Daily Deals: London misses and a woman scorned
Pleasure for Pleasure by Eloisa James. $ 2.99
From the Jacket Copy:
Fueled by the knowledge that notoriety is better than failure, witty, unconventional Josie does what no proper young lady should—she challenges fate. She discards her corset and flirts outrageously. She attends the horse races and allows an arrogant rakehell to whisk her behind the stables for a surreptitious kiss . . . and is caught!
She doesn’t want to marry the young hellion—but who’s to help? Her chaperone keeps disappearing for mysterious appointments; her guardian is on his wedding trip; and his friend the Earl of Mayne is too busy staring into the eyes of his exquisite French fiancée.
Can a marriage forced by stuffy convention and unwilling desire become the match of the season?
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A After All These Years by Susan Isaacs. $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
The day after her lavish wedding anniversary bash, Rosie Meyers gets a big surprise: Her nouveau riche husband Richie is leaving her for a sultry, sophisticated, size-six MBA. When he’s found murdered in their exquisitely appointed kitchen, no one is surprised to find Rosie’s prints all over the weapon.
The suburban English teacher is the prime suspect. The police’s only suspect. And she knows she’ll spend the rest of her life in the prison library unless she can unmask the real killer. Going on the lam into Manhattan, Rosie learns more about Richie than she ever wanted to know. And more about herself than she ever dreamed possible.
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The Map of Lost Memories by Kim Fay. $ 1.99
From the Jacket Copy:
Edgar Award Finalist for Best First Novel by an American Author
“Captivating . . . has qualities any reader would wish for: adventure, romance, history and a vividly described exotic setting.”—The Washington Post
In 1925 the international treasure-hunting scene is a man’s world, and no one understands this better than Irene Blum, who is passed over for a coveted museum curatorship because she is a woman. Seeking to restore her reputation, she sets off from Seattle in search of a temple believed to house the lost history of Cambodia’s ancient Khmer civilization. But her quest to make the greatest archaeological discovery of the century soon becomes a quest for her family’s secrets. Embracing the colorful and corrupt world of colonial Asia in the early 1900s, The Map of Lost Memories takes readers into a forgotten era where nothing is as it seems. As Irene travels through Shanghai’s lawless back streets and Saigon’s opium-filled lanes, she joins forces with a Communist temple robber and an intriguing nightclub owner with a complicated past. What they bring to light deep within the humidity-soaked Cambodian jungle does more than change history. It ultimately solves the mysteries of their own lives.
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His Contract Bride by Rose Gordon. $ .99.
From the Jacket Copy:
Edward Banks, Lord Watson has known most of his life that one day Regina Harris was to be his bride–but somebody forgot to inform her…
An avid academic and aspiring scientist, Edward is pleased to find that he won’t have to bother with the nonsense involved in courting a young lady.
Young and naive, it doesn’t take much for her social-climbing father to convince Regina the gentleman she’s to marry has requested her hand out of love, but devastates her when she learns the truth.
Now, it’s up to a gentleman who’s more comfortable in a conservatory than a drawing room to prove to Regina that she’s more than just the proverbial sacrificial lamb that helped gain her family their foot in Society’s door and that he–if no other gentleman–is trustworthy. But he just might be the one doing the learning as he’ll be forced to acknowledge that sometimes the most combustible elements aren’t the ones you control, but sometimes the ones you don’t.
Pleasure for Pleasure and the first of the Essex sister books, Much Ado About You, are still my favorites of James’ books. I don’t think they’re her earliest, however.
The Kim Fay book sounds like great fun. I’ll have to try that.
@Lil: Right, there was at least another trilogy before that series. Potent Pleasures, Midnight Pleasures, and Enchanting Pleasures.
The woman on the cover of the James book certainly doesn’t reflect the heroine. There’s no way you could describe her as plump.
I also enjoyed the Essex series and Pleasure for Pleasure. My favorite was Much Ado About You.
“The Essex sisters’ books where James’s earliest writings.”
No they aren’t. James had two previous series, and her earliest was the Pleasure series.
The Essex sisters was the series James was releasing when Dear Author began. Maybe that’s why someone thought they were the first.