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.

Regency May-December Romance with a Gender Switch

This book intrigued me because I always appreciate a romance that features an older heroine. Why should only younger women have all the fun! I was surprised, though, that the hero was younger and not by just a small amount. They had a 15-year age difference between them. So I was interested to see how this book would go.

The first part of the book seemed a little bit too insta lust to me. Right in the first chapter, the duke is already mentally expressing his “admiration” of her and her assets from when he’d seen her at a ball the night before his older brother’s death. I’m not usually a fan of those kinds of stories. Also, I didn’t like how at times it felt like the characters weren’t really true Regency, or at least not the way we think of Regency romance. They were both more forward than I would have thought them to be, especially on early acquaintance. At times, they seemed more modern in their sensibilities.

But I’m glad that I stuck with it. I found the banter between the duke and the countess to be most amusing, starting when she came over to ask for a big favor and they then played billiards. That scene was a lot of fun, and that delightfulness carried on to different parts of the book, though not all. The book did have a serious subplot about Anabel’s missing daughter. The duke is actually a swoon-worthy hero, despite the insta lust, because once he realized what was really going on, he tried very hard to be the proper gentleman, and always acted in her best interest even if she didn’t want him to. The Wanton Widow has more than a few secrets, and I really enjoyed how the duke helped her put the ghosts of the past at rest. All in all, I found this to be a very different, but rather enjoyable read.