Dear Ms. Maguire,

Last year, after Jane reviewed it, I read and enjoyed your erotic novella, Willing Victim, written under your Cara McKenna pen name. When your contemporary romance The Reluctant Nude was released recently, I heard good things about it and picked it up, hoping it would have the same freshness and fine characterization of Willing Victim.

The Reluctant Nude opens with Fallon Frost arriving at a studio in Nova Scotia. The studio belongs to M.L. Emery, a famous and reclusive classical sculptor, and Fallon is the model for a commissioned sculpture. Fallon has been coerced into modeling in the nude for Emery by Donald Forrester, the millionaire who commissioned the sculpture, and her reluctance to pose doesn’t help her feel better about the man who will be sculpting her naked body. Fallon quickly discovers that Max Emery is French-born, younger and better looking than she supposed, and that he rubs her the wrong way.

Max is perceptive enough to realize something’s not quite right about Fallon’s presence in his studio when it’s clear she’d rather not be there, but since he’s not aware of the details of her arrangement with Forrester (these aren’t revealed to readers for quite some time, either), he doesn’t know the extent of it. Still, he’s concerned enough that despite the fact that he stands to make $700,000 on the commission from Forrester, Max decides to unsettle and discomfit Fallon to encourage her to leave.

Eventually Max realizes that whatever her motives, Fallon will stick it out in his studio, and at that point he starts to befriend her (Incidentally I wish I’d been shown how he arrived at this epiphany instead of the story skipping forward in time and thus glossing over it). It’s far from the end of Fallon’s trials, though, because Max’s creative process involves getting to know her on a deeper level than Fallon wants to be known by a man who will be sculpting her for someone she despises. But Fallon is drawn to Max and Max to Fallon, and of course, the complications resulting from the way their relationship begins don’t make the course of their romance a smooth road.

You make some daring choices with the hero in this book and I applaud them. It’s not every day you see a French-born sculptor given a central role in a romance (Nardi in Judy Cuevas’ Bliss is the only other one I can think of). It was really interesting to read about Max’s work and the way it had affected his life. And I loved the little nods to his nationality such as his love of red wine, his European sneakers and his soccer shirt.

However… Max was said to speak with a pronounced French accent despite the fact that he left France for England at age thirteeen. Thankfully, you convey his French accent with syntax only, but since I am a non-native speaker of English who didn’t learn to speak it fluently until almost age twelve myself, I still thought Max’s English was far too French-sounding given his background. An explanation for this was given eventually, but I found it only partially convincing, and wished it had been provided sooner because I spent a good chunk of the book irritated by the French syntax in his speech.

The early parts of the book didn’t draw me in that much because initially, Fallon was understandably reluctant to pose for Max, and the nature of Max’s work was such that it seemed to require him to violate her boundaries over and over by asking personal questions and insisting that she allow him to touch her, on top of the fact that she had to remove her clothes.

I don’t know enough about sculpting to have any concept of whether or not these are common practices among members of this profession, but like Fallon, I resented Max’s constant intrusiveness in the beginning. At the same time, I thought Fallon was unfair to Max in making snap judgments about everything from his motives for sculpting scarred people to his sex life. Fallon’s prickliness got on my nerves at first almost as much as Max’s disregard for her need to maintain her personal space.

The middle of the book was much better because this was where trust and understanding developed between them and it was clear that Max was falling hard for Fallon even before Fallon herself recognized it. Max, who began the book by annoying me with his paternalistic attempt to drive Fallon away for her own good revealed himself to be such an endearing, good hearted, lonely soul that all the reservations I’d had about him went out the window.

Max’s past was a painful one, and when he opened up to Fallon despite all his vulnerability, I could see how much he wanted not just sex, but closeness, from her. Also, his lovemaking. Fallon had some issues with sex and being touched and even though I’m not usually a fan of books in which the heroine at almost thirty has never been satisfied in bed before and yet she gets over this problem in one night, it worked for me better in this book than it typically does because Max was such a generous lover as well as because Fallon’s feelings – a mixture of desire and insecurity — were so well portrayed. This section of the book was mesmerizing partly because being able to respond to Max physically was such a personal triumph for Fallon.

Given Fallon’s issues, as well as Max’s good looks and fame, I totally got why Fallon felt out of her league with him in so many ways, and was afraid to give him her heart. Max and Fallon have some things in common in their pasts, but Fallon doesn’t share the events of her childhood with Max until very late in the book. Once I learned about the commonalities between them, I understood even more clearly why Fallon had been so drawn to Max, and why she felt that he was the one man who could break through her shell.

However, it was harder for me to fathom why Max would be so completely enchanted with the closed and rather prickly Fallon. In the absence of knowing about and understanding the events that shaped her, what was it about Fallon that made her the first and only woman Max had ever fallen for? He was such a loving person that it was hard to envision him not making a connection sooner, with someone less difficult to connect with than Fallon.

I found the ending frustrating because while Max makes a wonderfully romantic grand gesture, we weren’t shown how Max and Fallon negotiated their differences with regard to the futures they wanted for themselves.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

You made the characters in this book feel so real, their attraction palpable and the challenges their relationship faced felt substantial. I loved that about it, and I especially grew to adore Max. I also loved the specificity of details in your writing. Things like the quiet Nova Scotia setting, Max’s studio with its diversity of windows, Fallon’s co-ownership of a house with her best friend, served to make the story distinct. When Max and Fallon went on a date, I didn’t feel that I was reading what could be any couple’s date. When they made love, I felt that I was reading about something truly intimate between these two distinct, specific people.

Which is why, despite the stumbling blocks that kept me from loving this book, I’m not sorry I read it.
C/C+.

Sincerely,

Janine

Goodreads | Amazon | BN | nook | Sony | Kobo

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Wild by Margo Maguire
2. REVIEW: Caught on Camera by Meg Maguire
3. REVIEW: The Reluctant Dom by Tymber Dalton

I have a bone to pick with you. I’ve got a packed read-and-review schedule for the next month or so, and I need to be able to move from book to book. But you’ve made that impossible. Yes, I blame you. It’s your fault that your book, Jellicoe Road, left me so drained and dazed that I can’t read anything else.

I tried. I tried a sexy historical romance. I tried a contemporary erotic novel. I tried a thought-provoking science fiction story. I tried one of my very favorite books from last year. I even eyed another YA. I put them all back down after a page or two.

It’s not that they were bad. They just weren’t your book. They weren’t Jellicoe Road.

It really isn’t fair of you to write a book that’s so beautiful and powerful that everything else pales in comparison.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let me explain that when I picked up this book to read for Keishon’s TBR challenge, I was cheating a bit. Yes, technically speaking Jellicoe Road was first published in 2006 (The Australian edition called On the Jellicoe Road), but the American edition came out in 2008, and it’s only been sitting in my TBR pile for a few months.

I first heard of this book here on the YA YA YAs blog. Then I heard that it won the American Library Association’s Printz Award. Then it was selected for DABWAHA. At that point I bit the bullet and bought it in hardcover, a purchase that was worth every penny and then some.

I read Jellicoe Road for the TBR challenge because this month’s theme is “Tortured hero or tortured heroine,” and I had the sense that this book had its share of tortured characters. Boy, was I right about that.

The heroine of the story, Taylor Markham, is a seventeen year old boarding school student at the Jellicoe School, which is about 600 kilometers from Sydney. Taylor was abandoned by her mother in the bathroom of a 7-Eleven when she was just eleven years old. A woman named Hannah began taking care of her at that point, and Taylor suspects Hannah knows something about her mother, but whatever it is, Hannah won’t reveal it.

Taylor enrolled in the Jellicoe School when she was thirteen. When she was fourteen, a hermit whispered something in her ear and then shot himself. But Taylor can’t remember what he told her, and she has other memory gaps as well. She also dreams about a boy in a tree who knows things about her. Sometimes her life feels like a mystery that she can’t solve.

Just after the hermit committed suicide in front of her, Taylor took off to try and find her mother. On the way to Sydney she met a boy named Jonah Griggs, who is rumored to have killed his father, and who is one of the cadets, military school students who camp near Taylor’s school for six weeks every spring and every fall.

The kids from Taylor’s school have a territorial war with the cadets and with a third group of students who live in the town, known as the townies. So Taylor’s running off with a cadet was not looked on well by her fellow students. But Taylor and Jonah made a connection. Taylor opened her heart to Jonah and trusted him, and when he called an adult to come and take them back to their schools, she felt betrayed.

Now, three years later, Taylor is unwilling to trust anyone again. She presents a hardened exterior to the world. Despite this, Taylor is chosen through some convoluted politics to be the leader of the Jellicoe School kids in the next round of wars. The leader of the townies is Chaz Santangelo, who has a history with Taylor’s friend and supporter, Raffaela. And the leader of the cadets is Jonah Griggs. So Taylor must come face to face with Jonah again, this time as two leaders of enemy factions.

And just as this is about to happen, Hannah, the one constant in Taylor’s life since her mother abandoned her, disappears from her house without a word to Taylor.

As this story unfolds, told in Taylor’s first person narration POV, it is interspersed with third person italicized fragments of another story, about a group of kids who were involved in a car accident that killed the parents of three of them. The connection between the two stories isn’t revealed until deep into the book, so I won’t say what it is.

Can Taylor lead the Jellicoe School? Where has Hannah gone to? Will Taylor be able to piece together the secrets from her past, or unearth her lost memories? What about Jonah Griggs? Is he truly the enemy, or does he care for Taylor more than he allows her to see? And how is the story of the other group of kids relevant?

The above is a summary of what the book is about, but it doesn’t do justice to how moving it is, how good the writing is, or how memorable the characters are. Taylor is indelibly so. Although she has a lot to be tortured about, she is the last person to wear her suffering on her sleeve. Instead, she has a stony demeanor.

Here, for example, is an exchange between Hannah and Taylor which takes place when Hannah informs Taylor of the transfer of some girls to the dormitory Taylor is in charge of:

“Transfers,” she says, handing me the sheet. I don’t bother even looking at it.

“My House is full. No more transfers,” I tell her.

“There are some fragile kids on that list.”

“Then why transfer them to me?”

“Because you’ll be here during the holidays.”

“What makes you think I don’t have anywhere to go these holidays?”

“I want you to take them under your wing, Taylor.”

“I don’t have wings, Hannah.”

But for all her prickliness, Taylor’s inner thoughts eventually reveal her vulnerability. Here’s a scene that comes when she is floating on water:

My body becomes a raft and there’s this part of me that wants just literally to go with the flow. To close my eyes and let it take me. But I know sooner or later I will have to get out, that I need to feel the earth beneath my feet, between my toes–the splinters, the bindi-eyes, the burning sensation of hot dirt, the sting of cuts, the twigs, the bites, the heat, the discomfort, the everything. I need desperately to feel it all, so when something wonderful happens, the contrast will be so massive that I will bottle the impact and keep it for the rest of my life.

If Taylor isn’t what she appears to be at first, neither are many of the other characters. Their layers are peeled back gradually, and involve discoveries of things neither Taylor nor the readers know, so I don’t want to reveal them. In fact, it takes a few chapters to figure out exactly what is going on, but that is part of the charm of the book, because the reader’s confusion mirrors the sense of mystery Taylor feels about her own life. Some of the puzzles take most of the book to be put together, and although I guessed at certain truths before Taylor understood these things, that did not lessen my enjoyment of the book.

In fact, “enjoyment” seems like too mild a word. After its slow start, the book gathered more and more momentum, until I was completely swept away from thoughts of my own life. I became so invested in Taylor and the other characters in the book that some sections seemed heartbreaking to read, albeit in a cathartic and healing way. I laughed and cried — or, as my husband put it, “blubbered.” When I finished this book, my tear ducts felt completely empty.

I loved the intricacy of this story, the way so many small and seemingly unimportant details turned out to be important in the end, the way the different threads connected. It’s a rare book that seems so seamless when I finish it, that takes such complete hold of me with its magic.

Despite its YA designation, Jellicoe Road deals with a lot of adult themes, and includes a romance and even a couple of brief sex scenes, so while I would not recommend it for younger kids, I do wholeheartedly recommend it to older teens and to adults.

Thank you, Ms. Marchetta, for writing such a powerful, beautiful, unforgettable book. A for Jellicoe Road.

Sincerely,

Janine

This book can be purchased at Amazon. No ebook although this is a HarperTeen release and HT is fairly good about ebook releases. At least you know who to contact if you want a legitimate digital copy.

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I’m still not sure I completely understand the set-up of this novella. I realize it’s a prologue, so to speak, for Lethbridge’s historical series for Harlequin but even so I felt like I was dumped midway into a story without any map to point me in the right direction.

Anthony Darby has accompanied his friends (the characters of the forthcoming novels, if I’m guessing correctly) to an exclusive club where the ladies of the ton can live out their greatest fantasies. I know I’m probably the least knowledgeable about historicals of any of the Dear Author bloggers, but something about that rings false. Please correct me if I’m wrong. It might have helped to get more background into the club’s existence and its owner, but I can only assume that’ll be explored in one of the forthcoming books.

At any rate, Tony is skeptical about the whole thing and doesn’t intend to indulge himself despite his friends’ encouragement. That is, until he meets Margaret, the widow of a Russian count. Their attraction is instantaneous and they waste no time acting upon it. What makes their rapid capitulation interesting is that it goes against a belief both of them held: no more emotional commitments.

What charmed me most, however, was the ending. One of the ongoing criticisms readers (myself included) have about these quick reads Harlequin offers is that the storylines often don’t work well at the short lengths — plotlines get dropped, characterization is short-changed, and the endings often turn out unbelievable. But for a change, I found this ending believable and refreshing. It might not be what some readers are used to, from a romance story, because nothing is explicitly definitive but I was left with enough optimism to believe that Tony and Margaret will get their HEA. B

The Unlacing of Miss Leigh by Diane Gaston

This novella, on the other hand, is the perfect example of how different a novel is from shorter fiction formats and how a story can suffer when treated like a very, very short novel.

Here we have another Margaret, this time a poor vicar’s daughter who’s answered an advertisement for a lady’s companion. Of course, what she didn’t realize what that the man who’d written the ad was not looking for a lady’s companion — at least not in the sense she’s assumed. He was looking for a mistress. Our hero is Captain Graham Veall, a veteran of the war against Napoleon. Unfortunately, he was severely scarred in battle and has become something of a recluse.

If you think this sounds like a Beauty and the Beast story, you’d be correct. To his credit, Graham corrects Margaret’s mistaken assumption immediately. But to his surprise, Margaret decides to accept his offer. She needs the money, after all, to send her younger brother to school and in exchange for two months of her time, Graham will support both her and her younger brother for the rest of their lives. A small price to pay, right? Of course, Margaret has an ulterior motive. Once she figures out his true identity, she realizes he’s the boy who saved her as a child and for whom she’s carried an unrequited crush ever since.

Where this novella stumbles is during those two months Margaret spends as Graham’s mistress. I think it lasted a paragraph. Maybe two. To say it was glossed over is an understatement.

Novelists have said, both here at DA in the comments and elsewhere, that writing short stories is hard. I have no doubt that is true. A novel and a short story (or novella) aren’t the same thing. There just isn’t the space in the shorter formats to go into the same amount of detail you can get from a novel. Where I’ve grown used to seeing those “shortcuts” is in the worldbuilding or characterization. What I didn’t expect was to see the shortcut in the actual plot.

And for that reason, I actually think this one would have worked better as a full-length novel. Despite the storyline’s strict adherence to convention, Beauty and the Beast stories are among my favorites. I could have done without the care bear epilogue though. C-

My regards,
Jia

Related posts:

1. Harlequin Lightning Reviews
2. Harlequin Lightning Reviews
3. July Harlequin Lightning Reviews

Even though the prequel and first book of your Lords of the Underworld series failed to impress me, I wasn’t ready to give up on such a great premise. I hoped one of the later installments would work better for me. With this second book in the series, I have to say I’m glad I made that choice.

Times are tough for the Lords of the Underworld. Their bosses, the Greek gods, have been overthrown and locked in Tartarus. Their new overlords, the Titans, are harsh masters. One of their number has been driven insane (more than usual, anyway) by an order handed down by Cronus, the Titans’ leader. Hunters are intent on destroying them by finding Pandora’s Box, the very object that cursed the Lords to becoming demon-holding vessels in the first place. Their only hope is to find Pandora’s Box before their enemies do but that task is easier said than done.

Lucien leads the faction of Lords that live in Budapest. He holds the demon of Death inside him and it’s his duty to escort souls to the afterlife, whether that be heaven or hell. Long ago, when being a demon vessel was still new, he fell in love with a woman. It didn’t last long; she contracted a disease and became mortally ill. Even though Lucien knew he had to usher her soul to the afterlife, he couldn’t let her go and as a result, she lived weeks beyond the time she should have died. Soon her existence became excruciatingly painful and her love changed to hate. After Lucien finally performed his duty, he scarred his face and body to make him unattractive to the opposite sex and thus spare himself from going through that experience again.

Anya is the minor goddess of anarchy. Daughter of the goddess of lawlessness, she unfortunately shares her mother’s reputation for promiscuity. However, Anya is also the illegitimate daughter of Tartarus, the guard of the gods’ prison, and she bears the final gift of his paternal love: a key that opens any lock in existence. Because of this key, Anya is a danger to the Titans because she is the only one capable of freeing the gods from their prison — never mind the fact she couldn’t care less. She’s already freed the only people she cares about (her parents) and would rather leave the rest of the gods, who treated her poorly, to rot. But Cronus refuses to take that risk and orders Lucien to kill her.

I was pleasantly surprised by Lucien and Anya. While I usually like opposites attract storylines, Anya was so over the top wild, I initially found her interactions with the solemn and serious Lucien to be silly. And in some respects they remained borderline ridiculous but as I continued reading, I discovered I was having too much fun to care. Anya’s irreverent nature went a long way to balancing the unrelenting angst that can plague a series with this concept. That was part of my problem with the previous book. As I get older, my tolerance for unrelieved angst-filled brooding and posturing gets lower and lower. So it was nice to have a heroine like Anya who didn’t mind calling out Lucien when he let himself get carried away.

Unaware of his inner turmoil, Anya glanced around the room. “While throwing your tantrum, did you destroy our supplies for the Arctic?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe I once thought you were too controlled. Seriously, learn some self-discipline, for gods’ sake. You should be embarrassed.”

“I am.”

“Good.”

On the other hand, I hope I’m not picking up on a pattern that will continue throughout the series. Like Ashlyn of the previous book, Anya is a virgin. Now I can buy an inexperienced heroine with an experienced hero. That’s not my problem. I’m just not sure I can believe that every single couple of a series will follow this dynamic. I think romance readers are ready for more variety for that. Secondly, while Ashlyn’s reasons for remaining a virgin made sense, Anya’s reasons seemed very contrived. It felt like they existed for the sole purpose of keeping her “pure” for the hero, and I like to think we’re past that convention as readers.

Without the clunky setup and worldbuilding that plagued the previous book, I thought The Darkest Kiss was much better focused. The conflict of Lucien having to kill Anya and Anya not wanting to give up the All-Key carried through the entire book. That said, the ending was a letdown and I couldn’t help but wonder why Lucien didn’t do what he ultimately chose to do in the first place. It sounded like it would have saved Anya and him a lot of grief and trouble.

Even though some plot logistics and explanations (the reason for the butterfly tattoos) really bothered me, I still had a lot of fun reading this book. Sometimes you read the right book at the right time, and you end up liking it more than you would otherwise and vice versa. Maybe I’m just being easy today but a B- for me.

My regards,
Jia

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

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I have a soft spot for the unheralded people of the world finding love. People not as beautiful or dazzling, not as charming or glib as those who easily command the spotlight. Yet at the same time, I don’t want authors to pour misery on the head of a lead character thereby making me pity them more than sympathize with them. “Carolina’s Walking Tour” handles my concerns nicely.

Miss Carolina Finmere is one of those who hug the edges of a party, who might take a minute to formulate a reply to a comment but who notices much and dares to dream. Lord Alexander Quainton is one she notices but whom she would never have approached except for her commanding grandmother’s insistence. Long acquainted with his mother, her grandmother serves as a source of information about Alexander’s wartime injuries.

Quiet Carolina is astonished when he asks her to accompany him on a walk through Bath. Thus begins their summer long rambles through and around the resort town. And slowly, almost unperceived by Carolina herself, she begins to blossom into a woman of a little more confidence, a little more presence. And when faced with a future without the man she’s gently fallen for, Carolina decides to take the boldest step of her young life.

I like that Carolina’s personality doesn’t so much change as she gains the courage to show who she really is. She reminds me a little of some of Carla Kelly’s reluctant heroines who shine only in the eyes of their beloved. At story’s end, Carolina hasn’t been transformed into a show stopping femme fatale but her inner happiness does bring a blush to her cheeks and a brighter sparkle to her eyes. Indeed she won’t be the aging antidote she feared she’d become.

Alexander is a little more of a martyr than I’d like though thankfully we don’t see this much. He has suffered much, both physically and emotionally. He also knows that the people back home don’t want to hear the gruesome details of what their soldiers are enduring in Spain and thus must keep his concerns for his still fighting comrades to himself. He wants no pity and must be sure he’ll get none from Carolina before he’ll reach for the happiness he desires with her.

Ebooks are proving to be the source for the more traditional style regency that Signet once provided to readers. I’ve not yet tried one of your longer books but both short stories have proved to be delightful. B

~Jayne

available as an ebook from Uncial Press or Fictionwise

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Elle Kavanagh wears only black and white. She counts things — not just money at her prestigious accounting job, but also stars, marbles, ceiling tiles. She buys her boss’s wife candy to assuage her guilt for sleeping with him years before. She has been celibate for three years, but before that, anonymous sex was a staple of her life. Elle is the heroine of your book, Dirty, and while I didn’t like everything about her, I liked reading about her very much.

It’s at the candy store that Elle meets Dan, an attorney. He gives her a taste of black licorice and a longing for more. She goes to a bar with him and brings him back to her place, but he says a polite goodbye and leaves without even trying to kiss her. Weeks pass, and Elle can’t stop thinking about him. Then she sees him again and things get sexual. Elle expects nothing more, but Dan convinces her to see him again. She has a policy of not dating, so instead of dating, Dan makes appointments with her.

Elle will allow Dan to do all kinds of things to her, but not to kiss her on the mouth and not to give her compliments. Sex comes easily to her, but emotional intimacy does not. There is of course, trauma in Elle’s past, and parts of her story were easy for me to guess at. Dirty is not just the story of how Elle comes to accept herself and her past, but also the story of Elle’s relationship with Dan and how she slowly comes to want intimacy. But even when she wants it, Elle doesn’t know how to allow Dan in emotionally instead of pushing him away.

Back in January, Jane reviewed this book and gave it a C-. I am happy to say that I liked it about two letter grades better than Jane did. For me, Dirty is a book I know I will reread. Yes, it’s true, as Jane said, that Elle’s narration is a bit monotone, but though there were times I wanted just a bit more variety of tone, I also felt that this delivery showed Elle’s numbness, her emotional armor, in a way that a different tone would not have.

I also agree with Jane that Dan was at times too good at knowing exactly what Elle needed, but for me, this was balanced out by the fact that he wasn’t perfect in other ways. I would have liked more insight into Dan and more information about him, but I accepted that this had to be somewhat limited because the narrator of the story was Elle and she was afraid of emotional intimacy.

Like some of our readers who posted comments, I was not all that turned on by many of the sex scenes. This might be because I was far more interested in the emotional aspects of Elle’s story. In addition, “cunt” is not my favorite word for the female sex organ, but I understood why someone like Elle, who shied away from intimacy, would choose to use it. So even if it wasn’t conducive to putting me in the mood, so to speak, it worked for the character and for the story.

Whereas Jane found it difficult to root for Elle, I did not have that problem at all. On the contrary, her flaws made her more real to me, and that in turn made me more invested in her fate. When Elle finally allowed color into her life, I was deeply moved. When she reached out to others, I was very glad. And when she confessed her past to Dan, I cried copiously.

In her review, Jane mentions that you posted here on our blog that your book was not romance. For me, this book was a romance. It deals with a relationship, as well as a woman’s emotional journey. The main characters end up together and happier than they were alone in the beginning. Their happiness involves some struggle, yes, but aren’t relationships something everyone has to work at? Why should this book not be considered a romance?

Myself, I wish that more contemporary romances were more like this book. Gritty and real, with flawed characters who make mistakes. Characters who don’t feel generic or whitewashed. Characters I care about, because they seem like people I might sit across the room from in a restaurant. Characters who don’t have to be stamped with some mythical Middle American seal of moral approval to qualify for a happy ending.

Yeah, Dirty is a romance to me. And a damn good one, too. A-.

Sincerely,

Janine

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Dirty by Megan Hart
2. REVIEW: Pot of Gold by Megan Hart
3. REVIEW: CB-Playing The Game (Josie and Jack series) by Megan Hart

I’ve been on a hot streak of enjoying good books lately. All good things come to an end sometime, but I’m sorry it had to end with Simply Love. I’d been looking forward to Anne Jewell’s story since I first encountered her in Slightly Scandalous, expecting that a Mary Balogh Regency era romance featuring an unwed mother is sure to be good and heartwrenching. Unfortunately, like Jayne, I didn’t find Simply Love as compelling as I’d hoped, and since I don’t disagree with Jayne’s opinion of the book, I will expand on the reasons why. But first, to borrow Jayne’s plot summary:

“Simply Love” involves two characters familiar to long time readers of Mary Balogh's single title “Slightly” series. Anne Jewell is the unwed mother introduced in “Slightly Scandalous” who became a teacher at a school for young ladies in Bath. Sydnam Butler is the younger brother in “A Summer to Remember.” He had wanted to be a painter but headed off to the Peninsular Wars to prove his manhood. There he was captured and tortured by the French leaving him with one arm, one eye and scars bad enough to repulse strangers. Now he works as a land steward for the Duke of Bewcastle, head of the Bedwyn clan, in Wales. Anne is gently coerced into coming along with one of the Bedwyn couples to their annual summer get together, held this time in Wales.

Earlier in her letter, Jayne writes:

I can assure you I have read a gracious plenty about the Bedwyns. I neither need nor wish to have each and every one, plus spouses and children –" both natural and adopted –" along with all the members of the Ravensburg Butler family, trotted out in every book to convince me of their felicity and fecundity. But it did make reading the book much easier when I could skip whole scenes of sugary sweetness, Bedwyn style.

I like the Bedwyns much better than Jayne, so I did not skip a single scene in this book, but I agree with Jayne that there is a problem here. For me, it’s not the Bedwyns per se, but *all* the characters who were either found love in previous books, or are scheduled to find love in the upcoming installments of the Simply series. There are Lauren and Kit from A Summer to Remember; from the Bedwyn series, Aidan and Eve, Rannulf and Judith, Frejya and Joshua, Morgan and Gervase, Alleyne and Rachel, Wulfric and Christine; from the previous book in this series, Simply Unforgettable, Frances and Lucius, and from upcoming Simply books, Susanna and Claudia. I suspect Viscount Whitleaf is being set up for a sequel as well.

All in all, I counted eighteen, possibly nineteen characters who have either been featured in past books or will be featured in future books. And that’s not counting the cornucopia of children that most of these characters have. At 311 pages, the book is simply not big enough to support the weight of so many people who are either blissfully happy or soon-to-find-bliss. There’s a limit to how many people who are happy, healthy, rich and in love one knows in real life, and being surrounded by so many of them in a book is a bit like being in Disneyworld and eating too much ice cream and cotton candy. With all that happiness abounding, it’s impossible to feel that the stumbling blocks in Anne and Sydnam’s path to marital joy are real, especially since as Jayne astutely points out, Anne finds so much social acceptance despite having borne a child out of wedlock that it’s hard to credit.

As for Anne and Sydnam themselves, their courtship consists walks in which they wax philosophical and talk so much about not giving in to self-pity over their respective situations that after a while methinks they do protest too much, and I start seeing them as self-pitying, and maybe even pitiful. Both seem defined by the obvious things that make them different; Sydnam by his handicaps, his scars, the trauma from his torture and his having once been an artist, and Anne by her status as an unwed mother, her love for her son, and the trauma from her rape. But I don’t get much since of who they are outside of all that, especially in Anne’s case. Her anger at her family for forgiving her is one of the few clues to her personality beyond the fact that she was raped and conceived an illegitimate child.

There are some other things I like about the book, including the fact that Anne’s son David physically resembles the man who fathered him, and that unlike most sexually traumatized heroines in romances, Anne doesn’t simply recover from her trauma in one night with the hero. Your writing style is nice and clear, as usual, and some of the scenes in the second half of the book are emotionally affecting. A scene in which David blurts out something that Anne doesn’t want known and another in which Sydnam has a nightmare are especially good.

I have certainly read worse books than this one, but I’ve also read better, many of them yours – so many that I know I will be picking up Susanna and Claudia’s stories even after being disappointed in this one. As for Simply Love, I am in accordance with Jayne in grading it, too, and I give it a C.

Sincerely,

Janine

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Simply Love by Mary Balogh
2. REVIEW: Lord Carew’s Bride by Mary Balogh
3. REVIEW: Dark Angel by Mary Balogh