Tag Archives: Victorian romance

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.

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 Brothers Sinister Series: The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan

book review January 21, 2014 Comments: 2

The Countess Conspiracy is a feminist treatise wrapped in a historical romance. It made me cry. I have read scores romances in the past two years. I have laughed, swooned, scoffed, gasped, cackled, writhed, and sighed, but I have NEVER cried. What’s more, I did not cry over the romance, I cried over the gender politics. Once again, Courtney Milan has upended the tropes of the genre and crafted something tremendously entertaining that rises above the theoretical limitations she works within.

Violet, Countess of Cambury, and her dearest friend, Sebastian Malheur, have been keeping secrets from each other and from the world for many years. As the story opens, Sebastian has decided that he can no longer lie, not about the fact that he loves Violet, nor to continue his scientific work on her behalf. He is tired of secrets and exhausted from the hostility and derision their work is greeted with. Sebastian is a bright, kind, charming man, but while romances frequently come down to the hero, The Countess Conspiracy is not really about him, despite his strong subplot, or even the two of them together. This is Violet’s book. Milan blends the love story with an examination of society’s limitations, the roles we play, the restrictions we create on our own lives, and the prices we pay when we struggle against them.

A splendidly complicated, strong, and wounded character, Violet is closed-off and abnegating, brilliant and driven. She has been told by others for so long who she is that Violet has begun to believe them and, worse, believe that she must be this way to survive. She broke my heart. Her world that tells her very clearly what a woman, a woman of worth, must and must not be. What is considered good, proper, and natural, and what will happen if any woman, even one of privilege, transgresses against these rules. Violet’s story is about the perception of oneself and the fear those rules create, and the strength it takes to defy them.

The story makes its way towards a happy ending. Milan’s writing is clever, well-researched, and diverting as always, her characters well-drawn and visits to old favourites included. In the past, she has taken on poverty, the class system, and even women’s health issues. Not every book is superlative, but when she’s good, she is one of the very best historical romance writers ever. To my mind, Lisa Kleypas is one of the genre’s master craftsmen, but Courtney Milan is an artist. If you want to read a superior, entertaining, and heartfelt romance, read The Countess Conspiracy. Was it entirely realistic? No, but it is still a romance and its escapist vindications need not be only in the relationship sphere. Was it wonderfully romantic? Not quite, but the decline in swoon was made up for by the excellence of the other story elements and the fist pumping I engaged in while reading. Read The Countess Conspiracy, read the Dedication, and read the Author’s Note. It is Milan’s most fully realised work so far and I am saying that with the addendum that I feel she has already written one truly great romance, Unraveled, and one classic, A Kiss for Midwinter.

A complete summary of Courtney Milan’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 (Shameful) Tally 2014

book review January 1, 2014 Leave a comment

February 2015: 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 all of the books I have read to date.

This is the yearly reading list I maintain.

Recommended books are in bold, but here is a ruthlessly streamlined recommendations list:
So You Want to Read a (Historical) Romance, this is an
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ROMANCES BY AUTHOR, and these are
Things That Occur to Me While Reading Historical Romance Novels.

The Autobuy List
Tessa Dare
Lisa Kleypas (except Crystal Cove)
Julie Anne Long
Sarah MacLean
Courtney Milan – The. Very. Best.

The Auto-Library/Cheap on Kindle List
Jennifer Ashley –  I love/hate her. I don’t recommend her.
Mary Balogh – predictable, but safe, well-written
Loretta Chase –  reliable, sometimes great
Meredith Duran – great character studies
Suzanne Enoch – B+ list
Elizabeth Essex – potential
Laura Florand – steamy and romantic contemporaries
Juliana Gray – B+ list, really strong, almost an autobuy
Cecilia Grant – interesting, massive potential
Lorraine Heath – B- list, so if there’s absolutely nothing else, maybe
Carla Kelly – sweet Regency romances, large back catalogue, newer work has Mormon themes
Caroline Linden – off to a good start, great potential
Julia Quinn – An excellent place to launch your reading. Start with The Bridgertons

Malin has excellent reviews on her site, and a broader range of books.

Name Tally August 31, 2014: Simon (8); Michael (7); Sebastian (7); William (7); Robert, Alec/Alex (5); Colin, Jack, Harry, James(4); Benedict, Charles, Edward, Gabriel, Gareth, Jackson, Julian, Lucien, Marcus, Tristan (3); and only one David.

My Favourite Characters

Other Authors and My Reading List for 2014 Are After the Jump

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Where Dreams Begin by Lisa Kleypas

book review December 11, 2013 Leave a comment

I mentioned in an earlier review that I had once said, “If these two don’t kiss soon, my head may explode,” out loud while reading a particular romance. Where Dreams Begin by Lisa Kleypas is that particular romance. I love this book. While not a classic, it is one of the ones I will keep if/when I am released from my historical romance obsession. I have read it several times and did so again recently.

Lady Holland Taylor…

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation Presents No, not this one, although I assume it’s a loving homage on the part of Ms. Kleypas.

Lady Holland Taylor has just attended her first public event after three years of public and private mourning for her husband, George. They were happily married and very much in love. Holly lives with his family and her daughter, Rose, her dearest tie to George. Despite the fact that she is out in society again, Holly dresses in the colours of “half mourning” and has no interest in another marriage. She is every inch, and in all the best ways, a lady. When Holly finds herself looking for a moment alone and instead winds up kissing a stranger in the dark at a party, she is devastated and runs away.

Zachary Bronson expected one woman in the dark and swooped in to discover he was kissing another. He has recently arrived in Society and his position there is the result of his ambition and unassailable wealth. He is too rough for his new world and the upper echelons do so revile an upstart. To give himself access to the circles he wants to do business in, make his mother and sister comfortable in that world, but mostly to try to get his hands on that woman he kissed, Zachary offers Holly a position as a kind of guide to teach his family the social graces. He pretends not to remember her when they meet again, as does Holly. For an obscene amount of money, including a generous dowry for Rose, Holly will work for Zachary for one year. His only condition is that Holly and her daughter must move in with his family.

There is no external conflict in this story, the tension revolves around the vast difference in the leads’ backgrounds. Holly and Zach are each kind, lovely people. He is brash and ambitious, she is refined and quiet. They slowly find a balance with each other and move forward as a couple. Holly was trained so well to be a certain kind of woman, so very moderate in all things, and constrained for so long that she feels bowled over by this louder new life, even as she finds Zachary incredibly attractive. (As well she should. He is as delicious as I have come to expect of all Lisa Kleypas heroes. She writes big, beautiful, sardonic men, and I say, “Brava!”.)

Where Dreams Begin has some elements that are a bit dated, it is mentioned that Zach frequents brothels, and there is magic realism/dreamy stuff that I could have done without. Romance novels are  sufficiently fuzzy with regards to reality that adding another layer of narrative distance impinges on the illusion for me. Any quibbles I have are minor about an otherwise sincere, entertaining and delightful story. Lisa Kleypas is a master craftsman. She excels at every aspect of writing for the genre. Every night, I say a little prayer hoping she will re-enter the historical romance fray.

A complete summary of Lisa Kleypas’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 Mackenzie Series: The Untamed Mackenzie and The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley

book review November 7, 2013 Leave a comment

I’m not sure there is any historical romance author who believes in the redemptive power of love as deeply as Jennifer Ashley. It’s the only reason I can think of for her persistence in creating exquisite examples of Victorian Douchelordery and making them her romantic leads.

The Untamed Mackenzie

First up is the novella The Untamed Mackenzie. Unless you are the magnificence that is Courtney Milan, or perhaps Tessa Dare, novellas are generally just a way to tide over fans and earn some extra money between major releases. They build a love story around previous secondary or even tertiary characters and, this is the important part, allow readers to revisit old favourites.  Jennifer Ashley is not Courtney Milan, or perhaps Tessa Dare, so this is a rickety love story stopping over with each of the  Mackenzies from the first four books in the series. Lloyd is the illegitimate son of the same fu*king monster that raised those tortured heroes. Louisa is the younger sister of Mac Mackenzie’s wife, Isabella.

If pater familias Hart Mackenzie is Douchelord in Chief, Lloyd is the Bastard Douchelord and/or Douchelord Bastard. An obsessive police detective, he was one of the villains in The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie and he acquitted his role in a thorough and reprehensible manner. I hated him and had well-founded concerns for his emotional stability. Admittedly, this is true of 78.3% of Ashley’s heroes. Lloyd and Louisa have flirted in previous encounters and when she is accused of murder, they feel the need to interview each of the Mackenzie characters to solve the crime. Whatever. The other characters are more interesting than Lloyd and Isabella anyway.

The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie

I wanted to like The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie.  I wanted to like it so much. Daniel is an absolute doll, just the sweetest guy. He’s not really wicked at all, not even a little bit, although he does smoke which I thought was a fantastic period detail. Still, it’s a Jennifer Ashley novel, so Daniel’s mother was batshit insane and he has abandonment issues related to his father.

It is Ashley’s best written book to date, she generally excels at sincere romance, despite frequently getting mired in overwrought and histrionic plotting. The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie avoided this pitfall. Ashley toned down the melodrama, ratcheted up the romance, and had just enough Mackenzie brothers camp to make the whole thing fun. But. There’s always a but.

The heroine, Violet, is a rape survivor, a “tortured heroine” if you will, and coming to terms with and moving past this episode was a major plot element. Violet’s experience infringes on her ability to form trusting relationships and complicates her attraction to Daniel. Ashley handled the subject matter sensitively and one could not help but feel for Violet, but I don’t want to read a romance novel which includes rape as a plot point; I don’t want to read a romance novel with any kind of abuse, sexual or otherwise. If the abuse is physical, I can just skip over these episodes.  If it is sexual, it discomfits my entire reading experience. Violet’s recovery was central to the plot, so it doesn’t matter how well it was handled, it ruined the book for me. I am sure there is a book out there that could defy this rule, but I read romance novels for escapism. Every time the Violet’s experience is relived or described, it removed me from the disconnected reality I look to these books for.

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.

 

The Brothers Sinister Series: The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan

book review July 17, 2013 Leave a comment

If you want to try a historical romance, I recommend Courtney Milan’s books the most highly, but not this particular one. Nobody’s perfect and it does open splendidly…

Miss Jane Fairfield has a number of problems, but they can be boiled down to the fact that she a. is very wealthy and therefore marriageable and b. has a younger sister she needs to protect from a rather dim and unscrupulous uncle. In order to avoid marriage and protect her sister, but still give the impression she is trying to find a husband, Jane takes it upon herself to be available but undesirable. It is quite a balancing act. She must repel suitors, but not openly reject them. To accomplish this, she is meticulously awful: loud, ill-mannered, horrifically but seemingly unintentionally impolite, and hideously upholstered in garish clothing.

The Heiress Effect novel begins strongly. It is fremdschämen in chapter form.  Jane is doing her best to be inappropriate and seemingly oblivious to the mocking laughter behind her back. She attends a dinner party and meets Oliver Marshall, an ambitious young man of equally questionable background who simply refuses to participate in unkindness toward Jane, even when given the opportunity to gain his own political ends if he helps put the bright and brave upstart “in her place”.

My reaction to the novel is a disappointed, “Oh, dear”. Courtney Milan is the very best writer currently publishing in historical romance. The. Very. Best. But The Heiress Effect is a bit of a mess. A very well-written and compelling mess, but a mess with structural and character issues nonetheless. It feels like a fabulous novella that other story lines have been slotted into, or perhaps one that simply got away from the author. The extra plot lines were interesting, and the one for Jane’s sister could have been a lovely novella in and of itself, but they didn’t coalesce successfully. The lead characters were kept apart for too long and Jane behaved in a way that contradicted her earlier actions. I was actually gaping whathefu*kingly at my Kindle.

Such is my faith in Courtney Milan’s writing ability that I  went back and re-read portions of The Heiress Effect, hoping the problem was how quickly I had read it. I came to the same conclusions, but assume Milan could have resolved the problems, if she had more time. I suspect that the publishing schedule that many romance authors keep to of one book every six to nine months and her promised publication date was the real issue here.

Courtney Milan is fascinated by medical history and it always makes for interesting and galling story developments, in this case with themes of women’s rights and personal empowerment. Also, she deserves some sort of award for writing stories that take place in neither London nor Bath, the two default locations for all nineteenth century historical romance.

A complete summary of Courtney Milan’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.

 

Rules for the Reckless Series: That Scandalous Summer by Meredith Duran

book review April 29, 2013 1 Comment

Malin, my romance spirit guide, recommends Meredith Duran very highly. Malin is right. Duran is an excellent writer, but more on that in a tic.

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The cover is ridiculous, but not in the usual heaving alabaster bosom way, which is, admittedly, a relief, but rather in a “What does that dress have to do with a historical romance?” way, but since such shenanigans are typical, I went straight to the reading:

duran3

Oooh, it’s set in 1885 and that means bustles. I LOVE bustles! (There were no bustles.)

All atremble in anticipation of the bustles, I started reading, but I quickly wondered which of the men in the first chapter was the hero, so I flipped the book over to read the blurb on the back:

Duran2

I’m not a historian, but aren’t The Regency and 1885 are separated by about 70 years? I point these things out not to show up the writer, but to point out the attitude of the publishers. It’s a mass market paperback, so apparently such details are irrelevant: “Just say it’s Regency. Women love that sh*t! No one will notice.” Also? It’s not set in London.

In a refreshing change of pace, the hero of That Scandalous Summer is not a Duke. Michael de Grey is the brother of a Duke. He is also a doctor who runs a charity hospital whose funds are controlled by said ducal relation. Michael has found a way to make himself useful, in between some renowned rakish naughtiness, but his brother’s heartbreak over a recently dead wife who was insufficiently discreet in her dalliances has led him to act in a self-destructive way and Michael is in his path. Unless he marries an appropriately demure, read “chaste”, upright woman to produce an heir and continue the family line, the Duke will cut him off without a penny and de-fund the hospital. To add insult to injury, this kind of blindly destructive behaviour is typical of their family, but instead of shielding Michael as he once did, the Duke is now acting like those he used to provide protection against.

Hoping to shock his brother back to his senses, Michael disappears from London and takes up residence in a small village in Cornwall where he practices medicine under an assumed, humbler name and waits to be found. Michael meets Mrs. Elizabeth Chudderly, a widow with a fast reputation, and a “professional beauty” in the new era of photography, who turns out to be a lovely person despite that fact that she was passed out in his rose bushes during their first encounter. Their connection is instant and each of them discovers that being their natural self, as opposed to version they act out in Society, is a huge relief, but imposes strict limits on their relationship. Then Society comes to them in the guise of a house party and things get really complicated.

That Scandalous Summer was a very enjoyable read. Meredith Duran’s storytelling is more serious than I ordinarily like, but not in a melodramatic way, rather she focuses on her mature, complex characters and less on banter. Michael and Elizabeth are consistently interesting on their own and together. From the initial startling spark between them and throughout their challenges, they are both sympathetic, even when they are behaving badly, making poor decisions, and saying exactly the wrong thing. Both hero and heroine are constrained by their responsibilities and the specter of financial and personal ruin. It’s all about the money, its expectations and burdens, which feels realistic for a society built around reputation and perception.

Also by Meredith Duran:

Rules for Reckless Series (not entirely interconnected, more of a theme)
That Scandalous Summer – very good
Your Wicked Heart – delightful novella
Fool Me Twice – excellent
Lady Be Good – nothing special
Luck Be a Lady

Not Rules for the Reckless Series
Bound by Your Touch – excellent
Written on Your Skin – not my style, but very good

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 Mackenzie Series: The Seduction of Elliott McBride by Jennifer Ashley

book review January 3, 2013 Leave a comment

I lovehate Jennifer Ashley. I went on about my feelings at length in an earlier review and yet I still read the next novella, A Mackenzie Family Christmas: The Perfect Gift, and novel in the Mackenzie series.

The Seduction of Elliott McBride may be the book that cures me of my love and brings me down solidly on the side of hate, or at the very least never, ever paying for one of Ashley’s books ever, ever again.  The novel opens with very proper Juliana St. John being left at the altar as her fiance has married his piano teacher. Quelle horreur! Taking a moment alone in a chapel, Juliana SITS ON her childhood friend  Elliott McBride. He has recently returned from India a shattered, but appealingly bronzed, man, and, since they have always loved each other from afar, they decide to marry right away, like, RIGHT AWAY, in the next 15 minutes, and so begins the story.

As with all Ashley men, Elliott McBride has a histrionically torturous back story. He wants Juliana to ground and heal him, so after impulsively marrying, they go straight to the manor he has bought in a remote area of Scotland. With the patience of a saint and the personality of a handkerchief, Juliana passively endures all manner of ridiculous subplots including Elliott’s blackouts and unpredictable violent rages (which are never directed her and that somehow makes them okay); accusations of murder; a stalker; a home in complete disrepair; the home’s violent and irascible existing resident; a culturally patronizing portrayal of Elliott’s Sikh servants; a mixed-race lovechild; Elliott’s random disappearances; his history of imprisonment and profound abuse up to, and including, brainwashing; and hostility from the locals, all while isolated from her family and any semblance of the life she has known. Juliana is fine with it. All of it. She only wants to help. She makes a lot of lists to help organize things. None of the lists seem to include the following:

  1. hide all knives
  2. hide all  guns
  3. install stout padlock on bedroom door
  4. have doctor secretly examine husband
  5. have husband committed
  6. make conjugal visit to asylum

A laundry list of plot ridiculousness is typical of Ashley, but she usually balances it with a love story sufficiently charming to counteract said ridiculousness. That is not the case here. The book is awful and NOT because of everything I’ve already mentioned, though it certainly helps. The fundamental problem is that it’s not a romance novel: Elliott and Juliana start out in love. They stay in love. Their love does not waver. They get busy from the get go. There is nothing actually keeping them apart. The story doesn’t build to anything in their relationship. That is not a romance novel. It’s Ashley attempting to hit all the highlights of her most popular book, The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie, and skipping the sincere love story part that endeared her to me in spite of her farcical plotting. She completely missed the point.

I will be resetting my romance reading summary, The (Shameful) Tally for the New Year. I’m under the impression I’ve read everything decent in the historical romance genre and now I have to wait for the good authors to publish new work, so I am anticipating far less shame and a proportionately reduced tally. I may have to read a real, proper book work of literature.

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.

The Wallflowers Series: Secrets of a Summer Night, It Happened One Autumn, The Devil in Winter, and Scandal in the Spring by Lisa Kleypas

book review December 19, 2012 Comments: 8

Bow down, motherfu*kers. The Queen is in the house.

Go look at my list of books by author. Note that one author has TWENTY-THREE entries on it. Lisa Kleypas is my historical romance genre gold standard. Hers are the books I place on the “keeper shelf”, have re-read the most, and will recommend to anyone who will listen. As is my wont, I read one of her best books first and then went back and devoured everything else I could find. Her earliest work is a bit rough, but she started gathering steam with Dreaming of You (CLASSIC) and forged ahead from there. She has a few connected series, but The Wallflowers and The Hathaways are the strongest.

Kleypas specializes in rakish, sardonic, self-made men, otherwise known as my catnip.  One of the things I find particularly enjoyable is that the men have either worked their way up from virtually nothing, or are making their own way in the world despite inherited privilege.

The Wallflowers, Annabelle, Evie, Lillian, and Daisy, are four young women out in society who bond over their mutual rejection by eligible men. After spending time on the side lines of many a ballroom, they decide to work together to find suitable husbands. There is a lot of cross-pollination between the stories which means you get to visit the characters multiple times.

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