Category Archives: book reviews

The Worth Saga: Once Upon a Marquess by Courtney Milan

book review December 11, 2015 Leave a comment

Courtney Milan is the best, the very best, romance writer currently publishing, but she is not perfect and Once Upon a Marquess is a delightfully imperfect novel. Her trademark elements – eloquence, unexpected romantic moments, family politics, deciding for oneself who one will be – are here, they just don’t come together quite as successfully as they have in some of her previous efforts. The first book in her new Worth Saga, Milan is laying a lot of groundwork and she is mostly successful in establishing not only the main characters, but the necessary supporting relationships that leave the reader looking forward to the novels to come. I’d pre-order them now, if I could.

Lady Judith Worth is living in less than genteel poverty after a treasonous father and brother ruined the family name and fortune. At 26, she has held her remaining family together for eight long years through force of will and the kind of determination a general would marvel at. In her care, she has a fourteen year-old sister and a twelve year-old brother. The latter has just come home from a term at Eton, bloodied, bowed, and refusing to return. The former is somewhat spoiled and meant, I think, to come across as eccentric, but I found myself wanting either a fuller explanation for her behavior or some movement towards maturity. I assume both the reasons for her character and the growing up will be ongoing through the series.

Christian Trent, the Marquess of both Ashford and the novel’s title, comes back into Judith’s life when she requests his help. Once upon a time, they were young and in love. Once upon a time, he was asked to press the case against Judith’s brother and he did so successfully. Knowing he broke her heart – and she his – Christian wants nothing more than to do something, anything, to help the Worth family, even if it means keeping himself from Judith. He really does try, but Judith may be practical and managing quite well as head of the family, but she’s still unable to resist to the undeniable chemistry Milan has created for her leads. It handily separates itself from the “his eyes looked into her soul” fare of many genre works and, like real life couples, Judith and Christian have so much fun together and truly revel in each other’s company. Of course, their history stands in their way and Judith is determined to forge ahead on her own, but Christian is the world’s most adorable and charming tortured hero even when his quirkiness can be a bit much.

A complete summary of Courtney Milan’s catalogue, with recommendations, can be found here. Since it’s the holiday season, I’ll specifically recommend A Kiss for Midwinter as both a classic of the genre and one of my top five (three? two?) romances of all time.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Spindle Cove Series: Lord Dashwood Missed Out by Tessa Dare

book review December 10, 2015 Leave a comment

I have an addition to the Things That Occur to Me While Reading Historical Romance Novels:

LUST IS IMPERVIOUS TO COLD.

Never mind all those times people in these books get down to their skivvies in drafty old manor houses, lust’s powers are even greater than I supposed. How else could a person wearing a linen shift and corset while standing barefoot in a snow squall be aware of anything than the fact that she is bitterly cold? But I have gotten ahead of myself. First an explanation:

Elinora, having written a popular pamphlet reminding women that they don’t need marriage to have value, is on her way to Spindle Cove. Tessa Dare fans know it as the setting of her highly entertaining series of the same name and a hive of unusual, outcast, and delightful young women. Waylaid by coach schedules and finding herself riding in a carriage with the man who rejected her years before, she and the very subject of her pamphlet (“Lord Ashwood Missed Out”) end up needing to spend the night alone together in a shepherd’s hut to last out a winter storm. They have quite a bit to sort through these two and part of it leads Nora following Dash out into the snow scantily clad. Fortunately, they make it back inside and under the covers with reasonable alacrity. Events proceed apace from there.

Being a Spindle Cove novella, the reader gets to visit with Dare’s previous characters – Griff and Pauline; Thorne and Kate; Colin and Minerva; and Bram and Susanna – who  are caught up in  Nora’s impending visit and sexual one-upmanship amongst themselves. More importantly, we get to see Minerva’s sister, Charlotte, who is going to have a book of her own. Huzzah!

Lord Dashwood Missed Out is not a particularly strong novella. My battle with Dare’s insistence that I not only willingly suspend my disbelief, but club it into submission continues. It’s not just that some events are historically questionable, but that they are questionable full stop. I didn’t feel like I ever really connected with the characters, particularly Dash, and as a whole the plot seemed haphazardly joined together. Dare does have a charming novella called The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr. Wright which I suggest you read instead.

A complete summary of Tessa Dare’s catalogue, with recommendations, can be found here.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Boomerang Bride by Fiona Lowe

book review December 8, 2015 Leave a comment

I am continuing my Harlequin book sale purchase reviews with this contemporary romance from Fiona Lowe. It was sufficiently entertaining for middling escapism, but suffered from being too neat and tidy in its resolutions and characters. I know it’s an escapist genre and I know that contemporary romances often have themes of family healing, but the story suffered from Saviour Syndrome.

Matilda Geoffrey has arrived in small-town Wisconsin from rural Australia in her grandmother’s wedding dress. Owing to grief over said grandma’s death (that’s the rationalization), Tildy has fallen prey to an online huckster who has taken her life savings and left her hanging. To be fair, he had spent three days with her in Sydney before she gave him all of her money, but it’s still a silly macguffin you have to go with to get to the rest of the story.  Baffled and broke, Tildy’s first encounter with an American is gorgeous “Viking” Marc Olsen who has arrived for Thanksgiving with his family. Driving his Porsche all the way from his fancy career as a New York architect, he is not happy to be home and things go from bad to worse when he learns his sister has a potentially life changing illness.

Tildy is a delight, but suffers from surfeit of pluck. Her life has been ruined. She is alone and friendless. She will rise again, but, for heaven’s sake, can she not have a true down or beleaguered moment? I don’t think she even cries, not even after a night sleeping in her car without adequate clothing or being accustomed to a new climate. She handles everything with aplomb. Tildy looks for a job and her efforts turn the local gift shop into a thriving wedding planning business. Tildy needs a place to live and Marc needs someone to help out with his sister’s illness, so she moves in to do the laundry and make wonderful meals and desserts. Marc’s sister needs a caregiver, Tildy is a registered nurse. Marc’s sister is struggling with her new body, Tildy helps a man enamoured of her to press his suit. I kept waiting for the supporting cast to exclaim “THANK GOD, YOU’RE HERE!” as Tildy whirls through their small town reviving its economy, winning everyone over, healing Marc’s family, finding a new partner for his sister, and saving him from a sterile, childless life as an incredibly successful loner.

If you would like to read a similar kind of story wonderfully executed, I highly recommend Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s laugh-out-loud funny romance Natural Born Charmer.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride by Christi Caldwell

book review December 7, 2015 Leave a comment

Christi Caldwell is a historical romance author I have been meaning to try for a while and the free copy of Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride helped with that considerably.

Pledged to each other as children, Lady Emmaline Fitzhugh and Lord Drake have spent virtually no time together and she is sick and tired of it. Relegated to the sidelines of her own life, Emmaline learns of Drake’s return to London and decides it is time to GET ON WITH IT ALREADY! She doesn’t really question the validity of the match chosen by their parents, she naively believes that she and Drake just need a chance to spend time together and they will naturally fit. What with it being a romance novel, that is precisely what happens and both of them find what they need in each other.

A chance encounter in the street opens the book and proves Emmaline’s mettle as a partner and as a person, but Drake is ready to dismiss her and return to his life of mistresses and routs; however, he has an interfering friend who likes Emmaline and feels she will be good for him. Working in cahoots, Emmaline is assisted in frequently showing up and surprising Drake at social events. He finds himself annoyed and increasingly intrigued by her omnipresence. When he gives in to his feelings, things almost proceed apace, but there is that pesky little matter of the lingering trauma from his wartime experiences. Afraid of what he might be capable and in spite of his feelings for her, Drake makes a valiant and ultimately doomed effort to push Emmaline away.

Forever Betrothed, Never the Bride was a better than average romance and I will seek out more Christi Caldwell books – it seems to me that I have one called A Marquess for Christmas or some such lingering on my Kindle – but I will be borrowing her books rather than buying them for now. Even so, it’s nice to have a new author for my B-list and the promise of a large catalogue to fall back on in a pinch.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Tank by M. Malone

book review December 6, 2015 Leave a comment

Contemporary romance’s love affair with billionaire heroes continues. My assertion that being a billionaire is akin to living on another planet and that the transition is not as simple as “now I can afford to buy shoes” continues. In this first book in the Billionaire Bad Boys series by M. Malone, sets up the novels that follow while bring together a big lug and a sweet young woman.

From Amazon (with comments from me): Tank Marshall has anger issues. (He has PTSD, is scary for a living, and keeps weapons in his home.) Years ago he swore off fighting but everything in his life lately is out of control. (Not good for the guy with PTSD). His mom’s cancer is back and the deadbeat dad he hasn’t seen in years is offering an inheritance in exchange for redemption. (As is the way of fiction, he managed to abandon his wife and young sons, spread his seed to others, and make billions at the same time because that last thing is apparently quite straightforward.) So he prowls the streets at night, looking for an outlet for the rage. (He is introduced to the reader while looking for victims to defend and bad guys to pummel.)

There’s only one person that keeps him anchored in the midst of the chaos. One person untouched by violence and money and lies. Emma Shaw. (Redemptive Female – Table for One!)But the one thing that Tank hasn’t learned yet is that when billions are at stake, there’s no such thing as innocent. Because the only woman he trusts is the last woman he should. (This is an overstatement.)

Money. Changes. Everything. (I hear this is true, but would love to test it personally.)

End Amazon
 
As the first book in Malone’s series, the streets are not paved with gold yet, but Tank and his brother have received some money from their father. Not being stupid and needing to pay for medical expenses (*see photo below), they accepted the money, but being honourable, they are not sure they want to take all of it, or pay the price their dad requires for it, specifically spending time with him. Dealing with his father’s machinations, Tank has been spending a lot of time at his lawyer’s office and is warm for the form of the receptionist, Emma. She, in turn, has noticed him, at 6’5″ it’s hard not to, but he seems like a bad news and she has been trying to resist his weekly dinner invitation. When their paths cross outside the office, their relationship tentatively begins.
 
Like Tank, Emma has a history of trauma. Her parents were murdered during a home invasion during which she was hidden and therefore spared. Trying to get herself back on track, she wants to return to university with an eye to veterinary college and really needs money for tuition. When the nice old man she brings documents to offers her a MILLION DOLLARS if she can convince Tank to visit and she agrees which is, let’s all admit, a perfectly sensible thing to do. You can imagine what happens next: They fall hard and fast, she learns he is sweet beneath his behemoth exterior – even though the author often conveniently ignores their height difference – and everything is daisies and candy floss for about 10 minutes until all of the sundry plot complications explode simultaneously.
 
I didn’t dislike Tank,  but I didn’t particularly like it either and at some point I am going to write a diatribe about overkill in romance plotting, but not today as I was more concerned with the ongoing romance trope that violence management issues can be cured by love: “Ever since the beginning, being around you has been one of the only times I feel calm. Happy. You center me, Emma.” Is it her responsibility to keep him that way?  Can his outbursts really be that selective? What happens when he doesn’t feel calm around her? Will it involve all of the guns he keeps in his closet? The reader sees him respond with disproportionate violence when defending people, so how far does “but he would never hurt me” go?
*the photo below
 Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author orAuthor Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Rules for the Reckless Series: Lady Be Good and Luck Be a Lady by Meredith Duran

book review November 30, 2015 1 Comment

This is a previous review updated with the next book in the series…

Lady Be Good

Meredith Duran writes very strong, character driven historical romance, but Lady Be Good never quite grabbed me. It was as accomplished as readers have come to expect from Duran and involving at the time, but I didn’t really think about it once I was done. That said, I would really like to read the next novel in the Rules for the Reckless series, Luck Be a Lady, as it involves an up-from-the-the-gutter hero and a very proper heroine and those are almost always fun.

From Amazon: Born to a family of infamous criminals, Lilah Marshall has left behind her past and made herself into the perfect lady. Working as a hostess at Everleigh’s, London’s premier auction house, she leads a life full of art, culture, and virtue. All her dreams are within reach—until a gorgeous and enigmatic viscount catches her in the act of one last, very reluctant theft… Christian “Kit” Stratton, Viscount Palmer, is society’s most dashing war hero. But Kit’s easy smiles hide a dark secret: he is haunted by a madman’s vow to destroy anyone he loves. When his hunt for the enemy leads to Everleigh’s Auction Rooms, he compels Lilah to help him.

From Me: Hijinks ensue.

In addition to that whole “a crazy person wants to destroy Kit and all he holds dear” thing, Lady Be Good has some great fish-out-of-water elements and commentary on the place of women in the Victorian world. Hamstrung by convention, Lilah must steer herself very carefully in making her place, and her employer, Catherine, is fighting the same battles, but from within a different class. The romance worked well, too, but I found female characters more interesting and look forward to meeting them again. Not that Kit wasn’t charming and engaging, as was his interaction with Lilah, but he didn’t jump off the page the same way his heroine did.

Luck Be a Lady

From Amazon: THE WALLFLOWER – They call her the “Ice Queen.” Catherine Everleigh is London’s loveliest heiress, but a bitter lesson in heartbreak has taught her to keep to herself. All she wants is her birthright—the auction house that was stolen from her. To win this war, she’ll need a powerful ally. Who better than infamous and merciless crime lord Nicholas O’Shea? A marriage of convenience will no doubt serve them both. THE CRIME LORD – Having conquered the city’s underworld, Nick seeks a new challenge. Marrying Catherine will give him the appearance of legitimacy—and access to her world of the law-abiding elite. No one needs to know he’s coveted Catherine for a year now—their arrangement is strictly business, free from the troubling weaknesses of love.

To go all Accuracy Police on Amazon’s ass, Catherine is a Victim of Circumstance rather than a Wallflower and this character type combined with a crime lord is quite common in romance. Why, if I had a nickel for every one of those I’ve read, I’m guessing I would have maybe, conservatively, upwards of 60 cents. As a rule, the term “crime lord” simply means the hero climbed up out of the gutter and now owns a casino, or “gaming hell” in the genre parlance. It’s shorthand for rich and ruthless climbers. Nick is no exception having started out as a thief and worked his way up to a position of power and, most importantly, wealth through his gambling establishment. When we meet him, he’s become a kind of pater familias to the local rogues gallery. Catherine is resolute and pretty ambitious herself, so they make a potent combination against her brother and his willingness to be simultaneously gormless and uncompromising at every turn.

I didn’t like this book as much as I wanted to or felt like I should like it. I enjoyed both main characters – Nick is romance catnip – but I felt the romance never quite held together or smoldered as much as I would have liked. I appreciate how independent and canny Duran’s heroines are, and the way they fight for themselves, or learn to do so, but more couple time would have been appreciated. I would suggest reading Fool Me Twice or the delightful novella Your Wicked Heart instead.

Also by Meredith Duran:

Rules for Reckless Series (not entirely interconnected, more of a theme)
That Scandalous Summer – very good
Your Wicked Heart – delightful novella
Fool Me Twice – excellent
Lady Be Good – nothing special
Luck Be a Lady – better than Lady Be Good, but still nothing special

Not Rules for the Reckless Series
Bound by Your Touch – excellent
Written on Your Skin – not my style, but very good

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

Sex, Straight Up and Hot Under Pressure by Kathleen O’Reilly

book review November 30, 2015 Leave a comment

Sex, Straight Up

A couple of weeks ago, I snapped this up during the Harlequin sale on Amazon. Ignore the title, it’s a sweet romance that masquerades as something spicy when it’s really just shorthand for a romance that starts with physical intimacy and works backward to an emotional connection.

From Amazon: Meeting a handsome loner on a deserted beach in the Hamptons was like being hit by lightning. One steamy weekend in bed with Daniel O’Sullivan and Catherine Montefiore was marvelously woozy from a delicious cocktail of sun, sand and superhot sex. Abruptly, though, Catherine’s forty-eight hours of fun are at an end when her family’s exclusive auction house is hit by a very public scandal. She’s ready to step in and save the day, but she’s hoping Daniel, her hot Irish hunk, will lend a hand. After all, he’s got the necessary skills and, straight up or not, Catherine wants another long drink of Daniel before another forty-eight hours are up and her legacy is lost forever!

Daniel’s wife was killed on 9/11 and he has been mourning her for several years. Convinced the best way to honour her memory is as a living memorial, he has rejected his family’s attempts at matchmaking. When he agrees to a party weekend at the beach, he finds refuge with the quiet, and quietly attractive, woman staying next door. They have a weekend fling and when they return to everyday life, their professional circumstances throw them together.

Despite being a little lost, Daniel is otherwise a lovely guy who mostly needs to give himself permission to move on. In some ways he has started to and Catherine is the catalyst to make the final breaks which, in turn, helps her move forward in her life as well. There was nothing new in Sex, Straight Up just two people who are a little lost finding each other. It was a quick, heart-warming read and I liked O’Reilly’s style enough to track down another of her books.

Hot Under Pressure

From Amazon: Boutique owner Ashley Taylor hates flying. Especially when there’s a sugar-fueled little hellion on board. But then David McLean (sexy!) sits next to her, and suddenly Ashley finds herself hoping the delay will last forever—and that David won’t notice her comfy pink bunny slippers (sadly, the opposite of sexy). David does notice Ashley, and when the flight is delayed overnight, they can’t get to the airport hotel fast enough. Off with the slippers and in with the zing! Fortunately, America is filled with cities—L.A., New York, Miami—and nothing says “smoking-hot passion” like an intercontinental affair!

Ashley and David meet on a delayed flight, get busy in an airport hotel room, and then carve out a relationship based on random and periodic visits. They keep thinking that the intense passion will die out and while it calms, it also makes room for a genuine connection between the two. Ashley’s home-life is broken, though not irretrievably, and creates a lot of obligations owing to an unhealthy sister. David’s life is a barren and rocky place where seed can find no purchase (H/T Coen Brothers) because his wife cheated on him with – wait for it – his brother and – there’s more – divorced David to marry said brother and now – still more – she is pregnant with their first child. And you thought your Thanksgiving Dinner was awkward!

I found some to the elements of Hot Under Pressure a bit much, specifically [SPOILER] that Ashley may have a difficult family situation, but she owns three stores in the Chicago area and somehow it is her who completely uproots herself and moves cross-country in the end. David had a movable career and I call bullshit.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

 

Throttle Me by Chelle Bliss

book review November 26, 2015 1 Comment

It was free.

It was sexist.

The title is an actual request from the heroine.

If a man I was involved with told me not to “worry my pretty little head”, odds are very strong that I would worry his eye with my pretty little finger.

From Amazon: Suzy’s a control freak and has her life mapped out – work hard, find a man with a stable job, and live happily ever after. She’s content with the status quo, but her plan comes to a screeching halt when he enters her life and turns it upside down. City gave up on love when his heart was crushed in college, preferring to be the typical bachelor. He spends his nights hopping from one bed to another and his days working at his family tattoo shop, Inked. A chance encounter on a dark road makes him question what he had sworn off forever – a relationship.

Honestly, I think Chelle Bliss lost me at a hero who goes by the nickname “City” though his real name is Joey (not even Joe). He’s designed for the tattooed-pierced-biker-aggressive-tough guy-rough guy-secret pussycat-who-would-kill-for-me loving crowd and I am not among them. The story is very much a Good Girl falls in with a Bad Boy she thinks is dangerous and unstable, but turns out to be everything she needed. It’s not a trope I mind, though the hero was so over-the-top I found him ridiculous, but what really put me off was the love scenes. I don’t know where this moves from simply personal predilections versus squick, but this is the first time I’ve read a romance in which the hero says things like, “I can’t decide which part of your body to assault first” and thinks similar sentiments. There was a line being crossed into rough that distressed me because, while I appreciate that some books cater to a desire for such moments, it makes me uncomfortable that the hero liked the idea of assaulting or abusing the heroine. Moreover, the title, Throttle Me, is an actual request made by Suzy of City. They do not portray the act, but keep it to a phone interaction, but I was SUPER CREEPED OUT by City getting off on the idea of Suzy being unable to breathe and scrabbling her hands against his chest while he “assaults”, “pounds”, and chokes her. ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!

It turns out he’s rich, of course, because apparently middle class biker guy fantasies can only take you so far.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

The Game On Series: The Game Plan by Kristen Callihan

book review November 25, 2015 Comments: 4

The Game Plan is the third novel in the Game On series about football players and the women that climb them. I loved this new adult romance. I LOVED IT even after getting annoyed with the author, Kristen Callihan, about her The Pig Becomes a Person plot in The Friend Zone.  I loved it so much that it started as a loan from a good friend and I went ahead and bought myself a copy that I have since re-read.

Fiona Mackenzie’s father and sister are sports agents. She has grown up around professional athletes, most particularly football players, and she wants nothing to do with them. Avoidance is a challenge as her sister is married to one and run-ins are inevitable.  Visiting said sister, Ivy, brother-in-law, Gray, and her new nephew, Fi finds another house-guest keeping company with her family. A close friend of Gray’s, Ethan Dexter is large, stoic, sweet, bearded, tall, artistic, gentle, lumbersexual… I need a moment…

 

23204215

 

Good golly! Smokin’ hot hero alert!

…so Ethan is a close friend of the family and fellow football player with Fi’s brother-in-law. He adores Fi. He’s besotted and has been for a couple of years. (I never get tired of the “I have loved you from afar” trope.) He’s large, she’s tiny. He’s quiet, she’s “noise, noise, noise”. Taking a chance to get her attention, Ethan gains her interest, but their lives in different cities create obstacles, but that’s not the true challenge they face.Things go truly awry when a bounty is placed on Ethan’s virginity and Fi is caught in the resulting circus. This crisis allows The Game Plan to take on issues of sexual experience and consent in a way that will have you cheering in between bouts of fanning yourself over Ethan’s manifest hotness.

A truly enjoyable romance, The Game Plan is the best book by Callihan I have read so far and I expect I will read more; moreover, she should get a special award for how well she writes couple’s arguments. She’s very good with the smolder, too, but her fights are wonderfully realistic and intense.

More New Adult romance recommendations can be found here.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

The Ravenels: Cold-Hearted Rake by Lisa Kleypas

book review October 28, 2015 Comments: 2

I will try to calm my excitement induced vibrating to write this review. I discovered Lisa Kleypas when I dove into the romance genre in 2012 and read everything of hers I could get my hands on – The Wallflowers, The Hathaways, The Travises, Derek, Gideon, and Zachary. She is the author whose work I have read the most of and I was SO EXCITED to learn she was returning to historicals. How excited? I’m writing this review and the book hasn’t even come out yet. Will it have the trademark smolder? How hot will the [insert funky bass line here] be? Will the hero be sardonic, self-made, and wry? Will he call the heroine “sweetheart” in that way of Kleypas men? Will we get to see any of our favourite characters? Probably. (Answers: some, insufficiently, yes, yes, no)

y648[1]As is the way of historical romance plots, Devon Ravenel has accidentally inherited an earldom. The last earl died in a horseback riding accident and now Devon and his brother, West, have come to look over the moldering pile of the family estate, the plentiful farmland hanging on despite the ongoing decline in the agrarian economy, and the women of the family, including the erstwhile earl’s beautiful widow, Kathleen. They had been married for only three days when he died. As the oldest member of the household, though not by much, she is acting as head of the family and arbiter of good conduct. Things proceed as well they should.

Cold-Hearted Rake lays a lot of the groundwork for the rest of the series, so much so that it was a challenge balancing that against the love story itself. I would have liked more romance in this romance novel. Devon falls hard and fast, Kathleen takes longer, but their interactions felt episodic as opposed to intrinsic to the story. The supporting characters are reasonably well fleshed out and I look forward to books for Devon’s brother West, their friend Rhys Winterbourne, and Tom Severin. Rhys in particular has been set up with a need for redemption, as there is a scene in which he acts sexually threatening towards the heroine, and he is up next. His conduct represented a couple of elements that I found dated, including West giving Kathleen “the gentlest shake” (a common Kleypas occurrence) and Devon behaving in a very high-handed fashion. I know it’s a historical romance, but certain elements were inconsistent with what I think of as the current state of the genre.

Lisa Kleypas is an autobuy author for me and, despite any disappointment I felt about the lack of couple time and, yes, insufficient sex and smolder, I will purchase the next book as I found the excerpt of Marrying Mr. Winterbourne tantalizing (his redemption is already in the works) and West’s should be a lot of fun as he was absolutely charming (if too easily rehabilitated).

I don’t often include quotes in reviews, but I wanted to share a couple of gems.

“No, he keeps the schedule of a cat. Long hours of slumber interrupted by brief periods of self-grooming.”

“You shouldn’t be in here,” Devon told him. He turned to the room in general. “Has anyone been corrupted or defiled?”

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find a tavern where I can pay an under-dressed woman to sit in my lap and look very pleased with me while I drink heavily.”

A complete summary of Lisa Kleypas’s catalogue, with recommendations (two classics and one of my personal favourites), can be found here.

Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.