A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant

Skeptic Scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

WHAT. A. BOOK. 

I want to cry my eyes out. I swear I was breathless reading it. How have I never read anything by Cecilia Grant before? Did I even know what romance was before reading this? WHAT KIND OF MONSTER WAS I? I wish I never read this thing. My whole concept of what romance should be is ruined. Everything feels like sawdust now. Titanic feels like an episode of Seinfeld. The Notebook can eat my shorts.

He: Our hero is a younger son in a genteel but not aristocratic family. He had been a soldier in his prior life where he has seen some depressing stuff. He comes home to England scarred and not himself. One particular event - a man dying horribly in his arms - during the war has affected him so deeply that he feels like he needs to pay "penance" for what he sees as his role in that man's death. So to atone for his "sin", he begins raising funds to support the man's widow. He's not a rich man, but he's a gentleman, so he can't exactly "work" for the money as a regular person would. He decides he will gamble for it. He's a clever gambler, but even still, he can't afford the big bets for fear of ruining himself and his chances for helping the dead man's widow. Enter the heroine - she's a mathematical genius with a facility with cards, so clever he almost can't believe his eyes. With her help he will be able to win the fortune he needs and with his help she may finally be able to win the fortune she needs to earn her independence.

She: Here's where the writer just took my breath away. We've seen plenty of "fallen women" in Regency romances. They're the women who fall on hard times and have to do some "bad stuff" but they still retain a sense of goodness and light. It's like they're just hanging around waiting to get saved by the handsome hero who sees their innocent light beneath all the layers of smut and then kiss kiss bing bang, and everything is nice and happy again.

This heroine is NOTHING like that. She's fallen so far and so hard she can't really "come back". And she's not one of those stoical types who's just keeping her head down and bearing her burden. She's angry. Enraged. So fierce that her fury almost hisses at you through the pages.

Even under all the layers of that anger and ferocity - she's not innocent and sweet. She's a harlot. She loves sex. She's manipulative and clever and ambitious. And she most certainly has no use for men who want to "save" her.

What I loved most:
1) There was such an amazing build up between heroine and hero that you feel that tingly anticipation you did when you were a kid sitting ascending up that last, really fearsome arc of a roller coaster. 

H & h are attracted to be another, yes. They need each other to achieve their respective goals but they fight bitterly even as they work together like true partners. They learn from each other, and eventually they grow to respect and love one another for exactly the people the are. She doesn't become "good" and he doesn't even want her to. 

2) She's such a bad@ss heroine. She's smart and fast and cannot be kept down. Not by other men, not by her circumstances, not by anything. She behaves true to character in every single page and nothing, not even his wonderfulness diverts her from her purpose. 

3) She has a purpose. Too often we read a perfectly "nice" romance novel and when it's all over, you're still wondering what was so great about the heroine anyway? This one is single minded about earning her independence. She's focused and best of all, she doesn't really need anyone else to save her. She's so far beyond "saving" she just has to figure it out herself.

4) The passion that burns between H & h is beautiful. And it's also unholy, irreverent and profane. I don't think I need to mention this, but I will - the sex scenes were stupendous.

5) The hero is just what a fallen woman needs. A man who wants to jump down that glittering waterfall of sin and disgrace into an inky pool of lovely madness just to be with her.

Skeptic's last work: What a perfect, perfect, perfect book. I want to hate CG for ruining every other book for me forever. But I can't. 

It has been gently suggested to me by my long suffering husband that I just might have lost a little perspective here. Hmmm. So it's not normal for to be thinking about this story a week later and feeling heartsick and happy at the same time? Could it be that I might have to declare a moratorium on reading historical romances for a few days so I can GET A GRIP? 

Maybe. I'll think about it. In the meantime, I shall continue to skulk about the house with my wrist to my forehead, sighing gustily and staring broodily off into the distance. What do husbands know of romance anyway, right? ;)

Sighs Matter by Marianne Stillings

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥


Before I begin, would it be disloyal to a writer that I am really beginning to love to say that the cover* of this book is absurd? I like a slab of bronzed and rippling abdominals as much as the next girl, but this cover looked so cheesy, I almost decided not to buy the book. Also, I don't understand the title. I've been trying to figure it out for hours now and I still don't get it. 

*Yes, I do judge books by their covers - because that's what they're there for - to be judged and to sell you on picking them up. But I'm glad I overcame my reluctance because it turned out to be awesome! 

He: Detective who's investigating a suspect who is engaged to the h's aunt. He's into her (the h, not the aunt) and has been from the time they hooked up at his brother's wedding to h's best friend.

She: Small-town doctor who's into him. But...see Conflict.

Conflict: She has issues committing to him because she can never be with a cop. Her dad was a cop and was killed in the line of duty and her brother, also a cop, was permanently injured while doing his job. So she just can't take it anymore and wants to avoid getting involved with someone in law enforcement. 

They are thrown together because of the case he is investigating and when it looks like she might be in danger, he goes all alpha on her (hearts! likes!), does the Serve and Protect thing and just melts her little heart like a marshmallow on some heated loins. I don't mind telling you that while she tried to remain unaffected by him as long as she could, I was a swooning mass of undignified female by page 4. Dang! Maybe I was subliminally affected by the abs on the cover after all.

Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

Read at your own risk!! You WILL be reduced to a whimpering pile of longing - as I was when I first read it. 


ST wasn't writing a book here. She was writing a beautiful poem about a couple of pining, aching hearts kept apart by pride and tragic misunderstanding. Suck it, Romeo and Juliet! Believe me, if I had known that I would never have even begun this book because I usually hate pining, aching hearts - always comes across as cheesy and unbelievable to me. But ST grabbed me by the back of the neck and forced me to LOOK. And once I did, I just couldn't look away because within about 10 pages it was me pining and aching. Oh, shivers.

She: One of the most compelling historical heroines I have ever come across in a romance novel. The book is set in the 1890s -  much after the Regency period and just around the time of "modern" Britain. Women's roles had already begun to change and this heroine was very much part of the new vanguard of modern working women. She is a physician, and she is passionate (to the point of obsessed) about her career. I thought highly of her for her accomplishments even as I felt slightly put off by her reserve and unapproachable demeanor. She wasn't exactly a lovable h, but she was an amazing woman.

He: For the first time, I saw a truly modern man in a historical romance and my heart just became a glob of hot, melty marshmallow goo in my chest. It has barely reconstituted itself after all these days so revisiting this book is putting me in grave danger of losing my sh!t all over again. 

So... modern men. Authors will often write about a hero who is ahead of his times, how he doesn't try to squelch the heroine's spirit, how he respects her brain etc etc even when Society tries to crush her. But sometimes those heroes seem to be guys who are surprised by a woman's accomplishments and then learn to "accept" the lady for her uniqueness in spite of how unusual those accomplishments make her. This guy yearned for this woman because she was amazing - capable, heroic in her own right. He looked up to her. He wanted to be near her and to be with her, and was grateful that she chose him. And all this didn't detract from his alpha-ness. No sir! Alpha plus, my good man!

Conflict: Obviously, as you've seen from my description above, there was a great deal of longing, yearning, aching and so forth. What keeps these two apart is a terrible mistake the hero makes and the pride of the heroine that she doesn't confront him about it at the outset. Instead, she lets the wound fester until they develop a terrible, seemingly insurmountable chasm between them. The story is about how they try to mend that huge divide.

I'm going to write out some of my favorite lines from the book. There will be spoilers, so don't read on if you don't like reading bits from books ahead of time. ST is just such a beautiful writer, I wanted to make notes for myself so I can come back to them and feel all mopey again.

"Then one noticed the bleakness behind her green eyes, as if she were a nun on the verge of losing her faith"

"You were the moon of my existence; your moods dictated the tides of my heart" 
(This is cheesy-squeezy out of context. IN context, you will lose your mind, trust me)

"Curiously enough she had no aspirations at all concerning him. A drunk did not expect the bottle to love him back"

"Her heart slammed like an unsecured shutter in a windstorm"

"...millions of stars shone, a diamond heist gone awry."

"Her blue-black hair spread like the cape of Erebus"

"Even your love had such sharp corners and dark alleys"

"He did not look like an archangel - if archangels looked as he did, there would be no woman of virtue left in Paradise."

Poetry, am I right!? There are too many more. I think I am just going to re-read this and risk the melted marshmallow glob heart failure thing again.

Fool For Love by Eloisa James

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥
EJ writes truly classical stories. The language and characterization are superb and you feel like you're wandering around in a lovely watercolor rendering of an English country estate. But never fear Skeptics! It's not all rainbows and lawn tennis. 

There is a wicked scene between the H&h in a goat pasture than managed to be nice and lusty - making me forget, for a few moments, how terribly odorific and ill-tempered goats are. Now that was good writing.

She: Clever-tongued, high-born heiress Lady Henrietta Maclellan doesn't join the running to find and marry a rich gentleman because she is born with a weak hip that makes it impossible for her to have children. Even with her pots of money, what gentleman would want her with this terrible "disfigurement"?

He: Simon Darby suddenly stands to lose his inheritance to his deceased uncle's newly born heir. He travels to the countryside to see that his uncle's scandalous young wife has really given him a legitimate heir. Unfortunately for Simon, the baby is legitimate and that means Simon's out a juicy inheritance.

Conflict: She has always felt that she could not marry because she would not be able to produce an heir - something that a husband would, no doubt, desire. The H insists that he doesn't really give a fig about children and producing an heir, and that her inability to have children is of no consequence to him. She takes some convincing but manages to come around, comforting herself that she would be able to bring something to the marriage because at least her dowry can replace Simon's inheritance now that he has lost it to his aunt's newborn son.

There is also a sweet little side-story of the scandalous aunt and her love affair with another  gentleman, but that's fleshed out in another book and I'll leave it for another post.

The story deals with some difficult topics such as the state of women's healthcare and the reality of the incredibly patriarchal inheritance laws of the time. EJ doesn't make these political, of course, it was just the way things were those days. 

One point about the ending that will be a spoiler (but not really - we all know that everything has to work out in the end, right?) - I was a little sorry to see that even though the H & h truly do love one another, the HEA "package" still included the miraculous "fixing" of Henrietta's hip so she can have children. Seems to say that the HEA wouldn't have been complete without the possibility of progeny. Which I absolutely do NOT agree with and think is an annoying suggestion. But I read this when I was a lot younger and wasn't as quick to get offended about these types of things!

The fact remains that this is a fantastic read and one of my very favorites.

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan

Skeptic Scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

This red dress on the cover - do you know if I can get it on Amazon? I have a coupon for free shipping and I think it would just be sublime for my annual Here Comes Summer barbecue.   

First of all let me ask a question about language. Is it possible to get turned on by language? I don't mean talking dirty to your long distance boyfriend who's studying abroad in Australia for Fall semester. And I don't even mean, the libidinous musings of Lord Byron or the breathless sonnets of Willy Shakespeare. I mean, can you literally get squirmy reading sentences like this one:

"Of course you're charming... I'm charmed to my teeth." There was a note in her voice that sounded so bitter it almost tasted sweet. 

"You're a force of nature, Your Grace," she said. "But so am I. So am I."

Oh God. It's happening again.

Talk about getting totally swept away by a romance novel. We discuss everything here - the rights of women, the impact of industrialization on English society, the changing views towards the peerage and its archaic inheritance laws - even the excitement of Darwin's theories of natural selection. And in the middle of it all, our hero and heroine, not just perfectly drawn character studies, but agents for change. You get the sense that their love really matters, in an epic kind of way, for the future of British society.

He: Robert Blaisdell, the Duke of Clermont, it not your typical peer of the realm. He is a radical and a passionate "righter of wrongs". His life's mission is to do the right thing and he does it - even when it means he might lose the people who he loves most. He's kind and heroic in a wonderful, quiet way.

She: Miss Minerva Lane, strategist and logician, the woman vibrates with an energy that practically buzzes through the page and through your fingers. She quiet, intense and not particularly beautiful - not the ideal resume for a would-be wife of a typical young gentleman in good society. But she doesn't need a typical gentleman - she needs a radical and a revolutionary and that's exactly what she gets.  

Conflict: So many! The obvious one of course, is that he is a duke and she's a commoner. And not just any commoner, but one with a scandalous past. And not the same old scandal of getting her virtue ruined by a rakish lord in her previous life. But a real, proper scandal that's both depressing and incredibly exhilarating  

The next layer of conflict is the damage done to both of them by their families, leaving each with emotional scars that makes them fear even the hope of a Happily Ever After.

What I absolutely LOVED:
1) Both H & h, so finely drawn I thought I knew them, stay true to character throughout the story. He is passionate about justice, and stays true to that goal even when it means he must sacrifice love and his own happiness. She is a master tactician and stays that way even in the throes of uncertainty and unhappiness. 

Often authors will show characters acting outside their true nature because the author wants a shorthand way to up the stakes. In this story the stakes are already as high as they could go and neither character ever deviates from their true selves - even for the other. It's a strange thing to show in a romance novel, but it was perfect.

2) Marvelously, the story is by turns witty, hot, depressing and inspiring. I went through an entire estrogen cycle in the space of the 6 hours it took to read this book. Thankfully, I was on a plane and no one I knew had to be subjected the emotion overflow that took place all over my kindle. The guy in 11F may have a few words to share with me, but he knew the risks of trying to get some shut eye on a flight and should have planned ahead with some earplugs and an eye mask. I won't be blamed for rookie mistakes.

What I didn't like as much:
Nothing. I got nothing. I loved everything. Even the cover. Which is a weird thing for me to say because I usually think covers detract from the general awesomeness of a book. But this cover kicked ass and I want a pretty red dress just like that. I can wear it and stride about in my bedchamber (dinky little bedroom) ordering the servants (dust motes) around.

The Accidental Duchess by Jessica Benson

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥
It was like Elizabeth Bennet's voice in my head, reading this to me in 2013, both of us giggling and in virginal white smocking nighties. Her wit and intelligence honed even further over the centuries to the fiendish sharpness of Jessica Rabbit's stiletto.

The book begins with this sly observation: 

"I married the wrong man. And by this I do not mean, as people so often do, any of the more cryptic things that you might imagine: That I awoke one morning to the realization that my husband and I had grown apart. That I discovered something about my spouse that caused me to doubt that we were well-suited. Nor, even, that I had met by chance an old love in Bond Street...What I do mean is that yesterday I stood up in St. George's, Hanover Square, and before some three hundred witnesses promised to love, honor, and obey the wrong man." 

And delightful merriment ensues.

He: A paragon, gentleman nonpareil, the illustrious Earl of Cambourne. He is also the twin of the man to whom our heroine is betrothed. His twin, younger by 15 minutes, is the frivolous and irresponsible Bertie Milburn.

She: A clever, well-born woman who has been promised to the H's brother almost since the day she was born. She comes from a political, well-connected family that contains some rather hilarious characters - including a domineering mother and be-turbanned aunt who is actually her mother's best friend (and maybe a little more?).

Conflict: A case of mistaken identity puts the h at the altar with the Earl of Cambourne, and not her intended betrothed, his brother Milburn. We learn through a series of amusing and whimsical plot twists that there's a reason that the h ends up marrying Cambourne, and it's not just all a big mistake.

The whole book was a rollicking, incredibly witty ride - a very different book than the traditional Regency romances I normally love. It was like an Oscar Wilde play - a wide, hilarious cast of characters, a loopy plot that causes people to behave in extraordinary and silly ways and just an amazing combination of cunning humor and situational comedy. Happily, JB still manages to retain the romantic (ok fine, crazysexycute) bits so it wasn't all just silliness and fun.

By Love Undone by Suzanne Enoch

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

This book really has it all - witty banter, lovable characters, superb one-liners, and a wonderfully original doing-it scene in a proper London drawing room. 

He: Quinlan Bancroft, Marquis of Warefield is everything you would expect a nobleman to be - gentlemanly, urbane, immensely wealthy and of course, possessed of looks "to disquiet a maiden's heart." We find out as the story progresses, he is sensitive, charming and plain old nice. Importantly, he is far from the do-gooding papa's boy he appears to be at the outset. 

She: Maddie Willits is the paid companion of Quin's uncle, Malcolm Bancroft. She assists Malcolm in the management of Langley Hall and has proven herself a worthy helper. We also learn that she is hiding from a scandal in her youth when she is ruined by lordly scumbag.

Conflict: Although Quin is immediately struck by Maddie's uniqueness, he also knows nothing can come of his flirtation with her - their social situations are just too different and besides, he has been betrothed, practically since birth, to a woman of impeccable refinement and breeding. Maddie, for her part, wants nothing to do with Quin because in her experience, fancy London noblemen cause nothing but trouble for girls like her.

There's a lot of push and pull between H&h; their chemistry is undeniable but so is the utter impossibility of their being together. Their arguments are heated and laced with a sort of comic brilliance that I, who am not normally one for histrionics between men and women, was actually a little disappointed that I have never experienced for myself, the sort of passionate anger that leads to ripped bodices and mangled cravats. Ah well...That's what romance novels are for!

Rules to Catch a Devilish Duke by Suzanne Enoch

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥
Fallen women have all the fun.

I absolutely devoured this book. Loved it and said "awwww" out loud at least three times and didn't care that I was being a pathetic drip.

She: Illegitimate daughter of a nobleman who works in a gentlemen's gaming club. She's not your normal "ruined woman" heroine - you know the ones who have lost their virtue but retain an ethereal innocence that attracts the rakish hero. Nope. She's wicked and she has a lot of fun with it. 

He: Duke who has to give up his raking ways to marry before he turns thirty or he loses his fortune. Obviously, he looks for ladies of gentle breeding and noble birth as befits his station in life. But since he's a rake and intractable roue he can't help but be charmed by the decidedly un-virtuous h. 

Big positives
1) SE took some risks with both h & H - both are highly "modern" characters in their attitudes. But this risk was well worth it because both h & H were so sweet, so lovable, that you can't help but root for them. I actually think the modernity of especially the h's behavior when it comes to sex was dealt with so well that every girl in 2013 could sympathize acutely

2) The H is "hard to pin down" - he is described as detached, unemotional, moody and an all-round ducal bad@ss but he is so nice to the h and to everyone else that it doesn't quite fit with the description - doesn't fit, that is, until you see that the dark descriptions are reflective of what he thinks of himself, not a true description of his character. He is, in reality an all-round nice guy - he is nice to dogs, his servants, ladies (even fallen ones) and his shrew of a sister.

3) I loved the setting. I don't often read Regency romances set in almost Wuthering Heights-like bleakness. It's winter and everything is cold and dreary and you can almost feel the warmth lit by these two people - it's all very cozy and romantic. The Lit majors can discuss the metaphors of the icy conditions of his heart being reflected by his surroundings etc etc. but I shall only say that it was interesting and refreshing to watch the characters romp about in the snow and ice as opposed to walking sedately in the inevitable verdure of an English garden

Mild negatives
1) I didn't really get the sister character. She seemed to have a serious motive for the H not marrying so not sure why she was pressuring him to wed anyone at all. But ultimately I don't think it mattered that much. She was supposed to one of the villains so it's fine that she was not acting entirely rationally. Also, maybe she was also just terribly sad and embittered by her awful father and did a poorer job than her brother in coming out as a more graceful adult

2) Grey eyes for H and green eyes for h - this is something of SE's calling card and it feels overdone. I am a lover of this combination, true, but there are only so many times one can be entranced by descriptions of grey and green. There is one point where she refers to the H and also a previous H from a prior book - and there is a slightly awkward tangle where she tries to come up with different ways to describe the color grey. It was slightly amusing but also maybe a hint that the time has come for say a brown-eyed H? Tawny, whiskey-colored, coffee, mahogany, amber - pick your overcooked description! 

Obviously, this is a personal preference and does nothing at all to detract from the overall awesomeness of the book!

Love Story by Erich Segal

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

Allow me to transcribe the note I had scrawled as a young Skeptic in 1996 into the front cover of my ratty old copy of this book.

"ONLY READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO CRY UNCONTROLLABLY FOR MANY DAYS. DON'T DO IT. DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. TOO MANY DAYS HAVE BEEN LOST MOPING AROUND AFTER READING THIS GDAMN BOOK. IT'S TOO MUCH. 

ARE YOU LISTENING????" 

But I never listen to good advice, even my own, and I have read this thing maybe once a year for the past 17 years. Why? Because I am a sucker and a huge, pathetic sap.

From the first line ("What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me.") to the last ("And then I did what I had never done in [my father's] presence, much less in his arms. I cried.") I am a sniveling, wet chump who has the inglorious distinction of falling for the same sh*t again - like that girlfriend you have who has daddy-issues and who Just Never Learns.

It's the old story of young lovers from two different worlds who give up everything to be with each other only for everything to be ripped away from them by death. Death, you miserable b@stard.

I know this is an old book, and everyone has probably already read it. But I saw it on the shelf this morning and I felt that familiar punch in my tummy and sat down to read the bits that I had underlined. Turned out that I had underlined stuff on almost every page so I ended up spending a couple hours zipping through the whole thing. Needless to say, my productivity levels today are shot. 

It's beautiful and brilliant and even when I read it as a young sapling at 15, I knew that THIS was love. ES is funny, clever and heartbreaking and even though I am going to feel like cr@p all day now, I'm glad I knew this book.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

Sick, twisted, wtf-ery. Ye gods, I loved this book!

This isn't a romance novel - far from it - but I read it a few days ago and I can't stop thinking about it so I thought I would just get it all out of my system here.

GF is a woman I wish I was friends with. She has written a book of such diabolical, perverse, purple humor that it leads me to believe she must be a woman of great wit and nonsense. Someone with whom I would very much like to have brunch.

On a very basic level, Gone Girl is about the un-spooling of the marriage between two extremely difficult-to-love people. The meta-story (because we live in times where everything has to have a meta something) is revealed by a series of questions about marriage that one of the main characters asks himself a few times: "Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?"

The main story was about Nick Dunne who comes home one day to discover that his wife, Amy is missing. The circumstances look suspicious and Nick becomes the prime suspect (no surprise here for if we have learned anything from the Crime & Investigation Network - it's always the husband). Nick insists he didn't have anything to do with his wife's disappearance and I spent most of the book being tossed from the for Nick to violently against camps again and again like a poor dead leaf in a storm. I discovered things (horrific, sad, heartbreaking things) about both Nick and Amy along the way that made me feel gut-deep sympathy for both characters. But then as I read on, that sympathy warred furiously with an equally gut-level disgust I felt for the both of them. By the end of it all I was left an exhausted and weak shell of a person with severe stomach pain.

You know when you watch one of those documentaries about space where the camera makes a huge swoop and you feel like you are shooting into deep space, everything around you getting darker and everything you know fading rapidly to a tiny speck behind you? That's how I felt the deeper I got into the book. I started off with a jellylike idea of what happened, and all of a sudden, without warning, the author dropped me into holycowwtf territory and my mind was literally blown. 

The main thing I learned after getting to the intensely uncomfortable ending of this novel is that I guess I don't know anything about people at all. I had brazenly assumed that I had a finely tuned ear and understanding for the inner weirdities of people and characters. I thought, in my utter naivete, that having read a lot of deep books by dead french dudes I knew something about the world - but now I realize that was all just kindergarten stuff. I didn't even have the brain-elasticity to imagine that this type of mind- f#ery could exist. 

My inner goody two shoes hated, HATED the ending. I mean, it was a nightmarish scenario for a person who desperately wants to live in a world where good triumphs over evil. But then there was this sick, grinning devil inside me who experienced a sensual zippety-zap of terrified enjoyment when I read the end that GF offers up. 

Ok I won't say more because its just going to be spoiler-y. Let me just end with this. I thought Gone Girl was a fantastic read. I devoured it in the matter of a day, I didn't sleep and I didn't eat and if I had kids they would be calling child services on me because I just didn't care about anything except getting to the bottom of the mystery. 

The ending, while disturbing, was eminently interesting. I would never have imagined it in a million years, because, as I said earlier, I couldn't have even constructed an imaginary character that screwed up. And the fact that Gillian Flynn did makes me want to meet her, learn from her and make her my friend. 

A Notorious Countess Confesses by Julie Anne Long

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;

For thy love is better than wine.

Because of the savor of thy good ointments

Thy name is as ointment poured forth,

therefore do the virgins love thee
- Song of Songs, Chapter 1






Everything this woman writes is just MAGIC. So beautifully done and so, so sweet it just left me a-flutter.

This is an Adam and Eve story - quite literally. Adam is the beautiful, "innocent" Pennyroyal vicar, cousin to the county's powerful Eversea family. Eve/Evie is the scandalous actress-turned-courtesan-turned-countess who's been cast by the ton as a notorious "Black Widow" when her husband dies suddenly. She escapes for some peace to Pennyroyal Green, her husband's unentailed property. 

JAL made no attempt to hide the overtly biblical allusions and I was ready to be offended on behalf of women everywhere because of the old Eve-as destroyer-of-innocence thing. But perhaps I too was seduced by this Eve, this sharp, unrepentant siren, that all my defensiveness at what the reference symbolized just melted in a puddle at her feet. She's certainly not an innocent, but neither is he. At least she doesn't try and hide behind a wall of civility and religiosity. 

JAL clearly had a lot of fun with the biblical theme and it was cleverly weaved throughout the story (Eve acted at the Green Apple Theater, plenty of angel and snake metaphors) and there were references to passages in Corinthians and Song of Solomon that made me want to revisit my study of the Bible as the ultimate romance novel (ergo the quote up top from Song of Songs). Some of that stuff was HOT. 

The interaction between both the characters is heart-thumpingly thrilling. They're both so well-rounded out, we almost feel their internal tension that keeps them from giving in to each other. And the things he SAYS, our Adam, made me want to climb into my kindle and get myself thoroughly compromised by the man. He was the perfect tormented H - wanted what he shouldn't and then when he couldn't take it anymore out there and grabbed it, everything else be damned! Sigh...

This is a book I shall re-read many times.

NB: I actually wrote a review of this on Amazon under a different name so a lot of it may look familiar to anyone really looking

Fools Rush In by Kristan Higgins

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

WANTED: One Kristan Higgins hero. Just one. I only want to meet him. If you know one (or <gasp> have one of your own), I promise I'll give him back. Pinky swear. Just let me meet him.

I'm super serious. I wish I could just meet one of these H's! KH is a MASTER of witty banter. She just keeps you smiling the whole way through. I am really coming around to this 1st person narrative style in a romance novel. I mean, everything feels like a big surprise that's happening to me! And she is so fantastic at dialogue, the reader still manages to catch the pov's of the other characters.

This one is a sweet little twist in the high-school unrequited crush thing.

She: Sweet, friendly, goofy dog-owning doctor who is seriously crushing on her high school love - a beautiful, lovable carpenter who charms everyone in panties. He's obviously wrong, wrong, wrong for her, but she is fixated until she finally opens her eyes to the right guy. 

He: Ex-brother in law (older sister's ex-husband). Small town cop and all round good guy.

Conflict: Obviously, there is the awkwardness of him being her sister's ex-husband. He is wonderful and so is she - they just never look at each other "that way" until one day, they do. It's sweet and nice and makes you feel like that girl who's been trying to get her best friends together like, forever and then when they finally do hook up you're like, finally...

I love how the story has a lot to do with how the h grows as a person - she gets fit, makes a life and a home for herself in the town, and finds a great career - not just that she finds her man. In the story, like in real life, she only finds her real someone when she's figured herself out. 

I wish we had a little more time with the H. Because of the 1st person angle, its hard to get a handle on the H's personality but we are led to believe that he is a wonderful person worthy of the h's adoration. Oh, I believed it alright. At the end of the day, does it even really matter? I mean, after having read ~1,000 romance novels, aren't the H's all basically just the same dude? Tall, handsome, charming, sweet, funny, protective and honorable? Throw in roguish and arrogant for the historical heroes and we basically have the amalgam of the Most Perfect Human Man.

This one is heroically wonderful and nice, and she's sweet and kind - they need to be together. When they are, you're genuinely stoked for them. 

Sidenote - KH has this strange thing for the brother/sister-in-law, best friend, widowed/abandoned hero shtick  But it works, goddammit, she makes it work! I see why she would do it - I don't think its for the "forbidden" angle but more to show closeness and a solid relationship to begin with before layering on the romance. I never thought it would work, and I admit to feeling squeamish at the very beginning but then I too relax and become a steaming, whimpering pile of mush and any hesitancy I may have felt is put firmly to bed. Like the h. Hooyah!

Exclusively Yours by Shannon Stacey

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥♥

Because kick-@ass career women CAN have it all.

Excellent! I found a new fave author! Yay.

She: Career-oriented tabloid journalist trying to get an exclusive interview with H at the behest of her rabid bitch boss.

He: A famous writer whose horror fiction is being made into a movie. He eschews publicity and never gives interviews.

Conflict: H&h had been high school sweethearts and the h breaks his heart when she hightails out of their small cozy town to make a name for herself in LA. He loves the small town life and wants to be near his family and desperately wishes she would stay back.

What I liked:

1) I liked that the h, while career-minded, didn't come across as an iron bitch. Too many times we see the bitch/career personality pairing and its unfair to career women everywhere

2) Holy sexual tension, Batman!

3) The minor characters in the extended family scenes were sympathetically portrayed and didn't come across as cliched small town hayseeds

What I didn't like:

1) I never understand why things are so all or nothing. Why does it HAVE to be LA vs small town in New Hampshire? She can't find a job in Boston, Connecticut, NY and he, as a rich and famous writer, can't bloody move to ANY city with an Internet connection?

2) They really don't meet for 20 years even though their families are friends with each other and she's come back to visit since leaving? They were never even curious enough to look for each other on Facebook? She never wrote him a "congrats on your success" note that whole time after having been each others best friend in high school?

I get why a writer would use these devices to create real separation and longing between the characters. But I just wish it was a little more realistic. But in the end, I didn't even care because the story was sweet and fun and hot.