Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

Your Scandalous Ways

By Loretta Chase.

Once upon a time, there was a lady who was happily in love with her husband. Until she found out that he sleeps with half of England (and has a mistress he's carried on with for 20 years). She slept with one guy in retaliation...and her husband divorced her for adultery, totally slandered her, and ruined her life. She made off with letters of his that would reveal him as a traitor to his country on her way out of England. Husband didn't give a shit, figuring that since her name is such mud, she has no credibility any more. But five years later, she's set herself up as the most expensive courtesan in Venice, has the ears of the rich, titled, royal and powerful, and...is much more of a threat to the ex now. He'd like the letters back and her dead now, please. Meanwhile, certain folks in England want the letters to get the ex hanged.

Once upon a time, there was an English spy, who's had a rough go of it over the years. He's been tortured, lost friends, and been forced to shag crazy ladies in the line of duty. (He calls himself a whore and he means it, folks.) He's burned out and looking forward to going back to England and marrying some sweet and innocent young thang....but he's got one job left: go after those letters.

For the most part, I agree with the Smart Bitches review of this book: it's a good read. The lead characters are made of awesome, and don't fall into crappy stereotypeville. They're very much a good match for each other. The villains aren't really in it all that much, but to be fair, I didn't massively miss that. That said, I do agree that Crazy Lady villain is...not my favorite ever. Histrionic nutjobs aren't all that much fun.

Also, for the OMG SHE'S A WHORE sort of thing...shoot, are we even clear as to who she's actually slept with for money? It's hinted that she did with Byron, then later it's said she didn't because he was diseased. There's some red herrings here and there as to the other folks mentioned as well. It does seem a bit weird that we can't even identify who's gotten to be her lover that shot her to star-whoredom. This seems a little too clean to me. Shoot, if you're going to write a magnificent whore, let her boink.

As for the happy ending...I don't mind it too much, but I do think (like in Not Quite A Lady and Lord Perfect, I suppose) that it does go into "Having a bad and/or slutty past can all be brushed over in society with a title/money" territory, and I don't buy it being THAT easy. I don't really think it needed to go that far, even though I would say that James and Francesca certainly did earn at least part of the bounty they get at the end.

Eh, I'd still give it four stars. It's fun.

Ever rethink a review sometimes?

I was up at 4:30 a.m. for no reason and decided to reread Lord Perfect. Y'know what? I think it's funnier than I originally thought it was. Especially the scene where the drunk catcalls Bathsheba and Benedict starts thrashing them and Bathsheba breaks out a whip and goes all Indiana Jones....and later on when Benedict keels over laughing about it later. Also, the "twenty quid" bits. Yeah, he's not quite Rupert, and Bathsheba's still a bit too ethical to be a Dreadful, but they are still pretty hilarious.

Not Quite A Lady

By Loretta Chase.

This is the sequel to Lord Perfect (and every other Carsington boy book- I need to get around to reading the first one sometime), and features youngest son Darius, who everyone keeps hinting about "getting to" sometime.

Darius is...a Regency Vulcan. Seriously. Total science type, loves analyzing everything and writing papers and being all intellectual. He's OF COURSE a rake, because all the Regency guys (other than Sir Phillip, come to think of it, who you really can't call one at all) have to be, but he doesn't sound like much of one. He's not one for spreading the charm on thick, and while he apparently works his dick through as many non-virgins as he can, he can't seem to remember one of them from the next. I find it hard to believe that looks and good family would make up for a fellow that uninterested in anything other than a woman's twat, but whatever. So, not my favorite bloke right off the bat. Luckily, he improves from there.

Anyhoo, daddy-o Lord Hargate is well known for telling his slacker single sons that they'd better marry for money around age 29 or so. Darius is a year under the wire, so for the moment he's being let off with a warning...and a proposal: fix up a country property and make it profitable in a year, and I'll back off on nagging you to get married. Darius isn't necessarily against marriage, but he does like a challenge, so he takes it on. So he moves to the country, where his nearest neighbors at Lithby Hall take an interest in him and his property, and helping him fix it up.

Lady Charlotte Hayward is 27 years old, smart, gorgeous, rich...and an expert at Not Getting Married. She's superbly good at putting off, annoying, distracting, or fading away from various suitors over the years. (Girl needs to give me lessons.) She's got a good reason for doing so, as she lost her virginity ten years ago to the local rake. Her dad and the other locals have no idea, as her new stepmother covered the whole thing up and sent the baby that resulted from the affair away.

However, Charlotte's singledom is likely to end for many reasons:

1. Her dad's finally clued in enough to think, "Huh, she's 27 and single...something needs to be done about that," and he's insisting on having a house party for Charlotte to pick a man out at.
2. Another neighbor, Colonel Morrell, has picked out Charlotte to be his wife. Unlike all the other people who tried to woo her, he's a smart one and has figured out (a) how she rebuffs suitors, (b) that he needs to take a subtle, underhanded, slowly-get-in-under-the-wire approach to wooing, and (c) WHY she's still single. Too bad he's the sort who thinks "mastering a lady" would be fun times.
3. Oh, and Darius has moved in next door, and her stepmama's volunteered the family to help him fix up the house.

I'm happy to say that Darius mellows out, gets a soul, and acts like a good fellow under Charlotte's influence. As for Charlotte, she's been acting in a proper manner for ten years and is getting damn tired of it. And then there's her kid, who shows up as an indentured servant to one of the guys working on the house....

Now, for the most part I liked this, and I'm not terribly into Vulcan types, or secret baby plots. Those two mellow each other out nicely. And the "villain" character isn't all bad. I actually really enjoyed the scene where he proposed, Charlotte politely declined, and then he proceeded to say that he knew about her Situation and uh, sure makes it sound like he's blackmailing her into marriage. (Whether or not he intended it to come off that way, which I guess he did not, it sure sounds that way to the ladies.) I did love how when he asked if she'd reconsider the proposal, she was all, "Um, NO, that's sleazy tactics. Still not marrying you for that."

I do have to point out though that uh...yeah, people would not NEARLY be so mellow and accepting of Charlotte's past indiscretion in the real life period of time as they are in this one. I can see Darius being all "Well, hey, people do it all the time, whatever," sure, but his entire family down to his grandmother, and her entire family, all being okay? Grandma gets in one crack, Darius smacks her down, and everything's fine? Snobby Lord Hargate being proud of him for marrying a "soiled dove?" Nothing much about the entire country being scandalized? Um...not likely. Not that I don't enjoy the happy ending and all, but there is no way. Hell, I haven't gotten around to reading the Bridgerton book that features an illegitimate heroine yet, but I do remember the later books at least pointing out that the happy couple have to live out in the country and avoid society because of it. (Not an issue for Darius and Charlotte, one presumes.)

I'll give it three and a half stars.

The Lost Duke of Wyndham

By Julia Quinn. (Yeah, more Julia Quinn...)

Once upon a time, there were three sons of the Duke of Wyndham; the heir, the spare (also the favored child), and the kid nobody liked. The spare favorite son sailed off to Ireland, got married, and died without his family having ever known he got married (and impregnated the wife, who died in childbirth). Then the duke and his heir died, leaving the kid nobody liked, followed by his son Thomas, to inherit.

The story begins with the dowager duchess of Wyndham and her long-suffering companion Grace being robbed by a charming highwayman. Grace and the highwayman have sparks at first sight (though since Grace is a more held-in character than her fellow, it's a bit hard to see what he sees in her at times), but the duchess...well, she sees the near-spitting image of her lost favorite son John. Instead of being OMG HIGHWAYMAN, which you'd totally think she'd do, she ignores this because if this guy is her grandson, she WANTS him. So when Mr. Jack Audley (formerly Cavendish- he got adopted by his maternal aunt and uncle) doesn't quite show up to claim his heritage, the duchess just has him kidnapped into it.

The duchess has NO compunctions about having her current heir grandson Thomas totally disinherited (then again, they can't stand each other) if it turns out that Jack's parents were legally married, even if she'd be putting a freaking CRIMINAL into the job. Don't ask me why she'd be that nuts enough to do it, even after she gets to know Jack and doesn't adore him the way she did his daddy, but the whole criminal past thing is pretty much NOT brought up in the book with regards to his dukedom.

Indeed, there isn't a whole lot of suspense about the dukedom plot. It's a lot more wondering what the hell will everyone DO when this gets confirmed. Grace falls for Jack, but given that she's a servant sort, she'd never be allowed to marry a duke. (Though this is pretty much bull, since Grace was of The Right Stock before her parents died broke. It smacks of "stupid excuse," which Jack rightfully ignores.) Jack's got a secret that would make being a duke very difficult to do. Thomas naturally gets drunk a lot. And then there's poor Lady Amelia, who's been engaged to Thomas since she was a baby and has been waiting around for him to marry her ever since. The marital contract says she's to marry the duke, not Thomas by name...so who the hell IS she engaged to?

The duchess is no Lady Danbury- I'd say she's 98% asshole- but she has the occasional moments where you almost kinda like/sympathize with her. I wish there was a bit less asshole going on because it kind of ruined her good moments.

We don't get to know Thomas or Amelia much at all during this. There will be a sequel to this book in a few months, which one can only hope will remedy that, especially since we don't see much from their POV's in this one. I can understand why this would be if the companion novel takes place during the exact same time as this one- I have been unable to find out for sure. But it weakens this one not to mention a bit more. It's reiterated a LOT that Thomas and Grace are friends despite their different stations, though their "friendship" seems to mostly be based on suffering in the trenches with the duchess and Thomas being the only one around who can stand up to her on Grace's behalf once in a while. But they aren't all that...friendly...for people that we're told so often are friends, which is kind of strange. Um, show not tell would be good here.

Jack is a cheerful flippant person, and he's wandering through the novel mostly amused. He has some Deep Dark Secret, plus he's taking on blame he shouldn't be doing, but the stuff causing him angst isn't all that...angsty, I suppose. Grace is somewhat of a cipher- she seems pleasant enough, but is a generally overshadowed character thanks to her life situation. One does wonder why Jack is such a sucker for her so fast.

To some degree, I find myself relating to this review, though I didn't think it was as bad as that reviewer did. I wasn't angered, anyway, and was still fairly entertained reading the whole thing. Could be better, could be worse. There's enough snark to keep me amused, anyway.

Three stars.

It's In His Kiss

By Julia Quinn.

Well, the Bridgerton reading continues (though I have run out of my book stash of them for a bit, so I'll have to return to that later), this time with a book taking place after the last three.

Youngest girl of the family Hyacinth Bridgerton is...a character. Difficult. Strong-minded. Blunt to the infinite power. She's close pals with Lady Danbury, who she reads trashy novels with every Tuesday.  She's gonna be a hard girl to match. So far the only people who have proposed to her have been fortune hunters or idiots. Naturally, her family is all hyped for her to end up with Lady D's nephew Gareth St. Clair, i.e. the only guy in town who's up to standing up to her.

Gareth has daddy issues even worse than Simon's. His father loathes him because Gareth is the product of an affair his mother had, and yet Gareth ended up becoming the legal heir to the family title. Lord Pissypants hates Gareth so much that he's willing to strike out at him, including doing things like trying to marry him off to a girl with mental issues and other horrid things I cannot reveal without spoiling. I will say that at one point in the novel, his dad throws a particularly nasty curveball that had me gasping in shock, especially given the timing of a certain event that had just happened. (It's slightly anticlimatically handled, though.)

Anyway, Gareth winds up with a diary written by his (supposed) Italian grandmother Isabella, which Hyacinth offers to translate. As it turns out, Isabella was forced into marriage with Gareth's asshole grandfather and wasn't happy about it...and at some point in time, hid a set of diamonds somewhere within Clair House. Suddenly, Hyacinth's life turns into something about as exciting as a trashy novel, and our dynamic duo set out to find the stones without Lord Pissypants finding out about it...

I had a lot of fun with this one. H&G are a pretty damn good match, and while I tend to think they could have been a wee bit snarkier (I don't know why I think this, I may be thinking of especially snarky paired couples elsewhere), I had a good time reading their adventures. So, four stars from me.

Update: the author has apparently taken it upon herself to write "second epilogues," i.e. short stories taking place after the original novels. These can be found on amazon.com and ereader.com and fictionwise.com, sold in ebook format. (Or just check the link.) There is a second epilogue for this book, which takes place 20+ years after the end of this one. It resolves the one hanging plot thread remaining from this book, in an amusing (albeit long time coming!) and kind of sweet manner. 

When He Was Wicked

By Julia Quinn.

Another Bridgerton, this one takes place (mostly) around the same time as Romancing Mr. Bridgerton and To Sir Phillip, With Love. However, it mostly takes place away from the other B's, which is kind of sad considering that part of the fun of reading these is the sibling/parent-child/in-law snarkage. Francesca is pretty much an island to herself, though.

Once upon a time, rake-about-town Michael Stirling fell in love at first sight. Unfortunately for him, it was with his cousin and best friend's future wife Francesca Bridgerton. He has been quietly pining and hiding it ever since, while still being the best of pals with John and Francesca.

Then tragedy hits with a vengeance: two years into marriage, John has a headache and lies down and dies. And soon after that, Francesca miscarries his baby. Both Michael and Francesca feel like they've been run over with carriages, repeatedly. The irritating thing for Michael, though, is that everyone else in the world is all, "Hey, what good luck, your cousin bites it and now you get to inherit his title and houses and everything!" Michael, who adored his cousin, feels completely horrible (and is horrified) at literally being forced into John's shoes for everything. Sure, it may sound romantic to marry your best friend's wife, but Michael would not agree with you. He's creeped out. After a tense confrontation with Francesca, he promptly bails out to India for four years.

The novel mostly takes place after Michael returns to England, where everyone assumes he'll be looking for an appropriate bride now. Coincidentally, Francesca has decided that she wants a baby. Which means that she'll have to suck it up and get into a loveless marriage (who's going to live up to John?) in order to do it. When both Stirlings enter the marriage market, they're swarmed with offers...and both are annoyed at everyone that's interested in the other one. After they kiss for the first time, Francesca freaks out and heads for the (Scottish) hills...where Michael follows. And thus, lots and lots of sex scenes involving the word "wicked" commence. Huzzah!

Three and a half stars. Not bad, though the isolation of the couple kind of got to me, and most of the B's are not around except at the beginning (though Colin has a few brief-but-good moments with Michael). It also seems somewhat abrupt to go from "this dude is my best friend" to "woo, let's get it on," but I gather that sort of thing is abrupt in real life as well :)

Update: the author has apparently taken it upon herself to write "second epilogues," i.e. short stories taking place after the original novels. These can be found on amazon.com and ereader.com and fictionwise.com, sold in ebook format. (Or just check the link.) There is a second epilogue for this book, which takes place after the end of the series. I'd say more, but the link pretty much describes the tale for you. It...pretty much ends how you'd expect it to, it's just a later "happily ever after."

To Sir Phillip, With Love

By Julia Quinn.

This is the sequel to Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, which starts taking place around the end of this book (but isn't really a follow-up to it plot-wise).

Eloise Bridgerton has been pretty happy as a spinster. She had marriage proposals, and wanted to hold out for love. She didn't find it, but was pretty content. But then her fellow spinster best friend got married, and it threw Eloise into the tailspin that all we modern girls relate to.

Eloise is big on being a pen pal, and for the last year she's been corresponding with a widower who had been married to a distant cousin of hers. When Sir Phillip proposes that they meet and see if they are suited for marriage, Eloise sneaks off to his house chaperone-free (she really didn't want to bring her mother and sister along for this!). Since this is a Regency, you can pretty much figure out what's going to happen after THAT.

At first, it ain't all stars and roses. Phillip, an absent-minded professor-type who was unhappily married to a really really really depressed woman, is smitten at first sight. He never expected to get this lucky with a spinster. However, Eloise is downright disconcerted to find out that he has twin children he NEVER MENTIONED in a year of letter-writing. Said children are fairly bratty, hence why Phillip was soliciting for a marriage to anyone he could get that didn't know what the kids were like. Luckily for him, Eloise's vast experiences with siblings, nieces, and nephews soon help her get the upper hand with the kids. And Phillip gets to work through his issues with having a depressed wife, an abusive father, and figuring out how the heck to be a parent, which is nice.

This one kind of points out to me how Regencies annoy me. Which is to say, the natural processes of becoming a stepparent and going from "we hate you!" to "we love you new mommy!" happens WAY too fast for even remote realisticalness. Not that I couldn't see it happening ever, since the personalities of Eloise and the kids could certainly work that way. But given that in a Regency novel you have to marry off the H/H at least halfway through the novel  (i.e. they've only known each other in person what, a week?) before anything can progress, it's just kinda fake. But...what are you gonna do, it's a Regency.

Three and a half stars. Not bad.

Romancing Mr. Bridgerton

By Julia Quinn.

Okay, after reading The Duke and I, I want to go read some more dang Bridgertons. So I borrowed a few (out of order) to get my fix on.

Oh, how I loved this one. You know why? Because for a Regency book (and really, I'm not that into the Regency thing because they all seem so alike after awhile, and by awhile, I mean like "five minutes"), this is cool. The heroine is a wallflower nerd, and the hero and heroine's big goals revolve around writing. How sweet is that to see in an unexpected time and place?

Colin Bridgerton, the current single stud of the family, is kind of sick of only being known for being a hot charmer who gets into the Lady Whistledown gossip sheet all the time. His older brothers have a life purpose, but he doesn't. All he does is travel a whole lot (and secretly writes about it, very well).

Then there's Penelope Featherington, the aforementioned nerd heroine. She's from a family of featherheads (though Penelope and her younger sister aren't), who aren't the best lookers in the world. Penelope is a firmly on-the-shelf spinster at 28 because nobody ever wanted her- in a ballroom she tends to be out of conversation. But if you're friends with her (as Colin's sister Eloise is), she's an entertainingly snarky girl. She's also been hopelessly in love with Colin since she was 16, though she knows full well that's not likely to happen. (Even Lady Whistledown was all, "If those two ever married, I'd have to hang up my pen and quit.") But she and Colin have been socializing more of late, and he's starting to realize she has hidden charms. She's also befriending the old, imperious, and snarky Lady Danbury, who finds her entertaining. That relationship is adorable.

Things liven up during a dull social season when Lady Danbury offers a challenge: tons of money goes to the person who discovers the true identity of Lady Whistledown. Naturally, everyone wants in on that. Penelope has some interesting theories (and claims Lady D herself is Lady W), while Colin suspects Eloise of doing the deed. But when the lady is identified, that throws a new spin onto everything....

It rocks. Four stars.

Update: the author has apparently taken it upon herself to write "second epilogues," i.e. short stories taking place after the original novels. These can be found on amazon.com and ereader.com and fictionwise.com, sold in ebook format. (Or just check the link.) There is a second epilogue for this book, which takes place during To Sir Phillip, With Love. I'd say more, but the link pretty much describes the tale for you. I read it, it was pretty amusing, though as it turns out, a bit anticlimactic.

Natural Born Charmer

By Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

This is the love story of a football player, a girl in a beaver suit, an 11-year-old girl, a former groupie, a rich woman, and a rock star.

Fricking awesome.

Football stud and title charmer Dean is driving to his vacation home in Tennessee when he sees an interesting sight on the side of the road: a pissed-off girl in a beaver suit. Dean, looking for distraction, picks her up and gives her a ride to the ex-boyfriend that she's gonna kick the ass of. And we're off!

The beaver, known as Blue Bailey, is an artist who's been ripped off twice: by her ex AND her activist mother, who just cleaned out her entire savings to save young girls from rape (without even asking first). She's totally broke, Dean's rich and generous, and he brings her along as an erstwhile employee. While Blue is not Dean's normal type at all (indeed, this book makes a big deal about how Blue's looks aren't remotely up to the snuff of Dean's), he finds it interesting to be around her, and she's a challenge when she won't immediately hop into bed with him. Their sparring is amusing.

When they get to the house, there's a surprise in store: Dean's mother turns out to be the housekeeper he hired to fix up the place, using a fake name. When he was a kid, she was too busy being a druggie groupie to be a parent (Dean and Blue both have abandonment issues), but now she's clean, sober, industrious, and has her act together. She doesn't expect forgiveness from Dean, she just wants to do one thing for him.

And then the half-sister he never met shows up- her asshole mom has just died, and their mutual dad doesn't pay attention to her, and she's hoping Dean can give her some love. Dad soon follows, and next thing Dean knows, he's got a family reunion on his hands...

I loved this. It's sweet and lots of fun, and I was just as interested in everyone else in the story as I was in the main couple. (I particularly love April and Jack. Awwwww.) Four stars from me.

Twenty Wishes

By Debbie Macomber.

Okay, this is not exactly my normal sort of book, but I thought it was kind of sweet. It kind of takes the idea of "The Secret" for its main plot, but it works in a sane and normal way.

Anne Marie Roche is a member of a "widows club." One Valentine's Day, the members decide to make lists of twenty wishes.

Anne Marie is 38 years old and married an older man (Robert) who didn't want to have more children. Several years into the marriage, Anne Marie changed her mind, and they separated for awhile. They were going towards reconciling when he died suddenly. Now at her age, she feels like she has no hope for children. But kids come into her life in other ways. She becomes the "Lunch Buddy" of a second grade girl who ends up needing her when her life becomes rough. And Anne Marie's stepdaughter, who always hated her during the marriage, has a change of heart once she has her own life crisis and finds out something neither of them wanted to know about Robert. I am a sucker for older child adoption stories, and this is a pretty sweet one (especially since in a way, Anne Marie gets to be a mom more than once over).

While romance between guys and girls isn't the focus of Anne Marie's story, it is the focus between two other widows' club members. Mother and daughter widows Lillie and Barbie both decide they want love again, even if it doesn't come in a predictable package. Lillie falls for the sweet mechanic that fixes her new car, but their respective families have issues with their different financial statuses and well, races (as far as one can tell, this seems to be an issue on one side). Barbie amusingly pursues a cranky guy in a wheelchair that she meets at the movies. This one was pretty dang funny considering how pissy he was, and how his niece that works at the movies was egging the relationship on.

You know where these stories are going from the getgo, but they are still pleasant and enjoyable to read. Three and a half stars from me.