Tag Archives: romance

The Bluestocking and the Rake by Norma Darcy

book review March 16, 2015 Leave a comment

2014 Winner — Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award — Romance

Intrigued by the title appearing as a background advertisement when I turned off my Kindle, but leery of losing another $3.99 to a disappointing book, The Bluestocking and the Rake was one of the novels I checked out when sampling KindleUnlimited. I’m glad I saved my money and so should you.

Starting with a great title and some sparkling energy between her main characters, The Bluestocking and the Rake begins well, but slowly derails as the story gains speed. Possessing too much plot by at least a third, the love story gets lost in the last half of the novel as new characters and background information arrive in an endless tumble.

Robert, Earl of Marcham is, at 36, tired of gadding about bedding beautiful women and carousing. He has decided to look for one special woman who can be his countess and continue the family line. This is all well and good, so he selects an appropriate candidate – one of the legion of pretty, young, almost always blond women who fulfill this role in historical romance – but cannot find it in himself to propose to her. At the same time, a thorn is driven into his side by a local bluestocking who has decided to hold him up quasi-anonymously as symbolic of all that is wrong with men of his station. Confronted by this grumpy spinster, Georgiana Blakelow, Robert is, as is the genre way of things, intrigued.

If The Bluestocking and the Rake had proceeded apace from this meet cute, it would have made sense. The tone established at the outset was light and fun, with strong supporting characters. Instead the good beginning was lost in increasingly complex machinations that sidelined this romance novel’s love story. Georgiana is guilty of a lot of comeheregoaway and Robert, after a thunderbolt moment not shared with the reader, continues to pursue her despite her repeated refusals to marry him and the mounting melodrama surrounding her. There are so many layers of relationships and contrivances that The Bluestocking and the Rake read like two years’ worth of soap opera plot in a 300 page book.

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 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

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.

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.

Julie Anne Long’s Catalogue

book review February 4, 2015 Comments: 2

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

Early Books:
The Runaway Duke – early work, dated
To Love a Thief – very enjoyable

Three Sisters Trilogy: early series, fine
Beauty and the Spy
Ways to Be Wicked
The Secret to Seduction

Pennyroyal Green Series:
The Perils of Pleasure  – fun
Like No Other Lover – Delightful, hot
Since the Surrender – fine, prostitution shouldn’t be funny
I Kissed an Earl – very popular
What I Did for a Duke – CLASSIC, fantastic hero
How the Marquess Was Won – really good, but it fell apart
A Notorious Countess Confesses – excellent
It Happened One Midnight – very good, but somehow not memorable
Between the Devil and Ian Eversea – meh, more of the hero from What I Did for a Duke
It Started with a Scandal – enjoyable enough, but nothing special
The Legend of Lyon Redmond – FANTASTIC, better if you read the series first
Malcolm and Isabel (Malcolm/Isabel) – contemporary coda to the series

The Pennyroyal Green series ranked, numbers 1 and 2 are non-negotiable:

1. What I Did for a Duke
2. The Legend of Lyon Redmond
3. A Notorious Countess Confesses
4. It Happened One Midnight
5. Like No Other Lover
6. I Kissed an Earl
7. Between the Devil and Ian Eversea
8. It Started with a Scandal
9. The Perils of Pleasure
10. Since the Surrender
11. How the Marquess Was Won

Palace of Rogues Series:
Lady Derring Takes a Lover (Tristan/Delilah) – very enjoyable, recommended
Angel in a Devil’s Arms (Lucien/Angelique)

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES –  I really prefer the historicals

Hellcat Canyon Series:
Hot in Hellcat Canyon
Wild at Whisky Creek
Dirty Dancing at Devil’s Leap (Mac/Avalon) – pleasant, nothing special
The First Time at Firelight Falls

Courtney Milan’s Catalogue

book review February 4, 2015 Comments: 5

The Themes: Don’t let anyone tell you who you are, only you get to decide that. Fear is a waste of energy and

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HISTORICAL ROMANCES

The Carhart Series:
This Wicked Gift – wonderful, sweet
Proof by Seduction – for completists, you can see her potential
Trial by Desire – one of only two Milan books I don’t recommend

The Turner Brothers Series:
Unveiled – This is the romance novel hero I would marry, given that choice.
Unclaimed – She’s the rake in need of reformation.
Unraveled – great and a personal favourite
Unlocked – a bullied woman finds peace

The Brothers Sinister Series:
The Governess Affair – very good novella
The Duchess War – great
A Kiss for Midwinter (novella)– CLASSIC and an absolute favourite
The Heiress Effect – the secondary plot was lovely
The Countess Conspiracy – fantastic
The Suffragette Scandal – CLASSIC
Talk Sweetly to Me (novella) – good not great

The Worth Saga: Starting 2015
Once Upon a Marquess – nah
Her Every Wish novella – excellent
After the Wedding
The Devil Comes Courting
The Return of the Scoundrel
The Kissing Hour
A Tale of Two Viscounts
The Once and Future Earl

Independent Historical Novellas:
The Lady Always Wins – fair
What Happened at Midnight – fair
A Right Honorable Gentleman – short story, interesting
The Pursuit Of… – historical, LGBTQ, good

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES

The Cyclone Series:
Trade Me – very good
Hold Me – GREAT! Better on each re-read.
The Year of the Crocodile (novella) – quick, entertaining, placeholder story
Find Me
Keep Me
Show Me
What Lies Between Me and You

milan

Tessa Dare’s Catalogue

book review, book reviews February 4, 2015 Comments: 4

EXCLUSIVELY HISTORICAL ROMANCES

The Stud Club Trilogy:
One Dance with a Duke – some structural issues, great characters and [fans self] smolder
Twice Tempted by a Rogue – a much too literally tortured hero for my tastes
Three Nights with a Scoundrel – Dare hitting her stride with a well-intentioned rake

Spindle Cove Series:
A Night to Surrender – Good, not great.
Once Upon a Winter’s Eve – Pleasant novella
A Week to Be Wicked – delightful romp, fabulous hero
A Lady by Midnight – Fantastic smolder, sincere love story, some heavy plotting
Beauty and the Blacksmith – very good, but not great, and worth reading
Any Duchess Will Do – Strained credulity overruled by a heartfelt love story, highly recommended

Castles Ever After Series:
Romancing the Duke – hellaciously twee
Say Yes to the Marquess – fun, light romp, recommended
When a Scot Ties the Knot – meh
Do You Want to Start a Scandal? – no romantic chemistry

Girl Meets Duke Series:
The Duchess Deal – very good, recommended
The Governess Game  – surprisingly entertaining plot moppets
The Wallflower Wager – pretty good

Also:
The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr. Wright – an absolute gem of a novella
How to Catch a Wild Viscount – early novella, don’t bother, choose an option from above

Lisa Kleypas’s Catalogue

book review February 4, 2015 Leave a comment

Themes: Make your own life and your own luck. Hard work is rewarded. To find a true partner, you will need to leave your comfort zone. Also, find an incredibly hot  man who adores you.

HISTORICAL ROMANCES

Standalone Novels/Early Series:
Surrender – don’t, dated
Stranger in My Arms – don’t
Suddenly You – pretty good, reasonably racy
Somewhere I’ll Find You – don’t
Because You’re Mine – don’t
I Will – nope
Where Dreams Begin – personal favourite, I LOVE THIS BOOK
Again the Magic – main plot has sturm and drang, secondary plot is great and has a marvelous hero

Gamblers Series:
Then Came You  – good, a lot of readers really like it
Dreaming of You – CLASSIC, one of romance’s ultimate heroes, I have read it many times
Where’s My Hero – novella follow up to Dreaming of You – for completists

Bow Street Runners Series:
Someone to Watch Over Me – a bit dated, one great moment
Lady Sophia’s Lover  – SMOKING hot hero, pretty good overall, dated
Worth Any Price – don’t, unless you want a lot of sex and no emotion, then do

The Wallflowers Series:
Secrets of a Summer Night – personal favourite, delicious hero
It Happened One Autumn – good not great, pompous hero, the heroine is a bit of a pill
The Devil in Winter – CLASSIC with the ultimate Rake/Wallflower combination
Scandal in the Spring – sweet ending to the series
A Wallflower Christmas – for completists only

The Hathaways Series:
Mine till Midnight – great, has my all time favourite heroine
Seduce Me at Sunrise – too much agita for me
Tempt Me at Twilight – personal favourite
Married by Morning – a near miss, but still good
Love in the Afternoon – excellent, sweet and grows on me with each re-read

The Ravenels:
Cold-Hearted Rake – lays groundwork for the new series, could be stronger
Marrying Winterbourne – middling, hero manhandles the heroine
Devil in Spring – best of the series, but not up to Kleypas’s standard
Hello Stranger – strangely dated; hero born and raised in England has an Irish accent
Devil’s Daughter – best of the series, charming hero

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES

The Travis Series:
Sugar Daddy – didn’t really like the hero
Blue-Eyed Devil – good, not great
Smooth Talking Stranger – Great, but can a hero be too perfect?
Brown Eyed Girl – Based on reviews, I didn’t bother.

Crystal Cove Series: Not my cup of tea, did not read.

Laura Florand’s Catalogue

book review February 4, 2015 Leave a comment

Themes: Sincere love gives you the courage and freedom to embrace your true self and someone else’s.

EXCLUSIVELY CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES

L’Amour et Chocolat Series:
All’s Fair in Love and Chocolate – prequel novella, great steam, quick, fun read
The Chocolate Thief – Pretty good, it took me from 99 cents on Kindle to the complete series.
The Chocolate Kiss – A great fairy tale that made me forgive the metaphor.
The Chocolate Rose – Excellent passion, needed just a hint more love story. Very good.
The Chocolate Touch – One of my top 5 of all time, really sweet and intense. LOVE IT.
The Chocolate Heart – The weakest of the group.
The Chocolate Temptation – Steamy, not quite as great, but still enjoyable.
Shadowed Heart – novella follow-up to The Chocolate Heart, meh, but features visits with EVERYONE

Snow-Kissed – Somber novella of a couple finding their way back to each other after loss
Sun Kissed – novella – Main characters in their 50s, which is nice, but I read it for visits with everyone else.

La Vie en Roses Series:
Turning Up the Heat (Daniel/Lea) – prequel novella
A Rose in Winter (Raoul/Allegra) – prequel novella –  Florand can and has done better
The Chocolate Rose (Gabriel/Jolie) – prequel novel I *really* like
Once Upon a Rose (Matt/Layla)  – fun, great light escapism
A Wish Upon Jasmine (Damien/Jess) – not her strongest, it had a lot of promise
A Crown of Bitter Orange (Tristan/Malorie) – not memorable, he’s charming, see above
A Kiss in Lavender (Lucien/Elena) – good, recommended

Paris Nights Series:
All for You (Joss/Celie) – Florand in fine form PLUS Dom and Jaime appear
Chase Me (Chase/Violette) – enjoyable, fantastic banter
Trust Me (Jake/Lina) – Good, not great