The Wicked House of Rohan by Anne Stuart

August 25, 2016
A second look at sociopath heroes.
 

http://www.anne-stuart.com/

Oh those funny Rohan boys. Well not so much. In fact these guys are downright scary. While waiting for any new GOOD book to hit the stands I decided to revisit the House of Rohan series by that wonderful writer Anne Stuart. I knew when I opened these books that Ms. Stuart could write some awfully dark heroes so I was prepared. What was different this time from the last time that I read these books was that I read them one right after the other. There was no breather between them and I think in the case of the Rohan series there needs to be a bit of space between the books.  See my old thoughts on Ruthless - 2010, Reckless -2010, Breathless - 2010, Shameless - 2011. While we have some mighty strong women as heroines in these books it is the heroes I'm going to talk about. These men were so overpowering alpha guys that at times I was scratching my head wondering about the word "hero." Except for the last in the series, Shameless, the heroes in each book gets progressively more scary until we finally arrive at Breathless and find as our hero a sociopath. For the most part I haven't changed my mind about my original thoughts on these four books, except in the case of Lucien from Breathless. As hard as I tried I could find no way to think of this guy as anything but a cruel man. I just could not understand how Miranda could fall in love with this guy. When he shows up in the fourth book as a secondary character he has reformed, but in his own book he's a scary person with no redeeming qualities. Having said all of that I do recommend this entire series by Anne Stuart and I especially loved Shameless. For me Shameless was closer to what I expect of a rakish man turned hero. Future books: There was a secondary romance in the last book in this series between Brandon Rohan and Emma which was never finished. It's been a while since Ms. Stuart left her Rohan family behind. After a bit of investigation I'm happy to see that as of July of 2016 she is working on finishing the story of Brandon and Emma. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she will be able to. Benedick from Shameless was my favorite hero in the group followed by Francis from Ruthless, then Adrian from Reckless. Incidentally, I liked Adrian better this time around. He didn't get on my nerves as much as in 2010. I would have to say that Lucien from Breathless is more of a evil-doer then a hero and I had a problem with this book when I reread it. It always surprises me how subjective reviews can be and how much ones opinion of a book can change in just a few years. Time/Place: France, England 1700s-1800s - generations Sensuality: Hot to Scorching Shameless - A Ruthless - A-/B+ Reckless - B- Breathless - C-/D+

Memories Schmemories Again! The Houseparty by Anne Stuart

August 11, 2106

I'm a happy camper!!! 
http://anne-stuart.com/
Imagine my surprise when I went to B&N looking for the Rohan series by Anne Stuart and found her had been released into electronic format. I was very excited, for you see my paper copy was yellowing and crumbling before my very eyes. This book is only a around 170 pages long, but it's still wonderful. Written in Ms. Stuart's early days; funny, sexy, with a promise of some great writing which was to come from her. For more on this wonderful old book check out my review.   The Houseparty

Sweetest Scoundrel by Elizabeth Hoyt

August 9, 2016
Pass me a fan.

http://www.elizabethhoyt.com/
I've been reading romance for waaaaay tooo long. Have you ever had the feeling that you are being surrounded by hordes of Mr. Toads? In the last few books I've read, it seems as if these smarmy guys have taken on a life of their own. They have been painted very vividly! Reminds me of one of my guilty pleasure movies, Five Million Years to Earth, aka Quatermass and the Pit. There is a scene in the movie where there are thousands of insect/grasshopper aliens hopping, jumping, leaping and the abundance of Timothy Toads in the last few books reminded me of that really bad special effect scene. I had visions of all these Timothy Toads jumping all over the place. The most impressive Mr. Toad I've read about so far this year belongs to the hero of Sweetest Scoundrel, by Elizabeth Hoyt. What a gritty, earthy, humongous guy - he's got personality.

Welcome back to Elizabeth Hoyt's Maiden Lane. Sweetest Scoundrel was another book I over-looked in my flood of Nook Books. I love Ms. Hoyt's dark, steamy world of Maiden Lane and this one is one of the steamier ones. I will confess, I suspect there will be some readers who will not be enthralled with this story, mainly because the hero is rather raunchy and he may be tooo much for some. While I found him to be pretty bawdy, for me he wasn't disgusting - he was mesmerizing though. I have to pat Ms. Hoyt on the back for creating a character who I should have found vulgar but instead I found tantalizing.

Sweetest Scoundrel picks up where the other books in the series left off, with the burning to the ground of Harte's Folly. In this book Harte's Folly is being rebuilt by its owner Mr. Harte, aka Asa Makepeace. Asa is borrowing heavily from the unscrupulous Valentine Napier, the Duke of Montgomery. Now it just so happens that Valentine is supposedly in Europe and cannot manage his affairs, so he has left his half-sister Eve Dinwoody in charge of paying the bills. The book begins with a normally quiet Eve pounding on Asa's door because she wants some answers regarding why he's spending so much money. This first chapter allows us to find out right away just what kind of characters we are dealing with. A very stiff, reserved Eve disrupts the play-time of the very male Asa. She storms into his flat only to be stopped by the sight of a nude woman in the middle of his bed. They are instantly irritated with each other. I loved this first engagement between the two.

After a bit of some fit-throwing, Asa decides to allow Eve to oversee his finances. Along the way, there are numerous times when they bicker, but there are also those times when they talk. For all of Asa's crudity, he knows that Eve has had some kind of trauma and he becomes very protective of her. I had one of those moments when I wondered why he was attracted to her in the first place. His initial response to her besides irritation is that she's plain, has no chest and is the owner of a long, large nose. She's not his normal female diet. I became a tad bit distracted just wondering what about her would spark that first attraction for him. Sometimes in Romanceland I have trouble understanding why these people are interested in each other. Eve and Asa rub each other the wrong way from the very beginning, but all of a sudden Asa can't seem to get her out of his mind. I just found it a little hard to buy into Asa's sudden interest in her. Oh well, this is Romanceland, anything is possible, even an extremely sensual guy being interested in a woman with no chest and a big nose.

Thanks to Ms. Hoyt's wonderful writing, we once again get to visit a time period in Great Britain's history that was in flux. This period was the time of George II, after the Stuarts but before the Regency. Morals were coming out of the wilder Restoration period and headed toward the Victorian period. The clothing was heavy duty and the hair was headed toward outrageous. For the wealthy this was a time period of lavishness, for the poor things were pretty bleak. One of the reasons I like the Maiden Lane series so much is that Ms. Hoyt's writing brings this time vividly to life. Plus we get to revisit the Makepeace family.

There is a pretty poignant yet humorous scene which revolves around Asa visiting his family. A family he hasn't seen for over ten years. He doesn't want to go, but Eve forces him. He reciprocates by forcing her to go with him - if he has to go, she's going too. Things are a little tense; there are children galore, the room is full of past heroes and heroines - then Asa gets into a fist-fight with his elder brother Con. It was pretty amazing with testosterone being thrown all over the place.

And now a moment of cleansing. Gather around, my little Petunia's. If you read this book, some of you may feel the need to bathe after some of Asa's dark dippity-doo moments of seduction. Ms. Hoyt has written some pretty descriptive doodling - there's sweat, moisture, grunts, groans; hands here and there. There is even Asa taking things in hand in a dark carriage while wide-eyed innocent Eve watches. The amazing thing is that Ms. Hoyt gets pretty close to the ick line, but then turns it into something gentle. Warning - you will need an iced drink after this book.

Over all, I thought this was a good book and it enhanced a wonderful series. I even liked Asa, with all of his bawdiness. There was a bit of a mystery, but not overpowering. If I had any quibble with the story it would have been the rushed ending. I would have preferred hearing more from Asa. Anyway, for those of you who love Maiden Lane, The Sweetest Scoundrel will not disappoint you. And, Ms. Hoyt, keep those interesting characters coming.

Time/Place: 1700s England
Sensuality: Hot! Hot!!

  
 
This is dedicated to all those gazillion of humongous Mr. Toads out there: 

"'Cause you've got - (personality)
Walk - (personality) talk - (personality)
Smile - (personality) charm - (personality)
Love - (personality)
'Cause you got a great big heart
Well over -and over
I'll be a fool for you
Well, well, well over and over
What more can I do" - Harold Logan and Lloyd Price

Tall, Dark and Wicked by Madeline Hunter

August 9, 2016
Back-tracking
 
https://www.madelinehunter.com/
Tall, Dark and Wicked is the second book in Madeline Hunter's Wicked Trilogy and somehow I lost it in my overloaded Nook. So, after a bit of reorganizing and catching up, I read Lord Ywain Hemingford, aka Ives', story.

Ives is the younger brother of the Duke of Aylesbury from The Wicked Duke. Ives is a barrister and a darn good one at that. While Ives isn't one of those Romanceland heroes who have spied for their country, he has prosecuted numerous people for the government. The problem with that is he's an honest, straight-forward kind of a guy and he doesn't like to see people railroaded. He is disturbed by some of the unethical things the government has done to get confessions. He also knows that there is a case coming which in all probability he will be asked to prosecute. Imagine his surprise when the daughter of his possible future case, Padua Belvoir, shows up on his doorstep asking him to defend her father. All that Padua knows is that Ives is the best barrister in the country and she just knows he will save her father. As much as Padua triggers Ives' Mr. Toad to twitch, he turns her down. Disappointed Padua leaves, Ives should be relieved - right? That should be it - he should be able to dust off his hands and go on from there. He is not able to; he just cannot forget the Padua. Against all common sense and I suspect legal sense, Ives starts snooping into her father's case. The more Ives tries to remain detached, the more he becomes attached. It was fascinating watching Ives struggle against Padua's appeal.

Padua is an interesting heroine - she's a quiet determined woman who has dreams. She wants to go to a university in Italy. Evidently Italy was one of the few countries who allowed women in to get a college education. But now her dreams have been put on hold because she believes her father is innocent. Some readers might wonder why she would even care about him. Her father is one of those Romanceland fathers who have ignored their children through the years. He has treated her as if she is of no importance to him. She has tried for many years to win some kind of affection from him, to no avail. Even when she visits him at Newgate, he is detached; he tells her not to come, to leave him alone. He doesn't speak to anyone about any of the crimes he's been accused of. By the way, he has been accused of counterfeiting and sedition, not crimes that would have any kind of light-weight outcome. While I understood Padua's need to have her father's affection, I keep wondering just how many times must one be kicked in the teeth before one moves on. She is definitely loyal and Ives know she is headed for some major pain as he digs deeper into the case. But still her desire for his love at times was very poignant - I did cheer for her when she finally told him where to get off.

Padua and Ives make a nice couple. But I do have a small quibble with their romance. As with most of Ms. Hunter's stories, the sensual tension is thick, the hero overtly sexual, and the whankee-roo in abundance. In fact, there was so much bedroom, floor, wall, table, chair bouncing that I had to skip a few passages. There's finger-puppet action all over the place. Sometimes it seems to me the only reason these passages are in a book is to demonstrate the variety of positions.

Watching how Ms. Hunter was going to solve Ives' conflict of interest was an interesting process. I'm always delighted when an author is so good they can dig really deep holes for their character and then get them out them - without doing what I call "silly" writing. Both Padua and Ives were intelligent people who fall in love. This is pretty much a character-driven book with just a little bit of mystery thrown in. Overall this was a wonderful addition to a great series by Madeline Hunter and I do recommend reading Tall, Dark and Wicked.

Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: Hot!! 

And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke

August 1, 2016
A visit with an old friend.

http://lauraleeguhrke.com/
While looking for something to read, I stumbled across a review at AAR for the book And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke. I read the review and decided to pull out my old copy and do a reread. Well, my old copy was yellow and there is just something about yellow pages which disturb me. What's a girl to do? Why buy an electronic copy even when one has a paper copy and one has already read this book. I bet I'm not the only one out there who is rebuying books they already have. Anyway, I purchased the electronic copy of And Then He Kissed Her and I'm glad I did. It was a pure joy to reread one of Ms. Guhrke's older books. And Then He Kissed Her is part of Ms. Guhrke's Girl-Bachelor series and was published in 2007. What a fun read!

This story reminded me a lot of some of the old screw ball comedies that came out of Hollywood in the 30s and 40s. The over efficient 30-year-old spinster who does everything for her oblivious boss, even buys gifts for his family because he doesn't remember their birthdays. Even if he did remember their birthdays, he wouldn't know what to get them, but Emmaline Dove does. She even buys his parting gifts for his mistresses. She listens, she remembers, and she's very very organized. She's a perfect secretary. Emmaline has a dream - she wants to be a writer, an advice column writer. She has been submitting her writing to her boss for years and he's always turned her down. He tells her she needs to do this or that or no one would really be interested in her writing. Her boss is Harry, Viscount Marlowe.

Harry is a very successful publisher and over the years he has sort of ignored Emmaline. Oh sure, he finds her very efficient and he relies on her for tons of stuff, but he doesn't really see her. Even though he is a successful publisher, he doesn't see the need for advice columns. Not to be deterred, Emmaline gives him the latest writing she has done. He once again turns it down and she is very disappointed. Then Harry unknowingly slips up and she finds out that he hasn't read one single word of her writing. To say that Emmaline is mad is an understatement. She quits her job, leaves a note and goes to Harry's competitor. The competitor publishes her work.

When oblivious Harry returns to work, his office is in total chaos; everything is falling apart. He goes to find Emmaline and bring her back to her job, where she should be. But Emmaline has changed. She is no longer willing to be a doormat. She tells Harry just where he can stick his publishing business. Suddenly Harry's eyes are open and he sees Emmaline as something other than a boring person. The fun begins.

There is so much to love with this story. Both Harry and Emmaline are well-developed people. Watching these two come to an understanding had me smiling through almost the whole book. While Harry makes a great hero, Emmaline makes an even greater heroine. Because of Ms. Guhrke's outstanding skill as a writer we get to watch Emmaline as she emerges out of her cocoon into a lovely strong butterfly.

I highly recommend this story! What a great reread and a nice visit with an old friend. And, not that they need me, but I concur with AAR's review.

Time/Place: 1890s England
Sensuality: Warm/Hot