“It was an Opening,” she whispered.“It was…you,” he said.OH. MY. GOD. You people weren’t kidding about this book. Good lord. It’s going to take me months to recover my equilibrium, and god help whatever books I’m reading and listening to next.Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale (original 1992 cover)The minus on the story grade is for the slight lag in the pacing after the [NO SPOILERS], and I wondered about Maddie being called “Duchess” instead of “Your Grace,” and I couldn’t figure out why her father didn’t play more of a role in her spiritual conundrum, but then I had to replay the last chapter three times because, you know, OH. MY. GOD.[Gimme a sec, I need to swoon again: *~*SWOON*~* ]Sorry, where was I? With the wrong narrator, this audiobook would have been a disaster of epic proportions. Nicholas Boulton captured Jervaulx’s anger and anguish — and Maddy’s longing and confusion — so bloody brilliantly I had my headphones on all night for four nights straight. And I stayed up until 3 o’clock this morning and I don’t care if I fall asleep at my desk and drool on my keyboard.These characters, and all their lovely, glorious angst, will live with me — and I can’t think of much higher praise for an author than that.
Grade: D+Herpyllis says when a man is at ease his testicles are tender, but when he’s excited they go wizened and tight. I don’t know if she’s trying to give me the world or take it away.This short book attempts to tell a big story with tragedy and treachery and sinister deities (and yes, magical man parts are involved), and it isn’t very successful.The modern YA voice, combined with the Fancy Allegorical Lit-Fic Pretensions, had me disconnected from beginning to end. Just because you CAN use first-person present-tense and anachronistic language to show off your textbook-level grasp of Greek history and mythology doesn’t mean you SHOULD.As with [b:The Pianist in the Dark: A Novel|9591515|The Pianist in the Dark A Novel|Michele Halberstadt|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327995115s/9591515.jpg|14478502], I want this story told by a different author. I’m not the right reader for this book — and I have no clue who the intended audience is.
Grade: D-I think I need to skim a Harlequin Presents title by this author to see how consistent her writing style and voice is across genres and categories, because it’s definitely, well, unique.Mortimer loves ellipses and em-dashes and exclamation points, which should endear me to her. But when every question in the dialogue ends in an ellipsis, and every expository paragraph has an interjection offset with em-dashes, and five paragraphs in a row end with an exclamation point, the punctuation becomes increasingly intrusive. Also disruptive were the repetitive words and phrases; the hero was described as “cold” more than 25 times (that doesn’t include his chilliness, frostiness or iciness), and we’re told he has stormy grey eyes nearly 50 times.I also had major issues with the plot, in which the heroine was grateful for the hero’s light-fingered Magical Orgasm Cure that allowed her to overcome the ickiness of her recent rape at the hands of her evil cousin. But, of course, her real post-rape trauma — the loss of innocence that renders her unfit for proper wifery — lingers until the cold, grey-eyed hero’s grand gesture.NOTE: This review was first published at DearAuthor.com. I read a review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
To Sin with a Viking (Harlequin Historical Series #1150)
Grade: BI’m pretty sure I need to read more by Willingham. This one starts out with the Irish heroine clobbering the Viking hero over the head and taking him captive, and you know how much I love stuff like that.She can’t let him go or kill him because she needs his strength to find food for their starving village, and he can’t escape because he needs her help to find his kidnapped estranged wife.Yes, he’s married, and they angst about it. A lot. But Willingham somehow works around the inherent squickiness, and she writes some really good action scenes. Book trance on this one too. NOTE: This review was first published at DearAuthor.com. I read a review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Grade: D+This one sat in my TBR queue for months because I had Significant Book Anxiety. I want to love any and every romance set in India, but the cover and description made me more than a little wary. This book is, unfortunately, a solid example of “exoticizing the ‘other’.”In her author’s note, Allen describes her recent trip to India with enthusiasm, and it’s obvious that she reveres the history and culture, but the authorial (or maybe editorial) choices of which bits to include didn’t work for me at all. There are several gratuitous references to sati ritual suicides, a superfluous scene featuring a Shiva lingam statue, a king cobra attack, and excessive use of Hindi words for fashion and furniture that served no purpose other than to show off the author’s research.In addition, the romance left me cold, the hero was too perfectly perfect, and the heroine (an Anglo-Indian princess, of course) was wildly inconsistent.NOTE: This review was first published at DearAuthor.com. I read a review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Grade: DNFI didn’t make it very far with this one. The meet-cute in the prologue was really good, and I was intrigued by the set-up with the bluestocking heroine writing erotic letters for her brother to woo his beloved away from the crabby hero. I adore bluestocking heroines and crabby heroes.But then…(sigh)…the “jilted at the altar” scene has the idiot brother and his vapid lady love eloping to Gretna Green. From the Highlands. As in, the Highlands in SCOTLAND. I just couldn’t do it.NOTE: This review was first published at DearAuthor.com. I read a review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Grade: C-This 55-page erotic romance maxes out the short story format, but there just isn’t enough substance to sustain more.The writing is capable but uninspired, and with the sole exception of Lisa Kleypas’ Devil in Winter, I have yet to read a “Dream Sex or Real Sex???” scene that doesn’t make me laugh.For 99¢, it’s probably worth a try for some readers, but I’m not inclined to seek out anything more by this author.NOTE: This review was first published at DearAuthor.com. I read a review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Grade: C- The first half of this story had me hooked — the author used the theme of “risk” in different ways to define not only the hero and heroine, but also the heroine’s loving-but-conniving father. The plot revolves around billiards, and the early-Victorian historical world-building was vivid and completely believable. Until…(sigh)…the hero, a younger son of a viscount, suddenly became styled a “Lord” and the heroine a potential “Lady.” I finished the book, but I lost faith in the story and the author. Fantastic cover, thoughNOTE: This review was first published at DearAuthor.com. I read a review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
What the Duke Desires
Grade: BIf I didn’t own Jeffries’ entire backlist, I might have avoided this solely because of the dopey generic title. But she’s earned my trust, and she still has it.The illegitimate heroine is smart and vulnerable, the duke is full of hidden tragedy and repressed passion, and the intrigue revolves around their missing siblings rather than political maneuvering.It’s a typically enjoyable Jeffries book — nothing vibrantly new or different, but she’s such a good storyteller I never get kicked out of my reading trance. NOTE: This review was first published at DearAuthor.com. I read a review copy provided by the publisher via Edelweiss.
Grade: D+NOTE: This review was first publishing at Dear Author.Dear Ms. Gracie,Despite the recent flail over the “death of the historical,” I’m ever-hopeful that unique and compelling Regencies are still being published. Unfortunately, The Autumn Bride falls short of my vague-yet-demanding criteria by quite a distance, landing squarely in the “wallpaper” and “cookie-cutter” pits of romance despair.I think I was subliminally swayed into buying this because of the four — count ‘em, four (4)! — em-dashes in the description. Alas, the fun didn’t last beyond the punctuation.The annoyances and eye-rolling started in the prologue, in which we learn the newly-titled hero has been financially ruined by his profligate late uncle. We know Max is ruined because the word “ruined” is used approximately 17 times within the first five pages. And poor Max really has lost everything, because none of the barony’s numerous properties were entailed. There’s some mumbling about a broken trust, but that’s the only explanation we get, and it’s enough for the young lord to abandon his beloved widowed aunt and scurry off to make his fortune overseas.Fast-forward ten years, and we’re introduced to the orphaned governess heroine, Abby, as she’s drawn into rescuing her younger sister from the clutches of an Unseen Evil Villain. Of course, the abductee escapes the iniquitous brothel with her maidenhood intact. The siblings also manage to liberate two other young women, and they all swear allegiance to The Sisterhood.So, with the heady air of freedom firing their blood like a sweet and potent wine, they vowed to be as sisters to one another, to become a family.When their plans for husband-hunting are thwarted by poverty and illness, Abby decides to burglarize the neighboring mansion. She must (of course) wear borrowed breeches and crawl over broken glass for this adventure. Instead of piles of silver waiting to be pilfered, she finds the bedridden, nearly suicidal Lady Beatrice. Saint Abby is compelled to return a few days later, at which time the neglected noblewoman offers her home to The Sisterhood.While this premise could have worked, the character and backstory inconsistencies were too much to overcome. We’re told that Lady Beatrice became ill and was taken advantage of by her Evil Greedy Servants — all of whom had been newly hired (of course). A few of Lady B’s friends attempted social calls, but were turned away by the Slimy Evil Butler. She’s been a virtual prisoner in her own home for months, being fed only gruel and water, never bathed, never even moved from the bed. The tragedy! The pathos!But then...we’re asked to believe that Lady Beatrice was a leader of the ton, a “magnificent, outrageous” hostess renowned throughout the upper echelons of society. No one of her noble acquaintance had the fortitude to deal with a surly butler? No one raised questions or even gossiped about a baroness disappearing? And when The Sisterhood moves into her home, Lady Beatrice magically transforms from frail and forgotten back into fierce and feisty — all she needs is fortifying soup and some henna to restore her once-glorious red hair. I just could not reconcile the Lady B who throws a hissy fit about wearing castoff clothing and says things like “I never trust the word of people with their hands on my privates” with the pathetic elderly recluse wallowing in her own filth.When Max the Ruined Viking Pirate (scruffy beard, longer-than-fashionable hair tied back with a leather thong) returns with fortunes restored to find four mysterious young women living in his beloved widowed aunt’s home, it’s the perfect — and predictable — setup for a Big Misunderstanding. He insists Abby is a con artist, she refuses to explain herself, etc., etc.And, of course, our happy couple’s bickering is interspersed with extensive mental lusting.It was all going well until Miss Chance reached for the syllabub, one of his favorites, a dish of sweet, tangy whipped cream. It matched the frothy top she was wearing.She dipped a spoon into the creamy confection and transferred it to her mouth.Max swallowed. His narrative faltered.Her eyes half closed in bliss as her lips closed over the spoon and she let the sweet mixture slide over her tongue and down her throat.Max forced himself to resume his story. There was nothing at all unusual about the way she was eating; it was all perfectly comme il faut. So why could he not take his eyes off her?She spooned up another mouthful. This time when the spoon was slowly withdrawn a tiny, gleaming morsel of syllabub remained quivering in the corner of her upper lip. Unhurriedly she licked it off.Max’s words dried up along with his throat.After a moment Miss Chance stopped spooning up the syllabub. Her brows rose. She was looking at him. The entire table was looking at him, waiting for him to continue his story. Hanged if he knew what it was. He cleared his throat.“You’re fond of syllabub, Miss Chance?” Sparkling conversation, indeed.“Very. And you, Lord Davenham?” She took a third leisurely spoonful. His groin tightened.“Yes.” It came out as a croak.That passage was the high point of dramatic and sexual tension in the book. From there, the story plods through Max’s realization that he really is an asshole, Abby’s cardboard sassy saintliness, unnecessary scenes with sequel-bait secondary characters, and off-page suspense(less) shenanigans with the Unseen Evil Villain, culminating in a tacked-on and boring deflowering in the last chapter. Not to mention the endless internal monologues rehashing events we just read about.Further evidence in support of the wallpaper/cookie-cutter classifications include:- The generic “~Insert Adjective Here~ Bride” title that has absolutely nothing to do with the story.- The generic cover, complete with obligatory and mistorical white wedding dress.- The absence of any meaningful Regency-era detail; the entire story could be plopped into any historical period.- The “nuh uh, it is SO a Regency” Jane Austen quotes as chapter epigrams.- A pair of footmen named Turner and Hatch, which my brain (of course) insisted on processing as Turner and Hooch. This has nothing to do with the blandness, but I felt it important to mention.My “first impressions” grade was a C-; The Autumn Bride isn’t a painful read (hence my half-hearted snark), but there’s nothing in this story worth recommending. When the main characters’ names slid out of my brain just hours after reading, I had to downgrade, because superficial, forgettable books like this aren’t doing the maligned historical romance genre any favors.
Grade: C-The truth would not destory them. He wouldn’t let it.One of those “not painful, but not much there” stories – the lack of relationship-building made for a pretty boring read, and the over-the-top villains turned an angsty setup into a bit of superficial fluff.
Very rushed and predictable, with none of the character development and relationship building I've come to expect from Stone.
Grade: BHe caught her hand. “Wait.” He slid his hands to the back of her neck, fumbling for the necklace’s clasp. He undid it and held the chain of rubies up, red and gold in the flickering candlelight. “No shackles for us,” he said, “no matter how rich.”Loved the characters and premise, and Fraser managed to get a lot of emotion into less than 100 pages. But this story deserves more than a novella to avoid the rushed romance and resolution.
