Society's Most Disreputable Gentleman by Julia Justiss - part of the Wellingford family glom

July 12, 2018
It ain't over til it's over - it's over

http://www.juliajustiss.com/
Well, I thought it was a good idea at the time. Maybe it isn’t such a great idea to glom an author, maybe a little time between books is a better idea. As much as I tried, I could not finish Society’s Most Disreputable Gentleman. Greville Anders is the brother of the previous heroine Joanna. You remember her, she drudged through the mud. Anyway, Greville was actually pressed into the navy and now he finds himself recovering at a house which has Amanda in it. Amanda dreams of life in the city, she thinks Greville is beneath her. This story has a Romanceland separation in it, a pretty lengthy one and for me lengthy separations do not work. Sorry to say I could not finish this book.

So, for me what started out with a bang with A Most Unconventional Match ended with a fizzle.

Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: didn't get that far

From Waif to Gentleman's Wife by Julia Justiss - Part of the Wellingford Family Glom

July 11, 2018
Missing Sparkle Alert!!! 

http://www.juliajustiss.com/
Welcome to the third book in the series and two of the nicest bland people in the world. From Waif to Gentleman’s Wife presents us with two people who are the same. Yes, the hero and heroine think the same, act the same, want the same and are both really nice people. And, they lack spark.

Joanna Merrill is a widow who is down on her luck, out in the rain, drudging to her brother’s house. She has just been fired from her governess job because she was caught in a compromising position by her employer’s wife. Now the person she was caught with happened to be Joanna’s employer and he was forcing himself on her. Of course, his wife believes Joanna was seducing her husband. So it’s out the door, in the rain, with no money. As she’s slogging through the rain and mud she is unaware that her brother is no longer at the estate he was supposed to be stewarding. He was either fired or kidnapped – a mystery for the next book. Instead, in his place is Sir Edward Greaves.

Now, Edward is disguised as just plain old Ned Greaves. You see he was attacked on his way to the estate by a bunch of people who don’t like aristocrats. So, he is keeping his true identity a secret. He is trying to find his attackers. This means that he must keep a secret from Joanna, which is a bad thing because she has trusts issues. But don’t feel too bad, because he’s sad he has to keep a secret from Joanna and he worries about it allllll the way through the book. He constantly thinks about what will happen when she finds out. In fact, there is a lot of thinking in this book.

Joanna thinks about Ned, Ned thinks about Joanna, Joanna thinks lustful thoughts about Ned, and then she feels guilty because of those thoughts. Ned thinks lustful thoughts about Joanna, and then he feels bad because he’s got a secret. He shouldn’t be thinking lustfully about Joanna. Of course, there is something nefarious going on in the village and Ned also thinks about that.

The problem with all the thinking going on between Joanna and Ned was, even with allllll that thinking, thinking, thinking, there wasn't any spark between the two of them. I started drifting away in this story. Yes, I finished the story but I was disappointed. This is one time when the main characters needed to be a little different. They were both really nice people, but there wasn’t anything about them that was interesting. And, all that thinking gave me a headache.

Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: Warm

The Proper Wife by Julia Justiss, part of the Wellingford series glom

July 10, 2018
Two, two, two Unlikable Characters.

http://juliajustiss.com/
We continue our Wellingford family series glom with Clarissa and Sinjin, aka Colonel Lord St. John Sandiford. In the previous book in this series these two characters were both pretty unlikable, so when I found out that they had their own book I thought, well, that’s interesting. Sure, sure Sinjin ended up saving our heroine from her TSTL moment at the end of The Wedding Gamble, but he made some pretty dishonorable suggestions concerning the woman he supposedly loved, so The Proper Wife comes with some built-in hills to climb. In The Wedding Bargain, these two were very unlikable. Clarissa was painted as a temperamental, spoiled, fit-throwing brat and Sinjin was shown to have dishonorable intentions. They were both in need of redemption. Did Ms. Justiss succeed? Not completely, but she could have.

When the story begins, these two immediately butt heads. Sinjin is looking for a proper wife, a calm wife, a woman who is not an aristocrat – some one quiet. Clarissa is none of these. Clarissa is quick to enter into numerous frays and scandals. She is a pretty heedless person, charges into things without giving much thought for the consequences. She is self-absorbed. She is everything that Sinjin abhors. I loved the beginning of this story when these two first encounter each other. Their banter and antagonism was a thing to behold. I had a lot of fun watching these two clash. I had a smile on my face through the beginning of the book. I wish it had gone on a bit longer. 

If the author had been able to keep the momentum between Sinjin and Clarissa going this would have been an excellent book. However, there were moments when our character did things which didn’t make sense, and I am becoming more and more fond of my characters' actions making sense. I find myself making notes as I read, asking “does this make sense?” Furthermore, what was a promising start to some pretty fun characters was soon replaced by that old Romanceland separation doodah. It’s hard to build a relationship if the couple aren’t together. Author’s - don’t separate your characters. How are characters supposed to banter if they are not together?

I was pleased to see the previous characters of Sarah and Nicholas make an appearance in this book. It allowed for some much needed loose end tying. There was also enough time given in the book for Sarah, Nicholas and Sinjin to forgive past mistakes and become friends. I was also pleased that Sinjin didn’t moan and groan over his lost love Sarah – at least not too long. When he falls for Clarissa, he really puts up a good fight. I just wish more time had been spent on the couple being together. They were just so much fun when they were together.

I liked this story better than The Wedding Bargain, but it still didn’t quite make it up to standards established in A Most Unconventional Match. I think if the author had given more together time to the couple, I would have found the book very delightful. As it is, it was pleasant but nothing earth-shattering. 

Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: Warm

The Wedding Gamble - Wellington family series glom

July 9, 2018
To Glom or not to Glom, that is the Question.
 
http://www.juliajustiss.com/
So, after reading Julia Justiss’ wonderful book A Most Unconventional Match I thought it would be a great idea to read the rest of the books in Wellingford family series. Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea. The first one in the series is The Wedding Gamble, written in 1999. The Wedding Gamble happens to be a marriage of convenience story and generally I like those. But this one also has a theme I’m not too fond of: the I-can’t-get-over-my-first-luv theme. Ever since I was traumatized when I read Velvet Promise by Jude Devereux, first book in the Montgomery brother series, I have tried to stay away from this plot. Who can forget one of the biggest bone-head, jerk-face heroes of alllll time, Gavin Montgomery. He could just not get over his first luv. I’ve never really been fond of the constant moaning, groaning, and comparing which is done by either the male or female lead in books with this plot device thrown in. In this instance, it is the female lead Sarah Wellingford who cannot get over her true luv; the one who abandoned her to go off to India to find his fortune.

Poor Sarah is in desperate straits. She has no money, and she’s sort of a companion to a tempest by the name of Clarissa. Clarissa, by the way is a future heroine, but in this book, she is engaged to a gentle man by the name of Nicholas Englemere. Englemere is our hero. Of course he will not remain engaged to Clarissa, especially after his eyes alight on Sarah. Both Nicholas and Sarah come with a whole bunch of baggage and some old school Romanceland themes. There’s the old fiancé/true luv of Sarah’s - Sinjin; there’s a slimy villain, an evil mistress, a temperamental fiancée/future heroine, and just for laughs, an oblivious parent. Anyway, Nicholas wants a gentle wife but for some reason he has chosen to marry a spoiled, temperamental, shrew by the name of Clarissa. Once he realizes his mistake he does some maneuvering to break that engagement or better yet, trick Clarissa into breaking it. He then proposes a marriage of convenience to Sarah and she accepts. The story had a great beginning and the author really tried to fully develop her main characters. She moved the story along at a pretty slow pace and we were allowed to watch the couple as they develop a friendship. But I had some issues with this story which prevented me from liking it as much as I wanted to.

First of all, Sarah and Nicholas didn’t communicate with each other. I know, I know, there should be mystery. Don't you know if they talk to each other, it gives everything away? To which I say, poppy-cock! Sometimes, leaving communication out doesn't build tension, it's just plain annoying. Especially, when that non-communication doesn’t make sense. For instance, the evil mistress shows up at the wedding party. Why? Well, we know that the slimy villain invited her, but Sarah doesn’t know that. She thinks Nicholas invited her. Does Nicholas explain? No. Nicholas is represented as being intelligent, so shouldn’t he know that his mistress showing up, uninvited, might cause some doubt in his new wife’s brain cells. Why didn’t he just walk over and say – hey, I didn’t invite her, I haven’t had anything to do with her for a long time. Just that little bit of talk would have opened all kinds of plots/themes/paths to go down. But, it didn’t happen. Sarah was left in the dark and because of that, her self-doubts grew. The story was littered with all kinds of non-communication which weakened the story. But the biggest problem I had was with Sarah’s not being able to get over Sinjin.

Sinjin. Sinjin, as you can tell by the name is a future hero. He and Sarah grew up together; they fell in love and sort of promised themselves to each other. But because he couldn’t stand up to his mother, he turned from Sarah and went off to India to make his fortune. By the time Sarah is married to Nicholas, Sinjin has raced back to England in the hopes of winning her from Nicholas. Even after she is married. Supposedly, he loves Sarah, but he makes a very dishonorable proposition to Nicholas along the lines of – “hey, after you have had your first child why don’t we share Sarah.” Now, that is true luv. What a guy. Anyway, Sarah eventually realizes she loves her husband, but she cannot communicate that to anyone. She cannot tell Sinjin that she doesn’t love him anymore and she cannot tell Nicholas that she’s fallen in love with him. The book would have been so much better if only she would have said something. If only she would have told Nicholas she loved him or told Sinjin to take a flying leap. She continued her Sinjin-moaning far longer than she should have.

Pattern. Sometimes when you glom an author you notice a pattern. And, I did with Ms. Justiss. She is mostly a gentle writer, in the manner of Mary Balogh – just not as fully developed. Because of the gentleness of the writing, and the slow build of romance; when sex was introduced it was jarring. The whankey-woo-hoo moments didn’t blend with the rest of the story. I’m not saying there shouldn’t have been any, it can be done and once again I point to Mary Balogh as an example. She writes tons of sensual scenes which blend with the rest of the tale.  The sex scenes in this book just didn’t fit the rest of the narrative.

Overall, I liked the beginning of this story. The plot of a marriage of convenience may be one which has been around forever, and can often show just what an author is capable of doing. I thought the story had possibilities, but I was disappointed that it took so long for Sarah to make up her mind. For me it also took too long for Nicholas and Sarah to communicate with each other. This was a pleasant read, but not what I was expecting and not of the same caliber as A Most Unconventional Match.

Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality: Hot

Heartless by Anne Stuart

June 22, 2018
Someone needs a copy editor
 
http://anne-stuart.com/
I try, I really, really try to ignore typos or the wrong word/s inserted into a sentence. You know the words I’m talking about, those words which are actually correct, but the author leaves a letter out, and of course the spell check will not catch it because – it’s not wrong. For instance, in this book, and I quote, “I doubt it would hock me.” Hock me? What does that mean? The heroine perchance has a side of pork attached to her leg? Or maybe she needs money. What I’m pretty sure was supposed to be there was the word “shock”. But ‘twas not. If this had only happened once I wouldn’t be whining, but it didn’t and even though I didn’t count the number of times this happened, it was distracting – and sloppy. Don’t get me wrong, there is a reason I don’t count the mistakes, or complain (too much). Editing is a very hard job. Your brain lies to you, it makes you see the words you want to see. No matter how hard you try, you can read and reread and then turn to your bestest buddy in the whole wide world and they will miss stuff. Even those bestest buddies who went to college and had high marks in grammar – you know who you are. So, I understand, I feel your pain. But I feel my pain also. It only added to my overall reaction to this book. After seven long years of waiting for the next installment of the Rohan family, Heartless had the earmarks of a rush job. The overall feeling of this being a rush job, or something that just had to be finished just because. Much as I was looking forward to this Rohan installment, I was disappointed by it. You know, I am always up for one of Ms. Stuart’s manly-men-Steve Morgan bonehead heroes, even when I don’t like them.

As I said earlier, it’s been seven years since we were last visited by the House of Rohan. And, that is a long time for anyone to remember who did what to whom. But, I’ve reread this series quite a bit, so I didn’t have to injure my little brain-box too much to refresh my memory. Captain Lord Brandon, one of the Rohan’s, was injured in one of the wars in Afghan. He was a mess; his face was half-way destroyed and he almost died from injuries. What that means to my little Petunia’s is that one side of his face is allllll scarred and the other side of his face is beautiful to look at. He is a I-only-have-half-a-face hero. Lucky for him, he was nursed back to health by Emma Cadbury. 

Now Emma Cadbury happens to have made an unusual career choice for a heroine. She was a prostitute who eventually became a madam. She was, of course, forced into that career. So, her past isn’t one which would be conducive to being a member of society. Anyway, Brandon and Emma become quite close during his recovery. They fall in love, but she knows it will never work, so she runs away. While she is hiding from him, Brandon’s family finds him and takes him home. Well, Brandon slides into a blue-funk, to put it mildly. If you read the previous book, you will know he turned to opium and a group of sadistic mad-men called the Heavenly Host. The story ended with the group being destroyed and Brandon fighting to join the world. He is in Scotland recovering. He also doesn’t quite remember Emma, but he knows that there is some kind of memory just beyond his reach – something hiding in the shadows waiting to be brought back to life. 

Three years later Emma is attending a baptism for the newest little Rohan and Brandon grumpily decides to journey from Scotland to attend. Because he doesn’t quite remember Emma, he is surprised when she tries to avoid him. Why is this strangely attractive woman trying to avoid him? And, thus begins the beginning of repeated maneuvers of him advancing and she retreating. She does a lot of retreating in this story. I lost track of the number of times she ran away from him. It was annoying. As you can imagine, Emma’s returns over and over again to the I'm-not-good-enough routine. Logically, being a prostitute, she probably wouldn’t be. But she was a nice prostitute. However, the poor me routine was constant, over and over, the neutrons in her brain cells kept turning – much like a hamster in a wheel. It was pretty tiresome. I’m not that stupid, you don’t have to beat me over the head to get the point across. I got it right away that she considered herself not good enough.  

The scene. For a lot of the book, I didn’t think Brandon was going to live up to the bad-boy temperament which Ms. Stuart endows her heroes – but he did. In their first sexual encounter, there can only be what I would call a forced seduction scene. She said no. I had a problem with this being included in the book. I was already having issues with this story, but this dropped the book down to a another level. Forced seduction is not seduction and definitely not romantic. It's a belittling of another person’s rights. I think the author should have taken a step back for a moment before she included this scene. While I am not a big fan of some romance author’s who are trying to make a political/religious statement or right some kind of world-wrong, I do think it is time the forced seduction in Romanceland was laid to rest. 

Anyway, once again I have to say I’m very disappointed by Heartless. I was so excited when I saw it was to be published. This story was not up to Ms. Stuarts normal standards. The pacing was off, there was pondering, pondering, pondering of the same thing over and over. It was filler. Maybe just too much time had passed between the previous book and this one. The story was rushed and had an incomplete atmosphere to it. Sorry to say, I cannot recommend Heartless. 

Time/Place: Georgian England
Sensuality:Warm/Hot/Disturbing

Too Wilde to Wed by Eloisa James

June 20, 2018
Sometimes things don't work if they don't make sense. 

http://www.eloisajames.com/
Well this is the second book in Eloisa James series about the Wilde family, and so far I’ve been disappointed. This is not up to par with a lot of Ms. James stories. I’m not sure if this one was rushed or if Ms. James was having trouble connecting the dots, but for me this story had a bit of a disjointed fill to it.

Ms. James is ending this particular series with “sort of” cliffhangers. Oh, don’t worry my little Petunias, she finishes the main story. It’s just that she tacks on a cliffhanger. So, in the last one the secondary character of North, aka Lord Roland, aka Lord Roland Northbridge, aka heir to a Dukedom, has been dumped by his fiancée Diane Belgrave. Well, in the end of that book we see North finding Diane hidden away at a cottage with a baby in her arms. 

This book picks up two years later and North is returning to England after two years fighting in the American Revolutionary War. Imagine his surprise when upon his arrival he finds Diane ensconced at his brother’s house as a governess to his half-sister Artemesia. Artemesia also happens to be one of those children who talks as if they are thirteen when in all actuality they are two years old. But the really big surprise is that Diane’s bastard child is also living with North’ family. But wait, there’s more!! Everyone thinks that the little boy, Godfrey, is North’s child. My mind did stumble a bit at this point. When we left the first story, I thought the baby in Diane’s arms was a leddle baby, brand new. But according to this book, he’s four. Wouldn’t North’s family know he wasn’t the father? Wouldn’t his friend’s know? Wouldn’t everyone in society know that Diane wasn’t evvvveeeer pregnant? Most women get a large protrusion.  Wouldn’t North know? Anyway, this part of the story didn’t make all that much sense to me – and that was just the beginning of a lot of things that didn’t blend together logically. 

Well North takes the whole society-you-got-a-kid thing rather well. He’s not really upset, just puzzled. He’s not really upset that Diane is living in his father’s house, just puzzled. He’s sort of a low-key kind of guy. Anyway, it isn’t long before North and Diane are communicating with each other. It isn’t long before they discover that they didn’t really know each other when they were engaged. They were both pretending to be other people – not “other people, other people”, but different personas. He was trying to be what everyone thought a future Duke should be and she was trying to be what she was told a Duchess should be. They were both pretending, and they were both very uncomfortable with the roles they were trying to take on. In the first part of the book we get to see them as they relearn each other and that was the nice part of the book. This part of the story was alllll about getting to know one another. Then Ms. James decided to throw some tension into the mix. The second part of the book was taken up mostly by a two year-old spouting wisdom, North proposing again and again and again and Diane turning him down again and again – at least when it came to becoming married. She didn’t have too much of a problem jumping into the sack with someone she wasn’t married to. Remember this is Georgian times, not the 21st century.

Here's the tension part. Diana has an aversion to being a Duchess. She has some idea she would not be qualified for it. She moans on and on about it. She doesn’t quite get the fact that if she was a Duchess, she could probably write her own rules. After numerous turn down of the North proposals she decides to strike out on her own. She has an idea, and it’s a doozy. She decides to take off and become a barmaid. Yes, you heard right. A barmaid. I admit, I had to lay the book down for that one. Nothing better than being a barmaid in Georgian England. I bet that would bring in some coin to help raise poor four year-old Godfrey. I was astounded that this was in the book, it was just so, I don’t know – silly. A barmaid. Yep, I want to work in a smelly, dangerous tavern in Georgian England because I am not fit to be a Duchess. 

But North saved her and they married and they went off to sunny Italy to not be a Duke or Duchess. I wasn’t really quite sure what was going on with the ending. 

To say that I’m disappointed in Too Wilde to Wed is an understatement. I admire Eloisa James; I love most of her books, but I’m not quite sure what the point of this one was. While it started out with a good idea, which might have been fun or romantic, it dissolved into odd pieces of things thrown together. There were things that didn’t make sense and a heroine who was just too juvenile for words. I can only hope the next Wilde book is better, or I might have to take a break from this series. 

Time/Place: Georgian England
Sensuality: Warm/Hot

Someone to Care by Mary Balogh

June 11, 2018
There is Life After Twenty

http://www.marybalogh.com/
One of the many reasons I'm such a big fan of Mary Balogh is that she explores themes which aren’t always the trendsetter of the day, then turn them into something delightfully refreshing.  As far as I’m concerned, Mary Balogh is the queen of writing intense feelings. Someone to Care not only has a couple in which the female lead is older, but both the main characters are older than 20, nay older than 30 – one of them is in their 40s! It was appealing not to have to read about a young woman just out of puberty.

Mary Balogh has also tackled characters which are not necessarily likeable. Both of them have a distinct edge. Sometimes Ms. Balogh succeeds with these edges and sometimes she doesn’t. In this case, I believe she has succeeded in treating us to a delightful story with a fascinating couple. I really enjoyed watching this couple maneuver through the obstacles presented to them as they marched to their well-deserved HEA.

If you are following Ms. Balogh’s latest series, you will recall Viola Kingsley, Countess of Riverdale isn’t really the countess. It seems her husband was actually married to someone else when he married her. So, not only did her world come crumbling down around her feet, her children became illegitimate. In this book MS Balogh’s breaks away from the younger characters and focuses on forty-two year old Viola.

Viola is not taking her new standing in society very well. Even though her entire family and her husband-not-husband's family have surrounded her with love and support, she has rejected them. She has hidden away from her loved ones in the country and now calls herself Viola Kingsley. It is at a joyful family gathering; a christening for her grandchild that panic-doom-boo-hoo sets in. She abruptly flees from her family. When she stops at an inn, she notices someone from her past, Marcel Lamarr, Marquess of Dorchester.

Marcel has rather a rakish reputation, and it’s a well-deserved reputation. He remembers Viola. When he was young, he tried to seduce Viola – she said no. He moved on, he married, became a father, then a widower, but he has never forgotten Viola. So, when he spots her at the same inn, an idea takes form. He has some family duties he is avoiding. He suggests to Viola that they just shuck it all and make a mad dash to his cottage, far, far, away from family, and the weight which is pressing down on both of them. Much to his surprise, she takes him up on it. And, soon Viola and Marcel are on a road trip, where they are free to indulge in their lustful feelings. Along the way they become friends, lovers, confidants, and uncover angst-filled pasts. Here’s the thinking on their plan: what do they have to lose? They’re adults, they don’t have to answer to anyone. Who cares what they do? They can be irresponsible it they want to be, can’t they? Well the answer to that my little Petunia’s is no, they can’t be irresponsible.

While Marcel and Viola are traveling around, going to fairs, enjoying life and each other’s company both of their families are barreling down the roads after them. This chase allows us to visit with some of the characters from the previous books. And, that was fine. The chase scenes with the other characters did not overwhelm the telling of Marcel and Viola’s story.

There is a scene in this story which might disturb some readers – spoiler. Marcel mentions numerous times in the book that he killed his first wife. Well, as we all know in Romanceland that doesn’t always mean anything. However, in this case he did. It was an accident. While some may consider him abusive, I didn't. There isn’t any mention anywhere in the entire book which would indicate he was a violent man. What he did was strike out while trying to save his child and his wife lost her balance. I believe he acted as any human would have acted while defending his child. And, there would have been plenty of angst and guilt he would have felt to be the cause of someones death. But is was an accident. When I read this story I saw no signs of abusive behavior, nor anything which would make him less of a hero. I just saw a man consumed with alllllll kinds of pain caused by a disaster beyond his control.

Overall, I do recommend this story. I loved the characters and was thrilled that at last we had some mature people to read about. Thank you Ms. Balogh.

Time/Place: Regency England
Sensuality:Warm/Hot