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 Gwen Maudsley may be only a Miss, but she’s beautiful, wealthy, and kind enough to be one of the most popular debutantes of her day. Gwen’s parents spent their lives wishing for her to become a perfect lady, so she’s spent her time trying to catch a title with her three million pounds. Twice, she almost succeeds, but when the second man leaves her at the altar, Gwen wonders if it’s time to ditch her “nice” reputation and see what it’s like to be wicked. The object of her attention? Alex Ramsay, her late brother’s best friend, well known for his rakish tendencies and travels the world over.
I really, really enjoyed this book. I bought all of Meredith Duran’s previous books and virtually inhaled them through the last couple of months, so I was absolutely thrilled to receive this for review. Part of me was a little worried that I’d be disappointed – I know others have been – but I found this to be a satisfying, perfectly romantic read throughout. Duran is the romance author to watch these days, if you’re asking me.
This book feels a lot less emotionally tortured than her previous books, which I thought was a nice change. She still writes extraordinary well, and is IMO one of the most talented writers in the genre today. I could actually focus on this book with the TV on, something I normally struggle a lot with. But I can see how other fans of Duran would be disappointed, simply because it’s lacking that degree of suffering. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of emotional resonance here. Gwen and Alex have a number of problems to work through before they can truly be together. But there is certainly a lighter edge to this book, especially in the interactions between them, some of which were just plain fun.
In the end, I pretty much loved Wicked Becomes You. I’m almost wishing I’d left one of Duran’s books to savor while I’m waiting for her next one! But trust me, she’s on my auto buy list and she’ll be my first recommendation for romance readers from here on out.
I am an Amazon Associate. I received this book for free from the publisher for review.
It was a bit quiet on my blog here last week. I intended to post more and participate more in Armchair BEA, which was a great idea, but I found that I didn’t have the energy for it at all. I’ve discovered that I generally prefer reading to blogging; if given a choice, I will read and ignore the reviews that are piling up. I even have maintenance to do with regards to my change in address – change my feed and redirect all my posts, for just two things – but I haven’t managed to convince myself to do that either. Writing lots for work has in some respects taken the fun out of writing for my own blog. I’m resolved to try and get back into it this month now that everyone is back from BEA and the chatter about it will quit depressing me!
Anyway, May wasn’t too bad as months go. I read 18 books, which isn’t very much for me but still amounts to a book every two days. I’m impressed with that; at times I didn’t feel like I was getting anything read! I think that’s because I read three chunksters, particularly the 900+ page Lonesome Dove, but I managed to read quite a few shorter books in between. Here’s what I finished:
Historical Fiction
Historical Romance
Non-fiction/Memoir
YA (all genres)
Fantasy
- Kitty’s House of Horrors, Carrie Vaughn
Literary Fiction
Overall, I think my month was spread fairly evenly across genres, with the exception of fantasy. As you can probably see, I still have a lot of review writing to catch up on. I’ve almost finished the review for Wicked Becomes You but the rest are pretty much untouched. I’ll be working on those this week, but I don’t think I’m going to get back to daily posting unless I hit up some memes or come up with and actually do a weekly feature.
I also wanted to give everyone a quick reminder – next week, on June 8th at 4:30 pm EST, I’ll be on That’s How I Blog chatting with Nicole. The book we’ll be discussing is The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer, so if you’ve got it handy, give it a read and join us! Even though I’ve had to have an earlier time, I still hope at least of few of you will be able to listen in. I’m a bit anxious about it already, but I’ve really enjoyed listening to the previous shows and hope mine is half as fun.
I hope some great reads await you in June! I hope to get through:
- Day for Night, Frederick Reiken
- Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan
- Magic Bleeds, Ilona Andrews
- Dragon Haven, Robin Hobb
- The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly O’Connor McNees
- The Mistress of Nothing by Kate Pullinger
- Empress Orchid, Anchee Min
- The Passage, Justin Cronin
Any great ones in that list to start with?
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