"True Pretenses," by Rose Lerner

The Chick: Lady Lydia Reeve. A genteel lady whose family has traditionally held a high political interest in the town of Lively St. Lemeston.
The Rub: Now that her father's dead, her skittish younger brother  is content to let that interest lapse in order to pursue his own desires. And Lydia has no money of her own to maintain her family's influence.
Dream Casting: Isla Fischer.

The Dude: Asher Cohen, a.k.a. "Ashton Cahill." A Jewish con artist on the run with his brother and partner in crime, Rafe.
The Rub: Rafe is tired of their life and wants to go straight, so Ash needs to concoct a truly lucrative swindle to give Rafe safer life options than the army.
Dream Casting: Mark Ruffalo.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Inconvenient Inheritance
• 1 Inconveniently Dead Parent
• 1 Stolen Baby
• 1 Plot-Propelling Urchin
• Several Fake Names

The Word: You know what time it is? TIME FOR ANOTHER ROSE LERNER NOVEL! To set next to In For a Penny, Lily Among Thorns, and Sweet Disorder, we have True Pretenses.

Our novel opens on two brothers, Ash and Rafe, in the midst of escaping after a successful swindle. Orphaned, impoverished, and Jewish, they've eked out their outcast existence through theft, trickery and clever con artistry. However, Rafe (the younger brother) has tired of the game and wants to go straight. His protective older brother, Ash, reluctantly agrees, with one caveat: they must perform one more swindle, to set Rafe up properly for his new life of law abidance. 

Ash travels on ahead to the town of Lively St. Lemeston (the same setting from Sweet Disorder) and discovers low-hanging fruit ripe for the plucking: Lady Lydia Reeve. Her highly political father, Lord Wheatcroft, held a heavy interest in Lively St. Lemeston before his sudden death, but his son Jamie now balks at the idea of continuing the tradition. Lydia's determined to hold onto their family's interest until her brother comes to his senses, but the only funds at her disposal come from a trust that will only be released upon her marriage. 

I'll be honest - the set-up to this novel doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's kind of confusing - at first, the brothers plan to offer Lydia access to her trust through a sham marriage to Rafe (in exchange for 3000 pounds) but then Ash wants Rafe and Lydia to marry for realsies because they're so cute together and it'll keep Rafe out of the army. What?

Um, WHAT?

Thankfully, before that ridiculousness can happen, Rafe and Ash get into an argument that ends with their estrangement, leaving Ash to offer himself to Lydia instead. The plot is probably the weakest part of the novel, and the weakest of all Lerner's novels to date. After the initial set-up, the rest of the book is virtually conflict-free until the too-sudden Black Moment at the end. Ash and Lydia get along famously about 99% of the time, with the other 1% devoted to depressing self-examination. 

So why did I keep reading? Despite the fact that there is relatively little drama between Ash and Lydia, their individual characters and habits are fascinating - Lydia's, especially. She is very much a conservative, devoted to maintaining the traditions of the past, suspicious of change, and almost pathologically afraid of showing weakness or negative emotion of any kind. At the beginning of the book, her methods of expression are all but muzzled by her refusal to utter anything that might possibly reflect badly on her father or brother. She has been raised to cater to the needs of others while repressing her own. It becomes a relief to talk to Ash, someone who cannot judge her since his social status is virtually nonexistent.

Ash is a more nebulous character, but perhaps that's intentional. His Jewish identity is important to him (sex with random ladies is a worry because how does one explain the lack of a foreskin?), but otherwise, he's afraid to define himself as anything other than "Rafe's brother." Finding and committing to an identity is a new experience for him. He's a con man without an emotional off-switch. His success at conning developed from his ability to empathize with and draw closer to the rubes he fleeced, leaving him incapable of trusting other people's emotions - and his own, least of all. Does he really enjoy Lydia's company? Or is he just desperate to be liked, because likeable people get what they want? The only emotional stability he's ever preserved is his love for Rafe, and without him, he's adrift.

The enormous status gulf between Lydia and Ash is also entertaining as it allows for a thorough examination of privilege. Ash was no Dickensian urchin - his past involves theft, graverobbing, fencing, and sex work. The contrast between the protagonists is especially potent because their childhoods were superficially similar - both Lydia and Ash were motherless children unfairly thrust into parental roles over their younger siblings. However, the vast difference in their upbringings and environments invites interesting comparisons, most especially in how they've learned to lie to other people.

At the same time, even as Lydia's pampered upbringing is contrasted and compared, her own feelings of dissatisfaction, grief and loneliness are not invalidated just because she's wealthy.

While True Pretenses is not the strongest of Rose Lerner's novels when it comes to plot, it's still a refreshing, pleasantly entertaining read.
B

I'm Late! I'm Late! Drive-By Reviewings

Okay, my bad.

I fell a little behind on reviewing. Okay, a lot behind. For several reasons, some of which weren't my fault but most of which totally were.

I was promoted to a new position at work (the day job), I've become (officially!) an editorial assistant at Entangled (a second job), I signed up for NaNoWriMo, and I discovered obsessively-absorbing role-playing video games.

The result: not a lot of time or inclination to review. After a stressful day of new-job training and reading manuscripts, I was more in the mood to explode darkspawn and romance knights in Dragon Age (which I will also be reviewing soon!). Now that NaNo is over and I have a bit more time on my hands, I'm just in time for my Annual Re-Reading Month.

But for now, let's recap the books I did read in October and November that aren't super-special enough to merit their own reviews:

Just Listen, by Sarah Dessen.

Yes, I finally read my first Sarah Dessen. From what my YA-focused blogger friends tell me, she's kind of the First Lady of Contemporary YA.

My first impression wasn't wholly strong - her language seemed too bare and simple for my taste, but she slowly and surely hooked me in so by the midpoint, I was pretty strongly invested in her heroine.

Our protagonist, Annabel, is someone incapable of speaking her mind for fear of hurting others. She experienced a terrible trauma at the end of the previous school year, but she can't tell her family - with them so focused on her older sister's recovery from an eating disorder, and her mother's history of depression, she can't bear to add to their burden or risk undoing her mother's progress. But the truth is eating her up inside.

The novel is all about truth-telling, and believing you're important enough to be heard, and Dessen aptly conveys how difficult it is for Annabel to speak up for herself and put herself above (or at least on the same level as) others. The novel has a deceptively simple start that reveals itself as more layered later on. However, it wasn't a perfect book. I felt the romantic interest's obsession with honesty was a little over-the-top and unreasonable, even with the novel's theme, and the treatment of rape and rape victims seemed a bit simplified by the novel's end, but otherwise, I understand where Dessen's fans are coming from.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, by Leslye Walton.

I had to read this novel for the FYA Bookclub, and let's just say this book sparked a lot of ... debate. And by debate, I mean rage.

The story explores three generations of women all leading to Ava Lavender, a girl born with wings. The story meanders along through unreliable narrators and magical realism - Alice Hoffman levels of magical realism. Spells, ghosts, girls with bird parts, all that jazz.

Walton is a splendid writer, and 90% of the novel is fine, if unfocused and a bit derivative. The ending, however, absolutely kills this novel - spoiler and trigger warning: the climax (not the conflict, but the climax) of the novel comes when Ava is brutally raped and mutilated by an obsessed stalker. And all of her family's  problems are solved by how they rally around and care for her.

Nothing in this novel - not the story, not the tone, not the theme - suggested or fit with a brutal rape. That event doesn't fit organically within the plot at all. Moreover, the rape is used as a disgusting plot device to better the lives of other characters, not the actual victim. Ava's character doesn't change or progress. In fact, she recovers and gets a boyfriend within the span of the epilogue and gets magical new white wings FOR SOME REASON. WTF. Mindbendingly stupid and offensive garbage.

Please, please, let's not make Magical Rape a trope.

Ravishing the Heiress, by Sherry Thomas

I'm still a general fan of Sherry Thomas, and this novel wasn't terrible, but that's about it.

This novel - wasn't terrible. It was interesting enough but it didn't grab and wow me like her earlier novels. Our heroine, Millie, is a merchant-class heiress whose parents arrange for her to marry a debt-ridden earl named Fitz. Millie falls for Fitz immediately, but discovers Fitz is deeply, passionately in love with another woman - someone he now has to give up in order to save his family from ruin.

Fitz ... does not take this well. He's such a flamboyant ass about what a terrible SACRIFICE he had to make by marrying Millie, that Millie spends the next six years of their marriage keeping her feelings under wraps and allowing him to pursue his various emotionless, extramarital flings. However, when Fitz learns that the former love of his life is now widowed, he plans to leave Millie to set up a household with his ladylove - but not before "fulfilling his end of the bargain" and giving Millie a baby.

There were certain things I liked - Fitz finds it difficult to reconnect with his former love as he slowly comes to understand how meaningful the last six years of marriage with Millie have been to him. His attraction to Millie grows out of their deep and abiding friendship rather than instant lust. But their actual romantic development is remarkably spare on the page, and Millie is almost pathological in her emotional repression (not that I can blame her). It was a pleasant and even a relatively original romance, but I feel the romance was lacking.

The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen

Here was another extremely-hyped novel that just underwhelmed me. Sage is an orphan who's picked up off the street along with two other orphans by an unscrupulous, obsessed noble determined to save his nation at any cost.

The nobleman reveals that the king, queen and crown prince were recently poisoned by an unknown party. The truth of their deaths is not publicly known yet, but once it gets out, their nation's enemies will waste no time in taking advantage of the political chaos. However, if another viable heir to the throne is discovered in time, the crisis may be averted. The noblemen chose orphans who best resembled the long-lost second prince who was supposedly killed by pirates years before, and he plans to train them to impersonate the kingdom's last heir. The most convincing fraud will accompany him to the capital - but the other two will become dangerous loose ends.

None of the characters here were particularly interesting. Sage was kind of a smarmy know-it-all, and the "twist" near the end of the novel had me rolling my eyes at the ridiculousness of it. The novel was just boring from beginning to end and there's not much else I can say about it - I read it a while ago and nothing else remained memorable enough for me to recall today.

And that's it for now! More reviews to come later.

"Crazy Thing Called Love," By Molly O'Keefe

The Chick: Madelyn Cornish, a.k.a. Maddy Wilkins, a.k.a. Maddy Baumgarden. A popular daytime television host.
The Rub: When her show wants her to do a project with reviled hockey thug Billy Wilkins, she can't reveal that he used to be her husband without dredging up their painful history.
Dream Casting: Michelle Monaghan.

The Dude: Billy Wilkins. A violent, almost-washed-up hockey player who's lauded (and hated) for the fights he frequently starts on the ice.
The Rub: The opportunity to go on his ex-wife's show seems too good to be true - can he clean up his act and win her back?
Dream Casting: Jeremy Renner.

The Plot:

Billy: Violence solves everything! *starts hockey fight*

NHL: No it doesn't.

Maddy's show: Hey, want to do a makeover series?

Billy: Yay! Makeovers solve everything!

Maddy: NO THEY DON'T.

Surprise Niece and Nephew: Hey, our mother's dead and our aunt's abusive. Let's lie! Lying solves everything!

Billy: OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD--

Maddy: I find your total incompetence with life suddenly relatable.

Billy: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Pair of Reunited Exes
• 2 Angsty Plot Moppets
• 1 Evil TV Producer
• 1 Swarm of Paparazzi
• Several Flashbacks

The Word: It didn't take long for Molly O'Keefe to secure herself a spot as one of my favourite authors. Two books into her hockey-star (or hockey-star-adjacent) trilogy and I was hooked. Now we're onto the final book. Maddy Cornish, a daytime television host in Dallas, was a friend of the heroine from Can't Hurry Love, and freaked out when she ran into Billy Wilkins - a hockey friend of the hero of Can't Buy Me Love - at a party at the end of the last book.

Madelyn Cornish has spent the better part of a decade making a name for herself in daytime TV. She built her career from the ground up - losing weight, straightening her hair, and changing her name to distance herself as much as possible from her humiliating past.

Her humiliating past comes back to bite her in the ass when her show's producers suggest they do a "Makeover" segment on her show for Billy Wilkins, a washed-up hockey thug known more for his violence on the ice and time spent in the penalty box than his actual plays. The producers think the prospect of turning this burly, scarred toad into a burly, scarred prince could boost their ratings.

Unbeknownst to her employers, Maddy used to be Mrs. Billy Wilkins. She and Billy married extremely young, but Billy's exploding hockey career ended up sweeping all of Maddy's own emotions, goals, and ambitions under the rug in favour of Billy's. After a few miserable years of that, Maddy divorced him and fled with what little identity she had left. She's terrified that any resurgence of feelings towards Billy will destroy the independence she's gained.

Billy, meanwhile, has hit rock bottom. He's ruined his own reputation with his violent antics and now no one wants to play with him. The only light in his life is the miraculous opportunity to make things right with the only woman he's ever loved - his Maddy. Could he use this makeover to change himself into the husband she deserves?

Billy and Maddy make an interesting pair - Maddy's terrified of her feelings, while Billy is nothing but feelings - mostly rage and self-loathing. As Billy dives headfirst into the makeover segment in order to win his ex-wife back, he has to change how he sees himself (as someone worth loving rather than a human punching bag) in order to improve himself and impress Maddy. Meanwhile, Maddy has to learn how to love someone and invest in their life without sacrificing her own.

Of course, O'Keefe doesn't make this easy and drops a number of bombshell plot lines that force our couple through the emotional wringer in a number of delicious ways, slathering on the angst and the high drama with skill and gusto. The reason I continue to gobble up her books like catnip even as I lose patience with other romance writers is because of her continued commitment to meticulously-developed characters. With her gorgeous turns of phrase, she give her protagonists colourful inner lives that reveal their neuroses and fears without becoming boring and navel-gazey. So when melodramatic things happen, I find myself turning the pages faster and faster because I need to know how her characters will react.

Crazy Thing Called Love is no different. A marvellous addition to Molly O'Keefe's growing canon.
A

"The Game and the Governess," by Kate Noble

The Chick: Phoebe Baker. A former debutante forced into servitude when her father was swindled of his life savings by a con artist the Earl of Ashby refused to prosecute.
The Rub: Now she lives as a governess, in the very house where the Earl is visiting. Will her hatred rise up to consume her?
Dream Casting: Chloe Sevigny.

The Dude: Lucky Ned, Earl of Ashby. He thinks he has it all because he's an awesome person, but his best friend thinks it's because he's a privileged asshat. Naturally, he decides to make a wager at it, switching places with his secretary friend.
The Rub: Being a secretary is hard. Who knew?
Dream Casting: James McAvoy.

The Plot:

Ned: What?! Are you really saying the reason everyone loves me, caters to my every need, and waits on me is because I have money and power?

THE ENTIRE WORLD: YES.

Ned: Oh. Be my wife?

Phoebe: Despite my 5-year-long hatred of you and disgust for privileged aristocrats and the fact that you literally lied to me about everything, I inexplicably agree!

Ned: HOORAY!

Phoebe: ...hmm, maybe it's because of all your money and power.

Ned: DAMMIT.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Asshat Hero
• 2 Sequel-Baiting Dudebros
• 1 Desperate Sequel-Baiting Countess Who Gives Us NO CLOSURE AT ALL
• 1 Poisoned Blackberry Tart
• 1 Random Murder Attempt

The Word: Okay, so I kind of fell off the Kate Noble fan wagon after the awful Follow My Lead. Revealed is still one of my favourite romances, but the rest of her novels never really lived up to the perfection of that one. However, I was quite intrigued by the plot of The Game and the Governess and thought I'd give her another try.

Lucky Ned, Earl of Ashby, has it all - he's one of the wealthiest men in the country, he's handsome, healthy, and a sure hand at cards. However, when his best friend/war buddy/secretary John Turner calls him on his privilege, Ned gets all butthurt. Turner, who has been pleading with Ned for years to lend him the money to help his family's mill, says the only reason Ned is "lucky" is because he's an earl. Ned, who's refused to lend Turner the money because ... mills are boring and working for a living is stupid, believes it's his naturally cheerful disposition that grants him Lady Luck's favour, and John has only his sourpuss personality to blame for his own misfortunes. Yeah.

Turner decides to turn it into a wager. The two are headed to a small English village neither has visited in decades to sell off Ned's mother's property. Turner proposes they switch places - Turner will pose as the earl, and Ned as the secretary - for two weeks, and in that time Ned has to win the romantic favour of a noble lady in spite of his "lowly" status. If Turner wins, Ned owes him 5000 pounds. If Ned wins, Turner loses his family mill. Yup - Ned's the hero of this novel.

They arrive at the house, and Ned's eye is caught by the whippet-thin, stern-faced governess of his host's children. Unbeknownst to him, this governess, Phoebe Baker, harbours a deep grudge against the Earl of Ashby. Years ago, Ned discovered his previous secretary was embezzling from him and he chose to cover it up rather than lose face, leaving the thief free to swindle Phoebe's father of his inheritance and drive him to suicide. Phoebe's reconciled herself to her reduced circumstances but she wants nothing to do with anyone associated with the Ashby house.

So, what was good about this novel? Noble does an excellent job examining privilege. Ned is an ass, and the narrative both acknowledges and commits to this and uses it to develop his character. Ned thinks the wager will be easy, he'll just use his abundant charm on the ladies, but his tried-and-tested moves blow up in his face - and the narrative doesn't only imply his earldom made womenfolk more receptive. It also suggests his high station could have scared women who would ordinarily have resisted his advances. I loved that aspect, and I loved that Ned had to really start thinking about consent and willingness and the enjoyment of his partners.

So what didn't I like? Pretty much everything else. Phoebe's an impractical Mary Sue who turns down an offer for five hundred pounds because she's become a "better person" in poverty than she was as a sheltered gentleman's daughter. Um, it's money - not a time machine. You're not magically going to turn back into a Terrible Person the moment you float above the poverty line. I also didn't buy her romance with Ned at all - it happens far too quickly, with almost no real development, and it skirts most of the thorny issues that ought to keep them apart.

More than anything, however, I hated this novel's pacing. Was it written under a really strict deadline? This novel reads like it was taken out of the oven fifteen minutes too early, still raw in the middle. The ending is laughably rushed - it introduces a murder plot that's barely solved a few pages later, we don't get to see anyone's reactions to Ned and Turner's switcharoo, and Phoebe overcomes her five-year-grudge and the horror of being lied to within the span of one page. Even more egregious, the secondary romance between Turner and a desperate countess, a romance that took up precious time that the primary romance sorely needed, turns out to be a ridiculously blatant cocktease for the sequel.

This novel is nothing but build up until a shoddy last-minute resolution.
C

"Midsummer Moon," by Laura Kinsale

The Chick: Merlin Lambourne. A famous lady inventor.
The Rub: She's dumb as a post at anything that isn't mechanics. How will she cope?
Dream Casting: Alison Brie.

The Dude: Ransom Falconer, Duke of Damerell. A high-handed duke who must protect Merlin from evil French spies who want to kidnap her for her inventions.
The Rub: Unfortunately, after "accidentally" having sex with her, protecting her becomes a whole lot more complicated.
Dream Casting: Cillian Murphy.

The Plot:
Ransom: Hey, I'm here to save and protect you!

Merlin: What are you wearing?

Ransom: ... a hat.

Merlin: Mercy me, a hat! How exciting! I've never seen a hat before, what is it for?

Ransom: Huh. I somehow find your utter ignorance of everything somewhat arousing! *accidentally eats Magical Salt* Now it's completely arousing!

Ransom and Merlin: *knock boots*

Ransom: Crap. Now we have to get married!

Merlin: Why?

Ransom: Well, you might be pregnant.

Merlin: Doesn't the stork bring babies?

Ransom: Wow I am already regretting this a LOT. And yet your baby behaviour is so inexplicably erotic!

Merlin: I don't want to get married! I don't want to make babies! I want to stay up all night and eat candy and play with my toys--I MEAN INVENT MY FLYING MACHINE.

Ransom: No! Bad Merlin! GO TO YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW!

Literally Every Other Character: Hey there, we're totally interesting and have really intriguing backstories but go ahead and focus the story around the Teletubby and her babysitter. We'll wait.

Evil French Spies: *kidnap Merlin a lot*

Ransom: *rescues Merlin a lot*

Merlin: *falls into a coma, wakes up with amnesia*

Literally Every Other Character: ... really? You'd rather read about AMNESIA than us? When we have secret lovers and acrimonious divorces in our pasts? Oh well. There's no accounting for taste.

Ransom: *recuses Merlin again*

Merlin: Okay I'll marry you now! How do we petition to stork to bring us babies?

Ransom: ....hoo....ray....

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Romance-Aiding Pet (a hedgehog)
• 1 Condiment-Induced Deflowering
• 1 Infantalized Heroine
• 2 Flying Machines
• Several Barrels of Gun Powder
• 1 Bout of Fountain Sex
• 5 Infinitely More Interesting Supporting Characters
• Several Evil French Spies

The Word: I will hand it to Laura Kinsale - her heroines are a varied bunch. Some are practical, some are romantic, some are stone-cold bad-asses, and others are emotional and compassionate. Unfortunately, with Midsummer Moon, I spun the Kinsale Heroine Wheel and wound up with Helpless Baby Duckling Woman.

Our heroine, Merlin, is a wide-eyed, chipmunk-cheeked, oblivious dithering idiot of a woman who is (allegedly) a genius at physical engineering and a sleep-deprived six-year-old at literally everything else. Perhaps the author intended her to be an Absent-Minded Professor, but she wound up closer to Nell, instead. And of course, the novel presents her as the Cutest Widdle Special Snowflake, rather than a woman with severely stunted social, interpersonal, and self-preservation skills thanks to an abusively isolated upbringing that is only barely hinted at.

Our hero Ransom Falconer, named in the ancient English tradition of picking two random words out of the dictionary, is a duke/government agent who has been sent to protect Merlin because one of her inventions has attracted the notice of Evil French Spies. His task is to figure out what Merlin's trying to invent, and protect both it and her from falling into Evil French hands.

Ransom makes his own task (among other things) much harder when he accidentally ingests Magical Sex Salt and winds up despoiling Merlin (twice!) on her dead uncle's bed not five minutes later. This contrived coitus-causing condiment is never explained nor mentioned again. But that makes sense - why write Ransom as an Irresponsible Rake when you can just give him a magical potion that makes him one for three pages? Then he can go back to being your Man of Honour Hero without taking any pesky responsibility for his actions. The magical salt made him do it. Right.

Adding a crank of Creepy Pepper to this Gumbo of Stupid is the fact that Merlin clearly has no idea what's going on while it's happening, giving us a scene that reads pretty darn close to statutory rape.

See, this is why you don't have sex with children. If your partner is incapable of understanding what sex and its consequences are, you're doing it wrong. And if you write a heroine who talks like a baby, thinks like a baby, and fiddles with her lower lip like a baby, it's going to look really creepy when your hero fucks that baby.

Anyway, Ransom recovers from his, uh, sodium-induced boner to realize he's been an Exploitative Dick, so he decides to kidnap Merlin so she can continue to work on her inventions under his supervision and protection.

The novel picks up a bit at this point, because Ransom's family members are also in residence, and each one of them is about a billion times more nuanced, colourful, and interesting than our main pair. How could Laura Kinsale write women as complicated and interesting as Ransom's politically-minded sister Blythe, or his dramatic opera-singer ex-sister-in-law Jacqueline, and decide to make Professor Honey Boo Boo the heroine instead?

Yeah, I absolutely despised Merlin. While she's not quite as unbearable as Olympia from Seize the Fire, at least that book acknowledged Olympia was an idiot once in a while, whereas Merlin's utter incomprehension of language, social conventions, adult behaviour, and advanced reasoning is depicted as Just So Precious by everyone in the novel. Merlin acts like a child - and the other characters coddle and treat her like one, which makes her burgeoning relationship with Ransom come off like Regency Lolita.

The secondary characters are pretty much the only reason I didn't DNF the novel. The main conflict between Ransom and Merlin is that Merlin's determined to build a flying machine, which scares the utter bejesus out of Ransom because he's so terrified of heights he's never even visited the second floor of his own house. Merlin tries to work on her machine, Ransom tries to talk/force/trick her out of it, Merlin gets angry, Ransom whines and apologizes, then tries a dirtier trick - until Merlin winds up kidnapped and has to be rescued. She gets kidnapped (and subsequently rescued) a lot. Because she's about as sharp as a bowling ball.

Their relationship is founded on Ransom constantly saving or easily tricking Merlin away from the danger she constantly puts herself in, and that is the last kind of romance I care to read about. I grew out of the Babysitters' Club books when I was in elementary school.
C-

"A Lily Among Thorns" Re-Release Celebration!

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful romance novel.

It was one of the most well-written, addictive romances in the land, with an absolutely stellar ex-courtesan heroine, a dashing m/m secondary romance, and one of the sweetest, handsomest, smartest, amazingest, chemist-tailor-detective Beta heroes EVER.

Unfortunately, this astounding romance was stuck on the sinking ship Dorchester, and when Dorchester went down, so did the novel. And for a while, that was the last anyone saw of this amazing book.

Until now.

It's BAAAAAAACK! A Lily Among Thorns is back! 

Thanks to Rose Lerner's new publisher, Samhain, they're re-releasing it in eBook format! She's also holding an amazing contest to celebrate this masterpiece's much-anticipated return. 

Still not sure? Try my 2012 review! Lily Among Thorns is seriously one of the best romance novels I've ever read. It's complex, it's sweet, it's unconventional, and it's become a fast favourite, along with all of Rose Lerner's other novels. 

I'm just saying - if you don't want to wait all the way until January for the next book in her Lively St. Lemeston series, take a chance with this magnificent, and magnificently odd romance. 

"The Lady's Secret," by Joanna Chambers

The Chick: Georgy Knight. She works her fingers to the bone as an assistant to a theatrical troupe - even though the blood of an earl runs through her veins.
The Rub: A chance to prove her true parentage comes up - but it involves dressing as a boy and waiting hand and foot on a super-hot aristocrat.
Dream Casting: Gwyneth Paltrow, circa Shakespeare in Love.

The Dude: Lord Nathan Harland. A cultured dandy who discovers, to his cautious delight, that his mysterious valet is secretly a woman in disguise.
The Dude: Even as he means to toy with her, he discovers he's starting to love her - in earnest.
Dream Casting: Cillian Murphy

The Plot:

Georgy: I need to find evidence of my parents' marriage! I'll disguise myself as a valet!

Nathan: What an awesome valet you are! Your neck rubs are oddly erotic and for some strange reason I'm cool with that!

Georgy: *caught taking a bath*

Nathan: OH THANK GOD YOU HAVE BOOBS. I am TOTALLY cool with that. But secretly.

Georgy: *caught breaking into Nathan's friend's study*

Nathan: I am less cool with that.

Nathan and Georgy: *knock boots*

Nathan: Cool cool cool.

Georgy's BFF: OMG, you totally ruined a lady.

Nathan: Not cool! Let's not just throw silly words around!

Georgy: *leaves in heartbreak, almost gets killed by Crazy Murderer*

Nathan: OMG, Georgy, don't ever leave me, lets get married and have gender-norm-defying babies!

Georgy: Cool!

Nathan: HOORAY!

Romantic Convention Checklist:

• 1 Heroine In Pants
• 1 Bout of Gay Panic
• 2 Actual Gay Dudes Who Are Occasionally Panicked
• 1 Evil Mum
• 1 Awkward Erection
• 1 Carriage Accident

The Word: Full disclosure, Joanna Chambers and I are Twitter buddies. I bought a copy of her novel thanks to a great review and because I followed her on Twitter, but - then I kind of forgot about it. It's harder to remember the books I have on my Kobo since they aren't staring at me every day the way my aggressive paper books do.

Anyhoo - Georgiana "Georgy" Knight and her brother Harry have spent the better part of their lives trying to prove their parents were married. Their mother was a humble actress, but their father (now deceased) was the younger son of the Earl of Dunsmore. When the eldest brother died, the title should have fallen to Harry, but all evidence of their parents' scandalous marriage had been hushed up years ago by their disapproving grandfather, so the earldom went to a cousin instead. Then their mother was murdered by an anonymous cutpurse mere hours after applying to the Dunsmore family for help.

Harry's continued their search for legitimacy since then, but now he knows they have to be discreet about it. The impostor Earl of Dunsmore clearly can't be trusted.

While Harry's searching the countryside for parish registers, Georgy seizes an opportunity to infiltrate Dunsmore's household when she learns his close friend, Lord Nathan Harland, is looking for a new valet to accompany him to Dunsmore's for a house party. Posing as a man, she gets the position, but serving the sophisticated Lord Nathan proves to be more of a challenge than expected. The duties of her position bring her into shockingly close proximity with him, and Nathan is an extremely intriguing, attractive man with hidden depths.

I love clotheshorse heroes. Nathan is someone who puts a lot of care (or else hires an expect willing to put a lot of care) into how he looks, as well as someone with an appreciation for beautiful things. Not because they are valuable - but because he likes to look at them. Like his valet George. He finds out about Georgy's true gender quickly enough (albeit not before he gets a confusing boner during a neck massage) and then he becomes fascinated by the mystery of her deception.

Of course, Nathan is a very privileged character, and Chambers makes pleasingly dramatic hay from the distorted power balance of the master/servant (in disguise!) pairing. Nathan is initially interested in Georgy as an object of mystery, an object he feels entitled to puzzle out and manipulate because a) she's a servant and b) she's a lying servant. However, he soon starts to care about her as a person, someone of worth. But Georgy isn't a fake valet - she performs all the same tasks and duties, and now Nathan has to reconcile how much he cares about her with what he's made her do and see in her line of work. Which is quite interesting. It doesn't resolve in any serious way (Nathan doesn't really come to care about any of his other servants), but it's an interesting dynamic.

Chambers' writing style is simple and elegant, describing the sumptuous luxury of Nathan's lifestyle (and Georgy's servitude in it) with clean, beautiful phrases. However, the villain is clearly telegraphed from the beginning, and the "twist" at the end even more so. I also felt Nathan and Georgy missed a few opportunities to go deeper (emotionally) into the power dynamics of their relationship. Otherwise, though, The Lady's Secret is a charming romance with an interesting cross-dressing twist.
B

"Lady of Persuasion," by Tessa Dare

The Chick: Isabel Grayson. Her greatest desire is to marry a powerful lord and become a "lady of influence" who changes the world with her charity and good works.
The Rub: The man she falls for is a mere baronet, and a lazy one at that. Nothing a novel's worth of nagging won't fix!
Dream Casting: Minka Kelly.

The Dude: Sir Toby Aldridge. Still recovering from the emotional pain of being jilted, he seduces the sister of his enemy and winds up falling for her instead.
The Rub: Toby distrusts his ability to keep women happy - how can he make sure this wife doesn't desert him like his fiancee did?
Dream Casting: Tom Hiddleston.

The Plot:

Toby: Hey there, pretty lady....

Isabel: OH HAI DO YOU HAVE POWER AND MONEY I CAN EXPLOIT?

Toby: Uh, no...

Isabel: BORED NOW - I MUST FLEE! A THREE-LEGGED PUPPY IS IN PERIL!

Toby: *manly wiles* Let's randomly get married!

Isabel: I RANDOMLY AND UNCHARACTERISTICALLY ACCEPT!

Toby: Awesome.

Isabel: BEE TEE DUBS, WE CAN'T HAVE SUGAR OR FANCY CLOTHES OR DO ANY FUN THINGS BECAUSE ORPHANS.

Toby: Couldn't we talk this out...

Isabel: YOU COULD HAVE SAVED THREE ONE-EYED CHIMNEY SWEEPS SINCE YOU STARTED THAT FRIVOLOUS, EXPLOITATIVE SENTENCE, YOU HEARTLESS FIEND!

Toby: But....

Isabel: BTW YOU'RE RUNNING FOR PARLIAMENT.

Toby: But -

Isabel: ORPHANS, TOBY. ORPHANS. THINK OF THE ORPHANS. THINK OF ME HAVING THE MONEY AND ACCLAIM AND ATTENTION TO CURE MY DEEP-SEATED PARENTAL ISSUES HELP THOSE POOR, STARVING ORPHANS.

Toby: OMG, fine, I'll do it, just shut up already!

ISABEL: HOORAY WE ARE HAPPY IN LOVE!

Toby: .......yay.

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Lazy Beta Hero
• 1 Self-Involved Martyr Heroine
• Crazy Mama Drama
• 1 Failed Attempt at Election Rigging
• Several gun-toting thugs
• 1 Personal Sugar Boycott
• 1 Secondary Romance (Gray's bro Joss and Hetta the prickly country doctor)

The Word: Our hero, Sir Toby, is in a snit over his fiancee, Sophia, jilting him to marry a glorified pirate who is now the toast of the Ton (the events of Surrender of a Siren). Even worse - Toby's reputation was ruined by her flight when an anonymous caricaturist drew a series of cartoons depicting Toby as a degenerate rake who frightened Sophia off, and that's the version most of Society now believes.

When he sees a gorgeous woman dancing with that same glorified pirate (Benedict Grayson), Toby swoops in and puts the moves on her, only to find out she's Isabel Grayson, Benedict's sister. He toys with her a bit - although he quickly gives up on designs to seduce her in revenge, because he's not an asshole - but winds up impulsively proposing marriage. To his surprise, Isabel excepts.

Toby's a sweetheart. He's a gadfly layabout beta male who's still suffering from crippling insecurity over Sophia's jilting. He's determined to make his engagement and eventual marriage to Isabel work, if only to prove that he can win a woman without losing her. In the process, he makes a lot of promises he doesn't really mean, promises that come back to bite him in the ass once he realizes he's actually in love with Isabel and disappointing her is no longer an option.

The only problem? Isabel is a selfish, sanctimonious, insufferable little martyr who'll only marry a man in (or planning to run for) Parliament - so she can use him as a tool to further her own designs. Her devotion to charities and Righteous Works borders on obsession (she can't eat sugar without thinking of the slaaaaves! The slaaaaves!), she has very little regard for the feelings of the people around her, and she'll piously condemn anything that doesn't have a strictly utilitarian use as being a Frivolous Sin Bought with the Blood of Innocents. Flavoured ice is a sin! Walking sticks are a sin! The Elgin Marbles are a sin! You could have helped starving orphans with that money! 

Isabel's unpleasantness would have been easier to take if the novel had been even a little self-aware of what a self-righteous, mercenary, hypocritical pill she is. She's appalled once she discovers Toby is "not a lord, but a sir." Once they're married, she pushes Toby into running for Parliament so that she can become a "lady of influence." It never occurs to her to ask or care if Toby actually wants to be an MP.

Isabel is a Righteous Activist whose motives are entirely self-serving - she cuddles consumptive orphans to escape the shame of her Crazy Slutty Parents. And had the novel actually examined this aspect of her, I might have sympathized.

But instead, the novel paints Isabel as this Paragon of Innocence, Nobility, and Virtue and Toby spends the rest of the book proving he's "worthy" of her. Toby eventually surrenders and becomes an MP - and it's definitely a capitulation, he still expresses no talent or interest in politics - instead of discovering his own passion. Isabel compromises nothing in her relationship with Toby. It's not really an equal relationship, so it didn't really work.

Man, I could have sponsored a Third World Child for months on the money I spent on this book! Months!
C

"Can't Hurry Love," by Molly O'Keefe

The Chick: Victoria Schulman. A penniless (and notorious) widow with a young son, she hopes to use the cattle ranch she's just inherited to rebuild their lives.
The Rub: After being an emotionally fragile failure all her life, does she have what it takes to follow through on her dreams?
Dream Casting: Sandra Bullock.

The Dude: Eli Turnbull. Generations ago, the cattle ranch used to belong to his family, until Victoria's ancestors took it away. He's grown up trying to follow through on the family grudge.
The Rub: He should hate Victoria for getting the land that should be his - but could she be worth giving up decades' worth of enmity?
Dream Casting: Jake Gyllenhaal.

The Plot:

Victoria: I know you wish this land was yours and not mine, but can we work together?

Eli: LOL NO. *sells cattle*

Victoria: Fine! You're fired!

Eli: ...I am strangely okay with that decision. We should make out some time.

Victoria: Sure! So long as you don't mind that I'm turning the ranch you wanted into a spa!

Eli: Wait what?

Victoria: And for the architect, I've hired the mother who abandoned you to the tender mercies of your drunk father when you were eight!

Eli: I AM THE OPPOSITE OF OKAY WITH THAT.

Victoria: And my cute fatherless boy also looks up to you!

Eli: AAAAUGH! MY ISSUES! MY PRECIOUS MANPAINFUL ISSUES!

Victoria's Bitchy City Friends: Hey did someone order Last Minute Antagonists?

Victoria: Eep.

Eli: Hot Cowboy to the Rescue!

Victoria: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Widow Heroine with Low Self-Esteeem
• 1 Angry Cowboy
• 1 Generations-Long Grudge
• 1 Romance-Enabling Child
• 3 Pregnant Mares
• 1 Bad Mum Turned Good
• 1 Secondary Romance (between Celeste and a hot Viking contractor!)
• 1 Questionable Uncle
• 3 Vicious Frenemies

The Word: I've discovered I haven't burned out on romance. I've just burned out on bad romance, on unoriginal romance, on so-so romance.

Because from the very first page of Molly O'Keefe's second novel, Can't Hurry Love, I fell right into the best parts of enjoying romance - the drama, the tension, the banter, the emotion, and the writing.

The sequel to Can't Buy Me Love (which is equally awesome sauce), this novel centres on Luc's achingly desperate sister Victoria. She was the leader of New York high society - until her husband committed suicide rather than face the consequences of his Bernie-Madoff-style embezzlement. Penniless, friendless, jobless, hopeless, Victoria crawled back to Texas with her young son in order to build a better life with the cattle ranch her father, Lyle Baker, left her in his will.

The only problem? She owns the ranch, but Eli Turnbull, the ranch foreman, was willed the cattle - and he's furious. After working under Lyle Baker for years, he expected to inherit the land that used to belong to his family before the Bakers bought it up. Having his ancestors' land pass into the hands of yet another Baker is just another log on the fire of the Turnbull/Baker feud so he repays the favour by selling the cattle - rendering Victoria's property useless (no cows = no income to support the ranch).

When Victoria confronts him on this, he impulsively kisses her and when he takes it too far, she fires him. Unfortunately, this does nothing to douse their passionate mutual attraction.

Both characters are so nuanced and real that their fears and insecurities bleed across the pages. I love me some drama, and O'Keefe dishes up the best kind - the drama that springs from vividly realized characters confronting powerful conflict. Victoria spent her life being abused, punished, and lied to by the people who were supposed to protect her, and she internalized it all. It's delicious to read her come into her own as she decides to turn her ranch into a first-class spa - but she has to struggle every step of the way against her instinctual mistrust in herself. Eli is a little more grounded - until the mother who abandoned him when he was eight years old shows up in his life again, hoping to rebuild the maternal bridge she burned, splinter by charred, damaged splinter.

The past is a weighty thing in Can't Hurry Love - almost physically weighty. Victoria's spent the last couple of years bowed near to breaking beneath the strain of her guilt and self-hatred. Eli, meanwhile, has struggled beneath the pressure of his family's anger. As Victoria decides to turn the ranch into a spa, and Eli uses his newfound freedom to pursue horse breeding, it looks like they might be able to leave their heavy baggage behind. But when they give into lust and engage in an affair, their fear of history repeating itself threatens their attempts to strengthen the relationship.

See what I mean? Drama. These are vibrant, visceral characters and Molly O'Keefe's gorgeous writing draws out their pain with lavish, layered brushstrokes. But it hurts so good.
A+

"Sweet Disorder," by Rose Lerner

The Chick: Phoebe Sparks. The widow of a freeman, whoever marries her inherits her husband's right to vote - which makes her a target for unscrupulous election agents.
The Rub: Despite her unwillingness to marry again, Phoebe's hands are tied when her sister is impregnated by a callous seducer. Phoebe will need to marry before the next election in order to preserve her sister's future.
Dream Casting: Ginnifer Goodwin.

The Dude: Mr. Nicholas Dymond. Tired of the pitying looks from his zealously political family, he agrees to help his brother's campaign by finding a suitable Whig husband for the recalcitrant Mrs. Sparks.
The Rub: Nick's matchmatching hits a speed bump when he starts falling for Phoebe himself.
Dream Casting: Chris Evans.

The Plot:
Phoebe: Even though I'm poor, I refuse to marry again!

Helen: Oops! I'm pregnant!

Phoebe: DAMMIT.

Nick: Even though I'm rich and privileged, I'm going to stay in bed and angst!

Nick's Mother uses MATERNAL GUILT! …It's SUPER-EFFECTIVE!

Nick: DAMMIT. Well, Phoebe, I found you a sexy baker to marry!

Phoebe: We have sexy baker, we have a sexy baker. Can I get a sexy factory owner?

The Tories: We have a sexy factory owner with a motherless daughter!

Phoebe: You're going to have to up the ante, Nick.

Nick: Uh, uh, um... I HAVE ABS!

Phoebe: We've got abs, we've got abs, can anyone here beat Hot British Abs?

The Tories: Um, our candidate has Racism and White Privilege?

Phoebe: LOL NO. SOLD! To the Angsty Wounded Lord's Son with Abs!

Nick: Yay!

Helen: Except my Secret Baby has a dark past!

Phoebe: Welp.

Nick: DAMMIT.

*several fistfights, bribery attempts, and family shenanigans later*

Nick: Screw it! I'll dump my crazy family for you!

Phoebe: SOLD! To the Angsty Wounded Regular Dude with Abs!

Nick: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Merry Widow Heroine with a Great Rack
• 1 Bad Husband (Deceased)
• 1 Surprisingly Decent Brother-In-Law
• 1 Angsty Limp
• 1 Scandalous Elopement
• 2 Horrible Mums
• 1 Little Sister in Trouble
• 2 Lacklustre Romance Rivals
• 1 Excellent Batch of Brown Bread Ice Cream

The Word: Rose Lerner is kind of like the Olympics. Sure, a book of hers only comes out once every two to four years - but when one does, I lose my everlovin' mind over it for two weeks. 

In the small town of Lively St. Lemeston, only freemen are allowed to vote in elections. Our heroine, Phoebe Sparks, is the widow of a freeman - which means whoever marries her acquires that freeman status, and thus the ability to vote. With such a close election coming up, both the Whigs and the Tories see Phoebe as the perfect way to guarantee a vote for their sides: by providing her with a husband. 

Nicholas Dymond, the older brother of Tony Dymond (the Whig candidate), is charged by their mother to interact with Phoebe and find a worthy (and Whig-loyal) husband for her. Feeling depressed and useless since his military-career-ending injury in Badajoz, Nick feels he should at least try to do this much for his ambitious and highly political family. The only problem? Phoebe Sparks, despite her impoverished status, has no desire to get married and repeat the experience she had with her first husband, a newspaper editor. 

Unfortunately, fate forces Phoebe's hand when her teenage sister Helen shows up on her doorstep - desperate, pregnant and unwilling to name the father. The only way Phoebe can acquire the resources necessary to provide for Helen's baby and protect her reputation is by marrying a political party's chosen husband in return for their protection. Nick promises to help her - for reasons that grow increasingly less political and more personal.

Rose Lerner once again provides a thoroughly entertaining and unerringly insightful romance rife with fascinating historical detail and unconventional situations. There is a sharp political divide between the Orange-and-Purples (Whigs) and Pink-and-Whites (Tories) in this town, and almost everyone has a political opinion one way or the other. Phoebe, although politically Whig, has to consider turning Tory if that party offers more security for her fallen sister, and her observations are thought-provoking - even as she worries about the compromises she's making.

Of course, the great thing about Rose Lerner is that not only does she give us great settings and unconventional situations, but she's a master at creating realistically flawed and nuanced characters. Both hero and heroine are Good People, who do Good Things - but they're not above feeling the occasional surge of resentment at having to sacrifice so much for a foolish sibling.

Phoebe is a strident, intelligent, passionate woman who's convinced, thanks to her manipulative mother and unhappy marriage, that such traits make her a shrew and unfit to be a wife. She's constantly struggling between her instinct to storm in and fix things and her fear of being perceived as a crass, interfering harridan. Despite her tendency to shoulder the blame for other people's unhappiness, she never comes across as a hapless martyr.

Nick, meanwhile, isn't just any ol' Angsty Loner Noble With a Limp from Romance Central Casting. His limp is a cunning physical metaphor for Nick's feelings of uselessness and inferiority as the apathetic black sheep in a family of flamboyantly political overachievers. Having grown up with campaigners and double-speak his entire life, he's instinctively trained to say what other people what to hear - and utterly unable to speak for himself.

The secondary cast is also stellar - including star-crossed lovers, racist Tories, gormless bakers, oily election agents, and two of the most brilliantly-characterized Bad Mothers I've ever encountered in romance.

As much as I joke about how I wished Rose Lerner wrote faster, it's worth the wait when each novel she writes invokes such a superb balance between romance, humour and history. Absolutely flawless.
A+

Re-Read Rollout: "Welcome to Temptation," by Jennifer Crusie

Coming off the disappointment of rereading Sing the Four Quarters, I was overjoyed to discover that time (five years, to be exact) has not dulled my enjoyment of Welcome to Temptation, one of Jennifer Crusie's best novels and one of my favourite contemporary romances ever.

There's not much more I express in this reread review that my original review didn't, although I can reiterate the aspects of this novel that made it one of my absolute favourites.

First of all, I loved the sheer number of subplots packed into one novel. Of course, we have the wonderful romance between Sophie, the sole white sheep in a family of con artists, and Temptation's mayor Phineas T. Tucker. But we also have Sophie's changing relationship with her manipulative sister Amy, the suspicious death of Phin's wife, the murder of a blackmailing TV anchor, the filming of a movie that inexorably turns into porn, the election shenanigans between Phin and his hypocritical opponent Stephen Garvey, and various love triangles, secrets, adulteries, and secondary romances. There is a lot of stuff going on in this novel, and reading it a second time really brought home the amount of skill Jennifer Crusie must have had to organize all these narratives into something cohesive and enjoyable.

Second of all, I loved Phin. I liked Sophie, too, but Phin really is one of the most adorable romance heroes ever. He's confident, he's assertive - but he's also really mellow and laid-back, which is unusual for the heroes in the novels I read. Most of the heroes I've come across in romance lately are perpetually drowning in angst or stressed out by how controlling they are or risking an aneurysm by how hard they have to fight to keep it in their pants.

But Phin? He's mellow. When he wants something, he goes after it, but he's a charmer, not an enforcer. He solves his problems with charisma and dialogue. Really, really good dialogue. Some of the best hero-heroine banter I've ever read comes from this very book.

This is going to be a fairly short review because honestly, my opinion of this novel hasn't changed much from when I first read it five years ago. It's an astoundingly detailed and hilarious small-town romance with great staging, an enormous but well-organized cast of characters, more subplots than you can shake a stick at - and a phenomenal romance between two likeable characters. At no point was I bored, annoyed, or anything less than enjoyably entertained while reading this novel.

If you haven't read it already, do so. It's a classic.
A+

"A Christmas Bride/Christmas Beau," by Mary Balogh (Dell, 2012)

Mary Balogh's bundled Christmas Bride/Beau is an interesting book because it clearly establishes what Mary Balogh does well - and what she doesn't.

Christmas Bride is first, and it is excellent. Our heroine, Helena, Lady Stapleton, is the slutty stepmum who flashed her ta tas at the hero of A Precious Jewel and turned him into a misogynist. Now a wealthy, vaguely-scandalous widow of 36, she is cynical, jaded - and deeply, desperately remorseful for her actions thirteen years ago.

When she meets Edgar Downes, a prosperous merchant, at a party, she is immediately and inexplicably attracted to him. Edgar, in order to fulfill a promise to his father, is looking to marry a well-bred lady by Christmas - hopefully one who's able to look past the fact that he's not a gentleman. However, he's drawn to Helena as well, and the two share an uncharacteristic but hotly passionate one-night stand. Then Helena gets preggers. Whoops.

Part of the reason I loved this novel is that it indulges one of my favourite tropes - the Witty, Troubled, Morally-Ambiguous Heroine. Helena is not a very nice person and Balogh doesn't sugarcoat her, but the majority of her bitterness is directed inward. She hates herself for what she did to a stepson who trusted her, and her self-loathing has caused her to retreat from all forms of commitment or happiness. It takes some reckless bravery on Edgar's part - combined with Edgar's endearing family and the Christmas season - to convince her to forgive herself and move on with her life.

Balogh ably balances dark and light in this novel. Helena's sarcasm and anxiety prevent the Christmas aspects of the story from becoming too cutesy or cloying - the gathering of holly and the creation of a kissing bough are adorable but Helena's observations keep the story grounded. For his part, Edgar is a very controlling hero who finds he's happier with a mature woman who can counter him than the dewy eighteen-year-old marriage prospects he was initially looking at.

Christmas Bride also has a superbly organized supporting cast of previous Heroes and Heroines who contribute to rather than clutter up the storyline. The novel even improves upon the story of Priss and Gerald from A Precious Jewel. Balogh has stumbled before when including Prequel characters (see the bloated mess of Simply Love) so this was a delightful surprise.

Christmas Bride hits all the right spots for a Christmas story - warm, loving, but spiced with angst.

Christmas Beau, on the other hand hand - oy.

The story is as follows - once upon a time, Judith and Max, Marquess of Denbigh were engaged to be married. It was an arranged match, and Judith found Max creepy, cold and heartless - so she ran off with another dude a month before the wedding. That marriage didn't turn out so well either, but now that dude's dead and Judith is preparing to celebrate her first Christmas out of mourning with her two young children, Rupert and Kate, and her self-pitying dishrag of a sister-in-law, Amy.

However, for the first time in eight years, Max has returned to London as well - with revenge in mind. During their betrothal, Max was madly in love with her, and was horrifically brokenhearted by her desertion. He now plans to inflict the same pain on her - by seducing her children.

Creeped out yet? Yes, he cozies up to her kids and tempts them with horsie rides, candy and fairs and invites them to his isolated manor house which he's filled up with Christmas trees and abandoned street urchins (for reals). And Judith - despite being royally grossed-out by his overtures - is simply forced to comply because, in this novel, any mother who doesn't utterly martyr herself for her children at every opportunity is a Horrible Person. Man up, Judith. Your kids are under six - they'll get over it.

Every character has something to hate about them. Max is an asshat of the highest order. So he was crazy in love with Judith - but not crazy enough to demonstrate or express that love in any way. According to Judith, he never even smiled during their entire courtship. But he still plans to punish Judith for not MAGICALLY cluing in to his Secret Squishy Feels.

Judith, meanwhile, is an insufferably short-sighted martyr who believes her children's immediate happiness is worth more than getting them away from a Creepy Stranger With Designs On Her. Her reasons for disliking Max during their courtship were perfectly valid, but the novel is determined to Teach Her A Lesson for not giving cold, unsmiling, silently awkward dudes the sympathy they deserve.

We also get a drippy secondary romance for Amy, the sister in law who simply can't shut up about how Unlovable and Ugly and Childless and Futureless she is, and some random dude who inexplicably finds her self-pitying whining charming.

It's strange - while Christmas Bride was all about how the heroine who has actually done something wrong should forgive herself and be happy, Christmas Beau was all about how the heroine should be stalked and mistreated until she's forced to apologize for her relatively minor sins as a teenager. No thank you.

Christmas Bride: A+. Christmas Beau: C. 

"First Comes Love," by Christie Ridgway (Avon, 2002)

The Chick: Kitty Wilder. Tired of living in the slutty shadow of her brothel-owning ancestors, she's planning on leaving her hometown of Hot Water just as soon as she earns enough money.
The Rub: Her plans are upended when her husband - who's only just realized their marriage is legal - returns to town. And he's not happy.
Dream Casting: Kristen Bell.

The Dude: Dylan Matthews. An FBI agent who's slaved away for the last eight years trying to atone for a teenage mistake that may have cost a woman her life.
The Rub: Finding out he's married forces him to return to a town he's desperately missed - but it's too full of excruciating memories of his failure for him to stay.
Dream Casting: Brett Dalton.

The Plot: 

Kitty: Just because I play a hooker in my town's re-enactments doesn't mean I'm one in real life! Wish my town could see it!

Dylan: WHY THE HELL ARE WE MARRIED? THIS IS NOT OKAY.

Kitty: Eep! Let me distract you with my cutesy shenanigans and pratfalls and adorably perky boobs for the next fifty pages!

Dylan: Curse your adorably perky boobs! But you're going to have to answer the question some time!

Kitty: Noooooope! Time for more pratfalls!

Dylan: Seriously, though.

Kitty: Oh, it was just that I've been secretly in love with you this whole time and never slept with another person because cheating is wrong! But I forgive you for doing it!

Dylan: … I inexplicably find your delusional stalkery behaviour appealing!

Kitty: HOORAY!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Hardened (heh) FBI Agent
• 1 Bad Reputation
• Several Hooker Dresses
• 1 Defiled Minivan
• 1 Terrrrrrrible Vagina Euphemism
• 1 Legalized Marriage Certificate
• 1 Small Town Murder
• 1 Secondary Parental Romance

The Word:

In First Comes Love, Christie Ridgway creates one of the most well-realized and metaphorically clever settings I've ever come across in romance. Hot Water is a former Gold Rush town that's devoted to the past - in more ways then one. Not only does the bulk of its tourism revenue come from its historical reenactment district (called Old Town), but its social stratification is also based on your ancestors' history. 

And Kitty Wilder is sick of it. Her family is descended from Rose Wilder, the town's first ho and proprietor of The Burning Rose brothel. Since then, every woman in the Wilder family has lived under (and up to!) that reputation - including Kitty's mother, who abandoned her as a baby. Kitty is nevertheless devoted to the town and works herself to the bone to crawl out from under her family's licentious history - but, in a hilarious paradox, she does so by dressing as a madame and reenacting that history every weekend for tourists. I loved this concept.

Kitty longs for conventionality, and deeply resents how the town continues to tar her with the same harlot brush despite her nun-like existence. And now that her scandalous mother has unexpectedly returned to town, revving up the Wilder rumour mill once again, she believes the only way to escape her past is to leave Hot Water for good - once she pays off her college debt to her great-aunt Cat.

All her plans come crashing down when the last man she expected to return to town interrupts one of her tours - Dylan Matthews, her husband of eight years. Who has only just realized this fact.

Dylan Matthews is a workaholic FBI agent made famous by his numerous high-profile rescues of women and children. Son of the town judge, descendant of Hot Water's first sheriff, and destined for law school, he was Hot Water's Golden Boy until he attempted to intervene in a carjacking. While he managed to rescue the children in the car, the driver (his best friend's wife) was killed. Haunted by this failure, he left Hot Water to join the FBI and never looked back.

He is furious that Kitty's legalization of the joke marriage certificate they got as teens has forced him to return to a town whose hero-worship of him wracks him with guilt.

Unfortunately, a quickie divorce is not in the cards. Kitty, in order to pay off her college debt, forces Dylan to become Old Town's reenactment sheriff for the summer (in return for his divorce) in order to boost Old Town's sales and get her enough money to leave town guilt-free.

Yeah. Outside of the whole "secret nonconsensual marriage thing" and the "extorting a man by refusing to end said nonconsensual marriage thing," Kitty is a very empathetic character.

BUT - that "nonconsensual marriage thing" is a pretty huge flaw to swallow, and one I continually struggled with throughout the novel. Did Kitty seriously never consider how her actions might affect Dylan later on? Did she never wonder what would have happened if Dylan had wanted to marry somebody else? And the "secret reason" she did it is meant to be romantic (she was in love with him the whole time!) but in reality is just really creepy. Especially once we learn she's remained chaste this entire time because she was remaining "true to her marriage vows." Honestly, I just heard the Psycho soundtrack in my head whenever she brought it up. That's not a healthy mindset.

It's interesting to read this romance after Nobody's Baby But Mine. Both romances are about heroines who intentionally do something that monumentally affects their heroes' lives without their consent or knowledge - and both of them do it for stupid reasons. However, while I still think Kitty is bonkers, she doesn't possess that same obnoxious entitlement and privilege that Jane does. Kitty's upbringing was lonely and difficult, and she's worked so hard to be the Perfect Upstanding Citizen to people who only see her mother's actions, so her bonkers decision is - WHILE STILL NOT OKAY - easier to interpret as a misguided teenage mistake, rather than a selfish, privileged decision.

Besides, Kitty and Dylan have good chemistry and are generally good people (extortion and obsessive behaviour aside), and the setting is well-realized and ultimately positive without being a corny and idealized small town. There are some definite drawbacks to living in Hot Water and Kitty endures pretty much all of them.

I was a little squicked out by the secondary romance because it's between Dylan's father D.B. and Kitty's neglectful mother Samantha. It's just a kind of pseudo-incest scenario that bothers me. However, I really appreciated how Kitty and her mother eventually obtain an adult reconciliation but never become close. Once we got Samantha's viewpoint, I was afraid there'd be some dialogue or explanation about how Kitty "owes" Samantha forgiveness, love and understanding simply on account of their shared genes. But that's not true - Samantha dumped Kitty as a baby, and Kitty's over it, but Samantha doesn't suddenly regain her "mother" role. I liked that.

All in all, despite a bonkers premise, First Comes Love is an enjoyable (and often very funny) romance with a great setting.
B+

"Nobody's Baby But Mine," by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (HarperCollins, 1997)

The Chick: Dr. Jane Darlington. A brilliant super-genius who longs to have a baby of her own.
The Rub: In order for her baby to be "normal," she has to bang a stupid guy in order to even out her offspring's IQ - and who better than a football player? They're all dumb, right?
Dream Casting: Claire Coffee.

The Dude: Cal Bonner. A star quarterback for the Chicago Stars who's in denial over the end of his football career.
The Rub: He finds out some random lady made a baby with him without his knowledge - oh noes! Commitment!
Dream Casting: Josh Duhamel.

The Plot: I am just too damn tired. Try reading my LiveTweets about it instead!

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Commitment-Phobe Hero
• 1 Book-Smart, Literally-Everything-Else-Dumb Heroine
• 3 Misogynist Good Ol' Boy Friends
• Several Boxes of Tampered Lucky Charms
• 1 Kooky Grandma
• 1 Secondary Romance
• 1 Greedy, Soulless Lawyer

The Word:
It's no secret that I'm a fan of Susan Elizabeth Phillips. She's consistently entertained me with her books - and even surprised me with the depth of her characterization as well as her excellent use of drama.

However, every time I raved about one of her books, there'd be a ghostly echo on the edge of my Twitter feed - a haunted whisper, thick with regret and despair, "Wait until Nobody's Baby But Miiiiiiine!"

At first I thought, "Challenge accepted!" But in reality, I was so not ready for this jelly. This Completely-Divorced-From-Reality Jelly. Served on a Traditional Gender Roll. With a side order of Offensive Stereotypes. Drenched in a hefty serving of Crazysauce.

So really, the only way to help this bad medicine go down is a good ol' Drinking Game! Our first rule - chug whenever an offensively stale stereotype rears its ugly head.

Dr. Jane Darlington is our "heroine." She is a "brilliant" award-winning physicist who Doogie Howser'd her way to a Ph.D. We know this, because she talks about quarks. A lot - take a chug every time she mentions a quark. Thankfully, she's also a knockout - once you convince her to let her hair down and take off her glasses (drink!).

Of course, none of her accomplishments matter because she's 34 and babyless. Unfortunately, she can't go to a sperm bank, because medical and science students are the primary donors. In this detailed fantasy world that SEP has created, all male scientists are misogynist nerds with bad haircuts who wear black socks to bed (drink!).

More importantly, Jane wants a dumb baby. No, really. Her ~*terrible childhood*~ as a Super Genius scarred her so completely, she refuses to "subject" her unborn child to that type of First World White Privileged Suffering. So let's drink to her pain whenever she mentions her "terrible childhood" of being better than everyone else.

Jane thinks she needs to score some love gravy from a Forrest Gump-type that will even out her child's intelligence to a more "reasonable" level. Because that is exactly how science works. And our heroine is a "brilliant" "scientist." If I could add more quotation marks without violating the laws of grammar, I would. Instead, I'll just drink whenever the heroine gleefully imagines her child's IQ dropping a couple of points. No, really.

Cal Bonnor is our "hero," a 36-year-old quarterback for the Chicago Stars who's in denial of the impending end of his football career. He refuses to date women older than 22, because dating older women implies he's old, which means commitment (drink)! And nagging wives (drink)! And the stale laughter of a live studio audience, since Cal appears to derive his understanding of gender politics from old reruns of According to Jim.

Cal prefers younger women because they still have that "smell of newness" about them, a "dewy sparkle" - and shudders at women thirty and older because he thinks they're "already turning brown at the edges." Dude, this wouldn't happen if you just dipped them in lemon juice first! Take a drink whenever Cal expresses his desire for sparkly teenagers and his revulsion for "elderly" women over the age of twenty four. 

His birthday's coming up, and his Totally Not Offensive Football Bros decide to buy him a hooker as a birthday present. But a super-classy hooker. And they make her wear a big pink bow just to hammer home the point that she's his gift. Of course, this blatant objectification of women is completely okay because They're Dumb Football Players Who Don't Know Any Better (drink!).

Thanks to shenanigans I'm frankly too tired to explain at length, the "Classy Birthday Hooker" is really Jane in disguise, armed with a sabotaged condom. You see, after seeing one interview with Cal on the television, our "brilliant" heroine has already deduced that he must be an idiot because a) he's a football player (drink!) and b) he's Southern (drink!).

But one look at him convinces her that he's a hardened warrior, and genetically perfect for her baby. Because an "ancient, wise" female voice in her head tells her so. So drink whenever Jane refers to Cal as a warrior (or maybe just sip, she says it a LOT), and also whenever Psychic Judi Dench gives Jane romantic advice.

Despite the fact that Jane is terrible at sex, doesn't finish, and doesn't remove any of her clothes (this is the same heroine who complained about her ex wearing socks to bed, by the way), Cal is so inexplicably besotted with her that he bones her again when she comes back for seconds a month later. Both sex scenes are awkward and unpleasant - but, to be fair, incredibly fascinating. Both the hero and the heroine treat the other as a sex object. Cal initially refuses Jane and wants to "pass her along" to one of his friends, while Jane refers to Cal as a mere "device" to give her a baby. There actually is some real potential for nuance and discussion in this scenario - if only the protagonists were less punchable.

(For a less punchable version of this scenario, I recommend A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant.)

Long story longer, Cal finds out about the baby, throws his money around threatening to ruin Jane's career, and forces her into marriage, because doggone it if his baby won't be legitimate because he's an Old School Man with Old School Values (drink!). Of course, he plans to divorce Jane as soon as the cord is cut, but those nine months of matrimony will magically make all the difference. I can't say I understand Cal's logic in this scenario. Neither can Jane.

Of course, the gossip gets out so Cal has to pack up Jane and drive them both down to his small, southern hometown of Salvation, North Carolina, in order to evade reporters until the baby's birth and the return of football season. However, Cal gives Jane some specific instructions:

1. She can't talk to his family or friends without his knowledge.
2. If a scenario arises in which she's forced to meet his family or friends, she has to act as Terrible As Possible so his family won't grow attached to her.
3. She can't leave the house or own her own car to leave said house without his consent. 
4. If anyone asks, she's twenty-five years old - because Cal can't bear the shame of people knowing he married a woman as old as twenty-eight. People will think he's poor! (drink!)

To her credit, Jane ignores and defies most of these super-stalkery rules, and that's when we get a better picture of what Jane and Cal's romantic dynamic is supposed to be like, once they've stopped trying to be The Worst People Ever. Cal describes himself as a "yeller" - he was never truly satisfied with his dewy, sparkly, overly-moisturized college girls because he could never be his Awful Shouting Self around them without them bursting into tears. Um, okay. So Jane is his perfect match because she can put up with his Dominating Caveman Bullshit.

Maybe you could just stop being a Dominating Caveman? No? Okay then.

Once we get to Salvation, we get a host of dull, silly secondary subplots - the worst of which is a romantic one with Cal's estranged parents. His dad's flaw is that he's a privileged, emotionally abusive asshole going through a midlife crisis. His mum's flaw is … um, she's apparently unable to psychically detect that her husband's abuse comes from a place of love. Right.

Honestly, the narrative slows down and gets kind of boring around this point. There's less crazy, but there's no emotional substance to fill the void. The rest of the book is just squabbling that seems aimless and petty after the Seed-Stealing-Super-Genius plot of the first half.

Ultimately, it all comes down to the poorly-realized characters. Gonzo stories aren't a romantic deal breaker - just read some of the plots of Laura Kinsale's awesome books - but they still need grounded, realistic characters, and neither of these goons fit the bill.

Jane Darlington is a monstrously privileged character who jumps to hugely prejudiced conclusions about just about everyone. She believes Cal is a moron for a huge chunk of the book based solely on his southern accent (drink!), colloquial dialect (drink!), and his love of comic books (drink!). She is so horrified to discover Cal graduated summa cum laude that she threatens to take her child to Africa, where it's "primitive" (finish the whole damn bottle). Seriously. I guess the only way to escape the problems of White Privilege is to take the child away from white people.

And despite all this, her desperate desire to have a "normal" baby thanks to her "freakish" childhood, a desire that fuels the majority of her actions, is solved with one line in the epilogue.

Cal, meanwhile, is a cartoon. His actions and thought processes are just too exaggerated to believe or empathize with. His "old school values" that make no sense, his disgustingly hypocritical dismissal of women over twenty-five, his narrow-minded idea of what makes a man a "real man." He's built out of cliches - and not even positive ones. It's impossible to view his actions and decisions on a human spectrum because he's essentially a plot device/fantasy object. Although definitely not my fantasy.

It's interesting to compare this book to the other SEP novels I've read and loved - how could this one book hit so many wrong notes and fail to grasp realistic human behaviour on such a basic level? No idea. Even amid the awfulness, a few sparks of SEP's skillful humour slip through (like a hilarious scene where the heroine tries to sexy-dance to classical music - which winds up being "Flight of the Bumblebee"), but it's like reading a human story written by aliens who decided to watch old family sitcoms instead of doing research.

I'm far from giving SEP up completely, but this book is definitely the odd one out.
D-

"To Have and To Hold," By Patricia Gaffney (Penguin Reissue)

The Chick: Rachel Wade. A convict who's just been released from a ten-year prison sentence for the murder of her abusive husband.
The Rub: She's saved from returning to jail when she's hired by a local viscount - who has seduction in mind even as he holds her freedom in his hands.
Dream Casting: Anne Hathaway.

The Dude: Sebastian Verlaine, Viscount D'Aubrey. A bored and debauched viscount who's looking for a challenge, any challenge, to amuse him out of his apathy.
The Rub: When he encounters an emotionally frozen woman charged with the murder of her husband, he sets out to untangle her secrets for his own entertainment - until he realizes he's far out of his league.
Dream Casting: Jake Gyllenhaal.

The Plot: 

Sebastian: I'm bored.

Local Magistrates: Oh hey look, we're about to send a convicted murderess back to prison because the convicted murderess job market is in a freefall these days.

Sebastian: SOLD! ... I mean hired.

Rachel: ....

Sebastian: I hope you like sex! Because we're totally going to have that at some point!

Rachel: Fine.

Sebastian: I totally mean it! Because I love sex. And you have to do it or I'll fire you!

Rachel: *shrug*

Sebastian and Rachel: *nonconsensual funtimes*

Sebastian: ....that was less fun than I expected.

Sebastian's Douche Bros: 'S'up dude! Let's shag girls and get wasted! Whooooooooo!

Sebastian: OMG I am a terrible person who's accomplished nothing with my life! *falls into depression*

Rachel: For pete's sake, snap out of it.

Sebastian: But now I love you! For reals! And I will prove it with puppies and sexy baths and fully consensual lovemaking!

Evil Conspirators: Too bad Rachel's going back to prison!

Sebastian: LIKE HELL SHE IS!

Random Character From a Previous Novel: Hey look guys, a random letter that completely excuses Rachel of any wrongdoing!

Sebastian: Let's get married!

Rachel: Okay! Yes!

Sebastian: HOORAY!

Vine Review

Romance Convention Checklist:

• 1 Bored Little Rich Boy
• 1 Strong-Yet-Damaged Heroine
• 1 Bitch Maid
• 3 Asshole Friends
• 1 Puppy Gift
• 1 Very Bad Husband (Deceased)
• 1 Spurned Mistress
• 1 Incestuous Sister out of Freakin' Nowhere
• 1 Sexy Bath

The Word: I've spoken up about rape in romance before. I do not like it Sam I Am, I do not like Rape Eggs and Ham. I do not like it in McNaught, nor in this Bonnie Vanak I got.

But ... I'd heard a lot about Patricia Gaffney's To Have and To Hold, a classic romance from the '90s that's recently been reissued in eBook form. However, several reviewers that I trust (or at least whose reviews are enjoyable and comprehensive) reviewed it positively, despite its controversial plot line that has the hero raping the heroine. After finding out it was on sale from Kobo, I nabbed it and decided to see for myself.

And, you guys, I loved this book. Even with the rape scene and the hero's behaviour towards the heroine in the beginning. I'm normally someone who despises abusive heroes and rapes in romance - so why did I still enjoy this novel to the extent that I did? And moreover, how did I still buy the romance between Sebastian and Rachel?

Well, I think one difference is that the narrative does not support the hero's actions at all. At the beginning of the novel, Sebastian is very clearly a jaded, cynical, selfish and manipulative cad. Growing bored with his luxurious life, he turns to debauchery and mind games to entertain himself. When he drunkenly agrees to serve as a magistrate to the village on his property, he hears the case of Rachel Wade, a woman picked up for vagrancy. Even better - she's only just been released from a 10 year prison sentence for murdering her husband a week into their marriage.

Intrigued by Mrs. Wade's indifferent numbness to the world around her (especially the prospect of being sent back to jail for the "crime" of not finding work), he hires her on as his housekeeper in order to toy with her implacability and eventually seduce her.

I was able to tolerate this plotline because the narrative refuses to frame any of these actions in a positive light. Sebastian is a cruel child with a stick and Rachel is the anthill he's eager to poke in order to see how its insides work. The narrative never ascribes any secret selfless meanings to Sebastian's choices, or offers up any Abusive Childhoods to blame for his failings. Moreover - the heroine is fully aware of what Sebastian intends, even though she knows her employment with him is the only thing keeping her from returning to prison.

And, yes, he rapes her. Whitney My Love portrayed Whitney's rape as a punishment that Clayton took a wee bit too far because he's Just Such An Overwhelmingly Passionate Manly Man. The Lady and the Libertine enforced the idea that it wasn't rape because the Hero Had a Secret Heart of Gold and also the Heroine Liked It. In THATH, however, it is clearly depicted as rape - despite the fact that it's not violent and Rachel physically acquiesces. It's an intense and interestingly written scene, because it's so clear that while Rachel physically capitulates to save her job, she mentally, emotionally, and spiritually resists Sebastian's attempts to get under her skin.

The reason I could tolerate Sebastian's behaviour is that his horribleness is the point of the story and something he learns to recognize as his character develops. Sebastian's attempts to play at being evil help him realize what evil really is as he discovers more about Rachel's past, as he finds out there is nothing he can do to her that she hasn't already endured, survived, and recovered from. As a result, while he pursues Rachel to find out more about her - he only finds out more about himself, and it's not pretty. Sebastian's epiphany (i.e. that he's a shitful person) is a mesmerizing scene that makes the entire book. For the rest of the novel, Sebastian struggles to pull himself out of the jaded rut he's found himself in and defeat his boredom by pursuing meaning, rather than distraction.

And Rachel - wow Rachel. She is such an amazing and complex character. When we first meet her, she is a bare husk of a person, pared down to the essential drive of surviving in the moment. There is no past, there is no future, there is only existence - but as she spends more days in freedom, she slowly expands the limits of her perception.

I loved the parallels between Sebastian's and Rachel's development: they both struggle to break free from their habitual ways of thinking. Of course, Sebastian's limited life is due only to his own selfish indulgence whereas Rachel's was forced upon her (and the "mystery" of who really killed her husband ... isn't really a mystery), but they both have to break free of their comfort zones and I appreciated how their characterization dovetailed.

And really, Patricia Gaffney's writing is exquisite. She has a gift for cutting into her characters' thoughts and intentions and picking them apart with careful thoroughness - and I think that's how I could never truly hate Sebastian. Because I knew him too well, and I could see how hard he tried to change in the second half of the novel.

There are probably lots of people who still won't like this novel because of the rape element, and they are more then entitled to. The first half of the novel is meant to be excruciating - and your enjoyment of the novel hinges on how well the second half convinces you that things can be different.

For me, the brutally objective portrayal of Sebastian in the first half, coupled with the gorgeous writing and characterization in the second half, sold me on this novel, and on Patricia Gaffney's awesomeness. It's refreshing to find awesome new romance authors while I'm still struggling with my apathy with the genre.
A+