Comments on: REVIEW: A London Season by Joan Wolf

By: REVIEW: His Lordship’s Mistress by Joan Wolf | Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:01:44 +0000

[...] Janine noted in the review of another of my favorite Wolf traditional regencies, A London Season, your writing style is simplistic and spare. I really enjoy that style and it’s out in full [...]

By: Janine

Janine — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:39:05 +0000

@FD: So glad you enjoyed A London Season! It's been more than two years since I wrote this review and I haven't reread the book in the intervening time but I still remember it vividly. You're so right about David and Jane. And they seemed so right for each other, too. I have only read two other Joan Wolf regencies, The Counterfeit Marriage, which didn't work for me, and His Lordship's Mistress, which I liked very much. Good luck exploring her backlist!

By: FD

FD — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:03:26 +0000

@Janine: Thank you so much for reviewing this. I picked it up secondhand on a whim remembering that you’d rated it as B and I am so glad that you did, and that I did – it absolutely made my flu-ridden, rainy Thursday.
I really liked the simplicity of the language and the deftness of the characterization. Jane and David both are so vivid and strong and unique. I have met a few people like that, bright flames as they are and the book captures that quality perfectly. There’s a solidity to the society backdrop, despite it being sketched in, and the author uses the mores of the times with a pleasingly clear understanding of how they could be bent – for certain people. Love that.
I’m definitely now going to go hunt down Joan Wolf’s backlist. Thanks again!

By: Janine

Janine — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:15:58 +0000

Sherry and Susan –

I didn’t know that the hero and heroine of the book would be so young when I picked it up, and if I had known, I might have been reticent to read it as well. But I did enjoy A London Season, and I’m glad I read it. It was a little like Romeo and Juliet with a much happier ending. I agree, Susan, that the historical aspect makes it easier to accept. For me that’s partly because I know that young people matured earlier in the Regency era than they do today.

By: Susan/DC

Susan/DC — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:42:39 +0000

I’m someone who doesn’t like a too-young heroine, but usually that’s because she’s matched with a hero almost twice her age. When both H/H are so close in age it generally doesn’t bother me, as I read it as a YA story about growing up as much as a romance. This is definitely the kind of thing I can accept better in a historical, because if this were a contemporary the H/H would be exactly the same age as my youngest son and his girlfriend, and that would definitely throw me.

By: sherry thomas

sherry thomas — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:33:03 +0000

Hi, Janine,

Glad to see you reviewing semi-regularly again.

The story sounds interesting, but the age things throws me big time. I don’t know why, I’m not sure I can read about such young H/H when I have a kid of my own whose age is already in the double digits. Ack.