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I took great pleasure in reading this novel. It wasn’t a typical romance though it held many of the typical pieces you would find in a romance. Atypical you ask? Yes! The heroine for instance was raised by the Dakota, or Native American Indians. She had to return to England to pursue the rest of her destiny and avenge her dead mother. The banter was particularly snappy between the leads. The sex too was pretty phenomenal on the scale of none to steamy. I read this in about a day and half; I would put it down and couldn’t wait to get back to it as soon as possible.

The cover on this novel is hysterical, at least my version which is pretty old. My sister-in-law picked it up thinking a boob was sticking out, flagrant nipples and all, but realized upon closer inspection that it was simply a circular diamond pin stuck to the front of the dress. To me the models look like they are wrapped up in a sleeping bag decorated in some ancient Regency pattern. For being raised by the Dakotas in America, she’s certainly pale, no sign of a tan at all – on the cover or in the book. I wonder why that is? Could it be because society would have been shocked down to their slippers and boots?

Christina Bennett is the crème de la crème. The moment her dainty foot hit the first ballroom, London society gasped and capitulated at her feet. She finds it silly and they call her Princess, even though her father has lost his kingdom, even though she’s never met her father in person. With pale white hair and the deepest sky blue eyes, Christina is a lioness. Her arrival to London was predicted by a shaman’s dream and her destiny was to seek out justice for the crimes against her and her mother.

Is it any wonder when she’s introduced to the Marquess of Lyonwood that she was shaken from her stupor? The man looked fierce and vulnerable at the same time. He held himself like a warrior and bore a warrior’s scar down his cheek. To Christina, he looked positively virile and masculine, a far cry of the fops and dandies she’d met again and again from ballroom to ballroom. He was like a lion too, lithe and predatory. When he pursues her, part of Christina wants to give in and part of her fears doing so because she could learn to love him… worse he could learn to love her and her stay with the English was only ever meant to be temporary.

With tempting kisses and secret trysts, Christina’s head swims with the heady sensations of newly experienced passion. She begs him to marry her in one unguarded moment and the scoundrel declines. Lyonwood sees her proposal as a sign of her scheming ways, not realizing that Christina’s eager passion is unrehearsed. He plans to seduce her not knowing that she’s virginal until it’s too late…

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Originally posted 2008-12-28 19:30:35. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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Book three of the Pleasures Trilogy staring plump little Gabrielle from India and Erskine (Quill) Dewland soon to be Viscount Dewland. Right off the bat, this was my kind of book and I loved reading every word. I’ll tell you why:

First, the alpha male is one of those wounded and brooding alphas. Quill was hurt from a horse riding accident that left him scarred. He walks with a slight limp most of the time but when tired it is more pronounced. He can’t dance. Repetitive motions cause him intense migraines and this includes riding horses but more importantly intercourse. As alpha males goes, Quill is decidedly masculine. He likes women – he just doesn’t know if they’re worth the three day recuperation.

Second, this story also involves one male character basically stealing the bride out from another man’s nose. This doesn’t always go well for me, but in this case it was just icing. Upon learning that his son was practically incapable of siring progeny, the elder Viscount Dewland orders his second son Peter to take the heiress sight unseen as his bride. Peter doesn’t want to marry, positively shrinks back from the idea, but eventually under pressure agrees. To his dismay, Gabrielle is the antitheses of beauty, grace, and lacks the instinct to navigate smoothly with society’s haut ton.

Third, Gabrielle is a completely charming heroine. She is as gabby as her nickname implies and loves to talk. Gabby is protective, open, loving, kind, and sharp. She is smart enough to keep her half-brother safe from harm. She also knows that Peter finds her a great disappointment. Despite knowing from experience with her father in India, is determined to do her best to please Peter so that he will fall in love with her. This makes her equally stubborn.

She makes friends early with the Duchess of Gisle who has just returned from her honeymoon on the continent. They meet at the dressmakers. Peter has brought her there to clothe her properly so she won’t shame him in public and prays the Madam will be able to transform his ugly duckling of a future wife.

Quill of course, thinks his younger brother is nuts. In fact most of the men in the ton that have seen luscious Gabby agree with Quill. They congratulate (quite crudely) Peter on his good fortune to snare such a well endowed beauty who will surely be a hellcat in bed. They think it’s doubly clever of Peter that she is an heiress.

When Gabby laughs her way into one social scandal, Peter is determined to throw her over but doesn’t know how. Quill gladly informs his brother that he will marry Gabby and happily. Of course, he’s worried about what she’ll think of him later, but Quill can hardly bring himself to care about his own problems. He burns for her and is happy around her. This is enough for him. His only true concern is will it be enough for Gabby?

Rating: 5 Stars

Originally posted 2008-12-11 09:29:18. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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For the most part I truly enjoyed reading Beast. It’s a twist on the classic fairytale Beauty and the Beast and has a scarred hero who just happens to be a prince… a prince of nothing as it were because it was a French aristocratic title bestowed after the dissolution of the monarchy. The hero is extremely fond of perfumes and perfume ingredients. He’s a botanist, chemist, and a nose which is to say an expert at smelling things. He’s quite a vain creature who has worked very hard to be charming, well thought of, wealthy, and seen as handsome instead of grotesque. His manners are faultless, his skill as a lover unparalleled, and his person dressed and draped in the finest money can buy.

The heroine is a vain person as well, but hers is a beauty that was bestowed upon her from birth and not anything she ever had to work to achieve. In fact she sneers at anyone who comments upon her beauty. If only they could see the girl beneath whomever that girl may be… She doesn’t want to marry at all and she’s certainly not inclined to marry someone who is not as beautiful as she is because isn’t that something she deserved? Couldn’t the man she married be handsome as well as titled, wealthy, charming, and whole of body?

It was a good set up but about halfway through I thought wouldn’t it be great if the hero to put the heroine in her place. Of course it never happened. In fact the reverse did. Why though? Sadly, I believe it is how the initial key plot points unfolded. So despite the hero perpetrating the whole disaster and the heroine being the cause of the disaster, the hero was forced to grovel.

So what happened? Louise found out her husband wasn’t as magnificent as her parent’s said he was and she was determined to find a lover who could give her everything she was certain her new husband could not. Charles overheard and hatched a scheme to force her to see beyond his face and his original intentions were to reveal himself and make her the butt of the joke. Instead he fell in love and tried to unsuccessfully woo her as himself in daylight. She figures it out eventually because he slips up. He’s tried to tell her who he is/was but Louise is clueless and refuses to see the connection because that would just be too horrible!

So because Louise didn’t grow up and Charles did the only growing I’m going to have to give Beast 3 Stars instead of the 4 Stars I would have if the heroine had owned up all of her faults instead of just a few and try to make amends to her husband.

Buy: Beast

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One of the first romance novels that I ever read was the Gamble by LaVyrle Spencer. I snuck it out of my mother’s collection because I was curious about all the fuss. I am glad I did, because it rates as one of my dearest favorites, set during the Temperance movement.

Scott Gandy dresses smartly, behaves politely, and smiles cheekily at Miss Agatha Downing. She can’t stand him! Scotty Gandy owns a saloon, sells alcohol, promotes gambling, and why he even hangs nude portraits over his bar! Ever proper, Agatha is a touching heroine because she is handicapped.

Made lame by an abusive alcoholic father, Agatha has come to terms with the sorry little life she leads; dinner every night at Perry’s down the street, a slowly dying millinery shop, and Miss Violet Parsons as her only friend. She isn’t expecting a man or any children in her future, but that doesn’t keep her from dreaming.

Then one day that infuriating Scott Gandy brings three saloon singers into town and nothing is dull again. Agatha is given a job that just might save her business. She is to make each of them a can-can dress. What follows is a colorful tale about friendship, love, and one woman’s fight against alcohol. Agatha is determined to see Kansas dry, save the little boy Willy Collinson from his abusive father, and to not fall in love with Scott Gandy. She will succeed at all but one of this goals.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Happy Readings!

Originally posted 2008-11-20 04:38:34. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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By: Cara Lynn, guest reviewer

I was visiting friends, and this book was sitting on the coffee table. In spare moments I picked it up to read. I had not heard of the author before, yet the book jacket intrigued me, telling that Jill Shalvis’ books are well received and making the story seem interesting.

The plot revolves around two people each suffering their own hurts and in need of each other, though they don’t know it. Katie Kramer was in a horrific auto accident, the only survivor of a bridge collapse, and has flashbacks nightly in her dreams. Cameron Wilder, in a moment’s lack of attention because he was thinking of his girlfriend’s cheating, suffers an injury that ends his career as a snowboarder.

Katie feels she must make changes in her life and begin to live life as if it were an adventure, for she knows only too well how quickly it could end. She takes a temporary job in the Sierras for an outdoor adventure business, Wilder Adventures and Expeditions. She has no intention of staying, but plans to move on to her next adventure. Cam shows up in the middle of the night, after being estranged from friends and family, suffering pain, both mental and physical, and finds her in his bed.

And so it begins.

She gets under his skin. She knows just the right way to get past his defenses, learning slowly of his accident and what makes him tick. He’s never cared to explain himself to anyone before, not even his family.

Along the way, there is an assorted cast of other characters, including his brother and his aunt — and his ex-gf. There is both humor and poignancy in the book, and very, very good (and believable) sex scenes as the two fall in love and decide where their lives will go from here.

Perhaps they offer each other both salvation and adventure that will last a lifetime.

I’m going to read another of her books.

Rating: 4 Stars

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The Diamond King has got it all: Highlanders, pirates, lost souls, and love.

Alex Leslie used to be a noble in a world that seems to have existed long ago before the war between Scotland and England. Now he is wanted, without honor or hope for a life that had once been held so promisingly before him. Siding with the bonny Prince Charlie cost Alex far more than his pretty face, now scarred, and two strong legs, one now damaged and aching all the time causing him to limp.

Alex has seen horrors of war. The Battle of Culloden turned the tide of war against innocents as the redcoats and turncoats followed mercilessly on the trails of fleeing women, children and wounded – killing and raping indiscriminately. Stripped of his title but not his own sense of moral rightness, Alex came to lead a parcel of helpless Jacobite children out of Scotland to France. There he swore revenge… and two children swore not to be parted from him no matter the cost.

They followed him onto a ship that he was captaining under letters of Marque. Alex was planning to divest the British of their spoils on the sea and he could not do that for fear of the children. All attempts however to divest himself of the brats were pointless. They were far too crafty from their time on the run with him in Scotland to be forced to do anything they didn’t want to do. And truth be told, Alex did not want them to go. He would miss them.

His surrender to their wishes makes it all the harder on him when poor Meg gets wounded in the capture of Charlotte. To make matters worse, there’s a bloody Campbell on board. The Campbell family was the worst of all the turncoats and all the cruel deeds of the war could be laid at their uncaring, guilty feet.

Jeanette Campbell, never knew the horrors of the war. She was safe, sequestered at home where no tales of cruelty could reach her. This does not sway Alex to relent toward her. At least his hate of her is different than the hate she has felt at others hands. Jenna, as she prefers to be called, has been quite unloved by her aristocratic family and society at large. She has been spurned because of a birthmark she cannot help. Born with the Devil’s Mark on one arm from shoulder to wrist, Jenna has known only fear and instant loathing.

Given the choice of being disowned or marrying a man she’s never met, Jenna chooses to find a haven in Barbados. Certain the widow was not told of her birthmark, Jenna is fearful of her future. The thought of mothering his children is the only thing that kept her going. So when the Charlotte is captured, Jenna cannot help feeling helpless and angry that her one chance at happiness has been ripped from her. For what man will take such a bride; even a desperate one?

Rating: 2 Stars

Originally posted 2008-10-10 08:49:41. Republished by Old Post Promoter

Mary Balogh’s Thief of Dreams was a read I couldn’t quite tell if I liked until the end. The ending for me made the whole book worthwhile. I won’t spoil it for those that wish to read it, but I will tell you what made me kind of iffy on the novel.

First, it was how coolly withdrawn the male lead was. I just couldn’t tell if he was interested in her let alone loved her for most of the book. Sure, he respected her and occasionally admired her for her character, but he never let her in or tried to get to know her and her dreams.

Second, Nigel Wetherby, is practically a dandy. His speech, while probably perfectly fine for the time, reads quite ridiculously. I like my men with a little more masculinity. Point in Nigel’s favor is that he can fill out the shoulders of his coats and doesn’t need padding. Of course, he has plenty of scars and a slight limp, which gives him an edge to defy the popinjay vibe.

Third – his name! Nigel? Wetherby? Are you serious? Viscount Wroxley with a toady name… sigh. He sounds like he’s a tour guide with a fake accent and a bushy mustache.

I didn’t really have a lot of issues with Cassandra other than that despite all the horrible things Nigel afflicted on her person, she still found herself loving him. True, Nigel’s intentions were on the vein of being honorable and good, but still inexcusable on a lot of levels. He “steals” her inheritance from her father (her father is dead mind you and she doesn’t know the true situation), makes her fall in love with him and marries her when he doesn’t acknowledge any feeling towards her (not even liking her, she could be anyone), and makes love to her before telling her some of the truth about himself and her real situation.

The side romances were very sweet and enjoyable to read and the sex between the main characters was quite exceptional. The ending however, like I said, really pulled this book together for me.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Originally posted 2008-09-19 21:05:07. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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Merrick and Maddie were young, impulsive, and madly in love with each other. A wild dash across England through Scotland to Gretna Green ends in marriage and betrayal. For the dashing young lad Merrick MacLachlan, this mad run would be his last act of reckless spontaneity. When Maddie’s father catches up with them – he does all in his power to break them apart and succeeds.

Merrick is beaten, trampled, and whipped and left to die. He wakes up alone, in pain and forever scarred. He tries to get in touch with Maddie but his letters go unanswered. When Merrick manages to stumble free from the hellhole he was left in back to Maddie’s childhood home he is not received. The news he receives there wretches his heart out of his chest as he realizes what a fool he’s been. Maddie has married another man and is touring Europe.

It is nearly thirteen years before they meet again quite by accident. Maddie’s second husband is dead and she is desperate to find help for her son, Geoffrey, who experiences visions of accidents/death or something similar. London is her best shot to help him. I’m sure you can guess that Geoffrey was Merrick’s son and that her marriage to her second husband is not at all what it seemed. Her choices were slim and her circumstances were grave and she thought Merrick had used her to gain her fortune. Marrying again was her only hope.

Almost immediately after seeing each other for the first time in so many years Maddie and Merrick exchange their versions of the past events that led to their marriage being dissolved. Unfortunately, Merrick and Maddie, are incredibly stupid. I’m not sure they have ears and they don’t listen to each other both so certain they were the wronged party and both so certain the other one is a cruel-hearted bastard. It gets really irritating after the second/third time through explanations. Somehow they manage to extract themselves from their past in order to see a future with each other – then amazingly they both take the risk to trust the other and fall in love again.

Rating: 2 Stars

Originally posted 2008-09-17 05:54:44. Republished by Old Post Promoter