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+ |
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