Tag Archives: book reviews

A Woman Entangled by Cecilia Grant

book review November 6, 2013 Leave a comment

It’s time to talk about sex in romance novels. Not in a prurient way, but in terms of how it works for the story and how it can enhance, or diminish, the portrayal of the relationship.  The candor begins after the jump, if you want to head straight there.

A Woman Entangled by Cecilia Grant is the third novel in her Blackshear trilogy.  I have read books one, A Lady Awakened, but don’t really remember it, and two, A Gentleman Undone. The second novel ended with a scandal and book three, A Woman Entangled, addresses the aftermath that occurs when your brother marries a courtesan and your own reputation is scathed by association.

The entangled woman of the title, Kate, thinks Elizabeth Bennet was an idiot to turn down Mr. Darcy when he first proposed as Pemberley would have been more than enough to make up for an unhappy marriage. Kate is beautiful and practices being fetching in the mirror in hopes of leveraging her loveliness to make an advantageous marriage. She thinks this will redeem her family from the isolation it endures because her father had the audacity to marry against his parent’s wishes. Family friend and her father’s protegé, Nick Blackshear, has been in love with Kate for three years. He hasn’t the pedigree to please her, and his family has its own recent scandal to contend with, so he has told himself he is over Kate, even as he watches her to see the kind and thoughtful woman she hides beneath her carefully presented surface.

Kate and Nick move towards their happy ending by dealing with their own individual issues. The story is believable, their motivations logical, and I was glad they reached the happy ending. Cecilia Grant is an excellent writer in terms of both style and structure. Unlike the narrative distance run of the mill historical romances often create, a kind of demi-camp reality somewhere between the 19th century and now, Grant anchored her story in appropriate mores and conduct, until…

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Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

book review November 5, 2013 Comments: 2

If such a thing exists, Laura Kinsale’s Flowers from the Storm is part of the historical romance canon. It’s a classic of the genre that still appeared at #6 on All About Romance’s 2010 Top 100 List 18 years after publication. I voted on their list for 2013 and included it myself. An intense and sometimes painful read, Flowers from the Storm’s status as one of the best romance novels ever written is completely understandable.

Christian, Duke of Jervaulx is a mathematician and a rake. We meet him acting on both inclinations early in the book: the latter leads to a duel, the former to working with a Quaker academic and his daughter Archimedea, called Maddy. When Christian has an “apoplexy” (stroke) shortly after presenting a mathematical paper, he disappears from their lives until Maddy and her father come to live at a rest home/psychiatric hospital run by her cousin. Christian is a patient and a troublesome one at that. When Maddy meets Christian again, he has been brought very low and is presumed mad. She realises he is “not mad, but maddened” and approaches her cousin saying she has “An Opening”, a spiritual calling, to help Christian. The apoplexy left his language processing centers damaged, but Christian finds he is able to communicate first through mathematics and later with language as Maddy works with him. He recognizes in her a chance to escape the hospital and seeks to do so by any means necessary.

Progressive for The Regency, the hospital is every dehumanizing psychiatric care nightmare rolled into chapters: abuse, restraints, ice baths, isolation. Kinsale shows us Christian’s muddled, struggling mind and I found these sections harrowing and must confess to jumping forward to a less upsetting section of the book to console myself before going back to continue reading chronologically. Mercifully, Maddy and Christian get away from the hospital, but a marriage of convenience is required to prevent him from being sent back as it will give the impression of a fuller recovery.

Romance novels can succeed on many levels, but the best ones have the same thing in common: If a writer can honestly portray the emotional lives of her characters, everything else will fall into place. Flowers from the Storm is not a light-hearted romance, it can be a tough read precisely because the characters are so well drawn and the reader feels their struggles. Christian and Maddy are two puzzle pieces that fit together only because of the situation they find themselves in. In either of their previous lives, their relationship would not have worked. Forced by circumstance, they build something together that is more than they ever would have been separately.

Thank you, Malin, for reminding me that I had not read this yet and for promising me Christian and Maddy would leave the hospital soon when I emailed her in a heart-wrenched panic.

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

Love and Other Scandals and The Truth About Love by Caroline Linden

book review November 4, 2013 Leave a comment

Caroline Linden is on my woefully short Fingers Crossed for Potential list. Last year, I stumbled upon her The Truth About the Duke trilogy and would recommend those books as follows: One Night in London is really good; Blame It on Bath worked well and was [fans self]; and The Way to a Duke’s Heart had a charming male lead, but some story issues. Linden’s latest historical romance, Love and Other Scandals got off to a great start, but lost its momentum due to structural choices.

Joan, the heroine of Love and Other Scandals , is a delight. Pert and cheeky, she has a wastrel brother with a very attractive, rascally friend, Tristan. The two are introduced, they banter, I wasn’t quite sure of the reasoning behind Tristan’s actions, but things proceeded apace when there was an abrupt shift in the story about a third of the way through. Have you seen Moonstruck? Do you remember the scene when Cher arrives at Lincoln Center to meet Nicolas Cage and the soundtrack includes a wry “ba-bum” as she steps out of the taxi and the love story proper begins? The transition in Love and Other Scandals is a lot like that, but instead of building on what went before, Linden reorganized the setting and the story lost its way. It’s not that it was horribly transformed, just disjointed, so, in spite of appealing leads, I can’t recommend the book.

On another note, Caroline Linden has a delightful short story, The Truth About Love, in a collection called Once Upon a Ballroom. Not about two people finding love, it’s a vignette in the life of a plain, bookish woman who has married a notorious former rake. Damien, the erstwhile rake and current besotted husband, has been away from Miranda for several weeks and rumours have begun to circulate of an affair. Prurient friends and relatives gather around Miranda, ostensibly to commiserate, but really to revel in saying, “I told you so.”  Using Miranda’s perspective, it is a take on the happily ever after readers rarely see. Romance novels are full of overlooked spinsters discovering connubial bliss with gorgeous, fascinating men, but just how easily does a reputation die and how does a woman who has found herself the subject of unexpected male attention trust that he really is a reformed raking making the best husband? It was really enjoyable, so I did some research to see if The Truth About Love was an epilogue to one of Linden’s novels, but had no luck. If you happen to know of such a book, I’d be grateful for the title so I can review it and bump my Cannonball Read total from 61.5 to 62.

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 Lady’s Tutor by Robin Schone

book review October 18, 2013 Leave a comment

Enough with reviewing sweet and lovely romances. Let’s take a look at something awful and absurd: Robin Schone’s The Lady’s Tutor, a Regency romance of the “sexual tutor” variety. If you want to read a good book featuring this trope, proceed immediately to Sarah MacLean’s One Good Earl Deserves a Lover, consciously ignore the jejeune titling, and have at it.

The Lady’s Tutor fails on many fronts, but there was one aspect of the book, one word actually that sums up everything that is wrong with this fornicaterrific novel. That one word does not encompass the story elements that include

  1. Villainy smeared with sexual deviance and a dollop of you-have-got-to-be-kidding.
  2. Prejudice that the “exotic” man knows the sensual arts by virtue of being foreign.
  3. The fact that The Lady’s Tutor includes concepts like “the sensual arts”.
  4. A hero so well overly-endowed as to be simultaneously laughable and alarming.
  5. The hero’s mother advising the heroine to relax her throat muscles to accommodate her son’s aforementioned equine resemblance
  6. The hero sharing horrific and devastating personal information during coitus.

… but it comes darn close. The one word that sums up all that is wrong with this fornicaterrific novel is “pubes”. The Lady’s Tutor, a Regency romance by Robin Schone, includes the word “pubes” not once, not twice, but three times. PUBES! THREE TIMES!

Why are you still reading? I can’t possibly add to or augment that one salient detail.

The (Shameful) Tally 2013

The Runaway Duke by Julie Anne Long

book review October 18, 2013 Leave a comment

Julie Anne Long has written a classic historical romance, What I Did for a Duke; two excellent ones, A Notorious Countess Confesses and It Happened One Midnight; a rather delightful novella, To Love a Thief; and an assortment of very enjoyable books in her Pennyroyal Green series. The Runaway Duke is one of her earliest novels and I read it for back catalogue completion purposes only.

Through a convenient and maguffiny series of Napoleonic War events, Conor Riordan, fifth Duke of Dunbrooke, has shucked off his title and is living incognito as an Irish groom at the home of the novel’s rather young heroine Rebecca Tremaine. In The Runaway Duke, the two take it on the lam when the  villain mistakenly compromises the wrong Tremaine sister, Rebecca, and she is going to be forced into a reputation saving marriage. Hijinks ensue.

I mentioned in a review of another author that I often find a writer and think that she shows promise only to discover that she has already published a lot of books. That is not the case here. I knew going in that this would not be of the current quality I expect of Julie Anne Long. The Runaway Duke has issues including heavy plotting, an unbelievable false identity (no one would volunteer to be Irish at that time in British history), and the story does goes on a bit; however, all of the elements that would develop into Long’s signature style are present: wonderful humour, clever writing, charming central characters, and, yes, the fact that maybe, sometimes, I don’t know, I’m just saying, she can be a skooch twee.

One of the things that people suggest when trying to save me from the ignominy of reading so much romance is that I should write one. It’s as though all of the shame they think I should feel for my reading choices, and that they feel on my behalf, would be washed away under the cleansing justification of “research”. There is nothing like reading an early effort by a talented author to intimidate any writing   impulse right out of me. I am far too lazy to write a book in the first place and far too impatient to be willing to write several before I have the chance to be even remotely as good a novelist as Julie Anne Long now is.

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 which includes the aforementioned observations.

The Lady’s Companion by Carla Kelly

book review October 17, 2013 Leave a comment

I use the word “lovely” too much in everyday conversation. I try to be more creative and thesaurusy in these reviews, but lovely really is the best word for this novel. Carla Kelly writes sweet, gentle, sincere Regency romances and The Lady’s Companion is no exception. Kelly does not reinvent the wheel*. She follows her romance tropes and brings everything to a happy, satisfying ending. I have read four of her books in rapid succession, thank you Rochelle, and I have another one waiting on my Kindle. Unlike Kelly’s novels that I reviewed previously, this book goes beyond “just kisses”, while maintaining its oblique decorum in the love scenes.

Originally published in 1996, The Lady’s Companion is the story of Susan Hampton, a genteelly impoverished lady whose marital and future hopes have been dashed on the rocks of her wastrel father’s gambling addiction. Where, oh where, would romance novels be without shiftless male relatives casually ruining women’s lives? After moving in with her aunt, Susan recognises that unless she does something, and right quick, she will disappear into the role of servile relative for the rest of her days. She finds an employment agency and gets hired as a companion to Lady Bushnell in the Cotswolds.

Lady Bushnell is not happy to have yet another unnecessary companion and Susan must find a way to make herself useful. The farm is being managed by Lady Bushnell’s bailiff, David Wiggins. He served as a sergeant under Lord Bushnell in the Napoleonic Wars and has a debt of honour to the family. David is what The Dowager Julien would describe as a “nice-nice man”, gentle, kind, and loyal. Susan is out of his reach socially, but since David doesn’t care about such nonsense and Susan has no use for the so-called social superiority that ruined her, they have a chance to carve out a life for themselves on their own terms and defy the conventions that would seek to limit them. Everything proceeds towards the happy ending at a calm and reasonable pace, free of melodrama, but not of challenges. Kelly’s writing is not only strong when showing Susan and David’s growing relationship, but also wonderfully evocative in terms of the setting and time period.

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.

*Actually, she does sometimes, such as with Libby’s London Merchant and
Beau Crusoe.

 

Miss Whittier Makes a List, Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand, and Reforming Lord Ragsdale by Carla Kelly

book review October 15, 2013 Leave a comment

Miss Whittier Makes a List was loaned to me by Rochelle at the same time as she sent over The Other Guy’s Bride by Connie Brockway. I was grateful for the loan and even more grateful that Carla Kelly’s writing was good. Miss Whittier Makes a List was the best of these three historical romances and it inspired me to buy two more. They were the most enjoyable read from a new-to-me author I have had in quite some time.  The books were a change for me in terms of the sensuality, or lack thereof. There are variations of sexual activity for every taste in the romance genre and I have read everything from vanilla sex to thisclosetoerotica to vanilla kink, but not novels limited to one or two kisses. Carla Kelly falls into this last category, referred to as  “just kisses” by the romancerati, but even these were not explicit. Anything beyond kissing that takes place in these novels is either fade-to-black or gleaned by straining through oblique references; nonetheless, she manages to politely convey impolite desires.

Miss Whittier Makes a List 1994

Hannah Whittier sets out on a trip from Boston to Charleston to visit family and, her parents hope, meet a nice Quaker man to marry. Waylaid by a British naval ship and then shipwrecked by French privateers, she is found and taken on board by that same British crew and their intriguing captain, Daniel Sparks. Unfortunately, the ship is not bound for Charleston and Hannah must go along for the ride in the hopes of eventually being able to make her way home. Before her sundry nautical catastrophes, Hannah made a list of desirable qualities in a husband. Word gets out.

I’m not big on grand adventure romance novels, but this one was just fantastic and I have added it to my recommendations list. Daniel and Hannah are an interesting pair who seem to be opposites but are, of course, an excellent match each for the other. I must warn prospective readers though that Miss Whittier Makes a List’s main characters have an age difference that while historically realistic may be discomfiting to readers.

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The Other Guy’s Bride by Connie Brockway

book review October 10, 2013 Leave a comment

This review is putting me in the unusual position of recommending The Other Guy’s Bride by Connie Brockway, even though it wasn’t really my cup of tea. My historical romance obsession still has me in its talons, no movement there, but the novel wasn’t  in a style I enjoy which, I must emphatically note, comes with the addendum “…because I am boring.” I don’t like a lot of subplot in my romances and while this book’s subplots do not runneth over, they didn’t exactly runneth under either. It’s a romantic adventure, as opposed to the romantic romance I generally prefer. If you are looking for a cleverly written historical romance that doubles as a fun romp, this could very well be the book for you.

The Other Guy’s Bride is set in the golden age of unmitigated gall, theft, pillaging, cultural appropriation Egyptology and this features heavily in the sub-plotting.  Seven years before the story proper started, a jilted Jim Owen ran off to join the Foreign Legion and ended up a dead man in Egypt. Just months from making his grandmother happy by being declared legally dead, a young woman comes into his life to turn everything upside down. Owing a debt of honour to her fiancé, Jim agrees to escort Mildred Whimpelhall across the desert to said fiance at a remote outpost. Hijinks ensue, not the least of which is the fact that Mildred is actually Jinesse Braxton, the accident-prone daughter of a family of renowned archeologists.

Determined to make a name for herself in Egyptology, Jinesse stole Mildred’s identity and is taking advantage of Jim’s escort to get her to the dig of her dreams. By proving the existence of a heretofore  apocryphal city, Jinesse hopes to establish her archeological bona fides. Jim is instantly attracted to “Mildred” and stunned that this vivacious, bright, and amazingly sanguine inexperienced desert traveler could be interested in her waiting prosaic fiancé, particularly as she doesn’t seem to know his first name. “Mildred” is the type of person to whom things happen, scrapes, escapades, freak weather patterns, and Jim is there to step in and to support her as necessary. The relationship that develops between Jinesse and Jim, the well-intentioned funny woman who falls down and the affable, unflappable rogue, is charming and often wry.

The Other Guy’s Bride is quite campy and an enjoyable adventure. Connie Brockway’s writing style is entertaining and droll. I would have liked a little more [insert funky bass line here] and a little less romp, especially since the consummation devoutly to be wished took place (SPOILER) in a cave during a sandstorm when there should have been sand in every nook and cranny of the cave, of the hero, and of the heroine.

Thank you to rochelle for loaning me this book even if Connie Brockway did not make her way onto my library list.  rochelle also loaned me a book by Carla Kelly that I enjoyed very much indeed despite a complete lack of [insert funky bass line here].

The (Shameful) Tally 2013

The Immortals After Dark Series: MacRieve by Kresley Cole

book review August 7, 2013 Comments: 4

I read about 50% of MacRieve, but you’ll see why I’m counting the experience as a whole book, maybe two.  I think the judges will allow it. I read it to see what could be so bad on the “Kresley Cole Is Atrocious” scale that my friend said it was best left unread. The heroine, Chloe, thinks she is a human, but learns she is actually transforming into an immortal succubus whose sustenance comes from ejaculate. You read those words correctly and in the right order. Chloe is a succubus who feeds on ejaculate. Consumption is non-orifice specific. If the ejaculate comes from an unwilling male, she will sicken and die as it changes into “venom”.  She got very sick about two-thirds of the way through the book. It didn’t take me that long.

The werewolf hero, Uilliam, has childhood sexual abuse trauma associated with an exploitative succubus (which is apparently not a redundant statement), so he hates the entire species. Chloe is his fated mate, he is drawn to and disgusted by her simultaneously. He really freaks out whenever she takes his precious bodily fluids. She shows remarkable forbearance and forgiveness. There is a dissertation’s worth of repellent, sexist themes in this book: the ejaculate issue; the transition of a woman into a monster with sexual awakening; a woman sucking the life out of a man, a literal succubus; a man being sexually drawn to, but also reviling the object of his affections because a relationship will imprison him and take his power; forgiveness of male mistreatment because he can’t help it; the saintly, redemptive female; lessons in love that not all succubi (women) are the same, you just need to meet the right one; and so on. Revolting and misogynistic elements masquerading as a love story. How very repugnant, Ms. Cole.

The (Shameful) Tally and reviews for other books in the Immortals After Dark series: The Warlord Wants Forever; A Hunger Like No Other; No Rest for the Wicked; Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night; Dark Needs at Night’s Edge; Dark Desires After Dusk; Kiss of a Demon King; Deep Kiss of Winter; Pleasure of a Dark Prince; Demon from the Dark; Dreams of a Dark Warrior; Lothaire; MacRieve; Shadow’s Claim.

The Immortals After Dark Series: Shadow’s Claim by Kresley Cole

book review August 7, 2013 Leave a comment

“I’m out. I just can’t with Kresley Cole for one more second,”  I said, and yet here I am with more Fangin’n’Bangin’™. I’m not proud. I am deeply and appropriately shamed by my conduct. Self- recriminations take place on the full and half hours. Rationalizations are on the fifteens and forty-fives. I always promise myself the current Kresley Cole Immortals After Dark paranormal romance will be my last, usually while reading it. It goes like this:

Why am I reading this? Trehan’s an assassin and he lives in a library. That’s pretty cool. I have a degree in English. Why am I reading this? Bettina is in her early twenties and Trehan is 900 years old. What could she possibly have to offer him? Which one is this? Shadow’s Claim. He’s wearing black leather pants. I do so love a good-looking man in black leather pants. I should re-read Their Eyes Were Watching God. Trehan lives in a secret vampire realm. Wait. There’s a third, hitherto secret, vampire group in Cole’s novels? There are the Hoarde, Forbearers, and now Dacians.  I bet the Dacians were an afterthought to extend the series. Kresley Cole is a paranormal romance savant. Bettina is a half-sorceress, half-demon, jewelry designer, princess, and heir to her realm, her powers have been stolen, plus she’s a virgin who can’t drive. I would kill for a good historical romance right now. Bettina has agreed to a tournament for her hand in marriage. One of her suitors is a pus demon. Is she having a panic attack? How many of these have I read? Did I just gasp? Cole is really good at the battle scenes. I don’t hate this nearly as much as I should. Bettina is guarded by a Sylph-phantom-thing that inhabits handy objects for want of corporeal form. Is Bettina a Disney princess? The Sylph is watching her bathe and talking about onanism. No on the Disney princess, check mark in the voyeurism column.There is something appealing about how devoted the heroes are. Is it over yet? I wonder if Caspion’s character will get his own book later. Ignore the jejune spelling. Trehan’s wearing a leather trench coat. I have a leather trench coat. Love scene THUNDER SEX™. Won’t all of the pop culture references work against the books over time? Wow, I am actually bored with the love scene THUNDER SEX™. Of course, Bettina’s a virgin. It’s like a 1970s romance novel up in this book.There’s the intense, powerful, older alpha male captivated by a naive, seemingly powerless, immature woman for no reason other than the urgings of his Id and the plot. There’s the Big Misunderstanding that can be cleared up with one simple conversation.  Kresley Cole is old school. Lothaire? I read part of that book. It was the same as this part of this book. Who are these people? Is this an epilogue?  Oh, it’s a preview. It’s over. Never again.

 

The (Shameful) Tally and reviews for other books in the Immortals After Dark series: The Warlord Wants Forever; A Hunger Like No Other; No Rest for the Wicked; Wicked Deeds on a Winter’s Night; Dark Needs at Night’s Edge; Dark Desires After Dusk; Kiss of a Demon King; Deep Kiss of Winter; Pleasure of a Dark Prince; Demon from the Dark; Dreams of a Dark Warrior; Lothaire; MacRieve; Shadow’s Claim.