Category Archives: Romance

February 13, 2013 · 11:52 am

One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean

Sarah MacLean

I admit, I’m not really up for reviewing this right now. I just want to review it so I can put it away. I finished it over the weekend, and I don’t really have anything else to review right now, so here we are.

One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (what a lame title) is a historical romance, good for a quick read with some sexy bits. It’s brain candy, which is exactly what I needed at the end of last week.

Pippa is the heroine – she’s a girl in glasses who loves science, and she’s engaged to be married in two weeks to Lord Castleton, and she looks forward to living out her days with her dogs and scientific experiments. But before she gets married, she needs to know exactly how to go about being a wife and no one seems willing to tell her about the more intimate details. So she seeks out Cross, a co-owner for a famous London gaming club with a devilish reputation. Just by asking him for his help in answering her questions about what happens in the marriage bed, she threatens to ruin everything he’s worked for.

And so on and so forth. I’m feeling lazy, so let’s bullet-point this. Things I liked:

  • That Pippa was a nerdy girl. You don’t see that a whole lot in historical romance, but she liked reading and anatomy and horticulture and all that fun stuff. It might have been a bit overdone in spots, but still.
  • There were a couple steamy scenes, for those of you that really care only about those parts.
  • She’s not a jerk to Lord Castleton, the guy she’s engaged to but who she obviously does not end up with.
  • It was overall entertaining, and Pippa has a few really great stand-out moments.
  • I really like the cover… the colors and the wallpaper and just really pretty.

Things I didn’t like:

  • Cross had a bunch of different co-owners of his gaming hell and I could barely keep them all straight. And the whole drama surrounding his past was a bit silly.
  • Well, overall this whole plot was a bit silly…
  • The romance between them didn’t really feel genuine.
  • There was a lot of redundancy. The characters kind of repeated the same lines and sentiments over and over. A little more plot or action would have been nice.

This was a cute fluffy romance, but definitely not the best. Good for a quick mindless read.

Sarah Says: 3 stars

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December 17, 2012 · 5:10 pm

An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

So many pretty covers... except for the green slime one.

So many pretty covers… except for the green slime one.

 

REMEMBER, THIS IS THE 7TH BOOK! IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST 6 THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. YOU KNOW, YOU SHOULD REALLY GO READ THE REST OF THE SERIES AND THEN COME BACK HERE, KAY?

 

Alright, I’m finally done re-reading the Outlander series! Since I spread it out over the last 2 years, I feel like it was a nice and relaxing. Now all I have to do is wait for the 8th book to come out, hopefully sometime next fall!

I’ve only read An Echo in the Bone once before (I’ve read all of the others in the series like 3 or 4 times at least), so I was really excited to see if my opinion of it has changed. And it has! But in case you’re interested, here’s the link to the review from the last time I read it, about 3 years ago. I was actually kind of nice in that review, because I remember being pretty angry about it. I was actually tempted to THROW the book at one point – but I didn’t of course, because it was a big beautiful hardcover.

ANYWAYS. A Breath of Snow and Ashes ended with Jamie & Claire’s house on Fraser’s Ridge burning down, them planning on going to Scotland to get Jamie’s printing press, and Brianna, Roger, and their kids head back to the present. Lots of upheaval, and right on the brink of the Revolutionary War.

A whole lot of stuff happens in this book, because there are four storylines. This really irritated me back when I first read the book. I love these books because I love Jamie and Claire, and it sucked that there was so much time dedicated to Roger/Brianna, Young Ian, and William/Lord John. Having re-read it, and at a much more leisurely pace than last time, it didn’t bug me quite as much. I think maybe I could have done without so many William/Lord John chapters, but I have a better appreciation for them now and their role in the overall story.

So, stuff that happens… well, Young Ian is finally healing after the disaster of his marriage to Emily, and that made me happy. He’s SUCH an awesome character, I really wish that Diana Gabaldon would write a whole series just for him. Or at least a novella. Jamie and Claire go through hell trying to make it across the sea to Scotland, including two major Revolutionary War battles (Ticonderoga and Saratoga). William is getting his first taste of being a soldier, and Lord John is of course working on some kind of political mystery that involves Fergus.

I liked this book a lot better than last time. I took time to appreciate the writing and just enjoy being with the characters again. These are the only books in which I actually MISS the characters when I’m not reading the books. They’re just so real. I’m already looking forward to my next big re-read in another year or two.

That being said, I have two main issues with this book:

1. That it ends on SO many cliffhangers. Diana doesn’t usually do that - all of the other books end on a solid note, with you looking forward to the next book but things more or less wrapped up for the moment. This one literally ends in the middle of a ton of action, confusion, and a ton of stuff happening. It feels… sloppy.

2. This is a big spoiler, but it’s the thing I dislike most in this book. Highlight if you want to read it… Claire heads back to America from Scotland, and Jamie follows later. Except Claire hears that the ship he was on went down and there were no survivors, so she thinks he’s dead. Soooo… she marries Lord John to protect herself and Fergus and his family, which I can understand. But… then her and Lord John sleep together, out of grief or whatever. WHAT. THE. FUCK. This whole situation makes no sense – Claire’s not stupid, she knows that in this day and age plans change and that even though that the ship he was SUPPOSED to be on, it doesn’t mean that he actually was on it. I guess it just bothers me that she so blindly accepts that he died, and she doesn’t even attempt to find out for sure. And then to go and sleep with Lord John, one of his good friends… just what the hell. This was totally unnecessary. UGH.

 

So yeah. I still have some complaints, but overall this book wasn’t as bad as I remember it being. With the exception of how rushed the ending was and that other thing that happens, I really enjoyed it. I can’t wait for Written in My Own Heart’s Blood to come out! I’m sure it’ll be the highlight of 2013.

 

Sarah Says: 4 stars

 

 

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November 14, 2012 · 11:41 am

Manhunting by Jennifer Crusie

 

Isn’t that cover just hilarious? Oh the early 90′s.

Jennifer Crusie is one of my go-to romance authors, cause she’s fun and hilarious and she wrote Bet Me, which is the Best Romance Ever. Back around the time I first discovered her I went out and hunted down a bunch of her books, even the older ones, which means I still have a couple books of hers that I haven’t read yet. (And thank goodness, because she is taking forever to come out with a new book.) Sooooo, I was in the mood for some romance, and Manhunting it was!

Kate is an attractive, successful businesswoman in her mid-thirties who realizes she’s kind of miserable because she’s not with anybody, and she’s lonely at night. Plans are what she does best, so she comes up with one to get married – go to a Kentucky resort, meet a successful businessman that she can build a business with, and marry him. But when she shows up to The Cabins resort, all of the businessmen are jerks, boring, or boring jerks. The only man there she feels like she can talk to is Jake, the easy-going handyman that just wants to sleep on the lake and some peace and quiet.

Soooooo… not my favorite Crusie. Kate wasn’t quite as annoying as I expected her to be, especially after she stopped being so frigid and stuck-up. In fact at point she stabs a guy with a fork, which is totally my style. But her desire to find a “man to build a business with” was kind of annoying, perhaps because I lack that kind of ambition. Jake was a really fun male lead, though he had some chauvanistic moments. But overall he was laid-back and funny, and him and Kate did have really good chemistry together. I liked that they started off as friends and then slowly fell for each other.

Jake’s main letdown was that he had a mustache. Mustaches are not for romance novels, they’re for porn. (Especially white guys with mustaches, it almost never looks good, unless you’re Burt Reynolds. Otherwise it just makes you look a little creepy.) So yeah, eww. I kind of had to ignore it whenever his mustache was mentioned.

I also feel like you can kind of see Jennifer Crusie sorting through her own feelings on sexism, successful women, etc, and that was interesting. Not something you’d expect to see in a romance novel, but it was fun to see Kate criticize a woman who just wants to be a stay-at-home mom, and then Jake showing her she’s being sexist by judging a woman for that. This stuff was probably more of a hot topic in the 1990′s, but still interesting.

 

The more modern cover, this is what’s in the bookstores now since it got re-released.

Anyways, not the best and not the funniest, but still a good fluffy read overall.

 

Sarah Says: 3 stars

 

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October 19, 2012 · 5:00 am

An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn

 

This is the third book in Julia Quinn’s Bridgertons series. I read the first two a while back, but then never got around to requesting the next ones from the library. Luckily I have an awesome friend named Jenn who is sending me the books in this series as she reads them, so I finally get to go on with them!

Oh and don’t worry – I read them in order because I’m picky like that, but you don’t really have to worry about reading these in order. Each book focuses on one of the eight Bridgerton siblings finding true love :-)

So, An Offer From a Gentleman! It’s about Sophie, who was the unacknowledged bastard of the Earl of Penwood. He took care of her and everyone knew she was his, but she got pushed aside when he got remarried to Araminta, and her and her two daughters move in. When the Earl dies, Sophie is left with nothing – she grows up as a servant to her stepmother and two stepsisters.  But Sophie is able to sneak out in disguise for one wonderful night, attending Lady Bridgerton’s masquerade ball and meets the man of her dreams when she dances with Benedict Bridgerton.

He is one of the older Bridgerton sons, and he’s never shown much interest in romance or getting married – until he meets a beautiful mystery woman at his mother’s masquerade. She disappears at midnight and he’s left pining for her – until he ends up rescuing a beautiful housemaid that seems so familiar…

See the Cinderella element here? I loved that – it was so fun. Poor Sophie – she’s SO mistreated by her stepfamily and ends up working so hard just to survive. And then when she runs into Benedict again, it seems her dreams have come true – until she realizes that he doesn’t recognize her from that one magical night. But he saves her, and they get all romantic and sweet and awwwww.

This book wasn’t as funny as some of Julia Quinn’s newer books – and I really like funny romance. So that was a bit disappointing. And even though Sophie and Benedict were so cute together and of course I cheered for their happy ending, Benedict isn’t my favorite romantic hero. He was definitely a knight in shining armor at one point in the story, but in another later part he kind of demands that she be his mistress and refuses to consider that he could marry a housemaid, and that was a little weak. Of course this is romance so it all works out in the end, but that irked me about him. Oh and for those that really like the sexy bits – there was only one real sex scene in this book. That was actually preferable for me, but if that’s what you mainly look for in romance you might want to skip this one.

Overall though, this was a fun read and I really like the Bridgerton family. Especially the mama :) I’m looking forward to reading the next one, Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, because I think I’ll like Colin Bridgerton more than Benedict.

 

Sarah Says: 3.5 stars

 

 

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September 18, 2012 · 4:39 pm

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

Even though I own 3 copies of this book, I don’t have that pretty UK cover yet… sigh.

 

Yayyyy, another Outlander review! REMEMBER, THIS IS THE 6TH BOOK! IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST 5 THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. AND REALLY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE? GO READ THESE BOOKS!

And, in case you’re interested here are my reviews for the first five books:

Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross

 

So. At the end of The Fiery Cross, stuff was happening. The Frasers were settling down on the Ridge, and there was basically a lot of set-up waiting for the American Revolution to get closer. A Breath of Snow and Ashes starts off pretty much the same, with about 3 years to go until the start of the American Revolution. There are worrisome murders happening throughout the countryside… houses burned down and families being hung. Roger and Brianna have decided to stay, even though they know war is coming. Roger finally decides what he wants to do, as a calling or career. Brianna keeps making and building stuff, usually at the risk of something blowing up. We learn what happened to Young Ian when he was away and why he came back. Claire and Jamie have a really rough time of things in this book – not relationship troubles, but tragedy definitely strikes. There’s plots, intrigue, murder, deception, romance, and action abound in this one.

I flew through this in about a week. Of course, it’s a re-read, but still. That’s impressive for a 950-ish page trade paperback. I forgot how much I like this one. SO much good stuff happens. It rarely gets dull – there’s always something happening. And there are a couple big mysteries in this one, and happily I forgot how they ended up so when I re-read it, it was a surprise :-) Also, I like Brianna a lot more in this book than in the others. She’s so inventive, and the times she did get a little rage-y it was understandable.

And of course, I just love love love Jamie and Claire. I teared up at a couple parts. And, (not that this really spoils anything) the book ends with basically the start of the war. I think that makes me treasure this book a little more… I like seeing the Frasers at home and whatnot, and knowing that they’re about to be thrown into the chaos of war and battles makes me appreciate the more domestic scenes in this book.

I really want to go ahead and re-read #7, An Echo in the Bone now. I’m trying to make myself wait until November, because the 8th book won’t be out until early 2013 (I HOPE) and I want it to stay fresh in my mind before the new release. But since I’ve only read AEITB once before, I’m really, really looking forward to the re-read – even if I remember it being my least favorite.

 

Sarah Says: 5 stars :-)

 

 

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June 28, 2012 · 1:02 pm

The Bungalow by Sarah Jio

The Bungalow by Sarah Jio

 

The Bungalow is Sarah Jio’s second novel and I have to say, I loved it a lot more than her first, The Violets of March. TVoM was a good book, but I realized that as time went on I kind of forgot about it. I’m happy to say that I think The Bungalow will remain much more vivid in my head.

I’ve sat here for over half an hour trying to come up with a good summary of the book, but nothing I come up with is as good as the description on the back of the book, so here it is:

“A sweeping saga of long-lost love, a mysterious painting, an unspeakable tragedy and the beach bungalow at the center of it all …

In the summer of 1942, newly engaged Anne Calloway sets off to serve in the Army Nurse Corps on the Pacific island of Bora-Bora. More exhilarated by the adventure of a lifetime than she ever was by her predictable fiancé, she is drawn to a mysterious soldier named Westry, and their friendship soon blossoms into hues as deep as the hibiscus flowers native to the island. Under the thatched roof of an abandoned beach bungalow, the two share a private world-until they witness a gruesome crime, Westry is suddenly redeployed, and the idyll vanishes into the winds of war.

A timeless story of enduring passion, The Bungalow chronicles Anne’s determination to discover the truth about the twin losses–of life, and of love–that have haunted her for seventy years.”

 

That sums it up pretty good. I liked Anne – she’s just reaching adulthood in the 1940′s, back when women still had not a lot of choices in their own lives. She’s engaged to Gerard, a perfectly handsome, rich young man who she’s been matched with since she was just a child. He’s nice and all, but she also feels that lack of romance and passion that she longs for. Her deciding to go join the Army nurses is her way of getting a little adventure in her life before settling down to a perfectly normal, boring life of being a housewife and having children.

As is obvious from the description, she’s unfaithful to her fiance when she falls in love with Westry for but some reason, it didn’t bug me as much as it usually would. Sarah Jio does a good job at making Gerard seem indifferent about their relationship, and I was rooting for Anne to leave him before she even left for Bora-Bora. And then she comes to this beautiful, exotic island and she slowly falls for Westry and their love is all romantic and sweet and transcendent. You guys know how much I loathe cheating in books, so the fact that I was able to still like the characters and really enjoy the book says something about the author’s impressive story-telling abilities.

There were some secondary characters as well, that were all vivid, unique, and added to the story rather well, whether you liked them or not. For instance I HATE her friend Kitty, but she was essential to the story. I also liked Maxine, Anne’s housemaid and friend. And of course the imagery was just beautiful – it’s no wonder I read this in one sitting. For example, here’s an excerpt from the first page:

“He was there, of course – in uniform, shyly smiling at me as the waves fell into the shore. I could hear them – their violent crash, followed by the fizz of a million bubbles kissing the sand. Closing my eyes tighter, I found him again, standing there amid the fog of sleep was the lifting, too quickly. Don’t go, my heart pleaded. Stay. Please stay. And he obediently appeared again with that beckoning grin, those arms outstretched to me. I felt the familiar flutter in my heart, the longing. And then, in an instant, he was gone.”

I was IMMEDIATELY sucked into the story just after reading that. And I was a little sad when I finished the book. This will be one of those books I re-read when I’m in a sappy, romantic mood.

Anyways, this was a beautiful afternoon read, and Sarah Jio’s next novel, Blackberry Winter, is on my automatic to-buy list when it comes out in September.

 

Sarah Says: 4 stars

 

 

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May 31, 2012 · 9:42 am

A Night Like This by Julia Quinn

A Night Like This by Julia Quinn

 

Oh Julia Quinn, you did it again.

A Night Like This is the second book in her Smythe-Smith quartet, and I’m happy to say that it was just as good as the first one (Just Like Heaven).

So, because I’m feeling lazy, here’s the description on the back of the book:

Anne Wynter might not be who she says she is . . .

But she’s managing quite well as a governess to three highborn young ladies. Her job can be a challenge—in a single week she finds herself hiding in a closet full of tubas, playing an evil queen in a play that might be a tragedy (or might be a comedy—no one is sure), and tending to the wounds of the oh-so-dashing Earl of Winstead. After years of dodging unwanted advances, he’s the first man who has truly tempted her, and it’s getting harder and harder to remind herself that a governess has no business flirting with a nobleman.

Daniel Smythe-Smith Might be in mortal danger . . .

But that’s not going to stop the young earl from falling in love. And when he spies a mysterious woman at his family’s annual musicale, he vows to pursue her, even if that means spending his days with a ten-year-old who thinks she’s a unicorn. But Daniel has an enemy, one who has vowed to see him dead. And when Anne is thrown into peril, he will stop at nothing to ensure their happy ending . . .

So, SWOON. For some reason, I was totally feeling the romance in A Night Like This than most other romance novels. Julia Quinn does a wonderful job at writing light-hearted books that are also super sweet and romantic. While there were definitely a few really funny moments, the hilarity didn’t seem as obvious as in Just Like Heaven.

Anne Wynter has a secret past that is coming back to haunt her, and she misses being a part of something real, part of a family. She does a great job with teaching the girls and they like her, but her position is quite clear until Daniel notices her and starts blurring the lines between governess and friend. I totally like Anne though – she’s smart, resourceful, and a bit impertinent. And her while her big secret definitely turns out to be a bit scandalous, it made me like her even more.

Daniel is also likable, but maybe not quite as memorable. He has his own demons from his past to face, but nothing dramatic. He is a good male character though – honorable, respectful, and good-natured. He also has good close friends – Marcus (from Just Like Heaven) and Hugh. I was actually thinking while reading this book that Hugh would make an interesting male lead, and I’m happy to say that according to Julia Quinn’s website, he will be the main male character in the next book. Yay!

I really liked that Anne and Daniel had a lot of alone-together time that allowed them to get to know each other, without anything too sexy sexy going on. They shared memories and had a lot of great back-and-forth joking going on. And there were plenty of little super-romantic passages that I underlined in my book so that I could go back to them later.

So basically this book turned me into one great big sap. But I couldn’t help it, it just made me smile and was a great book to read on lazy mornings with my cup of coffee.

Sarah Says: 4 stars

 

 

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May 28, 2012 · 8:41 am

DNF: The Duke is Mine by Eloisa James

The Duke is Mine

*Sigh* I had such high hopes for this book, mainly because of the gorgeous cover.

I got almost exactly halfway through The Duke is Mine before finally calling it quits. In the interests of simplicity and laziness, I’m going to bullet the reasons…

  • Olivia, the heroine, is betrothed to a young duke-to-be who very clearly has some mental / developmental problems, and she makes fun of him a lot. I know that back then they didn’t really treat mental illness with much respect, but it rubbed me the wrong way.
  • The romance of the story is between Olivia and Tarquin*, the duke that her younger sister is pinning her hopes on. So right off the bat, we learn that in order for the romance story to work out, she’d have to break her betrothal to another man AND screw over her sister. Nothing sexy about that.
  • Olivia is apparently a curvy girl (which for this time-era probably means she was all of a size 8 or so – not fat by any means really), and that’s great. But she constantly bemoans the fact that she’s fat and no one could possibly think she’s attractive, especially next to her graceful, thin younger sister.
  • Between Olivia’s whining that she’s fat and her constant regret that she’s engaged to someone so undesirable, I was pretty bored.

OK, these might be a little spoiler-ish, so skip to the end in case you still want to read this book…

  • Tarquin is kind of a cool duke – he’s a mathematician and all interested in math and equations and stuff. I like smart people in my romance. But Olivia makes no secret of how boring she finds that sort of thing, while her younger sister is totally into it and can even hold a conversation with Tarquin about it. Which means that while the younger sister is perfect for him, the lust factor alone makes him want to be with Olivia. Fine if this was more of an “erotica” book, but not cool for a romance. Personality counts too, dammit.
  • Also, Tarquin’s been screwed over by lust before, so you’d think he’s value compatibility more than lust, but nope.
  • For those of you interested in the sexy bits more, I flipped ahead, and the one scene that I read sucked. Too much talking, and something else annoying that I don’t really want to go into.
  • When I realized that I just really wasn’t enjoying this book, I went online and read some other reviews. Apparently it barely resembles the princess and the pea story, and apparently the ending is really weird.

So, there we have it. You wouldn’t think I’d have so much to complain about for just half a book, but there you have it. I’m quitting this and moving on to something else.

 

~Sarah

 

* Tarquin is a great name though.

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April 25, 2012 · 9:41 am

The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

The Fiery Cross covers

Hey guys! So I’ve been very slowly re-reading the Outlander series since 2011, and now it’s time to review book #5, The Fiery Cross. SO REMEMBER THIS WILL BE ALL SPOILER-Y IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST FOUR BOOKS. IF YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT SORT OF THING THEN PLEASE, READ ON.

Also, here are my reviews for the first four books:

Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn

At the end of Drums of Autumn, everything was pretty hunky-dory. The Frasers are happily setting up their settlement known as Fraser’s Ridge. Brianna had the baby (Jemmy) and Roger gets rescued and decides to stay in the past, even though the baby might not be his, and they agree to get married. Jamie and Claire know that the American Revolution is coming and that they’re likely going to get swept up in it. The book ends with them all at The Gathering, that annual get-together of just about every Scot in the New World.

The Fiery Cross is probably the slowest-paced of all of the books, and it’s the first one in the series that doesn’t make me tear up at some point. That being said, it’s still a great book – you get to see a lot of Jamie and Claire being all domestic and that makes me happy. Also, there’s still a lot of action. There’s both attempted and actual murder, there’s battle, there’s tragedy, there’s romance, etc. Brianna and Roger are trying to get used to married life and get over the scars that Stephen Bonnett left. Roger has to deal with a serious injury that makes him question his purpose. Jamie and Claire are getting new tenants to settle down and are preparing for the revolution coming, only about 3 years away. There’s weddings, gold, snake bites, bears, ghosts, and a favorite character makes a welcome return.

Also, this book has one of my favorite quotes in the series:

“When the day shall come, that we do part,” he said softly, and turned to look at me, “if my last words are not ‘I love you’ – ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.”

Awww. So even though the plot is a little slower than the other books, this is still a fantastic book and a great addition to the series. It also sets up a lot of important events to come in book #6, A Breath of Snow and Ashes.

 

Sarah Says: 5 stars

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March 21, 2012 · 7:00 am

The Tattooed Duke by Maya Rodale

  • Title: The Tattooed Duke
  • Author: Maya Rodale
  • Publisher: Avon
  • Pages: 371
  • ISBN: 9780062088925

So, browsing about Wegmans earlier this month, I of course was looking at their selection of books and ended up buying two, one of which was this one. The Tattooed Duke I really picked up on a whim. The whole tattoo thing caught my eye because come on, dukes didn’t rock tattoos back in the day, and then I flipped through it for a minute and noticed these funny little chapter subtitles. For example: “Chapter 5: In Which Scrubbing Floors is Romantic” and “Chapter 15: In Which the Duke Does Some Sleuthing”. It looked like fun, so I bought it and I’m happy to say it was really enjoyable.
 
Sebastian Digby has been trotting the globe having adventures when he’s called back to England because his father dies, and he is now the new Duke of Wycliff. He reluctantly returns home to find that the dukes before him have left the estate penniless, and that the elite of London scorn him for his wild ways, too-long hair, and small gold hoop earring. Once they find out about his wild tattoos and outlandish adventures overseas, they turn their back on him and refuse to fund the expedition of his dreams: a trip to the famed land of Timbuktu. Meanwhile, his pretty new housemaid almost makes him want to give up his dreams of exploring Timbuktu so that he can stay in England and flirt with her…
 
Eliza Fieldings is a writer for London’s favorite gossip newspaper, but she might not be for long if she doesn’t complete her latest assignment: to find out everything she can about the badboy duke. So Eliza poses as a housemaid in the Duke of Wycliff’s household, and she finds herself instantly attracted to him. As they grow closer, she’s torn between her desire to get the story so that she can keep her job, and her desire to give in to loving Sebastian. 
 
As you can see this is not your run-of-the-mill historical romance, and I thought it was GREAT. I loved seeing a heroine that isn’t some rich heiress, but also isn’t some poor peasant girl who needs a great marriage to save her finances. She’s an intelligent girl who loves to write, and she has a job and works really hard. Eliza is independent, witty, and tough. She even carries a knife at one point! HELL YES FOR HEROINES WHO CARRY WEAPONS!!!!! That’s the first I’ve ever seen of that in a romance, or in most books really. It should definitely happen more often.
 
Sebastian is a fun hero too – he has a scandalous past, but nothing that he’s ashamed of. He’s also determined not to become just like all the other dukes of Wycliff before him, which means he tries to keep from falling into bed with Eliza, as much as he wants to. He has a sense of wanderlust and refuses to conform to society’s expectations of him, which made him really likable.
 
Besides the great characters, there was no insta-love! Sure, there was insta-attraction, but that’s okay. They actually had conversations and talked to one another a lot, which somehow gets left out of a lot of romances. There was a fun and unique plot as well. For those of you who read romance purely for the sexy times, I’ll warn you that there’s no sex until the end of the novel. That’s how I prefer my romance novels actually, but that’s cause I care more about the characters, story, and romance than the sexy bits.
 
All in all this was a successful and really fun fluffy read. And apparently it’s part of Maya Rodale’s “Writing Girls” series, so there are other books out about some of the secondary characters as well. I’m not too big on series in romance, but I may give one of the others a try.
 
Sarah Says: 4 stars

BTW… Doesn’t the tattoo on the duke look like a face? Luckily the tattoos as described in the book sound much cooler.

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