The Love Potion
Katherine Lyons’ The Love Potion is her latest title and the first installment in her My Lady’s Potions series. It features lady’s companion and poor relation Kynthea Petrelli and Erasmus Oliver Arthur Stace, Duke of Harle.
Kynthea has been forced to act as companion to her younger cousin since the death of her parents left her without the means to support herself, and although Kynthea loves Lady Zoe dearly, she finds her exhausting at times. One of those times begins this story as Zoe is attempting to buy a love potion to use on our hero, known to his friends as Ras. Zoe is not in love with Ras, but wishes to marry him to please her dying parents and so she may have free reign over his stables. Zoe is successful in procuring the potion and forces Kynthea to ‘spill’ it on Ras so that it may take effect.
In the meantime, Ras and his best friend, Lord Nate, discuss the fact Nate writes a gossip column anonymously and his propensity to write about Ras. Nate wishes to write that Ras is ready to marry despite the fact this is not true. Instead, Ras feeds him a story about a lord gambling away a small fortune. Ras’s mother joins in the fight to get Ras married and asks him to attend Almack’s. While there, Zoe trips a woman so that Kynthea will spill the love potion on Ras. Right from the beginning, Ras has zero interest in Zoe – he thinks she’s a shrew – but finds Kynthea intriguing.
Ras and Kynthea share a dance before having a discussion regarding Zoe, her desire to marry Ras, and her use of the love potion. Ras is furious on Kynthea’s behalf, as Zoe made her look like a fool, but Kynthea insists her cousin is truly kind-hearted – although overzealous in attempting to achieve her goals. Kynthea recognizes her own attraction to Ras, but remains determined to assist Zoe in her quest to win him over. He, however is more concerned with Kynthea’s reputation, having realised from the start that she is taking the blame for Zoe’s antics, and pointing out she might be labeled a “villainous tart” by the ton if she doesn’t keep Zoe in check. Those antics do eventually catch up to Kynthea, when the gossip column penned anonymously by Ras’s friend Nate, runs a couple of stories about her, although Nate insists he did not write them (it is later discovered in a sub-plot that he didn’t). As Kynthea continues trying to get Ras to take notice of Zoe, her attraction to him grows, as does his to her. There is a problem, however: as a duke, Ras is subject to approval from the Prince Regent before he can marry and Kynthea has fallen out of favor of society in a grand way.
When I downloaded this eARC, it was with the thought there would be a bit of a fantasy feel to it since there is literally a love potion used on the hero. While the potion plays a big part in Kynthea and Ras’ meet cute and comes up a few more times, it is more the catalyst to get the story rolling. I like that our heroine and hero getting together does not hinge on the potion and that it takes a bit of a backseat to everything else. While the potion itself is a fantastical element, it is used in such a realistic way (in that it doesn’t work at all) that I didn’t roll my eyes once.
Kynthea is a great heroine: she is sweet when she needs to be but also tough and overly patient with her cousin (bless her, because I wasn’t). She is never dazzled by Ras or the fact that he’s a duke. She is grounded, understanding that her position in life keeps her from being a viable match for a duke. Kynthea does not let this get her down, even as her attraction to Ras grows. Ras is easily my favorite character (I do tend to be partial to the heroes), and his dry wit is the best thing about this love story. If there is not a ton of action in a story, there better be some witty banter. There is plenty of witty banter in this tale! Ras has a dry sense of humor that had me grinning throughout. He is also a man who will fiercely protect those he cares about, as he proves multiple times.
One aspect that truly delighted me was the eleventh hour conflict. As I stated before, Kynthea is a commoner who has fallen out of favor with society and who cannot marry Ras without the blessing of the Prince Regent. Here, I must point out that upon doing some more research I realized that as Ras is not a Royal Duke he would not have needed permission from anyone to marry Kynthea. But I did love that the HEA does not rely on a fabricated eleventh-hour conflict, that Ras does indeed obtain the Prince’s blessing and that there’s no silly argument or third-act break-up.
The one and only issue I have with this story is Zoe. Yes, Kynthea says she is a sweetheart who gets too focused on her goals, but she comes across as childish (which makes sense since she is all of sixteen) and at times selfish. It’s a little aggravating when Kynthea doesn’t shut her down, but considering her livelihood depends on staying in Zoe’s and her parent’s good graces, I could understand why she doesn’t.
The Love Potion is a great start to a new series. It features a wonderful heroine and an even better hero. The potion itself is not a huge plot point, but this does not detract from the story, and the only hiccup is the secondary cousin character. I cannot wait for the next book in the series!
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“Kynthea” would have half-made sense as a name if the heroine had had a very classically-minded parent. It looks like an attempt at a more faithful version of the name “Cynthia,” which is originally Greek (it was an epithet for the goddess Artemis). “C” is how Greek kappa is rendered in Latin, and yes, the “k” pronunciation would be more correct; the “s” pronunciation was a development from post-classical Latin, although Behind the Name reports that the use of “Cynthia” as a given name started in the Renaissance.
The problem is that the original name would have still ended in -ia, so she should have been “Kynthia.” It would be weird for someone who was enough of a stickler to want to resurrect the original pronunciation to either not know that or change it.
I should maybe add that in classical Greek, -ia, -ea, and -eia would all have been pronounced differently, not interchangeably, so “Kynthea” is not a possible alternate spelling. The only way this name would work would be as a separate, possibly novel, derivation. It’s possible that there’s an incredibly obscure one that I don’t know about, of course.
Kynthea? A Duke needing the Prince Regent’s permission to marry? This may be a fun book, but I’m going to nope right out of there.
Intrigued by this one!!
This sounds like great fun! I do love a wry hero with a big heart. On the TBR it goes!
Sigh. Another author of HR who torpedoes her own plot by not doing her research.
And the completely silly names. HR was my first love but I despair of finding a review that inspires me to try a new author in the genre.
Oh, I so agree about the names. I hate it when authors use names that do not indicate gender, so when I start the book, I keep asking, “Is this the guy or the girl?” Plus, I don’t think it’s historically accurate, unless your book is set today.
I get that bothers some of our readers. But Jessica gave it a DIK so I bed many HR readers–including this one!–are willing to accept the suspension of disbelief that comes with fiction!
I think this is the crux of the complaint against historicals. It’s not that they aren’t being published, it’s that the ones being published aren’t to a lot of readers taste.Those who do like them love them, but those who don’t are left shaking their heads.
I do think it’s, in part, a generational thing. (Although how realistic was Woodiwiss or Rogers?) If you came to romance via contemporary romance or romantasy, you are used to romances as being both modern and full of fantasy. So caring about getting a title right or the mechanizations of court rules probably doesn’t matter to you. But if you came to romance through well researched historicals–Chase, Kinsale, Thomas–you expect verisimilitude.
I feel strongly that there is room for both kinds of HR readers in romance. And I worry that if we say there’s only one acceptable kind, we’ll have even less of a chance to have both kinds than we do now.
I agree that it is probably a generational thing. And I think there is nothing wrong with loving a story that caters to your tastes.However, I really apprecaite that a new name was created for romantasy – those books aren’t high fantasy and shouldn’t be marketed as such. I wish they would do the same for these new historicals. We’ve talked about this before since HR has been growing “lite” for decades, but a name that clearly denotes the book is more cosplay than history would be nice.
Maybe. But it’s still poor research and poor storytelling however you look at it. I know you don’t read medical romances because authors often get the details wrong. Same for me with HR.
We all have our preferences.
I agree and I accept that all fiction is by definition just that i.e.not a true story but if it is set in a particular time and place I would expect it to otherwise be historically accurate and if this is not the case should that not be made clear. I appreciate that your reviewer really liked it but just reading the review made me think I would really dislike it and it seems to me that nowadays it is increasingly difficult to find HR that reflects my tastes.
Maybe because some of us are British we are more aware of the historical position and thus more sensitive to this type of issue.
Another bugbear of course, not confined to HR, is supposedly British characters using Americanisms e.g. calling autumn “fall”.
I am just a grumpy old lady though.
We all love what we love and that is just fine!
The really nice thing about this, though, is that the review did its job. It conveyed Jessica’s love for the work while still letting you know why you wouldn’t like it. That’s the whole point of a review to me – to help me figure out whether or not I will enjoy it.
Absolutely. And that is why I like AAR so much. I just wish there were more reviews of HRs that I am likely to enjoy.
I suspect you and I have similar tastes, so you’ll understand me when I say that the problem is finding those books in the first place. If they were out there, I’d be more inclined to review them. All the major publishers are dumping their HR authors left, right and centre, and some of the more established ones aren’t writing – or aren’t writing HR any more – and the ones who are seem to be writing HR that is probably not to your (or my) taste.
A handful of the Mills & Boon/Harlequin Historical authors – Louise Allen, Sarah Mallory, Marguerite Kaye and others – are still producing HR that feels fairly ‘historical’.
One author I hear mentioned is Alice Coldbreath (she self publishes). I’m pretty chokka-block with review books for most of the year, but I do plan to pick up one of her books at some point and will review it if I do!
Yes indeed we do have very similar tastes and I very much appreciate that your reviews introduced me to a significant number of HR authors I might not have otherwise discovered. And I am very much aware that the issue unfortunately is finding HRs that we are likely to enjoy. One thing that I am very grateful for is that I do not think I would have read much M/M romance ( K J Charles/ Jay Hogan et al) or romantic suspense had your reviews not pointed me in that direction and now I read more of this than HR. I have not read any fantasy romance as I did not think this would be to my taste but you have reviewed a number of this type of book and given mostly good grades so never say never. Thanks again for all your recommendations.
Oh, that’s lovely to know – I’m really glad to have helped you find some good stuff to read!