Review: Wedding of the Season by Laura Lee Guhrke

My book bag is trying to kill me. First it offers up the Trophy Wife of the Closet Queen, and now it hands me My Racist Hero. As accessories go, the dark skinned and grateful valet doesn't flatter anyone. The hero who chuckles condescendingly over saving the astonishingly capable valet's life holds about as much appeal for me as the hero who spends the first third of the book chasing down STD's. Where do these servants come from? The dark skinned, the dusky, the obviously not the right kind of brown (sunburned = adventure, birth = valet) men whose brains are packed with trivia, who can handle any crisis with the emotionless calm of "their people", who follow their employer to new lands and serve them with unquestioning faithfulness, yet still require some white guy to show up and save their lives.

I don't know about you, someone saves my life I say thank you. Maybe a fruit basket plays into it, but spending the rest of my days stroking his ego isn't on the list. Taking it the other way, saving someone else's life wouldn't make me think "Wow, I should hire this guy and put him in charge of my entire life!" Trusting Laura Lee Gurhke as I do, my hope was that Aman was biding his time. "Yes sir, very good sir, knife to the ribs sir?" Sadly, he wasn't. "Saving my life, sir? Jolly good idea! Here's your beverage!" Aman was implacable, he was unemotional, he was overly prepared and faultlessly loyal. He was everything the touch of exotic usually is, but he failed to be a real character. Citing his cultural heritage as the source of his fatalistic demeanor made me wonder how many Egyptians the author hangs out with.

I don't find colonialism a sexy trait in a man, real or fictional. (At least the STD's can be treated.) After I got past wanting Aman to school Will on who goes down when the revolution comes, I was able to engage in the story of Will and Beatrix. I am a sucker for stories of love recaptured. Early on, Beatrix showed an adorable mean streak that gave me hope. Unfortunately, like Aman, she was more promise than performance. Will ran off on their wedding for a professional opportunity that has bankrupted him. Colonialist as he may be in his private life, he thinks he's free of class issues. Being a duke was just so dreary and last century compared to the possibility of life as a paid speaker. In fact, both Beatrix and Will have deeply odd ideas of what freedom is and what confers it. Will returns not for her, but to borrow money from her cousin. (Narrow-minded AND panhandling, baby hold me back.) Far from realizing that refusing to leave her way of life was a valid choice, Will begins to belittle her. Not wanting what he wants is a sign of cowardice. Going bankrupt chasing Tut's tomb is the only life for... Well, Will. If you want to be with Will you better want what he wants, because his brain is an express train to Willville.

Once Will is firmly back in her life, Beatrix loses the refreshingly callous impulses she briefly showed. Engaged to another, it is never a true contest. Despite having six full years to do so, Beatrix has failed to fall in love with anyone. Not even a stylish footman has captured her eye. Her fiancé is a friend, not a lover. In her late 20's Beatrix has all the life experience of a fifteen year old girl. She and Will begin a predictable courtship that plays to familiar lines. There are engaging touches, the dialogue between Will and Beatrix's cousin Julia is one of the books best bits. Similarly, an argument between Beatrix and Julia holds more passion than those between she and Will. Pixy's Cove, where the action plays out, is well realized. It's enough to lift Wedding of the Season out of the rut it found itself in, but not enough to place it with Gurhke's best. In fact, there are enough stumbling blocks in Wedding to make it the first Laura Lee Gurhke book I would not recommend. 


Despite some bright spots, Will reads like the beloved but toxic father of a heroine in a better book, a heroine whose loving yet weak willed mother died young, leaving the heroine stuck caring for her obsessed father. Maybe that's the World War 2 based sequel. Somehow I doubt it.

Review: The Lady Most Likely... by Julia Quinn, Eloisa James and Connie Brockway

If there is one romance cliche I am utterly, heartily, completely sick of it is the homosexual ex-husband. (I'm going to be honest and admit that I am reviewing this book without finishing it. I may or may not finish it tonight. Really, it bothers me that much.) If you consider the above statement a spoiler, please stop reading now. You've been spoiled. Otherwise, read on.

The basic set up of The Lady Most Likely is that Hugh has spent so much time in his stables that he's failed to find a wife. After a near death experience, he asks his sister for assistance. This leads to a house party, which leads to romance. There is a bit too much story to deal with in The Lady Most Likely. Each of the couples have enough backstory to fill a book of their own, leaving the reader reluctant to move on to the next. (As a connected series, I think this would have been a stronger read.) I'd still recommend it - better too much investment in the characters than too little. Then the cliche kicks in. One of the ladies loves fashion. She loves fashion so much that when it came time to marry she sought out a man who loves fashion. A soft, faded, delicate sort of man with a small endowment and a vicious wit. The sort of man who likes to sit in corners and speak critically of those about him, but in the kindest of ways, and who ultimately eroded his wife's self image while doing so. The sort of man who dies young with his sobbing valet by his side.

Is this 2010? Nearly 2011? Can we end this particular homophobic trope? Even when the gay character is not a villain, it still screams "How Gay Folks Are, God Love 'Em".  I went from enjoying the book to tolerating it. By the time the valet's tear stained face is revealed I moved from tolerating the book to wanting to get away from it. Yes, I recognize that I am a small subset of the reading population but a love of fashion does not a homosexual make. A mean temperament does not a homosexual make. A slight build and a small (to borrow the author's words) "pump handle" does not a homosexual make. Roll all of those together, however, and you can make a tired homosexual side character cliche appear. (Hugh, obsessed with horses and unconcerned with women, makes a much more natural homosexual character than the deceased husband.)

Do homosexual men who fit this mold exist? Absolutely. While I have no idea what Christian Siriano looks like naked, I could picture him as the ex in question. The problem is that for so long ONLY this homosexual man has existed in romance. He is the Uncle Tom of the homosexual regency character. He is the racist cliche. To use him is to invite all the baggage of his past uses, to use him without other homosexual characters to counter him is to embrace that baggage. As a reader, encountering this minstrel show alongside the ever popular "It's so big, it won't fit!" sequence, I lose all interest in staying for more.

It is a shame, that this character tainted the read for me in a way I was unable to overcome by the book's end. The overall voice of the book is well done, the events are tied together nicely, the concept is strong. I would suggest The Lady Most Likely to anyone who finds the homosexual issue less aggravating than I do.

Review: Storming The Castle by Eloisa James

You need to read this short. You really do. In fact, this short was the first thing I read on my brand spanking new iPad and I left the iPad alone long enough to come tell you about it. Ok, maybe I waited a day (or two) but still! The point remains! I am not currently hiding in a corner with my shiny new iPad. (Did I mention it was a Very Apple Christmas? And that I got an iPad? Have we covered that? Yes?)

I enjoyed A Kiss At Midnight but didn't expect very much from Storming The Castle. I anticipated a quick look at all the characters from the prior book in their new settled lives, a cute sequence or two - you know, what you usually get in a short. Sort of an after-dinner-mint of a book. Not the selection-from-the-pastry-chef's-sampling-tray event that Storming The Castle delivers. Take this bit -

"... it wasn't until Miss Philippa Damson gave her virginity to her betrothed, the future Sir Rodney Durfey, Baronet, that she realized exactly what she wanted from life: 


Never to be near Rodney again."


Tell me you don't want to read that story. (You're lying.) The absolute best part about Storming The Castle isn't Philippa realizing she'd rather not do that again, it's the complete lack of villains. There is not a single letter hiding, mustache twirling, abusive, cheating, nefarious scoundrel about. Not a single one. Not even Rodney. Poor, dear, clueless Rodney. His life has just gone to hell and he hasn't the first clue. (There's nothing like the morning after to make a girl reevaluate.)

Look, you can do a lot worse for $2. I'm completely ready for another selection. Storming The Castle gets almost as much love from me as my currently unnamed iPad. (I may just acknowledge it as my overlord and leave it at that.)

Review: A Matter of Class by Mary Balogh

A Matter of Class suffers from some truly cracktastic e-book pricing. The paperback just released for $6.99 USD but good luck finding an e-book remotely close to that price. I've seen it as high as $15.99. Making things even worse, this is a novella. While I certainly recommend A Matter of Class and would rank it among Balogh's best, I don't suggest purchasing it at full price, much less cracktastic pricing.

Mary Balogh is one of my favorite authors. If books were female stereotypes she'd be the quiet, conservatively clad woman in the corner. Not the one that whips her glasses off, pops her buttons and dances on the table. The one that passes a quiet hour with someone over a cup of strong tea and never raises her voice. She might have a silent tear roll down her cheek, if the topic turns tragic. While others have wandered off bored, you end the hour calmer and somehow rested. In A Matter of Class Balogh forgoes the silent tear. This isn't an angst laden read. It's a bit traditional, a bit of a class study, a sliver of a tale with a few light twists.

Taking the traditional threads of class difference, social ruin and forced marriage Balogh weaves a short tale as satisfying as a full length book. Anna, expected to marry the required older friend of her father's, has ruined herself with a servant. Needing a husband, and needing one quickly, her family procures a groom from a wealthy coal miner looking to buy his gambler son some respectability. Anna and Reggie move to make the best of it while facing the obvious disappointment their parents feel at the ruin of their beloved children's lives. Balogh is a careful with her words, she is one of the very rare authors I re-read to see what I missed while I was watching the plot. Take the common event of people in awkward situations discussing the weather. Reggie and Anna's parents meet to cement the previously unthinkable course of their children's lives. What else is there for them to discuss but the weather? The uncontrollable, unknowable weather.

"Which was a good thing since everyone wanted different weather for different reasons and might end up fighting wars over it if they were able to control it. As if there were not enough things already to fight wars over."


Indeed.

Review: Pleasures Of A Notorious Gentleman by Lorraine Heath

It's almost unfair that a book like Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman comes out in December. We're all busy with various holidays, our "Best Reads of 2010" lists are locked into place, there just isn't any room in the month to start squealing with the excitement of a really good read. I'm going to suggest that you clear some time in your calendar in advance. Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman shouldn't be put off to 2011.

This is the second book of what will be at least a trilogy dealing with three half-brothers. (I say at least because their mother could carry a book on her own, if romance embraced a forty-something woman torn between a younger man and a past love.) While reading October's Passions of a Wicked Earl will certainly add emotional impact to Pleasures, it's not required to follow the story. Stephen is the middle brother, the one that charms effortlessly and uses that as the currency of his life. Sent into the military during the Crimean War, Stephen is reinvented as a man of integrity and inspiration. Unfortunately for him,  Stephen has no recollection of his life since the close of Passions. He has (in a sense) laid down as a beautiful but useless man and arisen as a broken and confused one.

Mercy meets Stephen after Passions but before his final injury. As one of Florence Nightingale's nurses, she was a witness to the best of his character under the worst of times. Stephen, of course, remained Stephen. He may have been a better version of himself, but he was still a licentious one. When Mercy returns home, she returns home with Stephen's child. Believing him killed in battle, she brings her son to his father's family. She is completely unprepared for the man she finds there. He is neither the Stephen of Passions nor the Stephen of her experience. War changes a man, then peace changes him again.

Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman deals with so many things and so well.  Is your identity what you recall, or what people expect from you? Are you who you were or who you want to be? Does the factual truth matter or the emotional truth? What makes a parent? While Mercy and Stephen struggle with these issues, Mercy is refreshingly uninterested in less than her son deserves from a father. Nor is she interested in settling for less than she deserves in a husband, low as her prior expectations were. She has seen what Stephen is capable of, even if he has not, and she expects him to conduct himself appropriately.

My only problem with Pleasures is the cover. (It seems wrong not to have anything to complain about since complaining is one of my favorite things.) I was completely distracted by Mercy's breasts. Has she been airbrushed? It seems to me that given the amount of flesh exposed some gradual color change should be occurring, especially on the left. I'm not sure why Mercy chose to dress in such a tonal match to her bedding, either. It's confused Stephen - look how his hand is under the blanket to raise her head. Who knows how long that poor man has been searching for something more than the sheet? Sartorial issues aside, buy this book. Lorraine Heath is proving herself to be one of romance's best authors and this is one of her best books. Call it a holiday gift to yourself.