Before I get too far into this review, I want to say right up front that I found Blame it on Bath quite likeable. I do so because the series that includes this book – The Truth about the Duke – is based on a legal issue that, even to my limited knowledge, seems kind of squirrely. That did not ruin my enjoyment of the book, but for those who require scrupulous historical realism, this series might be a challenge.

Captain Gerard De Lacey, the youngest of the Duke of Durham’s three sons, has always respected his father and the care with which he raised his sons after his wife’s death left him with three small boys and a guilty conscience. The source of the guilt was not revealed until the duke lingered near death, at which point he confesses that he was married as a very young man – before he took his title – and separated from this woman without divorcing before he married the duchess. And while this secret has remained unearthed for more than 60 years, in the months before the duke died he was receiving letters from a supposed blackmailer, who, strangely, demanded money to keep quiet but never actually tried to collect it.

Thanks to middle son Edward’s insistence that they confide in his then-fiancée, who promptly broke off the engagement and feed the gossip papers her story, the “Durham Dilemma” has imperiled the inheritance and the passing of the title to the eldest son, Charles (apparently there is a vile distant cousin who would inherit should the sons be declared illegitimate). And since Gerard does not have the patience to wait on the work of the solicitors (I’m not even going to explain this bit, but my understanding after asking a gazillion questions of people much more educated about the historical context of the novel is that there are numerous problems with this whole set up), he decides to pursue the alleged blackmailer himself in the hopes of disproving whatever claim this person might have. He also decides to find a rich woman to marry, in the event that he has to survive on a thousand pounds a year for the foreseeable future.

Katherine Howe has spent nearly a year in mourning for her husband, although it’s less out of love and more out of a desperate attempt to postpone what seems an inevitable marriage to his younger, handsomer, but humorlessly devout nephew, Lucien Howe. A relatively plain woman of thirty, Katherine does have one substantial asset: an inheritance of more than a hundred thousand pounds that her father left to her outright. Katherine’s late husband borrowed a large portion of money from her father, with the Howe estate as collateral, and because he died before Katherine’s father, which means that Lucien, who has inherited the estate, must repay the loan soon or lose the estate. His own lack of financial plentitude means that marriage to Katherine would bring him the greatest profit.

Katherine is no romantic when it comes to marriage, but the thought of marrying the dour and dominating Lucien is more than she can stand. Her mother, a great beauty who is thrilled at the idea of marrying her daughter off to such a handsome young man, is pushing hard for the marriage, as well. But neither knows of the youthful crush Katherine has carried for a young army captain who once showed her a relatively small kindness that represented a level of solicitous concern Katherine had never really known in her life. And years later, when she finds out that the very same captain is now in danger of losing everything he has been raised to expect and work toward, she sees her only chance of escaping the life her family is planning for her.

Gerard has no memory of Katherine, but when she covertly approaches him in the middle of the night at an inn outside of London, he is both surprised and intrigued by her proposition: a marriage of convenience that would, Katherine insists, solve both of their dilemmas. Gerard does not mind that Katherine is not a great beauty, hoping that perhaps she will be a good wife in other ways, and the same chivalrous concern that made him do that kindness for her all those years ago impels him toward seriously considering her proposal, not just for his own sake, but for hers, as well.

So here’s the thing: even as I’m typing that I can see how crazy it sounds. Why would a handsome young man (two years younger than his bride!) who has not yet lost anything marry a relatively plain woman he doesn’t even know? And the book does not, at least for me, manage to make his choice particularly rational, although I was glad to see that Gerard investigates Katherine’s family history to make sure she’s not trying to bamboozle him. I had to take a relatively big leap of faith here, especially since Gerard’s notion of marriage is that it’s for life and that fidelity is a reasonable expectation for both of them unless they truly don’t suit. So why was I willing to take this leap, especially on the heels of the squirrely legitimacy scandal? I think it’s because – in addition to marriage of convenience being one of my favorite devices — I sensed that both characters were honorable and likeable, and I was curious to see how their relationship would play out.

And, as I said at the very beginning of the review, I liked this part of the book quite a bit. First of all, both Gerard and Katherine are responsible adults who believe in personal accountability and understand consequences. Katherine, whose mother is incredibly shallow and vain and whose husband was an irresponsible, inattentive spendthrift, is quiet and serious, and uncertain of Gerard, who reacts to Katherine’s restraint with the fervent hope that still waters run deep, so to speak. When he surprises her with a kiss to seal their bargain, he senses that she’s not very sexually experienced and yet she seems open to the experience. Whatever Katherine’s expectations may be (and she fools herself a little on this point), Gerard is basically hoping for a woman who will be a good mother to his children and an enthusiastic companion in bed. However, Gerard also has his investigative mission to attend to, and as soon as he and Katherine are married, he needs to break the news to her family and get both of them out of London and on their way to Bath.

You would think, given the dramatic context of the marriage and the Durham Dilemma, that Katherine and Gerard’s relationship would be fueled by a relatively high level of drama. That it’s not is probably one of the reasons I liked it so much. What plagues these two is primarily a function of their lack of acquaintance. Katherine, despite the fact that she has been married before, has not had the chance to be sexually expressive — or expressive in any way, really, and therefore she is unsure of what Gerard expects of her. Gerard, who is not used to women being wary of him, sees Katherine as afraid, which makes him hang back a little, as he tries to puzzle her out.

He twisted in his chair to regard her with mild surprise. That rumpled wave of hair fell over his brow again. “We shall have to get to know each other, Kate. You’re always so nervous when I look at you.”

“I’m sorry.” Unconsciously she straightened, smoothing her expression.

He sighed. “There’s no need for that. Don’t shy away from me.”

Katherine didn’t know what to do. “I’m not afraid of you,” she insisted. “Do you think I would have proposed what I did if I feared you? No, I told you I esteem you very highly—”

“There’s a vast gulf between esteem and affection.”

Then, when she sees him arm-in-arm in town with the sister of a friend and fellow army officer, she naturally assumes he has a mistress, as her first husband did. And when Gerard doesn’t automatically open up to her about his investigative mission in Bath, Katherine gets frustrated, which in turn baffles and frustrates Gerard:

Katherine glanced at him. He looked tired but on edge. “Perhaps I can help,” she offered.

“Oh?” One corner of his mouth still curled. “I’m sure you can. Come here, m’lady.”

“No, truly.” She stayed in her chair even when he put out one hand to her. “If you tell me what you’re trying to do, I might be able to help in some small way.”

He dropped his hand. “I don’t think you can.”

She bit her lower lip in frustration. He was growing annoyed, when she was only trying to understand and help. “I don’t want to pry. Different people see things different ways. I feel unable to offer even sympathy and support since I don’t know what you’re trying to do.” “Does it matter?” He cocked his head. “Does one need to know all before offering sympathy and support?”

“It would be nice if you talked to me!” she exclaimed. “You have my sympathy, you have my support, and I have nothing from you!”

His eyebrows shot up at this outburst. Katherine felt her face flush deep, burning red as she realized how much she’d lost her temper. “Nothing?” he asked in a dangerous voice.

She looked at his expression, and the flush spread across the rest of her body. “Well, not—not nothing,” she stammered. “But . . . we don’t talk of anything.

. . .

He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Kate, I haven’t the patience for puzzles now. What do you want?”

I want you to take an interest in me, she thought.

How could one ask for that? “I want to be a good wife,” she said softly.

“Excellent. Come upstairs and show me.”

What a grand joke on her. She had hoped he would warm to her physically once they were acquainted and familiar with each other. Instead he took her to bed and made sweet, wicked love to her without appearing to care to be acquainted at all. She didn’t know how to respond to that. On one level she was deliriously happy with her marriage, but on another, she felt more and more distressed.

For me there was a real sense of relief in reading about two people who wanted to do right by each other but did not completely know how. Katherine soon understands that what she really wants from Gerard is something she might never get, while Gerard is so happy to get what he does from Katherine that he does not think more deeply about his own feelings, or hers, for that matter. She needs to learn how to communicate her emotions more directly, while Gerard needs to get more in touch with his, and that interdependent process creates some friction between them, not all of which kindles desire. The more deeply Katherine falls for Gerard the more embarrassed she becomes by her feelings, while Gerard, who has always enjoyed a kind of popularity and social ease that Katherine has not, becomes more comfortable with Katherine than she does with herself. It’s an interesting dynamic, and one that — while not incredibly deep — has a nice resonance in a relationship that has to grow from the ground up. That Kate does not get a magic makeover and Gerard is a good man but not a perfect husband make the romantic progression of their relationship believable, and it made me want to root for their happiness as equals. It also allowed me to appreciate and enjoy the relationship as a separate entity from the whole Durham Dilemma stuff.

Which brings me back to the historicity of the novel. While I suspected a Regency setting, there was no date that I could find in the book, nor anything substantial locating the novel within a specific year. Linden does have a page online that allows the reader to discern the year in which the novel is set (1810), but this is not a book that I’d describe as historically rich. Still, because the romance itself (outside of the whacky circumstances under which the couple meet and wed) was kind of timeless in its focus on the very real and yet mundanely realistic issues that likely exist in every time period, for the most part Blame it on Bath worked pretty well for me. B

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: One Night in London by Caroline Linden
2. REVIEW: What a Gentleman Wants by Caroline Linden
3. REVIEW: What a Gentleman Wants by Caroline Linden

This is the first of your books I’ve read, and it’s the first in quite a while that I’ve considered applying the mistorical tag to. Given the muddled nature of Regency history in Romance, as well as my insecurity regarding how much I really know that’s true about the period, I decided against tagging the book that way. However, the internal debate is indicative of my overall response to A Rogue By Any Other Name, specifically my inability to feel immersed in the lives of its characters or their world. Despite some likeably competent writing and some truly entertaining scenes, I pretty much stayed at arm’s length from the book and felt unconvinced by the progression of the romance.

At 21, only six years after his parents’ tragic death, Michael, the young Marquess of Bourne lost all of his unentailed property in one hand of vingt-et-un. In a cruel irony, the man who took Bourne’s fortune was the man who helped him build it back over the past six years. So for nearly the past decade, Michael has been planning his revenge against the Viscount Langford, while building the wealth to re-aquire a stretch of land that, for Bourne, seemed to represent his future. As a partner of a notorious London gaming hell, The Fallen Angel, Bourne has the money to buy out most of his fellow aristocrats, but the deed to Falconwell remains elusive. Until, that is, Michael happens into a little bit of luck in Surrey.

At 28, Lady Penelope has had five proposals of marriage, none of which have resulted in a wedding. Her latest, from childhood friend Thomas Alles, was probably the easiest to reject, in part because after being spurned by a duke who went on to marry for love, Penelope would rather be a spinster than unhappily married. And now that her father, the Marquess of Needham and Dolby, has placed Falconwell in Penelope’s dowry, that chance has drastically increased. As much as Penelope would like to marry for the sake of her younger sisters’ matrimonial chances, she cannot imagine how that could ever happen. The one man she wished for has been gone from Surry for almost a decade, and for years her letters to him have gone unanswered (and lately unsent). So when, in the middle of the night, she decides to walk the neighboring land, Falconwell, in fact, she is absolutely stunned to come across Michael, who is equally surprised to see her.

Michael knows that if he lets Penelope go safely back to her home and bed, he will never again have a chance at Falconwell, so instead he basically abducts her to the long-abandoned Bourne estate, ensuring her “ruin” by ripping her dress practically in half and introducing her to the hot pre-marital sexxoring. Penelope, who had long been a young woman of propriety and respect for her parents and the many rules of society, is both incensed and tempted by Michael’s actions. Part of her has always wanted him to love her, and yet, as he makes clear that first night,

“I do not fool myself into thinking that the goal of marriage is happiness for one or both of the parties involved. My plan is to restore Falconwell’s lands to its manor and, unfortunately for you, it requires our marriage. I shan’t be a good husband, but I also haven’t the slightest interest in keeping you under my thumb.”

Still, it is difficult for Penelope to accept that her childhood friend Michael is now this seeming hard, uncaring man bent myopically on revenge, which establishes a difficult dynamic in their relationship early on: she consistently hopes for more, and Michael consistently shows her less. Until he doesn’t. But more on that later.

Some of my favorite books in the genre feature heroes who – through a mixture of traumatic loss and a diminished sense of self-worth – struggle with unaccustomed feelings of emotional dependence on the heroine and, in the process, end up hurting and disappointing her. One of the reasons those books are among my favorites is that the process of successfully redeeming such a man is both torturously painstaking and cathartically rewarding in direct proportion to the degree of alphahole behavior. And for almost the first half of A Rogue By Any Other Name, Michael is one serious alphahole, telling Penelope over and over again how incidental she is to his twin goals of Falconwell’s restoration and revenge against Langford, leaving her for days at a time, seducing and abandoning her without a word, etc. Standard alphahole behavior, in other words.

For her part, Penelope is tired of living in response to the whims of men, and if she cannot have the kind of happiness in marriage she once imagined, she can use the position her new marriage affords her to secure good matches for her sisters. She bargained that deal with Michael the first night he took her to his abandoned estate and convinces him that it will go much easier if they convince everyone they have a real love match. And unfortunately for Penelope, Michael is an incredibly good actor, which adds to Penelope’s confused feelings, her stubborn hopefulness, and the disappointment she feels when Michael reminds her, for the umpteenth time, how uncommitted he is emotionally to their marriage. It’s not until Penelope decides to take the freedom Michael’s disinterest offers her more seriously – making a late might trip to The Fallen Angel to explore Michael’s world – that her own marital fortunes change.

The character trajectories of Penelope and Michael are clear: as she becomes more independent of will, he becomes more connected emotionally, and thus they ultimately grow together. Because this is a Romance, we know they will end up happily and in love, so the main mystery in the story is how Michael will resolve his revenge plans, which implicate not only Langford, but also his son, Tommy, the mutual childhood friend of Michael and Penelope. Penelope, of course, does not want Tommy to suffer for Langford’s betrayal and Michael’s righteous anger, which creates a good deal of emotional tension between her and Michael, who is alternately jealous of his wife’s desire to protect Tommy and resigned to seeing himself as unworthy of Penelope.

Unfortunately for me, that tension around Michael’s revenge and his feelings for Penelope were just not enough to emotionally invest me in the story. Part of the issue was the way the two protags evolved. Penelope, for example, is initially introduced as this reasonable, proper young woman who has always put her responsibilities first and who even failed to stand up for herself when her thoughtless younger sister, Olivia, makes snide comments about her marriage prospects. And then suddenly she’s walking around outside – alone! – in the middle of the night, pursuing the strange light that turned out to be Michael’s lamp, demanding he take her home and then letting him have his wicked way with her. It wasn’t that I disliked her; it was more that I felt a fundamental lack of consistency in her character that made it difficult for me to trust her. I found myself annoyed at her constant waffling between dreaming of Michael falling in love with her and being let down by his alphaholery. And yet, despite the lack of consistency, she possessed a predictability that further distanced me. There was one point where Michael offered her an adventure, and I think I actually yelled out loud at the book, “Don’t say you want to go to the gaming hell!!!!!,” right before she did, indeed, say she wanted to go to the gaming hell.

Still, my bigger issues are with Michael, who spends at least 200 pages in alphahole mode, only to flip like the coin he gives Penelope as a marker when he promises to help her sisters. What facilitates the flip? Among other things, a late night therapy session at The Fallen Angel with his business partners, who tease and goad him, challenge and, when all else fails, brawl with him in service of getting him to see what he’s missing by spending all his nights at the hell. Now don’t get me wrong: this was one of the funniest, not to mention, truly unexpected, scenes in the book – all these tough guys gossiping like women and trying to get Michael in touch with his suppressed emotions. But the whole thing seemed kind of crazy to me, as well, both in its character and effectiveness. Like Penelope, I was taken aback at Michael’s change of heart, although unlike her, I was more unconvinced by the way it happened than by the fact that it did. After all, I expected that. Unfortunately, the process was unexpected in a way that made it feel more cartoonish than authentic to me. Even Michael’s backstory left me with questions: what happened to his entailed property while he disappeared from society? Didn’t he had many people who were counting on him to be responsible and take care of them? Did the Bourne manor house sit on Falconwell, and if so, why was it not part of the entailed property? And with so much property lost to Langford, why was it just Falconwell Michael wanted so badly? Part of me was never able to see Michael as the good guy, because I had no sense he felt there was anything wrong with taking off  for a decade after he had lost what he perceived to be “his future.”

I think, in the end, it was this combination of clichéd predictability and eccentric inconsistency that kept me from loving the book. Where I wanted more unpredictability – in how the characters developed and reacted and evolved – I felt it was too superficial, and where I wanted consistency, I felt like I got artificial shifts that propelled the plot forward. Instead of the plot serving the characters, it felt to me as if the characters served the plot, and I think they really suffered for it. I felt this even extended to some of the historical details. For example, I’m certainly no Regency expert, but I understand that gambling and cards were quite popular among men and women. And yet one character in the book boisterously insists he won’t deign to play cards with a woman, and vingt-et-un is basically described as a man’s game, in order, I think, to ramp up the dramatic tension of the scene. And while I understand that the book is set in 1831, it still feels very much a Regency Romance to me.

I cannot say, though, that I would not read another MacLean historical, as the writing was likeable, and at some points, really quite nice, especially some of the descriptions of The Fallen Angel:

Penelope had never seen anything so stunning as this place, this marvelous, lush, place, filled with candlelight and color, teeming with people who called out obscene bets and rolled with laughter, who kissed their dice and cursed their bad luck.

Perhaps my reaction would have been different had I read the book containing Penelope’s backstory. I will soon find out, as I will likely read Pippa’s book, as her match is quite an interesting choice. For A Rogue By Any Other Name, though, a C.

~ Janet

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Related posts:

1. REVIEW: The Season by Sarah Maclean
2. REVIEW: Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke’s Heart by Sarah MacLean
3. REVIEW: The Curious Rogue by Joan Vincent

I was on vacation last week but was emailed by a reader that an RWA chapter in Oklahoma known as Romance Writers, Ink. was refusing same sex romances entry into the chapter contest. As I understand it, chapter contests are fundraising endeavors. The chapter membership voted and based on a majority feeling uncomfortable with these types of stories. Ironically, the readers judging don’t seem to mind as m/m romances have won before.  That has to be the last straw, right? That not only are there books that feature sexual acts between same sex people but those books are winning over heterosexual love stories.

My initial response was that I didn’t feel that Dear Author could do anything to assist in this matter given that a) RWA has banned me and b) I don’t think the board responds well to any suggestion a reader might make, particularly one that they kicked out.  Authors like Suzanne Brockmann and J.R. Ward may have influence and given that they write m/m in their mainstream books would be the right people to advocate for change within their own organization.  Brockmann did make a strongly worded statement on her Facebook page.  But what kind of change? I’m not sure. My understanding is that RWA chapters are largely autonomous.

RWA could condemn the action or at least make some provision that contests cannot exclude books that meet the definition of romance (which no longer says one woman and one man). Problematically, it has been the chapters who have been more progressive than RWA, accepting m/m and digital books long before RWA accepted them. (I’m not sure that RWA does accept digital books that don’t have a print companion)

Courtney Milan’s suggestion of shunning the contest makes sense, but given that the judges are readers, it is unlikely that agents, editors, and writers refusing to judge would make a difference. Milan also suggests that aspiring writers not enter the contest which would likely have more impact given that the chapter contests are about making money. Money, and the possible reduction of it, leads to a lot of change.

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Another distressing thing that happened last week was the Susan G Komen foundation’s defunding of Planned Parenthood followed by the reversal of its decision which seems on the surface to mean that PP would be funded in the future but could easily be defunded again based on the wording of the new policy.

It brought to mind the issue of the pink (breast cancer), teal (ovarian cancer), and other ribbon oriented promotional campaigns.  The pink ribbon has been a huge driver of merchandise.  Publishers use it (and others) and authors use charities as promotional vehicles.  On the one hand, it is for a good cause and on the other hand, the use of a deathly illness for promotion makes me a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t always feel this way, but after reading about the documentary of “pink washing” I’ve been a lot more skeptical about how much good these ribbon / charity promotional campaigns are actually doing.

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The U.S. is going digital for textbooks if the government has anything to say about it.

The problem is that they clearly don’t mean a flat PDF or EPUB: “We’re not talking about the print-based textbook now being digital. We’re talking about a much more robust and interactive and engaging environment to support learning,” says Karen Cator, director of the Education Department’s office of education technology. No, they want the whole interactive thing, too. “When a student reads a textbook and gets to something they don’t know, they are stuck,” Genachowski said. “Working with the same material on a digital textbook, when they get to something they don’t know, the device can let them explore: it can show them what a word means, how to solve a math problem that they couldn’t figure out how to solve.” Cator says that students should expect video explanations to help with homework, to be able to rotate and move 3D molecules, or use a globe to explore the news

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Avon sent me this email:

At Avon right now, we’re on a quest to find our biggest super readers—we’d like to reward them for being such devoted “Avon Addicts” with special monthly packages containing advance copies of forthcoming books to read and share with friends; fun promotional items (swag!), and other goodies. We will send our Addicts early copies of hand-selected Avon, Avon Impulse and Avon Red titles, with a special invitation to write blurbs and mini-reviews of these books on the Avon blog.

What qualifies someone to be an Avon Addict? They can name all of the members of Avon’s most famous families, such as the Bridgertons and the Cynsters. They once curled up under the covers with a Kathleen E. Woodiwiss classic, flashlight in hand, hoping their parents didn’t find them reading after lights-out. Their favorite sports teams are the Chicago Stars and the Seattle Chinooks. They think Bones the sexiest vampire alive.

Would you mind helping us spread the word about our search? Potential Avon Addicts are invited to apply for the program here: http://goo.gl/KNjyL.

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• Once a Ferrara Wife by Sarah Morgan * $2.70 * A | BN | K | S
• Too Proud to Be Bought by Sharon Kendrick * $2.70 * A | BN | K | S
• Fiancee for One Night by Trish Morey * $2.70 * A | BN | K | S
• Meddling with a Millionaire by Cat Schield * $2.72 * A | BN | K | S
• A Savage Betrayal by Lynne Graham * $2.74 * A | BN | K | S
• Public Marriage, Private Secrets by Helen Bianchin * $2.78 * A | BN | K | S
• A Treacherous Seduction by Penny Jordan * $2.80 * A | BN | K | S
• Marriage on the Edge by Sandra Marton * $2.80 * A | BN | K | S
• Slade Baron’s Bride by Sandra Marton * $2.80 * A | BN | K | S
• More Than a Mistress by Sandra Marton * $2.80 * A | BN | K | S
• The Greek Billionaire’s Innocent Princess by 2.55 * * A | BN | K | S

Related posts:

1. Monday News and Deals:
2. Monday News & Deals: Tablet and eReader Ownership on the Rise
3. Monday News and Deals: Publishers Glum About Digital Future

Avon

• Sins of a Wicked Duke by Sophie Jordan * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• A Duke of Her Own by Eloisa James * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Lost Duke of Wyndham, The by Julia Quinn * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Mad About the Duke by Elizabeth Boyle * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• At the Duke’s Pleasure by Tracey Anne Warren * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• The Duke’s Night of Sin by Kathryn Caskie * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Sins of a Duke by Suzanne Enoch * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Beauty and the Duke by Melody Thomas * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Never Dare a Duke by Gayle Callin * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Duke of Sin by Adele Ashworth * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Devil’s Bride with Bonus Material by Stephanie Laurens * $0.99 * A | BN | S | K
• A Seduction at Christmas by Cathy Maxwell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Insatiable by Meg Cabot * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Scent of Shadows, The by Vicki Pettersson * $0.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Nightwalker by Jocelynn Drake * $0.99 * A | BN | S | K

• Rides a Dread Legion by Raymond E. Feist * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Shaman’s Crossing by Robin Hobb * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Stupidest Angel with Bonus Material by Christopher Moore * $3.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos * $7.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Red Hot New Year by Diana Mercury Denise Rossetti Virginia Reede Cynthia Eden * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Helping Me Help Myself by Beth Lisick * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Now You See Him with Bonus Material by Eli Gottlieb * $0.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Phoenix Rising by Pip Ballantine Tee Morris * $0.99 * A | BN | S | K
• White Tiger by Kylie Chan * $0.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Every Which Way But Dead with Bonus Material by Kim Harrison * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Warlord with Bonus Material by Ted Bell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Earth Strike by Ian Douglas * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• The Breach by Patrick Lee * $0.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire * $3.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Wicked with Bonus Material by Gregory Maguire * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Doomsday Key and The Last Oracle with Bonus Excerpts, The by James Rollins * $7.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Winning by Losing by Jillian Michaels * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson * $0.99 * A | BN | S | K
• A Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• The Heir of Night by Helen Lowe * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon * $2.99 * A | BN | S | K

Sourcebooks

• A Secret in Salem by Sheri Anderson * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• When Harry Hit the Hamptons by Mara Goodman-Davies * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Pemberley Chronicles by Rebecca Ann Collins * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Darcys & the Bingleys by Marsha Altman * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Perfect Timing by Jill Mansell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Miranda’s Big Mistake by Jill Mansell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Offer You Can’t Refuse by Jill Mansell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Millie’s Fling by Jill Mansell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Rumor Has it by Jill Mansell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Take a Chance on Me by Jill Mansell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Staying at Daisy’s by Jill Mansell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• World from Rough Stones by Malcolm Macdonald * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Highest Stakes by Emery Lee * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Kingmaking by Helen Hollick * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Greatest Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Immigrants by Howard Fast * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Mr. & Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy: Two Shall Become One by Sharon Lathan * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Skipped Parts by Tim Sandlin * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Hawk of May by Gillian Bradshaw * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• God Is an Englishman by R. Delderfield * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Child of the Northern Spring by Persia Woolley * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Weekend with Mr. Darcy by Victoria Connelly * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Plain Fear: Forsaken by Leanna Ellis * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• It Was Over When by Robert Elder * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Best Little Stories from the Civil War by C. Brian Kelly * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Killer Book of True Crime by Michael Philbin Tom Philbin * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• 50 Ways to Hex Your Lover by 0 * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
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• A Duke to Die For by Amelia Gray * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• In Over Her Head by Judi Fennell * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• The Highlander’s Sword by Amanda Forester * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• The Fire Lord’s Lover by Kathryne Kennedy * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Cowboy Trouble by Joanne Kennedy * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• One Fine Cowboy by Joanne Kennedy * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
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• Certain Wolfish Charm by Lydia Dare * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• To Conquer Mr. Darcy by Abigail Reynolds * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• The Goblin King by Shona Husk * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Making Waves by Tawna Fenske * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Love Drunk Cowboy by Carolyn Brown * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Always Magic by Patricia Rice * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Demons Prefer Blondes by Sidney Ayers * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Legend of Michael by Lisa Renee Jones * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• What a Goddess Wants by Stephanie Julian * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Cowboy Fever by Joanne Kennedy * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Awaken the Highland Warrior by Anita Clenney * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Return of Black Douglas by Elaine Coffman * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Wickedly Charming by Kristine Grayson * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Taste Me by Tamara Hogan * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Heart of the Highland Wolf by Terry Spear * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• It Happened One Bite by Lydia Dare * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Cover Me by Catherine Mann * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Heir by Grace Burrowes * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Merlin’s Harp by Anne Crompton * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Beautiful Dead Book 1: Jonas by Eden Maguire * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K
• Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach * $1.99 * A | BN | S | K

Related posts:

1. Monday Midday Links: Sourcebooks Gears Up a Big Sale
2. Wednesday Midday Links: Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch, Nook Tablet All Ship Early Plus Deals from Avon
3. DA Weekly Deals: 29+ Books Under $2.99

• Any Man of Mine by Rachel Gibson * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo
• Waking Up With the Duke by Lorraine Heath * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo
• The Seduction of Scandal by Cathy Maxwell * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo
• A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo
• What a Duke Wants by Lavinia Kent * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo
• One Night in London by Caroline Linden * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo
• In Total Surrender by Anne Mallory * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo
• The Norse King’s Daughter by Sandra Hill * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo
• Every Scandalous Secret by Gayle Callen * $4.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo

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2. Nook Tablet v. Nook Color v. Kobo Vox v. Kindle Fire Comparison
3. Monday Midday Links: New Nook Tablet

This book faltered in the beginning for me and never recovered. The female protagonist is Sue Ann, and in the previous books, Sue Ann has appeared happily married to Jeffrey. At some point between book 3 and book 4, Jeffrey fell in love with another woman and confesses his feelings for this woman to Sue Ann. Sue Ann is devastated by Jeffrey’s emotional infidelity and they ultimately divorce. Sue Ann’s emotional wounds are furthered by seeing Jeffrey swanning about town with his new love who isn’t even younger or more beautiful than Sue Ann.

Sue Ann runs to an isolated cabin and there she ends up with Adam Becker, the male protagonist in the book. As if there is some romance code that all main protagonists who find themselves alone must immediately copulate, Adam and Sue Ann fall upon each other.

Interestingly, Adam admits that his wife left him because of his cheating. Sue Ann excuses his actions because his wife, according to Adam, had disparaged his manhood, and so one lonnely night, Adam succummbed to the advances of another woman. He only kisses her, though.

The exploration of the concept of cheating and physical infidelity versus emotional infidelity could have been fascinating (and is the subject of this movie where Keira Knightly character is emotionally unfaithful where her husband is physically unfaithful one evening). Unfortunately, Sue Ann shows the introspection of a gnat and immediately points out that Adam is the aggrieved party and thus his physical infidelity is excusable.

The focus on the book, though, is that everyone isn’t what they look like on the outside. From the outside, Sue Ann and Jeffrey’s marriage looked perfect and happy. Even Sue Ann thought she had a good marriage until she confronted Jeffrey about being distant. Adam is the town nice guy. He’s the image of the All American Boy Next Door. But he’s been unfaithful. He’s portrayed as short tempered. He has a difficult relationship with his ex wife and he misses his sons.

Again, this is an interesting concept yet I felt like little was done to explore it. In the end, there are no surprises. Jeffrey becomes villanous, I suppose in an effort to elevate the romance between Adam and Sue Ann as being truer and more ever lasting than any romance that the other shared with someone else previously.

The concepts and conflicts presented in this book were brought up and then discarded without much inspection. This could not have been exemplified more than by the first sex scene beetween Adam and Sue Ann. Neither of them looked at the other with any sexual interest previous to their cabin share. It’s a thoughtless action and didn’t read as if it was passion fueled. There seemed plenty of internal monologue going on, rather that two people who lost their heads in an impulsive action. I.e, right before they jump each other, Sue Ann thinks:

Not that she could really think of Adam in a sexual way. He’d been her friend for too long and she wasn’t wired to make that sort of switch.

Blake, Toni (2011-10-25). Holly Lane (Kindle Locations 667-668). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Sue Ann’s conflicts consist primarily of her thinking about how sexy Adam is despite the fact that she has to enter the work force for the first time in years and must make a living wage for herself and her daughter. In sum, she has greater worries (or should have) than thinking about how sexy some guy is. That the majority of her internal monologue is given over to whether she can withstand Adam’s sexiness is a bit of a head scratcher.

Oh my God, I’m alone with Adam again. But that was okay, she told herself. You’re strong, you’re capable, and everything’s going to be fine. After all, it was a twenty minute ride back to Destiny, not wild monkey sex.

Blake, Toni (2011-10-25). Holly Lane (Kindle Locations 2038-2041). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

At this, though, Adam unexpectedly cast another of those slightly sheepish—albeit very sexy—looks. “Not really. If you’d been around me an hour before I delivered your tree today, you’d have run for cover.”

Blake, Toni (2011-10-25). Holly Lane (Kindle Locations 2098-2099). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Get out of the truck. You have to. You can’t afford to risk your heart again this soon—you just can’t. Sure, you can tell yourself it’s just sex, but there’s really no such thing as that. Sex comes with emotions—deep ones you can’t push away.

Blake, Toni (2011-10-25). Holly Lane (Kindle Locations 2166-2168). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

It’s not like he’s asking you to wear his class ring and letterman jacket, for God’s sake. This is sex. Good sex. Pure and simple. Why shouldn’t you let yourself have that? “I want that,” she heard herself murmur.

Blake, Toni (2011-10-25). Holly Lane (Kindle Locations 2172-2174). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

I’ve had sex now. Twice. I have a life again. Sort of, anyway. And maybe that was part of what took the edge off seeing Jeff tonight. Still, that sex was fraught with so many mixed emotions that she could barely keep up with the constant push/pull of it in her own mind. In some ways, she still wished she could let herself trust in Adam and consider letting this thing with him go somewhere.

Blake, Toni (2011-10-25). Holly Lane (Kindle Locations 2541-2545). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Maybe this book was about Sue Ann’s sexual awakening, but it seemed set up as Sue Ann becoming independent after her divorce. Instead of creating an independent woman I found her to be sex obssessed, more focused on wondering whether she should sleep with Adam than creating a life that was separate from a man.

Sue Ann and Adam do have interesting discussions on how they failed in their own marriages and agree that marriage is a work in progress where both parties have to be committed to making it work. Although I did think that this exchange between the two exemplified their relationship:

“Be careful,” she teased, smiling now, “or I might decide I need a fix-it man to whip things into shape around here and take you up on that.”

“I’d be happy to be your fix-it man, Sue Ann,” he told her smoothly, his voice going a bit deeper, his eyes once again making her feel as if he’d actually reached out to touch her—and she felt that invisible touch everywhere. Whoa.

Blake, Toni (2011-10-25). Holly Lane (Kindle Locations 3943-3947). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Maybe the focus on Sue Ann’s physical feelings toward Adam would have been more appealing had she already established a life separate from her former husband. Instead, I felt the setup of “on my goodness, I’m on my own” didn’t match up with the ending which was “I’m afraid to fall in love again.” Mostly, though, I found the internal monologue dull and I had a hard time maintaining my interest. What readers may enjoy is the small town setting and the ordinary person feel. No billionaires here and no crazy hijinks that require suspension of disbelief. The rediscovery of love after a failed attempt is also an enjoyable storyline. It didn’t work for me, though. C

Best regards,

Jane

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: One Reckless Summer by Toni Blake
2. REVIEW: Tempt Me Tonight by Toni Blake
3. REVIEW: Healing Heart by Thom Lane

Today Avon and Dear Author are giving a holiday gift to the readers of Dear Author in celebration of the publication of “A Bite Before Christmas“, a two story anthology from Lynsay Sands and Jeaniene Frost. (I almost called the two of them “vampire mavens” but as I was typing it out I realized it was horrible and deleted it. Then I thought I would share with you the horrors of my undeleted thought process!)  NOTE: This Giveaway is for ONE HOUR ONLY.  This contest is now closed.

THE GIFT by Sands is an original novella featuring yet another Argeneau. This time Katricia Argeneau finds herself stranded in an isolated cabin with police officer Teddy Brunswick. There’s only one problem: Teddy has worked with the undead before, and while he’s got no qualms about fraternizing with vampires, getting intimate with one was never on his personal wish list.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS from Jeaniene Frost is a novella featuring Cat and Bones. Christmas may never be truly normal for Cat and Bones…but their Yuletide plans are shattered when a not-so-jolly stranger comes to call. He comes not bearing gifts, but with tidings of long-buried family secrets. The holidays can be killer.

Avon is giving away a $200 AMEX giftcard to a random person who can answer the following question. Enter the answer in the form. (We are trying to be a little clever here by preventing the commenters from copying each other even though, lord knows, the answer is right here. Obvious. Apparent.)

Your clue:

This puppy shares a name with the hero in Lynsay Sands “The Gift” in A BITE BEFORE CHRISTMAS

• Bones
• Harper
• Kat
• Teddy

Again, Your prize: $200 Amex gift cert, PLUS a signed copy of THE BITE BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

Your next stop should be SmartBitchesTrashyBooks whose prize is a Coach bag and a $50 GC.  That contest will run beginning at 3 PM CST/4 PM EST.

Related posts:

1. J.D. Robb Scavenger Hunt material
2. REVIEW: Blue Christmas by Mary Kay Andrews
3. REVIEW: Father Christmas by Barbara Metzger

I picked this one up when I realized I hadn’t read many historicals lately. This is the first in a three book series involving the de Lacey brothers who discover that their recently deceased father may have been a bigamist threatening their standing in society and their inheritances. Edward, the second son, has been managing the estates of the Duke of Durham for some time and thus it falls to him to see to securing the legal claim to their estates while his younger brother searches for the blackmailer. The eldest, and new Duke of Durham, appears to be a dissolute do nothing (I’m sure he’ll have some dark secret to regale us with in his own book).

Edward’s plans however, upset those of Francesca, Lady Gordon who is trying to retain a solicitor to assist her in obtaining guardianship over her dead brother’s daughter. When Francesca’s solicitor abandons her case to help Edward, she flies into a rage and confronts Edward, demanding that he compensate her loss by assisting her obtaining a new solicitor. Her fiery demeanor incites a passion in Edward that has been heretofore undiscovered.

The story starts out with Edward engaged to Louisa, a gently bred woman with whom he is in love. Despite his brothers’ urging to NOT divulge their scandal to Louisa, Edward does.

Edward nodded. “Agreed, except . . . I must tell Louisa.”

“Louisa!” Gerard frowned. “Must you?”

“How can I not?” Edward frowned back. “She deserves to know.”

His brother looked unconvinced. “I know you care for her, but I suggest you reconsider. You’ll have to put the wedding off because of Father’s death, but there’s no need to tell her of . . . this.”

“Gerard, she is my fiancée,” Edward replied, each word coated in ice. “I cannot keep something like this from her.”

Gerard hesitated. “Perhaps you should, if you want to keep her as your fiancée.”

Edward stilled. “I will pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said quietly. “Louisa is a woman of understanding and discretion. Moreover, she is the woman I love, and the woman who loves me. I wouldn’t dream of keeping such a terrible secret from her.”

Of course, Louisa doesn’t keep his secret, breaks their engagement and sells the story to a scandal sheet. From that point on, Edward spends most of his thoughts contemplating Francesca’s beauty:

Now that he was staring at her, he seemed unable to stop. His eyes roamed over her face, beautifully flushed, and her gleaming hair, so glorious against her skin. The other day, when she railed at him for stealing her solicitor, she’d been magnificent, in the manner of an avenging Fury. Francesca Gordon in a passion was quite a sight. The little devil that had invaded his mind tonight couldn’t stop comparing her to Louisa, who went pale and silent in emotional upset. Francesca—he really mustn’t become accustomed to thinking of her as such—reacted with anger and action. She stormed his house, the home of a total stranger, and upbraided him for inadvertently ruining her hopes. She said she would never forgive him, and smiled wickedly when he called her a managing female. By God, one could have a rousing good row with a woman like this, and then. . .

In fact, it isn’t until 43% of the book (mine was a digital arc) that Edward ponders Louisa’s betrayal, this woman that he loved so greatly that he could not countenance keeping such a secret from her. I think Francesca may have spent more time contemplating Edward’s loss than he did. This bothered me a great deal during the first half of the story. So much of the first half is Francesca and Edward thinking lustful thoughts about the other and that just didn’t fit. Shouldn’t Edward have felt a twinge of hurt, after all, he referred to Louisa as his “idealized model of womanhood” and despite this passage in the middle of the book, his broken engagement has little affect on him.

It hurt too much to think of the woman he had loved, honorably and faithfully, betraying his confidence and jilting him without a qualm. He wanted to know why. He wanted to demand she explain herself, even though he had no desire to repair the breach now. He wanted to know how he could have been so deceived in her character; he had thought her loving and loyal, trustworthy enough to hear his darkest secret and keep it so.

On the one hand, I am supposed to believe that Edward was deeply in love with Louisa. On the other, I’m to believe that this emotion can be cast off in a matter of hours and transferred onto Francesca. Once I gave up thinking about this, I appreciated the story once more. In other words, if I, like Edward, totally forgot about his prior love and Louisa altogether, I enjoyed the romance between Francesca and Edward.

I liked that Francesca, a widow, had a prior good marriage. There were definitely surprises that occurred in the second half that I hadn’t anticipated and that added a level of poignancy to the story. The dispute over the dukedom was set up well and read very plausibly. There was one scene in which Edward was yelling at Francesca for acting dangerously when she kissed him to shut him up which I thought was a nice gender reversal. I actually found the agnst free way in which they embarked on their affair was refreshing and I enjoyed how completely they enjoyed each other.

Having said that, I never saw Francesca as a lively, passionate woman outside of Edward’s previous experience. Sure, she showed a strong desire to be a mother to her niece, but that just didn’t seem very “fiery” to me. And Edward’s character wavered between kind of uptight in the beginning to completely unfazed about having his affair with this widow be well known amongst society. In short, I never got a good handle on either character. I didn’t feel like I knew them. I felt more like their actions were played out according to what the scene dictated rather than having the scene dictated by their characters. Both characters are perfectly likeable, but not very real. C

Best regards,

Jane

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

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2. REVIEW: What a Gentleman Wants by Caroline Linden
3. REVIEW: What a Gentleman Wants by Caroline Linden

You are well known for your cute toy filled book trailers (Stud Club Trilogy / Maya Banks’ Highlander Trilogy) and I was tempted to do a lego review for this book. After all, I have a castle.

I bought some canons.

I have minifigs where the girl’s boobs look like they are busting out of her top like any decent romance heroine.

I don’t have a carriage but I did debate buying one. I have cows though which can depict a gentle, pastoral setting.

But alas, my Lego helpers have abandoned me for other things.

A Night to Surrender is the battle of the sexes story. It’s a very cute and sweet romance. At times, I just wanted to squeeze the book it was so darn adorable.  However, the battle of the sexes stories are notoriously difficult to do because you have to make sure that you don’t demonize one sex in order to elevate the other. On the macro scale, I thought you were less successful in portraying this because the entire story is about how this bucolic retreat for women was made better by a male outsider coming in and changing the male/female dynamic. On the micro scale, I felt that the two protagonists were portrayed as much more balanced.

Spindle Cove has gained the reputation as a retreat for women, so much so that it is called Spinster’s Cove by some (a term probably coined by a male to be derisive). But Spindle Cove is a safe place for women to come. Susanna Finch is the daughter of the only local “gentleman”, Sir Lewis Finch, albeit an ignored daughter, and is the leader of her community. She is revered by both the men and the women. A gentlewoman by the name of Mrs. Highwood is considering sending her three daughters to stay at Spindle Cove. Susanna realizes that the bookish Minerva and the slightly asthmatic Diana whose treatment at the hands of male hacks has led her deeper into illness could do very well at Spindle Cove where they would gain self confidence and good health. Susanna’s plans to enfold the Highwood girls into the town’s embrace is placed in jeopardy by the arrival of Lieutenant Colonel Victor Bramwell. Bram plans to convince Sir Finch that Bram is fully capable of going back into battle despite his gimpy right knee.

Sir Finch is a “celebrated innovator of fireams and artillery”, is an advisor to the royals, and as such has enormous pull with the British military. A recommendation from Sir Finch all but guarantees Bram’s return to active duty.  Bram believes that his place is life is one of a soldier.  It’s all that he knows how to do and it’s how he measures his self worth.  Not soldiering feels like a diminishment to Bram.

Bram is then tasked with mounting a 24 man militia to march in the midsummer year’s fair. Bram eagerly accepts this challenge before realizing that finding 24 able bodied men to serve in the militia in Spindle’s Cove may be more difficult than spotting comets without a telescope. His cousin says that there are no men in Spinter’s Cove what with the women in the town completely emasculating anything that may have balls and stalk between their legs. Bram, however, is completely undone by a smart woman and Susannah with her talk of battle strategies and her competency with a gun nearly has Bram swooning.

The introduction of Bram, Colin, and their manly men set the town a flutter and none of the ladies can talk of anything else.  While some the book is a clever poke at societal expectations such as when Bram is told that he should marry and raise a family and give up soldiering, something undoubtedly told to hundreds of girls, there is also an unconscious undertone that something is wrong with Spindle Cove.  Before Bram comes to town apparently none of the men could stand up to Susanna and thus their tavern is turned into a teahouse and the smithy is not banging out horseshoes and swords but fashioning clasps on lockets. The truth is that Susanna is a good leader and the overt text of the story acknowledges this toward the end.

The story is funny and charming. The sexual tension between Susanna and Bram is immediate but believable. Susanna and Bram, both individually and together, are sharp and fulsome characters. There are no wasted scenes and the dialogue is snappy. I also felt that Susanna and Bram made a great couple and that their strengths and weaknesses overlapped. The story is very romantic with both characters making big gestures (and Bram making the biggest).

But I admit that throughout the book I felt uncomfortable. The idea that you seem to be heralding is that a balanced community is better than an unbalanced one, i.e., that everyone will be happier if the men are integrated in a equal fashion with the women. I think that this worldbuilding works better on a grander scale as in a science fiction where the entire world is unbalanced.  When the Cove, however, is one bastion of retreat for women where they can come and be judged not on the basis of their ability to pour tea and bear offspring, but on their intelligence and capabilities, does it really need to be changed? “They included the sickly, the scandalous, and the painfully shy; young wives disenchanted with the wrong men…All of them delivered here by the guardians to whom they presented problems, in hopes that the sea air would cure them of their ills.” The book goes on to say “No ‘cures’ were necessary. They didn’t need doctors pressing lancets to their veins, or daily doses of poison. They just needed a place to be themselves. Spindle Cove was that place.” Did Spindle Cove need to change? It seemed like a question that was never asked, let alone, answered. The absence of that debate, particularly given the stance of the leading female protagonist (aka heroine) was one that made this book a B- rather than a B.

Best regards,

Jane

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Surrender of a Siren by Tessa Dare
2. REVIEW: Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare
3. REVIEW: A Lady of Persuasion by Tessa Dare

1) Connie Fischer who won the Liz Carlyle package

2) misty who won the Loretta Chase package

3) Jess who won the tech package.

Thanks to Avon for sponsoring the giveaway.

Avon is sponsoring a giveaway for the Dear Author readers to celebrate authors Loretta Chase and Liz Carlyle.  The giveaway features a red Vera Bradley tote with the entire backlist of Liz Carlyle and a purple Vera Bradley tote with the entire backlist of Loretta Chase.  For those digital readers, Avon is giving away a gift card and a purple tech case.   You can find out more about Avon romances at Avonromance.com, “like” them onFacebook, or follow them on Twitter.  The giveaway is limited to US and Canada residents.

Loretta Chase recently hit the New York Times list with her famous, Lord of Scoundrels.  She has a recent release, Silk Is for Seduction (reviewed here), that is widely available in print and digital. Chase is one of the DA favorite authors.   Liz Carlyle’s next release, The Bride Wore Scarlet, was just released last week.  The heroine is the daughter of Max de Rohan who starred in his own book No True Gentleman.  From Carlyle’s first book, My False Heart, an entire network of families have been created and Carlyle is now writing the second generation of those families.  It’s been fascinating to watch the ebb and flow of the connections.

Chase and Carlyle have some of the richest backlists out there and this is one giveaway that I wish I could win.  To enter, leave a comment stating your favorite trope or theme in romance.  This contest will close on Friday noon CST.  Here are the titles for Liz and Loretta for the Vera Bradley promotion.  All non-Avon titles (bolded) have been provided by the authors.

Loretta Chase

• Don’t Tempt Me
• The Last Hellion
• Last Night’s Scandal
• Lord of Scoundrel’s
• Three Times a Bride (anthology)
• Not Quite a Lady
• Silk is for Seduction
• Your Scandalous Ways
• Captives of the Night  - digital gift
• Royal Weddings Anthology – digital gift
• The Lion’s Daughter
• Lord Perfect
• Mr. Impossible
• Miss Wonderful
• The Sandalwood Princess and Knaves’ Wager
• Viscount Vagabond and The Devil’s Delilah
• Isabella and The English Witch

Liz Carlyle

• One Touch of Scandal
• The Bride Wore Scarlet
• The One that Got Away (Anthology)
• The Devil to Pay
• Beauty Like the Night
• No True Gentleman
• The Devil You Know
• Big Guns (double with Sherrilyn Kenyon)
• The School for Heiresses (anthology)
• Wicked All Day
• A Woman of Virtue
• Three Little Secrets
• One Little Sin
• Two Little Lies
• Tea for Two (double with Cathy Maxwell)
• A Woman Scorned
• Never Deceive a Duke
• Never Lie to a Lady
• Never Romance a Rake
• Tempted All Night
• My False Heart   - digital gift
• A Deal with the Devil

Related posts:

1. WINNER of the Stephanie Laurens Backlist & Vera Bradley Bag
2. GIVEAWAY: Signed Stephanie Laurens Backlist & Vera Bradley Bag
3. Winners of the Caroline Linden and Loretta Chase books

Anyone who follows you, me or Jane on twitter or who read this probably caught the tempest in a teacup over the disappearing book. For those who haven’t a clue as to what I’m referring: Jane was looking all over for Blood of the Wicked, and realized that she probably sent it to me. I checked through my Pisa-like tower and didn’t see it. That afternoon, what should Paul the postman (yes, that really is his name) show up with? A package containing one item (a rare occurrence): your book! Well, after all the back and forth, I decided I had to read it, even if I’m not a huge fan of witch stories.

Jessie Leigh is a witch, and in the world of New Seattle witches are hunted and killed. Jessie and her brother Caleb have been on the run their entire lives, hiding their abilities and trying to blend into the grimy underbelly of a shiny stilt world. They support each other through thick and thicker until one day Caleb disappears and even Jessie’s talents can’t help her locate her brother. Jessie continues to lay low in the deep dredges of the city hoping that something will lead her to Caleb, but finds herself face-to-face with Silas Smith.

Silas is a missionary, a branch of the Holy Order of St. Dominic that locates and exterminates witches before they do any further damage to the world crumbling around them. His latest mission is to find and kill Caleb Leigh, and Silas is sure he’ll be able to manipulate Jessie into helping him. He has no idea that Jessie is a witch too and she isn’t going to enlighten him. Of course, when eyes meet eyes…they can barely talk because they’re so busy drooling over each other.

I sighed with relief when Jessie immediately staged an escape attempt from Silas. Yeah, she may have a hoo-hah (and it may even be magickz!) but she isn’t letting her libido lead her into utter stupidity. Jessie keeps her eye on the prize; stay out of the hands of the Order and find her brother alive. Silas and Jessie trek down into the depths of Old Seattle and find the remains of a blood ritual (and if you’re not comfortable with CSI I suggest that you skim this part of the book) and Jessie realizes that her brother is up to his neck in trouble. As they run, hide and try to figure out what they and Caleb are entangled in, they fall for each other but Jessie’s secrets are going to come out eventually.

I had some real problems with this book but I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even when I decided to put it down for a while (eh, a day is a while for me). But we’ll get there in a minute. Let me tell you about our H/H. Jessie is well written and I really loved her character. She’s physically vulnerable and knows it, and without Caleb she’s a bit lost but refuses to let herself fall into despair. Staying on an even keel when you can’t trust anyone around you and are hiding what you are seems nearly impossible and Jessie doesn’t just take it in stride. Her constant struggle is obvious. I can’t imagine living a life looking over my shoulder every few minutes. Her attraction to Silas is a major distraction. She initially attempts to fight it, but even after she’s swept into it, she doesn’t loose sight of her need to protect herself and her brother.

Silas is somewhat rock-like on the outside. He’s getting older and realizes that the aches and pains he has are new and the Order is going to bench him soon. On the inside Silas is a mess of guilt and confusion and sexual frustration. Silas worked for the Order his whole life and very reluctant to question any of the demands or rules, both because he believes them and because he’s fearful that he’ll loose his reason for getting up in the morning. He’s attracted to Jessie but thinks that there can’t be anything there because of the needs of the Order (yeah, he’s kinda clueless here and I did have a bit of an issue with that). When he has his lightbulb moment it’s ugly and at the same time I was nailed to the page as I watched the blinders get ripped off him. I think I could fall for him too.

The post-apocalyptic New Seattle reminded me of a cross between Blade Runner and Judge Dred (the comics, NOT the movie…oy). The divisions between upper- mid- lower- and Old Seattle are well described, and the entire place seems treacherous. A lack of guard rails, or any sort of safety measure is one of those things I love with any post-apocalyptic world. While parts of the world-building are well done, I have two issues with the book. First, I wish there had been a little more on exactly how the witches were responsible for the apocalypse and what, exactly, was the apocalypse. I have a vague understanding of the Earth splitting open, but that’s about it. Second, I would love to understand why the Holy Order of Saint Dominic ended up with all the power, and a little more on how the Order works. This may have been explained in the novella, but a few lines or thoughts worked into the beginning of the book would have helped me from feeling lost at times. Frankly, I wanted more world. A lot more world. But since I just couldn’t put the book down it’s a B for me.

~ Shuzluva

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony| KoboBooks

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Before the Witches by Karina Cooper
2. REVIEW: Jessie’s Girl by Amber Scott
3. REVIEW: What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss

Carrie Feron is the Editorial Director at Avon.  Avon publishes approximately eight original print romances and four digital-first titles each month .  Morrow Trade is a companion line that publishes a mix of women’s fiction and romance.  Avon Impulse is the digital first arm of Avon.  The same team that works on Avon books, including the editorial, production and marketing staff, work on Avon Impulse books.

Another non Avon author to join the Avon Impulse line is Lena Diaz writing the romantic suspense / thriller, “He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not,” on-sale 8/9/11.

Related posts:

1. Interview with Heather Osborn, Samhain Editorial Director
2. Meeting with Alicia Condon, Editorial Director of Kensington
3. Interview with an Editor Series: Liate Stehlik, Publisher, Avon

$1.50 if just 20 people purchase the deal
$1 when 50 people purchase the deal
$0.75 when 100 people purchase the deal

Simone & Schuster participated in a Groupon a while back causing indie booksellers to be upset. I’ve seen HarperCollins and maybe Random House (can’t recall exactly) put up their books at discounts through sites like GiltGroupe and Ideeli.

Of course, if it is an ebook deal, then it probably excludes the Agency 6 publishers.

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Rankings, in part, are what some authors are relying upon to measure whether their ebook sales are being reported accurately on their royalty statements. This has led me to wonder about the validity of the rankings by retail businesses and how that is affecting sales.

Getting in the top 100 list on either Barnes & Noble or Kindle can mean a great deal for authors. Amazon has a mix of self published and traditional published titles, but curiously almost no erotic romance. Bella Andre, for example, is earning $116K per quarter yet her highest Kindle ranking is in the 4,000s.

Over at Barnes and Noble, however, the list seems every more, um, non organic. Of the 100 titles, only 7 of them are under $5.00 and none are priced under $4.00. It does not appear that there are any PubIt! titles on the list (although I may have missed one or two. None of the below $4.47 or up titles were self published).

Once you get past the 125 book mark on the BN top list, you start seeing a slew of $.99 books.

Emails to BN and Amazon regarding their lists have been unanswered thus far.

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Pottermore is the hot new site around. All that is known about it is that it is related to Harry Potter and brought to you by JKRowling’s empire. PaidContent got a hold of some alleged Pottermore screenshots which suggest that there might be an online store that will be selling ebooks. HP ebooks direct from Rowling?

Rowling has been notorious for not allowing the HP books to be digitized. Yet, she was quoted as saying, “However, there are times when e-books are a Godsend.”  We’ll all know in a week.

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Over in the UK, Avon signed an exclusive deal with a grocery store chain to sell three titles:

Trisha Ashley’s novel Sowing Secrets and Beverly Barton’s Amnesia will sell exclusively in Sainsbury’s physical and online stores from July and The Perfect Christmas by Georgie Carter will be available from September. All three books are published by Avon, a division of HarperCollins, which credits the supermarket with a “clearly defined focus on sourcing great seasonal products for their customers”.

This would be similar to Avon signing a deal with Wal-mart so that you had to go to Walmart or Walmart.com to buy a book.  My eyebrows are raised.

******

Writerspace.com was hacked and a list of its members, their emails and passwords were released on the internet.  If you haven’t changed your password, do so immediately.  Also, people, do not use the word “password” as your password.  Apparently writerspace stored their emails in a plain text file versus an encrypted file (kind of like Sony).  WordPress stores passwords as an MD5 hash, in case you were wondering about what is going on here at DA.

Related posts:

1. Tuesday Midday Links: Sunshine Deals Making a Big Impact
2. Wednesday Midday Links: Classic nook for $79
3. Monday Midday Links: It’s Release Time Again

When Jane sent me the arc of your upcoming book “Just Like Heaven,” I was torn. On the one hand, it’s a Julia Quinn book and I’ve adored so many of your past books. On the other hand, some of your most recent books haven’t worked for me. I think the last one I even tried turned out to be a DNF. “But,” said my self, “It’s a Quinn. And look at the back blurb – it’s got Bridgertons. And Smythe-Smiths!” Well, that did it for me. As Lady Danbury says, someone’s got to clap for those poor girls.

Marcus Holroyd is very much like any other Regency nobleman. His parents conceived him then basically left him to nurses and tutors to raise. He went to Eton and there met Daniel Smythe-Smith who befriended Marcus and invited the lonely young boy home for holidays where he became almost one of the boisterous Smythe-Smith clan. The youngest sibling by far was Honoria, who tried to tag along with her beloved brother and Marcus but who, as young sisters are wont to do, usually ended up getting in the way.

Now everyone is all grown up and due to a duel and a vengeful father, Daniel has had to flee to Italy. But before he leaves, he makes Marcus promise to look after unmarried Honoria and screen her suitors. After a year of this, Marcus is tired of glowering at fortune hunters while Honoria is puzzled at her lack of suitable marriage offers. Daniel’s disgrace has sent his widowed mother into a tailspin and Honoria is desperate to escape the pall over her family name and the move her mother intends to make to boring Bath.

When Honoria travels to a friend’s country estate near where Marcus lives with the intention of scouting for husbands there, the two meet up again. Due to one of her schemes, Marcus ends up injured and if not for Honoria and her mother, would have died. It’s during the difficult nursing that the scales finally fall from their eyes. However in true romance novel fashion, Honoria discovers Marcus’s pledge to Daniel and misinterprets Marcus’s intentions towards her. She and her mother return to London and the upcoming annual Smythe-Smith musicale. Can Marcus convince Honoria that he loves her for herself and not some silly pledge? Can Honoria get her cousins to practice the difficult piece for the upcoming event? And will the invited London ton be able to find enough cotton to stuff their ears and survive another “musical” offering from the women of the Smythe-Smith clan?

As I read the book, it dawned on me that not much actually happens in these Bridgerton offshoot books. Not much plot-wise anyway. It just seems like a lot of nattering on and wittering about and screwballish type internal and external dialogue. On and on, natter, natter, natter. This worked better for me when it’s Marcus and Honoria interacting but less well when Honoria is talking with her friends or female cousins. Those later conversations tend to slump into almost childish “Did not!” ” Did too!” ” Did not!” ” Did too!” exchanges. I half expect one of the characters to end it by sticking out her tongue.

I know I should remember who some of the background and incidental people are throughout the book and at the performance. I remember Lady Danbury and obviously Colin and Gregory Bridgerton plus Penelope’s sister but some of the others have escaped my memory after this many years since reading those books. Who is Miss Wynter? In her martial attempts to arrange marriages, Mrs. Royle is a force to be reckoned with. Were I a young man of good family, I’d be ducking and dodging from the likes of her too.

Ah, the state of medical care at the time. Abysmal is too kind a term. But what didn’t kill Marcus got him a wife so all’s well that ends well. I found this section to be the most interesting and enjoyed the moments when Honoria’s mother pitches in and saves the day. There’s real meat to the narrative and less dithering. Intense emotions instead of circular talk, talk that does little to advance the plot and seems to serve only to get some laughs.

The romance is more the “can’t see what’s under your nose” type. Both almost simultaneously realize their true love but of course it takes a while before they finally get together. I do love Marcus defending Honoria against Mr. Grimston – charging into the public eye, which he hates doing, then forcing a real apology. The public proposal, while sweet as honey, doesn’t come off as very believable for the time but then compared to the whole book, it’s about as believable as the rest of it. I also puzzled that there isn’t more about Honoria’s red shoes given the fact that they are featured in the cover art. It’s not that anyone except Marcus notices them and then only after Honoria told him about them. Maybe they, along with the shared love of chocolate cake, are supposed to be quiet thing only between Marcus and Honoria.

“Just Like Heaven” is the closest thing so far to a backstage pass for a Smythe-Smith musical performance. Honoria seems to have figured out the true meaning of it all. It’s family, it’s tradition, it’s togetherness and that is why I can see her evolving from “we’re terrible” to “it’s my cousins and me” to “I can’t wait until my daughters are up on that stage.” I can just see great granddaughters doing a ragtime version as their family grit their collective teeth and cheer them on.

While the book doesn’t reach the level of enjoyment I’ve gotten from my favorites – “Romancing Mr. Bridgerton,” “The Viscount Who Loved Me” or “The Duke and I” – it’s nice to revisit the relatively harmless world of Bridgerton London. It is what it is and that is a pretty soap bubble that floats and entertains. Maybe there will be more substance to Daniel’s story, which I assume is coming at some point. This one leaves me with a genial smile even if ultimately I probably won’t remember much about it. C+

~Jayne

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony| KoboBooks

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: The Duke and I by Julia Quinn
2. REVIEW: Mr. Cavendish, I Presume by Julia Quinn
3. REVIEW: On the Way to the Wedding by Julia Quinn

In your first book, Claiming the Courtesan, I really liked the mix of angsty melodrama with a fresh review of some well-worn genre stereotypes. That mix of old and new kept me reading your books, but with this new one, Midnight’s Wild Passion, it seems the novelty has worn off. I’m not sure whether that’s because I’ve become more accustomed to your voice and your style, or because this new book just doesn’t have the same freshness of some of your previous releases, but either way, Midnight’s Wild Passion was just not wild or passionate enough for me.

Lady Antonia Hilliard has lived for ten years as Antonia Smith, chaperone to the lovely Cassandra Demarest, who is currently enjoying her first season in London.  Her disguise gives her the appearance of unattractive invisibility and her prickly demeanor keeps anyone who might otherwise be curious away – she is known as “the dragon of chaperones.” Well, anyone but Nicholas Challoner, the reprobate Marquess of Ranelaw, who seeks out the lovely Cassandra as part of a family revenge plot, but quickly perceives that the bigger prize might be the deceptively plain chaperone. Who is this imperious young woman and why does she feel the need to hide behind obscuring spectacles and an ugly cap? And why does every encounter he has with her feel like a promise of something challenging and lusty?

It’s not until Nicholas breaks into Antonia’s room that either of them begin to understand the depth of their mutual attraction, which Nicholas is more than happy to encourage but which Antonia will do almost anything to stem – including taking a fireplace poker to Nicholas’s face and head. Antonia, you see, is in her current fix because she let her passions run wild a decade ago, with a young friend of her brother’s who promised to marry her but merely ruined her and left her, penniless and disgraced, in Italy. When Antonia’s father refuses to have her back, she is forced to fend for herself, and has spent the past ten years grateful that her cousin, Godfrey Demarest, recognized her on the way back to England and took pity on her, offering her a place in his home. The same Godfrey Demarest who was, in his own youth, responsible for ruining Nicholas’s own sister, and on whom Nicholas now seeks revenge.

Writing this all out makes me realize how much I like this set-up. First there is the link between Antonia as the young woman who was ruined and Nicholas as the once-helpless brother who had to watch the same happen to his sister. Adding in the fact that Nicholas represents exactly the kind of man who ruined both Antonia and his sister generates just enough irony to promise some great angst and drama.

If this were an older book, Nicholas would likely remain a diamond-hard rake until the last paragraph; however, the road Campbell chooses here is both more interesting and more difficult. She starts to transform Nicholas somewhat early in the novel, which nicely advances the romantic connection between him and Antonia but undermines the dramatic tension around the revenge plot:

“Antonia, stop it.” He abhorred her desolation and the corroding shame beneath it. With sudden violence, he ripped off her spectacles and flung them onto the desk. “I don’t care that you’ve had a lover.”

“If that’s true, you’re the only person in Creation who doesn’t,” she said bitterly. Her eyes were glazed with betrayal and misery…

He grabbed her shoulders and fought the urge to shake some spirit back into her. Dear God, why couldn’t she be angry? He couldn’t endure this biting sorrow. …

“What does it matter? You know the most important fact. That I’m a whore.”

“Antonia, my darling,” he groaned, and dragged her against him, lifting one hand to press her head into his shoulder. His gut coiled with crippling grief. Her suffering shredded him to ribbons, The protectiveness he’d always refused to acknowledge surged like a boiling wave. He’d rather cut off his own arm than hear her denigrate herself. “Don’t do this.”

Anyone who has read an Anna Campbell book will recognize the dynamic here: the heroine is a “fallen” woman who is ashamed of her sexual passion, and the hero is put in a position where he is trying to free her to enjoy her sexuality (with him, of course). In terms of the book’s plot and character development, it creates a dilemma, because as long as Nicholas remains a cruel rake, the more dramatic tension the reader experiences as he pursues his revenge and threatens to ruin – again – Antonia. But keeping him on that road also makes it difficult to sustain sympathy for him or to forge and trust on the part of the reader that Nicholas and Antonia make a suitable romantic couple. And yet, in bringing him down the path of softening and of bringing him to a recognition of his own emotional needs, it also undermines a lot of the built-in revenge plot tensions.

Without spoiling some of the ways in which Campbell attempts to re-infuse that tension into the book (and there are several that prevent interesting possibilities and challenge the pattern I expected as I was reading), I will say that even as I admired the introduction of an interesting twist, increasingly I felt like these twists were being thrown into the path of the speeding plot, diverting my attention for a time but ultimately leading me back to the same question of how the promised conflict was going to be sustained or replaced in a way that keeps me glued to the book, waiting for the impossibly possible resolution. The last twist felt particularly out of left field, and I am still not completely certain why it was included outside of its ability to effect a final resolution of the love match. Also, I’m still not certain why Antonia must maintain her disguise for a decade, especially since very few people knew who she was before her scandal (her family is from a remote part of Northumberland), and much of the plot relies on that presumption. And strangely, when I look back on the book it seems like not a great deal actually happened, despite (or perhaps because of?) the many paragraphs were devoted to the mental lusting, the mental shaming, the mental blaming, and the mental misgivings and fears of what could happen.

Part of the issue for me was that I never felt that Antonia and Nicholas transcended stereotypical characterization. Antonia was the strong woman who had been brought low by circumstances and shackled to an unjust shame from which the hero’s love and desire must release her. Nicholas was the passionate rake with a sad, dark story who is shackled to an unjust sense of worthlessness from which the heroine’s love and desire must release him. And while Nicholas actually seems to precipitate much of his own character growth (a welcome change), the fact that much of Antonia’s shame is discharged through Nicholas’s urging was troubling to me. On the one hand I’ve enjoyed this theme in other Campbell books because it seems to cut against the whole virtue = virginity equation you still see in more than a few Romances, but on the other hand I find it problematic that the heroine does not really make this transformation through her own agency. And because I never felt that the novel challenged me to see more in these characters, I felt the subversive potential was ultimately eclipsed by genre stereotyping.

I do find some of Campbell’s word choice and sentence structure fascinating, largely because I’m often goaded into wondering whether certain phrases are needlessly complicated or even sound. For example, while I liked this phrase very much – “[h]e carried mayhem in his soul” – this one – “[f]oreboding oozed an icy path down her backbone” – presented me with a conflict between frozen ice and oozing liquid. And I experienced that back and forth throughout the novel, which further distracted me from the substance of the story and the characterizations instead of plunging me recklessly into the passion and the wildness.

While I did not think Midnight’s Wild Passion was a bad book, for me it just did not shine. C

~Robin

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony| KoboBooks

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Claiming the Courtesan by Anna Campbell
2. REVIEW: Claiming the Courtesan by Anna Campbell
3. REVIEW: Untouched by Anna Campbell

Normally, I’d tell you to pay no attention to the (wo)man behind the curtain, but today I’m letting you in, lifting the veil, spilling all of my secrets — my editorial ones, that is.

I’m going to take you through the editorial process from soup to nuts or, in this case, acquisition to publication. And I’m going to use a real life example — Debut Author Lecia Cornwall’s Secrets of a Proper Countess (browse inside the book), due out in April!

Submission

The first time I heard about this project was when I received a pitch email from the agent in October 2009. Now, this was an agent I’d worked with before and who I knew had taste that was similar to mine so I took a quick look at the pitch letter. Since I knew that I liked her taste, I was pretty sure that I was going to at least enjoy the manuscript, whether it was right for my list or not. And she definitely hooked me with the words “a sexy and dangerous Regency story.”

Side note: Now that I’ve been at Avon for a while, I’ve been able to build up relationships with particular agents who have similar tastes. It means that they’re able to pinpoint specific project that they know I’ll like and I’m able to triage my submissions. Often, if you pay attention to these kinds of things, you’ll see editors who have multiple projects with a particular agent (as I now do with Lecia’s agent as a matter of fact). It’s similar to how you’re more likely to take book recommendations from someone whose taste you trust and who knows what kinds of books you like, than from someone you’ve only just met.

Back to the submission process. After I read the manuscript and really liked it, I asked Amanda, one of my colleagues, to take a look as well. It’s always good to have more than one voice when I go in to talk to our editorial director and Amanda has an incredible eye. By this point, it’s mid-November now and the agent is “closing” on the book soon. That basically means she’s set a deadline and we have to make our offer by a certain date. Luckily, with Amanda’s support, I get the green light to make an offer.

Acquisition

And just like that I’m part of an auction. I make my offer and set up a time to talk to Lecia and tell her some of my editorial ideas. This is one of my favorite parts because it makes me feel like those good old days of publishing we’re always hearing about are not over. Because this is when my editorial ideas matter. And how we get along matters. And how much passion I have for the project matters.

Here’s the thing, no matter how much money I might offer, if my suggestions don’t line up with what the author is willing to do, or if she and I are completely unable to communicate, then we shouldn’t make the deal. It reminds me that it’s not just a business but that who the writer is and who the editor is are intrinsically tied into the success of the book. If we don’t connect then it’ll be that much harder to make a success together. I also like to think that if we find that we’re kindred spirits and we share a similar vision for the book and the author’s career, then we will all do everything in our powers to make the deal work.

In this case, I think it’s safe to say that the conversation went well. It helped that Lecia is Canadian and I have a longstanding love for all things Canadian. But I’m sure that’s not the only reason…

Waiting

Now we wait. Because we’re planning so far in advance, the deal that we’ve just made means the first book won’t come out until April 2011. That’s about a year and a half later. I imagine this must be an incredibly frustrating time for authors (but also a good time to work on book 2!) as they live in limbo until about 9 months before the book goes on sale. That’s when the fun begins.

Editing

The editorial process is different for every book, every author, and every editor. My own particular brand involves lots of post-its that eventually resolve themselves into long letters. For this book, the hardest part of the editing process was the cutting. The manuscript was a bit too long and we worked a lot (poor Lecia!) to make it perfect. In my humble opinion, we did a great job! You’ll all have to let me know in April.

Title and Cover

Meanwhile we had to come up with the perfect title and cover. Secrets of a Proper Countess was originally submitted as Unmasking the Countess. We generally have two meetings to talk about covers. The first is just with the editorial team when we brainstorm ideas and talk about titles. The second is with our brilliant art department who makes our vague desires (something pretty, and mysterious, and bright enough to pop off the shelf, and interesting, with beautiful people) turn into incredible reality.

At our first meeting it was decided that “Unmasking” wasn’t a sexy enough word. The sounds are a bit harsh and wouldn’t necessarily look very pretty on the page. Yes, we actually think about how the individual letters of the title will look on the page. We also wanted something that would describe the book a bit better. Thus Secrets of a Proper Countess was born. (Actually, we had at first wanted to call it Secrets of an Improper Countess but, as the author correctly pointed out, the heroine isn’t an “improper countess” at all. That’s the whole point of the book. So we chose “proper.”)

Our art director, armed with the descriptions of the characters, pulled a gorgeous and mysterious cover out of thin air and we had a book.

And then we wait again. Hoping that all of our hard work will translate into a smash when the book comes out in April.

Voila. That is my main part in the publishing process. Sure, I completely left out the sales, marketing, and publicity but I can’t go spilling all of the state secrets! Yet-

Now I’m off to read Lecia’s book 2.

Hope that helped dispel some of the mystery surrounding the editorial process- but not too much. Can’t start having my authors believe that I’m not a magician.

Follow me on twitter @TessaofAvonlea and at www.AvonRomance.com if you want to get more insight into the publishing process.

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Secrets of a Proper Lady by Victoria Alexander
2. Free Sherrilyn Kenyon Book to Promote the Publication of Asheron’s Book
3. Avon’s Fan Lit Ready for Publication

READER: Western Reader Roundup
Date: Wednesday April 6, 2011 01:00 pm – 02:00 pm

READER: "He's A Pirate" Treasure Hunt
Date: Wednesday April 6, 2011 02:15 pm – 03:15 pm
Event Type: Reader Author Meet Ups

At RomCon, these Reader Author game/meet ups were very popular.   Sarah Wendell, Angela James, and I will be doing our eReader roundup so if you are at the conference and wondering what ereader to buy, stop in during the session. We’ll be talking about what to look for in an eReader and we should have all the latest devices for you to try out.   I’m not sure when the session is, but as soon as I do, I’ll post it.

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This post has been updated with official EC response:

Ellora’s Cave’s pricing at retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble has been outrageously high.   This is because EC’s existing contracts pays royalties based on the cover and if EC lowers the retail list price then (according to how the contracts are structured) EC would lose money on the sales at third party retailers.   The stated goal is to lower prices but “adjust royalties so that EC makes no less than it does now and the author makes more that currently due to increased sales.”   The internal email goes on to state that ten authors have been recruited to test a lower price point with a reduced royalty rate of 30% cover price. At the lower price, EC will need to have “at least two-and-a-half times more sales from the vendor sites to compensate for the lower per-sale income.”

We're starting with around 150 titles from 10 test authors who have agreed to participate for a limited time period (3-4 months, starting in April). We'll keep the cover price on our website the same as it is now, but dramatically lower the MSRP to third-party vendors (Amazon, B&N, etc.). If the new pricing/royalty structure increases sales enough to make it viable for authors and the company, we will offer it to all our authors.

For “backlist” books (books that are two years or more older and whose sales are “less than several hundred”), the cover price will be reduced both at the EC site and the retail sites.

We will lower the MSRP and cover price of older books (more than two years old) that are selling less than a few hundred a year. That's a huge undertaking because our backlist is so large, so we'll do that by genre, starting with our smaller genres. That will take most of our books down to far below $10 and many to $5 and below.

Current Cover/MSRP — New Cover/MSRP
7.99 / 15.98 — 5.99 / 11.98
6.99 / 13.98 — 5.24 / 10.48
5.95 / 11.90 — 4.95 / 9.90
5.20 / 10.40 — 4.20 / 8.40
4.45 / 8.90 — 3.45 / 6.90
2.49 / 4.98 — 1.99 / 3.98

For UK Kindle pricing,

Kindle is now offering publishers the option to set a specific GBP price per ebook, and is very strongly encouraging that this price be low enough to offset all or most of the VAT. We have just signed the contract for this, and will be working on pricing, setting a lower UK price than US price for the ebooks

Generally, EC will be discontinuing its free online reads as they don’t see a monetary uptick in sales as a result of the free reads.   (EC had free reads?).   No official comment from EC was given when contacted.

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I am not sure what to make of this and I couldn’t find any information on Diesel’s website, but Diesel and Macmillan have announced a partnership.   At first I thought this meant that Macmillan would be using a Diesel powered digital purchasing site to sell directly to the consumers. But now I believe that Diesel is cutting out Ingram or Overdrive.   For these smaller retailers (and for Harlequin), the content is actually housed on an Overdrive or Ingram server where the magical DRM takes place.   This way, Diesel can cut out the fees paid to Overdrive/Ingram by serving those files directly to the consumer. This is what Amazon and BN does.

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Avon Impulse.   We have an ad for Avon Impulse, but I had no idea what it was for until Monday.   I thought it just was meant to direct readers to the Avon blog.   Instead, Avon Impulse is a digital publishing arm of Avon.   From the Smart Bitches site:

Where will Avon Impulse titles be sold?

Our Avon Impulse e-books will be available at every e-tailer, and readers will be able to download them onto every portable reading device sold today-and tomorrow, too. Readers who seek a hard copy of individual Avon Impulse titles will be able to lay their hands on physical books, thanks to a print-to-order option available through major online book retailers.

Do Avon Impulse authors get an advance? What is the royalty rate?

Avon Impulse will not pay an advance, but authors receive 25% royalties from the first book sold. After an e-book sells 10,000 copies, the author's royalty rate rises to 50%. (Contracts will provide royalties for both e-book and print-to-order copies.)

ETA: Pam Jaffee confirms royalty is based on net.

I had to do a little math, but 25% of the net with agency is about 17.5% of the cover price and 35% at the 50% net assuming, of course, that bookseller fees are the only thing that reduces the net.   There is no mention of word count, price of books, length of contract.   Maybe that is all negotiable. I did see on Twitter that they are looking for westerns, steampunk, historicals, and erotic romance.

Also from Sarah’s site came the word that the books would be DRM’ed.   Unsure about georestrictions. I’ve emailed for clarification.   UPDATE: From Avon: “The plan is for Avon Impulse e-books to be delivered everywhere around the world where English-language novels are sold.”

More from the press release:

The line launches with A LADY'S WISH, an original e-novella by Katharine Ashe; on-sale 3/15/11; and then features ROYAL WEDDING, a historical romance short fiction anthology by Stephanie Laurens, Gaelen Foley and Loretta Chase,   timed to coincide with the nuptials of Britain's most beloved young couple.   Later in the season bring four releases from Lavinia Kent and a prelude to Karina Cooper's Avon debut, Blood of the Wicked.   Jaime Rush launches a brand new series with a   digital short; and a full-length paranormal romance novel by author Kristin Miller will be released in the summer.

Avon Impulse is currently in the acquisition and production process for e-books to be published in 2011 and 2012.   "We are actively looking to acquire for Avon Impulse," says Feron.   Authors looking to submit to Avon Impulse can find guidelines and an online submission portal at www.avonimpulse.com.   "We are looking for quality submissions across every romance subgenre," says Feron.

Avon Impulse e-books will be made available at all online retailers, everywhere in the world where English-language e-books are sold.   For those seeking a hard copy of individual Avon Impulse titles, print-to-order books will be available from online book retailers.

I read that the line will publishing one ebook a week.

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If you are a Kobo user and worried because of the Borders reorganization, you’ll be happy to know that Kobo secured another round of financing.   The amount is undisclosed but investors are interested in seeing Kobo grow.

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I’ve been struggling with the decision over whether to purchase the iPad 2 or try out an Android tablet or maybe even wait for a Windows tablet.   Unfortunately, the Xoom (Android and Motorola’s answer to the iPad) is getting so so reviews and its far more expensive that the iPad.   My hopes of acquiring another tablet with a different OS were further crushed by the news that Microsoft doesn’t even intend to enter the tablet market until the fall of 2012. Guess I will be shelling out for the iPad 2.

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The rumors regarding free Kindles to Amazon Prime customers are heating up.   Amazon customers who pay $79 per year receive free 2 day shipping on any product that is “Prime Eligible” which is a lot of stuff. I love my Prime membership and it pretty much pays for itself during Christmas (the free shipping can be directed to any US address not just your own).   I don’t see any benefit of it now, but I could see something like this near September and October as Amazon gears up for the Kindle 4 and the 2011 holiday shopping season.

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The RNA Pure Passion Awards were handed out yesterday.   Romance Novelist Association is the UK form of RWA.

• Winner of the 2011 Romantic Novel of the Year – The Last Letter from your Lover by Jojo Moyes
• Winner of the Historical Novel Prize – To Defy a King by Elizabeth Chadwick(Dudettes, it is $2.39 on Kindle!)
• Winner of the Romantic Comedy Prize -   Take a Chance on Me by Jill Mansell

Related posts:

1. Wednesday Midday Links: Amazon Ups the Ante
2. Monday Midday Links: Sony Drops eBook Reader Prices
3. Wednesday Midday Links: Discoverability of Digital Backlist Titles

I have had kind of an on-again, off-again relationship with your books. I adored Like No Other Lover but was pretty meh about The Perils of Pleasure. So when I saw What I Did For A Duke on NetGalley, I figured I'd give it a shot but had no particular expectations about the book (nor risks, thanks to the genius that is NetGalley). Which may be why I was swept off my feet so thoroughly by Genevieve and Alex, who were similarly surprised by the strength and depth of their feelings for one another. Like the lovers themselves, this book, What I Did For A Duke, was a passionate, witty, emotionally satisfying surprise.

Genevieve Eversea has always been certain that she would marry her best friend, Lord Harry Osborne, and that her forever happiness would be secure. So when he informs her, at the beginning of one of her family's weekend house parties, that he intends to propose to their mutual friend, Millicent, Genevieve is completely unprepared for the crushing sense of loss and confusion she must cope with in the midst of this social gathering. To make it worse, no one, it seems, can see that something is drastically amiss with Genevieve, which is likely due to her habit of holding herself in tight control, especially as compared to her passionate, beautiful sister, Olivia, next to whom Genevieve seems much more serious and practical.

Except that Alexander Moncrieffe, Duke of Falconbridge, can see what everyone else cannot, namely that Genevieve has suffered some terrible emotional blow and that said blow seems to have come from the direction of the affable, handsome Harry Osborne. Of course, Alex is paying the closest possible attention to Genevieve because she is his target of revenge against her brother Ian, who very recently cuckolded Alex and precipitated the end of his engagement to a lovely but apparently faithless woman. But in paying the closest possible attention to this woman virtually half his age, Alex is struck by something unexpected: Genevieve is not at all who others seem to believe she is. And in that moment of insight he realizes something even more astounding: he likes Miss Genevieve Eversea and is strongly attracted to her:

In truth, his eyes were on the stairs. He waited with the patience of a cat near a mouse hole for Genevieve Eversea to arrive.

He almost didn't recognize her when she did appear.

Her dress was a glossy silk of midnight blue, cut very low, and the "sleeves" – really scraps of net – clung to her pale, flawless shoulders, as though she'd tumbled down through clouds to get here and brought a few shreds of sky with her.

Her neck was long. Her collarbone had that smooth pristine temptation of a bank of new-fallen snow. It was interrupted only by a drop of a blue stone on a chain that pointed directly at quite confident cleavage, as if the owner knew full well it was splendid and was accustomed to exposing it. Her sleek dark hair was dressed up high and away from her face, and tiny diamanté sparks were scattered through in it. Her face beneath it was revealed in delicate simplicity. A smooth, pale, high forehead, etched cheekbones. Elegant as Wedgwood, set off by that dark, dark hair and those vivid eyes.

He stared.

He wasn't precisely . . . nonplussed. Still, this particular vision of Genevieve Eversea required reconciling with the quiet girl in the morning dress, the moor pony with the determined gait. As though they were not quite the same thing, or were perhaps variations of the same thing, like verb tenses. He felt a bit like a boy who needed to erase his morning lessons and begin again.

There are many images in this description that play again and again throughout the book. Genevieve and her passion for Alex are compared to celestial objects, often in conjunction with fire imagery (frex the height of the flames in the fireplace are a good gauge of Genevieve's desire). Colors play an important role in properly understanding emotional undercurrents and true feelings   – at one point Alex sends Genevieve an enormous "profusion of roses, the heads of which were nearly as pulsatingly crimson and large as actual hearts," a perfect match for the "urn stuffed full of astonishing flowers in a profusion of oranges and crimsons" Genevieve has "invented" in her embroidery (and which her mother mistakes for flowers her sister Olivia has received).   And the detail in which Alex renders Genevieve as she walks down the stairs parallels Genevieve's own love of art and the ongoing exchange (and eventual inside joke) she has with Alex on the differences between Veronese, Botticelli and Titian's portrayals of Venus and Mars:

"As a young man touring the Continent, I once looked at length at a painting called Venus and Mars by an Italian painter called Veronese. Do you know it? Venus is nude as the day she was born, and Mars is entirely clothed and down on his knees in front of her, and it looks as though Mars is about to give her a pleasuring. And there are cherubs hanging about. I looked at it for quite some time."

. . .

"Do you . . . know of a painter called Boticelli?" She sounded tentative.

"I do, in fact. But vaguely."

"I think he isn't rated highly enough. I enjoy his grace of line, the light infusing his subjects."

Moncrieffe knew a subtle thrill. He'd thrown out a temptation, a subtle invitation. She'd recognized it and taken it up. "And I have seen his Venus and Mars," he added. "Ironically, in it Venus is entirely clothed and Mars, the poor bastard, is sprawled looking as though she's just had her way with him and he's spent."

The subject of passion, and even more how it should render us "spent," is a subject in which Genevieve has had very little experience, but about which she finds her curiosity, well, inflamed. And Alex has lit the match. For example, early on Genevieve learns the difference between the kiss on the hand that Harry once offered her (and that she has cherished since as the height of passion) and a real kiss between a man and a woman:

"A proper kiss, Miss Eversea, should turn you inside out. It should . . . touch places in you that you didn't know existed, set them ablaze, until your entire being is hungry and wild. It should . . . hold a moment, I want to explain this as clearly as possible . . ." He tipped his head back and paused to consider, as though he were envisioning this and wanted to relate every detail correctly. "It should slice right down through you like a cutlass with a pleasure so devastating it's very nearly pain … It should make you do battle for control of your senses and your will. It should make you want to do things you'd never dreamed you'd want to do, and in that moment all of those things will make perfect sense. And it should herald, or at least promise, the most intense physical pleasure you've ever known, regardless of whether that promise is ever, ever fulfilled. It should, in fact . . . " he paused for effect " . . . haunt you for the rest of your life."

When I think about what happens in the book, the answer is both very much and very little. Very much occurs inside Genevieve, who is initially so overwhelmed at Harry’s news that she walks around in a fog, attempting to evade the very persistent and obtrusive Moncrieffe. And quite a bit happens around Genevieve and Moncrieffe, although it is the stuff of amusing, indulgent house parties, reminiscent of Like No Other Lover, for example. But in another sense, very little happens outside what is going on between Genevieve and Moncrieffe, who become closer once her secret is revealed and Moncrieffe proposes a neat little scheme by which to make Harry jealous. That scheme creates a perceived joint interest that turns, secondarily, into the shared pursuit of Genevieve’s education in passion, which Alex also proposes, and which, despite her best intentions, Genevieve cannot resist, even as she yearns for Harry’s love.

Consequently, the book develops a rhythm between socially restrained days and physically unrestrained nights, and as both Alex and Genevieve begin to yearn for the night (especially Genevieve, whose point of view much of the novel follows), so did I, because the it seems that is when everything real in the book occurs: Venus and Mars, pleasure and satiation, the passion of the color red (and Mars being the red planet, of course), the blazing fire, clandestine meetings after midnight, unbound hair and unbuttoned waistcoats, all the intimacies of mutually discovered and indulged passion, and the way that passion both reveals and is revealed by the combustible but compatible personalities of the two protagonists.

What I Did For A Duke is a probably a novel best described with its own prose, because so much of its pleasure is in the wit and the emotional resonance of Alex and Genevieve's interactions and reactions to each other (Jane has posted a wonderful example at Goodreads).   In a very real way, Genevieve is being seduced by Alex – by his carnality and the depth of his experience. But she is also being seduced by the part of herself she has never understood why or how to express:

He raised his brows, waiting with infinite, infinite, downright evil patience, unruffled. His eyes were dark and deep, as reflective in the sunlight as the polished toes of his boots. Like a body of water, where one couldn't tell whether you could wade safely through or step in and be swallowed whole by depth. She had the strangest sense he could absorb anything with those eyes and reflect back the same irony: a glare, a smile, a tragedy, a comedy.

But there was something about him . . . She was tempted to wade in. Just a little. It was the same temptation she'd succumbed to when he'd discussed-’just as deliberately-’Venus and Mars. Because he wasn't wrong. Because he was honest, and she liked it. Because he was relentless, and she admired it. Because she half hated him, but he didn't bore her.

Because he spoke to her the way no one else had ever spoken to her, which meant he saw her in a way no one else saw her.

Yes, this is an old Romance trope: the big, bad, dark duke who introduces and instructs the young, innocent heroine in passion and love. And the book is a celebration of that grand passion and the “luminous” wonder of its surprise and its bloom. But Long plays with the trope just enough to make the reader see it differently, too (since so much in this novel is about double meanings and seeing familiar things in a new way). Alex has the requisite bad reputation, with the obligatory rumor that he murdered his first wife and kills men for fun, but the truth is more interesting. He is a a jaded gambler who claims he never loses and a man who enjoys getting revenge and who has learned that trading on his reputation can give him the kind of solitude and power he enjoys. But he is not shut down emotionally or irrationally and recklessly cruel, as so many of these hero-types are.

Genevieve is young and somewhat innocent, but she is not learning something completely new with Alex; she is merely allowing herself to express and channel what she has always protected and constrained in herself. Further, she is incredibly smart and stubborn, a young woman with strong ideas about how life should work and the focus to achieve what she envisions. And as Genevieve and Alex become closer, the revenge plot that had initiated their meeting is abandoned, leaving room for a much more interesting conflict to arise, which I will not reveal here to avoid spoilers, but which readers will most likely have guessed far before Alex or Genevieve had a clue (hint: it involves Harry), but still works quite well in escalating the emotional tension. And despite my initial qualms about the age difference between Alex and Genevieve, I soon came around to all the reasons these two were perfect for each other and a great match, in both the romantic and competitive senses of the word.

When things in this novel work, there is a virtual conflagration of emotions and images and words – not a full realization of the kiss Alex describes to Genevieve, but a good facsimile. What did not really work for me were all the reminders that What I Did For A Duke is part of a series and therefore other characters whose books are written and unwritten need a certain level of attention in the text, even when their presence detracted from what I had hoped would be a substantially longer epilogue. The other thing I find with Long's prose is that its floridity does not always work for me, and there were passages in this book that felt a bit overwritten to me (along with a few scenes that seemed somewhat gratuitous, like a scene of blind man's bluff that struck me as intended to illustrate the difference between Harry and Alex that was already clearly visible). Overall, though, What I Did For A Duke was a real pleasure to read. A-

~Janet aka Robin

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony| KoboBooks

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long
2. REVIEW: Since the Surrender by Julie Anne Long
3. REVIEW: The Secret to Seduction by Julie Anne Long

Although I'm not always a fan of the back-to-back book release, in the case of Wedding of the Season and Scandal of the Year, I appreciated being able to follow up Will and Beatrix's story with Julia and Aidan's. Although their match-up was anticipated by the first book, they are, in many ways, an unlikely couple, and, in my opinion, engaging and compelling. Structurally, I feel that Scandal of the Year suffers from the same pacing problems that the previous book does, but emotionally, I find the romance more satisfying.

Julia, the Baroness Yardley, has finally been granted a divorce from the man to whom her parents basically sold her after her scandalous and disastrous affair with a penniless but handsome poet and political radical. While she has never revealed the details of her miserable marriage, she spent most of her time as far away from her husband as possible – drinking, driving fast, smoking, and spending money — until her husband found her in bed with Aidan Carr, the Duke of Trathen. No one but Julia knows the circumstances under which Aidan ended up in her bed, including the upstanding Aidan, who remembered drinking and kissing Julia, but could never bring to mind the intimate details of their (in his opinion) reckless coupling. Which makes his recent notoriety as co-respondent in the divorce petition even more frustrating. But then, everything about "saucy" and undisciplined Lady Yardley is frustrating to Aidan, and it has been since their first meeting more than years ago, when he was a young duke at Eton and she was but a sassy, flirty, beautifully tempting young woman. Napping on a bridge against a spinning wheel. From the first, the fundamental differences in their natures was apparent:

She seemed to be some sort of actress, and he was a duke, and the only friendship that could come from that sort of situation was a rather unsavory one. Still, it would be unseemly to express that thought aloud. "So," he said instead, "you are an actress?"

"No, no, but I am in a play." She caught his puzzled look and laughed. "It's just a skit, really, to raise money for the orphanage fund. All the events today are for the orphanage."

"Ah," he said, a bit more enlightened. "So there's a fete on?"

"This afternoon." She waved the sheaf of papers in her hand again. "I have only a bit of time left to learn my lines, so I decided to find a nice quiet spot and see if I can memorize enough to keep from making an utter fool of myself today. I fear it's hopeless, though, for I've left it too late."

Aidan, who never made a fool of himself if he could avoid it, and who never left anything until the last minute, felt impelled to point out the obvious. "Wouldn't it have been wise to spend more time preparing for your part?"

"Well, yes," she conceded with another grin, "but why do today what one can put off until tomorrow?"

"You don't seem to be taking your role very seriously."

"Petal, I don't take anything seriously." She cast him a shrewd glance. "You, I'll wager, have the opposite problem. Do you drink?"

He blinked, taken rather aback by this seemingly irrelevant question. "No," he answered with a decided shake of his head. "I don't. Why do you ask?"

"You should drink, at least a little. You're wound a bit tight. A drink now and then would loosen you up."

"It did, I'm afraid. With disastrous results."

And thus it would again, quite a few years later. Although for Julia it is hardly a disaster, as she had been growing quite desperate to be free of her husband, who showed no interest in discarding his renegade wife.

Still, Julia does have a secret about that day, one that pulls on her conscience, although not more than her relief at her newfound freedom. Besides, she is not averse to making Aidan suffer a little, to tease a smile from him with some provocative banter or to make a blush break through his solid self-control. Still, it is Aidan's honorable nature that makes him the one she goes to, after her divorce, with the problem of her mounting debts, knowing that she can count on him to help her find a way out of total financial disaster.

Aidan is not unaware of the irony in Julia's request: "If this were a melodrama . . . I would make you my mistress." And yet, his own responsible nature and the seriousness with which he knows he must renew his search for a duchess (his erstwhile fiancée, Beatrix Danbury, having reunited with her first love in Wedding of the Season), knows this is not possible or even wise, although he is certainly plagued with incessantly carnal thoughts about Julia, which seem to increase in proportion to his frustration at not being able to recall their adulterous tryst. So he decides, in typical Aidan style, to test himself by making Julia his matchmaking advisor rather than his mistress, so he can basically inure himself to the appeal of her physical presence while he pursues his ducal duty.

This set up is very familiar, of course, and more interesting is the way the relationship between Aidan and Julia develops. First of all, Julia is not trying to undermine Aidan's marriage options at every turn. She takes her advisory position seriously and wants to see Aidan married to a woman who can appreciate him and whom he can appreciate, if not love. Julia is, herself, not interested in marriage again, let alone a romantic relationship with a man, and she already feels that prick of guilt for having Aidan named in her divorce case. Aidan on the other hand, is a man who takes his responsibilities seriously, who does not spurn the traditions of his rank and position, but that does not mean he is uptight or a prig. Once he is decided on a course – including the sober seduction of Julia — he is straightforward about it and honest with himself. And as in Wedding of the Season, the obstacle here to Aidan and Julia's everlasting happiness is a basic conflict between what each wants and believes they need. Julia is matrimony-averse, and Aidan is matrimony-intent. While we can see the opposites attract logic of their mutual passion, each is stubborn in their position and understandable in their logic:

"Aidan, you can't possibly want to marry me."

"Why not?"

She sat up. "I'm a scandal, that's why."

"So am I." . . .

She took a deep breath, and resumed the conversation. "You are only a scandal because of me. Besides, being considered a scandal is different for a man."

"In the eyes of society, perhaps. Not in my eyes. And I don't care what society thinks anyway."

"That's loved blind eye talking, darling. You've always cared what society things."

"I care about you more. I love you."   . . .

"I'm divorced, Aidan. My reputation might – only might – be salvageable. And it might not. If not, you'd still be stuck with me."

"Are you saying I would be ashamed of you?," he asked, buttoning his trousers. "I wouldn't, I shouldn't, and I'm not. I won't ever be."

She could see from the level stare he gave her and the grave earnestness in his voice that he meant that, too. But though he might mean it now, would he still mean it five years from now, if society still threw his choice of duchess in his teeth? Ten years from now, if their son was not accepted into Eton because of her? Twenty years from now, if their daughter wanted to marry a man who rejected her because of her mother? Would Aidan still feel as he did now? Julia didn't know. She didn't want to find out.

For me, the pleasure of this book was in Julia in Aidan, in watching them spar with themselves and their feelings for each other. I love that she calls him Petal, and I love that he can tease her right back, sometimes so subtly she's not sure he's doing it. The prose is serviceable, if not lush, and the clichés I've noticed in other books are evident but did not feel as intrusive to me in either this book or the last (perhaps because I enjoyed both more than the previous series?). There were sections where I felt I was reading details repeated and not yet edited out, a few unintentionally funny lines (e.g. “It was déjà vu all over again” — if this was meant to anticipate Yogi Berra’s quote, it was blatantly anachronistic), and some grammatical roughness, all of which I chalked up to the ARC format and hope were fixed before final publication.

Further, there are several substantial sections of flashback, which felt somewhat overweening, even though they all delivered some important information about Aidan and Julia’s relationship and/or each character individually. What I found interesting about this was that for all of this backstory, I feel that some of the most valuable context for this story was what I gleaned from Wedding of the Season, not from the extensive flashbacks in Scandal of the Year. I am curious to see if readers who are not familiar with the first book when they read this one will have the same take on Julia and Aidan as readers who are.

Ultimately, had the pacing here matched the promise of the two characters, it would have raised the book to another level. Unfortunately, what was another interesting, largely internal, conflict got solved almost magically, undermining the structural integrity of the characterizations and cheapening the ultimate resolution. So, while I actually enjoyed Julia and Aidan's story a bit more than I did Beatrix and Will's, the grade for Scandal of the Year remains the same: B-

~ Janet

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony

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1. REVIEW: Wedding of The Season by Laura Lee Guhrke
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3. REVIEW: The Wicked Ways of a Duke by Laura Lee Guhrke

When I read a couple of books in your bachelor girls series, I wasn't sure your historical voice was compatible with my reader's ear. Then Jane started urging me to read your new back-to-back releases, which are set a few (crucial) years later, starting with Wedding of The Season. And I am glad I did, both because I wish there were more Romances set in the early years of the 20th century, and because I found Beatrix and Will's story quite entertaining and appropriately modern.

It was never in doubt that Lady Beatrix Danbury would marry William Mallory (now the Duke of Sunderland). Until, that is, the groom hied off to Egypt mere weeks before the wedding, persuaded to follow his love of archaeology rather than his love of childhood sweetheart Beatrix and his duties as the Marquess of Richfield. Besides the humiliation of having her prospective groom flee so precipitously, Beatrix must also deal with the emotional devastation of losing the only man she could imagine herself ever truly loving. So six years later, when Will returns to England to manage some of his ducal responsibilities and raise more money for his archaeological endeavors, Beatrix is slightly less than happy to run into him. And by "run into him," I mean she literally almost runs over him with her Daimler, which she drives through the countryside with all the joy she is not feeling about her second upcoming wedding to the handsome and serious Duke of Trathen (Aidan).

This time Beatrix is determined to make it to the altar, and she and Aidan share a mutual respect she believes will make for a solid partnership and ample security for her and their children. He wouldn't run off like Will did, and he wouldn't abandon his family and the duties of his title. So when she find Will sprawled in front of her car, thrown and kicked by a hot young gelding, she cannot imagine what has brought him back to England, let alone, straight into her path:

"You, sweet pea. What else?"

She made a sound of obvious skepticism. "I should have known not to expect a serious answer from you."

"None of your business. Is that answer serious enough for you?" He tried to stand up, but pain shot through his knee, making him grimace. "Damn, he muttered as he sank back down to the ground. "I really took a tumble this time."

She seemed indifferent to his pain. "I'd have thought six years away would have given you some measure of maturity, but I was obviously mistaken."

Will bit back the angry words that hovered on the tip of his tongue, and strove to maintain his careless air. "Six years?" he drawled after a moment. "My, how time does fly."

"Doesn't it? I'm surprised you would even bother to come back after all this time."

"I don't know why you should be surprised, old thing," he answered, and gave her a wink, "You didn't really think I'd miss your wedding, did you?"

Aaaaaand we're off. The first half of the novel is bright with these kinds of exchanges between Will and Beatrix, as well as more poignant expressions of the main obstacle to their mutual happiness, namely that Will wanted a life of travel and adventure, while Beatrix wanted a life of security and stability. Will accuses her of being afraid, reminding her of the things she wouldn't do as a young girl (riding a horse without a sidesaddle, diving off a cliff into the sea), for fear of disapproval from her very strict father. Beatrix explains that there is an enormous difference between riding astride and relocating to Egypt:

"I wanted children, Will. Just where was I supposed to have them? In a tent?"

"I told you I would build a house for you!" he shouted.

"No, Will…Not for me. It would have been an expedition house with bedrooms for your staff. I was engaged to a duke, not an archaeologist! And I had every right to continue to expect the security for me and my children that your position afforded us."

Even as we recognize that this novel will be a reunion story, the obstacles are real and the conflict understandable from both sides. First there is the issue of the new engagement, which is very real, even if Beatrix and Aidan do not share a great romantic passion for one another. Aidan is an honorable and upstanding man, a kind man, as well, and Beatrix knows that marrying him will give her the material elements of the life she desires. And since her experience of love was so emotionally disappointing, she does a fair job of convincing herself that such a feeling might be more of a hindrance than a help to a successful marriage and family. And even if Beatrix were not engaged, there are hurt feelings, wounded pride, and lack of trust on both sides.

In terms of Will and Beatrix's own priorities, Will has a passion for archaeology, and in an era where the aristocracy was in serious decline, his interests have the potential to create new economic opportunities. His search for Tutankhamun may be a bit historically precipitous (Theodore Davis found the first Tut artifacts in 1905, and Tut's tomb was not a common object of search this early), there was certainly a lot of work going on in Egypt, and quite a few riches making their way back to England, during this time. Beatrix's passion for a sedate English life is also heartfelt, for she is hardly a sedate woman herself, but she truly loves England and the rhythms of her life there.

It is a conflict that is both interesting and not easy to resolve (this the six year separation and unresolved feelings), especially for two likeable but stubborn characters. It is not merely that Beatrix is engaged to another man; even were that obstacle not present, there is a very real problem of how to negotiate a stable, happy marriage and family between two people who have such seemingly different life goals and values. And for much of the novel, the way these differences are handled feels fresh and engaging. Even with the clichéd phrases I've noticed in past books, as well, there is a modern feel to the authorial voice in this novel that fits the modern characters and the modern setting. Beatrix wears Turkish trousers (i.e. bloomers), drives a car, and has scandalous friends (most notably the unconventional Julia, aka Baronness Yardley, from whom she received the car and the driving lessons). But she is content to let her wildness be expressed within the confines of a more conventional life). And while Will's flight to Egypt can reasonably be seen as selfish and irresponsible (in terms of his family duties), his unabashed love for Beatrix and the character growth he demonstrates through the course of the novel, makes it difficult to disregard the importance of his dreams – in his own way, he is striving to be a self-made man, a very modern ambition for a man of his class.

The problem – for me, at least – is that this wonderfully earnest conflict ends up being resolved in a way that does not do the set up much justice. I cannot go into a lot of detail here without spoiling the main thread of the novel's plot, but I will say that the resolution came across to me as both abrupt and emotionally unsatisfying. Further, it undermined the smart characterization of Beatrix as a woman who had good reasons for valuing the life she pursued. It was especially frustrating for me because so much of my engagement in the novel was grounded in the clever construction of the character conflict and my anticipation at how it was going to be unraveled. Had the earlier sections of the novel not been so fun for me to read, my overall grade would have been much lower. Given my enjoyment of the first two-thirds to three-quarters of the book, however, it averages out to a B-.

~ Janet

Book Link | Kindle | Amazon | nook | BN | Borders
| Sony| Kobobooks

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: The Wicked Ways of a Duke by Laura Lee Guhrke
2. REVIEW: And Then He Kissed Her by Laura Lee Guhrke
3. REVIEW: Secret Desires of A Gentleman by Laura Lee Guhrke