Chemistry When Opposites Attract

I found this book to be a surprising delight. I have read some Regencies lately that just didn’t do it for me. What I particularly enjoyed was the well-crafted dialogue. I believe that language in historical fiction should be slightly elevated but still accessible; compared to us, they were much more formal back then, and it is nice to see that expressed in written dialogue. As I read, I hear the story in my head, and this felt authentic to me. The characters themselves were also fun as well. The hero has a roguish charm, taking delight in vexing the much more straitlaced heroin. They truly are opposites. She is all about propriety and being a good girl. I liked, too, that this book took place in Bath. In quite a few Regencies, we hear a peripheral reference to Bath being a place where characters have been, are going to, or are at, but we never really see the location in action as an actual setting. The hero and heroine are next-door neighbors. By chance, one of the heroine’s new friends is trying to encourage her to loosen up a little bit, while she promises to help on the other young lady understand what the proper behavior and actions should be. This character change sets up an interesting arc both for the heroine as well as for the hero. If you enjoy well-written Regency, you will most likely enjoy this book.

Deficiencies Make Book Not Wholly Enjoyable

I think I have read most of the A Duke for All Seasons series. Unfortunately, I have found them to be of variable quality. I know that I enjoyed at least one of them, but some of these others have been a surprise with the number of deficiencies. I’ll mention these in no particular order. There are definitely some issues with grammar, punctuation, and usage. Commas are more problematic than usual. There was also a strange misuse of “whom” that caught my eye. Some word choices also didn’t seem quite right. Beyond language, I also had issues with the level of sensuality expressed by the duke so early in his acquaintance with the heroine. There was actually a level of what I would call the “ick factor” regarding his wayward thoughts. There seemed to be inconsistencies with the Duke’s age. At one point, the Duke said he was nearly 20 years past his father’s death. His father died when he was 14. Then later on in the story, it is mentioned that the Duke is 28. So those numbers don’t quite add up. I also thought that the characters themselves were very ill suited. They were too different in ways that matter to make a love story between them seem plausible. The duke has a rather wretched past with his father, who was physically and mentally abusive towards him. This has made the Duke a somewhat a solitary man who does not wish to wed because he fears he might harbor some of his father’s treachery within him. So he’s got a bit of a dark story. In contrast, the heroine seemed to be a bit of a bubblehead. She is at least definitely silly and shallow. To me, silly/shallow and deeply wounded don’t quite go together, or at least this author did not pull it off.

Not Just About the Romance

This is the first book that I have read by Kerrigan Byrne. I am a huge fan of Regency, Victorian, and medieval romance. I find myself not quite knowing quite what to say about this book. It has gotten rave reviews on Amazon, and the author is in fact a very good writer as she can easily pull you into characters’ world and make you care about them. Her descriptions make you feel like you are right there.

But I do have one big problem with this book. The first scene is quite awful. The author or the publisher definitely should have put a trigger warning for this book. The first scene is a violent moment from the heroine’s past depicting physical assault, rape, and murder. Some detail is given, though not all—thankfully. Still, it is overwhelming and too much. Had I been given a warning about the physical assault and rape, I might not have bought this book. I just don’t like romances that feature rape (even if not detailed). To me, the scene and its aftermath were that bad.

The hero and heroine are actually interesting characters to follow. Given her past, the heroine has quite a character arc as she moves from distrust to trust, from fear to love. The hero starts as the dark and broody type, but of course, he has a gentle heart that he keeps well hidden. I absolutely adored the heroine’s best girlfriends, the Rogue Reds, without whom she may not have survived, mentally or physically, all that she had been through.

If you are aware of the triggers and don’t mind them, you might enjoy this book as the author does know how to write a good book. If you don’t like to see your heroines treated violently (and acting with retaliatory violence), you may want to pass on this book.

Excellent Regency Story

This is a delightfully well-written Regency romance. The author has made characters who seem believable, and the hero and heroine, at least, are not prone to excesses or melodrama. (I’ll admit that I’m not quite sure why the heroine is called a vixen in the title.} The heroine’s cousin, however, is a good example of the simpering, pouty Regency miss who insists on getting her own way. The author has set up an interesting plot here. The hero wants to wed quickly because of a scandal brewing in his family; he thinks that having a wife will make it all more respectable. He finds an old agreement that his father had done up between him and another man’s daughter, and so he chooses that route. That young girl is quite spoiled and not too pleased that her father has decided to marry her off before she has had a proper season. The hero himself, Gideon, is a bit surprised to see the girl’s cousin is a young woman whom he was enamored with several seasons ago before she accepted another man’s proposal. There’s actually a lot of detail here, and what I related might seem a little convoluted or hard to understand, but it doesn’t make sense within the story.

The hero and heroine do find a way out of the dilemma that he’s gotten himself into with the cousin; they decided to elope to Scotland. Much needs to be done with all that is going on in the Somers family. How will the new viscountess be in this world that she is now thrust into? Can the family avoid scandal?

There are parts of this book that were actually quite funny in a surprising way. Regency isn’t particularly known for being humorous. There were especially some moments between the cousins that I found particularly funny. During the elopement, things got surprisingly steamy pretty fast compared to how things were for them before. In fact, the second half of the book is quite a steamy read. All in all, I thought this was a well-written book with good characters and just enough of a different kind of a plot.