. E V E R Y O N E knows Rock Powers, they want to know what happened to Lani, and her reappearance on the scene is the biggest tabloid tale since Batboy.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t give a shit about magicians. Seriously, how much do we really need to know about these guys? And you know why I don’t follow magicians? I’m not 9. Okay? If I was 9, then yes, I might care about a magician. But as someone who is not 9, I couldn’t care less.
Anyway, they have this limo sex because it is required to make sure Lani has a good flow of endorphins, which is the only way to overcome the potential hangover she might experience from a drug she was dosed with.
I’ve heard of some interesting hangover remedies in my times. Grease. Green drinks. About 15 episodes of My Cat From Hell on streaming Netflix. What I haven’t come across is a nice bang in the back of a limo full of magician smoke. Believe me, if I’m drugged or drunk enough that I try to convince you to have sex with me in order to head off a hangover, I’ll be drugged or drunk enough that I won’t be able to do much convincing. “HEY! Have sex. Have sex with ME. Because I’ll be sooooo hung. No? Okay. Taco Bell, please. Let’s…just Taco Bell.”
And let me tell you, Rock Powers? Everything’s a smoke bomb with this guy. He’s lighting off smoke bombs to get out of gunfire. He’s lighting smokebombs to have sex in limos. He lights smokebombs to facilitate escape into a laundry cart in a hotel hallway. This man lights more smokebombs than I did in my entire life, and most of middle school for me was about finding, purchasing, and lighting smoke bombs in whatever way possible.
Because of the smoke, this sex has to happen while both participants hold their breath. This leads me to believe that I’m doing sex either terribly right or terribly wrong, because there’s no way I could hold my breath. Try this: Get aroused, then sprint. Boner sprint as far as you can while holding your breath. It will not be far. God help me for knowing this, but I know it will not be far.
Scene: Outlandish Marauders
Rock Powers assembles his team of young magicians/CIA agents, of which there are apparently many, to help him perform his big illusion.
He picks a Social Media Magician who can manipulate Facebook for some reason.
He picks a Laser Magician who can manipulate lasers for some reason.
He picks a Video Game Magician who I would also make fun of except I’m not even really sure what in the hot holy fuck that could possibly be.
He also has some other magicians and then the CIA builds him a UFO.
The trick, from what I can tell, goes like this:
You’re partying at the UFO convention in the Nevada desert about 10 miles from Area 51. When a UFO shows up, a for real UFO. Then a couple aliens show up on the ground and start running away, right towards Area 51. They are bounding and almost seem to teleport and reappear further away. At one point a whole shitload of cows are released, which slows you down as you try to catch the aliens. Then, after you’ve run 10 goddamn miles, the “aliens” reveal they are magicians, the UFO is revealed as totally real except it was made by the CIA, and FOR SOME MOTHERFUCKIN’ REEEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSOOOOOONNNNNN everyone credits Rock Powers with pulling off the greatest illusion of all time. Granted, he didn’t do shit. Oh, and as far as illusions go, I guess there was a lie involved in saying the UFO was an alien spacecraft, but the thing goddamn existed!
So where, Rock Powers, is the illusion exactly?
Oh, and Rock Powers defeats his evil nemesis magician, who wields a rocket launcher with a bayonet attached, while both are aboard a hovercraft.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the craziest sentence ever typed outside the pages of License to Love.
This book left me speechless. Then typefull. Because I still can’t wrap my head around anything that happened here. I sort of wish that someone else had read it because then I could confirm that all this really happened and it wasn’t a wine-induced night terror from which I’ll never wake.
The final question, was it so bad that it was fun?
Answer: No. Well, yes. But no.
Okay, the thing is, I just don’t know if it’s possible for a book of 300+ pages to be so bad that it’s fun. Because the fun of something bad wears off once the bad becomes baseline reality. You have a period of big fun at the beginning as you try to figure out if this is a gag. Then you figure out it’s not and things are briefly even more fun. BUT THEN it just becomes white noise. The puns about Rock leaving “no stone unturned, only himself, Rock Powers, upended” just become the beige walls in the beige office of your day-to-day life.
It’s like taking a bath. Fun at first. Novel. Then you’re just sort of there naked in your own body stew. You wonder about dropping in a bouillon cube and seeing what man broth tastes like, and then you’re bored again.
Or it’s like wine. Hard to get used to the first couple sips. Then great. Then everything is confusing and you just want to go to bed.
But mostly it was like a book that I just absolutely hated.
Oh, and yeah. My second wine experience didn’t end in Taco Bell, but took place about 18″ from a toilet. Your highness.