January 10th, 2010 — 3.5 Stars, 4 Stars, Book Review, Dukes and Earls, Farming, Great Britain, Historical Romance, Kidnapping, P-R, Suspense/Thriller, Virgin Heroine, Widow or Widower
This lovely little book was a quick and delightful read. I was sad to finish it because it meant that I would have to let the leads Julian Ravenwood and Sophy Dorring go their own way. The novel starts out with Julian accepting Sophy’s refusal to marry him. The word was passed down to him through her grandfather and Julian is stunned. Little Sophy could not hope to make a better match and his offer was generous to the extreme. Determined to gain an audience with Sophy Julian contrives of a way to do so. He tracks her down and demands to know her requirements to marry him. She spouts of a few outrageous ideas and he agrees and adds a few of his own turning the tables and leaving Sophy stunned.
Julian is an earl and all that implies. He’s the epitome of the controlling domineering alpha male. He’s also a widower; his late wife drowned. Not that this was a hardship, there was something wrong with the woman. Elizabeth, the dead wife, was for the lack of a better word a nymphomaniac. She loved to cuckold Julian, especially since she didn’t want to marry him in the first place. She took what was warm and good inside Julian and killed it. After the second duel to defend her honor, Julian came to the realization that his wife was not virtuous and didn’t have any honor. He labeled all women susceptible to the madness and vowed never to risk his fool neck for a woman again, but he needs a wife to supply him an heir and Sophy as far as he’s concerned is as different from Elizabeth as night and day.
Sophy is a typical unusual female for her times, but in slightly new way. She’s not put together and far from sophisticated. Pieces of her clothing and accessories like ribbons and feathers are always askew. She loves to read (mostly herbals and a treatise on women’s rights). She doesn’t trust seduction or lust without love. The reason Sophy doesn’t trust a man’s passion is because her sister, Amelia, was seduced and killed by one man’s passion. Sophy thinks sex without love is the epitome of masculine ruthlessness. She has the ring of the man who seduced Amelia and plans to find him and ruin him.
When Julian corner’s her for her list of demands she begs of him three things. One, that she not be forced into the childbed right away or more accurately forced into the marriage bed. Julian promises her three months of leeway. This is acceptable to her because she’s loved Julian since she was 18 not that the fool would notice, panting after Elizabeth as he was. She hopes to make him love her in the time they are not sharing a bed. Two, she wants to control her inheritance. Julian counters that his quarterly allowance for her exceeds the money her grandfather will leave her, but she insists. Three, she wants no interference from him on what she can and cannot read.
Sophy was quite loveable as a character I thought; Julian on the other hand at times was not. While his motives are quite known he still comes off as stern, intractable, and unwilling to reach compromises not in his favor… he breaks his side of the bargain while Sophy always keeps hers and dares to get mad when Sophy questions his honor. Depending on the reader you might be tempted to throw the book because of his outlandish behavior. Also true, however, is that you might enjoy his high handedness. In addition Julian is protective and concerned for his new wife. By the end I was persuaded to like him, but he was definitely ridiculous at times. Perhaps that makes him flawed realistically. Grin.
Rating 3.5 to 4 Stars
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Originally posted 2008-12-19 19:25:35. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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November 23rd, 2009 — 4 Stars, 4.5 Stars, ARC, Book Review, Georgette Heyer
I found Arabella to be wickedly entertaining; a superb comedy of manners! It is a little slow getting started. A good fifty pages are devoted to simply getting ready to go to London – the hero isn’t even introduced! When you get past that portion the story really picks up and is very exciting.
Arabella Tallant is very cheeky and clever. She has a temper that gets her into trouble and a mouth that often runs away with her. She and her family are impoverished. Her father’s a parson and it is by the ingenuity of her mother that Arabella is able to go to London to have a season. It is very important she makes an excellent match so she can help her family.
Robert Beaumaris is sick and tired of young ladies and their mothers throwing themselves at his feet in hopes he’ll trip over them and into marriage. He is defined repeatedly as a Nonpareil, which means he has no equal and is peerless. Men imitate him in fashion. Persons, male and female, strive for his approval. A glance or comment from Robert can make or break someone socially.
Reading parts of the story from his point of view opens lots of wonderful insight to what's going on and how's he's thinking of things. This novel seemed very modern to me because of the amount of head switching.
When Arabella overhears a flippant remark by Robert to Charles Fleetwood, she’s angered and in a fit of spontaneity affects superior airs and claims to be an heiress. On a whim Robert chooses to put weight behind her story and instantly Arabella is thrust to the top of society. Mamas want their sons to marry her, gentlemen want to woo her, and several fortune hunters start sniffing around her most eagerly.
In too deep, Arabella doesn’t see a way out. She can’t marry any of her suitors; they think she’s wealthy. She can’t tell the truth; it would socially ruin her. Then her brother, Bertram Tallant, shows up in London and makes matters worse by gambling far and above his means. The love of her life could also become her salvation, but how can one tell a man you just married you’re not an heiress and in fact in desperate need of funds?
Rating: 4-4.5 Stars
Buy: Arabella
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October 25th, 2009 — 5 Stars, Acting, Bastard, Book Review, Bride Stealing, Entrepreneur, Foster/Orphan, Great Britain, Historical Romance, Lisa Kleypas, Mistaken Identity, Pregnant, Regency, Rogues and Rakehells, Victorian, Virgin Heroine
Because You're Mine is a delicious, exquisite, and absorbing read. Absolutely delightful from start to finish. The pacing, diction, plot, and characters were all to my liking. There was nothing in the novel that drew me out of the reading experience. Honestly, I just couldn't put it down. I have a love of all Kleypas novels. She is simply a fantastic author.
Madeline Matthews is in trouble, but not the trouble one would usually expect. No, most of society would say Madeline was not in trouble at all as she was on the verge of making a most excellent match. For Maddy however the upcoming nuptials was the kiss of death. Marriage to Lord Clifton (cue many a bad guy's looks and smell) was tantamount to a gilded cage. He desired her only as his blue blood broodmare, a situation she could not endure. Explaining her feelings to her parents gained her nothing so Maddy hatched a plan that would in essence remove her as a possibility to be Lord Clifton's wife.
The plan is nothing short of daring as Maddy escapes boarding school and travels to London with a crazy plan to throw herself at Logan Scott's feet. Why him? She saw a print of his image and decided that he would be the one she would lose her virginity to... and her approach would be forward, because how else could a girl like herself gain the handsome actor's attention?
Logan Scott is attracted and irritated with the young girl. He knows she is a well bred lady, and a young untouched one at that. He refuses to give into her bewitching charm and plea to take her to his bed. In fact he tries to immediately send her packing. Unfortunately for him he just won't be able to help himself. A constant temptation, Maddy is underfoot all the time because the comanager of the Capital, the Duchess of Leeds, hires her to be an all around assistant for the theater.
Who will surrender first to the emotions brewing behind the curtains?
Rating: 5 Stars
Originally posted 2009-02-18 05:08:52. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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October 24th, 2009 — 0.5 Stars, 1 Star, Business, Category, Contemporary, Enemies, Gentry, Marriage of Convenience, Mexico, Rape/Abuse, V-Z, Virgin Heroine, Working with Land
I liked the other Violet Winspear so much that I picked this one up without a moment’s hesitation.
The story revolves around the Greek tale of Hades and Persephone. The hero is Don Diablo and the heroine is Persepha. A perfectly convenient match, but a delightful one nevertheless.
However that’s about the last good thing that I can say about this book. It’s definitely period as it was published in 1975 for the first time. Knowing it was period was really the only fact that kept me reading after they hero and heroine joined in a quick marriage of convenience.
The heroine wakes up from grief of her loved and recently departed guardian. She says it was a mistake to marry in such haste. Diablo refuses to let her go and what followed was the least romantic series of events.
She struggles. He overpowers. It’s not said in so many words but it’s clear it’s rape or at the very least an extremely forced seduction. He wears her out and then proceeds to “love her.”
The hero sums up their relationship quite succinctly when he tells her later in the novel he believes she didn’t cuckold him on his business trip despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
“I should hate to think that I had misjudged you after all, querida, and you were not so intrinsically virtuous that even a husband feels he is raping you each time he takes you in his arms. It isn’t a pretty word, is it? But to the point.” -- pg 155
Another Greek myth is mentioned and very nearly plays out in full. Don mentions reenacting out the story of Lucrenzia. I looked it up. The story of Lucrenzia is a story of a young wife who was raped in her own bed because the man threatened to do it anyway and then kill her and a slave and arrange their bodies to look like she’d committed adultery. Afterwards she confesses to her husband and family and then takes her own life.
The last ten pages (180-189) the heroine still is crying out how much she hates the hero, doesn’t love him, doesn’t like him, doesn’t want his kids, wishes he’d die, etc. He overhears her telling this to his grandmother and she realizes he’s heard. Off she runs and manages to run to the very spot where his mother committed suicide. He thinks she’s about to do the same – grabs her and hauls her back to her room. He explains about his brother’s death, his mother’s actions and in less than five pages she claims to have fallen in love with him.
It’s completely ridiculous and I closed the book miffed.
Rating: 0.5-1 Stars
Buy: The Devil's Darling
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May 14th, 2009 — 4 Stars, Book Review, Comedy of Manners, Dukes and Earls, Gambling, Georgette Heyer, Great Britain, Marriage of Convenience, Politician, Regency, Virgin Heroine
This novel is definitely one of my overall favorites of Heyer’s so far. It’s easy to read and follow despite the language and research. I loved all the side characters and Rule most of all. The leads were very well matched for each other.
Lizzie Winwood, the Beauty, is engaged to the Earl of Rule, an older man whom she does not love. Edward Heron holds her heart, but Lizzie is too well bred to ignore the duty she owes her family to accept this great match. Her youngest sister, Horatia—Horry—Winwood, decides this situation will just not do. In a scandalously forward manner Horry approaches Rule and offers herself up in trade to her sister despite her disadvantages in looks and speech. She knows she’s not his first choice, but as Marcus obviously does not know Lizzie well enough to love her, he must agree any Winwood would do. Amused by the young girl, (he’s twice her age), Rule accepts her proposal and marries her right away.
Horry experiences wealth and freedom for the first time and goes a little wild. She learns to gamble, though she does fairly poorly, purchases things without any real thought to cost, and makes friends with unacceptable members of society. Horry comes off immature for the first half of the book because she is, but Rule keeps an eye on her in his usual casual and easy going manner and does not involve himself overmuch. He came to the marriage thinking he was in love with a widow. He did not marry the widow because he knew she could not, or perhaps, would not be faithful in the years to come and has determined Horry is and will be even if she is young and prone to fancy.
Rule’s amusement and fondness easily translate themselves to the reader. From his actions you can tell he’s falling for his young new wife. It’s harder to tell with Horry, as she spends a good portion of the book running around after Lord Lethbridge in pursuit of his friendship and the chance to pit her card skills against his. Lord Lethbridge is after revenge against Rule and uses Horry in an attempt to instigate it. Other characters seek to help him or eagerly wait in the wings watching for a chance to run to Rule with news of her scandalous ways. Luckily Rule, her brother and his friends come time and again to Horry’s rescue. A Convenient Marriage is an amusing romp through Regency England and sure to win your heart.
Rating: 4 Stars
Buy: The Convenient Marriage
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