The Viscount's Daring Miss
I became a fan of Lotte R. James’ historical romances after reading her début, The Housekeeper of Thornhallow Hall but I’m afraid The Viscount’s Daring Miss, her latest standalone title, reads as though it was written by a completely different author. The plot is paper-thin, the romance is lackluster, and the characters are hard to root for. It was a big disappointment.
Roberta – Bobby – Kingsley works as a groom for Julian Overday, Baron Rothwake. He and his friend, Lawrence Hathaway, Viscount Hayes are planning a horseback race against each other with the prize being land between their estates. Lawrence’s family believes Julian’s family cheated them out of the land and Lawrence wants it back ini order to run a railway through it.
The story opens with details of the rules of the race before revealing that Julian has been injured and cannot compete. Bobby immediately volunteers to take his place and convinces both men it’s a good idea. Bobby and Lawrence need to reach certain destinations each day via routes they can decide on themselves, and then must meet up at the end of the day. At the end of day one, despite barely knowing each other and not even liking each other, they give in to their mutual attraction and have sex. This occurs over and over throughout the story until near the end when Bobby is injured and believed to be unable to finish the race.
Along the way, we learn that Julian’s parents more or less adopted Bobby and they were raised together almost as siblings. Despite that, they attempted to have a relationship (Julian’s mother seemed to like the idea) but it ultimately didn’t work out. I was weirded out by this – even more when it was stated it was a physical relationship.
And speaking of physical relationships, Bobby and Lawrence begin theirs before the twenty percent mark of the book! I’m no means a prude, but I at least want some build-up in a relationship before the characters jump into bed (or in this case, a bedroll) together!
From reading the title and blurb, I’d expected this book to be the exciting story of two enemies racing and falling in love along the way, but this is not that book. The race is mostly glossed over, and whenever something exciting does happen, the reader is just told about it afterwards. Instead of action, we are treated to page after page of repetitive internal dialogue.
All of these things could possibly have been forgiven if I was at least able to root for the characters to be together, but I had so much trouble warming to Lawrence and Bobby. I admired her independence and strength, and actually felt as though she would have been better off alone. It seemed to me that she would run roughshod all over Lawrence during their lives together. I did appreciate that they made the mutual decision to not have children. It’s not for everyone and it’s not something I need in order to be able to believe in someone’s happily ever after. But even then, I couldn’t really believe in this one.
Buy The Viscount’s Daring Miss by Lotte R. James:
Book Details
| Reviewer: | Jessica Grogan |
|---|---|
| Review Date: | May 18, 2023 |
| Publication Date: | 04/2023 |
| Grade: | D |
| Sensuality | Warm |
| Book Type: | Historical Romance |
| Review Tags: |
Man, she started out so well and dwindled down to this.
Authors, “my characters have had a close siblinglike relationship for years but now they’re doing it” is uh. Not a sexy prospect.
Also how are they having all of this sex in the pre-condom presumably-from-the-outfits Regency world?!
Unfortunately I’ve formed the impression that this isn’t unusual for HH authors: they’ll put out a solid or at least promising debut, and then everything else afterwards is mediocre to unreadable. Lots of telling with no showing, or characters whose behavior is too blatantly plot-contrived or whose romance goes from 0 to 90 for no reason by page 30. It makes me wonder if they’re providing much editorial support, or if everything is so rushed that no one in the process has time to deliver a quality product. The pattern would make sense if they pick up authors who spent ages polishing up that first manuscript (maybe even a few) before they were published, but then expected to churn ’em out.
Virginia Heath is one of the saddest cases, imho. She has so much talent, but she’s been writing way too fast, and her books are sloppy like first drafts. (Also she always seems to overuse the phrase “nerve endings” despite writing about a period where none of her characters would have known it, which makes me twitch.)
I don’t mean to imply that all HH authors are like this; Louise Allen and Marguerite Kaye immediately come to mind as seasoned, solid authors. But it’s made me very wary of HH. I probably only finish about 25% of HHs at this point, and the only reason I still sometimes try them is that Harlequin is the one publisher who habitually puts out historicals outside the cookie cutters everyone else seems to be using.
That’s a very good point. Virginia Heath’s first few books were very good, and she still does produce winners, but the series she’s contracted to another publisher is nowhere near as good as her early books for Mills & Boon/HH.
She is so talented, and her early books have such promise. But I remember a very early interview with her, where in response to a question I can’t recall precisely, she proudly stated “Turns out, I’m prolific,” and something about it felt ominous. It seems like they aren’t giving proper editorial support, or they’re setting unrealistic expectations for the authors, etc.
Another phenomenon I’ve noticed that seems vaguely related (although not exclusive to HH by any means): an author will produce a fresh, original debut with an unusual premise or setting or characters, and then everything else they produce subsequently is quite derivative. It’s like they had one good idea that they were able to develop fully, but then, once published, they suddenly have pressure to keep pumping out books and lack incubation time to really get into an idea and make it their own. One of the things that makes KJ Charles the best historical writer out there right now is that her books are not only well-executed, but well and thoroughly conceived.
I think what you say about there being one good idea is quite true, and I wonder how much of the sameness is due to publishers wanting to stick to something they know sells and being afraid to encourage (or allow?) their authors to try anything new. And your point about “incubation” is one I’ve made several times – there are a lot of debut authors who have a lot of promise, but aren’t given the time and/or the editorial guidance they n eed to fulfil that promise. I also have to wonder about editorial standards, too. An author (of historical romance which includes a lot of actual history!) I know once said to me that she was fed up with being passed around between editors who had absolutely no idea what she was writing about and what they were doing.
This reminds me of something an old friend used to say about why a musical group’s second album was hardly ever as good as their debut: they had years to develop their songs & style for the first album, but everything after that never had the time to develop like the first one did—especially if the first record was an unexpected hit, and the record company wants to strike while the iron is hot. I think that is often true of authors & publishers too.
It’s really interesting how the pressure to publish frequently seems higher in romance than other genres – cf. how normal it is to see gaps of one to three years per book in eg sf/f, whereas in romance, if an author produces a single book a year, she’s a slow writer. How did this become the norm, and why? Is it just a factor of how voraciously romance readers read, or is it related to the misogyny surrounding the genre, or…?
I hadn’t actually thought of that, but you’re right. Two of my favourite historical mystery series – CS Harris’ Sebastian St. Cyr and Andrew Taylor’s Marwood & Lovett – have one new book per year. This used to be the norm with big name, trad. published romance authors, too. I suspect the pressure to put out 2 or more books a year may be influenced by the fact that self-publishing romance authors can put out three or four (or more) books a year and the publishing houses feel they might lose readers to self-published titles if their authors don’t keep up? I can’t speak as to the quality of those self published books, although several of the authors who are auto-buy/reads for me – Gregory Ashe, Nicky James, Cole McCade – manage to maintain a high standard while publishing several books a year. (I think Ashe published 10 books in a year in 2020 or 2021, all of them really good!)
Emerging artists/art students are constantly told they have to make art everyday—not everything they make has to be a masterpiece or even good but they have to make art everyday. Many writers too follow a version of that mantra. Stephen King, during his early years, published three books a year. Later on he reduced his output to 2 per year with one mega doorstopper with 750 pages and the other a diet version at 450. Not everything he publishes has been good. But over many decades he has produced many masterpieces in his genre. He once explained that he has so many stories churning inside his brain that he had to get them out before his brain exploded.. He admits that from his own work he knows haste makes waste but he has no choice; and that life is short and in the end, creative spark dies and death puts it out. “William Shakespeare, for instance, has not produced a new play in 400 years. That, my friends, is a long dry spell”.
In my opinion, there is nothing virtuous about publishing meticulously crafted one book per year or anything bad about publishing 2-3 of varied quality. Writing is a creative endeavor and the very act of putting pen to paper and coming up with a 250 page love story deserves a passing grade.
You’re right that it shouldn’t be a competition, or one thing being ‘better’ than another. But publishers are about the bottom line, and authors – all artists – want to eat. Money is the driving force.
It is both-creative spirit and temporal need.
I don’t think artists or writer tell themselves—there is ton of money to be made in writing and so I will become a writer. They want to write, tell stories and so they become writers.
I disagree that simply penning a 250 page love story means the reviewer has to give it a passing grade. Grades are given for the quality, not the mere existence, of a book. They are not participation trophies. I think it’s great to encourage artistic endeavors, and creating is wonderful in and of itself. But that doesn’t mean every creative endeavor is going to be pleasing for others.
It’s all about the Benjamins. Also, KU rewards more words read so it adds pressure to write more words whether they’re any good or not.
I think there are also cultural beliefs that women who read romance will read ANY romance, because those poor empty-headed females have no critical discernment, ya know; and that romance is EASY to write—so writers should be able to churn out any number of romances in a limited time frame. Both beliefs are utterly false and firmly rooted in misogyny, but they persist. I do worry about writers overextending themselves. Two of my favorite dark romance writers, Skye Warren and Amelia Wilde, have several different series going at once (in less than a month, Wilde released two new books, one a standalone and one the first book in a trilogy, with another book—the first in another new series—due next month). It’s no surprise that their publication dates often get pushed back, or that some writers burn out and take a sabbatical (Eve Dangerfield, Ruthie Knox) or just disappear altogether (Anne Calhoun).
Where is the story set and which time period?
England. By the looks of the clothes on the cover, I’d say Regency or close to. (Amaz0n categorises it as Regency).
If nothing else, I would definitely deduct a few points for unprotected sex with no consequences story line.
Agreed. And it’s so common in the genre for a) the possibility of consequences to never be mentioned, b) for the leads to have unprotected sex and then c) for the heroine to flat out refuse to marry the hero.
Maybe it’s too difficult for today’s crop of HR writers to really and truly understand just how strong was the stigma of illegitimacy, not just for hte mother but for the child also.
It’s even better when the heroine is pregnant by the hero, but still decides not to marry him, either because she doesn’t want to foist a surprise baby on him or because he hasn’t said the L word. Either way, I end up hoping the baby doesn’t take after her intelligence-wise.
:)
Yes to all the points above.,In addition to stigma, social isolation and likely destitution, unwed mothers (especially the poor) were also surveilled, imprisoned and separated from their children for being ‘bad’ mothers. Unfortunately, even today, child welfare bureaucracy everywhere operates on the same model.