Tag Archives: romance reviews

Heroes Are My Weakness by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

book review May 27, 2015 Leave a comment

This right here is a contemporary comic Gothic romance novel.  Equal parts Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Northanger Abbey, and likely other nineteenth century novels, mostly British, that I should have read while at university, Heroes Are My Weakness features a tortured hero, an innocent in over her head, schemes, machinations, a forbidding landscape, and a surprisingly unannoying plot moppet.

Unemployed, impoverished, sick, and freezing, Annie has arrived on an island off the coast of Maine in January to take up temporary residence in a small cottage. Owing to inheritance stipulations, Annie must occupy the small house for 90 days each year. Failure to do so will make possession of the cottage revert to the larger estate on which it sits. The main house is occupied by Theo, her childhood love and tormentor, as well as his beleaguered housekeeper. Theo is brooding, brusque, and the kind of person who, in the dead of winter, decides to ride his horse shirtless. (Note: Theo is shirtless, not the horse, the horse is wearing a frock coat.) Essentially, Theo is Mr. Rochester if there was a much less freaky explanation for his conduct.

Annie settles in and, as is the way of Susan Elizabeth Phillips books, forms a community around herself, an improvised family. Off-island, she is a ventriloquist who teaches lessons to school children using her puppets. On-island, the puppets are along for the ride and represent elements of her personality,   chiming in with opinions and unhelpful information. It is as twee as it sounds, but Phillips kinda, sorta pulls it off as she is very good at being simultaneously sincere and whimsical. Plagued by intrusions at her cottage, Annie and Theo draw closer as they sort out the threat to her safety, work through their issues, and untangle their pasts.

Heroes Are My Weakness was mostly enjoyable and, as expected from Phillips, frequently laugh-out-loud funny, but there was a lot going on. The sundry machinations of just about every character get pretty thick on the ground and it felt like everyone had a big secret and ulterior motives. On the whole it worked reasonably well, but Phillips has other books I would recommend more highly.

Also by Susan Elizabeth Phillips:

  1. It Had to Be You
  2. Heaven, Texas
  3. Nobody’s Baby But Mine
  4. Dream a Little Dream
  5. This Heart of Mine – only Kresley Cole has ever made me angrier
  6. Match Me If You Can
  7. Natural Born Charmer – This is the book I recommend more highly.

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.

Low Tide Bikini by Lyla Dune

book review May 26, 2015 Leave a comment

Low Tide Bikini was free and yet somehow overpriced. I genuinely respect people who complete writing a book, and in this case a series, but the accomplishments of writing a book and writing a good book are two very different things. Lyla Dune’s writing is clichéd and facile, the plot and characters sophomoric. If it is the work of a teenaged writer, I commend the effort, if not, it’s unsuccessful escapism, a Lifetime movie of a novel.

From Amazon: Sam Carlisle is the double bass player in the all girl jazz ensemble, Bikini Quartet. When she breaks down on the drawbridge, a panty-melting-muscle-man, who she later discovers is her new landlord, comes to her rescue. Brock Knight is a retired rugby player from Wales. He’s eager to get away from the paparazzi that hound him day and night. When he moves into his new beach house on Pleasure Island, North Carolina before Sam has a chance to relocate, he learns the proper way to shag.

Rather than go into the story, characters, and their respective downfalls, I have decided to give you a look at just one scene as an example, specifically Sam and Brock’s relationship consummation. After some standard romance novel comeheregoaway, they are ready to take their love to the next level, which is good as Brock, despite being a grown-ass man, has trouble controlling his bodily reactions in Sam’s presence. They adjourn to her bedroom to get it on. Once there, Brock turns Sam away from the bed to face the dresser. Throughout the event, he is behind her and she always has, as I recall, either one or both knees up on said dresser. I have some queries I believe to relevant:

  1. How tall is the dresser?
  2. How wide is it? How deep?
  3. Is it part of a set?
  4. Is it a chifforobe? (I just wanted to use the word “chifforobe”.)
  5. Is it well built? As well-built as Brock?
  6. What is the dresser made of? Is it wicker?
  7. If it is wicker, wouldn’t that hurt Sam’s knees, potentially pinch, and/or have those little pokey edges from broken reeds?
  8. Is the pinchy, pokey wicker dresser also creaky?
  9. Is the dresser made of wood? If so, are the edges squared or rounded? Sharp edges could really hurt, especially the corners.
  10. Did the wicker and/or wood dresser leave marks on Sam’s skin?
  11. Is there a mirror? Is her head bumping into it?
  12. Does Sam keep a lot of things on top of the dresser? Are they rattling?
  13. Is the top slippery?
  14. How does Sam keep her balance?

Like this love scene, the story elements in Low Tide Bikini masquerade as sexy fun, but are poorly thought out and thrown together. Spare your eyes the rolling and skip this series.

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.

Knitting in the City Series: Friends Without Benefits and Scenes from the City: A Knitting in the City Surprise by Penny Reid

book review May 26, 2015 Leave a comment

These are books two and six from Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City series:

  1. Neanderthal Seeks Human
  2. Friends Without Benefits – see below
  3. Neanderthal Marries Human (novella)
  4. Love Hacked
  5. Beauty and the Mustache
  6. Scenes from the City: A Knitting in the City Surprise (novella) – also below
  7. Happily Ever Ninja
  8. Dating-ish: A Humanoid Romance
  9. A Marriage of Inconvenience

Friends Without Benefits

I enjoy the unrequited love trope, especially as the romance genre always allows for the besotted character’s vindication, but having said that, Friends Without Benefits was just okay and not as good as the others in the Knitting in the City series, although I did welcome the visits with other characters from the novels. As with the other books, there was a subplot that took a turn into high drama even though Reid is so good with the relationships it was unnecessary.

Elizabeth is a doctor completing her residency and is winding up her pediatric rotation. She is paged to a consultation for a Cystic Fibrosis study and finds herself face-to-face with a man she is has known her whole life, but hasn’t seen for 11 years. Nico Moretti is the son of her mother’s best friend, the uncle to the sick child, and both the former bane of Elizabeth’s existence and the boy she summarily dumped right after losing her virginity to him.

Nico has made a life for himself as model and then successful stand-up comedian called The Face (an odd juxtaposition to be sure). He has a TV show in New York, but is visiting Chicago to help care for his niece. He takes one look at Elizabeth and realises this is his chance to win the woman he has always loved. Capitalizing on the CF study and his fame, he makes sure his niece gets the best possible care and that Elizabeth never leaves him again.

While Friends Without Benefits had Reid’s usual wry humour and smolder, it never really clicked for me. Despite strong chemistry, I just wasn’t invested in Elizabeth and Nico.

Scenes from the City: A Knitting in the City Surprise

Some readers must have complained about the lack of [insert funky  bass line here] in the novels as this addition to the series consists of follow-up chapters on the couples including some bedroom time and an extended excerpt from the upcoming book Happily Ever Ninja.

Neanderthal Seeks Human’s Janie and Quinn are on their honeymoon doing what honeymooners do. There is no new information, just Janie acting in her usual charming offbeat way and Quinn appreciating both her intellect and the way she looks in a bikini.

Love Hacked’s Alex and Sandra have been married for a year and are blissfully in love. For their anniversary, Alex arranges a special adventure for Sandra. This chapter had no smolder and benefited from it.

Nico and Elizabeth’s follow up to Friends Without Benefits addresses their wedding and its aftermath. As the books are told from the women’s perspectives – with the hero’s perspective in a final chapter – this episode was indirectly covered in both Neanderthal Marries Human and Friends Without Benefits.

The end of Beauty and the Mustache (which I really liked) had protagonists Ashley and Drew agreeing to be together in Tennessee, but she was still living in Chicago. Here, she waits in her empty apartment for Drew to come and pick her up for the drive to her new home. While impatiently waiting, she revisits the letters he wrote to her during their time apart. Drew arrives, they get busy, the end.

Ninja at First Sight excerpt from Happily Ever Ninja

Part of the delight of the Knitting in the City series is the group of female friends the stories are built around. Only one of them was married at the outset, Fiona, and she has been with her husband Greg for over a decade. This sneak peek takes the reader back to when they met at university. Fiona was a competitive gymnast who lost several of her teen years to fighting a brain tumor. Greg takes one look and is very interested, but he is also older and more worldly than she. Smitten, Fiona crushes on Greg and he on her while they both keep their distance. After a drunken confession and a sobering night’s sleep, they start to talk, and then kiss, and then the damn excerpt ends and leaves the reader hanging. I don’t normally like the married couple falling in love all over again stories, but I strongly suspect Happily Ever Ninja will make it onto my reading list when it is released.

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 which includes the aforementioned observations.

The Beautiful Series: Beautiful Secret by Christina Lauren

book review April 29, 2015 Leave a comment

I have reviewed the rest of the Beautiful series by writing duo Christina Lauren in an ongoing post, but since the tone of this latest entry was something different, I decided to review it by itself. To get caught up, this is the series thus far (9 books, 4 couples):

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

Ruby is an engineering intern at a London firm. An American living abroad, she is a very ambitious and capable young woman working to augment her experience before applying to a prestigious Masters program. Her boss is one of those quietly harassing, sexist douchelords so many of us have encountered; however, once a week, she attends a team meeting in which dreamy dreamboat Niall Stella will be present and that helps considerably. When the douchelord can’t participate in a month-long work project in New York, Ruby is nominated to attend with Niall.

The beautiful Series is on the erotica end of the romance continuum. Each of the previous books in the series featured characters who quickly got busy, or stayed busy in the case of the novellas. Beautiful Secret is a bit of a right turn in that the consummation is delayed, although Niall and Ruby still have fun. Niall is recently divorced and, while not particularly upset about it, he is a tightly wound guy with very little romantic experience. His closed-off demeanor alternately entices and creates problems for Ruby. They suffer from communication problems – both of the over and under-share varieties – and need to adjust their expectations and behavior to get themselves moving in the right direction.

Beautiful Secret was pleasant and occasionally sweet, but it would be disingenuous of me to be too critical because, for better or worse, I have purchased and read every book in the series and will likely continue to do so. I did find the juxtaposition of Lauren’s usual raunchiness with a more traditional approach to the relationship a bit jarring, but this indicates more about my romance tastes and the point at which they intersect with erotica than about the novel itself.

Having taken 3.7 seconds to ponder it, I generally do not find the “uptight in public/wild man between the sheets” type terribly attractive. Niall is a really great guy, sincere and patient, but he has a long way to go and a lot to learn before he is ready for a relationship with Ruby. To his credit, he realises he needs to grow and give her the space and she is, of course, able to help him with his buttoned-up demeanour. Also around are Niall’s brother, Max, and friends Bennett and Will who appear in previous books in the series. For some strange reason, only one of the women, Chloe, also has a guest starring role. This was a disappointment as I like the other female characters better than her.

Christina Lauren has a series, Wild Seasons, in the new adult romance genre which I recommend over the Beautiful books. 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 which includes the aforementioned observations.

 

Paris Nights Series: All for You by Laura Florand

book review April 24, 2015 Leave a comment

Five years ago, Joss Castel* left Celie and everything he knew behind to join the French Foreign Legion. He wanted to be more for her, better, to lay the foundation of a life together outside the tenements they had grown up in. The only problem is that he did not tell Celie any of this. Joss held himself in a self-made friends-only space until they could start their a life in a new place. He was her closest friend and the person she adored. All Celie knew was that the man she loved abandoned her and didn’t come back for five years. In his quest to be more for Celie, Joss broke her heart. Now 28 years old to Celie’s 23, he’s back to lay his accomplishments at her feet. She still loves him, but that feeling is constantly at war with her need to brain Joss for his surprise departure and sudden return.

All for You showcases once again Laura Florand’s ability to write enjoyable, thoroughly escapist contemporary romance. While her books often feature down-to-earth billionaires, a trope I am not fond of (but which Florand manages to pull off), this outing has two people from the wrong side of the tracks who are determined to build better lives for themselves. Celie took a teenage apprenticeship with a local baker and through her hard work and desire to excel now works for one of Paris’s premiere chocolatiers. It’s into this shop that Joss bursts back into her life. Celie is overwhelmed and angry, but so happy to see him she doesn’t know what to do with herself.

Joss and Celie’s reunion and the timeline of the book is actually quite condensed. From beloved, to “Idiot”!,  back to beloved takes place over a short period, but includes enough flashbacks for context and some excellent, writhing, repressed smolder to keep things moving along. A might fortress is our Joss, so it’s a one-step-forward-two-steps-back romance until everyone comes to their senses and he learns that Celie wants the journey with him more than she wants the destination. Florand is generally very good with couples experiencing communication problems and, while it frustrated me and went on a bit, Joss really is a prisoner of his own reserve, Legion-trained stoicism, and good intentions. Despite this, while he may be a military man to his core now, he is free of the annoying romance writer’s crutch of PTSD.

Blissfully, my favourite couple from Florand’s L’Amour et Chocolat series novel, The Chocolate Touch, are on hand to provide guidance to the couple and doses of their own adorability. Still madly in love, Dom continues to be a giant lug and much fun is had teasing him for referring to Jaime as his “wife” despite lacking the official and legally binding piece of paper indicating this. Incorporating previous characters without letting them dominate is a challenge that many romance writers face and Florand does well with it. I wanted more of Dom and Jaime, of course, but then I always will.

All For You crosses over with the L’Amour et Chocolat series and will be crossing over with the La Vie en Roses series as well.

*Fun Aside: Josselin Castle

A complete summary of Laura Florand’s catalogue, including 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 Wedding Journey by Carla Kelly

book review April 14, 2015 Leave a comment

The Wedding Journey is another lovely and highly recommendable Carla Kelly Regency romance about genuinely kind and likable people falling in love against the backdrop of war. I really enjoyed it at the same time as I realised that I have read too many of her novels too close together. All of Kelly’s best elements can be found here, as well as her one besetting sin minor shortcoming.

Profoundly shy, Doctor Jesse Randall has loved Nell Mason for years. She and her family have followed the drum at the behest of her gormless father and working in the hospital tent is Nell’s contribution to their income. In debt to a moustache-twirling bastard of a villain, Nell’s father plans to offer her up in  payment for gambling debts once Nell’s mother – and the protection she affords – is gone. When his long-suffering wife dies, Jesse steps in to marry Nell and prevent her sacrifice on the altar of matrimony, or at least offer a significantly better altar. It is a bittersweet gesture for him given his feelings. The moustache-twirling bastard “accidentally” leaves the medical personnel behind when his troop retreats, so newly wedded and even more recently abandoned, Jesse, Nell, and their small band of misfits make their way through rural Spain back to safety behind British lines. Along the way, they encounter rapscallions, batty aristocrats, and villagers just trying to survive living on an ever-shifting battle front. The moustache-twirling bastard has left damage in his wake that creates even more challenges for the group. Jesse and Nell find time, along with the urgent clarifying reality of their situation, to come together as a couple and in appreciation of each other.

There are two problems with The Wedding Journey. The first is mine as I feel like I have read versions of this book by Kelly already: A nice soldier is thrown together with an unassuming young woman and the two must make their way to a new location. There is nothing wrong with this trope. Nothing. Kelly writes gratifyingly sincere prose without being overly sweet and adds enough danger and harrowing detail to bring everything together well. It’s a great formula and I am not complaining. That would be like saying, “Lisa Kleypas, could you please do something about all those deliciously sardonic men?”, or “Julia Quinn, could you ease up on the wit?”.  Carla Kelly writes a specific kind of romance and she does so beautifully. I just need to stash her books lower on my To Be Read pile.

The second problem with The Wedding Journey, and let me just pause to replace “problem” with “quibble”, is that Carla Kelly might be too nice. She has a tendency to wrap things up very neatly.

“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.”

Yes, thank you, Mr. Wilde, I am aware of that, but while I have no objection to moustache-twirling bastards receiving comeuppance, the redemption of others and some deus ex machina Kelly indulges in were over the line. She creates such a convincing and honest world for her characters that it actually works against the story when things are neatly resolved at the end of the book.

Oh, one last thing: I would have liked just a few more pages of epilogue with the characters once they were safe and sound, mostly because I liked them so much that I wanted to have time with them enjoying domestic bliss.

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.

 

Bar Sinister by Sheila Simonson

book review April 1, 2015 Leave a comment

Short Version: Long on historical, short on romance.

This novel came to me through a recommendation on my list of books sorted by author with a comment from Jorry saying she/he thought someone was missing from my reading list: Sheila Simonson. Always willing to look into a suggestion, I found one of this new-to-me author’s books available on e-loan from my library.

Bar Sinister surely had the most authentic feeling historical elements of any romance I have read. (I say feeling because I am not a historian, just a pretentious reviewer.) I wasn’t expecting any [insert funky bassline here],  but I was disappointed that the two leads were rarely in the same room house town county country. It wasn’t even an epistolary romance, despite letters passing back and forth, and I found myself frustrated that the only time the hero and heroine spent any real time together was in the Epilogue when, spiff-spoff, they decided to marry.

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, Emily, widowed with a four-year-old son, has decided to become a baby farmer to generate income and to provide a larger family for her child. She takes in the baby boy and three-year old daughter of Captain Richard Falk.  Also widowed (widowered?), his Spanish wife has passed away and he has returned to England to place his children in care that is meant to be temporary, but may become permanent depending on his survival in the Wars. He drops the children and the baby’s wet-nurse off with Emily and returns to the Continent.

The portion of the novel in which Richard’s children, Tom and Amy, settle in was very difficult. Amy is a three-year-old which makes her of an age to understand that her Papa has disappeared, but not really why, and she doesn’t speak English, nor Emily Spanish. When the grown ups clue in that Amy thinks her father is dead (like her mother), Emily and Richard start writing letters which include adventure stories Richard incorporates into each missive. The arrangement goes on for years, with Richard making rare, brief appearances between postings and sending letters full of tales for the children.

Richard’s perilous existence is complicated by his parentage. An admitted by-blow, his biological family is divided between wanting him to disappear forever and come for visits. This element is crucial to the plot progression and provides much of the action. While it did create character development, it didn’t add much to the romance element. I wasn’t expecting a lot in that department, or even any smolder full stop, but the characters were too removed from each other to make the ending seem like much more than a marriage of convenience that concluded rather than started the story, despite their protestations of love.

Despite the lack of romance in Bar Sinister, Simonson is a very good writer and I enjoyed the historical immersion feeling of reading her prose. I picked up Lady Elizabeth’s Comet at my library since it is the novel specifically recommended by Jorry. The hero is a supporting character in Bar Sinister and such a charmer that I want to read his story, but it will have to wait as Julie Anne Long has released a new book and that gets priority for now.

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

Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner

book review March 25, 2015 Comments: 4

As a romance reader, I rely on recommendations since it’s a genre full of authors of wildly varying quality. Like any other group, there are a few greats that land on one’s autobuy list, then the excellent, very good, reliable, guilty pleasures, desperate measures, and so on. Finding good new-to-me authors always feels like a coup. My romance spirit guide, Malin, has pointed me in many the right direction, as have others. Writer Courtney Milan suggested this author on her blog and who am I to turn down the opportunity for a good book and a good turn bringing attention to a new author.

Sweet Disorder by Rose Lerner is set in Lively St. Lemeston and has the most interesting political intrigue of any historical romance I’ve read. It’s not spies or fighting Napoleon, but the prosaic reality of nineteenth century voting rights which create the impetus for the story. Widowed Phoebe is being courted by opposing political parties. She can’t vote (I know), but the man she marries will be able to. Given a sudden motivation for financial security that a husband is her best bet of providing, Phoebe declines, then agrees to politically motivated matchmaking. I have never read anything like that before, have you? Nick Dymond has been charged by his family with finding a suitable partner for Phoebe. The local baker seems a good choice, but he and Phoebe don’t really connect, nor does Nick’s opposition have more luck. Since I have mentioned his name twice now, I am sure you can guess who Phoebe ends up with.

Sweet Disorder had strong historical elements and vocabulary, and I really liked that it felt grounded in believable history. Phoebe is a zaftig heroine which is a bit of a departure and appreciated since many times in romance the heroine is either upset that her lush curves are not the fashion, or that she is slim and therefore doesn’t have much chest, the poor dears. I must admit though that I found myself skimming passages of the book, that the tone was a bit uneven, and I was surprised by the love scene choices. I tried another of Lerner’s books, True Pretenses, and did not finish it. I may try again with another of her novels given that the historical elements are so strong, and, after looking at these two novels, she embraces unconventional heroes and heroines.

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 Bridgertons Series: It’s In His Kiss by Julia Quinn

book review March 24, 2015 Comments: 2

My reviews of the best of Julia Quinn continue with It’s in His Kiss. The penultimate book in the Bridgerton series, if you don’t count the catch-up novella, it has one of my favourite heroines in romance, and the hero is not so bad either. The writing is, as always, deft and witty, and the banter is especially good, even for a Julia Quinn novel.

The youngest child of eight, Hyacinth Bridgerton was born one month after the untimely death of her father. Surrounded by a loving family, she is confident, intelligent, and, to quote those who love her, “diabolical”. No shrinking violet, but not a brat either, Hyacinth has learned to hold her own as the baby of the family and, just maybe, is therefore uncomfortable in situations in which she does not feel in control of her environment. This kind of situation arises in particular when she is faced with an appealing young man who can keep up, or perhaps even challenge her.

Charming, droll, and a bit of a rogue, Gareth St. Clair’s family life is almost the opposite of Hyacinth’s. As he points out, he has but one person in the world to love. Fortunately for him, it is his grandmother, and Quinn fan favourite, Lady Danbury. Terrifyingly direct and more than a bit managing, Lady Danbury is delighted to encourage Gareth’s interest in Hyacinth, especially as the women have in many ways the same personality. Despite but one relation he can rely on, Gareth does have a father and the elder St. Clair not so much twirls his moustache, but pushes every single one of his son’s buttons every time they meet. Gareth is his legitimate heir by law, but not by conception, and his father does what he can to make Gareth’s life miserable, including cutting him off and taking vindictive delight in emptying the family coffers.

Gareth’s ability and joy in stopping the force of nature in her tracks is a delight and, naturally, the main event, but beyond the love story, It’s in His Kiss  is a treasure hunt. When his paternal grandmother’s diary falls into his hands, Gareth asks Hyacinth to translate the Italian and she discovers that the unhappily married woman had stashed a set of jewels somewhere in Gareth’s family home – the one that he was kicked out of years before.They spend their time skulking around Mayfair late at night and falling in love.

The novel has some minor glitches, but the characters are so winning it’s hard to object. Bridgerton series followers have watched Hyacinth grow up and here her bravado and vim are in full flower; having Lady Danbury as a counterpoint is a smart character choice since Hyacinth mirrors her so well.  With an excellent match in Gareth, the reader can be confident that theirs will truly be a marriage of equals and that Gareth and Hyacinth genuinely delight in each other.

A summary of Julia Quinn’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.

With This Ring by Carla Kelly

book review March 20, 2015 Leave a comment

Here I am with a review of a novel published in 1997, but a good romance remains so and is always worth a look. eBooks are a boon to people looking for stories they would otherwise be unable to get their hands on. With This Ring was recommended by a friend and while it didn’t completely work for me, overall I have found all of Kelly’s Regency romances worth a read, if only for her faith in humanity and a writing style which makes the reader feel settled securely in the story’s time period.

This is the second Carla Kelly book I’ve read, the first being the truly lovely The Lady’s Companion, in which a financially beholden young woman decides to break with her family and Society to strike out on her own. I always enjoy a nice raised middle finger to snobs and convention, but then who doesn’t? After visiting a makeshift military hospital on a lark with her sister, Lydia Perkins goes back day after day to help the wounded as best she can. Lydia finds both a purpose and a kindred spirit in looking after Major Sam Reed’s men. When the Major proposes a marriage of convenience to satisfy a series of outrageous falsehoods about having a wife he has told in his letters home, Lydia is flattered but refuses until her awful mother belittles her for what Lydia decides will be the last time. Running away to quickly marry the still recuperating Sam, the two settle down to get their story straight before facing his familial inquisition.

Because she has been alternately overlooked and demoralized by her family, Lydia may be a good person, but she has no self-confidence. Sam decides, as the reader learns later, that she must learn believe in herself, so he engineers a situation for her to appreciate her own value. I wouldn’t have minded his “stand on your own” hokum, if he had not withheld crucial information which a. created an extremely stressful situation for Lydia, and b. things had not then gone almost perfectly for her. It was all too bibbity-bobbity-boo for me.

Like another Kelly book, The Admiral’s Penniless Bride, I enjoyed most of the novel and was disappointed by the ending. Kelly is one of those authors whose I books I would rather read even with a letdown than forgo altogether. I have worked my way through her highest rated books and will likely make my way through the rest of her Regency romance catalogue as well.

With This Ring did have one shocking element that I want to mention as its inclusion was baffling to me. Sam has told his family that he and his trumped-up wife have a child. To give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative (H/T WS Gilbert), they visit a foundling home and adopt/buy a random baby girl. They purchase an orphan to sell the lie. Granted she’ll have a better life as a result, but they BUY A BABY! I was all astonishment.

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.