Category Archives: book reviews

Ridiculous by D.L. Carter

book review December 1, 2014 Leave a comment

Historical or otherwise, there are two character types each for men and women in romance novels and seven plots. The reader knows the heroine always wins the right to determine her own fate and seek her own happiness. What varies is the quality and inventiveness of the writing. Ridiculous by D.L. Carter is a keeper. By turns funny and charming, it delivers a wonderful piece of escapist entertainment. Use this Amazon link to buy the novel.

Now some words to describe this book and Carter’s writing:

Witty, clever, fun, light, pleasantly salacious.

Now some sentences to describe the plot:

Her skinflint cousin dead and facing greater penury than even her current circumstances of abuse and menial informal servitude provide, Millicent exploits her physical resemblance to her recently deceased relation to take his place. Mr. North’s body goes into a coffin, Millicent is mourned, and her mother and sisters have a chance at an easier life after narrowly avoiding the workhouse.

Tall and lithe enough to pass as a man in ill-fitting clothes, Millicent moves her family to Bath. When Millicent decides to visit her/Mr. North’s property in Wales, she runs across an overturned carriage holding our hero, Timothy Shoffer, Duke and latent Greek God, plus his sister and chaperone. A companionable relationship is formed, Millicent falls in love as does the Duke, secrets are revealed, happilies are ever aftered.

Now a summary paragraph in closing:

There was nothing new to see in Ridiculous just a very well turned and highly enjoyable Regency romance. Fresh writing goes a long way in these books and is always a delight to discover. I especially enjoyed Millicent’s acknowledgement that she had painted herself into a corner with her hastily cobbled together plan and the way she revels in her freedom when masquerading as a man. D.L. Carter has just one other book in the genre, Crimes of the Brothers, which I have purchased and will read next.

Lastly, my review boilerplate:

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

 

Scandalous Gentlemen of St. James Series: Once More, My Darling Rogue by Lorraine Heath

book review November 30, 2014 Leave a comment

Short Version: NO!

Medium Version: My romance spirit guide, Malin, gave me this book and guessed it based on the blurb.

It’s a Victorian romance this –

overboard

 plus a Victorian romance that –

taming

 resulting in a Victorian romance reading experience of:

stabby

Long Version:

While continuing to be an author I try to avoid actually paying for Lorraine Heath is solidly B-Minus List writer with some decent books under her belt. She can be dated in her plotting and characters and Once More, My Darling Rogue is no exception.

Lady Ophelia (God is kind, so she is called Phee by her friends) is an uptight snob, a Mean Girl. Gaming Hell owner Drake is a member of her social set, the adopted urchin son of a family friend. Drake’s sister and Phee’s best friend was the heroine of the first book in this series, When the Duke Was Wicked. It was not really a success either, but it did not inculcate violent urges. Phee has had snobbery engrained in her from an early age, which is admittedly historically accurate, and she is particularly awful to Drake. She treats him like a servant. He puts up with it, but it is wearing thin. They each wear masks to protect themselves and hide their true blah blah blah. You can see where this is going. The movie posters gave it away.

Phee has an accident and loses her memory. Drake conveniently finds and takes her in to his opportunely newly purchased, and thus undecorated and under-minioned home. Telling her she is his housekeeper/cook/maid of all work, he lets this illusion go on for more than .1473 seconds and it crosses the line into unforgivable. I remember thinking things like, “If these two embark on a physical relationship before she regains her memory I’m going to go postal!” They did and I didn’t, but I finished the book out of spite. There was some vague rationale about her unhappy past and the healing that comes with forgetfulness, but to hell with that. All I know is that her character flaws were rooted in trauma and SOMEHOW the fact that the character development that came with new trauma Drake inflicted was liberating for her is supposed to make it okay. It does not.

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

Also by Lorraine Heath, But for Romance Novel Withdrawal Emergencies Only:

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The Mackenzie Series: Scandal and the Duchess by Jennifer Ashley

book review September 28, 2014 Leave a comment

Scandal and the Duchess is a fabulous romance novel title. Five stars for that. All gold.

I continue to lovehate Jennifer Ashley, but the fact that I have read everything in her Mackenzie series would seem to indicate that she is my guilty pleasure. Despite frequently overwrought plotting, but with sincere emotional connections and excellent smolder, I just keep reading her books, and in a couple of cases re-reading them. Maybe I enjoy her brand of tortured heroes more than I like to admit. Scandal and the Duchess is restrained from that perspective and a mostly gentle romp with a moustache twirling villain thrown in.

Rose, Dowager Duchess of Southdown, is the zaftig and scandalous second wife of the erstwhile Duke. The new His Grace has successfully blocked any knowledge of his father’s will and Rose has been left dependent on her former coachman’s hospitality. As her husband, whom she genuinely cared for, died early in their marriage, she has become a figure of public speculation. Obviously, she is a Victorian sex bomb whose appetites overwhelmed the old guy, though he did die happy. One night, while out and about being pursued by scandal mongers, she is literally run into by Captain Steven Sinclair. Three sheets to the wind, he still knows a good thing when he lands on it. Rose misunderstands his situation and offers a place to crash and in the morning, sober and deliciously disheveled, he suggests a false engagement to get the reporters off her back.

Steven and Rose embark on an “engagement” that, it is a romance novella after all, quickly becomes a genuine love match. It seems Rose’s husband liked puzzles and left her an inheritance if only she and Steven can figure out where and what it is. It’s an efficient McGuffin that does the job nicely. They gad about looking for clues and being sexually attracted to each other. Steven is a Mackenzie in-law, so characters from previous books in the series pop up, in particular the ones from her most popular novels. They have a cursory participation based mostly on being in the same room as the hero and heroine.

Scandal and the Duchess was light and pleasant-ish. There was less drang and virtually no sturm which is quite a change for Ashley. The novella felt perfunctory and yet I’ll still read the next one. Ashley has a formula that works well (read: profitably) for her and is an incredibly prolific author. She currently produces at least three different series under two different pseudonyms. The Mackenzie series alone has seven novels and three novellas published since 2009, with one more of each planned into 2015. She keeps pumping them out and I keep reading them, thus drowning out my clearly disingenuous protestations of ambivalence towards her work. It’s the sincere, emotional and romantic moments. I live in hope for them every time.

A summary of Jennifer Ashley’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 American Heiress in London Series: How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days by Laura Lee Guhrke

book review September 23, 2014 Leave a comment

The second book in Laura Lee Guhrke’s “An American Heiress in London” historical romance series, How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days, focuses on a marriage of convenience under renovation. It was rather sweet in its way, but Guhrke continues to be a library loan author for me. I will likely read the rest of the series, but I will not purchase the books.

Disgraced and shamed by an involuntary sexual encounter, such is the way of things, Edie has wealth beyond the dreams of avarice and a desperate need not to return to New York where her entirely unfair humiliation will continue hourly and for the rest of her life. Spotting the eligible, handsome, and, this is the helpful bit, impecunious Stuart, Duke of Something, she quickly makes and acts on a plan. Gossip reports that Stuart wants to go on an extended expedition to Africa, so Edie offers him the deal of a lifetime within five minutes of first setting eyes on him: They will marry, she will be the duchess to his in absentia duke, and his financial woes will disappear, but he must never return. Stuart had rather liked the look of Edie before the bargain was presented, but/and he leaps at her offer. They will marry and live together for six weeks before he “abandons” her and his life in England. You think they are going to fall in love and he never leaves, right? Wrong. He bolts after four weeks.

Five years later…

Having almost died from wounds sustained in a lion attack –  which you must admit is so much more manly than nearly succumbing to a parasitic infection – Stuart has reassessed his life and decided return to  England’s green and pleasant land. He wants a quiet life with his wife and, hopefully, children. Edie is horrified by his return. She loves the niche she has carved for herself. She has friends, respect, and has taken excellent care of the duchy. She neither needs, nor wants, a husband, but she cannot get a divorce without grounds and needs Stuart to agree to a legal separation as an alternative. Edie and Stuart embark on a wager. If Edie chooses to kiss him within 10 days, they will continue their marriage. If she does not, he signs the legal separation contract. You think they are going to fall in love and he never leaves, right? Correct. Stuart is a sweet and funny man eager to see if that spark he felt for Edie during their contractually agreed upon romance is still there. She is a kind and sincere person who has learned to live with her wounds, if not heal them. The restlessness that made Stuart leave is apparently resolved and he will not pine for his days of adventure. I didn’t buy that for a second, but he and Edie agree to find their way together which is, after all, what one looks for in a romance novel.

The American Heiress in London series:

When the Marquess Met His Match – pleasant and serviceable
How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days – please see above
Catch a Falling Heiress – January 2015

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

Scandalous Gentlemen of St. James Series: When the Duke Was Wicked by Lorraine Heath

book review September 17, 2014 Leave a comment

Review Gesture Using My Romance Novel Fill-in-the-Blank Template:

When the Duke Was Wicked is a romance of the “you are everything I never knew I always wanted” variety: Boy meets girl. Girl has always loved Boy. Boy has experienced great loss and vowed never to love again. Girl pretends to seek Boy’s advice in finding a genuine suitor. But can he bear to see her with another man? Boy and girl move forward together secure in their love and commitment.

A historical romance set in 19th century London, When the Duke Was Wicked is my fifteenth book by this author, though I have only paid for three or four of them. I generally find her work a good time filler, although she is always on my B List. Lord of Wicked Intentions is her best work so far. I found When the Duke Was Wicked meh.  I will continue to seek out Heath’s other novels because this one was nothing special, but sometimes I just want something to read. I would not recommend this particular effort.

The main plot of When the Duke Was Wicked focuses on the healing of a tortured hero. Lord Lovingdon, a duke, is a rake. He is disenchanted, louche, and in denial about his feelings for Grace. The heroine, Lady Grace Mabry, is a victim of circumstance. She is intent on seeking a suitor who genuinely loves her and does not seek her dowry; moreover she has a secret she needs to be able to trust her spouse with.  Lovingdon and Grace are instantly attracted to each other. Over time, they come to discover that despite any challenges they face, they make an excellent team.

When the Duke Was Wicked was a perfectly fine, middling romance. It’s the first book in the new Scandalous Men of St. James series that follows the children of the Scoundrel’s of St. James novels’ main characters. There are some historical waffling that goes beyond what is usual even in these books, but that could just be my Accuracy Police Syndrome talking. If you would like to read a great romance, and a personal favourite, about taking a chance on love after the death of a spouse, I recommend Where Dreams Begin by Lisa Kleypas.

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

Also by Lorraine Heath:

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The Three Sisters Trilogy: Beauty and the Spy, Ways to Be Wicked, & The Secret to Seduction by Julie Anne Long

book review September 4, 2014 Leave a comment

Before I begin: Thank you, Malin, for the loan of these books. My Julie Anne Long collection was not going to complete itself.

These three historical romances are an early trilogy from one of the genre’s best writers. Good, but not great, one can feel Julie Anne Long picking up speed and confidence as one moves through the novels. The heroines of each of the three books are the daughters of a Member of Parliament and his beloved mistress. Although never married, their parents had an exclusive, long-term relationship until their father was murdered, their mother was accused of the crime and fled into exile, and a loving family friend took it upon himself to see to the welfare of the three little girls. It was the worst Tuesday ever. The sisters’ efforts to reunite and to bring their father’s murderer to justice is the through line of the trilogy.

Beauty and the Spy (Kit/Susannah)

Susannah is feeling a skooch squelched in her perfect life. Everything is fine, but she’s not really able to completely be herself. Don’t worry, complications are about to enter her life like whatever the Regency version of a Mack truck is. Her father dies, she is left penniless, subsequently fiance-less, and she has to move to a remote village to begin a life of genteel poverty. Fortunately, Kit is there conducting a wildlife survey on his estate.  It’s a McGuffin within a McGuffin as Kit’s convenient presence is at the behest of his tired and protective father. Sparks fly, romance ensues, family secrets are discovered and create a through line for the next two books…

Ways to Be Wicked (Tom/Sylvie)

Ways to Be Wicked offered a pleasantly different take on the Regency era. Everyone actually works for a living – QUELLE HORREUR! – and no one looks askance at taking what opportunities for increased financial security may come.

Sylvie has just learned that she has a sister in England (Hint: It’s Susannah.) and runs away from her life as a Parisian ballet dancer/aristocrat’s mistress to find her family. She ends up working in an, um, gentleman’s theatre as one of a collection of young women whose job it is to wear diaphanous clothing, twirl, and exclaim “Whee!”. She’s not to happy about it, but the man who hired her, Tom, is meshuggah good-looking and fascinated by her. Sparks fly, romance ensues, family secrets are discovered and create a through line for the next book…

The Secret to Seduction (Rhys/Sabrina)

I don’t find the remnants of feudalism all that appealing, but they are very important to Rhys who is an aristocrat of some sort. An earl, I think. I can’t remember this book well. Sabrina is a vicar’s daughter and joins her friend as a house guest (It’s coming back to me.) at Rhys’s recently restored estate. She falls ill and has to stay behind, Rhys is a jerk who decides to  compromise her as some sort of egotistical entertainment – Rhys does not start well, readers – they get caught in a MAJOR clinch, and end up in a marriage of convenience.  (I remembered!) Rhys and Sabrina live separate lives for a bit, he shows up of an evening for procreative purposes, they find their way into a good marriage, then Rhys’s deep dark secret comes out and everything goes KABLOOEY! before being put back to rights. Note: The KABLOOEY! inducing plot twist is pretty darn good.

The Secret to Seduction wraps up the Three Sisters trilogy with a neat bow thus freeing Julie Anne Long to move on to her current Pennyroyal Green series. I have read all of her output and will now spend my time eagerly awaiting her next book. Unfortunately for the readers, but pleasantly for the author, Long’s publishing schedule is about one novel a year. She is a clever and fun writer with a deep and joyful love of sarcasm who pens entertaining and charming novels. Long’s most compelling work so far is What I Did for a Duke. In it, she pulls off a huge age difference and creates a fantastic hero. The heroine is pretty terrific, too, but he is magnificent. All of Long’s books have themes of vulnerability and the necessity of laying oneself bare in order to take a chance on creating genuine happiness for oneself. It’s a lovely thought and she does it so well.  I like to keep her handy on my autobuy list.

A complete summary of Julie Anne Long’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.

 

Sisters in Love by Melissa Foster

book review September 3, 2014 Leave a comment

Sisters in Love is a facile and trite contemporary romance laden with clichés and complex problems simplistically resolved. A large part of my reaction was, “Maybe I could write a whole book. Melissa Foster did. It’s not like I have to write a good book. Melissa Foster didn’t.” It’s very freeing when one thinks of it that way. The rest of my reaction was to be grateful Sisters in Love was free and to be very pleased when I finished reading it – which I did strictly for review honestly purposes and I want points for that.

The hero and heroine of Sisters in Love meet painful when he accidentally elbows her in the nose when they are in line at a coffee shop. While tending to her, she notices he is incredibly physically attractive and that he is also checking out another woman whilst helping staunch the flow of blood. The heroine is appalled, but nonetheless can’t get him out of her head. The hero can’t get her out of his either. There is nothing like a woman asking “Are you done?” while she bleeds and you are checking out someone’s chest to make a man think about his life.

Adonis-adjacent Blake is very messed up. Not messed up in a romance novel way where he just needs a good woman, no matter what Melissa Foster thinks. He’s the kind of person who has almost no close relationships and uses his looks to bang every woman he can. He is detached. He identifies himself as sleazy. He’s “that guy”. He needs therapy and likely some kind of 12 Step Program. Conveniently, the heroine, Danica, is a therapist and soon takes the new acquaintance she desperately wants to sleep with as a patient, but I’d like to put a pin that egregious violation of client/therapist ethics to tell you about this: In one of the early chapters, there is a full description of an anonymous encounter in Blake’s own store restroom. Not even his office. The restroom. It’s far more detailed than the consummation scene with Danica. That was an interesting choice on the author’s part. It’s perfectly emblematic of how messed up both Blake and the book are. An anonymous woman says, “Jawanna?” and he’s all “Sure,”  and on to ignoring the fact that the porcelain must be really cold on the “cougar’s” behind. Afterward, Blake doesn’t like what he sees in the restroom mirror and wants to stop being “that guy” which is nice. Then, he does stop with ease and minor guidance which is ridiculous.

Danica, she of the elbowed nose, is a psychologist deeply invested in her career. The reader knows this because she doesn’t get out enough and she needs a makeover. Anyway, even though she is (unfathomably) sexually attracted to the deeply messed up Blake and is introduced to him socially, she takes him on as a patient. I’m not a doctor, but I play one in book reviews, and I cannot for one second believe that this is anything less than unethical. She stops being his doctor EVENTUALLY, right before they cross the line into a physical relationship, but it’s so twisted: He’s an emotionally vacant sex addict and she’s his doctor. He starts therapy, she gives him guidance, he resists a one-night-stand with her sister and suddenly the plot is on a steam locomotive to Love Town and he is almost all better. No. NO! Their entire attraction is physical and the reader is, I suppose, obliged to fill in the blanks on their doctor/patient ethics defying emotional connection. Ugh.

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

Wallbanger by Alice Clayton

book review September 2, 2014 Leave a comment

Wallbanger by Alice Clayton is a fluffy, reasonably entertaining, and quick contemporary romance. It is the first book in her Cocktail series about twenty-something professionals building careers and finding life partners. The book had very little conflict and read like a romantic sitcom: she is an interior designer and he is a nature photographer; they each have two friends that are perfect for their counterpart’s two friends; they have no money concerns despite living in notoriously expensive San Francisco.

Caroline has a noisy neighbour. The night she moves into her faboo sublet, she is awakened by the headboard next door banging into the wall behind her. It happens the next night and the night after that. The sounds of female approbation on the other side of the wall change, the banging stays the same. To make matters worse, Caroline is in a romantic and auto-erotic slump. After the umpteeth night of tauntingly disrupted sleep, she storms over and complains directly to the Wall Banger himself. He is, of course, gorgeous and amused. She is annoyed and scantily clad. Things proceed in the anticipated fashion.

While reasonably funny, Wallbanger is the first in a trilogy of books that I will not bother exploring further, although, for what it’s worth, they are highly rated on Amazon. There is no real obstacle to the characters’ relationship. A goodly portion of the novel is devoted to delaying the relationship’s transformation from romantic partners to the consummation devoutly to be wished. I estimate that a solid 25% of the book is the putting off of sex and then the sex that follows the putting off. I didn’t buy it for a second. Neither the delay, nor the cataclysmic consummation. Further, Caroline refers to her body parts in the third person, such as Brain, Nerves, Heart, and “Little Caroline”. They have trouble coming to an accord. I am Mrs. Julien’s side-eye for this narrative decision.

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

When a Duke Says I Do by Jane Goodger

book review August 25, 2014 Leave a comment

Short version: “I need to finish this book so I can stop reading it.”

Long Version:

gunn yes

When a Duke Says I Do is a historical romance with a lot going on, some of it interesting, but that gets lost in the details. The best way to explain is to summarize the plot and that will involve SPOILERS:

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The Beautiful Series: Beautiful Bastard, Beautiful Bitch, Beautiful Stranger, Beautiful Bombshell, Beautiful Player, Beautiful Beginning, Beautiful Beloved, & Beautiful Boss by Christina Lauren

book review August 12, 2014 Leave a comment

The Beautiful series is reasonably inept romance and reasonably ept erotica, although I don’t really know where the rumple in the sheet lies between the two. I would have thought that the main difference was in courtship by coitus and the point at which emotions become involved, but there are plenty of romances where sex precedes love, so it really just comes down to the level of detail. The Beautiful series love scenes were not much more explicit than a fairly typical romance other than greater frequency and the use of rougher language than I am used to. Not shocked but surprised, I am unaccustomed to certain words being bandied about, nor do I necessarily like it when they are. In an interesting twist, the books alternate between the hero and heroine as first person narrator which gives a perspective that was new and fun.

Plot Summary (All): Casual but proclivity compatible and intense sex leads to love.

Characters (All): Hardworking and successful, everyone is lithe and gorgeous.

  1. Beautiful Bastard
  2. Beautiful Bitch
  3. Beautiful Stranger
  4. Beautiful Bombshell
  5. Beautiful Player
  6. Beautiful Beginning
  7. Beautiful Beloved
  8. Beautiful Secret
  9. Beautiful Boss

Beautiful Bastard (novel)

Finishing her MBA, Chloe Mills has worked for the Ryan family for several years, but only for six months as an intern to the eponymous bastard Bennett Ryan. They have a politely hostile relationship that breaks down when they start having The Angry Sex then spar and copulate their way to togetherness. The alternating narration gives a good and necessary insight into Bennett and just how crazy he is about Chloe. He may be a bastard, but Chloe is equal to the task and he is besotted.  Despite the underwear rending (every single time) role Bennett takes in The Angry Sex, there is never, in any of these books, any suggestion that the women are anything but equal partners and the men find it exhilarating.

Beautiful Bitch

A short novella, Beautiful Bitch was simply more of Chloe and Bennett picking up one year later and then flashing back and forth to their reunion and ongoing relationship. More sex. Engagement.

Beautiful Stranger (novel)

Mercifully, the stranger of the title is singular and not plural because that’s not so romantic, but this novel is about an indulgence in anonymous sex that leads to love and a secure, sexually compatible relationship. Sara Dillon has just moved to New York City to start a new life for away from her cheating ex. Celebrating Chloe’s engagement, she meets a very tall, handsome stranger who propositions her. She turns him down, but later notices him watching her dancing and decides she likes it. They have sex against a wall of the club, then Sara walks away. No names were exchanged, but her stranger, Max Stella, is captivated. Through a series of friendship coincidences, Max finds Sara and agrees to a strictly sexual relationship with her. Their specific proclivity is exhibitionism, including photography in media res, so they indulge in a number of increasingly risky scenarios as they expand their indulgences and fall in love. Apparently.  I’m not sure exactly where the falling in love part came in, but they do and the relationship moves to the next level which, in this case, means a bed in a private home. It was rather sweet.

Beautiful Bombshell (novella)

Another novella shoehorned into the series and the one in which things veered toward farce. Bennett and Max are in Las Vegas with friends for the former’s bachelor weekend. Chloe and Sara happen to be there as well and the couples find ways to have The Angry Sex and The Public Sex in and around the party events and hoping to evade detection. It was quick, and fun, but also ridiculous.

Beautiful Player (novel)

Don’t let the hep language of the title fool you. This is the story of a rake and a wallflower, a trope I particularly enjoy. Delicious player Will Sumner is bored with hot and cold running sex. When his best friend asks him to help his younger sister get out more, Will accepts. Hanna Bergstrom is straightforward and has no filter. After their first meeting, Will spends several chapters falling in love in slow motion. His friends delight in his smitten state. A PhD student who has long been too distracted to have a social life, Hanna gets a quick makeover [eye roll] and she revels in the company of the man who was the object of her first crush.

So how do you cure a player? You go back to basics. Although not yet in love, Will and Hanna’s relationship builds slowly from reasonably tame foreplay to consummation. This book had the most relatable characters and she was a pip.

Beautiful Beginning (novella)

More “I hate you, do it HARDER!” and promises of post-coital ambulatory issues in this novella about Bennett and Chloe’s destination wedding. The travel element allows all the characters to be in close proximity and, like other final get together novels of this type, the current story is irrelevant. Max, Sara, Hanna, and Will make appearances, although I would have liked more of them. Chloe and Bennett have vowed not to have sex for FOUR WHOLE DAYS and gradually build up a head of steam for some epic The Angry Sex on their wedding night. Sometimes funny, they have skirmishes and make vulgar displays in front of their family and I was both a bit bored by it and a bit put off.

Beautiful Beloved (novella)

The central characters from Beautiful Stranger, Max and Sara, are back as well as the supporting cast. Sara was pregnant in the previous two books and this story picks up when their daughter is four months old. (Aside: Thank goodness, it’s not Chloe and Bennett having children because neither of them are parent material.) Max and Sara are as blissfully happy as ever, but their perfect union is sullied – lightly sprinkled with dust motes, really – by the lack of violently intense (hopefully public) sex in their lives. Not a lack of sex, mind you, but a lack of amazeballs sex. What follows are unsuccessful attempts to rekindle the fire of their pre-baby state with failed nights out. Gay-assistant-stereotype-George spends a night caring for the little one, then the adorable Will and Hanna, and finally Max’s brother Niall whose presence foreshadows his novel coming out in April.

I know that these books are escapist, but speaking as someone with very little money and alone on the prairie in terms of help when we had a newborn, I confess my bitterness interfered with my enjoyment of Beautiful Beloved. Max and Sara are wealthy and surrounded by potential caregivers. The only thing really stopping them from leaving the house alone is the baby quicksand all new parents fall into. There is something in Beautiful Beloved about society not wanting to see mothers as sexual creatures, as well as the conflict between the desire to go back to work and notions of being a good parent, but honestly the series just unravels its gossamer tether to reality a little more with each entry, so thematic discussions seem kind of pointless; moreover, it had a climax that left me cringing and saying, “Ew! Really? How many fetishes do these people have? Ew. WHAT? EW!” regardless of what points the authors might have been trying to make.

Beautiful Secret goes here in the reading order.

Beautiful Boss (novella)

As a quick follow up to Beautiful Player, I do wonder how many of these latter series novellas are just cashing in. I don’t begrudge the authors that, by the way, I just wish it had more of what made Will and Hanna’s full length book fun. Instead her enjoyable cluelessness turned into a stumbling block for the couple.

Beautiful Boss picks up on the eve of Will and Hanna’s wedding, trips lightly through their nuptials, and moves on to the more urgent details of their life together. Hanna has just completed a post-doc year and is crushed under the weight of offers to either teach or run a lab for prestigious universities. When was the last time, do you suppose, even the most gifted graduate had such a plethora of opportunities? She waffles through the book as Will is fantastically accommodating, but grows increasingly frustrated with her unwillingness to discuss where she thinks she’d like to end up. Sometimes, they take a break to get it on. They fight. They make a decision. Life goes on

Sidebar with a detail I LOVED: Will Sumner and Hanna Bergstrom both change their last name to the Sumner-Bergstrom. It’s unwieldly, but who cares?

The two woman writing team of the books, working under the pseudonym Christina Lauren, are pumping out these and more novels with alacrity. Like many genre writers, they have found a successful niche and know what their audience wants: lots of interesting sex which acknowledges that women have the same urges as men and enough of a plot to string things along and keep them interesting. The challenges faced by the couples are all Big Misunderstandings easily remedied, but the same can be said of many romances. The main complaint I have about the series is the constant low hum of dudebro sexism. The male characters interactions focus on insults of feminization and loss of manliness: They are whipped, their “girls” have taken possession of their testes, emotions are female and weak. The otherwise powerful women take it all in stride.  It’s the kind of casual sexism that surrounds us every day and which I hope to escape when reading these books.

Sidebar: Chloe has a gay admin who fills the “sassy gay assistant ” stereotype that the books could have done without.

Christina Lauren has a series, Wild Seasons, in the new adult romance genre which I recommend over the Beautiful books. Their writing just keeps getting better. A complete list of Christina Lauren’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.

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