Reading Fanatic Reviews
All Romance ReviewsPride & Prejudicial by Danica Dawn
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Pride & Prejudicial*
Bold Liza and Bad English
I am a huge fan of Jane Austen fanfiction, though I will admit that I do not usually enjoy contemporary retellings. I prefer the Regency variations. But I was intrigued by the legal aspect of this one, so I thought I would pick it up. There were parts of this story that were quite amusing. This Liza Bennet has a super sharp wit and a certain level of audacity that is definitely greater they more proper original Elizabeth Bennet. I love the scene where she first challenged Will. Actually, that whole dance number was a bit of a surprise! Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the story was completely hampered by the fact that this book was either not professionally edited or was edited by someone who does not know the craft and art. There were issues with tenses and an inordinate number of missing commas, so much so that it actually created problems with understanding. For all of these numerous mistakes, I found this a tedious read.
Alice’s Arranged Marriage by Joyce Alec
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Alice's Arranged Marriage*
Terrible Hero and Family Makes for Bad Read
I have read a fair number of “18th century” romances written by Joyce Alec, and unfortunately, I have found them to be of variable quality. I think this one, though, is perhaps one of the worst.
Why is that? The heroine seemed to go from a bad situation in America to an even worse one in England. The hero was absolutely abominable. He needs her money because he was stupid and gave enough money to his ne’er-do-well brother that the hero now is on the brink of financial ruin. His brother has done so poorly that he has ruined his own reputation and has begun to drag Charles’s down as well. But the hero and his hideous aunt place excessive demands on the heroine. She is expected to be a proper Englishwoman even though she is American and has, of course, no clue what is truly expected by English society.
(BTW, it’s a fingernails-on-the-chalkboard moment for me when this author refuses to be more specific about the time frame in her books. Why bother to give a whole CENTURY as the timeframe. Pin it down, girl!)
I feel so frustrated with this book right now. It was just awful, awful. Yet I kept reading it, hoping for some redemption of the hero or some bit of kindness toward the heroine from the hero’s family (including him) but it came too little, too late. What he wanted for most of the book was a silent lapdog—proper women should, like children, be seen and not heard—only desired for her wealth… and treated shabbily just because she is naïve. Disgusting. Seriously, he just would have been happy with the money… and she might have been happy if she just left. I so wanted her to. I can’t get behind a book where the hero treats the heroine so badly for most of the book. Just awful, awful. Cannot recommend.
Josie by Beth Gildersleeve
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Josie*
Info Dumps and Distance
This is the first book that I have read by this author. I had some issues with it. Even though the book is of decent length, the author chose to do several information dumps in the beginning, both on the hero’s side and on the heroine’s side. One of the heroine’s actually happened while she and the hero were in the midst of their initial conversation in the book! It just seemed odd to have her thinking about her troubled romantic past in great detail while she is supposedly sitting and chatting with the hero, who happens to be her brother’s boss. I didn’t like the blackmail aspect of the story. After their marriage of convenience, they didn’t spend enough time together for it to truly feel like a romance. How can the relationship change and grow if they aren’t together? And, no, the texts don’t cut it. I know that work and distance were supposed to be at the crux of their conflict, but to me, the hero and the heroine have to be together more to make it a romance. So, I find myself a little disappointed in this book.
Lady Jane by Vicki Hopkins
Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Scribd, 24 Symbols, Thalia, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, Indigo, and Bol.de
Lady Jane*
Characters Didn’t Seem Regency
I had a hard time buying many of the aspects of this book. It is supposed to be Regency, but none of the characters seem to act like what we expect from contemporarily written Regency romance books. The heroine, Lady Jane, is a woman unlike any other that I’ve read in a Regency Romance. She’s the female equivalent of a rake, taking men as lovers and disposing of them when she grows bored. We don’t understand why she is like this for a little while. Her family seems supportive of this or at least tolerant, which strikes me as odd. While she does have somewhat of a reputation, she is not shunned by the ton. When Man Zero, the one who first took her virtue and left her to pursue his military career, comes back to town, things change for Jane. How will she be affected when she sees him at every social function? What will their new relationship be, if any?
The hero, Matthew, wasn’t an easy hero to like, first because of his and Jane’s shared past as well as his initial indifference to the pain he had caused her. He has been able to go on with his life relatively unscathed, while he left behind wreckage in Jane’s that altered her perspective and life immeasurably. Yet, at an early point in the book, he states that he never really gave her a thought until seeing her again. Now, I wouldn’t require him to pine forever when he had a loving relationship with his wife. But I would at least liked him to have considered his actions over the years or more when he sees her again. Given their past, what happens between them in this book just seems implausible. I just couldn’t buy it. I also didn’t like that many characters in this book seem to have what I would consider to be more modern sensibilities, acting and talking more like contemporary people than like people from 200 years ago. All in all, I found this to be an oddly disconcerting book.
A Stranger’s Promise by Tarah Scott
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A Stranger's Promise*
Love Story Not Truly Realized
I’m not quite sure what I was expecting, but the book seemed like it would be a historical romance. While much happened in the strange household of the hero, he and the heroine spent far too little time together for this to be really called a romance. It didn’t have the traditional build of a love story; there was no organic evolution of the romance. Parts of it were interesting to read, but I just kept waiting for a love story to kick in (it felt like). So, unfortunately, this story didn’t quite work for me.
Thief of Broken Hearts by Louise Cornell
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Thief of Broken Hearts*
Didn’t Quite Work for Me
I enjoyed the first part of the book as we got to know the duke and his estranged duchess. But then it felt like the story got a bit repetitious and didn’t really have an escalating progression of events that a story should have to keep it interesting. I soon found it a little tiresome, especially the continual reference to 17 years ago and other such concepts; yes, we know! Because the heroine had such contempt for the hero at first, I had a hard time believing her turn around. It’s one thing that authors need to consider. When the couple is very distant from each other at the start of the novel, the author has to work to show us a true evolution, which will be a rocky road but should mostly progress in a 3-steps-forward, 2-steps-back way. I did not feel that happened here. Therefore, I found this a somewhat disappointing read.
Highland Faith by Madelyn Hill
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Highland Faith*
Best Book of the Series
This is the second book about the three Scottish McAlister sisters: Hope, Faith, and Honor. This is the middle book for the middle daughter. Like the other two books in the series, this book starts the prologue that shows a pivotal scene in the young girls’ childhoods, when their father is dying after a skirmish with an enemy clan. It’s a poignant moment for all and is actually well done. You can’t help but feel for these little girls and their poor mother. With nearly his dying breath, the father charges the young girls to lead the clan together in the future.
Faith is a complex character. She is a skilled hunter and enjoys providing for her clan, but she yearns for a life beyond the confines of Wild Thistle Keep. Be careful what you ask for; she is soon nabbed by a man who hopes to ransom her so he can redeem himself in his father’s eyes and save the family from his father’s debt. I didn’t like the men in the other two books of this series, but I did like this one better. He is trying to reform his roguish ways and save his family. He treats Faith better than her sisters’ men treated them.
I have had issues with grammar, punctuation, spelling, and usage with the other books in the series, but this particular installment had far fewer issues. There are a few problems, like a rather bizarre sentence that made no sense; it appeared to be a mash-up of two wholly unrelated sentences.
While the other books of the trilogy can help add some backstory, each book in the series is a standalone. Of the three books, this is the only one that I feel like I can recommend.
His Temptress, His Torment by Louisa Cornell
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His Temptress, His Torment*
Loved This Story
Oh, my gosh! Did I ever enjoy this story. The novel is slightly different than typical Regency romances. The heroine, who believes herself to be firmly on the shelf, decides that she must find out how her estranged nephew is doing. The boy is seven but has been separated from his mother’s branch of the family because his father didn’t like the way his bride’s family treated the couple, which caused them to elope. She has heard that her nephew nearly drowned with his father at sea, and she is concerned for his welfare. So she decides to act as his governess for a few weeks so she can see his living circumstances, make sure he is healthy and well, and get to know him. She is in part guided by the love she still has for her dead sister; she wants to assure herself that her beloved sister’s child is all right.
I love that the heroine is a super strong character. While, of course, she had no experience as a governess because she is actually from a wealthy family, having grown up with several brothers, she knows how to interact with young men and boys. Having had several stern governesses, she hopes to mimic them. She questions herself so much along the way, but seeing her through the hero’s eyes, especially in the beginning, makes you see her strength as seen by others (but not by herself).
The meet-cute of the couple is one of the best that I’ve read. As she approaches the door of the townhouse where the boy and his father live, she hears shouts inside, and all of a sudden, a young boy is streaking naked across the street to the small park that’s in the middle of this tony neighborhood. She doesn’t want to lose her governess job on day one, so she drops her bag and chases after him. The father, too, is hot on his son’s heels but behind the would-be governess. He gets to the small park just in time to see her try to struggle her way over the railing, and he gets quite a view as she tries to climb the fence and scramble over the top. It was very humorous. Then when he actually made it inside the park, she doesn’t know who he is—and he doesn’t tell her—so she very firmly puts him in his place repeatedly, definitely coming across like a very stern governess. I absolutely loved this scene and its witty dialogue.
When they actually get to the townhouse, she puts an important member of the staff in her place. I just loved these moments, even though she was sure she was going to be fired every minute! I quite enjoyed, too, the heroine’s evolving relationship with her nephew, who is a very troubled little boy.
This is a relatively quick read, and honestly, I wished it wouldn’t end. It was a book that took to a restaurant to read as I ate my dinner. One of the things I ordered was a bottomless salad bowl, and I think I ordered the last salad round so that I could sit and continue to read this book. I just didn’t want to stop reading. If you enjoy Regency romances that are just a little off from the normal—and with a lot of humor and sparkling scenes between the hero and heroine and her charge—pick up this book. I don’t imagine you’ll regret it.
Coming Home to Glendale Hall by Victoria Walters
Available at Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Google Play, Mondadori, Angus & Robertson, and Indigo (Chapters)
Coming Home to Glendale Hall*
Story of Forgiveness, Family, Hope and Community
This is a complex story about multiple generations and multiple secrets that require multiple plot lines. As I often see in contemporary British literature, the story was slow to unwind. But if you understand this and just go along with it, you might just feel yourself pulled into the complex web of the story like I did. I kept this book off to the side near my computer, and when my computer slowed to a crawl at certain websites, I would just pull this book out and keep reading. I sometimes found that when the site came in, I wanted to continue reading anyway. I often did and even stayed up later than I should have on certain nights so that I could read more.
I thought that the book was perhaps not as cohesive in structure as it could have been. It could have been tighter. I had recently read a similar multi-generation book that had a very controlled structure, and I did like that better.
The book is told solely from their perspective of a daughter who is coming home after ten years away. There were problems at that time that caused her to essentially run away from her family, which I will let you discover for yourself, but her grandmother is dying, so her father asks her to come back for her grandma’s last Christmas. So she and her young daughter return to the family home in Scotland. I don’t want to give too much away, but there are plot lines that have to do with just about everyone in the story: the main hero and heroine of the romance (of course) as well as a side romance, the dissolution of a long-standing relationship, the bringing together of a community that seems to be in its own death throes, and the revelation of several secrets that have a significant impact on several of the relationships. The author definitely put these characters into some tricky circumstances, but she made the characters seem very realistic and relatable. Most of the characters are inherently good people who might have made bad decisions in the past but are trying during the holiday season to make amends and make things right. I think stories of hope, forgiveness, family, and community are perfect for holiday stories, as these themes are such essential elements for the Christmas season itself. If you would enjoy meandering contemporary British literature as I do and heartfelt family stories that are complex and feel so genuine, you may very well enjoy this book.
Gingerbread Bride by Jude Knight
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Gingerbread Bride*
Short Novella Surprisingly Good Read
While I do enjoy quick fiction reads, I find the short format of a novella to be one that appears to be hard to master by authors. Often, rather than writing a story that fits the format, the author feels the need to do an information dump to set up the story rather than let it naturally evolve. Also, there doesn’t often seem to be enough time to develop the characters or the plot fully. Worse, though, is when authors try to shoehorn a novel-length plot into a novella; this makes for more telling than showing, which detracts from enjoyment because we want to get involved with the characters’ emotions or plight. This is hard to do if we are just being told the story rather than shown it through the eyes of the characters. So, I found this book to be a pleasant surprise. We actually do learn some background about the characters very quickly, but it is done within the construct of the hero and heroine meeting again unexpectedly. So we genuinely see that backstory through the character’s eyes as they reminisce mentally when they see each other again. And these reminiscences had some delicious humor that I found highly amusing and which made me smile more than once. (I love to some of these silly words the author incorporated, like collywobbles, as that added to the fun.) The author managed to create two very different but strong characters whose interactions were pleasing to follow.
I didn’t think, though, that the book description accurately reflected the novella. Much of what was stated in the book blurb was actually what happened before the story began. I never like that. I think the book description should match the book. However, when I actually got into the novella, of course, I ended up enjoying the story and characters. The heroine has had a very different past than most heroines in historical romance. She has lived on her father’s ship since she was a child, and she only has now returned to England to live because of her father’s death. She is shipped off to one aunt, who has designs for her son to marry her because they want access to her inheritance. In running away from these machinations to see another aunt, she runs into the hero who just happens to be in the area (right around the time when she is very nearly set upon by ne’er-do-wells. He began working on her father’s ship as a young man, so they’ve been nearly lifelong friends. I loved some of the stories that were recounted about their childhoods. He was not only her rescuer and confidante, but he also taught her how to defend herself when needed. Because the heroine has always seen the hero through a child’s eyes, she does somewhat see him as a knight-in-shining-armor kind of man. So when they meet again as adults, will that turn into something more?
I don’t want to give away too much more away, but I so enjoyed watching the unfolding romance between the two characters. I love how the hero was so protective, even though the heroine could often take care of herself (because of all that he’d taught her earlier). But some rescues aren’t physical ones. I liked how the heroine was very independent-minded and intelligent. If you enjoy short Regency fiction where the heroine is just a little off the norm, you will most likely enjoy this book.