December 11th, 2009 — 3 Stars, Book Review, Children, Gardening, Great Britain, Historical Romance, P-R, Spinster, Virgin Heroine, Widow or Widower
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To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn was a fairly decent story. There were times in the story when I wondered if the main characters would ever fall in love before the pages ran out. The sex scenes were scrumptious and more than counter balanced the long wait to get to them. Also the scenes where Eloise's brothers participate are quite hilarious from when they darken Phillip's doorstep to when Eloise joins them in a shooting contest.
Sir Phillip was in desperate need of a wife. Since Marina's death, Phillip had come to the conclusion that he wanted his wife to be happy, not melancholy like Marina. Plus his two children were out of control and he had no idea how to handle them. So what he really needed was a mother for them and who better than a desperate spinster?
Of course, poor Phillip had no idea that Eloise Bridgerton had turned down half a dozen proposals. By his letters, Sir Phillip seems the perfect man so when his daring invitation to visit him in the country arrived; Eloise made plans to escape her overprotective family.
Upon her arrival to Sir Philip's home, Eloise is bitterly disappointed. Why Phillip could hardly speak to her! He was a grumpy moody sort, not at all the dashing charmer she'd pictured. He certainly never mentioned his two children in their letters! Reluctant to turn around and go home with her tail between her legs, Eloise decides to stay and stick it out to see if the two of them would suit.
Warning: This book contains mentioning of child abuse. While one can never call child abuse lightweight, it was not graphic. The nanny, Nurse Edwards, was caught beating the children with a book and action was taken.
Rating: 3 Stars
Buy: To Sir Phillip, With Love
Originally posted 2008-12-02 14:44:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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October 27th, 2009 — 3.5 Stars, Arabia/Middle East, Book Review, Category, Contemporary, Executive, Interracial, Kidnapping, Kings, Princes, Sheiks, Chiefs, M-O, Pregnant, Sheik/Desert, United States of America
Points go to Sandra Marton for using a fairly unique way to go about the common pregnant bride plot. A screw up in courier running between two doctors’ offices and a sperm bank results in Madison Whitney receiving the Crown Prince of Dubaac’s safeguard for the future of his country.
Now one month later, Madison finds Turiq on her doorstep, literally barging his way into her apartment and demanding rights to the child – his heir. But Madison wasn’t taking his highhanded attitude or his bribe money to give up the baby a year after birth.
How much of a barbarian was he? Madison was about to find out – because Turiq was going to kidnap her and force her to be his bride. Was there no end to the madness?
I liked the story; it was nicely executed, but was lacking the emotional pull. There was passion and heat but everything was over too fast. I didn’t see or read it develop into the good stuff. There were hints and I’m sure if it was drawn out a little bit more everything would have fell into place with ease.
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Buy on eHarlequin: The Sheikh's Defiant Bride
Originally posted 2009-02-11 13:59:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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September 10th, 2009 — 4.5 Stars, Bastard, Foster/Orphan, Great Britain, Guest Reviews, Historical Romance, Lisa Kleypas, Plump/Endowed Heroine, Pregnant, Rogues and Rakehells, Spinster, Victorian, Virgin Heroine, Writer
By: Zarabeth, guest reviewer
This is a fantastic spinster story set in 1836 England. Our heroine, Amanda, is a 30-yr old spinster supporting herself as a novelist who has decided to do something for herself, for once in her life. As we well know a never-married 30 yr old woman is quite on the shelf, but this does not prevent her from having the same sexual needs as any other woman. So our heroine, and my heroine for this, hires a male prostitute for her 30th birthday completely disregarding social conventions of virginity and premarital sex.
On her birthday a suitable man with an association to the escort service does appear on her doorstep and we assume that this is her prostitute. As the reader we are mortified to learn that this man is not a prostitute despite his sexual actions with our heroine. Later in the book Amanda and the not-prostitute Jack meet at a social/publishing event.
The story as a whole involves Jack doing everything he can to get Amanda back in bed and eventually convinces her to have an affair with him. I very much enjoyed the affair and the experiences of our main characters in public and in private (rating: 5). Once Amanda decides that the affair must end, things get pretty complicated and despair ensues. Months into this unfortunate depression we discover that Amanda is pregnant. Again, our never-married 30 yr old woman has just discovered that she is pregnant- this is a problem. Our Amanda must now decide whether to move to the continent or marry below her standards and whether or not to tell Jack about his child (rating: 4).
I call this a solid 4.5. There are 2 reasons that this review is not a full 5: there is some rear-entry stuff (gags and feels uncomfortable) and there is a bit too much time spent on inner-turmoil instead acts based on inner turmoil.
Rating: 4.5
Originally posted 2009-01-13 05:00:24. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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April 11th, 2009 — 3 Stars, Book Review, Children, Clumsy Heroine, Contemporary, Pregnant, Stephenie Meyer, United States of America, Vampire, Virgin Hero, Virgin Heroine, Werewolf, Young Adult
I was very excited to get my Breaking Dawn in the mail from Amazon. They managed to get it to me one day before they told me that it would arrive on my doorstep and I devoured the novel, all 700+ pages, in two days, which is consistent with how I’ve read the other three that came before.
The novel did many things I did not expect, and one thing in particular that I did expect. This review will contain spoilers, so read at your own risk. Suffice it to say I give Breaking Dawn four stars.
The wedding, surprisingly takes place within the first hundred pages. I thought that it would happen at the end after Jacob did something to delay it so he could win Bella for his own. This is not the case. The wedding is lovely and Bella gets through it just fine and afterwards can’t believe how uptight she was about the whole thing.
On their honeymoon, Bella and Edward make love successfully; unfortunately the scene fades to black, which annoyed me. The morning after Bella stirs and is blissfully happy but sore, Edward is composed and staring blankly at the ceiling and ruins her buzz by killing the mood. He won’t make love to her again, claims that she’s lying when she says she’s feeling fine—no great, all because he can see how rough he was with her. Bella only recalls that he held her tighter when she wanted him to, etc. Edward is sickened by how much of her skin is covered in bruises that match his hands.
Luckily, Bella manages to break him out of his funk through the use of sexy lingerie Alice packed for her and some innocent seduction. The second and third and so on times, Edward manages to ruin furniture instead of Bella’s skin, making him extremely satisfied… Bella too.
Meanwhile, I started to think about how much food Bella was consuming and came to the conclusion before it was revealed that she was pregnant. Her pregnancy is ridiculously accelerated and Edward freaks out. Bella knowing something is up, makes plans of her own to protect the life inside her and calls Rosalie for help, making the female vampire happy for the first time with her decisions.
From here the novel switches from Bella’s point of view to Jacob’s, which made me call up my friend and ask for some spoilers because I just don’t like the werewolf. During this part of the novel we witness Bella’s pregnancy, a break in the werewolf tribe as Jacob takes partial leadership, and Bella becoming very attached to Jacob’s presence.
The pregnancy takes a lot out of Bella until they realize that because the child is part vampire Bella’s diet needs to change from human food to a liquid diet of blood. Drinking blood immediately affects Bella’s health for the better, but also that of the baby’s. Every time the child moves inside Bella it leaves bruises on her skin and potentially breaks a rib in the process.
Edward is seriously going crazy and blames himself at this point and goes as far as offering Bella to Jacob if she really wanted a child as long as she’d be willing to give their child up as it was hurting her so much. Of course Jacob thinks on the idea and manages to bring it up to Bella who denies that its children she wants so much as her and Edward’s child that she wants.
Bella dies during birth, but luckily Edward manages to successfully turn her into a vampire while Jacob does CPR to keep the venomous blood flowing through her veins before it activates. Jacob leaves when he thinks it’s failed and goes downstairs where he intends to kill the child, now in Rosalie’s care. He never does, because once he lays eyes on their baby girl he bonds with her. This ends Jacob’s point of view in the story and switches back to Bella’s viewpoint.
The rest of the story deals with what I thought would happen to postpone the wedding—the Volturi are coming and they plan to execute the Cullen family for their Immortal Child (which is not what Edward and Bella’s child is per se, the term refers to something else). Alice and Jasper leave after Alice gives some very stern instructions to the family. The whole Western hemisphere is being herded together to witness the growth and humanity of the child.
It ends happily and Bella has amazing control on her thirst and on her special gift. I love the last few scenes between her and Edward. I am looking forward to reading the series again from Edward’s point of view, starting with Midnight Sun.
What did you think of the series ending?
Rating: 3 Stars
Originally posted 2008-08-13 05:03:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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