And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke

book review October 26, 2015 Leave a comment

Laura Lee Guhrke is usually a fallback author for me, with Lorraine Heath and Eloisa James, but All About Romance publishes an annual list of their readership’s top romances of all time and I had seen And Then He Kissed Her on it a few years ago, so this historical romance had been on my personal wish list for a while. Recently, it came up on Amazon for $1.99 and I snapped it up immediately. It did not disappoint.

Emmaline Dove (GREAT name) has been the personal secretary to handsome, divorced Harry the Earl for five years. Subsuming herself to her role, she is everything he needs her to be and he, of course,  takes her for granted. Having written and submitted five etiquette books to him, which he always refuses to publish, Emma’s final straw comes when she realises that Harry has never actually read any of her books before rejecting them. She quits. He panics. She gets a job writing etiquette and household advice (read: late Victorian Martha Stewart) working for a competitor. He buys the competitor’s newspaper. They work together. Harry finally gets to know the real Emma, not the perfect secretary version she portrayed for her job. They fall in love and each is freed from their misconceptions about themselves and their lives. Lovely.

When I started And Then He Kissed Her, I feared it would be a Victorian office romance, but it avoided that pitfall and was a great genre read. Harry and Emma had strong chemistry and the story was by turns sweet, funny, and sexy. There were some hodge-podgey historical elements that irked me a bit, such as Harry admonishing Emma to be her own person and do what she wants in life to which one of the voices in my head replied, “Easy for you to say rich, male, aristocratic person who can do whatever the hell you want!”, but my quibbles were not any great detriment to the story. It was an enjoyable read and one I suspect I will revisit. Plus, as I had hoped, the title of the book does occur in the text and it was wonderfully timed.

Laura Lee Guhrke reviews: When the Marquess Met His Match and How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days

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 Fifteenth Minute by Sarina Bowen

book review October 23, 2015 Leave a comment

The final book in Sarina Bowen’s Ivy Series is a bit of a head scratcher and one in which the author’s intent seemed clear, but I don’t think she managed the very delicate balancing act she had decided to undertake, but first let me praise the other five books in the Ivy Years series and emphatically recommend buying all of them immediately:

  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 – Perfect novella: Short, sweet, 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.”

As to The Fifteenth Minute, let me sum up my response with a picture of a word and its synonyms:

ambivalent

Lianne Challice is a child star whose fame comes from an ongoing series of movies about a character called Princess Vindi. Striking out on her own and trying to grow up by attending an Ivy League school, she first appeared in The Shameless Hour and I was happy to learn she was getting her own book. Happier still was I when I started reading and it was mentioned that Lianne, who is no bigger than a minute, would have logically proportioned beloved in DJ Trevi, who I took to be of average male height. Great start. Lianne wants her independence and to grow as an adult in her career, DJ just wants that false date rape accusation to go away.

Were you able to spot where the ambivalence came in? Are you, like me, AMAZED at the ovaries on Sarina Bowen for taking up a false rape accusation plot after dealing so beautifully with slut-shaming in the previous novels? I mean DJ’s not guilty, right? Sometimes, the guys aren’t guilty, right? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? I don’t care if he’s not guilty, or that he’s a nice guy. I don’t care because I spent the ENTIRE book wondering what on earth Bowen’s intention was. Was it to spotlight the relentlessly inept way that accusations of sexual assault are handled on university and college campuses? Was it? Because, to me, it was all about how much some people claim that women make false sexual assault accusations, although the statistics on reported rapes tell a very different story, and this was an entire subplot about that very thing.

I didn’t even mind DJ. He had wrestled with the accusation and was keeping himself sane by clinging to what he knew to be true.  It was the center of his existence and he was persevering until he got his day in college court. Lianne continued to delight. They had great chemistry and made sense as a couple. Too bad I couldn’t pay attention to that part because having a story line in which a young, vulnerable woman makes false accusations to preserve her reputation is EXACTLY THE THING WOMEN ARE OFTEN ACCUSED OF and we don’t really need a book reinforcing that notion, least of all in a genre written almost exclusively by and for women. All those poor helpless guys who just thought they were getting their rocks off and then some witch turned around and accused him of a horrible crime because she was embarrassed. Why, Sarina Bowen, why?

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 Silver Locket by Margaret James

book review October 19, 2015 Leave a comment

Young, rich, and pretty Rose Courteney lives with her stifling family in rural England. When it becomes clear that her path is to marry to please her parents, she takes her fate into her own hands. Just 18, she lies about her age to volunteer as a military nurse in London at the outset of World War I. Gaining experience and skill, she is thrilled to be sent to France to work in field hospitals. Despite this, she is never quite able to fully escape her family politics or their cloying expectations.

Alex Denham has been interested in Rose for a long time, they’ve known each other forever, but the circumstances surrounding his birth (he’s a bastard who was accepted and loved by his mother’s cuckolded husband) render him socially unacceptable. Part of the regular army, at the outset of the war he is shipped to France to slog through years of battle, wounds, recovery, and returning to the front.

The Silver Locket was a change of romance pace for me. Rose and Alex’s coming together took a long time and they spent months at a time apart as they each play their rolls in the war. The novel is more her story than his and details of the circumstances in which the nurses worked were really interesting to me and an area of war history about which I was happy to learn. James also realistically portrays the overall vulnerability and the limitations placed on women at the time – even those serving their country. Further, it’s harrowing watching the timeline crawl along as the four years of the war slowly pass, or realising with horror that the new battlefront means that a bloodbath is coming.

Neither Rose, nor Alex come through the war unscathed and it strips everything away from them but their essentials. The societal judgments and accusation, especially from those on the home-front, seem foolish and provincial considering what they have endured. The Silver Locket was only the first in the Charton Minster series which has five books about successive generations. I don’t plan on reading more from the series, as I like a little more romance in my genre fiction, but as a historical novel with a romance it may appeal to you.

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 Pennyroyal Green Series: The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Anne Long

book review October 19, 2015 Leave a comment

Having read Julie Anne Long’s eleven book Regency romance Pennyroyal Green series, I am not really in a position to judge how this novel reads as a standalone, but as a long-awaited end to the series, I have but two syllables: BRAVO! Somehow The Legend of Lyon Redmond manages to be both epic in the way required of its buildup and personal in its sweet and believable love story. What’s more, Long successfully tied up every single loose end I could think of from the preceding books. I can’t imagine the planning and plotting involved.

As the two big fish in the small pond of Pennyroyal Green, Sussex, the Redmond and Eversea families are centuries-long rivals for fame and fortune.  They also share a legend that once in every generation, there will be a pair of star-crossed lovers in their rival folds. In the current generation, it is eldest son Lyon Redmond and eldest daughter Olivia Eversea. Like Romeo and Juliet, they spy each other across a crowded room and are instantly, overwhelmingly drawn to each other. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, they do not die owing to a Big Misunderstanding; however, when their secret relationship is discovered it ends with Lyon disappearing for five years. Nothing is known of his whereabouts or what on earth Olivia did to make him leave, so this thread of the missing son and the self-contained, possibly pining woman has woven through the first 10 books. Olivia and Lyon have had character development over the series, so when Olivia decided to moved on and take a suitor, readers knew their end was in sight.

The Legend of Lyon Redmond starts with Olivia preparing for her wedding to an incredibly patient man, Lord Landsdowne, and then flashes back and forth to her relationship with Lyon and the eventual final straw that drove him away.  I loved it. The juxtaposition of who they were then and are now was a great display of character development, particularly hers. Lyon may have gained a reputation as a mystery man, and possible pirate, but Olivia has been living under the weight of her role as a jilted woman, and consequently a matrimonial prize, for years and she has been worn down by it.

Long is always a funny, clever writer, but she sometimes leans towards the twee. That was not the case with The Legend of Lyon Redmond. What I found instead was that she seemed to be giving the historical romance genre and its tropes a big, enthusiastic kiss. I greeted so many of the events with a delighted “of course!” as Long used many standard romance turns, but the joy was in recognizing and embracing them while they were happening. They ALL work because the reader is in on the joke (such sounds of glee, I made), knows what is going on, and because the emotional connection between Lyon and Olivia is written so sincerely and is so completely understandable. Thank you, Julie Anne Long. The Legend of Lyon Redmond  was a long hoped-for gift wrapped with a beautiful bow.

A complete summary of Julie Anne Long’s catalogue, with recommendations and a ranked order of the Pennyroyal Green series, 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.

 

Friends with Partial Benefits by Luke Young

book review October 19, 2015 Leave a comment

If this book was half as saucy and funny as it thinks it is, Luke Young could make a fortune. Wait. According to Amazon: Over 1.4 million eBooks downloaded! With the sixth and final book released, now is the time to start the hilarious and sexy Friends With Benefits series. Seriously? I’m going to go rethink my life. The book review proper will continue when I return.

[musical interlude]

From Amazon: Jillian Grayson is a disillusioned divorcée and best-selling romance novelist who suddenly can’t write a chapter without her hunky male heartthrob suffering ED, an STD, or even worse. Brian Nash is a tennis-obsessed college senior who’s unlucky in love and the roommate and best friend of Jillian’s son, Rob. When Rob brings Brian home for Spring Break, and Brian meets the surprisingly young and tennis passionate Jillian, their shared interest quickly develops into an intense mutual attraction. After nearly giving in to their feelings, they hatch a plan, while under the influence (of something more than just the perfect Miami night), to be Friends With Partial Benefits, complete with rules to define the boundaries. Will the lonely pair continue with this distinctive relationship, actually explore their desires, or discover all of it is a really bad idea?

Totally unsurprising spoiler: Yes, she’s 40, but he turns out to be 27.

I read a Danielle Steele novel, once. I think it was her, it might have been Jackie Collins. Whatever the awfulness was, I remember the “novel” as essentially a plot summary with clothing descriptions. Friends with Partial Benefits wasn’t that bad or as much of an offense to the stringing of words together, but it was simply some banter with a suggestion of naughtiness and glimpses of coitus. There was a framework of plot, rather than an actual narrative, and gestures of winking mischievousness in the characters’ exploits: Jillian and Brian find each other hot and desperately fight their attraction for a week or so. Jillian’s widowed friend is sex-crazed and boffing her way through the neighbourhood. There are sundry hijinks involving Jillian’s son and a young woman from college who both said son and Brian, our hero, are interested in. Co-eds claim to be both more and less experienced than they are and there are some questionable slut-shamey attitudes towards this. There’s mention of buttstuff that’s meant, I believe, to upgrade the playful wickedness angle, but Friends with Partial Benefits never committed fully to being either an erotic romp or a romance and therefore fell flat, a softcore pornographic movie in novel form.

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

Not You It’s Me by Julie Johnson

book review October 18, 2015 Leave a comment

Not You It’s Me started well with a playful tone, but Julie Johnson’s contemporary romance quickly descended into over-the-top plotting that gives Queen of Histrionica (and admitted personal guilty pleasure) Jennifer Ashley a run for her money.

Gemma Summers is in a boring relationship that she hopes to spice up with free courtside basketball tickets, but things go awry when she and jerkface land on the kisscam and he ignores her. Embarrassed, Gemma finds herself swept into a massive clinch by the gentleman sitting next to her. He’s ever so dreamy and just happens to be a reclusive billionaire recently returned from 5 years in self-exile. He’s warm for Gemma’s form, but tells her he doesn’t date. Charming, right? Great start and an excellent execution of a romance trope that should proceed apace. Groundwork laid, the plot makes a sharp left and careens towards crazy town. Gemma and Chase are talked about in the media, Gemma’s awful boyfriend becomes a meme, and faster than you can say, “too many plot elements”, or “the tone does not match the events contained herein”, EVERYTHING spirals out of control and Gemma’s life is subsumed by Chase’s business and family issues. There are:

  1. a mentally unstable cousin (and secret brother!) who resents Chase’s success and has violent, manipulative tendencies, such as murdering Chase’s favourite horse as a child and
  2. hiring a woman to “fall in love” with Chase during college so that the cousin can spy on Chase before she breaks his heart on command, but
  3. she remains obsessed with Chase and makes threatening phone calls to Gemma at the first hint of relationship and
  4. works with Gemma’s gormless ex-boyfriend who has transformed from a run-of-the-mill cheater into an enraged threat to her life who destroys Gemma’s apartment so that
  5. she has to move into Chase’s penthouse for her own protection and bring what can be salvaged from her apartment, although it’s him who makes this determination for her by hiring strangers to sort through her things and trash whatever is ruined.

Things ESCALATE from there, but you get the idea, and it all takes place over a matter of days and before Gemma and Chase have established a relationship beyond each thinking the other is fun to kiss. Gemma takes it all ludicrously in stride. What started as a charming meet cute, and despite a light touch in the writing, turns into two people fighting for their lives together, even though Gemma is the only one of the two main characters acting in a rational fashion. Chase is right, he is in no position to date – hence the title – and she should RUN AS FAR AND AS FAST AS SHE CAN preferably with government protection.

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 Wild Seasons Series: Sweet Filthy Boy, Dirty Rowdy Thing, and Dark Wild Night by Christina Lauren

book review October 15, 2015 Leave a comment

With the Wild Seasons series, the writing team known as Christina Lauren is hitting its stride. Stronger than the Beautiful series, each of these books features one of three childhood friends who have just finished university and are figuring out where their lives will go next. When a weekend in Vegas turns into three impulsive marriages, Mia, Harlow, and Lola react differently by staying married, getting it on then getting it annulled, and getting started on the annulment immediately. Lauren’s fun female friendships are included here, as well as the delicious men they write so well. As erotic romance, the Wild Series does not shy away from sex, but they strike a good balance with the sincere emotion necessary to make the stories work. As with the Beautiful Series, each couple has bedroom predilections that feature heavily in their sex life.

Sweet Filthy Boy (Ansel/Mia)

Mia spots Ansel across a crowded room and is instantly smitten, as is he. She had been on track for a dancing career before a terrible car accident, and having graduated with her Bachelors’ degree is staring down an MBA program she doesn’t want to attend, but has been cowed into by her domineering father. Her last hurrah weekend turns into a summer in Paris when she marries Ansel on impulse when their friends marry each other as well. “Half Adonis, half puppy,” and French, Ansel is absolutely adorable. Fun and impulsive, he encourages Mia to be with him for the summer; in fact, she made him promise not to get an annulment when they got married which he remembers, but she does not. A sensible woman, if a little lost, Mia rejects the suggestion of a summer in Paris before coming to her senses and showing up at the airport before the flight. They have a wonderful time, even if he is working constantly, until Ansel makes a big mess of things. Luckily, stupidity can be fixed with apologies and lessons learned, so these two crazy kids work things out.

Ansel was my favourite of the heroes, but this was not the best book in the series. Mia and Ansel’s courtship includes evenings of roleplay, but, while fun, they could have used more regular relationship building time. Sweet Filthy Boy is still very much a recommended read, as is the whole series, including my anticipated purchases of the entries that haven’t been published yet.

Dirty Rowdy Thing (Finn/Harlow)

This book as B and some light D, but neither S, nor M. Frankly, I found the love scenes boring. I get it. There was rope.  They both like it. Moving on.

Finn and Harlow married impulsively just like their friends, but after enjoying their wedding night, they sensibly divorced. There followed one more weekend together on Vancouver Island (when Finn resides) before Finn makes a trip to San Diego (Harlow’s stomping grounds) for business purposes. They reconnect at a party and find that they really enjoy each other. As with their friends Mia and Ansel (who pop up on the regular), they each have some information that should have been shared sooner rather than later and this causes the schism that leads to their inevitable reconciliation.

Dirty Rowdy Thing features great banter and Harlow is a take-no-prisoners pip.

Dark Wild Night (Oliver/Lola)

I’d say that Lola and Oliver are they sensible ones of the group of friends, but everyone is pretty grounded. Let’s say they are the quiet ones, stalwart and self-contained with a private wild edge. Oliver is Australian, Lola American, but, unlike their counterparts, they live in the same city.

Oliver is the protector type  – gentleman on the streets, wild man between the sheets – as well as the quintessential sexy nerd. He’s tall, he’s handsome and fit, he has floppy hair, he wears glasses, and he has just opened a comic book store. That sound you just heard is the sigh of a thousand fangirls finding their perfect romance hero. Sorry ladies, he’s taken. Oliver may have married Lola on a dare, but he started to fall for her immediately thereafter, so when Dark Wild Night opens, he is an absolute goner. She is oblivious to his affections, but not immune to his charms. Lola is very caught up in having her first graphic novel not only being published, but optioned for a movie as well. She’s flustered and overwhelmed and, in the way that life has of throwing everything at one all at once, this is when she decides to act on her Oliver crush. Things move fast and she gets overwhelmed, leading to a very awkward situation. Breaking up with your best friend and within a tight-knit circle of friends is the opposite of fun. Don’t worry, sweet, steady, surprisingly-loud-in-the-sack Oliver will help her figure things out as she finds the balance she needs.

I have pre-ordered the next Wild Seasons book Wicked Sexy Liar.

Sidebar: What is with all the slapping, bruising, and biting during coitus in these books? Do the authors realise how HARD one has to hit, squeeze, or bite to leave marks hours later? Ouch. Also, why does everyone have to SCREAM in ecstasy and do so loudly enough they can be heard from a great distance? What is up with that? We GET it. They are having sex, really hot, intense, mind-blowing sex. Pipe down.

Reviews of Christina Lauren’s Beautiful Series can be found here and here. 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.

Insatiable I and II by J.D. Hawkins

book review September 29, 2015 Leave a comment

Ladies and gentlemen, I have read about 400 romance novels and seen a lot of tropes, but Insatiable has done it. The hero of this book achieves CLICHE APOTHEOSIS. He is arrogance in human form, a vain, cocksure stereotype.

Insatiable II: Insatiabler was the obvious title for the second book in this duet and a missed opportunity on Amazon’s part, but I’ll still let them set the tone:

Lust-maker. Pleasure giver. Fantasy creator. I can blow your mind in five seconds flat — but trust me, you’ll want this to last all night.

There’s not a woman in the city who can resist me. Except one.

Now she’s got a proposition: Seven days. Every position. No strings attached.

She wants to know what she’s been missing.

Who am I to say no?

Hero Person lives in the most superificial city on earth, Los Angeles, and somehow raises the narcissism bar. Slutboy is perfect looking and clueless, a parody of a confident, successful man. He sends the heroine a picture of his abs while he works out. Faithless Jaden talks about women the way we worry men talk about us by reducing us to our body parts and manifest bangability. His best friend is a dudebro. They surf and choose which chicks on the beach they’re gonna bang. They do the same in bars, but only with the world’s choicest pieces of ass. All of the women stop whatever they are doing whenever Machismo Moron walks into a room, as well as a certain percentage of the men, one assumes. King Stud is the one every man wants to be and every woman wants to be with. Just ask him, he’ll tell you, and if you’re lucky, he’ll magnanimously choose to sleep with you. Tool Time is rich and glamourous, a celebrated architect who built his life up from nothing according to the three seconds of half-assed sympathetic backstory he shares.

Manwhore stops in his tracks when he sees Lizzie, but she’s not single. Don’t worry, the second she is, they get it on. He was about to share his Little Manwhore with another woman, but he casts that loser aside. Lizzie and Cologne Ad start to get busy on their host’s bed at a party because that is how classy grown-ass humans conduct themselves. Vainglorious Asshat is mesmerized by Lizzie and the way she can use him and leave. But wait. She wants something more and he’s fascinated, so the Reformation of a Rake and a Marriage of Convenience turns into the Pig Becomes a Person and Fuck Lessons. She can’t believe her luck. Preenboy is so amazing and he’s chosen her! He’s universally attractive, movie star handsome, and ripped. He even drives a Ferrari. (Red? “Do I look like an amateur?”)

Lizzie has just gotten out of a long-term relationship and wants to learn to be the world’s best lay so she can hold on to the next one. Not that the last one was worth keeping, but the story needed a dated, sexist cliche to latch onto to justify the temporary relationship. Douchecanoe is just the one to teach her the superficial skills she needs to please a man. When Lizzie meets a new guy, of course, he turns out to be all that is boring, traditional, and repressed. Because in all the world, there are only two men: the kind of guy who tosses your salad in a utility closet at a friend’s wedding to show up your ex and his new girlfriend (actual scene) and the beige guy in chinos. But wait. Lizzie’s magical ladyland becomes all Funky Jockstrap can think about. They’ve been together for three days of coitus, he’s managed to sabotage her new relationship, and now he wants a commitment. Can Lizzie trust Lounge Lizard? Can Boastful Beefcake be what she needs?

This story has been done well before. Many times. What those books have and these books lack is a sincere emotional connection for the leads to build on and, no, having relations slowly while  looking each other in the eye doesn’t count.

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

Bait by M. Mabie

book review September 27, 2015 Leave a comment

I HATED THIS BOOK AND ITS SO-CALLED CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE AND THE MAIN CHARACTERS ARE AWFUL, SELFISH PEOPLE AND I HATE THEM.

A man and woman meet when she is on the verge of getting engaged to her long-term, perfectly nice, boyfriend. Man and woman spark and decide to hook up. They go on with their lives and strike up an increasingly inappropriate, emotional infidelity based, long-distance quote friendship unquote. When they are in the same city they boff, then she goes back to her decent. loyal boyfriend. Then she gets engaged to said boyfriend, so she and the man have one last goodbye boff. Then the woman MARRIES her boyfriend, even after the man shows up on her wedding day begging her not to.  SHE STAYS MARRIED. Man and woman keep their distance until man’s mum dies and woman comes to secretly stay with and comfort him while still MARRIED to SOMEONE ELSE.

I stopped reading Bait about 80% of the way through and discovered that this bullshit continues for two more books – which I did not read – and, from what I previewed, the woman’s nice husband turns into a horrible person as well, I suspect as some sort of device meant to make it not so bad that the man and woman have behaved abominably and it FAILS MISERABLY. Theirs is not some tragic love, their bond defying convention and time. They are vile people indulging themselves at the expense of their ethical obligations as grown ups. Man comes off slightly better than woman, but not by much. Neither one is actually making a sincere effort to live honourably. Breaking up with your nice boyfriend is hard, but not complicated. Marrying him because it is sensible and practical is selfish and mean.

The only bright spot in this book was discovering that there is a cheesecake store in Seattle called “The Confectional” which may be the best bakery name I have ever heard other than the one I have called dibs on for myself: The Butter Tart.

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

Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas

book review September 15, 2015 Leave a comment

Again the Magic  has all of the trademark Kleypas smolder and charm, but a plotting issue which I feel gets in the way of the novel’s success and frustrated me again on my recent re-read; however, I have returned to the secondary plot several times as it has one of my favourite heroes and is, with The Heiress Effect, the historical romance for which I really wished a separate novella, or novel, had existed for the heroine’s sister.

Meeting as children, Lady Aline* Marsden and stable boy John McKenna were friends and then lovers (short of consummation) in their teens. Their secret was discovered and they were separated by her dastardly father. McKenna went to Brighton and, later, New York. Aline stayed home with her sister, Livia, and her brother, Marcus (of It Happened One Autumn).  In addition to the emotional blow of losing McKenna, Aline suffered a terrible accident which permanently disfigured her legs. At 31, she has never married and does not intend to. Livia, also unmarried, is still at home because her fiance died and she miscarried their child. First in a socially and then a self-imposed exile, Livia is just about ready to return to the land of the living.

With this set up, McKenna returns to the Marsden’s ancestral home. In the delicious manner of all Kleypas heroes, he is filthy rich, gorgeous, and sardonic; he also happens to be hell-bent on exacting revenge on Aline. You see, she pretended to reject him as beneath her to make him leave. McKenna’s plan is not a great one, just to “use her and leave her”, but the reader knows that these star-crossed lovers are going to get a second chance. The problem with Again The Magic  is that he’s just so grumpy and she’s so stubborn. Her friend actually, specifically, accurately describes McKenna as “sturm” and Aline as “drang”. While their denouement was absolutely swoon-worthy, this is Kleypas after all, they were an annoying couple; HOWEVER…

Traveling with McKenna to the Marsden house party is a blonde god of an affluent American, Gideon Shaw. Seductive, proudly louche, and complicated, he and Livia run into each other and the spark is instant. The amount of love story and chemistry that Kleypas gives them in their brief appearances slayed me. I adore Gideon. He is a high-functioning alcoholic who is aware of his problem, but unsure of what to do, or if he wants to or is, indeed, able to do anything about it. Kind and wry, Livia changes his perspective, not because she magically heals him, but because he realises how much more he can have, if he becomes healthy. I found his character incredibly charismatic and alluring in the way that an alcoholic can be only be in a romance (or Thin Man) novel. Livia and Gideon’s love story did yeoman’s work of helping me get through the main plot. They were so sweet together, without ever being overly so, that I found myself waiting for them to reappear and engage me in the story.

A complete summary of Lisa Kleypas’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.

*Aline – Being uncertain of the author’s intended pronunciation of this name is the pebble in the shoe of my reading experience of Again the Magic.