I have to admit that I loved being prompted to read a historical this month. Historicals and gothics were my first loves, but my reading habits have evolved over time, and I don’t read as many as I used to. And as frequent readers here well know, Caz is something of a historical maven, so between the two of us, we had a lovely time reading this month. […]
Smoke and Ashes by Danica Winters
I liked James and Lizzie but had a hard time understanding why they made the choices they did. James, in the name of his work, allows Lizzie to suffer tremendously while claiming to love her. Lizzie, bedazzled by sex with James and still hell-bent on being independent, behaves in ways that are at times unsympathetic and flat-out self-destructive. And for all the thinking they do about each other — and Ms. Essex spends a good deal of time relating her characters’ thoughts — neither really sees the other very clearly until, perhaps, the end of the novel. This lack of unambiguous relationship development combined with too […]
When I started reading romance, I stuck almost entirely to historicals and romantic suspense. When I saw this month’s TBR Challenge prompt, I knew I had no shortage of historical reading in my closet o’TBR. I decided to go with a new-to-me author and picked up Liana LeFey’s 2012 debut, Countess So Shameless. This Georgian historical, set in France and England during the reign of George II, has enough intelligence and unique characterization to keep me reading but also enough eyeroll-inducing plot twists to make it difficult for me to recommend.
The novel opens at Versailles where the teenaged Melisande Compton has come to court with her French mother and English father. We learn very quickly that this isn’t entirely a pleasure visit and while in France, Melisande learns a dangerous and devastating family secret. Overcome with emotion, she runs headlong into Lord Alessandro Orsini, a rakish diplomat for […]
Today, author Alexis Hall interviews KJ about the Society of Gentlemen trilogy.
AJH: What drew you to the Regency period as a setting?
Still tied to his desk in the Intelligence Office, Colonel Eden Maxwell has become increasingly disenchanted with both Oliver Cromwell and his own daily existence; and with the advent of new Royalist conspiracies, he despairs of ever getting away.
Then a brick hurled through the window of a small workshop sets in motion a new and unexpected chain of events. After all, who would want to hurt Lydia Neville – a young widow, giving work and self-respect to maimed war veterans considered unemployable elsewhere? But when the assaults in Duck Lane escalate, threatening the life and remaining limbs of some of Eden’s former troopers, finding the culprit becomes personal.At their first meeting, Lydia finds Colonel Maxwell annoying; by their second, having discovered that he had arrested and questioned her brother in connection with the Ship Tavern Plot, she mistrusts his motives. On the other hand, it […]
My other consideration for Lady Constance, by the way, was a totally new character who would have emerged during the series, not one of the existing characters. […]
‘Tis been quite a year for us here in our small town of Sandy Balls. And to think, a year ago, I despaired of my daughters Arabella and Lavinia finding husbands and worried my darling Didimus would never take a bride. As for me, well, I was sure I’d live out the rest of my years here at Cinnabon, dedicated to the memory of my dear departed Humphrey. Though I’d vow it never happens, it must be acknowledged, in these assumptions, I was mistaken.
I must state my fear that Arabella would remain a spinster was understandable. The girl is such a, dare I say, bluestocking. If she’s read a single volume from our library while draping herself artfully over the yellow floral silk covered chaise lounge, she’s read them all. A man finds nothing less attractive than an overly educated female. My dear departed Humphrey often told me he loved nothing in me so much as the sweet simplicity of my thoughts. It must be […]
