Reading Fanatic Reviews
Regency RomanceFreeing Fortune by Ashley J. Barner and Jennifer Sanders
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Freeing Fortune*
A Fictional (?) Regency Character Comes to the Modern World
Imagine that your favorite book boyfriend was brought from his fictional world into your own when you accidentally speak some words from a secret magical spell! That’s the way this book starts when a Darcy-esque Ben Fortune is brought forth from Regency times by the heroine to modern times. In Parts, this book reminds me of the delightful TV series called Lost in Austen, where the heroine of that story went back to Regency England, switching places with Elizabeth Bennet. But in this book, Ben is in our time. It’s fun to see our world through his eyes. He is a complex man with ideals that are similar to our own in many cases; he’s a great hero, both then and now. This book extends the idea of Lost in Austen in a really interesting way. Essentially, Ben coming to our time from his place in a novel actually creates strange changes first in the novel and then in actual history. Move one man from his “fake” time centuries ago, and much can change: the butterfly effect. I really enjoyed all the references to Pride and Prejudice and other historical romances, both their novels and their movies. The author got one tiny detail wrong. Heathcliff wasn’t a Regency hero; the Bronte sisters were Victorian writers (writing a good 20+ years after the Regency era), and Wuthering Heights is considered to be Gothic. It certainly isn’t Regency. Aside from that, I found this book to be an absolute delight.
Wyndcross by Martha Keyes
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Wyndcross*
Well-Written Regency Romance Debut
What a delightful Regency read! After reading so many of this subgenre lately that had stilted language that was trying to affect a historical tone, it was a pure pleasure to read an author who not only knew how to properly do a faux historical dialogue but also wrote it in such a clever and witty way. Right from the start, I loved the banter between William and Kate. This book has several levels going on, including a subplot about smuggling and an arc that is built on many layers of deviousness and deception. I found the characters to be well drawn. This book was just a great read if you love well written Regency, like I do.
The Disgraced Bride by Rose Pearson
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The Disgraced Bride*
Story Arc Good; Language Use Distracting
This story combined ideas that are quite often seen in Regency romance but rarely together. There is a spinsters’ guild; spinsters and avowed bluestockings definitely seem to be recurrent themes in Regency lately. The heroine is suffering in society because of the downfall of her father. She still hopes to marry, so she goes to London in hopes of finding a suitor. The hero did have some involvement in her father’s nasty business, but he feels sorry for the heroine, as he knows that she is at no fault but is being punished for it, and he wishes he could do something to help ease her way in society.
I found the writing in this book to be a little stilted, particularly the dialogue. I can tell the author is striving to make it sound like historical speech, but not only were some phrases awkward, the characters unfortunately all sounded alike in mimicking this variant of historical-like speech. I also found it confusing that two of the female characters were named Emma and Emily, one of them the heroine and the other being the head of the spinsters’ guild. There were some issues with grammar, punctuation, and usage (beyond the UK spellings), but nothing that was overly distracting. I found that I actually liked the arc of the story, but I was put off by the very unnatural-sounding language.
Pledged to Mr. Darcy by Valerie Lennox
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, Smashwords, Mondadori, and Angus & Robertson
Pledged to Mr. Darcy*
Misses the Mark
I will admit that I am a sucker for Jane Austen fan fiction. In fact, when I bought my first Kindle some years ago, I gorged myself on all the available Pride and Prejudice fan fiction, both on Kindle Unlimited and ones I bought straight out. So I always love to discover both a new story and a new author in this sub-subgenre of Regency romance. I was intrigued by the very first chapter of the book. We start in the sitting room of Mr. Collins vicarage at Hunsford just after Elizabeth has received a terrible letter from Jane. She is reading this when Mr. Darcy comes in to make his infamous, and infamously bad, first proposal. He doesn’t even notice her upset so lurches forward with his inept proposal, which is even worse than the one usually portrayed in the movies. She doesn’t give him a direct answer and instead tells him about the contents of the letter. Jane has told her that their father has died and much of the rest of the family is sick from a sudden illness that is sweeping through town. Mr. Darcy immediately offers to take Elizabeth back to Hertfordshire so she can be with her family.
I actually thought that having Elizabeth receive such a letter from Jane was a great start for a Pride and Prejudice variation. However, after that, the book kind of fell apart for me. Once they got back to Hertfordshire, it seemed like everybody was just dying off at the level of a Shakespearean tragedy: Mrs. Bennet, Mary, Kitty, some servants, and even poor Mr. Bingley. As an RN who has studied infectious and communicable diseases, I find myself wondering what could have been so virulent and always fatal? There are few (none?) that are both.
I didn’t like this Mr. Darcy; for a P&P variation to work for me, I have to be able to fall in love with him along with Elizabeth. One of the keys to Mr. Darcy, I think, is that he must be absolutely constant in his love or Elizabeth once he figures out that’s how he feels about her. To me, this is an immutable part of Darcy’s character that must be in a variation, or for me, the story will fall flat. Much of what happens to Mr. Darcy in the later part of the original, how he becomes a better version of himself, hinges upon this constancy of love (even when it was unrequited). In this variation, as he sees Elizabeth struggle with the deaths of most members of her family, while he expresses compassion and understanding to the remaining Bennets, he actually doesn’t feel himself to be in love with her anymore now that her bright smiles and witty rejoinders are gone and hopes that in the time of her mourning—she has asked that they wait six months to marry to mourn her parents—that they will grow closer and he will again feel that same love that he purports to have felt before the deaths. All I can say is: no, no, no! Even though Darcy has not been humbled in the proposal scene as in the original and the movies, that constancy of love should be present, or it just isn’t a viable Pride and Prejudice variation. While I think the story had some potential, I thought it was those too dark and Mr. Darcy too inconstant to be a truly good spin on the classic.
Redemption for the Rakish Earl by Jilian Rouge
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Redemption for the Rakish Earl*
Heat Level Goes to STEAM Very Fast
Goodness! I don’t know quite what to make of this book. When I read about the couple’s passionate relationship, I wasn’t quite prepared for what happened in the first chapter. My goodness, the author raises the heat level to Steam very fast. The writing of the text actually felt a little clunky to me, and not just the sex scenes, as the author has the characters speak and think in ways that are unlike how real people express themselves. She also engaged in a bit of head hopping, which I can find distracting. Even though this is a historical novel, some of the sensibilities seem more modern than post-Regency. The heroine’s views on marriage, in particular, seemed far too modern. But there is more than romance at the heart of this story. In fact, it appears that historical suspense is becoming quite a sub-subgenre of romance and suspense. After their passionate scene nine years earlier, the couple is reunited, but they have more to get beyond than their past mistakes as it appears that someone is out to do them harm. I had a hard time warming up to the hero. The way he acted after the initial passionate encounter with the heroine was truly rakish, and he wasn’t really repentant about his habits. Instead, he returned to the heroine’s sphere because it was challenging to keep the married women he’d slept with and their husbands at bay. All in all, I’ve read better historical romance and better romantic suspense.
Regency Rumors by Bethany Swafford
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Regency Rumors*
A Good Regency Suspense
In this Regency suspense, the reader can figure out pretty quickly that there is something strange going on both at the Burnham household and with the heroine’s family. But the author doesn’t give away too many details too fast. We know that something has happened to the Sinclair family’s reputation, but we don’t know what precisely nor do we know what greater problem this has caused. Juliet, the heroine, is first mistaken for someone applying for a job as a lady’s maid in the Burnham household, but then she decides to take the job–rather foolishly–in order to help both sate her curiosity and see if she can do damage control for her family. She gets involved in a world that’s far different than her imaginings.
The author did a good job building the suspense and just the oddness factor of the Burnham household, where Juliet worked in disguise. I will admit I felt a little frustrated at times not knowing more of the greater picture, but it was so intriguing that I kept going. I quite enjoyed this little romp into Regency suspense and rumors.
Delectable Wicked Rakes by Dawn Brower and Amanda Mariel
Available at Amazon, iBooks, Google Play, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, Indigo (Chapters), and Bol.de
Available at
Delectable Wicked Rakes*
Tag
Despite being promised all six books in the blurb at my favorite book review site, the ARC I received only contained two novels. By the way, this irks me. I don’t mind being given only one or two books in an anthology to review, but be honest with me about it. Don’t promise six books and then give two!
Here are their reviews.
Stolen by My Knave by Dawn Brower: I have read several books in this series, though it has been some time since I last visited this world. While the author does provide some information necessary that we learned in the other books of the series—even though I was familiar with this series—I sometimes still found myself scratching my head trying to remember all the interrelationships, who crossed to what time and when, etc. Probably for a series like this, it is best to read them one after the other so you don’t forget the minutiae. I definitely felt like I needed a family tree and a chronology. I enjoyed the witty banter between Jack and Elizabeth, and I absolutely adored the references to Pride and Prejudice, especially how Jack learned from it. Jack is a jaded man, and I thought he was a little too glib for too long to be a truly good hero.
Enticed by Lady Elianna by Amanda Mariel: Cinderella, Regency style. After her father’s death, Elianna was essentially made into a servant by the new earl (they even call her thus to her face). They don’t even give her the honorific of Lady anymore, and to outsiders, they simply refer to her as either a servant or companion, never mentioning her relation to them or her status as a lady. Because of fear, I guess, Elianna never speaks out about this, even when she can. She is willing to be ill-treated by those who are actually her family, and even when someone asks more about her, she tells the same lies that her cousin’s family spout. Actually, I found that recurring theme rather irritating after a while. Why wouldn’t she tell the truth when asked or speak up to the hero on the many occasions when he asked? Instead, she just accepts her fate, and she seems unwilling to try for more of a life; she just bemoans her fate. And she is so apologetic to the dastardly relations—gag. There didn’t seem to be good enough reasons for her to act like this. And I also didn’t quite believe that the hero was so fascinated why her so quickly. The melodrama factor got ratcheted up too many degrees, making the story ridiculous. Even the way things resolved in the epilogue… like so many books of this type. So many romance tropes were used, without apparently being sardonic, that I nearly had to force myself to keep reading; I will admit to having a morbid fascination to see how many cliches this story would have. I found myself wondering if the author meant this as farce: let’s see how cliched I can make this and still have people buy and like it.
The Duke of Ravens by Jennifer Monroe
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The Duke of Ravens*
Too Melodramatic
What a peculiar historical romance. I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I was put off right away by a word choice mistake in the first sentence. The book also suffered from several information dumps, which I always find annoying as I think background information is better when it is scattered throughout a novel as needed or shown in some way. I also thought that the author made the heroine’s life with her awful husband far too melodramatic to be believable. The author didn’t always use the proper forms of address for nobility. There is a suspense plot in this, and I thought that was better done than the romantic aspect of the book. The suspense plot does have some red herrings. Some characters’ behavior didn’t make sense until the end, which made for a confusing read at times. The cover doesn’t go with the book at all, as the hero would not have dressed like that for the bulk of the book.
A Dangerous Temptation by Jillian Eaton
Available at Amazon only
Free with Kindle Unlimited
A Dangerous Temptation*
An Unlikely but Believable Couple
I have read several of Jillian Eaton’s books now, and I have enjoyed them. This book is no exception. The author is very good at manipulating both the reader’s emotional heartstrings and the characters’ thoughts and actions. The prologue, showing the hero coming upon his newly murdered wife five years before the bulk of the story, immediately makes the reader have great empathy and sympathy for the hero. She immediately switches it up with the scene of this book’s hero and heroine’s meet-cute told from the perspective of the heroine. The switch is jarring because of the sharp differences not only in the circumstances of the scenes but the voices of the characters. The heroine comes across as smart but a little naïve and as someone who has a good sense of humor and sense of self. The hero and heroine have a near instant and actually believable chemistry that is off the charts and only continues to grow as the book progresses. Because of the loss of his wife, the hero is a wounded soul seeking to avenge his wife’s death. The heroine isn’t quite willing to give him up despite the darkness she can sense within him or the difference between their social standings.
I enjoyed this book very much, both the romantic aspects between this unlikely couple and the suspense plot of finding and bringing the hero’s former wife’s murderer to justice. A solid historical romantic suspense!
A Wicked Earl’s Widow by Aubrey Wynne
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, Indigo (Chapters), and Bol.de
A Wicked Earl's Widow*
Well Written, But Heroine Lacks On Occasion
Eliza, the heroine, finds herself at the mercy of her father yet again when she thought she was beyond his grip. He is an abusive man who has harmed both her and her mother over the years, and he wed her to a known rake (the Wicked Earl of the title) as a means to his own end, not caring about her happiness one wit. Though it took time, she and the earl eventually did come to have a genuine love match before he was killed in a riding accident when she was pregnant with their first child. Eliza’s father now wants to use her to marry again for his benefit, and he even threatens his granddaughter to try to force Eliza to comply. Her loving in-laws develop another plan, and on her way to hide out from her father, Eliza meets Nate when she attempts to stop hooligans from attacking an old woman.
I absolutely adored the hero, Nate. He is charming to watch as he becomes at first fascinated and then infatuated with the heroine; she affects him like no other woman, and the author actually did an excellent job of showing this. Right from the start, he could see that there was something more to her, a deeper and darker past that made her who she was and gave her the complexity that drew him in. I thought the author did a good job showing the effects of abuse in Eliza in a believable way. Eliza is at turns docile and obliging while at other times is filled with a rage that doesn’t seem to be within her character unless you know her background. I thought the scene with her whipping the hooligan showed her mental and emotional state with surprising complexity and truth. I loved little Althea. She was absolutely precious and could be as fiery and protective as her mother, as she showed in her first meeting with Nate.
I didn’t particularly appreciate how Eliza was so quick to want to give in to her father’s demands at various points in the story. She was never as alone as she thought, and she did have protection from a variety of sources. I just hated that whenever things started to look like they were (or even might) be going sideways that one of her first thought was that she should just go back to her father, accept the heinous older man as her husband, and give up her child to protect her from being drawn in to her grandfather’s vicious world. I also thought the title was wrong for this book. The use of the words “Wicked Earl” make you believe that this book has some naughtiness at some level to it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, this is actually a very well-thought-out and well-written story of a woman who has been traumatized most of her life finding true happiness, love, and her happily ever after.
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