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Beauty and the Beast by Hannah Howell is not a spectacular read. It is however a pretty solid read. I found several segments to be unnecessary and jumpy and predictable in others. This Highlander romance contains all the elements of the sub-genre including bride stealing, thwarted love, revenge plotting, and battle.

Thayer Saiturn is known as the Red Devil, a knight so fierce and courageous that his name inspires fear in the enemies. The second cousin in line for inheriting a title and land, Thayer knows his place in life is on the battlefield waging war to earn his bread and keep. He wishes for the finer things in life, namely a woman to warm his bed, but he knows his limitations. While men express awe and fear over him, women see nothing but an ugly, very hairy, very red brute covered with many scars (none on his face). He pays for the women in his bed, and does not seek one outside of this arrangement. Betrayed once by a beautiful woman, Thayer vows never to be so weak before another highborn beauty.

Gytha is promised by betrothal contract to the heir of Saiturn Manor. At first it was William, beautiful and strong bodied, but word came that he was dead. So too came word that the second cousin, Thayer was dead. Learning that she is to marry Robert, Gytha expresses disappointment. Robert is weak and his soft looks do nothing for her. She would prefer the knight coming in to witness the wedding – the tall one with flaming red hair, a lithe graceful body, and sweet soft brown eyes.

When she discovers that the red knight is Thayer, the true heir to Saiturn Manor, Gytha is relieved. Robert and his uncle are not but cannot fight the contract. Thayer is dismayed, having thought this to be William’s wedding he was attending, he finds no comfort in learning it is his own. The thought of the inheritance does not soothe him for his bride is the prettiest beauty he has ever seen. He was sure to be cuckold, made a fool of by his marriage to her. Men everywhere were vying for her attentions even as she walked down the aisle. He was doomed, for Gytha could not possibly want him.

Rating: 3 Stars

Originally posted 2008-12-15 23:06:06. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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Faro’s Daughter by Geogette Heyer is an excellent read, but fairly short. The whole story gets told in 285 pages. This is one of the first novels of hers that I’ve read that has a lot of lead interaction. In fact they’re nearly at each others throats in every other scene. It makes for a fun read.

Who is Deborah Grantham?

If you asked Adrian Maplethorpe he would say she is like a living goddess. She is beautiful, poised, elegantly mannered, full of grace, and charm. He would ask her to marry him if she would have him.

If you asked Max Ravenscar he would liken her unto a harpy, a jade, a doxy, a trollop, a wench, a cheating baggage, and a Jezebel. The woman would strangle a kitten for money and power. In short Deborah Grantham is vulgar.

What’s a Faro’s Daughter to do?

She’ll make Max Ravenscar pay for the ill treatment and poor manners he’s bestowed upon her person, that’s what she’ll do. What better way to make him regret his folly but to do the exact thing he fears and agree to marry his cousin? No money could bribe her to relinquish Adrian from his calf-love. The only thing she wants is for Ravenscar to admit his faults and misconceptions of her person.

So for the first time, Deborah caters to Adrian’s infatuation. She lets him think she will marry him upon his majority but begs him not to tell his mother about their plans. It is however a most excellent idea to inform his trustee and cousin Max all about it!

On a public excursion surrounded by good ton, Deborah chooses most willfully to look and behave in the worst of fashions. Let Ravenscar see how a true harpy would behave! Adrian is disturbed by the affectation but writes it off to nerves.

In counter Max wins her aunt’s debts from the brute who would use them to finagle Deborah into a position as his mistress. But even holding the debts and mortgage over her head, Deborah refuses to relinquish Lord Maplethorpe. Instead, Deb comes to the most brilliant of ideas!

She is going to kidnap Lord Ravenscar….

Overall this was a wonderful farce that included some of the best tit for tat I’ve had the pleasure to read. I simply couldn’t put it down. For a wager between hearts that is full of flair and humor read Faro’s Daughter. This is definitely going on my favorites shelf!

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Originally posted 2008-11-25 05:18:34. Republished by Old Post Promoter

I generally liked this novel. It revolves around how a marriage once destroyed by infidelity can be healed. I have pretty strong views on this subject so I’ll talk about what ruffled my feathers. I’m like Viola, the heroine, at the start of the novel, looking at things in black and white. The author didn’t persuade me to think in gray matter, too bad Viola did. Luckily in the end she got what she deserved – a loving, devoted, adoring husband – but you could have fooled me. I still thought the hero was shy of truly learning how to love at the end of the book. However, you can be the judge.

Viola is the sister of a Duke and at the age of nineteen she knew she was in love with Viscount John Hammond. She also knew that despite the circumstances of his situation, he loved her, not the money she brought with her. How naïve she had been. John knew nothing of love; he was all empty words and passion.

“When unaccompanied by his love, a man’s desire was like the wind. It had no substance, and it was impossible to hold onto.” – pg 186

Now eight going on nine years after their vows, John has come to the decision to get himself an heir. For that, he will need to woo his way back into his wife’s bed. This task would prove impossible until he changed. But can a man like John, change his spots?

In the last ten pages he did. Until then the brute refused to take blame for more than half the novel and managed to in nearly every conversation lay the whole troubled affair at Viola’s feet. This is much like what happens in the movie Something to Talk About starring Julia Roberts. This made me really mad and when it wasn’t John telling Viola how she made him break his marriage vows and slip into other women, it was the Duke’s wife that was telling her how she wasn’t looking at things from John’s point of view.

John broke his vows. Period. The end. Case closed. What kind of man has to hide his dirty deeds behind his innocent wife? In today’s world with all the diseases that can be caught, a man who cheats ought to be charged with attempted murder if he slips back into his wife’s bed (undetected or not) without first having himself checked out thoroughly.

Viola first turns John away from their marriage bed when she learns that he kept a mistress during the entire time he was courting her. All his words of love, adoration, devotion were lies. She might have forgiven him those if the other woman wasn’t involved. After all impoverished lords needed funds and heiresses to make them solvent – he could have learned to love her.

John waits a month and leaves Viola to live a separate life. There he has count them, five, mistresses in the space of the years prior to his most devout attempt at reconciling. He only does it because he needs a legitimate heir to the viscountcy. Viola is the only woman who can grant him this. So once again he plans to use false words to get her into bed and if that doesn’t work the law is on his side and he can force her there.

But in his own words the five mistresses were her own fault for being cold to him. Poor baby. Eventually he says he is sorry for his part in breaking their marriage by using his young nephew to be his buffer. I don’t think Viola had any part to breaking the marriage. Distraught as she was she stayed with him (granted making him take separate sleeping quarters and refusing to allow him to use passion against her to win his way back into her good graces) until he left.

Marriage vows are not a one way street. A man and his needs can be resolved with a hand not another woman or any of her body parts. Fidelity goes both ways. If he required it of her then it was not an unreasonable request for Viola to make of him. John said it was and refused to be sexually blackmailed. Well what the hell was he doing when he refused to promise fidelity but sexually blackmailing his wife?

Has anyone read this book? What do you think?

Rating: 2.5 Stars

Originally posted 2008-10-06 15:07:06. Republished by Old Post Promoter

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Alexandra Benedict’s novel Too Scandalous to Wed flirts with disaster and happily ever after at every turn. A strong wind could not tumble the stack of fantasies Henrietta has built around Sebastian, Viscount Ravenswood, or could it? Sebastian does not want to be the hero of Henrietta’s dreams, he doesn’t want the little hoyden at all, but he can’t seem to get rid of her. Of course, he hasn’t been really trying – running away simply doesn’t count when the girl is determined to have him.

Henrietta has fancied herself in love with Sebastian for years and has been trying to catch his eye. She is certain that he loves her, even if he does not know it. At every turn the brute chooses to ignore her attempts of flirtation or reprimand her for the silliest things. If only she could get him to kiss her! When Sebastian runs off to hide on the continent to keep the lovely Henrietta at bay she turns a desperate idea of hers to keep him into action and visits England’s highest ranking courtesan for help.

Sebastian doesn’t know what hit him, but he is certainly feeling its affects as his eye and his thoughts are drawn more and more toward the bewitching vixen that’s replaced the girl who always adored him. The more she treats him with reverence the more he wants to hear her say his name. The changes in her are disconcerting and enchanting at the same time to Sebastian. He knows even as he tries to figure her out, that he should not get close to her as he is not a good man. The quickening in his heart and loins won’t let him rest either until Henrietta’s every mystery is solved.

Henrietta struggles to keep the lessons of seduction in place, pretending aloofness even while lightning sizzles through her at a single smoldering blue-eyed glance. Sebastian was finally finding her irresistible, becoming the man of her dreams before her eyes. Remaining coy and composed she flirts dangerously with disaster, because if Sebastian ever found out what she’d done to snare him, he’d never forgive her.

There are elements of intrigue and flights of fancy throughout the novel, from a revenge seeking enemy to Henrietta’s father calling her his ‘darling boy,’ you’ll be sure to gasp and giggle your way through the book.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Originally posted 2008-09-16 05:06:30. Republished by Old Post Promoter