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 The Earl of Rule is a great catch. When he proposes marriage to Miss Elizabeth Winwood, she should be delighted, but she isn’t. She’s in love with someone else. Elizabeth’s younger sister Horatia has the perfect solution; she’ll offer herself to Rule instead, since he really only wants a Winwood, not any specific one of them. Despite Horry’s pronounced stammer, Rule is enchanted with her and agrees to marry her instead. Determined to be the perfect wife, Horry leaves Rule alone and engages in her own sometimes scandalous relations with the ton. A series of clever, humorous mishaps and slow realizations lead the married Rule and Horatia to come to terms with the fact that they are perfectly suited for each other.
I’m realizing that I love Georgette Heyer. This book is laugh out loud funny at times. It’s a literary caper that just continues on and on with a sweet underlying romance that left me with a smile on my face. There is so much fun going on in this book. There is Horry being rebellious by befriending Rule’s enemy, then hitting him on the head with a poker when he tries to kiss her. That had to be the funniest scene in the book, not to mention the scenes that ensued from complications of the failed seduction!
I also just love the way Heyer writes. She takes us straight back to Regency England and I can feel it in the prose as well as in the historical details. The romance is clean and relatively free of sexual passions, but that doesn’t make it any less real. The development of the fondness between the very young Horatia and her older, more experienced husband is endearing and engaging. I wanted them to discover the happiness that lay just beyond their current reach.
Overall, this book is exactly what I look for in a historical romance. It’s funny, it’s sweet, and it’s believable. I wouldn’t ask for more! I’m so excited to read more by Georgette Heyer. Thanks so much to Danielle and Sourcebooks for reprinting this wonderful author and sending me this review copy.
The Convenient Marriage is available from Amazon and Amazon UK.
 Harriet, Duchess of Berrow, has been at a loss ever since her husband killed himself. She has found herself playing the role of dumpy country widow at all society gatherings and she realizes that she’s tired of it. She wants to be more than that. When the opportunity to attend Lord Justinian Strange’s house parties presents itself, Harriet goes for it. She dresses as a man to hide her true identity, but when she meets Jem, Lord Strange, she certainly feels anything but manly.
I’m a little torn about this book. I enjoyed it a lot more than I did the last book I read by Eloisa James, Desperate Duchesses. The focus was definitely on the couple and I enjoyed their love story to a certain extent. I cared about most of the characters, especially Jem’s daughter, which was a little odd because normally I prefer my romances without children in them. I don’t have kids and have trouble relating when they’re involved; they’re important to relationships, but I’m not reading these books for real life. I liked this one, though.
I could easily understand Harriet’s love of freedom in her men’s outfit. She could fence, ride like a man, and enjoy freedoms women couldn’t imagine at the time. It was also very amusing when all the female house guests developed crushes. I couldn’t really get on with Jem, Lord Strange, though. His personality isn’t really revealed until the end of the book and I found it hard to reconcile his behavior with his back story.
I’m torn mainly because I found the ending unrealistic. Jem basically changes to please Harriet and I don’t find that satisfactory at all. I know that I’m supposed to be suspending disbelief, but I just can’t do that here. A relationship will not work if you force someone to give up their former life to be with you. While he chose it in the end, I didn’t see it as a viable relationship, and that bothers me in romance novels. I want to at least imagine a happily ever after. This one had an epilogue, but I still felt that such a change would breed resentment.
So, I liked it up until the end, really. Eloisa James isn’t going to be my favorite romance author, but her books are still providing me with entertainment I need when I can’t focus on much else.
Buy Duchess By Night on Amazon.
 Hyacinth Bridgerton is the last unwed Bridgerton daughter. A good friend of Lady Danbury, Hyacinth is clever, snarky, and isn’t afraid to put men and women in their places. As a result, her family frets over her ever finding someone who can put up with her independent, knowing nature. Enter Gareth St. Clair, a man with serious family problems who doesn’t realize there is a gap in his life. When he is given his dead grandmother’s diary, he realizes that it may reveal the secrets of his past, but the diary is in Italian. Lucky for him, Hyacinth can read Italian. Working together with the diary, these two realize that they may work well together in other ways, too.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this is the weakest of the Bridgerton novels. Hyacinth and Gareth didn’t sparkle together quite as much as the other couples, which is peculiar considering Hyacinth always has the best comebacks and snappy put-downs. Part of the premise is that she’s tongue-tied around Gareth, more so than usual, because she has a crush on him. It’s cute and endearing, but it’s not really like her, so it was a little hard to adjust to the new Hyacinth. That said, this book is better than any of the other romance novels I’ve read lately. Gareth and Hyacinth deal with real and sweet emotional issues. I also like that they fall in love what I’d consider typically. Gradual close contact -> slow realization of feelings -> engagement. In this sense, it’s probably the most conventional of all her works so far, but still very enjoyable.
Also, it cracked me up when Hyacinth and Lady Danbury were reading aloud the horrible trashy novels of the day. Felt a little bit like Quinn was making fun of herself, knowing full well that she’s writing what are considered the trashy novels of our day (even if I like them and don’t think so, you can get far worse than this). I like that. I was also really amused by the Bridgerton family as always. Their interactions are among the funniest that I have ever read.
This is the last Bridgerton book for me (I already read the last one, On the Way to the Wedding) and I’m sad to end the series, but I still have a lot more of Quinn’s backlog to find and read. And she’s still writing, so I can’t complain!
Buy It’s In His Kiss on Amazon.
 Not only has her fiance dumped her, but when Eleanor Pottinger gets to her hotel in England for a Jane Austen festival, she has no reservation. She’s given a tower which is reputedly haunted. Much to Eleanor’s dismay, the tower deserves its reputation, and in the middle of the night she encounters sisters Deirdre and Mina, ghosts who send her back in time to ensure that one of them is not compromised so that their brother will not be killed in a duel. Not only must Eleanor contend with strange conversation, dancing, and dining, but she must figure out who is the villain, and then avoid falling in love with him. Her only solace? Asking herself what Jane Austen would do, and more so, meeting her idol!
I’m not sure I so much expected straight romance from this, but I didn’t mind that it was a major part of the book. This is especially so since I really liked the frame story. Eleanor is a fantastic, funny character who has had her confidence knocked out from under her. She spends a lot of the story getting it back, as well as falling in love with dastardly man who supposedly compromises one of the sisters. She learns pretty quickly that things are NOT what they seem. She only has a few interactions with Jane Austen, but the theme of Austen’s advice is woven through the story fairly effectively.
One thing I didn’t particularly like, and I feel a little nitpicky for this, as I always am, was Eleanor’s obviously 21st century thoughts mixed in with all the Regency stuff. Calling Sherborne “yummy” was slightly disconcerting! Clearly women call attractive men yummy in this day and age, but it felt weird in the parts which felt like they were from a historical romance. Honestly, I don’t even know if that should bother me, and I probably needed the reminder that Eleanor is from the future! I also felt there was a little too much physical expression of said love story for my taste, but again, that is just my taste. I didn’t find it unbelievable, which is usually the case with romances like that, since there is enough character going on here to make me feel they were drawn to each other, but could have done with a little less.
Regardless, this book is a lot of fun. It is very sweet. I loved watching Eleanor adjust and get her confidence back. I loved the interactions with Jane Austen and how the story of the necklace and the time traveling parts went full circle. The ending was adorable. I have to say, I’d really recommend this, although I’d probably warn a non-romance reader. It’s still so much fun and has a lot of appeal for those who like Jane Austen, chick lit, and really any quick, sweet read!
Buy What Would Jane Austen Do? on Amazon.
 I loved reading the posts about the Read-A-Thon. What a great idea. I may have to copy you. My TBR pile has migrated from my desk to the floor. Then I had to split it into two stacks (because it kept falling over). It’s out of control. Mostly because I can’t read while I’m writing. Then when I’m on break, I just can’t get caught up. Add that my day job is at a library where I see all the new books, and I may have to buy another bookshelf. Let’s see. Will one fit in the hall?
Well, I’m supposed to be talking about my new book What Would Jane Austen Do? Here’s the blurb: Modern heroine Eleanor Pottinger goes back in time to the Regency where she prevents a duel, helps catch a spy, meets Jane Austen in person, and falls in love with hunky rake Lord Shermont.
Since I’m used to writing in a character’s POV rather than my own, I’m a bit out of my comfort zone. But I’m willing to give it a shot.
I really like reading time travel books so when I starting writing I gravitated toward that sort of paranormal. The heroine can be modern and therefore easy to relate to. There’s a built in opportunity for humor as she struggles to cope with the differences in society. And I can still have the fab hero and can picture him on a horse or ballroom floor without the convoluted plot machinations that it would take to get a modern man in both such places within one book.
All that wonderfulness comes with a price. There are special considerations that writers of other genres don’t have to tackle.
- The device that facilitates the time travel – It should be never be too complicated, and should have the ring of truth, even though we all know it’s impossible. Basically readers are willing to suspend their disbelief and will follow your story just about anywhere unless you cause them to stop. If your device is too complicated, they’ll refuse to invest the interest/time needed to figure it out. The closer you get to simple, the better. (ie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) Do we buy that the children go through the back of an armoire into an alternate reality? Every time.
- The time traveler should not believe what’s happened to him/her too easily – Perversely, if your hero or heroine accepts the obvious right away, we don’t believe it. (After all we know it’s impossible, right?) But if they take too long to believe what’s happened, then they seem… well, not the sharpest quill on the writing desk. (Isn’t it obvious from the surroundings, etc.?)
- The ending – Time travel endings are the most difficult to write because we must not only make the reader believe the heroine and heroine belong together, we have to figure out a way for them to actually be together. Are they both going to stay back in time or both come forward? The reader has suspended their disbelief for the length of the book. The wrong ending not only disappoints readers, in the case of time travels, it seem to really piss them off.
I sincerely hope I did all of the above right in What Would Jane Austen Do? I’m sure you’ll let me know if I didn’t.
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You definitely did! Thank you, Laurie, for a great guest post! You’re very welcome to join our next Read-a-Thon, we’d very much love to have you, and it’s a great way to start going through that pile!
Laurie Brown teaches writing classes at the college level, has presented seminars at conferences all over the country, and has three published romance novels. She has been a Golden Heart finalist twice and has received the Service Award from the Chicago-North Chapter of RWA. She resides in Illinois.
Buy What Would Jane Austen Do? on Amazon, and don’t forget to come back on Friday for my review!
 Book description via Amazon :
“Welcome to a world of reckless sensuality and glittering sophistication . . . of dangerously handsome gentlemen and young ladies longing to gain a title . . . of games played for high stakes, including—on occasion—a lady’s virtue.
A marquess’s sheltered only daughter, Lady Roberta St. Giles falls in love with a man she glimpses across a crowded ballroom: a duke, a game player of consummate skill, a notorious rakehell who shows no interest in marriage—until he lays eyes on Roberta.
Yet the Earl of Gryffyn knows too well that the price required to gain a coronet is often too high. Damon Reeve, the earl, is determined to protect the exquisite Roberta from chasing after the wrong destiny.
Can Damon entice her into a high-stakes game of his own, even if his heart is likely to be lost in the venture?”
This is an unusual romance in that there are a few different storylines going on at the same time. The book starts with a description of a cartoon featuring Roberta and her ridiculous father, who is a bad poet and always in love with former actresses and prostitutes. Roberta knows that if she’s going to get hitched, she has to get to London on her own and escape her father’s influence. So she calls upon a distant relative she never knew she had, Gemma, the Duchess of Beaumont, and decides that she loves and will marry the Duke of Villiers.
I will admit that this had me rolling my eyes. I didn’t realize that Roberta and the duke were not the main couple in this book and I hate love-at-first-sight romances. I just don’t think it happens and besides that, it robs us of character development and the falling-in-love scenes. I was happy when I figured out that Damon was the real object of Roberta’s affections, which is obvious even though it takes her far too long to discover for herself.
The real problem with this book was its focus. Gemma takes up entirely too much attention. Her chess games with the Duke of Villiers and her husband, the Duke of Beaumont, are virtually unnecessary to this book’s plot as a romance and even if it wasn’t a romance, I wouldn’t have found it particularly interesting. The idea of a chess game played in bed is honestly not that exciting, even with the assumed second meaning. I realize that this is part of a series and that this subplot between Gemma and the dukes will carry on, but I’m not sure I like that. Gemma is also in some ways a more interesting character than her distant cousin Roberta, who is silly and can’t figure herself out in a way that seriously irritated me, so this really splits the book between too many characters and in the end makes it feel very disjointed.
Honestly, I didn’t really like this. I’m disappointed because I recall loving one of James’s books ages ago. I just didn’t like any of the characters. For the most part, they’re all too depraved for me, and worse, the ones that aren’t are just silly and not given enough screen time. I’ve got book number 2, which features one of the less depraved characters, so I’ll give it a try, but this is not a series to start with. Plus, the cover is horrendous and I’m glad I borrowed it from the library.
Interesting footnote: Eloisa James teaches Shakespearean literature at Fordham. Who knew?
 When her mother died and her father forced her sister to marry a horrible man, Faith Westcott abandoned her trust in God and set about placing trust in herself, becoming a female pirate known as The Red Siren. Dajon Waite, a lieutenant in the King’s Navy and captain of his own ship, is set on catching pirates, especially The Red Siren, who stole his ship five years ago and turned his life into chaos. When Faith’s father asks Dajon to take his daughters as wards while he is gone, something has to snap.
Before I begin this review, I’d like to say that I’m not a Christian, although I was raised Catholic and most of my family is. Had I known this book was Christian romance, I wouldn’t have requested it from the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. I didn’t look closely enough at the publisher’s website and know better now. For the perspective of a Christian, Amy’s review is wonderful.
Actually, I’d have found this book vastly enjoyable were it not for what were, in my opinion, a few of those Christian elements. I read plenty of books with Christian characters and which deal with questions of faith, and none of that bothers me, but this one seemed a little preachy and almost suggests that without faith in God, a person cannot succeed or be happy in any way. It’s a fatal flaw of Faith’s that she has lost her trust in God, but I couldn’t figure out what would have happened differently had she kept her trust in God. Would she have not resorted to piracy, never met or interested Dajon, and ended up marrying the creep? I think, maybe, if I were a Christian this wouldn’t bug me at all, so I’m chalking this part up to just my lack of faith. It’s a Christian book, so it’s not catering to the doubting.
What did really get to me were some supernatural phenomena that had me rolling my eyes and knocked me out of the book completely. I’ve always been taught that it’s a matter of trust. God isn’t going to send a lightning bolt down to save anyone because it doesn’t work that way; you have to trust. Even my mom found that part strange and as I said, she’s Catholic.
That said, I really liked the story and I really liked the characters. I liked the role reversal between the lady pirate who doesn’t follow the rules and the law-abiding captain; it’s a definite change from the dangerous man/rake stereotype in romance. The book ends in a little cliffhanger and I really want to know what happens. I just don’t know how much I can take of the preaching in order to get there. I probably shouldn’t be reading this type of book at all and I acknowledge that, so I hope others can enjoy this book more than I did. I do think that if you are religious and enjoy reading about people embracing their faiths, with a great story and romance attached, this would be a book for you.
Buy The Red Siren on Amazon.
 Lady Daphne Pembroke has been a scholar all of her life, except when her late husband didn’t allow her to be one. She publishes under her brother Miles’s name and all her brilliance is attributed to him. When Miles is kidnapped, Daphne is frantic with concern and determined to do something. She rescues Rupert Carsington from jail and decides that he will be the brawn behind her brains on the quest to rescue Miles. As the story progresses, they find that she has more courage and he has more intelligence and resilience than either of them ever expected, and from these discoveries, respect and love grow.
This book was definitely much better than the last book I read by Loretta Chase. Here, the hero and heroine play perfectly off each other. Chase has written characters whose chemistry practically makes the pages sizzle and not only in the most obvious ways. Their minds work together very well and I loved how their personalities were gradually revealed both to the reader and each other. I was also particularly pleased with Daphne’s brilliance and that except for when her life was in danger, she never let a man get the better of her when she knew how intelligent she was.
Admittedly, the plot here wasn’t all that great. Revelations about the papyrus and the reasons Miles were kidnapped are all fairly obvious from the start. This will only disappoint those who are actually looking for a plot, though. While it’s nice for a romance to have a clever and inventive plot, it’s not really necessary, and clearly here the focus is sharply on the characters.
This was definitely an engaging and entertaining read. I’d recommend it. Buy Mr. Impossible on Amazon.
 Miss Henrietta Tweed arrives on the Duke of Blakewell’s doorstep with little but her clothing, her maid, and assurances that she is now his ward. The young and scandalous Blakewell has never even heard of her, but her story is so preposterous he decides it must be true, and in any case he is so behind on his correspondence that he can well believe a letter was sent ahead of time. All Henrietta wants is for her fortune to be signed over to her; she is nearly 20 and has experience managing money, but Blakewell is convinced that he needs to do his best by her and marry her off. When he realizes that he can’t get enough of her company, his plans take an abrupt shift.
I’m always pleased when I discover a new romance author I’ll like, and I suspect I have found one here. While this book doesn’t push any boundaries of the genre, it is a book that can be read in a day with a great deal of pleasure. Both characters are interesting, particularly Blakewell. He’s quite convinced that he’s a determined rake only to discover that he actually has a crush on his ward for possibly the first time in his life. At least, that’s how I saw it.
Henrietta, meanwhile, has never had the opportunity to get to know a young, virile man before and despite her intelligence, seems very impressed by him. My favorite segments of the book are their conversations when their words are followed immediately by their thoughts:
“All right, maybe you should start by telling me about your parents’ death. Do you mind?”
Yes. Don’t make me remember.
…
“I haven’t talked about them in a long time.” – p. 217
I like the interplay between their presented personalities and what they’re really thinking. I enjoyed the struggle to articulate their feelings for each other and watching them coax honesty from one another.
As far as the plot was concerned, I also could easily believe that Henrietta thought she was cursed. If she was told it at the impressionable age of 7 and then lived to watch guardian after guardian die, she logically might begin to wonder, no matter how clever she was.
I also enjoyed the interplay among Blakewell’s family. None of them are closely related but ties of affection are clear. I’m very much looking forward to the forthcoming novels featuring Blakewell’s two cousins. I loved the snippets at the beginning of each chapter quoting Lord Chesterfield from Blakewell’s grandmother’s letters. Apparently, Lord Chesterfield actually existed and many of these quotes are his from advice letters to his son. If they’re not, the characters question the quotations in the chapter, because many of these quotes were floating around at the time and could easily have been attributed to him. They were all relevant and the note of history really added something for me.
All in all, this is a very enjoyable romance, and I would recommend it to any romance fans seeking out a new author. For Amelia Grey fans, surely you already know what you’d be missing by not picking up A Duke to Die For .
 When she was 16 and impressionable, Lady Charlotte Hayward made a very serious mistake and wound up giving birth to an illegitimate child. Her pregnancy was hushed up, with even her father remaining ignorant, and her child given away, much to her sadness and regret, but Charlotte knows she will now never marry and becomes an expert at Not Getting Married. Meanwhile, Darius Carsington has never had any desire to get married, but has devoted his life to the pursuit of science and the pursuit of loose women for whom he will never care. His father, a despairing earl with one last son left to marry off, gives Darius the estate next to the Haywards’ and instructs him to make it turn a profit within one year, at which point he will be permitted to remain single. When these two meet, they discover that they aren’t going to remain single for very long and perhaps most importantly that things lost can sometimes be found.
First of all, this book is too funny, or at least I thought so. Darius’s unbending attitude in the beginning of the book is absolutely laughable as he’s made into almost a caricature of a man who avoids commitment and well-born young ladies. Take this quote:
And in the end, being a servant of Logic, he knew he was doomed. He must go to her and endure the unendurable, a fate worse than torture, maiming, plague, pestilence, famine, or death.
He must APOLOGIZE. (p. 155)
Luckily, he learns how to behave fairly quickly. I found myself laughing frequently. This book isn’t particularly well-written, but it has a wry humor to it that makes it a pleasure anyway. I have to say that the plot amused me as well. Both characters determinedly push away their attraction to one another and to everyone else, but as with all romance novels, it’s easy to tell where it’s leading. I liked in particular how Charlotte is portrayed as smart and stubborn. She lacked brothers as a child and was thus taught everything her father knew, so she is convinced she can go her own way through life without any problems. She probably could. I also really liked that this attracted Darius so much. It’s nice when men go for the smart women, isn’t it?
I’d probably recommend this to another romance reader. I doubt it’s going to compel anyone to read the genre, but I liked it.
Buy Not Quite A Lady on Amazon.
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