The (Shameful) Tally 2013

Reviewed books are linked. Recommended books are in bold.

Shamefree

1. 100 Dresses from The Costume Institute The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2. Summer – Edith Wharton
3. Victorian Fashions and Costumes from Harper’s Bazar 1867-1898 edited by Stella Blum
4. Victorian and Edwardian Fashions from “La Mode Illustree” edited by JoAnne Ollan
5. Victorian Fashions: A Pictorial Archive selected and arranged by Carol Belanger Grafton

Shameful

1. Love with the Proper Husband – Victoria Alexander (Marcus/Gwen)
2. Lady Amelia’s Secret Lover – Victoria Alexander novella (Robert/Amelia)
3. The Prince’s Bride – Victoria Alexander (Rand/Jocelyn)
4. A Handful of Gold – Mary Balogh (Julian/Verity)
5. Along Came a Duke – Elizabeth Boyle (Preston/Tabitha)
6. And the Miss Ran Away with the Rake – Elizabeth Boyle (Henry/Daphne)
7. When She Said I Do – Celeste Bradley (Lawrence, called Ren/Calliope)
8. Highland Surrender - Tracy Brogan (Myles/Fiona)
9. To Love a Thief – Darcy Burke (Daniel/Jocelyn)
10. Return of the Viscount - Gayle Callen (Michael/Cecilia)
11. Beauty and the Blacksmith – Tessa Dare (Aaron/Diana)
12. Undone – Lila DiPasqua (Simon/Angelica) *Worst of the Year*
13. That Scandalous Summer – Meredith Duran (Michael/Elizabeth)
14. Reforming a Rake – Suzanne Enoch (Lucien/Alexandra)
15. Meet Me at Midnight – Suzanne Enoch (Sinclair “Sin”/Victoria “Vixen”)
16. A Matter of Scandal – Suzanne Enoch (Grey/Emma)
17. The Rake – Suzanne Enoch (Tristan/Georgiana)
18. England’s Perfect Hero – Suzanne Enoch (Robert/Lucinda)
19. Rules to Catch a Devilish Duke – Suzanne Enoch (Adam/Sophia)
20. When You Give a Duke a Diamond – Shana Galen (Will/Juliette)
21. The Lion’s Lady – Julie Garwood (Lyon/Christina)
22. Lord of Wicked Intentions – Lorraine Heath (Rafe/Evelyn)
23. Sweet Surrender – Cheryl Holt (Jackson/Grace)
24. Winning the Wallflower – Eloisa James novella (Cyrus/Lucy)
25. Love Irresistibly – Julie James (Cade/Brooke)
26. Wedded in Scandal – Jade Lee (Robert/Helaine)
27. The Revenge of Lord Eberlin – Julia London (Tobin/Lily)
28. One Good Earl Deserves a Lover – Sarah MacLean (Cross/Pippa)
29. This Wicked Gift – Courtney Milan (William/Lavinia)
30. If I Fall – Kate Noble (Jackson/Sarah)
31. Passion and Pride – Amelia Nolan (Evan/Marian)
32. On the Way to the Wedding – Julia Quinn (Gregory/Lucy)
33. The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After – Julia Quinn (Everyone, even Violet)
34. Penelope – Anya Wylde (Charles/Penelope) *Most Inept of the Year*

MALIN has excellent reviews on her site, and a broader range of books.

Name tally as of April 4, 2013: Simon (7); Alec/Alex, Harry, Michael, Robert, Sebastian (4 each); Benedict, Charles, Colin, Edward, Gabriel, Gareth, Julian, Lucien, William (3 each); and yet no one named David or Andrew.

Things That Occur to Me While Reading Historical Romance Novels

The Auto-Buy List
Tessa Dare
Lisa Kleypas (historicals only)
Julie Anne Long
Sarah MacLean
Courtney Milan

The Reject Pile, More Random Notes, and The Shameful Tally 2012…

Mrs. Julien’s #CBR5 Review #30: Love with the Proper Husband by Victoria Alexander

And with that the Victoria Alexander historical romance experiment is over. I’d read a novella and a novel and decided to give her one more go with her highest rated book on Amazon: Love with the Proper Husband.

There’s a woman, Gwen, whose sister ran away when she was young and then her parents died, but not at the same time, and she was left penniless and alone, so she went to the United States and worked as a governess there, even though she doesn’t like children, but then a solicitor sent her free passage home because of something with her father’s estate, and she’s not penniless after all and has a house, and she will be financially secure, but she can have even more money if she gets married but she doesn’t want to.

There’s this guy, Marcus, whose dad was friends with Gwen’s dad and he finds out from the same solicitor that there were conditions in his father’s will that no one ever mentioned before and he will lose everything, and so will his mum who he loves dearly, if he doesn’t get married before he is 30, in three months, but he has to marry Gwen and only Gwen or all his wealth and privilege will go away.

The guy asks Gwen to marry him and she says “No!” and he says “Please”, and then Gwen finds out that her long-lost sister is dead and she had three little girls she has to take in cause the only other person available is, as the girls point out, a “pickleface”. So Gwen needs money to raise the plot moppets and agrees to marry the guy and things proceed from there in the standard fashion.

The book was fine. It was pleasant and moved along nicely, it had some funny moments, and was nothing special whatsoever. He was a charming. lovely guy, but Gwen was what is known as TSTL* in the vernacular of the genre and she was so more than once, but still it all turned out fine because it always does in these books that’s the point and it’s the journey not the destination. The End.

The (Shameful) Tally 2013

TSTL: too stupid to live

Mrs. Julien’s #CBR5 Review #29: Victorian Fashions and Costumes from Harper’s Bazar 1867-1898 edited by Stella Blum

“Jesus Christ, I love a pleat!”

Such are the things I exclaim while looking at books of period costume.

In my consumption of historical romance novels, one of my main areas of interest, other than the banter, is the clothing of the era. My like (Oooh, bustles!) or dislike (Regency, bah!) of the women’s clothing has an impact on my enjoyment of the book. I like to think I know what I’m talking about. I don’t really. I have a rough understanding of the progression of the basic silhouette through the decades of the 19th century, but that’s about it. I have a lot of gaps in my knowledge. Large gaps. More gaps than knowledge, frankly. HOWEVER, the advantage of being a parent at Christmas is the need to fill everyone’s stocking, so Santa brought me three books from my Amazon wish list -

1. Victorian Fashions and Costumes from Harper’s Bazar 1867-1898 edited by Stella Blum
2. Victorian and Edwardian Fashions from “La Mode Illustree” edited by JoAnne Ollan
3. Victorian Fashions: A Pictorial Archive selected and arranged by Carol Belanger Grafton

Those last two are literally picture books and I will therefore not count them toward my tally despite poring over them. The Harper’s Bazar volume is mostly a picture book with chapter introductions by decade explaining changes in fashion/culture and then varying degrees of detailed descriptions of each Harper’s Bazar extracts. The introductions were very interesting and informative. The individual fashion plate descriptions were more challenging and required a lot of vocabulary I lack. My comprehension was basically limited to “so very pretty”, “not pretty”, and “this was before less was more”, but still extremely enjoyable nonetheless and I know I will look at them, and read the summaries, again and again.

Mrs. Julien’s #CBR5 Review #28 – Beauty and the Blacksmith by Tessa Dare

I’m not going to lie: I love the cheesy title. It sets just the right tone.

Tessa Dare is one of five writers on my historical romance autobuy list and she earned her place there owing to sheer entertainment value. There are different ways for these books to be enjoyable, but Dare’s best books are of the “romp” variety. She is such fun! Oh, there will come a time when she will challenge your profound willingness to suspend your disbelief, but it will be (mostly) be worth it.

Dare’s current series is set in the small seaside town of Spindle Cove where young single women go to recuperate from illness, embarrassment, and/or hide from the world. Local resident Mrs. Highwood has three daughters: Charlotte, for whom I hope a story is in the offing; Minerva, a spectacled academic who has recently married a lord (A Week to Be Wicked); and her favourite daughter, the ethereally lovely Diana, on whom Mrs. Highwood has pinned all of her ambitions. It was Diana’s poor health that brought the family to Spindle Cove and while it worked as a restorative, it also left her at a loose end: Now that she is healthy and has a full life to look forward to, Diana has to decide what kind of life she wants.

Before I had even begun reading Beauty and the Blacksmith, my willing suspension of disbelief was being challenged. Diana couldn’t seriously end up with a blacksmith, could she? Is he the younger son of a lord in hiding? Did he watch Diana from the edge of ballrooms and follow her here? I was very curious to find out because of all the tropes of historical romance that I question, the marriage between someone from the gentry and someone “low born” is the one I regard with the most jaundiced pseudo-historical eye. Unless one of them is rich (him, always him), then all bets are off.

All bets are on. Aaron Dawes, while a strapping sweetheart of a man, is really a blacksmith. One who makes jewelry on the side and this could turn into a loftier career for him, but a blacksmith nonetheless. It fits in nicely with cowboy/fireman/fighter pilot on the Pyramid of Manly Professions, but it slaps the face of historical reality. Dare’s characters get away with all sort of suspension of disbelief-y shenanigans, but this was too much for me. The voice in my head kept saying, “But he’s a blacksmith, but he’s a blacksmith, BUT HE’S A BLACKSMITH,” with ever-increasing volume and HTML formatting. What that voice really meant is that something fell flat in making the pairing sufficiently believable. Diana and Aaron have been mooning over each other from a distance for two years, but how exactly did this mutual yen turn into a convention defying love? Dare included discussions of the ramifications of the relationship, but not enough attention was given to the actual falling in love part of the story.  Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy the novella, even disregarding the even more patently ridiculous things that happened later because of the “romp” factor,  I really did. It just wasn’t quite as fantastic as it could have been.

If you have an e-reader and 99 cents, Dare has a novella called The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr. Wright which is charming. Her best novel, so far, is A Week to Be Wicked, and she has one called Any Duchess Will Do (read: The Duke and The Barmaid) coming out at the end of May. I have already “autobought” it.

The (Shameful)Tally 2013, including the autobuy list.

Mrs. Julien’s #CBR5 Review #27: That Scandalous Summer by Meredith Duran

Malin, my romance spirit guide, recommends Meredith Duran very highly. Malin is right. Duran is an excellent writer, but more on that in a tic.

The cover is ridiculous, but not in the usual heaving alabaster bosom way, which is, admittedly, a relief, but rather in a “What does that dress have to do with a historical romance?” way, but since such shenanigans are typical, I went straight to the reading:

Oooh, it’s set in 1885 and that means bustles. I LOVE bustles! (There were no bustles.)

All atremble in anticipation of the bustles, I started reading, but I quickly wondered which of the men in the first chapter was the hero, so I flipped the book over to read the blurb on the back:

I’m not a historian, but aren’t The Regency and 1885 are separated by about 70 years? I point these things out not to show up the writer, but to point out the attitude of the publishers. It’s a mass market paperback, so apparently such details are irrelevant: “Just say it’s Regency. Women love that sh*t! No one will notice.” Also? It’s not set in London.

In a refreshing change of pace, the hero of That Scandalous Summer is not a Duke. Michael de Grey is the brother of a Duke. He is also a doctor who runs a charity hospital whose funds are controlled by said ducal relation. Michael has found a way to make himself useful, in between some renowned rakish naughtiness, but his brother’s heartbreak over a recently dead wife who was insufficiently discreet in her dalliances has led him to act in a self-destructive way and Michael is in his path. Unless he marries an appropriately demure, read “chaste”, upright woman to produce an heir and continue the family line, the Duke will cut him off without a penny and de-fund the hospital. To add insult to injury, this kind of blindly destructive behaviour is typical of their family, but instead of shielding Michael as he once did, the Duke is now acting like those he used to provide protection against.

Hoping to shock his brother back to his senses, Michael disappears from London and takes up residence in a small village in Cornwall where he practices medicine under an assumed, humbler name and waits to be found. Michael meets Mrs. Elizabeth Chudderly, a widow with a fast reputation, and a “professional beauty” in the new era of photography, who turns out to be a lovely person despite that fact that she was passed out in his rose bushes during their first encounter. Their connection is instant and each of them discovers that being their natural self, as opposed to version they act out in society, is a huge relief, but imposes strict limits on their relationship. Then society comes to them in the guise of a house party and things get really complicated.

That Scandalous Summer was a very enjoyable read. Meredith Duran’s storytelling is more serious than I ordinarily like, but not in a melodramatic way, rather she focuses on her mature, complex characters and less on banter. Michael and Elizabeth are consistently interesting on their own and together. From the initial startling spark between them and throughout their challenges, they are both sympathetic, even when they are behaving badly, making poor decisions, and saying exactly the wrong thing. Both hero and heroine are constrained by their responsibilities and the specter of financial and personal ruin. It’s all about the money, its expectations and burdens, which feels realistic for a society built around reputation and perception.

The (Shameful) Tally 2013

Mrs. Julien’s #CBR5 Review #26: The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After by Julia Quinn

If you want to know if you should read this book, please answer the following questions:

a. Have you read at least five of the Bridgerton family books by historical romance author Julia Quinn?
b. Did you like them? (Except Francesca’s book. No one in their right mind liked Francesca’s book.)
c. Do you like new stories about characters you already know?
d. Did you fall at the zoo because you were carrying your child who is too large to be carried?
e. Did you spend the evening icing your bruised left foot and probably sprained right ankle?
f. Did you fall asleep on the couch with your legs elevated above your heart?
g. When you awoke and hobbled to the bathroom, did you manage to call out to your spouse/significant other right before you fainted on the potty?
h. After coming to, did you have cold sweats for 45 – 60 minutes, you can’t be sure how long because time had lost all meaning, but that’s how long your spouse/significant other said it was?
i. When you went to bed did stomach flu start, but no matter what you tried you couldn’t throw up?
j. Did you go to the bathroom to wait out the nausea and to continue trying to throw up?
k. Did you want something light to read to fill the time?
l. When you succeeded in throwing up (toothbrush), did your spouse/significant other call out a supportive “Yay!” from the bedroom?
m. Did you and your spouse/significant other go to the walk in clinic while your mother who is visiting and had planned to go with you to the Metropolitan Museum to see this exhibit stayed with your child?
n. Did you have three hours to fill at the walk in clinic while they confirmed your bruised left foot and definitely sprained right ankle?

If you answered, “yes” to these questions, this is the perfect book for you.

The (Shameful) Tally 2013

Mrs. Julien’s #CBR5 Review #25: When She Said I Do by Celeste Bradley

I had not followed my own advice by ”reading the first few pages and then skipping forward to check on the canoodling to make sure there will be no unpleasant surprises” before taking this book out of the library. When I made the cursory check later, I decided to read it anyway because, you see, When She Said I Do is a historical romance of the non-vanilla variety. I don’t know what the opposite of vanilla is in this context, chocolate I suppose, so, following this logic, I’d say this novel is grocery store brand vanilla chocolate chip ice cream sparsely populated with chocolate flakes and then one or two chocolate chunks thrown in for verisimilitude.

The story opens with a carriage accident in the Cotswolds. The heroine, an eccentric ray of sunshine named Calliope, and her commensurately odd family find their way to a deserted manor house and take shelter. Wet, barefoot and in her shift, Calliope decides to explore the house and is discovered by its scarred and tantalizing master. He makes somewhat free with her body, she finds she doesn’t really mind, and when her brother shows up, things rapidly proceed through fight, duel, and wedding, until Beauty is alone with her hooded husband, The Beast. Ren (Lawrence) offers Calliope a bargain for her freedom. She will receive a pearl each time she submits to his desires and can leave when she has refilled the necklace they were taken from.

Although Celeste Bradley is quite funny and does interior monologue well, I had my usual romance novel timeline, inconsistency, and overwrought plotting complaints about When She Said I Do. The odd seeming juxtaposition of typical storyline with the darker sexual elements was interesting to me, if unromantic.  Ren and Calliope were typical love story characters who just happened to share the same proclivities. Fair enough. I don’t know if all of Bradley’s books follow this theme and I’m not sure I can be bothered to find out, but When She Said I Do certainly made for a change of pace.

The (Shameful) Tally 2013

Mrs. Julien’s #CBR5 Review #24: The Prince’s Bride by Victoria Alexander

There is a prince, there is a bride, there is ACTUAL BODICE RIPPING!

What more could a historical romance reader ask for?

The Plot: Attempted murder. Marriage of convenience. Obscure European royalty.

Jocelyn Shelton needs glasses and likes big words, plus her given name is one I am in no position to object to. As a child in genteel poverty, she promised herself she would marry a rich, handsome prince, live in a castle, and thus she and her family would be protected from the world. Rand (Randall), Lord Beauchamp, is a devilishly handsome former spy, and her brother-in-law’s close friend. He encounters Jocelyn during a pre-empted assignation and saves her life. For spectacularly maguffiny reasons, the only way he can continue to protect her is by marriage and secreting her away to his uncle’s castle. For further maguffination, Jocelyn is voluntarily kidnapped and pursued to the obscure European country of “Avalonia” [insert eye roll here].

Some notes because I can’t be bothered to compose inter-connected paragraphs:

Jocelyn notices that Rand is about six inches taller than her and thinks this is a perfect difference. As I am a reader who notices height differential illogicalities, this detail won the author a golf clap.