The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥

Eva's beautiful and charming sister dies leaving Eva unmoored and looking for a place to call home. She returns to the summer home of her childhood, Trelowarth mansion in Cornwall where she and her sister shared many happy memories. While there Eva starts experiencing some strange "hallucinations" of a time in the 1700s at Trelowarth. It turns out these aren't hallucinations but she's actually traveling back several centuries and meets people who are involved in the Jacobin uprising to return the Catholic King James from his exile in France in order to take over England's Protestant rule of Scotland. These men are also privateers - smugglers of contraband like brandy, tobacco, lace and other goods the British government taxes heavily.

One of the men she meets is the mysterious, handsome Daniel Butler - staunch Jacobite and privateer who captains his own ship The Sally. Eva passes in and out of the time periods without warning and she can't really control the timing of when she enters and leaves each period.

I don't like supernatural, magical stuff at all. The time-traveling was perhaps a little too much for me but I will say that SK is such a good writer that some of the romance of the story did sneak in and make me happy that the two main characters found each other - even if it was a cross-century romance. Talk about long distance!

The book was well-written and develops a nice, moody atmosphere but I just didn't buy the love story. Why does she love him? He's tall, dark and handsome, sure but what else? The two characters spend very little time getting to know one another and I don't buy that if someone from the future comes to visit, you don't immediately sit them down and make them tell you everything they know. Wouldn't you just be naturally curious? The characters in the 1700s seem to be a uniquely un-curious lot. The H does some gentle questioning (about the invention of matches!? There is a political event going on that could change the course of history and you want to know about matches?) and the h is extremely guarded about sharing her knowledge so as not to spoil things and rend the space-time continuum. 

The point SK wanted to make was that ultimately, even if you know what the future holds, you still need to do what you must in the present. But I guess I fundamentally don't believe that* so the story was a little tough for me to truly fall for. 

* The plot to return King James to the throne of Scotland ultimately failed and a lot of people lost their lives. If you know what will happen in the future, even if you can't change it, wouldn't you do everything in your power to at least minimize the horror for as many people as you could? This is what I find frustrating and confusing about time-traveling stories that tell you the future is "fixed". Seems like a fateful and passive way to think about things. You may as well not exist at all then - because the future will just happen all the same without you in it. 

Make Me a Match by Diana Holquist

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥



It was better than the DH's other book about these gypsy sisters (one of which reviewed here). But worse than the feeling you get after running a really good 5 miles. She's a good writer. The fact that she held my attention even with the juvenile mumbo jumbo about One True Love means that DH must be a really talented woman. 

She: Overcommitted, in-control doctor who comes from a spacey family does everything in her power to control the outcomes in her own life - perfect apartment, perfect fiance etc etc. Everything falls apart when her psychic sister tells her who her One True Love is. 

He: Carpenter, widowed father of an 8-year-old girl, is sweet and sad and missing his dead wife. Nice guy. A bit on the beta side but a nice guy all the same.

Besides finding the whole psychic/One True Love crap hugely silly, the main trouble I had with this was that the 8-year-old daughter is simultaneously portrayed as precocious and wise beyond her years and then at times, borderline retarded. She seems to wander around the city of Baltimore (not a very safe city, I'm given to understand from The Wire) totally unsupervised but at the same time believes that she can magic up a mommy (or Santa, incidentally) through the Power of Wishes and Good Thoughts. Now, this is probably a sad commentary of the state of childhood, but there are zero 8-year-olds who believe in Santa anymore. The kid partakes in some sort of elaborate con* with the help of several other adults to get her father to move to Baltimore to find his One True Love. 

Are you still with me? No? It's doesn't really matter.

In the end, the mood set by the psychic stuff is so unbelievable and silly that your grip on reality is relatively looser here than in other books thereby allowing you to swallow some of the other absurdities with less difficulty.

Not a re-read but an ok little time-pass book if you need to change it up.

*Kids perpetrating cons to get their parents to Believe is a standard romantic comedy/romance novel device - remember little Jonah in Sleepless in Seattle? - and is usually quite cute. Most of the time, I enjoy a little quirkiness in romance novels/movies. Here however, I think the sheer number of zany themes were the tipping point that made this particular book unmanageable for me - starting with the psychic stuff and ending with the stuff with the kid and how she becomes pen pals with some lady in Baltimore and then starts calling this stranger "Grandma." In what alternate universe would this fly? 

Good Groom Hunting by Shana Galen

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥
Hmmmm. I wanted to like this more than I did. I loved that pirate one SG wrote and this one had some of the same positives - interesting H & h back stories, adventure story involving pirates and lost treasure - I noticed that it was even edited by one of my FAVORITE editors May Chen (who did some of Julie Anne Long's stuff). But I don't know... it just felt flat. 

She: 18 year old gently bred lady of the bon ton. She may be youthful but she is full of beans. She has half of a treasure map that her piratical grandfather left her and she's determined to find the other half so that she can find her fortune and be a truly independent women entirely free from society's restrictions.

He: Newly returned from India, this Earl was the black sheep of the family who spent his salad days ruining ladies and wagering away the family fortune. His elder brother and the parental favorite passes away leaving him the heir to the Earldom. He must take the saddle to make amends for his dissolute youth. His grandfather, who was also a pirate and a partner to the heroine's buccaneering granddaddy (that's right - there were TWO pirates) left him the other half of a treasure map - he just has to find it where that half is. To restore the coffers, he needs a fortune. Luckily he knows someone with the other half of a pirate map that leads to a chest full of shiny Spanish doubloons...

Conflict: She wants to be wealthy and independent - not just a wife but a career adventuress. He wants to regain the respect of his family and fulfill the role of Earl with dignity. They both need the booty. Ahem. 

Can they work together and trust each other to share the treasure once they find it?

Not a terrible plot, right? You figure you're in for some gadding about with a cutlass and evading  capture by some stealthy villains out to steal your gold. Alas, no. There were maybe 2 chapters of fun and games and the rest of it sort of just dripped along predictably - whispered innuendo at balls and trying to evade irate overprotective mothers. Sigh.


Let's talk it out and maybe I can figure out what was keeping me from truly hearting this book:

1) The age gap between H & h - she's 18 and he's 32. I know this wouldn't have been atypical at the time, but it was disturbing to read. The h was supposed to be this adventurous, risk-taking type - she could have been 23 and been those things. The extreme youth didn't really help the story in any way that I could see so it was just weird and slightly gross.

2) The chemistry was choppy and uneven. There wasn't a proper build up, more just events (fumbles in the dark, really) along the way that contribute to both of them feeling the bubbles. It was really more about finding the treasure. Which is fine, but didn't really create a lot of oopmh in the tension between the H&h. 

3) It sort of dragged at the end. I know the author was trying to tie up all lose ends (treasure, family, H&h etc) but after they Fall In Love and find the treasure, I immediately lost interest and had to skip read the last couple chapters. 

Arousing Suspicions by Marianne Stillings

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥
From The Oatmeal
Q: What do you call a psychic midget who has escaped from prison?
A: A small medium at large

This is not only a HILARIOUS  joke, it is also marvelously apropos. Because our protagonist is a psychic. I know. Stay with me, it's not that bad. Mostly because Marianne Stillings is one funny writer. The dialogue is sharp and avoids being sitcom-y, and her characters are sweet and kinda goofy. And don't even get me STARTED on this cover. I was iffy about it at first, but I came around once I stared at the lovely wideness of the gentleman's shoulders for about an hour. I was mesmerized. He could carry the weight of the world on that bronzed back. 


He: Detective who is investigating a murder where the cops have very few clues. 

She: Psychic dream interpreter.  She "witnesses" the murder he is investigating" by channeling the thoughts" of one of her clients and goes to the cops with the information. 

Conflict: He (naturally) doesn't believe she has paranormal powers and thinks she's a crackpot. But there's chemistry between them and when there is a chance she might be the killer's next target, he goes into Alpha Dog Cop Mode and swoops in for the rescue. Since this is not 1820, the h gets to do some ass kicking of her own, and everyone lives happily ever after.

This was a funny and nicely paced story. I don't normally like paranormal stuff in romances because it ends up being really lame in a drippy our-souls-are-entwined kind of way. Makes me want to rip my eyes out and stuff them in my mouth. But here, the whole psychic dream interpreter stuff was presented in a quirky, cute way - like it was a part of the h's personality that the disbelieving H just learns to accept and believe. The mystery was at least 50% believable (no creepy stalker plot - thank Poseidon's scepter). 

The Wedding Survivor by Julia London

Skeptic scale: ♥♥
I would say 2.5 hearts to be fair. 


Girl likes boy who kinda likes girl but has commitment issues. But then girl acts cute and talks his ears off and boy figures, what the hell, let's go for it. Basically, the plot of any real life romance enacted in the halls of junior high.

He: A partner in a company that arranges adventure tours for the rich and famous. He's the type of guy who goes kayaking and rock climbing with his buddies on the weekends. 

She: A newbie wedding planner hired by his company to plan the adventure wedding of a famous Hollywood couple. She's the kind of girl who's idea of exercise is going to the mall and buying things with her Little Gold Card. Cute, chatty and kinda annoying.

Conflict: He's a commitment-phobe. That's it. That's the entire conflict - that he won't commit. 

Apart from a vague annoyance at this chick for being such a helpless piece of fluff, I had a few specific issues with the story:

1) She is supposed to be 34 years old and doesn't have a proper job and lives with her parents. Ok, there was a dot com bubble, times were tough for everyone. Her lack of proper career, I can overlook. What is impossible to overlook is how she acts like an air head, yammers on about shopping like a 16 year old who's watched too much Sex in the City and flies off the handle when he doesn't call her the second after they Do It. Really? Did I just time machine myself to high school? I wanted to grab her shoulders and give her a good shake and yell "Be Cool, woman" 

2) I can't believe this supposedly professional company hired such a noob - a woman who has never actually planned a wedding before - to plan one for a high maintenance Hollywood couple? Most of the time she seems rather ineffectual and useless and needs the H to swoop in and do some rescuin'. Un-cute.

3) There was a dog in the story but he was rudely used as a prop to show how sensitive and responsible the H could be. It's not spoilery to say that poochie has to be taken to the vet and the H comes to her aid by taking them. Her thankfulness seems a tad out of proportion - I mean, he just drove her and the dog to the vet -  it's not like he performed mouth-to-mouth on the dog to revive him from almost certain death, right? Also, the other question that arises is why the heck doesn't SHE just drive herself to the vet? 

Anyway. I may be oversensitive to the use of animals and babies as props to show the alpha-dog H's gooey caramel center. I just think that dogs are people too and if you're going to have them be a character, they need to add to the story in an awesome way like the dogs in Kristan Higgins books or the direwolves of the House of Stark.

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥♥

The Winter Sea would make a great movie. It will be a crime against women if James McAvoy does NOT play the main dude. Granted he's a bit younger than the guy in the book, but we can suspend disbelief that far, can't we Skeptics?

See the YouTube trailer for the book below.

The Winter Sea is not a romance novel, per se, but it is definitely Romantical! SK's style reminded me of Tracy Chevalier's (Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Lady and the Unicorn, Remarkable Creatures) and puts you in a sort of dreamy, trance-like state where you genuinely feel like you have been transported to the misty moors of the Scottish coast.

The story-within-a-story arrangement deals with two time periods, the present day, and the years around 1708 - the time of the Jacobin uprising of the Scots. This was a failed plot by the supporters of the exiled Catholic King James to take back the throne from the Protestant English Queen Anne. 

The historical heroine lives with the Countess of Erroll at Slains Castle, right by a swirling, grey sea, and through her we learn of the men who come and go through the castle, plotting to return the "rightful" king, King James, to Scotland. Scotland is at a crossroads; It is a tense and dangerous time and we see how its fate lies ultimately in the hands of those who love and those who ultimately betray each other and the country.

In the present day, the modern heroine rents a cottage nearby the Castle and falls under its spell. She channels the story of the historical heroine and of a Scotland that stands at the precipice.

In both the present day and historical stories, SK weaves in two rather lovely romantic stories that, at least in the historical story's case, drive the plot forward and infuse the characters with even greater purpose and passion for their mission to bring back the King. The romance set in modern times was just for fun! Although, it probably worked so well because as SK flipped back and forth in the two time periods we can see how elements of historical heroine's life were reflected in the modern one's.

The book was surprisingly "technical" - there was some thoroughly researched historical material about the Jacobin uprising and the major players in that intrigue. SK deals with it all with a light hand so I never felt overwhelmed with information. She uses the raw, Scottish landscape beautifully. Not only the sea, but the castle ruins, her descriptions of the moody weather and terrain were all gorgeous and made me wish for a wee dram of whiskey to complement the mood.

Glad I picked this one up and especially glad I didn't read any Amazon reviews of it because there were tons of spoilers in those! I look forward to watching Jimmy in the movie. And since it's set in Scotland, I shall expect him to be attired in a kilt. 

I have SK's newer one - The Rose Garden, which I shall begin soon. Watch this space...

The Heir by Grace Burrowes

Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥

Q: How many dukes were there during the Regency period? 
A: Around 25

Q: How many books are there about a dashingly handsome duke set in the Regency period?
A: 862,657; "The Heir" is one of them.*
*Actually, he's "only" an earl right now, but he's heir to the dukedom, which is almost as good as the real thing.

Q: What gives?
A: We obviously like our men to be on top of the food chain.

I mean, given a choice would you rather get with a magnificent tawny lion, apex predator, Lord of the Jungle, or are you going to waste your time with a fribble of a Western Honey Badger? Both are predators, sure, but we know who's playing in the bush leagues here... 

Bring on the lions!

He: Gayle Windham, Earl of Westhaven, heir to the Duchy of Moreland is trying to evade matrimony - especially because his father has slyly been playing matchmaker behind his back in the hopes of forcing him to produce some grandchildren and secure the Moreland line of succession. He's described as serious, hardworking and kind. 

She: Anna Seaton is the housekeeper of the earl's bachelor townhouse in London. But she's obviously better educated and more refined than your typical housekeeper so you know she's got a back story. She's a babe (obviously), but also competent and sensible.

Conflict: Same one as always - different classes, different social circumstances. Except in this book, strangely, the fact that she was basically a maid in his employ didn't seem to faze the characters - even the earl's father, the duke who you would expect would have some objections there. You'd expect someone to say something about it. But this version of British upper crust society seems to have a rather more open minded picture of what constituted an acceptable consort for an earl. Anyway, the conflict ends up being this terrible secret she's withholding from him and repeatedly refuses to tell him about. 

The goods:
1) The writing really had some killer Regency authenticity! GB didn't break character with Americanisms (as authors, frustratingly, often do - "kid" was not a word used in 1800s. Neither was "I guess so.") I was reminded of that Grande Dame of the period, Georgette Heyer and that was just super.

2) Her characters were likable and "spoke" often enough that we got a sense of their voice and personality.

The mehs:
1) Not much really happened in the story. I guess a lot happened between the H & h, but apart from a few scenes at the end when her secret gets out, there is very little in the way of "action"

2) Speaking about action... I can't believe I'm going to put this in the "mehs" category - the sexy bits were numerous but absurdly clinical. There is a lot of calm, unruffled reference to his "genitals" and him getting himself off and whatnot. It was well-written, but I was just thrown a little by how medical it all sounded. Even with all the padding around those scenes describing how much they longed for each other, I just couldn't escape feeling like I had just been given a tutorial of the proceedings as narrated by some plummy British lady from a BBC nature program.

3) The end sort of dragged on and made me annoyed with the heroine. I didn't exactly agree with her reasons for keeping herself apart from him and it just went on too long.

All in all, a decent read in spite of the story being a little bit blah. The perfect language really did it for me. She obviously did tons of great research on idiomatic expressions and the customs of the times and it played well while reading the story. GB is on my list.