3.5 stars, rounded up out of loyalty Something felt a bit *off* about Once Upon a Marquess: possibly, it is bogged down by setting the stage for the entire Worth Saga. Also possibly, and related, it was just kind of ambitious and didn’t quite pull everything together in a convincing way by the end. To wit: Treason! Judith Worth’s father and brother are guilty of it! And the evidence thereof was compiled by none other than our hero, Christian Trent, the Marquess of Ashford! Kittens! […]
Imperfect Courtney Milan, Is Still Courtney Milan
Courtney Milan is the best, the very best, romance writer currently publishing, but she is not perfect and Once Upon a Marquess is a delightfully imperfect novel. Her trademark elements – eloquence, unexpected romantic moments, family politics, deciding for oneself who one will be – are here, they just don’t come together quite as successfully as they have in some of her previous efforts. The first book in her new Worth Saga, Milan is laying a lot of groundwork and she is mostly successful in […]
Historical Romance with Strong Women (and a Couple of Guys)
This is a previous review updated with the next book in the series… Lady Be Good Meredith Duran writes very strong, character driven historical romance, but Lady Be Good never quite grabbed me. It was as accomplished as readers have come to expect from Duran and involving at the time, but I didn’t really think about it once I was done. That said, I would really like to read the next novel in the Rules for the Reckless series, Luck Be a Lady, as it involves […]
Victorian Romance That Even Delivers on the Title
Laura Lee Guhrke is usually a fallback author for me, with Lorraine Heath and Eloisa James, but All About Romance publishes an annual list of their readership’s top romances of all time and I had seen And Then He Kissed Her on it a few years ago, so this historical romance had been on my personal wishlist for a while. Recently, it came up on Amazon for $1.99 and I snapped it up immediately. It did not disappoint. Emmaline Dove (GREAT name) has been the […]
A Historical Romance That’s All About the B-Plot
Again the Magic has all of the trademark Kleypas smolder and charm, but a plotting issue which I feel gets in the way of the novel’s success and frustrated me again on my recent re-read; however, I have returned to the secondary plot several times as it has one of my favourite heroes and is, with The Heiress Effect, the romance for which I really wished a separate novella, or novel, had existed for the heroine’s sister. Meeting as children, Lady Aline* Marsden and stable boy […]
Curiosity quelled; expectations exceeded
I’ve heard vague murmurs from various corners that Courtney Milan’s Carhart series, being Courtney Milan, is very good; however, being early Courtney Milan, they aren’t as good as the classics she later produced. That’s possibly true, but the two novels and novella that comprise the series do have a rough charm to them that actually really worked for me, and furthermore, I daresay that they’re a bit more brazen than her later works as well. Let’s get into it! This Wicked Gift (3 stars) is a prequel novella […]
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