The Admiral’s Penniless Bride by Carla Kelly

book review March 16, 2015 Leave a comment

As an author, Carla Kelly shows belief in people’s innate goodness, even when her characters are being buffeted about by the unpleasantness of the world. This faith in humanity creates an undercurrent of true kindness in all of her works which I really enjoy and appreciate. Things may go wrong, and for the heroine of The Admiral’s Penniless Bride events have been truly soul-crushing, but there is always hope.

The title does not mince words. Sally Paul is genuinely penniless when the book opens. Associated with a scandal not of her own making, she has lived hand-to-mouth working as a paid companion to the old and infirm for five years . Governesses’ children grow up, Sally’s elderly employers pass away. When her new charge shuffles off this mortal coil before Sally has even knocked on her door, her situation changes from desperate to drastic. Unpaid, she departs and uses the last of her coins to buy a cup of tea to nurse and keep warm in the town pub. Sally has nowhere to go and less means of getting there.

Newly retired, Admiral Sir Charles Bright gave his youth to his king and country fighting Napoleon. Spending literally years of his life at sea, he is, at 45 years old, now adrift on dry land. He has purchased a dilapidated and salaciously-appointed home for its marvelous sea view, but other than avoiding his sisters’ determination to marry him off right quick, he is at a loose end. When he sees Sally sitting in the pub, he notices both “a lovely neck” and that she is clearly underfed and in dire straights.  He arranges to feed her and joins her for the meal. They hit it off and he proposes a marriage of convenience. He has been left at the altar that very day and has a special license ready to go, so how about it? Sally says no.

Charles finds Sally again, this time getting ready to sleep in a local church, and repeats his polite suggestion of wedding as an excellent option for them both. Realising this is her only choice other than the workhouse, Sally agrees. However, the new Mrs. Bright avoids and then shrinks from revealing to Charles the truth behind her current circumstances. In between the marriage of convenience that becomes very convenient indeed and her forced revelation, things go very well. Charles and Sally build their own community by embracing the overlooked and abused souls around town. It’s an act of kindness from people who understand that life can be cruel.

Up to the breaking point, I really enjoyed The Admiral’s Penniless Bride. The easy rapport established between Charles and Sally was lovely without being saccharine and the reader could appreciate how their individual experiences fit them together so well. Unfortunately, the plot took its anticipated left turn and the disappointing denouement derailed the book. Charles reacts strongly to Sally’s betrayal and while it was a good plotting decision to have events turn out as they did, I was disappointed by Charles’ conduct and the way his actions were excused to bring on the happy ending.

My summary of Carla Kelly’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.

Julia Quinn’s Catalogue

book review March 13, 2015 Leave a comment

Themes: Marry your best friend, someone to laugh and play with.

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

The Lyndon Sisters:
Everything and the Moon
Brighter Than the Sun

Agents of the Crown:
To Catch an Heiress – I haven’t read it.
How to Marry a Marquis – very enjoyable, plus Lady Danbury!

The Bridgertons:
The Duke and I – Julia Quinn Very good, the ending had a bit too much sturm and drang for me.
The Viscount Who Loved Me – They are a well-matched couple. Great sparring.
An Offer from a Gentleman – A Cinderella story, my first Quinn, absolutely delightful.
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton – Classic of the wallflower winning variety.
To Sir Phillip, With Love – Not up to the same standards as the rest, but has some nice moments.
When He Was Wicked – An unsuccessful attempt at a change in tone. I hated it.
It’s in His Kiss – Charming and a hoot, might be a classic of the breezy and winning variety.
On the Way to the Wedding – Still good, but the others are better
The Bridgertons – Happily Ever After – Follow up novella for everyone, even Violet

The Bevelstoke Series:
The Secret Diary of Miranda Cheever – haven’t read it
What Happens In London – sweet
Ten Things I Love About You – fun

Smyth-Smith Quartet:
Just Like Heaven – meh
A Night Like This – meh
The Sum of All Kisses – light and lovely
The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy – surprisingly histrionic

Jennifer Ashley’s Catalogue

book review March 13, 2015 Leave a comment

Themes: Ashley writes about the redemptive power of love and that it heals all wounds.

Ashley is a prolific author with more than one pen-name. I do not read her other works, and I don’t necessarily recommend these ones, but I have read every single one. I lovehate her.

The Mackenzie Series – Historical Romances:

The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie – No, but sometimes yes, when I feel like it. He loves her so.
Lady Isabella’s Scandalous Marriage – Occasionally.
The Many Sins of Lord Cameron – Guilty pleasure. I just really like it, okay?
The Duke’s Perfect Wife – No. I loathe the hero.
A Mackenzie Family Christmas: The Perfect Gift – Visits with the ones I like and the ones I don’t.
The Seduction of Elliott McBride – No, I’m proud of the review though.
The Untamed Mackenzie  – novella – NO. Don’t.
The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie – No, but very almost yes, so maybe, plus Lord Cameron.
Scandal and the Duchess – Quite fun, enjoyable novella.
Rules for a Proper Governess – Nothing special.
A Mackenzie Clan Gathering – Awful and not even a romance.
The Stolen Mackenzie Bride – 1745? Nope!

The Mackenzie Series: Rules for a Proper Governess by Jennifer Ashley

book review March 13, 2015 Leave a comment

Foxy Mary Poppins!

That’s as far as I got in my review last October and it does really say it all about this entry in Jennifer Ashley’s frequently overwrought, yet personally strangely compelling and habit-forming, Mackenzie historical romance series. I read ALL of her Mackenzie stories and yet I don’t recommend any of them. I lovehate them. Why both? Because Ashley excels at moments of sincere romance while simultaneously over-plotting her novels, thus turning them into melodrama. They have gotten better in time, but Rules for a Proper Governess featuring the Mackenzie in-law McBride family was forgettable. I’ll re-read my guilty histrionic pleasure Many Sins of Cameron Mackenzie instead.

Widowed barrister Sinclair McBride has a busy criminal law practice; two beloved, out-of-control children; and a chaotic home life. He’s swamped. Roberta, “Bertie”, Frasier is a pickpocket with a heart-of-gold and light speed fingers. Bertie falls under Sinclair’s spell watching him in court and when she “accidentally” runs into him later, sparks fly and a pocket watch disappears. Hijinks ensue, Bertie ends up as governess to Sinclair’s lost and motherless children (which Ashley overplays), and everyone falls in love in a manner appropriate to their respective relationships.

Why is it that in fiction there is always a Magical Caregiver who can waltz in and immediately meet all of a child’s needs, inspire loyalty, understand her/him perfectly, and – this is the most incredible part – make them behave in a reasonable and logical fashion? It’s a trope I see all the time and it just strikes me as inane. I understand that it is a short-hand motherhood audition, but I would love a governess story wherein the nanny is inept, but their besotted father doesn’t give a toss and marries her anyway. Given the time period and the certainty of replacing the governess once the marriage takes place, surely all the spousal candidate needs to be is loving, kind, and willing to be a good step-parent to the children.

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.

La Vie en Roses Series: A Rose in Winter by Laura Florand

book review March 11, 2015 Comments: 2

As mentioned in my other reviews of her books, Laura Florand builds on fairy tales in her works and this one was no exception. Sometimes, I can’t quite tell which story she is referencing, and truth be told it doesn’t matter, but in this case it was Little Red Riding Hood. I know because it is quite explicit and Florand didn’t manage to tone it down as much as she did in other stories. At some point, I am going to have to make a list of what the allusions are, but I think I’ll need to brush up on my mythology first.

The first novella in Florand’s La Vie en Roses series, the reader is introduced to all the heroes yet to come and to the first match among them – Raoul and Allegra. He is the ex-pat son, recently returned to Provence from running the family business in Africa and she is a PhD student in immigration patterns studying the effects of local industry (perfume) on populations. She picks up vulpine Raoul in a bar and, wrapped in her red cloak, brings him to her home where she tells him that she doesn’t want to feel safe. After a toe-curling night together, the morning after falls apart and the two have to fight through their misconceptions to start a proper relationship.

You would think that the fantasy is that a one night stand will turn into a long-term relationship, but that is always possible, to me the true wish-fulfillment element of the book is that taking home a stranger twice as large and stronger than you could be something safe to do. However, everyone takes stupid risks in life and they can pay off just as this one does for Raoul and Allegra.

A Rose in Winter quite simply isn’t up to the same writing standard as the other Florand books I have read, even the one I didn’t like. I read it for free and back list completion purposes, but she has other, better books that I recommend highly for satisfying escapism. A complete summary of Laura Florand’s catalogue can be found here.

Romance novelist godhead Kathleen Woodiwiss also has a book called A Rose in Winter which for many years contained my favourite hero. I suspect there are other similarly titled books between that and this one, perhaps I should make a study.

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 Hooker and the Hermit by L.H. Cosway & Penny Reid

book review March 10, 2015 1 Comment

I have really enjoyed and recommend Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City Series and plan to try out other novels she writes, but this one confused me. It’s a bad sign when one is wondering if the contemporary romance one is reading is in some way meant to be the questionable elements of 50 Shades of Grey (which, admittedly, I haven’t read) done right. What a mess. I was making notes by the end of the first chapter.

Working with L.H. Cosway, Reid has written a book about a pig-adjacent man who falls in love with a woman who has major social anxiety issues. By day, Annie works for a PR firm. At twenty-three years old, and a recentish Masters graduate, I found her status as one of the best in the business silly. She *just* finished school. On the side, she writes a hugely successful and profitable blog for which she tracks down and secretly photographs male celebrities (she even gives tips on how to do so), then mocks their fashion choices. Ostensibly, this turns the tables on the way women in the media are criticized, but the fact that she hunts these people down and, unbeknownst to them, documents them was a record needle scratch for me. Moreover, I have some small experience in this area as part of an online community (Pajiba) for several years and having written for its website. From what I have seen, there is NO WAY Annie’s clever little posts are going to make her any kind of income without constant effort and hours of content creation on her part.

Ronan is an Irish professional rugby player taking time off after trying to feed a teammate his fist upon discovering the man’s infidelity with Ronan’s fiancee. Said woman, by the way, is a repellent, avaricious hoochie vilified in the way that anyone other than the good girl heroine is in questionable fiction. He was engaged to her after all, before she turned into a slutty, plastic-surgery-victim bad girl. Anywho, choosing New York City to lay low, Annie takes one of her privacy invading photos of Ronan and he responds to the resulting blog post. Simultaneously, his management wants his image to undergo a transformation and Annie is assigned to help him with social media and his public persona. Juxtaposing the work relationship – which involves pretending to date – and their blog-based email correspondence allows everyone to express their true feelings without taking too many risks. Annie is guilty of a lot of comeheregoaway, the authors are guilty of an inconsistent and confusing characterization.

It’s not that the book was badly written, Reid is always funny and articulate, it’s that I was surprised by the character choices. In addition to those issues, the [insert funky bassline here] left me a bit perplexed. Ronan has a kink that he is pleased to discover Annie shares; however, there’s enjoying sexual play and then there’s warning signs that you are being pursued by a potential abuser. The Hooker and the Hermit had both and I found that combination odd, as surely there is a difference between behavior in the bedroom and being a controlling boyfriend. Ronan says and does every single overly aggressive thing women complain about and it’s NOT CHARMING, especially for someone as social anxiety ridden as Annie is portrayed to be: he’s in her personal space, he cages her with his arms in an elevator, there’s inappropriate touching, comments on her physique (in a professional context no less), ignoring “no”, telling her there are “rules” now they are together. These are all red flags.

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.

Knitting in the City Series: Beauty and the Mustache by Penny Reid

book review March 9, 2015 Comments: 2

A HERO WITH A BEARD! My first lumbersexual after 3 years and 300 books. I may need a moment.

Penny Reid’s great Knitting in the City series continues with Beauty and the Mustache, a book that also happens to introduce a family of brothers (Cletus, Beauford, Jethro, Billy, Duane, and Roscoe) set for their own stories. They all have beards, too! Huzzah!

Ashley Winston is a nurse living in Chicago and she has just come home to rural Tennessee to learn why her mother is not returning her calls. She’s in hospital, no one has been allowed to see her, but Ashley is let in only to learn that her mother is dying. The story follows her mother’s decline and Ashley’s incipient relationship with Drew Runous, although the two never overlap inappropriately. She has never met Drew before, but she’s been gone for 8 years and missed the period in which he developed close ties to her family and, in particular, her mother.

Beauty and the Mustache starts out with regional stereotypes and moves on from there. Ashley’s memory of her six brothers as a group of troublemakers who tormented her during a difficult childhood is inconsistent with the present. She clawed her way out of her limited life in Tennessee and everyone has grown up since then, including Ashley, so now she has to figure out what she wants and where she wants to be.

Game warden Drew is a classic protector/warrior hero and like all Reid’s men fits neatly into an idealized male type. He is the still water that runs deep, a mountain man with a PhD and the soul of a poet. He has issues from his childhood, too, but he is a good, honest, and trustworthy man. As Ashley observes, he is also “fiction handsome” and “romance novel”/”viking conqueror” gorgeous. Tall, muscular, be-plaided, deep, and bearded. Sign. Me. Up.

Each chapter starts with a quote appropriate to the story and, as I happen to collect quotations, I loved this element. Told from Ashley’s perspective, but with Reid’s usual inclusion of the hero’s voice in the final chapter, the book performed a nice balancing act with Ashley’s emotional turmoil about losing her mother and Drew’s sudden presence in her life. The final portion of the story had some of the heightened reality that each of the Knitting in the City books has when things take a turn for over-the-top, but Reid somehow manages to prevent it derailing the plot, likely because I am so involved by that point that I just go with it.

I will continue to read Reid’s series. The female friendships are a delight, each of the women have a distinct personality and their relationships have the closeness that I have experienced in my own life. Also, having gone through a somewhat similar parental death, I thought those elements of Beauty and the Mustache rang true, even if they did make me want to cry.

The next book in the Winston Brothers series, Truth or Beard, was not as strong.

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 Backup Boyfriend, The Boyfriend Mandate, & Brad’s Bachelor Party by River Jaymes

book review March 9, 2015 Leave a comment

I found these contemporary romances through the magic of KindleUnlimited. The Backup Boyfriend and The Boyfriend Mandate are the first two books in the Boyfriend Series by River Jaymes which also includes Brad’s Bachelor Party (see way below) and the upcoming novel The Boyfriend Makeover.

The Backup Boyfriend

Opting against the more traditional tattoo or radical haircut, Alec responds to his break up with Tyler by going full-on midlife crisis and buying a vintage motorcycle. He’s done all of the research and none of the riding which is why he ends up pushing the bike into Dylan’s garage. A misunderstanding, and the lightning fast presence of a man in Tyler’s life, leads to a Boyfriend of Convenience plot with Dylan playing at being Alec’s new beau. Being a romance, the playing part soon takes on a different meaning, but the boyfriend part takes a bit longer as they move from fraud, to a one-night stand, to what is this we are doing exactly?, to a relationship.

The obstacles that Alec and Dylan face are their own baggage. Alec has been busy trying to be the perfect son and Dylan has a painful past and issues of sexual identity to struggle with. They find their way and resolve everything in time for Alec’s ex-boyfriend Tyler to have his chance at lasting love.

The Boyfriend Mandate

Tyler and Memphis (!) were roommates in university who had a two-year relationship before Memphis walked away without a backward glance. They both moved on with their lives, Tyler to a long-term but now over relationship with Alec, and Memphis to a marriage which has ended in divorce. Thrown back together by Maguffiny plot machinations, they work their way through their old hurts and toward finding a new life together.

Memphis (again, I say, “!”) is a stuntman/underwear model (that warrants another “!”) whose personal life (read: sexual identity) is under scrutiny in the press, a fact that amuses him until Tyler and his ex-wife are drawn into the fray. Finding ways to provoke Tyler into letting down his guard, and thus release his emotions, allows Memphis the same freedom to deal with their horrible breakup and how they can be together again now that they have both grown up.

These books are fairly standard romances with a heightened reality about financially secure, beautiful people finding love. In both novels, one of the partners addresses his identity as a bisexual and I would welcome an LGBT romance in which both characters are secure in this aspect of his or herself from the outset and with no wrangling involved and sticking to just two people falling in love.

Sidebar: The love scenes in the books, while they were incredibly

blanche

I did not actually find them all that romantic, and because, as Paul Reiser once said on Mad About You, “I agree with both of them,”, I did wonder if I was fetishizing a M/M relationship in much the same way popular culture so often does with two women. It made me feel a little icky when I looked at it from that perspective, but it didn’t stop me from reading… even when it should have for general quality reasons which brings me to Brad’s Bachelor Party.

The title says most of it and the rest you can likely guess. Brad is getting married in Hawaii and the festivities are a chance for him to spend time with his closest friends, including Cole. While college roommates, Brad was attracted to Cole, but when he made a move Brad freaked out and the friendship was severed. Coming back together during a family emergency, their friendship was rekindled and nothing hinted at romance for them until too much time in close proximity tipped the scales.

Brad’s Bachelor Party was a middling romance novella. Everything about it was okay and nothing about it was special or interesting. Cole and Brad find their way to each other at just about the worst possible moment, but it works out well in the end. I did wonder about the poor jilted virtually invisible fiancee though. I hope she finds a nice man just like Brad did.

LGBT 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.

Carla Kelly’s Catalogue

book review March 8, 2015 Leave a comment

Themes: Carla Kelly believes that people are innately good and their kindness will surprise you even when life is painful.

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

The Sisters Trilogy:
Marrying the Captain – very good
The Surgeon’s Lady – very good, gore warning
Marrying the Royal Marine – very good, my favourite of the three

Standalone Books (as far as I know):
The Lady’s Companion – just lovely
With This Ring – some annoying plotting
Miss Whittier Makes a List – very good
Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand – sweet, enjoyable
Reforming Lord Ragsdale – no
The Admiral’s Penniless Bride – great start, disappointing ending
The Wedding Journey – wartime adventure with a military surgeon, very good
Libby’s London Merchant – unusual hero, very good, nice twist
One Good Turn – follow up to Libby’s London Merchant – nothing special
Beau Crusoe – interesting and good

Muscling Through by J.L. Merrow

book review February 18, 2015 Leave a comment

I was loaned J.L. Merrow’s contemporary romance Muscling Through by my friend Katie after reading her review of the book. She really liked the story and gave it a positive appraisal. Mine will be less so. It was a quick read, which is good, and I would be delighted to read a M/M romance novel well done, but Muscling Through is not that book.

Al and Larry, bearers of the two least romance-novel-sounding names of all time, meet when Al helps a very drunk and nervous Larry home from a bar. Larry is soused enough, and Al big and intimidating enough, to think he is being threatened in some way. This is, of course, not the case which is why the story is a Meet Cute and not a Call Cops. The novella is told entirely from the perspective of Al, including Larry’s initial terrified reaction to him. He is a giant lug who works in Cambridge renting out boats for punting on the Cam. Larry is an art history professor at the university. J.L. Merrow took the opposites attract trope and stretched it like taffy to accommodate the story. Al may be a very nice, but the man is a different sort of hero.

“some comedy repeat on Dave. I like the repeats ’cause it’s easier to get the jokes the second time.”

“We started our honeymoon in Florence, which is this really pretty town in Italy. That’s in Europe.”

Let’s break the second quote down: Al explains that one of the most famous cities in the world is in Italy. Then, this man from the U.K., a part of the European Union, clarifies that Italy is in Europe in case that is new information for the reader and suggesting it might have been new information for him as well. That represents a lot issues and the whole novella is the same. Al misunderstands people, misreads or plain misses context clues, so that by telling the story exclusively from Al’s perspective, Merrow limits the novella as well.

I spent Muscling Through trying to figure out to what degree Al was not very bright or actually challenged. Then I wondered if I was a horrible person for thinking that Al’s limitations made the romance unrealistic. (Yes, I am.) Was Larry taking advantage of Al in some way? (Clearly not.) Who wouldn’t want to date a human teddy bear? Why couldn’t Larry find Al attractive beyond a physical relationship? How big of a monster am I? Am I going straight to Hell? Is there some way I can turn this around to make it all the fault of the author so as to avoid feeling guilty or like an insensitive cow?

Maybe Merrow was aiming for Joey Tribbiani territory – not so bright, but a sweet and lovely guy – and overshot, but it disrupted the entire reading experience for me. I suspect that falling in love in spite of challenges might be the point of Muscling Through; to show love through one person’s eyes as that is the way we see it in our own relationships, but I am just not enough of a mensch to get past Al’s limited viewpoint. My internal dialogue became a political debate about whether his intellectual limitations crossed some undefinable line into potential exploitation or diminished decision-making capacity. If the reader had been given Larry’s viewpoint, it might have made more sense, but I was left with only Al to go on and he was not a successful narrator, but a confused one.

LGBT 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.