Stephanie
Burgis’ new series, Regency Dragons, gets a delightful start in Scales and Sensibility. Its a regency romance with added fantasy elements, dragons and
magic, and the two sides go together seamlessly to create a world that feels
natural.
Elinor Tregarthlives the dreary life of a poor
relative in her aunt and uncle’s manor after her parents died and left her and
her two sisters penniless. Constantly bullied by her cousin Penelope, she
finally snaps and leaves the house without a penny, but with Penelope’s pet
dragon Sir Jessamyn.
Her
position untenable, she makes an ardent wish to be exactly like a society
matron, Mrs. De Lacey—and her dragon makes it happen! A game of masquerade
ensues, where she tries to maintain her pretense among people who are becoming
increasingly suspicious of her. She soon finds herself in deep trouble from
many quarters.
To make
matters worse—or better—Benedict Hawkins, a penniless suitor of Penelope, likes
to spend time with Elinor instead. But how is she to let her feelings
grow when she isn’t who he thinks—and he needs a fortune to save his estate and
family.
Tension
rises to almost unbearable before everything is solved and a happy ending can
be declared.
This was a
charming, well-written historical romance that was maybe a little lighter on
the romance than I would’ve wished, but there was plenty of other things to
keep my interest. Elinor was an excellent heroine, Benedict was a
slightly distant but wonderfully suitable hero, and all the villains were
perfectly villainous. But the book was stolen by Sir Jessamyn, the timid dragon
who ended up changing Elinor’s life for good. A wonderful start to a series. I
will definitely want to read more.
I received
a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Infamous is the third book in Rebels of the
Ton series by Minerva Spencer. It’s a Regency romance set in the early 19th
century England and the world of its aristocrats.
It’s a series only in a loose sense. The
people featured in this book made only a brief appearance in the epilogue of
the previous book and vice versa. However, most of the characters have been
introduced in Spencer’s previous series, Outcasts, and are familiar to readers
of that. I haven’t read them, and as the author assumed familiarity, it left me
feeling a bit of an outsider throughout the book.
The book begins a decade before the actual
events. Celia, the pet of the ton is also its meanest person. Egged on by an
equally mean duke, she creates a scandal that forces two people, Lucian and
Phyllida, to marry. But the scandal destroys her too and a decade later she’s
living retired life as a companion of an old lady. She’s learned her lesson and
is transformed, but when she’s forced to spend Christmas at Luce and Phil’s manor,
old hurts surface. As does her old attraction to Richard, Luce’s twin
brother.
Richard hasn’t been bothered by the
scandal, living his dream life as an entomologist and travelling around the
world. His sister’s Christmas wedding forces him to return home, only to find
Celia there, the woman he was attracted to a decade earlier. But her sister’s
fiancé is the same horrible duke that ruined Celia’s life—and Lucian’s too.
There are two romances in this book, with own point of view chapters for every party: Richard and Celia, and Luce and Phil.
Despite having been married for a decade, the latter are strangers to each
other. Celia’s sudden presence forces them to take stock of their marriage and
build a better relationship. I was more invested in their romance. I found it sweet
and a bit heart-breaking too.
Richard and Celia were a more typical couple.
Since Richard didn’t feel ill-done by Celia, there wasn’t a great baggage
between them. Their romance was built during time spent together. They were good
scenes, but at some point I began to grow bored, as they didn’t really
drive the plot forward, making the middle part of the book slow and too long.
There was only a minimal plot outside the
romance. The dastardly duke made his move at the end of the book, but until
then no one tried to do anything about him, not even to stop an innocent girl
from marrying him. Plot-wise, then, this was a bit of a disappointment. But the
writing was good, people were interesting and there was a happy ending for
everyone involved, so it left me feeling good.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in
exchange for an honest review.
A Wolf in Duke’s Clothing by Susanna Allen starts Shapeshifters
of the Beau Monde series. It’s a Regency romance with paranormal elements, not
a paranormal romance set in a Regency world. It might seem like a small
difference, but it can mean a lot for readers who like one but not the other
genre. Luckily, I like both.
All the tropes are from Regency romances. We have an orphan
heiress at the mercy of a dastardly guardian, a duke who sweeps in to rescue
her, Ton parties, ball gowns, and a lot of floral language that borders on incomprehensible
as a synonym after another is thrown at the reader.
As a Regency romance, the book works fairly well, but it drags
on far too long after the plot has already ended. Nothing significant happens
after the consummation of the marriage and some storylines are completely
forgotten, like the missing horse. And I don’t think the author understands
what an epilogue means. The ending was positively bizarre.
The weakness of the book is in its paranormal elements. There’s
a lot of mythology, but none of the excitement. The dynamics of the pack are
really off. Everyone shows constant deference to the alpha—Alfred, the romantic
hero—and the moment they aggravate him, he subdues them with his alpha power.
They seem to believe he’s a great man, but I couldn’t help thinking that they
were hostages to his power and said whatever he wished them to. I certainly
wasn’t shown otherwise.
His behaviour is at worst in his dealings with Felicity, the
heroine. First he abducts her. Then he tries his alpha powers on her. It’s bad
enough in an ordinary situation, but then he tries to subdue her with the power
when she refuses sex. The moment she says no, his first instinct is to take her
will away. Not once but several times.
That she’s able to resist him isn’t relevant (it could’ve
been demonstrated in a different situation completely), nor is it relevant that
he was, for the most part, a nice man. The point is that he’s the kind of man
who naturally considers taking a woman’s will away to have his way with her the
moment she resists him. He stops this after a while, but only because he knows
it doesn’t work. That he shouldn’t do it isn’t even addressed.
Not all alphas need to be the same. That would make a boring
read. But all romantic heroes, regardless of the genre, should be strong enough
that their weaknesses don’t manifest as bullying. I was so disgusted with Alfred
that I ended up skipping all the sex scenes. Luckily they were at the end of
the book, which was overlong as it was.
This could’ve been a good book, a fresh take on two genres.
Now it sort of failed both because the hero was such a disappointment. Fans of
Regency romances might find this a refreshing change of pace, if they can
ignore the hero. Fans of paranormal romances might want to give it a pass. However,
I think I’ll read the next book too, if only to find out if it has a better
hero.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Lord Lucifer is the first book in a new Regency romance
trilogy by Jade Lee, Lords of the Masquerade, and I received a review copy from
the NetGalley.
Regency romances tend to repeat a certain formula of an
innocent maiden paired with a more experienced man. The pair then waltzes
through the society season from balls to opera performances that offer private
moments for them to fall in love and have hot sex in a side. Some authors are
better at making it feel fresh; some less so.
Jade Lee has taken a different approach in her romance. Diana
has been married off at sixteen to a much older man to save family finances.
Lucas had offered to save her, but his attempts to raise money with gambling had
landed him in such hot waters that he had seen it best to enlist and leave the
country. Twelve years later they meet again. A fairly average approach so far.
But there’s a twist: Diana’s ailing husband is still alive. She’s not a merry
widow with whom the hero connects for a second chance. And she’s not a damsel
in distress, no matter what Lucas tries to tell her—though there is a villain out
to get her.
Most of the book takes place in a sick room and in private
parlours instead of balls and other glittering events. Diana is a dutiful wife
who has carved a life for herself in her husband’s hostile household. Her
husband needs to die, of course, for the young couple to have their happily
ever after, and much is made of his death and the causes of it. Lucas is a
soldier who sets his duty before anything, and so probably for the first time
in a romance history, the hero refuses sex with the heroine unless she agrees
to marry him. It works too.
For all that this is a romance, it’s a fairly gloomy book.
There’s sickness and death. There’s a murderous villain making everyone’s life
worse. There’s a lot of resentment between children and parents. All sorts of
issues that have to be dealt with, and while they add depth to the characters,
they dominate over the romance. There are a couple of fairly bland sex scenes that
fail to engage my emotions, and although I liked Diana and Lucas both, I wasn’t
terribly invested in their HEA. She could’ve retained her hard-earned
independence for all I cared and kept him in a side. But she caves in the end.
The other two gentlemen of the trilogy are introduced in
this book too. A lot is made of it—and then they are completely forgotten
for the rest of the book. So, as a lure for the reader to continue with these
characters, it comes somewhat short. But if I come across them, I may give them
a look.
Peace Talks by Jim Butcher
4/5 stars on Goodreads
I’ve also read Peace Talks by Jim Butcher, the long-awaited
fifteenth Dresden Files book. It’s one of my all-time favourite series, but it
fell a bit short. Harry was still familiar, but the way he interacted with his
friends and family felt slightly off. I remember wishing in earlier books that he
would be more connected with emotions, but now I sort of found him creepy at
times. Especially with how he became aroused by every which woman that he came
across, except the one he professed to be in love with. So the author needs to
work on the delivery there.
Most of the book was spent with waffling about, likely so
that the reader could connect with the characters again. I was still a bit lost
for the great part of it, as it had been so many years since I read this series
last. And then the plot picks up at the very end, only to continue in the next
book. But I’ll read it too, of course.
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
4/5 stars on Goodreads
House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones is the last book in
the trilogy that starts with Howl’s Moving Castle. It’s a charming book of
Charmain Baker, a young woman who would much rather read books than do anything
useful. And then she’s given a task to look after her great-uncle’s house while
he’s gone.
The uncle is a wizard and his house is a mysterious place
where rooms appear where ever, but only if you know how to get there. One is
even located in the past. The place is messy and Charmain isn’t terribly
practical, but luckily for her, her uncle’s apprentice Peter shows up to help
her. Not that either of them is terribly pleased by their circumstances. There’s
a plot about the king’s missing gold and a villainous heir to the kingdom. Howl
and Sophie show up too to help with that, and it’s nice to connect with them
again. In the end Charmain discovers that she’s more capable than she thought
she was and that she’s able to do magic. All in all, a nice story about growing
up and finding one’s true self.
When it comes to historical romance, I tend to be set in my
ways. I have a couple of favourite authors, like Suzanne Enoch, and I’m
reluctant to try new ones. They disappoint too often. I hadn’t read Sabrina
Jeffries before, but when I spotted her book at NetGalley, I decided to give
her a chance.
Who Wants to Marry a Duke is the third book in a series
called Duke Dynasty. Each book tells the love story of one of the siblings of a
large family, on top of which there’s a continuous story of a murder
investigation. I haven’t read the first two books, but it didn’t matter at all.
The characters of the earlier books are introduced well, and the murder
investigation doesn’t really kick in until here.
The main couple of this book is Olivia Norley and the Duke
of Thornstock, or Thorne. (He does have a real name, but it’s never used and
came as a bit of a surprise when I checked the book description just now.) They
have a bit of past together. He has been forced to propose to her ten years
earlier, but she’s refused. For some reason he’s held grudge for it ever since.
The murder investigation brings them together again. Olivia
is an aspiring chemist, beggaring belief in those of us who want some
historical accuracy (the book takes place in 1809), but it’s done well enough and I could let it stand. She’s
hired by Thorne’s brother Grey to investigate the body of Grey’s father for
traces of arsenic. Thorne wants to keep an eye on her, because he doesn’t trust
her. But of the two, he’s the one who’s keeping secrets.
Olivia is a forthright character who is curious about
everything new, including romance and sex. Thorne is slightly annoying with his hot
and cold act, and the grudge he holds seems a little contrived and manufactured
for the sake of drama. And when his secret is revealed, the following fight
seems out of proportions for the transgression. They make up easily enough
afterwards. But they’re a good couple together, Thorne especially grows as a
person, and the naughty scenes are satisfying. All in all, a nice romance.
The murder investigation is the weakest part of the
narrative and doesn’t really have much of a role despite starting the events. There’s
a lot of conjecture about the identity of the villain(s) and their motives, but
nothing concrete. The villains aren’t characters in this book, and despite some
mayhem caused by them, there’s no suspense. And the murder isn’t even solved in
the end.
What made me give only three stars, however, is that the
book is one act too short. The last twist, the final push and test of the
couple and their love never takes place. It’s even set up perfectly. There’s a
probable threat to Olivia’s life, a mirror of an earlier attack, and Thorne
rushes in to warn and protect her. But the attack never happens and the book
just ends, followed by an epilogue that rehashes the murder investigation, lessening
the emotional impact of the last chapter. So, a bit of a let-down in the end.
But I liked the writing style well-enough that I’ll likely read the last book in
the series, if only to find out who is offing the dukes and why.
