Dear Author » Julie-Anne-Long

What Janine is Reading – Late 2011/Early 2012

Janine — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:00:20 +0000

It’s been over three months (!) since my last “What Janine is Reading” post. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to do one of these – the holidays got in the way, but it’s been six weeks since they ended and for that I don’t have a great excuse.

Here’s what I read between mid November and early February:

The Danger of Desire by Elizabeth Essex – This sensual regency era historical had its share of historical inaccuracies but the endearing heroine and hot love scenes made it worth reading. Review here. B-

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke – My husband and I tried to read this historical fantasy novel set during the Napoleonic Wars. The book is deliberately written in the style of a regency era book, for example using “shewed” in place of “showed.” The writing style is lovely, and the narration filled with wry asides like “They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they never harmed any one by magic—nor ever done any one the slightest good.”

I was initially charmed and thought I was going to love this book, but the problem was that very little happened in the section we read. For a fantasy novel, there isn’t very much magic (not usually a complaint for me), and not much eventfulness of plot to make up for it. Nor is Norrell, the main character, sympathetic or likable. The book is over eight hundred kindle pages long, and since it takes more than 130 of these for Jonathan Strange, one of the two title characters, to appear, by that point I didn’t have the patience to wait for the much hinted at conflict between Strange and Norrell to materialize. 155 pages in, we quit. DNF.

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The Plumed Bonnet by Mary Balogh – I’ve been reading a lot of Balogh’s older traditional regencies and this is one of the better ones. It had a terrific beginning, a pretty good but less compelling middle and a wonderful ending. I loved the hero, and while I had a doubt or two about the heroine, I thought it was so interesting that her resentfulness stemmed from having been done a kindness she could not possibly repay. Review here. B+

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How the Marquess was Won by Julie Anne Long – I had high hopes for this one since I’ve loved some of Long’s books but the hero and heroine’s feelings deepened so much so soon after one meeting in which some repartee was exchanged and I couldn’t buy into that level of emotion. Before someone pipes up to say they fell in love at first sight, I will say I know that love at first sight exists, and I have bought intense, immediate feelings in books before. But I didn’t find it convincing here, and as a result I didn’t feel invested in the relationship and the couple. There were more minor flaws, too, as well as strengths like Long’s lovely writing style and amusing humor, but ultimately, I felt this was one of her weaker books. Review here. C/C+

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Ghost in the Machine by Barbara J. Hancock – This 88 page post apocalyptic romance novella was a wonderful surprise – different from most romances I read, eerie, haunting and romantic. I don’t have much negative to say about it aside from mentioning that it wasn’t always clear what was going on in the world, technology wise, and the ending was a touch too happy to match the story. Review here. High B+

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Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey – My husband and I read this together and we came close to quitting in the first third due to myriad issues detailed in my review. Good thing we didn’t, though, because the story improved considerably after the one third point. I can’t say I adored this book like so many readers but neither did I dislike it intensely like others. I am the rare reader who averages out the disappointing first third with the strong latter two thirds to come up with a C+/B- (I gave it a B- when I reviewed it, but in hindsight I think the grade should have been a touch lower).

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Graceling by Kristin Cashore — What a suspenseful, breathtaking, emotional read. This was another one I read with my husband. Jia reviewed this YA fantasy back in 2008. While I agree with her criticism of the villain’s one-dimensional nature and the resulting lack of complexity to the external conflict, I disagree with regard to the heroine. Where Jia felt that her killing Grace (power) was the only thing that made Katsa interesting, I was actually touched by the sense of isolation Katsa experienced as a result of being feared.

I also thought that Katsa began the book so out of touch with her own emotions as to almost be stunted (one reason she read younger than 18) and while this annoyed me at first, her growth in this area over the story’s course ultimately made me really root for her. Like Jia, I loved the romance between Katsa and Po, which hung on the issues of independence/interdependence/dependence. But in my case I also adored the survival story in the middle of the book which involves a secondary character. This was a wonderful book. B+/A-

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Not Wicked Enough by Carolyn Jewel– I recently reviewed this Regency set historical. My main criticism was that I didn’t feel there was much conflict to the story (either internal or external). The heroine’s protestations that she couldn’t fall in love again and the hero’s intention to eventually get engaged to someone else felt like mere lip service. The story was less than fully compelling, but whenever I picked up the book I enjoyed it because the characters were so endearing and the writing was beautiful. Review here. B-

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Angelfall by Susan Ee – What a disappointment this was, though on the bright side, I only paid 99 cents for it. This book has been selling well and earning raves so I thought it would be a good one to read with my husband. It started out quite promising but both of us were ultimately disappointed. Angelfall is certainly competently written, with a fair amount of action, so that even though we were tempted to quit reading partway, we kept reading to see what would happen next.

The biggest problem IMO is that the characters had such a limited emotional range. Raffe in particular was almost a one note character but even Penryn did not display a wide range of feelings. They both felt relatively flat to me as a result. You know it’s bad when a small secondary human character like Dee Dum is more intriguing than the supernatural hero of the story.

The worldbuilding was more interesting than the people, but as Jane notes in her review it didn’t always make sense. There were other things that didn’t make sense, for example, it was strongly implied that Penryn’s mentally ill mother had harmed Penryn’s little sister Paige, which is why Paige was wheelchair bound. If that was so, why wasn’t the mother ever arrested and locked up? These events took place before the angel attacks.

To make matters worse I also felt that Penryn lacked agency, since she spent much of the book following Raffe’s orders. I thought it was ironically symbolic when, in a crucial scene, she is literally paralyzed. Also the book, which starts out dark enough, turns into a full-fledged horror novel at the end, and the disturbing scenes late in the book left me in need of a palate cleanser.

I couldn’t help comparing this book to Ghost in the Machine which has a similar setup (both books have dystopian settings, heroines attempting a hopeless rescue her kidnapped younger sibling, and heroes who aid the rescue, have special powers and may be on the opposite side), but Ghost had a lot more heart. Despite the compelling plot, I can’t grade Angelfall higher than a C-.

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Have you guys read these books, and if so, what did you think of them? And do you ever find yourself more critical of books that many others love, as I did with Angelfall and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell?

REVIEW: How the Marquess Was Won by Julie Anne Long

Janine — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:00:11 +0000

Dear Ms. Long,

I’ve been reading your books since I discovered Beauty and the Spy back in 2006. Beauty and the Spy is still on my keeper shelf, and three others of your books have since joined it: The Secret to Seduction, I Kissed an Earl, and What I Did for a Duke. What’s more, I’ve read every book you’ve published since then. Even those I haven’t kept I have generally enjoyed or appreciated, so I am sad to say that your latest entry in the Pennyroyal Green series, How the Marquess Was Won, did not live up to my hopes.

How the Marquess Was Won opens with a man stumbling into Pennyroyal Green’s pub, the Pig & Thistle. The man has been shot and when Chase and Colin Eversea rush to his aid, he identifies himself as the Marquess Dryden. Julian Spenser, the marquess, appears close to death, and although his reputation as a cool customer, “Lord Ice,” precedes him, he cannot stop talking about a woman who appears to have devastated him in some fashion. Chase sends for the vicar, an Eversea cousin, and the action then shifts six weeks back in time.

Phoebe Vale and “Jules,” as Dryden is called, first meet in Postlethwaite’s Emporium of Lady’s Goods. Phoebe, a schoolteacher, jokes with Mr. Postlethwaite, pretending to be wealthy. The two also gossip about Lord Ice, whose exploits are detailed in the London broadsheets, emulated by many young men and sought after by young women. Though Pheobe has never met the reckless Dryden, she believes she is an expert in that subject.

While at Postlethwaite’s, Phoebe picks up a letter from Lisbeth Redmond, a former pupil now being courted by Dryden. Apparently Lisbeth’s parents are in Italy and her mother wants Phoebe to act as “a suitable friend or chaperone” at a two day house party in the home of her aunt and uncle, Isaiah and Fanchette Redmond.

(I found this puzzling since surely Lisbeth’s aunt would have been a more appropriate chaperone than a twenty-two year old schoolteacher who, as we later learn, spent her early childhood in Seven Dials).

Phoebe is pondering the offer, inclined to accept, when who should arrive at Postlethwaite’s but none other than Dryden himself. He carefully selects a silk fan whose intended recipient is surely Lisbeth Redmond. Waterburn, a viscount with a penchant for wagering, enters the shop shortly afterward, and wagers Dryden that he cannot steal a kiss from the “unkissable” Phoebe.

A hurt Phoebe leaves Postlethwaite’s intending to turn down Lisbeth’s offer, but she runs into Dryden again when he arrives at her place of work, Miss Endicott’s academy for young ladies. Dryden is there on the behalf of a recalcitrant niece, and Miss Endicott asks Phoebe to give him a tour of the academy. There Jules and Phoebe make a connection – each manages to surprise the other – and Phoebe is well on her way to being in love with Jules, so much so that she not only reverses her decision about attending the house party, but also thinking—though she rejects the thought—that he is meant for her.

As for Jules (who is far from being reckless as his reputation suggests and has amassed the fortune his father lost only through very careful planning), he too is smitten, though it takes him a long, long time to recognize it. But he does realize that he wants to impress the startling Miss Vale, and once the house party gets underway, he spends an unseemly amount of time in Phoebe’s company, endangering his plans to marry Lisbeth.

Yet Jules is determined to marry Lisbeth. It so happens that Lisbeth’s dowry is the last piece of land that once belonged to Jules’ family. Because Jules cannot let go of that piece of land, and because there is no other way to obtain it than to marry Lisbeth, he believes that no matter how he feels about Phoebe, he can’t offer her a place in his life except as his mistress. But when Waterburn makes another wager, this one with the potential to damage Phoebe, things become complicated…

Several weaknesses kept me from loving this book. The foremost is the speed with which Phoebe and Jules fell in love (It happens within a day or two of their first meeting). It’s not that I don’t believe in love in first sight. I do. But to sell me on love at practically first sight in a book is exceptionally hard, and in this case I wasn’t sold.

As a consequence, the falling in love part of the book felt rushed, and the result was that the chemistry between Jules and Phoebe seemed forced. While I very much liked Phoebe and very much liked Jules, I just didn’t care all that much about the two of them as a couple. And since I felt detached from the fate of their relationship, I wasn’t all that engaged in the narrative.

Another problem was that despite Phoebe’s thoughts about how people are more complex than surface appearance would indicate, but for two or three exceptions, the side characters came across as flat. There’s not much depth to Lisbeth or such members of the ton as Waterburn, d’Andre, and the Silverton twins. Sophia Licari, who was such a memorable “other woman” in The Secret to Seduction, makes an encore appearance here but shows little of the facets that made her so interesting in the earlier book.

Jonathan Redmond does show a glimmer of depth, and Olivia Eversea is as intense as ever. The most interesting side character to me, even off stage, is Lyon Redmond, but I think that has a lot to do with his terrific portrayal in I Kissed an Earl and the fact that ever since I found out his reasons for staying away from Olivia, I’ve been dying to see more of him. Alas, he does not actually appear in How the Marquess Was Won, nor does his sister Violet.

I don’t recall reading about Lisbeth, a Redmond who is cousin to Lyon, Violet and Jonathan, before this book. It’s possible I did and I just don’t remember. In any case, I think I would have felt more invested in the triangle between Phoebe, Jules and Lisbeth if I had remembered Lisbeth from earlier books or if she’d been a Redmond sibling. It is hard to have much sympathy for her, and while that makes it easier to root for Pheobe and Jules, it also makes the central conflict feel less significant.

For example, a scene in which Jules and Phoebe are nearly caught kissing in the woods dragged instead of riveting me. In addition, Jules’ determination to marry Lisbeth at all costs did not seem in keeping with his perceptiveness. It was easy for me to see through Lisbeth so I felt he should have been able to do so sooner. I understand that Phoebe’s background was unsuitable for a marchioness but surely Jules could have found another well-born girl to engage himself to, one who was more tolerable than Lisbeth. Yes, Lisbeth had the land he wanted, but she was so clearly not a match for him.

Perhaps because I was less engaged in this book than in earlier ones in this series, I found the anachronisms more glaring. I was able to gloss over some of them, but one in particular stood out: a botched waltz between Jules and Lisbeth starts a fad reminiscent of disco. Some readers may find this cute, but I was pulled out of the story each time the fad was mentioned.

It may sound like I didn’t enjoy or appreciate anything about this book, but that would not be true. I appreciated that the prose was as usual, much above average, with many lovely turns of phrase. And I enjoyed, albeit mildly, getting to know Jules and Phoebe. Each was sympathetic and appealing, Jules careful and methodical in his focus on keeping his promise to restore his mother’s dowry to her family, Phoebe at once young and filled with wonder yet clever, crafty, and also careful, in her own way. Both guarded their hearts and had no one to whom to “surrender their cares” which made me want to see them find happiness.

I just wish I could have felt more invested in Phoebe and Jules’ romantic relationship. Because I didn’t, much as it pains me, I cannot grade How the Marquess Was Won higher than a C/C+.

Sincerely,

Janine

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Jane’s Reading List Ending October 31, 2011

Jane — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:00:35 +0000

Dear Readers,

It’s been three weeks since my last confession. In that time, I’ve read two historicals, six paranormals (5 being about werewolves, the entire backlist of Meg Benjamin, and a couple of erotic romances.

Not Wicked Enough by Carolyn Jewel (ARC, release date Feb 7, 2012). Enjoyed this different historical story of a wealthy woman who fell in love with a soldier. She gave up her virginity to him and then he died before they could marry. She’s single out of choice because she never believed she could love again. The hero is a former farmer found to be the male heir of a dukedom that was to revert to a crown. He needs to marry to gain respectability for his title. Full review near release date.

How the Marquess Was Won by Julie Anne Long (ARC, release date Dec 27, 2011). I liked this one, but not as much as the previous release. I thought it was really well plotted, however, with the villains being truly awful but without being caricatures. Essentially, a few of the young members of the ton decide to make a school teacher “popular” just to see if they can. The hero, a Marquess, falls in love with the school teacher, but he’s supposed to be courting Isaiah Redmond’s niece. If the Marquess marries the niece, he’ll get his mother’s dowry property back. Full review near release date.

Hot for Santa by Lacey Alexander (ARC, release date Dec. 13, 2011). It was, well, Lacey Alexander without much of any emotional conflict or real plot.

True Colors by Thea Harrison (ARC, release date December 13, 2011). Harrison can write in the short story format and I think that fans of the Wyr series will enjoy this story featuring Riehl, who has spent ninety-six roaming years as a captain in the Wyr lord Dragos Cuelebre’s army and is ready to settle down and Alice, a different kind of Wyr.

The Art of Seducing a Naked Werewolf by Molly Harper. In my quest for a good werewolf book, I thought I would give this a try. The heroine is the Alpha of her pack and she’s smart mouthed and competent. The hero is a researcher who believes in werewolves. I liked this book while reading it, but when I put it down, I felt no compulsion to finish. I may go back. I may not.

Fifty Shades of Grey and Fifty Shades of Darker by E.L. James. These two books are purportedly edited by some publishing house but I don’t believe it. They are also supposedly Bella and Edward fan fiction. I did not see the resemblance to the Bella and Edward storyline. What I do see is that readers long for a full length emotionally charged erotic romance in a publishing field largely populated by novellas and shorts. I believe that is why readers are responding to this series. It’s expensive (and I paid for both $7.99 for one and $9.99 for the other) and you have to buy both to get the entire story as book 1 ends with a cliffhanger. Book 2 starts up like a week after the two have separated. Essentially it is a story about a young woman who is just graduating from college and a control freak young billionaire businessman. (He’s 27 and reads like he’s about 37. She reads like she’s about 17) Grey, the businessman, is into hardcore BDSM because of his scarred and unhappy childhood. Anastasia isn’t buying into his hardcore activities and ultimately Grey’s redemption is his finding pleasure without the bonds.

I may review these two books but I haven’t finished them yet. They are each about 100K words and it’s about 100K words too many. The middle of Book 1 really dragged for me and I skipped to the end and then read the beginning to about the middle and end of Book 2.

Fifty Shades of Grey | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Fifty Shades of Darker | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

Konisburg series by Meg Benjamin. I started out with Brand New Me and liked it so much I had to read the entire series. Jayne has reviewed: Be My Baby, and Wedding Bell Blues. Venus in Blue Jeans is my other fave of the series:

Venus in Blue Jeans| Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Wedding Bell Blues | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Be My Baby | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Long Time Gone | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
Brand New Me | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

After re-reading Beauty Dates the Beast, I asked Jill Myles to recommend another werewolf book and she said that I should read the Darkest Powers series by Kelley Armstrong. It’s a YA series but the heroine, Chloe, is very strong and the hero, Derek, is like Clay Jr. (Clay is the male lead in Bitten, my favorite werewolf story). I did enjoy the series quite a bit. Chloe’s powers of necromancy are very strong, she doesn’t know how to harness them, she’s inadvertently raising the dead (even in her sleep), and she’s on the run with three other teens from a powerful research group. The romance between Derek and Chloe developed slowly over the three books in a very charming manner. The stories all end in a cliffhanger so I am glad that I was able to buy and read one after the other. I don’t think that these three can be read on their own:

The Summoning | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
The Awakening | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo
The Reckoning | Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

Ready to Run by Kinsey W. Holley. Again, with the werewolves, right? This is the third book in Holley’s werewolf series and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I think it can be read alone because while it features cameos from her first book, reviewed here, it’s plot doesn’t have much to do with the previous two books. In fact, that’s one criticism I have about this book. It references a lot of different people and I wondered at the coherency of the worlds that she is developing in the books. However, I loved the heroine in this book who was meek in the beginning and then grew a backbone and literally kicked the ass of the bad guy. I’ll do a full review.

REVIEW: I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long

Janine — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:00:23 +0000

Dear Ms. Long,

Violet Redmond is young, beautiful, and bored. It seems that no matter what she does, her popularity with the ton will not fade. Suitors flock to her side, even though she once threatened to cast herself into a well when arguing with one of them.

In the next to last book in this series (the Pennyroyal Green series), Like No Other Lover, Violet, the spoiled daughter of the Redmond family, visited a gypsy fortune-teller who told her that she'd be taking a journey across the water. The gypsy also spoke the word "Lavay." So when Violet hears Lord Lavay's name mentioned at a ball one night, and learns that he sails on a ship called The Fortuna, she finagles an introduction to the man and to his captain, Asher Flint.

Flint, on whom the title Earl of Ardmay has just been bestowed, is illegitimate and part Native American. He is described in the book's opening line as looking "like a bored lion lounging among a flock of geese," and as the story begins, he has just been charged by the king with capturing Le Chat, a notorious pirate preying on English ships. The title of Earl of Ardmay has ostensibly been awarded Flint for a heroic deed, but in actuality it is a way for the King to apply pressure. If Flint succeeds in apprehending Le Chat, he will be given lands to go with the title. If he fails, well, unspoken threats hang in the air.

Flint resisted accepting the earldom, but then Le Chat attacked The Steadfast, a ship belonging to Captain Moreheart, who had been a father figure and mentor to the fatherless Flint when he was a child. Moreheart did not survive the sinking of his ship. Now Flint is out for revenge, and he intends to capture Le Chat either dead or alive long enough to be hanged.

While dancing with Violet, Flint realizes that she reminds him of himself. Both of them are filled with ennui and would much rather be somewhere other than the ballroom. Flint challenges Violet on several levels, but then he spots her brother Jonathan and freezes. It seems Jonathan is a dead ringer for Mr. Hardesty, a sea merchant Flint knows.

Violet doesn't think much of this until she dances with Lavay and tells him that his captain mistook her brother for Mr. Hardesty. She learns from Lavay that Hardesty is well-mannered, educated, and has sailed all over the Mediterranean, but Lavay and Flint believe him to be the pirate Le Chat.

Lavay also mentions that Hardesty's ship is called The Olivia, and it is at that point that Violet is stunned to realize that Le Chat may be her missing brother, Lyon, who once loved Olivia Eversea. Not only is Hardesty's ship named after the woman Lyon loved, not only does Mr. Hardesty resemble Violet's other brother Jonathan, but "Le Chat" means "the cat" in French, and that fits with the name Lyon.

Ever since Lyon disappeared from Pennyroyal Green following Olivia Eversea's rejection of him, there's been a hole in the Redmond family-’and in Violet's heart. Violet tries to convince Jonathan to follow the clues she has gleaned from Flint and Lavay, but Jonathan laughs at the idea that their brother may be a pirate. Undaunted, Violet stows away on Captain Flint's ship, The Fortuna.

When Flint discovers Violet's presence aboard his vessel, he's both furious and admiring. Having a woman on board ship is a very bad idea – yet he can't help but recognize Violet's resourcefulness. Still, he intends to leave her at the nearest port, until he realizes that she may be right about her brother Lyon being Le Chat.

As Violet and Flint gradually fall in love, almost against their wills and certainly against their better judgments, they come to respect one another more and more. But rending their hearts is the knowledge that they are at cross-purposes: Flint wants to apprehend Lyon, possibly even to kill him, and Violet wants to save her brother's life-

I Kissed an Earl is not without flaws. The first couple of chapters were slow to engage me, since Violet came across as spoiled and rude in the very beginning of the story. She even repeated others' use of the word "savage" in reference to the part Native American Flint, which really turned me off.

Also, later in the book, when Violet was aboard Flint’s ship, the sailors on his crew seemed a bit too gentlemanly in regard to her presence there. It's not that I want to see Violet mauled, but rather that it stretches my credulity to believe that no one would ever try to cop a feel, especially when Flint had warned Violet that her presence on the ship would be too great a temptation to his men, and when no explanation was given for their subsequent self-control.

I also caught a few historical inaccuracies, from small ones such as the use of the word "tectonic" in its geological sense, to larger ones like Flint's intention to live in America although he has been given an English title.

But although I Kissed an Earl is not without flaws, there's no question that it is one of my favorite books of the year thus far. That is at least partly because the conflict between Flint and Violet – he wants to kill her beloved brother; she wants to save her brother from the man she loves – is on a scale not often seen in today's romances, and that depth of conflict gives the book heartrending poignancy at times.

The characters, too, are as memorable as their relationship. Although Violet starts out spoiled and bored with life, her saving grace is her fierce love for her brother Lyon. As she journeys on the high seas in her quest to find him, Violet is forced to grow into a more mature and capable woman. Her horizons broaden, her determination grows, and her love for The Fortuna's captain deepens. Where once she casually repeated the word "savage," in reference to Flint, she now steps in to defend him from slurs and insults, as well as worse. Her bravery and her capacity for love show through as she leaves the girl she once was behind.

As for Flint, he too loses his bored, detached veneer. Beneath this exterior is a man who has acquired everything he has through struggle, and who has risked his life for his fellow sailors over and over. While every risk he has taken has paid off advantageously for him – something that is no coincidence — he is also a man who has retained his humanity even through great adversity.

Not ever having had a family, Flint is thrown by the feelings Violet evokes in him. His plan is to found a dynasty with his Moroccan mistress, who is as much an outcast as he is, but through witnessing Violet's devotion to her brother, he comes to understand what family and love truly mean.

The emotions in this book are so palpable that at times, I felt as though I was literally present in Flint's cabin with these two people, intruding on something intimate and precious. A lot of that is due to the beauty of the writing. Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite scenes:

The kissed raced like a lightning strike along his spine and seized his lungs with a simultaneous rush of panic and joy. As though he'd willingly flung himself backward from the mast to the deck and not only enjoyed the flight but survived the fall unscathed.

He inhaled sharply and tipped back into the space shaped like him and folded his hands beneath his head, hoping to appear insouciant but in reality trapping them. He was suddenly afraid of what they might do: Plunder. Caress. Explore. Dear God, take, take, take.

He held his body motionless. His heart took painful jabs at his breastbone. His blood was a thick, hot liqueur. His mind a useless scramble.

He could hear her breathing hard next to him. Was aware her fingers were at her lips. Touching them, as if to prove to herself she'd been kissed.

He listened to her breath, the ragged rhythm of it a counterpoint to the incessant sigh of the sea, but for some reason he didn't want to look at her. He closed his eyes instead and saw her hair, shadow-dark, pooled on the pillow, the shudder of her lashes against her cheeks; he conjured the shape and texture of her lips sinking, opening against his, her breath mingling with his.

That kind of gorgeous, evocative writing is the reason I Kissed an Earl is not just worth reading but also worth keeping, and my favorite of your Pennyroyal Green series. A- for this one.

Sincerely,

Janine Ballard

This is a trade paperback published by NAL but pre-Agency pricing.

Top Romance Books of 2009 by Jennie

Jennie — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:13:36 +0000

We will be posting our Top 10 of 2009 this entire week. Today’s list is from Jennie. The list is unranked. You can find more of her reviews here.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (review by Jia)
Bound By Your Touch by Meredith Duran
Written On Your Skin by Meredith Duran
Pleasure And Purpose by Megan Hart (review by Janine)
Scandal by Carolyn Jewel (review by Janine)
Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel
Smooth Talking Stranger by Lisa Kleypas (review by Joonigrrl or read the haiku review)
Since The Surrender byJulie Anne Long (review by Jane
Not Quite A Husband by Sherry Thomas

REVIEW: Since the Surrender by Julie Anne Long

Jane — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:00:39 +0000

Dear Ms. Long:

I took a small break from reading your books, albeit unintentionally, a couple of years ago. I think once a reader falls off the bandwagon of an author, you start hesitating to start reading her again, believing that you must have stopped for a very good reason. My reason for stopping, though, was simply forgetfulness and having read Since the Surrender I am kind of kicking myself for having missed the last couple books. The benefit, of course, is that I can go back and purchase said backlist titles and enjoy a weekend of reading.

Since the Surrender excels at the character portraits of its lead protagonists: Captain Chase Eversea and Rosalind March but stutters at the plot execution. Fortunately, the character portraits and the romance arc is enough to overcome.

Captain Chase Eversea has been banished to London by his exuberant family. They no longer want him moping about the Eversea properties in the country, making them all sad and gloomy. Ever since the war has ended and Chase has returned, he’s not been the same succumbing to his temper more than once at what seems like a nonsensical jest. He has been instructed to check out a cousin for a potential vicarage position at his family home at Pennyroyal Green. What does he know about vicars, though?

His ennui is shaken when he is delivered a note penned by a woman, requesting he attend her at Montmorency museum. Intrigued Chase meets up with the woman only to find that she is Rosalind March, the subject of his “truest and least honorable thing he’d ever done.” To some degree, his post war emotional struggle stemmed more from his encounter with Rosalind because “honor had at one time been the thing that defined him.” Once he stepped past that boundary, Chase lost sense of who he was and where his place in life was.

Rosalind was the wife of Chase’s commanding officer. Captain March was well admired as was his wife. Rosalind was young, beautiful, and in love with her husband but Chase and she had an attraction that they fought up until the time in which they parted because of war and death. Rosalind sent for Chase because her sister, Lucy, has gone missing. Lucy was arrested for petty theft of a bracelet, sent to Newgate to await trial. Lucy never made it out of Newgate, but went missing. Rosalind believes that an intimate of Chase’s, William Kincade, may know what happened to Lucy. Chase refuses to assist Rosalind at first, but she will not be deterred.

To Rosalind, Chase represents all that she ever truly wanted but denied herself because of duty and responsibility for her family. To Chase, Rosalind represents his moment of dishonor. Over the course of the story, this both changes and stays the same. I’m not sure that it fit well for me. Chase has never truly forgiven himself for his lapse of honor. Chase and Rosalind kiss once, a very passionate once, while Rosalind was still married. But the dynamic changes as Chase decides that he wants Rosalind but Rosalind kind of rebuffs him because she wants choices in her life. Frankly, I didn’t understand this conflict particularly when Chapter Three ends with this:

Even cliffs were vulnerable, Captain Eversea, she thought. The sea gets at them, eventually, reshaping them inexorably, giving them no choice at all in the matter.

He hadn’t reckoned on the woman she’d become.

The sea, she thought, had nothing on Rosalind March.

There was another very discordant note in the book that I can’t really well articulate without giving away spoilers but suffice to say that the location and timing of the sex scenes were bizarre to me and drew me out of the story.

Having said that, these complaints really were minor because of how well the characters were drafted. Rosalind and Chase seemed like living, breathing characters. B

Best regards,

Jane

This book can be purchased at Amazon or in ebook format from Sony or other etailers.

REVIEW: The Perils of Pleasure by Julie Anne Long

Janine — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:00:22 +0000

Dear Ms. Long,

Of the authors writing historical romance, you are one of my absolute favorites. Not too long ago, I sang the praises of your previous book, The Secret to Seduction, in what is one of the longest, most detailed reviews I have ever written.

After I finished reading that book, I was tremendously excited to share my enthusiasm for it with the world and to try to understand the reasons it had been such a magical reading experience for me. In contrast, after finishing your newest book, The Perils of Pleasure, I find this review far more difficult to approach.

How does one do justice to a book that had all the potential to be sublime, but instead was better than average, good, worth reading, but not quite all that one was hoping for? How do I balance out its weaknesses and its strengths and convey to readers both my frustration that this book fell short of greatness and my hope that they will give it a chance nonetheless? I suppose the place to start is with the plot summary:

Colin Eversea is both a gentleman and a scoundrel. At least half the women in Pennyroyal Green, the village that Colin hails from, are in love with him. And though Colin himself has always thought to marry the beautiful Louisa Porter, he has never let that stop him from dallying with countless others.

But now Colin’s charmed existence has come to an end. Colin is accused of murdering a man who insulted his sister, and the only witness who can prove his innocence has vanished. Colin is sentenced to hang and jailed in Newgate, and he is uncertain who is responsible for what has befallen him. Is it one of the members of the Redmond family, whose feud with Colin’s family goes back centuries, or is it his own older brother Marcus, who is in love with Louisa Porter and who is scheduled to marry her within days of Colin’s execution?

Colin is certain that he doesn’t have long to ponder these questions, but on the day of his execution, he is rescued, blindfolded and then brought to a hiding place where a mysterious woman tells him she will not release him from his bonds.

To Madeleine Greenway, Colin is nothing but a job. Madeleine has been paid to save his life and promised a generous final payment upon delivery of Colin. The final payment will enable Madeleine to purchase a farm in the United States and leave her life in England behind her. Madeleine doesn’t know who the person who paid her is or what that individual plans to do with Colin, and at first she doesn’t care. But when the money is not delivered and instead an attempt Colin foils is made on Madeleine’s life, she reluctantly agrees to let Colin tag along while she tries to figure out why anyone would want her dead.

For much of the rest of the book, Madeleine and Colin have to dodge the soldiers who are on the hunt for Colin and other people who might turn him in for the reward that has been offered for his capture. In the process, the two grow closer as they piece together the clues that will help them discover who tried to kill Madeleine and who arranged for Colin to be arrested for a murder that he did not commit.

And Madeleine and Colin are both torn. For Colin it is a question of whether his resolve to marry Louisa is stronger, or whether his new feelings for Madeline are more powerful. For Madeleine, it is a question of whether she will let Colin charm her and leave her as he has countless others, or whether she will listen to her instincts of self-preservation, which whispers that she could have that farm in America if she turns Colin in for the reward.

The Perils of Pleasure could have been a keeper for me, if it hadn’t been for a few flaws.

First, I felt that the humor and charm which I so love in your writing did not suit the dark subject matter of the book, especially in the first half, which was set in London’s rough neighborhoods and which had the hero cheating death on the gallows and then on the run as a fugitive. While the jokes were occasionally funny, I also felt that they distracted me from the intensity of the situation the characters faced and sapped some of the grittiness that section of the book needed to have.

Second, I felt that there were some inconsistencies in the characters’ backgrounds.

In Colin’s case, I found it difficult to reconcile his rakish past with his powerful determination to stop his own brother’s wedding because he himself was so committed to the idea of marrying Louisa, especially since Louisa herself lacked spark and it was hard to see what would attract both Colin and his brother to her.

In Madeleine’s case, I found it hard to believe that the woman who was clever enough to effect Colin’s rescue with flash bombs and black powder (even if she had to hire others to do that work) would not be able to tell that the gunpowder in her gun was no longer good, or that she would think of turning Colin in for the reward on the one hand yet put her last penny in a child’s shoe on the other.

There are times when contradictions in characters can serve to make them multi-dimensional, but in this book, I felt that the inconsistencies undercut my ability to fully believe in the characters.

Perhaps another reason for that was that in certain ways, Colin and especially Madeleine seemed opaque, since Colin’s motivation for having both commitment to Louisa and a wandering eye was not revealed until the end of the book, and most of Madeleine’s past remained shrouded in mystery until around the halfway point of the story. (Since as as a reader I spent a good portion of the book in Madeleine’s POV, it also began to seem contrived that she did not reference her past in her thoughts for half the book.)

I thought the second half of the book was much stronger than the first. Here, we were given many of the answers to the questions about Madeleine, and learning the truth about her past made her character more whole and complete. This was also the part of the book where Madeline and Colin grew closer and their circumstances improved, so that the charm and humor which had seemed jarring in the book’s first half were more fitting in the second. I enjoyed the second half of the book very much.

I want to mention that The Perils of Pleasure has quite a few strengths. Among them are the unusual plot and setting. I thought the piecing together of the mystery was very well done, and I loved that the book was set in parts of London we don’t often see and featured some unusual side characters.

I also feel that Madeleine’s background was unique in a romance heroine and that she was very intriguing for that reason. Although I wish her past had been revealed earlier on, I really liked her streetwise mindset and her strong sense of self-preservation.

Finally, I love your way with language (metaphors especially); for example, this description of a countess: “She looked like a delicate, provocative little moth.” I really appreciate the fact that you find new and unusual ways to say what it is that you have to say. Even when your plots and characters seem familiar, your words invigorate them.

In this case, plot, heroine and language all felt fresh and new, which is why it is frustrating that the book did not fire me into the stratosphere as a couple of your others have. Perhaps the challenge for authors is one of high expectations. Unfair is it may be, the truth is that the more you blow me away with one book, the harder it becomes for the next book to please me. Despite that, I still enjoyed The Perils of Pleasure, and I believe that other readers will, too. B.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased in mass market or ebook format.

REVIEW: The Secret to Seduction by Julie Anne Long

Janine — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:23:31 +0000

Dear Ms. Long,

For me, reading The Secret to Seduction, was like having a glass of champagne. First the effervescent joy of being introduced to your characters through the liquid clarity of your voice, then the warmth of being immersed in the sensations and emotions that those characters grow to feel, and finally the blissful buzz of the happy ending.

I put off reading this book a while because, though I’d very much enjoyed Beauty and the Spy and liked Ways to be Wicked, I’d heard from a couple of disappointed readers, and even Jayne, though she enjoyed the book and recommended it, was a bit less enthusiastic than I’d hoped.

Silly me. I should know by now that opinions can vary widely, and that, though I have a lot of respect for Jayne’s, it rarely lines up perfectly with mine. I’m so glad I finally picked up the The Secret to Seduction, because for me, it was a delight from start to finish.

Sabrina Fairleigh, the adopted daughter of a vicar, is in love with her father’s curate, Geoffrey Gillray. So when her friend Mary suggests that Sabrina accompany her to a house party at the home of Geoffrey’s cousin Rhys, the earl of Rawden, which Geoffrey will also be attending, Sabrina jumps at the chance. Sabrina wants to become a missionary, and she knows that Geoffrey will be asking his cousin for money with which to finance a mission. She hopes that when the earl of Rawden grants Geoffrey’s request, Geoffrey will ask for her hand in marriage.

Meanwhile, Rhys Gillray, the earl of Rawden and famous poet known as The Libertine, is suffering from boredom and ennui. He is experiencing writer’s block and even the temperamental tiffs of his mistress, the opera singer Sophia Licari, have become less exciting than they used to be. At the bottom of Rhys’ lifestyle is the need to escape guilt for his past misdeeds. Neither Rhys nor Sabrina is aware that that same past connects them, and that Rhys wronged Sabrina before he ever met her.

Therefore, when Sabrina expresses sympathy for those people who are so unfortunate as to be at the mercy of animal passions, Rhys is just bored enough to decide to prove to her that she is just as capable of passion as he or any of his other houseguests.

But what begins as a casual game to Rhys turns into a dangerous whirlpool as he and Sabrina are swept up in their burgeoning attraction to one another, and eventually, they are caught in a compromising position and forced to marry where neither of them wants to. While Rhys and Sabrina reluctantly begin to fall in love, Sabrina’s biological sisters from whom she was separated as a child, Susannah and Sylvie, come closer to finding Sabrina, and the secret from Rhys’ past threatens to tear the newlyweds apart.

The setting (Regency) and setup (rake and virgin) of The Secret to Seduction are as familiar as they get. And if I’ve read one book in which the hero sets out to awaken the heroine to prove a point or in which a couple is caught in an embrace and forced to marry, I don’t know how many I’ve read.

There were a few missteps in the book, too. Sabrina’s adoptive brothers and Rhys’ surviving sister (his mother and other sister died when he was young) are mentioned so briefly that I wondered what the point was in mentioning them at all. Susannah, Sylvie and their husbands get very close to finding Sabrina at one point, and then it takes them a lot longer to resume their search than it seems to me it should. At age thirty, Rhys is a war hero, a successful, sought after poet, a man who restored his family’s fabulous fortune, an earl, and gorgeous too — it seems a bit much even for a romance hero. Also, he is not shown attempting to write much or hobnobbing with other poets, so that aspect of his character feels weak.

And although I’m far from an expert on the Regency, I have my doubts as to the historical accuracy of some details — for example, would a marriage between an earl and a woman of unknown birth really have been accepted by society? And once married, would it be acceptable for Sabrina, now a countess, and for Susannah, a viscountess, to associate with their brother-in-law, Tom Shaughnessy, who was born in the gutter and once owned a bawdy theater?

Given all this, how and why do I still love The Secret to Seduction? Let me count the ways:

I. The Voice

Much has been said lately about the value of a strong writing voice. For me, few books illustrate this as well as yours do. You have a voice to turn a choir of angels envious. When I read your books, I can almost feel it twining around me like a vine that then puts forth beautiful blossoms. To illustrate, here is a paragraph of description from page five:

But only little patches of snow remained, scattered across the green like lacy handkerchiefs. The wan early sunlight was gaining in strength, and the bare birch trees crowding the sides of the road shone nearly metallic in it, making Sabrina blink as they flew past the carriage. She wondered, idly, why trees didn’t become woolly in winter, like cats and cattle, but instead dropped all of their leaves and went bare.

In just three sentences, there’s so much to dazzle me. The metaphor of the snow scattered like lacy handkerchiefs. The imagery in the adjectives and verbs. Instead of trees just being on the road side, they are crowding it. They don’t just shine; they shine “nearly metallic.” And rather than describing the carriage as going past the trees, it is the other way around, the trees that “flew” (another great verb) past the carriage. There is also a lovely rhythm and cadence to the words, and some nifty sound effects, like the alliteration of “woolly in winter” and “cats and cattle.” Finally there is the wonderful contrasting of the trees to the animals, which grow fur in winter rather than shed.

Except for the rare jarring metaphor, yours is the kind of writing style that can cast a spell over me and carry me away from the stress of my daily life as few things can.

But this paragraph isn’t just great description, it’s also great characterization, because it reveals so much about Sabrina. Her youthful sense of wonder, her being awake to the world around her (wonderfully reinforced with her blinking), and her whimsy and sense of humor all come through in just three sentences. And that brings me to the next thing I loved about your book.

II. The Characters

Let me start with in an unlikely place — with the villain and side characters. It is very unusual to come across genre fiction that gives such careful attention to them as you do. Oftentimes, in many of the books I read, the villain or the other woman or the hero’s friend can seem more like afterthoughts, devices to create conflict or move the plot in a certain direction, than like living breathing people. That isn’t the case in The Secret to Seduction. Here, even minor characters can reveal hidden dimensions, something that charms me more than I can say.

As I’ve indicated before, Sabrina and Rhys fall into types, the young, virginal heroine and the jaded rake. What makes me interested in them, however, is the way that you give individual flaws and vulnerabilities that makes these characters feel fresh to me. I’ve already enumerated Sabrina’s humor, whimsy and alertness. Let me add that she is also more sensual, proud and temperamental than she wants to admit at first, and more clever and insightful than Rhys wants to own up to.

In some ways, The Secret to Seduction reads almost like a coming of age story, one about Sabrina’s awakening — to passion, to life, to the vulnerability that love can bring as well as to the happiness that it makes possible.

Rhys too, is very proud, and for him a lot of that pride is bound up in the fact that his venerable family lost almost everything when Rhys was very young. The family name and image are of utmost importance to Rhys because he lost his parents and one sister when he was quite young. Unlike Sabrina, Rhys knows the pain of loss and therefore fears to fall in love, especially when he realizes how his past connects him to Sabrina. He carries a heavy weight of guilt that he seeks to escape, and I, like Jayne, was glad that his past transgression wasn’t a minor one.

Additionally, I loved that like Sabrina, he too was clever and insightful. Both Rhys and Sabrina see deeper into the other than the other wants them to. And so, they uncover each other in layers, not just physically, as Rhys awakens Sabrina’s senses and comes to feel more alive than he has in years, but also emotionally and psychologically. Which brings me to the next thing I loved.

III. The Chemistry

There is a certain magical alchemy that can exist in fiction just as it can in real life, and just as it is difficult to explain the whys and wherefores of its presence in our world, it can be tough for me to put my finger on why, it is exactly, that I do or don’t feel sparks between a pair of lovers in a book.

Maybe it is the way that Rhys and Sabrina can peer into one another’s souls. Maybe it is their humorous exchanges of dialogue. Maybe it is that they share the same strengths — including deep familial loyalty, intelligence and sensuality and vulnerability. Maybe it is that they have their flaws — pride and temper –in common, too, as I’ve already mentioned. It could be any or all of these things together that make me feel that they belong together despite the very different lives they lead before they meet, and make me want to see them find happiness together.

IV. The Conflict

Another of the things I loved in this book was that even after they are very attracted to one another and things get pretty intimate between them, Rhys and Sabrina are still quite reluctant to marry each other. They realize that chemistry isn’t everything, and that they may not have enough in common. Their marriage starts off on unsteady footing because they both feel trapped to some degree.

Likewise, I loved Rhys’ determination to lead a separate life from Sabrina. I know Jayne felt that some of his actions in the book’s middle section made her less sympathetic to him, but I really enjoyed the way these actions made me feel his conflicted emotions toward his marriage to Sabrina more intensely. So often in romances rakes settle down with a speed and commitment that seems unlikely to me, given their past. This was not the case here, and that made the book more compelling to me than many other rake reformation stories.

Sabrina’s realization that attempting to build a marriage with Rhys might lead nowhere but to heartache gives her conflicted feelings, too, as do the moments when she comes to understand how important it is to Rhys that she behave like a countess rather than a village girl. And when Rhys’s secret finally comes to light, the conflict between the couple becomes even more intense.

All of this is just a long way of saying, perhaps, that after reading a lot of books in which there is nothing serious to keep the hero and heroine apart, it was great to read something like this, where the characters’ mixed emotions were very real and kept me jolted awake and turning the pages to see how things would be resolved.

V. The Way it Made Me Feel

Just as I felt when I read Beauty and the Spy, I’m astonished that a book can sparkle with so much freshness when it follows so many conventions so closely. All I know is that against all odds, this book almost made me forget that I’d ever encountered those familiar aspects before.

As a reviewer, I try to give weight to originality of plots or to books that go unexpected directions. Here the originality of the language, the charm of the characters, the magic of the chemistry between them and the strength of the conflict that threatens to tear them apart were all enough to enchant me so much that, if the plot was not so new, I hardly noticed or cared. I was so entertained, involved and happy that little else mattered.

I’ve tried to lay out my thoughts on how exactly the spell your writing weaves works as clearly and in as much detail as I can; tried to work out for myself and for our readers the secrets of this particular seduction. And though I’ve written what just might be the lengthiest review this blog has seen, I’m still don’t think I’ve got it all figured out. But now I’ve come to that QED we readers rely on in the end: that joyous emotional response that goes to my head like champagne. Proof positive that I’ve just read a keeper. A-.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased in paper form at amazon or in ebook form at Books on Board or Fictionwise.

REVIEW: The Secret of Seduction by Julie Anne Long

Jayne — Mon, 14 May 2007 21:00:49 +0000

Dear Ms Long,

Having heard such good things about your other books, I felt it was about time I gave you a try. I did worry that since this was the last book in a trilogy, I might end up lost or overloaded with backstory. Happily this turned out not to be the case. Yet, despite enjoying aspects of this book, I was left with a less than overwhelmed feeling for it.

Miss Sabrina Fairleigh, the adopted daughter of a vicar, hopes that the country party to which her married friend Lady Mary Capstraw takes her will turn out to be the answer to her prayers. Sabrina has been inching towards an understanding with her father’s curate Mr Geoffrey Gillray and since the owner of the estate at which the party will be held is Geoffrey’s cousin, she hopes their mutual desire to bring Enlightenment to the natives of some far away land will be facilitated by a gift from the Earl. She does note the irony of the rakish Lord being the one to help bring religion to the heathens (after all he is known as The Libertine in tonish circles because of his sensuous poetry and long list of conquests) but once Geoffrey feels he has something to offer to her, she’s sure he’ll offer for her.

Rhys Gillray, Earl of Rawden is bored already in the rustic setting of his recently reacquired country seat, La Montange. The property represents everything to him, though. All the hard work he underwent to buy it and all its exquisite contents back from those who purchased it after his father’s financial ruin and the dark secret of the manner in which he gained the money to begin his almost two decades long climb back the height of Regency society. He is amused at his dissolute cousin’s current position as a country curate and immediately susses out the fact that Geoffrey is hiding from creditors and wants money only to finance his return to a lavish lifestyle. The beautiful vicar’s daughter’s attempts to charm him might offer a cure for his ennui if only to prove to her that she is just as susceptible to passion as the next woman.

But Rhys never intended to get caught kissing the lovely Sabrina. However, faced with his friends and her father, there was nothing for him to do but reluctantly offer for her. Oh well, he had to marry sometime anyway so he’ll just enjoy his Married Rights while in the country and scoot back off to London to the delights of town when he feels like it. Sabrina soon learns that being a Countess is much less work than she’s accustomed to as the daughter of a busy vicar and sets out to find things to fill her days alone. Though sometimes those things, such as inspecting the roofs of estate tenants, don’t meet with the approval of the housekeeper and result in letters to Rhys which bring him back earlier than he anticipated. And so they begin to get to know each other, and care for each other, all the while never anticipating the fact that the past is rapidly catching up with both of them in a way that could tear them apart forever.

Beauty and the Spy and Ways to be Wicked are the first two books in this trilogy. I give you kudos for filling me in enough to know what’s gone on in the past without info dumping in this book. It’s a tricky thing to manage. However, there were times when this storyline tended to get a bit lost for a few hundred pages. And the resolution to Sabrina’s past seemed a bit too easily discovered. I also applaud the fact that when the roadblock to ultimate happiness for Rhys and Sabrina is revealed, it’s a doozy and not something that two minutes worth of conversation would quickly wrap up. Nor is it brushed under the carpet by either party and resolved in a week. It cut deeply, hurt badly and needs the time you give it for all parties to move on. Thank you.

Rhys starts out as a typical rake enticed against his will by the Innocent Heroine. This plotline is nicely done but, alas, offers little in the way of newness to the dozens I’ve read before. Sabrina is more refreshing in that she’s more honest with herself and Rhys about her reactions to him then I’ve seen written in other books but she’s not a total blast of fresh air either. And the callous way in which Rhys leaves Sabrina over and over doesn’t make me feel much love for him and makes the book’s middle sag. I will say that the manner in which you handled their reunion, especially in terms of who facilitates it and how that person manages it, was delightful to read. Straight talking and blunt observations cut off the usual shilly-shallying that litter so many romance novels.

I enjoyed my first time at bat with you, especially your use of language. I wasn’t lost in the trilogy story arc though I felt the arc sometimes got misplaced during the course of this story. The HEA for Sabrina and Rhys is well deserved and realistically achieved though their characters sometimes sank into slightly same old-same old territory. Altogether this is a nice book but it’s not a great one. B-

~Jayne