The Duke's Perfect Wife by Jennifer Ashley (Highland Pleasures, Book 4)
A moving second-chance romance with well-developed characters. I can’t say enough about this series.
Hart Mackenzie, head of the notorious Mackenzie family, plans to run for prime minister. He took over as head of the family at a young age, protecting his younger siblings from his psychotic father. He was once engaged to Eleanor Ramsay, the love of his life, daughter of an eccentric but impoverished earl. Unfortunate circumstances led to the breaking of their engagement and it’s quite obvious from the start that they never really got over each other.
Now, Eleanor is back in his life, having received a nude photograph of Hart taken a long time ago. Who sent the photos? And can he really handle having Eleanor back in his life?
This story reads like it could have come out of a modern tabloid. Aspiring political candidate let his ex-mistress take photos of him naked when he was young, she died under scandalous circumstances (see book 1) and suddenly his ex-fiancee is receiving the photos in the mail, one by one. If this gets out in the press, Hart’s political career and his party are ruined and with it his dream of an independent Ireland (then Scotland!) someday. So in comes Eleanor, the ex-fiancee, to find the origin of said photos, under the pretense of being his secretary.
I love well-written second chance romances and author Jennifer Ashley does them very well. To me this is what the story is about, and the photos come second. Ashley does a good job of fleshing out Hart and Elizabeth’s relationship and slowly showing us what led to the last big break up before bringing them back together.
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Flawless by Carrie Lofty (The Christies, Book 1)
A second chance romance filled with adventure and set in a South African diamond mine. Not your conventional romance.
Lady Vivienne Bancroft’s father, Sir William Christie, died and left each of his four children an inheritence. For them to claim it, each one has to take a part of his business and make it successful. Vivienne ends up with a diamond mine in South Africa that she has to make profitable in a year.
Miles Durham, Viscount Bancroft, and his wife have been estranged for a few years. He wants to get her back and somehow prove himself to her by taking part in making the venture profitable.
I love adventure romances in your not so average settings! It’s not often that you get a romance in colonial South Africa—in a diamond mine, no less—and for that alone I bought this book. (Okay, Rendezvous also recommended it in their newsletter.) It didn’t disappoint.
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A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant (Blackshear Family, Book 1)
Sweet and well written, but requires a lot of patience.
Martha Russell is recently widowed. If she is not pregnant with an heir, she loses control of her beloved estate and the accompanying servants to her brother-in-law, who is not known for being kind. She decides to contract her hunky new neighbour, Theopilus Mirkwood, who has been exiled to the country by his father, into being her sperm stud. And this is where our story begins.
I had been looking forward to this book for a long time. Other readers absolutely raved in their reviews—lyrical, romantic, well-written, etc. Then I got the book and it took me two months to read it.
While I will agree that A Lady Awakened is well written and lyrical and thoughtful and beautifully done, I did not like it. I would, however, give Cecilia Grant a second chance and try her next offering, and hopefully it will not try my patience as much as this book has done.
For starters, while I get that this is the whatever ages (Regency? post? pre?) and that women enjoying sex is not the usual and doesn’t really happen and I understand the lead character’s moral qualms are at the root of her not being able to orgasm, did the author have to make Mary frigid for two-thirds of the book? This is a romance novel, for god’s sake—could Grant not have made her enjoy the sex and end her suffering somewhere along the halfway point? Does it really take that long to get an orgasm in a romance novel? (Note: This is not real life.) There are no sweet scenes to build you up to the sex, either, because I’ve read books where there’s one sex scene in the end and something has usually happened before that.
All they do is talk about crops.
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Devil’s Bride by Stephanie Laurens
What better book to kick-off #AWW2012 than one of the most well-loved titles by one of Australia’s best-selling female authors, Stephanie Laurens.
This review is part of the AWW2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge. Click here for a list of books I’ve read so far.
I’m almost ashamed to admit that until now I’d only read one book by Stephanie Laurens. (In my defence, the book was The Promise in a Kiss. More on that later.) But now I’ve broken the drought, and I finally understand why Laurens has such a dedicated fan base and why Devil’s Bride comes up, time and time again, when romance readers list their all-time favourite novels.
Devil’s Bride is an interesting book. Lauren’s prose is reminiscent of an older, more distant style of narration that’s now become somewhat unfashionable in romance fiction. And yet the story features Honoria, a heroine whose tendency towards independence, I suspect, owes more to modern sensibilities than any attempt at historical accuracy. (I’m no historian, so I’m happy to be proven wrong on this count.) This juxtaposition of contemporary values against the narration’s more traditional cadence—including, at times, purple prose just shy of being unbearable—kept me enthralled throughout the first half of the story.
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A Victorian romance that doesn’t pull a fast one on the reader. It’s a shame we get only one book a year in this series.
Lord Cameron Mackenzie has been a bachelor ever since his psycho first wife died and has raised his son with the help of his brothers and the women who have married into their family. He’s known for his talent with training race horses, and, of course, for his reputation with women.
Ainsley Douglas is a widowed lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria (yes, it’s not a Regency!) and a good friend of one of the Mackenzie wives’. She’s been sent to their house party to retrieve incriminating letters that are being used to blackmail the queen. She’s encountered Cameron before—in smouldering but unfulfilled circumstances—and finds herself caught up with him again in her attempt to retrieve the letters.
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Heartless by Gail Carriger (Parasol Protectorate, Book 4)
The latest instalment of the Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series proves that some things can get even better with time.
Alexia Maccon (nee Tarrabotti) has got herself into trouble again. Aside from the ‘infant inconvenience’ that has led to everyone trying to kill her—featuring, this time around, zombie, semi-mechanised porcupines—she has to solve a plot to assassinate the Queen. All while waddling about, moving, investigating her husband’s past, fussing over members of the pack and having tea.
This latest instalment of the Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series proves that some things can get even better with time. This book was just as witty and compelling as the others—I read it at every possible moment—and even more creative. (The porcupines were totally original.) Alexia, despite being preggers and totally dependent on her parasol, hunky werewolves and her unflappable butler to prop her up, still manages to save the day and pop out a baby besides. (Yes, the progeny makes its appearance in this one, which is not a spoiler since you can tell that from the size of her in chapter one.)
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Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn (Smythe-Smith Quartet, Book 1)
No one does comedy, wit and light-hearted romance like Julia Quinn.
In which wandergurl and @katydidinoz band together to win a coveted ARC at ARRC2011′s silent auction.
Honoria Smythe-Smith plays the violin in the infamous Smythe-Smith quartet’s annual musicale. (If you’ve read the Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton series, you’ll know they sound horrible.) It’s her secondish season out, and this time, she’s determined to find a husband, as the last few have cried off.
Marcus Holyroyd, Earl of Chatteris, is Honoria’s brother’s BFF. Since his hurried departure for the continent, he’s been looking out for Honoria (discreetly) and warning away any inappropriate suitors. He’s also secretly in love with her, but he hasn’t figured that out yet, which is all right, because she hasn’t figured out that she’s in love with him.
Will they figure it out in time for the next Smythe-Smith musicale?
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In keeping with Aussie Author Appreciation Month, this Mixed Bag features local authors whose work we haven’t previously reviewed on Book Thingo.
Their Newborn Gift by Nikki Logan
Their Newborn Gift by Nikki Logan (Australian edition)
Lea Curran’s one-night stand with rodeo star Reilly Martin resulted in a baby he never knew about. But four-year old Molly’s only chance to live a normal life may rest with cord blood from a close genetic match. Lea will do anything to save her daughter, including sleep with Reilly again to conceive another child. But first she has to tell him about his daughter.
The complications in this story make for dramatic conflicts, and the first twist totally threw me. Nikki Logan doesn’t let up on the angst, and with a terminally ill child involved, this book is guaranteed to be a tear-jerker. Luckily, it’s a romance. With an epilogue!
Reilly starts off acting like ye olde heartless hero bent on revenge for Lea leaving him after one night—‘as cheap as a motel television’—and not telling him about the baby.
…in all her planning and visualisation it had never occurred to her he would care about the baby that would result, let alone want it. The paradigm she was working from was five years out of date: Reilly Martin, king of the circuit; lover of women; drinker of beer.
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My Reckless Surrender by Anna Campbell
Dramatic, thrilling and, yes, a little over the top—vintage Anna Campbell.
This is a modified version of the winning review in the ARRC2011 Reader Challenge. (Here’s a photo of Kat receiving the award.)
‘I want to be your lover.’
Diana Carrick presents the Earl of Ashcroft with an offer too good for a notorious rake to refuse. So when he declines, she doesn’t know whether to feel relief or despair. She’s made a bargain with the devil: a child in exchange for marriage to the man who controls the estate in which Diana grew up and which she loves.
Tarquin Vale, Earl of Ashcroft, is intrigued by the mysterious proposition but senses a bit of, well, dodginess about the entire affair. But this is a romance, after all, and his willpower is no match for Diana’s allure. Ashcroft embodies that favourite of all historical romance heroes—the rake who’s not really a rake—with an added bonus of being powerful enough to vanquish villains.
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The Countess by Lynsay Sands (Madison Sisters, Book 1)
Light on plot, on character and on plausibility. And they make out next to a corpse.
The Countess was one of the first books I requested from NetGalley. In the process, I made some important discoveries:
1. DRM-protected NetGalley books expire 60 days after downloading.
2. It isn’t unusual for me to take me more than 60 days to review a book I’ve read.
3. Sony Reader’s note-taking feature is linked to the ebook file. When the ebook file expires, my notes are unreadable.
Technology sucks sometimes.
Luckily, I can still do this review, but it’ll be a little more general than usual. Except when I specifically mention making out next to the dead guy. More on that later.
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