Category Archives: book reviews

When You’re Ready by J.L Berg

book review July 17, 2015 Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure that this story is what people who don’t read Harlequin Romances think they are like. For all I know, they may be right. When You’re Ready was a neat and tidy package tied up with a bow and never really caught my interest. Part of that may be because I prefer my romances without plot moppets, but, more importantly, there was nothing new, fresh, or special in J.L. Berg’s story.

Clare Murray has been widowed for three years and is raising her daughter alone. When her child has a bad fall, a trip to the Emergency Room brings Logan into her life. He’s a doctor without a personal life, thinking himself incapable of love. He takes one look at Clare and her moppet and his soul awakens and he falls hard for the potential ready-made family. They start to date. He wants to go slowly, Clare wants forever.  When their love is challenged, will they find the courage to risk it all for a stolen chance at happiness? Barf.

Logan is the son of a billionaire. I have mentioned this before, but I am sick of billionaires in these books. Can’t he just be really well off or comfortable? Is extreme wealth really so important? It’s like we don’t even understand what rich means anymore. If you have a few million dollars, you are rich. You don’t need $1,000,000,000 to provide financial security; moreover, I suspect that for most people, even the one’s with enough money, moving into the world of billionaires would be like moving to another country complete with culture shock. In When You’re Ready’s defense, Logan lives a fairly regular life, but that alien world is still on the periphery and it annoys me and this is my chance to mention it.

Logan, either used as a sur- or given name is proving to be very popular in contemporary romance. I am starting to think it will replace Simon as the number one romance novel hero name. The standings as of June 27, 2015 and for over 300 romances read are: Simon (9); Alec/Alex (8); James (8); Michael (8); Sebastian (7); William (7); Robert (6); Daniel (5); Jack (5); Benedict, Charles, Colin, Duncan, Edward, Gareth, Harry, Ian, John (4); Andrew, Blake, Gabriel, Jackson, Julian, Lucien, Marcus, Phillip, Phin/Finn, Rhys, Richard, Stephen, Tristan (3); and only one David.

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

Gravity Series: Coming In from the Cold by Sarina Bowen

book review July 17, 2015 Leave a comment

I gave this book a try because I enjoyed Sarina Bowen’s excellent new adult romance series, The Ivy Years, but lightning did not strike twice. Coming In from the Cold was enjoyable enough and Bowen is great at setting a mood and the scene, but the story never quite came together for me and I felt that the resolution was achieved too easily.

Summary from Amazon: Ski racer Dane “Danger” Hollister does not do relationships, though he keeps his reason a secret. The real-life curse he’s inherited from his mother will eventually cost him everything. Reluctant country girl Willow Reade meets Dane by accident. Literally. Her skidding truck forces him off the road during a blizzard. Stranded together in his Jeep as night falls, the two loneliest people in Vermont find themselves sharing more than they’d planned. And not just conversation.

That’s an excellent summary, Amazon. Well done, you!

Willow and Dane are both struggling with being grown ups and, despite their seemingly adult lives,  it isn’t going so well for either of them. Dane has lots of professional success, but his personal life is a morass. Willow is struggling financially and is stuck in a situation that puts her life on hold. When they get trapped together in a snowstorm, they are able to connect physically, but their emotional connection is more troublesome. Frankly, Dane is a bit of an ass and handles just about everything badly. Just as meteorological events forced them together for a night, life events force them together for the longer term and create a less comfortable connection. Things get sorted out and Dane’s realization of his manifest failure to act like a decent person was very satisfying, but I’m not sure he earned his transformation; conversely, Willow was practically perfect in every way even though self-esteem issues were thrown in to flesh out her character. Coming In from the Cold just felt too neat in the end.

Sarina Bowen’s catalogue 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 Ivy Years Series: The Year We Fell Down, The Year We Hid Away, Blonde Date, The Understatement of the Year, and The Shameless Hour by Sarina Bowen

book review July 15, 2015 Comments: 2

So many “new adult” romances, so little time. I recommend The Ivy Years series by Sarina Bowen and will be looking into her back catalogue. Taking place at a New England college, Harkness, the stories are not light and yet avoid melodrama. These are young people coming into their own and figuring out who they want to be. Each story features at least one character who is an athlete, mostly they are involved in hockey, but there are also soccer and basketball team members, and the football players are the villains. My experience of university may not have matched this jock heavy world, but since the beauty of a large student body is in creating its own neighbourhoods, I don’t mind all the sports, plus it justifies the ripped heroes.

Quick Overview:

  1. The Year We Fell Down – BAM! This book got me right in the feels.
  2. The Year We Hid Away – That’s a lot for two such young people to have going on.
  3. Blonde Date novella – YAY! Short and sweet and adorable and added to my classics list.
  4. The Understatement of the Year – Surrender. Lying to yourself is exhausting.
  5. The Shameless Hour – “You don’t get to tell me who I am.”
  6. The Fifteenth Minute – a misstep, skip it

The Year We Fell Down

Corey was a star athlete until a career ending and life-changing injury transformed her plans. She has arrived as a freshman at the school she was meant to play hockey for, but now she is living in the wheelchair accessible part of the dorm. The upside is that she gets a bigger room and has a great roommate. The up-upside is that Hartley, a dreamy member of the mens’ hockey team, has a badly broken leg and is living in his own accessible room across the hall. The downside is that he has a long distance girlfriend.

There is very little self-pity in Corey and whatever sadness she does feel is entirely deserved. While Hartley is mending from a break, she is never going to walk unaided or have sensation in her leg and feet again. It’s a tough road and she is making the best of it, showing remarkable resilience, but not in an unrealistic way or one that is free of emotional upset.  I think many of us have experience with life taking an 180 degree turn and having to change our expectations, so Corey was easy to relate to.

But what about her beloved (Adam) Hartley? He’s a mensch. He’s got issues of his own informing his life decisions, but whatever Corey has got going on, he’s ready to be part of it. They made a sweet couple and a sensible one.

The Year We Fell Down did make me cry, but I can’t judge whether that has to do with the writing or because I have dealt with a potentially debilitating health issue and it affected my reading experience.

The Year We Hid Away

Bridger MacCaulley and Scarlet Crowley have their parents to thank for the ocean liner’s worth of baggage they have between them, but what is university for if not getting out from under one’s childhood? Scarlet has found herself a pariah after her father is accused of genuinely heinous crimes and Bridger has been saddled with more responsibility than someone his age should have to deal with. While his burden is visible, Scarlet’s promises years of pain. She has changed her name and is trying to start a new life.

For a book with so much agita, I found it remarkably melodrama free. There were extreme story elements and responses, but in proportion to the events taking place. Bridger and Scarlet’s responses to their individual pressures are mature to the best of their abilities, but if the characters’ problems had been lesser or limited to just one of them, the story’s construction would have worked better instead of being really good despite this limitation.

Blonde Date novella

Oh, thank GOD! A quick, reasonably light, sweet novella. One of Scarlet’s roommates – Blonde Katie as opposed to Ponytail Katie – needs a date for a sorority event. To complicate matters, their brother frat members, and specifically her douchelord former boyfriend, will be in attendance. Scarlet volunteers Bridger’s neighbour, a young man she knows from high school. Andy Baschnagel is tall and he gangles (H/T Douglas Adams), and he is a genuinely nice and sincere guy. He has been smitten with Katie from the first time he saw her and desperately wants to make a good impression on this date.

The entirety of Blonde Date takes place over one evening and it’s just lovely. Admittedly, I am sucker for a novella and this is the best example of stripping a love story down to its basics I can think of. Katie has recently been shamed by the frat boys and with Andy’s calm kindness starts to figure out who she is and that who she wants to be may be different from what she thought, AND the affable guy gets the girl. HUZZAH!

The Understatement of the Year

In high school, (Mike) Graham and (John) Rikker were embarking on a relationship and were attacked the first time they showed affection in public. Rikker was badly hurt, Graham fled. Several years later, Rikker has transferred to Harkness and joined the hockey team (with Hartley and Bridger up there) after being outed and subsequently mistreated at his original college. It isn’t fun being a publicly gay athlete, but it beats the closet Graham has himself both locked and barricaded inside.

Rikker and Graham fight their way to togetherness, two steps forward one step back, but end up where they need to be. Rikker’s family has failed him, Mike won’t give his a chance to succeed. With patience and  forgiveness, the guys become a couple. They were both extremely likeable and had great chemistry.

The Shameless Hour

This is the novel in which Sarina Bowen took the slut shaming undercurrents in the previous stories and directed kleig lights on them. Bella is the men’s hockey team manager and she has worked hard and had a great time off the ice as well. When she meets a dejected Rafe, freshly dumped and drinking champagne alone on his birthday, the two hook up. He would actually like to date, but Bella is the rake in this romance and she is on the move.

A couple of weeks later, early in the morning, Rafe finds Bella stumbling out of a frat house in very shaky condition. I want to stress in case it is a big NOPE for you when choosing a book, that she has not been assaulted sexually; however, she has been traumatized. It was very hard to read and I admit to jumping ahead several chapters and then going back to catch up with the story. The devastating effect of her mistreatment and the public attempt at shaming her is the dramatic momentum of the story. Bella is incredibly strong and surrounded by people who love her, but she is not invincible and it takes her time to come back to herself and act on behalf of all women who have been victims of sexual double standards.

But what about the boy? Rafe is in many ways the wallflower in this book and in keeping with that role, he is wonderful and waiting patiently to be noticed. He is a great friend to Bella and ready to support her regardless of the outcome of their relationship, though he has a clear preference.

The power of The Shameless Hour’s reversal is that, of course, Bella has acted like legions of romance novel heroes, but unlike the ones who tomcat their way through stories, our culture likes to tell her that being a good woman requires a different standard of conduct. Bella has made her peace with this B.S., but that doesn’t mean it is easy for her to live on her own terms.

New Adult romance recommendations can be found here.

Sarina Bowen’s catalogue can be found here. Bowen has also co-written two very enjoyable and steamy M/M romances with Elle Kennedy called Him and Us.

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 Hook Up and The Friend Zone by Kristen Callihan

book review July 10, 2015 Leave a comment

A pair of new adult contemporary romances set at an American college and written by Kristen Callihan, The Hook Up and The Friend Zone were my first and second books by this author and my first foray into this genre niche. I really enjoyed the books while I read them, The Hook Up in particular, and while they were good and sometimes pretty great, their primary accomplishment was to make seek out other new adult books, including Elle Kennedy’s excellent The Deal.

The Hook Up from Amazon: Anna Jones just wants to finish college and figure out her life. Falling for star quarterback Drew Baylor is certainly not on her to do list. Confident and charming, he lives in the limelight and is way too gorgeous for his own good. … Football has been good to Drew. It’s given him recognition, two National Championships, and the Heisman. But what he really craves is sexy yet prickly Anna Jones. Her cutting humor and blatant disregard for his fame turns him on like nothing else. But there’s one problem: she’s shut him down. Completely. That is until a chance encounter leads to the hottest sex of their lives, along with the possibility of something great. Unfortunately, Anna wants it to remain a hook up.

Anna and Drew spark and banter their way through The Hook Up with delightful results. As always, I am enamoured of a besotted hero and appreciative of a heroine who is both strong and has issues I can relate to (a little too much). The highlight of the book for me was a take-no-prisoners fight towards the end when ALL of their respective issues combined into a blazing row.  I’d recommend this book, but I have mixed feelings towards the next one.

The Friend Zone from Amazon: The last thing star tight-end Gray Grayson wants to do is drive his agent’s daughter’s bubblegum pink car. But he needs the wheels and she’s studying abroad. Something he explains when she sends him an irate text to let him know exactly how much pain she’ll put him in if he crashes her beloved ride. Before he knows it, Ivy Mackenzie has become his best texting bud. But then Ivy comes home and everything goes haywire. Because the only thing Gray can think of is being with Ivy…Gray drives Ivy crazy. He’s irreverent, sex on a stick, and completely off-limits. Because, Ivy has one golden rule: never get involved with one of her father’s clients. A rule that’s proving harder to keep now that Gray is doing his best to seduce her. Her best friend is fast becoming the most irresistible guy she’s ever met.

I suppose the Taming of the Shrew trope must have a counterpart in the Pig Who Becomes a Person, but it’s one I am annoyed by. Gray spent The Hook Up alternating between being a good friend to Drew and jumping anything that moved. He’s a really nice guy once he meets the “right woman”, but despite the entertainment value of the The Friend Zone, I’m not sure I cared. I suppose Gray was meant to be a jock stereotype after Gray’s mostly mature story, but I am tired of being required to forgive piggy behavior because the men involved are supposedly harmless. This kind of entitlement I can do without and it litters our culture, as though it’s okay in the end because he stops giving himself permission to a dudebro and decides to be a PERSON instead. Why am I being asked to overlook lewd and vulgar behavior (such as Gray’s early texts to Ivy and his conduct in The Hook Up), especially in this genre? I don’t expect the men in these books to be perfect, particularly when we see things from their viewpoint, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be a decent person and really into the heroine at the same time.

Other than my unexpected hostility, The Friend Zone was a nice read. Gray and Ivy made sense together and, despite my complaints, these is a good chance I will read more Kristin Callihan books.

I LOVED the next book in the series: The Game Plan

Thank you, Malin, for the gift of these books.

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.

Off Campus Series: The Deal and The Mistake by Elle Kennedy

book review July 8, 2015 Leave a comment

Having tried both new adult and adult contemporary romance by Elle Kennedy, I definitely prefer the former. I will be purchasing the next book(s) in her Off Campus series as soon as they become available or I have less than 10 books in my To Be Read pile, whichever comes first.

The Deal

Cheat From Amazon: Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice…even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date. All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it.

I am guessing that the study partner/jock trope in New Adult romance is the equivalent of an arranged marriage/rake trope in not-new adult romance, and it’s one I happen to really enjoy. Two people are plonked together and inevitably find their way to love. Garrett pursues Hannah quite diligently to be his tutor and then confidently to be her boyfriend.

The Deal is the book I am currently making a point of loaning to friends. Wading into the new adult romance genre, I’ve been zooming around Amazon trying to find good books. Kristin Callihan’s Game On series was a good start, (thanks, Malin) but Kennedy’s books are even better and the stellar reviews are warranted. The characters feel real, the story telling is sincere, and they’re a lot of fun.

The Mistake (Logan/Grace)

Cheat From Amazon: College junior John Logan can get any girl he wants. For this hockey star, life is a parade of parties and hook-ups, but behind his killer grins and easygoing charm, he hides growing despair about the dead-end road he’ll be forced to walk after graduation. A sexy encounter with freshman Grace Ivers is just the distraction he needs, but when a thoughtless mistake pushes her away, Logan plans to spend his final year proving to her that he’s worth a second chance. Grace is back at Briar University, older, wiser, and so over the arrogant hockey player she nearly handed her V-card to. She’s not a charity case, and she’s not the quiet butterfly she was when they first hooked up. If Logan expects her to roll over and beg like all his other puck bunnies, he can think again.

This second book in Kennedy’s Off Campus series had both a lighter tone and a little more melodrama than The Deal; fortunately, it was balanced with a heavy dose of humour and a willingness to take time (ARE YOU LISTENING OTHER ROMANCE AUTHORS?) to build the relationship. Grace and Logan are thrown together and experience instant chemistry, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have issues to sort through first individually and then as a team. Logan was sweet and determined in his own cheeky way, while Grace always knew who she was, but learned to trust herself before being able to trust Logan. It’s not quite as good as The Deal, but it was worth reading and time will tell if I feel like revisiting it.

Next up in the Off Campus series is The Score about the guy who has spent the past two books getting busy with women in Logan and Garrett’s living room. He’s insouciant and louche and I was very curious to read his story and find out why he never actually brings women to his bedroom.

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

One Night of Sin and One Night of Scandal by Elle Kennedy

book review July 8, 2015 Leave a comment

These two books passed the time pleasantly enough, but were nothing special or particularly compelling. The first was cheap and highly recommended, the second was cheaper and had equal reviews. I didn’t bother with the third in the After Hours series.  Elle Kennedy has a large back catalogue I am looking at and I can already recommend to of her new adult romances, The Deal and The Mistake, more highly.

One Night of Sin and One Night of Scandal are for all the well-behaved women out there who have longed for a big, tattooed bad boy.  Not just nightclub owners, but also former MMA fighters, the men are big softies hiding behind tough, traditionally, emphatically masculine exteriors. The women are romance novel average which means that they have ordinary careers, but are gorgeous, secretly wild, sensual goddesses, but then aren’t we all.

One Night of Sin

Short Version:  Bad boy who’s not so bad, nice girl who needs to cut loose. Relations lead to a relationship.

Long Version Cheat from Amazon: When it comes to sex, good girl Skyler Thompson always plays it safe, choosing stable and sedate over wild and thrilling. She doesn’t do one-night-stands, but one look at sinfully sexy Gage Holt and she’s willing to reconsider. He makes her want to be bad for once in her life, and she’s prepared to take what she wants. Danger follows former MMA fighter Gage Holt like a shadow. Despite his successes as part owner of Sin, an exclusive nightclub in Boston, Gage can’t risk getting involved with a woman, especially one as sweet as Skyler. Still, he can’t resist a taste—and it’s so damn good he has to see her again.

One Night of Scandal

Short version: Bad boy and nice girl who have been secretly pining for each other while she dated his best friend get their chance.

Long Version Cheat from Amazon: Ex-fighter Reed Miller has been secretly lusting over his best friend’s girl for months, but he refuses to jeopardize a friendship over a woman–especially one who doesn’t like him all that much. Now that Darcy’s on the market again, it’s even more imperative to stick to his strict hands-off policy. But the sizzling attraction between them is too powerful to ignore, and once he’s had a taste of her…all bets are off.  Darcy Grant is tired of walking the straight and narrow path. She’s on the hunt for passion, and there’s no denying Reed is just the man to give it to her. Although she has no interest in dating a bad boy, and certainly not her ex’s best friend, it’s impossible not to melt beneath Reed’s skillful touch. Now it’s just a matter of setting a few ground rules–and hoping her rule-breaking, sweet-talking bad boy agrees to follow them.

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

Elements of Chemistry by Penny Reid

book review July 7, 2015 1 Comment

I’ve read enough Penny Reid now that I can tell you what I like about her books. She’s very funny and she uses first person narration incredibly effectively. Often one’s inner life can be so different from one’s public persona and that juxtaposition, when done well, greatly adds to the characterization. That said, Elements of Chemistry also got this response from me, spoken out loud and with a great deal volume:

 She needs to be punched in the head.

But more on that later.

Kaitlyn Parker is the daughter of a very successful and famous family. Martin Sandeke is the son of a manipulative bastard of a billionaire. As Elements of Chemistry fits into the “New Adult” romance genre, Katy and Martin meet when they were paired up as chemistry lab partners at an Ivy League university. Katy tries to be invisible, Martin insists on seeing her. When Katy overhears people scheming (yes, scheming) against Martin, she peeks out of her cloak of invisibility to warn him. Martin is somewhat suspicious, but mostly grateful to her for this chance to make his move, so he finagles spending Spring Break with Katy, her friend, and the members of the college rowing team – of which he is, of course, the captain – at his family’s Caribbean estate.

Elements of Chemistry started well. Martin was very interested in Katy and not willing to let the opportunity to get closer to her pass. He pursues while Katy dances between her own distrust of the hot guy who wants her and the fact that she also desperately wants him, too. There is a lot of comeheregoaway in this book, a hitherto unprecedented amount of it. A level of comeheregoaway that means that the last two-thirds of the book consist of Big Misundertandings and me wondering at what point this lovely university student became Too Stupid to Live. Sadly, it was the last comeheregoaway in anticipation of the novel’s denouement that left me wishing physical violence upon Katy.

I continue in my failure to understand the timelines in so many of these books, or, to be more accurate, how many authors don’t understand that they need to successfully portray the emotional connection between the leads to justify the compressed timeline. Contradicting myself, all Martin and Katy seemed to have was an emotional connection, but it was constantly fraught and angst-filled. An hour or two of connected bliss (emotional and betimes physical) and their relationship would derail.  I appreciated that Martin adored Katy and was willing to work through her insecurities, but, comeheregoaway, jeezy chreezy, comeheregoaway, big dramatic moment, comeheregoaway, falling in love, comeheregoaway, and starting a relationship, comeheregoaway, is not supposed to be this difficult. Walk away, dude. Just walk away.

Elements of Chemistry was maddening and Penny Reid’s foray into co-writing,The Hooker and the Hermit, put me in the mood for a stabbing. Her Knitting in the City series is where I will be spending my time with her catalogue from now on. I particularly enjoyed Beauty and the Mustache.

Penny Reid’s Catalogue gives an overview of her published works , some of which I recommend and some of which I dislike intensely.

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 Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

book review June 9, 2015 Leave a comment

All her life, Valancy Stirling has lived on a quiet street in an ugly little house in northern Ontario, Canada and never dared to contradict her domineering mother and unforgiving aunt. The deeply squelching kind of small town life L.M. Montgomery describes for Valancy is one that I recognize as Canadian, but of course is universal. To escape her life of quiet desperation, Valancy has created a world apart for herself called “The Blue Castle”. This private realm in which things are beautiful and she has value has changed and grown with her since childhood and now, at the age of 29, it is her intellectual and emotional sanctuary.

When Valancy receives a shocking letter, she takes the reins of her life, doing what she wants to, saying what she feels, and refusing to bend any longer to her repressive existence. Given the setting and early twentieth century time period, this rebellion consists of changing churches, refusing to participate in her maddening family dynamics, and becoming employed. Her so-called loved ones are the kind of people who feel Valancy’s life is careening out of control because she said “darn” and therefore almost swore, so when she takes is a step further and marries a local man of poor, but unproven, reputation, her family is so scandalized that they fear for her sanity and disown her. Delightfully, Valancy soon discovers more fulfillment and adventure than she ever thought possible, including someone to love and the modest, true, real-world version of her Blue Castle.

L.M. Montgomery is famous for her Anne of Green Gables, Avonlea, and Emily of New Moon books. I am an Anne devotee and many of the lovely elements of those stories are present in this sweet, adult romance. Montgomery is a wonderfully evocative writer with a light touch for setting a scene and painting a landscape. So much of this story is about Valancy reveling in her environment and simple day-to-day activities, but Montgomery portrays it all with lyrical, measured prose. The window to Valancy’s world is just captivating.

As someone from Ontario, I have been to Muskoka where Valancy lives. It is incredibly beautiful and this book made me terribly homesick for its geography. Being Canadian also gave me a layer of familiarity with the characters. Ours can be a severely Protestant culture, leery of being overly enthusiastic,  making a fuss or drawing attention to oneself, and with an absolute horror of self-confidence and pride. Shown in this context, Valancy’s quiet, incandescent joy in her new life, as well as her deep-seated insecurities, felt very real.

I have a list of favourite and classic romances that The Blue Castle has been added to. When I first dove into this genre, the classics were all around for me to find and for people to recommend. As I read on, the flood of truly great and new-to-me romances has slowed to a trickle. Discovering a book like The Blue Castle is such a treat.  Links to my other reviews can be found on my complete reading list of books sorted by author or Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful.

 

blue castle

The Desperate Duchesses Series: Desperate Duchesses, An Affair Before Christmas, Duchess by Night, This Duchess of Mine, A Duke of Her Own, and Three Weeks with Lady X by Eloisa James

book review June 6, 2015 Leave a comment

Tired of waiting for new books from authors on my autobuy list and even more tired of trying random new authors, I waded into the back catalogue of one of the most successful writers in the historical romance genre. Eloisa James has been publishing steadily for sixteen years and my crash course on her novels moves her comfortably to my B+ List. That means I am unlikely to pay for her books, but will read them if they are available at the library, or very cheaply for Kindle. My friend, Rochelle, an avid and long-term romance reader, described them perfectly, “Oooo. I like Eloisa James, but never as much as I feel like I ought to like her,” which is both succinct and accurate. James is a consistently good writer but, while her books are entertaining, they lacked emotional resonance for me. She gives good smolder, she’s witty, and not afraid of hijinks, but I felt no inclination to buy my own copies of these novels. On an up-note, some of these stories are set in the late eighteenth century which is a departure for me. On a down-note, I find the men’s costume of this period off-puttingly effete and the manner in which people flit to France only serves to remind me that their aristocracy had it comin’ and that the English lords could probably have used a housecleaning as well.

Thus far, I have read seven James books and six of them have the word “duke” or “duchess” in the title. Everyone in these books is securely entrenched in their status as titled, deeply monied, or likely both. Given this preponderance, I actually ventured to far off Wikipedia to find out exactly how many dukes there really are in the United Kingdom. It seems they are not so thick on the ground as James’s books would suggest.

The Desperate Duchesses Series:

  1. Desperate Duchesses – below
  2. An Affair Before Christmas – below
  3. Duchess by Night  – below
  4. When the Duke Returns
  5. This Duchess of Mine  – below
  6. A Duke of Her Own – below
  7. Three Weeks with Lady X – below
  8. Four Weeks with the Duke

Desperate Duchesses

In a world in which I am smarter, I would have read this book first instead of last as it lays all of the groundwork for the rest of the series. Lady Roberta has arrived in London looking for a husband – she has one in mind – and throws herself on the hospitality of her cousin umpteen times removed, Jemma, Duchess of Beaumont. Also in residence are Jemma’s estranged but co-habitating spouse; Jemma’s brother Damon, Marquess of something; and Damon’s illegitimate six-year-old son.  Coming and going from the house are men who wish to consort with Jemma including the Duke of Villiers who also has a prominent role in the series and meets his match in book six, A Duke of Her Own.

Desperate Duchesses is somewhat of a farce and kind of comedy of manners with people flirting and consorting, and playing chess which has a strong subtext of consorting and flirting. The love story of Damon and Roberta took a secondary role to the other events. Chapters would go by without a single appearance. It made for a decent read, but not the amount of romance I was looking for, despite all of the wit and repartee on display.

An Affair Before Christmas

This entry into the Desperate Duchesses series made me particularly grateful for my public library as if I had paid for An Affair Before Christmas, I should have been most put out. I read most of the novel, but I admit to skipping swathes of it and I must tell you that in doing so I don’t believe I missed any significant content. The story could have been a slow burn, but instead was a sluggish fizzle. It’s a shame because I actually really liked the main characters, especially the heroine, just not their book.

Poppy and Fletch (as in Duke of Fletcher) fell instantly in love and got married in a rosy glow. Unfortunately, despite their mutual attraction, Poppy’s mother and the way in which she had molded her daughter interfered with Fletch and Poppy’s sex life. Poor Poppy tries to be perfect for everyone around her, but always fails. Fletch is devoted to her, but after several years of marriage he is both worn down and het up enough to seek a mistress. An outburst of frustration from Fletch leads to his abandonment by Poppy and then the inexorably slow pace of their reunion. The novel drags this on and on. Any interesting character development is lost to the “on and on” factor.

The Duke of Villiers’ storyline continues its thread through this novel. It’s interesting, but distracting, and, like the other elements in An Affair Before Christmas moves at a glacial pace.

Duchess by Night 

Harriet, Duchess of Berrow, widowed and bored with behaving herself, sees fit to venture to the endless house party of Lord Justinian (Jem) Strange. Not willing to court the scandal that would result in the discovery of her attendance, she decides to travel disguised as a man. Only her friends and fellow revelers, Leopold, Duke of Villiers and Isidore, Duchess of Something, know the truth. When Villiers encourages their host to make a man of the milquetoast Harriet is pretending to be, hijinks ensue.

Harriet’s manliness lessons – fencing, riding, ale and roast beef for breakfast – are quite entertaining as is the juxtaposition of debauchery and sensible home life that Jem is attempting. He has a daughter he adores, but is raising somewhat ineptly in a salacious atmosphere he is genuinely, but wrong-headedly, doing his best to protect her from. Harriet breaks through the depraved illusion Jem has created and helps him overcome his antipathy towards the aristocracy, or at least against this particular member of it.

I found Duchess by Night very enjoyable when I read it. James’s writing has a kind of elan that creates a breezy atmosphere and often uses witty turns of phrase, but there are no scenes that really stayed with me after I finished the book. “Enjoyable, but not memorable” is the theme of these reviews.

This Duchess of Mine 

I freely admit that This Duchess of Mine never really caught my interest and I read through it quite quickly. If I had read Desperate Duchesses first instead of last, I would have gotten a lot more out of this book. I may need to revisit it.

The Duke and Duchess of Beaumont (Jemma and Elijah) were betrothed by arrangement, married, and quickly, scandalously estranged. Nine years later, Jemma has had a lovely time gallivanting about and creating a naughty, mostly false, reputation for herself. Elijah reappears in her life when it is time for an heir. Jemma is willing to reconcile, but their reunion is complicated by their respective secrets.

My strongest memories of this novel are that there is a lot of chess and that series regular Villiers  makes another memorable appearance. He traipses through several of these books being brilliant and roguish whilst advancing the plot or adding to the merriment.

A Duke of Her Own

Of the six Eloisa James books I have read, this is one I would recommend along with The Duke Is Mine.

Eleanor wanted to be a duchess. Not just any duchess, mind you, she had just the duke in mind. Unfortunately, he married someone else and left her behind. Now there is only one unmarried duke left in all the land, Leopold, Duke of Villiers, and he is a man of well-earned notoriety and spectacular fecundity. Villiers, for his part, has realised it is time to settle down and take care of his family and future. He has two options in the aforementioned Eleanor, and Lisette. The latter is also the daughter of a duke and eccentric in the way that falls short of institutionalization, but requires a close eye be kept on her. Events unfold at Lisette’s family estate as Eleanor and Villiers dance around each other.

Despite being 15 years younger than him, Eleanor is a mature, appropriate, and delightful companion for Villiers. Their love story was very entertaining in a romp sort of way; moreover, waiting for Lisette’s inevitable loss of her sh*t kept a hum of gleeful anticipation going.

Three Weeks with Lady X

At this point, the Desperate Duchesses series jumps ahead about 15 years to a book featuring Villiers’ son Tobias, now inexplicably called “Thorn”, and his efforts to marry a nice lady while counting on his unimpeachable wealth to override his bastardy (which is literal and not metaphorical). To help him in the process, he hires the Regency’s version of a professional organizer and interior designer, Lady Xenobia India. She takes the challenge of making his newly acquired home acceptable to the top drawer, but impecunious, young lady who he has chosen as his potential bride. India puts Thorn’s house and heart in order.

As with the other James books, Three Weeks with Lady X was frequently very funny and not particularly memorable. The leads had great chemistry and bantered well, James even managed a not-terribly-annoying plot moppet and made India’s competition likeable, but I didn’t find myself revisiting any scenes. As with many romance novels, it had a nonsensically condensed timeline which is fine for the falling in love aspects, but the idea of decorating a manor house in three weeks in 1812 strained all of my credulity.

Some story choices in these books were ones I had not seen very much before. James seems to enjoy a protracted estrangement and has no qualms about infidelity therein. I found this honest because I have never, not for one second, bought into the “I kept myself only unto you” trope in books involving healthy people in their prime who are apart for extended periods of time.

I have also reviewed The Duke Is Mine and The Ugly Duchess from James’s Fairy Tale series.

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

The Survivors’ Club: The Proposal and Only Enchanting by Mary Balogh

book review June 2, 2015 Leave a comment

Mary Balogh’s lovely and touching Survivors’ Club series has what I am beginning realise is the central theme of many of her historical romances: Shuttered and broken people finding new lives and unexpected happiness. Who better to be given these second chances than soldiers and those who have seemingly lost everything? Six friends, five military men and one woman, and their host, formed a close relationship while recovering from their experiences in the Napoleonic Wars at Pendarris Hall in Cornwall. Now back out in the world, each book features a group reunion as the six protagonists find love. The stories I have read so far have a sincere sweetness and while the characters have all been through the wringer, the stories are not maudlin and Balogh shows a deft touch in sharing their trials without wallowing in them; moreover, despite the potential for drama, her leads act so consistently as mature adults, even ones befuddled by love’s appearance on their doorstep, that any potentially overwrought elements are managed well.

The Survivors’ Club Series:
The Proposal  (Hugo/Gwen) – pleasant
The Arrangement  (Vincent/Sophia) – very sweet, understated
The Escape (Benedict/Samantha) – meh
Only Enchanting (Flavian/Agnes) – Wonderful, read this one. Read it twice.
Only a Promise  (Ralph/Chloe) – very good
Only a Kiss (Percy/Imogen) – meh
Only Beloved – sweet

The Proposal

One would think that the eponymous proposal would a small element in a book, but this book’s title is pretty accurate as to its content. The main characters, Hugo and Gwen, come from different worlds and this tension, “We can’t, can we? Maybe a little? No, it won’t work, but maybe it will” is central to the story.

Gwendoline is a widow in her early 30s settled down into a quiet, happy life as the family member beloved of adults and children alike. Visiting a recently widowed friend, she falls and is rescued a la movie Willoughby by Hugo, Lord Trentham. Recently “elevated” to the peerage, he was a career military man lauded for his work on the battlefield and, having recovered from his war wounds, looking for a wife. How convenient! As she is hurt, Gwen must stay at the great house of the Duke hosting Hugo and the Survivors’ Club. Hugo and Gwen spend time together and are drawn to each other even as they are reluctant to give up their expectations of what their lives should and will be.

Only Enchanting

Flavian, Viscount Posonby (I know, but he is aware it is an absurd name and comments on it himself.) was left seriously wounded, but visibly unscathed, during his war time experience. He had a brain injury to his language centers and he needed to learn to process and produce language again when brought home. Three years on, he has recovered speech except for an occasional stutter and his memories are largely intact. The latter is hard for him to determine as how can one sort out what one does not know?

At a Survivors’ Club reunion, Flavian is brought together with an unassuming local widow, Agnes Keeping. They are drawn to one another and, even though she feels out of her depth, Agnes agrees to marry the seemingly louche, blond god of a man in one of the few impulsive decisions of her life. When they travel together to London, Flavian’s family, neighbours, and former fiancee are all lying in wait to pounce on him for his hasty marriage. This brings Agnes and her new husband to an instant crisis which they sort through, despite some bumps, in a mostly mature fashion.

The Proposal and Only Enchanting were sweet without being treacly, dramatic in a grounded and unhistrionic fashion, the characters are sensible adults, and the dynamic of the six core characters is a great source of character detail and humour. While I don’t rank the novels as great (though that might change as I adored Flavian), I would say that they are very good and I recommend finding them at your local library.

Update March 1, 2016: Since I have borrowed it again from my library and added it to my Amazon wishlist, I have indeed upgraded Flavian and Agnes’s story to “great”. It is now on  my shortlist list of recommended romances for new readers.

I have reviewed two other books in this series: The Arrangement and The Escape. Balogh has other popular series and her novel Slightly Dangerous is, to my mind, a classic of the genre. Also by Mary Balogh is A Handful of Gold  for which I created a romance review template.

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