Compromising Miss Tisdale by Jessica Jefferson

book review February 11, 2014 Leave a comment

As Compromising Miss Tisdale is Jessica Jefferson’s only entry on Amazon, I am guessing she is a new author just getting started. Congratulations to her on an excellent first novel. Her website lists three upcoming publications which will feature the eponymous Miss Tisdale’s sisters. They are introduced in this first effort and sound like they will be fun.

The novel starts well with Ambrosia Tisdale beginning her fourth season in/on the market for a husband. There is nothing wrong with her other than a desire to marry someone who will please her family and, this is the hitch, for love. It’s a tall order. Duncan, Lord Bristol, is one of those younger sons who have found himself possessed of a title when his brother unexpectedly shuffled off this mortal coil. Duncan has just returned from a family imposed exile when the story opens. Ambrosia is instantly drawn to him even though she thinks he is all wrong for her. Duncan is attracted to Ambrosia, but also needs her excellent reputation and sizable dowry to help restore his family’s reputation and coffers. Duncan decides it would be most efficient to simply compromise Ambrosia. It’s dueling tropes with the reformation of a rake versus a marriage of convenience. They have great chemistry and make sense as a couple.

Compromising Miss Tisdale is a promising debut and overall the writing is very good and creates the appropriate historical illusion; unfortunately, it gets interrupted by distracting word choices, grammatical issues, and editing errors. I would like to offer Ms. Jefferson some advice: You need to either fire your current editor and/or hire one. If you are self-publishing, I imagine there comes a point when you can’t look at your manuscript for one more second. Find someone knowledgeable and honest who can review your work for you. Your novels will be the better for it.

I have some notes:

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L’Amour et Chocolat Series: The Chocolate Heart by Laura Florand

book review February 9, 2014 Leave a comment

To borrow from a previous review:

The Chocolate Heart is book five in Laura Florand’s Amour et Chocolat series. The conceit of each novel is that an American woman is thrown into close proximity with a French chocolatier/pastry god. They fall in love quickly, get busy, and are engaged in short order. Florand provides consistently enjoyable escapism with romantic locations. The Chocolate Heart is not best of the series, that’s The Chocolate Touch, but The Chocolate Heart was certainly an absorbing and mostly entertaining read.

Summer Corey has been told all her life that she is spoiled and ungrateful. Her parents see her as property to be picked up and dropped as they see fit. The latest gambit in their cycle of attention and neglect is to give her a 4 star hotel in Paris as a Christmas gift. Their goal is to lure her back from the South Pacific island where she has been living and working as a teacher in blissful self-imposed exile. Summer must stay in Paris for three months to gain another expensive gift that she actually wants, a communications satellite something-or-other, for the island residents. She hates Paris, the hotel business, and dessert.

Luc Leroi is the charming perfectionist, and practically perfect in every way, head pastry chef at the hotel Summer has been given. He is driven and has worked relentlessly to reach the top of his profession and stay there. He’s only 30, but since he started when he was 10, it seems reasonable. He is always gorgeous and most of the time he manages to be charming, but Summer completely flummoxes him.

The Chocolate Heart has the most challenging of any of the American woman/French culinary deity combinations in these books. Summer is sympathetic, but not always likeable, and Luc is a victim of his own self-restraint. They are two wounded people hiding behind false fronts and suffering from painful miscommunication. Elements that had been successful in the preceding books reached an intensity that left me uncomfortable. Luc is so busy being in control that he becomes almost clinical and Summer is so vulnerable that it feels like she is being used. It’s not romantic, so much as really unhealthy. Florand seems to realise this, too, as the book has a lengthy “several years later” epilogue to let the reader know that Luc and Summer are in a better, healthier place.

I do not recommend The Chocolate Heart, except maybe to visit favourite characters from other books in the group. This is the complete series for those who want to know with (order of preference):

  1. The Chocolate Thief – Pretty good, it took me from 99 cents on Kindle to the complete series. (5)
  2. The Chocolate Kiss – A very good fairy tale that made me forgive the metaphor. (2)
  3. The Chocolate Rose – Excellent passion, it needed just a little more love story. (3)
  4. The Chocolate Touch – My favourite of the group, it was really sweet and intense. (1)
  5. The Chocolate Heart – The weakest of the group. (6)
  6. The Chocolate Temptation – Steamy, not quite as good, but still very readable. (4)

A complete summary of Laura Florand’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.

Nothing to Commend Her by Jo Barrett

book review February 5, 2014 Leave a comment

If Pride and Prejudice is the ultimate You Are Everything I Never Knew I Always Wanted romance, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca is the perfect illustration of what the romancerati refer to as The Big Misunderstanding. If at some point during their courtship or honeymoon, Maxim de Winter had managed to blurt out, “My wife was a vain, inconstant shrew and I loathed her, you little fool”, everyone would have been spared a lot of agita. Nothing to Commend Her has two Maxims and two The Second Mrs. de Winters. Both keeping secrets, both refusing to have basic conversations or ask simple questions that would clear everything up.

I wrote the preceding paragraph before I finished Nothing to Commend Her. I was taking a break from rolling my eyes and groaning. I often get review ideas while reading the book, such as a romance review template, and this time I planned one around the following elements:

  1. I got this book for free on Amazon.
  2. Jo Barrett is a new author because they often give books away to appeal to new readers. This was how I found this gem from Caroline Linden.
  3. As Barrett is a new author, I would write a constructive criticism review of her book with helpful hints for Ms. Barrett and her editor. I did that before with Shana Galen and Anya Wylde.
  4. I was going to be nice about it.

Then it turned out that Jo Barrett has published over thirty romances, both historical and contemporary, and now I can’t really see the use in pointing things out. She’s clearly making a living, so I’m just going to do this:

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The Wicked Wallflower by Maya Rodale

book review February 4, 2014 Leave a comment

Author Maya Rodale, who has previously inspired me to write a lengthy defense of romance novels, is currently balancing two series. The contemporary group (Billionaire Bad Boys) features a character who is writing her first historical romance. The Wicked Wallflower, from the historical group, is that romance. I purchased The Bad Boy Billionaire’s Wicked Arrangement for the low, low price of 99 cents on my Kindle thinking it was a novella when it was actually just an installment in the novel. It made for interesting reading as I kept projecting that story onto to this one.

In The Wicked Wallflower, Emma and her friends have become famous wallflowers. Despite that seeming oxymoron, the members of a gentleman’s club, White’s (it’s always White’s in a Regency romance), have labeled them “The Ladies Least Likely”. Lady Emma Avery is the least likely to misbehave and that is fine with her. What is not acceptable is that she and Benedict have been in love  for three years, but owing to financial considerations, they are not married or even engaged. In a tipsy lapse of judgment, Emma’s friends decide to end her suffering and write a false betrothal announcement for Emma and the most eligible man in town: Blake, Duke of Ashbrooke. Contretemps lead to the declaration being published in the newspaper.

Surprised, but seeing an opportunity, Blake decides to play along with the ruse as he needs someone just like Emma, or “Emily” as he calls her, to improve his reputation. In between his carousing and debauchery, the gorgeous Duke is working on an invention for which he needs funding. An obscene amount really, £50,000, for a calculating machine/primitive computer along the lines of what Charles Babbage proposed in the early part of the 19th century. (I don’t know stuff like that off the top of my head, Rodale explained it in an end note).  Conveniently, Blake has an Aunt Croesus who holds an annual competition to be made her sole heir. Blake convinces Emma to crash the contest with him thus throwing them into constant contact. The rake and the wallflower embark on an engagement of convenience.

The book was fine and passed the time pleasantly enough, but it didn’t have quite a enough energy or snap for me. More importantly, I was distracted by some of the pseudo-historical details, or lack thereof. If one wants a historical document, there’s always Jane Austen, but in romances published now a fine balance has to be struck between combining modern mores and viewpoints with the verisimilitude that’s required. The Wicked Wallflower took me out of its artificial reality too many times. There were lots of little details that irked, such as Blake and Emma traveling unchaperoned in a carriage; bare hands that I’m pretty sure would have been wearing gloves (it was a ball);  Emma’s mother planning a wedding to take place within a week despite a need to settle the marriage contract (mentioned in passing) and either calling the banns (three weeks in a row in church), or to get a special license (not mentioned). They can’t just get married. It’s not Las Vegas. There was anachronistic language usage as well, both “totally” and “epic” made appearances. I’ll skip the virgin to adventurous acts in the blink of an eye factor. Admittedly, I am using Wikipedia as my source of information,

cavill wikipedia cavill wikipedia

but the complaints are still valid and details like this are what separate the historical romance A list from the B list. They are also, within this genre, common knowledge. Also admittedly, if the writing had a little more smolder and crackle, none of it would have mattered.

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

Castles Ever After Series: Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare

book review January 31, 2014 Leave a comment

[stunned silence followed by vociferous string of profanity-laden expostulations]

That was a change of pace. Well-written. It seems historical romance author Tessa Dare is going in a new direction, one more whimsiquirkilicious than I had anticipated. I have never given my Kindle the side-eye before. And I did, in fact, resist the temptation to throw it across the room. That counts as a victory. And that was certainly the most expletives I have ever let loose while reading a love story. A lot of new things today, it seems.

[cleansing breaths]
[re-reading most of the book]

“I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going deep down into life and not caring a damn,” said P.G. Wodehouse, giving a surprisingly apt posthumous description of Romancing the Duke.

Delightful historical romance author Tessa Dare has abandoned the ladies of Spindle Cove and embarked on a new series called “Castles Ever After”. As the name suggests, this new novel has a fairy tale undertone/overtone, not to mention many clever references to classics of the romance genre. Dare writes incredibly consistent and enjoyable stories, but of all the authors whose work I buy automatically, Dare is the one who most often requires a willing suspension of disbelief. Romancing the Duke broke mine, Dare BROKE IT, with this playful and quirky novel.

Doubt not that Tessa Dare’s tongue was firmly planted in her cheek: Isolde Ophelia Goodnight’s father not only saddled her with a tragedy-in-waiting name, he left her penniless and alone. Summoned to Gostley Castle in hopes of claiming a bequest from an anonymous benefactor, she instead encounters a derelict estate and its equally derelict ducal inhabitant, Ransom, Duke of Rothbury, who will serve as the tortured hero for the purposes of the story. He’s as big, brooding, and gorgeous as one looks for in such characters. Ransom is just sitting around waiting for the redemptive power of love to bring him back into the world. It’s a good start.

The ermine was a bad sign. Izzy has a pet ermine which, in her defense, was a gift from a fan of her father’s serialized medieval fairy tale. She brings it with her to the castle and they both stay when she discovers that the estate has been bequeathed to her. This comes as quite a shock to Ransom as he did not know the castle had been either a) up for sale or b) sold. His recent blindness has left him a little behind in his correspondence. Things should have proceeded apace from there, but the hijinks, DEAR LORD, the hijinks that ensued.

I had not anticipated costume play or live action role-playing in a Regency romance. I daresay few have. I daresay I’m not even sure it was a Regency romance. It was more of a historically-indeterminate homage to a Gothic novel: the truculent hero; the crumbling castle; the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed destitute heroine; things that go bump in the night; sexual tension; aggressive carnivorous pets; plot elements that are picked up and dropped; inexplicable character shifts; and the almost successful interplay of the love story and whimsy. It was all so cute, I cringed. I wanted a love story, not a Duke getting his LARP on.

I’m not sure who exactly this novel was written for. The short answer is, “Not me.” I get it. It’s not you, Romancing the Duke, it’s me. I was expecting a heartfelt love story with some of Dare’s trademark caprice and smolder, but instead the novel is a romp with an emphatic lack of connection to reality instead of the veneer-of-plausible-deniability connection to reality I look for in romances. It was not what I expected and it was not, like Ransom’s feelings for Izzy, everything I never knew I always wanted.

My partner-in-romance, Malin, loved the book. Check out her review for a different take on Romancing the Duke.

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

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

 

The American Heiress in London Series: When the Marquess Met His Match by Laura Lee Guhrke

book review January 30, 2014 Leave a comment

I have read one Laura Lee Guhrke historical romance already, Scandal of the Year, and while it had some nice moments, I did not rush out to track down her catalogue. Guhrke does have a book on All About Romance’s Top 100 list, And Then He Kissed Her, that I keep meaning to read, but for now, I’m reviewing the book they happened to have at my library.

When the Marquess Met His Match is the first book in Guhrke’s new “An American Heiress in London” series. The heroine, Lady Belinda Featherstone, came to England with her ambitious parents and a fortune. In short order, she was married, alternately ignored and insulted by her spouse, beggared, and, mercifully, widowed. She has set herself up as a matchmaker for rich American women and English men looking for a generously dowered spouse. Belinda prides herself finding suitable partners for her clients and sincerely tries to ensure their matches will be more successful than hers.

Nicholas, Marquess of Trubridge, is a classic romance rake: handsome, spoiled, and charming. He’s also beset by a difficult father. Cut off without a farthing until he marries according to the Duke’s wishes, he hires Belinda to find him a rich wife who can a. support him and b. tick his father off as much as possible. She is, of course, instantly attracted to him, but leery of his mercenary goals and his seeming resemblance to her twerp of a husband. Belinda agrees to work for Nicholas and he goes to work on her. Thrown constantly together through their efforts, Belinda decides to ignore her attraction and tells Nicholas that he needs to grow the hell up. Nicholas takes the scolding to heart and moves his life in a productive direction. They get married. The end.

The book was perfectly satisfactory, passing the time pleasantly enough, but not particularly involving. Guhrke described their attraction well, but beyond the physical appeal and some biographical details, there wasn’t a lot of time devoted to the falling in love portion of the story. Guhrke does gets my appreciation for not setting her books in the Regency, and for the evocative detail of the costumes, in particular the love scene including the time-consuming and exhaustive removal of a woman’s complete ensemble, buttons, bows, ribbons, hooks, and all.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go watch The Buccaneers as it has similar themes and is a costume bustlegasm.

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

L’Amour et Chocolat Series: The Chocolate Temptation by Laura Florand

book review January 29, 2014 Leave a comment

Look! I found Laura Florand’s romance mission statement:

FlorandThe Chocolate Temptation is book six in Florand’s Amour et Chocolat series. I reviewed the first four books in a previous effort. I will review the fifth, The Chocolate Heart, when I can get my hands on it at my local library, as it is priced out of my willing-to-pay range*. The conceit of each novel is that an American woman is thrown into close proximity with a French chocolatier/pastry god. They fall in love quickly, get busy, and are engaged in short order. Florand provides consistently enjoyable escapism with romantic locations. The Chocolate Temptation also happens to be particularly steamy.

Patrick Chevalier is the second in a three Michelin star restaurant. Part of his role is to guide and train the patissier team and apprentices. Sarah Lin is working for a tiny stipend and is just 36 days shy of completing her six month internship. She hates Patrick. She hates him for his loose-limbed, charming calm, his seemingly effortless professional perfection, and for the gallant way he treats her which she thinks is just being “French”.  Sarah is incredibly focused and ambitious, but unable to show herself any mercy when she fails to live up to the impossible standards she sets for herself and she sees being met by the more experienced professionals around her. Patrick has been madly in love with Sarah for months and trying to surreptitiously show her without crossing any professional lines. When she tells him, “I hate you,” after a particularly bad day, he takes it as his cue to see if that intense emotion could be hiding passion instead. They are protagonists with major walls around themselves, ones that lead to a great deal of miscommunication as they struggle to come together. Sarah is a mass of insecurities, vulnerable and over-sensitive. Patrick has carefully created the illusion of nonchalance, having learned to hide his feelings after a painful childhood.

After earlier uncertainty, The Chocolate Temptation confirmed for me that Florand is indeed using fairy tale allusions in her books and this one is Cinderella with a twist. I found the denouement rushed and twee, but consistent with the overall romanticism of Florand’s work. Patrick and Sarah were both too closed off to move quickly to an emotionally healthy relationship. Why not give them time to settle in before stampeding towards marriage? The setting is modern, couldn’t they just live together for a while?

I have enjoyed all of the novels in the Amour et Chocolate series. Florand manages to repeat her framing device without quite making the characters repetitious as well. The men all show far more emotional vulnerability than I am accustomed to in romance and it is a welcome change.

A complete summary of Laura Florand’s catalogue, with recommendations, can be found here.

*If Amazon is listening, I will pay $2.99 for almost any well-reviewed romance; up to about $5.99 for a book I know to be a keeper; and full price for any author on my autobuy list, which can be found on my Author Commentary & The Tallies Shameful. I also have a complete reading list of books sorted by author.

 

 

The Importance of Being Wicked & Lord Stillwell’s Excellent Engagements by Victoria Alexander

book review January 28, 2014 Leave a comment

The Importance of Being Wicked is a romantic comedy of manners of the “you are everything I never knew I always wanted” variety. Victoria Alexander’s dialogue is wonderfully droll. I should have loved the book and yet it took me forever to get through. As my romance total climbs, I sometimes think I am losing interest in the genre, but the real issue is that it is taking better stories to claim my attention.

Winfield Elliott, Viscount Stillwell, has been engaged and left at the altar three times. He has retreated to his home to manage his family finances and estates, as one does in a historical romance. When a fire destroys part of his ancestral home, he hires the only firm willing to do the work in the short  timeline he requires, and this brings Miranda Garrett into his life. She is a widow continuing what she claims to be her husband’s work, but is really her own. With the prevarication of a silent partner, she is able to work as an architect and oversee the rebuilding project. Miranda and Winfield (Win) spark and banter and fall in love.

Set in 1887, the subplots show women on the cusp of their first sustained attempt to win rights for themselves as voters and people. Win is conservative and needs to acknowledge that his views are entrenched in tradition rather than rationality. Miranda is trying to escape the people pleasing she was taught and undertook in order to be a “good” wife. They each find in the other their necessary foil and catalyst.

The Importance of Being Wicked is frequently laugh out loud funny. The characters are wry and self-deprecating, but at times it came across as a saucy P.G. Wodehouse novel. There just didn’t seem to really be anything at stake. I know that sounds odd for genre with clearly proscribed expectations, but the story needed a little less aplomb and a little more fire to be truly successful. Just a little more, and  less civilized, smolder, and the novel would have achieved a better balance and had more oomph.

But wait! There’s more… Continue reading →

The Smyth-Smith Quartet: The Sum of All Kisses by Julia Quinn

book review January 23, 2014 Leave a comment

I regret returning The Sum of All Kisses to the library quickly, but I don’t want to buy my own copy. This tells me that while I enjoyed the book, it didn’t make a lasting impression

If you are a historical romance fan, you already know who Julia Quinn is. If you are interested in trying historical romance, her Bridgerton series provides an excellent gateway. I use the words deft and witty every time I review one of her books because they are always apropos and Quinn is almost always a light-hearted, satisfying read. She is guaranteed to make you laugh and offer at least one truly romantic moment.

Quinn’s current Regency series revolves around a family group that puts on an annual concert of consistently awful quality. The Smythe-Smith quartet, as they are called, has an evolving membership and over the course of the novels, members get married off and make good their escape from public humiliation. This time up, it’s Sarah Pleinsworth and family acquaintance Hugh Prentice. He caused a scandal several years ago by dueling with her cousin and Sarah feels the resulting imbroglio ruined her matrimonial opportunities. She hates him. He finds her melodramatic. Forced to spend time together at house parties for their friends’ weddings, no one is surprised when they end up engaged in under three weeks.

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Dangerous Books For Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained by Maya Rodale

book review January 22, 2014 Leave a comment

As someone who has been reading romance novels virtually non-stop for two years, I have a lot of feelings on the subject. As a successful writer in the genre, Maya Rodale has feelings and actual research on the subject. I purchased her thesis, Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained, because I wanted to understand why this mass market genre is so consistently derided not only by readers, but also seemingly by the book industry as well.  Many people read these books and publishers make a lot of money. Obviously, manifestly, clearly, profit does not equal quality, but why doesn’t it at least equal some respect for the readership?  What is with the titles? What is with the “clinch covers”?

Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained is largely a historical overview, and, I think, a good one, providing context for the origins, specifics, and reputation of these books. A historical perspective seems a good place to start. If American attitudes are still frequently puritanical, why shouldn’t attitudes towards certain kinds of novels be understood through the prism of an earlier century as well? While reading, I kept waiting for an answering “CLANG!” in my brain to help me understand why reading romance is regarded with greater stigma than other genre fiction, including science fiction, spy novels, and murder mysteries. I was seeking vindication. These are the kinds of reactions I get when I people what I like to read:

“It’s pornography for repressed women.”  It’s 2014. If I wanted pornography, I could find pornography.

“I wouldn’t think you were the type.”  I don’t even know what this means. Is it that I have so carefully crafted the illusion of intelligence? I don’t seem pathetic? That is the general implication with statements such as these.

“They’re sexist.” No. Historical romance puts a bonnet on current social mores and uses the setting to create narrative distance and reinforce the elements of escapism. There are cultural limitations placed on the women, but these are obstacles not virtues.

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