Ilze

The storyline was quite interesting and had lots of potential, but the story didn't grab me emotionally for some reason.  Maybe because the hero Julian left a negative impression on me right from the start - the only reason he hires the heroine as the governess for his half-sisters is to make her his mistress. (He has no real interest in his sisters at first, because his mother basically dumped them at his house so she could go off to America with her latest husband.) And the heroine initially is no great character either - she is quite willing to go along with Julian's plan once she realizes he is attracted to her - her real motive is to find out which of the hero's relatives betrayed her family during the French Revolution so she can take revenge, and the methods she uses to achieve this are not important - basically she is willing to do anything. The characters of the hero and heroine improve as the book progresses, but not enough to completely change the negative initial impressions.    

Could not get very far with this one. The story takes place during the American Civil War and the Civil War is an important component of the story, even though it is nominally set in Scotland. The hero builds ships to break the Union blockade of Confederate ports, and is basically on the side of the South. The bad guy works for the Union government. Ranney describes the hero as "disliking" slavery - at this point I had to set the book away (throw it away, in fact)!  Ummm, no, there is no "liking" or "disliking" where slavery is concerned - it is a crime against humanity, like genocide or mass rape.  Karen Ranney lives in San Antonio, Texas, and maybe as a Southerner she has a bone to pick with the Union side about its treatment of the South after the war, but that doesn't excuse her wishy-washy statements about slavery now in the 21st century. 

Fantastic!  I've read this one several times now, and the pleasure of the story, the characters and the writing just grows with each reading. This book, Georgette Heyer's first novel set during the Regency, is the one that started the whole "Regency romance" genre and it's still one of the best. The descriptions of all sorts of Regency social activities, sports, dress, towns, architecture and society are just amazing. Even the use of Beau Brummell, the Prince Regent and various other historical persons as characters in the story feels right, although the character of Beau Brummell was quite sanitized in the book, compared to what he was apparently really like. (Using historical people as characters in a romance usually feels like gratuitous name-dropping to me, but not here.)

I read the first three stories in this collection (don't care for paranormal stuff, so skipped the last one by Katharine Ashe).  They're all delightful!  The stories are set at a house party to celebrate the Duke of Wessex' wedding to Miss Helen Grey. Highly recommended for when you need a break from reading full-length books, or a short, fun, romantic break from daily life.

The best one is Miranda Neville's story "P.S. I Love You", a riff on the Cyrano de Bergerac plot of an ugly guy (a bad facial scar in this case) writing love letters for a handsome guy who is somewhat verbally challenged, at least with women. Even in the short novella format the author managed to develop a satisfactory level of angst for the hero and heroine. 5 stars.

Maya Rodale's story "That Rogue Jack", about a slightly irresponsible guy who is crazy about his racing phaeton and is supposed to bring the wedding ring for the bride from London, doesn't develop a very deep level of angst or emotion, but its humor makes up for that as Jack and Henrietta, who has been tasked with retrieving the ring from Jack, search high and low for the ring that Jack has misplaced. Very enjoyable and funny! 4 stars.

Caroline Linden's story "When I Met My Duchess" is very fine too, about the duke who realizes almost too late that he is on the verge of a dreadful action in marrying a woman he has no feelings for. 4.5 stars.  

As with the other 2 Regency-set books by Sheila Simonson that I have read ("Lady Elizabeth's Comet" and "A Cousinly Connection"), this one also has a great feeling for the period, the way people spoke and dressed and behaved in that time. On the other hand, the characters and the story were lacking in certain respects, and the romance was practically non-existent.  
 
The story is about a young widow, Emily, who fosters the 2 very young children of the hero Richard Falk, whose Spanish wife has died and who is still working as an officer in the campaign to drive Napoleon from Portugal and Spain. Richard has a great deal of family trouble (certain members of his family are trying to kill him), so he can't leave the children with them.  But of course they find out where he and the children are, so a lot of complications and trouble ensue. In the end it didn't draw me in all that much and I wasn't passionately rooting for any of the good characters. The lack of any romance between the two main characters didn't help (they finally share a kiss on the last page of the book, but that's it, even though the story has gone on for more than 3 years and for almost 400 pages!)

(I originally posted this review in April of 2014 but somehow it disappeared from Booklikes?  I had to retrieve it from Goodreads.)

Some paranormal mumbo-jumbo near the end and a rather obvious buildup to the climax with lots of exaggerated mentions of fire and demons.  But the characterization of the hero and heroine was pretty good and made up for the drawbacks.

Just a sweet, wonderful, romantic story.  Doesn't get better than this in the novella format.

I didn't actually finish this one, not because it was horrible in any way, but because it didn't keep my interest. The story could have been better if the main characters had been more appealing as people, but as it was, meh!  Also, the heroine is too far into the TSTL range - I think the author wanted to make her fearless and impulsive, but for me that didn't work very well and just came out as thoughtless and somewhat stupid. 

Lovely book that has to be savored slowly like good wine to get the full effect of the writing, the characters and their growth through the story. Augusta Meredith starts off the story by propositioning Joss Everett, the hero, but because of the things he has experienced in his life, and because he's a good man, he refuses, although he is strongly attracted to Augusta. I didn't like Augusta at first - she's trying to run from herself and her sad experiences in love, but my sympathy for her increased, especially on second reading of the book. Joss, on the other hand, is living a very circumscribed existence as secretary to a wastrel of a baron, even though he is the man's second cousin and on that basis alone deserves a lot more respect from his employer. Augusta makes him realize that there is a lot more potential in him than his cousin realizes or needs and that he should act on this realization, while Joss makes Augusta realize that she is not limited by her previous experiences in love - near the end of the book she says to herself "The ulitmate oblivion wasn't in losing herself, it was in giving herself. In thinking of someone else rather than dwelling on her own disappointments."  

Jeannie McVinnie, the heroine and title character, is a soldier's widow living in Scotland with her father-in-law. Her life is rather circumscribed and boring, so when a letter arrives inviting "Jeannie McVinnie" to London to be a companion to a naval officer's niece, who is making her come-out, she grabs the opportunity, even though she knows that the "Jeannie McVinnie" to whom the letter was addressed is her husband's late aunt. So she arrives in London, under somewhat false pretenses, and the mayhem starts. The naval officer, Captain Summers, is the hero of the story, and members of his household - his snob and harridan of a sister, his immature "mean girl" 18 year-old niece, his supposedly sickly, housebound 14 year-old nephew, and his 4 year-old possible daughter that he brought back with him from Portugal and dumped on his sister, are the other characters in it. Jeannie, our heroine, spends the book sorting out their lives for them and setting everyone she meets, including Beau Brummell and some of his cronies, on the right track.

What struck me most about this book is that EVERYTHING that happens in the story, once the heroine arrives in London, is completely over the top. Every time the heroine steps out of the house, some completely unlikely coincidence or mishap happens - either a disaster or a triumph, one after another in relentless succession. The settings of the story are also over the top, especially the description of a naval hospital where a former quartermaster of the captain's is convalescing, having been grievously injured at the battle of Trafalgar. Carla Kelly certainly enjoys rubbing the reader's face in the general dirtiness of life in early 19th century England, especially the horrendous conditions endured by common soldiers and sailors. I complained about a Grace Burrowes' book that I recently read that nothing interesting happens in it - well, this one is the exact opposite - far too many things happen in this one!  IMHO, some of the subplots in this book should have been edited out - I could easily have done without the appearance of Beau Brummell as a character, for example. This would have allowed more room for character development and reflection, especially by the heroine Jeannie, and more room for the love story itself, which the hero and heroine barely have any time for, given the frenetic pace of events in the story and the demands of the other characters.

This one is worth getting just for Carla Kelly's story alone, which is a complete delight.  A 32 year-old spinster finally runs away from home in order to avoid getting married to a persistent, but very dull and self-absorbed suitor, and runs into an American sea captain at her old governess' home in Portsmouth. Sparks fly and lots of humour too! 

Finally decided to give this book 2.5 stars.  I mostly enjoyed it on the first reading, but I gave up halfway through the book the second time because the story is just not that interesting to slog through it a second time. There is beautiful writing as always with Grace Burrowes, but the parts don't add up to a great whole.  

The story is about Worth, the estranged younger brother of an earl. Worth is trained as a lawyer and has made a fortune investing the money of his clients. Worth has a country estate where he is heading at the start of the story, although he hasn't been there in over 5 years. He's expecting to meet a middle-aged housekeeper there, but is shocked to discover that she is young, beautiful and extremely capable - the heroine Jacaranda. The setup is pretty good, but the book drags on too long, with too many descriptions of tea trays, tea cakes, shortbread and how everyone smells, without enough interesting things in the plot to make reading the whole thing worthwhile, although there were plenty of subplots. I think the book could have been shorter by about 100 pages.

Also a few things bothered me throughout the book:

1.   Jacaranda has been working as the housekeeper of Worth's country estate for 5 years, since she was 21. She is also the eldest daughter of an earl whose family thinks (by the standards of that time) that she has no business working outside her home. But the author never once explains how Jacaranda has ended up in this position! The reasons why Jacaranda decided to do this are clear by the end of the book, but the mechanics of how she accomplished it are never explained. In 1816, an upper-class unmarried woman of age 21 could not just go out into the road and flag a taxi to take her to the nearest bus terminal! Also, how did she get the job? She had no references and no employment history - a housekeeper would not be hired just because she wants the job, especially a woman as young as Jacaranda, and housekeeper is not exactly an entry-level position in a large house.

2.  Jacaranda is described as a "magnificent specimen of femininity" by the hero's brother, and all the men in the neighbourhood think so too, but apparently the men of the "ton" in London thought that she was too plain and too tall, and she didn't "take".  Doesn't make sense.

3.  The name of the hero's brother!  Why on earth did the author choose to name him "Hessian"?  A Hessian is a style of boot, or an inhabitant or soldier of the German state of Hesse. So naming someone "Hessian" is like naming your child "Arizonan" or "Hawaiian" - ridiculous, right? Especially when it appears that the brother has no connection whatsoever to the state of Hesse. And in the 21st century, at least according to the Urban Dictionary, calling someone a "Hessian" is pretty close to an insult.  

4.  Jacaranda worries a lot about her "dishonesty" towards her employer. This is completely overblown - she's not dishonest at all, she's merely omitted a few pertinent facts from her biography. But the constant teasers about how bad she is, how disappointed Worth will be when he finds out the truth, the constant interruptions just when she's about the reveal the "truth" are really annoying, especially when her "untruth" is finally revealed to be quite small in the general scheme of things.

Nice story, some really lovely scenes between the main characters, the widow Ellie Hampton and her widower neighbour Trenton, who is the older brother of the main characters in the first two books in this series, Darius and Leah.  Even the "suspense" subplot (somebody is trying to murder Trenton!) kind of makes sense.

But - don't try to read this book without having read at least one of "Darius, Lord of Pleasures" or "Nicholas, Lord of Secrets" from this series. There is a LOT of reference to events and people from those books in this one and I think that if you haven't read those, you could feel rather lost in many places in this one, particularly in the chapters with Trenton's brother Darius and with the dreadful father of the three siblings, the Earl of Wilton.

It might also help to have previously read one of the books in the series involving Heathgate ("Gareth, Lord of Rakes") or Greymoor ("Andrew, Lord of Despair") because the characters from those books also appear a lot in this book in connection with the investigation of the murder plot against Trenton. But you don't need to know the background stories from those books to make sense of this one.  

Read this one the first time a few years ago during my initial Mary Balogh glom.  I loved it then and gave it 5 stars (stars in my eyes, apparently). Just read it again a couple of days ago and I'm lowering the rating to 4 stars. The love story is good, but I now realize that the main characters of the story, Justin and Rosamund, the ones who meet up and fall in love while spending a couple of days snowbound in a cozy hunting lodge, are not actually the hero and heroine of the story. 

The hero and heroine of the story, in the sense that they are the ones who make the final HEA ending possible, are Amanda, who is Justin's almost-betrothed and Rosamund's niece, and Josh, a friend of Justin and a relative of Amanda and Rosamund, who was wounded in the battle of Waterloo. Without the actions of Josh and Amanda, Justin would have gone ahead with his engagement to Amanda, even though he realizes that Rosamund is the "second half" of his soul, and lived to regret it bitterly for the rest of his life. Justin is strangely passive in all the events that take place during the house party where the betrothal is supposed to be announced, so I can't really call him the "hero" of this story and for that reason I'm taking the rating of this book down a notch.

(Mary Balogh has another story where the "hero" is almost completely passive in securing his and his true love's HEA - "Tempting Harriet".)

This book has received rave reviews on Amazon and Goodreads from people whose views I respect and normally completely agree with, but not in this case. I read the book to the end, mainly because I wanted to see if I could get as interested and involved in it at any point as other reviewers apparently did. But no, it never involved me in any way and left me feeling completely cold (glad, in fact, that it was over) in the end. Most of the characters are one-dimensional and there is no character development at all. In fact, except for the heroine Emily and Edgar Rankin, the duke's business manager, conscience and friend, none of the main characters, including the hero, a rich and arrogant duke, the hero's two aunts, who set the whole plot up, and Emily's relatives, is in any way attractive as a person. And even Emily behaves rather strangely in a few spots in the story.

The plot is mostly a trainwreck, IMHO. The duke's elderly aunts organize a 2-week house party for the duke to choose a bride, inviting 5 eligible young ladies, along with their families, to attend the party. Emily, the heroine, is the plain poor-relation companion to her cousin, one of the "eligible" girls, who must snag a very wealthy husband ASAP because her father has wasted away his entire inheritance. Meanwhile, Emily falls madly in love with a guy she meets out on a walk in the woods, who very closely resembles her host, the high-handed and arrogant duke, except that he is casually dressed and acts like a normal human being. Emily never once realizes that the guy is, in fact, the duke, neither from his face nor his voice. (The duke, meanwhile, is pretending to Emily that he is actually his bastard half-brother, and leading her on about his attraction to her, meeting her every day in the woods in his "bastard half-brother" persona)  Sorry, Emily's gullibility is impossible to believe and the "hero's" behaviour in this is somewhat disgusting.  

After this unappealing setup, the plot moves quickly downhill, throwing in all sorts of Regency romance plot cliches (as if there weren't enough to begin with), like a tree limb falling on the duke's head while he's meeting Emily and putting him in a coma, Emily being "ruined" by being found alone with the unconscious duke in a cabin in the woods and thrown out of her cousin's house, the aunts deciding that Emily is, in fact, the best bride for the duke and scheming to bring this about, the duke's mistress putting in an extremely unappealing appearance and putting Emily into a snit, etc etc.

I can't recommend this book. 

Actually mostly a Cinderella story set in Regency-land, not much to do with Christmas per se.  Athena, the Cinderella character, has a nasty stepmother and 2 stepsisters, of whom one is nasty, while the other one is a sweetheart and stands in for the fairy godmother of the old tale.  Cute story, nice way to while away an hour or so.